Doechii Best Rap Album Acceptance Speech At The 67th Annual GRAMMY Awards | February 2, 2025

Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan via TikTok (August 20, 2024)

PRETTY WOMAN (1990) dir. garry marshall

“You know how old chickens scratch and gabble. That’s how the tales started, all the gossip, the wondering, all the things people said without knowing and then believed, since they heard it with their own ears, from their own lips, each word.”

— Louise Erdrich, Tracks

SPECIAL OPS: LIONESS 2.02 / i love my country

ma'am, I'm going to place you on a brief hold while I look for a reaction image

#Oh she gagged them, thank you Saoirse <3

Moments in time, preserved through sentiments Twitter | Ko-Fi | Patreon

baotuquan趵突泉, jinan济南, shandong province in china by 凡不烦

|| Lizards

Benny x Lu full blurb

Without thinking, because she is twenty four now and has been to the beach and has swam with friends and has lived a life, Lu shucks her dress, her shoes, her slip and dives into the lake, nylon undergarments ruined and only just sufficient to be considered a covering. It’s fine, it’s normal, she comes up to the surface and she knows, somewhere far back in her mind she knows, her chest and its scar is visible but it doesn’t matter. The sun is bright, the water is reflecting so strongly she has to squint and through it all Benny is tossing his hair out of his eyes and laughing between puffs of exertion at treading water. He is laughing at having jumped in, at the fact she went for it, too. It doesn’t matter that her body is on display, as a gruesome curiosity or an incitement to desire.

She is swimming with Benny and it’s all just fine.

It makes the moment so utterly enjoyable Lu feels like all her longing to be out here, to be surrounded by this big vast world— it’s been close to right, very near what she’s needed, it’s just made a little better with him and that’s unfortunate as he lives in Chicago. Benny shouldn’t be in the city, he should be in a sparkling lake with minnows assaulting his feet and diamonds of water caught in his lashes.

They’re laughing at each other, so much so they’re close to drowning, and they don’t have to say why. It’s perfect.

She could count each of his lashes as she swims around him, so close and so circular she’s half minnow herself, Benny’s eyes don’t leave her face and he’s stopped laughing enough to look mildly wary at her antics. She’d like to count his lashes, she realizes, she never really thought of how many there were, distracted perhaps, by his beard at other times.

Back when he had a beard: she knew that about him. Back when she stuffed cardboard into her brassieres: he knew that about her.

She keeps circling him and can’t make any progress on counting his lashes because he begins to laugh again, but it’s short and aggravated and she waits for him to explain it, she knows he will.

“What’re you, half mermaid?” there’s quashed competition in his voice, he’s betrayed at her leaving off their giggle fit to actually swim.

“You sure aren’t.” she laughs back, his neck is almost fully in the water, “Those big strong shoulders can’t hold you up? Am I going to have to tow you to the rock?”

Benny takes the teasing well, his face clears if anything, quick to laugh at himself. “You’ve got an advantage, you come here a lot. I’ve been rottin’ in the city.”

Lu gives an approving nod at his conclusion, it aligns with her own. “Yes, so you’ve gotta fix that. You should come out here more often.”

He doesn’t need to come here. Here with her.

There’s all manner of woods and water and nature just outside his stupid city but that’s not an option somehow, not with the way he’s here with her when he could be in the woods with Jack or out on a boat with Maureen. He chose here, instead.

“Yeah, I should.” Benny just agrees because they don’t have to say all that, say that it feels right and different. It just is for now and they can let it be.

She watches him lay back in the water, floating along with the gentle ripple and his ears are below the water and his eyes are on the big blue sky above them and Lu thinks that’s a perfect idea so she floats back too, staring at the sky they once knew so well, wondering if he misses it like she does- in a way that’s half agony of separation and absolute terror of ever being made to reunite with it.

Bucky doesn’t get that; he’s still flying.

Ida and Gale would still be if their governments weren’t so shit to them.

Jack never wanted to but he’d done it for the country, for his people, because it was right. From how often Benny and Jack see each other, like they’re dosing each other up by sheer proximity, Lu guesses they shared that singular motivation.

She turns her head, one ear clogged and filled with water, her other cheek so far into the lake it’s almost lapping up her one nostril; but she can see Benny floating near her, he has his eyes closed.

He gets it, she thinks, heart so full she could cry from happiness for once.

“-don’t you want to fall asleep like this?” she wants to ask him, says it aloud only because she knows his ears are under the water, his face doesn’t even twitch, his eyelids are smooth without a crease of a squint or a frown around them, his nose is ever so gently upturned and Lu wants to place her hand under his head, keep him like this forever, let him enjoy it like she does, “You could, I’d keep you up, make sure you don’t drown.”

When Benny turns his face to her she blushes hot even in the freshwater lake, he looks like he’s caught her at something she shouldn’t be doing, a chiding look of kindness but it reminds her she shouldn’t be treading water and staring at his face like she loves him. If only he could see himself. He’d understand it then. Anyone would.

It’s Benny. And it’s perfect and before he pulls his head up fully he lets himself sink a little and does a slow lazy flip in the water and she feels him tickle her foot on the way back up.

It’s much the same laying on the toasty flat limestone rocks on the lakeshore. Benny and her, burning their backs on the rock, tender bellies getting scorched by late afternoon sun, underwear drying out as crispy as the grass. He’s got his eyes closed again, lashes fanned out on freckling cheeks. And Lu is watching him once more and thinking how much she’d like to be a couple of lazy lizards with Benny.

She snickers at the thought.

“What’s that?” he hums.

Lu shakes her head, disbelieving that she’s about to embarrass herself like this but at least he still has his eyes closed, “I was thinking that we’re a pair of lizards.” And that she’d like to keep being a lizard with him and have a lizard family.

Benny doesn’t laugh at her, his nose crinkles in a mildly disgusted way but he looks like he’s gotta agree despite it all, she feels so fuzzy by that. “I think my back is gonna stay on the rock when I sit up.”

The clasps of her bra are digging into her spine but, otherwise it’s burning and fabulous and she wants to stay forever. The look on his face, lazily tilted towards hers on the rock with his eyes half masted and open, agrees so eloquently Lu wants to— she doesn’t know. So she settles with reaching out and resting her hand on the browned meat of his pretty shoulder. Benny’s eyes droop further and they chide her ever so gently for the fire it ignites in them both all at once, and Lu would love to be two lizards and stay here forever.

Saturday Softness

Happy weekend every one! I'm going to start writing short little fluffy Clegan stories every weekend as a little treat to myself. Either Saturday or Sunday each week! Here's the first one featuring: post-war buckies (established relationship, as usual with me), a sick Gale, a fussy John and some soft, fluffy goodness!

“Buck?”

The lights are still on in their sitting room, in the kitchen despite the late hour. Paired with the fact that the front door was still unlocked, Bucky could only assume Gale was having one of his late night study sessions. He let his truck keys drop from his fingers onto the coffee table and stepped out of his shoes.

He wasn’t supposed to be home until the following day. They’d flown all over the country in the last week, giving the new pilots experience with long duration flights and while Bucky had loved every minute of it, he had been silently relieved when they’d cancelled the last trip due to weather issues and changed course for home.

Eight days away from their little slice of heaven out in the middle of nowhere, eight days without Gale, was more than enough to have Bucky feeling homesick. It’s the longest they’ve been apart since they found this property and Bucky’s already dreading the next time his job pulls him away for more than an average work day.

He walks through the sitting room and down the hall into the kitchen. Dishes are piled in the sink and Bucky feels an immediate pang of worry as he takes in the mess. Gale’s books and papers from school are haphazardly laying on the kitchen table, the coffee pot is half full and gone cold, his shoes aren’t neatly lined up by the back door and his coat is slung over the back of a chair instead of in its usual spot in the closet.

Gale isn’t a messy person. He cleans and organizes their home with a dedication that borderlines on obsessiveness and seeing the kitchen in disarray sends Bucky to the stairs immediately.

“Buck?”

His car was out front, he has to be home. There’s nothing around them for miles.

Silence greets him still as he makes his way up the stairs and into the hall.

Gale had been doing well when he’d left. They both are plagued with nightmares, both in sleep and while awake, but the frequency of them had decreased the longer they’d been home. They both had bad days, days when everything is too much, and the memories are too heavy to do much other than breathe and exist. But he’d called home just yesterday and Gale had been fine.

Bucky had listened to him ramble on about his classes and about some kind of theoretical physics problem that was giving him trouble but that he was enjoying working out. Despite not understanding a word of what he’d been listening to, he’d listened and made encouraging noises and soaked up the excitement in Gale’s voice with a smile on his face.

That was thirty-six hours ago, and Gale had been fine. But now he left a mess in the kitchen and he left all the lights on downstairs and he left the front door unlocked and Gale doesn’t do any of those things when he’s fine.

Their bedroom door is open, and the light is on but he’s not there and Bucky feels his heart pound in chest as he takes in another empty room.

“Buck?” He raises his voice and peeks his head into the spare bedroom that’s never been used and still isn’t being used.

A muffled noise catches his ears and he makes his way to the end of the hall where their bathroom door is cracked open. Modesty be damned, he doesn’t bother knocking, too panicked to care if Gale is simply doing his business.

The sight that greets him when he pushes into the small room melts his heart and breaks it in one go.

Gale is sitting on the tiled floor, back reclined against the tub, knees pulled up and arms wrapped around them, head pillowed atop. He’s wearing Bucky’s sweatpants and Bucky’s sleep shirt and he looks too small and too vulnerable and he hasn’t acknowledged Bucky’s presence and Bucky hasn’t seen his eyes yet.

“Buck?” He lowers his voice and winces when it still makes the smaller man flinch. But it also makes him raise his head and then blue eyes, red rimmed and a little swollen are looking up him, confusion and something that looks a little like relief shining in them.

“John?”

Bucky practically sinks forward and lands on his knees in front Gale when that raspy voice hits him, quiet and weak and wrecked.

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

“What’re you doin’ here? You’re not comin’ back ‘till tomorrow.”

Bucky reaches forward and pushes sweaty bangs from Gale’s forehead, smooths them back and then lets his hand slide back forward to cradle the other man’s jaw.

“Last flight got scrapped, but that doesn’t matter,” Bucky tells him. He’s relieved he found Gale safe and sound, but his worry has only increased. “Why are you on the floor? Are you sick?”

Gale nods miserably and then lets the weight of his head rest in Bucky’s palm.

“Stomach thing,” Gale rasps out. “Got sick so many times I figured I’d just stay here. Saves me a trip.”

A small smile tugs at Bucky’s lips but doesn’t settle as he takes in the sorry state of his man.

“How long have you been getting sick for?”

“Don’t know. What time it is?” Gale shrugs.

“It’s late, after midnight,” Bucky tells him. He smooths his thumb over a pale cheek and watches a pout form on Gale’s lips.

“Since afternoon,” Gale breathes out. “Think my lunch did this to me.”

He looks up at Bucky with big blue eyes and Bucky can’t help but smile at the betrayal in them.

“Want me to kill it for you?”

“Yeah,” Gale nods against his hand. “It’s the casserole in the glass pan. Make it suffer.”

A laugh barks out of Bucky, and he loves the small smile that pulls at Gale’s own face at the sound.

“Missed you,” Gale mumbles, staring at him. “Missed you a lot.”

“I missed you too.” Affection blooms in his chest. “When was the last time you got sick, huh? Think it’s safe to relocate somewhere more comfortable?”

He watches as Gale lifts his head and eyes the toilet to the right with narrowed eyes, brow furrowing. “Think it’s been a while. Don’t wanna get sick in our room again though.”

Bucky’s heart gives a painful lurch at the recrimination in his tone. He wraps his hand around Gale’s fingers and gives them a squeeze.

“You got sick in our room?”

“The first time. I cleaned it up,” Gale tells him, eyes getting brighter, and Bucky feels unreasonably guilty for not being home earlier. It couldn’t have been helped but imaging Gale sick and miserable and scrubbing his own mess off the floor in their room makes him want to put in for early retirement and never leave his side again.

“Of course you did,” Bucky squeezes his fingers again and then stands up, still holding the hand in his. “Let’s get you off the floor, Buck. I’ll help you back in if you need it.”

Gale heaves a put-upon sigh but pushes himself to his feet. Before he completes the transition though, he’s pitching forward and falls easily into Bucky’s chest with a quiet noise of discomfort.

“Easy, I gotcha,” Bucky takes the opportunity and wraps Gale in his arms, presses his lips into the sweaty mess of hair atop his head before he tucks it under his chin. “Dizzy?”

He feels Gale nod against his collarbone, so he rubs up and down his back, feeling trembling muscles under his palm. Gale wraps both arms around his waist and squeezes with a surprising amount of strength.

“I really missed you,” he mumbles the words into Bucky’s uniform shirt.

Bucky closes his eyes against the emotions welling in him.

“I need to brush my teeth,” he says next, but he makes no move to extract himself from Bucky’s hold, seems to melt further into him instead and Bucky chuckles into his hair.

“Let’s freshen you up and get you to bed.”

He brackets Gale against the sink, a long line of support against his back as Gale brushes his teeth and splashes water on his face. It leaves the ends of his hair damp and curling and Bucky smiles at him in the mirror when their eyes meet in the glass.

It’s a slow shuffle down the hall and into their bedroom and Bucky warms inside when Gale refuses to swap Bucky’s ratty sweats for his own pajamas. He has a feeling Gale has been wearing his clothes to bed since he left, and it makes something possessive curl around his heart.

Gale’s arms are shaking as he lowers himself into their bed and he looks exhausted by the time Bucky pulls their sheets and quilt up to his chin. He sits on the edge of the bed and lets his hand rest on Gale’s forehead, fingers playing with the damp hair there.

“I was going to be waiting for you here when you got home tomorrow,” Gale’s tired rasp is quiet and soothing in the dark room. “Had a whole plan. Was gonna really blow your mind.”

“Is that right?” Bucky grins down at him. He imagines coming home to an empty house, yelling Gale’s name like he’d done tonight as he explored the rooms and finding him naked in their bed instead of sick and miserable on their bathroom floor. It would have ended with him keeping Gale in bed the entire night and most of the next day, and it still is ending that way. Just under less appealing circumstances. “I would’ve loved that.”

“I’m sorry you came home to this instead.” The guilt in his tone has Bucky moving his hand into his hair, scratching at his scalp.

“None of that, now,” he chides. “This isn’t your fault.”

They watch each other in the low light shining in from the hallway, a comfortable silence settling as Bucky continues dancing his fingers through Gale’s hair.

Bucky can’t help but wonder what Gale’s night would have ended like if his trip hadn’t been cut short. Would he have slept on the bathroom floor? When he finally got up, would a dizzy spell have taken him down without Bucky there to catch him? He could’ve cracked his head on the sink, on the floor. Bucky could’ve come home to a nightmare scenario and the thoughts make his breathe stutter and his eyes burn.

He hates seeing Gale sick, injured, sad, scared. He had his fill of it during the war and he knows they haven’t escaped it, but he wishes he could banish every bad thing from this home and they could just live in the soft, safe comfort of one another.

“Hey,” Gale breaks him from his spiraling thoughts, brow scrunching and he gets a hand out from under the quilt and latches it onto the end of Bucky’s tie. “Quit worrying. I’m alright.”

“How do you know that’s what I’m doing?”

“It’s what you’ve been doin’ since you met me, Bucky.” The look on Gale’s face is fond, tender even.

“Well, can ya blame me?” Bucky untangles cold fingers from his tie and covers them with his own. “One look at you, with that sweet smile and those big blue eyes and I was a goner, Buck. Knew I needed to keep ya.”

Gale’s pale face gets some color, cheeks pinking as he turns his head into the pillow.

“And the first time I saw you do that,” Bucky lets the hand in Gale’s hair drift down to graze his finger over the heated skin over Gale’s cheek, the bridge of his nose. “I knew I needed to see it every day for the rest of my life.”

“Stop,” Gale mumbles into the pillow, bashful as always in the face of Bucky’s affections. Bucky pinches his chin between his thumb and index finger and turns his head.

“Never.” He punctuates the word with a gentle press of his lips to Gale’s and feels the smaller man melt into pillow beneath him, a soft smile sitting on his face when he pulls back.

“Come to bed?” Gale’s fingers bunch around his shirt and give him a tug. “Missed falling asleep with you.”

He’s blinking slower, exhaustion etched across his features.

“I’m going to get you some water and something light to eat.” Gale pulls a face at his words and Bucky clucks his tongue. “Don’t argue. You need food and you’re probably dehydrated as hell.”

Gale pouts up at him and gives his shirt another tug, but Bucky holds firm.

“Just give me twenty minutes to clean up the kitchen and lock up the downstairs. Rest a bit until I get back with the goods.”

“The kitchen,” Gale starts, eyes wider than before.

“Shut it, Buck.” Bucky scolds. “You’re sick and you’re allowed to leave the dishes in the sink. Let me take care of everything.” He clears stubborn hair off Gale’s forehead to create a place for his lips and kisses the space between his eyebrows. “Let me take care of you.”

When he sits back up, Gale’s eyes are closed but he blinks them open a moment later.

“I’m really glad your home, John.”

“Me too, baby.” He pulls the quilt back up and tucks Gale’s arm back under. Fusses for a minute and places a trash bin on the floor within reach by Gale’s head. The sick man eyes it with an embarrassed huff but doesn’t protest that it might be necessary.

“You shout if you need me, alright?” Bucky tells him, hand splayed over his chest on top of the covers, thumb brushing idly back and forth. “I’m gonna go murder the casserole that hurt my sweetheart.”

Gale’s breathy chuckle follows him out the door and he speeds up his steps and lengthens his strides, eager to get out of his uniform and into their bed.