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amanda-glassen · 3 years

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spooky/autumn Jerena prompt: Jamie and Serena’s first Halloween together

This isn't exactly Halloween night, but it's their first October together. I know these are supposed to be drabbles so I'm sorry that this turned out to be over 2,000 words.

The best summer of Jamie’s life had come to an end. With Serena having summers off, it gave them an opportunity to spend every moment of their free time together－as long as Serena was home by the time the streetlights went on. Now that Olivia was 11, she was allowed to go for bike rides with her best friend Elliot and have other outside adventures with her friends without parental supervision the entire summer; however, just as Serena had a summer curfew, so did Olivia. Jamie had yet to meet Serena’s daughter, but it warmed her heart to hear Serena talk about her.

She had met Serena in late April and, although they had been seeing each other for five months now, she still found herself in disbelief that Serena was really hers to kiss whenever she wanted. Jamie admired how intelligent and sophisticated she was－mixing designer labels with vintage finds and always looking straight out of a magazine with perfectly applied makeup and not a strand of hair out of place. Serena had traveled to more places before age five than she had in her entire life and Jamie loved hearing stories about the places she had been and even the stories about her day-to-day life as a professor. Jamie was in awe of this woman and, it was during a picnic in the park one summer afternoon, that Jamie realized she was in love with this woman－even if she wasn’t officially her girlfriend yet.

She hadn’t heard much from Serena throughout the past week and Jamie had chocked it up to Serena being busy with work and Olivia’s after school activities now that the summer was over. Olivia was her priority and Jamie was never upset about Serena having to cancel a date because Olivia wasn’t feeling well or she had a last-minute emergency, but with Serena cancelling a second date, Jamie worried she had done something to upset her.

Jamie was ready to apologize even if she wasn’t sure what to apologize for, so she picked up some flowers and made her way over to Serena’s apartment. She was going over unannounced and she wasn’t sure if Serena would be receptive, but she didn’t care. She missed her and, if there was a possibility that she was sick, Jamie wanted to be the one to take care of her.

Jamie knocked on the door, flowers in hand, ready to surprise her, but when Serena opened the door it was Jamie that received the surprise of her life.

She looked wide-eyed at the woman who answered the door in black sweatpants and a Texas Chainsaw Massacre hoodie. Her curly hair was in a messy ponytail, but the icing on the cake were the black framed glasses and retainer she was wearing. “Serena?”

Serena looked at her in absolute terror before motioning for her to come in. She hadn’t said a word regardless of how much Jamie tried to talk to her. Instead she reached for her phone and texted, “Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”

Jamie looked around at the Halloween decor in Serena’s apartment. She had expected her Halloween decorations to look like the ones she saw in magazines－minimalist and classy. Instead she saw fake blood smeared in random places, some demonic-looking statue in the corner, and the crowning jewel: a replica of Leatherface’s chainsaw with the words ‘The Saw is Family’ engraved on it. It may not have had a chain on it but it still scared the hell out of Jamie. Who is this woman?

Serena was gone for a little over a minute, but when she came back, Jamie noticed she was no longer wearing her glasses and retainer. She cuddled up to Jamie on the couch, wrapping an arm around her waist and resting her head on her shoulder. “Thanks for the flowers.” They were now lying next to the chainsaw and Jamie found the contrast between the two funny.

“Oh, now you’re talking to me,” Jamie teased. “I’m curious though. How would ‘thanks for the flowers’ sound with your retainer?”

Serena playfully pinched Jamie’s side. “When you’re dating a woman, you’re supposed to warn her before you come over. You don’t just drop by unannounced, but now that you’ve seen my true form, I’m going to have to kill you.”

Jamie looked around. “Judging by all the blood everywhere, I doubt I’m the first person you’ve killed today. Is that why you didn’t text me back this morning? Too busy hiding the body?”

“Dismembering it in the bathtub,” Serena said nonchalantly. “I guess you can say it’s a regular bloodbath in there.”

Jamie couldn’t help rolling her eyes, especially when she saw how pleased Serena looked with herself. “I’m trying not to humor you because I know it’ll only encourage you, but I can’t get over this.”

“Get over what?”

“How you look right now.” Jamie leaned in to kiss her. “I know you’re usually immaculately dressed but I like this version of you. You’re so relaxed and cute. Where’s Olivia? I hope I’m not ruining some mother/daughter time.”

“She’s at a sleepover with some girls from her volleyball team. I just broke our date because I felt like being alone today.”

“Oh,” Jamie tried to hide her disappointment. “I can go. I was just worried that－”

“No, don’t,” Serena interrupted her. “I haven’t been in the best mindset and I think it’d be better if you were here with me.”

What she was going through, Jamie didn’t know, but those big hazel eyes pleading with her to stay, there was no way Jamie was going to leave her. “Of course, baby. I’ll stay as long as you want me to.”

Jamie didn’t know what they’d spend the rest of their time doing, but she decided to let Serena take the lead. It was early October and, although it wouldn’t last until Halloween, Serena decided it was time for them to carve pumpkins. Jamie used a scooper, but when she looked over at Serena she noticed her scooper was untouched and she was taking out the insides with her bare hands.

“I love the feeling of pumpkin guts,” Serena told her and Jamie had to admit she looked adorable with her hands all slimy and full of seeds and pumpkin insides, so adorable that she became distracted and touched her fingertips to a small knife they used for carving instead of a scooper.

“Ow!” Jamie immediately rushed over to the sink to rinse the blood.

“Let me get you a Band-Aid.”

“No, it’s fine,” Jamie insisted once she realized how she must look right now. She had always tried to be tough around Serena, but she could no longer hide that blood made her squeamish.

Serena rushed over to wrap her arms around her from behind. “You’re squeamish, aren’t you?”

“No,” Jamie scoffed, but she could tell Serena wasn’t buying it. “Yes, a little. Judging by your decor, I take it blood doesn’t bother you.”

“Not really,” Serena led her back to the table. “I’m the mother of a tomboy. Olivia is always coming home with some type of new injury. Plus, I was a really rambunctious kid, myself.”

“You?” Jamie asked in disbelief. “I don’t believe it.”

Serena lifted up one of the legs of her sweatpants just slightly above the knee. “This looks way smaller than it did when I was 10, but I got this from falling off a skateboard.”

“You know how to skate?”

“No,” Serena rolled her pant leg down. “Hence the scar.”

“Okay, I got one for you,” Jamie lifted the hem of her t-shirt a few inches. “My cousins and I were taking turns pushing each other in a shopping cart and we were going so fast that it toppled over and that’s how I got this scar.”

“Impressive,” Serena smiled at her. “I love a woman who walks on the wild side.” She took off her hoodie and pointed out a round scar on her arm that Jamie had seen before but never asked how she had gotten it. “I got this from a roman candle on the fourth of July when I pretended to be the Statue of Liberty.”

“Your parents let you play with fireworks as a kid?”

“Not exactly,” Serena chuckled. “It was three years ago and I was drunk off my ass.”

They continued trying to one-up each other until Jamie noticed a deep horizontal scar on Serena’s left wrist. Serena usually wore a watch or bracelets and, because she didn’t want to get it ruined by the ‘pumpkin guts’ she had taken it off. She had told Jamie stories about skateboarding, pretending to be the Statue of Liberty and the many scars she had gotten from performing her own Jackass stunts with her siblings when they were in middle school, so Jamie knew this deep scar had to have a good story to go along with it. She’s probably saving the best for last. Jamie gently grabbed Serena’s wrist and pointed out the scar. “What’s this one from, babe?”

“Jamie, stop,” Serena mumbled, trying to pull her wrist away.

“Can I take a guess?”

“Stop!” Serena forcefully pulled her wrist away from Jamie’s grasp and rolled her sleeve down. “I knew this wasn’t a good idea. I think you should go home.”

She had never seen Serena upset before and Jamie didn’t know how to react. She was covering her face with her hands, but Jamie could tell she was crying. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Get out!” Serena yelled. “I don’t want to see you anymore!”

But Jamie didn’t leave her. Instead, she walked over to Serena and sat down in the chair next to her. “I’m not going to touch you until you give me permission to and if you really want me to leave I’ll leave.”

Serena reached for her hand and Jamie noticed the pleading look in her eyes. “Please don’t leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

Jamie laid on the couch with Serena on top of her. The woman who was so vibrant just moments ago now looked so fragile and all Jamie wanted to do was hold her for as long as she’d allow.

“Girls aren’t supposed to do it this way.”

“What, baby?” Jamie asked as she caressed her back.

“I heard it on some stupid TV show that girls take pills and boys slit their wrists. I was 13. I didn’t know how to swallow pills yet. The only way I could swallow pills was if my mom put them in ice cream. This seemed like the logical alternative.”

“Babe, you don’t have to answer this,” Jamie gently caressed her. “But, what was the－”

“You’re going to ask what my reason was,” Serena interrupted her. “I’ll tell you that in time. For now, I’ll just say something happened to me repeatedly when I was 13 and I felt like this was the only way to get him to stop. My brother Kyle was the one who found me. He was only 11 and it took years for him to get the image out of his mind. I’ll never forgive myself for the damage I caused him.”

“Baby, no,” Jamie tried to hold back her own tears. “I’m sure he’s just glad you’re okay. I’m sure we all are. Is there anything I can do to make it all better for you?”

Serena lifted her head up so she could kiss Jamie’s tears. “I’m okay now, Jay. I promise. It takes me awhile to open up. Sometimes I live inside my head and need to be alone, but I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I have my family, my career, my Olliegator who is my entire world, and now I have you. I know the pace I’ve set for us is slow, but I want to be your girlfriend someday if you still want me to be.”

“There’s no one I’d rather have as a future girlfriend. We can take as much time as you need. I’ll always be here for you.”

Jamie spent the rest of the night holding her as they watched movies and talked. The woman she had gotten to know over the summer was just an act because she thought she had to be perfect, but that day she met the real Serena and, as she fell asleep in her arms, Jamie knew without a doubt that this was the woman she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

#jerena #alex and liv: the wonder years

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janiedean · 4 years

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a book rec for jb fandom!!!!

SOOO HI EVERYONE it’s jbweek and after a lovely exchange on twitter with author Olivia Dade, I’ve had the chance of reading a preview copy of a book I think most of us will absolutely definitely love, so I’m catching the chance to inform you all that, coming out very soon on october 6th...

Marcus Caster-Rupp has a secret. While the world knows him as Aeneas, the star of the biggest show on TV, Gods of the Gates, he's known to fanfiction readers as Book!AeneasWouldNever, an anonymous and popular poster. Marcus is able to get out his own frustrations with his character through his stories, especially the ones that feature the internet’s favorite couple to ship, Aeneas and Lavinia. But if anyone ever found out about his online persona, he’d be fired. Immediately. April Whittier has secrets of her own. A hardcore Lavinia fan, she’s hidden her fanfiction and cosplay hobby from her “real life” for years—but not anymore. When she decides to post her latest Lavinia creation on Twitter, her photo goes viral. Trolls and supporters alike are commenting on her plus-size take, but when Marcus, one half of her OTP, sees her pic and asks her out on a date to spite her critics, she realizes life is really stranger than fanfiction. Even though their first date is a disaster, Marcus quickly realizes that he wants much more from April than a one-time publicity stunt. And when he discovers she’s actually Unapologetic Lavinia Stan, his closest fandom friend, he has one more huge secret to hide from her. With love and Marcus’s career on the line, can the two of them stop hiding once and for all, or will a match made in fandom end up prematurely cancelled? (goodreads summary)

if you read the summary and thought wait a moment, does this sound familiar then you absolutely thought right and let me tell you, from the very first line it’s a hoot - the story in itself, regardless of the references to jb and fandom and how terribly GOT ended, is an exceedingly delightful romance with two very well-crafted/written main characters, a very good cast of secondary ones/co-protagonists, an entertaining plot and none of the usual copypasted romance book drama even if the right tropes are all there, but on top of that it’s everything you would have wanted to read after S8. really, in between the fandom references, the endless digs at dnd in which they’re rightfully roasted, making fun of how terrible the l/eaks were the way they deserved, the actual in-book fanfics, the delightful winks to previous jb fandom events (guys, the jaime awkward boner week!!!! I felt so nicely thrown back in time) and the general lightheartedness of the entire thing make it a really refreshing and fix-it read especially if you’re still angry at what dnd pulled in S8 - each single instance you might have had with the jb plotline is addressed and ripped to shreds to the reader’s delight while still holding its own as a separate story, so... believe me, you might consider getting this for yourself when it comes out, because it’s absolutely a hoot and it will definitely make your day brighter. ;)

tldr: sp*oiler alert is a delightful romance book that gives jb fandom all the possible fixits for that shit of a show ending and I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish, so if you’re still salty and want to read a well-done romance that doesn’t turn around at the last second and hit you in the face with misery and that’s also full of lovely nods to fandom/our ship.... you should really consider getting it ;)

#jaime x brienne #spoiler alert #jbweek #i don't have fics for today probably i managed two-ish on seven planned so who knows #bUT I REALLY WANTED TO REC THIS ON TUMBLR TOO #so PLEASE GUYS GIVE THIS A TRY IT'S BEAUTIFUL

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hyunsonsae · 3 years

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Jackson Storm Headcanons (part 2)

part 2 of jackson headcanons + quarantine edition

At the start of the whole pandemic, he didn’t believe in the whole "there is a highly contagious disease going around" because he didn’t trust the internet at all

So when the airborne illness really starts making its mark, you can just imagine Jackson’s reaction

Unfortunately, races have been cancelled and practice rounds have been limited until further notice so this leaves Jackson open to anything that might entertain him, anything

While in quarantine, he does his best to distract himself, learning new things about his home he didn’t know before

Cue very dangerous stunts and questionable decisions revolving around his penthouse

His addiction to his phone increased by tenfold, if it already wasn’t high enough

When he read the tweets and posts about wanting to ditch online classes, he takes it upon himself to raid zoom meetings

It ends with a very firm reprimand from Gale when the teachers catch on and he gets his console confiscated for a week

Jackson swears, upon the fourth day into his unjust robbery that had him slowly spiralling into insanity, to never ever mess with anything that might set Gale off

But he isn't sorry for interrupting online classes

Fashion sense out of the window

Sporting Broke College Student™ aesthetic unintentionally because he honestly doesn’t care anymore

I mean, who was he gonna look good for, covid?

A surprise came one day when his phone rings and Jackson picks up to see an unknown caller

He’s skeptical at first, this was his personal number, for close friends and acquaintances, but still answers the call

He stops mid-way, recognizing the voice immediately as his mother

He's slowly getting back in touch with his parents after that call and taking the liberty to call them every day, especially his mom

Reconnecting is...awkward and a little hard, to say the least

No, scratch that, it was a lot hard

Jackson would rather lick a toilet seat than to admit that they had drifted apart so much that he feels like he is talking to strangers

But things are slowly getting back to normal, and Jackson is...okay with the new developments

He is okay with the words like “dad” and “mom” coming out of his mouth occasionally, softly

After this whole situation, he thinks that it is time for his character development

AKA his Redemption Arc™

After the crap he pulled during the Piston Cup, he was adamant on never speaking to Mc-gloriously-treacherous-Queen and Cruz ever again

Believe him, he feels indignation, guilt and regret whenever he thinks back to the Piston Cup

So, he rather not contact them at all and they probably wouldn’t want to do anything with him anyway

Well, that was the gist till the pandemic

Holy God- he was so bored, he was this close to calling McQueen over for dinner or something

The years they had been each others nemesis had made them close, albeit little mean jabs here and there

Can you just imagine him calling Lightning over just so they could play Smash Bros together I-

Jackson also takes the liberty to bring groceries to his elderly neighbours since he takes drive around the city

He is even surprised with himself when he blurts out to an old woman who is equally shocked by a rebellious, almost teenager looking adult asking if she wants a lift to the shop

‘Odd Sense of Accomplishment’ Achievement Unlocked!

Speaking of groceries, the chronicles of Jackson trying to make himself some home food is ridiculous and honestly, a little pitiful (don’t tell him I said that)

When he set his pasta fire for the 3rd time, he decides then and there sitting on his kitchen floor with a burnt pan that he could live off on ramen for the rest of his life.

He did it before and he could definitely do it again

But of course, Gale, in her ever eternal wisdom and as a self-appointed guardian of Jackson’s well-being, takes the initiative to teach him a few stuff about housekeeping

Now he cooks, by some miracle

In an attempt to stir himself away from the impending doom of boredom, he discovers *drum roll please* Tik Tok

It’s an oh no from the start

And Tik Tok decides that his fyp should be filled with thirsttok-

It’s safe to say that he has discovered very interesting things that he shall not speak of and he quickly deleted the app before he is pulled to the rabbit hole

I don’t think he recovered from that experience yet

Okay, moving on before we are eventually yanked into the deep dark abyss of the unformidable force of the-

To quench some of his boredom, and Jackson is very cautious on the things he try cuz the last one was just AAA-

Jackson subscribes to Netflix and finds himself stumbling upon a show called ‘Avatar’ and something airbender

Since Jackson was into anime when he was a child, he decides to give this show a go. You know, it actually might be fun-

He finishes it in two days

...

Where to even begin-

Jackson doesn’t remember the last time he displayed such a range of emotions in such a small amount of time

He went in with a non-existent expectation and ended with tears and snot

He contemplates whether or not he wants to share this revelation with Cruz, I mean, it would simply be a waste to not enjoy this show with others but who would even want to watch it with him-

He ends up watching it with Cruz, later joined by McQueen

The poor child is vibrating with excitement as they finish Avatar

The second wave of tears during the episode of The Tales of Ba Sing Se

He tries so hard to control the tears but it bursts out like a dam when Uncle Iroh started singing on the hill

Cruz and McQueen were both surprised and a little sympathetic when he says for the 9th time he isn't crying as he furiously glares at the screen with sunglasses even if there are evidently tear stains on the said glasses

He just loves Avatar so much

Cruz is very generous to point out the fact that Jackson reminds her of Zuko

Which infamously leads him to be named “Angry Fireman”

Most days are spent with Jackson in his balcony, mellow music in the background as he looks out from his terrace, lying on his floor and contemplating about life while watching the city flourish, as much as the quarantine allows it

He does a lot of soul-searching

And he makes a lot of self-discovery

Things are a little sad and confusing at the beginning but it is getting better

And he will continue to work on himself and vibe alone for a while.

Oh, by the way-

Are we ready for the conversation that Jackson is very much subscribed to he/they pronouns?

#cars #cars fandom #cars headcanon #cars 3 #jackson storm #headcanon #sad boi vibes #but he is definitely making improvements #nON-BINARY JACKSON #you cant convince me otherwise

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archivedjr · 3 years

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JORDAN RILEY FOR RIOT! MAGAZINE, feat. mickey alteri ( @sequelslasher )

JORDAN RILEY BREEZES INTO HALLOWED GROUNDS like something out of a movie — not a hair out of place, and she doesn’t miss a beat as she slides into an empty seat at the table, apologizing for running late when she’s ten minutes early. When this is pointed out, she laughs.

“I try to be fifteen minutes early to everything; anything else is late.”

Orders are placed, pleasantries are exchanged, and once a steaming cup of jasmine tea is in front of her, Riley becomes an open book to RIOT!

YOU STARTED OUT IN THEATRE. WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO TRANSITION TO FILM?

It was something I thought long and hard about. I always knew I’d make that leap eventually, but I didn’t know when, and I had lots of conversations with my agent about it. It came down to waiting for the right project to come along, and I was lucky enough for it to happen so early.

HOW DID YOU KNOW THE DEEP CUT WAS THE RIGHT PROJECT?

My agent gave me the script to read over and on the train ride home I cracked it open; I couldn’t put it down. I had plans with friends that night that I canceled so I could finish it. I was making notes in the margins, just immediately highlighting, annotating. It hit me at one moment that I was putting the cart before the horse and I knew I had to play Sloane. I at least had to try, or I’d regret it.

WHAT WAS YOUR AUDITION LIKE? HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO STAGE AUDITIONS?

Well, I didn’t have to prepare a song or dance. It didn’t stop Mickey from asking me to sing a few bars when he saw all the stage credits on my resume. [ She laughs. ] It wasn’t too different, honestly. They had me read my sides, and gave me room to improv a little, which was great for me because I have some improv training and I think my acting is the most fresh when I’m thinking on my feet. I was really in my element in the audition room, so any nerves I had building up just left me completely.

WHEN DID YOU FINALLY GET THE CALL?

After about six weeks from my initial audition. I did several rounds of callbacks after my first audition and then I didn’t hear anything for a couple of weeks, and I thought, well, I didn’t get it. I was between gigs at the time and took up waitressing because you still have bills to pay and food to put on the table, whether you book a job or not. I never got a formal call, either — Mickey found out what restaurant I was working at, requested to sit in my section, ordered a whole cake and asked me to write ‘Congratulations Jordan Riley, you are Sloane Whitman’ on it. I think I jumped ten feet in the air, I was so happy. I know I quit on the spot, but I think my boss understood.

THERE’S A LOT OF HEAVY SUBJECT MATTER IN THE MOVIE. HOW DID YOU PREPARE FOR THOSE SCENES?

I’d try and isolate myself prior to shooting those particular scenes just so I could clear my head and get in the right mindset and just wholly and completely focus and be in the moment. And I think, as people in general, if you live long enough, you have some less-than-stellar life experiences. I tapped into my own and pulled from those experiences to elevate the performance as best I could. I think the audience knows when an actor is simply acting, you know, running through the motions, making sure they hit the beats, and when an actor really believes the material they’re trying to sell and is in it, and I wanted to make sure I did all I could to be in it.

WHAT WAS YOUR PROCESS OF GETTING INTO CHARACTER?

I like to think of it as ‘soft method.’ I went back to my script annotations and I just built off of that. I thought about what Sloane’s daily routine would be like — she doesn’t have one, in my opinion — and I went from there. There was day where I hopped on a bus just to see where it would take me, which, in hindsight, is a little reckless and dangerous. I also made a huge playlist of music I felt like she’d listen to and I played that when I was in hair and makeup, and I’d have it on me to listen to between scenes just so I could stay in that headspace.

WHAT WAS THE MOST CHALLENGING DAY ON SET?

I don’t want to spoil anything, but the third act is about what you would expect from a slasher movie. There’s a lot of action, a lot of things happening, one right after the other and it all takes place on one location at night. It took us weeks to shoot this sequence of just, madness happening, and there was one point, it’s three in the morning, we’ve been shooting for hours with no break, I’m covered in blood, so are some of my co-stars, and we’re just — we’re all losing our minds, a little bit. Keeping up the energy and staying in the moment was definitely a challenge, because you’re sore, and tired, and hungry, your throat is getting hoarse from screaming, but you still have a job to do and you have limited time because sunrise is in a few hours and then you can’t shoot anything until the next night, and it’s a tight schedule. We pulled it off but that was something I hadn’t anticipated.

WHAT WAS THE BEST?

Any day where I got to do my own stunts. I have a huge background in dance, I run three miles every morning, and I have some experience in self-defense, so I’m fairly athletic, fairly flexible, and the way fight scenes work, it has choreography. It’s a lot like a dance, and I thought, well, I can do that. And they let me!

RUMOR HAS IT MICKEY ALTIERI IS A PRETTY STRICT DIRECTOR TO WORK WITH. WHAT WAS THAT EXPERIENCE LIKE?

I can’t lie to you, I was a little intimidated at first — but when it comes down to it, he’s just trying to make the finished product the absolute best it can be. That’s what everyone on set wants, and when you’re all working toward the same goal, it’s hard to get upset about reshooting a scene twenty times. Especially because — he’ll have the shot, you know he will, but he wants to try something different, wants to change it up a bit, just to see what will work, and he’s really receptive to suggestions and ideas other people have. There were a few moments where we finished a scene, and it was good, we got everything we needed, but he goes, okay, let’s try this. And we try that, and it turns out to just push things to another level. I really respect that and the level of dedication there is. It was the best motivator, to be completely honest with you.

WHAT HAS YOUR LIFE BEEN LIKE SINCE FILMING? DO YOU GET RECOGNIZED OFTEN?

I’ve gotten recognized a couple of times, but it hasn’t been anything extreme yet. More often than not people have kind of double taked in the sense of, ‘I recognize you, but I can’t place it.’ Life’s been good, though. I’m originally from Ohio and I recently got to go back home and visit my family, which was great. Everyone was so excited to hear about LA and what filming was like and it was just nice to be surrounded by the people who mean the most to me.

WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST INSPIRATION?

My abuela. She’s the strongest woman I know; she immigrated here from Puerto Rico on her own when she was seventeen years old, and she built an amazing life for herself. She’s the reason I got into acting in the first place. I think, if I become even half the woman she is someday, I’ll have done good.

WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST THING YOU LEARNED FROM WORKING ON THE DEEP CUT?

To not be afraid of letting my guard down and just being vulnerable, both as an actress and as a person. You never really think about it, but the horror genre is home to some of the most deeply human stories you’ll see in film, and this one taught me a lot about myself — mostly, to stop holding myself back.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU?

Professionally, I’ve got a stack of scripts on my dining room table I’ve been looking through and some auditions lined up. I can’t say much more than that — just that I’m excited to get back in audition rooms and see where it leads me.

Personally, I’m just enjoying the last few weeks of anonymity I have. I might sign up for a surfing class or go out for pizza and beers with my friends tonight. Either way, life’s been pretty good to me lately. I don’t have any complaints.

#EDITS.#MINE.

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whatwouldvalerydo · 3 years

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Well why not write a one shot about Andre flipping his lid at Talbott and Talia while calling him a wanker and several other names?

AU setting of course, just for fun, enjoy this small one shot after I had one hour of sleep.

"I bet you one hundred galleons that he is going to flip his lid and cry." Talbott's hand paused on the door handle, eyes averting to look at Talia smirking his way. A month prior they had visited his shop in order to relate the news of their wedding, Talbott asking him to be his best man. Andre was over the moon, with the wedding in the summer they had time to go over every detail of their clothes.

Now however, they were sitting in front of his shop, on a cold late November day, ready to deliver some different news and Talia already had an idea on how it would go down.

"I don't think he will cry, he's not that dramatic." Talbott countered, however that only made Talia raise the stakes of the bet to two hundred galleons "Deal." He replied full of himself "You were wrong on the previous bet as well, he didn't cry when I asked him to be my best man, he won't do it now."

"Sure thing lovely, let's go in before I freeze altogether." Opening the door, the bell chimed, Andre lifting his eyes from a paper with appointments. Rubbing her hands together for warmth, Talia slightly pushed Talbott forward. It was his idea after all, despite her agreeing to everything.

"And how is my favorite couple doing? Didn't expect to see you here until next week for the appointment." He smiled wide, stepping from behind the counter.

Clearing his throat, Talbott shifted on the spot "We actually have some news regarding the wedding."

Andre's face dropped in an instant, hands raising slightly as if he did not know what to do with them "Oh Merlin, are you cancelling it?"

Talia chuckled slightly, however Talbott still heard her. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, he calmed down his friend, ensuring him that was not the case "We were actually thinking of a different day."

Immediately Andre turned to a cork board, eyes scanning the calendar "Of course, when do you want to move it?"

"On the 26th of December, make it a winter wedding."

Andre froze on the spot, hand shaking making the calendar leafs move with the motion of his body. Turning on his heals the following second, Talbott took a step back, bumping into Talia, stepping on her feet "Excuse you?!" Andre smacked his hands on top of the counter making several objects jump "Are you freaking kidding me right now? That's a month from now, A MONTH!"

"A month and three days to be exact." Talia winced when Andre shrieked like a banshee at Talbott's words, two of his employees making themselves busy somewhere at the back of the store and as far away as possible from him "Calm down mate, we were actually thinking of buying something off the rack."

A gasp fell from Andre's mouth, hands grabbing his head, holding onto it for dear life, as if it was ready to burst open or fall from his neck and rolls around "No, my best friend is getting married and you need something custom made. And you will do as I say." Pushing both Talia and Talbott, he directed the girls to take her measurements, while he got started on his friend.

"I can't believe you are doing this to me. A suit like this takes time." Giving Talia the stink eyes, he pointed a finger at her as Talbott stretched his arms "Are you pregnant?"

"No." she half laughed not being able to contain the amusement she felt, a glare being directed her way by her future husband "We just decided to get married sooner, we don't want anything big or too much fuss."

"Oh you will fuss and you'd better not be pregnant because I am not making adjustments to your dress after the stunt you pulled, not even if it pops during the ceremony." Looking back at Talbott he measured his back "You are unbelievable, I, I need tea." Dropping the measuring tape, he ran towards a tray pouring himself a fresh cup, stirring the sugar aggressively, with such vigor that they were all surprised he did not spill any of it.

"Aren't you exaggerating Andre?" that single statement sent him in another fit of rage. Drinking the tea in a few gulps, he picked back up the measuring tape, deciding to work on taking measurements for the pants instead.

"Spread your legs. Come on. How about I make them tight eh? Make sure your shlong doesn't fit properly you utter wanker." Andre sniffed his nose, Talbott shaking his head "Do you know what I had planned for you two? How much thought I put into everything? And you do this now? SPREAD THEM I SAID!"

Talbott found himself complying under the pressure of Andre's emotional state. Glancing over at Talia, she was looking at somewhere else entirely, trying to breathe. Jumping slightly as Andre got too close to his private parts with the measuring tape, he glanced down at him "What you need it?" a pair of angry glossy eyes glanced at him "A suit is all at the wedding, you're getting married not going out hunting in the slumps." Yes, he was still at it, rims of his eyes turning red "But no, you want something off the damn rack, I should whack you with a rack for doing this." Shaking his head, Talbott reached inside his pocket, waving some money Talia's way.

It was all she needed to see in order to burst out in a fit of laughter, not being able to control herself. Wiping at the corner of his eyes, Andre sniffed his nose once more as he looked at her in utter shock "Is my pain amusing you Talia?"

Smacking her legs, she bent over almost falling on her head "I can't. I just can't."

"You knob heads, you'd better be grateful I am still doing this and not leaving you with your asses exposed in the cold on your wedding day." Throwing his hands up in the air, he went for a second cup of tea, Talbott also chuckling, Talia's contagious laughter and good mood rubbing off on him, despite the harsh look Andre was giving them.

#fanfiction #fanfic #fiction #hphm talbott #hogwarts mystery talbott #andre egwu #talia hayes #talbott x oc #talbott x mc #talbott winger #talbott winger hphm #one shot #a bit of fun #hphm mc #hphm oc #hphm fanfiction #hphm #harry potter hogwarts mystery #hp hogwarts mystery

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crystalninjaphoenix · 4 years

Text

MerMay Day Ten Beach Day

The boardwalk was wildly busy that morning. Tourists were bustling about, ooing and awing at the open ocean and the boats lined up along the docks. They’d take pictures of themselves standing in front of the stores, buying souvenirs and eating treats. The locals in their boats were well-used to this, and went about their business.

Nobody noticed two heads poke out of the water at the end of the pier.

“They’re not looking this way,” Chase said. He grinned. “C’mon.” He ducked back under the water, swimming closer.

“Chase! Hey!” Jackie hurried to catch up. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Of course!” Chase nodded enthusiastically. “The only ones who’d be looking directly down at the water are kids, and the adults aren’t gonna believe them.”

Jackie didn’t quite look convinced. “What if they think we’re big fish? What if my dorsal sticks out of the water? I’d freak them out, wouldn’t I? They’d think there was a shark, and who knows what they’d do when they’re scared?”

“Just stay down a bit, it’ll be fine,” Chase said reassuringly. They’d arrived at the end of the pier, and he was now circling around one of the dock’s supports. “I’ve been people-watching for a while, it’s not too hard to avoid them.” He smiled. “C’mon. You wanted to do something fun. This is what you get for letting me choose.”

Jackie sighed. He peeked out of the water, eyes scanning the boardwalk. “What’re they doing?”

Chase poked his head out as well. “I think some of them are on vacation.”

“Vacation?”

“Yeah, they take a break from work and go see places they’ve never seen before, to do new things. Some of these guys must live further inland, so they’re coming to see the ocean.”

“Ohhhh.” Jackie nodded. That he could understand. “So we just watch them?”

“And listen.” Chase watched the tourists stroll across the dock. “I like to guess what they’re talking about, where they’re from, what they do…” He dropped a bit lower in the water. “That’s not...creepy, is it?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, what else are you gonna do, watch the fish instead? At least you can understand these guys.” Jackie backed up a bit, looking at the pier. “Besides, some of these guys are doing that anyway.” He pointed out groups of people sitting on benches, clearly watching the other passerbys.

Chase looked a little reassured for that, regaining his enthusiasm. “Alright, if they’re doing it.” He bolted, swimming along the bottom of the pier. “Oh! You can see their shadows under here!”

Jackie laughed, easily catching up. It was nice to see Chase so happy, even if he didn’t quite understand why.

The day passed. The two merms darted about the water, hiding in the shadows under the dock. Chase would tell Jackie the names of the human stuff he seemed curious about, and they’d make up stories about the humans passing on the boardwalk. Occasionally one would toss bits of food in the water, trying to attract fish, and once they’d lost interest, the two merms would snatch it up, (though Chase always said it tasted better dry.)

But still, Jackie wasn’t the type of person to stay idle for very long. He grew restless, and started playing a game with himself. Hover on the surface of the water just behind a human who was looking away, and then duck back down just in time to dodge their gaze. Over time, he got more bold, sneaking up closer to the docks, splashing about to draw their attention just before vanishing underwater.

Chase noticed this when Jackie decided to pull himself halfway out of the water, practically half-climbing up one of the dock’s support pillars. “Jackie!” he hissed, poking his head out of the water. “What’re you doing?”

“Dude, they’re totally oblivious,” Jackie chuckled.

“I mean, yeah, but they have cameras!” Chase said.

“They have what?”

“They’re these little devices that can take a photo—which is, like, a drawing that’s super real and captures all the details.” Chase glanced up onto the boardwalk. “They’re getting smaller, I think they started to combine them with cell phones so now everyone has one.”

“Combine them with what?” Jackie shook his head. “Look, I’m being careful.”

“Are you?” Chase asked. His eyes darted about. “Because I don’t think you—” He turned around. And immediately froze. “...fuck.”

Jackie looked behind him as well. There was a boat drifting in the water, a name written on its side in human lettering. And peering over the side of the white boat was a human, who was very clearly staring at them and gaping.

“Abandon ship!” Chase gasped, ducking under the water.

“What?” Jackie looked down at him, then up at the human, then started to follow Chase.

The human shook their head. “Wait!”

Like an idiot, Jackie paused. He looked back up at the human.

“I-I’m sorry, I just—oh my god, i-is this some publicity stunt?” The human laughed. “Like, are you going to be putting on a show later? Or…?”

The words were confusing Jackie, and he froze as he tried to process them. He knew a few human languages, but there were a few weird words in those questions, and he couldn’t quite grasp their meaning. But he understood that the human wasn’t being hostile. They seemed more confused than anything. Curious, and perhaps being a bit too bold, Jackie swam closer to the side of the boat.

“Oh my god…” The human gasped. They leaned back, running a hand through their curly blonde hair. “No way. No fucking way. You...you’re really a…? Oh my god.”

Jackie felt a tugging on his tail. He looked down to see Chase trying—and failing—to pull him underwater. He flicked his tail, easily shaking him off. And then he reached down and pulled Chase to the surface by his arm. Chase yelped. “Chase, c’mon, don’t be a guppy.”

“Shut up, I’m the one that introduced you to that phrase,” Chase muttered. He tried to dive back under, but Jackie pulled him back up. “What are you doing?! Seriously! We need to get out of here before he tells someone!”

“I think if they—I mean, if he was gonna do that, he’d be doing that already.” Jackie looked back up at the human. “He’s just kinda staring at us.”

“He’s in shock, let it kick in. Then he’ll start screaming.”

“You don’t know that! She didn’t start screaming, did she?”

Chase stopped trying to go back under. He glared at Jackie wordlessly.

“...sorry, low blow, I know,” Jackie admitted. “But my point stands. They don’t all freak out. Why are you so worried? You speak human.”

“I’m out of practice,” Chase muttered.

“Hey, um…” The human cleared his throat. “This is...kind of a lot to take in, I won’t lie. And I, uh, can’t understand your weird fish language.” He laughed nervously. “Can...you understand me?”

Jackie nodded. Chase shook his head.

“...both of those answer my question. Anyway, hi, I’m Ollie. I, uh…” The human—Ollie—looked behind him, grabbing something. “I was supposed to meet my...my friend, um, Isabelle, here...but…she cancelled on me just now. But I got her this.” He held up a small plastic bowl full of some kind of food, a plastic spoon shoved in it as well. “I don’t like vanilla, so I was just gonna throw it away, but do you guys want it or something?”

Chase’s eyes widened. “Nevermind, we are staying.”

Jackie laughed. “Sucker for food, huh?”

“Bro, take it. Try it. You’ll understand.”

Jackie shrugged, and reached up out of the water. Ollie leaned forward awkwardly, and passed him the plastic bowl. Jackie looked it over, holding it in both hands as he treaded water. He pulled the spoon out, and looked at Chase, who made a scooping motion. Catching on, Jackie scooped up some of the food with the spoon, taking a bite. His eyes lit up. “Oh my gods…”

“I know, right?” Chase grinned. “It’s called ice cream, it’s literally the best thing in the world. One of the things these guys do right is the food.”

“You guys like it?” Ollie asked. Jackie and Chase nodded in unison, and he, strangely enough, relaxed. “Alright then. You guys can chill here, I won’t bother you.” He backed away from the edge of the boat, sitting down.

Jackie and Chase, meanwhile, swam back underneath the pier, taking turns finishing the ice cream. Once they were done, Jackie swam back over to the boat and tossed the bowl and spoon back onto the deck. He heard a noise of surprise from Ollie, who looked back over the edge of the boat in confusion. Jackie laughed, backing away. Ollie shook his head, smiling, and returned to his seat.

“Still so eager to leave, Chase?” Jackie asked.

Chase considered this, though not for very long. “Nah. He’s cool.” He glared at Jackie again. “No more trying to get spotted, though.”

“Aw, alright.”

They hung around the boardwalk until the afternoon, and went home smiling and laughing. Somehow, they didn’t think anyone would be finding out about them today.

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye fanfiction #jacksepticegos #septic egos #chase brody #jackieboy man #brigid writes fanfiction #mermay snippets

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give-baek-my-love · 5 years

Text

Keep It A Secret (II)

Characters: Jimin X Reader X Jungkook

Genre: Angst/Fluff

Series: Intro, One, Two

Description: Without even a simple goodbye, Jimin, your childhood best friend , left to Seoul to pursue his dream as an idol. Ten years later just when you thought that you were finally ready to let it all go and start your own career as an idol, you’re left in a situation where it seems your past isn’t ready to let Jimin go just yet.

[BREAKING] Dispatch reports BTS’ Jimin and Purple’s Chaejin are dating.

You stared the article title countless times, too afraid to read any further. Although both their faces were mostly covered up with hats and face masks, you could immediately tell them apart. You remembered Chaejin wearing that exact jacket just hours ago before she headed out. You also could tell that the male who was holding the car door for Chaejin was Jimin just from the slight view of his eyes that were peaking through from beneath his lowered cap.

What the fuck.

There were millions of questions running through your head. How did they even get to knowing each other? With BTS and the group’s busy schedules how did they have to the time to start dating? Sure your group would sometimes bump into BTS, but it was also just a brief glance or greeting.

‘How do you think they met?’ April asked, diverting your attention away from your own thoughts.

‘I don’t know.’ you mumbled. You felt nothing. You wanted to at least feel some sort of feeling but all you just felt numb. You just couldn’t process the fact that your best friend and ex-best friend were dating.

Perhaps April sensed that something was wrong because you suddenly felt her warm hands gripping your arm,

‘Are you okay?’

Once again peeling your eyes away from the screen, you handed her back the phone without reading beyond the title. Giving April a slight nod, you dashed into the washroom to hide the tears that were quickly streaming down your face.

In hopes of hiding your sobs, you turned the tap on full blast and sunk to the floor allowing yourself for the first time to embrace the emotions that were running through your body.

No. No I’m not okay. -

You don’t know how long you stayed in the washroom, but eventually Manager Kim knocked on the door and told you to finish up whatever you were doing and meet him along with the rest of the members in the living room.

After washing your face and glancing into the mirror, your puffy red eyes were all you could see. Your reflection in the mirror no longer looked like your old self. She had hollowed cheeks and eyes that seemed much too big in contrast to her slimmer face, all highlighting just how much pain and hardship you had to go through in order to become an idol. But all that blood, sweet and tears that you went through was nothing compared to this heartbreak. A heartbreak whose cause was simply self-induced, all because you fell in love with your childhood best friend ten years ago, someone who could never imagine would ever feel the same way.

Eventually you walked out of the bathroom and saw that everyone including Chaejin was back. She was smiling. She was practically swimming in joy. Perhaps if she wasn’t your best friend and perhaps if your career wasn’t partially because of her doing, you would have yelled at her by now, asking why she would jeopardize the group’s future like this. Everyone knew how much a dating rumour could negatively affect the group, so you wondered why she as the leader would do this when the group’s popularity was just starting to rise. Instead of taking the avaliable space next to Chaejin, you decided to squeeze yourself next to April who was seated the furtherest away from the leader. The whole group knew that you and Chaejin were very close, so close that the two of you basically never left each other’s side, so when you decided choose a seat that wasn’t next to her, you earned a couple of confused glances from the members.

Clearing his throat, Manager Kim began,

‘I’m sure that you are all aware of the article about Chaejin that dispatch uploaded early this morning. The article has been confirmed to be true. Whether you all knew about it prior to the article or not, the company and BigHit both confirmed the article to being true. Also whether or not you like or dislike their relationship, the company and I just hope that you will all not let your emotions and feelings ruin the group’s atmosphere and schedules especially when in front of the media and fans. That being said, the company has decided that the group will go on a short break just so the public and fans can have some time to digest the information and won’t bombard you guys with questions about their relationship. During this time, you are allowed to stay in Seoul if you wish so, if not, you can go back home and visit your family, or take a small vacation if you like, but you must let us know ahead of time. Lastly, just as a reminder the dating ban is still in full effect for everyone else. If you have any questions you can come to me or Manager Lee to discuss.’

You were angry not only because the entire group’s schedule had to be canceled all because of Chaejin’s relationship, but also the fact that she was the only exception to the dating ban. You wondered if perhaps it was because her father owned the company that she was allowed to do as she pleased, but regardless you found her actions childish and selfish, which seemed very unlike her. Chaejin was always known to be rational and well planned, so she must have known that the media always had eyes on BTS whenever they were up and about, but why did she so openly go on a date with Jimin? It almost seemed like they were purposely showcasing their relationship.

With no further questions, the members all started discussing their vacation plans and ideas. You determined that distance and space was what you needed right now so you were going to take the first train home tomorrow morning and visit your parents for the first time in a year.

Just as you were about to get up and start packing, Chaejin sat down next you and asked,

‘Are you mad at me?’

You debated on lying and tell her that you’re okay and that you’re happy for her relationship, but the betrayal that you felt was impossible to ignore.

‘Yes. I am. Why did you do it?’

‘I... I’m sorry. I should have told you first, but if I knew that if I told you before I saw him last night you would have stopped me.’

Stopped her? Does she seriously think that I would have stopped her from going on a date?

‘Stop you? Chaejin why would I stop you from dating? I just wanted a heads up. I don’t care that you want to date, but I wish that you would have at least considered the consequences and had been more careful. We all worked so hard to debut and publicly dating right now could really ruin our reputation.’

‘Y/N... I’m sorry. It’s just...’ She started but then quietly trailed off.

Something was off. Chaejin seemed like she was holding something back. Although most days you wouldn’t pester her, today you simply just was not in the mood for anyone’s bullshit. You assumed that no matter what she said the day truly couldn’t get any worse.

‘Okay. You’re hiding something. Tell me. I’m done with these secrets that you’re keeping from me.’

Suggesting that the two of you needed to talk in private, you moved towards the bedroom.

‘Tell me.’ you said the moment Chaejin closed the door behind her, wasting no time at all.

Watching Chaejin take a deep breath, she quietly said,

‘It��s a publicity stunt Y/N.’

‘WHAT?’ you couldn’t help just blurt out loud.

Taking another long deep breath, Chaejin seemed like she was trying to collect her words before finally continuing,

‘The whole date was planned Y/N. Dad said that although the group was doing well, he thought that we would have done better by now. So... he suggested that the we create some sort of commotion or event for the public to learn about. And I suggested that maybe a dating scandal would be ideal-‘

‘You’re fucking with me right? You came up with the dating scandal? Do you know how badly this “stunt” of yours could go? What if this backfires? What are you doing to do then?’ You angrily cut off.

You were furious but also stupidly glad that she wasn’t actually dating Jimin. You were angry that your best friend was willing to put the group’s future at risk all because the group’s popularity wasn’t as high as the company wanted it to be. You knew that rising to the ‘top’ was not something that would be easily be done. Simple the act of performing in front of an audience was always something that you dreamed of and you thought that Chaejin believed in the same idea, but clearly that wasn’t it for her.

‘Y/N… my dad was so upset and worried about the group. And… with my dad and Bang PD being cousins, the scandal was easily organized. I know that you don’t agree with me doing this, but I didn’t want to upset or disappoint my dad. And I’m sorry that I couldn’t tell you earlier. I knew that if I told you about this you would have tried to talk me out of it, but I couldn’t let this chance slip.’

Wait. CEO is related to Bang PD?

You had so many questions, yet you didn’t know where to begin. Perhaps Chaejin noticed how taken back you were because before you could even construct a question, she explained,

‘I didn’t know that my dad was related with Bang PD either. At least not until recently when my entire family celebrated my grandma’s 80th birthday. You know how big my family is, right? Half the aunts and uncles that I saw that night I’ve never even met before, and don’t get me started on how many cousins I just discovered I have.’

You were starting to understand and digest the current situation, but you wondered,

‘But why Park Jimin?’

You thought that perhaps her dad or Bang PD randomly chose a member from BTS for the scandal, but immediately froze at the sight of Chaejin suddenly looking flustered.

Oh no.

‘Y/N…. I like him.’

What?

You broke into a cold sweat with those three simple words.

Chaejin likes Jimin?

You remembered all the times when the group was interviewed about their ideal types and how Chaejin always answered saying that Jimin was her ideal type, but you always thought that it was just a simple celebrity crush. Never something like this. Your mouth opened and closed over and over again without a single spoken word. Shocked at the sudden confession, you were too shaken up to even speak. If you could dig a hole in the ground at this very single second, you would have done it, anything to just escape this uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach.

The room had gotten awkwardly quiet, and it was Chaejin who was the first to speak up as you were staring into nowhere specific with your mind racing at a mile per minute,

‘Y/N why didn’t you tell me that you knew Jimin?’

Snapping your gaze to Chaejin, she seemed uncomfortable and somewhat hurt.

‘How did you know that I knew him?’ you asked.

You had spent the last eleven years keeping the knowledge of Jimin away from Chaejin mainly because just the mention of his name could almost bring you to tears. You couldn’t deal with the fact that a part of you still wasn’t over him. For the past years no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t bring yourself to fall in love with another person. You had always found yourself comparing every single man to Jimin and none of them could even compete with him in your eyes. Park Jimin was meant to be the one and only secret that you kept away from Chaejin, but now that she knew about your secret, you suddenly felt more naked and bare.

‘When I first saw Jimin last night it was awkward and we didn’t say much, but once I brought up that you and I were close friends he told me that the two of you grew up together and were best friends before he had to leave to Seoul and pursue his career as am idol.’

Close friends.

Although he was your best friend growing up, you had always wished that perhaps even once he would have thought of you as more than a close friend, but he had made it clear to Chaejin last night that the two of you were simply just friends. The two words left a bitterness in your mouth that you wished would just go away.

When you left Chaejin without a single comment, she asked again,

‘Why didn’t you tell me about him? Did you… like him Y/N?’

‘Chaejin… stop that’s ridiculous. I didn’t tell you then because it’s all in the past. We were close once but like he said he moved away and we just broke around that’s it.’

You tried your best to stay composed, but unfortunately with her as your best friend, Chaejin saw right through you.

‘You like him.’ She simply stated without an ounce of uncertainty.

‘I liked him.’

‘Y/N don’t bullshit with m-‘

‘I’m not doing this right now with you okay? You can choose not to believe me if you want to. That’s your decision. Whatever I feel for him doesn’t matter because I’m not the one that might screw our group over.’

Perhaps if the conversation wasn’t about Jimin you would have reacted differently, but because he was still such a sensitive topic, you couldn’t control the feelings that were racings in your head. Without giving her another chance to continue on, you grabbed your bag and headed out of the room towards Manager Kim asking him to take you to the train station immediately.

The train ride back home went by quickly as you stared blankly through the window and into the outside world. Your mind kept racing though everything that had happened in the last 24 hours and kept worrying about the future of your group. You couldn’t help but worry how this scandal would change your group’s future, how it would affect the atmosphere between the members, but most importantly you couldn’t help but worry about how the fans were going to react. It’s only been a year since the group had debuted, but you had already grown attached to them. They were the ones who cheered you all on, and they were your main source of happiness so they meant the world to you. Lastly, you hated to admit it but you were worried about Jimin. You worried about how he would handle this scandal. Sure the date was planned, but the reactions to the scandal are something that no one can predict, and you were worried about how the public would react.

You had spent the last years trying your hardest to move on from Jimin, and even though you knew that becoming an idol meant that it was no longer possible to ignore his existence and even mentally prepared for what you thought to be every single possible situation, never would you have thought that Chaejin, your best friend and leader of the group, would be dating Jimin, your first love.

*Ding* *Ding*

Throughout the entire train ride your phone had been constantly alerting you of new messages, but knowing that it was probably going to be Chaejin, you decided to ignore them.

Your parents were surprised to see that you were home without any prior notice, but once you briefly explained to them what had happened, they quickly empathized with your current situation and decided to spend the day simply relaxing at home.

Simple. And relaxing was exactly how the first few days of your vacation went. For the most part you spent the days just sleeping, or at least trying to sleep, eating all your favourite foods, and spending quality time with your parents and close friends. Ever since Jimin’s parents had found out that you came back home, they asked your parents for the two families to plan a dinner party, but you constantly declined their invites. Of course you knew that his parents meant well, but after what had recently happened, you didn’t want to be reminded of Jimin.

It had been a week since the company had announced the group’s indefinite break before your mom finally started asking questions. Although you had explained that you were just disappointed of Chaejin’s decisions, she saw right through you.

One morning after your dad left for work, your mom joined you on the couch adn asked,

‘How’s Chaejin and the other members doing?’

‘Most of the members went home. I’m not sure about Chaejin.’ You shrugged.

While you had kept in contact with the other members, you purposely ignored all of Chaejin’s phone calls and text messages. The truth was you didn’t know how you felt about the entire situation. Of course you wanted the group to do well, and the scandal would become a source of advertisement for the group, but the fact that the scandal could also end badly for the group made it very worrisome, and it didn’t help that Chaejin was ‘dating’ Jimin. If you were being completely honest with yourself, what made this the most uncomfortable was that you were still so attached to Jimin, even if it was one-sided, you couldn’t stand the idea of someone as important as Jimin being dragged into such circumstances that could cause harm on his end. And of course it goes without saying that you were jealous and worried that Chaejin and Jimin would become close and actually end up dating. You knew that Chaejin had always had a crush on Jimin but you didn’t think that her celebrity crush could turn into anything more, however knowing that now she has a chance to go on dates with Jimin and spend time with him, you couldn’t help but feel jealousy boiling from within.

Although you had said few words about the situation since you came home, Chaejin’s mother had called your mother the day you went back home to explain the entire situation and when your mom called Jimin’s mother to confirm the dating rumour, it turned out his mother was just as surprised as everyone else. Your mom had hoped that you would eventually open up and talk about the situation, but when she saw that you were getting increasingly upset every day, she knew that she couldn’t keep quiet anymore.

‘Y/N it’s okay to be hurt.’ She suddenly said.

Turning to her, you were so shocked with her comment that it took you a couple of seconds before you recollected your thoughts and said,

‘I’m not hurt.’

Right?

To be fair, you weren’t entirely sure if you were actually hurt. Uncomfortable. Yes. Jealous. Yes. But hurt?

Grabbing your hands into hers, she simply said,

‘I don’t need you to prove anything to me. I just want you to be happy and be honest with yourself. Okay?’

The two of you sat hand in hand for minutes, both not saying a word while you were slowly processing everything that your mom said. Were you happy? No. Were you being honest with yourself? I don’t know more.

‘Mom… I feel like I’m losing.’ You finally spoke up.

Instead of a response, she gave your hand a squeeze as a sign of encouragement to continue.

‘He had left town years ago and all these years I’ve been telling myself that I’m over it, and the stupid thing is that I thought that I was actually over it. But when I saw him on the day we debuted, I felt it. I had spent so many years suppressing the emotions and feelings that I had for him that the moment I saw him again I became overwhelmed. I was in love with him mom, and I think that I still am, which is so stupid of me. How can I be in love with someone who I’ve lost contact with for over ten years? And what’s even worse is that now my best friend is dating him. I feel like I’ve lost him all over again… but the ridiculous thing is that he wasn’t even mine to begin with, so why do I feel like I’m losing him?’

The next few days felt more relaxing, that was until you received a phone call from Manager Kim,

‘Chaejin told me that you haven’t answered her phone calls so I’m calling to tell you that Chaejin has a photoshoot with Jimin tomorrow and you need to be there.’

‘I thought our schedules were on hold.’

‘Yes, but there’s a clothing brand that wanted to use the two as models for their new clothing line.’

Great. They’re going to wear matching clothes and I have to watch?

‘But why do I have to be there?’

‘I’m only here to relay a message. If you have any questions, ask Chaejin herself or the CEO. I wouldn’t even have to be doing this if you would have just answered her phone calls. I’m going to pick you up tomorrow morning at 8 so be ready.’

Without giving you a chance to refuse, he quickly ended the call. You were once again left feeling defeated, and honestly pissed off. In most cases if you were told that you had an upcoming schedule, no matter how tired you were, you would have been happy, but this schedule was different, you were basically asked to watch Chaejin and Jimin together.

Are you fucking with me right now?

Needless to say, you had spent the entire night restlessly tossing and turning while dreading over the thought of having to see Jimin, and especially with the fact that having to see Chaejin meant that she would want to know why you were ignoring her phone calls.

Morning came much sooner than you wanted it to, and before you knew it, Manager Kim was knocking at the door. The manager had explained that Chaejin left early to get ready for the shoot, which for your part was good news since you weren’t quite ready to talk to her. By this point you weren’t mad at her anymore, but you still couldn’t shake this jealous feeling away.

The small talks during the initial car ride had died down, and you sat in silence while Manager Kim drove. Eventually you fell asleep while staring out the window and woke up to the manager nudging you awake. Just after he opened the passenger door to let you out of the car, Manager Kim said,

‘I know that you may feel uncomfortable with this situation but don’t forget that we warned you about letting your feelings ruin the group’s atmosphere. Okay?’

‘Okay.’ You agreed.

Manager Kim had always felt like a father figure to you, especially when being so far away from home. Although he was a man with few words, he always quietly took care of the group and never once had you heard him complain about of taking care of all the member’s needs. You knew that his best intentions were for the group to do well, so you made a mental promise to talk to Chaejin.

Once Chaejin saw you entering her dressing room, she ran up to you and wrapped you in a warm hug.

‘I’m so sorry Y/N. I knew that this was the only way that I could get you to see me.’ She mumbled into the hug.

Getting a whiff of Chaejin’s scent, you softened into the hug and suddenly realized just how much you missed your best friend. Although her dating scandal had caused some trouble for the group, Chaejin is indeed your best friend and you understood that just like how you needed to spend time back home, Chaejin probably needed her best friend during this time.

Finally letting go, you apologized,

‘I’m sorry that I didn’t answer you calls. I should have been there for you.’

Even though the company suggested everyone to not check the group’s social accounts, throughout the break you had signed onto the group’s Instagram and saw that though there were positive and supportive comments, there were also some negative and even offensive comments towards Chaejin that you hoped she didn’t notice. However, the sad smile that she gave you suggested that she probably already knew about the public’s criticism. After giving her hands a squeeze for support, Chaejin got changed into her first set of clothing while the make-up artist told you to sit down to get your makeup down.

When Chaejin was finally ready, the two of you walked out of the room hand in hand towards the studio where the photographer would explain the shoot’s concept to her. To your surprise, Jimin was already there and talking to the photographer. When he noticed you, he looked surprised but then quickly maintained an emotionless façade.

After Chaejin greeted the photographer, he happily explained the theme of the shoot, while you tried to your best to look at anyone and anything besides Jimin. Even after a year as an idol, you still found controlling your emotions and facial expressions to be a challenge.

Let the torture begin.

An hour into the shoot the photographer had announced that it was time for individual shoots with Chaejin going first. Knowing that Jimin would now have some free time, you quickly hurried out of the studio just in case he would try to engage in any kind of conversation because you were anything but ready for that. During the past hour Jimin had locked eyes with yours multiple times and you literally had to tear your eyes away from him just so your flushed cheeks could cool down. However, your plan clearly backfired when you noticed that Jimin was following you out of the studio. Shit.

‘Stop following me.’ You warned him while walking forward without much of a thought in mind.

Your brain was foggy. You couldn’t think straight. You had no idea where you were talking to, but the only thing that was for sure was the fact that you needed to get away from Jimin, because with him so close by, you couldn’t think straight.

But that was impossible. Every time you turned around, he was there. The faster you walked, the more quickly he sped until eventually he caught up and pushed you past the staircase doors.

‘Let go!’ You yelled as his grip tightened.

Sensing that he was hurting you, he immediately released his grip and apologized.

‘Y/N. I… I’m sorry. Let me explai-’

Vigorously shaking your head while blinking the sudden tears away,

‘No. NO. I don’t need this right now. I don’t need your apology. Not now. Not ever.’

*Click* *Click*

What?

You could have sworn that you heard the sounds of a camera taking a picture but when you looked around, there was no one.

Just as Jimin was about to speak up again, the staircase door suddenly opened. The two of you were greeted by Chaejin who looked just as surprise if not even more than you and Jimin.

‘Oh. Jimin. What are you doing here?’

Just seeing Jimin try to explain this current situation to Chaejin was souring your mood even more, so much to the point that it felt almost impossible to keep hide the anger that was fuming from within.

‘Fuck this.’ You mumbled before walking out of the door leaving the two alone.

I’m not dealing with this right now.

For the rest of the shoot you hid in the dressing room and didn’t say more than half a word to Chaejinor Jimin. Once it was all over, you quickly thanked and shook hands with the photographer before speeding to the company’s car hoping that you wouldn’t bump into anyone.

Thankfully Chaejin’s schedule was done for the day and you were headed back to the dorm because you needed nothing more than to just sleep off the bitterness feeling that’s been lingering since your encounter with Jimin and Chaejin.

You weren’t sure how long you ended up sleeping for but eventually you were shaken awake by someone, and with just a glance outside the window the dark skies hinted that it was perhaps still early in the morning.

‘What’s going on?’ You groaned rubbing your eyes that stung from tiredness.

‘What the fuck is this?’ Chaejin furiously asked while shoving her phone in your face.

It took your eyes a few seconds to adjust before you saw this article and gasped in horror.

[BREAKING] Dispatch reports a possible love triangle between BTS’ Jimin with Purple’s Chaejin and Y/N??

The article was filled with pictures of you and Jimin on the staircase was yesterday. Although the pictures couldn’t capture much, there were a few pictures that showed a tearful picture of you, and even a picture of the three of you. Suddenly you remembered the clicking sounds of a camera from yesterday. Someone must have been lingering around listening to your conversation with Jimin.

Holy shit. What have I done?

(Jungkook’s POV)

Jungkook froze when he was scrolling through the group’s twitter and found articles tagging their account.

Jimin and Y/N? What’s going on?

It was past midnight and he was sure that most of the members were asleep, but he couldn’t find the patience to wait until morning to ask Jimin. Instead, he quietly headed towards the elder’s room but quickly stopped with he saw that the lights in the kitchen were still on. With a few long strides, he saw that Jimin was sitting by himself at the dining table with a blank look on his face. Jimin must have been fixated in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice Jungkook’s appearance until the younger took the vacant seat next to him.

‘What’s wrong?’ Jungkook warily asked.

‘I…. I shouldn’t have talk to her. I shouldn’t have said anything. This wouldn’t have happened if I had just followed and done as I was told. I made a mistake.’

Jimin had spoken so quietly that if Jungkook sat any further, he wouldn’t have heard a single word. Just the sight of Jimin looking so disappoint and upset made Jungkook tear up.

What can I do to help? - (The Next Day)

Today was BTS’ last scheduled day before their long-awaited two-month holiday. After finishing the recording of their last BTS RUN episode for the current season, most of the members headed back to their assigned rooms to start packing for their own assorted vacation plans. Jungkook watched as Jimin silently walked back into his room without saying a single word. The latter had been staying in the same state the entire day, without saying much of a word, causing everyone around to worry.

Earlier in the morning Jimin was told to see Bang PD leaving the rest of the members to discuss the explosion on twitter about Jimin’s relationship with Chaejin and Y/N. While the members all knew that Jimin would never be the type of person to cheat on someone and that the scandal was simply a made up story, they knew that there had to be something that Jimin was hiding, however seeing how down he was feeling no one dared to speak up about it just yet.

Without another word, Jungkook quietly snuck into his room and scrolled into his phone until he found your number, a number that he stole from Jimin’s phone today while the elder went to the washroom.

The text message was brief, but not much words were needed.

‘Hi. It’s BTS’ Jungkook. I need you to open up my V-live in exactly 5 minutes. See you then.’

Not giving himself anytime for second thoughts, he quickly started his live on the app. He watched as the number of audience grew along with the amounts of hearts that were given, and did his best to answer and read the messages that many of the fans were posting. ARMYs meant the world to him, they were his light, they were his life, they were his everything, so he was unsure if what he was about to do next was correct or not.

‘Before I end this live, there is one thing that I want to ask here today. You have all greatly supported us throughout all these years and I’m hoping that nothing will change the bond that we share, so please be understanding with what I am about to say.’

After taking a deep breath to calm his shaking heart, he blurted out,

‘Y/N. Will you be my girlfriend?’

#bts fanfic #park jimin #bts #bts scenarios #jimin scenarios #bts angst #jimin angst #bts series #jeon jungkook #jungkook fanfic #jungkook scenarios #jungkook angst

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mischiefapprentice · 4 years

Text

Absence Not Gone Unnoticed (Daniel Henney x Reader)

Author’s Note: This one-shot is also in my Tadashi Hamada Imagines in Wattpad. I also noticed that there are a few stories for Daniel Henney, so... It’s time for me to show what I got.

"Guys, where's Charlie?"

Charlie Mercado's absence was noticed by everyone in the set of Criminal Minds. Being the youngest member in the Behavioral Assessment Unit of the FBI, of course, all of them worry for her. It was rare that she'll be absent nor be late. In fact, she was the one coming earliest next to Daniel Henney. Every morning, whenever no one is around just yet, she would always blast some music in her Bluetooth speaker and dance along to random songs. Well, she thought no one would notice it, but she got busted by Daniel. Being this shy girl she is, she immediately stopped her music and pretended to just walk around.

"You don't need to hide that, you know?" he asks as the black haired Filipina turned around to face him, her tanned face blushing as she played with the strings of her gray jacket. "You weren't supposed to see that, Daniel." she replies as she picked up her speaker, only for him to stop her hand. There was a mischievous glint in his eyes that made her brows frown. "What are you planning?"

She watched the half Korean pick her phone up and place it on her hands. "Play any music you got there. We are going to dance." This made her eyes widen, but the way he looked at her tells her he is being serious with it. Sighing in defeat, she played her own mash up of songs from TikTok.

They have been dancing for so long that they didn't notice their other fellow cast mates watching them from their own trailers and corners. Kirsten Vangsness even recorded one video of them dancing as they laughed their heads out, making the rest of the cast coo at them and murmuring that they should be together. All of them are aware that Daniel has been crushing on Charlie since the script reading day for season 13. There was an agreement between them that if she feels like dancing anytime, she could. That was the start of random dance showdowns whenever there was nothing to do.

"She's not responding to my calls." Matthew tells the group as he puts his phone in his pocket. All of them tried calling and texting her, but all ended up in voicemail. Daniel took the next call, but it also ended up in voicemail. Just then, they saw one of their directors who has a worried face. "Director, what's the matter?" Daniel asks. "Charlie won't be coming to set this week. We have to cancel's today's shoot with her due to some reasons she doesn't want to tell me, but it seems so important. And Kirsten, I believe she wants to talk to you in private."

Text Messages:

CM: Kirsten. I won't be coming to set, but can we meet later? I need advice 😭

KV: Why? What happened? I'll go to your house.

CM: Um, Kirs? I'm actually at the family doctors. Please don't tell anyone especially Daniel?

KV: Why the hell are you there? I'm coming over. STAY PUT.

KV: Don't dare move at least an inch.

CM: Yes, mama bear.

"Guys, I'm going home now. I'll see you tomorrow!" Kirsten says as she nervously gripped her phone and got in her car to go to the family clinic Charlie is in. A.J. Cook joined her as she also feared for her life. Little did they know, Daniel noticed their anxious state as they drove away. Matthew walks behind him as he placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Daniel sighs in worry as he looked at his light brown eyes.

"Mate, whatever is going on with Charlie, I know she's okay." "I know, mate. I just can't bear to know that she's slipping off my hands. God, I barely told her my true feelings towards her." "Daniel. Do you even remember that you are neighbors?"

"Just give me a call when you need something, okay?"

Kirsten and AJ stayed with Charlie for the rest of the day. Her doctor asked for some tests like CBC (Complete Blood Count), Blood Sugar Test and an ultrasound of her breast. There is a pre-diagnosis that she has a breast boil that shows a large mass that has a large volume of abscess. She has been prescribed a lot of pills and ointments to take, and she cannot wear tight clothing like the ones she would wear on shoots. The director for the episode she is in is informed, and the production team decided to cancel for this week, since most of the scenes need her. Many 'get well soon' greetings from the production were said, but all the male actors aren't informed about it.

Just then, they heard the door bell ring. Kirsten opened the door to reveal Daniel clad in his white shirt and grey sweatpants as he wore his black Nike slides. He clearly just got home from set. "Hey, Kirsty. How did you know Charlie's home?"

She nervously laughed as she told him that her sister just lived a couple of lots away from Charlie. Daniel bought it somehow, but he told her about his worry for Charlie, and asked if he can see her. Unfortunately, Charlie told her not to accept visitors yet, since her fever hasn't died out yet, but she is already taking in the medicines needed. Just then, AJ popped out, waving at the two of them as she grabbed her things. "Hey, Henney. Are you here to see our youngest?" "Um, yeah, but it seems she still needed some time to rest." "Yes she does. Dan, we need to tell you something."

"So, are you telling me that she can have breast cancer if this gooey slimy thing doesn't pop out of that mound?"

Kirsten and AJ told everything from the shoot with the mud to that check up Charlie attended to. It saddened him, since he made her promise to tell everything that is going on with her. They really had no choice but to tell him about it. He could have gone with her to the doctors too. "Hey, we understand Charlie's reasons not to tell you. It really indeed is alarming, but you also deserve to know, lover boy." Kirsten tells him as he buried his face in his hands. "Don't let her slip away this time."

As the two women left, Daniel paced by the living room of Charlie's small bungalow, wondering how he could tell her his true feelings for her. Just then, he heard her faint calls for someone, and he went to her room, which is just as simple as his. Tissues, bandages, capsules and towels filled her nightstand. She held a hot compress close to her right breast. Her eyes widen as she saw his form standing by the room. "D-Daniel? How did you know I lived here?" "We are neighbors, Charlie. I can actually see AJ and Kirsten in your house. So, you got that?" He asks as he pointed at her, making her sigh as she shook her head yes. "Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped in some way," he tells her as he sat by the edge of the bed. "I didn't want to bother you with it. You might puke when you find out," she replies as she winces with the pain of the breast boil. "You? Being a bother? Impossible. And it might outrage me, but I will try my best to help you." Daniel chuckles as he rubbed his neck in bashfulness. "I nearly thought that I can lose you anytime."

They were enjoying each others company as they recounted stories from their childhood and misadventures and things that happened on the set. Daniel finds himself falling for the young lady as he gets lost in her beauty even though she looked sickly.

"Is it still oozing?"

Charlie's boil popped the day after, and the girls had to get him out of the room every hour to remove the oozing pus. It was a lot of work, but it it worth it since it means that she will be okay. The doctor warned that if it won't pop anytime of the week, she will have to be confined in the hospital to perform some surgical draining, considering how dangerous the amount of abscess was found, and it can solidify into a tumor that can cause cancer.

He was finally let in, and smiled as he took in her recovering self. Her paleness has gone off, and her happy side is on again. "Daniel, you might wanna say something to Charlie," Kirsten teased as she threw the used bandages in the bin nearby. Charlie raised a brow, confusion filling the air. AJ and Kirsten leave them both inside.

"So, there's something I do not know?" she asks as she made herself comfortable. He sighs as he rubbed his neck off, not knowing how to tell her his true feelings towards her. "Um, Charlie... I have been... Ugh, forget it. It seems that I am a little bit old for you." Daniel tells as he looked down on the floor, back facing her. Charlie laughs as she messed his hair up. "Dummy, stop beating around the bush." she tells him. "I'm all ears."

Daniel just shrugs his shoulders and scooted closer to her as he enveloped her in a warm hug. "I missed this warmth. I missed your laughter, your joys, your dances to the music we play early in the morning, and most of all, I missed your whole being. I have been into you for so long, Charlie Mercado. I have been falling for you since that script reading session."

She was filled with laughter as she heard his confession. His brows furrow as he looked at her laughing form, her shoulders shaking as she tried to contain herself. "Daniel Phillip Henney, I have been into you as well for god knows how long."

Since that confession in her room, Daniel never left her side. He didn't go home for some nights just to see that she's being attended to. Soon after, she got all well and she can now continue shooting some scenes with everyone, but she needs to be a lot more careful, since her wound hasn't fully healed yet. For her safety, the director requested a stunt double for her behalf even though she can do them all way before she got it. The other actors always made sure she is safe and comfy during shootings.

"It seems that you are standing up to your family position as a baby," Daniel laughs as she scrunched her nose. "Says the one who told everyone to treat me like one, since I am too 'fragile' like a baby." Charlie rolls her eyes as she laid on the bed inside her trailer. Little did they know, Matthew was recording the whole scene, the others right behind him as they squeal while they watch the new couple cuddle.

"So, it's goodbye for us for now."

Daniel and Charlie stood by the entrance of the airports. He offered to bring her to the airport the week after the press cons for Criminal Minds, and the inevitable day she has to go back to her country for a short vacation came. He feels sad, since it has been a few weeks since they started to be in a relationship and they both wanted to be stuck together. "I believe it is not. We've got social media with us, right?" Charlie laughs as she placed her palm on his cheek, which he held to tightly. "But the time differences. I want to talk to you longer." Daniel pouts, making her laugh. "Stop whining you big baby. Roscoe's with you." Charlie laughs as she watches Daniel feign his annoyance.

Daniel was about to leave Charlie to herself when they both heard the announcement of cancelled flights to east. He listened carefully as he waited to hear her flight number to be mentioned, and his eyes lit up as he saw her laughing as she pulled her luggage. "It seems that your prayers have been granted." "It truly is granted." He chuckles as he pulled her close to him and pecked her forehead.

"How on earth did you get in here, Romeo?"

Charlie's eyes widen as she saw her Romeo, or rather Daniel in her backyard, bringing his fluffy golden retriever with him. Clad in just his usual house clothes and sliders, he grinned as he hugged his girlfriend, but it was wiped off when she started spraying alcohol all over him. "What? I'm just killing off the corona virus you could be bringing!" she yelps as he grins mischievously, starting the small chase around her small home.

She got cornered in her sofa as Roscoe managed to make her trip off her run, making her fall back first on the sofa. She closed her eyes, fearing the inevitable war of tickling where she loses as always. She gasps as she just felt two arms wrap around her as she is being pulled down along, pecking her head in the process. "Why are you always too sweet for my own good?" she asks as she listened to the rhythm of his heart beating.

He laughs as he pats her head, hugging and pulling her close to him as he placed her head close to his chest, making her hear his heartbeat even more. "You deserve only the best things in life, my dearest Juliet."

They wouldn't ended up like this if it weren't for that absence not gone unnoticed.

#daniel henney #wattpad #danielhenneyxreader

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i-am-too-sick · 5 years

Text

Midnight Malady (1/?)

@nerdlycharming was kind enough to indulge my mighty need to stab whump Quinn, and he agreed to do another collab with me! This one is a little different from our usual fics. We're always filtering questions for our boys, so feel free to ask if you have any!

Word count: ~3200

Once his coworkers all went home, Quinn was the last employee at the clinic. It was late, nearly midnight, and after working his second shift, Quinn just wanted to get home, shower and have dinner, and then snuggle up on the couch with his boyfriend.

He restocked the medicine cabinet, set out new sign-in forms at the front desk, and made sure all the lights in the exam rooms were turned off.

The campus outside the building was shrouded in darkness, the few street lights doing little to combat the all encompassing night. Quinn turned around to lock the door behind him, sighing at the long walk and bus ride that awaited him when he was finished.

“BOO!” came a sudden voice behind him, grabbing him from behind and cackling.

Quinn nearly jumped out of his skin, a sharp gasp escaping him as he lost his grip on the keys in his hand and they clattered to the floor.

Michael stood there, cackling like a mad man with a rose in one hand and a bag of take-out in the other. “Special delivery.” He beamed at him, holding out the rose to him.

Michael just grinned wider and came closer. “I came to give you this and perhaps have a romantic, Chinese takeaway, midnight picnic with you in the light of the full moon.” He pressed a kiss to Quinn’s lips, feeling confidence swell through him as it always did when he did these surprise romantic gestures.

Their campus was decently safe and especially in this area because of the nearby hospital and police precinct. He figured they'd be perfectly fine having their little picnic on the grassy circle across from the clinic.

Quinn melted when Michael kissed him. There was absolutely no way he could ever be upset about this. As much as he'd wanted to go home, somehow, this was so much better.

“And what would you have done if your little stunt caused me to have a heart attack?” he asked, looking down at the keys that he'd dropped.

Michael shrugged with a smile, “There's a hospital down the street.” He spoke nonchalantly and giggled. “I wasn't actually planning to scare you, though, but I couldn't miss the opportunity!”

He picked up Quinn's keys and handed them back to him along with the rose. “It took a little longer than usual at the Chinese restaurant—apparently it’s an unusual request to have them put pork in a heart shape in the rice?” He giggled and Quinn knew that Michael had actually asked them to do this.

Quinn took the rose, a deep red, and brought it toward his face. He hummed, taking in the flowery aroma. “Mm, yeah, that's probably not an everyday request,” he said absently. He was absolutely enamored at the thought of Michael coming to pick him up from work, laden with sweet gifts.

He look Michael's hand, swinging it lightly between them. “Are you sure you don't want to take this home?” he asked, referring to their meal. “It's kind of...dark...out here.”

“Don't worry, my love, I'll protect you!” Michael declared cheesily.

It was a laughable statement in general. Because even though they were the same height, Michael was practically only half as heavy as Quinn was. He seemed frail, near sickly even when he was perfectly healthy. He was generally pale and when he was shirtless you could count his every rib. He looked like Captain America before the super-soldier serum.

“We don't have to if you don't want to, I just thought it would be fun!” He didn't sound disappointed, but rather seeming excited about the idea even though Quinn didn't seem nearly as into it.

Quinn had never been particularly good about denying Michael what he wanted, and this time was no exception. He smiled, strolling over to the grassy area across from the clinic. It was a popular hangout spot during the day, but it wasn't often people came there at night. Still, it looked beautiful, the patch of grass bathed in moonlight.

“All right, you win,” he said. “Just don't blame me when you're too tired to go to your classes tomorrow morning.”

“I already cancelled, said I had an appointment.” He winked and waggled his eyebrows suggestively as if to say this wasn't the only trick up his sleeve.

He set his backpack down and started pulling things out for their date. He spread a blanket across the ground and stuck some tiny tiki torches into the dirt, lighting them quickly before turning back to his boyfriend. He patted the ground beside himself and smiled.

The greatest part about this whole thing was the fact that it wasn't for anything in particular. Which meant Michael had just randomly decided to do this just to make Quinn smile.

“Sit, enjoy, and relax.” He said, pulling a Crab-Rangoon out of a bag and munching on it. He was practically glowing from the moonlight and the amount of confidence he was feeling, a welcomed sight given how timid and nervous Michael usually was. This confident swagger was something he only got around Quinn.

Quinn snorted, sitting down on the blanket and crossing his legs. He pulled an egg roll out of their takeout container and took a bite, savoring the taste. He was a simple person with simple tastes and pleasures, and Michael's stunt was ridiculous, but Quinn loved it. The spontaneity was what really struck him and it was a welcomed gesture after the long day he'd had.

“I can't believe you planned all this,” he said, disbelieving. “Thank you.”

A noise in the distance caught his attention, but he ignored it, taking it for a bird or a squirrel flitting through the bushes. He was too caught up in the moment to care about anything else.

Michael hadn't heard the sound and just went on snacking and smiling. He wondered how someone could be so beautiful even while eating an egg roll, you'd think it impossible, but here they were, and here he was. He was too enamoured with Quinn's beauty and the feelings he caused to pay attention to anything else.

“I love you.” Michael said simply, reaching out and taking Quinn's hand, kissing it gently.

“I love you too,” Quinn breathed, leaning forehead and kissing Michael deeply.

The noise sounded again and someone in a dark hoodie staggered into view. He looked dirty and disheveled, like he'd been outside a long time. His face was thin and gaunt, his eyes dark and somewhat vacant.

Quinn had seen that look before, the man's appearance reminiscent to someone on drugs or having had several too many glasses of alcohol. Even though his body was uncoordinated, his limbs moving like he didn't quite know how to use them, he came toward them with a sick kind of determination.

“Hey…” he rasped hollowly. Something in the man’s voice was eerie enough to send an involuntary shudder down Quinn's spine.

He felt Michael's body shift and press in front of his own. Hearing him speak before he could tell him anything.

“Uh… hello…” Michael stammered. “uh… can we help you?” He took in the disheveled appearance of the man and wondered if maybe he was just hungry, still, fear made him quiet, waiting for the guy to respond.

The man didn't respond immediately and that quickly left Quinn feeling on edge. He felt the sudden urge to get up and bolt out of there, but they had all this stuff now—it would be nearly impossible to collect it all and get away fast enough.

“What are you doing?” the man asked, taking another sloppy foot forward.

Quinn tensed, flinching away from the man as he made a wavering attempt to come closer.

Michael gathered himself to stand, only getting to his knees but still blocking Quinn's body with his own. “W-we're on a date…” his voice certainly didn't show the same protective conviction that his body did.

The man came closer and stuck a grimy, dirt-covered hand in their box of food, pulling out a few egg rolls and popping one into his mouth. He slipped the remaining few into his pocket for later.

Quinn felt sick. It would be a long time, he decided, until he was able to so much as look at Chinese food without immediately feeling repulsed. He still didn't know what this guy wanted, but something about his presence gave Quinn a bad feeling.

Michael was stunned and equally as repulsed as his boyfriend and failed not to show it on his face.

Apparently the man did not care for the way Michael was looking at him because he started screaming nonsense at them and stumbling forward, mostly directing his words at Michael.

Michael stood up in response, he was shorter than the stranger and though the man was probably homeless, Michael was still very clearly tinier.

“We don't want any trouble, man, just take the food!” His voice didn't shake anymore, though Quinn could tell Michael was terrified, and so was he.

Calling for campus police didn't even cross Quinn's mind in that moment. He stood with Michael, his knees trembling with fear. He grabbed the back of Michael's shirt and tugged it gently. “Let's just get out of here,” he whispered urgently, desperate to put as much space as possible between them and the stranger.

Michael nodded, starting to back away, “Grab my bag and run, I won't be able to do both.” True enough, Michael was horribly uncoordinated and would probably only be able to run away.

That only antagonized the stranger more, though, and he started screaming at Michael and grabbing something from his pocket.

“Run, Quinn!” Michael shrieked, eyes darting around for any sign of someone to help them.

Quinn hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath until Michael yelled, startling him out of his terrified trance. He ducked to pick up the backpack, stumbling a bit as his brain struggled to catch up with his feet.

He'd seen the man reaching into the front of his hoodie and Quinn could only pray he didn't have a gun. He didn't try to glance over his shoulder—Michael's heavy footsteps and ragged breathing were reassurance enough for him. But the stranger was hot on their heels, shouting and hurling obscenities their way.

The sound of a scream and a solid smack stopped Quinn in his tracks. He turned to see Michael hunched slightly, holding his face. He shouted Michael’s name, but it did no good. He could only watch in horror as his boyfriend took another few blows to the face and a knee to his stomach.

Michael fell to the ground in a sickening heep, and the assailant began kicking him repeatedly in the ribcage.

“No…” Quinn's voice was weak, hoarse as he watched helplessly. They were several feet behind him, a good indicator that Michael had not been right behind him like he had originally thought.

After sending a few well-aimed kicks toward Michael's torso, the hooded man crouched down, reaching again for something in his front pocket.

Something in Quinn snapped in that moment. The jelly-like consistency of his legs ceased immediately and adrenaline surged through him. “No! Stop!!” he screamed, his voice much stronger now. He didn't know what he was doing until he was doing it, his body hurtling forward, throwing himself over Michael's crumpled form right as the man withdrew his hand from his pocket.

A second later Quinn thought he'd been punched, a sharp and piercing pain erupting at his flank just beneath his ribs. The stranger cursed angrily, withdrawing the blade from Quinn's side, and taking off back into the darkness.

For another moment it was eerily quiet, save for their ragged breathing and a few quiet whimpers that seemed to be coming from one of them. Quinn's side was on fire, and it hurt just to breathe. He must have really been decked by that guy.

“Michael,” he said, shaking his shoulder slightly. His boyfriend had many scrapes and bruises, but from what Quinn could outwardly see, Michael looked decent enough, despite the beating he'd just taken. Of course, Quinn was still pretty shaken himself, his eyes unable to properly focus. “Please, Michael. He's gone, and I want to go home.”

Michael was slow to rouse, but Quinn finally managed it. His left eye was already beginning to swell and darken, and it hurt to try to open his eyes at all or breathe for that matter. It was hard for him to think and he felt like he was fishing his memories out of a pit of tar before he could piece them together again.

Upon recall, he felt adrenaline course through him with renewed passion as he scanned around them in a panic. He didn't hear Quinn's weak assurances that they were safe. At first it was because all he could hear was the blood in his ears as he continued to panic, but then he noticed the growing stain on Quinn's scrubs.

“Q…” he breathed, nearly unable to find the words to use. He was hurt… bad... that's… too much… too much blood…

All he could do was point, shock and a mild concussion making his words nearly unattainable. “Quinn...He stabbed you…” he finally managed.

Quinn looked down at himself. Even through the darkness, it was easy to make out the dark stain on his blue scrubs. Hesitantly, he lifted his shirt, revealing a long, deep puncture wound near his belly, blood running freely and in great quantity down his side.

His face drained of color as he pressed his hand against the injury. He'd never been particularly good with handling large amounts of blood. His breathing grew choppy and uneven as he started to hyperventilate, a few tears running unhindered down his cheeks. This was it. He was dying.

With speed he didn't know he had, Michael whipped out his phone and dialed 911, awkwardly pressing against the wound. “Stay with me Q...stay with me.” Tears stung his eyes and flowed freely down his cheeks. He was about to lose the man he loved and it was like he couldn't do anything about it.

Quinn sat down hard on the ground, all resistance leaving his body. The grass was cold and wet with dew, or maybe blood. He felt dizzy and lightheaded, his side throbbing and seeping with more blood onto his hand and in between his fingers.

“M…” he started, reaching out for Michael. His vision was tunneling, the sound of blood rushing loudly in his ears. “Morphine. I'm allergic…to morphine.” He wasn't even entirely sure Michael was still on the phone, but he figured he ought to let someone know on the off chance he made it to the hospital and didn't die here on the grass.

It felt like a million years before someone picked up the line once Michael dialed the right numbers, but he could hardly focus on talking to the woman on the other end.

“You're okay, Quinn, just stay with me!” he begged, sobbing hard now as he pressed harder on the stab wound. He tried his best not to gag at the feeling of blood flowing over his finger tips. He didn't do well around blood either.

Quinn began to feel overwhelmingly tired, like he just couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. He hadn't realized how much blood he lost, but it had to have been a lot. He let himself close his eyes, the pressure of his hand against the wound letting up significantly, allowing more red to ooze into the fabric of his clothes. He slumped against his boyfriend, too weak to hold himself upright.

He felt Michael's hand against his side, and the pressure was reassuring. Just having Michael here made the whole situation somehow more bearable.

Suddenly, Quinn could feel his body move again, pain exploding from his side and radiating all the way to the tips of his limbs. When the pain subsided enough for him to take in information once more, he was laying flat on the ground and Michael had a great amount of pressure on his side, and he was saying something, something important.

Michael sobbed, “Wake up! Please, Quinn! Please wake up!”

Tears were hitting Quinn’s face and, for just a moment, he thought it had started to rain. His eyelids fluttered open, his gaze faraway and distant, though he seemed to be able to focus on Michael after a few moments. He gave his boyfriend’s arm a soft squeeze because he wasn't strong enough to reach up and wipe the tears that were rolling down his cheeks.

His fingers were slick with his own blood against Michael's arm, and even with his brain addled and sleepy with blood loss, he hoped Michael wasn't upset that he'd gotten their clothes dirty.

“I love you,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. His grip on Michael was starting to slacken, and his body felt weightless as he lied there on the cold, wet earth.

A louder sob tore through the air and more tears fell on Quinn's face.

“Don't you start that shit! You're not dying on me right now!” Michael all but shouted, screaming for help again before turning back to Quinn, petting his hair back haphazardly with the hand not putting pressure on the stab wound.

He could hear sirens in the distance now, “I love you, Quinn. Stay with me, they're almost here, they're almost here…!” Why were they so slow? Didn't they know Quinn was dying?

Maybe it was because of the blood oozing steadily out of his side, but Quinn felt completely relaxed. He was with Michael, his boyfriend running his hand over his hair. It was one of Quinn's favorite sensations, and his eyes closed easily from the familiar feeling. He was so tired and it was easy to just fall asleep and let himself fade into unconsciousness. If he was dying, at least he was in the arms of someone that he loved.

Things were hazy after that. Though he couldn't find the strength to move or even open his eyes, he heard a cacophony of voices hovering over him. He and Michael weren't alone anymore, but Quinn could tell from their tones, though his hearing was muddled, that they didn't mean either of them any harm.

After another moment, Quinn felt himself being taken from Michael's arms. All he could do was wince, his brows furrowing as he let out a pained moan, and then he was being moved, lifted onto something hard and uncomfortable. His shirt was being ripped away with shears, and then he must have passed out completely because later, he couldn't remember anything from that point on.

#injury #stabbing #tw blood #my ocs #quinn #my writing #nerdlycharming #other people's ocs

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traincat · 5 years

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I know you've already sort of discussed this but could you please explain the marvel 2 in 1 ending... what I'm getting is that the gist of it is that Reed and Sue are just like 'lol whoops I guess we sorta forgot about u'... which is really kinda anticlimactic and abrupt. Did I read it wrong or something? All that build up and angst just for it to go down the drain... is there something more to it that I'm missing that you know of?

I can explain it, but the answer’s not going to satisfy you, because it doesn’t satisfy me. Long story short: there were implications there was something more to the story than Marvel Two-In-One’s final two issues said, but Fantastic Four hasn’t followed up on that like, at all, and shows no signs that they’re going to anytime soon.

In the interests of putting all of the pieces together, I’m going to lay out everything that happened between the cancellation of the Fantastic Four title and now, because there are a lot of fuzzy periods. The Fantastic Four disappeared from the Marvel universe and from the shelves back in 2015, following Jonathan Hickman’s Secret Wars event. In Secret Wars, the multiverse has been destroyed and cobbled back together into Battleworld, a realm where Doctor Doom rules as god king, with Sue as his wife, Ben transformed into a huge wall, and Johnny as Battleworld’s artificial sun. It’s a real fractured fairy tale. At the end of Secret Wars, Reed defeats Doom and reunites his family. Using Franklin’s mutant ability to create entire universes and the Molecule Man’s powers, Reed, Sue, and the children of the Future Foundation set out to recreate the multiverse. Ben and Johnny are sent back to their own Earth with comment that “their stories aren’t done yet.” Doom is also sent back with his scarred face restored.

The cancellation of the Fantastic Four at this point heralds the first time Marvel had been without a Fantastic Four book on the shelves since 1961. We know – partially because it was painfully obvious, and partially because Jonathan Hickman spilled the beans – that the Fantastic Four comics were cancelled because of a film rights dispute; aka, Marvel Studios and Disney didn’t have the film rights, and Ike Perlmutter threw a fit about it. Instead of doing their best to put out a good book that would draw in comics audiences, Marvel instead cancelled Fantastic Four, citing low readership. Marvel has denied this, but the truth is pretty obvious, especially with how the Fantastic Four’s return to comics just so happened to coincide exactly with when it became extremely clear that the Disney-Fox merger was going through. So right from the start we had this very inorganic reason as to why the Fantastic Four were hung up. Reed, Sue, and the kids were retired out of universe under the excuse that they were rebuilding the multiverse – which, to be fair, does work as a pretty good excuse. Johnny and Ben, on the hand, were kept in-universe and distributed to other properties, probably because of Ben – who, let’s be honest, is the most popular of the Fantastic Four and the moneymaker here – and because it made more sense to keep Johnny and Ben than just Ben.

Immediately post-Secret Wars, there was an eight month (iirc) timeskip in the main Marvel universe, meaning that books that picked up after the events of Secret Wars picked up significantly after it; we see very little of the Secret Wars fallout. Here’s what we do know concerning the Fantastic Four: Reed, Sue, and the kids were largely believed to be dead, although Johnny in particular initially refused to believe that. Sometime during this timeskip, Johnny and Ben had some kind of fight. We don’t know what it was about. Honestly, at this point, we’re unlikely to ever know what it was about. Whatever it was, it was bad enough that Ben and Johnny severed all communication and Ben left the planet to join the Guardians of the Galaxy. What followed was the longest separation between Ben and Johnny that we’ve ever seen in canon. Johnny and Ben are famous for squabbling, but their fights rarely last longer than a few days at most; they’re extremely close, to the point that when Ben was presumed dead, Johnny’s coping mechanism mirrored Ben’s long time love and current wife Alicia’s. This post-Secret Wars separation between them lasted longer than when Ben thought Johnny had gotten together with said longtime love Alicia (it was a Skrull in disguise, but nobody would know that for like 80 issues). This separation between them is completely unprecedented, and like I said, we have no idea what caused it.

This scene from Infamous Iron Man #9 is the closest I’ve gotten to determining a root of the fight – note Johnny says “my family”, all handily bolded for emphasis. Not “our family”, “my family.” Ben is the only member of the Fantastic Four not related by either marriage or blood to any of the others, which has been a very occasional sore spot in the past. But even this scene doesn’t quite make sense – it’s hard to imagine Ben and Johnny having a months long separation over this alone, and to make matters more confusing, before Infamous Iron Man #9, Johnny had tried to get in contact with Ben only to be rebuffed. In Infamous Iron Man #9, Ben gets in contact with Johnny only for Johnny to practically run away from him. Already the new dynamic here feels like it needed more attention in the narrative than it actually got.

I think part of the problem with this whole return of the Fantastic Four storyline – the actual return especially, but even the lead-up – is that it was never established what was keeping Reed and Sue from coming back. On top of that, if they had the power to send Johnny and Ben back, why weren’t they able to send them back with some sort of memory or guarantee that Reed, Sue, and the kids were okay? It would have been very easy to say “well, a supervillain did it!” You know, the easiest comic book plot excuse of all time. But they didn’t do that. And that creates a problem when it’s a well-established fact that Johnny in particular tends to fall into a deep depression and displays signs of self-harm when the team isn’t together. (Fantastic Four #191-193, Robinson’s Fantastic Four run, Ben’s death in Waid’s run.) Which is exactly what happened this time, too, both during the timeskip and in the lead-up to Marvel Two-In-One (2017).

Marvel Two-In-One (2017) was essentially the test run for the return of the Fantastic Four. The original Two-In-One was to Ben Grimm what Marvel Team Up was to Peter Parker: essentially a team up book that revolved around one character. So it made sense to relaunch it starring Ben and Johnny. In Two-In-One, Ben discovers Johnny at the end of his rope, pulling life-threatening stunts in his grief and depression, and, willed a multidimensional travel device by Reed, decides to – to the best of his knowledge at the time – lie to Johnny and say that Reed and Sue might still be alive. Learning that they’re both losing their powers and will continue to do so unless they’re reunited with Reed and Sue, as their powers depend on the four of them being in the same universe (an interesting concept, though not one we’ve seen before), Ben and Johnny set off, with a worryingly helpful Doctor Doom on their heels, on a multiversal roadtrip to find their family – one Ben thinks will fail from the start because, as far as he knows, Reed and Sue are dead. It’s a really good concept, and a great concept that starts to fall apart as soon as the notion that Reed and Sue aren’t dead starts to float to the surface. In Two-In-One #9, stranded powerless with Ben in the desert in another universe and facing death, Sue appears to Johnny.

(Marvel Two-In-One #10) This brief contact is apparently enough to reignite Ben and Johnny’s powers to full strength. Sue says that her and Reed’s powers were gone, which does seem to track with the plot – except Johnny and Ben lost their powers over a prolonged period of time, not all at once. If Reed had realized he and Sue were losing their powers, he should have come to that conclusion far before this point in time. You can say the times don’t add up because different universes (which the “you haven’t met the Zaklons yet” line would seem to imply), but with no explanation about how Sue was able to contact Johnny – however briefly – at this point, it does make it seem like Reed and Sue could’ve made contact with Ben and Johnny at any point… and simply chose, for whatever reason, not to. Which is, ultimately, the story Two-In-One goes with.

(Marvel Two-In-One #11) In the very next issue, Reed’s reasoning for why they didn’t take Ben and Johnny with them is that… they would’ve been bored by the science aspect of it all. Which is, I’m going to go ahead say, very out of character and not in the spirit of the Fantastic Four. They’re explorers, and they explore together. This seems like a weirdly brusque excuse to write off the absence so they can get back to the status quo as quickly as possible, using Reed’s science-obsessed image to make him the fall guy. Additionally, in this issue (which I have to say, I overall like – I wrote a whole Doom/Reed fic based off of it), Reed also offers another reason why the world had to believe he and Sue were dead:

In Marvel Two-In-One #11, Reed and Ben visit an alternate universe Doom who exists in a universe where his own Reed is dead. This Doom is a pretty okay dude at the moment – in fact, he and Reed had become, through Reed’s private multiversal travel, close friends. Using this (pretty flawed) logic of “Reed dead = Doom good??”, Reed deduced that if his own Doom thought Reed was dead, he… too would be good? Look, I don’t hate this. I’m a big Doom/Reed fan and the whole thing is pretty shippy and it also depends on Reed having an enormous attachment to Doom and an enormous desire for his own Doom to be like this other Doom, who is his friend. But as far as “why did Reed and Sue stay away as long as they did” explanations go, “Reed was kind of bonkers in love with Doom” is not the direction I expected things to go. Besides, it doesn’t really work, and it doesn’t really work for one big reason: Fantastic Four (2018) #1, the actual return of the Fantastic Four, was published before this, and Fantastic Four (2018) #1 implies a hugely different story.

Fantastic Four (2018) #1 sees Johnny and Ben returned to their home universe after the events of Marvel Two-In-One #10. The reader has no idea how they got there or what they’ve been doing since they got back, or even how long it’s been since they’ve been back. Despite the Sue sighting, at the very end of the issue, Johnny becomes convinced all over again that Reed and Sue are dead, up until…

(Fantastic Four v6 #1) The staging here is important – Reed and Sue’s battle-ripped uniforms, and the cryptic lines between them, like Sue’s “what you plan to do… seems impossible.” This is compounded by dialogue between Franklin and Val in the next Fantastic Four issue:

“You think you can boost that signal enough… to reach Earth?” “Home? I’m good, but there’s no way I’m that good.” This would definitely seem to imply that, for some reason, Reed, Sue, and the kids can’t contact their home universe, or Ben and Johnny at all. I’m admittedly biased in favor of this version: the more time went by without Reed and Sue contacting Johnny and Ben and leaving them on their own, the more obvious it became that this was the best solution, to create some comic book reason why Reed and Sue simply couldn’t return home. But Fantastic Four (2018) #3 and #4 never really explore this more, and the subject gets dropped altogether, which makes for a very unsatisfying read. The Fantastic Four simply return home together and, some frankly too quickly brushed off anger and resentment from Johnny in Marvel Two-in-One’s closing issue aside, this gets swept under the rug in favor of the Fantastic Four just being back now! Hurrah! Pay no attention to the film rights hungry Mouse behind the curtain!

If I wanted to, I could make the explanations presented in Fantastic Four (2018) and Marvel Two-in-One (2017) mesh – Reed has massive guilt issues stemming back to the accident that granted the Fantastic Four his powers. He has a bad habit of taking responsibility that isn’t necessarily his, and of not being 100% truthful in situations because he feels it’s for the best for everyone. (The massive amount of time he takes to reveal his powers are failing during Fraction’s Fantastic Four run, or in the two instances during Waid’s run where Reed uses cruel words to distract both Ben and Sue from his plans to sacrifice himself for them.) Reed might have chosen to take the blame on himself – come up with a story he knows will anger Ben, say that he thought he and Johnny would have been bored, because he felt it was somehow easier than admitting that he and Sue found themselves in some kind of situation where they simply couldn’t get back, and couldn’t contact Ben or Johnny. It’s a way of taking 100% of the blame on himself, which would be a very Reed thing to do. But that would be me doing the book’s work for it; this is absolutely not established within the actual canon as of the time of my writing this.

Honestly, I don’t think we’re likely to see this explored more any time imminently – the Fantastic Four were banished from the stands because of film rights. They came back because for three years dedicated fans asked where the Fantastic Four were, yes, but also because of those same film rights. Now that they’re back, there seems to be this huge rush to pretend it never happened: the Four are back together, and that’s that. It’s very unsatisfying, but it’s clear Marvel cared more about pushing the Fantastic Four back together as quickly as possible than writing a coherent, satisfying story that put together all the pieces of their in-universe disappearance.

#foil-in-a-thunderstorm #*replies #traincat talks comics #long post/

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elizabethrobertajones · 6 years

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14x01 watching notes

RIP Kip, we hardly knew ye.

Well hey, returning friends and people who unwittingly clicked on this not knowing exactly what they're in for. Blowing off the dust and starting a new season of Dabb fuckery, which I spent way too long trying to think of a portmanteau for when I already have the episode downloaded

It's 5am, let's DO THIS.

So they start with Dean's Hi I Am A Cop On The Day Before I Retire speech re: hula girls and hawaiian t-shirts which is remarkably prescient of me to have been irrationally upset about that one detail after I binged most of season 13 last night to get me back in the mood. So now I have to elaborate on my one line textpost >.>

Because yes, that is the perfect note to start the season on: Dean thought the good times had rolled, allowed himself to hope, assembled himself a family with mom and step-pop (Bobby counts as a full father but AU Bobby is step-pop), brother, husband, kid... Said kid was promising A World Without Monsters aka Dabb's showrunning tagline for an endgame he teases them. And Lucifer was tucked safely away in an AU with the murderous Michael... And then in a series of events it all came crumbling down and with this amount of goodness in his grasp, he gave up what even when the real Michael was hounding him for it, he couldn't before.

Because in season 13 it is beyond obvious that Dean is tired, an Old Hunter, the best of his game but ready to bow out on that note, and yet for him it's not a matter of stepping back and letting someone else handle it because when Michael and Lucifer were involved, it was beyond personal. He and Sam only EXIST because Lucifer and realMichael wanted them to. And so there was no way this trouble would come to someone else's door, when it was the nasty angel on his shoulder and the devil on Sam's and we have Nougat as their collective responsibility who's the nexus of it all anyway.

Eeee the Road So Far text is glowy grace colour on a dark blue background. I'm JIZED for the title card.

Goodness, the Road So Far is a weird journey because we see Jack being all useful and magic and then callbacks to 13x01 and 2 where he was a messed up 2 day old and Dean just wanted to murder him.

I haven't outlined any expectations for this episode or even this recap but I suddenly realise that I should probably be wondering how much DeanCas we're gonna get in it, and this rage against Jack is subtextually motivated, for sure, but for me the first 6 episodes of Dean's grief arc were wonderful character stuff but removed from the main plot and therefore in my head I keep boxing them off like a bubble season, like 10x01-3 are, and I legit wasn't even expecting to SEE content from them in the recap, because brilliant as they are I sort of just forgot they were a part of this season despite watching them yesterday. The season for me became so much the Jack And Mary Search that this hiccup at the start didn't meet the requirements to be in season 13 :P

They're just That Time Dean Was Really Sad About Cas Then He Came Back And They Were Cowboys

Oh good there was "everybody we've lost" and then a recap of Cas dying and then - oh, we're recapping plot again? Er... everybody? Dean? Who else? DEAN?

this was the thinly veiled subtext of that line anyway since Dean waved off Mary and made it all about Cas anyways but. Yikes, editing team.

Jesus I watched season 13 yesterday and I forgot about Asmodeus. You know what, this is pre-coffee AND the 2 types of anti-brain fog medication I gobble in the morning.

But he's that much of a useless lump

Also too much Lucifer nipple on screen pre-coffee. Ick.

Nice recapping of Not The Levitating Fight.

NOW

Stock photo Nyoom of the season!! Hi Baby! You aren't in this episode because Eugenie said the car wasn't being used this season

Sam's got his Vengeance Eyes on but he's all scruffy and grown up so I trust him 10000% to get the job done.

OW. FUCK. OW. OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. GOOD USE OF INTERSTITIAL MUSIC

Why were you even listening to Dean's tapes if they fuck you up that badly? IS THIS YOUR VENGEANCE PLAYLIST? I'VE BEEN WAITING 10 YEARS

Actually, I haven't, I binged 4-5-6 as one unit after thinking the show was cancelled during the writers' strike but the point is that Sam and his ipod in 4x01 is immediately in my head because he was listening to his own music and being a hipster douche, but now he is not on demon blood he has not installed an ipod dock because he's GETTING DEAN BACK, DAMMIT but at the same time he's also realising that this means a heavy toll that the only driving music in the car is Dean's stuff...

Oh no, this must be the guy from the SDCC clip we hadn't seen because Osric Chau is banned forever for illegally uploading them all for us in the past, and all I know is that Deanchael is going to Fuck Him Up and I feel very bad for him

*raises my mug to Osric* I'm sure you tried, dude. And thanks for the previous years.

Hi Deanchael. I noticed in a promo pic that his tie has that sacred geometry type pattern on it which is a detail I made a mental note to type out literally anywhere in the like month between there and here and did not so here it is at a hopefully appropriate place.

Based on every other scene setting detail I suspect that this faithful man is actually still within the USA because this is literally the cabin set they re-use for everything. The spoilers made it sound like Deanchael was globe trotting to raise his army but now I see what's around us... Yeah no he's as focused on the US as every other big bad before.

Anyway they really specifically chose this prayer to Allah because of how pointed it was about being only for Allah and how he was the best, so I'm assuming Deanchael is here to be like yo God's gone and I'm your last chance of faith

Like just ruin his day and he got up at like 4am or whatever the first prayer is to do it and all

I hope, like, no offence to any Muslim viewers or anything >.> They sure play fast and loose with a lot of this stuff because Christian cultures are full of bitter non-believers raised in the culture and looking to kick up at the big guy in the sky, which is not an impression I get that Islam is as used to cultural flippancy, regardless of personal beliefs of residents of predominately Muslim countries and cultures. I'm not 100% sure though, because the closest link I've got is my raised-Christian Iranian friend who applies Christian eye-rolling to the issues with being in Iran and heathen so I still get that perspective of middle fingers up at Organised Religion from our discussions about it all... anyway big diversion, still waiting for coffee to kick in :P I just swallowed the last of it so I can only get more jittery from here on out!

It's so fuckin weird to see Dean's face confidently reciting verse in Arabic

I mean you don't need the hat, sir. I get it. It's not you in there.

Well so far anyway he's playing on the fact that the guy does pray to god and his angels.

Lol @ this man guessing his way through God AND Gabe to Deanchael's annoyance that he's the 3rd guess and he has to clarify that he's the better one.

Man, Gabriel worked on his reputation. I wouldn't have been able to tell you who Michael was because there wasn't even a kid in my class with that name when I was age 4 busy portraying Gabriel in a nativity play with full impish glee that the real deal would have been proud of.

Uhoh things aren't looking good for Jamil D: Asking for peace and love is good, you funky little hippy.

Is Deanchael implying that the Syria insurgency is the route to peace? I honestly don't know enough about the American foreign policy politics to know what sort of stance this is though from a liberal leaning show (I mean come on Bobo is a card-carrying socialist, I've seen it on Twitter :P), though to an outside viewer well aware of how fucked up it all is should this have been said on a British program, this is a vast over-simplification.

But we know Michael's main traits are Likes War and then also Warmonger and of course, spoilin' for a fight. So this may be a personal judgement and as much as they're bringing politics into their show I'm just backing right on out and going with this :P That he thinks it is more honourable to stay and fight and that Jamil is a hypocrite for not sticking around to work for peace actively.

Oh Jamil hooked up with a woman called Darleen. He is FOR SURE in America.

It's so funny to me that Deanchael can fly anywhere and they could have set this anywhere but it still ends up being a wooden cabin in the US. This has to turn out to be a lead to follow with a news report about the poor guy or else this is just hysterical that they couldn't be arsed to mock up even a hint of another country :P

He knew all this about Jamil beforehand so I have to assume he's really just here to drag him.

Man, that throw was GOOD. I'm assuming they either spent all summer playing with wires and stunts or else they've gone back to the drawing board on all this flinging people around business.

"A better world" oh we are so on for this World Without Monsters malarky still. This lines up with the clip from Dean they opened on so well - the dark irony of he and Michael working on the same project but from different angles. Dean wants to sort out monsters and bad things so he can go on a beach, aka his version of paradise, and Mikey wants to smush all the sinners, and clean up the planet, which is HIS version of paradise.

HECKIN GOOD TITLE CARD

now photoshop those wings on everyone

I LIKE SCRUFFY BULLET MAKER FROM THE AU.

He's like so happy to be in a world where you just casually have resources.

Meanwhile poor Maggie has become the de facto nurse and hates it.

Ugh the Bunker is a place where people just show up who yell "Soup's on!"

In my redshirt betting pool, Soups On is the first guy who dies.

Promo sceeeeene

I'm so happy Sam and Mary are doing this together. Last season Sam was so upset that Dean got to have a relationship with her, and he had missed out, but without Dean around - no offence to him - Sam and Mary may be focused on FINDING him but this is the work they also need to do for their relationship to start to ground it in something real. It's taken this long with all the separations, but remember that Mary also worked through some of her issues about Sam only last season in the AU with 6 month old Jack. And if she needed that sort of reminder and relationship to warm her up for Sam, her suddenly-grown 6 month old, then there were still a LOT of underlying issues that dated back to the start for her to overcome. Hopefully this puts them on a level playing field, though there's a new conflict brewing for them, with Mary's determined optimism vs Sam's pessimism, born of that depression from last season that never really got treated or resolved, they just managed to power past its current main triggers. Of course now it all just shifts in a Deanward direction.

I love how Ketch has been punted to London, at Buckleming discretion to drag him back. This wasn't even Bobo punting him out the door, and he and Buckleming have a violent back and forth over favourite characters, started in 9x06 with Bobo's very first episode when he banished Professor Morrison forever.

MARY TRIES MOMMING SAM TO GO TO BED

THEN SCRUFFY GUN GUY IS LIKE "CHIEF"

Chieeeeeeef.

Sam runs the shooow here and I love it. He's their badass MoL hunter leader, a scruffy saviour from another world.

Given Sam is wearing the same shirt and jacket in the promo pics I'm guessing he does not sleep, though I hope he gets to eat the soup.

"Maggie can you hack the traffic cams?" "um. no."

I love and support Maggie. She is a normal person who happened to live in apocalypse world and she just wants to flirt with the guy from the Gas n Go who probably hasn't talked to her since that got blown up and Jack attacked him over her... I mean, this is better than the AU world but maybe she just wants to be normal? Did anyone ask Maggie what she wanted??

SAM. You can eat your soup and run things at the same time! Get back here and eat that soup!

"yes sir"

Goodness, this is wonderful. Sam's doing what he was born to do, and then not because that was leading a friggin demon army, but then yes because he's got inherent leadership traits that he defers to Dean all the time because, well, he's there, and he's big bro.

Look, sometimes you need big bro to murder Satan's ass for you forever, but you also should be calling the shots. There's a balance here, where Dean can be the older brother, but Sam can be the boss. Work/life balance. Dean's got your back but you command an army of hunters, like we've all been salivating over since like season 8 when they first said the MoL ran the Bunker as the hub of operations dictating stuff to trusted hunters and the like.

Of course, if Sam is the Bobby here, then who is the AUBobby? I hope we see what's up with that soon, I've been wanting them to bristle those beards in an alpha way at each other for months, because AUBobby was their leader before Sam because Sir Chief.

"Sam."

"i'm good"

*mothering intensifies*

"i'm GOOD"

*mothering intensifies*

"How's Jack"

You aren't used to being mothered and it's murdering me completely to my soul. Dean's got SO MUCH MOTHERING all through the show compared to you. He even sees Jody as a mom friend while you crush on her like crazy so you haven't even got that!!!!

Because Chief Sam is the boss of this lot but at the SAME TIME he's getting all these soft tender mom moments he's never got to have before. It's a wonderful balance of nuances to his current life. He's overworked but surrounded by a supportive care team that respects him, gives him soup, and holds his hand, literally in Mary's case. And yet he's the scruffy macho competent boss who knows how to call all these shots, deputise, set up missions, but still knows more than them, how to do traffic cams, I'm sure years of lore over most of these hunters who only learned to deal with what got thrown at them in the apocalypse by trial and error because when do they get lore books? Mary and Bobby and other pre-apocalypse hunters would be few and far between to offer competent training to a populace suddenly all turned hunter.

Oh, AUBobby is beating up Jack. Perfect.

AAAH DIRECTED BY TJW

WAS NOT ADEQUATELY HOLDING ONTO SEAT

WARN A GIRL

I love finally seeing the training room but I'm deeply conscious that this is where Put Up Your Dukes starts and I can't get that fan fic out my mind so I'm just like, Jack, don't lie on the floor, your dads have banged there.

I'm so happy that AUBobby is nurturing a grandson, because this is the difference between him and Bobby - that our Bobby had that with Sam n Dean, but AUBobby never did. Though he DID have Mary Campbell to crush on, I doubt it would have softened him and rounded out the harsh places in his soul the same way raising Sam and Dean did, because he had an unrequited love and she hadn't gotten over John, while this recently widowed Mary Winchester actually has made better progress just because of the circumstances of the loss. Anyways Jack has no preexisting history with Bobby so there's nothing weird about him and AUBobby stepping into a nurturing relationship, that Sam n Dean would find uncomfortable in a way, given their relationship with Bobby. And Jack gets yet another strong figure to teach and guide him.

AUBobby looks slim and stands tall compared to Bobby, which I'm largely putting down to posture, and not being drowned in layers. I like this difference - Bobby almost never voluntarily dressed in 1 layer, but AUBobby has a more military slant, and this training sergeant routine with Jack is a good fit to show a difference in his character, that isn't surly old Bobby behind his desk, that he's involved in teaching Jack to fight, rather than helping hunters with lore and swigging whiskey.

I'd assume given the lack of availability in his AU, he's considerably less alcohol dependant, so this is a very different character thing. If Bobby were doing this training, and nothing else was different, he'd be taking a breather to pour them both a whiskey as he imparts wisdom.

Demon in nice shoes and dark sunglasses at night to indicate that yes I am a demon I have black eyes :P I assume this is a demon anyway not just because of this detail but pre-season spoilers

Ah hearing Cas's name is enough to make my heart pick up. MY GUY!

But then, "Castiel, darling"

Stop trying to make Good Omens happen, it's not going to happen. You can't just "darling" up to an angel and expect that good good romance. Crowley took years to wear Cas down and Cas never actually LIKED him, down to their last real interaction where Cas was just "WTF???? LEAVE ME TO ROT AND DIE" when Crowley saved him in 12x12

God I miss that

"Oh god."

Same, buddy.

You do, however, realise this is your first words of the season gifset line, though?

Someone ought to write to Dabb and inform him that people make first and last word gifsets and to be more careful.

Especially if in the last episode at the end of the season, Cas's last word is "Dean"

Anyway Cas has said 1 line and I can tell he's on top form. Unlike 10x01 he's in a hipster hogroast joint.

This demon, with dark black sunglasses inside at night (douchebag) just ordered a coffee, black. WE GET IT, ENOBY DEMENTIA DARKNESS RAVEN WAY, YOU ARE GOFFIC AND IT'S AS BLACK AS YOUR SOUL

LOL Cas is sitting under the JACK'S sign.

Demon douche sits under Schultz, which is the death beer. And lemme tell you, TJW is well-versed in this. So well-versed in it he's sat Cas in front of a classic El Sol flyer with the subtle touch required to tell Dean that Cas is his dream girl. He knows his shit.

This seriously seems to be implying that the rise of hipster food joints is an effort from Hell to spread chaos on earth

Cas sitting with his back to the fire is such an interesting visual, but this is just a note to self for later to guess what it all means

THIS FUCKIN DEMON TOOK HIS BLACK SUNGLASSES OFF TO SHOW OFF HIS BLACK EYES

Dabb is so good at incidental characters, and making me hate this guy for nuanced nonsensical reasons is amazing. This is... art...

This is a callback to 5x08 and Dean ranting about hating procedural cop shows then him and sam taking their sunglasses on and off at night every time they made a pun and I'm 100% convinced since 12x01 and Cas busting through that Mystery Spot sign that Gabriel has been subtly influencing events

Okay so we know exactly what is written on demon bathroom walls. I'm taking that as a sideways confirmation that Cain knew full well that Dean had his Colette because he'd seen crude doodles of them doing it

Anyway douchedemon just outright told Cas that all the demons assume he and Dean in particular are banging. Not that Cas bangs Winchesters, as some have implied, without knowing all the details. They've narrowed this info down.

I assume this is also in the Winchester Dossier that Barthamus studied from before meeting them. I love that demons probably do have a filing cabinet somewhere of all the notable assholes they run into in their work, and the Winchesters take up a whole cabinent, but the refresher file summarising them in a paragraph if you don't have time is like, Sam: Lazy boyking, will stab you. Dean: fucking Castiel, will stab you.

Cas doesn't even move an eyebrow. Incredible.

Cas rarely gets hit with these compared to Dean in the history of the show, and Dean is full of bluster or anger or confusion or alarmed eyebrows. Cas is like... no. fuck you. i'm party!Cas, I have my shit in order.

Though this is from a demon. It's an entirely different thing when Heaven is involved, as they also have their dossier on the winchesters.

Sam: abomination. will banish you. Dean: fucking Castiel. Will stab you.

*loud coffee slurp* "what's in it for moi?

Cas, stab him. Stab him now. This is not worth the information. You can find another guy.

I'm starting to think Cas with his back to the flames is his unwitting danger from this hellish hogroast place.

They use Shultz beer containers to hold the sauces and menus on the table. DEEEEATH

Cas speaking slower and threatening to burn him to ash "right here and right now"

this is a gifset that will get a lot of notes from thirsty Cas fans

Whaaaaaaaa the entire joint turned out to be owned by and filled with demons who would ever have guessed based on one open fire and that metal hogs head from the promo pics :P

Stop hurting him!!!! Misha can't stage fight! This is really unfair!!

I wonder how the poor new awesome fight coordinator took to Misha

"let's just... um..." "hide him behind all these demons?" TJW suggests The fight guy nods sadly.

Aww Sister Jo got back to work. Good for her.

Sister Jo has no fear and can stroll down a shady alley counting her money

*t-shirt meme* One fear: *flappy wing noises*

"Hey Jo."

GHOLY SHIT TRUE FORMS TYHUEOJDSHGFSH DS TRUE FORMS WE SEE WHAT ANGELS SEEE OH MY GOD OH MY GOD SCIENCE HAS CAUGH T UP TO THE DIVINE, SPN CAN FINALL Y SHOW US WHAT ANGELS SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Holy shit I want the gif of this as my blog header. That's shitting amazing.

Burning HALO

ALL HIS CHI POINTS LIT UP EVEN WHEN IT MAKES IT LOOK SILLY TO HAVE HIS CALVES GLOWING

I wonder if this is what Danneel sees when she looks at Jensen all the time

"Why would he say yes to you?"

"Love"

I'm dying and I am dead. I gather that Dean is 100% absent from this episode, but that one comment puts him front and centre and I am in paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain. Everything happening around Michael and because of Michael is because Dean loves his peeps. From Sam staying up hacking traffic cams on vampires to Cas getting his ass handed to him by demons.

I bet Cas looks like that single glowstick he had on in the cave when angels look at him.

Party!Cas

I ruined the fun

Jensen gently touches Danneel's face and that's just rude because that's all his tenderness for his wife being turned into a scary villain move between Deanchael and Jo. Don't do this to them!!!

Oooof Deanchael pulls from Dean's memory of Anael about what she was like, describing her in the most Cas-like terms, then cuts through her hilarious bull about wanting handbags (this is so meta about sticking middle fingers in the faces of people who think she's a well-paid beard) and then starts telling her she wants love and a family.

Deanchael has used the word "love" twice in a scene and it's horrifying to see the word come out of his face, when Dean is so guarded. Now Deanchael is just looking through Sister Jo and analysing what she wants - and she's playing this game very well but this move of his might still beat her. Because ow. Telling her she wants belonging and family. When she's very much established as a Cas mirror by the reminder she ran away from Heaven and doesn't want to play by their rules.

"It's very, very human of you. And so disappointing." Did all those times Lucifer sucked her grace bring her close to feeling it? To the point of permanent damage? I only ask because I know another guy this might apply to.

I wonder how much Deanchael is projecting based on conjectures because he knows Cas through Dean's eyes.

"But if they're all these sad, lost, fallen things..." Ya, that's Cas too for suresies

SAM AND JACK SAM AND JACK

Jack sitting quietly in meditation, clearly unsettled. A parallel to 13x23 when Dean came rushing in to him having a nightmare, now Sam is having a crack at parenting the boy.

Jack lying about how things were fine. Nougat. Hon. You're human now. But not that good at being human. Sam knows your tells :P

Sam interrupted mid pep-talk by Mary with some nonsense.

Jack is always so ugh... accepting and kinda flippant. He knows parental figures can be disappointing and get dragged away mid peptalk by some business.

Which he's apparently not involved in. I guess after we see him going on hunts with them in 13x23, he's grounded until he goes through basic training so not only is he useless to help with his powers to find Dean, but he can't even do the easy hunter stuff because he's just a kid.

Aww my poor baby Nougat :( He's so angsty. He's a TEEN. Lookit him! All growed up!

Uuugh I guess this is Nick. "I didn't talk to him. I can barely look at him."

What I'm getting from this sequence mainly is the sound of Triss's rage at the Bunker layout.

*Mary pats Sam's shoulder supportively and walks off*

You're on your own, Chief.

Ugh I am not ready for this bull if it's Nick but I have to keep watching to be sure :P

Ew it is. EW. What does Mark P HAVE on you all.

At least TJW is shooting the heck out of this to show us how gross Sam finds this all.

Sam's shadow falling over Nick.

I really want to know how this bullshit happened. And yet. No, not really.

Oh gross AND they're making Mark P take off his shirt. The nipple I didn't want to see in the Road So Far was not warning enough.

Pre-season ugh speculation was that whatever Crowley did to Nick made him stronger and more permanent apparently even than Lucifer being stabbed out of him.

So yeah anyway I guess Jack is in part also sulking about this and I'm with him, because Sam being pulled away from their pep talk time to deal with Gross Man Associated With My Father But Not Actually Him Because Biologically I Am The Son Of A Non-Historical President...

Making Sam the one who has to care for Nick is utterly cruel. He has so many deputies. Maybe this is just his personal fear that Nick's still a bit Lucifery. Maybe he just sees this as a gross burden, a manifestation of the ongoing trauma from Lucifer, that even when he's dead he lingers.

Plus, it's giving us some reassurance that an angel can be ousted from a vessel without killing them, to throw some options into the Deanchael pot.

Still. Nick. Really.

I bet Jack is sulking because some little cosmic part of him regenerating deep down in his core, that one lil gold glowy chi point in his big toe, knows that Eugenie forgot his name at SDCC and called him "Nick" and this shit from your creator just weighs on you. Jack is an entity beyond Buckleming and yet born from them, and this is what they beget: forgetting their own child in favour of this old carcass.

bitter? moi? *sips coffee noisily*

Actually, that's not true but I need some tea because I'm sulky so I'm taking this ragebreak to go make some and then I will sip it noisily in Nick's direction. :P

Everything henceforth is under the jurisdiction of hot drink no.2

"I don't understand how Lucifer could die and I could live"

I hate you

Eurgh, I bet you anything Dabb pulled a Buckleming and just took the post-it note they gave him when he asked, er, HOW does this happen? and transliterated it into dialogue because 1: all the writers shade Buckleming all the time because I can literally see it ooze out of Perez and Yockey and Bobo's writing but this is the showrunner, guyses. 2: it's such a dumbass convoluted explanation that it only burns out the archangel but if you non-fatally stab it then the guy is fine.

Which begs the question of how the fuck is Gabriel because if we get anything good from this, that fucker is in one hell of an interesting vessel situation compared to Old Nick.

PS: I am not sure how culturally saturated this is so we are all clear that Old Nick is a historically used name for Satan and his name has been a joke since 5x01 thanks to Kripke, and now we have to actually deal with that.

And then Nick is actually sympathetic to how Sam feels looking at him. I guess Mark P really wants us to feel sympathetic to his new dude.

"And Michael... did he tell Lucifer anything about his plan?"

Listen, we NEED acknowledgement that for a month or so Lucifer and AUMichael roadtripped together to assemble from their AU the key of solomon, the fruit of the tree of life, and the blood of a most holy man.

There was a lengthy downtime while people settled in and Dean was allowed to think the Good Times were rolling, and all that time, the weirdest brother roadtrip show ever was going on in the AU, mad enough that I would actually find it hilarious to watch despite enduring Mark P as a result of it.

SAM DOES NOT DESERVE THIS

He's not allowed to rest, ever.

I bet this is douchdemon phoning him from Cas's phone.

"Hello Sam!" says a perky voice down the phone. It's INCREDIBLE how unlikeable this demon is making himself. He's actually my favourite character now.

Oh no, Nougat is wearing a different grey shirt. He's really depressed. Someone help him.

"He just told you he was a demon?" "he seemed proud of it too"

Sam hates him as well. I can't wait for Sam to come scowl at him.

"What do we do?" Maggie asks, completely wide-eyed. Oh honey. Poor, innocent, sheltered Maggie. What were you doing all apocalypse until we caught up with you? You aren't hardened, you're adorable.

AUBobby and Rufus (his gun)

"I'm coming too!" YAY JACK. Your father is in trouble, he's on a hunting trip and he hasn't been home in a few days, but what a different world all the rest is

"I'm not as strong, but I can help," he says, looking tiny beside Sam, bruised up from AUBobby's training, a single layer to make him look even smaller...

(we do not talk enough about how all these jackets are a sort of alpha being shoulder plumping thing like when you make yourself look huge to scare off a mountain lion but that's 100% what this is)

IT MADE JACK SMILE yey he's allowed to feel useful! Pop is allowing him to go on a mission to rescue Dad who was looking for Papa when this all went down.

Grandpapa is not so pleased, because AUBobby has been measuring how useful Jack is and I feel like lil Nougat bab is going to do something mildly heroic for Cas or else get pasted for his ongoing character development for the season...

"He needs this, Bobby."

Dear LORD does he not quit? We don't even know his name? "Are you sure I can't get you anything... hot... or black?" FUck OFF

No wonder by the promo pic Cas looked so utterly done. This is exhaustingly annoying for him. Cas's personal hell is just irritating people. A line of Crowleys and Lucifers and this jerkwad chattering at him.

And yet Dean runs his mouth all the time and Cas is in luuuurve

Oh lordy are we really doing this coffee metaphor now? "Coffee has no effect on me" (but he once acquired the taste, and it was a core part of him being human and learning to human in the opening shot of 9x06 for him as his metaphor for how he was learning)

"me either *sluuuurp* not any more. But it's like saltwater taffy or infants. I just like the taste."

"I'm just being a good host like mother would have wanted"

Cas stops mid eyeroll to eyeroll HARDER at meeting ANOTHER demon with mommy issues. Like, please. Don't. I like Rowena now but can we NOT.

Party!Cas of Dabb era is my favourite iteration of Cas by a country mile.

"Why are you using me as bait?" "it's kind of what you're for"

Oh Cas. Now he's just the damsel in distress, which I guess is a step up from being an attack dog, but still isn't that great for the ego stroking about his role and use within the Winchester family, an ongoing source of stress for him, this reminds us.

Cas's faith in Sam is wonderful. like, as soon as douchmon says he needs something from Sam, Cas just SMIRKS like, OH BUDDY. BUDDDYYY. No, I'm not gonna say it. I'm just - "you think he'd make a deal with you?" I'm ... I don't laugh as a rule but inside? Hilarious.

"Somebody asked me what it was that I wanted" You know, I think Deanchael is INCITING people. he's not killing any of them, just using the revelation of his appearance to motivate them - moving Sister Jo to do what she wants, which is to re-organise Heaven with the ideas she had as a button pushing functionary... visiting world leaders and holy men, and this douche...

To what end, though? Chaos? This is a roundabout way to make a better world.

"Destroying, Drinking, Defiling, you know, the 3 Ds" they absolutely have posters up in Hell with this on for the newbies to learn.

We've seen Heaven's staffroom, I DEMAND to see the break room in Hell, with all its lurid Destiel smut doodled on the walls and so on

Anyway it's a hell of a question, pun intended, because demons have no real purpose, even the named baddies have largely been slaves to someone else's will (Lucifer or Crowley) and Crowley could not have answered that question from the start of season 6 through to the moment he chose to sacrifice himself... I don't think any of TFW 2.0 or Bunker Squad could answer it fully. Cas can't, and that's the question that's been bugging him since 9x06 -

EPHRAIM Shh-shh-shhh. It'll be over soon. I'll take the pain away.

CASTIEL I want to live.

EPHRAIM But as what, Castiel? As an angel? or a man?

and it's what his entire crisis in season 10 was over... Who ARE you Castiel? What do you WANT?

Dean wants a Beach Vacation Ending. He figured it out and as narrative punishment, he's Deanchael. No one else has sorted it out, though, but Sam got close - he had his pizza dream and was immediately punished with being eaten by vampires and resurrected by Lucifer and all that drama... Sam's work isn't done. Though his growth has taken a huge leap, now he has to figure out what he wants in this NEW setting, and we're only just MEETING Chief Sam in this iteration, so he's got a lot of work to do.

"I gave it a good think and I worked out exactly what I wanted. Everything."

Deanchael definitely is planning for this, so watch out buddy.

SAM DRIVING, MOM IN SHOTGUN

RED ALERT

Uhoh Sam's snapped because of the optimism Mary exudes. Yep, he really was nearly at the last straw in their earlier convo when he scoffed at her attempts to cheer him up.

Look, she's trying to mom you with no experience except adopting Jack. Work with her.

Sam is spiralling with the depression, this time all the bad things that could have happened to Dean and how they're never going to find him, throwing these horrible scenarios at Mary to stop her trying to comfort him.

"I know. I know he's out there, scared and alone." She sees lil 4 year old Dean. Because, I mean, that is the soul Dean bears to her when they have moments sometimes. And her optimism is a wall against thinking of her toddler in this scenario.

"I know. I know he might not come back. Never think I don't know that. But I can't - I have to think about the good, Sam. Because if I don't, I will drown in the bad." I wonder who that directly relates to who is currently driving this car.

I really hope this is a bit of vindication for Mary - or redemption to the eyes of the people who don't like her - that she does care, and she's spelling out her approach to all this. In the start of season 12 when she was trying to keep afloat she used a lot of optimism and furious paddling on the surface, because she has been doing that her whole life. When she was being raised a hunter, when she was a housewife with no clue what she was doing, a mom but he marriage beginning to fall apart... And then thrust into the present day, and it's 360 degrees of combat and loss and sadness and a ill-advised hook up with Ketch... Furious doggy paddling on the surface.

"For Dean's sake, I can't do that. We can't do that." And she shows that she is prioritising Dean, that she's driven and motivated to keep going FOR him.

Come on, give her a chance.

Nyooom.

Meanwhile in the Jack and Bobby truck, Jack is the one angsting and Bobby is the one driving.

Jack is one years old and not legally old enough to drive.

Bobby peptalks him with the reminder that when Jack had his grace he did hero things for these people, which is why he can ride shotgun, and even if he feels useless now, they'll have his back, that he has earned this squad even if he can't be as awesome as he used to.

Maggie is like, I'm getting a reaction shot... Am I going to develop feelings for Jack? That would be super weird, he's one years old. I hope no one is implying this even though I'm in a bunch of scenes getting character focus.

Eeeeeeee Sam trusts Mary with the demon killing knife. I am sure they don't call it Ruby's knife to her and he has never, ever told her about that time that thing happened with Ruby.

This fucker had his back turned for Sam to enter just so he could turn around dramatically. God he's repellent.

An extra was hired to pat Sam down. What a job.

"The shoulders. The hair! You are my Beyonce!" I mean, same. Except. Cas is Agent Beyonce so this fuckhead has totally misread this situation.

This gives Sam a moment to look over at Cas and Cas silently says, yes I know he's a total fuckhead, I've been dealing with this all day. I'm so sorry bro, can you just stab him so we can go home and follow a different lead. I don't even care what this one knows, I can't handle him another minute.

"I'm more embarrassed than I am hurt" I understand this to my core, and I'm so sorry, Cas.

"Kipling. Kip for short."

"Cool. Kip. I'm here." Sam being exactly as "fuck you" as I wanted towards Kip.

Sam is now standing with his head in an El Sol sign. TJW what are you up to bud?

Oh no Jack and Maggie got caught skulking. Sam and Cas have the same "my boy!" reaction when they see Cas.

Maggie is here too, you monsters.

But Kip has missed Mary and AUBobby

"It's just late capitalism, you understand" Yeah, and fuck you Kip.

How is Kip so irritating that he can make tapping a stool somehow the most obnoxious thing a man could do? He's WONDERFULLY well-cast. I love this actor. He's chewing scenery and it's incredible.

"What do you want?" Ow, Sam being twisted into asking the same thing Deanchael asked Kip

"Ass-modeus Kentucky Fried" listen you are still the worst but that drew a sympathetic smile and I hate it and I hate you.

Oh, Sam just Sammed something from that side glance, random demon side-eye. Oooh. Oooooooh.

But yeah, Kip asking for the "Crowley Deal" as if it's a package that can be bought from the Winchesters, and not something that Crowley wormed his way into via much back and forth power plays and drama. The Winchester have always had a back and forth with Hell, and since Crowley there have been a lot of demons, like Bart, trying to figure out what exactly it WAS that they all had. But someone has to be in charge, and the Winchesters are the top dog destined hunters with their fingers in all the world-saving pies, so clashes come naturally. Approaching them like this, first Bart, now this douchenozzle, is meta, presumptuous, overstepping what builds naturally... An attempt to leapfrog to the end where the equilibrium is established.

But Crowley had time to build a long game. These new pretenders are working in a world where the Winchesters' actions have devastated Heaven and Hell alike, and are, like Mary, just trying to keep afloat on the whole thing.

"We never gave Crowley that deal." Because yes, that's how it seemed to play out, and from outsider eyes that's how it may have looked... But each and every interaction came about naturally through the plot, there was no wrangling it. That's just how the Winchesters and Crowley ended up.

And that hole can't be filled by someone just leaping into the chair and asking for it.

Though it is nice if Motown Meats is the new seat of Hell on Earth instead of the outdated exterior asylum interior castle dungeon look Crowley set up.

"You're no Crowley. I know that. So do they." I think that was what Sam Sammed out of the demons, and also true, and ALSO is this the boyking accidentally exerting himself, knowing what's good for Hell? I always get a lil tingle in my thumbs when Sam gets too involved in knowing what's up with Hell.

Holy shit Kipling was a Mongolian warlord who rode with Genghis Khan in life. PLEASE survive this episode, I want to hate you all season. PLEAAAASE I BEG YOU.

Oh my god this insecure whinging asshole, chowing down on the scenery like there's no tomorrow. "I'D EAT YOUR HEART" *turns to weepy and quiet* "before I show you who I really am..."

This is Eddie Redmayne in Jupiter Ascending levels of scenery eating. He's gonna pick up a barstool and take a bite out of it now.

Sam is doing this all unarmed, which is something to remember, because this is the fucker who talked his way into killing the Alpha Vamp while MOSTLY unarmed for a majority of that chat.

Sam Fucking Winchester.

AUBOBBY AND RUFUS!!!!

Also mary.

But AUBobby gets a slow mo for Rufus shooting demons.

HOLY SHIT MARY'S SLOW MO

I am pregnant

MARY THROWING SAM THE KNIFE

TJW was like this fight is too fast, my guy. We need to slow it down. You're so good at your job no one's gonna see what happened unless we go slow mo.

he and the fight guy high five

"Aw, balls."

Hey, Nougat tried. He's got a squishy hero centre.

Looks like he weighs nothing and now he's human he goes down in one punch. Owie.

"Here take this. You know how to use it?" "Uh! Stab them with the pointy end!?" "pretty much"

Maggie you precious girl why are you HERE. Why is Soups On or Gnarly Gun Guy not here?

Cas you fucking damsel in distress

Fight guy is like "uuuuh do I have to"

Misha is like "I'm good here, tbh"

SAM FUCKING WINCHESTER

(Aw, Kip's dead, he was fun)

"ENOUGH"

YES SIR

"There will be NO NEW KING OF HELL"

You are gonna get demon minions like fucking ducklings you ass

"Not ever. And if anyone wants the job, you can come through me" Sam is technically immortal so long as Rowena is alive and vice versa you know. Also, how long is he planning on defending Hell? Ever?

I'm stalling from how much I have to scream about how badass Sam was throwing down that declaration that he's now essentially the trial a pretender to the throne has to pass to take the job.

Because if I was a demon... FUCK NO would I want to tangle with this fucker.

Sam's file, updated: Current King Of Hell. Will Kill You. AVOID.

Sam is fucking terrifying. I love it. He scared demons out of their meatsuits. Sam walking into a room is now a reason to eject and abort mission. God. This guy.

Remember in season 1 when demons were scary? Oo er this isn't our sort of thing... halp.

Now Sam looks them in the eye and is like, fuck off. I'm scarier than any of you.

"That's what I thought"

Cas is literally giving you the reverse look of in 4x16 when you marched in and fried Alastair's brain.

SAM GOT A NEW SHIRT thank god.

I should amend: he did all this wearing blue plaid with orange stripes.

Sam Fucking Winchester.

The BMoL definitely didn't have the right birth certificate because that's his legal middle name.

Sam n Caaaaas my GUYS. I hope this is the 10x01 convo but, like, not. Flip flip flip those pancakes, Dabb my guy.

Cas, hon, you're still so beat up you have blood trails coming out of your nose. There's not really caring about your meatsuit because it heals eventually, but there's also washing your fucking face, because Sam's had time to change his shirt and get a beer so what were you doing?

Probably staring at a picture of Dean on his phone and sighing.

Anyway he's here to ask how Sam is, rather than care about himself. Symbolism.

"I've been better. And worse." Worse is 10x01.

Or 4x10's flashbacks. For sure those are the worstest.

Though, this time you are the king of hell and you're wearing a dark shirt and I don't think you have thought this through.

The most well-meaning accidental king of hell ever.

Sam and Cas share the "to find Dean I'd do anything" look. Be CAREFUL. Cas is literally choosing to wear hubris on his face because he feels bad about his fuck up with going to Kip.

Mary! Casual Mary chilling in the kitchen!!

Although, with everyone in the bunker, these rooms are taking on different meanings. The people are chasing out the heavy shadows and ghosts of all the oppressive silences Sam and Dean have filled these corners with.

Aw it's Mary and AUBobby. I was half-hoping we'd have her giving beer to Jack, but I guess we need to set up the forward momentum on their relationship for this season.

"Not bad today, old man." "you too, Sunshine."

You do realise that Mary is sitting in the exact same spot as where Dean was when he called Cas "Sunshine" You do know that right I mean you KNOW? This is TJW, he knows. He's a Destiel Shipper of the highest order.

Cas pops in on Jack, staring at his busted up face in a mirror, now filling more Winchester angst tropes to make up for lost time. "I'm fine," he says without being asked. Because 10x01 or 10x02 was where Cas defined "fine" for Hannah and explained to her it's what humans say when things are really not fine but they can't admit it.

"You did well." "All I did was get punched. In the face."

I love snarky teen Jack.

"To be fair, we all got punched in the face," Cas says, still covered in hubris.

He has a POINT. He has full right to pull the "I should feel more useless than you" card on Jack.

Jack doing the "i'm useless" thing that Cas had to go through when he lost his grace, and Jack was allowed to stay in the Bunker. Is this how Cas would have felt had he not been kicked out?

Jack says Michael's out there and he still feels responsible to stop him. There's a very, very very very ver very weird Hamlet vibe from Jack, being forced into a position of emotional responsibility to kill his uncle, but Cas is his once dead now back and not a ghost father, and Jack couldn't kill Michael and so Dean got possessed... I mean, it's not a neat overlay, but Jack wants to kill an uncle, an AUncle, and I feel like in terms of uncle-killing narratives, AU Michael making off with Dean fits about as well to Hamlet's uncle marrying his mom as we're gonna get... I'd love to see how this shapes out because these family narratives since season 11 are becoming deeply shakespearean in the amount of nonsense going on. This sort of supernatural drama is a modern world way to have this kind of heightened emotion and the stakes you find in Shakespearean tragedies, and to force the sorts of reflection on the world and self... I really really dig it. Watching season 13 yesterday really hit me with this feeling all over and I'm delighted that Jack has this arc because I'm so amused/interested to see where this weirdo Hamlet parallel goes for him.

"I don't have anything." "Oh Jack" thanks Cas that's what I said out loud "you have me. You have all of us. You have your family." *SHOULDER GRASP*

No hug. Fuck off Cas, with your reassuring shoulder grasps. I know that's the language you've been taught but Dabb era is hug era and you suck.

I love that with all of Sam and Mary's doubt and Jack's lack of self worth, it's down to CAS. CASTIEL. CASTIEL WINCHESTER. CASTIEL FUCKING WINCHESTER. PARTY!CAS. to give the actual pep talk of the episode which has ANY conviction behind it. Cas has been fuelled with something MAGNIFICENT since the Empty, and he's turned it up to 11 for Jack here :')

Jack makes the smallest smile, then turns back to his mirror.

Sam opening the door to his bedroom, framed in darkness. 10x01 parallels again - this shot as well as the demon dean one were repeated a few times through the 3 episode arc, and the demon dean one became iconic but Sam did it too, to Dean's room. Now he goes into his own... empties his pockets... he still has the fucking engraved money clip from Tall Tales because Gabriel is not only not dead but telling this entire story for us... He has the phone, that's off, because Dean is not there, not communicating with him, blah blah. And he has the keys to the Impala. Because he's the chief.

Well, the King of Hell. Damn, it took 14 years to get him there. Azazel is fucking spinning in his grave.

Ooh, phonecall! Is it Deanchael? "What do you want?"

Nope, it's Sister Jo! :D She's been standing there ALL NIGHT weighing her options and working out what she wants.

SPIN THAT CHAOS, DEANCHAEL.

Deanchael approaches a vampire, and it's that purity of Purgatory, that just wanna eat that fuelled so much of the badass stuff in season 7 with the Leviathan, everything Dean's struggled with when it comes to the black and white world of killing monsters no problem that dates back to Gordon in 2x03, that draws Deanchael to them. Because this is Dean's safe space with Benny, a real relationship based on a bond forged in pure, kill or be killed, eat or be eaten purgatory. Deanchael has the same inner machinery as Dean, because Michael is the worst version of Dean, engineered to be Dean but without love. Dean as a monster. And so it all leads here... D:

Well this will be fun :D

#14x01 #season 14 spoilers #my stuff #dabb vs cars #HECK

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danfanciesphil · 5 years

Text

too high (can’t come down) by @danfanciesphil

Suspending himself 7,000 feet above the rest of the world seems likely to be a sure-fire way for Dan to escape normality, and isolate himself for the foreseeable future. The Secret of the Alps, a small hotel tucked into the side of the Swiss mountains is too niche for most avid adventurers to have heard of, making it the perfect place for Dan to work as he sorts through his problems. Unfortunately, privacy is a coveted thing, and as Dan soon finds out, the hotel harbours one guest who values it more than most.

Rating: Explicit Tags: Enemies to lovers, snow, mountains, skiing, hostility, slow burn, secrecy, longing, repression, nobility, classism, cheating, eventual sex

Ao3 Link

Chapter One Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Mr Novokoric doesn’t cross paths with Dan for the rest of the day, so Dan doesn’t get a second opportunity to gawp at an entitled semi-celebrity, not that he has much of a desire to, after their first encounter. It’s probably for the best that Dan avoids him for a while, given that he’s still shimmering with rage. How was he supposed to know that this man is some sort of Royal exception to the hotel rules? Just because he made a mistake doesn’t mean he deserved to be talked to with such... disdain.

So, devoid of any further unpleasant - albeit unnervingly handsome - strangers, the rest of Dan’s third day passes without much to note. Mona had been right about the days here being pretty much the same. He imagines it will soon become hard to distinguish one day from the next. He’ll have to use the evening film as a marker so he can remember which days he did what, though that won’t be easy either, as Mona has an apparent love for heist movies, which aren’t known for their vastly dissimilar plots.

Dan heads to bed weary, wondering how long it will take to fall into a routine, so he can drift through the days without thinking. As he fumbles for his key, he notes the light on in the next room again, and pauses. He spends most of his days alone here, either in the suite on the top floor, or out on the slopes somewhere. If Mr Novo-dick is really in the room next to his, then that presumably means the music Dan has been hearing is coming from him. At least that means Dan isn’t developing a slow schizophrenia, but it does seem odd. Dan wouldn’t have had the man who shouted at him this morning pegged as a Chopin enthusiast.

Putting it to the back of his mind for now, Dan goes inside and gets ready for bed, only realising he’s being especially quiet when he’s already in his pyjamas, sat under the covers, ears staining to hear something above the silence. As the wait stretches on, Dan feels the familiar weight of his own guilt, failure and misery closing in, and soon the first of his tears begin to drip from his lashes. Soon, he is full on sniffling, eyes streaming, mouth pulled down in an unattractive curl.

And like clockwork, a melody begins, drifting slowly and calmly through the wooden wall. It’s soothing and delicate, making Dan’s sniffs lessen, and then stop altogether. He sighs in relief, settling back into his pillows, and lets the music buffet him gently into a long, deep sleep.

The next couple of days pass in a similar vein. Dan is woken early by the extreme light pouring into his room. He drags himself downstairs and into the kitchen, where Louise teases him for ten minutes straight while he drinks the coffee she makes him, and eats whatever delicious food she’s prepared. He sets up for breakfast out on the balcony with Mona, and serves the four guests that attend, all of whom tell him he’s a ‘charming’ and ‘polite’ young man.

In the intervening hours between breakfast and lunch, he cleans the guests’ bedrooms and changes the beds, tidies the communal areas, and if he’s feeling brave, goes outside to sweep the area around the hot tub and wipe down the benches in the sauna. He and Mona then serve lunch, eat whatever Louise has left over, then do a general stock take. After that, they serve dinner, eat dinner, and finally set up the evening film. During any downtime, Dan sits at the front desk, answering the phone when it occasionally rings, booking in new guests, or granting the requests of current ones. At the end of the long days, Dan falls onto his bed, sometimes managing to worm out of his clothes, sometimes not, and makes a valiant attempt at crying himself to sleep. Inevitably however, that light, classical music starts up before he can get too lost in his own sadness, and he finds himself floating away with it, his cheeks sticky with dried tears when he wakes up the next morning, ready to repeat the whole thing again.

He’s never exactly rushed off his feet, but he rarely has time to be bored, apart from late in the evening, when Mona leaves him at the desk, and he wiles away the hours until his shift ends playing on his phone, or reading one of the books left for guests on the mezzanine lounge.

For three days, Dan doesn’t speak again with Mr Novokoric, though he does glimpse a flash of crimson from his window each morning, and occasionally catches sight of him wandering through the hotel, on his way back from the hot tub, or clasping a cup of coffee as he sneaks back into his room. On his fifth day, Dan watched from the desk as Mr Stevens - a middle aged guest with a receding hairline and an aversion to wearing anything except a robe - accost Mr Novokoric in the lobby to discuss the weather. Somewhat hilariously, Mr Novokoric appeared to be too polite to simply turn his back on the man, and had stood for eight patient minutes, responding in short, stunted sentences, and looking extremely uncomfortable. It had been the highlight of Dan’s day.

On Saturday, Dan’s seventh day, just before noon, Dan is sat at the front desk, wondering if Louise might have finished making lunch yet, and if he could go up and see, when the front door slams open, and Mr Novokoric hurtles through it, still wearing his skis. Dan can only watch, mouth agape, as the man awkwardly but determinedly slides his way into the lobby before reaching down, muttering angrily, and undoing the skis one at a time. He then proceeds to kick each one hard, sending them skittering across the wooden floor, and into the far wall. It’s reckless, idiotic behaviour, and if it had been anyone else, Dan would not have hesitated to call them out on it. The skis are heavy, and the walls are made of wood, for christ’s sake. Dan can see the chips they’ve made from all the way across the room.

Mr Novokoric does not, apparently, care about this. He marches across the room towards Dan, pulling off his thick gloves and tossing them to the floor as he goes. If he thinks Dan is picking them up for him he can forget about it. By the time Mr Novokoric is at the desk, Dan’s mouth is a set line, and he’s having trouble keeping himself from curling his fingers into fists.

“Sir, is there something the matter-”

“I need to use your phone,” Mr Novokoric barks. “Now.”

Dan thinks about saying no, or refusing, mostly because he wants to piss this asshole off, but his years of customer service training override his petulance. “Certainly, Sir,” he says through gritted teeth, then reaches underneath the desk, and lifts the corded telephone up onto it. “Go right ahead.”

Mr Novokoric snatches the receiver at once, and immediately begins punching in numbers with such vigorous jabbing motions that Dan fears for the keys. He lifts the receiver to his ear, fingers drumming restlessly on the lip of the desk. He turns to Dan, incredulous.

“Are you just going to stand there and listen to my private call?”

Heat surges into Dan’s cheeks, mostly born of the intense anger that sweeps through him. He doesn’t trust himself to reply, so he simply turns from the sight of the man in front of him, and begins pretending to be engrossed in the guest information database on the hotel’s only ancient computer.

For a moment, Dan can still feel eyes on him, and is convinced he’s about to be shouted at further, but then he hears Mr Novokoric’s voice say “about bloody time!”

The voice on the other end of the line, which Dan can just about hear, replies, “who is this?”

Dan has to hide his smirk in his hand.

“It’s your husband, you wank-stain,” comes Mr Novokoric’s hushed, furious response, which has Dan’s eyebrows shooting up his forehead. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you don’t recognise my voice.”

“Phil?” the disembodied voice says, vaguely. “This isn’t the number you were calling from a minute ago.”

It’s taking an extreme amount of effort for Dan to keep his eyes fixed on the screen in front of him. He tries valiantly to appear as though he’s engrossed in reading the Stevens’ guest information. It seems that under ‘special requests’, Mr and Mrs Stevens had asked for ‘an extra robe each’.

“That’s because you pissed me off so much that I dropped my phone down a mountain!”

There’s a pause in the conversation, and then the responding voice says, a touch amusedly, “a little harsh to blame me for that, darling. What could I possibly have said that would upset you so much?”

“I’m upset because you cancelled on me, again!” Mr Novokoric snaps. “I can’t believe you, Nikolai. How long are you going to leave me up here at the peak of Mount-fucking-Whatever? Are you playing out some warped, Rapunzel love story for the media?”

There’s something vaguely pathetic lurking beneath Mr Novokoric’s words. Dan squints at the screen, not seeing it, and strains to hear whatever is being said on the other end of the line.

“Darling, you know I’d have you with me in a heartbeat if I could,” the voice says, sounding slow and distracted. “I’ve just been drowning in all these meetings and dull media-stints. You’d be bored stiff if you were here. It won’t be much longer. There’s that benefit thingy in a week or so, right? You should probably come along to that. I’ll send the helicopter to collect you.”

“Oh I should probably come, should I?” Mr Novokoric snarls. “Good to know that, as we’re married, it’s probably a good idea for us to be together at least one fucking night of the year. You know, most married couples actually live in the same house. We’re not even in the same country most of the time!”

“It’s for the best that you stay out of the public eye for a bit, Phil. We’ve spoken about this.”

“Even if that’s true, Nik, you said you’d take a few days off to spend some time with me-”

“I have to go, darling, I’m sorry,” the voice says. Dan might be imagining it, but he thinks he hears a splashing noise, followed by a shriek of laughter. “I’ll see you in a week.”

“What’s that noise? Nikolai, are you in the Ibiza apartment again-”

He cuts off as the dull note of the dial tone replaces the other person’s voice. Dan chews the inside of his cheek, and sneaks a glance up as Mr Novokoric places the receiver down, slowly, and turns to lean against the desk. At first, Dan is smug; he wishes he were able to hang up so brutally on him, but on closer inspection, he notices that Mr Novokoric actually appears to be crying. At least, his bright blue eyes are glistening. Traitorously, Dan’s good nature wins out, and he feels his heart squeeze in dumb sympathy. Dick-brain or not, Dan can’t just sit by while a guest he’s employed to look after cries right beside him. He plucks the box of tissues from the shelf behind him.

“Ex-excuse me, Mr Novokoric,” Dan says, swallowing a wash of pride for getting the name right on his first out-loud try. He holds out the box of tissues even though the other man doesn’t acknowledge him. “Here, take these.”

Mr Novokoric turns to Dan coldly, snatching the box from him. “I’m not crying,” he insists, but yanks a tissue from the box anyway, scrubbing it over his face.

“Oh, no,” Dan says, nodding in complete agreement with this outright lie. He really is an absurdly patient and talented customer service worker. “I just thought…” he scrambles for a viable explanation. “Well, I don’t know about you but I think the, er, high altitude of this place does something weird to my sinuses. I’m blubbering every night,” he jokes, thinking that the peppering of truth might give his ramble a little weight.

It would be so easy, Dan thinks, for Mr Novokoric to accept Dan’s fumbling excuse for the offer of tissues, to blame the thin air for his tears and never speak about it again. But evidently the man has a defensive arsenal so loaded and precarious it can be triggered with the slightest wrong step.

So, Mr Novokoric’s expression hardens, and he says, “so it’s you that I can hear wailing on the other side of my wall, is it? You should keep these for yourself.” He shoves the tissues back into Dan’s hands. “Maybe then I'll actually get some sleep.”

Like he’s been whipped, Dan shrinks back, attempting to swallow the burning lump of coal now lodged in his throat. Any response he might have had, stupidly kind or not, dies on his tongue. For a split second, he imagines he sees a flash of regret pass over Mr Novokoric’s features, but then he is stalking away, skis lying forgotten against the wall, and stomping up the stairs. Dan sits heavily down in his chair, and tries not to let the flames of angry, hurt humiliation burn him to ash.

That night, Dan does his best to muffle his sobs in his pillow. They’re worse tonight, because the embarrassment of knowing he’s being heard, that he’s been heard this whole time, only makes him feel worse. If he could halt the tears altogether for Mr Novokoric’s sake he would, but nightfall has always been the time where his resolve leaves him. With nothing to distract him, Dan can only dwell on everything that’s wrong. At ten past one, however, the music seems to know to start up anyway; it’s baffling, obviously, but the only explanation Dan can think of is that the music is either unrelated to Dan’s crying, or being played to drown it out. He tries not to be grateful for it, knows that before long he’ll rely on it to send him off, but in the end he can’t help letting the swells of notes wash over him, and press him into unconsciousness.

Just after lunch has been cleared on Sunday, Dan is caught in a pleasant but rather over-detailed discussion with Mr and Mrs Stevens about their show-dog, Sherbet, when Louise calls him over from the serving hatch. He excuses himself politely, leaving the middle-aged couple to their game of Uno, and walks up to her.

“What’s up with you today?” she asks as soon as he’s within earshot, then places a mug of coffee in front of him. “You’ve got a face like a trodden foot.”

He manages a smile, but he doubts it’s very convincing. “Just tired,” he says, picking up the mug. “Thanks.”

She slaps his wrist, and he almost spills some. “That’s not for you, foot-face.”

“Oh.” He lowers it, glancing back at the Stevens’s. “Did they order…?”

“It’s for Phil,” she says, briskly wiping up the coffee Dan spilled with a wad of kitchen roll. For a moment, Dan just looks at her blankly, and she raises an eyebrow. “Mr Novokoric.”

“Oh,” Dan says, and smartly places the mug back down, stomach squeezing.

For whatever reason, his abrupt action makes Louise laugh. “Christ, he’s not a yeti, Dan. Anyway, he’s been looking for you all morning, so I thought you could take this to him.”

Exhausted as he is, it takes the words a few tries to penetrate Dan’s addled mind. “Wait, what?” he asks eventually, sure he must have misheard. “Looking for me?”

“Yes,” Louise replies, like this is a perfectly normal occurence. “Mona mentioned it earlier. Apparently he was hoping to catch you at breakfast but you weren’t serving.”

“I… I was adjusting the chlorine levels in the hot tub,” Dan says, feeling as though he’s stood on the edge of a crumbling cliff. Mr Novokoric is looking for him, specifically? Had he not made Dan feel awful enough yesterday? Is he looking for another chance to brutally attack his ego for a trivial reason? “Do I have to take this to him?”

Louise looks at him strangely. “Are you scared of him or something? I know he’s technically Royalty, but he’s just a regular guy underneath, Dan. Not much older than you. I know it’s a bit daunting at first, but don’t worry. He’s pretty chill.”

This makes Dan snort. “I’ll try and remember that next time he’s verbally abusing me.”

“Yeah, he’s a hot-head at times,” Louise allows. “I remember my first few encounters with him being on the snippy side. You’ve just got to get past that though, he doesn’t mean it. I just think he’s a bit… frustrated.” This makes Dan’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead, and Louise laughs at her own phrasing. “Not like that. Well, maybe like that. I mean, he’s here for weeks at a time, supposedly having ensnared this fabulous young hottie. But where is this prize pig, y’know?”

“Ibiza,” Dan mutters, and when Louise sends him a puzzled look, he picks up the coffee mug, sensing defeat. “Where am I taking this, then?”

“He was heading for the gym, last I saw.” Louise watches him make his way towards the stairs, being extra careful not to spill any coffee lest he feel the wrath upon its delivery. “Dan?” she calls out, making him pause. “Be nice, okay?”

“Me be nice?” Dan exclaims, and turns to shoot her an incredulous look, but Louise’s expression is unmoved.

“Just let him say what he’s got to say.”

“Let him belittle me, you mean?”

Louise sighs heavily, turning away from him, and Dan is left in the middle of the mezzanine with a steaming mug of coffee, and a niggling sense that there’s still some great secret etched into the wooden walls of this place that he still hasn’t been entirely privy to.

Dan has only been in the gym once, on his first day, which is a perfect allegory for his entire mentality around gyms in general. From outside the door, he can hear a rhythmic pounding noise, like someone is punching the shit out of something. It’s unsurprising, then, that as he enters the gym, he sees Mr Novokoric in the corner by the mirrors, punching the shit out of a big cylindrical bag. For obvious reasons, this sight does not instil Dan with a desperate urge to go over and interact with Mr Novokoric, who is wearing headphones, and appears not to have noticed Dan come in.

Giving him a wide berth, Dan slowly approaches, intending to place the mug of coffee down on a nearby surface and escape quickly before Mr Novokoric has the chance to either hit him or yell at him some more. Instead, what happens is this: Dan attempts to edge along the wall to put the coffee down, and at the same moment, Mr Novokoric draws back his elbow and catches Dan in the arm, jolting him. Louise makes a good cup of coffee, Dan will admit. As it soaks through the fabric of his shirt sleeve, however, he can’t help but wish it was a little less scalding.

“Fuck,” Dan shouts, just as Mr Novokoric jumps back in surprise, ripping his headphones from his ears. He’s panting and damp, strands of his jet black hair sticking to his forehead, making it look like he’s got a stupid noughties side-fringe.

“Careful!” Mr Novokoric exclaims, as if Dan hasn’t already done the stupid thing. Surprisingly, he takes the mug of hot coffee from Dan’s hand. “Are you hurt?”

Dan shakes out his sleeve, wincing. “I’ll live. Sorry for startling you.”

“You should announce yourself next time,” he says, like a wanker. Like Dan calling out ‘whaddup it’s me your boy Dan’ would have done any good at all when he was blaring what Dan thinks is... Fall Out Boy? Really?... through his headphones. “I could have really hurt you.”

Doubtful of this statement, Dan’s eyes flick down to Mr Novokoric’s biceps. Begrudgingly, as he surveys the shallow valleys of his arm muscles, Dan admits to himself that out of the two of them, there’s no question of who would best the other. Dan’s never been more glad of his own long sleeves.

“Yeah,” Dan mutters, wanting nothing more than to scurry away to his room and recover from this incident with the excuse of changing his wet shirt. “Sorry, Sir. Won’t happen again. Enjoy your coffee.”

“Wait,” he says as Dan turns to go. “I wanted to speak with you.”

Oh, God. It’s true. Louise wasn’t pulling his leg, it seems. Dan seriously considers just legging it. He could potentially feign a third degree burn from the coffee and sprint back through the doors. “Um, yeah,” Dan says, his own cowardice feeling vaguely nauseating as it curdles in his stomach. “She mentioned.”

“Yesterday, when I used the phone at reception-”

“I’m really sorry that I’ve been keeping you awake,” Dan blurts, badly needing this to be over now. “I never meant to-”

“I owe you an apology,” Mr Novokoric says, which stuns Dan into silence. For a minute, all he can do is stare into those two darting blue eyes, utterly perplexed. Mr Novokoric sips his coffee self-consciously. “It was rude and completely unacceptable for me to hone in on something so personal. I have no idea what your circumstances might be. I was upset, and I lashed out. So,” he sticks his hand out, awkwardly, into the space between them. “I’m sorry. Can we put it behind us?”

Dan stares at his outstretched hand as if it were a foreign beast. Then, belatedly remembering societal norms, he reaches out and takes it. “W-well, I suppose-”

“Great,” Mr Novokoric says, shaking Dan’s hand quickly, once, up and down, and then dropping it like it’s coated in poison.

Dan stares at Mr Novokoric’s back as he sets the coffee down and pulls his gloves back on. Could it be that there’s a shade of decency to this man? Not once did it cross Dan’s mind that the reason he might be looking for Dan was to apologise.

“Yeah, great,” Dan echoes softly, and Mr Novokoric turns, eyebrows raised, as if he’s surprised Dan is still standing there.

“You can go now,” he says, puzzled, and turns his back.

All thoughts that Mr Novokoric is anything less than a rude, entitled bitch flies out of the gym window. Dan rolls his eyes, shaking his sleeve dry as he turns to leave.

(Chapter Four!)

#phan #phanfic #too high #enemies to lovers au

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