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jazy3 · 3 years

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Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy: 18X01

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

I was really excited for the Premiere and I have never been so disappointed in my life. It took me a few days to write this review because I’m just so unimpressed. I feel like the only interesting parts of the Season 18 Premiere were the Meredith and Hayes FaceTime call, Levi in that outfit and Jo with that hair, and the interviews. That's it. I mean Teddy and Owen’s two weddings were interesting if you’re a Teddy and Owen shipper, but I never have been so that didn’t really do anything for me.

The pacing of the episode was super slow and it was just altogether boring. There were also just so many inconsistencies. For example, Teddy and Owen originally planned to get married at the park with just Megan, Farouk, Evelyn, Leo, and Allison which doesn’t make sense because prior to their break up they were talking about planning their dream wedding. Now they finally get married and Richard didn’t even know about it? They asked Megan to fly in, but they didn’t tell their friends at the hospital after they just all attended Maggie and Winston’s wedding two weeks earlier?

It’s also not clear if Meredith knows that they got married which is weird because she’s the main character of the show and was an integral part of Owen’s previous two weddings one of which was held at her house. Also, Amelia and Link weren’t there and it’s not clear if they even knew about the wedding which is weird because Meredith, Amelia, and Link were all present when Owen proposed to Teddy at Christmas at Meredith’s house and they are all co-parenting Leo together.

While I appreciated the shift to a lighter tone and that they chose to have this season exist in a post-COVID alternative universe where we can see the actors faces again without the PPE and return to escapism the Premiere didn't pack the punch I was expecting. The premieres are usually super shocking and action packed and this one just wasn't. It was just boring and all of the most interesting stuff happened off camera during the two weeks between the Season 17 Finale and the Season 18 Premiere which is just stupid.

I saw the priest getting hit by one of the cyclists coming a few minutes before it happened based on the promo and the context of the scene and there wasn't a big shocking event like there usually is. The pace of the Premiere really felt off to me. My friend Amy who I watch with every week described it as the pacing you usually associate with a nice stroll through a moonlit garden. Fine for episode two or three or a connecting episode but not the Premiere. I feel like they really misjudged what fans were looking for and I’m hoping that they do the work and course correct now that the Premiere has aired and the completely dismal fan reaction as come out.

One of the few bright spots for me was the introduction of Peter Gallagher as Dr. David Hamilton. I love him as an actor! He's great! His recent roles in Grace and Frankie and Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist were fantastic! I was super excited when I heard he was coming to Grey's. I like Dr. Hamilton so far and I'm interested to see how his relationship with Ellis and Meredith having dreams about her mother following her battle with COVID will play into the story this season. While it would be interesting to see Meredith work in Minnesota temporarily like Cristina did back in Season 9, I don't want her there permanently. Seattle is as much a character in the show as any of the main characters we've come to love, and something would be missing for me if she moved.

To be perfectly honest, it doesn't make much sense to me for Meredith to move to Minnesota permanently when she only knows a few people there. Who would watch her kids? If she's going to move to me, it makes more sense for her to move to Kansas where Alex is or Switzerland where Cristina is. Her kids have already lost their father and so many other caregivers and Meredith has stuck it out in Seattle for so long after everything that's happened that her moving to Minnesota for me would be bonkers.

Also, where were her kids in the Premiere? All of the interviews that came out prior to the Premiere talked about how Meredith’s focus at the beginning of the season would be on her work and her kids, but they were nowhere to be found in the Premiere and it’s not clear whose watching them while Meredith is in Minnesota. The interviews also made it seem like Meredith and Hayes would still be circling each other at the start of the season with quotes about how timing hadn’t been on their side, that they still needed to have an official drink and go out on a date, and that while Meredith wasn’t looking for a relationship one might find her.

That had literally nothing to do with the Premiere we saw whatsoever! The kids were MIA and it turned out that Meredith and Hayes started dating off screen following Maggie and Winston’s wedding and we didn’t get to see ANY of the firsts they talked about so much over the last two seasons. So stupid. The Premiere was a total rip off. I hate that Nick Marsh is back and I’ve never gone from liking a character and an actor to hating them in such a short period of time ever. My God. I’m so pissed off about this. What the hell were they thinking? Why did they think we would want this at all?

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Nick Marsh as a character and Scott Speedman's portrayal of him when he first showed up in Season 14. I was all ready for him to be Meredith's next great love and I was on board. But then he disappeared and was never heard from again and it was reported that Speedman wanted to take a break from TV for a while so I mourned the loss of what could have been and moved on. I sat through the out of character nonsense that was the DeLuca storyline in the belief that eventually that storyline would end, and Meredith would get a real proper love interest that made sense and would be her post-Derek endgame.

So, I was really excited when they introduced Hayes and I have really come to love his character and his budding relationship with Meredith. I feel like I've been waiting forever to finally see them go on a date and I am super pissed off that we didn't get to see it. I would have loved this storyline with Nick if they had introduced it at any previous point in time, but now after they've spent so much time setting up Meredith and Hayes it's just infuriating. I feel immense rage over how they handled Meredith and Hayes and Meredith and Nick’s storylines in the Premiere. I'm so angry. The whole thing just made no sense. That Premiere should never have aired. It never should have gotten past the draft stage. It was that bad. The first date and all of the firsts that come with a new relationship are the most exciting parts of a romantic storyline for me and I love seeing all of that on screen. They hyped Meredith and Hayes’ relationship up so much and even had the two of them talk about 'firsts' and dating after death so for their first date to happen off screen along with Austin's panic attacks and bad reaction to his Dad starting to date again is just such a rip off.

I have stuck with this show through thick and thin and for them to reward that loyalty by having the most interesting parts of that storyline happen off screen while showing a bunch of stuff on screen with other characters that they could have just told us about? So ridiculous. I was so excited for this season and now I'm just angry. I'm hoping that they are building to a big mid-season finale where Meredith is going to return to Seattle and by that time Bailey will have helped Hayes out with Austin and the two of them will finally get together on screen but I'm starting to feel like every time I get invested in one of the Meredith's new love interests, they pull the rug out from under me and I'm getting really fed up.

In other news, I'm not too surprised that Megan and Riggs broke up off screen only because Virgin River, which I love, just got picked up for two more seasons and I imagine Martin Henderson is busy filming that and it looks like Megan is going to be around for a while and they had to explain it somehow. I loved Meredith and Riggs together and I hated how they ended that storyline so I'm not sad about them breaking up off screen.

The Premiere also broke my heart over Amelia and Link’s storyline. It’s just so stupid. It’s drama for drama’s sake that’s all it is and it’s tired. When did marriage become so important to Link? In the span of a few months, he went from being totally fine with not getting married and checking in with Amelia every few weeks on how she felt to convincing himself that Amelia wanted him to propose so he did so at her sister's wedding and used her dead brother's children to do it. Amelia's right the whole thing was super messed up and manipulative and she was right to say no.

Link decided marriage was important to him and that fostering Luna would be totally fine without ever talking to Amelia. Yes, Amelia should have shared her thoughts with him too, but he also should have paid attention. Now their otherwise healthy relationship is over because she doesn't want to participate in an archaic ritual that involves signing a contract and exchanging vows? That's just stupid. I hope they find a way to work it out and get back together because I really like them as a couple.

I like Dr. Michelle Lin the new Head of Plastic of Surgery that Bailey and Richard are looking to hire. I thought for sure after that photo of the other guy made the rounds on social media that he was going to be the new Head of Plastics, but then he said that he doesn't do "free" and I knew he was out. I'm excited for there to be another female surgeon of colour on the show as the gender and racial balance on the show has been more white and male as of late and I think Grey's is at its best when you have a roughly equal number of women and men and as many different races being represented as possible.

I think it makes the storylines more interesting and authentic and personally gives me more characters that I can identify with. This new doctor seems driven, determined, and could have a potentially interesting dynamic with Richard and Bailey. She’s also giving me some Cristina Yang vibes and I’m all for that. I love Cristina. Always have. Always will. That being said, I'm a bit confused as to where they are going with Jo's storyline as I thought for sure the new Head of Plastics would be a guy and her new love interest. But Bailey did say they still needed to hire a new general surgeon and a new neurosurgeon so maybe one of them will be for her?

I can't really say that there was anything I loved about the Premiere which is disappointing. Jo's parenting hair dye mishap was funny, Levi's outfit cracked me up, and I liked that Bailey agreed to help Hayes out, but that's about it. The thing I was most excited for coming into this season was Meredith finally being back on her feet and seeing the romantic storyline between her and Hayes finally come to fruition.

Finding out that she's going to be in Minnesota for the foreseeable future, she and Hayes started dating off screen but had to call it quits because seeing his Dad date someone new caused Austin to have panic attacks, and finding out that Nick Marsh is back? I hated it. I don't understand how the same person who wrote the Season 16 masterpiece “Snowblind” with that amazing snow scene between Meredith and Hayes wrote the Premiere. I just don't understand. I really hope they're not going to do a love triangle with Meredith, Hayes, and Nick because that would just be so stupid.

She's a forty something award-winning surgeon who's a widowed single mother of three. Love triangles made sense when she was young intern, but at this point it's just dumb. I also didn't feel the chemistry this time around between Meredith and Nick like I did the first time. It felt forced and flat. I like Maggie and Winston together, but I didn't find their storyline in the Premiere particularly engaging. I'm glad that Amelia stayed true to herself, but I hate that Link has decided marriage is the only way forward and that they're still fighting.

The only moment that really made me laugh out of the hour was when Jo opened the door and Levi was in that ridiculous outfit. I loved the FaceTime call between Meredith and Hayes, but I hated the context. Honestly, I'm not really excited about any upcoming storyline this season which makes me really sad. I'm usually super positive and hopeful when it comes to this show, but this episode just stomped all over my dreams. All I can hope for now is that they pull a twist and everything I was hoping for happens in the mid-season finale otherwise I don't think I'm going to like this season very much.

Until next time!

#grey's anatomy #meredith grey #cormac hayes #MerHayes #jo wilson #levi schmitt #atticus lincoln #amelia shepherd #amelink #miranda bailey #richard webber #cristina yang #michelle lin #ellis grey #david hamilton #thoughts #review #18X01 #here comes the sun

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clean-bands-dirty-stories · 4 years

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Breathe ~ the Doctor (part 2)

A/n: I’ll just be going by episode now, so there might be quite a bit of overlapping show dialogue. Side note! Song suggestion for this series 1: “Not ALone” by Starkid!

Word Count: 10,000+

Warning: Blood, violence, minor PTSD, heavy emotions, Doctor Who drama (disease, death, dehumanizing clones, human experimentation, possession)

"Where's Rose?" The Doctor asked as Y/n entered the TARDIS alone.

"Taking her time," Y/n joked in response. "Saying goodbye to Mickey and Jackie." The Doctor nodded as Y/n moved to his side, dropping his small bag of things in the corner. "You should teach me how to drive the TARDIS."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

Y/n nodded. "I mean, if we're going to be stuck together for... ever." He released a heavy breath and the Doctor snorted softly in amusement. "Seriously though. If I'm stuck with you forever, I think I ought to pick up a few useful things. Starting with driving the TARDIS."

Looking away was obviously an attempt to hide his smile, but he failed. Y/n could hear it in his voice when he spoke. "Okay, I'll teach you then."

Before Y/n could respond, Rose came in. "So, where we headed off to now?"

At that the Doctor changed moods, focusing on the blonde and allowing his shy smile to turn to a grin. "Further than we've ever gone before." He didn't lie. When they landed and exited the TARDIS, both Rose and Y/n were shocked at what they saw. The Doctor took his cue to explain. "It's the year five billion and twenty-three, we're in the galaxy N-87, and this! This is new Earth." He looked around, squinting in the sunlight. Even making that face, he was handsome. This regeneration fit the Doctor well. Y/n couldn't lie about that.

"It's just..." Rose mumbled. "That's just-" Her laughter cut her off.

"Insane," Y/n finished. "Like in the movies of the future. Things that have only been imagined, where we're from." Y/n's breath had been taken away. "It's beautiful."

"Not bad," the Doctor agreed. "Not bad at all."

Rose shook her head, running her hands through her hair to push it out of her face. "That's amazing!" She looped her free arm with Y/n's. "I'll never get used to this. You?"

"I hope not," Y/n sighed contentedly. He was glad to be back in the TARDIS. Back with Rose and the Doctor. He was glad to be away from an Earth that had mostly just hurt him, staring at a magnificent future full of promise and success.

That seemed to ring true with Rose. "I never will, it seems." She let go of Y/n's arm, jumping up and down to state next, "Different ground beneath my feet." She stopped, eyes rising to the clouds. "Different sky." She looked at the Doctor next. "What's that smell?"

The Doctor leaned down to pull grass up, holding it out for the other two to smell. "Apple grass."

"Apple grass," Rose said, her tone mocking normality, as if the idea of apple grass wasn't totally bizarre. What the hell was apple GRASS? Could you eat it, or was it just a smell? Who knew. Y/n laughed at himself as Rose hummed, "It's beautiful." She beamed at the Doctor and Y/n looked over to see her take the Doctor's arm. The Timelord looked down at her and Y/n smiled. They were sweet together. He hoped this little group of theirs lasted a very long time. "Can I just say," Rose began. "Traveling with you. I love it."

There was something in the way she said that. Something that made Y/n cough to cover a laugh. Had he been that obvious? Surely not. "Me too," the Doctor responded brightly. He dropped his arm to take her hand, reaching over with his other hand to grab Y/n's as well. "Come on!" He pulled them into a jog toward a stretch of grass where they all lay out and enjoyed the scenery before them. "So the year five billion, the sun expands, the world gets roasted," The Doctor began.

"That was our first date," Rose joked.

“Not the best,” Y/n piped up.

Rose giggled at that. "I think I preferred the Daleks to Cassandra." Y/n laughed at the memory of the stretched skin parading as the last human, even if it wasn’t as much a bitter memory for Y/n was if was for Rose. “How ridiculous."

"I like to remember it, actually. It was what started it all. What began this whole thing. We even had chips." The trio laughed and reminisced for a second. Long enough for Y/n to see the longing look Rose shot the Doctor. It set off a determination in Y/n. If there was limited time for things to happen between them, Y/n wasn't going to sit back and let them waste it. "Anyway," the Doctor continued before Y/n could come up with anything. "Planet gone, all rocks and dust, but the human race lives on, spreads out across the stars. As soon as the Earth burns up, oh, they get all nostalgic," the Doctor sasses. Y/n's smile falls. "Big revival movement. They find this place." He sat up then. "Same size as the Earth, same air, same orbit, lovely. The call goes out, the humans move in."

The Doctor's words got softer and softer as Y/n zoned out, accidentally ignoring the conversation in favor of remembering something.

There was a weight, in my chest. Not... MY chest, but his chest. A weight that was setting into my body, this body, making everything heavy as well. That heaviness came with darkness, and both seemed to be sinking into his skin.

Screams. The memory of the screams were so fresh and new. They were so bright and painful. Compared to them, and the blood, and the death and loss, the heaviness and darkness was almost a relief.

I see a hand. My hand. His hand. I see it reach out and touch the TARDIS. She's making the sound that has always been her sound, but it's new to these ears. The first time he is hearing it. "Guess this means you're just like me. Last of your kind."

God it hurts even more. That hand moves from the TARDIS, over his heart. My heart. Our heart. I know it's not me, this is not my memory. This isn't happening now. I know this isn't something I experienced, and yet it feels so personal and real. A memory I should not have. An experience that is so clear in my mind, even though it shouldn't exist at all. Scenes of the same story, cut into bits that don't make sense - all that hurt that burns and drags and rips apart. That first night running away, and the many nights afterward. The nights alone. The nights with no one but the TARDIS. I know all of that, but I do not know who I am. It's confusing and it hurts and I can't stand it. I can't stand it! I CAN'T STAND IT!

"Y/n?"

"What?" Even Y/n knows there's something wrong when he speaks. He can hear it even in his own voice. He can hear his voice shake. His voice. He looks down and wiggles his fingers. His fingers. This is the present. The here and now. This is real. This happened to Y/n, of Earth.

Rose reaches out a hand, resting it on Y/n's shoulders. Her face is wrought with concern. "What's wrong?"

How is he supposed to answer that? With the truth? ...I suppose that's all he had. "Sorry, I just find myself a tad distracted today. What did I miss?" A small lie seemed to be nicer. Things had only started to get good, and Y/n didn't know what he'd do if things went south now. After all, how would the Doctor react to all of this? Probably not well.

The Doctor seemed to sense something, but didn't press as Y/n was obviously not in the mindset to talk about it. So he moved on. "Rose mentioned how she wanted to go to the city, but I think we should go there first." They all stood, turning to face a tall, silver building with a giant symbol on the side.

"And what's there?" Y/n asked.

The trio began to stand as Rose responded. "He says it's some sort of hospital."

"Well, you see that green moon on the side?" He motioned to the symbol, which was indeed what he said it was. "That's the universal sign for hospitals." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. "I got this. A message on the psychic paper." He opened the thing to reveal words, moving as they wrote and rewrote themselves on repeat. "Someone wants to see me."

"Ah," Rose hummed. "And I thought we were just sight seeing."

Y/n scoffed, his smile growing. Things felt good again, the bad feelings from the memory before fading away now in the light of a new planet with endless possibilities. "Since when have we gone anywhere just sight for seeing?"

At that Rose's smile turned to a grin. "Fair enough." She sighed, getting excited. "Come on then, let's go and buy some grapes.” Her arm looped through the Doctor's first and then Y/n's and the trio walked like that to the hospital to see who was calling the Doctor. They got nearly all the way there on small talk and unimportant things before someone made a real comment.

"You know," the Doctor mumbled, as if he meant the other two not to hear it, even as he looked at them. "I've never liked hospitals." His tone was low and clearly uncomfortable.

"Is that so?" Y/n laughed, rolling his eyes.

"What?" the Doctor asked, his lips parting as his lips curved upward. Y/n's laugh had always been rather contagious to him, but more so recently.

Rose softly chuckled a second before responding, "Just... bit rich, coming from you."

"I can't help it," the Doctor remarked. "I don't like hospitals. They give me the creeps."

Y/n and Rose laughed but let it go in favor of looking at their surroundings. It was then that Rose dropped the arms of the two men she'd been holding onto until this point, wandering a bit to see as much as she could from every angle available to her. "Very smart," She complimented, just to follow up with, "Not exactly NHS is it?"

"No shop," the Doctor noticed. "I like the little shop." Y/n stayed quiet as he usually did, leaving the remarking to the other two as he took things in. He was never as snarky as the Doctor, or as amazed by things as Rose. Y/n had gotten good at expecting everything. Even if he found himself enjoying how things were and what he was learning, he was rarely stunned and often more thrilled. He didn't want to point and act like some tourist or child though, so he kept his thoughts to himself and soaked in as much as he could. After a second, the Doctor moved closer to him. "Like it?"

"Love it," Y/n responded, trying to contain his enthusiasm. "A place of healing and help. Somewhere things are clean and people are happy." He paused, seeing the Doctor's expression go sour. "Now you listen to me, Doctor. I know that not all patients get saved and not all hospitals work. I know how hard it is afterward too, when you have to pay for your care. But... I like the idea that... some people survive. The work done here matters. It makes a difference, you know?" He released a short breath. "You know, I wanted to be a Doctor when I was a kid. And then..." His smile dropped and the Doctor remembered what Rose had told him what seemed ages ago, about Y/n's parents. "Had a lot of school to catch up on. Didn't have time, I guess. Did bad in school enough without having missed it for a decade straight, give or take."

Rose was the one who changed the subject. "Okay but I thought, in the future, they would have cured everything.”

Taking the opening, the Doctor launched into an explanation. Y/n slipped his hands in his pockets and kept his mouth shut this time. "The human race moves on, but so do the viruses. It's an ongoing war."

A woman in a long dress passed, and only when Rose locked eyes with her and seemed to go dumb did Y/n looked closer and realize the woman... "They're cats," Rose mumbled, eyes wide.

"Now don't stare," the Doctor scolded. "Think what you look like to them, all pink and yellow." He did a once over of Rose, his eyes falling down her body then popping back up. His gaze suddenly shot away, locking with Y/n’s in time to see his huge smirk after having picked up on the moment. Suddenly flustered, the Doctor was quick to add, "That's where I'd put the shop!" He pointed to an empty bit of space on a wall behind Rose, then turned when Rose and Y/n looked away, taking the second to put some distance between them and him. When they turned back, he was in the elevator. "Ward 26, thanks," he told the lift calmly.

Definite attempts were made to catch room with the Doctor, but Rose and Y/n were both too late. The door closed, leaving them on the outside. "Damn," Y/n whispered, teeth catching his lower lip.

"Oh, too late, I'm going up," the Doctor told them. His voice was getting quieter though and he was immediately becoming harder to hear.

"All right," Rose dismissed. "There's another lift. Y/n and I will be up after you." She hit the button to open the door.

"Ward 26," the Doctor reminded. "And..." What he said next was too hard to hear at that point.

Eyes locked as Rose and Y/n both looked to the other for interpretation, but neither knew. "WHAT?" Rose yelled, trying to get him to repeat it. The Doctor did repeat it, but they still didn't get it. Y/n moved his ear against the door to try and hear better. "The what?" Rose tried again. The Doctor began but then cut off, and the door opened so they brushed it off and went inside. They could ask him when they reunited in ward 26. When they went in, Rose said, "Ward 26, thanks," and the lift began to move.

Almost immediately, they realized they didn't have to ask the Doctor what he meant. The elevator spoke about disinfectant, and Y/n had the pieces click in his head that that was the word the Doctor had said. It was too late though, as both of them were taken off guard by the sudden liquid spraying them both down. The were drenched, and then dried, and then it was over. During the process was pure chaos though and at some point Rose latched onto Y/n, pulling herself into his chest. When the doors opened again, she looked up at him.

It was a weird time for it to happen, but Y/n had the thought that her eyes were rather pretty this close. They'd never been this close before, but now he could see all the different colors in them. They were hazel, not brown, and had flecks of gold and green in nice patterns. Those eyes of hers traveled his face and then jetted away and suddenly they were Rose and Y/n again, except.. just a little different. Y/n felt awkward for no apparent reason, and Rose seemed to feel it too. She cleared her throat and stepped out into the hallway and Y/n paused only a split second to collect himself before following.

They didn't talk about it. Mostly because neither knew what had just happened, but also in big part because they realized they were in a dirty hallway that had more basement vibes than hospital ward vibes.

"The human children are clean." The pair looked over to see a small, pale man with vibrant red markings all over his body. There was something... creepy about him. As if he was wrong, but not enough that it was noticeable. Just - a little off. Slightly right of center. It was unnerving.

"Um," Rose began. Y/n did the feely stuff and intimidating when the situation called for it, but he was still trained to ignore strangers and avoid conversations about himself, so most of the casual socializing was and had always been up to Rose. "We're looking for ward 26."

The man turned, beginning to walk down the tunnel. "This way, Rose Tyler. Come along with me, Y/n L/n."

Rose and Y/n looked at each other in alarm. No one safe ever knew their names on an alien planet they'd never been to before. Especially someone they didn't know. Rose grabbed a pipe, but Y/n walked ahead of her, hands in his pocket as if this was just another day, face set and hard.

Catching up to the small man who walked with his shoulders curled in, Y/n spoke quietly. Keeping that calm air about him. "What's your name, sir? Seems only fair, since you know mine."

"Chip," the small man replied.

Nothing else was said until they got into the room they were aiming for. It seemed to be the end of their journey as Chip jogged ahead, excited to reach their destination. Inside the room played a movie on one of those projectors Y/n had only seen at movie theaters, when he worked for one once. He was surprised to see it here as it must have been ancient, considering how far in the future it was, but Rose caught his attention by grabbing his arm. His gaze moved to her body tense with what seemed to be confused trepidation... until he looked at the screen himself and recognized a face. It was then he realized what she was really feeling was shock. Maybe even a little fear.

"It's-"

"Cassandra," Y/n finished.

"Peek a boo!" A voice behind them greeted. The pair spun around to see Chip... and a little ways away from him, Cassandra herself.

Rose immediately got defensive. She was a completely different person from who she used to be when she hid behind the Doctor and didn't know how anything went. Y/n stayed close to her to back her up, but didn't say anything. The first time they'd met, Y/n and Cassandra had been friends before she'd tried to kill everyone on the ship. She'd offered to save him if he just came with her. Of course he'd turned her down, but he'd been sad to see her die as he always was when he saw poor souls waste themselves. Especially people like Cassandra who wouldn't just accept when it was time to give up and die.

Seeing her again made him feel... terrible. Not guilty, but sick to his stomach. She was here, after everything they'd been through? His thoughts were all about protecting Rose. He may still have compassion and mercy, but he couldn't die this time around, and he was far less willing to give people the opportunity to hurt those he cared about.

"Don't come anywhere near me, Cassandra," Rose threatened, wielding her pipe from earlier.

"Why?" Cassandra asked, rather bitterly. "What do you think I'm going to do? Flap you to death?"

Rose hesitated. "Yeah, well, what about him?" She pointed out, using her pipe to remind Cassandra of her little lackey.

"Oh, that's just Chip," Cassandra dismissed. "He's my pet."

"He's not your pet," Y/n spoke up then. "He's a person."

"I worship the mistress," Chip argued, rather aggressively. Y/n glared. What the hell?

"Moisturize me, moisturize me," Cassandra reminded, as if it wasn't the most important thing on her mind right now. Chip answered her command immediately. "He's not even a proper life form," Cassandra assured. Her tone was soft and comforting, but her eyes weren't on Rose in answer to her question. They were on Y/n. What she said had been to ease him. "He's a force-grown clone. I modeled him on my favorite pattern." Her tone became appreciative. "But he's so faithful. Chip sees to my physical needs."

Rose scoffed, somehow having ended up behind Y/n again. It was only then that he realized he'd been slowly making his way closer. Even after all this time and his obedience to the Doctor that had often made him stay put (as well as the fact that someone had to stay behind and inform the Doctor of where Rose went when she wandered off, and if anything too bad had happened), he was still curious. Maybe the more curious of him and Rose. That curiosity drove him to step head first into everything, unless instructed specifically not to. Rose was the reckless one... except now, when they needed to understand perhaps in order to survive this encounter, if whatever Cassandra had planned was as questionable and dangerous as their last encounter.

"I hope that means food." Rose's voice pulled Y/n out of his thoughts, making him fail when he tried to hold back a single, soft snort of amusement. "How come you're still alive?"

"After you murdered me?" Cassandra drawled rather bitterly.

"You tried first," Y/n sassed back, rolling his eyes.

"It was your own fault," Rose followed up.

Chip piped up then. "The brain of my mistress survived," he explained. "And her pretty blue eyes were salvaged from the bin."

Y/n groaned, not liking the way Chip looked at Cassandra after Rose's earlier comment. “What about the skin?" Rose asked to divert the subject. "I saw it. You-" she laughed, cutting off. "You got ripped apart."

"That piece of skin was taken from the front of my body," Cassandra began. "This piece is the back."

Rose had a good laugh about that as she tried to say, "Right, so you're talking out of your-"

"Ask not!" Cassandra interrupted, her feathers ruffled by Rose's giggle interrupted speaking.

"The mistress was lucky to survive." Chip seemed proud. "Chip secreted m'lady into the hospital.

"So they don't know you're here," Rose realized.

"Chip steals meds." He continued as if Rose hadn't spoken. "Helps m'lady. Soothes her." He turned to Cassandra, his hand raising to run along the back of Cassandra's... skin. "Strokes her."

Y/n groaned and Rose intervened on both of their behalves. "You can stop right there, Chip."

"But why?" Y/n demanded. "You two are obviously... involved." He said it with disgust and Rose closed her eyes next to him, shaking her head in disapproval of the mental images that were surely trying to surface in her mind as she fought them. "Why, Chip? Don't you have anything better to do? A life of your own to live? Why waste it in a basement where you're not supposed to be, hiding and taking care of a woman who obviously doesn't care about you. She talks about you like you're a pair of shoes and not a person! Why would you stay?"

That seemed to puzzle Chip. "How could I go? Life is not easy. It doesn't matter where you are or what you are doing, it is always hard and bad. It only matters who you are with."

In that moment, Y/n thought of the Doctor. And he thought of Rose. Wouldn't Y/n do the same, if one of them couldn't take care of themselves because they had gone too far and made irreversible decisions that had ruined themselves? Wouldn't he take care of them and do as they asked and done everything in his power to protect them?

Cassandra's voice rang out, and Y/n looked at her to see she was looking back. "He doesn't change that I'm so alone, though, hidden down here. The last human in existence."

Too caught up in genuinely pitying Cassandra, Y/n stayed silent. It gave Rose the room to speak. "Don't start that again." Her tone got louder as she grew more irritated. "They call this planet New Earth."

"A vegetable planet," Cassandra seethed.

Rose followed what Chip did earlier and acted as if Cassandra hadn't spoken. "And there's millions of humans out there, millions of them."

"Mutant stock," Cassandra huffed pridefully.

"Stock?" When Y/n spoke, the room went silent. There was something different about him, Cassandra realized. He was... scary. He radiated authority now. The last time she had seen him, he was quiet and curious and soft. She could still see a tenderness, but there was a danger too. At some point Y/n had learned how to be both vengeful and merciful, and she realized she was toeing the line of crossing into his wrathful side.

"They evolved, Cassandra," Rose continued, slowly. Y/n hadn't spoken again, but he did that thing that the Doctor did too. When he got quiet and terrifying and you wanted to shut up for fear of setting him off on you. Rose knew she was safe, but even she seemed to be treading lightly. "They just evolved. Like they should. You stayed still. You got yourself all- pickled and preserved." She was getting worked up now. Her anger seemed less dangerous and the room relaxed, as if letting go a breath it had been holding. "What good did it do you?" Rose demanded.

Cassandra didn't address what Rose said. Instead, her eyes slid to the movie still being played by the projector. Rose rolled her eyes, but Y/n listened. Y/n always listened. "Oh, I remember that night." He looked at the screen as she spoke, watching the video play out. He tried to imagine what a party like that would be like. The ambiance and the sounds and the heat and the drinks and the people. The chatter and music. He could feel it, with the help of the video. He wondered if Cassandra was permanently stuck in that night, in her head. If she played this video to hold onto the feelings she experienced when she was still herself. "Drinks for the ambassador of Thrace. That was the last time anyone told me I was beautiful. After that, it all became such hard work." Her tone turned into near growling and Y/n felt his heart get heavy. Why did society do this to women? Why couldn't standards just be... realistic, for once?

A thought occurred to him then. Maybe if society as a whole valued people for their personality and not for their looks, maybe Cassandra would have been different. Maybe she'd have been more than a pretty face. Maybe she'd have met someone who really cared about her, and they'd have settled down and made a family. Maybe she wouldn't have thought her only worth was her looks, and then crossed far too many lines to keep it so she still meant something.

"You've got a knack for survival, I'll give you that," Rose voiced after it got quiet for too long. Cassandra kept looking at Y/n, as if waiting for him to speak, but he didn't have anything to say that was worth saying so he stayed silent.

"But I've not been idle, Rose," Cassandra told them both, even though she only addressed the blonde. "Tucked away, underneath this hospital, I've been listening. The sisters are up to trouble. They're hiding something."

That peaked the pair's interest. "Do you know anything, or are you toying with us?" Y/n demanded.

"These cats have secrets," Cassandra gave in response. "I know them, I know them all. Hush, let me whisper. Come close."

Rose crossed her arms over her chest. "You must be joking if you think I'm going anywhere near you," she sassed, returning to her deep amusement that left her laughing through her words. She began to step back, moving out of the room, and that was when things went wrong. Suddenly a bunch of light went wild, wrapping around Rose's hands and keeping them tethered to her sides. Her face went slack and her body relaxed and she froze.

Before Y/n could process and react, Cassandra spoke. "Chip, activate the psycho-graft!"

Y/n spun around, eyes wild. "You let her go now! If you hurt even a single hair on her head Cassandra, I will-"

"No need for dramatics," Cassandra drawled. "I'll let her go completely unharmed, I promise." Chip pulled a lever and a cylindrical blue light encased Rose. Y/n wasn't sure if he'd make it worse by going in there after her so he turned on Cassandra instead.

He reached down, grabbing the pipe Rose had abandoned a while ago, running at Cassandra with it hefted over his head, ready to bring down onto her face. There was a weird pinkish light above her that went behind him toward Rose, just before he used the pipe to smash in what was Cassandra's sort-of face. The skin split under the pressure and blood sprayed on Y/n's clothes and the lower part of his neck. It was farther than even the Doctor had gone in the violence department since the Time War, but it was Y/n's first thought with little time to react.

It didn't matter though. When he turned around, Rose was on the ground and Chip was approaching her limp body that was slowly coming around as the blonde began to move.

"Moisturize me," Rose mumbled. Y/n froze, eyes wide with part terror and part unbridled rage. Chip went off to be obedient, but when he turned back, Rose's eyes hand already landed on her body, features forming in awe. "Arms," she mumbled. "How bizarre." Her breathing got shallow as she grew excited, beginning to sit up. "Fingers!" She gasped as blonde strands began to fall in her face. "Hair!" Her hands grabbed at said hair as if it was a wonder. Y/n supposed... it was. The woman who definitely wasn't Rose scrambled to her feet. "Let me see! Let me see!" She raced to a mirror. "Oh my god! I'm a chav!"

It was then that Y/n knocked into his senses. His curiosity had distracted him. His confusion and wonder. His questions didn't matter though when Rose was in danger. "Cassandra, I don't know how you did it but you get out of her right now do you understand me? NOW. You may have Chip at your beck and call but you've done this against Rose's will!"

Cassandra wasn't listening. "Look at me! From class to brass!" She fiddled with the end of Rose's shirt, then hesitated, raising a hand to the zipper of Rose's jacket. "Although..." She began zipping it down, exposing a bit more skin. Y/n felt himself swallow. Why was he suddenly so warm? "Curves," Cassandra purred. "Ooh baby. It's like living inside a bouncy castle!"

It was the way Chip was looking at Rose's body that really sent Y/n. He was stuck trying to figure out how to talk to Cassandra, or even scare her if necessary, but he kept getting distracted by the odd look on Rose's face. One that was... Well, that wasn't a thought he was addressing at all, actually. All he knew was that he felt something in him snap. Cassandra was ogling a body that wasn't hers, and Chip was joining in, and neither had Rose's consent and it made Y/n lose his thin control.

Suddenly he was racing froward and Cassandra gasped as her back was slammed against the wall that Y/n pinned her against, his arm on her chest. "I said," he seethed, teeth working together. "Bring her back. Now."

"Ooh," Cassandra cooed. "You really have gotten quite scary, Y/n. I'm very impressed." Her eyes moved to her old body then to the blood on Y/n. "More violent too, wow. Willing to get things done." Her eyes raked every inch of Y/n they could reach. "And much more handsome. I was attracted to you back then, but now? You've really grown into yourself it's a great look on you."

"Stop it," Y/n snapped.

Cassandra giggled. "Don't worry love, Rose thinks so too." That stopped Y/n short. "Oh, didn't expect that one?" Her giggle was bright and triumphant. "She's had feelings for you going on ages now. Since you two met, really. Been hiding them when you showed no interest in anyone and refused to talk about romance. Tried to move on to Mickey... and then the Doctor came around. But you fell for him." Her smile turned mocking. "But of course, you'd take him. The two men she loved the most, being together, without her."

"That's not-" Y/n swallowed. How had he never noticed before? Had they both had their one secret? The one secret they'd kept from each other all this time? His had been the loneliness that had grafted into him, making itself a personality trait. The loneliness that drove him for years to believe he'd never experience love, let alone have it last. The secret that he had never felt the way he felt about the Doctor for anyone... anyone except for Rose. Kind Rose who had come to Y/n in a time when he didn't understand his own emotions enough to name them before she got with Mickey and it was too late. Rose, who he had forced to form a sister-brother relationship with to dodge the feelings he had for her that neither of them were capable of or willing to act on. And her secret, that the entire time she had felt the exact same way?

Had he really wasted all of the time they could have been together thinking she could never like him in return?

"What's the matter?" Cassandra purred, smirking. "Cat got your tongue?"

Y/n's face hardened. "You're lying. And even if you're not, this isn't your secret to tell me. Rose is the only one allowed to tell me her feelings. Get out!"

"But you've killed me, haven't you? How am I supposed to go back to my old body? I have nowhere to go and its all your fault, Y/n. Going back is suicide."

"You shouldn't have left that bloody body in the first place," Y/n seethed. But then he calmed, because out of the group he was always the one who calmed and thought things out so that as many people as possible could win. Sure, Cassandra had taken Rose against her will... but she was also right. How could Y/n ask her to go back, when her body was destroyed by his own hands? "Go into me, then. Leave her be. If you can't go back to your own body, take mine. Not hers."

Cassandra's expression grew soft. "You love her." Y/n glared. "Just like you love the Doctor. How... how do you handle that? Loving two people so much you'd die or worse - give yourself up for them, alive and all? Because Rose remembers when you were Empty. She remembers clear as day how afraid of not death, but being trapped in a body you cannot control. And now you can't die, but if you allow me this, you will be trapped. How can you agree to that?"

Y/n pursed his lips. "Life is complicated, Cassandra. Some feelings you tell yourself are out of bounds and off limits. Some feelings you can rationalize. Some people give you a new prospect on life. One so wonderful that staying alive forever sounds amazing. And some people... they're worth being afraid for. They're worth losing control for. Some people are just worth it."

That seemed to sit very deeply with Cassandra. "You know, you're most beautiful like this. Protecting those you care about. Fighting for the greater good. Being the quiet hero with a hidden strength enough to stop even an alien war lord." Her smile grew. "Fine, I will do as you ask, because we were friends then and I'm unhappy we didn't end as such. But one thing before I go."

"What?" Y/n asked.

And then Cassandra, in Rose's body, kissed Y/n. It was different than the times Y/n had pictures kissing Rose. It was desperate and passionate and... a little aggressive. It felt like he imagined Rose would. Her hair was soft and filtered nicely between his fingers. Her lips were a little chapped, but not enough to be noticeable, just enough to make the kiss just a little rough for a second until they continued kissing and they became soft. Her skin was warm and smooth and her hands clung to him like he was a life preserver and she was drowning.

When they parted, Cassandra didn't hesitate. She moved right from Rose into Y/n in the small space between them. The blonde leaned into Y/n but soon shook off the weird feeling, leaning away to look into Y/n's eyes. Because she had heard and felt everything, and her mind was reeling from that kiss, even if she hadn't been in control when Cassandra had used her body to initiate it.

Cassandra was the first one to speak, but this time it was in Y/n's voice. "You know I pride myself on being very proud and sexy and hard to move. I have not been known to be emotional. This one though..." She turned away, pushing Rose off and beginning to walk back toward the lifts.

Rose woke up then. "Cassandra you can't-!"

"Shut up," Cassandra snapped. "We don't have time for this. We have to find the Doctor, and Y/n consented, so there's nothing you can do about it so come on." Rose followed after, Chip after her, and the three of them headed to find the Doctor together. After a long time in quiet, Cassandra spat with her usual spite, "That Doctor of yours is a total hypocrite by the way. Changing his face like that and becoming younger and prettier. You both think so, I saw in both of your heads. Am in one of them now."

As if by a show of mercy, Rose's phone rang and she answered it. "Hello?" Her voice was tired, her hand rising to massage her temple. The whole thing with Cassandra had already given her a headache. The kiss... it had reminded her of something. Something that hurt to think about.

The Doctor was on the other line. "Rose, where are you? Is Y/n with you?"

"Don't tell him about me," Cassandra rushed. "He'll just lose it and cause a commotion, and we don't have time to waste. The sisters really are up to something, and I really do have information."

Rose glared but followed the order, begrudgingly. "Yes, Y/n's here. We've... picked up another friend too. His name is Chip."

"Where have you been? How long does it take to get to ward 26, and how did you meet someone else?" The Doctor asked, rather curious.

A huff came from her as she tried to hide her bitter laughter as she refrained from telling him the adventure they'd just gone on. She'd never hidden something like this from the Doctor before... but Cassandra was right. "We'll be there soon, it's a long story. What have you been up to?"

"Oh you'll never guess," The Doctor practically sang. "I'm with the Face of Boe. Remember him?"

"Yeah," Rose answered, without much spirit.

On the line, the Doctor paused. "You okay?"

"I'm fine. You-"

"I.. have to go," the Doctor drawled. "Talk to you later." And then he hung up and Rose sighed. The elevator grew silent as they were cleaned again. The blood was gone as if it had never been there and Rose watched it pool on the ground under them before slipping down the drain. She couldn't believe he'd really... done that, for her. Jesus.

When they reached the Doctor, Cassandra held back with Chip for some reason. She dismissed Chip and he wandered off, leaving her alone. She looked like she was listening to something, though the only sound Rose could hear were the patients and the speaker, but neither were something that would have interested Cassandra surely.

Rose was distracted by the Doctor, who pulled her over to inspect the patients he had been spending time with while she had been missing, filling her in on his confusion.

"Y/n, are you listening?"

Cassandra looked over to see the Doctor had approached. Fortunately, though she had not been paying attention, Y/n had been. "Yes, something is up," Cassandra agreed, her face nearing one of Y/n's more calm expressions. It was something Rose had never thought Cassandra was capable of feeling. She almost looked... thoughtful. Her voice was off from Y/n's though. Obviously wrong. She tried to keep going high and her accent was different. Behind the Doctor, Rose sighed.

"What- what's with the voice?" The Doctor asked, eyes narrowing.

"Nothing," Rose dismissed, trying to keep things going so they could figure this out without distractions. They could figure that whole thing out when this problem was dealt with.

The Doctor didn't seem to be done though. "That's the second time you've totally zoned out Y/n, are you sure you're alright?"

Cassandra flinched. She knew what was going on in Y/n's head. Why he had been spaced out and different. She knew what it meant about the Doctor, too. It was a small flinch, one you wouldn't have noticed if you weren't looking, but Rose and the Doctor were looking and so they did notice. Casandra looked at Rose, tears in her eyes. "I need out of here. Please."

Rose felt herself go speechless. Was Y/n so broken that he had messed Casandra up so quickly? Or was it the fact that Cassandra already had a soft spot for him that she pitied him so much? "Fine," she sighed halfheartedly. "Doctor, give us a moment if you would. Just a moment and then we'll be back, promise."

They went around the corner, Rose making sure the Doctor didn't follow. Casandra didn't wait longer than that. She transported into Rose again with that same purple mist and then Rose cleared her throat, her posture changing as Casandra took control. Y/n wiped his eyes and then pulled Rose back to the Doctor. "Sorry about that," he replied. "Rose and I had something to discuss. Best friend things, very important." Casandra smiled beside him, despite knowing that he didn't really think of her as his best friend. "Come on-"

"Are you guys up to something?" The Doctor asked.

"Nothing at all," Cassandra drawled in an voice that was very much not Rose Tyler's. "Just mucking about New Earth, having new experiences and lots of fun. New planet, new age. New me." She looked the Doctor up and down and Y/n rolled his eyes.

"Guess I can't talk much then," the Doctor joked, distracted as he always was by a pretty face. Why were the smartest ones always the most susceptible to an attractive woman? Though, Y/n supposed he couldn't talk much. "New Doctor."

"That you are," Cassandra purred. And then she did something that none of them saw coming. She grabbed the Doctor's face and snogged him just as aggressively as she had Y/n.

Was she collecting or something?

Or... did Rose want her to do it as much as Casandra was curious what it would be like?

When she'd had her fun, she parted and directed them to the terminals. The Doctor looked at Y/n, who cracked a smile at the man's frazzled state, despite who had put him in it. "Yep," he squeaked. Y/n snorted, trying and failing to contain it. "Still got it." Y/n rolled his eyes and shook his head then caught up to Cassandra, the Doctor following after them while he tried to contain his gleeful grin.

By the time they got to the trams, everyone had calmed down. They looked at the map of the place, but it didn't yield much. No shop, the Doctor noticed. No spa, Y/n joked. "Something else is missing too," Cassandra noticed seriously. She seemed a lot closer to her old self. "When I was downstairs, those nurse-cat-nuns were talking about intensive care... but where is it?"

"You're right, well done," the Doctor praised.

"Why would they hide a whole department?" Cassandra wondered, ignoring his praise. "It's got to be there somewhere. Search the subframe."

"What if the subframe's locked?" The Doctor questioned.

"Try the installation protocol," Cassandra told him like it was quite simple.

Y/n was impressed. Not that he didn't expect her to be smart, but that he couldn't believe someone as smart as her had been reduced to a pretty face for so long.

The Doctor did so, offering sarcastic grumblings as he did. He put his screwdriver to the screen and fiddled. Suddenly, the wall was moving and lowering and exposing a hidden tunnel behind it. Y/n stepped up between Casandra and the Doctor. "So... in we go?"

"Suppose so," the Doctor confirmed. Cassandra lead the way, but Y/n didn't miss the suspicious look he shot Rose. Y/n internally sighed, realizing they weren't going to be able to hold off this whole charade for much longer. "Intensive care," the Doctor mused as he followed second in the line as they moved into the tunnel. “Certainly looks intensive."

"Quite so," Y/n scoffed.

They moved forward, into a hallway and then down stairs into an impossibly large, cylindrical cavern whose wall were covered floor to ceiling with green pods. There were levels above and below them that seemed to stretch for eternity, the walkways looping in circles on every level. The Doctor moved to one, using the screwdriver to open a pod. What they saw was horrific. A man with ratted hair and a long, beige hospital gown that was dingy and dirty. He was sitting in a chair, his head lolling from side to side and his skin covered in rot and welts and sickness of all kinds. He looked like he was dying. Y/n raised a hand, gasping softly as he covered his mouth to hold himself back from reaching out to the person.

"That's disgusting," Cassandra sneered quietly. "What's wrong with him?"

"Shut up," Y/n snapped. "He can hear you," he added to try and cover it up, hoping he hadn't brought attention to how out of character that was for 'Rose' to say.

The Doctor ignored both of them. He looked at the man with a heartbroken look, shaking his head in remorse. He couldn't do anything, so he said the same thing he always did when he couldn't save someone. "I'm sorry." Y/n moved closer. "I'm so sorry." He closed that door then moved to the next one, Y/n limply following behind.

The person in the next pod was in the exact same condition. "What disease is that?" Casandra asked, her voice tinged in disgust.

"All of them." The Doctor's voice was gravely, low with anger for the people in the pods. "Every single disease in the galaxy. They've been infected with everything."

"What about us?" Casandra asked, alarmed. "Are we safe?"

Y/n sighed, shaking his head. "That's not the point. The pain they're going through. Can you imagine, every disease ever? All in one body? Did you see how many pods there were? Countless amounts of people, all infected with diseases that will rot them away slowly until they just... die. In pain. Alone. No one who cares about them, or who will remember them. Just... gone." He went to reach out and touch the woman in the pod they had just opened. "Isolated, unable to move and having no one to call out to. How lonely would that be?"

The Doctor caught Y/n's hand. "Don't touch them. The air is sterile, but they'll infect you too if you touch them."

Y/n's face fell. "They've never even been touched? Existing alone in the dark, in a world of pain and emptiness and loneliness. No one knows they exist as they cry for help. How long has it been since they've been touched?"

No one answered. The Doctor just closed the door, and the trio turned away and looked out across the railing, taking in the countless pods with new eyes. Every single green light they could see was yet another person living that life that Y/n had painted. There were even more lights they could not see. An unknowable amount. Maybe endless.

It was that thought that triggered it.

It was like a swarm of bees. He had seen that image again on Earth in his exploration. Most in cartoons, or horror movies he'd caught scenes of in passing, but still. That's what it looked like. Except these weren't harmless insects that only gave you a little sting and then moved on. This was like maybe a bee, but you're deathly allergic and now there's a whole swarm coming just for you, with the intent to wipe you out if its the last thing they do.

The Daleks, and with them, possibly the end of everything.

War has a smell. I know it, even though I myself have never been in one. He was though, and for some reason I know that because I know what he knows. The smell doesn't bother you after a while. It doesn't even really bother you at all until after the fighting is over and you smell is again. Smell anything like it at all, and those memories come back. Not enough to ruin you, but enough to shake you to your core. To put a bitter taste in your mouth and remind you of the faces of everyone you lost.

And it hurts.

A hand on Y/n's shoulder and the boy looked over to lock eyes with the Doctor. The men locked eyes and the Doctor was startled to see a look in Y/n's eyes he had not seen in a long time. A haunted look from years of fighting a battle they were all losing. A look from years of fighting similar, smaller battles. Alone. A look the Doctor had seen in his family and comrades once, but only ever saw in his own eyes now adays.

Y/n looked away. "Let's go." He realized he did know what they had said. The injustice of it all. That's what drove him. These people. They needed help. That was more important than the memories.

As they walked, Casandra moved closer to Y/n. She knew exactly what had just happened, and what he needed. A distraction. "Why don't they just die?" She asked.

Y/n would have hit there right then and there if the Doctor hadn't piped up. "Plague carriers. The last to go."

"It's for the greater cause." The trio looked over to see one of the nurses.

"Novice Hame," the Doctor greeted with a voice forming into an edge so sharp it could cut just by being spoken. "When you took your vows, did you agree to this?"

"The sisterhood has sworn to help," the sister said, as if to reassure.

It wasn't working. "What, by killing?" The Doctor yelled.

"They're not real people," the cat woman told them.

It only made Y/n more angry. He couldn't think right. His mind was mixed up in a war he'd never been apart of, torn between a man that no longer existed dealing with a problem that had long ago reached a point of no return, and Y/n who was compassionate and understanding and talked and explained rather than threw pipes at skin trampolines and thought about attacking cat ladies who just had messed up ideals about clones, but still had the right ideas. This was the part where Y/n intervened and calmed everyone down. This was the part he talked to her and made her see where she was wrong, like he so often did.

Y/n wasn't in the mood to help, though. So he stood by the Doctor and he seethed and he saw those pods and he thought of people who were created to suffer, alone, in pain, until they died. Y/n snapped. "Come here." The woman looked at Y/n, surprised by the rage in his face. "Doctor, your screwdriver please." The Doctor hesitated, unsure of what Y/n had in mind, but handed it over anyway. Seeing the Doctor obey, the woman did too. Y/n pulled her into his side, opened the pod to expose another sick person. "Look at her." The cat lady did, and she seemed unfazed. At first. "Look at the pain she's in." As if on cue, the woman began to beg for her life. Plead for help. "Look at her!" Hame flinched. "Do you see a creature without intelligence? Because when I look at her, I see a person. A person who doesn't know what's happened or why, or how to stop it, but wants to DESPERATELY because it hurts so much and it has always hut and it will always hurt until she dies. I don't care if she was grown or born or found floating in space, look into her eyes and tell me you cannot see someone who feels and thinks and would have had a real life, if it weren't for you people locking her up and using her like- like some sort of cattle."

Novice Hame did not have anything to say to that.

The Doctor did though. "How many is the turn over?" He asked her, coming to her other side. A thousand a day? A thousand the next? Thousand the next? How many thousands? For how many years? HOW MANY?"

To that, the woman had a response. Y/n watched the woman in the pod as the nurse spoke. "Mankind needed us. They came to this planet with so many illnesses, we couldn't cope. We did try. We tried everything. We tried using clone meat and bio-cattle, but the results were too slow. So the sisterhood grew its own flesh. That's all they are. Flesh."

"That's all we all are." Y/n closed the door and locked it, his face crumpling as he faced the nurse. "We're all just flesh, growing and stretching and getting leathery with age. We have brains, but so do they. They think and talk and interact. Look me in the face and tell me not one of them has ever spoken before what happened a few minutes ago. They've never reacted to pain or begged for their lives. Look me in the face and tell me that. That it's never happened before."

Novice Hame didn't say anything, once again.

"These people are alive," the Doctor stated, pointing at the pod Y/n had just closed.

"But the humans out there, in the world. They're healthy. Alive." She seemed to be struggling after Y/n and the Doctor's delivery. "Happy, because of us."

"If they live because of this, then life is worthless," the Doctor spit.

The nurse shook her head. "But who are you to decide that?"

"I'm the Doctor," he replied without missing a beat, stepping up to her. "And if you don't like it, if you want to take it to a higher authority, there isn't one. It stops with me."

It was at that time that Casandra spoke again. "Just to confirm," she began. "None of the humans in this city actually know about this?"

Y/n closed his eyes.

Goddamnit Casandra.

"Hold on," the Doctor interrupted before the nurse could speak again. "I can understand the bodies. I can understand your vows, but one thing I can't understand - what have you done to Rose?" The nurse stuttered her confusion, but the Doctor didn't step down. "I'm being very, very calm. You want to be aware of that: very, very calm. And the only reason I'm being so very very calm, is that the brain is a delicate thing. Whatever you've done to Rose's head, I want it reversed."

"They haven't done anything," Y/n mumbled.

The Doctor turned very fast on Y/n. "These people are dying, and Rose would care. If they didn't do something... if something happened to her, you seem to be the one who knows. Explain. Now."

"It's Casandra," Y/n sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "She needed a body to travel and she needed our help to figure out what was going on around here, so she hijinxed Rose. Well-" he shrugged. "Me at first, and then Rose."

The Doctor didn't seem to be expecting that. "Casandra?"

Casandra moved closer to the Doctor, smirking. "Wake up and smell the perfume." She sprayed him with something then and the Doctor fell.

"What the hell Casandra?" Y/n demanded.

"Oh pick him up and stop complaining. We need to get out of here." She turned to the nurse and went to say something, and then she hesitated and her eyes passed to Y/n and lingered for too long. "You know Y/n, I’ve lived off of spite since the last time I saw you guys. I've been angry and determined and... I only wanted to figure this whole thing out so I could use the information against the nuns and try and blackmail them. I-" She swallowed, looking away. "Being in your head. Seeing the thing you think and feel. You have such an odd way of doing things. Back then... you were upset when I died. You tried to stop me. You begged me. You tried to make me to be a good guy so we didn't have to end it in a tragedy. You were nice to me, even though I was just a piece of skin and went against all you and this girl of yours like about humans. Even though she hated me, and most humans hated me, you didn't." Her shoulders sagged. "What do we do, Y/n?"

He smiled. His anger from moments ago melted. "I've got the Doctor. We need to get the Matrim here, and then release the people. She needs to pay for what she's done, and they need to be be free."

So that's what they did. Casandra pulled out a tube that set off an alarm, and then waited for the Matrim to turn the corner. The two women locked eyes until the Matrim got close enough, and then Casandra pulled a lever and all the pods opened. "See ya!" Casandra hollered, waving as the trio turned and began to retreat.

As they were going, more pods began to explode, and because the booms and sparks, the Doctor woke up. "What's happening?" he slurred.

"Not now Dear, we'll get back to this later I promise." Y/n kept walking, trying to move quickly while holding the Doctor in his arms. He paused a moment to put the man down, now that he was awake. "Come along!"

The Doctor shook himself out of his sleepiness, looking around at the bumbling infected, and the open pods that were beginning to empty. "What have you guys done?"

"It wasn't us!" Casandra scoffed.

"One touch and you get every disease in the world, and I want that body safe, Casandra!" She rolled her eyes and Y/n almost smiled at her sass, if it wasn't for everything else. "We've got to go down!" Casandra went to complain to the Doctor yelled, "RUN!" Needless to say, you listen to the Doctor when he yells. The trio began to race down the steps, moving as fast as they could to the basement. Casandra screamed and it echoed. In the distance, they heard Chip's quick footsteps racing to meet them. In only moments he had joined them. And then there were four. When Casandra moved toward the elevators, the Doctor stopped her. "No, the lifts have closed down. There's a quarantine, nothing's moving."

"Where are we going then?" Y/n demanded.

Casandra yelled, "THIS WAY!" They began running, jerking through an opening where more infected were streaming in through a hallway that intersected the one they were currently running through.

Long story short: Chip and Y/n didn't make it.

The Doctor stopped, looking for a way to get to Y/n. "Go!" Y/n screamed.

"I won't leave you!" The Doctor screamed back.

Y/n shook his head. "I can't die, Doctor. You solve this thing, and we'll figure out the rest later." The Doctor hesitated, looking at Y/n with pain and regret. "I promise I'll be okay. I promised I wasn't going anywhere, and I don't break my promises." The Doctor hesitated longer so Y/n grunted and ordered, "GO!" Finally, he did, chasing after Casandra in Rose's body to make sure they all got out okay.

"Mistress!" Chip wailed. "My mistress!"

"CHIP!" Y/n screamed, shaking the man into sense. "You need to hide. Come on!" He guided the small man against the wall, pressing against him so his whole body covered Chip. He was small enough to pull it off. "Do not touch my skin, do you understand? Keep your skin from touching mine at all costs." Chip curled in on himself, making himself smaller and pressing his face into Y/n's back. Hands other than Chip's wrapped around Y/n's arms and ankle and face and hands.

Then there was pain. Y/n could feel his body rotting and dying. He'd last plenty long enough to keep Chip safe, but he felt incredible pain as he was inducted with every disease known in the entire universe. He got sicker and sicker and sicker, until the crowd in the room began to clear and go away, satisfied with touching him. When the room was empty, Y/n finally collapsed. He lay on the ground as Chip kneeled next to him.

"You saved my life."

"Don't think too much about it," Y/n joked dryly. "I can't die. I'm sick forever now though. Maybe. Maybe I'll reset. Come back to life cured. I guess we'll see."

They stayed there for what seemed hours, until more people shuffled into the room. These people had the same worn out gowns on, but they weren't sick at all. They looked at Chip first, hugging him and touching his face and arms and hands, like they did earlier, except this time no disease spread.

Suddenly there was a voice. Like an angel sent directly from God. "Y/N!"

"We're in here!" Chip called, running to find the Doctor and bring him back.

Upon seeing Y/n on the floor, the Doctor shook his head. "What is with you? One rule, Y/n: no touching. You've had this problem before."

"An issue of mine it seems. Can't keep my hands to myself."

Chip interrupted. "He saved my life. Stood in front of the disease because it doesn't hurt him.

The Doctor's face was soft as he kneeled next to Y/n. "It does hurt him. And it would have hurt him forever if I wasn't so amazing." He reached out but Y/n jerked his head away. "It's okay," the Doctor assured, grabbing Y/n's face. The man gasped, eyes widening as there was a sizzling sound and he felt, just as he did with the sickness, his body getting better. For a little extra dramatic affair, the Doctor leaned down and kissed Y/n. It was a good kiss. Soft and full of love and admiration and care. When the Doctor leaned away, Y/n was completely cured. "You're an idiot."

"Your idiot," Y/n joked weakly.

The Doctor shook his head, smiling. "Lucky me."

"Lucky us," Y/n corrected. That they could agree on.

The first thing they did was see the face of Boe. It was sort of vague and odd, but overall a nice experience. It ended with convincing Casandra to leave Rose though, and that was another matter.

"Y/n I'll die," Casandra begged, turning to the only person she knew would care about her. "I know we haven't always seen eye to eye, but you've been in my head same as I've been in yours. I let you in and we talked. I know what's happening with you, and no one else does. Please. We can really be friends. For real."

Y/n sighed, his face full of pain. "Casandra, I love you. I consider you a friend, and I genuinely care about you. But..." He closed his eyes. "The Doctor's right, and this isn't your body.

Casandra broke then. "I don't want to die." She covered her face before rested her forehead on Y/n's chest.

"No one does," the Doctor said.

"Help me!" She begged, turning her head as Y/n held her so she could still be heard.

"I can't."

"I can." Eyes turned to Chip, who stepped forward. "I am willing Mistress, take me."

Y/n's eyes widened. "Chip-" His mouth worked, but nothing came out. "Don't you want your own life, even for a short while? Don't you want to be your own man with the small time you have left?"

Chip looked at Y/n very seriously. "You gave your body for me. You'd just as soon give it for them." He motioned to the Doctor and Rose, and Y/n sighed, knowing he couldn't argue. "I want to give my body to her. One last gift to the Mistress."

Casandra left Rose and went into Chip, and there was a second they took to stabilize Rose before the Doctor turned back to Casandra. "You can't-"

"She can," Y/n interrupted. All eyes turned to him. "I know them better than both of you. Casandra doesn't care about him, you're right. He deserves better, definitely. But... it's like the Ood. He doesn't care about free will like we do. He WANTS this, and so does she. It doesn't realy matter what we think they should do. They both want this."

The argument ended there.

"You at least have to stand trial for what you've done," the Doctor ordered.

"That would be rather dramatic. I'm afraid we don't have time for that, though. See, Chip's is only a half life and he's already been through so much. I can feel his little heart now. It's racing." She paused, head tilting. "He's failing." Another pause. "I don't think he's going to last-" And then she fell and Y/n shot out to catch her.

"You alright?" Y/n asked, raising a hand to brush his thumb against Casandra's cheek.

"I'm fine," she answered. There was a long pause where she considered that, and then changed her answer. "I'm dying... But that's fine."

"I can take you to the city-" the Doctor began.

"No you won't," Casandra interrupted. "The city is new. This world is new. There's no place for Chip and me anymore." She looked at the Doctor. "You were right Doctor. It's time to die." Y/n felt his face crumble and he forced it neutral, but Rose hadn't missed it. "And that's good," Casandra assured, looking at Y/n to raise a hand and touch his face.

"You know Sandy," Y/n said. The nickname came from the last time they talked. He hadn't used it since she had been revealed as a traitor. "How about we let you do one last thing? I know what you need." She looked at him, and they shared a smile. They knew what the other was thinking in that moment. Y/n and Cassandra both had never been so seen by someone else.

They took Casandra to the night of the tape she had been watching on loop for years to cope with her life decisions. The night that she was told she was beautiful for the last time. Y/n watched from a distance as his friend died, in the arms of the past self she had wished to be forever, but had lost long ago.

That day, Rose and the Doctor both held Y/n as he cried. They didn't ask what had been going on with him zoning out, or what Casandra had meant when she said she knew what was going on inside his head, that was for another day. Today, he cried, and they held him until he stopped, and afterward they continued their adventure and let him mourn in peace.

He deserved that at the very least.

Story Taglist: @shoochi @e-reads-fics

#tenth doctor #male reader #dr who #doctor who #doctor who imagine #dr who imagine #dr who x reader #dr who x male reader #doctor who x reader #doctor who x male reader #tenth doctor x reader #tenth doctor x male reader #tenth doctor imagine #dr who fan fiction #doctor who fanfiction

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misssophiachase · 3 years

Note

...fake dating christmas au?

This took on a life of its own and is a kind of fusion with Holidate but with my own twist - hope you like it, Nik : ) Thanks for the awesome prompt.

No Refunds or Exchanges

Workaholic Caroline Forbes gets more than she bargained for when she receives a surprise gift on Christmas Eve from her friends.

“I’m sorry, you did what now?” Caroline hissed, pulling her friends away, strategically ensconced behind the impressive, Christmas Tree. She was attempting some level of discretion but that pretty much ended when her Christmas ‘gift’ was unveiled.

“You’re always so picky and difficult to shop for, Care,” Katherine argued, Bonnie by her side nodding enthusiastically. “Plus, we wanted to surprise you and given that shocked expression I think we succeeded.”

“The reason I’m shocked is because you gifted me a person. Like a real life, living, human being.”

“She called him a human being, Kat, I think that’s what they call progress,” Bonnie smiled triumphantly.

“It was a slip. Excuse me if I’m a little distracted by your totally inappropriate gift.” she growled, sneaking a glance at him from between the green, pine needles.

Why did he have to look so good in that woollen sweater with those lips and those curls and those damn dimples?

“Anyway, Klaus Mikaelson is most definitely an extra terrestrial.”

He was also closely related to her friends’ boyfriends which was not a good thing in Caroline’s book. She’d begrudgingly accepted that he’d be around every now and again but not disguised as a present at her own house on Christmas Eve.

“You always loved ET.”

“Leave him out of this,” she shot back, eyeing Bonnie. “You don’t just go around giving people other people as gifts.”

“Drama queen much? Caroline, he’s not the gift,” Kat clarified.

“Great because I was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable with this entire scenario.”

“It’s the services he provides.”

“Wow! Who knew Klaus Mikaelson moonlighted as a Christmas gigolo?” Caroline scoffed, wondering if they were playing a prank or she’d drunk too much of her nana’s spiked eggnog. “If they haven’t made a Hallmark movie about this yet then I’m buying the rights.”

“We are gifting him to you as your holidate,” Kat insisted, rolling her eyes for added effect.

“I’m sorry?”

“A holidate is someone you take as your date to all holiday celebrations throughout the year,” Bonnie grinned, clearly pleased with their gift.

“We both know you have that New Year’s work function,” Kat added. “We love you, even with those workaholic tendencies, so what better way to make those witches from legal accounts jealous than to show up with some English eye candy?”

“Our gift is valid for an entire year of holiday fun,” Bonnie added.

“Oh, and no refunds or exchanges,” Kat winked.

“I suppose that would be difficult given I don’t have a receipt of purchase,” Caroline groaned sarcastically. “I need more eggnog to process this whole ridiculous episode.”

“I know you don’t love me, Forbes, but there’s no need to turn to alcohol addiction.”

Speaking of English eye candy. She turned around not quite sure what she was going to say or do.

Her friends then decided to make themselves scarce. Traitors.

“Pretty sure you should be used to driving girls to drink, Mikaelson,” she snapped. “And if this is your idea of a joke then...”

“Says the girl wearing the festive, elf hat?” He reached out and tugged playfully on the bell at the end. She was trying to focus because he smelled so good and his close proximity was making it difficult to concentrate.

She hated him.

Well, that’s what she’d been telling herself since he’d crashed into her life nine months ago, mainly thanks to her friend’s bad taste in men.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I lost a bet to my cousin Matt,” she replied through gritted teeth. “We do it every year so as to try and avoid unnecessary, family dress-ups. I don’t get around in Christmas garb for fun.”

“Well, you wear it well, love, especially with that cell phone stuck to your ear permanently.”

“It’s called a job and why exactly did you agree to this? Or did they spike your eggnog too?”

“Number one, I have a job too, sweetheart, go figure. But being single at the holidays is torturous at best and if I can avoid my mother’s forlorn and pitying expressions I’ll do it. Surely you have some relatives and friends you want to shut down?”

“Maybe but, even so, I don’t like you in that way,” she blurted out. “Like, not if we were the last two people on earth and we had to procreate to save the human race.” Caroline was rambling uncontrollably, and she knew it.

“Well, someone certainly has tickets on herself,” Klaus chuckled earning a dirty look from his newly acquired holidate. “Good to see that we are on the same page at least.”

“Exactly! No kisses at midnight, no roses on Valentine’s Day and I get full costume approval on Halloween.”

“Someone needs to read the holidate contract,” he murmured, placing the paper in her hands.

“There’s a contract?”

“This is a fifty-fifty partnership, love. Trust me, I insisted on that when your friends decided to draft me for this task. We can discuss all holiday particulars beforehand.”

She was frozen, not quite sure how to react. How was he more organised than her?

“And I hate red roses so no worries about Valentine’s Day.”

“I still don’t like you,” she grumbled before making her way toward the kitchen. “Where is the damn eggnog?”

12 months later...

“Nice elf hat” she joked, tweaking on the bell like he had all those months prior. Klaus wore it way too well, but she wasn’t all that surprised. “Matt is a swindler when it comes to bets. He’s considering a professional poker career in Vegas, so don’t feel bad”

“Given your skills, maybe you should join him then, love?”

The Klaus she knew should have been upset by his current predicament but the lazy grin on his face was telling her something else entirely. Those creases in the corners of his eyes definitely meant something big.

Love.

“I’d much prefer to hang out with you and mistletoe,” she smiled, capturing his lips with hers. Caroline would never get sick of that feeling. Ever. “And anyone who can celebrate the holidays like you deserves a kiss or ten.”

She wanted to hate her friends for their ‘i told you so’ looks and constant commentary but it didn’t seem to matter when it came to him. Even though she still detested the term she’d begrudgingly fallen in love with her holidate.

“I’m so glad I never had a sales receipt for you.”

“There was a receipt?” He asked incredulously pulling back and breaking the spell between them. “Why do I suddenly feel like a piece of meat?”

“You should be so lucky,” Caroline teased. “But apparently I was told no returns or exchanges and for that I’ll be forever grateful.”

“I bet you say that to all the boys.”

“Only to my one and only holidate.”

#klaroline drabbles #holidate #klaroline fanfiction #klaroline #fusion #misssophiachase #princess-of-the-worlds #hope you like it

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totallypathet · 3 years

Text

UK Episode Five

UK Hun?

I know I haven't at all talked about Drag Race UK this season, but I have ~opinions~ and my flatmate is getting bored of me so here we are.

First episode back after lockdown! I feel so bad for these queens, started filming, get sent home for seven months, have no idea if/when they're going to start filming again, lose income for 7 months, it must have been so awful. But I'm glad they're all back! Except poor Veronica who got covid - I hope they do a Eureka and invite her back for season 3, I feel like she had so much more to show!

Of course they brought someone back to replace her, typical drag race gag, but nice that someone else got another chance! Having said that, it should have been Astina. She didn't deserve to go home in the first place, imo. I do think it was kind of harsh to throw that at everyone first thing though! Like the eliminated three didn't get to do anything to even fight for it, and for all the remaining queens, like its been seven months! Who remembers things that long?? Not me, that's for damn sure. I think that was kind of harsh, and I think a lot of people did go for Joe maybe as a safe choice, like there's always an argument for the queen who went home first, they didn't really get to show much. You know what I wish, I wish those three had been a group for the Eurovision (I refuse to say Rurovision) challenge, and then everyone got a chance to vote someone back. That would have felt fairer somehow.

Anyway. I was initially really glad we got Joe back, because I really felt like she did have more to show. I was soon to be disappointed, however 😂

I do love the music challenges, and I adore MNEK, I hope he is like the permanent music judge. One of my favourite moments was him, I think it was after Bimini's first take, going "well...its good that we have that..." very like Chrissy Teigen 😬 that was so funny to me, I loved it.

1. A'Whora

Before the covid break I really didn't like A'Whora, but I feel like she's come back a bit more relaxed, a bit more open, and I liked her so much more this episode. I feel like maybe when she came back she was a bit more relaxed because she knew (kind of) what she was walking into, so she felt a but more at home, maybe. Anyway, I think she did really well this week! She's not a singer, but she leaned into this moany sexy thing that some people do do at Eurovision, and hey, sex sells! I think it was a smart choice for her.

Her look as well... amazing. You guys it was a bag of chips! She had wooden forks as her earrings! The font of the newspaper was to scale! She was carrying a salt shaker! It was so sick, I loved it. I loved seeing her be fashion and polished and beautiful, but also whimsy and funny at the same time! Great week for A'Whora.

2. Bimini Bon Boulash

We LOOOOOOOVE Bimini Bon Boulash! For me, she was the absolute stand out this week, I just adored her! Her verse was amazing, her lyrics were great, her very East London attitude was everything, I just loved it. And her outfit! That mad pink cowboy barbie? Incredible! Also, so Eurovision. And the jump off the stool! That lives in my head rent free. "Somebody do a death drop or summing!" Perfect. The whole performance was amazing.

Also her runway looooooook! It was so beautiful, so fashion, I was getting Gautier from that lace and the umbrella... everything about it to me was so perfect. I know it was a team win, but to me Bimini absolutely killed it, and she was my winner 🥰🥰

3. Ellie Diamond

I love Ellie, but honestly I think she's too young for this competition. She's so great, but if you give her just a couple more years, she's going to be absolutely unstoppable. I think she did pretty well this week, her lyrics were fun, she is a dancer, she performed great! I do agree with Michelle, she did look a little bit like she was in her head for a lot of the performance, but that just comes with confidence, and when you've not performed for 7 months and then suddenly you're on the main stage, that's got to be super nerve wracking!

I also think Ellie was a victim of a bad group this week. I think the group as a whole didn't have a lot of direction or focus, the choreography wasn't that great, they didn't really feel like a group. It was unfortunate. I feel like she did the best she could.

I kind of loved her runway, I think the seagull thing was hilarious! She was a human size seagull! That's hysterical. The only thing I kind of wish is that she'd had ridiculous padding on. Like, what's funnier than a giant seagull with huge tits in a bikini. I think that's so funny.

4. Joe Black

Oh Joe. I was excited for Joe to come back, but as soon as she walked out to the Eurovision challenge in that dress with that wig and a belt, I knew it was over.

I'll get into the dress H&M/Primark drama in a second, but first let's talk about the actual challenge. Joe's lyrics were pretty good, but the way she performed them was just so at odds with the track. It's cheesy Euro pop, you know? I just feel like she could have done things differently. And then with the choreo...look I don't expect anyone to walk in being a great dancer and doing flips and splits and all that, but I just felt like she didn't even really try with the moves Ellie and Tia wanted to do. Maybe that was the edit, I don't know. I also feel like, as team leader, she could have found some solutions, like they could've had Tia & Ellie doing these amazing moves, and Sister & Joe could have done something more simple, or they could have found some comedy Joe could lean into while the others were dancing, but it just seemed like they didn't even try and find a way around it? It was just a bit weird to me.

And then she came out for the runway, and it was like chalk and cheese. Joe Black had by far and away the best runway look of the night. That's one of my favourite things that's ever been worn on UK Drag Race, it was amazing. But it was also like girl if you can do that, why were you wearing H&M during the main challenge? And like, I'd get it, if that dress was beautiful, or bold, or she'd used it as a base and done something to it, but it wasn't. It was so basic, and she even said she knew it was basic, and it didn't even fit her right. It was just so disappointing.

Honestly, I understand what Ru was saying about not wanting to see off the rack. I can't believe I'm about to be defending Transphobia Paul, but I actually kind of agree. And it's not about money, I don't think anyone has to spend loads of money to be a good drag queen, I think its just about it being a Look. A Moment. Like this is internationally available TV. And you're going to come out to perform in a dress off the sale rack that you just threw on and belted? I just find that disappointing. And I get what people are saying about Astina in week 1 winning with an off the rack outfit, but at least she did something with it. I mean, first of all it at least was a cool jacket. But then she built this outfit, and sold a character, she gave us an East London Moment, and it didn't matter that the jacket was from ASOS.

Joe didn't give us anything with that dress. She did nothing with it, and she didn't give us a character or a presentation, it was just an ugly dress. But then she came out in that incredible runway look, why such a disconnect? And I know that it was covid, and everyone had a loss of income, but girl the filming started before that. Like Joe should have already had the wardrobe for the season all ready before the lockdown. And if she didn't, she had 7 months to do literally anything with that dress. Stone it, glitter it, paint it, dye it, wreck it with bleach, make it a top, make it a jacket, do SOMETHING! You know? Also, that runway look? Idk if she made it or commissioned it, but baby that was not cheap. That took time, and energy, and effort, and money, so I'm calling bullshit on "maybe she could only afford a sale rack H&M dress 😔". Bullshit, Vivienne.

I was just so disappointed in Joe. I'm glad she went home.

5. Lawrence Chaney

I was worried for Lawrence this week! She's not known for being a singer or a dancer, and she was the only plus size girl in her group. As a big bitch myself I know it can be intimidating to be surrounded by thin people, especially when you're doing things you're not confident in.

But bitch she fucking turned it out this week! She wrote good lyrics, she kept up with the choreography, but most importantly, she performed the song. Like she leaned into not being a good dancer, she didn't look unsure or awkward, she just did it. I love that about Lawrence, she always just gives it her best, and I respect the hell out of it.

Her day at the seaside look was cute. It was a little bit obvious, a little bit literal, but it was well made, it fit her beautifully, and she looked fantastic. She did the assignment, and tbh I'm happy with that. She did a good job, and I'm proud of her!

6. Sister Sister

Honesly, the fact that Tia Kofi was in the bottom two when Sister Sister was right there is a fucking hate crime.

I genuinely forgot Sister Sister even existed. Like the only memorable thing she has done all season is her Morning Talk Show goth, and that was painful to watch. And she spends all her confessionals just bitching and moaning about other people! She spent the whole Talk Show episode complaining about Veronica and saying she didn't wanna work with her, but bitch what did you do?? If you think someone else is boring, you should have no trouble out shining them! And then she didn't!

I'm over it with her. Her performance wasn't that good, her lyrics weren't that good, and then her runway look was like the Wish version of A'Whora's.

I'm not totally certain that I buy that Sister stole it as a concept from A'Whora, but... maybe? Like, if Sister had really seen A'Whora's when they were filming the first time, and Sister had something totally different back then... I can see that maybe she thought "oh, thats a way better idea". All I know is, if you're gonna do the same look as someone else, you better leave them in the dust; and she didn't. She should have been lipsyncing this week.

7. Tayce

Tayce really pulled it out this week! Her rap was one of the best performances in the whole show, she killed it! Her lyrics were great, she really delivered them like a rapper, and them she performed the hell out of the song! Loved it. The only things I had to say about Tayce was that she seemed like the odd one out in the group in terms of outfits? Like everyone else went very Eurovision, cheesy pop pink, and she went with a very cool, edgy, darker look. Like, she looked stunning, and I looooved her hair, but it just didn't quite fit with the rest of the group. But that's a real nitpick, in terms of the actual performance, she was amazing!

Tayce's runway look. It was okay. It was a little bit literal for me, she went for shells and netting. It was cool, she looked beautiful, but it wasn't like a knockout for me.

8. Tia Kofi

Tia got a raw fucking deal this week. She was the best performer in her group by a country fucking mile, she had the best lyrics, she was the best rapper, and I think she looked the best out of the four in that group (during during challenge). I could not believe they put her in the bottom two.

Okay, her runway look was not great. It was a long way from great. But at least she had a unique concept (*cough* Sister), and she gave us some form of presentation. It could have been a lot better, but there was potential! I really wish that she'd had a much more defined look, I wish the skirt had been a high waisted pencil skirt, with some kind of cone-like texture somehow, really fitted and beautiful. And then I wish the top had been really big and over the top ruffles, maybe tulle, just something BIG. And that wouldn't have had to be expensive, you can buy cheap pencil skirts, she could have dyed one brown herself, and then she could have bought that cheap mesh that looks like tulle and made a really big rounded ice cream top out of it - I'm just proving my point about Joe Black and the off the rack thing now btw. But I wish it had just been a bit more considered than it was. And I also wish she'd had a flake head piece instead of a cherry, because when you buy those ice creams at the beach it's always a 99.

One thing I will give Tia's runway this week is that her face was stunning. I think that's the best her face has looked all season, the makeup was beautiful.

There was kind of a lot of drama this week with the whole off the rack thing, and then the A'Whora vs Sister Sister conspiracy, and I kind of loved it! I also really enjoyed this challenge, I feel like they've had much better and more interesting challenges on the UK series than the American one. Also UK Hun is going to be in my head for weeks.

I'm picking my top 2 of the season as Lawrence Chaney and Bimini Bon Boulash. Veronica Green would have been up there for me as well, it's a real shame that she got sick and couldn't finish this season! I really really hope they bring her back for season 3!

#drag race uk #uk drag race #rpdruk #a'whora #bimini bon boulash #bimini #ellie diamond #joe black #lawrence Chaney #sister sister #tayce #tia kofi #rupaul #michelle visage #graham norton

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raleighcarrera · 4 years

Text

daydream

ride or die | logan x mc (ellie wheeler)

ellie takes logan home from the hospital. he’s had a couple of painkillers.

for @rodappreciationweek day 1 (logan day!)

~2.2k words | T (brief mentions of violence but otherwise extreme fluff)

she’d been in class, when mona had called her, so ellie didn’t get the chance to check her voicemail until an hour after the notification first lit up her cellphone screen.

then she heard the words ‘hospital’ and ‘surgery’ and promptly blacked out, racing down the highway from campus to get back to the city as quickly as possible.

“where is he?” ellie demanded, once she’d caught up to her, out of breath from having run from the parking lot, “is he okay? can i see him? what happened?”

“relax,” mona said, ellie’s eyes immediately widening in response. now was definitely not the time to relax. “he’s out of surgery. they said it went well. he’s totally fine, we can take him home tonight.”

ellie exhaled, nodding numbly. her shoulders slumped. “okay. okay, that’s good. i’m glad, but -- seriously, what happened to him?”

she winced. “he got shot a little.”

god, was mona ever lucky that they were in a crowded hospital waiting room. swallowing down her scream, ellie grit her teeth and ground out, “how does someone get shot a little?”

mona rolled her eyes. “fine, he got shot a lot. it’s because he doesn’t listen.”

“jesus christ,” ellie huffed, “i can’t believe you --”

“hang on, don’t blame me --”

“excuse me?”

ellie pursed her lips, turning to the nurse that’d interrupted them. “yes?”

“i’ll need to go over some recovery information with the home caretaker. would that be you?”

well, it definitely wasn’t going to be mona. ellie sighed -- so much for her perfect attendance record this semester, though even the idea of school seemed inconsequential, now. “yeah,” she murmured, “what will he need once i get him home?”

she nodded attentively through a long lecture on bandage changing and medication dosage, making notes on the instructional paperwork the nurse provided. it was relieving to have something to focus on other than the rapid pounding of her heartbeat, which hadn’t taken even a moment to slow since she’d first left class, and the nausea that wouldn’t seem to temper, twisting her stomach into knots.

finally, logan came out into the waiting room, sprawled easily in a wheelchair and talking animatedly to the nurse that was pushing him. he had a wide, goofy smile on his face, and he was talking with his hands -- with the right one, at least, his left arm slung across his stomach.

despite the assurances she’d received since she first got here, part of her hadn’t really thought she’d see him again. part of her was convinced everyone was lying about how fine he was to keep her calm, but the sight of him, alive and whole and seemingly alright immediately triggered a deep relief within her, so sudden and intense that she stumbled a little under the weight of it.

he turned his head and caught sight of her, his expression lighting up with joy as soon as their eyes locked. “baby,” logan said slowly, drawing out the sound of the vowel so the word felt a mile long. “hey, what’re you doing here?”

tears sprung into her eyes suddenly, catching her entirely off guard. she rushed the rest of the way over to him and reached down to cup his face in her hands, gently smoothing them over his hair and across his cheeks. “thank god you’re okay,” she hiccuped quietly, “i was so scared.”

“oh, don’t cry. you’re so pretty, you shouldn’t cry.” he was still smiling that big grin, and each word out of his mouth was soft and slurred.

from behind him, the nurse that’d brought him out into the lobby said, “he’s on some pretty strong painkillers. he’s probably going to be a little out of it for awhile.”

“that’s okay.” ellie reluctantly pulled her hand away to wipe at her eyes, standing up straight again. “i’m just glad he’s okay.”

“hey, erica, did you meet my girlfriend?” logan asked, tilting his head back to look at the nurse standing behind him, going cross-eyed as he went. “this’s her. she’s the smartest girl in the whole world. she invented physics.”

“wow,” erica the nurse said obligingly, “that’s quite the accomplishment. you must be very proud.”

logan beamed at her. “so proud,” he agreed, “she’s gonna win the nobel prize and i’m gonna be a trophy husband.”

everyone within hearing distance started laughing. ellie could feel herself flush red to the roots of her hair, her whole face going up in flames. “okay, that’s enough. we need to get you home and in bed.”

“cool,” logan said, flipping his hair out of his eyes. he winked at her.

ellie’s blush deepened as the nurses laughed and fawned over logan while she signed his discharge paperwork -- of course they’d already been charmed by him.

mona helped her get him into the passenger seat of her car, and then they were alone, ellie’s grip on the steering wheel white-knuckled as she made her way back to his apartment.

it was a strange role-reversal; often, when they were together, he did the driving. but logan didn’t seem bothered at all by the change of pace, humming to himself and alternating between staring out the window and smiling at her. “you came home from school?” he asked finally, breaking the silence between them. his voice was a sing-song, like they were out for a sunday afternoon drive instead of on their way home from the emergency room.

“yeah,” she answered, “of course. mona called and said you were in the hospital, i didn’t -- i drove down as soon as i could. and i’ll stay as long as i can.”

he made a soft, interested noise from beside her. “stay with me?”

“someone has to change your bandage and --”

“this is the best day ever. baby -- you should stay forever.” ellie glanced over and saw his head roll to the side in the passenger seat, his dopey grin only growing the longer he stared at her. “forever and ever and ever and ever --”

“logan --”

“-- and ever and ever and ever. whaddya say?”

“you are going to feel awful when those wear off,” she murmured, though the tension she’d been carrying in her shoulders started to dissipate, slightly, her lips gently turning up into a smile. “seriously, are you still totally numb?”

a laugh bubbled up in his mouth -- something like a giggle. “pretty much. just pulls a little if i move weird.” as she waited to merge onto the highway, ellie glanced over at logan again and found him poking at his stomach with a wince. “hurt like hell when it happened, though.”

“you scared the shit out of me,” she said bluntly, turning back to the road and frowning at it as though the 405 was personally responsible for logan’s injury. “i almost had a stroke driving down here.”

“god, i’m sorry, el.” the playful tone was gone from his voice all at once, replaced with dramatic agony. “i mean it, babe. i’m really -- really -- really sorry.”

“it’s fine,” ellie assured him, doing her best to stifle a laugh, her anger evaporating completely in the face of his pouting, “the important thing is that you’re alright now.”

it was a balance, keeping her handle on the road smooth while still trying to get them home as quickly as possible, but she managed it, somehow able to get logan into the apartment even with his limbs seemingly everywhere at once when he leaned on her for support.

“ow,” he whined abruptly, as soon as she got him in bed and logan’s head hit the pillow, “ow, ow, ow. ellie, ow.”

“one second,” she murmured, biting back another laugh while she made sure he was situated and comfortable, taking care to get everything organized so she wouldn’t have any issues over the next few days before presenting logan with another pill and a bottle of water. “here.”

“feed it to me,” he demanded, sticking out his tongue.

ellie stared at him. he arched his eyebrows expectantly.

“you’re ridiculous,” she laughed, but dropped the pill into his mouth anyway, still pushing the bottle of water forcefully into his hands. “stop it, you’ll choke.”

“you hate me,” logan said, but he did swallow the pill without complaining, wiggling down under the covers as soon as he was done. once the blankets were yanked up to his chin, he said, “come here.”

“baby, you really need to rest,” ellie murmured, though she still sat down on the edge of the mattress beside him as carefully as she could, reaching out to smooth her hand over his hair again. “you need to get some sleep, okay?”

his eyes went wide and sad. “what did i ever do to make you hate me so much?” logan’s words were starting to slur together again. “all i ever did was love you, a lot, like so much.”

she regarded him fondly as he continued to ramble, her whole body thrumming with affection. logan was impossible to deny on a normal day, but today? all she really wanted was to be close to him, anyway. “okay, drama queen. you win.”

ellie slipped into the bed beside him as gingerly as possible, taking care not to touch him. part of her was curious about the bandaged wound on his side, but her stomach rolled at just the thought of seeing it up close, the same nauseous mix of fear and dread that’d been so prevalent during her drive down this afternoon returning all at once.

“so much better,” he sighed, reaching out and grabbing her hand, lacing their fingers together. each word dragged out endlessly again, just like his first baby at the hospital. “i missed you. you’re so pretty.”

“you mentioned that,” she laughed, doing her very best to focus on how cute he was being and not on the fact that he’d almost died earlier today. if she thought about anything other than how different and weird and kind of nice it was to see his silly side, she was going to crack completely. “i missed you, too, baby. i wish we were closer together.”

“wish we were together all the time,” logan said, the sentence broken apart by a yawn that stretched his jaw halfway through. “s’cause you gotta go to school and be smart and do important stuff, i guess.”

“yeah,” ellie murmured. she fell quiet as she studied his expression, and then her lips curved back up into a smile. “we really have to work on making you a trophy husband, asap. no more life-or-death stuff for you.”

“tell me about it,” he hummed, dragging his thumb across the back of her hand. “but i’ll be the best trophy husband ever, el. super dad.”

her teeth bit at her bottom lip. it was probably wrong to take advantage of the fact that he wasn’t exactly himself, but -- “you think about that kind of stuff?”

“duh.” ellie pursed her lips to hold back a grin. the tone of his voice implied it should have been obvious. “you’re the whole world. i wanna do it all with you.”

she shifted closer in the low light of his bedroom, until their knees bumped together under the sheets. logan smiled at her, and she felt her heart skip what was probably an important beat, her pulse stuttering and then picking up again in double time as she watched him from up close.

“i love you.” ellie shut her eyes. despite her best efforts, she knew she was getting emotional. the emotional rollercoaster she’d been on over the last few hours was proving to be overwhelming. she suddenly felt exhausted.

“hey, i love you more. more than... cars. more than indiana jones. more than all the stars in the sky. more than -- oh, more than french fries, ellie. that’s a lot.”

she laughed, the sound morphing into a contented sigh when logan tipped their foreheads together. ellie drew in a deep breath and caught something uniquely him under the scent of the hospital -- antiseptic and sterile alcohol -- something familiar and deep and rich, like the woods and like home, a scent that clung to the inside of his car and all her favorite clothes, following her out to college and everywhere else she went.

her eyes slowly blinked open. “that is a lot.”

“you’re the best dream,” he mumbled nonsensically, “i hope you’re still here when i wake up.”

ellie stared at him, taking in the way his blinks were slowing down, how his breathing was evening out steadily. she exhaled, finally, forcibly remembering what the staff at the hospital had said and reminding herself how important it was that he got a good night’s sleep.

logan was okay. everything was going to be fine. she could do this. “of course i’ll still be here,” she promised, lowering her voice to the same hushed whisper. “i’m not going anywhere.”

he shot her one more dreamy smile, but didn’t say anything else. ellie averted her eyes, staring out the window over his head so she could look at the moon, her mind racing.

eventually, his hand went slack in hers. she still kept their fingers intertwined, and the steady sound of his breathing in the bed beside her finally turned everything still, including her swirling thoughts.

tonight, they were together -- so that meant there was nothing to worry about.

for now.

#rodaw #rod logan #logan rod #logan x mc #choices rod #ellie wheeler #logan x ellie #myfic #long post #eeeeep this is the first logan thing i've written that wasn't like from a prompt #hope you all like it 💗#ride or die

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phykios · 3 years

Text

people on ao3 were thirsty for this fic so... here you go, tumblr ❤

put on the red light M, sex work au, modern royalty au, no powers au [read on ao3]

🌊🌊🌊

Sometimes, she really regrets being best friends with Piper.

Said best friend still gapes at her from across the table, jaw practically on the floor. “Never?”

Annabeth rolls her eyes. “Never.”

“Not even, like, at school?”

“When I would have had the time?” she asks. “I was attempting a five-year program in four years, and then… well, you know.” And she does know, all about the very exciting drama that went down in Annabeth’s senior year.

Piper is still flabbergasted. “Not even high school?”

Annabeth takes a sip of her drink. “I wasn’t exactly a hot commodity in high school.” She’d been passively pretty all her life, but she hadn’t exactly been what some might call Girlfriend material, capital G. She’d stuck to her fifteen year plan to the letter, eschewing most social contact, working herself into the ground to overcome ADHD by sheer force of will and get into Harvard, a plan which allowed approximately zero time for a boyfriend. Not that there were even boys that she had really liked at the time.

The only boy she had ever considered liking in that way, well. She had lost contact with him a while ago.

“I can’t believe this.”

“Believe it or not, Ripley, it’s true. I’ve never had sex. You happy?”

“I mean, if you don’t mind me asking, are you ace?” Piper asks. “Because that’s totally cool, of course.”

She shakes her head. “Definitely not ace.” She has a minor collection of personal massagers and insertable devices should she ever need to take care of an urge, and plenty of fantasies she can call on whenever the need arises--a system which has worked just fine for years.

“I just…” Piper stares, unconvincingly. “How?”

Shrugging, she takes another sip of coffee. “Just never got around to it, I guess.”

It’s not something she’s proud of, but by the same token, it’s not something that brings her shame, either. It is what it is; Annabeth, a notable workaholic, has never had sex with another person in her life. In some ways, it sucks, sure, but in other ways, it’s been a blessing in disguise. After all, no previous partners means that there’s no one to spread any dirt on the newly minted Princess Anja Elisabet of Sweden.

But Piper isn’t having it.

“Do you… want to have sex?” she asks. “Like, ever?”

As the daughter of one of the biggest movie stars in the world, she knows that Piper has had her fair share of high profile relationships, something that earned her a little bit of a nasty (and, quite frankly, racist) reputation among the paparazzi, which is ridiculous, since Piper is one of the most effortlessly gracious and classy people Annabeth knows. Piper does not go slinging herself and her partners around in the media like some of her contemporaries; instead, she likes to keep her personal details a bit closer to the chest, sharing them only with trusted confidants, like Annabeth, who knows full well how much Piper enjoys the act of sex. Sex for Piper isn’t dirty or taboo, it’s fun and it’s being close with other people, it’s liberating and exciting and intimate, and she extols its virtues whenever asked to give her opinion.

She makes sex sound really good, but never in a way that makes Annabeth feel ashamed for never having done it. Until now, of course. “Well… yeah,” says Annabeth. “I’d like to. I mean, I think it’d be kind of nice, you know, to do it at least once.”

“But then you’d have to start dating,” Piper surmises.

“Yeah,” says Annabeth, glumly.

Dating is a notorious problem for people in her line of work. Royalty, not architects, that is. Dating for architects is easy; just find someone who doesn’t mind the type A personalities and the obsession with work. Dating for royals is… significantly harder, and not really something she wants to engage with right now. She’s only been a royal for a few years, after all—she still feels like it’s a big cosmic joke, that someone is going to unearth some old documents or reveal a couple of forgeries that will bring the whole thing crashing down, and she doesn’t want to bring an outsider into all that drama, let alone deal with it herself.

Piper takes a sip of her drink, thoughtful, then lays out her next question carefully. “Have you ever considered a one-night stand?”

Annabeth stares. “You’re kidding me.”

“I’m not! People do it.”

“Yeah,” she scoffs, “people. Not me.”

“It’s really not hard,” Piper says, “I’ve done it plenty of times.”

“What, you want me to make a tinder?”

She laughs. “God, wouldn’t that be a riot. But no, I mean, there have to be other single royals or celebs around. Why not one of them?”

“Because they’re all insufferable social-climbing jackasses that make me want to rip my skull out of my face every time I’m forced to listen to them at a state dinner.”

“Okay, then.” Never one to be deterred, Piper pulls out her phone, then waits until Annabeth has taken a sip of her drink, presumably to keep her from immediately disagreeing, before dropping the bomb to end all bombs. “Let’s get you an escort.”

Annabeth snorts iced coffee directly out of her nose.

“Shit! Sorry!” Piper shoves a handful of napkins at her. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, do you need water?”

Wheezing, Annabeth shakes her head. “Give me a sec,” she coughs, fingers covering her mouth.

Thank God she’s got her trusty, anti-pap hat on. If anyone took a picture of her like this, her uncle would probably disown her.

“What the hell, Piper?” she rasps when she can finally breathe again.

“I’m so sorry, I should have timed that better.”

“No, I mean—” she coughs again. “The other thing.”

She raises an eyebrow. “The escort?”

“Keep your voice down!” On instinct, she glances around the London cafe, looking for any stray microphones. Satisfied that no one is listening for the moment, she turns back to her insane best friend. “Yes, the… that thing.”

“It’s not that crazy,” says Piper, turning back to her phone. “We’ll find you a really nice one, someone super high class and discreet, draw up an NDA, and then you can cross it off your bucket list. Man or woman?”

“Man, but—" she sputters. “I—I can’t see a prostitute! Can you imagine the scandal if it got out?”

Forget the iced coffee thing. The princess of Sweden, caught with a hooker… Annabeth is nauseous just thinking about the media circus.

“Not a prostitute,” Piper corrects. “An escort.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Same umbrella, but no.” She types away, faster than Annabeth can keep track of. “Pimping is illegal here, but escorts usually have managers.”

“Be that as it may,” because Piper seems to have forgotten the key part of this conversation, “I can’t have sex with an escort.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” The million and a half legitimate reasons not to go through with it all fly through her mind, getting lost somewhere on the way to her mouth. “Because!”

Piper just smiles at her. “I’ll get you a really nice one, promise. Think of it as a late birthday present.”

“It’s September.”

“Early Christmas, then.” And she grins, full of teeth. “Just trust me, okay? Let me take care of it.”

Famous last words, she thinks, popping a bit of scone in her mouth.

***

7PM, the Dorchester Hotel. Dinner first, then… whatever, later.

Annabeth can’t help but arrive early. She’d never been a punctual person before, but apparently now it’s been beaten into her with all the rest of her princess training.

Five-star hotels are still something of a novelty for her, even though she’s stayed in quite a few by now. Thankfully she’s never stayed here before; she’d be too worried someone on staff would recognize her.

She had thought that she’d show up early, psych herself up a little, get emotionally prepared, or at least have a little time to calm her racing heart before her… date… showed up.

Unfortunately, as punctual as she is, apparently, he’s beaten her to the punch.

He’s exactly where he said he’d be, wearing exactly what he said he’d be wearing; black suit, blue tie, gold watch. Her heart is beating so loudly, she’s sure he can hear it from across the room. “Um, excuse me,” she asks, a little more timid than she’d like, sidling up to the man. “Paris?”

At his name--well, she assumes it’s his name, but it’s probably a pseudonym now that she thinks about it--he lifts his head up, his lips already quirking up in a smile that she can only describe as troublemaking. “Bethany?”

Right. She used a pseudonym as well. A second pseudonym—one other than Anja. “Yeah,” she smiles in return, her shakiness easing.

“Hey!” He stands up from his seat in the lounge, leaning in and kissing her on the cheek. “It’s so nice to meet you!”

“You too.” She realizes with a pang; he is so tall. He’s tall, with broad shoulders and a trim waist, startlingly green eyes and thick, curly black hair. And… “You’re American?”

“I am,” he says, unashamed. “The accent gave me away, huh? Hope you weren’t looking for something else.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” she assures him. “I just wasn’t expecting it. It’s fine!"

He grins, crookedly, and she feels her heart skip a beat. “I’ll take it. Shall we head to dinner, then?”

***

Dinner was amazing, of course. The food, the atmosphere, and the company, she fully admits—all exceptional. Paris is an amazing conversationalist, she discovers, smart and funny and attentive, even gently teasing her a little. “You’re American, too, you know,” he’d said, sipping on his glass of wine, “so you can’t give me any grief over my lack of an accent.”

“I don’t live here,” she’d retorted, pointing her fork at him, “unlike some people I could mention.”

“Where do you live?”

“Ah, well—” Covering up her hesitation by taking a bite of chicken, she’d thought quickly. “Grew up in the States, but recently I moved to, um, Sweden, to be closer to my family.”

He’d nodded. “Expat, huh?”

“Something like that.”

He’d listened to her, really listened, chimed in at appropriate moments, made surprisingly insightful comments about her job and her life, and, well, he’s kind of perfect. If he weren’t an escort, he’d make an amazing boyfriend. She tells him as much, in the elevator on the way up to his room.

“Aw, thank you!” He smiles at her, a single dimple popping out under his strong cheekbones. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

“Why do you do this, anyway?” she asks. “I mean,” oh God, that question is some kind of faux pas isn’t it, Christ what the hell happened to all her etiquette training, “you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to—”

“No, it’s okay,” he says as the elevator door opens. They’re up on a high floor, where the higher high rollers like to stay, and she follows him as he walks confidently down the hallway. “It’s not an offensive question.”

Still, she feels pretty shitty for asking. “I’m sure you get asked that all the time.”

“Most clients honestly aren��t all that interested,” he admits, shrugging a shoulder. “They need something, I can provide it. It can be a little transactional at times, but I’ve met a lot of really cool people, so it all balances out in the end.” Arriving at their door, Paris swipes his keycard, holding it open for her like some kind of butler. “After you.”

The room is enormous, even for a five-star hotel. It is a full-on suite, with a seating area and separate bedroom, a large wooden desk off to one wall, a gorgeous, floor-to-ceiling window that looks onto Hyde Park, full of lights dotted about like mini constellations. “Wow,” she breathes, “look at that view.”

“I never get tired of it,” Paris says, coming up behind her. “No matter how many times I come here.”

“You come here a lot?” she asks. She almost follows it up with a question on how he can afford it, but she ruthlessly quashes that down.

“My clients like it,” is all he says.

“I’m not surprised, all that 1930s deco in the lobby. The façade is a little plain, though, in my opinion.”

“Oh yeah? How would you do it better, Miss Architect?” She gets the sense that he’s teasing her. It feels oddly intimate for the situation—he’s not a friend, or a boyfriend, or even a date. He’s an escort. Providing a service, as he put it. He shouldn’t be so friendly with her.

And yet. “Well, I love Neoclassical, but honestly, I’m not super into hotels.”

“What are you into, then?” Casually, he undoes his tie, sliding it off his neck. She swallows.

“Um.” Focus, girl. “Office buildings, monuments. I dunno. I just want to… I just want to build something good, you know? Something permanent. Proof that I was here, you know?”

“Something permanent, huh?” He speaks softly, a respectable distance away, but she’s drawn in anyway, by his open shirt collar and his easy demeanor and his stupid sea green eyes that remind her so much of— “That sounds really nice.”

Then he steps up to her. His hand, warm and big, draws up her arm, fingers tracing lightly over her skin, and she shivers. He cups her neck, fingering the hair at the base of her scalp, and leans in, his lips parted. He smells like salt, like the perfume of the wine they shared, like the sea on a sunny morning.

“Wait,” she murmurs against his lips.

Immediately, he pulls back. “Is something wrong?” he asks, concerned.

“No, no, it’s fine, I just—” She swallows, her heart racing. “I just need a minute.”

“Of course.” He takes a step back, and she has to stop herself from pulling him in further. “Do you need anything? Water, champagne? They always stock the minifridge.”

She shakes her head. “No, I’m fine. It’s just, I’ve never… done this before.”

“What, hire an escort?” He grins, rakish. “I can tell.”

“Not that—I mean, yes, that too, but I mean—I’ve never—” She huffs, annoyed she has to have this conversation twice in one week. “I’ve never had sex before, okay?”

That shocks him a little. His eyes widen, taken aback. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Chuckling weakly, she rubs a hand on her arm, looking out the window. “So… yeah.”

“So, don’t take this the wrong way,” says Paris, “but, there are easier ways to get laid than by using a professional. I mean, I’m grateful for the business and all, but, well, look at you.” He looks her up and down, somehow simultaneously respectful and entirely indecent. “I don’t think you’d have a problem getting a date.”

“It’s… complicated.” Understatement of the fucking millennium. “My friend thought this would be the easiest way to… go about it.”

Paris laughs. “You don’t agree.”

“I don’t… not agree,” she says. “I’m just. A little nervous.”

He nods. “I’d bet.” Chewing his lip, he looks towards the bedroom suite, and Annabeth tries not to think about how those teeth would feel on her mouth instead. “How about this; why don’t you take a shower? It might help calm you down a bit.”

“Won’t you be lonely?” she quips, a moment of reckless bravery.

“I have a few calls I can make,” says Paris, eyes dancing. “Go on. Make yourself comfortable.”

***

She has to hand it to the five-star hotels; the shower is always outstanding. Amazing pressure, amazing heat, it definitely rivals the plumbing in some of the castles she’s stayed at. And the robes, always so soft and warm, though a little on the small side. This one just barely covers her ass, which she figures isn’t a huge problem for tonight, but still.

When she steps out of the bathroom, she can hear Paris talking. “Uh huh,” he says. “Yeah. No, it’s going great. Professor Kleio said she’d write me a recommendation. She was really impressed with the last build. Yeah.” She runs her fingers through her wet hair, pushing it back from her face. “No, the conference is next month. Probably. Pretty sure I can get Tyson to help, but I don’t think it’ll get that far before the end of the week. Uh huh.”

Paris had taken off his suit jacket at some point; she can see it hung up in the closet on a hanger, perfectly pressed. He’s still in his shirt, but he’s unbuttoned it, the sleeves rolled up around his forearms. It is effortlessly attractive, even from the back. She coughs lightly, unwilling to startle him, and he turns, giving her another up-and-down, this one decidedly less respectful than the first.

“Hey, I gotta go, I’ll call you tomorrow. Say hi to Estelle for me. Love you.” And he hangs up.

“Your girlfriend?” she asks.

He smiles, all soft. “My mom.”

Something in her melts at his tone. “Aw,” she coos. “Is she back in America?”

“Yeah. I don’t get to see her all that often, so I try to call her every day.”

It is so unfathomably sweet, sweet and… humanizing, as weird as that sounds. He’s not just an unbelievably handsome man with a jaw cut like a diamond and a five-star rating, according to Piper, he’s a person with a whole other life that she knows nothing about. It’s liberating, in its own way. She can make mistakes with him, and he’ll understand. He won’t judge her, not against his other clients, or even his other partners.

Swallowing, she slides the robe off her shoulders, slowly, achingly. Maybe he turned the heat up while she wasn’t looking, because all of a sudden, she feels hot all over, from her cheeks to her chest and down, and down. Maybe it’s all coming from him, from the heat of his gaze on her, his pink tongue coming out to wet his lips. She wants it, wants them, wants him, on her and in her and all over her.

But he stays on his side of the room, waiting for her to take the plunge.

She steps up to him, close but not touching, breathing in the heady, strong scent of him, raking her eyes up his body for a change. Even through his shirt, she can tell he’s fit, the exposed skin of his arms tanned a deep brown, thick, coarse, dark hair running up to his wrists. On his right arm, there is a black trident long and straight, crossed by an old, white scar. “What happened here?” she asks, lifting her hand to trace it, leaving visible goosebumps in its wake.

“Sailing accident,” he whispers. “Long time ago.”

There’d been a kid at her summer camp for troubled teens who’d gotten thrown off his boat and hurt like that, once. She remembered so vividly, because she’d been on infirmary duty that day, and all she could think about while wrapping up his arm was how fucking stupid he'd been, how he could have gotten himself really hurt, how badly she’d wanted to kiss him.

She'd moved across the country before she'd gotten the chance, though, and no one else had ever made her feel like that since. Until now. “Got any other ink to show me?”

But instead of answering, he leans down, and he kisses her.

She’s been kissed before. She’s never had sex, but she’s done some kissing in her life. It’s usually pretty awkward, in her experience, too much of one thing and never enough of another.

Nope, not Paris. Of course, he’s also a phenomenal kisser. Why she expected anything else, she’s not sure.

His hands come up to circle her neck again, his thumbs running against her cheekbones. He kisses her, pouring passion and intent into her, his mouth soft and sweet against hers. And then he slips her some tongue, and it’s a whole different ballgame.

“Take off your shirt,” she whispers into his mouth.

He does, effortlessly, without detaching himself from her. It’s a smooth, easy motion, and she is delighted to discover that he is as firm as she suspected he was, the muscles jumping under her touch.

Almost without her realizing it, he backs her up towards the bed, her knees hitting the edge of the mattress. He lays her out against the sheets, his bare chest hot against hers. “Before we go any further,” he says, and she can feel the vibrations of his voice all throughout her body, “tell me—have you ever made yourself come?”

She flushes at his words, the dirty talk which should sound stupid but instead comes out all sultry and sexy. “Yes,” she says, breath hitching as he nips at her neck. “Yes, I have.”

“Good.” He smiles into the skin of her collarbone, traveling down, and down, and down. “I want you to show me how.”

“Isn’t that,” she pants, “your job?”

“Hmm, you’re right.” He pushes her thighs apart with his shoulders, bright eyes staring up at her as he licks his lips. “Let me get to work, then.”

Breathing heavily, she curls her fingers into the ten thousand count sheets, eyes fixed on the ceiling pattern. She can’t look at the dark head between her legs, can only breathe in through her nose as he kisses up the skin of her thigh, higher and higher and higher until…

Jesus fucking lord almighty.

***

“I found the perfect guy for you.”

“Piper, come on.” Theses brunch dates of theirs were starting to get a little repetitive. “I let you set me up with a professional, but I draw the line at a blind date.”

“Have I steered you wrong yet, your highness?” Piper asks, knowing grin firmly on her face.

Annabeth blushes. So what if that night with Paris was the most incredible experience she’d ever had? Doesn’t mean she’s ready for a full-on relationship, yet. “No,” she says, rubbing her temples.

“Great!” Then she does something that Annabeth doesn’t expect—she starts packing up. “So he’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” she smiles, so bright it borders on painful, her nose scrunching up. “I invited him to brunch. But he’s really, really nice, I promise.”

“Does he know about—”

“No, he doesn’t, but if you wanted to spill, he’s a fantastic secret keeper.”

“How do you even know—”

Piper glances over Annabeth’s shoulder, eyes lighting up, waving a hand. “Friend of a friend of Jason, he’s a grad student at Cambridge, he’s doing his dissertation on naval history, so you know the king will love him.”

“Piper!” Annabeth half-calls, half-hisses at her friend as she stands up “Piper, you can’t just—”

“Hey,” says a voice behind her. A very familiar voice. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was joining us.” She turns around. Slowly. “Nice to meet you, I’m… Percy…” he trails off, sea green eyes widening behind a pair of thick, black glasses, beneath dark, curly hair. On his arm, a black trident stood out against his skin, straight and proud.

“Percy, meet Annabeth,” Piper says. “Annabeth, meet Percy. Okay, have fun you two!”

And she waltzes out of there, completely unaware of the absolute shitstorm she left in her wake.

#my fic #pjo #percabeth #the rivalry ends here #percy jackson #annabeth chase

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agentfreckles · 3 years

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Prank anon back for more! How do you think forcing UB to watch a reality TV show would go? I mean, is even possible to get A or M to watch it is the real question? I imagine the funny scenario is forcing A to watch it and they actually get heavily invested. I doubt that they’d ever admit that they like it tho! Like imagine A trying to sneak and watch the show and all of a sudden F bursts in and catches them watching it by themselves and A is all like... “I can explain”

My beloved prank anon has returned 🙌 Thank you for stopping by for some fun and I hope you are doing well! And omg that little scenario you mentioned with A and F!!! Aksxsdw what if like the detective forced A to watch the Bachelor/Bachelorette and A was super uninterested until the detective suggested a bet where they each choose a contestant and whoever’s choice makes it the furthest in the competition wins. Then suddenly A would be super into it. Like they definitely don’t care one iota about the show at all, but they’ll be damned if their contestant doesn’t outlast the detective’s. So they’re rewatching the episodes and angrily yelling at the tv and scrutinizing the group/individual dates and stressing that they might have bet on the wrong horse and that’s what F walks in on.

Okay lol now that I've gotten that lovely little image out of my brain, let’s discuss what kinds of reality shows the detective would have the best chance of getting the LIs to sit down and watch.

Your best bet with A would be any kind of well-structured reality competition show, physically demanding ones like American Ninja Warrior likely having a greater chance of success. They might be resistant at first, but honestly I think once they stopped grumbling about being forced to watch they’d pretty quickly get invested in the competition. And I mean invested. Just lots of pinching the bridge of their nose in annoyance and complaining about people’s strategies and techniques.

N...hmmm. Probably GBBO or Chopped or those DIY competitions, the types of reality tv that focus much more on skill and what’s being produced than drama. They’d also probably be into those travel shows where a host goes all over the world sampling different cultures. Ooh and the heartwarming ones like Queer Eye or those veterinarian shows that will definitely have them wiping away a few tears.

F would totally be up for watching any reality tv show are you kidding??? RuPaul’s Drag Race, Big Brother, 90-Day Fiancé, any iteration of the Real Housewives, the list goes on. And the more ridiculous drama is present the better. Seriously, reality tv was made for people like F.

M might also find the drama of reality tv amusing if you manage to convince them to sit and watch in the first place. Though they'd probably be more likely to sit through something like Love Island or Bachelor in Paradise since the more salacious material is better suited to their tastes.

#I have never watched the bachelor(ette) so don't @ me if the details are wrong lol #actually unless it's a competition I rarely if ever watch reality tv #so these hcs might not be the best #but hey you asked #unit bravo #ask freckles

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secretgamergirl · 4 years

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We really need 1:1 time passage in games.

I play a lot of games. I particularly play a whole lot of RPGs, strategy things, survival games, and these all tend to be games that try to create an extra sense of immersion with hunger, thirst, and a day night cycle. And WOW do they ever end up doing the exact opposite with the implementation!

Like, let’s just start with food. If I am playing a survival game, and I choose not to eat for a while, my little hunger meter will bottom out, and I will start taking damage then eventually die. This tends to take like, one real life hour/in-game day, give or take to kick in, and then death comes within like, maybe 5 minutes if they’re generous? And I stave this off by... usually finding, killing, cooking, and eating, 2 entire turkeys per real hour/in-game day.

So... what the hell is any of that!?

So we have hunger, and we’re representing it as this slowly draining meter you have to keep an eye on. Already, that’s just weird. In my experience, you can go an entire day, not eating a damn thing, and not feel a thing out of the ordinary. But when you do actually get hungry, it can be overwhelming and impossible to ignore (have you eaten yet today by the way? My meal schedule’s gotten totally weird). Nothing about that makes sense to simulate as a slowly lowering bar. If you want realism, you have absolutely no onscreen hunger meter, and then like every 4-24 hours or so you have some incredibly distracting hunger indicator kick in and stay kicked in. Like, activate rumble packs and leave’em going at a steady pulse sort of annoying. And it gets worse when you’re actually preparing food.

Also feeling hungry is not an early indicator that you are going to suddenly die of starvation, or even that you’re anywhere near that point. I had dinner 6 hours ago, I’m a little hungry now. It varies a lot, but actually starving to death can take upwards of going TWO WHOLE MONTHS without any food at all. Like if we’re representing that as a meter, “hungry” kicks in when it drops to 99% full. Starvation is not a particularly common cause of death. If you’re dying of starvation, either someone is intentionally starving you to death, or some horrific catastrophe has just wiped out completely absolutely every potential food source in an area you somehow cannot wander your way out of even if you have months to do so. Relevant real world fact- Any time you see stuff about people dying of starvation, that’s never “farming just is not a thing that works in this area,” it’s “some malicious tyrant is actively preventing these people from accessing food in a deliberate effort to cause them to starve.” It’s really not actually a concern in any sort of survival story, unless we’re going real long term.

Meanwhile, have game designers ever actually, like, eaten food? Like I said, 2 whole turkeys per real hour/game day seems to be the going standard and like... have you had a turkey? I live in America, there is this tradition on Thanksgiving to go get a turkey, spend a day cooking it, and serving it as part of a meal served to one’s whole extended family. You’ve got that one turkey (granted, generally with a lot of side dishes) feeding like... a dozen people, easily. And at the end of the day, you’ve only MAYBE collectively made your way through like half a breast. You carve up a bunch more and send everyone home with a ton of leftovers. Then you’ve still got this giant mountain of turkey left, and you’re eating it for like the next week until you’re completely sick of turkey and throw the rest out, with plenty of meat entirely uneaten on the bird. Or hey, do you eat hamburgers? You know how the standard for a really kinda too big to responsibly be ordering it hamburger is “a quarter-pounder?” Which refers to the 0.25 lbs. of meat on the bun? Just quickly googling “beef weight” and copying the preview text from the oddly named first hit, on beef2live.com... “An average beef animal weighs about 1200 pounds and has a hanging hot carcass weight (HCW) of about 750 pounds.“ I can’t honestly say I know what “hanging hot carcass weight” is and I kinda doing want to, but I’m assuming that’s how much you have to work with after stripping out all the bones and organs and such. Multiply that by 4 to get how many oversized burgers you get out of one “beef animal” (why does it not say cow? I’m growing increasingly unsettled)- 3000 burgers. Give or take. You go smack that one Mnecraft cow with your sword, you should be fine for like 5 years. At least assuming we’re not simulating food spoilage. And if we are, HEY THAT TAKES SIGNIFICANTLY LONGER THAN ONE DAY, 2 IF YOU SALT IT!

And I mean, on top of that, we’ve got this whole standard I keep citing of 1 real world hour/1 in-game day. That kinda seems to be one of the more common standards for the passage of time video games use. That or 1 minute=1 hour. And I... really don’t understand why we have these scales?

Like, the earliest example of a day/night cycle in a game is Dragon Quest 3, where 1 steps on the over world map=12 minutes passing, or 120 steps=1 day. That’s a weird scale I’m having to use, but that’s because as the most traditional of JRPGs, DQ3′s sense of both time AND space are super abstracted and walking a short distance across the world map is this super compressed and simplified conveyance of a big long epic journey through the untamed wilderness. The first games I can think of offhand to really do it as a real time elapsed ratio thing are like... The Sims and GTA 3? Let me look at each of those in turn in a bit here.

So, The Sims has to pass days pretty quick, because that’s like, the whole idea. We’re watching this little household drama unfold in a compressed time scale... but the scale is really messed up? Like, we start off pretty simple. Sims work their shifts of like 9-5 on the in-game clock, need an appropriate amount of sleep... but then MOST things have timing based off having animations play at a reasonable pace, which is to say, 1 to 1 time, not 1 to 60. It takes like 3 in-game minutes for a Sim to get up out of a chair, several more minutes to walk to the kitchen and even start cooking, altogether just getting up, making a meal, cleaning up, and sitting back down is going to end up being this hours long affair, most of that being travel time from one room to another. It’s weird, and practically speaking you end up having them eat one meal, use the toilet once, and take a shower once per in game day, because less than that problems occur, and more than that, it’s a huge pain. And forget conversations. Those are like 12 hour commitments.

And then we have GTA3, where 1 real minute=1 in game hour... and this isn’t tied to anything in-game at all really. You don’t eat, you don’t sleep, nothing really has business hours to deal with, the whole day/night cycle is just there to give you a nice cycling change of scenery... and also again, breaks immersion, because the animation speed is 1:1. According to a video I just watched, walking end to end across the map of GTA3 takes a full 48 in-game hours (121 in GTA5). And I mean... there’s races, and high speed chases, and all this other stuff that according to the in-game clock are at such slow speeds you can barely tell anything’s moving. It’s weird and arbitrary! And also unnecessary! Like, I’m pretty sure I sank at least 80 hours into my first playthrough of GTA3. I definitely spent enough time cruising around any given island that if time passed in a 1:1 ratio, I’d still see what everything looked like at every time of day. And hell if you rigged it up to a real world clock I could plan around that, do all the cool missions right at sundown.

But I mean, also, there’s these things called movies and TV shows? You may have heard of them, because it’s where games get a whole bunch of terms they use all the time. Like camera, and scene. So the thing there is, when, say, a movie switches to a new scene, they’ll often arbitrarily jump the day/night cycle ahead by several in-movie hours, or even days, so the lighting is appropriate to what’s going to happen in that scene. You can actually just... do that in games, too. It’s OK. Nobody’s going to stop you or say it’s breaking immersion. I talk to this guy to start this mission at what’s clearly noon, then we fade to back, and I come back out onto the street late at night so I can do this daring nighttime raid. That’s.. OK. You can do that. Honest. No need to have the sun doing crazy fast laps in the background.

Anyway, other games since have all copied that time scale, because blindly copying things from GTA3 was kinda... how people made games for a good stretch of time (and yeah yeah yeah, Elder Scrolls was probably already doing it, whatever... hell so was Robinson’s Requiem I’m pretty sure, and Drakken I know was paced something like that). But anyway, we mixed that sort of time scale with Survival Gameplay and we’re just kinda mashing these problems together. We’re doing everything in this one to one time scale, but the in-game clock is running at like 60 times that, and our already ridiculous food intake needs are downright absurd, and suddenly we’re destroying absolutely all life on sight to sate our ever-present ravenous hunger (and possibly never sleeping).

And like... survival games don’t actually need that? Like the interesting bits of the angle are finding sources of things like clean water and shelter so you don’t die of exposure once the sun’s down and stuff. And these are things you really just need to do once and you’re set. You could... basically set up a whole game, running in real time, where these are early potential fail states. Get some kind of shelter set up within the first 5 hours or so, sleep to advance straight to the next day after pulling that off, then you have like 3 days total to find drinkable water, and... honestly at that point we’re talking like a good 45 minutes of gameplay and you could really end it there, or start your last goal. But instead, no, we’re making some kinda crude axe/bow and killing everything to eat.

Not only is it not realistic, not only does it take me out of the experience by checking the math, the whole affair feels kinda like I’m being put through someone’s weird hyper-masculine cargo cult fantasy of what it would have been like if they grew up Hunting With Dad and like.... OK people who actually do that still kill like one animal, then drag it home, throw it in a big fridge, and eat it for quite a long time, or sell it, or leave it to rot because they’re just really into ending the lives of innocent creatures and don’t want weird gamey meat at all.

So yeah, just let time be time, and don’t ever actually make me eat if we’re trying for some kind of gritty realism thing. I really don’t get hungry nearly that often and fill up quick.

#game design #survival

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rainydaywoes · 4 years

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Crash Landing on You: 5 North Korean Facts or Fiction?

Crash-landed in love with the inter-Korea romantic comedy, Crash Landing on You? Ever wondered how close the depiction of the South-Korean drama is to real-life under the North-Korean dictatorship? Wonder no more! Quench your curiosity as we explore 5 highlights of the drama that will make you exclaim – hurai ggajimala (take the frying pan off your head) – the North-Korean slang for “Don’t lie to me!”

Note: This article contains spoilers up to episode 13.

1. Defecting and accommodation censorship

Remember that nerve-wrecking scene when our leading lady, Yoon Se-Ri (Son Ye-Jin) was caught hiding in the kimchi storage during an accommodation censorship search? According to a North Korean defector, Kang Na-ra, these house searches were as common as a daily occurrence for houses near the borders. Having personally experienced it herself when she was defecting, Na-Ra added that her broker made her hide in the furnace fireplace. So yes, this is very much true!

However realistic the drama depicted of accommodation censorships, defecting from North-Korea is absolutely not as easy as stepping across a piece of wire that physical separates the two warring territories. Ask any North-Korean defectors of their arduous journey out of the authoritarian country and their heart-pounding accounts will have you on the edge of your seat. From paying up to thousands of dollars to brokers, hiding from constant vigilance to swimming across rivers while being shot by soldiers, each step of the defecting journey is fraught with the danger of losing their lives. Even after reaching South Korea, the defectors have to undergo a mandatory three-months long re-education at the settlement center, Hanawon (House of Unity).

I guess, since this is a rom-com K-drama after all, we can relent on this fantastical depiction and finally send our dearest heiress, Se-Ri, back to the South before she loses her beloved company!

2. Cars

Surely, we mustn’t forget to sprinkle in a (car) race-against-time scene for our leading man, Ri Jung-Hyeok (Hyun Bin), as he zooms off in a showy luxury vehicle with the famous traffic-stopping 729 car-plate to save Son Ye-Jin’s character during an accommodation censorship.

Foreign luxury cars are surprisingly not as uncommon as you would imagine in North Korea, albeit mainly seen in the capital, Pyongyang. According to a tour guide who frequently travels to the country, BMW’s, Mercedez Benz and the Audi, you name it, they have it. So this depiction of cars and traffic in the drama is true to a certain extent.

The more important question is – is this 729 car-plate number really as powerful as it seems? Instead of the number “729” which the drama adopts, car plates starting with “727” indeed receive the bows of traffic ladies and are granted with traffic-stopping access in North Korea. You must be wondering – why 727?? The number “727” represents the 27 July. To history buffs, does this date ring any bell? It’s the day that the Korean Armistice Agreement, which brought complete cessation of hostilities of the Korean war, was signed. And, for North Korea, this date represents the extremely important national holiday, the Victory Day. Hence, yes, I would count this as a realistic drama depiction of North Korean vehicles.

3. Division 11

The next puzzling question at the forefront of your mind that follows Jung-Hyeok’s heart-stopping revelation of Se-Ri as his fiancée must be – What in the world is Division 11??? Does it even exist in real life?

To save Se-Ri from the secret police, Jung Hyeok blurted out that the reason for Se-Ri’s lack of identification materials is because she belongs to the mysterious Division 11 – to which, the village ahjummas (aunties) responded with surprised gasps and muffled utterings amongst themselves. In the drama, Division 11 is a military unit of individuals who work undercover in South Korea. This fits perfectly into the plot as it accounts for Se-Ri’s uncommon hairstyle, dressing and most prominently, her Southern accent and slangs.

Unfortunately, the existence of Division 11 remains an unknown due to the lack of official documents. However, considering how one of the drama’s writers is a North-Korean defector with insider information on North Korean officials and their functions, there is room for valid suspicion that this division does indeed exist.

4. K-drama love

There are many reasons why Se-Ri was able to make it past the demilitarised zone, across the North-Korea border and into Jung-Hyeok’s house. Luck, determination, fate – whichever you choose. But if you’re a true fan of the drama, you have to agree that it was due to soldier Kim Joo Muk (Yoo Soo Bin)’s love for K-drama (and the tragic love story of Stairway to Heaven).

“No matter how far you go… Love returns.” Choi Ji Woo’s cameo brought tears in our (and Joo Muk’s) eyes as we recall the iconic scene of the wildly popular 2005 K-drama Stairway to Heaven. Too old a drama for your liking? For the North-Koreans, K-dramas are extremely hard to get access to. Believe it or not, some even risk their lives for this source of entertainment. North-Korean defectors shared that if the citizens were caught watching, they would face punishments such as hard labour, a jail term or even be shot to death. Despite such severity, there is still high demand for it. K-dramas are one of the limited windows through which North-Koreans peek through to understand life in the South that deviates from the national narrative by the dictatorship.

You must be wondering –how do North-Koreans go about getting their hands on such K-drama? Think the drama’s market merchant and her sneaky sale of foreign beauty products. North-Koreans usually buy illegally imported USB drivers with the K-drama saved in it from random ahjummas loitering around the marketplace.

The next time you complain about the slow buffering of your K-drama episodes, think of the risks and hardships North-Koreans have to go through just to get their hands on it.

5. Electricity cuts and train delays

Remember those satellite images of North Korea plunged into total darkness at night? That surprise by the Company Five soldiers at the constantly lit-up Seoul? True to the drama’s depiction, electricity is extremely rare in North-Korea and electricity cuts are merely constants of the everyday life. In fact, citizens receive electricity as rare as 2 hours a month! This irregular flow of electricity meant that there were generally no refrigerators and heating up an apartment with furnaces are the reality. A defector even pointed out that the scene of a village ahjumma riding the electric bicycle generator brought back precious memories and that almost every household had a similar machine to generate electricity during blackouts.

The inconveniences of the inconsistent electricity flow do not end there. The chaebol (conglomerate) heiress’ reaction to the ridiculous 14-hour train delay on the way to Pyongyang is one that most, if not all, Singaporeans who use the public transport can relate to. Surely this is false? Yes, this is indeed false. These delays not only last for merely 14-hours, but could go up to even a week! And the merchants that come running? They are known as the grasshopper merchants. Similar to what was depicted in the drama, these merchants sell daily essentials such as water, toothbrushes, soaps and food. An addition of the reality not reflected in the drama would be the ‘vinyl greenhouse’. Since train delays can last for a week or so, these ‘vinyl greenhouses’ provide warmth and accommodation for those willing to fork out the amount. Unfortunately for the citizens, train delays are considered a norm instead of a rarity and rage-tweeting or angered tagging of their train service providers on social media is certainly forbidden.

Although Crash Landing on You is based on unbelievable premises true to its genre of a fantasy rom-com K-drama, the drama’s depiction of life in North Korea presents its audience with a rare and largely accurate glimpse into the secretive life under the strict dictatorship. With its deviation from the usual representation of North Korea as a poor and harsh regime in the media, the simplicity of life and the relatability of the citizens portrayed bring about an unexplored and refreshing outlook on North Korea and its citizens. So, after reading these fact/fiction of Crash Landing on You how many times did you exclaim hurai ggajimala?

#cloy #crash landing on you #hyun bin #hyunbin #sonyejin #son ye jin #kdrama #north korea #south korea #rom-com

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total-shipper · 16 days

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Another Commission for @jingycakes !❤️

Thanks again for the support and I hope you like it!😍❤️😍

Let me know what you think!

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okimargarvez · 4 years

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REVERSE - 20

Original title: Reverse.

Prompt: Penelope is the new girl on the BAU team and Luke tries to treat her cold.

Warning: A.U., possible OOC.

Genre: drama, romantic, family, friendship.

Characters: Luke Alvez, Penelope Garcia, BAU team, Derek Morgan, O.C. Sam Cooper’ team, Roxy.

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: oneshot 62 in Garvez collection.

Legend: 💑😘👓🔦🐶❗🎲🎈👻🎬🎵.

Song mentioned: Amici per errore, Tiziano Ferro.

Reverse- Masterlist

GARVEZ STORIES

20 # Choose the wrong way then find your smell in all places

She didn't do it on purpose. She had no idea when she set foot in that shop. She had frequented this place for years. She was one of their best customers. This is the series of excuses that she says to herself, while her feet lead her to the bullpen, in a certainly not random point. She watches him as he prepares to leave. He is too concentrated to notice her presence. -Hello.- she greets him.

Luke automatically returns her, without taking his eyes off the bag in front of him. -Hello.- when he raises them, however, he understands who is there. Only his extreme control of the body prevents him from reacting in a more obvious and striking way. All he does outside is to slightly narrow his mouth. -Uh, Garcia, it's you.- he pretends to be indifferent. -Do you need anything?- in reality, he is describing each of her features as usual. The salmon-colored dress with a square neckline, the huge yellow flower that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest, the white jacket with black polka dots, the hair curled only on the tips, the necklace of stones (black), the brown glasses and that ridiculous, very strange transparent plastic that covers her. He is not expert enough in fashion to know the name of that business. But he doesn't think it can keep her warm. She would be much better off if she wore something like his jacket. Well, not right his own.

In the present, she is shaking her head. -Not for me.- she seems uncertain. She certainly has something in store, but he doesn't even try to imagine what kind. Garcia shrugs, taunting him. -I noticed that your desk is the emptiest of the BAU and I bet of the whole building.- she looks down, in the direction of her bag. He had been expecting such a comment for a long time, but he knows it didn't end there. -...and I happened to find...- she extracts an object, small. -This.- she puts it in front of his nose, smiling, hopeful, convinced that he will like it.

And she's right. All of Luke's self-control goes to hell, due to the mix of that figurine and the expression of Penelope. He can't decide which of the two is the sweetest. -Wow, but it's identical to Roxy.- he comments, gently pulling it out from her fingers, having enough time to see how good is the contrast between the shades of their skin. Both they also feel a shock, as usual, at that very short contact.

She is literally hopping on the spot. -It is, isn't it?- she asks, not caring about the rest of the world, about the other agents, mostly bureaucrats, who look in their direction, not understanding the reason for such enthusiasm. The man glares at them and everyone returns to do their own business. But he doesn’t realize that he has defended her.

-Yup.- he lays it on his desk for a moment. Both look at the effect on it. -Thanks.- he adds, but then withdraws it in his own bag. He wants to show it to the original for a second opinion. They head towards the elevators. Someone dares to peek at them as they pass, but as soon as Luke raises his eyes, they retreat like snails into the shell.

-You're welcome.- they stop in sync. -And how are you?- then she seems to consider it an excessively personal and perhaps annoying question (of course she does everything by herself, he doesn't reply anything, not even with a single gesture), but instead of withdrawing it, she replaces it with a more neutral one. -The case in Vermont was very bad. Don’t you think so?- he nods.

But then he shrugs. -Quite.- he has seen far worse, even if he understands what she means. As an animal lover, it is easy to sympathize with one who kills hunters. And as for the other half of the murders, it is almost tempting to consider him innocent. When they arrested him, he looked right at him, asking that they help him. He didn't want to kill. He had an illness. He sighs. Certainly she would have deserved a more comprehensive answer.

Something in the glance he gives him suggests that a declaration is coming, one with a capital D, as Chrissie would say. -I just wanted you to know that... Even if you keep thinking that I don't deserve this role, if you need to talk to someone, to let off steam, I'm here- he doesn't correct her, just because he wants to see how far she goes -even if you don't want me to.- the shock has reached stratospheric levels.

He tries to replicate something, but all that comes out is her surname. -Garcia.- who knows what the heck she reads, in his tone, because she starts again to ramble, talking fast, wandering, confusing him only more. And that desperate, lost expression not even she confessed that she loves him and he rejected her with a no thank you.

She moves her head, her hands, she passes them on her face, on her neck, then she manages to hold them still, squeezing them against her body. -I know, I exaggerated, I once again crossed the borders, but I am this.- again, she catches something in his gaze, perhaps thinking that Luke considers it an egoistic, stupid justification. -If you really can't stand it, I'll find a way to hold back.- it sounds like a promise that will cost her a lot. -But I just wanted...- she shakes her head. -I thought that after you confiding with me about Reid, that something had changed, that I had managed to scratch a little that granite heart you have in your chest.- the last sentence snatches an amused grimace from him.

The definition seems appropriate to him, and it is certain that Christine would approve. -All right, I admit it.- Garcia is right, something has changed in their relationship. Neither of them can believe that farce of him that hates her. It has become a kind of innocent game between them. With all that wandering, with her clumsy attempts to cheer him up, with that kiss on the cheek (has he perhaps forgotten it? Of course he didn’t), her light caresses, her gifts, her attentions in general... in short, yes, she deserves to hear the truth out loud. -I don't mind having you around, I'm glad you came, okay?- he watches her biting her lips, hanging from his lips. No, what he thought it is not right. She hadn't understood it, or wasn't sure. But now she knows. -But I won't stop teasing you, Penelope.- and he walks away, just as he hears the sound announcing the arrival of the elevator. She almost runs to reach him. He waits until she is on board, too, to finish. -I'm having too much fun.- this time, however, she doesn’t fall into his provocation.

She looks at him with her mouth open. -Luke?- she finally manages to stutter.

He looks at her smug. -What?- he presses the button and the doors close.

-Did... did you notice that this is the first time you use my name?- she is too genuinely happy. It is hard not to return her smile.

-Well, everyone makes mistakes.- Garcia, however, doesn’t buy it, not even at all. -Enjoy the moment.- he adds, and that's exactly what she does, dropping the bag on the ground and throwing her arms around his neck in an embrace. He feels she is about to come off, probably already regretted having ventured so much and at the same time already violated the promise she made him (and that he didn't ask her); but he stops her by holding her against him, her breast on his chest, her head on his shoulder. Neither of them moves their hands in caresses, although both would like to do it. She smells deeply the scent of his fabric softener, of Roxy, of the labors he had to face during the day. He is totally inebriated by her floral aroma that wraps him like a blanket and drives him crazy. They think the same thing. It tastes like home.

TAGS: @martinab26 @thinitta @shyladystudentfan @pegasus-scifichick @paperwalk @inlovewithgarvaz @the-ellen-stuff @astressedwriter @symphonyashley @kofforever @myhollyhanna23 @tootsienoodles @centiaaa @penelopesluke @dumbdraws @onefail-at-atime @reidskitty13@adorarapril @princesstreaclefanfic @glocknade111-blog @magiunific @fallen-novak @dreatine @hopelessdayydreamer @painterofhorizons @racing-against-the-sunset @majo0803 @vickyd-2012 @writing-whats-that @wearejuststars@klngzeewp @heylittlehollywood @kirstenvangsness @blu3crush@futureperfectmedia-blog @jade-cheshire3303 @life-between-pages @tooshorttobeanadult @xxlonelyghostxx @honeydoodles @pennypeabody @alessiapolimeni @londonrosebooklovingwitch @bbyxk @full-on-fangirl @catlynhoss05 @lushmp3 @glittergunshots @tinymiko

#garvez #criminal minds #cm #luke alvez #penelope garcia #penelope x luke #luke x penelope #garcia x alvez #alvez x garcia #a.u.#o.c.#tiziano ferro #amici per errore

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scattered-imagination · 5 years

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BNHA AgeSwap AU Erasermic Focused

Age-Swap BNHA – Erasermic focused

This is a long AU so there will be parts and I will be giving more and more head-cannons as time goes on

BNHA Students are now Pro-Heroes, and the Heroes/teachers are now the students.

Aizawa thought that he and his friends would get a normal school experience- with the exception of being trained to be heroes – and just go through some teenage drama, rough training, boring classes.

But when A man named shigaraki starts targeting not only their school, but all the popular pro heroes as well, everyone is on high alert and the kids are forced into the life of pro heroes sooner than they think!. Pro heroes start dropping like flies, and time after time their school is attacked. Aizawa thought it couldn’t get worse…until he notices his best friend and love interest acting weird and withdrawn. Guess his father was right…nothing is ever as simple as it appears.

But he wasn’t going down without a fight!

Basic Headcannons:

Shinsou Hitoshi is Class 1A’s teacher and Pro Hero Mindjack

Mei Hatsume is The Teacher/Director of the Support Department at UA

Nezu is still the Principal

Mina Ashido, Toru Hagakure, Nejire Hado, Eijiro Kirishima are all UA teachers,

Villains: Mineta Minoru, Mt. Lady, Himiko Toga, Tomura Shigaraki, Stain, Twice.

Eri is married to Kouta Izumi, and is Shinsou’s adopted sister (Kouta is a Pro hero known as

Izuku is Inko Midoriya’s uncle, and mentors Toshinori Yagi who he hopes will become the next symbol of peace.

Midoriya Inko is in the Business Management class at UA… everyone teases Yagi when he disappears for a while, knowing that he is in the Business Class talking with Inko.

Hizashi is terrified of his quirk

Shouto Todoroki is Enji’s father; Enji feels inferior and therefore has an attitude with everyone

USJ does happen in this universe as well; Shinsou nearly losing his life while protecting his son and his students. After USJ, all students move into on-campus dorms, which is a god-send for Hizashi.

Hawks and Dabi are UA graduates and are currently dating. Dabi is known as the flame hero: Blue Phoenix

Eri & Kouta often visit Hitoshi, Denki, and Shouta… and both of them instantly feel protective of the loud yet withdrawn blonde that often visits their nephew.

Meet the cast~

Shouta Aizawa

Adopted son of Hitoshi Shinsou & Denki Kaminari

16 years old majority of the story

Adopted at the age of 6 years old by his biological Uncle. Aizawa’s mom was Shinsou’s biological sister…although the two never grew up together, they just share the same genes and were raised in different foster homes. Once Hitoshi found out he had a nephew, he raced to the courthouse and adopted Aizawa on the spot. Aizawa’s biological mother and father are in jail for a life sentence due to…undisclosed reasons.

Still same personality, though he is much more confident in his abilities

Made it into the hero course by passing both the written and physical entrance exam due to being trained by Denki and Hitoshi, both of whom knew what the exam would be like and gave him an edge.

He met Hizashi the first day of the exam, and for some reason unknown to even himself…they just clicked as friends. Hizashi sticking by the others side and cheering him on no matter what, and Shouta developing a fierce protectiveness of the blonde and seeing the others vulnerable moments and genuine smiles.

Shouta is intent on becoming an underground hero, not liking the public’s attention.

He admires pro heroes, but hates the flashy showmanship they display; pro heroes such as Ground Zero, Deku, and Alien Queen bother him and make his skin itch.

Makes friends with Hizashi at the entrance exam; Tensei during the 2nd week of class; Nemuri & Kan during the upcoming sports festival.

Pretends to be embarrassed by his parents, but he loves them unconditionally.

He regularly attends cat café’s with Hizashi, and helps the other look through vinyl records. His guilty pleasure is buying Hizashi gifts, but giving them to the other under the ruse that “Someone gave this to me as a gift but I’m not into it…its yours”

He is regularly teased by his parents and friends for his obvious crush.

He has brought home 5 cats, naming them KitKat, Twix, Snickers, Hershey, and Marshmallow.

He is amazing at hand-to-hand combat, and helps his classmates…although under duress of his bemused father

He is amazing at Math but absolutely sucks at English (though Hizashi tutors him in)

Aizawa is Gay

His guilty pleasure is listening to Hizashi sing

Hizashi chooses Shoutas hero name. And as ridiculous as it is, shouta loves it.

Hizashi Yamada

Placed into foster care immediately after birth, after he damaged the eardrums of his parents and Doctors with his first scream, coming into the world.

Has been bounced from foster home to foster home, often being forced to wear a muzzle inside the house.

@spicy-doodles has a headcannon that's amazing where Hizashi never gets adopted ((and more, check them out))

He finally landed in a “decent” home by the time he applied to UA. He was still forced to wear a muzzle indoors at times, but they gave him food to eat, his own soundproof room, and didn’t hit him. They just ignored him, which was fine by him.

To hide what he saw as a flaw on himself, Hizashi is loud, carefree and kind in public. He never hesitates to help someone out, offer a kind word, or make someone feel important

He hates bugs due to an incident in his foster home…that he has told no one about.

Although he acts like the stereotypical blonde, Hizashi is 2nd place in their class, following right behind Iida Tensei.

He loves to cook and learn languages; it keeps him from getting bored and it makes himself feel useful. He often cooks for his friends in the dorms.

Moving into the dorms was a godsend, it allowed him to leave his foster home (the teachers found out about the muzzle and promptly arrested the foster parents. Shouta was super protective of his friend for a month after this… he is still super protective)

Hizashi is self-conscious of his singing voice, but after Shouta complimented him he began to sing more and more

Hizashi almost chooses “Yell-Man” as his hero name…Shouta wouldn’t allow it so he chose “Present Mic”

He is hard-of-hearing, on his way to being totally deaf. he gets regular treatments from recovery girl, and wears special hearing aides

Kan and Hizashi were in the foster care system together, so Kan knows some of what the blonde has gone through, and is super protective. they call each other brother, and intend never to lose that bond

I have so much more, but I want to know what you guys want to know more about! There’s so much to this universe that I cannot possibly fit it into one post.

For BNHA Age-Swap AU what would you like to ask more about?

Age-Swap Character Profiles (I have a majority of them figured out)

Pairings (or Students and for adults)

Who mentors who

Plot Bunnies within Age-Swap

Who is the traitor within this AU?

Friendship Dynamics

USJ situation

Who adopts who

Or give suggestions!

Send me an Ask to learn more about this ageswap au. I have a whole book filled with Ideas!

I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOYED THIS!

Hashtag for this Idea: #ErasermicAgeSwapAU

Hashtag for this series #ErasermicPlotBunnies

@lambojet @shouta-light @dadmic @shout-and-mute @wendiflow @deafmic @spicy-doodles

#ErasermicAgeSwapAU #erasermic #young erasermic #yamada hizashi #present mic #aizawa shouta #eraserhead #writing ideas #fanfiction ideas #bnha #mha #ErasermicPlotBunnies

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kayteewritessteve · 5 years

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If Only You Knew - 3/19

Description: You arrive home one day to find a wedding invite for two of your best friends from high school. You knew this day was going to come eventually, but even with that said, you weren’t prepared to return home. At least not after 7 years of avoiding Buckhannon, West Virginia. Or rather, avoiding him; your ex-best friend and the secret love of your life. But maybe it was finally time to face your past, to face him, and everything else that happened on that horrible night. Who would have knew that your prom would end up being a total disaster, and the very last night you’d spend in Buckhannon for the next 7 years? you certainly didn’t. That’s for sure.

Catch up HERE.

Word Count: 4,240 ish.

Pairing: Modern!Steve Rogers x Reader.

Rating: 18+

Warnings: Violence. Drinking. Bad and slightly offensive jokes. Possible triggering thoughts, feelings and emotions. Moments of bullying and harsh name calling. Lots of curse words. And a very sloooow burn.

A/N: I sadly don’t own any of these characters. And no beta reader, so I do proudly own all the errors and this story, so there’s that.

So, Scott Lang is the readers dad, however his lastname is whatever you choose. It’s a little confusing, but just go with it! Hahaha. Enjoy!

July 2018 - Present.

You breathed in the cold artificial air, causing your nose to tingling and itch. You were currently crammed into the middle seat of row 19, on an Airbus A321 heading for Morgantown, West Virgin. As Buckhannon didn’t have an airport of it’s own, and taking an 11 hour bus ride back home, sounded like total hell. The first time travelling that way had sucked enough, making the hour and 40 minute flight seem like a way better option.

As the plane took off your nerves started to slowly climb as well, just about as fast, and at the same rate, as the plane. Over the last 6 months your anxiety had slowly began to rise with every passing week, with every passing day, that you got closer and closer to your flight home.

By the time you reached a week away from your travel date, you were a fucking mess. You had tried to reason that if you just didn’t go, no one would be mad at you. Or maybe they wouldn’t be if you just cancelled your RSVP. People did that all the time, right? …Right!? Things could always come up that would prevent people from attending—That was totally a thing that could happened.

So at that point, you had called the one person you always called for advice now, your dad. You figured he’d say it was okay to bail, and that you shouldn’t feel bad about it—Though clearly that hadn’t fucking happened. No, your plan had obviously backfired in your face, as you were currently sitting on a fucking plane, heading home.

That call had gone the polar opposite of how you’d hoped it would. It was basically just an hour if him calling you out for being both irrational and a drama queen. He was totally playful about it, but serious at the same time. He couldn’t really understand why you never wanted to visit Buckhannon. In his defence you have never broken the North Korea pact, so he didn’t actually know the truth behind why you had fled town that day. But still, he had given you the riot act and said if you didn’t put your butt on that plane, then he’d be forced to tell Nat exactly why you’d bailed on her wedding. That threat alone was enough to get your ass to the airport, and fucking early at that.

Throughout the years you’d always make your dad come visit you. Usually sometime in the summer and again at Christmas, as you refused to step one foot in that stupid town. You’d both fight about it but he would always cave and drive up to see you. He had always kept his word about not bringing up or asking about that night, even though you knew it bothered him. But you were thankful that he honoured the pact. Or rather, you were just thankful in general for the fact that you had a dad like him. He had always been there for you, he had always done everything he could to make you happy. To give you the best life he could. It was just to two of you now, and had been for a long, long time. When she died, you were all each other had left, and you both clung to that with all that you had…

July 2009 - 9 years ago.

You’d been driving for just over 4 hours, your butt was asleep and you had to pee like a race horse. But the drive from Cleveland was beautiful, you spent most of it silently staring out the window, ignoring your dads ridiculous need to belt out the words to every indie rock song that came on the radio. He was such a dweeb.

It’d been just over a year and a half since your mom passed, from cancer. And two years since that horrible day when the doctor sat you all down, and gave you the news...

She had been your best friend, and when she got the diagnoses it crushed all three of you. She was stage 4 and only given 6 months, at most, to live.

You all spent those final 5 ½ months together, building memories and cherishing the little time you had left. You thought those 5 ½ months would be the hardest months of your life, but you quickly learned they’d paled in comparison to what was to come.

No matter how hard it was to watch her slowly wither away, uncomfortable and frail. It was a thousand times harder to not have her around at all. To not be able to sit in her room and brush her hair while you told her all about your day. Near the end she found even talking to be exhausting, so your conversations ended up being pretty much one sided. But she told you she loved that. Just hearing your voice made all her troubles drift away, if only for a moment. So you’d talk, and talk, and talk. You’d go on for hours, not allowing yourself to think about what you’d do when she was gone. Though deep down you knew that the reason you did talk so much was because you knew one day, soon, you wouldn’t be able to talk to her anymore. So you had to get it all out now. While you could.

When she did pass away, it was in her bed, in your family home. That was her final wish. She didn’t want to die in some cold and unfamiliar hospital bed, surrounded by strangers. No, instead she wanted to go in her home, in her bed, the same one that held all her memories. The memories involving the three of you from throughout the years. The ones of bringing you home as a newborn and co-sleeping with you for months. The ones of being woken up because you’d peed the bed or had a nightmare. The ones of family cuddles, when one of you had had a bad day. The ones of lazy Sunday’s spend snuggling in bed watching movies. And all the memories in between.

You’d begged God every night for months to bring her back, to return her to you, though your pleads all went unanswered. They all went unfulfilled. Yet, you still tried each night.

Your father and you had always been close, but after she died you both took on a whole new relationship. You were all each other had left now, and you vowed to cherish the time you did. Much more than you ever did before. You held each other through the worst days, and laughed with each other through the best.

And after a while the pain turned to a numb feeling, then slowly drifted away—Or maybe you just got used to it?—You’d felt guilty at first, when it had, because you felt like you were forgetting her. Like you’d left her behind. But your dad told you that you were allowed to feel better, allowed to continue on and that it didn’t mean you didn’t love her just as much, or miss her any less. It just meant you knew she was up there, always watching, even if you didn’t always think about it. And that she would want you to continue on with your life, and make her proud while you did it.

After a year of living in the house she died in, you both couldn’t really handle it anymore. It was supposed to be nice to look around and remember little moments in time. Or memories of her. But after a while it just made things harder. You and your dad started to argue more, and your grades started to slip in school. You were spiralling, and fast. It was then that your dad had an idea, he’d received the life insurance from your mom's death and had tucked it away for safekeeping. Or a rainy day.

He sat you down one night and told you of his plans. There was a small mechanics shop up for sale in a little town called Buckhannon, in West Virginia. Your dad was a mechanic by trade, and his dream was to one day own his own shop. He told you how he wanted to put an offer in on it, then you both would purchase a house, move down there and start from scratch. Building new memories, and giving you both a chance to just breathe. To heal.

You were reluctant at first, not exactly ready to leave your childhood home behind, but he then told you he wouldn’t need to sell the house. You’d keep it and just purchase a new one in Buckhannon. That sealed the deal for you. You agreed instantly, and your dad called his realtor that night, he put in an offer on the shop. A few days of endless online home searching later, and he put an offer in on a beautiful 2 story, 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom detached home.

You received word back within week, that both offers had been accepted, and you’d take possession of both properties in 5 months time. One right after the other, with about a week in between possession dates...

So 6 short months later, here you were, driving just over 4 hours away to the small town of Buckhannon, at the end of June. You both had figured it would be best to let you finish out your grade 10 school year, then move down at the beginning of summer break. That way you had 2 months to settle in, get used to the town, and for your dad to be able to focus on the shop for the first little bit, plus he’d have your help if he needed it.

You pulled up in front of the white two story house, and just stared at it for a few moments. This was it, your new home. The one where you’d live out the rest of your teenage years in.

“You ready, Kiddo?” You heard your dad ask from behind you.

You nodded, “I think so.”

Then you both climbed out of the car, ready to unload, unpack and start fresh.

July 2018 - Present.

You heard the ‘fasten your seatbelts’ ding echo through the large plane cabin, followed by the prepare to land message, signalling that you were nearing your destination. You hadn’t even moved from your seat the whole flight, so your seatbelt was currently still done up. Making you one step ahead, already.

20 minutes later the plane touched down and you took a deep breath as you exited it and made your way towards the arrivals gate. You rounded the final corner and your eyes scanned all the waiting people, till they landed on a familiar figure, standing off to the side. Dad. You both noticed each other at about the same time and you ran towards him. You hadn’t seen him since Christmas, and 6 months without him was just far too long. In your mind.

“Hey Kiddo,” he said as he released you from the hug, “How was your flight?”

“It was okay. Short,” you shrugged, “How are you?”

“Happy to have my little girl home,” He smiled then you both headed to grab your checked bags.

“Not so little anymore,” you corrected and you both laughed.

“You’ll always be little to me,” he smiled, and the sight made you a little happier to be home. The nerves began to dissipate with every passing second that you spent in the company of your best friend, your hero, your dad.

The bags arrived shortly after you reach the carousel, and then you both headed back out to the truck, throwing your bags in the back and began the hour long drive back to Buckhannon. You chatted for the first little while, but then one of your dad's favourite songs came on the radio. Though, it seemed like every song was his ‘favourite song ever’. You laughed at his excitement, and stared out the window as he belted out every word. He was always such a dweeb—No seriously, he was, and it was fucking embarrassing to say the least…

July 2009 - 9 years ago.

You had been in the new house for about a week now, your room was your first priority, so you had unpacked it entirely within the first 2 days. Then you moved to the other rooms in the house and started to unpack them, alongside your dad, one by one.

You were making your way through the living room, which was located at the front of the house, while your dad was working his way through the kitchen, at the back of the house. You were in the zone and had managed to get through all the boxes in no time flat, but then you heard a knock at the door.

You pulled the one earbud from your ear, having left the other one out, just in case your dad called to you for help. And it was lucky for whoever was at the door that you had.

“I’ll get it!” You yelled, though you figured there wasn’t really a point. Your dad probably had no clue there was even a knock on the door, as he had his phone playing loud music in the kitchen while he unpacked.

You rolled your eyes, then made your way to the front door, looking through the peephole and seeing 2 woman standing on the front porch. Or rather, a woman and a girl; probably about your age.

You opened the door, “Hello?”

The older woman, who had clearly been checking out the house, quickly whipped her head around to face you. “Oh, hello dear,” she abruptly said and her daughter sighed then rolled her eyes. You had to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing. “I’m Polina Maximoff and this is my daughter, Wanda,” she gestured to the girl, “We are with the Buckhannon Welcome Wagon—“

The girl—Wanda, as Mrs. Maximoff had said, cut her mom off, “I’m not.” She waved awkwardly then frowned slightly, “…With the welcome wagon, I mean.”

“Oh Wanda, shush,” her mom glared at her for a second then turned back to you. “Uh, is there a parent home?” She asked hesitantly as she looked passed you into the house.

You stared at her for a second before speaking, “Ah, yeah, hang on.”

She nodded then you turned around, shutting the door slightly so she couldn’t peer into the house before walking to the kitchen, picking up your dads phone off the island counter and pausing the current song that was blasting from the speaker.

“Hey!” He spun around to face you. “What gives, party pooper?”

You blankly stared at him for a second, furrowing your brows, “Really? Party pooper?” You asked incredulously without thinking, then quickly shook your head. “You know what? Not important,” You waved your hand dismissively. “But fyi, if the people at the door had been kidnappers, they’d have taken me and you wouldn’t even have known I was gone.” You crossed your arms and levelled a disapproving glare at him.

“There’s people at the door?” He asked.

You rolled your eyes again, “Uh, yeah. My point exactly.”

“Well, come on then, it’s rude to keep them waiting.” He walked around the island and slung an arm over your shoulders, then you both walked to the front door.

He flung it open to reveal the 2 ladies again, startling Mrs. Maximoff in the process, “Hello ladies, I hear you both aren’t kidnappers. That’s good,” he nodded, “kidnapping is bad.” He dramatically frowned down at you, and you just stood there, gaping at him like a deer in the headlights. This fucking man, I tell ya.

“Ah,” Mrs. Maximoff dragged out the word awkwardly, then clearly decided just to ignore your dads stupid fucking comment, and thrusted her hand out for him to shake. Repeating what she had told you earlier, “I’m Polina Maximoff, and this is my daughter, Wanda.”

He shook her hand, “Nice to meet you both. I’m Scott Y/L/N, though most people just call me Dad,” he smirked down at you this time.

“Ignore him,” you glared up at him then turned to sweetly smile at the Maximoff’s, “He is socially inept.”

Mrs. Maximoff looked taken aback for a second then quickly corrected it and smiled politely at your dad.

It was his turn to gap at you now, then he looked at Mrs. Maximoff. Spluttering for a seconds before finally saying, “I am not socially inept,” he shook his head, then quickly added, “not that there's anything wrong with being socially inept, I just personally am not.”

But judging by the look on her face, she didn’t believe a word he was saying—Though, he had started the first ever interaction with her, congratulating them on not being kidnappers, so this one was entirely on him. “I didn’t even know she knew what that was,” he glared down at you in warning, so you just winked back at him.

“Of course I know what it is, silly,” you playfully swatted his arm, then smiled and turned back to Mrs. Maximoff, “So, you were saying you’re with the Welcome Wagon, was it?”

“I am not socially inept,” you’re dad corrected again, but you just looked up at him and shushed him.

“Daddy, why don’t you go back to unpacking the kitchen, I’ll handle this, okay?” You said sweetly then spun him around and pushed him towards the kitchen.

Wanda leaned in and whispered, “What’s it like living with him?” She jutted her chin towards him as she spoke. Though the gleam in her eyes told you that she knew he wasn’t actually socially inept, and was asking more how it was to live with an awkward and sometimes embarrassing father.

Mrs. Maximoff’s mouth damn near hit the floor, “Wanda Maximoff!” She hissed.

“It’s okay Mrs. Maximoff, it’s not so bad, there are good days and there are bad days,” you replied and shrugged, once again biting the inside of your cheek to stop from bursting out laughing.

“I heard that! And I am not socially inept!” Your dad yelled over his shoulder as he continued to the kitchen.

“He’s just in denial,” you whispered. “So, you have a wagon for us?”

Mrs. Maximoff told you all about the town, and it—wasn’t a wagon, but she did give you a small basket filled with different local flyers, coupons and passes to things around town. There were a mix of free samples, random odds and ends, and a big box of cookies. You took it all and put them on the entryway table. Mrs. Maximoff told you she baked the cookies and that they were her personal ‘Welcome to town’ gift.

But then her phone rang and she excused herself for a moment. Leaving just you and Wanda. You both chatted and she invited you to come hang out with her and her friends. You ended up spending the whole summer with them. Wanda, Nat, Brunnhilde, Clint, Sam and Bucky.

After a few weeks you started to notice that every one of their stories involved some guy named Steve, you asked who he was and why you hadn’t met him yet. They then told you that Steve’s dad basically owned the town of Buckhannon, they were super wealthy, his dad owning a massive corporation or something along those lines. And that every year they spend the whole summer travelling as a family. You responded with ‘must be nice to be rich.’ And they all laughed and agreed. Though Nat and Clint also came from wealthy backgrounds, the former having a trust fund and looking to receive the whole fortune on her 21st birthday. But it wouldn’t be until the very first day of 11th grade that you’d finally come face to face with the infamous Steven Grant Rogers Stark…

July 2018 - Present.

The truck pulled up in front of your dads house. Which looked exactly as you remembered, yet also totally different at the same time. Possibly because you were seeing it through adult eyes now. What once was your sanctuary from the bad times, was now your reminder of completely different ones. You just stared up at it for a few seconds, taking it all in and vowing to not allow the house to be tarnished by one bad memory, by one bad night, when it held so many other wonderful memories. Ones of sleepovers, movie nights, fires in the backyard and lounging on the porch in the summer.

“Nice to be home?” He asked from behind you.

You nodded, “yeah, you know what, it actually is.” You smiled then opened the door and climbed out of the truck, your dad did the same then you both grabbed your bags from the back.

“And to think you doubted if you should come home or not,” he jokingly scoffed, as you walked up the pathway to the stairs.

“The week’s still young, old man,” you sassed back as you reached the stairs ahead of him.

“Hey!” He yelled, “who you calling an old man?” He added then quickly went to run up the stairs ahead of you. “An old man couldn’t do this!” He pointed out as he passed you, and it would have sounded half way believable if he hadn’t also punctuated that statement by tripping on the last step and nearly falling flat on his face.

You burst out laughing, “Careful, old man, you might break a hip!” Then you sprinted passed him into the house, and up the inside stairs, not giving him a chance to retaliate. But you didn’t miss him yelling, “You’ll pay for that comment, Kiddo!” at you as you fled to your room, laughing the whole way there.

You entered your teenage bedroom, and it looked pretty much exactly how you’d left it that day, minus all the personal items your dad had packed up and brought you before college. You took it all in, all the posters, the colourful painted furniture and decor. Your eyes drifted to a bulletin board on the wall above your desk, it was covered in photos and random trinkets from your high school days. You untacked one of the photos, pulling it off and bringing it closer to look at it. It was a picture of Steve and you at the lake, the day before he left on his annual summer long family vacation.

It was that summer that you finally realized just how much you loved him. Or rather, you always knew you did, but that summer you really came to terms with just how much you actually did love him. Going those two months without him were rough, you holed up in your room for days, crying and watching sappy romance movies while eating way to much junk food. You’d told your friends you were ‘just sick’, but they stopped believing that excuse after about a week and they all showed up to force you out of your bed. They asked you why you were hiding out but you told them it was that time of the month, and you were just too embarrassed to tell them about it. And even though you knew the girls didn’t believe you, they had all left it alone. Like you knew they would. You vowed that day to never tell a soul about your crush, not even your best friends. And especially not Steve. You’d instead bury the feelings down deep, and pretend like they didn’t existed. Like you weren’t head over heels in love for your best friend. Like him being gone for 2 months hadn’t devastated you, entirely.

You tacked to photo back to the board then started to unpacked your one bag, giving a bit of time before you went down to retrieve the other. Knowing full well your dad would have some form of revenge waiting for you when you did.

As if by a miracle, your phone pinged on the bed. You picked it up to a text from Wanda, ‘Hey stranger, you home now? Is it time for the Welcome Wagon to arrive?’

You laughed and quickly typed back, ‘Probably not the best time, the old man is out for revenge right now. Where are you? I’ll come to you!’

It pinged again, ‘Uh oh, what did you do now? and we are at Nat’s house, come on by!’

You stared at your phone for a few seconds then typed, ‘Made fun of his age again. He’ll live. But who’s all there?’

*ping* ‘Steve isn’t here, since we both know that was your actual question.’

You awkwardly laughed and shook your head. Girl knew you too fucking well, it was almost like she could read your mind. It was a problem. ‘It was not! And okay, on my way!’

*ping* ‘You always sucked at lying, even over text.”

You rolled your eyes then quickly and quietly made your way downstairs, you still remembered exactly where to step so the stairs wouldn’t creak. Countless nights of sneaking out to meet your friends had made you a damn ninja. At least where getting out of this house quietly was concerned.

Once you made it to the front door, you grabbed the truck keys off the wall hook in the hall, and quietly opened the door then yelled, “Going to Nat’s! Bye!” As you slammed the door shut and ran to the truck, hopping in, starting the engine and backing out if the driveway before your dad could stop you. Like you’d willingly let him get revenge on you that easily. You laughed to yourself.

Then your phone pinged a few minutes later, and even though you knew it was bad to touch your phone while driving, you picked it up anyways and quickly read the message. It was from your dad, ‘This isn’t over youngin!!’

You burst out laughing, which abruptly caught in your throat the second you saw the flashing red and blue lights in the rear view mirror. Fuck! You’re dad was never going to let you touch the damn truck again if you got a ticket for texting and driving. Or rather, a ‘distracted driving ticket’ as they labelled it.

You put the phone down then immediately pulled over to the side of the road, praying it was maybe someone you knew, so that you could possibly talk your way out of the ticket.

It was your first day back in 7 years, after all! Who gives someone a ticket on a day as pivotal and significant as this?! No one, that’s who!

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