#i am way too tired to be allowed access to the internet right now but I wanna emphasize how cute they are | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lavenderwhore444 · 3 years

Note

God Im pretty sure I’m going to hell ANYWAYS ok so this is a hybrid cat shigaraki, u end up adopting shigaraki from a very abuses owner so our little kitten is traumatized and terrified of everything, it took u a bit of time until he was comfortable with u , he doesn’t trust u in the beginning and thinks ur gonna do the same as his previous owner did but ur different u were so patient, sweet and soft not to mention he LOVED getting head pets from u ( he would never admit it tho) once shigaraki found out that he was in love with u he was stuck to ur hip ( he was super clingy) shigaraki’s heat was closer then expected, shigaraki didn’t want to ruin his chances with u but he couldn’t stop himself from humping everything so he hid in his room , you absolutely loved shigaraki since the day u saw him u knew u wanted him, when u first met him he scratched and hissed at u he was terrified, it honestly made u sick knowing the person who did this to him is still alive, u both got much closer he even started cuddling with u!!!! U soon fell in love with shiggy but u didn’t want to ruin what u guys have so u kept it to ur self , u noticed shigaraki was acting weird and hid in his room for two days at first u thought u might give him some space but u started getting worried u wanted to check on him before u came in u heard some little moans and whines, it just hit u that ur little kitten has there heat, u decided to help out 👀

Kinks pet-play of course dom reader and sub shigaraki maybe some pegging that’s all I can think of so feel free to add any kinks. I was listening to hello kitty by Avril Lavigne there was part where she says “ come come kitty kitty your so pretty pretty” that was inspired me to write this lmaooo

-🤡

HELLO KITTY

If you want to use interactive fics, it's easy and makes reading fics SO much better. First, you download the Google Chrome extension. You'll see it in the top right corner of your screen. Next, you enter your name in the first box. If you want to change something other than y/n, please click on the text that says “want to change something other than y/n?” here, you can change any word you want to a different word. When I talk about your quirk I will use y/q.

InteractiveFics

Master List

Samesies, but it's ok, we’ll go to hell together 😫

Now you might be wondering, Claire, why did this take you literal MONTHS? Well, I wanted to perfect it. I love this concept so much that I just HAD to spend so much time on it to make it perfect. And let me just say, it's pretty good 😏

Warnings: vaginal sex, overstimulation (male), anal sex with strapon, heat, pillow humping, marking mating, whatever you want to call it.

I've decided I'm obsessed with making cat shiggy meow ☺️

‘Where the fuck am I?’ Is shigaraki’s first thought of the day.

He’s never been on a bed this soft or a house this warm. Where is he? The blankets are all fuzz. The bed is littered with stuffed animals and pillows, and sweet-smelling candles, are burning somewhere. Is he being sacrificed?

“Hey, you're awake, ” a soft voice says, coming from the end of the bed.

He recoils in fear but, upon second glance, he sees that you aren't who he thinks you are. A girl replaces the scary form of his “master.” he looks you up and down. He has to admit you are quite pretty. The sight of someone other than the large man who used to own him excites him. Maybe this is a fresh start? But perhaps you're just like him...

“Get the fuck away from me, ” he snaps, scrambling into a corner.

“It's okay, sweetie, ” you say, “I'm not gonna hurt you, ”

“Everyone says that, meow ” Shigaraki retorts, “get the fuck away before I scratch your eyes out, ”

You bite your lip, “ok, Tomura, I'm gonna sit with you for a while, though. I'll be right across the room if you need anything, ”

“I don't need shit from you, ” he says, hissing making a show of his claws.

You laughed a little, more than a bit sad at his fear, “alright, but I’ll still be here, ”

He sits in silence for a moment, surveying his surroundings. He notices fresh clothes in the dresser, and there are some game consoles set up for him. How do you know he likes video games? Fucking creep. There aren't really any escape routes but escaping is complicated when he doesn't know where he is.

“Where am I meow?” he asks, sounding meeker than intended.

“I guess I kind of adopted you, ” you explain, “we’re at our house, ”

“Why did you do that?” he asks, the edge coming back to his voice.

“You just seemed so sweet, and the man who owned you was so mean. I couldn't just leave you there; he was hurting you, ” you say, frowning a little at the thought of Tomura getting hurt.

"Why do you care?" he snaps.

You sit closer to him, making him tense.

"I already told you, I think you're sweet Tomura," you repeat, "I just can't explain it. I'd really like it if we could become friends,"

'Or maybe more,' you think to yourself.

You can't deny he is very attractive.

"How do I know you're not lying meow?" He asks.

"I think you'll just have to trust me. Do you want to play some games with me?" you ask.

"Fine," he says, "only cause I'm bored,"

You grin, "awesome. What should we play?"

Shigaraki stands up and walks over to the games, tail swaying.

"This," he says, holding up animal crossing, "you probably like it cause it's dumb. What's your name anyway?" he asks.

"I'm y/n," you answer.

"I guess your names not awful, meow”, he mutters.

Truthfully, he already thinks you're beautiful, and you seem so kind. Shigaraki sits unusually close to you on the bed as the two of you play. You play late into the night; he makes a good bit of progress. Eventually, you feel his head rest on your shoulder, and he falls asleep on you.

You ease Tomura into your lap.

"There we go," you whisper, "you're safe now,"

Little did you know he's wide awake, smiling to himself and nuzzling his head closer to you. The sound of soft purring fills your ears as he drifts off into the most peaceful sleep.

He's pretty disgruntled when he wakes up alone. Where have you gone? Shigaraki doesn't have to wonder for long when you come back with a plate of food.

"Hey, are you hungry?" you ask, setting a plate of food on the table next to him.

He nods, digging in right away. You watch him eat like a man starved. Honestly, he might have been. He puts the plate down and moves closer to you. He's beginning to trust you more and more.

"Tomura, ” you say, “I have to put a collar on you now, just in case you get lost, ok?” you push some hair out of his face, “id be so sad if I lost you, ”

“fine, meow” he mumbles.

Truthfully his heart is melting at the thought. That you aren’t embarrassed by him, that you want to keep him safe and close to you. When you click the collar into place he hugs you, tugging at your shirt.

It’s shocking how fast he’s becoming comfortable with you but definitely pleasing. The next few days are calm, spent lounging around the house. He‘s getting so trusting with you. He occasionally pushes his head beneath your hand so you scratch his head. He always denies it, though; he has a tough-guy exterior to keep up.

However, something changes within him. He feels a strange warmth, not a necessarily bad feeling, around you. Tomura knows what cats were supposed to do. They are supposed to cuddle and play with their owners. Should he be doing that? Should he act like a “normal cat”? He concludes that you don’t want that at all. The lack of cat toys, a cat tree, and you allowing him to eat at the table solidify that.

However, he does want to cuddle. He tries to cuddle like all the time. But you have work, and you get tired, and you run errands, and he becomes sad. Tomura knows you have a life outside of him, but you really shouldn't. He should be your only priority. When Christmas break finally rolls around, and you start spending more time at the house, he's elated.

He has internet access, of course. He needs it to play his video games! But it was restricted. You don’t want your little kitty to see things he’s not supposed to. He starts to like watching movies too. At first, they‘re action movies with lots of blood and fighting, which you don’t necessarily agree with, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. He slowly gets bored with them and stumbles across a romance movie.

Tomura becomes engrossed in them. He loves watching the couple fall in love and be happy. One movie, in particular, weirds him out. It looks like they were taking off their clothes. They start kissing and making strange noises. He doesn't like it one bit, it makes his cheeks feel hot, and his cock gets semi-hard. He turns it off immediately.

It doesn’t take long for him to forget about it and keep watching different ones. Soon he finds some similarities between him and the main character. The way they feels around their love interest is the same way he feels around you. Is he in love with you?! It seems so and you have just recently come to the same conclusion as him.

Soon he’s all over you, following you everywhere. Tomura pushes open your door every night and snuggling up to you. He’ll purr and nuzzle into you, happy sighs escaping him. Whenever he “accidentally” wakes you up, you never get mad at him. You just cuddle him and talk all night, giggling and talking until you both fall asleep.

Oddly enough, you‘re oblivious to his feelings for you. Whenever he cuddles with you, you hold back the urge to kiss him on the lips. You don’t want him to feel awkward around you. Soon he starts acting strange without any change in behavior from you. He stops coming in your room at night and wont come out of his room.

You don't want to be overbearing, so you give him space...for a while. Meanwhile, in his room, Tomura is lying naked on the bed, panting and sweating. He feels strange, just like he did when he was watching that movie. He doesn't understand what‘s happening to his body but when he humps his pillow it feels like an itch is being scratched. The first time he cums he‘s terrified and lets out a scared “meow!”

But it feels so good. The feeling doesn't go away, so he decides the only solution is to keep humping. Soon he‘s limp but still grinding his hips on the poor pillow. He takes deep whiffs of your sweater, huffing it like a drug. His tongue is lolling out of his mouth and his eyes are rolling back in his head. He‘s starting to hurt down there but he just can't stop cumming.

Oh, why can't he reach the phone you left in his room? Why is his voice too hoarse to call out to you? Tomura is scared. He can’t eat or sleep. Sweat has soaked into the mattress and his poor little cock is starting to hurt. You‘re getting worried too so you wander up to his room and callout to him, pressing your ear to the door.

“y/n meow,” he calls out hoarsely, almost a whisper.

All you can hear are desperate whines and moans. Is Tomura...in heat? Oh, your poor kitty is probably in so much pain! You have to help him, so you open the door and see him. It is a pathetic (yet erotic) sight. He looks so desperate. He‘s crying and looks so scared. Tomura just whines and reaches out to you even though he‘s far away.

“Oh, sweetheart,” you whisper.

You walk over to him and scoop him up, sitting him on your lap. He continues to try and hump you, but you can tell how much his poor dick hurts. You hug him tightly, feeling guilty that you took so long to check on him.

Tomura tugs at your shirt, he can't figure out why he wants you to take off your clothes, but he does. You oblige, ready to do anything your sweet kitten wants. When he sees your top half naked, he feels his cock beg for you. He starts to tug aimlessly at your pants, and you take them off, once again, all too eager to please.

He doesn't have any sexual knowledge, but he has instincts, pure carnal instincts that tell him just how to breed his mate’s tight pussy. Tomura grabs your hips, his claws accidentally puncturing the skin. You yelp as he pulls you on top of him. When he slams you down onto his long fat cock he doesn't get the rush of pleasure he expected.

He's hit with an extreme amount of pain and lets out a panicked meow. You lift yourself off of him quickly, and Tomura misses the feeling of your cunt even though it caused him so much pain. He paws at you, but you keep him from shoving himself in you again.

“Tomura,” you say softly, “you need to calm down; you're hurting yourself,”

“Meow! need!” he cries.

“So needy,” you mutter, “youre just gonna hurt yourself,”

“Don’t care! Need!” he begs.

“Hold on,” you say, getting up and ignoring the insistent pawing at your shirt as he whines.

You rifle through your drawers until you find the dildo you got and the free strap-on attachment that came with it. You smile and gran some lube; this is exactly what you need for your pretty kitty. He watches with curious eyes and blown out pupils due to pure lust.

“Let's give your poor cock a break,” you say.

He nods, but where are you going to put that? You climb onto the bed with him, and he hugs you, sucking on your tit. He feels so at peace. Your boobs are so soft and pretty. He wants to stay like this forever. But when Tomura feels those nimble fingers of yours start to trail across his lower back just above his ass he shivers.

He leaves open-mouthed kisses across your chest; he lets them get sloppy and wet as you rub his back.

“Need,” he whispers again, eyes half-lidded.

You tilt Tomura’s head up and give him his first proper kiss. He's seen this in movies and knows you're supposed to say “I love you” after...right? He doesn't know the full meaning of the three little words he's about to say.

“I love you y/n,” he says when you pull away.

“I love you too,” you say, taken aback just a bit.

He gives you a love-drunk smile and tries to rut against your thigh but yelps again, remembering how sensitive he is.

“C’mere pretty kitty,” you coo, “lay on your back for me,”

He nods and lays on his back, painfully aware of how exposed he is to your careful, calculating eyes. He starts purring when you muzzle your head into his neck. Are you going to mark him?! Do you really want him to be your mate?! Oh, he hopes so! He smiles, and his breathing picks up, but his ears flatten on his head when you pull away.

“No mate meow?” Tomura asks, face falling.

For the first time all day, he feels his cock soften sadly. He doesn't understand the look of confusion on your face and tears up a bit.

“I'm not sure I understand,” you say, brushing some hair out of his face and feeling guilty when you see his teary eyes.

“I want you to mark me,” he says, bottom lip quivering, “please meow?”

Your eyes widen, “oh,” maybe you did learn something useful in school, “of course honey,”

You lean down again, unsure of how hard to bite his neck. You can tell exactly where you're supposed to bite. A strong musky smell radiates from the side of his neck and you decide to sink your teeth in until you break skin. When you do, he sighs happily at the feeling of your admittedly dull teeth (in comparison to his) in his neck.

“Mate,” he purrs.

You pull away when you can tell he's satisfied. He pulls you in for another kiss, tasting some of his blood on your tongue. He doesn't notice your fingers traveling to the bottle of lube on the bed and pumping some onto your fingers. He does notice when you start to rub around where you're not supposed to.

“Hey! What are you doing, meow?!” Tomura says, squirming at the strange new sensation.

When you find your mark and circle his asshole, any objections he just made the in the past. When he feels your finger begin to sink into his tight hole, he sighs happily. He isn't supposed to be the one getting penetrated, but he can't help how much he loves the feeling of your finger wiggling around inside of him.

When you add in another finger, he meows happily, grinding on your fingers. All this pleasure without the pain, what has he done to deserve this? To deserve you? Tomura’s back arches as he moves his hips; he can feel himself coming to a different kind of climax, but you pull away right when he's on the edge.

He looks up at you with pleading eyes and trembling thighs. He sees you putting that strange liquid on something much larger and gulps. He feels his asshole gape around nothing, waiting for something to fill it up.

“Is that going inside me, meow?” he asks nervously.

“It won't hurt,” you say, cupping his face, “i promise,”

Tomura gulps but nods. He trusts you. When the head of the dildo pushes into him he's tense and panting already.

“You have to relax,” you whisper in his ear, “be a good boy and relax,”

He tries, letting the nervous knot in his stomach untangle. His breathing slows as you push in more of the dildo. It starts to feel good, having you in some of him, and it's even better when the head of the dildo hits a spot that makes him mewl. He wraps his arms around your neck and pulls you down to him, causing you to poke his prostate again.

He moans and buries his face in your neck, purring loudly. You start to move your hips at an agonizingly slow pace. You worm your arms under him and hold him close while you help him adjust. He's planting and mewling happily.

“Love you,” he moans, “I love you so much y/n,”

“I love you too, Tomura,” you whisper, kissing the shell of his ear.

“It's so good,” he groans, “you're amazing meow. The perfect mate,”

“Yeah?” you say, too focused to respond.

He nods, “the best ever,”

You keep thrusting, speeding up just a bit. That makes Tomura yelp happily. His tongue lolls out as he smiles. There's not one thought behind those beautiful red eyes—just pure pleasure. It's taking over his entire body and he can't help but meow happily.

He likes to think of himself as more refined than most hybrids. More human, but all he can think of now is how wonderful being your little kitty is.

“I'm gonna cum,” he whimpers, “gonna cum, meow”

His dick quivers, and his asshole clenches as cum spurts out of him, but it's still not enough. To satiate his desires, he needs to be inside of you when he cums. When you pull out of him slowly and remove the strap on, he bites the bullet and plunges into you, ignoring the pain that makes him sob and absolutely hammers into you.

You're helpless underneath him as he has his way with you. You can't deny how good he feels inside of you. Tomura hates how long he's lasting. He needs to get this over with, although having you cum on his cock would be pretty nice. When he feels you worm your fingers down to your clit he starts to be thankful he hasn't lost his mind and cum yet.

That look on your face makes him so happy. He wants you to be happy. He wants you to cum, so he holds out until you milk his cock with your cunt. And when he lets go it's heavenly. The itch has been scratched, and he collapses on top of you, purring as his tail twitches. You scratch behind his ears to help him get some much-needed rest.

It works nearly immediately, and your sweet kitty is asleep in mere minutes. You love Tomura more than you can put into words, and he loves his pretty little mate. His adorable little y/n.

421 notes · View notes

pinkjiminssi · 3 years

Text

So.. About That Hickey..

I think I’m still processing all of this and reminding myself I’m not dreaming 🤣 I seriously only got 3 hours of sleep last night and when I woke up the first thing I did was check twitter to be sure this “drunk bridal-style spinning hickey neck biting proudly showing off” moment actually happened!!

.. I hate the way my brain works though. I was so happy that it took me forever to fall asleep, spent all day on cloud 9 despite being tired, .. and then my old nemesis, anxiety, stepped in. Well kind of. TBH if all of the MOTS ON:E Jikook moments we got happened with Jimin/anyone else or Jungkook/anyone else.. I would seriously be sitting here saying “well fuck.. I believe they WERE a couple, but looking at all of this it seems they are no longer together.” So really, this just confirmed what I already knew about Jimin and Jungkook: they’re a couple. My anxiety is over.. why? Why show us this? If they can cover all of JK’s tattoos, a hickey/bite mark/whatever we’re calling it should be super easy to hide. Sure it was just rehearsal.. but it was rehearsal with cameras rolling with every intention of releasing what was being filmed as future content. It could have (and some might argue should have) been covered.

Guys... I’m confused. And concerned. ❗❗❗ TW for drama, hate, homophobia, the usual anti issues

That “official” explanation.. again.. why? I’m assuming Jimin and Jungkook were asked and allowed to explain because of the chance of it being spotted and armys freaking out, so BH (or possibly even Jikook) thought to get ahead of the speculation by just being up front about it all.. but THAT explanation? I suppose it works for covering up the army panic of “Jungkook has a girlfriend?! *insert fangirl sobbing*” .. but that’s literally all it does (and only barely if you go looking at some of the anti’s reactions to it all). Really, all it did was draw even more attention and speculation. I mean.. this is, essentially, what we were told: Jimin and Jungkook were together the night before drinking, apparently without the other members as they didn’t seem to know all of this already (and they would have if they had been there), somehow hanging out and having drinks turns into Jungkook picking Jimin up bridal style (random but some of the k-army reactions on twitter were translating through google into “princess style” and I just think that’s so cute 🥰), spinning ensues, Jimin gets dizzy and wants Jungkook to put him down, ... and so he proceeds to do the only logical thing that any of us would have done in that situation... biting Jungkook’s neck? And hard enough to leave a mark the next day?? And instead of being peeved about it (like most of us would have been if our friend bit the crap out of us), Jungkook looks happy?? proud even???

And they arrived together the next day and continue to be cute and playful?

I just.. I mean.. come on. First of all.. that’s a hickey. A bite leaves teeth marks. And one would assume a wild, drunken “let me down” chomp would be something that happens suddenly and ends very quickly. I know I for sure would drop someone on their ass if they decided to take a bite out of my neck (assuming I was even picking up and spinning around with one of my friends like that to begin with.. but let’s not even get into why that was going on at this point) .. but the way this bruised? Yeah. There were no teeth involved (at least not hard enough to leave indentations) and this took more than a couple of seconds of mouth-to-neck contact to still be that visible the next day. So.. in short. Jungkook arrives with a hickey, JK decides to not cover it up (or he would have shown up with it hidden and we see him get out of the car that morning with it clearly visible), BH staff sees it and also decides to not have it covered up and actually have it explained... and the explanation is “oh yeah Jimin just bit him, you know.. no big deal hehehe isn’t that funny?” 🤯 WHAT?! Yeah.. that’s totally normal, platonic behavior between adults...

I’m not saying Jimin and Jungkook are lying btw. I have no doubt it played out more or less exactly as they said with the exception of what they’re calling the end result. Jimin and Jungkook are fine.. I mean, what were they supposed to say? They’re not going to show up saying Jimin was sucking on Jungkook’s neck the night before. We’ll probably never know why Jungkook decided to not cover it up before arriving, but it’s his body and he gets to decide. It’s BH that has me so puzzled. Other than antis and people who refuse to see what’s literally right in front of their faces when it comes to Jikook.. who were BH expecting to believe the bite thing? Just among staff and the other members, it’s a laughable but safe “oh of course *wink wink*” explanation that allows everyone to carry on like normal. But to the public who don’t know them personally, don’t know their usual behavior and patterns, and who don’t have something like a non-disclosure agreement or professional courtesy preventing them from openly speculating.. it doesn’t fly. Pretty much everyone teen and up knows what a hickey looks like (either from having gotten/given one or at least seeing one on someone else in person or online). It’s immediately obvious what it is. And even if there was some uncertainty.. that it’s on his neck (instead of other easily accessible and less sensitive/stimulating locations) and just so happens to be right near his mole as it Jimin were aiming for it? Just another “too many coincidences” thing when it comes to Jikook.

Even antis on twitter couldn’t deny what it was and, so, had to resort to the “well I do that with my sibling and my uncle’s pet raccoon all the time it’s just family things” excuse and/or the “yeah well someone ELSE in the group (or a girlfriend) gave him that and they’re just covering by saying it was Jimin.” Oh. And the same old “it’s just fan service” excuse (as if Jungkook would let someone bruise his neck for the purposes of fanservice which, again, BTS has never done or needed to do. Forever pissed off that so many in this fandom act like Jungkook is a puppet doing whatever the “evil company” tells him to do regardless of his personal feelings or boundaries. The man has tattoos covering nearly every inch of his arm despite that being looked down on in Korea. At this point he can do whatever the fuck he wants). So.. why?? Seriously, why? This all could have easily been avoided with simple makeup.

When they’re doing official content they’re all literally followed around by a flurry of staff fixing hair, dabbing sweat, touching up makeup, etc. Even though it was rehearsal, staff were everywhere in the footage that’s made its way online. If they were worried that it would be seen in the background and “taken the wrong way,” just have the staff occasionally touch up the makeup. “Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” But instead of doing the obvious, BH decides to: not cover it, draw attention to it by asking about it and letting them continue to talk about it, go out of their way to get a camera on it, and then include it in the final cut of the content they sent out?

BTS is literally the most popular group in the world right now and BH has become a behemoth of a company that runs like a well-oiled machine. They’re not stupid; this was not a mistake. For some reason they wanted us to see this and, one would assume based on the lack of a more believable explanation, they wanted us to come to the conclusion that we all have: Jimin gave Jungkook a hickey. You know they have teams dedicated to monitoring reactions to content on social media. You know they know the dialog surrounding Rosebowl, Black Swan MMA, the Memories 2020 “almost kiss,” etc. etc. All of this got “jikook,” “hickey” and variations of their names trending for HOURS (in multiple countries and worldwide).

Out of curiosity, I decided to check the trends at the time of writing this. As of 3 AM CST (about 24 hours AFTER the clips started showing up online), there was still a hashtag trending related to all of this: #FREEJUNGKOOK.. and the tweets being directed toward BH are.. disturbing to say the least:

While I agree that the boys should trend more often based on their talents and music.. what’s going on right now is a homophobic 💩 show accusing BH of “scripting” interactions (rather than.. you know.. Jungkook interacting with whoever he wants however he wants.. the usual “mindless puppet JK” narrative), trying to coordinate the mass sending of angry emails, trying to get people to stop buying paid content, accusing BH of taking advantage of the members.. I mean it goes on and on. And BH know what’s going on right now. They’re seeing the reactions... the good and the extremely negative. And still they let this out. And this is all not even CONSIDERING the mountain of other moments that made the cut on MOTS ON:E.

(side note, the above pic just oozes happiness and it’s so cute I love it!! 😭)

So.. even though I’ve said it dozens of times already... WHY? W H Y? I’m an anxious person by nature and not very trusting. I believe Jimin and Jungkook and I don’t think they’ve been lying and pretending for “fanservice” all of these years. I respect them both too much as individuals and artists to believe that they would stoop to such tactics just to generate a little more “interest” and revenue. I’m suspicious of BH. BTS doesn’t need fanservice to get attention; literally all of 2020 and 2021 so far has proven that beyond a doubt. Even if they suddenly made the decision to do fs.. why not go with the most popular ship (taekook) or at least one that isn’t so hotly debated on social media (remove Jimin, Jungkook and Tae from the equation and you still have four members to “play” with who have much less potential to have fs devolve into a toxic crap show all over the internet). Showing us this will do nothing to help BTS as a group or Jimin and Jungkook at this point. In fact.. all it can do is hurt. Hurt BH, hurt the group, and hurt the individual members, heck.. even potentially hurt other BH/HYBE groups. I’ve already seen people on twitter saying they’re “done” spending money on anything BH or BTS puts out because they’re “sick of jikook in their faces and just two of the seven hogging all of the screen time.” Whether or not that “spending freeze” actually materializes into anything noticeable remains to be seen of course.. but the threat is there and always has been. What is the motive? And why now? As much as my “hopeless romantic” heart would like to believe they’re preparing us for Jikook to be “out” .. I seriously don’t think that is ever going to happen. Certainly not now at the height of the group’s fame, with them being given Presidential honors and ambassador status, and with military service still looming over them all. And let’s not forget... Korea is NOT a safe place for a queer couple. Letting us see and know what they did through what was released has the potential to put Jimin and Jungkook (and the other members by proxy) in danger. Sure.. BTS has never been hardline rule followers and have been breaking molds and shattering norms from the start, so “officially” having an openly gay couple in the group wouldn’t be impossible.. just... highly highly improbable. Especially right now... and I’m concerned. I don’t want to sound like the creeps I posted a screenshot of above throwing blame at the company. The boys chose to renew their contracts with the for a reason so we have to trust their judgement as a group... but still, I’m worried and I’m questioning what the purpose was here.

#jikook #drama #kat thoughts #sorry for being a downer...#I'm stressed :(

15 notes · View notes

leverage-commentary · 3 years

Text

Leverage Season 2, Episode 15, The Maltese Falcon Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Dean: Hi I'm Dean Devlin, Executive Producer and Director of this episode.

John: I'm John Rogers, Executive producer and Writer.

Chris: I'm Chris Downey, Executive Producer, and this is the Maltese Falcon Job. Part two of our season two finale.

John: And this is a lot of fun, this was- this was born of an episode we never wrote. Just- we really wanted to just put them on their pins.

Chris: Right.

John: Just really knock them on their ass and so- were you handheld there? Handheld whenever there's a problem, right?

Dean: Well this is actually a 360 steadicam. And what we're trying to do is let- their entire world is spinning out of control, so we just wanted this just to keep spinning around. They don't know where they're gonna land.

John: This is a fast, hard reset. The second- the second half of the season finale last year, we kinda eased into it, we reset the locations.

Dean: Here we throw you right into it.

Chris: Right.

John: Yeah, you best be paying attention and you really see when, you know- they're the uber team. You know, you really need to put them onto the wall, and the FBI and Interpol in this situation, they're utterly lost. And Interpol, it was interesting, it was something we were saying last- cause it was Mark Sheppard credit in the last episode. We were looking for a villain, and the problem is we kept coming up with this recurring, separate villain. We’re like, ‘We've never met this person before, we don't care. The person you really want it to be is Sterling! But he's an investigator.’

Chris: ‘He's an insurance investigator, what does that have to do with insurance? We have to find a way to make this about insurance?’

John: Oh man, we killed ourselves.

Dean: Do you remember what you said John? The night-?

Chris: It was between you two, right?

John: It was us. I Skyped you at like 11 o’clock at night, you had come back from scouting-

Dean: And we were talking, and the idea came up, ‘What if we just made him interpol?’ Do you remember what you said?

John: No.

Dean: You said, ‘We are either coming up with the best idea we’ve ever come up with, or we’re both reall,y really tired right now.’

[Laughter]

Chris: And it was.

John: It was great.

Chris: As soon as I heard it, I said, ‘That’s a great idea.’ Because we needed to give him a wider mandate.

John: Yes, if we're gonna keep them as a recurring bad guy-

Chris: Great idea.

John: And what was great is, we already shot the episode that he was in before, so we had to go back and reshoot that ending.

Dean: Here's my favorite Tara bit, of her whole arc.

John: Oh, that's right.

Dean: And this man was actually our local assistant.

[Laughter]

Chris: That was AJ.

John: Yes. And a fine actor by the way.

Dean: He did a great job.

Chris: Oh look at this shot, look at this.

John: Look at just the look he's doing. Just a good 1960s Zero Mostel take there. Yeah, ‘Oops.’

[Laughter]

Chris: Mrs. Robinson.

Dean: Comedy frame.

John: Comedy frame. We got like nine takes of Christian reacting to that by the way.

Dean: And my favorite is they both originally put their heads back, and then only Christian’s head came back out again, but we didn't have time for that.

Chris: Oh I love that.

John: We can't break for comedy too much here, cause you've got the momentum going.

Dean: Yeah.

John: And you're like, you have to keep resetting - they are in trouble. This, by the way, great hack taught to us by Apollo Robbins.

Chris: Yes.

John: Our thief consultant took us through how you can get access to the hotel computer system through the back of your television.

Chris: Yes.

John: This is a real thing. Please don’t-

Dean: Please don't try this at home.

Chris: Please don’t try this.

John: Don't try this at home, but most hotels have internet enabled televisions now, and that allows you a backdoor into the-

Chris: It's a good example, too, of our team is so good at what they do, that we always try and look for ways to take away all their tools and find a clever way they have to use whatever's around them to-

John: Yeah

Chris: -you know, get their information.

John: Yeah, and that's again, constrained in time, constrained in space.

Dean: And that little porno name here, we had to get clearance on.

John: I know. We came up with so many pornos that were real. That we came up with the most ridiculous porno name, ‘Nope that's a real one, that’s a real one.’ What did we land with, Indie Panties Day?

[Laughter]

John: Yeah, there's also- I wonder if we got it on the DVD, a really creepy, awkward beat after they’ve watched the porno that Aldis and Beth did, just very.

Chris: That's a nice little viral video.

John: Yeah we’ll have to find that.

Dean: Yeah.

John: Oh, and a beautiful three way pass, by the way. That was a tough shot, you know, in a crowded-

Dean: And it's a callback from the Zanzibar Job.

John: Yes.

Dean: Where they did a similar three way.

John: Yeah.

Dean: And I love this local actor.

John: Oh man, he's fantastic.

Dean: Harold rocked it.

John: ‘Yes, it was delicious.’ Yeah no, Eliot's impatience. This, by the way- getting a hotel key without your ID, I was a little fuzzy on whether it would work or not. I had written it, and I was like ‘Ah, am I kinda cheating?’ So I went to a hotel and did it.

[Laughter]

John: Two days before we actually did this.

Chris: You did?

John: Yes. I won't tell you what hotel because they shouldn't have done it, but I got a hotel room key that way.

Chris: That's great.

John: Yeah. It's amazing what you can do if you have no fear of prosecution.

[Laughter]

John: ‘Oh, I'm doing a television show.’ And this was tough. We had to split them up, we had to figure out what the geography was- oh he hates Sterling so much.

[Laughter]

John: And Mark Sheppard just teeing off, just-

Dean: Mark is delicious in this part, man.

John: Yes.

Dean: I'm telling you, I could just watch him play this guy all day long.

John: Yeah, and what's great is Richard Kind, kind of, really kind of justifying, really doing the evil speech of evil, ‘He's a good mayor.’

Chris: Yeah.

John: And he was the one who came up with, ‘I’m good for Bellbridge.’

Chris: ‘I was good for Bellbridge.’

John: ‘I'm- no matter what I did, I did my job, you know.’

Chris: I like, too, that we have Nate and the mayor both-

John: Both drinking.

Chris: Both drinking.

Dean: Yeah.

John: I think that was on the day we came up with that, where Nate would get the booze from.

Dean: Right.

John: Same place. I think we were just- cause this is the same hotel room. That was the fun of this episode, it was figuring out all the identical space- the fact that all hotel rooms are identical.

Chris: Right.

John: And that we suddenly realized, ‘Wait that means we can shoot in one and just redress.’ This is a long ass speech, this was a tough day.

Dean: And again done in a one-er.

John: Yes.

Dean: So the degree of difficulty for poor Mark was very, very high, but he knocked it out again.

John: He's really abused in television. Cause I will tell you right now, a lot of show runners will be like, ‘I have two and a half of impossible bullshit, get me Mark Sheppard in here.’

Dean: Right.

Chris: He's- I think he went from here, he was- he did the- I guess that three part CSI-

John: Yeah.

Chris: Where they had all the CSIs in one link and he was the bad guy in that, and he works.

John: He's a great- he really in that British actor tradition, yeah.

Chris: Yeah.

John: And this- this bio of this arms dealer is pretty much just a bio of an arms dealer we took. I'm not gonna tell you who, because it was Chris’s idea and if you're angry, you should take your vengeance on him and his family.

[Laughter]

John: And not me, I am a big fan of arms dealers.

Chris: Paul Blackthorne, great- what is he-?

John: Well he had done Dresden Files, I knew him from that.

Chris: Dresden Files.

John: But he's, you know, nailed the accent, and he's also really tall, he's got a physically imposing presence.

Chris: Yeah.

John: And Tim’s tall, and it's really hard sometimes, to find the villains that can kind of, you know. And this was a great scene, and really one of the few times that the team lays into Nate. And I like, by the way, Nate’s getting more and more rumpled. Everyone else is kind of pulling it together, and he's just getting rougher and rougher looking.

Chris: Didn’t we have some weather here?

Dean: On the outtakes reel that's actually on this DVD, you'll see some funny outtakes from this scene.

Chris: With the weather right?

Dean: With the weather and Tim’s hair.

[Laughter]

Chris: Oh wow.

John: Oh right, even Chris is having a problem here and he's in a ponytail. Yeah the wind- the whole day we were shooting this we had thunderstorms coming through.

Dean: Right.

John: So we were literally, ‘It's sunny. Go, go, go!’ And running down and getting the exteriors, yeah.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Yeah we banged this out fast, man.

Dean: And yet they really nailed it. Again, when our actors dig in, they find gold.

John: And this was a big moment, this was- this is something I think that people sometimes ask, ‘Why does Eliot do this?’ Eliot has made himself a promise, this is his job, he will keep them safe.

Chris: Right.

Dean: And Nate realizes-

John: That's all he has.

Dean: Nate realizes for the first time he's actually let his team down.

John: Yeah.

Dean: And now he feels like he has to make it up to them.

John: Well, you know, when Parker does it.

Dean: Yeah.

John: I mean that's the thing, Parker never gives- expresses- she’ll tease, she’ll express sarcasm, but disappointment- you know, ‘Be the person we came back for.’ She's referencing the season opener.

Dean: Right.

John: And that's the problem, is addiction- he's allowed himself to be- he's no longer the guy who used to chase them.

[Silence]

John: That's me drinking my Guinness, don't mind me.

[Laughter]

John: Oh god. What would I do without booze?

Dean: So now we come back to the hotel.

John: Was that on mic? Alright.

[Laughter]

John: So we’re back on the hotel.

Dean: And again, our clue from the previous episode of the Maltese Falcon.

Chris: Really key to watch these two back to back folks.

Dean: Oh, now this is-

Chris: I mean, maybe get a sandwich, but don't do much more than that.

Dean: This, I think, is one of my favorite bullet time shots that we've ever done.

John: This was not as- not quite as insane as- and America thanks you for Beth in the French maid outfit.

Chris: The french maid.

Dean: It’s after this gag.

John: Yeah. Not quite as insane as the- by the way, this moment is based on a comedy club in Winnipeg, when- where the comics would go perform, it was a contest amongst them to see how long they could go without leaving the hotel room, and without letting the maids in.

[Laughter]

Chris: Cause there was no-

John: There was nothing to do.

Chris: Nothing to do.

John: So it was like, ‘I went 40- I went 72 hours; the maids left the towels at the door.’

Dean: Great passing out scene.

Chris: Oh there we go.

John: That man is passed out. And that looks like my bed in every stand up club I ever went at.

Dean: This was the bullet- this was a very complicated bullet time shot.

John: Is this as bad or worse than the pilot, where you did four different directions?

Dean: No, it's not as bad as the pilot, but the timing of it is hard because of the extras and the switching of directions.

John: Yeah. So we start with one-

Dean: And we were using a different steadicam artist who had never done this before.

John: Oh, that’s right.

Dean: So we had to teach Norbert how to do it while we were doing it.

Chris: Oh, that's right.

Dean: It was very tough.

Chris: Cause our camera guy had a-

Dean: It was the one day Gary Camp was actually sick.

John: Yeah.

Chris: His tooth exploded or something.

John: Yeah, and he still showed up for work, by the way.

Chris: He did.

John: With a face that looked like somebody had worked him over with a bat.

Dean: Now originally you had a much more complicated gag to stall, and then you came up with this gag, and we were on the floor laughing.

Chris: Yeah, this is funny.

John: You said, you were like, ‘I can't shoot that gag, all I have is the elevator’ I was like ‘Alright, well we’ll do this.’ And it's funny cause it was really a throwaway, and then the more we talked about it, the funnier it got.

Dean: Yeah.

John: As you realize it's just comedy beat, after comedy beat, after comedy beat. Also: Mark Sheppard.

Dean: Yeah.

Chris: Mark Sheppard does the- he takes you through the-

John: The fives stages of death and dying.

Chris: The array of reactions.

Dean: This is-

Chris: Puts on a [unintelligible].

John: And by the way- same elevator, we’re just changing the floor number on every shot.

Dean: And the plants.

John: And the plants.

[Laughter]

John: So yes. And we- but we did run Tim up the stairs a lot that day.

Chris: We did.

Dean: I'll tell you this may be my- the funniest gag we've ever done.

John: Just cause both actors- oh this- just the seething.

Dean: The rage.

John: And both actors kind of really digging in on it.

[Laughter]

Chris: Oh.

John: And then...

Chris: Just kidding this right on his reel, this is all the different, kind of, reaction to it.

John: And I like, he's almost too tired to keep doing it. And up.

Dean: But what sells the whole gag for me is this last one. Because at this point now they've done everything they can, and they just don't care anymore.

[Laughter]

John: They're just.

Dean: They're done.

John: They’re done, they’re just exhausted. And now- now Nate can give up. Yeah, he's bought them enough time to do what they need to do. And also this was a nice beat, cause Mark made a point of it, it's like if he just had one more second he would've figured it out.

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: Right.

John: You know you can never- Sterling- you always have to play fair with him.

Dean: Right.

John: You know he's always this close to figuring it out. These guys were great as the vaguely resentful FBI agents.

Dean: Exactly.

John: Because he's very insulting. And a timing joke. Mark carries a lot in this episode.

Chris: Door- door closed, there you go, door closes, door opens.

Dean: Mark had his work cut out for him this episode.

John: Door opens. ‘Hey, Bob.’ Yeah, these two had a lot of fun. There’s about 900 different takes of this. And oh this was tricky, because when we got up there, we were shooting on the top floor, but that meant we couldn't double the corridor.

Dean: That’s right.

John: Because we had the skylights.

Chris: Oh, hm.

Dean: So we had to find other corridors.

John: Yeah, and sometimes people were sleeping, sorry about that.

Dean: This is a very simple bullet time shot, but a very effective one, I think.

John: Yeah, the big reveal.

Dean: Just the, ‘viola.’

John: And you're out.

Chris: How did they do that?

John: A lot of fun. And a wink, which would distract any normal human. And this is- I'm trying to remember where we came up with this bit. Oh the carts were brutal, trying to find the cart we could put a dude in.

Chris: Oh yeah.

Dean: But this bit here is a call back to the episode with the kids-

John: Yes. Yeah That's right- where Hardison and-

Dean: Cannot rappel.

Chris: That’s just great.

John: Rappelling just does not fit well, he's just not left as- and by the way, it really- real risk of Aldis Hodge strangling there. Sorry about that, Aldis.

[Laughter]

John: And he's figured it out. Yeah and that was a lot of fun. Nashua, New Hampshire, near where my sister lives, by the way.

Chris: Right that's where they're sending it.

John: That's actually where they are sending it- they're sending that trunk to my sister’s front lawn. What little I can do. And this is- what's fun is that we- the camera work is very energized, the game's afoot, and the second half- it’s interesting, the two previous seasons, the two episodes both had their own internal structure. This really just plays as a movie because all the set up is the first half.

Chris: Yes.

John: This entire episode is the rock that's been pushed down the hill, and we’re just chasing it.

Chris: And everything is paying off.

John: Yeah. And again, drawn from my experience in standup years, all the hotel rooms look alike. If you were to wake me up in any random hotel room, I woke up and my trash was there, I'd assume that that was my room.

Chris: Sure. I mean as any business traveller can tell you, they'll wake up and not know what city they're in.

John: And Richard Kind, by the way- poor Richard Kind spent a week in that bathrobe.

Dean: Yeah.

John: On docks, on oil tankers, in hotel rooms.

Chris: Yeah, it’s true.

John: That was- he formed a very unhealthy relationship with that bathrobe.

Dean: And had to be in the bathrobe the whole time.

John: Yeah. This is my favorite bit- they're just the type of people who cut up people in tubs, that's their job.

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: But this little look of Eliot's right there tells you everything.

Chris: ‘Alright, I'm gonna cut her up.’

John: ‘Alright, this is my day.’ Aldis’s character Mr. Joshua, of course, named after the Gary Busey character from-

Chris: Lethal Weapon.

John: Lethal Weapon. If we need a killer's name, why not-?

Dean: Go to the best.

John: Why not reference the best? Bunch of different versions of this. And I love them playing good cop, bad cop. But it was interesting, we had a version of this speech- and I will give this up to you as director, that explained everything. And you really looked at it and said, ‘Alright, here's the actual three things we need for this to make sense.’ Cause as the writer you never know, but you come at it from a storyteller like, ‘Here are the points the audience needs to be emotionally engaged to move forward.’

Dean: And it was a tough call, because Richard did such an amazing job with this speech.

John: Yes.

Dean: You almost didn't want to lose anything. But, you know, we have time that we have to come in at the end of the show, and we needed to lose some time, so we really boiled it down.

Chris: Oh was this something that came out in editing? Or in-?

John: Yeah.

Chris: Oh it did, I didn't even notice.

John: You didn't notice, exactly.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John: The speech was about twice as long. Because really there's a whole mini scene between Richard and Tim there.

Dean: Right.

John: And it really was- you know, you got it, he's bargaining for his life. That’s all you need to know.

Dean: And Richard is so knocking it out, you're actually learning a lot more with even less.

John: Yeah. His relationship through his attitude. No, there are times- even a writer would admit-

Dean: And that's all real sweat, by the way, no sweat bottle came in there; he earned each drop.

John: Boom. I like Aldis’ vague resentment at not being allowed to punch the guy.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Because again, everyone has their niche. And also the great expression Beth chooses there. ‘Eh, I've been in the tub waiting while you beat up a mayor. I'm out now.’

[Laughter]

John: ‘What are we doing next?’

Chris: Yeah, completely blank affect.

John: Yeah, exactly.

Dean: Day at the office.

John: Yeah.

Dean: But the subtle look of feeling like she's on a sinking ship.

John: Yeah.

Dean: That we get out of Tara at the end of this scene, is really very great for setting up the turn.

John: And even- It's interesting, to watch Chris choose- Aldis is having basically Hardison question dad, while Eliot is instead watching the interplay between the two of them to see how Nate treats Hardison.

Dean: Right.

John: Knowing that's the better indicator of what the relationship is. He does a similar thing in 207, actually, between he and Sophie- between Gina, with the bomb scene.

Dean: Right, right.

John: Yeah.

Dean: And then here we drop our red herring. Has Tara jumped the shark?

John: For a minute or half we considered doing it. For a minute and a half, what would- the problem was, it's Jeri Ryan, and you like her and you're hanging out with her and working with her and it was like, ‘Nah, I don't want the- I like the character.’

Chris: Well it sets up the- the act where it all pays off is one of my favorite acts we’ve done.

John: It’s one of my favorite bits ever. This, by the way, it seems like it's just an act break, it's horrible. Sterling has used his- the fact he used to be best friends with Nate Ford, to know that he is going to use his child’s- dead child's art to trap him.

Chris: Yeah.

John: This is a moment that was kind of thrown away, and the two actors, I saw them actually talking about it on set and they really dug in on it.

Chris: Yeah.

John: It's like, that is a horrible moment. You know, because he knows he won't leave town without that, and Sterling is the only man on earth who knows he won't leave town without that.

Chris: Right.

John: Yeah. And it's one of the few times we’re behind the desk there.

Dean: Yeah.

John: Yeah. It's a weird place to shoot; it's just got that picture behind it, it's just trough to frame

Dean: But we wanted to get there and we found a place. Now this scene is unusual in that we've gone now to our handheld, which we do when our characters are either in physical or emotional jeopardy. But unlike other scenes, we went musicless here.

John: Yes.

Dean: Because the performances were so strong and so right on-

Chris: Oh that’s great.

Dean: -we didn't want to tell the audience what to feel. Just- we just wanted them to feel it.

John: Also in the tradition, that's the same glass.

Dean: Yeah.

John: Nate and-

Chris: Oh that's the same glass from- from Nate in-

Dean: Season 1.

Chris: Season 1. That’s great.

John: Nate and Sterling have one glass they pass back and forth between each other depending on who’s winning.

Chris: That's great.

Dean: Right.

John: And the fact he's brought it to give it to him is sort of a signature of the deal they're falling into. And again, by the way, the idea that you would protect a witness that might’ve killed a cop. When you do the research? Oh man. This was kind of the Whitey Bulger thing in costic.

Chris: Well I mean, you know, we- it gave us a chance to explore- it was a whole different episode from the point of view of the FBI.

John: Yeah.

Chris: About the compromises that people make when they get confidential, you know-

John: Informants.

Chris: Cooperating witnesses, of looking the other way of other things they're doing. All they are focused on is their case.

John: That mayor is giving them 20 good busts.

Chris: Yeah, yeah.

John: They're not going to follow rumors. Also Mark Sheppard is a- man, this is a great scene. There's two versions of this scene. This is the one we used, the one I like. One where he's angry and superior, and one where he's genuinely hurt that Nate Ford had become this man.

Dean: Yeah.

John: That he's genuinely hurt he has to offer him this deal. And this is the take we used.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Which was an oddly vulnerable moment for that character. He doesn't want to be here, he doesn't want to be giving him this offer. Wow, this is all close up, too, which we almost never do.

Dean: Yeah. But this is- there's a lot of things that we did in this two part season finale that we don't normally do, that were out of the box, but necessary, it was very interesting.

John: Yeah, and this is him telling him this is his last chance. No, and- I always wonder- I gotta- I need to ask Tim when does- cause I know Tim in his head knows when Nate makes the decision what he's gonna do. Is it here or is it after the phone call? Is it after the phone call?

Dean: I think it's after the phone call.

John: Yeah. But there's alot going on.

Dean: But the twist here was cause Nate always is two steps ahead. Until he said, ‘And my team,’ and the guy- and he says, ‘No, just you.’ And there's a look on his face and it's one- it’s again, a rare vulnerable moment for Nate where he didn’t see that one coming.

John: Yeah. And loses his hand and it's like, you know.

Dean: Again, getting to shoot at the actual docks was fantastic.

John: Except we can't shoot past her right shoulder, cause there was a navy ship there that we started to shoot, and the nice gentlemen came over and told us not to put that on camera, please.

Dean: That’s right.

Chris: Oh really?

John: Yeah.

Chris: Wow.

John: Yeah.

Dean: And briny despair may be my favorite Parker line.

John: Briny despair, old clowns.

Chris: Old clown shoes.

John: Briny despair. And again, there's a mini arc here, and the actresses are very good friends, and they're really found it, of their developing physical friendship and, like, just the fact that she can be- Parker’s physical character, and so the fact she’ll walk in pace with Tara is a big deal.

Dean: And now we've brought back Sophie.

John: There you go.

Dean: First time we haven't seen her on a monitor this season.

John: Exactly.

Chris: And here's the payoff from the scene in-

Dean: 207.

Chris: Well part one also, this-

Dean: But we set up really at the-

Chris: We did, you're right.

Dean: At the- The Two Live Crew Job that she was going off to find herself.

John: Yeah.

Chris: Right.

Dean: And then in the next episode, when he tried to bring her back, she says, ‘Do you want me back for the team, or for you?’

Chris: Right, right.

Dean: And now he calls that back and says, ‘Not for the team, for me.’

Chris: Right, right.

Dean: ‘I need you back.’

John: It was also subtle, but we've shown her in conveyance in a lot of the other shots when she's away, so you won't be tipped off by the fact that she's in a conveyance. That she's in transport.

Chris: That she's in a helicopter.

John: She's in transit, she’s in a helicopter. We've shown her in cars, she’s done the cell phone in different locations.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, that’s true.

John: So hopefully you were not like ‘Oh, why are we seeing her in a different context?’

Chris: Right.

John: We've seen her in this context before. Now this was- man, this was a great day, this was just- we cleared the set and Tim just parked his ass on the floor.

Dean: We did three takes, but this is actually his first take. He so nailed it on the first take.

John: Oh, really?

Dean: That the others were really just for safety. But he just came in there, ready to do this part.

John: Yeah. And this is- you know.

Dean: And then the tragedy that she didn't hear any of it.

John: Yeah.

Chris: It's one of the great things about cell phones. Is that- from a dramatic standpoint- I mean they help you bring characters together, but you can also use them to-

Dean: Separate them.

Chris: To separate them.

John: Never in 1940s comedy is or 1940s movie is like, ‘Pennsylvania 927: Oh the killer is-!’ ‘Oh I lost him.’

Chris: ‘The line went dead!’

John: ‘The line went dead!’ ‘No sir, the line’s not dead, I'll reconnect you right away.’ Thank you operator.’

Dean: But his feeling of betrayal at losing the connection.

John: Yeah.

Dean: Really again, is a wonderful red herring where we feel like, ‘Oh my god, he's really gonna sell this team out.’

John: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Or at the very least you have no idea what the hell he's gonna do.

Dean: Yeah.

John: You know, he is drunk, he is pissed off. No he-

Chris: And he's been put- he's been backed in a corner.

John: And you know, which-

Dean: But even the way he said here, ‘I have a plan that will fix everyone.’ It’s like, woah.

John: And having the picture that Sam drew. It's interesting that it's essentially a codependent relationship, but it's a functioning one that they have.

Dean: And here, again, is a strange bit of blocking that we had never done before, where Nate has isolated himself on the stairway.

John: Yes.

Chris: Well that helps sell everything, too, doesn't it? Separated from them.

John: Well he's not in front of them, he's behind them. He's separated from them, exactly. Fun bit of blocking, too, actually. It's- we’ll use it again, I'm sure.

Dean: Yeah.

John: Cause that's a nice angle. And yes and then everyone- and then her coming around to pull focus. No, it's for a static shot, it's really interesting. But this is one of the few times we don't tell you the plan.

Dean: Right.

John: You know, it's one of the few times we transition. Usually we-

Chris: We did that in part two of season one, also.

John: Yeah, yeah. It’s- we’re usually an open mystery.

Chris: Yes.

John: At least- and this was one of the few times that you're not- you have no idea- because the rules for the show usually are, you know what's gonna happen and the fun is seeing it go wrong and how they're gonna recover. This one it's like, you’re just gonna have to trust us.

Chris: Who invented the ‘And this is what we're gonna do’ was that Aristophones? The first one.

John: That was Aristophanes.

Chris: ‘Alright everyone, gather around. Grab your togas; let’s go.’

Dean: Now once again we've got the teams separated in different locations, each with different objectives.

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: And that's a little bit of a callback to the pilot episode, when she did the burn gag.

Chris: That's true.

John: Yes, the burn scam. Yeah, wow was this a tough shot.

Dean: That's a little bit of scale, huh guys?

Chris: Wow.

Dean: How about that?

Chris: They let us- now was that digital or do we- let us paint on the ship?

Dean: We digitally put the name on the ship.

Chris: We did, ok.

John: Well, we did paint some of it .

Dean: We did paint some of it. You’ll see a sign later that we actually painted.

John: That was a lot of fun, just trying to figure out like, the whole break into the FBI office. And what's the easiest way?

Dean: Short fight, but one of my favorites.

John: Yeah, just brutal. This is a tough- this was a tough day. Chris did all of these fights in one day, straight through, and ran back and forth between the dialogue scenes.

Dean: This really should've been two days of shooting, that we did in one day.

John: He did like a 20 hour day here.

Dean: This was an insane day.

Chris: Oof.

Dean: But we only had use of this ship for two days, so we had to get it all in.

John: Yeah. He's got the samurai ponytail rocking there, that's how you can tell there's gonna be some fighting. And we have money, and we would like to arrange a meeting. ‘I'm a man with a briefcase full of money, I would like to meet your boss.’ It’s a great, classic trope.

Chris: I like this act, this is my favorite act.

John: I also like- I gave them this running bit where he's counting guys with guns.

Chris: Yeah, I remember that from- you came up with that last season.

John: Season one, and we never found a place for it.

Chris: That's a great shot, too.

John: Yeah, that's a great shot. That and- actually on the boat, that's the way you get between decks. This is actually one of my favorite Parker bits, just talking- coming up with the speech about what it's like to die in an air vent. Because the fact that she's always in air vents, is worth addressing, you know.

Dean: And it shows you the way her mind thinks.

John: Yes, exactly. ‘Scratching on the metal.’ She's kinda turned on, I'm not sure where this is going.

[Laughter]

Dean: Yeah, that’s fair.

Chris: It's the tongue, the darting tongue and she shakes out of it.

John: Let’s go and we’re off.

Dean: She loves the danger.

Chris: We didn't get wet that down folks, that was actual Portland rain.

John: Yes, Beth Riesgraf and Jeri Ryan were on a rooftop, on a skyscraper, with a thunderstorm during most of this day.

Dean: Not dangerous at all.

John: Not dangerous, ignore the lighting, kids. Man, what were we thinking?

Dean: And he pulled out the Scottish accent out of nowhere, which was fantastic.

John: I know, I know. Which was a lot of fun. Because the idea is the mayor has gotten in over his head, and he's dealing with the same sort of businesses that- power drill was the nastiest thing I could think of.

Chris: And that's quite a nasty bit on it, too.

John: Yes, exactly. Well that’s- you know, I mean, if you're gonna mess up somebody's knees, that's the bit you're gonna use yeah. ‘Still counting.’ Oh yeah, then we just reset- it was really tricky because it was so complicated, we had to reset their goal at the beginning of every act.

Dean: Right.

John: What do they need to get? Yeah. And again, it's like, do these guys really meet in broad daylight to look at their goods? Yes! Yes they do!

Chris: Yeah.

John: And usually-

Dean: And here's where we set up the phone does voice dialing, which is crucial to our final act.

John: Thank you 21st century. Because we enjoyed tying up Richard Kind and we’ll leave it at that.

Chris: Yeah, I'm sure the fact that GPS is in every phone is gonna be our best friend and possibly our worst enemy this coming season.

John: No, it's a big deal.

Chris: Yeah.

John: A phone that's on is a phone that can be tracked.

Chris: Yup.

John: Exactly. And yes and Richard, by the way, finding the desperation. ‘They cut her up in a bathtub!’

John: Like the murder wasnt the worst thing in the world, but the fact that somehow it was so undignified? Yeah. Nice scream. And that was, by the way, great little comedy beat, just like, ‘Well to be fair, he did most of the cutting.’

Chris: Yeah.

John: The two of them- we don't usually have Eliot and Nate doing comedy together, but when they do it's a pure relationship, it's a nice rhythm.

Dean: And if you look closely, there in the distance, we've set up Sophie is actually with the buyers.

John: Yes.

Dean: But you wouldn't notice that unless you watched it again.

Chris: Oh, that's great.

John: And now they've broken in, they've come down through the air vent, she did not enjoy the experience in any way shape or form. Oh man, this was a tough day. That's like-

Chris: Hot? Cold? What was the temperature? Do you remember?

John: Brutal, brutal hot. Cold at night. Hot at- you know what? There's never-

Dean: Back and forth.

John: It's never comfy on an oil tanker deck.

Chris: No- I’m trying- yeah I'm trying to imagine-

Dean: And there again, there’s Sophie in the distance.

Chris: There she is, that's great.

John: Sophie in the distance. And this is a real fusebox we tacked into. Sorry.

Dean: In city hall?

John: In city hall.

[Laughter]

John: This was actually a fun thing is, this year we shifted to Hardison not using a signature laptop, but using the minis.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Because our hacker consultant, Kevin Mitteny told us that's what they're using. They're using $300 computers and throwing them away if they're gonna get busted. And running stuff off the thumb drives.

Dean: And this was the- in the actual cargo hold of the oil tanker, so this was very confined space to shoot in. It looked great, but it was very difficult to light and move the camera around and because the top of the stairs- that was the only stairs that was the only way in and out of that room. So all the lights, all the cameras all had to go up and down stairs- there was no other way in or out.

John: And remind you, Gina’s in this scene later. Gina at, like, 17 months pregnant.

[Laughter]

John: Came down those stairs like a fricken trooper, man. We were just- we were more scared than she was. She was like going down them, and we were like, ‘Ahhh, oh god.’

Chris: Just kind of like [unintelligible] step.

John: It’s an oil tanker! And she’s in like fashion boots, and a kicky top, you know.

Chris: Wow.

John: This was- you know what’s weird? This speech doesn’t advance the plot in any way, shape, or form. This speech is just him selling his character to buy time, and yet it’s really interesting.

Dean: Yeah this-

John: Tim’s digging in on the character here. It's his evil speech of evil, you know.

Dean: Right

John: And he never gets to give one.

Chris: Yeah, it's interesting when we can do that. We've done that a few times, the-

John: Glengarry, Glen death.

Chris: Sophie also- also as the Indian pharmaceutical rep gave an evil speech of evil.

John: Yes.

Dean: And this you wrote in the script as the Bourne fade.

John: Yes.

Dean: Which I thought was the perfect description.

John: It's a perfect- it’s a good shorthand. He's there, and then he’s not there.

Chris: It's great.

John: By the way, Chris has just stepped three feet to the right into a tool locker.

[Laughter]

Dean: Right.

John: There's no actual exit there. And- was there a reason for the 360? Just to keep it- just to be interesting? Because I don't think it was-

Chris: And how hard was that within that space?

Dean: Really hard. But we felt that it was a great way to, again, the world has changed. We thought one thing was going on here, but now we've spun it by-

Chris: And that's steadicam.

Dean: That's all steadicam. Gary Camp.

John: It's weird, because it's also, kind of, Nate Ford buying into his persona there. That's one of the times you really see him.

Dean: And Jackie ‘The Joke Man’ Martling.

John: Who came in and did a great job for us!

Dean: You know what's funny, is that I thought he was just gonna be a comic that you had to teach how to act. But you know what? He really came in with the character, he committed to it, he wasn't just trying to be jokey. I mean, he really knocked it out.

John: He totally gives us serious takes-

Chris: He’s totally convincing as the evidence locker guy.

John: Slightly more convincing than Jeri Ryan in insanely hot pants as the FBI agent.

[Laughter]

John: I gotta with Jackie here on the verisimilitude scale. Although we did put Jackie in those pants, that didn't work out for us as much. But no, he's great and the kind of vaguely resentful- you can totally see him doing this character on a-

Dean: And yet he gave us a great exit line here.

John: ‘Oh no, who wants to talk to the evidence guy?’

[Laughter]

John: And that was, by the way, that was him, that was not in the script.

Chris: That’s true.

Dean: And not overselling it either.

John: No, no, it was really nice. You could see him playing that role on a cop show.

Dean: Totally.

John: Absolutely. Nate Ford, international man of mystery and arms dealer.

Chris: Peacoat really working well on the boat.

[Laughter]

John: Yeah, nice. It's very much-

Chris: That was a coat waiting for a set.

John: Yeah. Well it's interesting cause-

Dean: Oh and there's Sophie in the background.

Chris: There’s Sophie!

John: And some people in the first screening kind of caught her, but-

Chris: Now she's there buying guns? Who’s-?

[Laughter]

John: Well she's- she is buying guns, you know.

Chris: For her library?

[Laughter]

Dean: Library needs guns, too.

John: Libraries need guns, too. I like to think- I like to think that she is a Swiss buyer.

Chris: No, I mean, it’s a well armed library.

John: She's a Swiss buyer, she’s-

Dean: And here's a nice little turn.

John: Nice swing around. Shot that day on the boat to reveal that they talked. And then over again. Wow, and we all shot this in a real container.

Dean: In a real containter.

Chris: It was for real? Oh, wow.

Dean: Yeah. Now back on the roof, and this is my favorite Parker bit we've ever done.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Yeah it's tough. There's a lot of good ones, but.

Dean: But.

John: But we never expected Beth to do this.

Chris: This turn here is great.

Dean: This is the first time since the pilot that we brought back how lethal she can actually be.

John: There's a bit in Stork Job, but boom. Oh yeah and she locked in on Jeris throat on that, too.

Chris: Yeah.

John: And Jeri goes over the edge.

Chris: Over the edge.

John: She's wired, but that's Jeri Ryan hanging over the edge. And it was-

Chris: And again, it was raining and windy.

John: Raining. Yeah no, they were both fearless up there.

John: They had a good time up there. They really wound up working well together. And now it's all gone to hell.

Dean: But it's a real callback to that pilot line of, ‘Going to my angry place.’

John: Yeah. This is just- because what's happened is- and just for writing thing, Parker has let her into the family. The only people who are human beings are members of the family. Once Jeri’s betrayed them, she’s moved outside the family, and is an object.

Chris: Well, also to betray the family is-

John: Real ship captain.

Dean: Real ship-

Chris: Oh wow, that's great.

John: You were saying? To betray...

Chris: To betray the family is even worse.

Dean: This is a great hit right here.

Chris: Oh!

Dean: Bam! Man.

John: Yeah- man shooting- that's as wide as that space is, guys.

Dean: Yeah.

John: That was brutal to be down there.

Dean: And these are two guys from the beginning of the previous episode. So again, if you haven't watched them back to back, you might not realize these are the two guys who shot Bonanno.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Yeah, so you know we've linked up, physically, the bad guys.

Dean: Now that one actually- we put that one actually up there.

John: Yeah, that's a real sign. And this is my favorite, this is one of my favorite character reveals ever, and it's because she's doing one of my favorite characters ever. Gina’s doing Annie Croy here.

Chris: Annie Croy.

Dean: Which, again, ties back to the beginning of the season.

John: Yeah it's almost like we think this through. Yeah and- I'm sorry we're all gonna be quiet here because we all love this.

Dean: ‘Bye now.’

John: ‘Bye now.’

[Laughter]

John: That's fucked up, man. I'm sorry, I'm gonna swear on DVD and say that is fucked up.

Dean: That ‘bye now’ is.

Chris: The ‘bye now’ throwaway.

Dean: Oh boy, ruthless. And then my second favorite reveal of a character all year.

Chris: Oh.

John: Yeah. No, that's fantastic. And the way Tim sells this like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ No, even writing that character reveal I wasn't sure it would work, and even when we shot it I'm like, ‘Yeah, this works.’ Gina- you've been so waiting to be- hear her voice.

Dean: She is so talented.

John: We've also really lined it up like there’s no out here. We- usually the audience- a smart audience member will see a backdoor we put. There is no backdoor, she's the backdoor.

Chris: Yeah this was a tricky bit of scripting too, right? I mean we had a ship, and we needed to disable it. I mean, what was- right?

John: It was a lot of wandering around on the ship going, ‘Alright, how does this work exactly?’

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: And even though Tim is out of focus here, you get everything right there.

John: ‘The hell’s going on?’ And she doesn't break character, no.

Dean: Cause she is the ultimate grifter.

John: Yeah, no she does a great- and OK, shoot this guy in the face when I'm off the-’ She's impatient and that's actually kind of a nice thing. And now this.

Dean: Terrific little fight scene shot by Marc Roskin.

John: Yes, at some ungodly hour of the morning. And this is where we pay off the numbers. We've been waiting two years to do this.

Dean: And again, in the actual ship.

John: Yeah, there's a lot of stuff to hurt yourself on.

Dean: And this gun going off was not easy.

John: Yeah.

Chris: Oof.

John: Yeah, we're spilling brass all over the inside of the ship. The- this is a brutal fight sequence, all these stunties did- you know, they're banging off metal all over the place.

Dean: In this kind of space, it is so hard to do this safely, these guys were champs. And Christian- I’m telling you, he's amazing in these things.

John: No double.

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: Refuses to get a double.

John: Refused to get a double. There you go, and down, he counts. By the way, we’re not exhibiting superhuman strength here. This is how you break flexicuffs.

Chris: Oh wow, that's a little hulk moment.

John: Yeah, the only thing keeping- if you- if- that's why they flexicuff you behind your back. The only thing keeping you in flexicuffs in front of you is the belief that you should be in flexicuffs. Little survival tip.

Chris: Oh wow.

John: And this is also a favorite bit, because it was really written as a kind of expositional, but Beth found this really weird rhythm near the end of it.

Dean: Oh boy.

John: This is shot with the XD right?

Dean: Yeah.

John: This is all shot with a Prosumer-level camera.

Dean: She just finds this little bit of evil.

John: ‘Oh, I actually thought you were going to throw me off.’ Yeah, exactly.

Dean: Just this little fake laugh here, just so great. I think it's actually in the two shot, because it has to be in the comedy frame.

John: Yeah the- also the- it's interesting that the- the idea that it's fair enough that they would indeed-

Dean: Here it is.

John: Here it is, coming up. ‘I thought you were actually going to throw me off the roof’. And there she is. The look before hand, the ‘Oh, that's right, this is how humans are supposed to react.’

[Laughter]

John: ‘Eh, I was totally going to throw you off that roof.’

Chris: Yeah, that’s great.

John: But the whole understanding that yes we probably- that's actually a favorite line and Jeri really nailed it, which is ‘You would have forgiven him.’ They're all enablers, they're all in this weird broken family, and you know, it's both their strength and their weakness. Also, again, by the way, director thing, I had a whole explanation of how Hardison disarmed the ship, and we had no time to shoot it and you were like, ‘Giant wrench!’

Chris: Giant wrench!

John: You know what he's done.

Chris: When you see a giant wrench, you see that he messed something up.

John: He is a monkey wrencher. You know! It's a term.

Dean: In the comedy frame. so-

John: And by the way, ‘Took you long enough,’ is a recurring theme for the entire back half of the season.

Dean: Right there.

Chris: Oh that's right.

Dean: And she walks by. ‘Huh?’

[Laughter]

Dean: Love it.

John: And then a beautiful over the shoulder. Oh that's a hero shot right there. No, it really is- it’s interesting because it was very scary, because you know, you didn't know how long Gina would be with us going into the season and everything.

Chris: Oh, this is great.

John: And the entire act depends on Sophie being the best grifter on earth.

Chris: Even him-

Dean: And it's just fun to see them all back together again, because we've been starved from it.

Chris: Him being like places where he doesn't know he was all throughout this episode.

John: Yeah, it's a nice running gag actually. And zero. And by the way, it was Chris who caught the count. Chris came up to me and was like, ‘If that's the last guy I'm gonna-’ I was like, ‘Oh, good catch at 2am, nicely done.’ ‘Took you long enough,’ again.

Dean: And this sets up the handcuff bit at the end.

John: Yeah, that was tricky.

Chris: Right he has the handcuffs.

John: Oh god, yeah. Boy this was really easy to keep track of.

[Laughter]

Dean: And both of them really delivered- you know, this is a very short scene that needs a lot of emotions. Because it wraps up really where they are and where they're going next season, and they just did it with looks and with subtext. And it was just terrific.

John: You poor bastard. And also, by the way, what I love about this is, this is the happy ending to most television shows, this moment right here. We then fuck it up.

Dean: Right, exactly.

John: Yeah. They really care for each other, they are really good friends.

Dean: And they're there for each other.

John: And they're there for each other, and he's a broken bastard. And what's great is he walks out of there without really knowing what the rest of the plan is.

Dean: My favorite Richard Kind line right here, ‘I don't know.’

John: ‘I don't know.’

[Laughter]

Chris: That's very Richard Kind. That’s Mad About You, Spin City Richard Kind right there.

John: Yeah, it really is. And by the way, yeah, only two ways out of this. That seems like a design flaw to me. Because that front window is a 40 foot drop onto the deck of the ship; you can't get out through that front window.

Chris: Oh wow.

John: Yeah if you lock these doors, they ain’t going anywhere. Yeah, and a nice run and gun there, and there's also a little mini scene we blew off there with Paul sort of turning on Richard. Hero moment, hero- the team together.

Dean: By the way, those are some digital effects to remove the pregnant belly.

John: Nice, nicely done.

Chris: Oh really, wow.

Dean: Yes.

Chris: I say it a lot.

John: And nice hug.

Dean: And also just on a small note, we couldn't afford two helicopters. Because we had a helicopter in the scene, and we also needed a helicopter that could shoot the scene. So we used the same helicopter for both and then just digitally erased the camera that was mounted on the end of the helicopter.

Chris: Wait wait, so in other words when you're up there with them you're also shooting- the cameras below it?

Dean: So in other words- yeah, so when you see the helicopter arrive later, there was actually a camera attached to it.

John: A giant camera rig on it, like the size of a VW bug on the bottom of it.

Dean: But we erased it.

Chris: Oh that's amazing.

John: Yeah. Yeah and Sophie’s thought of everything. There's a way out, you hear sirens, it's all coming together.

Dean: And it's fun to see them back together again.

Chris: And again, not that we do this typically. But this was, in a sense, this scene was kind of conceived of first, this scene and him on the deck.

Dean: Right.

John: That's right.

Chris: That we were leading up to.

John: The original version of the script is, it opens with him bleeding out on the deck and you have no idea where he is.

Chris: But I'm saying even in the beginning of the season.

John: Oh yeah.

Chris: This scene was kind of where the show was going. How we were gonna get there was the question.

John: You don’t- everyone has their different ways. Before we shot a frame of season two, I knew it ended with Nate Ford saying, ‘I'm a thief.’

Chris: Right. But even- but even on a- also on the deck of a ship remember- I remember that.

John: Yeah, on the deck of a ship.

Dean: Now I think this ending is one of the bigger endings we’ve ever done, and it's really the most emotional ending I've ever done.

John: Really? I dunno you and I-

Dean: More than I was expecting it to be.

John: You and I disagree, because we all have our favorite stuff, but yeah, it-

Chris: It’s certainly a huge hero moment.

John: It's a huge hero moment, and they're all making great choices. Eliot really wants to just tear through these guys, and Nate’s not gonna let him.

Dean: Yeah.

John: Yeah.

Dean: He's being a good dad for once.

John: Yeah. He’s- and by the way, again, this is not the right choice, he shouldn't have lied to them, he shouldn't have had a plan he didn't tell them, he shouldn’t- he's a control freak. Even in his moment of sacrifice, he's a selfish, alcoholic bastard.

[Laughter]

Dean: That's right.

John: I just wished to make sure nobody makes sure nobody thinks he's being super heroic here. He doesn't really change that much.

Chris: That’s true.

John: No, and this was fun, we had all different kinds of versions of lockers and found out that yeah, that's how they keep a lot of evidence.

Dean: That’s crazy.

John: That was fun though too, also, you only had two rows of those evidence lockers, so you staggred them to shoot through them to make it look-

Dean: To make it seem like they went on forever.

Chris: Yeah where was that? Where-?

John: That was on set that was- remember the small soundstage we had?

Chris: Oh, ok.

Dean: It was actually a reworking of the set at the end of 207 at the airport.

John: Yes. It was the airport, but we just moved it over to the other stage. And I also love the idea again- Nate and Sterling are playing a game that just nobody else gets to be a part of. This is just- this is just nine moves ahead guys.

Dean: Right.

John: There's another version of the show where Katie O'Grady chases Eliot, Parker, and Hardison for an entire season, yeah, but in this version. ‘I can feel you thinking’ he knows him, he knows him that well. He knows the counter move- no, they really dug in here. And by the way, it's 110 degrees on that deck, Tim’s in a peacoat handcuffed to a rail. He's working his ass off here.

Dean: With the turtleneck.

John: With the turtleneck, yeah. Oh and just the sheer rage Katie O'Grady is radiating there.

Chris: Now what time- what day- part of the shooting day was this? Did you make-?

John: This was morning.

Chris: This was, like, first thing?

Dean: Yeah, this was the first shot.

Chris: Is that a challenge to do the most emotional thing first?

Dean: It is, and especially because when we started shooting it we were in cloud cover and then halfway through the scene the sun came out. And so then trying to make that all work was really difficult.

Dean: This, I thought, was surprisingly more emotional than I anticipated when we were there.

John: Well it was weird because when we were there, we couldn't quite get the staging, and they seemed like they were standing really far away. ‘Cause the deck was bigger than we thought.

Dean: Right.

John: And no- well this is the shot because by shooting this way, you get intimate, it feels like they're right on top of them. The other reverse kind of shows you the space.

Chris: I think it also parallels from season one, also-

John: Yeah it does, it does.

Chris: The scene where they’re standing around, really nicely.

Dean: But they're all disappointed in him, which is great. He sacrificing for them, but that's not what they want.

John: No. And he lied to them. And he's- you’re an idiot, I mean, that's really what Eliot’s thinking right there.

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: Yeah.

John: Like, ‘You know what? If you just talk to us.; I really never realized how [unintelligible] this episode is.

Chris: It is.

John: It’s a big hero sacrifice, but it’s- you know he really broke the family. Again.

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: And Gina just nails this scene. I mean, we waited for this kiss for two seasons.

John: Yeah.

Dean: And it comes out, and she's crushed by it. It’s great.

John: Yeah. And again, and- you know this is a big hero moment in his head and she calls him on it. Because she- and this is what's interesting, Sophie Deveraux is a more advanced human being than Nate Ford is at this point. She went away, she took her space-

Chris: Right.

John: You know.

Dean: And she lets him have it.

John: In the same way he let her have it at the end of season one, she's letting him have it at the end of season two. I love that look, by the way, that Eliot- Chris and Mark really set up the fact that they can't stand each other, really well.

Chris: And here, you know, the relationship between these two kicks in also.

John: Yeah.

Chris: Between Nate and Sterling.

John: Yeah, the fact that he held it together- and they don't know, by the way.

Chris: Right.

John: They have no idea when they're leaving.

Dean: That little look with Christian is just great.

John: And there's a camera mount on that helicopter.

Dean: That's been erased.

Chris: That's great.

John: ‘Who the hell is this guy?’ That- this is- you’re right, we wrote the ending first.

Chris: Yeah, I remember, this was-

Dean: He goes, ‘I don’t know.’

John: I remember this was the first thing ever.

Dean: This was the end of the arc. ‘I'm a thief.’

John: ‘And I'm a thief.’ I mean this is a callback to him saying I'm not a thief for two years.

Dean: Right.

John: Wow. Thank god this is the last episode of the show.

Chris: And we’re not listening- and we can't hear it here in the commentary, but Joe Le Duca did- the orchestration for this is absolutely fantastic.

Dean: It's actually the first time he went and got a real orchestra.

John: Yeah.

Dean: Went to Salt Lake City and recorded with a real orchestra, and I mean the scale of this is outstanding.

John: It's giant. 35- I think we had close to half a- 50 FBI agents here. And just cars, helicopters, and this is a big- this is a big hero moment, man. This is a film ending, you know.

Dean: Yeah, it really is.

John: This is it. I love his choice here, it's like, ‘And if I die, I'm totally cool with that.’

Chris: Oh here we go.

John: And he's bleeding out, can you see?

Dean: See the blood on the ground.

John: The blood- he's bleeding out. There's no guarantee Nate Ford will make it.

[Laughter]

Chris: Wow.

John: Which was fun actually shooting this, ‘cause Tim really loved this. And two days before we finished shooting, he turned to me and went, ‘Wait am I dead?’

[Laughter]

Chris: Oh that’s something.

Dean: Stay tuned for season three and you'll find out.

John: I know. No kidding, you'll find out.

Dean: Thank you again for hanging in there with us and listening to this commentary.

John: We had a great time and we really appreciate you guys watching the show.

Chris: And thanks again for watching season two; we can't wait to bring you season three.

John: And thank you, Portland.

Dean: Yes.

John: Big thank you, Portland.

#Leverage #Leverage TNT #Leverage Audio Commentary Transcripts #Audio Commentary #Transcripts #Parker #Alec Hardison #Elliot Spencer #Nate Ford #Sophie Deveraux #Season 2 #Episode 15 #Season 2 Episode 15 #The Maltese Falcon Job

45 notes · View notes

aliaslua · 3 years

Text

Right to live

Chapter 02 of my on going series: In broad daylight

Chapter summary: Michelangelo has a productive therapy session after his interview. April and Casey announce their wedding and in a jealousy crisis, Donatello has his first one-night-stand. Warning: This chapter contain light smut (mature, not explicit) if you're a minor please DON'T INTERACT. TW: Trauma mention (nothing too graphic or descriptive, but it does contain a short account of a panic attack).

Michelangelo started therapy after his first panic attack.

It was - maybe - the worst night of his life. At that point in time he didn’t even knew what a trigger was - and even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to identify or anticipate his reaction. If felt like he was dying in a literal, visceral sense. It was like having a bomb growing inside his shell, the beating counting down to a heart attack, he felt his lips cold, his head heavy and the touch of Donatello’s hand in his shoulders felt cold against his skin for the first time in his life. He could still remembers his brothers calling to him and his inhuman effort to look them in the eyes, just as he gazed into the house he grew up in and didn’t recognize the color of the new floor tiles.

The rest was a blur.

Dr. Miller was April’s last effort to persuade Leo and Raph that Mikey needed professional counseling. At this point, Mikey didn't have enough will to have a strong opinion on his treatment, he didn't have the will to do anything, really. All his days were spent sleeping by day and having terrible night anxiety, followed by an earth-shattering cry until morning, when he went back to sleep. Despite their best effort to care for and protect the younger sibling, all of his brothers knew that he had become impossible to handle - and more important than that, his emotional and physical dependency got so intense that it was perfectly clear that there was nothing they could do: Michelangelo need help, professional help.

On the first day they entered Dr. Miller’s office, April had reassured everybody she had send the therapist recent photos of Mikey and explained all his possible triggers in detail. The clinic would open two hours early so that they could have privacy and that this first encounter would include Mikey, his brothers and Sara Miller only.

Mikey was so nervous he felt like this situation alone would end up triggering his next attack: his hands were sweaty, his chest heavy and the feeling in his stomach made him realize that maybe he would throw up all those recent pizza slices. When the door to her office opened, he felt an immediate relief upon looking at her.

Sara (as he would start calling her later) was a 67 years old black woman, wearing a knitted cardigan and a puffy ponytail. She looked at him with eyes free from any king of judgment: any kind of feeling at all, actually, it was very… neutral. After gazing at him and his brothers she had smiled lightly and then calmly said:

"Good morning. I am Dr. Miller. Are you Michelangelo?" Mikey just nodded " Welcome. Please, come in.”

So he did, on that Monday morning and all the next yet to come, for two years straight.

━━━━━━ • ✿ • ━━━━━━

“Did you see the interview?” Mikey asked just as he entered her office, not even worrying about greeting Sara.

“Yes I did.” She answered with the same peaceful deep voice, unbothered by the absence of a greet “You looked very handsome.”

“I sure did!” The mutant turtle seated at the large red sofa, his body melting in the comfortable cushions, he grabbed one of the small pillows behind him and held it tight against his chest “Ugh! It was so fun!”

Sara smiled. She always gave him a kind of smile that made Mikey feel like she was the perfect embodiment of a fairytale grandma and for the first time, Michelangelo actually considered she might actually be someone else’s grandmother.

“I am glad to hear that. Did you do the exercises he practiced?”

Mikey hummed “It helped. But what really made all difference was that Leo was there. And April. Oh, April is getting married!” He announced “She and Casey told us about the engagement just after we all saw the interview air. It was a great night.” He stopped for a minute and laid his head against the couch, focusing on the abstract painting that always caught his attention since the first day he sat there, he knew his voice let out a sadness he was trying to hide. He didn’t need to pretend there.

“It was… Weird, I guess… Like, I should be happy for them, right? Casey is a nice man, he treats her right, they already have a life together, an apartment with a huge TV and an aquarium… I can’t argue with that, right? Right?” Sara didn’t answer, Michelangelo laid his head completely on the couch, staring at the sealing “She was my first love…. Or something like it. I feel so attached to her and…” He sighed deeply and closed his eyes, trying to measure all the feelings filling his chest “...I think I… Should I feel happy for her? Because I felt… Huh, I felt betrayed.”

“Do you feel resentment?” Dr. Miller finally asked, gazing calmly at him.

“Yeah, I guess… I didn’t know what I expected... and I don’t want to marry April. Not anymore, I mean. She is like a sister to me. No! It’s more than that… She’s like… I- It just.. it was all so fast! Everything is so fast right now, and she decided to announce just as the interview ended and I felt so… I felt so overshadowed!”

“You felt it was your night.”

“It WAS my night. And I don’t mean to sound selfish, you know? I just… Wished they had waited.”

Sara looked at her patient making a conscious effort to avoid giving away her own feelings, the enormous man in front her had a gloomy expression and tired eyes.

“Mikey, is not the first time you mention feeling like this.”

“Like what?”

“ Overshadowed .” She quoted him.

“Yeah… I guess it's something I’ve been feeling for a while.”

“You mentioned once that you felt… Smushed, is the word you used.”

“Yeah. Smushed between my brothers.”

“Hmm” Sara nodded “What about that?”

“Well, you know about that… They are all special in their own way. Leo is the leader, Raph is the muscle, Donnie is the genius, I am the… Comic relief?”

“You sound like you are all characters of a cartoon.”

“We look like it!” Mikey said, humorous. Sara did her best to contain a tiny smile that formed in her cheeks.

“Well, you are your own person, Mikey. You don’t have to fulfill an imaginary role you fantasized for yourself.”

“Yeah I feel like you’re always telling me that.” He sighed “What this has to do with April?”

“You were telling me about her engagement…”

“Yeah. It was crazy… I mean, me, Leo and Raph kept it together but Donnie just… Bolted.” A nervous laugh escaped him “She told the news and he just… Left. I guess it was too much for him. You know, April was the only person we knew for so long… It was only natural to fall for her, right? She’s so nice, kind, and after the expected first meeting shock she treated us with… Dignity is the world Master Splinter likes to use... But then we all grew out of it.”

A long silence followed before he complemented:

“I guess Donnie didn’t”

━━━━━━ • ✿ • ━━━━━━

Donatello felt his feet too tight against the leather shoe and considered for the third time on that evening that maybe this was a terrible idea.

Ignoring his own better judgement, he knocked.

Alicia Ellis awakened in him two utterly contradictory and madding feelings: disgust and lust.

Many times he had tried - and succeeded- at disguising the amount of attention he paid to her body, especially since the context they first met didn’t allowed for flirtatious endeavors and despite knowing his physical body was searching it’s hormonal peak, Donatello proud himself on being utterly respectful: an effort that he felt he was making alone. Ellis never even tried to hide her indiscreet wants, playing with their encounters just enough to not be considered harassment, but clear enough to not allow ambiguity. Was that even possible? Donnie asked himself. Did it even matter now?

He felt disgusted mostly towards himself, actually, knowing full well why he had come to her apartment after that eventful night, just as the women he thought he could win over announced her engagement to the man he honestly felt he could one day surpass - pathetic, he beat himself again, cringing at the mere fact he once imagined a possible future for them, together. What a pathetic, emotional, delusional monster you are, dreaming about the pretty girl that once held your hand… And now you surrender to your most selfish desire, luring this woman who will be stupid enough to let you in.

This is going to ruin you. Was the last thing he thought before she opened the door.

She was astonishingly beautiful, with her thick luxurious wavy hair and round plump figure, pressed against a tight outfit he didn’t have enough interest to notice in detail.

“Took you long enough.” She said in a malicious tone, grabbing him by his belt. The apartment was warm, had a delicious floral smell and it was lit in subtle yellow light that mimicked candles. It was sexy, inviting and terribly scary, just like her.

This is going to ruin me . The feeling echoed towards Donnie as he willfully closed the door behind him.

It wasn’t hard for him to understand why a woman like her would take interest in being with a man like him, the internet had allowed Donnie to have a very indiscreet access to the human world - especially since people seemed really comfortable in sharing online things they wouldn’t even tell a best friend - and he knew way before they even came out to the surface that most probably wouldn’t be difficult to find someone willing to share a bed with him. Alicia was just a part of a very niche - yet not so small as one may think - group.

The thought brought him a small relief and a strike of courage that he much needed at that moment.

“I didn’t think you would come.” She said, bringing two glasses of a clear-yellow liquid. What an inappropriate move to bring a glass of white wine to a young adult not-yet-of-age , his better judgment told him as he accepted the glass, but wasn’t he 21 yet? Yes, he was... Maybe it was just judgment.

“Me neither” He answered after a sigh, too honest for his own sake.

“What changed your mind?” She mischievously asked, crossing her legs in an angle that brushed against his knee.

Donatello considered for a minute to said the truth, my heart was broken and honestly I really want to have sex, how would she respond to that? Was there a polite way of saying it? Instead, he said: “I’ve decided to change my approach on things.”

“Oh, really?” She smiled honestly “...And how’s that gonna happen?”

I will take every opportunity that life gives me, irrespective of its consequences, “I’ll stop sabotaging my wants…” He turned his body a little bit in her direction, he had planned a second sentence to follow but it seemed like he had already said all she needed to hear.

She slid her knee between his legs to climb his lap, brushing the space between the buttons of his shirt lightly. How quickly she hopped on top of him and how quickly his body responded to the feel of her warm perfumed breath against his neck. “That’s great to hear.”

It wasn’t Donatello’s first kiss but the tension of feeling the soft lips of a woman he barely knew nothing about added to the oh-so-suggestive friction of her thighs against his zipper made it an entirely new experience. If he granted himself a moment of reason, Donnie would most likely find her too hurried and eager - but again, what was his experience in this field? Wasn’t this how the encounter should go? What else was he expecting? Independent of what his reason may have considered, the friction of her palms against the now prominent bulge in his pants added to the delicious sounds coming from her throat made every single indecision go away.

He felt his head light and dizzy as their tongues danced against each other and the urge to feel relief made him bold. She answered the squeeze he gave her bottom with an audible moan that gave Donatello’s stomach a cold wave of shock along with the first visible stain in between his paints. She felt the thickness of his fluid against the fabric and smiled against his lips.

“Such a passionate… response.” She said in what sounded like a performative tone - well, she was a journalist.

He took her incentive and slide her tube dress above her ass, stoking it as he lowered his lips to her neck. Her skin was soft and the way it reacted to his mouth - the small flinches of her body and the building pressure between his legs could only compare to the amazing feeling of her silk soft thigh skin. She used her hands to guide his head further down, lowering the piece of garment herself, he instinctively took one of her nipples in his mouth, enjoying the contrast between the soft skin of her breasts and the beaded texture of her nipples.

When Alicia laid her body against him on the couch, he followed her moves and felt the soft pillow against his head, the discreet but unmistakable sound of his zipper being opened followed by her stocked gasp at his member followed by “Oh I’m gonna have fun tonight!”. Donatello held her waist closer to his own, trying to reach her lips again, wondering if he could say the same. The warmth between her legs and the delicious feeling that jolted through his body and she aligned him to her entry - and the irresistible pleasure of feeling his tip tease her plump lips - made him think that the most likely answer was yes .

...And what an unnecessary concern the wine proved to be: he didn’t even get to drink it.

━━━━━━ • ✿ • ━━━━━━

“...you know, Raph made a friend.” Mikey had stood on his feet and now looked through the squared window. He had a regular habit of standing up during the sessions, usually as they were reaching the middle of the appointment. Sara it wrote down anyway, before adding:

“Really?”

Mikey hummed “...It’s a complicated story - but he left to buy a bear, this old man didn’t want to sell it to him, so he got really angry, so someone threatened to call the police, so he started to freak out and then this… girl appeared!” He was switching his body height between his legs “Clara. What a name! Heh- I don’t get to say that, huh? Well, her name was Clara and he said she looked like an anime version of a character from Fresh prince of bel air … Can you imagine?” He turned to look at her. Sara just nodded.

“Wanna hear some really crazy stuff? Raph told me that they were talking and she told him she saw my interview… and she said she was in love with me!” He offered his therapist an incredulous happy smile “ME! Can you believe it?”

Sara hummed and made another note.

“I know she was kidding, I don’t think she loves me. But saying it like this sounds like… Like I am a celebrity! Like she would like to know me… Like…”

“Like you have been seen.”

“HELL YEAH!” He exclaimed, sitting down on the couch again grabbing his trust-worthy pillow “... And that sucker didn’t even got her number…” A deep sigh followed silence. Very discreetly, Dr. Miller checked her watch.

“It doesn’t matter, really, it just made me realize… That I wished I had someone…”

More silence.

“-I know I already have someone, if that's what you’re gonna say… I know my brothers are my care net and that I have friends and confidants, and bla bla bla”.

“Well I wasn’t going to…” She said peacefully.

“ I want… A lover . Someone to be my special one. Someone to cherish and spoil and share my life with! Someone who can say they’re in love with me… For real.”

More deep silence.

“... And why don’t you?” She finally prompted. Michelangelo turned to look at her with a impatient expression:

“Are you kiddin’ me?”

“I am definitely not.”

“You can’t be that cynical!”

“I am not.”

“Sara…” He sighed uneasily “... not this again.” she heard pain in his words.

“You have the right to live, Mikey.” She gazed at him with the same kind eyes, letting her strong words get to him “...Just like anyone else.”

This time, that was an anxious silence. Michelangelo rubbed his hands together as if he was facing a cold storm “What if it happens again?”

“Then you will do what we practiced.” She waited for an answer that didn’t come “... Do you wanna remember it once again with me?”

He simply nodded.

“I am more…” She started.

“...than people perceive me.”

“I’ve the right…”

“...to occupy space.”

“No one…”

“No one can deny me my right to live.”

“That was great, Mikey.” Dr. Miller said kindly.

He squeezed the tears away from his eyes, not even realizing they were there. “...Yeah… Yeah, it was.”

━━━━━━ • ✿ • ━━━━━━

It was certainly.... Memorable , Donatello thought, staring at his brand new shoes as they made the path back to the lair. How was it again that he found himself in that situation? That sad looking, empty feeling, walk-of-shame. Oh, yeah, Alicia Ellis.

Something felt terrible wrong about that whole endeavor. He tried to think about the details, to analyze the facts: it has been clearly consensual, sober, communicative sex. So why did he feel like some part of him had been left behind in that apartment? Was it his clear shyness when they finally consumed the act or her generous overlook at his even clearer lack of experience? Had him fail his mission? Factually not! He performed… Fine - it was hard to measure, but she seemed pleased enough. He was also pleased… Physically, at least.

So why did he feel so… Empty?

He walked among the streets of New York without the concern his older brother seemed to carry. Donatello was always really good at not carrying - just as he was good at carrying too much . Oh, yes, his overthinking nature was still going to kill him, no matter how hard he tried to pretend like it didn’t matter at all.

Nothing mattered, everything mattered. What a contradictory and childish state of mind. Could he ever find balance? Would he ever be able to take risks and still be prudent? To be disappointed and not lose all faith? To love deeply and move over from it, stronger and ready to love again? Did he ever truly love her ?

He remembered her ring shining against the light, mocking his defeat. A zirconium, Casey Jones… Can’t even buy her a real diamond . He muttered to himself and the night, kicking a small rock in the path.

The worst part, the real strike of the devil - was the fact that she looked immensely happy. Heartbreakingly happy. And there was nothing, nothing in this world that Donnie could think that could justify taking this away from her - not even the fantasy that she could be happier.

He took a deep breath and grabbed the keys in his pocket. That was no way out of it: we would have to get over her. At least now he knew that running away to unknown women’s homes was not a viable solution.

#TMNT #TMNT Michelangelo #TMNT Donatello #TMNT Bayverse #tmnt smut #tmnt fanfic #in broad daylight #it took so long but I am really proud #the response to the first chapter was been lukewarm but I am happy with it anyway #mikey is my baby

39 notes · View notes

avengerscompound · 4 years

Text

The Surrogate - Chapter 2

The Surrogate: A Clintasha Fanfic

Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing: Clint Barton x Natasha Romanoff x F!Reader

Word Count: 1746

Rating: E

Warnings: None

Synopsis: A freak end of the world incident leads to meeting your two best friends, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff. While your friendship with the two Avengers is anything but conventional, they are your all-time favorite people. When you find out that Clint and Natasha want to start a family but have exhausted all their options, you realize your powerset might allow you to give them what they want. Having your best friends’ baby might seem like a good idea on paper, but when you are as close as you, Clint, and Natasha are, will doing something so intimate mean feelings get a little mixed up?

Chapter 2

“Clint and I just had sex!” You hadn’t meant to blurt the words out like that and they had almost definitely signed your death warrant, but they’d burst out of you out of your control. Things had gotten out of control, but in that good way, where your adrenaline had been up and with the alcohol and the way your powers worked, when he’d suggested you both go to the public restroom, you couldn’t think of anything you wanted to do more than that.

Now that you could see that Natasha and Clint were in a relationship, the guilt about being the one Clint had cheated with had made you spill immediately. Even if it did mean the Black Widow would gut you like a fish.

Natasha Romanoff looked back at you with her head tilted to the side. “Oh, dorogáya,” she soothed, before turning her attention back to the controls of the jet and taking flight again hovering up away from the bar she’d picked you up from before shooting off away from the city. She took a moment to smack Clint on the back of the head in between flicking different switches.

“Ow, Nat,” he complained, rubbing the back of his head. “What was that for?”

“You can’t do that,” she scolded. “You need to tell them what your deal is before you seduce them.”

“Seduce them? Me?” Clint argued. “Who am I seducing? Shit just happened.”

“You know what I mean, durak. You can’t just sleep with people and not tell them you’ve got a girlfriend,” Natasha snarked. She tilted her head back and raised her voice so you could hear her better over the jet engines. “Clint and I are in an open relationship. I’m sorry he didn’t tell you that first. He’s an idiot. But you didn’t cheat on anyone. I just hope he didn’t lead you on.”

“No,” you assured her. “I knew it was casual. But … I wouldn’t have… if you two…”

“It’s fine,” she assured you. “I promise. Have as much sex with Clint as you like. I don't care.”

“Gee, thanks, Nat,” Clint snarked.

“Well you won’t be getting any from me if you’re gonna be an idiot,” Natasha said. “Might as well see who else is offering.”

“Nat…” Clint whined.

You relaxed back in your jump seat while they argued in that loving way people who were completely comfortable with each other do, glad that for once your libido and need for complete honesty hadn’t gotten you in trouble. The last thing in the world you wanted was to piss off any of the avengers because you weren’t thinking with your brain.

“It's gonna be a bit of a flight, so just relax and get some sleep if you can,” Natasha called back to you.

You already knew you weren’t going to be able to sleep. You were running on pure adrenaline now and the jump seat was far from cozy. You did close your eyes and listen to the engine as Natasha guided the jet back to New York. Things were about to change for you, you knew that. Even if the Avengers deemed your powers to be useless to them, things weren’t going to be the same now. You couldn’t go through life after seeing the end of the world come so close and pretend like you weren’t gifted with something special. You had to find some way to use it.

By the time the Quinjet touched down at the Avengers Compound you had been up for well over a full day and you were exhausted. It was that level of exhaustion that went right to the bone. Each turn of your head caused your vision to go blurry as your brain tried to catch up with what it was processing. Each time you spoke you found it difficult to modulate your voice. You were also hyper-aware that you probably smelled terrible too. You’d been wearing the same clothes since you got up the day before and since you’d put them on you’d been running around the city and you’d had sex in a public restroom at a bar. The thought of any of the Avengers meeting you like this was quite frankly, mortifying.

You followed Natasha and Clint off the jet and they were greeted by Captain America and a tall, brunette woman wearing a grey pencil skirt and a black turtleneck. The exhaustion you felt made it really hard to process the fact that Captain Steve Rogers was less than a yard away from you. Especially given your current state. He was always going to remember that when he met you, you were the human embodiment of the living dead. Smell and all.

“Welcome home,” Steve said. “This must be the healer.”

“That’s right,” Clint said.

You introduced yourself to Steve and offered him your hand.

“Welcome to the facility. This is Hill,” he said, indicating to the woman with him.

“Alright, you two go get some rest. We’ll debrief after you’ve slept,” Hill said, scratching something down onto the Stark Pad she was holding.

“See you then! Totally gonna go and sleep right away, nothing else!” Clint said, saluting. Natasha stifled a laugh and the two of them headed off down the corridor.

Hill turned to you and continued tapping away on her tablet. “You’ll have very limited access to the facility until you’ve been cleared by security. I’m guessing you might need sleep? A shower?”

“That would be fantastic,” you agreed.

“Follow me,” she said. The two of you began to walk in the same direction as Clint and Natasha at a brisk pace. “The compound is run by an artificial intelligence. Her name is FRIDAY and she'll let you into the parts of the facility you are allowed in and keep you out of what you're not,” Hill explained as you walked. “I appreciate that you have come here voluntarily to assist us, but we are still a private military installation, so security is important. For now, you will be primarily restricted to your room, however, if you need any medical care I can take you to the medbay.”

“No. I never need that,” you said.

“Oh, right,” Hill said, shaking her head. “So used to the script.”

“Carry on,” you said with a soft laugh.

“I'm also giving you access to the smaller pool and gym,” Hill continued. “It's the one used by the administration staff and generally fairly quiet. Ask FRIDAY. We would prefer that you go straight to the security clearance and debrief, but we understand after an event like you just experienced you may need to let out some stress. For this reason, you can have access to any onsite psychiatric services. We have many therapists on staff. At some point you will need to speak to one but if you feel you need one sooner than later that can be arranged.”

“Oh… I'm… I think I can wait until after security clearance,” you said.

“If that changes just let FRIDAY know,” Hill replied. The two of you rounded a corner and then she opened a door that led outside. It was bright out and there were teams of people in sweats running in formation.

She led you down a path to a large white building with huge windows and an A on the side. “That building is the main hub, that's where you'll go when you're ready to speak to us. For now, we're just going to housing,” she continued as you made your way through the facility. “Barton said you helped him in the field.”

“Yeah, he fell off a building,” you answered. “I used my powers to heal him so he could get back.”

“That certainly sounds like Clint,” Hill said. You thought she might have stifled a laugh, but you couldn’t be sure. “You're okay with us running some tests?”

“Yes, of course,” you answered. “I wouldn't have come…”

“Great,” she said, cutting you off. “Ideally the run down when you're ready will go, security clearance, debrief and interview, then we’ll run some tests. But it's up to you how much you can handle. It's a big adjustment coming here. It can get a bit much for some people.”

“I’ll be sure to let you know if I'm feeling overwhelmed,” you said as a set of glass doors opened for you, letting you into the accommodation building. “Getting close to that now.”

“Right, sorry, you must be tired,” Hill said. “We’re nearly there.”

Your room was on the first floor and Hill opened the door to let you in. It reminded you of a cheap hotel. There was a full-sized bed, with gray linens, that offset the grey of the walls. The walls were unadorned and the only other furniture in the room was a side table, desk, and dresser.

“The bathroom is in here,” Hill said, opening the bathroom door. “There are towels and toiletries. We're not a hotel though so if there's anything missing or you need anything, and I do mean anything, let FRIDAY know. She’ll place an order. Inside the dresser is a Stark Pad. You can use it to find out what the kitchen is making and have it sent up. Make sure you eat. You can also browse the internet. Please do not post on social media about where you are until your security check. We’ll know so don't think you can get it by us. You haven't signed an NDA yet but you will and what you post about will be taken into account when we're deciding if we’ll actually recruit you. When you're ready to have the security run let FRIDAY know and someone will come and collect you. If you want to back out, we understand, just let her know that too and we’ll take you home. Any questions?”

Your head was reeling from the amount of information just dropped on you along with your complete exhaustion. “Uhh…” You said blinking slowly.

“Right, well if any come up…”

“Ask FRIDAY,” you finished. “Got it.”

She smiled and closed the tablet. “I'll leave you to it. You’ll be fine, kid,” Hill said. “Just get sleep, eat, and you’ll be part of the team in no time.”

“Thank you,” you said. “I’ll do that.”

“I'll be seeing you,” she said and left you alone. You peeled yourself out of the clothes you were wearing, collapsed onto the bed, and were asleep almost immediately.

// NEXT

#clint barton #natasha romanoff #clintasha x reader #clintasha #clint barton x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #clint barton x natasha romanoff #clint barton x natasha romanoff x reader #hawkeye #hawkey fanfic #black widow #black widow fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #reader insert #pregnancy #the surrogate

251 notes · View notes

fanfalc-616 · 3 years

Text

The Rights Of A Nindroid

Chapter Twenty

(Previous Chapter Here)

I can be nice sometimes! See?

Zane looks up at Cryptor from his spot on the floor, gritting his teeth as he bites back a cutting remark.

“Look, just say you’re lesser. You don’t even have to call me Master; I’m not human. Just do it so we can go back to the lockers.” Cryptor sounds so tired, so resigned to his fate.

And that’s exactly why Zane cannot give in. Cryptor has begun to cave, and that means he can’t do the same. At least one of them must remain strong.

They had not even brought anyone to supervise, so confident in Cryptor’s willingness to behave that they felt that they didn’t need to have others around to ensure it.

“I won’t,” Zane makes eye contact as he speaks. “I won’t say it.”

Cryptor hits something on the remote, and the chains are abuzz with electricity, the power mimicking bone-crushing strength.

He can’t stop himself from crying out, even as he tries to muffle it. When the pain lessens, he’s trembling. Unfortunately, Cryptor is heavy-handed with his punishments- something that Zane had not been expecting when they had begun.

“You don’t have to do this.” He knows that while his facial plate is gone, Cryptor will still be able to read the pleading expression he has. “Please, Cry, you-“

“My designation is General.” Cryptor interrupts. “And I do. I have to follow orders. Za- Original, it’ll be easier if you do. Just… just do what you’re told, okay? It’s better this way.”

Zane shakes his head softly. “You know I can’t.” He returns quietly.

Cryptor sighs, looking down. Even without the face plate, there’s visible regret. “I know.” He agrees.

Then he shocks him again.

Straining in his bonds, he tries to get away from the crushing feeling, the heavy weight that he’s made to feel, the pain that runs through him.

When it’s lessened, he’s breathing heavily, silently pleading for it to be over, fighting the relentless urge to just surrender, to give in. Cryptor’s right, it would be so much easier… he could just be taken back to his locker, and-

Wait.

That’s it.

Shaking, Zane sucks in a deep breath, waiting for him to ask again. The odds of this working are low, but it just may play in his favor.

“Z- Original, you’re lesser. Admit to it.” Cryptor orders once again, still with that tired resignation in his voice.

Zane ducks his head. “I… I am lesser to humankind.” He agrees, trying to sound as pitiful and weak as possible. He has to hope that maybe, just maybe, he’ll have the right opportunity…

Cryptor nods, walking over to him. He begins to undo the chains. “Thank you.” He softly murmurs.

And those words make this that much harder.

The moment the chains have been given enough slack, Zane grabs Cryptor and shoves him back with as much force as he can muster.

As the other stumbles, Zane kicks him in the chest, sending him skidding even farther backwards.

“Zane, what are you-?!” There’s shock and slight fear in Cryptor’s voice, but Zane doesn’t wait to hear all of what he’s saying.

He bolts.

Feet pounding against the tiled floor, Zane runs, he races through the halls as fast he can. After a minute, he slows, reminding himself of what he knows of the guards routines.

A nagging voice in the back of his mind warns that this is most likely an illusion, but he ignores it. He can worry about that later, for now he should do his best to escape.

Every movement precise. Every step measured. Every breath quiet. Every action calculated.

It doesn’t take long for him to get lost. Internally cursing, Zane struggles to figure out where in the facility he is.

He manages to find some kind of control room, and he makes his way inside, relieved to find that no one is there.

Zane makes his way to a computer. What should he do? Should he look something up? Should he try to contact his teammates? Should he-

Wait.

From here, he can access the outside world, even through his head.

Zane searches for a signal, something he could latch onto. While they can trick his sensors, one thing unable to be manipulated is any form of connection he may make to the outside world. Connecting to the internet, to another device… that’s not something they could simulate.

Managing to connect to something isn’t nearly as difficult as it should be. In fact, it’s easier than most connections he made outside the facility. It’s almost like he’s connected to this bef-

Wait.

He knows this signal.

Scrambling, Zane does everything he can to solidify it, to ensure that even once he leaves this room, he will still have access to it.

This is the way he will make it out. Access to this… he can make contact with his team. He can interact with the world. He can find a way out of this wretched place.

“Hello, my old friend.” He whispers, a spark of hope lighting up inside him. “It’s been a while.”

The Falcon caws as Zane stabilizes the connection.

He connects his eyes to it, and he knows he would be near tears if he could truly cry. This is… this is real. He can… he can really see the world again.

Quickly, Zane begins to calculate a way to make it out of the facility. If he’s careful, he may be able to-

Suddenly, he freezes.

He can’t leave.

He can’t… he can’t leave Cryptor here. Even if he makes it out, the other would still be trapped. He… he can’t escape. Not if it means leaving the other behind.

Carefully, Zane sneaks out of the room, feeling the hope still alive as he realizes that he’s still connected.

Now, he must get re-captured. By Cryptor, of course- if he is also the one to find him, the punishment for losing him will likely be lessened.

Carefully, Zane creeps through the halls, looking for the other nindroid. When they are both inside the lockers, he will be able to connect Cryptor to the Falcon as well. From there, they will both be able to interact with the outside world.

Zane can talk to his boyfriends.

Cryptor can talk to Sentry.

When he finds the other, Zane purposefully hits a foot against the tiles just a little too loudly.

He does put up a fight, but it’s more for show than anything. Just enough of an attempt to make it seem real.

When they are returned to the lockers, Zane begins to tap out a message- only to be interrupted by the other.

I HA

Zane sighs. How can he help connect Cryptor to the Falcon if the other won’t listen? He would have to say something to get his attention…

SENTRY

There. That should do it.

WHAT?

DO YOU WANT TO SEE HIM AGAIN?

He can almost feel the anger radiating off of the other. This is clearly a touchy subject.

OF COURSE I DO BUT

MY FALCON

He doesn’t say anything more, but judging from the pause, Cryptor understands what he’s getting at.

Only a minute later, the other is connected.

Cryptor sends him a message- this time digital instead of tapping.

(‘Thank you’) Cryptor sounds grateful and almost like he’s about to cry.

Zane feels another spark of hope inside of him. This is it. This is how they will make their escape.

If he had a faceplate, Zane would be smiling as he replies. (‘What are you waiting for?’)

And so, the Falcon flies off.

Zane won’t lie… this is one of the first times he has felt truly happy in a long time.

And it’s the first time he can believe that everything will be okay.

{ { { { { { { { { { ~ } } } } } } } } } }

Sentry sighs, drumming his fingers against the table he sits at.

He’s been working through these files for hours on end, and he’s still not any closer to finding a way to rescue Cryptor.

Biting his lip, he thinks back on the time they had spent together. The joy he had felt when they were friends, when they had just been able to be without any problems.

With a groan, Sentry shakes his head. Why is he so worked up over this? There are injured nindroids that work for him that he should be more worried about, ones who didn’t try to destroy Ninjago.

Why does he care so much? Sure, they were friends, but even for that, this seems extreme. What could-

Wait.

Wait a minute.

What was Sentry feeling when they had been hanging out together? His power source had heated up. He had felt the need to impress him. He had spent all of his free time with him, even some times when he should’ve been working.

Those aren’t usually things people do for friends.

Is Sentry… is he…

“I’m in love with Cryptor.” He breathes out, shock over taking him as he comes to the realization.

(‘Wait, you are?!’) There’s a sudden voice, catching him by surprise.

Sentry flinches, trying to find the source of the voice. It had come from… inside his head?

“Who are you? Why are you in my- how are you in my head?!” He gets to his feet, looking around.

(‘It’s me. It’s Cryptor. Did you just say you were in love with me?’) The voice… does sound a lot like Cryptor. But how could it be? He can’t- how-

A new voice joins the conversation. (‘Hello, Sentry. I don’t think we’ve spoken in person before, but I’m Zane. Cryptor and I are using my Falcon to hold a conversation outside of the facility where we are being kept.’)

Looking around, Sentry spots a falcon on a nearby windowsill. Rushing over, he opens the window, allowing the bird inside.

(‘Forget about that, he just said he was in love with me!’) Cryptor sounds almost panicked, but… in a good way?

Sentry nods shakily. “Uh. Maybe? But how- you guys can- okay, I- I need to contact the ninja. This is- this is a big deal, I-“

(‘We can do that in a minute! You just said that you’re in love with me!’) Cryptor sounds happy now, and Sentry releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Do you, uh… feel the same?” It’s kind of odd, having a conversation like this while looking at a bird. But Sentry is still just as eager to hear the answer.

(‘Yes, I just didn’t think you did, I- wait. You’re not hurt.’)

Sentry feels delighted at the beginning of the response, but then he frowns, a wave of confusion washing over him. “No? Why would I be?”

Even in the silence, he can tell that Cryptor is angry beyond belief. (‘No reason.’)

Sentry makes eye contact with the Falcon, trying to show that he’s serious. “Cryptor, why-“

He doesn’t get to continue, however, because Zane cuts him off.

(‘Someone’s coming. We need to close the connection.’) His voice is urgent, and Sentry nods.

Someone’s coming, he says. Is that the kind of life they’ve been living? Surviving only on the whims of their captors, everything beyond their control?

He fights back a shudder. “I’ll talk to you later, then?”

(‘Yeah, talk to you when we have the chance.’) Cryptor agrees.

Then the quiet static that he hadn’t noticed fades, and he knows that they left.

The bird flies off, and Sentry takes a moment to watch it before returning to his work.

But this time, when he opens the files, there’s a smile on his face.

Sooner or later, the government will slip up.

And Sentry will bring them home.

#the rights of a nindroid #trauma #psychological torture #torture #ninjago fanfiction

23 notes · View notes

captainmazzic · 3 years

Text

Happy Halloween.

So it’s about time I gave a real fucking update instead of just dicking around being cagey about shit. I’ve mentioned a new project repeatedly. So let’s sit down and actually talk about it, friends. Pull up a chair, grab yourself some hot cocoa and strap in. Welcome to Sarc’s emotional roller coaster.

Bear with me. This is hard to talk about for so many reasons, but mostly because I’ve been belittled and ridiculed so many times in my life for liking “cringy” things or wanting to do things that other people think are stupid or childish. I hear the voice of my father telling me to “make something of my life” and “don’t squander your talents”, I hear the voice of my mother telling me I have “so much potential” and “one day I hope you get some ambition”, I hear the voice of my ex telling me to “stop wasting time with stupid shit” and “nobody is interested in failures”. I hear old teachers telling me honor roll students should go to college and study high-demand majors and anything else would be lazy and detrimental and won’t contribute anything worthwhile to society.

It’s the same shit that prevented me for a long time from posting art online. From posting writing online. From making ocs and showing them to other people. And now it’s preventing me from starting this project, and I’m so, so tired of it.

My biggest fear right now is that once I start talking about this project I’ll lose this tiny little community of people vaguely interested in my stuff that have somehow stuck around. External validation and sharing the things I love are my primary motivations with everything I do online, and while screaming into the void is all well and good, I need feedback and interaction and community. I need it so, so badly. I wouldn’t post jack shit – ever – if I didn’t need that, to be honest.

So anyway.

When the pandemic kicked into high gear earlier this year I got laid off for a few months. It gave me a lot of time to think about who I am and where I wanted to be in life, what mattered to me, what dreams I still had and which ones had fallen by the wayside.

Some of them are huge – once upon a time I was very religious. I went through seminary, got my minister’s certification, and was slated to be an associate pastor in a mega-church and rake in a six-figure income within 3 years. But I lost my faith and couldn’t stand the idea of being disingenuous.

And there was also a time when I received a full-ride scholarship to a very prestigious university that would have spanned a 12-year program and resulted in me having several doctorates and masters degrees by the end of it, in the fields of geology, palaeontology, and cladistics. But the scholarship program that was supposed to sponsor me went bankrupt the very semester I was supposed to capitalize on it. I was still accepted into the school, but the $1.2 million price tag would have all been out of my own pocket. So obviously that didn’t happen.

Those were the “acceptable” dreams. Those were the ones that parents and teachers and the general outside world approved of and thought were worthy goals. But neither of them panned out, and all I have left are the cringy ones. Like homesteading and sustainable living (can’t start without land, can’t have land without money). Like making comic books and doing art commissions for a living (it has to be steady to support myself, and I’m far too slow an artist for things to be steady). And like… playing video games.

Ha.

What’s funny is I can already envision the eyerolls and hear the snorts of laughter. What kind of dream is that? Only a handful of famous youtubers and twitch celebrities play video games for a living, and breaking into a field like that is pretty much impossible unless you already have friends in famous places.

Yeah, but… it would be so much fun. Right?

It WOULD be fun. I don’t have to become a super popular celebrity for it to be fun, right?

I don’t have to make it my day job and rake in piles of cash for it to be fun, right?

… I don’t have to actually be successful for it to be fun… right?

… Right?

… I love video games.

I’ve loved them ever since I tried and failed so many times to win The Empire Strikes Back on Atari 2600. I’ve loved them ever since I played Mortal Kombat with my cousin in his basement with the sound down super low because it was ultra-violent and I would have been in so much trouble if mom caught me playing it. I’ve loved them ever since I tried and failed to finish Strife and Hexen and Heretic without the computer crashing and rebooting to DOS. I’ve loved them ever since I had to cheat-code my way through Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II just to get past the first boss fight but then no-clipped through the wall and died anyway. I still love that game.

But I stopped playing video games for a very long time. I was intimidated out of them by an ex and a somewhat toxic friend group who were Real Gamers™. I was brought to LAN parties but not allowed to play, because I slowed down the team and didn’t know the controls. I was banned from commenting on other people’s moves or cheering people on because it was distracting and I could cost them a win. I was even kicked out of their online D&D campaigns because I couldn’t be serious enough or roleplay well enough for their standards. Even if I was playing a game on my own, I couldn’t play with anyone else in the house because I’d be ridiculed for dying a lot, or for going the wrong way, or for picking the wrong game because only certain games are “good” and most of the ones I wanted to play were “stupid” or “trash” or a “waste of time”.

That kind of thing sits with me for a very, very long time. I didn’t really play games at all for over a decade. Even after I ended up on the opposite side of the country, with a new circle of friends, I couldn’t bring myself to play much of anything.

And then I had an extended visit with a friend of mine, and he introduced me to an early version of a ridiculous little game called Minecraft. My friend was an avid gamer but also a very kind one. In the ten years before this, I had told myself that I just preferred to watch other people play games instead of playing them myself (a lie. I mean, I absolutely adore watching other people play, but I also want to play too lol), my friend saw through that and very gently encouraged me to take a stab at playing Minecraft myself. He moved his laptop over to me, and I played a whole ten minutes with him watching before my nerves failed me and I promptly died. But miraculously it wasn’t a big deal to him. It was just a game. I might have cried in relief, I don’t remember.

After my visit I shelved playing video games for like another year, despite buying a whole mess of them because other friends online loved certain titles and wanted to talk about them with me. (I never played them, just bought them. I couldn’t even handle the thought of playing by myself in my own house). But for some reason I mentioned to my brother-in-law my old visit to my Minecraft-loving friend, and he just… up and bought the game for me. My brother-in-law is also an avid gamer with a lovely and patient disposition, and he suggested I just play in creative mode and build things to start. So I did that (behind a locked door in the RV that I lived in by myself, with the lights off and the sound down low) and Minecraft was my sole video game for another several years.

Then a couple years ago another friend of mine (hi Char) introduced me to Star Wars: The Old Republic, and I fell in love. It sparked a renewed interest in video games that I thought I would never really have the opportunity to satisfy, because games were still intimidating.

Let me clarify: I… SUCK. At video games. I’m terrible at them. Learning controls is a nightmare and a tunicate evolving its own brain would learn faster than me. If I’m aiming, I can’t hit the broad side of a barn. I have the direction sense of a whirligig beetle on the back of a drunk pigeon. I die fast and I die often. I can count the number of games I’ve actually finished on one hand. Even less if we don’t count the ones I had to use cheat codes to get through. But none of that diminishes my love of experiencing them, and over this whole pandemic and quarantine thing I’ve had a lot of time to unpack and mull over my thoughts and feelings and passions about them.

… I moved my RV to a new spot literally the day before the lockdown in my state first initiated. Before this I was in a spot that had no internet other than what reception I could get on my phone, with severely limited bandwidth and patchy, unreliable service. The new spot has a steady wi-fi connection, and while upload speed is utter shit, downloading and streaming video are just this side of manageable. So I spent the first three months of the quarantine lockdown doing pretty much nothing other than watching Jacksepticeye, CrankGameplays, and Markiplier play video games on YouTube. (I honestly had no idea before this that people even did let’s plays. My internet access/speed has been shit for so long I’m totally out of the loop).

It… for fear of sounding utterly stupid yet again, it inspired me.

Like. These people really love what they’re doing. They just. Play video games and have fun with it, and I mean yeah they make money hand-over-fist doing it but the main thing is they HAVE FUN doing it. They have fun! Playing video games! In front of people! It’s wild. And the thing that REALLY got me was… they have feedback on it too. They have a COMMUNITY. They have people they can talk to about it. They have people that they can play games WITH, even, who don’t yell at them or tell them they suck every five minutes or tell them they can’t play with them because they’re worthless as teammates. They can fuck up in a game and their friends are laughing along with them on Discord instead of screaming at them to get it right or get out. They can play games by themselves in their house and then upload videos on the internet and then they can talk to other people about it! They have fun! It’s awesome! They have fun!!

I just. It meant so much to me. It meant so much to me to see these videos of these three, and then another dozen or so that I’ve followed since, play all these games and have such a good time and also be such a positive and kind and encouraging source of energy.

I know all of this is not exactly about video games specifically. It’s about coming to terms with how I’ve been treated as a person and as a friend, about how other people respect someone’s interests and passions, about how it’s okay to share your interests with other people and it’s okay to like things that other people might not care about or think are important.

And I’m so, so tired of not doing the things I love because I’m afraid of what other people will think.

So I, uh. I invested all of the stimulus money I had into a new rig and equipment like a camera, lighting, acoustic panels, all that shit. I dug out all the games I bought but never played, I made accounts on all the big gaming services like Steam and Itch.io and GoG, and I made a YouTube channel. And I’m going to be making my own let’s plays. And it will suck, and it will be cringy and awkward and badly done, and it won’t make me money or be a valid career option or be anything but another very expensive hobby, but it will be mine, and it will be something I can share with people and (hopefully) have fun with, and it will (hopefully) be an avenue for some of this positive social interaction I’m craving.

I know YouTube can be toxic and super negative and full of trolls and cancel culture fanatics and people just waiting to find something to tear you down for, but like. Come on, y’all. I’m posting this on tumblr dot com. Toxic is everywhere anyway. I just want to try, you know?

I just want to love video games again.

Someone famous that I look up to so, so much told me – without knowing that I was even listening, without even knowing that I even exist – that if I enjoy doing something, to just go for it. To just jump in and do it, and if it works then it works, and if it doesn’t, what have I actually lost?

And I’m lucky enough to have four whole offline friends that I’ve mentioned this idea to, and each of them has said encouraging things like I’d have a good voice and face and style for making let’s plays. I honestly don’t know how true that part is, but on my good days I believe them. And they also said that I should go for it, to just try.

So that’s… that’s what I’m doing, I guess. I just want to try.

I know it’s not Star Wars fanart. I know it’s not Star Wars fanfiction. I know it’s not Star Wars meta or essays or ranting about the Sith and the Jedi and the Force. I know it’s not what y’all want from me. And that’s utterly terrifying. I’m bracing myself to be alone on the internet again, because I know that when I dive headfirst into this thing, it’ll eat away into the time that I normally might be spending doing writing or art, and it’s going to be something no one else wants to see and no one signed up for. And that’s partly why it’s taken me so very, very long to get started.

The other part is more physical. Of course as soon as I decide that I’m going to put my face on a camera is when my entire face goes to shit. I’m currently waiting on a potential diagnosis for mouth cancer, while already dealing with a severe jaw infection that’s causing my teeth and gums to rot inside my mouth. They already took part of my jaw, I’m missing teeth, others are turning black, if I open my mouth even just a little it is so obvious and I look like a very, very literal zombie. I have never been more grateful that masks are socially acceptable. I have a series of twelve appointments scheduled to treat this shit now that I have dental and health insurance (goodbye paycheque), and I might qualify for reconstruction surgery too. But that doesn’t really help how I look right now.

So I just can’t bring myself to start this project just yet. I’ve been sitting on it for months now with all the other pieces in place, but I just. Can’t. Start. It’s driving me crazy, because I want to start so badly. I feel like I’m wasting time. I feel like I’ve already wasted so much time, because I haven’t even done anything else in the meantime. I haven’t done hardly any art or fanfic, nothing. My anxiety is spiking so high right now because I have all these expectations of myself, but I can’t do anything about it. I’ve been told that I could just start without a camera or wear a mask on screen, and I’ve actually done some recording doing exactly that, but I just… can’t seem to make anything I want to finalize.

It’s also frustrating because I have no way of uploading anything at home. I’ll have to go over to my partner’s house which is nearly an hour’s drive away in order to get internet good enough to upload videos, which means that upload schedules are going to be shiiiiiit and that’s also frustrating.

But. But. BUT. I want to do this.

I want to do this so badly. I want to share let’s plays and experience a love of video games with other people. I want to actually play games with other people too. I also just acquired a piano keyboard, and I want to play again on the regular because I miss it so much. I used to play piano for hours every single day, it’s so relaxing and fun, maybe I can post that too. Maybe I can post let’s draws or something, where I ask y’all what to draw and then make a video of me drawing it while bullshitting to the camera I don’t know it sounds like fun. Maybe I can post videos of my cooking because the shit I make seems to be everyone’s favourite thing on instagram, and maybe I can take my camera with me when I go to the ocean or hike up into the middle of nowhere in the mountains and film how beautiful everything is up there. Or maybe I can do none of that and just focus on one thing, I honestly have no idea what I’m doing or how to do it, but I just… I want to try. I just want to try.

I don’t know where any of this is going anymore. I’m sorry I haven’t responded to messages, or opened up commissions. I’m sorry that this isn’t what y’all wanted. I’m still going to continue drawing and writing, I’m still going to be around, I’m not going anywhere, but I have no idea how prolific I’m going to be and I have no idea even when I’ll start uploading videos, to be honest. But I just. I’m just gonna try. It might still take me a while but I’m gonna try. Wish me luck. I love y’all.

#long post #psa #sarc speaks #sarc speaks a LOT #3k words worth of a LOT #I'm so sorry #OTL

45 notes · View notes

sanstropfremir · 3 years

Note

excited to see what you have to say about todays episode cause like the other person said, the stunts from the atz/skz/btob also looked lowkey awkward to watch lmao. i feel like the dance part cant really be judged against each other just based on how different they were. also the ikon/sf9/tbz rap performance was much more khiphop inspired while skz/atz/btob were basically "kpop group's rapline does a unit stage" if you know what i mean lmao. im curious to see if you're going to talk about the judges and how some of them were picked solely to have exposure👀 or if there might be a reasoning behind all of them (the dance girl i understand but like... okay)

also, i have to ask if you watched rtk and if you'd feel comfortable sharing who you think should've won/if the boyz deserved it? as a deobi i know its not that big of a deal but i was lowkey proud and stunned by them during rtk and while i think they're doing good on kingdom too, their performances became way too overwhelming/doesn't leave an impression after for my little brain 🙃 i love them tho. also not that you care but i wish they would represent more their full dance line, because juyeon is doing amazing but it can be mentally and physically tiring to be the ONE guy who does all the dance and center parts, like do it as a trio or smt dont push it all on him while there are ten others on the team

i hope you enjoyed my (very) long review and my apparently literally opposite opinions from everyone else! that’s a lie they’re not opposite, i'm just looking at very different things. thank you for also clocking that the performance stages were two different styles! i'm fairly certain the rankings arent out yet for that stage at least, so i'm not envious of the judges having to decide between two performances that are pretty much on opposite ends of the spectrum. also i did make a mistake in my review, i just watched the first half of the episode and they do in fact call it the dance stage, so that’s on me. my point still stands though, group dancing is still dancing.

as far as the judges go........why are we upset about them.....? honestly they all seem fine to me. i mean, i can understand people being pressed about s*ju because they make people mad by just existing, apparently, but that doesnt negate the fact that they have nearly two decades of experience in the industry. if they arent going to have changmin do any judging than they might as well get some other sm vets, since yanno, they did kinda establish the industry (sm, not s*ju. although s*ju is the first kpop group i ever remember hearing way back in like, 2008. in canada. before having a personal device with internet access. sooooooo). and i mean, we all have opinions on the separation of art and artist and everyone can draw their own boundaries of who they choose to consume the work of, and that’s valid. i have lots of those lines too. but you can’t deny the sheer amount of experience, and shindong is a director and music video producer, so he ain’t stupid. i dont see any problems with having a lineup of some idol veterans, a frankly incredible choreographer, and some producers. oh wait, are people mad about the rookies????? why are people mad about the rookies?????????????? huh????????????? have people forgotten that rookies spend literal YEARS training before they even debut??? they’re not incompetent, they’re members of the industry that have worked hard to be there and have valid opinions and abilities to recognize what they think is good?? also.......what’s wrong with doing something for exposure? how do you think groups get popular in the first place? fuck, the prize for kingdom is a variety/reality show! which is exposure! you know that’s how arts marketing works, right? if you want people to listen to your music, you have to advertise it to people. you need an audience. if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it sell thousands of albums? thousands of tickets? why are you invalidating artists on the basis of wanting more exposure? are you worried they’re not going to ‘judge fairly’??? you know none of these groups' reputations are going to be hurt by their placement in the show, right. these are all high level groups already, with established brand rep. THEY are doing this show for exposure too. is this what people are complaining about on twitter?? so every stan account promoting fancams and comeback dates under hit tweets has to delete them now because artists aren’t allowed to do anything for exposure anymore. ?????? am i too old??? what happened to make people think that exposure was bad???

i have only watched the stages from rtk, and not while the show was airing, so i dont really have any context for the show as a whole. do i think they deserved to win? i dont really think anyone ‘deserves’ to win a competition show, but they did produce a couple of phenomenal stages, so was i surprised? no. personally i would have picked pentagon because they had the best vocals and also they took a few more conceptual risks that paid off really well. their cover of follow is a fantastic remake and honestly we need more dramatic remakes like that, ones that really change up the sound. i made a couple of conclusions about tbz in my episode four review that are relevant here (they’re at the end of the tbz section). although tbz are good performers, the problem is theyre trying to showcase those skills by being heavily conceptual, but their creative team is ALL over the place and nothing is landing. I dont think they’re doing terrible in kingdom, they’re doing very well, but their creative team is not providing them with a stable conceptual base. i know i make designing sound relatively simple, but it's not at all. i'm just smart and very good at my job. there are a lot of mediocre designers out there, and tbz just do not have a good creative team for kingdom. and i do actually think it's a shame that they’re fronting juyeon so much, because one of their strengths IS their group work. they have a more of a contemporary flavour than most other groups at the moment and they can do some really sharp synchronization that should to be seen more. i wish they had actually done group work for the performance stage, because we’ve already seen juyeon do a solo stage, plus he has solos in all the stages. give him a break and let the others have a chance to do something at least.

#kingdom #the boyz #kpop analysis #these are rhetorical questions anon dont worry im not actually mad at you im just deeply confused #i very carefully curate my kpop content consumption and have no desire to know the drama so i have no idea whats happening 90% of the time #also i am old #i am a grandma and i make pickles as a hobby #(im not actually a grandma im just crotchety but i do make pickles as a hobby)#actually i think i did have a cellphone in 2008 but i was deathly afraid of opening the internet browser #because back in the day it cost like 40cents a minute to use the internet #you think i am kidding but i am not #also do not mistake this as a personal defense of s*ju there are several members that i would strangle with my bare hands #kpop questions #text #Anonymous #kingdom asks

8 notes · View notes

andyet-here-we-are · 4 years

Text

I Would Get Into Millions of Accidents Just to See You, Chapter 2 (aka Nurse Geralt AU)

(ao3: x

Chapter 1 Tumblr Link: x )

Geralt is not someone who is an active social media user. He has never been.

Hell, he wouldn’t even use WhatsApp if he didn’t have to.

He thinks that apps like this make people so accessible, and leaves little privacy, and ironically, despite it’s called “social media” it makes people less social. He has lost count of how many times he has seen a group of friends sitting somewhere and scrolling through some apps on their phone or something instead of talking to each other.

Of course, it depends on one’s use, but from what he can tell, whenever you’re online, people tend to think that you have all the time in the world.

So no, thank you very much. He likes his privacy.

Whenever he says that “Social media is for people who don’t have nothing better and important to do,” Ciri just gives him The Look ™ and says: “Okay, boomer.”

He has no idea what the hell it’s supposed to mean, but he is sure it’s not something good.

Once Ciri had downloaded some dating app on his phone without his permission while he was sleeping his ass off after a very tiring night shift. That little match-maker of a girl.

And not only that, but also she had said: “I texted some of the users for you! The ones I thought you might like. One of them seemed nice, I like her energy. So, anyway, long story short, you have a date this weekend. You can thank me later.”

“Excuse me, you did what?!”

Needless to say, Ciri wasn’t allowed to use the internet for three days after that.

“I just want you to be happy,” on the third day, Ciri had said out of the blue while they were reading I, Robot together —they were both into sci-fi, and reading was a great escape from thinking about all the things going on in life.

“You deserve love. Everyone does. Your whole life is nothing but me and your job, and… You deserve happiness, dad. You deserve love.”

“Come here,” Geralt had said, opening his arms wide for her to embrace him, which Ciri had applied.

“I am happy, pumpkin.”

“You could be happier… If there was someone you loved and dated—”

“Ciri, look. Love is… A beautiful thing.” he started ‘Even though it can be hurtful,’ was left unsaid.

“But love doesn’t necessarily mean the affection between a couple. It doesn’t just mean romantic love. Love can be in many forms, shapes, and different ways. Love of self, of animals, of nature, friends, family… We experience love every day when you think about it. You can find it in everything. Even in a slice of homemade pie that Mrs. April brought us today.”

“I love pie! But dad, I doubt that if a slice of pie can tell you that you look lovely today. A cutie-pie on the other hand—”

“Ciri, have you been even listening to me?”

“…and a pie can’t run their fingers through your hair-”

Geralt sighs, “Why am I even trying?”

“Deep down you know I’m right. Dad… How about you just… give her a chance? For me? Just see how it goes?”

"Is it gonna make you happy if I do that?”

“So happy!”

“And you’re not gonna do something like that ever again.”

“Promise!”

“Not downloading stupid apps on my phone, and not trying to set me up.”

“You got it, Cap!”

Geralt had met with that woman, and they just didn’t click.

True to her word, Ciri never has done something like that again.

***

Geralt is not someone who likes social media.

But there he is, looking at the musician’s posts instead of sleeping—even though he has to get up early as always tomorrow—scrolling through the app, and feeling like a high school girl with a stupid crush.

He reads every little caption the musician had written.

Surprisingly- well, maybe not so surprisingly- his songs aren’t the only thing he posts about.

He posts about random things; sometimes it’s a pretty flower he came across this morning, sometimes it’s a kitten, a book he is currently reading, food recipes, his drawings, things like that.

His account seems like just his personality.

Filled with all the beautiful colors in the word. Filled with joy, and every little thing he shares feels so sincere. Personal.

[I tried that recipe @Brianricci has sent me and it still feels like there are fireworks in my stomach, so here’s a little drawing for you my life-saver pasta-mate.]

That one makes Geralt smile. Reminds him of that day.

***

“I have something for you, Mr. Should Have Been A Model But Became A Nurse For Some Reason. Not that I’m complaining, for the record. The only thing I have complaints about is your hospital’s awful food. So awful that it should be illegal. A sin, even. You’re sinning whenever you guys force people to eat that food. I can only imagine your staff’s weekly confessing: ‘Forgive me father for I’ve sinned.’

‘What’s wrong, immortal one? What did you do?’

‘Oh, father, even bathing myself in holy water can’t cleanse me from my sins! I made my patient eat that awful food, I had to, father! I had to! I had no choice! But I have faith that I can change that one day!’

‘Faith becomes you. Stay with it. Keep fighting the good fight with all thy might.’

God help him this man is so ridiculous.

“Why are you suddenly Anthony Hopkins from The Rite?”

“Eh, just felt like it,” Jaskier shrugs “Your jello is pretty good though, so, good deed point. And your nurses aren’t half bad either, so I heard.”

Jaskier winks at him.

The audacity of that man.

“Anyway! As I was saying, I have something for you—”

“I have something for you, too, Mr. Pankratz,” Geralt says. He has a good guess about what Jaskier has for him.

A drawing of a flower.

He had heard the staff talking about how the pretty patient in room 242 has been giving flower drawings to pretty much everyone while he was walking around.

“Why thank you, you shouldn’t have! You brought some wine for me or something? For the celebration for my third week here? You’re so kind, my good sir.”

“It’s your medicines.”

“…ever the heartbreaker. I take back everything I said. You’re the devil in disguise.”

After Geralt gives him his medicines, Jaskier pulls a scratch book under his pillow and carefully tears a page from it. He gives it to Geralt.

“I thought I was the devil in disguise?” The nurse says as he takes the drawing from him “Are you sure that you should give demons a flower draw—”

Geralt can’t finish his sentence.

Because what he is looking at certainly is not a flower drawing.

It’s a man who holds a syringe in his hand with a kind smile on his face, and the syringe is filled with cute little hearts.

It’s him.

There’s a giant cactus standing behind him for some reason Geralt finds it hard to understand why.

He has seen the other drawings, and they are nothing like this one. This one looks like Jaskier has tried his hardest to make it perfect. Put everything in it. It’s perfect and detailed as if he had drawn it while looking at Geralt. It also seems familiar for some reason.

“—in conclusion, devils are fallen angels, so…” Geralt hears Jaskier talking.

Yet he is too busy to say something as he keeps looking at the drawing in his hands.

“Ooops, did I go too far with the hearts?”

“Hm.”

“Geralt? Say something, please? Oh God, I broke my nurse. They’re sooo gonna sue me. And I don’t think I can afford a good lawyer, I’ll rot in jails, I’m too young to rot in jails, I can’t be someone’s bitch, I’m not even—”

“May I ask why is there a cactus standing behind me?”

“A comment! Phew! Finally! Well, that would be because you’re just like a cactus.”

Geralt raises an eyebrow.

“Better than being a weed, Dandelion.”

Jaskier holds his hand to his chest and gasps, feigning offense.

“Words hurt, Geralt. Words hurt.

I meant it as, like, let’s face it, you’re kinda prickly on the outside sometimes, but soft on the inside? A cactus in the desert.”

Geralt sighs.

“And now you imply that my hospital is a desert. How nice. What’s next?”

“You don’t like it?”

“It’s okay.”

It’s obviously more than okay, but teasing with the young man is fun, and everyone needs some fun in their lives once in a while.

“If you don’t appreciate my drawing just give it back,” Jaskier makes grabby hands as he pouts like a little kid that just dropped his ice cream, “I’m pretty sure it’ll look good on my fridge anyway. No trouble for me.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

“I’m not giving this back. Too late, you should’ve thought that before you gave it to me. Can’t take it back now.”

“If you don’t say something nice about my spectacular drawing you can be sure that I’m gonna take it back from your hands even if that means putting up a fight.”

“How bold of you to think that you’re in a condition to put up a fight.”

“You’d be surprised. And if I can’t, your other nurse friends and your fellow patients can do it for me. I haven’t been handing out flower drawings for nothing all day.”

“And you say I am the devil in disguise.”

“I never said I was an angel, have I? Seriously though, you have ten seconds to pay a compliment to my drawing. Ten—”

“ ‘Okay’ was a compliment.”

“I beg to differ, since when ‘okay’ is a compliment? Say that to the Italian chef in Mamma Mia when he asks how is the pasta and see if he takes ‘okay’ as a compliment and doesn’t pour half-full pasta plate over your head, and ruin your favorite bee shirt. Also, nine.”

“That was oddly specific. Did that happen to you?”

“Eight, I have no idea what you’re talking about, I was just being hypothetical. Seven, six—”

“I bet he wouldn’t threaten me with taking my meal back if I did at least.”

“Sev— wait a second I was counting backwards, weren’t I? Where were we? Five!”

“Man, you’re really no good at math.”

“Wanna know what I’m good at? Many things, and fighting happens to be one of them. Four, ” Jaskier attempts to get up from the bed, somehow forgetting about his broken leg for a split second and swears: “Ah, cock!”

Geralt barely holds back a laugh at that one.

“Careful.”

“I can still verbally fight you.”

“You’ve been already doing that for the last five minutes.”

“…three.”

“You never give up, do you?” Geralt rolls his eyes with a smile, “It’s a good drawing. I really like it.”

Another lie.

He doesn’t just like it, he loves it.

But even saying that he likes it is enough to make Jaskier beam at him.

“You gave everyone a flower drawing,” he points out “but I get a cactus and a drawing of myself, why is that? It must have taken some time to draw this.”

“A special drawing for a special nurse.” Not making eye contact, Jaskier says so softly that Geralt nearly misses it. “Yeah, it sure took some time to draw it, and my schedule was so full because of all the crazy hospital parties you guys keep throwing that I could hardly find the time, but eh, I managed somehow.”

“Sucks that they never invite me to that parties,” the nurse jokes back. “Seriously though, thank you. I appreciate it.”

“I’d like to draw something for Ciri, too. But I’m saving it for later when I can meet her. You didn’t tell her that I’m here, right?”

“She doesn’t know.”

“Good! Keep it that way.”

***

Smiling at the memory, Geralt rises from his bed to take the drawing from his bedside drawer. No, of course he doesn’t look at it every day, what are you talking about?

If he hadn’t promised Jaskier that he wouldn’t let Ciri know until these two can meet in person, this drawing would be on his wall already.

Maybe next to Ciri’s painting of a white wolf.

He had considered doing so but then decided that it would be wise if he didn’t. No doubt Ciri would figure out it was Jaskier’s drawing as soon as she would see it. It was signed by him, after all. Not that Ciri couldn’t figure it out without the signature.

“What the hell, Geralt” The nurse snorts to himself and runs a hand over his face as he imagines his room filled with the drawings of his daughter, and Jaskier’s. “What are you gonna dream about next? Ciri being a flower girl at your wedding?”

Fuck.

He is totally dreaming about it now.

God, it’s crazy how much he misses him, even though he doesn’t really know him.

Ciri already is crazy about Jaskier, and Geralt looks forward to them to meet, to see how Ciri is going to react when she sees him. He feels like the two would talk non-stop, and he would just listen to them talking about God knows what.

He would have no problem with that; in fact.

“I’ll give him a call tomorrow,” he thinks.

He wants to see Jaskier again.

(Thanks for reading! Sorry for the lack of Jaskier in this chapter, but it was like:

-So, it’s time for you to meet Ciri!

-Hah, well, I love her, but I don’t think so. Not yet.

-But Ciri-

-You can have me as a Flashback Guest in this chapter, nothing more.

-But my plan wasn’t like this.

-Too bad, I’m my own character.

Let me know what you think please. Have a good day everyone ~ 💛)

#the witcher #jaskier #geraskier #nurse geralt au #my writing #I Would Get Into Millions Of Accidents Just To See You #geralt of rivia

71 notes · View notes

cosmcther · 4 years

Photo

Plastered around the walls of the Smash Mansions are fliers aplenty. Upon each and every single one of them, pictures show the richness of four season-appropriate retreats. Why, they all seem perfect for...

Summer Vacation! It’s that time again, and for this trip to the tropics, we’ve got a group event that’s more than sure to make your chest swell with a love for the ever-approaching summer sun! Don’t sit at home for this one, it’s time to hang up those boxing gloves for a week’s worth of fun and set sail to our four luxurious locations!

Isle Delfino - Venture to the Piantas’ homestead for a taste of island life you’ll never tire of! A natural wonderland spruced up with modern amenities specifically for your touring pleasure! Beaches, five-star hotels, an amusement park, and food your off-island tastebuds will be begging for!

Beach Bowl Galaxy - Wonder why the locals call this galaxy Penguin Paradise? Journey past the stars and see for yourself! This section of space has an entire planet dedicated to having fun in the cooling waters that fill the grassy islands, each decorated with penguins and palm trees aplenty. Another planet holds cosmos-renowned waterfalls heralded for the level of transcending tranquility you’ll feel by its crystal-clear waters.

Seaside Kingdom - Bubblaine, the relaxing resort by the carbonated sea... What more is there to say? Well, how about the kingdom’s unforgettable landmark that’s worth the price of admission alone? The Glass Tower and Glass Palace! While you pay your fifteenth visit, give or take, make an attempt to pry your eyes from its majesty to try the carbonated sea’s blend. Take a sip of Bubblaine’s famous Bubble Water and you’ll consider buying a condo right then and there!

Yoshi’s Island - We’ve all seen those adorable dinos, but who knew their home was so amazing?! On Yoshi’s Island, the locals wouldn’t settle for a simple tropical island and nothing more, so activities made for a year-round bout of fun are accessible for all to enjoy! Mountain climbing, snowboarding, skiing, go-karting, golfing, dolphin-riding, and peaceful villages where friendly Yoshi faces are more than happy to welcome you in with open arms.

As for the mode of transportation, we’ve decided to depart from the standard method of a plane and reach out for a little bit of assistance. Travel from location to location will be upon...

The Daisy Cruiser! With facilities such as a spa section, swimming pool, a dining room with cuisine to keep you plenty-fed during the trip, and plenty of comfortable lodging with internet and television access, it’s a vacation on your way to vacation!

If we’ve done well enough to intrigue you, would you be so kind as to Like and or Reblog this Post? Spread the word so that your fellow Smashers can hear it, too! Further details will be written under the cut, and we hope you enjoy the event!

I can’t describe how excited I am to do another summer event with you guys. It makes me so happy to know that last time was so well-received, I was asked to do another one this year! Now I’ll cut the selling talk, you’ve already read the top half of the post. There are just a few rules and details that I’d like to give.

From the top, the situation. The Smash Mansion is hosting its annual summertime trip. This year is special for its four fitting locations. The trip itself will be funded, but it is advised that your muse bring some of their own money to buy things like extra food, souvenirs, etc. Lodging will always be provided on the Daisy Cruiser, but if you desire to sleep in areas outside of the Cruiser’s cabins, such as the Delfino hotels or the Bubblaine Cabanas for example, that is allowed, as well. It will be your muse’s own money paying for the room, though!

The trip will be lasting eight days, from June 22nd to June 29th. We will be at each of the four locations for two days, both that location and the Daisy Cruiser being available for those two days. After that, the Daisy Cruiser will set sail once more and you will arrive at the new location. Of course, if you want to continue a thread even after the event has moved on or even completed, you are absolutely allowed to. All I ask is to not write for a location we have yet to arrive at. Again, finishing what has already been started is completely allowed!

And, like before, there is a Sideblog that I implore you folks to follow! It’ll give brief posts detailing the current location of the trip and list some recommended activities if you’re strapped for scenarios to write about.

The only requirement for this event is that you be in the Smash Bros. RPC or have a Super Smash Bros. verse. After all, this event is for the Smash Bros. RPC. You do not need to be mutuals with Cosmcther to take part, this is for everyone in the Smash RPC! But please respect other blogs’ rules if they are mutuals only.

Lastly, try to tag anything relating to this event with the tag #ssbsummer. It makes it easier to keep track of everything, and? I just love seeing what you guys are up to on these events and a dedicated tag makes that easier, too.

Also, some quick shoutouts. Thanks to the Smash Mansion discord server for helping me brainstorm some ideas, and props to @capjump for making the four banners for the event's locations, and a themed playlist!

Now that should be everything! Thanks for reading, and I hope we all have a great time!

#(EVENT.) ''The Tetralogy of Summer!''#ssbsummer #((IM EXCITED YALL...))#((IT'S REALLY LOOKING GOOD; I'VE GOT EVERYTHING PREPPED FOR SOME GOOD TIMES))#((you know the deal; please reblog the post so the word spreads around! the more the merrier for events like this!))#((and try to remember the ssbsummer tag! i seriously do love looking at everyone's posts for the event))

87 notes · View notes

mattzerella-sticks · 4 years

Text

Supernatural Crack🩹tober

Day 11 - American Pie

Cas worries over how he will broach the subject he completely misses when Sam and Dean arrive. Brothers striding through the front door, bickering. Arguing over their latest hunt, or maybe a passing distraction. Dean picking at it like a nasty scab until the two sniped at each other in a bloody mess. He barely followed their voices, still wrapping over the scene he happened upon in the kitchen hours ago. Mortified. At both what he saw and being the one to tell Dean.

He won’t be happy.

Dean claps him on the shoulder startling him from his thoughts. “Cas, man,” he says, frowning. Studying his expression. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’ve seen something all right…” As Dean’s brows furrowed together, Cas sighed. Gestures towards the nearby chairs. “There’s things we need to discuss.”

Sam easily sinks into the seat, frowning. Listening for what Cas will say. Dean is a different issue. He hovers near the chair, looking like he might sit than aborting the action all together. Nerves clearly on display, hands wringing themselves into an angry, blotchy redness. “You’re finally hitting the trails, then,” he surmises, ruefully chuckling. Gaze dropped, avoiding Cas’s eyes. “Well… I can’t say that I’m surprised.”

Cas blinks at him. “What?”

“Just… thanks, I guess, for sticking around as long as you did,” he shrugs, lips quivering in a phony smile, “I… you probably didn’t have to, but –“

“Dean, what are you talking about?”

Dean glances at him, “This… isn’t you giving us the talk? The… the ‘I’ve found something better and am going to pursue it’ talk?”

“What? No,” he says, reaching out and squeezing Dean’s clasped hands. “Never, Dean I… I’m not going anywhere. Except, maybe therapy… or to the woods, so I can bang my head against a tree for a few hours.” They concernedly stare, drawing a tired sigh from Cas. “Sit down, Dean, so I can explain myself.”

While Dean follows Cas’s command, Sam leans on the map table. “What’s going on Cas?” he asks, “Why do you want therapy or a – or a tree?”

“And where’s Jack?” Dean asks, looking about the room, “Kid was all antsy over the phone, asking when we’d be back. Figured he’d be waiting by the door.”

There lies the crux of his problems. “Jack is…” he starts, edging around the truth. Not willing to dive in yet, toeing the waters of this chilling tale. “He’s grounded for the foreseeable future.”

“Grounded?” Dean snorts, “Is that what this is about? Grounding’s normal, Cas.”

“Not for what he did.”

Sam takes this a fraction more seriously than his brother. “Why don’t you tell us what happened?”

Cas nods. Lips pursed, keeping the floodgates tight so a drop wouldn’t escape before the appropriate time. With the brothers here, it’s best he eases the locks. Share what he stumbled into. Then they can better understand his need for professional help and appreciate the grip on his sanity Cas maintained as long as he did.

“Well… I was archiving some research materials that I uncovered for you, when you called the other day about your hunt,” Cas explains, fidgeting, thinking about how naïve and innocent he’d been hours earlier. “Biding my time until you returned. I’d already gone out for supplies, so you wouldn’t have to, and because I thought it was well deserved… I bought a pie –“

“A pie?” Dean perks, grinning, “There’s pie? Why are we having this here when we could be talking about it over pie!”

Cas grabs his arm as he rises, halting him. Eyes wide in fear, he shudders. “There’s no pie, Dean.”

Dean’s expression flips, seriousness masking any other emotion. “No pie?” he parrots, “What do you mean no pie?” Then, “Did Jack eat the pie? Without me? …You were right to ground him for that, Cas!”

“He wasn’t…” Cas mulls it over, wincing, “Eating wouldn’t be the right term. But, yes Jack’s punishment is about the pie.”

“Cas,” Sam interrupts, “can you skip over the suspense and just… get to the point? What terrible thing could Jack have done with the pie?”

Cas sighs, letting go of Dean so both hands could scrub across his face. “I walked in, and I saw – I saw Jack… standing there. His pants were… around his ankles, and he was –“ his voice hitches, cheeks aflame. Gaze focused on the map below, where a little island was bisected by the latitudinal plane. “He had stuck his… genitals… inside the pie.”

At first Cas hadn’t know that’s what he walked in on. He caught sight of Jack’s pale ass, bouncing as he bent over the island and humped. Panting, moaning, oblivious of Cas’s disturbance. His skin crawled with every grunted curse. His voice, which left in the beginning, returned with a vengeance. Cas bellowed, shaking, “Jack! What are you doing?”

Jack froze, and from the height of his shoulders and strength of his hiss, Cas realized the other boy orgasmed, too. Made obvious when Jack turned. Revealing the ruined and stained dessert, cherry filling everywhere. Dripping onto the tiled floors and staining Jack’s privates.

“I… I made him throw it out, and then clean up the kitchen and – and – and now he’s in his room until I figure out what to do,” Cas sighed, tugging on his hair. Scalp burning from the force. “What do I do?”

Sam and Dean gaped. Silence reigned. Neither looked comfortable or cognizant enough for a response. Exactly how Cas felt those few seconds when Jack spun around and his stuttered apology.

But they recovered soon. Dean’s mask broke, anger surfacing. He flew out of his seat, slamming his fists down. “He fucked my pie!” Dean cries, “Who in their right mind fucks a pie?”

“That’s what I asked,” Cas says, “You know what he told me? That he saw it in a movie! How ridiculous!”

Sam hisses with a flinch. “Actually,” he says, “there’s one movie that… in it, a kid… does that with a pie.”

“There is?” he scowls, “Where would he ever come across such a film?”

Suddenly, Dean tenses. His dimples appearing for no reason. They fade a beat later, but the noticeable strangeness from Dean drew enough suspicion from Cas. Especially as he inches away from the table. “Who cares how he found it,” he says, indignation gratingly false to Cas’s ears, “let’s just punish him and make him never do this again!”

He almost slips out. Almost.

“Dean,” Cas calls. Dean freezes. “You wouldn’t happen to know how Jack saw this movie, would you?” Then, for good measure, he adds. “The truth, please. I’d hate to think how worse it’d be if you lied.”

Sighing, Dean faces Cas. Guilt practically tattooed across his cherry-red cheeks. “We… might have stumbled across it, one night in the Dean Cave,” Dean admits, rubbing his neck. “And when that scene came on I – remembering only now, really – I might have said a few things that could, if you look at it the right way, could have made the kid curious enough to imitate what he saw… possibly.”

Cas’s anger rockets so fiercely, he becomes numb. And in that state of unfeeling, Cas decides his punishment. “Okay,” he says, fingers steepled in front of him, “thank you for your honesty.”

“Does that mean I’m off the hook?”

“Not a chance in hell.” Cas stands, closing the distance between him and Dean. “You are going to Jack’s room, where you will not only explain why what he did was bad, but you will then give him the talk and apologize for egging him on.”

“And that’s it?”

“For the first part. When you’re done, let Jack know he’s grounded for a month – and so are you.”

“Grounded?”

“No hunts, no Internet access, no Sam,” Cas details, glaring at the younger Winchester. He nearly jumped into the fray, possibly defending Dean. Sam forfeits immediately. Bends under the pressure. Aware that in this situation there are no winners, just survivors. “The only things you will be allowed to do are eat and research. And if I hear you complain about that?” Dean and he are a breath apart, personal space trampled on. “Then the consequences will be severe. Any questions?”

Dean struggles with words, green barely visible behind wide pupils. He licks his lips, roughly swallowing. “Can I still…” he waggles his brows suggestively, chuckling, “because I have to say… this is really hot, Cas.”

“Dean!”

(Day 10 - PurGAYtory)

#supernatural #spn #spn crack #supernatural fanfiction #cracktober #profoundnet #jack kline #castiel #dean winchester #sam winchester #destiel #deancas #destiel fanfiction #deancas fanfiction

22 notes · View notes

imagining-supernatural · 4 years

Text

The Surprise Illness

Part 16 of Seventy Percent

Series Summary: When you left on your trip to Vegas, you’d planned on letting loose for one last weekend before heading back to reality and getting your affairs in order so your best friend wouldn’t be left cleaning up your mess when your cancer finally ended your life. What you hadn’t counted on was waking up married to a celebrity who has a knight-in-shining-armor complex, connections with an oncologist, and amazing insurance…

Chapter Summary: Reporters ambush you outside of the hospital

Word Count: 2,258

The last thing you remembered was Sebastian noting how hot you felt and insisting the two of you call it an early night just a few hours after the almost-kiss in the elevator.

Then you were waking up in the hospital late the next morning.

“What am I doing here?” you rasped out upon spotting Sebastian dozing in a chair next to the hospital bed.

He jerked awake and exclaimed your name. “You’re awake!”

“Yeah, and in the hospital. And that clock and the sun says it’s almost noon? It was just, like, eight o’ clock at night.”

Sebastian scooted his chair closer and grabbed your hand. “You had a fever and would barely wake up around 3 this morning when I tried to get you to take some more medicine. Dr. Chowdhury says it’s most likely a bug.”

“A bug? How’d I get… I’m so careful, how’d I catch a bug?” A muscle in his jaw jumped in anger and you realized, face dropping. “The reporters. They were shoving their microphones in my face.”

“Plus your immune system is super weak because of the treatment; it didn’t take long. And it hit hard.”

“Well, fuck.” You raised your free hand to scrub at your face, surprised at how sluggish your body was. That simple movement required so much concentration. “What does this mean for my treatment? I’m supposed to be getting the shots today.”

There was a knock on the door and Dr. Chowdhury poked his head in. When he saw your open eyes, he strode in. “Good morning, Y/N.”

“Good?”

He offered a smile at your challenge. “How are you feeling today?”

“Tired. My body hurts a bit, like the flu. Um… Surprisingly no headache.”

The scratch of a pen on paper was the only sound for a second while he notated your remarks in your chart. “That’s good about the headache. No pressure in your head either?” You shook your head. “Good, very good. I was worried this virus might have irritated your tumor and caused it to swell. That doesn’t seem to be the case.”

“So, what now?” Seb asked. “Will she still get her shots today?”

Dr. Chowdhury nodded. “And I would like to keep you for a few more hours. You are hooked up to an IV that should help speed your recovery from the bug.”

“Okay.” At your quick agreement, Seb squeezed your hand. “Do you think I’ll be able to go home tonight? I’d like to continue my streak of not sleeping in a hospital bed overnight here.”

“Barring any setbacks today, yes. We will do our best to help you continue your streak until surgery.”

“You know,” you mused with humor, “I’m sure the nurses are okay to hand me something themselves.”

Sebastian shook his head as he unscrewed the water bottle cap before handing it to you. Janessa, the nurse in question, grinned and winked at you before leaving the room. “I’m not taking that chance. They’re touching other patients all day.”

“And I think they know how to not pass on germs.”

“Still not taking the chance,” he insisted with no room for argument. Slipping into the bed next to you, he threw his arm over your shoulders. “I’ve been with you all day, so I’ve only been by your germs all day. They’re around everyone’s germs all day.”

You rolled your eyes but gave in, resting your head on his shoulder. “Surprised you let me even hold this water bottle, considering Janessa touched it with her bare hand.”

“Good point.” He moved as if to take it from you. With a loud laugh, you jerked your arm away, keeping it just out of his reach. His lips were pulled into a grin as he pretended to reach further to fight you for the bottle. If he’d been serious, it wouldn’t have been a fight at all. You were still paler than normal and weak as a twig in a hurricane. But you appreciated the lack of effort on his part.

Just before pulling back and settling back into the bed, he kissed the tip of your nose, warming your body in a way the thin hospital blanket couldn’t.

A rerun of How I Met Your Mother was playing on the TV and you turned up the volume. After a few minutes, you started drifting off, completely safe in Sebastian’s arms.

The rest of the day passed fairly quickly. Between reruns of sitcoms, being forced to eat cafeteria food, taking catnaps, and threatening Sebastian until he let the nurse take your temperature herself, you barely noticed the passage of time.

It wasn’t until you woke up and saw Sean with your phone camera pointed at the bed that you really noticed what time it was: just after eight o’ clock in the evening.

“What are you doing with my phone?”

“You two just look so cute right now,” he replied with a wink. “Picture perfect moment. Couldn’t pass it up. I didn’t want the stress of having a picture of you two on my phone.”

“I’d trust you with one.” He handed you your phone and you unlocked the phone to get to the gallery. As soon as you pulled up the photo he took of you and Seb asleep together, you were glad that you had your phone set up to allow your camera to be accessed without your security code. It was a damn cute picture. “Psychiatrist, media specialist, and photographer. Shit, Sean you really can do it all, can’t you?”

“Add bodyguard to that list too. Sebastian texted me that you guys were leaving around eight thirty. I got here a little early and decided to come in. There were a few reporters hanging around when I pulled up. Figured I could clear the way if they swarm again and your man there could keep ahold of you.”

“Damn reporters,” you grumbled.

“You can say that again,” Seb’s scratchy voice sounded from beside you. He shifted, stretching a little as he woke up. “Hey, Sean. Time to leave already?”

“Just as soon as I sign your discharge papers,” Dr. Chowdhury announced his presence, walking into the room. Seb slipped off of the bed to allow Dr. Chowdhury to give you a quick once over. Once he determined that your throat, ears, and nose looked good and that your fever was under control, he signed the papers and a nurse came in with a wheelchair. She assured Sebastian no fewer than three times that the wheelchair was sanitized before he let you sit in it.

Sean split off to bring the car around and you ditched the wheelchair in the waiting room. It probably would have been better to let yourself be wheeled out to the car, but your vanity overpowered your decision. You weren’t too fond of the idea that pictures of you in a wheelchair could be splashed across the internet.

Surprisingly enough, you managed to get nearly all of the way to the car before the reporters started circling. Sebastian and Sean had the one-track mind to keep them away from you and get you inside the car as soon as possible. Once you were scooting across the backseat to make room for Seb, he turned his attention to the vultures.

Seeing they were about to get a quote, the crowd quieted.

“You guys attacked my wife yesterday and exposed her to germs that got her sick when she’s already going through the hell that is cancer treatment. When I requested everyone keep their distance, it wasn’t just for privacy. The next time you prioritize your big story over my wife’s life, my lawyers and I won’t be so nice.” With that, he climbed into the car and slammed the door shut on their questions.

Quick, concise, and to the point. You could tell he’d considered his words in advance. Hell, he’d probably been thinking about them all day.

He was still thinking about them five minutes into the drive. You could tell by the tense set of his shoulders. So, you decided to try and lighten the mood.

“You feel like John Mulaney right now?”

“Huh?”

“Get away from my wife!” You did you best to imitate John Mulaney’s voice during that segment. “No one talk to my wife!”

He cracked a smile and you felt victorious. “I didn’t kill my wife!”

“Ooo. Who’s that fella?” You finished off the segment, unsuccessfully trying to hold back a laugh.

“You callin’ me your fella?” He asked, leaning closer.

The sparkle in his eye drew you in. “Maybe I am.”

“Hey, so…” Sebastian wandered into the bedroom the next morning. You’d been under strict doctor’s orders to sleep in and not come to the hospital until the afternoon for your infusion. So that’s exactly what you did.

And while you were sleeping in, Seb had gone to get a workout in, since he’d missed it yesterday.

Which brought you to now: Him walking in, fresh from the shower, and you on the bed with your laptop, catching up on your finances.

“Hey, how was your run and, uh, weights?”

“How are my weights?”

“Yeah. They doing good? Feeling neglected?”

He laughed. “God, Y/N. You are so smart about so many things but you have no idea what goes on in a gym, do you?”

“Yeah I do,” you replied defensively. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow, waiting for you to prove it. “Lots of sweating and, uh, grunting? Guys taking off their shirts to show off. People drinking from water bottles? Probably a lot of regret.”

With an eye roll, he flopped down on the bed next to you. “Once you’re all better, I’m making you come to the gym with me.”

“Does your gym have a spa there? Or a massage room, at least?”

“Yeah. But I’ll only let you use it after you work out.”

You scrunched your nose in distaste. “Pass.”

He closed his eyes, a content smile still on his lips. With a fond shake of your head, you went back to updating your finance plans.

A few minutes later, Sebastian sat up and pulled something out of his jacket pocket. He fiddled with whatever it was for a second before hesitantly saying, “Y/N?”

“One… second…” You finished what you were doing and set aside your laptop. There was a strange tone to his voice. It was serious, but slightly unsure. Whatever he wanted to talk about, you were sure he wanted your full attention. “Okay. What’s up?”

“I was thinking… since your name is out there and we’re not a secret anymore…”

“Seb, it’s me. You don’t have to beat around the bush.”

“I was wondering how you felt about wearing the ring.”

Well. That was not where you’d expected this conversation to go. “The ring.”

He plucked the diamond engagement ring from his hand and held it between his fingers. “The ring. I also, uh, I guess I should have talked to you about this before… but I swung by a jeweler this morning and picked out wedding bands too. For both of us.”

For the longest while, you didn’t know what to say.

It wasn’t like you had to pretend that you’d gotten married for love. He’d told the truth about your wedding on Seth’s show. It was on tape that you’d had a drunken wedding and stayed married for insurance purposes.

So if he had actually purchased wedding bands… a physical tie between you two… that had to mean something, right?

“I-I’m… I’m not against it, I just—why?”

“I don’t really know. Well, I know, but I also don’t, you know?”

“No. Not at all.”

He huffed a sound somewhere between a sigh and a scoff. “I guess I just thought that since I’m flying to Georgia on Sunday to start filming the show and we’ll be apart so often… I don’t know. Maybe it’s stupid.”

“It is stupid,” you assured him with a teasing smile. “It’s stupid of you to think that since we’re not going to see each other every day that we’ll forget each other. I mean, I know you won’t forget me because I’m pretty amazing and all. Thought I guess it isn’t a long shot to think that I’ll forget you. The guy who bought me oreos. The guy who I’ve slept next to for the last week. The guy who yelled at paparazzi for me. The guy who is literally saving my life. The guy wh—”

“Okay, okay, I get it.”

Looking at him, nervously fumbling with the ring in his fingers, you realized this was about something more. This wasn’t just him being a good person. It wasn’t Sebastian helping someone survive cancer.

This was about Sebastian and you. You and Sebastian.

This wasn’t about a drunken Vegas wedding officiated by Elvis. This wasn’t about cheating the system to get insurance.

This was about your relationship with Sebastian.

“I get it too,” you said softly. After a moment and a deep breath, you extended your left hand and stilled his anxious fingers. His eyes darted up to yours where you hoped he saw his same hesitance, fear, and hope reflected there. “I get it, Seb.”

Without any further conversation, he gently slid the diamond ring onto your finger. Out of his pocket, he presented you with an engraved gold band and your heart was beating at a million words per minute as you slid the band onto his left hand as well.

RINGS!?! And, gah! Stupid reporters!!!

Also, I wrote this long before this whole Coronavirus and rereading it now was like GEEZ I was ahead of my time with the whole germaphobe thing...

CHAPTER 18: THE WORK CALL

#sebastianxreader #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #james buchanan barnes x reader

143 notes · View notes