#i really have no explanation for how this minute long video of luke makes me feel

[kaleidoscopeminds]

you're gonna make me so nervous!

#luke hemmings #lrhedit #* #luke #i really have no explanation for how this minute long video of luke makes me feel

[ad1thi]

henlo adi tis i with a request for some stevetony fics,,, angsty if you have 'em 💓

okay so this rec list is mainly classic stevetony fics, but i assure you - there’s angsty ones in there (ive marked the angsty ones with a 😞 so you can identify them quicker) just a general note that a lot of authors are going to repeat, because there are some authors that (imo) are stevetony staples (so if you see an author more than once - thats a sign that ALL of their stevetony is good and ive cherry picked the ones i love the most) (ive also marked those authors with a 🌟) 

//

in the light of limerence:  @shell-heads

It's the final game of the season, their biggest one yet, and there's only one question on everybody's mind: who the hell is Captain Steve Rogers' boyfriend, and why does Cap keep dodging questions about him?

"You gotta admit it's suspicious that only Bucky and Sam have met your boyfriend, dude," Clint points out as he shoves Pietro away with a smirk, pulling the uniform over his head and tugging it down. "We've known you, what-two years? We've never seen the guy even once."

"And your phone mysteriously only has pictures of Tony Stark," Johnny Storm adds as he joins the conversation, knocking knees with Thor when he sits down on one of the benches. "Tony Stark, who has at least ten fansites and personally assured me he's had a boyfriend for the past five years."

"I can't believe Cap is actually out here acting like Tony Stark's boyfriend," Luke says with a smirk, resting against a wall without a care.

"I can't believe you guys still think this is a joke," Sam throws back while tossing his other dirty sock at Luke, who dodges it smoothly.

In little more than ten minutes, the biggest question of Shield University is answered with much aplomb by none other than Tony Stark himself.

almeno tu nell'universo: @silkspectred 😞 🌟 (funfact: this is the fic that got me into stevetony) 

Tony drives off.

Well, he wants to.

But he can’t.

Because.

Steve Rogers is in front of his car.

Steve fucking Rogers. Is in front of Tony’s fucking car.

Rookie and Jailbait Take On The World: @theapplepielifestyle 🌟

“You really should be in school, you know.”

“Why would I be there when I could be here, solving crimes with my favourite rookie?” Tony flashes a grin, and Steve’s stomach twists like it did on the first day.

Teenager, Steve’s mind supplies. Definitely not legal, stop doing fluttery things, stomach.

Thumb, Index and Pinky Extended: @/Eudoxia 😞

Tony Stark is twenty-one when he loses his voice. It shouldn't matter, but in a world where the first words your Soulmate says to you are marked on your skin, it can be pretty damn annoying.

I (created from fantasies) exist solely for you: @mizzy2k

Six years ago, without the Avengers Initiative there to save the day, scientist Dr. Eric Selvig sacrificed himself to save the world, the almighty demi-god Thor was lost to a terrible storm, and vigilante Iron Man – spotted with a nuclear weapon trying to take advantage of the situation – was forever labelled an enemy of SHIELD.

This is a comic book office AU, where Steve is defrosted a year too late, Thor has forgotten who he is, and no one knows Tony is Iron Man.

Also includes: office pranks, inappropriate post-it notes, and superheroes who like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain.

Celestial Navigation: @sabrecmc

Celestial Navigation: 18 year old Omega!Tony finds himself Bonded to Captain Steve Rogers. He isn't happy about it until he is.

By request, here is CN in one place without other stories and artwork.

Ironsides: @copperbadge 🌟

Antonia Carter Stark takes no shit and no prisoners.

Paved With Good Intentions (I’m On The Road To Hell): @itsallavengers 😞 🌟

When the mysterious group of vigilante assassins known only as 'The Avengers' are tipped off about the dirty secrets that lie within Stark Industries, Steve Rogers has his heart set on taking out Tony Stark for good in order to protect the rest of the world from his evil. He's seen the footage, after all- Stark is a man who fights only for himself. And of course, when a job arises as chief bodyguard for Stark, to protect him from the growing threat of an ominously infatuated stalker, the opportunity is way too good for him to miss out on. It's the perfect placement, and the perfect way to find out whether or not their tipoff is genuine.

But as Steve falls into rank as the new bodyguard for Mr. Stark and he spends time getting to know and protect him, his initial hatred begins to falter and merge into something different, something far more terrifying than the prospect of killing the face of Stark Industries.

Steve Rogers may just be falling in love with him instead.

The Problem With Communication: @itsallavengers

Steve is terrible at flirting, but when he finally picks up the courage to talk to the adorable barista who makes his drinks, he finds himself hitting a small snag:

That being, Tony is deaf. He doesn't know what Steve is saying.

But never say Steve Rogers does not rise to a challenge.

Killing Me Softly (With His Song): @itsallavengers

Steve is Tony's whole world. Tony couldn't imagine life without him. They've grown up together, after all.

Steve gets cancer.

Open Field In Front of Him: orphan account

Steve Rogers's football season is functionally over after a loss to Rutgers, but he finds a distraction in Tony Stark (yes, THAT Tony Stark). A college AU Stony fic.

Good For You: @orbingarrow 😞

Steve doesn't understand why Tony dates people who abuse him. Tony doesn't understand why Steve cares.

The rest is bad choices, good choices, rehab, milkshakes, paintball, YouTube videos, couples therapy and learning to put the past in the past. Or: How Tony finds his happy ending.

COMPLETE 5/27/16 Edited to add art as last chapter on 6/23/16

Wrapped Up In Clover: @festiveferret

It's been seven years since Steve and Tony split up, and Steve's sure he'll never see Tony again. He's finally managed to put their failed relationship behind him and move on, focusing on his friends and building his business. But then his best friends, Bucky and Clint, decide to get married, and their wedding week at a cabin resort in Vermont turns into a minefield of heartbreak for Steve.

little green soldiers: @/nasa 🌟

“Rhodey,” Tony says. “I’m not stupid. He’s shipping out in three months. I’m not going to fall in love with him.”

Tony is a student at MIT; Steve is a soldier. They meet at a house party six months before Steve is set to deploy. This is their story.

flesh and bone: @/nasa 😞

“You or Rogers?” they ask, brandishing a knife or a gun or a flame.

“Me,” Tony says, over and over again. “Me, me, me,” always me.

Buried: @not-close-to-straight

When Howard Stark demands Tony work at a dig site in S.America one summer to "build character" and "learn about life", Tony is furious. But then he meets soldier/archeologist Steve and falls in love with blue eyes and a perfect smile. 

Just as they are ready to move forward together, Steve leaves abruptly with no explanation and breaks Tonys heart. Ten years later, Tony stumbles across the file for the old dig site. He's determined to visit and shut it down, but discovers that instead of a village, the dig has uncovered a temple and actually needs MORE money to stay open. A security team is hired to protect the staff and the artefacts they find, and Tony comes face to face with Steve Rogers all over again– except Steve is bearded and BIGGER and way more dangerous than he used to be...And Tony likes it.

When the camp is attacked, Steve jumps into action, snatching Tony and running into the jungle to escape and work their way towards safety. But long days and nights together bring back old feelings, and one day Steve takes a risk and asks Tony to give them another chance. Will Tony say yes? Or is his heart buried too far for the soldier-turned- archaeologist-turned-mercenary to find it?

don’t know why it took me so long to see: @3799steps 

“Oh, watch this,” Natasha says, propping her chin against her knuckles and turning a sweet gaze on him. “Tony, what’s it like dating a superhero?”

Tony bristles in irritation. “We’re not dating,” he snaps. “Captain America probably thinks he can get into anyone’s pants just ‘cause he’s got a mask, costume, and reputation, but not me, buddy. That shield? Gotta be overcompensating for something.” He adds, a bit petulantly, “Oh, and all that blue? Definitely more Steve’s color than his.”

- In which Tony is a genius in all matters except recognising his boyfriend past a mask

Heartlines: @nanasekei 🌟

“Let me,” Tony repeats. He regrets it deeply, so much, he wants to stick the words back into his mouth again, and it must show, in the way his voice wavers. He feels exposed, all of a sudden, as if he’s asking something bigger than what he can actually say. Let me touch you, let me take care of you. “Just… Let me do it.“

Feel Whole Again: @thepartyresponsible

Steve turns to leave. It’s easier to talk, somehow, when he’s not looking at him. “If you need anything,” he says, “I’m just a few floors down.”

“Might regret that, Cap,” Tony says to his retreating back. “I’ve been told I’m needy.”

Steve doesn’t know who the hell said that to Tony. It’s probably for the best that he doesn’t.

“It’s an honor,” he says, a little helpless, out of his depth and out of his time. “It’s an honor to be trusted with something like that, Tony.”

Attack Dog: @/salytierra

Steve doesn't swim in self-delusion. He knows that he is sick and that his owner is even worse. He is aware of it every time he rips some nameless guy’s throat out and feels the crunch of bones under his fingers. He is aware of it every time the rush of adrenaline at seeing life slip away from a stranger’s eyes hits him and gets him bothered and panting in ways that have nothing to do with physical exhaustion.

But it feels so good…

His owner’s approach is less personal. His shots fall clean and take out several foes at a time, his figure elegant and so graceful he looks like a god among savages. He is power incarnated, cold and burning like a sun at the same time… and Steve tries not to focus on him when they are fighting together, least his knees go weak and his technique falters. It’s fine though. They will go home afterwards and his owner will fuck him on the hard floor, with most of their gear still on and a vicious grip in his hair.

#adi's rec list #stevetony #superhusbands #steve rogers/tony stark #stevetony staples #OKAY this is like 20 fics long #so im going to make a second post #and the second post will have more #but have these for now :))) #adi answers asks #rhodee

[cjstalkingstarwarsagain]

hi! i’ve recently decided to rewatch all the star wars movies and take notes on them and then,,, share them with you. so if you’re even mildly interested in my star wars opinions, here you go :)

i’ll divide it into a couple categories so,,,

well start with rogue one!!

shit that made me giggle

"oh look, here’s lyra back from the dead. it’s a miracle."

everything K2 says and does. i love him and he’s perfect.

i love the continuous attempts by K2 to appear imperial and how he fails every time. not a single storm trooper or officer ever believes him when he starts running his mouth.

so sorry but bohdi getting his cable caught and trying to shake it loose is such an adorably human moment. makes me giggle every time.

i honestly thought this section would be longer, this movie made me laugh a bunch. 

stuff i don’t like or doesn’t make sense

why does jyn start believing in the rebellion? there’s no indication that she cared before they found her. there’s no real turning point that we can see. she just,,, suddenly is really into this shit. which is strange because the only reason she ever joined was because she was given a non-choice (either help or get put back in prison). i guess i can kinda see how her father dying could have changed her, but we see none of that on the ship after his death. we just get to the rebel council and all of a sudden she’s the poster girl for rebellion.

saw seems really stable at the beginning of the film, so why did he go seemingly crazy and paranoid? it’s probably explained in the novelization but that’s no excuse to just have a character go crazy with really no explanation or backstory.

that being said, a lot of the character development is pretty lacking. i don’t think i’d care about these characters nearly as much if i wasn’t already a star wars fan.

video game cut scene style general tarkin

bor gullet is supposed to make you lose your mind but bohdi was pretty much fine after like,,, a day

how does the death star,,,, move?? like i know it can but has that ever been explained? is it like little thrusters? like the ones you can see in real life to stabilize things in space? there’s nothing i can visually see. i’m not mad about it i just wanna know.

why does saw insist on staying behind? why doesn’t he come and help?? it would have been so easy to just leave but he insists on staying behind and just watching as death inches closer. i think it doesn’t make sense because we know *so little* about his character. give me more on him, make me understand.

since james earl jones is getting older, vader sounds older. was there??? nothing the audio or editing department could have done about that??? not super mad about this one just because darth vader is really cool and i’ll never really complain too much about darth vader screen time.

when the fuck did jyn become a motivational speaker??

my one gripe about pretty much every star wars movie is the sheer number of times people climb through huge shafts and jump around and shit and they’re always *fine*. no way they wouldn’t fall to their deaths in any normal situations.

can someone?? check the science of the hammerhead corvette?? because there’s no gravity or weight in space right?? theoretically all you gotta do is give that star destroyer a bump and it’s spinning out, right?? i know absolutely nothing about space physics but i gotta be right. maybe i’m wrong. i dunno. i’m dumb as rocks. hear that baby girl?? it’s the spare change rattling around in my skull. i got pennies where my brain is.

absolutely no fucking shot cassian survived a blaster hit AND that fall AND climbed out. my belief simply cannot be suspended that much.

DUDE I FORGOT THAT THE DEATH STAR CAN TRAVEL THROUGH HYPERSPACE HOW DOES WORK SOMEONE TELL ME!!!!!

why doesn’t vader just,,, force grab the plans. i know he sees them. why not just force stop the guy running away with them??

final note now that the movie is over. yes, it’s got a lot of issues. the plot is ehhh at times. the trailers don’t match up with the movie shots AT ALL (i wanna know what happened behind the scenes with that). the character development is lacking in many major ways (that has not stopped me from loving these characters though, but that’s the autism talking). but like i’ll say in the "stuff i liked" section, this is such a damn cool movie. i was once talking about it with an older friend of mine and he said seeing rogue one in theaters felt like watching the original trilogy in theaters back in the 70s and 80s and honestly that’s such a compliment. i love this movie, i really do.

just cool shit,,, you know the vibe

DEATH TROOPERS

krennic is probably one of my favorite imperial officers. for some reason he just really sells it for me, the evil and manipulation that borderlines in try hard. and (i mention it more later because you see it more in the "choke on your aspirations" scene) beyond that just the fact that he’s?? a guy. just a dude. at any given moment he could be described as just hanging out. but he’s trying so hard (for whatever reason, we don’t know his evil motivations) to be this big bad evil dude. and it’s just interesting to see someone *trying* to be imperial and *trying* to be evil, as opposed to a tarkin-type character who’s just naturally an asshole.

i love the rogue one main theme. don’t even talk to me. it’s so cool.

it’s cool to see more about the birth of the death star, seeing other people learn about it. sort of realizing the fear and terror that everyone must have been experiencing. especially after being a star wars fan for so long and being like, yeah it’s the death star it’s just a staple of this universe. it reminds me that "oh god this was a planet killer and this was the first time something like that had ever even been heard of".

there’s gorgeous visuals in this movie.

i like the "i’m wanted in 12 systems" guy cameo (did you know his name is cornelius? i googled it)

when the storm trooper asks for papers?? like fuck yeah show me what life is like under imperial rule. give me that shit.

chirrut is so badass i’ll never get over it

"i’m one with the force and the force is with me" i’m eating that shit UP! salivating over the meal in front of me. i really want more exploration of the guardians and jedi worship in general. like gimme that weird funky space religion.

seeing an at-st just walk around a town. i dunno i like that shit.

K2 saying sorry for hitting cassian. i’m so soft on this robot.

"clear of hostiles,,,, ONE HOSTILE"

jyn stepping in front of K2 to protect him after she (not ten minutes ago) made the comment “i’m just afraid they’ll miss you and hit me”. jyn,,, your soft side is showing,,,,

i like the cool machine blaster that baze has. it’s awesome seeing different blaster styles when originally the only variation we really saw was chewie’s cross bow style blaster.

i really wanna see more of baze and cirruit. i wanna know what happened that made baze stop believing. i wanna know how they met. i wanna see them evolve and grow together.

i like that jyn argues that 16 is too young to be a solider (she’s 21 in the movie). i like that she’s mad that she’s young and has been put in a position to protect herself and then later save the galaxy. (for context: luke and leia were 19 in a new hope. anakin is 19 in attack of the clones, ~22 when he became darth vader, and rey is 19 in force awakens. stop putting the fate of the galaxy in the hands of people who are *barely* adults)

the testing of the death star is awesome. love seeing wicked cool space weapons. when it blocks out the sun? ominous as hell fuck yeah.

it’s interesting that baze says cassian doesn’t look like a killer, that "he has the face of a friend", when one of the first things we saw him do was kill a man. i think about that a lot. does that say more about baze’s ability to read people or does it say more about who cassian is deep down, beyond what he’s done to serve the rebellion?

cassian’s relationship with death and killing is very interesting. you could argue that cassian is just as brainwashed and deep in the rebellion as anyone imperial. i really hope it’s something that gets explored in his stand alone show. he mentions he’s lost everything and has been a rebel since he was 6. gimme cassian andor backstory.

"careful not to choke on your aspirations director" is probably some of the most dramatic-anakin-skywalker shit i’ve ever seen vader do

i like seeing rebel infighting. so often it seems there’s always general consensus about what the rebellion wants, but it’s good to see that they don’t always agree on how to rebel.

i love the consistent "found family" rebel alliance shit in these movies. it makes my dick so hard.

ARTOO AND THREEPIO CAMEO FUCK ME UP THOSE ARE MY BOYS

okay i totally get that the empire is evil, i really do, but rogue one (and lots of moments in the sequels) really reminds me how fucking cool some of their shit is. like death troopers? imperial droids like K2? the base on scarif? vader’s castle on mustafar and his bacta tank?? fuck me UP.

i loved hearing the troopers doing their dumb small talk about the T-15s on the beach.

i think ben mendelssohn is perfect for the role of krennic, no notes there. he’s just like?? a guy and he’s doing everything he can to fit into this evil role and he just wants to be like this big bad imperial boy on campus. i don’t know. i don’t have the words right now to express how fuckin awesome he is. i’ll write an essay about it later.

THE AT-AT COMING OUT OF THE MIST?? CHRIST ON A BIKE. LAY ME TO REST. LOVE IT.

fucking love me some female fighter pilots. the women of star wars are so badass. doing justice to my return of the jedi ladies.

i think a whole lot about jyn giving K2 a blaster. the way he takes it and looks at it and holds it so gently. i think that’s the first time a human has trusted him with a blaster since his reprogramming. he seems so appreciative of that trust.

i love seeing the faces of baze and the other rebels when a few of the x-wings show up and take down an at-at. i’m so very soft for the relationship between these rebels. not to be cliche, but the *hope* that they have. it’s so moving. this movie is just so full of that quintessential rebel feeling.

hey so i’m super emotional about the death of K2 okay? because in the novelizations you learn that in the last second k2 had before a full shut down, he ran a simulation where cassian lived and even though he knew it was impossible, it made him happy. FURTHERMORE K2 is very well known and his name is often listed along side jyn’s in terms of talking about the history of the rebellion.

chirrut and baze’s deaths are so important to me. we know they’re best friends, and even though we don’t know how long they’ve been together, they love each other so deeply. chirrut being the path for baze to return to the force? touching. i so wish these dumb force husbands could have had more screen time. baze calling chirrut back?? chirrut telling him to find him in the force?? baze looking to see the man he loves one more time before he dies??reminds me of the silken quote about dying in your best friends arms because it’s all you know. anywho,,, if star wars canon has any mercy then these two lovers are force ghosts together rn. don’t care how you feel or whether you "ship" them or not. love comes in so many forms and they encompass all that love.

terribly sorry but i think about those two star destroyers colliding with the rogue one main theme playing over it every day. it’s,,,,, so,,,, ( ´∀｀)

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again BEN MENDELSSOHN??? UH YEAH

krennic watching his weapon (his beautiful, successful weapon) power up and kill him,,, the poetic justice of it all,,,,

any time anyone says "may the force be with you" i dunno maybe it’s my religious trauma but i’m head over heels for that good shit

the star destroyer coming out of hyper space as the rebels are escaping and some of the ships hit the destroyer?? one of my favorite things in the new star wars movies is directors and writers saying "oh this can totally happen" and they DO IT

jyn mentioning earlier in the film that she isn’t used to people sticking around when shit hits the fan and then dying in the arms of cassian?? because he stayed?? and for the first time she has someone??

in that same vein: cassian also says earlier in the film that he lost everything too. his connection with jyn is also important to him, just as important as it is to jyn. they need each other. i can’t remember who on this hellsite said it, but someone mentioned that they hope the stand alone cassian stuff coming out doesn’t make him this swindling playboy who fucks around a bunch. i think having him as more of like?? a mandolorian type character would be really cool. like he’s a rebel assassin: make him one. make him independent and badass and cool and DONT give him a bunch of romantic or sexual interests because then that downplays the clear love he had developing for jyn. again LOVE COMES IN FORMS BEYOND BASIC SHIPS. and there’s a lot of love in star wars.

i’ve said it a million times but vader is so cool and over and over again this movie reminded me that he’s actually so scary. i saw star wars for the first time when i was 6 and i can’t remember my initial reaction to him, but i’ve definitely (like with the death star) been desensitized to the fact that if i was in star wars, darth vader would scare the shit out of me. he’s *scary* and that’s cool. i liked seeing vader effortlessly go fucking mad on these rebels. then you understand why they were so scared in that first scene of a new hope.

no i absolutely will not get over the vader scene. i won’t. his saber turning on. his force abilities. his effortless lightsaber work. the choral music over the scene with the hectic orchestra. don’t touch me i’m emotional.

i loved seeing leia. it touches me so deeply every time.

fuck i love this movie despite all its faults.

if you’ve made it this far, thank you!! i hope you enjoyed. please remember that this is totally a safe space for all star wars opinions and you can feel free to disagree with me! i’d love to hear what some of you thought :))

#star wars #rogue one #baze #jyn erso #chirrut imwe #cassian andor #baze malbus #bohdi rook #k2so #star wars opinions #star wars critique #star wars review

[sarcastically-defensive17]

might be a weird request but an angsty fic of calum & reader r dating at a party but cal’s been givin the silent treatment cuz the reader did smth clumsy and cal got mad & they argue & at the party a drunk dude is all on her & she’s tipsy/mad/throws a drink on him & ends up bein a big fight & the band hears & sees the guy slap her causing calum go crazy feels guilty bc he wasn’t with her & the band protect her & kicks him out, fluff at the end insp: snooki getting slapped on jersey shore djjdkd

Fine - C. Hood

TRIGGER WARNING: NON CONSENSUAL SEXUAL TOUCHING AND VIOLENCE. PLEASE DO NOT READ IF THIS COULD TRIGGER YOU BECAUSE YOUR MENTAL HEALTH IS IMPORTANT!!

I love this idea and I had to watch that video like seven times to get inspiration. I hope you like it! I couldn’t think of a plot for so long!

Original story by sarcastically-defensive17

There was something off with Calum. No rhyme, no reason, no explanation for his bad attitude, just random bursts of anger that led to venomous words falling off of his tongue.

Y/N hadn’t seem him actually happy in a while, and she had no idea what caused his outbursts.

She had been dealing with it, but the more he snapped, the harsher he was. She was starting to really dislike being around him, even more so, being at their shared house.

She had a breaking point, but he hadn’t yet hit it, until one Thursday night she had the girls over while the guys had a night out.

The wine had been passed around and they were all a little buzzed by the time the men returned home.

Shit truly hit the fan when Y/N gestured widely with her glass in hand.

She was always a clumsy person, that was no secret, and usually Calum would tolerate it with a smile on his face.

Until she spilled red wine all over Ashton’s white shirt. Everybody laughed it off, except for Y/N.

She rushed around trying to get the liquid out of the shirt it threatened to stain, and the minute her hands lingered on Ashton’s chest for a minute too long, Calum’s insecurities went haywire.

But in true Calum fashion, he refused to mention it to her until she noticed he was giving her the silent treatment after everybody had left for the night.

“Okay, enough,” she threw the cloth she was holding. “What have I done wrong now?”

Her tone was stern. She was sick of his random outbursts and bouts of silence. She didn’t deserve to be treated that way and she was determined to let him know that.

“Nothing,” came his curt response as he directed a look towards her that told her not to push it.

But she was never one for listening.

“No, Calum. I’m sick of this.” Her jaw was set as she folded her arms across her chest.

He let out a snide laugh, and her heart sank at the sound.

She had no idea what had gotten into Calum, but she really hated it. He was a boatload of insecurities and he took them all out on her.

“What do you have to be sick of? You sure looked fine when you were all over my best mate,” he rolled his eyes, setting his jaw to match hers.

“You’re joking!” She laughed louder than she should have, completely intent on reciprocating the sarcasm dropping from his tongue. “I was trying to clean his shirt, but oh no, I’m guessing in your mind, I want him!”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” he mumbled under his breath, turning to walk away from her.

“What did you just say?” She gaped.

He was scared of losing her. It was no excuse, but he was so terrified of her finding love in another and it made his insecurities flare up. He had been hurt many times before, and he was preparing himself for the worst.

He just didn’t realize how far he was pushing her.

She grabbed onto his shoulder and spun him around to face her.

“What did you say,” she spoke through a clenched jaw. She had enough. She was sick of being made to feel as if she couldn’t be around any other male.

“I said, it wouldn’t surprise me,” he spat and he watched as her face fell slightly.

She shook her head, puffing her cheeks as she did so.

“You are ridiculous, Calum.” Her hands were on her hips and her brows were set in fury, “So first, it was random bullshit that you had a bad day and decided to take it out on me, then you were jealous, and now you’re accusing me of wanting to be with somebody else?”

Her eyes were wide and he offered her no answer, instead choosing to clench and un-clench his jaw while looking anywhere but at her.

“News flash, Calum!” She was shouting now. It wasn’t the first time he had accused her of something similar, “I’m not going to cheat on you, or leave you or whatever! You can trust me!”

He wanted to feel sad, almost hurt that he caused such pain to seep into her tone, but all he saw was red.

“How can I trust you? How can I trust you when you were all over him tonight? Huh?”

The limit was hit. She couldn’t take it anymore.

“Fine, you don’t trust me, then get out.”

There was no room for argument. She disappeared upstairs as he scoffed behind her, collecting a bag full of his clothes and throwing it out onto the front lawn.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Y/N. I’m not leaving,” his heart started to hammer along in his chest.

She was calm. A scary sort of calm that sent sweat pooling on his heavy palms.

“I’m not staying in a house with somebody who can’t trust me, Calum.” She blinked, grabbing his keys and snatching the door to their house off of the ring before tossing the car keys to him. “Get out.”

They went back and forth until ultimately, Calum was knocking on Michael’s front door with tears in his eyes.

She was beyond angry with Calum and in pain over the argument with Calum. They hadn’t spoken since.

Unfortunately, the same weekend after she kicked him out, the guys and their significant others were at her house for a celebratory party.

One of their songs had become number 1 in some country. She was far too tired to remember. Especially after Calum had walked in.

She expected to see him, but she didn’t expect the pain that came along with the sight of her boyfriend.

Thankfully, there were more than enough people to successfully help her evade him, but not enough to keep her away from the man who wouldn’t stop chatting her ears off.

His name, Steve maybe? She couldn’t remember. The amount of alcohol running through her veins made sure of it, and she was sure she stopped his intoxicated chatter at least 5 times to ask him for his name.

In her drunken state she managed to catch Calum’s eyes from across the room and she saw his flare once he saw the man standing beside her.

Fingers clicking in her face pulled her attention away from her boyfriend.

“Are you even listening?” A gruff voice asked. It wasn’t the attractive kind of gruffness, like how Calum’s voice is when he first wakes up, but more of a voice tainted by years of cigarette smoke, and alcohol abuse, following a naturally irritating tone.

She smiled at him, intending to return to politely listening to him ramble about his high paying but low effort job.

“Sorry, I saw somebody and got distracted,” she slurred, leaning against the table and rubbing her head. Unknowingly giving the man a perfect view of her cleavage if he were to look hard enough.

A gross smirk worked onto his face and Y/N jumped as his hand connected with her backside.

“Excuse me-“

“Let’s go up to a room, yeah?” His eyes were heavy, and she flinched as he wrapped an arm round her shoulder, roughly groping the flesh he has clasped in his other hand.

“No thank you, I have a boyfriend,” she dug her heels into the ground as he tried to pull her along with him, and she could faintly see Calum’s eyes bore into the two of them.

The man scoffed, “And? I’ve got a dog at home but I still gave the little rat you’ve got upstairs a pat.”

“What did you just say about Duke?” Her anger intensified, her drunken state more worried about defending her dog than focusing on his sleezy proposition.

His hands moved up her waist, brushing her boobs as they continued up.

She shivered at the contact, feeling sick to her stomach.

“Get your hands off of me, you dog hater!” without thinking, she lifted the hand she held her cup in and threw it in the mans face.

He went silent for a moment, barely allowing her heart to beat once before she connected with the ground. Her cheek was throbbing, tears pricking her eyes.

She could barely register the commotion around her, as a head of brown curls flew towards the man and tackled him to the ground.

Three more figures rushed to pull him off of the man, and she couldn’t stop herself from clambering towards him when she saw it was Calum.

Ashton grabbed the man by the neck, dragging him towards the front of the house as Luke yelled at everybody to leave.

“It’s okay, love. I’ve got you,” Calum cooed.

She could barely think of why she was mad at him. In that moment, all she could focus on was the pain in her cheek and the feeling of his arms around her.

He ordered somebody to bring him ice, before pulling her up the stairs to their bedroom. The same one she had slept in on her own for the past couple of nights.

Except for whoever delivered the ice, they were alone in the room. Duke worked his way onto the bed to lay in his owners lap as Calum inspected her face.

“M’sorry,” she whispered into the air, her head feeling as if it were swaying. The ache intensifying from where she hit the ground.

“What for, baby?” He asked, pressing a package of frozen peas to her cheek.

“That guy touched me. Maybe he thought that I want to cheat on you like you do,” she was slurring her words. The whiskey in her blood was not doing her any favors as she tried to communicate with her boyfriend. “I don’t want to cheat on you. I love you too much, you insecure bastard.”

He snorted at the seriousness in her tone. She was observing him with a purpose.

Her mouth was moving, lacking the filter provided from her brain.

“How could anybody want to cheat on you? Have you seen you? You’re hot as fuck.” Her words were slightly muffled by the bag of peas. “I’m sorry I ruined the party. I didn’t want him to hit me.”

Calum put his hands on either side of her face, making sure to watch her cheek.

“Baby, you didn’t ruin the party.”

“But everybody left-“

“And? I don’t care about everybody else,” Calum’s eyes bore into her bleary ones, and he struggled to think of why he felt so insecure in their relationship. “I care about you, and only you. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there with you tonight, love. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you.”

He truly felt horrible. If he were with her, he could have kept her safe. He could have kept that sleezy guy away from her. Kept his hands off of her.

“S’okay, Cal.” She grinned behind the bag of peas, “You showed him whose boss!”

Her drunken state wasn’t the most ideal for them to discuss the issue of the past few weeks, but he made a note to do so in the morning.

He knew deep in his heart that she loved him, and it was about time he grew up and put trust into her as she did with him.

“I’m sorry he touched me,” she pouted looking down at her body. “His hands felt gross. Yours are better.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, pulling her close to him.

“He won’t touch you again, baby. I promise you.”

“Thank you, macho man,” she relaxed against him, letting her eyes fall shut with a sigh. “I love you.”

“I love you too, baby.”

“Also,” she sat up, letting the bag fall from her face. “If you tell me you don’t trust me again, then you can walk that fine ass out the door and I’m keeping our son.”

He chuckled softly at her, ignoring the twinge in his heart at the reminder of his disgusting words.

“Okay, Lizzo. I promise, I trust you,” she kissed him quickly, pulling back to let him continue talking. “My fine ass isn’t going anywhere unless your fine ass is right beside me, promise.”

“I do have a fine ass, don’t I?” She beamed at him.

#calum hood #calum hood x reader #luke hemmings #ashton irwin #michael clifford #5sos #5 seconds of summer #requested #calum hood angst #calum hood fluff

[useful-wasting-of-ink]

Life Before Death

Part 1 - Reggie

Find “Part 2 - Alex” Here

Find “Part 3 - Luke” Here

“The last two years of Luke, Reggie, and Alex's life as told through their trauma and their support of one another.”

TRIGGER WARNING: child abuse, hitting, alocoholism, cursing, let me know if anything else needs to be mentioned

Reggie’s fingers strummed the chords harder and harder as the yelling got louder and louder. He knew pretty soon his parents would come barging in to yell at him, but at least for now, he didn’t have to listen to them. He could never figure out what the fights were about, it started with Reggie’s grades and now it was about the food always being cold because his dad always came home late from work. 

His dad had come home reeking of alcohol again, which wasn’t new but it had been a few days. He had slammed Reggie’s report card down on the dining room table, and that argument lasted an hour before Reggie was finally allowed to leave the room. 

It’s not that Reggie wasn’t smart, because he was an incredibly intelligent person, he just couldn’t pay attention or concentrate. He tried, but he could never sit still for longer than five minutes at a time, which resulted in a lot of detention, and a lot of letters home, and a lot of yelling. 

The words swam on the page in front of him, and every paper he handed in was marked down for spelling. It’s not that he wasn’t trying, because he was, and he understood the content if someone sat down with him and was patient enough to explain it in a way that made sense to him. That person tended to be Alex, occasionally Luke. 

Reggie could still hear the yelling over his strumming, he couldn’t completely make out the words, but he definitely heard his name, which meant the argument had become about him again. His parents fought constantly, about every little thing that happened. And he couldn’t help but blame himself. 

When he first met Alex and Luke, he never let them over to his house, it was off-limits, the only reason they knew where he lived at all was because Alex lived two streets over. They were only ten at the time, and Reggie thought it was normal for parents to fight like his did. But he still wouldn’t let his friends come over, he just didn’t like it.

Eventually, he let them come over, but only when his parents weren’t home, or it was just his mom. It never became a habitual thing for them to come over, and his parent’s never fought when they had company. 

As they got older, and they began confiding in each other more, the boys realized how bad Reggie’s home situation was. They had never witnessed a fight, though. His parent’s acted like saints when either of them came over to study or just hang out in Reggie’s room.

One day, though, Alex came to pick Reggie up for rehearsal during a fight. Reggie was sitting on the couch staring at the wall opposite him listening to his parents yell over each other trying to voice their disappointment at his grades. 

They all jumped when they heard the doorbell ring, but it was Reggie who got up and opened the door to an anxious-looking Alex. 

“We uh… We have rehearsal…”

Reggie looked startled as he realized what day it was, turning back to stare at his parents. 

His dad just waved his hand, “Whatever, don’t come crying to me when you have to work at McDonald's!”

Reggie’s mom shook her head, heading into the kitchen. Reggie turned back around and grabbed his bass that was sitting by the front door.

“Lets go, please,” he mumbled, “and can we please not talk about this?”

They did end up talking about it, but not until after rehearsal when Alex could tell that Reggie was doing better. Luke found out that same day because he could see the tear stains on Reggie’s cheeks and wouldn’t stop worrying. 

It was two months later when Reggie didn’t show up to rehearsal. He had never not shown up before. He’d been late a few times but never gone completely. 

He had begun coming on his own after his aunt bought him a bike, so Alex hadn’t gone to pick him up. Bobby had long since gone home, telling them he had a lot of homework. 

Alex was pacing back and forth, and Luke was bouncing his leg as he sat on the small couch. 

“He’s okay, right? I mean, he probably just fell asleep, he was pretty tired at school today,” Luke was mumbling, so it was a miracle Alex heard him at all.

Alex ran a hand through his hair, though it just fell right back into his face, “Yeah… He’s probably fine.” 

Neither of them believed that he was fine. 

“It can’t hurt to go check on him, though. I mean… He’d do the same for us?” 

Luke nodded, “Yeah, maybe that would be a good idea.” 

It took them both a minute to grab their stuff, but once they did it only took them five minutes to drive to Reggie’s house. The drive was the longest five minutes of either of their lives, neither of them said a word the entire time. 

Reggie was laying on the floor of his bedroom, he had stopped crying half an hour ago, but it was still very clear that he had been. A bruise had begun to form right below his left eye, and he was pretty sure he had a broken rib or two. 

His dad had come home reeking of alcohol again, but his mom wasn’t there to lessen the blows. Reggie had been practicing in his room, his dad had decided that he was tired of the sound, and… Reggie couldn’t really tell you what happened after that. It happened too fast. 

He knew he was in bad shape, and he knew that his father had thrown his bass across the room, and he heard a crash that he really didn’t like, but he couldn’t bring himself to look.

After that he heard the door slam again, so he knew his father had gone out again. But it didn’t matter, he’d be back. 

This wasn’t the first time his father had hit him, it wasn’t exactly uncommon. He’d always feel bad and apologize, and promise he’d never drink again, blah blah blah… But it never lasted long. Two weeks at the most. And the fights didn’t stop when he was sober, they just weren’t as loud.

He heard the doorbell ring, but he didn’t care. Whoever it was would probably just go away. He lifted his hand to his face, wincing at the pain. 

The doorbell rang again, and again a minute later. Reggie pulled himself into a sitting position, before finally getting up. 

“Hold your fucking horses,” he yelled, wincing at the pain of walking. He was past the point of caring who was behind the door, he was in too much pain to give it another thought. 

Luke and Alex breathed out a sigh of relief when they heard Reggie’s voice, but were still worried at how angry and hurt he sounded. His voice had been strained, and more rough than usual. 

No one knew what to do when the door opened. Reggie stared at his two friends, holding his side. Alex had his mouth slightly open in shock, and Luke just looked angry. 

“Why are you here?” Reggie asked, his voice strained. 

“We came to check up on you. You missed rehearsal,” Alex had been the one to respond, though it had taken him a couple of seconds to find his words. 

Reggie stared for another moment, before gesturing inside. He couldn’t keep standing. 

Alex closed the door behind them, and Reggie led them to his room. 

“Reggie… What happened?” Luke finally spoke up, helping Reggie lay down. 

Reggie didn’t say anything, instead, he was staring at something across the room. 

His bass was lying next to the wall, next to a shattered lamp that had fallen off his dresser. 

“He threw it across the room... “ he mumbled, “I heard it crash, but I was in too much pain to look…” 

Luke looked confused before following Reggie’s gaze, a horrified look crossing his face, before one of anger replaced it yet again. Reggie had saved his money for two years when he was 14 to buy that bass, and now the stem was mangled where it had hit the wall.

“My dad… I guess he got tired of the noise. Decided he’d had enough of it? I don’t know… I just know that I can’t afford to buy another…” 

“Reggie, you can borrow mine until we can get you a replacement,” Alex offered, “I never use it anyway.” 

Reggie nodded tearfully, “he got tired of the noise,” he finally admitted, “I guess he just decided that enough was enough? I can’t remember, really. I just know my face stings,” he left out the part where his ribs ached worse than anything, but he knew the boys could probably tell, it was obvious his face wasn’t the only part of him that was hurting. 

“Reg, I want you to come stay with me for a few days, yeah?”

“My dad’ll just get mad at me, and I don’t wanna intrude on your parents, Luke.” 

“My parents love you! Besides, it’ll be fun, we can play some video games, movie night, whatever.”

After a minute, Reggie nodded, he really didn’t want to stay at his house, and his parents were gonna fight either way, so he might as well leave for a few days.

Reggie stayed with Luke for about a week. It was hard for him to get out of bed for a few days, but luckily they were on a short break from school, so there was no reason to make excuses for absences. Alex came over everyday, which was a normal occurrence. The three of them often hung out outside of school, so it wasn’t weird that all three were together every day that week. 

Alex brought his bass to the garage the next time they were all there, “my aunt gave it to me like three years ago, I never use it, and it just takes up space in my room, so you can have it if you want,” and that was the end of the conversation. 

The three of them never brought it up to Bobby, the only explanation for the new instrument was that Reggie got a new one. Bobby was their friend, but he wasn’t as close to the three of them as they were with each other. They’d been friends for years, they had only known Bobby a little over two years, and didn’t really become friends until less than a year ago. 

It just wasn’t the same. They all hung out together, laughed and joked together, trusted each other. But it was different. The trust was different. The jokes were different. Alex knew he could trust Luke and Reggie, Reggie knew he could trust Alex and Luke, and Luke knew he could trust Alex and Reggie. All three knew they could trust Bobby, but not with everything.

#julie and the phantoms #jatp fanfic #jatp #luke patterson #luke jatp #reggie jatp #alex jatp #abuse tw #hitting tw #cursing tw #alcohol tw #ask to tag

[winterisakillerwrites]

Lovers’ Eyes

Title: Lovers’ Eyes

One Shot: 1/1

Character: Tom Hiddleston

Genre: Angst

Rating: T

Summary: A devastating loss reveals a life-changing truth.

Authors Notes/Warnings: This story contains mentions of death (not Tom). This was brought about by this ask:

I don’t know if this was what you had in mind, but this is what my brain came up with, nonny. I hope you enjoy.

Thank you a hundred thousand times over to @ciaodarknessmyheart​​ for being my sounding board for this, encouraging me to run with the idea, and helping inspire what has happened and might possibly happen in future.

Tag List: @tinchentitri​​ @noplacelikehome77​​​ @theheartofpenelope​​ @blacksuitofdoom​​  @nonsensicalobsessions​​ @messy-insomniac-bookgirl​​ @just-the-hiddles​​ @wolfsmom1​​ @theoneanna​​ @hiddlescastle​​ @sabine-leo​​ @alexakeyloveloki​​ @echantedbytwh @ciaodarknessmyheart​​ @redfoxwritesstuff​ @finchbaggins​

If you would like on my tag list for any future works feel free to message/comment to be added. 

                                     But do not ask the price I pay

                                    I must live with my quiet rage

                                    Tame the ghosts in my head

                                  That run wild and wish me dead

                               Should you shake my ash to the wind

                                        Lord forget all of my sins

                                      And let me die where I lie

                         Beneath the curse of these lovers eyes

  “When?” 

The word fell from Tom’s lips in a pained whisper. He’d been up for the better part of two days, had seen the inside of no less than four airports and just as many planes, had ridden in the back of several cabs in the vain hope of getting there in enough time. Everything ached; his eyes, his body, his mind

…He’d been too late. He’d known he was too late by the tightness he could see in the reddened eyes staring back at him.

“Two hours ago.”

Despair flooded his senses and he felt his knees give way, falling back against the wall behind him. He slipped wordlessly to the floor, fighting to breathe. 

When he’d gotten the call on set, Tom had felt as though the world was splintering around him. Though it had been years since she spoken to her last, years since he’d made the single most idiotic decision of his adult life, he’d never once forgotten Elizabeth Michaels. His Eliza. He’d made peace with what happened between them in the best way he’d known how, by believing that she’d moved on with her life. That she had found someone, had a family, had the life he hadn’t been willing to give her at the time. The thought of her out there happy and whole made his own bitter disappointment in his failings an easier burden to bear. 

All of that had been ripped away when he’d taken the call only to hear her mother say, “Eliza’s dying, she’s asking for you. She doesn’t have long now.”

He’d all but run from the set, not bothering to explain his absence as he dialed his driver and sped back towards the hotel. He’d managed to shove as many clothes as he could into a carryall along with his passport, charge cord, and wallet when Luke’s call came. He listened without really hearing as Luke berated him for his complete and utter lack of professionalism. “What the fuck is going on? Have you taken complete leave of your senses?”

“I need you to get me a flight home now,” Tom hissed, cutting his publicist off mid rant. “I don’t care how you do it, I don’t care what it costs. Just do it.”

“Tom what is going on?” Exasperation and confusion colored his tone. In all the years they’d known each other, he’d never heard Tom like this.

“Eliza…” He choked the name out, feeling the tears he’d kept at bay threatening to break free. “I need to…Please Luke….”

Luke had never met Eliza but had known enough of her importance in Tom’s life to understand something drastic had happened. “Alright. I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’m headed to the airport now,” Tom explained before abruptly ending the call. Fuck professionalism and fuck his other obligations. He’d let Eliza down once and if she was…If he was going to lose her for good, he couldn’t let her down now. Not and be able to live with himself after.

The trip down the elevator, across the lobby, and back into the car passed in a blur. He growled at his driver to make for the airport and settled uncomfortably against the leather seat as the city flew past his window in a blur of color and motion. The freeway was packed and Tom near pulled his hair out as the minutes ticked by. How long did he have to get to her? The crushing weight of the unknown bore down on his shoulders and he yelled at the driver to go faster. 

His phone chimed with a text from Luke. He’d managed to squeeze him on a flight leaving in an hour and a half. From there he’d catch another two flights before he’d be back on British soil. It was far less than ideal but it was the best Luke could do with such short notice. Especially with the storms that were set to be rolling in.

Tom didn’t remember pulling into the drop off point at the airport or running for the ticket desk. All he could remember was clutching the boarding passes the woman behind the counter had given him as if they were the only things tethering him to this earth. He’d darted from the desk, through security and had all but thrown the boarding pass at the startled gate attendant as he skidded to a halt. The man scanned his ticket without comment and Tom had run down the walkway and into the plane.

He’d tried to sleep on the flight but found his mind refused to shut off. Images of Eliza; her bright hazel eyes, the warm smile she wore whenever she saw him, the way her face lit up when she laughed, her coppery hair gleaming in the sunlight as she lay against him; flooded his mind every time he closed his eyes.

They’d been so happy. So fucking happy and he had to go and ruin it. She’d been patient, understanding. Acting had been such an integral part of him, had been something he’d worked so hard at for so long. She’d sent him off with the promise that she would be there when he came home, be there when he needed her. 

And it had worked, at first. He’d thrown himself into his work but had always made sure to keep in touch with her. To phone whenever he could, to video call and when he was able fly back to spend whatever time he could with her. But as his demand grew those calls and visits slowly fell to the wayside until it had been months since he’d last seen her and weeks since they’d spoken. 

Tom would never forget the look on her face the last time he had seen her, a video call he hadn’t expected her to answer but knew he’d had to make. The pain and heartbreak in her eyes when he’d told her maybe it was for the best they ended things. His career was soaring and he couldn’t let anything hold him back. He was sorry but he couldn’t see any other way. She’d smiled at him, a broken, weak smile and wished him all the best. She told him she would always love him and that she’d understood.

And afterwards he’d thrown himself into his work. Burying himself in role after role, trying for any and everything. He refused to say no. Refused to take a break. Refused to slow down. This was his chance and he could not, would not, throw it away. He ignored the concerned looks from his team and brushed off the worried calls from his family. He ran at a breakneck speed until he’d finally one night he’d crashed.

Tom couldn’t remember where in the world he was, only that it was late and he was alone and for whatever reason that had become simply unbearable. He’d dialed Eliza’s number without even thinking, needing to hear her voice. Needing her gentle wisdom to soothe the unending weight he carried. But the number rang out as unavailable. He dialed it again only to receive the same message. Confused and terrified, he’d called his sister thinking maybe she’d have Eliza’s number. Or at least an explanation. They had been close before. Maybe they still were. 

But it had been of no use. Emma hadn’t spoken with Eliza in nearly a year, not long after things had ended between them, and last she’d known Eliza had left for the states and hadn’t given any forwarding information. He’d thrown his phone across the darkened room, screaming every obscenity that came to mind. Frustrated tears streamed from his eyes as he let the years’ worth of pressure, disappointment, and regret flood through him. He understood then, all too well, what he’d given up…What he’d thrown aside and for the first time the guilt he’d pushed aside broke free. 

When he’d woken up that next morning, head pounding and eyes raw, he called his agent and Luke and asked if there was any way he could get time to clear his head. The three weeks they’d managed to eke out of the production company of his latest project were spent curled up in his mother’s sitting room or in the house he’d bought but hadn’t truly moved into. He slept and ate and tried to recharge the battery he’d very much run into the ground with such dedication. 

He emerged with a heaviness he couldn’t quite shake but steady enough to push on. His work, his career, this was what he had now. He’d given up something irreplaceable and precious for it, failing now wasn’t an option. As the years passed he comforted himself with the thought that Eliza was out there happy and chasing her own dreams. She would have married and had a family, of that he was certain, even if the very idea of it felt like a lead ball in his gut. She would be happy and whole and better for not having to chase after his shadow. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it would have to be enough.

And it had been until his phone rang and the ground fell out beneath him.

His body shook as his grief consumed him. She was gone. His Eliza was gone. He was too late. Always too late. He brought his knees to his chest, clinging to them as he rocked back against the wall, tears streaming down his face. Why hadn’t he gotten there sooner? Why couldn’t he ever seem to do right by her? Why?

“I’m sorry,” he cried out, over and over again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The words were of little use. It didn’t matter how sorry he was. Sorry wouldn’t change things. Sorry couldn’t bring her back. Sorry couldn’t change the choices he made. But god he was so fucking sorry. 

He didn’t know how long he’d sat on that floor, curled as tightly into himself as he could manage, drowning in his own grief and self-loathing. Eliza had been the one bright thing in his life and he’d thrown her away without a care. He’d taken the gift she’d given him and tossed it aside as if it were meaningless. And for what? The stupid need to prove himself. To be the best he could be at pretending to be someone else. God, he was such a fool. Such a complete and utter fool.  

“Thomas.”

He blinked up at the sound of his name, confusion and disorientation clouding his features. His back was stiff and sore, his head pounding. He’d known the voice, known it but couldn’t seem to place it. Eyes clearing, the blurred form of Keira Michaels came into view, her eyes lined with stress and grief.

Eliza’s mother had always been a formidable woman. Strong willed and opinionated, she had made her feelings towards Tom well known. “A decent enough boy, Eliza, but tied to his work. Be careful with him, he’s one who will do what it takes to survive.” And he’d proved her right, though it had never been his intention. He’d loved Eliza with every fiber of his being but his ambition and his need to prove himself had led him to walk away. To push her away without a thought. And what had that cost him? Cost them both? 

Tom had never thought he would see Keira again. And certainly never like this. They sat in uncomfortable silence, quietly sharing the unbearable chasm of loss between them. “I wasn’t sure you would come.”

It took him several moments to gather himself enough to choke out, “How could I not?”

He felt the older woman’s dark eyes narrowing on him. “You left easily enough, it stands to reason you’d be reluctant to return.”

Fury and shame burned twin flames within him. “I love her. That hasn’t ever changed.” 

Keira’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve a funny way of showing it.”

It took all he had to bite his tongue to keep from snarling back at her. Keira would never think anything but ill of him and he knew it was as much as he deserved. He loved Eliza but had walked away and now it was too late to fix it. Too late to make any of it right. Tears burned in his eyes once again and he pinched the bridge of his nose in a desperate bid to stop them.

Several deep breaths later Tom found his voice. “If you were so sure I wouldn’t come, why did you call?”

 “Because she asked for you.”

A fresh stab of pain bloomed in his chest at the words. Confusion and guilt followed soon after. Why had she asked for him? How could he be the person she wanted in the end after he’d left her? Eliza had always been an open, loving, generous person; it had been one of the many, many things he’d loved about her. She had a big heart, a kind and understanding heart. But even the kindest person had their limits surely. And what did it matter now? He’d come too late. She’d asked and he hadn’t come in time. 

“You and I…We’ve never seen eye to eye, I doubt we ever will.” Keira spoke, her voice coming from what felt like miles away; quiet and barely audible. Tom blinked up at her before pushing himself unsteadily to his feet. The world tilted alarmingly, his vision tunneling as his hand shot out to brace against the wall to keep himself upright. “And if she hadn’t asked, hadn’t wanted…But she…My girl, she never stopped loving you, for all the good it and you did her. And there were things she wanted to tell you…Things she should have told you. Things you need to know.”

He couldn’t make sense of the words. “I don’t understand…”

Keira sighed, digging into the bag that hung by her side. She pulled out a folded envelope and thrust it in Tom’s direction. He stared at it and then at her. “She gave me this for you…In case you didn’t…”

Tom swallowed thickly, taking the envelope with a shaking hand. He unfolded it slowly, nearly dropping it when his name written in her delicate hand caught his eye. The urge to tear it to pieces and throw it in the nearest fire battled with the need to tear it open and read the words she’d left for him. So he stood with it shaking in his hands, staring without seeing.

“You need to sleep, Thomas. Get yourself some sleep, read that, and when you’re ready we’ll talk.”

Without giving him a chance to answer, Keira turned on her heel and walked away.

It went against everything in him, leaving the hospital before he’d even seen…But did he truly want to see her body? Seeing that would make things real and right now real was the absolute last thing he wanted. Seeing her cold, empty and knowing that would be the last image he would ever have of her…No, most definitely not.

The hotel he’d stumbled into was a ten minute ride from the hospital. He could have braved the longer drive back to London and the comfort of his own bed, but doing so now felt like the worst sort of betrayal. So he’d gone to the nurse’s station down the hall and asked for the nearest hotel.

Flustered, the nurse stared back at him for several minutes before mumbling something and handing him a piece of paper with the information he’d asked for. Part of him understood she’d recognized him but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He didn’t bother to fake a smile and put on the charm he was well known for. What was the point of any of it?

The room was dark and the bed comfortable enough. Tom hadn’t paid attention to any of it. Not in the cab ride over, nor at the check in desk, nor in the elevator, nor when he opened the door and stumbled inside. He dropped his bag by the desk and fell heavily on top of the maroon duvet. He had no intention of sleeping, hadn’t felt he’d earned the right to such an escape, but his body had other plans and it had gone far too long without having them fulfilled. He’d blinked once and gave into the exhaustion clawing at his bones. 

When he came to the room was black as pitch. Disorientation and panic flooded through him as his sleep-logged brain struggled to orient itself. Everything came back with a sickening realization; where he was, just why he was there, all the madness and pain of the last several days.

Eliza. Oh God. 

He scrambled from the unmade bed and practically threw himself into the cramped bathroom, dropping to his knees and vomiting into the toilet. He clung to the cool porcelain of the bowel as the nausea radiated over him again and again and again. Tears burned in his eyes, blurring his vision. But he didn’t care. She was gone and everything he had prayed had been a terrible, horrific nightmare had been real. And there was nothing he could do to change it. With trembling hands, he pushed himself back, closing the lid and resting his head against it. The room spun around him despite his refusal to watch. Once it seemed to calm, Tom raised his head once more. 

Shaking, he pushed himself first to his knees and then unsteadily to his feet. Violent flashes of red and black clouded his vision as he stumbled into the vanity, gripping the cool Formica top to keep from crumpling back to his knees. The pain in his thigh told him there would be bruises forming there soon enough.  

Reaching out, he turned on the faucet and splashed cool water against his flushed skin. He hadn’t the faintest idea what time it was, hadn’t bothered to turn his phone one since he’d boarded that last plane. There would be untold number of messages and missed calls waiting for him, he knew that without question. Luke might not have fought him initially but he would be expecting an explanation; if only to appease the feathers Tom had undoubtedly ruffled with his hasty exit. But he hadn’t the patience for any of it. 

Taking a shuddering breath, Tom dried his face and made his way back into the main room, hitting the wall several times with an opened palm until he managed to hit the overhead light switch. Scrubbing his face with his palms, Tom dropped onto the bed. Even with sleep under his belt his head still felt fuzzy and slow despite the jumble of confused thought buzzing through it. He fell back against the mattress, turning as he heard the crinkle of paper beneath his head.

He saw it then. The letter. Her letter. His fingers felt numb as he struggled to grab the envelope. As he held it, Tom felt his chest tighten. Could he open it, read the words she left for him, knowing they were her last? The paper shook in his hands as he slid a finger beneath the seal and ripped. Shook even harder as he pulled the folded paper out and let his eyes fall upon her neat hand.

 Tom,

 Hello my darling man. It has been such a long time since I have called you that so please forgive me the liberty of doing so again. This is not the way I wanted to have this conversation but time and fate aren’t on my side any longer. And I am sorry for telling you this way.

But before I delve into my reasons for writing this, I wanted to tell you how immensely proud I am of you. I’ve watched you shine these last several years, watched your dreams come true. I always knew, down deep in my bones, that you were meant for great things and despite how things ended between us I do not begrudge you for it. I wanted to and I admit for a good while I tried. It was so much easier, at first, being angry. But anger never solves anything and I knew then and I still know now that maybe my place in your life was simply to help you along this path. I wish it had been more. I wish we’d been more and maybe if I had fought harder… 

It doesn’t matter now. I made my choices and so have you. I am proud of you, though. You shine in ways I always knew you would. Please keep shining, Tom. Never stop. You never know how long you’ll have.

This next part is the one of the most difficult things I have ever done. My intention was to tell you myself, to be open and honest as I should have been all those years ago. But if you are reading this then I either could not face it or it was too late. And I’m sorry for either of those options. 

The day you called, the last time we spoke, I had been working up the nerve to tell you that I was pregnant. We have a son and he is the most wonderful little boy. His name is James William. Jaime. He’s nearly five now and looks so much like you it tears my heart. 

I should have told you when I knew. I should have told you that day. It wasn’t right to keep it from you. To keep him from you and I know that. Just as I know you will be angry with me for a long time over this. I don’t blame you for that and I deserve your ire. I kept something so important from you and that is not something easily forgiven.

I could see then how much your career meant, could see how things were only just starting for you. And I knew how important it all was for you. How you needed to do this, needed to take those chances and that you couldn’t afford the ties I brought. You told me that day you loved me but that we were a distraction and you couldn’t have that. If I was a distraction on my own, what would our child be? So I kept my silence and I let you go.

It was wrong of me. I should have told you. You deserved the chance to make up your own mind. But I took that choice from you and I hadn’t the right. For that I am so terribly sorry. 

I’ve had years to wrestle with the guilt of keeping something so important from you. There have been so many times I wanted to reach out, so many times I should have. But I didn’t. Each time I wanted to the knowledge that I hadn’t stayed my hand. How could I explain? So I kept keeping this from you and I will never forgive myself that.

Please don’t blame Jaime for this. Don’t let your anger at me colour your knowledge of him. He is my light and my world. None of this is his fault. 

I have always loved you, Tom. Even when it would have been a great deal easier not to. There is so much I wanted to say to you, so much I wish I had said. But life is so short and I don’t have anymore time.

I love you, always.

Eliza

  The letter tumbled from his fingers.

He sat, his back rigid and eyes staring blankly. Chaos screamed in his mind as he tried to make sense of the words. Of the magnitude of the bomb that had been dropped into his lap. A father. Fucking hell, he had a son. A son. He didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry or rage at the thought. How could be a father? How could she never have told him until it was too fucking late.

Anger roiled through him. Hot and fierce and all consuming. She had lied to him. Kept something so fucking vital and life changing from him. How fucking dare she dump this on him now when he couldn’t face her on it. Couldn’t demand she tell him why. He should have known.

But as quickly as the anger came, it was doused in a fresh wave of guilt and shame. This was just as much his fault as it had ever been hers. All Eliza had ever done was love him. She believed in him, encouraged him, and he’d pushed her aside for his own glory. He had seen there was something in her eyes that night. Something in the set of her brow that told him there was something she wanted to say, something she needed to say, but he blundered on with his needs. His wants. And she’d said nothing.

He couldn’t blame her…Not fully, as much as he wanted to. And he wanted to so badly. If she had told him…God, he didn’t know what he would have done. What path he would have chosen. The life he…They could have had. And now he never would. She had taken that choice from him and all he could do now was flounder in the aftermath.

Tom scrubbed his face with his hands. Confusion warred with the twin flames of exhaustion and frustration. If he could only turn his mind off, just for a short while. He knew that couldn’t happen, but he would give just about anything to try. Wearily, he pushed himself up to his feet once more and over towards the desk where he had dropped his carryon the night (or was it morning, he’d lost track of time by this point) before. He lifted the small black bag and carried it back to the bed, dumping the contents onto the duvet.

He’d packed in a rush, grabbing the first pieces of clothing his fingers touched and not caring ever much if it was at all practical. He was in desperate need of a shower; he could feel the grime of two days’ travel clinging to his skin. His hair itched and a small part of him hoped that he’d feel better clean. That the soap and water would help clean his mind as well as his body.

The black, blank screen of his mobile stared up at him from the tangle of clothing. This was the longest he’d had the damned thing off in more time than he wished to contemplate. It wasn’t as though he was tied to the device, but with the way his world worked being in constant contact with people had become a dire necessity. If he turned the thing off it was only for the duration of a flight or for short a time as necessary. Staring down at it now, Tom found himself dreading the mess awaiting him when he finally turned it back on.

Snatching the mobile up he powered it on before tossing it back onto the bed and grabbing a change of clothing and his toiletry bag, disappeared into the bathroom to shower. He turned the water as hot as he could stand, stripped, washed himself quickly, and remained under the burning spray long after his skin wrinkled and pruned. Body clean but mind still racing, Tom toweled himself off quickly and dressed before padding barefoot back into the main room.

He scrubbed the towel over his damp hair and allowed his attention to return to his mobile. With a less than steady hand, he grabbed the device and tapped the button on the side to wake the screen. As he feared dozens of messages blipped and beeped for his attention. By his count he’d missed ten calls from Luke, four from his mother (whom he was sure Luke had called after being unable to reach him), and another two from Emma (most likely in response to his lack of response to their mother). He let out a soft groan, warring with the idea of ignoring the messages longer or getting the unpleasantness awaiting him out of the way as rapidly as possible. He knew they cared, knew he’d worried them something fierce, but Tom wasn’t entirely sure he was ready to face all of that now. Not when his head was still spinning.

With a groan of frustration he tossed the mobile back onto the bed and paced the room. He needed to do something but he’d be buggered if he knew what. Prime parental example I’m making, he thought bitterly. 

The thought caught him up short. Fuck, he was a father. But what the fuck did he actually know about that? 

He’d been an uncle for years now, both literally and honorably. Had done what his elder sister referred to as parenting lite; minding his nieces and honorary nephews for an afternoon at a time, playing silly games with them. It had always been with the firm knowledge that he would be handing them back to their parents. He’d always loved children and had wanted them in that vague future someday. But the idea of actually being a father to a child he’d only learned of…It terrified him. How in the world could he be a father when half the time he couldn’t keep his own shit together?

A flash of panic ripped through him. Would be even be allowed to be? All he had was Eliza’s word that the child was his. He didn’t doubt her word, Eliza was many things but never cruel. Never a liar.

But she kept this from you, the small voice in the back of his head reminded him. She never told you and she should have. What proof do you have that she’s told you the truth in this now? 

He shook the thought away.

No. She isn’t…, He winced, wasn’t a liar.

But where did that leave him? He’d had no knowledge of the boy, of Jaime, until a handful of hours ago. He had no part in his life. He didn’t know the boy and he doubted Jaime had any real knowledge of him either. Did he really have the right to come in and uproot this boy from everything he’d ever known? Could he even do that? Did he have the legal rights to?

Fuck, Luke was going to skin him alive. After years of relatively no issues, here Tom was dumping a potentially catastrophic one right into Luke’s unknowing lap. This would be a scandal no matter how they approached it. Luke would have his hands full sorting through the mess, and cursing his name the entire time. There was no way this could be kept quiet, not really. What kind of father would he be if he dragged his child into the middle of that sort of madness? The press wouldn’t leave him or the boy alone. And even if by some miracle they did, what kind of father could he be if he were home? He didn’t have a job that came with steady, regular hours. He couldn’t just drop everything and be there the way the boy…his son, Jaime, would need. 

Maybe it would be better if he walked away now. If he refused to claim the boy as his own. Jaime had his grandmother, had Eliza’s sisters. He would have a family. He didn’t need the complication of Tom’s life tangled with his own. He was too young. It wouldn’t be right, wouldn’t be fair.

But Eliza wanted this. She wanted him to know me….Or at least for me to know about him. 

Could he truly turn his back and walk away again? Could he do that knowing what he knew now? Knowing that Jaime was out there?

“Fuck!” he screamed, slamming his fist into the wall. He felt the plaster crack beneath his knuckles. He cursed again at both his fit of temper and the damage he’d done to the wall and his hand. There would be bruising, he was sure of it. And swollen knuckles.

Great example we’re setting here.

Fuck indeed.

He couldn’t walk away. Not now. He knew it just as certainly as he knew in his heart Jaime was his. He couldn’t, wouldn’t turn his back on his family. It was stupid, he was being stupid. He could hear his agent screaming that at him now. This was the absolute worst time for this to happen. Nothing in his life was equipped for his sudden summersault into unexpected parenthood. He had projects lined up well into the following year. Fuck, he wouldn’t even be in the country half the bloody time. He had people he was accountable to, deals he couldn’t in good faith back out of now. This was a monumentally stupid idea. 

But he couldn’t shake it away now that it had taken root in his mind. Couldn’t shake the mad and sudden impulse that he had to do this. He had to be involved as much, or as little, as he would be allowed.

For Eliza’s sake.

For Jaime’s.

For his own.

 Tom had his mobile in his hand and the number dialed before he had the chance to second guess just what the hell he was doing.

 “Mrs. Michaels…Keira…It’s Tom.”

                                                         —

He rubbed his hands against the sides of his jeans in a vain effort to disguise how clammy they’d become. He’d been fighting down the steady flurry of butterflies that had seemed to take up residence in his gut in the entire ride. For the hundredth time he contemplated simply climbing back into the cab and back to life as he’d always known it. Instead, he handed the cabbie his fare and made his way down the brick lined path on unsteady feet.

On the phone Keira had made herself perfectly clear; She wouldn’t prevent him from meeting Jaime, he was his father and she wouldn’t deny him that, but she asked, pleaded with him, to not tell the boy just who he was. To tell Jaime that he was simply an old friend of his mother’s. “He’s confused enough as it is, losing his mother. I don’t want to risk more pain and confusion if you decide you can’t do this.” 

The words had stung but Tom respected them. What right did he have to drop all of this onto a little boy who just had his world turned upside down? The last thing he needed right then was more upheaval. More change. He needed steady and secure and familiar now more than ever.

She had also insisted on having the meeting take place in her home. “Some place he knows, where he will be comfortable.” Jaime was living with her now. Both he and Eliza had been under her roof for the last year or so. Since shortly after Eliza learned just how sick she actually was. She’d wanted to have her family close, wanted Jaime to be somewhere safe if the inevitable happened. Just in case.

And it had.

The house was just as he’d remembered it. A two story semi with green shutters and a dark blue door. Walking up the path to the door brought back far too many ghosts he’d thought he’d purged. Apparently, he’d been mistaken. He stood at the door for several minutes, trying to work up the nerve to ring the bell. He debated, once more, on the better part of discretion before raising his hand and pressing his finger firmly against the cool metal of the bell. 

He heard the shuffling of feet inside growing steadily louder as they drew near. He swallowed against the lump which had taken root in his throat. The door opened and he met Keira’s cool gaze. Her face was less lined than it had been in the hospital corridor but grief still painted her features. He could see it in the set of her jaw and the haunted look in her eyes. She nodded at him and ushered him inside.

The front hall was dim and cool, he blinked several times adjusting to the change in light. He followed quietly behind her as she walked down the hall and towards the living room in the back of the house. Tom could hear the low murmur of the television and wondered what Jaime would be watching. His own nieces had been taken with Dora and god knows what else at that age. What did he like? What did he hate? What was his favorite bedtime story? Favorite song? God these were things he should have known without thinking. 

He froze at the edge of the doorway, suddenly terrified of what awaited him. Could he actually do this? What was he supposed to say? To do? 

“Jaime, love,” he heard Keira call. “I have someone who’d like to say hello.” She turned towards Tom and beckoned him forward.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath Tom took the last few steps and walked into the brightly lit room. In front of the television, with its program now on mute, sat Jaime. His eyes were wide, curious, and a stunning shade of hazel. Eliza’s eyes. His face…God it was like looking in a mirror. The boy had his same mop of dark blonde curls, his rounded cheeks, and bright smile. If he’d had any doubts they’d been completely and utterly obliterated. This boy. Jaime. Was his. 

“Hello,” he heard himself say, his voice strangely calm and even despite the furious pounding of his heart. “My name is Tom. I’m a…I’m a friend of your mum’s.”

#Tom Hiddleston #Tom Hiddleston RPF #Tom Hiddleston x oc #Tom Hiddleston x ofc #Tom Hiddleston x original character #Tom Hiddleston x original female character #original child character #grief #loss #death #angst

[clumsyclifford]

“ok you’ve been trying to put on that eyeliner almost the entire bus ride and you’re strugglin, so i’ma help you out” au I have no idea how you would make this work with lashton but I would d i e

MAKEUP ARTIST ASHTON! MAKEUP ARTIST ASHTON! MAKEUP ARTIST ASHTON! MAKEUP ARTIST ASHTON! HELLO!!!!!!!!!! MAKEUP ARTIST ASHTON!!!!!!!

-

Habitually, Ashton keeps to himself on the bus. Actually, habitually, Ashton doesn't ride the bus. 

It's not that he's too good for it or anything, it's just that the bus is full of strangers that are often sitting far too close to one another, and Ashton would rather walk the forty-five minutes to work than get an elbow in his face even once from some middle-aged man. Normally, he would walk to work, but he's not totally sure of his location today, and he doesn't want to risk getting lost. So he's on the bus.

Someone else is on the bus, and Ashton has been watching him try to put on eyeliner for about five minutes now, to no avail. 

He tries not to stare. That effort falls through immediately. Eyeliner guy is gorgeous already, with a quiff of blond hair over sky-blue eyes and a lip ring — a lip ring — and a Green Day singlet. Ripped black skinny jeans. The only explanation Ashton can come up with for why this guy would be putting on eyeliner is that he's some kind of punk rocker. 

Even though the eyeliner efforts are unsuccessful, Ashton can see the light reflecting off Hot Eyeliner Guy's lips, so he's probably wearing lip gloss, and when he blinks Ashton catches a glimpse of shimmering eyeshadow. Ashton can't stop staring. Hot Eyeliner Guy doesn't seem to notice, too focused on the eyeliner wand held in one hand and his phone camera in the other.

Ashton sits and watches him for another three minutes before he calls it. This is Ashton's whole job, for fuck's sake. He might as well put his talents to use.

"Excuse me?" he says, carefully approaching Hot Eyeliner Guy. Hot Eyeliner Guy immediately whips his head up, clearly embarrassed. Ashton tries not to get whiplash from those blue eyes on him. "Sorry, I just — I've been watching you try to put your eyeliner on for almost ten minutes, so I thought I'd offer to help? I'm a makeup artist."

Hot Eyeliner Guy squints, cheeks bright red. "That's humiliating," he says. "Uh, okay, sure. Don't stab my eye out. Or, um, judge the rest of the makeup."

"I'm not judging," Ashton promises. "You look very pretty." And, hmm. Maybe that's not a super good thing to say to a stranger on the bus, but Hot Eyeliner Guy seems to blush deeper.

He takes the eyeliner out of the guy's hand as Hot Eyeliner Guy says, "What's your name?"

"Ashton," Ashton says. "Yours?"

"Luke."

"Turn towards me, Luke," Ashton says. "And hold still."

Luke obliges, shifting his body to face Ashton in the seat next to him. 

"I know we just met, so this is a little weird, but I'm gonna touch your face," Ashton says. "Is that okay?"

Luke nods slowly. Ashton reaches carefully for Luke's face and leans closer, lifting the eyeliner wand. Luke's eyes flutter shut. You could kiss, Ashton's horrible, demonic subconscious decides to point out. Ashton ignores the thought and starts gently drawing on the eyeliner. Even as he does he's thinking about how piercing Luke's eyes already are, and how this is just going to make it worse, and Ashton better prepare himself for that because he's historically not smooth with pretty boys who wear makeup, so he’s probably chosen the wrong profession. He finishes one eye and switches to the other with a murmured warning, methodical and precise, and before long he's done.

"I'm not going to blow on your face to dry it," Ashton says, deadpan. "So just let it sit for a minute. I'll let you know when you can open your eyes."

Luke nods. "So you're a makeup artist?" he says conversationally.

"Yeah," Ashton says. "Freelance, mostly — like, when actors and stuff need a makeup artist. It's a living."

"That's really cool," Luke says fervently, and sounds like he means it. 

"What do you do?" Ashton prompts.

Luke sighs. "You won't believe me, because I'm riding the bus, but I'm actually in a band."

"Why wouldn't I believe you?"

"My bandmates are just total pricks," Luke says. He sounds pretty fond about that fact. "And I lost a bet, so they made me take the bus. I'm on my way to film a music video, actually — hence the makeup."

Ashton bites his lip. "Uh," he says. "Any chance your band is called 5 Seconds of Summer?"

"You've heard of us?" Luke sounds happy.

"I'm working for you," Ashton clarifies. "I'm a makeup artist for your video."

There's a moment of silence, and then Luke laughs, loudly. "No way."

"Yeah." Ashton laughs, too. "Oh, you can open your eyes."

Luke does, and Ashton has to stop himself from physically being forced back by the way Luke's eyes bore into his right away, blue blue blue and outlined in black.

"Huh," Luke says. "You somehow look prettier than before."

Ashton's heart tha-thumps. "That makes no sense."

"I can't believe you're working on our video," Luke says, grinning. "Should I be paying you for this consult?"

"That's okay," Ashton says, breathless. "Free of charge for pretty boys in bands."

"Free of charge?"

"Okay, not free. You can take me out for coffee as payment."

Luke huffs a laugh. "Didn't need to blackmail me into asking you out, Ashton."

"No?"

"Nope. Wanna get coffee sometime?"

"Okay," Ashton says, cheeky. "You're paying."

"I'm not made of money."

"You are to me." Ashton pats his shoulder, and Luke shakes his head, still grinning.

Maybe Ashton should ride the bus more often.

#somehow some god is guiding me through writing these prompt fics #like i cannot explain it #anyway #lashton #lashton fic #luke hemmings #ashton irwin #5sos fic #fic #my fic #makeup artist ashton!!! #MAKEUP ARTIST ASHTON!!!!!!!!!!! #this is a pretty fun prompt #Anonymous #ask #answered #5sos

[themattress]

Using this video as a segue into this post, which ignores the dregs of the Fandom Menace who were never going to like this movie and just distills the five main points made by critics.

1. It threw away what The Last Jedi established. 2. It's too chock-full of stuff and with too rushed a pace.  3. It has no deep themes and nothing insightful to say. 4. It lacks imagination and is all rehashing and nostalgia-bait fanservice. 5. It's a disappointing ending to both a trilogy and a nine-film saga.

1. This criticism seems to recur the most, since critics didn’t just like TLJ and Rian Johnson’s vision for the franchise, they loved it; they were blown away by it. So naturally it cuts deep when they see TROS set back a lot of what TLJ established (Rey actually does come from a noteworthy lineage, actually does have to undergo true Jedi training, and even ends up becoming a Skywalker. Finn is back to hanging out with Rey rather than Rose, and Rose herself has a minor role. Poe is prone to being reckless and hot-tempered again. Luke isn’t a grumpy old man anymore. Kylo Ren, after reforging his old mask, is redeemed while a decrepit old wielder of the Dark Side is the Big Bad. Hux doesn’t get much of a role and is killed off midway through. The Force-sensitive children like that “broom boy” don’t factor into anything. The story takes a familiar path rather than subverting audience expectations.) Honest Trailers even joked that the film was the long-awaited sequel to The Force Awakens rather than to The Last Jedi. And I can understand this critique, it’s a valid one to make. 

But I’d also have to argue that not only is J.J Abrams entitled to bring the story back in line with his old ideas from his time making TFA since Disney and Lucasfilm specifically reached out to him to direct TROS (and c’mon, Rian Johnson threw out TFA’s establishment first, if it’s wrong of J.J then it was wrong of Rian too), and that a film that exactly followed TLJ’s establishment like Colin Trevorrow’s unproduced Duel of the Fates would feel too bleak and wrong for the franchise, but that the movie doesn’t ignore TLJ as much as it’s made out. The events of TLJ still happened exactly as we saw them, they are still acknowledged, and they are even built upon in interesting ways. I loved seeing Luke no longer a grumpy old man because that’s what TLJ’s climax set up with him: he learned the error of his ways and re-embraced his status as a Jedi and as a legend. The galaxy coming to the Resistance’s aid in the final battle is the perfect pay-off to them not doing so in the Battle of Crait and shows how Luke’s last stand really did inspire hope once more. I loved the three-way power struggle in the First Order between Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Hux and (representing Palpatine’s interests) Pryde. I thought Palpatine being behind Snoke made perfect sense. I’m glad Rose was still present at all. I though Kylo Ren’s redemption was handled very well. And I loved Rey becoming a Skywalker in the end, that just felt like such a right conclusion to me.

2. There’s an easy explanation as to why it’s chock-full with stuff - Kathleen Kennedy didn’t require Rian Johnson to adapt any of it in TLJ even though much of it was conceived by J.J Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan when making TFA. J.J literally needed to fit two movies’ worth of content into this one movie because TLJ spent too much time wheel-spinning and navel-gazing (and keep in mind that I like TLJ; but I’m not going to pretend like it didn’t screw the pooch on multiple fronts). As for the pace, I definitely agree when it comes to the first act and whoever thought it was a good idea to excise so much of what was filmed for it needs to be slapped upside-down the head. But things start to improve after the big Pasaana canyon race, and once they get off Pasaana altogether the pace settles down into the usual SW film groove. I think critics were so burned by that first half-hour that it colored their impression of the rest of the film, even when looking at it objectively the rest of the film does have a lot more breathing room and calmer, introspective moments between the big action set pieces. 

3. I see this a lot from critics and am all...?????? I’m sorry, did we watch the same movie!? “They win by making you think you’re alone, but there’s more of us”. “Your mother’s gone. But what she stood for, what she fought for.... that’s not gone.”  “We had each other. That’s how we won.” “Your spirit...your heart...some things are stronger than blood”. These themes are every bit as spelled out as the themes from TLJ that critics praised so much...but then, critics thought that one of TLJ’s themes was the villain’s justification of his own atrocities (”Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to”) so maybe them missing all of these themes isn’t so surprising. 

4. First off, the “lacking imagination” criticism will always astound me when The Force Awakens is one of the most critically praised films in the series and it literally ripped off the entire plot structure of A New Hope. None of the “member berries” in this film came close to that level of rehashing. Secondly, Star Wars has been all about nostalgia and pleasing crowds (”fanservice”) since its inception, and recycling various set-ups and tropes and sequences has been a thing for a long time (to quote George Lucas: “It’s like poetry, they rhyme.”) And lastly, this is the finale to the Skywalker Saga, so of fucking course it’ll be full of nostalgia and fanservice and sequences reminiscent of all the previous films! It’s a celebration as well as a send-off! Avengers: Endgame is a critical darling, and it literally traveled back in time to several of the past movies that led up to it! So what’s the problem here? I, for one, thought it was very cleverly and seamlessly done for the most part, and being done in the framework of a dumb, goofy blockbuster (which was all Star Wars was originally meant to be; it was never meant to be taken as seriously as it unfortunately has).

5. The main reasoning behind this criticism is that TROS fully exposes and embodies Disney and Lucasfilm’s lack of planning when it came to the Sequel Trilogy, which is so disheartening that it makes this finale a disappointing one to both the trilogy and the whole saga. First of all, every finale has been considered disappointing in their times: ROTJ was possibly even more loathed by fans and critics (while still enjoyed by general audiences) than TROS, and while ROTS got middling reviews from critics, it was still considered to be flat-out bad just like its predecessors by fans - being the least bad of them wasn’t high praise (even the general audience enjoyment seemed more tepid compared to ROTJ and TROS). On all fronts, the perception of the movies only improved with age, so that will likely be the same case here.

More importantly, anyone who did their homework or even some simple critical thinking not only could have realized that there was no plan for the Sequel Trilogy from the days of TLJ, but from the days of TFA. From the moment that movie rehashed the plot of A New Hope and relied heavily on Mystery Boxes to hook viewers, I knew there was no solid plan for this trilogy and that they were making it up as they went along. When you’re aware of this fact well in advance, I think that you end up being more impressed by TROS for being able to wrap the trilogy and saga up in the tight, definitively close-ended way that it did. I know that I certainly was. Much of this had to do with J.J Abram’s idea to bring back Palpatine. People whine that he was brought in with no foreshadowing at the last minute and that he was nowhere near the Sequel Trilogy beforehand and that him being here makes ROTJ pointless, and yet not only was Palpatine everywhere near the whole saga from the very beginning (which, as J.J has said, would make it bizarre for it to end without him), but ROTJ was already made pointless by TFA by its decision to reverse all the heroes’ victories and bring back the Empire. If Palpatine, the Emperor, the very creator of the Empire, did not find a way to return from his defeat in ROTJ and was thus not behind the Empire’s resurrection, how fucking cheap would that be? Some random other decrepit, all-powerful Dark Side wielder just came along and brought it back to the point of reversing all the heroes’ victories? And then he gets supplanted by Han and Leia’s son, which would make the Sequel Trilogy and whole saga’s Final Boss the guy who humiliatingly got his ass handed to him in both previous films’ climaxes? IMHO, the Sequel Trilogy really would suck if that was what it amounted to! That would be a true “disappointing ending to both a trilogy and a nine-film saga.” When it comes to the film series (the Skywalker Saga), the only valid excuse for not ending the conflict with the Empire in ROTJ is if the Emperor wasn’t truly vanquished in it. Period.

It ain’t J.J’s fault that he was actually looking at the bigger picture while critics were not.

Bonus: another video plug, because this guy is a Star Wars fan that truly deserves it.

#Star Wars #The Rise of Skywalker #Opinion #Analysis #Defense #This has been a PSA

[reylorabbittrail]

Long, Barely Coherent Thoughts about The Rise of Skywalker

Since some of you wanted to hear my thoughts about “The Rise of Skywalker”, I’ve taken some time to write them up and provide context for why I responded the way I did.

A small preamble: I didn’t hate it. Hate is a strong word. And there were moments that I liked. Some that I even loved. However, the aggregate feeling for the movie overall was disappointment. For certain elements, it went beyond that into something genuinely painful and I don’t think that will make sense unless I also go into why I loved the previous two installments of this trilogy.

Also, if you loved this movie, I’m very happy for you. This is about my personal response to a piece of media and I make no judgements on those who enjoyed what you saw. I wish I could join you.

Finally, I will be talking about some sensitive subjects, including child loss and abuse. Please be aware of that before reading further.

Okay, so what was my overall impression of The Rise of Skywalker?

Soulless. Cowardly. Incoherent. Badly paced.

I spent large portions of the movie unable to get into the action because the pacing was so breakneck. There was no time to breathe. Consequently, there was never enough time to recover from one rush before another started. If everything is exciting, nothing is.

I think that this was a deliberate choice to cover up the lack of sense behind the exposition. Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron looks dead inside as he temporarily takes up the mantle of Basil Exposition to explain that somehow or other, Emperor Palpatine has returned and there’s a hard time limit on destroying his fleet.

This is a fine example of a running problem throughout the movie. Whereas both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi used visual storytelling to move the story forward, things in TROS were explained through dialogue time and again. And the dialogue was incredibly clunky.

But back to the story. We are given a paper thin explanation of the Emperor’s return, and immediately are thrown into a fetch quest to find the Big Bad. I’m sure it will make an exciting video game adaptation.

The thing though is that the fetch quest makes no sense. One of the wayfinders is found in the first two minutes of the movie. Yes, it’s in the hands of the bad guys. But does the audience not remember that our heroine is bound to the villain? Why couldn’t she try to use that bond to get at the directions? Why does the Resistance not try to use that bond? Has she hidden from them her connection to Kylo Ren? Either she’s built up a wall of mistrust between her found family and herself by keeping the bond a secret, or she’s revealed all and no one thinks to try to use that bond to their advantage. It’s just conveniently overlooked.

Oh, a sidenote. Wayfinder. Why? There is an in-universe word for such objects already. It’s a holocron. Why not use holocron? We throw Star Wars-isms at the audience all the time. It would be an Easter Egg to the diehards while not bothering the general audience one iota.

Back to our fetch quest. We head to the desert planet of Pasaana. There’s a festival going on. A festival about family. Rey looks longingly at children and infants. A child gives her a fertility necklace. And then suddenly she’s connected by her bondmate through the force.

Now it’s no secret that the Rey and Kylo dynamic is one of the reasons I loved the first two movies in the trilogy. The actors have great chemistry. More importantly, the characters have interesting conflict. And yet that conflict seems off in this movie. TLJ left them complicated enemies. But they feel out of character. I don’t understand what each is trying to get out of their encounters. I have to do massive amounts of work to understand their actions and the dialogue doesn’t help. Because it doesn’t ring true.

Setting such details aside, Kylo rips off the necklace in a moment worthy of the Phantom of the Opera and for once it’s an action that makes sense, having both the subtext of obsessive love and jealousy, and the text of offering a clue for analysis to Rey’s location. Bravo. The writers did something right.

Meanwhile, we get a clunky reintroduction of Lando Calrissian. Has he been stuck on this desert for over 7 years? Longer? We just don’t know and he doesn’t tell us. Our heroes hitch a ride and then we get a fun speeder chase.

Okay, a couple more questions. There’s some good stuff here. The omnipresence of the First Order helps convey how thorough their control is. But why doesn’t Rey hotwire the speeder? It was established two movies ago that she’s a good mechanic. And on Jakku that kind of skill makes sense. Why hand that off to Poe? And why this Trio stuff. It’s fanon. We have just been assuming that Finn’s best friends would form the new Han, Luke, and Leia. Because reasons. None of them textual. It was a failure of TFA to not establish this dynamic if this was an essential element of Star Wars that had to be there from the start.

Which gets to the heart the problem in fandom which is that Star Wars is different  for every fan. What is essential to the series is subjective. For me, Star Wars is light sabers, hyperspace, the Force, epic battles, strange world with one biome only per world. So I’ve never felt like something was missing. But if an essential element was a very particular character dynamic (like a good guy Trio), then I can see why some fans felt let down. As if all the pieces were there but never got put together.

Back to Pasaana. We have a brief descent into the underworld in which Rey has a moment of true Jedi compassion and is rewarded when her compassion for the monster leads to an exit from said underworld. Nice. Mythically coherent. And hey, we also get one of the MacGuffins we’ve been searching for, so, bonus.

 Now we get the arrival of Kylo and his backup band. What was the point of these dudes? I mean, they look cool and I can’t wait to edit videos of them to classic NKOTB. But narratively, why are they there? Why did Kylo reforge the mask? Why all these questions in the third act when we should be in the process of tying up loose ends.

Rey, in a moment reminiscent of bull leaping from Crete, goes out to stall them? I guess? And then ends up in a battle of wills with Kylo that leads to her inadvertent use of Force Lightning.

Okay, another side trip. Are they trying to make out that Dark Side Powers are genetic? Because that’s all I can figure. Really, it’s kind of gross because it suggests that darkness isn’t a human trait that we all carry and must confront, but rather that Rey’s specific problem is a dark legacy. Which, that’s Kylo’s story. He’s the one grappling with the legacy of Vader and how that led his family to fear his darkness rather than aid him in confronting it.

Anyway, we have Rey briefly thinking she’s killed Chewie and that sets our heroes off to our next quest location and another set of problems: Why did we make the Latino man a drug runner and car thief? No, this isn’t just putting an unneeded real world spin on the universe. This is about narrative consistency. Because in a bid to make Poe Dameron an ersatz Han Solo, they broke his actual in-universe back story that had been established in comics and novels. That Poe Dameron was a pilot in the New Republic Navy, the child of war heroes Kes Dameron and Shara Bey. He grew up on Yavin IV. When did he have time to be a smuggler? He’s only a few years older that Ben Solo.

See Lucasfilm has a Story Group that is supposed to help keep narrative consistency between the various media released. And I can’t help shake the feeling that the Story Group was ignored or stonewalled. To please who? The fans? Which fans? Because I would be under the impression that the fans who read the novels and the comics, who dig the trivia aspects of the universe, would be the first to desire the universe to remain coherent.

The Kijimi stuff is fun. Babu Frik is adorable. C3PO is touching. There’s good moments. There really are.

We now go to the infiltration of the Star Destroyer (Does it have a name? Nerds, help me out here. Usually I know this sort of thing.) Again, good moments. I like the implication that Rey’s Force Powers disturb Poe, but it’s never brought up again. One of dozens of Chekhov’s guns left unfired. This is incredibly sloppy in the plotting. Hux is the mole!?! Fun. Yet, again, wasted. And out of character, but I’m sure that’s not going to bother the general audience. Rey gets caught sneaking around in Kylo’s bedroom? Priceless, and some good imagery (smashing the altar to Vader) combined with incredibly clunky dialogue and some more serious questions that never get answered.

The whole time Kylo thought Vader was talking to him it was Palpatine? Why the hell does he still have that mask on a pedestal? He just couldn’t bear to get rid of a collectible? He hadn’t had time to konmari yet? And just what does smashing the pedestal symbolize? Is this the start of Kylo breaking free? We’ll probably never know.

Rey escapes on the Falcon. After getting the worst character reveal in the Saga. I’m sorry. Rey Palapatine is just dumb. I liked that she was a nobody. It allowed her to be the Forces solution to the manipulation and abuse heaped upon the Skywalkers. She was brought into the story and bound to the last scion of House Skywalker as a corrective. She wasn’t overpowered. (No really. She executed a few very basic Jedi skills in the first two movies, none of them exceptional.) And her skill level makes sense the moment you understand that she is bound to Ben Solo. She is literally downloading his training. She can do what he can do. Even her fighting style mirrors his. Fun fact: if you watch the scene in The Last Jedi where she’s practicing sword forms on Ach-to, and compare them to Kylo in his duel with Luke, they’re identical. To a move. Rey is powerful because the Force chooses its vessels. No one was asking who Mace Windu’s parents were. Or Ki-Adi Mundi’s. But Rey is skilled because a very clear in universe device means she has access to Ben Solo’s mind and that included every skill he ever learned.

Alrighty, so now our team is on to the next step in the quest, the ocean moon of Kef Bir, one of the many moons in the Endor system. (No, it’s not the Forest or Sanctuary Moon with the Ewoks.) We meet Jannah, another wasted character. She is pretty and could have been cool. But she exists for us to realize that Finn is probably Force Sensitive and that he broke conditioning not due to innate morality but because he’s not a Muggle.

Which brings me to my gripe with how Finn’s character was treated. He spent the whole movie running around shouting Rey. That’s it. That’s his arc. I don’t mind that he can feel the Force. But I feel like his development was regressed. He had a clear character arc in the first two movies. From a man running away from responsibility to one willing to fight for a friend, to a man willing to commit to cause. This movie should have had him building on that, and perhaps like Moses returning to free the rest of the Stormtroopers who are canonically child soldiers brainwashed into fighting for the bad guys.

Back to the plot. Rey takes off for the Death Star, searches the haunted house and yet again has her moment in the cave, this time confronting a dark vision of herself. Dang that was cool. Would have liked to see more of that. Anyway, she confronts Kylo and he smashes the holocron. Emphasizing for us how pointless this fetch quest has been. Girl could have hopped a ride in his TIE at any point and dealt with the fallout after they dealt with the emperor.

They fight. It wasn’t a bad fight. Just not my favorite. It did emphasize though that Kylo is never ever fighting on the offensive with her. Never in three movies has he ever taken an advantage of an opening for a killing blow, and never was it more obvious than in this fight. Kylo gets distracted, Rey stabs him mortally, and this act seems to wake her up from whatever possessed her in the throne room. She heals him and runs away.

This brings up another thing that bothers me. I know the filmmakers were working with some severe challenges with their footage of Carrie. I don’t think it was badly used for the most part. But I was left baffled at what exactly was going on here.

I was not baffled at Kylo/Ben’s confrontation with Han. This was the high point of the movie for me. It was pitch perfect in tone, and touched on the one an only sin Ben ever committed that wasn’t connected to a war objective, the murder of his father. And it made clear that the prodigal was loved and wanted and it wasn’t too late to come home. The heart of Ben’s problem has been the conviction that he has done too much wrong to come home, and while it is only a memory, it is a true memory of the man who loved Ben enough to walk straight into Hell though he knew it would probably be the death of him. I can forgive this scene for throwing the lightsaber  into the ocean. I realize that most of the audience doesn’t know that you can heal kyber crystals. Yes, the saber was a metaphor for Ben’s damaged and unstable soul, and yes, it would have been poetic (and badass) for him to show up later with a healed lightsaber, stable and blue and looking like something an angel would fight with. But I’ll forgive that for the poetry of what happens on Exegol.

And then we go to my low point. I’ll set my costumer’s beef with Luke Skywalker’s wig aside. It looked cheap and that’s all I’ll say. It was more the deliberate middle finger to TLJ in the lines while ignoring that Luke’s most iconic and Jedi-like moment in the original trilogy was casting aside his lightsaber in an act of compassion. Yes, Rey was burning her ship and throwing away her weapon for the wrong reason.  And it was a deliberate echo of Luke who also was appalled when his fear was twisted by the Dark into an attack on his nephew. She is overcome with the same shame and fear of self. Luke can speak to this in a real way. With better dialogue, it might have worked for me. Alas, it didn’t. Instead we got more exposition to provide us with an extra lightsaber. And more questions about why everyone in this family gave up on Ben Solo.

Here’s the thing. If Leia remains untrained, lots of things make sense: her instinctive but infrequent use of the Force; her fear for her son and sense of inadequacy in dealing with he struggles with darkness, her unresolved issues with her father which lead her to hide her parentage not only from the galaxy but also from her own son. All of this is undone by the training reveal and makes us wonder why everyone was willing to help a descendent of Palpatine but not their own flesh and blood. And in a movie that used dialogue to explain nearly everything, these lacunae stand out more than they would in a film that trusted the audience more. See you could have had Luke say “We messed up. We gave in to fear. And we didn’t want to make the same mistake with you. Rey. I’m the son of Darth Vader. I know more than any man that we are more than our bloodline. And forgetting that with Ben was the worst mistake of my life.” But  he didn’t. Which in a movie which tells as much as or more than it shows seems like a deliberate choice.

Have you noticed that I’m ignoring the space battles? That’s because they’re forgettable. I just didn’t care about them. Especially since the galactic conflict remained essentially unresolved. Back to the Force Plot, the only plot that matters.

Rey confronts Palpatine. Yawn. At this point I just don’t care. For most of the movie, she hasn’t seemed like my Rey. I couldn’t relate and by this point I’ve lost interest so I’m more wondering where did all these people come from. Are there concessions? How much does a hot dog and Coke cost on Exegol? Does this stadium have bathrooms? Nice to see that it’s built like the AT&T one down the street with the sliding roof panels. And then my boy Ben Solo arrives and the film is good again. Without a word of dialogue (besides “ow”) Adam Driver delivers the best performance of the movie, showing that the Han Solo of the trilogy was there the whole time in his son. Was there ever a more Han Solo thing than running into a Dark Side temple in your pajamas, armed only with a blaster? And then Rey passes him Anakin’s saber. OMG. Brilliance. The best part of the movie. For a moment I thought that they would at least wrap it up well. And for a moment they’re side by side and all is right in the world. And then Palpatine throws Ben in a pit.

I hate this. I don’t hate this movie but I hate this moment. For three movies we’ve set up that Rey and Ben (He’s Ben now; don’t’ @ me.) are equals in the Force. They have a Yin/Yang dynamic that made this work. The natural conclusion here should have been that they take out Palpatine together. Because both have a beef with him. This is the man responsible for ruining the lives of four generations of Skywalkers. And while Ben is at the bottom of a pit, Rey stands alone, calling on the Jedi to help her.

The Jedi that are ignoring the Skywalker at the bottom of the pit.

Including Ben’s grandfather that he’s been begging for years to help him.

Including his uncle who promised to always be with him. (We were robbed of Ghost Luke trolling Kylo. Robbed I tell you. Mark Hamill would have nailed that.)

Ben is at the bottom of a pit being ignored while the Jedi transform Rey into their sacrificial lamb for Girl Power points.

So, yeah, I hated how Rey defeated Palpatine. It was wrong. It wasn’t in union with her bondmate. It wasn’t through the power of love and compassion. It was Space Wonder Woman meets Harry Potter. And then she dies. Because the Jedi only ever viewed people as tools in their grand battle with the Sith.

But Ben. Oh, Ben loves Rey for who she is. And he climbs out of the pit without a lick of help from anyone and cradles her lifeless form in the most heartbreaking Pieta, and you can see on his face the moment he make his decision and gives everything of himself to bring her back. It was beautiful, and they share the most pure, the most perfect kiss.

And then he dies.

And that’s where the movie breaks me. Because he didn’t have to die. It doesn’t make sense. Why does Leia hold on until this moment? Why does Maz seem satisfied? Where did Ben go? Why does he go unmourned? Where is his Force ghost? This movie just leaves us with more questions.

And the very end kills me. Rey is on Tatooine. A dead world that holds no importance to her (or Leia, I might add). She buries the Skywalker sabers. A funeral. She sees the ghosts of Luke and Leia bless her as she takes on the Skywalker name. A name that she could have taken in a life-affirming way through marriage, but that appears as scavenged from the dead that she has surrounded herself with as she ends the movie an eternal child, side by side with a stolen droid.

It makes no sense.

But whence my nerd rage? Why do I care? Why have I devoted over 3K words to this?

Because the first two movies in this trilogy made me care about these characters.

When I first saw The Force Awakens, I connected immediately with her loneliness. Loneliness is something I get viscerally. I have always been socially awkward and had difficulty making friends. I rarely felt known or understood and I understood that deep longing to belong. When Rey was being interrogated by Kylo Ren, that was what struck me. He notices her loneliness.

And you realize that Kylo is projecting. That he is seeing in her a kindred spirit. He too is lonely, and trapped by fear into being stuck in a place that he knows in his heart of hearts is a dead world. He too is trapped by relics of the past.

So, you see, Rey and Kylo were both me. I had lived that loneliness. I had experienced profound isolation and the sense that no one truly understood me. I desperately wanted them to find their belonging and heal their wounds. And that’s certainly the story that TLJ picked up on and continued.

But there was more. I became fascinated with the question of how the son of Han and Leia fell, and I could see the possibilities in the pattern of their characters: Leia, the woman driven by duty, trying to build the New Republic to make a better galaxy for her son, and leaving her son vulnerable to predation in the process; Han, a man who had only just stopped running from responsibility, and who’s own lack of father figures left him feeling inadequate as a father. Throw in a villain who can groom and psychically abuse their son and you have the ingredients for a tragedy.

And because I identified with Leia, Ben became, in a way, an additional child. A parent’s greatest fear is that in trying to do the right thing for your child you inadvertently make things worse. Poor Leia. She needed a mother to tell her child mattered more than a bill in the Senate. That the galaxy could wait. But Palpatine killed her mother. Both her mothers, because he was as complicit in the death of Breha Organa as he was in the death of Padme Amidala Naberrie.

So when Ben Solo died, it was like losing a child. And anyone who knows me personally knows that I do not choose that phrasing lightly. And being a mother, there is always a sense of survivor’s guilt. The sense that if you had done the right thing, it wouldn’t have happened. It doesn’t matter if that isn’t the truth. It’s how it feels.

I have met so many people online who identify with Ben Solo because they were abused as children. Who like him processed their trauma in unhealthy ways. It’s not where I come from, but I have the capacity to empathize and hear the message they’re inadvertently being told: that if you do bad things because you’ve been groomed and manipulated and brainwashed, you can’t come back. Even if you turn your life around, it won’t matter. You’ll only find peace in death and you will die unremembered as punishment for your sins. And your family will replace you with someone nicer and easier to live with.

But I can hear you saying: It’s not that deep. It’s fake and in space. It’s just a story.

Well, here’s the problem:

1)    The brain does not distinguish real people from fictional characters. The part of the brain that produces serotonin and dopamine can’t distinguish fact from fiction. This is actually why art has the power to heal. The catharsis experienced in a work of art can help us process trauma because we relate to the characters in the story. But the flip side is that stories can cause genuine trauma. If we related to characters in a story and they are treated unjustly, we feel that injustice and it hurts as badly as if it were real.

2)    Ben Solo was written to be sympathetic. He is the child of beloved characters. His backstory is one filled with pain. He was failed by every family member who should have protected him. He was abused physically and mentally for years. Recently published materials exonerate him from the destruction of the Jedi temple. It was all part of a plot to push him to the Dark. All Ben ever wanted was to be loved for who he was. And that was snatched away from him.

3)    I can’t turn off my brain. I can’t stop asking questions and trying to make sense of things. I can help but see the Chekhov’s guns and the symbols and the messages, however inadvertent.

4)    It is a grand failure of a movie if it only works on a surface level and not when you start digging deeper. Every other Star Wars movie, including The Phantom Menace, rewards the person who can’t turn off their brain. This was the first one that falls apart so completely the second you start asking questions.

I wish I could like this movie. I was prepared to like it if not love it. And while I got Ben’s redemption and the Rey and Kylo romance that I wanted, I feel like I got nothing. Like they don’t matter at all.

I am planning to start new hobbies in the new year. I got some war gaming miniatures painting sets for Christmas and I’m glad I have a new special interest to pour myself into. I have enjoyed sharing my love of Star Wars trivia with my kids but it just hurts too much at the moment to spend time thinking about a franchise that has been so  badly mangled. I’m probably in the bargaining stage of grief at the moment. I wholly buy the theory that there was happy ending filmed and someone blinked in the game of chicken, leaving us the mess that we were handed.

I’m also planning to get back to writing. If even Disney can’t tell a fairy tale properly anymore, it’s time for a new batch of writers to get out there and tell the stories I want to hear. I am sick of grimdark fantasies and cynicism masquerading as sophistication. I may write a fanfic or two to fix the story in my mind, but I think that ultimately I need to be creating original works. I know that there are children eager to believe in happy endings, plenty of women who believe that Byronic heroes can be redeemed, and not a few men who will buy both if the story is well told.

#tros spoilers #negativity #cw:child loss #cw: abuse

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Anons wanted an explanation for the placements I had on my previous tier list, but upon going back and looking it over, I realized that I wanted to move a few characters around, so I ended up getting a new template and remaking it. 

I wrote little bits about each character [yes, each one] below the cut, but be warned, it’s long. 

SS  

“I love you so much that I would sell my soul to make sure you’re happy”

Lee Everett: Lee is a goddamn legend. He deserves to be at the very top. He’s one of the best protagonists I’ve ever played as in a game, his backstory is incredibly interesting, and his relationship with and dedication to protecting  Clementine never felt forced and is one of the highlights of S1. Even now, having replayed S1 a million times, seeing him get bit and slowly become weaker and weaker as he refuses to give up on Clementine still breaks my salt encased heart. Watching him die in the end never fails to put that lump in my throat. I love him.

AJ: I love this kid. I was so worried that they wouldn’t do him justice when the game was announced and I saw the trailer, but I was floored by just how much I grew to love him. He feels like my kid, my responsibility and I want him to grow up strong and smart, but also human. His voice acting is terrific, and I think he’s one of the best child characters we’ve ever been given in video games. His relationship with Clementine rivals Lee and Clem’s relationship and that’s what I wanted. This kid earned his place at the top. 

S4 Clementine: This Clementine is my absolute favorite. While I love all the Clementine’s across the four seasons, I feel like she truly hit her peak in S4. I fucking love her, I’m proud of who she grew up to be, and seeing her journey to this point only solidifies that she’s my favorite. She’s strong and stern, but she has her softer moments with AJ and Louis/Violet, and what else is there really to say? She’s Clementine.  

Louis: ....Do I really need to explain this? I mean, c’mon. If you’ve been following me for a long time- shit, if you’ve only been following me for a few minutes, then y’all know how much I love Louis. I can say with 100% certainty that Louis is my favorite non-playable character across all four games. I’ve made numerous posts, answered over a hundred asks, written thousands of words about him. Everything about him from his character design, his personality, his traumas, his voice acting, his expressions, his relationship with Clementine and AJ and Violet and Marlon and everyone- He’s the best. I love him. 

Rosie: Rosie is the bestest girl in the world. ‘nuff said. 

S

“I fucking love everything about you.”

S1 Clementine: Alright, before y’all come at me with the whole “Why isn’t little baby Clem SS tier you monster??” let me explain: I adore S1 Clementine. She’s still in S tier, after all. However, after playing through these games several times over again, I realize that this really is just the beginning of Clementine’s character and her growth. She’s lovable, she’s cute, and I want to protect her, but she’s not... a compelling character? She doesn’t fully come into herself and develop a stronger personality until S2. Like I said, I still love her and I can’t deny the impact that she had on the characters and us players, but she’s not my favorite Clementine of the bunch. 

S2 Clementine: I fucking love S2 Clementine. I’d actually say that she’s my 2nd favorite Clementine. I give S2 a lot of well-deserved shit, but she is the high point of it all. Something about her character is compelling to me, like how she’s stuck with a bunch of adults who underestimate her yet want her to do everything for them and she just... is so done with it hahaha. But her growth is what it really does it for me. We went from little baby Clementine who whimpered at a small cut on her finger to a Clementine who fucking sews her own arm up, covers herself in walker guts with barely a flinch, can shoot a gun with great accuracy and take down walkers like they ain’t shit, and can survive and make her own decisions. Also, her instant connection with AJ is great. Love it. Love her. 

Javier Garcia: Yo, I love this beautiful man. This man is honestly the best part of ANF, and without him it would’ve been such a shitty game. I found his backstory as an ex-professional baseball player booted from the league for gambling a cool concept. He’s hilarious and charming, too. Honestly, he deserved a better game with better, y’know? The only reason he’s not SS tier is because of the writing and his nonsense with Kate when you don’t want to romance her. It makes it seem like he led her on and then was like “Wait nevermind lol” which is annoying, but other than that, he’s great. Love his relationships with most of the characters, and the ending he got was pretty good. 

James: I don’t talk about him as much as I should because I find James fucking fascinating. If they ever made a DLC or a mini-game for twdg, I want it to be about James and his journey in finding and joining the whisperers, his relationship with Charlie, and how he escaped them. His views on walkers, his survival and killing skills, his past traumas haunting his every moment for fear that he’ll revert back to what he was, his extreme pacifism that ironically turns violent- just what a cool fucking character. And while he has his wild moments [cave scene, anyone? “Oh ouch!” hahahahahaa] he’s still one of my favorites. 

Violet: Oh, Violet. She’s amazing. I love her so damn much. If there’s ever been a character that I see a lot of myself in, it’s her.... which is why I tend to be a little harsh with her sometimes, but I can’t deny that she’s one of the most well-written characters across the whole series. She’s not perfect [both she and Louis do have their tiny inconsistencies that I blame the writing for] but that’s a good thing. And while I don’t ship her and Clementine, I 100% get why a lot of people do. Their relationship is adorable and way more compelling than her previous relationship with Minerva. 

A

“I love you <3″

Carley: My beautiful girlfriend... you were taken away far too soon. Carley’s one of my favorite characters from S1. I wish we could’ve had more time to explore a relationship between her and Lee, but what we did get is enjoyable. She’s a badass, and I will always love the moment she tells Lilly off for being a little bitch, even though it results in her death. Not a day goes by where I’m not salty about that one. 

Molly: Molly’s a goddamn badass. She scales buildings like it’s nothing, she named her weapon Helga, and her backstory with Crawford and her sister is terrific. Also, she’s funny and I love her. That’s that.

Omid: This dude was literally a light in S1. He brought us some humor when we needed it [ “...You broke that dude’s face.” ] and his relationship with Christa was so sweet. Also, him and Lee bonding over being history nerds? Yes, please. It’s bullshit that he was killed off two seconds into S2 but hey... S2 had a lot of bullshit in it so...  Justice for Omid 2k19. 

Luke: *deeeeeeeep inhale* Big Brother Luke did not deserve that bullshit. Literally one of the best characters in S2 and y’all just.... did him dirty like that. And for what? To make room for Kenny and Jane? Bull. Shit. Luke was so damn good, and the only reason he’s not higher is because of what they did to him after ep3. He starts out so kind and supportive and seriously like a big brother character then SUDDENLY he’s stupid and “makes it” with Jane while walkers are trying to eat us and then he gets himself shot and then fucking dies and akjsjdlkjasdkjaslkjasdklerwedascasads- 

S3 Clementine: ...So, here’s where y’all will probably get pissed. S3 Clementine is my least favorite of the bunch. Don’t get me wrong, I still love her and she is still in A tier, but... how do I explain it? She’s in her 13-year-old, emo/angsty phase and it’s hilarious when it shouldn’t be. There are moments where I do become emotional for her, like when David takes AJ away and Javi hugs her, or when Gabe dies and she’s saying goodbye, or when she gets her first period, y’know moments like that! BUT... then we have moments where Javi goes to talk to her and she’s all “HAVING PEOPLE IS GREAT AT FIRST BUT EVENTUALLY EVERYONE DIES” or when she straight up shoots that guy who gave her faulty bullets OR WHEN SHE’S LIKE “IMMA KILL ME A LINGARD” AND.......... it’s too much for me! I can’t take her seriously when she’s this angsty, even when I understand why she is the way she is. Again, to reiterate, I still love her but in ranking all four Clementines, she comes in last for me.... and I can already hear the shit that’s gonna be thrown my way haha

Conrad: The most underappreciated character in S3 and it’s nonsense. Don’t come for me, but this dude is my favorite npc in S3. I love Conrad, and I wish we got more of him. He does have his own little arch if you keep him alive through the end. His grief over Francine is heartbreaking and his downward spiral that leads him to act out and threaten Javi, Clem, and Gabe so that he can get his revenge is wonderful. And btw, he does apologize for pulling the gun on them and makes up for it in the future. And y’know what moves him up into A tier? The moment you let him kill Badger. One of the best kills of the game. I prefer it over beating the shit out of Badger myself. 

Aasim: This boy is my son, and I’m sorry, but he’s really fucking cool. You’ve got this kid who was sent to Ericson for being a pyromaniac [according to Kent, it’s not actually mentioned in game] and grew into this guy who documents everything so that they’ll have a form of history to look back on and help not repeat mistakes. His banter with Louis is funny, and even though he gets fed up with Louis for not taking anything seriously, he still cares deeply about him given how he reacts when Louis loses his tongue. His crush on Ruby is adorable, too. I just love him, he’s great. 

Marlon: Now, originally I put Marlon in a lower tier [the “I like your role in the story” type of tier] but upon reflection I actually find Marlon to be a compelling character. He’s high on the list because of how well he’s portrayed. Marlon has some of the best voice acting across all the games. There isn’t a single moment where I don’t believe what he’s saying, which says something. There are moments where Clementine will say something and I go, “Really? That’s the take they went with? Okay...” but not with Marlon. For only being in ep1, he played his part really fucking well. I won’t defend any of the shit he pulled because it’s awful, but I understand everything he did. He is a coward, a sheep hiding in a wolf’s coat, pretending that he’s got everything under control and putting all the pressure of a leader onto himself and it eventually breaks him. I know they killed him off to further the plot and show how ruthless AJ can be as a child growing up in the world, but I wish he survived past ep1 so that we could really get into the meat of his character. I’ll say it: I love him as fake-friend-to-full-on-antagonistic-character and his role within the story. 

Mitch: I fucking love Mitch and the only reason he isn’t in SS tier is because of how goddamn dirty the writers did him. You give me this boy- this butterknife wielding, foul-mouthed, angry, hilarious, bomb-making boy and make me fall in love with him and THEN YOU KILL HIM OFF IN THE STUPIDEST WAY POSSIBLE. “Oh, lemme just run at the crazy lady with a knife and- OOF! It appears I’ve been throat stabbed bleh-”  I’ve complained about this since ep2, but lemme say it again: Mitch had so much potential to be an amazing character but never got the chance to because we had to add to the death count and make us more afraid of Lilly even though it didn’t do shit because it was a reaction kill rather than one made out of malice. 

Tenn: Tenn is such a tragic character for me. In my personal canon ending, he dies because he was “messing up again” and AJ shot him. This poor kid was so full of hope that the walkers would go away one day, he’s so genuine and never wants to hurt anyone, even if they’re trying to hurt him, and he’s so fucked up from seeing Minerva that he stops thinking and tries to go to her even as she’s being devoured right in front of him. Tenn is like this game’s Sarah, but done right. He deserved better, but he was a well-written character and I love him. His friendship with AJ was so sweet which makes it even more heartbreaking when he dies. Yet another terrific child character. 

B

“I like you and/or your role within the story”

S1 Kenny: This dude is such a chaotic topic. I feel like 90% of the fandom has an incredibly strong opinion on him, and of that 90%, 45% of people absolutely love him and if you say anything negative you’ll get a boat to the head while the other 45% loathe him. Then you’ve got the 10% who don’t have such strong opinions, and that’s where I fall. I like Kenny, and I like S1 Kenny more than his S2 counterpart. He has a great arch throughout the season regardless if you’re his best pal or not. He has some funny lines, some emotional scenes. I’ll never forget the first time I played the scene where Kenny’s crying over Katjaa’s dead body while Duck is laying against the tree on the brink of death. And I definitely will never forget the part where he finds the boy in the attic. Overall, I like him and what he brought to S1. 

Katjaa: She was really sweet and her death broke my heart. I don’t have too much to say about her, but I liked her a lot. She loved her family and met a tragic end. 

Ben: Fucking Ben, man. This poor kid. Another character with wasted potential. I’ve mentioned this plenty of times before, but I wish we could get an alternative ending where Ben was the only one who survived and became Clementine’s new caretaker. There was so much room for growth. He just wanted to help out but kept screwing up and it’s just.... sad. 

Christa: I’ll be honest, the first time I ever played S1, I didn’t like Christa. Something about her rubbed me the wrong way and I didn’t care about her as much as I did Omid. However, the more times I replayed it, the more I grew to love her. She’s strong but sweet, and you can’t deny how much she loves Omid. And while I wish we did get to know what happened to her in S2, I can live with it remaining unknown.  

Chuck: As much as I like our guitar playing hobo friend who deserved so much more, I would probably put him a tier lower if it weren’t for the advice that he gives Lee on the train. Because of him, Lee stopped treating Clementine entirely like a little girl in need of protection and cut her hair, taught her to use a gun, and furthered their communication by building a plan together. Without Chuck and his wise hobo words, Lee might’ve fucked both of them over. Also, Chuck’s pretty badass with that shovel, he got a lot of chuckles out of me, but his death was off screen and disappointing. 

Andy St John: Okay. Okay okay okay. Andy. He is so high here [and so much higher than his mom and brother] because to me, he’s the scariest of the St John’s. Why? Because he’s the most normal-appearing of the three. He acts and talks like any normal guy would. He’s someone that I could see myself running into in real life. He’s so good at hiding how fucked up he is from everyone, unlike his brother who you can just look at and go “hahahahaha no thanks” and his mother who’s character design is just awful. I find him to be the strongest of the three, the smartest and the most dangerous. And the final fight between him and Lee is amazing. I love how you can be so furious with him that you keep punching him even after the prompt goes away and then his face goes all purple and swollen. Easily the greatest antagonist in S1.

Eddie: This dude is the best character to come out of the 400 Days dlc. End of story. 

 Alvin: He gave me a juice box and that automatically puts him here. Real great guy but we didn’t get too into his character. Wish we could’ve, though.  

Rebecca: She grew on me tbh. Didn’t like her in ep1 when she was being all pissy and all, but for the most part, she’s pretty good. 

Mike: I will forever wish the writers went through with the concept of Mike being one of the guys who attacked Christa because then he could’ve had a better character backstory. Regardless, I still like him. He’s pretty funny. 

Nick: Nick? Oh, you mean PURE WASTED POTENTIAL. I mean, they really did give us this super flawed but sympathetic and interesting character and kill him off-screen. They really did that. Honestly, S2 really pisses me off sometimes for the way they treated these characters. It all goes downhill once everyone escapes. Yeah, yeah, blah blah not everyone gets a meaningful death blah blah but y’know what? You can do better than that. I loved Nick and I was so excited to see what they’d do with him in the end but NOPE! Justice 4 Nick 2k19

Pete: What a good dude. He stuck by Clementine’s side even when everyone thought she was bit. Love him. Wish we saw more of him. 

Sarah: Ha. Ha. PURE WASTED POTENTIAL 2.0. What else needs to be said? This girl had the foundation for a great character but again, NOPE! I really liked Sarah! I wanted to teach her to use a gun to protect herself! The loss of her father fucking broke her and it was hard to watch but I wanted more and just ahaklsdjlaskjdlkakjaskjsaadkljas ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh-

Ava: Yo. Ava’s a fucking gorgeous badass. Really liked her and how she was sweet on Clementine. Also, it’s interesting that she stuck by David’s side like that. 

David: I have a lot of mixed feelings about David. On one hand, the complicated relationship between him and Javier is good, even if it’s a little bullshit at times. On the other hand, David’s an asshole.  But he’s a great antagonistic character. I do love that about him. The shit with him and Kate was a little annoying, but only because they didn’t ever elaborate on anything. On what level was the marriage fucked? Was it straight-up abusive? What happened to David’s first wife? Why did Kate and David get married in the first place? I got questions! But, like Javier, I think David deserved a better game with better writing. 

Jesus: This dude parkour kills walkers. Pretty fucking badass. 

Tripp: I feel like I don’t like Tripp as much as some people. I like him fine, but I know a lot of folks gush about him. I think he’s a good dude, a little pushy with Eleanor, but he’s loyal and strong. 

S2 Lilly: I fucking hate Lilly. I hate her so goddamn much. She pushes every wrong button with her bullshit “Where's our new recruits?? Lee would be so disappointed knowing he taught you all the wrong things! You’re one of my people now, Clementine” AND THE GODDAMN “Yes, Ma’am” SHIT. Nothing irks me more than every time someone from the delta acts like Lilly’s the baddest bitch and call her “Ma’am” I HATE IT AND I HATE HER. SHE KILLED MITCH. SHE KIDNAPPED MY CHILDREN. SHE DARES TO TRY AND HURT LOUIS LIKE HE’S NOTHING. AND I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT HER....... That being said, y’all are probably thinking “wtf if you hate her so much why isn’t she in F tier???” and that’s because no other antagonist in these games has ever gotten this strong of a reaction out of me. Lilly is a damn good antagonist. She’s not perfect, and there are definitely things I would change or add, but she does her job and makes me absolutely livid [yeah yeah I know ha ha ha ha] every time she’s on screen doing her bullshit. I hate her and that counts for something. She’s easily the best “villain” in the entire series. 

Ruby: I love my funny little hot-headed medic. Ruby’s amazing and I love her. 

Willy: This kid really grew on me. I thought he was weird and creepy at the beginning but I adore him now. His brotherly relationship with Mitch should’ve been explored more, and at times his voice acting is kind of jarring, but I still love him. 

C

“You’re fine, I guess...”

Duck: He’s fine. I like Duck. I like the “what if” scenarios we’ve come up with surrounding his character, and his death always puts a lump in my throat, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to say I love him, y’know?

Doug: Again, he’s fine. He has some funny moments when you save him, and he’s got a cool little panda bear on his sweater but... yeah. He’s okay. 

Mark: Oh hai Mark. He’s cool, and the reason he’s not lower is because the iconic moment of finding him in the hidden room with his legs chopped off choking out the words “Don’t... eat... dinner” forever haunts my nightmares. 

Russell: I’m not a big fan of most of the playable 400 Days characters, but I think if I had to pick a favorite, it’s Russell. His backstory of being with the group that believed in the power of 7′s [I think it was 7 I dunno going off of memory here] was cool and his weird thing with Nate was fun and disturbing. He’s a pretty cool character. 

Carlos: I’ve made posts about Carlos before and how I think he had a lot of potential, but looking strictly at his role in the game and I’m left underwhelmed. I did get a lot of shit for where I placed him in my previous tier because he was [and still is] above S2 Kenny but I’m not going to lie and say I like Kenny more than him because... I don’t. I just think Carlos should’ve been given more development.  

Carver: A cool antagonist who was defeated waaaaaay too early in the game. They were doing a fantastic job at making me hate him with his treatment of Clementine, beating the shit out of Kenny, murdering Alvin and pulling all that shit with Rebecca, but killing him off so quickly didn’t make it feel as satisfying. Again, underwhelming. 

Sam: This pup betrayed me and he ain’t no Rosie, but we played frisbee so he gets a C I guess

Gabe: Y’know, Gabe could’ve been so good. But every time I play through ANF, he ends up annoying me more than Ben. What does that tell you? He’s fine, but he could’ve been a lot better. 

Mariana: I’m not so much “meh” on Mari because I think she’s sweet and likable! The problem is I don’t want to put her any higher because really? What did she do? She died horribly because Badger’s a piece of shit. 

Abel: Meh this guy’s garbage. I only put him up a little higher because the scene with him in the basement is really good. 

Brody: Brody is like the Mariana of S4 for me, just a bit better. I do like her. She had some development but her whole purpose was to die by Marlon’s hand and get the plot going. Would’ve loved to learn more about her, but I couldn’t give her anything higher than a C. 

Minerva: Controversial opinion but........ I don’t like Minerva as much as a lot of people do. If I could be brutally honest, if I were ranking these characters solely on how I feel about them without looking at their roles in the games and character development, Minerva would be in E tier at the highest. However, I can’t deny how tragic and complex her character and backstory is. It’s similar to how I feel about Lilly, but different. I think she’s just so fucked up from the delta that she’s become a husk of who she was and it results in her constantly pissing me off with all her shit. Also, the bridge scene alone bumps her up. That shit was crazy in a good yet tragic way. 

Omar: At one point, I forgot Omar existed until he got shot in the leg...... but he’s also God so y’know. I like him but I also had to make up my own little backstory for him so...

D

“Meh”

S1 Lilly: I don’t care about S1 Lilly in the slightest, she’s awful. They made her way more compelling in S4. And she killed my girlfriend which is bullshit on it’s own.

Jolene: If I could rewrite S1, I would’ve thrown out the Stranger and had Jolene be the kidnapper. As Danny said, “What a waste.”

Bonnie: She’s pretty disappointing, tbh. I didn’t like how the game help pushing her onto Clem and overall she’s pretty forgettable. 

Vince: He’s okay, I guess. He killed a dude one time. And shot a guy’s foot off.

Wyatt: “Meh” hahaha Eddie was a cooler character than he was

Jane: I wish Jane had been the Molly of S2 and stayed gone after she left the first time. I like that she taught Clementine some useful survival tactics and that’s what puts her on this tier, but I think we all know how I feel about the whole Jane vs. Kenny thing by now so... 

S2 Kenny: This Kenny actually moved up a tier because I fully took in everything he’s been through thus far and.... “Meh.” I don’t think he’s good for Clementine, I think she and AJ need a group like Wellington. I recognize that he’s a lot of people’s favorite, but like I said above in his S1 counterpart, I’m the 10% that doesn’t have that strong of an opinion on him. I’d much rather discuss other characters over him. 

Sarita: Forgettable, really. Except for when you get the chance to cut her hand off. That fucking scream of hers is anything but forgettable, yeesh. 

Walter: Again, mostly forgettable. His death was sad, and I do think he’s a good example of what happens when you’re too trusting in this world, but overall he doesn’t stand out to me. 

Kate: I probably would’ve liked Kate more if her romance wasn’t so damn forced. She has some funny lines, but she’s also pretty selfish and fickle when it comes to a lot of things. And I will forever be annoyed at her inability to keep her mouth shut about her and Javi’s relationship [or lack of] in front of David. 

E

“I don’t like you but you’re not the absolute worst, I guess...”

Danny St John and Brenda St John: I put these two together because they have the same issue: They’re fucking creepy. Where Andy was normal and deceiving, these two look like they want to cut my legs off and eat them. I think they’re much weaker in character than Andy was, even with Danny’s weird sexual fixation of his gun and Brenda talking about her husband. 

Vernon: He’s not the absolute worst because I do feel a little sympathy for him losing his daughter, but everything else just makes me not like him. 

Shel and Becca: Easily my two least favorite characters in 400 Days. I had no real interest in either of them. 

Arvo: This guy. I didn’t put him in as the absolute worst because of all the unnecessary shit Kenny put him through. No wonder he wanted to get the hell outta there. 

Clint: I literally couldn’t give a single shit about this dude or what happens to him. 

Eleanor: I don’t like Eleanor. I found her annoying. Her one good quality is her want to help people, but that want didn’t do much to help Tripp now did it, Eleanor.

F

“The absolute worst”

Larry: Did you expect anything else? Fuck this guy. 

Stranger: Worst final antagonist ever. You’re telling me I have to fight this Mister Roger’s tootsie pop? I’ll bet you $1 I can do it with one hand. Fuck this guy. 

Troy: Fuck Troy. All he does is smack Clementine around and then get shot in the dick. 

Joan: This lady is a laughably bad antagonist. The worst fucking “villian” jfc...

---

There ya have it. Do you agree, disagree? Maybe a character I found boring you really liked! Maybe you want to tell me why Kenny is the best/worst again!  We can discuss it. 

I’m always open to talking about these characters!

#twdg #twdg lee #twdg clementine #twdg aj #twdg louis #twdg rosie #twdg javier #twdg violet #twdg tenn #twdg carley #twdg molly #twdg omid #twdg conrad #twdg aasim #twdg mitch #twdg willy #twdg ruby #twdg marlon #twdg brody #twdg omar #twdg lilly #twdg david #twdg gabe #twdg mariana #twdg kenny #twdg katjaa #twdg duck #twdg mark #long post #very long post

[wolfpawn]

I Hate You, I Love You, Chapter 12

Chapter Summary - Danielle reacts to the article by hiding at Paul's, but she has to go home eventually, meaning she has to face Diana.Tom goes through with the fashion show with Taylor, seeing first hand how she can manipulate situations to suit her.

Previous Chapter

Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long.  This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously.

If you wish to be tagged, please let me know.

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog  @jessibelle-nerdy-mum @nonsensicalobsessions @damalseer @hiddlesbitch1

The article made Danielle sick to her stomach, she could not believe what that manipulative little harpy had stated. She could not bring herself to even go home, and had, for three days, stayed at Paul’s apartment. As a result, their relationship had progressed a slight bit faster than she would have elected for otherwise, but it felt better to have someone comfort her and try and show her affection than to be alone. The words repeated over and over in her head throughout the morning as she attempted to sleep, with Paul’s arm around her as she lay staring at the far wall.

“I can hear you thinking you know.” His voice was heavy with sleep.

“I…”

He pulled her in against him. “It’s all lies Danni, you know that, and I know that, nothing else matters.”

“My job…”

“The only ones who realise it is you being talked about know that it’s bullshit, so come here.” He turned her so she was lying with her head on his chest, her fingers sliding over the t-shirt he had put on getting into the bed. “Just get some rest.”

“It’s not that easy.” She whispered, but she gripped him tightly.

“I know sweetheart, I know.” He kissed her forehead and played with a few strands of her hair that had fallen out of the ponytail she had thrown it in.

Desperate to forget everything, she leant up and kissed him, trying to initiate his interest; when he responded, she seized her opportunity and put her hand down to toy with the hem of his boxers, grateful that for a few minutes at least, she would forget her woes.

Paul was called to work a few hours later; leaving Danielle with four hours alone in his home before she had to go to work. She was walking Mac Tíre outside to allow the dog relieve himself, cursing the text she received from the other paramedic she was going to be working with that evening, asking her to return the book she had borrowed on terrorist attack procedure, which unfortunately was at her home. She knew she would have to bring it with her, meaning she had to risk seeing Diana, something she had been avoiding, so after she grabbed her things from Paul’s, she packed Mac Tíre into her car and headed back to her home. She groaned when she saw not only Diana’s car, but Emma’s one also in the neighbouring driveway, she contemplated driving on and telling Graham that she forgot it, but the youngest Hiddleston had been getting something from her car, noticed Danielle and purposely stood in the road outside her mothers’ driveway, forcing Danielle to a halt.

“Are you out to kill yourself?”

“You weren’t going fast enough to kill me, and let’s face it, you are the person to call in such emergencies anyway.” Emma joked, but her face was solemn. “You haven’t been home in days.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Yeah, I know. I saw you and your boyfriend the other day, all kisses and holding hands on the beach.” She smiled, “When are the four of us going out for a meal?”

“What?”

“Oh come on Elle, mum’s met him and she adores him, and you look so cute together, and you have been staying at his place for days, so that tells me you are sleeping together, which with you never having a boyfriend in all the time you were here means it’s serious. I want to meet him.”

“Emma, with…”

“Yeah, I saw.” There was a disgusted look on her face. “Tom rang, apparently he has some sort of ‘explanation’ but mum didn’t even listen, she went off on an absolute rant about it to him, about all your hard work, everything you sacrificed, how you were never anything but nice to him, and he allowed you to be dragged through the dirt like this, seriously, I was getting second-hand fear from her.”

“She didn’t need to do that.”

“Well, she feels like it is some bit her fault,” Emma stated sadly.

“How the fuck is any of what that cow does your mum’s fault?” Danielle snapped.

“She allowed her into the house, it’s her son she is dating.” Emma began to list.

“This isn’t her fault, it never was her fault.” Danielle shook her head.

“Well, only one person can tell her that in a way she’ll listen.” Emma smiled, opening the car door.

“My car is in the middle of the road,” Danielle argued.

“Elle, please, she feels so bad,” Emma begged.

Unable to think of Diana being upset because of her, Danielle nodded slightly, causing Emma to close the car door and for Danielle to reverse into her driveway. Emma had the gate to the back garden open, so Mac Tíre trotted in happily as you got out. “I really should get some clothes sorted.”

Emma grinned widely. “Really?”

“I did not sleep with him.”

“So what, you played monopoly all day?”

“Well, we did stuff, just not everything.” She blushed, causing Emma to snigger. “You are such a child.”

“I am not the one getting all bothered about doing things with her boyfriend.” Emma retorted, linking her arm with Danielle’s. “So, when am I meeting him?”

“I’m not sure I want you to.”

“Spoil sport, I won’t be too embarrassing, I swear; I mean, I would never tell him about the time we got drunk and you started singing Mariah Carey, and of course I would never show him the video I took of it, that I still have.”

“I hate you.” Emma erupted in laughter at those words as they got to Diana’s front door.

“Emma?” Danielle froze when she saw Diana standing in the hallway in front of her. When the older woman saw her, her face became a mixture of delight and shame all at once. “Elle.”

“Hi.”

“I…I’m so sorry.” She had tears in her eyes.

Danielle did not even stop to think; she rushed over and embraced her. “It’s not your fault. I am sorry this is even happening, I should never have pissed her off.”

“Has Tom tried speaking to you?”

“Not since the day of the car accident.”

“I could not bare to even speak with him, he began by saying not to judge after the article came out, can you believe that?”

“I don’t…I can’t talk about it.” Danielle stated.

“Of course, I understand.” Diana nodded solemnly. A moment later, her face became one of interest. “Why do you smell of men’s shower gel?”

“Because someone has been staying with a handsome doctor the passed few days.” Emma sang from behind her, going into the kitchen to put on the kettle.

Diana’s eyes lit up at that information. “Really?”

“Oh God, not you too.”

“Well, as a surrogate for your mother, I have to say, I approve.”

“Of course you do, it was you that thought to try and set us up, to begin with,” Danielle stated.

“So, is he nice…”

“Mum, if you are asking Elle what he is like in bed, I swear to God, I will drop dead here and now of mortification!” Emma shouted from the kitchen. “Besides, I already asked, sort of.”

“I need to get new people to talk to, Brit’s are mental.” Danielle shook her head as she walked passed Diana and into the kitchen.

*

Automated voice - You have fourteen new messages. This message was left on the eighth of September at 4:30 am.

“Elle, its Tom, I…fuck I need you to call me back, as soon as you get in. Please.”

This message was left on the eighth of September at 6:30am.

“Elle, its Tom again, I never even thought, you might not even be working these few nights, but anyway, please, ring me when you get this.”

This message was left on the eighth of September at 9:05 am.

“Elle, I know you are finished work or awake if you didn’t have work last night, please ring me.”

This message was left on the eighth of September at 2:30 pm.

“Please Elle, look I know you are probably pissed about that piece, I am…I am trying to have it dealt with.”

This message was left on the eighth of September at…

The messages went on and on, all fourteen had been from Tom, and after a while, his tone became shorter, until the final one, left that morning. “I am just trying to make this right.” He had snapped on it. But the article came to her mind once more. She thought for a second that he had seen through that bitch, but when she Googled his name, she regretted it immediately, the first result was an article, from that day’s Daily Mail, declaring the pair to be the hottest thing in New York for that evening's fashion show.

Annoyed, Danielle decided to erase all the messages and went to get ready for work.

*

Tom looked at his phone, three missed calls but none from Danielle while he had been out for lunch with Taylor, having gone over everything with her over what they would say to the reporters that evening, making sure it was crystal clear that nothing ever happened between him and Danielle, and that the ‘source’ the magazine had was false.

“Ready?” he turned to see Taylor standing behind him, looking beautiful in a pair of shorts and high boots. He knew now that behind that beauty, there was a coldness that could rival that of a boardroom CEO that would fire every last subordinate, just because he could.

“Yes.” He gave as good a smile as he muster.

“After this, she’ll be cleared so try to make that smile more believable.”

“She never did anything to be cleared of, she is not on trial, she did nothing.” He stated.

“Whatever, she will have her sad pathetic life back, and we will get on with ours.” She smiled.

Tom frowned, the way Taylor was speaking, she seemed to think they were still in a good place in their relationship. “I just need to talk to Luke for a moment.”

“Chop chop.” She ordered.

Tom bared his teeth after she left the room, scrolling to Luke’s name and pressing the call button. “It’s nearly midnight, this better be good Tom.”

“Hey.”

“Hello,” Luke replied curtly, “Now what is it?”

“Luke…just don’t start.”

“Look, we spent years making you the nicest guy in Hollywood, remember that. No having public flings, no acting the fool, no drunken incidences and you are now the laughing stock of the free world, so after everything I sacrificed to make sure you got ahead, I really am not interested. Whatever it is, ask ‘PR Barbie’s’ people to deal with it.”

“I am going to a fashion show with her.”

“Because of course, you love those things,” Luke replied sarcastically.

“It’s all done as soon as the show finishes.”

There was silence on the line for a moment. “Why not before?”

“I have her agreeing to rubbish what was published about Danielle.”

“And she will willingly do that? I don’t buy it, Tom.”

“What else can I do, Danielle…?”

“There is no need to tell me about Ms Hughes, I have spent the passed week of my life trying to stop leeches getting anything on her, including photo’s.”

“I never thought to ask…”

“No, you didn’t; your mum did, though. Not that she had to. I was already on it.” The publicist snapped.

“Luke, I fucked up.”

“Thank you for stating that, I was not aware before now.”

Tom sighed at his friends’ sarcasm. “You were right.”

“Yet another obvious statement of fact.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah well, next time a narcissistic bitch who writes countless songs on his legion of ex’s sniffs around, will you listen to me?”

Tom could not help the smile on his face. “I think I can do that.”

“Good, now what are you doing about this statement?”

*

“Mr Hiddleston, please, Mr Hiddleston, this way please.” Tom turned obediently to face the photographers, their lights blinding him as he did. “Mr Hiddleston, have you anything to say about the claims being made that you forced your ex-girlfriend to get an abortion?”

Even hearing those words made Tom’s jaw clench. “Yes, actually, I do. I have not now, nor have I ever made such a request to any woman much less the woman in question. She has never been anything but a close family friend, and she is one of the most honourable women I have ever had the good fortune to befriend. These claims are wholly untrue and have been terribly hurtful to her, for which I can never apologise to her enough. Whoever put about that story is lying and is doing so to hurt a hard working and good woman.” He stated clearly.

“Taylor,” the same reporter looked to the blonde songstress, “the article stated it was a source close to you that leaked this story, and that you received the email, what have you to say?”

Tom had to force himself to remain calm at the manner in which the reporter had dismissed what he had just said, but he looked to Taylor to see if she would do as she had promised.

Taylor gave a small laugh. “Well, its rubbish of course, I mean, how would this person have even get my email address? My squad and I don’t need to talk about people we don’t know; our lives are interesting enough to occupy us. People just like profiting off my name, it’s something I have had to get used to sadly.” She gave a sad puppy face at that, trying to sway the journalist to see her as as much a victim in the situation as Danielle. Tom had to give her credit, Taylor knew how to play reporters and public image, and that worried him.

#I Hate you I Love You #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fic #chapter 12

[maevefiction]

Your Light in the Mist - Chapter 44

Blind rage washed over me, and my first instinct was to grab Luke’s phone and throw it off the balcony, as if doing so would make everything associated with it disappear as well. I could feel my eyes darting back and forth as my thoughts tried to force their way through the dense red fog, and out of the corner of my left one I caught sight of Tom falling backward into the wall, his knees buckling beneath him, and I realized that this, this singular moment in time…this was one of his greatest fears becoming reality. The anger drained from me, starting at the crown of my head and continuing until it reached the tips of my toes, quickly vanquished, and all of my focus turned to Tom, to reassuring him that everything was going to be fine. We had a plan, we were as ready as anyone could ever be, and we’d face it all, and handle it all, together.

Turning to him, I placed my hands on his shoulders and met his gaze. His pupils were dilated, his breathing much more rapid than normal. I spoke slowly and, I hoped, calmly.

“Babe. Relax. We’ve got this. It’s okay.”

He shook his head, breaking eye contact. “I don’t have this…I don’t think I have this…”  

I moved my hands from his shoulders to either side of his head and forced him to look at me. “You know what? That’s okay. You don’t need to have this. Because I’ve got this. I’ve got it for both of us. I’ve got it, and I’ve got you, and it’s okay. Full steam ahead, remember?”

He bit his lip and inhaled deeply, then exhaled, voice shaky but strong. “Nothing’s going to stop this train. I liked it, and I’m gonna put a ring on it.”

I nodded. “And wow am I regretting what I said on the plane right about now…”

Tom reached out and ran his index finger down the left side of my face, stroking slowly along my cheek, then my jaw. “Perhaps you’re a bit psychic.”

“Did you mean a bit…psychotic? Because that seems more plausible.”

He smiled, which indicated that I was free to take action. I turned back to Luke.

“Okay, assuming you’ve read the full article, what’s her angle here?”

Luke frowned, nodding. “She’s framing it as Tom bought her silence in order to maintain his impeccable reputation and avoid damage to his career but she now regrets ‘covering up for him’ and says ‘it’s time everyone knew what kind of person he truly is’. Her words.”

“Fucking seriously? That’s what she went with?”

“Correct. It first appeared on a Reddit thread she started, entitled ‘The Real Tom Hiddleston’, with links to the videos hosted at a website with an url that corresponds to the thread title. The timeframe when they were made is unspecified, so there has been speculation that infidelity may be involved, especially since she’s chosen to release them the day before the wedding. And…”

Tom interjected, his voice now strong and dripping with venom, fueled by righteous indignation. “Well of COURSE that’s exactly what she’d go with. And that will probably be the next shitstorm to hit the media, right, Luke? That I cheated on Maude? That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?”

Sighing, Luke glanced down at the floor, then back up at Tom. “It’s a possibility we should prepare for, yes. Believe me, I wish it wasn’t.”

Tom stepped forward and hugged him. “I’m sorry, man. You know that wasn’t really meant for you. I’m just…I…very, very sorry.”

Luke patted his back gently. “I know. And I’m sorry. This is…it’s awful.”

I left them embracing and walked to the desk, powering up my laptop as I sat down. They both turned their head in my direction, and I stared back. “What?”

Tom released Luke and walked to my side, resting one hand on my shoulder. “Are you…are you alright?”

Shrugging, I looked up at him. “Hell no.” He bit his lip, and I smirked. “But I’m going to channel everything I’m feeling into doing what I do best. It’s showtime, baby. And I am going to CRUSH. HER.”

Luke joined us, stone-faced as he struggled to keep his anger in check.

“Maude, you shouldn’t have to do this. Not now. You shouldn’t.”

Having to maintain some modicum of professionalism in the midst of something that was so deeply personal was a hazard that came with representing friends and family, and despite us having a plan in place, we had known all along that an incident of this scale simply had to be handled by one of us. Our junior agents, though very skilled, weren’t yet ready for the scope of…well, a scandal. That’s what this had turned out to be, really. An out-and-out scandal. And we also knew that though Luke had an important part to play, I was the one that had to be cast in the leading role.

I shrugged again. “Ideally, no. I shouldn’t. But also ideally, I’ve been down this road before with other clients and know the ropes. You…haven’t and don’t. So it’s just got to be me. Pull up a chair or sit on the desk, fellas. The clock is ticking, and we need to hustle.”

Luke dragged one of the wing-backs over and sat facing me, Tom opted to squat down at my side. I took a deep breath, then began.

“Okay. I considered addressing all our guests first, but I think that ship may have sailed…and we really can’t spare the time to do it properly now. So we’ll save explanations for after if they’re needed.  Luke, I know we planned on distributing press releases immediately, but let’s hold off.”

His left eyebrow rose, then both brows furrowed as he pondered what other avenue we could possibly utilize. “I want to question that, but intuition tells me to zip it and listen up.”

“Wise choice, sir.” He chuckled, as did I. “Here’s what I want you to do…talk to the business reservations manager, tell her we need a conference room or some other indoor space for 9 AM. It shouldn’t be a problem because they didn’t book any other events this week other than ours. Once you have a location, go outside. I’m sure the media coverage has multiplied by a factor of ten this morning…advise each and every outlet that we’ll be holding a closed press conference at 9:10.”

Neither of them commented, though Tom swallowed hard and Luke’s lips were pressed together with such force they’d lost their typical pinkish hue.

“Yes, I’m aware that sounds terrifying. But. BUT. It’s really a golden opportunity. Instead of just written statements, we’ll be able to speak, and there will be video and stills. They’ll have an opportunity to ask questions, so we can dispel rumors immediately. And, I’m going to give them an incentive. If, and only if, they run the story within an hour after the close of the conference and agree to leave us alone for the rest of today and all day tomorrow, they’ll be admitted to a fifteen minute post-ceremony, pre-reception photo opportunity. Just the two of us, in a location to be determined.” I turned to Tom. “If you’re okay with us pimping ourselves out on our wedding day, that is.”

“If you think it will afford us and our guests’ privacy and peace, yes, I am.”

“They’ll be getting two exclusives, and I’ll throw in that we won’t post anything to social media until the weekend, so that should seal the deal.” I frowned. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not something either of us would typically consider doing…”

He stood up, then sat on the desk next to my laptop, taking my hand in his and then kissing it. “Don’t you dare apologize, not for any of this. All the fault is mine, Maude. Thank you for finding us a way through this.”

I squeezed his hand. “You’re welcome.” Shifting in my seat, I rotated to face Luke. “I’ve got all the documents I need, so I’m going to start uploading them. Will you go hit the press? Not, like, hit them hit them. Not yet, anyway. You know what I mean. I’ll go over everything with Tom that he needs to cover in the interim. I think I just want you do corral the media and get their info, do the briefing, then introduce Tom, if that works.”

Luke nodded, rising to his feet quickly. “It does. I’ll go see what we’re dealing with so I can give you an idea of what to expect. Be back as soon as I can.”

As the door closed Tom released my hand, stood up once again, then walked around the desk and eased into the wingback next to me. A small smile appeared across his face, but the shine to his eyes told a different story…Tom’s default reaction to being afraid. Tears. I leaned forward, placing my hands on his knees as I met his gaze.

“All you’re going to have to do is read what I write for you. We’re going to do that right now, together. Your side, the facts. You will NOT be taking any questions. You finish your statement, and then I take over. That’s all. I know it’s awful, but it’s going to be okay. I’ll be right by your side the entire time.”

He bit his lip, eyes turning downward to stare at the pattern on the carpet for a good thirty seconds, breathing slowly in an effort to calm down. Finally, his eyes returned to mine and he nodded. “Okay. Thank you. You’ll be there, I can do this. I can do this.”

I stood, then bent forward to embrace him. He buried his face in my neck, and we remained as such, silently connecting, until I forced myself to let go and get to work. We’d been given a chance to get out ahead of this, and I couldn’t let it slip through my fingers, no matter how much I just wanted to hold him until everything else just faded away.

***************************************

Tom and I stood outside the Chart Room, waiting for everyone to be seated. At least 30 outlets were expected, and Luke had chosen this particular space not just for its square footage…it possessed two entrances, one of them on the main hotel drive, the other from inside the hotel itself, which made it possible to allow the press access to us, but not the hotel or its guests. The door we’d be entering was closed, and would remain so until Luke texted us before he began to speak to the crowd. I was wearing a black cotton tank dress, and Tom had donned black jeans and a long-sleeved white button down. When preparing his statement, I remembered what he’d said back in March in LA when confronting Claudia and sought the recording I’d made to transcribe it. That, along with a few additions, made for a brief but impactful description of what had actually occurred…and, unlike Claudia’s version, we had proof to back it up. My phone dinged, and I looked up at Tom, took a deep breath and opened the door. We walked slowly toward the podium as Luke greeted the media and walked them through what to expect.

“Welcome. Please pause or stop any recording devices you have active at this time.” He waited for thirty seconds, then resumed. “I expect all of you to conduct yourselves in a professional manner and to refrain from interrupting prior to the question and answer portion of the conference. As we discussed earlier, this is a closed press conference, which means you may not broadcast any material live. While I accept that you may choose otherwise, I’d like to encourage you to be respectful to both Mr. Hiddleston and Ms. Gallagher when publishing articles relating to the situation at hand. Mr. Hiddleston will be making a statement, then Ms. Gallager, Prosper’s Social Media Director, will provide you with additional details pertaining to the matter. She will also be answering your questions. You are permitted to record and publish material from only Mr. Hiddleston’s statement, Ms. Gallagher’s formal statement, and the Q & A. There will be an off the record briefing prior to Ms. Gallagher’s formal statement, and she will advise you when you may resume recording.” He turned his head toward us, then stepped back, waving Tom in to take his place.

Tom felt uncomfortable with the idea reading what he planned to say, so he’d spent an hour memorizing it, though I’d insisted he bring my tablet along with the text readily available just in case. He set it down on the podium, adjusted the microphone, cleared this throat, and began.

“Good morning. Thank you for being here on such short notice. I very much appreciate your willingness to listen to my perspective and allow me to address the claims Ms. Heidrich has made. I met Ms. Heidrich towards the end of 2014. She was an extra on the set of I Saw the Light, and shortly after the director opted to cast her in a minor role, we began a sexual relationship. During filming, we did frequent sex clubs and engaged in what would certainly be considered non-traditional activities with other consenting adults. Ms. Heidrich and I also hosted other couples with similar interests privately, typically in my hotel room. Once the shoot ended, I travelled back to California with her, where we continued our sexual relationship until I discovered that she had been recording video and audio of our encounters with neither my knowledge nor permission. At that time, I made it abundantly clear that her having done so eroded all trust between us and as a result I no longer wished to be involved with her in any capacity. She expressed regret and, for the first time, indicated her perception of our relationship was that we were romantically involved, which differed from my own. I explained that regardless of how either of us felt, my decision to separate stood and I asked her to leave my hotel room. After her departure, I opted to return to London immediately, and before my plane even landed Ms. Heidrich had begun to harass me via phone and text messages. When I did not reply to those messages, they escalated from excuses and apologies to threats. She threatened to provide a detailed account of our interactions to my family and friends, she threatened to publish all of the videos she’d made online, and she threatened to ruin my career and make my life a living hell. It was at that point when I realized I’d found myself in a situation I wasn’t equipped to handle on my own and alerted my PR team, who called in legal representation. In an effort to stop the harassment, as well as to protect my family, my friends, and the various studios and organizations I represent and am associated with from the negative attention and potential loss of income that often results from the public revelation of personal, private matters, my team suggested that I enter into a non-disclosure agreement with Ms. Heidrich, and I willingly consented to doing so. I had neither seen nor heard from her until March of this year, when she attended the after party of the I Saw the Light Los Angeles premiere. Ms. Heidrich, without invitation, joined me on stage during a musical performance, and when the song finished she kissed me on the lips in front of my friends, colleagues and my fiancée. She then handed me a key to her hotel room and invited both me and my fiancée to join her for a tryst. It was, as you’d expect, mortifying, and though it was difficult to maintain any degree of professionalism, we managed to exit the party shortly after Ms. Heidrich did without drawing any undue attention to ourselves. I decided to use the opportunity to confront her face to face, so, with Ms. Gallagher as my witness, I did just that. I reiterated what I’d said to her when we initially parted ways, then told her in no uncertain terms that she was to never approach me in public or private ever again, and that if she did, I’d file a restraining order against her. Her response was to bring up the videos she’d made, first threatening that she’d publish them to embarrass my fiancée, whom she thought was not aware of their existence. When it was revealed that wasn’t the case, she then indicated that she would indeed publish them anyway. After Ms. Gallagher explained the actions that would be taken if any material was published, Ms. Heidrich responded by claiming she’d take action of her own, but when informed evidence existed which would prevent her from being victorious in that particular endeavor, she threw a highball glass at Ms. Gallagher. The object would have without a doubt hit her in the face if I had not pulled her out of the way. We then exited and returned to our own room, and decided to hope for the best…that Ms. Heidrich would finally move on. Today’s development is far from that ‘best’ we were hoping for, though not entirely unexpected. The timing is obviously intended to do the most harm…but rest assured it will not interfere in any way with our upcoming nuptials.”

I sighed, grateful that he’d made it all the way through, with the exception of the closing where he’d turn things over to me. A few seconds passed, and I thought he’d froze, but as he cleared his throat I sighed once more in relief.

“As a public figure, I have the opportunity to speak to a wider audience, and in this moment, I feel compelled to use my voice to draw attention to something that affects so many all around the world. Though I wasn’t aware of it at the time, during the second half of 2014 I was exhibiting symptoms of clinical depression, and I began self-medicating with alcohol to the point where I’d frequently black out. The behavior I exhibited during that time period was not typical, for me or of me. I don’t say that as an excuse, because I take full responsibility for my actions. I say it because I wish I’d been more informed about the symptoms of depression, I wish I hadn’t dismissed my feelings, and, most of all, I wish I had sought the help I needed sooner as opposed to later. There’s a stigma, a shame, still linked to any type of mental illness…one I didn’t even know I held fast to within myself. My own ignorance had a significant impact on my life, and what I wish to say is…if you’re feeling overwhelmed, less-than, grief-stricken, lost, angry, alone, anything that’s so powerful that it hinders you, who you are, who you try to be…tell someone. Make the call. Make an appointment. Get the help you need. There should be no shame in it…if you injured your body, you’d go to A&E. If your mind, your soul is injured…they deserve the same care and healing, do they not? Therapy helped bring me back from a very dark place, and taught me how to solve problems instead of trying to avoid them, or bury them. Without it, I don’t think I’d be here today, standing in front of you, about to stand tomorrow before gods and humanity and declare my undying love for and celebrate my commitment to the most amazing human being I’ve ever been blessed to encounter in this life.” He wiped away a tear from his cheek. “It’s okay to ask for help. It’s something we all need at some point in our lives, and it’s nothing anyone should ever be embarrassed by, or ashamed of. Thank you, again, for being here.”

He left my tablet at the podium as I’d requested, turning toward me, and it took everything I had to not break protocol and embrace him. Instead, I met his gaze and mouthed the words ‘I love you’ as he brushed against me on his way to Luke, and then both of them exited via the side door we’d entered by. We’d agreed he wouldn’t stick around for the rest, not only for his sake, but for mine as well. I needed to be in full on don’t fuck with this bitch mode, which would have likely been impossible if I knew he was there listening, and hurting. I stepped behind the podium, clicked my tablet out of sleep mode, and saw that Tom had used a drawing app to scrawl a note for me.

Your words are your scepter. They will all kneel before you. I love you. – T

I was unable to suppress my grin, so I used it as an ice-breaker.

“Man, I don’t recall sending any of you an invitation. This might be a Guinness world record for the most crashers at a single wedding.” They laughed, and I could feel that switch within me flip. “Before you begin barraging me with ridiculously intrusive questions, we’re going to play let’s make a deal. Ready? Here’s the deal. If, and only if, you run with this story within an hour after I’m done speaking AND you agree to leave us – Tom, me, our guests, the hotel staff, everyone involved – alone for the rest of today and all day tomorrow, you will be admitted to a fifteen minute photo and video session with Tom and me immediately after the ceremony and prior to the reception. The location will be emailed to you upon confirmation that the story was published before the deadline. And trust me, I’m going to check. Repeatedly. Because I want this everywhere. Like, right now. I’ll be sharing our path forward, I have information and supporting documentation and other goodies all of which only be available to YOU for distribution. Granted, there are a lot of you…but wow, what an incentive to be the, you know, first, am I right?”

More laughter, which I silenced by holding up my right hand briefly. “Don’t get too excited, because I’m not saying another word until you agree to the terms. Get this story out there within an hour, leave us in peace for the rest of today and all day tomorrow, and you get exclusive wedding couple coverage. We’re even going to hold off on posting to social media accounts until the weekend. So. If you don’t agree, please exit immediately. Remaining will be considered consent, and allow me to reiterate that I. WILL. BE. WATCHING. YOU. Also, permission is now granted to resume recording.”

I counted to thirty, and everyone remained right where they were, fiddling with their devices. “Mr. Hiddleston provided you with a brief summary of his relationship with Ms. Hedrich, and at this time I’d like to expand upon several points as they relate directly to our intentions in regard to her actions. It’s important to note that Mr. Hiddleston entered into an NDA with Ms. Heidrich on the advice of his PR and legal representation, and that his concern was not for himself, but instead for those around him. His team, though, was absolutely concerned about him…not only his reputation, which they were hired to protect, but for his safety and emotional well-being. Not only had he just discovered that his privacy had been violated by someone he trusted, he was in the midst of enduring a campaign of harassment and threats as a result of ceasing contact with the violator. Over the course of three days, Ms. Heidrich sent numerous text messages and called his cell phone two-hundred and sixteen times, leaving fifty three messages, each more bizarre than the last. She threatened to kill herself, contact his family, and publish the videos she’d filmed without his knowledge or consent on the internet. Mr. Hiddleston has in his possession the phone he’d been using during this time, on which all voicemails and texts remain in their original, unaltered state. I’ve captured screenshots and audio of a few, which you’ll be able to access with a link contained in an email you’ll be sent at the end of this conference.”

That got their attention like nothing else had as yet, and the room began buzzing with indecipherable murmuring, and I could feel myself begin to feed off their energy as I continued.

“You will also be able to access the non-disclosure agreement itself, which is obviously no longer valid as Ms. Heidrich has violated the terms contained within it. Quite spectacularly, if I may add. And, as you’ll soon see in the draft copies I’ve included for your perusal, she refused to sign on the dotted line until the settlement sum reached one million dollars.” Gasps and low whistles replaced the murmurs.

“Which brings me to…what’s next. Unfortunately, Mr. Hiddleston’s legal representation back in 2014 was not aware that what Ms. Heidrich was threatening to do was considered revenge porn, which is against the law in California and Louisiana, the states in which the videos were filmed. Had that not been the case, Mr. Hiddleston would likely not have had to enter into an NDA, nor paid out any sum in order to keep Ms. Heidrich in check, as the threat of jail time is often incredibly persuasive in and of itself. Now that she’s published the material she was contractually obligated to NOT publish, we will take action against her. In fact, this process has already begun. The hosting service she chose to use has taken down the website she created and moved all the content that was uploaded to a secure server. By their count, said content consists of 37 mp4 files. Reddit has agreed to remove the thread she opened after they’ve completed archiving all the posts and replies. Data from both will be retained for later use, as Mr. Hiddleston has opted to pursue criminal charges against Ms. Heidrich under both the revenge porn and invasion of privacy statues, and to file a civil suit as well for breach of contract. Be advised that the terms of the NDA were very clear and that Ms. Heidrich is now required to return the settlement compensation she received. All monies received by Mr. Hiddleston as restitution will be donated to a charity of his choosing. We anticipate having everything in motion by the end of next week.”

I paused, scanning the room, gauging whether or not I should ‘go personal’ again, as I had during my let’s make a deal segment. I knew they wanted me to…they always want that, the realness, evidence of emotional investment and, hopefully, pain. It’s what generates the most clicks. And then I remembered what Tom had written…and personal went right out the fucking window and I dove headfirst in the fray.

“Okay. Questions. Try to be concise so we can fit as many in as possible. One per outlet maximum. And when I say done, we’re done.” Hands rose in a wave. “Daily Mail. You’re at the top of my naughty list today, so let’s get your query out of the way first.”

There was snickering, but the woman stood, undeterred. “How long have you known about the videos? Have you watched them?”

I gave her the Frank Underwood sipping a beverage glare of disgust. “That’s two questions. Next time put an ‘and’ in between them and perhaps your inability to follow the rules won’t be quite as obvious. Tom and I first discussed his relationship with Claudia a few weeks after we met. And no, I haven’t watched them. Have you?”

Her cheeks reddened as she sat down quickly. Ah, another opportunity for a Loki-esque smirk.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then. TMZ, go.”

A man with long dark hair in a well-worn Ramones shirt rose quickly from his chair. “Ms. Heidrich mentioned the premiere and hotel meeting on the Reddit thread, and according to her she and Tom spent the night together…you were all staying at the same property, and he went upstairs to her suite after you fell asleep, then snuck back in before you woke. AKA, he cheated on you and you had no clue. Tom’s version of events is completely different. Which one is the truth?”

“There’s a reason why Tom didn’t go up to her hotel room alone…and it’s precisely because it was a perfect set up. Cameras all over the property, right outside the room to get him coming and going but leaving everything in between up in the air in order to craft a he-said, she-said scenario to which there’d be no concrete resolution. Which is why I recorded audio of the exchange in its entirety on my phone and, during the checkout process back in March, requested that the hotel retain a full 24 hours of surveillance covering both our room entrance as well as Claudia��s. Oh, right. I didn’t answer your question. Sorry. Tom’s version is the truth. Next, Sun.”

“Maria Fontaine, Ms. Gallagher. So you’re saying a recording of the exchange exists…will you be releasing that?” Her dark blonde eyebrows rose above the black rectangular frames of her glasses.

“I hadn’t planned on it, but the file just needs to be uploaded to the location of all the rest of the materials available to you. So, yes.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and held it up. “The original is still right here, safe and sound and timestamped.”

As I slipped it back in, a stringer from the Hollywood Reporter, one I recognized from previous conferences, jumped up and blurted out his question. “Was Ms. Heidrich made aware that you were recording her?”

I snorted. “I’m going to have to subtract a hundred points for not waiting your turn but wow, you’re quick on the uptake today, Cody. No. She was not made aware that she was being recorded. Yes, California is a two party state and I fully understand that I may be subject to criminal and civil penalties as a result of my negligence to do so. E! News, you’re up.”

Rising slowly from her seat and smoothing her black and white chevron printed dress along the way, a woman with black hair to her waist and dark red lipstick titled her head at me as she placed one hand on her hip. “Since you haven’t seen them, how can you be sure that none of the videos were filmed after you met Tom? Maybe he was actually cheating with her, if not that night in LA, then some other time?”

That took my mind in an unpleasant direction, even though I knew there wasn’t a shred of truth to it. “Well, the best way to analyze them is by evaluating his hair style, coloring, and body type. In order to play the role of Hank, Tom lost a significant amount of weight and dyed his hair dark brown. We met in June of 2015, right after he completed filming for the Night Manager, for which he bulked up, adding a great deal of muscle mass and definition. His hair was also shorter, and lighter. The difference should be glaringly apparent.” From the look on red lipstick’s face, I could tell she was super disappointed that her question hadn’t pushed me over the edge and into boo-hoo personal territory, but it did make me reflect on the very first question I’d received. The fact began to sink in that though I hadn’t seen the videos, a vast number of people HAD viewed them, and would continue to do so unto perpetuity now that they were in the wild. Folks everywhere were watching my very soon to be husband having sex. With people who weren’t me. Seeing him in the most intimate situations possible, receiving a torrid glimpse into what likely happened when he and I were behind closed doors. And probably getting off on it. My heart began to pound and I was accosted by a mild wave of nausea, at which point I knew I needed to shut the conference down, and quickly.

“Two more questions. Hollywood Life, your turn.” I was stunned they had a body present…their normal modus operandi was to make shit up. Said body was female, and, if I had to guess, an intern. Her gum cracked as she spoke.

“Aren’t you concerned about being with someone who’s had so many sex partners? Has Tom been treated for any STIs?”

Resisting the urge to flip her off was tantamount to not scratching a bug bite. “Ah, there are the ridiculously intrusive questions I was waiting for. Also, are you serious right now? Neither of those are anyone’s business. Take that judgmental bullshit down the road.  And if I see you’ve printed anything at all about either, now or somewhere down the line, you’ll be hearing from me. You may think that’s preferable to hearing from my attorney, but trust me…it isn’t.” Her eyes were huge, and she sat down in slow motion.

“Last question. Radar Online.”

Their reporter hadn’t even bothered to take of his sunglasses. “Will the wedding be postponed?”

I leaned forward, jaw having dropped open at his idiocy…but, thankfully, I realized only Tom had addressed that particular issue on the record and this dude wanted something from my lips he could actually use. “The wedding will proceed as planned, and we’re going to relax and enjoy ourselves with our friends and family. Like people who fall in love and get married do every day all over the globe. But with more Marvel character actors. Probably. Thanks for coming, everyone. Emails should be sent out within the next fifteen minutes for you.”

There were shouts, which I ignored as I grabbed my tablet and headed for the side door. Blocking my path was a man about my age, maybe a little older, perhaps mid-40’s, wearing a black t-shirt, chili-pepper print Bermuda shorts and black plastic flip-flops. His hair was light brown, up in a bun, and he sported a goatee flecked with grey. My stomach was roiling, and I was just about to shove him when I thought better of it, using my words instead.

“Can I help you with something?”

He smiled sheepishly. “Listen, I know you just want to jet and I’m really sorry to bother you, but I freelance for a lot of outlets, some of which are actually, you know, reputable. The New York Times has been asking me to do a story on something tech within the entertainment industry, and I was wondering if you’d agree to sitting down for an interview about your app. I saw it on someone’s phone last week, and downloaded it myself, and it’s incredible. Like, life changing incredible. Your marketing has been targeted mainly at studios and actors and PR, but it should be wider. Way wider. I’m Chad Morrison. Here’s my card, call me if you’re interested when things settle down. Best wishes to you and Tom.”

I accepted the shiny paper rectangle, trying my best to not puke on his feet. “Wow, thank you. I will. Thanks again.”

He stepped aside and I hurried out into the hall, passed by Tom and Luke, and darted to the restroom just down the corridor. I could hear Tom calling my name, but I was too preoccupied with barfing into the sink to answer. The door creaked open as I was on heave number five, nothing coming up by then other than what I was sure would be my innards. I saw his reflection in the mirror, and he gathered my hair into one hand, holding it back from my face, then began to rub my back gently with the other. I heaved twice more, and…that was that. Tom passed me a stack of paper towels, and I washed my hands and face, then turned around, my eyes meeting his, which were full of concern. I smiled meekly.

“Sorry about that.”

He frowned, taking my hands in his. “Are you alright? What happened in there? We listened, and…”

“Dude, you weren’t supposed to listen. It went fine, I just…it kinda slammed me, the idea that the masses are watching you fucking someone who isn’t me. But I think I’m over it already. Water under the bridge. Digestive fluids down the drain. And I probably should have had breakfast. Coffee is not breakfast.”

He pulled me into an embrace, stroking my hair as he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

I leaned back to look at him again. “It’s okay. Sometimes when I get overwhelmed I throw up. Like a two year old after a crying fit. Or something. I feel fine now, though. Actually, I’m hungry. Which is weird because christ, that was gross. Let me make sure the sink is clean before we leave.”

He kissed my temple, released me, then checked the sink himself. “It’s fine. Are you sure you’re okay?”

I nodded. “Yep. My brain decided that the solution to my problem was to realize that while there may be lots of people seeing you do the deed, I’m the one who gets to actually DO the deed with you, from this day forward forever and ever amen, so I win.”

“Your logic never fails to amaze me.” Reaching out, he took my chin in his hand. “I’m still very, very sorry. Thank you for standing there and handling it all.”

“Well, I’m a little disappointed that they didn’t kneel before me.”

He laughed, leaning in to kiss the tip of my nose. “Only because they were sitting, my love.” He released my chin and took my hand in its place.

“True. It’s like too lazy to get off the floor kneeling. Totally acceptable. Also, what you said, your improvisation…that was…it was beautiful, and very, very brave, and I’m so proud of you, Tom. And also ridiculously, totally, completely in love with you.”

A big, beautiful smile spread across his face. “Same, Maude. Same. And thank you. It’s been in the back of my mind for quite some time, but it never seemed right until that moment. If it helps even just one person, it’s worth it. Plus, if the world’s going to know I’m not perfect, they should know just how imperfect I truly am.”

“Thomas, I’m going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there. You are TOTALLY perfect.”

He laughed, a full on three gear ehehehehe. “Come on, then. Let’s get you fed.” He held the door for me, and we walked back to join Luke, and Simon, who’d arrived in our absence.

“Lets. I have one file to upload, then the first email can go out. By the time we’re done eating, the story should be spreading like wildfire. And after I send the invitations, this is going to be Luke’s problem until after the weekend unless it’s absolutely necessary for us to get involved. Right, Luke?”

Luke glanced at Tom, silently inquiring as to whether or not I was okay. Tom nodded, and Luke sighed with relief.

“Sure thing, Maude.”

Simon pointed at me. “Whatever Bridezilla wants, Bridezilla gets.”

I pointed back. “And don’t you fucking forget it, mister.”

#your light in the mist #chapter 44

[blackrosesfanfic]

Chapter 184

Devin

Greg shakes his head at me. "I'm thinking my nigga sold out. Went and married a white gurl after cleaning up his life."

"What, bruh?" I say chuckling.

"You here cause you got my text and you ready to make real money?" Luke says nodding.

I shake my head. "Last thing I need in money, bruh."

"So it is a white girl?" Greg asks.

"What is wrong with you and white girls? Me and MiMi..."

Luke chokes on his Hennessy a bit. "Shit. MiMi? What the fuck MiMi still doing around? You got money with MiMi ass in the picture?"

"Naw you got it wrong." Greg says. "He wouldn't have shit if MiMi wasn't around. She will rape his ass for all the money he has. Nigga ain't bouts to be happy with no white girl."

I laugh. "Y'all not shit. You know."

Luke chuckles leaning over the table. "What you got in your hand?"

"Something cute." Greg says taking it. "Wedding invitations?"

"The fuck? You marrying little hotty?"

"We married already. Just having a wedding now."

Luke snaps his finger. "Don't open mine motherfucker. Baby ma's wants to open that. When you get married?"

"The first time? Man, it been a minute now. A year?"

"About damn time. I thought you wanted to be an old dog like me." Greg says. He tosses the invite to the side. "We send something back?"

"Bitch, that's your ticket on the jet. You better get that shit and keep it close." I say cutting my eyes at him.

He picks it up off the floor. "Shit."

"A jet? We flying private?" Luke says lighting a blunt.

"I mean unless you wanna provide your own way to the wedding. It's up to you. You still need that invite to attend the wedding."

Greg sighs. "Why you give it to me so early? Here you keep it. Give it to me later."

I take it back from him then stand up. "Some shit never change."

"Where you going?" Luke says sitting up.

"Im supposed to be home resting with the little sick man and his sister."

"Who?" Greg asks.

I laugh. "My kids man."

"Two?"

"When you get a girl? Thats how MiMi fine ass trapped him." Greg laughs.

I chuckle. "We had a baby girl a few months ago."

"What's your answer on this job?" Luke asks.

"Hell naw. I don't need the trouble or the money."

"Damn, I feel disrespected." Luke says. "You turning down food on your table without fucking asking the details. What the fuck you got going on that's putting my little shit to bed? You got enough shit going on in your life? I need to know something. Who shit you moving?"

I frown. This turning into shit too fast. Shit I don't need. Shit I would have never predicted. I was tempted to tell him that I am moving my own shit. That would have made matters worst. Then again at the same time this nigga up here acting like he made me. Either way I don't want his shit in the middle of my shit. I got a few people I deal with for when celebrities ask about drugs. They are his people so ain't shit to say. I glance at Greg to read his expression. His expression read that this was a simple conversation. But as simple as it may seem, it's not simple.

"Bitch you own me?"

"I fed you when you needed to be fed."

I scrunch up my face. "I worked my ass off for what I made. You were only looking out for your fucking self just like me. Don't fucking at like you above me."

"What we doing all this shit for?"

"What I owe you? Name it."

Luke chuckles. "Its like that? You just gonna wipe out whatever amount I specify?"

"I look like a fucking bank?"

"Nigga, smoke a blunt and shut the hell up. You don't owe me shit."

"Including a fucking explanation of how the fuck I'm living my life. But since you want to know so damn bad... I'm currently living with my wife fucking best friend and her damn family."

Greg laughs. "Oh yeah. The one who married Trey Songz."

"The fuck?" Luke says. "You living with them? They feeding your family?"

"Gotta make it in life." I say shrugging walking towards the door.

Luke turns in his seat. "Bitch, I highly doubt that shit."

"Come to the wedding." I shrug. "You'll see."

"Baby Ma's really gonna be hyped about this shit. I might get head up until the damn wedding."

I know I ain't shit for that but I want this nigga to understsnd thst his way ain't the only way. I ain't gojng down the list of shit that Trey has setup for me. Not to this nigga when he in his feelings about me needing him. No nitch I don't need you. I got richer friends in higher places that not looking over their shoulders for the cops to knock their shit down. I want him to feel like he is disposable. Replaced by someone he only wishes to live like. I win. Even though I made myself seem like a fucking loser.

"Wife." I say answering MiMi's video.

"I need you to get the... Where the fuck you at?"

I didn't think about that. I chuckle. "In my car, bae."

"Don't fuck with me you bitch ass motherfucker."

"Mookie, we talked about your language towards me."

She rolls her eyes. "Fine. Don't lie to me you fucking black ass nigga."

I laugh. "Oh that's cute."

"You in the fucking hood?"

"Bae, I'm..."

She pauses the video or something. "Did your dumbass forget where we live?"

"Bae, stop." I say looking out the window. "How can you tell where I'm at?"

"Devin, don't play with me."

I look at the road. "I went by to give Luke and Greg the shit. I told you about that."

"Those wedding invites better be the only thing you gave them."

"Oh naw. I gave them some dick too."

She twists up her face. She was looking at somebody.

"What the fuck he say?" It was Rollie.

I start laughing. "Naw, man."

Rollie was in the view of the camera. "Fuck naw."

"I was being funny." I laugh. "She was going on like I was cheating."

"Fuck that."

"I mean damn Rollie. Here I am thinking he selling drugs or fucking other bitches. Now I fucking got to worry about him fucking the fucking homies. How I supposed to compete with strong jaws."

I laugh hysterically. "Bae, stop."

"Shut the hell up, man." Rollie laughs.

"Shit, Rollie." MiMi says then starts laughing. "Oh my baby in here now. Let me act like somebody. Hey, Coosa."

"You called her Cooda? Like Cooda cat?"

She flips me off. "Go fuck somebody with your dumbass."

"Damn, what happen to acting like somebody?"

"Rollie took the baby. Bye."

I love the fuck out of my Mookie. I chuckle to myself. She hung up the phone on me.

  Trey

"Brown." I say dapping him up. "Damn, you took long enough."

"Aye, I was outside waiting on you for 40 minutes."

I laugh. "Bitch, you were not."

"Straight fucking up." he says. "I gotta pee."

"Damn, nigga. I'll be outside."

"Imma take 40 minutes to pee." Chris says walking away.

I leave out. He know his ass lying about sitting out here for 40 minutes. Chris not waiting on anybody that long. He is headed out of the building by the time we get to the car.

"Fucking Jackie was with me earlier." I say.

"What happened to him?" Chris says opening a box of food.

I open it up more looking inside. "Nigga, all that fatty food gonna catch up with your ass. I don't know where he went. I'm guessing back to Kevin's where the bitches and liquor at. I been in my feelings for the last hour. I'm sure he got bored. Listening to me bitch about my shit."

"I'll listen to you bitch all day." Chris says mouth full of food. "I had Royalty earlier today. You missed her."

"I saw her. Joyce had her."

Chris nods. "What you bitching about?"

"I'm always bitching when I'm away from home. I have fucking trust issues like a bitch. If Cammie not near me she out fucking somebody."

Chris laughs. "That's a fucking lie. I know you know its a lie. But it coming from somewhere. Why would you think it?"

"She too perfect. Niggas like me... Like you. We don't get perfect."

"Shit. I know. I feel you." he says stuffing his mouth. "This the reason you never post shit about your wife?"

I nod. "I go posting this perfect woman being the perfect wife I need. Expressing my love for her. Telling the whole world how I found the love of my life. Dedicating every love song I hear to her existence. Proving my faithfulness. Then some nigga hits me up telling me how he fucking my wife. How he done sampled a piece of my perfect life."

Chris cuts his eyes at me. "You think about this a lot."

"Every fucking time I'm away from my wife."

"Shit." he says putting his food down. "I'm not a nigga for advise cause my ass even more insecure. Amber makes sure I call it insecure not trust issues."

I laugh. "Fucking Amber."

Chris nods. "She my golden star. My good luck charm... Anyway, Cammie a fucking goddess man. She perfect just like you think. Like she has proven to be loyal when she hates you. If anything call that Southern Belle out on her shit. Your grandma ain't raised you that way. She values her pussy, no offense. She not gonna just give it to some other nigga. I still don't see how your ass got her. You fit her standards in some alternate world. She yours in this life and the next. Niggas already see your girl."

"Wha?"

"Yeah. Niggas was talking about her just today. On some disrespectful shit but none of those bitches could even fix their lips to lie about hitting. They know that lie gonna have to be backed up with some real shit."

"Talking about my wife how?"

He chuckles. "I wasn't in the whole conversation but from what I heard talking about how they worked their asses off to get nothing."

"Worked their asses off?"

"Trey, repeat one more damn thing I say." Chris says taking out his phone. "Cammie always where you think she is. Stop flexing nigga."

I take out my phone and stare at the home screen. "Yeah, I know."

Chris takes my phone. "Let's call her. She either lying in the bed with MiMi or somewhere in the house fussing at Lane. She back from dancing?"

"Yeah."

"Hey... What?" Lane says. "Chris? No."

Chris laughs. "Where your mama?"

"I not say it."

"Lane, Imma knock your head across the room." Chris says shaking the phone.

Lane laughs. "You hit my car with you car?"

Chris laughs. "I don't go around hitting people little boy. You fake as shit."

"You see Caden?"

"Lane get that off of his head! What are you doing?" Cammie snaps. "Give me my phone!"

"Mommy, no be like that." Lane says. "In a minute."

"Boy!"

Lane starts crying. "You be mean like that to me? No."

Cammie looks at the phone. "Christopholucus, why do you have my husband's phone?"

"Why you being mean to my little nigga?"

"His fake ass is not worried about you." Cammie says turning the phone.

Lane was in the middle of the floor with JJ and a toy airplane. You wouldn't think that he was just crying about a phone.

"Tremaine, I hear you breathing. Did your ass get some medicine?"

"Umm?" I say leaning away from the phone.

Cammie sucks her teeth. "Caden talk to your daddy and his friend. I don't got time."

I look at the screen. This woman had put the phone near Caden. He turns his head looking at the phone. He turns back away from it licking his tongue out. Chris hands me the phone. I sit there watching Caden. He turns his head back to the phone. This time he stares at it.

"You happy cause you see your daddy face?" Cammie says. "Tremaine, are you okay?"

"Yeah."

She bites Caden's neck making him laugh. He turns his head towards her. She bites at his face making him laugh some more. I smile at them. Once again I get to witness Cammie and her great parenting skills. She is a great mother. I hope she never goes through what we went through in the past. From Caden to before Lane. I want to make our lives just as perfect as the idea of us.

"Talk to you later, Daddy." Cammie says hanging up.

"Enjoy the moment as best as you can." I say looking at Chris. "That's what I end up telling myself. But it only comes to me at the end of the week when I realize how dumb I've been acting."

Chris smiles. "Man, your shit all good. Work on keeping the same energy when it comes time to leave. Amber and me are shooting to be better than yall."

"You do that." I nod.

"I want to get married this summer. What you think?"

I shake my head. "You better off trying next year. "MiMi and Dee getting married this year."

"And?"

"You can't show up their wedding. You gotta give them at least 3 months to enjoy the high from their own wedding without attending yours."

Chris shrugs. "I guess I like them like that."

"You do."

"When you figure out this whole insecure shit, let me know so I can fix my shit."

"Amber just might be your Cammie if you keep your dick to yourself."

"5 months clean." he says nodding.

I start counting the months backwards. "And yall been together for how long?"

He waves his hand. "Focus on your shit."

"Bitch."

[sneakyasaspider]

Prompt because Irish summer was this weekend and the heat is fabulous: Ben can’t stop starring at the girl who his mom hired to clean her pool. (Suggested title: Nice legs, Daisy Dukes, Makes Ben Solo go really silent)

This prompt is AMAZING @nazemova and I’m so sorry that it took me forever to fill. I hope that this fits the bill!

His mother was out to kill him. That was the only explanation for the work of art that was walking into his parent’s backyard with a brilliant smile on her lips and near nothing on her body. Three days of this torture was going to cause him a literal heart attack. He had agreed to house sit for his parents while they went on some weird trip with Luke. Being in Corelia wasn’t usually horrible, but between the literal heat in the air and the figurative heat that was clutching his nerves when he looked at this pool girl, Ben Solo was thoroughly uncomfortable and ready for his parents to return.

Ben had been taught from a very young age that objectifying women was absolutely not okay under any circumstances. Women weren’t made to be looked at and starting was impolite. Because he was fully aware of these facts and he truly, honestly, believed them, Ben felt like an absolute creep as he sat on the porch and watched the tan skinned angel peel away her tank top. She was just as tan on her smooth abdomen as she was on her arms and the green halter style bikini top was giving her already perky chest a pleasant lift. This was horrible and wrong and every bit of him was feeling guilty for enjoying the sight. I’m a horrible pervert.

She was entirely unaware of him and didn’t cast any looks his way. Her arms stretched up above her head and she loosed a hum before tying her hair up with the scrunchy on her wrist and making her way over to the net. The pool wasn’t really all that dirty. There were a few leaves and twigs but it wasn’t anything that would take her too long to clean. Ben was impossibly grateful for this fact.

If watching her pulled off her tank top had been bad, watching her clean the pool was exponentially worse. Her legs were so long and toned and her cutoff jean shorts were unfairly short when she bent at the waist. He swore he could see the bottom of her plump a--Don’t look! Brown eyes ripped away from her and he swallowed hard. Heat burned under his skin. He must have been at least seven shades of red and he was so pale that if she looked back she would absolutely notice the discoloration.

Jerkily, he got to his feet and wandered inside. The conditioned air made him shiver after such incredible heat. Just in case the cool temperature wasn’t enough to stop his thoughts, Ben put his head in the kitchen sink and turned on the water. He felt his composure slowly return to him as the steady stream soaked his hair and neck. So long as she stayed inside, he wouldn’t have to worry about the scorching nightmare outside.

Ben turned off the faucet and stood upright, letting the water drip from his hair and drench the shoulders of his gray t-shirt. He caught his breath and the last shreds of his decency and then sat down on the couch to play a video game. There was no time to think about pool cleaning angels when he was buried deep in the annoying mechanics of some fps game. He pulled his dampened shirt over his head and threw off in some random direction before picking up a controller and smashing the urge to go back outside.

He was about fifteen minutes into playing with a knock on the window caused him to jump an entire foot into the air. The chirping song of his defeat played to further rub in how pathetic he look. He knew before he even looked that it had to be her. Ben braced himself for impact and then flicked his eyes towards the window.

His heart tried to exit his body via his throat. She caught his gaze with those hazel wonders and then beckoned him with a single slender finger. This was the sort of thing that horny teenage boys dreamed about; a stunning girl in daisy dukes and a bikini top inviting him into the backyard to show her how to clean a filter. Instead of thinking about that kind of outcome, though, Ben was too busy worrying over the fact that she just saw him without a shirt.

Scandalized, he frantically made move to collect the discarded gray fabric. Ben wasn’t self conscious about his body, his face was another story, but his body was above average in way of muscle. The issue here was that she hadn’t asked to see it and he had just imposed the sight on her.

After securing his shirt back over his torso, Ben made his way to the backdoor and popped his head out into the nasty warmth. “What can I do for you?” He asked as evenly as possible.

“If it’s not too much trouble, would it be alright if I stepped in and got a drink?” She flashed him a lovely smile, all teeth and gums. Lord, she has an accent too.

“Oh uh… Yeah, yeah… yeah. Come in!”

She laughed, her head tilting back and the sound of an angelic choir exiting her lips. “You’re blocking the door. You’re kind of broad.”

“R-Right….” Ben wanted to crawl under into a ditch and die. He had never been so embarrassed in his entire life—including the time that he ran out of gas on the freeway at two in the morning and had a cop repeatedly ask him if he was drunk.

He stepped back and she sashayed into the house. She headed straight for the kitchen, Ben trailing close behind her. She was humming a song he didn’t know and he was desperately trying to ignore the sweat rolling down her shoulder blades and the sheer number of freckles on her back.

In the kitchen, they both reached for the cupboard with glasses and bumped hands. A shot of adrenaline rolled through him. “I can get it.”

“If you’d like.” She nodded and stepped aside. He was sure it was wishful thinking that painted her cheeks a soft pink. “So…” She leaned up against the counter. “You must be Ben.”

“Yes.” He answered too quickly. “Do you want ice?”

“Yes please. I’m Rey, by the way. I’ve been working for your parents for about two months, but I’ve worked for Luke for four summers now.”

“It’s so hot in Corelia. I hope they pay you well to be out there for hours.” He handed her the glass and tried his hand at a smile.

“Oh hell, they pay great! I don’t have any complaints. They let me use the pool with my friends too so long as I call and ask ahead.” Rey downed the entire glass, ice and all, in under two minutes. She sighed and then stretched her hands up over her head. “Mmm, that hit the spot. Thank you.”

Ben was frozen like a statue. He knew his face was beat red and his eyes were struggling to find a place to settle. “Yeah… uh… you’re welcome.”

“Hey.” She leaned a little closer after setting her arms down. “Would you like to come keep me company for a little while? I know it’s hot out there, but the work goes by faster with good conversation.”

“Yes.” He blurted out before he could stop himself. This was absolute torture and he was doing it to himself. “I would love to keep you company.”

“Great!” Rey took told of his arm and tugged him back out the door.

Her actual work was done in a matter of minutes, but they chatted at the edge of the pool for nearly an hour. The sun was assaulting them from above and doing its very best to ruin the moment, but between the cool pool water on his feet and the stunning angel at his side, the mood was impossible to destroy. Ben was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, these three days wouldn’t be as stressful as he originally thought.

This assumption was shattered when Rey returned the next day in a black bikini top and denim shorts even shorter than yesterday’s. Great.

#Thank you SO much for this! #I had so much fun #Prompt fill #Reylo fanfic #modern reylo #Tia writes

[aescapisms]

dear lucas (1)

pairing: luke hemmings x ofc 

word count: 1.8k

summary: When Luke receives a letter from a person who broke his heart 2 years ago, he realises that he never really fell out of love from this girl, and will do anything to bring her back.

a/n: my tag list is open! just message me :)

Four Hours Before

        Luke Hemmings wasn’t the one who found the letter. It was Michael Clifford. He didn’t really know why but he woke up three hours earlier than the usual which was at 12 noon. It was a Saturday so hey, whatever right? It was 8 in the morning so he tried to go back to sleep, he was up till 3 am playing some video game he was (currently) addicted to. The sleep never came though, so he decided to head downstairs, when he caught sight of their kitchen he realized that he hadn’t eaten his dinner the other night, he was too busy playing. So he walked to the kitchen wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and his bed hair.

      He found a leftover pizza, so he microwaved it for three minutes, but before it could even make that sound when it finishes, he decided to pull the plug and grab the scorching hot pizza (just like him). He really didn’t know what possessed him to go out but he did, he went for the mail with a pizza on one hand and waved at the passing dog that seemed to have wanted his pizza but he’s not keen on sharing it.

        It was really exciting to receive fan mails. But he was kind of happy that only a few people know their real address, getting fan mails is awesome but being bombarded by it? Not so much.

He got seven, Ashton got nine, Calum got seven and Luke got eight. Only when he was looking through the bills he saw that Luke got nine. Because there was one letter squeezed between those bills with only his name, Lucas, at the back. When he recognized the writing he almost dropped the glass that he was holding. It can’t be true. For a long time he thought she was dead, but apparently he was wrong, because in his hands lies the proof that Chloe Lyle is alive.

Michael didn’t know what to do, he was just staring at the piece of envelope that was meant for Luke, Calum was the second one to wake up, throwing on his boxers, not bothering to fix up his hair. He spotted Michael looking like he’s about to shit himself right then, “Mikey, are you okay?” Michael then looked at him with help written in his face then puckered up his lips to point out to the letter in front of him. “What? You’ve been reading fan mails again? You got a hate mail this time? Man I told you to —-“ Calum stopped what he was about to say when he saw the letter Michael was looking at. “Oh fucking hell.” was the only thing that got out of his mouth when he recognized the handwriting they missed.

After a few minutes of staring and thinking of what to do, they still haven’t reached a reasonable conclusion. They thought of reading the letter but, it was Luke’s so they shouldn’t. They thought about waking Luke up but it would be a big shock to him so they didn’t. So they waited for Luke to wake up which didn’t take that long enough because he heard them bickering all the way to his room (yes they were bickering). So when he went out he was wearing an over-used shirt and some boxers, both Michael and Calum stiffened and had the same look on their faces which could be seen as a sign of someone who’s about to shit in their pants.

“What’s wrong?” Luke asked when he saw their faces (he tried not to laugh) “Oh yeah, when will Ashton come back?” But no one answered him “Guys. You’re freaking me out. What happened?”

Calum took a deep breath and told him the truth, “You have a letter.”

Luke raised one of his eyebrows. “Fan mail?”

Michael shook his head, “No, it’s from Chloe.”

The glass Luke Hemmings was holding shattered, just like his heart did a few years back when Chloe walked out of his life.

Luke had mixed feelings about this, it’s been 2 years so why would Chloe write a letter addressed to him now?

When Luke finally had the courage to open and read the letter, a full thirty minutes passed. He had to read the letter twice because the first time all he saw was  ‘I’m sorry’ ‘I love you’ ‘I want to spare you the truth.’ ‘Loved you too much’ ‘Chloe’, not to mention the tears streaming down his face that made everything so fucking blurry.

“What did she say?” Calum asked when Luke set down the letter.

He wanted to answer but he couldn’t, there’s so many questions that he badly wanted to be answered.

“Luke. What did she say?” Michael was the one who asked him this time.

He wanted to answer, but he can’t.

Calum stood up, he couldn’t bear looking at look in that state, he got the message that he can’t answer their questions so he tried a different one. “Did she tell you where she is right now?”

Luke shook his head. Sensing Luke’s loneliness, Michael wrapped his arm around Luke and told him that he will find her again since he already found her once.

Luke winced when Michael said those words, “She said that…” they were lost, wanting an explanation “That it won’t happen again.”

Calum decided that it was too much for him to handle so he sat down, “Do you want to find her?” he asked.

Luke was torn, there was a war between his mind and heart. His mind kept on yelling ‘No why would you want to look for her? she left you all alone!’ but his heart whispered ‘Yes’.

“Are you still in love with her?”

It was Luke that got lost, his heart sank. Not because of the question but because of the truth, that truth that he kept on denying, that even after 2 years, his heart still yearns for Chloe.

There was only one thing that he can do now, taking a deep breath he went to his room and grabbed his phone and called Chloe’s Mom.

When the call connected, Luke didn’t get to say hello because the other line bombarded him with question.

“Chloe? Is this you? Where are you? Whe— Hello?”

“Uhh…Hello.”

“Oh, so you’re not Chloe?”

“Mrs Lyle, it’s Luke.”

“Luke?” then silence “Oh! Luke, is she there with you? Thank goodness.”

“No, uhh i’m actually calling about Chloe.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I was going to ask you if you’d happen to know where she is, but I guess that you don’t.”

“Oh, yeah. So she isn’t there either? Oh dear.”

“Why What happened?” Luke panicked

“She left a week ago, and—“

“And you don’t know where she is? Have you talked to the cops?”

“No, she does that. One time she left for four days but the problem is she never went away longer than that.”

“Do you have any idea where she is?”

“Haven’t the faintest, I think Amy does though.”

“But…Mrs Lyle, why are you so calm?”

“Oh, I’m not.”

“How about her school though? She’s in college right?”

“She dropped out.”

“What? Why?”

“She doesn’t need the grades.” Luke was about to ask what that meant but Mrs Lyle told him “Her words not mine. She dropped out about a year, no two years ago. She told you that remember?”

“She didn’t..”

“Oh, she told me she’d tell you, before you guys…”

“Well, uh she didn’t.”

“Did she…tell you anything else?’

“No..”

“…that night?”

“None Mrs Lyle, so uh I’m just well I want to ask you something.”

“Yes dear?”

“Uhh well Chloe, she sent me a letter.”

“….”

“She wants me to tell you that she’s fine and I want to ask you if I could have her phone number?”

“…sure.”

When the call ended Mrs Lyle sent him Chloe’s phone number. Luke smiled, though that wasn’t the case for the person on the other line, she was silently crying for she knew that it has begun.

When Luke finally got the courage to call Chloe’s number, he almost passed out when the other line answered.

“Chloe?” he managed to say, though he thinks it sounded like ‘Chroo’

He cleared his throat and tried again, “Chloe?”

“Who’s this?” the other line finally called out, but he didn’t recognize the voice, but he was sure that it wasn’t Chloe because he would know.

“Who are you? Why do you have Chloe’s phone?” Luke asked, but the other one just chuckled.

“Who are you and why do you have her phone number?”

“Amy?” Luke asked recognizing the rude attitude.

“Lucas. Why are you calling my sister? Bashed your head on a wall or something?”

Luke never like Amy, everyone knew it, even Amy knows it that’s why she’s so keen on pissing him off.  “I want to know where she is.”

“She left.” Amy answered in a bitter tone, as if she’s accusing him.

“Where?” after n eerie silence, Amy finally answered, “You received her letter didn’t you?”

“Yes and I—“

“Don’t call her ever again. Stop bothering her Luke.”

“Hey. She was the one who sent a letter not me.”

But as usual Amy didn’t listen to him, “Don’t try to find her Lucas. You broke her once, and you want to break her even more? Stop it Lucas. Leave my sister alone.”

Luke stared at his phone.

He’s clearly not getting any answers from Chloe or Amy so there’s only one person left. Ashton.

Ashton’s car pulled up at exactly 3:17 in the morning. Luke would know because he was waiting for him, it wasn’t that kind of question that would make him sleep so, why not wait for the person who can answer his questions right?

“Luke? Why are you still awake?” Ashton asked when he saw Luke sitting at the couch.

“I was waiting for you.” Ashton smiled and made a comment Luke didn’t bother to pay attention to, “What do you know about Chloe?”

Ashton’s smile faded, “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“No. I can’t sleep, do you understand that? Did you know that she dropped out of school before we bro— she broke up with me?”

Ashton looked irked but he sat down. “Yes. I know all about that Luke. The question is how did you?”

“She sent me a letter this mo—“ Luke never got to ask any questions again because Ashton looked stricken. “She what? Did she say anything? Let me see the letter. What did she tell you?”

“No. Just tell me, what do you know about that night 2 years ago!”

“Luke! Did she say where she was?”

“What? No! Just answer my question okay? Ashton. Why did she break up with me?”

Ashton gave up, and sat back down the couch. He ran his hands through his hair and told Luke the truth that would forever haunt him

“A week before you guys broke up, she tried to kill herself.”

Luke’s knees grew weak.

“She broke up with you because she thought you deserved better. And that she didn’t deserve you.” Ashton took a deep breath and muttered “She broke up with you because she loved you too damn much and she knew that you deserved so much more.”

next part [their first encounter]

#luke #luke hemmings #luke hemming imagines #luke hemmings fanfic #ashton irwin #calum hood #michael clifford #5 seconds of summer #5sos #fanfic

[literallyprentissstwin]

Another Moment - Part 8

A/N: okay this is a shorter one lol but it´s mostly here for the content! parts 9 & 10 will be better and longer :) i´m sorry if this one sucks, i was kind of struggling with writing it :) feedback is appreciated! 

you can find the previous parts on my masterlist right here! 

“Oh come on, really? Again?”, Luke said as he put down his cellphone and sighed. It was like the 70th time now that he tried to get a hold on his daughter, but she just wouldn´t pick up the phone. It already started to get dark outside since it was close to 9pm and she left the BAU somewhere at noon. Luke slightly started to worry. 

“Still no answer?”, Emily asked the agent at which he shook his head. 

“No..that´s so untypical for her. She always at least sends a text to let me know where she headed even when she´s mad. I made her do that promise and until yet, she always kept it.” 

“There might be a simple explanation for it, Luke.”, Spencer tried to reassure his friend. 

“I´ll try my luck!”, JJ said as she dialed the teenager´s number, but also that call went straight to voice mail. 

“Okay, now I´m getting worried too.” JJ admitted. She also had called the girl multiple times before but non of her calls or texts got answered. 

“Maybe we can let Garcia track Sienna´s phone, so we could at least know where she´s at.”, Matt suggested. 

“I´ll go to her!”, Luke said as he headed straight to the tech analysts office. 

“Hey, Garcia. Can you do me a favor?”, he asked. 

“Depends...”, she answered as she turns around to face the agent. 

“I-I need you to track Sienna´s cell phone. We all called her a dozen times, but she doesn´t react to anything and I´m starting to get worried since she´s gone pretty long already.”

“Oh-Oh...of course! Immediatley...okay...”, Penelope replied as she grabbed Luke´s phone to check for Sienna´s number and quickly typed it into her computer, “okay, just a minute...Got her! She´s at the cemetery in McLean, Virgina.”

Of course. Why didn´t he thought about it? She wanted to go somewhere peaceful and what would be a calmer and better place to actually find some peace and calm? She was at her mother´s grave. How could he have been so blind?!

Luke sighed. “Alright, thank you Garcia.”, and with that, he stormed out of the office. On his way back to the bullpen, he called Detective Vertes and asked him to go check if Sienna was still at the graveyard. He still had a bad feeling about it. The Detective reassured him that he would go and check immediatley for the girl and promised to call if there was something wrong. Luke thanked the man and hung up before he entered the bullpen where he was already expected by his co.workers with questioning looks. 

“Garcia was able to track her phone. She´s in McLean.”, Luke told them. 

“What is she doing there?”, Tara wondered. 

“Visiting her Mom.”, Rossi concluded. 

“Yeah...exactly. But I still have a bad feeling about all of this. I already called Detective Vertes and asked him to go check on her and if it´s okay with you, I´d also like to move over.”, Luke said looking at Prentiss, who nodded. 

“Yes, of course! Go!”, she told him at which he gathered his stuf and started to head towards the elevator when he heard someone coming up behind him. 

“Mind if I´ll join you?”, Matt asked as he looked at Luke.

“Let´s go!”, the fromer ranger said, entering the elevator with Matt, both of them hoping that they weren´t too late and that everything would be fine. 

Matt and Luke were only 10 more minutes away from their destination when Detective Vertes called and told them to come join him as soon as possible. Hearing this, it only took them 5 minutes ´till arrival due to Luke deciding to step some more on the gas. As they arrived and exited the car, they were greeted by Detective Vertes. 

“What do you got? Why is CSI here?”, Luke asked, concern lacing in his voice. 

“We´ve found your daughter´s phone on the ground in front of her mother´s grave plus it also seemed like there occured a fight.”, Vertes explained as he took a deep breath before he started to carry on, “Agent Alvet, we´re afraid that Sienna got kidnapped by someone unknown yet. But we´ll do our best to find her and bring her home safe.”

Luke did not quite know what to say or how to react. He felt like the world around him had stopped turning suddenly and all he wanted to do was break down and kill that bastard who took hi little girl. On the other hand, he knew that he needed to be strong so he could find whoever did this and to find Sienna and bring her back to safety. Since giving up was no option to the man, he decided to fight back. So he took a deep breath and composed himself, before he started to talk. 

“Can you show me?”

“Of course!This way.”, Detective Vertes said and showed them the crime scene. 

“It happened right here?”, Matt wanted to know as he pointed towards Megan´s grave. 

“Yes, we think that she was sitting right in front of the grave and was looking on her phone when she got attacked from behind. She didn´t go down without a fight as you can see here. It´s also clear that she fought because we found this a little bit aside from the grave. She must have lost it while trying to free herself.”, Vertes said as he handed Luke an evidence bag. 

Immediatley, there were tears forming inside his eyes as he quickly looked away from the bag. 

“That´s Sienna´s. I gave her this necklace when she turned 12.”, he said as he gave the bag back to the Detective. 

“I´m so sorry, Agent Alvez. I should have seen it coming.”, Vertes replied. 

“It´s not your fault. Let´s just go and find that son of a bitch.”, Alvez said as he put a comforting hand on the man´s shoulder. 

“Would it be okay for you if we would ask our team for help? The more people we are, the faste we can find Sienna.”, Matt asked. 

“Of course! Anything!”, Vertes agreed. 

“Come on. Let´s get started.”, LUke said as all of them headed to the police department. Te agent was determined to find the man no matter what it would take. 

“What do we got?”, Prentiss wanted to know. 

The team plus Detective Vertes were working on finding a trace to Sienna for over 2 hours now, but they haven´t got any clue yet. 

“Well, there are no surveillance cameras in or around the grave yard, so no pictures or evidence from there.”, JJ said. 

“There were no witnesses around either.”, Rossi continued. 

“So we´ve got nothing?”, Emily asked before she sighed. 

“Yeah..seems like it.”, JJ said and rubbed her hands over her tired face. 

“Well, I wouldn´t say we´ve got nothing...”, Penelope chirped in, “I checked Sienna´s phone and I´m feeling so bad right now for doing so. However, the last thing she did before the kidnapping was writing a text to Luke which hasn´t gotten through. Other than that, it´s the normal phone of a teenage girl. Normal pics, selfies, apps, no weird...”, the analyst suddenly stopped. 

“What is it Garcia?”, Luke wanted to know. 

“Sienna received a kind of weird message a few days ago by a man called Scott Williams.”, Garcia explained. 

“Oh, no...”, Luke groaned. 

“Isn´t that...”, Tara started but go tinrerrupted by Luke. 

“He´s the Ex of Megan, yes. He and Sienna haven´t the best relationship. What does the text say?”, Luke wanted to know. 

“It´s only this one sentence: “Never forget my words: I´m only getting started. See you.” And the award for creep of the year goes to this guy.”

“What´s the deal with this guy anyway?”, Rossi questioned. 

“Garcia, can you do a back-up check on this guy? We need to know everything about him.”, Emily said. 

“On it, Boss.”, Penelope confirmed and hung up. 

“Vertes? Can we get the surveillance videos from the camera outside the PD from last week when Sienna was here for interrogation?”, Luke asked. 

“Sure thing, I´ll be right back.”, the Detective agreed and went off. 

“Okay...so what do we think? Did Scott take Sienna? And killed Megan`What would his motive be?”, JJ wanted to know and the team thought about it for a a minute before Luke came up with an idea.

“Maybe he was jealous...”

“Why do you think so?”, Prentiss asked. 

“Well, see...Megan and Sienna were really close. They trusted eachother wholeheartedly. And then, he came into the picture. Because of him, the bond between the two of them got broken. Maybe he was jealous because of their close relationship. Or there happened something else, but we just don´t see it now.”, Luke elaborated. 

“Anyway, we need to hurry up. He was clever enough to make Megan´s death look like an accident. He wanted to get rid of them both. That was his actual goal, and since Sienna got away, he cameback to finish his business.”, Rossi continued. 

“If that´s the case, we really need to find a trace to Sienna as soon as possible. We need to expect anything. Let´s go and hope we´re not too late.”, Prentiss said and with that the team continued working on their tasks. 

They needed to find Sienna before it was too late. 

sorry for any mistakes but i am super tired ahahah :D

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#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds x oc #luke alvez imagine #luke alvez fanfiction #luke alvez x oc #luke alvez x sienna miller #another moment series