#{ ... I refuse to confess how long this took for me to break up because copy-pasting from discord SUCKS } | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

peterrparrkerr · 3 years ago

Text

Trans character - read on ao3

Okay so this was somewhat depressing to write because its so fresh. I kind of took my own coming out story to my mom and copy and pasted it with Tony and Peter. (What aunt May tells Peter is almost word for word for what my mom told me) it was kind of therapeutic to write honestly, but anyway here you guys go!

I wrote this in Tony's POV instead of Peter's because I wanted to write the switch. You know, where Tony no longer thinks of Peter as a he, but as a they. I really liked how it came out.

Also if anyone comes at me saying non-binary isn't transgender I will throw hands.

*-*

Its hard to say what exactly is wrong with Peter when he first walks into the lab after a long holiday weekend.

He smiles the same, walks the same, even makes the same quips and terrible jokes. But there's something off about him that has Tony glancing at him a little longer than necessary when the teenager isn't looking.

"You alright, kid?" He had asked, casually when the silence between jokes grew a little too expansive.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine," Peter had responded, waving a hand in Tony's general direction before getting back to work.

Tony hadnt pressed the issue. He must be tired. He doesn't press for the whole afternoon he's with Peter.

But he comes back with that same offness to him the next day, holding the strap of his bag the same as he's done before.

It takes Tony half the day to figure out what's wrong -well, not whats wrong, but that he's upset. Trying desperately to hide it.

"Lets take a break," Tony said, setting his tools down. Peter's head snaps up to meet his eyes, his own wide with surprise. Tony never offers to take a break when in the lab.

"Uh, are-are you sure?" Peter asked, hesitantly setting his own tools down. "I'm not finished-"

"We'll get back to it, I'm hungry."

So Peter follows him up the stairs and into the kitchen. He sits on a stool at the island while Tony putters around the kitchen, getting stuff around for sandwiches.

Tony pretends to put all his attention on making sandwiches, but he sneaks glances at Peter, noting his somewhat drooping shoulders.

He picks at the counter top with a slight frown. He's chewing on the inside of his cheek.

Tony finishes the sandwiches and claps once, jolting the kid. "Done!" He says, watching as Peter immediately changes his features.

The smile is back, wide as ever, eyes glittering and shoulders raising.

"What kind of chips do you want?" Tony asks, instead of asking what he really wants to.

"Uh, plain is fine," Peter said, still scratching his forefinger against the granite.

They both sit across from each other at the island, eating silently. Tony waits until Peter's got most of his food eaten before he decides to start pressing.

"Whats got you down?"

Peter blinks at him, caught off guard. "Huh?"

"You've been off for the last two days. I can tell you're upset about something."

"You can tell?" Peter asked, sounding even more upset. Tony sighs, shoving his empty plate to the side so he can fold his arms on the counter, leaning forward a little.

"I may come across as uncaring at times, or oblivious," he confesses. "But I notice when it counts. And something is bothering you."

And just like that, Peter's walls crumble. Its depressing, honestly, that all it takes is someone taking notice for Peter to break.

"I came out to my aunt this weekend," he said, looking down at his finger, still picking away at Tony's kitchen counter.

"It didn't go well, I take it," Tony sighed. Peter instantly looked up, eyes wide.

"No, no i-it went good," Peter said, shaking his head.

"Then why are you so upset?"

Peter's shoulders sag once again, and he slouches closer to the counter.

"I don't know," he confessed sullenly.

"Is she not supportive of you being gay?"

"Uh, I didn't come out to her as gay," Peter corrected. "I mean, I don't know if I'm gay or not. I'm still- still trying to figure it out."

"Thats alright," Tony said. "Its okay not to know right away."

Peter gives him a small smile.

"But you gotta give me something, kid. Tell me what happened."

Peter lets out a long sigh. One Tony's made many times before.

"I came out as non-binary," Peter said, eyes never leaving the counter. "I've already come out to my friends, and they support me, but, uh, I didn't like lying to Aunt May. I already have to hide the fact that I'm spiderman, I didn't want to hide anything else from her."

Tony stays quiet, nodding along. Peter's gotta tell him more, and Tony doesn't want to ask a question and drop the ball.

"She- she wasn't upset when I told her," Peter continued. "She said she'd always love me, which-which was what I needed to hear," Peter continued. "I thought she'd kick me out or send me to some conversion camp, or just- I don't know, tell me I was wrong."

"But she didn't," Tony said. Peter shook his head, seeming to slouch even closer to the counter.

"No," Peter said softly. "She- she said she wasn't mad, and that what I was feeling was okay, but. But she said she wasn't going to use my pronouns, and that she was going to continue calling me her nephew -which is fine, there's not really a gender neutral term for it- but she- she just, doesn't want to switch how she thinks of me, and- and that kind of sucks."

"That does. I'm sorry, kid," Tony sighed. There's a moment of silence shared between them while Tony processes a little. "What pronouns are you using?"

Peter glances up at him. "Uh, they/them," he said. "But, uh, you don't have to, you know. Use them," he added lamely.

Tony shakes his head. "They're your pronouns, Peter. Of course I'll use them."

Tony watches as Peter blushes, dropping their eyes to the counter once more.

"Do you have a preferred name?" Tony asked again.

"Uh, no not really," Peter shrugged, looking up again. "I like Peter."

Tony nods, smiling at them encouragingly. "If you ever decide your birth name doesn't fit you, I'll call you whatever you want."

Tony must say the right thing because Peter lights up like a Christmas tree. They climb off the stool and rushes around the island.

Tony turns in his chair just in time for the teenager to crash into him, hugging him tight.

"I'm sorry about your aunt, kiddo," Tony sighs against the top of Peter's head.

"Its okay," they said, voice muffled in Tony's shirt. "She was just- raised differently."

Tony shook his head, tightening his hold on Peter. "Its not okay, Pete. We were born in the same generation. Its not about being raised a certain way, its about her mindset."

Peter pulls back a little, looking up at Tony. "I just- I'm okay with her just knowing," they said softly. "It made me feel better to tell her, but- but I respect her enough not to- not to force her to use my pronouns. Its just- I can compromise."

That gets Tony really scowling.

"Kid," he sighed. "Listen, respect is a two way street, and thats not respect. She should have respect for you enough to accept you."

"She does," Peter said, eyes widening.

"She doesn't," Tony countered. "If she accepted you, she'd use your pronouns no problem. She may still love you, and she probably won't think of you any differently, but refusing to use your preferred pronouns is disrespectful."

Peter looks torn, and Tony smooths his features, trying not to show his anger towards Peter's aunt.

He pulls Peter back into his chest, and they go willingly, tucking their head under Tony's chin.

"I'm sorry about your aunt," Tony repeated, holding the teenager tight.

This time, Peter only nods, hugging Tony back just as tightly.

The rest of the week, Tony notices Peter's mood changing. Its a slow change, starting out with disappointment, and working its way to acceptance.

They're still not happy about coming out to their aunt, but Tony thinks talking with them seemed to help a lot.

Peter decides to turn their focus on other things. On his friends, on the avengers, on Tony and the project they're working on together.

It doesn't make the problem with their aunt go away, but it helps. Tony knows when they're old enough to move out, life will be much easier on them. They'll be able to express themselves completely in their own home -not just with their friends.

But until then, Tony thinks Peter's okay with the slight crack in the foundation of their relationship.

All Tony can do is be there for the kid, let them rant about their feelings and offer a room for them when they need time away. He wishes things were different for Peter, but they've both accepted that its not.

#marvel #tony stark #peter parker #starker #ironman #spiderman #my writing #ao3 #sfsummerbingo21 #coming out

45 notes · View notes

mattzerella-sticks · 4 years ago

Text

Slide (1.3k, Dean/Cas, Sam/Eileen, post-canon fluff)

Suptober Day 9 - Electric (ao3)

Halfway through the second chorus, between the shimmy-dip and the kick-turn, it hits Dean. Barrels him over like a runaway train that nearly makes him lose count and miss a step. He recovers, keeping time with the music. Not drawing any suspicion or undue attention. But Dean felt like all eyes should be on him, even though it wasn’t his day.

It was his brother’s, and contemporaneously his new sister-in-law’s, too.

Sam and Eileen wed hours ago. Near the Bunker, between two large trees with fairy lights strung on the branches. Dean stood by Sam’s side in their best suits as they both watched Mildred walk Eileen down the aisle, wearing a simple white lace dress that midway on her calves and holding a bouquet of Easter Lilies. His brother grinned wider than Dean ever saw, even though twin trails of tears ran across his face and his shoulders shook with the force of earthquakes. Continuing even when Eileen reached the make-shift pulpit, cheeks equally shiny. All throughout Bobby’s sermon Sam sobbed quietly. He warbled his vows, forgot simple phrases in sign, missed Eileen’s hand several times while putting her ring on – his emotions getting the better of him. Well inside never running dry. It made the entire affair beautiful, although the kiss was far wetter than Dean cared for.

Thankfully Sam stopped crying during the walk back. Maybe because of how, the entire way, the newlyweds never let go of each other. Or perhaps the secret signing Eileen did the trick. Fingers pressed into the skin along the open vee of his button-down, calmed Sam enough that he could take one breath without shuttering. Whatever the case, Dean was grateful. Because Sam could sob all he wanted during the wedding, but there were no room for tears at the reception.

Their guests gathered in the Bunker’s main room. Converted for such a special occasion. Map table blanketed by a huge, white tablecloth found in storage. It held all the food Dean and Jody spent preparing days before, as well as the three-layered wedding cake. It was surrounded by smaller tables, where groups could settle as they ate, conversed, and took breaks when their feet tired of dancing.

Dean, despite his age, refused surrender.

Charlie barely waited for Sam and Eileen to finish their first dance, switching the music for something upbeat. The makeshift dance floor crowded as everyone joined. Even those like Bobby and Claire overcame their gruff exterior and let the music flow through them. Weddings were a treat, especially in the hunter community. No one wasted moments like these. Where the outside world, its monsters and shadows, faded into the background. Forgotten, because nothing bad could happen during something so good.

Dean whooped, he jumped. He krumped, sprinkled the lawn, and did the damn robot. Using a catalogue of moves better left in the past where he found them, Claire snorted into her drink. Dean heard her but didn’t care. He was enjoying himself.

Cas was, too. Though not the best dancer, he egged Dean on. Telling him which moves he liked and laughing as Dean repeated them, exaggerating the movements. Dean tipsy on the atmosphere and the fourth glass of wine and more that he thought little of how much a fool he looked.

Especially when the playlist changed, and an old standard came on.

“Everyone!” he clapped, drawing attention, “Everyone, set yourselves up!”

The few who recognized the song, like Dean, listened. Others stood around confused, mirroring their elders regardless. “What’s going on?” Patience asked, “What are we doing?”

“The Electric Slide,” Jody said, nudging her, “it’s really easy. Just follow along!”

Cas found Dean, tugging on his sleeve. “The Electric Slide?” he asked, “What’s that?”

“It’s a sort of line dance,” he explained, helping Cas spread himself. Still clueless on matters of personal space. “We’re all gonna be doing the same dance, and it’s quick to pick up. Trust me.”

He nodded, although Dean doubted he fully understood. Unfortunately, they ran out of time. The song truly started, and so did they.

There was a learning curve. Dean noted Cas struggling in the beginning, watching Dean do the moves. Cas’s body horribly copying his. But as Dean said, it’s not that hard. With every turn, Cas gained confidence. Steps were faster, more assured, and Cas looked less thoughtful – fully present in the moment. He kept staring at Dean though, blue finding green. Cas danced with crinkled eyes and a mega-watt smile. Laughing along with everyone else, but different than the rest. In on a joke no one else knew. Beautiful. Dean wished he had his phone, to take a picture of Cas. Then, he wished this song would never end. That Cas could stay like that forever. It was the next wish, a simple prayer, that did it.

The song fades, and the crowd breaks from the pattern. Back into the clusters they originally were in. Swaying with the slower rhythm.

Dean stands there, frozen on the dancefloor. He couldn’t dance – couldn’t move – all other higher functions short-circuiting, systems crashing. Mind playing a constant loop of an unprompted desire, freely admitted.

I wish he could look at me like that forever.

He reboots, drawn back into reality by a hand on his shoulder. Cas’s expression shifted; brows drawn in worry and lips curled. “Dean?” he asks, “Are you okay? Tired?”

Dean smiles, stepping closer. Looping his arms around Cas’s shoulders. It is a wedding, after all. “Nah,” he shrugs, “I can go all night. Dance with me?”

Nodding, Cas slides his hands onto Dean’s waist, their weight a delightful pressure. They’re silent for a few moments, the music talking for them. Until Cas finally asks the question that marred his face with stress lines. “What were you thinking about?”

“What was I thinking about?” he repeats, guiding Cas towards the fringes of the crowd. Voice low, his next words only for them to hear. “I was thinking how we should have the Electric Slide play during our wedding.”

Risky, but Dean’s willing. When will he have a moment like this again? If not here, Dean would most likely confess it during a hunt while covered in monster guts, or over C-grade burgers at a highway diner surrounded by a bunch of nobodies. That’s not how he wants to tell Cas.

What he wants is this. Cas in his arms and vice-versa, dancing. Smiling. A memory he can replay years into the future. That, when his day comes, will be waiting for him behind a white door with his and Cas’s names on it.

Cas glances at their family, and then back to him. Blushing, lips twitching as he fights against the giddiness that bursts inside. Dean aware of it by how tight Cas’s grip on his waist became. “Oh?” he asks, feigning seriousness, “Don’t you think that’s a bit too forward?”

“What do you mean?”

“Talking about our wedding when we haven’t even been on a date yet.”

“Then let me take you on a date,” Dean says, “after that we’ll go pick out matching rings. And, since everybody’s here we can do a quick little something and Electric Slide our way into marriage.”

His composure cracks, Cas snorting at Dean’s response. He dips his head, temples pressed against each other. Mouths close enough Dean might steal a kiss, if he were inclined. Not yet. Dean waits for an answer from the other man.

“We’re not having our anniversary be the day after your brother’s wedding,” Cas says, “I want a day that’s all our own.”

Dean agrees. “When were you thinking?”

“Perhaps in the fall…”

“I like that. A fall wedding sounds wonderful.”

“And we can have it all, the ceremony and the reception, at a barn.”

“We could have it on a freakin’ plane for all I cared, as long as you’re standing across from me.”

“I love you, Dean.”

“Love you too, Cas.”

#supernatural #spn #suptober #suptober2020 #suptober fanfic #day 9 electric #dean winchester #castiel #destiel #deancas #destiel fanfic #deancas fanfic #sam winchester #eileen leahy #saileen #saileen rights #suptober20

17 notes · View notes

idontgiveaflyinggrayson69 · 5 years ago

Text

I Think I Always Have

Author: Nat / @idontgiveaflyinggrayson69

Requested: Yes – Anonymous

Fandom: WJC

Relationship: Pre-Established; Alexis Lafreniere x Reader

Summary: You’re Alexis’ best friend and you travelled to the Czech Republic to see him play. After winning gold, he has a confession for you.

Word Count: 1.4k

Warnings: None.

“I love you.” Alexis said suddenly, still dressed in all his hockey equipment, the Canadian flag wrapped around his neck like a cape, gold confetti stuck to his skin.

You shook your head in shock, the bright smile of celebration you had on your lips faltering. “What?”

You and Alexis had been friends for years, since before he entered the Q. You had been there with him through so much. He was your best friend and you couldn’t imagine your life without him. You didn’t want to imagine your life without him.

You spoke to him every day and called or FaceTimed at least once a week. When he was on break or during the off season, the two of you were basically inseparable. Whether it was your place or his, the two of you were together and there were countless times one of your parents found the two of you passed out on opposite sides of your couch, your legs entangled.

You went to all of his tournaments that you could, including the 2019 World Juniors which was devastating to him and to the rest of the team, to the rest of Canada. So, of course you were going to the 2020 World Juniors as well. There was no way in hell you were missing it.

It was Alexis’ last chance to win gold. And last year he didn’t have that big of a role since he was seventeen and the tournament was U20. This year he would have a bigger role and he spent hours upon hours talking about how he and the rest of the team was going to “crush it” this year. You wanted to be there to support him. And you wanted to see the said crushing happen in person.

You just also got to see him getcrushed in the process.

You felt sick when he went down during the Russia game. You were petrified. This was supposed to be his year. This was his tournament. He was going to be drafted first overall. This was his year. And if the Russians just put that at risk. If the Russians caused him to lose gold, you were going to rain hellfire down on them.

Which is exactly what you said when you saw him after the game.

“You have quite the firecracker.” Byram laughed, clapping Alexis on the shoulder as he walked by. The two of you were standing to the side of the door that all the players had to walk out of.

Alexis blushed a bit, but you brushed it off, refusing to acknowledge it. It was far from the first time someone assumed that the two of you were together. There was nothing going on between the two of you, no matter how much you wished there was.

Yeah, you had feelings for him. You had for a while. But, it wasn’t like he felt the same and it wasn’t like anything would ever come from those feelings, so you ignored them. Or you tried to at least. Nothing was that easy.

“You’re playing for gold!” You shouted, running to give him a big hug the first chance you could after they beat Finland 5-0. He had to take a step back to steady himself from the force of your hug, but he wrapped his arms around you just as tightly.

He laughed and let his eyes close in happiness and he took in the feeling of you wrapped around him. It was something you did often enough, but he took it in every time. There was little that he loved more than your body against his.

“I am. You must be a good luck charm or something.” He whispered, slowly putting you back down onto your own feet, but he kept his arms around your waist.

You blushed at his words and shook your head. “No, you guys are just that good.”

If it was possible, Alexis’ eyes softened even more. And, of course, that was the exact time Hayton walked past. His eyes bounced between the two of you before he shook his head. “Make sure to get a room first, I don’t need to find out there are pictures of our star player going at it with his girl all over Twitter.”

“We’re not—there wouldn’t—I mean—” Alexis stuttered, his face going beet red as he was taken back by his captain’s words.

You felt yourself blush as well, but you just laughed. “Don’t worry, there isn’t any pictures to be leaked.”

“Uh huh,” Hayton laughed, walking by and leaving the two of you alone.

“You did it!” You shouted, jumping into his arms when you saw him after the gold medal game. He was still dressed in all his equipment from the game, Canadian flag and all, which made it a little harder to launch yourself into his arms, but you didn’t care.

He caught you easily. He always did. His hands went to the back of your thighs to hold you and you loosened your arms around his neck so you could lean back to look at him, him still holding you. “You did it.” You whispered.

“I did.” He replied, his voice just as soft. The two of you just looked at each other for a moment. There was excitement and happiness in his eyes, but there was also something else that you couldn’t place. After the moment, he put you back down on your feet, his hands moving to rest on your hips, your arms still around his neck.

“I love you.” Alexis said suddenly, still dressed in all his hockey equipment, the Canadian flag wrapped around his neck like a cape, gold confetti stuck to his skin.

You shook your head in shock, the bright smile of celebration you had on your lips faltering. “What?”

“I love you.” He repeated like it was the easiest thing to say. And it probably was because he had loved you for so long. The words had been clawing at his throat for months, but he was afraid to say anything because how could someone as great as you like someone like him? But after winning gold and having you there in his arms, he had everything. Almost everything. And he wanted you to be his.

You leaned back slightly, more out of surprise than anything else. “You do?”

He swallowed and nodded. “I think I always have.” His voice was soft as he spoke. If he wasn’t still in his equipment, the flag around his neck, gold confetti stuck to his skin and gold medal around his neck, the confession could have come out of a movie. The thought made you laugh.

“What?” He asked, his bubble of confidence popping at the sound of your laugh.

You tugged at his hat. “You’ve love me all this time and it took you winning gold to tell me?”

“I guess so, yeah.” He said, still nervous as he let you mess with his hat.

“I really wish you guys had won last year.” You laughed.

His gaze jerked up from where he was looking at his hands on your waist to look at your eyes. “What did you say?”

“I said I wish you had won last year so you would have told me last year and we could’ve had the last year together. But, I guess I’ll settle for having you from now on.” You said, smiling softly.

“You feel the same?”

“I think I always have.” You replied with a small smirk, copying his words. He laughed, his smile widening before he picked you back up, spinning you around in his arms. When he put you back down, the two of you were chest to chest.

“Can I?” He asked, his eyes dropping down to your lips. You nodded, leaning forwards to meet him halfway. The kiss was soft and everything you had pictured, minus Alexis still being in all his equipment.

“I love you so much.” You whispered once the two of you parted. His lips twitched up into a big smile.

#alexis lafreniere #alexis lafreniere x reader #alexis lafreniere imagine #wjc #wjc imagine #wjc2020 #hockey #hockey imagine #hockey rpf #world juniors #world juniors imagine #mine #rimouski oceanic #chl #qmjhl

112 notes · View notes

fic-al · 5 years ago

Text

The Last Temptation of Tom Hereward

December 1962

Tom stood at the bus stop on the main road adjoining the street where the Turners now lived. Tom was pleased with his morning's work. Over a cup of Typhoo tea and a lemon puff, Edward Patrick Turner's christening had been meticulously arranged. Most of the morning, however, had been taken up by a fully-committed Angela giving the young clergyman an extensive tour of her new house; much to Shelagh Turner's obvious discomfort. There was some embarrassment on both sides as Angela refused to leave out an inch of her new kingdom. He just hoped Timothy Turner would never become privy to the knowledge that the curate had once been in his bedroom.

Tom tightened his scratchy Woolworth's scarf around his neck and pulled his overcoat collar up. Mrs Turner had been right to keep the little girl indoors, even though it had resulted in a hint of petulance from the child. The back garden may be Angela Turner's favourite thing about her new house, but she was definitely better off inside the centrally-heated, detached new build.

Suddenly, a streak of blue whizzed past his eyes and then pulled up sharply. An all too familiar voice shrieked back at him.

"Hello Tom! Where are you off to?"

It apparently wasn't as cold as he and Mrs Turner had thought, looking at Trixie Franklin waving to him from the passenger seat of an open-topped sports car.

"The London, Trixie. Mr. Samuelson." Tom explained.

"Oh, that dear man," Trixie's exuberance dampened momentarily. "Why don't you try and squeeze in, we will drop you off. Won't we Sweetie?" Trixie smiled that smile at the driver.

Christopher Dockerill and the curate exchanged a glance and a more reserved smile. Tom assured Trixie that the No.52 was due any minute. He guessed the dentist was on his dinner break and didn't want to share any of that precious time with anyone but his lunch date.

Trixie gave Tom an apologetic smile as she waved goodbye and soon became a blue blur in the distance. Tom smiled. If Trixie had married him, she would be stood at this bus stop with him or maybe one like it in Newcastle. Instead, she was speeding through Poplar in a sports car. She looked amazing; she looked happy, she looked the part.

Tom was still musing over the differing paths his old love and he had taken as he mounted the stairs of the dirty, red London bus. A familiar voice shook him from his reverie,

"How do, Reverend. Where are you off to then?" Tom looked up to see Fred's cheery face beaming from the seat behind the stairwell.

Tom told Fred about his proposed visit. Fred closed the newspaper he had been reading and sighed. "Poor old Sammy eh! Too bad, known him all my life, since I was nipper. Grand bloke."

Tom felt he may have given too much away about his concerns for his parishioner and changed the subject.

"Catching up with the news, Fred?"

"Na, not me it's all gloom 'n' doom. If you ask me this country is going to the dogs. I just get it to see how many the 'ammers got beat by and to have a look at the gee-gees." Fred wafted the well-thumbed copy of last night's Evening Standard at Tom.

His voice lowered. "Between you 'n' me Reverend, there is a good thing in the 2:35 at Aintree today. Never been beat, class against muck. Handicapper has let one fly, if you know what I mean?" Tom hadn't the faintest idea what Fred meant, it was like he was speaking another language.

"I will just say this young man, with the help of this little beauty, my Violet can expect something special in her Christmas stocking. If you catch my drift?"

If Tom could have pushed the next sentence that left his lips back into his mouth, he would have. "Fred, I am sure Mrs. Buckle would be pleased with any gift you can afford. Safe in the knowledge you aren't risking your hard-earned wages on gambling."

"You weren't so high and mighty about a little flutter on your stag do, was you Reverend. Weren't so proud when it got your girl that big fancy carousel?"

Tom was horrified he had not meant to sound so preachy and Fred was a friend, a good friend. He had been given a stag night to remember, well some of it he remembered. It had all been because of this kind and thoughtful man.

"So what you got the missus for Christmas then, bit hard to top your own personal fairground, ain't it? Set of dodgems, is it?"

Fred stood up and pulled the cord to ring the bell for his stop. He saw the clergy's crestfallen face and wondered if he had been a bit harsh? He liked Mr. Hereward a lot.

"Never you mind vicar about presents, newly-weds can make their own funfair at Christmas." He winked at the curate, trying to ease the tension between the two.

Tom's visit to the London turned out better than he expected. Mr. Samuelson looked so much better than he had on Tom's last visit to his home. The old man confessed to the curate that he was hoping he would be in hospital over Christmas; surrounded by wonderful caring nurses, who reminded him of his late wife Mabel and a grumpy matron who reminded him of his old Sergeant Major.

His renewed optimism regarding Mr. Samuelson didn't bolster the curate's spirits for long. He couldn't forget his earlier conversation with Fred. What was he going to get Barbara for Christmas? The wedding and simple honeymoon had practically cleaned Tom out. How was he going to top a carousel? When he couldn't even afford a sherbet lolly. He remembered Trixie waving to him from her new beau's status symbol. He knew Barbara would never expect or even want to go skiing for Christmas or be driven around in a sports car. The nearest they got to that was when she let him ride her bike and she had a croggy on the handlebars.

He thought about the scene of domestic bliss he had witnessed this morning. Barbara's and his children wouldn't have their own bedrooms. They wouldn't have a garden to play in. They would play out with all the other kids on the streets of Poplar. The clergy's children would play with the docker's kids. Would they survive? Would they be bullied? He thought of Timothy Turner; he had grown up on the East End streets, no one picked on Tim, he was accepted. Playing violin and piano when the other kids were playing British Bulldogs. Going to Grammar School while his mates got jobs on the docks or in factories. You couldn't get a more well balanced, happy teenager than Tim Turner, could you? Tom gave himself a shake. She had married a clergyman not a doctor or a dentist and if anyone knew what that meant, Barbara did. Yes, she deserved everything and more that her friends had, but she had chosen differently.

As Tom headed across Whitechapel Road, he noticed a new addition to the line of shops near the station. Tom had read somewhere that since bookmaking had been made legal last May, that over 10,000 Betting Shops had arrived in High Streets across the UK. That did seem rather a lot. In his line of work he had seen many families ripped apart by gambling, just as he had by drinking. Yet he still enjoyed a pint of mild, when he had the chance and felt it in no way threatened his and Barbara's happiness or comfort. Everything in moderation his father had always said.

The same thing applied when he looked at Fred. Violet knew all about Fred's little flutters, of course she did and she didn't seem to mind. Then there was Dougie Roberts, renowned for not been able to pass up a bet. What was that expression about gambling and two little boys and a wall? Well, that applied to Dougie. One look at his wife Ruby, told you she wanted for nothing. His two girls were always immaculately turned out and as for their boy, well it was widely acknowledged that nothing was too good for little Douglas.

The building was small, and the windows blacked out making it look secretive, menacing almost. He was inside before he even realized what he was about to do. The smell of stale cigarette smoke hit him first. As his eyes adjusted to the artificial light, he glanced at his fellow occupants in the tiny room. No one looked at Tom. The curate made sure his scarf was wrapped tightly around his throat and the collar of his overcoat drawn together to hide his dog collar.

"Alright Darling, next race 2:35 at Aintree."

Tom turned and blinked at the young woman behind the small counter. "Ain't seen you in here before, I'd 'ave remembered. First time is it?" She winked at him.

The bleached blonde with the beehive flashed him a mischievous smile. Tom inwardly chastised himself for putting himself in this position, but before he could make a break for it. The cheeky blonde was beside him and had thrust a small piece of paper in his hand, along with a ridiculously small pencil. She was explaining that all the information he would need on runners and riders was pinned to the wall in front of him.

"Just put, the race time, horses name and how much you want to bet on there, sweetheart. I will do the rest." She flounced back to the counter, leaving a scent of cheap perfume and polo mints behind her.

Tom knew he had to leave now. If only at this point the chirpy assistant hadn't turned up the volume on the solitary black and white television set, following a request from a punter. It spouted;

We will just take a look at the runners for our next race the 2:35 at Aintree. The commentator's voice startled Tom. No.1 is a big outsider, first time at Aintree for Glorious Gilbert..."

Tom heard no more, his heart missed a beat. Maybe this wasn't a mistake after all. Tom rushed to the pinned up papers, found what he needed. He scribbled on the tiny slip and presented it to his curious new ally behind the desk. Searching in his trouser pocket, he hesitated only for a second, as he took out a precious ten bob note and handed it over to its willing recipient. It took Tom a full minute to realize what he had done. He moved to a place where he could get a good view of the flickering set. He longed to unbutton his coat, but instead he pulled the collar tighter.

The small room was overheated, a fierce looking electric heater in the corner was whirring and spluttering. They were going down; the commentator informed him, in a few minutes it would all be over. No one would ever know how stupid he had been.

"Reverend! Well this is a right turn up for the books, twice in one day!" Tom froze as a large hand patted him on the back. The girl behind the counter started coughing uncontrollably after swallowing her Polo mint whole.

Rather weakly and somewhat defensively, Tom retorted. "I could ask you the same question, Fred."

Fred didn't bat an eyelid. "I often does a bit of business on Whitechapel Market, just thought I'd pop in here for a warm."

"Friend of yours Fred?" the assistant had regained her composure.

"Alright, Thelma love?" tactfully leaving the enquiry unanswered.

Tom was grateful, realizing Fred must have just popped in for a lot of warms recently. Fred led Tom away from listening ears and asked him why the last person he was expecting to meet in a Whitechapel Betting Shop was stood next to him. Tom could have said he was looking for a parishioner or putting on a bet for old Mr. Samuelson. Tom knew he was a fool, but he also knew he wasn't a liar. Tom handed his friend the slip he had been clutching so tightly. Fred just asked him why?

"For Barbara," was all he could reply. Fred pulled off his woolly hat, scratched his head and looked bewildered at the curate. "I was pulling your leg, winding you up, you silly sod."

Fred felt bereft he had maybe had some part in the choices Tom had made that afternoon. He looked so uncomfortable, so out of place. "Gambling is a mug's game. I know I am a mug."

Tom protested, "What about Walthamstow, what about Galilee Lad...?" Fred interrupted, "Dogs is dogs. A good dog can beat another good dog any day of the week. Now your thoroughbred, that's a different animal. You've got to know your oats. So to speak."

Tom felt sick and hot and stupid. Fred looked at Tom's slip and shook his head. "66/1, it's a maiden!" Fred couldn't hide his exasperation.

All Tom could offer was that he thought it was a stallion. Fred snorted. "Yes, It is a bloke. A maiden just means it's never won a race. You know, like a maiden's never..."

"Yes, I get the picture Fred, thank you." The simple question, “Why?” Came again from Fred's face of pity.

"For Barbara.” Came back the reply.

Fred explained he had popped in for another warm earlier and had put on an accumulative bet called a Round Robin. The favourite in this race was Mr. Minty and if he came in for Fred, it was happy days. Tom wondered if a Round Robin was a special type of wager just for the festive season, but didn't ask.

Thelma turned the volume on the television up another notch. As the race announcer declared, And they're off!

"That's yours in the red and white stripes." she nodded at Tom. The curate looked bewildered at the black and white picture. Fred grinned, winked at him and shook his head.

Even with Tom's untrained eye, he could see Mr Minty looked like a different class from the rest of the field.

"Jumps like a stag!" Fred beamed with pride.

"You mean there are fences!" Tom cried.

"It's winter Mr. Hereward, the National Hunt season."

Not for the first time, Tom wondered why no-one was speaking English today. The six horses seemed to take each fence in their stride. Mr Minty led from the off and literally flew over every obstacle. Emerald Eyes fell at the 6th. Tom offered up a silent prayer for the horse and jockey. Remarkably, both bounced back up on to their feet. Emerald Eyes, now rider-less, soon caught up to her competitors. Welsh Wonder refused to jump at the 7th and was pulled up. Bobby's Girl unseated her jockey at the 9th. Gorgeous Gilbert was last of the 3 remaining runners, it was no threat to Mr Minty, but seemed quite happy to plod on behind and appeared to relish the jumps.

"Your nag has stopped to eat some grass." Fred mocked. Tom realized he no longer cared. As long as horse and jockey got home safety, that was all that mattered now.

"One more jump and we are home and dry, go on my son!" a very excited Fred Buckle yelled. Mr Minty took off for the final time and so did his jockey. He took off from his saddle and somersaulted over Mr Minty's head. The jockey landed unceremoniously on his behind on the turf. Mr Minty didn't miss a step and galloped home triumphantly.

Fred swore. Apologised to Tom and then cursed again. Tom and Fred's gaze returned to the screen, while the cameras had been focused on the fate of the unfortunate favourite. Tom's horse had made up ground on the second. Blonde Bombshell was coming to the last now, as the unexpected favourite. She jumped the fence cleanly but stumbled on landing. Her jockey pulling hard to maintain his balance. Gorgeous Gilbert jumped beautifully and was now just a length behind the tiring leader.

Fred suddenly became animated. He grabbed Tom's sleeve. "You're in with a chance here Reverend."

Tom was perspiring, feeling sick and dizzy due to the heat, the confinement of the small shop and the overpowering cigarette stench; compounded by his confusion at his own actions. Fred was now jumping up and down shaking Tom's arm. "Come on you beauty, come on for Mrs H!" He screamed.

The enthusiasm of his friend did not go unnoticed by Tom. Fred had shaken off the disappointment of his own loss and was right behind Tom's fortunes. The broadcaster continued his quick-fire commentary.

It's a long run in here at Aintree, Blonde Bombshell is tiring, she is losing ground. Gorgeous Gilbert is gaining on her. Here he comes. There is just a neck in it now. They coming up to the line. He has done it! The outsider has pulled off a shock today here at Aintree, Glorious Gilbert the winner at 66/1.

Fred was now kissing a very dazed Tom. The feel of Fred's stubble on his cheek jolted Tom back to reality. Fred pushed Tom towards a grinning Thelma.

"Where you taking me tonight then, Handsome? Now you've cleaned me out."

Fred gave Thelma a stern stare, and the assistant took out a wad of notes and began counting out Tom's winnings. "What do you fancy in the next then?"

Tom shaking with the money in his hand replied, "I don't know. I will have a look."

A large hand grabbed Tom's arm and before he knew it, Tom was finally outside. His lungs shuddered with relief at the cold fresh air. Fred had him by both shoulders and was staring Tom right in the eyes. Tom felt faint with the sudden environmental change and the smell of tea, jellied eels, and sweat.

"Now you listen to me, Tom! You got lucky, you were given a break. Betting is a mug's game. I know cos I am a mug see. Apart from the day I stepped up at Nonnatus House and the day I married my girls' mother and, of course my Vi."

Tom was getting his bearings, and Fred had his full attention. "I know how you feel mate. Of course I does, your missus earns more than you do. You can't get her the things you'd like to. You don't want her feeling second best. You don't want people thinking you're not a real man because your wife works, or it looks like you can't provide for her. Well, none of that matters. They'll soon change their minds when they want a baby delivering or christening when they want marrying or burying. They'll soon remember then how important you and that young lass are to Poplar. When they're in trouble, when they have need of you. They will remember and so should you!"

Fred finally let go of Tom and the smaller man swayed slightly. "Now keep that stash, safe in your pocket and go and find a nice present for Mrs H, that's what all this is about. Ain't it? He smiled at Tom and added, "Let that be the end of it."

"The end of what, Fred?"

The last question didn't come from Tom's soft brogue but from a higher pitched voice, a feminine voice and one that held a hint of anxiety. Fred knew he couldn't answer Mrs Hereward's question and made his swift goodbyes and was lost in Whitechapel Market in a heartbeat.

Tom stared at his wife in disbelief, a feeling mirrored by Barbara. After accompanying a patient to the London for admission, she had not expected as she crossed the Whitechapel Road, to see her husband and the Nonnatus handyman coming out of a betting shop.

Barbara repeated her question, this time to Tom. Tom knew he was a fool, but he was not a liar. His confession poured from his heart. How he resented not being able to give Barbara the lifestyle she deserved. How she should have the sort of things her friends were quickly becoming accustomed too. It broke his heart to see Trixie swanning off skiing, when he hadn't been able to give Barbara a proper honeymoon. He wanted their children to have a room of their own and a garden with a swing and a slide. He hadn't even been able to buy his love an engagement ring. He hadn't been able to bear the thought of their first Christmas as man and wife exchanging some worthless trumpery from the market.

Tears welled up in Barbara's eyes, she held both his hands in hers. "Do you know me so little, that you think I would envy a skiing trip or a ride in a sports car? Do you think I give a damn about the latest fashions or hair styles? For one moment do you think I would swap our cosy little flat in the centre of our bustling, vibrant world for a big house on a faceless new estate somewhere, where we know no-one. Where we would have to cycle or get the bus every time we wanted to see our friends. Tom I would live with you in a bus shelter and would not care if we never stepped out of Poplar again, as long as I was with you."

Tom was struggling to hold back the tears now. Barbara had not finished.

"You are so incredibly dear to me, Tom. I feel I am the luckiest girl in the world. On Sunday morning, I feel this when I hear you preach with understanding and compassion, not judgment and prejudice. I feel blessed beyond belief, when I watch you hold a dying man's hand, comfort a widow, help those in need find a way or just make a child feel important. I burst with pride every time someone calls me Mrs or Nurse Hereward, because that means that out of the whole world the best man I have ever met, chose me."

Tom pulled her close into a soft salty tear stained kiss. He didn't care if anyone noticed his dog collar now. He promised to never be so foolish again.

"Just tell me Tom, how much did you lose?"

"I didn't lose anything Barbara, I won. I won over 30 quid!" Barbara blinked and then gasped in disbelief.

She wouldn't tell Tom just yet, but the pensioners Christmas dinner and the children's party were definitely going to be remembered this year. Their first year as the curate and his wife. As Mr and Mrs Hereward.

"I guess I beat the odds when I married you, Barbara," Tom continued.

"Never mind about that Mr Hereward, I have just finished my shift and if you come with me. It's a dead cert, that you are on a sure thing."

Barbara had pulled Tom onto the No.52 bus before he realized what she meant. Not for the first time today he realized he had backed a winner.

#call the midwife #christmas 1962 ctm #tom and barbara hereward #fred buckle

10 notes · View notes

ecofinisher · 5 years ago

Text

Wedding in Japan (Miraculous)

Summary: Adrien receives an invitation to Kagami Tsurugi's wedding, which causes him sadness, cause he still has feelings for the woman. Nino offered his friend to accompany him to Japan and by coincidence, they met Kagami at the Parisian airport with the same destination as them. Unluckily Adrien missed along with Kagami their connecting flight and had to figure out another way to head to Japan. The days the two spend together gushing about their old times together and in the end, they realize, they're still bound to each other.

Pairings: AdrienxKagami is main. AlyaxNino

AN/: I forgot how I start intros on fanfics, but hey what's up? I’m not giving up on the Super Nathan sequel, I’m just clueless about how to move further there and I’m starting to write this fanfic. I will only have these two in focus so that I avoid to become an Author with thousands of WIP’s.

The inspiration for this fic is my old Code Lyoko fanfic with the same name and the episode Backwarder.

Chapter 1

At the Friday at the lunchtime, the summer break had started and a lot of students left their school heading home and enjoy at home or out the rest of the day. A couple of other students just stood a couple of hours at home preparing themselves to go out on holidays with their families back to their fatherland and some just went out to visit other places to discover new things.

At the Paris-Nord train station, a crowd of people passed on the floor of the station heading to their specific transportation vehicle to go to their destination.

In front of a wall with six various screens with listed trains and its information about his whereabouts and destinations stood a blonde teenage boy together with a teenage blue-haired girl with short hair and wearing a typical Japanese school uniform. The boy held a red suitcase with wheels, while the Japanese student wore over her shoulder a red messenger bag.

„Look on railway number 12 there‘s the Intercity to the airport, “ The blonde told the girl as he pointed with his finger at the third screen at the list, where the number of the IC was the number 10.

„Yeah that‘s right there, “ The Japanese short-haired girl said showing the blonde a white train with its doors open so that people could enter into it.

„Oh, it‘s already here“ The blonde mentioned as he had seen the train on the railway.

„We still got 5 minutes until the train departs, “ The blue-haired girl said looking at the blonde. „Are you going to wait together with me?“

„Of course Kagami“ The boy replied escorting her to the railway, then stood on the platform next to the train together with her.

„Are you ever coming back to visit us?“ Questioned the blonde looking at the girl, which rolled her eyes at the boy with the light green eyes.

„Probably when I‘m older around the twenties“ Responded Kagami. „I think my mother won‘t let me travel alone“

„Just like my father“ The blonde responded sadly.

„Adrien….“ Kagami said calling the blonde‘s attention. „This is very hard for us both now. I just wanted to tell you, that you were the greatest friend I have ever made and I wish I could just stay here with you. I don‘t know, how my life will be in Tokyo without you around“ Kagami said making Adrien blush a little.

„Paris won‘t also be for me the same when you‘re gone.“ The blonde said tragic. „You were the only friend I had, that understood everything that happened around my house“

„And you in mine“ Kagami added looking sad at Adrien‘s eyes, while he mirrored her facial expression.

„Rail 12, Intercity Express 12 with the destination Lille is ready to depart.“

„What did the five minutes already pass?“ Questioned Adrien looking sad.

„I‘m not ready for it either Adrien, “ The Japanese girl said looking at the blonde, that smiled a little at the girl. The two gazed at each other for a little moment, then Adrien opened his mouth wanting to speak, then he refused it, making Kagami look bewildered.

„Did you want to say something?“ Questioned the brown-eyed girl, then Adrien took a breath and nodded.

„Uhm Kagami, before you go I….uhm got something to tell you. It‘s important“

„Sure go on“

„You know you‘re my best friend and a great girl and I‘ve got something in my heart, that I really need to let out. I need to say this to you. That‘s my only chance“

„Yes?“ Kagami asked as her cheeks turned pink.

„I….I…..lo…..I….I...“ Adrien got a little insecure around the girl, afterward, he swallowed hard as Kagami had changed from a nearly excited to a neutral one as he was trying to confess his love to the girl. „I will miss you very much Kagami,“ Adrien said instead, then dropped his head down as he hadn‘t brought up his confession correctly to the Japanese girl. Kagami smiled a little but was sad, that Adrien didn‘t manage to tell her how he feels about her and she gives him a hug.

„I will miss you too Adrien. I will miss you so much“ Kagami said laying her forehead down on Adrien‘s shoulder. Adrien patted the girl‘s back staring down sadly at his best friend, that started to sob on his shoulder.

„When I become twenty, I promise you Kagami, I will take the first plane and head to Japan just to see you again“

„You‘re a great guy, Adrien, “ Kagami said gazing with watery eyes at Adrien, then passed her hand over them to clean her tears.

„A great guy…..yeah, “ Adrien said sad, then Kagami took her luggage and looked at Adrien for the last time, who was sad about Kagami having to leave. Kagami dropped her suitcase again, then embraced Adrien again, but this time tighter than before.

„Don‘t ever change Adrien,“ Kagami said earning a nod from the blonde.

„I won‘t“ Adrien promised while caressing the girl on her back. Before the girl took her arms away from Adrien‘s back placing them under his chin, then she went on the tiptoes and pecked the Frenchman on his cheeks, causing his face to turn red at this surprise.

After the kiss, Kagami took her luggage and entered into the double-decker and sat down next to the window, where Adrien could see her. Adrien watched the doors close of the Intercity, then the vehicle started to tax forwards and Adrien waved at Kagami, which copied him inside the cabin. Adrien sank his head and from the inside of his jacket appeared his kwami Plagg looking at him.

„What‘s with the sad face, she likes you“ The cat kwami said making the blonde sigh.

„But she doesn‘t know, that I love her“

„You had the chance to tell it to her, but nope you chickened it out“

„Stop complaining Plagg, you‘re not really helping me“

„You want me to help you?“ Questioned the kwami crossing his arms.

„I just want her to know, that I love her and now it‘s late!“

„No, it‘s not, you still got a chance to tell her that.“

„But how?“ Questioned the blonde watching the train taxing away and far away in front at the first cabin a kid running on the side of the train waving at an inmate, who was a man in a gray suit, which waved back at the kid.

„Plagg, follow me,“ Adrien ordered starting to chase the first class cabin, where his best friend sat, trying to get closer to her window. „Kagami!“

Inside the train Kagami sat on the seat looking down at her feet, then she heard someone calling her name, then she looked out of the window to see Adrien running beside the train trying to keep up with the train beside her.

„What are you doing?“ Asked Kagami looking through the window at the blonde getting closer to the window next to her.

„Kagami, before you left I didn‘t want to tell, that I‘m gonna miss you, I wanted to tell you how I have been feeling about you the past months. About us…..“

„Just shout it out, cheesesteak!“ Yelled Adrien‘s kwami at his ear, because he was already taking it too long. Adrien saw Kagami paying attention to him, then he frowned his brows, to finally say, what he wanted to tell her before she left.

„Kagami, I love you!“ Yelled Adrien making Kagami wide her eyes as she heard his confession. „I‘m sorry I didn‘t tell you that right before you boarded the train! You‘re gonna reciprocate it?!“ Adrien asked loud, watching Kagami nodding excitedly about his confession, making the blonde smile brightly at the mute answer of the blue-haired girl.

While Adrien ran next to the train he placed his flat hand on the glass of the window, making Kagami chuckle at the situation and leaned her palm of her right hand on the glass, where Adrien‘s hand was and it was notable, that Kagami‘s hand were a little smaller than his. Both smiled enchanted at each other, then Adrien felt Plagg pushing him on the collar of his jacket slowing the boy down, that saw in front the end of the station, where the first wagons of the train left the station passing by other railways from the same station, which head to other destinations.

„I think you have succeeded “ Plagg said to Adrien, which exhausted from the run watched Kagami wave inside the train and sending him an air kiss and a couple of seconds later the wagon, where Kagami sat had left the building of the train station and the last wagons of the same vehicle had also left the place too leaving Adrien back, which smiled amorously at having managed to tell the Japanese fencing student, how much she meant to him.

„You two really loved each other“ The kwami of destruction mentioned watching the holder, who is in love watching the train pass under a bridge and disappear far behind it.

„Plagg one day we will see each other again and we will get together, “ The French boy said at his kwami, who sat down on the shoulder of his owner gazing at the same direction as the boy.

That sounds dreamy Adrien :3 But will their crush on each other still exist in the future? This will be answered in the next chapter.

Links to the fanfic:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18972931/chapters/45048712

https://www.wattpad.com/737051741-wedding-in-japan-chapter-1

#adrigami #adrigami fanfic #adrien agreste #Kagami Tsurugi #miraculous #miraculous ladybug #au #alternate universe #adrami #adrimi #kagadrien #fanfic #fanfiction

7 notes · View notes

why-this-kolaveri-machi · 6 years ago

Text

Fic: Come As You Are (1/11)

THIS IS FINALLY HERE OH MY GOD.

Summary: A series of codas/tags/missing scenes to every episode of the first season of TItans. In the first episode, our protagonists are moving towards each other, but first, they each navigate the existential nightmare that is their own mind.

Warnings: SPOILERS for the whole series, some swearing, lot of dense parenthetical nonsense and fancy formatting. Dick and Rachel marinate in their own anxiety. I’ve also taken the liberty to fill in some gaps that were left by canon.

this is meant to be a companion series to my episode recap series. i’m in the midst of my worst writer’s block ever--it took two whole months just to write this chapter; i’m still far from happy with it, but if i looked at it anymore i was going to scream--but i hope to finish both the recap series and this fic series before s2 airs this fall.

(s/o to @cautiousamber whose continued love for the show and for what it's doing delights me always)

Come As You Are

1.01

Strange things live inside Rachel’s head.

When she was little, people around her would come to her in her dreams in coloured silhouettes, glowing and wailing, ripped into pieces by monsters that lurked in the shadowy corners of her mind. As she grew, the figures grew more refined, more recognisable, but they never stopped screaming; when she heard words, it was only the monster that spoke.

I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU, RACHEL

The years passed, and the dreams started to leak into the real world: she would see strange, fresh scars on Melissa’s arms while trembling in her arms after another DREAM; hazy, coloured halos followed people she knew and horrible things happened to people she hated; the monster would stare back at her in the mirror now, eyes inky black, leaking venom into her veins. TRUST ME, the monster would say, calm while everybody else screamed, and Rachel, well. After a point, she forgot to scream, too.

Then one night, she dreams of a little boy on the trapeze who watches his parents fall to their deaths, and the monster does something it has never done before: it laughs.

“Master Dick, I trust you received the package I sent you last week?”

Dick idly doodles a large ‘R’ on his notepad while wedging his phone between his shoulder and his ear. “I did, Alfred, it came in just this morning. Thanks. I, uh,” he makes the edges sharper, the ends like knife blades, “I should’ve called to let you know earlier.”

“Yes,” Alfred says crisply, “You should have.”

He twists the pad until it looks like the R is in motion, bounding across the page. Two tables over, Detective Oyode flings a casefile onto his desk in disgust. Across the room, Johnson is eyeing Dick with suspicious disdain. The air is heavy with the smell of stale coffee; there’s a lingering whiff of cigarette smoke from the balcony where Carter, Takashi and Mulligan take smoke breaks twice every hour, on the dot. The floor buzzes with steady chatter, the clicking of computer keys and ringing phones. Dick’s active cases tray is screamingly empty.

“I’ve been busy,” he says. “Settling in, and all that.”

“I see.” A pregnant pause. “And I suppose your new responsibilities as a police detective is the only reason you requested that I send over your modified batarangs?”

“Birdarangs,” Dick says, without thinking.

“Ah. Yes.” Alfred’s voice turns fond. “It’s been well over a decade since you came up with that convention, Master Dick; I must confess that it is good to hear it again. More than anything… it is reassuring to see that you haven’t decided to retire Robin altogether.”

A knot of anxiety tightens somewhere behind Dick’s sternum. This is about as secure a line as he can get without actually using the comms in his Robin suit, but it’s still jarring to hear someone just—just say it aloud like that. Especially after—

Dick’s grip on his pen tightens and he scores across the ‘R’ with such ferocity that the nib tears through the paper. Johnson’s put his coffee mug aside and is starting to walk in his direction and if Dick tenses any more he’s sure he’s going to do something he’ll regret. “Sorry, Alfred,” he says. “Something’s come up; I gotta go.”

“Very well, Master Dick. I hope that you will continue to keep in touch.”

“Bye.” He slips the phone in his pocket, gets up, and tosses his ruined pad in the wastebin. He neatly sidesteps Johnson, swipes the abandoned casefile from Oyode’s desk, and hurries out of the precinct.

(it’s all right. you’re beautiful.)

Now that (she’s) put some distance between (her) and (her) attackers (hot metal projectiles where there should be nothing but fire, but she can’t—she can’t—), the molten panic that’s been fuelling (her) escape abates, just a little. (She) slows to a walk, pulling (her) coat close.

(it’s cold, but she’s known colder.)

The further (she) walks from the woods, the less desolate it is. There are more buildings here and more people, turning to look at (her) as (she) walks by them. Almost on instinct, (she) turns into a gas station and makes (her) way into the bathroom, coming to a stop in front of a grimy mirror. (She) is all edge and glorious skin, shining and sharp.

(beautiful. you will know it. and more importantly, they will too.)

(She) empties her purse to find documents and keys and a dozen little opaque clues as to (her) identity. (She) is Kory Anders, and the name is both everything and nothing at all. It is everything because it fits, slots into place effortlessly in her mind like she’s known it all along, but doesn’t trigger a cascade of memories, or anything other than flashes of light and bone-deep cold (and unimaginable pain).

No matter. She is Kory Anders, and this is as good a starting point as any. Besides, she is sure that the real her has a taste for adventure.

When the fight’s over, Dick changes into regular clothes a couple of dead-end alleyways over and limps back to his car, trying very hard not to think about Batmobiles, or Batcaves, or anything bat-related whatsoever. His shoulders ache with tension and his knuckles feel pulverised—he isn’t quite used to being the ones delivering all the punches yet. There’s blood and glass in his hair and the acrid stench of used smoke pellets lingers around him like a miasma; he’s stuffed his costume and weapons back in the case, but there are still red smears around the lock and—

—he’s not even entirely sure he’s managed to leave the site of the fight clean; or if he’s gotten all the security cams in the alley; it’s been so long since he’s done this and even longer since he’s done it alone—

(All right. Deep breath. Deep breath. Another one. And another one.)

Everything feels even more absurd when, later in the night, he’s stuck in downtown traffic, trying to breathe past bruised ribs and the bite of glass shards in his fingers. It wasn’t supposed to be like this; moving this far from Gotham was supposed to be the start of a clean break. He’d been slowly working up to visiting Wayne Manor one more time (one last time, but he can’t—he can’t bring himself to—) to return the Robin costume, trying to reconcile the memories of safety and comfort he had under Bruce and Alfred’s care with yawning isolation of that gigantic mansion, the stomach-dropping terror that he would be abandoned (again) if he failed (again), and the anger that never seemed to stop simmering regardless of how much he punched, how much he cried, how much he laughed.

Being Robin without Batman feels like something vital’s been cut out of him, but just being Dick Grayson isn’t enough for all the evil in the world.

Dick stumbles into his apartment building, trying very hard not to make carrying a giant silver briefcase in the dark seem suspicious. He enters his apartment—dangerously open to the world but devoid of shadows—and lets himself slump onto the sofa. He’s going to (clean his costume and equipment, scrub the security cam feeds, clean the car of bloodstains and evidence, destroy the copy of Oyode’s file that he’d made, type up a report for his personal log) but for now he closes his eyes and—breathes.

Just—

Just for a minute.

The city is drab and cold in ways Rachel is entirely unused to; for some reason, she thinks of old white bedsheets turned grey from use and wear and repeated washing over years and years. Melissa ripped one of them into rags the last time Rachel DID SOMETHING STUPID, knocked over a vase, cut her hand on the shattered pieces, and dripped blood all over the kitchen floor. Melissa’d spent an entire afternoon scrubbing at bloodstains, refusing to answer to Rachel’s tearful apologies. (The voice told her to break the next vase over Melissa’s head, which made Rachel want to vomit.)

Melissa had washed the blood out of those rags as thoroughly as she could, leaving them even more dirty-grey than they were. That’s what the city looks like: wrung of colour, washed and washed again into grey submission—

“We’re here,” the officer in the front seat of the car says, dropping Rachel abruptly out of her thoughts. She’s taken into the precinct and asked to sit inside a windowless room; it isn’t until the officer that’s trying to get her attention touches her shoulder and she flinches, light and sound and terror rushing in, that the numbness abates and the voice snarls KILL HIM!

can’twon’tdon’t—

The officer looks shocked for a moment before his expression softens and he backs away. “Somebody will come talk to you now, okay?” he says, and leaves. Rachel waits and picks at the fraying edges of her sleeves, wishing—not for the first time—that she’d brought her phone along. It’s not like she has anybody to call, really; she just wants something to do that’s not staring at the walls (of an interrogation room, this is an interrogation room) and trying not to think about how desperately alone she is right now.

A few minutes later, Detective Dick Grayson walks in and introduces himself. Rachel jolts at the sight of him; she can hardly hear what he’s saying over the chorus of holy shit! holy shit! that’s taken over her mind, because holy shit—this is the little boy on the trapeze. He glows blood-red, and every movement of his leaves behind smudges of light and colour and life in this otherwise cement-grey room.

She holds his hands, tells him, you’re the boy from the circus; he frowns, but doesn’t tell her she’s crazy, or stupid, or BADWRONGEVIL. Dick Grayson promises to help her, and for the first time since watching her mother fall to the floor with a bullet hole through her head, Rachel feels hope.

Kory Anders is on a plane to the United States.

Twelve hours ago, she didn’t know her name; now she not only has an identity, but a destination, a purpose (a mission). Everything from swiping cards to speaking a dozen different tongues to summoning fire to her fingertips to the clean, beautiful effortlessness of throwing an asshole across a hotel room has been… intuitive; she thinks as she does, moves as she feels, learns as she touches. She doesn’t know what she will find when she lands (knows without really knowing that where she is going is both impossibly vast and comically small) but she’s going to start with looking for the girl in the photo and see where that leads her.

(--to a bubble suspended in infinite nothingness, shackles around her wrists and feet—)

And if that means burning up a few more entitled assholes along the way, so be it.

#titans #my fic #dick grayson #rachel roth #koriand'r #alfred pennyworth #*flops around exhaustedly*

13 notes · View notes

catsafarithewriter · 6 years ago

Note

"You trusted me when no one else would, so now I will always return the favor" or however the prompt is written. Feel free to edit to fit, but make it Super Villain AU. Or, Film Noir Detective Baron AU. Wuv u

A/N: One Super Villain AU coming up! I know I usually default to Haru & Baron, but I couldn’t get this line to work in the AU yet (they don’t know each other well enough yet for this line to have any pathos) so I detoured off with a Toto-centric ficlet. Enjoy!

(And wuv u too, Shelbs)

For all the other lovely prompts I received, I shall be working on them over the next week, and you should see them appearing once they’re done. But, for now, enjoy this ficlet!

Toto Morrigan, doctor, birdwatcher, part-time baritone, liked to consider himself a fine, upstanding member of society, except that fine, upstanding members of society didn’t usually cavort with super villains.

Super was perhaps a bit rich though, even if Baron did have super agility and strength and other super skills that Toto had never asked about. Toto had known Baron long enough to remember the cape phase, and it was difficult to take anyone seriously after spending several afternoons untangling them from their cape.

Most fine, upstanding members of society probably didn’t keep a freeze-ray in their top right kitchen cupboard either, but there were certain precautions needed when one was the go-to doctor of the city’s most-wanted super villain.

As the sound of fine china clinking echoed along Toto’s otherwise silent house, the doctor, birdwatcher, part-time baritone gently removed the freeze-ray from the cupboard. It looked a lot like a hairdryer - possibly because that’s what it had started life as - and might have gone entirely without comment if it hadn’t been hiding away in a kitchen cabinet. He switched the safety off and stalked through into the lounge.

When he saw the identity of the uninvited guest, the freeze-ray lowered, but not by much.

“Humbert,” he greeted.

The man seated in Toto’s favourite armchair looked like the type of person who would run a bookshop, or perhaps an artisan cafe. Since Humbert did actually run a tea shop, Toto had never quite been convinced that Humbert didn’t dress deliberately with such a fashion in mind. It was a casual outfit, comfy and non-threatening, with a woollen cardigan and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Humbert smiled, and Toto had to make an active effort to remember that the super villain had just broken into his house.

“Toto. My dear friend.”

“It’s Thursday,” Toto said.

“Indeed it is.”

“Thursdays are my day off.”

“Well then, it’s just as well I’m just dropping by then, isn’t it?”

Toto scowled, but he could already feel the irritation draining away. He sighed and lowered the ray. “What are you doing here, Humbert?”

“Can’t a super villain make sure his favourite minion is recovering well after a near-death experience without suspicion?”

“Not a minion,” Toto amended, although the objection was more out of habit than anything else. “And, no, you can’t. Not without warning, and certainly not by letting yourself in.”

Humbert motioned to the table before him. “I made you tea.”

“With my best china set,” Toto noted, doing his best to sound disapproving. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop the reluctant smile from rising to his lips though. He closed his eyes, partly to look pointedly frustrated, but mostly because it was easier to not be charmed if he wasn’t making direct eye contact, and sat down in his second-favourite seat. It sagged in the middle. “Humbert, you cannot just break into my house like this–”

“Do you see anything broken?” Humbert asked.

“My trust.”

“You wound me.”

“What if anyone had seen you?” Toto persisted. “How am I going to explain you picking the lock on my front door?”

“Do you really think I need to pick the lock anymore?”

“What other way would you–?” Toto sighed. “How long have you had a copy of my key?”

“Since you asked me to housesit your plants.”

“That was–” Toto groaned. “Really? Have you been sneaking into my house for the past two years?”

There was a pause from Humbert. “I may owe you some tea and milk.”

“You have your own house! With tea and milk! Why…?”

“Villain?” Humbert offered. He passed across a cup, which Toto reluctantly took. Admittedly, Humbert knew how to make a damn good cup of tea.

“Don’t make me regret patching you up all these years,” Toto muttered, but it was mostly into the cup. He eyed the super villain. Humbert did indeed look unharmed, so he probably wasn’t here to request a new scar being sewn up or bandages applied. Toto lowered the tea. “So if you’re really not here on… business,” he eventually settled on, “then what are you doing here?”

“You were pretty seriously injured after the Scourge incident last month.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” Toto said. “There were a dozen other people in that tram carriage. It just happened to be someone you knew who got shot.” Toto gave Humbert a meaningful look. “You’re not doing your villain reputation much good by worrying over civilians.”

“Maybe not, but I can still worry over a friend.”

“Hmm.” Toto took another sip. “No, there’s something else,” he decided. “Something you’re not telling me.”

Humbert gave a light chuckle. “You know me far too well, Toto.”

“Far better than any law-abiding doctor should,” Toto agreed. “So, what is it? What dark and terrible secret have you come to burden on me now?”

“When have I ever burdened you with a dark and terrible secret?”

“I could certainly do without being an accessory to super villainy.”

“Ah, but you would miss me.”

Toto snorted and deliberately avoided making eye contact. He mumbled something that might have been confirmation into his tea. “Just tell me, Humbert,” he eventually managed. “What have you done?”

“Such little trust, to have assumed I have done anything,” Humbert teased, but even as Toto watched, Humbert’s eyes turned serious.

Humbert had strange eyes. Glittering, almost feline eyes, green in some lights and golden in others. Toto had always wondered if that was some side effect of his super powers, but had never quite steered the conversation in a direction where he could ask. He also didn’t want to admit just yet that his own eyes were drawn to Humbert’s at an alarming rate.

“I don’t suppose you remember that week you took off, back in September?” Humbert asked slowly.

“Unsurprisingly, I do remember my holiday to Spain,” Toto confirmed. “Would have been a rather disappointing holiday otherwise. Why?” His eyes narrowed as suspicion set in. “You said you were going to keep a low profile while I was gone.”

Humbert wet his lips as he considered his next confession. “I may… have had a building fall on top of me.”

“Goddammit, Humbert!”

“My mistake, admittedly, I should have been quicker–”

“One week, Humbert. One week! I go away for one week and you nearly get yourself killed!”

“–but,” the super villain continued, “as you can see, I was not. So, I think that counts in my favour, something that you should consider when I tell you how I did not die.”

“And how did you not die?” Toto asked flatly.

“I had help.”

“From…?” Toto prompted. “Tell me it wasn’t Muta. That butterball has the medical prowess of my little finger - less. At least my little finger has seen surgery.”

“It wasn’t Muta.”

“It better not have been Louise. Your sister will get into so much trouble if she’s found harbouring a super villain under her roof.”

“It wasn’t Louise,” Humbert confirmed.

“Not Persephone. Please do not tell me you got the mayor’s wife to stitch you up. She doesn’t even know who you are!”

“No… but that’s not a bad idea–”

“Humbert!”

“Right. Yes, back to the subject at hand.” He inhaled. “I did not die because I was helped by the president of the Baron Fan Club.”

“That’s not a real thing.”

“Au contraire, my little minion--”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“--for, behold!” Humbert triumphantly held up something small and round and with tiny shiny lettering surrounding a sparkly top hat.

Toto squinted. “Did you make that yourself?”

“Of course not. That, my dear friend, is official merchandise from the Baron Fan Club, provided by none other than the president of this distinguished society.”

Toto watched as a little of the glitter shedded. “Distinguished, huh?” he echoed, fighting to keep his voice neutral. “And, pray tell,” he said, somewhat mimicking Humbert’s cadence, “how many members does this distinguished society have?”

“Ah, now that would be telling.”

Toto bit his tongue to keep himself from calling Humbert out. “Oh, I bet it would,” still slipped out, regardless. He overlooked the apparent existence of the questionable fan club long enough to register where Humbert had been going with this. “Hang on, when you said you were helped by the president...” Toto’s eyes narrowed, “does that include your usual penchant for breaking and entering, or did you forgo that particular foible that time around?”

Humbert’s eyes darted guiltily to one side. “She helped, and that is the important part here.”

“Oh god, tell me you did not break into this woman’s house.”

“She took it rather well, all things considering.” And he was considering it now; Toto could see the cold realisation running across those ridiculously curious eyes. “In hindsight,” he eventually admitted, “not one of my better ideas, but I was running out of options.”

“Would’ve served you right if she’d called the police on you,” Toto muttered. “So, that’s it? You crashed on some poor woman’s sofa for a night and demanded she stitch you back together? I hope you paid to have the blood cleaned off.”

“She refused,” Humbert said in a small voice. “Said something about not wanting to raise questions by hiring out a cleaner, and knowing how to remove blood stains anyway.”

Toto took a long, patient breath and rose to his feet, his cup empty. “Well, as enlightening as this was, this is still my evening off. So unless you have anything else to confess--”

“I saw her again.”

Toto sat. Rather heavier than planned. “What?”

“It was when you were poisoned by Scourge’s gun. She was the scientist in charge of identifying the toxin and developing an antidote.”

If Toto concentrated, he could just about remember the woman. Admittedly, he had been slightly out of it following the poison, and the memory was mostly comprised of white overalls and the smell of apricot. “That was her?”

Somehow, he’d imaged the President of the Baron Fan Club would look... different.

Humbert nodded.

“And you’re telling me because...?” Toto trailed off, unease quickly replacing bafflement. “She doesn’t know your real identity, does she?”

Humbert waved the worry away. “No. At least, I don’t think so.” He frowned. “I hope not. I’ve never seen her at the tea shop anyway...”

Toto waited for Humbert to get to the point. He usually did, eventually.

“But, I’ve been considering dropping by her place again... intentionally, some time... when the situation isn’t quite so dire. As one would drop by a friend - like I’m doing now.”

Toto decided against reminding Humbert that he had stolen into this particular house with an illegally copied key.

“You want to get to know her,” Toto translated.

“Would that be such a bad thing?”

“Yes?!”

“I suppose I’m flattered,” Humbert continued, “that she formed a fan club devoted to me, even if she did admit it wasn’t done in all seriousness--”

At least that meant the woman had some common sense, Toto couldn’t help but think.

“--but what harm could come out of seeing her again, perhaps just drop some flowers off to thank her for her help...?”

Toto leant a hand on Humbert’s arm and tried to ignore the way his thoughts scrambled at the contact. “Humbert,” he said gently, “do you trust me?”

Humbert looked up at him with those eyes that glimmered like gems. “You trusted me when no one else would, so now I will always return the favour.”

Dammit. How was Toto supposed to think when Humbert came out with unnecessarily heartfelt things like that?

“Good,” Toto eventually managed, when he felt he could speak without making a fool of himself. It still took him several more moments to follow it up. He patted Humbert’s arm and consciously leant back. “I mean, thank you.” Words. Form words, dammit. “Then please trust me when I say that is a bad idea. Look, if you were talking about a one-off thank you with this woman, that would be one thing. But you’re not, are you?”

Humbert met his gaze, and Toto saw he was hitting the mark. He continued.

“Humbert, me, your sister, Muta... we’re all people who were already invested in you or involved with the underworld, but this woman... she isn’t. And she doesn’t have to be. She could still go on to have a relatively crime-free life, even with her rather strange hobbies. But if you keep muscling your way into her life, she’s going to lose that. Is that what you want?”

Humbert was silent for a good long moment, and then he finally nodded. He patted Toto’s arm in the same manner Toto had previously. “That’s why I came to yours. You always have such good advice.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Toto said dryly.

“I probably should thank her for sewing me back together after the building incident, even so,” Humbert said. “An one-off, of course.”

“Of course,” Toto echoed.

“But what?”

“Well, there’s always the classics: chocolates, roses, promises you don’t intend to keep,” Toto rattled off. At Humbert’s disapproving look, he rolled his eyes. “I was kidding. Kidding. Just buy her flowers. She’ll love that.”

“You think?”

Toto stared for a long moment. “Seriously, why are you asking me for ladies’ advice? Go ask your sister, she’s the one with actual experience - and interest.”

“Good point. Thank you, Toto.”

Toto snorted. “Buy me flowers and then we’re even.” He watched as Humbert got to his feet - with feline grace, as always - and, with a defeated sigh, leant back to catch him as he went. “Hey, it might not be a great idea for this woman to get to know the Baron, the super villain, but... there’s no reason why she can’t get to know Humbert, your local tea shop owner.”

Humbert’s eyes lit up. God, he was obvious. “Duly noted. I owe you flowers for this.”

“And tea and milk!” Toto shouted as Humbert vanished out. “Pay me back for all the goddamn tea you’ve been stealing first, you skinflint cretin!” There was the slam of the front door, and Toto collapsed back into his seat. Only the cups left any sign that he hadn’t imagined the whole encounter.

“He could at least have washed up.”

Well, usually.

#supervillain au #written prompts #cat writes #the cat returns #tcr ficlets #tcrmommabear #replies #hey remember on the last prompt for this au how there was someone else injured by poisoned bullets?#yeah that was canonically toto #also spot the disney beauty and the beast reference #this got out of control #but was far too much fun #shelby you're responsible for toto here #but also toto is here to shame baron's dramatics #and obliviousness #because goddamit someone needs to #i have ideas for louise and muta #and machida actually #let's see if that works out tho huh?

30 notes · View notes

yaelathewordsmith · 6 years ago

Text

Shield and Spear

Look who’s finally back from the dead and got some work done Okay, new post! My favourite kids, Yams and Tsukki, getting some screentime.

(Should I actually be working on the main story)

(Probably yes but i need to get all these little things out of my head first and also it’ll help with continuity, so yay for that I guess?)

Full story with my new first year kids on FFnet and AO3, check it out!

“Ugh, Tsukki, did you copy all the notes we were given in chemistry?” Tadashi asked, frowning down at the last notebook to go into his bag.

Tsukki frowned a little, pushing his chair back and standing up. “Of course. Why didn’t you?”

“Katou-san put me on the decorations committee,” Tadashi said mournfully, stowing the notebook away and getting to his feet as well. “Didn’t you notice I was late to class?”

“No. Were you?”

Tadashi rolled his eyes, heading to the door. Tsukki slung his bag over his shoulder, following him. “How hard is it to get the decorations done, anyway?”

“Well, there’s a lot of the school to decorate,” Tadashi sighed, stepping into the noisy corridor. “And anyway, when she said decorations committee, she really meant ‘committee that helps out with every prop or stall related problem any other class might have’.”

Tsukki made a non-committal sound, deftly avoiding a knot of students having a heated discussion by the stairs. “You can take the notes today, I’ll need them back by tomorrow.”

Tadashi followed suit, moving a little faster to keep up with Tsukki’s longer stride. “Sure. Hey, do you mind if we stop by a vending machine?”

“Closest one’s in the cafeteria, and it’s horribly crowded right now.”

“Well, we can use the one on the third floor.”

“I’m not climbing all the way to the third floor.”

“ . . . Okay, then what about the one outside?” Tadashi caught Tsukki’s mouth snapping open, and hastened to add, “We can use that side entrance, so we won’t get caught up in the worst of the evening rush.”

Tsukki hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “Fine, but let’s make it fast. I want to get an early start on that history essay.”

“Mmhm.” Tadashi glanced at him sideways. “Don’t worry about running into Teruhashi-san, she doesn’t use that machine.”

Tsukki glared at him, eyes narrowing. “Who said anything about Teruhashi-san?”

Tadashi shrugged and looked straight ahead, trying not to smile.

“I am not trying to avoid her.”

“Okay, Tsukki.”

“I just prefer not to speak to her, if at all possible, because she’s spiteful, cruel, arrogant, and refuses to take no for an answer.”

“Oh, she is? I thought you hadn’t spoken to her much.”

“I don’t need to when it’s so obvious in the way she treats everybody. Besides, Yachi-san and her friends avoid her too.”

Tadashi couldn’t argue with that. If Yachi couldn’t manage to excuse someone’s behaviour, they were pretty much guaranteed to be the worst people in the classroom.

“That they do,” he agreed.

Tsukki snorted. “Why she decided she likes me, I’ll never know.”

A brief silence fell between them as they navigated the crowd of people heading out the doors, and when they stepped outside Tsukki, for some inscrutable reason, decided to break it with “Well, at least you made a good choice this time.”

Tadashi turned to look at him quizzically, praying this wasn’t going where he thought it was going.

Tsukki caught the glance and raised an eyebrow in return. “I mean, usually you make horrible decisions about who to crush on. At least this time it’s - “

“Okay, we really don’t have to discuss my love life!” Tadashi yelped.

Tsukki’s other eyebrow went up, mouth twitching slightly. “You don’t have any problem discussing mine.”

“Well, but you have so many girls confessing to you, yours at least exists!”

“So what, yours is a phantom or something?”

“I - It’s - I don’t even -”

“You should just ask her out.”

Tadashi gaped at him, face burning. “Wha - no way I could -”

Thud.

It was a quiet sound, soft and muted, and Tadashi was just about to dismiss it as a stray football or tennis ball or something when he heard the muffled voices - one quieter, higher, then abruptly cut off by a deeper growl.

Tsukki’s forehead creased as he listened, eyes going cool and sharp, and after a brief moment he stepped around the corner. Tadashi followed, straining to hear better. He thought he recognized the first one, it sounded entirely too familiar. It sounded like -

Oh, damn.

His heart dropped as he peered past Tsukki and saw just who stood in the shadow of the vending machine.

One was Akiyama, with his back against the wall and a fist bunched in his shirt at the collar. The other . . . a first year Tadashi barely knew; tall, broad shouldered, sandy hair, calculating eyes. He’d seen him around in the corridors, though, and the brief glances had reminded him of nothing more than -

- lumpy face -

- always crying -

- carry our bags -

- where’s your money, wimp -

- ugly, weak, loser -

- memories he’d rather forget.

“ - you and your retard of a brother,” the boy was snarling. “If you don’t back off, Akiyama, when he comes to Karasuno I’m going to make sure life is living hell for him. And he won’t even be able to call for help, will he, when I break his hands - “

Tadashi frowned, eyes narrowing, the brief trepidation that had flashed through him now swallowed by anger.

Who the hell is this guy, and how dare he say things like that to Akiyama?

Akiyama looked up just then, meeting their gazes. His eyes widened, relief, horror, and shame flickering through them in quick succession, and he looked away instantly, shaggy hair falling over his face.

The boy caught the look and whipped around, other fist coming up. When he saw that they were older than him, he didn’t waver.

“You need something?”

Tsukki gave him a long, piercing look, one that was usually enough to unsettle anyone, even teachers. But this guy didn’t even blink.

“Is that how you talk to a senior, Goto-kun?”

Ah, right. That’s his name, Goto Soma.

He looked at Akiyama again, taking in his trembling hands, his panting breath, and felt something beyond anger, something slow and molten and furious, begin to bubble in his stomach.

Quiet Akiyama, with his shy smiles and serious eyes and careful words, should not be looking like that. He should never have to look like that.

“Apologies, senpai, but you’re interrupting something,” Goto said roughly. “I’d appreciate it if you left.”

“Sorry, but we can’t do that.”

Tadashi caught Tsukki glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, a flash of surprise crossing his face, but ignored him as he stepped forward, focusing entirely on Goto, whose gaze switched to him like a laser.

“That’s our kohai, you see, Goto-kun. And we don’t appreciate you coming anywhere near him.”

Tsukki smiled, sharp and cold. “No, we don’t.” He took a step forward too, bearing down on Goto. “So leave right now, and we might forget this ever happened.”

Goto smirked right back, looking entirely unfazed, but Tadashi caught something unsteady in his glance, and knew he was forcing himself to stand his ground. A little more pressure, then -

“Touch him again,” Tadashi said quietly, blood pounding in his ears, “and there will be two more people with us to teach you how to play nice with your classmates. And you really don’t want to meet them.”

“Yeah?” Goto shoved Akiyama back into the wall and turned to face them entirely, shoulders squared, teeth bared. “Who’re these scary people, then?”

Tadashi tilted his head slightly, never looking away. “Nishinoya Yuu -”

“ - and Tanaka Ryuunosuke.” Tsukki’s smile grew wider. “Both third years. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to find out what exactly they’ll do to you if they hear about this. But, you know, we don’t really need them. We can do plenty ourselves.”

Tadashi took the last step forward, bringing him almost nose to nose with Goto, insanely grateful for that last growth spurt that meant he was looking down on Goto from two extra inches.

“So leave. And don’t come back.”

Goto’s lips pulled back further over his teeth, eyes narrow. Tadashi held his gaze, staring him down. He was vaguely aware of Tsukki at his right shoulder, a tall, looming shadow probably ten times more intimidating than Tadashi could ever be.

But Goto never looked away from him, didn’t even spare Tsukki a glance. One fist clenched at his side as he glared back.

Then he blinked, whipped around, and was gone with one last, murderous glance thrown at Akiyama over his shoulder,

Tadashi watched him turn the corner before he relaxed, hands falling open from their own fists, and turned to Akiyama.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

He noted, vaguely, that his voice was back to sounding like it always did, that it no longer had that note of steel in it; steel he didn’t know he’d had in him.

Akiyama nodded, looking up with a weak smile. “Yeah, yeah. Just . . . winded.”

“He hurt you?” Tsukki asked, looking dispassionate as ever, yet with his eyes still unnaturally sharp.

“Uh . . . one or two punches, it wasn’t too -”

“Where?” Tadashi interrupted.

Akiyama’s hands settled on his stomach. Tadashi gave him a quizzical look, and he moved them aside with a sigh.

Tadashi smiled slightly, the buzz that was keeping his heart thrumming beginning to fade a bit.

“I’m not going to ask you to take your shirt off or anything. Just . . .” He touched Akiyama’s torso as gently as he could, murmuring a quiet apology when he winced.

“Take a couple of days off club,” Tsukki said. “We can make your excuses. Or get Serizawa or someone to do it, if you prefer.”

“Mhm. I think you’ll probably have some big bruises,” Tadashi said thoughtfully, straightening up, and placing a steadying hand on Akiyama’s hand as he did the same. “Definitely take at least two days off. You probably won’t go see a doctor, will you?”

Akiyama shook his head, hair sticking to his forehead. “I really don’t think I need - and what would I tell my mom?”

“If we see you coughing up blood, we’re dragging you there whether you want us to or not,” Tsukki said flatly.

Akiyama huffed a laugh. “Got it, Tsukki-san. Don’t worry, I’m not that stupid.”

Tadashi blinked at that. Tsukki-san? He glanced sideways at Tsukki, and had to choke back a chuckle at the shock on his face. Akiyama still seemed shaken enough that he didn’t notice he’d said anything out of the ordinary.

“Um, so -” Tadashi said quickly. “I - don’t want to pry, it’s completely fine if you don’t want to tell us why Goto was angry with you. But can I ask - was that the first time? That he - ?”

Akiyama grimaced, brushing his hair back absently. “Yeah, it was. I knew he hadn’t been happy with me for some weeks now, I never thought that he’d - ugh. It’s so ridiculous, too, what he was - there’s a girl in my class, you see, and somehow he’s decided that it’s my fault she won’t look at him. I barely even speak to her except to, I don’t know, help her out with a question or something, what can I do about it if her seat is next to mine?”

“That was the reason?” Tsukki said, disdainfully. “Goto-kun seems to be the very definition of hotheaded.”

“He’s always been like that,” Akiyama sighed, gingerly prodding at his stomach once more. “We, um, used to be in middle school together. Kohei knows him too. He was never that bad though.”

“I see.” Yamaguchi gave him a careful look, glad that he seemed calm enough, yet concerned about the way his hands were still trembling. “Well, if he comes near you again, please do tell us, okay, Akiyama-kun?”

Akiyama looked away, not answering for a moment.

“I’m sorry you had to - to step in, Yamaguchi-san, Tsukki-san. It’s not something I wanted you to - I would have - sorted it out on my own, somehow - “

“Probably,” Tsukki said, looking bored. “But I, for one, don’t mind getting chances to take idiots like that down a peg or two, and I don’t think Yamaguchi does either. It’s your choice, obviously. But we would appreciate knowing what happens with him, one way or another. Fair enough?”

Akiyama’s gaze flickered from Tsukki’s face to Tadashi’s and back before he smiled, just a little.

“Fair enough, Tsukki-san. I - thank you. Both of you.” He bowed as deeply as he could.

Tsukki’s nose wrinkled. “When exactly did the four of you pin that name on me?”

Tadashi nudged him in the side, smiling at Akiyama both apologetically and reassuringly as he inclined his head in return. “You’re welcome, Akiyama-kun. Um, be safe on your way home, okay?”

“I will, Yamaguchi-san. Thank you.”

Tadashi nodded, moving back a bit to give him space as he bent down to pick up his bag. Tsukki ignored both of them, instead stepping up to the vending machine

“Akiyama.”

Akiyama winced as he straightened up, giving Tsukki a questioning look.

Tsukki slipped a note into the machine, raising a finger to select the correct button. “Whatever he was saying about your brother -”

There was a quiet intake of breath, and Akiyama’s eyes narrowed nervously.

Tsukki gave him a brief glance. “I’m not about to ask anything you don’t want me to.” He bent to pick the carton up. “I’m just letting you know I can and will help you keep an eye on him. Next year.”

Tadashi had to bite his lip to stop himself from grinning.

Such a softie, Tsukki.

He turned to Akiyama to say the same, but paused at the look growing in his eyes, sweeping all lingering shock and fear aside - a look that was strong, and fierce, and burning.

“That’s very kind of you, Tsukki-san,” he said, voice calm and clear. “But I won’t need your help with that.”

Tsukki paused for a moment, unwrapped straw in one hand.

“Is that so?” The straw sank into the carton with a soft pop, and Tsukki turned to give Akiyama a small, quiet smile that only ever Tadashi saw, and even then saw rarely. “I’m glad to hear it.”

Akiyama smiled in return, a smile wavering at the edges but true enough.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Yamaguchi-san, Tsukki-san.”

Tsukki nodded and Tadashi waved as he left. You’d never have thought, Tadashi mused, watching him walk away, that he’d just been slammed against a wall by a guy almost twice his size. It was an innate dignity Tadashi couldn’t help being just the slightest bit jealous of.

“Aren’t you going to get your drink?”

“Ah, right, yeah. Give me a second.”

It was as they walked out of the gates, drinks in hand, that Tadashi thought to ask, “We’re going to be keeping an eye on him for a few days, aren’t we?”

Tsukki looked at him like he had dropped from the sky.

“Of course we are. The kid wouldn’t tell us even if Goto tried to throw him off the roof.”

Tadashi grinned at him.

“You’re a pretty good senpai, Tsukki.”

“Shut up, Yamaguchi.”

15 notes · View notes

the-desolated-quill · 7 years ago

Text

Heaven Sent - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I’m being too cynical at times.

Sigh. Look, it’s not that I don’t like Heaven Sent. It’s okay. It’s a competently made episode that has its moments, and I’m certain that if this came out before 2010, I probably would have loved it. But as I’ve said in the past, once you notice the tricks, gimmicks and general bullshit of Moffat stories, that’s all you notice. The fact of the matter is, while I didn’t hate Heaven Sent, it’s hard for me to truly enjoy this because of just how sick to death I’ve gotten with Moffat’s MO.

I suppose I did like how small scale it all was. No alien invasions or anything like that. Just the Doctor trapped in a prison and having to figure out how to escape. Moffat is clearly taking inspiration from Classic Who stories like The Deadly Assassin and Castrovalva, and it’s certainly the most unique and interesting setting to have cropped up this series. I also quite like the Veil. A Grim Reaper-esque figure that will always slowly follow you everywhere you go no matter how hard you try to outrun it. This combined with the claustrophobic prison helps create a sense of impending dread. And of course Peter Capaldi deserves a huge amount of praise for his amazing performance, giving it everything he’s got and selling the Doctor’s grief, pain and anger like its going out of season.

The problem is... well... Moffat.

As much as I love Capaldi in this, it’s the characterisation I really can’t stand. One of the things I find most annoying about Twelve (apart from the inconsistent writing) is his constant need for reassurance. He’s become so dependant on Clara to the point where even now he’s having imaginary conversations with her, seeking her validation on just about everything. I could just about be able to stomach this if it was about the Doctor learning to let Clara’s memory go and move on, but that’s clearly not what this is about at all. Moffat is trying to imply that the Doctor and Clara are completely inseparable at this point, and that the Doctor is completely lost without her... which simply doesn’t sound like the Doctor at all. I refuse to believe he’s that ineffectual without a companion (it also further confirms my theory that Clara isn’t really dead. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. If she stays dead by the end of the next episode, I’ll be genuinely surprised).

Heaven Sent also exposes a weakness in Moffat’s writing. Namely his interchangeable characters. Oh we’ve all known his female characters have been shit for a while now. That’s not in dispute. I’m talking about his male protagonists. These eccentric mega-geniuses who seem to be able to solve everything with magic. Here we see the Doctor slipping into Sherlock territory at points, most notably with the mind palace stuff. I cannot stress enough how much I hate this. The Doctor and Sherlock Holmes shouldn’t get within a parsec of each other and it just goes to show how unimaginative Moffat is as a writer. Rather than have the Doctor think on his feet and escape the Veil using his wit and ingenuity, Moffat instead freezes the action so that the Doctor can monologue to himself in his imaginary TARDIS and thus destroys all the tension. While thankfully it never quite goes to the same insulting extremes that Sherlock took it (His Last Vow anyone?), it’s still a massive problem and it just feels like Moffat showing off rather than him telling a compelling story.

Then there’s just the crushing sense of predictability to all of this. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the setting, but I wouldn’t say I was intrigued by it and that’s because of how depressingly familiar I’ve become with Moffat’s schtick. The moment I saw the very old painting of Clara, I knew that this was a prison of the Doctor’s own making and that he’d been there for a long time. Then when I saw all the skulls, I just nodded and thought ‘yeah. he cloned himself each time the Veil killed him. Okay.’ It’s neither satisfying nor surprising because it’s all telegraphed so heavily and yet Moffat still expects us to give him a pat on the back. He honestly thought the final twist was going to be a big shock, but really, did anyone think it wasn’t Time Lord related? Who else could it have been? Like with the mystery of River Song, it’s hard to be surprised by a reveal when the list of suspects is so pathetically small.

And then there’s all the logic holes and inconsistencies. So the Time Lords want the Doctor to confess what the Hybrid is. First of all Moffat is changing the rules again for the purposes of plot convenience. Before the confession dial was a Time Lord’s last will and testament. Now it’s a personal torture chamber. Why would anyone carry something like that around with them, let alone the Doctor? Also if the Time Lords are using the confession dial to get info on the Hybrid from the Doctor, why add in an element that could kill him? What if the Doctor never made it back to the cloning/teleport thingy in time before he kicked the bucket? That would have been a bit awkward, wouldn’t it? If the Veil is just to punish him on the other hand, then why does the Doctor get rewarded for confessing random things? (we’ll get to the confessions in a bit). The Doctor says he’s being interrogated and he’s therefore irreplaceable due to the information he possesses, and yet he’s still afraid to die because the Veil can literally kill him with a touch. Which brings me back to my first point. Why are the Time Lords trying to kill the Doctor if they need information from him? It just doesn’t make sense.

And what about the prison itself? The rooms reset after a while to hide the things the Doctor has changed, unless it’s something he himself added like his clothes or his numerous skulls. So how come the azbantium wall is unaffected by the resets? Why is it that all the messages he leaves for himself get erased, but the damage he does to the wall doesn’t? And speaking of messages, why did the Doctor feel the need to dig a hole in the ground to leave a message? And where did he get the chalk to draw the arrows? And if he had the time to draw arrows, why not just leave himself an explanation as to what’s going on? Or at the very least tell himself to use something other than his fists to break through the wall.

Ah yes, now let’s talk about the azbantium wall. The Doctor taking billions of years to punch his way through. Surely it would have been more effective to use the pointy end of the shovel or his fingernails or something rather than punching it. Because the thing about the original story with the bird and the mountain is that the bird’s beak is pointy. By sharpening its beak on the mountain, the bird does a small amount of damage each time. I fail to see how punching a wall is supposed to do any damage whatsoever. Punching a brick wall is unlikely to do anything. Punching an azbantium wall that’s apparently four hundred times harder than diamond surely would make zero difference. And zero is still zero no matter how many times you multiply it.

You can easily dismiss all of this as nitpicking (in fact you probably are), but it’s little things like that that slowly erode away at the credibility of it all for me. Like a bird sharpening its beak on a mountain, you might say. It’s hard for me to really be invested in this because the episode doesn’t follow the rules of its own internal logic. Something Moffat has frequently been guilty of in the vast majority of his stories.

Finally there’s the confessions. I mentioned way back in my review of The Witch’s Familiar that I was deeply concerned with the direction this series arc was going, and as we come within spitting distance of the series finale, I’m now in abject terror. Moffat has demonstrated in episodes like Listen and The Witch’s Familiar that his arrogance and desperation to put his own stamp on the show means he’s prepared to lift up the bonnet and tinker with the vital components of the show. Components that should NEVER be tinkered with, like the Doctor’s mystery. We don’t know exactly who he is or what makes him tick, and we shouldn’t know either. That wouldn’t make him more interesting. It would actually diminish him. So I was very alarmed when the Doctor started confessing that he originally left Gallifrey because he was scared of the Hybrid. (I’ve already talked about how stupid the idea of the Doctor being driven by fear is in the past, so I won’t repeat myself here. Just read my review of Listen again if you want the details). And then to cap it all off, at the very end the Doctor confesses that the Hybrid... is him.

At which point, I glanced at my DVD copy of the Doctor Who movie and gulped nervously. Please tell me Moffat is not going where I think he’s going.

Moffat has written some bad stuff before (a lot of bad stuff before), but it’s been stuff that for the most part you can easily ignore and pretend never happened (something I one hundred percent plan to do when Jodie Whittaker comes a-calling). This however is the first time Moffat has been in a position where he could do some serious damage to the franchise as a whole. Never before have I been so apprehensive to watch a Moffat penned series finale...

#heaven sent #steven moffat #doctor who #twelfth doctor #peter capaldi #bbc #review #spoilers

27 notes · View notes

weshallc · 7 years ago

Text

Nonnatun Christmas Card Exchange:Christmas 1962 Tom & Barbara

This is a story I wrote for @jlyspio for the Nonnatun Christmas Card Exchange. She has kindly given me permission to share it with you. As they are not too many ‘Herbert’ stories, I thought why not.

This is my first and maybe my last. Many thanks to Rachel for very generously finding time for me aboard the busy Polar Express. Big shout out to @eatapinkwafer who has patiently endured 4 of these Christmas offerings in the last few days and been incredibly supportive.

Tom stood at the bus stop on the main road adjoining the street where the Turners now lived. Tom was pleased with his morning’s work. Over a cup of Typhoo tea and a lemon puff, Edward Patrick Turner’s christening had been meticulously arranged.

Most of the morning, however, had been taken up by an over-enthusiastic Angela giving the young clergyman an extensive tour of ‘her’ new house - much to Shelagh Turner’s obvious discomfort. There was some embarrassment on both sides as Angela refused to leave out an inch of her new kingdom. He just hoped Timothy Turner would never become privy to the knowledge that the curate had once been in his bedroom.

Tom tightened his scarf around his neck and pulled his over coat collar up. Mrs. Turner had been right to keep the little girl indoors, even it did result in a bit of petulance from the child. The garden may be Angela Turner’s favourite thing about her new house, but she was definitely better off inside the new centrally-heated, detached new build.

Suddenly, a streak of blue whizzed past his eyes and then pulled up sharply. An all too familiar voice shrieked back at him.

“Hello Tom! Where are you off too?” It apparently wasn’t as cold as he and Mrs. Turner had thought, looking at Trixie Franklin waving to him from the passenger seat of an open topped sports car.

“The London, Trixie. Mr. Samuelson.” Tom explained.

“Oh, that dear man.” Trixie’s exuberance dampened momentarily.” Why don’t you try and squeeze in, we will drop you off. Won’t we Sweetie?”

Christopher Dockerill and the curate exchanged a glance and a smile. Tom assured Trixie, that the No.52 was due any minute. He knew the dentist was on his lunch break and didn’t want to share any of that time with anyone but Trixie.

Trixie gave Tom an apologetic smile as she waved goodbye and soon became a blue blur in the distance.

Tom smiled. If Trixie had married him she would be stood at this bus stop with him or maybe one like it in Newcastle. Instead she was speeding through Poplar in a sports car. She looked good, she looked happy, she looked the part.

Tom was still musing over the differing paths his old love and he had taken as he mounted the stairs of the red London bus. A familiar voice shook him from his reverie.

“How do, Reverend. Where are you off too then?”

Tom looked up to see Fred’s cheery face beaming from the seat behind the stairwell. Tom told Fred about his proposed visit. Fred closed the newspaper he had been reading and sighed.

“Poor old Sammy eh! Too bad, known him all my life, since I was nipper. Grand bloke.”

Tom felt he may have given too much away about his concerns for his parishioner and changed the subject.

“Catching up with the news, Fred?”

“Na, not me it’s all gloom ‘n’ doom. I just get it to see how many the ‘ammers got beat by and to have a look at the gee-gees.” Fred wafted the well-thumbed copy of last night’s Evening Standard at Tom. His voice lowered.

“Between you ‘n’ me Reverend, there is a good thing in the 2:35 at Aintree today. Never been beat, class against muck. Handicapper has let one fly, if you know what I mean?”

Tom hadn’t the faintest idea what Fred meant, it was like he was speaking another language.

“I will just say this young man, with the help of this little beauty, my Violet can expect something special in her Christmas stocking. If you catch my drift?”

If Tom could have pushed the next sentence that left his lips back into his mouth, he would have.

“Fred, I am sure Mrs. Buckle would be pleased with any gift you can afford. Safe in the knowledge you aren’t risking your hard earned wages on gambling.”

“You weren’t so high and mighty about a little flutter on your stag do, was you Reverend. Weren’t so proud when it got your girl that big fancy carousel?”

“So what you got the missus for Christmas then, bit hard to top your own personal fairground, ain’t it? Set of dodgems, is it?”

Fred stood up and pulled the cord to ring the bell for his stop. He saw the clergy’s crestfallen face and wondered if he had been a bit harsh? He liked Mr. Hereward a lot.

“Never you mind vicar about presents, newly-weds can make their own funfair at Christmas.” He winked at the curate, trying to ease the tension between the two.

Tom’s visit to the London turned out better than he expected. Mr. Samuelson looked so much better than he had on Tom’s last visit to his home. The old man confessed to the curate that he was hoping he would be in hospital over Christmas, surrounded by wonderful caring nurses, who reminded him of his late wife Mabel and a grumpy matron, who reminded him of his old sergeant major.

His renewed optimism regarding Mr. Samuelson didn’t bolster the curate’s spirits for long. He couldn’t forget his earlier conversation with Fred. What was he going to get Barbara for Christmas? The wedding and simple honeymoon had practically cleaned Tom out. How was he going to top a carousel, when he couldn’t even afford a sherbet lolly?

He remembered Trixie waving to him from her new beau’s status symbol. He knew Barbara would never expect or even want to go skiing for Christmas or be driven around in a sports car. The nearest they got to that was when she let him ride her bike and she had a croggy on the handlebars.

He thought about the scene of domestic bliss he had witnessed this morning.His and Barbara’s children wouldn’t have their own bedrooms. They wouldn’t have a garden to play in. They would play out with all the other kids on the streets of Poplar. The clergy’s kids would play with the docker’s kids. Would they survive? Would they be bullied?

He thought of Timothy Turner, he grew up on the East End streets, no one picked on Tim, he was accepted. Playing violin and piano when the other kids were playing British Bulldogs. Going to Grammar School while his mates got jobs on the docks or in factories. You couldn’t get a more well balanced happy teenager than Tim Turner, could you?

Tom gave himself a shake. She had married a clergyman not a doctor or a dentist and if anyone knew what that meant, Barbara did. Yes, she deserved everything and more that her friends had, but she had chosen differently.

As Tom headed across Whitechapel Road he noticed a new addition to the line of shops near the station. Tom had read somewhere that since bookmaking had been made legal last May, that over 10,000 Betting Shops had arrived in High Streets across the UK. That did seem rather a lot.

In his line of work he had seen many families ripped apart by gambling, just as he had by drinking. Yet he still enjoyed a pint of mild, when he had the chance and felt it no way threatened his and Barbara’s happiness or comfort. Everything in moderation his father always said.

The same thing applied when he looked at Fred. Violet knew all about Fred’s little flutters, of course she did and she didn’t seem to mind. Then there was Dougie Roberts, renowned for not been able to pass up a bet. What was that expression about 2 boys and a wall? Well, that applied to Dougie. One look at his wife Ruby told you she wanted for nothing. His 2 girls were always immaculately turned out and as for their boy, it was widely acknowledged that nothing was too good for little Douglas.

The building was small and the windows blacked out making it look secretive, menacing almost.

He was inside before he even realized what he was about to do. The smell of stale cigarette smoke hit him first. As his eyes adjusted to the artificial light, he glanced at his fellow occupants in the tiny room. No one looked at Tom. The curate made sure his scarf was wrapped tightly around his throat and the collar of his overcoat drawn together to hide his dog collar.

“Alright Darling, next race 2:35 at Aintree.” Tom turned and blinked at the young woman behind the small counter. “Ain’t seen you in here before, I’d ‘ave remembered. First time is it?” She winked at him.

“Just put, the race time, horses name and how much you want to bet on there, sweetheart. I will do the rest.” She flounced back to the counter leaving a scent of cheap perfume and polo mints behind her.

Tom knew he had to leave now. If only at this point the chirpy assistant hadn’t turned up the volume on the solitary black and white television set, following a request from a punter.

We will just take a look at the runners for our next race the 2:35 at Aintree.” The commentator’s voice startled Tom. “No.1 is a big outsider, first time at Aintree for Glorious Gilbert...”

Tom heard no more, his heart missed a beat. Maybe this wasn’t a mistake after all.

Tom rushed to the pinned up papers, found what he needed. He scribbled on the tiny slip and presented it to his curious new ally behind the desk. Searching in his trouser pocket he hesitated only for a second as he took out a precious ten bob note and handed it over to its willing recipient.

It took Tom a full minute to realize what he had done. He moved to a place where he could get a good view of the flickering set. He longed to unbutton his coat, but instead he pulled the collar tighter. The small room was overheated, a fierce looking electric heater in the corner was whirring and spluttering.

They were going down, in a few minutes it would all be over. No one would ever know how stupid he had been.

“Reverend! Well this is a right turn up for the books, twice in one day!”

Tom froze as a large hand patted him on the back. The girl behind the counter started coughing uncontrollably after swallowing her Polo mint whole.

Rather weakly and somewhat defensively Tom retorted. “I could ask you the same question, Fred.”

Fred didn’t bat an eyelid. “I often does a bit of business on Whitechapel Market, just thought I’d pop in here for a warm.”

“Friend of yours Fred?” The assistant had regained her composure.

“Alright, Thelma love?” Tactfully leaving the enquiry unanswered. Tom was grateful realizing Fred must have just popped in for a lot of ‘warms’ recently.

Fred led Tom away from listening ears and asked him why the last person he was expecting to meet in a Whitechapel Betting Shop was stood next to him. Tom could have said he was looking for a parishioner or putting on a bet for old Mr. Samuelson. Tom knew he was a fool, but he also knew he wasn’t a liar.

Tom handed his friend the slip he had been clutching so tightly. Fred just asked him why?

“For Barbara,” was all he could reply.

Fred pulled off his woolly hat, scratched his head and looked bewildered at the curate.

“I was pulling your leg, winding you up, you silly sod.” Fred felt bereft he had maybe had some part in the choices Tom had made that afternoon. He looked so uncomfortable, so out of place. “Gambling is a mug's game. I know I am a mug.”

Tom protested, “What about Walthamstow, what about Galilee Lad...”

Fred interrupted, “Dogs is dogs. A good dog can beat another good dog any day of the week. Now your thoroughbred, that’s a different animal. You’ve got to know your oats. So to speak.”

Tom felt sick and hot and stupid. Fred looked at Tom’s slip and shook his head.

“66/1, it’s a maiden!” Fred couldn’t hide his exasperation. All Tom could offer was that he thought it was a stallion.

Fred snorted. “Yes, It is a bloke. A maiden just means it’s never won a race. You know, like a maiden's never...”

“Yes, I get the picture Fred, thank you.”

The simple question why came again from Fred’s face of pity.

“For Barbara.” Came back the reply.

Thelma turned the volume on the television up another notch. As the race announcer declared, “And they’re off!”

“That’s yours in the red and white stripes.” She nodded at Tom. The curate looked bewildered at the black and white picture. Fred grinned, winked at him and shook his head.

Even with Tom’s untrained eye, he could see Mr. Minty looked like a different class from the rest of the field. “ Jumps like a stag!” Fred beamed with pride.

“You mean there are fences!” Tom cried.

“It’s winter Mr. Hereward, National Hunt season.”

Not for the first time Tom wondered why no-one was speaking English today. The 6 horses seemed to take each fence in their stride. Mr. Minty led from the off and literally flew over every obstacle.

Emerald Eyes fell at the 6th. Tom offered up a silent prayer for the horse and jockey. Remarkably both bounced back to their feet. Emerald Eyes, now rider-less, soon caught up to his competitors.

Welsh Wonder refused to jump at the 7th and was pulled up. Bobby’s Girl unseated her jockey at the 9th. Gorgeous Gilbert was last of the 3 remaining runners, it was no threat to Mr. Minty, but seemed quite happy to plod on behind and appeared to relish the jumps.

“Your nag stopped to eat some grass.” Fred mocked.

Tom realized he no longer cared. As long as horse and jockey got home safety, that was all that mattered now.

“One more jump and we are home and dry, go on my son!” A very excited Fred Buckle yelled.

Mr. Minty took off for the final time and so did his jockey. He took off from his saddle and somersaulted over Mr. Minty’s head. The jockey landed unceremoniously on his behind on the turf. Mr. Minty didn’t miss a step and galloped home triumphantly.

Fred swore. Apologised to Tom and then cursed again. Tom and Fred’s gaze returned to the screen, while the cameras had been focused on the fate of the unfortunate favourite. Tom’s horse had made up ground on the second.

Blonde Bombshell was coming to the last now as the unexpected favourite. She jumped the fence cleanly, but stumbled on landing. Her jockey pulling hard to maintain his balance.

Gorgeous Gilbert jumped beautifully and was now just a length behind the tiring leader. Fred suddenly became animated, he grabbed Tom’s sleeve,

“You’re in with a chance here Reverend.”

Tom was perspiring, feeling sick and dizzy due to the heat, the confinement of the small shop and the overpowering cigarette stench compounded by his confusion at his own actions. Fred was now jumping up and down shaking Tom’s arm. “Come on you beauty, come on for Mrs H!“ He screamed.

The enthusiasm of his friend did not go unnoticed by Tom, Fred had shaken off the disappointment of his own loss and was right behind Tom’s fortunes. The broadcaster continued his quick-fire commentary.

“It’s a long run in here at Aintree, Blonde Bombshell is tiring, she is losing ground. Gorgeous Gilbert is gaining on her. Here he comes. There is just a neck in it now. They coming up to the line. He has done it! The outsider has pulled off a shock today here at Aintree, Glorious Gilbert the winner at 66/1”

Fred was now kissing a very dazed Tom. The feel of Fred’s stubble on his cheek jolted Tom back to reality. Fred pushed Tom towards a grinning Thelma.

“Where you taking me tonight then, Handsome? Now you’ve cleaned me out.”

Fred gave Thelma a stern stare and the assistant took out a wad of notes and began counting out Tom’s winnings. “What do you fancy in the next then?”

Tom shaking with the money in his hand replied, “I don’t know. I will have a look.”

A large hand grabbed Tom’s arm and before he knew it, Tom was finally outside. His lungs shuddered with relief at the cold fresh air. Fred had him by both shoulders and was staring Tom right in the eyes. Tom felt faint with the sudden environmental change and the smell of tea, jellied eels, and sweat.

“Now you listen to me Tom! You got lucky, you were given a break. Betting is a mug's game, I know cos I am a mug see. Apart from the day I stepped up at Nonnatus House and the day I married my girls mother and of course my Vi.” Tom was getting his bearings and Fred had his full attention.

“I know how you feel mate. Of course I does, your missus earns more than you do. You can’t get her the things you’d like too. You don’t want her feeling second best. You don’t want people thinking you’re not a real man because your wife works, or it looks like you can’t provide for her. Well none of that matters. They’ll soon change their minds, when they want a baby delivering or christening, when they want marrying or burying. They’ll soon remember then, how important you and that young lass are to Poplar. When they’re in trouble, when they have need of you. They will remember and so should you!”

Fred finally let go of Tom and the smaller man swayed slightly.

“Now keep that stash, safe in your pocket and go and find a nice present for Mrs H, that’s what all this is about. Ain’t it? He smiled at Tom and added, “Let that be the end of it.”

“The end of what, Fred?” The last question didn’t come from Toms soft brogue but from a higher pitched voice, a feminine voice and one that held a hint of anxiety.

Fred knew he couldn’t answer Mrs. Hereward’s question and made his swift goodbyes and was lost in Whitechapel Market in a heartbeat.

Tom stared at his wife in disbelief, a feeling mirrored by Barbara. After accompanying a patient to the London for admission, she had not expected as she crossed the Whitechapel Road to see her husband and the Nonnatus handyman coming out of a betting shop.

Barbara repeated her question, this time to Tom.

Tom knew he was a fool, but he also knew he was not a liar. His confession poured from his heart. How he resented not being able to give Barbara the lifestyle she deserved. How she should have the sort of things her friends were quickly becoming accustomed too. It broke his heart to see Trixie swanning off skiing, when he hadn’t been able to give Barbara a proper honeymoon. He wanted their children to have a room of their own and a garden with a swing and a slide. He hadn’t even been able to buy his love an engagement ring. He hadn’t been able to bear the thought of their first Christmas as man and wife exchanging some worthless trumpery from the market.

Tears welled up in Barbara’s eyes, she held both his hands in hers.

“Do you know me so little, that you think I would envy a skiing trip or a ride in a sports car? Do you think I give a damn, about the latest fashions or hair styles? For one moment do you think I would swap our cosy little flat in the centre of our bustling, vibrant world for a big house on a faceless new estate somewhere, where we know no-one. Where we would have to cycle or get the bus every time we wanted to see our friends. Tom I would live with you in a bus shelter and would not care if we never stepped out of Poplar again, as long as I am with you.”

Tom was struggling to hold back the tears now. Barbara had not finished.

“You are so incredibly dear to me, Tom. I feel I am the luckiest girl in the world.Every Sunday morning, I feel this when I hear you preach with understanding and compassion, not judgment and prejudice. I feel blessed beyond belief, when I watch you hold a dying man's hand, comfort a widow, help those in need find a way or just make a child feel important. I burst with pride every time someone calls me Mrs. or Nurse Hereward, because that means that out of the whole world the best man I have ever met, chose me.”

Tom pulled her close into a soft salty tear stained kiss. He didn’t care if anyone noticed his dog collar now. He promised to never be so foolish again.

“Just tell me Tom, how much did you lose?”

“I didn’t lose anything Barbara, I won. I won over 30 quid!”

Barbara blinked and then gasped in disbelief. She wouldn’t tell Tom just yet, but the pensioners Christmas dinner and the children’s party were definitely going to be remembered this year. Their first year as the curate and his wife. As Mr. and Mrs. Hereward.

“I guess I beat the odds when I married you, Barbara,” Tom continued.

“Never mind about that Mr. Hereward, I have just finished my shift and if you come with me. It’s a dead cert, that you are on a sure thing.”

Barbara had pulled Tom onto the No.52 bus before he realized what she meant. Not for the first time today he realized he had backed a winner.

#ctm #tom and barbara #fanfic #christmas 1962

21 notes · View notes

thedeadflag · 7 years ago

Text

Here’s more of the Oh No There Is Only One Bed What Do clanya AU

(Part 1)(Part 2)(Part 3)(Part 4)

Part 5 below

Content Warning: transmisogyny, transmisogynistic slurs, transphobia

(Time skip to end of summer break)

"I don't get why you're going nuts about this party. It's a party, not rocket science. You invite people and they show up. If there's booze, even better. That's it." Raven chimed in from her spot perched at the end of Clarke's bed. "It's not a big deal. It'll be just fine without you micromanaging everything."

Clarke let out a huff and sat back on her heels, temporarily deciding to stop digging through her closet. "You graduated last year. It's not a big deal for you, but this is the last time I'll see a lot of these people for...well, maybe years from now. And I want it to be good for the ones I will be seeing again soon, too."

"Like the swimmer girl." Raven noted, perhaps a little pointedly, enough for Clarke to make the executive decision to keep her focus elsewhere for the moment.

"Who?" She asked, Raven's laughter signaling her attempt at obscuring the truth wasn't well played.

"The swimmer girl you've spent most mornings with during the break. Lanky, bottle blonde, kinda thorny personality?" Raven asked, tapping a finger against her chin. Apparently her friend had noticed Anya's comings and goings from her home across the street. "I think her name was Aria? Aaliyah?"

It was clear that Raven had something she wanted to say, so Clarke got up and took a seat on her bed up against the headboard, leading Raven to do the same. "Her name's Anya. And...yeah, she's thorny, but all roses are. You just need to know how to hold them."

Clarke loved when people ran their hands through her hair, so when she felt Raven's combing through, fingertips gently grazing against her scalp, she couldn't help but lean into the touch.

"Clarke...that is one of the gayest things I've ever heard someone say about another woman, and I pretty much live on Tumblr." Raven whispered, clearly barely containing her laughter. It was nearly enough to get her to shuffle away, not quite ready to be teased over her growing adoration for Anya, but the feel of Raven's forehead pressing against her temple stilled her. "Not a bad thing. You always did say you were bi, I just...never saw you take to another girl before. It's adorable. So is that what you two do every morning? Hold each other?"

"I wish. No, we usually just swim for an hour and a half or so, Anya likes a good workout in the morning. For a while, that was it...she'd come over, we'd exercise, and she'd leave. Now I've managed to get her sticking around for a half hour or an hour to just talk or sunbathe." Clarke explained, waiting through a few seconds of silence before turning her head, wondering what was on Raven's mind.

Apparently, perplexed amusement was the daily special, given Raven was looking at her like she had two heads. "Clarke, you're good at flirting. Just get all touchy-feely and she'll melt. Most girls would."

Clarke shook her head and sunk back against her pillows. "I can't." She answered, shooting Raven a pointed glare when her friend scoffed. "I'm serious. I hurt her back in high school. She doesn't fully trust me yet, and she's set boundaries on how I can touch her, so I'm respecting that and just...trying to earn her friendship."

"So what, this morning ritual is some sort of punishment for what you did? Which I have a hard time believing you hurt her, bee-tee-dubs." Raven shot back, brow furrowing, dark eyes meeting her gaze in clear concern.

"Not punishment. She doesn't really seem to care about that. She just wants me to be better so she can feel safe around me." She clarified, taking a deep breath when Raven still stared at her in befuddlement. "I got a close friend of hers expelled in grade nine based on hearsay from guys that were bullying them. I stacked the GSA with her bullies, people I thought were good and decent people but clearly weren't, so she couldn't go there for support when she needed it."

Raven let out a long exhale and nodded. "Okay, that sounds sort of bad, but that was, like, grade nine and ten."

"I helped arrange assemblies that had skits explicitly insulting and harassing her, ones that I laughed at. You remember the skit in your final year where Finn came out in a dress? That was after Finn and Bell paid Ontari to date her long enough to steal some of her clothes for the assembly and grab some nudes to spread around the school. Among some other things, so yeah, the way she is with me...it's warranted. Really fucking warranted." Clarke clarified, sticking to her guns. As time had passed, she'd remembered more and more about things that had happened that year and early senior year. If anything, Anya had undersold her difficulties.

Raven's hand dropped from her head and cupped her shoulder, pulling her in for a hug. "Well...shit. Okay, then, what's the plan of action?" Raven asked, and Clarke really couldn't find an answer outside of sticking with what she'd been doing, so maybe she shrugged. Slow and steady wins the race. It made sense. "Okay, so you can't just freak out about the party tonight and not have a plan to dazzle this girl. Ideally, what'd go down between you two tonight?"

A flurry of fantasies rushed through her mind, but she forced herself to be more practical and appropriate, knowing Anya deserved at least that much. "I...I guess I just want to be able to hold her."

"Okay, you're more far gone than I expected. Is that what I have to look forward to?" Raven asked absently, eyes growing a little wide as Clarke leaned back, wondering if Raven was implying what she thought she was. "Okay, so I...might have met a girl at MIT. She might be coming tonight, since I figure it's time to officially move on from Finn."

Clarke nodded profusely, thrilled to know Raven was finally taking that step. Raven had found out about his affair the final day of the con, and after a brief frosty period of behaviour towards her, she and Raven had grown a lot closer over the summer. "That's great! I...so are you bi?"

"I think so, yeah. I mean, I had some hints here and there over the years, but this one...this one kind of clued me in. And I'm just...floundering a little, because she's an aquatic engineer, and smart, and witty, and beautiful, and..." Clarke's smile grew as Raven rambled, earning her a small shove as Raven's cheeks got a tiny bit redder. "I just like her. And I want to impress her tonight, so I was hoping you had a plan, so I could copy it."

It was a laughable idea, honestly, but the idea of a game plan had a certain appeal to it. If anything, Anya deserved that sort of careful consideration. The last she wanted was to end up inadvertently hurting Anya because she winged the party and was careless.

"Well, a plan does seem like it'd be a good idea, I guess. So...does she know you like her?" Clarke asked, earning a quick shake of the head, Raven's wide-eyed fear leaving her unsure whether to laugh or cry that their situations were so similar. "Same here."

"What?! How does that girl not know you're into her?! Clarke!" Raven thwapped her in the head with a surprise pillow attack that only served to mess up her hair a little more than it already was. "Seriously, you invite her over every morning."

"Six mornings a week, but still. And I call her pet names. And I've bought her gifts. And I keep telling her I'd love to spend more time together. And I've done so much research and traveled to a few workshops and speaking events, too, to try and make sure I'll be safer for her and other trans people to be around." Clarke relayed, only contorting Raven's features even more. "I mean, I don't think she's ever dated anyone, so maybe she just doesn't pick up the cues that I'm interested in something else on top of her friendship? I mean, she might have, and is just ignoring me, but I think I'd notice that."

Raven suddenly jolted up, moving to sit in front of her. "That's it! Luna hates when people beat around the bush or lie to her. And your girl is clueless. Neither seem the type to hold anything over anyone's head unless they're, like, super familiar, right?"

"Yeah, so?" She asked, narrowly dodging another pillow attack.

"So we be aggressively honest."

Clarke's heart skipped a beat at the immediate, visceral fear of rejection, Anya's past words echoing in her head as she imagined coming clean to her at the party, as she imagined confessing her feelings. This was a girl who felt disgusted and scared enough to refuse sharing a room with her barely two months ago.

How the hell could she even make an attempt?

"I can't. I...you didn't hear how disgusted she was of me. How much pain I caused her, I can't just..." Clarke started, throat feeling much narrower as she fought for enough breath to speak. "I just can't."

The third time was the charm, the pillow making solid contact against the front of her face.

"Come on, what day of the con was that? Because I distinctly remember Finn ranting about Anya keeping him from talking to you." Raven asserted, apparently not keen on just letting things be.

"She told me that Saturday morning. And yeah, she helped me in the market later that day, but she's been up front saying she doesn't have to like someone to not want them hurt. Even before showing me how she felt about me, she comforted me over what Finn did to us. She's just that kind of person." Clarke argued, but if anything Raven looked even more determined.

Her friend held up the pillow again, Clarke getting her arms up in time to dissuade her, apparently. "She sounds friggin' perfect for you. Besides, she's hung out with you past your workouts, alone, so by her own standards, she finds you worth her time and trusts you to a decent extent. She wouldn't spend time with you if she didn't enjoy it, if it still hurt her. Pretty big change from someone who didn't feel safe to share a room with you."

Clarke lowered her hands to gauge Raven's sincerity and ate another pillow for her naiveté. "Damn it, Raven, just...do you think I have a shot?"

"From the sound of it, you've put in some work. You've earned some trust. Enough to come clean about how you feel? Yeah, I'd say so. Enough for her to give you a shot? She'd be an idiot not to see how real this is for you." Raven suggested. "Put the ball in her court. Tell her how you feel. Show her how you feel in whatever ways you can. Let her decide if she's into you or not, don't write her off before you give her that chance."

Clarke let out a long exhale, the idea of actively wooing Anya already mentally exhausting. Still, she was worth it. She absolutely was. "Aggressively honest, huh?" She asked, drawing an eager nod from her friend. With a roll of her eyes, she flopped onto her side. "Then I guess that's the plan. Here's hoping we have luck on our side."

As far as Clarke was concerned, they'd need it.

Anya liked Saturdays. Even during summer breaks, it was the one day of the week where she'd let herself relax and have a lazy day. It was always good to have a day to recuperate, she'd learned, and she knew she'd certainly need them going forward over the next few years in New York.

There was nothing quite like laying on her bed in comfy clothes, her open windows welcoming the gentle summer breeze as she worked away at her reading list.

Of course, she'd never been the luckiest individual, so when a knock sounded at her door, she could only imagine that her relaxing routine would be delayed for a few minutes, likely her mother wanting her to accomplish some additional chores, or to help with the garden. "Come in."

A not insignificant amount of surprise coursed through her body as Lexa slipped into her room, looking beautiful as always, but for some reason was at her home rather than Clarke's to help prep for the party.

Anya bookmarked her novel and set it aside. "Lexa, I thought you'd be helping Clarke get her house ready before heading to the airport to pick up Costia."

"Clarke has adequate help already, she'll be fine. I see you're all ready to go." Lexa noted, cocking a scrutinizing eyebrow at her.

Between Lexa's presence and that strange look, Anya had a bad feeling. "You're not expecting me to attend the party, are you?"

Lexa moved to the end of the bed, arms crossing her chest, hips cocked. Apparently, she absolutely did.

Crap.

"At least you've showered already, so we can skip that. What are you going to wear?" Lexa asked, not even leaving Anya's participation in the party up in the air.

"What, is this not appropriate? Come on, Lexa. Why would I go to this thing?" She countered quickly, regretting her words a little as Lexa leveled a hard stare at her.

"Costia's coming back tonight. You can catch up with her, and spend time with us before we head to D.C. on Monday and you head to New York." Lexa argued, and alright, perhaps that was a reasonable argument. Costia would be spending much of tomorrow packing and spending time with her parents, and her and Lexa would be leaving bright and early on Monday. It really was her last good shot at hanging out with her for a while, and she did miss Cos. "And on top of that, you have today as a test run for New York."

Anya's head tilted to the side, confused at that last addition. "What do you mean?"

"You've always had to have your shield up around here. You've been a little thorny by design, to keep yourself safe, because there are a lot of shitty people around here who haven't accepted you. But in New York, you'll be one more person in the crowd. You won't have to have your walls up so high, you won't have to put up a front. You'll have a pretty fresh start over there, and tonight could get you ready for that." Lexa clarified, using a lot of Anya's past venting sessions in the process, only further pulling her towards the idea of attending the party, even if the prospect was still intimidating. It'd been a long time since she let her softer side out to play, not since she'd been viciously bullied in grade nine to the point of needing to look tougher to protect herself, even if that came with its own drawbacks in more verbal harassment.

"Not a completely fresh start. Clarke would be there." Anya added, apparently compelling Lexa to crawl up onto the bed and curl up beside her. "You realize you can't hug me into submission."

Lexa just laughed, nose tickling her neck. "Of course I can't. And yes, Clarke will be there. You can't pretend that she's not your friend now, Anya. Even if you're not as close with her as, say, Costia, you still like her."

Anya's couldn't refute her words, knowing the other blonde had indeed grown on her like a fungus to the point where she looked forward to seeing her. Clarke had worked hard to become someone she could feel safe around, and she both respected and kind of adored her for that daily dedication and self-critique. Still, Lexa didn't need to know that, so she just raised an eyebrow, not that Lexa could see. "Your point?"

"My point is that you can show her the rest of you tonight. You can let her in, let her know you, and give her a shot at being the friend she's trying to be for you." Lexa stated, slinging her arms around Anya's waist. "Besides, you'd be doing me a favour. I don't want either of you two to feel alone out there. If you two had each other to lean on, I'd be a lot less stressed about being away from you."

Anya felt her heart drop into her stomach, Lexa's words hitting their target dead on. "Bring out the big guns, why don't you?" She let out with a sigh, holding her cousin closer. "I don't want you to worry about me, or at least no more than usual. I'll go."

"Well, then, we should get you ready. Go pick out something to wear." Lexa prodded her stomach until she sat up and rolled off the bed, reluctantly making her way to the closet.

Her hand moved to grab her trademark leather pants but that was the predictable choice. That was what her former classmates knew well, her harder, thornier side she used to keep the hordes at bay, at least physically. They'd never let her be anything else before, not without seeing it as a vulnerability to attack.

But she was leaving on Monday. They had no hold on her anymore.

Anya shook her head and pushed enough hangers aside to bring the four in garment bags to the forefront. By memory, she grabbed the last one and handed it behind her, knowing Lexa would be waiting, and then passed off a pair of red heels. Once her cousin took possession of both, she went up on her tip-toes and grabbed the large black box from her top shelf, and then the two slightly smaller white boxes to its right. If she was going to show off another side of herself, then she was going to go all out. Taking half-measures would simply be a waste.

Besides, maybe Clarke would think she'd look nice.

"You're lucky I haven't eaten since breakfast, or I might not fit in it." Anya noted as she set the boxes down on her bed. She didn't waste time opening the black box and pulling her corset free; she'd always hated lacing herself up, but with Lexa around, that wouldn't be such a problem. "Want to help me into this?" She asked, pulling her top off and slipping out of her shorts.

"I have no idea where you're going with this, but consider me intrigued." Lexa stated, setting the garment bag down on the bed and moving behind her as Anya got the corset positioned.

It took a little longer than she'd have liked, and a little more effort from Lexa than expected, but she eventually found herself snugly laced into the corset at the right measurements.

"Load me up? I won't take long to change." She asked, arms out.

Lexa still looked a little stunned at her corset, but quickly gathered the boxes and garment bag and laid them onto Anya's arms, a twinkle of excitement flashing in her eyes. And maybe it was a little exciting, wearing what she would out in public for the first time instead of lounging around her home in the outfit as she had in the past.

She'd never really had the opportunity to wear something like that without inviting scrutiny, and the last thing she wanted in the past was for Lexa to catch on and push and prod her to wear what she liked, screwing the consequences. That would have meant more work and more stress for Lexa, and that just hadn't been an option in Anya's mind.

But maybe she could do this now.

Anya made her way into the ensuite and shut the door behind her, quickly setting the items up and carefully putting them on in the right order. It was a matter of precision, but she knew her way around each like an old friend, and it wasn't long until she was slipping into her pumps and checking herself in the mirror to ensure nothing was out of place. She'd have to do her hair, and work some magic with her makeup, but she looked good.

Feeling a rush of confidence, she opened the door and stepped out into her bedroom. The sound drew Lexa's attention, her cousin sitting at the side of her bed, green eyes growing wide as she looked her over. For a brief moment, there was a jolt of panic, that maybe Lexa would think she looked silly, or absurd, but the tiny upward twitch at her cousin's lips threw those fears into her mental trash compactor.

Lexa lifted a hand, silently twirling a finger. Anya complied and did a slow spin, enough time for Lexa's smile to have bloomed into a wide grin. "You look amazing, Anya!"

"Really?" She asked, needing that last little bit of validation, and thankfully, Lexa was thrilled to offer it with a gleeful nod.

"I can do your hair, but Costia would kill me if I did your face, too. She's gonna flip when she sees you, I guarantee it. Would you be okay taking a quick pit stop after the airport?" The idea of going out to the airport dressed as she was, well, it was intimidating. It was a little scary. But she'd have Lexa, and she'd have Costia, and she'd have Costia's parents.

Anya nodded. That would have to be enough.

Clarke stared off at her back yard, pleased with the fruits of her efforts. Her mom had insisted that no damage come to the interior while she was away setting up her apartment in the city with her Uncle Jacapo, so she'd made the executive decision to close off the house and host the party in the back yard. After all, they didn't have neighbours for at least a half mile in any given direction from the edges of their property, so it seemed like a safe enough bet. The fire pit was re-organized to host more people, the pool and hot tub were set up, the barbecue area was stocked with food and a makeshift bar, the sound system was set up with speakers positioned around the yard, and she'd scattered all sorts of seating so there'd always be somewhere nearby to sit.

It was well worth the effort for a nice send-off.

"Hey, so when are we starting up with the burgs?" Octavia asked, suddenly and sneakily appearing at her side. "Monty, Miller, and Harper worked up a bit of a sweat carrying the speakers around. Are they good to grab a quick shower?"

Clarke nodded, reaching into her bag for one of her spare key rings she'd made and set aside for the party to control access to the house. "They should be fast, though. People will start arriving soon, it's almost eight. We'll start getting food ready around then."

"Got it, I'll make sure Monty and Miller shower separately." Octavia noted, grabbing the spare and jogging off towards the others.

Clarke rolled her eyes, but knew it'd probably be a necessary precaution, given how the two often disappeared for hours on end when given the opportunity.

She made her way across the yard to the bar, scoping our Raven practicing some bartender tricks. Because of course that's what she managed to pick up and learn in her year at MIT.

"So, my fine-feathered friend, is everything shaping up alright?" She took a seat on one of the bar stools they'd hauled up from the basement, basking in Raven's excitement.

"Luna's on her way, she should be here by nine, nine-thirty at the latest if traffic's bad. Our alcohol is set up and ready for serving. We've got a good selection of mixers and ingredients, so there's room for a little creativity. When people start arriving, if they have anything, it gets brought here. I work the first shift until eleven, and that Ryder guy takes over then." Raven rambled, sounding a little giddy about serving drinks.

"You sure you don't mind tending bar for a while?" She asked, drawing an immediate scoff from her friend.

"Please, it's fun. Besides, Lincoln's giving me first dibs on the food, and I'm all about that. And whenever Luna and I hung out, it was usually at the bar I worked at, so it'll be a little familiar, I guess? I'll be fine, Clarkey." Raven reassured her, pouring herself a drink of something dark and foamy. "Don't worry, babe, just a root beer. No alky for me till I'm off duty, scout's honour."

Clarke narrowed her eyes at Raven. "You were never a girl scout."

"Psh, details." Raven laughed taking a sip from her glass just as the phone in Clarke's bag started to ring.

Curious, she fished it out, a smile sprouting on her lips at the contact ID. She immediately answered. "Costia! How was the flight in?"

"Smooth sailing as usual, can't complain. That doesn't matter though, I only have a few minutes before I have to get back." Costia answered, her last few words coming out hastily, sending Clarke's heart twisting with worry. "Not gonna beat around the bush. Do you still have feelings for Anya?"

The question had Clarke ambling off the bar stool and heading indoors, unsure if she was going to be delivered good or bad news. "Yeah. More than ever."

"Then unless you're dressed in your best stuff, you need to go and change, because Clarke. She looks...Clarke, I've never seen her like this. It's just she can't be the only one glammed up or she'll feel out of place, even with me and Lexa sort of following suit." Costia relayed, the urgency in her voice compelling Clarke to rush upstairs and into her walk-in closet.

Because while Anya was breathtaking in casual clothes, or wearing a sports bra and exercise shorts, and she couldn't imagine Anya being prettier than she always was, Costia sounded serious. And if it'd help Anya feel more welcome, it was no skin off her teeth to change into something a little fancier. Lord knew she usually needed an excuse to wear some of her stuff anyways, so she'd welcome the opportunity.

"Got it. I'm changing now." She spoke, one hand holding the phone to her ear while the other skimmed through her fancier items, looking for something that would work. "Need me to colour coordinate?"

"Maybe something white or red? Anyways, it doesn't matter, just...I've never seen her like this in public. Ever. This is different and new for her, and she needs you to have her back, because she trusts you to have it. She needs everyone to know you have her back. And...Clarke?" Costia asked, voice trailing off.

"Yeah?"

"If you were ever planning on letting her know how you feel...this is your shot. If there was ever a time to make your move, it's tonight. I gotta get back, we're leaving for your place now, but just...good luck. Don't let us down." Costia added, ending the call quickly and leaving Clarke wondering what had changed.

That morning, she'd hung out with Anya for an hour or so, not really talking about much of anything. It'd been nice, and the silences between them had been comfortable, but it wasn't like Anya had a heart to heart with her or something. Nothing to indicate that Anya would even go to the party, even if Clarke had hoped she would, let alone consider it special enough to dress up in something nice, whatever that meant.

Not that Anya didn't look nice, she always did, but Anya's version of 'nice' was usually a decent quality blouse, her leather pants or skinny jeans, and generally a leather jacket. And that would get Clarke's heart-rate up, for certain, but Costia's call left her unsure what to expect. Which, in turn, left her unsure what to wear.

Obviously, her tank top and jeans wouldn't cut it, but she needed to find something. Maybe if I'm trying to woo her...maybe I should show a little skin? She did glance at my legs a lot during the con weekend that Sunday, so...maybe my tailored black shorts? I could pair it with my white blazer to coordinate with Anya?

It seemed as good a plan as any, so she quickly grabbed each item up along with one of her nicest sets of lingerie, figuring if it inexplicably got to the point of Anya getting more than a solid peek, she wanted to look nice and impress. Not that she expected anything of the sort, but it was good to be prepared. And in case Anya's new 'nice' meant heels, she swapped her flats for a set of strappy heels, not wanting a situation where Anya was half a foot taller or anything. She liked being about the same height, it was a nice change of pace from the usual for her.

"Clarke, is that you? Lincoln was wondering...whoa!" Octavia exclaimed, stilling by her closet doorway. "Okay, wow, you, uh...wait a second. Clarke, you sly mo..."

"What was Lincoln wondering, Octavia?" She interrupted hastily, not wanting to get buried in a bunch of accusations of debauchery.

Unfortunately, Octavia was already hooked, whether Clarke liked it or not. "No, no. Are you fishing for some no strings action tonight? I mean I wouldn't blame you, with everyone going their separate ways and all."

Clarke just kept scanning through her accessories for something fitting. She eventually settled on a subtle necklace with a heart-shaped ruby pendant. There was a chance it could disappear into her cleavage, but it was the only good red necklace she had to match her outfit.

"Not everyone's going their separate ways, O." She hinted as she put the necklace on and secured the clasp. "New York's a fresh start, but...maybe I might see if a certain someone's up for a fresh start together."

"Another New Yorker? Hrm...Fox is still dating Harrison, so not her. Jasper and Maya are moving there together, so none of them. And definitely not Bell after the way you've like, cut him out this summer...he's not even gonna be here tonight." Octavia mused openly, following Clarke out of the closet. "Wait...Anya?"

Clarke nearly tripped over her own feet at O's astute guess, even if there weren't many others from their graduating class heading to New York.

"Like, Anya-Anya? My intense kickboxing tutor, Anya?" Octavia continued, grabbing Clarke's wrist and turning her around, clearly having cued in that her guess was on point. "Are you serious?"

Clarke took a hard swallow and stood up straight, knowing if Octavia had a problem, she couldn't let it fester. "She's my friend, and I'm really into her. If you have a problem with that..."

"Whoa, no, no. Not a problem." Octavia rushed out, hands up as she took a step back. "Definitely not a problem, it's the opposite of one. I sort of love her for the two years she helped train me, but she's a total dork, and we didn't have anything in common, so it never really went past that. But if you're aiming for her, you've got the green light from me, not that she'd need me protecting her."

Clarke nodded, not having known Anya had helped Octavia train during high school. O had talked to her about training, about her hard-ass teacher, but she didn't recall O mentioning any names. Still, it was good to know one more person had Anya's back.

"Thanks, it's good to know someone else is looking out for her." Clarke admitted, taking a step backward. "So...think she'll like?"

Octavia shrugged. "You look hot, lots of good earth cleavage going on. I don't know who wouldn't like how you look. But...yeah, I think she will."

Clarke breathed a sigh of relief, hoping Octavia was right and maybe Anya might like who and what she saw when she arrived. "I sure hope so." She noted, gesturing for O to follow her as she made her way back downstairs and into the back yard, loitering by the gate that led into the backyard, sincerely wishing there wasn't a high stone wall and a big wooden door blocking the way. However, she also didn't want to seem desperate and ridiculous, which keeping it open and constantly peeking out would do, so she just tried to play it cool, casually greeting everyone who strolled through.

She'd just let in Fox and her boyfriend when she heard Costia's signature laugh from the other side of the gate.

Clarke decided to play it casual, leaning up against a support nearby for the covered area containing the bar and barbecue, forcing her breath to steady as Costia strolled in wearing the same suit she'd worn to her post-graduation party, looking stunning as ever. Lexa followed in a black dress that ought to have been illegal for how high the slit at the side was, but she'd always been a daring girl.

She needed an extra second for her brain to parse through what she was seeing when the third girl followed through. She'd expected to see Anya's often messy waves and braids, so when a head of side-swept loose golden curls met her, punctuated with a rose in her hair, Clarke nearly looked past the girl in an attempt to spot Anya.

But then the girl laughed at some remark of Lexa's, and Clarke knew that sound anywhere. She hadn't noticed she'd taken a few steps closer until she vaguely heard Costia call out to her. Her focus was too intent on Anya as she turned to face her, and suddenly Costia's sentiments on the phone seemed like a severe understatement because Clarke lacked the words.

Dictionaries and thesauruses probably lacked the words, because Anya was smiling that endearingly infectious smile, looking like she'd stepped out of a romance novel in her white and red floral dress that did absurd things with her figure, those warm amber eyes beaming with confidence and curiosity. Anya was a vision, looking so happy and comfortable and utterly beautiful. There was too much to process, too much stimulation for her poor bisexual heart to handle as it struggled to keep up with the rapid, unrelenting pace Anya spurred it to.

She only realized how close she'd gotten when she straight up couldn't see Anya anymore for the tears in her eyes.

And of course Anya would focus on that. "Clarke? What's the matter? Did something happen?"

She felt one of Anya's gloved hands cup her cheek and that was apparently her breaking point, a whimper escaping her as she shook her head in a feeble attempt to convince the girl that everything was fine, because it really was even if she was out of breath. She was just super frazzled was all.

Clarke blinked away her tears, or at least tried to as they kept coming with every visual and tactile reminder of her crush.

Lord help her.

It'd been with a certain sense of trepidation that she'd walked down the pathway to Clarke's backyard. Lexa and Costia had been cracking jokes non-stop over the fifteen minute drive, and try as she might, she couldn't be annoyed at them for that, not when she'd laughed more in that time than probably the past week combined.

Still, the moment she'd crossed into the party area, her eyes had sought out her host, wondering if Clarke was waiting, if Clarke was busy, if Clarke was with someone.

It had only taken a few seconds to get an answer, though not without a dozen or two questions being added on as Clarke practically staggered over, cheeks flushed, a tear or two running down her cheeks, and lower lip quivering in a meager attempt to contain her emotions.

Her host's composure had cracked away the moment she lifted a hand to her face, so Anya just waited, her confidence from earlier draining with each passing second as more eyes turned towards them, as Clarke fought to compose herself.

Taking a page from a few weeks back, she dropped her hand and took both of Clarke's in her own, thumbs caressing the tops of her knuckles. "Breathe. Focus on calming yourself little by little, take your time, it's fine."

Clarke nodded sharply and made an attempt. Perhaps not the best, but as a few seconds passed, she could hear the girl's breathing get closer to stabilizing. "Ev...everything's wonderful." Clarke eventually blurted out in a tearful smile, those sapphire blue eyes averted downward. If anything, Clarke's words and mannerisms only further confused her.

Still, she nodded, gently hushing Clarke as she felt and saw her grow tense. "Then why are you crying?"

If Clarke hadn't been blushing much before, she certainly was now, cheeks blooming bright red. She waited, seconds ticking past before Clarke took a deep breath once, twice, and met her gaze with a strange sort of intensity.

"You're just...really beautiful." Clarke spoke, and given the nearby crowd and lack of music or discussion, Anya was rather certain that a good twenty or thirty people heard her. "You're so beautiful, princess, and I'm so overwhelmed, I'm sorry."

Clarke moved to step away, but Anya only tightened her grip of the girl's hands, head abuzz with a fresh flurry of questions, concerns, and feelings. She couldn't let Clarke rush off, not yet.

"Don't apologize. Just...do you mean that?" She cursed herself for how hesitant she sounded, knowing others could hear it in her voice, could use it against her.

Her lungs emptied at the way Clarke's eyes flashed with determination, how her host moved to touch her and held her hands an inch from her frame. "May I touch you?" Clarke asked, and Anya couldn't help but immediately nod. A sigh tore out from her throat as an arm wrapped around her waist, Clarke's other hand resting still against the back of her neck in that lovely spot she was so weak to. And yet, Clarke refused to make her more vulnerable than needed. "Anya, I kinda thought you were an angel when I saw you. And then you smiled my way and I just got...I just got so overwhelmed with emotion. You're always beautiful, but here? Now? There's no words."

Anya swallowed hard, her emotions climbing up her throat and straining at her chest as her heart thudded fiercely against her ribs. She'd never been spoken to like that, Clarke's fiery sincerity burning away any doubt of the girl's feelings for her, leaving Anya breathless in want and anticipation, thrust into a new unexplored existence.

Her body trembled at the desire in Clarke's eyes purely focused on her. And maybe Clarke didn't have the words, but maybe they just weren't necessary.

Mustering every shred of composure and wit that she could, Anya fixed Clarke with a smile, adoring how the girl holding her practically melted. "I'd usually say something about flattery, but...perhaps I was wrong about that."

Clarke's face lit up like the fourth of July. "Can I get you a drink, Anya?"

She rolled her eyes at the invitation, even as her cheeks ached from smiling. "You may."

Clarke stepped away, but held out a hand; it was an odd gesture, but she appreciated it. She wanted to stay close and in touch, letting Clarke lead her over to the bar where Raven waited, the bartender watching the two of them closely.

The brief trip wasn't enough for her to wrap her head around what was happening. She'd expected to go to the party to spend time with Costia and Lexa, to support Clarke as a friend. Clarke essentially confessing feelings for her right off the bat was like being kicked in the chest; even if it was something potentially good, something she did yearn for, it was heavy and had her off balance.

She'd been exercising with Clarke for a little over eight weeks. She'd been spending a little time with her most mornings for the past three weeks or so. Anya had never picked up on anything that led to the notion of Clarke liking her like that, yet apparently that seemed to be the case to some extent. If Clarke hadn't worked tirelessly to educate herself and earn her trust, Anya would have shut her down, but knowing Clarke had fought to be better, and had grown as a person? That helped her feel safer around the girl. But the idea that Clarke maybe liked her and was seeking her out tonight? That was hard to fathom.

For now she'd spend time on Clarke's arm in hopes she'd get an explanation or insight. The last thing she wanted was to engage in a half-hearted or spur of the moment romantic endeavour that could cost them their budding friendship.

"So, uh, what do you want to drink?" Clarke asked, and now that they were away from that particular moment, Anya rediscovered her understanding of etiquette and opened up her bag, pulling out a tissue.

"Well, a lemonade would be nice, thank you." She answered, lifting her hand to Clarke's face to dab away her fallen tears. Whatever makeup Clarke was using really held up, it was kind of impressive. "There we are."

Clarke ducked her head, exhaling softly. "God, I must look like a complete mess."

Anya balled up the tissue and tossed it in a nearby trash bin. "You look very pretty, actually. It's a charming look on you...I love the blazer, and the little necklace is a nice touch." She noted, closing up her bag and setting it on the bar. In truth, the girl's cleavage was on full display, as were her legs, and it was already hard enough to focus with Clarke's eyes and smile being what they were. Clarke was exceptionally beautiful tonight, and there was only so much Anya could do to keep from staring when she looked like that.

"Really? You like it?" Clarke asked, fiddling with the ruby pendant. Not that Anya dared let her gaze drop down from Clarke's eyes. That would be much too dangerous at the moment.

"Are you trying to draw my attention somewhere in particular, Clarke? I certainly wouldn't want to be inappropriate." She decided to be a little direct, if vague in detail, trying to suss out if Clarke was flirting with her on a more physical level or if the girl was just insecure about her appearance.

"Pretty sure Clarke wants you to check out her tits, princess." Anya could feel blood rush to her cheeks at Raven's offhand remark, heart hurting a little at the idea of Clarke telling Raven about that word in particular, let alone letting Raven think it'd be okay to tease her with it. Maybe she shot a glare Clarke's way to express her disapproval. "Alright, I can get why you might be ticked off over that, but why are you mad at...oh."

Clarke shook her head, even as she held Anya's gaze with her own soft blue eyes. "No 'oh', Raven. It's not what you think."

"You call her 'princess'. And she likes it." Raven sounded entirely amused, enough for Anya to shift her glare to the bartender. "Okay, okay, I'll delete that from my vocabulary when it comes to you for Clarke's sake, but I still think it's adorable as hell. And you told me she didn't know you liked her, Griffin. Way to flub on that fact."

"I didn't know. I thought Clarke was just being awkward, and didn't know how to behave around me, so she'd resort to jokes. She's always been a little playful." Anya explained, earning a hard laugh from Raven.

"Maybe, like, in the first five or ten minutes around someone. Not, like, after weeks of spending time together. That's clearly flirting territory." Raven shot back, pouring a glass of lemonade and pushing it over to her.

"Thanks, tips." It was bad enough that she'd missed whatever 'clear' cues Clarke had been giving. Being laughed at over it just added insult to injury.

Raven, of course, just sent a shit-eating grin her way. "Happy to help. Clarke, you want anything to drink?"

"A bottle of water would be great, thanks." Clarke answered, bringing a hand to cup her elbow as she shifted her focus. "And I could have been a lot more obvious if I wanted to be. I didn't want to pressure you or cross a line. I waited until I felt we were close enough to where I could maybe take my shot and have at least some sort of chance."

Anya could appreciate the out Clarke was giving her. Really, she could, and it was terribly sweet of her to do so, but she could own her mistakes. "Clarke, you don't need to defend me for being selectively oblivious. Now why don't we find somewhere to sit?"

Once again Clarke offered a hand, so Anya took hold of her drink with one hand and took Clarke's with her other, letting her host lead her through the property. The yard was large, excessively so, but the farther they got from the bar, the calmer her pulse became. As they stepped into a small enclosed garden area, Anya allowed herself to just pretend it was like earlier that morning, just her and Clarke.

She never did like parties, but she did like Clarke. And she could catch up with Costia eventually, if her favourite dynamic duo didn't track them down first.

Until then, she'd enjoy the company of an intriguing young woman. The night was young, after all.

#long post #writewritewrite #thedeadflag #clanya fanfiction #OhNoThereIsOnlyOneBedWhatDo AU

4 notes · View notes

zhuletta · 8 years ago

Text

A blanket, a tea and a mother's love

#phan #phanfic #phanfiction #phanart #phandom #i wrote this in like a day #praise me #its flufff #giuliwrites #enjoyyy

295 notes · View notes

rpf-bat · 8 years ago

Text

Tonight Belongs To Me

Pairing: Gerard Way x Reader

Genre: Fluff

Summary: Request fic for @streetlightthisdarknight . “please a do part three for sing a song for california plEASE PLEASEEE// iloveyousomuch bye.”

A/N: OK FINE HERE YA GO lol

And for any readers that aren’t caught up, here’s part 1 (x) and part 2 (x).

The plane ride was five hours long. You didn’t care. You were going to see your boyfriend, Gerard, for the first time since October, and that was all that mattered.

You’d spent the last hour or so of your flight listening to I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. You remembered two years ago, when Gerard had excitedly handed you one of the first copies of the CD ever made. Back then, he was just so happy to have made an album, at all. You nostalgically recalled the laughably janky studio he and the band had recorded it in. It was in the basement of their friend’s house, who still lived with his mom. You chuckled to yourself as you remembered the older woman, in a thick Jersey accent, shouting down the stairs that “yous guys” were going to have to pause the recording, because she had to run the vacuum.

Now, Gerard was in a real, professional studio in L.A., recording his sophomore album with a major label that had signed incredible bands in the past, like Green Day. He’d come such a long way. You were so proud of him.

“Attention passengers, this is your captain speaking,” said the pilot’s voice over the flight’s intercom. “We will be landing shortly in Los Angeles. Please keep your seatbelts securely fastened as we make our descent. Thank you for flying with American Airlines.”

You looked out your window, eager to catch your first glimpse of the West Coast. You smiled with anticipation as you thought of Gerard, waiting for you in the airport below.

The plane landed smoothly, and you fidgeted impatiently as you waited for the passengers in the seats in front of you to disembark. Finally, you grabbed your suitcase out of the overhead compartment, and started for the door.

As you exited the plane, you looked around the terminal for Gerard. You used to be able to meet people right here, you recalled. Then, you remembered that since September 11th happened three years ago, security had gotten tighter, and now you couldn’t enter this part of the airport without a boarding pass. You still weren’t used to these little ways in which the world had changed.

You saw a sign with an arrow directing you towards the baggage claim. He’s probably waiting for me over there, you realized, and began walking in that direction. You stopped to eye the palm trees out the window as you walked down the stairs. So, this was California. By summer, it would be your new home. You smiled as you imagined waking up in a new apartment with Gerard, hearing the Pacific waves crashing just outside your bedroom window.

It’s really going to happen, you thought happily, thinking of the apartment listing links Gerard had emailed you the week before.

Your heart skipped a beat when you saw a familiar head of jet-black hair standing just beside Baggage Claim A.

“GEE!” you cried, dropping your suitcase on the ground, and breaking into a run.

“Y/N!” Gerard gasped, and caught your racing body in his warm arms. He pulled you close and greeted you with a searing, passionate kiss, filled with all the unfulfilled desires of the autumn you’d spent apart. You held him tight, refusing to release his eager mouth as you wound your fingers into his hair and ran your hands over his familiar body.

You pulled away, embarrassed, when a stranger cleared their throat awkwardly, trying to get past you to pick up their luggage.

“It’s good to see you, Gerard,” you muttered pinkly, burying your face into his shirt and breathing in the scent you’d missed oh so much, of coffee and smoke and ink and man.

“I missed you so much, baby,” Gerard replied, hugging you tightly, as if he would never let you go, ever again.

“I missed you, too,” you told him, drinking in the sight of his face after so long, like he was water and you had just spent forty nights in the desert. “Thank you so much for getting me that plane ticket, baby.”

“Thank Brian,” Gerard smiled softly. “That’s my manager. I’m so happy he talked Reprise into paying for it.”

“You’ll have to introduce me to Brian later,” you nodded. “I want to see the guys, too. I’ve missed them. How are they?”

“They’re great,” Gerard grinned. “Frank and Ray are so proud of the guitar riffs they’ve composed together for this album, and Mikey can’t wait to go on tour.”

“I bet you’re going to sell a million records,” you smiled.

“You haven’t even heard the album yet,” Gerard laughed.

“Yeah, but I just know it’s going to be amazing, because it’s you,” you said, squeezing your boyfriend affectionately.

“Thanks, Y/N,” Gerard blushed. “I want to take you by the studio later, to show you what we’ve been working on. But, first – you must be jetlagged. How about a coffee? My treat.”

“That would be great,” you nodded, and followed Gerard to the Starbucks at the end of the concourse. You sipped your latte happily as Gerard chivalrously helped you carry your bags to the car.

“You ready to do some sight-seeing?” Gerard suggested as he climbed into the driver’s seat. “I’ve discovered so many cool places here in L.A. that I just have to show you.”

“Can we drive by the Hollywood sign?” you asked. Perhaps it was cliché, but you wanted to see what it looked like in person.

“Sure thing,” Gerard agreed, and began to drive. “I have to keep my eyes on the road, so could you do me a favor?”

“Sure, what is it, Gee?” you wondered.

“There’s a CD in the glove box,” Gerard explained. “Take it out, and put it in the CD player, please.”

You bent down, opening the glove box curiously. You found an unadorned CD in a clear case. The cover had a title scrawled on it in Sharpie: I’m Not Okay (I Promise).

“It’s going to be the first single off the new album,” Gerard clarified. “I wanted you to hear it before anybody else, because, um, it’s kind of about you.”

“It is?” you blinked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Gerard nodded. “I wrote the lyrics a long-ass time ago. Like, when we were teenagers, if you can believe it! But, I didn’t use them on Bullets. I don’t know. I just didn’t have a melody that went with them until now.”

“What are the lyrics about?” you questioned.

“Ok, this is kind of embarrassing, but do you remember in our sophomore year, when we were friends, but we weren’t going out yet?” Gerard recalled.

“I was dating that total tool,” you remembered with a grimace. You’d been dating Gerard for so long that you’d almost forgotten you’d been with anyone else.

“Yeah, and I heard at school that you’d done some kind of nude photoshoot for him,” Gerard frowned.

“Which I did not actually do, by the way,” you reminded him, turning red. “Jodie Falconeri started that rumor because she hated me.”

“Yeah, I know that now,” Gerard chuckled. “It was years ago, but, at the time, I was so pissed off and jealous, because I really wanted to be with you.”

“Well, you got me in the end,” you smiled, leaning over to kiss Gerard’s cheek.

“I sure did,” Gerard grinned, kissing you on the mouth.

“Watch the road,” you reminded, pulling away before the kiss could get too heated, like it had at the airport.

“Okay,” Gerard said with a fake pout. “Now, for real, pop the CD in. I’d really like you to hear it. I’m kinda nervous, but, umm…..just please give me your honest opinion about it, ok?”

“Ok,” you said happily, sticking the CD in the slot and pressing play. The guitar riffs wailed over Gerard’s speakers, and your attention was immediately caught by how much more polished and professional the audio sounded when compared to Bullets. That was the power of a professional recording studio, you realized. Gerard sounded like a real rock star now.

You listened intently as Gerard’s familiar voice kicked in with the first verse:

Well if you wanted honesty, that's all you had to say.

I never want to let you down or have you go, it's better off this way.

For all the dirty looks, the photographs your boyfriend took,

Remember when you broke your foot from jumping out the second floor?

“I do remember that,” you laughed softly. “You wanted me to go to that Smashing Pumpkins concert with you and Mikey, but my mom wanted me to stay home and study. I thought I was so smart, sneaking out the window. But, then I busted my ass, and you wound up having to drive me to the ER…..”

“We were crazy kids,” Gerard said nostalgically. “But, that was the year I fell in love with you.”

“And we’ve been together ever since,” you said fondly. You went quiet as you listened to the chorus:

I'm not okay

You wear me out

“I’m sorry I made you so sad back then,” you apologized.

“It’s alright,” Gerard shrugged. “It was such a long time ago. And now I’ve got this kickass song out of it.”

“It really is a kickass song, Gerard,” you complimented. “I love it. And I think your fans are going to love it, too.”

“Thanks,” Gerard said gratefully as he parked in the Hollywood hills beside the famous sign. It looked just like in the movies.

“Honestly, I’ve been getting kind of stressed out, thinking about the album, and what people are going to think of it,” Gerard confessed, laying his head on your shoulder. “A lot’s been going on with the band. Like, we’re thinking we’re going to have to replace Otter.”

“You mean Matt?” you guessed. Matt ‘Otter’ Pelissier had been My Chemical Romance’s drummer since the band’s inception. He was a great guy, but, to be frank, he wasn’t the best drummer in the world. “Who are you going to replace him with?”

“You remember Bob Bryar?” Gerard asked as you patted his head comfortingly, running your fingers through his long hair.

“Yeah, he was on the crew for your last tour, right?” you remembered, snuggling closer to your boyfriend.

“Yeah, I think he’s going to be our new drummer now,” Gerard shrugged. He picked his head up, and kissed you again under the bright California sun. God, it felt so good to be beside him again.

“I feel so much calmer about everything, just by having you here with me,” Gerard confessed when he pulled away. “You always make me feel so much better just by being you, Y/N.”

“I can’t wait til I can be with you every day,” you said, gazing into his eyes lovingly. “I can’t wait until I live here full-time.”

“When you fly back to Jersey at the end of the week, I’m gonna cry,” Gerard pouted.

“Me, too, baby,” you groaned. “But, let’s enjoy this time together while we have it.”

Remembering something, you grabbed your suitcase from the backseat and pulled a small Ziploc bag, sandwiched between two ice packs, out of the smallest pocket.

“I brought you some good old, New Jersey-style Taylor ham,” you grinned.

“Oh my gosh,” Gerard said happily, opening the bag and eating a piece immediately. He sighed with happiness, savoring the salty meat on his tongue. “It’s impossible to get good Taylor ham out here.”

“I figured you’d been missing it,” you smiled. The joy on your homesick Jersey boy’s face was so cute.

“Not as much as I missed you,” Gerard replied. “Now, before we check in with the rest of the band, I wanna show you where I’ve been staying while I’ve been recording these past few months.”

“You looking to give me a scenic tour of your apartment?” you teased.

“Mostly the bedroom,” Gerard confessed with a wink.

“Sounds good to me,” you smirked. “We’ve got a lot of nights apart to make up for, mister.”

“I’ll let Brian know I might not make it back to the studio before tomorrow morning,” Gerard said with a lascivious look, and turned the car back towards the city below.

#gerard way x reader #gerard way imagine

166 notes · View notes

mysteryshelf · 7 years ago

Text

BLOG TOUR - The Mentor

Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF July Mystery Week Special!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by Pump Up Your Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

Title: THE MENTOR Author: Lee Matthew Goldberg Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books / St. Martin’s Press Pages: 336 Genre: Thriller / Suspense / Mystery

Kyle Broder has achieved his lifelong dream and is an editor at a major publishing house. When Kyle is contacted by his favorite college professor, William Lansing, Kyle couldn’t be happier. Kyle has his mentor over for dinner to catch up and introduce him to his girlfriend, Jamie, and the three have a great time. When William mentions that he’s been writing a novel, Kyle is overjoyed. He would love to read the opus his mentor has toiled over.

Until the novel turns out to be not only horribly written, but the most depraved story Kyle has read. After Kyle politely rejects the novel, William becomes obsessed, causing trouble between Kyle and Jamie, threatening Kyle’s career, and even his life. As Kyle delves into more of this psychopath’s work, it begins to resemble a cold case from his college town, when a girl went missing. William’s work is looking increasingly like a true crime confession.

Lee Matthew Goldberg’s The Mentor is a twisty, nail-biting thriller that explores how the love of words can lead to a deadly obsession with the fate of all those connected and hanging in the balance.

PRAISE FOR THE MENTOR:

From Booklist – A junior editor at a Manhattan publisher reunites with his college mentor with disastrous results in Goldberg’s second thriller (after Slow Down, 2015). Kyle Broder has just acquired a probable best-seller for Burke & Burke publishing when he hears from his former literature professor, William Lansing, who pitches the still-unfinished opus he’s been working on for 10 years. Lansing’s book is not only badly written, it’s also disturbing, featuring a narrator literally eating the heart of the woman he loves. Lansing turns vengeful when his “masterpiece” is rejected, but Broder’s concerns about his mentor are dismissed both at home and at work: Broder’s girlfriend considers Lansing charming, and a rival editor feigns interest in Lansing’s book. Broder revisits his college and delves more deeply into the cold case of a missing ex-girlfriend, and as the plot darkens and spirals downward, it’s unclear who will be left standing. The compelling plot is likely to carry readers with a high enough tolerance for gore to the final twist at the end.

INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR:

What initially got you interested in writing?

I’ve always been a writer even since I was a little kid. I remember reading Catcher in the Rye in sixth grade and becoming transported. I wanted to write a book too.

What genres do you write in?

My first novel Slow Down and my current one The Mentor are both thrillers with a literary bent. But I’m also working on a sci-fi book and two Young Adult novels as well.

What drew you to writing these specific genres?

Thrillers are fun to write because it’s all about moving the plot forward. You constantly have to up the stakes, even if that becomes unfortunate for your characters. Science Fiction is a genre I’ve become more interested in. Maybe it’s the state of what’s going on with the world today, but it’s nice to take a break from it with sci-fi and travel somewhere else.

How did you break into the field?

It has not been easy. My agent Sam Hiyate at The Right Factory never stopped believing in me, even after we didn’t sell my first few books. Then with got a deal with the indie publisher New Pulp Press for Slow Down and right after it came out, I got a deal with St. Martin’s Press for The Mentor.

What do you want readers to take away from reading your works?

I hope that they enjoy a good ride, that the twists and turns catch them off guard, but also that the book gets them to think as well. The Mentor is about the violence that consumers crave and whether or not that is becoming an issue we can’t choose to ignore.

What do you find most rewarding about writing?

I love when I figure out a tough spot that I can’t seem to get past and break through and come up with an idea better than I had initially thought.

What do you find most challenging about writing?

I’m very good at discipline but it’s hard to be creative every day at times. I’m learning more and more that I need to take a break when I’m blocked.

What advice would you give to people wanting to enter the field?

First off, have talent. Not everyone is meant to become a writer. But if you have talent, edit your work over and over and find enough people who believe in your work too. Don’t give up when you’re rejected – use that rejection to make you a better writer.

What type of books do you enjoy reading?

All kinds. I enjoy current literary books and thrillers as well as some classics on my shelf that I haven’t read yet.

Is there anything else besides writing you think people would find interesting about you?

I’m a college professor too. Right now I’m taking time off from it, but I’ll eventually go back to teaching on the side as well. I’m a big film and sports buff too and I love to travel. At the end of my life, I’d like to say that I’ve traveled to most places I’ve wanted to go.

What are the best ways to connect with you, or find out more about your work?

Follow me at leematthewgoldberg.com with links to my Twitter, Goodreads and Facebook accounts. Thanks!

ORDER YOUR COPY:

Amazon

FROM FAR AWAY the trees at Bentley College appeared as if on fire, crowns of nuclear leaves dotting the skyline. Professor William Lansing knew it meant that fall had firmly arrived. Once October hit, the Connecticut campus became festooned with brilliant yellows, deep reds, and Sunkist orange nature. People traveled for miles to witness the foliage, rubbernecking up I-95 and flocking to nearby Devil’s Hopyard, a giant park where the students might perform Shakespeare, or enter its forest gates at nighttime to get high and wild. William had taken a meandering hike through its labyrinthine trails that morning before his seminar on Existential Ethics in Literature. It had been over a decade since he’d entered its tree-lined arms, but today, the very day he was reaching the part in his long-gestating novel that took place in Devil’s Hopyard, seemed like a fitting time to return.

His wife Laura hadn’t stirred when he left at dawn. He slipped out of bed and closed the mystery novel propped open on her snoring chest. He often wrote early in the mornings. Before the world awoke, he’d arm himself with a steaming coffee and a buzzing laptop, the wind from off the Connecticut River pinching his cheeks. His chirping backyard would become a den of inspiration, or he’d luxuriate in the silence of Bentley at six a.m. when the only sound might be a student or two trundling down the Green to sleep off a fueled night of debauchery.

He’d been at Bentley for over twenty years, tenured and always next in line to be department chair. He refused even the notion of the position for fear it might eat into time spent writing his opus. His colleagues understood this mad devotion. They too had their sights set on publications, most of them well regarded in journals, only a few of them renowned beyond Bentley’s walls like William dreamed to be. Notoriety had dazzled him since he was a child—a time when his world seemed small and lifeless and dreams of fame were his only escape.

His colleagues often questioned him about this elusive manuscript he’d been toiling on for years, but he found it best to remain tight-lipped, to entice mystery. It was how he ran his classroom as well, letting only a few chosen students get close, keeping the rest at enough of a distance to regard him as tough and impenetrable but fair. Maybe he’d made a few students cry when a paper they stayed up all night to finish received a failing grade, or when his slashes of red pen seemed to consume one of their essays on Sartre’s Nausea, which he found trite and pedestrian; but that only made them want to do better the next time. They understood that he wanted his kingdom to be based on fear, for creativity soared in times of distress.

William’s legs were sore after his hike that morning through Devil’s Hopyard. The terrain was hilly and its jagged trails would challenge even a younger man, but he kept fit, wearing his fifty-five year old frame well. He was an athlete back in school, a runner and a boxer who still kept a punching bag in the basement and ended his day with a brisk run through his town of Killingworth, a blue-collar suburban enclave surrounding Bentley’s college-on-a-hill. He had all his hair, which was more than he could say for most of his peers, even though silver streaks now cut through the brown. He secretly believed this made him more dashing than during his youth. Women twenty years younger still gave him a second glance, and he often found Laura taking his hand at department functions and squeezing it tight, as if to indicate that she fully claimed him and there’d be no chance for even the most innocent of flirtations. He had a closet full of blazers with elbow patches and never wore ties so he could keep his collar open and expose his chest hair, which hadn’t turned white yet. He had a handsome and regal face, well proportioned, and while his eyes drooped some due to a lifetime of battling insomnia, it gave him the well-worn look of being entirely too busy to sleep. People often spoke of him as a soul who never enjoyed being idle, someone who was always moving, expounding, and expanding.

“Hi, Professor Lansing,” said Nathaniel, a tall and gangly freshman, who after three weeks into the semester had yet to look William in the eye. Nathaniel’s legs twisted over one another with each step. William guessed that the boy had recently grown into his pole-like body and his brain now struggled with how to move it properly.

“Nathaniel,” William said, wiping the sweat mustache from his top lip. He could smell his own lemony perspiration from the intense jaunt through Devil’s Hopyard. “How did your paper on The Stranger turn out?”

Nathaniel’s eyes seemed to avoid him even more. They became intent on taking in the colorful foliage, as if it had sprouted overnight.

“Well…” the boy began, still a hair away from puberty, his voice hitting a high octave, “I’m not totally sure what you meant about Meursault meeting his end because he didn’t ‘play the game’.”

William responded with a throaty laugh and a shake of his head. He placed a palm on Nathaniel’s shoulder.

“Society’s game, Nathaniel, the dos and don’ts we all must ascribe to. How, even if we slip on occasion, we’re not supposed to admit what we did for fear of being condemned. Right?”

Nathaniel nodded, his rather large Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in agreement too. He stuffed a bitten-down nail between his chapped lips and chewed away like a rat, leaving William to wonder if the boy was on some new-fangled type of speed. He liked Nathaniel, who barely spoke in class, but once in a while would give a nervous peep filled with promise. The students he paid the most attention to weren’t the heads of the lacrosse team or the stars of the theater productions, those students would have a million other mentors fawning over them. He looked for the hidden jewels, the ones who were waiting for that extra push, who’d been passed over their whole lives but would someday excel past their peers. Then they would thank him wholeheartedly for igniting a spark.

“Is that why Camus didn’t personalize the victim that Meursault killed?” Nathaniel asked, wary at first, as the two entered the doors of Fanning Hall past a swirl of other students. “So we sympathize with him despite his crime?”

William stopped in front of his classroom, its cloudy window offering a haze of students settling into their desks. He stood blocking the door so Nathaniel had no choice but to look in his eyes.

“Did you sympathize with him?”

“Yes…umm, it’s hard to penalize someone for one mistake,” Nathaniel said. “I know he shot the Arab guy, but…I don’t know, sometimes things just happen. I guess that makes me callous.”

“Or human.”

William stared at Nathaniel for an uncomfortable extra few seconds before Kelsey, a pretty sorority girl with canary yellow hair, fluttered past them.

“Hey, Professor,” Kelsey said, without looking Nathaniel’s way. William could feel the boy’s sigh crowding the hallway.

“Come, Nathaniel, we’ll continue this debate in class.”

William led the boy into the room. The students immediately became hushed and rigid as he entered.

Nathaniel slumped into a chair in the back while Kelsey cut off another girl to get a prime seat up front.

William placed his leather satchel on the table, took out a red marker, and scribbled on the board, I didn’t know what a sin was. The handwriting looked like chicken scratch and the students had to squint a bit to decipher it; but eventually the entire class of twenty managed to correctly jot down the quote. They had gotten used to his idiosyncrasies.

“At the end of the novel, Meursault ponders that he didn’t know what a sin was,” William said. “What does that mean?”

A quarter of the class raised their hands, each one eager to be noticed. Kelsey clicked her tongue for attention, as if her desperation wasn’t obvious enough. She looked like she had to pee. In the back, Nathaniel was fully absorbed in a doodle that resembled Piglet from Winnie the Pooh.

“Nathaniel,” William barked, sending the pen flying out of the boy’s hand. Nathaniel weaved his long arms around the desk to pick up the pen and then gave a slack-jawed expression as a response.

“Why does Meursault insist to the chaplain that he didn’t know what a sin was?” William continued.

Nathaniel silently pleaded for William to call on someone else. He let out an “uuuhhhhhhh” that lasted through endless awkward seconds.

Kelsey took it upon herself to chime in.

“Professor, while Meursault understands he’s been found guilty for his crime, he doesn’t truly see that what he did was wrong.”

William turned toward Kelsey to admonish her for speaking without being called on, a nasty habit that happened more and more with this ADD-addled generation than the prior one, but a red-leaf tree outside the window captured his attention instead, its color so unreal, so absorbing. The red so vibrant like its leaves had been painted with blood.

“Professor…professor.”

The sound came from far away, as if hidden under the earth, screaming to be acknowledged.

“Professor Lansing?”

Kelsey waved her arm in his direction, grounding him. She gave a pout.

“Like, am I right, or what, Professor? He doesn’t truly see that what he did was wrong.”

William cleared his throat, maintaining control over the room. He smiled at them the same way he would for a photograph.

“Yes, that’s true, Kelsey. Expressing remorse would constitute his actions as wrong. He knows his views make him a stranger to society, and he is content with this judgment. He accepts death and looks forward to it with peace. The crowds will cheer hatefully at his beheading, but they will be cheering. This is what captivates the readers almost seventy years after the book’s publication. What keeps it and Camus eternal, immortal.”

Kelsey beamed at the class, her grin smug as ever.

William went to the board, erased the quote, and replaced it with the word IMMORTAL in big block letters, this time written with the utmost perfect penmanship.

Lee Matthew Goldberg’s novel THE MENTOR is forthcoming from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press in June 2017 and has been acquired by Macmillan Entertainment. The French edition will be published by Editions Hugo. His debut novel SLOW DOWN is out now. His pilot JOIN US was a finalist in Script Pipeline’s TV Writing Competition. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, his fiction has also appeared in The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, Essays & Fictions, The New Plains Review, Verdad Magazine, BlazeVOX, and others. He is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series. He lives in New York City.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK

MEDIA CONTACT:

Dorothy Thompson

CEO/Founder PUMP UP YOUR BOOK

Winner of P&E Readers Poll 2016 for Best Publicity Firm

Visit us at www.PumpUpYourBook.com

Twitter * Facebook * Pinterest

BLOG TOUR – The Mentor was originally published on the Wordpress version of The Pulp and Mystery Shelf with Shannon Muir

#shannon muir #pulp and mystery shelf

0 notes

musicdish · 7 years ago

Text

New Bag(daddios) Of Tricks Runneth Over For Old Punk Rock Dog With Release Of Debut Solo Album

Time is a fickle mistress. One minute you're the new guy in town, anxious to get "up to speed" with whichever 'scene' you've opted to become a part of - the next, you're remembering the "good old days" and wondering where the time went. Back in the early 1990's, New York City's The Baghdaddios were the new kids on the block.........or more apropos, the new punkers on The Bowery. Playing their third-ever show at hallowed punk birthplace C.B.G.B., they carved out a slight but meaningful niche in the Big Apple's indie community, playing nearly anywhere at anytime for anything, be it a paying gig, the door, pass the hat, free drinks or even just for "the hell of it", as front man and founding member Kenn Rowell recalled the other day during a break from shooting his latest music video. The group released a couple of CDs, a "whole mess"of videos and internet singles, played - in Rowell's estimate - "thousands" of shows, did hundreds of interviews and trekking to countless cities in various locales across the U.S., Canada and the UK. Every now and then they'd get word that their music was airing either here or overseas and on a few occasions their songs would end up finding exposure on a national TV network in any one of those aforementioned places. They've frequently received fan mail from random corners of the globe. And, yes, along the way, they started their own Benefit to help NYC's homeless - a Benefit which has spread to several metropolitan areas in America and abroad over the last two decades - called Blank-Fest. "Yeah, it's been a fun journey", Rowell smiled as the videographer downloaded the latest files from the shoot to his laptop. "I can't believe the band is coming up on it's 25th Anniversary, in November! I mean, I don't feel old........." True, he doesn't impress one as an "old man", although he does come across as someone who's 'been there and done that'. Still, after a quarter century he appears to have that boundless enthusiasm that earmarks most of the YouTube videos in circulation from past Baghdaddios performances over the years. Early in 2017 the group released a grainy-but-still-must-see performance from that storied third-show-ever at CB's, where they eviscerated the time-honored Beatles classic "Hey Jude" to conclude the evening's proceedings. If anything, a boyish Kenn actually comes across a little tentative, almost apologetic - certainly not the whirlwind we would see in later performances at the same venue within a couple of years. When asked about the ongoing evolution of the group's sound and image, Rowell just sighs and then admits "I was a bit out of my mind at the time - might even still be". Refusing to give his age (other than saying "over 40" or "buzz off, man") he appears naturally younger (we're guessing mid-to-late 40s) and only addresses the subject once, when asked if the new album's style change had anything to do with him getting older. "I never thought I'd be doing this, at this age. Actually I never really thought I'd make it past my 40th birthday. You know, when I was younger, I thought of 40 as being so old - but now that I'm well past it, it's not that bad. I mean, I still feel the same as I've always felt. The same things still piss me off. The same things still float my boat. If anything, the shift in style isn't a reflection of my getting older as much as it's just that I wanted to do something different for a change. I've been angry and full of attitude since I was in high school - but how many times can you yell F-bombs into a live mic? So THAT part of me hasn't changed a bit, that yearning to do something different. Besides, I always said that I like to keep 'em guessing." As the years peeled off the calendar and various members of the group quit - some coming back and then leaving again - he's been the one constant in the band's timeline. So when word reached us of the imminent release of his first solo album (ironically titled "Instant Solo Album" because, as Kenn puts it, it took almost a full decade to put out) we had to ask one question. "Why?". If anything, he seemed to bristle when we brought up the subject. "Yeah, yeah, I know the whole rep", Kenn explains: "I'm the guy writing the songs and doing the singing and talking to the crowd all through the history of The Baghdaddios - so what makes this new album a 'solo'? I guess it's two-fold, the reason I slapped my name and mug on the front of this one. First, the whole style of the material has a completely different feel from anything The Baghdaddios usually do. Oh, sure we have slower tunes like "Let It Shine" (which gets the acoustic treatment on this release) and "Abbie Hoffman", which to me always sounded like a 60s-era anthem. But we've always described The Baghdaddios style as "three chords and punt" - we just couldn't help ourselves from playing everything bigger, and faster and louder". True, past reviews on AllMusic.com compared the band to one of their biggest influences, The Ramones; while a quick listen of Instant Solo Album belies a decided acoustic folk and classic rock feel. Just hearing the opening guitar strums on the collection's first number, "Good To Be Back", one can't help but picture a group of college students sitting around a dorm room, singing along between sips of grain alcohol punch on a Friday night. Furthering the feel for this mood is the harmonica solo - done flawlessly by Rowell - augmented by a strong cello underpinning, before both cello and harmonica take the listener with them as the song fades out (no Baghdaddios song - to date - has ever faded out). The follow-up to this sounds almost like an outtake from a 1970's Neil Young session in the form of another Rowell original, "I Guess I'll Never Fall In Love". Mind you, this is the same "I Guess I'll Never Fall In Love" that consistently pushed the V.U. meters into the red from the band's 2006 release, Autopsy-Turvy - but all the grunge vitriol and punk swagger has been stripped away. If anything, Rowell's solo version chugs along almost joyously. In fact, it's so airy that the listener doesn't even notice that it clocks in a little shy of 5 minutes in length! There are 18 songs on the album and yet it's like a visit from a long, lost friend who leaves before you get the chance to fully catch up. I found myself going back and playing several of the tunes multiple times; for me it was over way too soon and it felt like I didn't want to let go. Part of the appeal of this offering is the eclectic mix, not only of song styles and instrumentation but even in production particulars. Numbers veer from slick, crystal-clear digitally recorded tracks to performances that sound like glorified demos - a celebration of the lo-fi aesthetic that KR confesses to having a soft spot for. (It should then come as no surprise that one of the many respected industry pros consulted for the production end of this effort was none other than Guided By Voices producer Todd Tobias - credited as a pioneering architect of the Lo-Fi sound, championed by "Voices" front man Robert Pollard - and was thus rewarded with a co-producer credit as a result.) When queried about the changes in recording ambience for the album, Rowell further confesses that said changes weren't necessarily by choice - and exist for obvious reasons. "When I started on this I had a few studio recordings which explored my more acoustic side. I had some of these songs in my head since I was 17 years old but I never got them out because they didn't have that Baghdaddios-like feel to them. To me they sounded like I was doing Dylan or Johnny Cash or even The Beatles. It certainly wasn't punk. And I had only recorded them because I got a good deal on studio time and thought it would be fun to actually sing the tunes, rather than scream 'em. Along the same time I met a filmmaker who wanted to do a music video for my band - but this was right before we were leaving for England. Between preparing for the trip and playing last-minute shows we just didn't have the time to do a vid. I didn't want to lose the opportunity to work with this guy so I handed him a cassette copy of a 6-year-old acoustic demo that I had recorded in my apartment. We just decided to do a quick production for that as a sort of solo number - the video came out so well that I started to think about cleaning up the sound on the recording and maybe putting out a 6 or 7-song EP of original acoustic tunes. Then I found another old cassette of a song I had written and recorded when I was in high school and then another one from my college days and it sort of took off from there. I found it liberating because I had all these old songs that I would occasionally play for friends but since they were never formally released I didn't feel right springing them on some poor unsuspecting paying crowd. Well, when you have songs recorded on various systems, spread out over a 20 or 25-year period there are going to be a LOT of differences. Now try getting all that to sound like it all belongs on the same album. THAT'S why it took so damned long to finish it all off! Over the last 10 years Rowell estimates he stopped and restarted work on this project, in earnest, about a half-dozen times. "Each time we'd get close to releasing it I'd go back and listen to the whole thing on headphones and I'd go 'I can't release this uneven pile of crap' - I mean, some of the songs had all this "hiss" on them - others sounded muddy. There was one song that I absolutely loved - I've actually broken it out at some shows even though no one's ever heard it before. It was something I wrote when I was in college and it always reminded me of The Beatles Rubber Soul album." The only problem was that it was recorded on an old 4-track reel-to-reel machine, the original tape long since lost. The only existing copy of that recording was discovered on an old "normal bias" cassette in a pile of stuff in the corner of Rowell's parents' basement about 8 years ago. "The first studio guy I brought it to said that it was impossible to restore. He got me to re-record it on Pro-Tools and even though I played along with the tape through headphones and tried to make it sound as close to the original as possible, I hated it. The 'magic' or whatever it was, was missing. It took several years and several engineers working on it and it still wasn't exactly where I wanted it to be." Enter Michael Jung of Alice Donut fame. Kenn met Michael at a Baghdaddios show on the Lower East Side a few years ago and had stayed in touch via social media. It was he who suggested Kenn bring the track to him. There by the grace of Alice and the EQ gods goeth "When Will I Learn", the ninth song on the album. "No, it'll never be a testament to modern recording techniques but the hiss is gone, you can hear the vocals clearly and all the emotion of a 19-year-old in agony over being in love comes through loud and clear. I would have put the song on the album even if Michael hadn't cleaned it up so well - but now I don't feel like I have to apologize for it being there. It belongs with all the rest of them and I'm forever grateful for that!" The rest of the album runs the gamut from the pop-hooked "All About Me" with it's catchy 'me-me-me' refrain to "Henry", which strikes one as an homage to White Album-era Beatles. "Antonio", which laments the passing of an infant rides a lush four-stringed quartet to an emotional finish and "This Old Soul" is showcased in two different incarnations: one complete with banjo and fiddle accompaniment and sounding as upbeat as the second performance of the same song sounds melancholy, where Rowell adopts a lower register to purr the plaintive lyrics in a rendering very reminiscent of those famously Rick Rubin-produced Johnny Cash outings, toward the end of The Man In Black's life. It's only fitting that this second version was dubbed parenthetically as "Confessional". "Dreams" could easily pass as an Irish folk hymn and, yes kids, there's even the ol' proverbial hidden track which serves to remind us that Mr. Rowell - when all is said and done - is still, first and foremost, an unrepentant punk-rocker at heart. Having been released on April 27 - a date Rowell chose on purpose because it was his parents' wedding anniversary ("I'm a sentimental Dude, what can I say?") - the release is already garnering a good buzz amongst friends and fellow industry professionals. Many of the songs already have music videos done for them with more on the way. Sales have gone surprisingly well. With all this good will in evidence, the question was raised regarding any plans to tour. I was alittle surprised when Rowell didn't even miss a beat before flatly saying "No". "Nah, man - I mean, look, I'd love to but there's just so much on my plate right now - to be honest, I didn't even think of it. It had taken so long to get this done that my feeling today is 'get it out and move on'. In fact, at the end of last year I made a list of outstanding projects that I wanted to finish up and get 'out there'; this album was at the top of the list. I think I counted something like 23 of these individual projects. Besides finishing off a bunch of music videos for myself and The Baghdaddios I have enough full electric material already recorded for a Baghdaddios double album. I'm in the middle of recording 15 new band songs for release at the end of the year. There's a short film that I shot in 2014 which I seriously need to find the time to edit and get released. I have a collection of demos that I did for the band - all done on nylon string acoustic guitar - that I thought would make a great follow-up solo album (working title: "Nylon Raw") and we're celebrating Blank-Fest's 20th Anniversary show in December. In fact, I haven't even set a date for that yet and it's only 8 months away! I really need to promote this album but going out on the road is not really an option at present. Oh and then there's all the Yvonne stuff". The Yvonne that he is referring to is his "Mrs": celebrated Lower East Side bilingual poet Yvonne Sotomayor. Kenn has been playing music behind her spoken word pieces, recording and producing them - along with producing all her "poetry videos" ("Think: music video for spoken word, man!") since right after they got together in 2012. Having performed in 8 states, two countries and all throughout their native NYC, Ms. Sotomayor scored her biggest coup last summer when she appeared - with Kenn in tow - at the Iowa State Fair (on the same stage, later graced that night by Rock 'n Roll Hall of Famers Cheap Trick!). "Performing with Yvonne is yet another side of me that I love. We do everything together as it is - I've gotten her up to do 'her thang' at Baghdaddios shows all the time - so for us it's effortless. She has a six-piece EP coming out later this year and I keep telling her to get the book she's in the middle of putting together issued at the same time. We just bought a hand-held 16mm movie camera and we're dying to shoot her next video on film. Believe me, between recording with The Baghdaddios, Blank-Fest and the poetry shows, I barely have time to sleep, let alone do a solo tour!". For someone who's been in the business for as long as Rowell, he seems pretty unfazed by all the recent news. When asked about it, he seemed fairly resolved to maintain an even keel. "What would you say was a highlight of your career?" "When I got the email, informing me of my solo album's first sale." "What was the first thing you did when you found out?" "I kissed my wife and went to work." At this point we both noticed the video director pacing in the background. "Well, break time's over - we want to get this shoot done while we still have daylight", Rowell blurts out, signaling an end to Q & A time. Of course it was at that moment that it occurred to me that he had only given one reason for doing a solo album, as opposed to integrating these newly-released tunes as part of some future band compilation. When I reminded him of this, he smiled and left me with this parting bit of insight: "A few years back I was handing out blankets to the homeless on Christmas Eve. These were the same blankets that we collected at our annual Blank-Fest show.........a friend had picked them up at the venue and had brought them to a club in the Village where we would later meet up. When I stopped in the club's lobby to grab some blankets to take out in my rental car one of the bouncers grabbed me, like I was ripping the place off and said 'HEY, those blankets are from The Baghdaddios, for the homeless!'. It suddenly dawned on me that after almost 20 years of being in the middle of the whole Baghdaddios thing that I had done a piss-poor job of letting people know who I am. Look, it's insulting to the rest of the group to say that I'm the whole band. The Baghdaddios were and always will be a collective effort. I couldn't imagine doing those songs in the studio without either Neil (Richter) or Paul (Zlotucha) on the drums, or John (Sidoti) or Phil (McAughk) on bass. Their contributions were more covert but they shaped our sound just as surely as my songwriting and onstage histrionics did. So a solo album was a chance for me to step out and say 'No, THIS is all me'. Most of the songs are just myself on a guitar, doing a vocal. With many of them I overdubbed the harmonies and backing vocals. If I used a full band on any of them it was guys I grew up with or had known most of my life like my best friend from college, Paul on lead guitar or my cousin, Rye on drums. So, besides the styles being different than a straight-up, old-school punk band, it was more of a chance to say 'you know that guy you see screaming on stage? Well, he's got a few more surprises for you." And then he smiled one last time, made a quick jazz-hands gesture and howled "SURPRISE"! It was a good moment to leave. Just like a good, old-fashioned Baghdaddios show: once the music stops, it's pretty much been all said. For now. Website: http://www.baghdaddios.com Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn5Xfux1lnE

0 notes