#Clive seeing them holding hands: HE IS HOLDING HAND WITH A GIRL!! He didn’t tell me he is on holding hands terms??

[moonilit]

Aww the side story of the barbie (not date) but from Shouta’s POV, this is the cutest by @cyanoscarlet

Alliance in Pink - Side Stories, First art

[pinkkittysaw]

MY STAR

paring: clive rosfield x f!reader

summary: in a fit of restlessness one night, you come to clive’s aid

word count: 2k

content: (18+ only please!) established relationship, sex is mentioned but not in detail, a smidgen of angst, selfship coded heh heh heh um (//∇//)

a/n: was toying around with the idea of singing clive to sleep but couldn’t figure out a concept for it. the concept is so intimate and romantic to meeee :) THERE’S NO DENYING THE LOVER GIRL ALLEGATIONS!!!! i listened to this song from the soundtrack and- clive and i make sweet sexy love to this every night ummmm anyway, the song is what the title is based on ^_^ be careful looking it up on youtube though cause there are in game spoilers. the song made me bawl and continues to do so. square enix we have some words to exchange!!!!

dividers by @/saradika

It's a calm evening, a slight breeze passes through your bedroom. The stars shine brightly outside, while remnants of burning embers flicker inside the fireplace.

You and Clive are in bed, sweaty, and spent after an intense love-making session. He’s on his side, facing away from you, while you're on your back, sprawled out as far as you can next to his huge form.

The moonlight peaks through the gaps in the wall, reflecting off the love bites left on the peaks of your breasts, and if the sheet that was covering your waist was pulled any lower, a matching set of marks would be found on your inner thighs. A familiar ache lingers between them, but the feeling is a welcomed one. 

Clive isn't faring any better. A set of scratch marks line the hard muscle of his back, followed by divot marks from your nails on his shoulders and a few haphazard love bites of his own, scattered throughout his chest where you often displayed your affections.

You’re resting in a peaceful slumber before being roused awake by your lover tossing and turning in bed. He huffs, unable to find a comfortable position, settling to face you once more, admiring the peaceful expression on your face.

Though you don’t open your eyes, your voice cuts through the open air. "Can’t sleep?"

You can’t see his face, but you can hear the frown forming on his features when he speaks. "I didn’t mean to wake you," he states, bringing a hand out to caress the skin below your rib.

"It’s alright," you reassure him, turning to your side so you'd both be facing each other. Your eyes are open now, and even though you can't quite make out his expression amongst the darkness, you reach out to him anyway. "Want me to sing to you?"

The first time Clive heard you sing was in the infirmary. He'd been confined there on Tarja's authority after returning with a severe injury from one of his outings.

You had developed a close friendship at that point. After being sent on numerous assignments together, you had grown a fondness for each other, though the lines of your relationship grew blurrier each day.

It was late in the evening when you returned, the moon taking its rightful place amidst the stars. You had scurried over to the infirmary, practically begging Tarja on your hands and knees to let you see Clive after having not been able to visit during the day. She took one look at your pitiful state, and with a heavy sigh, she caved, giving you permission on the premise that you wouldn't disturb the other patients. You nodded enthusiastically in agreement before turning and opening the door to the infirmary.

A few bearers were scattered amongst the rows of beds, with Clive all the way on the other side of the room, closest to the window. You skittered across the room to his bed, taking care not to disturb the others. Kneeling by his side, you make note of his condition. He'd been heavily sedated due to the severity of his injury, fading in and out of consciousness. You couldn't tell when he was awake and when he wasn't.

Taking hold of his hand, you press his knuckles to your lips. "Please be alright," you whisper, clasping his hand in between your own. Bringing your interwoven hands to your forehead, you recite a silent prayer in hopes of his recovery. You were able to maintain some semblance of faith; he was stronger than any other man you knew after all, but seeing him here, like this, in such a fragile state, you wavered. Calling upon the gods to keep him safe from harm, to let you hear his voice once more, and for him to live another day.

You lay his hand back down on the bed once you've finished before recounting your day. "Sorry, I'm so late today," you whisper, "I was sent out early this morning for resource hunting. It was laborious and boring as always."

"I wish you were there. You always make even the blandest of assignments more tolerable," you smile down at him, both your silhouettes bathed in moonlight. "Torgal kept me company, though, so I wasn't too lonely."

The exhaustion from the day's work catches up with you, a yawn escaping you in the midst of your tale. "I guess I should get some rest then."

"I'll visit you again in the morning."

You get up to leave when Clive becomes restless in his sleep, discomfort etching itself across his face. His hand twitches around yours, tightening his grasp. You're quick to kneel beside him once more. "Shhhhh, it's alright," you murmur, "I'm right here."

Against your better judgment, you climb into bed with him, both of your bodies smushed together on the small mattress. Making sure to keep your voice low, you sang him a lullaby from your childhood, one that your mother would use to ward off bad dreams in the night. When the song ends, you decide to stay by his side and watch over him.

It's early the next day when Tarja finds you and Clive curled up together. She smirks to herself, shaking her head in amusement before starting her morning rounds.

The first time you sing him to sleep occurs shortly after you first start seeing each other.

He was fidgeting, panting, and shivering in his sleep, tossing and turning, trying to escape the terror of his dreams. You were beside him in bed, his movements disrupting your sleep. You peer over at him, checking on the commotion. Seeing his state, you reach out and caress his shoulder, shaking him slightly. It takes a while, but he finally awakens with a sharp inhale, as if he's been starved of air. He sits up wide-eyed, taking in his surroundings, sweat covering his brow as he heaves for oxygen. You reach up from your position on the bed to stroke his back delicately, the muscles continuing to rise and fall under your ministrations.

"Are you alright?" you mumble against the pillows.

He gives a short nod in response: "It was just a bad dream, nothing you need concern yourself with."

You let out a simple "hm" before opening your arms up for him to crawl into. "Come," you beckon. Despite his earlier reluctance, he does little to resist your request, all hesitance melting from his body as he falls into the comfort of your loving embrace. His head comes to rest on your shoulder, and strands of inky black hair tickle your face. Your hand strokes up and down on his shoulder while cocooned in the silence of night.

He's already dozing off when you begin singing. Your voice soft and raspy due to the sleep that's still present. He's cradled in the sea of your warm, dulcet tones, similar to the night spent in the infirmary many moons ago. 

The two of you had fallen into a little routine. Though less frequent since the two of you got together, Clive had been plagued with nightmares, sometimes so terrifying that he'd go nights without sleeping. He'd do anything to forget that dreadful night—anything to forget the look on his brother's face as he was torn apart by the dark eikon right in front of his very eyes.

His eyes flit over your form in the present, the scattered beams of moonlight illuminating your features. He feels a pang of guilt whenever he needs your comfort to sleep. The more he takes in your love, the more selfish he feels for doing so, as if allowing himself to indulge himself in the warmth you provide is somehow a sin. He cups the side of your face as his thumb strokes your cheek. "You don't have to, love."

"That wasn't what I asked, was it?" You tease, poking the tip of his nose before attempting to pull him closer. "Come, lay against me." Though he hesitates for a moment, he ultimately relents, unable to deny himself of you.

He rests his head on your breast, placing a few miscellaneous kisses on the lightly bruised skin, his hand caressing the soft flesh of your hip.

"I have a new song for you tonight,"

"Oh really?"

"Mhm, I kept this one close to my heart, but since you're so special to me, I've decided to share it with you as well."

"I'm honored," he mumbles, closing his eyes to fully rest against you.

Most of the songs you knew were ones you learned from other bearers during your time in the hideaway, save for the lullaby your mother sang to you as a young girl, but there was another song, one that always brought so much emotion out of you whenever you sang it. It was one from your home village, and you were blessed to have heard its enchanting lyrics performed by your mother before everything turned to ruin. Your home overrun by blight.

Starlight, say goodnight

Star bright, where have you fallen?

Starlight, say goodnight

Star bright, I hear you calling

Fire, a fire that filled the night

Fire that warmed-

You take his hand in yours and turn it so that his palm faces upward; Ifrit's flame set ablaze from his flesh. It's small while flickering in the breeze, illuminating you both with its warm glow. The flame is not too dissimilar to the one he's managed to set in your heart.

-and brightened my life

The flame is extinguished as you slide your hand up his forearm and into his palm, interlocking your fingers. The lingering warmth from his skin seeps into yours.

My guiding light, On high, my hearth, my beacon, and my hope

Clive flushes at this point, realizing that he's the subject of this song. He's the flame, the guiding light, the beacon of hope, and for once, the fire that's consumed him, made a home in his body, is associated with something good—with love and tenderness instead of destruction.

He lifts himself to press a tender kiss on your lips. "I love you," he whispers from above "I love you too." You meet each other's eyes, lovesick expressions on both your faces. He cups the back of your neck to pull you in for another kiss. One that's more passionate than the last, pouring in all the love he has for you.

On a different night, at a different time, perhaps he'd try to argue that you were more fitting of terms like hope and guiding light, saying that you had done more for him than he'd ever be able to repay you for. Instead, he indulges himself in the softness of your lips, the gentleness of your caress, and the warmth of your skin.

He rests against you once more, fully laying himself on top of you. His back faces the ceiling as he wraps you in his embrace, protecting you as a true shield should. His cheek rests on your sternum while his eyes flutter closed.

The song picks up again after he gets comfortable, his steady breaths cascading across your skin while your hand strokes his back.

A sky of scattered tears

A thousand years apart

Should they fade, I will not be afraid of the dark

For your flame still burns inside me, deep within my heart

Showing me a new tomorrow. Never too far

And when I cannot bear the pain,

I'll look up to the sky and pray-

Tears well up in your waterline, the lyrics ultimately getting to you. You recall the night in the infirmary, holding Clive's hand, fearing for his life, praying for his safety, his health, and for the gods not to steal him away from you too soon.

Your eyes skim down to his face, noticing that he's fast asleep against you. He's relaxed and peaceful, and you're thankful, as selfish as it may be, not wanting to explain why you've suddenly become so weepy.

You whisper the final lyrics in a wobbly voice, allowing the tears to stream down your face without fear. Admiring his sleeping expression, the love you have for him swallows you whole, consuming you, knowing that he's the one who’ll hold your heart for all time.

- That though our night is over, you shall always remain

Forever my treasure

My star

[evita-shelby]

National Anthem

Chapter 9

Cw: use of ethnic slurs, casual anti-romani racism, anglophobia, cheating, fertility issues, offscreen suicide, cuckolding/old timey version of using a sperm doner , and drama.

Taglist: @thegreatdragonfruta @zablife @call-sign-shark

June 1922

They go out to town, to some investors party standing for her company and his investment firm. Dressed to kill and walking in here like the sun orbited around them.

None of these English twats could hold a candle to them.

Paris had been fun, surrounded by eccentric rich fucks and exiles who Eva personally knew. Then when she came face to face with the girl who tried to kill her when they were sixteen, the witch proved she was as terrible as him.

The Witch smiled viciously as she settled on her next prey as they came face to face with Grace and the gangster Grace compared him too.

What’s her face had not died, but looked ready to croak once Evie was done with her. Jack cannot wait to see how she destroys the ungrateful broad who’d made moves on him while Eva tried her best to shove her onto Carrie’s group of sycophants despite Caroline hating her too.

“Dear me, does your husband know you’re back to your old habits, Mrs. Macmillan?” Eva wastes no time in embarrassing the married woman on the arm of a man who was not boring old Clive.

“You sounded taller in her stories of you, Mr. Shelby.” Jack looks down on the gypsy on the arm of the blonde who’d spent a year trying to snap up any blue blood that came near her.

He had known her type the moment he saw her, bored rich girl who only wants a man once he’s got enough cash to afford her.

Having been so curious about the man Grace sent letters too even after she married, they’d dug up everything you needed to know about Shelby and his family.

Thomas Shelby had taken longer than Jack to get where he was, but Tommy didn’t have the benefit of a man willing to teach him his tricks like a father would. But now that Shelby Brothers Limited was rising to the level of wealth Grace thinks she deserves, Tomm Shelby was being romanced in that cool way of hers.

The kind that makes you believe you are doing everything, and she is naturally coming to love you. Just like she did with Clive and this fool with her.

“Thomas, these are Mr. and Mrs. Jack Nelson. Friends of mine from New York.” She says pretending she’s not prey caught in the quarry.

“Friends of her husband.” He corrects letting him know how little they cared for the blonde who’s smiles tightly with eyes betraying the embarrassment she feels. “My wife and I were relieved when she handed in her resignation. She was my secretary at my Wall Street Office before my Evie caught on to her tricks, did she tell you that?”

If Eva’s game, they could destroy this relationship to make this boring party worth getting dressed for.

“Never heard of you, I admit, Mr. Nelson.” The shorter man admitted. He kept a cool head; one he’d gained from surviving France and everything that made people like them rise out from the muck they were born in.

Grace was a trophy, a ticket to the society that hates them, just like Eva had been. The only difference is that Jack can trust and love Eva to her bones and Tommy only loves the surface he sees because he thinks he can ignore the smell of the rot underneath the shiny surface as long as he does.

He knows all that because deep down he and this miserable fool are the same. Only difference Jack knows to vet his women before sticking it in them.

“Not surprised, Gracie here has a habit of keeping too many of them. Did you know their doctor suggested the MacMillan's find a man to make the baby and she agreed to it?” They had dinner with them a few days ago, Jack had learned that from Clive when they went out on the balcony to smoke.

Grace’s move is to deny everything, but Shelby is smart enough to see through it.

“Pray the boy takes after her, the MacMillans really hate Romani people, especially anyone related to Arthur Shelby. Your father relieved them of two hundred thousand dollars, or was it three hundred, Jack?” the witch continues grinding the blonde underneath her heel and leaving the best part unsaid, she’d seen her death.

A month after marrying the man of her dreams, she will die. A curse placed on her by Tommy Shelby’s own auntie to keep lovely Grace Burgess away from her family.

“Tell Clive we’re still on for brunch at our place before the Derby.” Jack said with a shark-like smirk and a condescending pat on Shelby’s shoulder. “Use a rubber, Shelby, the last thing you want is to get gipped.”

Her marriage to Jack has given new life to her mean streak.

Eva had struggled not being a bit mean or petty ever since she learned what fun it was to be an asshole to people she dislikes or tries any shit with her.

Grace was pretty prey, a little blonde mouse she and Jack toy with and discard for no other reason than just disliking her.

It was just something in her aura, this sense of entitlement, this innocence she claims when the people she hurts do not count as people to her, and now thinking she can have her cake and eat it too.

“We saw your darling Grace at the party last night, did she tell you?” Eva wastes no time in ruining the morning.

“Can’t be, she was at her aunt’s place for supper.” Clive answers thinking surely Eva is making a mean joke. She’s never been subtle in her dislike of her, warned him about the man she sent letters to behind his back when he went through with the wedding.

“Clive, I was hoping to do this somewhere private, but---” Jack dropped his napkin and gave her a look for making them do this now.

He wanted to preserve some of Clive’s dignity, but Eva craved chaos and destruction and seeing the woman who the universe predestined she loathe no matter what be publicly humiliated.

Maybe it was because she tried to seduce Jack away from her because she didn’t see Eva as her equal for being Mexican. Yes, it must be that, Eva hates bigots and bootlickers and Gracie was everything she loathed in a person wrapped in pretty designer clothes.

“Tell me they’re lying, that you haven’t been with that tinker you send letters to, tell me, Grace, tell me you aren’t the whore my mother thinks you are?!” Clive doesn’t shout and yet his voice is shaking and angry enough to carry throughout the café.

“Clive, I---” the blonde cannot lie, not when Tommy Shelby’s bastard grows in her womb.

She was pregnant, about five or six weeks. Got pregnant from the many times she went to the house of the woman whose husband she had imprisoned for being a Jew and a communist.

Six weeks ago, when the doctor’s fertility treatments for her began. She had wanted a child, just not with Clive. She wanted the love of the man she had in 1919, not Clive.

Tommy Shelby hadn’t wanted to continue this affair; she’d heard of May Carleton. May who trains his horse and was sweet on according to other guests she made them speak to.

It had been fun to see her learn that Shelby wasn’t hers anymore.

And now Eva was a giddy as child knowing Grace would never set foot near her ever again. Even better that when she dies in 1924, she will die knowing those who wrong Eva Nelson never live happily ever after.

“I’m sorry, Clive, I love him and I’m having his baby.” Grace admits the truth for once in her miserable life and all hell breaks loose.

Clive is found dead with Grace’s gun in his hand.

“Did you have to do that, I told you Clive was a weak man.” Jack asks as they meet the woman who cursed Grace Shelby and reveal the sordid affair her nephew’s been having with her.

Fine woman, just murdered her rapist and now enjoys her victory the way it deserves.

“She was going to tell him and make him kill himself anyways, I assumed she’d have her gun in her handbag like any sensible woman would.” Eva answered as she enjoyed the bubbly champagne, courtesy of Polly Gray.

Grace may have not shot Clive MacMillan in this timeline, but her killing him is something that will always happen. Just like her being shot a month or so after her wedding and just like Tommy Shelby destroying everything and everyone around him because he refused to let go of the Dulcinea he created in his head in 1919.

A shame it must go this way, but it has to. Don Quixote only regained his sanity once the fantasy brought him to his death.

A/N:Canon!Jack is racist full stop, here its more of a facade he puts on to keep his reputation of asshole you don't want to fuck with and mainly doing it to get ubder Tommy’s skin hence the heavy use of slurs

[oveliagirlhaditright]

An Instance

Summary: Joshua supposed he should have known that when it came to the snow daisies, for one couple it would solve their recent problems. But for the other... well, it would prove quite the challenge, wouldn't it?

It was ironic, wrong, cruel… and so many other words that Joshua could have added to the pot, that he stood in the infirmary of the Hideaway, asking Jote where they had last seen snow daisies on their journey together. He was doing so, so Clive might find some to show some to Jill to improve her spirits… but as he and Jote’s conversation continued, Joshua felt his own spirit diminishing.

As soon as he had begun speaking of the flora, there had been a brief instance where Joshua had seen hope color Jote’s face—that maybe he was returning her such beautiful and graceful love for him, after all—before she had covered it up like the wonderful attendant she was.

And Joshua hated that she had to cover it up at all… even if he didn’t return her feelings (and he did, though there would never be talks of that for so many reasons now), she deserved to at least have them entertained—as all those in love did, even with the idea of a possible heartbreak on the horizon—not to have to always pretend she was naught but a waif, out of a misplaced sense of propriety.

Joshua almost wished he could take his question back, and not have this be another dagger in his dear friend, comrade, and secret love’s heart, were it not also for his own desire to lift some of his dear sister’s baggage.

Things had never been easy for Joshua and his brother… but it seemed ever since they had been ripped from each other’s side, nothing could ever could go right. And this was just more proof of that, the Dominant of Phoenix supposed.

“According to my records, Your Grace,” Jote whispered as she pulled out one of her journals, “we came across snow daisies in Oillepheist Bay. I had then remarked that I had never seen such lovely flowers of their like before, as we made our crossing… and your Grace then said that you had seen some as a child. And that to your Grace, these daisies looked like blue flowers with snow and raindrops crystallized to them. And I couldn’t have agreed more, your Grace. It made for a sightly day.”

Joshua listened, mouth agape, as Jote in so much detail talked about when they’d been in the Royal Meadows of Sanbreque. He couldn’t believe that she remembered so incredibly well a calm day they had spent together. Once again, it became clear to the king of Rosaria just how much she loved him… and he wished for the millionth time that he could say something in return to her, but his illness—and now the upcoming fight within Origin—made it impossible.

Jote’s words also made it known to Joshua that she adored the snow daisies just as much as Jill did, and he couldn’t help but smile at that. Yes, the two girls were one of a kind, indeed.

maybe in that, there was something that could be told to Jote. To hint to things, if nothing else, which she so rightly deserved… that, and the whole world for all she had done, Joshua thought.

“Yes, my lady,” Joshua said, stepping forward and holding Jote’s hand but for a moment. “I did find that snow daisies looked crystallized or frozen, if you will. But now, if I may be so bold, I find the one thing I wish to be frozen in time are these moments I’m spending together with everyone. With you.” And he squeezed her hands in his own for emphasis as Jote allowed tears to well up in her eyes for just an instance.

But once again, it was all the two could allow.

And offering the best companion he could have asked for on his long journey another quick smile, Joshua bid her adieu—so he could go tell Clive his findings, and see if his own investigation into the snow daisies had yielded similar results.

Author’s Note: A birthday present for my dear friend Liz, that I truly hope she enjoys. -blows party horn and throws confetti-

I just thought that when Joshua asked Jote about the snow daisies, it unfortunately had to hurt our poor girl. And thus, I had to write this.

I hope everyone liked the story! Especially you, Liz. Love you!

@bluerosesburnblue

[house-of-slayterr]

Inappropriate Work Conduct:

Ravi had been working with you for months now, enjoying having a secondary lab assistant when Liv was helping Detective Babineaux. You rolled your shoulders, groaning as you bones ached. There had been a huge incident down at the bank earlier that morning, twelve hostages were killed and many more injured. You were sure the hospital felt just as swamped as you did.

Moving bodies around all day was exhausting, but this job was what you loved. You weren’t as keen on the people side of things, preferring to stick to yourself. Working in funeral directing wasn’t something you wanted, but something your parents pushed you into. Family tradition and what not, but when they passed, you moved onto something a little more tolerable. Now the only people you had to deal with where your lab partners and the cops. Which, other than Clive, none seemed to want to come down here.

You didn’t mind it though. It meant more quiet time. You must have zoned out, with your hands in someone chest cavity, because Ravi was calling your name.

“Hello! Earth to Y/N” he waved a hand in front of your face.

You came back to, to see your best friend waving at you.

“Where you even listening to me?”

You frowned.

“Sorry.”

“What’s gotten into you lately. I know you don’t talk much, but listening ears are your strong suit.”

You rolled your eyes at the statement. Was that meant to be a compliment?

“Yeah, sorry, just thinking.”

“Clearly, I thought I saw smoke over here.”

Another one of his jokes. You’d grown used to them, not finding them as annoying as you once did.

“Spill!”

“What are you, a teenage girl?”

“Liv would back me up!”

“That’s because she actually is a a teenage girl, did you see how giddy she was when she left today? Weird.”

He gave you his best puppy dog eyes, and you caved as always.

“I was thinking about a boy, ok? Happy?”

“Very.” He smirked, leaning in.

You groaned at his childishness.

“You’re not getting any details.”

“Oh come on, we’re friends.”

“We work together.”

“Ouch.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. No talking boys on the job Chakrabarti! Now can you get back to dissecting John Doe over there, he’s not gonna do it himself and I don’t want to be here until 3am.”

It was his turn to roll his eyes. I sighed heavily.

“Look, there’s not much to tell ok. We met last night at the club-“

“You went to a club?”

“I do have a life outside of work, you know that right?”

“I know but I was expecting library, not dank building full of writhing bodies.”

“We’ll you’re not wrong on the first part, but my sister was in town, she dragged me out for her birthday, before leaving this morning. God I don’t know how she got up that early for a flight when she was out all night.”

“You’re sister was in town?”

“Not important.”

“Is she hot?”

“Ravi! I will cut off your gossiping privileges I swear to god. Never call my sister hot again.”

“What?!? If she looks anything like you-“

You blushed.

“I am going to stab you.” You picked up a scalpel from the table. “I can make it look like an accident”

He held up his hands in defeat.

“Ok ok, your sister is off limits, got it. Now continue.”

“I don’t know, he bought me a few drinks, we danced, snogged a little. Nothing fancy, but for some reason I can’t get him off my mind.”

“Awwww somebodies in love!”

“Hardly.”

“Says the person daydreaming about a guy, while another man’s heart is literally in your hands.”

You looked down to see you were indeed holding the aforementioned organ. When did you remove it? Must have gone back into auto pilot.

“Was he good?”

“What?”

“At kissing?”

“Eww, Ravi why must you be like this?”

You threw a pair of pliers in his direction. Consciously choosing the tool that would hurt the least, at least you tried to aim away from him. You did have good aim. You were interrupted by someone clearing their throat.

“Hello Detective, how can we help?” Ravi greeted.

You looked down at you feet, awkwardly shuffling around the table. You weren’t trying to be rude, but the Detective had an intense personality. His aura was all consuming, like that one friend of Liv and Ravi’s, Major. And you wouldn’t even get started on Peyton, she scared you beyond belief. But most strong women did, you couldn’t help it, she was pretty and it made your brain stupid. You hoped you weren’t making him feel awkward, it was nothing personal. You just only made eye contact with a select few, and even then it was pretty much limited to when Ravi wanted something from you.

“Any updates on the bodies?”

He always sounded so stiff and uncomfortable when he came down here. It kinda make you laugh, which apparently you were so out fo it today that you’d actually laughed out loud. All eyes in the room where on you.

“Sorry, thought of a joke.” You lied.

Big mistake, cause now Ravi wouldn’t drop it. It seemed even the Detective was anxious to hear why you’d interrupted him. You just wanted the two men to stop looking.

“What do you get when you cross a morgue and a comedy club?”

Ravi waited in silent anticipation, and the detective raised a brow at you.

“An open Mike, night.”

You emphasised the joke by lifting the pair of lung in your hands, before setting them on the table. Ravi chuckled a little, which made you feel better about your impromptue joke skills.

“Wasn’t aware you were such a comedian Miss Y/N.”

“Sorry, continue.” You said.

“Nothing really special about any of the kills, average nine millimetre rounds. Except Jane doe over there had strangulation marks around her neck, and a bite mark post mortem.” Ravi explained.

You watched as he showed her to the detective. You kinda felt bad. What kind of person strangles a woman, shoots her in the head and then bites her neck? A phone rang and the detective looked annoyed, picking it yup.

“Hello? Yeah… he’s right here… really? Alright, be there in a second.” He sighed.

You raised a brow at Ravi, that the detective didn’t see.

“Liv is requesting you, crazy psychic stuff.”

You’d forgotten about that. Was Olivia really a psychic? It was she just good at reading people and wanted an excuse to leave the stuffy lab. You wanted any excuse to stay down here.

“You’ll be ok by yourself?“ Ravi asked, genuinely sounding bad about leaving you with all the work.

You nodded toward the staircase, letting him know it was ok. He came over and gave you a hug goodbye, something you should be used to by now, but you still stiffened at the touch.

“Maybe you can tell your joke again, I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.” Clive spoke, gesturing to the bodies splayed all over your workspace.

You were grateful when they left, finally having the morgue all to yourself. But that didn’t last long. After about half an hour of working, there was a knock at the end of the stairs, a curtesy knock at best. You didn’t bother to look up, humming in a “can I help you?” tone. The person seemed to understand your gesture.

“Sorry, was just wondering when the pretty lady who works down here, had some free time.”

You recognised the voice instantly. You head shot up as you looked at the guy from last night. You squinted your eyes at him, you hadn’t told him where you worked. You hid a scalpel in your back pocket, just in case. You walked over to the sink, taking off your gloves and scrubbing your arms clean. He seemed to make himself comfortable as he leaned against the desk in the corner.

“What can I do for you?” You asked, putting on your best professional voice.

“Oh come on, not even a blush at my compliment? You seemed to like them last night.” You hated that stupid smirk on his face, god was he handsome.

“Contextualise it.” You deadpanned.

He spread his lips in a tight line.

“What are you doing here?” You asked, suspiciously.

“We’ll I was looking for a short blonde, dead in the eyes, annoyingly chipper… you know her?”

It clicked, he was here for Liv, not you. You sighed, loosening your grip on the “weapon”

“She out with Ravi and the Detective, you just missed them.”

“Shame.” He hummed.

He fidgeted with some stuff on Ravi’s desk.

“Need me to leave a message?”

“No no, it’s alright.”

You raised a brow when he made no attempt to leave. You shrugged it off and went back to work.

“Whatever you say.”

He watched from the desk as you easily dismembered the next body. He had to admit, you looked really nice in your lab gear, sawing into some girls chest. Everything you did looked effortless, like you were in your element. He licked his lips hungrily, getting up from the desk. You watched as he got closer, turning off the saw and lifting your goggles.

“Yes?”

Without skipping a beat, this idiot attempted to flirt with you on the job.

“So, my love life has been as dead as this poor guy. Feel like opening up the casket and resurrecting it?”

You eyes widened, and you let out a snort, quickly devolving into a little chuckle. He found it utterly adorable.

“You did not just- I don’t even remember your name Blondie.” You giggled.

“Blaine, but you can call me yours.” He attempted.

You laughed once again, taking off your gear once more, not wanting to continue this conversation covered in some girls blood. Not that he would mind, he found it quite hot actually.

“Nice one Casanova.” You jeered.

“Oh come on, you find me charming.”

“We’re you this cocky last night?” You questioned, looking back as you scrubbed yourself clean once more.

“I’m only as cocky as you want me to be.”

You rolled your eyes, making your way over to him. You maintained eye contact, which surprised even you. You weren’t normally this bold.

“And you presume to know what it is that I want?”

It was his turn to chuckle, who talked like that in this day and age. You were much more eloquent when you weren’t drunk. But he was glad you didn’t seem to be Ignoring his advances. You were different from the other girls he flirted with, in fact, he didn’t want to be flirting with anyone else right now. You’d been on his mind all night.

“I’m hardly presumable.” He mocked your tone.

You placed a hand on his chest, attempting to push him toward the stairs.

“Not that this little spat wasn’t fun, mate, but as you can see, there’s lots of work to be done. I can’t have you distracting me.”

“So I’m distracting?” He questioned.

You rolled your eyes.

“Tell me you’ll let me take you out, and I’ll leave!” He declared.

“What is this? A hostage situation!” You joked.

“You’d make a cute hostage.”

Creepy, but you saw where his attempt was.

“And if I say no?”

“Then poor Jane Doe over there is gonna have to wait, cause I’m a rather good distraction.” He grinned.

You hummed.

“And where would you take me?“

You walked over to your own desk, taking down your hair to readjust it.

“Anywhere you want.”

“Anywhere? How romantic? This how you bag all the girls?”

“I can’t tell if you’re making fun of me, or just really good at making insensitive jokes.” He pointed to the three body bags in the corner of the room.

“Both?” You laughed. “What can I say, my humours a crowd killer.”

He laughed at that, a sound you wanted so desperately to hear again.

He came over to your desk, standing over you. He was quite a bit taller, and you felt small under his gaze.

“The worlds yours, where do you want to go?”

You thought for a moment.

“Honestly, I just want to go home.”

“Trying to get me in bed are we?”

You playfully slapped his chest.

“No, just not a fan of outings. We wouldn’t have met if it wasn’t my sisters birthday.”

“We’ll tell her I say thank you.”

“I never said that was a good thing.” You joked.

“Ouch!” He placed a hand over his heart.

“So what would we do?”

“I could cook.” You suggested.

“I’m asking you out, and you want to cook me a home cooked meal? You you say I’m the romantic.”

You could tell there was something off about that statement. Most men would be happy about free food.

“Not of fan of that idea?”

“No no, It’s good. I just have a strict diet. Wouldn’t want to make you do that extra work. How about a movie instead?”

“It wouldn’t be a big deal, but sure, I like movies.”

“And what would we watch?” He asked, tilting your chin up to make him look at you.

You could get lost on his eyes for hours. Which is why you weren’t a fan of eye contact. It was making you squirm, which you were sure is exactly what he wanted. It had been so long since you’d even had a crush on someone, let alone been with anyone. What was it, premed school… yikes. No wonder you were down bad for the first man to shamelessly throw himself at you.

“Texas Chainsaw Massacre!” You declared.

Far happier about that statement than you expected. It was always your habit, trying to scare away people who weren’t worth your time. Normally boys left the second they found out what your job was. But he he was, flirting you up at work.

“That’s hot.” He said.

Before you could stop yourself, you grabbed his face and pulled him in for a hungry kiss. Finally breaking the thick tension in the room. He kissed back feverishly. You walked backwards, pushing him up against Ravi’s desk. Something fell, but you’d replace whatever it was later. He fiddled with your lab coat, pulling it off, and you attempted to unbutton his shirt. But you two were hit off but someone clearing their throat once more. Much to his displeasure.

You pulled back, running a hand through your hair as you looked to see Liv, Ravi and Clive standing there. Blaine smirked at them, sending a wink to Liv.

“What the hell are you doing, get away from her!” Ravi shouted.

You raised a brow.

“Sorry, may have gotten a little carried away there, that was my fault.” You apologised, straightening yourself out.

“Guys this is Blaine, guy from the club.”

He raised a brow at that statement, chuckling under his breath. Was that all he was, some guy from the club.

“We know who he is.” Liv spat bitterly, “and you’re going to stay far, far away from her.” She looked to him.

Where was this coming from. He seemed like a decent guy, why were the suddenly acting live over protective parents? Sure you were the youngest, but this was excessive.

“No can do Liverooni, we have a date.” He said proudly. “It would be rude of me to cancel”

“Yeah he’s not cancelling. It was inappropriate for me to, Ummm, kiss him at work, but that doesn’t mean it ok for you to voice your opinions on who I date.”

Clive had to give you that much. He himself didn’t quite know why the two hated this man. But he knew he must have been no good if that was the case. Liv and Ravi didn’t hate anyone, let alone together.

“He’s going to hurt you.” Liv said.

“And maybe it’s my prerogative to get hurt? Who are you to decide if that’s worth it to me? Besides, I respectfully disagree.”

You walked over to the desk, scribbling your number on a piece of paper and shoving it in his chest. You pointed to the stairwell.

“I think you should leave, thank for the visit.”

He grinned down at you, seeing how quickly you shifted from fierce, to shy again.

“See you later Killer.” He joked, referencing your love for horror movies.

Each of your coworkers raised a brow at that. Liv opened her mouth to say something else but you cut her off.

“You’ve said enough, I’ve got work to do” you said exasperated.

Clive excused himself from to the group, following the sketchy man out the door.

“We don’t talk about boys at work?” Ravi joked.

At least he was trying. But what was the deal with Blaine? What was so bad about him that both your best friends despised him?

An: nobody asked for this lol, but I’m back on zombie Brain rot 😈

[dreamescapeswriting]

Taehyung X Reader ~ Pressure [Request]

Word Count: 10k (I’m so sorry it’s so long) 

Genre: Fluff with like a tiny amount of angst but it’s needed for the storyline 

Pairing: Taehyung x Fem!Reader

Warnings: I don’t think there is any

A/N: Hope this okay for you for you hun, if not feel free to message me and I will do it again but for once I kind of like something I’ve written.

"Y/n! You were behind again!" The choreographer screamed at you on the stage, you looked down at the floor and tried to calm down your anger. You'd been in the girl band for a year now and it seemed like everyone hated you, managers, dancers, backup singers, and even the band members. 

"Sorry, Clive." You said into your mic looking at your band members who were all talking amongst themselves it had always been this way with them, they'd trained together for years and when you joined it was as if someone had thrown a spanner into the works and they hated it, you were never invited out on meals with them, not that you could eat any way you were under a strict diet plan from your managers and if you broke it you'd be in deep trouble with everyone around you, they already hated you so you didn't want to add anything else onto the list.

"Just make sure you get it right!" The lights turned back on and practise was over, Lily, the main vocalist came over and looked at you. 

"You better not mess this up for us Y/n, we have someone important coming to see us and we want this to go perfectly." You nodded in silence not wanting to say anything to her that you would regret later, she left the stage and you followed after them picking up your bag and deciding you were going to go back to the Sync building and practise all night if you had to. You tried not to think of the different companies that had approached you before you joined H.E.A.R.T, wondering about all the things that could have been if you hadn't joined but you knew thinking of what if's weren't a good thing and so you pushed them out of your head. You knew something big was happening with your band but no one was giving you details, telling you it was something you didn't need to concern yourself with yet, to focus on your dance and singing before you tried to focus on them. 

"Afternoon Ed!" You greeted your driver as you left the venue, he smiled opening the door for you. All of the members went home in different cars, going to their separate homes and not talking to one another...or at least not talking to you when you weren't with them, even when you were with them.

"How was practise?" He questioned as he started up the car, 

"Awful, drop me off at Sync I'll practise some more and I'll walk home." You told him looking in the mirror, he eyed you up knowing you were lying about walking home, you did it a lot. You'd get too stressed with work you'd practise until you'd drop and end up staying in one of the producer's studios which they didn't mind because they never found out about it, 

"It's almost midnight Y/n..."

"Just drop me off Ed, please." You pleaded taking out your phone to look through the group twitter account, fans were tweeting out about how much they loved everyone but you could only see the horrible things people say about you, how much you lacked in comparison to the rest of the girls in the group, you were going to log off for the night when you saw a rumour going around which made you think for a second.

'BTS Coming to The UK to collaborate with Sync's Girl group H.E.AR.T' You clicked on the article and read through some of it, all of their names popping up along with photographs of them at their airports, was this what everyone was keeping from you, they all knew how much you liked their music, you groaned locking your phone and throwing it into the bottom of your bag. 

"Everything okay?" You looked up at Ed who was looking at you in the mirror again, you'd known him since you'd joined H.E.A.R.T, he'd been the kindest person to you on the team and you always found yourself telling him your problems. 

"Yeah...Do you know if the BTS rumours are true?" He nodded and rolled down the window, entering his passcode to the building of Sync and looked back at you for a quick second before he continued driving through the parking lot.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" He shrugged his shoulders and you gathered your things together to get out of the car. 

"Don't push yourself too hard." You ignored his comment and headed inside of the building, showing the nightguard your ID. 

"Afternoon Terry, lovely weather." You joked with him, he rolled his eyes at you playfully and you looked around. The whole building was empty except for you, a couple of backup dancers, guard and one or two producers that were working on other people's albums. 

"It's sunny now you're here!" He yelled as you rushed towards the elevators, getting inside the waiting one and heading up to the dance floor. You were going to practise all night, even if your feet were hurting and you were crying, you were going to get this right. 

"Taehyung we need to leave what are you doing?" Hoseok asked as he saw Taehyung hanging around a door, he held his hand up for Hobi to be quiet and ushered him over, pointing through the small window of the door to point at you, you were panting heavily as you played the song again, he hadn't seen someone practising this hard since Jimin pushed himself too much back at the start of their training.

"What's she doing?" Hoseok questioned as you tried to catch your breath, standing back to look at yourself in the mirror and starting the dance again. Taehyung took in your appearance, you looked tired and overworked. You were wearing leggings and a huge baggy jumper to dance in as well as some old trainers, he glanced at his watch it was 4 am and you were the only one out of your four band members that were practising this early, if only he knew you hadn't been to bed yet.

"Should we go and talk to her?" Hoseok questioned and then he realised how creepy it would look for them to walk right in without being formally introduced to them yet. 

"We could bring her a coffee first?" Tae questioned looking at Hoseok for approval who nodded in agreement and they went on the hunt for a coffee machine.

The sheer pain you were feeling in your legs was unreal but it worth it because you finally had the dance nailed down, you could do it with your eyes closed and without counting in your head, you took out your phone to interact with fans on your single Instagram account, your bosses insisted that you all have separate accounts to update everyone one, you took a photo of you sitting on the floor with the camera covering your face. 

'Practise until you can't get it wrong' You sent it out and laid back against the floor, wanting nothing more than to take off the jumper you were wearing but you weren't at the desired weight the label wanted before they started dressing you like they did the rest of the girls you had to drop a few pounds, which you found ridiculous because most of your music was telling people how beautiful they are in their own bodies. A knock on the door alerted you that someone was around, you glanced at the time it was almost 5 am why was anyone else here yet, you kicked yourself up from the floor and walked over to the door opening it to reveal two out of seven members from BTS, you felt your stomach drop as Taehyung and Hoseok both stared at you with smiles on their faces. 

"We saw you were practising and we wanted to introduce ourselves. I'm Hobi, this is Tae." You shook both of their hands and then realised you were supposed to speak now, like...Forming actual words instead of staring at them. 

"I'm Y/n." You said in a rush, blushing deeply as they chuckled at how shy you were being around them. 

"Sorry, I'm not used to meeting people like you guys." You stated to them but they shook their hands holding out one of the iced coffees for you to take, you stared at the cup and wanted nothing more than to reach out and grab it, you'd missed the taste of it so much that you were starting to get the shakes from thinking about it. 

"I can't, but thank you." Sending them a smile and going over to your bag, 

"Where are your other members?" Hoseok questioned as he looked around the dance room, 

"Oh their out having breakfast." You lied, and badly because you saw the way that Taehyung was looking at you, you nervously looked around the room for something to talk about. 

"If you guys want I can give you a tour?" Hoseok looked at you and shook his head, 

"I have to go and work with Namjoon but I'm sure Tae here would love one." You nodded and Hoseok left you both alone, you felt nervous again being alone with him and you glanced at your hands trying to think of something to say. 

"Tour! Let's go." You cheered nervously walking with him out of the dance studio and onto the hallway, 

"This hall is all of the dance rooms and a couple of empty studios," You said taking him down the hall and towards the elevator, Tae had already gotten the tour from one of the managers in the building but he wasn't going to tell you that and ruin the time he was getting with you. He found you interesting and wanted to know more about you when he first found out about the collaboration he started learning more about you, you were the oldest of the group but the backup dancer and backup singer, you were never front of centre even though you had an exceptional amount of talent, he found himself scrolling through articles about you, and then fan chat rooms about what they thought about you compared to the other members. Most of them feeling bad that you seemed mistreated in comparison to the other girls which he started to notice as well the more he dove into your band, finding interviews of you being pushed to the back while the main vocalist Lily spoke, videos popping up of members yelling at you in soundcheck with fans there and even videos titled, 

'Why I think H.E.A.R.T hate Y/n.' Seeing you alone in the dance studio and not taking the coffee he was offering only raised his suspicions of it.

"So where are your members again?" He questioned as you showed him the top floor of the building where most of your band hung out, 

"I think Lily is going to town and the other girls all have private things going on." You lied again, completely forgetting what you'd told him earlier and he sighed looking at you, your hands were shaking and you looked like you were going to pass out. 

"Have you had anything to eat yet, we could go and get something together." You looked at him and then over at the clock on the wall, it wasn't time for your eating yet but if you shook it off again he was going to ask too many questions and you knew the company didn't want that.

"Sure." You whispered to him, telling him that the cafe downstairs served a nice English Breakfast he would have to try. 

"Morning Y/n, what can I get you?" The server, Mark, asked as you came up to the front, you looked around nervously at the menu, there was nothing you could have to eat. 

"Green tea," You said with a smile glancing over at Tae who was talking with one of the cooks as they plated his food up. 

"Who's your friend?" Your attention was back on Mark as he raised an eyebrow at you, you shook your head at him. 

"He's a band member that H.E.A.R.T are collaborating with." You took the hot drink from his hands and put it onto the tray in front of you. 

"You mean that you're collaborating with..." You laughed a little and nodded, 

"Yeah." You took your tray over to a back table, sitting down and looking at the drink in front of you as you waited for Taehyung, 

"That's all you're having?" He questioned sadly looking at the cup of green tea in front of you, you nodded with a fake smile. 

"I'm just not hungry." You lied, you'd told that lie so many times you were starting to think it was real, no matter how much your stomach moaned out for you to eat something. 

"Here," He placed a banana in front of you and you stared at it nervously, 

"Even if it's a little something, you should always eat." You nodded at his advice and picked it up, peeling it slowly and trying to think of something to get out of eating it when the doors opened at the end of the hall, 

"Good morning Lily!" The whole service crew yelled as Lily walked through the hall, going over to Mark and ordering a large breakfast for herself, she spotted you and walked over with the biggest fake smile you'd ever seen her have, 

"Y/n! We missed you at the sleepover last night!" She yelled placing her tray in front of you which was her way of telling you to move so you slid out of the seat and onto the one next to her, 

"You guys had a sleepover?" Tae questioned looking at Lily who was smiling at him, twirling her blonde hair around her finger and batting her fake eyelashes at him, you looked down at your tray. 

"Yeah! We do it all the time, we're so close." You looked around the room and realised it was starting to get busy, 

"Y/n you should go practice," Lily ordered waving her hand in your face, you stood up the banana in your hand and she took it. 

"I'll take that," You looked down sadly and rushed out of the hall, not wanting to look at her flirting with Tae for a minute longer. If you'd looked back though you would have seen Tae gazing after you as you rushed out of the hall, he stared at your green tea, you hadn't touched it and you'd been so reluctant to take the banana from him. All of his suspicions were coming true and he knew he was going to have to get you to talk to him.

"Are we all clear on what we need to do?" Your manager asked as you sat in the music studio with H.E.A.R.T and BTS, you all nodded and looked around at each other. You'd spent the last two hours in a boring long meeting about what each member would be doing but as usual, you'd been giving nothing you knew what your task was, practise until your feet were bleeding and you couldn't walk anymore, work out until you felt like you were going to drop and be nice and stay out of the way, 

"That's it then. See you all when you're finished." Your manager clapped his hands and everyone started standing up except for Taehyung who was staring at you and raising his hand. 

"Yes, Tae?" The manager questioned, everyone's attention turning to him including yours, you wondered what he was going to say. 

"I was wondering what Y/n's job is, you haven't given her a task." Lily let out a cough as she looked at him and then to you. 

"Y/n has to practise a lot, she's not ready for the stage performance, but she's getting there aren't you darling?" She questioned throwing her arm around your waist and causing you to flinch which didn't go unnoticed by Tae and the rest of BTS, they all stared at you waiting for an answer. 

"Yeah, I have personal training this morning as well...So I have to go." You said excusing yourself and practically sprinting from the room to get away from them all staring at you, you knew it was going to end up with your manager screaming at you. 

It was the end of the day and people were starting to leave, you'd managed to avoid everyone all day, avoiding Tae whenever he came by the dance studio by pretending not to hear him knocking over the music, Lily had come down to see you after the incident and told you not to speak to any of them, even if they spoke to you first to make up some kind of excuse as to why you couldn't stop and talk to them and she went into detail about how amazing the song she was writing with Namjoon, Yoongi and Hoseok was perfect and that the girls were all having fun with the other members.

"Ed where are you?" You asked into the answerphone as you waited in the lobby of the building for him but he was running late, Lily walked past you and pretended not to see you and the other girls had already left so you sat down against the wall and decided to wait for him.

"Hi Y/n, how was your day?" Hoseok asked in a joyful tone as he came to sit next to you, you looked at him and nodded, you had nowhere to go and no way of getting out of talking to him. 

"It was good, yours?" He nodded and then looked at his phone, pretending to have read something you knew that because his screen was black. 

"Your manager wants to see you, come on I'll walk you up." You frowned and screamed as he pulled you up from the floor by your hand and began dragging you through the building and into the lifts, going up to the main studio.

"What does he want me for?" The door was opened and your manager was standing there, you blinked and looked around the room Tae was sitting there with a smile on his face, 

"Tae has expressed he would like to work with you, I've told him how busy you are but he said he's willing to tag along. Meet your teammate." You nodded and Tae smiled at you again, 

"I'll talk to you outside." You manager stated taking you by the wrist and pulling you from the room. 

"You were under instructions not to talk to them." You shook your head at him ready to defend yourself but he held his hand up in front of your face, 

"You go about everything as usual, if he's there or not I don't care. You will not let the team down!" You nodded as he whisper yelled at you causing you to flinch at how close he was. 

"Go and greet your new teammate." He pushed you back inside the room and you smiled at both of the boys, 

"What time shall I meet you here tomorrow?" You looked at Tae, this was serious about him being with you all the time. 

"Erm, probably around 7 am." You lied knowing you'd been there earlier for private practice with Clive and then your training session, 

"I'll meet you in the cafe." You nodded and awkwardly looked around the studio when your phone started ringing. 

"You're outside? I'll be right down." You hung up on Ed and said a quick goodbye to the boys rushing out of the room and going to the exit. 

"You sure she's going to tell you the truth?" Hoseok asked sitting on the sofa across from Tae who was gazing after you longingly, he nodded. 

"I'm sure of it." 

It had been a week since Tae was assigned as your partner and it had been hard to keep everything from him as your bosses wanted. You were more tired than usual and he was starting to pick up on things, it started off calm. He would meet you at the time you'd given him but once he realised you'd clearly been at work for longer he started coming to work earlier to see if he could find what you were doing. Then it was the coffee's, every morning he would bring you a coffee ''forgetting'' that you couldn't drink it, same with food. He'd take you out to lunch only for you to make up some excuse for not eating in front of him and you were slowly starting to lose your patience with him. Maybe it was the lack of sleep you were getting and the lack of food contributing to you but you were starting to get angry with everyone so that's why that morning when he showed up to work at 4 am you flipped. 

"What are you doing here?" You questioned as he followed you towards the dance studios, 

"Now I know the real-time you come in." You tried to laugh it off but he wasn't laughing, he had a serious look on his face as you started to get ready for your dancing lesson. 

"Why are you here this early and Lily get's to come in late?" Question after question was thrown at you while you waited for Clive to arrive and you finally had enough of the constant questions. 

"Because Lily is perfect! Lily is the main leader for us and she doesn't need all the practise like I do." You yelled at him, not meaning to yell at him the way you did and you felt your heartbreak at the way he looked at you. You'd seen the look before, it was the look someone gave you when they felt sorry for you and you didn't want that.

"Can you wait downstairs, I have to practise and then work out." He nodded and backed out of the room wondering what you meant by Lily was perfect. You were perfect, well in his eyes at least. You were the sweetest person he'd met in the UK, besides Army of course, but you'd been so kind to him. You took him sightseeing one night and took him to get food, and you even offered him a place to stay when he was locked out of their hotel room. He'd enjoyed his time getting to know you in the studio as you wrote song lyrics together, none of them being given to anyone important, he'd realised that yesterday when he asked Namjoon on the thoughts of the lyrics you'd written because Tae thought they were brilliantly written but Namjoon told him he hadn't been given anything even though Tae gave the lyrics to your manager specifically for that reason and hearing you talk about Lily this morning was putting everything into place and he knew you were close to talking to him about it.

"About this morning, I'd like to say sorry. I wasn't myself and I don't know what I was saying." Tae heard you say in the most monotone possible as you looked at the floor, he glanced around the room and noticed Lily watching you from the doorway of the cafe, 

"It's fine. Sit down." You shook your head if you stayed you'd cry and you didn't want to cry. You'd already cried enough in front of your manager, they'd found out what you said to Tae and they weren't exactly happy that you were shouting at a guest of theirs. 

"I have to go. I'm sorry, I can't be partnered with you but Lily said she is more than willing to have you on her team." He shook his head standing up, he wasn't going to stand for this anymore. You were clearly upset and not willing to talk about it in front of anyone in the building, he took your wrist in his which made you look at his hand and then up to his face. 

"Meet me at the exit tonight, don't make up some lame excuse and don't ask for their permission either." You tried to protest but you knew all eyes were on you and there would be questions if you looked like you were having some kind of conversation so you just stared at his hand again. 

"Fine." You mumbled moving away from him and going past Lily who stopped you by linking her arms with yours, trying to act friendly in front of workers on the bottom floor. 

"What did he say to you?" She questioned with a smile but she wasn't being nice, you could tell by the tone of her voice and the tight squeeze she was giving your arm. 

"That he'll think about working with you," You lied looking over your shoulder at the rest of the girls. 

"We're all going to lunch, I'd invite you but...Well, you know." She said patting your stomach and flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder and leaving you alone in the empty hall, you felt your eyes starting to well up and you just cleared your throat, going towards the lifts and going up to the dance floor to get ready for your practice session. 

Tae stared down at his phone, he'd been texting you all day after he saw Lily walking with you and patting you on the stomach, but you weren't replying to him and he was starting to worry about it, he didn't want to worry about you but there was something inside of him that made him want to look after you, maybe he was the feelings he was starting to have for you but he tried to push them away, he'd only known you a week and you hadn't spoken about yourself much, it was more about work than anything else and the only time you spoke about yourself was when you were writing lyrics, the lyrics were meaningful and beautiful and he could tell you'd written them from the heart despite you telling him it was something you made up on the spot, they were all about being in a toxic environment and living with people who were toxic towards you. Then there were the songs he'd found in your notebook when you weren't looking, songs about having no privacy thanks to people following you everywhere, and others about not having real friends because everyone faked liking you to get closer to the fame they craved more. 

"Have you seen Y/n?" Tae asked Yoongi as he walked towards the exit of the building, Yoongi looked up from his phone and nodded. 

"Still dancing, I heard the music as I passed the door." Tae thanked him and sprinted towards the lifts, going up and looking at his phone. 

"Fuck!" You cried out as you collapsed onto the floor after getting the wrong move again, they'd changed the main choreography you'd spent so long on getting right and now it was harder than before, though Clive told you the girls got it right away and if they could do it why couldn't you put your smaller mind to it. All thoughts of going to meet Tae were out of your mind, you wanted to get this right before you went home, and if that meant staying up all night and day again then that's what you were going to do but that was before you collapsed onto the floor now you were just mad at yourself. You got up from the floor and looked at yourself in the mirror, taking off the oversized jumper you were wearing to reveal the Nike crop top and matching leggings that you were wearing, no one was around you could get away with dancing in the proper clothes for once. 

Tae watched from the door as you stepped back away from the jumper and looked at yourself in the mirror, he took in your appearance and wanted to barge into the room, you looked as though you hadn't eaten in weeks and from hanging around you so much he knew you hadn't eaten a single thing around him so he wondered if you were even eating in the first place. 

"Shit." You cried out as you missed a step, something he would look over in practice but it looked like you were about to break down into tears. 

The breakdown had been a long time coming and it was a train wreck when it finally hit you, you grabbed hold of the chair that you were using in the practice and launched it at the floor-length mirror without thinking, watching as the breaking glass showered on the floor, sharp pieces flying out at you and cutting into your exposed skin.

Tae jumped up looking through the window and pushing the door open, you were on the floor cradling your arm as it bled, he heard the glass through the music and door so he was sure someone else would have heard it, he rushed to your side and helped you stand up. You didn't take notice of who was helping you, you couldn't see through your tears anyway, 

"Come on before someone finds you." He whispered rushing you out of the dance studio and down the hallway, getting into a lift and looking at you as you dropped onto the floor sobbing as you shoved your hands into your hair. 

"It's okay, it's okay. I'm right here." He told you dropping onto the floor, you looked at him and then to the camera into the corner of the lift and it was as if Tae watched a switch in your head flip, your tears stopped, you stood up and acted as though you didn't know him. He glanced around the lift and saw the camera you'd spotted, he followed along with what you were doing but he could hear you crying in silence as blood dropped onto the floor. He studied your arm as you descended floors with him in total silence beside from a couple of sobs coming from you, it wasn't deep enough to need stitches but he was going to have to help you with it, 

"You okay?" You stayed silent as you walked out of the lift, folding your arms over your stomach to hide your body from anyone that was looking.

"Here," He laid his jacket over your shoulders and walked out of the Sync building, there were going to be cameras everywhere so he rushed you into his waiting car not caring about the cameras for now but only for your well being.

Both you and Tae were sitting in silence in his hotel room as he used the first aid kit to clean you up, you'd stopped crying now but you knew they would start again if he started asking questions, he stared up at you as you stared down at the plug socket on the wall. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" You shook your head slowly and he got up to answer the door, it was Namjoon holding a tray of food. 

"Thanks," Tae said looking at Namjoon as he glanced over at you, 

"She going to be okay?" Tae shrugged his shoulders really not knowing the answer to the question. He shut the door and put the tray onto the table beside you, you didn't even look at it your eyes were back on the plug. 

"Eat." He said to you but you ignored him again. 

"Eat." He repeated in a more demanding tone, you looked up at him and then to the plate. It was a fruit salad with a glass of water, you took a strawberry from the plate and put it into your mouth, forcing yourself to swallow it. 

"I should go." You said trying to leave but Tae shook his head, 

"You should talk...If not to me than to someone else." You felt your eyes welling up again and you hated yourself for crying in front of someone you barely knew, you'd known him for a week and you were already ready to spill everything to him, there was something about him that made you feel like you could confide in him, tell him your problems and just relax but at the same time you knew you couldn't do that, he was close to your managers and he was in the business. 

"It's nothing. I'm just a little tired." You lied to him again and he still stood in front of you demanding answers from you. 

"Tae please." You whispered your voice breaking as you pleaded with him to drop the subject but Tae was going to keep you all night if he had to. 

"Lily is throwing a sleepover, I have to go or they'll get upset." You lied again but Tae shook his head, he knew for a fact that you weren't invited to the sleepover, he'd overheard Lily joking to the girls about how you were never there. 

"I know you don't, talk to me." He dropped onto his knees in front of you and took your hands in his and tried to look at you but you avoided his gaze. 

"You said Lily was perfect? Does that mean you're trying to be like her?" You stayed silent again, still staring at the floor as he threw question after question at you. 

"Is it the pressure of being in the business?" You shook your head at him and then looked around the room. No one would know, no one would know if you broke down in front of him and told him everything you were feeling...Unless he told someone then it would be all over. 

"I'll tell you if you don't talk to anyone else about it." You whispered taking your hand from his and wiping the tears away from you. You were still sitting in his jacket, it was wrapped around you tightly so he couldn't see your body. You'd always had to hide it from people so he was no different. 

"I'm not ready for the stage. Manager James says I have a long way to go before I'm ready and my dancing isn't great so I practise until I can't anymore." He knew this already, he knew this because it's the same story your manager gave him but he didn't believe it for a second.

"You said Lily was perfect..."

"Lily is perfect." You snapped standing up from the seat and scaring Tae a little as he stumbled backwards, steadying himself on the edge of the bed and standing up. 

"She's perfect, she's the perfect size, has the perfect voice and style and she's everybody's favourite...Everyone loves her." You looked out of the hotel room it was raining and you sighed. 

"Your dancing is perfect though..." Tae tried to say but you shut that down before he could continue. 

"It's far from it, I'm always messing it up...Mostly because they're always changing it up on me and not telling me." You scoffed thinking back to them not telling you that BTS was coming. 

"You know they didn't tell me you guys were coming...They kept it a secret because I didn't need to 'concern myself with it'," You scoffed again finally everything was spilling out and Tae just stayed silent letting you rant, he could tell you needed it.

"I'm on a strict diet plan while the other girls get to do what they want because I'm the one that isn't perfect. I'm the broken one. The one that doesn't fit in their perfect little jigsaw puzzle." Tae watched as you finally let the tears floor for the second time that night, you started sobbing into your hands and he moved next to you, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you to cry onto his shoulder. 

"Fuck...Please don't tell them I told you all of that." You whispered referring to the hour-long rant you'd just gone on at him for, he shook his head promising he wouldn't but not meaning it, he had to tell someone, even if it was going to Namjoon for advice he couldn't let you go on like this. The company was treating you like trash, you were thrown to the back because you weren't the ''same'' like everyone else, you were told to be quiet in interviews because you were louder and had a bigger personality than the girls which Taehyung loved because having a bigger and more outrageous personality was a lot like him and he adored people like that but he'd not seen you acting like that in the time he'd known you, he'd only seen it in old videos he found on the internet one night after a long day at the studios. 

You'd ranted to him about the strict rules you were given regarding your diet, you were only allowed to eat within four hours and the rest of the 20 hours you were only allowed green tea and water as if that wasn't bad enough you were forced to work out and dance more than the others even though your dancing was fine in Taehyung's eyes. You explained to him how you had no one to go to, your family gave up on you because they didn't see a future in your dreams and any friends you had were fake to get closer to the other girls or to get gossip for the news articles.

You'd been sitting with Tae for the last four hours, the conversation had moved onto talking about him, talking about what it was like in Korea and where he'd travelled, you were starting to show your true colours to him bringing out your personality as he questioned you about your life before the company took you in, 

"Where do you want to go most in the world?" He questioned you, you thought about it for a moment before deciding on a place, 

"I always wanted to go to Amsterdam for the Anne Frank house and then the Van Gough Museum." You told him taking out your phone and showing him your wallpaper, it was a picture of the Amsterdam flower show. 

"It's lovely, we stopped there once. You'll adore the museum." He told you taking out his phone and showing you the photos he had of him and the boys in Amsterdam.

More time passed and it was getting closer to midnight, you'd spent almost six hours in the hotel room together talking about everything and anything that came to your minds, asking each other random questions and it was starting to get deep, 

"You're the only person I've felt that liked me for me..." You whispered to him as you started eating the fruit on the plate in front of you, he was happy when you finally started to eat in front of him and he didn't feel like he was going to have to force it down your throat, 

"Because I do like you for you." He chuckled softly as you ate the fruit, making a note to order some more when you finished. 

"I have to go soon." You mumbled looking at the time, you didn't want to leave. You were enjoying your time with him and he was enjoying the time you were having with him.

"Or you could stay...I'll sleep on the sofa and we can go to work together." Work. You put down the fork you were using to eat the throat and then looked at the now empty plate. 

"Work." You whispered to yourself, forgetting that you were going to have to go back at some point and Tae stared at you, instantly knowing that going back wasn't the best of ideas right now. 

"Or! We can go sightseeing tomorrow together, Namjoon was telling me about this small bookshop near King's Cross Station, we could go and check it out." You swallowed hard and nodded, a day off sounded perfect, you hadn't had a real day off in over a year and spending the whole day with him sounded like a dream come true. 

"I'd like that." You whispered to him and he nodded, 

"Go and take a shower, you can borrow some of my clothes for the night and for tomorrow and I'll get the sofa ready for myself." You shook your head, you weren't going to let him sleep on the sofa. 

"I'll take the sofa." You insisted not waiting for him to answer and going into the bathroom to have a shower. 

"Here, stand there." You said between giggles trying to get Tae to pose for a photo but he was acting silly with you for it. 

"Tae!" You giggled as he pulled another funny face at the end you glanced around to make sure no one had heard you yell his name and finally took a good normal photo before he insisted on taking yours. 

"Fine." You grumbled hiding your face behind your hands but he shook his head, 

"No hiding, we want to see your beautiful face." You felt a blush creeping up on your cheeks and you moved your hands, flashing him a bright smile and going to look at the photo. 

"Son! Son! Come here!" An elderly man said as you passed him, you both stopped to ask what he wanted when he showed Taehyung a selection of homemade jewellery. 

"For your pretty girlfriend."

"Oh, we're no-"

"I'll take this one," Taehyung said to the man before you could protest, Tae paid for the bracelet and walked over to you. 

"Hold out your wrist," You did as he told you too and he tied the dreamcatcher bracelet around your wrist and tapped it. 

"It's adorable." You whispered looking at the plated thread and smiling at the man before you and Taehyung continued your walk into town. You'd been in London centre and not once had anyone noticed you, it was too busy for anyone to care who was around and it was nice to hang around with someone who wasn't just pretending to be nice to you. 

"I've really enjoyed today Tae." You said as you crossed the road to find that small bookshop Namjoon had told Tae about, Tae smiled and nodded in agreement. That morning you both laid awake talking about your plans for the day while you had breakfast, for the first time in a year you had a real breakfast instead of a green tea, and you called in sick to work, which wasn't the best of things because your manager screamed at you about the broken mirror but you pushed the negative thoughts away and focused on the day ahead with Tae. 

"I have to, it's the most fun I've had since we came." He said as you entered the shop, the bell above the door dinging when it opened and causing a small elderly lady to pop up from behind a desk and smile at you both, 

"Good afternoon." She greeted before sitting back down again, you looked at Tae and he smiled at you urging you to walk further into the shop so you did, going towards the back and looking through all the books and old records that they had.

"I've been looking for some new ones for my record player." You said pulling out a record and showing Tae who looked at it with a fond smile telling you about his classical CD collection back home and how he was going to have to text you recommendations when he got back to Korea.

"When do you go back?" You questioned as you took the records you'd gotten over to the counter, 

"In a week, or once the song is done." He said as the woman packed up the bag for you. 

"Well, we better make today the best day ever before you go back."

And the best day it was, you'd spent the whole day travelling around London going to different shops and then taking him to the natural history museum and told him boring facts that you knew but now you were back at his hotel room and getting ready to leave, the hotel had dry cleaned your clothes from the night before and you were getting ready to leave him, 

"Let me look at your arm," Tae said taking your wrist into his hand and looking at it, he removed the plaster and checked that it was healing okay and it was but Tae felt sad about the fact that you were going to be leaving him soon was starting to hit him and he didn't want that. 

"You should have something to eat here tonight." He offered and you looked at him, the realisation of going back to work tomorrow was coming and you knew you were going to be in deep trouble for taking the day off. 

"I can't, but I'll probably see you around the offices tomorrow." You said sadly to him, you didn't want to leave either but you knew you had to. 

"Okay, I guess I'll see you tomorrow." You both stood there awkwardly for a couple of seconds neither of you knew what to do, a hug or to just leave so it was weird until he dragged you into a tight hug and wrapped his arms around you, you relaxed against his touch and laid your head on his shoulder wanting nothing more than to stay in his arms all night as you felt your stomach doing a flips over and over again as he hands travelled down your back and pulling away from you. 

"See you tomorrow." He whispered leaving a kiss on your cheek making you blush. 

"See you tomorrow," You giggled and walked out of the hotel room dressed in his clothes and taking your newly cleaned ones down and out of the hotel with you. 

"That was unacceptable! Do you not understand the consequences of your actions!" Your manager screamed, he was turning red in the face. You'd come to work that morning only to be dragged into the main studio with your manager and Lily, both of them starting to scream about how inappropriate it was to take a day off after smashing up one of the rooms. Walking past the door at the minute Lily started screaming was Namjoon and Taehyung and Namjoon raised an eyebrow wondering what was happening when Tae stayed to listen, 

"What's that about?" Tae looked at you through the small window of the door you looked like you were about to start crying again and he'd only just been able to cheer you up yesterday and the night before, he glanced back at Namjoon and decided he had to tell someone what you were going through, he wasn't going to let you go through this alone and he wasn't about to let your manager talk to you that way again. 

"Excuse me this is a private-Oh, hello boys. What can we help you with?" Your manager asked turning his attention to Namjoon who was in the door looking at you he looked pissed off and Tae looked guilty as he stood behind him. 

"Is it true?" Lily stood up looking between you and the boys, you looked at the floor not wanting to look at anyone who was staring at you. 

"Is what true? That she smashed up the dance studio, it is and we're punishing her for it." Namjoon ignored your manager and stared at you waiting for an answer from you but it was clear you weren't going to give him an answer,

"She smashed it up and took the day off because she's a delinquent," Lily stated looking at Namjoon with her fake smile but Namjoon ignored her as well, you looked up to see Tae looking at you with sad eyes. 

"Yes it is, I smashed up the mirror." He shook his head at you and you frowned Namjoon wasn't going to stand for it, he stood up straight and turned to your manager. 

"Do you treat all your staff like this or just Y/n?" You frowned and then it came to you, Tae had told Namjoon everything you'd told him. 

"Treat her like what?" Lily giggled trying to calm down the situation and failing instantly, Hoseok was standing there along with Yoongi, Jimin, Jin and Jungkook all of them staring in through the door with Tae as you stared at Tae. 

"Come here," He mouth and you slowly moved towards the door, Namjoon walking out of it first. 

"You take one more step and you'll be out of H.E.A.R.T!" Your manager yelled causing you to freeze on the spot, the thought of being out of H.E.A.R.T was exciting and scary at the same time, you'd have nowhere to go and your music career would be gone if you were fired from Sync but being out of the toxic work environment would be a relief to you.

"I mean it!" He yelled again but you stepped out of the door and Taehyung smiled at you. 

"You can kiss everything goodbye Y/n!" Lily yelled as you walked further down the hall, the BTS members following behind you and Namjoon muttering that he was never going to work with a company like that again. You all waited for the elevator and Tae pulled you towards the back so he could talk to you in a hushed tone. 

"You okay?" You nodded looking up from the floor to his eyes and smiling,

"Yeah...I think it's probably not sunk in that I'm jobless just yet." You joked getting into the elevator with all of them and staring in front of you as the doors shut, 

"You could always be a backup dancer for us." Hoseok joked causing everyone to chuckle around you as you went down to the bottom floor, 

"No, we'll find you something...Or I will, I won't rest until we find you something." Tae promised, turning to look at Namjoon for some advice but he was on his phone angrily typing an email to Sync and BigHit about how the collaboration was off and he would never work with them again for as long as they worked in the business, Yoongi stepped forward with an idea when you all came out of the lift. 

"We could record a song with you?" You stared at him and then to Tae who was nodding and looking to Namjoon who was now paying attention to the conversation, 

"We were promised a collaboration with someone." You shook your head at them as you walked out of the building and into the black SUV that was waiting for them, ignoring the cameras as people yelled out questions. 

"But you're wanting to collaborate with someone who's with a company, no one wants a song from a nobody." Namjoon shook his head at you as you spoke about yourself like that, 

"You're somebody, you're up and coming and you're going to be a star." He chuckled taking out his phone and scrolling through it before he held it up to his ear, you drowned out of the conversation as you stared out of the window. 

Being kicked out of Sync had it's ups and downs, at first it was all the papers covered, you couldn't go home without people sitting outside your door and wanting answers on what had really gone down in the building as Sync were only letting out that you'd had a disagreement with the company and you were being let go. While many H.E.AR.R.T fans were disappointed after a couple of weeks they started to see how much happier you were now you weren't in the band, you were doing weekly live streams on Instagram and interacting with people who were sticking with you, as you were promising that new music was coming even if you had to switch to releasing your own music on youtube you were going to start producing music but there was one big secret you were hiding from everyone and that was not one, but two big songs were coming that were working with BTS. Namjoon had kept his promise about working with you and you were getting ready to release it that morning.

"Are you sure people will like it?" You asked Taehyung nervously as you sat in his hotel room, setting up your phone at the table, you were going to do an Instagram live feed to announce that it was out and you were going to have each member on the screen as a nice surprise. 

"Of course, it's an amazing song that talks about your struggles with your past." You smiled at him, in the two months you'd been away from the company you were getting closer and closer with each member but you were closer with Taehyung than any other member, maybe it was because he was the one helping you with the struggles of leaving Sync or maybe because of the crush you had on him. 

"I don't think I would have made it through this without you." You told him as you finished setting up and stood next to him both of you staring out of the window at London, they'd managed to convince their bosses to let them stay over a little while longer and everything was going according to plan. 

"I'm glad we could help." You shook your head at him, 

"No Tae, you. I couldn't have done it without you here." You said trying to make him realise you meant him, you'd been trying to drop hints to him that you'd liked him for a while but he didn't seem to get the message. 

"Oh," He chuckled nervously, the truth was he'd started to like you as more than a friend too and he had no idea how to approach it, he hadn't kissed you since he'd kissed you on the cheek the night before you were fired and that kiss left him wanting more. He knew he liked you from the moment he saw you dancing.

"I'm glad I could help-" You sighed looking at him, you knew you were going to have to be straight with him so you took a deep breath.

"I like you Tae...More than a friend." He stared at you, neither of you said anything he just stepped closer to you and cupped your face in his hands, kissing you. It was cheesy to say but it felt just like the movies, everything around you seemed to stop and the only thing you cared about was his hands on you, his lips against yours as he pulled your body closer to him, falling back onto the bed and sitting you on his lap and running his fingers through your hair. You pulled back for a breath before he kissed you again, it was soft and slow and it felt perfect until you heard knocking at the door and it brought the world crashing back to you both, you jumped away from him and he went to answer the door. 

"We aren't interrupting anything are we?" Jimin teased as he entered the room noting that Tae's hair was messed up, that would be from where you'd been running your hands through his permed hair. 

"No, I was just getting the stream ready." You lied going over to your phone and sitting down at the table and trying to hide your blush that would creep up whenever you would look over at Tae. 

"Hi, guys! I have some special guests with me today since the new song goes out in..." You looked at the time, 

"30 Seconds." You giggled looking at the comments, people commenting in all capitals demanding answers, you shook your head and the boys came over sitting either side of you so you pushed the camera further away so they could all fit in the screen. 

"We made a song! And it's up...Now!" You giggled looking at the comments and then deciding to leave them to listen to the song and promising to come back on later to talk to them all again. 

"We should go out tonight to celebrate!" Jungkook said in an excited tone jumping up and down as they released their song at the same time, your phone was blowing up in the corner with notifications from new followers, Army's tweeting to you about how much they were living the song and couldn't wait to hear more from you.

"I told you everything would be okay," Tae whispered to you making you blush a little as his hand brushed against the small of your back, that action didn't go unnoticed by Namjoon who was eyeing you both up from the corner of the room. 

"We should all get ready for the meal, see you later Y/n." Everyone followed after Namjoon and you stayed behind looking at Taehyung who was making sure they were all gone before he bounded over to you and grabbed your face, kissing you passionately and pulling as close as your bodies could manage, you ran your hands through his black hair and smiled against his lips as your heart began to beat faster with every passing second, 

"You're so fucking perfect." He groaned pulling you onto the bed so you were sitting on his lap again, you giggled against him and looked into his eyes. 

"You're perfect." You mumbled kissing him again and never wanting the moment to end, he chuckled pulling away and tucking the hair behind your ear, running his thumb along your cheek in a loving manner, he could never get tired of looking at you, spending time with you and now he could finally kiss you, he was never going to get sick of that. All thoughts of him going back to Korea weren't in your mind, all that mattered in the moment was that you were spending time together, and you were going to be in the moment for as long as you could, spending all the time you could before he went back. 

"Would it be too late to ask you to come out with just me tonight?" He chuckled twirling a strand of your hair around his finger, you groaned you wanted to spend the night on a one on one date with him as well but Jungkook seemed really excited about being together as a group. 

"Jungkook looked excited though." You mumbled to him looking over at the door knowing they'd be back soon to take you out. 

"But we can go out tomorrow night." You whispered nuzzling your nose against his and standing up from his lap, you were going to have to wear something of his to dinner and the pair of black jeans you'd come to the hotel in.

"Can I wear one of your shirts?" You questioned going over to his wardrobe and looking through it, taking one of his multicoloured dress shirts and turning to look at him, 

"Sure." You rushed into the bathroom, changing into his shirt and running a brush through your hair, the only makeup you had one was some eyeliner so you were just going to have to deal with it. You came out of the bathroom and smiled at Tae, doing a small spin and showing him the dress shirt of his that you'd tucked into the top of your black high waisted jeans, 

"How do you look better in that than me?" He groaned walking over to you and pulling you into his arms, looking down at you and smirking. 

"Because I'm the better looking one." You joked leaning up and kissing him on the nose, he grumbled something and pulled you in for a real kiss, running his hand through your hair and pulling away.

"I don't think I'll ever get tired of kissing you." He whispered to you, stepping away and taking another one of his dress shirts and going to get himself ready for the meal. You smiled to yourself, wondering how you ended up so lucky to be here but being happy about it either way. 

tagline: 

@yoongisdumplingcheeks​ @snowy-meowl​ @lynnthevirgo​ @yourguessisasgoodasminemate​ @btsiguess-kpop​ @ficdump101​ @babymochichimmy​

[cilldaracailin]

Heaven For Everyone

Hello my Tumblr Lovelys!

Sorry to say this is the last part in this story in the Robyn and Taron series. Working on more but when it appears, it appears :) Thanks for all the love and comments and reads on the story. Hope you all enjou Suze xx :)

P.S A lot of the details of Taron's flat come from my head and the brief video I have seen. I don't know his flat at all so I have done my best but again as this is all fiction, it doesn't matter if it is not perfect.

10

“There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty.”

Even with the late hour, there were still some photographers waiting for those who left the afterparty, hoping to catch them stumbling out and looking worse for the wear. Taron was stone cold sober and so was Robyn and the only fuss that could have been made about their exit from the venue was the fact that Robyn was wearing Taron’s jacket.

She got into the black car, which thankfully was nice and warm, moving right over to the door, giving Taron space to get in too.

“Thanks Clive.” Taron thanked the driver as he got into the driver seat.

“No worries Taron. You have a good night?”

“Yeah it was brilliant thanks.”

“Heading back to yours right?”

“Yeah please.”

“Sure. “

“No problem at all. Let me know if the car gets too warm for you.”

Taron didn’t answer and hoped Clive saw him nod in the rear-view mirror, as another long yawn filled his body, his arms stretching over his head. “Go on, say it.”

“I’m saying nothing.” Robyn could see the tiredness immediately settle into him as he relaxed against the car seat and wasn’t surprised to see him yawn. “But…”

“And there it is!” Taron chuckled as he rested his head against the seat. “You were forewarned about the tiredness and that was even before last weekend.”

“Yes I was.” She agreed. “You want a quick snooze on the way to yours?”

“I am going to rest my eyes for a while.”

“Wanna rest them over here?”

Taron turned his head to look at Robyn as she held her right arm open for him and he didn’t even question it but moved closer to her and leaned his head under her chin, Robyn wrapping her arm around his shoulder. “Probably not the best idea to have you sleep through a power nap. You probably won’t actually sleep now.”

“Oh, don’t worry I will.” Taron snuggled a bit more into Robyn, moving his lower body so he was a little stretched out on the back seat. He happily sighed as he felt Robyn run the lightest of touches down his nose and temple before her fingers eased into the hair at the side of his head, scratching his scalp back and forth.

It was definitely the quickest Taron had ever fallen asleep with her and Robyn on hindsight, wished she hadn’t suggested the power nap for him because she hated waking him when he was sleeping. Deep and even breathes filled his body and she continued to run her fingers tips through his hair and it was slightly worrying with how quickly he had fallen asleep but Robyn just figured it had been a really long day for him work wise and she knew his body was still not quite fully healed after being so ill. Leaning down, she placed a kiss on his head and wrapped her right arm around him a little tighter, smiling to herself as he mumbled in his sleep and nestled into her some more.

The drive to Taron’s flat in London took just about half an hour and Clive turned in his seat once he had parked the car. “Robyn we are here.” He glanced at Taron who still slept against his female passenger. He had noticed in his rear-view mirror the position Taron had found to have a quick few winks and wasn’t surprised to see him still asleep as they arrived at his London home. “I will go and get your cases for you.”

“Thank you Clive.”

Once the driver had closed the door of the car quietly, Robyn wished he had of slammed the door because maybe it would have been the jolt Taron needed to wake up. She didn’t know why she bothered to run the tip of her finger down his nose because she knew it was a soft touch that comforted him and as she ran her hand through his hair, she chuckled a little. “You really can sleep anywhere but I suppose the warm body helps. Ok Taron, time to wake up.” She dug her fingers a little deeper into his scalp but knew it was a hopeless effort in rousing him. Taking her hand from around his arm, she moved to his shoulder and shook him gently. “Taron? Come on rocketman, time to wake up.”

When Robyn ran her hands so tenderly through his hair, Taron’s eyes had fluttered open and as she shook his shoulder, he stretched, yawning twice. “So sleepy.” He mumbled into her soft skin.

“And hello to you too.”

“Let’s just stay here and sleep” Taron moved his head so his face was tucked into her neck.

“Or we go inside to your nice warm flat and sleep on your bed.”

Taron smiled. “I am already nice and warm and cosy.”

“Of course you are.” Robyn laughed. “But you promised me a weekend of movies and I don’t see a TV in this car.”

Lifting his head from her shoulder, Taron looked to her. Her eyes were still bright and her face smiled at him. “Did I sleep the whole way?” He asked as he finally moved from her warm body to look out the window, seeing the outside of his apartment building. “Ok I guess I did.”

“Poor tired little chicken.” Robyn laughed.

“How are you still awake and cheery.”

“Always am.”

There was a little knock on the window. Taron moved to open the car door and Clive face appeared in his eye line. “Bags are all set to go Taron.”

“Thanks Clive.” He turned to Robyn who was still smiling his way. “You know, with the exception of Cannes, because that was just ridiculous, I think tonight has been one of my favourite premiers so far.”

“Whatever Taron. I am pretty sure your first premier was the best one.”

“Hell no. I was shitting myself.” Taron said as he started to get out of the car.

“And you weren’t shitting yourself this evening?” Robyn asked as she followed him out of the car.

Taron chuckled. “Oh there was some definite shitting.”

Robyn laughed loudly at his words and then his face after he realised what he had said, his hands going to his face in embarrassment. “And there he is!” She laughed at him again as his cheeks flared bright red, his hands moving down his face and away from his eyes. Robyn reached over to him. “Never change.” She took his hands from his face and held them tight. “Too precious for words.”

“Jesus Robyn, sorry.”

Robyn shook her head at him and closed the door of the car. “Nothing to apologise for. I work with kids, talking about shite is part of my daily conversation.” She turned to Clive who was patiently waiting for them. “Thank you so much for driving us back to Taron’s.”

“No problem at all. I hope you both had a nice evening.”

“It was very lovely.” Robyn assured him.

“Taron, I will be back on Sunday at five to collect Robyn to bring her to the airport?”

“Please, Clive. Thank you.”

“No problem at all. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.”

They watched him get back into the car and drive away slowly, leaving them both in the quiet of the dark street, orange light from the tall street lights beaming down on them.

“So, are you going to invite me into your pad, or am I to set up camp here for the night?” Robyn asked Taron, his face finally turning back to its normal colour.

“You know I think I might like to see you try doing that.”

Robyn gently pushed Taron on his right shoulder. “You know I will follow through with that. I love camping and a good tent.”

Taron’s lips grew in a wide smile. “Well I know that chicken and about the camping too. You were once a girl scout.” Robyn nodded, hoping her face didn’t show her surprise at Taron’s memory and ability to listen once more. “Well I guess we had better head in then, seeing as how you will get started on making a tent out of leaves and branches soon.”

Robyn chuckled. “Maybe we can do that tomorrow instead of a movie day.”

Taron shook his head and grabbed the handles of the two cases and walked toward the gates of the apartment complex. Letting go of Robyn’s case in his right hand, he quickly pressed the numbered code in the keypad, which immediately opened the automatic gates, the black metal swinging backwards to let them in. He started walking through as soon as the gap opened enough, turning his head to make sure Robyn was following him and she was right behind him, holding her dress up slightly. He gave her a small smile and turned his face forward again, telling his heart to slow down. A shiver ran through him and he knew it wasn’t from the cold night air, but rather finally getting to bring Robyn home for a visit at last. She had shared every part of her home with him and he was excited to finally get to do the same for her. He nodded towards the security guard as he came out of his little hut to greet him.

“Good evening Mr Egerton.”

“Evening Ben.”

“Miss Quinn.”

“Ben.” Robyn tipped an invisible hat his way.

“Nice to meet you. Taron always has such wonderful things to say about you.”

“Thanks Ben.”

“You both have a good night.”

“Will do Ben.” Taron replied as he kept walking.

Robyn waited until they were far enough away that the security guard wouldn’t hear her and then she spoke. “So that’s the complexes security guard Ben who knows who I am?”

“Chicken, everyone knows who you are and it is good to give the security a heads up in case you arrive at the gate and would like to get in.”

“You could just tell me the code. I mean you know where the spare key to my house is and that way, I can just walk in.”

“Well Robyn, I don’t want to catch me out when I am in nudey nudes.”

“No Taron, we wouldn’t want that would we.” Robyn chuckled.

“Definitely not.”

Robyn stuck close to Taron as he made his way in through a door, holding it open for her so she could walk through. “I’m on the fifth floor. Lifts are this way.”

Once out of the lift, Taron walked down the soft carpeted corridor to the very end, stopping in front of a white door with the number five one zero.

“Corner apartment Taron? I should have guessed.”

Taron left the cases by the door and turned to Robyn. “You mind?” He asked as he lightly touched the front of his jacket which she was wearing. “My key is in the inside pocket.” He watched as Robyn opened the button for his jacket and held it open for him, so he could reach into the left inside pocket to take out his key for the door. “Thank you.” Key in hand, Taron held it over the lock and the light pinged green. “After you.” He stood back.

“You sure? You don’t need to go in and do a quick tidy?”

Taron laughed. “No Robyn. I was here on Wednesday and I left it pretty tidy.”

“Ok then but if I find a pair of rouge boxers laying around, be warned, I am going to run around waving them.”

“Whatever makes you happy chicken.”

He pushed the door fully open and let Robyn walk in, flicking on a light switch inside the door, so his apartment lit up with white light. Once she had stepped fully in, he held the door open with his left foot and dragged the two suitcases in, leaving them at the wall, closing the door. He followed Robyn as she wandered around his apartment, waiting for any sign of reaction from her as she looked around.

“So, you were keeping not only your open plan kitchen and living area a secret…” Robyn walked straight over to his couch. “You have a corner couch and it is blue!” Taron chuckled at her words. “You have been holding out on me Mr Egerton!”

“I can’t tell you all my secrets in one go, now can I? You won’t want to come back and visit!”

Robyn laughed hard as Taron used her words against her. “This is so gorgeous Taron. You haven’t remodelled your home since you met me, have you? Stealing my homes design?” As Robyn waited for Taron’s answer, she wandered into his pristine white kitchen and pointed up to The Troubadour sign. “Stealing is bad, you know that right?”

“I didn’t steal it; it was given to me and no I didn’t steal your design. It was like this when I bought it and yes, I have a corner couch but it is nowhere near as comfortable as yours.”

Robyn gave him a doubtful look and with purpose and holding her dress up, walked over to his couch and dropped herself right into the corner, kicking her legs up onto the couch, leaning back into the cushions. She shuffled a little and then looked to Taron who had walked to stand behind the couch. “Mine definitely wins the comfy contest.”

Walking around to the other side of the couch, Taron dropped his body onto the soft material, his head resting on her shoulder, kicking his own legs up onto the couch. “I have to agree with you but as always you make a good cushion.”

Robyn moved so his head slipped down a little and she could swing her right arm around him, her hand resting on his chest. “So you’re settled for the night now?” She asked gently rubbing her palm up and down his side.

“Hmmm.” He answered her.

“This all I get to see of your home?” She asked him, lifting her left hand to his hair.

“A bed is a bed and a toilet is a toilet.” He hummed as Robyn scratched his head in gentle circles. “I have both, all you need to know.”

Robyn’s lips curled into a smile as the man laying against her moved to get more comfortable. She could already feel his breathing evening out under her right hand. “Been a long day for you.”

“Been a long week.” He whispered back.

“Any chance Matthew will hold off the start of filming for another week?”

Taron opened his eyes. “Why? You want to stay with me a little longer?”

Robyn shook her head. “Not that but it would mean you could actually get a decent rest.”

“You don’t want to stay with me longer?” He asked her, tilting his head back so he could look at her.

“I always want more time with you but you need some rest before you get straight back into it.”

“We have some scene preparation Monday and Tuesday before we actually get into filming so I have a bit of reprieve before we get right into it.” He saw a frown on her face. “At least I can come back here every evening and coming back to my own bed always makes it easier to rest up and I still have the throw you gave me and draíocht too.”

“All the tricks to help you sleep.”

“Yep.” Taron closed his eyes and moved his head so he was more settled.

Silence surrounded them, their light breathing and some late traffic the only noises that could be heard until Taron’s stomach gave one loud grumble, Robyn’s laughter soon following.

“I guess chocolate covered marshmallows weren’t enough to keep your hunger at bay.”

Taron grinned, still with his eyes closed. “Breakfast was a long time ago and I can never really eat when I am nervous.”

“Well I am not going to let you go to bed on a hungry stomach. Up ya get.”

“Oh no. I am so cosy.”

“I know that but you need some food and I have just the thing for you.”

“Baked goods?”

“The quicker you get up, the quicker you can find out.”

Reluctantly and making it obvious that he wasn’t too happy about being moved, Taron grumbled as he sat up on his couch, kicking his legs out in front of him impatiently.

“Behave!” Robyn pointed a finger at him. “Getting too used to your Robyn cuddles now.”

“‘Cos I love them.” He replied with a pout.

Robyn stood up, straightening out her dress. “Right Mr Egerton, which way to the bedroom.” Taron pointed dramatically towards the kitchen. “So I shall find it myself then.”

Before Robyn walked away from the couch, she took her shoes off, one at a time leaving them by the coffee table, picking up her dress and swinging it over her right arm so she could walk without falling over the material and headed for her case. She took the handle in her left hand and rolled it past the kitchen and down the hallway, heading for the open door at the very end. “No need to get up Taron, I found it.” She called back to him, knowing well he was stuck to the couch. The bedroom was clean and tidy, a dark navy duvet on the bed and she figured the door to her right in the bedroom was his on suite. She took Taron’s jacket off and laid it neatly on the bed before she lifted her case onto the bed too, cringing a little as it hurt her right hand, working on opening the zip to get into her case, smiling as she saw her grey and white teddy bear fleece on the end of his bed and the green dinosaur they won at the beach together sitting in front of the cushions, dressed in her blue blouse which she had left with him in Paris last weekend.

Taron happily sighed as he lay on his couch, grinning to himself a little as his atrocious attempt of a tour of his flat for Robyn. He had left her to wander herself, making her own way into his bedroom and he knew he should have gotten up to ensure she was ok but he was wrecked. The sleep in the car which had been so perfect was such a terrible idea and once again, Robyn had been right in saying that he would just feel more tired after his quick nap and as he struggled to open his eyes, his mind was telling him he really needed to check on Robyn.

“Oh no!” His head turned as he heard her give a little shout.

“Robyn?” He called. “You ok?”

“Oh bollocks!”

He knew he shouldn’t have laughed at her words, but her curse made him giggle. He pushed himself up from the couch, stretching a little as he yawned loudly, rubbing his eyes. As he heard Robyn exclaim again, he picked up the pace of his footsteps, loosening his tie as he went, opening the top button of shirt too.

“Robyn are you ok?” He asked as he walked into the bedroom, her back facing him as she stood in front of the side of his bed. “Heard some choice words filter from here.” He looked to her face as she turned to face him which was a mixture of sadness and shock and then to her hands. She was holding up a t-shirt which was definitely the colour blue but was covered in a white powder. “What…”

When Robyn opened her case, her shoulders fell before she groaned and cursed. She heard Taron call her name but was routing through her belongings to see how far down the mess had been made but when his voice was closer, she picked up her blue t-shirt and turned around him, holding it up. “It’s flour.” She groaned. “And sugar.” She saw Taron tilt his head with confusion and she rolled up the t-shirt into a ball and turning back to her case threw it down in and frustration, feeling Taron come to stand right beside her and look in her case.

“Oh Robyn.”

She sighed miserably. “I brought stuff to make cookies with you but the bags have burst in my case and everything is now covered in flour and sugar. I am just glad the butter stayed in the bag.” She took out a ziploc bag which was completely smeared inside with yellow butter, before throwing it back in. “What a bloody disaster.”

“You brought the ingredients to make cookies with me?” Taron asked quietly. “White chocolate chip cookies?”

“Kilcreen second place cookies.” She nodded then shaking her head. “But now we have extra ingredients.” Robyn put her hands in the case and lifted up her clothes. “All ruined and now no cookies.”

“You were going to bake cookies with me.” Taron repeated.

“Taron!” Robyn said a little more sternly than she meant too, immediately reaching to put her hand on his shoulder. “Sorry.” She apologised. “Sorry and yes I was going to make cookies with you tomorrow. It was my plan to make them Wednesday evening so I could bring them with me to give to you but as you know that never happened so I quickly threw the ingredients into some bags so I could make the cookies with you here because my other plan fell apart and the bags were fine this morning but now…” She held up a burst bag and a dusted white piece of clothing. “Now we can’t even make the cookies.”

Taron pulled some jeans from her case, a puff of white drifting into the air. “Robyn only you could think to do something so sweet and have it literally blow up.”

“Taron…” Robyn whinged. “That doesn’t help me.”

“You ever think that maybe I would have the ingredients for cookies here?”

“But that just ruins the surprise.”

“Better than clothes covered in flour.” Taron pulled something else from her case but quickly dropped her bra back in.

“Ok Taron, I’m a girl and wear bras and this is a sport one.” She pulled some more stuff out before throwing it down, crossing her arms over her chest. “Right that’s it. I am not taking this dress off.”

“What?” Taron laughed a little.

“I am staying in this dress for the rest of my time here and do you even have the ingredients to make cookies?”

“I have flour and sugar in a press somewhere and the butter was saved and surely the white chocolate is still ok.” Robyn routed in the case and pulled out four bars of white chocolate and held them up to him. “Ok so I am sure we can make the cookies and I can give you something to wear.”

“Not taking this dress off.” Robyn said stubbornly as looked to him, dropping the chocolate back into the case.

“Ok well how about we get all these clothes washed then and you can stay in the dress for as long as you want chicken. You know my opinion on the dress.”

Taron lifted her case back into the kitchen and into his laundry room to the side of the kitchen and helped her to separate her clothes from her toiletries and put her flour covered clothes into the washing machine.

“I think these were green once?” Taron helped up her dark green converse, now covered in a fine white powder.

“We can just put them in with everything else.” Robyn said to him as she took her runners from him and threw them on top of her ruined clothes. She moved out of the way so Taron could then add the washing powder and softener to the machine, getting it going on a wash. He then grabbed a cloth to help wipe the flour of her toiletry bottles, wash bag and hairdryer with Robyn, both putting her now clean belongings into her empty and clean case.

Robyn sat down on the laundry floor with her back against the presses beside the washing machine, Taron sitting beside her, the cleaned case in front of them. “I am starting to agree with you, ya know.”

“About what?”

“That trouble follows me wherever I go.”

Taron swung his arm around her shoulder. “Robyn?”

“Hmmm?”

“Want to make some cookies?”

Still dressed in their fancy fancy outfits, except that Taron had rid himself of his tie and waistcoat, opening two more buttons on his shirt, the two gathered the ingredients needed to make some white chocolate chip cookies and as Taron carefully chopped up the white chocolate into little chunks, Robyn guesstimated the measurements of the flour and sugar as best she could, letting Taron do the harder work of beating everything together as he didn’t own a mixer, Robyn throwing in the chocolate and once he had thoroughly mixed the cookie dough, they took turns to roll large balls of dough and place them on the baking tray.

“I can’t wait to eat one warm from the oven!” Taron said excitedly as they sat down on the couch, bending down to open the laces of his shoes so he could take them off, leaving them neatly beside Robyn’s heels beside the coffee table. The sight of their shoes together, made him smile a lot and once he had his socks off too, sat back on the couch with Robyn.

“Best way to have them when they are still a little gooey and chewy.”

“And I have ice-cream in my freezer. I could make an ice-cream sandwich.”

“Sandwich!”

The couch bounced a little as Robyn got up quickly, lifting her dress and she jogged back to Taron’s room where they had put her case back, Taron’s eyes following her for as long as he could, chuckling a little as he wondered what she was up to know. He checked his watch and was a little surprised to see it was near half three in the morning but yet even when he should have felt tired, he was happily content and awake, the power nap finally kicking in as well as the baking, giving him some extra energy. His mind ran in curious thoughts as he waited for Robyn to return and as she skipped back into the kitchen, he chuckled at her.

“What are you up too?”

“What I was going to do for you before we saw my ruined case and made cookies, which we need to keep an eye on or they will burn.” Robyn opened the oven door. “A few more minutes.” She closed the oven door and pulled a fresh pan of bread from the counter top and butter from the fridge. “I should have brought some Irish butter.”

“Did you even look in the fridge?” Taron asked as he got to his feet and walked into the kitchen, opening the fridge and pulling from the back a gold wrapped package of Irish butter, handing it to Robyn. “I bought one just for you.”

Robyn grinned as she took the butter from him. “You need a butter dish for this and thank you.”

“What are you making?” He leant on his elbows as he watched her open the bread and pull out four slices. He moved to get her two plates and put the bread on it.

“A sandwich.”

“I know that much Robyn. What kind of a sandwich?”

“A tayto sandwich. Your stomach was grumbling earlier. You haven’t eaten anything proper since breakfast.”

He watched her put the bread on one plate and then cut some butter to put on the second, moving to the microwave, putting the plate inside and setting the timer for thirty seconds. “So, you are making me a crisp sandwich.”

She nodded, stopping the microwave. “Yep. Very nutritious and healthy and an Irish stable after a night out.” She took the plate with the softened butter and once beside Taron, started to butter the four slices of bread. “I’ll forgive you for not having Irish bread too.”

She expected the nudge and met his with one of her own and once had buttered both slices of bread, turned to open the oven to check the cookies. “And done!”

“Here let me. You only have the use of one good hand.” Taking the tea towel from her, Taron carefully took the cookies out, Robyn closing the oven and turning it off. “You do know I am going to eat one of these now right?”

“Give them about three minutes to cool down and then you can. They need a little more time.” She laughed at his face. “Help me make your sandwich and then your cookie will be ready.”

“Negotiating queen.” Taron murmured as he turned around to the island. “So, what do I need to do.”

“Just follow my lead.” She tossed him a packet of cheese and onion crisps and once she had picked her own, gave the packet a little squeeze before opening it up, taking one to eat, grinning as Taron copied her every move. She then poured the crisps onto one slice of bread; a tower of fallings crisps on the slice once she was done. Lifting the second slice of bread she placed it on top of the crisps, hearing a delightful and satisfying crunching sound as she pressed down, hearing the same crunch from Taron’s sandwich too. Without hesitation, Robyn picked up hers with two hands and took a large bite from the corner, nodding happily as she chewed, watching as Taron did the same, a smile growing on his face.

The saltiness from the crisps mixed perfectly with the savoury taste of the bread and as the two different textures from the crunchy crisps and soft bread combined together, Taron nodded his appreciation for the crisp sandwich, taking another large bite. He spoke with his mouth full before going into for another bite.

“I haven’t a clue what you said but I can I guess what it was.” Robyn laughed a little as he took another bite. “Good huh?”

Taron finally swallowed the food in his mouth. “So good.” It definitely wasn’t a full three course meal by any standards but the sandwich was delicious and Taron was feeling very satisfied by the unusual sandwich filling, taking another bite, leaning against the island and he nodded at Robyn’s words. Once he swallowed again, he spoke. “Just what my stomach ordered and cookies for dessert? Perfect.”

While Robyn finished off the last of her sandwich, Taron was on his second cookie, holding it between his teeth as he filled a glass with some milk. The sugar was welcomed but he knew he definitely was going to find it hard to sleep now with the homemade sweet treats. As he took a bite from the cookie the washing machine started to beep to indicate the end of the wash. He dropped his cookie and walked into the laundry room and bent down to open the door. “Can your things go in the drier?” He asked.

Robyn came to crouch beside him. “Erm not really. The jeans will shrink and the t-shirts go all wrinkly.”

“So, radiators it is.” Taron looked to Robyn. “So, you want dry clothes but they have to go on the radiator and by doing that they won’t be dry until tomorrow so you really do intend on wearing this dress for the rest of the weekend, don’t you?”

Robyn nodded enthusiastically. “I will probably never wear this dress again and it is so beautiful Taron that I want to get as much wear out of it as I can.”

“You are going to sleep in it aren’t you.”

“Might do. Let me help you with these.”

Taron knew he felt his cheeks blush as he carefully placed Robyn’s more delicate clothing on the radiators, his stomach in knots as he straightened out the matching black bra to the pants he had just put out, the little lace details on both subtle but very effective to his over active imagination at the moment. Once had he fixed her t-shirt on the radiator too, he made his way back into his living area where Robyn was sitting on the couch routing through her clutch bag. He did a quick turn around back into his bedroom, picking up the large white coloured Armani paper bag to carry with him.

“You sure you don’t want something to wear Robyn. I really don’t mind and I have a bigger selection of clothes for you to choose from. I know I can get you a comfy pair of shorts and a hoodie.” He placed the shopping bag behind the couch so Robyn didn’t see it, coming to sit beside her. He had changed into a pair of black sweatpants and a blue t-shirt but Robyn was adamant that she was wearing her dress until her clothes were dry.

“Nope. I am good.” She pulled out the black velvet Kingsman souvenir that she was given in the restaurant from her handbag. “You know what is in here?”

“Maybe.” He teased.

Robyn pulled open the gold string and looked inside with a smile. She pulled out a pen that was shaped like an umbrella. “I am going to bring this to work with me. It will come in very useful.”

Taron smiled. “Definitely more user friendly then a fidget spinner.”

“I saw that video. You loved that spinner.” Robyn laughed as she dropped the pen and velvet bag into her clutch, throwing it onto the coffee table so she could lean back into the couch, shoulder to shoulder with Taron. “Thanks so much for this evening. I had such a lovely time. I wonder why I was always so against doing this with you.”

“It’s a lot to deal with when you think about everything that is involved with a premier. The press and media, fans, all the cameras and then having to sit and watch my face on screen for two hours.”

“That was definitely the hardest part of the evening.” Robyn shook her head. “So difficult.” She leaned her head onto his shoulder. “Thanks for asking me.”

“Thanks for giving me the vouchers that let me ask you to come with me.”

“You still have a lot of vouchers left to use.”

“Don’t worry Robyn. I am going to be closer to you now so plan to use them in the coming weeks and if I remember correctly, they don’t have an expiration date.” He felt her body move as she laughed. “I had a good evening too.”

“And you can finally let go of all of that pressure you have been holding onto since Florida.” She heard the heavy sigh that left his chest. “Brand new start Taron.”

There was another moment of silence before Taron kissed her head. “I have something for you.” With a very gentle push, he got Robyn to sit up so he could move and stretch his left arm over the back of the couch to pick up the bag, seeing the look of surprise and then flicker of confusion in her eyes. “You never keep to our present pact so why should I?”

“My presents come in tiny boxes, not giant bags.”

Taron set the bag down on the couch between then, Robyn moving to sit crossed legged, fixing her dress so it was gathered in between her legs, as he knelt opposite her. “It is the only bag I had to carry the presents in.”

Robyn rose an eyebrow his way. “An Armani bag?”

Taron shrugged his shoulders. “I have some fancy suits that come in fancy bags. So are we going to let me give you the presents?”

“It doesn’t matter what I say, you will find a way to give them to me somehow. I think we need a new present pact.”

“I think we should scrap the present pact.” Taron added. “You constantly break it.”

“Only with cookies.” Robyn shrugged.

“Cookies are presents. So…” Taron reached into the bag and pulled out a long-wrapped box. “It’s a little heavy so be careful.”

Robyn took the silver wrapped gift, feeling the slight weight in her hands, wondering what on earth it could be. She tore the paper off quickly, thankful that Taron didn’t have the same love for sellotape that she did and as she got the last of the paper off, she smiled widely. “I love these but don’t have one.”

“I couldn’t see one the last time I was at yours and thought it matched your blue décor perfectly.”

The blue lava lamp was nostalgic and Robyn already knew where she was going to put it when she got home. She uncrossed her legs and leaned over so she could put the box on the coffee table. As she made sure the lava lamp was safe on the table, Taron had taken the remaining gifts from the bag and thrown it over the couch out of the way. He picked up the smaller silver wrapped gift and handed it over once she settled back into the couch once more with a grin, not saying anything.

“What’s that grin for?”

“Nothing.” He answered her.

Not believing a word, seeing his grin grow, Robyn quickly ripped the paper from the small rectangle present and took to laughing when she saw what it was, hearing Taron’s laughter too.

“You think I am going to put that on my phone?” She asked him, holding up the pop socket of his face.

“I am not letting you leave my flat until you put it on. In fact, I will do it for you.” Taron got up from the couch and lifted her phone from the coffee table, moving to sit into the couch again. “Pop socket please.”

Even though Robyn had told him she wasn’t going to put the new phone accessory onto her case, she handed over the packet, letting Taron pull the plastic open to get the pop socket of his face out. He very carefully took her current socket off and once he had the cover of the sticky part taken off, he applied some pressure onto the new socket, making sure it was applied properly onto her phone. He grinned as he held it up to her. “Now you can see my face whenever you pick up your phone.”

Robyn took her phone from him and chuckled. “And how am I going to explain this to anyone who picks up my phone?”

“Taron Egerton fan?” He answered her simply.

“Claire is going to get such a kick out of this and I am going to be teased mercilessly.”

“Just tell her I gave it to you.”

“I will, don’t you worry.”

Still smiling, Taron picked up the last gift and handed it over to her. “You can change it back if you want.”

As she took the present, Robyn shook her head. “Nope. I love it. I am keeping it on. Thanks Taron.”

“Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t seen what this one is yet.”

“Is it a bigger print of your face?” She asked.

“Not quite.”

“Something else?”

“Robyn!” Taron’s eyes widened at her words, his lips turning into a grin as he saw her smirk. “Just open it.”

It only took her five seconds to rip all the paper off and that beautiful smile that he loved so much, that lit up her eyes, quickly appeared on her face. It was an idea that came to him as he walked past a t-shirt print shop in London on the way to an interview Thursday morning and he asked Lyndsey to ask in the shop if they printed on other items as well as t-shirts and once she came with a nod, Taron called into the shop between interviews to get something made for Robyn and judging by her face and how she threw herself into him for a hug, that she loved the present.

Robyn hugged him tightly, getting used to the sideways hugs she had with him, kissing his jaw lightly as she moved away from him. She picked up the cushion she had thrown to the side as she went to hug Taron and lightly ran her fingers over the chicken, love heart, rocket and man emoji that were printed on the front of the white cushion, with blue tassels on all four corners. “Best gift ever and it will sit nicely on my couch.”

“Better than the dress?” Taron asked.

“Comes a very close second. I love this so much. Our favourite emoji’s.”

Taron grinned and nodded. “Perhaps over used emojis.”

“Perhaps but sometimes an emoji is all you need.” She reached over to take his hand and give it a squeeze. “Thank you Taron. These are brilliant. All of them.”

“Even my face on your phone.”

“Especially your face on my phone, though…” She picked up her phone and swiped the screen. “You might already be there.”

Taron took her phone seeing the picture of him sleeping on her bed hugging cwtch, groaned a little. “You really had to pick that one?” He asked her.

“Well it is your favourite thing to do.” She took her phone back from him. “Taron thank you so much for these. They are so thoughtful and perfect.”

“Don’t know if they equal a stunning tie pin.” He looked down his hands which were tangled together on his lap but had no choice but to look up as Robyn put two fingers under his chin to make him lift his head.

“Do you want a lecture from me because you know I am so good with my words.” It was a slow smile that filled his face and he shook his head. “Good.” She leaned in and placed the lightest of kisses to the side of his lips. “I love them all and you too.”

“I know.”

Robyn gave the cushion and cuddle and looked up to him. “Did you spray this with your aftershave?” She asked him, watching as he moved so he was sitting properly on the couch.

“Maybe.”

Robyn grinned, changing her position too so she was sitting beside him. “Thanks.”

“Welcome.” He closed his eyes, letting his head lay back against the couch, his body overcome with a yawn, followed by another. He felt Robyn lift his left arm.

“It’s so late or rather early.”

Taron took a glance to his watch and groaned. “We’ve been up for nearly twenty-two hours.”

“I think sleeping will replace movie’s tomorrow.” Robyn said as she slipped her hand into his. “You are going to be so tired for Monday.”

“Good thing you like to take pictures of me sleeping because it is all I am going to be doing for the next two days.”

“Let’s get you comfy then. Bed.”

Taron didn’t even need to be persuaded as Robyn stood up and pulled him to his feet. She waited for him for turn off some lights before following him to his bedroom, where he turned on his bed side lamp before switching off the main light.

“You want to take the bathroom first?” He asked.

“Sure. Give me five.” She started to walk away from him but turned back. “It will be longer than five.”

“Take your time.”

Robyn picked up her toiletry bag from her case and walked into the on suite, closing the door behind her. With the excitement of the late night, the sudden activities and Taron’s generosity, she had forgotten about her sore hand and only remembered how tender it was as she started to take off her make up from the evening. She had to remember to message Stella to thank her for keeping her look so simple but also so pretty and ask her what products she used as the make-up still sat perfectly hours later. She grumbled to herself at her reflection without her make-up, black dark circles deep under her eyes. Once she had given her face a through wash, patting it dry with Taron’s clean towel, she rubbed in her night moisturiser and a little eyes cream, hoping it would help ease the darkness on her skin.

Once she was make-up free and had her teeth brushed, she looked down to the dress which she was still wearing and chuckled. As much fun as it had been getting to wear such a fabulous gown for the evening, it really wasn’t sleeping material and she knew she wouldn’t be able to lay comfortably on her side with the fitted corset and finally admitted defeat. The dress was going to have to come off. She opened the bathroom door and leaned her head out.

“Hey Taron.” She saw him laying on his pillows, his hands behind his head.

“Yep.” He titled his head towards her.

“Any chance I could borrow some clothes?”

“I left some on the dresser for you.” Looking to her left, Robyn saw some neatly folded clothes on his set of wooden drawers. “I knew you would give in.”

Robyn took a step out of the bathroom, her hands on her hips. “I didn’t give in. I just know you like cuddles before you sleep and this dress has so much material it would get in the way for cuddles.”

“Sure Robyn.” Taron leant up on his elbows on the bed.

“Thanks for the clothes.” Robyn picked up the bundle and turned to go back into the bathroom, kicking the door behind her. Taron had left her a wonderfully soft pair of black shorts and a long-sleeved red top. They both looked comfortable and cosy but as she looked down to her dress, she knew she faced a problem. Stella had to help her into her dress earlier that evening and as she looked to her sore hand, she had no idea how she going to get out of it alone. She groaned as she realised she was going to have to ask Taron for help and it was a new predicament she found herself in. Slipping into the shorts under the dress, she then made her way back out into the bedroom, Taron looking up as she wandered out.

“Ok chicken I know you love the dress and you can bring it home and wear it all you want around your house but it really is not the best choice for sleeping in.”

“Erm I have a bit of a problem and I need some help.”

“Need to be fix your bra again?” Taron chuckled.

“Well, maybe a bit more than that.” She watched as Taron sat up on the bed, crossing his legs. “I need help to get out of the dress.” She could feel her cheeks reddening. “Stella had to help me get into it and even without a busted hand, I still would need some help.”

“I can zip you out. That’s no problem Robyn.” Taron made to get off the bed but her next words stopped him.

“Yeah there isn’t actually a zip. It was literally pulled down onto me and I need your to help pull it back off.”

Taron heart raced as he crawled off the bed and came to stand beside Robyn. “I can help you.” She didn’t look at him as he spoke to her. “I will keep my eyes closed.”

His words made her smile. “I have the shorts on already and do have underwear on.”

“And I have seen your underwear before. Nothing new there but sure let’s get you out of this dress.”

“Taron…”

“I will keep my eyes closed Robyn. Just tell me the best way to do this.”

“From the bottom up.” Robyn rolled her eyes and gently pushed on Taron’s chest as he giggled. “Grow up.”

She directed him to bundle up the material from the bottom of the dress at the back and once he had it in his hands, Robyn lifted her arms into the air and Taron pulled the corset of the dress up and with an extra hand from Robyn, they got the dress over her head. Robyn felt his hands brush over the skin of her sides as he very gently tugged the dress over her head, his light touch sent wonderful tingles down her body. She was very thankful for his height and help and as he carefully lifted the green dress right up over her head and body, whereas before she would have kept her two arms in front of her body, now she didn’t bother, completely trusting Taron as he got her out of her dress. She snuck a look to him as he held the dress in his arms and smiled as he kept his promise of keeping his eyes closed, even putting one hand over his eyes as he held the dress. Robyn stepped into the bathroom, to grab the red top and slipped on, walking out of the bathroom as she did so, the soft cotton covering her chilled skin, the material baggy and perfect for a cosy sleep.

Taron heard Robyn step into the bathroom without a word and he opened his eyes to see a glimpse of her heading into the bathroom, a full hitch of his breath filling him as Robyn’s beautifully smooth bare back from neck to where his shorts sat very low on her hips, came into his eye line and had to steady himself on his feet for a second, quickly closing his eyes and covering them with his hand again as he heard her step out of the bathroom. The brief touch of his hands on her skin, left his fingers burning and he was glad he had to keep a hold of the dress as it gave him something do with his hands.

“Ok all done.”

Opening his middle and index finger, Taron took a peek at her. “I miss the dress.”

“Of course you do.” Robyn pulled a trousers clothes hanger from his wardrobe and took the dress from him, laying it out on the bed, attaching the hanger to the green material.

“Let me.” Taron picked up the dress and hung it on the outside of his wardrobe. “Now all sorted.” He came to stand back beside her. “You all finished in the bathroom?”

“Yep all yours.”

“Go and get settled on the bed. I will be right back.”

As Taron closed the bathroom door, Robyn walked to the bed and got up onto her side, pulling the covers back so she could get cosy underneath the cotton duvet. She pulled draiocht over to her, giving the green dinosaur a tight squeeze, cuddling into it as she snuggled back into Taron’s soft pillows, inhaling the lovely scent from where he had been resting. It felt nice to be laying down in a soft bed after the rush of the day and as she closed her eyes, the tiredness immediately set in. All her worries about the premier last weekend had really been for nothing and she had had such a wonderful evening getting to celebrate Taron’s success with him.

“Cwtch is going to be jealous when he hears that you have been cuddling another dinosaur.” Taron turned off the bathroom light, smiling as he saw Robyn looking adorable curled up in a ball on his bed. He saw a smile on her face and he climbed up onto the bed beside her, kicking his legs under the covers, pulling them up to his waist.

“Cwtch will understand.” Robyn whispered; her words slightly muffled as she dug her face a little deeper into his pillow. Opening one eye, she looked up to him. “Or we could just not tell him.”

Taron chuckled. “It will be our secret.” He gently brushed some hair away from her forehead, Robyn staying nestled into his dinosaur. “Want to have a cuddle with a warm body instead?”

Leaving draiocht behind her back, Robyn shuffled over into Taron’s open left arm, resting her head on his shoulder, smiling tiredly as Taron pulled the covers right up to her chin. She felt his chest rise and fall as he yawned, his eyes closing as he happily sank further into the bed feeling Robyn lazily drape her arm over his stomach.

“Taron?”

“Hmmm?” He sleepily replied.

“Thanks for looking after me today, keeping by my side.”

With his eyes closed, Taron placed a kiss on her hair. “Easy to do chicken. Thanks for looking out for me too, bringing that sass and feeding me turtles.”

Robyn laughed lightly against him. “Technically you gave me the turtles. I just waited to share them with you.”

“Right decision too.” Taron chuckled. “And I told you, I will always look after you.” He kissed her hair again. “Now you need to sleep.” He felt her hum against his shoulder. “Movie day tomorrow.”

“Sounds good to me.” She nestled her face a little more into his shoulder, feeling him rest his hand on her waist. “Wanna get the light there rocketman?”

Taron stretched his right hand over to turn off the light and as they were plunged into the early light of dawn, they sighed happily.

“Sleep good.” Taron wrapped his left arm around Robyn, pulling her tighter into him. “So glad you came Robyn.”

“Me too Taron.”

His warmth was always so comforting and it was so easy to rest against him, feeling safe and snug and she was so thankful for him in more ways than one over the whole weekend and as she felt herself drifting off, her last thoughts were that she would be more than willing to attend another red-carpet event with him, knowing they weren’t actually as scary as they thought they were, especially when she had a wonderful caring man by her side.

[harley-sunday]

Final Approach [02]

Summary: Something’s different at Sandspit Airport when you return after some much needed time off.

Pairing: Chris Evans x reader (f)

Warnings: Language

Word count: 3466

AN: Here’s part 2 for y’all :) Not much else to say about it, so I hope you enjoy!

Masterlist

The Thursday flight to Sandspit is always the first on your schedule for that day and so the sun is still pale in the sky when you make the first call, “Sandspit Tower, this is PASCO seven five, fourteen miles out south, requesting inbound.” 

He responds almost immediately, “PASCO seven five, report over channel three for runway one left.”

Switching to channel three you report back, “Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five, requesting inbound for runway one left.” 

“PASCO seven five, enter right for runway.”

Huh. You’re a bit taken aback by his cool demeanour and wonder if you should comment on it. Joanne was always such a chatterbox, but maybe this is just how it’s going to be from now on. You decide to leave it for now, “Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five, entering right for runway. Twelve miles out.” You grab the checklist you need to complete before starting your final approach and work through it methodically, like you always do.  And like always it doesn’t take long before you get to call out again, “Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five, ready for final approach.” 

“PASCO seven five,” he hesitates for a second before he continues, “confirmed for runway one left.” 

You come back to him once you’ve started your descent, the tops of the trees below you getting closer and closer until you feel like you can almost touch them, “Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five, ready for touchdown on runway one left.”

“PASCO seven five, landing confirmed. Please taxi via Bravo to parking six.”

“Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five, parking six, taxi via Bravo confirmed.” There’s a little bit of wind, the trees swaying from left to right, and so the landing is a little more bumpy than you’d like it to be, but once again you get to release the breath you were holding when you touch down safely. 

Like always, Dave waits for you at your designated parking spot and the sight of him immediately brings a smile to your face, the call with ATC temporarily forgotten once you shut your engine off.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you to the tower so you can meet the guy?” Dave tries again. He’s assured you, a few times already, that the new guy is actually pretty alright once you get to know him and seems determined to make sure you share his opinion. 

“Very,” you reply with a grin, while you hand Dave another mailbag, “I’ll see him next time, Dave, it’s fine.” It’s not that you don’t want to go meet the guy, because you’re sure he’s exactly how Dave’s described him to be, it’s just that you have two other flights lined up for today. 

“Uhu,” 

“Dave,” you draw out, warning him, but with a smile, “I promise I’ll go see him next time, ok?”

“Fine.” Dave closes the hatch and wipes his hands on the rag he keeps in the backpocket of his overalls, before he gently pats the side of your plane, “You’re good to go, kid.” 

“Thanks, Dave,” you open the door and climb in, giving him a quick wave before you focus on the necessary checks before takeoff. Once that’s done you put on your headphones and radio in, “Sandspit Tower, PASCO seven five ready for takeoff and awaiting instructions.”

“PASCO seven five, line up on runway two left via Bravo.” He clears his throat then, “Please be advised you’ve got some crosswinds coming in from your left once you’re in place.”

“Sandspit Tower, PASCO seven five, aware of crosswinds.” Once you’re lined up at the start of the runway you do your final checks, the clear skies in the distance letting you know you’ll at least be flying into better weather. Just as you’ve opened your mic back up a crosswind hits you, rattling your plane, an excited, “Woah!” escaping you. 

“You ok?” 

He sounds worried and so much different from earlier today that it takes you a moment to find your voice, “Yeah, I-, I’m fine.” You sit up and grab your yoke, ready to get this thing airborne, “Sandspit Tower, PASCO seven five, ready for takeoff.”

“PASCO seven five, fly straight out until advised, runway two left, cleared for takeoff.”

“Sandspit Tower, PASCO seven five, taking off, flying straight out.” The crosswinds prove to be a bit of challenge, one hitting you just before liftoff, but years and years of experience means you have anticipated this to the best of your abilities and so you’re quick to correct the plane. Doesn’t mean it didn’t scare you though, but at least there’s no one around to hear you mutter a quiet, “Fuck.”

Once you’re airborne he’s quick to compliment you, “Great takeoff, PASCO seven five! Please turn at your discretion.”

You can’t help but smile at this surprise turn of events at the end of his call, “Sandspit Tower, PASCO seven five, thank you and turning at my discretion. See you on uh,” you hesitate, trying to remember your schedule, “Tuesday.” 

“It’s just different, you know?” You look at Deb, hoping she’ll agree with you, but of course you know she’ll be the voice of reason in all this.

“Just give him some time,” she offers, “it’s all new for him as well, kid. You and Dave and Joe all go way back and I’m sure he’s just trying to find his ground. Plus, how many more pilots come into Sandspit? All of them have probably been around for a few years as well, so he’s just getting to know everyone.”

“I guess,”

Deb laughs as she hits you on the head with the menu, “It’ll be alright, trust me.”

You pull a face at her as she walks away, but she just shakes her head and you can tell she tries not to laugh.

Like every Friday it’s pretty busy in Sporty’s Grill but unlike last week happy hour is well on its way already because you got back from work a little later than usual. Prince Rupert Airport had some problems with its fuel system and so you were grounded there for an extra two hours before you could fly back to Port Hardy. Still, you made it home before dark though and as far as you’re concerned that’s all that matters. Even after all these years you hate flying at night, mostly because you heavily rely on visual orientation.

Thankfully business always slows down a little during winter and so for the next three months there won’t be any late afternoon flights scheduled unless an emergency of some sort comes up. Your boss already let you know he’ll try to give Chad as much of those flights as possible, because he doesn’t like you flying in the dark either. You can’t help but smile when you think of your boss, Clive, who looks like he can take out six men in a matter of minutes, but who really is just a giant teddy bear with a heart of gold. 

“Here you go,” Deb says, interrupting your thoughts as she puts the Sporty Burger you ordered in front you. 

“Thanks,”

She winks at you as she walks back to the kitchen to pick up another order no doubt. Your eyes travel across the room when they land on Mike, who gives you a quick wave from behind the bar. You smile and hold up your glass as a toast before you turn your attention to the food in front of you. 

You eat in silence, like you always do, sometimes nodding to the familiar faces that greet you on their way inside, most of them people you know from way back when, and most of them married with kids now, their weekly night, or nights, at Sporty’s a sort of getaway from the everyday bustle. You know for a fact babysitting here is a lucrative business because of this and, like you did in high school, it’s how a lot of sixteen-year old girls make some extra money.

Deb is right on cue with your bill and so you hand her your card while you put your jacket on. It’s not as cold as it was last week, but the weather has been pretty unpredictable these last couple of days and you can’t help but wonder how long it’ll be until the first flights get grounded because of bad weather. 

“Here you go, sweetheart,” Deb says as she hands you your card back. “Enjoy your weekend.” 

“I will, thanks.” You kiss her cheek, “See ya next week.”

Sandspit is always a little busier on Tuesdays, with helicopters dropping off tourists they’ve picked up from cruise ships anchored in the bay nearby, flying to and from the airport in a heavy rotation. Apparently they're all going on a two-day wilderness retreat somewhere over at Skidegate Lake, which is fine if not a little annoying. You know for a fact there’s a helipad close to Skidegate and so you always wonder why they can’t just drop the herd off there. 

To be honest, usually this isn't such a big deal, but a late departure from Bella Coola means you’re hitting Sandspit in the middle of rush hour and so you’re stuck in a holding pattern until the runway is clear again, although you’re sure your Cessna could easily take out one of those Robson 44 fuckers should you happen to run into it on the ground by accident. Or on purpose. Preferably the one with N1903 as the tail number, but let’s not get into that right now. 

Mostly you’re just annoyed that this waiting game means you’ll probably have to cancel the hot stone massage you had an appointment for tonight because there’s no way you’ll make it back on time. And so are you a little on edge when he comes in over the radio? Maybe.

“PASCO seven five, runway is busy, please perform another hold.”

“Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five, still holding,” you all but bite back.

“Woah, what- Are you ok?”

“I’m fine,” 

“Uhu,” he replies, but he doesn’t sound convinced. “Dave told me.”

“Dave told you what?” you ask, voice still a little shrill, while you perform another round of checks. The fuel’s getting a little low and so you ask, “Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five, any idea how long I still have to hold?”

“PASO seven five, there’s two more incoming, after that I can clear you.” He sounds unfazed by your mood, which surprises you because you know you can sound like a total bitch over the radio and after last week you didn’t expect any smalltalk like, maybe ever. “Dave told me you’re always a little grumpy on Tuesdays after what happened between you and that rotor-head.”

Are you surprised that Dave told him? No, of course not. Not really anyway. And so you can’t help but smile at his choice of words, knowing all too well there’s some hostility between ATC and helicopter pilots. Jo always called them ‘little fuckers’. 

“Just give me the guy’s tail number” he continues without missing a beat, “I know a guy who knows a guy, who knows a guy who can probably help us out here.”

“I’m not sure what it is you’re offering, but I think I’m good.”

“Hey come on,” he sounds a little offended, “we can handle this.” 

“This is in no way a ‘we-situation’,” you reply with a smile, a little unsure about whatever is going on right now, the mood so much different from last time. “The only situation we are in together right now is this crazy holding pattern you’ve got me in.”

He chuckles, “Well, PASCO seven five, I’ve got some great news for you, you are confirmed for runway one left.” 

“Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five confirmed on runway one left.” His timing is perfect because you’re just at the end of your holding pattern and so you come back to him rather quickly, “Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five ready for touchdown on runway one left.” 

“Pasco seven five, landing confirmed,” he hesitates for a moment before he continues, “Please taxi via Charlie over to parking seventeen, one seven.” 

You snort, “Really? All the way in the back again?”

“I know, I know,” he sounds sincere, “the whirlybirds are still taking all the good spots.’

“Ugh,” you roll your eyes for good measure. “Whatever. Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five, parking one seven via Charlie confirmed.”

Time to land a plane, you think to yourself, before you turn all your attention to the instruments on your dashboard and the runway in front of you. Like always, you take a deep breath and hold it in until you’ve touched down. 

“PASCO seven five,” he comes back on as soon as you’re taxiing to your designated parking spot and sounds strangely excited, “great landing, as always.”

“Thank you, Sandspit Ground,” and you mean it because it really does make you feel a little bit better. 

Dave’s waiting for you at parking seventeen and waving his paddles in such an overexaggerated manner that you can’t help but laugh and so you’re all smiles when you jump onto the tarmac, “Hi, Dave!”

“Hey, kid,” Dave slaps your shoulder, “heard you were having a bit of a rough day?”

“Yeah, got stuck in a holding pattern that took-,” you stop then, because how the hell does Dave know about your shit day? Unless, “Did ATC tell you?” 

He grins and winks, “Told me to cheer you up a little-” he waves his paddles around, “hence the little dance.”

“Did he now?” 

“I told you he’s not bad,” Dave says over his shoulder as he opens your cargo door, “just give him a chance, eh?”

“I didn’t- I’m not,” but you know he’s got a point. It’s not fair to take out your bad mood on someone who’s not even remotely responsible for it. “Fine.” 

“Good on ya.”

By the time you’re ready to leave it’s a little after five in the afternoon and there’s no way you’ll ever make it back in time for that hot stone massage but it’s fine, you’ve cancelled it already anyway. “Sandspit Tower, PASCO seven five, idling at parking seventeen, ready for takeoff.” 

“PASCO seven five, cleared for immediate takeoff on runway two right via Charlie.”

“Sandspit Tower, PASCO seven five, immediate takeoff on runway one right, via Charlie.” And maybe it’s because it’s been a long day, or maybe it’s just because you weren’t expecting him to be so kind, but you actually choke up a little when you say, “Thank you.” 

“No worries,” he replies almost instantly, ‘I know you’re running late. Just want to get you home before dark.” 

It starts raining about halfway to Louise Island, even though the forecast told you it’d be dry for at least an hour after your scheduled landing and so you’re quietly cursing. It’s your last flight of the week and you were hoping to make it back to Port Hardy at the end of the afternoon before the predicted bad weather would hit the island. Thing is, your boss told you to skip this flight, said the cargo delivery could wait until Monday, but you insisted on making the trip anyway and promised him you’d make it back on time. Still, you figure, rain is something you deal with more often than not, so you’re not too worried. 

Flying through the rainclouds means Mathers Lake’s not visible today and so you have to rely on your instruments to tell you where you are, “Sandspit Tower, this is PASCO seven five, fifteen miles out south and requesting inbound.” 

“PASCO seven five,”his voice more than familiar by now though he sounds a bit off, “report over channel three for runway two right.”

“Two right,” you whisper quietly with your mic off, “two-” Shit. They only ever use runway two right for inbound when the weather is really bad. As if on cue the rain turns to sleet and the wind starts to pick up and so you let out a quiet, “Fuck.” 

“PASCO seven five?” He sounds worried.

“Sorry Sandspit Tower, PASCO seven five reporting over channel three for runway two right.” You turn the dial to channel three and report back, “Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five, requesting inbound on runway two right.” Then, because you there’s no use ignoring it, “How bad is it out there?”

It stays quiet a little too long for it to be a reassuring answer and so you’re not surprised when he finally answers, “It’s going to be a tough one.”

You let out a breath, “Ok.”

“PASCO seven five, enter left for runway.”

“Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five, entering left for runway,” you look at your display because there are no visual landmarks to tell you where you are, “eight miles out.” You turn your mic off and grab your checklist, one hand still on your yoke because you don’t trust this weather one bit. It takes you a few minutes, but at least everything on your end is as it should be although the sheets of sleet and flurries and is that hail hitting your windows have you worried. “Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five,” you hesitate, because you have a bad feeling about this but figure now’s not the time to have second thoughts, “ready for final approach. Please advise.”

PASCO seven five,” there’s a kindness to his voice that you haven’t heard before, “confirmed on runway two right.”

“Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five, ready for touchdown on runway two right.” 

“PASCO seven five, landing confirmed. Please taxi via Bravo over to parking one.”

“Oh now you give me the good spot, eh?” It’s supposed to be a joke, but your voice catches somewhere in your throat and so it almost comes out as a sob. You take a deep breath before you confirm, “Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five, parking one, taxi via Bravo confirmed.”

“You got this,” 

“Yeah,” you reply absentmindedly. You are surrounded by a blanket of grey and so you still only have your instruments to rely on and you hate it. You hate it, you hate it, you hate it. But then you give yourself a firm talking-to, because it is time to put on your big-girl panties and land this plane, godammit. You take an extra deep breath, hold it and mutter something about ‘no guts, no glory’ as you watch the six pack on your dashboard - the six instruments that tell you everything you need to know to make this a successful landing -  and it almost feels like time slows down as you start your descent. 

It’s bumpy and it’s scary and you wonder if you should attempt a go-around, wonder if maybe you should have chosen a different career path, wonder if you’ll really be able to land this plane but then you feel your wheels hit the tarmac and you get to breathe again and fuck, maybe you ain’t half bad at being a pilot anyway. 

“PASCO seven five,” he comes in not much later and sounds, well, nervous, “please confirm touchdown.”

You let out another shaky breath and clear your throat before you open your mic, “Sandspit Ground, PASCO seven five, touchdown confirmed.” 

“Oh thank God,” you hear him mutter before he clears his throat, “Dave’s already waiting for you.”

=X=X=

You’re on your second cup of coffee with Dave, the rain and sleet constantly beating down on the roof of the hangar slowly driving you crazy, when you check the weather forecast for what feels like the umpteenth time only to see that it’s still the same and so you let out a frustrated sigh, knowing you won’t be able to take off in this weather.  

“That bad, eh?”

“Yeah,” you put your phone down and smile at Dave, “seems like I’m going to be stuck here for a while.” You remember something then, “You guys still have that cot stowed away in the back of the break room? Maybe I could just wait it out? I’m sure you want to get home too.”

The hangar’s lit up by some headlights then and just as you wonder who it could be the door swings open and a tall figure steps inside, backlit by his headlights and so you don’t really get to see his face. “I have some bad news, guys,” he says and it’s then you recognize the voice even though it sounds a little different now that it’s not coming over your headphones. “They shut us down.”

“Shit,” both you and Dave curse at the same time. 

“Yeah,” he agrees with shrug, “I just got the call. We’re closed until tomorrow morning but-”

“With only me here and no other flights scheduled for the weekend,” you continue, “probably until Monday, right?” 

[cry-stars]

001 you know me I gotta ask for Clive/Flora :3

I was hoping you would... :D Thank you for indulging me, and I’m sorry for this essay ^^

when I started shipping it if I did:

Long story… I was playing through all of the PL games this spring for the first time in years, and found myself really liking Flora, far more than I’d ever liked her when playing the games as a kid. Then, when I got to UF, I found myself getting really attached to Clive as well. Not only did I love both characters, but I really liked their interactions; I’d been getting upset about how much Flora was left behind, and lo and behold, “Future Luke” tells Luke that Flora should be included on the adventure, and that she’s allowed to be excited, etc. 

Clive kept on sticking up for Flora, and they seemed to get along really well (not to mention all of the cute little moments they had together, like on the stairs to the Thames Arms), and I was getting really invested in their relationship. Then Clive went completely off the rails, and even though I knew this was coming, I honestly felt as upset and confused as Flora did. I wanted to hear his apology, and I wanted to see more out of a relationship that I felt had so much promise. 

my thoughts:

I absolutely love Clora; I haven’t been this excited about a ship in a long time. I adore both characters, and the similarities in their backgrounds are just perfect for writing about; they have so much to bond over. They have a really cute and wholesome dynamic in UF, before they really knew each other, and I love the idea of that continuing and developing into something deeper as they slowly get to know the real versions of each other. 

At first, Flora’s angry and confused, and Clive is lost in self-hate and regret; he’s just messed up so much already, and there’s no way that he can ever apologize correctly. But Flora just refuses to give up on getting the closure she needs, and just keeps on coming back until she gets it. They’ve got the perfect balance of in-game hints where the pairing isn’t pulled out of nowhere, and also open-endedness where there’s lots to explore as a writer. 

I think they’d definitely need a lot of time before ever starting a romantic relationship. While there were little hints at the ship in the game (I think), romance was the farthest thing from Clive’s mind at the time (I don’t think he’d ever been interested in anything of the kind before), and it was Flora’s first proper adventure. Their falling-out in the game really solidifies the fact that they need a lot of time to process things and get to know each other all over again. I’d want them to become good solid friends first before going anywhere near romance. After that, though... ugh, the mutual pining would be so good, ahhh...!

What makes me happy about them:

So much. I really love how on the surface, Flora is the “cute” one and Clive is the “prickly” one, but really, they aren’t that different. Flora has a lot of issues and a lot of pain in her past like Clive, and Clive also gets deeply attached to other people (especially his family) like Flora does. I think that they have so much potential to help each other open up and deal with the difficulties from their pasts, and support each other when the other is going through a rough time. And honestly, they’re just really adorable together. They’ve got such a nice mix of sweetness and angst, and I just love thinking and writing about them.

(Also they’re holding hands in one of the end credits scenes...! I so rarely ship anything with any canon evidence, so that, and all of Clive’s little “Don’t worry, Flora” comments in the game just make me really happy).

What makes me sad about them:

Hhh…. I just think that Clive messed things up SO bad. He messed up from the beginning. It’s not even just the kidnapping part; that could probably be (generously) explained by Clive suddenly deciding that he didn’t want Flora to get stomped by the Mobile Fortress (although he should have told her/just not used the Mobile Fortress, but okay). It’s that he was pretending to be “Future Luke” all along, and, due to Flora’s past of having people she cares about replaced by lookalikes (Dahlia replacing her mom, herself being replaced by Don Paolo (and Luke gleefully showing her the Flora mask on the train ride home!), and less traumatically, Don Paolo replacing the professor), I think that “Big Luke” suddenly turning into “Clive” would be really upsetting for her. 

Despite all of that, though, all Flora asked for was an apology--and then the two of them never get to talk again. I don’t know… I’m just sad that they seemed to get along so well before, and if Clive had been able to say sorry right then, maybe they could have parted on better terms than they did, just like Clive and the professor got to. Instead, we don’t get any apology or closure. Flora deserved an apology.

things done in fanfic that annoys me:

Ugh, SO many things. There’s about 100 stories with both characters tagged on ff.net, and I can only really recommend about ten of them. At best, it’s a generic “bad boy/good girl” dynamic, or Clive is suddenly super nice and Flora is incredibly ditzy, and at worst, Clive’s abusive. (please don’t read the earliest ff.net stories, no matter how desperate you get.) 

Admittedly, people are very critical of Clora at the best of times, so I feel like there’s a higher standard for it than there are for other pairings. I just feel like Flora often gets written as the “everygirl,” sort of as a reader-insert that gets to date Clive. Or, Clive is a total woobie who gets immediately forgiven by Flora with no resistance at all. Honestly though, as long as it’s obvious that someone is trying their best to keep them in-character and on equal footing, I would be happy to read anyone’s take on them. They are a difficult pair to write, I think, so I don’t expect anyone to get it perfect (since there really is no perfect way to write them).

things I look for in fanfic:

Ideally? Just like 10 Years. The slow burn, the hard work to earn forgiveness, the friendship, the attention to their similarities, the acknowledgement of both of their traumas… boy, I will never stop recommending that story. I’m so glad it exists; it’s given me so many ideas and it addresses all of the things that make me feel bad about the pairing. 

Outside of that fic… I just want acknowledgement of what Clive did wrong, him working to fix it, and them starting to understand each other and grow fond of each other. (Also… lots of angst and hurt/comfort, haha, but that’s me with every type of fanfic). Conversely, I’d like to just see them doing cute things together or going on an adventure without talking about the past constantly as well; once the apology is over, they don’t have to constantly return back to the past. I feel like Clora is a super good candidate for slow burn as well; I loved it in 10 Years and I’d love to see another take on it.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: 

Honestly no one… when I really like a ship, I can’t multiship without getting sad, haha… :’) 

My happily ever after for them:

I’ve got several different AUs for them, but for one of them, I’d like to see them get married and move to St. Mystere. They can work together and take over Bruno’s job of repairing the robot residents and take care of the village. They’d visit and be visited by the professor and the rest of the family frequently, but I think that they’d both be happier away from London. I think Clive interacting with the Reinholds would be really funny too, haha… I do have a longer story I still want to write too, though, so my ideas for a happy ending for them may change a lot as I write.

who is the big spoon/little spoon:

It’s a 60-40 split, with Flora being the little spoon slightly more.

what is their favorite non-sexual activity:

I think they try to learn how to be good cooks together. Flora was never good, obviously, but I think that Clive also only knows how to cook the basics (lazy rich kid). Once Clive starts living with the professor, though, he realizes that it’s pretty much going to be up to him to feed this family, because the professor forgets to cook, Flora’s bad at it, and Alfendi’s a baby. He starts to work at getting better, and Flora decides to practice more too, and they wind up competing with each other. They also use each other as test subjects for the food they want to give to the professor (it’s okay if they give each other food poisoning, but the professor? Perish the thought!) By the time Alfendi’s a little kid, they’re both half-decent, but still make fun of each other’s cooking, and Alfendi will pick a side with whoever he’s feeling more charitable towards at the time. 

They also have unscheduled midnight tea time at least once a week. Clive doesn’t sleep a lot, and Flora wakes up during the night quite often, so she often comes downstairs to find him pacing around, and makes a pot of tea. Sometimes she’ll go up again after having a cup, and sometimes they fall asleep on the couch together.

[wizardessheart-sideb]

[Image ID: A chapter image done in the style of Wizardess Heart. A large, off-white imagine with a guy on it. He’s wearing a dark gray uniform. There’s a lavender bar over him that reads “Tsukasa Kuze.” The rest of the text reads “Main Story” and “Chapter 7: The Love Holiday” /End ID]

Chapter summary: The Love Holiday comes out of nowhere and Tsukasa’s sick from class. I hope he’s feeling okay...

I sat in our homeroom, waiting for Tsukasa to get to class. The atmosphere in class was strange. Lots of people were writing Magic Notes to friends and loved ones, I assumed, and a few were on their phones, talking to their significant others. It felt extra lonely without him to talk to. Maybe it was just that weird sort of melancholy that happens when the Love Holiday comes around or maybe I’ve gotten so used to being with Tsukasa, but there was an ache inside of me. I just wanted to see him. Especially considering how he wasn’t feeling well yesterday.

The events from yesterday flooded my mind and again, my cheeks flushed a bit. The door to the classroom opened and I stood up a bit straighter. It was just Fandamilia, a small sack over her shoulders.

“Hi everyone! Happy Love Holiday!” she called out cheerfully. Only Clive, Viggo, and I responded to her.

“What’s in the bag, Millie?” Viggo asked, lazily pointing to it.

“I made special cards for everyone in the Night Class! I spent all day working on them!”

She started handing them out to everyone. A few people murmured thanks, but most just quietly accepted them. She got to us and her grin widened even more. I could see the dark circles under her eyes. “I made you guys special ones since you’re my best friends!” Fandamilia handed us three cards much larger than the other ones. Mine was coated in glitter and in surprisingly clean, elegant writing, the words “Thank you for being a great friend!” adorned the front.

“This is so sweet. Thank you,” I told her.

“You’re welcome! It’s the least I can do for you guys!” she replied.

“You’re so sentimental,” Viggo said with an eye roll. But even I could see the ghost of a smile on his face. And how he carefully tucked the card into his notebook.

“Thank you, Fandamilia,” Clive said, holding his own card. She beamed as she took her usual spot. I glanced over at his. A surprisingly well-done inky sketch adorned the front of it.

“Did you draw that?” I asked her.

“No, I commissioned a friend to draw it. I personalized everyone’s cards!” she explained. She pulled a few out of her sack. “I made some make up doodles on Isabelle’s, a Magic Board Game for Matthew, some demonology stuff for Aika and Dorian’s cards, that sort of thing.”

“Demonology?” Clive cocked an eyebrow at her and Viggo melodramatically slumped his shoulders.

“They’re super into demons. I thought everyone knew that,” Fandamilia frowned. “Do you think that’s too weird to put on a Love Holiday card?”

“Yes,” Viggo responded bluntly.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” I reassured her. “Uh, off topic, but when were heading over here, did you see Tsukasa at all?”

“No, I didn’t. I’m kind of surprised he’s not here yet. He’s always on time,” she answered and my stomach dropped.

“Oh, okay. Thanks anyway.”

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon!” she tried to reassure me. But the bell rang and the only person to come into our class was Prefect Nox. For some reason, I couldn’t get the sinking feeling out of my stomach. Why wasn’t Tsukasa in class today? Was he feeling even worse? Was he okay?

---

“Hey, come over here for a moment,” Rex called to me, motioning for me to come to the podium. The final bell had just rung and students were even faster to leave class than normal. I quickly got my stuff together and went over to Prefect Rex. “Is Tsukasa feeling all right?” he asked.

“I don’t know. He wasn’t feeling good yesterday and I wasn’t able to check on him during lunch today,” I replied.

“That’s too bad,” Rex lamented. “Could you go take his make-up work to him?”

“Of course.”

“Great. Thank you.” He handed over some paperwork and I slipped it into my backpack. We said goodbye and I started a beeline for the dorms. For some reason, the walk seemed so much longer, even though I was hurrying. Maybe I was just worrying too much. Maybe it was stress. I just wanna see if Tsukasa’s okay.

As soon as I got in the dorm building, I saw Dorian, Aika, and Isabelle in the foyer. Aika looked like a corpse and Isabelle, although not as drastic, looked downright ghoulish.

“I didn’t know today was Halloween,” I commented. Aika just laughed.

“There you are! What’re your plans for today?” she asked me.

“My plans? I’m just going to go check on Tsukasa and then study, I guess. Why?”

“Well, every year on the Love Holiday, Rex and Nox ask me to pretend to be a ghost to scare Day Class students away from our turf. Apparently, fooling around in graveyards is very popular,” she explained, crinkling her nose in disgust at the last bit.

“We were thinking this would be an all-hands-on-deck operation,” Dorian elaborated. “But if you’re going to be spending tonight with Tsukasa, you don’t have to help.”

“I… Uh, I don’t know how to unpack this.” I didn’t even know where to start. People trying to go to pound town in a GRAVEYARD?! Dressing up as ghosts to scare them away?!

“The graveyard stuff or us pretending to be ghosts?” Isabelle was visibly fighting back laughter. “It’s really only Aika that pretends to do it since her magic is harder for people to detect and she can pull out all the stops. We’ll step in if needed.”

“No, I don’t want them to hang out with us if they’re planning on seeing Tsukasa. You two have fun, all right,” Aika smiled. I was left spluttering as she winked and moved passed me. Dorian smirked and Isabelle just gave me a little wave and told me she’d see me later. They’re an interesting bunch. I guess I should make more of an effort to spend time with them.

Taking my chance, I hurried into the elevator and up to Tsukasa’s floor. I finally got to Tsukasa’s dorm room and immediately knocked on the door.

“Tsukasa, it’s me. Can I come in?” I asked.

“Of course!” He sounded more chipper than yesterday. Maybe he just stayed home today as a precaution? Or he was just skipping? The locked clicked as the door swung open. Tsukasa was propped up in bed, still in his pajamas. He looked paler than he did yesterday.

“Are you okay?!” I dropped my things and shut the door, hurrying over to him.

“I’m just feeling a bit under the weather, is all,” he told me.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. How are you feeling right now?”

“I’m fine…” The stern look on my face made the fake smile slip from his face. Tsukasa sighed. “Okay, I’m feeling pretty bad.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m just feeling dizzy and weak. And I have a bit of a headache today.” Poor thing.

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“It’s fine. I took some pain medication and hopefully that kicks in soon.”

“I hope it does too. I can go, if you’d like to get some rest,” I offered. I didn’t want to go, but if it helped him rest up and get better, I’d do it. It was probably the only thing I could do for him right now.

“No, I like you being here.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to keep you from resting up.”

“No, I’d rather have you here. You always make me feel better,” he admitted sheepishly, a slight grin on his lips. Cute my heart melting into a puddle. A large, goofy smile tried to worm its way onto my face, but I did my best not to smile too goofy.

“I’m happy to hear that,” I replied. There was a beat and Rex randomly popped into my mind. Right! The make-up work. “By the way, I brought your make-up work for you. Where do you want it?”

“On my desk is fine, thank you,” he said.

I started going through my bag, placing my things on the floor to get to his packet. I really needed to stop shoving my things into my bag willy-nilly. But I guess that was a project for later. I felt Tsukasa’s eyes on me as I piled more and more things on the ground until I hit pay dirt.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the pile of things I’d pulled out.

“The card? It’s from Fandamilia. She gave everyone cards today. You can read it if you want.” I didn’t wait for an answer, handing it over to him as I got up. His lavender eyes quickly glanced over it. “I’m sorry I didn’t make you anything for today. It totally slipped my mind the Love Holiday was even coming up. I’ve been so preoccupied on studying.”

“No, you don’t have to apologize for anything. I guess I was just surprised you got one too. For a moment I thought she had a crush on me,” her laughed. Something inside me twinged. “She had Viggo deliver mine to me.”

“Yeah, Clive, Viggo, and I helped her pass them out during lunch, which is why I didn’t come. She made one for everyone in the Night Class,” I told him.

“She’s a kind girl.” Again, deep inside me, I felt a twinge of irritation.  “But…” His voice trailed off.

“Hm? What is it?” I inquired. He just shook his head.

“No, it’s nothing.”

“I won’t make you tell me, but I’d like to hear it.” We made a promise to be more open with each other. Maybe he just needed a little push. I placed his work on his desk and when I turned around to face him, his face was bright red.

“I… I was just worried someone else had given you a Love Holiday card,” he stammered, falling over his words.

“Oh, it’s no big deal! Some people give those cards to their friends and stuff, but it’s really fifty-fifty, so you don’t have to worry about me feeling owed something from you, or something,” I explained. This must be his first Love Holiday. Part of me felt bad if he was worried about giving me anything. Tsukasa’s eyes glanced to his blankets, face even redder than it had been a moment ago.

“It’s not that… I was just worried that it was a romantic card,” he mumbled.

“‘Romantic?’ Why would you worry�� Oh!” The butterflies in my stomach started fluttering around in a frenzy and my heart started pounding in my chest. I could feel my face burning from the inside out.

“I-I-I uh… You don’t have to worry about anyone else,” I stammered. His face lit up.

“I don’t? Do you like me too?”

“I do.” Electric excitement was flowing through my veins and I was surprised that I even managed to speak.

“You do? … Oh, I’m so relieved.” He relaxed and I couldn’t help but giggle at his exaggerated movements.

“I was so worried you only saw me as a friend,” he admitted. I shook my head and reached out to grab his hand.

“I like you a lot, Tsukasa. I want to be your partner.”

“And I want to be your boyfriend.”

Even with all the jittery excitement and happiness flooding my body, there was just a smidgen of embarrassment. Tsukasa gave me that warm smile I’d come to love. He reached his hand out and I took it. Wordlessly, he moved over so I could lay beside him. We snuggled up together, his arm around my shoulder and my arm across his chest. We laid there, just basking in each other. Although my racing heart started to slow down, the giddiness inside me kept going and going.

This was a new chapter for us, and I was beyond excited to start it with him by my side as my boyfriend.

[cruzrogue]

I know...Kinda don’t...U know...

Another story hit me! I’m putting the idea on tumblr because that is where I place my story ideas. Don’t know if this will continue or die. I have plenty of stories to juggle. But in-between writing them these ideas won’t let me go...

It starts off with Cisco Ramon from the flash and Felicity Smoak from Arrow getting to know each other in non-platonic circumstances. They like each other. It becomes an olicity story because I’m a Oliver and Felicity fan. Haha. Those two are just it for me. I can read or write them in similar situations and not get tired of it. I actually love that! 

Thanks beforehand for reading especially if you got this far.

Cisco Ramon & Felicity Smoak, OliverQueen/FelicitySmoak

My idea is to make 2 versions of any chapter that I might have smut. (Clean/Smutty) AKA (1A/1B...2A...etc) That is if I continue... Well here goes!

(Untitled story)

Cisco Ramon not one that is usually popular with the girls. Especially when alone and not with his college friends. Friends that brought him along to this year’s spring break trek across a few cities before getting back to his own university.

Wanting to go to a nerd hangout. Scope the world of mechanical wonderment with a side of technological flair at this exhibit. No way that the possibility of missing such mind-blowing thought-provoking display would not fall on his roaster of things to do in Las Vegas. His boys bailed at the idea of spending an ounce of time in the land of boredom. Their words not his. He’d meet up with them at that party venue some guy told them about last night.

Like always he’s enjoyed his alone time and now is ready to adventure to the wild side. Hanging with rich kids has brought a level of craziness. Things these guys do are beyond some of the frat boy lifestyles he’s seen in movies. Just a factor of wow and unbelievable.

The bouncer takes one good look at him and double checks his ID. Cisco just makes a cheesy grin as he tells the guy its 100% him.

The music is low. Not much going on. He is the early bird. Checking his watch early by two hours. Probably should have gone to the hotel. Leaving with the gang. They bring the party. Oh well. He is here now. Maybe he can see if they serve some grub.

Movement catches his attention. Long black hair being pushed to the side. He notices she’s trying to read while hitting her pencil against the table to the beat of a song playing. The closer he gets to the counter the view of the hottie only gets better. Better meaning the anticipation of getting a mildly improved glance. Taking in those sexy low-cut boots. Following her limbs upward. Stopping mid length on her upper thighs as she must be wearing a short skirt. Her long hair covering the view to her face. He wonders how pretty she must be.

“If you keep staring, you’ll burn a hole in my head.”

That gets him to suddenly apologize. He didn’t think she’d notice him. Finally, she sits up straighter moving the hair that is obstructing a clear picture of her face. He suddenly sucks in air. She’s breathtaking.

Her index finger shoots up to the mirror off to the side. A mirror he didn’t catch until now.

“The mirror has failed your gawking ways.” Her lips are pressed to a thin line but there is mirth in her eyes. She knows he won’t be able to tell she’s amused.

“Sorry.” He mutters now totally embarrassed. Serves him right for ogling.

“The club isn’t really open for dancing yet. What brings you in? Not the stale pretzels I hope.”

“I’m super early. I just came from the conservatory of Mechanical Engineering exhibit that was hosted this week and well I couldn’t say no to…”

“Being that guy that drools over numbers.”

A part of him deflates. This hot chick thinks he’s a loser, “Yea. I’m that geek.”

“Well then. It’s a safe bet to get the tenders, onion rings, and maybe apple crisp if you have a sweet tooth.”

“So no on the pretzels?” He smiles because just maybe he has a shot with this beauty. “What about the nut selection?”

“Both are probably salty. You know. It gets you to drink more. Though if you want to handle any certain number of nuts that they serve. I won’t be able to enjoy talking to you further.”

“Oh! You don’t like them? Or do you have some food intolerance to pine nuts?”

She gives him a sly smile, “Seems like the only nuts I can’t handle.”

His mind is quick and it makes him have a goldfish moment. They aren’t even arguing except his mind is screaming. Opening and closing his mouth to only leave it open in surprise. She’s flirting. She is flirting with the nerd him. “I’ll be right back.” He thumbs the food counter.

Felicity goes back to reading. Keeping from sparing a look back at the interesting nerd who seems to like her goth appearance. She knows what she wants tonight. She went out. Instead of studying in her room at her mom’s place. Where she’d be bored out of her mind. It’ll be nice to enjoy a night with a guy that seems to be intellectually sound.

He gets back placing the double portions of the food choices she mentioned while joining her. Just that alone gives him some secret points he has no idea about. They have a blast talking. Actually, chit chatting about science and math related situations that would bore the likes of most other people. Those that can’t fathom how awesome existence is with the mix of these two subjects. Pushing creations to make human lives better.

It leads to them to pulling out their identification’s cards. Both checking the emblem on each other’s license.

“Francisco Baracus Ramon.”

“Yep, a mouthful.” He pops a broken piece of an onion ring into his mouth before looking at her name, “Felicity Meghanne Kloak.” He has no idea that the ID is fake. That isn’t her real name or age. Her mother gave her a fake id as a parting gift as she left to M.I.T. “Oh shit, you’re just eighteen. I’ve been serving a minor alcohol.” She doesn’t correct him further to say that she’s actually sixteen. “I turned twenty-one just like a friend of mine a few weeks back.”

“Happy belated birthday.”

“Thanks. I don’t feel any different.”

“You don’t? You’ve had a few strong drinks.” She says with laughter.

“I’m not sloshed. Hey why aren’t you a little tipsy? You’ve been drinking by myside this whole time.”

She outright laughs, “Your twenty-one. Jimmy would lose a gasket if a minor had alcohol in the open like we are.”

“Whose Jimmy?”

“The owner.”

“Oh!” Cisco says with a frown.

“Cheer up. Isn’t the point to have fun? Enjoy life? Us nerds are already so stuffy.”

“Says a literal goddess. You are so beautiful.” He sees that she about to burst out laughing at how he is becoming so corny. “Come on its not just the alcohol talking. You are just so amazing.”

That has Felicity be a lot more assertive as her hand moves up his arm showing an attraction. Somewhere during the hour and a half of being together they’ve moved to be sitting by each other. Able to talk easier as the sound check started to interfere with hearing the other.

That is until Cisco feels that he may have overdo it with the drinking and heads to the bathroom. Leaving Felicity to not see him again tonight.

----------sp@ce--------------

Cisco meets the gorgeous goth girl named Felicity. Instead of dancing he’s having a session with the round porcelain latrine. He’s a little out of it but his friends meet up with him. Thank goodness his friends arrive. At least the two who needed to pee. Escorting him to a VIP lounge. He’ll rest there. So much for the sweet perfect dream of a girl he met earlier.

Oliver and Clive go check out the club as the rest of the party is escorted to the VIP lounges.

It doesn’t take long until Felicity catches Oliver’s eye. She’s isn’t alone per se as she listening to some guy and her lips are strung in a line of just being polite. He makes his move as Clive tells him he doesn’t get the appeal. Oliver just shakes his head telling his friend ‘variety is the spice of life’.

The guy by the goth’s side trying to sound smooth as he drawls out, “You sure you don’t want something better? I can just call…”

Oliver hears the guy’s line and rolls his eyes. He’d let it play out if the girl was willing to take the drink but with this Goth chick saying adamantly, she is good with what she has. The guy doesn’t get the hint she doesn’t want another drink. As the man calls for the bartender. Oliver steps into the game.

“She has impeccable taste.” Oliver says contemplating the guy who is being let down nicely but is willing to make her uncomfortable. He holds the cocky signature look he is known to have as the other guy is sizing him up. Adding, “It doesn’t stop with just drinking choices.” Catching her stare. He winks.

Taking the moment to dip on his chances as the other guy becomes a third wheel. The odds rising in his favor as her body converges towards his own.

The bartender taking the other man’s order first. A certain venom seeping from his voice as he gets a drink for himself only. Concluding a dark stare towards the couple as the pensive man conflicts with himself if he should just walk away.

“And for the lady?”

Felicity noticed a recognition between the man behind the counter and what she supposes is her knight in shining armor or in her case fitted suit jacket. She’s kept from gawking at the newest intruder. Her eyes falling back onto her drink. Being put on the spot she just tells the bartender to give him his usual. She doesn’t know if they know each other. It doesn’t really matter because the other guy leaves. It’s a huge weight off her back. He was just to persistent for her tastes.

As the bartender hands off the new stranger’s drink. Felicity gets a nickname she presumes as the man dubbed Ollie says ‘thank you’ shelling out a handsome bill for a simple drink.

Oliver doesn’t move to take a seat. Keeping his focus now on his own drink as he sips slowly and placing the drink not far from hers. “It’s actually Oliver.”

“Thanks for the save. Oliver” She finally lets herself look at him again. He is gorgeous. Long locks that probably are way overdue to get cut. Taking him in. She rather digs that his hair accentuates his baby face. Though those blue eyes are mesmerizing. She could get lost in them. That is dangerous. It doesn’t seem to help that he notices her staring. “It’s Felicity.”

Her name falls from his lips and it brings a smile to his face. She gets to notice he has dimples. Oh boy she is in trouble.

“It’s a pretty name.”

Her hand goes for her drink. Controlling her temptation to reach out and touch his cheekbone. That’d be weird.

“Thanks. Do you know the bartender?”

“Met him yesterday. Told us about this club.”

“Us?”

“Spring break. Me and a few friends.”

“I’m on break too.”

“Really? What school?”

“M.I.T.”

“Cool, small world.” He can’t but smile. “My new school is in Boston too.”

“You’re a transfer?”

“You can say that. So, why Vegas?”

“Guilt trip.” Seeing the question form she continues, “I’m a freshman. I took a work study program plus a load of classes this summer. Money’s tight but she’s… she’s my mother.”

“She misses her baby girl. I think that is so sweet.” As she gives him a raised eyebrow. He doesn’t take it back. To him parents that care. They are the best.

“Same question? I doubt being in Vegas while under twenty-one is a big drawl.”

“It’s a pit stop. We are heading to New Orleans next.” He doesn’t mention Miami before heading back to Boston. “What gives my age away?” He waits for her to say his baby face.

“You weren’t asked for an ID. Out in the open. Even with him knowing you. You’d have been asked if you were going to consume alcohol. Just in case of narcs. I’m guessing that drink doesn’t contain alcohol.”

“Did you watch him make the drink?”

“No. But that camera over there.” She doesn’t point. “Jimmy would never allow that in his establishment. Now private rooms where there might be a few minors he’d let that slide.”

“You know the owner.”

“If you mean know as in… He dated my mom than yes I know him.”

“Past tense. Guess it ended amicable or you wouldn’t be here.”

She nods taking another sip of her drink, “He’s got a smiling sun tattoo on his butt cheek.”

“What?”

“Things you wish to never see but my momma doesn’t know how to have signals that she’s busy entertaining.”

“Ew. I couldn’t imagine catching my parents.”

“At least you know they did the deed once to get you.”

“I have a sister.”

“Okay.” She laughs, “Pardon me, twice at least.”

He likes her laughter. Among the list of other things. He’s about to say something else when a buddy of his is trying to get his attention. Felicity shifts to follow Oliver’s line of sight and she sees another good-looking guy using hand signals to converse with the tall college student she’s been getting to know. Trying not to eavesdrop she repositions back to the original posse before him.

“Need to leave?”

Oliver responds with a firm no. As his eyes trail back to hers. She can see whatever the other guy said has made him go red in the face.

“Are you alright? You’re red-faced.”

He shakes his head. Letting out a self-deprecating moan.

“What’s the deal?”

Oliver’s bites his lip as she can tell he’s radically thinking. She can pinpoint it in his eyes when a decision is made and wow those blue eyes are so distracting.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“What about your friends?”

“They can live without me for some time. I’d like to get to know you. We’re in Vegas. Let’s paint this town red.”

“Or you can let a native show you to some hidden gems.”

“Hmm. I’d like that even better.”

She slides off her chair and Oliver gulps as his eyes travel down her backside. She’s already leading them towards the exit.

“Do you need to say goodbye.”

“Nah, they’ll get the message if they don’t see me.” He walks a little quicker to get the exit door opened  for her to leave first.

“Then you’re with the death witch. Getting the ride of your life.” Felicity could make some of his friend’s words. Her goth chicness being too much for the boy. “Something in those lines if I’m correct.”

“Yet, no one tried to save me.”

“You need new friends then.”

“Definitely. That is if they didn’t also think your hot.”

“Thanks, I guess. I turned away from your conversation around once he did the age-old sign for… um… coupling.”

“He sure did.” They find themselves in the dessert heat. Oliver waiting for her instruction but adds, “Felicity?” As he gets her undivided attention, “I don’t expect anything down those lines. It would be insulting and…”

“Oliver, I wouldn’t come outside if I didn’t want to get to know you better.” She winks well sort of winks and it makes him chuckle slightly.

[aion-rsa]

“God God – Whose Hand Was I Holding?”: the Scariest Sentences Ever Written, Selected by Top Horror Authors

https://ift.tt/3kHWU1Y

Many people have a very intimate relationship with books. And horror books can get under your skin like no other medium, whether you’re peering at a scary novel under the covers as a youngster or devouring new or classic horror as a grown up. Good horror writing sticks with you. 

For Halloween we’ve attempted to round up some of the scariest sentences ever written – and who better to ask for their recommendations than some of the finest horror writers and editors around? We asked some of our favourite experts to tell us the line that scared them most and why. Any suggestions of your own? Let us know in the comments.

To Serve Man by Damon Knight

Scariest sentence: “It’s a cookbook,” he said.

Is there a better whammy of an end line than this? Ten to one you’ll know the story that precedes it: Seemingly benevolent aliens, the Kanamit, arrive on earth, promising peace and prosperity. The aliens are as good as their word, and start whisking “lucky” humans off to their planet for a “ten year exchange programme”. A U.N translator, who (rightly) thinks this is all too good to be true, sets about translating the aliens’ favourite book, which, from its title, “To Serve Man,” is assumed to be an innocent handbook. It ain’t (see the last line). The story and its funny/bleak ending has haunted me since I first read it as a ten-year-old, way too young to consider that it could be read as an allegory about the horrors of colonialism. Back then all I could think about were the people the Kanamit had lured aboard their ships, unaware that they were destined for the table (or the Kanamit version of Masterchef). It still gives me chills. – Sarah Lotz author of Missing Person out now from Hodder. 

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

Scariest sentence: “I have no mouth. And I must scream.”

If I tell you the name of this Harlan Ellison story, it’ll give away the last line… “I have no mouth. And I must scream.” I remember when I first read that ending, only to find myself caught in a loop where those two sentences kept echoing through my head. Reading it again right now, it’s still hard not to pinch my lips as tightly together as possible and try giving the ol’ lungs a good bellow. Still sends shivers down my spine. – Clay McLeod Chapman, author of The Remaking, out now from Quirk Books

Read more

Movies

How Hulu’s Books of Blood Movie Taps The Mind of Clive Barker

By Don Kaye

Cabal by Clive Barker

Scariest Sentence: “She knew what men afraid, and afraid of their fear, were capable of.“

According to some criminologists, the root cause of many violent acts isn’t anger but fear. Fear of rejection, of failure, of abandonment, of loss. In this early novel by Barker, the link between fear and violence is only subtly hinted at–which makes it all the more frightening. He alludes to the heroine’s personal history with violent men, leaving the reader to fill in the blanks. – Andrew Schaffer, author of Secret Santa, out 10 November from Quirk Books 

The Sibling by Adam Hall

Scariest sentence: “He’s put the clown in her room,” Lorraine said quietly.

As a species, our goal is to keep clowns out of our bedrooms and living spaces and yet here’s some monster deliberately inserting a clown into someone’s room, ignoring the fact that since at least the dawn of time clowns have been mankind’s natural predator. The resigned tone of that “quietly” really drives home the horror because clearly this is not the first time. – Grady Hendrix.

Squelch, John Halkn

Scariest sentence: “It still doesn’t make sense to me. Moths attack sweaters and fly around light bulbs. They don’t devour humans.”

It doesn’t make sense to me, either, but if moths have stopped attacking our clothing and started attacking our bodies then count me out. I’m done. – Grady Hendrix.

Night of the Crabs by Guy N. Smith

Scariest sentence:“What a beautiful night,” Pat remarked, as they passed alongside the barbed-wire fence which enclosed War Department property. “If only we didn’t have to worry about giant crabs.”

Sometimes you just wish you lived in a simpler world. – Grady Hendrix.

The Farm by Richard Haigh

Scariest sentence: “The pigs,” then her control snapped. “Look, they’re coming out,” she shrieked. “Oh, sweet Christ. The pigs!!”

Every time I leave the safety of New York City I fully expect this to be the last sentence I hear as I am devoured by angry livestock. – Grady Hendrix, author of The Final Girl Support Group out July 2021 from Titan Books

The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum

Scariest sentence: “I’m not going to tell you about this. I refuse to.”

That’s half of chapter 42 from Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door. And The Girl Next Door is a novel that, just as Joe R. Lansdale says at the head of his story “The Night They Missed the Horror Show,” doesn’t flinch. So, if the narrator is looking back to having seen something that even he can’t put on the page, then . . . how bad must it be, right? I’ve talked to other readers of this novel and they’ve told me about chapter 42 as if the narrator actually fleshes it all out for us, and they (myself as well) all flinch as if traumatized from having had to read those words. Except they never did read the words of what actually happened. But that’s Jack Ketchum, for you. He doesn’t need to actually say it on the page to get it into our head. Worse, this is a chapter that never leaves you, either. Worse than that, you kind of become complicit just for reading it. – Stephen Graham Jones author of The Only Good Indians, out now.

In the Hills, the Cities by Clive Barker

Scariest sentence: “In Popolac a kind of peace reigned. Instead of a frenzy of panic there was a numbness, a sheep-like acceptance of the world as it was. Locked in their positions, strapped, roped and harnessed to each other in a living system that allowed for no single voice to be louder than any other, nor any back to labour less than its neighbour’s, they let an insane consensus replace the tranquil voice of reason.” 

As a much younger person, reading this story for the first time, I was overtaken by awe at the imagery; not unlike Mick who chooses to hitch a ride on the impossible doomed giant made of city denizens. Re-reading it now decades later, the story and these lines fill me with bone-deep dread. Like the referee/car thief and Mick’s lover Judd, I cannot bear to view the inevitable fall. – Paul Tremblay, author of Survivor Song, out now from Titan Books. 

Home Burial by Robert Frost

Scariest sentences: ”Don’t – don’t go.  Don’t carry it to someone else this time. Tell me about it if it’s something human.”

The line here that I consider scary is ‘Tell me about it if it’s something human.’ Because of the implication that people may carry within them things that are not human. In this case, I imagine the ‘it’ that may not be human to be something so deeply felt and instinctive that it is pre-language – and so pre-human, almost. Something primordial that requires translation or mediation – and perhaps in that, change or diminishment – in order to be sensible to another sentient being. It is the suggestion that maybe our most fundamental aspects or thoughts – our most important feelings – cannot be properly communicated that is terrifying, to me. It makes me think of each person as a dark pool, with their lived experience and true feelings becoming manifest at the bottom, and the communication of these things to others being only what is visible through the surface of the water, from above.

As much as I do believe that all communication is imperfect, and that it is difficult for people to know each other truly, I take comfort from two things – one is love, which is, I think, a kind of deep, fundamental knowing and acceptance of each other. The other is fiction, which (in my opinion) is often an attempt at translating ideas and feelings that, coming from our deepest places, we don’t otherwise have the language for. – Tom Fletcher, author The Witch Bottle, out 12 November from Jo Fletcher Books.

The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub

Scariest sentence: “You’re the herd now, Jacky.” 

I read King & Straub’s The Talisman when I was 15, at a time in my life when I’d said goodbye to one bunch of friends and hello to another, and the friendship between Jack Sawyer and his werewolf friend Wolf resonated strongly with me. In Wolf’s culture werewolves are farmers and fiercely protective of their herds who they protect by locking themselves away every month. The problem is that Jack and Wolf are on the run and Wolf’s change is coming upon him, and there’s nowhere to shut Wolf away. So when Wolf turns to Jack with blazing eyes and says this, it’s simultaneously a promise of protection (‘I will die for you’) but also a warning (‘I will tear you to pieces’). The chill with which Jack realises that his best friend loves him but will probably kill him anyway has stayed with me ever since. – James Brogden, author of Bone Harvest, out now from Titan Books

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Movies

I Am Legend: Why Can’t Matheson’s Masterpiece be Done Justice on Film?

By Dan Hajducky

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

Scariest sentence: “The watch had stopped”

I think a lot of us can relate to the feeling of getting caught up in our work and letting the hours pass us by without much thought. In the case of Robert Neville, the central figure in Richard Matheson’s seminal I Am Legend, getting lost in the hours is the most horrific thing he could possibly do. The simple four-word-sentence that has scared me more than any other in all my days of reading is “The watch had stopped.” If you’ve read the story, I’m sure you remember how those words burned into you. – Rachel Autumn Deering, editor of Hex Life, out in paperback from Titan Books on November 10 2020

One for the Road by Stephen King

Scariest sentence: “And I think she’s still waiting for her good-night kiss.”

I’m not easily scared, but occasionally I get a real chill up my spine. Shirley Jackson did that with the last line of The Haunting of Hill House. But if we’re talking about one line that lingers, that still makes me remember the way it felt the very first time I read it, I have to go with the last line in Stephen King’s short story “One for the Road,” from his collection Night Shift. It’s a vampire story, a sequel to ’Salem’s Lot, about a family whose car is trapped in a blizzard on the outskirts of a town plagued by vampires. That last line is “And I think she’s still waiting for her good-night kiss.” There, I just felt it again. That shiver. All these years later, it still works on me. – Christopher Golden, editor of Hex Life, out in paperback from Titan Books on November 10 2020

The New Mother by Lucy Clifford

Scariest sentence: “Now and then, when the darkness has fallen and the night is still, hand in hand Blue-Eyes and the Turkey creep up near to the home in which they once were so happy, and with beating hearts they watch and listen; sometimes a blinding flash comes through the window, and they know it is the light from the new mother’s glass eyes, or they hear a strange muffled noise, and they know it is the sound of her wooden tail as she drags it along the floor.”

The scariest sentence ever is from The New Mother by Lucy Clifford. The strange tone of the writing, the situation in the story and the fact that the new mother is not in any way human… – David Quantick, author of Night Train, out now from Titan Books 

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson 

Scariest sentence: “God God! Whose hand was I holding?” 

This scene perfectly conjures the feeling of being afraid in the night. Distance, time, sound – all the natural laws of the daylight world grow slippery and loosen. It’s a unique sensation – no other fear has the visceral, unhinged quality of cold terror in the dark. Shirley Jackson puts all of this on the page – she takes Eleanor and the reader into that same heightened, accelerated state, she makes our hearts race, she makes us feel alone, disoriented, lost in the night with only a friend’s hand to cling to. And then she saves us – the lights come on, our heart rate slows, and the rational world seems to settle into its proper channel again. And at last Eleanor sees: the friend whose comforting hand she held in the dark has been on the other side of the room all along. – Catriona Ward is the author of The Last House on Needless Street out 18th March 2021 from Viper Books 

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TV

The Haunting Of Hill House: How the Extraordinary Episode 6 was Made

By Louisa Mellor

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Scariest sentence: “God god – whose hand was I holding?”

It’s from a scene about two-thirds of the way through the novel. Eleanor and Theodora go to sleep in their adjacent beds in one of the many bedrooms in Hill House. They sleep with the lights on because of previous frightening incidents. But Eleanor wakes in the night to find the room plunged in darkness, and hears an eerie voice muttering from the next room. The darkness and the frightening sounds go on endlessly, and Eleanor is filled with a mounting sense of dread. She reaches out blindly for Theodora’s hand and holds on tight.

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But when the lights finally come back on, Theodora is several feet away, sitting up in her own bed, too far away for Eleanor to have touched her. So the hand she was holding belonged to someone or something else. It’s a brilliantly oblique bit of horror – the realisation that the monster was right alongside you, inside your guard – and every adaptation of the novel references it in some form or other. But I don’t think you can beat Jackson’s chilling, deadpan prose. – Mike Carey author of The Trials of Koli, out now from Orbit Books

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Books

Who Was The Haunting of Hill House Author Shirley Jackson?

By Don Kaye

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson 

Scariest sentence: “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.” 

I’ll be surprised if no one else has picked these sentences, although maybe not, because I’m blatantly cheating for choosing the entire first paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House. It is a classic of looming dread, and it’s probably generated more commentary and criticism than any other first paragraph in a horror novel. I love it. – Ellen Datlow, editor of the Best Horror of the Year annual series.

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

Scariest sentence: “It was so dark it was like nothing was there in the room but us. Only the nothing was actually something because it filled my eyes and lungs and it sat on my shoulders.”

Paul Tremblay perfectly captures our universal fear of the dark in these two lines from A Head Full of Ghosts. That made the flesh on my skull crawl when I read it. The wording is simple but so effective: in one, two, three increasingly creepy instances Paul transforms what’s simply darkness into the tangible, the intimately dangerous… as darkness tends to do. – Thomas Olde Heuvalt, author Hex and Echo, forthcoming from Nightfire in 2021

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs

Scariest sentence: The Black Meat is like a tainted cheese, overpoweringly delicious and nauseating so that the eaters eat and vomit and eat again until they fall exhausted.

I read Naked Lunch in high school and it was a mind-destroyer. Thankfully, it is also a mind rebuilder. You can turn to any page and find sentences that bewildered, disoriented, horrified, and excited me. So that’s exactly what I just did: I opened the book randomly to page 55 and found one. Disgusting, delightful decadence! – Daniel Kraus, coauthor with George A. Romero of The Living Dead, out now from Tor Books.

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe

Scariest sentence: “And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.“

It’s ‘illimitable’ that does it for me, though the capitalisations and the against-the-advice-of-grammarians superfluous first and second usages of ‘and’ add quite a bit.  That first ‘And’ – the one your teacher told you not to start a sentence with – is a pointed touch and does a lot of work, indicating that all the bad stuff in the rest of the sentence is a consequence of what’s gone before in the story … which, this season, seems like the most pointed tale of mystery and imagination ever written. – Kim Newman author Anno Dracula 1999 Daikaiju out now from Titan Books.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Scariest sentence: “In the unending, crashing second before the car hurled into the tree she thought clearly, Why am I doing this?  Why am I doing this?  Why don’t they stop me?” 

Discussions of the prose of Shirley Jackson’s monumental The Haunting of Hill House tend to focus on its famous opening paragraph.  Certainly the beginnings of both the novel’s first and second chapters offer a wealth of riches for scholarly consideration, rhetorical analysis.  Yet it’s this long sentence from the novel’s second-to-last paragraph that comes to mind if I’m asked to name the most frightening line in the book.  Indeed, it seems to me one of the most frightening sentences of any novel or story I’ve read.  Obviously, there are lines whose immediate impact is greater, which have a more substantial visceral effect (Clive Barker’s fiction is rife with these).  But I’m not sure any echo in quite the same way.  At this moment in Jackson’s narrative, Eleanor Vance is being made to leave Hill House, the dwelling with whose structure her personality has become entangled and confused.  Seemingly unwilling to be separated from the place, she steers her car straight toward an enormous tree at a curve in the driveway and steps on the gas.  “I am really doing it,” she thinks, “I am doing this all by myself, now, at last.”  This would be an awful enough end for Jackson’s protagonist, but with the sentence that follows and finishes the paragraph, she gives the screw a final, diabolical turn.  Eleanor experiences a moment of clarity, which tells us that her thoughts of just a line before were not clear.  She is not accelerating toward the tree of her own volition—or, not only of her own volition.  Something else is at play here, some other factor.  Is it the “whatever” Jackson has described walking in Hill House, the unspecified, (possibly) supernatural force (which might be any one of a number of ghosts, or an aggregate of those ghosts, or the house itself, brought to occult life by the peculiarities of its design)?  Or is it some submerged part of Eleanor—guilt at her role in her mother’s death, or anger at her expulsion from the group brought to Hill House to study it?  She doesn’t know, and she is trapped in her unknowing, as the final instant of her life stretches on and on, “unending.”  Her ultimate motivation obscure to her, all she can do is wonder why no one is stopping her.  With hideous irony, the power, the control Eleanor was celebrating a moment prior turns on her, her freedom becoming the freedom of death.  The line passes as quickly as the crash it describes, and in its speed, it’s easy to miss everything going on it.  To say it’s another example of Jackson’s skill as a writer feels somehow inadequate, as it doesn’t get at the way the sentence braids claustrophobia, terror, and confusion.  It’s the kind of writing that haunts you in quiet moments, long after flashier, louder lines have faded into silence.  It’s the kind of writing that reminds you of the horror story’s particular power, its reach and its resonance. – John Langan, author of The Fisherman, out now.

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

Scariest sentence: “Sometimes dead is better.”

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Nobody says this line better than that guy in the first Pet Sematary movie who used to play Herman Munster. Although John Lithgow did his best. King struck on an age-old wisdom when he showed us the folly of trying to bring people back once they’re gone. Just as WW. Jacobs did in The Monkey’s Paw and Shelley demonstrated (albeit piecemeal) in Frankenstein. You’ve got to be careful what you wish for. Sometimes, dead really is better, and far less likely to come back and stab you to death with a scalpel. C.S. O’Cinneide is the author of Petra’s Ghost, out now from Titan Books.

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

Scariest sentence: “Darling,” it said

This line has to be read in the context of an entire, brilliant novel that went before. It’s really not something I want to give away, because of spoilers, but if you’ve read this one, even hearing the final line again should send a shiver through you. The writer was at the top of his game – and that’s saying something – and it remains his most terrifying novel.  Here’s the line: “Darling,” it said. – Tim Lebbon, author of Eden, out now from Titan Books 

The post “God God – Whose Hand Was I Holding?”: the Scariest Sentences Ever Written, Selected by Top Horror Authors appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/31T5a7G

[evita-shelby]

I know Tommy doesn't meet Jack until s6, but this came out so perfect

---

They go out to town, to some investors party representing her company and his investment firm. Dressed to kill and walking in here like the sun orbited around them.

None of these English twats could hold a candle to them.

It is then that they come face to face with Grace and the gangster Grace always compared him too.

“Dear me, does your husband know you’re back to your old habits, Mrs. Macmillan?” Eva wastes no time in embarrassing the married woman on the arm of a man who was not boring old Clive.

“You sounded taller in her stories of you, Mr. Shelby.” Jack looks down on the gypsy on the arm of the blonde who’d spent a year trying to snap up any blue blood that came near her.

He had known her type the moment he saw her, bored rich girl who only wants a man once he’s got enough cash to afford her.

Thomas Shelby had taken longer than Jack to get where he was, but Tommy didn’t have the benefit of a man willing to teach him his tricks like a father would. But now that Shelby Brothers Limited was rising to the level of wealth Grace thinks she deserves, Tommy Shelby was being romanced in that cool way of hers.

The kind that makes you believe you are doing everything, and she is naturally coming to love you. Just like she did with Clive and this fool with her.

“Thomas, these are Mr. and Mrs. Jack Nelson. Friends of mine from New York.” She says pretending she’s not prey caught in the quarry.

“Friends of her husband.” He corrects letting him know how little they cared for the blonde who’s smiles tightly with eyes betraying the embarrassment she feels. “My wife and I were relieved when she handed in her resignation. She was my secretary at my Wall Street Office before my Evie caught on to her tricks, did she tell you that?”

If Eva’s game, they could destroy this relationship to make this boring party worth getting dressed for.

“Never heard of you, I admit, Mr. Nelson.” The shorter man admitted. He kept a cool head; one he’d gained from surviving France and everything that made people like them rise out from the muck they were born in.

Grace was a trophy, a ticket to the society that hates them, just like Eva had been. The only difference is that Jack can trust and love Eva to her bones and Tommy only loves the surface he sees because he thinks he can ignore the smell of the rot underneath the shiny surface as long as he does.

He knows all that because deep, he and this miserable fool are the same. Jack just learned to embrace the dark while Shelby still holds on tightly to the tiny specks of light.

[the-gedonelune-times]

Miracle

It’s been a little while since I’ve uploaded a story and yes, I’m back at it again with some more OC intro content. This will be the first of a couple stories I’ll be trying to post today. This story in particular will be featuring a different kind of intro, starring MC as the one to come into contact and unlock a very special secret about the new OC Lily!

Ugh, where am I? Why does my head hurt and my body feel so heavy? I’ve been sleeping for so long, are my dreams finally over? Will I be awake soon?

A pair of eyes fluttered open, taking in the scenery around them. Lying in a small bed of flowers was a figure who had just woke up after years of being in a dream-like stasis. They were still unable to move, but a smile formed on their lips as they looked at the sky.

“How beautiful…” They murmured. “Oh, how I wish I could touch it with my own two hands.”

The figure smiled before closing their eyes; a gentle breeze passing by as they found themselves staring off into the sky above them, their exhaustion slowly diminishing as the minutes passed by.

----------------------

“Luca, I told you once and I’ll tell you again. If you’re not going to help us, then get out!”

“Oh come on, it was nothing that bad!”

“You literally just pulled an invisible ink prank on Zeus and now he’s stomping around in the halls like some crazed lunatic because he thinks his face is still the shade of a blueberry.” Joel commented.

“Oh yeah/” Luca laughed. “His reaction was priceless.”

“This is going to spell trouble for the Night Class.” Liz sighed while setting her planner aside.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Gray and Clive have told me that when Zeus gets upset, then the classes he teaches ends up being a total nightmare for them.”

“Nice job Luca.” Elias scoffed.

“Why thank you, Prince Elias. Your compliment has made my heart flutter.”

“That wasn’t a compliment, you idiot!”

“That’s enough!”

With a shout and a slam of her planner against the desk that she was working at, Liz glared at the two of them, silencing them both almost immediately.

“Good. Now aside from that, have there been any more reports on the recent incidents?”

“You mean regarding the new magical creature? No, not a thing.”

“I overheard Schuyler mention something interesting yesterday while I was taking Seth on a walk around the Academy.” Yukiya spoke up.

“Huh? You didn’t think to tell us sooner? Do tell!” Luca sat down and smiled coyly.

“I’m not sure who he was talking to, but he said there’s been an influx of magical energy from the Northern Forest where the Winged Rabbits are. He’s not sure if this poses a threat to us yet but that he’d been keeping an eye on it.”

“I hope it doesn’t turn out to be anything serious.” 

“Nor do I. I’d like to have one normal day of class, thank you very much.” Elias huffed.

“When has anything been normal around here though?” Liz smiled.

“She’s right, you know.” 

Elias just sighed and took a sip of his tea from the teacup near his seat. “Honestly though, I wonder if this influx of magic that Yukiya just brought up, has anything to do with the magical creature everyone is talking about.”

Joel closed the book he had been reading and spoke up. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

“That actually might be possible. We still don’t know what kind of powers it has. That being said, we at least know that the creature itself doesn’t pose a threat to us.” Liz added.

“That’s true.”

A silence had crept in and took over the conversation, leaving them to all sit there in silence. Only the sound of the door opening after a few minutes, brought the room back to life.

“Wow, did we miss something?” 

“Alfonse?”

“The whole atmosphere seems off.”

Another voice entered and there in the doorway stood Alfonse and Caesar, each of them carrying a rather large box which they sat down in one of the corners of the room.

“I wouldn’t call it tense.” Elias replied. “Rather, we’re just doing some thinking.”

“Well, usually when things get quiet, it means that something might have happened, so I thought I’d ask.” Alfonse smiled while taking a seat. “So what is it that you’re all thinking about?”

“I’d like to know that as well.” Caesar spoke up while leaning against the wall.

“Yukiya overheard Schuyler talking and I guess there’s a pretty big influx of magic coming from the Northern Forest.”

“Seriously? Isn’t that where the Winged Rabbits reside?”

“Are they okay?”

“Yes, it seems like the magic isn’t giving off negative effects.”

“Strange. Do you know why it’s happening?” Alfonse asked curiously.

“Elias brought up the possibility of it being linked to the magical creature that everyone has been wanting to catch.” Liz answered.

Caesar nodded his head as he listened. “I can see that.”

“Well, as long as it’s not causing harm to the forest or the Academy, then I really don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

A few seconds after Alfonse spoke, a magic note came floating down in Liz’s hands. With a surprised look she opened it up and began reading the contents.

“Oh dear…”

“What is it?” Elias asked while walking over to peer at the note in her hands.

“It’s from Schuyler and it looks like he’s requesting that we go and investigate the Northern Forest and the surrounding area.”

“Talk about bad timing.” Luca chuckled.

Alfonse laughed. “Seriously!”

“Well, I guess this means we’re all going to have to go and investigate.”

“Hopefully it’ll just be us. I’d like to avoid having a headache if Zeus were to join. He’d most likely complain the whole time.”

“Why do I have to work with a bunch of dumb Day Classers?”

Luca mimicked Zeus and the room erupted in laughter. Once everyone had caught their breaths, they disbanded and started the investigation. Yukiya and Liz were put on a team that was decided at random before they left the room. However, Yukiya had to leave and go help calm Elias down from getting into a ‘fight’ with Luca.

Now it was just Liz as she treaded deeper into the forest. A small breeze blew past and rustled the leaves on the branches while the smell of sweet blooming flowers filled the air. All while small particles of light seemed to rain down from the tree-tops. The Northern Forest truly seemed like something out of a fairytale. As Liz continued her stroll, she saw something up ahead that caught her eye, and right away she knew something was up. A strong magical aura was surrounding whatever, or whoever, it was that was sitting on the ground.

Timidly, she inched closer until she could make out the figure more clearly, soon realizing that the figure was actually a...human? No...it couldn’t be. There, sitting in a small patch of flowers was a pale-skinned girl. She had flowy platinum-blonde hair the danced in the breeze and atop her head were a pair of small white almost glass looking horns. Behind her, a small white tail swished back and forth gently against the grass while a pair of wings, that glittered like fresh snow in the sunlight moved ever so slightly in the wind.

“No way..”

Realizing that the words had fallen out before she could even process it, Liz quickly covered her mouth with her hands and ducked behind the tree closest to her. She desperately hoped the being hadn’t seen her, but she knew that just couldn’t be the case.

“You can come out...I won’t hurt you.” 

A small timid almost sing-song voice called out and although Liz couldn’t see the expression on the person’s face, she thought they were smiling. With a deep breath, Liz moved away from her hiding spot and looked at the figure in front of her.

“You can come closer you know.” The young woman tilted her head to the side and smiled. “I promise I won’t bite.”

As Liz inched closer she noticed that woman had a small sleeping Winged Rabbit in her arms, stroking it’s fur ever so gently in an effort to not wake it.

“Who...are you? What are you doing here?” Liz asked.

“Hehe, I’m sorry, but unfortunately I can answer only one of those questions.” The woman smiled. “My name is Lily, it’s a pleasure to meet your acquaintance. I’m afraid I don’t know why I’m here. My memory is a little fuzzy and I can only remember vague pieces of the time before this. Ah, may I ask your name?”

“Oh, yes, my name is Liz Hart.”

“Hello, Liz. What a lovely name. Hm?” Lily’s eyes, which looked like someone had poured the Northern Lights into, were locked on the Academy emblem that rested neatly on her uniform. “What is that emblem for?”

“Huh?” Liz looked down at her emblem. “Oh, this means I’m an official student at Gedonelune Royal Magic Academy.”

“Gedone...lune?”

“Yes. Have you never heard of it?”

“No. I don’t believe I have.”

“I see.”

It didn’t seem like she posed any threat, but even so, Liz knew barely anything about her and it seemed like Lily herself didn’t either. This was becoming a predicament. 

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yes, you may.”

“Are you…” Liz paused, trying to figure out the words she wanted to say.

“Am I what?” Lily smiled.

“Are you a Dragonkin by any chance?”

“Hmmm..” Lily nodded softly. “That I am. I remember that much and yet…”

Her eyes seemed to hold sadness as she looked to the side.

“Is everything alright?” Liz walked over and knelt near the flowers.

“Oh, yes.” Lily shook the sadness away and smiled sweetly. “I just find it hard to find the memories I really want.It’s sort of like looking through thick fog to find a small object.”

“I see. Lily?”

“Yes?”

“Would it be alright if you came back to--”

“Liz?”

The sound Alfonse’s voice was accompanied by the sound of footsteps from multiple people as they headed in her direction.

“Over here Alfonse!”

Liz called out, smiling as the others came over to her side.

“Did you find anything?”

“Well I-” Liz looked over at the small flower patch, only to find that Lily was no longer there. In fact, there were no traces to prove that she had actually been there in the first place.

“Liz?”

“Sorry. No, I didn’t find anything out. Maybe we should try looking again tomorrow? It’ll be getting late soon.”

She wished she didn’t have to lie, but considering the information she had gathered, this seemed like something she couldn’t tell the others, at least not yet. Despite that, she revealed the truth to a certain other Dragonkin a few days later.

“Willem, what do you make of this?”

“Well…” Willem placed his teacup on the coffee table. “It seems hard to believe. Are you sure you saw another Dragonkin?”

“There’s no mistaking it, she had horns, tail and even a set of wings. Plus she even admitted to it. Though...I do wonder..”

“What is it?”

“Why would she disclose such information to me?”

“You said she suffered from memory loss, correct?” Willem sighed and looked down, almost sadly. “Perhaps she has forgotten of our past.”

A small gasp left Liz’s lips as she too placed her teacup down. 

“You mean...she might not remember the war? Or anything?!”

“Yes. Or her death.”

“Death? W-Wait, you mean she might not have been sealed away like Felix or Lacan was?”

“No, those two were the only ones sealed away. I was held as a prisoner and the others were slaughtered.”

“But then how…”

“Do you remember what I told you? When a Dragonkin dies, they become flowers. Our death is symbolized by flowers, but, it can also mean our rebirth. If this girl, Lily, truly is a Dragonkin, then she is the first of our kind to be reborn from a flower.”

Liz looked over at Willem, the two of them knowing full well on what they had to do.

[xmxisxforxmaybe]

Melbourne, An Interlude (Part II)

Summary: Here’s Part I and its more detailed summary; also, Part II turned out a little fluffier/more realistic than I had anticipated--hope you enjoy, though!

 Permanent Taglist: @rami-malek-trash  @sherlollydramoine

 Warnings: language including a slur in accordance with the time, terrible translations of French straight from the Google, lots of sex stuff so no under 18s

 THANK YOU TO THE WONDERFUL @alottanothing FOR CREATING THIS GORGEOUS MOODBOARD. I SWOON.

“I swear on all things holy he thought women orgasmed through their nipples. He kept rubbing them with his thumbs, muttering, ‘Come on baby, come on baby, let go, let go,’” Kathryn said through her laughter, her tongue loose and her tone happy as she finished her fourth beer.

 Last night, Kathryn had written down the location of a small bar next to the shipyard. I wasn’t sure what time to meet her, so I showed up lata in the day afta drills and kept my drinkin’ light. I was actually talkin’ to a pretty, real nice girl when Kathryn came in, dressed in stained coveralls. She had rolled the top half of the coveralls down and was wearin’ a man’s white t-shirt underneath. Her hair was piled up on her head, a bandanna tied round her hairline, a few stray pieces curlin’ out round the edges. There were some dirt smudges on her forehead and a few of the same on her hands and arms.

 She looked even betta than she had last night.

 I sorta expected her to be cross with me for talkin’ to the otha girl, but she sat down next to me, ordered a beer, and said hello to both of us. The otha girl just sort of faded inta the background once Kathryn and I got to talkin’.

 Afta a few beers, our tongues were loose enough to turn to a conversation dat had us laughin’ and drawin’ enough attention dat we moved to a table in the corna.

 It had neva really occurred to me dat women had bad experiences in bed, but the more we talked, the betta I felt about what I did. Men talked about women all the damn time, but every man’s story ended in the girl havin’ the time of her life, moanin’ and cryin’ she’ll neva be the same without his cock, and with her happy to be walkin’ crooked for a week.

 “Alright, Mer. Your turn again.”

 “Hmm. I already told ya ‘bout the sisters, but they were both Venuses next to the girl I went home with last week. She was a real looka and my buddies were sure she’d neva say yes. But she did. Things went pretty fast when we got back ta her place and she kinda had this way of kissin’ dat was almost more of a nibblin’ like if ya eatin’ a ear of corn. I thought it was a little strange, but everythin’ felt alright and like I said, she was a real looka. She undid my pants and was on her knees and just the sight had me . . . well, real ready. And just as I was expectin’ her mouth on me, I felt those same little bites, those kissin’ nibbles, and then I heard it. She was mumblin’ ‘nyum, nyum, nyum, nyum’ like she was havin’ a snack. I looked down at her and she looked like she was havin’ the time of her life, just up and down my dick, nyum-nyumin’.”

 Kathryn was laughin’ so hard she actually snorted, tears leakin’ outta the cornas of her eyes. I started laughin’ at her reaction and because it was a damn funny experience now dat I said it out loud.

 Our laughta died down, and Kathryn leaned across the table. I thought she was gonna tell me anotha story, but she asked, “When was the last time you had a proper, homecooked meal?”

 I was a little taken aback and thought for a moment, not really recallin’ when.

 “I can’t say I rememba.”

 “Thought so. Let’s go. I need a bath, and you need a good meal,” Kathryn said leavin’ money on the table, except this time I shoved it back at her replacin’ it with mine.

 She smiled and shook her head.

 “You’re damn stubborn, Merriell Shelton.”

 “Dat’s one of the nicer things I been called,” I replied, listenin’ to her giggle.

 “Come on—I’m taking you home,” Kathryn said as she took my hand in her’s.

 * * * * *

 I had guessed right bout Kathryn bein’ from money because her house was the biggest one I eva seen. As we were walkin’ up a stone drive, she pointed to anotha big house.

 “That’s the guest cottage. If I bring back company, that’s where we go. I’ve never actually brought a soldier home to the main house,” she said, sneakin’ a glance at me.

 “I swear I’m on my best behavior, ma’am,” I assured her, smilin’.

 She seemed a little nervous, and I couldn’t blame her. Who was I to Kathryn or to her granparents? I was just a poor, dumb kid from Cajun country, not really good for much otha than laborin’ and now, fightin’ Japs.  

 We walked all the way round to the side of the place, makin’ our way through the kitchen. Kathryn waved to the two women who were real busy, clearly makin’ dinna.

 “Amanda, we’re having a guest,” Kathryn called as she led me up a set of stairs.

 We wound our way through a few hallways until Kathryn finally turned the handle on a door dat led into what I assumed was her bedroom, except it was bigga than the house I grew up in. I knew no matta what I couldn’t hide my surprise as I looked round, mouth hangin’ open a little.

 “I’m going to jump in the bath. Make yourself comfortable. Once I’m decent, we’ll go down and I’ll introduce you to gran and granddad,” Kathryn said as she plucked a dress outta her closet and gathered up some stuff before she disappeared through anotha door. I heard the bath turn on and I went right to imagin’ what she looked like in there, takin’ off those coveralls, slidin’ inta the warm wata and scrubbin’ away the day’s labor.

 “Fuck,” I said unda my breath, shakin’ my head to get my thoughts more wholesome.

 I looked round the room and noticed a door leadin’ out to a balcony. The view was enough to distract me, and I took out a smoke as I looked ‘cross the sprawlin’ lawn. As I inhaled, I coughed a little, realizin’ dat I hadn’t been smokin’ much since I’d been here. I huffed, hardly able to believe how soft I was gettin.’ To prove to myself I wasn’t, I chain smoked on the balcony til my lungs ached.

 Kathryn appeared next to me and reached ova for my cigarette. She took a shallow puff, holding the smoke in her lungs for just a bit.

 “I also hate smoking,” she said as she handed the cigarette back, a tiny pink smudge left on the end from her lipstick. “Something like that can’t be good for you.”

 I placed my lips ova the mark left by her’s and pulled a deep draw inta my lungs, aimin’ the smoke away from her face when I exhaled. Her hair was wet but it was pinned up in a buncha little swirls. Her hair up really suited her but so far, I hadn’t seen anythin’ dat didn’t make her more appealin’. She was wearin’ a light pink dress dat showed off a bit of her chest and I couldn’t help the downward flick of my eyes. This dress didn’t cling to her quite like the one from last night, though.

 Now dat I could see her in the daylight, the sun just startin’ its evenin’ path, I could see the purple marks unda her eyes. The work she was doin’ was tough, meant for a man, but the stories about women takin’ ova and makin’ sure the world still turned ‘round was intriguin.’ I’d neva really considered dat a woman would want anythin’ otha than a good man to fatten her up with babies, give her a decent house and food on the table, but women did seem a hell of a lot more chippa and bolda than before the war. It couldn’t all just be a front put on for us boys.

 “You said you were lookin’ for somethin’ last night,” I said, pullin’ her outta her own thoughts.

 Kathryn looked at me, a little smile playin’ on her lips, maybe because I’d just passed anotha one of those tests of her’s.

 “Right now, I’m looking for dinner,” she said as her face brightened inta a real smile and she motioned for me to follow her.

 We went back the way we came, and even though the kitchen was empty now, it smelled like heaven, my mouth waterin’ as we walked out and inta what I guess you’d call a sittin’ room.

 Two nice-lookin’ people were settled in matchin’ chairs and I assumed they were Kathryn’s granparents.

 The woman, olda but still damn pretty, looked up from her knittin’. Kathryn looked a lot like her, even sharin’ the same dark blue eyes.

 “Gran, Granddad. This is Merriell Shelton,” Kathryn said, nudgin’ me forward.

 “Mr. and Mrs. Taylah,” I said with a nod to each. “It’s a pleasure to be invited inta ya lovely home.”

 Mr. Taylah put aside his newspapa and stood, reachin’ to shake my hand.

 “Call me Clive, Mr. Shelton. It’s an honor to have you in our home.”

 Kathryn’s granddad looked young enough to almost be her daddy; it was a little strikin’. He was real tan and had a real firm grip with calloused fingas, just like his granddaughta.

 “And I’m Carolyn,” Mrs. Taylah said from her chair, extendin’ her hand. I took it, placin’ a kiss to the back of it.

 Mrs. Taylah smiled and said, “We’ve been after Kathryn to bring a good boy home to stay with us for weeks. I see she chose well, but I’m wondering about your accent. Where in the States are you from, Mr. Shelton?”

 Like granmama, like granddaughta, I thought to myself as I fixed a grin for Mrs. Taylah and said, “New Orleans, Louisiana, ma’am.”

 “Parlez-vous français?”

 “Seulement pour les belles dames, madam."

 Carolyn giggled, her smile makin’ her look younga and even more like her granddaughta.

 “Charmant, très charmant, Monsieur Shelton.”

 “Merci, madam.”

 “Well, Granddad. Looks like we’re chopped liver now,” Kathryn said, slidin’ her arm around Mr. Taylah’s waist. “I’m starving.”

 Mr. Taylah bent to kiss the top of his granddaughta’s head and replied, “What else is new?”

 I offered my arm to Mrs. Taylah and followed Kathryn and her granddad inta the dinin’ room. Mr. Taylah sat at the head of the table and Mrs. Taylah insisted I take the seat next to her.

 “Je veux m'assurer que vous aurez assez à manger,” she said, squeezin’ my forearm.

 “Je ne manquerai pas de vous dcevoir,” I said, aimin’ anotha grin at Mrs. Taylah.

 “Honestly, Gran. You’re shameless,” Kathryn said, her eyes sparklin’ with her teasin’.

 “Well, my little heathen, you’re the one who refused to learn French. I thought I’d die before I got to converse again.”

 “Gran. You and Granddad were just in Paris four summers ago.”

 “And she was as pretentious then as she is now,” Mr. Taylah said, his eyes sparklin’ with the same mirth as his granddaughta’s.

 Dinna passed in the same easy way as my first conversation with Kathryn. By the time Kathryn brought out a small, fresh cake with homemade icin’, I was damn near full to burstin’ and also callin’ Clive and Carolyn by their first names. They were just like their granddaughta, not botherin’ with talk of the war but focusin’ on all the things to do and see in Melbourne, talkin’ about their son and his wife in the States, askin’ if I was familiar with this or dat American custom.

 After dinna, we all went out on the back porch and it reminded me a lot of home. We drank what Kathryn called mint juleps sweetened with honey as we listened to the wata in the distance and the cicadas callin’ as the sun went down, the air just as hot and stiff as it is in Louisiana durin’ August.  

 I enjoyed the company of Kathryn and her family so much it felt like my insides had turned to jelly, my whole body relaxin’ for the first time since before I headed to trainin’. Hell, maybe since before I could even last rememba. It wasn’t like life was easy in New Orleans or like I had the prospect of anythin’ more than laborin’, enjoyin’ some drinkin’ and poker, and gettin’ up to do the same thing again day afta day.

 I was so lost in my thoughts I hadn’t realized Carolyn had asked me a question.

 “I’m sorry, ma’am, what was ya askin’ me?”

 “I wondered if you found us to be suitable enough for you to stay?”

 “Ma’am?” I asked, dumbfounded.

 “Gran wants to know if you’ll stay here with us for the rest of your leave,” Kathryn explained, smilin’ warmly.

 Men had slowly begun to disappear from their cots as Australian families sorta adopted them, but I neva imagined any family would want to take me on, let alone a family like Kathryn’s. I was speechless and kept my eyes trained on the ocean in the distance.

 Clive spoke up, the smoke from his pipe fillin’ the air with the sweet scent of fresh tobacco.

 “It would be nice to not be the only man holding this place together, Merriell.”

 “I—I don’t know what ta say,” I stuttered out.

 “Say, yes and thank you,” Kathryn said, reachin’ out to squeeze my hand, givin’ me one of those grins dat warmed my insides near boilin’.

 “Considerin’ dat Kathryn is always right, my answa is yes and thank you,” I said, lowerin’ my eyes again, afraid I might get emotional if I were to look either of the senior Taylahs in the face.

 Clive and Carolyn both laughed, Clive sayin’, “Hell, son. You’re already smarter than I was at your age. It took me too long to learn to just say, yes, luv, then go about my own business.”

 Carolyn retorted, “I’ve added years of joy to your life. Now, hush.”

 Kathryn looked at her granparents with such lovin’ eyes. It was clear they were still in love afta all their years togetha.

 Clive stood and held his hand out to Carolyn.

 “Let’s have Eva air out a guest room. Say goodnight to your French-speaking sweetie, Lynnie.”

 "Bonne nuit et bienvenue chez nous, gentil jeune homme," Carolyn said as she held out both hands to me.

 "Vous m'honorez, madame. Je vous remercie pour votre hospitalité. Fais de beaux rêves," I said, standin’ to give her a hug.

 Clive extended his hand and said, "Goodnight, Merriell. Thank you for entertaining my wife, the consummate flirt."

 “Ya a lucky man, Clive. Beauty runs well-deep in this family,” I said, glancin’ at Kathryn.

 The Taylahs said their goodnights and went in the house, leavin’ us alone with the growin’ dark and the growin’ crescendo of the cicadas.

 “Do you want to take a walk?” Kathryn asked before finishin’ her drink, the condensation slidin’ ova her fingatips.

 “Sure,” I said, swallowin’ the last dregs of my own.

 We walked across the long yard toward the beach and Kathryn linked her arm in mine, just like she did last night.

 “I didn’t mean for them to overwhelm you by asking you to stay with us.”

 “It wasn’t the askin’ dat was ovawhlemin’. It was the kindness behind it.”

 Kathryn led me down a long set of stairs dat opened onta the beach. I thought I’d seen enough sand afta Guadalcanal, but this was different. There were couples dottin’ the beach in the distance and the sun was just startin’ to sink into the wata, lightin’ up the sky in more pinks, purples, and oranges than I could describe.

 Kathryn pushed me to sit on the last step. She sank to her knees and unlaced my boots, her hands workin’ skillfully. She set them to the side where she had kicked off her shoes and pulled my socks off next, stuffin’ them inta my boots.

 “You have cute toes,” she said, smilin’ up at me before she began to roll up my pant legs.

 I just watched her, the sun’s pink light makin’ her skin look like it was glowin’, highlightin’ just how full of life she was. I watched the curves of her cleavage shiftin’ as she moved and I had to close my eyes to refocus, tryin’ to will my cock back inta submission. I didn’t want her to know how easily she affected me.

 “That’s better,” she said, offerin’ her hand to pull me up.

 Afta a deep breath, I said, “Thank you,” and pulled her closa to me.

 She kept her distance, though, her hands on my chest as she looked inta my eyes, understandin’ I was thankin’ her for more than just fixin’ up my pants.

 “You’re welcome, Merriell,” she said softly. “Come on—after all my work, you have to get your feet wet.”

 She took off, joggin’ toward the water’s edge, the foam of the waves ticklin’ my feet as I caught up to her. She was already out to her knees, the hem of her dress darkenin’ as some of the wata rose and crashed against her legs.

 “Chicken!” she called, edgin’ out a little further.

 I grinned and went chasin’ afta her, the cuffs of my pants just as wet as the bottom of her dress.

 I grabbed her up, spinnin’ her round so fast we both nearly lost our balance. She gripped my uppa arms as I rested my hands on her waist, both of us smilin’ at each other.

 “I know beaches have probably lost their luster for you, for all the boys,” Kathryn said, her eyes narrowin’ to reflect her growin’ seriousness. “But I want you to have a memory to wash away just a tiny bit of that horror. I want to kiss you, Merriell.”

 I didn’t even botha with sayin’ a word. Kathryn was just a few inches shorta than me, so I only had to pull her flush against me and tilt my face down to reach her lips. One set of her fingas went straight to the back of my neck, rubbin’ along the short hair there while her otha hand came up to rest on my jaw, her thumb pressin’ inta my chin as she made it clear she was the one controllin’ this kiss.

 I let her, clingin’ to her waist before lowerin’ my hands to her hips, my fingas diggin’ inta the edges of her backside.

 She played with my lips, openin’ and closin’ her’s ova my top lip and then my bottom, pressin’ harder and harder til she reached out with her tongue to trace my lowa lip. I hummed, damn near moanin’ at the contact like a fuckin’ teenaga.

 When my lips parted, she slowly licked into my mouth, touchin’ my tongue before curlin’ hers up to touch the back of my front teeth. She tasted just like the sweet bourbon and mint from our drink, and I couldn’t hold back. I tilted my head and met her tongue, pullin’ hers in to suck on it, pinchin’ it between my teeth.

 She did moan and moved to stand on her toes, which was difficult in the shiftin’ sand. She returned my exploration and we just stood there, locked together, memorizin’ each other’s mouths.

She was right. I would neva’ forget dat moment, the sound of the wata and the feel of the shiftin’ sand, and the taste of her tongue and the press of her hands.

 Neither of us wanted to stop to catch our breath, stealin’ more kisses as we tried to pause long enough to even out our breathin’. Both of her hands were tangled in my hair and I had moved my hands up to her midback to try to press her body furtha into mine. I just couldn’t get close enough.

 I attached my lips to her neck, lettin’ her breathe a little, and I set a determined pace, tryin’ to to find every spot dat made her moan, shiva, or sigh.

 Head to toe, I wanted to consume her.

 She pushed at me so she could look up, lockin’ her eyes onta mine.

 “I want you, Mer. So much I can hardly stand it.”

 I chuckled, my tongue dartin’ out to wet my lips before I kissed her, this time a little sweeta.

 “I was thinkin’ the same thing, cher,” I whispered near her lips.

 She laughed at dat, pullin’ me outta the wata. I had to yank her back once we reached the steps, callin’ for her to rememba our shoes. She released my hand so I could reach down and grab my boots and her little slippa shoes, then we were off again, settin’ a good pace as we jogged across the long yard.

 Kathryn took me up to her room the same way we’d gone the first time, explainin’, “Gran and Granddad’s room is on the other side of the house. They can’t hear a thing if I go up this way. You’ll have to remember that once you’re settled in,” she said givin’ me a wink.

 ­As soon as we were back in her room, she locked the door and I was right there, grabbin’ her hands and puttin’ them above her head to hold her in place. I pushed her against the door and kissed her, my cock growin’ harda with every passin’ second.

 I released her hands, kinda wantin’ to see what she’d do with em, and I cupped both sides of her face, kissin’ her again, before slidin’ my hands inta her hair.

 Kathryn pushed at me, growlin’ in frustration.

 “Give me two minutes in the bathroom to get these damn things out of my hair,” she said, joggin’ toward the door, flickin’ on a dim lamp beside her bed as she passed it.

 I untucked and unbuttoned my shirt, not botherin’ to unroll my pants from the beach. I reached inta my pants’ pocket to make sure my rubber tin was still there, pullin’ it out to set it on her side table. I laid out on her bed, stretchin’, admirin’ the softness of the cova and of the pillows. Kathryn’s room looked like a fine lady’s room—the colors on the wall and around the room different shades of blue and a lotta stuff was accented in gold.

 I was just about to pull out a smoke when Kathryn came outta the bathroom, her long hair down now in messy swirls of waves. Her cheeks were flushed and so was her chest, her lips still swollen from our kissin’ and still glistenin’ with a pink hue like the night I met her. She was fuckin’ breathtakin’.

 Kathryn stopped dead in her tracks when she saw me on the bed, and I sat up, swingin’ my legs ova the side apologizin’, when she cut me off to say, “No. No, don’t move. You just looked . . . you looked so at home. Like you belonged in my bed. Pretty as a picture,” she said smilin’, the lust in her eyes becomin’ unmistakable.

 I laughed a little, questionin’, “Pretty? Now I can assure ya I have neva, eva been called dat.”

 “Then all your other lovers have been fools, Merriell Shelton,” Kathryn said ova her shoulda as she opened her balcony door lettin’ in the breeze from the wata and the sounds of the cicadas.

 When she made her way back to the bed, I was still sittin’ on the edge. She came and stood between my legs, keepin’ eye contact with me. I couldn’t believe this beautiful, kind woman was lookin’ at me like she wanted to open me up and taste me from the inside.

 “Take off ya dress,” I said, figurin’ from her stories she liked a man to be a man in the bedroom. Dat was somethin’ I knew I could do.

 Kathryn stepped back and moved her fingers ova the little buttons on the front of her dress. Once it was loosened, she gathered dat pink fabric in her hands, slowly showin’ me inch after inch of new skin. I’m pretty sure she could hear my heart beat pickin’ up from where she stood.

 Once the dress was bunched up in her fingas at her hips and I could see the dark pink cotton of her undawear, she lifted her dress the rest of the way off, tossin’ it to the side.

 She tousled her hair, then stood, waitin’.

 “Take off ya brassière,” I said, notin’ the little noise she made when I pronounced it in French.

 She reached behind her and undid the hooks while I leaned back onta my hands, my dog tags jinglin’ a little as I moved. I sucked in a breath when she dropped her arms, her gorgeous tits exposed to me just as gooseflesh erupted across her arms and her chest, whether it was from nerves or the cool breeze, I don’t know. Her pert, little nipples hardened and I neva wanted ta pull a nipple inta my mouth more than I did in dat moment, but she wasn’t naked enough yet.  

 “Now ya undawear,” I said, my voice low and barely maintain’ its steadiness.

Kathryn hooked her thumbs inta the sides of her undawear and shucked them right off without much ceremony. My hands damn near twitched with wantin’ to slide right between dat dark patch where her legs met to find out if she was as wet as I was hard.  

 Her body was every bit as sexy as she was.

 “Come here,” I said in a hushed voice.

 She came to me, positionin’ herself right between my legs, pullin’ me toward her so she could whisper inta my hair, “I want you, Merriell Shelton. So fucking much.”

 “I guarantee I want ya more.”

 “You better spend all night proving that,” she said, pullin’ back to give me a look of challenge, her brow arched and her mouth caught up in dat wicked little smirk.

 “With pleasure, Kathryn,” I returned, pullin’ her inta my arms, shiverin’ myself as my chest came into contact with her skin, my hands free to touch every part of her I could reach. At this position, her tits were eye level with me, and I buried my face between em. I couldn’t believe how good she smelled with the scent of the ocean still clingin’ to her.

 “God, you smell so good,” she said, startlin’ me by echoin’ my thoughts as she rubbed her cheek against the top of my hair.

 “What do I smell like?” I pulled back to ask, somethin’ I always wondered but was a little afraid to find out.

 “Earthy . . . . reminds me of when the leaves change during autumn in the States. It’s like in the next breath I expect to smell sandalwood or cedar, but it doesn’t come. It’s just a hint of it, it’s just the smell of . . . you.”

 I smiled up at her before returnin’ my attention to her tits, holdin’ each of them in my hands, already in love with their weightiness in my palms. I started placin’ kisses all around each of them, slowly workin’ my way in and to her nipples.

 Her fingas were diggin’ inta my shoulders by the time I sucked on her right nipple, pullin’ it between my lips, my tongue reachin’ to flick around it inside my mouth. I spent some time teasin’ her on her right before movin’ to her left and repeatin’ my min’strations.

 Kathryn ran her fingers through my hair, tuggin’ it to get me to look up.

 She kept her eyes locked on mine as she pushed my open shirt from my shoulders. She ran her hands ova my arms and across my chest, graspin’ at my muscles before pinchin’ my nipples, hardenin’ em. I moaned at dat, and she set to work, bendin’ to kiss across my chest and pull on my nipples with her teeth before pressing her tongue to em.

 She continued movin’ down, pushin’ me back to lay on the bed, but I didn’t wanta miss a damn thing. I reached ova and pulled one of her pillows out from the cova and put it behind my head—the perfect angle to watch her as she kissed down my stomach, stoppin’ to tease my bellybutton and nip at my hips.

 Kathryn unbuckled my belt and opened my pants, her hand immediately graspin’ my cock.

 “Oh, thank god,” she whispered, glancin’ up at me before addin’, “You’re big.”

 I laughed again, tryin’ to remember when I had eva really enjoyed sex this much before comin’ and I couldn’t think of a single time.

 I lifted my hips to help her finish removin’ my pants and my shorts and she stood back, lookin’ me up and down, probably with a gaze dat echoed my own when I saw her. I shifted, puttin’ my hand behind my head and spreadin’ my legs just a little more so she could see everythin’.

 Kathryn ran her hands up my thighs, workin’ the muscles as they flexed under her touch. She ran her hands back up my stomach and then she reached up and touched my dog tags, askin’, “Would you mind? I just want to—”

 “Forget our circumstances. I undastand,” I said with sincerity as I pulled them off and handed them to her. She laid them gently on her side table.

 She returned her attention to me and ran her finga down my naked chest, dipping it into my bellybutton before circlin’ my cock. By the time she bent to take me in her mouth, I was damn near ready to come. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to think of anythin’ other than how good her warm mouth felt as she sucked, licked, and squeezed the base of my cock with her hand.

 Then, I heard a little noise and the cool gust of her breath as she whispered, “Nyum nyum nyum,” across my dick, and I burst inta laughta so hard dat tears squeezed from the corna of my eyes.

 Kathryn was laughin’ too, gigglin’ as she climbed onta my lap, bitin’ her bottom lip to stifle her laughta.

 I sat up and kissed her, my hand tanglin’ in her hair as she ground against my cock, her slick heat workin’ me inta a real state.

 “Need you,” she breathed in my ear.

 I laid her onta her back before reachin’ up for the side table. Our hands bumped as she was also reachin’ inta her side table drawer.

 Her eyes widened with surprise before she grinned when she noticed my tin. She finished her rummage in her drawer and showed me her own.

 “Usually this is the rest of foreplay—convincing a guy he’s got to suit up if he wants to go the rest of the way.”

 I shrugged my shoulders, “Betta safe than sorry.”

 “Have you been with a girl in the last year and not used one of these?”

 “Not since I left home, nah.”

 “Me either.”

 “Think we’re clean?” I asked.

 “I do,” Kathryn answered.

 “You know, you sound like one of them girls in the movies, temptin’ me to just slide it in without wrappin’ it up.”

 “Is that a quote from the film?” Kathryn asked, laughta in her eyes.

 “Think it might be,” I smiled as I kissed her, liftin’ her thigh to wrap around my hip, her core buckin’ against my cock.

 “Can I ask you something else?”

 “You’re in the position ta ask me anythin’ ya want, boo,” I said, notin’ the seriousness dat crept onta her face.

 “I know this isn’t fair of me, and you’re not obligated to say yes just because you’re going to stay here, I mean you can use the guest house for company, too, sort of like—”

 I cut her off with a grin, all the more turned on by the blush dat colored her cheeks as I figured out what she wanted to ask me.

 “Kathryn, do you wanna be my girl?”

 “Yes,” she breathed, her smile lightin’ up her face.

 “There’s a reason girls don’t do the asking,” she said, still a little embarrassed.

 “Well, I think you’re the kinda girl to do whateva the fuck she wants,” I said, kissin’ her sweet lips before lookin’ inta her eyes again.

 Kathryn reached down to the bed and tossed both of our tins on her side table.

 “Make me yours, Mer,” she said as her hips wiggled unda me.

 I wasted no more time and slid into her wet pussy, my eyes closin’ at the tightness of her, at the heat of her.

 She groaned at the contact, her legs tightenin’ around my waist as she angled to get me in as deep as I could go. I was slow at first, savorin’ the feelin’ of her and also tryin’ not to come.

 We found a rhythm quickly, as if we’d been fuckin’ for years, and it really was like comin’ home to somethin’ ya knew, ya recognized, and dat ya always knew would mean home no matta what else changed.

 I loved watchin’ her face as she closed her eyes at times when the sensation was ovawhlemin’ her. But mostly, she watched me, her eyes travelin’ my face. She seemed determined to memorize what I looked like in this moment.

 Kathryn had reached above her to hold on to the slats of the headboard and I shifted our angle, movin’ up to my knees and pullin’ her hips up to meet me. I could see everythin’ from this viewpoint and I spent a few thrusts watchin’ my cock disappear into her perfect pussy, slick with her arousal.

 I could feel the tightness at the base of my spine and I knew it wouldn’t be long. I reached between her legs to slide my thumb ova her clit and was happy to find it was prominent, swollen with need.

 We kept up our rhythm as I circled and pressed her clit, Kathryn the absolute picture of debauchery as she groaned and panted a sweet little chorus of yeses and don’t stops.

 When she came, I felt it first, her pussy clenchin’ round me like a goddamn vice before it contracted, tremorin’ as I continued to circle her clit, makin’ sure her orgasm was milked out before I let go, moanin’ her name and swearin’, a mix of English and French dat barely made sense to my ears.

 I buried my cock in her as far as I could at the last of my orgasm, my body slicked with sweat as I stretched out my legs but still stayed insida her. I rested on my forearms, not wantin’ to crush her, but still wantin’ to be close to her.  

 I could feel Kathryn’s heart thuddin’ or it could’ve been mine; either way, I pressed a kiss to her chest, notin’ the taste of her sweat, wantin’ to savor it on my tongue. I wanted to be able to rememba every bit of her before I was gone, crouched in anotha hole, waitin’ to see if I’d survive anotha night and anotha—

 “Don’t,” she whispered, liftin’ my chin. “Stay in the moment. Don’t think about that.”

 I smiled at her, mystified.

 “How’d ya know what I was thinkin’?”

 “I could just feel it,” she said, unable to offa any otha explanation.

 “Ya know what’ll fix it?”

 “Hmm,” she said, her fingers lazily runnin’ up and down my spine.

 “Anotha go,” I said, pressin’ my lips to her chest and movin’ down her body.

 I looked up at her wide eyes and her wide grin.

 “Merriell Shelton. I knew you wouldn’t let me down!”

 I found myself softly laughin’ again, thoughts of foxholes, mud, ash, whistlin’ shells, and death slippin’ from my mind as I closed my mouth ova her, lettin’ myself get lost in the taste of her, just like I knew I was about to let myself get lost in this interlude with her, knowin’ I’d rememba it for how eva long my life was destined to be.

      * * * * *

Horrible Google Translated French (imsosorry)

“Parlez-vous français?” = Do you speak French?

“Seulement pour les belles dames, madame. = Only for beautiful ladies, ma’am.

“Charmant, très charmant, Monsieur Shelton.” = Charming, very charming, Mr. Shelton.

“Je veux m'assurer que vous aurez assez à manger.” = I want to make sure you get enough to eat.

“Je ne manquerai pas de vous dcevoir.” = I will not disappoint you.

Bonne nuit et bienvenue chez nous, gentil jeune homme. = Goodnight and welcome to our home, sweet young man.

Vous m'honorez, madame. Je vous remercie pour votre hospitalité. Fais de beaux rêves. = You honor me, ma'am. Thank you for your hospitality. Sweet dreams.

[thecursedvaultchild]

"The truth hurts, doesn't it?"

Summary: Summer Charn and her grandfather, Rodolfo Selwyn, have an interesting chat.

“Angst and fluff prompt: 76. For any character of your choosing. Let the feels commence!” @caustic-curses

Thanks so much for this blessing 💚 I’m using it as an excuse to write some good angst I’ve been sitting on

Deep in the rolling hills of the green English countryside stood a manor. It was old, with ivy slowly carpeting the worn stone. No light shone out of any window into the gray sky, save one. One had the steady flicker of a fire interrupted with bursts of colorful lights.

Inside, two figures occupied the space, holding wands in their hands. The first was an elderly man with a burst of white hair and stern face, clothed in well tailored velvet. The wand in his hand was actually a well polished cane topped with a dark emerald. The second was teenage girl, hair shockingly silver enough to compete with the old man, dressed in an assortment of rock getup and witch attire. Both radiated exhaustion but their eyes glimmered with determination.

The man raised his wand, shooting out a burst of energy at her. She was knocked off her feet and he leered at her.

“Is that the best you’ve got, girl?”

Her only response was a growl as she shoved herself back to her feet and jabbed her wand in his direction.

“Tarantallegra!”

With nimbleness belying his age, he dodged out of its way. “Oh, this is hopeless. How have you maintained a perfect winning streak at Hogwarts? What are they schooling you in, fair play? Taking turns? Mercy?”

He shot at her again and as it hit, she cried out in pain. But it was cut short as her tongue became tied up. Her blue-green eyes burned with fury and that fury channeled through her wand and fired. His body began to tremble and shake and he nearly collapsed to his knees, leaning heavily upon his cane. Just as quickly as it had started, it ended.

The shock slid off his face as it was replaced with satisfaction.

“There you go, girl! You cast a powerful curse nonverbal. Keep at it and no foul wizard will stand a chance against you.”

She was too busy undoing the Tongue-Tying Curse but jutted her chin out. He stroked his chin, green eyes narrowed at her.

“Though… I do wonder where you learned to cast an Unforgivable Curse. Surely not your school that treats you all as invalids unable to take a few scratches. And I certainly never taught you it.”

“It was Rakepick.” Her fist clenched around her wand, knuckles white. The very yew wand the former professor had purchased for her. After breaking her first one. “And I’m going to kill her.”

A single eyebrow rose and for a brief second, she thought her mother was standing before her. But no. It was her grandfather. Whom her mother resembled.

“I know for a fact you can’t cast that curse, girl, otherwise you would’ve tried it out on whatever poor plant you had failed to kill yet.”

“I don’t recall you having much of a green thumb, either, Grandfather.”

“Such a controlled temper, young lady,” his tongue clicks against his teeth, “that serves you well in dueling. Somehow.”

“…teach me.”

“Teach? Teach you what? I’ve already been trying to educate you in the finer points of dueling, you silly girl, though I’m not certain it’s sticking.”

“No, I meant… Please. Teach me the Killing Curse.”

“That’s illegal, you know.”

“When have you been one to respect the law and not dance with it. Besides, wouldn’t you rather I do it under your supervision than experimenting on my own?”

His fingers drum against the top of his cane. “You make a fair point, girl.” Her eyes lit up. “But not now. I require preparation for such a lesson.”

“Are we done here? We’ve been dueling for over an hour.”

“Patience, girl. We are not done. And I know that if I let you leave, you’ll go to your grandmother’s piano and play the Muggle trash.”

“I have patience but it’s quickly wearing thin with your pointless dueling! And Queen is not trash!” she snapped at him, moving to pass him.

His eyes became piercing. “Summer Gwyndolyn Selwyn Charn. Sit. Down.”

No. She had had enough. The rage and grief that had been stewing in her ever since she’d come home for the summer finally bubbled over.

“No! I’m sick and tired of you bossing me around! And I’m so over you despising everything I do because I’ll never compare to Jacob in your mind!”

“Is that what you really think I think of you?” His voice was even. It grated at her.

“Well,” her own voice was taut, “it seems apparently obvious.”

“Remind me to add Legilimency to the list of things you require further practice in. As you’ve clearly never read my mind, or, if you have, you only touched the surface. You see, Summer, I never favored Jacob and despised you. I despised Jacob and favored you.”

Her jaw dropped open. She couldn’t help it. Legilimens. She dove into his mind, her emotions giving her strength to do so nonverbally. His mind… It was all right there. Everything she had thought she knew about her grandfather’s opinion of her… was a lie.

“The truth hurts, doesn’t it?”

All she could manage was a scathing glance, shutting her mouth.

“It’d be so much easier for you to think I hate you, girl. That I’ve never liked you and could care less if you die. Because I’ve been so hard on you all these years. But you have accept the fact I do care so blasted much.” He waggled his cane in her face. “You’re the only family I’ve got left, missy. And I’ll be damned if you die.”

“You only care so the Selwyn line won’t die completely and not just in the male line.”

He cackled. It crawled across her skin. “So much denial. No wonder you picked up Occulmency far quicker than your brother ever could. As always, the more talented of the two.”

“So you’re telling me everything—bcoming an unregistered Animagus, making it to prefect, shooting for all Outstandings on my O.W.L.s— you pushed me into doing wasn’t to try and prove myself just as good as him? It was—”

“—to prove you were better than him. You’ve got potential and I didn’t want you to squander it like he did, like Donovan did. We don’t need another Selwyn melting into the background or dying with a bad reputation. We need the greatest witch of her time.”

If he expected a wince or a snappy remark, there was none. Her eyes were cold and dark like the overcast sea. She nodded slowly. “I am the greatest witch of my time. The whole world will know it. Once I claim victory in the last Cursed Vault, they’ll never doubt me again.”

“I don’t want to hear another word about those blasted Vaults again!” His cane hit the floor with a resounding thud.

“Why not?! Why have you been so against them? You want me to bring glory to this dying house, don’t you? The Vaults are the perfect way to do it!”

“There is a time for seeking glory and a time to know you’re in over your head and should put courage aside to live another day, girl. Otherwise you’re one of those brainless fools who die with nothing to their name!”

“I’ve succeeded where everyone else has failed!”

“You could’ve been killed!”

“But I haven’t!”

“Not yet!”

“I can handle it!”

“You’re a child fighting what she doesn’t understand!”

“Then tell me! Tell me what I’m missing!

“I REFUSE TO SEE YOU WASTE YOUR TALENTS AND PERISH LIKE WISTERIA AND IEFAN AND JACOB AT THE HANDS OF ‘R’!”

Silence followed.

“…I miss them too.” To admit weakness was a risk, she knew. But, maybe… just maybe, it’d help widen the crack in his mask.

Exhaustion dragged at him and he wearily made his way over to the nearby sofa. It was easy to forget how old he was with him still being a very active wizard. But the years were catching up to him. His veiny hands trembled while holding his cane. A slight stoop in the shoulders hunched him over. His white hair seeming less a fashion statement and more just the effect of age.

She hesitantly sat down next to him.

“Summer. You must understand. Family is the most important thing.” His hand, shaking, was carefully placed atop hers. “I… we’ve lost so many. We’re all we have now. I couldn’t bear to lose you too. To ‘R’, to Death Eaters, to those blasted Cursed Vaults.”

He looked up into her eyes. “You are talented and have so much potential. You’re all I have left now.” A faint smile crinkled his face. “You’ve got Edith’s eyes, you know that? Sweet witch, like no other… Do you remember her, Summer?”

She nodded, swallowing. She remembered her grandmother. Rodolfo had been so much happier with her at his side. She had taught her piano and helped her care for the stray creatures the young girl picked up.

Then… she had died.

Summer had watched her. That’s how she could see thestrals. Rodolfo closed himself off from the world, burying himself in his work. Grudgingly, she could admit they were alike in that way, handling grief through distractions up to their necks.

Edith, Jacob, Wisteria, Iefan… and she supposed Clive and Donovan too. In some way, they had lost all of them. To death or some unknown fate, cut off from their family. The Selwyns were nearly gone.

She lightly squeezed his hand. “I’m not going to die, I promise. But I’m also done letting Jacob be the reason I do everything.”

“Good,” he nodded, voice hard.

“I’m going to do everything for me now. Including going after Rakepick. You can’t stop me from that and pursuing the Vaults.”

“Fine. Just… let me help you. Teach you things.”

She nodded back, lips trembling. “I will. I’ll make you proud.”

“You already have.”

And there they remained, this awkward family, grandfather and granddaughter with no one left, gripping each other’s hands.

Fin.