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charcoalhawk · 3 months

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The haunting of Masters’ Mansion

This is a backup truce gift for @shadowofaghost5 , hope to bring you some (very) belated Christmas cheer!

Prompt: Vlad & Danny bonding (by annoying each other? did they have to work together for something and accidentally started enjoying it? is Vlad being nice for once and teaching Danny stuff? How they bond is entirely up to you!)

Warnings: none

“-and Frankie said I could stay with them and their partner for the holidays. I think we may go to one of our other friends' houses on Christmas Day, but that’s still up in the air pending how many of his family is coming home.”

“That’s awesome Jazz”, Danny smiles at his sister over FaceTime, “so I’ll see you probably during spring break? Assuming no, uh, pit stops?”

“Yeah, spring break. And no Danny, no pit stops. Enjoy your last semester and your extracurriculars, we can call and text as much as you need.”

“I don’t know, if the house is still being fumigated after the new year I may just have to hide in your dorm for a few days just to get some sleep.”

Apparently using unstable ectoplasm for years and building much of their own home had caused the building not to be strictly up to code, and while they’re not having to rebuild any existing structures, the city had insisted on doing a through investigation, and then announced that the house would need to be thoroughly fumigated for at least a month, amongst other problems.

They’d been able to book a hotel for the first few nights, but as it grew closer to Christmas his parents had been informed they would need to find other lodgings as their rooms had already been booked starting the next two days all the way through the new year.

Luckily a family friend was willing to host them over the holidays, as after a frantic search it seemed like most hotels had already been bought out or were charging truly outrageous prices for the holidays.

Unluckily for Danny his parents insisted he stay with them for the Holidays, even after both Tucker and Sam had promised that either of their parents wouldn’t mind hosting Danny for a few weeks.

So they had shuffled themselves into the Fenton RV, suitcases and presents pressing into Danny from every angle from where they’re all crammed indiscriminately.

It has only taken an hour for his parents to restart the argument they had put on hold last night. At this point after almost eighteen years Danny thought he could recite both sides of his parents "is Santa real" argument from memory. Danny knows he had been lucky before that his parents had only had small arguments since Mariah Carey had started haunting every radio station since October.

“You know mom and dad just wanted one more Christmas with you before you go off to college.”

“I know.” He chances a glance at the front of the RV where even now his parents are in furious debate, “but knowing them they’re just going to spend the whole time arguing or trying to make me pick a side.”

Jazz tries to smile on video call, but they’re far enough out in the countryside that his phone’s connection is getting really spotty.

“I know. I tried when I called them last week to get them to understand how doing this was only going to drive you away” Danny can’t help but scrunch his nose in distaste, “don’t look at me like that Danny, you’re almost an adult. We can have these kinds of conversations, but I don’t think it quite stuck like I wanted it to.”

Jazz gives him a sympathetic look before her picture abruptly flips, and now Danny is staring at a slightly worse for wear Bearbert Einstein. Jazz waives one of his arms and puts on her most obnoxious, silly voice.

“But both me and Jazz want to wish you a very good new year,” her hand shifts so it seems Bearbert is nodding his head, “and Jazz would like to kindly request that you don’t try and murder Vlad unless he tries to get you first!”

Danny chokes on a laugh as the camera switches back to Jazz’s now beaming smile, and soon they’re saying their goodbyes as Jazz rushes to finish packing.

Once the call ends and the low arguing of his parents is now the only sound in the RV, Danny allows himself to scowl.

That was the other unfortunate thing, turns out they would be staring with Vlad over the holidays.

The only thing worse than Christmas time, and trust him there is not much worse than the Fenton’s at Christmas, is having to share that time with Uncle Vlad.

Danny can see his future now, Vlad will take his mom’s side, which in turn will make his dad turn to him.

The only silver lining in all this, and trust him it is a very slim silver lining, is that over the past four years he and Vlad have a more steady truce in place and neither goes out of his way to intentionally maim or attack the other.

When they finally pull up to Vlad’s gaudy home, nothing immediately strikes Danny as out of place, but he notices that his parents seem unnerved about something and that immediately sets him on edge.

As they all clamor out of the RV his ghost sense tells him Vlad is lurking nearby. No one exits to help them get their bags but the door swings open dramatically before his dad can start pounding on the door.

“Jack! Glad to see that you are well.” Vlad places a very reluctant hand on his Dad’s shoulder, which is all the prompting Dad needs to sweep Vlad into a truly impressive bear hug.

Vlad’s smile is carefully pinned in place, as he allows the extended contact with Jack before sweeping down to RV, likely to offer to carry his mom’s bags.

“Madeline! How good to see you!” His mom carefully steps out of Vlad’s way while keeping her own smile carefully on.

“It’s good to see you too Vlad, we really can’t thank you enough for agreeing to host us on such short notice.”

He and Vlad share a careful nod as Dad leads them all into the foyer, and Danny can only hope with such a big house it can actually allow him some peace and quiet.

“Yeah V-man, thanks for letting us stay here while the house is being checked out. But I gotta say Vladdie,” his dad gestures around the opulent foyer, “where’s all your Christmas stuff?”

His mom takes a careful look around and her eyes widen as she realizes what her husband says is true.

“Oh now that you mentioned it dear, it is odd,” she turns more fully towards Vlad, genuine interest in her tone and not the carefully cultivated fake interest Danny knows she holds whenever he’s seen her interact with Vlad in recent years.

“While Santa Claus obviously isn’t real, the story of Saint Nick should still be celebrated, and of course a chance to give gifts to our loved ones.”

His parents share a glare, but it’s clear they’re too shaken by Vlad’s lack of decorations to devolve back into spirited debate.

“We can take the RV into town right now!” His Dad makes an abrupt about face and starts tugging Vlad along with him, “bet they still have some real trees for sale, only real way to celebrate is with a real tree!”

“Oh good idea Jack! Vlad can show us where he stores his other decor and while you two are gone Danny and I can set up the lights.”

“Oh nonsense, we should all get the tree together!”

“I guess you're right Jack, that is a very important Christmas tradition. Then do you know where the nearest tree farm is Vlad? I’m sure we could find one but I’m sure you have your preferences.”

Vlad starts to look increasingly uncomfortable as his parents gang up on him.

“C’mon Vladdie! If we leave now we should still have time to set up the Christmas tree!”

Just as his Dad is about to pull Vlad past the threshold of the house, Vlad seems to snap out of his stupor and easily shakes off his Dad’s hand, backing up further into the house like he thinks Dad will lunge at him to pull him into the RV.

“That won’t be necessary. While I wouldn’t begrudge your family its traditions, I have no interest in spending multiple hours putting up frivolous decorations that are only going to live in boxes most of the year.”

“Oh bah, I’ve seen you spend weeks decorating this place for whenever the Packers play!”

“I don’t care, I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

It feels like the entire house freezes.

“I don’t have any particularly strong feelings around winter and Christmas time, and so to me they are just another few weeks of the year. I only even remember them because every store and TV station is decorated in red and green from November until the new year.”

It’s silly, but Danny had never realized that you could just, do that. He knows Sam and her family celebrate Hanukkah, hell even ghosts have the Truce, but he’d kinda been under the impression that everyone did something for the winter holidays.

The next few minutes are filled with his parents arguing the joys of Christmas time, while Vlad seems to grow increasingly more bored as the minutes tick by.

At some point his parents seem to realize they won’t get through to Vlad by simply arguing their case, so his Dad declares they will go out and vows that by the time they leave Vlad will be filled with the Christmas spirit.

With the slam of the RV door his parents are gone, leaving Danny and Vlad standing awkwardly in the now empty foyer.

“Well, that was a waste of my time.”

As the shadow of the RV disappears around the corner, Danny suddenly has an idea.

“Ok frootloop I’ve got a deal for you.” Vlad raises a single brow, at least he’s curious. “Neither of us wants this place to become infested with Christmas, so we work together and make my Mom and Dad think your house is haunted by some Christmas hating spectr, and then they’ll be so focused on hunting down the ghost they won’t have time to bother either of us.”

“Are you suggesting we make up a ghost to haunt your parents Daniel? My, that’s something I would usually think of.”

“Oh don’t give yourself that much credit. I’ve already been basically haunting my parents for the last four years.”

As so, an alliance is born.

The next two weeks Danny finds out he and Vlad make a startlingly efficient pair at tracking down and vanishing any extra Christmas decor his parents try to smuggle in the house.

Danny knows his parents have kept all their presents in the RV for fear of this new ‘Christmas ghoul’ stealing them, and honestly Danny is having the time of his life. His parents are united for once in their Christmas opinions, and they’re so busy trying to hunt this imaginary ghost that they forget to try and get Danny on either of their sides.

Christmas Day still passes in a flurry of activity, but this year it’s his parents camping out by the chimney all night waiting for a ghost, or Santa, to come sneaking into the house. They end up sleeping most of the next day, and by the time new year hits Danny hasn’t heard his parents argue about Santa being real in almost a week.

And if his friends ever question the morality of the situation Vlad is such an easy target he won’t even deny it.

#danny phantom #phandom truce 2023 #danny fantom #maddie fenton #jack fenton #vlad plasmius

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idolatrybarbie · 3 months

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series masterlist | main masterlist

pairing: francisco "frankie" morales x f!reader, marcus pike & f!reader

word count: 7.8k

rating & summary: mature - 18+ only! | You can finally put a name to the feeling that’s overtaken your gut.

tags: heavy dubious consent - kissing, lies and manipulation, toxic relationship dynamics, emotional abuse, discussion of canon acts of violence, obsessive behaviour, controlling behaviour, misogyny, allusions to stalking. dead dove; do not eat.

notes: the behaviours of marcus pike are based upon the misogynistic and predatory philosophies of pick-up artists (link) and personal experiences with stalking. i would like to emphasize that these are bad people doing bad things. thanks to @wannab-urs for the beta and for being my revisionist history expert.

You drive to the car rental business housed in a hovelling little building next to the runway. The airport itself is huge for such a small place devoid of anything else, though you figure things worked out that way for that very reason. Lubbock Preston Smith treats you just fine, and your short flight to Dallas is distinctly unmemorable. The layover lasts a little over an hour before Southwest Airlines is herding you back onto another airplane.

It’s been a day and a half. You haven’t called Marcus back yet. What are you supposed to tell him?

Hey, I’ve decided that I want to help this criminal because…it’s what I want to do?

Terrible.

You wonder what Frankie’s life would look like, now that you’ve been in it for all of one week, if you weren’t in contact. Probably the same as it has been for the last eight months: quiet. Blow-your-brains-out quiet, solemnity trapping him inside his busted trailer. Seriously, that thing needs a bath.

The moon keeps you up. Truly, you let it. One slide of a curtain and you could fall asleep in half darkness, dead to the world. But you can’t. You don’t want to. Growing back into having that word—want—after years of doing what’s best is about as strange as Francisco is.

Somewhere between twinkling stars, your phone buzzes next to you on the nightstand. It usually stays silent, your alarm the first thing to wake you right before sunrise. When you pick it up, an unknown number is scrawled across the screen. You can’t quite place the area code.

“Hello?” you ask hesitantly.

“Hey.” Frankie.

“How did you get this number?”

“Luck?” he asks. When you don’t say anything, he gives you a real answer. “Aren’t too many of you in this digital copy of the New York City phone book.”

Setting that aside, you say, “It’s late, Frankie.”

“I know that.”

“Why are you calling?”

“Can’t sleep.”

“That’s what television is for,” you say. “Or…porn.”

“Trust me, you’re a last resort,” he says. Then he asks, “Is it weird for you?”

You resign yourself to having this phone call. “Is what weird?”

“Knowing I’m guilty.”

Is it? Surprisingly, no. In the eyes of the law, you’re just about as bad as him. Just about.

“What answer will make you sleep better?” you ask instead.

“I don’t know,” Frankie says. “Honestly, I had no clue what was goin’ on. Will told us to lay low for a while—”

You want him to continue, but you have to stop him. For both of your sakes. “Stop.”

“What?”

“You have to stop. Might not want to incriminate yourself over the phone. It’d be better if you—”

“Stop? Yeah,” Frankie agrees.

“What else can I do?” you ask him.

“Well, if you can’t listen,” he says, “…stay. On the line. Just like this.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

For an hour, you listen to Frankie Morales breathing. You can tell when he slips unconscious, exhaustion winning out. Your heart beats a little faster when you hang up, tempted to re-dial only to hear him pick up. You don’t, of course; doing that would wake him. When you fall asleep, you picture Frankie dreaming. It’s peaceful.

In the morning, you gather your notes on Frankie Morales together. Here is what you know so far:

The government is planning to extradite him and his retired special operations team members and friends, Will and Benny Miller, and Santiago Garcia for their illegal actions in an unsanctioned operation in Colombia. Their travel spanned into the Peruvian Andes, leaving jurisdictional territory a little murky without legal help.

Frankie Morales is single, fourty-two, living (or hiding out) in Lubbock, Texas. He’s lived there for eight months after having his pilot’s license revoked a second time for an apparent relapse using substances. So far, you haven’t noted any signs of addiction or using, but he could be hiding it. God knows his closet is crammed full of skeletons already.

He grew up in Texas, just like you did. He had a little brother (status and whereabouts unknown) and a mother (deceased). He was in the flight academy straight out of basic training, finishing his degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Frankie’s mother died two months after he got home from a second tour in Iraq.

He’s guilty: of the espionage, the theft, the murder. All of it. The government has photos, surveillance footage, and probably a haul of eyewitness testimonies. The odds are unequivocally stacked against you—against him. Yet for some reason, you still want to try and save him.

This is it. You’ve officially gone insane. You’re going against everything Marcus has ever told you, any reason you’ve ever learned or logic that has managed to worm its way into your head. All on a whim. What? Because he’s nice to you sometimes? Anyone can whip out a pitcher of fucking lemonade!

No, this is something else. A pull, a fascination. The darker parts of you are drawn to him. You are so sick and tired of everyone else saving you. You want to be good because you are good. Not because Marcus tells you so. Not because your mother can finally bear to flash you a smile at annual family dinners these days. Because of something you have done; earned and given to you by yourself.

A text from Marcus interrupts your thoughts.

Are you still alive?

Rolling your eyes, you pick up the phone and call him. It starts to ring. For some reason, you seem to be able to hear both ends: your dialing, and his obnoxious Mick Jagger ringtone. The song is muffled, sketchy pop beats stowed away by the limits of sound travel.

A knock at your front door surprises you. Getting up, you tie your robe at your waist, unlatching the deadbolt before unlocking the door.

“Marcus?”

"Would it kill you to answer your phone?" he asks.

"What are you doing here?"

"You didn't call me back."

"I was getting to it."

"I thought you were dead," Marcus says. "You hang up on me, and you were still at that Francis guy's place..."

"Frankie," you correct him.

"Yeah, him. Whatever." You don’t know why the dismissal in his tone irks you so much.

"I can't talk about this right now."

Marcus huffs out your name, staring out at your kitchen before facing you. Him in his work suit and you in pajamas, you rest on uneven footing. “I told you he’s bad news. Get yourself out of this.”

“Can we reconvene for this lecture later? I have to go to work.”

“I’ll come with.”

“Marcus—” You already know he won't budge. “Okay. Fine,” you say. “But you have to behave.”

“Me? Always,” he says.

You roll your eyes, shooing him to the couch as you start to get ready.

There are two sides to your identity as a journalist now: what you’ve been sanctioned to do, and everything else that you haven’t. The job you fill at the Post is pretty mindless. You’re a staff writer, barely entry-level enough to get you acknowledged by upper management. You write up quick stories pulled from blind lead wires about how the economy isn’t doing well, or submit story ideas on housing that always get shot down. All of this means it lets you focus way more time on Frankie than you should.

When you're ready, Marcus takes your purse from you, freeing up your arm. He leads you to the street, hailing a cab. When the vehicle rolls up to the curb and sloshes a mix of rainwater and slush onto his shoes, Marcus doesn’t even blink. He opens the door for you, letting you get in first. Chivalrous, gentlemanly. Laying it on a bit thick, but when is he not?

The ride is quiet. You watch slick streets pass by from your window, listening to the cab’s tires rolling through dirty snow and pools of water. When you glance over, Marcus is doing the same. You're dreading the conversation waiting for you, but you can't bring yourself to regret the decision made. Marcus was right about your gut. You believe that Frankie deserves a shot at redemption. Each piece of the puzzle pulls you closer to him. He reminds you of yourself. The road ahead won’t be easy, but with the help of people like you and Marcus, maybe he can rebuild a life after all this—whatever is to come.

You get out of the car first, leading the way inside the statuesque building as you shake off the soggy snow that’s settled over your jacket. Taking the stairs two at a time in your shoes is a struggle.

“Here,” Marcus says. He offers you his hand halfway up to the second floor.

Seven flights of stairs later, you welcome him to the Post’s offices. The floor is barren of another living soul, just as you’d predicted.

Marcus stops short, standing next to the Tetris maze of cubicles. You shake your head, beckoning him around a shadowy corner to your cozy nook of the building.

“An office?” he asks.

“You're surprised?”

“Is it bad if I say yes?”

You put on an exaggerated frown, unable to keep a straight face when he holds his hands up in surrender. “They seem to like me around here.”

“You make that part easy.”

“For now,” you say. Taking a seat in your plush rolling chair, Marcus sits down across from you. “I have a feeling the story ideas I push aren’t exactly winning me any favours.”

“‘Cause you want to write about something real?”

“Exactly,” you say. “I’m sick of business puff pieces and reports on the next Amazon stock shift. I want to write about the people. What’s going on, what they’re going through? I’m working at the fuckin’...diet Financial Times.”

“When what you want is full sugar Wall Street Journal,” Marcus says.

You sigh. “A pipe dream.”

“Not for you.” Fixing him with a hard stare doesn’t stop him. “Look at what you’ve done with only a couple years under your belt. In another five? Ten? You’ll be running this place, babe.”

You let air punch out from your nose, ignoring the pet name. “I don’t know.”

“I do,” Marcus says.

He sounds so confident, unshaken in his sureness. But you don’t live in Marcus’ world. You don’t get the things you want. You work for them. Not that he doesn’t, but of course Pike’s the guy to get a promotion that seemingly falls from the sky.

“Alright, Mr. Agent Man. Enough optimism from you,” you say.

The next hour is all but silent as you open up a spreadsheet, scrolling through digital receipts stored in your work email. You continuously switch between the two browser tabs, reading numbers and typing them in. The expenses of your White House trip trickle into their appropriate boxes as software organizes everything automatically. Marcus sits with you, eyes caught on something through the glass side wall of your office. He gets up and leaves, returning moments later with red licorice vines.

“Want some?” he asks, offering you the bag.

You bite your tongue between your teeth, dialed into your task. “Pass.”

“More for me.”

When your neck starts to hurt from hunching your spine, you sit back, shoulders stretching wide. You don't know if Marcus has been watching you this whole time, or if the movement caught his attention. The intensity of his gaze has your heart jumping to your throat. The moment you take notice, the force in his stare melts away.

"What?" you probe.

"You ditched the case, right?”

"Seriously? Right now?" Marcus doesn't speak, waiting for an answer. "I didn't. We can’t just give up on him.”

"You never listen to me."

“Since when have you been my boss?” you ask.

A beat of silence. “Since when have I not?” Marcus retorts.

You scoff. “You’ve got some nerve.”

“It’s always—Marcus, I don’t know what to do. Marcus, please help me. And it’s fine—”

“Sounds like it isn’t. I thought we were friends,” you say.

“You’re missing the point.”

“Which is?”

“This is my wheelhouse. You don’t want to hear it, but I’ll say it anyway. On this, I know better,” Marcus says. “And honestly? You know it too.”

You know what I’m talking about.

“That’s low,” you say.

“But it’s true.”

You stand up, walking away from your desk—from him. He follows you out of the office, his dress shoes catching on the carpet tile. Marcus won't let up that easily.

“I want to make it all go away,” you say. “The indictment, the investigation. All of it. And if we can’t do that—”

“We can’t,” Marcus interrupts you.

“Then I want to make sure that Frankie stays here. In America. No extradition.”

"I don't think you know how this works," he says.

"I've worked in this business just as long as you have.”

"As a journalist. You are not a political animal. You are not a monster. You can't rip this apart for yourself. For him."

"And you?" you ask.

"This favour stopped being for me the moment you stepped on his porch," Marcus says. "You are not one of them—you are not a senator, you are not the District Attorney. Most importantly, you are not a lawyer. The girl who gets the congressman of Rhode Island's coffee every morning has more political clout than you do."

"Well I'm glad to see you have so much faith in me," you say.

"This isn't about faith! You think this is about belief? It's about not getting yourself fucked over in the process. You are not the thing that goes bump in the night, or makes a phone call to execute a cell block over in Oklahoma. You play the game. I play the game. Frankie played, too. And then he stopped playing, and he went against their rules which is why we're standing here, discussing whether or not we can save him when that's not for us to decide!"

You've never seen Marcus this angry. You've never seen him this anything. His emotions never really leave gift box range: happy, nicely wrapped, and convenient when you need them.

"You imagine yourself as the immovable object to the unstoppable force. You're not. You're a little girl who has no clue what she's doing."

"And you do?" you spit back. "You did? Didn't we all learn our lesson the first time? Or is your memory so short that you've forgotten sitting at that table with me."

He remembers. That temper of his liquifies, Marcus' eyes soft before he coaches his face into a hard mask once again. "An innocent man doesn't run."

"Bullshit. Innocent men run all the time. It's how they get shot in the back," you say. "Just because you have made up your mind about what he is doesn't mean that I have to."

"You should. It's all laid out there in front of us both."

"You are the one who led me to this case."

"I didn't have all the facts then. Going to San Antonio was rash. I wasn't thinking," he says.

"You were thinking. You were thinking that these men didn't deserve extradition. You were thinking that I owed you a favour, and it was the perfect time to call in. And now what? Now that you know they're not cookie-cutter American patriots, what? This is what they're owed?"

"Yes."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"It's what he deserves. All four of them. It's what's right. What's fair."

"When has anything we've ever done been right or fair? You think what I do here is saving lives? Feeding the public articles about how billionaires fucking the everyman is a good thing?" you demand. "And you? Is sending another crime boss for a cushy plea stint at club fed saving the day? We aren't in the business of right or fair, Marcus. I thought you knew that."

"So what, you and this pilot? You think saving him is gonna right all your wrongs?" There's an edge creeping into his tone. He's hedging too close into the territory of implication.

"I never said stopping that extradition order was the right thing to do," you say.

"It's selfish," Marcus says.

"And so what?" you ask. "We're already here, aren't we?"

The two of you in this room, you're both shiny and candy lacquered to hide the filth on the inside. Sometimes you used to wonder if Marcus was the exception to that rule, but you know better now. Good people don't do what you do. They never make it this far.

Marcus is simply better at hiding it.

He shakes his head. "You're unbelievable."

"Roles reversed, you would do the exact same thing."

"Hell would freeze over first." He spits your name out with an edge that's not an edge, but a tender hint of concern—no, pity. A dichotomy only Marcus Pike could manage. "You're not a fixer. You can't fix this."

"And you're not my keeper. I'm not asking you to save me this time, Marcus. I'm asking for your help."

"What if I say no?"

"You don't want to do that. You don't want to make me do that."

Marcus scoffs, walking towards you. He's in your space in an instant. Instinctively, you step back. He meets you there despite it. Marcus is so close now; you've never seen him like this. You don't want to.

"So you're all big and scary now?" he asks. His whispered breath over your lips makes your skin crawl.

He takes your jaw between two fingers, forcing you to look at him. The touch prods at that empty part of you, dark and deep, exposing you. When Marcus kisses you, a ghost of connection, you let him. It feels wrong; your stomach churns in the two seconds between its start and end. Marcus doesn't kiss you like he wants you—at least, not in the traditional sense. This isn't about love. It's for power.

He lets you go, walking away without another word. You hear the door to the stairwell swing open with a whine. You can only breathe again when it clicks shut.

You stay frozen in time for the next twenty days. Every blink has you reliving that moment. Your dreams are precariously empty. Marcus is gone again.

Hot breath chafes at the back of your neck, a delusion your mind has concocted to justify the fear that pumps through your blood at a constant. You can finally put a name to the feeling that’s overtaken your gut, swaying every thought and decision you make. Marcus has you, but not in any way that’s comforting.

He doesn’t call. Frankie does. A lot. Twice one week grows to twice a day. The worst starts when he grows bolder, leaving messages. He sounds about as scared as you are, more desperate with each voicemail. You start to really worry when he stops calling altogether.

You find a little bit of wiggle room in your vacation days, flying back to Lubbock close to Presidents’ Day. Texas has taken on uncharacteristically moody weather, the sky swampy and grey as rain drowns out any hope for sunshine. You get the same truck to rent, filling it at a Gas n’ Sip on the way out of town.

The backroads flood with rainwater, puddles gathering into small ravines on the scarred asphalt. You splash through them at sixty miles an hour, racing in the rain. After taking your sweet time to get here, a sense of urgency floods you. Scraping together the last minute trip, your mind filled itself with nightmare scenarios. Maybe he’s gone even further off the grid; maybe you’ll never find him again. Or worse, maybe he’s taken up all of that mindblowing quiet literally.

The trailer park is about as flooded as the roads, if not worse. The sea of gravel has been swallowed up by water. All you can see in pretty much every direction is a gathering of murky liquid. The truck is absolutely drenched by the time you park in front of Frankie’s home. His own truck is there too, a weak flicker of hope.

Stepping out of the truck, your shoes are immediately submerged. It soaks through to your socks, but you can’t muster up enough care to notice. Trying to dodge the wind, you rush up the steps of the trailer and pry the screen door open. You knock five times in quick succession, then step back and wait. Air blows violently against the right side of your face. Squeezing your eyes shut only does so much; you’d rather press your face against grimy siding and get out of its path entirely.

When the wooden door behind the busted screen opens, Frankie’s face goes on a journey. Moody to shocked in a millisecond, and shocked to something you can’t quite parse in the next. He’s still in his pajamas.

“Hi,” you say. His eye has recovered, for the most part. The last remnants of a yellow-green bruise smear his skin.

“You’re back,” he returns.

“Can I come inside?”

Frankie seems to think about it, giving you a onceover. You almost think he’ll tell you no. When his eyes land on your sopping wet shoes, he frowns. Leaning forward, he opens the screen door towards you.

Inside, you take your shoes and socks off.

Frankie says, “I guess you got my messages.”

“You stopped calling.”

“You stopped answering.” Touché.

“I got worried,” you say.

The words make Frankie freeze, pausing his ambling through the kitchenette. Facing the broad expanse of his back, you watch his shoulders relax. He turns to you. His jaw ticks before he sighs.

“If you don’t wanna help me, you could just say that. Not hearing from you—”

He worried. Well, you knew that. But this is different. Nothing selfish here, it’s not anxiety over the situation at hand. Just you. Frankie worried about you.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “Things got complicated.”

“In New York?” Frankie asks. “City girl too busy for a poor old country bumpkin, eh?”

It’s a joke, you realize, a laugh hiccuping from your chest. “Something like that.”

Frankie smiles then, mustache hiking his lip up to show you a flash of teeth. “I was just about to make lunch,” he says. An offer.

“Sure,” is all you give him.

You sit at his table once again, flipping through notes stuck together with raindrops. Frankie silently cuts up part of a head of iceberg lettuce right against the peeling surface of his countertop, the thick noise of chopping lulling you into focus. You haven’t looked at any of this in a while; time to play catch up.

A light clatter distracts you. By the time you look up, Frankie’s already standing at the sink, water running. A plated sandwich sits in front of you, lettuce and lunch meat jutting out at each side. Frankie finishes up in the kitchen, wiping his hands off on his jeans as he finds you staring.

“What?”

“You didn’t make one for yourself?” you ask.

“I’m not that hungry,” he says.

Disregarding any manners, you pick up the sandwich—already sliced in half—and take a bite. It’s a little more leafy greens than anything else, but you aren’t one to complain. Frankie sits across from you, waiting.

You say, “I wanted to circle back to what you said on the phone,” with bread still in your mouth.

Frankie shakes his head. “Don’t chew with your mouth open,” he says.

All you do is blink at him, swallowing the bite before you speak again. “You mentioned something about Will Miller a few weeks ago.”

“Right. Will, he told me to get outta dodge for a while. All of us to go dark. I’m living my stupid fuckin’ life, and then a few hours later my sergeant is giving me orders again.” Frankie prods his tongue into the side of his cheek, silent in thought. “I did it. Of course I did it. You get an order, you take it.”

“Even if you’ve been retired from Special Forces for almost a decade?” you ask.

“It’s not an if,” he says. “It’s an always.”

“And why is that? William Miller hasn’t been your army sergeant in—”

“Look, I’ll level with you. I get that you don’t understand. It’s not something I can explain for you to understand,” Frankie says.

You like a challenge. “Try me.”

“The training…it’s like a switch. Once you turn it on, you can’t—The people, your team. They’re family. They’re more than family. Your mother isn’t operating an AR-15 to save your life or dragging you to safety from a frag. I owe that man my life. That’s never going to change. They are the men that will always have you, no matter what. So when he asks you to do something, you do it.” He pulls at the whiskers of his moustache. “There’s no turning that off.”

Hot pants of breath beat down the stretch of your neck, your eyes stuck wide as you try to reign in the flood of sick crawling up your esophagus. Frankie looks confused as the quiet draws on longer than socially appropriate. Clicking your pen once, twice, three times, the beast at your back disappears.

“Could I use your bathroom?”

“Uh, sure,” Frankie says. “First door that way.”

He points further into the mobile home, down what’s barely a hall with two doors on either side. Spotted wood flooring turning to chipped tile as you step inside, the door pulled shut behind you. Your knee knocks against the lip of the sink, oddly low to the ground; you have to hunch to reach the tap. Cool water pours over your hand after a moment of anticipation.

The cold flow relieves some of the burning in your body, splashes of it against your eyelids running to your lips and tongue. Your mind is scattered, heartbeat in your ears. You can only grasp one thought through all the noise. This is what it feels like to be haunted.

Marcus owns you. You aren’t sure when exactly that happened. When you let that happen. So many moons ago, back in Austin? Or that diner, maybe, when he got you back after years of interim silence.

He was right. You are not a monster. He is. The world of politics is an ugly one, full of ugly people. Still, you don’t like to get acquainted with things that go bump in the night. You never noticed there was already something under your bed.

The door opens again with a creak. Frankie slouches in his seat, chin resting against the heel of his hand that’s propped against the table. You watch him, spotting the way he shakes out his shoulders. His arms let the fabric of his t-shirt loose before pulling it taut again. You want to trace your hand along the line of his spine.

Frankie refuses the rest of your sandwich, so you finish it alone. You ask him to recount the whole story, beat by beat: how he got involved, when, what the original plan was. He says that after the recce, they were supposed to hand off their gathered intel to Colombian authorities, but Santiago—Pope, he calls him—had other ideas. They went into Lorea’s estate expecting your average narcos cash stash, and wound up with a mansion spilling American dollars from the drywall.

You can see the anger in his eyes when he talks about the helicopter, the crash. Frankie slips in a mention of some pretty Colombian girl, but she’s gone from his story as quickly as she appears. The helicopter was overweight, sending them into a tailspin over the grassy plains of Peru.

“There were people there—villagers. We, uh… They were scared. A bunch of big Americans drop down from the sky with guns yellin’ English at them.” Frankie takes a long pause, staring at his hand. “I don’t know if Tom shot first, or if I—”

Oh god.

“There were a few of them dead. Pope worked out a deal with their leader. Gave him some money. We took a pack of mules, and we were on our way.” Frankie looks up at you. “I thought I’d never think about it again, I thought… I don’t know what I thought. And then Tom died. It all just went to shit.”

“Your friend died. You killed some people. In the process of all this, you broke some laws. From the sounds of it, that’s been your whole life. So what makes this different?” you ask.

“We didn’t…” he trails off. “There was no flag on our shoulder this time.”

“No.”

“No?”

“That’s not it,” you say. “That’s the reason the government is after you. That’s not why you are the way you are about it.”

A well of anger and loneliness. Self-pity has stained the man known as Francisco Morales.

Frankie bristles. “Maybe it’s just sad, hey? Maybe I wish I’d done better. Been better. Maybe Redfly wouldn’t be dead.”

Redfly. Tom Davis. From what you could unearth of the man all those months ago, you don’t think it would have mattered. He seemed more likely to stick a shotgun in his mouth than Frankie, probably in one of those shit condos he was trying to sell. Better to die in those mountains.

“What happened to the money?” you ask.

Frankie shakes his head again. A silent no.

“You know I could just find it. Make this easy.”

“We gave it to his kids. Two daughters.”

“Offshore accounts?”

Frankie gives you a look: what do you think?

You hold his gaze, half challenge and half fascination. Abruptly, you switch gears. “I’ve got one rule.”

“A rule?” Frankie asks.

"I don't give a shit what you tell the D.A., or your lawyer, whoever. But you don't lie to me. If this is going to work, it's because you're honest. And I'll be honest too."

"Fine," Frankie says. "But I have some terms of my own.”

“Such as?”

“I show you mine, you show me yours.”

“Excuse me?”

“You haven't told me a thing about you and this case," Frankie says.

“There is no me and this case, Frankie. I didn’t do anything illegal here.”

“But you know about it,” he says. “If the government was going to move on me right now, I’d already be in a cell somewhere…which means they haven’t. And yet, here you are.”

You wish he was as stupid as he looks.

“And?”

“How do you know about this case?”

“I know someone at the Justice Department. He brought the case to my attention,” you say.

“Brought it to your attention,” he says flatly.

“Yes, Frankie. He brought it to my attention.”

“Bullshit.”

“Frankie—”

“I think that your friend went looking for something he shouldn’t have. And fuck, did he find it,” he says. “The only thing that doesn’t make sense to me is how you’re the one sitting here, not him.”

“It’s complicated,” you say.

“Don’t lie. You’re bad at it.”

Fuck. Fuck. You’ve painted yourself into a corner here, no way out.

You deflate, tired of keeping up the brave face. “Everyone’s got their marching orders.”

Anything left of that unsure sense of judgement in your chest melts away as Frankie’s face falls. He’s a good little soldier. So are you.

“Marcus Pike…he wanted me to drop this. You. He thinks you deserve jail, that you aren't any better now than the man you were in Colombia. Probably worse. He says it’s the right thing.”

“And what do you think?” Frankie asks.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

You don't want to see him go away for it. The Colombian government will demand to see him rot, but that's never sat right with you. Now the thought makes you sick, gut rolling whenever it crosses your mind. But like it or not, Marcus has gotten into your head. You need something to drown him out.

Frankie takes your empty plate and puts it in the sink. He pulls a bowl out of his cupboards. You grab your phone, tapping at the screen to wake it up. No messages, no missed phone calls.

“I should go,” you mumble, already reaching for your shoes. A warped water line has formed on the canvas upper, like brown and grey watercolour paint. You shove your damp socks in your pocket.

Frankie stops what he’s doing, pouring milk into floating bits of instant oatmeal.

He says, “It’s still raining like hell out there.”

“I’m not made of sugar.” Frankie doesn’t have a pithy comeback for you, simply standing by. “I’ll be back tomorrow—early. So be up this time.”

Frankie nods wordlessly, putting his bowl of brown sludge into the microwave. He stands in the kitchenette, watching it spin and spin behind glass. You head for the door, looking down into your purse in search of the truck’s keys. When you look up again a few steps from the exit, Frankie is there too.

His nose is inches from yours now. Frankie looks at you with something—a feeling you can’t quite grasp. It rolls off him in waves, overwhelming. He’s standing just out of reach. He is always standing just out of your reach.

When you stretch a hand up to his jaw, it feels normal. Natural. Like you were meant to hold him, like he was meant to be held. His stubble is prickly against the skin of your palm.

Frankie leans into your touch, his hand moving to hold your own in place. With your fingers splayed across his cheekbone, you can feel the fine lines around his eyes. Up close you can see the tiniest of sun spots along the column of his throat. The loose collar of his shirt creeps up and back down again with every rise and fall of his chest.

He turns his face, still in your grasp, and presses his lips to the skin of your wrist. Immediately, you yank the limb back to your own body. Like a jolt of sparking electricity, his face flashes through your mind. Marcus and his ugly, docile kiss. The scent of his cologne, eyes so close they could burn through flesh.

The memory of him this close, closer… It holds you in a tight grip, overtaking the present and launching you into the past. Back to the cost of doing business. The price of helping Frankie. But you cannot do this—this with Francisco Morales. Neither of you get that luxury.

You say, “Tomorrow. Nine o’clock.”

Then you watch him expectantly, waiting for Frankie to step aside. The trailer door squeaks open at your pull, whining when it slams shut again. You feel eyes at your back crossing the short distance to the truck. Whether they belong to Frankie or Marcus, you aren’t quite sure.

You eat again at a place called Taqueria Jalisco. The chicharron en salsa feels like an undeserved treat. You eat half of the food, washing it down with two strawberry mojitos.

Your waitress—Carla—comes back around to your table in the middle of a staring contest with the remnants of dinner. You order a Long Island Iced Tea for dessert, smiling politely as she clears your dishes. The alcohol settles a hum in your body. You feel like a live wire, unrestrained in your power to damage and destroy. So far, you seem to be your only target.

The Palm Tree Lodge happily accepts your business again, even giving you the same room as your last stay. Wrapping yourself in bedsheets, you close your eyes. The first thing that appears behind them is Frankie’s face, soft and careful as you held him. You feel a whisper of touch where his lips had been against your skin, rubbing over the spot with your thumb.

You should be scrolling through your phone, dredging your mind for any of your old classmates that went on to law school and owe you a favour. You should be thinking about any lawyer at all, but you aren’t. You can only think of him. Sweet brown eyes staring out from that despairing face. The look that makes you want him.

He is failure, primed and bottled. That makes you want him more.

Focusing, you find a place for his trailer in your mind. You’re standing by the steps, but it isn’t raining here. The sun-mottled sky shines blue and canary yellow as a glass of something cool sweats in your hand. You urge yourself to advance, taking careful steps up to the door. Before you can pull it open, you slip inside all on your own. Frankie sits at the kitchen table with his back to you, shoulders stretched beneath the thin fabric of an undershirt.

You go to him, taking a sip of the drink you’re carrying before you set it down on the table. Candied cranberries wash onto your tongue, fizzing up in your mouth. Hands empty, you rest them over each one of Frankie’s shoulders. He leans into the touch, the whiskers of his moustache brushing against your fingers as he sets a kiss to your skin.

You’re chasing a disaster. You shouldn’t want him. Wanting has only ever brought you bad things. You get the sense that if you told him to, Francisco would do it, no matter the ask. It’s hard to tell if that is a scare or a solace.

You and Frankie are the same in the exact way that you and Marcus are two of a kind. Fair is foul and foul is fair.

It continues to rain, worse today than before. You make good on your promise, knocking on Frankie’s door again at nine o’clock sharp. The door opens two seconds later. Frankie is dressed, just like you’d told him to be; a pink button up that’s been through the wringer, unbuttoned to the middle of his chest as it reveals a white undershirt like the one haunting your imagination. He lets you in without much fanfare, offering you something hot and warm from the brewing pot of coffee.

“Yes, please. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Frankie says. “I don’t have any creamer, only sugar. It went bad a few days ago.”

“No worries. I like it black.” You do not, but you’re not about to tell him that.

You and Frankie continue this stilted little dance as he sets down the mug on the table, not even trying to hand it to you lest your fingers touch. He seems to sit a little further out from the table today.

From your bag, you produce a scribbled list of twenty names you could scrape up on the drive here, eyes dividing their time between the paper and the splashy roads ahead.

“What hoop am I jumping through today?” Frankie asks you.

“No circus tricks for you. It’s all on me right now.”

“That’s a relief.”

Typing out the first name to locate them in your contacts, you say, “I’m sure it won’t stop you from being a clown.” You hit dial as a snicker wriggles its way out of him. Let’s hope you can find Chuckles a lawyer.

By the fifth phone call, neither of you are laughing. Pacing across the stretch of floor between the kitchen and the living room, you listen to another one of your peers professionally shoot you down.

“No, Alex. I get it. Thought I’d try anyway, right?” you ask. “Thanks. Yeah, bye.” You hang up, hand sliding from your forehead to your jaw. “Fuck.”

Frankie’s crossing out the names on the list for you, drawing a squiggly line through the name of your old friend from Rice.

“Who’s next?” you ask.

“Aditi Patel. Oregon area code,” he says. Frankie feeds you the numbers as you type them in, both of you waiting on the dial tone. She doesn’t even pick up, sending you straight to voicemail.

This cycle continues for the better part of two hours: another phone call, a rejection or an answering machine, followed by another line on the page.

Hanging up again, you ask Frankie who follows Ryan Treho on the list.

“No one,” he says. “That’s it. That’s all of ‘em.”

“Let me see.”

He hands it to you, gazing up as you look it over. Frankie is right. Every name on this list has been called, every one giving you some variation of no. The hum you thought was Frankie’s ancient-looking fridge ratchets up an octave in your ears, noise crowding around you as you stare at the piece of paper.

You can barely hear Frankie’s question of, “What do we do now?” as the rattle reaches a peak, squealing like static. You’re drawing a complete blank, breath halting as you will yourself to fix this.

Frankie grabbing your hand pulls you out. You’re standing beside his seated form, facing forward while he slouches in his chair at an angle.

“I’ll figure something out. Call some people. Don’t worry about it.”

“A little difficult, don’t you think?” Frankie asks. “What are you going to do?”

Call Marcus.

You don’t want to tell him that, though. You know your eyes are glossy, hot tears threatening to spill at any time as you try to put on a brave face. Cool, calm, and collected; that’s who you are supposed to be. Strong in the face of an adversary. So why do Frankie’s brows knit together, his face coloured in concern?

“I don’t know.”

The chair drags loudly against the floor when he kicks it out, nodding at you to take a seat. You do, folding yourself in half the moment your ass hits the chair as you duck and hide from him. Saltwater streaks down your cheeks, never making it past your lips as you wipe harshly at your skin.

“I’m scared,” you say.

“Everything is gonna be fine,” Frankie says. It feels warped for him to be comforting you.

You shake your head. “I don’t know. I don’t know, I just—”

You can call him. He could help you. You already know he would.

“What are you afraid of?”

“Him.”

Living in this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nightmare has turned your life inside-out. There’s nowhere to run, no one to go home to. There is no home anymore.

You try to backpedal, mumbling a quick, “I’m being dramatic,” as Frankie takes in your broken face. “It’s fine. I’ll have to call Marcus. Figure out a new game plan.” The very last thing you ever want to do. More likely than not, you’ll have to see him; he’ll want to see you.

“I never told you why I punched out my neighbour’s grandson,” Frankie says.

“You didn’t. What does that matter?”

“Can you just—?” Frankie purses his lips, restarting his story. “He was talking about…you. Calling you names and—it was offensive.”

“So you beat the shit out of him,” you say. “That’s great, Frankie. I can’t pummel the fact that no one wants to represent you.”

“This isn’t about that. I’m saying, if your friend at that fancy Justice Department ever did anything to you…y’know.”

“You’d go to prison for assault on a federal officer,” you say.

“Seems like I’m headed there regardless,” Frankie says. He waits on you for an answer.

“I’m fine. The stress is fucking with my head.” Lie. You know it, and Frankie knows it too, judging by the scowl on his face. “I’ll be okay.”

You grab your things, making for the door.

“What happened to being honest with each other?” Frankie asks.

“This is me being honest. And the truth is, I’m going to be alright. Okay?” He doesn’t anything. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Rushing to the truck, you yank open the door to get out of the rain. Settling yourself, you put the keys in the ignition. You reach to turn them…and then you don’t. Nothing you want is at the other side of this truck’s engine rumbling to life. You don’t want to think. You don’t want to leave. You don’t.

Time passes blindly, the rain and the sky staying the same as water beats against metal. It seems almost everflowing, like it has always rained and it always will. The sound of precipitation lulls you into a dead stare, the upholstering of the steering wheel suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. You don’t notice Frankie at the opposite window until he pulls the passenger side door open, scooting in along the leather bench seat.

“What are you doing?”

“What are you doing?” he asks.

Frankie runs a hand through his hair, dotted with wet drops as he smooths it over. This is the closest you two have been physically since yesterday, heat from his thigh radiating against yours. With the crown of your head against the headrest, you watch water through the windshield.

“I have a wife. And a kid.” The words appear from nowhere.

“Oh.”

Frankie clears his throat. “Well, had. I’m sure they think I drove off to shoot myself, wash away on the beach. We lived in Florida…Miami. Not great for the recovering addict.”

“Okay…”

“I thought I’d tell you because of the whole honesty deal. You know, and not to say—fuck.”

You start to ask him if he’s alright.

“Are you a friend?” he blurts out.

“Uh…” You fix your gaze on the dashboard.

“Sorry. Thought I’d ask.”

“I don’t know what I am. To you or to anyone else.” Dragging your eyes to his face, you meet Frankie’s baby browns. “Do you want me to be that? A friend?”

“I want to turn back time and never have to meet you like this,” Frankie says.

The sky continues to pelt the truck with rain at all sides, heavy drops sounding off against the roof. Reaching up, you smooth out a crease in his forehead with your thumb. Worry ages him.

Your ring and middle finger cradle the ridge of his jaw. “You smoke?”

A curt nod. “They’re back inside.”

Next thing you know, Frankie’s jogging to the trailer as you wait under the short overhang, out of the wet. He comes out with a carton of Camel Lights. You take it from him, along with the butane lighter he offers. There are no chairs on his tiny porch. You opt for sitting right in front of the screen door, spine sliding against the mesh.

Frankie joins you on the ground. It doesn’t really surprise you. Keeping a cigarette pinched between your lips, you hold it between a peace sign and light it with an inhale. Then you put the lighter back in Frankie’s hand. After the first few drags, Frankie takes it from your lips with careful fingers. You watch him smoke, lips wrapping around the stains of your saliva. Instead of handing it back to you, he slips the cigarette back into your mouth.

When he lays on his side, head falling softly into your lap, you don’t even blink. A puff of white smoke leaves your lungs, the slow wind taking it up into the clouds. Frankie’s coarse curls slot easily between your fingers.

I want to turn back time and never have to meet you like this.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

#frankie morales #marcus pike #frankie morales x reader #triple frontier #the mentalist #frankie morales x you #triple frontier fanfiction #pedrostories #fic: revisionist history

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daily-trapinch · 3 months

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I just rediscovered this blog, which has been completely inactive since 2017. If you're still following me, I'm so incredibly grateful that you've stuck with it through the long silence. Truthfully, I'd forgotten about my dear Sandi in the rush of life, you know how these things go. But I have so many fond memories from running this blog, at the peak of the daily pokemon hype! I truly hope all the folks from back in the day are doing well.

After losing both the email and password to for this blog, I managed to crack the code to get back in. I don't really know what I'm going to do with it now, but rest assured, I won't be deleting anything.

The last post on this blog was about getting to know me, so I figure it's about time for a life update. Pardon me for getting sentimental for a moment.

Since this blog went on hiatus, I have entered and graduated from my university with a Bachelor's in Marine Biology, with honors, and a minor in Chemistry. I traveled abroad and swam through coral reefs, rescued stranded sea life, and cleaned up beaches. Out of everything, I'm proudest of the time I spent building oyster reefs and restoring our shoreline habitats. I've met so many amazing people, and we've made a real difference in this world. Through working with oysters, I discovered a deep love of the little things, the tiny humble creatures living in crevices, within mud, and on rocks of the seafloor. There are miniature worlds of infinite wonder there, if you take the time to look.

I met the love of my life, nearly got engaged after five truly divine years, and was promptly dumped before I could propose. I still have the ring. At the same time, I moved across the country to an unfamiliar city, where I thought I would be with my love, but instead was completely on my own. Things have been hard. Things have been very, very hard. There are good days and bad days, but I am picking myself up, pulling myself out of the dark. I am building myself a home here, and it is so worth living in. There is so much beauty in this world. There is so much love in the hearts of the people around us.

Art has settled into a pleasant supporter in the background of my life. I don't draw nearly as much as I used to, and my sense of creativity has changed a lot over the years. But I always know that the art will be there for me whenever I decide to pick up pencil and paper again. This blog from years ago taught me the joy of silly little doodles, and I'm so so so grateful for that!

I go by Frankie, these days. They/them or xe/xem pronouns. Currently, I'm in graduate school, preparing to get my PhD in Marine Science. I study little marine worms - how they move, how they affect their environment, and how important they are to the whole ocean. Ask me about my polychaete pictures, I think they're really cute! Honestly, I wish I could go back and tell my 2017-self just how much we've accomplished. Back then, I never thought I'd make it this far. I could never have imagined the breadth of experiences life had waiting for me.

There's still so much more out there to experience. If you followed me in 2017 and you're reading this now - I hope life has treated you well. I hope you've had so many good days since the last time you saw my dear Sandi. And I hope you have so many more good days for years to come!

Some of you may notice that when I went on hiatus, I left some loose ends unresolved. Unanswered messages and asks, comic ideas, that kind of thing. I promise that I didn't do it on purpose at the time! I was a lot younger, didn't understand exactly how to handle my blog getting this big. But I hope you will respect my decision to leave these things alone and not reopen a bunch of threads from seven years ago. Thank you <3

#pokemon #trapinch #daily pokemon #daily trapinch #positivity

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proustianlesbian · 5 months

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*i forgot to do my reviews for ep 3 and 4 of ft during both weeks smh.

episode 3 : very sweet vacation at the see also i was not aware of the joseph mccarthy and roy cohn gay allegations (not together). chokbar de bz like we say in french.

[insert here abby lee miller looking around her gif].*

diversity wins i guess, the anticommunist prosecutor who ruined so many lives is jewish AND gay. like tbh i didn't know at all because it wasn't written on his wikipedia french bio (but him bringing his mom to parties was though). like i thought the jokes about him and schine were just because theses environnement are full of men. i love the lightning on this show but it really stroke me during the scene where marcus walks in the alley at night. the costumes are so beautiful, i love the cuts of their suits.

*episode 4 : loved the christmas episode too. i knew mary's colleague was plotting something since episode one's ending. but also i'm scared for 80s timeline tim :(*

i love the actor of roy cohn also. like he's serving. serving conservative homophobic self-hating jewish but serving nonetheless (i'm not a irl roy cohn stan btw, will brill just absolutely serves as him). it was so sweet seeing tim and hawk being happy though (especially as i write those lines specifically right before the diffusion of the last episode). also small detail but it was interesting to see how even when the jewish person (here cohn) is on their side and does everything "right" to be accepted, people will still be antisemitic towards him (mccarthy and his wife).

episode 5 :

the scene of marcus and frankie on the bench ☹️☹️☹️ "i should have let him paint them red." killed me. i was so shocked by the death of senator smith though ??!! the scene where he looks at pictures with lucy was so sad in retrospect. also it's very funny seeing tim lurking around the mccarthy/cohn/schine trio. he's just a little guy. also lucy smith leave your husband and runaway with me !! i can make you happy queen ! she's so gorgeous and dresses so well i love her so much, and even more since this episode. i felt so sorry for her brother and how he gets no real help from anyone. and the last scene ☹️.

episode 6 :

lucy's outfits and hair are so gorgeous !! i really love what we saw her wearing in this episode's 1950s timeline, especially her baby blue and yellow dresses.

hawk being a daughter's father oh he's so real, kendall roy feminist icon coded to me.

the shot of tim in the police car with the back window showing hawk on the road is SICK. like i felt a pain in the heart. and i loved the last shot of hawk hugging jackson.

i kinda wish there was an episode in between 5 and 6 but at the same time it makes sense. we just didn't get used to hawk's children and had jackson for only one episode.

episode 7

an episode for the tim laughlin lesbian fans for real !! it broke my heart for the romance part but i could learn some things about harvey milk ! i'm not american so i didn't know he was murdered (or didn't remember it) but i read on wikipedia that he was jewish too ! i really love the costumes of the 70s, they're all so beautiful and fitting for the characters :'). i love all the small details in the sets and decorations, each of the era have a unique vibe ! i'm absolutely terrified for tomorrow's episode, i'm not ready to see them go at all !!

#between the * is what i had in my drafts for several weeks and just didn't update or post each week..#fellow travelers #fellow travelers spoilers #terrified for tomorrow i don't know about you all.. i was glad i could start it the first week though !!#i was a good ride. a really great one.#i don't expect an happy ending though.. (pretending i don't think there will be one so it can come to me faster etc..)#i used this tag every week

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ask-ultimatum-records-archive · 2 years

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This Blog Is Now An Archive. Stay Tuned For The Updated Version!

Hey! You!

We're a record label based in Denver that focuses on good people and better music. The purpose of this Blog is to give our members some space to answer questions outside of Interviews and Meet & Greets.

Here are some introductions from the guys that are open for questions.

August Midnight Wolf

Hey there! I'm RJ, the bassist, lyricist and singer from August Midnight Wolf. I started the label with my buddies and our manager. Born and raised in Fort Collins. (he/him)

-RJ

I'm Whinnie. I play guitar and read. I've known RJ since middle school so we decided to start a band. I named my cats Frankie & Stein because I'm a nerd loser, and I'm the best babysitter this side of the Rockys. (she/her)

-Whinnie

hiya, i'm ronnie. one day i had too much time on my hands, so i learned to play 6 instruments. then i joined a band. feel free to shoot me some questions. -ronnie (he/they/she)

Hello. I'm Nik Erikkson. I was born in Russia and now I live here. I play drums in the band August Midnight Wolf. I'm Fenrir's human dad. I will not answer many questions, but I will take the ones asked of me. (he/him)

-Nik

Homebreak Heartfake

heyyy im cat i sing in hbhf i love coding i love women -cat (she/her)

im jesse i play the bass and i play games send me a question if you want i dont talk much but i have a lot to say i also take a lot of pictures and im from florida (they/them)

jesse c.

Hi im johnny i play the drums and i have the best taste in shows and movies youll ever find. Ask me for a rec i wont disappoint (he/him)

-Johnny

i'm jack, i write all the lyrics for homebreak and play the guitar. i talk a lot, party a lot, & write a lot. born in syracuse, lived everywhere else. come talk to me. (he/him)

-jack

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wizardyke · 2 years

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one piece hcs!!

- PORTGAS D. ACE IS AZERI THROUGH AND THROUGH!!!!! roger is azeri and so is rouge. land of fire fist ace baby!

- nami is hmong ! she's never really made aware of that since she was adopted as a baby and her birth parents never enter the picture at all

- nojiko names nami after the waves one day. bellemare finds it very sweet

- usopp is angolan

- robin is native! im not sure which particular band or tribe but native north american !!

- sanji is half japanese half french but his genes REALLY favour his french side (tentative! i haven't seen wci at all so i don't know his parents)

- franky is japanese american

- i refuse to believe that sabo is british

- namis top artist is flo mili

- robin knows many many languages! including many of the strawhats native languages so they get the sense she's always listening

- ace, sanji, usopp and franky are trans men! sanji is deeply deeply repressed about it and usopp is gently trying to get him out of his shell about it. meeting ace & franky (who you'd imagine would be very flashy about it) helped a lot

- robin is a trans woman & vivi is a trans girl

- usopp & sanji & robin are bisexual, nami is a lesbian, zoro is gay and franky is a straight guy whose DEFINITELY slept with men "why live life with a hand tied behind your back?"

- luffy is by definition aspec gay but like HELL he knows wtf that means

- robin has cptsd and sanji has ptsd. vibes.

- sunny has a giant bathroom and they all have collective baths there after major fights and the like (think more bathhouse than like. personal bath). this is not just to counter the CANON FACT that LUFFY ZORO BROOK shower ONCE A WEEK. but because that scene post alabasta really was the world to me. also to remedy the fact that sanji is a fucking creep AND to get him to warm up to the idea of being Openly Trans in front of his crew

- also all the fuckin strawhats have seen eachother naked no one cares!! non sexual nudity 4ever

- ivankov is a trans woman and bon clay is some foavour of trans fem ?? genderfluid???

- also instead of sanjis 2 year training being Like That its normal intense training under ivankov and the people of the kingdom. like maybe at first when he washed up they were like. trans woman?? because he has that awkward hang ups and repression around his gender but thats for the OPPOSITE reason. so after an explanation they get the idea and throughout those two years he becomes a lot less hellbent around whatever the hell his gentlemens code is

- BUT THE THING IS... his post ts pervert attitude is literally plot relevant in fishman island so its a fucking nightmare writing it out. maybe the air pressure was wildly different in kamabakka island and he's had a hard time adjusting elsewhere idc.

- kuina is a trans guy and if he lives he would've probably had some crazy beef with his dad/owner of the dojo

- usopp and nami do kpop choreography together

- law of course listens to fucking evanescence and pierce the veil that much is obvious. what he doesnt wnat you to know is that hes also into like. eiffel 65 & darude

- makino is gay

- dadans hair is meant to be white but she dyes it with henna and when garp goes grey too she offers to dye it too (he doesn't find it amusing)

#one piece #✂️#LOL i wrote this before the yamato kiku trandgender bath scene. i love being right

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bookishofalder · 3 years

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Catfish & Sunshine II

Read Part I ~ Catfish & Sunshine

Summary: Frankie and Sunshine are all dressed up for a special event and he can’t keep his hands to himself. Requested

Warnings: Smut, language, mentions of loss and grief, sad Santi.

Frankie reluctantly gazed at himself in the mirror that you had hung in the front hallway, giving his outfit a final once-over. He was dressed in his most formal military garb, hair combed and beard carefully trimmed, and though he felt a little ridiculous, he knew you’d be more than thrilled with his appearance.

It was rare that either of you ever had to dress up, both of your lives decidedly relaxed, free of fancy events when you were both happy to go to the bar with the guys for a night out. Hell, Frankie had tried to convince you to let him take you to the fanciest restaurant in town-Benny had been the one to tell him about it; but the moment you saw the dress code on the website you scoffed, pointed out that money could be spent in so many better ways, and then excitedly asked to go to a mom and pop Mexican restaurant that was one of Frankie’s favourites.

Tonight there was no avoiding the formal dress, the fancy hair, nor the heels. It was the second anniversary of Tom’s funeral and Molly and the girls had organized a charity event for retired veterans who needed help getting on their feet after leaving service. It meant as much to Frankie and the guys as it did to Tom’s own family. Everyone was acutely aware that if Tom hadn’t been so desperate to support his family, he would never have gone on the mission that led to his death.

When Frankie had received the invitation in the mail, he’d gone numb, not realizing he had stood frozen in the doorway for more than ten minutes until you walked through the door and bumped into him, yelling in surprise. You had taken one look at his face and knew that Frankie was on the edge and, like he knew you always would, you took charge. First leading him to the couch and getting him to take deep breaths, then taking a look at the invitation he clutched in his hand. When you realized what it was for, you told Frankie you would go with him, support him through the whole thing and then take him for ice cream after. Ice cream dates were a regular thing in his relationship with you.

“Sunshine,” He called, glancing out the living room window at the rain coming down. He heard you grunt in response, probably still trying to get your hair just right even though he thought you looked perfect with bed head. When you’d walked out of the bathroom a few hours prior, your hair was done in a fancy updo, he’d stupidly remarked that you looked great, but ready a little early. You had gaped at him for a moment before gesturing to your face aggressively, pointing out you hadn’t even started on your makeup. He’d steered clear since. “I’m going to pull the car upfront so you don’t have to walk in the rain, I’ll meet you outside the lobby!”

He heard a door open, your voice now clearly echoing down the hall, “Is that your nice way of trying to get me to hurry up, Fransisco?”

“No, no,” He assured you, trying to hold back a laugh, “Take all the time you need, Sunshine.”

When you giggled, Frankie smiled to himself and, with one last glance at the mirror, left the apartment. He was happy to appreciate the walk to the elevator now that he knew it was one of the last times he’d be doing it.

You had moved in with Frankie just a few weeks after you first got together, each of you seeing no point in you keeping your place when you were never there. Next weekend you would be moving into the bungalow you’d bought together, just a little out of town. Somewhere quiet, though the commute into your office wasn’t bad and the trip for Frankie to the nearby flight school, where he was an instructor, was minimal.

Life had been...perfect since the night you and Frankie had confessed how you felt. He was flying again, thanks to you for helping him clear his record of possession. He got to wake up every day with you wrapped in his arms (he didn’t understand how you were always cold but didn’t complain that you used him as your own personal furnace), and in a week he’d be enjoying a day with everyone he loved as they all helped you both move into the new place.

Hell, even Santi had finally come home after over a year away. Tonight would be the first time out for him since he’d been back.

And Santi, that was a surprising twist. It turned out you and he were quite the match, platonically. When he’d first settled back in just a few months prior, you had ensured Frankie spent time with him and helped Santi through his guilt and grief, to feel at home again. You made Santi feel safe, feel welcome even when he showed up late at night in need of his friend. ‘The door is always open for you, Pope’ you’d said, turning away and missing the emotion on his face, though Frankie had seen.

Tonight, you had agreed to be Santi’s date as well as Frankie’s, to help the struggling man get through tonight’s event. As insistent that Molly had been that they were all welcome, he harboured the greatest guilt and regret for Tom’s death and it was a struggle to convince him he needed to be there, that he was wanted.

Frankie wasted no time pulling the car outside of the building lobby, then climbed out to wait for you. He leaned back against the passenger side door, arms crossed and eyes gazing at the ground, lost in thought. He pulled out his phone after a moment and quickly sent a text off to Santi, letting him know they’d meet him out front at the agreed time, sighing with relief when his friend sent a thumbs-up back.

“Pope not flaking out on us at the last minute?”

Frankie glanced up at the sound of your voice, his mouth opening to respond when he caught sight of you and instead he was merely gaping in surprise, an unintelligible noise rushing out of him. There was no other way to describe it, you were absolutely breathtaking.

He’d seen your dress hanging on the back of the bathroom door earlier that day, knew that the shade of blue would complement your skin perfectly. But...fuck, it hugged you in all the right places, showed off the curves he loved to kiss every day, the swell of your chest perfectly outlined in the tighter-fitting top portion, your legs accentuated by the full skirt and simple, dainty heels. And your make-up was fucking flawless. You didn’t need it, barely wore much most days, but you knew how to do it and told him it was something you had fun doing. This was the first time he’d been witness to the full slate of your abilities, the colours on your eyelids bringing out the brightness of your eyes, your lips plump and full and deliciously red.

After a moment of gawking at you, Frankie realized that you were staring at him in equal surprise, your eyes drinking in every inch of his body. You spoke first, looking away from Frankie and glancing around as you swallowed heavily. “Sorry, sir, thought you were someone else.” You giggled, pretending to look around for Frankie.

“Fuck, Sunshine,” Frankie breathed, standing up straight and feeling suddenly very warm, his eyes unable to stop moving from your chest, down your legs, back up, then down. You gave him a shy look as you descended the steps and came to a stop in front of him, “You look perfect. And your makeup,” He pointed to your eyelids, which looked like works of art in their own right and he wondered how the hell you even managed to do it, “So fucking pretty.”

“Thank you,” You beamed up at him proudly, then dropped your gaze again to look over him in uniform, “I’ve only seen you in pictures dressed like this. I think...You may look too good, Frankie. I’ll be fighting off ladies all night.”

Frankie barked out a laugh, pulling you carefully against him so as not to ruffle either of your outfits, though his semi-hard cock was begging him to just take you back upstairs and bend you over the couch. “Good thing Santi will be there, Cariño, you can just send them his way.” He leaned down to kiss you but paused, remembering your makeup, and instead pressed a soft kiss to your temple.

It surprised Frankie when he felt your whole body shudder in response, a little sigh escaping you. He paused, meeting your eyes curiously and then nearly coming undone right there when he saw the turned-on expression he knew all too well burning across your features.

“Mierda,” You murmured, and Frankie felt both proud of how your Spanish was coming along-you’d been taking lessons-and aroused by your evident desire for him. With a pained groan, he stepped back from you and turned to open the passenger door, holding out a hand for you.

You took hold straight away, allowing Frankie to help you into the car and carefully ensure your skirt was in before he slammed the door shut. Walking around to the driver's seat with a semi in his tightly fitted dress pants wasn’t exactly comfortable, especially knowing he had an entire evening ahead of resisting you and your perfect fucking curves. He considered closing the door on his fingers just to help clear his head.

“You uh, ready?” His voice came out husky and he didn’t miss the way it made your legs clench together. Frankie glanced at his watch, his cock twitching in excitement when he realized you were ahead of schedule. He had a couple of minutes. Without waiting for your response, he pulled the car forward and into the darkened parking lot, rain spattering down and filling the otherwise quiet cab with its soothing sounds. “Sunshine?” He huffed as he pulled over at the edge of the lot.

“Frankie, what are you-?” You broke off when you caught his expression, your eyebrows shooting up first in surprise before you gave him a comically horrified look. “Oh Frankie we can’t, we’re all dressed up!”

He laughed, “Relax, Cariño,” Leaning toward you, Frankie reached down and brushed his hand along your lower leg, humming at the softness of your skin, before moving upwards, pushing under your skirt. He moved more quickly than he normally liked to, but time was a big factor here because he didn’t want Santi waiting outside alone for you to arrive. But he couldn’t resist touching you, his voice coming out in a near whisper, “Relax, sweet girl,” You did as he asked immediately, your legs parting and back easing into your seat.

Frankie grunted when he traced up the top of your thigh and found nothing but bare skin, his hand running across your mound in surprise. He looked down at you and found you watching him with a glint in your eye, biting your lip.

“Thought I might get through a bit more of the evening before you noticed.” You admitted, though your mouth snapped shut the moment he took advantage of your panty-free pussy, easily sliding two fingers inside of you.

You let out a filthy moan, hands curling into fists at your side, and swore when Frankie quickly picked up the pace and began fucking you with his fingers. “Always so wet for me, Sunshine,” He whispered in your ear, holding himself back from kissing your pretty face. He could already feel you tensing, only a few more minutes away from your orgasm, “Dirty little thing, aren’t you? No panties on, you like being ready to be fucked anywhere, don’t you?”

“Fuck, Frankie, y-yeah,” You gasped, your hips bucking slightly, “Want-wanted to surprise you a-after, instead of ice cream,” Frankie growled at your admission, beginning to curl his thrusting fingers just how he knew you loved it. You whimpered and panted for him and the possessive, more animalistic part of him fucking loved watching the way you came undone so quickly for him. It only took another minute for you to come for him.

“Cum Cariño, cum for me you perfect little thing, I want you wet and hot and bothered the rest of the night, fuck,” He groaned when you clamped down on his fingers and let out a cry as your orgasm wrecked you, hips thrashing around. “That’s it, good girl, good fucking girl.” He praised you, slowing his movements until the last remnants of your high rolled over you and you sagged back into the seat.

“F-Frankie, Jesus,” You finally breathed, looking over at him as he withdrew his fingers and placed them in his mouth. You whimpered when he groaned at the taste of you, always so sweet and almost peachy. His free hand palmed his erection, which didn’t go unnoticed. “Fuck, do we even have time-?”

“No,” Frankie admitted, somewhat heavily although he was a little excited at the prospect of the evening being coloured with your need for one another. “We actually really need to go, Santi will be waiting.”

Shakily, you pulled your seat belt on and then reached into the centre console for a tissue. Frankie had to look away as you hooked an arm under your skirt to carefully wipe up your essence, both to calm his roaring blood and in disappointment that he couldn’t lick every last drop up himself like he usually did.

The drive to the banquet hall was quiet, each of you focusing on the rainy town and determinedly not looking at one another. When Frankie pulled up to the valet station, grateful they’d erected a fancy tent for guests, he sought out Santi. You spotted him first, excitedly pointing from your seat and Frankie finally spared you a glance, happy to see your makeup remained smudge-free, though your cheeks were rather red. He smirked.

“Thank you,” He nodded to the attendant as he stepped out of the car, hurrying around to help you out. Blocking you from the view of everyone nearby, Frankie gave you a once over, “You look perfect, Sunshine.”

Grinning, you made a show of checking him out, “Not so bad yourself, handsome.”

Frankie took your hand with a laugh and you both moved forward, eyes landing on Santi a few feet away, his back to you both. The set of his shoulders was telling and Frankie exchanged a worried glance with you before he turned around and spotted you both. He grinned, relief washing his features of the heavy frown, his eyes brightening when you each shot him friendly smiles.

“Hey, Hermano. Wow, I can’t believe that still fits you!” Santi declared, first clapping Frankie on the shoulder before flicking his sleeve.

“I had to sew him in,” You deadpanned, winking up at Frankie. Santi barked out a laugh in response before allowing you to sweep him in a careful hug, mindful of your outfits. “Great to see you, Pope, you look good.”

Frankie swelled with admiration for you; you were so kind, so good at diffusing tension and anxiety just by the way you carried yourself, the easy way you tossed out simple compliments and jokes. He knew it was partly due to your work, you’d had more than one veteran crumble in front of you during appointments, their trauma coming out in the safe space of your treatment room as you tried to make them feel better physically. But Frankie, and the guys, all recognized you had a rare quality about you; a bottomless tank of empathy, understanding, of the drive to care for others. One conversation with the beaten and broken Santi and you made it your mission to aid Frankie in helping his best friend, his brother, as he waded through the same deep shit Frankie and the Miller brothers had needed to after the failure of a mission.

“Querida, you make Fish look ten times better you look so pretty,” Frankie rolled his eyes at Santi’s jibe. His friend grinned mischievously, “Benny and Ironhead are inside already, said we’re all at the same table.” He gestured toward the ornate doors leading into the banquet hall lobby.

Frankie smiled when you reached down and threaded your fingers through his own, squeezing before you raised your other arm expectantly at Santi, who dutifully stepped next to you and offered his arm. Though his friend's brows were slightly pinched in apprehension, Frankie could see he was much calmer than he had been a few minutes prior. Frankie flashed you a grateful look as you steered them inside.

The event had a guest list of three hundred, though the room was it was being held in was so large it didn’t feel overly packed, for which Frankie felt relief. He wasn’t big on any of this, but feeling like a packed sardine would have intensified his discomfort tenfold.

Despite being the shortest of the three, you confidently led Frankie and Santi into the ballroom and around the edge with enough purpose that he realized you must have called ahead to find out where their table was. Your level of preparation was stunning, beyond appreciated.

Frankie was going to make this all up to you later.

“Pope! Fish! Sunny!” Benny roared excitedly from where he stood at the table, which Frankie realized was right next to the Davis families. He flushed at the idea that they weren’t being cast aside, put in a spare table in the corner, but rather gathered right by the family. He glanced at Santi, watching as his friend realized this kind gesture and swallowed thickly in response. Benny, meanwhile, rushed forward with his eyes on you, no doubt about to pull you into a bone-crushing hug.

Santi stepped in front of you and blocked Benny, pulling the clueless blonde into his arms instead, “Hey stupid, you’re gonna mess up Sunny’s outfit!” He laughed, and Benny shot Frankie and you a rueful grin over Santi’s shoulder as you both laughed.

Gentle hugs were then exchanged between the group before Will introduced his date formally, though they all knew the bar owner well enough. Tough and quick-witted, Frankie had always liked Kenzie and had been thrilled when Will finally garnered the courage to ask her out a few months ago. You and Frankie went on double dates with them all the time.

Giving Frankie a gentle hand squeeze, you pulled away and eagerly fell into conversation with Kenzie on the opposite side of the table. Kenzie was almost as tall as Frankie and he found it amusing how much shorter you stood next to the tall blond, even with your heels on.

“Seriously, Fish, she’s something else,” Santi confessed, pulling his attention from you. His friend looked deeply grateful, eyes sharply focused on Frankie, “I can’t thank you both enough for everything since...since I’ve been back. Sunny feels like the little sister I never had.”

Frankie nodded, “She has a way of affecting people more than she knows. And she really cares about you. We both do, Hermano.”

“We all do, you mean,” Benny interjected, clapping both of them on the shoulders as Will rolled his eyes next to his brother. “Now Santi and I need to find gals as great as you two have got, eh Pope?”

Santi snickered, “Either of your ladies have any single friends looking for trouble?”

At this, they all joined in as Santi laughed, and for a moment it felt a little like old times. Those days when they had to attend a stuffy event in uniform; Tom’s absence was felt by all of them now. They took their seats, Frankie between you and Santi, Kenzie on your other side. You kept your conversation going with her but adjusted yourself in your seat so that your back was no longer to Frankie. Almost unconsciously, you reached over and took his hand in yours.

Smiling to himself, Frankie took a sip of the water already poured for everyone from the ice-cold decanter by Benny. A short time later, the event MC, a family friend of the Davis’, took up the podium on the little stage nearby and called a start to the event. They ran through a thoughtful speech about Tom, who he was, why this charity would have meant so much to him, and then called upon Tom’s ex-wife, Molly, to say a few words before dinner would be served.

Frankie felt Santi tense next to him as Molly stood at the podium and adjusted the microphone. From where the three of you were seated, you were watching her speak over Benny and Will’s heads, their backs to you. As if sensing the turmoil, you scooted your seat silently closer to Frankie, who met your soft gaze and felt himself relax at the calming expression you held. He let you pull your hand from his so that you could tap Santi’s arm. He looked around and nodded gratefully when you held your hand for him to take. That was how Frankie ended up with both of your hands in his lap, an arm slung around your shoulders and his free hand laid over both of yours almost protectively.

Molly’s speech was filled with memories, moments of Tom’s life that had tears pricking at the corners of Frankie’s eyes. His excitement of becoming a father, his dedication to helping the kids with homework even though it ended up with him pulling his hair out in frustration. When she spoke of his service, Frankie assumed that she would gloss over the highlights, but Molly took him-took the whole group, really by surprise when she pointed at their table and began to affectionately convey the friendship and brotherhood Tom held with the four men at table two. She regaled everyone with a couple of short stories Tom must have told her, each of them bringing sad smiles to the group's faces as they remembered their stubborn leader and the shit they’d all been through together.

When Molly brought up the trip that resulted in Tom’s death, she told everyone the truth that she knew; that Tom had taken a recon job to provide for his family. And that there was always a risk to that kind of work, which was something Tom knew and understood when he said yes to going.

“The truth is, Tom made his own decision about how to take care of his family. I know that he would have made a calculated decision at every point on that trip, and as much as we wish he was still with us, we know that he was there for us. There’s no one to blame for that, no one who should carry Tom’s choices on their shoulders.” And Molly glanced, very pointedly and briefly, toward Santi.

Santi’s shoulders trembled with the sobs he held in, tears splashing down his face as he nodded once in understanding at Molly. Frankie tightened his hand over Santi’s before looking to you, expecting your expression to be filled with equal emotion and surprise.

Instead, Frankie found you gazing softly at Molly with a satisfied, expectant little smile. And he realized then that you hadn’t just called ahead to find out their table number. At some point, you had contacted Molly directly-hell, you might have even sought her out in person, and you must have told her how much Santi, Frankie and the Miller’s were suffering. How she was the only one who could alleviate any of that guilt and pain and regret. Frankie’s suspicions were confirmed when Molly, now closing off her speech, tossed you a small smile of understanding.

Frankie could have dropped to his knee right there and asked you to marry him. The lengths to which you strode to care for not only him but for the men he considered brothers, wasn’t something he could lightly say thank you for. You repeatedly went out of your way for Frankie, taking on emotional baggage he could only begin to imagine, all without even telling him about it and asking for a thank you.

He struggled through dinner, to focus, to have a proper conversation, his hand often falling to your thigh and squeezing. He wanted-no, needed-to get you alone and show you just how much he fucking loved you. But the dinner dragged on, the food delicious, or so you kept declaring as Frankie could hardly taste it at this point. There were a few more speeches about the charity made throughout dinner, and after dessert, there would be a cocktail hour for people to linger, meet charity board members and socialize.

The moment you bit into your cheesecake, Frankie was about ready to burst, considering throwing you over his shoulder and making a run for it. Santi nudged his shoulder, “You alright, Fish?” He murmured, his voice not carrying as Kenzie and you discussed some renovation ideas the bar owner had in mind.

“Yeah, Hermano,” He ran a hand over his face. Santi gave him a searching look, his brows pulling together. “What?”

“You uh,” Santi paused, checking to make sure you were still distracted, “There’s a little meeting room, down the hall from on the left. They book it during the weekdays, but I bet right now it’s empty.”

Frankie gazed at Santi, confused, “R-right...” He replied slowly, watching his friend's expression turn mischievous.

“So, maybe you slip out for a few with Sunny,” He explained, shrugging and wiggling his brows suggestively. Frankie gulped, shaking his head. “Come on, you’ve both been here for me tonight enough. I can tell you have something on your mind, Fish, I’ll be fine while you two...” He trailed off when you turned in your seat, refocusing on them.

“Why do you both look like you’re up to no good?” You joked, unknowingly hitting the mark and they both glanced guiltily at one another. You observed their reactions, your brow quirking, “Okay, what’s up?”

“Nothing, Cariño,” Frankie replied smoothly, tossing his napkin on the table. He pitched his voice lower, “Can we step out for some air?” You nodded, your eyes flicking to Santi, who covered his smirk by taking a drink of wine, then back to Frankie.

Excusing yourselves from the table, Frankie took hold of your hand and led you out of the ballroom. When he didn’t stop once outside the doors in the quiet hallway, you picked up your speed to match his, “Where are we going?”

“Just down here, quiet spot,” He answered, his pulse increasing the closer he got to the room in question. Right away Frankie could see that Santi was correct, not only was the room where he said, but it was dark, the door halfway open. Sneaking a glance to make sure no one saw you both, he ushered you hurriedly inside.

You took a few steps into the darkroom, spinning around as Frankie hit the lock and did a quick survey of the space. Aside from the glow from the red fire exit sign, the room was still and empty. Santi had said the room was used for meetings, but apparently, on weekends it ended up as backup storage space because there was an assortment of black leather furniture in place of any tables or chairs.

“Are you alright, Frankie-Oomph!”

Frankie had grabbed your arm and jerked you toward him, hurriedly backing you into the wall before slamming his lips to yours desperately. When his body pressed you against the wall, you moaned in delight and parted your lips, allowing him to taste you. He was in a frenzy at this point, needy and hard already; it took him a minute to undo the fastens and buttons on his dress pants, his lips never leaving yours.

“Fucking hell, Sunshine,” He gasped, finally pulling his hard length free, his pants pushed down around his thighs, “Look at what you do to me, can’t keep my head on straight. I fucking love you.” Aside from kissing him back, you hadn’t moved since being thrust against the wall, the overall surprise of private, passionate Frankie pulling you into a random room rendering you speechless in the best kind of way. When he spoke your eyes dropped to where his hand fisted over his cock and widened in pure desire.

“W-what’s gotten into you?” You whimpered out as Frankie released his length, crouched down and grabbed the backs of your thighs, lifting. He held you against the wall with one hand and used the other to frantically push aside the extra material of your skirt. “Not complaining here, but I just-oh, fuck!” Your hands grasped his shoulders hurriedly to keep yourself steady.

Frankie surged his hips forward the moment he revealed your bare pussy, knowing you would still be wet from your earlier orgasm. He let out a satisfied grunt when he pinned you to the wall with his cock, his lust intensifying when your legs wrapped around him and you let out a weak, desperate little moan. He set an almost brutal pace then, his eyes drinking in every blissed-out expression that crossed your face, watching for any signs of discomfort.

But you only grew wetter at his rough handling of you, the spontaneous, almost dangerous situation seemingly working to increase your arousal. He had to clap a hand over your mouth when you started moaning and crying out, “Shh, sweet girl, don’t want anyone coming in here and seeing how weak you get for my cock, do we?” He growled when you clenched around him at his words, then continued. “F-fuck, so tight. Do you...have any idea how amazing you are? Th-think I wouldn’t realize how much you did for us, that you spoke t-to Molly.” His hips were moving at the perfect pace, drawing the best moans from you that he quieted with his hand.

You looked at him with heavy-lidded, lust-blown eyes, your brows raising in surprise at his admission. He felt your mouth move against his hand and lifted it to let you speak, “Y-you knew?” You gasped out in a soft voice.

“Not till tonight,” He clarified, punctuating his statement with an extra hard thrust. You whimpered, eyes rolling despite your determination to continue the conversation. The sight of you entirely cock drunk was making Frankie feral.

“I-I did it for you, all for you,” You sighed, eyes closing, “Oh Frankie, I love your cock baby.”

Frankie put his hand back over your mouth and tilted his hips, knowing exactly how to draw out the loudest screams.

“Cum for me, Sunshine. Soak my cock, then take my cum. You can walk around the rest of the night with those pretty thighs clenched, hold it all in until I can stuff you with more at home,” Frankie’s face was right next to yours, his thrusts almost sloppy but he could feel how close you were and knew you’d topple over the edge together. “Fuck, marry me, marry me, I love you so much and I want to marry you, ah shit!”

You came, clenching hard around him as your body jerked in spasms of pleasure, your scream so loud his hand barely contained it, and then Frankie slammed as deep into you as he could and came, his cock soaking your insides with his spend. He dropped his head into the crook of your neck and muffled his yells there, holding you both still as the waves ebbed.

“Fuck, oh fuck,” You gasped out, your body quivering in Frankie’s arms. He lowered you both down to the floor somewhat shakily, his hand shooting under your dress to capture any cum that spilled out of you from the motion. You all but collapsed against the wall, your eyes squeezed shut as you worked to catch your breath.

Frankie reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a pack of travel tissues, carefully wiping you and his hand up to avoid any spills onto your dress. Though, his cock did twitch at the idea of you walking back into the ballroom with his cum dribbling down your legs. “You okay, Cariño? Still with me?”

“Yes,” You replied, your eyes opening slowly to meet his gaze. A goofy grin appeared, your eyes blinking in slow motion as you settled from what had been the most frenzied fuck of your relationship. Frankie chuckled warmly, leaning in and pressing a gentle kiss to your lips. “Yes, Frankie.” You repeated when he pulled back.

Frankie grinned, “I heard you the first time.” He joked, tossing the used tissues into a nearby wastebasket.

“No, Frankie, I mean yes.”

Frankie stilled, glancing down at you in confusion-had he gone too hard? Was he going to have to sneak you out to the car because he’d fucked you silly? But then Frankie saw your expression, no longer dazed and blissed out, but now the most intense look he’d ever seen, so fierce he almost flinched. Realization slammed into him like a freight train.

“What do you...are you saying?” Frankie babbled, shaking his head once to focus, “Sunshine, are you saying yes to-“

“Yes, Fransisco Morales, I will marry you.”

His mouth dropped open in shock, your words reverberating around in his now empty head. You just said yes to marrying him. You said yes. Holy shit, you said yes.

“I-are you serious? You really want to marry me?”

You laughed, pulling Frankie into your arms and peppering his face with kisses, “Yes, si, absolutely, affirmative. I want to marry you, Frankie, I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

Frankie’s heart was about to shoot out of his chest, “But I didn’t ask you right...I-I fucked it up, I have a ring at home, I was going to-“

You shushed him with a kiss, “This was perfect. You did not fuck it up-you did kind of fuck me up, but the proposal was perfect, Frankie.”

“Probably not something we can tell the kids about one day though.” He replied, grinning when you burst into fits of giggles. He couldn’t help but touch you then, his hands trailing your arms, the sides of your face, down the curve of your neck, “Seriously, though, Sunshine-need you to know how much I love you. You mean everything to me, you are everything. I-I know this might be fast, but I’ve loved you for over two years and nothing feels more right than the idea of you and I getting married.”

You beamed up at Frankie, “Kinda worried about getting all dressed up for the wedding-seeing as you can’t seem to control yourself when I’m fancied up,” Frankie barked with laughter, happiness filling him from head to toe. “But seriously, Frankie, I love you too. Ring or not, fancy proposal or proposing while railing me into the wall, it’s always going to be yes.”

“Come here,” He murmured, pulling you close and pressing his lips to yours gently. “Thank you, for everything. For tonight, for these past few years, for saying yes.” He sighed happily, hugging you close in the darkened room as you each worked to catch your breath.

He felt you shift your head to speak, but before you could there was a loud banging on the door that startled you both. Frankie instantly tugged you closer, though he felt your hands slip between your bodies and pull his dress pants back around him properly. Thankfully, the door didn’t open, however-

“Hey, when you two are done fucking we’re going for drinks!” Benny called, his voice laced with laughter.

Santi’s voice joined in a moment later, “Christ, Benny, I told you to leave them alone-I told him not to look for you!” And then the sounds of a scuffle could be heard and you started giggling as Frankie struggled to do his pants up and get to the door, cursing when he nearly tripped.

When Frankie ripped open the door, his two friends immediately stopped play fighting and turned to grin at him knowingly, mouths opening to tease and promptly snapping shut when you appeared at Frankie’s side, carefully smoothing down your dress as you smirked at them.

“Boys, you realize you’re buying now, right?”

Did you enjoy this? Consider leaving a comment or reblogging to ease my inner turmoil as a writer. Thank you 🤍

#frankie morales x reader #triple frontier x reader #francisco catfish morales #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #reader insert #frankie morales smut #triple frontier #santiago garcia x reader

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juletheghoul · 3 years

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The Pedro Boys on Vacation HC

I have like 7-8 WIPs right now can I can't focus on anything, so what do I decide to do? Head canon about my favourite boys on vacay of course. Send me messages! I'd love to know what you agree with any ideas you might have!

Javier Peña

Javi is usually stressed and hyper focused on work (or working through his frustrations with sex) but on vacation - he is the picture of relaxation. At first he’s hesitant, saying he can’t afford to take the time off that he should be working but once you finally get him to commit to a whole week he really let’s go. He doesn't care where you go - as long as there's a beach. He loves seeing you half dressed the whole time, he loves seeing your skin shiny with tanning oil and he loves being in the water with you. His ultimate favourite though, is the nap you both take after - when you’re tired from the sun and you’re just a little pink. Waking up all snuggled together. He doesn’t want to leave the bed half the time.

Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels

Whiskey is excited as all get out but the only way he’ll go is if you agree to a cruise. He doesn’t want to lounge around, he wants to see as many places as he can. He wants to take dancing lessons with you- do all the touristy things with you. He wants to be able to cram 4 vacations into 1. Up at the crack of dawn and busy busy busy all day until you both tumble into bed. He’s itching to explore, to take in all the sights with you and to be able to say he’s fucked you all over. He’s the tornado and he’s taking you along with him.

Din Djarin (I’m imagining you’re his riduur)

Din likes margaritas and no one can tell me otherwise. Obviously the creed poses problems but when you managed to find a completely private island? It’s game on. He's never been so relaxed and he enjoys the freedom of having the helmet off without the risk of someone seeing him. He’s happy to feel the sun on his face, and happy to be able to kiss you at any time he pleases. The days are spent wrapped up in each other, fucking and swimming and relaxing, and the nights are spent cuddling up in front of a fire with drinks.

Frankie Morales

Frankie is an outdoorsy guy, he’s taking you camping for sure. He’s got top of the line camping gear - a blow up mattress for the tent, a two-person sleeping bag because there’s no fucking way you aren’t sharing. He’s also an early riser and by the time you’re up he’s got coffee made and breakfast cooking. He loves hanging out in front of the fire and if he’s honest, he’s just looking to fuck you up against a tree. Outdoorsy.

Marcus Pike

Marcus JUMPS at the idea of a vacation. You casually mention that it would be nice to get away and 15 minutes later he’s requesting time off and on the laptop looking for all inclusive packages. The thought of a whole week for the two of you to be secluded somewhere is exciting for him and he runs with it. You don’t care where you go, but he wants something romantic. He’s the week in Paris or the Mediterranean type of guy. Fancy dinners, sex in a swanky hotel, long walks & brunches at cafes.

Dave (murder dad) York

Dave is a multi-tasker. Dave is booking a trip and you’re coming (as cover) and don’t worry about it honey it’s all taken care of. There might be a meeting he has to attend but it’ll only take an hour or so. Once that’s done you can sight-see all you want. It’s weird that it always seems to be near the embassy but obviously he needs to be close… for work.

Marcus Moreno

Marcus hasn’t vacationed in years. What with the heroics and with what happened to the love of his life and dealing with being a single dad- but now that you’re together and things are getting serious he’s excited. At first you suggest Disney world so you can bring Missy but he shyly says he wants it to just be the two of you the first time. He wants all inclusive, he wants a resort, he wants a swim-up bar and he wants you to himself. He wants to fuck you on a balcony in Hawaii and he wants you to make as much noise as you can because finally you’re alone.

Max Phillips

Max is hesitant at first with work, but once you express your plan of sunbathing naked he books a one week vacation in Bali, or the Maldives (he’s the type of vampire that can be out in the sun and I will die on this hill) where you can tan naked all you want baby. He dishes out the money and you feel rich for the week. You spend the week getting toasty, tanned and sexed out. Maybe you come back with a love bite or ten.

Dio (because I LOVE him 😩)

Dio, the goth king. I have a soft spot for him. I know I know he killed a guy on the show or whatever but listen, he’s taking you to Germany because he wants to go to Berghain. It’s exclusive, it’s mysterious, and there’s a strict dress code. That’s the goal and that’s where you’re going.

-------------------------------

Adding my tag-list, if you don't want to be included in things like this let me know!

Tag-list: @frannyzooey @foli-vora @danniburgh @sambucky21 @greeneyedblondie44

@lola4pedro @mouthymandalorian @221bshrlocked @artsymaddie

@supernaturalgirl @sleep-tight1 @softdindjxrin

@wheresarizona @sherala007 @freak-nasty-thick-dick-mando @marydjarin @cannedsoupsucks @thirstworldproblemss @ilikechocolatemilkh @lori-tovar @freeshavocadoooo @hrk-fic-recs @greeneyedblondie44 @max-lords-cyar-ika @princessxkenobi @the-feckless-wonder

#pedro pascal #max phillips #marcus moreno #dio #dave york #frankie morales #javier pena #whiskey daniels #din djarin

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colourfullsims · 3 years

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DAY 2 | Speed Dates (2/8)

Nina: Frankie’s second date was Sydney and it looks like these two are getting on well! Thanks to Sydney’s job as a wildlife photographer, he has plenty of stories to share about his travels. Hell, if being a plus one to his travels means lots of free trips around the world, sign me up! After their ten minutes were up, these two look to be agreed upon seeing if there’s something deeper to be had between them.

@ironicscavenger @regalllove

Beginning | Previous | Next

meanFrankie: Surprised to see you here. Sorta had the assumption you really liked Yana.

Sydney: It’s not like I don’t, it’s just...something missing between us right now.

Sydney: But let’s not talk about her right now. Tell me about yourself. What do you do for a living?

Frankie: I’m a tech guru.

Frankie: Mostly I do basic IT stuff around the office: troubleshooting and what not. I do coding stuff on the side to make some extra cash, though. It’s not exactly riveting work, but it pays the bills.

Sydney: How many times have people thought you sit in a dark room just hacking into mainframes?

Frankie: [chuckles] Too many times. What about you?

Sydney: I’m a wildlife photographer! I take pictures independently and then sell them to nature magazines, reservations, and other conservationist efforts who use them for promotion.

Frankie: No way. That sounds so cool. So you just, like, travel the world taking sick snaps of dangerous animals.

Sydney: [laughs] They’re typically not that dangerous, but yeah, I’ve been on basically every continent at this point.

Frankie: Quick: favorite place you’ve taken pictures! Go!

Sydney: Easy: Kenya. I was doing a special shoot for the elephants there. They’ve been endangered for decades now because of poaching, so it was a once in a lifetime experience to capture them on film and raise awareness.

Sydney: [in the DR] Y’know I think that actually went well. The first thing to go well in here for me. Frankie’s got a really good energy about them. They seemed really attentive when I started rambling about my photography. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but there could be something there...

Sydney: I ended up making a whole vacation out of it afterwards and met up with some family. My mom’s originally from there.

Frankie: Wow, that sounds amazing! You’ve got to tell me all about it…

Frankie: [in the DR] I hadn’t gotten a ton of time with Sydney before this, but man, those 10 minutes really flew by! I loved hearing about his job and his time in Kenya. He seems like an adventurous soul which really meshes well with my energy. I’m genuinely really interested in getting to know him better.

#look at sydney finally getting the attention he deserves!#ts4 #sims 4 #love island challenge #ts4 love island challenge #sims 4 love island challenge #sims of color #colourfullsims #sydney brooks #frankie samuel

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Once Upon a Time in America Is Every Bit as Great a Gangster Movie as The Godfather

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This article contains Once Upon a Time in America spoilers.

The Godfather is a great movie, possibly the best ever made. Its sequel, The Godfather, Part II, often follows it in the pantheon of classic cinema, some critics even believe it is the better film. Robert Evans, head of production at Paramount in the early 1970s, wanted The Godfather to be directed by an Italian American. Francis Ford Coppola was very much a last resort. The studio’s first choice was Sergio Leone, but he was getting ready to make his own gangster epic, Once Upon a Time in America. Though less known, it is equally magnificent.

Robert De Niro, as David “Noodles” Aaronson, and James Woods, as Maximillian “Max” Bercovicz, make up a dream gangster film pairing in Once Upon a Time in America, on par with late 1930s audiences seeing Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney team for The Roaring Twenties or Angels with Dirty Faces. Noodles and Max are partners and competitors, one is ambitious, the other gets a yen for the beach. One went to jail, the other wants to rob the Federal Reserve Bank.

Throw Joe Pesci into the mix, in a small part as crime boss Frankie Monaldi, and Burt Young as his brother Joe Monaldi, and life gets “funnier than shit,” and funnier than their more famous crime films, Goodfellas and Chinatown, respectively. Future mob entertainment mainstays are all over Once Upon a Time in America too, and they are in distinguished company. This is future Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly’s first movie. She plays young Deborah, the young girl who becomes the woman between Noodles and Max, and she even has something of a catch-phrase, “Go on Noodles your mother is calling.” Elizabeth McGovern delivers the line as adult Deborah.

When Once Upon a Time in America first ran in theaters, there were reports that people in the audience laughed when Deborah is reintroduced after a 35-year gap in the action. She hadn’t aged at all. But Deborah is representational to Leone, beyond the character.

“Age can wither me, Noodles,” she says. But neither the character nor the director will allow the audience to see it beyond the cold cream. Deborah is the character Leone is answering to. She also embodies the fluid chronology of the storytelling. She is its only constant.

The rest of the film can feel like a free fall though. Whereas The Godfather moved in a linear fashion, Once Upon a Time in America has time for flashbacks, and flashbacks within flashbacks, and detours that careen between the violent and the quiet. It’s a visceral experience about landing where we, and this genre, began.

Growing up Gangster

Both The Godfather and Once Upon a Time in America span decades; it’s the history of immigrant crime in 20th century America. But they differ on chronological placement. Once Upon a Time is set in three time-frames. The earliest is 1918 in the Jewish ghettos of New York City’s Lower East Side.

Young Noodles (Scott Tiler), Patrick “Patsy” Goldberg (Brian Bloom), Philip “Cockeye” Stein (Adrian Curran) and Dominic (Noah Moazezi), are a bush league street gang doing petty crimes for a minor neighborhood mug, Bugsy (James Russo). New on the block, Max (Rusty Jacobs) interrupts the gang as they’re about to roll a drunk, and Max makes off with the guy’s watch for himself. He soon joins the gang, and they progress to bigger crimes.

The bulk of the film takes place, however, from when De Niro’s Noodles gets out of prison in 1930, following Bugsy’s murder, and lasts until the end of Prohibition in 1933. Max, now played by Woods, has become a successful bootlegger with a mortuary business on the side. With William Forsythe playing the grown-up Cockeye and James Hayden as Patsy, the mobsters go from bootlegging through contract killing, and ultimately to backing the biggest trucking union in the country as enforcers. They enjoy most of their downtime in their childhood friend Fat Moe’s (Larry Rapp) speakeasy. Noodles is in love with Fat Moe’s sister, Deborah, who is on her way to becoming a Hollywood star. The gang’s rise ends with the liquor delivery massacre.

The final part of the film comes in 1968. After 35 years in hiding, Noodles is uncovered and paid to do a private contract for the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Christopher Bailey… Max by a different name who 35 years on has been able to feign respectability and make Deborah his mistress. An entire life has become a façade.

Recreating a Seedier Side of New York’s Immigrant Past

While The Godfather is an adaptation of Mario Puzo’s fictional bestseller, Once Upon a Time in America is based on the autobiographical crime novel, The Hoods. It was written by Herschel “Noodles” Goldberg, under the pen name of Harry Grey while he was serving time in Sing-Sing Prison.

Coppola’s vision in The Godfather is aesthetically comparable to Leone’s projection. From the opium pipes at the Chinese puppet theater to the take-out Lo Mein during execution planning, the multicultural world of old New York crowds the frames and the players in both films. Most of Once Upon a Time in America was shot at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios. The 1918 Jewish neighborhood in Manhattan was a street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which was made to look exactly as it had 60 years earlier.

Leone skillfully, yet playfully, captures the poverty of immigrant life in New York. The first crime we see the four-member gang commit could have been done by the Dead End kids. They torch a newspaper stand because the owner doesn’t kick up protection money to the local mug. And like the Dead End kids, they needle their mark, and joke with each other. At the end of the crime, Cockey is playing the pan pipe, and the very young Dominic is dancing. They are proud of their work and enjoy it. It’s fun to break things for money. And even better when they get a choice between taking payment in cash or rolling it over into the sure bet of rolling a drunk.

Violence without the Cannoli

Gangster films, like Howard Hawks’ Scarface and William A. Wellman’s The Public Enemy, were always at the forefront of the backlash to the Motion Picture Production Code. Which might be why gangster pictures were one of the first genres to benefit from the censors’ fall. A direct line can be drawn from the machine gun death which ends Bonnie and Clyde (1967) to the toll-booth execution of Sonny Corleone (James Caan) in The Godfather. Another from when Moe Greene (Alex Rocco) gets one through the glasses and Joe Monaldi gets it in the eye in Once Upon a Time in America.

The Godfather has some brutal scenes. We get a litany of dead Barzinis and Tattaglias, horse heads and spilled oranges. Once Upon a Time in America ups the ante though. The shootings and stabbings are neat jobs compared with the beatings, which allow far more artistic renderings of gore, and pass extreme scrutiny. The one time the effects team balks at a payoff is when it’s not as gruesome as the setup.

“Inflammatory words from a union boss,” corporate thug Chicken Joe asks as he is about to light Jimmy “Clean Hands” Conway O’Donnell on fire. The mobster has such a nice smile, and the union delegate, played by Treat Williams, looks so pathetic while dripping gasoline that it feels like it might even be a mercy killing. It is a wonderful set piece, perfectly executed and timed. When Max and Noodles, and the gang defuse the situation, rather than ignite it, it is a lesson in the dangerous balance of suspense.

Like many specific scenes in Once Upon a Time in America, Conway’s incendiary introduction would’ve worked in any era. This is the turning point for the gang. The end of Prohibition is coming and all those trucks they’re using to haul liquor can be repurposed for a more lucrative future.

“You Dancing?”

Music is paramount in both Leone’s and Coppola’s films. The Godfather is much like an opera, the third installment even closes the curtain at one. Once Upon a Time in America is a frontier film. The score was composed by Ennio Morricone, who wrote the music behind Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The film opens and closes with Kate Smith’s version of “God Bless America.” Though the scene occurs during the 1968 timeframe, the song comes out of the radio of a car seemingly from another point in time.

Morricone’s accompaniment to Once Upon a Time in America is as representational as Nino Rota’s soundtrack in The Godfather. Characters, settings, situations, and relationships all have themes, which become as recognizable as the Prohibition-era songs which flavor the period piece’s ambience. Fat Moe conducts the speakeasy orchestra through José María Lacalle García’s “Amapola” while grinning dreamily to Deborah who is chatting with Noodles. He’s a romantic.

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The music becomes part of the action in Once Upon a Time in America. Individual couples cut their own rugs, doing the Charleston between tables as waiters and cigarette girls glide by. Cockeye, who has been playing the pan pipe since the beginning of the film, wants to sit in with the band.

Forsythe almost steals Once Upon a Time in America. He cries what look like real tears at the mock funeral for Prohibition and drinks formula from a baby bottle during the maternity ward scene. The blackmail scheme, which involves swapping infants, plays like an outtake from a Three Stooges movie, something Coppola would never dare for The Godfather. The ruse is choreographed to the tune of Gioachino Rossini’s “The Thieving Magpie,” which elicits the youthful thuggery celebrated in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.

Devils with Clean Faces

One ironic difference between the two films is whimsy. The Godfather, which glorifies crime as corporate misadventure, is a serious movie with no time for funny business. Once Upon a Time in America, which is an indictment of criminal life, has moments of innocence as syrupy as in any family film (of the non-crime variety) and can be completely kosher. It’s sweeter than the cannoli Clemenza (Richard Castellano) took from the car, or the cake Nazorine (Vito Scotti) made for the wedding of Don Vito’s daughter.

The scene where young Patsy brings a Charlotte Russe to Peggy in exchange for sex is a masterwork of emotive storytelling. He chooses a treat over sex. On one level, yes, this is a socioeconomic reality. That pastry was expensive and something he could never afford to get for himself. But as Patsy sneaks each tiny bit of the cream from the packaging, he is also just a child, a kid who wants some cake. He learns he can’t have it and eat it. It is so plainly laid out, and so beautifully rendered.

The Corleone family never gets those moments, not even in the flashbacks to Sicily or as children on the stoop listening to street singers play guitars. We know little of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) or Sonny as youngsters, much less teenagers, and are robbed of their happier moments of bonding. We know they are close, they are family. But Michael has his own brother killed while Noodles balks at the very idea. Twice, as it turns out.

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“Today they ask us to get rid of Joe. Tomorrow they ask me to get rid of you. Is that okay with you? Cos it’s not okay with me,” Noodles tells Max after the gang delivers on a particularly costly contract, double-crossing their partners in a major diamond heist. They are not blood family, but from the moment Max calls Noodles his “uncle” to fool a beat cop, they are all related.

Noodles then does what young men in coming-of-age movies have done since Cooley High: Something really stupid. An indulgence the Corleones could never enjoy. He speeds the car into the bay. The guys can’t believe it. It adds to his legend. The scene could have been in Diner, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, or even Thelma & Louise. It is hard to dislike the gangsters in these moments. We know them too well, even as they do such horrible things.

How Women are Really Treated by an Underworld

The Godfather is told from the vantage point of one of the heads of the five established crime families; organized crime is as insular as the Corleone mall on Long Beach. That motion picture reinvigorated the “gangster film,” long considered a ghetto genre, but its perspective is insulated. By contrast, no matter how far they climb, Leone’s characters never really get off the block. They are street savages, even in tuxedos. Once Upon a Time in America whacked the gangster film, and tossed its living corpse into the compactor of a passing garbage truck.

The Godfather doesn’t judge its gangsters. The Corleones are family men who keep to a code of ethics and omerta. They dip their beaks in “harmless” vices like gambling, liquor, and prostitution. While there are scenes of extreme domestic violence, and a general dismissal of women, the film stops short of challenging the image of honorable men who do dishonorable things. Leone offers no such restraint. His history lesson is unabridged.

Long before Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman stripped gangster lore to a tale of toxic masculinity, Once Upon a Time in America robbed it of all glamor. There is a very nonchalant attitude toward violence and other demeaning acts against women in Leone’s film, from the very opening scene where a thug fondles a woman’s breast with his gun in order to humiliate her civilian date.

This is deliberate. The director, best known for Spaghetti Westerns, wants to obliterate any goodwill the gangsters have accumulated through their magnetic antiheroism. One scene between Max and his girlfriend Carol (Tuesday Weld) is so hard to sit through, even the other members of the gang squirm in their chairs.

Noodles sexually assaults two women over the course of the film. While there is some motivational ambiguity in the scene during the jewel heist attack, the rape of Deborah is devastatingly direct. It kills any vestige of romance the gangster archetype has in film. The camera does not look away, and the scene lingers with terrifying ferocity and traumatic intimacy. There is a visible victim, and Noodles’ wealth and pretensions of honor are worthless.

The Ultimate Gangster Epic

Once Upon a Time in America brings one other element to the genre which The Godfather avoids, a lingering mystery. Coppola delivers short riddles, like the fate of Luca Brasi, which are revealed as the story warrants. But the 35-year gap between the slaughter of Noodles’ crew and the introduction of Secretary Bailey is almost unfathomable. How did Max go from long-dead to a man with legitimate power?

What happens to Noodles in those years is fairly easy to guess, without any specifics. He got by. The gang’s shared secret bankroll was empty when he tried to retrieve it as the last surviving member. He put his gun away and eked out a quiet life. But even as the details spill out on the true fate of Max, it is unexpectedly surprising, as much for the audience as Noodles.

“I took away your whole life from you,” Max/Bailey says. “I’ve been living in your place. I took everything. I took your money. I took your girl. All I left for you was 35 years of grief over having killed me. Now why don’t you shoot?” This final betrayal, and Noodles’ inert revenge, take Once Upon a Time In America into almost unexplored cinematic depths.

Max has gone as low as he could go. The joke is on Noodles, everyone’s in on it, including “Clean Hands,” who is tied in to “the Bailey scandal.” The cops are in on it, and so is the mob. Max admits even the liquor dropoff was a syndicate set-up. He’d planned this all along. Just like Michael Corleone had a long term strategy to make his family legitimate.

This is an ambitious story. Beyond genre, this bends American celluloid into European cinema. By sheer virtue of being outside of Hollywood, Leone transcends traditional boundaries. He has a far more limitless pallet to draw from. He can aim a camera at De Niro’s spoon in a coffee cup for three minutes and never lose the audience’s rapt attention. Leone can pull the rug out from everything with a last minute reveal. Coppola bent American filmmaking for The Godfather, but stayed within proscribed parameters. He never gets as sweet as a Charlotte Russe nor as repulsive as the back seat of a limo.

Once Upon a Time in America ripped the genre’s insides out and displayed them with unflinching veracity and theatrical beauty. It is a perfect film, gorgeously shot, masterfully timed, and slightly ajar.

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