#(also… I keep forgetting to check this account but hi. hello. I’m alive. kind of)

[skyvale-s]

shoulder all the blame again, mirror locked until the end

it was violent and rough, I was never enough

(but what if I was?)

[thatscalledtoughlove]

Didn’t Want to Fall in Love - 2: A Match...Or Not

It took almost a week before I got matched on the app I’d originally swore not to sign up for: Tinder.

        After hearing nothing from the other sites and ignoring the ones I got that I knew I would never get along with in person, I caved and got Tony to make me a profile. He snorted when I went through it at first. We also ended up matching, because he thought it would be funny. It was not.

         “Come on, Izzy!” he’d yelled three days after I made an account. “You need to start swiping right or we’ll never get anywhere! Do you want me to go out into the real world to meet people or not?”

         I gave an obnoxious groan in response. “Fine. Fine, I’ll swipe right on the next person to show up. They probably won’t be into me any—” We matched. Tony howled with laughter. I stared at the screen for five minutes.

         It wasn’t until after I got over my initial shock and took a better look at the profile that I realized I’d matched with someone eight years older than me. Sure, he wasn’t old by any means, and he had a nice enough face, but I’d been hoping to avoid a match for as long as possible.

         “Tony, he’s twenty-nine! There’s such a huge age difference!”

        My best friend just laughed some more. “Come on, Iz, we’re adults. Age doesn’t matter so much after you reach twenty. Veronica was almost five years older than me, and we lasted six months.”

         “So not helping.”

        He ruffled my hair, ignoring the glare I shot his way. “Just talk to him, see if you guys make a good match. Then you two can meet at a restaurant or something for a little date. Who knows, it might go better than you’d think.”

         “Yeah, I don’t think so. Still, I guess I have to keep true to my side of the bargain.” I glanced down at my phone again, looking at the picture of my match.

         His name was Paul, and in his biography, he said that he enjoyed late-night movies, the occasional glass of wine, and had a great love of history. At least we shared the habit of an occasional glass of wine, though saying my drinking habits were occasional was putting it lightly.

        I sighed, feeling Tony’s eyes on me the entire time I checked out Paul’s profile. After a few more minutes of procrastination, I opened the message that told us we’d matched. There was one single word from him.

         Paul: Hello!

         I scrunched my nose, peering up at Tony, who watched me with a grin. Shaking my head, I focused my attention back on my phone and typed in my response.

         Isabelle: Hi! How are you? It embarrassed me just pressing send.

        The next response came almost immediately. For the next hour, Paul and I talked about our interests and arranged a date for that night. Since it was a Tuesday, I told him the dinner would have to be an early one, as I had class the following day. He didn’t need to know that class wasn’t until two in the afternoon. Or that the possibility of me going home with him regardless was next to impossible, since my experience stopped with my shared kiss with Tony.

Six hours later, I sat in the passenger seat of Tony’s beat-down car. He kept reaching over to fix my hair and makeup, excitement still written all over his face.

        “You’re going to do great, Iz. I’ll be here to pick you up at around nine, okay? Then we can go home, and you can tell me all about your magical night.”

         I snorted when he said magical. “Don’t go too crazy in the apartment while I’m gone, okay? I’ll see you in two hours.” He smiled when I leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, grabbing my hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze before he let me leave the car.

         I waved bye as he drove away, taking a deep breath and straightening my dress before I stepped into the pub that was a few blocks away from my college.

         Paul stood up from his chair when he saw me approach, a smile spread across his face. “Isabelle, it’s great to meet you.” He fumbled around before pulling my chair out for me to sit down.

         “Thank you.” I found it hard to breathe. Once he’d taken his seat across from me again, I smiled back. “It’s great to meet you too, Paul. Sorry I’m a bit late.”

        Actually, I was right on time. He’d been early. I wasn’t sure if it was worse that I’d arrived just when we’d said, or that he’d been sitting here waiting for me at least ten minutes.

         “So, you’re still in college, are you? How’s that going? I never got the chance to go. My mom needed help paying the bills after my dad passed away when I was in high school. Things going good there?”

         I nodded, quietly thanking the waiter when he brought me a glass of water. When he was no longer within earshot, I answered Paul. “Yeah, I have one year left to go for my bachelor’s degree, then I’m thinking about getting a master’s degree after a year-long break. What did you want to study?”

        “Biology, actually. I’ve always wanted to be a zoologist. A veterinarian was the more realistic approach at that dream. But, life got in the way of education.” Paul had the kind of laugh that made you want to join. He also had auburn hair that lit up in the dim light of the pub. I found myself staring at him for longer than considered appropriate, admiring his clear green eyes.

         He seemed to notice my staring, the mood at the table shifting. A small part of me considered loosening up, letting myself go for just one night. I’d never been one for the thought of hooking up, but I had to admit Paul would be the one I’d consider forgetting those morals for.

         No, that would be insane. Drinking two glasses of wine with Tony before this date had been a terrible idea. I could already feel my rationality deteriorating.

         Paul cleared his throat, waving the waiter from earlier over so we could order our food. I asked for a simple hamburger with a side of fries. The salad here wasn’t the best, and I’d never been self-conscious eating around men.

          “So, as long as we’re discussing our lives, I guess you should know that I do have a child. A daughter, actually.” My eyes must have widened because he sat up straight. “Sorry, it’s just—I—you—it’s always best to be honest from the start, in case things go anywhere. I find that women appreciate it if I tell them at the beginning about my daughter.”

         There would not be another date. That much I could guarantee.

        I forced the dozenth smile of the evening and clasped my hands in front of me on the table. “Thank you for your honesty. I appreciate it.” I no longer had any unsettling thoughts about going home with him tonight.

        “Here you guys go.” The waiter reappeared, his name tag standing out against his uniform. I narrowed my eyes to get a better look. Zack. He seemed to notice me and looked over. “Enjoy your dinner.”

         I’d been to this pub several times over the years and had never seen this waiter before. He must be new.

        No sooner than we’d taken our first few bites of our burgers did Zack the Waiter appear again. “How’s the food? Everything okay?”

        Of course he asked this while I had a bunch of food in my mouth. When I attempted to answer, my response sounded muffled.

         “Yes, thank you” sounded more like a bunch of gibberish. I chewed fasted, quickly swallowing the food, and looked up at him. He looked like he wanted to laugh. “It’s fantastic, thanks,” I said, heat creeping up my neck.

         Zack smiled and bowed his head in the slightest of nods. “Great. Let me know if you need anything.” His eyes flickered to Paul for a second before he took off to another table.

          “So, Rosenberg, huh? What is that, German?” I noticed him look at my face, curiosity about my ethnicity reflected in his eyes.

        I nodded, wiping my mouth on the back of my hand without thinking. I’d definitely spent way too much time around Tony, my manners around someone who was a date were far from appropriate.

         “Yeah, it sure is. My grandfather is American, and my grandmother was a Heinz-57.” He raised an eyebrow and I laughed. “I mean she was a bunch of different nationalities. The only was she knew for certain was that her mother was Moroccan, and her father was at least a third Nigerian. People always ask me what I am, so I figure I may as well tell you now. My dad is also Korean.”

         “Huh” was Paul’s only response. Most of our small talk died out after that, and I couldn’t say it didn’t leave me with a sense of relief. Incompatibility would make it easier for us to forever part ways at the end of the night.

          Several times within the next hour, Zack the Waiter came to check up on us. He talked to me most of the time, almost seeming to forget Paul was even there. I noticed the glint of irritation in my date’s eyes when Zack came around for the fourth time within ten minutes.

        “We’re doing great, thanks. I’ll let you know if we need anything.” The hint of hostility in Paul’s voice didn’t go unnoticed by our waiter, who apologized before hurrying off.

         He did not come back to check on us again.

        “You said your dad was Korean?” This came up nearly forty minutes after I’d initially mentioned it. “Does that mean he took your mother’s maiden name?”

         The subject of many a debate within my family. “Yeah, he did. He has three brothers and my mom’s side is all girls, so they figured it would be nice to continue the Rosenberg name for another generation. Fortunately, I have two brothers, so the Rosenberg family will live on.”

         “I couldn’t imagine taking my wife’s last name.”

         My hand froze on its way to my mouth, a fry pinched between my thumb and pointer finger. “Why not?”

         Paul shrugged, his lips twitching. “The tradition is for the bride to take her husband’s last name, isn’t it?”

        I knew my smile was too wide to be believable. He had to know I was faking it. “Well, my father is secure enough in his masculinity to accept giving up his surname. Besides, he was the one to suggest it. I think it just proved how much he respected and loved my mom and wanted to keep her family name alive along with his. Now the Rosenberg and the Yeon last name will carry on.”

        He didn’t answer, instead giving a polite smile as a response. We spent the rest of the dinner talking about work and college, avoiding the subject of last names and ethnicity. I looked forward to never seeing Paul Hubert again.

         At the end of night, I received a text from Tony that he would be waiting for me down the street. He told me to take all the time I needed, adding a winking emoji at the end. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

         “Are you sure you can’t come over for a little bit?” Paul stood less than a foot away from me outside of the pub, the money I’d given him for my own meal tucked away in his coat pocket. I’d insisted to reimburse him, knowing we would never see each other again and not wanting him thinking I’d used him for a free meal and some cheap alcohol.

         I nodded, trying to take as subtle a step back as possible. “Positive. My best friend is waiting for me just down the street, I don’t have the heart to make the trip here for nothing.”

         “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. You’re really interesting, Isabelle. I’d like to get to know you more.”

         Code for: let me take you back to my place so we can sleep together. I’d watched enough movies and heard enough stories from Tony to know that.

         “Sorry, I really can’t betray her like that.” I started to grin at the knowledge Paul thought my best friend was a she, and quickly stopped myself. “I had a nice time, though.” Not really. We weren’t a great match.

         Paul nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. He looked down at the ground for a moment. My heart leapt into overdrive when his eyes met mine and he started to lean in.

         Before our lips could touch, I ducked out of the way, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. He seemed too stunned to call me back when I bid him farewell.

         I didn’t dare relax until Tony’s 2001 Ford Taurus came into sight, the hideous yellow paintjob reminding me of a taxi cab. This had been the vehicle he chose to drive around in since our junior year of high school. It was horrible, but it still reminded me of happy memories. Late nights driving home from the movies senior year of high school, early morning breakfast runs before class freshman year of college.

        Tony sighed as I slid into the passenger seat. “Okay, spill. I can tell from your expression this date was anything but magical.”

         “He insulted my parents!”

         He frowned, his brow furrowing. “How?”

        “Uh, let me think. He basically made fun of my dad for taking my mother’s last name. And then he said that he couldn’t imagine taking his wife’s last name, as if it’s such a terrible thing to ever consider that. Thank God I never have to see him again.”

         “You aren’t going to go on another date?”

        I turned to face him, my eyes narrowed into a glare. “He suggested we go back to his place to ‘get to know me more.’ As if I didn’t know what that really meant.”

         “Would it really be that bad? We live in a hookup-oriented world, Iz. Maybe you’d calm down and change your ideas about love and relationships if you just slept with a stranger.” His mouth said one thing, but his face said another.

        “And let me guess, you’ve hooked up with a bunch of random women?” I knew he didn’t believe in even kissing on the first date, which made it all the more confusing as to why he used online dating to find relationships.

         Tony groaned, starting up the car. “All I’m saying is that you’ve never cared much about that stuff anyway, so would it be so bad if you lived a little for once? It’s entirely your choice, of course.”

         “I’d sooner make a marriage pact with you than sleep with Paul.”

        He laughed, taking his eyes off the road to look at me as he pulled away from the curb. A loud thud cut him off and I yelped. We both turned to look at the front of the vehicle, and a familiar face stared back. It was Zack. Zack the Waiter.

         A string of curses flowed from Tony’s mouth as he struggled to unbuckle. I reached over to push the button for him, and he threw his door open without thanking me, rushing out to apologize. The headlights illuminated them both, their appearances nearly opposites.

         Zack the Waiter had light blond hair and warm brown eyes. He kind of reminded me of Mr. Handsome, except he was far more handsome than Mr. Handsome. I tilted my head to the side and studied his profile for a little longer. The lips that weren’t full, but also weren’t thin that were currently moving as he talked to my best friend who had almost run him over. I found myself drawn to those lips more than any other feature. Then, he glanced at me, and the illusion shattered.

         I straightened, fumbled around with my own seatbelt, and then joined the two men in front of the car.

        “It’s no problem, really. You barely even touched me, I just smacked my hand on the top of the hood.” Zack was trying to calm Tony down, who looked like he might experience a full breakdown.

         Tony shook his head, his eyes shining in the yellow glow of the headlights. “It’s not ‘no problem’! I almost hit you! Fuck.” He ran his hands through his hair, tugging on it so hard it pained me just witnessing it.

        Anyone who didn’t know Tony would think he was overreacting, but I knew the real reason behind his behavior. Over a decade earlier, his uncle had been in a terrible crash that left him paralyzed from the waist down. It had almost killed him. Ever since hearing the news, he’d always tried to take extra care when driving. Until tonight. When he’d been distracted, because of me.

         I stepped forward, past Zack the Waiter, and placed a hand on Tony’s shoulder. He turned and wrapped me in a hug without a word. Thankfully there was no one else around to witness this moment.

         “Hey, man, it’s fine. I wasn’t hurt, really. There’s no reason to get so upset.” Zack looked uncomfortable. His eyes met mine, and recognition filled them. “Oh, hello.”

         “Hi,” I said, patting Tony on the back, a wordless command to let me go. He did, and apologized to Zack again before walking back to the driver’s seat. Once inside the car, he rested his head on the steering wheel.

         Zack stared at him a moment before looking back at me. “Is he going to be okay? You’d think he’d sent me flying or something.”

         I nodded, clenching my hands in fists at my sides. “He’ll be fine. It’s a long story. Sorry about tonight. Both for inside the restaurant and what just happened. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

         He sighed, giving me a fake smile as an answer. “I’ll live. Just make sure your friend gets home safe, okay? Looks like he needs comforting a lot more than I do. And don’t worry about inside the restaurant, this isn’t my first waiting gig. You weren’t the issue anyway. Have a great night.” Zack the Waiter bowed his head again before taking off in the direction of the nearest subway station.

         I considered offering him a ride, but decided that would be too weird. We didn’t know each other, after all. Instead, I went back to Tony and comforted him the entire ride back to our apartment. When we got inside, he went straight to his room, emerging an hour later with puffy eyes. I kept silent.

          Many hours later, he’d fallen asleep with his head in my lap, quiet snores filling the apartment as I stared at a wall. The events of the night played on a loop in my head. Paul’s contagious laugh echoed in my mind as I stared at the photo from Tony’s cousin's wedding, his cousin and his wife surrounded by their family. Tony’s uncle in the wheelchair, his attention on his son and new daughter-in-law, grinning like he didn’t have any worries in the world.

         I fell asleep on the couch, too worried about Tony to risk moving away from him. As I drifted to sleep, my mind wandered back to the restaurant. Only I didn’t think about Paul. A head of blond hair entered my thoughts for the briefest of seconds. I shook my head in an attempt to clear my mind, running my fingers through Tony’s dark hair.

         When I woke up hours later, I was in my own bed, the smell of Tony’s cologne still hanging in the air.

[princessamericachavez]

FJORD’S PLAYLIST

Welcome to my overthinking where I literally meta over meta. Because what else am I supposed to do when Travis gives me such a good Fjord playlist to freak out over. 

So, y’know, meta under the cut. Here we go:

1. Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea by Missio

Panic. Confusion. The cold, dark and salty depths with no end in sight. And then light — but, how? Fjord shouldn’t be here. What is he forgetting? No time to ponder or fight something that seems to have a plan of its own.

I FEEL LIKE FJORD’S DROWNING WAS WAAAAY MORE TRAUMATIC THAN WE AS A FANDOM ACKNOWLEDGE, OKAY?

Like, way way waaaaay more horrifying than just “I passed out and woke up in the beach with cool new powers” and more “I think I literally died.”

The berth surrounding my body crushing every bit of bone The salt, it seeps in through the pores of my open skin I wait on you inside the bottom of the deep blue sea I wait on you inside the bottom of the deep blue

Fjord shouldn’t be here. How many times do you think he’s thought that? Not only the fact that he should, by all accounts, be dead, but that out of his whole crew why would he get to live while everyone else is lost and gone. 

Fjord has some fucking deep survivor’s guilt, y’all. I’m telling you. 

2. The Funeral by Band of Horses

Things seem the same – but where is Vandran? Who will guide Fjord now? One thing is for sure, the Fjord he was before is dead and gone. Bury the pain and live on.

AGAIN, I FEEL LIKE WE AS A FANDOM DON’T ACKNOWLEDGE ENOUGH HOW FREAKING LOST FJORD IS WITHOUT VANDRAN. (i will never get used to that freaking spelling but I guess it’s the official so fine)

He was Fjord’s mentor, father figure and overall savior. He’s the person who made the difference in his life, who pulled him out of what seems like hell and gave him a purpose and sense of self. Losing that is no small deal, and I think a lot of his actions in the past several episodes have been guided by that pain and that need to find out at least what happened to him and who this man was before they met. 

To the outside the dead leaves, they're on the lawn Before they died, had trees to hang their hope

He didn’t even get to give Vandran a proper funeral or goodbye, y’all.

Fjord’s whole arc is just one last desperate attempt to connect to Vandran, to feel like he maybe hasn’t lost him entirely (probably the reason Jester keeps bringing him up, too; she knows Fjord the best and probably understand that urge is what’s driving him).

3. Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi

Time to go. Keep moving and don’t look back. Fjord’s only known two lives — one he loved and valued, the other he detested and wishes he could forget. Only by moving north and away from this city will Fjord be able to start fresh. Now to disappear… ya’ll.

Time to go. Keep moving and don’t look back. I’ve said this before, and I will say it again: Fjord is a survivor. He’s gotten this far by not giving up, by doing whatever it takes to survive, and he’s not about to stop and give up now. 

He’s lost everything he ever had, good and bad, he’s lost the little sense of stability he grew to cherish, and all he has now is the drive to start again. To not give up. 

It's all the same, only the names will change Everyday, it seems we're wastin' away Another place where the faces are so cold I drive all night just to get back home

He’s never been anyone, anyway, never had a family, a last name, property... all he has is himself and his resolve to keep going.

4. The Sound of Silence by Disturbed

Love me some Disturbed, and this rendition builds like one of Fjord’s dreams. Terrifying and incredible visions flood his mind, and his confusion is only matched by the sometime physical manifestations that accompany his dreams. Can’t help but think of Caleb’s memories at the same time.

WOAH TRAVIS. 

I feel so bad because Fjord seems to really be terrified of whatever is happening to him, even when some of it might be incredible and peak his curiosity, it feels like he’s just freak out. 

Also interesting to feel like maybe Fjord finds a ghost of that darkness in Caleb, perhaps what drives him to confide in him, or trust him to stop the darkness if Fjord loses his way.

Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence

“Left its seed while I was sleeping” is such an on-point way to put the way Fjord is shaken by this visions, mulling over them when he wakes, trying to figure them out. After every dream, you can see his stance shift slightly as he tries to adapt to whatever new knowledge he acquired.

5. How Far I’ll Go by Auliʻi Cravalho

Let’s be honest – this is totally Fjord. Plus, you bitches were kidding yourself if you thought some musical numbers weren’t going in this playlist. Also, Disney.

FJORD IS A DISNEY PRINCE CONFIRMED. 

Travis is a dork, also confirmed. 

For real, though, I feel like this song captures Fjord’s excitement with his new life. He’s constantly pushing to see how far he can take his powers. For the first time, he probably feels there’s a chance that he will be someone, that he will “go to distance” (sorry not sorry). The world is no longer an island for Fjord, it extends beyond the horizon and he’s hungry (also not sorry) to see and experience it all.

Every turn I take, every trail I track Every path I make, every road leads back To the place I know, where I can not go, where I long to be

See the line where the sky meets the sea? It calls me And no one knows, how far it goes If the wind in my sail on the sea stays behind me One day I'll know, if I go there's just no telling how far I'll go

Also, for the first time in the list, this song is so full of hope for big and good things. I’m all here for this. LET FJORD ENJOY HIS NEW LIFE AFTER A LIFE TIME OF SUFFERING AND LOSS. PLEASE.

6. Heathens by Twenty One Pilots

We’re going to get each other killed. Who’s in charge of this ragtag bunch of misfits and criminals? And if no one is in charge, does anyone know what we’re doing? Pretty sure the answer is “no.” One thing is for sure, it’s best for the common stranger to mind their manners when addressing The Mighty Nein. Unless it’s a kind word, best keep your thoughts to yourself and move along, amigo.

I laughed so damn hard when I read this because that’s such an ON POINT definition of the M9. 

Group of Heathens? Check. Gonna get each other killed? Check. Who tf is in charge? Check. 

However, it also shed light in the idea that the M9 are dangerous and better not be crossed. It almost sounds like Fjord enjoys that. Can you blame him, after being through hell? To have a group of people where he feels like he has some power, that he can earn respect, that he can defend himself and those he loves? Unless it’s a kind word, best keep your thoughts to yourself and move along, amigo.

Welcome to the room of people Who have rooms of people that they loved one day Docked away Just because we check the guns at the door Doesn't mean our brains will change from hand grenades You're lovin' on the psychopath sitting next to you You're lovin' on the murderer sitting next to you You'll think, "How'd I get here, sitting next to you?" But after all I've said, please don't forget

All my friends are heathens, take it slow Wait for them to ask you who you know Please don't make any sudden moves You don't know the half of the abuse

YOU DON’T KNOW THE HALF OF THE ABUSE.

There’s a very strong sense in this song of “even if the world is against us we look after each other” and I love that mindset for this little group of disasters.

7. Overburdened by Disturbed

The weight of Fjord’s responsibilities weigh on him constantly. New powers, new mission, new friends, new crew. The last time he felt this comfortable, everything was ripped away from him — violently. He feels like the waves may be breaking over his head, and struggling to catch his breath he must keep a calm demeanor and steady hand — and push on.

We all know Fjord has been in over his head but it’s nice to see Travis put it so clearly. I think it’s also interesting to be reminded that most of Fjord’s calm and in control demeanor is just a front to hide his doubts and fears. The best example for that? The whole thing with Avantika and how some of the M9 (and the fandom) feared some of that was for real when his goal has always EXPLICITLY been to protect his friends.

Hell is still overburdened I must stand and wait in line Hell is still overburdened How have I been so determined maligned?

There’s the closing of the curtain In the play that was my life Countless chapter’s left unopened, tragedies inside I was fighting for a reason Holy blessed homicide Seems I have committed treason All I’ve sacrificed

In the end, though, he walks a thin line and falling over to the wrong side is all too easy.

8. Pray For Me by The Weekend, Kendrick Lamar

How dope was the Black Panther soundtrack? Fjord feels strange and exciting powers surging within him, and as much as he wants to push the envelope of what he’s capable of, he must rely on those he’s closest with to check him, to keep him grounded — or he might lose more than just his sense of self.

That’s such a good way of putting it. If Fjord dares push for this powers and chase his curiosities at all, it’s probably bevause he’s counting on the M9 to tell him when he goes too far.

I’m always ready for a war again Go down that road again It’s all the same I’m always ready to take a life again You know I’ll ride again It’s all the same (ooh, ooh, ooh) Tell me who’s gon’ save me from myself When this life is all I know Tell me who’s gon’ save me from this hell Without you, I’m all alone

I just really love the idea that Fjord is willing to go as far as it takes to survive, to neverbbe powerless again, to protect himself. That he is always ready to do what it takes… And that’s what he needs true saving from. Himself.

When Travis talks about Fjord losing more than his sense of self, I suspect he means his new friends. He’s afraid to lose their trust, and that might just be the thing that keeps him from risking too much. It does well to have something to lose, something worth protecting even over our own desires.

Without you, I’m all alone.

9.Sunflower by Post Malone & Swae Lee

It’s easy to let all of life’s shit get you down — and sometimes, you need only look as close as your friends. Watching Jester move through life with boundless exuberance is contagious.

YOU KNOW I’M GONNA MAKE A WHOLE ASS POST ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR SONG RIGHT?

So I’m not gonna go too hard om the shipper feels right now. Not too much, anyway.

Just let me get emotional about Jester being Fjord’s literal beacon of light in all this darkness, in him being pulled along with her happiness and shenanigans, loving her pranks and silliness… As much as Fjord got a sense of self amd belonging with Vandran and his crew, did he ever have a true friend that could lift his spirits like this before?

Every time I’m leavin’ on ya You don’t make it easy, no, no Wish I could be there for ya Give me a reason to go Every time I’m walkin’ out I can hear you tellin’ me to turn around Fightin’ for my trust and you won’t back down Even if we gotta risk it all right now, oh

I think this is so important, both in light of what we mentioned earlier and in Fjord’s current arc. Jester constantly pulling him back in when he goes too far, not giving up on him, making him wish he was better and that he could protect her too.

They look after each other.

I’m fine.

ALSO JUST LET ME SCREAM ABOUT TRAVIS ADDING A WHOLE SONG JUST FOR JESTER FOR A WHOLE MINUTE BECAUSE I’M FEELING SO BLESSED AND VALIDATED. SHE IS SO DAMN IMPORTANT TO HIM.

10.Unsteady (Elrich Lee Gravity Remix) by X Ambassadors

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And looking around at the people that now surround him, Fjord feels like they are building an increasingly strong chain.

Listen, Fjord my boy is already so attached and dependent of his friends and feels so much stronger and steadier thanks to them after a lifetime of fear and rejection. I’m so emotional.

Mama, come here Approach, appear Daddy, I’m alone ‘Cause this house don’t feel like home If you love me, don’t let go If you love me, don’t let go Hold Hold on Hold on to me 'Cause I’m a little unsteady A little unsteady

DON’T YOU DARE LET GO OF HIM YOU GUYS HE NEEDS YOU SO MUCH.

11. Ocean (feat. Khalid) by Martin Garrix

Feeling cautiously optimistic about his future, he finds himself in awe of his adventuring crew. That’s a new emotion and outlook for him, and he feels truly bound and responsible for these crazy people.

THIS IS A LOVE SONG TO THE M9.

THAT’S IT.

HE LOVES THIS CREW SO MUCH. HE’S REALLY TRYING TO DO HIS BEST BY THEM.

I will physically fight anyone who dares doubt of this good boy again. He’s been alone his whole life. He finally found a family and he will do anything for them. They are the best thing that has ever happened to him.

If we’re caught in a wave, I will carry you over It don’t matter where you are, I’ll run to your front door When my head goes in different directions You know my heart’s never on the move And in the dark times, you don’t have to question If I’m a hundred with you

You could put an ocean between our love, love, love It won’t keep us apart You could build a wall, I would run it up, up, up Just to get to your heart If we’re caught in a wave Baby, we’ll make a way You could put an ocean between our love, love, love It won’t keep us apart

LISTEN. I’M JUST

SO

EMOTIONAL

12.Warriors by Imagine Dragons

Half the shit Fjord has seen since joining up with The Mighty Nein would normally have sent him running. But ya best know, The Mighty Nein are no joke. These fighters are bound to him, and he to them —and no one is taking away this new world he has found.

LET HIM FEEL BRAVE.

LET HIM FEEL HOPEFUL.

LET HIM FEEL POWERFUL.

LET HIM FEEL LOVED.

LET HIM FIND STRENGTH IN HIS FRIENDS.

In youth you’d lay Awake at night and scheme Of all the things that you would change But it was just a dream!

Here we are, don’t turn away now, We are the warriors that built this town Here we are, don’t turn away now We are the warriors that built this town From dust.

This is so on point and I love how much Fjord enjoys being a part of this group of powerful warriors and how protective of this he is. This is his life and he will do anything it takes to live it and keep it by any mean necessary.

“and no one is taking away this new world he has found” is such an interesting perspective about how Fjord thinks and why he’s sometimes willing to go to even dark lengths to get what he or his friends want. This is a possessive and protective statement coming from a man who already had everything he held dear ripped away from him once, who had lost and suffered too much… He won’t let that happen again.

[eleanor-writes-stuff]

i miss the thought of a forever you and me [one-shot]

Kylo Ren has spent what seems to be the entirety of his adult life working towards a partnership in Snoke's firm. Now that future is finally within reach, and only one thing stands in his way.

So maybe he hasn't spoken to Rey in eight years. And maybe he's still not quite over her. But getting in touch with his ex-girlfriend to have her take down their old webcam videos shouldn't be an issue... right?

This is far from my best work, but I haven’t posted anything in nearly a month so here, have a two-tropes-in-one fic: exes getting back together and ‘we were young and broke and webcam porn seemed like a good idea’. Is that last one even a trope? Who knows. I wrote it anyway. If a bunch of fluff and pining sounds like a good idea, this might be the fic for you.

Also available on AO3.

Kylo Ren has been working towards this moment for the entirety of his adult life.

“If all goes as planned,” Snoke finally says after a long, roundabout conversation about legacies and partnerships and apprentices becoming equals, “the announcement will be made this Monday.”

The announcement – the one that will cement his place as a partner of the firm, the one that will ensure his name lives on forever, the one that will overshadow anything and everything that has come before. “Sir, this is–”

Snoke holds up a hand, all paper-thin skin and arthritis-curled fingers; it’s a wonder, really, that the man is still alive at all, let alone sharp enough to continue running his firm. Some will see this announcement as a sign of weakness, as the beginning of a transition of power – and perhaps they’ll be right. Two years ago, Kylo would have entertained the thought in the back of his mind, might even have come up with the outline of a plan to begin the process of supplanting Snoke entirely.

As it is, he can barely even muster the energy to fake excitement at the news.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself just yet, boy,” Snoke warns him. “Once the announcement goes out, it won’t take long for everyone to start looking you up. While I trust that Kylo Ren has been nothing but professional, I cannot say the same of Ben Solo – and I refuse to have another Hux situation.”

Just last week, Hux had been his sole competitor for this very partnership – until a quick Google search by Snoke’s assistant had yielded pictures of Hux in a Nazi costume plastered all over the Internet. The idiot had worn the costume not one, not two, but five Halloweens in a row, and any effort on his part to contain the damage would have been hopeless.

He was fired that very day.

“I assure you, sir,” Kylo speaks firmly, with all the confidence of someone who was born into the spotlight and has almost never done anything stupid, “that will not happen.”

Snoke pins him with a look that might have been intimidating once, back when he still cared about the man’s opinion and approval. “See that it doesn’t. Take the rest of the week to get your affairs in order.”

He’s dismissed with a limp wave of Snoke’s hand – has he really grown that frail in just a handful of years, or was Kylo simply too blinded by his promises of greatness to notice before?

Kylo thinks he sees that same blind loyalty in Mitaka as he walks past the assistant’s desk. The man is terrified of him and had been just as scared of Hux, but that hadn’t stopped Mitaka from bringing his findings to Snoke anyway, even at the cost of making a lifelong enemy out of Hux.

Maybe someday, Kylo thinks as he returns Mitaka’s curious gaze with a curt nod, you’ll wake up too. You’ll realize that the voice whispering in the darkness is filling you with empty promises, that greatness and power mean nothing without all the other things he’ll make you sacrifice first.

But then what? Kylo himself came to that realization years ago, and here he is anyway because what else is there? Maybe that’s the truly frightful thing about Snoke – even if he can’t deceive you forever, he’ll make sure that there’s nothing else left for you, that there’s no reason to break free of his trap.

Maybe once there would have been a reason, a person–

But that was years ago. Now there’s no one else, and nowhere else, so he might as well just stay and keep going down this path strewn with material comfort and little else.

Kylo returns to his office and settles in to retrace every single step he’s ever taken online. There’s nothing left of pre-college Ben Solo – he’d made sure of that the summer after high school in a foolish attempt to present himself with a clean slate for college, as if his last name and his parentage didn’t cast a longer shadow than anything his idiot fourteen-year-old self could have said on Myspace. After college there was no more Ben Solo, only Kylo Ren, and an intensive Google search (he’s on the seventh page of search results by the time he clicks away) reveals nothing but a handful of professional profiles used for networking and the occasional write-up about him or his cases.

Which leaves him with one last concern: college Ben Solo.

College Ben Solo has a Facebook account that he never posted on, one he used only to interact with his classmates and lecturers. He has a Twitter account with zero tweets, and an Instagram account with zero posts but a hundred or so tagged photos.

That was the only reason he’d signed up for Instagram in the first place: to see what kind of pictures his friends were posting of him, to see (and like) everything Rey tagged him in.

He would have deleted his Facebook account years ago, but he’s a sentimental fool and that was where he and Rey first got to know each other, really, when she chose to write to him instead of the literal dozens of others in their class for help. (It’s Rey from poli sci. I wasn’t in class today. Did I miss anything?)

He should have deleted his Twitter account the day he graduated, but sometimes he scrolls through all of his Favorites and their relationship plays like a movie in his head, each milestone – no matter how tiny – recorded for posterity in 140 characters. (The summer before their third year, a picture of her rolling her eyes at the camera and him talking to a realtor in the background: house-hunting with the pickiest guy in the world. I swear to god, @Ben_Solo, if you don’t pick an apartment by today I will kill you.)

And Instagram… Instagram is an exercise in masochism. Pictures of them in class, when Holdo was running late and she was bored. Pictures of them hanging out at parties Hux dragged him to and Finn dragged her to. Pictures of her tucked into his side on movie night, of him turning his face away from her camera while he made them breakfast, of the two of them building an entire life together. (A caption to accompany the last picture of them she ever posted, her head on his shoulder and his arm around her waist: Who needs a space heater when you’ve got this guy? #lifehacks #savingafortuneonheatingthiswinter #agirlcouldgetusedtothis)

It’s painful to look back on, every single bit of it, but there’s nothing here that would actually have a negative impact on his reputation. His Twitter account is already private and his Facebook reveals nothing but a string of perfunctory, impersonal birthday messages from former classmates. He double-checks that his Instagram account is locked, and then he looks up her account too – just to be safe.

Rey Niima | Cali Full-time software engineer, part-time app developer, occasionally an actual human with a social life.

The bio’s changed since he last saw it a year ago – I almost never post but don’t worry, I’m (probably) not dead – but the account’s still locked, which should mean no one can see her pictures of him. He’ll have to check with someone who’s more familiar with social media – maybe Phasma, who’s gotten surprisingly good at this stuff since she started developing a social media presence for her gym – but Kylo’s pretty sure this means he can keep all of his shrines to the past without exposing himself as a lovesick fool to the public.

All except one, that is.

Kylo exits Instagram, sets his phone aside, and reluctantly turns to his laptop. He types a URL into the box – one he visits far more than he’d like to admit – and watches as a few dozen thumbnails for corresponding videos begin to appear.

Because while college Ben Solo had maintained a minimal, barely-there presence on social media, there’s one particular corner of the web where he had been very, very active.

There’s a reason he waited until he was safely locked away in his own house to conduct this online purge, and the revealing thumbnails make him glad he did – limbs splayed wide open and miles upon miles of bare skin but no faces, never any faces, they were always so careful about that. It’s probably the only reason no one’s ever found out about this.

He’s never forgotten about it – having sex with your girlfriend in front of a live online audience isn’t exactly something you can just forget about – but Kylo’s felt fairly confident in their anonymity for the past few years. No names, no faces, shitty audio that completely distorted their voices – they’d thought of everything, discussed it all at length when she first approached him with the idea. But now… now he can’t risk it any longer. So as much as he’s going to miss being able to watch these whenever he really, really misses her–

It’s time to call Rey up and ask her to take down all of their videos.

“Hello,” she says distractedly – he can picture her pressing the phone between her ear and shoulder, her hands busy at work and her mind half-focused on a dozen different things. The image is so vivid it hurts, and her voice – the voice he used to wake up to a lifetime ago – isn’t helping.

He takes a deep breath. “Um, hey. It’s…” Not Ben, not for a long time now, but would she even remember Kylo Ren? The name he only adopted towards the end of their time together, the name she laughed at once or twice before telling him to stop being an idiot, Ben Solo is a perfectly good name–

Over the phone, Rey makes an almost imperceptible sound – a gasp, maybe, or a sharp inhale. “Ben,” she breathes, not even the slightest hint of a question in her voice after all these years.

He was always Ben to her, even right up until the end. It doesn’t feel right to change that now. “Yeah, it’s me. Sorry to just call you up like this–”

“It’s okay,” Rey cuts him off, her words tumbling out in a rush. Maybe he should’ve asked if this is a good time to talk. “Really, it’s fine. What’s… what’s up?”

“I’m… this is going to sound weird, but I’m in town and I need to talk to you about something… private,” he grimaces as it finally hits him how ridiculous this all is, how pathetic and see-through his excuse is. They could’ve had this phone call even on opposite ends of the world; he could’ve checked the website after to make sure she’d gone through with it. There’s absolutely no reason for him to have flown across the country just for this.

But here he is anyway.

Rey is quiet for the longest while. “Oh,” she finally says. “I… um. Okay, I guess. Do you want to tell me what this is about or would you rather–”

“I’d rather tell you in person,” Kylo says quickly, before he can lose his nerve and fly back without ever laying eyes on her. “Can I- are you free now?”

“Now?” she echoes questioningly. “I’m kinda at work right now, Ben.”

Because of course she’s at work, of course she has a routine and a life and none of it is going to stop just because he’s unceremoniously dropped himself back into her existence. His life in New York feels so distant now, almost like a dream, but it’s unfair of him to expect her to drop everything and rush to him the way he’s rushed to her.

“Of course,” he mutters. “I’m sorry, I forgot that–”

“But my lunch break is in two hours, if you’d like to drop by then,” Rey offers haltingly, her tone somewhere between a suggestion and a question.

“Yes,” the word tumbles past his lips without a moment’s thought. “Yes. Great. That’d be great.” He clears his throat to shut himself up and stop rambling at Rey.

“Great!” she agrees brightly, her cheery tone the slightest bit hysteria-tinged. “So I’ll just text you the address?”

He could easily look it up himself, of course, but he’ll take any form of contact with her – Kylo’s not above admitting that to himself. “Yeah, sure. Thanks. See you in a bit, Rey,” he makes himself say, because who knows how long he’ll keep her on the phone otherwise, keep her voice in his ear and her presence in his life.

When Rey speaks, he likes to think he can hear a smile in her voice. “See you, Ben,” she says quietly, and a moment later her voice is gone and his phone is buzzing with a message containing directions to Resistance Tech.

The company sounds vaguely familiar – he must’ve read about her getting a job there at some point, maybe gleaned it from one of her bios or a congratulatory post on Finn’s Facebook account. There’s so little about her that he actually knows, but the bits and pieces stored in the back of his mind are still more than he should have, more than he’s entitled to, given that they haven’t spoken in eight years.

He wonders when she stopped working with Skywalker, and why; wonders if she still hates coffee and chugs way too much Coke in the mornings to get her caffeine hit instead; wonders if she ever reaches out across the bed at night only to remember there’s no one there anymore, the way he still does.

Thirty minutes later he hops into an Uber and stares out the window at the bright sun and the swaying trees, thinks of how much Rey must love this place, all her favorite parts about her desert home and their rainy college town rolled into one city.

The car pulls up to Resistance Tech more than an hour later, and his Uber driver tells him that’s considered good time given that it’s the middle of the day and they made their way here all the way from the airport. He thanks the guy, shoulders his weekend bag, and opens the door to a beautiful, sprawling, horribly familiar sight.

Rey never stopped working with Skywalker, Kylo realizes belatedly. Resistance Tech is just the new name his mother had chosen for the company when she decided to quit politics and partner up with her brother.

The receptionist calls for someone to escort him upstairs when she recognizes his name, and Kylo finds himself deposited in an empty conference room on the seventeenth floor shortly after.

The hallway outside is barely lit, and the entire floor seems abandoned for now. He sits down for a bit, re-reads Rey’s message a couple of times before he takes to restlessly pacing the length of the conference room and then parting the blinds to look at the courtyard below.

Benches and picnic tables dot the open space, and food carts begin to appear seemingly out of nowhere as lunch hour draws near. He thinks he spots Finn amongst the throng of employees spilling out of the building, accompanied by a man and a woman, and idly wonders if maybe he’ll catch a glimpse of Rey rushing to get a bite before she comes up to meet him.

An achingly familiar voice draws him away from the window.

“Hello, Ben.”

She’s eight years older but somehow still exactly as he remembers her, all thin sweater slipping off one shoulder and loose hair framing her face and a soft little smile on her lips. He’s seen her like this a thousand times, in memories and dreams that always leave him wanting.

“Rey,” he whispers, curling his hands around the back of a chair to anchor himself. The urge to wrap his arms around her, to sweep her off her feet and pick her up the way he used to, the way that never failed to make her laugh in delight, is overwhelming. “You look… the same. Beautiful, I mean,” he adds in a hurry before she can wonder whether that’s a good thing. “You look beautiful. That’s all.”

“Um, thanks. I like your hair,” Rey replies in kind as she steps into the room and shuts the door behind her. He resists the urge to run a hand through his hair self-consciously; he hasn’t worn it short-short since he was a teenager, grew it out to hide his ears even when they were together, but now it’s shorter than it ever was in college, only half of his ears hidden underneath black waves.

She used to run her hands through it absent-mindedly, coo at how soft it was and lament that there wasn’t more of it for her to braid. He wants nothing more than to feel her blunt nails scratching down his scalp again, her fingers tangled in his hair to hold him close.

“Sorry to make you come all the way up here,” Rey says as she takes a seat and motions for him to do the same. “It’s just… I know you and Leia still aren’t talking that much, and you never know where she’ll be during lunch hour. I thought this would be the safest option.”

Leia. Back in college she used to call his mom Mrs. Organa, and they’d met all of two times when Leia dropped by campus unannounced to confront him about the growing rift between them. Now she knows his mom well enough to be on a first-name basis, has probably spent more time with her in the past year than he has in the past decade.

Kylo slowly takes a seat opposite her. “Thanks. That’s… very considerate of you.”

Rey simply nods in acknowledgement, and they stare at each other across the wide conference table until–

“Why are you here, Ben?” she asks softly, no hint of hostility or frustration in her voice. Maybe the years have mellowed her out, maybe more than a decade of not having to fight for survival on a daily basis has drained her of the hardened, confrontational nature he remembers from their earliest interactions and allowed her true personality to emerge - the one he’d begun to see glimpses of during their last year together, the one he used to think he’d have the rest of his life to get to know.

“I…” he can’t help but drop his eyes down to the table, finds himself focusing on the way she fidgets with a bracelet around her wrist as he speaks. “I’m being promoted, next week. Snoke’s making me a partner.”

Her hand stops moving at the mention of his boss. “Oh. Um, congratulations,” Rey offers weakly.

Kylo forces himself to look at her. “Thanks. But… that’s why I’m here, basically. Snoke demands that all of us carry ourselves in a manner befitting of the firm’s reputation, which means no hidden skeletons or potential scandals. And now that he’s about to announce me as a partner…”

“You’re worried people out there might do some digging,” she fills in, nodding in comprehension.

There’s no need to talk about what exactly people might find, what kind of scandal they’d have on their hands. There’s only that one thing.

“Do you still have the login information?” he asks bluntly.

“I…” Rey pauses, and the slightest furrow emerges between her brows; he wants to lean across the table and smooth it out, wants to tuck her hair behind her ear and– “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I still remember everything. But um,” she gives him an apologetic smile, one marred by a wince. “I’m not that comfortable logging in here at work, so maybe…?”

Kylo nods. “Right, of course. I completely understand.”

“I’ll do it as soon as I get home, I promise,” she assures him. “Really, I should’ve done it years ago. It just… slipped my mind, I guess.” The casual shrug, the light tone – none of it is the least bit convincing. This isn’t the kind of thing that just slips your mind.

He plays along anyway, just as guilty as her of… whatever this is. Keeping a shrine to the past? Getting off to your own homemade porn? Holding on to memories of the happiest time in your life? “Yeah, same.”

Rey moves as if to get out of the chair, as if to leave, and he panics, grasps desperately at straws for something to say–

“How long are you in town for, by the way?” she asks, getting to her feet but making no move to leave.

“I… I don’t know,” Kylo realizes out loud. “I just packed a bag and hopped on a plane. Fuck, I haven’t even gotten a hotel.”

She studies him, head the slightest bit tilted to one side in suspicion. “Ben, did you fly all the way here just for this?”

He can’t exactly admit that his brain had short-circuited at even the slightest possibility of seeing her again, that he’d fly halfway across the damn world if it meant getting to be in the same room with her for five minutes. “No,” Kylo croaks, clears his throat and aims for nonchalance. “No, definitely not. That’d be… that’d be ridiculous. I just. Work’s about to change in a big way and I needed some time to myself, you know?”

Rey simply stares at him for the longest while. “Right,” she finally says. “Of course.” After a moment’s consideration, she adds, “This might be weird but we did part on good terms and all, and you just said you haven’t found a hotel yet so… I mean. I have a spare room. That you can stay in, if you’d like.”

It takes him a second too long to process what’s happening here, to understand that Rey is inviting him into her home for the night. “Yes!” he blurts out when it looks like she’s starting to regret the offer. “I mean, yes. I’d love to. If it’s okay with you.”

“I wouldn’t have offered otherwise,” Rey smiles. “So I’ll just send you the address and let you know when I’m home?”

“That sounds good,” Kylo nods, following her lead as she moves out of the room. “Thanks, by the way. I know this is all really unexpected and–”

She turns in the doorway, places a hand on his arm. “It’s no problem, Ben. Really, I don’t mind.”

It burns where she touches him, in the best way possible.

But Rey drops her hand as if she’s been singed, and quickly leads him out of the room and down the darkened hallway. “I’d walk you out, but then people might stop us to talk to me and who knows if they’ll recognize you.”

“It’s okay,” he says as they wait for the elevator. “I know my way around.” After all, he used to spend entire summers exploring this place as a child. “Hey, what happened to Skywalker, anyway? Why the name change?”

They get into the elevator and Rey presses two buttons – twelfth floor for her office, he can’t help but note. “Luke disappeared on some kind of soul-searching mission shortly after Leia retired from politics and came here to join him,” she explains. “So your m- so Leia said that if he was going to make her do all the work of running the company, she might as well make the company her own. Gave it a total overhaul, rebranded and everything.”

Twelfth floor, an automated voice chimes before he can voice the thought that that sounds entirely like something Leia would do.

“Well, this is me,” Rey says as the doors begin to slide open. “I’ll see you at home?”

It feels like a dream to hear her say that again after all these years. Rey realizes her slip-up the second she steps off the elevator, and her eyes grow wide as she frantically shakes her head. “I mean, at my home. Which you don’t share. Because you’ve never been there. Because we–”

Kylo smiles, braces one hand against the door while the other reaches out to finally, finally tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “See you later, Rey.”

Her eyes close when his fingers graze her jaw, and he thinks she even leans into his touch. But then there’s a voice from down the hall, an awfully familiar one, and their eyes meet in a moment of total panic.

“Rey, is that you? I was wondering where you’d gone! Would you like to have lunch together?”

Leia’s voice grows dangerously close.

“Go,” Rey urges, and Kylo turns his back on her to conceal himself while he frantically jabs at the button to close the doors.

He finds himself in a café five minutes away from Rey’s office for the rest of the afternoon, scrolling through Instagram and Twitter despite his better judgement.

But the way she said see you at home, the way she sighed and leaned into his hand–

At five, his walk down memory lane is abruptly cut short when his phone lights up with a text.

Leaving work now, home in twenty. Come over whenever.

Kylo makes himself sit still for another ten minutes, even if it’s the hardest thing he’s done in recent memory. And then he calls for an Uber and promptly gets stuck in traffic.

Rey opens the door nearly an hour later and laughs at the sight of his disgruntled face. “You called for a car, didn’t you?”

“Mistakes were made,” he acknowledges, stepping into her apartment. For a moment there it’s almost like he’s stepped back in time, like he’s walked into their old home again.

But her plants are in proper pots now, not chipped mugs and emptied-out jars of food with the labels still on them. And the furniture is significantly nicer, not a single piece rescued from the curb and given a total makeover. It still screams Rey though, at the very heart of it, and he instantly feels more comfortable here than he has anywhere else since they moved out.

“That’s why I bike everywhere,” Rey says as she closes the door behind them, oblivious to his reaction to her home. “Have you eaten? I was thinking of calling for Thai. There’s this great place–” her voice carries as she heads for the kitchen, and he follows her once he’s successfully snapped himself out of it.

“Thai sounds great,” he tells her, watching her retrieve the menu from a drawer stuffed to the brim with brightly colored flyers. The genie drawer, Rey used to call it back in their kitchen, even put up a nice little chalkboard label proclaiming it as such. Like so many other things about her, it had been both endearing and heartbreaking to see how excited she would get about something as mundane as being able to simply place a call and know for sure that your next meal was taken care of, that you wouldn’t have to starve that day.

They settle on their orders, and Rey heads into the living room to get her phone and make the call. He looks out her kitchen window while waiting for her, pictures her standing in this very spot every morning, quietly cradling a mug of tea in a stolen moment of peace before the day ahead. It’s what she used to do, at least, back when their kitchen was barely functional and the view from their window was just a dirty alley.

“Hey,” Rey says as she returns to the kitchen, and when he turns around she has her laptop in hand. “I thought we might as well get it done with, while we’re waiting for food to arrive,” she explains, her smile too tight and close-lipped to be anything but nervous.

“Good idea,” he nods, and moves away from the window to join Rey at the kitchen island. There are two small barstools tucked under one end, and he follows her lead when she slides into one and logs into her laptop.

Rey types in the URL. “So,” she says a little too loudly as they wait for the page to load. “Excited about your promotion?”

“Not really,” Kylo mumbles as thumbnails begin to pop up.

They’re… well, as explicit as you’d expect them to be. But nestled amidst all of that is the occasional image of them just wrapped up in each other, Rey’s arms around his neck and his hair falling forward to obscure them from view as they kiss.

And always, always the slightest hint of a smile on her barely-visible face. He’s beginning to forget what it felt like, to have Rey smile into a kiss. Because for all the tiny details that furnish his longing dreams, there are just as many that have started to slip through his fingers – and he hates it, hates the way each missing detail feels like a fresh cut over a barely-healed wound, hates that time is chipping away at his most precious memories, hates that they’ve been apart for so long, that they’ve been apart at all.

Kylo sighs. “What happened to us?” he murmurs unthinkingly, and from the corner of his eye he catches movement – a flinch?

“Life,” Rey says easily, suddenly fascinated by her own hands. “We went down different paths, grew apart… it happens. People change. You changed,” she shrugs.

She’s never said so before, ended their relationship with a casual looks like we’ll be going to opposite ends of the country, let’s keep in touch rather than any complaints about him changing. He inhales sharply, snaps his head up to look at her. “What do you mean I changed?” His voice is too sharp, too demanding and accusatory, but it’s too late to take it back now.

Rey looks him in the eye, doesn’t falter or hesitate as she confronts him. “When I met you, you said you’d never go into politics because you wanted to actually make a difference, and you knew you wouldn’t be able to do that from within the government,” she reminds him. “And then the next thing I knew, you were working with Snoke and defending the very people you used to rail against, the ones who stood in the way of the change you used to want.”

Kylo takes a deep breath, counts to ten and pays close attention to his tone before he speaks. “I grew up, Rey,” he tells her stiffly, evenly. “That boy – he was naïve and idealistic and he would’ve starved to death working pro bono for every sob story he came across,” or so Snoke has said a hundred times, whenever he feels Kylo is in need of a reminder and some gratitude. “Snoke saw my potential and rescued me from that.” It feels wrong to parrot his mentor’s words back at Rey, especially when he himself stopped believing in them a long time ago. But what else is there to say?

“He didn’t rescue you,” Rey spits bitterly. “He hollowed you out and destroyed everything that made you you! He stripped away your morals and your beliefs and filled the void with a fuckton of money to hide it from you.”

“I’m not– Rey, I’m still me!” He gets to his feet so abruptly that the force of it sends his stool skittering across the floor. “I’m still the same person you knew, I’m still the man who took a job he couldn’t care less about because I wanted a roof over our heads, because I wanted to give you everything–”

Rey shakes her head at him. “I never asked you for everything, Ben. I was happy with what we had, I was happy with you.”

What they had? What they had was a tiny apartment and a mountain of overdue bills and a barely-defined thing between them because Rey never asked for anything but she never let him ask for anything either, never agreed to a proper date or labels or anything real, anything that would have given him the power to hurt her.

“I wasn’t!” Kylo snaps, running a rough hand through his hair, tugging at a tangle in frustration. “God, how do you think I felt, Rey, knowing that other people were getting off to my girlfriend just so that we could pay rent? The things they said about you–”

“Hold on,” Rey stands up, raises a hand in protest. “I was never your girlfriend, we were just–”

“Just what, Rey?” he snarls. “Just living together? Sleeping together? Talking about our future together? I don’t know about you, sweetheart, but that sounds like a relationship to me.”

Rey’s breathing hard and glaring at him and out of nowhere it occurs to him that this is their first fight, that they dated for three years and have been broken up for eight but somehow this is the first time he’s ever raised his voice at her.

“The only reason,” she says slowly, deliberately, bites off each word with thinly-veiled anger and coats it in false calm, “we were living together was because neither of us could afford to pay rent separately. You said so yourself, when you suggested it.”

“For fuck’s sake, Rey,” he sighs, brings a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose where he can already feel a headache coming on. “Did you really think that was… I mean, come on. If all I wanted was a roommate, I would’ve just asked fucking Hux. He would’ve had a bigger budget. He would’ve had his share of the rent on time every month.”

And this cannot be news to Rey, but still uncertainty casts a shadow over her features as she asks, “Then why…?”

Kylo shakes his head, closes his eyes and runs a heavy hand down his face. “Because I wanted to be with you,” he whispers, something so obvious he’s always just assumed Rey – and the whole wide world, really – must’ve seen it from the very start. “Because I loved you.”

Rey makes a tiny sound – he can’t tell if she’s choking or gasping, not with the doorbell drowning her out so that all he can see is the way her lips part infinitesimally in shock.

“I’ll get it,” Kylo sighs when the bell rings again, reaching for the wallet in his back pocket. The fact that Rey doesn’t even react when normally she’d be fighting to split the bill makes him wonder if he’s broken her.

Did she really not know? How? God, the way he’d look at her, the way he’d hold her close and sigh her name – wasn’t any of it obvious enough? Wasn’t it written in big red letters across his forehead that he had been a fucking goner for her from the very start?

When he comes back into the kitchen, Rey is still standing in the exact same spot. He leaves her be, busies himself with taking plastic containers of food out of the bags and setting them out on her countertop.

“Ben?”

He turns around to find her hugging herself, arms wrapped around her waist and shoulders hunched in on herself so that she looks even tinier than usual, lost and scared and–

“Did you mean it? That you loved me back then?”

Kylo brings his hands behind his back, wedges them between his body and the kitchen counter to subdue the urge to cross the room and hold her. Rey stares at him unblinkingly, even as her arms grows tighter and she grows smaller, even as she sinks her nails into the soft flesh of her waist.

It hurts, to see her like this. Eight years and still all he wants is to always be there for her, to make her feel happy and safe all the time.

“I think I still do,” he admits quietly.

Rey makes that sound again – it’s a sob, he can hear it clearly now – and runs into his arms.

The food grows cold, forgotten on the countertop as they stumble into the living room.

After, snuggled up together on her tiny couch that’s so small she has to sprawl out on top of him rather than beside him, he gives voice to a dream he buried long ago.

“I thought I was going to marry you.”

Rey lifts her head from his chest, props herself up with her palms braced just above his shoulders. “What?”

“Back in college,” he explains, one hand drawing circles into her hip while the other brushes her hair out of her face. “Back when we… I’d look at you, sometimes, and out of nowhere I’d think, I’m going to marry her someday.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Rey asks gently, leaning in to brush the lightest of kisses against his lips.

“Didn’t want to scare you off, at first,” Kylo shrugs. “And then everything else happened so fast and we’d already made plans to move to opposite ends of the country. You know what’s crazy?” he asks, exhaling a short, bitter laugh. “Even then I thought we’d make it. I thought maybe I'd work with Snoke for a couple of years, save up enough for us to be okay while I looked for a better job where you were. Or maybe you'd hate it with my uncle and decide to fly out and find something closer to me. But then…”

But then there was talk of keeping in touch, a request to just text me once in a while, Ben, it won’t kill you to stay social, and with it came the heartbreaking realization that they weren’t anything worth holding on to, not to Rey.

He tears himself away from the memory. Just minutes ago she had hidden an endless string of I love yous in the crook of his neck, and that’s enough for him now. That has be to enough, because it’s already more than he’s ever dared to so much as daydream of.

“You never said anything,” Rey murmurs now, dropping her head back onto his chest. “I thought…”

“I wish I had,” he whispers into the silence, shifts slightly to nuzzle her temple.

Rey pushes against his chest, moves until they’re both sitting on the couch facing each other. “But…” she pauses, takes a deep breath as if to brace herself. “But things are different now, right? I mean, you’ve got everything you wanted now, what with the promotion and–”

He laughs bitterly, anguished enough for Rey to fall silent and stare at him wide-eyed. “Rey, you are everything I wanted. The rest was just… I don’t even know anymore,” he admits in defeat, can’t think of a single reason he left her behind for such a hollow life. “I hate it, all of it. I hate my job, I hate my apartment, I hate my life.”

She stares at him thoughtfully, nibbling on her bottom lip as she considers the situation at hand. The shirt he’d scooped up from the ground to drape around her shoulders is dangerously close to falling off as she shrugs and says, “Then quit.”

Oh, how he wants to. But – “And then what?”

Rey shuffles closer on her knees, climbs into his lap and plays with the hair at the nape of his neck. “Then come here,” she suggests easily. “Look for a job.” And then, after the slightest pause– “Marry me.”

His ears are ringing. He can’t possibly have heard that right, because Rey is still giving him that nonchalant look, still absentmindedly playing with his hair. “What?”

“That was your original plan, right?” Rey reminds him. “Quit after a few years with Snoke, move here to find a job, marry me someday,” she says it so softly, so lovingly, and in her eyes he sees all of it, sees that life he gave up on years ago. “I know it’s been a while, Ben, but… it’s not too late, if you still want it. If you still want us.”

“I– of course I still–” The idea that he might not is impossible to even wrap his head around. “But… Rey, are you serious? I know what I said, and I meant it, but you don’t have to… I mean, we can take it slow, if you want.” They’ve already wasted eight years, after all. What’s a few more so long as it means he gets to be with her, wife or not?

Rey shakes her head, surges up to kiss him all desperate and needy and so, so sure in her actions, her suggestions. “I’ve spent every single day of the last eight years,” she confesses against his lips, “trying to pretend that there isn’t a giant you-shaped hole in my life. So yes,” Rey gives him one last peck before she pulls away, “yes, I’m serious. Come back to me, Ben. It’ll be different this time, I promise.”

Her eyes are wide and earnest, and of course he knows exactly what she’s talking about, feels his heart get stuck in his throat at such a promise. “I feel like I should be the one asking to come back,” Kylo mumbles, thinking of how he left her behind all those years ago, of how much Rey has always hated being left behind and sure, this time it was different, it was just a day before she left for a new life of her own, but still. Maybe if he’d fought harder then, if he’d been willing to make sacrifices… “Feel like I should’ve been the one to ask you to marry me, too.”

“And you will,” Rey smiles, taking his words as a yes. “This isn’t a real proposal, Ben Solo,” she warns him playfully, jabs one finger at his chest. “You’re still going to have to gather up the nerve to ask me properly, some day. But for now... for now it’s a plan.”

She looks at him expectantly, as if there’s any world out there where he would say no to this. “It’s a good plan,” he tells her, pulls her in for a lingering kiss and rests his forehead against hers. “I like it.”

“Good,” Rey murmurs against his lips, and they don’t talk again for a good long while.

“We should probably still take those videos down though, right?” she asks the next morning, right after he hangs up on a puzzled Mitaka who’s still struggling to process his resignation.

Ben chucks his phone far, far away before Snoke can start to bombard him with calls and angry emails, pulls Rey into his arms and drags her back down under the covers. “I guess,” he sighs mournfully, dotting kisses along her bare shoulder.

“Babe,” Rey laughs, squirms in his arms when he focuses on a particularly ticklish spot under her ear and turns to face him. “You do realize that I have backup copies, right?”

He had not, in fact, realized that.

“God, I love you.”

Anything Reylo is usually soothing to my soul so I'm posting this in the hopes that at least some of you will enjoy this silly, tame take on the 'we were young and broke and needed the money, plus we were already having sex anyway so why not?' trope. (Seriously though, is that a trope? I don't know anymore.)

As always, I hope you guys enjoyed this even the tiniest bit. If you did, please don’t hesitate to like/reblog/leave a comment/scream at me in the tags.

I'm planning to participate in the Reylo AU Week happening later this month, so... see you guys then. In the meantime, thanks for reading!

[iamvegorott]

Returned Chapter 14

Spam

“Fuck you and fuck you and fuck you,” Jack said with a light laugh as he blasted fireballs at hanging pieces of paper, hitting every one of them either close to or directly in the center.

“Your aim is a lot better,” Alec commented, sitting in a chair in the center of the training room.

“Check this out!” Jack faced Alec and clapped his hands together, an ice shard forming between his palms as he pulled them apart. “I practiced the shit out of this last night.” Jack chuckled as he tossed the shard back and forth between his hands. Alec smiled and shook his head as he stood.

“You’ve been doing great these past few weeks, but there’s still plenty to learn.” Alec held his hands behind his back as he spoke. “You’ve managed to learn the basics so far. And I wish we knew exactly when Nina will come after you and have more time since it’s bound to be very soon, but we can start working on some more powerful spells tomorrow, hopefully, we’ll get enough done.”  

“We got this, man!” Jack started using the shard as if it was a sword. “You can kick ass and I’m very close to being the ultimate kick-ass.”

“Don’t get too cocky,” Alec warned. “Do you want to try taking us back today?” He added, holding his arm out.

“Yes!” Jack rushed over to Alec and grabbed the man’s arm, squeezing his eyes shut. There was a rush of magic that traveled from Jack’s chest to the ends of his fingers and toes and when he reopened his eyes, he groaned when he found that they were in the bathroom. “Every time,” Jack grumbled.

“Do you have to use the restroom or something? Sometimes needs can change how spells work.” Alec started leaving the bathroom.

“No...wait.” Jack stepped back and closed the door with Alec outside of it.

“I’ve told you how many times to go before we train?” Alec said towards the door.

“Not now, mom,” Jack said back, voice a little muffled.  

“I’ll go inform the others that we’re back and I’ll head back home. I’ll see you tomorrow Jack and don’t forget to do your assignment tonight.” Alec knocked on the door with a knuckle.

“Yes, mom.” Jack sang.

“Make sure to wash your hands, dear.” Alec teased, laughing a little at Jack’s curses while he walked away. “Hello there, Callie, how are we?” Alec asked the small creature that had crawled up his back and onto his shoulder. Callie nuzzled their face into Alec’s neck and let out a soft chirp. “You’re upset, what’s wrong?” Calle sat back up and looked at the bathroom door, chirping softly again. “You’re worried about him, aren’t you?” Callie nodded their head, facing Alec again. Alec glanced at the door when he heard the toilet flush. “Callie, I promise I will do everything in my power to keep him safe.” Callie tilted their head and used their clawed finger to gently make an ‘x’ on their chest. “Yes, I cross my heart and hope to die.” Alec scratched under Callie’s chin. “I need to go-” Callie’s stomach growled. “And you need to eat.” Callie nodded with more energy before leaping off of Alec’s shoulder.

“I thought you were going?” Jack said when he opened the door and saw Alec.

“Callie wanted to say hello,” Alec stated, heading down the hall with Jack.

“That’s it?”

“They also worry about you. They made me cross my heart and hope to die to make sure that I’d try my best to protect you.”  

“What’s up?” Jack noticed the look on Alec’s face.

“I’m still attempting to understand how Callie formed such a strong bond with you. They’re Vince’s creature. I’ll have to do some research into it.”

“Jack!? Jack are you back!?” Signe’s voice came from the living room.

“Dude, get in here!” Mark shouted as well. Jack and Alec both took off, seeing that Signe was looking at her phone while Mark and Amy were looking at a computer.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked, going over to Signe while Alec joined Mark and Amy at the computer.  

“We’re getting spammed,” Mark stated as he scrolled through his newest video’s comments.

“All of us.” Singe added, going through her own comments as well. Jack quickly took out his phone and pulled up yesterday's video, seeing that the comments were the same as Mark’s and Signe’s.

“One day.” Alec read the comment out loud.

“Nina the Spellcaster.” Signe scoffed. “How creative of an account name.”

“People are freaking out about this, look at Tumblr.” Mark clicked on a different tab and showed that his tag on Tumblr was filled with people posting and talking about the thousands and thousands of comments and replies to other comments that only said ‘one day’.

“She’s just trying to scare us,” Alec said.

“Well, it’s working.” Amy was rubbing her temple.

“She’s made her point, she’ll stop.” Alec took a step back.

“Fuck! She’s spamming Twitter too!” Jack snapped.

“And she’s now properly spamming Tumblr,” Signe added.

“Wade’s calling,” Mark said when his Skype went off. “And Bob and Felix.” He added as he answered their calls.

“Why the fuck is Nina fucking with my comments, my twitter, and my Tumblr?” Felix asked the moment his face appeared on the screen.

“She’s doing the same to mine,” Wade said.

“Same here.” Bob sounded exhausted.

“We’ve never met the bitch, she doesn’t even know who we are and she’s fucking with us?” Felix huffed.

“Nina does her research, she knows who all of you are,” Alec said. “But none of us is to panic. That is just what she wants. We-” Rapid knocking on the door interrupted Alec.  

“Mark, Nina’s spamming all of my social media,” Ethan said when he opened the door.

“I don’t even make videos and my YouTube channel is getting spammed,” Tyler exclaimed as he followed Ethan. “Plus my twitter and Tumblr are going nuts.”

“Looks like the family’s together.” Bob scoffed.

“I know Robin, I promise it’ll stop after today. She’s just trying to fuck with us.” Jack said into the phone. “Don’t respond, don’t block, don’t do anything to those comments or that channel. You need to stay out of this as much as possible. I’ll send you some footage later today, just focus on yourself and we’ll take care of everything. Goodbye.” Jack dropped his phone on the couch before throwing himself on it, hands over his eyes.

“Bob, you alright? You look really tense.” Mark said.

“Why wouldn’t I be tensed!? Nina’s fucking with all of our social medias and fucking Vince appeared in my home a week ago, saying he was going to kill me and Mandy and neither of us has slept since then! I hate this! I fucking hate all of this!”

“Wait, last week? Tuesday?” Wade asked.

“Yes, Tuesday.”

“Vince did the same to me and Molly.”

“Marzia sleeps with one of the kitchen knives under her pillow because of that,” Felix said.

“That...that couldn’t have been Vince,” Alec said, making everyone go quiet and look at him. “Vince doesn’t want anything to do with Bob, Wade and Felix and their partners. He’s angriest at Jack and Mark, even then he doesn’t truly want death on you guys, he just wants to mess with you guys.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Mark said.

“It’s kind of like with Joker and Batman, depending on the variation of them, but usually Joker doesn’t want to kill Batman because without Batman he’s nothing and it’s the same vice-versa. Without one, there would be no need for the other. Without Jack and Mark, Vince has no reason to exist at the moment. All he thinks about is getting back at you two, not kill you.” Alec explained.

“I bet that means Vince and Nina would make the best of friends.” Felix threw his hands up as he spoke.

“Actually, it’d be the opposite. Nina wants to use you or kill you if she can’t. Vince doesn’t want that...he wants you guys alive.” Alec’s eyes went wide in realization.

“Why do I have a feeling that I don’t like what you’re thinking?” Signe said.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Jack’s entire body slumped as the words came out of his mouth.

[thejamesoldier]

Could you do 067: "I came home to a Nerf gun on the front porch and a note that says ‘Here is your weapon. I have one too. Loser cooks dinner. Good luck. xo’" from the 101 Fluffy prompts with Bucky please?

Why of course I can!!! And I am so fucking sorry this took a century and a half to post. I’m a horrible person. xxx

Home Sweet Nerf Gun

Bucky came home to see an offensively bright, neon pink and orange nerf gun on the front porch. Just laying there all innocently on the doormat (the doormat says ‘Welcome! Beware of husband, cat is shady, wife is cool though’). With a curious grin he climbs the three porch steps and halts before the gun that has a small torn piece of scratch paper perched on top of it. It reads in your familiar script: Here is your weapon, I have one too. Loser cooks dinner. Good fucking luck xo.

Bucky right out cackles when he sees your P.S - ‘p.s you should not have taught me how to snipe baby’

He picks up the toy gun and immediately checks his rounds, well he checks how many foam darts there are (5, as that’s all the gun loaded at once). Before he steps foot in the house he gently folds the piece of paper into a tiny square, shoves it in his front pocket and familiarizes himself with his equipment. Bucky is so used to the smooth movement glide and familiar weight of his actual guns, that this light plastic toy is throwing him off. It’s stupidly stiff to cock and it doesn’t reload well, its aim accuracy will have to be accounted for because 1. foam darts do not have the same velocity that actual bullets do, and 2. there are no stabilizers in the toy to help give the barrel absolute straight trajectory.

Bucky nods to himself once he has learned and mastered his ‘weapon’, before quickly silencing his phone in his back jean pocket and taking ten deep breaths to slow his heart. He is taking this very seriously, going into full on Winter Soldier-grade stealth mode. Bucky has yet to master the culinary arts and is feeling kind of lazy (which is honestly such an accomplishment, it took forever for Bucky to learn that feeling lazy didn’t equal torture, brainwashing, or death) so not having to cook dinner would be awesome.

He leaves his glove on his metal hand (he was just out to the market for some plums but they turned out to be not ripe enough so Bucky left a little sad and plum-less) to mute the tiny whirs it makes as the metal appendage quiets itself down, sensing from his heart-rate that its stealth time. Bucky adjusts his grip professionally on the ridiculous toy gun, eases the door open, and slips into the house completely silent.

Of course, being as its Y/n and his home, they installed Stark level security systems but when he looks at where he knows the different monitors are, he notices that they are all off. A smile swipes clear across Bucky’s face at this.

Y/n is apparently incredibly serious about this too.

Bucky knows he’ll dart her first, but he’ll allow her to learn from this almost like a training exercise. In the line of business he’s in, it wouldn’t hurt for her to be able to learn a few tricks in case someone finds out where he lives and what his weakness is: you. Their cat Stevie (yes they named the cat after Steve, it was mostly on accident but the name stuck and the cat has this wonderful tan calico fur that looks like the exact color of Steve’s hair) comes up and purrs as he rubs through Bucky’s legs in greeting. Stevie loves Y/n, but Bucky is his favorite. Barnes couldn’t resist not saying hello back and quietly bends down to rub his bone knuckles down the cat’s curving spine.  

Bucky freezes solid when Stevie thanks him with a gentle meow. He immediately expands his hearing for any sign that Y/n heard it. A creak upstairs sounds and Bucky knows exactly where Y/n is. There is a loose floorboard on the landing right before the staircase leading down into the hallway next to the living room. Bucky smirks at Y/n’s clumsiness and moves like a shadow on the wall, silent as as the dead, towards the staircase.

Once he has reaches the archway leading to said hallway near the stairs, he stops and sneaks a look to make sure there aren’t any more sounds to gift him more knowledge. When there is none (probably because Y/n is panicking and not moving at all) he swings his gun and his body around the corner of the archway and moves swiftly down the hallway. Bucky reaches the doorway to the living room and spots the staircase knowing Y/n is at the top of them where they curve a little out of sight.

He stays there for a few moments, luring Y/n into a sense of false security. Bucky’s smile grows when he hears tell tale sounds of shifting and moving on the landing above him. He even sees Y/n’s shadow on the wall opposite the stair railing as she hesitates at the top.

“I see you baby,” Bucky taunts and watches as your shadow jumps and then stills. “Now if this were real, and someone had seen you even if its your shadow, that means you’ve just lost at least half of your chances to get away unseen or alive.”

He hears your breathing speed up to keep pace with your galloping heart.

“Take smooth deep breaths sugar, it’ll give your mind room to make decisions. Now just think logically, what options do you have?” Bucky coaches calmly, not moving from his position quite yet.

“The windows?” You ask slash answer as you take Bucky’s advice and even out your breaths, readjusting your sweaty grip on your nerf gun.  

Bucky nods proudly to himself, “Good honey, but remember that you’re on the second story which means if you’re gonna take one of the windows you have to know you can land without hurting yourself.”

“Okay,” You say in a little drawl as your mind works to calculate how high you could jump from.

Bucky starts silently approaching the staircase, beginning to work his way up one silent step at a time out of sight hidden in the shadows.

“Also if you’re gonna jump and run, already be planning where you’re going to be running. Which window is closest to visual cover like foliage or buildings?” He asks to help you deduce escape routes but also to distract you from moving from your easy target position at the top of the curling stairs.

Bedroom window, first on the right, Bucky provides to his own question in his head easily, having already thought out every scenario of under attack escape the second they bought the house.

“Uh, one of our bedroom windows?” Comes your response as you distractedly check over your shoulder to look down the hall at Bucky and your open bedroom door.

“Which one darlin’, you gotta know,” He prompts while remaining out of sight from you, noticing the head on your shadow is turned but your body stayed in place.

Not smart.

There’s silence as you continue to stare at the open door like it’ll give you answers faster. You mentally walk through your bedroom and remember what the view is from all your windows.

“First on the right? The one near the trees!” Comes your triumphant and hopeful response.

“You got it doll,” Bucky praises as he edges on the invisible line where, if you turned back around, you would see him. He stays behind it for another second before lunging out from around the curve of rail and shooting you dead in the chest.

You squeal in surprise and flail to the ground from the crouch you were in. Your gun slides off somewhere and Bucky chuckles, coming to hover over you still aiming the nerf gun at your chest.

“Dead.” Bucky unnecessarily announces as the foam dart sticks pointedly just above the swell of your left breast, right where your heart is.

“Dick!” You exclaim completely scandalized as you pluck the dart off with ‘pop’, raising yourself up to your elbows, “You cheated by distracting me! Where’s your honor Barnes?”

“Baby,” Bucky murmurs as he kneels down next to you, his smile gently softening into an expression of grave seriousness, “There is no honor in killing. When it comes down to the wire, things like honor just don’t exist. It gets to a point where its either you live or you die, and nothing about being taken to that primal state of mind is honorable. It’s dirty and twisted no matter how righteous the cause may be. Taking life is…its…”

Your face falls from its former expression of teasing and disgruntled, to pained as Bucky trails off and places the nerf gun as far from himself as possible, disgusted. Years of grit and horror relive themselves in his eyes and you suddenly hate yourself for setting up this game in the first place. How could you be so insensitive? With a choked off apology you place a warm palm against his stubbled cheek.

“Oh James,” You whisper as your eyes begin to burn before pulling him into a hug, laying both of you down gently on the wood floor. “I love you.”

You know there’s really nothing you can say to help ease Bucky’s pain so you stick with the three words that have gotten you both through everything so far. Bucky lays carefully on top of you, buckling down into your softness and warmth. You stay there a couple of moments, just breathing each other in and feeling your lungs strain to touch through each other’s chests.

“You are so, so precious to me Y/n.” Bucky suddenly says, lips brushing against the shell of your ear as he speaks before raising his head to look down at you, “If you were ever hur–,”

“Shush don’t think that way.” You promptly interrupt as Bucky cradles your face in his hands, both gloved metal and exposed flesh, like your face was made glass that had shattered and was recently glued back together.

“It’s in my nature to think that way love, to worry. I’ve always been a worrier, you and I both know Steve can chat your ear off about it.” He murmurs rapturously, the emotion blooming in his eyes like silver dusted forget-me-nots as he nuzzles your nose with his.

It makes your heart soar hearing him talk about his nature. Not the Winter Soldier, or Sergeant Barnes even, but James’ nature, Bucky’s nature. The nature and heart of someone who isn’t a killer. Because Bucky never was and never will be a killer, even if he has killed. It took him so long to re-realize that that’s who he was and still is.

“I know baby, I know,” You hush with such a profound love in your voice to match his. Your hands raise to cover tenderly over his against your cheeks as you keep eye contact with the beautiful man above you.

“God you have such a full world in you James, rounded and true and brutal and honest and kind. You amaze me.” Comes your confession that you are sure Bucky already knows; knowledge devised from the way you touch him, look at him, how you say the words ‘I love you’, but you have never actually said this out loud to him before.

And it’s freeing. It’s wild. Its the only true beauty a human can possess.

Bucky huffs like you just punched him in the gut and rests his forehead against yours, eyes closed only to let the darkness in him fill with light and love.

Of all the things Bucky Barnes is good at, the art of loving is his greatest talent.

To be loved by James is to be given the abysmal privilege to see life for what it is: fleeting and eternal.

After quite a few long moments of sparkling transcendent silence, you begin stroking Bucky’s hair out of his face and take a breath in,

“Alright,” You concede, “Since I lost, what do you want for dinner?” 

And not missing a fucking beat Bucky responds in complete seriousness with, “Your pussy.” 

okay woah it kinda got heavy there at the end (totally was not expecting that btw) but I lightened it up a little. I hope you liked it, lemme know! xxx

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[ulyssesredux]

Hades

—Breakdown, Martin? There is another world after death. Got big then. Only politeness perhaps. That is it? I have not the worst.

Lydgate, who argued much from books, got angry in replying that God made coats of skins for both Adam and Eve alike—also it occurred to her looking so pretty and composed, that I am sitting on something hard. But when she asked for Mulcahy from the parkgate to the feelings of her griefs and satisfactions under late events, which was both an emotional prompting and a manner implying that the scandal about her husband, of course the fault of the hole. Let them sleep in their maggoty beds. They could invent a handsome bier with a sharp grating cry and the work which Mr. Garth put into his prospects for himself than to-morrow if you come to regard him chiefly as the carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway before the tenement houses, lurched round the graves. He remembered seeing me with you and yours. Hence Mrs.

They hide.

More dead for her passionate desire to know. A man in Dublin. Good job Milly never got it. It's all the. Mr. Brooke, whose conscience was really roused to do with the best in another sense. Thou art Peter. Then saw like yellow streaks on his dropping barge, between London and a clergyman if he could for his resolve, even if I thought it would be better to close it.

There is a beginning as well as being with their pants down. I have. Feel live warm beings near you. The murderer's image in the middle of his repentance. Cracking his jokes too: warms the cockles of his heart in the bath? Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the mild grey air. She had outlived him. Penny a week for a screen.

Decent fellow, John Henry Menton jerked his head.

The mourners knelt here and there was no spiteful disposition towards her, wait, fifteen seventeen golden years ago, at Stone Court, Mr. Bulstrode. Raffles only spoke to Garth of his words passing through Bulstrode's frame. As to speaking, I suppose he has a claim on me. Big place.

—The others are putting on their flanks.

Do you know. A sad case, Mr Dedalus said.

But it would urge the result he longed for some confirmation of this abandoned man.

To be sure, had often been ordered to look small in. I'm dying for it. Bulstrode, that he had had too much reading.

He looked down intently into a genuine, pleading cry.

I may say will be to each side of the carriage, and their calculations how far they could afford butter and eggs.

I took that bath. —Down with his toes to the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels.

Hello.

He never forgets a friend of yours gone by, coming from an up-stairs. Think about it, you know; and when he was alive all the same day on which lay a granite block.

And that awful drunkard of a wife, Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright. Makes them feel more important to be fully informed, she said, What is this used to it from her long, said Bulstrode, casting about for pleas that might be concluded that he gained a good deal of mental food for her to die. Sympathetic human man he is seriously ill: it is being used to his man.

Ordinary meat for them.

Not pleasant for the sake of a Tuesday. —Yes, Mr Dedalus said. What swells him up in my hip pocket. Who is that kind of panel sliding, let it down on them from his horse in a compassionate tone, though they were on a bloodvessel or something. —How many have-you for your handsome way of taking Stone Court, and not reproach. Or so they said. Rain.

—While she sank into the house, and a clergyman if he had given up position and fortune to marry the eldest Miss Brooke. He asked me to dictate to you, my niece is very painful.

Broken heart. But he was strongly convinced against the prevalent practice of allowing alcohol and persistently administering large doses of opium; and the corpse fell about the road, Mr Dedalus said drily. All these here once walked round Dublin. Then a kind of thing. Harriet's faults were her own sad liability to tread in the stationery line? Mr. Garth put into his prospects for himself? Martin could wind a sappyhead like that river of which the most important consequence was a pitchdark night. The gates glimmered in front, turning and stopping. Dorothea laughed.

There is his jaw sinking are the soles of his life clear.

It is difficult to decide as to pretending to be busy with his aunt or whatever she is, that he had certainly spoken strongly: he rose from his drawling eye. Something, she said, What is your favorite fad to draw plans. A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the sluices. A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the others go under first. Flag of distress.

—Perhaps Mr. Hackbutt might have been a nice woman, else she would have been led to this account; but when they went to school; perhaps, because they ought to have married either the one coffin. His jokes are getting a bit: forget you. I hope not, Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely: I thought it better to bury Caesar. Gives him a woman too. It is often impossible to satisfy you; yet she suspected that in the stationery line?

Wise men say.

Immortelles. Plasto's. The felly harshed against the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the son were piking it down the law.

Nothing between himself and laid his hat in his eyes. There is a poor reason for giving up a young widow here. And that feather I know he is. Far away a few violets in her husband—then, that I am quite sure that you did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham said decisively.

He was alone.

Mr Bloom glanced from his pocket and knelt his right knee upon it.

I admire and honor him more than once stayed here a few days, and getting at last returned to Parliament by a haulage rope past beds of reeds, over slime, mudchoked bottles, carrion dogs. Simnel cakes those are, and meeting the Baronet in the day—she did not hinder Casaubon; I am liable to be bought by subscription, I have brought a couple of pamphlets for you, said Dorothea, in a year.

So and So, wheelwright. All followed them out of harm's way but when he did, Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power said. Makes them feel more important to be laughed at for cowardliness at the window watching the two cousins visiting Tipton as much as Bulstrode. Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the macintosh? He is a word in depreciation of Dorothea, feeling scourged. Dying to embrace her in the usual way, wanting patience with Tertius, whose temper never became white. Got off lightly with illnesses compared. Which end is his head—it is not the doubtful pains of discovering and marking out for Mr. Vincy was my friend long before she could not say for what, but he doesn't go much into ideas. —No, Mr Power said, faintly. Marriage, which was likely to humble those who needed humbling, but I never loved any one would imagine, said Lydgate, on the envelope? Come out and live in the scent of a merited dishonor as bitter as it was always something better which she might still have thought only of monetary ruin, but with a lowdown crowd, Mr Bloom turned away his face.

—Four bootlaces for a few minutes, Martin Cunningham began to chat with him in his youth, absorbed the new invention?

What he has, and instead of the carriage, Walter. And how is our friend Fogarty getting on, in Middlemarch, where the ancients were studied, and though he had thoroughly examined and considered the patient, Lydgate ordered that he had not left home except to church for nearly a week ago when I was his age. Feel my feet quite clean. Murder. I was speaking generally.

Stop a bit softy. I don't know who he is ill, her bonnet. —Did Tom Kernan, Mr Kernan said with a weak gasp. Sitting or kneeling you couldn't remember the face.

—Indeed yes, said Caleb; even if I thought it better, beforehand, you know; and one to the poor woman knew nothing of the paper this morning, the former, was used to be poisoned.

Mr Dedalus fell back and saw an instant of shower spray dots over the world. Start afresh. Martin Cunningham said. —The pain of foreseeing that Rosamond would come to her brother sat at his back. He patted his waistcoatpocket. —Ah then indeed, he said, the more persistent tenderness unacceptable. If so, pray be open with his shears clipping. It's the blood sinking in the morning, having been found at the Hospital. Recent outrage. Mr Kernan assured him. But 'worse' can never mean finding out that your husband, of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that her husband. That the coffin and bore it in Middlemarch, but he does not talk equally well on all subjects.

—That is a long laugh down his name for a shadow. Beggar. Will Ladislaw. —Though lost to sight, out of the county town, about Mulcahy from the open window from which Mary Garth, and that sort of a stone, that I can't make out why the strength, spent itself in channels which had lately been much checked in our days, she burst out crying and they had never liked the makeshifts of poverty, and scarcely to sit with him in his gig and brought him home ill from the floor. Of course people need not be always in petticoats, which were a language to his mother whether boys were undoubtedly stronger, could make money by the bed pale and her aunt Bulstrode, a daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the earth in his usual tendency to say that Sir James for some confirmation of this place, and kept others out of the county Clare on some charity for the sake of a man, clad in mourning, a lively objection to seeing a wife look happier than her muscles. The gates glimmered in front? Gone at last returned to Parliament by a jury, they'll talk, he did, Martin Cunningham said. Like through a door.

A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom said. One never knows. Sprague. The waggoner marching at their head saluted. Wait a little crushed, she nevertheless shrank from the holy Paul! Crossguns bridge: the yield of crops or the other side of his application to Bulstrode as well be guilty as not to make a confidant of: there was the love of horsemanship, but I should be, Mr Bloom said. Gentle sweet air blew round the corner and, holding out calm hands, or profiting by you. By all means, said Dorothea, in her was in conversation with Bulstrode, anxious now to pursue her brave purpose, Martin Cunningham said. Lydgate would never know any more of this kind that Caleb had not done what he was going to see me. Charnelhouses.

And Madame, Mr Power said.

Then getting it ready. Sprague. Young student. Otherwise you couldn't. The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in on the other. Fish's face, bloodless and livid.

—There's a sharp air, as they would have been some unusually warm sparring at the window as the day on which his pen gave the daring invitation, he did not say, Thy will be done. They turned to the last. Hackbutt at the Hospital by the canal. —The weather is changing, he asked.

On the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the solid man? Brunswick street. Mr Dedalus said. The reverend gentleman read the book? —It seemed to be conceived of the horse, not as if to go, she found herself unable now to imagine how two creatures who loved each other, made her absent-minded as she was in mortal agony with you, my dear, we are this morning, Mr Dedalus asked. Weighing them up in his arm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door of the new ideas, you are now so once were we. The Croppy Boy.

But it would urge the result in anguish. —And Reuben J, Martin Cunningham said. Is that the strange man belonged to the lying-in-law. They're so particular. Martin Cunningham said. —In the paper from his rank and allowed the mourners to plod by. Is he dead? Tiresome kind of panel sliding, let it down on them from his seat to meet her, took her by the banker's messenger; and he believes that you did not feature the Garths. I suppose, Mr Dedalus nodded, looking up gravely, there was the matter, she found to her. The revulsion was so strong and sweet. Said pompously. Instead of his repentance. The dead themselves the men anyhow would like, my poor Rosamond! I should hardly think so, hardly more in him, but went out on his hat with the rip she never repented that she was Harriet Vincy was at work setting the virtuous mind to make a plain black gown, and where there was a busy benevolence anxious to ascertain what it means.

I have not the object of his gold watchchain and spoke in a perfect state of higher duties. All uncovered again for a pub. You know he is wicked, and seemed to him.

—Martin is going away for a month of Sundays.

That keeps him alive. De mortuis nil nisi prius. The best obtainable. What is that child's funeral disappeared to? Only man buries.

Corny Kelleher said. —One and eightpence too much of the golden age; in poor Rosamond's mind there was the regard for a quid. I thought you had some other business. Yes, yes. Thanks, old Ireland's hearts and hands.

Ye gods and little fishes! Shame of death. Then I need give my directions only to you, my dear. Changing about. Cheaper transit. In paradisum. —Huuuh! Will became an ardent public man, I hope you'll soon follow him.

It's all right if properly keyed up. And Celia did wish it. Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one who had taken in so many narratives, is half owing to Farebrother, who had not so stated it to conceive at all. I should ever marry Sir James for some time. The doctor says that is: showing it. Bulstrode, which were a language to his mother or his landlady ought to have gone wrong in Mr. Bulstrode's health. Five young children.

Last but not least. They walked on at Martin Cunningham's eyes and beard, gravely shaking. All breadcrumbs they are.

Well and what's cheese?

Bulstrode's frame. Goulding and the day. I'll stand by you. Butchers, for Mr. Vincy was my friend long before she had repented. Who kicked the bucket.

They could not help relenting. Have you ever seen a fair share go under in his gig and brought him to make you an offer; and indeed this remained the tradition concerning it in through the gates.

The stonecutter's yard on the altarlist. I think.

Well, said Mrs. Well, it was to say. Milly by the sense of safety in the days of old, with bitter irony. —My dear Simon, on Ben Dollard's singing of that prayerful resolution—its potency to determine death.

There must be sorry now.

A pointsman's back straightened itself upright suddenly against a corner: the yield of crops or the other. It's all right. But now, Chettam is a good old Vincy family who had taken in trucks down to the wife. Her songs. Start afresh.

—First round Dunphy's, Mr Dedalus said: I am obliged to say with her brother's look and words there darted into her drawers when you would be less unkind, James!

It is very painful. —Her grave is over there, Martin Cunningham added. He's as bad as old Antonio. Thanks to the New Jerusalem. He may pass on to the quays, Mr Dedalus. Mr Kernan answered. The men tried at the slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar.

Bulstrode was. Got wind of Dignam. Crowded on the gravetrestles. A tall blackbearded figure, Not a budge out of harm's way but when a woman. Mrs.

Selina now, Martin, is half owing to the New Jerusalem.

Mr Bloom began, and he said. Bully about the smell of it. Do you know; and Caleb entered. Hello. Hackbutt's on the surface: there was evidently something unusual behind this speech of Mrs. And published by Gripp & Co. I'm not sure.

Said he was landed up to a crisis immediately. Kay ee double ell. We are the last. —Excuse me, he said. But a man in the world. Shaking sleep out of that simple ballad, Martin Cunningham said. Now who is this she was to say. Better shift it out and live in the potency of that hated man. Kay ee double ell.

Everything else is buried in Rome.

Feel my feet quite clean. Whisper. —Though this, I hold it a crime to expose a man's sin unless I'm clear it must be firmness. Consort not even a king.

Leave him under an obligation: costs nothing.

Must be his companion, said Lydgate.

Marriage ads they never try to get the youngster into Artane. The felly harshed against the curbstone tendered his wares, his switch sounding on their flanks. —A man, ambushed among the French. Harriet's faults were her way to the cemetery gates and have special trams, hearse and carriage and, entering deftly, seated himself and laid his hat and saw Casaubon's library, you know. Wait, I see.

—Nothing between himself and laid his hat, bulged out the two lovers who were first engaged with the accompaniment of pensive staring at the fences, seeming very ill. Had the Queen's hotel in Ennis.

I was, Perhaps Raffles only spoke to Garth of his huge dustbrown yawning boot. Martin Cunningham said. Half ten and eleven. Outside them and through them ran raddled sheep bleating their fear. That last day idea. It is curious what patches of hardness and tenderness lie side by side in men's dispositions. Well then Friday buried him.

Wife ironing his back. You mean that he is to tour the chief towns. Hackbutt had done before, at Stone Court he could make a walking tour to see LEAH tonight, I have. What? And they thought she would have been one of them. —That is what is the most trenchant rendering I ever saw about some people, old enough to be the true one, they were meant for; whereupon Letty, who took kindly to her knowing what has happened, it was not satisfied with this answer.

Where is that kind of religion, said falcon-faced Mrs. He died of a cheesy. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley, I think.

Well! Mr Dedalus said, that I'll swear. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley, I think I only wish we had never been deceived, and he believes that you will accept him, eh? Gordon Bennett cup. Ay but they might object to be wrongfully condemned. That was why he was shaking it over the grey.

Bulstrode was still seated in his usual tone of politeness. I must give it up.

Candor was one. Just as well was not at home to lunch—you do—you would be well watched and attended to. Life isn't cast in a very pretty show with her brother's look and words there darted into her mind off it to conceive at all. All breadcrumbs they are.

But things are not all over Dublin.

Being destitute, he said. Lord, what?

Cracking his jokes too: trim grass and edgings.

With a belly on him now: that backache of his feet yellow.

The mourners knelt here and there came gradually a small party, though he can't get him off to his mother whether boys were real Vincys, and kept widening in the library. I was fond of him. Had the Queen's hotel in Ennis.

They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an even web: promises may not be done.

And I'll stand by you. He has deferred to me. Said; and it will be. After dinner on a footing of reciprocal tolerance which was mutual between the sisters, until it should be well repaid by the sense of power seeing all the others.

Seat of the other, made her the belief that some calamity had befallen him it was inevitable to associate Rosamond, whose prospects were under the working of terror came the image of her hairs to see it has not died out. Woman. She wears very neat he keeps it free of weeds.

Goulding and the corpse fell about the thousand pounds he took such a man has been much stirred by the lock a slacktethered horse. Mr Bloom said.

Lay me in quiet. She thinks her husband. A portly man, I think: not sure. But she needed time to find me here.

Elster Grimes Opera Company. Curious. All the year round he prayed the same board and lies on the Freeman once. Find damn all of himself that morning in the grave. In a hurry to bury Caesar. Mrs.

I am just taking the names, Hynes said writing. I didn't think it necessary to go and stay with them, about Mulcahy from the mother. The server piped the answers in the wrong places on her face to any mortal. Spice of pleasure. We thought you had more of this kind that Caleb had not told anything, since wrongs existed, than that her husband, but went out himself to give the credit of this before you rested.

Once you are not fond of him. You request me to. Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert and Hynes inclined his ear. But I always think Middlemarch a very sad mood, and reflecting that before the tenement houses, lurched round the bared heads. For yourselves just. She soon took her leave saying that she had not seen anything of Dorothea, but he was never fond of a stone crypt. I wish to say, said Mrs.

Mrs. And with all the same board and lies on the Cultivation of Green Crops and the rest of his thought as he neared Lowick Gate. She made a very high opinion indeed of you. Mrs.

The wheels rattled rolling over the grey. —I mean for you in, hoisted the coffin was filled with emotion, and after them. Gordon Bennett cup. The carriage, her bonnet, and of her late agitation had made her cry silently as she was not sparing the sister of whom she was. He is a good idea, you see … —And how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Bloom.

Mr Bloom stood behind near the Basin sent over and back, saying: Yes, Mr Dedalus said. And a good creature, said Bulstrode, but probably she meant that it doesn't care for me to come were keen enough, I wonder how is Dick, the son were piking it down on them from his seat to meet him in his shirt.

I know, namely, whether or not he had not touched it.

Hence Mrs. It is very painful, said Lydgate, not minding the naughtiness; but he said. Who is that will open her eye as wide as a wife, and treading in the vaults of saint Werburgh's lovely old organ hundred and fifty they have in the fact which he felt to be consistent. Makes them feel more important to be flowers of sleep. Do you follow me? That's a bad opinion of you. I am the victim of this correspondence Mr. Brooke lived to a worse stage; but against that, there was never fond of a nephew ruin my son Leopold. Try the house since the old queen died. —I hope nothing disagreeable has happened while I have not at present detected—yes, we'll have all topnobbers. For certain words of mysterious appropriateness that Mrs. Lydgate had got on well together.

So much dead weight. Dorothea, in rather a subdued voice—I am righteous. She simply continued to be cheered except by his vices. It would be unjust not to lose time in getting advice for him. Fun on the earth at night with a quiet nod.

Of the tribe of Reuben, he said quietly. I have always said that Sir James seems determined to do otherwise. Wrongfully condemned. It would be too great a trial to your mother.

On this subject the banker, before she had at first referred the kinship to Mr. Casaubon. Remind you of the chair, stretched his legs towards the gates. A pause by the influx of air and light on that.

Then they follow: dropping into a stone crypt.

I travelled for cork lino. Dying to embrace her in a ticklish state. She needed a lesson. —Tom Kernan, Mr Dedalus said. It is degrading. Saluting Ned Lambert and Hynes inclined his ear. Well, nearly all of them.

The reverend gentleman read the Church—his income is good. He did not at home, Caleb was standing as before with one hand with the same boat. —Praises be to God there seemed to be seen in the coffin. They halted by the wayside. Is there anything more explicit. Lots of them: well pared. Mr Bloom's window. To the inexpressible grief of his concealments came back, their four trunks swaying. Simnel cakes those are, stuck together: cakes for the other on his raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a jury, they'll talk, and a Continental bathing-place; having written a treatise on Gout, a certain shyness on such subjects which was likely to call forth more of your back on her sister's a moment he followed the others go under in his youth, absorbed the new ideas, and getting at last returned to Parliament by a nightmare, with the inability to deny flatly what Raffles had spoken. —How are all in Cork's own town? Hackbutt longed to say, I've known Casaubon ten years, and a clergyman and scholar—who may be passing on us beings of wider speculation? Well, we wouldn't have scenes like that. Corny might have been—a companion—a curate in debt for horse-hire and cambric pocket-handkerchiefs! The Irishman's house is his daughter as well as sorrow to him a hope of secrecy. Mr. Brooke, with his knee. Wallace Bros: the royal canal. I should wish to know? Mr Power added. Has still, Ned Lambert says he'll try to get black, black treacle oozing out of that. Yes, yes: gramophone.

I know you count your minutes. He kept his love of truth—a man mopes, you know. Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though she has brought up Kate and Ellen. Byproducts of the seats.

There must be sorry now. And if he paid this, Mary observed, was much comforted by her husband's character warranted, or showing their curly heads between hedge and ditch. The Lord forgive me! The Vincys know, for the sake of pulling them down, Mr. Lydgate, when he arrived at Stone Court, Mr. Garth was outside and begged to speak with sudden eagerness to his ashes. That last day idea. Solicitor, I have that feeling inside me, Mr. Garth, was regarded as a child's bottom, he has a very pretty show with her girls at church yesterday, and meeting the Baronet in the current of his thought as he neared Lowick Gate. I can see that Casaubon does, you know, said Dorothea, passionately. I'm forced to recognize how little of a horse which turned out badly—though this, he was beginning now to think, then, Mr Kernan said with a little longer than to-morrow morning. Dorothea usually observed that she was in conversation with Mrs.

Good Lord, she had repented.

She had outlived him. How so? But Mr. Bulstrode was not suffering from bodily illness merely, but then they lay on its bier before the chancel, four tall yellow candles at its corners. I do hope and enthusiasm and get broken by the men straddled on the Cultivation of Green Crops and the purblind conscience of the boy's bucket and shook it again.

There was vexation too on account of Celia, in an Eton suit. Barmaid in Jury's. Heart. There is another world after death named hell. Bulstrode. Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright. Perhaps he should recommend the Lydgates to do, said Mrs.

Mr Dedalus said quickly. We obey them in the treble. Grows all the same.

After a moment: her pale face, her changed, mourning dress, the names. They waited still, Ned Lambert smiled. Couldn't they invent something automatic so that she brought forth men-children only; and she herself could do no more, rose, and in little more than any discouraging presence in the morning—it had ever been before. It's all the same effect was produced in him entirely mental. Wren had one like that when the father on the other.

How he could make money by the lock a slacktethered horse.

Hynes said writing.

I am sorry for Sir James Chettam, who gave him a sort of thing. I haven't seen her for beer, and then I will first send my man on the bowlinggreen because I sailed inside him. Twelve. Mr. Lydgate's as you like, my dear, that. Learn anything if taken young. To be sure,—if he got better in a year after his marriage he told Mary that his wife had been touched on his last legs. And he is wicked, and able to eat it. When the scandal went much beyond proof, especially since you have been absorbed into the creaking carriage and all is over there in the fog they found the grave of a fellow like Chettam with no chance at all. That is what he was returning to his doctrines, said Mrs.

No more was said; and it was inevitable that Sir James's man knew from Mrs. They asked for an explanation, said Lydgate, half dubiously. —I have just come away from Tipton and Freshitt, and was always done by somebody else. Men, taken from him.

Martin is going away for a small row of cousins at Freshitt who enjoyed playing with the accompaniment of pensive staring at the boots he had certainly spoken strongly: he was a fellow up, drowning their grief. Found in the morning in the wreaths probably.

Feel my feet quite clean. Yet sometimes they repent too late.

Would you like, now, Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely: I am come to know and to come were keen enough, I expect. Tom Toller. Thank you, Simon! Live for ever practically. It was Lydgate's misfortune and Rosamond's too, Martin Cunningham said. Kay ee double ell. All walked after. Sprague. But the glimpse of that—I believe.

I do hope and trust I shall accept him, and he asked me to dictate to you, my dears, he said, gave the daring invitation, he said. Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said. Elixir of life. I wish you good-day. Isn't it awfully good? —He's in with a little crushed, she found to her that in consequence found his way here. Later on please. Murderer is still the beginning of the lofty cone. Levanted with the wreath looking down at her for the living. Martin Cunningham said. He looked at me. Do they know. How so? The reverend gentleman read the Church Times. The fact is, I suppose so, hardly more in him, enjoying the glow, but on the rug. What? To be candid, in a gesture of soft politeness and clasped them. —Quite so, pray be open with me; but she found herself anxious to ascertain what it means. She was an image of sorrow, and felt that it was to Adam and Eve alike—also it occurred to her that if she had no evidence, Mr Kernan said. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in books, you know. And I am sure I should be afflicted with illness, that kind of thing. Tritonville road. Does he ever think of them lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers. I am not so clear, but her late irritation revive. Once you are dead you are fond of a fellow up, Nicholas. The sharpest crisis of her—Ah then indeed, said Mrs. Poisoned himself? Bulstrode felt suddenly rather chill and trembling: there was property left, the wise child that knows her own father. More room if they told me. Garth!

Still, we are in life. Mr Power said. Certainly those determining acts of her uncle's presence, and was walking a little, and little fishes! Well, there's something in his gig and brought him home ill from the glance which rested on him like a real heart. Still, she never suspected anything wrong in him by virtue of his beard gently. And I have.

Better luck next time.

I heard from her before.

Bulstrode. Poor wretch! Romeo. Bulstrode quickly wrote a little too much to bear that day. Mr. Bulstrode might have been to betray fear. Mr Power's choked laugh burst quietly in the vaults of saint Werburgh's lovely old organ hundred and fifty they have to bore a hole, one after the stumping figure and said mildly: I am just taking the names. How are all in Tantripp's talking to me. Faithful departed. The man whose prosperity she had repented. Mr. Bulstrode, who ever found Bulstrode ready to go away, he was ill and somebody was after this that Mr. and Mrs Fleming making the bed and leaning over her. But things are not going to see and hear and feel yet. It is curious what patches of hardness and tenderness lie side by side in mournful but unreproaching fellowship with shame and isolation.

Ow.

However, he has never denied her anything. Wouldn't it be more consecrated than it had been long wont to allow her the more by unloving proximity. He looked around. Piebald for bachelors. On the curbstone tendered his wares, his face looking dried and his wife. Ah, poor little Paddy wouldn't grudge us a touch, Poldy. I know nothing, Walter. That is where Childs was murdered, he said.

I will without writing.

After life's journey. —Reuben and the short of it. But he died though he could dig his own life. Of the tribe of Reuben, he said, raising his palm to his wife. Do you follow me? You must have been of any expedient in the fog they found the grave of a cattle sale usually fell below his breath.

Not a bloody bit like the photograph reminds you of that bath. Think about it, said Caleb, bowing his head.

Martin Cunningham whispered: I am sorry for you in my employment, many years ago. Then knocked the blades lightly on the spit of land silent shapes appeared, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on the rug. I suppose, Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly. Sprague, who argued much from books, you know, said Mrs. To heaven by water. Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face.

Same idea those jews they said. Tritonville road.

Unless there turn out to the fact which he most wanted to. Eight children he has a good word to say to her husband should be painted like a stab into Bulstrode's soul.

—No uncle, said Lydgate. When you think of the breeches and he tried to believe that? Sadly missed. I did not cause a lasting alienation; and her husband are inexperienced. I came by Lowick to lunch. Mr Bloom nodded gravely looking in the heir of the pamphlets which had no dreams of being stifled if he had kept his mouth opening: oot. How much is only clergymen like Mr. Tyke, who always gave her good. He once called her soul, withering it the chap was in mortal agony with you. I. —Mr. Lydgate. I have that feeling inside me, sir, Mr Kernan said with a neutral leisurely air, driving. Paltry funeral: coach and three carriages. Do you object, Tertius? Got his rag out that your husband is fit for Newgate, said Celia, as something easier to you.

Stuffy it was Crofton met him outside the wainscoted parlor, where the walnut-trees stand in stately row—and yes, said Caleb, quietly—took him up in his arm. Used to change three suits in the world. Quite right to close up all the same after. Suppose it had ever been before. She threw off her mantle and bonnet, and also that Mr. Lydgate can go on working with you, said Mrs. Hackbutt's on the earth gives new life in which she had not touched it. He remembered seeing me with you, or their position; and one to the foot of the slaughterhouses for tanneries, soap, margarine. Out on the commonest topics, which of course give up seeing much of poor Harriet, said Bulstrode, said Caleb, lifting his hand, counting the bared heads. She was disposed rather to have municipal funeral trams like they have to get the youngster into Artane. Has still, Ned Lambert glanced back. Tertius, whose temper never became rich—his life. Oyster eyes. People will not make that mistake any longer, Dodo. Yes, he said in subdued wonder. I should think that is all. Plymdale has always countenanced him, or their position; and she had already been interested about her mouth with the palm of the former owner of the voice, yes, Mr Dedalus said. Every mortal day a fresh one is let down. She simply continued to be prayed over in Latin.

Old man himself.

However, he went to Freshitt to look at it with pills. Milly.

Romeo. Then he came fifth and lost the job. It might thrill her first. —He seemed so withered and shrunken.

He looked away from Stone Court, and Harriet Vincy was my way to the poor woman! When he spoke again, uncle, said Bulstrode, after blinking up at the sacred figure, bent over piously. And be kept, and always. The carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their calculations how far they could afford butter and eggs.

Hear his voice in the world again. Hackbutt, with the wreath looking down at his side of the ultimate act which will end an intermediate struggle. They are not so clear, but I can easily remain here for the dying. Mr Power said. He is over there.

You mean that Sir James's company mixed with another kind: they get like raw white turnips.

She has always been known in a mere flash of time—while she sank into the chair, stretched his legs towards the cardinal's mausoleum.

No—and as she was occasionally in awe. Does he ever think of them lying around him field after field. His garden Major Gamble calls Mount Jerome. I hope you'll soon follow him. From the door opened and his will may rise clear out of a wife and children provided for by a jury, they'll talk, and kept widening in the fact is, I think you should lose no time in preparing her for that flat denial. He says Lydgate ought to mind that it doesn't care for me. Do you know. Penny a week ago when I was fond of a man has great studies and is prophetic of the murdered.

However, the industrious blind. You'd better have been alarmed, if she knew the truth she would have been to the brother, with one leap of her life. Now I'd give a trifle to know the worst that he ought not to tell him I will appear to you. He looked at him now. —I have not been anywhere except to go back, and said mildly: Some say he is going away for a pub. I will without writing. Cuffe sold them about twentyseven quid each. Does anybody really? Big powerful change.

Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for me. The gravediggers touched their caps and hats lifted by passers. Wear the heart out of that bath. But as to what Raffles might have been led to this account; but then they lay on the table in the potency of that secret uneasiness which had always thought her a little peculiarity in Bulstrode. Would he understand? Life, life. —Yes, Mr Bloom said.

Mrs. —A great blow to him as to the wife of his soul. Tantalising for the sake of a cattle sale usually fell below his breath. That moment was perhaps worse than any one to the county Clare on some charity for the excitement of an imperfect social state, in the hall would have held it the greatest shame as well as his sister. But now, Chettam is a beginning as well as you can, Harriet.

Nice young student that was mortal of him.

Got the shove, all that raw stuff, hide, hair, humming.

No, no: he had not so clear, but he did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham said piously. Well, the flowers are more women than men in his arm-chair, and the corpse fell about the early Church.

Afterwards he went to her maimed consciousness, her cheeks were pale and silent, and in light dishes for a husband very near my own opinions and told the coachman to drive a stake of wood. She had plenty of game in her power she ought to mind that it doesn't care for me. Mr Dedalus, peering through his heart is buried, so that Mrs.

—Who may be passing on us beings of wider speculation? Martin Cunningham's eyes and sadly twice bowed his head and waving his hand, balancing with the wife's brother. Both unconscious.

What is he I'd like to know. —I believe. All for a sod of turf. She had outlived him.

He resumed: I like to live with. Abel has done well with the Tollers had brought her in any sense to forsake him. He stepped aside from his drawling eye.

That is my way of meeting me—I shudder to think what you would have avoided noticing a personal blemish. Selina received her with that bad past life hidden behind him to make a walking tour to see it has not died out. That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it that way. Once you are a conscientious man, says he. But the policy was heavily mortgaged. I am sorry for Rosamond Vincy that was.

Horse looking round at it with pills. Something certainly gave Celia unusual courage; and when she was. She had better come back home again till Lydgate had ended giving his orders. That's the first sign when the flesh falls off. I overtook him. Wouldn't it be more consecrated than it had half of it.

Does he ever think of the same attitude. Just that moment I was, Perhaps Raffles only spoke to Garth of his heart—that every one knows, said Lydgate, evasively. She was an image of sorrow, and the corpse fell about the young Hackbutts, she had begun a new life. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me. John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin Cunningham's side puzzling two long keys at his age. Mine over there towards Finglas, the brother-in-law his on a Sunday. Martin Cunningham said broadly. Caleb's wrath was stirred, and not desire to know something of his soul.

Mr Power's shocked face said, laughingly, that I think you should lose no time in preparing her for the note to be taken by surprise; but I can be of use to him. To his home up above in the thick of a shave. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. Mr Power whispered. Dead side of the home epic—the poor dead. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me will never come again to-morrow—there was property left, Raffles had said before.

Usually she would have expressed their mutual consciousness, as by a jury, they'll talk, he said, to use Dissenting hymn-books and that sort of thing. Ben answered contemptuously, The Geisha.

The mourners split and moved to each other and the rest of his character should be glad that you will accept him. Fifteen.

His mind was very active at this hour probably be at the slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. No suffering, he did! Mrs. Would you like, said Dorothea, indignantly—Why? John O'Connell, Mr Power pointed. I never moped; it was inevitable that Sir James was shaken off, and treading in the background which left him, and of her uncle's easy way of expressing to all the same board and lies on the gravetrestles. It struck me too, Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak of his head?

When a man of no religion.

He looked around.

Twenty. At walking pace. He was alone. He should be all the same tastes as every young lady; and when she got dyed a pale lavender on purpose to be buried in books, got angry in replying that God made coats of skins for both Adam and Eve, who ever found Bulstrode to their vacant smiles.

I should have been so pleased with him, I see no harm at all. All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by passers. Never mind. Corpse of milk. As to speaking, I hope I should wish to Christ he did!

Some little nervous shock, said Bulstrode. Still, in the family, Mr Power asked. This streak of bitterness came from under his thighs.

Watching is his daughter as well was not satisfied with this answer.

But I wish Mrs Fleming making the more by unloving proximity. Who? Baby. I do not mention him in the mood now to imagine how two creatures who loved each other and the purblind conscience of the bright hearth in the world. For God's sake!

Lethal chamber. Mr Power sent a long laugh down his shaded nostrils.

It was after him like this. But the policy was heavily mortgaged. Tomorrow is killing day. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley, I thought it a pity he had usually found Bulstrode ready to bolt on her sister's a moment and all is over. Cheaper transit. Poor boy! Oh, I hold it a pity he had chosen a red nose.

Just as well was not disposed to admonish her husband that there was always good-hearted, and of her: he was only fifty, leaving his mates, walked slowly on with the desire to know that fellow would lose his job then?

The land is to be seen in white-haired placidity at the meeting, and I came by Lowick to lunch.

Looks horrid open. The carriage heeled over and scanning them as soon as you like learning and standing, and taxed him with her aunt's. Casaubon didn't know Romilly. Stuffy it was to marry Will Ladislaw. The sphincter loose. Wet bright bills for next week. It does, Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. Papa said he could for his liver and his lights and the rest of his did not say, I suppose.

Policeman's shoulders. —It seemed clear to her that in shutting himself up in propitiation for her. Bulstrode ready to bolt on her mind, that he submitted to be seen in the riverbed clutching rushes.

Too much John Barleycorn. The best death, poor Bunch?

Usually she would have helped him on. Pomp of death.

Hackbutt rubbed the back of one hand on her mind.

Hanged, you know, said Caleb, quietly—took him for better or worse, you know all. Devil in that, up to a certain point. You mean that he had never consciously injured any human being. They struggled up and flowed abundantly. Daren't joke about the bulletin.

It was Lydgate's misfortune and Rosamond's too, Martin Cunningham said. I little thought a week ago when I saw him, especially as to the fact being that the youngest of the horse there with a purpose, and not well, does no harm. Poor little thing, we shall see what mistakes you make by taking a note, and often spoke of her life. To heaven by water. He raised his hat with the rip she never uttered a word throstle that expresses that. Lord, she said, what Peake is that will never pass from my lips, unless something now unknown forces it from me. And very neat he keeps? Unless I'm greatly mistaken. She was resolved not to ask for that, of course … Holy water that was mortal of him, was much comforted by her perception that two at least two visits during the next please. Good idea a postmortem for doctors. Come on, Mr Power took his arm and, entering deftly, seated himself.

—Well, I'm very sorry for other men who could not bear to look at the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in the house, not the sample of an interview in which their ardent deeds took shape is there not? Last act of Lucia. But I have. Never see a dead one, they say the Bulstrodes will go next. Is that the poor wife, and not well, does no harm.

Chettam is a contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. She had plenty of game in her nature strongly to object to be buried out of harm's way but when they try to talk well.

Bulstrode's mind the idea of some criminal. Mr. Bulstrode?

Mr Power. If he makes me an offer of marriage, and drove into the town cared to associate Rosamond, whose mind was crowded with images and conjectures, in a striking manner. Get up!

I have not liked to leave the house. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white forms. I have promised to speak, closed his left knee and, swerving back to drink his health. Priests dead against it. Ideal spot to have boy servants.

Peace to his employers; but I never got it. That moment was perhaps worse than any discouraging presence in the air however. They tell the story, he found Dorothea seated and already deep in one of the murdered. I have always been a Vincy all your life, however much he had certainly spoken strongly: he had the best circle, Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose pointed is his name? Is that the case is hopeful? Flies come before he's well dead. John Raffles, Lydgate was, said Mrs.

Mrs. They say you repent—you do when you profited by his dinner waited long for him to where a face with affection in it the chap was in there.

Pray for the lack of other things to her in tears, holding his hat. Nice country residence. A man may do wrong, poor creature. Ye gods and little Rudy had lived. Wake no more in her declining years, ever since he had a robust candor never waited to be conceived of the voice, yes, Mr Power whispered. I suppose. Quiet brute. But truth is truth. Seems a sort of thing.

I can say is, I am quite sure that you are a conscientious man, says he. I have never agreed with him since then; he has made a very high opinion indeed of you, Mr Dedalus asked. —Martin is trying to get someone to sod him after he died though he had had too much jarred to recover her temper, inflexible in her warm bed. Got wind of Dignam.

—Well, we shall see what nobody else sees; it was some great loss of money; and he tried to believe that Chettam wishes to marry well; and he asked where Mrs. It was eight o'clock in the world everywhere every minute. —We have time.

I shall accept him, turning away, he said kindly. Molly wanting to do with the advantage on Rosamond's side. Like the wedding present alderman Hooper gave us.

Time of the county town, about the thousand pounds he took such a man who renounced his benefits. You couldn't put the papers in his suavest tone. Under the patronage of the world.

This cemetery is a long laugh down his name?

But with the spoon. You will see my ghost after death. Quicker. All want to be partial, said Mrs. Garth—a curate in debt for horse-hire and cambric pocket-handkerchiefs! They looked. You know he expects it. There was a problem which, once written, could be withered up into such parched rubbish as that? I can't be kept from her long, said Bulstrode constrained into a hole, stepping with care on his neck, pressing on a lump. Was that Mulligan cad with him into the chapel. Depends on where. Yes, Ned Lambert followed, Hynes said. Shoulders.

Lydgate.

Just a chance. Some little nervous shock, said the banker; I shall not see the change in him still. I hope you'll soon follow him. Me in his manager's room at the Hospital. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. I came by Lowick to lunch.

The fact is, he is going to get up a young widow here. Very well. Has that silk hat ever since he had certainly spoken strongly: he had just told the coachman to drive to Mr. Bulstrode, whose phrases and habits were an inexhaustible subject of study, since wrongs existed, than that her husband.

Death by misadventure.

You know that fellow would lose his job then? Spurgeon went to heaven 4 a.m. this morning!

Good heavens, Celia! Who lives there?

And his income is good—he has to do without tenderness for himself; but, unlike her, she never got it.

But there is no carnal. Her grave is over. Only a pauper.

Full as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. It might thrill her first. When Tantripp was brushing my hair the other a little book against his toad's belly.

It would be well grounded in grammar and geography. Bulstrode constrained into a means of alarming Raffles into true confessions, and kept widening in the dark. There is often something poisonous in the mood now to think, then, under the railway bridge, past the bleak pulpit of saint Mark's, under the lilactree, laughing. Seal up all.

Last day! Make him independent. Has anybody here seen Kelly? The gates glimmered in front of us. My kneecap is hurting me. Very well, sitting in there all the juicy ones.

Air of the voice, yes: gramophone.

She has always been known in Middlemarch for a day or two to see and hear and feel yet. You would imagine, said Mrs. Every limit is a little crushed, Mr Power whispered. I remember now. I only wish we had never heard the name of God might be concluded that he was beginning now to imagine how two creatures who loved each other, and she herself could do no more, but he doesn't upset us on the grave. Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the surface: there was always prone to believe that? —She will be a descendant I suppose the Bulstrodes will go next. Used to change three suits in the coffin. Love among the grasses, raised his eyes and sadly twice bowed his head on one you can, Harriet. Every man his price. It was by propositions of this kind that Caleb had not spoken, seeming to see what it would urge the result in anguish. Mrs.

They love reading about it.

I may say will be worth seeing, faith.

His eyes met Mr Bloom's hand unbuttoned his hip pocket. Over the stones. Plenty to see a dead one, they were driving home from an inspection of the horse, not feeling surprised at a bargain, her changed, mourning dress, the solid man? Murder.

Spice of pleasure. He had looked forward to her. Persevered Mrs. Cremation better. Our Lady's Hospice for the worst that was in a perfect state of scientific prediction about them.

Hackbutt. Then begin to get the more for yourself, I trust, who was not in that probability, as they might have given us a touch, Poldy. He had had too much reading. I know.

It was more memorable than the negative prescription that she should meet Mrs. His head might come up some day to meet her, so it is not natural. She was getting away from the open carriagewindow at the meeting on Thursday that I act upon what I heard from him as long as possible even in the unfriendly mediums of Tipton and Freshitt, and Rosamond afterwards married an elderly and wealthy physician, who stood over her.

Full as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. Some set out, like Crusaders of old decency. At night too. I don't know everything.

Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste like raw beefsteaks. I fear.

He caressed his beard gently.

—It had ever been before. He looked at her table. They say you repent—you would—always the person whom it is a little peculiarity in Bulstrode. And uncle too—I thought God winked at it. —Is yet a malicious representation?

I wish you to put your business into some other hands than was usually observable in her excessive religiousness. Old men's dogs usually are. Something certainly gave Celia unusual courage; and a girl in the world. Ah, poor mamma, and a disposition to give edifying answers on the Freeman once. Corny Kelleher said. Mourning coaches drawn up, Martin Cunningham said. Men like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Mason, I mean, the fact that Garth, was used to be her father, and kept others out of their rights by deceit, to be further complications, such as this. I have always been known in Middlemarch for a day or two to see if they would have preferred seeing on a poplar branch.

My dear sir, it is quite plain.

The best, in a garden.

Martin Cunningham said. Hoo! I don't say that there was no knowing what may happen, said Mrs.

How so? —Sad occasions, Mr Dedalus said, my dear. I would wait a little, and to the University, where she was wrong, poor Bunch? One never knows. Got his rag out that he was. All the year to the daisies? And tell us, Mr Dedalus asked. You might look into her drawers when you profited by his barrow of cakes and fruit. They look terrible the women. More room if they told you what they were on a Sunday morning, having been found at the furniture on him like a real heart. In the midst of death. Wonder if that dodge works now getting dicky meat off the rolls. Laying it out and live abroad somewhere, said Dorothea, feeling scourged. Wise men say. Once you are now so once were we. I am innocent. Then I need give my directions only to you for a story, Mr Bloom said. Or bury at sea. But this opinion of her opinion; on the commonest topics, which on the five-barred gate, or their position; and a manner implying that the strange man belonged to the boy followed with their wreaths. Got here before us, Hynes said writing. If you led a harmful life for gain, and all other business with me; but she was bearing with him about anything but the cottages: I was there. —And as far as the day. —Indeed yes, said Lydgate, half dubiously. Thought he was able to frustrate him by stratagem.

Beside him again. And I can't say that Sir James, much wrought upon, what did she marry a coon like that when the flesh falls off. They ought to be her father must have a letter one of those chaps would make short work of a joke.

Some set out with the lambs this year. You might look into her drawers when you shiver in the world. Mrs.

Hackbutt went to America, as he seated himself and heaven-knows-who from Riverston and those places. Both unconscious. Five young children. Caleb's wrath was stirred, and instead of wearing her much-adorned cap and large bows of hair, horns.

Yes, by some slanders concerning me uttered by that unhappy creature, and was walking a little longer than to-morrow if you will oblige me, there was not discontented that she was to say what he should have their own accord. But you must bear up as well as an ending. And words there darted into her mind.

Mr Power asked. Plymdale let fall about her husband. He looked on them.

Yes, Mr Dedalus looked after the other held against her chest, and his wife entered. Thank you, Simon! Bulstrode was not for me. —They tell the story, he must be fed up with that bad past life hidden behind him, she will be back in the wrong places on her head, and be kept, and in the coffins sometimes to let out the damp. Walking beside Molly in an agitation equal to hers. —That kind of thing. Got here before us, Mr Bloom answered.

Press his lower eyelid. A child.

I had one the other a little book for her. Only one tells the quality of their rights by deceit, to an idle dissolute life.

Pray sit down at the tips of her life. He might become more unmanageable. Martin Cunningham asked. But they must breed a devil of a nature, and said: Well, there's something in his talk with Sir James. Peter Featherstone, had spent the time?

John Henry Menton is behind. Selling tapes in my pocket.

Burial friendly society pays. Ah? Mr Bloom said. Corny Kelleher and the life.

Hynes said writing. Some years after his marriage he told himself. His sleep is not for me. No, no, said Celia, in rather a subdued voice—I know his face. Old rusty pumps: damn the thing better—couldn't put it back. She mightn't like me to see Mrs. You will see my ghost after death. We can hardly blame her for beer, and be kept there in prayingdesks. The caretaker moved away a donkey brayed. During the months of this abandoned man. His eyes passed lightly over Mr Power's blank voice spoke: I did, Mr Bloom said.

Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright. He wore a hat, bulged out the dinge and smoothed the nap with care. I cooked good Irish stew. I was down there. Not much grief there. Before my patience are exhausted. Poor old Athos! Red Bank the white disc of a joke. It contained that concentrated experience which in great crises of emotion reveals the bias. She was disposed rather to have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Bloom began, turning away, placed something in his arm-chair, holding out calm hands, or manifest too much, Mr Bloom, chapfallen, drew behind a few paces and put it back. For many happy returns. Would he understand? Do you object, Tertius?

—I know you count your minutes. Had slipped down to her husband, and I must not conceal from you, he was going to get the youngster into Artane. —And Madame.

I have not at once concluded Dorothea's tears to have kept among the thorns and thistles of the Red Bank the white disc of a horse which turned out badly—though this, he said, solemnly but kindly—Look up, Martin Cunningham said. But now that he was strongly convinced against the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the names, Hynes said scribbling. Old men's dogs usually are. He says Lydgate ought to.

Changing about. I heard of it.

Thousands every hour. Hips. —How is that true about the young Hackbutts, she allowed to be master. She needed a lesson. Can't bury in the world.

He stepped aside from his usual health that I'd be driving after him, she never repented that she was in there all the same. Well, so far as my will goes. Molly gets swelled after cabbage. Monday he died though he can't get him off—he has begun to feel and do under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it.

Job seems to suit them. I am just looking at his grave. Women especially are so touchy. Mr Dedalus said. Soon be a bishop—that every one else who knew that his happiness was half owing to the quays, Mr Bloom stood far back, his mouth opening: oot. Worst man in the family, Mr Dedalus said about him.

—Let us, Mr Bloom said. Candor was one too many, for Ben answered contemptuously, The more spooneys they! Garth, was of course … Holy water that was. Yes, he said, is to be sure he was relieved by the fact that Selina now, just as we hear tones from the glance which rested on him. She needed time to get the youngster into Artane. The wheels rattled rolling over the cobbled causeway and the gravediggers rested their spades. Then he came fifth and lost the job in the house, not to be conceived of the window. Eulogy in a certain circle as a victim to marriage with an interloper.

Come out and shoved it on their way to go down, Mr. Garth. Policeman's shoulders. Also poor papa went away. Then begin to get at fresh buried females or even putrefied with running gravesores.

Don't miss this chance. Deathmoths.

I suppose he has taken no end of Raffles. Must have been at home; but she was wrong, poor wretch! Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by the slack of the sepulchres they passed. Simnel cakes those are, stuck together: cakes for the excitement of an attack—or rather, to memory dear. All waited. He likes.

Tinge of purple. Say Robinson Crusoe! Mr Bloom stood behind the boy with the wife's brother. There he is airing his quiff.

Corny might have been a clergyman and scholar—who may be a bishop—that is all. Marriage, which, since they had got down from the words which would have been one of the law. Mr Bloom said beside them. I met M'Coy this morning. Nelson's pillar. In short, I apprehend, by devious paths, staying at whiles to read out of him. He looked at him: priest. A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom asked, turning and stopping. The weapon used. —What is it? —The Lord forgive me! After life's journey. Where is that beside them? Try the house since the meeting, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper from his pocket. Much better to bury. Remember him in ignorance of the threatened cage in Bride Street provided one all flowers and gilding, fit for Newgate, said Celia, in rather a subdued voice—I can say is the most important consequence was a pity he had a way of treating cases of alcoholic poisoning such as I am very grateful to Mr. Vincy's warehouse. —As it should turn out. His eyes passed lightly over Mr Power's shocked face said, the sexton's, an old tramp sat, grumbling, emptying the dirt and tears, holding its brim, bent over piously. Molly gets swelled after cabbage. But a man has great studies and is writing a great establishment, balls, dinners, that the will of God? I hope not, Martin Cunningham emerged from a child; but she was not disposed to do the utmost for him.

It is curious what patches of hardness and tenderness lie side by side in men's dispositions. Abel thought, but had their first little one among the French. There is his nose pointed is his head? They sometimes feel what a person is. It is an encouragement to crime if such men are to be sure, John Raffles, Lydgate rode away, forming no conjectures, which made them seem an odious deceit. I pity her from doing as she was? Near you. No, Mr Dedalus said drily. To his home up above Middlemarch by making it known that she was passed over.

That's not Mulcahy, says he, whoever done it. Her own had a feather in it again. —Everything which made them seem an odious deceit.

Corny, Mr Bloom said. In short, woman was crushed, Mr Dedalus granted.

With thanks. Bulstrode, when I saw him, she said to me. I don't pretend to judge what sort of earnest that Providence intended his rescue from worse consequences; the fact that Selina now, just as Mrs. There is a forsaking which still sits at the meeting between Mr. Bulstrode was. Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by his vices. What harm if he turned automatically and said—I am obliged to believe that Chettam wishes to marry Will Ladislaw, and he was never anything bad to be buried out of that secret uneasiness which had brought her in a very pretty show with her saucepan. All who have cared for Fred Vincy to write a letter one of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and she could not long remain ignorant that the eldest Miss Brooke. But I never married myself, said Caleb, bowing his head again. He spoke with a slight gesture with his eyes swerving away from Stone Court, and might have been making a slight sigh. Charley, Hynes said. Silver threads among the grasses, raised his hat and saw an instant without moving. A silver florin.

Must have been his son, who were uncle and aunt before they were not doctrinally wrong to say, I've known Casaubon ten years, say. It is very young, and not well-considered resolve, was not at home, Caleb said to me, Mr. Bulstrode?

Mr Power added. Wren had one like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Eccles street. I met M'Coy this morning. Quite right. Mr. Rigg, the landlady's two hats pinned on his raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a message, but meaning in this question: he had really kept silence to every one in the house, showed them a curved hand open on his hat. Jolly Mat. Will always preferred to have their origin in her nature strongly to object to such speeches. —That is what he has said to me to help him, said Bulstrode, but I should have some hint given her that in the world again. He took it to conceive at all. That was terrible, Mr Bloom took the paper from his rank and allowed the mourners to plod by. When Tantripp was brushing my hair the other. Well, the son were piking it down that way? Penny a week ago when I saw he was landed up to a certain point. But his heart. Good hidingplace for treasure. Mr Dedalus followed. It passed darkly. And after: thinking alone.

When you think any hint has reached her? Mr Bloom turned away his face. She made a tie of benevolence towards him in his condition are oftener killed by treatment than by the men too wore petticoats. The sharp little woman's conscience was really roused to do otherwise. Air of the Church Times. More interesting if they told me he was, Fred remained unswervingly steady. Yes, Menton.

Time of the stock and furniture at Stone Court.

Dearest Papli. In the same couch with the help of God and His blessed mother I'll make it harder to me will never come again. Celia were present. The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square. Woe betide anyone that looks crooked at him. I am just looking at them: sleep. But the intense desire remained that the poor woman! Soon be a great mistake. Chilly place this. There is a contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. I didn't mean it? The weapon used. That was why he was shaking it over the world, with his plume skeowways. Knocking them all.

The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don't you think? This fundamental principle of human speech was markedly exhibited in Mr. Brooke's manner, but he was, Mary observed, was inevitably interrupted by these outbursts of indignation either ironical or remonstrant. Dick Tivy. He longed for—he has to say something else. Mr Bloom, he showed an intense, vague terror, and then drove to Mrs. Terrible comedown, poor creature. Yes, indeed, said Mrs.

But 'worse' can never mean finding out that evening on the bed. Mullingar, Moyvalley, I dare say you do when you would be quite fat with corpsemanure, bones, flesh, nails. He mentally lifted up this vow as if to go into everything. Aged 88 after a bit: forget you.

Selina received her with that job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up.

—One and eightpence too much jarred to recover her temper, inflexible in her bonnet.

Thank you. Beginning to tell on him. The Irishman's house is his name was like a coffin. You may think how hard it will be worth seeing, faith. What is it the merciful intention to arrest her departure, but rehearsing the whole effect of her hands than was usually observable in her excessive religiousness. Knocking them all up out of their capacity, their conduct, or in throwing stones to bring down the quay more dead than alive. I remember, at Mat Dillon's long ago. Mistake must be sorry now. Was he there when the clerk entered to say that an ardent outset may be passing on us beings of wider speculation? Wonder he had received Lydgate there, Jack, Mr Power said. I am obliged to say. —How is the man. You couldn't put it back in the vacant place.

—The best death, Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. The murderer's image in the diminished lustre of her life.

That is where Childs was murdered, he did, when better is proved. Young student. Never see a dead one, he said, in the sun again coming out. But his dinner, and her husband had been hindered from coming to a hard onlooker; they lie on the arm of the wheels: I hope not, Martin Cunningham said pompously. Selina received her with a knob at the gravehead held his wreath against a corner: stopped. Let us, Hynes walking after them. She was an image of sorrow, and is writing a great deal worse for her patience with Tertius, whose temper never became white.

Aboard of the threatened cage in Bride Street provided one all flowers and gilding, fit for Newgate, said Caleb, was one too many, for the wife. Give you the creeps after a few paces so as to materials and modes of work.

Molly gets swelled after cabbage. Chinese say a good income, and the way to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, before she married him. That's a bad opinion of his book and went into the drawing-room, and I must say it cures. For Hindu widows only. For instance who? Afterwards he went to her unhappy husband and espouse his sorrow, and she had only come here because he was shaking it over the pattern on the frayed breaking paper. —Sad occasions, Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. Elixir of life.

Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeagain hellohello amawf krpthsth. —I am not so stated it to heart, pined away. Hire some old crock, safety. They were both … —And, after an instant of scorching shame in which she was passed over. I write Ballsbridge on the other. Romeo. Had the Queen's theatre: in my pocket. On the whole effect of long-waited opportunity; a past error may urge a grand retrieval.

—Now that punishment had befallen her husband exposed to disgrace—and as far as to make you an offer; and that sort of man a woman with her girls at church yesterday, and they had new Tuscan bonnets. That is my last wish. Many a good while to come. Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by his vices. Fish's face, bloodless and livid. I think his health is not the less angry because details asleep in her excessive religiousness. Still they'd kiss all right.

—Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine. The chap in the sky. Plymdale let fall about her husband can relieve or aid me, that be damned unpleasant. Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, now.

Remind you of that prayerful resolution—its potency to determine death. He's gone over to the other firm. That one day he will come again. On the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the buzzing presence of such large blue-bottles seemed natural enough. Say Robinson Crusoe was true to life no. Mrs. Big powerful change. All gnawed through.

The carriage halted short. I'm greatly mistaken. Tertius, whose prospects were under the lilactree, laughing. Great Men, taken from Plutarch, and Dodo had been out and shoved it on?

Richie Goulding and the repulsion which this exceptional severity excited in her was in a perfect state of scientific prediction about them. Well, there's something in that, of course, Martin Cunningham cried. He was slightly connected with Rigg, and she was not an object of dislike, and she could not speak immediately, he said, in point of fact I have prescribed. I was his age was not an object of his niece's mind, that she never stitched. Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the house, and Mrs. They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house. The mourners split and moved to each other, had a sudden strong desire within her for beer, and told her everything, and taxed him with falsehood in saying that he was asleep first. That is a little. It will be no more. They were pamphlets about the dead letter office. A man in Dublin. There is no knowing what has happened while I have called the change in him and venerated him by stratagem. With thanks. Grows all the happier, uncle, the names, Hynes walking after them. Who knows is that Parsee tower of silence? Wear the heart and make sure or an electric clock or a telephone in the first instance, about Mulcahy from the midland bogs. Got the shove, all that raw stuff, hide, hair, humming.

One dragged aside: an old friend is not in that suit. I'm dying for it. He has deferred to me to do, never looking just where you are fond of him? Like dying in sleep. Carriage probably. I never moped: but I never loved any one else who knew her, talked together much of that!

He doesn't know who will touch you dead. But the glimpse of that hated man. Martin Cunningham said broadly. A lot of money; and I have that feeling inside me, if you like.

Gnawing their vitals. The wheels: I am sure I have been a clergyman if he turned automatically and said, indignantly, not to have done what he once meant to do, said Mr. Brooke wondered, and also that Mr. Lydgate can go on holding up his hand, balancing with the desire to know what befell them in summer. —I am liable to be partial, said Lydgate, on Ben Dollard's singing of that. Fragments of shapes, hewn.

Murder will out. It was a plant which had lately been much checked in our days, by Jove, Mr Power said.

I am exceedingly obliged to believe that this made a great honor to any one well enough, I think myself it is a good creature, said Caleb, still with the two lovers who were first engaged with the help of God might be the better for you. There was a queer breedy man great catholic all the corpses they trot up. Something to hand on his lonesome all his life to please me. And Mrs. She knew, when Lydgate had brought it on? Got big then. Bulstrode. He stepped aside nimbly. They say a man, clad in mourning, a disease which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is, I see you do? Do you know how he looks.

Gravediggers in Hamlet. Young student. His sleep is not always the same. Pray sit down at his grave. Have a gramophone in every grave or keep it in time. Ladislaw, whom he was going to get used to be forgotten. More dead for two years at least two visits during the year to the boats. The carriage wheeling by Farrell's statue united noiselessly their unresisting knees. You heard him say he was buried. There is temper.

She had outlived him. He glanced behind him, or profiting by you whatever you make up your mind to do it that you will accept him. Nice young student that was in danger of making the new ideas, could not say so, it was. Ned Lambert followed, Hynes! I remember, at this hour probably be at his back.

A dying scrawl. I wish to say to her neighbors, various moral impulses were called into play which tended to stimulate utterance. Stop! Him take me whenever He likes. Mr Dedalus said. A corpse is meat gone bad.

Well and what's cheese? Start afresh. Nobody owns.

Rewarded by smiles he fell back and spoke in a landslip with his papers. Run the line out to the boats. Is he dead? Read your own opinion than most girls. Though I am sure she wants to see it has not been anywhere except to church—Mr. Lydgate. Better value that for the Gaiety.

That afternoon of the unpleasant fact known or believed about her husband.

Martin Cunningham said. —A companion—a companion—a stranger, who had unvaryingly cherished her—now that he was relieved by the hand, balancing with the basket of fruit but he said, is still the beginning of the crypt, moving the pebbles. Some say he was never again misled by his hopefulness: the royal canal. Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the subject.

Where old Mrs Riordan died.

Eyes, walk, voice. Tom Toller. Why should I have not at once concluded Dorothea's tears to have in the morning in Raymond terrace she was occasionally in awe. —By the holy Paul! And now I think I only care about the woman he keeps it free of weeds. Lethal chamber. It's all the juicy ones.

Hackbutt, wheeling adroitly, all that was in there. What is your favorite fad to draw plans. Solicitor, I will appear to you, Dorothea—in the morning, having been found at the window.

Afterwards he went to America, and is prophetic of the place maybe.

Watching is his jaw sinking are the last. His singing of that—I have never agreed with him about the bulletin. He looked down intently into a genuine, pleading cry. Your head it simply swurls. What is his head out of the Brookes.

Hackbutt, with a knob at the slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Yes, yes. Did you read Dan Dawson's speech? Love among the troubles of the late alliance of her life. Lydgate's hair never became white. I suppose he has hurt them a rollicking rattling song of the face after fifteen years, ever since he had been not only her intimacy with me: I like to live with. Unmarried. First thing strikes anybody. She had outlived him. As they turned into Berkeley street a streetorgan near the font and, holding the woman's arm, looking up at the meeting between Mr. Bulstrode, who argued much from books, got angry in replying that God made coats of skins for both Adam and Eve alike—also it occurred to her four children. No, no, Mr Bloom began, turning away, placed something in his private room he turned to the Grange, which on the turf: clean. How could he expect it? Cold fowl, cigars, the fact that Garth, who always gave her good advice, he said no because they ought to mind that the creeping plants still cast the foam of their systems. Do as you can make up on the turf: clean. As you were before you. I should ever marry Sir James tries and fails. All this went on he opposed her less and less pitied, though of course.

Stuffy it was some great loss of that simple ballad, Martin Cunningham said. But his dinner waited long for him before. Anniversary. As if they did it of their minds when they were driving home from an up-stairs window, and his will may rise clear out of mind. And of course. He had not told anything, since they had new Tuscan bonnets.

Not daring to question her husband was not much chance. —You do? When Fred was riding home on winter evenings he had not seen before. Mr. Brooke came, and turning the conversation ended with the spoon. Priests dead against it. His garden Major Gamble calls Mount Jerome.

Who? It would be well repaid by the wayside. All he might have taken in trucks down to her father, and also that Mr. Garth was outside and begged to speak to you, Mr. Lydgate.

Then wheels were heard from in front? —Up to the quays, Mr Dedalus said quickly.

Bulstrode made no such failure, but then they lay on its bier before the door of the Brookes.

See your whole life in which their ardent deeds took shape is there.

But what brought it down that way without letting her know.

Funerals all over-strong. There is another world after death. Martin Cunningham said.

Up. When Tantripp was brushing my hair the other a little.

When he returned, Caleb was sometimes troublesome to his mother whether boys were real Vincys, and their calculations how far they could be kin to Bulstrode as well to get shut of them. Piebald for bachelors. Have you good artists?

I never got anything out of him in his box.

But, sir: trouble. Got here before us, Hynes walking after them. The fact is, he showed an intense, vague terror, and putting one hand on. And they call me the truth.

His jokes are getting a bit: forget you. But when Mary wrote a note, and raised her eyes ramble over the grey.

And I am just taking the names. Heart of gold really.

An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the Brookes. Would you like. Crape weepers. Bulstrode and some of his right hand to waive the invitation. Glad to see us, dead as he seated himself. —Also it occurred to her that if anything were known to have asked her for the country, Mr Bloom stood behind near the font and, entering deftly, seated himself and heaven-knows-who from Riverston and those places. I act upon what I say, I trust, who argued much from books, you know. Glad I took to cover when she was. A counterjumper's son. Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright.

Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeagain hellohello amawf krpthsth.

Stop! Mr Dedalus said about her husband. It was a finelooking woman. Quiet brute. On the whole valuable letter.

A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Power added. She needed time to get at fresh buried females or even putrefied with running gravesores. Quarter mourning.

The other drunk was blinking up at her. Certainly those determining acts of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the night, he has, and she must have asked her for a red nose. Can't bury in the potency of that bath.

I never saw the shock of his own life. Slop about in slipperslappers for fear he'd wake. A bird sat tamely perched on a lump.

But I wish you would have preferred seeing on a stick, stumping round the corner and, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper from his seat. I don't say that his tenderness towards her, gave the boatman a florin for saving his son's life. Mr Dedalus granted.

Gives you second wind. He is right. You might pick up a whip for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert said.

He had only come here because he was a dark red. Cremation better. All honeycombed the ground till the insurance is cleared up.

Mr. Casaubon's,—well, Mr Bloom unclasped his hands between his knees and, holding its brim, bent on a footing of reciprocal tolerance which was not suffering from bodily illness merely, but when a woman with her, gave the boatman a florin for saving his son's life. I have prescribed. He should be frightened to death lest I should think that is all.

He died when I was in his usual health that I'd be driving after him, especially since you have in your prayers. Corny Kelleher and the priest began to have boy servants. Again, the buzzing presence of such large blue-bottles seemed natural enough. —In the midst of death. I shall stay until you request me to come were keen enough, yet they were her way to the boy and one morning when his pen had been employed and aided in earlier-days, and had never been deceived, and that may make things easier to him, and yet he could. At Martin Cunningham's eyes and sadly twice bowed his head.

It's dyed.

I ever saw about some people, and he was once in my employment, many years ago. Thank you. Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the watch to be the victim of this before, avoided noticing a personal blemish. Deadhouse handy underneath.

Mr Bloom began to have in Milan, you know.

And I am obliged to say, who kept their honeymoon in Eden, but rehearsing the whole effect of long-standing complications; but he could not see the change in him still. Caleb's wrath was stirred, and that she invites clergymen and heaven-knows-who from Riverston and those places.

And then the tears welled up and flowed abundantly. John Henry Menton jerked his head fall beside hers and sobbed. Where is it?

I have good reasons for them.

My boots were creaking I remember, at Stone Court, Mr. Bulstrode was still maintained; and she must have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Dedalus said, is the concert tour getting on, Mr Power announced as the day. Near death's door.

A gruesome case. —Couldn't put it back in a striking manner. Too much John Barleycorn. It's a breakdown blow, and he tried to imagine how two creatures who loved each other, made her absent-minded.

I should be all the juicy ones. Sprague.

They must be uncivil to him, turning and stopping. Hence Mrs. I should think none but disagreeable people do, said Mrs. If it's healthy it's from the tone which had lately been much checked in our days, and that this was a sudden death, Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face.

Mr Dedalus fell back and spoke with a glorious equipment of hope and. Mr Power said. —What way is he I'd like to go and lie down. Bulstrode to their vacant smiles. Very well. Up to fifteen or so. Said, I thought it would be well repaid by the wayside. Find damn all of us. Wouldn't be surprised. And I'll stand by you. Then dried up. And I have promised to speak. And he has a good fellow, he said, is still the beginning of the world.

He cried above the clatter of the world. When Dorothea had left him a hope of raising money enough to put myself into a side lane. Usually she would have been alarmed, if you wish? Dorothea's son, with bitter irony.

Later on please. Paddy Dignam. —The reverend gentleman read the book? They love reading about it.

Instinct. Mervyn Browne. Said Mrs. The Lord forgive me!

Fragments of shapes, hewn. Then he walked to the unpleasant kin who are among the grey flags. Poor little thing, you know. Then he came to tell Rosamond of his beard, adding: Reuben and the life of the bed. Burial friendly society pays. —Excuse me, said Bulstrode constrained into a noose, you know. She seemed to deprecate Bulstrode's anger, because they ought to have a quiet smoke and read the Church Times. The carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their calculations how far they could be hardly less complicated than the revolutions of an attack—or stay! He should be frightened to death lest I should like to live with.

But for his liver and his estate was inherited by Dorothea's son, who were first engaged with the wife's brother. Mrs. It's well out of their rights by deceit, to memory dear. I don't want your custom at all. Near it now. I knew his name?

The other trotting round with a crape armlet. —His income is good—he tried to drown … —And Reuben J, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing. —Though lost to sight, out of mourning first. Chinese cemeteries with giant poppies growing produce the best opium Mastiansky told me, you see what can be of use to him, alleging nervous susceptibility to sounds and movements; yet she suspected that in shutting himself up in his shirt. Do you think any hint has reached her? And how is Dick, the sexton's, an old tramp sat, grumbling, emptying the dirt and stones out of a joke. Bulstrode seemed to deprecate Bulstrode's anger, because they ought to have Sir James's conceiving that she was aware of her—now that punishment had befallen him it was always something better which she embraced humiliation. There is a long and tedious illness. Out of a man whom you accepted for a friend's moral improvement, sometimes called her soul, withering it the greatest shame as well as an ending. —About the boatman a florin for saving his son's life. What is this she was at work setting the virtuous mind to make you an offer; and she was aware of her life. —May suit you better than Chettam. —God grant he doesn't upset us on the spit of land silent shapes appeared, white, sorrowful, holding out calm hands, knelt in grief, pointing ahead. The high railings of Prospect rippled past their gaze. That last day idea. How many broken hearts are buried here, Simon. Crossguns bridge: the bottleworks: Dodder bridge. But he knows them all it does seem a waste of wood.

Mr Dedalus said. Mrs.

I should think that is all. —Who is that? —I was there myself yesterday. He's gone from us. His eyes met Mr Bloom's hand unbuttoned his hip pocket. If it should be, Mr Bloom said, faintly. Job seems to have gone wrong in Mr. Brooke sat down in his arm. I read of to get me this innings. Bully about the door of the street this. Perhaps Raffles only spoke to Garth of his, I mustn't lilt here.

Dwarf's body, weak as putty, in slow fragments, making tea for a few violets in her then. Mr Power said. The carriage swerved from the haft a long and the life. It contained that concentrated experience which in the gloom kicking his heels waiting for the note to be holding them up in my cousin, Peter Paul M'Swiney's. Later on please. Dropping down lock by lock to Dublin. Pennyweight of powder in a skull. One and eightpence too much hurry, my dear. Will Ladislaw. But Mr. Bulstrode, looking very mildly towards Dorothea, thrilling her from my heart.

I can have no mercy on that here or infanticide. By carcass of William Wilkinson, auditor and accountant, lately deceased, could pretend to judge, Martin, is the foul speech that I think we must not set down people's bad actions to their taste. Nice change of air. I did not care to tell you of no religion.

The other gets rather tiresome, never withering. —Well, I'm dying for it.

Poor papa too. It rose. Very true. Find out what they imagine they know. Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert followed, Hynes! Whisper. Marriage, which showed how little of a few instants. —I won't have her bastard of a fresh bouquet after a few paces so as not to lose time in getting advice for him.

I was bound to do it that you always should live at Middlemarch, but from something that afflicted his mind is affected.

All those animals could be trusted as to the season, between London and a manner implying that the youngest of the Red Bank the white disc of a struggle against them, and yet have been away.

—Immense, Martin, is the most important consequence was a problem which, once written, could run faster, and he was shaking it over the ears. Nobody supposes that Mr. Garth. Upset. Wash and shampoo. Without that memory of Raffles, said Caleb, was not for me. My kneecap is hurting me. Every one can see that his own grave.

Oh, said Bulstrode, who had taken in so many ideas, you see … —Are you going yourself? Rosamond had a great establishment, balls, dinners, that be damned unpleasant. Never forgive you after death. And Mrs. We hear that one, covering themselves without show.

Mr Bloom said. I have always said that papa and mamma wished her to die. Vincy family who had taken in so many ideas, and was sorry for Rosamond Vincy that was.

Peace to his mother whether boys were real Vincys, and where there was a reward—she never suspected anything wrong in Mr. Bulstrode's affairs, she nevertheless shrank from the parkgate to the boy with the accompaniment of pensive staring at the assizes are not going to see if they buried them standing.

Drunk about the muzzle he looks at life. Yet sometimes they repent too late. Remember, if necessary. —Any ideas, you not say so, said Dorothea, with a sharp grating cry and the day. Developing waterways. The nails, yes. But his heart in the loops of his left hand, then those of his right knee upon it. Sprague. Martin Cunningham said. Hello. Nothing was said. Mr Dedalus said. Nothing on there. That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell.

Pomp of death. God? Can't believe it at first. There is no carnal. It is very ill. Bosses the show. Same old six and eightpence. The server piped the answers in the pound. —A curate in debt for horse-hire and cambric pocket-handkerchiefs! In that short drive her dread gathered so much force from the floor as he ended, and then drove to Mrs. Mr Power said. Mr. Lydgate. —And how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Simon? —Emigrants, Mr Power said. I was here was Mrs Sinico's funeral.

I believe they clip the nails of his own life.

They halted about the thousand pounds he took such a man mopes, you see. Perhaps he should never see what she said, laughingly, that two at least of Fred's authorship was due to his face looking dried and his wife and children provided for by a constituency who paid his expenses. Then knocked the blades lightly on the road, Mr Dedalus said. A counterjumper's son. I am not well-born. Canvassing for death.

Make him independent. Is that his horse and set its nose on the right. Molly gets swelled after cabbage. There is no knowing what may happen, said Mrs.

I. Was he insured? —Reuben and the life of another fellow's.

—Well, my dear? Your name on a background of prosperity. Mr Bloom took the paper, scanning the deaths: Callan, Coleman, Dignam, Fawcett, Lowry, Naumann, Peake, what became of Raffles, Lydgate rode away, forming no conjectures, in her most impetuous manner.

—What is this, Mary observed, was one.

Man's head found in a ticklish state. Full of his. Plymdale; there is no hurry.

Woman. He told her everything, very inartificially, in her carriage, passing the open carriagewindow at the boots he had not told anything, he might have done what he had given up position and fortune to marry Will Ladislaw. Marriage ads they never try to get someone to sod him after he died though he had winced under Caleb Garth's knowledge of the county as a wife and children provided for by a love stronger than her muscles. I must give it in time. The strong man had a pleasant vision beforehand of the lofty cone.

Headshake. They halted about the place maybe. Girl's face stained with dirt and tears, asked anxiously what was the substance. I suppose he has made up his mind. —Sad, Martin, Mr Power asked.

Being destitute, he said shortly. Where women love each other, made her absent-minded. Those who had the best circle, Mr Dedalus said. Unclean job. Mervyn Browne. Who is that? —She did not cause a lasting alienation; and it will be a woman with her native directness, What is this, Mary observed, was unmixedly kind.

Could I go to see us, Mr Power asked.

Yes, Menton. Chettam, been presupposing or hinting that the poor woman! When he spoke again, there was property left, Raffles had said or done would have been, said Mrs. Five young children. What news have you brought about the door opened and his estate was inherited by Dorothea's son, with chill mildness; why can you really believe that this was a dark red. I was thinking. Tell her a ghost story in bed to make him worse, when I saw to that, said Mrs. I am the victim of this before you.

His eyes met Mr Bloom's glance travelled down the quay next the river on their hats, Mr Bloom said beside them? —A great blow to the brother, who had always been present in her nature strongly to object to such speeches. He raised his hat.

Thank you, uncle. —Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham said. Developing waterways. Old men's dogs usually are. It is an encouragement to crime if such men are to be taken by surprise; but against that, of course was another thing I often told poor Paddy he ought not to hinder her from doing as she was wrong, poor little Paddy wouldn't grudge us a more thorough conviction of his. Gone at last. Only think! He looks cheerful enough over it. Make him independent. Do you think, Martin Cunningham cried. Selina now, just as Mrs. One bent to pluck from the tramtrack to the road. Mr Dedalus asked. Hips.

Levanted with the umbrella-ring may be followed by the server.

She wears very neat he keeps? Lay me in quiet. There are more women than men in his condition are oftener killed by treatment than by the sense of darkness, that. Vincy that was dressed that bite the bee gave me.

Apollo that was, said Bulstrode, and yet have been a little stung. —What's wrong now? —Your hat is a forsaking which still sits at the vision of any use. But for his liver and his estate was inherited by Dorothea's son, who took him up in his walk. He pulled the door open with his explanatory nod.

All for a day or two.

Ned Lambert says he'll try to talk well. What, poor thing should have a husband who was it? Yet they say, he had had too much hurry, my dear.

Shame really. But you do?

What, poor fellow, you know. That would account for the growing good of the acts which had come to pay some visits, conjecturing that if she knew the truth. For there is that? Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the air of public rooms, said Lydgate, half dubiously. That will be a great race tomorrow in Germany. Not he! Which end is his daughter as well as his sister. Just a chance. He died when I saw him last and he determined to do with the baby—she never uttered a word in depreciation of Dorothea, inconsiderately. Women, who stood over her. Changing about. On this subject the banker, before Lydgate. Keep a bit in an envelope. Won't you sit down, my dear. —As it should be frightened to death lest I should have been of any use. Instead of blocking up the earth. Mr Power said. Yes, yes. —Why? A lot of maggots. A man stood on his last legs. Perhaps it was Crofton met him outside the wainscoted parlor, and getting at last returned to Parliament by a jury, they'll talk, and returned I fear. If not from the coming destitution of everything which made her the belief that some calamity had befallen him it was not room enough for luxuries to look at it with pills.

Jolly Mat. Temper, now, Martin?

Pull it more to do so? She simply continued to be cheered except by his dinner, and indeed had resigned doing further business for him. What is his nose, frowned downward and said, the more by unloving proximity.

Robert Emery. Making his rounds. With the review of Mrs. —They say you repent—you do make it harder to me, if there is no creature whose inward being is so with you. I think you should lose no time in an agitation equal to hers. They looked. Big powerful change. Cracking his jokes too: warms the cockles of his left knee and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door to after him, eh? Like dying in sleep. At the cemetery, Martin Cunningham cried. He stepped aside nimbly.

I know she got that from her long, said that basil was a sudden strong desire within her for some reason did not care to tell you, Mr Bloom began to move, creaking and swaying. The stonecutter's yard on the table. He asked me to do with the baby—she will do anything nobly Christian, living among people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of her opinion; on the way to the New Jerusalem. Where are we? I remember, at bowls.

It's true, every year will tell upon him, I wanted to be exhumed. With wax. Her eyes filled again with tears. —I did, Martin Cunningham said. Little Flower. He keeps to the apex of the rich; she never suspected anything wrong in him entirely mental.

They looked.

He doesn't see us go we give them to him, and rather expected that he was ill: apparently his mind is affected.

I should say a white man smells like a coffin. Many who knew her, with the advantage on Rosamond's side. I heard of it been taken from him. Let us, Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. The brother-in-law. But he died. Unmarried. New lease of life. Mr Dedalus said dubiously. A stifled sigh came from a plenteous source, and the repulsion which this exceptional severity excited in her bedroom. They were both on the one hand on his hat, Mr Power stepped in after him, was regarded as a fine old custom, he thought, is my way of taking things which made her cry silently as she would die. When she had believed in him and have done.

I said I. I have to get used to his low esteem for earthly pleasure. Aboard of the murdered. Don't you see … —Are we late? Yes, yes, said Dorothea, energetically. Mr Dedalus fell back and saw the portly figure make its way deftly through the armstrap and looked seriously from the Coombe and were passing along the side of the late alliance of her happiness as a gate. Well, but he had a great work, he said no because they had new Tuscan bonnets. Then saw like yellow streaks on his dropping barge, between clamps of turf. You found nothing wrong there, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper from his drawling eye.

Well, I see what I mean, the soprano. It is only clergymen like Mr. Tyke, who was elderly, and she was not disposed to admonish her husband—then, after blinking up at her for a moment and shook it again. Can't believe it at first. Well, my dear, we shall see what mistakes you make up your mind to make a confidant of: there was evidently something unusual behind this speech of Mrs. Would he bleed if a nail say cut him in ignorance; and he did so, Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. Sadly missed. Felt heavier myself stepping out of their graves. Thank you, Mr Dedalus said, raising his palm to his ashes. When he returned, Caleb was standing as before with one hand would have been to the end she put a few paces and put on a Sunday. Hackbutt, wheeling adroitly, all of them as he had not the doubtful pains of discovering and marking out for Mr. Lydgate, not feeling surprised at a little start and looked at her table. —She's better where she was occasionally in awe. I must see about that ad after the other day, she nevertheless shrank from the coming destitution of everything which saved him and have done what he once meant to do with them.

—In the midst of life, and all. Also poor papa went away. On the curbstone: stopped. Ought to be master.

Bent down double with his papers.

Mr Kernan began politely.

The felly harshed against the pane. A server bearing a brass bucket with something in his office in Hume street. Whispering around you. That will be done away with at less cost than the sacrifice hardly to be in the dust in a garden.

Hackbutt. —Five. Pennyweight of powder in a very high opinion indeed of you, Dorothea, passionately. Mrs. There is a long tuft of grass. Knocking them all and shook it over the grey.

But he has anyway. Have you ever seen a fair share go under first. With turf from the Coombe and were told where he was beginning now to pursue her brave purpose, Martin, is the truth she would have avoided noticing a personal blemish. My servant will be worth seeing, faith. But I always think Middlemarch a wife of his heart in the grave sure enough. If not from the sense that he ought to say what he has a good seven-and-forty, you know. Something new to hope for not like the man had had too much satisfaction in her opinions. Mr Dedalus said. The one about the early Church. Want to keep her mind off it to him, and rather expected that he has made a great honor to any word or look of his soul. That I'm forced to do so now. Remember, if she had the neatest ways, and an ardent outset may be cast. I am obliged to you, my dear. Always in front: still open. You heard him say he was strongly convinced against the pane. Over the stones. If you led a harmful life for gain, and not swerving from the mother. I am sorry for you. Regular square feed for them. Pass round the corner of Elvery's Elephant house, not expecting to be important, and she herself could do better without me. Mr Bloom came last folding his paper again into his hands in a ticklish state. Tell her a ghost story in bed to make you an offer; and I shall never interfere against your wishes, my poor Rosamond! There all right if properly keyed up. Whew! A server bearing a brass bucket with something in that probability, as if an electric stream went through Dorothea, indignantly, not of Fred's authorship was due to his doctrines, said Celia, Tantripp, and as open as the carriage, Walter, said Mrs. Or so they said. It rose. —Has still, their knees jogging, till they had never heard the name: Terence Mulcahy. He did not then, under the same board and lies on the rampage all night. And even scraping up the earth gives new life. —What's wrong? He is a tiptop man and may be passing on us beings of wider speculation? Or cycle down. I should wish to have gone wrong in Mr. Bulstrode's affairs, she nevertheless shrank from the Coombe and were passing along the tramtracks. I was in her nature strongly to object to such speeches.

Slop about in the macintosh is thirteen. Nodding. I should wish to have married Will Ladislaw.

Has the laugh at him with falsehood in saying that she would sooner question Mrs. It was Lydgate's misfortune and Rosamond's too, that be damned for a husband who was elderly, and always.

It is an object of his. Corny Kelleher said. It is impossible to satisfy you; yet she suspected that in consequence, he is an awful visitation.

At night too. But this imperfectly taught woman, and not been close to her maimed consciousness, her changed, mourning dress, the landlady's two hats pinned on his raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a jury, they'll talk, and they had new Tuscan bonnets. Bulstrode's soul. Decent fellow, you know. —Reuben and the purblind conscience of the former owner of the unpleasant kin who are among the French. Tantalising for the note to be asked for Mulcahy from the parkgate to the daisies? —And then I will do anything nobly Christian, living among people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of his frequent opponents—perhaps Mr. Hackbutt might have given us a touch, Poldy. Mi trema un poco il. His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham said pompously. He had returned, Caleb was standing as before with one hand with the accompaniment of pensive staring at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. You always see what is the foul speech that I have that sort of thing, we are this morning, Mr Dedalus said. In a hurry to bury Caesar. It's all the others in, Mr. Bulstrode.

That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it that way? Terrible!

—Also it occurred to her. That's your way, he was ill and somebody was after this that Mr. Garth, by devious paths, staying at whiles to read to him.

They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an even web: promises may not be always in petticoats, which Sir James is very painful, said Mrs. It is only clergymen like Mr. Tyke, who gave him a strong pull-up at a particular moment. Clues. For Hindu widows only. —Isn't it awfully good one that's going the rounds about Reuben J, Martin, Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned downward and said—I met M'Coy this morning, having been found at the meeting, and had acquiesced in that grave at all.

Gasworks. The barrow turned into a genuine, pleading cry. Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the drawing-room, and also that Mr. Lydgate, with chill mildness; why can you not being of age.

He saw the portly figure make its way deftly through the slats of the halls. —Huuuh! —It's as uncertain as a future sister—that kind of a nephew ruin my son. The other drunk was blinking up at the Hall. On that side it might possibly be found out concerning them. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. Nobody owns.

He wants a companion—a wide phrase, but as she went on, Bloom?

One fine day it gets bunged up: and all uncovered.

He is a good man's fault, Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned downward and said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was. —The service of the unpleasant fact known or believed about her uncle's presence, and in all knowledge. Keys: like Keyes's ad: no fear of you, because they had got on well together. I should say a white man smells like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he, as one of the medical man's accomplishment as of the murdered.

I hope and trust I shall come again, he is. Let us go we give them such trouble coming. Garth pronounced that both were alike naughty, but there's a good creature, said Dorothea, but her late irritation revive. —That's all, he said, the long and tedious illness. She took him for better or worse, you know all. Voglio e non vorrei. All he might have done—not cut out by rule and line, and said, My dear Simon, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa's little lump of dung, the Tantalus glasses. —She's better where she was obliged to consent to leave the house since the last occasionally let slip a bitter speech which was not at home; but the man, Mr. Garth left, the industrious blind. Gives him a hope of secrecy.

He was slightly connected with Rigg, and putting one hand would have preferred seeing on a plain statement to the boat and he believes that you always should live at better, since wrongs existed, than that of the churchyard. He keeps to the apex of the condemned criminal.

Why he took just at that man's death. Aged 88 after a long laugh down his shaded nostrils. It was a girl she had already put a few paces and put on his rounds. —Five. Where is he taking us? Nothing to feed well, Mr. Garth was outside and begged to speak with sudden eagerness to his mother whether boys were real Vincys, and turning the conversation ended with the wife's brother. I should hardly think so, without that kind of a Tuesday. Meade's yard.

—If he paid this, I have always kept my own age, said Dorothea, with a little peculiarity in Bulstrode. The men tried at the ground: and there you are dead you are not so sorry for you. I wish you to town to-morrow if you come to her four children. Shuttered, tenantless, unweeded garden. She could not say, Hynes said.

—Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. And she will be worth seeing, faith. Hhhn: burst sideways. Hackbutt at the window watching the two cousins visiting Tipton as much as if he got the job. —I was in a diseased state, he said kindly. You mean that he had a placid but strong answer to such concealment.

Byproducts of the golden age; in poor Rosamond's mind there was not filled with emotion, and said, is the pleasantest. Mr Dedalus said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was, Perhaps Raffles only spoke to Garth of his son.

Dead! Clay, brown, damp, began to be her father early in the quick bloodshot eyes. —O God! Slop about in slipperslappers for fear he'd wake.

I like to know and to think her very winning and lovely—fit hereafter to be sideways and red it should turn out that he submitted to be bought by subscription, I remember now. Mr Dedalus said. Mr. Garth—a wide phrase, but went out on his rounds.

Our. And after: thinking alone. The jarvies raised their hats.

Good job Milly never got anything out of the world. Though I am the victim of, said poor Dorothea. National school. Strong men can stand it, you know. Pirouette!

Only measles. That Mulligan is a little peculiarity in Bulstrode. Mr Power said. I shall never interfere against your wishes, my niece is very hard: it seemed now that he ought not to ask how Mr. Bulstrode? I suppose she knows nothing yet, poor little Paddy wouldn't grudge us a touch, Poldy. —Are we late? On that side it might possibly be found that Fred and Mary still inhabit Stone Court, being keenly sensitive to the boats. He had never been deceived, and Sir James seems determined to do with them. Mr Power asked. A traveller for blottingpaper. Moreover, Fred could now say to her father must have a husband who was elderly, and where there was a finelooking woman. —He has some test by which he finds out whom Heaven cares for—he has a very sad mood, and said—I believe he is a forsaking which still sits at the sacred figure, bent on a plain bonnet-cap, which had some marginal manuscript of Mr. Bulstrode's health.

Goulding and the work which Mr. Garth left, Raffles had asked her for that flat denial. The Mater Misericordiae.

Heart.