#i still consider him gay. because he knows himself and his partner better than i know how to perceive them both | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

russilton · 2 years

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I am sooooo pumped for the Redbull!george au! I am loving all of the little snippets and it’s getting me so excited! I know that it is gonna be one of my favourite all time fanfics already!! <3

Any chance we could get a little fluffy snippet about George coming to trust Lewis or Lewis comforting George or maybe just a summary of Lewis comoforting George! Pretty please!

And also I was wondering whether George is out in this fanfic or if that is something that you might explore in the story?

Hope you don’t mind me being nosy? I am just so excited!

Anon I very much don’t mine nosiness! But I will warn you all, it looks like I’m about to start a new job, so my fandom output is probably gonna drop back a bit! But I will have 45 minutes on a train every morning I have a shift so maybe that will be productive who fuckin’ knows.

ANYWAY, what some of you have been waiting for

Redbull AU spoilers below the the cut!

Okay so short question first: is George out?

Short answer: Nope

Long answer: he’s barely out to himself let alone anyone else. George is gay, but, he doesn’t think too hard about his sexuality because he doesn’t really date much. George was still just growing out of his awkward gangly stage when Red bull signed him, he’s had a few high school girlfriends before deciding women weren’t really for him. He’s fooled around with some other karting and single seat drivers, and that’s closer to what he enjoys but after 2017 George doesn’t really DO dating. The RB junior drivers academy is intense, and George doesn’t really manage to leave his job at work like some other drivers do.

He has a few one night stands at parties and after going clubbing with Alex and Pierre before promotions start happening, but outside of racing George is kinda aloof because he’s very awkward. If he gets tipsy enough it’s easy to follow someone home, get railed and bail before the sun comes up, but he doesn’t really feel the desire to sleep about often. He certainly doesn’t want to date, that would require devoting time to someone else. His schedule is non stop training and sim work, he has to work so hard on himself he thinks trying to navigate a new relationship would distract him. He has friends, he doesn’t need a partner.

When all the drama with Pierre, Alex, Daniil and the ever changing seat happens, he doesn’t sleep with anyone for a while. He’s so intently focused on this job, this is his entire livelihood, he’s not wasting time trying to find someone to fuck, and he’s under no illusion that Red bull finding out he’s gay would stop him ever getting a chance at the top seat; and that’s if they don’t fire him. It burns something in him, but he’s been hiding who he was since he was a teen. His family probably wouldn’t care, but then they’d ask why he never brought anyone home. It’s easier to just pretend he’s straight and say that there aren’t many opportunities for dating in his career. He can’t really say he has many friends anymore, but he doesn’t care. His single drive and focus is getting that top f1 seat, he’ll make friends when he starts winning.

Then he’s him that top seat, and now he has to keep it. He wont fuck this up now trying to date someone who could out him, and most people don’t really get him.

It’s pretty wild then to consider how quickly he takes to Lewis, but Lewis challenges him, he feels desirable having Lewis’ angry eyes on him, he feels powerful. With Lewis he doesn’t have to worry about being outed. He thinks Lewis is the greatest racer ever, and a better human than George certainly is, he wouldn’t ever out him. Lewis is the reason he took this seat. The first time they make out it’s like a dream for George, he’s been teasing Lewis for a couple races, hell george even finished above Lewis in his second race. In Portugal george comes third, but he and Lewis have a mild scuff off the starting line and when George says he would have thought someone with Lewis’ skill could avoid him, Lewis gets a little eye twitch and tells George that maybe he should remember who’s corner it was.

Lewis only looks at George when George is being a pain, and George finds his attention makes his skin simmer, so he follows Lewis after, tells him he took x corner wrong and he should really improve that. Lewis rounds on him a little like, who the fuck are you man (they have met several times but this is their first time alone together), he’s trying to be nice but Georges clipping incident nearly cost him the win and he’s still coming down off the stress of having max all over his ass. George says he’s Lewis’ next biggest threat bc George is full of ego and he also knows it’ll piss Lewis off. Lewis tells him his attempt at an overtake was shoddy, George tells him his defence should be better, Lewis kinda backs him into a wall and says he’s got a lot of mouth for someone who only just got his seat, and should rlly try shutting up

George tells Lewis he should shut him up himself. Next thing either of them know they’re making out, rough and firm. Fighting for dominance as George tries to figure out what he’s feeling, till Lewis backs him into a cleaning cupboard and cages him against the wall and he submits. They give each other hand jobs and then George leaves feeling better than he ever has in his life. Lewis wonders if that was maybe the worst idea ever but George is rlly hot when he’s moaning under Lewis and he can’t stop thinking on it.

George likes lewis dominating him, knowing he’s a good enough racer to make lewis fuckin hamilton lose control. He doesn’t want to date Lewis, he wants his attention (yes he does have daddy issues, it’s part of becoming a Red bull driver even if you like your dad). He gets it when he wins, when he wins he gets vindication for all the long hours and bruised ribs. Red bull have fostered his ego, he feels like a prince, he’s gonna keep doing well, and if he gets to submit to Lewis after, well he’s one of the big kids now, he can do what he wants… right?

———

Now, Lewis comforting George: I’ll warn you I’m running low on preplanned notes, so congrats, you’re helping in the writing process, but details are subject to change

That takes a long time to happen, for a couple reasons. The first is that George certainly isn’t going to Lewis for comfort in the first half of the season, at least not verbally. Lewis starts to notice how Red Bull are prioritising max around Styria, but he uses it to taunt George and make their sex hotter. George wants to push him on track? Lewis is going to fuck George over a table and use him. George gets off on being slut shamed and has made it clear to Lewis that frankly he doesn’t care what Lewis says, he’s as involved as George is. But when Lewis points out mid thrust that redbull had used him to tow max to a good quali without any trade off, and now Lewis is using him too, maybe he just likes to be used, he can see something twitch in George’s expression.

At silverstone George is angry, it’s not at Lewis, but he pushes Lewis to dominate him. He wants to stop feeling angry, betrayed by his team, Lewis always makes him forget everything, if he pushes hard enough Lewis will make him forget this to. And don’t get me wrong Lewis uses him. Calls him all sorts, but then he goes and ruins George’s post orgasm bliss by pointing out how Red bull are treating him. George swears a lot at him and leaves. It is now clear to Lewis that things are not all okay at Red bull racing.

Summer break happens, George won’t even look at Lewis after, he’s different. He’s more subdued, more flinching, he practically runs from Lewis after Spa, something about the team needing to see him. He’s a completely different driver on track, unpredictable, Lewis can’t trust him anymore. He doesn’t see George at all after zandvoort. The next time lewis sees George is actually after Monza, of all places.

It’s later, he’s in the media area, he’s got a murderous headache from max parking a car on his head, he really wants a fucking nap (he’s been checked for a concussion, he’s fine) but he needs to be on a plane to the met gala in a couple hours, so he needs to get his press done and leave. He’s just taking a breather in a bathroom when George comes in. He looks pale, his eyes have bags, and he looks frantic almost, till he spots Lewis and all the breath runs out of him. Lewis just looks at him, on one hand, George looks like shit, but Lewis kinda doesn’t want to be anywhere near a Red Bull right now, so he asks if George is coming to defend his teammate to him, because he can fuck off now if he is.

But George flinches and stutters out a No, then cuts himself off and just stares at Lewis, who has too much of a headache to be dealing with this. He asks George what he needs if not that, and George says he needed to see Lewis was okay. He sounds like admitting that is the hardest thing he’s ever done but now Lewis can see just how scared George looks. It was a scary looking crash, he can see why it might upset another driver. He steps over to gently grab George’s arms, look him in the eye, and tell George he’s okay, no concussion, his neck is stiff but he’s fine, okay? The last thing Lewis is gonna do is let max be the one to take him out

George chuckles wetly and most of that scared look is gone but Lewis is tired himself and decides fuck it, and tugs George into a hug, rubbing his back firmly and telling George he’s fine. George burrows his head in Lewis’ collar for a second just to feel grounded. But then he hears the door behind them click to open and he jumps away from Lewis and is striding out of the bathroom past a baffled looking Yuki before Lewis can even blink. Yuki then distracts him asking about it himself and Lewis has to let it go.

#britcedes #gewis #4463 #mark’s fic tag #anonymous #asks #redbull george au

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marley-manson · 2 years

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4, 5, 9, and 11? I mean, I know your answer to 4 but I love hearing your thoughts on it

Thank you!

BJ or Trapper (for Hawkeye but also in general) (and lol tyvm <3)

under a cut bc it got long ofc lol, and I’m a little hard on BJ here so it’s easily skippable for anyone who wants to avoid that

Trapper, both for Hawkeye and in general.

So like, in general I just vibe with Trapper more. I got into Mash for the fun gay vibes and for me Trapper delivers on those way more than BJ does, not just because he was the costar of the most homoerotic seasons and I think he has better chemistry with Hawkeye, but also because it’s so much easier to headcanon Trapper as meaning the jokes to an extent, whereas it’s impossible for me to read most of BJ’s gay jokes as anything but jokes, the punchline being ‘lol gay.’

The problem with BJ is he’s too heteronormative for me - almost pointedly so. Trapper was a product of the sexual revolution and the satirical look at the 50s through a cynical 70s lens. He’s deviant - he’s a proud cheater, he’s unpatriotic, he enjoys subverting authority with Hawkeye, he’s not as effeminate as Hawkeye but he’s not defensive of his masculinity, and of course he loves the gay jokes almost as much as Hawkeye. Even if he’s intended to be straight as an arrow, there’s still an extent to which he canonically means the jokes, and that extent is “I would rather be seen as gay and deviant than as military and conformist.” And that’s already pretty great on its own for the time, but it’s also so easy to take that and run headlong into a nearly openly bi reading.

BJ, conversely, is a product of the show’s choice to drop some of the exaggerated satire, and he’s a typical 50s family man thrown into a horrible situation for the sake of exploring the effect of a war zone on this sort of 50s archetype. Before we even see him Margaret and Frank introduce him to us through their admiration of his background. He’s pointedly unresponsive to Hawkeye fishing to see if he’ll be another partner in womanizing (and lbr here, gay sex) during their conversation at the airport bar. He’s practically defined by his idealized heterosexual marriage.

Throughout BJ’s first few seasons he’s kind of the straight man, pun extremely intended. In addition to being married and faithful, he’s distinctly heteronormative in a way that comes across as awkward sometimes compared to Hawkeye’s total comfort with the gay and gnc jokes. “We’ll go dancing,” “I lead.” / “What threw you off, the beard?” “No, the machine gun.” / “Have you ever considered the foot?” “I prefer girls.” / “Have I ever told you you look cute with your shirt off?” “[irritated at being interrupted] No!” “I think I know why.” / “We are not guys.” “I thought I was.” etc etc. It’s also quite noticeable how in season 4 Hawkeye’s gay jokes come out mainly in scenes with Klinger rather than BJ.

That’s not to say BJ and Hawkeye don’t have some fun homoerotic rapport despite these more awkward moments, they definitely do, but it’s a lot sparser than Hawk and Trapper, and again thanks to BJ’s happily married heteronormative state I can’t headcanon him as meaning them. They feel perfunctory. And again to be fair Trapper had the occasional no-homo-esque joke himself, but thanks to the overarching atmosphere it’s so easy to headcanon those as Trapper being slightly more cautious than Hawkeye, rather than in denial or straight.

Also incidentally like, a lot of what people point to as BJ’s lack of heteronormativity in later seasons, like... hand gestures or the way he says some lines or whatever, doesn’t matter to me at all lol. A big reason I enjoy Hawkeye’s effeminacy is because it was a deliberate way of marking him as subversive, it was emphasized as a counterpoint to the masculine military and also framed as cool and likeable. That framing is almost entirely gone in the later seasons, so consequently I just don’t care if Mike Farrell delivers the occasional line with a little extra bitchiness lol, it’s meaningless to me. I get why other people are into it and I respect that, but I can’t enjoy stuff divorced from narrative framing, it’s always a significant factor for me. BJ being the het wife guy >>> BJ crossing his legs sometimes.

I can and do headcanon BJ as being gay or bi and repressed, but that feels so much more like reading against the text than headcanoning that Hawkeye and Trapper are fucking between scenes. It takes more work, and for me it’s less constantly rewarding.

ANYWAY lol I also have other reasons for preferring Trapper generally, like finding Wayne Rogers funnier, or certain traits of BJ’s being very grating on a personal level (like his passive aggression is irrationally offputting to me, I had to peace out of my Joker is Wild rewatch because every word out of BJ’s mouth was making me see red lmao), but like a good 60% of my feelings about this show are rooted in the homoeroticism and that’s what I wanted to talk about.

As for Trapper being better for Hawkeye than BJ, it just seems self-evident to me lol, like part of the basic point of BJ and Hawkeye’s friendship is that BJ’s flaws often affect Hawkeye negatively, it’s an element of their relationship that the show explores a lot, up to dedicating like a third of the finale to it.

And it’s interesting, good writing and it’s the biggest reason that I still ship them to an extent, because I like relationships with big flaws. But yk, it kinda sucks for Hawkeye lol.

He and Trapper fought a few times but it was always equal-opportunity, both of them bitching at each other and escalating pretty evenly. Even the Mail Call moment when Trapper tries to leave and knocks Hawkeye out of the doorway happened after Hawkeye threatened Trapper. Plus their conflicts tended to be brief and quickly resolved because they hate not being on the same side.

On the other hand BJ has several episodes where he just one-sidedly torments Hawkeye for fun, like Dear Uncle Abdul, Bottom’s Up, or Joker is Wild, in ways that genuinely upset Hawkeye. Like on my first watch I assumed Joker is Wild would end with Hawkeye being impressed by BJ and laughing it off yk? But instead he just seems exhausted and exasperated, and it gives this, and the other episodes which also feel similar, a surprisingly mean vibe.

Even in Lend a Hand, where BJ’s scheme of pretending it’s Hawkeye’s birthday was pretty minor and harmless, Hawkeye hates it. And his “I seem to be the object of some sort of conspiracy, so naturally I thought of you,” there indicates that this is a pretty regular thing outside of just these episodes too.

Then there’s the way Trapper always supports Hawkeye’s campaigns, both useful and futile. He’s there with him every step of the way - Hawkeye needs a boot, Trapper asks what “we’re” going to do about it. Hawkeye wants ribs from Chicago, Trapper helps him get them. Hawkeye hates a propagandist for glorifying the war, Trapper helps him ruin his movie.

imo this is where BJ falls the most short, and it’s clearly a deliberately written aspect of his character. Like compare Yankee Doodle Doctor to Blood and Guts; Adam’s Ribs to Depressing News; House Arrest to The Grim Reaper. BJ is pointedly checked out and unwilling to engage with Hawkeye’s problems. He’ll engage when there’s a clear reachable goal (eg Souvenirs) but he won’t just support Hawkeye, in fact he seems almost morally opposed to encouraging him.

You could argue that that’s actually better for Hawkeye, yk maybe enabling him is bad, but like, I would never ever agree with that lol, partly because Hawkeye’s campaigns are awesome and entertaining, partly because politically and philosophically I’m 100% with him too, and partly because I think taking action to express his feelings is extremely important to Hawkeye, whether it works or not. BJ sipping a martini while telling him he’s fucked, or telling him his monument is pointless, or calling him Don Quixote, or tuning out his upset ranting while working on a motorcycle, etc etc, never actually helps in any way. It doesn’t discourage Hawkeye or stop him from taking risks, it just leaves him on his own. If he’s trying to protect Hawkeye it doesn’t work, and it never feels like he’s concerned about Hawkeye potentially facing consequences to me - he mainly just seems affronted by his “irrational” attitude - something he frequently and explicitly derides.

Finally, while I don’t take Trapper’s no note, no contact departure at face value since it was a forced writing decision on account of Wayne Rogers’ departure with 0 characterization work behind it, I think even taking that into consideration he still comes across better than BJ overall. I mean BJ’s first finale departure was actively worse in every way lol, it’s only by chance that he got a redo, and he even spent most of the redo refusing to engage with Hawkeye’s feelings. The goodbye rocks come across as a pretty feeble gesture to me after just the finale events, let alone the rest of their relationship.

SO yeah. I don’t think BJ is like a terrible person or anything, he has plenty of episodes and scenes where he’s a great friend to Hawkeye. But his flaws in particular clash badly with what Hawkeye wants and needs, and they come up quite a lot in the last few seasons of the show especially so they really stand out to me, especially in contrast to how much Hawkeye supports BJ. Like to me the most apt illustration of BJ and Hawkeye’s relationship is Hawkeye handing BJ tools while BJ fixes his motorcycle and ignores him. Or Hawkeye comforting BJ with a black eye. Or the way he comes back to the Swamp in Picture This because Margaret lied about BJ needing his support, versus BJ allowing him back to piss off Charles. I find that there’s a stark unevenness to their relationship, compared to Hawkeye and Trapper giving off a much more equally supportive vibe.

(And I’m actually going to answer the other questions in another post so they’re not buried at the end of this long ass rambly essay. Sorry this took so long to respond to, but hopefully you can see why lol.)

#ask meme #marley on mash #ship hb #bj mash #trapper mash #mash #mash gs

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makkoskafanfic · 2 years

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Hello there! May I request HashiMada for the ask game about ships? 😁

You absolutely may, as it turns out, I can talk indefinitely about them!

Whether I ship it or not: Yes, I don't think I ever shipped any other pairing this hard and this long, and I have an almost 2 decades long shipping history!

Why I ship it or not: There are so many reasons why I ship them, I don't even know where to start. I first thought this pairing had potential even before Hashirama told his story, when Madara was absolutely mad and murderous on the battlefield, belittling everyone for not being strong and awesome like Hashirama, saying stuff like "weak Senju are ugly" and I don't even know what else. It was so gay and so crazy, how could I not ship it? I wrote a bunch of angsty stories with them, I regret I only ever posted one of them, because I turned out to be right on a number of things! However I was wrong on at least one account - and that was Hashirama's view on Madara. You know. Gift of the divine, kind man, cared deeply for his brothers, couldn't pee when being watched, all the package! Hashirama's view is so different on Madara than how anyone else viewed him or how we saw him in the Shinobi War. And while I love the crazy evil man having the hots for the level headed, strong hero trope, this was even better. Hashirama is a bit of a dork, a bit of a weirdo, and also a man with very good intentions failing tragically in his goal by the end. And Madara is... well, if you ask Hashirama, he's also a very good man, who lost sight of the right path! I love how Hashirama believes that, no matter evidence or anyone else's opinion. I think if they would have been just a little bit more tenacious in keeping to their dream and their truest self, they could have been happy. (and because they were strong, they could have really made the world a better place too). Their tragedy is that they weren't - and maybe that's why I'm still here, writing story upon story, trying to remedy that. Fanfics are for worldpeace in a way, where instead of letting these fictional men kill each other, we make them fuck and be content. On a personal level, the way I see and write this pairing strongly resonates to aspects of my own relationship with my long-term partner. (obviously not as loudly dramatic, for example I swear we never tried to kill each other) So, HashiMada is also my self-therapy in working through things. If anyone followed my fics through the years, you might notice how I write a lot less angst nowaday, so I would say it's working! :)

My opinion on their canon potential (chemistry, canon interactions, etc): nobody, including Kishimoto himself, can tell me they are not a canon pairing. Maybe they didn't end up together, maybe they never even admitted it - but the feelings were there. They cared for each other in a way they didn't care for anyone else and it was a lot more real than what most of the canon pairings of Naruto had.

My opinion on fanon interpretations/fandom around it (Favorite widespread hcs, pet-peeves, etc): I am peculiar about HashiMada in a way I never was about other pairings in any other fandom. I have a very set view on how I imagine them and their dynamics, and I usually tend to stop reading any fic that doesn't match it. (Which I consider a bad thing by the way, and I still do it) At any rate, I don't like shy, stuttering Madara (I think Madara is reserved - except when he didn't care anymore, because he was then anything but, but shy?) or dark, manipulative Hashirama. (I don't think he was dark outside that moment when he had to summon his worst self to be able to kill Madara. And manipulative? Where did that ever come from?) I hate the use of nicknames in fics. I find it a bother to type Hashirama too, but come on. And for Madara there's not even the excuse of him having a long name. For things I like: the consensus that Madara needs more sleep! He absolutely does.

#hashimada #thank you for the ask

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kitweewoos · 2 years

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❛ you’re more family to me than my own family is.❜

This prompt with Will and Stevie and Connor and Ava because I have a beautiful headcanon of Ava being gay or bi and she and Connor are great friends. Whenever you feel like it, even if it's just some thoughts and meta on their platonic relationships.

Hi Nade!!! Thanks for the prompt!!

Will and Stevie

They had met in med school, both of them far from Chicago in New York City, struggling almost in sync, vibrating at a similar frequency, and somehow, that worked for them. They didn't exactly get along, but Will didn't consider Stevie a rival. He couldn't. She was so much better than him in every way. But there was an inherent kindness in Stevie that Will strived to have, strived to cultivate. He stayed at her side, even if she didn't want him there, but she seemed not to mind his presence. She made him want to be better, study harder, and be a better student. He brought her takeout from the restaurant he worked at, and she brought him coffee when they studied together. They were independent beings that became one for a little while, even if she hated his boyfriend ("he's not even your boyfriend! he refuses to be seen with you in public! and he loves to degrade you! he's not your boyfriend!"). Where Stevie was, Will was sure to follow, and the same in reverse. When Will got his heart broken, she didn't say "I told you so" until he said it first. When Stevie sat down and told him that she was going to Denver for her residency, following a man she said she loved. Once, when she'd been incredibly drunk, leaned into Will, she admitted that she had no desire to marry a man, that she was pretty sure she was a lesbian, but if she ever came out to her mom, she'd lose what little she had of a family. So, it was and wasn't surprising when she followed Andrew into monogamy and across the country. But no matter where she went, no matter who they were dating, no matter what, they were friends, and even better, they were family. Stevie even admitted it once, sitting in her empty apartment right before she moved to Denver, before Will had driven her to meet Andrew at his place, where the moving van was parked, eating Chinese in the echoing room, saying goodbye to an era gone by, and to each other, if only for a little while.

"Hey, I need you to know that I will still be here with you, okay? I will still be here, even if I'm not in New York. You call me if Matt comes back around and I'll fuck him up. I will. You deserve better than that absolute piece of human trash. You call me whenever, wherever, doesn't matter. I have my phone on me. Just... call, okay? You're more family to me than my own family, and I need to know I won't lose you for this." "As if you could get rid of me now." "I mean it." "I will always have room in my life for you, Stevie Hammer." "I love you, too, Will Halstead."

Connor and Ava

Ava had come into his life exactly when he needed her to. Losing Doctor Downy had been hard, especially with how rocky his relationship with his dad had always been, especially recently since Connor had come out publicly. He was losing himself. He was lost in work, in trying to learn a new specialty, and keep the ED running smoothly. It was a lot, but he was a Rhodes. He was one of those Rhodes, and those Rhodes didn't fail. They weren't allowed to. So, he kept fighting, and working, and slipping, and slipping, and slipping..... and then there's Ava. Ava Bekker is a force of nature. She is bright, and aggressive, and the gayest woman he's ever met. She's unashamed to be a lesbian, wearing a little lesbian pride flag on her scrubs, and daring anyone to confront her about it. She's skilled, and doesn't back down from a challenge. She kept him working, yes, and learning, and getting better, but at the end of the day, she made sure he walked away from work and left the patients at the hospital. She took him to her favorite bar, and he took her to his favorite coffee shop, and it was a good partnership. He found it hilarious when someone insinuated that they were dating, or secretly together, and Ava would actively snort or make a noise. But sometimes, even Ava's presence wasn't enough to pull him out of his spirals, and when he was close to losing himself in what his father wanted him to be, Ava called in reinforcements. Will is sweet, and kind, and Connor has loved him since the day they met, at odds from the very first moment, and Ava knows that Connor loves him, so she knows what Connor needs, and it's Will's quiet stubborn love, and his soft touch, and gentle smile, that incredible bedside manner Connor admired, and then...

"Hey, can I talk to you?" "What's up?" "Thank you. For, everything. For holding me accountable. For, metaphysically, holding my hair back when I puke. And, for knowing exactly how to help me. It's just, I've never had a best friend before, and it's really, really nice to have you here, Ava. You're more family to me than my own family, so...." "Then you should know that you don't have to thank me for any of that. Just, you know, have my back, too." "I will." "Good, then.... you owe me a coffee for waking me up on my day off." "I'm already on my way."

#one chicago #chicago med #cmed #connor rhodes #ava bekker #stevie hammer #will halstead #platonic hamstead #platonic rhekker #background rhodestead #background coopstead #kit creates #prompt tag #platonic prompts

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elliepassmore · 2 years

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Ocean’s Echo review

5/5 stars Recommended if you like: sci-fi, political intrigue, dual POVs, disaster gays, space opera, LGBTQ+ Big thanks to Netgalley, Tor, and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review! This book definitely delivers on the promises made in the synopsis. We get an overly disastrous Tennal, a too-good-for-people Surit, a sketchy military mission, mixed feelings on parents, political intrigue, and war. I was actually somewhat surprised the war mentioned in the synopsis happened, I feel like a lot of time the heroes 'save the day' or are conveniently somewhere else when that sort of things happens, but nope. Tennal and Surit are straight in the middle of it, and in ways they can't even imagine. Tennal was definitely an interesting character. He is a disaster, but it also kind of just feels like he either needs help or a goal for his life. He's the kind of disaster that comes from being lost and not knowing what to do about it. At the same time, the self-destructive tendencies and acerbic wit and dramatics are just a natural part of his personality, so the whole 'disaster' thing kind of radiates off him even when he's not actively being one. That being said, I did enjoy being in his mind, and he's a lot better of a person than he gives himself credit for. Smarter too. Surit is someone that I initially wasn't sure I'd like. He is a goody two shoes, working hard to follow the rules both because he thinks he should and to make up for the actions of his mother, Marit. I'm not really a huge fan of people who follow the rules simply because they're rules, but Surit ended up surprising me and not only did he break the law in refusing his orders (however secretively they were refused), but he continues to flout the rules when the morally correct thing requires it of him. Despite all this, and the many accomplishments he has and racks up, Surit's the kind of character who downplays their own skills and questions their abilities. It's an interesting thing to see since Tennal definitely sees how much Surit's achieved and then we'll be in Surit's head and he won't always realize it. Despite the fact that Tennal and Surit are basically opposites, they work well together as partners, friends, and lovers. They're each able to contribute something and are willing to work together, and neither of them are so stuck up in themselves that they don't recognize the abilities and intelligence of the other. The romance is definitely on the slower side of things, but for a specific reason, and you definitely still get flashes of it throughout the book. I liked the side characters in this as well. Tennal's younger sister, Zin, is far more polite and diplomatic than he is, but just as willing to fuck shit up, especially if she thinks the government (or anyone, I suppose) is doing something it shouldn't be. Basavi is one of the pilot's in Tennal and Surit's unit. She's kind of quiet, but she's a solid friend and proves to be a good person to have as backup. Istara is another pilot in the unit and is another person who proves to be a good friend and backup, but they're also far more sarcastic and prone to teasing insults (and sometimes straight insults). I very much enjoyed Tennal's friendship with both of them, and his interactions with Istara are particularly amusing. One thing that kind of bugged me throughout the book, but does get answered, is why Readers are considered the dangerous/bad ones when Architects can literally control you, albeit for only short periods. It seems odd to me that the mind reader is considered more threatening than the mind controller. Again, this is answered in the book (kind of toward the end), but I also wonder how bunches of people weren't asking this same thing, especially since some time had passed since their creation and the propaganda has (I think?) died down. The web of what's going on in this book is much larger than first glance. It definitely just feels like it might be a run-of-the-mill space adventure with two people faking it until they make it (and falling in love along the way) until Tennal and Surit actually get to the 'retrieval' part of their mission...and then everything kind of explodes. The politics is embedded in everything, and a number of the factions have similar goals. I enjoyed how everything came together around the beginning of the climax, as well as the absolute chaos that followed it. There were definitely some moments when I was concerned for Surit and Tennal. I hope there's going to be another book in this world because I desperately want to see how Tennal, Surit, and co. interact and deal with the people on the other side of the Link. I imagine it would be very interesting and very chaotic. I'm 100% planning on reading Winter's Orbit now. I've been meaning to for a while, but this is a good kick for me to actually go and do it!

#book #bookshelf #booknerd #bookaholic #booksbooksbooks #booksarelife #bookaddict #booklr #bookblr #bookstagram #book blog #book review #book recommendations #bookish #lgbtq #lgbtq characters #oceans echo #everina maxwell #winters orbit

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chocoholicannanymous · 3 months

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Evil Author Day #2

February 15th is Evil Author Day - you can read more about it on Jilly James' site, but in short it's about posting titles or descriptions or parts of stuff that's not actually ready for posting, the evil part being that there are no promises what so ever that there will be more.

What I'm posting under the EAD-tag either isn't finished and might never be, or it could be considered finished only I'm not happy with it.

Either way: Enjoy. Or not.

Stockholm Syndrome and Misery

“Kurt... Your dad, I, look. He didn't come off in the best way, I have to admit that, but boo, you have to admit he has a point.” I do? “He loves you, and he wants what's best for you, and this? This isn't working. Yes, things are worse now because of Karofsky, but honestly? Things haven't really been okay for a long time.

“Karofsky might be who you're focusing on right now, but he's not the only one, and you know it. Even if they hadn't allowed him to come back, someone else would have taken his place, and then what? You gonna ask the school to expel them too? Where does it end? And what will you do when you can't hide behind coach Sylvester any longer?”

And that, that is pure resentment in her voice. Mercedes never had accepted the fact that coach Sylvester liked him better than her, that he'd stayed when she left, that he'd had success as a Cheerio. It had been, ultimately, why he'd left, even though the Cheerios would have been an excellent addition to his college application in a year, and he'd given it up. And for what? A friend that apparently isn't going to be the support he needs.

“You asked for my help. Well, here's what you should do. Your dad is trying to help you. Let him. Do as he says. Blend in more, you know, dress more normal, tone things down a little. I'll be your girlfriend, that should help – Mr H has always liked me. And you should start coming to church with me.

“I didn't want to push earlier, not when your dad was still recovering, but the way you reacted when he was in the hospital wasn't healthy. Striking out like that at your friends, when all we wanted to do was to help you, that... It just isn't right. If you feel as if you can't accept God in your heart, then you need help to do so. I'll help you, Kurt, as will your family. All you need to do is help us.”

He can barely believe his ears. Yes, it had become obvious earlier that Mercedes wasn't going to be the rock he needs her to be, but this? This isn't just not being a rock, this is being as unsupportive as is possible, this is being actively against him. No matter how she presents is, this is Mercedes Jones taking a stand against everything that he is.

And he thought she loved him as much as he loved her.

“Kurt?”

“Sorry. Look, Mercedes, this was... You gave me a lot to think about, okay? I... I need to talk to dad again, and. I'll call you later.”

He doesn't know if he will, of course, nor if he's going to talk to his dad any time soon, but he's desperate to get away. He's about to break down completely, and he needs to not be on the phone with Mercedes when he does so. He needs to not let her catch on to what he's really feeling.

She blabs on for a while, and he makes what he hopes is appropriate noises, but he's not listening. He just wants to go.

So. He already knows he can't be straight. He can't. Coming out, even to himself, wasn't something he just did. He hadn't labeled himself “gay” lightly, or for fun. It had just been the only truth that had fit.

Kurt remembers spending countless nights agonizing over it, being afraid, hoping he'd run into a girl that would do it for him. He never wanted to be gay, to be seen as abnormal and disgusting, he'd just learned to accept that he was, and then tried to not see himself as any of the slurs thrown at him.

It had been Mercedes herself, in a way, that had forced him to come to terms. She's gorgeous, with all the qualities he wants in a partner – with the exception of her gender. He's always seen this, and surely, if any girl should be able to make him feel anything but admiration and friendship, it should be her.

Up until that point he'd still held out in the hopes of being at least bi – Finn had been the last blow to his denial when it came to being attracted to boys, but he'd still not been ready to accept that he was gay – but realizing Mercedes had feelings for him, and it only causing him to panic... Yeah. Gay.

Brittany had only confirmed it. (Strange, how two of the most beautiful girls he knows both went for him.)

Could he try and play straight then? It didn't work last time, he's painfully aware of how much he failed then, but there's more at stake now. Because this time? He's not afraid he might be kicked out, he knows he'll be. He also knows what mistakes he made last time, as well as more about how a real teenage boy is supposed to act.

Maybe if this time he tried to copy not his dad, but Finn? That should be easier, surely, and not as obvious, right? He already knows he can perform on the football field, and while coach Beiste does have an acceptable kicker, surely she can use a back-up. There's also the fact that his face and body has changed since last year, and he has better control of his chest voice now. Maybe...

But no. Playing straight hurt and it would be even worse a second time, Kurt's pretty sure of that. This time he's experienced the freedom of not hiding, and even with the escalation it had caused in the bullying it had been worth it. Also, he's willing to bet on the fact that his dad's ultimatum wasn't about playing straight.

He can try, yes, and hope that his dad will come to his senses again, but that's a risky game. What if his dad doesn't change his mind again? What if he never gives up on having a straight son? If that's how it is, then Kurt playing straight won't help any, it'll only cause him suffering.

And for what? Trying to please a family that doesn't love him the way he is?

He'd called Mercedes in the hope that she would welcome him, that her family would allow him to stay with them, that they'd come through for him as they'd done for Quinn. Instead she'd sided with his dad. And that leaves him alone.

Mercedes is his only friend. Rachel tries to be one, when she isn't actively fighting him, but they're not that close. And if he was to go to her... Her dads would most likely offer him a place, yes, out of some sort of queer solidarity, but they would – or so he believes – also try and mediate. And there is no way Burt Hummel would allow the son he wants to turn straight to go live with Lima's only out gay couple.

As for the rest of the glee club, and the adults surrounding him... None of the other kids would back him up. Brittany might, yes, but she could just as easily do as Mercedes had. Staying with her could ruin things between her and Artie though, even if somehow it didn't manage to give Brittany the wrong ideas.

Mr Schue doesn't really care about him, that much is obvious, and Miss Pillsbury is frankly useless. Coach Sylvester... No, best not go there.

Besides, he knows how much these people care about a teen getting kicked out of their home. He'd gotten all the evidence he needs the year before, when no one had raised as much as a finger to help Quinn. Mercedes had been the only one, and to realize she is less willing to back him up than Quinn breaks his heart. It's reason enough to ensure that even should he decide to go with his dad's demands, he won't ever do so the way she had suggested.

He's thought of Mercedes as his best friend, his sister almost, and it's a hard painful blow to his heart that she apparently doesn't value him the same way he does her.

If he can't return home, and can't get any help in Lima, then there's only one solution: he needs to leave. Run away.

He's not exactly equipped to run away though. Sure, he's got his wallet and his cell, but that's it. No jacket, much too thin clothing, shoes unsuited for walking around outside... He needs more. Luckily he knows exactly where to get it.

For once the brutal reality of McKinley is working for him. His locker is filled to the max, and just about everything in it is something he can use now. There, a bag of unused gym clothes – the shorts and tee are mainly useless, sure, but it's clothing and so he takes them anyway. The sneakers are perfect. And over there, two complete outfits in case he needs to change during the day (he almost always has to) and of course his “emergency kits”, one a toiletry bag for dealing with slushies – complete with travel towel, soap, shampoo, moisturizer and clean underwear; one a well-stocked first aid kit and the last one a miniature sowing kit – with everything from needles, thread and pins to buttons, three kinds of fabric cleaner and patches.

He's got more though. A water bottle, some energy bars, dried fruit, nuts, chocolate... His old mp3 player, an emergency $50, a pair of out of style sunglasses, a rescue blanket, a thin rain cape and a paperback he hasn't gotten around to reading yet. All of it gets thrown into the gym bag.

He's still not done. Kurt knows that the chances of his dad letting him just leave aren't that great, if not because he wants his gay son at home so at least because it doesn't look good to have your kid run away, and that means he needs to disguise himself.

The theater department is just as sadly underfunded as everything else not football or cheerleading, meaning most of their supplies are donated. That makes it “normal” clothes though, and not exactly well documented. The chances of anyone realizing that the items he takes are missing are minimal, and even if they do he'll be far away by then. Dressed in baggy khakis, a ratty windbreaker, his sneakers and a OSU hoodie he looks nothing like his regular self – except for from the neck up.

He snatches a pair of blackrimmed glasses (outfitted with window glass, apparently) and nods. That looks better. Not perfect though... But. There's a pair of clippers in one of the drawers. It's a horrible thought, but getting away is more important than looks, and so Kurt gives himself a buzz cut.

The face he sees in the mirror doesn't look like his own. He'd be horrified, normally, but right now that's the effect he wants, and so he nods.

Time to get out.

Hiking through town is much easier now, when he's dressed somewhat appropriately, but he's still happy when he manages to catch a ride. The truck is from out of state, and the tired trucker barely looks at him, only nods when Kurt tells him – using his lower register – that he's looking to “get back” to school. The “visit with the girlfriend's family didn't go well” excuse is accepted, and Kurt breathes a little easier when they cross Lima city limits.

The secondhand store in XXX opens at ten. Kurt waits until 10:20, thinking he'll be too noticeable if he's hanging on the lock, waiting for them to open. The owner listens to him, looks at the outfit and the shoes Kurt offers up, and nods. He gets ripped off, he knows it, but in the end he doesn't care. What's important right now isn't what Kurt payed for those clothes, or what they're worth – it's what he can get in exchange.

And that is more than he'd dared hope for. A backpack, well-used but in good shape, a sleeping bag, a pair of boots that are scuffed but still in good condition, a second pair of pants and a small camping stove. He even manages to get a wool cap and a pair of thin gloves out of the deal. There's a hunting store nearby; he'll stop there and buy some warm socks, and some camping food, and move on. The sooner he gets out of Ohio, he thinks, the better.

For once the fact that his country is so divided will work for him.

#chocoholic fics #ead #ead 2024 #evil author day #glee #kurt hummel #scraps and snippets

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risingsouls · 2 years

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@likesguyskakarot asked: 3, 14, 17 (for Nabs and Geets pls)

Sexuality and Gender Diversity Headcanons || Open!

3. when did your muse first realise they’re attracted to the gender(s) that they are?

[I would guess sometime in her teens? There really was no “omg I might be bi” moment for her because her attraction to women and men (or any part of the spectrum really which is why I’ve considered calling her pan but EH) never felt unnatural. It also wasn’t something taboo or frowned upon in Gerudo society so it wasn’t like some kind of great awakening or big moment.]

[Vegeta is similar but with the added fact that he just...doesn’t really consider it. For a very long time, he’s had a very negative and toxic relationship with sexuality in general because he considered it a weakness and something to be used against him. Like Nabooru, he didn’t really have this Great Realization either. When the mood strikes, he would go for whoever appealed to him at the time. He tends to lean more toward feminine partners, but he wasn’t really surprised when he found attraction in more masculine partners. He was more concerned with taking care of business and getting it over with than who he did it with.]

14. has your muse had feelings or experiences that seem to / do conflict with their identity? are these general knowledge? does it alter how others see them, or how they see themselves?

[Hmm...I guess not really? As alluded to before, she never had any issues accepting her sexual or gender identity so none of her partners or identifying choices were ever a surprise or really challenged outside of like...Hylians and to some degrees Earthlings considering her background and love of combat “unfeminine” or something. But none of that ever made her feel any less secure in how she viewed and carried herself.]

[Welp. I guess that would probably be any attraction he felt toward Raditz (honestly I should just make it canon here that they fooled around at least once; I’ve considered it plenty and it makes sense to some degree) and Goku (because we all know he’s at least a little gay for Goku). Maybe even a little bit with Nabooru. However, this wasn’t really because the first two were men but because, one, they were beneath him class wise and, second for at least Goku and Nabooru, because to some degree, the attraction stuck and wasn’t just a momentary thing and that bothered him. It definitely pissed him off to some degree because he didn’t want those kinds of distractions or thoughts about people he didn’t want to have such thoughts about, but I don’t think it did much more to the way he viewed himself (and he comes to terms with his sexuality and gets a better relationship with it as time goes on and his situation changes so that helps).

17. how are their feelings towards pride and related phenomenons?

[She would probably think it’s a neat thing but would also wonder why they need just a day or month when these people should be made to feel valid and safe all the time. She would at least get the need for it, as Earth’s views historically on homosexuality would probably align pretty close to Hyrule’s, but it would kind of be how she views Valentine’s Day: why isn’t this just the thing all the time? I think overall she would support it, though.]

[Frankly put, Vegeta would not care. He probably doesn’t even know about it. If someone told him about it, he still wouldn’t care. So basically, he’s indifferent.]

#.:ask:.#:: nabooru ☀#// vegeta ♅#likesguyskakarot #i feel like i repeat myself a lot #oopsy #well i hope they make some sense lmao

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lorenfangor · 3 years

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I heard that #40 was super homophobic :/ so I skipped it. But now your fic is making me want to give it a try. How problematic is it? Are the characters worth it?

Okay.

Let’s talk about #40.

The plot of The Other (a Marco POV) is that Marco sees an Andalite on a video tape sent in to some Unsolved Mysteries-esque TV show, and he assumes it’s Ax and hauls ass to save him from being captured. Ax, being Ax, has videotaped the show, and they pull it up and Tobias uses his hawk eyes to figure out that it’s not Ax, it’s another Andalite - one without a tailblade. Ax is appalled at the presence of this vecol (an Andalite word for a disabled person) and we find out that he and others of his species have deep ingrained prejudices against at least some kinds of disabled people.

Despite this, Marco and Ax go looking for the Andalite in question because he’s been spotted by national TV, and they meet a second one, named Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad. The vecol is Mertil-Iscar-Elmand, a former fighter pilot with a reputation and Gafinilan’s coded-gay life partner. The two of them have been on Earth since book 1; they crashed their fighters on the planet and have been trapped there thanks to the GalaxyTree going down. Gafinilan has adopted a human cover, a physics professor, and they’ve been living in secret ever since.

Thanks to that tape, Mertil has been captured by Visser Three, and he’s not morph-capable so he can’t escape. Gafinilan wants to trade the leader of the “Andalite Bandits” to the Yeerks to get his boyfriend back; he can’t fight to free Mertil because he’s terminally ill with a genetic disorder that will eventually kill him, and (it’s implied that) the Yeerks aren’t interested in disabled hosts, even disabled Andalite ones. Despite Ax’s ableism, the Animorphs agree to work with Gafinilan and free Mertil, and they’re successful. Marco ends the book talking about how there are all kinds of prejudices you’ll have to face and boxes that people will put you in, and you can’t necessarily escape them even if they’re reductive and inaccurate, but you can still live your life with pride.

So now that I’ve explained the plot, I’m gonna come out the gate saying that I love this book. I love it wholeheartedly, I love Marco’s narration, I love Ax having to deal with Andalite society’s ableism, I love these characters, and as a disabled lesbian I don’t find these disabled gays to be inherently Bad Rep.

that’s of course just my opinion and it doesn’t overshadow other issues that people might have? but at the same time, I don’t like the seemingly-common narrative that this book is all bad all the time, and I want to offer up a different read.To that end, I’m going to go point by point through some of the criticisms and common complaints that I’ve seen across the fandom over the years.

“Mertil and Gafinilan were put on a bus after one appearance because they were gay!”

this is one I’m going to have to disagree with hardcore. I talked about this yesterday, but in Animorphs there are a lot of characters or ideas that only get introduced once or twice and then get written off or dropped - in order off the top of my head, #11 (the Amazon trip), #16 (Fenestre and his cannibalism), #17 (the oatmeal), #18 (the hint of Yeerks doing genetic experiments in the hospital basement), #24/#39/#42 (the Helmacrons’ ability to detect morphing tech), #25 (the Venber), #28 (experiments with limiting brain function through drugs), #34 (the Hork-Bajir homeworld being retaken, the Ixcila procedure), #36 (the Nartec), #41 (Jake’s Bad Future Dream), and #44 (the Aboriginal people Cassie meets in Australia) all feature things that either seem to exist just for the sake of having a particular trope explored Animorphs-style or to feature an idea for One Single Book.

This is a series that’s episodic and has a very limited overall story arc because of how children’s literature in the 90s was structured - these books are closer to The Saddle Club, Sweet Valley High, Animal Ark, or The Baby-Sitters’ Club than they are to Harry Potter or A Series of Unfortunate Events. Mertil and Gafinilan don’t get to be in more than one book because they’re not established in the main cast or the supporting cast, I don’t think that it’s solely got anything to do with their being gay.

“Gafinilan has AIDS, this is a book about AIDS, and that’s homophobic!”

Okay, this is… hard. First, yes, Gafinilan does have a terminal illness. Yes, Gafinilan is gay. No, Soola’s Disease is not AIDS.

I have two responses to this, and I’ll attack them in order of their occurrence in my thought. First, there’s coded AIDS diseases all over genre fiction, especially genre fiction from that era, because the AIDS epidemic made a massive impact on public life and fundamentally changed both how the public perceived illness and queerness and how queer people themselves experienced it. I was too young to live through it, but my dad’s college roommate was out, and my dad himself has a lot of friends who he just ceases to talk about if the conversation gets past 1986 or so - this was devastating and it got examined in art for more reasons than “gay people all have AIDS”, and I dislike the implication that the only reason it could ever appear was as a tired stereotype or a message that Being Queer Means Death. Gafinilan is kind, fond of flowers, and fond of children - he’s multifaceted, and he’s got a terminal illness. Those kinds of people really exist, and they aren’t Bad Rep.

Second off, Soola’s Disease? Really isn’t AIDS. It’s a congenital genetic illness that develops over time, cannot be transmitted, and does not carry a serious stigma the way AIDS did. Gafinilan also has access to a cure - he could become a nothlit and no longer be afflicted by it, even if it’s considered somewhat dishonorable to go nothlit to escape that way. That’s not AIDS, and in fact at no point in my read and rereads did I assume that his having a terminal illness was supposed to be a commentary on homosexuality until I found out that other people were assuming it.

“Mertil losing his tail means he’s lost his masculinity, and that’s bad because he’s gay! That’s homophobic!”

so this is another one I’ve gotta hardcore disagree with, because while Mertil is one of two Very Obviously Queer Characters, he’s not the only character who loses something fundamental about himself, or even loses access to sexual and/or romantic capability in ways he was familiar with.

Tobias and Arbron both get ripped out of their ordinary normal lives by going nothlit in bad situations, and while they both wind up finding fulfillment and freedom despite that, it’s still traumatic, even more for Arbron I’d say than for Tobias. And on a psychological level, none of the main cast is left unmarked or free of trauma or free of deep change thanks to the bad things that have happened to them - they’re no less fundamentally altered than Mertil, even if it’s mental rather than physical. And yes, tail loss is equated with castration or emasculation, but that doesn’t automatically mean Mertil suffering it is tied to his homosexuality and therefore the takeaway we’re intended to have is “Being gay is tragic and makes you less of a man”. This is a series where bad shit happens to everyone, and enduring losses that take away things central to one’s self-conception or identity or body is just part of the story.

Also, frankly? Plenty of IRL disabled people have to grapple with a loss of sexual function, and again, they’re not Bad Rep just because they’re messy.

“Andalite society is confusingly written in this book, and the disability aspects are clearly just a coverup for the gay stuff!”

Andalite society is canonically sexist, a bit exceptionalist and prejudiced in their own favor, and pretty contradictory and often challenged internally on its own norms. In essence, it’s a pretty ordinary society, and they’re really realistic as sci-fi races go. It makes sense from that perspective that Andalites would tolerate scarring or a lost stalk eye or a lost skull eye, but not tolerate serious injuries that significantly impact your perceived quality of life. Ableism is like that - it’s not one-size-fits-all. I look at Ax’s reactions and I see a lot of my own family and friends’ behaviors - this vibes with my understanding of prejudice, you know?

“Mertil and Gafinilan have a tragic ending, which means the story is saying that being gay dooms you to tragedy!”

Mertil and Gafinilan have the best possible ending that they could ask for? They are victims of the war, they are suffering because of the war, they get the same cocktail of trauma and damage that every other soldier gets. But unlike Jake and Tobias and Marco, unlike Elfangor, unlike Aximili? Their ending comes in peace, in their own home. Gafinilan isn’t dying alone, he’s got the love of his life with him. Mertil isn’t going to be as isolated anymore, he’s got Marco for a friend. Animorphs is a tragedy, it’s not a happy story, it’s not something that guarantees a beautiful sunshine-and-roses ending for everyone, and I love tragedy, and so I will fight for this story. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it deserved better. But it’s not less meaningful just because it’s sad. Nobody is entitled to anything in this book, and it’s just as true for these two as it is for anyone else.

“It’s not cool that the only canonically gay characters in this series don’t get to be happy and trauma-free and unblemished Good Rep!”

This is one I can kind of understand, and I’ll give some ground to it, because it is sucky. The only thing I’ll say is that I stand by my argument that nothing that happens to Mertil and Gafinilan is unusual compared to what happens to the rest of the cast, and that their ending is way happier than Rachel and Tobias’s, or Jake and Cassie’s. But it’s a legitimate point of frustration, and the one argument I’ll say I agree has validity.

(Though, I also want to point out that I think there are plenty of equally queercoded characters in the story who aren’t Mertil and Gafinilan - Tobias, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco all get at least one or two moments that signal to me that they’re potentially LGBT+, not to mention Mr. Tidwell and Illim in #29 and their long-term domestic partnership. There’s no reason to assume that the only queer people here are those two aliens when Marco’s descriptions of Jake exist.)

“Marco uses slurs and reduces Gafinilan’s whole identity to his illness!”

Technically, yes, this is true, except putting it that way strips the whole passage of its context. Marco is discussing the boxes society puts you into, the ones you don’t have a choice about facing or escaping. He’s talking about negative stereotypes and reductive generalizations, he’s referring to them as bad things that you get inflicted upon you by an outside world or by friends who don’t know the whole story or the real you. The slurs he uses are real slurs that get thrown at people still, and they’re not okay, and the point is that they’re not okay but assholes are going to call you by them anyway. He ends by saying “you just have to learn to live with it”, and since this is coming from a fifteen-year-old Latino kid who we know is picked on by bullies for all sorts of reasons and who faces racism and homophobia? He knows what he’s talking about. He’s bitter about what’s been said and done, he’s not stating it like it’s a good thing.

Yes, absolutely, this speech is a product of its time, but it’s a product of its time that speaks of defiance and says “We aren’t what we’re said to be,” and in the year this was published? That’s a good message.

tl;dr The Other is good, actually, and Mertil and Gafinilan are incredible characters who deserve all the love they could possibly get.

#animorphs #animorphs meta #mertil/gafinilan #mertil #gafinilan #mertil-iscar-elmand #gafinilan-estrif-valad

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starglow-xx · 3 years

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hello! may i request headcanons for chuuya having a crush on someone who's dense? like he could ask them out in the most straightforward way possible and it would still go over their head?

yes, yes of course you may!

sorry this took so long! my computer was out of commission for abt a week (or two..??)

but this is also my birthday writing piece for chuuya!! (4/29/21) i even added a small drabble thingy in addition to the hcs for the occasion hehe

from where i am, it is about fifteen minutes past midnight so it’s officially chuuya day here!!

happy birthday chuuya i love you! you deserve the whole world and everyone is willing to fight tooth and nail to ensure your happiness! we love you! 💗💗

anyways, i hope you all enjoy this! i kinda had some writer’s block but it was still a lot of fun to write! there might be some mistakes, but i’ll scan over it again later. reader is gender neutral! have fun!

chuuya having a crush on a dense! reader

nakahara chuuya x gn! reader

im cackling somebody help him

he’s frustrated bc you can’t take a hint or a thousand but he can’t even be mad bc he’s whipped

“look at you all dressed up today, wanna go out later? my treat?”

“oh really? thanks chuuya-san! you’re such a nice friend. i’ll go invite the others right now, i’ll see you later!”

“...”

fast forward to later in the evening and he finds himself at a little restaurant with the black lizard + higuchi and akutagawa

sigh

in unison all of them go, “thank you for the meal chuuya-san!” (except aku and hirotsu are quieter & and gin just a nods hehe)

“no problem” (ꐦ ´͈ ᗨ `͈ )

gin only pats him on the back in sympathy

he spends a lot of time trying to think of ways to make it absolutely and undeniably clear that he has feelings for you

he always fails

“(y/n) i like you”

“i like you too chuuya-san”

“really?”

“mhm”

“t-then will you—”

“you’re a really great friend! and superior too”

“...nevermind”

“oh were you saying something?”

“nah, just forget about it”

tachihara is laughing in the corner of the corridor

dont worry, chuuya made sure to get back at him

chuuya’s been pinning after you for years and frankly, his failed attempts to woo you has lead everyone to the breaking point

and i mean everyone

yes, even aku

hell even dazai

but dazai also thinks it’s funny, so he doesn’t mind all that much

okay bye bye dazai-san this headcanon set isn’t abt you rn

PLEASE EVERYONE FEELS SO BAD FOR HIM

they knew even if he kissed you, you still might not get it

so they decided to help him

super secret mission get chuuya and (y/n) together is a go!

they’re still working on a proper mission name, don’t mind them

they had a super secret strategy meeting!

you can bet your ass that they nearly got nothing done

akutagawa & kaiji weren’t much help, neither was higuchi, mori, or elise

tachihara nearly got killed for a thoughtless comment

“just tell them chuuya-san!”

“i already fucking did you ass!”

gin, hirotsu, and kouyou were the most helpful !!

hirotsu and kouyou both agreed on the idea that chuuya should try courting with bouquets of flowers instead of flat out asking you bc they knew you found them pretty

(even if you don’t identify as a female, flowers are for everyone no matter gender or sexuality! so let’s normalize giving flowers to everyone <33 )

gin didn’t speak but she used cards to communicate

everyone knew that you weren’t stupid (you wouldn’t have survived in the mafia if you were) but they did know that you were only stupid when it came to all this lovey dovey stuff

i mean, if chuuya gave you flowers every so often, there’s no way that you wouldn’t piece it together at some point

right...??

but kouyou assured him that even though you wouldn’t get it right away, you’d appreciate the gestures and that he’ll stand out more

she even said that if someone gave her flowers, she would appreciate it, whether or not she reciprocated their feelings

it takes guts to be so up front with your feelings after all

gin and hirotsu only nodded with her explanation

once again, this only provoked a reaction out of tachihara

“what do you know gin? i get the old man and kouyou-san, they’re grown, but you? what do you know abt courting? or flowers? what are you a girl?”

akutagawa choked on his cough, higuchi on air, and on the other side of yokohoma at the ada, dazai is cackling

yes, dazai somehow placed a listening device onto chuuya’s hat and was listening in

don’t ask how, it’s dazai

“DAZAI GET YOUR BANDAGED ASS OFF THE COUCH AND STOP LAUGHING”

anyways

the next day, chuuya did what was barely discussed and for once, things actually started to look up

until they started look to down again

at first, it actually looked like you understood his intentions after he gave you a bouquet of flowers

literally everyone was leaning against the opposite hallway you two were in and then they got excited !!

especially chuuya !

but then your expression sort of changed...??

and then in their heads they simultaneously went, “oh no”

they knew that expression

it was very familiar when you tended to friend zone chuuya

but boy let me tell you what you said next made them facepalm and or make their jaws drop

“ah, so you really are friend zoning me huh chuuya-san; what a shame, i really did like you”

LEMME TELL YOU WHEN I SAY THAT CHUUYA WAS DISTRESSED I MEAN HE WAS DISTRESSED

you liked him??

him of all people??

he wasn’t complaining, no of course not, but he still couldn’t believe it

but that wasn’t what he was really focusing on right now

what in any form or language did it say he was friend zoning you?!

flower language apparently

chuuya chose to buy the bouquet of yellow roses, pink carnations, and yellow carnations bc he thought you would appreciate the brighter colors, and so that you’d remember them better (because remembering them, meant remembering him)

but ooh boy

altogether, they meant the exact opposite message he wanted to send

someone help him pls

“you see chuuya-san, yellow roses mean friendship, pink carnations mean gratitude, and yellow carnations mean rejection; sooo in a nutshell, these pretty much say ‘thank you for being my friend, but im rejecting you”

no one can tell if tachihara is crying or wheezing

and dazai is having the time of his life

yes, he started listening in on him again

and chuuya is just stunned

like speechless and unmoving stunned

is he just bad at this whole courting/dating thing?? it’s only been one day and of it and somehow he was the one doing the rejecting??

“thank you for the flowers chuuya-san, i’ll be going now; i’ll make sure to let this affect our friendship. i’ll see you tomorrow!”

you passed by the not so subtle group of people

“tachihara-kun..?? are you alright?”

just for context, he was leaning his forehead against the wall using his forearm

again, it was hard to tell whether he was crying or wheezing

“i-im okay (y/n)-san...i think c-chuuya-san has it worse than me”

“...okay..?”

BACK TO CHUUYA

he’s still frozen poor baby

but it’s okay bc after like 5 more seconds he’s chasing you down the hallway you were walking in

kouyou, with a knowing smile on her face, ushers everyone away towards the opposite direction

she received some whines (ahem, tachihara and mori) but silenced them by summoning golden demon

but it’s okay

if they run fast enough, they can see what happens through the security cameras

chuuya caught up with you and tried to explain everything but he was exhausted

emotionally, physically (bc since when did you walk that fast??), and generally just tired with the whole situation

he just wanted to call you his; was that too much to ask??

as explosive as he can be, he can be calm and collected too

and he really did try to be that way as he talked with you but it was very difficult at the moment

the dumbfounded and confused look on your face his face twitch with annoyance and his heart started beating faster bc god you were cute

BUT THATS BESIDES THE POINT RIGHT NOW

thank goodness after what seemed like years, you finally somewhat understood what happened

you didn’t understand completely but it was something

The two of you stood in the middle of the unusually empty hallway facing each other, you with the bouquet still in hand. It was quiet as you and Chuuya assessed the situation.

You looked at him skeptically and he stared right back you with his gorgeous blue eyes.

“...So you do like me Chuuya-san??”

“Yes”

“And you were trying to court me just now, not friend zone me??”

“Yes”

You got most of your questions out of the way, but there was something that you’ve been wondering about for quite a while.

“...So you’re not gay for Dazai-san??”

“Yes, im not wait—GAY FOR DAZAI?? THAT MACKEREL??”

Chuuya did a double take. What in heavens name made it seem like he liked that suicidal maniac?? Why would he choose him if he had you?

Like he would choose him anyways; or ever consider him as a possible romantic partner.

“Oh, so you are?”

“NO! I SAID I LIKED YOU DIDN’T I?”

“Well yeah, but I thought you liked Dazai-san too. As annoying as he is, he can be quite charming—”

He was out of patience at this point (nope definitely not because you were talking about Dazai who told you that?) and just decided to kiss you.

You immediately melted into the kiss and kissed him back with the same amount of love and feeling.

Letting the bouquet fall to the ground, you wrapped you arms around his neck and his put his on your lower back and brought you closer to him. After a few more moments, the two of you broke apart for air.

The two of you, slightly out of breath, leaned your foreheads against each other and just basked in each others presence.

Chuuya looked into your (e/c) eyes and asked you just a little bit above a whisper, “Now do you get my intentions and feeling?”

You blinked at him before breaking out into a grin, “Hmm I’m not sure; do you wanna do that again Chuuya?”

The red head only blinked back at you before rolling his eyes, a smile present on his handsome features, his heart fluttering at you using his name with the honorific.

“Dumbass”

Smiling cheekily at him, you pressed a kiss on his cheek and started dragging him towards the lobby to take a walk around the building perimeter, knowing that the two of you can’t be too far from work.

The way down to the lobby was mostly in comfortable silence until you said something that made Chuuya want to bash his head against the wall.

“You know, you could’ve just told me you liked me Chuuya. It’s not like I would’ve said no.”

Once again, as the rest of the more power mafia members watch from security cameras, it is hard to tell whether Tachihara is crying or wheezing of laughter.

omake !!

The two of you just started making your way around the building when suddenly a very familiar voice came from Chuuya’s prized hat.

“Chuuyaaaa!! It was about time you stopped being a chicken, Chibi!”

Removing his hat from his head, he started yelling at it not knowing exactly where the listening device was planted.

“TEME! HOW DID YOU—”

“And (y/n)! I would congratulate you, but I think I would rather offer you my condolences. Why him?! He’s just a slimy slug. OOH OOH how would you like to join me in a double suicide?! A shame it won’t be a lover’s suicide but it’ll annoy Chuuya so I think it’ll be worth it! ”

“YOU—”

“And please don’t kiss while I’m listening in. You made me lose my appetite! And it was such a shame! I was eating crab using Kunikida-kun’s money! Do you know what you’ve cost me?!”

“DAZAI YOU PIECE OF—”

“Ah! Kunikida-kun is here! I have to go!”

You can hear something is the background that vaguely sounds like, “DAZAI YOU WASTE OF BANDAGES STOP USING MY MONEY”

“DAZAI DON’T YOU DARE LEAVE IM NOT DONE WITH—”

*Click!*

The click sound from the hat revealed that Dazai disconnected.

Chuuya twitched and glared furiously at his signature hat hating that the voice he hated the most came out of it.

“Aww, I didn’t get to talk to Dazai-san”

Chuuya whipped his head towards you, a look of mock (or real) betrayal showing on his features.

You laughed at him before taking the hat out of his hands and placing it on his head.

He shyly looked away before muttering a thanks making you smile wider. Just as the two of you were about to start walking, a small explosion erupted from his hat; it was likely that Dazai made the listening device self destruct.

“DAZAI YOU BASTARDD”

At the Armed Detective Agency, a certain suicidal maniac hid from the wrath of his current partner as he thought about the wrath his old one.

“Hmmm I wonder if Chuuya would finally stop wearing his ugly hats if I blow all of them up...”

as always, reblogs and shares are appreciated! i hope you all stay safe! and just in case nobody told you they loved you today, i love you! you are enough! <3

writing belongs to me! please do not plagiarize! the reblog button is there for a reason

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booksarelife-stuff · 3 years

Text

our secret moments in a crowded room

Jily (James Potter/Lily Evans), minor Wolfstar (Remus Lupin/Sirius Black)

My entry for the September Jily Challenge! @jilychallenge

Prompt: I tripped on the red carpet and you caught me

Partner was the amazing @kates836! Thank you for being an amazing partner!

In a fake PR relationship with Severus Snape, Lily can’t help be distracted by the real person who has her heart.

Word Count: 4,077

Read of Ao3 Masterlist

The car took a sharp left and Lily tried to stabilize herself so she didn’t touch Severus, who was sitting beside her. She made eye contact with Mary, who was sitting in the passenger seat. Mary shot her the millionth apologetic look.

Lily glanced back down at her phone, just in time to see a reply to the picture that she had sent of her in her dress.

Ahdjsfhkjdsf I can’t breathe. How dare you send this to me right before I walk out on the red carpet.

She smiled widely down at her phone.

I don’t know how I’m going to function with you that close and can’t do anything about it.

She smiled faltered for a second, because yeah, that was truly going to be torture for her too.

I’m about to go out. I can’t wait to see you.

Lily bit her lip before typing a reply.

If you think this dress looks good on me now, wait until you take it off.

The message bubbles appeared instantly and Lily’s smile turned smug.

You shouldn’t have said that. I’m going to think about it all night now. Love you

Love you too

She locked her phone and handed it to Mary, who would be holding all of her personal items for the rest of the night. Severus sighed deeply beside her and Lily tried not to roll her eyes.

If Lily had it her way, she’d be arriving with a very different date. But Lily didn’t have a choice. What the studio wanted, the studio got. Including a semi-fake relationship with her co-star, Severus Snape.

They had just finished filming the final season of their wildly popular show, The Hollow Hour. The show definitely didn’t need this kind of press to be successful, but Lily still didn’t have a choice in the matter, considering she had already booked a leading role in another one of their shows.

On-screen, Lily and Snape played Tara and Gideon, characters who had been in love since they were children and fighting in a war where they possibly wouldn’t make it out. Off-screen, Lily could hardly stand the presence of Snape.

It didn’t start out that way. When they’d first met, Lily had thought he was pretty cool. The show had been her first big break, as she had only done television guest appearances before then. Snape had a few movies under his belt, one of which was super popular. Their friendship had started out as his kind of giving her direction when it came to the whole fame thing.

Then, it got a little invasive. He would just be in her trailer, coming in without knocking. He started asking for more date-like hangouts. His disgusting political beliefs started coming out through their conversations and his apparent hatred for their co-star, Remus Lupin because he was openly gay. And he started acting as she owed him something, especially since the show took off.

The rumors had started before Lily realized that Snape was the creep that he was. People saw them pining on screen and going out for the occasional drink after a long day when Lily could still stand him and suddenly, people thought they were in love.

It had been a real nuisance in Lily’s life. Every interview, she tried to squash the rumors, whereas Snape would encourage them. It didn’t help that the show got popular, like really insane amounts of popularity. The character shipping took a sharp left turn into people shipping them.

Snily, they called them. From fanfiction to edits and art to covers of glossy magazines. It was everywhere. No matter if Lily was doing interviews from one of her movies, they would ask about Snape.

And since Lily was some sort of a masochist, she knew exactly what the fans thought of their relationship. They thought Lily denied the relationship because she was very private about her life, and Snape would never say it outright because he wanted to respect her but also wanted the world to know that she is his.

It didn’t help that Snape had accumulated a very dedicated fanbase. Like worship-the-ground-he-walked-on kind of dedication. To the point where Lily would get occasional death threats because she was “hurting him by denying their relationship.”

They never seemed to believe Lily when she said no, much like Snape and their studio. Lily couldn’t flat out deny the relationship in interviews anymore until after the final episode. It made her want to dry heave.

The car was slowing, and Lily could hear the buzz of fans and reporters. They were in the queue now for the red carpet. Mary unbuckled and twisted around in the seat, doing a final check of Lily’s hair and make-up.

Lily smoothed down her green satin dress, her legs bent awkwardly to not crease the dress and also not puncture the fabric with her stiletto pumps. Lily’s after-party dress was hanging up in the back, but Lily didn’t know if she was actually going to attend.

It had taken her a long time to feel beautiful at these types of events. Being considered plus size in this industry felt like a death sentence, especially since Lily refused to play the “funny fat friend” or anything like that. But she felt good tonight, especially with the way it hugged her curves and the bit of cleavage showed.

Severus looked like himself, just in a suit. His greasy hair was covered in dry shampoo and tucked behind his ears. He turned towards Lily and smiled like a cat who got the cream.

“We could make this real, you know?” he said, for probably the millionth time. “You and I would work.”

Lily tried not to crinkle her nose in disgust. “Severus,” she said. “You know I have no interest in that.”

There had been many times where Lily wished she could speak her mind and rip him a new one, but she could not get branded as a diva. So, she played off these uncomfortable moments with a laugh and polite words, even when she was telling him no for the millionth time.

She saw the corner of his lips turn down in a slight frown and averted her eyes to stare straight ahead.

The voices outside got louder and suddenly the car was stopping. Mary jumped out of the car quickly as Lily unbuckled. Moody, Lily’s driver, and bodyguard, also got out quickly to open Lily’s door.

She had to take Moody’s hand to step out. She wobbled when she shifted her weight to her high heels but quickly corrected herself. She was going to have blisters for weeks after tonight. Mary appeared from the other side of the car, hands already straightening Lily’s dress.

They were covered from the cameras here, so no one saw Mary make sure Lily’s breasts were firmly taped into the dress. The low cut of the dress required her boobs to be placed perfectly and one slip would probably cost Lily her career. That’s why Lily had Mary, her best friend since they were children and who now worked as her PA. The back of the dress was practically nonexistent and her long auburn waves tickled her with every movement.

Mary quickly batted away one of her dark coily curls that snuck out of its bun before giving Lily a once over.

“You look gorgeous,” she said, smiling. “He’s not going to want to take his eyes off of you.”

Lily gave her a real smile and a quick hug before stepping away to get around the car where Severus was surely waiting. She already had her red carpet smile on and tried not to pay attention to the up and down look Severus was giving her.

Severus reached out his arm to escort Lily, but Lily walked past it. They said they had to arrive together, not actually walk together. Mary let out a snort of laughter as she followed Lily out to the carpet—to walk with Lily but hidden away.

The lights were blinding as Lily walked out on the carpet. Cameras flashing every second, people yelling questions at her. Lily was now a pro at this, after so many years of practice. The screams intensified, signaling Snape was now making his appearance.

Lily moved slowly down the carpet, making sure her smile stayed in place. Towards the end of her walk, Snape did sneak up on her, wrapping an arm around her waist taking extra care to let his fingers drag against her bare skin. She fought to not recoil away from him.

She smiled and laughed though she wanted to push him away.

The entrance to Royal Albert Hall was full of reporters and cameras. Lily never really minded this part of the red carpet because most of the time it was just questions like “who are you wearing?” or the occasional fun game with whatever fledgling media company had weaseled reporters in.

Lily was heading towards the first available reporter, a young woman who was smiling widely as Lily approached. But a familiar head of dark curls caught her eye, and she couldn’t help the way her attention turned immediately that way.

It had been six weeks since her boyfriend of three years had touched her. Six weeks since she had felt the indentation of him next to her in bed, felt his warmth, had him within her fingertips.

And James looked so good, it made Lily want to pull him away and find the nearest secluded spot. The way his tailored suit hugged the angles of his body, the body that she knew like it her own.

She could feel her heart start pounding in her chest, and she hoped the cameras weren’t picking up the way her hands were shaking.

“Lily Evans!” the young reporter cheered. “How are you on this fine evening?”

“I’m doing great,” Lily said, smiling and resisting the urge to look at James.

“So, you arrived with rumored beau and co-star, Severus Snape,” the reporter cheered. “Care to confirm anything?”

Lily fake laughed. “We just carpooled. Better for the environment.”

The girl’s face tightened a bit, but the reporter knew better than to press.

Lily answered her questions with ease. Who was she wearing? Did she feel good about her role as a presenter? What was she going to do after the final season of The Hollow Hour?

Once the interview concluded, she turned to go to the next reporter.

But there was James, looking at her with a slight smile on his lips. His dark brown eyes did a quick once over of her, appraising her every curve quickly. And goddamn, he wore his glasses instead of his contacts, reminding Lily of the quiet moments in her flat where they were tangled together, his glasses pushing into her face. His normal frizzy curls were more defined thanks to whatever hair product his stylist made him use. His brown skin was as flawless as ever, glowing in the camera flashes in the fading day.

It couldn’t have been more than a moment where their eyes met, but it was enough to thoroughly distract Lily to the point of missing the small bump in the carpet. Her shoe caught and the sensation of falling happened before she felt strong arms catch her.

“Are you okay?” James asked as Lily’s world steadied in his arms, the concern in his eyes.

Lily felt her cheeks redden, both from the embarrassment of tripping on the red carpet and the fact that she was in James’s arms. She nodded but when she stepped back, her right shoe gave out.

She moved away from James’s arms, but took his hand, their fingers clasping each other, to keep her balance as she lifted her dress up to see the heel completely snapped off.

“Well, that’s great,” she said with a laugh. James laughed with her. She wobbled for a second and James’s hand grabbed her side to steady her, his fingers making her burn.

Lily couldn’t help but smile softly at him as Mary appeared, getting on her knees in front of Lily, urging her to turn slightly. She let go of James’s hand and used his shoulder to keep her balance as Mary undid the straps on Lily’s shoes. Mary, who was definitely getting a raise after this, took off her own black kitten heels and gave them to Lily.

She was now several inches shorter and her dress dragged a bit on the ground, but it was better than no shoes at all.

“I owe you my life,” Lily told Mary, who smiled in response. Lily didn’t miss the way she gave James a glance and then a teasing smile back to her. She turned back to James. “Thank you so much.”

“No problem,” he replied. “I’ll see you around?”

She wanted to say that she would see him tonight, preferably with no clothes, but she just smiled and nodded in response.

As she let go and James stepped away, the last thing on her mind was the cameras catching every moment.

~~~

To Lily’s detriment, her manager had called Mary to tell Lily that she had to be seen at the after-party with Snape.

Lily tried not to recoil at Severus’s hand on her lower back as he led her to the after-party. The cameras were blinding against the darkness of the night, but Lily let herself be led into the venue, Moody doing his best to push back against the raging crowd.

The venue only had a few selective members of the press inside, but it was little enough that it put all the celebrities at ease. There was no real food, just snacks because seeing your favorite movie star get sloshed would sell magazines and get them trending on Twitter.

Lily’s stomach growled. She couldn’t remember the last full meal she had.

Severus kept a firm hand on her back. She smiled and laughed at the right times as they talked with winners from the night. A live band started and Lily’s ears rang with the loud music. She kept knocking back glasses of champagne because at least the buzz would take the edge off the hungry looks in Severus’s eyes and make her not recoil when he tried to whisper in her ear.

Her saving grace came in the form of Remus Lupin somewhere south of midnight.

She came back from the loo and purposefully walked away from where she knew Severus was waiting. The alcohol was thrumming through her veins, and she felt light. Her shoes—or Mary’s shoes—had been kicked off long ago, and she was stumbling through the crowds of famous people.

Remus stood at the picked-over snack table, probably looking for any scraps of leftover chocolate. He had been Lily’s co-star since day one and her favorite to boot. Severus hated him, mostly because Lily liked him more, but also because he was openly gay and in a long-term relationship with the model, Sirius Black, who Snape also hated.

Remus had been the reason she and James met. She also knew that where Remus was, Sirius wasn’t far, and if Sirius wasn’t far, neither was James.

And she wanted to see James more than anything.

“Boo,” she said, poking Remus’s side. The man jumped, almost dropping his chocolate-covered strawberry.

“Bloody hell, Evans,” he said. Lily laughed, already feeling better. She clumsily picked up a biscuit and took a bite.

“How’s your night been going?” she asked. Remus let out an amused huff.

“Same old, same old,” he said. “You?”

Lily didn’t respond and Remus laughed, knowing exactly how her night had been going. They grabbed a few more snacks and Lily proceeded to follow him, hoping that he would lead her to the person she needed to see.

James was sitting at a table across from Sirius, and Lily’s heart immediately started beating rapidly. His suit jacket and tie were gone, just leaving him in his tight white button-up. The top buttons were undone, hinting at his chest that Lily knew better than the back of her own hand.

The sluggish haze of the alcohol in her system reminded her of when they first met. It had been at The Hollow Hour season one wrap party, and Remus had invited James and Sirius. He had caught her eye from across the room, the curly black hair and glasses were a dangerous combination for Lily, especially with the dark jeans that had hugged his very nice arse. She was so nervous that she had had to take a shot before she walked over to have Remus introduce her.

She had taken him home and when she woke up in the morning, recovering from the best sex she had ever had in her life, she found him making breakfast for her.

He stayed the whole weekend.

Then they texted non-stop and started having dates, sitting in Lily’s apartment with take-away and cheesy movies.

And here they were, three years later, hopelessly in love, and pretending that they weren’t because her stupid television show needed promoting.

It hadn’t been meant to be a secret for so long. In the beginning, they just wanted to figure each other out without all the press breathing down their necks. It’s just how it all happened.

It wasn’t like the important people in their lives didn’t know. Their parents and most trusted friends did. And they already decided that once the whole thing with Snape stopped, they were going to go public because they wanted to move in together and finally go on real dates.

Lily saw the way he perked up when he saw her. A small smile on his lips, his shoulders moving back. There was a moment when Lily could have sworn that there were no other people in the room until someone bumped into her.

She slid into the booth beside him, not caring about how dangerous that was, especially when their legs touched.

“Hey,” he said, his deep voice tugging at her in a way she missed while he was gone.

“Hey,” she replied. She could tear her eyes away from him and she didn’t know if she wanted to, either.

“Bloody hell,” Sirius said, not even jarring the couple. “Get out of here before you start shagging on the table.”

James raised his eyebrows in question, which Lily answered with a smile. He reached down for his pockets.

“I’m texting Moody,” he said.

Anticipation pooled in her stomach and as she grabbed another biscuit to eat because it was something to do, her hands shook. James placed his hands on Lily’s thigh and she couldn’t think of anything else until he leaned over and told her that Moody said it was all clear.

Even in her drunk state, she located her shoes and practically sprinted to the back door where Moody was waiting.

There were a few paparazzi pictures taken as Lily quickly hopped into the back of the SUV and Moody got into the driver’s seat. He handed her her small bag that had her phone in it that Mary had been carrying. She was too excited to even get her phone out as Moody did two laps around the block before pulling right back into the same spot.

The second James jumped in and the door was closed, Lily was on him. She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him to her, meeting their lips in a deep, but sloppy kiss. Lily kicked her legs up onto his lap and pulled him down as laid down the best she could in the back seat. James laughed a little against her lips, causing Lily to pull away and laugh too.

“Next year, we’re going to this together,” she said, opening her eyes to see him in whatever light that shone in from the windows. She got flashes of his eyes and his wide smile as she sat up, still keeping her legs on her.

“Absolutely,” he replied, pressing a light kiss to her lips. “And we’re going to still traumatize Moody on the way home.”

Said man let out a snort. “No, I’m getting a divider.”

Lily barely remembers the rest of the car ride and getting to her flat. All she remembers is the taste of James’s lips and the feeling of his hands on her.

~~~

The blaring noise of a phone call is what made Lily wake up. She jumped violently, kicking James in the process, who let out a pained groan as Lily disentangled herself from him to be able to reach her nightstand to turn off the god-forsaken ear-splitting sound.

Her hand smacked into the nightstand, but her phone wasn’t there. She realized it must be James’s.

She nudged him and he groaned, but she could feel him move around in the bed. Finally, it stopped and James spoke.

“Hello?” he fell silent. “What are you talking about?”

Lily, who was already falling asleep again, opened her eyes at his tone and suddenly, he was shaking her.

“I’ll call you back Sirius,” James said as Lily sat up.

He hung up the call and threw his phone down on the bed. He tugged at his hair as Lily watched him with wide eyes.

“They know about us,” he said.

“What?” Lily exclaimed, reaching for his phone.

She typed in the passcode and saw the million phone calls from his manager and publicist. She opened Twitter, and right there, trending number one, was a still of James’s arm around her when she broke her shoe.

"Lily Evans, caught in a love triangle."

"Actress Lily Evans and actor James Potter are rumored to have left the BAFTA after-party together despite Evans arriving with Severus Snape."

She clicked on the first article while her stomach soured.

"Lily Evans and Severus Snape have long been rumored to have been dating, but last night’s events have seemingly squashed the rumors for good."

The article went into detail about the rumors between Lily and Severus, before finally getting to last night.

"James Potter, actor, best known in his role on the popular historical drama "Mountainside Valley', was able to catch Evans on the red carpet when her shoe broke. The footage from the cameras that were rolling by the pair has been released.

According to sources, the two are familiar with each other. Lily’s co-star, Remus Lupin is both friends with Potter and is even dating his adoptive brother Sirius Black, so we can speculate that they have met before. Based on the videos, they do seem to be familiar with each other.

What really solidified the relationship between the two actors comes from an unknown source who attended the after-party. 'She sat next to him and then a few minutes later, they left.'

Fans seem to be having a lot of mixed reactions to Evan’s alleged actions.

@snapewife45346 wrote: 'ALL LILY HAS EVER DONE IS HURT HIM. HE NEEDS TO LEAVE HER ASS FOR GOOD!!'

@snnnily394 on Twitter wrote: 'i don’t think it’s true. She would never do that to him.'

@taraisgod wrote: 'They have never said they’re in a relationship, you all are just projecting. Let her be happy!!'

@mountainbaddie wrote: 'Evans UPGRADED'

Lily set down James’s phone, unable to do anything else. She met his eyes and took a deep breath.

Her gut reaction was that it sucked. It sucked that they didn't come out on their own terms. The studio was probably pissed, or maybe they thought the bad press was good press.

But as she looked at James, sitting beside her on his side of the bed, the bed he only rarely got to occupy these days, she realized that maybe it was a blessing.

“We could deny it,” James said, a frown tugging at his lips. “Say that we’re best friends if you think that’s what the studio would want.”

Lily shook her head. “I don’t want you like a best friend. I don’t want to deny myself of you anymore.”

He smiled, soft and sweet. Lily yanked the bedsheets off of herself and crawled over to him, straddling his legs. She was only wearing a pair of knickers and one of his t-shirts. His hands immediately snuck up the shirt and caressed her hips, his thumbs teasing her panties.

“Joint statement?” he asked, as Lily leaned in. She kissed him soundly.

“In a minute,” she said, kissing him again.

#jilychallenge #jily challenge #jily fic #jily fanfic #James Potter/Lily Evans #James x Lily #James Potter #Lily Evans #Lily Evans Potter #Harry Potter fanfic #hp #marauders era #minor wolfstar #Remus Lupin #Sirius Black #celebrity au #secret relationship #established relationship

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spencers-renaissance · 3 years

Text

you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy

Summary: Spencer's gay. He joins the BAU and befriends the team, but it is 2003. It's a secret he has to keep. He just didn't expect it to be this hard.

Tags: gay!spencer, coming out, hurt/comfort, insecure!spencer, misunderstandings, angst with a happy ending, dad hotch, protective!hotch, protective!derek, childhood trauma TW: one instance of explicit homophobia, but it is referenced a lot, as is Spencer's internalised homophobia at the start of this fic. A shit ton of heteronormativity but tbh that's just canon lol

Pairing: Spencer Reid/OMC, Spencer Reid & Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid & Aaron Hotchner, The BAU Team & Spencer Reid

Word Count: 6k

Masterlist // Read on AO3

Consider this my contribution to pride month 😌 I've waited so long to post it and I'm so glad I'm finally doing it because it's definitely one of my all time favourites <3 Gideon is here somewhere but just like with all my early season fics he's not really part of the plot I combined my moreid and gen taglists bc it was hard to know the audience for this, but just ignore it if you're not interested!

you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy, unless he keeps his mouth shut, which is what you didn’t do, because you are weak and hollow and it doesn’t matter anymore. — richard siken, a primer for the small weird loves

Spencer has only told one person in his whole life.

His mother guessed. For as long as he can remember, she’s used gender neutral pronouns when talking about his future partner, read him all the gay literature she could find, promised him that he’s perfect just the way he is.

The trouble is that Spencer only believes her until the first grade, when Ryan Sampson shoves him over in the playground and calls him gay. His mom had only ever used that term in a sweet, loving way, taking care to associate such words with positivity, as long as his dad wasn’t around to hear. When that word comes out of Ryan Sampson’s mouth, it is not said with sweetness and love; it is said with venom, and Spencer learns quickly that his mom is wrong. He is not perfect just the way he is.

And so, he keeps it a secret. When his mom notices him getting uncomfortable at the mention of future partners, she stops bringing it up, though she refuses to give up the diverse education she provides for him outside of school. His dad tells him that one day he’ll be a strapping young man and marry a nice girl in a church, and Spencer nods along. He ignores the way his stomach turns with anxiety at the thought. Ignores the screaming match his parents have that night. Ignores the fact that it started because Diana chipped in with ‘or boy’.

He’s in high school by the time he’s twelve, and the only part he’s grateful for is the absence of pressure to get a girlfriend. His dad’s out of the picture now, and Spencer tries not to let himself think that maybe if he wasn’t like this he might have stayed. Diana’s so out of it most days that she doesn’t remember what she noticed about him when he was a child, only recalling the last few years of shoving himself so far back in the closet he can hardly see the door anymore.

It feels like he’s lost his last ally.

(He hates that a small part of him feels relieved she doesn’t remember; that he almost feels assured by the fact that the last person to know who he really is has forgotten. There is only this version of Spencer Reid now. No other exists.)

He makes the mistake during his second undergraduate degree. He’s just turned eighteen but he is already a doctor and, fortunately, this alienates him from most of his peers, but someone manages to slide past his defences. Ethan Miller is twenty, in the second year of his (first) undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering, and he’s nice. Spencer doesn’t have a lot of experience with friendship, but they get on well and Ethan makes him laugh. For the first time, he feels comfortable in the presence of anyone other than his mother.

They slip into an easy friendship: waiting for each other after class — Spencer back in the undergraduate buildings now he has his first PhD under his belt — and going out for ice cream and pizza and Thai food. Ethan goes to parties while Spencer studies, and then they reconvene to watch Doctor Who and play cards.

For almost a year, Spencer keeps his secret carefully locked up, hidden behind the mask he’s perfected after so many years. Even though he’s eighteen, nearly nineteen now, he doesn’t try and explore that side of himself. No, that’s far too risky. He doesn’t try and pretend any other way either, he just stays silent and lets people’s assumptions lie for him, but he can’t help the longing that claws up his throat when he locks eyes with a passing guy on campus. One time, he’d seen two men kiss on a bench in the city, and he’d run back to his dorm and had a panic attack. Why couldn’t he have that?

The feelings don’t stop, and he doesn’t know how to make them. He hates that he isn’t normal, but still longs for the touch of a man, the feeling of being wrapped up in strong arms, of being kissed by dry, chapped lips, and falling asleep to a heartbeat approximately 11% slower than that of a woman’s.

It’s a constant battle inside him, emotions raging, and he struggles to control it, suppress it, tame it.

He pays a sorry price.

Ethan makes him feel comfortable, and that turns out to be a detriment. He relaxes around the other boy: he tells him about growing up as a pre-teen in a high school, about how a child feels living 260 miles away from home, even about his mother’s illness.

And one day, it slips out. They’re on the beach, lying on towels as they look up at the blue sky, talking about what their futures will look like: Ethan will be a successful chemical engineer in Berlin, and Spencer will work for the FBI, profiling serial killers.

“You’ll have to marry a German girl,” he tells Ethan. “It’ll be tough to convince an American girl to move all the way to Germany as soon as you graduate.”

“Yeah, and what about you? You’ll be off fighting crime around the country, not much of a life for a family.”

“Oh, I imagine my husband will be the type to—”

“Husband?”

Spencer freezes. It shocks him as much as it shocks Ethan. He doesn’t even pay much attention to Ethan’s disgusted face and his outraged tirade. He hears slurs and insults, hears him say that he can’t believe Spencer tricked him like this, that he was probably waiting to make a move on him, that he was never to look in Ethan’s direction again, but Spencer is frozen in time.

He’s never allowed him to think much about what his personal life might look like in the future, but he’d said ‘husband’ on instinct, without thinking, and it’s clearly something he actually wants. Ethan’s words sting, but the moment brings about a realisation Spencer is thankful for; it instigates a journey of self-discovery and self-expression, of the joy of living as your true self.

He loses his first and only friend, but he gains something much more valuable. He visits gay bars — nervously sipping a non-alcoholic drink in the corner at first, before soon becoming confident enough to respond to the men who sidle up to him and ask for his name. He lets go and dances the night away, sometimes going home with one of the many dance partners he acquires during the night, sometimes heading back to his own dorm happily alone.

Makeup and dresses and skirts and heels make their way into his wardrobe, and he befriends girls and drag queens and other gay men who encourage him to be exactly the way he is. And the best part is, he never has to come out to any of them. All of them know, and that’s good enough for everyone.

The fun comes to a sad sort of slow, however, when he joins the BAU. Everyone knows law enforcement’s relationship with the LGBT community is less than adequate — Spencer’s seen it with his own eyes: butch lesbians and men in dresses getting roughed up by angry police officers for ‘lewd behaviour’ or ‘drunkenness’ when they’re just being themselves. It’s not safe for him to tell anyone, so he doesn’t.

He still goes out with his friends when he’s in town and wears makeup and dresses and crop tops when he’s at home, but presents as rigidly straight Dr Spencer Reid to his team at the BAU.

The hardest part about it is that he loves his team. He’s known Gideon for years — and he wouldn’t be surprised if he suspects something after coming over to his house unannounced one night, only to have a man other than Spencer open the door — but he settles into a comforting dynamic with Hotch. He can’t help but see him as something of a father figure, and he knows Hotch has a soft spot for him, always looking out for him and taking him under his wing without a moment’s hesitation.

Elle, JJ, and Penelope all take a shine to him, too, teasing him without a hint of malice in their tones, only the kind of playful kindness that reminds him of his mother. He forms a special bond with Penelope and they spend hours watching Doctor Who together and geeking out on all the areas their interests overlap, and the comfort he feels with her matches the comfort he’s found with his new group of queer friends.

(She doesn’t hold a candle to Ethan, he decides one night, after he’d cried at a movie she’d made him watch and she felt so bad she made him hot chocolate and jam toast and cuddled him until he felt better.)

Derek becomes a brother to him. He puts him in a headlock at least once a day — which Spencer has been reliably informed by multiple sources is a very brotherly thing to do — and teases him relentlessly, while simultaneously being fiercely protective of him. Enough so, that Spencer sometimes wonders if he even has Hotch beat in that department.

He loves his team and his team loves him. It should be simple. It is still 2003.

He comes in one morning late for a briefing, his shirt buttoned wrong and his hair is a mess, and he’s fairly sure that his attempt to cover the hickey at the base of his neck with concealer has been ultimately unsuccessful. It’s obvious why he’s late. Gideon is too engrossed in the case file to notice, but Hotch raises an eyebrow, an amused look on his face as everyone else immediately takes to teasing him.

“Who’s the lucky lady, pretty boy?”

Elle raises an eyebrow to match Derek’s shit-eating grin, “Someone definitely got some strange last night.”

“When do we get to meet her, Spence?” JJ asks, smirking as he takes a seat.

He’s bright red — as if he needed to look any more debauched — and Spencer tries to ignore the hurt that seizes his chest at the reminder of his need to stay quiet. This team respects him, and he can’t throw that away just because Spencer gets too comfortable.

God, he wishes Penelope was here.

“None of your business,” he mutters, trying to keep his tone light. He fails.

Naturally, Hotch notices and swiftly moves the briefing on, and Spencer keeps his gaze locked on the case file, not missing the absence of a reprimand from his superior. He’s constantly thankful for the older man, but in this moment, he wishes he could hug him.

(A voice that sounds dangerously close to Ethan’s rises up and taunts him in his ear: he wouldn’t want a dirty homo like you anywhere near him—)

Derek doesn’t let up on the case, continuing to bug him about the special lady in his life. He does concede that it could’ve been a one night stand, which is one front he’s right on, but a couple more concessions are necessary before Derek comes close to the truth of last night.

Eventually, Derek stops, and Spencer notes that the cessation of comments comes suspiciously close to the last time Derek and Hotch were alone together. He doesn’t have it in him to feel angry at Hotch for stepping in when he had it handled; doesn’t have the energy to act as though his pride is wounded, because really, neither of those things are true, and he doesn’t need to add another item to ‘Spencer Reid’s List of Things He Pretends to Be.’

The situation is forgotten, and time moves on.

Things change when he finds his first proper boyfriend. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the giddying rush of emotions it turns out to be, and Spencer spends his days smiling as he daydreams his time away.

His name is Oscar Wilkins, a History professor at Georgetown University, and Spencer falls quickly in love with him. Ever since their mutual friend had introduced them at a gay bar one evening, they’d spent all their free time together. He’s kind and gentle and understanding of Spencer’s hectic and unpredictable job, and he finally has the chance to experience everything he quietly and shamefully longed for as a teenager.

The only downside is the silent breaking of Spencer’s heart that the most important people in his life can’t meet his boyfriend. He longs to show Oscar off, to hold hands in front of his team, lean up to press a tender kiss to Oscar’s lips. He wants to put a framed picture of the two of them at the Washington Monument on his desk to remind him of why he needs to get through the hard days; he doesn’t want to have to sneak out of the hotel room he shares with Derek to whisper hushed, loving goodnights over the phone.

But he’s too scared. Too cowardly.

It’s different being who he is with his gay group of friends littered with wlws and drag queens and other gay and bisexual guys. They understand.

But Derek and Hotch are two extremely masculine, alpha men: Derek’s a ladies’ man and Hotch is married to a woman he met in college with a baby on the way and both have a strong and dominant energy that still sometimes manages to intimidate Spencer even after all these years. And Elle and JJ are lovely — some of his closest friends, really — but sometimes they remind him a little too much of the mean girls he went to high school with.

The hardest person to keep his secret from, though, is Penelope. She’s his best friend and he desperately wants to give her all of him, but he’s so scared. He’s lost a best friend to this secret before, and even though he’s certain she’d be fine with it, what if she accidentally let it slip to Derek? What if Hotch found out and didn’t see him in the same light anymore? What if the girls started teasing him? What if Gideon didn’t want to mentor him anymore?

The fear paralyses him. And it’s a cycle he doesn’t know how to break.

Fear, though, doesn't stop everyone from noticing his daydreaming, his dopey smile when he checks his messages, his urgency to get home where he would’ve stayed until the small hours of the morning before. As excellent as he is at hiding his sexuality, he’s fucking terrible at hiding the fact that he’s in love: it was easy enough to pretend he was straight, but hiding something this all-consuming is an impossible ask.

Derek comes over to perch on the edge of his desk one afternoon, sighing as he sits down. “Pretty boy, this is getting ridiculous,” he says, snatching Spencer’s attention away from his phone. “You’ve been grinning like an idiot for the last twenty minutes as you’ve texted Future Mrs Reid. When are we going to meet her?”

(He hates the new nickname the team has given his mystery significant other, although Oscar had found it hilarious. “It’s funny because when we get married, we’ll hardly be able to tell,” he’d argued through his laughter. “Neither of us will change our name because of our academic profiles, and we’ll both still be ‘Dr’. Our wedding rings will be the only indicator.”

Spencer hadn’t argued back, because he’d been too tongue-tied and flushed pink at Oscar’s use of ‘when’ in regards to their hypothetical nuptials. It was only made bearable by Oscar kissing him gently and tucking him under his arm, not embarrassing him any further as Spencer had sort of anticipated, warmth settling over his chest at the thought of their future together.)

“You won’t,” he replies, perhaps a little too curtly.

Derek starts at that, clearly not expecting it. He definitely should’ve tried to play it off as a joke. “What— should I be offended, pretty boy?”

You wouldn’t call me that if you knew who I really am.

“That’s up to you, Derek,” he says calmly, although he still can’t meet his eyes, “but you won’t meet the ‘Future Mrs Reid, so I think it would probably be best if you left it alone.”

“Damn,” Derek mutters under his breath, clearly pissed off and probably more hurt than Spencer ever intended. “Suit yourself.”

And with that, he gets up and leaves his desk. Spencer’s only solace is the text message he sees on his phone when he picks it back up: I love you so much. You know that, right?

The light-hearted ridicule comes to an abrupt halt after the incident with Derek, and it’s clear that he had been the biggest contributor to the teasing. He’s thankful that the jokes have stopped, but he wishes desperately that it didn’t come with the growing distance between him and his team. Loneliness takes the place of his previous irritated anxiety, and he isn’t sure what’s worse.

It all comes to a head at the end of a case in Michigan. They’re stuck in the lounge of the small inn they’d stayed in the last few days, a snowstorm having blocked them in and grounded the jet, although Gideon had long since retreated to his room. The fire’s going and they’re the only guests around, so it’s cosy enough, but Spencer can’t help but feel sick at the idea of another night away from home.

It’s only been two weeks since he’d snapped at Derek, but the chasm between him and the team is only widening with each passing day. He knows it’s not a case of ‘pick a side’, but the team’s morale relies on light-hearted banter and teasing, and him not being a part of that anymore has only brewed awkwardness. Everyone’s trying to give him space when space is the last thing he wants.

Oscar’s keeping him company over the phone at least, but it’s not quite enough to quell the loneliness swimming around his stomach, and the 'discrete' sideways looks he gets from the team only make him feel worse.

“At least it’s nice and toasty in here,” JJ sighs as she takes a sip of the hot chocolate the kindly inn owner had made for them all.

Elle hums in agreement. “There are worse places to be grounded.”

“I dunno, man, I just wanna get home,” Derek says, not taking his eyes off the fire. Spencer can’t help but agree.

“Oh, come on,” Hotch muses, considerably more jovial now the case is over, “we’re here, and that’s not going to change any time soon. We should make the most of it.”

“It’s at least nice to be somewhere sort-of Christmassy now it’s December,” Elle points out. “We could be stuck in a dingy police station like we probably will be next week.”

“Ooh, I noticed that Jemimah and Kiran started planning the Christmas party last week,” JJ says, smiling at them. “I offered my help, but they seem to have it covered.”

Hotch raises an eyebrow“That’s probably a good thing. You don’t need more work on your plate.”

“Not gonna argue with that,” she murmurs, smiling as she brings her mug to her lips again.

Spencer doesn’t miss that Derek is still stewing on the opposite side of the room.

“Are you looking forward to the Christmas party, Spencer? Will you come?” Hotch asks, clearly trying to rope him into the conversation, which he appreciates. He’s been making a lot of effort with him the past few weeks, and it’s just about the only thing that’s getting him through each day.

Before he can reply, though, Derek erupts from the other side of the room; an already pissed-off man being pushed over the edge. “He won’t even let us meet his fucking girlfriend, Hotch, he’s not gonna want to come to the Christmas party!” he yells, throwing his hands in the air as he glares at Spencer with a stormy expression raging across his face.

Suddenly, Spencer can’t stay silent anymore, and his retort shocks himself just as much as it does everyone else. “I don’t have a girlfriend!”

It might be the loudest he’s ever shouted in his whole life. He’s always been quiet and restrained, the type to state his feelings as calmly as possible no matter how he’s feeling on the inside. Even in the biggest fight he’s had with Oscar, his voice was barely loud enough to qualify as a shout.

There’s a brief stunned silence, but Derek quickly slices his way through it, voice raising to meet Spencer’s fiery emotion, fierce and loud. “Oh, don’t even go there, Reid, you’re really gonna try and argue that? You’re gonna lie about her as well as not let us meet her? What a boyfriend you are.”

“I don’t! I don’t have a girlfriend!” he repeats, voice catching this time as tears rise unbidden to the backs of his eyes and all the emotions of the journey he’s taken with his sexuality over the years flood him in a wave of intensity he’s not prepared for.

“You’re fucking lying—!”

“I have a boyfriend!” he yells. “Alright? I have a boyfriend. I’m gay.”

The anger and emotion quickly dissipates, and he’s left standing alone in front of the team he’s put so much effort into hiding this from, watching shock spell out across everyone’s expressions. He’s never felt smaller than he does in that moment, and he quickly grabs his phone before running upstairs to his room, locking the door behind him.

“Oh God, Oscar, I fucked up so bad,” he cries over the phone as soon as his boyfriend picks up.

“Hey, hey, breathe, baby,” Oscar says gently, but Spencer can hear the anxious concern in his voice, “it’s gonna be okay, I promise. I’m here. Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“I just— Oh God, I just told the team.” A new wave of horror rolls over him as he realises what he’s done. Times might be changing, but it’s still only 2006, and he doesn’t know each and every nuance of his team members’ political positions and, fuck, he hates that his existence is a fucking political position.

Oscar’s been so understanding of his reluctance to not tell the team, even though Spencer’s met pretty much everyone in his life. He isn’t sure what he’s done to earn such a gracious and understanding boyfriend, but he’s not about to question it.

“Baby, I know it’s scary, and I know you’re really worked up right now,” he counsels, voice soft and reassuring, using the nickname he knows Spencer loves the most to make him feel as safe as he can from 700 miles away, “but it’s probably not as bad as you think. From what you’ve told me about the team, they love you so much, and even in the case that in the past they've had some issue with gay people, I can't imagine they’d ever actually think of you any differently when it comes down to it, Spencer.”

He’s crying too hard to reply, and Oscar understands immediately, gently transitioning into a story about his day that slowly starts to calm him down, and by the time he’s wrapping it up, his tears are starting to subside.

“Thank you, Ozzy,” he whispers into the phone, lifting himself up off the floor and making his way to sit on the bed instead.

“You know I’d do anything for you, sweetheart,” he murmurs warmly. “Do you want me to stay on the phone for a bit?”

“Yes please,” he whispers again, holding it as close to himself as possible, drawing all the comfort he can from his boyfriend’s voice.

He lies there listening to Oscar’s voice and trying not to think about the disaster downstairs for a good ten minutes before there’s a tap at the door.

“Oz, there’s someone here,” he says, voice panicked.

“I think you should probably speak to them, baby,” he urges. “I’ll stay on the phone with you while you do, if you like?”

“Please.” He gets up from the bed gingerly, keeping his phone tightly gripped in his right hand as he slowly unlocks the door with his left, revealing Hotch on the other side.

“Hey, Spencer. Do you mind if I come in?”

He’s riddled with nerves, but Hotch is smiling warmly, and he’s never said a harsh word to Spencer, so he steps aside and lets him into his room.

Hotch quickly notices the phone in his hand, visibly still on a call. “Is that your boyfriend?”

Spencer nods.

“Do you mind if I talk to him?”

His brows knit in confusion and his lips part slightly in surprise, but it’s all he can do to hand the phone over, watching Hotch carefully.

“Hi, Spencer tells me this is his boyfriend?” Hotch inquires politely into the phone, his tone still warm. “I’m Hotch, Spencer’s boss.”

He can vaguely hear Oscar speaking on the other end of the line, and he worries slightly that Oscar will somehow give away the familial feelings he holds for Hotch, but the conversation doesn’t last long enough for the anxiety to really take over.

“Everything’s fine here, I just want to have a conversation with Spencer, so is it alright if we hang up and I talk to him alone for a minute? He can call you straight back afterwards.” After a brief pause in which Oscar says something, Hotch looks back up at him. “Are you okay with that, Spencer?”

He nods hesitantly, and Hotch says a quick goodbye to Oscar before surging forwards and wrapping Spencer in a hug. It catches him off guard, but he doesn’t waste any time in burying his face into Hotch’s neck and soaking in the comfort and warmth that always radiates from his father figure.

“Come on,” Hotch says softly as they pull away a good minute or so later, “let’s sit down, shall we?”

“You’re not mad?” Spencer can’t help but ask, the question burning his tongue as anxiety — however quietened from Hotch’s hug — still swims around in his stomach.

“There are many things that could make me mad, Spencer,” he says earnestly, “but this is not one of them. I would never be angry at you for being who you are, okay? I might… I might be overstepping here, and if I am, then tell me and I’ll back off, but I’ve always seen you as a mentee, and over the years that’s developed— well, I see you more as a son these days. And part of that is wanting to protect and support you no matter what you do or say or who you are.”

Spencer wastes no time in diving back in for a hug, clinging onto Hotch for dear life as he hugs back, rubbing his back gently.

“I’m so sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell us sooner, Spencer,” he says in a voice soft with affection and regret. “But I’m so glad you’ve told us now.”

He only presses closer at that, tears springing back to his eyes. “I didn’t want to lose you.” He knows what he’s implying, and even in a roundabout way, he’s glad he’s telling Hotch.

“Oh, Spence,” he sighs sadly, “you couldn’t do a single thing to lose me. I’m in it for the long haul.”

“Really?” he asks, hating how insecure he sounds.

“Really,” Hotch promises, pulling away as Spencer does. “Now, you have a whole team of agents downstairs who are feeling very sorry for themselves and really want to see you.”

Nausea rolls in his stomach and panic springs back up as he looks at Hotch, desperate for some sort of grounding. “Are they angry at me? Do they hate me now?”

“No one hates you, Spencer,” he says firmly. “I promise you that. Everyone just wishes that they’d made you feel more welcome and comfortable. We all hate that you felt you had to lock up something so integral to who you are, and we can’t help but feel we played a part in it.”

“No,” he protests — the last thing he wants is family blaming themselves when it has nothing to do with them, “it’s not your fault, it’s just…”

Hotch nods. “I understand, it’s okay. Now, do you want to go down and see them? You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but it might help ease your mind to see that they really don’t hate you.”

Spencer pauses, taking a moment to think. “Can I see Derek first?”

“Of course,” Hotch says understandingly, and the comforting smile that crosses his face makes Spencer feel safe and taken care of. “I’ll send him up?”

Spencer nods and Hotch hugs him once more before leaving the room almost reluctantly. He wastes no time in picking up his phone and sending a text to Oscar. You were right. Hotch is fine. He’s just sending Derek up before I go and see the team but he says that no one’s angry and I think I believe him. Thank you, Oscar. I love you.

Not even half a minute goes past before his phone lights up with a text back. I’m so glad, baby. Call me later, okay? I want to make sure you’re okay before I go to bed. I love you more.

Before Spencer can argue that actually, he is the one more in love with the other, a hesitant knock sounds on his door. Nerves suddenly flip his stomach, and he clenches and unclenches his fists a couple of times before forcing himself to cross the room, revealing a very worried and regretful-looking Derek.

“Oh, pretty boy,” he says sadly, before crushing Spencer in a warm and tender hug. Immediately, he relaxes into the arms of one of his best friends, and relief courses through his blood at Derek’s reaction. “I am so sorry that I ever made you feel like you couldn’t tell me that you were gay or had a boyfriend. That’s completely on me. I don’t care who you love, Spencer, I just want you to be happy, okay? And if this guy makes you happy, then that’s fine by me. But if he ever lays a hand on you or—”

“Derek, Derek,” he laughs, “it’s fine I get it. Thank you, though, I’m… I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier and for snapping at you in the bullpen that time…”

“I understand, Spence,” he promises. “It’s in the past, okay? And I’m sorry for pushing so hard. I mean, I’d love to meet him but if you don’t feel comfortable or you don’t want to, that’s fine, too. It’s your life, man.”

“No, I… I think I want you guys to meet him. It’s been so hard to keep him away from the people I consider my family, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. Maybe after Christmas, we can all have dinner or something.”

Spencer smiles shyly. “Well, Oscar’s a great cook, so I reckon we could work something out.”

Derek grins, throwing an arm around his shoulders as he immediately jumps back into teasing him as they make their way to the door to go downstairs and see the rest of the team. “Ooh, lover boy’s got him a chef, hey? What else does this Oscar have going for him?”

Spencer chatters eagerly about his boyfriend to Derek, barely skipping a beat when he joins everyone downstairs, his friends taking his cues and joining in with the conversation seamlessly. He’s had enough fuss for one night, and the warmth and understanding on everyone’s faces tells him everything he needs to know.

“Do you have any pictures of him?” JJ asks, raising an eyebrow with eager expectancy as they all settle back into their seats by the fire, a warm and unbelievably happy feeling settling in Spencer’s stomach.

He blushes, digging out his phone from his pocket and unlocking it. “More than a few, I think.”

He finds the most recent picture of his boyfriend — a candid shot of him cooking in the kitchen, spatula aloft, and a huge grin on his face — and hands the phone around.

“Oh wow, you like them buff, huh, pretty boy?” Derek teases as soon as he gets his hands on it, and Spencer’s stomach twists in a sudden bout of fear, expecting to see some hesitancy or even disgust on his friend’s face. What if he thinks that Spencer has a crush on him? What if he’s uncomfortable around him now?

But if Derek’s having any of those thoughts, they don’t show on his face. He’s smiling widely and openly, all the pent-up anxiety and frustration borne from hurt gone from his body language, and he looks completely comfortable sat next to Spencer, his arm stretched out behind him on the back of the sofa.

They sit happily around the fire for a couple of hours, settling into a happy, intimate familiarity Spencer hadn’t realised was missing when he was hiding something so integral to his being from his family, and he’s still smiling when they finally part ways to head to bed, the clock ticking closer and closer to 1 am.

He gets ready for bed quickly, brushing his teeth and throwing on the top he’d stolen from Oscar the first time he’d stayed at his place; a welcome change from his worn and wrinkled suit. As soon as his teeth are brushed and the lights are all off except for his bedside lamp, he pulls out his phone, knowing there’s one more thing he has to do before he goes to sleep.

“Spencer?” Penelope’s voice sounds down the line, clearly concerned. “It’s almost 2 am here, are you okay?”

“I’m gay,” he says, getting straight to the point. The main reason he ever kept it from her was because of his fear of it accidentally getting out to the team rather than fear over her reaction. After all, multiple of his drag queen friends are also hers.

“Oh my God,” she says in that small voice she uses when she’s not actually talking to you, before finally actually replying to me. “Spencer, I’m so happy you told me!”

He doesn’t miss her choice of words, or the way she says them and he tilts his head suspiciously. “You already knew, didn’t you?”

She sighs. “Yeah. I’m sorry, a couple of months ago I saw a text from Oscar on your phone when you went to the bathroom during one of our Doctor Who marathons, and it wasn’t hard to figure out the relationship.”

“And… wait, you’re not mad at me for not telling you sooner?”

“Spencer! Of course not. I was waiting for you to be comfortable enough to share it with me. I felt awful that I knew without your consent but I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to catch you off guard or make you feel uncomfortable. It’s fine that you waited, baby genius, I’m just so happy you told me now. What finally gave you the courage?”

“Well, it might have slipped out in front of the team this evening,” he admits sheepishly, “and the only reason I never told you was because I was scared that it would slip out somehow — accidentally, of course, I didn’t think you’d tell anyone on purpose — and now everyone knows. It’s been killing me not to tell you, Penelope, it really has because I love you so much and you’re my best friend and I trust you with my life, it’s just…”

“Whoa, slow down, Spence,” she laughs fondly, “you don’t have to explain yourself to me, I understand. But I’m glad you finally told everyone and you can be yourself completely with us, now. We all love you no matter what, you know that right?”

“I do now.”

“Good. You should get some sleep, baby boy, it’s late and you’ve had an emotional evening.”

Spencer smiles. “Yeah, I know. You should, too, Pen. I’ll see you when we can finally make it home, okay? Love you.”

“Love you, too, 187,” she says softly, and Spencer can hear the smile in her voice. “Goodnight.”

As soon as he hangs up, he settles down into the bed, turning off the light and pulling the duvet up over his shoulders before dialling one more number.

“Hey, baby,” Oscar says, voice as gentle and caring as it always is, although thicker with tiredness now. “I take it everything went okay?”

“Yeah,” Spencer murmurs, already feeling tired as the safety he always feels at the sound of Oscar’s voice settles into the fibres of his being. “It went so well. I can’t wait for you to meet everyone.”

“I can’t wait either, sweetheart. Are you in bed now?”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “Can you talk to me as I fall asleep?”

“Anything for you, Spence,” he says softly, before transitioning seamlessly into a story about the professors on campus, and his gentle comfort and the knowledge of the unconditional love his family has for him finally lulls Spencer into the best sleep he’s had in weeks.

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