#jimmy solidarity they will never make me hate you | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cyanroads · 2 years

Text

"My Heart is Your Property"

It's the Property Police fanfic I've promised you. It's a High school Au that revolves around the Evolutionists. Martyn Littlewood, if you see this, look at the tags because sir you are not allowed to tell Jimmy Solidarity about this.

This was edited by @roseberryk, and I love and appreciate her for it because she's way better at writing than me. And that also may be why the writing style is slightly different than mine (Most of the dialogue is the same as I wrote it she just fleshed out everything else because I'm a simple man and can't write descriptive things.

Now, onto chapter 1 (I'll be posting chapters maybe once a week)

There’s hesitation in his hands, shaking and unstill, but the wood is knocked on anyway.

“Grian?” He asks, his voice quieter and more uncertain than usual.

To both his lack of and appearance of surprise, his brother’s voice is on the other side, the casual tone playing with his curious annoyance, "What is it, Timmy?”

"I need to talk to you."

The door shifted open, cleanly creaking so Jimmy could step inside. He does slip in, plopping precariously on the edge of the bed sheets while Grian sat not far beside him.

"What is it, Tim?"

He delays his words, every sentence he tries to formulate in his mind simply shattering and coming off his tongue like stutters. Impatience starts to seep through his brother’s eyes.

"Just say it, Tim."

"Alright!” he’d exclaim, his voice much louder than what he’d hoped could’ve come out. The stillness in the other’s voice was absolutely cracking him, and not in a good way.

He breathes the judging silence in.

“I'm. . .

I’m bisexual, G.”

He doesn’t even have to look up from the floor to read his face, he can just feel the shocked expression looking down at him. Does his brother even know how to react to this? He’s never met anyone who was queer by definition, hasn’t he?

The cruel silence tore him away, as a bad thing, as a souring opinion. He doesn’t think that Grian would try to chase him this time.

Jimmy grabbed his shoes, forced through their door, and jogged into the cold evening, with nothing but himself, a terrified perspective, biting tears, and a trail pre-made by his mind through the streets. He’s done this too many times before- he’s making his way to Martyn's house.

Does he even want him here? well,

He knocked on the door.

A woman attended to the door, scuffling to make it, only to find him distraught, wincing at the light. He knew her, she was Martyn’s mother, and that gave him at least one sign of relief.

"Come in,” She has some sympathy, as always. “Martyn's just upstairs."

Jimmy came in, slipping out of his shoes. He brought nothing, absolutely nothing but himself, his jacket, and self-imposed, anxiously queer baggage.

“Thanks.” he’d say. The woman giggles, as if to say ‘you’re welcome, but no need.’

Now, he just needs to climb to his best friend’s room, and wait for his brother’s proper response. That feels a lot like waiting for the police to break in and apprehend him from hiding.

"Oh, Tim?"

The door creaks further open, just as hesitant as an estranged coming out, but

Jimmy walked over and sat down and leaned into his best friend's shoulder and started to sob. Martyn wrapped his arms around Jimmy and ran his hand through Jimmy's hair to soothe him. "I'm assuming it didn't go well. Can you tell me what happened, bud?"

"I-I-I told him. And he just looked shocked and then, he just-he didn't say anything. So I don't think he accepts me. He probably thinks I'm terrible, and a disgrace, and hates me, and-"

Martyn grabbed Jimmy's hands, made Jimmy look at him.

"Solidarity James Jimothy Timmy Pete Gaming. Your brother does not hate you. No one will ever hate you. And if they do, they are heartless creatures ok?"

Jimmy hesitates, maybe doubting those words down-heartedly. Jimmy's phone started ringing. Jimmy looked at the screen, it said, "G."

He looked at Martyn, "should I pick up?"

Martyn nodded, "but give it to me, if he says anything mean, I don't want you to hear it." Jimmy gave Martyn his phone and Martyn answered it and left the room.

"Tim? Tim. bud, talk to me. I'm so sorry if I did something to upset you. It's just. I wasn't expecting my little brother to come out to me. I didn't know how to react. I'm so so so sorry. Please forgive me. Please say something."

"G, this is Martyn. I picked up the phone just in case you were homophobic. Do you want me to give you to Timmy so you can tell him that?"

Grian chuckled on the other side of the line, "Please?"

"Ok," Martyn walked back to his room, "Here he is," Martyn said, handing Jimmy his phone back. Grian told Jimmy the same thing he told Martyn.

"Love you, too, G" Jimmy said smiling.

"Are you at Martyn's house?"

"Yea, I'm at Martyn's house."

"Why'd he get to know first?"

"He knew before you because I knew he was accepting and he's my best friend"

"I thought I was your best friend?" Grian chuckled.

"You're my brother, he's my best friend that's not part of my family."

"Ok, is Martyn your boyfriend?" Grian teased.

"No!" Jimmy said blushing.

"Really, so do you like him?"

"NO!!"

"Just seeing, also, I talked to Mom after you left and said you were probably at Martyn's and she said you could spend the night there if you'd like."

"I'll probably stay, I'll ask Martyn."

"Bye, love you, Tim."

"Ok, bye, Love you," Jimmy said, hanging up.

"Martyn, can I spend the night here?"

"Of course, you're always welcome here, you know that." Martyn sat next to Jimmy on the bed. "So, wanna watch a movie or something?"

"You wanna watch Survivor Season 28?"

"Again?" Jimmy comes over once or twice a week. The Littlewoods' house is basically a second home to him. And they watch Survivor Cagayan at least once a month.

"But, Spencer Bledsoe," Jimmy reasoned.

"Can't argue with that logic." Jimmy has the biggest crush on Spencer Bledsoe.

It may take 11 hrs to watch but it's only 3 in the afternoon and at least this time they're watching on a summer night and not the night before finals. Because, let's just say, that wasn't the best idea. But hey, they both ended the semester with decent grades. About 4 hrs in, Martyn's mom brought them food and some drinks. She had brought them both a monster because she knew they were gonna stay up late and needed the energy if they were actually gonna get through the show because Jimmy was already half asleep.

Once they had gotten through it, Martyn started Season 31, but Jimmy was asleep on Martyn's chest by the time the second episode had started so Martyn turned off the tv, leaving them in complete darkness besides the moonlight shining through the window.

'God, he looks so cute in the moonlight.'

'Cute? Where'd that thought come from? He's my best friend, I can't have a crush on him. But, his hair does smell nice. Martyn, snap out of it. Sure, he's bi, but that doesn't mean he'll like you.' Martyn knew he was pan. Jimmy knew Martyn was pan. Jimmy just didn't know Martyn had been struggling with his feelings for Jimmy for the past 3 months. And when Jimmy had came out to him two months ago, Martyn struggled even harder to not gain feelings for Jimmy.

'He does not like you. You two are just friends. Deal with it.' Jimmy snuggled more into Martyn.

Martyn sighed happily. 'Doesn't mean the little things won't make me fall in love with him all over again.' Martyn thought before drifting to sleep.

Grian arrived at the Littlewood household at noon the next day. He knocked on the door. Mrs. Littlewood answered.

"Oh hello, Grian! Here to pick up Jimmy, I presume?"

"Yes, may I come in?"

"Of course! They're still in Martyn's room sleeping. They stayed up late last night."

"Thank you," Grian said walking in the house and heading up the stairs to Martyn's room and entering. He saw his brother asleep with his head on Martyn and drooling on Martyn's shirt. He saw Martyn's arms around Jimmy. He quickly took a picture on his phone. And then he shook Martyn awake. "Dude, wake up."

Martyn woke up and saw Grian, "Hey G, want me to wake him up. You can go downstairs and wait, I'll probably let him borrow some of my clothes when he wakes up."

"Ok," Grian said before leaving and shutting the door behind him.

Martyn ran his hand through Jimmy's hair and whispered, "wake up, Tim, G's here to take you back home." Jimmy shifted around before waking up.

"G'morning Martyn." He said through a yawn.

"Go steal some of my clothes. You can just give them back to me another time."

Jimmy nodded, grabbed a blue shirt and some jeans from Martyn's drawer and then went to the bathroom to shower and get changed. When he was done, he hugged Martyn and left. "Bye Martyn!"

"Bye Timmy," Martyn said as he watched the brothers walk out the door to Grian's car. 'Fuck, I'm in love,' Martyn thought.

#solidaritygaming #solidarity gaming #jimmy solidarity #inthelittlewood #evo smp #last life smp #not written about last life but like the property police were a thing in last life (kinda)#the property police #grian #(hes a main character)#Also the survivor references are because im a survivor fanboy so deal with it #Now onto what Martyn needs to read #Martyn you can read this fic #you can reply to it ir like it or do whatever you please #but PLEASE don't tell or show Jimmy #it almost gave me a heart attack when you acknowledged my existence #If Jimmy knew I'd combust #please and thank you Timmy doesn't need to know #also thank you to my mutuals #* cough * logos and alyx *cough*#for getting the Martyn post to 500 by spamming it #You two are a blessing and a pain in my back (affectionate)#also #people who will become main characters on the upcoming chapters #bigbst4tz #systemzee #and thank you so much Rosa for your help #couldn't have done it without you #and shout-out to pip for being the first person to read my rough draft #okay im done doing my end credits

86 notes · View notes

myundeadgayson · 2 years

Note

I’m absolutely adoring your Last Life Assassin/Hitman AU! It’s given me so much inspiration and your writing is incredible, I’ve loved all of it, especially how you write the dynamics between each of them.

Loving the interactions between Scott and Jimmy, and the way you write both of them interacting on the job.

I’m wondering how they’d interact if they met outside of work, like if they both happened to meet just out and about at some point, maybe they get caught in some stupid situation and just keep bumping into each other afterwards. Would they think they other is obnoxious and dislike him just like during jobs, or would they actually really hit it off and enjoy meeting up, not knowing they’d met earlier than they thought?

AAAAA!!! This is the best ask!!!

First off, thank you so much! That genuinely means the absolute world to me. Not only is my first time publicly sharing an actual full AU concept, but this is my first time writing an AU consistently. I’ve tried writing full stories before, but I’ve never been able to quite keep with them since I don’t do well writing like?? I guess in the usual linear format ajshlkgjasshdkg

Writing a full out story chronologically is a LOT and man, do I fucking respect everyone that can do that. I have such little patience and my mind is like a constant bouncing ball going from idea to idea, so this AU was perfect because I can easily bounce back and forth between characters, mini plots, times, etc. and I’m still making sure I can absolute deliver you guys the full story I’ve got in mind! Plus, I can still sit here and enjoy sharing fun ideas like this that still perfectly fit into the AU!! I’m so excited to have finally find something that works and I couldn’t be happier that it’s paying off! Also, you’re probably one of my top supporters keeping me going as well and it’s been wonderful because I keep getting more inspired by the day!

But AAAAA!!! I hadn’t even thought about that kind of interaction yet!!!

I’ll probably try to write it all out soon, but I want to absolutely bet that Scott was smitten by Jimmy by that first meeting. As soon as he bumped into that human equivalent of a golden retriever, he couldn’t get that warm smile out of his mind. Where he hates Solidarity’s guts, Jimmy is like a pure ray of sunshine that he’s guilty to admit that he may like.

Jimmy probably didn’t have much of a first impression from Scott because I want to imagine they quite literally bumped into one another. As in, he almost knocked Scott over and helped him up. He didn’t stay for long to have much of a chat, but I bet as they kept accidentally crossing paths in the city, he started slowly noting that this Scott guy’s kind of adorable.

Unlike their hitman personas, the two of them actually get along really well! They’ve probably met up a few times now on “definitely NOT dates” as Scott consistently has to remind Pearl. Jimmy thinks they’re just hang outs, and that’s what Scott’s determined they’ll be. After all, it’s not like he really has time for a relationship of all things. That’d be stupid and way too risky. He cannot date Jimmy.

And of course, things get harder as Jimmy turns out to be such an adorable goof that Scott’s falling hard.

Meanwhile, Jimmy’s just along for the ride, but he can’t help but notice that he’s getting all these weird warm, fluttery feelings around Scott?? It’s probably nothing... He’ll eventually ask Lizzie about them, but for now he really likes having a good friend!

And of course, all this is opposed to their counterparts. Smajor hates Solidarity with such a burning passion. He considers him to be extremely dumb, reckless, and he can’t for the life of him figure out why the Southlands would hire such a bumbling idiot! And even worse, how Solidarity keeps still somehow nabbing his targets!

Solidarity doesn’t necessary “hate” Smajor... He thinks he’s a bit stuck up. He’s a jerk, but not in a way that Solidarity would want to kill him or anything. He just wishes Smajor would stop ragging on him all the time! He thinks their little rivalry is actually kind of fun and he loves seeing Smajor get all flustered when he beats him to a kill.

They’ve got a fun dynamic going on of racing each other to see who completes their hits faster, and much to Smajor’s annoyance, Jimmy’s starting to catch up. Meanwhile, in the daytime, Scott and Jimmy are enjoying their dat— hang outs.

Ahsjhdgasd Sorry if this is a bit of a long reply, by the way. I got really excited and I actually had to keep fixing my response so I wouldn’t instantly launch into writing their first meeting. I’ll save that for a fic!

Thank you so much again!!!

#mail? mail for me?#Last Life Hitman AU #Last Life Assassins AU #Last Life Shipping #Flower Husbands #Jimmy Solidarity #Scott Smajor

28 notes · View notes

smaidjor · 3 years

Text

i know they're losing (Chapter 1)

hi mothers and fuckers of the jury, this fic is a hot mess but so am I, please appreciate it. Also, obligatory disclaimer this is about the characters not the people, all that important stuff.

Some important notes:

1. You will probably hate Scott just a little at points. He has chronic dumb bitch syndrome and there's a whole lot of bullshit going on in his life that you don't see in this fic because it's not his pov. That being said, he's still a bit of a jerk.

2. This has a lot of lord of the rings lore. A LOT. You may be kinda confused if you're not a lord of the rings fan. It's fine, Jimmy's confused too, and all of it will be explained at some point.

3. The chapter titles are from the Last Goodbye from the Hobbit films. The general title is from I Bet on Losing Dogs by Mitski.

4. General content warnings: there is a little blood, and a little violence, and a lot of mentioned death and morbid jokes. If you don't do well with themes involving death this fic is probably not for you. There is also possibly going to be referenced emotional abuse and generally unhealthy ways to raise children, though that will be talked about much further down the line. I will also put specific cws at the start of each chapter, don't worry!

5. The alternate title for this was '10k words of flower husbands being sad'. You have been warned.

Title: i know they're losing

Chapter Title: under clouds, beneath the stars

Current Total Wordcount: 3740

Content Warning: referenced/past character death, very frank discussion of death.

Snippet:

Scott whirls to face him, robes spinning behind him. “I’m fading, alright? I’m dying, now leave me alone!”

Jimmy feels like he’s been smacked in the face, the words hitting him with all the force of a well-thrown trident. Dying? “You- what- but elves don’t die, right?”

“We do. From poison, from swords, from arrows through the throat-” Jimmy’s hands fly to the scar on his neck, the one that matches Scott’s own- “from grief.”

AO3 Link

Actual fic under the cut

Scott’s hands are cold. That’s the first sign, the chill that’s uncharacteristic of an elf.

Scott’s chest hurts. That’s the second sign, the bone-deep ache he can’t seem to quell.

Scott is weaker than normal, and that’s the third sign, the one that confirms what’s happening beyond a shadow of a doubt. He’s fading, Scott thinks as he leans against a wall, trying to stop his head from spinning. He can’t say he’s surprised, not after all he’s been through; in fact, he’s more astonished it took so long to start.

In another world, it happens like this:

Scott’s hands are cold, and Shubble notices as he shows her around the nether. It’s worrying, a bit, how icy his skin is even in the boiling dimension, but Scott’s empire has always been cold, hasn’t it?

Katherine notices how long it’s been since Scott visited her, one of his few allies, and she worries, a bit. But Scott has always been distant, hasn’t he?

No one notices or worries enough to go check on him, and Scott fades away to nothing, cold and alone in his icy empire.

What actually happens is this:

Katherine has gotten word of the demon that haunts the server, and amongst all her worry, one of her thoughts is ‘has anyone checked on Scott?’. The answer is no, and next time she has a free day, she sets out for Rivendell. It’s not a long trip, not with elytra, anyways, and soon she’s at the doors to his keep.

“I need to see Lord Smajor,” she tells the guards.

“He’s not taking visitors right now.” is the response she gets.

“It’s a vital matter to the safety of both our kingdoms.”

They let her in.

Katherine spends far too long looking around the elegantly decorated downstairs and storage area before she realizes he must be up the spiral staircase in the corner of the room. She’s never been upstairs in Scott’s house before, which makes her a little nervous, but… this is an urgent matter, so she presses on into what turns out to be a very pretty bedroom. Decorated with bookshelves aplenty and gorgeous lanterns, it practically screams Scott.

The man (elf?) himself is harder to spot. At first, Katherine’s worried he isn’t there at all, but eventually she realizes that he’s still in bed despite the fact that it’s a quarter to one, only his pale face sticking out from under the covers.

“Scott?” She asks, cautious. “Lord Smajor?”

He blinks at her tiredly. “Hi, Katherine.”

“I came to talk to you about some empires stuff, but, I mean, if this is a bad time, I can come back later…?”

“No, no, stay.” He waves at the sole chair in the room, which is near-enough to the bed. “I can muster the energy for a meeting, just don’t ask me to get up.”

Katherine takes the seat hesitantly. “I came to talk about the corruption on the server, but- are you okay? Are you sick?”

Scott laughs, a little bitter. “In a way, yes.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take my hand.”

She obeys, confused, and finds that Scott’s hands are like ice despite the warmth of the room.

“Elves don’t get sick like mortals do,” Scott says. “Nor do we die of old age. But we get...heartsickness, you might call it. We call it fading in our tongue- the cold hands are a symptom of that. Our souls are fragile, and the grief of the mortal plane can be overwhelming. If an elf is too struck by it, they fade away and die.”

She gasps a little.

“It usually happens to old elves, world-weary,” Scott continues. “Those who are tired of existence. But any elf who has experienced enough grief is at risk.”

It takes Katherine a moment to process everything, and once she does, she stares at him in horror. “You’re- fading? But doesn’t it usually happen to old elves? Wait, are you old?”

“I’m fifty-five.”

“Is that old?”

That gets a laugh out of him. “Fifty is the elven equivalent of eighteen for humans, the age of maturity.”

“Oh.” She struggles for words for a moment, settling on “How can you be so calm if you’re dying?”

“I’m tired, Katherine. The world tore me away from the people I loved, and..I’m tired of fighting it.”

Try as she might, there’s nothing she can say to that. “Is there a way to reverse fading- to fix it?”

Something pained and raw flashes through his eyes. “Technically, yes. If an elf recovers enough emotionally, it’s reversible. But whatever caused them to fade the first time can- and often does- cause it again.”

Katherine nods seriously, absorbing the information. “We’ll just have to reverse it, then.”

“That’s sweet, Katherine, but I’m dying.”

“No,” she tells him firmly. “You’re not going to die. Now come on, you can show me your empire while I fill you in on what’s happening on the rest of the continent.”

Scott stares at her for a long moment, but eventually he takes her outstretched hand. “Alright.” His hand is frozen cold in hers. “We can try.”

Katherine lets him lead her around Rivendell, pointing out the sights. He’s done an impressive job decorating, like her, and an even more impressive job at uniting the elves and building an empire from the ground up. The people of Rivendell are weary and battle-scarred, for the most part, elves who have seen too much, but the children are bright and happy, and the cyan and gold banners wave proudly in the wind.

As they walk, she also tells Scott about the demon, Xornoth. “The demon’s already visited a lot of people, I think. Gem and Shubble for sure, and Fwhip and Sausage. That’s not even mentioning the corruption that’s been spreading.”

Scott nods. “There’s corruption in Rivendell too. Likely Xornoth’s work. And given that Jimmy still has Vilya- well, I haven’t been able to do much.”

“Vilya?”

“A ring of power. My inheritance from the Noldor.”

“Why does Jimmy have it?”

He doesn’t answer that one.

Katherine leaves feeling unsettled, with more questions than answers. She has new resolve, though, and a new goal: keep Scott from fading. He’s a good friend, though they don’t know each other that well yet, but more than that, he’s a powerful ally. And Katherine can’t afford to lose allies. So while they’re both rulers and busy in their own right, she promises to visit and drag him outside at least once a week.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Scott jokes, but his laugh is weak.

Katherine vows to hold herself to it.

The plan works for three entire weeks before Katherine has a week that’s so busy there’s no way she can find the time for a trip to Rivendell. Worse than that, because Scott is so isolated, he has almost no other friends, and many of Katherine’s allies are busy too. She’s a little short of options, to be honest, which is how she finds herself on Jimmy Solidarity’s doorstep that Sunday afternoon.

“Hello?” Jimmy asks as the door swings open. Katherine can see why Lizzie calls him the sweet swamp boy- his confused head tilt is frankly adorable.

“Hi! I know we don’t talk much, but I could use a favor,” she says.

“What can I do for you?”

“I need you to visit Scott.”

Jimmy looks beyond startled. “What- I mean, he doesn’t even like me! I couldn’t possibly.”

“Please?” She wheedles. “I promised him a visitor every week, but I have meetings all week this time.”

He shakes his head, hesitantly at first and then stronger. “No, Katherine. He’d just throw me right out again. I’m his enemy, for goodness sake!”

“If he hates you so much, why do you have his ring?”

Katherine knows she’s won, watching emotions flit across his face too quickly to catch. Grief is what he settles on, and she feels a little bit bad for the ring comment when his voice comes out wobbly.

“I guess I should return that, huh? Alright, I’ll go.”

“Sorry,” she says.

Jimmy brushes it off, saying there’s no need to worry, but he fiddles with the ring on his finger all the more. It’s on his left ring finger, Katherine notes. She wonders if that truly means what it implies.

“I’ll visit him tomorrow,” Jimmy says.

“I’ll hold you to that!”

Jimmy isn’t sure why he agreed to this at all, to be honest. Scott may have given him this ring in another world, another lifetime, but that doesn’t mean Scott doesn’t hate him in this one. What other explanation is there for how all his gifts have been rejected, how cold the elf is? Jimmy would be surprised that Scott’s never tried to take his ring back if it wasn’t for how thoroughly Scott avoids him nowadays. Getting the ring back would require talking to Jimmy, something Scott has made it very clear that he doesn’t want to do. Jimmy doesn’t have another use for it, and try as he might to forget flower fields and warm hands in his, he can’t bear to throw it away. So it’s remained on his hand all this time, a painful reminder of someone who used to love him.

Jimmy tries to avoid looking at it as much as possible, every glimpse bringing back the memory of Scott gently sliding it onto his hand, a faint blush dusting his cheeks and a smile on his lips. Even the faint shimmers in the blue gem remind him of how the starlight seemed to get caught in Scott’s hair when they were out at night. The ring had been one of their most valuable possessions on 3rd Life, the rare silver band and elegant forging more than proof of that. Now, though, the ring has to be one of the least valuable things Jimmy owns; on 3rd Life, they were humble folk in little hobbit holes, their most expensive possessions being their diamond armor and swords, but here, they’re kings and lords. Scott probably has a thousand treasures more valuable in his elven empire, so Jimmy’s not sure why he’s bothering to trek all the way across the world just to return this one.

Then again, it’s not really about the ring, and never has been. It’s about the way starlight used to shine in Scott’s eyes when he smiled, his rare, soft grin that was reserved just for Jimmy, how he gave Jimmy the most valuable thing either of them owned. It’s closure, in a way, giving it back. He won’t have any debt to Scott once this ring is returned, and they can both move on like Scott so clearly wants to.

Shaking off those thoughts, Jimmy slows to a stop in front of Scott’s house. It’s grand, nothing like his old hobbit hole, but still so clearly Scott in the decoration and color schemes. Jimmy would know who built it even if he hadn’t known Scott lived in these mountains.

“I’m here to visit Scott,” he says to the guard stationed outside.

They raise an eyebrow, presumably at the familiar way he refers to Scott. “On formal business or personal?”

“Personal? Sort of? I mean, I don’t have any diplomatic reason for being here.” Truth be told, he has no reason to be here at all, really, but...the ring.

“Then Lord Smajor cannot see you.”

Jimmy grits his teeth, suddenly furious at this whole ordeal. “Then tell Lord Smajor that I need to return his ring.”

“May I see it?”

He sticks his hand out obligingly, and the guard examines the ring, surprise blooming across their face. “I did not realize my Lord had lent you Vilya! My apologies, Lord Codfather, I see the alliance between our kingdoms is stronger than I had assumed. You may pass.”

Vilya? “Thank you, gentle, uh, gentleperson!”

The guard dips their head slightly as he walks by, a gesture of respect that he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to. He shakes off the strangeness of the interaction, though, pushing open the door to Scott’s house.

The inside is beautiful, exactly the kind of decor Scott loves...and empty. There’s no one in the spacious kitchen, the storage room, or anywhere else for that matter. Jimmy’s seconds from giving up and going home when he realizes that there are stairs up to the balcony above. That’s where he goes, finding himself in Scott’s bedroom.

Which is awkward, to say the least. It’s not like they never slept in the same room when they were married, but now that there’s this awkward, painful distance between them, Jimmy feels like he’s intruding. What’s worse is, Scott’s still in bed, laying on his side with his face tilted away from Jimmy’s awkward entrance.

“Hello, Jimmy.”

Jimmy half-jumps, not expecting that. “How’d you know it was me?”

Scott rolls over to face him, and Jimmy notes that his face is too pale for it to be natural or healthy. “Do you think I could ever forget the sound of your footsteps?” He goes on before Jimmy can answer. “What are you doing here?”

“Katherine asked me to visit, I’m not sure why, but...here I am. Say, why is she visiting every week?”

Scott’s laugh is bitter. “Katherine thinks she can save me.”

“Save you from what?” Jimmy asks, concerned despite himself.

His (ex?)husband doesn’t reply.

“Save you from what?” Jimmy presses, and gets no answer yet again.

Instead, Scott sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “You should go.” He stands, and immediately stumbles, Jimmy rushing to steady him on instinct. Scott’s hands are like ice when he grips Jimmy’s arm to regain his balance, taking several deep breaths, and Jimmy’s instantly struck by how wrong that feels. Scott’s hands were always warm, even on the coldest nights in 3rd life. Some elven thing, probably, that Scott didn’t want to talk about or have time to explain to a silly human like Jimmy.

“Scott, what is going on?”

The elf brushes him off again, heading for the stairs, but the regal effect is ruined by how hard he has to grip the railing.

“Scott, seriously! Answer me, are you okay? What’s happening?”

Scott whirls to face him, robes spinning behind him. “I’m fading, alright? I’m dying, now leave me alone!”

Jimmy feels like he’s been smacked in the face, the words hitting him with all the force of a well-thrown trident. Dying? “You- what- but elves don’t die, right?”

“We do. From poison, from swords, from arrows through the throat-” Jimmy’s hands fly to the scar on his neck, the one that matches Scott’s own- “from grief.” Scott turns back to the stairs. “Come on. If you’re not going to leave, I might as well show you around.”

Jimmy follows, reluctantly, trying to think of something to say that isn’t incoherent sputtering with a bit of ‘why do you hate me now’ added in. “You can’t just drop something like that on a man, you know!”

“You did ask, to be fair.”

Why oh why is he so stupid around Scott? “I guess so, but- but still, dude.”

Scott pushes open the side door, holding it for Jimmy. “Here.”

Jimmy nods and slips through the door. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

They start along the path, Scott walking far too quickly for Jimmy’s comfort given how terrible the elf’s balance is currently. He nearly has to jog to keep up, irritatingly, but at least they aren’t snapping at each other for a few precious moments.

Of course, Jimmy has to go and ruin that. “So, uh..are we going to talk about 3rd life?” He has to hear it from Scott’s own lips that he remembers, that it affected him even half as much as it’s affected Jimmy.

“No.”

“Why not? We need to talk about it some time-”

“I said no .”

“It’s literally killing you to not talk about it!”

Scott freezes, face going icy calm in the way Jimmy knows means he’s actually upset. The elf’s hands grip the fabric of his robes tight, his back going rigid. This is a bad idea, Jimmy knows.

He’s in too deep to back out now, though, the pent-up hurt of the past few months all coming out in a rush. “Tell me I’m wrong, Scott! I dare you, tell me I’m wrong! Tell me you never cared about me, tell me you didn’t bother to bury me, tell me it didn’t hurt even a little when I died! Tell me I was just stupid little Jimmy, a toy for an elf who’d live far beyond my lifespan! Tell me whatever, just tell me the truth! ”

Scott breathes out slowly, fury gradually building on his face. “Fine. You want to know what happened after you died? You want to hear about me screaming until my throat went raw? You want to know that I kissed your face and sobbed and begged you to wake up, over and over until I couldn’t speak at all? You want to live with the knowledge that Grian had to physically pull me away from your body? Is that what you want to hear, Jimmy ?”

Jimmy’s name on Scott’s lips punches all the remaining air out of him, sounding so wrong in that angry, bitter tone. Beneath all the rage, Scott sounds wrecked , and the fight leaves Jimmy’s body abruptly. “No,” he says softly. “That’s not what I want to hear, not at all. I’d rather you be happy than love me.”

Silence follows those words, only the faint sound of a waterfall in the distance there to break it.

“I buried you on the hill above our houses,” Scott says finally. “I planted a poppy over your grave.”

“Oh.”

“Grian came over the next day. I didn’t want to see anyone who wasn’t you, but I let him in because I had to. He helped me do the straps on my armor and asked me if he could do anything else to make things easier. I told him to bury me next to you.”

Jimmy swallows hard. “Did he?”

“How would I know?” Scott’s tone softens, just a little. “Grian was honorable enough, though, loyal to his allies. I like to think he did.”

“He was a good guy,” Jimmy agrees. “A little bit bloodthirsty, I guess, but good. I don’t suppose he survived any better than the rest of us, though maybe being bloodthirsty helped.”

“Maybe.”

“Can I- can I ask you why you hate me so much now? I mean, if you mourned me in third life and all.”

Scott turns away again, starting down the path a second time. He’s not looking at Jimmy when he says “I don’t hate you.”

“You don’t?” It’s a shock, honestly, given that this is the first time the two of them have really spoken since the beginning of empires. “But you burned the pufferfish-”

“I didn’t. I kept it.” Scott still won’t look at him. “I never hated you. I don’t think I’m capable of it.”

“Then why do you keep avoiding me?”

“I’ve been kind of busy dying,” Scott says dryly, and Jimmy doesn’t even realize it’s a joke until he looks over at Scott’s wry little grin.

“Scott! That’s not funny!” He scolds, aghast.

“It was a little funny.”

“No!”

Scott must hear the genuine distress in Jimmy’s voice because he drops the act. “Jimmy, I’m an elf. I won’t live far beyond you, but only because I’ll fade without you.”

“So your solution is to isolate yourself and fade now?” Jimmy demands.

“It does sound stupid when you put it like that, doesn’t it? But I lost you once, and I don’t think I could bear it again.”

Jimmy wants to argue, wants to fight him on this, but there’s nothing he can say. Instead, he puts a hand on Scott’s arm to stop him walking any further. Scott turns to look at him, seemingly startled, and Jimmy throws his arms around the elf.

Scott stiffens before slowly relaxing, arms coming up to wrap around Jimmy in return. It’s not as natural a gesture as it used to be, but it’s warm, gentle in a way Jimmy thought he’d never get again. It reminds him of the soft, starry-eyed boy who put flowers in his hair and laughed at him over a cake. Scott will never be that soft again and Jimmy will never be unscarred, but they’re here. They’re alive, that has to count for something.

Scott pulls back, his expression so achingly tender and heartbroken all at once. “I’m sorry, Jimmy.” His voice is raw, a little shaky. “I can’t. Not again.”

“But-”

He’s cut off by Scott shaking his head. “Losing you will destroy me. We dared to love, and now all we can do now is lessen the pain when it all comes crashing down.”

Jimmy’s in too much shock to speak, the ache in his heart returning tenfold as Scott turns back towards the house.

“Goodbye, Jimmy.” He sweeps away, elegant as ever, but stumbles and nearly falls as he reaches the door. Jimmy’s not there to catch him.

Jimmy stumbles home in a daze. It's somewhat of a miracle that no mob manages to kill him, honestly. To be so close to a resolution, to have the person he wanted most right there in his arms, and then to have all that ripped away- he can’t think of anything that could have hurt more. Even his deaths were less painful than this- at least an arrow through the throat is quicker than feeling like your heart is being ripped out through your ribs, Jimmy thinks, a little bitter. He throws Scott’s stupid ring in a pool in the swamp, watching as it sinks to the bottom of the shallow water with hardly a bubble.

Wait.

The ring.

It’s significant, somehow, according to a Rivendell guard, and more than that, it’s an excuse to see Scott again. One last chance to change his mind about the stupid plan that’s literally killing him.

Jimmy dives in without thinking, scrabbling around until his fingers close around the smooth stone and thin band. When he pulls it out, the gem glitters in the starlight even under the layers of dirt, and it looks like something special. It looks like hope.

#scott smajor #jimmy solidarity #flower husbands #uhh #empires smp #i wont tag 3rd life since its only referenced #my writing

43 notes · View notes

square-blunt · 3 years

Text

You're in my heart, in my heart, in my head.

chapter two fucking finally. take it. fucking take it.

TW- MCD (major character death), suicide, like the fic ends in suicide and it's not good. Angst. there is so much angst-

WC: 2034 Ao3: :) First chapter: :)

Jimmy didn’t tear his eyes away from Scott once.

After they got ripped apart, all the neurons in his body were screaming at him to stop struggling and to go limp- he could feel the muscle in his back ripping apart but he had to. He didn’t feel the physical pain. But his heart was hammering so hard and he was screaming much louder than he thought was possible- screaming to Scott, praying and hoping that he could hear him over Joey- and maybe he did.

Because Scott never stopped looking at him.

And then, Scott smiled at him.

It was sweet, and weak, and it was tired. It should have been full of life, but instead- Scott used all his energy to give Jimmy that smile. It was sickeningly comforting- Scott, who was about to be sacrificed, about to have a knife through his heart- was comforting him, and Jimmy couldn’t sob any louder. He knows his screams and sobs and pleas won’t do anything to stop the inevitable. But with a sound that Jimmy will never be able to get out of his head, the inevitable comes to fruition. As the knife falls, Jimmy does too. The hooks that held onto his back retract and Jimmy crashes to the ground, rocks cutting into his hands. Part of him is grateful that he fell when he did. Whatever higher power was looking out for him must not have wanted him to see the knife going into Scott’s chest.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t imagine it.

As soon as he hits the ground he looks back up, just in time for Joey and Xornoth to disappear into smoke, and for the obsidian altar to crumble into dust- and Scott's body to roll off. Jimmy catches sight of Scott's limp hand and he turns away, holding his side, trying not to throw up.

He focuses on that.

Trying to keep the contents of his stomach down, swallowing thickly, he focuses on the burn of his head, his throat, and his heart.

His heart hurts.

It hurts more than any weapon could ever come close to inflicting.

After looking at Scott for so long, promising himself that he'd never look away, it's funny that now he physically can't bear to look up.

It's because Scott was alive then.

And now he, and possibly everyone else, is dead.

But he can't stop himself from crawling, very painfully, over to Scott. Only then does he notice how much blood there is. His, Scott's, it doesn’t matter- or it did.

Because Scott's blood should have stayed in his body.

Why didn't Jimmy speak up?

Xornoth had told Jimmy everything.

Their plan, why they were doing it- how they knew it was going to work.

They told Jimmy about a past life- a past three lives to be exact. And Jimmy remembered. It was like Xornoth had a key that finally gave Jimmy what he knew he was missing. And of course, he had fallen in love with Scott.

Of course, it was Scott.

Of course, it was Scott who came to his rescue. Everything else was a blur, of pain and hurt, but the kiss. Jimmy knew he had to. He had to let Scott know that he knew- that he remembered.

It was worth every second.

And even now he can feel the phantom of Scott's lips on his own, Scott's hair between his fingers, he can feel it more than the dull throbbing of his heart and his back. Physical pain couldn't reach him, his mind was already too busy imploding on itself to register anything else.

He feels the phantom of Scott's warm hand in his own.

He reaches out and takes his cold, real hand again.

Jimmy brushes away the dust and the blood, rubbing his thumb over the knuckles, and he stops at the ring finger. There's a simple silver band.

Jimmy spawned into Empires with a matching gold ring.

Only now does he know why.

He gently slips the ring off Scott's finger. He knows he shouldn't, but if it's all he can have of Scott- he's gonna take whatever he can get.

He moves up, noticing the detail on the sleeve of Scott's shirt. He wasn't wearing anything fancy, but he was still the most beautiful living thing Jimmy had ever seen. Scott had been wearing a sky blue t-shirt and brown pants- one could die in a more regal manner, but Scott still looked more amazing than any star in the night, any bird in the air… any flower in the field.

"It felt right," Jimmy says, voice unrecognizable even to himself. It only makes him cry more. Scott was his everything- Scott completed him. And Jimmy doesn't know who he is without Scott. He knew he was one half of a whole but didn’t know whose half, and now he has to live as a half without his other.

His communicator buzzes.

He doesn't care.

It's probably a death message.

He hopes Xornoth won't torture his family the way they did his lover.

He knows they probably did.

It buzzes again.

He grips Scott's hand tighter, maybe if he squeezes hard enough, it'll squeeze back.

Please, please, squeeze back.

Jimmy takes a deep breath.

At least Scott's eyes are closed.

His communicator buzzes again.

He still doesn't care.

He thought he'd be more distraught.

Looking down at Scott, his perfect, sleeping face, he thought he’d be screaming at the skies, clawing at his heart- trying to scratch the pain away, but he’s not. He should be mad, he should be trying to find Joey, at least, and hurt him as much as he had been hurt, but he’s not. He should have tried to swap back, but he knew his life wasn’t the end goal. He should be crying, letting the tears wash away all of the dust and dirt and blood but he’s not. He’s not doing any of it.

His communicator buzzes.

He’s holding Scott’s hand.

He’s holding Scott’s face.

He’s kissing his forehead.

He’s smoothing out his hair.

His communicator buzzes.

He notices Scott’s necklace, and that’s when he cries.

It’s a gold poppy flower- crudely made, rushed, unpolished, it was something Jimmy made. Jimmy himself was crudely made, rushed, and unpolished, so it makes sense that anything he made would be too.

His communicator buzzes.

He had given it to Scott a few hours before they arrived on the battlefield and Scott spent the next minutes staring at it while Jimmy got some things together.

Jimmy spent those minutes staring at him.

And then he died and lost everything.

Scott’s his everything.

And he’s lost it again.

His communicator buzzes.

He cradles Scott's head in his lap, staring down into his face.

He closes his eyes.

The ground under him changes. Rocks stop digging into his knees, and instead, there's soft wool. The smell of dirt and blood is replaced with clean linen and firewood.

What's worse, he can't feel Scott in his hands anymore.

Jimmy's eyes snap open.

His communicator buzzes one last time.

He's kneeling on cyan and yellow carpet, this must be somewhere in Rivendell. But it feels suffocating. It feels wrong.

Jimmy looks up and sees why.

Outside the windows the sky is red- this really is the end of the world. But the elephant in the room is that Xornoth is standing right in front of him. One of the last living things on this planet. Jimmy doesn't give them the victory of meeting their gaze.

"Codfather, Solidarity, sweet swamp boy- you hold many titles, don't you, Jimmy?" Xornoth says, manic glee in their voice. It makes Jimmy want to throw up.

"Just kill me. Please." Jimmy whispers, pain raw in his voice.

"No. I won't kill you, and you can blame your beloved Scott. The whole "can’t hurt you" condition in his heroic sacrifice doesn't feel heroic now, does it?" Xornoth looms over him, a shit-eating sneer of terrifying joy on their face. “Besides, why would I kill you? You were the key to the lock, the final piece to the puzzle, the gear that made this entire plan work- I should be thanking you. None of this could have happened if you weren’t there. He would still be alive if it weren’t for you- they all are dead because of you. Thank you, Jimmy. You seem to be often thanked for causing things that you stand against in the end. But that’s the way of life, is it not? People taking advantage of you for one reason or another, and then rubbing it in your face when they use you to get what they want. But don’t worry, no one will ever be able to use you again. Isn’t that what you wanted? You were pushed around by everyone, and now both you and I are free.”

“I’m nothing like you,” Jimmy says, maybe if he pisses them off enough they’ll just kill him anyway.

“No, you’re not. I am powerful, you are pitiful. I am armageddon, you are a disappointment. If death is theater, then I am Shakespeare, and you are a prop, a pawn. You were meant as something to be used. I was trying to offer a hand because as much as you hate yourself for it, you were the only reason why this plan worked. But if you insist on continuing to pretend that you have even a sliver of honor left then I will leave you to rot. But I promised not to lay a hand on you. In hindsight, not being able to kill you might have actually been a bad thing. See my plan was, Jimmy, I was going to kill you after all this, but your death would be instant and painless, but it seems that Scott has fucked something else over for everyone else. I was going to show you mercy, I wouldn’t torture you with a long and painful death or make you watch as- well, I guess I already did that, huh.” And they laughed . They laughed and laughed like it was the funniest thing in the crumbling world. They laughed at Jimmy, at his pain, it echoed off the walls of the dying church, sucking the last good out of the air to fuel the hysteric voice of insane victory.

Jimmy’s hope was flooding out with it.

Xornoth snaps their fingers, still laughing, and the world around Jimmy changes again, soft carpet to hardwood floors, still air to blistering wind- he's in his alliance tower.

He takes the heads down without looking at them, he can't bear to look.

He goes straight down the tower without looking.

It's a good thing he didn't.

He would have seen the bodies of everyone- ally and enemy- swinging from the rafters.

At the bottom of the ladder, he finds a rope of his own.

He doesn't even question it.

He silently finds a nearby tree and gets to work.

The Empire is deathly quiet- even the wind has died out.

He feels eyes. They're watching him. It feels familiar- watching a final soul end it all after everyone he knows is long gone.

He finishes the knot, throws the other end up and over the tree to tie it off.

He decides to build his own gallows as well.

Three blocks should be tall enough.

He puts the noose over his head like a medal- a winner's medal. That's what he was.

He won.

He takes the step.

And he's back in Scott's arms.

Finally.

#gremfics #empires #empires smp #flower husbands #flower husbands angst #suicide tw #scott smajor #he's fucking dead everybody dead #solidaritygaming #jimmy solidarity #solidarity gaming #sweet swamp boy #i hate writing

19 notes · View notes

gordvendomewhore · 4 years

Text

BULLY OC MEME [CHRIS KATO]

hey!! so i meant to post this uh. MONTHS ago, but...later is better than never LMAOO

if you’ve been following me for awhile, you might’ve heard me mention chris and hollis before!! they are my ocs, and they’re actually from an original story of mine lmao they weren’t made for bully.

this is chris’s template!! hollis’s will be posted right after this!!

also fair warning im not,,, japanese so her japanese dialogue might not be 100% accurate and maybe even cringey but im basing all my info on google translate (ew i know), japanese websites, my friend who speaks the language, and my own experiences with mixing foreign languages into english lmao.

anyway, have fun reading this if you do!! and feel free to ask any questions you might have about chris uwu (photos of her are at the end!!)

[INFO]

Name: Christine Konami Kato (加藤琥波 Kato Konami)

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Sexuality: Lesbian

Clique: Non-cliques, but on good terms with the greasers

Personality: Blunt, indifferent, critical, philosophical.

Weapon/fighting style of choice:

- Chris can hold herself in a physical fight, but not well enough to actually win without any major injury (unless it’s against the Nerds, Bullies, or Non-Cliques).

- However, she is incredibly fast and has insanely accurate aim, which fuels her preference for projectile weapons.

- In fights, Chris will run away from her opponent and turn back to throw whatever weapon she has at them; It gives her the advantage of distance.

- Chris doesn’t really care about beating someone else up to the point of them passing out, she just wants to cause chaos and escape without a busted lip.

- While she’ll use any projectile weapon, Chris prefers firecrackers. She’ll also occasionally use marbles.

[DIALOGUE]

Greetings:

- Hey, Hopkins.

- What’s up?

- Nice seeing you around, Jimmy.

Saying Goodbye:

- I gotta go. My girl’s waiting for me.

- Hate to cut the conversation short, but there’s better things I have to do.

- Someone’s calling my name. See you later.

Chasing:

- Idiot, you really think you can outrun me?

- My parents had to run all the way to Japan to escape me, Hopkins!

- Can’t you run any faster? You’re making this too easy, Hopkins!

Out of Breath:

- God...maybe...I should cut back on the cigarettes...

- ちくしょう。。。(Damn it...)

- ...Whatever. There’s better things to do.

Walking around talking to themselves:

- I miss Japan.

- Can’t wait to see this place go down in flames. Metaphorically and literally.

- 彼女はとても可愛い。。。(She’s so cute...)

- Gotta check up on Hollis later.

- I miss おばあちゃん。(I miss grandma.)

- Don’t the jocks have better things to do than hunt me down?

- Do I have my lighter?

- Everyone in this 不浄な地 thinks they’re so great. (Everyone in this shithole thinks they’re so great.) (Note: the direct translation of 不浄な地 is “unclean land.”)

Conversing:

- You hear about Gary’s new pet? Now he has another weasel to go along with that runt, Kowalski.

- I hear Johnny Vincent’s having trouble keeping his relationship together. And his mental stability, but everyone already knows that.

- Ever light a car on fire?

- You hear about Gary’s big, bad plan?

- I’m not an arsonist! It’s not like I burnt down my entire middle school!

- Word on the street says Peanut has it real bad for the boss. Seems like every second in command does.

Conversation Response:

- I hope not.

- You did what?

- Yeah, no.

- Sure.

- Karma’s coming your way.

- Sure, doesn’t sound too bad.

- Mhm, yeah.

Complaining:

- I wish that Northwick kid would stop bothering me.

- Johnny’s just pissed because my girl actually wants me.

- I love Hollis, but I cannot stand another four hours of posing for one of her paintings.

- They couldn’t just take me back with them. They just had to send me to this hellhole.

- God, I need another cigarette.

- The greasers are so clingy.

Unknown/Cut Dialogue:

- Yeah, yeah, my girlfriend will pay you.

- くたばれ！(Fuck off!)

- ...Naked twister?

- Maybe the tooth fairy will give you a few dollars for the teeth I knock out.

- Who knew I’d be coming to you for help, huh?

- Don’t...drink hand soap? I feel like I shouldn’t have to tell you this.

Starting fight with Cliques:

[Bullies]

- Don’t make this any harder for yourself.

- Let’s make this quick, yeah?

- Your mom hit me harder in bed last night!

- Don’t you think you’d look so much cooler in a neck brace?

- ああ, 黙れ. (Oh, just shut up.)

[Preps]

- Pretend I’m daddy’s black card and run faster!

- Let’s see if your blood’s actually blue.

- Inbred freak!

- Boxing rules don’t apply when you can’t even touch me! [Laughs]

- 青鬼! (Blue demon!)

[Greasers]

- Come on, we smoke together, I’m basically one of you!

- I hope your hair products aren’t flammable.

- Is this because I don’t slick my hair back?

- Is this because I don’t wear a leather jacket?

- くたばれ! (Drop dead!)

[Nerds]

- I’ll let you take your glasses off before I break your face.

- You don’t want a repeat of Alexandria, do you?

- Roll that D20; It’ll decide how many of your bones I’m gonna break.

- 弱虫! (Wimp!)

- Maybe you should start taking that saying, “Hit the books,” more literally.

[Jocks]

- You can’t break my spine if you can’t catch me!

- ‘Roid rage alert!

- Work on your cardio, 下衆野郎! (Asshole!)

- You’re supposed to avoid the firecracker, not catch it with your face.

- とんちき！(Meathead!)

[Townies]

- Save your bitching for someone who cares.

- We’re both poor! Shouldn’t there be some form of solidarity?

- ばかげた! (Flunky!)

- Hit me if you can!

- Chase after the preps instead! They can get you free healthcare if you beat it out of them!

Requesting an errand:

- Hey, Jimmy, got a second to spare?

- You owe me, Hopkins. You know that saying, an eye for an eye.

- I have a favor to cash in. Uh-uh-uh, don’t try backing out of this.

Friendly Comments:

- Woah, you look half-decent for once, Hopkins.

- Maybe you can finally get a girlfriend now.

- New wardrobe, huh? Doesn’t look too bad.

- You finally fixed your looks! Now you just gotta fix your personality.

Unfriendly Comments:

- You make me want to light myself on fire.

- It’s cute seeing you follow in your mom’s footsteps, やりまん. (Slut.)

- Don’t even try making eye contact with me.

- [Loud Snickering] Oh, sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you! [Sarcasm]

[EXTRA]

Demanding flowers:

- Come on, you gotta prove you’re worth my time.

- You got something special for me, don’t you, Hopkins?

- Don’t you think it’s time you pay me back for my kindness?

- A little something would be nice...

After receiving flowers:

- Thanks, my girlfriend loves flowers.

- Such a gentleman, James. Too bad I’ve never had a thing for men.

- ...Are these from the Girl’s Dorm?

- It’ll be fun to burn these, thank you.

Before kissing:

(No matter what, Jimmy can’t actually kiss Chris)

- [Bad Japanese Accent] Uh, sorry, no English.

- I’d like to avoid getting cooties if possible, thanks.

- I got a girlfriend, Hopkins.

- Sorry, I’m allergic to boys.

@video-space this is 4 you....

#christine kato #my girl...i love her so much #original character #oc #bully oc #canis canem edit #bully canis canem edit #bully scholarship edition #cce #mine

25 notes · View notes

god-save-the-keen · 4 years

Text

Lorelai Gilmore, the best mom in the world, prompt list!

1. "Does he/she have a motorcycle? 'Cause if you're gonna throw your life away he'd better have a motorcycle!"

2. "There's plenty to do tonight that we can be mortified about tomorrow."

3. "So not only did you go to a cop-raided party, but you started the raid?" *Signing* "Then she proceeds to sing, 'Did You Ever Know That You're My Hero?'"

4. "I need caffeine. Whatever form you've got, I haven't had any all day. I'll drink it, shoot it, eat it, snort it, whatever form it's in, gimme."

5. "Seventy-five thousand dollars? Oh my God, that’s like 150 pairs of Jimmy Choos."

6. "There have been very few moments in my life where I have actually wished I had one of those enormous crème pies you can just smash in somebody's face. But this is definitely one of them."

7. "Don't let his family see you. Spiders are vindictive. And this was a really big spider. I think it had a gun."

8. "I thought I knew exactly what I wanted, where I was going, what I was doing and why I was doing. But lately, things seem hazier."

9. "It's all any of us wants, to find a nice person to hang out with until we drop dead. Not a lot to ask!"

10. "If it was physically possible to make love to a hot beverage, this would be the one."

11. "As long as everything is exactly the way I want it, I'm totally flexible."

12. "My God, I hate her." "Me too." "You have no idea who I'm talking about." "Solidarity."

13. "I don't like problems. I avoid them when I can and I don't like people pointing them out to me."

14. "Everything in my life has something to do with coffee. I believe in a former life, I was coffee."

15. "When I think of blistering thirty-degree burns, I also think of my mother."

16. "976-BITE-ME."

17. "Well, we like our Internet slow, okay? We can turn it on, walk around, dance, make a sandwich. With DSL, there’s no dancing, no walking, and we’d starve. It’d be all work and no play. Have you not seen The Shining, Mom?"

18. "I need coffee in an IV."

19. "It's Friday night, we should be out partying with the homies."

20. "You are full of hate and loathing and I gotta tell you, I love it!"

21. "It's very exciting, but so is eating a gallon of pudding."

22. "Cheeseburger, onion rings, and a list of people who killed their parents and got away with it. I’m looking for heroes."

23. "Coffee, please, and a shot of cynicism."

24. "My mother — she was here. I can feel it. Smell that? The room smells like guilt and Chanel No. 5."

25. "I'm going to go make out in the coat room. Don't eat my chicken."

26. "Get back in your pajamas, go to bed, eat nothing but gallons of ice cream and tons of pizza, don't take a shower or shave your legs or put on any kind of makeup at all and just sit in the dark and watch a really sad movie and have a good long cry and just wallow. You need to wallow."

27. "You have so many years of screw-ups ahead of you."

28. "I hate when I'm an idiot and don't know it. I like to be aware of my idiocy."

29. "I don't like ultimatums." "I don't like Mondays, but unfortunately they come around eventually."

30. "I'm the Oracle. I carry all the knowledge."

31. "Because my brain is a wild jungle full of scary gibberish."

32. "I'm fine. I'm just being dramatic. It's what I do."

33. "You're very cruel." "Yes, it keeps me young."

34. "Sorry, I see we entered the no-humor zone."

35. "You should identify yourself when you answer the phone." "Sorry, Independence Inn. Major Disappointment speaking. Better?"

36. "Come here. You have some dirt on your forehead. I'm sorry. It's the sign of devil. My mistake."

37. "I love it when I talk and no one listens. Make me think like home."

38. "Repeat after me: I'm completely hopeless."

39. "You are drawing me into your druken world." "It's not a bad place to be, my friend."

40. "He/She's so sexy, smart, funny, and he/she likes coffee."

41. "It's from my mother." "What is it?" "It's heavy. Must be her hopes and dreams for me."

42. "Don't judge what you don't understand."

43. "Do you like coffee?" "Only with my oxygen."

44. "Cats came to my house today. Cause they know I'm a loser and I'm destinated to be alone."

45. "I had a dream about him/her the other night." "Really? Dirty?" "No... Absolutely not. And when you're 21 I'll tell you the real answer."

46. "I think you are acting a little immature." "I'm not acting."

47. "That Lothario there has wormed his way into my daughter's heart and mouth... And for that he must die."

48. "This is bad." "I know. I wish we had popcorn."

49. "You know what the worst part of it was? When you weren't there, part of me wasn't surprise."

50. "You are the man/woman I want to want."

51. "A mistake? A mistake? That is what you call it, a mistake?" "Well, I tried to call it 'Al', but it would only answer to 'mistake'"

52. "Don't you understand that I can't talk to you because it hurts? Don't you understand that?"

53. "It's too much food." "It's not. That's is what we been training for. This is our destiny. This is our finest hour."

54. "Who cares if I'm pretty if I fail my finals." "Okay, you have got this so completely backwards."

55. *One phone on each ear* "Who are you talking to?" "My other two personalities."

56. "He/she kissed you and you say thank you?" "Yes!" "Well, that was very polite."

57. "Decaf." "Never."

58. "I don't think I ever really loved anyone until Name."

59. "I smell snow."

60. "Reality has absolutely no place in our world."

61. "No? No lecture about kissing a boy/girl?" "No. Why, did you do it wrong?"

62. "The drinks fortify us. The drinks give us strength. The drinks get us drunk."

63. "I'm a young, desirable woman/men." *Talking to two cats in the porch.*

64. "Really? You are gonna kiss me now? You are so incredibly predictable."

65. "You threw a frying pan at Name's head without me there? I hate you."

66. "I hate my life."

67. "I have no memory of this whatsoever."

68. "She's very aggressive today." "I think the passive part of her personality is playing hooky."

69. *Reading* "Man, she/he sure used a lot of exclamations points."

70. "I love that you have my eyes and my coffee addiction, my taste in music and movies."

Used them, shared, make a request, have fun with them! ❣️

#lorelai gilmore #gilmore girls #ask prompt #prompt #dialogue prompts #writing prompt #prompt list #daily prompt #fanfic writing #writing #fanfic #fanfiction

56 notes · View notes

mattbrothersscriptwriter · 4 years

Text

My Top 20 Films of 2019 - Part Two

I don’t think I’ve had a year where my top ten jostled and shifted as much as this one did - these really are the best of the best and my personal favourites of 2019.

10. Toy Story 4

I think we can all agree that Toy Story 3 was a pretty much perfect conclusion to a perfect trilogy right? About as close as is likely to get, I’m sure. I shared the same trepidation when part four was announced, especially after some underwhelming sequels like Finding Dory and Cars 3 (though I do have a lot of time for Monsters University and Incredibles 2). So maybe it’s because the odds were so stacked against this being good but I thought it was wonderful. A truly existential nightmare of an epilogue that does away with Andy (and mostly kids altogether) to focus on the dreams and desires of the toys themselves - separate from their ‘duties’ as playthings to biological Gods. What is their purpose in life without an owner? Can they be their own person and carve their own path? In the case of breakout new character Forky (Tony Hale), what IS life? Big big questions for a cash grab kids films huh?

The animation is somehow yet another huge leap forward (that opening rainstorm!), Bo Peep’s return is excellently pitched and the series tradition of being unnervingly horrifying is back as well thanks to those creepy ventriloquist dolls! Keanu Reeves continues his ‘Keanuassaince‘ as the hilarious Duke Caboom and this time, hopefully, the ending at least feels finite. This series means so much to me: I think the first movie is possibly the tightest, most perfect script ever written, the third is one of my favourites of the decade and growing up with the franchise (I was 9 when the first came out, 13 for part two, 24 for part three and now 32 for this one), these characters are like old friends so of course it was great to see them again. All this film had to do was be good enough to justify its existence and while there are certainly those out there that don’t believe this one managed it, I think the fact that it went as far as it did showed that Pixar are still capable of pushing boundaries and exploring infinity and beyond when they really put their minds to it.

9. The Nightingale

Hoo boy. Already controversial with talk of mass walkouts (I witnessed a few when this screened at Sundance London), it’s not hard to see why but easy to understand. Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) is a truly fearless filmmaker following up her acclaimed suburban horror movie come grief allegory with a period revenge tale set in the Tasmanian wilderness during British colonial rule in the early 1800s. It’s rare to see the British depicted with the monstrous brutality for which they were known in the distant colonies and this unflinching drama sorely needed an Australian voice behind the camera to do it justice.

The film is front loaded with some genuinely upsetting, nasty scenes of cruel violence but its uncensored brutality and the almost casual nature of its depiction is entirely the point - this was normalised behaviour over there and by treating it so matter of factly, it doesn’t slip into gratuitous ‘movie violence’. It is what it is. And what it is is hard to watch. If anything, as Kent has often stated, it’s still toned down from the actual atrocities that occurred so it’s a delicate balance that I think Kent more than understands. Quoting from an excellent Vanity Fair interview she did about how she directs, Kent said “I think audiences have become very anaesthetised to violence on screen and it’s something I find disturbing... People say ‘these scenes are so shocking and disturbing’. Of course they are. We need to feel that. When we become so removed from violence on screen, this is a very irresponsible thing. So I wanted to put us right within the frame with that person experiencing the loss of everything they hold dear”.

Aisling Franciosi is next level here as a woman who has her whole life torn from her, leaving her as nothing but a raging husk out for vengeance. It would be so easy to fall into odd couple tropes once she teams up with reluctant native tracker Billy (an equally impressive newcomer, Baykali Ganambarr) but the film continues to stay true to the harsh racism of the era, unafraid to depict our heroine - our point of sympathy - as horrendously racist towards her own ally. Their partnership is not easily solidified but that makes it all the stronger when they star to trust each other. Sam Claflin is also career best here, weaponizing his usual charm into dangerous menace and even after cementing himself as the year’s most evil villain, he can still draw out the humanity in such a broken and corrupt man.

Gorgeously shot in the Academy ratio, the forest landscape here is oppressive and claustrophobic. Kent also steps back into her horror roots with some mesmerising, skin crawling dream scenes that amplify the woozy nightmarish tone and overbearing sense of dread. Once seen, never forgotten, this is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea (and that’s fine) but when cinema can affect you on such a visceral level and be this powerful, reflective and honest about our own past, it’s hard to ignore. Stunning.

8. The Irishman

Aka Martin Scorsese’s magnum opus, I did manage to see this one in a cinema before the Netflix drop and absolutely loved it. I’ve watched 85 minute long movies that felt longer than this - Marty’s mastery of pace, energy and knowing when to let things play out in agonising detail is second to none. This epic tale of the life of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) really is the cinematic equivalent of having your cake and eating it too, allowing Scorsese to run through a greatest hits victory lap of mobster set pieces, alpha male arguments, a decades spanning life story and one (last?) truly great Joe Pesci performance before simply letting the story... continue... to a natural, depressing and tragic ending, reflecting the emptiness of a life built on violence and crime.

For a film this long, it’s impressive how much the smallest details make the biggest impacts. A stammering phone call from a man emotionally incapable of offering any sort of condolence. The cold refusal of forgiveness from a once loving daughter. A simple mirroring of a bowl of cereal or a door left slightly ajar. These are the parts of life that haunt us all and it’s what we notice the most in a deliberately lengthy biopic that shows how much these things matter when everything else is said and done. The violence explodes in sudden, sharp bursts, often capping off unbearably tense sequences filled with the everyday (a car ride, a conversation about fish, ice cream...) and this contrast between the whizz bang of classic Scorsese and the contemplative nature of Silence era Scorsese is what makes this film feel like such an accomplishment. De Niro is FINALLY back but it’s the memorably against type role for Pesci and an invigorated Al Pacino who steals this one, along with a roll call of fantastic cameos, with perhaps the most screentime given to the wonderfully petty Stephen Graham as Tony Pro, not to mention Anna Paquin’s near silent performance which says more than possibly anyone else.

Yes, the CG de-aging is misguided at best, distracting at worst (I never really knew how old anyone was meant to be at any given time... which is kinda a problem) but like how you get used to it really quickly when it’s used well, here I kinda got past it being bad in an equally fast amount of time and just went with it. Would it have been a different beast had they cast younger actors to play them in the past? Undoubtedly. But if this gives us over three hours of Hollywood’s finest giving it their all for the last real time together, then that’s a compromise I can live with.

7. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Wow. I was in love with this film from the moving first trailer but then the film itself surpassed all expectations. This is a true indie film success story, with lead actor Jimmie Fails developing the idea with director Joe Talbot for years before Kickstarting a proof of concept and eventually getting into Sundance with short film American Paradise, which led to the backing of this debut feature through Plan B and A24. The deeply personal and poetic drama follows a fictionalised version of Jimmie, trying to buy back an old Victorian town house he claims was built by his grandfather, in an act of rebellion against the increasingly gentrified San Francisco that both he and director Talbot call home.

The film is many things - a story of male friendship, of solidarity within our community, of how our cities can change right from underneath us - it moves to the beat of it’s own drum, with painterly cinematography full of gorgeous autumnal colours and my favourite score of the year from Emile Mosseri. The performances, mostly by newcomers or locals outside of brilliant turns from Jonathan Majors, Danny Glover and Thora Birch, are wonderful and the whole thing is such a beautiful love letter to the city that it makes you ache for a strong sense of place in your own home, even if your relationship with it is fractured or strained. As Jimmie says, “you’re not allowed to hate it unless you love it”.

For me, last year’s Blindspotting (my favourite film of the year) tackled gentrification within California more succinctly but this much more lyrical piece of work ebbs and flows through a number of themes like identity, family, memory and time. It’s a big film living inside a small, personal one and it is not to be overlooked.

6. Little Women

I had neither read the book nor seen any prior adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel so to me, this is by default the definitive telling of this story. If from what I hear, the non linear structure is Greta Gerwig’s addition, then it’s a total slam dunk. It works so well in breaking up the narrative and by jumping from past to present, her screenplay highlights certain moments and decisions with a palpable sense of irony, emotional weight or knowing wink. Getting to see a statement made with sincere conviction and then paid off within seconds, can be both a joy and a surefire recipe for tears. Whether it’s the devastating contrast between scenes centred around Beth’s illness or the juxtaposition of character’s attitudes to one another, it’s a massive triumph. Watching Amy angrily tell Laurie how she’s been in love with him all her life and then cutting back to her childishly making a plaster cast of her foot for him (’to remind him how small her feet are’) is so funny.

Gerwig and her impeccable cast bring an electric energy to the period setting, capturing the big, messy realities of family life with a mix of overwhelming cross-chatter and the smallest of intimate gestures. It’s a testament to the film that every sister feels fully serviced and represented, from Beth’s quiet strength to Amy’s unforgivable sibling rivalry. Chris Cooper’s turn as a stoic man suffering almost imperceptible grief is a personal heartbreaking favourite.

The book’s (I’m assuming) most sweeping romantic statements are wonderfully delivered, full of urgent passion and relatable heartache, from Marmie’s (Laura Dern) “I’m angry nearly every day of my life” moment to Jo’s (Saoirse Ronan) painful defiance of feminine attributes not being enough to cure her loneliness. The sheer amount of heart and warmth in this is just remarkable and I can easily see it being a film I return to again and again.

5. Booksmart

2019 has been a banner year for female directors, making their exclusion from some of the early awards conversations all the more damning. From this list alone, we have Lulu Wang, Jennifer Kent and Greta Gerwig. Not to mention Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers), Melina Matsoukas (Queen & Slim), Jocelyn DeBoer & Dawn Luebbe (Greener Grass), Sophie Hyde (Animals) and Rose Glass (Saint Maud - watch out for THIS one in 2020, it’s brilliant). Perhaps the most natural transition from in front of to behind the camera has been made by Olivia Wilde, who has created a borderline perfect teen comedy that can make you laugh till you cry, cry till you laugh and everything in-between.

Subverting the (usually male focused) ‘one last party before college’ tropes that fuel the likes of Superbad and it’s many inferior imitators, Booksmart follows two overachievers who, rather than go on a coming of age journey to get some booze or get laid, simply want to indulge in an insane night of teenage freedom after realising that all of the ‘cool kids’ who they assumed were dropouts, also managed to get a place in all of the big universities. It’s a subtly clever remix of an old favourite from the get go but the committed performances from Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein put you firmly in their shoes for the whole ride.

It’s a genuine blast, with big laughs and a bigger heart, portraying a supportive female friendship that doesn’t rely on hokey contrivances to tear them apart, meaning that when certain repressed feelings do come to the surface, the fallout is heartbreaking. As I stated in a twitter rave after first seeing it back in May, every single character, no matter how much they might appear to be simply representing a stock role or genre trope, gets their moment to be humanised. This is an impeccably cast ensemble of young unknowns who constantly surprise and the script is a marvel - a watertight structure without a beat out of place, callbacks and payoffs to throwaway gags circle back to be hugely important and most of all, the approach taken to sexuality and representation feels so natural. I really think it is destined to be looked back on and represent 2019 the way Heathers does ‘88, Clueless ‘95 or Easy A 2010. A new high benchmark for crowd pleasing, indie comedy - teen or otherwise.

4. Ad Astra

Brad Pitt is one of my favourite actors and one who, despite still being a huge A-lister even after 30 years in the game, never seems to get enough credit for the choices he makes, the movies he stars in and also the range of stories he helps produce through his company, Plan B. 2019 was something of a comeback year for Pitt as an actor with the insanely measured and controlled lead performance seen here in Ad Astra and the more charismatic and chaotic supporting role in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.

I love space movies, especially those that are more about broken people blasting themselves into the unknown to search for answers within themselves... which manages to sum up a lot of recent output in this weirdly specific sub-genre. First Man was a devastating look at grief characterised by a man who would rather go to a desolate rock than have to confront what he lost, all while being packaged as a heroic biopic with a stunning score. Gravity and The Martian both find their protagonists forced to rely on their own cunning and ingenuity to survive and Interstellar looked at the lengths we go to for those we love left behind. Smaller, arty character studies like High Life or Moon are also astounding. All of this is to say that Ad Astra takes these concepts and runs with them, challenging Pitt to cross the solar system to talk some sense into his long thought dead father (Tommy Lee Jones). But within all the ‘sad dad’ stuff, there’s another film in here just daring you to try and second guess it - one that kicks things off with a terrifying free fall from space, gives us a Mad Max style buggy chase on the moon and sidesteps into horror for one particular set-piece involving a rabid baboon in zero G! It manages to feel so completely nuts, so episodic in structure, that I understand why a lot of people were turned off - feeling that the overall film was too scattershot to land the drama or too pondering to have any fun with. I get the criticisms but for me, both elements worked in tandem, propelling Pitt on this (assumed) one way journey at a crazy pace whilst sitting back and languishing in the ‘bigger themes’ more associated with a Malik or Kubrick film. Something that Pitt can sell me on in his sleep by this point.

I loved the visuals from cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar), loved the imagination and flair of the script from director James Gray and Ethan Gross and loved the score by Max Richter (with Lorne Balfe and Nils Frahm) but most of all, loved Pitt, proving that sometimes a lot less, is a lot more. The sting of hearing the one thing he surely knew (but hoped he wouldn’t) be destined to hear from his absent father, acted almost entirely in his eyes during a third act confrontation, summed up the movie’s brilliance for me - so much so that I can forgive some of the more outlandish ‘Mr Hyde’ moments of this thing’s alter ego... like, say, riding a piece of damaged hull like a surfboard through a meteor debris field!

3. Avengers: Endgame

It’s no secret that I think Marvel, the MCU in particular, have been going from strength to strength in recent years, slowly but surely taking bigger risks with filmmakers (the bonkers Taika Waititi, the indie darlings of Ryan Coogler, Cate Shortland and Chloe Zhao) whilst also carefully crafting an entertaining, interconnected universe of characters and stories. But what is the point of building up any movie ‘universe’ if you’re not going to pay it off and Endgame is perhaps the strongest conclusion to eleven years of movie sequels that fans could have possibly hoped for.

Going into this thing, the hype was off the charts (and for good reason, with it now being the highest grossing film of all time) but I remember souring on the first entry of this two-parter, Infinity War, during the time between initial release and Endgame’s premiere. That film had a game-changing climax, killing off half the heroes (and indeed the universe’s population) and letting the credits role on the villain having achieved his ultimate goal. It was daring, especially for a mammoth summer blockbuster but obviously, we all knew the deaths would never be permanent, especially with so many already-announced sequels for now ‘dusted’ characters. However, it wasn’t just the feeling that everything would inevitably be alright in the end. For me, the characters themselves felt hugely under-serviced, with arguably the franchise’s main goody two shoes Captain America being little more than a beardy bloke who showed up to fight a little bit. Basically what I’m getting at is that I felt Endgame, perhaps emboldened by the giant runtime, managed to not only address these character slights but ALSO managed to deliver the most action packed, comic booky, ‘bashing your toys together’ final fight as well.

It’s a film of three parts, each pretty much broken up into one hour sections. There’s the genuinely new and interesting initial section following our heroes dealing with the fact that they lost... and it stuck. Thor angrily kills Thanos within the first fifteen minutes but it’s a meaningless action by this point - empty revenge. Cutting to five years later, we get to see how defeat has affected them, for better or worse, trying to come to terms with grief and acceptance. Cap tries to help the everyman, Black Widow is out leading an intergalactic mop up squad and Thor is wallowing in a depressive black hole. It’s a shocking and vibrantly compelling deconstruction of the whole superhero thing and it gives the actors some real meat to chew on, especially Robert Downy Jr here who goes from being utterly broken to fighting within himself to do the right thing despite now having a daughter he doesn’t want to lose too. Part two is the trip down memory lane, fan service-y time heist which is possibly the most fun section of any of these movies, paying tribute to the franchise’s past whilst teetering on a knife’s edge trying to pull off a genuine ‘mission impossible’. And then it explodes into the extended finale which pays everyone off, demonstrates some brilliantly imaginative action and sticks the landing better than it had any right to. In a year which saw the ending of a handful of massive geek properties, from Game of Thrones to Star Wars, it’s a miracle even one of them got it right at all. That Endgame managed to get it SO right is an extraordinary accomplishment and if anything, I think Marvel may have shot themselves in the foot as it’s hard to imagine anything they can give us in the future having the intense emotional weight and momentum of this huge finale.

2. Knives Out

Rian Johnson has been having a ball leaping into genre sandpits and stirring shit up, from his teen spin on noir in Brick to his quirky con man caper with The Brothers Bloom, his time travel thriller Looper and even his approach to the Star Wars mythos in The Last Jedi. Turning his attention to the relatively dead ‘whodunnit’ genre, Knives Out is a perfect example of how to celebrate everything that excites you about a genre whilst weaponizing it’s tropes against your audience’s baggage and preconceptions.

An impeccable cast have the time of their lives here, revelling in playing self obsessed narcissists who scramble to punt the blame around when the family’s patriarch, a successful crime novelist (Christopher Plummer), winds up dead. Of course there’s something fishy going on so Daniel Craig’s brilliantly dry southern detective Benoit Blanc is called in to investigate.There are plenty of standouts here, from Don Johnson’s ignorant alpha wannabe Richard to Michael Shannon’s ferocious eldest son Walt to Chris Evan’s sweater wearing jock Ransom, full of unchecked, white privilege swagger. But the surprise was the wholly sympathetic, meek, vomit prone Marta, played brilliantly by Ana de Armas, cast against her usual type of sultry bombshell (Knock Knock, Blade Runner 2049), to spearhead the biggest shake up of the genre conventions. To go into more detail would begin to tread into spoiler territory but by flipping the audience’s engagement with the detective, we’re suddenly on the receiving end of the scrutiny and the tension derived from this switcheroo is genius and opens up the second act of the story immensely.

The whole thing is so lovingly crafted and the script is one of the tightest I’ve seen in years. The amount of setup and payoff here is staggering and never not hugely satisfying, especially as it heads into it’s final stretch. It really gives you some hope that you could have such a dense, plotty, character driven idea for a story and that it could survive the transition from page to screen intact and for the finished product to work as well as it does. I really hope Johnson returns to tell another Benoit Blanc mystery and judging by the roaring box office success (currently over $200 million worldwide for a non IP original), I certainly believe he will.

1. Eighth Grade

My film of the year is another example of the power of cinema to put us in other people’s shoes and to discover the traits, fears, joys and insecurities that we all share irregardless. It may shock you to learn this but I have never been a 13 year old teenage girl trying to get by in the modern world of social media peer pressure and ‘influencer’ culture whilst crippled with personal anxiety. My school days almost literally could not have looked more different than this (less Instagram, more POGs) and yet, this is a film about struggling with oneself, with loneliness, with wanting more but not knowing how to get it without changing yourself and the careless way we treat those with our best interests at heart in our selfish attempt to impress peers and fit in. That is understandable. That is universal. And as I’m sure I’ve said a bunch of times in this list, movies that present the most specific worldview whilst tapping into universal themes are the ones that inevitably resonate the most.

Youtuber and comedian Bo Burnham has crafted an impeccable debut feature, somehow portraying a generation of teens at least a couple of generations below his own, with such laser focused insight and intimate detail. It’s no accident that this film has often been called a sort of social-horror, with cringe levels off the charts and recognisable trappings of anxiety and depression in every frame. The film’s style services this feeling at every turn, from it’s long takes and nauseous handheld camerawork to the sensory overload in it’s score (take a bow Anna Meredith) and the naturalistic performances from all involved. Burnham struck gold when he found Elsie Fisher, delivering the most painful and effortlessly real portrayal of a tweenager in crisis as Kayla. The way she glances around skittishly, the way she is completely lost in her phone, the way she talks, even the way she breathes all feeds into the illusion - the film is oftentimes less a studio style teen comedy and more a fly on the wall documentary.

This is a film that could have coasted on being a distant, social media based cousin to more standard fare like Sex Drive or Superbad or even Easy A but it goes much deeper, unafraid to let you lower your guard and suddenly hit you with the most terrifying scene of casually attempted sexual aggression or let you watch this pure, kindhearted girl falter and question herself in ways she shouldn’t even have to worry about. And at it’s core, there is another beautiful father/daughter relationship, with Josh Hamilton stuck on the outside looking in, desperate to help Kayla with every fibre of his being but knowing there are certain things she has to figure out for herself. It absolutely had me and their scene around a backyard campfire is one of the year’s most touching.

This is a truly remarkable film that I think everyone should seek out but I’m especially excited for all the actual teenage girls who will get to watch this and feel seen. This isn’t about the popular kid, it isn’t about the dork who hangs out with his or her own band of misfits. This is about the true loner, that person trying everything to get noticed and still ending up invisible, that person trying to connect through the most disconnected means there is - the internet - and everything that comes with it. Learning that the version of yourself you ‘portray’ on a Youtube channel may act like they have all the answers but if you’re kidding yourself then how do you grow?

When I saw this in the cinema, I watched a mother take her seat with her two daughters, aged probably at around nine and twelve. Possibly a touch young for this, I thought, and I admit I cringed a bit on their behalf during some very adult trailers but in the end, I’m glad their mum decided they were mature enough to see this because a) they had a total blast and b) life simply IS R rated for the most part, especially during our school years, and those girls being able to see someone like Kayla have her story told on the big screen felt like a huge win. I honestly can’t wait to see what Burnham or Fisher decide to do next. 2019 has absolutely been their year... and it’s been a hell of a year.

#top 20 #films of the year #films of 2019 #10-1 #toy story 4 #the nightingale #the irishman #the last black man in san francisco #little women #booksmart #ad astra #avengers endgame #knives out #eighth grade

77 notes · View notes

babbushka · 5 years

Text

Two Doves (3/6)

Drafted into a war he didn’t want to fight, Flip Zimmerman comes home to a country that doesn’t want him. With your help, he works through it all.

Flip Zimmerman x Reader

(Word count: 6k Warnings: War, gun violence, angst, ptsd, blood, graphic descriptions of death, graphic descriptions of violence)

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

After our war, the dismembered bits

—all those pierced eyes, ear slivers, jaw splinters,

gouged lips, odd tibias, skin flaps, and toes—

came squinting, wobbling, jabbering back.

- John Balaban

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

After weeks of trudging through the water, the rivers and marshes of the dense thick jungle, they’re in the sky. It’s an altogether different type of being vulnerable, Flip thinks.

They’re up in the helicopters, for whatever fucking reason. There’s solidarity in numbers, about a dozen helicopters flying next to them, all in a formation Flip doesn’t know, wasn’t told.

He wonders what it looks like, down on the ground. How it must look to see a dozen metal birds crossing the horizon. Flip clenches his fist around his gun, he sweats.

He hates this.

All he wants is to listen to your tape, but he’s got big ear-muffs on, they all do. Pilots said best to wear them so they don’t get their eardrums blown out, best to avoid the tinnitus.

You might survive the war, they said, but the tinnitus would drive you crazy.

As much as he wants to listen to the tapes, he doesn’t want to risk it.

It’s loud, so loud, and the world below them is so small, green as far as the eye can see. It’s like some hell, some tropical hell made just for him. Even up in the sky it’s hot, humid. How the fuck did that work? The engine and the blades of the helicopter drown everything out, every thought that Flip might have had is reduced down to it’s so fucking loud.

There’s five guys crammed into the back of one Huey along with Flip, but none of them are really doing anything. The pilots don’t tell them what was going on, they just hover, hover and fly around and around, searching for something.

“What are we looking for?” Eric shouts over all the noise, is the first one to dare ask, because surely they can’t be looking for people.

They’re too high up for that, can’t see past the thick canopy of green green trees, palms blowing around from the wind generated by their own machine.

“Shut the fuck up!” One of the pilots shouts, and Flip grits his teeth.

“He only asked a fucking question.” Flip shouts back, voice hoarse.

There’s no reason to be jack asses, Flip thinks.

Everyone pretends they didn’t hear him, which was probably for the better. He doesn’t need getting into a fistfight, not on top of everything else.

In the distance, one of the helicopters drops a bomb and there’s a great plume of smoke.

The jungle cracks in half, orange litters the sky, and Eric has his answer.

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

Flip doesn’t sleep that night.

You don’t sleep either, instead content to curl up against your husband on the couch as he shivers from cold that isn’t there. You make him hot chocolate, you put extra marshmallows in it and extra whipped cream and Flip drinks it even though he’s afraid it’ll make him sick.

So much sugar after none at all can’t be good, he thinks, but you made it for him, so it has to be good, he reasons.

It coats his throat and the roof of his mouth and it makes him calm in a way that makes him anxious.

When was the last time he didn’t have to worry? When was the last time he didn’t have to be so fucking on edge? It’s strange, not keeping one eye open, not looking over your shoulder, searching for enemies that are eight thousand miles away.

Is it going to be like this forever?

It’s pitch black outside and you’re both still awake, still on the couch as even the crickets have gone to sleep.

Flip sees the way you’re looking at him, but he can’t place the expression. It’s fear, it’s worry, it’s relief all in one, he doesn’t know how you do it. He can barely process one emotion, one feeling, one mindset – let alone three. He feels like he’s never had a very strong emotional threshold, but now…now it’s even more frayed, seams struggling around the edges.

He wants to tell you everything, wants to talk to you, wants to get it out.

He needs to get it out, he needs to.

He doesn’t know how.

“The brown walls look nice.” He says instead, says as you’re pressed so close against him, so close under the quilt his mother made, that he can feel the shudders that wrack through your body, “Lighter than I was thinking.”

You look to the dining room, to the brown walls. They’re the color of coffee diluted with cream, and Flip finds himself craving caffeine, real stuff, brewed stuff, not the instant shit he drank.

You look at the walls and you look at him, and Flip looks at nothing in particular.

“Do you want them darker? I’ll make them darker I was just – ” You start, but Flip shakes his head, pulls you impossibly closer, wants to crawl inside your skin and live there, he wants to live in you where he’s safe and warm.

He can’t, so he tries his best to get close, as close as possible, impossibly close.

“They’re perfect, really. They’re perfect.” He assures you, reassures you, and his heart breaks when even now there are tears in your eyes.

Your hand reaches up tentatively to caress his cheek, like he’s a dream, a ghost, something you’ve invented after so many nights alone.

You’re both so fucked, he thinks, fucked by this war in more ways than one.

“Kiss me?” You ask, you beg, desperate, and Flip accidentally jabs you in the face with his nose from how fast he ducks to capture your lips.

He sets the mug of cocoa down on the table, careful to place it on a coaster, careful not to fuck up the table like he’s fucked up everything else, and cups your face in his scarred hands. He pulls you into his lap and the two of you wetly cry against one another, kiss and kiss and kiss until your lips are puffy, swollen from it.

He kisses your lips, your cheeks, your eyelids. He kisses your nose and your forehead and your jaw and your neck, kisses every part of you that he can reach and hopes the kisses travel to the parts that he can’t; your heart, your lungs, your soul.

“I can’t…even start to explain how much I love you.” Flip is all choked up, he’s swallowing around hard lumps in his throat that have lived there for years, needing to try and unpack at least this small part of his brain, needing to at least get this part out of the dark pit in his mind.

“You don’t have to.” You rush to say, not wanting to force him, not wanting to make him do anything he doesn’t want to. He had been ordered around enough, you thought, “You don’t have to say anything Phil, you know I’m yours.”

He pinches his eyes shut, hot wet tears stinging stinging stinging, like acid and acrid smoke from fires that only exist in his head.

“I was worried…” He starts, but can’t finish, too afraid to speak the words, too afraid to confirm or deny.

That’s what he struggles with the most, he thinks, as he’s got you in his lap clinging to him, to every word he says, if he speaks the things on his mind they’ll become real, they’ll become things he has to confront. He doesn’t know if he has the strength to confront anyone, anything.

“What?” You ask, prompt him gently, not overbearing or forceful.

Flip wants to scream, but it’s too quiet, and he’ll scare you if he does, and the absolute last fucking thing he wants to do is scare you, now or ever.

“I was worried you wouldn’t want me – that you’d moved on.” And his pulse is racing racing racing, and he wants to run because you’re looking at him and he doesn’t know what you’re going to say, doesn’t know what you’re thinking, and the silence is palpable in the living room then.

You look at the brown walls of the dining room, look down at the scar along his palm, pink and shiny, freshly healed.

“You know, every night I would wait for you to come through the front door?” You say softly, so softly, and Flip can hear that you’ve got lumps in your throat too, you’ve got ghosts in your mind too.

“I’d lie awake in bed and listen for the front lock to unlatch, for you to drop your keys in the little dish in the hallway and then come up to bed and fall onto the mattress in all your clothes like you do sometimes when a case is long. Every single night, I’d wait, until I couldn’t wait any more and I’d fall asleep in your clothes.” You say, looking at him, really looking at him.

Flip looks back, sees the age in your eyes from being apart, sees how the two years have treated you.

He hates that they’ve not been kind, hates that they’ve treated you poorly.

“I played all your records and watched your favorite shows and I imagined you laughing along to them or singing terribly – ”

“Hey.” He interrupts with a soft laugh, and you laugh too just because you can, just because you can.

But then the laugh fades away and the softness around your eyes returns, and Flip’s stomach is twisted and churning because he’s terrified of the way your smile drops.

“…And then I’d cry because I didn’t know what you were doing, where you were, if you were alright. Jimmy came over like you told him to, came over every Tuesday and Thursday to help me with the house and my sanity, but then he would leave and I’d be sitting in this house alone, left with the ghost of you everywhere I looked. I’d think of something funny to tell you, and you wouldn’t be there, wouldn’t be coming home. I wrote them down, thinking I’d save them for when you got here, but then the first year came and you still weren’t.”

And you’re holding it together, but just barely, because if you lose it he’ll lose it, and then you’ll both be lost and neither of you can handle that right now, not right now, not so soon. He sees you shaking, and he’s shaking, and all you have is each other, and it’s more than enough; it’s more than enough but it can’t stop the shakes, the shivers.

“Can you tell me now?” He asks, and you smile at him sadly, shrug with one shoulder.

“I don’t think they’ll be funny now.” You reply, and for a moment, Flip wonders if anything will be funny again.

He can hear the same thought in your head.

“Tell me anyway?” Flip asks, begs, grasps your hands in his and brings them back to his cheeks, holding you, holding you as you’re holding him.

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

They’re dropping bombs, on the jungle.

Flip doesn’t know why, it doesn’t look like there’s anything there, just trees.

Birds fly frantically, try not to get consumed by the flames or the smoke, and most of them fail. Flip watches as the thick dark plumes envelop them, hears the horrific squawking of terrified creatures. He doesn’t know if he actually can hear them, or if he’s imagining it.

“Zimmerman! Start firing!” Someone barks an order at him, and he hates it, hates that he has to obey.

There are machine guns mounted to the sides of the Huey, and Flip’s stomach swoops when he’s told to man one. Wasn’t it enough to drop bombs like rain? Wasn’t it enough to incinerate the jungle – they had to shoot at it too?

Flip was getting so fucking tired of shooting.

He’s the oldest in the platoon, oldest one in the helicopter. These fresh-faced kids have no idea what they’re doing, there was never any time to teach them. He has experience, so he’s the one who has to do it. It’s his second time in Vietnam, and between that and the work he did with the CSPD before coming back to this hell, he’s the man most qualified for the job – no matter how badly he doesn’t want to be.

He’s just thankful he’s not the one dropping the bombs.

“Now, Zimmerman!” They shout, and he grinds his jaw, thinks that if he’s going to have to do this, he’s going to do it his way.

Fuck it, he thinks as he puts the tape in anyway, slides it into the small cassette player in his pocket. He’s about to stick the earbuds in his ears when he sees Eric steeling himself, like he’s going to throw up.

It’s the kid’s first helicopter ride, and he’s terrified, Flip can see it in his face.

After thinking about it for a minute, he silently hands the kid the cassette player, shoves it against his chest. He’s heard your voice a million times, and this kid doesn’t have anyone. Not a single person back home, no one except his mother. If your voice can give him comfort for ten fucking minutes, he’ll be glad.

Flip puts the earmuffs back on his head, and fires into the blaze as the helicopter whips up the flames.

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

You tell him as the sun starts to rise, as the purple light of dawn makes way for pinks and oranges and red. He listens and despite himself, he laughs, despite everything, it’s funny.

The way you tell the stories are funnier than the stories themselves, most of them belonging to the world of you had to be there. He tries not to dwell on the fact that he wasn’t – he wasn’t there.

He wasn’t there.

But you tell him, and he listens, and he laughs, laughs like he hasn’t laughed in a long time, and suddenly it’s the next day wholly and completely. The birds chirp and that’s how Flip knows he’s home without a doubt, resolutely – Vietnam didn’t have these birds.

“I was thinking,” You say, pressed so close to him on the couch, cheeks hurting from laughing like you haven’t done in a long time, “Of visiting the station today. Letting the guys know you’re home.”

“Yes.” Flip responds right away, the realization of his friends hitting him like a ton of bricks. “Yes, I want to see them.”

“Can I make you breakfast?” You ask, and his stomach growls, grumbles and groans, and you smile, take that for a yes.

When you sit him at the table he feels like he’s in limbo, like he’s never left and has been gone for a hundred years. The table is the same as it’s always been, the counters and the fridge and the stove and the oven all the same. The sink is the same and the walls are the same and the window is the same.

So why does it feel so different?

He catches his reflection in the glass of a vase filled with fresh flowers, wildflowers from the garden.

He doesn’t like what he sees. He feels old.

His facial hair has kind of gotten out of control, he thinks, staring at his reflection, trying to avert his eyes from his own judgmental gaze. It’s wild, wiry, it’s not terribly attractive. He doesn’t know how you can look at him so lovingly, so happily, when he looks like a man crazed.

“Ketsl?” He asks, and you rush to face him, rush to give him whatever he might want, might need.

“Yeah honey?” You respond, abandoning the pan on the stovetop to kneel at his feet, not wanting to overwhelm him.

He’s already overwhelmed.

“Before we go to the station, could you clean me up?” He asks, runs a hand over his goatee and sighs real deep. “I’d do it but…”

He doesn’t need to tell you that he’s afraid of his hands shaking while he holds the razor, afraid of accidentally cutting himself and losing it. He’s so afraid of losing it.

Has he already lost?

“Of course I’ll do it.” You say, sincere and so in love, eager to help. “After breakfast, we’ll shower and I’ll trim you right up.”

He blushes, holds your hand, kisses the fingertips there, and you playfully scratch under his chin, playfully tug on his ears.

“Thank you.” He smiles softly, suddenly shy, but you’re not having it.

You kiss him all over, smooch the sides of his nose, big smacks that have him laughing.

“Of course,” You say over and over again, “Of course.”

Because it’s not something you would even think twice about doing, and he knows this. It’s second nature to you, wanting to be there for him.

His heart soars.

“I love you.” He says, can’t get enough of saying it, can’t can’t can’t, so he says it again.

“I love you more, my handsome man.” You tug on his ear and he blushes, “Even when you’re scruffy, you’re my handsome man.”

He smiles and you smile back, until the smell of something on the stovetop burning reaches his nostrils.

“What’s that smell?” He asks, before things go dark.

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

Eric calms at the sound of your voice, and Flip wonders what you’re saying, what you’re talking about. The kid stares out into the jungle, has to squint from the heat of the fire.

Flip wonders. He knows he’ll listen later, listen as soon as they land – but then anxiety spikes.

What if he doesn’t land?

What if they’re another sitting duck in the sky, another bird that comes crashing down? So many helicopters have been shot down.

Flip has to resist the urge the rip the earbuds out of Eric’s head, suddenly so possessive of you – he doesn’t think he can bear it if he dies, and someone else gets to hear your voice.

But he doesn’t, he fires.

And the bombs drop, and the jungle burns.

A kid named Sam is the first one to notice it, the smell.

“Someone cookin’ bacon down there?” He asks in his thick Southern drawl, from Arkansas or Alabama, one of those. Flip didn’t bother keeping track anymore, so many kids kept coming and going.

He can’t possibly keep track, not with all of them dying.

Was it even worth getting attached, getting invested in any of them? He didn’t know.

But through all those thoughts Flip frowns, because he’s right, it does smell like bacon, like it’s been left on the stove too long, like it’s burning.

He looks in horror down at the bright orange sea beneath him, if he looks hard enough, he thinks he can see the tops of houses, straw things burned down to a crisp. If he looks hard enough, if he looks through the trees and the blazing roaring fires, he can see people running for their lives, can see them tiny like ants as he shoots and shoots the machine gun like he’s been told.

And dread washes down the back of his neck, freezes him, finger squeezed tight on the trigger when he realizes, when he figures it out.

If he looks hard enough, he can hear the screams of men and women and children burned alive. Scorched flesh and agony, smoke stinging, smell turning all of their stomachs at the abject horror of what they’re doing.

The smell hits their noses all at once as the helicopters pass by, and no amount of your soothing words can stop Eric from throwing up over the side of the Huey.

He’s not alone, they’re all like that, all except Flip, who doesn’t have the luxury of leaving the gun.

He hates himself for firing, hates the government for making him do it.

He has to close his eyes, screams too loud, too loud.

He can’t tell if they’re his or not.

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

He’s out of his seat, bolting for the bathroom before you know what’s happening.

It’s too much, it’s all at once, it’s all-consuming, the stench. That familiar stench, he’s sick, he’s retching into the toilet, heaving up nothing. He’s crying, all of a sudden he’s crying, and he wants to scream – he wants to scream and rage and throw a fucking fit as that smell curls into the back of his throat and stings his eyes and he’s surrounded by fire and rage and pain again.

You’re running in after him, latching yourself to his back, trying to ground him, trying to bring him off a brink of something, not knowing what. You didn’t know, didn’t know what went wrong, Flip isn’t telling you. He’s just hoarse and coughing and retching into the toilet, knees shattering underneath his frame as he clings to the porcelain bowl for dear life, as you cling to him.

There’s no words for this, to describe this, you don’t know, it kills you that you don’t know. It kills Flip that he can’t explain it, not when napalm explosions burn behind his eyelids, not when he’s coughing on smoke that isn’t there, not when he’s breathing in that smell that smell that smell.

“You’re okay, you’re safe.” You tell him, trying your best to remain calm, knowing he can’t handle any outbursts right now, knowing he can’t, “You’re home. You’re home with me, you’re safe.”

Maybe if you say it enough, he’ll believe it.

Everything is spinning, he can’t tell, doesn’t know where he is. He sees tile flooring and ferns at the same time, why is everything so green? He feels your hands on him and he knows that’s what’s real – but is it?

“I – I’m – ” Flip’s hyperventilating, and he’s crying, tears staining his face, staining the bowl of the toilet, and you hold him tight, wrap your arms around him.

He panics for a moment, afraid you’re the enemy, afraid you’re going to kill him, but the kisses on his back that you put there bring him back, pull him out. You’re the only one who would kiss his back, you’re the only one.

“You’re home. You’re not in the jungle, you’re in the bathroom. Our bathroom. You’re safe. You have to breathe.” You chant like it’s a prayer, repeat it over and over in a gentle tone, so gentle with him. “You have to breathe.”

He feels like he’s going to shatter, feels like he’s going to explode, like he’s going to burn burn burn. What’s that smell?

He knows that smell.

“I’m sorry,” He sobs, over and over, and you kiss his back now drenched with sweat. “I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t know what he apologizes for, if it’s the killing, the burning, the fires, the destruction, or if it’s the fear can’t place, the outburst he can’t control. It’s got its claws in him deep, so deep.

You hold him tight, and bring him out. Pull him back out.

“You’re okay, you’re safe with me I promise. I promise.” You say, a steady anchor even though you’re scared shitless.

You can’t let him know that, can’t let him see how scared you are – you don’t want him to think you’re scared of him. You’re not, you’re not scared of him, you’re terrified for him.

He wipes his mouth with his sleeve and turns to face you, buries his face in your neck.

You hold him and kiss his forehead, he’s drenched in sweat.

“We’re going to shower, okay? You need to shower.” You can’t have him sitting in his own sweat and sick, you won’t.

Flip nods, tries to get himself under control, tries tries tries.

When he nods, you nod too, stand up and turn the faucet on, pull the tab so the water sprays from the showerhead above. You open the window, turn on the exhaust fan, try to air out the room.

As he stands up on shaky legs and the water warms, you bolt into the kitchen, grab the pan that had the forgotten crisps of breakfast burning, the bacon and eggs and hashbrowns. That’s the smell, you realize, and suddenly you hate it, you hate the kitchen, hate yourself for being so stupid. You fling open the windows, take the whole pan and run it to the garbage outside, throw the whole fucking thing away.

You’ll buy a new pan, new spatula, you don’t give a shit. You never want to see that again, you’ll never cook bacon again.

Not if it does this to your man, to your Flip.

When you come back inside, Flip’s naked, has his clothes folded on the counter. He reaches for you but you hesitate, you pull your clothes off first and throw them in the corner of the room, afraid the smell has lingered on the fabric, has stained the fibers.

Only once you’re naked you embrace him, let him yank you into his arms. The water from the shower is steaming up the bathroom, and you reach over to draw a heart on the mirror, right around the reflection of Flip’s face.

“You’re safe.” You tell him one more time, and he nods, he believes you.

You search his eyes and you find them clear, he’s there, he believes you.

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

The helicopters begin to descend, and Flip can’t help but think they’re crazy. They’re fucking crazy for going there, for being in this country.

The kids are all sitting down, legs swinging over the side of the helicopter as they fire their own machine guns unto the village below them, because it is a village, not just a jungle. It’s never just the jungle, it would seem.

They don’t belong here, how can they be winning? They can’t be, not like this.

You don’t fight wars like this.

The men in the platoon all get themselves ready to land. They load and reload their guns. Some pray out loud, some sit silently and stare at the sky. Everyone has their hand over their mouth, everyone is gagging at the stench.

The wind whips it up, carries it up into their faces, and Flip thinks he’s going to hell for this, they all are.

Eric sees, just as Flip saw. Eric can tell he’s losing his nerve, so he gives him an earbud.

He hands it to Flip with wide eyes, terrified eyes, eyes that ask questions Flip doesn’t have answers for.

Flip accepts it, his heart thudding wildly, and tries his best to block out everything but the sound of your voice. It’s soft and sweet and gentle and not at all like the chaos around him not at all like the death and destruction he causes, he takes part in. You’re so much more gentle and human than half these monsters, the pilots who laugh at the explosions, the ones who give the orders with glee in their smiles.

Flip doesn’t know how anyone can smile, like this.

Everyone is shouting, but no one can hear, not over all the noise, not through the roar of the engine and machine gun fire, not through the screams and the explosions and the sounds of trees cracking, bending over backwards too far until they snap.

He doesn’t even know what you’re saying, can’t really process the meaning of the words you’re speaking, even though they’re right in his ear.

He thinks he catches something, a fragment, through the chaos before they’re landing, thinks he hears an

‘I love you.’

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

The shower is a blessing, hot water, scalding hot, scrubbing away the last legs of his fear.

“Come on, let’s clean up.” You say, and he feels like he could cry from the way you speak to him, the way you talk to him like he’s normal, like he’s not crazy. He didn’t know what he would do if you thought he was crazy, after everything else if you thought he had lost it.

It’s purifying, the water. He sighs as it darkens his hair, as it loosens the muscles in his shoulder.

When the water runs down his legs, it runs down clear. No pink, no red, no black of soot or brown dirt. No green.

Clear.

He now knows why so many faiths, religions, creeds all use water. He knows now.

He can’t remember the last time he showered in something other than a river, water that was truly clean, not just fresh.

Suddenly, it seems like the most important thing in the world to touch you, to cleanse you of his nightmares, of the tears he pressed into your skin. He washes your hair, takes his time. He did this for you every day, once upon a time. He did this for you now, and it was just like then.

His hands didn’t even shake, for once. The relief in his chest was almost enough to make him dizzy, when he realized his hands weren’t shaking.

He scrubs your scalp with shampoo, lathers and foams it up, laughs to himself about how you look. He breaths deeply, breaths in the orange and bergamot, a smell that is uniquely you. The perfume of it fills his lungs and he’s at peace again completely, once he has you rinse your hair.

You in turn, wash his body.

He lets his eyes close, lets himself simply feel the way your hands glide over his skin, the way the bath brush makes soothing circles across his chest and his back. He feels more and more like himself with every circle of the bristly brush, with every foamy sudsy pass of your hands.

He ducks to kiss you right under the spray, because he has to, has to show his thanks somehow.

You kiss him back, in in that kiss you tell him of course, of course you’ll do this for him.

You’ll do anything for him.

When the hot water has run out and the shower is over, the two of you wrap yourselves in soft white towels. The fabric is soothing on his skin, and Flip revels in it.

You sit on the counter, spread your legs enough that he can stand in between them as you search the medicine cabinet for the shaving kit.

He only wants a trim, so that’s what he’ll get, you think with a smile as you fish out the small scissors and the tweezers. Flip’s goatee had a habit of growing kind of erratically, it always made you huff out a little laugh, random hairs popping up nowhere near the rest of them.

Flip’s mesmerized by the way you look, the light coming in from the bathroom window that’s still open from earlier. It’s late enough in the morning now that the sky is a beautiful blue filled with white fluffy clouds. The light is buttery and warm, and catches on your skin making you glow in a way he was sure only existed in dreams.

When you pluck one of his hairs and he winces, he knows it’s real.

The thought makes him smile, which makes you smile.

“You gotta be careful,” You tell him with a grin as you pluck another one, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re so beautiful.” Flip sighs, and you blush.

God, how he missed that blush.

But it’s true, you’re gorgeous sitting there on the counter, your hair wrapped up in a towel in a way that Flip still doesn’t really understand. You’re gorgeous with those little silver scissors in your hand as you wait for him to relax his mouth so you can clip away some of the length of his mustache.

The corner of his mouth twitches from how it tickles, and you grin.

“You’re my favorite person, you know that?” You tell him, and he nods, crinkles his nose as you pluck another hair. “I’m sorry, I won’t ever make that again.”

He knows what you mean, and he nods. He sighs.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” he admits, and that truth scares him, makes him angry. “It’s frustrating, I don’t know what that was, what happened.”

You’re quiet for a little while as you trim the goatee, as you comb through the mustache and the beard, as you smooth in some oil so it doesn’t go all frizzy.

“I know you don’t want to tell me about it, but do you think maybe you might be comfortable talking to someone else?” You ask softly, carefully, not wanting to upset him.

He frowns, but you don’t see it because you’re putting the shaving kit away, rinsing the stuff down the sink.

“That’s not true.” He shakes his head, and you look at him with soft eyes.

“Hm?” You ask, lost in thought as water goes down the drain.

“I don’t not want to tell you.” He explains, fiddles with the star around your neck, “I want to tell you everything. I just don’t have the words, not right now. I don’t know how to say it, there’s so much.”

You’re thoughtful for a moment, always so thoughtful, and he looks just past you to the sight of him in the mirror.

Cleaned up and showered like this, he recognizes himself. Your hands did that to him, and he finds he just has to kiss them again, shower them with love and gratitude.

If he had the energy to sink to his knees then and there, he would, but he doesn’t, so he can’t.

He’s so exhausted, all of a sudden. A whole night of no sleep, and the smell of burnt bacon makes him exhausted. Go fucking figure.

“You don’t have to tell me anything all at once.” You say, reading his mind, because you have to be some kind of mind reader, he thinks, “But I need to know how to help you, how to avoid things like that. I don’t want you to ever have that again, if I can help it.”

“I don’t know what else there is, I don’t know.” He whispers, hating that he has to admit it, hating that he doesn’t know how to make this easier for either of you.

“Okay.” You nod, understanding, always so understanding. You let him kiss your fingertips and he could almost weep against them. He doesn’t, he doesn’t have any more tears, but you feel it anyway. “We don’t have to go to the station, if you don’t want. We can just stay in bed.”

“No, no I want to. I want to see everyone.” Flip says, and you smile, proud of him.

His heart soars at that smile.

“Let me remake breakfast? We’ll have something simple, cereal. I got the cereal you like, I’ve been eating it.” You blush, and Flip can’t help but tease you.

“Oh yeah?” He had always been fighting with you about his cereal, and you roll your eyes, already ready for an ‘I told you so.’

“Yeah – I have to add sugar though, it’s so bland!” You defend your tastes and he laughs, and you laugh, and he picks you off the counter and walks the both of you to the bedroom.

It doesn’t matter that his entire body is sore or that his legs are jello, it doesn’t matter. He’s got you in his arms, he’s going to visit his friends at his job that’s all still there, all waiting for him. Nothing matters anymore, at least he tries to tell himself that.

“It’s delicious just the way it is.” Flip says, and you throw a pair of underwear at him, blush crimson as he tosses it aside and tackles you instead.

“Gimme a kiss?” You ask, and this one is different, this one is hot and slow as he licks into your mouth, as he lets a hand sneak down between your legs.

You fall apart for him, and he takes everything you give him, gives it right back.

When you gasp into his mouth, he forgets about everything, just for a while.

But a while is enough, when it’s with you.

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

Thank you all for reading! Tagging some pals (if you’d like to be added to the tag list or taken off of it, please just let me know! @adamsnackdriver @dreamboatdriver @kylo-renne @callmehopeless @kyloxfem @formerly-anonhamster @thepilotanon @solotriplets @fullofbees @spinebarrel @bourbonboredom @driverficarchive @rosalynbair @redhairedfeistynerd @glitzescape @adamsnacc-kler @ladygrey03 @venusianmaiden marvelous-blog-221 @edwardseyelashes @softcrybabykid @tinyplanet-explorers

#reader insert #flip zimmerman x reader #flip x reader #blackkklansman #my writing #two doves #vietnam war #vietnam au

120 notes · View notes

cleoselene · 4 years

Text

I’m noticing people’s brains being so rotted by this primary that the Bernie people are starting to believe they can reach the Trumpers again, if only they can fix the economic inequality, the virulent racists, homophobes, xeonphobes, and misogynists will just be magically cured of all their hatred and their class consciousness will make them realize they were wrong all along

like I just got a lecture on another website about how I shouldn’t laugh at stupid Trump supporters because it’s classist and I should put class solidarity above everything else and not join Jimmy Kimmel in laughing at dump Trump supporters and it’s like, are you out of your fucking mind??

first of all how do you know these dumbasses are poor? I’ve met a million ignorant ass upper-middle class Republicans who can’t point to a country on a map, they proudly call themselves rednecks and drive luxury SUVs and spend oodles at their Bass Pro Shops and shit. Don’t confuse class with culture. Poor is not the same as stupid. I’m poor. I’m not stupid.

second of all, Bernie has gotten into your brain and fucked it UP with this pure Marxist ideology bullshit that class solidarity is a thing that we have go clutch first because fuck you if you think I’m gonna have solidarity with anyone who voted for Donald “Grab Em By the Pussy” Trump. This isn’t about economics and it never fucking was. The Obama economy was strong and steadily improving. So don’t fucking talk to me about class solidarity with hateful pieces of shit. Even assuming these people ARE poor, they aren’t going to magically become decent if we fix wealth and income inequality tomorrow. They’ll still be racist and homophobic and misogynistic and xeonphobic assholes.

We need to stop making excuses for anyone who voted for this monster, especially four fucking years after the fact. the research has been DONE and we know: it was the racism. it was the fucking racism.

#national nightmare #fuck the far left

13 notes · View notes

holyfourthofjulyweenieroast · 5 years

Text

Notes on Season 14- Part 2 (contains spoilers, are mostly complaints about Torres and Quinn, and are my personal opinions, don’t @ me)

Since Season 14 started rerunning in Australia on 9 October, I’ve decided to write down things I forgot or would like to emphasise upon:

Keep Going

Jimmy immediately running up to Ryan without a second thought, aww

Torres trying to be the hero, seriously?

Suicide is such an important, delicate topic, and it was done really well (with great acting, too)

Quinn is such a buzzkill, ugh

This dialogue is truly summing up millennial work experiences

Torres is such a dumbass, and not a cute one

Jimmy talking about Gibbs was so adorable and sad

Jimmy passing the M.E. test but not telling anyone because he didn’t want things to change was so relatable, I would’ve done the same thing

Tears were in my eyes since halfway through the episode, but the hug was what made them fall out

All those flashbacks throughout the episode brought back so many memories, and gave us great insight into Jimmy’s character

WHY COULDN’T REEVES HAVE BEEN THE THIRD AGENT SO TORRES AND QUINN WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED AND CBS WOULD’VE SAVED HEAPS OF MONEY HIRING ONE MAIN CHARACTER THAT AUDIENCES ALREADY KNEW AND LOVED INSTEAD OF TWO NEW ANNOYING ONES

Nonstop

Torres really is terrible at inferring and keeping up with conversations

The Sherlocks back at it again, plus Senior, aww

Everyone calling Jimmy ‘Doctor’ was so sweet

I love how they still don’t know what Lyle’s last name is

Does Quinn really have to insult everything and everyone she comes across?

Osorio shutting Torres’ obnoxiousness down was awesome

Bishop smashing the window was so badass

The clothes-swapping was pretty ingenious, and so was the interrogation bluff

A Many Splendored Thing (Ep. 16, but for some reason it aired as Ep. 15)

Torres was such a dick about the pickpocketing, especially the fact that spilling coffee definitely isn’t a small thing, and Gibbs pickpocketing Torres was great- he got what was coming to him

Bishop’s wallpaper on her phone is the Washington Monument, so sweet

Stop complaining about first-world problems, Quinn- there are people with real ones, plus you should be focusing on the case

Reeves defending Bishop when he didn’t have to, aww

The congresswoman is okay, but I’m glad she and Vance didn’t become a proper thing- Jackie is his soulmate, and I don’t ship him with anyone else

Chen-turning-up-in-Gibbs’-house was a great plot twist, and so was him working with the CIA

Bishop and Reeves’ argument was so important, and so was Bishop and Qasim’s in the flashback

Quinn really does love stating the obvious, and Torres really does love doubting Bishop’s intentions

Bishop being a total badass was so awesome, and her ‘Sophie’s Choice’ plan was so poignant

The Qasim flashbacks throughout the episode were so sad

What Lies Above (Ep. 17, but for some reason it aired as Ep. 16)

Of course Quinn’s being annoying as always, with her trying to get people to ask questions about her by saying elusive, secretive statements

I love the fact that Rosebud is hidden in a hollowed-out copy of Deep Six

‘Furrier’ is a questionable word (my mind immediately went to ‘furry courier’)

Why does Torres always have to be such a show-off

When someone has unnaturally-coloured hair, you know that they’re going to be important to the plot

The whole body-under-the-floorboards thing was very Edgar Allan Poe

Torres and Quinn are such hypocrites

The congresswoman was pretty annoying this episode

Torres said he could keep a secret- flashforward to S16 when he spilled the beans :/

Kate and Ziva, aww

Paul Triff was definitely an entertaining addition to this episode, and I really liked the storyline

M.I.A. (Ep. 18, but for some reason it aired as Ep. 17)

Quinn is such a dick even to waitstaff, ugh

Why is Torres so God. Damn. Annoying.

‘the more you talk the worse it gets’ hypocrite much, Torres?

Abby’s new thing with putting Caf-POW! in stuff is interesting, to say the least

I love it when Gibbs just puts the baseball bat over his shoulder and acts otherwise normally

Shut up Torres, she’s just trying to be nice to you and sympathetic to your experiences, so you could at least answer her politely instead of being an asshole about it

Lieutenant, you’re so pure and don’t have to apologise at all, especially to Torres

How are McGee and Bishop surprised that Quinn cheated on something, especially since it wasn’t mandatory (though I don’t know if it would’ve made much of a difference to her)

The end scene was sweet, but it wasn’t enough to make me feel sympathetic for Torres

Torres was such a douchebag in this episode, especially him talking about how much he loved Sofia- if he loved her so much, then why has he consistently been dating and playing with multiple girls’ feelings (including poor Bishop’s) since then

The Wall (Ep. 19, but for some reason it aired as Ep. 18)

I kinda wish Torres and Quinn became an actual thing- it would’ve prevented Ellick from happening

Stop being so disrespectful, Torres, he’s a person with feelings

Poor Reeves- he’s so used to being alone that he self-destructs and isolates himself at every chance

Abby’s welcome mat for Henry was such a nice thing to do

The scene with Henry at the wall was so sad, and so was Gibbs and Reeves’ conversation in the car

Again, Quinn’s stating the obvious and being annoying about it

Torres and Quinn are so gross, but perfect for each other

The end scene was so sweet, it made me tear up straight away

Henry was the best part of the episode, and his and Reeves’ interactions were great and so important

A Bowl Of Cherries (Ep. 20, but for some reason it aired as Ep. 19)

Quinn’s mother is just as rude as she is

Reeves complimenting Bishop, aww

Vice Admiral Chase sending McGee the virus so he’d be forced to get rid of it was hilarious, you can’t deny

Torres is so self-obsessed

Bishop knows Reeves so well, too adorable

Gibbs’ little joke was pretty good

Ducky and Jimmy just sitting around and waiting for the bodies to thaw was awesome

Bishop and Reeves make such a great team whenever they pair up, and this episode was no exception

One Book, Two Covers (Ep. 21, but for some reason it aired as Ep. 20)

Torres is just so gross and inappropriate, it’s great whenever someone shuts him down

You chose to do all the things you’re whining about, Torres- you can’t complain

I love Vance’s analogies

That’s the second time by my count that the John Paul Joneses have been mentioned in this show

Oof, poor Bishop

Shut up Quinn, you know they’re not gonna talk that easily

I hate how Torres never thinks he’s wrong, and his writing is seriously messy- even more so than mine

Never underestimate Abby, Quinn- you should know better than that

I’m surprised Torres wasn’t fired when he resurfaced from undercover- the more his backstory is explored, the more of his misconduct is revealed

I know this episode was meant to make people like Torres and feel sympathetic for him more, but it just solidified my hatred for him

Beastmaster (originally Ep. 22, but for some reason it aired as Ep. 21)

Torres knows all about sexual harassment, no wonder he volunteered to teach the class

Torres being misogynistic not even five minutes in, ugh

‘how do you know that’ ‘he dated Abby’ was pretty funny

Quinn, nobody trusts you

Bishop knows six languages, I’m not surprised

The pot guy’s joke was actually pretty good

Could you say someone died in a more offensive way, Quinn?

Reeves and the pepper spray scene was hilarious

Oof, I knew Spitz would find a way to get herself in trouble- she’s a classic SJW (which isn’t a bad thing, but violating boundaries is)

The scene between Vance and the Ambassador was really sweet, and showed solidarity and empowerment

Gibbs and Dawson had such a great dynamic

Reeves was even more dashing than usual this episode- idk why

Poaching is such an important topic, I’m really glad there was an episode about it

Something Blue (Ep. 23, but for some reason it aired as Ep. 22)

Reeves looks insanely hot no matter what he’s wearing, and Abby in her suit was absolutely incredible

Jimmy, you’re so adorable

Torres, don’t be such a dick- that song’s perfect for Delilah and McGee

I love how NCIS shows all the different jobs that the military has, not just combat

Vance’s advice to McGee was so sweet

Stop complaining, Quinn- YOU CHOSE THIS JOB

Delilah and Abby were right- McGee was kind of being a dick about the wedding planning

Quinn unknowingly insulting Torres was actually pretty great, and called out his misogynistic personality

The hospital scene with Gibbs and McGee was so heartbreaking and reminiscent of the S11 one, and the acting was incredible

Bishop playfully teasing Reeves was so cute, and them going undercover as boyfriend and girlfriend, COME ON

‘on what charge’ ‘doubting my accent’ was hilarious

Reeves leaning in close to Bishop, aww

Reeves and Bishop turning to look at each other straightaway, COME ON

The wedding was really cute, and Gibbs giving McGee his dad’s watch was so sweet, as well as the engraving on it

Rendezvous (Ep. 24, but for some reason it aired as Ep. 23)

Abby’s baby shower idea was really sweet

Bishop and Reeves turning to look at each other was very Tiva-reminiscent

Torres, must you insult everyone and everything?

‘I’d rather be stuck in an elevator with Justin Bieber than back here’ great line

Just suck it up and do it yourself, Quinn- don’t force poor Bishop to do it

This Curtis guy is so slimy and gross

‘who wants to tell this bloke we found his missing hand’ Reeves, you’re killing me

Vance looking up when he heard Gibbs’ voice as if he was God was so funny

McGee’s come such a long way since his first episode, so proud

Bishop and Reeves were standing super-close this episode- it was so cute

Note: Pandora’s Box (Part 1) didn’t air

#season 14 #ncis season 14 #ncis #naval criminal investigative service

3 notes · View notes

buckymcbuttfacebarnes · 6 years

Text

when hands touch (4)

wht masterlist

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

word count: abt 2600

summary: a pair of two best friends, bucky barnes and y/n live in the same apartment building, just across the hall from one another. it is only natural that they spend a majority of their time together.

a/n: girls..............the softness consumes me i lied to one of yall and said this was gonna be angst city but thats, as i said, a lie. love yall

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ “Why didn’t you tell me it was hot?” Bucky asks, his question accompanied by a sharp intake of breath to cool his scorched tongue.

“I didn’t think I needed to!” you reply, matching his whiny tone. “It’s hot chocolate, Bucky.”

A little more than two weeks had already passed since the night of that office party. An entire seventeen days and you hadn’t brought up what Sam had said to you. You didn’t want to...but that unfortunately, did not keep the conversation from weaseling its way to the forefront of your mind, repeating itself at the most inopportune times. You were in the midst of preparing a presentation with one of your colleagues when Sam’s voice just started playing in your brain: “You wanna know somethin’—I’ll tell you something…”

And then on top of whatever information Sam had given you, there was Bucky and his delicate touches, those little semi-romantic comments. Before Jack had turned into a psycho and tried to kill his wife, they had been a “happy couple”—his reasoning for why the two of you made the perfect Jack and Wendy. You tried not to think much of them, those heart-warming asides, as he was always known to be so charming, but everyday it grew harder and harder. Sometimes it felt a little too genuine.

You had only seen each other in passing in the weeks between now and the party, as you were both so occupied in work to spend much time together, so you were now making up for lost time.

“Guess you’re right,” he huffed, glancing over at you with the faintest hint of a smile. He gingerly takes another sip, whipped cream left on his upper lip. He looks at you goofily, but you pretend not to notice and focus your gaze on the television. You were watching The Simpsons, old reruns.

“Y/N,” he leans towards you, closer and closer as you ignore him, “Y/N.” His mug clunks solidly against the coffee table. Then his face is next to yours again, you can smell the chocolate on his breath, so sweet. “I know you can hear me.”

“Jesus, why are you so annoying?” you laugh, pushing his face away with the palm of your hand against his forehead.

“Just look at me.”

And so you oblige him, and turn your head to finally gaze upon his whipped cream-mustached face, grinning widely at you with that childlike joyousness that never failed to make you smile too.

“Are you happy now?” you ask.

He pretends to think for a moment. “No.”

“What will make you happy then?

That familiar one shoulder shrug, a slight turn of his pink mouth as he ponders his answer. “Well…”

“Don’t say anything gross, you perv.”

“I wasn’t going to!” He holds his hands up, palms out, a show of his supposed innocence. His coy smile says otherwise though. “Not anything too gross anyway…”

“Shut the hell up.”

“Don’t be mean.” He wraps an arm around you. You look at him as if he’s lost his mind. You stare at each other until you both begin to laugh. It’s that jovial type of laughter that feels so natural...it’s so often shared between the two of you. You don’t even think about how you reach for his hand, the one hung over your shoulder, or how he lets you hold onto it.

“You plan on keeping that there forever?”

“The mustache?”

You nod.

“You don’t like it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You can get rid of it, if you hate it so much.”

Your brows raise at the challenge, trying to figure out what he meant exactly. That is until his head dips towards yours, making the most obnoxious kissing sounds with his puckered lips.

“Buck—Stop it!” you laugh, one hand pushing at his shoulder, the other tugging at the fabric of his shirt. The loose pieces of his chestnut brown hair tickle your face.

It’s your natural reaction to laugh and push him away, but in your head you cannot help but quickly wonder what might have happened if you had let him kiss you. He doesn’t.

“I’m so damn tired of you.”

To this Bucky chuckles, his eyes search yours. You don’t know what for.

“Hey,” you say after a pause, your grip on his t-shirt finally loosening until your palm rests flat on his back. “Why did you wait to tell me about Melissa?”

Surprise flits over his face quickly. If you blinked in that instant you would have surely missed it.

“What do you mean?”

He knew exactly what you meant.

You tuck his hair behind his ears. “Don’t play dumb, Sam told me.”

“Him and his big mouth.”

You roll your eyes.

“I don’t know,” Bucky shrugged, sitting back on the couch.

You sit up too, eyebrows raised expectantly. How was he gonna try and spin this one?

“Part of it was that I didn’t want to tell you that I had failed in another relationship.”

“Sam said you broke up with her.”

“I—okay, well that’s true.”

“You told me that she broke up with you, you liar.”

“Well,” he starts, but doesn’t know how to finish. So he doesn’t say anything and just looks into your slightly amused face with a sort of hopefulness.

“Well?” you ask.

“I guess I just—”

“Wanted sympathy?”

“And cookies. And pizza. And to spend time with you, I guess.”

“What do you mean? We’re always together!”

Bucky turns his gaze away, he is smiling. This one’s different from any one that you had never seen before, soft and sweet. There was nothing else behind it but that, a sort of purity. He purses his lips and you think you see the hint of blush coloring his cheeks. Is he embarrassed?

“Well, it’s just that we’ve both been so busy these past few months!” the words are rushed, strung together clumsily. “You know with dating and work...and all that. I knew if I was sad you’d make time for me. I know, I know it sounds so stupid. I know,” he says again. “But it worked, we’ve hung out so much, we practically live together in two different apartments.”

He wasn’t wrong. He had clothes at your house, you had a toothbrush at his (in addition to the one at your own place). He took his meals in your dining room or on your couch. You fell into your most comfortable naps wrapped in his duvet or tucked into the crook of his arm while the two of you watched reruns of stupid late-night tv programs in the living room of his apartment. You were close before, but now every waking moment that you weren’t at work, was with Bucky. Inside, outside, on the subway, in a cab. Everything of his was yours, everything of yours was his—including your time. It was just the two of you.

“You don’t have to lie to me for me to be your friend.”

He traces the curve of the back of your neck with the pad of his forefinger. “You’re my best friend.”

“All the more reason for you not to lie to me.”

“I know, I know. It’s just—”

There is three sharp knocks at your door that stop him mid-sentence. You peer at each other quizzically as if to ask, Were you expecting anyone? Neither of you were.

“Want me to get it?”

“No, I’ve got it,” you say, already jumping up to get the door.

“Is Bucky here?”

Your response doesn’t matter because she can see him through the open doorway and she pushes past you with a hastiness that makes you go quiet.

“Mar—Melissa!” he sounds utterly surprised as he jumps up from his place on the couch. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been waiting outside your apartment for twenty fucking minutes!” she shouts, waving a hand towards the door. “I knew you would be here with her!”

Neither you nor Bucky say anything. You both look at her, bewildered.

Melissa (not Marissa), takes notice of this, your shock and his confusion, and crosses her arms over her chest. Her eyes narrow in Bucky’s direction. “You don’t even...I knew I shouldn’t have fucking answered your call.”

“My what? My call? What the fuck are you talking about?” Bucky sputters.

“You called me last night and said you wanted to meet a—” she cuts herself off, she seems to know that nothing she would say would make Bucky remember. At least she’s not stupid. “Is this her?”

“Her who?”

“The girl you were screwing when we were together?”

Screwing. What a terrible word.

“I wasn’t screwing her, Melissa, there weren’t any other girls!”

“Just say fucking,” you interject. It’s useless, they both ignore you.

“Bullshit, I know she’s the girl you left me for, I saw you guys like three days later on the fuckin’ street, you were holding hands!” Then she swings around to you with such a quickness that you’re unsure what to do with yourself, so you just stare at her with that amused look on your face. No matter how you try and hide it, it doesn’t go away. “What happened to female solidarity?” She touches a hand to her chest, “I met you! I thought we would have been friends.”

“We still can be. I wasn’t fucking your boyfriend.”

“Yeah, we weren’t...we’d…never! Would we? No, we wouldn’t.” Bucky fumbles for his words, stumbling over them like a drunk over stairs. It didn’t make sense, you hadn’t ever seen him so...at a loss. Especially when it came to women. Usually he was so cool.

There is a long pause. Melissa, who looks between the two of you with narrowed eyes, just shakes her head. “I don’t give a fuck. I don’t need this shit, fuck you—” she points at Bucky, she might have been menacing had her voice not been so nasally “—and fuck you too!”

Then she was gone, stomping out the door in a pair of knock-off Jimmy Choos, out of both of your lives for good. You close the door behind her before turning around to look at Bucky.

“Good for her,” you say.

He is still lost, brows furrowed and eyes slightly widened with the horror of the whole situation. You abandon him for a moment, going to the kitchen for a glass of water, trying to recover from the obscurity of the last two minutes.

Bucky enters with his mug of hot chocolate (now lukewarm chocolate) in hand.

“You handled that really well,” you tease, leaning your back against the edge of the counter.

“Shut up.”

“I mean it, you were spectacular, phenomenal, so smooth, I see why all the—”

He covers up your mouth with one of his large hands, the rest of your words come out muffled and incomprehensible. He shushes you, and you fall quiet. The only sound now is your breath, warm beneath his cupped hand, and the pulse of your heart. He smiles, crooked, the same one as usual. Playful and unpredictable. There is little space between the two of you. You are backed against the counter, how did he always get you like this? Trapped between him and a hard place. He was inescapable.

“You talk too much,” he murmurs. Blue eyes peer into yours for a fraction of a second, then he drops his hand. It comes to rest on the countertop, right beside your hip. You are still trapped. “Sorry you had to see that.”

“No, it was a pleasure. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you struggle so hard in our entire relationship.”

“You get off on my pain?”

“Yes.”

Ever so cheekily, he says, “Good to know.”

“Does that happen a lot?”

“What?”

“Do girls think you cheat on them with me?”

He winces and shifts awkwardly, as if it were some dreaded question. The reaction is enough to tell you that the answer is indeed a yes.

“No way!”

“Way.”

“Often?”

“More often than not,” he says.

“Whenever I get a boyfriend they don’t think that,” you tell him.

“That’s because when you get a boyfriend you shut me out.”

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

“Give me an example.”

Bucky sends his gaze up to the ceiling, head tilting back for a moment. He sighs, “Okay. Remember Jordan?”

“Jordan, Jordan, Jordan. Doesn’t ring a bell.”

The smile on your lips says otherwise, he touches the corner of your mouth fondly as if to say: Gotchya!

“You dated him for, what? Like seven months?”

“Six,” you correct.

“Doesn’t matter. But what does matter is that I only hung out with you five times in those six months, and one of those was only coincidental, it wasn’t even planned.”

“I was busy!”

“No, you weren’t, you just like to ignore me when there’s another guy in your life.”

“You’re so needy. I like to put boundaries between us, that’s all. So that shit like this doesn’t happen.”

“Shit like what?”

“Shit like you’re poorly dressed ex barging into my apartment to throw around ‘fuck yous’ and talk to me about ‘female solidarity’,” you pinch the bridge of your nose to mock her nasally voice.

“She didn’t really come here for you.”

You push roughly at his chest with the heel of your hand, “You know what I mean though.”

He rubs at the spot with a frown. “I guess.”

“What do you mean, you guess? If one of my exes showed up at your door just to say fuck you you’d be like, ‘Damn, Y/N, you couldn’t give me a heads up?’ Also, you’re an asshole for flaking on her the way you did.”

“I didn’t even call her!”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, I don’t remember calling her...”

“So what you’re saying is, you called her.”

He shakes his head and waves a hand dismissively. “Listen, all I’m saying is that you shouldn’t sacrifice what we have for a guy that’s only gonna be around for a few weeks.”

This makes your brows furrow, it hits you somewhere between your heart and your stomach. It settles there heavily, you try not to let it faze you too much. The other guys would only be temporary, but Bucky was forever.

“And what do we have?”

You are looking at him, but he is not looking at you. Instead, he looks down at his hand, the one that rests on the counter. He is thinking, you can tell by the crease between his brows, barely visible now. His lip twitches upwards, a smile grows slowly. There are butterflies in your stomach, your face grows warm and you pray that he doesn’t notice the way your voice had grown quiet when you asked him that terrible question. Charged with so much emotion that you had immediately regretted it as soon as it had fallen from your lips, you wished you could somehow rewind and bury them away. Never to be heard again.

The air between you is tense, like a rubber band pulled taught.

You feel his hand slide down your arm, fingertips cool against your skin. He catches his lower lip between his teeth to keep from grinning too widely. Oh God. And that’s when his hand slips into yours, but this time it feels different. It’s so different. You feel it, the way his hand fits perfectly in yours, the butterflies in your stomach, the quickening of your breath...but this time you are completely sure that he feels it too. He feels it all. He feels you. He gives your hand a gentle squeeze, his thumb runs across your knuckles. He finally looks at you again, and you feel ready to melt beneath his gaze, but he holds you up, just like he always has. Like he always will. He hadn’t said a word, but there was nothing to be said...you communicated by your expressions, your own secret love language that had developed between you long ago, when you first met.

Bucky brushes his lips against your knuckles, they linger there for a short moment.

“We have everything.”

Everything seems so much different when hands touch.

swag tags: @bambamwolf87 @princesse-de-ravenclaw @thunderous-flower @just-another-fangirl777 @pingu89 @piensa-bonito @shane-knight @just-a-littlebit-of-everything @insposcollective @krybaby-krybaby @kat-lives @drunkinthemiddleoftheday @geeksareunique

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x you #james buchanan barnes #bucky barnes fluff #bucky imagine #marvel fanfic #marvel imagine

201 notes · View notes