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#wait the first two are S5 btw
lyraarylfyrefly · 7 months
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gonna talk about my main characters real quick, so there's like so many of them and i'll probably reblog this later with the ones i found stashed somewhere random
Lyra, she has brown hair blue eyes, really plain but i love her she's just a lot of trauma in a bag with some issues like insomnia but not that much, i created her bc i wanted a subversion of hated child becomes princess. pretty sure it was that she wasn't actually hated but it was years ago so i forgot, she also has scars but they're children do dumb shit and get hurt bc of it scars like climbing a tree and falling or dropping a bunch of cutlery on your foot bc you too much of them at once.
Violet, purple hair and silver eyes, really into mechanics and straight up does not care about anyone but people she likes, thinks of herself as pragmatic, is not at all, feral, feral child who wants to be left alone and create things but does not get to do that
Angelica, second newest or straight up newest, i actually remember the process this time, it was fire sword chanting to but what if it was a girlie with a fire sword to a story, she's a beauty, she's a gremlin, she has blonde hair that becomes fiery when she isekais and her cyan/teal eyes also change a whole lot bc of magic, her issues are mostly that she gets really violent when startled and that's basically her state throughout all her story and also the hyperfixation on plants
Ember has black and pink hair and purple eyes, girl is in the apocalypse w/ one buddy and is not handling it well at all, she gets fire abilities in the second half of her story and has more issues than Lyra, she sticks with a baseball bat for most pf her story tho, girl decided violence was the plan and stuck with it
Most to least feral:
Ember bc apocalypse else it would be V -> Violet, who somehow places higher than A -> Angelica bc of isekai and ruthlessness -> Lyra bc she's only a teeny tinsy bit feral, this is where E would be if no apocalypse
Most to least powerful:
Beginning of their stories are: V->E->L->A
End of their stories is: A->L->V->E.
They inverted lol
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uncouth-the-fifth · 11 months
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click, p.2 - Sam Winchester/Reader
read it on ao3.
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Pairing: Sam Winchester/Reader (late s5) Tags/Warnings: angst, love confessions, romantic sex, oral sex/cunnilingus, (aka, Sam pussy addiction: the shequel), Sam is Lucifer's vessel, reader is AFAB. Word Count: ~11k. Notes: i was commissioned for the second time by the lovely @daffodil-mania, who wanted a continuation of her last fic set during the "say yes" era of s5. (sooooo dangerous to let me put my grubby hands on this version of Sam, btw). i cannot express how BUCK FUCKING WILD uncouth-nation went for the first part of this fic, so this is for all the wonderful people who gushed over click, commented, threw me some kudos, or even just read it and liked it. lots of love, and i hope you enjoy <3 i did my best to rip out your soul as best i could. THIS CAN STAND ON IT'S OWNNN AHHH. i mean. if u wanna read it <3 Ask to be added to my taglists for future posts!
FIVE YEARS LATER
The walk from the bus stop to your apartment is a safe and easy seven minutes. If you were any other person in any other world, you’d glide onto the bus after your night shift at the university, hop off at your stop, and bumble toward your apartment without a single care in the world. Maybe stare at your phone the whole walk back. Text a hot guy who isn’t the physical manifestation of the devil on earth. Normal stuff.
But this is your life, so you sit front seat on the bus, hands in your lap, tapping a nervous beat against the angel blade hidden in your book bag. The windows rattle in their frames and gleam with rain. You could get off at your stop and take those easy seven minutes home—but the bus driver could also be a demon, so.
Since you aren’t in the mood to die a slow death tonight, walking a few extra blocks to keep anybody from knowing where you live will have to work.
On day two of this, you’d called Dean and asked if you were being extra paranoid. He’d kindly pointed out: Extra-paranoid is just extra-survival. I dunno about you, but survivin’ a lil’ extra sounds fan-fuckin-tastic to me right about now.
He’s right. You know he’s right. But it still doesn’t feel like a good answer, and that makes you picture Sam, twenty-three and still bright-eyed, running his fingers down your bare back and scowling. I’m sick of surviving. One of these days, I want to actually live my life.
But that had been before the apocalypse, before Dean’s deal, before everything. Sam was a different man now. Hunting had reached into all three of you and ripped all sorts of things out, but you would never forgive it for taking Sam’s hope for something better. God, you missed that Sam. You missed him more than anything.
The city bus lumbers up to the curb and spits you out onto the sidewalk, where you superstitiously hover, waiting for the other passengers crawling away from their night shifts to scatter. It’s only when the bus is a dark spot in the mist down the street that you start to walk, your whole body caked head to toe with oily rain. 
This time, you take a random left toward your apartment and serpentine street-to-street, never walking the exact same way the same week. By the time you’re closer to where the bus could’ve actually dropped you off, the lingering smell of old research books has been practically power-washed out of your clothes. You try to think of anything but the freezing, biting, face-stinging rain… and, like a moth to a flame, your mind floats back to Sam.
It’s been over two weeks since he dropped the nuclear option. Over two weeks ago, Sam wanted to say yes to Lucifer, and over two weeks have passed since the massive, unstoppable-force-meets-immovable-object fight that’d erupted as a result.
Dean had blown up. Sam had pushed. You’d burst into tears and clawed into Sam just as deep, because why, why would he ever go there—why would that even be a fathomable possibility in his mind? Did he really think so low of himself? How could he ever give up like that? How could he leave you—?
The worst part was easily the way Sam had reacted. With Dean or John, he could yell himself hoarse, but when it came to fighting you all he could do was sit and take it. He put his head down and nodded at everything you said, even the cruel things. In some ways it made you angrier, but also inconceivably, cosmically guilty. This was Sam’s choice. And of course, because this was Sam, his choice was to save the whole goddamn world. Not a single bone in your body carried that level of selflessness, yet Sam bled the stuff.
You were still furious with him, but only because being mad at him was the only option you had left. The right thing to do would be to tell Sam, I trust you to make this decision, this is your life, and let him take that jump… But you didn’t have it in you. Saying that felt like pushing him over the ledge yourself, or telling him you’d never cared about him in the first place. If you were angry at least you were still fighting for him in some way.
You’d been on board for everything—trying to find a way out of Dean’s deal, trying to kill Lilith, everything. But the argument with Sam had torn out the final piece of you that could stand this, so you packed a bag, told Dean you’d be in a strict research-only role, and booked it back to your hometown. It was cowardly and stupid and beyond selfish, but you knew your stance. The hunt had taken everything from you. You refused to let it take Sam, too.
Maybe, Sam would take you stepping away as a serious sign to change his mind. You couldn’t imagine a world where Sam and his Winchester stubbornness would ever do that, but. It was a nice wish to hold onto.
By the time you make it up the steps to your apartment building, you’re soaked to the bone and audibly making pathetic shivering sounds. Your bookbag feels heavier than ever, digging a trench into your shoulder as you fish around for your keys. The second your apartment door is open the true weight of your exhaustion hits you—
—and then utterly disappears, replaced by a shock of pure adrenaline.
There’s a new pair of boots by your front door.
You catch the heavy door before it goes swinging against the doorjamb, straining your ears against the ringing silence. The bedside lamp is on in your room.
On dead-quiet feet, you slip in, click the door shut behind you, and slip off your bookbag. Your angel blade is in your hand in a second, but you risk a few extra steps toward your kitchen table to wiggle loose the pistol you taped underneath. Just the weight of your weapons in your hands flicks the hunter muscle memory back on in your body, and before you can think you’re hiding in the shadow beside your bedroom door. Listening.
Soft breathing. The pages of a book turning.
You know, instinctively, who it is—you would know him dumb and blind and dead. But these days, anybody could be piloting his body around.
You suck in a deep breath through your nose, heart throbbing in your ears. You wait until the fingers on your gun aren’t shaking anymore, then burst inside the room, slamming the door into the wall and whipping your pistol up to eye level.
Sam’s head flinches towards you. He is exactly as you saw him two weeks ago; solemn, determined, and open, the air around him practically steaming with safety and goodness. He’s sat comfortably on your bed, reading a book he brought with him. Despite everything, your belly still curls with butterflies when you lay eyes on him. Sam. Definitely Sam, and no one else.
Still, your paranoia has gotten you this far. You both stare at each other for a beat, equal parts scared out of your minds and relieved. Without a word, you keep your gun trained on him, and Sam lets you, his eyes big and understanding. You shuffle sideways to your dresser, and without turning away from him, pop open the top drawer and toss him the silver flask of holy water you keep hidden inside. 
He catches it. So, not a shapeshifter, then. Sam takes a drink of the holy water, even turning to the side so you can see the water go into his mouth. (A demon in Missouri had slipped past the three of you by pretending to sip—only Sam would know that.) You’re still a little terrified, but you manage to pull your weapons back down to your sides. You still don’t know what to say.
He’s really here. The part of you that had worried the argument with Sam would be your last wails with joy. He’s here, alive and in front of you. No matter how awkward you feel you can’t bring yourself to stop staring at him. By the buttery light of your bedside lamp, he literally glows with beauty, and you realize he’d scrubbed his boots off on your welcome mat to not track mud in, and he’d hung up his rain-soaked jacket in your shower to dry. Stupid polite Sam things.
You dare to glance back at your kitchen, then swivel to squint at him. “Did you… do my dishes?”
Sam lets his hands relax into his lap and nods, shy. He’s looking at you in a way he never really has before, eyes big and soul-rending. “…Yeah. I used the key you gave me to get in… Hope that’s okay.”
There’s another long pause. Usually when you stare at Sam, he doesn’t stare so intensely back, but you share a weird mutual moment where you just stand there and take each other in. It’s so obvious it’s painful, but if he’s doing it then you feel entitled to devour him with your eyes too.
“I got, uh, bored. Waiting for you,” Sam clarifies. “Thought I’d make myself useful.”
Sam stands from the bed. For a second you think he’s heading straight for you, but he moves toward the dresser behind you, kindly tucking the holy water back where it was stowed. You flit out of his way as fast as you can and set your weapons down on the closest available surface, feeling off-kilter. Why would he come here? Is he going to tell you that he changed his mind?
You hold onto the question, but you know it’s too out of character to hope for. Despair sinks into your gut like a rock in a pond. You know why Sam’s here. He would never make this decision without telling you first—without at least saying goodbye in person.
Your throat locks up with tears.
Behind you, Sam hums, “You changed your hair.”
Right. You’d altered it to be more undercover. You resist the urge to reach up and play with your hair, or give in to any of the fluttery feelings you always feel around Sam. “It’s safer.” Tightly, you ask him, “What are you doing here?”
Sam drags a long breath through his nose. You clutch the end of your bookshelf, your chest crumpling with misery. Please don’t say it. Please, please, lie to me if you have to.
“...I’m not taking the jump,” Sam breathes.
There’s more that he says after that. He talks about how you and Dean are right, and how, surely, after everything that the three of you have been through, there’s got to be another way to end this. You’ve always found another way in the past. Sam explains all this to you in a sure, quiet voice, like this is something he’s thought about for a long time, but you barely hear him after those first words. There’s this persistent tension in your chest that’s telling you that there’s something wrong here, but you don’t care—you don’t give a single fucking shit, because Sam—Sam isn’t saying yes. Sam’s staying.
“…are other ways I can make up for the mistakes I made,” he’s telling you, scrambling to fill the nagging silence.
You take a moment to force back your tears, and Sam, nervously, keeps talking.
He swallows, trying to smile. “I-I would’ve called and told you, but something tells me you wouldn’t have picked up.”
When you’ve got your bearings back, you push away from your bookshelf and turn to face him. Your legs are so leaden that you feel as if you have to physically pick up your body and drop it down the other direction, but you manage it. “What… what made you change your mind?”
Sam gets one look at your face and wilts with guilt. He doesn’t answer your question in words—just shoves his hands in his pockets and stares down at his feet, then around your room, as if his reason was in the air with the two of you. In the apartment. His eyes flicker over you just once, and you understand. Seeing you leave really had scared him.
“Be careful,” you start to joke with him, “you start validating my childish reactions and we’re gonna have a whole new set of problems on our hands.”
Sam scoffs. “It wasn’t childish to run away.”
You raise an eyebrow at his word choice, which gets an honest-to-god laugh out of him. A real good Sam Winchester laugh, dimples and all. The last dregs of anxiety in your gut melt at the sound, and Sam reassures you, shrugging, “You needed to get out. In case you forgot, I kind of invented wanting to get out. I understand. I really do.”
You know that he does. That’s not exactly going to stop you from feeling guilty about ditching them, but at least it kicked some sense into him. God. For the last five or six years, your every moment had been spent with Sam and his brother. Even just a couple weeks without him had drained you, and having him back only makes those feelings more clear. Sam’s presence commands the space in a way that turns your shitty, undecorated bedroom into someplace magical, someplace good and safe and warm, and just seeing him standing there draws the ache out of your spine.
Your reach out for his sleeve. Somehow, he’s more real than ever, a tangible person instead of the memory you’ve chased for so long.
“You’re really not saying yes?”
Sam unwinds your hand from the fabric so he can hold it instead, your fingers scooped in his fingers. You’re given a firm squeeze and are hypnotized by him in an instant, the world narrowing down to this moment between just him and just you.
Sam looks into your eyes when he promises, “I’m not going anywhere.”
The tears you’d resisted before return in one big, merciless wave. You’re so tired and the rain was so fucking cold and you’re so sick of being scared that Sam, thank god, Sam, is everything you could possibly need. He’s not going anywhere. Before you can stop yourself you’re clutching him for dear life, shoving your face in his shirt and crushing his body against yours. These last few weeks have submerged you in survival mode, and you don’t realize how deep until Sam pulls you out of the current. He’s warm and dry, and when you inhale to sob he smells like a 24-hour-laundromat, the Impala, and home home home. You could’ve lost that. You could’ve lost him.
“Th-thank you,” you choke out at nothing in particular, “thank you.”
You’ve cried a lot this week, so there are not many tears left to shed. Still, Sam holds you through all of them, swaying back and forth with you and cooing in your ear. You hear him sniffling too. When you’re both all sobbed out, you pull back to tell him you love him, to remind him of all the things he needs to hear, but Sam strangely doesn’t let you. The second he feels you pull away he clutches you back against him, and you get the uneasy impression that you’ve been comforting him more than he’s been comforting you. His whole body’s shaking.
Sam hugs you for longer than he ever has before. It’s a little worrying, but you’ve both needed it so much that you don’t even complain.
After a while, Sam slips back, and in traditional Winchester fashion tries to play off his vulnerability. He’s always been a dead-silent crier, so you have zero way to gauge how bad things are until you see his face. He looks like he’d sobbed his heart out. Your shirt is still wet from the rain, but even then you can feel Sam’s tears soaking your shoulder. Saying anything about it will just embarrass him, though.
“...I-I, uh,” you lick the tears off your lips, mumbling, “I don’t know bout’ you, but I’m beat. Do you have somewhere you gotta be, or,” you add hopefully, “or can you stick around?”
This is the part where Sam will start coaxing you to drive back with him to where he and Dean are holed up, you’re sure of it. You’re already plotting in your head what to pack and what to take, but Sam never brings it up. He doesn’t worry about tomorrow yet.
He presses his lips together. “I was hoping I could stay here tonight, actually.”
This is an even better answer. You’re nodding before he’s even finished the thought, stroking your hand down his chest. It twists your gut in knots to see him like this, so you start to steer the conversation toward something more playful, something less daunting to think about.
“You’re lucky I like you then,” you smirk. Somehow, you manage to peel yourself out of his bubble and teeter toward your dresser, scrubbing the tears off your face. “Make yourself comfortable. I dunno about you, but I’m getting the fuck out of these work clothes, I’m freezing. Do you need anything to sleep in? I’ve got at least five years of your stolen shirts in here.”
You hear him ease himself down on the end of your bed again, but there’s no sassy retort, sly comment, or any sort of line about you and your stealing habits. Instead, sweet and simple, he says, “I’ll just sleep in this. You can have them.”
Okay. Weird.
Since he didn’t take the bait, you throw out another line and try again. This time, you kick off your shoes, open a drawer, and turn back to him with two of his shirts in hand. “Really?” You wave them teasingly in the air. “You sure?”
They are some of his best shirts, easy. You’re not a cheap thief. The first is a holey, feather-soft Red Hot Chili Peppers tee, and the second is a deep maroon Stanford sweater. He has so few artifacts from that time in his life that there’s no way he won’t want this one back. Right?
But Sam just gazes at you, his whole face soft and loving as he says, “You should wear the Stanford one. It looks good on you.”
Those old hot-shivery feelings for him seep down your spine, and you feel in real-time how your cheeks flood with heat. Damn, okay. Consider yourself wooed.
You’ve been down this road with Sam many, many times—enough to know when he’s flirting with you. The forbidden labels had never been thrown around, but. Well. Sam had been your first time, as well as the many other times after that.
He’s usually leagues more subtle than his brother, but for whatever reason he’s pouring it on by the truckload tonight. When you turn around he’s nothing but big, happy puppy eyes, waiting patiently for you at the end of the bed. (Like you’re his girlfriend. Like anything about this is normal at all, and you and Sam are going to tuck into bed together like it’s any other night). Fuck, you missed him.
The bathroom is only a few steps away, but this is Sam, so you decide to just throw on your pajamas right here. Your shirt is so wet that it hits the floor with a slap. It also takes some experience to wring yourself out of your denim-turned-cement jeans, so it’s not the sexiest show in the entire world. Still, Sam’s gaze traces sensual lines down your back. You would rather go to literal, actual hell than wear your bra for a minute longer, so the second you’re free of its death grip, a long happy sigh drains out of you. A similar dreamy sigh drains out of Sam. Dork.
“I will never get tired of that,” Sam murmurs. You expect to hear some kind of hunger there, but the timber of his voice bleeds with admiration and fondness.
There are very few ways to be a normal human being while Sam Winchester adores your nude body with his eyes. The best you can do is burst into flustered, giggly laughter and give him a good eyeroll, your entire face cooking like a stove burner.
“Alright, loverboy,” you scoff, “I’m gonna go brush my teeth and take my makeup off—”
“Can I help?” Sam asks.
You sputter out another laugh, confused. “You wanna brush my teeth for me?”
“No,” Sam shakes his head, smiling big, “Lemme take your makeup off for you.”
Okay. Weirder. But it’s sweet, and you like this side of him, so you decide to indulge his mood. “...Sure.”
You go about your night-time routine. Sam continues to be a weirdo, trailing you into the bathroom, leaning against the doorframe, and blinking slow endearing blinks at you as he… watches you brush your teeth. Just. Stands there, watching, utterly enamored with this little moment of domesticity with you. On the surface level you’re a little thrown off, but it falls under the category of Freaky Sam Things that made you catch feelings for him in the first place, so. You grin into your toothbrush the whole time.
When he’s satisfied by his little ogling fest, he drifts off to hunt around for your makeup wipes. Either you’re predictable or he knows you too well, because he finds them within seconds, and patiently sits back as you finish up your routine, watching you like you’ll disappear on him the moment he turns away. Click click, you feel inside you.
“Okay,” he says when you’re done. “Close your eyes.”
You do. You wait for the cool touch of the wipe on your face, but instead, Sam’s big, rough fingers find your chin and hold you still. It takes conscience effort to not melt into his touch like a cat in a square of sunlight. Your willpower is nothing on Sam’s, though, so you give in quickly, sinking into his hand and sighing through your nose. In gentle swipes, he cleans your face. It must be a nightmare of smeared mascara considering how you’d cried earlier… And yet Sam had still been so transfixed by you. He’s the fucking best.
Sam’s hand tilts your head from side to side to survey his handiwork. Pleased, he tosses the wipe in the trash and says, “There you go.”
You open your eyes and go to double-check his work in the mirror, but Sam hasn’t removed his hand from your chin, and you really, really don’t want him to. His thick thumb comes up and caresses under your lips. He looks at you like he loves you, and with all the honesty in the world, he utters, “...You are so pretty.”
…The only way for you to survive this is by throwing him a dry look. “You’re full of shit. What’s your game, Winchester?”
That earns you another authentic Sam laugh, along with a handsome boyish smile. “There’s no game. What are you talking about?”
You squint at him. Liar.
“This.” You gestured between the two of you, suspicious. “You’re mooning over me. Why are you mooning? Are you planning something?”
A ripple of discomfort rolls across Sam’s face, but it passes too fast for you to read. His hands go right back in his pockets and he leans into the doorframe again. “I’m just… happy we’re not fighting,” he confesses.
Oh. That makes sense. Sam hasn’t exactly made up with you like that before, but. These times change everyone. You ease up on your teasing and admit, “Me too.”
“I’m sorry for scaring you away,” Sam says, and far, far too seriously for your liking, he whispers, “I’m sorry for everything.”
Your answer slips right out of your mouth without hesitation. “I forgive you, stupid,” your brows furrow together. “And I’m sorry, too. I said some pretty shitty stuff back there.”
Sam wilts against the doorframe a little. “Nothing I didn’t deserve.”
A dull pulse of anger flares in your chest, which flickers out and dies not a second later. There’s so much you want to say to that.
It is so fucking unfair—biblically, cosmically unfair—that Sam, the good guy to end all good guys, thinks of himself this way. He is the kind of righteous they make saints out of. And yet he sits in your silly little bathroom in your shitty little apartment and gives you that look, the look that says, I deserve this and so much more. I deserve to rot in hell for all eternity. He gave you that exact look when he brought up saying yes. He gives it to you now, because Sam sees everything as a sin to serve penance for—freeing Lucifer from the cage and making you a little worried. He thinks he’s so evil, so beyond saving. It makes you want to get your fists in your shirt and just shake him. 
You’re good! You want to scream. Just for once in your life, listen to me! None of this is your fault!
There’s nothing you could say to him that would ever make him let go of his guilt. But, at the very least, you could help him forget about it for a while.
“You beat yourself up too much,” you scold. Then, softer, you add, “C’mere, Sammy.”
Sam does as told, planting himself right in front of you. God, he’s changed. You look him over with a bittersweet smile. He used to be so spindly. The last few years have filled him out, forcing his body into something ready for war. The hunt reached in and tore all sorts of things out of people, but you’d been wrong about what it’d ripped out of Sam. His optimism was still there, warm and humming in the tissue of his body, and just seeing it fills you with hope. He looks so different from the man you’d had all to yourself in that cabin, but you can feel that he’s still in there. He’s still your Sam.
You take his face in your hands, smoothing your thumbs into his dimples and quietly, needily rasping, “...Can I take care of you?”
Sam’s whole body shudders with relief. “Please, yes.”
The next few beats of this dance haven’t changed. Like always, Sam comes flying in with a big, smashing kiss that shatters any leftover barriers between you. You’re not Sam’s girlfriend and he’s not your boyfriend, but Sam makes you his with this kiss. (If only for a little while). Your noses mash together and his eyes squeeze shut and then everything is just Sam, Sam, Sam at every angle. His hands are at his sides then suddenly they’re all over you, taking two greedy handfuls of your waist under the Stanford sweater. He jams your hips against his and kisses you senseless, towering over you, surrounding you, so that when you pull back to gasp for breath your lungs are flooded with his familiar heady love potion.
Either he’s giving off some Poison Ivy-level pheromones, or your body is so familiar with these steps that it knows what comes after this kiss… because you’re instantly wet.
You realized a long time ago that you and Sam have sex a bit too often for it to be considered “casual,” but even if it was, Sam is not a casual kind of lay. After that first soul-stealing kiss, Sam stares you down like a four-course meal, spins you around, pushes you down chest-first onto the bathroom counter, drops to his knees—
—and shoves his face between your legs like it’s his goddamn job.
In the middle of all your surprised shrieking and squirming, Sam nuzzles his face into your panties and moans deep and bassy in his throat, “Yes.”
Like he’s won something. Like he’s been waiting weeks to do this. Holy fuck, you’ll never get tired of that.
The second you have even an atom of your reason back, you slap a hand over your mouth. Neighbors! Sam has already forgotten what neighbors are, and is holy-mission-from-god-determined to make you noisy. He’s extra hungry for it tonight, too. You squeak out his name, not so much in shock, but more because having those huge hands squeezing where your ass starts to round out tends to produce a reaction, and Sam rumbles like a lawnmower in approval. Holy fuck.
He doesn’t have to ask you to spread your legs. One of the hands appreciating your ass slides between your thighs, cupping you through your underwear, and you have to try not to squeal when the meaty pad of Sam’s thumb swipes across your clothed folds. He presses a big kiss in that exact spot as he drags your panties down your legs, and it’s a weirdly sweet gesture that makes your heart and your belly flutter with shivery heat. Fuck. Fuck, you missed him so much.
The first few times Sam had sprung this move on you, you hadn’t exactly had enough time to fully rev up. But Sam is deadly efficient in and out of the bedroom, so he makes a point to get you extra wet (for him) with his spit, laving his hot, slippery tongue over you in one long swipe. He eats you out with all the obscene, noisy enjoyment of somebody gorging on the juiciest fruit they’ve ever tasted. Even you are scandalized.
It becomes embarrassingly clear that covering your mouth isn’t going to keep Sam from what he wants. The high, desperate moan you try to stifle only makes him work harder. You press an arm flat to the counter and bury your face in it for strength, since you’re weak and whimpering for him already. 
Sam was good in bed when you met him. But, by nature, he is a relentless and avid learner, and it’s been five whole years since he put his mouth on you for the first time. Now, Sam is a certified pussy-eating weapon. He knows your body better than anyone possibly could. You’re over the edge in a minute flat.
Your climax flies through you in one whizzing, sparking rush, then keeps flying, until your body’s squeezing out little squeaky pleas for mercy of its own accord. This is his favorite part. You claw into the countertop and wail for it, pushing at the floor in your socks to gain any sort of leverage. To press closer? To squirm away? You have zero fucking clue, since the thought part of your brain has been blasted into a smoking crater. Sam wraps a big arm around your spasming thigh to pin you open, and holy fucking shit, could that man suck the chrome off a tailpipe. His mouth is a whirlwind of licking and suction just on the right side of oh fuck too much that makes your skin feel like it’s fizzing. You are a thread that he’s just pulling and pulling until you’re so thin you could snap into nothing—
You wait for the moment when Sam pops off you, stands up, and goes for his zipper, but he never does. He remains on the floor, determined to lick you through overstimulation and straight into round two. But that’s a whole minute you could spend with his dick inside you instead, and there’s no fucking way you’re wasting that. Not when he’s here and real and not going to say yes. Sam’s not going anywhere. He’s staying, he’s alive, and the world isn’t going to end tomorrow.
“No no no,” you bite out in one short, rattling breath. “S-Suh—Sam, please please—” An unexpected sob shreds out of you. “Miss you. Need you.”
You’re actually, genuinely crying, and not entirely in the fun sexed-out way. Sam backs up. He’s not even halfway standing when you wrench him up the rest of the way, straight into a desperate, maddening kiss. It’s a brutal cross of teeth and tongue. The need for body heat and skin and him burns through you like genuine bloodlust, so you cram yourself up against him with life-or-death urgency. You get your nails into him until you feel something like shirt fabric and viciously yank it over his head, waiting for the moment when he grabs your wrists or shoves you onto the bed o-or—or starts to blow off steam. Cause’ that’s what this is all about, right?
He drags your mouths apart. Sam pants, “Slow down.”
You stop.
This is. This is new.
There’s no slowing, with this. You both go and you keep going until there’s no more fuel in your tanks, and you crawl out of bed the next day feeling like you’ve beaten the rot out of each other. You’ve never once slowed down during this before, and as your wheels spin to a halt for the first time, reality filters back in around you.
Sam stares at you. His hair is all over the place. A patchy blush speckles up his heaving chest, burning in his ears and in his cheeks. Your slick shines on his lips and the bulb of his nose. He’s just standing there and fucking looking at you, but for whatever reason it feels like the color has seeped back into the world.
“S’okay. Gonna be okay,” Sam hushes, bleeding with sweetness.
He picks up your hands, moving you as if you were a delicate glass he was turning over in each palm. Each of your hands are kissed in the center (oh my fucking god) then wrapped around his neck, and when he has you in his bubble he scoops up your face and kisses you.
It’s a boyfriend kiss. Not a blowing off steam thing, or any other excuse the two of you have used to feel each other. A genuine, I’m your boyfriend and I love you sort of kiss, foreheads pressed together, noses touching, the whole nine yards. It’s the kind of kiss that’s meant to say something. Every inch of what he’s trying to tell you echoes through your body in one ringing smash, like you’re a big cymbal he’s taken a mallet to. 
He slips off your lips and hovers, bracing himself for impact. You suck in a rattling breath.
…Then you press up onto your tiptoes to give him a kiss of your own, just pressing your lips against his, unmoving. It’s undemanding; an answer. You try to find the words to describe the shift that’s occurred between you, and end up feeling stuttery and shivery and fucking elated. Romantic. It’s fucking romantic.
“Sammy,” you sob out.
“Shhh. C’mere,” Sam whispers, his voice throaty and whiskey smooth. “Lemme make it better.”
He tries to walk you straight back out of the bathroom and towards the bed, he really does, but you stop Sam every other step to overwhelm him with obsessed, affectionate kisses. God. His chapstick is all over your fucking mouth (along with your slick) and his hands are everywhere else, feeling instead of grabbing.
“You always do,” you breathe, and that might be the most honest thing you’ve ever said to him in bed.
Sam gets this quiet, pleased smile on his face. No matter how naked and turned-on you are, you’ve always got a snappy reply ready, and you’re about to throw one at him—until you’re fucking obliterated. He smoothes his palms down your arms. Your wrists are scooped up again. With all the tenderness on the planet, Sam slides in close, kisses your throat, and places both of your hands firmly on his belt.
“Take it off,” he rasps.
This. This isn’t the first time he’s given you that order. But knowing, feeling that he’s playing this all out like it’s more than a fling to him… that Sam’s gonna fuck you like you’re someone special to him… sweet jesus, it makes you lightheaded.
“Bossy,” your murmur, grinning.
You’re downright feverish going in to kiss him next. Sam parts your lips with a slow, sinful swipe of his tongue, and there must be a drop of psychic still in him, because suddenly you’re flooded with visions of that filthy mouth between your legs. You can still feel the ghost of him there, keeping you open with his thumbs as the blunt tip of his tongue pushes you somewhere vast and sparkly and wonderful. This is going to be even better.
He sounds like he’s praying when he says, “I just like to watch you.”
Muscle memory serves. You work his clasp open without peeking down and let it hang in his belt loops, mostly because it lets his jeans sling low on his hips in the most enticing way. His belly twitches at even the slightest touch of your hands; always so responsive. Sam drops his forehead on your shoulder to watch you work, and you take the rare opportunity to kiss the top of his head. This is one of your favorite parts. When his button is undone and his zipper’s down, you’re free to smooth your hand under his waistband and take a big handful of him.
You reach in and—squeeze. Sam’s hand snaps up to clutch your arm. His nails dig in, and he rocks forward onto his tiptoes to really dig into your touch. “Yes.”
It’s the kind of soft, needy sound that makes you want to smother him with kisses and hug him until he suffocates. Instead, you cooly purr into his hair, “So sensitive, Sammy.”
A hoarse, sharp laugh snaps out of him, which dissolves into a shuddering groan. You tug at his jeans until they’re somewhere you don’t care about anymore, and forget about everything else entirely at the sight of his cock. All these years of sneaking around with him have conditioned you. Just seeing the pretty speckling of dark hair that leads to it, then the real deal, hanging blood-hot and heavy between his legs, makes your tummy flip and your mouth water. One of a million embarrassing Sam-reactions you’ll have to bring to your grave.
You take his cock in your hand, trying to swallow back the slutty amount of saliva in your mouth. Sam whimpers. A real, desperate sound, with his nails stinging down your arms and everything.
“Know you wanted to slow down,” you struggle between open-mouthed pants, “b-but—can’t—don’t wanna wait—”
Sam physically curls towards you, his hips seizing into your hand and his arms hooking around your shoulders. You’re dragged in for a sloppy kiss so deep you swear it melds your souls together. Sam is just as affected, rumbling like a racecar in approval.
“Then don’t.” He begs.
If this was any other night, Sam would just take. You’d be face down and drilled halfway through the mattress by now, no preamble, all business. He got off and you got off and everyone was happy that way. Sam would want the room dark and you would hide your face in the bedding, the two of you eager to touch and experience but terrified of breaking the illusion. He’s so generous that you suppose he’s got to have at least one place in life where he’s selfish, and you’re happy to be his outlet for it, but.
You’ve never seen him take this way before.
He looks at you and he never really stops, transfixed. You don’t doubt you could walk in a circle around him and Sam’s eyes would follow you the whole way, his gaze oozing with longing and something else—resolution? Faith? You push him onto the bed, and he drops down as if hobbling into a pew for the first time, unsure how to clasp his hands in prayer because it’s only ever been something done in his head before.
You stand there for a moment, unsure of what to do next.
“God,” Sam utters, spellbound. 
You’re blushing so hard that you forget to be sexy as you crawl into his lap, but Sam doesn’t care, still giving you those big slow doe blinks to express his love. It’s so different from the Sam you know (yet also so deeply, deeply him) that you forget what it means to be sexy entirely. He coaxes you closer to plant tender kisses under your chin, and the plan to seductively peel off your sweater for him and flash him your tits blips out of existence.
You wait for the moment when Sam shreds the Stanford sweater off you. Instead, those wonderful fucking hands tease under the hem to squeeze your waist, and Sam croaks out between kisses, “Should wear this all the time. You’re beautiful in anything, but this… you’re… mmn.”
Your heart gives a pathetic flutter. You press mindless kisses against his mouth and rock your bare core down on his lap, because he’s never acted this way before and you don’t know how else to return the favor. “Not nearly as beautiful as you, Sammy.”
The only reaction you get from him is a single huff out of his nose, like it’s something he can’t commit a whole laugh to. Like none of that matters anymore, like it would never matter for Sam, because his body may be beautiful, but it hardly belongs to him anymore. God, you’re shitty at compliments.
You’re fucking wonderful, you suddenly want to tell him. A whole swarm of little truths and sweet nothings roars straight up to the surface of your mind, a whole sea of better things you could say to him, but then one of those perfect hands is slipping between your legs and Sam’s asking you in that perfect, tinted glass voice, “You still on the pill?”
“Yes, doctor,” you tease.
Another flood of sticky heat rushes between your legs, because that question is always a precursor to being pressed into and filled and stuffed end-to-end by Sam’s dick. The one barrier that doesn’t—didn’t exist between you.
“Good,” Sam sighs, relieved, grateful. He never turned down going raw in the past, but he’s downright starved for it right now. Closer closer closer, his whole body begs.
You’re tugged in by a big hand hooked around your back, and you fall right into Sam’s summer-warm, sweat-sticky chest, giggling. He loops both arms around your middle and teddy-bear squeezes even more laughter out of you. The only way to hold yourself up is by planting two hands on his shoulders… which turns into his cupping his neck… then caressing his face, because it’s impossible to be witness to that quiet boyish grin and not shower him in affection. There’s all these little freckles on him that you can only see up close. He feels good, mystical good, prophetic-chosen-one type good.
This is the moment. You can feel the blood in your body pounding between your legs, and Sam’s cock bumps not-so-innocently against your core as you kiss one another. Every shift of his hands sends your muscles clenching tight, bracing for impact, but Sam doesn’t push into you just yet.
Your confusion must be clear on your face, because he says, “Just let me feel you for a second.”
And, obviously, you’re not an idiot, so you let Sam feel you for as long as he pleases. For the next ten uninterrupted minutes, you makeout like lovesick teenagers, whimpering and sighing and swallowing every sound the other makes. You’d always pegged him as a romantic. But seeing it, feeling it, adds a whole new dimension to him you hadn’t realized you’d been craving.
By the time the pool of need in your gut has opened up into a blackhole, Sam has caressed or squeezed or kissed every part of you ten times over. He continues to be weird and obsessed with you. (So still in character, then). Sam even pinches the ends of your ears and smooths his thumbs over the bumps of your ankles, being sexy about it but also a little terrifying. He touches you like he’s never gonna see you again.
Around the time that Sam starts suckling marks into your neck and trying to tickle you under your arms, you giggle out, “O-Okay—okay! Enough—!”
“Enough what?” Sam cocks his head. His hand makes another dive for your belly, making you shriek and squirm with more giggles. You try to wriggle away to protect your tickling sides, but Sam’s too strong and you’re a little in love with him, so it’s easy for him to pull you flush against him and blow tingly-warm breaths beside your ear. He purrs, “You need it that badly?”
“Fucking yes! So quit torturing me,” you pant, and you’re pretty sure this grin is going to get stuck on your face.
Sam’s smile gets even bigger. “Only if you say please.”
Your attitude slips from your grip like water. Next time, you’ll play push and pull with him, but right now there needs to be a lot more pushing and pulling in a different context.
The words are out of your mouth in an instant. “Please, Sam.”
As reluctant as he is to stop teasing you, Sam’s a little in love, too. He leans back enough to fist his cock in one hand, and you can’t help how your breath hitches when Sam’s touch follows the curve of your ass to where you’re soaked and sensitive for him. Those thick, maddening fingers spread you open. The velvety tip of his cock finds your hole right away, and your legs nearly give out when Sam starts to swipe himself up and down your folds one dizzying stroke at a time. Back…. and forth. Up… and down. Jesus fucking Christ.
“Okay, fine…” He concedes, his eyes glittering with joy. “You’re just so cute when you act all tough.”
Maybe not all of your attitude is gone. You bark out a laugh, telling him, “I hate you.”
Sam presses down for the last time, then presses in. You don’t mean to look into his eyes when he fills you up, and that’s probably what does you in. Sam’s rosy face flutters and twists with pleasure, but he never stops looking at you, not even once, terrified to miss even a small moment. The long hitching moan that slips out of you makes his whole face darken with desire. You’re pulled onto him deeper and deeper and deeper until—click. Cue the angel choir.
Your fingers dig desperately into his hair. Sam curls into you in one slow pulling movement, a thread pulled taut, until his face is stuffed in your neck and his hands are mindlessly scrabbling down your back.
“God, I love you,” he moans.
Soon your pussy feels achy and hair-trigger-sensitive and beyond full, which could mean that you’re all the way on him. It’s impossible to tell, since the first full minute of having Sam’s dick inside you sends you straight to the moon every time, where everything falls in peaceful slow-motion and the whole world hums with cosmic, sparkling pressure. You shove your face into him and nuzzle in a daze, little ripples of electricity sparking up your spine.
…Wait.
“What?” You register, slow.
Sam is still clutching you for dear life, even if the moment’s slowed and you’re both comfortable. He hugs you full-bodied, nose in your neck, tilted forward, the kind of hug where he sways you side to side with joy. Sam sucks in a harsh breath. Can’t hold back anymore.
“I love you,” he gushes. The words burn out of him, declarative, overjoyed.
There’s so much you want to say to that. But then Sam digs his fingers into your ass and pulls you off his lap, only to gloriously sink you down the rest of the way, and. Fuck fuck fuck. His cock drags thick and hot against the pliant walls of your pussy. You couldn’t be any more full if you tried, clamping down on him with long, silky ripples of pressure that outline the shape of him inside you in obscene detail. It’s the kind of mind-blowing that’s beyond comprehension, beyond feeble human understanding. Your eyes squeeze shut and you whimper into his hair.
“God, I love you,” he chants again through grit teeth. “So much. So fucking much.”
You find his face with your hands and kiss him quiet, tasting the promise in his mouth. When you part and the two of you really start to move, you kiss him again, and again, whispering where only he can hear, “I-I love you too.”
It should scare you how easily the confession slips out. You should be terrified, because even if you live to see next week, or next month, or next year, even if Sam isn’t saying yes to Lucifer, those words are a death sentence. And yet.
“I-I miss you,” you choke out, “I need you.”
“Me too. So much,” Sam soothes, his voice tight and sharp with restraint. You know his instinct is to jackhammer up into you and never stop, but he puts in effort to resist, letting you both marinate in the wonderful, glistening, twitchy feeling of each other. His hands are rubbing your back and he is so fucking warm, turning the rain outside to steam.
He doesn’t bounce you on his dick. It’s more of a slow, cresting drag, waves stroking a beach. You don’t think you could handle much more than that, anyway—sometimes these positions make him feel big enough to pop you like a balloon. What you can’t fit on your own, your weight pushes you down onto anyway, turning your whole body into a big expanding bubble of pressure ready to burst at any moment. You clutch at his shoulders and just throb around him for a second.
“Nuh-uh,” Sam leans away, not letting you shove your face in him like you want. Instead, a big hand cups one side of your neck and keeps you in front of him. “Wanna see your face. Look at me. Look at me,” he insists, genuinely pleading.
When your eyes find his, that’s when he decides to snap up into you for real. You don’t even get a full look at him. The arm slung around your waist drags you up off your wobbling knees, then slams you down into a beautiful, endless white space popping with color.
“Sammy!” You choke.
That’s the magic word. You’re instantly thrust up into four more lightning-fast times, one-two-three-four, and hitch out four squeaky gasps to match. Sam’s eyes bore into yours with every beat, blazing with liquid love. For a second you wonder if you’ve fallen back into your rough routine again. But then words and thoughts melt out of your brain altogether, because Sam draws you into the tenderest, sweetest kiss human beings are capable of, fucking into you deep and smooth with that deeper, smoother voice, “Keep saying that.”
Sammy Sammy Sammy, you rattle out under your breath. Sam hisses out your name the exact same way.
You do your best to help him out a little, bobbing up and down in his lap, but’s a drop of water in the ocean for him. All Sam cares about is seeing your reaction. He soaks up everything you do like a sponge, moaning when you moan, gritting his teeth when you bite your lip, grinding up as you stir down. The weight of his eyes on you is so heavy that your skin stings in its wake. Again, it’s Sam’s brand of freak-sweetness that makes you get stupid notions in your head about wedding rings and anniversary presents. But that’s—
…something he knows about. Something he just said to you five minutes ago. Above the haze of bouncing, rhythmic pleasure, you’re flooded with relief. You can tell him! Holy fuck, you can tell him!
“I love you,” you gasp out again, and just saying it feels like it could save the world. “O-oh, god, Sam—”
The breath you have left is stolen from you by another fierce kiss from him, so passionate it lets you taste the bassy, happy hum that rumbles in Sam’s throat. You’re devoured by feverish kisses for a full minute, then Sam pops off you to sob, “So much—so fucking much, yes.”
He slips a hand between the two of you to thumb your clit, stirring in and never once stopping. Every so often he’ll brush up against where you’re hot and filled to the hilt with him, your bodies sliding together with slick, filthy noises that are so—so fucking much that your thighs cramp up, protesting the constant pistoning. But the pleasure is easily worth the burn. Your core booms with long echoes of pleasure that shudder through the trembling spiderwebs that make up your nerves. You make a move to lean back on your hands and switch up the angle, (since you’re a damn good cowgirl, thank you very much), but Sam refuses to stop kissing you. He physically pulls you back in with a hand fished around your neck and kisses you breathless, determined to pound you to your climax one thorough snap of his hips at a time.
“So beautiful,” Sam gushes. His voice is hoarse and thready, like he’s moments away from bursting into tears of pure desire.
You smooth your hands down his flushed cheeks, telling him between huffy moans, “It’s okay, s’ okay, Sammy… so pretty… love you so much…”
You feel him pull the Stanford sweater up over your ass and out of his way, exposing more, more, more of your bare skin for him to touch. Sam palms the slope of your back and your belly in a daze, but that’s still not enough—he’ll never be satisfied with how little of you he’s had. He wants more. He wants forever. You embrace each other to the fullest, cheeks smushed together, chests flush, his parted lips claiming your throat, making you his—but. Sam’s breath ratchets up. Not enough not enough not enough—
In one ragged motion, Sam rolls you both over, tossing you back-first onto the bedding and smothering you with his weight.
A squeal of delight jumps out of you. “Hey!”
If Sam wasn’t all over you before, then he literally is now, dropping onto his elbows so he can cup your face in both hands and surround you completely. “Sorry,” he croaks, “need you. Need to fill you up.”
You whisper against his lips, “Then fill me up already.”
His thumbs press into your cheeks a little. Sam’s breath fans across your face, throttled by the lump in his throat.
“Tell me you love me again.”
Um. You don’t exactly have the sexy heat of the moment to hide behind this time, but you still want to say it for him. His eyes swim with something unreadable. Desire and love, enough love to put a lump in your throat too, but a third thing also. It worries you.
You bring your hands up to stroke his wrists, and give a bit too much of your soul to him when you promise, “...I love you, Sam.”
The words hit him like a bullet. Sam shudders from head to toe, unable to reign himself in any longer, and plants a long, surging kiss on your mouth that makes your belly flash with nuclear levels of lust. He squirms his hands underneath your body so he can cradle you against him—genuinely cradling, one palm cupping the back of your neck—and then burrows into you face-first, groaning your name as his cock nestles itself as deep as it can go.
With all of his weight on top of you, you couldn’t move if you wanted to. You caress and kiss and dig your nails into him, and somewhere along the way you’re given a dose of whatever has made him fucking insane for you right now. It fogs your head and turns your reason to ash, so when Sam returns to ruining you for any other man, you whimper, “Please don’t leave me.”
“Oh, baby,” Sam hiccups out, and something strange hangs in his voice.
You would ask him what’s wrong, but the shuddering, flimsy scraps left of your brain are busy being blasted all over by white-hot pleasure. Everything scorches. Sam’s bare skin and his breath and his hands feel fucking molten, melting you down like hot glass. You’re pinned down in every possible way, and it pushes the sinking, gorgeous pressure inside you all over your body, like it’s not just Sam’s cock filling you up, but him, just him, the source of all good in the world. Holy fucking fuck. His hips glide back and then thud back into you again and again and again. You get why it’s called making love, now. You can taste your love for him in the back of your throat, feel it sitting in a sticky film on your skin. It hangs like humidity in the air of your apartment. And jesus christ, it bleeds from Sam, glowing off him like fucking radiation.
When you’re shamelessly wailing gut-deep in ecstasy, Sam peels himself off you. He forces himself to sit up. His chest putters up and down with desperate little breaths, and a gloriously big hand scoops under your thigh and welds it against your chest. Whatever he sees from this new angle—probably your wet, abused pussy stretched tight around the full base of his cock—makes Sam gape, utterly transfixed. You watch as his mouth falls open, and then those dark, soul-swallowing eyes crawl up your body to meet yours.
“Keep lookin’ at me,” Sam rasps.
Even if he doesn’t sway your opinion with a few dizzying, stomach-deep drags of his cock, (which he does), you’re convinced. You lock eyes with him—and then suddenly feel stupid for not watching him the whole time. A long curl of hair hangs in his eyes and sways as he fucks into you. His expression flutters with these sinful little giveaways, exposing just how starved he is for you, how in love. Maybe if you’d looked back sometime in the past five years, that’s what you would’ve seen: how much this has always meant to him. He searches your face for the same pleasure, obsessed with his effect on you. 
“Fuck,” you shudder out. “C-could cum just watchin’ you, Sammy.”
“That’s right,” he hisses, and you’ve never heard him sound so damn happy. “Cum for me. Please. Look so pretty when you do.”
Usually, when he makes you cum, it’s the roughest part of the whole act. He’d get both your wrists pretzeled behind your back and pinned viciously in one of his hands, and that’s when you’d know the big finish was coming. His pace would go from bouncing to bruising. But this Sam, your Sam, would stop time if he could, so he slows down even further, winding you closer and closer to the top of the mountain with little figure-eights of his hips. He gazes down at you the same way you’re sure you must gaze up at him. Beautiful, he murmurs under his breath.
You utter another, tight, almost-sob of, “love you so much, Sammy,” and his dick twitches wildly shoved in you to the hilt.
“Ohh—shit,” he chokes out, and his other hand snaps desperately towards yours on the bed. They find each other easily, and you squeeze his hand with everything you’ve got, infusing in him all the love he’s infused in you.
The slow, mounting tsunami of perfection you’ve been moving towards finally overcomes you, and in one long gorgeous slippery rush you cum for Sam. And because your life is a movie—he cums for you too. He rocks faster and falls forward to kiss you, your faces pressed together, your mouths slotting against each other, your pussy squeezing down on him in golden rippling strokes. Sam hisses your name out between his teeth as he cums. You’re lanced straight through by a whole fucking universe of fluttering, flickering pleasure. To be honest, you’re a little pissed about it—because it’s the best fucking orgasm you’ve had in your entire life, and it’s all because Sam raggedly chants those words to you again and again, laying sloppy, obsessive, head-over-heel kisses all over your face. Love you love you so much baby you feel so good squeezin’ down on me.
You could’ve had this ages ago. How much more time could you have had with him, if you had just stopped being stupid?
Sam’s crazed, sobbing, hitching I love yous somehow become, in true Sam fashion, a low spiral of thank yous. He lays there and clutches you until there’s a Sam-shaped imprint in your body. You’re pretty sure he would stay inside you all night if he could, but you coax him into some cuddling instead, since you both are in desperate need. It’s. It’s new, but it feels cleansing in the holy way.
What feels like hours later, your brain dimly connects to the rest of your body. You’re halfway through detangling Sam’s hair with your fingers as he hides face-first in your chest, pretending he’s not embarrassed that he cried. At least, that’s what you assume. The Winchester mind is a mysterious one, and as much as you would hope to know what Sam’s thinking, the slow hand drawing circles on your hip tells you nothing. Is he shy that he got emotional? That seems silly, since you both sobbed into each other earlier. Is he embarrassed about everything he confessed? Does he regret it?
Just when your train of thought really starts to take the curves of your spiral hard, Sam tiredly croaks into your neck, “I meant what I said, y’know.”
He draws in a lungful of your perfume through his nose, soaking up as much of you as he can possibly get. His hands smooth over your body, innocent and loving, caressing you, memorizing you, begging silently for forgiveness. 
Sam is a dead-silent crier. But you hear him sniffle as he gushes, “God, I love you.”
Maybe if you hadn’t been so tired, you would’ve picked up on it. Or maybe you’d heard it in his voice, seen it, something, and ignored it, hoping it was something else. Everything he felt, he put into a teeny, unmarked box that he’d bury god knows where, far from where anybody could be hurt by it. Sam didn’t—he wouldn’t say that to you. Not unless it was the last time he ever could. He would feel it, but it’d go right into that box where it couldn’t hurt you. You should’ve known.
Lie to me, you’d begged him. 
…And Sam had.
_
The dull realization that you are awake sets in around noon. Noon as in after-noon, well past when you’re normally up and at em’. When you wonder why the hell you slept in so late, you remember last night’s rain, thrashing against the windows all night, and Sam, his face haloed by lamplight and bleeding with quiet resolution.
Sam. Alive, and not going to say yes.
He’d been the one to keep you up all night. With his mouth and his hands, yes, but then afterward he’d been hellbent on talking. Just… talking. You’d been sluggish and cozy and sated after having sex, but no matter how close you came to falling asleep, Sam wouldn’t let it happen. For two straight hours he asked you every question he could come up with to keep you up with him.
Do you remember when we met? Cause’ I do. Do you remember what I said to you? Do you remember what you thought about me? I remember thinking how similar we were, y’know, how much we’d get along. You were so pretty… my whole face went red every time you looked at me. Do you remember…?
Being cuddled, kissed, and protected by the man you love really tempts a girl to doze off, too, so this was not an easy battle. But Sam persisted. He studied your face intently, uttering I love yous even when sleep started to pull you under. Hearing any Winchester drop those words on you still blew your fucking mind, to be honest. Sam especially. But it was romantic as it was worrying, so you’d shut him up with a kiss goodnight and echoed it back to him. Love you, Sammy. It was probably just an anxiety thing, you assumed—Sam, for some fucking reason, was a pretty insecure guy, so you imagined that was his way of making sure you wanted all of this. He seemed… scared. He wasn’t used to being wanted.
The apocalypse was still on. Maybe the world would end tomorrow, or maybe you’d get lucky and live a whole lifetime with Sam. Regardless, he’s never saying yes to Lucifer, and that alone means that there’s still hope for the future. You’re going to spend every second of it making Sam feel wanted.
Sitting up in bed, you scrubbed at your sleepy face with the heel of your hand and stared around the room. Sam was physically incapable of staying asleep after five in the morning, so the familiar evidence of his military-efficient morning routine was all over the place. You smiled to yourself. He’d picked up after the two of you, and had tucked another blanket over you in your sleep. Stupid chivalrous dumbass.
To think, you’d been terrified you’d never see him again just last night.
You push out of bed, only to almost buckle onto the carpet rag-doll style. Even being torturously gentle, that man manages to make you sore. With a very, very happy groan, you hop (and wince) into some clean underwear, then traipse out into your kitchen to show that dork who’s boss.
“Dammit, Samuel, you’re not my maid—” you start to say, but of course, this is Sam, who wouldn’t miss a morning run for anything. Right. That explains your empty kitchen.
…But it’s afternoon. Sam would be back by now. Your gut prickles with a bad feeling, and you superstitiously sweep your apartment, looking for him. His clothes from last night are still sitting in your hamper, his shirt folded neatly in your dresser and his watch on your nightstand. A spike of nausea rolls through you seeing that his jacket is gone—and his boots. But his duffle—it’s. It’s still on your kitchen table. It looks a little smaller than usual, but his books and his laptop are still inside. He probably just ran out to run some silly errand for you, determined to make up for worrying you so much. Yeah.
You force your hunter’s paranoia down to a simmer, padding over to your breakfast table. There’s a big ol’ note smack dab in the center of it, perched on his half-open duffle bag, and you start to play with one of the bracelets Sam left behind as you pick it up.
You cross your fingers, smiling ear-to-ear. “C’mon. All bets on breakfast. Please be getting me breakfast, please be getting me breakfast—”
…That’s not what the note says.
You read it.
Then you read it again, and the hammer falls, crushing the breath out of you and doubling you over the kitchen table. You read the note for the third time, needing to be sure, and the thin sliver of hope you had—maybe you’d just read it wrong, m-maybe he was fine—turns to ash. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.
You’re fighting back a surge of ugly, choking tears in an instant. He’s… Sam… he…
Your whole apartment lingers with the heat and goodness of him, like he’d been here just minutes ago. Just seconds. Even your clothes still smell like Sam. Just inhaling it tears chunks out of your reason, like—like you’d just missed him. Clawing around for something to do, you pace in a daze between your bedroom and the front door, desperate to recreate the moment you realized he was gone. You’re still just in the Stanford sweater and your underwear, but you don’t give a single shit and go careening out into the hall, stalking up and down your floor for him—because, b-because Sam wouldn’t, he wouldn’t do that to you—he would tell you first, he would never leave you in the dark like this—
…But you know Sam. And if it meant fixing his mistakes, saving you, saving everyone… Then he’d say yes in a heartbeat.
“These belong to you. You deserve a world to live in. I’m sorry - Sam.”
- tags: @samssluttybangs @cookiemumster1@lacilou@cevans-winchester @leigh70@ seraphimluxe @emily-roberts @emme-looou @aloneatpeace @williamstop @ornella0910 @chaoticshepardplaid @dakota-dream @lcvecstiel @goghkiss @spnexploration @stoneyggirl2 @urm0mmmbbg @mulattomoon @poeticsorcery @deansapplepie @rennydenny @babydollfoster @badlandsbrunette @hallecarey1
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galvanizedfriend · 3 months
Text
KC Wip Wednesday
This is my humble contribution to WIP Wednesday! It's a scene from the rewriting of TVD S5 - Yokan's version. In it, The Originals never happens, most of the Mikaelsons remain in Mystic Falls and Klaus and Caroline are kind of a thing, but nobody knows (for sure). Remember that moment where Katherine locks herself up in a safe with Stefan to "cure" his PTSD? It's that, except it's Klaus, not Katherine. This alludes to a very Klefan past, btw. Be warned if you're not a fan.
Also, this is for @definedareasofuncertainty, who wanted me to write her Easter Klefan. 🤧 There you go, friend! And you know, not beta'ed and all that.
--
Klaus lies on his back, takes a calm breath as the heavy door is closed with a thud, engulfing them in absolute darkness. All in all, he'd say a metal box is hardly the most uncomfortable setting he's found himself in. He prefers the comfort of first-class accommodations, but he's traveled in worse. The grown man beating about beside him does make things rather unpleasant, though.
"Stop! Caroline! Get me out of here!" Stefan screams, smashing his fists against the iron safe's indestructible structure. The more desperate he gets, the more uncoordinated and weaker his movements become, thus making the effort completely useless, however accomplished in making the experience all the more miserable for him.
It's embarrassing how incapable Klaus is of saying no to Caroline whenever she asks for a favor. Locking himself up in a box with a traumatized Stefan has to be an all-time low. The things he won't do when she bats her eyelashes and says please.
"Oh, stop it," he remarks in a bored tone as he shoves Stefan aside. The old safe is rather spacious, but definitely not enough to comport two men, particularly if one of them won't stop bloody writhing like a worm in hot sand. "The more you scream, the more breathless you become." The more I want to tear your vocal cords to shreds.
"Get me out of here, Klaus, get me the fuck out of here!"
"Relax, Stefan. I'm here to help," he says. "I'm what you would call a greater agony to alleviate the smaller pain you feel being trapped inside the box. It's reverse psychology, or so Caroline read in a book. What do you think of a little werewolf venom high to speed up the process?"
"You're psychotic. You're fucking insane!" Stefan starts pounding on the box again. "Caroline! Caroline, open up! Open it now!"
"I'm sorry, Stefan!" comes her muffled apology. Even through the metal barrier she sounds thick with guilt. It was her idea, but already she's cracking. That bleeding heart of hers… "I'm sorry, I will -"
"Do not touch that box, Caroline," he commands with his full authority. "Leave it."
There's a long pause, the sound of Stefan's heart hammering away inside his chest in the box as they wait to see what she'll do. A beat goes by before she mumbles a final sorry and scurries away, likely to avoid the temptation of putting poor Stefan out of his misery.
Klaus' lips pull into a grin. "Good girl."
Stefan starts shaking beside him, his breath becoming even more labored. "I can't breathe," he gasps. "I can't - I can't -"
"You don't need to breathe, Stefan. It's all in your head," Klaus reminds him pointedly. "A vampire having a panic attack, honestly. When you think you've seen everything…"
"You're not fucking helping!"
"Pardon me. My bedside manners have gone a little rusty since the last time you've experienced them." Klaus casts Stefan a glance, sees the way his eyes widen in horror, his body growing stiff as a rod, and he can't contain the self-satisfied smile that draws across his lips. "We did once find comfort in each other's company, didn't we?" Stefan makes another panicked sound, smoothing his hands across the cold metal door above them, trying to find a way out. Klaus chuckles. "Don't worry, mate. Caroline can't hear us. Your sordid little secret is safe with me. It's just us here, alone under the cover of darkness. Nothing we haven't done a dozen times in the past. Ahh, the 20s…" he speaks around a dramatic sigh. "It was the roaring years, indeed."
"What are you doing?"
"Making conversation."
"I don't want to talk to you, I especially don't want to talk about that." Stefan nearly chokes on the last word, inching as far away from Klaus as the confined space will allow, as though the mere idea of touching him fills him with utter revulsion. Klaus knows better; it's the way he remembers exactly how it didn't what terrifies him.
Anybody who's met this watered down, colorless version of Stefan would never be able to tell how much of a free spirit he used to be. He was fun. A far cry from the shivering man beside him now. Tragic, really.
"I know you like to pretend it never happened. Frankly, you've become quite an embarrassment of your former self, so I wouldn't proudly advertise it either. This bunny-eating, crying in the dark skin you're wearing these days is someone is wouldn't be caught fraternizing with if you were the last human being on earth."
"Then leave me the fuck alone already."
"Don't flatter yourself. I'm not here for you," he snaps back. And then, putting a leash on his rising temper, he continues, "But since I have to be… I can recognize that there was something about that time we had together that suited us both, more than just for the obvious reasons."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Sure you do. I was a tool for you."
"A tool for self-destruction."
Klaus huffs out a disdainful breath. "I was a balm to your tortured soul, Stefan, even at a time when you embraced your true self. I indulged you because you amused me, but at the end of the day, when we were together, it was all rather transactional. It wasn't about sentimentality or a shared appreciation for extravagance. It was about the hollow inside us. The fact we were always desperately seeking to fill it with… Anything, really. Whatever we could find. Passions. Pleasure. Violence. Cravings. But it never lasted, did it? Those things lack a purpose. They're all flitting in their essence, an immense explosion of satisfaction followed by… Nothing. We were both hungry, and we kept trying to find the thing that would sate us. You had lost your mind; I had lost my home. Like drawn to like." Klaus turns his face to Stefan, finds him staring back, eyes glinting with an emotion he can't quite read in the gloom. He always did fancy Stefan's eyes, though. There is something raw about them, something honest for a change. A little opening to the truth in his soul he tries so hard to hide from the outside world. "That's what the darkness is, Stefan," he continues. "Loneliness. It's what restrains us. The monster we cannot outrun. When it all stops - the laughter, the liquor, the hunger - and everything goes quiet around us, that's when we feel it. The curse of eternity. The weight of our years, deep in our bones. And the inevitable loneliness that comes with it. You had your names on the wall, I had my letters, but when all was said and done… We were both stuck in infinite darkness. Except for a few glorious stolen moments, in that repulsive room of yours." The corner of his mouth pulls up into a lopsided smile. "I was the bigger monster you needed in order to humanize yourself. Whatever you were, I was worse, and so I assuaged your guilt. Much like me being here right now. But then of course you found religion!" He laughs, closing his eyes and facing forward once more. "Your spiritual path towards the light. Elena Gilbert." He enunciates the name like it's coated in something toxic. His general distaste for Elena goes further than the fact she has thwarted so many of his plans. It's the boring saint act he cannot get over.
"Yes," Stefan says, his voice rough. "And then I lost her."
"Right. Because she chose your brother." Klaus chuckles. Stefan shifts uncomfortably beside him, the urge to hit him palpable in the air. It only spurs Klaus on. "How so very tacky. No taste, that one. Personally, I think there's no amount of blue eyes or good sex that can make Damon tolerable. What a wanker. I just want to bash his face against a wall whenever he opens his mouth."
Stefan scoffs. "Get in line."
"It's ironic, isn't it? You were at your absolute best behavior, weeding out all of your instincts, everything that made you fun and interesting in order to fashion yourself into a fairy tale prince for her, and what does she do? She chooses the dullard bad boy. Typical." Klaus shakes his head. "Ungrateful little -"
"Shut up."
"Martyr," he finishes with a smirk. "She probably thinks she's going to fix him, doesn't she? I bet he encourages it. But that's the difference between you and Damon, isn't it? Even with all your valiant efforts, you know creatures like us cannot be fixed. We're beyond salvation."
He gets a sudden twinge in his chest, an image flashing in his mind. A smile as bright as the sun. Hair the color of wheat. He sees her shifting under his sheets, feels the warmth of her touch, the brush of her rosy lips against his skin. It ignites a sense of joy inside him unlike anything else, a sense of possession, of belonging, of having found something that is far more precious or rare than any of the hundreds of treasures he's collected over the course of his life. But along with it comes the ever-present fear. Of loss. How long before he ruins her, like he's ruined everything else he's ever cherished? How long before he hurts her, even if he doesn't mean to? Before his darkness tarnishes her and kills that smile? Before she decides he's not worth it?
"How do you make yourself worthy?" he asks, the question tumbling out of his as though of their own accord. "How do you earn the affections of someone so…"
"Good?" Stefan finishes for him, reading his thoughts. "With sunshine and rainbows shining out of their eyes? Someone like, say… Caroline?" Klaus goes quiet, all his humor bleeding out of him in a second. "You don't," Stefan answers his own question. "You'll never be good enough for her, Klaus. Just like I was never good enough for Elena. Not really. The truth is they deserve much better than the two of us." He sighs, deflating with resignation next to Klaus. "I guess we did make quite a pair, you and I."
"Then perhaps we should die together," he says with an edge of aggression, his mood taking a sudden downturn. He's suddenly irritated. With Stefan, with this ridiculous situation, with himself for agreeing to that. "You and I, in a box, at the bottom of a quarry. Over and over again, drowning in suffering for all our sins and the women we don't deserve. How about that?" Silence stretches out between them, absolute. There's no response from Stefan, but there's also no pounding pulse, no disgruntled breaths. "Oh, look," he says dispassionately. "Someone's not having a panic attack anymore. Congratulations. You've conquered your fears. All you had to do was remember there are worse things than dying."
Klaus gives one violent kick on the door, sending it flying off its hinges. He pushes himself up, stepping out of the safe.
Caroline comes whooshing in, eyes wide as she takes in the state of the safe, the way Stefan is still down, cowering from the sudden burst of luminosity.
"What did you do to him?" she demands.
Klaus' mouth inches upward into the barest hint of a grin, no mirth whatsoever. "I fixed him."
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justmy-account · 6 months
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List of byler-gates
I’m just bored, but read it anyways, it’s fun
there sooo many of them, and i’m still pretty lazy so this isn’t perfect, but just let’s start
Mikhailgate
This is practically anti byler theory, but nvm
So, Dimitri has a son named Mikhail, which is russian version of name Michael, Mike
So, people were just saying that instead of Mike, Will will end up with Mikhail(who’s technically Mike bc of the name, yk)
I think everyone was just joking, oh, good ol’ times
and willloveinterestgate is the same
Lettergate/Pocketgate
These theories aren’t the same one, but it’s basically the same concept, ig
The basic thing is, that Mike wrote a letter to Will(singed Love, Mike)
In pocketgate, Mike has the letter saved in his triangle pocket, bc in st, characters many times has letters, that were important to them, in their left pocket(above the heart), for example Hopper and El(Hopper’s heart-to-heart), Jonathan(acceptance letter to college) etc.
And he would just take it out in the middle of confession or sth
+the triangle always points to Will like an arrow
Lettergate is just basically the same, ok, idk how to describe it differently 
Twelvegate
Not exactly a byler, but theory, that Will was number twelve in HNL, and that he’s El’s actual twin
And from that, there’s theory that Will has powers, but wasn’t n. 012
Okay, back to byler
This is same as rainbowgate i think
Flickergate
This theory is very lovely! after Will tells Mike that rolled seven in s1, the light behind them flickers
and since ud is frozen on nov6 83, when you signal sth from ud, it should appear at nov6 83-s1
this connects to electricgate(i dunno if sth like this exist, but just keep reading), the electricity~are friends electric~will possibly having electric powers
so mike and will could go together in s5 to ud on a mission or sth, and kiss in wheelers garage, and that would make the light flicker(i’m so good at explaining things, right😐)
will and mike going to ud together is predicted by mike and will sitting on upside down couch in last ep. of s4
Birthdaygate/Memorygate
Soo, remember how they forgot Will’s birthday? what if all wills memories, that people reminded him of in the shed are gone? his birthday, building castle byers, meeting mike… and that’s why mike says that his life started the day he found her, bc he doesn’t remember meeting Will
for me, it’s really weird, they couldn’t just forget Will’s birthday, no, this ain’t it
Kiss at lovers lake
I’m not sure if this has a different name, but it’s that their first kiss will be near lovers lake
evidence: patrick(the kid who died at lovers lake), had a nickname “berlin wall” or sth(we saw this in the school newspaper), and it was devided to four, same as hawkins
and song heroes is abt couple who lived at different sides of berlin wall, and idk, it just connects, okay?
when will painted the map of hawkins while he was possessed, mike was holding blue and yellow meter
Eightfifteengate
Context: will left the wheelers at 8:15 in s1
in s1e1, time mark 8:15 is literally the shot where will disappears in the shead
i think there’s a season 2 soundtrack called eight fifteen
tw: time fuckery: while will was recording on halloween night, the time says 8:04 while he’s recording mike saying “did you agreed with this?”, but when joyce rewatches it, it show 8:15(byler)
“ it’s 8:15, you’re late”
btw, clocks and watches from hiroshima are stuck at 8:15
aaanywaaay, there’s just too much 8:15 things, aaah(this is just a few)
what it has to do with byler?
well, 15-8=….(wait for it)….seven. a byler number. it was a seven!
also, “the first lie”, when murray says this to jancy, the time mark is… guess what, 8:15
there’s this theory with the songs “the first lie” and “the first i love you”, and it just connects 
Motelgate
theory, that after mike’s “love” confession to el, they went to a motel for sleep, and mike and will had to share a bed, and we could possibly see flashbacks of it in s5, and it would kinda explain the two day skip
Colorgate
blue and yellow meet in the west, i’m sure you know this one, and there’s sooo many evidence in this
mattduffersbasementgate
It’s too late for this to be true, but the duffers are(/were) holding every cast member that ships byler in their basement, lol
bloopergate
Bloopers from byler scenes, basically, for example “not when i was the spy, oh fuck”, basically Finn and Noah being all giggly, i guess
bloopergate implies to every blooper, but why not to mention it
curtaingate
Sth like, that when there’s some fight happening between characters, if curtains are open, it means they’re open with their feeling and opposite 
Example: milkvan make out scene-closed, but you don’t love me fight-opened
Bonus: „ but they like the curtain. people like us are just trying to look behind the curtain”(my very bad quotation of murray, yk what i mean)
Also, Suzie had blue and yellow curtains, and they were opened
And, “and i love her and i can’t lose her again”? Also curtains closed, like wtf, this fandom is crazy
piggybackgate
El knows abt Mike and Will. she saw how they act around each other, she’ve heard will saying “you’re the heart” to mike, saw that mike has Will’s painting now
New Coke Theory
basically, old coca colla is mileven, new coke is byler. it contains some of the old ingredients(mike), and new ones too(will). not everyone likes(bc its gay ship). and when you look at scenes with can of new coke, it’s many times symbolizing byler vs. milkvan
one of my favorite new coke theory examples is this: in s3, after el gets attacked by the flesh monster, she tries to crash a can(but she doesn’t have her powers, so she can’t). this is a can of new coke(byler) and she can’t crush that/destroy it. and in this scene, we get a flashback to the lab, where she crushes aka destroys regular coke(mileven)
phonegate
mike and will not calling each other, bc of joyce’s telemarketer job(he won’t stop whining abt it)
————
i miss all these little silly theories abt literally everything
i hope the byler tag will be like this once again
maybe we could start naming our new theories “gate”s again
for example: heartfeltgat, strangerwritersgate, snowkissgate or sth
anyway, byee
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andiwriteordie · 1 year
Note
perhaps season five apocalypse vibes for the prompts?
(btw i love your writing so so SO much like you are such an inspiration to me anyway bye <3)
AWWW okay first that's so sweet tysm <333 sending you a big ole hug
and second, i LOVE my s5 apocalypse vibes, so here you go. have some byler in a (new and improved) castle byers together.
built to fall apart (then fall back together)
If Will had a nickel for every time he has been forced to hide inside a little fort made of branches and twigs from a deadly monster hunting him down and wanting to eat him alive… he’d have two nickels.
And look. Okay. Two nickels? Not a lot of money. You really can’t buy anything with two nickels, not like you probably could when his mom and Hopper were his age or maybe even younger.
But two times hiding inside a Castle Byers from a demogorgon? 
That’s two times too many.
This isn’t fair by any means, but then again, nothing about Will’s life has been fair since November 6, 1983. Ever since that first encounter with the demogorgon, it’s been one bad thing after another, and well… ending up back here feels annoying but also not surprising in the least.
At least this time, Will isn’t alone, and this time, he’s not technically in the Upside Down—though nowadays, all of Hawkins might as well be the Upside Down. It… it’s gotten bad these past two years. As One has been recovering, the Upside Down has been growing, reaching further and further into Hawkins, and transforming Will’s hometown into something ripped right out of an apocalyptic movie. 
Everything is coming to blows, and Will can feel it. He can feel him, ready to soon return and put and end to all their planning and preparing. One is just waiting now and biding his time—simply looking for the perfect opportunity to strike, to come back, and to put an end to humanity once and for all. 
It’s only a matter of time now.
Hell, for all Will knows, this could be the beginning of the end, and wouldn’t that be funny in the world’s least funny way? To end right where he began—running and hiding for his life from the same type of monster that kidnapped him all those years ago. Because right now, there’s a demogorgon sniffing around the abandoned forests right outside Will’s old childhood home, desperately seeking out its meal, and hoping to finish what it’s already started, and right now, Will is seventeen but feels twelve years old again—terrified for his life and wondering if this might be how he dies.
Will takes a shuddered breath, his eyes wandering down to the blood gash on his ankle. The strips of cloth that Mike had desperately tied around the wound are already soaked, dark maroon tainting the soft green fabric of Mike’s bandana. Bile rises in the back of his throat, but he forces it down.
Sooner or later, the demogorgon is going to find him. It always does, doesn’t it? Castle Byers – it’s not such a good place to hide. The demogorgon found him there, in the Upside Down, anyways, and the first Castle Byers had been torn down by Will’s own hands in one final act of self-loathing, right before the Mind Flayer had returned.
This hiding spot’s probably the worst place they could be right now.
And yet, despite the fact that they could be moments away from death, Will can’t help but look around at their silly little hiding spot.
It’s bigger than the original Castle Byers was, which is definitely a good thing in this instance. Will’s not so sure that the both of them would’ve been able to cram inside the original Castle Byers—not with Mike Wheeler’s gangly limbs and with the rifles and other supplies they’d both brought on patrol. But still, though this new fort is larger than the original one was, it’s not that much bigger, so both Will and Mike are pressed against each other, close enough that Will can hear his best friend’s unsteady breathing and feel the way he’s trembling. 
Will’s hand twitches, brushing up against Mike’s hand, and in the silence, it’s easy to hear the way Mike’s breath catches. Neither one of them says anything, and Will’s never been more glad for the darkness and how it conceals how red his face must be right now. 
The darkness, however, also makes it a little bit harder to take in the rest of this new Castle Byers. All Will knows is that there are little pictures and drawings and posters taped to the walls of the fort, just like in the old Castle Byers. On the little table beside Will, there are a few books and other trinkets, but that’s not what catches Will’s eye.
No – what catches his eye is a picture, a little difficult to see from far away, but luckily close enough that Will can reach out and grab it. Sure enough, it’s exactly what he thinks it is: the old pictures of the Party that he had ripped in half, right down the middle before the destruction of the original Castle Byers. The picture is a little faded and there’s a piece of tape holding it together, but it’s here.
It’s here, and Castle Byers is here too, and Mike is here, his hand clenched tightly around Will’s own.
“Come on!” Mike had yelled, his arm wrapped around Will as the two of them limped through the forest. “I know a place we can hide!”
He knew this place was here.
Mike knew that this new Castle Byers was here.
Which means… 
Will looks around again, taking in as much as he can of the rebuilt fort. His heart pounds inside his chest, and outside, a monster lurks, waiting for the right moment to strike and to kill them both. 
Inside? Inside, Will is reeling—overwhelmed with a dozen different emotions and thoughts swirling around inside his head. Mike… Mike rebuilt Castle Byers for him. At some point or another, after their fight, after Will destroyed his childhood fort, Mike must have come back to the forest and rebuilt this place to be nearly identical to the one Will grew up with.
Why? Will thinks, and he dares to look over at his best friend. There’s worry written all over Mike’s face, but when he catches Will looking at him, his expression softens. Why would he rebuild this place?
Mike’s gaze flickers to the walls of their shared hiding spot; then, he scoots in closer, so there’s no space left between the two of them. “You probably have a lot of questions,” he whispers, just barely loud enough for Will to hear.
And honestly, Will can’t help but laugh, both because that is the understatement of the year and because this is the worst possible time to find out about this. If they slip up even just a little, then they’ll end up dead—demogorgon dinner in the middle of the forest, miles away from their family and friends. 
“Yeah,” Will breathes, and he glances over again, meeting Mike’s eyes. “Probably… probably not a good time to ask them though.”
Something like a laugh escapes Mike’s lips. “Probably not,” he echoes back and scoots closer. Neither one of them says anything else, and so silence settles over the two of them once again like an old, unwelcome enemy. The only thing that Will can hear is the nervous thumpthumpthump of his own heartbeat, joining in with Mike’s careful breaths taken every few seconds. In and out. In and out. In and out. In and—
“Will?” 
Will flinches and turns back around, so he and Mike can meet eyes once again. It’s a little difficult to see in the darkness, but there’s hesitancy written all over Mike’s face. He looks like he wants to say something—something that’s urgent and something that he’s been waiting forever to say and something that Will simply can’t figure out just by studying his best friend’s face. But whatever it is… it’s important to Mike to say this.
Important enough that he’d risk being heard and found by the demogorgon to say it.
“Yeah?” Will whispers back. He scoots closer too, and maybe it’s the blood loss or the fear or the adrenaline talking, but Will thinks he sees Mike’s eyes wide and hears his breath catches and notices the way Mike’s gaze flickers downward for one, two, three moments too long.
Oh, Will thinks, somewhere distantly in the back of his mind. Maybe that’s the answer to his question. 
Why would Mike rebuild this place?
It feels a little bit ironic, but Will thinks that maybe, just maybe, the answer might just be the same reason he tore down Castle Byers in the first place.
(Because I love you.
Even though I shouldn’t.
Even though it’s supposed to be wrong.
I’m in love with you.)
Mike swallows the lump in his throat. His gaze has returned to Will’s eyes now, instead of his lips—his lips—and he reaches up with a trembling hand to cup Will’s cheek. This time, Will’s breath catches, and he watches with wide eyes as Mike thumbs away some of the dirt on Will’s cheek, taking special care to be as gentle as possible.
“I…” Mike starts to say, but he stops again, lips pressed together nervously. He looks away again, this time glancing out at the world beyond the shared hiding spot. It takes another moment for him to look back at Will, but when he does, he seems a lot more at ease, that familiar determination returning to his face. “We might not make it out of here.”
Will winces. Truthfully, a small part of him had almost forgotten about that, but yeah… that’s the unfortunate reality of the situation they’re in. There’s a monster outside of Castle Byers, and it wants to kill both of them. Will’s ankle is currently bleeding through, and any moment now, the demogorgon might catch onto his scent and come have both of them for dinner.
Romantic. So romantic.
“Right.” Will nods slowly and swallows the lump in his own throat, looking down at their intertwined hands. It feels like some sick joke from the universe that this would happen—that the two of them would finally find the courage to confront everything that has been going on between them, to finally acknowledge the path they’ve been stumbling down together for quite some time now—only when they’re about to die.
Leave it to the universe to give him a shred of happiness and a taste of a happy ending, only to rip it away. 
Mike takes another breath, and he squeezes Will’s hand tighter than he ever has before. “I-I guess,” he whispers nervously, “I… I just wanted to say—”
“Don’t,” Will blurts out.
Mike freezes. In the darkness, his eyes go wide, and he stares back at Will in complete shock. “W-what?”
Will takes a deep breath, glancing at the entrance to Castle Byers, then back at Mike again. “Don’t,” he repeats, softer this time. “Whatever you’re going to say… don’t say it… not if you’re only saying it because we’re about to die.” 
He pauses here, swallowing the lump in his throat and looking away, unable to meet Mike’s eyes. “If you really mean it,” Will says quietly, “then… just wait. Wait until we’re out of here or… or at least until we know we’re safe. Okay?” 
For a while, Mike is quiet, and he grows tense beside Will, like he’s not sure how to take this request. The silence is dreadful, and it makes Will almost regret stopping him from saying this. 
But… if Mike is really going to say what Will thinks he’s going to say, then he can wait. He can wait until the two of them are safe, until they don’t have to hide from a monster trying to kill them, until they both can actually focus on what’s been said to each other, instead of fearing for their goddamn lives. They’ve waited this long. They can wait a little bit longer.
“Okay,” comes Mike’s response, a whisper barely audible in the silence. He shifts closer again to Will and moves, wrapping an arm around Will’s shoulder and pulling him close. “But… but I do mean it, Will. I swear I do.”
Thumpthumpthump goes Will’s nervous heart, and despite the circumstances the two of them are in, Will can’t help but smile. “Good,” he whispers back and looks up at his best friend, meeting his gaze in the darkness. “Then… I’m excited to hear what you have to say. You know… if we don’t die.”
A quiet huff of a laugh escapes Mike’s lips, and he rests his head on Will’s shoulder, hugging him close. “We better not die,” he mumbles. “That would really, really suck.”
“Yeah,” Will whispers back with a laugh of his own. “It really, really would.”
Neither one of them says anything else after this. True to his word, Mike doesn’t say what he had tried to say, but at the same time, he does. The two of them… they’ve never been big on words, anyways. Actions have always spoken louder. So, in the darkness of Castle Byers—that was rebuilt by Mike for Will—the words I love you are never spoken aloud, but they’re said to one another anyways.
Mike holds him closer,  and he gently runs his hand up and down Will’s arm, keeping him calm and reminding him that he isn’t alone. I love you, Mike says, when he lets Will lie against his chest, and when he wraps an old blanket around the two of them. I love you, I love you, I love you.
I love you too, Will thinks to himself, arms wrapped around Mike’s waist. He listens to the quiet sound of Mike’s heartbeat and forces himself to breathe. They’re going to make it out of here. 
They have to. 
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divinekangaroo · 6 months
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While "patiently" waiting for fic updates :) , was wondering what other stories you're working/will be working on? Will you be writing still when you go back to work?
No pressure btw, this is me trying to manage my expectations XD
lol, yeah -> my 8 hours of blissful 'do nothing but write idly' day has dropped to about 2 hrs in the evening. the increasing arc of life resuming. The writing is still ok in these 2hr bursts but getting it to a readable standard is agony. The one benefit is that these 2 hours are probably going to be the same 2 hours I'll have once back at work.
My past fandom experience is that I usually mono-play in a fandom for around 5 years -- but I've never had kids+work+other family commitments when writing before.
I do hope I still have the drive to keep writing once am back at work. I can already feel that anxious itch of pressure, though, and my way of coping with pressure is to aggressively prune everything (friends, family, hobbies, chores, self) that causes the slightest bit of peripheral friction so I can concentrate on the thing that I can't prune (work, money, survival). BUT, this time, I go back to a new area-director role rather than my past project-director role, which should have less crazy deadline pressure/inconsistent hours than most construction work, so I'm just not sure what to expect. It'll be the first time in my life when I actually have a desk job with consistent hours.
Of my current Last Second Ending arc, I really want to finish the Holford fic, the Diana fic, and the Charlie fic (the 'Churchill' vehicle, although I'm so many chapters away from Churchill it's nuts!), which are all the live and incomplete multi-parters-- but as multiparts they are more challenging to do. I have several other ideas/snips scattered through the timeline, but they're fairly short as drabbles, flash-fic or circa 10k standalones, so they will be less heavy to complete and easier to do around work hours -- but they do tempt me now because they're more easy and fun to produce. This timeline's list of ideas has stayed stable for a couple of months now, so at least I know what 'finished' looks like for this arc, even if I don't quite get there.
I do have two firm AUs which itch at me wildly (timeline arcs again). I'm desperate to write the first piece of both as an anchor/test, but keep deferring because I know I'll have to sanity-check my motivation after finishing (or hitting a motivational brick wall with) Last Second Ending.
The 'easy' AU is the 1990s AU which is Tommy x Lizzie, set broadly post S3 and to the end of S4 as an AU S4. It's easy because there's only a few scenes in my head but they're all pretty heavy/hardcore and I can't find an 'in' for framing them yet.
But the second is that weird-arse Dragon Age II fusion AU which is less pairing focused and more family focused, albeit a great deal of pairings and sex within - but it could be a fascinating little monster of a thing, so I'm letting that simmer in back of mind until well after I get back to work to see if there's sufficient motivational drive. It's likely to become a 'what if the PB version of the Real World also had five millennia of Blights, mages, the Fade and Circles as part of Real World history/currency?' idea (alternatively: magic is real but it's pretty fucking ugly what humans do with it).
I also have about five loose BUF-Britain AU list of flashfic sketch ideas, which are generally 'things and scenes that might happen if Mosley was voted into power and took over england', which is primarily Tommy and Alfie.
And I have one solitary sort-of crackfic sort-of-not-crackfic -- S5 from the 'My Property' scene onwards but with the addition of a male chastity device -- which despite the crack premise will actually be really difficult to write compelllingly with the amount of scene checking and chronology I'd need, and accordingly is so low on the list I only think about it in idle moments to amuse myself.
There were a range of other ideas (like a 28 Days Later AU, or a Butcher x Baker AU, or why can I not have these endlessly magnificent threesomes I desperately want to read) but mostly they were isolated 'wouldn't that be cool' scenes without any sustained continuity or theme, so with time limits, they've sort of withered away.
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runninguplenorahills · 3 months
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Lenora you’re back!!!!!💕💞💕💞
How have you been?
Heyyyy✨🌞
I’ve been doing pretty great honestly. I got through my finals and I actually did quite well :)). I didn’t take the biology exam though because holy fuck I can’t even do simple math and we were supposed to do crazy equations, no calculators allowed💀. So yeah, didn’t study at all and woke up in a cold sweat like three days before the exam and quickly set myself on inactive because I would’ve definitely fucking flunked it. But English went great, got one of the best grades out of the entire course for my presentation I was sweating buckets over beforehand, linguistics went well as well and the rest was just pass or fail and fortunately I passed but I’m still waiting on a feedback for my pedagogy portfolio. Speaking of waiting, I spent weeks in February working on my art portfolio and applied for art school and I’m waiting for a response to that, too.
I also finally read “The song of Achilles” but it sadly didn’t earn its place next to my favorites, like, it was actually only three stars for me if I’m really honest. Currently I’m reading “Persuasion” (I’m about half way through) and that books actually pretty great but the first like 80 pages are just like, set up lmao. But after that it quickly gets better!!! I haven’t continued reading in a couple of days though which I should absolutely do soon because the new semester starts in two weeks and then idk how much time I’ll have to read. I’m actually taking British and American literature classes in the new semester which I’m pretty excited about!!!!
Oh boy, I also finally watched s5 of Miraculous and the alternate universe Paris special and the movie and bro, s5 was an absolute dumpster fire…. Actually fucking insane. But the Paris special was kinda entertaining lol, and I can’t lie…. the movie was pretty good. Like… it was honestly great hahahah. I also watched Cars btw! I have watched the first part before but never the rest and then my sister wanted to watch Cars so we did and yeah, Cars is amazing ofc. I also finally watched But I’m a Cheerleader which was all over the okays but it was funny and I loved the ending. I’m trying to remember what else I watched but I don’t remember anything else… hmmm… Oh!! Omg, I watched Christopher Robin and I didn’t not except that movie to be as good as it was. I was in genuine tears over fucking everything and yeah, very enjoyable. I also watched The Sixth Sense which was good, did not see the plot twist coming though, Like, spoiler! I literally remember thinking “oh.. so he survived I guess” when it says “next fall” like a fucking idiot 😭. I don’t think I watched any other movies though.
Wait, I also read the entirety of Jackson’s diary on webtoon and it was a fucking roller coaster.
Other than that I’ve been hanging a lot with my friends, especially those who moved to another city for university. There’s this café we always and in the past two weeks we’ve gone three times and you can borough games to play and we usually play scrabble which is always sm fun!
Oh and holy shit, I turned fucking 20!?!?! Absolutely batshit insane, I cannot believe it.
Also, I just kinda left tumblr very like, impulsively because I had finals coming up and thought it’d be distracting, but also, tumblr tends to suck the life out of me sometimes so I thought taking a break would be worth it either way. After finals where over I then had to work on my art portfolio and I have a huge procrastination problem so I stayed off tumblr because I knew it would make it worse and so I just left and didn’t reply to anyone, which, I’m sorry, I missed you and the other mutuals so much but I also don’t think that many people even noticed that I took a break in the first place. Anyway,I’ll probably dip when Uni starts again as well but I thought it’d be nice to catch up with y’all before that happens.
How have you been doing :))💓💗💓💗💓
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lycanlovingvampyre · 1 year
Text
MAG 128 Relisten
Activity on my first listen: putting up a new fence.
BASIRA: "Jon. Don’t turn on the light. Go get Melanie, quickly." Get Melanie? For what? She’s not Buffy the Vampire Slayer anymore.
BREEKON: "That’s right. Just wanted to – to drop off a package." That pause after “Just wanted to”. He's so unsure of what he's doing...
JON: (with compulsion) "Why are you here?" BREEKON: "Dunno." (pause) "‘S not right, on my own. Not right. No point in doing it on my own." Breekon & Hope... Still a better love story than Twilight... (I like how TMA makes us feel for people and monsters who did terrible things. But in the end I guess we're all just human?)
BREEKON: "Make me." [AND ALL AT ONCE THERE’S A STRANGE SOUND, MUSICAL YET HOLLOW, AND IT SEEMS TO BE BUILDING TO –] JON: "Stop." Seriously this "strange sound, musical yet hollow" and then Jon putting a stop to it is actually really badass. How's that for recording enemies into submission!
BREEKON: "What are you – stop it. Stop it!" [WHEN THE ARCHIVIST SPEAKS, IT HAS AN ECHO TO IT, REMINISCENT OF THE HOLLOWNESS FROM EARLIER:] JON: "No." Yes Jon, show 'em you're not everyone’s punching bag anymore!
I btw also always thought Breekon just couldn't stand the gaze of Jon anymore and fled the Archives, perhaps tossing over a table or a chair in his way and slamming some doors (Does this count as door motif? Oh, when we're on the subject of slamming doors! There is a video of Sam Sam the music man breaking down the TMA main theme and he said those smashing sounds at the end of the theme are supposed to be slamming a door! Just because it's such a stereotypical thing for the horror genre - see MAG 85 Upon the Stair "And please don't slam the door". Such a fitting coincidence! But I already said in one of those Relisten posts, coincidences like this happened a lot more often than people probably think, it's a blessing for artists!) Ok, lost the thread a bit there. I think the image of the telekinesis comes from the fact, that we don't really hear any footsteps? (And I think, people wanted to give Jon a bit more badassary probably? He's demonstrating it so well already in this scene, why not go a bit further xD I generally like it, but I think it doesn't really fit into canon, he'd be too op.) Thing about footsteps in TMA is it's a bit inconsistent until S5? This has bothered me in a few instances before, like the end of MAG 21, when Martin storms into Jon's office. We only hear the door and the squelching of the worms. No out of breath sound aaand no footsteps. There was another one when I thought it's really missing footsteps, god I can't remember what it was... What I'm saying is, I wouldn't really get hung up on (the lack of) footsteps here.
"We started in a plague." / "It wasn’t the plague they feared; it wasn’t the death that waited in our wagon. It was us. Two strangers rolling towards them, unstoppable and uncertain, wearing faces they would only half-remember, bringing a fate they would beg their god to forget." Hm, wearing faces they would only half-remember... Strangers at the time of the plague I’d think more of those masks plague doctors wore - being literally unable to see their faces.
"Poor wretches who emerged from Millbank, with tales of Australia and its cruelties on their lips, bundled into the cramped and creaking ship that would drag them away from everything they loved. And towards everything they feared. That was the first time we saw what would become this place: The Eye’s Pedestal." Hold on, wait! Is that another reference that Millbank Prison was a place of power for the Eye? The Robert Small was a convict ship and (Western) Australia was a penal colony of the British Empire..
"We were conductors on a train, prim suits and scowls, a relentless beast of iron and steam that never seemed to get you exactly where you wanted to be unless there was something dreadful waiting for you. We punched tickets, ignored questions, and threw off those who looked like they were having too fine a time of it." Lol, is that a dig at public transports? xD
"We carried and lifted and helped the circus move towards its next destination, the next doomed town." Makes me think that they probably would have made superb roadies!
"Sometimes we joined the show, lifting weights and things that looked like animals. Sometimes we lifted members of the audience. Sometimes we even put them down again." First of all, lol, that last sentence. Second, throwback to MAG 24 - the two strong-men!
"And so we took the casket, a hungry thing of the earth, a crushing, choking tomb that will not let you die because it is too much what it is for death to find you there" “Too much what it is for death to find you there”... Saying the End has no grasp within the coffin. And not just the End because Daisy also lost her connection to the Hunt in the coffin. Eye + Web being the only ones with a chance to make it out.
"It was one like us that found it, a thing of shifting names and deja-vu. A fool, that believed because it found the coffin in chains, it would be an easy thing to control, to bargain with." Confirmation that MAG 2's "John" was a capital-S Stranger.
"She took him from me, made us a me." Still a better love story than Twilight!!!
"And she doesn’t get to die for that. She gets to live, trapped and helpless, and entombed forever." There are fates worse than death-trope.
"I have never known hate before. I have never known loss. But now they are with me always, and I desire nothing but to share them with you." Still a better-
JON: (voice shaky) "Statement.. ends." [HE COLLAPSES.] Since Melanie makes fun of Jon in MAG 189 about him collapsing again I have the headcanon that Melanie came across collapsed Jon, was like "Alright then" and just left again. (Maybe she went to tell Basira.)
BASIRA: (inhale, set) "Right. Keep it safe; I’ll be gone a few days. I have some leads I need to follow up." Oh, that (whatever that was exactly) was what Elias was proposing to Basira at the end of the previous episode, not his actual plans about the coffin. Alright, gotcha, I'm on track again!
@a-mag-a-day
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luckyqueenreign · 11 months
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I hope no one takes this the wrong way, but I feel like the reaction to Ozzy at the Stick or Switch was kind of exaggerated. This said by an Ozzy stan who would’ve also liked to have more, btw.
It’s just:
— Ozzy and MC aren’t in a relationship. They’re not even in a couple. That doesn’t mean he can’t have a reaction when seeing her, but it’s obvious that the point of Stick or Twist was to capture how the couples were doing.
— Ozzy did still have a reaction when seeing MC. Even two, actually. Maybe they’re not what a lot of his stans were imagining, but they make perfect sense. Ozzy was rattled when he was MC, in a “I knew you were still here but having you right in front of me is another thing” kind of way. He even felt discomfort towards Grace, and they weren’t doing anything romantic.
— Ozzy was even more rattled by seeing Amelia bring Marshall back, and that was clearly taking center stage in his mind.
— In all of this, yes, Ozzy was happy to see Grace, but nothing romantic happened during Stick or Switch. The only thing Ozzy showed us with his reaction is that he cares for Grace.
— But, most importantly, Ozzy went on the show to find love. If that’s how one wants to play it, so has MC. Yes, they have clearly found something great together, but they’ve also known each other for nine days (three of which weren’t even spent together). It’s normal to have doubts, it’s normal not to rush into abandoning the Villa, it’s normal to explore one’s options and work on figuring out what one’s feeling in the process.
(That goes for both Ozzy and MC. Some people make it seem like it’s a one-way street.)
— And to top it off, MC got “eliminated” before she and Ozzy had the chance to define anything except that they have feelings for each other. That’s good, but not a solid base for certainty when you’ve just met one another and are on a show to flirt, fall in love, or even just take the money. Again, it’s totally normal to have doubts. And it’s totally normal to want to respect your partner’s feelings in a delicate moment (such as Stick or Twist), even if your heart lies elsewhere.
Plus, have we forgotten that the postcard is also a thing in the main Villa? MC had every right to have fun in CA, but it’s normal to have Ozzy and\or the other LIs form doubts about the postcard. Hell, FB will have probably taken an “innocent,” out of context moment and framed it so that even MCs who didn’t do anything in CA looked bad.
So, again, why are so many people so angry? Ozzy’s reaction wasn’t bad; it was even pretty understandable. We don’t even know if and what he saw of CA\what the authors may have made him believe. Give the guy time to process things, he’s human too.
Then, if he talks to MC and things still don’t evolve, the hurt will be completely justified. For now, let’s just wait and see.
(Btw, am I the only one hoping that Elliot leaves MC single and we’re actually given first choice at the next recoupling - end of this week, max. next week - for some reason? I saw some people expecting that Elliot’s choice will be based on ours, but I don’t think so. Considering the point we’re at and the fact that even slow burn routes usually get unlocked around episode thirty, leaving MC single at this stage would be the perfect opportunity to open all routes\lock in with the LI one has chosen. If one hasn’t switched, of course. If one has, they could simply get first choice at the next recoupling, no explanation needed.)
I dont think it's an exaggeration but more so a collective sigh on FBs terrible writing coupled with our s5 trauma. if you weren't a Suresh girly in S5 you might not have had as many deja vu type flashbacks with this last update. Consider this.... last season Suresh basically told us he wanted no one else but us and he gave us a big show on the terrace only to be whisked off to Casa, come back with another girl on his arm and barely acknowledging that we were in the villa. Cut to this season, MC + Ozzy have they've told each other they want to be coupled up and MC kissed Ozzy on her way out of the villa. And then we walk back into the villa to him barely acknowledging our presence. Just saying "we were sure you'd gone home" but then acknowledging Grace the same girl he supposedly isnt attracted to.
look im not writing off Ozzy AT ALL. but I fully feel people are justified in feeling slighted by that last update. it was giving mediocre. and literally every single post casa fan fic Ive read has been better than anything fb strung together. For me THATS why im annoyed. why is the fandom better at writing meaningful stories over people who actually get paid to do this??? Even if AI is writing the scripts someone has to read this over to make sure it makes sense and it's very obvious no one has.
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bookinit02 · 7 months
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HI im so sorry i just finished reading the e4 script and i am just . fuckign speechless i cant articulate at all lol it was soo amazing when i finished i needed to stare at a wall for like three minutes straight just to process hang on one sec hang on a minute let me uh let me jsut two seconds here hangn on HDSHHSDCHSCSCVGSCVGDVGSCDCGSXCGXSCXSCGSGSCGCGHCXGHCGXHCHXHXFFHCHXD#DFFDCEFHDFSNCNKSDCNJDSTHFH3489FDJNHJFVDSHJFDHSDFDHVHGSDCVDGHC489FHJHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH i am literally SO OBSESSED you are such a talented writer and im so sorry once again for dumping all my thoughts in ur askbox especially when most are just incoherent but i have so many of them 😭 and this has been on my mind like all day lmao chewing on drywall actually<3333
okay first of all i LOVE HOW EVERYTHING IS COMING TOGETHER IT'S SO INTERESTING all the little plotlines feed into the bigger ones,,,,,, th hive mind isn't toxic plot which means SHITT vecna isnt trying to kill them he's trying to do something Else WHY ARE YOU SO GOOD AT PLOT TWISTS AAAAAAA and the back-and-forth between dustin and robin, the reveal that vecna was trying to force someone out ("where's will?")CHILLS. THE CHILLS. GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD it was so cool omgg omgomgomg. also max's storyline is literally INSANE i am SO INVESTED and i love how you've handled it so far i can't wait to see where you're gonna go with it!! <3 like. LIGHT. run the other way run to the light,,,, and the whole thing with TERRY is so genius it all makes so much sense but i never saw it coming and it was just SOOO SICK to see play out on the script i was on the edge of my damn seat the whole time you are literally SO TALENTED i am yelling sosososo loud!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
kind of continuing on from that i love all the references to past seasons :D the heart motif with lumax and byler has me in a chokehold btw grnjfrgnjfdjknnfjdgvknjkgfdjnkhehe!!!!!!! and the "you can leave, it's---" the rain is DEAFENING. will FLINCHES. THE RAIN SCENE??? also HELLOOOOOOO EMOTIONAL RAIN SCENE i think i can speak for all of us when i say im FLOOORED!!!!! gahhhhhh I CANT I ACTUALLY CANNOT YOURE AMAZING AND SO IS YOUR WRITING!!! plus the curiosity voyage WHO CHEERED :)
the. the byler quarry scene i. the lead up to it was INCREDIBLE and the gut punch sliding down walls head in hands heartwrenching 1000year brainrot is REAL because it has been my resting state since i read it when it dropped!!!!!! <3 basically my quick review is AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA and woag the slightly less quick review is also AAAAAokay no im kidding dont worry i have soo many thoughts head FULL girl i am so unwell over it "stay" THE CHEEK TOUCH THE HAND OVER HEART THE "i cant" and then it's TOO LATE.throwing up!!!!!THROWING UP and the jump and the running start and the rainstorm as a whole i am . I AM !!!!!!!! I AM SOOOOOOqhjwhjsdhjjhdjhdsjwjsdjhhjdhjehjwejhogufdoudfgjgdfjjwhdjhd dyinf a thousand deaths passing away rn
ANYWAYYY looking back on this i realize how long it is I AM SO SORRY JESUS😭😭😭 but yeah thats my roundabout way of letting you know that this rewrite and the s5 plot and scripts and fic and shoutout to the characterization which you NAILED it's absolutely EVERYTHINGGGG okay i promise im done now im so sorry like i said this got Way Unreasonably Long but thank you sosososo much for sharing this with us i hope you have a great rest of your day!! :D
this is the comment that made me cry at work btw so please never apologize for it being long😭😭 this was soooooo nice of you and it makes me so happy to know that all the work i put into these scripts is being recognized!!
one of the biggest challenges of this script has definitely been all the intersecting plot lines. i’ve never really attempted anything this expansive or complicated before, so there’s definitely a learning curve to it! i’m glad you’re enjoying it so far. & while i don’t think this plot twist is one of my best by any means, and honestly i wasn’t even thinking about it as a plot twist, i’m still glad you liked it! i really adore writing plot twists, and i love the feeling you get when reading something that has been so cleverly executed. it’s really the same feeling that i strive to emulate in all my fics!
i just said this in another ask, but i am SO psyched about max’s plot. i was really stuck on what to do with her, but i didn’t want to sideline her. pairing her up with terry was something that i never considered, but i literally had a revelation one night and was like oh my god that’s PERFECT!! & i haven’t seen anyone else do anything even moderately close, so i’m very excited to try something new.
i love a good reference!! parallels make my heart so happy. or so sad. depending on the circumstance. the rain fight one was a little bit evil, i’ll admit. the curiosity voyage was a lot more fun!
i was also unwell over the quarry scene. i literally cried writing it. i had to take multiple breaks. just ask suni i was SO unwell oh my god😭 so i’m right there with you.
again, please don’t apologize!!! this was incredibly kind of you, and it makes me so unbelievably happy to get comments on my script. this is an episode that i was insanely proud of, and i’m really happy that everyone has enjoyed it so much. thank you so much for all your kind words!!💗🫂
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captain-hen · 1 year
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hi again! i loved 5x12 so much ❤ it means so much to me that 911 is willing to tackle difficult subjects like these and treat them with the respect that they deserve. i love that neither of them were "in the wrong" and i love how hopeful it was. i love that maddie missing six months didn't mean that she failed as a mother, and i really loved the lil ending scene with the three of them singing together. and i also loved that eli came back!! that was such a great callback :)
i hope you don't mind that i keep giving you updates btw!! this show just makes my heart so happy and i love talking about it ❣️ this is the first time in a really long time that i've watched a show where i've been this invested in the happiness of all the characters, and thanks to 911's signature style of long-form storytelling in the age of binge streaming, it's also the first time in a while that i've been this satisfied with the way these stories play out. i'm excited to finish this season and s6 so that i can watch live and experience the show weekly :)
--NewTo911Anon
5x12 is SUCH a good episode, it made me cry like a baby and i'm still not over it. i really love how it—and the rest of the episodes—didn't villainize maddie or chim even a little bit, it was such a painfully accurate representation of how mental illness can feel like its dragging you and everyone around you down, and how we can say and do things we normally would never do in the throes of it. maddie saying that people aren't themselves while they're hurting is honestly one of the best ways to summarize s5, imo. and i really love how their issues weren't magically wrapped up and they still had a long way to go in communication and working through what they'd been through in the past six months separately. JLH actually gave a couple of interviews with some really good insight into maddie's storyline, and what it personally meant to her as a mother herself, and these are interviews i actually recommend you check out!
i don't mind these updates at all, it's really nice to hear from someone experiencing the show for the first time 🥰 911 having weekly releases and 18-episode seasons is SUCH a breath of fresh air, most shows these days suck because the 10-episode model + entire seasons being dropped at the same time doesn't really give room for the story to breathe and grow, puts a pressure on fans to watch immediately and has frankly lowered the level of comprehension among fans because people don't know how to wait for a resolution to a storyline anymore, and call it bad writing if they have to use their brains and be patient for a while, instead of getting all the information all at once. the fact that these shows are always in danger of being canceled at any moment doesn't help.
there's still two more weeks before the next episode airs, so maybe you'll be able to catch up! 911 mondays are WILD lmao and it's so much fun to experience watching live with the entire fandom ❤
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riddlers-roulette · 2 years
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I cannot be the only one thinking of applying Taylor Swift’s Cornelia Street to Nygmobs.
I just- their Cornelia Street is so obviously Grundy Street??? Ed’s apartment where they played duets on pianos and murdered Mr Leonard and just- all of it??
“And baby, I get mystified by how this city screams your name/And baby, I’m so terrified of if you ever walk away” ====> Listen. Oswald IS Gotham. It’s something he believes in so ardently and it lives in his blood, his very bones. And how the city screams his name?? The love riddle. Ed believed Oswald could win the election out of love from the people and he did. And as many times as he loses power, he really quickly gains it back. As for walking away? Ed literally stood on that pier for 10 seconds after Oswald said he was staying for Gotham and Ed did something we were all waiting for honestly- he chased after Oswald. He chose to stay because living without Oswald wasn’t appealing to him in the least.
Back when we were card sharks, playing games/I thought you were leading me on/I packed my bags, left Cornelia Street/Before you even knew I was gone====>listen how many times does Ed have to ask Oswald why he’s done something for him? When Barbara told Ed that Oswald loved him, Ed literally couldn’t believe it. When he accuses Oswald of having done something to him when he payed Hugo Strange to save him, he thinks it’s Oswald playing him again. And the accusation really obviously hurt Oswald too, because he just shows over and over that he would do anything for Ed, that he loves him still despite everything.
But then you called, showed your hand/I turned around before I hit the tunnel/Sat on the roof, you and I=====> the iconic Murder Husband vows. Need I say more? Okay fine, but only because I could talk about these two forever- Oswald jumping in front of Edward when the grenade is thrown. This is the first time Ed doesn’t ask Oswald why he’s done something, because this is the moment he’s figured it out. Oswald loves him and never stopped.
Barefoot in the kitchen/Sacred new beginnings/that became my religion, listen====>the two of them always finding their way back to each other??? Fate having “other plans” for them then hurting each other. They were meant for each other, and them being drawn to each other, living together, is such a constant?? Grundy Street, Oswald’s mansion, (Ed being a permanent fixture in the ice berg lounge) the safe houses, and I’m sure they’re going to stay together after the events of the s5 finale. Also the reason Jeremiah was able to use Ed was through the fake letter from Oswald- a letter that Ed held to his heart like it was a love letter btw- and Jeremiah totally knew to use Oswald because 1)everyone in Gotham knows of their bond probably and 2)Ed totally talked about Oswald in Arkham
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deluweil · 3 years
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okay, my take-away from this episode is: “You guys are so weird!”
I do not understand the writers’ insistence on Buck, supposedly almost leaving.
I would have understood, if it was about leaving to find Maddie, or making the wrong call about the CO2, but guilt about Chimney?
Not getting that. Chimney went to get his wife back, that’s it, he was mad at Buck but really keeping a grudge after lying to Buck’s face about the family secret for weeks, is really hypocritical and I refuse to believe that the Chimney we normally know, would do that. - I will say this though, I did not like Chimney in S1, his personality rubbed me the wrong way, Maddie made him, relatable, likable, to me anyway.
I figured with Maddie gone for a while, we would get to see Chimney being relatable and lovable as he learns to be a father, and him and Buck growing closer as they take care of Jee in Maddie’s absence.
This particular storyline, does not work for me. Also Buck almost-leaving didn’t make sense either. He would be leaving Ravi with no backup, Eddie and hen won’t be having sufficient cover as they pull patients from burning building, as we saw today, when Buck and Ravi came back in the nick of time to put out the flames surrounding Cap and Eddie and the patient. - Not to mention he would be leaving the 118, not one but two men down.
That may have been who Buck was up until S3, but now? I don’t buy that. Sorry. Not impressed with this scene.
I did love Eddie’s “You’re stuck with us.” 
Which btw, there would have been no world where Buck announced he’s leaving the 118 without talking to Eddie first. - Eddie would have knocked some sense to him long before, whatever it was at the dining table - just saying.
Also at no time did cap come and told Buck to stop being a drill sergeant - not buying that either.
Hen and Eddie learning to work together, is priceless! The entire time I’m torn between my love for Hen and feeling sorry for Eddie lol They will rock together until Chimney comes back and I can’t wait to see more.
But even though we didn’t get to see many buddie scenes together, officially that is, we can see them still orbiting each other the entire episode, even though they’re partnered with other people, they still work together seamlessly, whenever needed or possible and that is a treat to watch.
Last bit, not about buddie, even now that I know (even though I did before) about Claudette's motives, I still don’t like her. - Sorry.
Love May, she’s been rocking the first few S5 episodes so hard!! I’ve never loved her more!!
And Athena needs to stop calling that creep by his first name, he doesn’t deserve that and I agree with Michael she needs therapy - a lot of it. 
And Harry, it feels to me, has reached the stage where he questions his mother’s motives and actions, a little like May did (a bit more low key) in S3. I believe he will come around eventually. - But Athena hitting him, imo, broke something of the trust the two of them had, he will hold her at arms length for a while.
I’m not going to talk much about Taylor, I do however think that she’s making an effort, and they’re together quite a bit in this episode, so kudos for that? I guess.
and from that last scene, you can see in her eyes, that she loves Buck, in what capacity, remains to be seen. 
But her “Not everything is about you” (as right as she may have been) felt like a call back to S3 where Buck was constantly told that by the people he trusts the most and that completely wrecked his self esteem (which wasn’t high in the first place).
Also that hug, when he comes back to the apartment and Taylor hugs him, he looks like he’s a thousand miles away, a bit like Eddie did after he talked to Carla. - buddie crumbs?
Anyway, I can’t believe we have to wait another two weeks for a new episode!!! 
It’s too far!! - somebody hold me...  😭
Happy Tuesday everyone - I’m off to the pool    😁❤ 
Bonus:
“You guys are pretty jacked, what kind of work-out do you do?” 😂😍
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crossovereddie · 3 years
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Actually, here is an alternative thing for you to occupy your time with, and a question I have been meaning to ask you for a while. I have finished 911 finally! So I'm ready for the new season. And I wonder, realistically, what do you think the roadmap would be for a buddie endgame?
I absolutely see how their story has been framed and filmed in a lot of parallels to how a romantic storyline would be set out. But there has been no outright mention of either of them being bi - although the conversation about Maddy setting Buck up with whassisface was very casual and could very easily have been an example of canonically bi Buck - and they are both at the end of season 4 in 'relationships' with women.
So, in your estimation, what's the timeline? What's the transition? How do they go about this and how long does it take? I wanna know your thoughts 👀
okay yes i have lots of thoughts on this and it's actually one of my fave questions i get asked. I've always watched a lot of tv shows so I'm just estimating on what I've seen before and what I would personally do. IMO this love story is a slow burn. We only have four seasons so far and only three of those seasons have Eddie in them. This unsurprisingly got long so ill put it under the cut.
So I'll go by seasons bc to me its important to look at everything that has happened so far by seasons and by love interests and not as a whole. Its the best way i can form a timeline that I think would make the most sense and why
S1: So we don't get any hints at Buck being anything other than straight and I think this is because he was supposed to be. They hadn't planned for Eddie yet and they definitely hadn't planned for the chemistry Oliver and Ryan were gonna have. S1 Buck was this reckless kid who didn't take anything serious. He was definitely super immature. Then he meets Abby and he starts to get serious about his job and his love life. I'm not gonna say "Abby changed him" because she didnt. He saw the person he was and the person he was becoming and decided on that change himself.
S2: Eddie!!!! So we get introduced to this army medic turned firefighter in the least heterosexual way. Then Buck is angry because Eddie is hot and really good at his job. they work together and Eddie compliments Buck and now they're smiley bffs. Seriously wtf was all that? Anyway this is all sus bc from what ive seen before in other shows when a main love interest leaves and a new main character replaces them, that means something. JLH replaced Connie Britton as far as big name actress but i really believe Eddie replaced Abby as far as importance in Buck's life. Do i think they brought him in with the intentions of turning him into a LI? No but they sure fueled the narrative from the get go. I think they saw fans reactions and started testing the waters.
Moving on to LIs in this season. We find out Eddie has a kid and the mother is not in the picture (eddie made sure buck knew that right away). Then later on we find out he's technically still married. shannon comes back and we get Eddie finally getting to confront this head on. He tries to get his family back together for the sake of his son. Its big for Eddie's character bc all he does and all he's ever done is for his son. Then Shannon asks for a divorce then she dies bringing this arc to an abrupt end and leaving eddie heartbroken.
meanwhile Buck is still waiting for Abby. Then he finally accepts that shes not coming back and decides to move on. He goes right back to being "Buck 1.0" with Taylor and feels bad about himself because that really isnt him anymore. He wants a real relationship. So then Ali calls and asks him on an actual date and he agrees. This is his first try at a relationship after a heartbreak. in tv these don't usually work out but are used to develop the main character's growth. We don't really see much of her but she breaks up with him so.
S3: This is Eddie finally dealing with his feelings/guilt season. This is also the season I think we really see how important Buck is to the Diaz boys. S2 had cute buckley-diaz family moments but those could still be interpreted as a best friend and his best friend's kid. This season though... after the tsunamic episode was when i really started to fully believe buddie was going canon. This season is solidifying their bond not only as Buck and Eddie but as Buck Eddie and Christpher. As I'm writing this I realized neither of them really has a love interest in this season do they? Ana is introduced but then is clearly presented as definitely NOT the right choice for eddie and especially for Chris. Then they counter that with Buck helping Eddie build a skateboard for Chris that he can use as opposed to Ana's ablest remarks about how he can't do it so just move on to something else. Then we get Buck's reaction in Eddie Begins. Buck has seen his team his friends his family get hurt on the job before but he has never reacted the way he did when it was Eddie in danger. Again solidifying just how much these two mean to each other. Don't even get me started on this season being when Eddie changes his will offscreen. Anyway we get Abby back and Buck finally gets the closure from that relationship that he needs to move forward into a serious relationship.
Now S4: jfc s4....IMO this is the only logical season to get the ball rolling on Buddie and they sure did that with 4x14 despite everything else. So i never thought they would be the first serious relationship for each other after the heart break theyve both experienced. It wouldn't be fair to their character developments. Buck tries dating Veronica and that clearly doesnt work but we know hes now open to dating again. We get Buck Begins where we see why Buck is the dare devil he is. The only way he got his parents attention as a kid was to put himself in danger. They bring back taylor and how to they ultimately get together after she friendzones him? She thinks hes in danger and suddenly wants him. As much as i hate it this is really gonna be a relationship where Buck finally stands up for himself and sees his own worth and realizes he deserves more. He deserves someone who sees him and loves him for who he is. He deserves to be chosen, something Abby Ali his parents dont do and what i think taylor wont end up doing. I feel like shes gonna choose her career over him. Maybe not in a "I'm breaking up with you" way but maybe she takes a new job and want to do LD (hes tried that twice and it didnt work for him. hes not gonna want that) or she could ask him to go with her but he wont. His family is in LA. His job is in LA. Eddie and Chris are in LA and he won't leave them. Then we have Eddie finally deciding to move on and try dating again so they bring back ana. To me it's not gonna work out so I'm not bothered at all lmao. It's interesting that they'd choose her though. Someone we already know Eddie doesn't trust with his son. There's also more buckley-diaz family scenes of them being coparents. The hildy episode, Chris running to Buck when hes mad at eddie, Buck being the one to tell Chris Eddie got hurt, then Buck staying with Chris and taking on the guardian role without him even knowing just how much that role really does belong to him. He didn't do it out of obligation. He didn't do it because he was asked to. He did it because he thought it would be best for Chris. Finally to 4x14. This is by far the biggest "Oh shit this is it. This is the beginning of buddie". We find out Eddie changed his will a year ago and has just been sitting on this info. I think Eddie knew back then what it meant but he wasn't in the right mindset to accept what it means so he kept it to himself. I think he finally started allowing himself to go there during treasure hunt. The man was jealous yall. Carla coming back and her comment about doing whats best for him and not chris is his oh shit moment. I think he wouldve broken up with Ana a few days after that if he had the time lol. He gets caught up in the mother/son sl then this poor mf gets shot by a sniper. The way that whole scene was filmed btw was not in a bff way. That was a lover watching his beloved almost die in front of him. Buck again puts himself down and Eddie decides this is the moment. He needs Buck to see how important he is. He wants buck to know how loved he is. So he sits there talking himself up to it and finally lets Buck know just how big of a part he is in Eddie's family. Buck's previous scene is him saying he wants someone who wants him back then here is Eddie saying he needs him...Chris needs him. wtf.
So with S5: I think Eddie knows and Buck has a feeling but he's not sure so what i would do is spend s5 with Eddie basically showing Buck his feelings but not exactly getting in the way of Buck's new relationship because Buck has to be the one to make that choice. Id also have chris feeling the different shift with buck having a gf like he did with Eddie. This newfound info wasnt just dropped on us for a "Aww so sweet" moment. This will business is gonna be a part of a bigger storyline. I'm hoping its with Eddie's family during maybe 5b.
So what I think would be the best timeline for canon buddie is 5a eddie already having either broken up with ana or is gonna break up with her, Buck choosing himself and ending things with Taylor by midseason finale, them bringing in Eddie's family in 5b and maybe then being when Eddie confesses his feelings for Buck. Then 6a we could get them walking on egg shells around each other not really knowing what to do bc this is all so new for both of them. This could bring just the right amount of comedy and angst especially them awkward and flustered around each other at work. A big blowup can happen between them for added angst (maybe an arguement before one of them or both of them is put in danger) then a midseason finale kiss. Then trying to find the balance between their personal relationship and their work relationship during 6b.
I don't know how long Fox shows last but procedurals can last a long time. I'm not sure thats gonna be the case for 911 especially with all the main cast staying that long so i think this would give us at least a whole season (S7) of canon buddie.
As far as then being presented as straight, there's been more seeds planted about buck being bi. A few i can remember off the top of my head: all of 2x1 lmao, maddie's comment about bucks boy crush on eddie, buck hinting at thinking eddie is cute when he thinks maddie is talking about him, the christmas elf, the comments on the instagram livestream, idk if youve watched it or not but TK's comment to Buck in the crossover episode, and like you mentioned Maddie's casual comment about setting him up with Josh. All we really know about Eddie's love life is he married Shannon when they were young and is trying with Ana so it could turn into a whole storyline for him.
I'm so sorry this is so long and took forever but i I hope i actually answered your question and didnt just get lost in rambles lmao.
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laufire · 3 years
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I was tagged by @wisteria-lodge (ty!)
The Game: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line. Then tag some authors!  
I went with the last 20 saved (well, edited) documents in my WIPs folder.
tagging: @elasticella @missbrunettebarbie @bebewrites @bombshellsandbluebells @punishandenslavesuckers @anghraine @toboldlywrite @sienarosso @grapecase and whoever else feels like giving it a go, just drop a mention so I see it ^-^
1. Castiel didn’t come to the decision easily; it shamed him to say that it had been, in no small part, a question of pride. (SPN. pre-s4 canon-divergence AU. The idea was inspired by this anon’s prompt).
2. A man in a trench coat had lurked on the corner of his eye all day; now, he waited for Dean outside his motel’s room. (SPN. This one was also inspired by an anon’s prompt (smh); it’s a Meg and Castiel role reversal AU, so now I have a whole ‘verse in my head with demon!Castiel and angel!Meg and how they’d fit in the story, meet the Winchesters, etc.).
3. Sometimes Bela indulged in the thought that the worst thing about Hell was the tedium, the rutine and repetition of the day to day; but then, the torture started. (SPN. My “Castiel gets Bela out of Hell” AU).
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5. In the upcoming days, Silver will work hard to forget this truth: when he dared to reveal his true nature to the crew, it wasn’t because he sorely needed to replentish his energy after losing his leg; it was because he’d hoped they would kill him. (Black Sails. Vampire Silver AU).
6. John Murphy’s second life started when he woke up hungry and filthy in a half dug mass grave. (The 100. Vampire Memori AU -part of my Vamp/Blade T100 AU series. Indra is Blade btw xD).
7. The last thing Anna espected was to open her eyes again after Michael’s attack. (SPN. Self-indulgent Anna/Mary AU).
8. “I take it the interrogation didn’t go your way.” Castiel couldn’t stop himself from needling Dean, who glared at him while his hands still shook. (SPN. Endverse!Megstiel story).
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10. Someone else might have thought they just woke up from a nightmare, but Silver knew his head had just hit against the rocks. (Black Sails. Max & Silver, Russian Doll inspired fusion, set in s1 of the show).
11. After talking with the rattled Ms. Bose, Jo could feel her luck in this hunt was finally changing. (SPN. Bela/Jo, s3 canon-divergence AU. Three guesses as to who is Ms. Bose).
12. Sam had put if off when Lucifer started raising; when he and Dean were on the plane; when Zachariah had them spilling their guts; in the hospital... but finally, he reunited a few seconds of calm to freak. The fuck. Out. (SPN. My Ruby’s Terror Twins series lmao -Ruby screams out she’s pregnant, shocks Sam and Dean enough she can escape with her knife. Then, a few months later...).
13. Ruby opened her eyes, and immediately knew two things: the slash in her stomach was healed, and she’d put her faith in the right deity. (SPN. Ruby Lives AU. Ideally, a rewrite, but that might be too ambitious xD. Of s5, sure).
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16. What Moira first noticed about Akeri was the book he’d tried to hide beneath his clothes; the carved marks on his cheeks came second. (Black Sails. Maroon Queen x Mr. Scott -who I gave alternate names because I can’t write an entire fic about them and pretend they call each other that lol).
17. Alastair spoke to Dean in a tone that sat in between that of a lover and a proud father. (SPN. Alastair brings Bela for Dean to torture).
18. The letters -all four of them now- never came signed; for that matter, there was nothing specific or damning enough, no misstep hidden within them that he could have used, and so he stopped looking for those. (Black Sails. Rackham x Rogers Foe Yay post finale lol).
19. That very night Silver will curse himself for his naivete, for thinking you can escape from something while you plant roots on a place; but in truth, the day had started so well. (Black Sails. An attempt to explore certain ideas about Silver’s past that’s likely to go nowhere lol).
20. At the ten year mark Silver returned to land and found the wrong woman waiting for him on the beach. (Black Sails. A weird “Silver ends as the captain of the Flying Dutchman” canon-compliant AU).
Patterns: ig the most notable one is that I like to throw the reader in the middle of the action, especially in fic. Often I go back and elaborate on the context, but I like a cold open xD
Favourite: I’m very happy with them all (first lines matter to me), but I’m especially fond of 9 and 14 for Latoya and Eva’s dramatics; 5 with vampire!Silver (ouchie); and 13 for the irony xD
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golden-redhead · 4 years
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My experience with spop was this - I knew nothing beforehand. saw how the Internet exploded over their kiss and thought "cute LGBTQ couple endgame? I'm in." started binging and I just kept waiting for them to grow closer but all I got was more abusive behavior? Then I finished s5 and just couldn't believe that that was it? That's how they ended up together? That's what got the Internet celebrating? I think knowing the endgame and how people raved over it made the experience worse for me tbh.
Oof, I honestly can’t imagine watching the show knowing how it ends, excited about getting some wlw rep we crave so much and then... that. I think some of the shows issues must get glaringly obvious if you actually watch it all as opposed to those of us who had to wait months before a new batch of episodes and had time to hype themselves out and just enjoyed the contents of s5 in this slight disconnect from the previous seasons. I am not entirely opposed against catradora (although I do not like it and do not ship it, I just dislike this kind of dynamic, it’s very clearly not my thing even if you completely erase the element of abuse and ignore the fact that they don’t hold the same beliefs or values like, at all), but the dedication with which the show did everything to avoid addressing all the shit that they should have addressed in order for the ending and Catra’s redemption to work is just... astounding, really. 
Like, imagine going SO OUT OF YOUR WAY and still not getting it right. 
For one, Catra never apologizes, not really, because I can hardly count her saying “I’m sorry for everything” as an apology. One of the rules of sincere apologies is that you actually acknowledge what you did wrong, apologizing for unspecified ‘everything’ is lazy and disrespectful and makes it look like some way to just take it off the list and be done with that part of Catra’s redemption. 
Two, talking with other fans really made me wonder how the supposed target audience, so kids aged 7 and older, perceive that ending, because I have an impression that they might have a hard time wrapping their head around it. I’ve heard that some kids are actually scared of Catra? And, honestly, I can see that, yeah. Not to mention just the message that all your abuser needs is for you to prioritize them and stay... Yeah. Um, nope. 
Three, my biggest issue as someone who genuinely loved the shows and the characters, my biggest complain is how everything had to be tossed aside in order to make catradora happen. Everything. Quite literally.
Scorpia getting over Catra, getting friends and appreciation she deserved? Accepting her role of a princess? Forming meaningful and healthy friendships and finding her place in the world? Fuck it, let’s chip her for like, half the season and ignore her conflict with Catra entirely. THE FUCKING DISRESPECT OF THAT.
Adora and Glimmer’s argument? You know, the driving force and main conflict of the entire 4th season? Yeah, yeah, let’s have Adora dismiss Glimmer’s apologies and never address that ever again, shall we?
Angella? Pff, who? Never heard of her!
Micah interacting with Glimmer for like, all of 2 minutes. 95% of that time fighting her while chipped by the bad guy. Um... okay. So much for the reunion with a daughter you didn’t see since she was, um, 5 at most?
Glimmer’s powers? The ones she’s been mastering and being insecure about episode one? Which were a huge part of why she even trusted Shadow Weaver in the first place? Yeah, they’re useless 3/4 of the season and then given to Melog. You know, that new character who is ridiculously overpowered and is basically Catra’s glorified moral support cat, despite being a sentient, intelligent being, the sole survivor of its planet. Of-fucking-course.
Oh, speaking of Shadow Weaver! The fucking HYPOCRISY of having a full season of Glimmer and Adora arguing over Glimmer choosing to work with her only to... Have Adora work with her. The entire season. And never mentioning it again. SURE. BECAUSE THAT MAKES SENSE.
(btw, I love how the show framed their conflict as something where Adora is basically 100% in the right... but when you think about it, Glimmer actually made much more solid points that actually turned to be true. the more you know!)
Mermista lost her entire kingdom because of Catra? Yeah, better let’s get her chipped too, before she has a chance to question why they’re working with the kitty lady who was about to murder them only 2 minutes ago. 
Adora spent 4 seasons trying to learn more about her past? Let’s drop it. Just because. Don’t question it, folks. Seriously, don’t.
Adora was about to die? Well, now she doesn’t! Why? Uh, um, what do you mean why, don’t you know that magical gay kisses fix everything? Smh. 
I just... This is bad writing, okay? 
And it feels like such an insult, because up until the last season I think the writing was really solid, the themes of abuse were handled very well, with respect and realistically, Adora’s conflicted feelings about She-ra, her destiny and her choice in all of this were interesting and believable, Glimmer was a great female character allowed to be (and do) things that female characters aren’t usually allowed to be, the supporting cast was strong and loveable and Prime... God, the way Horde Prime was set up as this intimidating, scary, bigger than the universe villain was genius. Hell, even at the beginning of s5 I had chills every time he was on screen. I was so excited about him, but every episode he was getting worse and worse until he became so meh I felt like crying.
And don’t even get me started on Catra saying that she saved Glimmer for Adora. This? This is when I knew there’s no saving this season. This was a slap to the face and the clearest sign that it was never about properly redeeming Catra at all, just getting her what she wanted.
And it’s a shame, too, because in a lot of ways Catra is a very interesting and compelling character who, despite what it looks like, in a lot of ways got the short end of the stick, because instead of telling a realistic, mature story about personal growth, they chose what was basically a instant forgiveness route and never showed Catra actually dealing with both what she’s gone through and what she’s done. Which is a shame and a huge disservice to Catra’s character.
So... yeah. Sorry about that rant, you are so valid, Anon, and I’m sorry. 
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