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bumblesimagines · 4 months

Note

this doesn't mean anything.

- Sarah Cameron

this doesn't mean anything.

Pronouns: He/Him/His, M!Reader

Got carried away with this one

In the world of the Outer Banks, Kooks were seen as untouchable. They were the stuck-up, spoiled, privileged kids who could do, say, or buy anything they wanted as long as they had daddy or mommy's credit card in their back pocket. They puffed out their chests, turned up their nose, and spat venom just because they knew they could. Their parents would flock and point fingers if any harm came to them, demanding Sherriff Peterkin and Deputy Shoupe do something about the 'dirty Pogues targeting their poor babies' as if Peterkin and Shoupe could do anything more than let them off with a warning or a brief night in a cell.

While they were utterly pathetic and useless, (Y/N) found them incredibly amusing. Nothing was better than watching the smugness get knocked right out of a Kook. Tears would immediately spring in their eyes and their perfect skin would stain with purple and red coloring that'd stay no matter how many ice packs they put to it. The Kooks that talked the biggest game were often the ones that squealed first in fights. Their scratchy, obnoxious voices would plead for mercy, shouting empty promises of staying away and never bothering them again. Rafe Cameron was the only one who could handle a little pain, but even then, the boy was as boring as watching paint dry. One look from his daddy dearest and he went away with his tail tucked between his legs.

His sister, as (Y/N) came to learn, was a lot more fun.

"Remember the rules, guys. No hardcore drugs, don't get blackout drunk, and don't start anything without me." (Y/N) called out after his younger brother and his group of friends. He was certain the nerd would keep them out of trouble, as he always did when they hung out, but a reminder never hurt anybody. The four of them scampered further down the beach, kicking up sand in their wake and disappearing amongst the other teenagers. They weren't much younger than him, only a year or two below him in school, but they were as annoying as children and attracted trouble wherever they went.

Fishing his cigarette pack out of his jacket pocket and sticking one between his lips, he allowed his gaze to drift over the party-goers present. Pogues, Kooks, and a few tourists who appeared wildly out of place with their big sun hats blocking half their vision. He recognized Rafe and his posse of coked-up boys lingering near the water and Barry making use of eager Kooks and their heavy pockets. His attention dropped down to his lighter and he grunted when it refused to light for longer than a second.

"Maybe it's a sign you should quit." A feathery voice piped up behind him and he turned around to find the treasured princess of Figure Eight.

Everyone knew Sarah Cameron. She was the beloved daughter of Ward Cameron, the pride and joy of Figure Eight, and the most envied and desired girl in Kildare. Everyone tripped over themselves trying to be in her good graces, trying to get a taste of the Cameron wealth and status. Ever since she entered high school, he'd heard all about her numerous relationships. She lept from boy to boy and left a trail of broken, jealous hearts in her path. Her most recent boy toy had been Topper Thornton, the son of the renowned Doctor Thornton and grandson of Judge Holden. JJ had left enough bruises on him for (Y/N) to know him well. (Y/N) thought they looked more like siblings than lovers.

"Nobody ever taught you not to talk to strangers, princess?"

"I would hardly call you a stranger." She said and lifted the mai tai in hand up to her pink-colored lips. Her eyes twinkled with the setting sun, lightening the deep shade of brown. "Everyone knows the Maybanks."

"And nobody likes them. You might have to forfeit your Kook card if you get caught talking to me, Miss Cameron." He cooed teasingly and she smiled despite herself, rolling her pretty eyes and brushing her hair away from her face when the wind gently tousled it. His eyes drifted down to the dark knee-length sundress she wore decorated in orange and yellow flowers. It looked better than what most of the girls from the Cut wore to fancy events.

"I don't care about my Kook card, (Y/N). I think this whole... Pogue vs Kook thing is so stupid. We're all living on the same island. Why should we be giving each other shit for where we were born?"

"I'm sure you'll be a just and fair ruler, princess." His words made her roll her eyes again and she laughed quietly into her can. Even her drink of choice screamed rich. Everyone else stuck to cheap beer or half-filled bottles they stole from the kitchen cabinet when their parents weren't home. Sarah twirled a piece of her hair around her finger, glancing away from him and toward her friends. They hadn't noticed her yet and for a moment, (Y/N) expected her to call out to them and walk away. But she looked back at him with a familiar coy smile.

"Wanna talk somewhere more... private?"

He wondered how annoyed John B would be when he learned he'd taken Figure Eight's princess back to his place. It'd been closer than the Maybank residence and had less chance of a drunken and drugged Luke staggering through the front door ready to ruin (Y/N)'s night. Kiara would certainly throw a tantrum about him sleeping with her ex-best friend and if Kiara got upset, Pope would quickly follow in defense of his crush. Annoying little shits but they made JJ happy and that was enough for (Y/N) to tolerate their shenanigans.

Tugging up his pants and zipping them back up, he gazed at the dozing Kook. Her long blonde hair had been sprawled out over the dark pillowcase and she'd buried half her face in the pillow, her parted lips forming a small spot of drool. As content and comfortable as she looked, he needed her back home before she chose to overstay her welcome under false assumptions.

"Hey, princess." (Y/N) reached down to move some strands of hair away from her face and shook her shoulder. She whined quietly and squeezed her eyes before rolling fully onto her stomach and burying her face further in the pillow defiantly. "You need to get going before Ward calls the cops 'cause his precious girl didn't come home."

Tiredly lifting her head, she squinted at him through the sunlight. "Are you worried about Ward or worried about what your friends will say?"

"My friends won't give a shit about me taking the Kook princess's virginity, sweets." Her face reddened considerably and he smirked. "My brother's friends might get pissed if they see a Kook on our turf. And I don't want problems with Carrera. She makes good food."

Sarah finally sat up and raked her fingers through her hair to detangle the knots as she searched the floor for her belongings. Her eyes finally settled on her underwear and she pursed her lips, the tips of her ears turning a soft red. "You ripped them." She murmured and her fingers began to toy with the ends of her hair.

"You didn't complain when I did it." (Y/N) scooped the sundress up from the floor and tossed it in her direction, arms folding over his chest while he watched her get dressed and rise from the bed. She awkwardly tugged at the dress and retrieved her torn underwear from the floor before shoving it into her purse and turning to face him.

"So-"

"I can drop you off at Word for Word. It's the closest store to Figure Eight so one of your little friends should be able to pick you up. I'd drive you home but I've got work and Barry will kill me if I'm late again." (Y/N) explained quickly and slipped his shirt back on, snatching his keys from the nightstand and jerking his head toward the door when Sarah remained rooted in her spot.

"That's it? You're just going to... ditch me in the middle of nowhere?" She stared at him in a mixture of surprise and irritation, and (Y/N) sighed, preparing the speech he often found himself telling those who couldn't catch a hint. He was a Maybank, for Christ's sake. Nothing about the men in his family screamed commitment. His father could hardly hold down a job and JJ was as much of a playboy as the next guy.

"Sarah, baby, this doesn't mean anything. I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt but I asked if you were sure and offered to drive you back like five times last night. If you wanted your first time to be with your soulmate, you should've let me know and I would've taken you back to your boyfriend. Now, unless you want to get into a screaming match with Kiara, I suggest you start figuring out who's taking you the rest of the way."

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allbark-no-bite · 1 year

Text

who are you mad at.

topper thornton x reader (wc: 3.4k)

summary: Topper doesn’t appreciate John B’s friendship with his girlfriend. sometimes all it takes is a blowjob and a little bit of forgiveness

warnings: 18+ smut, blow jobs, mentions of blood, over possessive boyfriend

author’s note: not me actually writing something with plot lol. i cannot believe all of the support i got on my last post, thank you all! i’m know that this isn’t Rafe lol, but i hope you’ll all give it a shot!

————————————————————————

As a little girl, I could never understand why the sheriff and the judge always drank coffee on my grandads front porch. It took me a few years to realize that it was probably for the same reason that the judge's grandson was always so sweet on me.

Politics in a small town like Kildare run deep on family ties and favors. It's all about who's blood is running through who and who's bed you wake up in when the sun comes up. As my best friend Sarah has often laughed about, it's all about how you know or who you'll blow.

Speaking of which, Topper's zipping up the fly on his jeans, fingers fumbling as he misses the hole for the button and has to try again. His cheeks are noticeably flushed, blue eyes distracted as he fidgets with his shaggy but nevertheless, neat crop of hair. No one would expect anything less of Figure Eight's golden boy.

I can't help but smile, biting my lip in an effort to conceal it from where I'm knelt on the floor. He's stupidly pretty. Blue eyes, straight nose, chin that dimples when he smiles.

He must feel my gaze on him because he catches my eye as he's buckling his belt and looks back at me. "What?" he laughs, breaking out into a bashful smile that matches my own.

"I don't know," I say, still smiling, and accept the hand he offers to pull me to my feet.

I don't remember when exactly Topper and I stopped being friends and started actually dating. It all happened so naturally that I don't know if we ever really distinguished between the two. One day we were just friends hanging out, getting drunk at the Boneyard, and then the next week he's kissing me at a party for everyone to see, like it wasn't a big deal that my best friend was kissing me. In some ways I guess it wasn't. It had never occurred to me that I would date anyone else. Sure Topper had dated Sarah for a while, but even that was short lived, and he had always been very upfront with me about it.

"Just you, I guess," I propose, grinning wider as he circles his arms around my waist, pulling me into him.

He's dressed up nicer than usual this evening for the Carrera's anniversary party in a billowy blue and white button up and khakis. The light colors pale in comparison to his bronzed skin, a likely permanent feature that the Carolina sun has given him.

"Really?" he hums, pecking my lips as my head tilts back to look up at him. My lips purse pliantly in response. Topper brushes aside the hair from my shoulder and hums, immediately pleased with the amount of exposed skin that he is rewarded with. The tank top that I'm wearing gives him the opportunity to ghost his lips along my shoulder until he settles on placing a kiss to the crevice of my neck.

My fingers curl into the brunette roots at the base of his neck at the attention. "It's not often I get you to myself."

With Topper's mom being the overbearing mother that she was, and the pressure that came with being the Judge's grandson, it was hard to get him out of their sights. However, if either bothered him, he never confessed such qualms to me. Such reasons are also why I think he was more privy to the political concept of our relationship than I was.

I remember being sixteen when a neighbor called the cops on one of Kelce's parties well after midnight. Of course no one knew this until Shoupe and a couple of his deputies showed up, sirens blaring. Most definitely a little buzzed and close to sobbing in the backseat of Shoupe's patrol car, I couldn't understand why Topper was so calm at the time. He just kept repeating, 'Don't worry about it, baby' and 'It'll all be fine'. At the time I hadn't noticed we were the only ones not in handcuffs. I thought for sure I was going to spent the night in jail and then my parents were going to kill me the next morning. He obviously knew something I didn't because twenty minutes later the patrol car was pulling into my driveway, Judge Thornton waiting on the porch with my grandad to take Topper home. The three of them shook hands and not a word was uttered about the incident again.

Topper dips his head to capture my mouth again, his teeth catching on the pout of my bottom lip.

Pressed to the front of my body, I feel his dick twitch in interest. I'm half compelled to drop to my knees and suck him off a second time just for the hell of it. The only problem is that he's got lipstick smeared on his mouth and his shirt is wrinkled and he's going to be late.

"Topper—" I begin.

"I know—I know—I know," he stresses, leaning down to kiss behind my ear again and then my cheek. "I'm going, I'm going."

Just when he pulls back and I go to step away, he grabs my face again, drawing my mouth back for another kiss.

"Topper—"

"I love you," he mumbles quickly after what is probably his hundredth kiss. "Okay. I'm going. I'll see you in a minute."

I watch him slip out the back door of the pool house we'd escaped to momentarily. I look over at the clock. What was supposed to be a quick five minute make out had turned into nearly half an hour. Thankfully, no one had been sent to look for us — namely my friends. Besides Kie and Sarah, the boys were off treasure hunting with Big John.

With all of the craziness going on in the past week, I was glad for the occasion to celebrate and enjoy the party. The evening air is cool and people are chattering excitedly, laughing and enjoying drinks. I spot Kie with her parents as I move throughout the crowd and she waves me over with a smile. Once I’m close enough, she latches onto my arm.

“We’ve got to get out of here. Big John was kidnapped, the boys are running off to South America to save him, and my parents won’t let me out of their sight,” she whispers through gritted teeth.

“Shit,” I whisper.

“Yeah, shit,” Kie stresses.

“Okay, okay. Don’t worry, I’m on it.” Turning to her dad with the brightest smile I can muster, I link arms with Kie. Thankfully, I fit in the with standard of friends Kid’s dad wants her to have, and he seems to be thankful I hang around.

“Hey, Mr. Carrera. I’m just going to steal Kie away for a moment. I promise we’ll be right back!”

He blinks, as if thinking about it for a moment before nodding. “Okay, just stay out of trouble you two.”

“We will!” I take off, dragging her with me as soon as the words leave his mouth. We haul it through throngs of tipsy guests, dodging anyone who might think to stop us.

“Wait!” Kie yelps snagging my arm before we reach the dock. Out of breath, I skid to a stop beside her.

“What—”

“Oh God,” she breathes.

Heart racing with adrenaline, I take another step towards the dock, dragging her along with me. “Kie, whatever it is, we have to go—”

“It’s John B. He’s talking to Topper.”

Straight ahead of us, I can make out John B’s wild head of hair and dingy yellow shirt. Him being the taller of the two, I glimpse the familiar white of Topper’s shirt just in front of him. Their voices are escalating by the moment, and I can make out the sound of Topper saying, “I want to know why you’re looking for my fucking girlfriend—”

“Oh God,” I repeat this time.

“(y/n), you need to go,” Kie stresses.

I take off before she even finishes her sentence, not even excusing myself as I dash past unsuspecting guests. People have started to stare and a sizable crowd has formed around them.

“— just because she’s your girlfriend doesn’t mean she can’t have friends without you.”

Topper scoffs. “Oh I see. This is about your little treasure hunting bullshit. So you think you can just run around with my girlfriend, do whatever the hell you want with her without me knowing?”

John B shoves him backwards, hard. “That’s not true!”

“John B, stop!” I shout, shoving my way to the front of the crowd as Topper catches himself. But it’s too late, John B is already grabbing the front of Topper’s shirt and yanking him to his feet.

The thing is, it’s not that Topper can’t defend himself, he’s more than capable of holding his own. It’s that he won’t. He won’t ruin his reputation in front of half the town. All he does is sneer, breathing hard as his blue eyes glint with hate. Topper had never liked my friends, only tolerated them for my sake — up until now.

“You think I don’t know?” Topper jeers. “All you’ve ever wanted is to get with (y/n).”

That’s all it takes for John B to swing. I scream as Topper stumbles backwards to the ground. Chaos erupts around us. I see Mr. Carrera hoist Topper to his feet, and my heart clenches at the sight. Blood is leaking from his nose and a dark rouge colored ring has already begun to form around his eye. When I move forward to help him, John B grabs my arm.

“We have to go. Now.”

My feet planted into the ground, I glance down at his split knuckles, and then back at Topper. Who do I choose? My best friend or my boyfriend?

Voice strained, I turn to John B. “I can’t just leave—”

“HELLO!! Now or never, guys!” JJ is on the dock with Kiara, and Sarah. Pope and Cleo are already in the boat.

“Go!” John B urges, shoving me in front of him. With one last look over my shoulder at Topper’s bloody face, I take off running down the dock with John B behind me.

—

I know he's mad before he even yanks the passenger side door open and drags me by my elbow to the car. Although his scowl and matching black eye are pretty heavy indicators, it's the stalk from the drivers side and around the front of the Jeep that tips me off.

"Get in the car, (y/n)," he barks without so much as a second glance at me.

John B and Pope glance at each other apprehensively. JJ and Kiara share similar looks.

With the passenger side door now open and Topper waiting for me to march myself over there, I hesitantly stand my ground. Anxiously, I swallow back the swell in my throat. "Go home, Top."

He throws his hands up in exasperation and shakes his head. "This—this is fucking ridiculous. Get in the car, (y/n)."

When I don't make a move either way, Cleo speaks up. "Leave her alone, man. She ain't gotta go nowhere wit' you." Her thick accent rings out loud and clear, but Topper pretends as though he doesn't hear her.

Having enough of our back and forth game, Topper strides over and grabs a firm hold of my elbow, intending to move me himself. Although I take a reflexive step backwards, I don't fight him off. At the same time, John B steps forward, ready to give Topper a black eye to match the other.

"John B, no," I immediately blurt out, twisting as best I can in Topper's grasp. "It's fine. It's fine." Sighing I turn back to Topper. "Okay," I relent. "Let's go."

We drive in silence for a while, waiting for the other to speak. I'm half hoping he won't and we'll make the entirety of the trip without uttering a word. Across the seat, we make eye contact and I scowl at him for the split second our eyes meet. Then I turn away and cross my arms with an air of defiance.

When I glance sideways at him, his jaw is clenched, eyes fixed on the road. I know him well enough to know that he's weighing out his options on what to say, determining what kind of conversation we're going to have.

He opens his mouth, starting to say something, then closes it and drags a hand over his jaw. "How many times did I call you?"

I shrug. "I don't know—"

"God dammit, (y/n). How many times did I call you!??" He slams his hand down on the console this time.

"I DON'T KNOW, TOPPER."

I do. Twenty-seven. He called twenty-seven times in addition to the missed texts and multiple question marks. I don't admit that though because it's easier to scream back at him than to admit that I was purposely avoiding his calls.

"You have got to stop hanging around with the wrong people. Start making better decisions." He's lowered his voice to a more appropriate volume now.

I glance over at him, a narrowed look on my face. "Who are you mad at, Topper?" I question. "Because I don't think it's me."

In the drivers seat, he continues to stare ahead at the road. "It's always fucking John B, isn't it. You always have to go to his rescue."

I set my jaw, knowing where his mind is and where this is going. "I didn't sleep with him, Topper."

Topper scoffs as if to make light of the situation. "Oh, for sure. You really expect me to believe that?"

"It's not like that. He's my friend."

We pull into his driveway, and Topper finally turns to me after parking the car. "Yeah? Well I'm your friend too, (y/n). You ever fucking think about that? Why do you think you're not sitting in jail right now with the rest of your so called friends?" He jabs a finger into his chest. "Me. Because I care about you!"

My back pressed up against the passenger side door, all I can do is blink in surprise. I'm not used to Topper yelling at me, and I'm not so sure I like it. I'd never thought about it that way before and guilt begins to creep into the pit of my stomach. My eyes suddenly sting and my nose burns with the threat of tears.

"I'm sorry," I whisper barley audible, my voice cracking.

Topper falls back heavily into his seat and sighs, running a hand over his face. Without a word, he gathers his keys from the truck's ignition and steps out of the car, slamming the door behind him. Teary eyed, I watch him take the steps up the porch and pace up and down the length of it while repeatedly running a frustrated hand through his hair. I get out of his truck and walk up the steps after a few minutes. Confident that he's done yelling but unsure of where we stand at the moment, I stop just short of him.

Hands in his pockets, Topper runs his gaze over me from head to toe after coming to a stop in front of me before he emits another heavy sigh and curls his hand around my jaw, forcing me to look upwards at him. "Answer me when I call you, alright?"

Nodding, I swallow under the weight of his hand as his fingers travel down to my throat. His blue eyes are focused and yet lack their usual jubilance. I nearly whine in relief when he leans down to kiss me.

He tastes fresh, like he always does, a mix between peppermint gum and mint toothpaste. The taste resonates within me a type of unspoken forgiveness that I sense is being granted as his other hand presses my body into his. I can feel the rigid outline of his cock through the thin fabric of his shorts, and it sends my heart racing in anticipation.

The thing about Topper is that he's always been able to read me impossibly well, and so when he disconnects our mouths by using the leverage of his hand on my throat to hold me back, he chuckles airily. "Feel me? That's what you do to me, you little tease."

I paw at him, grabbing at the waistband of his shorts to pull his body closer. Topper is nearly a foot taller than me, and I have to crane my neck to look up at him.

"I'm sorry, Top."

He hums, the thumb of his hand moving to tug at the swollen pout of my bottom lip. "Are you? He's only giving me a hard time now, not even allowing me to answer before his thumb slips into my mouth, pressing down on my tongue. "Going to be good for me then?"

The weight of his thumb is so soothingly familiar that I forget to respond in favor of suckling around the digit.

"Baby." He's quick to remind me, drawing his thumb from my mouth and swiping it wetly across my cheek to grip my jaw again.

My flushed cheeks forced into a pout, I nod as much as his hold on me will allow. "Mhm."

Topper glances over his shoulder, briefly surveying the closed blinds of the windows looking out on to the front porch, and then back to me.

"Alright, on your knees, pretty girl."

He doesn't have to ask twice. He's undoing his belt with one experienced hand and gathering a fist full of my hair at the back of my head with the other. Once removed from the confines of his boxers, his cock bobs at the freedom.

If there's one thing myself and multiple other girls in the Outer Banks can attest to, it's that sucking off Topper Thornton is a pleasure. I'd heard the rumors whispered around school even before we started dating. It was weird at the time, having to hear that kind of thing about my best friend, but once we started dating, I understood where they were coming from. With some guys, blowing them is an outright chore, but not Topper. He knows exactly what he's working with and how to use it.

Once again, he's heavy in my mouth. This time in a pleasurably aching way. His tip nudges the back of my throat, and I have to remind myself to relax and breathe through my nose as tears spring to my eyes. He swipes away a stray tear before it can fall.

"There you go, baby. Good."

He doesn't buck up into my throat, forcing me to gag and sputter as I try to accommodate his length — at least not this time. Topper just fists my hair and rocks slowly back and forth, eyes rolling as my throat clenches around him. My nose nearly digs into his pelvis by the time he's satisfied that his cock is nestled as far as it can get into the heat of my throat.

With the makeshift ponytail, Topper pulls almost all of the way out of my mouth before guiding himself back in. Each time the mushroomed tip kisses the back of my throat, he pulls his cock out of my mouth again. All it takes is a few good strokes before he's spilling into my mouth, moaning while I struggle to take him all. He pulls out when he's finished.

"Swallow," he instructs, tilting my jaw back so that I have but one option. Not that I would argue with him anyhow. I'm used to how he tastes, salty and strangely satisfying, His hot release slides down my throat. At first I would have wrinkled my nose at the thought of such a thing, but strangely, I've become accustomed to the taste. It's uniquely Topper, as odd as that sounds.

He helps me to my feet and plants another slow kiss to my swollen lips. I keen at the attention, my brain feeling sluggish and wishing he would just wrap his large hand around my throat again.

"I love you," he finally murmurs, pressing a find kiss to my forehead; a stark contrast to his manhandling moments before.

"Love you too."

Around us, the porch goes dark for a split second and I bolt into Topper's arms before the lights flicker back on. This repeats a few more times; long enough for us to realize that his dad is likely on the other side of the front door.

Topper groans. "Shit."

"Shit."

#rafe outer banks #outer banks #obx3 #obx x reader #obx imagine #rafe cameron #topper thornton #topper thorton smut #topper thorton imagine #topper x reader #topper thorton x reader #topper obx #topper smut

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champangekisses · 5 months

Text

Afterglow | R.C. & J.M.

Part One

Word Count: 5.4k

Warnings: swearing, banter, arguing, anger, suggestive, flirting

Summary: Reader’s first day back in the OBX after a year away is one to remember.

A/n: Part one to my first fic. I’m as excited as I am nervous to post this, I hope you enjoy!

All I could hear was the shouting, the constant rustle in the trees, the dogs barking uncontrollably. The flashlights shone through the trees and bushes as the sheriff and fellow deputies tried to desperately catch up to us. The fear set in, the rush of adrenaline still persistent in my body. I started to go numb as the limbs of the trees and bushes consistently smacked me all over. Then finally it happened, right before my eyes—my greatest fear became my living nightmare.

One Month Earlier

“Y/n! Make sure you pack yourself something nice to wear, remember no white!” My mom yelled up to remind me for the one hundredth time from the base of the stairs. I left the OBX a year ago, moved out to the middle of nowhere with my mom and her new husband and started a completely new life with them. Today, I finally get to go home, but unfortunately only for a week.

The Thornton’s eldest daughter is getting married off to some kid who graduated from law school, nothing special other than the groom comes from a wealthy family, and that's all that really matters out there. Keeping the rich - rich. My mom was always obsessed with the idea of me having a lifestyle almost identical to hers but I never was one for the shinier things in life, I just wanted to smoke pot and surf.

I had a plan though, she had always promised me that we would return off of one condition. “You will never see those worthless kids ever again.” Her words replayed in my head like the unmistakable tune of the piano keys I kept tapping ever so faintly as I waited by her bedroom entry, only to retain her opinion of the attire I had picked for the dreadful day to come.

“Y/n? Do you need something?” I quickly zoned back in, collecting all of the vindictive thoughts and stuffing them in a folder labeled drafts. I turned quickly to face her, she was in the middle of packing almost every nonessential item in her bathroom.

I gradually made my way to her bedside, settling down while staring at the ardent red dress in the palm of my hands. “What do you think about this one?” I spoke excitedly, masking the deceitful thoughts I was creating effortlessly in my head.

“I love it! The red dress has always been my favorite.” Her eyes glimmered at the thought of seeing me finally fit in with the kooks or as my step dad would say, the well educated kids. I gave a gentle smile to her before proceeding back through her reimposed bedroom doorway, gliding my fingers ever so delicately over the keys of the piano once more before continuing back up the staircase.

The trip there was awful and boring, outside of the plane windows you saw nothing but the many shades of green, luckily we were there within the matter of a couple hours. We took the latest flight that ultimately landed us at Charleston around eight in the evening. Exhaustedly as I am, I took it into my best interest to sleep during the next three and a half hours of our drive to the Outer Banks.

My body started lightly being pulled in one direction, then the other with every winding turn the old road took. With my eyes closed and slowly waking up, I started imagining the scenery of the old famous hang out at John B's. It was like dreaming in slow motion, watching as the sun kissed the water while we overcame the dying urge for a good time with uncontrollable laughter. Before my imagination concluded the car slowed, turning unhurriedly through massive gates that sat imperishable at the end of the elongated driveway.

Pulling up to the front doors of the old Tanneyhill Estate, I glanced into a dining room window staring at the distinctive profile of well-known Rafe Cameron. Our arrival made the inevitable distraction from the conversation at the dinner table which caused him to turn, concentrating on the moving vehicle on the other side of the very same window. The car stopped and I regained focus, grabbing my hand bag from the floorboard of the SUV before undoing my seatbelt.

Glancing down at my phone to check the time, I rested my hand on the door handle. Before I could put the energy into finally pulling it towards me, Ward swiftly swings the car door open—smiling almost as if he has never seen such a wonderful sight in his life. While demanding he help my stepdad with an argumentative tone, he reaches out for my hand and mildly holds it to help me out of the car.

I mumble a soft thanks before glancing to the front doors, locking eyes with the golden boy. Meanwhile behind me, Ward was continuing to the next car door, assisting with any need my parents had. Rafe never broke eye contact, even when he shifted his posture to lean against the framework, crossing his ankles while his hands stayed in his pockets. His smirk turned into a devilish grin that wreaked nothing but chaos. He sent chills that vibrated my bones, and even once received was not sufficient enough for the goosebumps coming to life on my neck.

I stared at the walkway in front of me, with each step the pit in my stomach grew. I could feel his eyes on me like the force of rain during a downpour. The closer we were, the weight of his stare grew even more burdensome. I felt so compliant around him, so timid. I finally reached the top of the stairs, I swung my arm out to grab the handle but Rafe had already beaten me to it. My hand gently landed on his, my anxiety quickly rising as I ripped mine back to me. His daunting smile let out a faint chuckle that only I could hear.

“If I don't get the door for you, I'm sure I'll hear about it later from my dad.” His tone was so taunting, as if he wanted me to react. I continued through the entry room, following the long narrow hallway to the backside of the home. Sarah was sitting on the love seat that was shared by her younger sister Wheezy. She wasted no time swiftly moving her head to look at the shadowed figure stepping into the light of her living room. Sarah immediately shot up, pushing everything from her lap directly on top of her sister. I prepared my body for the impact of Sarah’s as she pulled me in. We stayed continuously hugging for what felt like forever—neither of us comprehending quite yet that we were in reality. Ward hurried with the luggage, trying to push us in and assign us our rooms. We wasted no time getting ready for bed, I was anxious for what my tomorrow would bring.

I ended up sleeping in for far too long though, waking up to the smell of bacon and eggs way past the time I should be. Shooting myself up off the floor, I scurried into the bathroom across the hall. I shut the door quickly and immediately started the shower water. The only problem was that I forgot the clothes I needed to change into, so I wrapped a towel around me as my hair stayed drenched. Cracking the door open, I checked the hallway making sure nobody was able to witness the embarrassment I was about to endure. I darted across the hall, running through the entry of the bedroom I assumed was mine. I slammed the door a little too hard before turning around to look for my nonexistent clothes on the floor. Rafe, laying down on his bed, props himself up using his forearm and elbow.

“Since when did we share a room?” I jump by the sudden question asked towards me, not prepared to potentially be interrogated. I almost lose my towel in the process while Rafe begins to chuckle at my distress.

“Excuse me?” I questioned as I felt my face starting to warm as his stare intensed.

“You’re excused.” He replied with a smirk as his tone quickly became playful, I started to become flustered before popping off on him.

“You disrespectful brat! All of our interactions have ended with me being uncomfortable. You couldn’t even open the door for me out of courtesy when we first arrived! Now I'm here, sitting in a towel and you won’t even get up and help save me from this embarrassment! You’re such a jackass.” My voice started to raise as the fire within me started to spread.

Rafe shot up out of the bed as if he was being demanded to by a drill sergeant. His mood switched, intimidating was an understatement. He approached me with the same devilish smile he once had just last night, his hand reached out to hold my jaw—gentle yet firm. My breathing stopped, I couldn’t even say a word to him. Rafe brought his mouth to my ear, the closer he got the more submissive I became.

“Do you really want me to leave?” His voice made my skin crawl, my heart started pounding and my breathing came back but in manual.

“Get off of me, you mutt.” I smacked his hand away from my face which caused him to laugh before his tone shifted once again and he turned away from me.

“Get out.” He demanded. I felt even more embarrassed, I glanced at my feet noticing that I still wasn't dressed yet and it was going on late morning. I started to make my way to the door as Rafe seated himself on his bedside, I grabbed the handle and swung open his door. Walking out as if I meant to, I attempted to keep my confidence. I knew all too well that he watched me leave, my mom’s words played in my head as I proceeded down the hall once more. A dog will always remain a dog.

I finished getting dressed before making my way to the kitchen, my mom already had a cup of coffee waiting for me.

“What happened to you? I heard you get out of the shower and then it took you quite some time to get ready.” My face began to burn, Rafe’s words replicating a broken record in my head. My eyes wide open looking down at my feet with the mug full of coffee to my mouth, I sipped at it before placing it back down onto the island where she was sitting.

“I had some trouble with putting my outfit together.” I replied, hoping that was enough to get her off of my back. I couldn’t exactly tell her what happened or she would take it as a connection and mentally start wedding planning.

“Y/n! Come over here!” Sarah yelled from the back patio. My mom shaking her head in approval, I went on my way from the previous conversation and walked into an even more enlightened one. Sarah approached me with a growing smile while pulling what looked to be Topper away from Rafe whom he was actively having a conversation with. Rafe from afar glanced over at them approaching me before sitting down on patio furniture and gluing his face to his phone.

“Y/n, I wanted you to be reintroduced to my now boyfriend, Topper.” Sarah announced as I smiled, knowing that eventually they would connect. Topper has always had something special for Sarah, it was only a matter of time before she noticed.

I stepped aside from the conversation, staring off into the distance, watching the waves ever so lightly wash against the dock and the sailboats glide effortlessly against the water. I missed this, but I missed my friends more than anything. I stood there, with my mug in my hand and the coffee sitting dormant inside soon growing cold. Dreaming of the moment I see them, the Pogues.

Then, as my imagination settled, a figure started walking towards the house from the dock. Taking all of my attention away from my long forgotten wishes, they looked worn from a long day's work. When they grew closer to the back patio we shot each other a curious glance, our eyes locked which then became intense within seconds. I lost my grip, everything going numb before the mug shattered beneath me.

John B.

My lifelong best friend, walking through the yard of my now greatest enemy. Not one soul wasted time to come to my side, except for Rafe. He kept a glare on John B. as he continued down the pathway, you could see in his dark malevolent eyes that he was not welcomed here by him. Meanwhile, Ward ran to us from around the house while my mom and Rose came from the back doors.

“Y/n are you okay!? What happened!?” My mom grabbed my wrists and pulled me to her for a reply.

“N-nothing mom, I'm fine. Please.” I pushed away from her, running inside as Ward cleaned the pieces of porcelain. I went straight to the bathroom, not even sparing a moment to close the door. I turned on the cold water from the sink, staring motionless at the unrecognizable girl in the mirror while my eyes started to burn as the tears formed. I cupped the freezing water before bending over to splash it on my face, hiding any evidence of my emotion.

“I can’t believe I'm asking this but, are you okay?” With both hands gripping the bathroom counter I turned my head sharply to the door, Rafe stared at me with one eyebrow slightly raised while keeping one hand on the doorframe for support as he stood. I gave an angry chuckle before I collected myself.

“Yes, I'm fine. You can go now.” I seethed, Rafe rolled his eyes before making his way back down the hallway, mumbling the entire time before he stepped outside and back to tending to his dad’s needs. I wouldn’t go back outside, solely to prevent myself from becoming even more embarrassed by the scene I left behind. I went into the kitchen, watching my mom and Rose laugh over something that I had absolutely no interest in hearing about. Rose kindly handed me a glass of water before asking if I was okay. I felt myself turn pink, before I could even thank her and reassure her Sarah ran in from outside.

“Y/n! If you’re up for it, Topper wants to take us out for a ride in his new boat?” I turned to my mom waiting for her approval before running away from this nightmare. She sent me a soft smile before returning to her gossip session. I followed Sarah back out to the patio, ignoring the urge to apologize a hundred times for the mess I had created.

The boat wasn’t much to brag about, I don’t even remember the name of it honestly. I did enjoy the scenery though, and being able to let the water hug my fingers as we cruised back toward the dock. As we pulled up to tie off Rafe just couldn’t keep his mouth shut any longer

“So Y/n, why did you freak out like that back there at the house?” He questioned with an upward curve forming at the corner of his mouth. It made Sarah and Topper turn their heads to give me their full attention, and I couldn’t help but to glare at Rafe. This made him smile, his sunglasses hiding his eyes that had probably nothing but pure enthusiasm as he taunted me.

“So Rafe, why did you come check on me when I ran inside?” I teased, his smile soon fading while Sarah and Topper turned their heads back forward, hiding the smiles they held from the total humiliation they had just witnessed. Rafe had nothing to say but I felt accomplished knowing I officially put the pretty boy in his place, reminding him that two can play his game.

Once Topper tied the boat off we all hopped out. Rafe was of course the first one while I was last, which I didn’t mind because I wouldn’t want the help out. We all walked back to the house together until I realized I had forgotten my sandals, I turned around not even sparing a second to tell anybody. I hopped back into the boat and within seconds had found them, once I stepped out a familiar voice chimed in my ears.

“Hey there, stranger.”

My heart skipped a beat as I instinctively turned my head to look on the second level of the yacht that sat beside me. We made eye contact before I cracked a smile.

“I'll be damned; John B. Routledge.” I replied, he already had a glowing smile on his face, the same one as when we first met in school.

“Why don’t you come down here so we can be on the same level?” I tried to convince him, but luckily for me he had the same idea. John B hurried down, grabbing onto the side of the boat for him to throw himself over. While running to me to trap me in a hug, the strongest one I've been in so far. He pulled away from me but not letting go just yet.

“Y/n, you have to come to the bonfire tomorrow night. Everybody will be there and I know Kie, Pope and JJ would love to see you.” He encouraged me as I froze, not knowing how to explain that my parents absolutely despised him and the Pogues.

“I’m sure we will see each other. I know Topper and Sarah have been talking about going while we were out today.” I replied warily. John B had a concerned look on his face that had a splash of frustration before popping the one question I wished he hadn’t.

“So, you’re hanging out with the Kooks now?” I pushed him away from me.

“It's not as easy as you think it is to go back to how I once was; I have strict rules to follow and if I want to stay here for as long as I intend to do so, I have to play along.” I retorted as he stared at me wide-eyed. I knew he was confused and probably a little hurt by my reaction but that was the easiest way to tell him. I was suffocating myself staying in that home but I had another six days to try to prove to my parents that we should come back.

“I’m sorry John B., but my parents told me the only way I could come back is if I stay away from you. But -” I bit my lip, staring off into the horizon as the sun started to trinkle its way down to the water. John B grew impatient while I questioned myself to tell him my plan.

“But what Y/n?” He whined, making me snap out of my trance.

“But—if they just think I am a Kook, then they should get convinced quickly. Making it easier to hang out with you, since you know…they won’t be keeping a close eye on me.” John B sighed, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand as he kept a stare down at the boards of the dock.

“I mean, I don’t think we have any other choice.” He replied looking back up to me, a soft smile formed once more on his face.

“Look at it this way; we finally got the Pogues back.” I smiled in response, it felt refreshing talking to John B. His voice reminded me of the soft waves as they caress the sand on the shore, the crackle of a fire that's burning at night to devour the darkness around you.

“I will see you tomorrow John.'' I smiled as I turned away from him.

“Don’t keep me waiting Y/L/N.” he replied as I started my way back to the house, blushing with a smile as I continued down the dock.

John B. was my best friend. I would be lying if I said he wasn't cute, but my eyes were on somebody else—precisely from a year ago. I stepped in through the doors that welcomed me back into the kitchen. Ward had taken Rose and my parents out for a nice dinner on the water for a warm welcome home. Sarah, Topper and Wheezy got dressed in time for the remaining two hours to be filled with laughter in the pool out back. I rounded the corner into the hallway before I was stopped by none other than Rafe, he was leaning against the wall with a look of disappointment growing on his face.

“So what was that all about?” He questioned, I stood there making awkward eye contact. Was he watching me?

“Hello?” Rafe poked once more, I furrowed my eyebrows before sending him an attitude.

“I don’t think it’s any of your business.” I pushed myself past him as he turned to watch me leave.

“It could be mine or it could be your parents’.” He barked back to me. I stopped walking as he slowly progressed towards me. I stood in fear of what my parents would do if they ever knew. I could feel his presence behind me, the goosebumps rising on my back and arms like a mountain range protruding through my skin. I turned around, finally gaining the courage to face him.

“Excuse me?” The anger spilling through my teeth.

“You heard me.” Rafe shot back at me, as if he planned out exactly what I would say to him. He lived for this, the mess he creates in my head and the endless ways he taunts me just to get me to react. He was a soulless, mediocre bastard of a person. The devil was such an understatement at this point, I only wanted to hit him but I wouldn't hear the end of it from my parents.

“Leave them at the cut, Y/n. You’re on figure eight now. You need to start acting like it.” I scoffed at him before ditching the conversation by walking away and into the guest bedroom I was staying in. Rafe followed, but stayed at the door.

“Don’t think that I don’t know how bad you want to come home, if I was you I would hang with us.” He suggested, I sit on the bedside before looking over to Rafe, one eyebrow raised before laughing at him.

“You really think I want to be friends with you? Sarah is the only kook I actually enjoy being around, but you? You are a plague that walks the earth, you only want to cause harm and enjoy watching as everything falls apart. I would never want to be associated with you, ever.” I felt my rage start to rummage through me as Rafe rolled his eyes before shutting the door, mumbling some more as he made his way back down the hallway towards the kitchen.

I put myself to bed, anxious that Rafe now has something to control me with, but how did he know that I wanted to come home? I’ve only told Sarah, and I know she wouldn’t ever tell Rafe anything, so was he eavesdropping? I brushed it off ultimately, it doesn’t matter how he found out. What matters now is that he knows.

After my cup of coffee with my mom the next morning, I wasn’t too excited to be having to go to the bonfire with the Kooks, but I don’t really have a choice right now. I tagged along with Sarah for the afternoon while Topper and Rafe did. I don’t know, Topper and Rafe things?

“So Y/n, what made you change your mind about the bonfire? When Topper and I brought it up, you seemed super uninterested.” Sarah didn’t hold back her question as she was incredibly suspicious. It caught me off guard so I took a minute to think about my response.

“Honestly, I just needed to get out and enjoy myself since I'm not promised more than this week.” I lied while the pit in my stomach grew. What if I don't stay? What if I go back? I couldn’t stand the thought of it, but I had to prepare myself for the worst. Sarah didn’t seem too convinced with my answer, giving me a raised eyebrow with a smirk following really gave it away.

“Okay, well we need outfits for tonight. Almost everybody in the OBX will be there, sometimes school aged visitors show up too if they’re looking to get away from their family.” Sarah continued on about the bonfire, while I searched through the never ending clothes racks. We finally finished our shopping spree and made it back in enough time to get ready for the fire. I was a tad anxious not knowing if I looked good in what I picked. Honestly though, every woman out here has the same fashion sense unless you're a visitor. As Sarah was finishing up I gradually made my way to the kitchen, lazily pouring myself a glass of water before becoming interrupted with an unwanted guest. Leaning against the counter’s edge closest to me, Rafe rested his chin in the palm of one of his hands while sneakily trying to reach under the cabinet for his father’s whiskey with the other.

“Can I help you?” I mucked up the courage to speak while avoiding any eye contact, back facing the glare I knew he was giving me.

“Your shorts, pull them down some.” He spoke as if he was agitated, I immediately felt the rage take over my body once more as if I was becoming a wildfire that couldn’t be put out.

“How dare you comment on my shorts! You don't own me nor my body nor my mind, and I will never and I mean absolutely never do a single thing you tell me to do!” I screamed at Rafe in a tone as if I was scolding a troubled teen, but he wasted no time to crack a smile before chuckling a bit, switching positions so his back can rest on the wall behind him and tucking his hands back into his front pockets before closing his eyes and pulling his head down towards the floor beneath him.

“I never said to take them off, but when your shorts are riding so high that it looks as if your ass is suffocating it just looks…I don't know, it's funny.” He replied with a soft attitude, the embarrassment raced across my face as if it was in a marathon going for first place. Swiftly yet unsuspiciously, I grabbed the bottom of one side of my shorts as I tightened the grip I had on the glass with my other, tugging the god forsaken things down as much as I could. Rafe had a steady grin while keeping his eyes closed, knowing only too well what I was doing. I gulped down the cold water before flipping the glass upside down in the kitchen sink, then without a second thought started my way back to Sarah’s room. Leaving Rafe with his new found bottle of whiskey, and the satisfied smirk he continued to hold onto that only made the night jealous with how dark its intentions were.

I quickly stepped into Sarah’s room, shutting the door with my back before elegantly sliding down until my bottom touched the freshly installed carpet. I shut my eyes before exhaling the breath I held in for what felt like eternity.

God, I hate him.

My mind was full of anger while my body said otherwise, I couldn’t ignore the fact I desired him. Everything he does, he knows it’s working as if he needs me to want him. As if he wants me to need him.

“How does this look?” Sarah’s voice intruded my thoughts. Luckily, she didn’t seem concerned for my growing silence moments after following the slight blush spreading across my cheeks.

“I think you look great. Are you finally ready?” I quickly spoke, before jumping to my feet with a mask of excitement that only hid pure anxiety. We made our way down the spiral staircase, following Sarah’s lead as we made it to the last step. My fingers effortlessly slid down the white handrail as every imperfection of the wood protruded from the thick sealant, so well that I was forced to acknowledge the splinter left behind from it. I winced at the pain as Sarah bolted to Topper, jumping into a hug which resulted in the air being filled with laughter.

I realized a little too late that I should’ve brought a jacket to the bonfire. The ocean left little kisses on my cheeks as the breeze picked up, which carried the slightest bit of mist from the crashing waves in the distance.

“Y/n?” Topper spoke out softly, my concentration returning to him as I snapped out of the trance that the water had on me.

“I’m sorry, what were you saying?” I asked, ignoring the worrisome look on his face as he continued.

“Why exactly do you wear that ring all the time? You’re not like, engaged are you?” You shared a quick chuckle with the blond as you mindlessly played with the tiny band with your thumb, examining the delicate piece of silver that carried a microscopic engraved heart. Your mother requested it to be on there, she said it would add character or something like that.

“Oh, this little thing? It’s a purity ring, gifted to me by my parents for my birthday last year.” I answered, glancing back up to Topper who was taking another swig of his beer before lowering the bottle with a soft sigh and pink cheeks.

“Oh, interesting. Uh, do you see Sarah anywhere? She said she was grabbing herself another drink but she never came back.” He asked as the air thickened with tension, his eyes frantically scanning the faces of the individuals in front of us.

“I just want to make sure she’s o…” I turned to face him, curious yet concerned about what had made him lose his train of thought. His eyes darkened while his knuckles turned white from gripping the now empty bottle in his hand, I couldn’t get a word out before he made his way forcefully through the hoard of people in between us and his target.

I scan the crowd ahead of him before my eyes land on Sarah talking to John B. My heart started racing as I prepared myself for the conflict about to happen. Looking at my surroundings frantically, I feel a hand snake around my waist.

“Now, how has the Kook life been treating you?” A familiar voice spoke out while leaning towards my ear, the music so loud it was almost impossible to think.

My heart fluttered as every butterfly made its way to my stomach as I turned to face him, JJ’s smile matching mine as we sat in silence for what felt like eternity. I would leave this Kook life within a blink of an eye if it meant I could stay here in this moment with him forever, and surely by the looks of it, he felt the same. I glanced down at my beer, a soft pink grew on my cheeks but luckily the dim light of the fire hid my embarrassment quite extensively.

“Terrible.” I whispered, looking back into his eyes with only inches of separation between us. His breath reeked of bourbon and cigarettes while his eyes searched mine, as if trying to find the life they once emitted. Sadness soon filled the space between us as the memories washed over him and I. We stood in complete silence as if we were waiting for the other to speak, sharing the suffocating tension we had created. I stepped towards him, never breaking the gaze we held as I wrapped one arm around his neck and closed the space between us with a hug.

“I just want to come home J.” I whimpered in his ear while trying my best not to shed a tear, especially not at a party full of Kooks.

“Then come home, baby.” JJ hummed before hugging me tightly. Before I could process what I had just done, a scream echoed through the area and I remembered.

Topper.

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unmarkedhelicopter · 6 months

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I’ve unfortunately picked up deputy Thornton’s repeated “shOW thE BItch WHo’s boSS” line as a new thing I just say all the time, it’s just such a funny thing to warble out in an exaggerated backcountry accent at random times. Yes, it’s driving my partner insane

#alan wake 2 spoilers #idk it’s just soooo funny to me #I actually found that boss encounter to be really amusing I was like laughing during it #impossible to take that duo seriously even as taken #fuck coffee world though that place put me on edge

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a-finnish-janitor · 3 months

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Thanks to Todd Boyce's performance as Thornton, I now wish to examine him under a microscope like a bug. Also examining my own brain under the same microscope as to why his delivery of "just get it fucking done" has stuck in there like it has.

#alan wake 2 #alan wake 2 spoilers #deputy thornton #deputy mulligan #saga anderson #my posts #i just find it interesting how they managed to expand on these two joke characters from the first game #although i do think its fitting the direction they went with their characterization #but yes todd boyce did a very nice job here though

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autisticwriterblog · 30 days

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Fandom 50 Post 8

My seventh piece of Alan Wake 2 meta. This one is about Return 3.

Return 3: Local Girl

What happened in this chapter?

Saga and Casey continue their interrogation of Alan, who seems to remember a bit more now. He tells them about the Dark Place and Scratch, and how Scratch has escaped and can take on Alan’s form. Casey seems bemused by the whole thing. Alan also tells them about the Clicker and how bad things will happen if Scratch gets his hands on it.

Suspecting that Alan isn’t telling them the whole truth, Saga profiles him, and learns that Alan is hiding a page from the agents. When she demands for him to hand it over, Saga reads the page, which places her in a trailer in Watery.

So, Saga leaves Alan in Casey’s care and drives to Watery, hoping she will find the Clicker there. Arriving in Watery, Saga begins her search for the trailer park. Outside Suomi Hall, she finds Vladimir Blum, who works at the Valhalla Nursing Home, and Saga is confused when Blum recognises her. She asks him where to find the trailer park, and he tells Saga to locate the owner, Ilmo Koskela.

Saga continues her walk through Watery, eventually locating Ilmo and his twin Jaakko beside a broken bridge. Just like Blum, the Koskela brothers recognise Saga, seeming convinced that she used to live at the trailer park. She profiles them, learning that they genuinely have memories of Saga’s life in Watery. Saga asks Ilmo for the key to ‘her’ trailer, but Ilmo doesn’t have it—the key is in the gift shop at Coffee World. The brothers phone ahead, asking someone to get the key out for Saga.

Thanks to the ruined bridge, Saga is forced to take a long, winding route to Coffee World, encountering several more Taken on the way. Eventually, she reaches the amusement park, finding the place deserted. Nobody unlocked the gift shop like they were instructed to, forcing Saga to find a screwdriver and bust the lock open. Of course, she must explore Coffee World to find the screwdriver, running into yet more Taken in the process. When she finally gets into the gift shop, Saga finds the safe locked. She must solve a puzzle to get the code, before finally getting her hands on the key.

After that, Saga leaves Coffee World and approaches the trailer park. Inside, she finds two elderly men drinking moonshine. Like the others, they recognise her, but Saga deduces that these men don’t seem affected by the fluctuating reality. The men introduce themselves as her grandfather (Tor) and great uncle (Odin), and Saga begins to wonder if they really are her relatives.

Entering her trailer, Saga finds Logan’s bedroom. She discovers a photo of the Anderson brothers with the cultists (and the Clicker), and Saga notices that the cultist seems to be part of the Kalevala Knights motorcycle club. She also finds a newspaper clipping about Logan allegedly drowning in 2019. Saga knows it isn’t true but she still panics, especially when she calls Logan but nobody picks up.

When she leaves the trailer, Saga spots Mulligan wearing a cultist mask and looking like one of the Taken. He leads her to the Kalevala Knights workshop, where Saga goes down into the basement. She finds the Clicker, but it vanishes before she can take it. Also in the basement, Saga discovers another page, which tells her about an Overlap and how she can find Mulligan and Thornton there, but first she needs to place some items on the parade float to open said Overlap.

After a trip through Coffee World collecting the items she needs, Saga places them all on the float and the Overlap opens in Huotari Well. Saga climbs down the well and once again finds herself in a looping environment. Also like before, she hears Logan crying for her, and sees visions of Alan. When Saga finds Mulligan and Thornton, they attack her, so she is forced to defeat them.

After the Taken deputies are dead, Saga finds herself communicating with Alan just like in the last Overlap. She wants to know if Alan wrote her family into the story, but Alan vanishes before she learns the answer. Saga then finds herself outside the well once more, the Clicker in her hand.

My Thoughts

Return 3 is an important chapter for me—on my first playthrough, I struggled to get into the game during the earlier Initiation chapters, but Return 3 is when I first fell in love with Alan Wake 2. So, replaying this chapter always makes me especially happy for that reason.

This chapter gives us another Koskela Brothers commercial, this time for Coffee World. It’s just as hilarious as their first commercial, featuring Jaakko’s wooden acting, their incredibly low budget props, and the pointed reminder not to feed their goats coffee, which suggests they’ve had major issues with it in the past. Related to this, I love the moment in this chapter when Ilmo sarcastically mentions how Jaakko comes alive in front of the camera, and Jaakko fondly tells him to fuck off and that he only does the commercials for the free beer.

Also, the commercial mentions the Huotari Well as being the sight of a murder, which is incredibly interesting with the later knowledge that Mulligan and Thornton dumped a body down the well decades after the Huotari incident.

I love the whole game, but Saga’s side has always been my favourite, because I love exploring the real world and meeting the fleshed-out characters and detailed environments. And Watery is one of my favourite places to explore. The game so perfectly depicts a run down, dying town whose economy was irreparably damaged by the lumber mill shutting down years earlier.

I also love interacting with the residents and staff of the Valhalla Nursing Home, who are in Watery for a day trip. Inside Suomi Hall, Ahti is on stage, performing a song called Nightless Night on the karaoke machine. In the AWE DLC of Control, Ahti sends Jesse a postcard from Watery, Washington, so it makes perfect sense that Ahti can be found there in Alan Wake 2. If Saga tries to talk to Mandy-May or Rose, she gets shushed because Ahti is singing. Saga can also find Norman outside the sauna, and I love chatting with him. He’s a very funny guy, and not just because he’s always half naked.

Coffee World is both fun and terrifying to explore, because it pulls off the creepy abandoned amusement park vibe perfectly. That Mr. Drippy cutout that laughs in the most ominous way possible (it must have been Ilmo who recorded the dialogue for that cutout, and I want to know why he made it sound like a murderer) still makes me jump no matter how many times I play this chapter.

Inside Saga’s trailer, a place she lived after Logan died in the alternate timeline, you can find a book of puns gifted to Saga by Ilmo Koskela because he knows she likes puns. This must have been an attempt to cheer Saga up, suggesting the Koskelas looked after her when she was grieving. Which is really sweet.

In general, this book timeline is so interesting to think about. What was Saga’s life in Watery like? There are so many things to think about, and I love that.

#alan wake 2 #alan wake 2 spoilers #meta #fandom 50

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boxohobo · 3 months

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My Roommate : Hey, you want a grilled pastrami sandwich? Me : Pastrami? You mean the thing that killed Deputy Thornton?

#alan wake 2 #alan wake 2 spoilers #meme #loosely based in rl #deputy thornton

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mashkara45 · 5 months

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#‘the worst’ yeah…#bright falls’ fucking finest #alan wake 2 #aw townsfolk #bright falls sheriff station #bright falls #alan wake quotes #deputy thornton #deputy mulligan #remedy entertainment #videogames #horror games #videogames quotes

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grandmaster-anne · 1 year

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2 December 1961 Daily Sketch: Queen Elizabeth II and Duke of Edinburgh's Tour of Africa Smiling Queen Elizabeth II and Sir Milton Margai, Prime Minister of Sierra Leone, as he teaches her a traditional dance step during the state ball at Fort Thornton in Freetown Sierra Leone. Prince Philip is a smiling figure as he dances with Mrs. Mustapha, wife of Sierra Leone's deputy premier.

#so hot 🔥🔥🔥#queen elizabeth ii #prince philip #duke of edinburgh #philibet

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dweemeister · 9 days

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El Dorado (1966)

Pulp science fiction writer Leigh Brackett was an anomaly in the genre. Not only was she a woman, but she also crossed over into Hollywood sporadically. Alongside her novellas and serialized stories, her film credits are enviable: The Big Sleep (1946; okay, this film’s story never made sense, but its romantic dialogue is legendary), Rio Bravo (1959), and, posthumously, The Empire Strikes Back (1980). To Brackett, she deemed her script to 1966’s El Dorado, a loose adaptation of Harry Brown’s novel The Stars in Their Courses, as “the best script [she] had done in [her] life.” High praise for oneself, especially as one could easily interpret El Dorado as a lighter, slightly more comic version of Rio Bravo. El Dorado was Brackett’s fourth of five collaborations with director Howard Hawks (1938’s Bringing Up Baby; the four other Brackett-Hawks collaborations include The Big Sleep, 1948’s Red River, Rio Bravo, and 1970’s Rio Lobo). Brackett’s inventiveness and spiky dialogue makes even the more clichéd elements of the story more entertaining than they should be. Other than Hawks and the ensemble cast, it is Brackett who is most responsible for the film’s success.

Somewhere in the American West, cowboy Cole Thornton (John Wayne) rides into the town of El Dorado for a job offer from local landowner Bart Jason (Ed Asner). His longtime friend, Sheriff J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum) meets with him, quickly deduces the reason for Cole’s presence in town, and effortlessly persuades his friend to turn down the job (the mutual respect for each other – between the characters and between Mitchum and Wayne – is apparent from the moment they meet). Jason’s job for to Thornton included coercing, gently or otherwise, the MacDonald family to abandon their land and water rights. The MacDonalds are an honest family, Harrah says, and they have been the target of regular harassment from Bart Jason and his men. Over the rest of the film, Harrah, Thornton, elderly deputy Bull Harris (Arthur Hunnicutt), a youthful gunslinger named Mississippi (James Caan), and Dr. Miller (Paul Fix) find themselves further embroiled in Jason’s repeated attempts to violently force the MacDonalds out.

El Dorado’s large supporting cast also includes saloon owner Maudie (Charlene Holt, whose character has a hankering for Thornton); R.G. Armstrong, Christopher George, Johnny Crawford, and Adam Roarke as the MacDonald boys; and Michele Carey as the hot-tempered Josephine “Joey” MacDonald (Carey and Holt play two of the final examples of the “Hawksian woman”).

Comparisons to Rio Bravo are all but inevitable to cinephiles and fans of American Westerns. Where Rio Bravo is more of a movie where friends revel in each other’s’ vibes, El Dorado is squarely a story of aging cowboys whose foibles – Harrah’s alcoholism to drown his self-pity, Thornton’s first act spinal injury and free-roaming ways – may spell the difference between local tragedy and justice. Despite what she might say, Brackett’s script to Rio Bravo (co-written by Jules Furthman) is far tighter than El Dorado’s, which employs a momentum-killing six-month time skip just as its dramatic interest begins to pique (editor John Woodcock does not provide any assistance here). It takes just a tad too much time for El Dorado, which uses the time skip to introduce Mississippi and sideline Harrah due to his heavy drinking, to regain the dramatic interest it established in the opening third of the movie.

Both casts of Rio Bravo and El Dorado have advantages over the other. Rio Bravo boasts Walter Brennan and Ward Bond in supporting roles (yet I’ve never been too fond of Dean Martin’s performance). El Dorado has Mitchum (whose dynamic with Wayne is fantastic), Caan (miles better than a Ricky Nelson sticking out like a rock 'n' roll kid from the 1950s), and not enough Asner. The two films, to me, are similar in quality, and I vacillate between which is “better” (but, on a rewatch, I think I might prefer El Dorado)*.

The interplay between John Wayne and Robert Mitchum lies at the heart of El Dorado. In 2024, it remains fashionable to lambaste Wayne for not being able to act and “playing himself” – an accusation that has been around for decades. With more lightly comedic material than usual (I would not consider El Dorado a comedy, but there are good-hearted ribbings and wry situational observances that prevent this from being a pure dramatic Western), Wayne revives some of the comic timing from The Quiet Man (1952) to decent effect here, especially around Mitchum and Caan. But most compellingly, Howard Hawks directs Wayne in a way that acknowledges and plays against his on-screen persona as the accomplished Western hero. Thornton’s spinal injury in the film’s opening act sees him reckon with his mortality – in jest and in seriousness. Wayne’s delivery and his physical acting is striking to longtime viewers such as yours truly, as it is one of the first films in which Wayne must come to terms with aging and his growing fallibility, as well as his reputation for outgunning and outthinking his opponents. The seeds of what would be Wayne’s late career signature performances in The Cowboys (1972) and The Shootist (1976) begin to show themselves here.

Mitchum, perpetually sleepy-eyed and always my first choice to play a slovenly protagonist good with a revolver, is wonderful here as a sheriff with the romantic maturity of a teenager who unaccustomed to rejection. The duality of Mitchum’s Sheriff Harrah here – the fastest gun for miles around determined to uphold the law and the inebriated slob who retains a sense of humor that makes self-pitying and self-deprecation indistinguishable – is difficult to pull off, but Mitchum does exactly that. Mitchum and Wayne’s historical on-screen personas are not polar opposites, but there is nevertheless little overlap between the two aside for their marksmanship. In their only screen appearance together (the two both co-starred on 1962’s The Longest Day, but their scenes were filmed separately), it seems the two have known each other for ages. The subtle glances, the knowing facial expressions, and gentlemanly warmth in conversation bely the fact that this is their first film together. But for El Dorado, their rapport benefits the film magnificently.

Like his good friend Ernest Hemingway, Howard Hawks admired masculine competence, professionalism, and self-reliance. El Dorado rambles a little bit about duty, honor, and loyalty, but all of this surrounds the central tenants of male friendship found here and in Rio Bravo. It is the development of that friendship and simultaneous professional excellence, rather than any plot details, that concerns Hawks – and this is the frame through which he wants viewers to see this film. By his own self admission, Hawks stated that he was, “much more interested in the story of a friendship between two men” than anything else in El Dorado (including fidelity to the original novel). The range war between Jason and the MacDonald family lacks as much exposition as some might expect. Hawks and Brackett refuse to fully explain how the dispute started, as well as what the conflict has wrought during the film’s time skip.

Those who are not as competent or professional – in this film’s case, James Caan’s character of Mississippi – are simply comic relief until they can prove otherwise. For those aware of Hawks’ aversion to Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon (1952) – in which Gary Cooper’s Sheriff Will Kane spends almost ninety minutes going around town asking for help when he learns a few recently-released convicts are coming to murder him (Hawks, to my consternation, considered this cowardly and a disgrace to the Western genre) – El Dorado is yet another reaction against it.

Unlike Hemingway, Hawks (who was by no means a feminist) rejects Hemingway’s reductionist portrayals of women as “Dark” (submissive lovers) or “Light” (castrating man-killers). The female protagonists in Hawks’ films, too, demonstrate tremendous ability. The saloon keeper, Maudie, is perhaps the most keenly observant individual in the entire picture, and can pick out the psychology of a person whether she has known them for ages (such as our leads) or if they have just stumbled in for a drink. She may be the smartest person in town. Her fellow Hawksian Woman is the wild-haired Joey MacDonald (her hair feels at times like an anachronism airlifted from the 1960s, rather than a likelihood of the Old West), quick on a gun and with a quicker temper. There is not nearly enough attention on either character as previous Hawksian Women (nevertheless, we need to recall what Hawks wanted to concentrate on most here, and that’s male friendship), but what there is still improves El Dorado’s watchability aside from our two leads.

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A worthy score from composer Nelson Riddle (1960’s Ocean’s 11, 1962’s Lolita) dials back the main theme more than one might expect from a midcentury Western, but it is still effective music for this film. Riddle is best known as an arranger and orchestrator for the likes of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Linda Ronstadt, not a composer. Nevertheless, arrangers and orchestrators can learn composition through osmosis if they have not already been trained in music composition. Riddle’s liberal use of harmonica perfectly captures the setting, although his use of electric guitar/bass and discernible lack of harmonic identity (especially in the strings) feels too much like television scoring from this era – Riddle was the principal composer for the 1960s Batman television series starring Adam West. Instead, the score highlights revolve around uses of the main title song and its variations.

And what about that title song? Sung by George Alexander and the Mellomen, with lyrics by John Gabriel (Dr. Seneca Beaulac on ABC’s soap opera Ryan’s Hope), “El Dorado” fits the film perfectly, and Alexander’s rich baritone musically exemplifies the masculine themes of El Dorado. Strings double underneath the vocals, with the occasional woodwind and brass section and peaking out from the melodic doubling (again, one wishes for more harmonic interest here aside from doubling the melody). A snippet of the song’s lyrics reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Eldorado”; the poem itself is recited by Mississippi. “El Dorado” is nothing but an earworm, and I just wish it (and its variations) made more appearances in the film itself.

Though Rio Bravo had elements of a changing of the guard, El Dorado cannot help but feel, by its conclusion, as a generational marker, a near-last hurrah – intentionally or otherwise. This is not, like The Wild Bunch (1969) or Unforgiven (1992), a eulogy of the Old American West. In 1966, El Dorado came at a time when the great figures of Old Hollywood and the height of the American Western’s popularity (Wayne and Mitchum) were no longer the dominant forces in American cinema. The film’s title song even opens with oil paintings from Western artist Olaf Weighorst, of evocatively overcast vistas of the West, as if in reflection.

El Dorado would be Leigh Brackett and Howard Hawks’ penultimate collaboration and penultimate Western, with Rio Lobo a few years away. Their professional partnership, so unlikely given Hawks’ status in Hollywood and Brackett’s supposedly disreputable day job as a pulp science fiction writer, is maybe one of the most underrated and undermentioned in Old Hollywood history – one that spanned the height of Golden Age Hollywood to its final years. For El Dorado, Brackett, despite a few structural missteps, once again shows her gifts for dialogue and a keen understanding of Hawks’ directorial intentions. Hawks arguably improves upon his depiction of male camaraderie from Rio Bravo, allowing our protagonists to intuit their aging (some might say obsolescence). This is a sterling Western, if slightly out of time.

My rating: 8.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

* As of this write-up’s publication, I have not seen Rio Lobo (1970), which forms an unofficial trilogy of Westerns with Rio Bravo and El Dorado.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog..

#El Dorado #Howard Hawks #John Wayne #Robert Mitchum #James Caan #Charlene Holt #Paul Fix #Arthur Hunnicutt #Michele Carey #Leigh Brackett #Ed Asner #R.G. Armstrong #Harold Rosson #John Woodcock #Nelson Riddle #Harry Brown #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

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