#Backpacker hostel in town

[simona-a-marinkova]

How to Travel Solo in South Africa?

I visited South Africa for the first time in 2018 traveling from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth (along the Garden Route). I was travelling with friends back then, and I loved the country – its nature, landscape, wine, outdoors activities and the laid back locals. I knew I had to come back and explore other areas as well. Well I did go back there, twice as a solo traveler. As soon as I booked my…

[bucky-fricking-barnes]

Someplace Like Home

Title: Someplace Like Home

Pairing: Nomad!Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: 8.3k

Warnings: Canonical violence, minor injuries, minor blood, non-descriptive mentions of hospitals, mild language

Summary: Y/N owns a hostel in Croatia. When the very handsome Grant comes to work for her, she falls hard and fast for the new handyman.

A/N: This story takes place between Civil War and Infinity War, when Steve is on the run. There are a handful Croatian phrases/words used, which are translated at the end of this fic. Don’t ask me why all my Steve stories suddenly have foreign languages in them. As always, thanks for reading and supporting my writing in all the ways you do. Enjoy!

Dividers are by @firefly-graphics

Your morning starts off slow, like it always does, and after the handful of guests have finished breakfast and left to spend the rest of the day at the beach or in the mountains, you settle yourself behind the front counter and pull out your laptop. The dirty dishes can wait until later—Ana will be here in an hour, and she prefers doing the dishes over going over the books, so you have an unspoken deal that you’ll do the bookkeeping if she cleans up after meals.

You’re just opening up the software on your laptop when the front door opens. The bell above it jingles as a man steps in, bringing with him a warm gust of air. June has been unseasonably cool, but today is the warmest it’s been in weeks. You’ve kept most of the windows open all morning, even though it was still a bit chilly.

“Dobro jutro,” you greet. You carefully shift the laptop off to the side a few inches, being careful not to mess up the carefully arranged papers you’ve sorted out on the counter.

“Kako vam mogu pomoći?”

The man has a gray hiking backpack slung over his shoulder. He’s tall and blond, a dark blond that looks golden in the light from the outside but brown in the shadows. His thick beard and mustache are well-trimmed. You automatically open up the leatherbound reservation book and reach underneath the counter for a key. 

“Dobro jutro. Uh, govorite li engleski?” asks the man. He smiles politely, and you smile back, nodding.

“Of course,” you answer. “How can I help you?”

His eyes move to the pen in your hand, already poised over the next open spot in the reservation book. “I’m not here for a room. I’m here about the opening for a handyman.”

Surprised, you close the book again and tuck it back under the counter where it belongs, along with the key you’d grabbed. No one has come about the open position since you’d posted it months ago in the local cafe. Not even a sign outside the hostel has helped.

“In that case, my name’s Y/N. I’m the owner here.”

“Grant,” he replies, his hand already held out for you to shake.

You oblige with another smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Grant. Can I ask how you found out about the position? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around town.”

He nods once. “I just moved here from Italy, and from Switzerland before that.”

“So you’re making your way through Europe, then?” you ask. You’re not entirely surprised—he looks rugged enough that he could handle a long backpacking trip or several months of solo travel, unlike some of the college students you normally have traipsing through your village.

“In a way,” he answers. “Truthfully, I’d like to settle down someplace, but it’s been a rough few years. I haven’t quite found the place that feels like home yet.”

Secretly, as you listen to him explain the various European cities in which he’s lived, you wish that he’ll come to feel at home here. Brdonik isn’t large enough to be on any maps, but it’s been your home for almost a decade now, and you can’t imagine a better place. The whole community bands together, and people look out for each other. There’s enough tourism from backpackers and small cruises that you’re not totally isolated, but you’re still far enough removed that your daily life isn’t saturated with commercialism and the big city nonsense you often hear about through your guests. You’d experienced it enough before coming to Croatia, and you don’t ever plan on going back to the life you’d had before you moved.

“To answer your question,”—Grant’s gentle continuation pulls you from your thoughts—“I saw a flier posted in the cafe down the street. I stopped there for lunch.”

“What did you order?” you ask. You prop an elbow up on the counter and level him with your gaze.

“Is that important?

“If you want this job it is. You can tell a lot about a person based on what they order at a restaurant.”

He smiles a little. “I got the turkey sandwich.”

You consider his choice for a moment before giving him a nod. “Simple, but respectable. A clear tourist choice, but I like it.”

“You can’t go wrong with a turkey sandwich,” he adds.

“It’s a classic!” You smile back at him and then come around the counter into the main part of the lobby. You grab your clipboard from its hook on the wall.

“Let me give you a tour,” you tell him. “I’ll point out some of the things that need fixing, and then you can tell me if you still think you’re a good fit.”

Grant agrees, and he walks beside you as you lead him through the hostel. You show him the currently unoccupied rooms, as well as the common areas, and you give him plenty of time to inspect the stalled projects and major fixes that he’d been in charge of. While he looks around, you watch him carefully. There’s something familiar about him, something you can’t quite put your finger on, but he doesn’t set off any alarm bells in your head like some of the previous candidates had. He’s respectful of the property and the few lingering guests you come across, and Grant is polite enough to open doors for you as you approach them. He speaks softly and clearly, and his sense of humor is well-timed. Somehow, despite his hulking frame and obvious strength, you feel safe around him.

Eventually, you lead him to your office. Grant takes the seat in front of your desk and you close the door behind him, then sit behind your desk and pull a pad of paper from the drawer. He’s almost too big for the chair you normally reserve for college-age backpackers looking for a few days of housekeeping work. He’s relaxed, though, and he rests both arms on the thin wooden armrests as you get out what you need. You sneak a glance at him as you sit upright again. His eyes move slowly and carefully over the framed photos and documents on the wall, taking in each one of them individually before he moves onto the next—your college diploma from NYU, a photo of you with your family the last time they came to visit, a certificate of operation from the local government. His backpack is leaning up against the front leg of the chair and his left leg, and you briefly wonder how he’s afforded to travel so much. The bag looks brand new, and high-tech, too. Is he a tech mogul of some kind? A grown-up trust fund kid? Did he steal it, or is he just really good with money?

“You’ll have to excuse me, I don’t have any questions prepared for you,” you tell him as you reach for a pen.

He nods and looks back at you. “You weren’t expecting me to walk in today, I understand.”

“Either way, I have to say that so far, I’m very impressed with you.” You glance up again and give him a polite smile, then look back down as you write his name and the date at the top of the page. “What did you say your last name was again?”

“Carter,” he says.

Nodding, you add that at the top and make your first bullet point.

“Grant Carter. Are you named after someone? That seems a pretty traditional name for a guy your age.” You immediately cringe at the question. “I’m sorry, that was inappropriate. You don’t have to answer that.”

Chuckling, Grant shakes his head. “No, it’s alright. My mother was a big fan of Ulysses S. Grant.”

“The 18th president?” you ask, grinning wide.

He nods and lets out another small laugh. “That’s the one.”

“He’s not normally up there on peoples’ lists of favorite presidents.”

“She had her reasons, I guess,” Grant shrugs.

You hum a little with a smile and look back down at your almost empty legal pad. You have a million questions that you want to ask, and more that you know you should, but you allow yourself to think for a moment before you look up again. Whatever you ask has to be the right mix of the two.

“You’ve lived in a lot of really impressive places,” you begin, and Grant nods in confirmation. “Why come here? There are plenty of larger cities with more job openings. Better paying job openings,” you add.

“You sell yourself short,” Grant easily replies. He sits forward a little, his elbows sliding closer to the ends of the armrests. “Your town is beautiful. It’s comfortable, and a bit secluded. I’m looking for something quieter.”

“A lot of people are, but we’re not often what they want in the long run. How long are you planning on staying?”

Grant stares at you for a long moment before he replies, “Until I’m needed elsewhere.”

You raise an eyebrow. “That’s a bit cryptic, so I hope you don’t mind if I ask for a clearer answer.”

“I plan on staying indefinitely, but if it changes, I promise you’ll be the first to know.”

Not quite satisfied with his answer, you still scribble down the response and make a second point on the next line down.

“Do you have handyman experience?”

Grant shakes his head. “But I’m a quick learner and I’m stronger than I look. Whatever I don’t already know how to do, I’ll pick it up quickly if I can get the information from someone or somewhere.”

I highly doubt you’re stronger than you look, you think, forcing yourself to look down at the paper and write, rather than at him. You already look pretty damn strong.

“Do you have a previous employer I can contact? Or references?”

“I can have that information to you by the end of the day.”

You nod and keep writing, and you don’t look up as you say, “We don’t typically provide housing for employees, as we’re a small enough village that commute isn’t an issue, but given that you’re new to town, I’m going to assume that you don’t have a place to stay yet.”

“No ma’am, I don’t.”

“I can get you set up in a room here, if that’s alright with you. I won’t expect you to work outside of normal business hours, except in an emergency, but that’s the same even if you lived off-property,” you tell him, looking up. You don’t lift your pen, and it’s a little satisfying to see that Grant looks mildly surprised. He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who could be surprised by anything.

“You’re hiring me?” he asks.

“Should I not?”

He quickly recovers and shakes his head, giving you a small smile. “I was just surprised that you’re not waiting until after you’ve seen my references.”

“Are you a horrible person?”

“I don’t think so, no.

“Are you a terrible employee?” you ask, putting your pen down on the desk.

“I’m loyal to a fault.”

“Should I be concerned about criminal activity?”

Grant laughs. “I’m a model citizen, though I did steal a piece of cake when I was a kid.”

“I’ll be sure to inform the local authorities,” you tease, grinning. You slide the notepad onto your desk and stand, holding out your hand for him to shake. Grant obliges. “You’re hired, Mr. Carter. If you’re ready, I’ll show you to your room so you can get settled in before your first day tomorrow.”

“I’d like that, thank you,” he replies.

“I won’t take the room out of your salary unless it prevents us from taking guests, but I don’t see that becoming an issue, except maybe in mid-July,” you tell him as you move around the desk to the door. “The handyman position pays 800 euros a month. You’ll be paid bi-weekly in check or cash, whichever your preference. We don’t have direct deposit here. If you need an account in town, there’s a bank down the road.”

“Cash is fine,” he says. He picks up his bag and swings it over his shoulder before following you back out into the hallway, then out to the lobby. You make a pit stop at the front desk to grab a key before heading up the main staircase.

The private, single person rooms on the third floor are a little older, and you briefly worry as you climb the stairs if the beds will be able to hold Grant’s weight. You don’t use them as often now that you’ve finished transforming the old hotel into a hostel. There’s a thin coating of dust on the handrail and you make a mental note to give this floor a thorough cleaning tomorrow while he’s occupied, that way you won’t be intruding. 

You lead Grant to the end of the hall, where the rooms are slightly larger and the windows overlook the ocean. While the view is great, most of your summer guests only fill the dorm-style rooms, so you’re fairly certain you won’t be missing out on any profit by giving him this room.

“Here we are,” you say, and you open the door before stepping aside so he can enter first.

Grant ducks through the doorway and flips the light switch, then looks around in silence. You wait in the hallway, holding your breath as he makes his inspection.

“This is nice,” he finally says, looking back at you. He drops his bag at the foot of the bed. “You’re sure it’s alright if I stay here?”

You wave one hand dismissively. “It’s fine.”

Your phone chimes in your back pocket and you pull it out, quickly reading the notification. It’s only mildly urgent, but you can feel Grant trying to look occupied as he waits for you to leave, so you look up and gesture back towards the stairs with your phone. 

“I’ve gotta take care of something, but you’re in luck. Every Thursday night we host a group dinner for the guests. The food is all cooked by a chef from a local restaurant in an attempt to promote the local cuisine, so you’re welcome to join us, or I can recommend some other restaurants in the area, if you want to explore a little bit more. We eat at seven.”

Nodding, Grant smiles and crosses the room to pull the key from where you’d left it in the lock. “I’ll see you at seven. It was nice to meet you, Y/N.”

“You too, Grant. Welcome aboard!” You smile once more, then turn and head back down the hall. His door closes as you reach the top of the stairs, and suddenly, you can’t wait for dinnertime.

You occupy yourself for the majority of the day by compiling a list of projects for Grant, as well as contacting the references he sends you using the email address on the hostel’s website. He gets glowing reviews from each and every person on the list, though they all seem a little confused when you first ask about him. 

Grant comes down to the first floor at five minutes to seven, and you’re just greeting the first small group of guests to arrive back from their excursions when he steps down from the bottom step. You glance over and give him a quick, acknowledging smile before turning back to the guests.

“Dobor dan! How was your time at the beach?” you ask. They reply politely in a mix of English and their own native language. You vaguely recognize it as French. You’re about to tell them in English about the dinner schedule, hoping that they’ll understand at least partially, but Grant begins talking in rapid-fire French before you even open your mouth.

It takes everything in you to keep your jaw from dropping straight through the floor. None of Grant’s references had mentioned he was bilingual, and neither did he. It feels like it should’ve been obvious, however, given that every single person he’d talked to had mentioned his incredible intelligence and ability to pick up skills quicker than anybody they knew.

Still, you watch in stunned silence from behind the front desk and Grant chatters with the guests. He leads them from the lobby and into the adjoining sitting area, where you hear them sit down and continue to talk. Someone laughs, and then Grant does, too. It’s a deep, mellow baritone, and you catch yourself grinning before you manage to stifle it.

When the next group of guests walk in, you guide them into the sitting room with the others. Grant catches your eye as you turn the corner, and when he smiles, you swear that your heart stutters in your chest.

He’s your employee, you chide yourself, and you turn your back on the group on the premise of prepping a plate of cookies for the coffee table.

“Dinner should be ready soon,” you say as you set the plate in the center of the group. Grant translates for you, first in French, and then in a language that sounds almost Spanish, but you know enough of that to know that it’s something different. All the guests nod in agreement.

You settle against one of the heavy wood bookshelves and watch quietly as Grant chats with the guests, switching fluidly between languages whenever he turns to a new person. It’s amazing, so you simply stay silent as you listen to the flurry of foreign words in the sitting room. You’ve never heard the pre-dinner conversation so lively. It brings a new warmth to the hostel, and you can’t help but smile as you watch the guests come alive, even though they’re exhausted.

“Dinner is ready!” Ana calls. She pokes her head in the door, and she smiles wide when she sees the guests talking excitedly. Every seat is taken. When she turns to look at you, you only grin.

“What’s going on?” she asks, stepping closer so she can lower her voice. “Who is that?”

You lean in, whispering, “His name is Grant. He’s the new handyman, and apparently, he speaks multiple languages.”

“Apparently?”

“I didn’t know when I hired him! This,” you gesture with one hand towards the circle of guests, who have started to rise now that Grant has passed along the message about dinner, “was a surprise to me, too. He just started talking to them on his own. I didn’t ask him to do anything.”

Ana raises her eyebrows, giving you a meaningful look. Before you can scold her for trying to meddle in your love life, she slips away and Grant appears at your side.

“Who is that?” he asks.

Goosebumps erupt on your arms at the sound of his deep voice so close to your ear. He’s leaned down so you can hear him clearly, and though he’s not quite in your space, he’s still close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from him. It should feel stifling in the early summer heat, but it’s comforting, and you turn towards him with a bright smile.

“Ana. She’s the manager when I’m not here. I’ll introduce you later. How come you never told me you spoke all those languages?” you ask.

Grant just smiles back at you. “You never asked.”

“I’ll make sure to add that to my list of questions for the next time I have to hire someone.” You gesture at the line of guests filtering through the doorway to the hostel’s dining room. “We should eat. Most of the guests have spent all day hiking or at the beach, and they’ll be hungry. Our local chefs are all amazing, so the food always goes quickly.”

“What’s on the menu?” Grant asks. He starts to walk and you fall into step beside him, noting how he angles himself sideways and stoops through the doorway so that you’re not squashed into the doorframe. It’s a miracle he doesn’t hit his head on any of the lowered ceilings or hanging decor in the building.

I’ll have to warn him about the lights in the rooms on the second floor, you note.

“Punjene paprike. Stuffed peppers,” you translate. You pause and watch as the guests choose their seats, silently making sure there are enough chairs. When it’s clear you’ve done the math correctly, you look over at Grant. “How many languages do you speak?”

He shrugs and surveys the long table filled with food. People are already piling their plates high and chattering with their friends and family, and the room is filled with amicable noise. The sun coming in from the windows is golden. The windows face south, which is one of the many reasons why you’d first purchased the building. It needs a lot of work, and it always has, but the view of the ocean from the dining room windows, along with the way the sun illuminates the whole room, helps make all the work worth it.

“This place is beautiful,” says Grant, quietly. “You’ve done well.”

You look over at him, surprised at the praise. It warms you from the inside out, and you smile when he meets your eyes. “Thank you. I’ve worked hard.”

He nods, and after a moment, he gestures towards the table. There are two empty seats beside each other, near the far end of the room. Ana has taken the seat across from them and she’s already begun to eat.

You follow Grant across the dining room, and you try not to act surprised when he pulls out the chair and helps you sit before taking the spot beside yours. Ana catches your eye as you reach for a dish, but you look away. You can’t risk having her embarrass you in front of the guests.

Or Grant, the cheeky little voice in your brain adds, but you quickly push the thought to the far reaches of your brain. Showing your hand—and your burgeoning feelings for Grant—right now is something you need even less.

“So, you’re from New York?” he asks.

You look up from where you’re pulling a napkin into your lap. “What?”

“Your degree. It’s from NYU, so I’m assuming that you’re from the States.”

Nodding, you allow him to serve one of the peppers onto your plate, and you heap an extra serving of rice onto the side of your plate before handing him the bowl. You don’t want to assume he likes anything, especially since he ordered one of the most American things on the menu at the cafe.

“I am. I grew up in Manhattan, and I decided to stay there for college. Once I got my degree in hospitality, I decided it was time I see more of the world,” you tell him. 

“Why Croatia?” Grant asks.

You shrug and pick up your fork. “Honestly? I don’t know why. I didn’t even mean to come here. I ended up on the wrong train and decided to stick it out. I figured it would be a fun experience either way, but I fell in love with it here. On my second day here, I saw that this building was up for sale and I had just enough money in my savings to buy it. It was a big risk, but I think that it was worth it.”

He looks around the room, listening to the conversations for a few moments before he smiles. “I think so, too.”

“Where are you from?” you ask. “You’re clearly American.”

Grant laughs at that, nodding. “I grew up in Brooklyn. When I was old enough, I served in the army for a few years, and since then I’ve just been… traveling.”

The army thing makes sense, and you file that information away for later. The two of you start to eat, exchanging a few more words throughout the meal. Grant offers to help Ana with the dishes. She’s giddy at the proposal, so you let them head into the kitchen as you help guests arrange their plans for the next day. You find yourself straining to listen for the sound of his voice during the quiet moments, however, but by the time the dishes are finished, Grant tells you that he’s exhausted and he wants to get a good night’s rest before his first day on the job. You wish him goodnight from the front desk, then wait for Ana to appear and barrage you with a million questions about the new handyman.

You learn quickly that there’s even more to Grant than meets the eye. He’d been telling the truth in his interview—he’s deceptively strong, and he really does learn quicker than anyone you’ve ever met. His Croatian improves leaps and bounds in the first few months at the hostel. By the end of the summer, he’s practically fluent, even if he does bumble through some of the more complicated phrases with a faint blush on his cheeks.

The longstanding projects for the hostel are all completed by the end of August, leaving you scrambling to keep Grant busy. When you can’t find anything to do, however, he busies himself by exploring the far reaches of the island, speaking with the guests in a myriad of languages, and keeping you company in the lobby or in your office. His presence, which had once seemed much too large for the old brick building, has settled. He seems at home in the armchair you buy for the corner of your office, and he’s become a fixture in the doorway of the lobby, where he likes to stand and watch traffic pass by.

It’s on one of the hottest days of the year that you first get a glimpse behind Grant’s ever-friendly facade. You’re behind the desk, going through the reservations for the upcoming week, when there’s a shout from outside. The front door to the hostel is propped open in an attempt to let in a breeze, and Grant has taken up residence in his normal spot. You’ve only just processed the shout when there’s an explosion. The floor beneath you shakes and shudders, and you grip the edge of the desk in an attempt to keep upright.

Grant whirls around and fixes his eyes on you. He’s scanning you, up and down, searching for any sign of injury.

“Are you okay?” he asks. You nod, swallowing thickly, and peer over his shoulder. There’s no sign of what’s happened outside, but you can hear screaming and shouting. There’s a gunshot and you flinch.

“Stay here, and stay hidden,” says Grant, and you know in an instant that it’s an order. “Stay quiet and don’t let anyone in. Okay?”

Nodding again, you drop to a crouch, then curl up on the floor with your back against the desk. You clutch your phone in one hand and listen as Grant closes, then locks the door. When he doesn’t appear behind the desk, you crawl over to the side and look out into the small lobby. He’s gone.

Your arms shake beneath you and you have to fall back against the desk for support before you fall flat on your face. Squeezing your eyes shut, you listen to the commotion outside. There are no more explosions, but you hear more screams and shouts, followed by a crash and gunshots. Your heart pounds in your chest as the noise gets closer and closer. You know that Grant was in the army, so he must have military training, but the thought of him outside—the thought of him in danger—makes you want to puke.

There’s a thud against the front door and you flinch. Your body tenses and you curl up in the fetal position, trying to maintain your breathing. It doesn’t work, however, and when there’s another bang, you scream.

“Molim! Molim, let me in!”

You look around the edge of the desk again. It’s a woman on the other side, and the desperation in her voice propels you to your feet and into the lobby without a second thought. You twist the lock and yank open the door.

A slim woman dressed entirely in black grins at you. Her eyes are a shocking shade of electric blue and her teeth are bright white—a stark contrast against the mask that hides the rest of her features.

“Sorry, dragi,” she says, and you gasp when she reveals the gun in her left hand. With the other, she reaches out and grabs you. “You’re coming with me.”

“No!” You fight against the woman’s grip, and when you lift your eyes to search for help from someone else, you can’t believe what you’re seeing.

Grant is lifting a car off someone. He lifts the car and tosses it aside with a heave and a grunt, and then he’s fighting someone hand-to-hand. The man in black is clearly trained because he gets in a few hits, but Grant never stays down for long. He’s slowly forcing the man back down the street, towards the beach, instead of towards the line of shops that’s on the other side of the hostel.

There’s a blast as another explosive goes off, this time in a restaurant diagonal from your front door. Stone and rubble flies in every direction. The street is empty of people, thankfully, except for the people Grant is fighting. Somewhere down the street, a car alarm is going off, and the light from the harsh midday sun is almost blinding. Your ears are ringing from the blast and the alarm. You think you scream at some point, but you’re not sure.

The man that Grant has been fighting has been thrown back by the blast, but Grant is still standing, as if he’s anchored onto the pavement. There’s a metal car door in his hand. He’s gripping onto a piece of the leather interior, and the red painted finish on the outside has been battered by the flying debris. His chest heaves as he tries to catch his breath.

The woman drags you out of the hostel and onto the street. She wraps her arm around your shoulders and places the gun against the side of your head. You stop struggling then, and your breath catches in your throat as your heart begins to pound even harder. Your vision is going blurry along the edges, but not enough to miss the way Grant’s jaw clenches when he catches sight of you.

“Captain Rogers!” the woman shouts.

He throws a second man off of him and turns fully towards you and the woman. “Let her go!”

In your ear, the woman chuckles. It’s low and dark, and full of malice, and you shiver. You close your eyes and pray that it’s all just a bad dream.

“Not until you come with us,” the woman replies.

“Leave her and the others out of this.”

When you open your eyes, Grant is looking past you at the woman. The light reflects in his deep blue eyes, and it’s then that you realize what he’s been hiding from you.

How did I miss it before?

“Steve Rogers,” you choke.

He looks at you again. “Y/N…”

“You’re Steve Rogers.”

There’s a pause as he watches you with clear regret, and then the woman laughs, shocking you out of your revelation.

“How precious!” she exclaims. “Your little boss had no clue who you were?”

“Let. Her. Go.” Steve takes a step forward and the woman’s grip on you tightens. You can’t stop the whimper that escapes you when she pushes the gun harder against your head, making you crane your neck to one side.

Two new men in black come up behind Steve. He turns his head slightly, listening to their approach, but he doesn’t move. You can tell that he’s calculating what to do next.

There’s a moment of clarity as you watch them launch themselves at him. Steve fights like he was born for it—and maybe he was, you rationalize—and as he easily overcomes them both, you have a revelation that’s nothing short of a rock at the pit of your stomach.

Steve has to get out of this alive. So many people count on him, and they always have. Though you know that there are a lot of people all over the world who consider him a criminal, you also know that there are a lot of people just like you that think Steve deserves a place of honor for all that he’s done and all the sacrifices he’s made.

The safety on the woman’s gun clicks off and Steve freezes. The two men take advantage of that, and they grab his arms, pulling them tightly behind his back and pushing him to his knees. He falls with a grunt. One of the men grabs a fistful of his hair and yanks his head back until he’s looking at you and the woman from his place on the ground. He doesn’t fight back.

“Steve,” you plead. “You have to fight. You can’t let them take you.”

“I’m not leaving you,” he replies. He shifts his gaze to the woman without moving his head. “If I go with you, you’ll let her go?”

“You have my word.”

Heat swells in your eyes and you know that you’re about to cry. “No! Don’t trust her, Steve! You can’t believe her!”

The woman jostles you and you close your eyes on instinct. A tear slips down your cheek.

“Shut up,” she growls. 

You swallow thickly. At your sides, your hands and fingers have gone numb, and your legs are barely holding you upright. 

“Alright,” Steve agrees. “I’ll go with you.”

A sob bursts through and the woman releases you. She practically throws you to the ground, and you have just enough time to get your arms out in front of you before you hit the road. Pain shoots up both limbs and the pavement digs into your forearms. From where you lay, you watch the men pull Steve to his feet. He moves with them and doesn’t fight back as they drag him to a black cargo van on the perimeter of the blast zone.

“Steve!” you scream. Your voice breaks and your throat feels raw as you push yourself up and stumble in their direction. The movement sends pins and needles into your hands and feet, but you do it anyway. Your limbs feel completely out of your control as you attempt to go after them.

Steve looks back at you. He’s too far now for you to make out his expression, but you can see that he’s trying to tell you something. The man on his right shoves his shoulder and he’s forced into the van. 

“Let him go! Steve!” You start to sprint, running after the van as the back door slides shut and the woman, who climbed into the driver’s seat while you were getting to your feet, begins to navigate it through the rubble from the explosions. The tinted windows keep you from seeing Steve inside and your mind immediately goes to the worst.

“Someone help me! Stop that van!”

You run until you physically can’t. The van is long gone, and when you collapse onto the street, a crowd gathers around you. People are murmuring and asking you questions. There are too many hands, too many faces, even if many of them are familiar. Your vision swims as you’re rolled onto your back. The summer sun beats down on you harder, and you try to focus, but all you can manage is a mumble of Steve’s name before you lose consciousness on the pavement.

When you wake, the soft beeping noise is enough to tell you that you’re in a hospital. You open your eyes, expecting to be greeted by white walls and bedding, and maybe a wall of cabinets with a sink. Instead, there’s a slanted wall of glass windows, each separated by a pillar of concrete. Thin, almost invisible computer screens with golden text are scattered around your room, each displaying charts, figures, and data in a language you can’t read. Some are embedded into the walls on either side of the bed, while others float above white counters that look more like control panels for a spaceship. There are scans of someone’s body and brain—your brain, you realize after a long moment—that spin in circles on the floating screens.

A hiss makes you flinch, and you quickly look away from the brain scan to where a young, dark-skinned girl is walking in through a set of sliding glass doors you hadn’t seen before. Her white, high-necked sheath dress looks nothing like hospital attire, especially since it’s sleeveless and only has mesh to cover her shoulders and a few inches below her knees, but she’s holding a tablet and looks so serious that you wonder if maybe she’s not a regular doctor. After all, this doesn’t seem like a normal hospital. Where are you? Did the men in black come back to get you, too?

“Y/N, it’s good to see you awake. How are you feeling?” she asks.

Her accent is jarring, and you blink. When you go to speak, you have to lick your lips a few times. They’re dry, and your mouth feels so much like sandpaper that for a moment you don’t think you’ll actually be able to say anything at all.

“Where am I?” you finally ask in return. “Who are you?”

She smiles briefly and checks something on her tablet, then glances over at one of the floating screens off to the side. Seemingly satisfied, she locks the device and sets it aside.

“My name is Shuri. You’re in Wakanda. You will be safe here.”

You frown. “Wakanda?” None of the hospitals even remotely close to the hostel hold that name, not even in passing, but it sounds familiar.

“Yes. We’re friends of Captain Rogers. When we heard about his capture, and how you were involved, we brought you here.”

Tears burn hot in your eyes as the memories from the street outside the hostel come flooding back all at once. How long have you been in the hospital? Who’s looking for Steve?

“We have located him already,” she continues, and you inhale sharply, shifting in the bed as you reach up to wipe your face. “And the Dora Milaje has been sent to retrieve him.”

“The what?” you ask. Your voice shakes and you swallow hard in an attempt to steady yourself.

Shuri smiles again. “The Dora Milaje. They are our special forces here in Wakanda. Let me ask again, how are you feeling?”

You move in the bed a little bit more, testing your limbs for stiffness or pain. Surprisingly, there’s very little. “I’m… I’m okay, I think. Confused, mostly. Thirsty.” Your stomach growls, so you quickly add, “Hungry.”

She laughs and nods, then picks up her tablet. Shuri taps a few times before glancing down at something through the slanted windows. 

“Someone will bring you food shortly. I’ll also have someone come change the bandages on your hands and wrists. Your injuries are healing nicely. You should still rest a while longer, but I will make sure you’re notified when Captain Rogers has been safely returned.”

Nodding, you sit back against the pillows, but you quickly sit up again with a gasp. “The hostel! Ana!”

“We’ve sent someone to assist Miss Mitrovich in your absence,” Shuri soothes. She steps closer to the bed and you lie back as she approaches. “There were very few repairs that needed to be done to your building, but they are taken care of, and all your guests are safe. I have already dispatched a team of Wakandan specialists to help with the rebuild of Brdonik. We are also installing a security system in your building.”

You sigh in relief and close your eyes, swallowing against the dryness again. You lay in silence, listening to Shuri as she moves around the room and mutters to herself. When you finally open your eyes again, it’s because she’s greeting someone as the sliding glass doors hiss open for a second time.

“Grant,” you murmur, and he gives you a weak smile from just inside the doorway. You correct yourself, shaking your head. “Steve.”

“Grant is my middle name,” he quietly explains. “And Carter…”

“Agent Carter,” you finish. “I see the connection now.”

While waiting for your food, you’ve slowly been piecing together the different parts of Steve’s life that you knew, trying to get the full picture. You’ve known him personally as Grant, the quiet man from Brooklyn that is good with his hands, always knows exactly what to say when you’re in a bad mood, and is a hit with every guest that crosses your threshold. On the other hand, you also know him as Steve, the All-American super-soldier that’s plastered across every history textbook you’ve ever been given. He’s also the super-soldier that you’ve watched on the news, listening to reporter after reporter praise him like he’s a god, then publicly curse and shame him on their next breath.

Shuri quietly excuses herself. You stare at Steve as she leaves through the sliding doors behind him. There’s a cut above his right eyebrow, and blood caked in his beard, right below a nasty split in his lower lip. He’s standing lopsided, like he’s keeping the weight off his right foot, and he looks like he could use a shower and a long nap.

“Are you okay?” you ask.

He nods again. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For dragging you into this,” Steve answers. He sighs. “For getting you hurt. For putting you in danger.”

You shake your head and sit up a little more in the bed, allowing the pillows to prop you upright. “None of this is your fault.”

“It is, and—”

“And nothing,” you interrupt. You give him a stern look and he presses his lips together with a wince. “You didn’t know that there was any danger. If you had, wouldn’t you have left?”

After a second, Steve nods, and you continue,

“And if you’d been able to stop it from happening, you would’ve, right?”

Another nod and you smooth the surprisingly soft hospital blanket over your legs.

“Then it’s not really your fault, Grant. Steve,” you correct again, more firmly this time. You’re still coming to terms with the fact that he’s not 100% who he said he was.

“But you still got hurt. I still put you in danger just by being there. I shouldn’t have stayed as long as I did. I got too comfortable, and too close, and I was careless.”

You purse your lips and watch him for several moments. Steve stays still under your inspection, waiting for you to say something.

Finally, you tell him, “I don’t regret what happened, and if I had the chance to go back in time and change things, I wouldn’t. I’m not in mortal danger, and you’re safe again. The hostel is being taken care of. None of the guests got hurt. Tourism might be down for a couple months but…” You shrug. “It’s the end of the busiest season anyway, and I have enough savings that I’m not going to worry.”

Steve shakes his head at you, then turns to look at the screens. He doesn’t seem to be actually reading them, but he puts his hands on his hips as he stares at a spinning scan of your hand and wrist.

“Do you regret it?” you ask.

He turns back. He’s silent for a few seconds as he watches you fidget with the hem of the blanket in your lap. “No,” Steve finally replies. “I don’t.”

“Me neither.”

When he doesn’t move, you swing your legs over the edge of the bed. You’re not dressed in a normal hospital gown—someone has put you in leggings and a tunic of some kind—but you still shiver when your bare feet touch the floor.

“Y/N—” Steve limps towards you, holding both hands out to steady you if you lose your balance. You don’t, and he stops a few feet away.

“I don’t regret any of it, Steve,” you say. You start to close the distance between the two of you even more. “Not a single minute.”

“Volim te,” Steve murmurs.

You freeze, now within arm’s reach. “What?”

“Volim te.”

Your brain is working a mile a minute to catch up with what he’s said. Steve shifts in place, wincing as he transfers the weight to his injured leg. 

“You should get that checked out,” you quietly tell him, glancing down at his leg.

He stares at you, as if he was expecting a different response. You know he was, but you’re suddenly so overwhelmed by everything that it’s the first thing out of your mouth. 

“I—” You close your eyes and shake your head, letting out a small self-conscious chuckle. “I’m sorry. I love you too, Steve. I do. I love you. I don’t— I don’t know why I said that. I guess I’m just worried—”

He cuts you off by stepping into your space and cupping your face with one hand. His fingers thread up into your hair and he tilts your head back so he can press his lips to yours. Your arms fall limp at your sides for a second, but then your brain catches up. You close your eyes and reach up to put one hand on the back of his neck. The other slides around his waist, pulling him closer as he kisses you.

Steve’s body is warm and though he winces with pain, then pulls away slightly to touch his fingers to his busted lip, neither one of you actually moves away from the other. You stay close enough to feel the heat from his breath on your skin.

“You need to eat,” he murmurs.

“And you need a doctor,” you reply.

He smiles a little, more just pressing his lips together than anything, and kisses your forehead. You close your eyes again when he lingers.

“Don’t go,” he says as you step away. 

You frown and crowd close again, and you place both hands on his chest. “Steve?”

“No. I mean, you should go now, but…” He struggles for a second, trying to find the words he wants to say, and you wait patiently. “What I meant was: Don’t go back to Croatia. Stay with me.”

“What about the hostel? What about Ana and the guests?”

“I’ve heard you say a thousand times that she could probably run the place on her own. Plus, it’s the end of the busiest season, and after everything that’s happened, tourism will probably be low. You said it yourself.” 

Steve reaches up to pull your hands off of him, but he holds them and rubs little circles over your knuckles with his thumbs. He watches you carefully, giving you his full attention. His eyes are deep and blue, and the crinkle between his eyebrows has disappeared completely now that he’s sure you’re okay.

“So, what? I’d stay here in Wakanda? What would I do?” you ask, frowning. “They don’t really have tourists here, do they? It’s not like they need a hostel.”

“No, but I need a partner.”

“Don’t you already have partners, Steve? What about the Falcon? Or Black Widow? Or even your friend that you told me about—James? Isn’t he a superhero, too?” 

Shaking his head, he answers, “That’s not the kind of partner I need, Y/N. I don’t need a partner to fight with. I need a partner that I can live with. Someone to make a home with.”

You stare at him for a second, allowing your brain to process what he’s just said, and then you give him a slow, sly smile. Inside, you’re giddy and jumping up and down, but all you do is pull your hands in a little more so he has to step closer to you.

“Steven Grant Rogers, are you asking me to move in with you?”

“I guess I am.” His ears are starting to turn a bright shade of pink, and it’s beginning to creep along his cheekbones as well, just above his beard. 

Steve’s still holding your hands captive, so you simply raise an eyebrow. “Do you have a place to live here in Wakanda? Or are we going to be staying here in my hospital room until you find one?”

He shrugs and grins back at you. “King T’Challa gave me an apartment.”

“The king gave you an apartment?” You pull your hands away and step back. You can’t hide your disbelief, though deep down, you figure it’s very likely that the king tried to give Steve more. He’s a hero, even if most of the world doesn’t believe it.

“The princess was just in here going over your medical information, and you’re shocked that he gave me an apartment?” Steve asks, a smirk on his face.

You gape at him even more. “You’re kidding. Steve, that was not—”

“Princess Shuri. She’s made most of the technology around here, and she oversees the recovery of important patients. Like you,” he adds.

“If I’d known—”

He leans in and kisses your forehead again. “You don’t need to bow or anything. They don’t do that here, though I’m sure she’d appreciate a thank you the next time you see her. Maybe compliment one of her inventions. T’Challa says she likes that.”

“The next time?” you hiss. “Steve—”

This time, he laughs at you. It’s a full-bodied laugh, unlike the sparse chuckles you’ve gotten out of him since his return, and you relax. You smile, too, a real smile that makes your cheeks ache as you press your burning face against his chest. Steve wraps his arms around you. His body shakes as he laughs, but he quickly settles down and kisses the top of your head.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” you tell him, not letting go. In fact, you hug him tighter around the waist with both arms.

“Me too. Come on, ljubavi. Let’s go home.”

Dobro jutro = Good morning

Kako vam mogu pomoći? = How can I help you?

Govorite li engleski? = Do you speak English?

Dobor dan = Good afternoon

Molim = Please

Dragi = Darling

Volim te = I love you

Ljubavi = Love/my love

Thank you for reading! If you liked this, please consider reblogging my work so that others can enjoy it too.

I do not consent to have my work posted, translated, or published to any third party site or app. If anyone sees my work anywhere other than my personal tumblr, Patreon, or ao3 accounts, it has been reposted without my permission.

If you want to support me further, consider buying me a ko-fi! My ko-fi is also under my SPN fanfiction blog, but I promise it’s me.

If  you would like to be added to my tags, please send me a message or an ask! I tag for Everything, Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Thor Odinson, and Peter Parker.

Forever: @aya-fay

Steve Rogers: @lipstickandvibranium​ @delicatecapnerd

[crowandmousewritingco]

Coffee Shop Meet Cute

Pairing: Frankie (Catfish) Morales x gn!reader

Words: 2.5k

Rating: G (brief mention of addiction and divorce)

Summary: Needing to get out of your hostel, you find yourself at a quaint coffee shop run by handsome stranger.

Author: Mod Mouse

Notes: This is another entry in the Secret Springs challenge by @secretelephanttattoo. This is technically an entry for week 3 shops prompts (I'm using coffee shop for this)

This hostel was the worst idea. Especially when you were trying to finish this chapter in your book, but the guy in the bunk above you was snoring like a fog horn and you couldn’t handle the woman across from you who insisted she tell you the same story of her trip to Switzerland for the 18th time today. You had to get out of here. Quickly you searched your phone for the nearest coffee shop and all the chains popped up first. You scrolled past them, not interested in some corporate super shop. 

One name in particular stuck out to you. Catfish Coffee. That sounds promising. You thought and quickly packed your backpack before the storyteller returned. With the directions on your phone, you followed the winding paths of the city. 

The quaint town was one of many options in what can only be described as a vacation country. Your friend had convinced you to take a trip for yourself after your recent divorce, and  you weren’t going to argue with them. Spending a week just reading and writing to your heart's content sounded like a dream. 

The voice on the map took you out of your thoughts and you looked up to see the sign for Catfish Coffee. The logo was a simple design with a cute cartoon catfish holding a coffee shop wearing a hat with the logo of Standard Heating. You smirked not expecting how cute this shop would be. Excitedly you pushed open the door making a small bell ring. 

You were greeted with the cool air conditioning making you shiver just a bit wishing you had brought your cardigan. Soft music sang through the shop helping add to the relaxing environment. There weren’t many customers in at the moment which gave you some relief. Finally you could find some comfort in your own company. 

The single barista turned at the sound and smiled when he saw you. He was older than you were expecting, maybe in his late 40s. Curly hair poke out from his well loved hat and he wore a dark blue apron with the logo of the shop in the center which when you got closer to the counter you realized that it was the same hat the catfish was wearing. 

“Welcome to Catfish Coffee. What can we get you?” He asked in a friendly tone.

“Well this is my first time here. What would you recommend?” You asked, adjusting your bag. 

“Depends on what you like,” He stated as he turned to point at the menu behind him. “If you want something to beat the heat we got plenty of frozen drinks. Looking for something more casual we got plenty of lattes hot and cold, coffee and tea based. Want something more simple we got plenty of roasts from local farms that you can sample on our coffee flights.” He turned back to look at you smiling. 

 “That’s quite the selection you offer,” You commented looking over the menu again.

He blushed and rubbed the back on the neck. “Gotta make sure there’s something for everyone.” 

“And that gives me an excuse to come back and try all of them,” You reply.

You might have misread his expression but you might have caught a hint of a blush on his stubble cheeks. “You are always welcome back.” 

“I’ll take the honey latte then,” You said when you finally decided. 

The barista rang up your order with a flurry of hands. “Great choice, that one’s quite popular. We get the honey locally as well.” 

You hand him your card. “I didn’t realize this resort had so many local businesses.” 

“It’s amazing what they were able to make here,” He added, handing your card back to you. “That’ll be out in just a minute.” 

“Thank you…”  You paused to look down at his name tag. “Frankie.” 

“No problem. Love seeing new faces,” He added as he grabbed a cup. 

“You must get a lot people coming and going,” You commented. 

“That’s mostly who we get, but we have some regulars that come in,” He adds over his shoulder as he pumps the syrup into the plastic cup. 

“I’m glad you have dedicated customers,” You said as you look around the cafe. “It’s a very cute place.” 

“Thank you,” He replied as he poured the milk into the cup. “I’m very proud of it.” He finished making the drink and set it on the counter in front of you. 

“As you should be,” You smiled and took your drink. You turned and headed toward one of the empty tables. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Frankie couldn’t help but be intrigued by the customer that just walked in. They weren’t the usual clientele he attracted. But there you were sitting at one of the booths holding what can only be described as a tome in your hand. That book must be at least 600 pages, and you were reading as if you were on a deadline. And you had been here for a few hours at least. He was surprised you weren’t interested in any other vacation type activities. 

You seemed so sweet despite the small interaction he had shared with you, and he did want to get to know you. Though he didn’t want to come off as weird so he continued with his business. 

A couple more customers came and went, but you persisted. He checked the time. It had been well past three hours since you entered the store. Though you were no longer reading that encyclopedia. You were typing away at a tablet now with a look of determination etched on your cute face. Wait, did he really think that you were cute? Frankie shook his head rubbing his eyes. Maybe he needed more coffee. 

He made himself a simple cup of coffee and when he turned around he realized you were now the only one left in the shop. Frankie tapped his fingers against the counter and quickly set his own coffee down. He quickly made another honey latte for you, and took a deep breath before bringing it over to your table. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Writing was hard. You were on a roll, the plot and scenes were all coming together, but then you swear to any god out there it just left you. There your main character was having a triumphant monologue, and then blip! It was gone. You groaned and rubbed your eyes. 

“Troubles?” You heard a voice and looked up. You smiled when you saw it was Frankie. “Sorry, I know you’ve been here awhile and thought you could use a refill.” You held up a hand to protest, but he interrupted with a smile. “On the house.” 

“Thank you,” You smiled and happily received the additional drink. You took a sip and it felt yourself relax once again. 

“If you don’t mind me asking, what has you all stressed out?” 

“Oh just the masterpiece I’m supposed to be creating,” You answered with a bit of sarcasm in your voice and gesture to your screen. 

Frankie leaned over to peek at the screen. “You have a good amount so far.” 

“And that’s the problem. I was on a roll but then some writing demon decided to take away my ability to form basic sentences,” You sighed and ran your hand through your hair.  

“I don’t know much about writing. Never did well in English class, but I can tell you if you force something it will break. Maybe come back to it with a fresh mind tomorrow,” Frankie offered. 

You sighed. “I know you’re right, I'm just impatient. I’ve been trying to write this for months now.” 

He chuckled, “I know that feeling, but you might also feel better with some food in you too.” He glanced at the clock then continued. “I close up here soon and my buddies own a bar not too far from here. I can take you there if you want.” He offered rubbing the back of his neck. 

You smiled softly. “I actually would really like that.” 

Frankie smiled. “Then that’s what we shall do. In the meantime, read more of that book of yours. It seems like a good one.” 

You blushed. He noticed you were reading? Frankie was really quite thoughtful. “It is.  It’s got me on the edge of my seat.”

“You’ll have to tell me how it goes,” He says, heading back to his counter. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Frankie was right. Reading more of that book helped with your stress and even gave you an idea for your own book. Before you knew it, Frankie was closing up shop and the two of you walked out into the cool summer air. He quickly locked up the front. Instead of wearing his barista apron, he switched his wardrobe for a worn flannel. 

“The bar is just down this way,” He gestured down the road where you could see a neon sign outside the restaurant. 

“It looks like a cute place,” You mention as you started down the sidewalk. 

“It’s quite the popular bar. They’ve really done a lot with it. Turned it from a almost condemned building to one of the more popular restaurants in town.” Frankie beamed as he talked about his buddies. It was clear he was very proud of what they had accomplished.

You smiled. “That’s amazing to hear.” You took in a deep breath and caught a scent of Frankie’s collonge. He smelled of sandalwood and other earthy tones which you had to admit was one of your favorites. When you reached the door, Frankie held the door open and you thanked him. He really is a gentleman you thought as you entered the establishment. 

The Ironhead Bar was quite the place to be. All sorts of sports games were playing on the screens with plenty of what could only be described as “manly decor” lined the wall. Anything from sports memorabilia to old army collectibles covered the different sections. As if he owned the place Frankie took a seat at the bar and you sat down next to him. Usually bars weren’t your scene, but you felt oddly at home at his establishment. 

A young man wearing a hat almost as worn as Frankie’s hat looked up and smiled a wide smile when he saw you two. “Catfish! Fancy seeing ya here tonight.” he saddled up to the two of you cleaning a glass with a rag. 

“Benny I come here every night,” Frankie rolled his eyes, but smiled. 

“Maybe I should make you start paying your tab,” Benny joked and smacked Frankie lightly on the shoulder. He then looked over at you. “You though are a new face. Frankie, who’s this handsome person?” He asked, gesturing with his thumb. 

“I just so happened to stop by the coffee shop today,” You said looking over at Frankie. “I guess I overstayed my welcome, but Frankie invited me to get dinner with him.” 

That seemed to make Benny smirk. “I see,” He glances between you and Frankie, his smile growing even bigger. 

Frankie rolled his eyes and lightly pushed Benny’s shoulder. “Just get us a couple of Pope burgers and beers.” 

“You got it boss,” Benny winked at you before heading back to the kitchen. 

You couldn’t help but chuckle at the interaction. “I’m guessing you’ve known each other a long time.” 

“You can say that. We’re old army buddies. Once we got out we decided to stick together and open our dream places. He opened this place with his brother, and well you know the coffee shop.”

You smiled softly and leaned your head on your hand. “Ah that’s where the catfish came from,” You said more to yourself. “That's really nice actually. You must really like coffee.” 

Frankie chuckled. “You can say that. You could also say it saved my life.” 

“I feel like there's a story there,” You say as Benny sets your beers down. You didn’t miss it when he gave Frankie an eyebrow wiggle before talking to more customers. 

“There is,” He said, taking a quick sip of his beer. “I’m actually a recovering addict.” Your eyes widened and he held up his hand. “Not beer hermoso. It was cocaine. Got addicted in the army and could never get over it. It wasn’t until Will, Benny’s brother, knocked some sense into me. We found out that coffee was a good substitute for the way I felt high, and well here I am. Five years clean.” 

You smile softly. “That’s really amazing.” 

Frankie blushed and took another sip. “Thank you. It was a hard journey, but it helps when you have friends as loyal as them.” 

“I second that. I wouldn’t be where I am without my best friend either,” You smiling thinking about all the times your friends saved you. 

“What brings you to our neck of the woods?” Frankie asked before taking another sip of his beer.

“I was planning on taking a vacation to work on my book, but um,” You chuckled a little sad. “I found my husband cheating on me so this vacation became the ‘write and not thinking about the divorce’ vacation. Sorry I didn’t mean to that deep.” 

Frankie’s eyes were sympathetic. “I get it. I’m divorced too.” 

Your eyes were caring in return. He sighed “Took the kid in the middle of the night and I haven’t heard from them since. But I think it’s for the better.” 

“Most of the time it usually is, but it's that mountain of emotions that you have to drill through first.” 

Frankie raised his glass to you. “I’ll drink to that,” He said and you brought your own glass to clink with him. You both took another sip and set your glasses down. 

Benny returned with two red plastic food trays and set them down in front of you. “Two Pope burgers on the house for Frankie and the lovely fella.” 

Frankie rolled his eyes and thanked him. Benny patted his shoulder again and continued making drinks. You grabbed the big burger with all the workings and carefully took a bite. You moaned at the taste. “Damn that’s a great burger.” 

Frankie moaned in agreement. His face was as messy as your spots of ketchup dotting his salt and pepper beard. You chuckled and handed him a napkin. He blushed and took it from you using it to wipe up the mess. 

You swallowed your bit. “Don’t worry. I bet my face doesn’t look much better.” 

“I think your face looks handsome,” Frankie semi blurted and blushed. 

You giggled and took a sip of your beer. “Is that so?” You tease. 

Frankie cleared his throat. “So um how long are you on this writing vacation?” 

“About a week. That should hopefully give me enough time to write what I want. And -now that I have a comfy place to work- I should definitely finish this book on time.” 

“Well you have a table whenever you want,” Frankie blushed. 

You pick up your glass. “I’m definitely taking you up on that offer.” Frankie raises his glass to you, giving it a small clink. You had a feeling that this was the start of something really nice.

-------

Pedro Characters Only Taglist

@littlemisspascal @burntheedges

[manessha545]

Ollentaytambo, Perú's Sacred Valley, Peru: Ollantaytambo is the last stop on the Perú Rail line before the Machu Picchu station in Aguascalientes. It’s also a popular stopover for the many backpackers who pick up a connection to the last leg of the  Inca Trail just a few miles down the track. Those hikers not staying in any of the town’s hostels or lodges cluster around the wi-fi cafes, lounging on their packs and checking email on their iPhones.

[hbyrde36]

No Vacancy

When Eddie Munson arrives at the Buckingham Beach Motel to spend the summer with his BFF Chrissy and her business partner Robin, the last person he expects to see waiting in the lobby is former king of Hawkins High and asshole extraordinaire, Steve fucking Harrington.

Chapter 1: Checking In

WC: 4547 | R: Explicit | CH: 1/12 | AO3| Now Complete!

Eddie grinned as he pulled his trusty van, the very same rust-bucket he’d been driving since high school that he liked to refer to as Van Halen, if only to elicit the groans of both friends and strangers, into the small parking lot of the Buckingham beach motel. He hadn’t been on vacation for…

Well, he’d never been on a true vacation before, actually, unless that one time he went fishing with his Uncle Wayne for a weekend counted. And sure, he was going to be working at least part time while he was visiting his best friend in her seaside paradise, but it was still the closest thing to a holiday he’d ever had. Needless to say, Eddie was hell bent on thoroughly enjoying himself this Summer. Sun, sand, and shirtless men in speedos? 

Sign him up!

He hopped out of the van, relieved to finally stretch his legs after the long drive, and threw open the back doors, staring down at the collection of boxes, duffel bags, and one large black trunk that made up almost the entirety of his worldly possessions. 

The day after he finally graduated from Hawkins High, back in 1986, Eddie had cut and run and not looked back. He’d been living as a kind of nomad ever since, never quite feeling comfortable enough to stay in one town or city for too long. He was usually able to find work as a bartender or bouncer to fund his stay at whatever hostel or efficiency he could find, and when all else failed he slept right here in his van. 

He still visited Hawkins on a rare occasion, a necessary evil to be endured only so he could spend time with his beloved uncle, but that place would never be home for him again.

It wasn’t a bad life. He’d seen a lot of cool places and met tons of interesting people, but lately he’d been missing something. The stability of a real home, perhaps. The kind you only really get when you put down roots. In his weaker moments he yearned for the support and community that could be found with friendships that lasted longer than a few months. 

With a sigh, he grabbed the two largest bags that held the majority of his clothes, and the backpack that held the rest of his day-to-day essentials and headed towards the lobby. He could always come back out for the rest later.

The first thing Eddie noticed when he walked in the door was the spectacular pair of legs and delicious ass in too-short shorts that belonged to a man who was leaning over the counter talking to Robin. Unfortunately, the second thing he noticed was that same man’s oddly familiar swoop of chestnut brown hair. 

Eddie’s stomach dropped. 

What in the world was Steve fucking Harrington doing here?

“You made it!” Chrissy squealed as she came barreling out of the office door, having spotted him through the reception window.

Eddie knew what was coming, but he was a little slow given the way the metaphorical rug had been ripped out from under him, and in his current shocked state only just managed to drop his bags in time to catch the former cheerleader as she launched herself at him, wrapping her legs around his waist. 

He held her tight, forcing himself to let go of all thoughts of former jocks and high school rivalries for a moment, and just enjoyed the fact that he was here with his best girl—finally seeing her in person after so many months apart. He inhaled deeply, appreciating the familiar scent of Ex'cla-ma'tion. He used to hate her cheap drugstore perfume, but it’s amazing what you start to miss when you're separated from your loved ones for so long. 

“Missed you.” Eddie whispered into her hair before finally letting her down.

She giggled as he swung her to the floor, and then proceeded to punch him in the arm as hard as she could, which was pretty fucking hard for such a tiny little thing.

“Hey! What was that for?” Eddie sputtered.

“For waiting so long to come visit this time! I missed you too, jerk.”

He rubbed at the spot where she’d hit him. Honestly It didn’t actually hurt all that much, but he liked to play along for the bit. “Jeez, Chris. Funny way of showing it.” 

“You love it.”

“Keep it in your pants, lady, you’re not my type.”

“Freak!”

“Priss!”

Eddie doubled over, cackling, and Chrissy laughed hysterically right along with him, the two falling into another hug just to keep each other upright. When they finally calmed down enough to behave normally again, Chrissy pulled back from his arms, her expression turned serious. 

After a glance back over her shoulder she spoke low, barely above a whisper, “so as I'm sure you noticed, we have another hometown guest joining us.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Harrington’s kinda hard to miss. What's he doing here anyway?”

“Visiting Robin for the summer?” Chrissy said it as if it should have been obvious.

It wasn’t.

“Why?”

Chrissy let out a long suffering sigh. “He’s her best friend! You know this, how do you always forget?”

She was right, he did always forget that when Robin talked about her friend Steve, that it was Harrington she was talking about. It was such an odd pairing that Eddie just sort of blocked it out. He couldn’t reconcile the Steve from Robin’s stories with the prick he remembered from Hawkins. 

“Right, fine, sorry. What about him?”

“Well, you know this is our first season, and the booking system is so new and confusing. We may have accidentally overbooked, but it's okay! Because the three of us were talking about it before you arrived, and since the one room we do have left is a double queen we thought… ”

Absolutely not.

Eddie grabbed her by the hand, cutting her off and tugging her across the lobby as far from Steve and Robin as they could get.

“Are you crazy?! You want me to be roommates with King Steve?!” He hissed, throwing his hands around wildly. “Have you completely forgotten what a giant asshole he is?!”

“We’re not in high school anymore, Eds. I’ve spent time with the guy. He’s always been nice to me, and if what Robin tells me is true? Then not only is Steve not like that anymore, maybe he never really was.”

Eddie's jaw tightened. She could not be serious. Jock’s don’t change their stripes, or whatever.

“Right,” he spat.

“Look at me! I changed, and we became friends. Why couldn’t Steve be a good guy underneath it all too?”

He waved her off. “That’s different. You are the exception that proves the rule. And you were always a good person, you just ran with a bad crowd for a while, not to mention the boyfriend we do not speak of.”

“Exactly! So isn't it possible that Steve is the same?”

“No.”

Chrissy groaned. “I’m serious! Really think about it, do you remember him ever doing or saying anything shitty to you directly? Or was he just there in the background while his friends did?”

Eddie crossed his arms over his chest. “Assholery by proxy is still assholery.”

“I don’t think that’s a word.”

“Come on Chris!” Eddie whined. Had they been alone he might have even stomped his feet. “Don’t make me do this. Can’t I share with you?”

“You know I live with Robin.”

“Okay, and? It’s only for the Summer. She can stay with Steve and I can stay with you. It’s a perfect solution!”

Chrissy shook her head. “Our room is a single and I love the shit out of you, but I draw the line at sharing a bed.”

Wait, what?

Eddie’s eyebrows shot up. “How did I not know about this? Does that mean you finally got your act together and told her how you feel?”

Chrissy turned bright red and threw her hand over his mouth. “Oh my god. Shut. Up. Of course I haven't told her!” 

He tried to respond, but Chrissy refused to move her hand—so naturally, he licked it. 

“Gross!” Chrissy yanked her hand back with a look of disgust.

“Jeez, I know it’s not the tongue you were hoping for, but it wasn’t that bad!” 

Chrissy whirled around, probably worried that Robin had overheard them, and Eddie might not be the most present guy, but he was still a good friend. As much as he liked to mess with her, he’d been keeping a very close eye on the other side of the room and Steve and Robin were too engrossed in their own whisper-shouting match to pay them any attention.

Steve must be equally irritated by the girl's proposition. 

Eddie leaned forward, speaking close to her ear. “Are you telling me that you and Robin run this place together all day, share a bed every night, and you still don’t think she likes you back?” 

“It’s not like that!” Chrissy insisted. “We make more money from the doubles. Financially it made more sense for us to live in one of the singles. We’re just, uh—two really good friends having a never ending sleepover.”

Eddie wasn’t convinced and honestly it didn’t sound like she was either, but he’d drop it for now. “Whatever you say.”

“So, what do you think about sharing with Steve?” 

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me,” Eddie grumbled.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun! I’m sure you two will get along fine. Who knows, maybe you’ll discover you have some things in common.” She sounded so optimistic, it was her one flaw.

And was it his imagination or did she just wink at him?

“Yes, I'm sure we’ll come out of this as the best of friends.”

“That’s the spirit!” Chrissy cheered.

“I was being sarcastic!!”

For whatever reason, Steve also agreed to this outrageous living arrangement—reluctantly, Eddie assumed, though the other man did an excellent job at hiding how unhappy he must be.

Harrington was all smiles about it. Eddie wanted to punch him in the face.  

Once the deal was in place, Chrissy announced she had to leave for a meeting with the bank, something about an additional small loan to make more improvements on the place or something, leaving Robin alone to show him and Steve to their room. 

Eddie liked Robin well enough, but he’d only ever hung out with her and Chrissy together. He was worried she might act differently or something with Steve around, but It became abundantly clear after he heard her call the guy dingus for the third time in their five minute journey, that his worry was unfounded. Robin was Robin, and she changed for no one. He appreciated that, and kept his guard up, ready to defend her if need be—in case Steve finally had enough and lashed out, becoming the mean girl Eddie remembered from years ago, but it never happened. 

Damn he was good. 

The Buckingham was the kind of motel where all the doors opened to the outside. Some towards the front street, giving a beautiful view of the ocean, others opened up to the pool area in the back. Eddie wasn’t sure if it was a perk of being friends with the owner, or a consolation prize for the mix up, but he and Steve were given a room on the second floor, ocean side. There was even a cute little wooden bench next to their door, "In case you two ever want to sit out and watch the sunrise,” or so said Robin. 

Eddie hadn’t woken before ten in the morning voluntarily since he graduated, and he didn’t think the lure of a few pretty colors in the sky was going to end that streak, but he very politely kept that thought to himself.

“That’s a nice thought, Robs,” Steve said, chuckling. “But I think I'll get to see plenty of sunrises at work.”

Robin shuddered. “You’re a better man than me.”

“What does that mean?” Eddie asked before he could stop himself. Not like he cared, it was just natural curiosity. 

“I’m working as a lifeguard on the beach, so I'll be up at the crack of dawn nearly every day anyway.”

Eddie grimaced. 

Jesus Christ, a dick and an early riser. 

Lovely. 

“Don’t worry though!” Steve added quickly. “I'll be careful not to wake you up. I know how to be stealthy, like a ninja.”

It was… the absolute dorkiest way he could have said it. 

Eddie almost cracked a smile, but held firm in his grumpiness by the skin of his teeth. “You’d better.”

Steve performed a little cross-your-heart gesture.

What the fuck.

“Seriously, my roommate in college was a really light sleeper,” Steve went on, “so I have a lot of practice sneaking out quietly.”

Eddie’s lip nearly betrayed him then, twitching upwards like a traitor. Luckily, Robin drew Steve’s attention away for a second, allowing him a moment to regain control.

“Oh, I’ll just bet you do.” Robin teased.

Steve’s cheeks flushed, but he ignored her comment and turned back to Eddie. “What about you? Are you getting a job, or just hanging out?”

“Hate to break it to you, Harrington, but I got a part time gig bartending at a place a few blocks over. Looks like we’ll be living on opposite schedules.” Eddie grinned, sounding gleeful even to himself. “We may never have to see each other awake.”

Steve’s smile faltered for a beat, but quickly returned to its full power. “Well, lucky for you I’m a very heavy sleeper, so you won’t have to worry about waking me up when you come home late.”

Eddie grit his teeth—he was getting annoyed. What did he have to do to get a rise out of this guy, huh? To get a peek behind the mask? And who did he think he was, saying ‘lucky for you’? The only person it was lucky for was Steve, because no way was Eddie going to be tip-toeing around in his own place. Not for anyone.

After asking if they had any questions about the place, Robin handed them each a key and took off, leaving them to it. If Eddie had a little less pride he might have begged her to stay, but he supposed he might as well start getting used to the situation.

The room was small.

Two queen beds made up the majority of the space, with a single nightstand wedged between them. A dresser sat across the way, with six drawers and a small T.V. on its top. The rest of the room was made up of a tiny bathroom, an even tinier closet, and an efficiency kitchen consisting of a sink, mini-fridge, microwave, two burner cooktop, and a little table with two chairs. 

Eddie dropped his bags in the middle of the floor. As much as he would have liked to just ignore Steve, the space was tight enough that they would have to dance around each other the whole time they were unpacking. They also needed to figure out how they were going to split the space.

“Alright, how do you want to do this?” 

The only thing Steve expressed a preference for was taking the bed closest to the door, which sounded like some alpha male bullshit to Eddie, honestly. As if Steve needed to be the first line of defense if someone were to break in while they were sleeping. 

The idea was ridiculous and definitely not at all hot.

But, Eddie wanted the bed by the window anyway, so it was fine.

Once that was negotiated, they began to put their things away. It was… suspiciously easy. Steve kept deferring to him, even offering to give up one of his three drawers when he realized how much stuff Eddie had. It was infuriating. What did Steve expect to get out of all this politeness and generosity? There were no girls here to impress.

Eddie curtly refused the offer, which Steve only shrugged at, saying there would be plenty of extra closet space anyway, as he only had a few dress shirts to hang up. Eddie gave up then, leaving about half of his band tees in one of the bags and kicked it under the bed before throwing himself on top of it. He’d finish unpacking some other time, when he didn’t have an audience. 

He laid there and watched through barely open eyelids while Steve pulled an extensive collection of very tiny swim trunks out of his bag, and contemplated the injustices of the world—quietly brooding as the other man found a home for every single item he’d managed to squeeze into his singular suitcase. 

It was impressive, rankly, not that Eddie would ever tell him that. 

Finally, Steve picked up a rather large toiletry bag and wandered away. 

Unable to resist, Eddie got up and followed. This was something he had to see. Steve hadn’t been called ‘The Hair’ half his school career for nothing. 

Eddie stood in the doorway, observing through the mirror as Steve hummed softly to himself, arranging his collection of hair and skin care products along one side of the sink and vanity, being ever-so-careful to only take up half of the counter space.

For some reason, that was the final straw.

“What’s your deal, man?” Eddie snapped, more accusation than question.

He hoped Steve might finally fight back, but of course he didn’t. Remaining frustratingly calm as he replied. 

“What do you mean?”

Eddie growled. “I’m not buying the nice act, okay King Steve? So you might as well drop it. I’d rather you be real and be a prick, than this fake polite bullshit.”

For half a second Steve looked almost… sad? like Eddie had hurt his feelings somehow, but it was gone so quickly—must have been a trick of the light.

Steve smiled and shook his head, finally glancing up to make eye contact with Eddie’s reflection. “I don’t know what to tell you. What you see is pretty much what you get. You wanna talk about King Steve? Now that shit was an act.”

Fine.

If Steve wanted to continue to pretend he was a good guy now? Eddie would just have to see how far he could push him. Sure his best friend was an out and proud lesbian, but how would he react knowing that the man he was going to share a room with for the next twelve weeks or so was gay?

“Whatever you say, Harrington.” 

Eddie tapped his fingers on the doorframe as he thought over his words. “Y’know, we should probably work out a system for when we want to bring dates home. I remember your reputation of course, and I know I'm hoping to bring more than a few guys back for a nightcap after the bar closes, if you catch my drift. So, what do you think?” 

He’d started out his little speech feeling brave and a bit cocky, but by the end of it there was sweat pooling on his upper lip, and he was thinking maybe this wasn’t the best way to come out to a former jock who could probably snap him in two with half a thought.

But—

The whole thing elicited exactly zero reaction. 

Steve didn’t miss a beat, didn’t even bat an eye before he asked, “What, like putting a tie on the door or something?”

Eddie wanted to scream. 

“I’m sure we can do better than that,” he huffed, stalking off to look around the rest of their room for ideas, quickly zeroing in on the set of hang tags sitting on the table in the kitchen area. 

Eddie beamed. Most hotels just had the standard 'please service' or 'do not disturb' messages on their tags, but of course the girls would try and get creative with it.

“Here, these’ll work.” Eddie said, barely managing to hold back a laugh as he held the first one up for Harrington to look at.

Steve read aloud. “Out to sea. Cute.”

“Right, so we can use that one when the coast is clear,” Eddie’s eyes sparkled as he raised the other sign, “and this one when one of us has a guest.” 

“My boat is docked. Do not disturb.” Steve said, cheeks flushing pink as he read.

Eddie ginned widely. “See? It’s perfect.”

As it turned out, Eddie had been right. 

He and Steve had been cohabitating for 4 days already and he hadn’t seen the guy awake once since they went to bed that first night after an awkward meal of Chinese takeout and a bad movie, watched without commentary from separate beds. 

Steve was always already asleep when Eddie got back from the bar at two a.m. each night, and was long gone by the time Eddie rolled out of bed the next morning. Though, in his continued campaign to act like a decent person, Steve had made a point of leaving half a pot of fresh coffee on the warmer every day. 

Eddie thought about dumping it out of spite, but it was king of… nice. 

It brought back memories of Wayne doing the same, leaving coffee and food out on the kitchen table for him to easily grab on his way out the door, because his uncle knew Eddie wouldn’t eat anything otherwise. It was comforting, and though he knew Steve didn’t really mean it that way, it made Eddie feel taken care of. He’d take that feeling where he could get it for now, even if it came from someone he couldn’t stand.

Work was busy that night. It was his first Saturday behind the bar, and the place was absolutely heaving with sweaty bodies grinding themselves together to the rhythm of whatever shitty top 40’s cover song the band played. On the rare occasion that he had a moment to breathe Eddie found himself scanning the crowd for anyone that might pique his interest. 

He wasn’t as subtle about it as he maybe should have been, but Chrissy had once assured him that their part of town was fairly queer friendly, though there was no actual gay bar to speak of, so he figured he was safe enough to look.  

He’d been looking every night since he’d arrived, actually, but had yet to notice a single guy that set his radar off, until now.

He was tall, blonde, insanely tanned, and not at all Eddie’s type—but when the pickings were slim, beggars couldn’t be choosers. The guy was cute enough, though, and he was looking at Eddie like he wanted to eat him alive. 

Perfect.

Eddie knew he looked good tonight. He’d purposely put a little more thought into getting ready than he had before previous shifts, knowing that the larger weekend crowd would give him a better chance at getting lucky. 

His black jeans were skin tight, and the boss had even let him cut his white uniform t-shirt into a crop top, showing off a strip of pale skin and trim waist anytime he raised his arms. To top it all off, he’d worn his hair up today with just a few tendrils falling around his face. Honestly, that had been more about the heat than anything else, but he also knew it was one of his best looks.  

Eddie met the nameless man’s gaze from across the room, holding it firm as he dried a pint glass and raising his eyebrow in silent question.

The man smiled glancing at his friends, who were far too busy chatting up a group of barely legal young girls to pay him any mind, before sauntering up to lean across the bar. 

“What time do you get off, gorgeous?”

Eddie smirked. “Meet me by the side door in an hour.”

The streets were quiet as Eddie and his new friend walked the few short blocks from the bar to the Buckingham. A fact they took full advantage of, stopping to shove their tongues down each other's throats at regular intervals along the way. 

So caught up in finally getting a little action, it wasn’t until Eddie was leading the way up the stairs to their floor of the motel that he remembered his unfortunate roomate. 

It was late, guaranteeing that Steve would already be in bed fast asleep. Somehow, Eddie hadn’t considered this little problem when they’d worked out the whole do-not-disturb sign system. 

Oh well, he’d just have to wake Steve up and tell him to get out for a while. 

After telling his… date to wait outside, Eddie slipped into the dark room and crept over to the closest bed. Looking down at Steve’s sleeping form, he almost changed his mind. It didn’t feel right to kick the guy out of his own bed just so he could get off with a stranger, but then Eddie thought back to the way Tommy Hagan—Steve’s former best friend and second in command—used to spit the word queer in his face like acid as he shoved him against the lockers before P.E., and he found all the motivation he needed. 

“Harrington?” Eddie murmured as he shook Steve's shoulder.

Steve stirred, waking slowly and frowning up at Eddie with heavy eyelids.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Steve's voice was thick with sleep but also—genuine concern.

Eddie’s breath caught in his throat. 

Oh.

He hesitated to answer for a moment, but forced himself to shake it off—whatever it was

Don’t start feeling bad about this now, Munson, get your shit together. 

“Everything is fine. I just, um.. I need the room. For a bit?”

Smooth. Real smooth.

“What? I don’t…” Steve trailed off, frowning harder. 

Eddie saw the moment it clicked.

“Oh.” Steve breathed, looking more awake by the second. “O-ok, I'll just take a blanket down to one of the pool loungers I guess.”

“Cool, I-I mean, thanks,”  Eddie stuttered out as Steve got up and they both went for the door. “I’ll–uh–let you know when he’s gone.”

It was strange, he would have expected to feel a sense of satisfaction or something in this moment for managing a hook up before Steve did, but as Eddie watched him shuffle off wrapped up in a blanket after giving bar-guy an awkward nod, he just kinda felt like a jerk.

Then, bar-guy was hurrying inside, drawing Eddie into a rough, bruising kiss—crowding him against the wall before dropping to his knees, and he forgot all about feeling bad. 

The man made quick work of the fly on Eddie’s jeans and had them pulled down around his thighs in a matter of seconds. It all happened so fast he could do nothing but moan loudly as his length was engulfed by the warm wetness of an eager mouth—any lingering thoughts of Steve drifting away under the attention of this stranger's talented tongue. He came quicker than he would have liked, but eagerly returned the favor—happy to lose himself to the feeling of a cock down his throat for the first time in weeks.

After, when clothes were set to rights and no cuddling whatsoever happened, exactly how Eddie preferred it, bar-guy was gone. 

And Eddie went down to the pool to get Steve. 

Chapter 2

Tagging a few folks who I think were interested, just let me know if you want to be removed. If you'd like to be added to the tag list, i'd be more than happy to do so!

@penny00dreadful @every-aj-needs-an-angel @manda-panda-monium @hellion-child @dreamwatch @brbsoulnomming

[jbaileyfansite]

Interview with Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer from GQ Hype

Filled with cozy, Hemingwayesque signifiers of midcentury masculinity (think: taxidermy and artfully-tattered boxing gloves), the restaurant seemed perfect for a breezy, late-autumn hang in the West Village.

But there’s one problem: Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey have burgers on their minds. And while this place boasts a surplus of dead animals nailed to the wall, it somehow only serves snacks and salads in the afternoon. And as Bomer points out, Corner Bistro—a pub that, in his opinion, serves some of the best burgers in town—is just a six-minute walk away.

The British-born Bailey—who, in his black sweater, floppy beanie and overstuffed backpack, looks more like a backpacker who just rolled out of his hostel rather than one of the streaming era’s top heartthrobs—waxes rhapsodic about In-N-Out, the California burger institution, which he recently tried for the first time.

He asks the suave, Old Hollywood-handsome Bomer, who spends most of his time in L.A. with his husband and three teenage sons, where In-N-Out falls on his personal burger index. “Our boys are really good judges of burgers,” Bomer says, and for them, In-N-Out is up there—but so is the burger at Corner Bistro. And how can we send Bailey—the Viscount of Bridgerton himself—back to London without tasting New York’s best?

Our location, midway between Stonewall Inn and Julius, two of New York’s most historic gay bars, is apt. The project we’re here to talk about—the epic new Showtime series Fellow Travelers, in which the pair star—tips its hat to the legendary 1969 riots that happened in Stonewall, but goes even further, telling the story of gay liberation in the second half of the twentieth century.

Part epic love story, part political thriller, Fellow Travelers begins in 1950s Washington, D.C., with an illicit affair between the strapping Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Bomer), a State Department official savvy to the ways of power, and the earnest, energetic Timothy “Tim” Laughlin (Bailey), the kind of wide-eyed idealist who goes to D.C. wanting to change the world. When they first meet, Tim is a conservative Catholic boy; his passionate, intensely erotic affair with Hawk both liberates him and throws him off his path.

Through the decades-spanning run of their relationship, the series takes us from the Lavender Scare of the 1950s—when a McCarthy-era policy that institutionalized homophobia expelled many “sexual deviants” from government, resulting at one point in a suicide a day—to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.

The series is based on the Thomas Mallon novel of the same name. But where Mallon’s book generally focuses on the 1950s and the explosive romance between Hawk and Tim, the series expands the Fellow Travelers universe to reach through the decades and cover the Vietnam War protests of the '60s and the White Night riots of 1979.

“It's been taught that LGBTQIA+ history begins at Stonewall,” says Jelani Alladin, the actor who plays queer Black journalist Marcus Hooks in the series. “It’s a kind of false narrative. Queer people have been around taking a stand for themselves since the beginning of time.”

It feels like a disservice to call a series so sexy and so compelling as educational. But Fellow Travelers does serve as an important history lesson for younger generations who may not fully understand the battles fought before their time. “It was a really dark period in American history that obviously we're not taught in school,” says executive producer Robbie Rogers, who prior to his work in film and TV was the soccer player who became the first openly gay man to compete in a North American professional sports league. “We're not taught LGBT history.”

When the first episode of the series came out in late October, a viral clip showcasing Bailey and Bomer in a particularly kinky sex scene had Gay Twitter shuddering with excitement. In the scene, Bailey’s Tim uses his power as a sub to persuade Bomer’s Hawk to take him to an important D.C. party. “I’m your boy, right?” he tells Hawk. “Your boy wants to go to the party.” In surely one of this year’s hottest scenes on film or TV, we see Bailey hungrily suck on Bomer’s toes and gamely attempt to put his foot in his mouth. Earlier in the series, Hawk gives Tim the name “Skippy” after thoroughly dominating him in bed, a gesture of affection as much as of ownership.

Sex is a powerful, world-shifting force in Fellow Travelers, but it’s also a Trojan horse. While the early episodes bristle with erotic energy, every exchange between Bomer and Bailey is about power as much as it is about sex. And the further you go into Travelers, the more you realize what’s really at stake when these two hit the sack.

“Even in the ‘50s, they had joy,” Travelers creator and writer Ron Nyswaner, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Philadelphia, says. “You might be struggling, but that doesn't mean every moment of your life you're a victim of oppression. Behind closed doors they had a life—it's just that at any moment, the police could come through those doors and ruin that life.”

That unapologetic approach to queer desire is still pretty revolutionary in a big-budget prestige series on a major network. Gone are the days when gay characters were allowed to exist onscreen as long as they adhered to respectability politics. In Fellow Travelers, the queer characters are allowed passionate, unapologetically freaky pleasures.

“There's no shame attached to that,” Bailey says. “And I do think Matt's character detonates something in Tim. It's a gift to meet someone [who does the] radical act of helping you feel less shame and understand that intimacy that can be explored in so many different ways.”

Religion is a big theme in Fellow Travelers. Hawk is bound by covenant to his wife; Tim struggles with Catholic guilt. And like many queer people, Bomer and Bailey themselves have both had to negotiate religion within their queer identities.

“It took me a long time to dismantle it and to question what I was being told,” Bailey says. “Religion is interesting because it’s the voice of the shame but also [a source of] relief. There was this person that I could speak to—and I definitely did have that full conversation with a higher power. But the contradiction is brutal. To really lean into that as a gay kid who's not born into a gay family, you see both sides of what religion can provide, which is scathing judgment—as I felt it looking back—but also a real space for catharsis and nourishment.”

Bomer says he has an individualized approach to religion: “It's something that I've found for myself over years and years of exploration. It's just highly personal that way.” Bomer is proud to have raised his kids in a truly intersectional environment. “They go to an Episcopal school, but they're in school with Muslim kids, with Jewish kids,” he says. “We gave them that experience and then let them find their own way from there.”

On the way to Corner Bistro, Bomer gives Bailey a capsule tour of gay West Village. “That’s an iconic lesbian bar,” he says, pointing out Cubbyhole on West 12th street. Later, he asks if we’ve ever been to Fire Island. “You can have any experience you want there,” Bomer tells me, when I confess my anxiety around Speedos. “It's not just one thing.”

These streets bring up certain memories for Bomer. He tells us about coming up as an actor in New York in the early 2000s, at one point living in “a renovated crackhouse in Brooklyn.” Later, he worked two jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment he split with a fellow aspiring actor—none other than Lee Pace, the famous, and famously tall (6′ 5″, if you don’t know), actor and Internet Boyfriend who Bomer has known since high school. “I’ll tell you how long I've known Lee Pace,” he says. “I’ve known him since he was shorter than me, when he was 14 and I was 15.”

As gay men are wont to do, trust that the group veered off-topic to talk about vocally-prodigious divas. Bomer has just seen the Broadway production of David Byrne’s Here Lies Love, which tells the story of the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos, the wife of the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. And when he finds out that I grew up in the Philippines, he tells me how much he loves Lea Salonga, the Tony-winning Filipino Broadway star who appears in the production.

We ask Bailey if he’s familiar with her. “Do I know Lea Salonga?” he asks. “She was Fantine!” he retorts, referring to her role in Les Misérables in Concert: The 25th Anniversary.

From there, we fall into a Filipino diva rabbit hole, talking about former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger (currently appearing in a well-received West End production of Sunset Boulevard that Bomer tells Bailey they must catch together), Mutya Buena of the Sugababes (an iconic U.K. girl group that Bailey and I separately saw live recently), and Darren Criss (who Bomer directed on The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story—technically a straight male, but one who earns diva status for his formidable vocals and the dance he did in a red speedo on Versace).

As we near the pub, a thirty-something woman walking hand in hand with her man does a hilariously convincing impression of the Distracted Boyfriend meme at the sight of Neal Caffrey and Anthony Bridgerton casually strolling through West 4th Street.

“Her neck!” Bailey says, audibly concerned.

In Corner Bistro, with sandwiches and coffees in hand (Bailey decides on a classic burger and a grilled chicken sandwich), we settle down in a cozy booth and talk about the points in their careers where Fellow Travelers found the actors, the hard-won representation Hollywood’s queer community has been fighting for for decades, and the LGBTQ+ talents of color they’d like to support on their own projects.

Bomer, of course, has been famous since the early 2010s, when he became a star on the series White Collar, and along with Neil Patrick Harris, proved that openly gay actors could become leading men. Since then, he’s conquered Broadway (The Boys in the Band), won a slew of awards (Golden Globe and Critic's Choice trophies for The Normal Heart) and become a producer and director.

In the past, Bomer has discussed the way doors closed on him even as he was being celebrated for being an out gay actor. When asked about that now, he says, “I choose just to never look back in anger about anything. Ultimately, my career is a lot richer because I decided to be open with who I am.”

“It’s a wave of progress that Matt's been surfing and is at the front of,” says Bailey. “And it's been a real honor to be able to get on my boogie board next to him.”

Before he became a global star mid-pandemic playing the grumpy, furry-chested Anthony Bridgerton on the Netflix juggernaut Bridgerton, Bailey was an award-winning actor in both the West End and British television. Huge fame didn’t find Bailey until his early 30s, so when it did, he had a clear idea of what he wanted to accomplish with his platform.

“I feel the responsibility immeasurably,” Bailey says. “I get it when people are saying you create a chair and bring people [to the table].” He talks about the connection between the civil rights movement and the queer liberation. “The Black queens are the ones who really started to fight,” he says. “It's amazing to feel politically activated. And if there's any project to do that, it's going to be Fellow Travelers. It will change the way I see myself in and the world I live in.”

The intersectionality makes the story Travelers is trying to tell even richer—most of all in Alladin’s scene-stealing portrayal of the conflicted Marcus Hooks, a pioneering Black journalist who pushes against segregation as he grapples with his own sexuality. “When I look at older men today, I'm like, You guys have endured so much,” Aladdin says. “From the Second World War all the way through to the AIDS crisis, it was nonstop life crisis after life crisis. To have been able to survive through all that, there needs to be a real, solid weight on the feet of [these characters].”

Part of the pleasure of watching Fellow Travelers is picking up on the cinematic references hidden in each scene. Hawk and Tim’s first interactions evoke the forbidden affair in David Lean’s 1945 classic Brief Encounter. When Hawk’s family settles in suburbia, the show evokes the Technicolor repression of the great Douglas Sirk melodramas. When Hawk and Tim run through the beaches of Fire Island in the ‘70s, that iconic image of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kissing on the beach in From Here to Eternity may flicker in your mind. And in some ways, the series plays like a gayer, hornier The Way We Were—an epic love story tossed on the tides of political change. (In this version, of course, the Barbra Streisand character is an eager foot-licking sub and Redford’s Hubbell Gardiner is a daddy with a pit fetish.) Fellow Travelers allows us to imagine an alternate timeline where queer love has always gotten as much screen time as cinema’s great heterosexual romances, giving other kinds of stories the chance at celluloid immortality too.

In the book, Hawk is described as being more handsome than Gregory Peck. But seeing Bomer in period-appropriate clothing, the Old Hollywood leading man I thought of was Montgomery Clift, the talented and ultimately tragic gay actor who starred in classics like Red River and A Place in the Sun. For a time in the mid 2010s, Bomer was attached to star in a Montgomery Clift biopic for HBO, to be directed by the great gay director Ira Sachs. “Ira is a genius,” Bomer says. “[But] I think that ship may have sailed.”

Still, when I press him about doing it in the future, he lights up. “You know, I’m [now] the same age Monty was when he passed away,” Bomer says. “I always thought it'd be really interesting to do a play about the last night of his life, when he's watching one of his old movies on TV. And he had this man who lived with him and took care of him for the last chapter of his life.There's an interesting play in there somewhere…. Maybe Liz Taylor swings by.”

What’s changed since the mid 2010s is that a lot of Hollywood’s current gatekeepers are queer people who were fighting from the bottom a decade ago. “It's the people, the gatekeepers who are now going, ‘We are going to make this [queer] story,’” Bailey says. “This narrative that gay people have to be closeted in order [for a project] to be commercial and in order for things to be interesting to people—it's been dismantled. But it's slow because it's not just straight people who think that—I think everyone believed that in the system of Hollywood.”

Nyswaner, who has been working in Hollywood since the early ‘80s, has seen that shift up close. “When I grew up in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, I never heard the word ‘homosexual’ spoken aloud,” he says. “There was no conversation that I ever had with anybody about homosexuality. It was not just bad, it was the unspeakable thing—that's how terrified people were of us.”

And while he agrees that, in some ways, it feels like the LGBTQ+ community is once again losing ground on some rights, Nyswaner refuses to accept that there hasn’t been change. “Sometimes I hear people say, ‘Well, we haven't gotten anywhere.’ And I'm here to say, ‘Oh, yes, we have.’ Because actually you can turn on the television and find gay characters.”

Fellow Travelers is the culmination of a dream for a number of the men involved in the series.

“When I met Ron, he was talking about how he thinks about this as his lifelong legacy project,” Bailey says. “And I just said to him, ‘Whoever ends up going on this journey with you, I think it'll be the same [for them] probably.’”

“In some ways, Fellow Travelers is a span of my life,” Ron Nyswaner says. “I was an infant in the McCarthy era. And then I came out of the closet in 1978 and just danced and did cocaine and had multiple sexual partners—we didn't know what was coming, which was the AIDS crisis.” Nyswaner was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1993 for Philadelphia, the landmark drama about an AIDS patient who sues his employers for AIDS discrimination. In a way, the historical span of Fellow Travelers gives the battles fought in Philadelphia their context.

Rogers remembers being a closeted soccer player in the late 2000s, watching Tom Ford’s A Single Man and hoping one day to be able to find love and take control of his own narrative. And Bailey recalls, post-Bridgerton, realizing that he could suddenly write his own destiny and vowing to seek out “a sweeping gay love story.”

Bomer, meanwhile, says—laughing, but seemingly dead serious—that it’s his goal to play a queer character from every decade of the 20th century. “A queer Decalogue,” he says, referencing the Krzysztof Kieślowski classic.

Bomer’s next project might just help him do that. He’s currently producing a Steven Soderbergh film on Lawrence v. Texas, the case that overturned the sodomy laws in Texas in 2003 but started in the 90s.

There are many more stories to tell. And as our interview winds down, Bomer and Bailey start spitballing dream projects.

We talk about All of Us Strangers director Andrew Haigh, who’s revered for his portraits of gay intimacy. “Andrew Haigh has been a special filmmaker for years,” Bailey says. “I think [his film] Weekend informed actually how I approached the sex scenes in [Fellow Travelers].”

“I’d love to play Jessica Fletcher's queer grandson who moves back to Cabot Cove,” Bomer says, referencing Angela Lansbury’s iconic role in Murder, She Wrote. “He's inherited her house and he finds an old journal in her library, and it's a case she never saw and he takes up her mantle.”

And moments before the restaurant speakers suddenly start blaring George Michael’s “Freedom ’90,” Bailey comes in with a killer pitch: “I’m obsessed with the Sacred Band of Thebes, an army of 300 gay lovers in [ancient] Greece. They partnered in pairs, this gay army, and they overthrew a Spartan army… I want to do that as a comedy.”

“Oh hell yes!” Bomer says.

“Just get all the queer actors together,” Bailey says, laughing.

“Lee Pace, everyone,” Bomer says.

“Where would we film it?” Bailey asks.

“Mykonos?” Bomer suggests.

“Flaming Saddles, down the road,” Bailey counters with a chuckle, referring to a gay bar in midtown.

“Oil us up and let’s go!” Bomer says.

Source

[nordschleifes]

chapter five — inevitable

➝ trapped in imola after the torrential rains in the region, charlie and fernando are forced to cooperate with each other. however, what was supposed to be just one night in a tiny hotel in the city center becomes their moment of reckoning. and it only has one bed.

➝ word count: 9,2k

➝ warnings: panic attack, flooding, mentions of trauma, smut

➝ author's note: there is no little chapter here, as you can see. tagging @christianpulisic10, @alonsogirlie and @enaticosencantados as requested.

Leaning against the door of the white car, Charlie felt a strange feeling inside her chest as she stared at the bridge over the Santerno River, which was completely flooded. It was definitely not something she’d expected to see so close to the circuit.

— I don't think I'm going to make it through, miss — the taxi driver, a Moroccan man who spoke in heavily accented English, said.

— Is there no way across?

— I can't risk it, miss, I'm sorry.

She huffed in frustration. It was the last thing she needed that day, considering how hellish it had been so far. Charlie had left England early that morning after a battle of wills with Ron, who refused to get into his carrier to be taken to her grandparents' house. After arriving at the airport at the last minute, she had to wait for nearly two hours for the plane to take off for Zurich, where she would take another flight to Bologna.

There was another long delay from Zurich to Bologna, which turned an hour-long layover into nearly a three hour wait until her plane started boarding. Then, another hour of waiting on the runway for the plane to get takeoff clearance. It seemed like the universe was playing a bad joke on her.

It was already dusk when Charlie arrived at Imola, after spending even more time in passport control at the airport. “Thank you, Brexit”, she thought, as she put her passport in her bag and smiled at the agent who had finally stamped her entry document. However, instead of the charming city that she had visited several times, she found mud and destruction, the result of intense rains that had hit the region.

— Honestly, I don't even know if there will be a race if it keeps raining like this — the taxi driver said, as they followed the highway into the city.

It might seem like a selfish desire at the moment, but the last thing Charlie needed was for the race to be called off. She had gone through so much trouble to get to Imola that it would seem like an injustice. However, after seeing the bridge filled with water right next to the race track, the possibility seemed real.

— Miss? — the driver  asked — Would you like to go somewhere else?

Charlie sighed, trying to collect her thoughts.

— Let me check my phone, just a second — she said, as she sat back in the cab and dug through her purse for the device. However, Charlie had another unpleasant surprise when she realized that her battery was dead.

— Is everything okay?

— I'm out of battery — Charlie said, a frustrated smile on her face — Everything is great.

— Well, if you want, I can take you downtown. I know there are some hotels and hostels there. I don't know if any have vacancies, but someone will be able to offer you some help, I'm sure — the man said, giving her a sympathetic smile.

“It’s not like I have much choice”, she thought, before accepting his offer.

After reaching downtown Imola, Charlie paid the man and thanked him for his help. She walked through the streets with her backpack on her back, dragging her suitcase behind her, trying to identify on the signs something that indicated that there was a hotel there.

After walking four blocks and not understanding anything she'd been told other than "no vacancies" at two hotels she’d found, Charlie couldn't get the idea of sleeping on the streets out of her head, a daunting prospect considering how cloudy was the sky over the town.

However, Charlie’s chest filled with hope when she turned a corner.

Parked near the town square was a grey SUV that she recognized as an Aston Martin. “A DBX 707”, she thought. She walked towards the vehicle, thinking that maybe not all was lost, even when she discovered that the car was empty. Maybe the car’s owner was nearby. 

Releasing the handle of her suitcase, she walked around the car, spotting a Swiss license plate on the front bumper. “Maybe the owner speaks English”, she thought, smiling to herself.

— Charlie? — a familiar, accented voice said from behind her. As she turned around, she felt the smile fade and tension rise in her shoulders. Standing near the back of the car, wearing a dark green sweatshirt and holding a bottle of water, was Fernando Alonso — What are you doing here?

— What are you doing here? — she asked back, raising an eyebrow.

— I have a race here on Sunday, didn't you know?

— Of course I know, but — Charlie hesitated — It's Tuesday.

He smiled.

— I saw online that there could be problems getting there because of the weather so I decided to come earlier. And you, what are you doing here?

— I always come to the circuits on Tuesdays.

— Oh, I see — he said, taking a sip of his water — Are you staying around here?

— No, actually, I intended to stay close to the circuit but…

— The bridge is washed out — Fernando said — Yeah, I know.

— Were you going to stay at La Fondazza? — Charlie asked, as Fernando nodded — Did you already find another place to stay?

— I was talking to the people in the cafe about it and they told me about a place that might have a room. And you?

— I was looking for a place around here — she murmured, looking up at the sky at the sound of distant thunder. It made something tighten inside her chest — I've been to two hostels nearby but there's no room available. I don't know where to look anymore...

— Well, if they have room for me, they must have room for you. Do you want to come with me?

She couldn't hide her surprise at his offer. After feeling like she was at war with him for years, Charlie still wasn't used to him treating her with kindness. She dreaded this newer, softer Fernando disappearing any moment to make way for the Fernando she knew and hated.

— Yeah, I do.

She placed her bags next to his in the car’s lift gate and settled into the black and white leather passenger seat. As she buckled her seat belt, she couldn't help but notice the vehicle's dashboard and center console, whose design was strongly inspired by sports cars.

— Have you already seen the 707? — Fernando asked.

— Only from the outside, I've never been inside one — Charlie replied, her eyes glued to the dashboard — Which engine does it have?

— It's a four-litre twin-turbo V8, all hand-assembled. It produces 707 horsepower and more than 90 kgfm of torque. It has roller turbines and a different calibration to increase the turbocharger revs.

— Fantastic — she murmured as the driver pressed the button to start the car. The low sound of the engine made Charlie look up at him, a wide smile on her face. She was completely delighted — It goes from zero to 100 in about 3 seconds, doesn't it?

— 3.3 — he said, as he maneuvered the car out of the parking space — How do you know that?

— I calculated it in my head.

— So quickly?

— You know I have a degree in mechanical engineering and a graduate degree in automotive engineering, right?

— That doesn't mean you're necessarily good at mental calculations.

— But, I am. My grandmother was a maths teacher, so I grew up learning to love numbers. 

Fernando smiled as he made a left turn.

— So, your grandmother was a teacher and your grandfather was a mechanic?

— Well, sort of. My grandfather was in the Royal Air Force for a long time, and he worked on airplane engines. He has always been fascinated by engines and everything about them. He met my grandmother during a visit with her students to the RAF museum.

— And where do cars come into this story? — he asked.

— He always liked cars and racing. And, considering he had a wife and daughter at home to look after, once he left the military, he started taking jobs in a body shop in Birmingham. He still does that today, even though his focus is on older cars, nowadays. I help from time to time when I visit.

— And that means you know how to work with engines? — Fernando asked, looking a little surprised.

— Of course I do! — Charlie replied, indignant — Remember that I have a degree...

— Charlie, having a degree doesn't mean you know how to disassemble and assemble an engine — he said, looking both ways before passing through an intersection. The sidewalks were smeared with mud.

— The point is, I know how to work with engines. In fact, I’m comfortable with the entire drive train. It helped me a lot during secondary school, when I needed to save money for university.

— You worked in a body shop?

— No, at a kart circuit.

Fernando glanced at her, surprised.

— You fixed go-karts?

— Yes, I did. Why is that surprising?

— Because I also fixed go-karts when I was younger — he said — I needed money to race, so I took care of the younger boys' karts, since I was strong enough to tighten the wheels and adjust the engine. That’s how I met Alberto.

— Were you his mechanic?

— Yeah — Fernando replied, as he slowed down the car — I think this is the place they told me about in the cafe. Ziò, they said.

Looking out the window, Charlie saw that there was a burgundy sign with that word, along with the outline of a moon and three stars. It sure looked like a hotel.

— Yeah, I think so — she murmured as Fernando  parked the car between a Twizy and a Volvo.

They got out of the car and Fernando offered to take Charlie’s suitcase. Charlie declined, and they walked into the lobby and saw a man sitting at the wooden counter, seemingly distracted by something on the screen in front of him.

— Buonasera — Fernando said, making the man look up.

— Buonasera, mi chiamo Riccardo, como pode aiutarvi? — he said, smiling.

— Siamo del team Aston Martin e siamo venuti alla gara, ma la strada per l'hotel che abbiamo prenotato è allagata. Volevo sapere se avevi delle stanze dove stare per la notte — the driver said, in practically perfect Italian. Charlie, for a moment, wondered how he knew Italian so well until she remembered the five years he had spent at Ferrari.

The memory of seeing him for the first time, walking past her with a troop of Ferrari employees in Melbourne, made Charlie's skin tingle. “He should wear red more often”, she thought, while Fernando discussed something with the employee, the expression on his face looking less than happy with what he was hearing.

— Nessun'altra opzione, magari con due letti?

— Purtroppo ci rimane solo questa stanza — Riccardo replied.

Fernando sighed, before turning to look at her. He did not look pleased.

— They only have one room available, for two people.

Charlie pursed her lips thoughtfully. In an ideal situation, she would never consider sharing a hotel room with Fernando Alonso. However, this was far from an ideal situation. The entire region was in chaos, some hotels couldn’t take in guests, and the others were full. Most of the people due in town for the race hadn’t even arrived yet. A single room was better than none.

— Two beds? — she asked, with an almost naive hope.

— Just one — Fernando said — Look, it's not a problem for me, you can have the room and I'll find another place to sleep tonight...

— No — she said flatly — You found this place, it’s only fair that you stay here.

— Charlie, you're staying here, I'll find another place. That, or, I can sleep in my car, the seat is comfortable and…

— You're not going to sleep in your car, Fernando. You need to sleep well to perform well.

— So, what do you suggest?

Looking into Fernando’s brown eyes, Charlie hesitated for a few seconds. She knew she would regret it. “One night won't hurt anyone”, she thought.

— We can share.

He raised an eyebrow.

— Share?

— You know, when you distribute something proportionately between two people. I imagine you're not very familiar with this concept, but it's what normal people do, especially when they’re in situations like this.

Fernando rolled his eyes.

— I know what sharing is, I just didn't expect you saying you want to share a room with me. Especially after — he hesitated for a few seconds — Everything.

— So you can see the effort I'm making. 

He smirked.

— Don't worry — the driver said, before turning back to the hotel employee — Prendiamo questa stanza.

After settling into their room, a small suite with mint-colored walls and a wooden floor, they went to a nearby restaurant that Riccardo had suggested for dinner. When they returned, Charlie took a shower and put on a pair of shorts and an old t-shirt.

— Seagulls? — she heard Fernando say, looking at her t-shirt with a small smile on his face.

— Yes.

— Why?

— It's my team's symbol.

— Team? Like, football?

— Yeah. Brighton.

— Really? Aren’t you from Northampton?

— Yes, I am, but my grandfather is originally from Brighton, though, so I grew up supporting Brighton. Anyway, we’re having a good year. I think we will play in the Europa League next season. It will depend on this Sunday’s match.

— Who do they play against?

— Manchester City — she said, making him chuckle.

— Good luck to them — Fernando said, setting his phone on the bedside table — Difficult team to face.

— I know. We already lost to them this season, but we only need a draw — Charlie replied as he sat down on the bed.

— We just needed a draw too — Fernando muttered — But it was at their stadium…

— The game is at the Amex, not at the Etihad — she said she pulled the duvet up — It will be alright.

— We’ll see — Fernando said — Good night, Charlie.

— Good night — she said softly. Then, the room went dark.

Charlie thought that, with travel fatigue, it would be easy to fall asleep. However, she hadn’t factored in the weather. It had started to fall more heavily on the area by the time they had gone to dinner, which made her apprehensive. Fernando had even noticed her unease, but Charlie managed to play it down.

However, in the dark and quiet of the hotel room, the sound of the rain pelting the window glass and the thunder that made the walls shake, she felt her fear and anxiety growing. She remembered that fateful Friday morning, several years ago, when Northampton was hit by a massive flood over Easter weekend. She remembered things in flashes — the texture of her soaked clothes, the cold of the wind that stung her face, her grandmother screaming as they watched her grandfather get knocked off his feet by a rush of water and disappear beneath the muddy surface. 

“This can’t be happening again”, Charlie thought, remembering when she finally saw her grandfather in his hospital bed, covered with a thermal blanket and his hair still wet. Even though he was okay, his smile couldn’t take away the terror she’d felt from almost losing Jamie, the man who had loved her unconditionally and taken her in when Deborah decided she didn't want to be a mother anymore.

— Charlie? — she heard Fernando ask.

When she tried to open her eyes, she was blinded by the lamp turning on. After blinking a few times, Charlie felt his warm hand on her shoulder, thumb brushing against the fabric of her t-shirt. His touch made her freeze for a few seconds, her mind taking a few seconds to remember that she wasn't alone. “He can't see me like this, he can't see me like this”, she thought.

— Are you okay, Charlie? — Fernando asked her, his hand gently pulling her, making her turn to the other side, meeting his worried expression — Why are you crying?

She blinked again, her eyes feeling wet. Charlie hadn't realized that she was crying, but she couldn't answer his question either. She started crying in earnest, deep, sharp sobs that made her gasp. All she could smell was the putrid smell of floodwater churning the earth and mixing with whatever was washing out of the storm drains. She felt like a little girl, afraid of the cold, the murky water, the thunder — afraid of losing the people she loved in the water again.

Suddenly the cold dissipated. The smell of floodwater was replaced by something fresh and familiar. The sound of thunder subsided, giving way to something quiet and steady, a rhythmic pulse.

— It's okay — Charlie heard Fernando whisper — Nothing's going to happen to you.

— But… The water is rising so fast. It’s going to flood again...

— It's okay, calm down. You are safe. I’ve got you, nena.

Her fingers closed around the fabric of his shirt, and Charlie let herself be held. With the weight of his arms around her, the painful memories of the flood became distant, both in space and time. It was as if in that moment, wrapped in his body heat and in the fresh, lingering scent of his cologne, she was finally protected from all of it — from the cold, the wet, the pain of the past. She was protected from the turmoil building inside her.

She gradually managed to calm down as Fernando stroked his hand gently up and down  her back. With the soft, calming sound of his voice whispering in her ear, Charlie was finally able to fall asleep.

Daylight was streaming in through the crack in the curtain when she woke up, and rubbed her eyes. She'd slept terribly, courtesy of the awful dreams she’d had.

Charlie dreamed she was on the flooded bridge near the circuit with her grandfather. Jamie was determined to resolve the situation, especially after some kind of siren sounded through the city. Pleas for him not to leave her alone weren't enough to prevent him from jumping into the muddy water, then disappearing. She even tried to jump after him, but felt a pair of arms holding her tight, telling her that she "wasn't going anywhere".

— Good morning — she heard someone say.

 When she turned her head Charlie noticed that she was still in Fernando's arms.

— Good morning — she replied, trying to disguise the nervousness in her voice.

— Feeling better?

— A little, yeah.

— That's good — Fernando said, running his hand over her head, seeming to smooth the strands of her hair — I was worried about you.

She stayed silent for a few seconds.

— Why?

— Because you had a panic attack, Charlie, and a big one.

Charlie shifted her gaze to the lamp, trying to avoid his eyes.

— Since when has this been happening? — he asked softly, his fingers brushing her bangs out of her eyes — Is it often? Does anyone know about this? Have you talked to anyone about this?

Something his rapid-fire questions made her uneasy. It was as if Charlie had allowed Fernando to see too much of her vulnerable side, which she didn’t typically show other people in the paddock. She put a lot of effort into making sure that all anyone saw was the smart, decisive, woman, and not the scared little girl she was at her core.

But, in her terror, she’d let the mask slip.

Sitting up, Charlie tried to think of something to say. Maybe she would lie, tell him she was sleepwalking or it was a side effect of some medication. Maybe she'd say he was crazy and that she'd slept soundly all night. Maybe she...

— Charlie, are you afraid of rain?

She looked over her shoulder at him.

— Why are you asking?

— Because you said everything was going to flood again last night. That the water was rising too fast.

Charlie looked down at her feet and imagined them submerged in muddy water. 

— I'm not afraid of rain.  — she whispered — I just don’t like storms. Or floods.

— Why?

— Because I saw my grandfather almost drown in some flood water when I was nine years old — Charlie said, her voice cracking — It had rained a lot the night before. To help keep the street from flooding, he teamed up with some of our neighbors to try to clear the storm drains. But, the river near our house breached its banks and he lost his balance in the strong current, and fell into the water and got swept away. He was carried a few hundred feet before he managed to stop himself.

She had discussed the incident with Hannah a long time ago, but part of her still struggled with similar situations, like at the Belgian Grand Prix in 2021. Charlie never knew how to thank Daniel Ricciardo for lending her his headphones and distracting her with silly stories as the rain pelted down the circuit during the hours-long red flag period.

— What? — he mumbled.

— They found him holding on to a lamp post and took him to A&E. He was fine, in the end. He had hypothermia and he needed a few stitches. He was very lucky, according to the doctors. But seeing him getting swept away was enough to make me hate storms from then on — she completed.

— Is that why you asked me not to leave this morning?

Charlie turned to face him, confused.

— I didn’t ask for…

— You did. I was going to go for a run at dawn and you asked me to stay, and said that it was dangerous. So, I stayed.

— Why?

— Because you needed me.

— I — Charlie started to say, but stopped herself. She hated to admit it, but she did need him. Fernando had been her safe haven the previous night, without even questioning her or teasing her about it. Heaving a sigh, she ran a hand through her hair — I appreciate you helping me, I really do. But you didn't have to give up your plans this morning on my account.

Fernando sat back down on the bed and put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder.

— I didn't give up any plans. It’s fine.

— I imagine you have better things to do than stay here with me.

— I don't mind being here with you. In fact, I'm glad you feel comfortable with me — Fernando said, making her turn her face towards him. Charlie felt her heart race in her chest, her eyes suddenly drawn to his mouth. Maybe she should kiss him.

“No, Charlotte”, she scolded herself.

— I think I'll go brush my teeth and get dressed — Charlie finally managed to say.

— Sure — Fernando replied — Then, shall we get breakfast?

— Yeah, okay — she said, smiling a little.

The two of them went downstairs and had breakfast, mostly in silence, something Charlie appreciated, especially with the jumble of thoughts inside her head, However, towards the end of the meal, the hotel owner approached their table, looking delighted to have a Formula 1 driver there.

— Vorrei ricevere te e la tua ragazza in modo più adeguato, ma purtroppo la situazione non è delle migliori. Mi scuso per questo — the man said, smiling. Looking at Fernando, she got the impression that he was blushing.

— Nessun problema, la camera è ottima, così come tutto il servizio.

Once they got back to their room, Charlie reviewed the previous week’s sim data from Stoffel, and Fernando studied an old race. Then, he asked Charlie if she minded if he had a quick video call with Alberto. She couldn't help but watch him as he jabbered in Spanish with his friend, eyes twinkling as Alberto showed him something.

— Déjame mostrarle esto a ella, un segundo — Fernando said, showing her some drawings of some caps on his iPad  — Charlie, look at this and tell me what you think.

She smiled, glancing at the screen.

— Those are nice.

— Which one do you like best?

Charlie looked at the iPad again. Both designs were nice, but there was something about the camouflage pattern that reminded her of photos at her grandparents’ house from Jamie’s RAF days.

— This one — she said, pointing to the orange camouflage model.

— Great, thank you very much — Fernando replied, sitting back down on the bed — A ella le gusta el camuflaje, sigamos con ese, ¿de acuerdo?

They were returning to the hotel after lunch when Fernando received a call from Mike, confirming that the race had been cancelled. It wasn’t a surprise, especially after Nyck De Vries had messaged the drivers' Whatsapp group and said he was trapped in a village near Faenza, unable to reach Imola.

However, if getting there was a problem, leaving there would be too, and Charlie found that out the hard way in the afternoon. She sent a message to Sophie, the team’s travel specialist, to ask about her return to the UK. She got a response hours later, while she was watching the first episode of LOST with Fernando — he’d insisted, telling her that it was “the best series in the world”.

— Great, just what I needed — she mumbled, setting her phone in her lap.

— What’s wrong? — Fernando asked.

— Sophie said that the flights leaving from Bologna are all booked and that the best option right now is if I go to Milan and catch a connection in Frankfurt.

— Sounds reasonable — the driver said. Charlie looked back at him. He was sitting against the headboard.

— Of course it seems reasonable to you, you have a car. I don’t.

— I can take you — he replied quietly.

— The flight isn’t until tomorrow.

— And?

— You'll be leaving later today, right?

— I can stay one more night, no problem.

Charlie stared at him.

— You can?

— Of course.

— But, why?

— Because I want to, Charlie — he replied, putting one arm behind his head as he flashed one of his teasing smiles.

— That’s not an answer.

Fernando kept looking at her, seeming thoughtful, until he let out a sigh.

— Look, I’m not going to leave you alone here. What if you have some sort of trouble, and without knowing a word of Italian...

— I know some Italian, Fernando.

— Knowing how to order a spaghetti alla carbonara and water isn't knowing how to speak Italian.

— But it's something.

He huffed, sitting up in bed.

— It's not enough, and that’s not the point.

— And what is the point, exactly?

— The point is, have you forgotten what happened last time?

She blinked.

— You mean… In Jerez?

— Yes. The worst almost happened there — Fernando stopped for a few seconds — And I would never be able to forgive myself if something bad happened to you.

They remained silent for a few seconds, their eyes fixed on each other, as if searching for the right words. Charlie tried to find the courage within herself to finally ask the question that had been tormenting her for months.

— Why do you care so much about me?

Running a hand through his hair, Fernando sighed.

— Because I like you, Charlie — he said.

— Do you? But, like, do you like me as a co-worker? As a friend? You know we're far from...

— I like you as the beautiful woman you are — he said, making her heart skip a beat — I like you as the smart, extraordinary woman you are. I just like you.

— But, I thought…

— I thought I had made it clear how I feel about you in Miami.

— What, when you said I was a thorn in your side?

— When I got my hands under your skirt and squeezed your ass while you were kissing me — he smiled — By the way, you should wear that skirt more often, your legs are beautiful.

Charlie couldn't believe what she was hearing.

— Are you flirting with me? — she asked, almost naively.

— Well, you could say that. Though I’d rather be doing other things with you — he said, moving closer to her — Much more interesting things.

— And why aren't you?

— Because you haven’t asked.

A tingle raced over her skin.

— And what do I have to say?

Fernando smirked as he took one of Charlie's hands in his, examining the skin carefully before looking into her eyes.

— Just say 'please, Fer’ — he said, placing a gentle kiss on her fingers — And I'll do anything you want.

Charlie's mind was short-circuiting. Her heart was pounding.

Before she realized what she was saying, the words had already left her mouth.

— If you're going to kiss me, do it properly.

— Which are the magic words?

Charlie smiled.

— Please, Fer.

— Much better, nena — Fernando murmured, leaning gently toward her, his lips soft and warm against hers.

In Miami, their kiss had been feverish and desperate, but this one was just the opposite. There was no rush, there was no anger, there was no desire to prove the other wrong, but it was not lacking in any passion. Charlie felt Fernando's fingers slide through her hair as he guided her moves, his tongue carefully tasting her, as if he wanted to etch what she tasted like into her memory. However, she didn't have to. She remembered exactly what he tasted like.

"Sweet, salty, sour", Charlie thought, as her hands slid down his chest to the hem of his shirt. Her unsubtle hint made Fernando move back a little, throwing the shirt to some corner of the room. Then it was his turn to do the same to her, leaving her only wearing her cotton bralette.

— Hermosa — he whispered breathlessly, his hands cupping her face as he brushed his lips over hers — Tan hermosa, nena. La más hermosa.

Charlie had no idea what Fernando was saying but it excited her. She didn't know what it was about his voice that made whatever he was saying sound delicious, sublime. She pulled his body against hers and kissed him hard, because she was sure there was no better answer than that, because it was impossible to put everything she was feeling into words

Desire, happiness, relief, excitement; everything mingling wonderfully just below her navel.

Fernando leaned over her, making Charlie lie down on the mattress. She closed her eyes, and his lips began to move down her skin, kissing and nibbling, as his hands worked to get rid of her pants and underwear. The feel of the cool air against her pussy, completely wet already, made her gasp.

— Are you okay? — Fernando whispered, making her open her eyes. He was just below her sternum, the stubble on his chin brushing softly against her skin. She felt those tingles again, not from cold, but from arousal.

— Yeah, just… It's cold.

He flashed a smile, his eyes darkening with desire.

— It's okay, I'll warm you up — Fernando replied, giving her a mischievous smile before kissing the spot just above her navel. Then, he continued his trek downward.

Charlie felt butterflies in her stomach as she felt Fernando's palms on her thighs, spreading her legs further so he could have access to her pussy. She lifted herself up on her elbows and saw him staring between her legs before he raised his eyes to look at her.

— You're soaking wet, nena — he said, softly — Is this all for me?

— Yes — Charlie murmured, as she felt his fingers brush lightly over her pussy, as if he wanted to become familiar with every spot, every fold. She bit down on her lower lip and felt her legs tensing.

— I haven't even started — Fernando whispered with a smile.

She took a deep breath, her heart pounding in her chest. If he hadn't even started and Charlie was already like that, she couldn't imagine what would become of her when Fernando actually started to touch her.

— What are you waiting for? — she asked, as she felt his thumb slide easily across her labia.

— Calm down — Fernando said — What an impatient little thing you are. I'll give you what you want, don't worry. But first, I want to play a little. Can I?

— Of course…

— Then… Let's play, nena. — he murmured, before plunging between her legs, attacking her clit with his tongue.

Charlie's head fell back, her elbows collapsing under the warm wave that coursed through her body. Her eyes closed and her body tensed, the air trapped in her lungs. Then, Fernando's tongue found a more sensitive spot and she gasped, loud enough for him to chuckle. The vibration had Charlie's fingers gripping the duvet beneath her in an attempt to keep still. 

It didn't take much for her to feel like she was at her limit already, her eyes shut tightly as he licked and teased her vulva. Despite not remembering being that sensitive before, there was something about the way that Fernando stimulated her that made the sensations more potent, a certainty growing within her: he definitely knew how to use his tongue, exactly as she imagined when she noticed it peeking out of the corner of his mouth while he was focused on some activity. 

— What a well-behaved girl you are — Fernando said quietly, as he used his thumb to draw circles over her clit. It was difficult, but she opened her eyes and found him with his mouth glistening with her lubrication, his eyes dark with desire — I expected a bigger challenge coming from you...

— Fernando — Charlie whispered, as he placed kisses on the inside of her thigh, his beard brushing the sensitive skin.

— Come on, nena, tell me what you want — he said, the words drawn out in his delicious accent — Tell me and I'll give it to you.

— I want you.

— But you have me — Fernando replied, bending down slightly and giving her pussy a lick. The sudden stimulus made her let out a groan, her nails digging into her palms — I'm here to do whatever you want. Just ask me.

It took Charlie's mind a few seconds to form a coherent sentence. She didn't really know what she wanted. She wanted everything and nothing, all at once. She wanted Fernando to make her scream, but also to just stay there with her, kissing her and looking at her with his beautiful eyes.

— Make me come — she said — Please, Fer.

He smiled.

— Good girl — Fernando said. He repositioned himself on the bed, his hands resting on her hips as a way to keep her still, he started moving his tongue against her clit relentlessly.

Charlie was sure she was going to melt. She held his wrists and arched her spine with each lick, feeling like a New Year's firecracker, rising higher and higher into the sky in anticipation of the impending explosion. It was delicious and maddening, all at once. But, if she was going to be mad, let the reason be that man whose head was between her legs.

Charlie opened her eyes slightly, finding Fernando staring at her, almost as if he was intoxicated by the sight of her, squirming in the pleasure that he was giving her, and that only he could give her. And it was in that split second that the sky inside her lit up, the explosion of pleasure causing Charlie to squeal loudly, much to Fernando's delight.

— That's it — he murmured, as he moved one of his fingers over her clit, trying to prolong her pleasure as long as possible as her muscles tensed uncontrollably  — That's my girl…

If he said anything after that, Charlie didn't hear it. Her mind was completely taken over by the pleasure that made her toes curl and her spine arch. It was delicious, sublime, unlike anything she had ever experienced. She could only moan, loud enough for everyone in Imola to hear.

Then, the sensation began to slowly dissipate. She was trying to catch her breath when she felt something warm near her navel. Then between her breasts and then on her neck. Charlie only figured out what it was when she finally felt it on her lips.

Fernando.

He was kissing her gently, the taste of his own pleasure on her tongue, making it all that much more erotic. “How could I resist you?” Charlie wondered, as she threaded her fingers through Fernando’s hair, pulling him towards her.

— Are you okay? — Fernando asked softly, brushing his nose against hers.

— Yeah — she said, in a thin voice. He smiled at her.

— You're beautiful, you know that? — Fernando said, bringing one of his hands to her face, brushing a few strands of hair away. She giggled and pulled him closer to kiss her with a little more intensity, her nails scraping down the back of his neck. As she moved her hips beneath him, Fernando smiled against her mouth.

— You want more?

— Yes, Fer — she replied, nibbling on his lower lip.

— What do you want?

It was a silly question, especially when Charlie was writhing under his body, still very obviously aroused. Sliding her hands to Fernando's face, she ran her tongue over her lips, her thumb lightly touching the scar at the corner of his mouth.

— I want you to fuck me.

He smiled, one hand resting on her waist.

— I do too, Charlie. It's what I want most now — Fernando replied, but there was an unpleasant pause in his sentence.

— But?

— I need to see if I have a condom.

Charlie blinked. She was a bit surprised by his concern, but in a way, it made sense. The last thing Fernando probably wanted in life was children, especially with a career as dangerous as his, and he had to take precautions. 

— No problem — she replied — I have some.

— You do? — he asked, raising an eyebrow.

— Yeah, in my bag.

— Why?

— To use, duh — Charlie said — I like to be prepared.

— Are you always prepared to have sex?

— Maybe, but they’re of no use when the guy on top of me would rather ask stupid questions than fuck me — she said, some irritation creeping into her voice. Fernando smiled mischievously. 

— You really are an impatient little thing — he murmured, giving her a delicate peck on the lips — Wait here.

He got up and went to Charlie’s bag, finding the two red foil packets quickly. She sat up and peeled off the bralette she was still wearing, running a hand over the marks the fabric had made on her skin. A shift in the mattress made Charlie look over to Fernando as he sat back down, already naked, and started rolling the condom over his shaft. However, instead of focusing on what he was doing, her eyes were drawn to the tattoo between his shoulder blades. It was the first time she had seen it up close and she couldn’t resist the urge to lean over to get a better look. 

— A samurai? — Charlie murmured, his finger tracing over one of the dark lines that formed the sword. Seeing his skin erupt with goosebumps at her touch made her smile.

— Yes — Fernando replied, as her finger slowly followed the line of the banner that went up his neck, kanji characters in red highlighted against the dark ink — It is a symbol of Bushido, a philosophy that I study, which is based on Japanese samurai and their code of conduct. To many people, it is very similar to Western chivalry, however, I believe it is closer to our concept of honor in battle.

— It's really pretty — she said, placing her hands on his shoulder and bringing her face closer to his — Even though you sound like a nerd talking about it.

Fernando turned his head in Charlie's direction, giving her a small smile.

— A nerd, huh?

— Yes, a nerd. The biggest nerd in the world.

Fernando placed a hand on her face, tenderly.

— We’ll see, nena — he said, before repositioning himself on the bed, with his back against the wooden headboard, one hand holding his cock, stroking himself to full erectness once more. The vision made a warm wave go over her skin — Come here.

Charlie smiled and crawled towards him. She threw one leg over Fernando’s body, leaning on his shoulders and positioning herself above his dick. A shiver ran through her body as she felt him brush the head of his cock lightly against her clit, teasing her. Meeting his eyes, anticipation coursed through her body in hot waves.

— Can I? — she asked quietly.

— Yes, nena.

She lowered her hips, feeling his cock enter her slowly. The sensation caused a long sigh to escape her lips, while Fernando let out a low growl, throwing his head against the headboard. Once she was fully seated, Charlie took a second to breathe and process the sensations coursing through her body as she stretched around him. The pressure and heat that filled her felt like so much all at once and, in a way, not enough.

It was electric. Sweet. Maddening.

— All good? — he asked, his voice strained.

Charlie nodded as Fernando's hands landed on her hips, his Adam's apple bobbing  as he swallowed, his eyes locked in hers, trying to concentrate on not getting lost in the sensation himself. Seeing him like that, enraptured by her body, by her touch, by her warmth, was delicious, and she wanted more.

Lifting her hips slightly, she felt the driver's thumbs press into her skin, a hiss escaping his lips. Charlie smiled, bringing her face closer to his.

— All this for me? — she asked, her voice teasing.

— Always for you, nena — Fernando replied, before kissing her slowly as he pulled her down again.

It wasn't long before she picked up the pace, going up and down his cock as moans filled the room. With her forehead close to his, she could see in his expression that Fernando was enjoying himself, his lips half-open as Charlie bounced on his dick. And that feeling of being the one pleasuring him was something amazing, powerful.

— You're so good to me, so good — Fernando murmured, his face against hers, his hands on her ass to try and control Charlie’s pace. With her hands in his hair, she allowed herself to be guided by him, feeling the bubble of pleasure rise below her navel. His movement was precise, making her clit rub against his pubic bone.

— My God — she moaned, as a warm wave spreaded through her body — Fuck, yes, just like that…

— So you like this? — he asked in a low tone, his lips brushing hers — You like to have my cock inside as I play with your clit?

— Mhm — Charlie nodded, as her nails scraped his scalp, as she could get him to get closer to her, even closer. As if they could become one in that bed, in that room, in that city. And there was nothing she wanted more than that.

And then, Fernando stopped.

A protest escaped Charlie's lips, her hips trying to move under his hands to no avail.

— Fer — she whimpered, her face close to his.

— Lay down on the bed, nena — the driver practically ordered, causing a shiver of excitement to run across her skin. Climbing off of him, Charlie didn't have time to feel uncomfortable with the emptiness without his dick inside her before he pulled her against his body, her back flush against his chest. With one of his arms wrapped around her torso, a sigh of pleasure escaped her lips when Fernando entered her again.

His pace was slow and provocative, his thrusts were long and accompanied by kisses and nibbles on the neck. Taking his hands to the arm that wrapped around her waist, Charlie felt like putty in Fernando's hands, completely at the mercy of his desire.

— Is that what you wanted? — he whispered against her skin — Was this what you were imagining when you saw me on the balcony that day?

A low gasp escaped her throat as she felt his fingers pinch her nipple lightly, her body tensing even more. He was going to drive her crazy, she was absolutely sure of that.

— You can't imagine how much I enjoyed seeing you there, watching me, devouring me with those beautiful eyes of yours — Fernando continued, each thrust eliciting a loud moan from Charlie's throat — Well, not just your eyes. I always thought you were beautiful, Charlotte. So beautiful…

— Fer — she moaned, throwing her head against his shoulder, her entire body begging for more of him.

— Your pussy is so soft, so warm, so wet, perfect for my cock — Fernando continued, while his hand squeezed her left breast — I wish you could see how well you take me. Next time, I'll fuck you in front of a mirror, so you'll understand what I mean.

Charlie groaned. She had completely forgotten every word in the English language other than ‘Fer’, because it was the only thing she wanted at that moment, in that bed. Him, only him, thrusting hard against her pussy as his hand massaged her breasts, pinching the nipples until they became rock hard.

And, when she thought that moment couldn't get any better, Charlie felt his fingers reach her clit. A whimper escaped her lips, the muscles in her legs tensing more and more.

— Are you going to come for me, nena? — he asked, not waiting for an answer to move his fingers even faster — Come for me then, show me how good I make you feel.

Resting her hands on his arm, Charlie continued to move her hips against his fingers, desperately chasing her release. And then, without warning, it arrived.

— Fuck!

The orgasm hit her like a sudden wave. As she gasped, her body arching forward involuntarily. Her heart was pounding in her ears and her vision had gone completely black as she shut her eyes tightly. There was only pleasure, pure and raw, capable of throwing a person out of space-time, into a state of complete ecstasy.

— ¡Coño, Charlotte! — Fernando grunted from behind her. Her reaching her orgasm must have pulled him along into his. She wanted to open her eyes and turn back in order to see him reach his own climax, releasing himself into the condom, and enjoying the expression of pleasure on his face, but Charlie was too spent.

She allowed her body to relax into his, nestling her head in the crook of Fernando's neck, trying to concentrate on her own breathing, which was all she heard until Fernando until the driver started mumbling things she didn’t understand in Spanish against her neck. She didn’t have the energy to ask what he was saying.

— Eres la mujer que me volverá loco, nena — he said softly, as he caressed her torso, holding her against his body — Y te dejaré hacer eso. Vuélveme loco, por favor. No te arrepentirás de esto, te lo prometo.

They spent about ten minutes, as far as Charlie could tell from the clock on the nightstand, in the same position, still enjoined, neither of them wanting to move. Charlie thought that there was something deeply intimate about having him going gradually softer inside of her. She’d never done this with any other men she’d been with. But to her surprise, it made her feel comfortable. Safe, even. It was a mystery to her why she’d resisted this for so long.

Fernando pressed one final, soft kiss to her temple before making a move to get up.

— Stay here — he said, taking his dick out of her and getting up. She squeezed her thighs together to try to get rid of the strange emptiness that she felt without Fernando's cock inside her. “This feels awful”, she concluded, shifting to look up at the bedroom ceiling. 

The sound of running water and footsteps made her look toward the bathroom door, where Fernando was walking back to the bed. He’d put his underwear back on and had a washcloth in one hand. He sat on the edge of the bed and put a hand on her knee.

— Can I clean you up?

Charlie blinked, not realizing what he was asking for a moment. Then, she smiled.

— Oh, yeah, yes, you can — she said, opening her legs slightly.

Fernando brushed the damp part of the cloth against her inner thighs, carefully cleaning the remnants of sex from her skin. When he brushed the fabric against her pussy, Charlie hissed.

— Sensitive? — he asked, pulling his hand away.

— Yeah, a little.

— Okay, I'll be careful — Fernando said, going back to his ministrations, the gentle touch in stark contrast to the way he touched her that had made Charlie come earlier.

He stood up again, leaving Charlie alone again, but returned holding her discarded panties, and a clean t-shirt.  

— I thought you’d want to put something on… To wear to bed, you know.

Charlie stared at the clothes in his hand.

— Yes, thank you.

She took them and slipped the clothes on, only stopping when she realized that the t-shirt Fernando had given her was far too big for her. She looked down and saw a colorful logo for Kimoa, the clothing company he’d started.

Fernando smiled at her, clearly satisfied with himself.

— Did you give me one of your t-shirts?

— Yes. Is that a problem? — he asked as he grabbed a bottle of water.

— No, but I have some in my suitcase…

— But you look prettier wearing mine — Fernando replied, approaching the bed — Water?

She accepted the bottle and opened it, taking a sip as he sat back down on the bed.

— Thanks — Charlie said, handing the bottle back to him. He placed it on the bedside table and laid down on the pillow next to her, resting his hand on her back.

— Come here — he whispered.

— Why?

— Because I want to cuddle.

Charlie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

— Since when are you such a romantic?

— Since always.

— You never struck me as the romantic type.

— But, I am. And I want to show you.

She felt her heart pounding heavily inside her chest.

— Fernando…

— Come here, nena. Please.

Sliding down onto the duvet, Charlie lay down beside him, allowing him to envelop her body in a firm embrace as his lips placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. Surrounded by the warmth that emanated from Fernando's body and feeling his fingers lightly caressing her skin, she fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.

She woke up with something warm touching her face gently, almost carefully. When she opened her eyes, Charlie saw his eyes, the soft brown blending with the green, as if they were the very image of spring, full of life and hope. “Maybe this is why he looks so good in British racing green”, she thought. 

— Good morning, Charlie — Fernando said softly.

— Good morning, Fer.

— Did you sleep well?

— Yeah, like a log —  she replied, smiling — And you?

— Yeah, for a while. But I woke up at dawn with the rain and couldn't sleep anymore.

— Why?

— I was afraid the thunder would wake you up and scare you.

Charlie couldn't hide her surprise.

— I didn't think you cared about me that much.

Fernando placed his hand on her cheek.

— But, I do. More than you can imagine.

Placing her hand over his, Charlie couldn't help but feel butterflies fluttering in her stomach. The peace and security he made her feel was strange. It was a good kind of strange, though. She moved closer to him and let Fernando embrace her. They snuggled for a bit longer, the serenity of the moment interrupted when Charlie’s phone rang, Sophie’s name flashing across the screen. The woman gave her the details of her flight from Milan, and she hung up with a sigh.

— What’s wrong?

— Sophie said that I have to be in Milan two hours before the flight, but that I might encounter problems on the road and I should leave early.

— Do you want to leave soon? We can pack up, eat something, and leave.

— Is that what you want to do?

Fernando laughed.

— You're the one with a flight to catch, not me.

Charlie shook her head.

— Okay, we can do that.

The two got up, showered — together, at his insistence — and got dressed. After packing their bags, they had breakfast together and checked out. Charlie tried to thank the staff in Italian that Fernando deemed “terrible”. After putting their bags in the car, they left Imola on the E45 toward northern Italy.

The five-hour trip was peaceful and enjoyable. Charlie and Fernando talked about a lot of things, including how he had started racing when he was three after his father had adapted a kart for his sister Lorena, who was eight at the time, decided she didn’t want to use it.

— I still have the kart today — he said, — It's in Oviedo, in my museum.

— You have a museum?

— Yeah, I decided to open one after Flavio gave me my 2005 car as a gift for winning the championship. I tried to store it in my garage, but with everyone wanting to see it, I thought I'd better create somewhere to display everything related to my career. There’s even a kart track.

— Let me guess, you designed the track layout.

— I did — Fernando smiled, glancing at Charlie — I put all my favorite corners in it. By the way, I think you would like to drive there, since you like karting so much.

— I like karting, but I’m not that good of a driver. I’m not very quick.

— I can give you lessons if you like. I like to think that I know a thing or two about racing.

Charlie rolled her eyes, laughing.

— It would be an honor — she said, sarcastically.

They arrived at the airport just under two hours before her flight, which was impressive considering the traffic on the highway, the detours caused by the rain, and the rather long stop in Verona for lunch. As Charlie got out and got her bags, Fernando nervously ran a hand through his hair.

— I think this is my stop — Charlie said, putting great effort into trying to sound calm.

— Yeah, I guess so.

— Yeah…

— Do you need help with your things?

— No, I can get it — she replied, giving him a small smile.

— Oh. Okay, then.

Silence hung over them. Charlie didn’t know what to say. Did she say goodbye and leave without another word? Did she give him a hug and wish him a safe drive home? 

“For God's sake, Charlotte, he made you come twice last night. Say something”, she thought.

— Well, I guess I'll see you soon. Monaco, right?

— Yes, Monaco — Fernando replied, looking intently into her eyes.

More silence.

— This is ridiculous, right? — she whispered, a little embarrassed.

— Well, it's different, it's not ridiculous — the driver replied, giving a little smile — You will never be ridiculous to me.

Charlie looked at him again, realizing how much things had changed between them. They definitely weren't enemies, let alone rivals. However, they had stopped being just co-workers a long time ago.

She could contemplate whatever they were on the flight home.

— Can I kiss you? — Fernando asked.

— You can — Charlie replied, smiling.

He brought his face close to hers, placing a hand on her cheek. Then their lips touched lightly, almost as if he was afraid of breaking her. A few seconds later, he pulled away, but stayed close enough so that their noses were still touching. 

— Bye, nena. I’ll miss you.

— I’ll miss you too — Charlie said, before giving him another peck on the cheek and shutting the car door.

As she walked into the terminal, pulling her suitcase behind her, her heart felt light enough to carry her all the way back to Birmingham, no airplane required.

[andrbllts]

Life on the Move: The Joy of Travelling Beyond the Tourist Trail

Play this song while you read this post.

Hi everyone. Been awhile.

A lot of people talk about wanting to travel. Honestly, who wouldn’t want to explore all that the world has to offer? I certainly do! But travel means different things to everyone, and there’s no right or wrong way to define it. My version might just be a little different from yours.

Lately, I’ve been swamped with work. I’m actually managing 80 people, with 20 reps in each class every day, while interviewing candidates for the next wave of classes. Add in my back-and-forth trips between Manila and Quezon twice a week, and you’ve got a recipe for a sleep-deprived hustle. Yet, planning my upcoming travels has become my lifeline—a much-needed escape and something I genuinely love to do, alongside earning and saving.

I’ve just booked three international flights in the next five months and started sorting out work permit, visa, and finances to kick off my new life in a country I’ve chosen to settle in for good. It’s a lot to handle, and of course, I want to cherish my remaining time here in the Philippines with the people I love and doing the things I enjoy—like traveling.

When I say “traveling,” I’m talking about going outside the country. I’m not a huge fan of local trips; those feel ordinary since my family often visits relatives in Davao and Cebu. It’s easy and routine, and I crave a bit more adventure.

As I plan my itinerary, I find myself pondering where to go and what to see. Booking those three international flights in one day was fueled by my desire for peace and serenity. I want to clear my mind of everything that weighs me down and rediscover genuine happiness. That’s why I’m looking for places that are quiet and enchanting, where I can see things I’d never encounter in my everyday life. I want to fly and create memories that will leave a lasting impression on my heart.

I want to craft a life of travel.

When I say I want to travel, I’m not talking about hitting every tourist trap or buying a tacky souvenir t-shirt. I don’t want to just stroll down main streets or eat at every popular restaurant that pops up on Google. I’m not interested in staying at fancy resorts or following local tour guides around. I’m here for something deeper.

What I really want is to get lost—not in a “my GPS led me astray” kind of way, but in a beautiful, wandering sense. I want to soak in my surroundings, uncover hidden treasures unique to each place, and discover cozy coffee shops and quaint bookstores. I want to trek to old landmarks in the mountains and embrace as many new experiences as I can.

I envision packing a backpack with just the essentials, sleeping in tents, hostels, or even my car as I roam through different towns in various countries. I want to crash in places that few people have ever heard of. My goal is to turn my dreams into reality, to experience a life stripped down to simplicity, free from societal pressures and the weight of unnecessary stuff.

I yearn to meet people who are different from me yet somehow relatable. I want to dive into their cultures and understand their ways of life. Learning about their history and immersing myself in new languages excites me. I hope to find lifelong friends across the globe.

I want to be in constant awe of this planet and everything it offers. I want to witness sights I never thought possible and try experiences that have only lived in my dreams. My curiosity should grow stronger with every adventure. I want to absorb every skyline and relish the solitude of unfamiliar places.

When I return home, I don’t want to feel complete; I want to feel like I’ve left pieces of myself scattered around the world. I want to look beyond what’s in front of me and grasp the complexities of the world we inhabit. I want to satisfy my wanderlust, knowing that even if I somehow dislike the traveling life, I can always come back home.

But until I’m out there, exploring and fulfilling this desire inside me, I won’t be satisfied.

When I say I want to travel, I mean I want to experience everything. Because in the end, experiences are far more valuable than anything money can buy.

So, here’s to the adventures that await! Life is too short to stay in one place. Let’s pack our bags, hit the road, and discover the magic out there!

[sophierunsfrombears]

I’m in Oregon!! I took a few days off trail to go to Paris which was so lovely and I’ve just now gotten my trail legs back. When I flew back from France I went directly to PCT Days, which is a festival that lots of hikers go to as a sort of reunion. That was so fun because I was able to see friends I’d made on my very first day of trail!! I entered a raffle and received a new backpack, sleeping bag, and tent which is CRAZY!! I had strangers coming up and congratulating me the rest of the weekend about it. The first day back on trail my poor backpack strap snapped(I tried to get a repair done at PCT Days and they did a really bad job resewing it) so I had to sew it back together by hand as best I could, slather it in super glue, and pray it held until I could get to the next town. I I garmin messaged my mom to send the new pack straight back to me since I was suddenly in need of a new pack😅 crazy timing!! I am in Bend now and we got to stay in a super cute hostel last night and tonight we are staying with a trail angel before hopping back on trail tomorrow morning :)

[aminocamino]

Day 18 - 27 April Burgos to Hornillos del Camino 21.5km and 127m

We ate in the restaurant round the corner last night and met up with Carol again. The meal was ok but I am getting abit tired of the pilgrim fare. They serve alot of carbs which neither Carrie nor I are used to.

In our apartment we had washed a second lot of clothes and disappointingly the heating did not come on, none of my efforts with the controls worked. (Pete where are you?)! But somehow the clothes dried by the morning.

We had decided to transfer bags just to give our bodies another rest day. Its a short one (when is over 12 miles short - answer - on the Camino!) and we dropped the bags off at the hotel along with our key.

We feel lucky - its our first day of rain! We decided to have breakfast at the hotel. And it was the worst frittata so far. Dry and horrible. Good Carrie forced hers down but I was the naughty child and left most of mine.

This is our kitty purse - abit small but very pretty (thank you Meg!). Carrie does a marvellous job as holder of the purse!

We passed the beautiful Burgos University buildings on the way out of Burgos.

Just love some of the depictions of Pilgrims along the way. This was one of my favourites. We also encounter alot of art work on buildings, most of it stunning.

Love this photo of Carrie in her poncho. It tested her patience though. She couldn’t access her daypack and there was abit of a contortionist thing going on at one point. She has reached the momentous decision that she needs to wear her daypack over it!

Carrie’s favourite (and possibly mine) church so far. It was a very simple building but inside they were playing choral music. As each pilgrim went in the nun gave an individual blessing and a small St Christopher pendant. As she gave her blessing she was such a humble person and so warm - my eyes did well up. Carrie went up for hers having extracted her certificate from her daypack and came back dabbing her eyes. We sat for a little while. On the way out I could see everyone was similar. It was very moving.

The Meseta - we were so looking forward to it. Endless rolling fields of green, so beautiful. After the blessing experience we were very quiet walking through the Meseta. The landscape does have a tranquil spiritual quality about it.

We entered Hornillos del Camino at 1pm. A female pilgrim had turned up to a hostel to find it had closed down and her luggage she had transferred was missing. I advised her to ring the company and find out where it had been delivered. I can only think she did not prebook the accommodation. Carrie deals with our backpack transfer and does it online and always photos the little envelopes before we leave. I hope the lady was ok.

We are in a mixed dormitory but no bunk beds. Its quite cramped with very little room between each bed. There are 5 lockers and 7 beds… so make of that what you will!

After a quick lunch (hot dog with cheese 😄) I had to reschedule our itinerary again as I messed up one of the dates. Grrrrr! All sorted but having problems with accommodation for 2 dates in May, might have to stay out of town. Sometimes a good thing.

Now off for some paella.

Postscript:

The paella was amazing and I would have been pleased to have been served it in any restaurant whereas I was in a tiny little bar in a town in the middle of nowhere. Carrie by the way wanted a flavour of home so had egg and chips and it did look delicious!

[oddlittlestories]

Notre Dame Visit

Wrote up a little fic to go with this WIP fanart! This is inspired by @greghatecrimes elaborating on my life changing field trips post, and is currently brought to you by Anya’s prompt re my Halloween fic ask game.

Fic under the cut.

Chase & Thirteen as found family siblings. They're backpacking through Europe. Late s6 AU, probably consistent w/HH:Reprise. Trans masc bi Chase as a treat.

CW: mild travel danger, religious irreverence, religious homophobia reference

“Are you sure? Are you sure you’re sure?” Chase whispered. Not that whispering was gonna help him. She was loud enough for the both of them.

“Yes, we’re fine," Thirteen cackled, "now take the damn photo.” She raised her middle finger to the ceiling of the cathedral. He supposed it was her way of sticking it to all that religious homophobia. They were a hell of a pair to be anywhere near a cathedral—a failed novice divorced bi trans guy with blood on his hands, and a deliberately-irreverent bi woman after House's own heart. But as Thirteen liked to say every time she dragged him into a cathedral, which seemed to be as often as possible, they hadn't spontaneously burst into flames even once.

That said, Chase could just imagine a priest clamping his hand firmly down on his arm… Chase hunched his shoulders, trying desperately to look over his shoulder and take the photo as fast as he could at the same time. Maybe no one would notice. If he could’ve melted into the Notre Dame floor he would have. It was mortifying.

He took the photo and lowered the phone as quickly as he could. Still, it came out pretty cool.

“Okay, let me see,” Thirteen said, scrambling for his iPhone.

“It’s fine,” Chase insisted, trying to tuck the phone back in his jacket pocket.

“I want to be sure! What if it’s blurry?” Thirteen made grabby hands, struggling with him over the device.

“It’s not blurry!” he insisted.

“Then show me!”

“Fine!” Chase heaved a sigh and let her have the phone.

She snickered. “Yeah that’s really good, you were right.” She sent the photo to House before he could even try to stop her. Chase rolled his eyes. As soon as House got it, he’d do what he’d done with the rest: print it out and tape it to the ddx whiteboard. Foreman would text him to complain about how hard it was to ddx “now that it was a scrapbook instead.” Kutner would use the red sharpie he bought to draw horns on Thirteen and Chase in the photos.

It was a group activity, apparently.

Later that night, Chase and Thirteen crammed shoulder to shoulder at the bar of a centuries-old pub. It wasn’t far from the hostel, and around them spilled French and English and a bunch more languages Chase probably could pick out if he tried.

“Mm, this is delicious,” Thirteen said. “Here, try.”

She didn’t have to tell him twice. He leaned in and took a crunchy bite. It was the best toasted cheese on bread Chase had ever had in his life. “Wow,” he mumbled, mouth full.

“I know, right?”

On their walk back to the hostel, the lights of Paris were glittering. It wasn’t nearly as quiet here as it was in rural Spain, and Chase thought they were both dazzled by the city after that. Paris was definitely a tourist town though. They cut down a side street for a shortcut to their hostel.

Thirteen got distracted by something in a shop window. He wasn’t sure what, because by the time he noticed she was just behind him, a guy was cutting between them. He was a street hawker, with “I heart Paris” lanyards hung all up one arm. And he was getting in Chase’s face, trying to grab him.

“Woah, there, buddy,” Chase said. “Hands to yourself.” But the guy would not lay off. He wasn’t sure what to do. He was probably gonna get pickpocketed if he did nothing. Or worse, he thought darkly, noticing how the guy was subtly directing him towards a dark alley.

And suddenly Thirteen was there.

She slipped her arm around Chase’s shoulders and said, “My brother and I have to go now.” It was just surprising enough that she scooped him away from the hawker and out into the busy cross-street.

“Thanks.” His voice was breathless with relief.

“Yeah, I did not like where that was going. You okay?”

Chase patted himself down, trying to ignore the way “brother” was rotating around in his head. Even if it didn't last… He frowned appraisingly. “Yeah. I’m great.”

Thirteen grinned and they headed into the hostel together, where their room with its two twin beds was waiting.

They had it down to a routine now, so it only took a moment for them to change and crawl into bed. Thirteen turned out the light, and Chase pulled his soft blanket up to his chest. In the darkness, it felt safe to say things. He played the word brother over and over in his head. He knew it was true. But how often do you get that kind of thing confirmed? “I’m glad we made this trip. Me and you.”

“Me, too.” Her voice was warm.

It had been a hard year, but right here and right now, Chase was so, so happy.

[simona-a-marinkova]

How to Travel Solo in South Africa?

I visited South Africa for the first time in 2018 traveling from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth (along the Garden Route). I was travelling with friends back then, and I loved the country – its nature, landscape, wine, outdoors activities and the laid back locals. I knew I had to come back and explore other areas as well. Well I did go back there, twice as a solo traveler. As soon as I booked my…

[chaletnz]

Baños to Cuenca

It rained all night, heavily, for 10-12 hours. It was still raining when I packed up, checked out, and walked down to the bus station to catch my 8 hour bus to Cuenca. The bus terminal was flooded and the parking area was completely covered in 2-3 inches of dirty brown water. It was chaotic but I found the right desk, got in line, and had my ticket printed out. I waited outside for a few minutes before a driver came and made an announcement to the people waiting. I figured out from parts of conversations of the people in front of me that the 9am bus was not going to run due to the rain causing some of the road to flood so I made the decision to change my ticket to the next (and only other) bus to Cuenca at 11:30pm. My ticket was adjusted and I quickly headed back to the hostel to purchase another night so I could get my room back for a day time nap later. Nothing had been touched yet so the receptionist took another $10 and gave me the key back. I'd read horror stories about public buses in Ecuador and I was definitely not looking forward to taking a night bus however this was the only option to get to Cuenca in time for my tour of Cajas National Park - the whole reason I was going down there! Back in the room I reviewed my options; take the night bus and the tour first thing, spend one night in Cuenca, get to Guayaquil airport for my flight back to Colombia. Or the second option on the fly, take a bus back to Quito, and book a flight from Quito to Bogotá to close the flight loop back up. I didn't like the idea of changing the plans to skip Cuenca for the non-refundable flight, hotel, and now the tour too but the obstacles were seeming insurmountable to pull off getting there and completing my planned itinerary. It was still raining at 11am so more than 12 hours of constant rain by this point and my outlook was bleak, I contemplated that the universe was trying to prevent me from going to Cuenca and Guayaquil for some reason for such a dramatically disastrous Ecuador journey so far. I picked my spirits up with another cappuccino and a sandwich from Cafe Colibri for lunch then spend the rest of the day resting and trying to sleep so that I could stay awake on the bus ride to keep my bag safe. Before checking out of the hostel again, I went to the bus station at 10:30pm to ask if the 11:30 night bus was definitely going and they said it was. It actually did go, much to my relief, and so I was on my way down south with my backpack beside me in the window seat padlocked to the seatbelt of the bus. I slept the entire journey as I was too restless in the hostel to sleep during the day plus it was so noisy with the barking of all of Baños' stray dogs and roaring motorcycles. The bus started out with 5-6 people on it, but it gradually filled up as we passed through the larger towns. I was glad I hadn't put my bag under the bus as there's no way I would've seen anyone take it and I'd have arrived in Cuenca with no bag and no idea where it was taken off the bus. I felt a little bad as the bus filled up with more and more people that were standing while my bag had the seat beside me. I stayed asleep and thought, they can wake me up and ask to move the bag if they really want! But I've put up their loud music, Tik Toks, changing a baby opposite me, smoking on the bus, as well as Ecuador's vendetta against me so I felt these two seats were my right (not to mention I'd paid more than double the actual rate of the tickets sold at the bus station!)

[scotianostra]

On June 2nd 1581 James Douglas, the Earl of Morton was exucuted in Edinburgh.

The fourth and last of little James VI regents, Morton was arguably the most able of the bunch and distinguished his span of authority by winning the raging civil war against James’s mother Mary. Regent Morton had a reputation for avarice during his run in the 1570s. However, deriving as it does from his executive impingement on the treasures of courtiers and clans no less grasping than himself, that reputation probably ought to be taken with a pinch of salt.

If nothing else, Regent Morton had the excuse of king and country. Sir Walter Scott, for one, favored this Red Douglas with a much more charitably statesmanlike gloss in his books The Monastery and The Abbott, part of his Waverley collection.

As one example, Morton irked divines by enforcing with a minimum of pious exceptions a pre-existing statute requiring a one-third cut of ecclesiastical revenues.

Likewise, he made an enemy of Lady Agnes Keith — the widow of the assassinated first regent — and her (subsequent) husband, the Earl of Argyll by forcing them to turn over crown jewels that were being held in their quote-unquote safekeeping.

In 1578, this Argyll kidnapped King James VI and induced the 12-year-old to declare his majority and dismiss the Earl of Morton. Argyll landed a Chancellorship out of the deal: Morton — well, you know. He would eventually be accused, 14 years’ belatedly but not inaccurately, of complicity in the 1567 murder of the Kings’ father Lord Darnley.

Argyll in the end lost his head to that distinctive Scottish proto-guillotine known as the Maiden. Though the apparatus actually dates back to 1564,* a legend as moralistic as it is specious holds that the Regent Morton was himself the man who ordered construction of the device that would eventually end his own life. Sir Walter could hardly be asked to resist that kind of material:

“Look you, Adam, I were loth to terrify you, and you just come from a journey; but I promise you, Earl Morton hath brought you down a Maiden from Halifax, you never saw the like of her — and she’ll clasp you round the neck, and your head will remain in her arms.”

“Pshaw!” answered Adam, “I am too old to have my head turned by any maiden of them all. I know my Lord of Morton will go as far for a buxom lass as anyone; but what the devil took him to Halifax all the way? and if he has got a gamester there, what hath she to do with my head?”

“Much, much!” answered Michael. "Herod's daughter who did such execution with her foot and ankle, danced not men’s heads off more cleanly than this maiden of Morton. ‘Tis an axe, man, — an axe which falls of itself like a sash window, and never gives the headsmen the trouble to wield it.”

“By my faith, a shrewd device,” said Woodcock; “heaven keep us free on’t!”

-Sir Walter Scott, The Angie Abbott

Any young travellers out there, when next in Edinburgh, quaff Scots engineering acumen with the friendly backpackers crashing at the High Street Hostel — the glorious stone town house that was once Regent Morton’s very own crib, so you can soak up the history, and watch out for his ghost, that is said to haunt the lodgings, their Night Porter swears he's seen some weird stuff at the wee sma’ hours of the night.

After he got the chop his corpse remained on the scaffold for the following day, until it was taken for burial in an unmarked grave at Greyfriars Kirkyard. His head, however, remained on "the prick on the highest stone" as was tradition with traitors, where it remained for eighteen months until it was ordered to be reunited with his body in December 1582. Morton's final resting place is reputedly marked by a small sandstone post incised with the initials "J.E.M." for James Earl of Morton. The post is more probably a Victorian marker for a lairage. In the very unlikely event that a marker were permitted for an executed criminal, the inscribed initials would have been "J.D." and, secondly, it would have been cleared away in 1595 when all stones were removed from Greyfriars

[lyon-amore]

The half of me Chapter 7

Chapter 6 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MC let Lilly sleep on her bed, while she stayed on the couch. From there she could see the backpack that contained Daliah's computer, resting on the dining room table. She was afraid of losing that object. Was Jake really telling the truth?

She picked up her phone, hoping he was awake. She needed to reassure herself.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MC Jake? Are you there?

----Nym-0s has connected----

Nym-0s Has something happened MC? Are you alright ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She sighed when she saw that he didn't take long to answer. He really was worried about her. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MC That person who owes you a favor… Please tell me is he really trustworthy

Nym-0s It is.

MC At 100%?

Nym-0s At 100%.

MC I can't lose this computer It is not just that it is important to know what happened to Daliah these months Also because it has precious memories for both of us. If I lose that computer...

Nym-0s You will not lose it. I promise you. As soon as this is all over, you can have it again.

MC Ok…. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She bit the inside of her cheek, contemplating whether to continue speaking or to stop. She started typing, while a voice similar to her in her mind was telling her to stop, not to talk to him. That she wouldn’t fall for his mysterious and dangerous boy charm again. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MC I'm sorry if I woke you up I couldn't sleep thinking about it

Nym-0s No, do not worry. I was awake. I sleep too little.

MC Really? How much is little?

Nym-0s Hmm… Let is just say a few minutes. It could be said that my record is 15 minutes sleeping ;)

MC Jake… 😩 Don't tell me that you never sleep?

Nym-0s No. I am always on alert. If I sleep for a few hours, I feel like I would get caught.

MC I'm sorry… 🙁 I didn't think about it….

Nym-0s It is normal not to do it :) You have not offended me. I appreciate that you care, MC.

MC Ok Anyway I'll see if I can sleep a little now Thanks for the late night talk

Nym-0s You are welcome. Rest well :)

----Nym-0s has gone offline---- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She put down the phone and stared at it with a small shy smile, while her mind kept blocking out that feeling to protect herself.

The next day Lilly packed the backpack and went to the hostel. She had to prepare. She made MC promise that she would look at the trustworthy person that she would go to through the computer, in case it might not be him, at least know who might be the thief.

She shielded the backpack against her body, as if it were a small child. She hoped she didn't look weird hugging the backpack. Arriving at the Evergreed station, she was very fast. She jumped off the train and left the backpack under a bench, all before getting back on the train again. Turning around inside the car, she observed that the backpack was gone. She had already been taken away. She looked around, searching for the suspicious person with the backpack. Unfortunately, there was no one with the object.

*Jake POV*

He had been fast. In a second, he had grabbed the backpack Lilly had brought and hid in the shadows, taking advantage of his black clothing. He peeked over the threshold of the station door, seeing how Lilly was looking for him. He couldn't let her see him, it was risky enough to have left the hostel. He smiled under his mask, while wearing his black cap to hide his eyes. Almost everyone in that town was dressed just like him, with hoods and caps, to hide their faces from him.

Normally he chose cities for anonymity, but discovering Evergreed was like a knockout for him. Half of the population lived by bribing the police to hide their crimes or sell some other drug. He strapped the backpack onto his shoulder, starting to leave the train station. No one noticed him, didn't care about his name or where he came from. Just pay and you will be invisible. It wasn't his favorite method, but he was close to Rosenschwarz. Close to MC.

He was walking through the streets, listening to street gangs fighting each other, others just laughing out loud or even paying in the middle of the street for drugs or sex. He didn't like the place. Not at all.

Likewise, he was alert not to attract attention.    "Sorry, do you have a fifty?" A man with red eyes approached him, sucking in through his nose.    Jake frowned at him, as if he were glaring at him. That man stepped back a little, afraid. At that time he had no money and, if he had, he would not have given it to him either. He continued walking, leaving the man scared, thinking that he had messed with the wrong person.

Various graffiti painted on top of others and broken posters adorned the walls of the neighborhood where the hostel where he was staying was. On one wall, he recognized Nymos's eye. He felt uncomfortable that it was in that place, as if his name were being sullied. He avoided looking at it, lest he find an accusing eye staring back at him. That was not Nymos. In such a place, Nymos should not exist.

He entered the hostel, ignoring the disinterested greeting from the receptionist, who was reading a sports paper. He went up the stairs to his room. It took him a little longer to get a single room, to avoid having company.

He went into his room, leaving the keys on the nightstand near the bed, to then lower the mask and release charged air into his lungs, feeling safe. He took off his hoodie, leaving it lying on the bed. Unfortunately, in that room he didn't have a table to put his computers on, he had to do everything from the bed. He sat pulling out Daliah's computer, eyeing it as if he were a policeman himself. He could tell that it was expensive because of the brand and that it was decorated with great care. He left it for a moment to reach over to his computer and the cables, connecting both computers. It was at that moment, that he began to hear screams from the room above.    "Not again…" the young hacker sighed, listening to the moans of the couple above.     He took the headphones and his phone, playing the music that he had saved on his phone. He turned it up so loud that surely they could hear it if someone was in the same room as him.

He began to work with the computer, investigating what was happening to it. The first thing he did was smile. The photo of MC with her family at Disneyland brought a smile to his face, instantly recognizing who MC was in the photo. She had a shy look, while Daliah hugged her tightly. He brushed his hand over her lips, as if he wanted to stop himself from smiling, but he couldn't. It was to keep getting to know MC, something that he liked a lot.    "Let's get started." he told himself, looking for the program to unlock passwords.     But a warning popped up as soon as it was activated. It was telling him that the computer he was trying to access had a virus. He ran a hand through his black hair. It was great. It was an obstacle with which he was already suspicious. He picked up the phone, accessing MC chat. Or of the only two he had at the time. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nym-0s MC? I think I know what is wrong with your sister's computer.

----MC has connected----

MC What's going on?! Please Jake, don't scare me… 😰

Nym-0s Your sister's computer contains a virus that blocks any access. So, I have to be careful that it does not affect my computer.

MC But… Can you remove the virus?

Nym-0s Yes I can. Although this is going to suppose a delay in the investigation.

MC In other words, we are going to have to unlock the files little by little...

Nym-0s If I could easily access it, I would, I swear. But knowing that it is a virus that has completely locked the computer, I cannot risk losing my computers or we will not be able to investigate.

MC I understand 😔 Do what you have to do But please be careful

Nym-0s Careful with what?

MC Maybe it's a virus that can locate you ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He gave a slight laugh, looking at the chat screen. He pictured her in front of him at that moment, with a worried look on her face. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nym-0s Do not worry. It does not seem that this virus reaches that extreme.

MC At least, it's a relief that your contact has been reliable. It's the only good thing in all this   

Nym-0s I told you. You did not trust me?

MC From you yes Not from him 😒 

Nym-0s Well, you already know. 100% trust. ;)

MC 🙂 So I'll leave you unlocking the files

Nym-0s One moment MC.

MC Yeah? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He wanted to ask her if he had done anything to make her so upset with him. They had already clarified the time that he had not been able to contact her, but he continued to doubt what was happening to hier. But it wasn't just now. He remembered that even before, she had seemed to have changes towards him.

He didn't know how to ask her, he didn't have a good way with words and he erased all the time. There were so many words that he wrote and erased that MC came to send him a message. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MC Jake? What's going on?

Nym-0s I… Nothing. Do not worry. I'll take care of finding something interesting that can be of help to us.

MC OK Call me then.

----MC has disconnected---- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He rubbed his face weary from all the thoughts he was having. He was very concerned about MC. He perfectly knew what she was doing with him, because he once did it to her. Perhaps it was better to forget it, it was already more than enough than that last message he sent her in the mine, even though she told him to hurry up, unfortunately it never arrived. He was still carrying those words in his chest. Hurting him.    "Better forget it." he muttered, starting to work on removing the virus and getting Daliah's important files.

   Because of the virus, it was difficult for him to access the files, it was as if someone had sent her a malicious malware, maybe because it contained something important and someone had sent it to her? He must have been too good with computers to do that.    "Is the Krebs impersonator computer savvy?" he wondered, as he typed some commands.

    He got few photos of Daliah, with family, friends, photos that he wasn't even supposed to see that made him feel uncomfortable, as if he felt he was cheating on someone. Next, they were photos of the twins. Of course, they were totally different even though they were twins. But while Daliah stood out in the photos, Jake could only focus on MC. She radiated a different light than her sister.

He closed his eyes tightly, completely ignoring what he was feeling at the time. A wave of heat through his body, while he passed the photos in which MC appeared. He closed the screen, gasping for air. It wasn't good what he was thinking. He had to concentrate.

He took a couple of breaths before continuing to search the files, his face burning. Good thing he had taken off his sweatshirt or else he would surely be worse off.    "What do we have here?" He asked when he saw a corrupt folder "It seems that this is where the virus hides" he said after accessing it, coming across a file with a specific name "Mydoom… Is not it a virus that in two thousand four caused problems?" He commented, remembering when he studied computing "But this virus can now be easily located with today's antivirus, why did not hers stop it?"     He didn't see Daliah as someone who would mess with hackers, so something must have happened in her life. In that folder she must have contained important information.    "Shit..." he said between his teeth, seeing that the antivirus was having trouble removing it "I will have to go file by file, I have no other option..."    With the antivirus, he went file by file, trying to crack it.

At the moment, he only got one.    "Diary part 1..." read the one with the file as he dialed the call command. I had to see it "MC, I found something that you might be interested in."    "Hi Jake." he heard on the other end, and then heard how her voice changed "Really? Tell me what it is!"    “Apparently, Daliah started a diary a few months ago."    "And what does it contain?"    "I was only able to retrieve the first entry" he began to send her the file, not taking his eyes off the screen ". You better read it." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-1-

I've got a letter. The content of this was a clipping of the first kidnapping of the Kelpie killer. When I have read it, my head has been spinning. Today marks the 20th anniversary of what happened. 20 years that I still remember being locked in that cage...

I immediately called the jail where I know he is, and they told me he is dead. That asshole has committed suicide. Surely he couldn't stand the beatings he received for killing children. I hope he rots in hell.

Just that same day I receive a letter, he had to have died, coincidence?

But…he couldn't have known where I live, so…who sent it to me? There is no sender, there is nothing. It’s empty. It must be from someone who knows where I live, but everyone in this damn town knows me.

Who would be crazy enough to do this? A fan of him? Is there really someone like that who wants to remind me of this?

Well… Better not think about it…

I don't even know why I kept that letter... I guess to remember that I'm a fighter. That I'm over it.

Or I think so ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He waited for MC to say something, but he could only listen to her breath in between. He was concerned to hear her breathing like that. He wanted to be with her at that moment and be able to hold her. He imagined that she was alone at that moment.    "She should have told me..." he heard the young woman say, with a cracked voice "Playing like it was an idiot sending that letter her to get killed..."    "Maybe she thought she was going to affect you a lot because she thought it was just a macabre joke..." Jake commented, letting out a sigh "One on the anniversary of her kidnapping."    "Of course it would have affected me" MC raised her voice but didn't scream ", but at least I would have been there for her."     It was like reliving what happened with Hannah, only worse. He didn't know how to comfort her this time, at least not over the phone. He opened his mouth to say how sorry he was that Daliah hadn't counted on her to tell her, but surely, MC would notice it as empty words.    "Are there any more files?"    "Yes, but a virus has made it difficult for me to access them" Jake looked at the files, seeing how the antivirus took time to recover it ". Apparently, your sister received an improved virus, the Mydoom virus, a virus that could have the remote control of computers."    "You mean, has someone wanted to gain control of Daliah's computer?"    "No, this one is different, apparently, the only thing he has done is block the access to the computer" he began to think. MC didn't mention that Daliah had computer problems ". MC, I need you to calm down right now with what I am going to tell you."     He heard her release a long breath. Although Jake couldn't see her, the young woman nodded, but then she nodded for call.    "Yeah, okay..."    "Maybe…" Jake took a breath, trying to sound calm. But he was nervous about what he suspected "Someone might have known what was happening to Daliah and in the process, forced her to accept this virus."    "Why would she-"     MC stayed silent.

Jake heard her start to cry. Again, it was hurting him that he couldn't do anything. He bit his lip, controlling his anger at what the girl was going through. She shouldn't have to continue suffering like this.    "Let's think then..." MC continued between sobs "perhaps on the night of her murder they forced her because she has something important about who killed her?"    "But would not it be easier to just take it with him instead of corrupting the computer?" Jake asked her, with a lot of doubts about her theory "Maybe it was Daliah herself who did it."    "Because..." MC began to think, making a slight sound in her throat, a sound that made Jake nervous to hear her "Because she knew I could access it..."   "You mean me, right?"     She heard a sound of agreement.    "Surely she thought that I would be able to get in touch with you, although she knew that we hadn't heard from you after a year" continued MC, with a serious voice ", the funny thing is that she did it for you to help me, she didn't like you very much good…"    "Okay, I get it" Jake nodded, putting his hand to his chin, thinking ". The problem is that we now have to find out where she got the virus from.” he sighed, becoming more and more confused ". You do not get something like that so easy, you know?"    "I can imagine…"     They remained silent and he could hear the young woman's breathing, nervous. Jake clenched his hand tightly, listening to her. It was hard for him to be away from her and not be able to do anything.

So all he had to do was continue the job of recovering the files.    "Fine" the black-haired young man agreed ". When I have another file, I will let you know."    "Will it take long?"    "Well…" he looked at him again at the screen. Several letters came and went "The first one seems to have been easy to obtain, but the rest… How to say it? They seem more affected."    "And have you got anything else?"    "Photographs" he answered honestly. He wasn't going to hide it from her "Do you want me to pass them on to you?"    "Yes please, I'd love to have them." Her voice sounded excited. She made him smile when he heard her.     The warm feeling returned. Imagining the young woman with the same smile in the photos.    "Then, I will pass you a rar file" he answered with a smile, being happy to at least calm her down a bit ". And by the way..."    "Yes?"    "In the photos..." he paused, beginning to blush "You are..."    "Ugly, I know." she let out a little laugh.     Jake shook his head. No. She wasn't ugly at all. She was coming out just like he'd been dreaming of all year. Perfect. He wanted to tell her, but he was unable to do it. He didn't dare say that she was perfect in his eyes, that she was everything to him. Once he even told her that they were not going to separate them. Now... Everything had changed, he'd broken his promise. He didn't feel like he could tell her.    "Wait for the message." he finally said.    "Sure, and thanks for everything."    "That is what I am back for. "     She heard her shy giggle, which made him laugh too.    "Talk to you soon Jake…"    "Talk to you soon MC."     He hung up the call and put the phone aside.

He took a breath and threw himself on the bed, contemplating the ceiling. But he wasn't looking at him, but at each and every photo he'd seen of her. He swallowed, starting to get increasingly nervous. He felt a tingle all over his body that made him sit up quickly, trying to get those thoughts out. He had to compose himself, be focused.

Because he wasn't going to leave her alone on this one.

Chapter 8

[pclyglct]

(  MAYA HAWKE  |  CIS WOMAN  |  SHE/HER  |  24 )  — — —  it's  just  been  another  long  week  in  boring  -  ass  hawkins.  isn't  that  right,  ROBIN BUCKLEY  ?  shit,  i  guess  they  can't  hear  me  over  PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER  by  PATTI SMITH  playing  through  the  headphones  of  their  walkman.  it  looks  like  they're  gonna  be  late  for  WORK  as  a/at  LIBRARY ASSISTANT AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.  did  you  know  ROBIN  has  been  in  hawkins  for  THEIR WHOLE LIFE  ?  yeah,  their  family  and  friends  describe  them  as  INQUISITIVE,  but  i've  seen  them  be  HYPER  too  !  i  would  also  say  they  remind  me  of  disorganized bookshelf cluttered with knick knacks, chipped black nail polish, daydreaming about faraway places while language tapes blast through headphones around her neck, the unsettling feeling of sticking out despite every effort to blend in, beaten up red converse covered in doodles, but  is  that  weird  ?  i  guess  nothing's  too  weird  for  this  little  town,  huh  ? 

happy to be here! I'll be sticking to canon, but also using the rebel robin podcast to form the bulk of robin's backstory, drive, and character prior to show antics. tl;dr: closeted disaster lesbian who only recently started feeling comfortable in her own skin. loves her friends but desperately wants out of hawkins. just returned from a 3-month trip backpacking across Europe & has started a new job as a library assistant. 

name: robin buckley

age: 24

gender: cis woman (she/her)

hometown: hawkins, indiana

current residence: hawkins, indiana

education level: high school graduate

sexuality: lesbian (has only come out to a handful of people)

positives: inquisitive, authentic, intelligent, kind, easygoing, open-minded

negatives: skeptical, hyper, anxious, sarcastic, avoidant, aimless

house: ravenclaw

alignment: chaotic neutral

pre-canon (rebel robin)

robin's wiki!

born to domesticated hippies Richard and Melissa Buckley. their former lifestyle and permissive parenting meant robin had experimental, open-minded parents who often didn't give her the attention they should have. the disappearance of will byers changed things for a bit, but they struggled to maintain anything that resembled a firm grip or a nuclear household for long, and that was perfectly fine for robin.

domesticated hippies also = poor af. savings were nonexistent when they spent their youth backpacking and staying in hostels or couch surfing. melissa's pregnancy forced the couple to settle, and they used the scraps of money they had to buy a tiny, shitty house not all that unlike or far away from the byers residence.

growing up, robin has always recognized that there was something... different about her. something off. but she was never certain on what exactly it was. when the quirks of her personality brought on some early childhood bullying, she quickly learned that whatever it was, she had to do everything she could to keep it hidden and to stay out of sight.

as she went through school, she mastered the art of social camouflage, fitting herself easily into certain social categories and being just social enough and just distinct enough to be utterly uninteresting to the regular hawkinite. the movie ticket girl. the band geek. during that time, she saw the loss of multiple different friendships for a variety of reason: her childhood friend barbra holland "dropping" her for nancy in middle school, her fellow odd squad members kate and milton dropping her because of shitty boyfriends or new girlfriends. while she later reconciled the latter relationships, the sting of rejection did nothing to help robin's growing sense of unease and the belief that something was wrong with her, that she was the broken one causing everyone to leave her.

she found solace in the adventures her parents talked about experiencing in their youth: the different people they met, the risks they took, the communities they were apart of, the annual christmas party with old hippie friends from all walks of life, impossibly pouring into hawkins and their tiny house, a colorful oasis in the middle of monstrous town. it all sparked an interest in knowing more about the world around her.

her need for camouflage kept her from exploring her curiosity in school and excelling (less she lose her average B student status by being an overachieving teacher's pet), so she instead funneled that need into exploring literature and learning languages. the books exposed her to interesting philosophical and moral dilemmas, points of views, and (later much-needed) representations of life not found in hawkins. the languages made the possibility of exploring those parts of life feel more like a possibility.

operation croissant bloomed from there: a dream to spend a summer backpacking across europe, venturing on a life like her parents did when they were younger, meeting people who are maybe like her. at her core, robin longs for acceptance and community. she wants to exist as herself, fully as herself, with people who know every aspect of her and love her for it. more than that, she wants to be around people like her, to not be the odd one out. she wants to be surrounded by a community who sees people who are different and their first reaction isn't to judge. as her feelings for tammy were realized for the crush that it was (in large part due to the insights gained from her friendship with mr. hauser) and she began to recognize why she was different, her dreams adapted to include wanting to be a pillar for change, to fight back against the Hawkins monster and to somehow make things a little bit better for the people like her who come after her.

her teenage years never saw operation croissant come to fruition, but she somehow stumbled upon a tiny community with reformed douchebags and prisses and a gaggle of children and she's never been happier (or more traumatized, but alas, a worthy trade off to her).

post-canon

following the defeat of vecna, robin continued to work at family video.

she came out to her parents not long after - their reaction was probably the best she could have hoped for from them: they accepted it in their eccentric way of theirs, regaling her with stories of other lgbtqia+ friends they've met in passing (along with uncomfortable tmi stories of their own sexual explorations from their youth). the whole thing has brought the buckley family a bit closer together, as her parents have made more of an effort to be present and invested in her life in a long-term way.

she's chosen to stay at home partially for this reason, but also because she's too broke to get her own place, and partially still resistant to the idea of investing money in roots in hawkins.

with the money she saved, advice from her parents, and a full year of planning, she finally made operation croissant a reality. she spent the first three months of this year in europe, and it was a lot. amazing and overstimulating and eye-opening and terrifying and beautiful and ugly and bustling and lonely and affirming and a lot. she was relieved to return to the warmth of her loved ones when her trip concluded, but also both comforted and left-wanting in a way she'd never experienced before.

and thus, her dilemma.

she loves her community, can't even imagine a life without her friends, or picture how she can find anyone who'd understand her the way her people do in hawkins. but the idea of being stuck in hawkins and becoming a Hawkinslifer itches at her skin in a way she can't help, can't soothe, can't stop.

she doesn't actually know what to do to solve this problem, so she doesn't really voice it (a rarity), especially now that weird shit is maybe staring up again so leaving is not even an option to consider. but in the back of her mind, operation new york has started sprouting just the tiniest of bit.

anyways, she's always been kind of aimless, unsure of what she wants to do with life since she can't picture an actual future in hawkins. but, after returning from europe at the start of april, she decided a good first step would be to do something that actually interested her for work, so she left family video to take on a job as a library assistant at the public library.

misc/headcanons

prior to working at scoops ahoy, robin worked at the hawkins theater (season 1 timeline). she was fired when she accidently melted a movie.

has maintained a good relationship with her former english teacher mr. hauser since graduation. he was the first person she came out to, and she has always valued his caring presence in her life as an older gay. his gift of a russian-version of anna karenina is the most worn book on her bookshelf (frankenstein remains her favorite though).

she's picked up a few more languages since her high school years. she's fluent in French, Italian, Spanish, Pig Latin, Russian, Portuguese, and Dutch. She's currently trying to learn ASL, but her hand coordination is fucked so it's a slow go.