#Cloak and Dagger|Billy Manderly {Riley}

[brooklynislandgirl]

The Siblings Riley:

The Modern Day Cowboy || Andrew Riley

The Nurse Shark || Elizabeth Riley

The Code Cracker || William Manderly-Riley

[brooklynislandgirl]

Cry, little sister (Thou shall not fall) Come, come to your brother (Thou shall not die)

Unchain me, sister (Thou shall not fear) Love is with your brother (Thou shall not kill)

[brooklynislandgirl]

romantic candidate: Billy Manderly

Adventures in Matchmaking || Accepting

"You know he's my little braddah, yeah?"

[brooklynislandgirl]

[brooklynislandgirl]

Advent Day VIII ~ Not Only Green in Summer’s Heat @nolegacies

Beth's putting the final touches together while Billy is in the kitchen, on the phone attending some last minute calls. The fireplace crackles away in beautiful colours putting a particular kind of warmth that one doesn't really get with steam radiators and central heating. To her preference the house stereo system plays soft instrumental carols and she's glad there aren't lyrics to get wrong or distracted by no matter how many Christmases that she's sung along with them. Jay long ago said she'd murder everyone in the place if any of them got played before Thanksgiving, and Billy had agreed with her. She and Baz had both been bitterly opposed to that rule, and Andy finally came down firmly on the side of the other two. Except he said if they used headphones and bothered no one else with it. Considering his Tradition and his hobby, they couldn't mount a good enough defense, though they did end up sulking for an entire autumn over it. The tree is full of light and ornaments from everyone's collection, and it gleams beautifully enough that it blocks out the more garish light pollution from the city. The house is filled with the scent of pine, cedar, spices and baked goods. There's bowls of fresh popcorn ~hurricane and otherwise~ and other things to snack on, including cookies and muffins that Andy had baked only a couple days ago. Her favourite is the rich dark gingerbread loaf that she has nibbled two whole slices from. She's set up the entire nest; sleeping bags that are thick enough to have been considered thin mattresses once upon a time and a menagerie of quilts, throw blankets, afghans ~many of which she knitted by hand~ and pillows of every shape and size. This is their family tradition; everyone who shows up on Christmas Eve gets their own space, and everyone sleeps in the light and shadows cast by the present-surrounded tree. They watch holiday movies or sometimes Andy leads a sing-along or both. After Midnight Mass, they take down stockings ~and there is always one for everyone who happens to be there, without fail~ and are allowed to unwrap the one present inside of them. These are small or inconsequential things, often gifts of socks or pyjamas or little trinkets or stuffed animals. Anything that makes the family cuddle-puddle all that much better, even if the boys typically object to calling it that. It's really Beth's favourite part of the whole holiday. She's never happier than when everyone's together and celebrating love and friendship and fami- Billy's hands clasp around her upper arms, and he sinks down a little to look her in the eyes. "Beth?" She smiles up at him, eyes a glow, his very own little Who from Whoville. "Yeah?" Somewhere, there is a special hell reserved for him. "Just got off the phone with Andy. He and Baz are stuck in DC until the storm passes. He's left their hotel number in case of emergency which is preposterous but…" Her lower lip nearly quivers. Her voice is so small. "Yeah, I guess….'least Jay an-" He shakes his head. "In Chicago with his family and Aunt Jessica, remember?" That does it, that's when the tears stream down her cheeks entirely unbidden and she looks around at all the empty spaces where no one is going to be. "R-right" she sniffles. "Hey, hey…no, snowflake. No. Don't be so sad, after all…you still have me. And I have every intention on following through. Fuzzy socks and all." "But--" He offers her a tender smile and brushes the damp away from her cheeks with his thumbs, his other fingers becoming lost in her hair. "Its their turn. You remember last year, when we went to collect the tree?" If at all possible, she outshines the tree and the fire both in that moment. She rises half way to meet him when he kisses her.

[brooklynislandgirl]

[brooklynislandgirl]

I wanna take away the hurt But I just don’t have the words Let me hold you Let me hold you tight Let me hold you Just let me hold you tonight

~*~

I never felt magic crazy as this I never saw moons knew the meaning of the sea I never held emotion in the palm of my hand Or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree But now you’re here Brighten my northern sky.

[brooklynislandgirl]

[brooklynislandgirl]

The Siblings Riley

The Oldest || Andrew Riley || The Boss

Reliable

Conscientious

Structured

Cautious

Controlling

Achiever

The Middle || Elizabeth Riley || The Diplomat

People-pleaser

Somewhat rebellious

Thrives on attention

Has large social circle

Peacemaker

Timid

The Youngest || William Manderly {Riley} || The Dark Horse

Mature for their age

Free Spirit

Manipulative

Outgoing

Always get what they want

Younger, harder, better, faster

[brooklynislandgirl]

8. Do you like to hold hands in public?

Spicy and Sweet || Accepting

For the first time in the history of...twenty-two years by Beth’s reckoning, Clan Riley will appear en force. Aisling Riley ~sans her wife~ made the Trans-Atlantic flight from Antrim and rides in the second limo, alone with the Admiral. Some part of her wishes to be a speck of lint on the upholstery of the back seat, playing witness to the conversation behind had. She doesn’t remember the last time her Auntie actually spoke to the Admiral and there’s never exactly been any real love lost between them. Makes her wonder if that is the reason that he’s forever been disapproving of how close his own children were. And now with Billy back where he belongs, tensions have been running high. Which gives the family matriarch all that much more reason to attend the social engagement of the season.

In their own limousine, Andy’s tense. Seated opposite of his two younger siblings he looks immaculate, not a single hair out of place. He doesn’t say anything, hasn’t since they left the apartment, but he’s been nursing scotch since the Bridge. Watching the lights and streets pass as they head further into Manhattan. His only comment on the situation was a look sheered toward them, sharp as knives, as she and Billy sit there, arm in arm, hands clutched so tight that their knuckles are practically bloodless. They lean into each other, giving support and comfort. Billy isn’t exactly comfortable with all of this and it was everything she could do to talk him into spending an incalculable number of hours with the man who sired the three of them. She’d plead, cajoled, bargained, and finally, privately, made promises she intends to keep, of not letting him be alone with the Admiral, and to deflect anything that riles him. Though truth be told, if he had refused, she would have too.

She knows how these 5,000-dollar-a-chair events tend to go. The media flashing cameras everywhere, how the waters are chummed with the extravagantly rich and vapid dilettantes looking toward these events like highly curated meat markets. The Admiral was forever disappointed that Andy and Beth had never come away with a potential spouse, and now is throwing Billy in without a preserver, pinning frustrated hopes on his Balenciaga tuxedo lapel.

They cause a stir amongst the press which does appeal to Beth once they step out of the car. Of course they stand out from the other six hundred art patrons, fashionistas, social chairs, and entrepreneurs. It had been Andy’s decision that they match, all midnight blue designer threads. He said nothing about the peacock emblem, a silent diatribe to how she felt so ridiculously dressed up and for what purpose, even her earrings made of actual feathers, though they had been resourced from the Bronx zoo. She doesn’t think he notices that Billy’s cuff links are embroidered cameos of peacocks, also, worn as a statement and in solidarity. He’s even less comfortable than she is. The other New York Elite are too entranced by Billy’s smile to notice he doesn’t remove the specific sunglasses he wears. She can feel how fake and brittle that smile is, and stays close, as they pass into the mansion. They both enjoy the cocktails and hors d’oeuvres served at the elegant Garden Court, which immediately puts Billy at some sort of ease. The greenery strewn around the marble fountain which splashes on oblivious of the gossip and flirtations whispered and laughed around it. The soft blue glow of lights give the packed space an intimate feel, almost as pleasing and warm as the hand lodged at the small of her back. Andy uses the opportunity to catch up with old friends and their new dates, but Beth only has eyes for the way Billy’s hand raises his champagne flute occasionally to his lips, the way his throat rises and falls with the small swallows. Over the next hour she forgets that the Admiral is there.

So many bright young things congregate and eventually start to break off in pairs and groups to meet him. Billy remains distantly polite, but not interested in the collections of Cohens and Drummonds, nor the Buffetts and the Milsteins. It feels like they are stuck in some kind of Italian Renaissance Portrait meets The Great Gatsby, and she isn’t sure particularly likes the way the women and not a few of the men seem to size Billy up. When the roving socialites go on to peruse the world-class collections housed in the Mansion ~Degas, Fragonard, Goya, Rembrandt~ she and Billy move against the currents, passing bronzes, Limoges enamels,  Sèvres porcelain. She expounds on a little art history, both fascinated and disgusted by the hoarding of wealth and culture in this place. He makes her laugh by murmuring that she should be housed amongst the guarded treasures as she is the most beautiful and delicate thing here.

They flow to one of the areas with the small round tables covered in crystal and votive tea light candles. Chair drapery and table clothes with a higher price tag than some people’s utilities. He holds her chair out and waits until she glides down into it with an unspeakable grace. He takes the seat across from her. Conversation gets interrupted by the arrival of the others. The Admiral and Auntie Aishling in the table beside theirs, Andy sitting in between with another tumbler, three fingers, neat. He’s going to need a lot more before the evening is over.

“So, William,” Aisling says. “Back in the fold after so long.” Like all the members of the family, her voice is a touch darker and deeper than it seems it should be. Measured and controlled, just the faintest bite of Eire woven through it. There is mischief in her eyes, a kind of  soft maliciousness that is so common in sibling rivalries, however the steel of it is in the way she smacks the Admiral square in the chest with her clutch when he starts to interrupt, leaning forward to partially rise from his seat. Andy is quick to scoot closer to their aunt, protective to the end. “I am going to assume you’re transitioning well?”

She can’t read the exact lack of expression on his face, or perhaps it’s entirely too complicated for her to understand. It wouldn’t be the first time, with Billy. But he manages to answer her with his own quiet dignity. "It's had its ups and downs, Miss. But over all I can't complain."

“You can call me ‘aunt’, or even Aisling if you prefer.” The Admiral is starting to turn red around the collar. But Billy? First it’s the seeds of a grin, a little unstable at the edges and he inclines his head toward their statuesque red-haired relative. Then it grows. Blooms into its radiant fullness, all very white but sharp teeth, points of which graze his lower lip. “Aunt Aisling it is, then.” She knows the conversation continues but if asked later, she will not be able to recall a single word of it. Music comes through from the ballroom where they’ve just started the party in earnest. She can feel its vibrations through the floor, the bass heavy and something she craves in opposition of having to spend time with ‘the adults’ as awkward as that’s becoming. Her eyes drift shut and she slips one foot out of the prison of satin and seed pearls and heels that add four inches to her  height. The small circumference of the tables give her the chance to actually manage to reach out. Pretty painted toes graze the inside of one muscular thigh. Keep going in their gentle exploration seeking out the warmest parts of him within reach until they do. Then it’s all undulating ocean waves, isn’t it? Less obvious than reaching out and twining fingers together in full view of everyone else. A comfort and a tease both, accidentally discovered the first time at one of the interminable and torturous family dinners. And Billy? He shifts into the seat. For all that his muscles tense, his body language becomes open and inviting but it’s not because of the company or the conversation. One arm drapes over the back of the chair, his wrist loose, hand dangling, cuff links and watch gleaming with the ambient light, not unlike the bio-luminescent glow from an angler fish. But the other... has a mind of it’s own. It drops into his lap casually. Hidden by the table cloth. Where it reaches in the nebulous dark and takes hold of her foot. Pads of his fingers pressing back against the pads of her toes. A vague Morse code of intent while his thumb strokes the sensitive curve of her instep. His eyes never leave Aisling’s face but to meet Andy’s, or the Admirals. His mouth moving with words that don’t register. His voice thicker though. 

A shiver runs down the channel of her spine and its all that she can do to pick up her glass and take a sip of it. The wine slowly savoured and swallowed before her eyes open and focus on his face, dark and molten. She chases the wine with the tip of her tongue pressing flush against her lips.

Andy’s voice is a sort of afterthought, directed to only them. Jesus Fucking Christ, you two!

Overhead, the coordinator of the gala announces that due to the torrential downpour outside, the grounds are closed but the dance hall and the rest of the mansion are free to be explored. Other guests start to trickle in, and whispers about an after-party are starting to circulate.

[brooklynislandgirl]

what would you REALLY do to Billy Manderly if you could without consequence?

Honesty Hour || Accepting

Conspire not with the Enemies of Ascension.

Of the eight Protocols, this was the only one utterly inviolate. Magick without conscience is a terrible thing. And in order to sidestep the worst excesses of wizard-tyrants and the potential cataclysm of their hubris, not to mention the beginning of a war that no one then knew would last over five and a half centuries, from the first shots fired at Mistridge, to the betrayal of the First Cabal, to the mostly stale cold-war ongoing. When the Traditions signed them in 1466 near the end of the Grand Convocation that formalised the Council of Nine and all that would come after the Protocols have governed not just the inter-Tradition interaction, but also the relations of Mages and Sleeper. With the Technocrats and the Spirits and all that lies in the unseen world. Despite upheavals, vacant seats within the Council for long periods of time, and infighting, the Protocols have always managed to survive.

While younger mystics might snicker at their archaic verbiage, the principles of the laws are clear, as are the punishments for infractions. As with any set of laws, they are meant to apply to all and equally, though “equally” has turned out to be quite flexible over the years. Tradition magi who break minor Protocols might be brought before a formal Tribunal. In the absence of strong organisation and Masters, such Tribunals are rare, so serious offenders might simply be killed by their cabal-mates if they step too far out of line.

But considering her cabal are all ohana? That hasn’t happened. So while she sits here, in the face of Judgement by an Elder, Beth understandably knows fear like never before. Try as hard as she might, she cannot control the wild beating of her heart. The sheen of nervous sweat that is starting to cause her to glow in that specific way. Nor can she control the lines gathering at the corners of her mouth and eyes. All the while her mind screams and rails against the questioning because she is doing no harm. She has betrayed no secrets of Tradition or Council. She has not sacrificed any other Mage to the Technocrats. If anything, she is slowly, systematically reclaiming her younger brother from them. Not on purpose, of course, but by simply showing him the other side of the metaphysical argument.

If she is being asked about a more personal relationship, well, it’s none of the Tradition or the Council’s business, is it? She certainly doesn’t go into other people’s lives and tell them how to conduct themselves in those relationships. And there is still no harm being done. She and Billy are adults. They are separated by a few months, Beth being the older of the two, but well into their thirties. Billy did not use his greater size or strength to coerce her into anything, Beth did not set out to seduce him in any way, but especially NOT with her Arts. Everything that has happened between them has been rational, organic, and above all else, consensual. 

It’s true that maybe Andy and Jay aren’t very hip on the situation. Baz and AJ have never weighed in and somehow she feels that so long as no one is physically or emotionally damaged that they really won’t. Luc merely shrugs and makes passing joked that what should he say, he’s from the deep bayous and he’s seen worse. Maybe the loudest voice of dissent if there is any at all is that of Vincent. And his objections are admittedly as archaic as the Protocols can be, as he’s both the cabal leader but also a Catholic priest, who happens to be Beth’s confessor. He has known her for a long time and has been worried for her soul since before Billy rejoined the family, because she is a witch and her beliefs are heretical to begin with. For a second that yawns into an aeon, Beth closes her eyes and breathes out a sigh. Nausea sits in her insides like a hungry vulture, shading itself with branches of vertigo and exhaustion. Any one of those could be handled well, but all at once ~particularly the dizziness~ it’s overwhelming. She digs deep to muster as much dignity as possible and then opens her eyes, levelling the Elder with a passive gaze. “Truth be told? We would renounce ties to both the Traditions and the Technocratic Union. We ~Billy and I~ are bound by blood and by soul. We sprang from the same seed, yes. But it is more than that. We have always been. Siblings, lovers, parent and child. We have been enemies and friends. We have been strangers drawn together for a purpose. There is no single definition of what we are and were, could be again if allowed. That means more to me than anything. It means more than the power of the Wyck themselves. And if needs must...” The formal language, every painful vowel and consonant pronounced deliberately, is difficult to maintain, necessitating the slight pause.

“The Protocols say we must not conspire with the enemies of Ascension. And you would deem him so because he was found and trained by the Technocrats. Worse as an affront is that he is Iteration X, those who believe there is ideal perfection in blending flesh with machine. And while that ideal is perfectly abhorrent to me, my brother has been kinder and gentler than some of our tradition Sisters. Than any half-dozen sleepers you care to name. He does not threaten me with indoctrination and rehab, does not try to make me see the errors of my way. He has never thrown me under the wheels of control. If anything he has betrayed his own tradition a thousand ways a thousand times. And I don’t really believe he gives a fig about controlling sleepers and reinforcing the stranglehold the Technocrats have on reality.

“So what would I do? I would take his hand, and step into the umbra. We would travel together just as the first man and woman did, learning the lay of the land, as it were, a new Eden spread out before us. I would love him as he would love me, whatever way that might be. And if we are speaking frankly, Priestess, we are supposed to, as Verbena, embrace life’s joys and pains. To experience nature and life the way it was meant to be. We are reflections of the divine mysteries, yes? Well, the same Goddesses and Gods we strive to understand? Are not so different than we. Egypt, Greece, Rome... almost every ancient religion, almost every first monarchy was built on blood. Love between siblings was nothing shameful then. I see no reason that it should be now, if we willingly choose one another. It’s not like I can befoul our lineage more than it already is, and it’s not like we would have to consider the potential for ruining all those children we can’t have with genetic disease. “I also find it very difficult that I ~insignificant as I am, in the grand scheme of things~ am the biggest evil to focus the Tradition’s eyes on, when disease runs rampant and is decimating humankind. When the Wyrm has so many of its coils crushing the earth that there is starvation, pollution, climate change, and wide-spread corruption everywhere you look. That no one can be bothered to help for fear of being demonised for it. The world is desperately crying out for salvation and we are letting Her die day by day locked in our own pride. So you’ll excuse me if I can’t take you or this inquisition seriously.”

[brooklynislandgirl]

7) things you said while we were driving [WOD]

Things You Said || Always {Selectively} Accepting

“You’re angry.” It isn’t a question or an accusation. And it’s said so softly, so painfully articulated that it lingers when she says nothing else. She doesn’t bother to look over at his profile, granite jaw set. Knuckles white on the steering wheel and a part of her is sure she can hear it begging for mercy. If she did look, she was sure she’d see the occasional flash of red across one beautiful blue eye.  Like a Cylon. Not the weird human looking ones from the reboot, but like the metallic ones from the early eighties, from before she was born. She’s seen it in reruns. And she’s terrified by them if she’s honest. Something about the deep, resonant, and artificial voice. 

Or maybe more like K.I.T.T.’s grill. Either way, it’s not natural and only serves to remind her that her baby brother isn’t a Virtual Adept. He’s not an Etherite. No, down to his literal bones he’s something created in the image of man but also of machine. One of the finest and most brilliant things ever created by Iteration-X. Which makes him the enemy, no matter what way she tries to spin it. Only he isn’t so much any more. Bit by bit since they’ve met he’s become more sympathetic toward the Traditions that have been the enemy since the start of the Ascension War. She very much believes that he will always choose her...them...over his own paradigm before the end, and she worries what will happen when the Technocrats find out that he’s switching sides.

So the obvious answer is, that can’t happen.

She snakes a hand across the seats and lands it on his thigh. Not enough to distract, only wanting to offer him some kind of salve to his raw emotions. But she can’t leave it alone, can she? She doesn’t want to let him stew. She doesn’t want to ask why it was that she woke up in the car in the middle of she isn’t even sure. Just the two of them. For hours now with no sign of stopping. But she has to, and now seems the perfect time.

“What did Andy do now? Or is it...is it da Admiral?”

[brooklynislandgirl]

Beth and WOD!Billy - ❤♡❥ღ💕💘💝💓💌💟💙💚💜💛

This || Not Accepting

❤: who is more affectionate in public? in private? 

In public Billy becomes a distant shore. Too far to reach no matter how hard she swims, how much sea water she ends up swallowing, how far she stretches out her fingers to reach him. To hold his hand, to press her cheek against his arm, to take umbrage in the shelter of all that he is. He reminds her there are cameras everywhere. There are covert agents like himself, there’s research assistants, Extraordinary Citizens. That are all on the Front Lines ready to devour any mistake he makes. To bring the whole thing crashing down on their heads, and that as radiant as he finds his older sister, that she is not exactly shy about flying her Deviant flag, is she?

It crushes some of her spirit and Billy regrets having to do it, but it’s for the Greater Good. He always tells himself that but alone, in his own sanctum, those beliefs are starting to crumble. One part of him wonders if this is all a test of his truest loyalties to his convention, carefully constructed in the Ivory Tower by Control. Forcing him to choose between humanity and three very high value targets. If capture and indoctrination is the plan, or eradication if he doesn’t manage to bring them over. Another part of him, the one that is still fur and fang and not quite the eidolon of his Enlightened Genius shakes its head in shame. Billy should know better. He should remember that dying light in her eyes and swear to make it up to her, no matter the cost. Maybe this is malfunction. Maybe this is what madness feels like. ♡: who is the bigger romantic openly? secretly?

There’s a movie she’s made him watch, that she’s seen a dozen times, enough that she doesn’t miss the words, doesn’t need them to flash across the screen. She curls up against him and jokingly tells him the main protagonist is clearly an Ecstatic ~one of her so called Nine Traditions~ and that she thinks the paradigm contained in it is beautiful.

He enjoys it because it makes his apartment feel less lonely, less sterile. It leaves the ghost of her as an impression against his skin. The scent of popcorn and the coconut and sandalwood and cinnamon that always clings to her skin will now linger on his. She’s soft and curved and quiet, all the things that his world is not. And he has that weird feeling that she somehow bypasses his circuitry, his implants, even though that should be impossible, to dig a place inside of him that she can fit.

But even when she’s gone, a line from the film sticks with him. One he can’t shake, so he hides it in an internal file buried so deep that even he will have trouble finding it again.

"Have you never met a woman who inspires you to love? Until your every sense is filled with her? You inhale her. You taste her. You see your unborn children in her eyes and know that your heart has at last found a home. Your life begins with her, and without her it must surely end." 

❥: who is more likely to plan something big for valentine's day?

He’s going to punch the other two dead in the face when they get back. Because it can’t be anything less than a conspiracy between the three of them that he goes to sleep in his own bed, all algorithms in suspend mode, only to wake up to the sound of waves lapping against the wood and fibreglass of the hold, the sea choppy and cold and grey. Like the sky if he bothers to look out of a porthole.

The bunk is a little cramped for his liking, not exactly built for a man of his stature and construction. The benefit of hypertech enhanced limbs is that they don’t exactly ache for the narrowed confinement. The space beside him still holds the ghost of her warmth, her scent, and it isn’t hard to imagine the sheets wrapped around her lithe frame. Hair spilling over his arm like a dark flood. But it’s her voice that teases him awake.  “So since we no can do da whole public kine,” she murmurs, “I t’ought I’d surprise ya. Ren’ned one boat for couple days. An’ bonus... my friends who helpin’ us out... says dey know of a crew a pirates dat need t’ be... how ya say it? Sanitise?” He winces at the word, and how close it is to the reality of it. He raises a brow, loath to interrupt her when her voice is still raspy from sleep, and because everyone else is used to discounting her, cutting her off. “Cause dey fangy-fangy/bitey-bitey.” She makes comical fangs with her fingers curled in front of her mouth. He slides out of bed and into a slumped seating position and she comes over, sits beside him. She presses a mug of scalding hot tea into his hands. It’s dark. Slightly sweet. It doesn’t matter when she smiles. “Happy Volentimes day. An’ good mornin’.” He presses his nose into the crown of her hair. “Mornin’ Izzy.”

ღ: who is more likely to initiate hand-holding in public?

Standing on the upper deck, face in the wind, eyes closed, Billy can hear it. The distinct creak of timbre. The whip-snap of the canvas in a gale, his hands weathered and calloused as he climbs the shrouds to secure a ratline. Everything is heavy with sea spray and the acrid smell of spent powder. The rush of having overtaken a heavy vessel. The pounding of his heart after a successful boarding action. New men aboard. Supplies and wealth taken and secured below. He can see faces and hear names that were long since dead, maybe never existed at all.  There’s a word on the tip of his tongue but when he reaches for it, it vanishes. It tells him he doesn’t really want to know because Billy doesn’t really forget, does he? He doesn’t. And so the only person standing against him is himself.

He blames her with her talk of pirates and her gift of the open sea past the international dateline. Gives him fanciful day dreams, that’s all it is.  He stiffens when he feels skin on skin. Rudimentary procedure tells him it’s her before he even opens his eyes. Which he chooses not to. Instead he curls his fingers around hers; too small, too delicate. Afraid he’ll crush them if he isn’t careful. Afraid he’ll crush her. 

💕: who is more likely to make huge declarations of love in front of other people?

“I will NOT have you shaming the family, Elizabeth!” For a moment with his voice roused in anger, Andy sounds exactly like their father. And she stands there, taking the brunt of it, doe eyes full of a shame and grief that did not come close to being able to be described. She is reduced to something less than herself, something barely more than a child the way she twists her fingers into the waist of her skirt, head tilted toward the floor where maybe that gaze could burn a hole into the wood floors. Shoulders forward and down, all of her making itself as small as possible. Perhaps protectively, perhaps because it cannot hold up the heaviness of Andy’s anger. “....m’ sorry.”  Barely two words, slurred into one.

She hadn’t meant to do or say anything wrong. She hadn’t meant to make a scene at the party. Hadn’t meant to make Billy chase her into the room. Of course, there’s a lot of things she doesn’t mean and it makes it so hard to breathe sometimes.

She can’t say she really understands why he’s mad. Why he’d waited until everyone, including Billy had left, why Baz’s half-hearted interference from the kitchen where he’s cleaning up... “Leave’r ‘lone, Andy” ... goes unheard. “May I be ‘scused?” “Go to bed. We’ll deal with damage control in the morning.” Beth decides then and there, she hates Halloween.

💘: who developed a crush on the other first?

It’s called the Westermarck Effect. A psychological hypothesis that people who live in close domestic proximity during the first few years of their lives become desensitised to sexual attraction with one another. And when a brother and sister, for example, are brought up separately, never meeting until they reach adulthood or adolescence they might find one another highly sexually attractive. The science clearly bears out.

But he wants to hear it from Andy’s own mouth.  The source of his bitterness, his distance, the rage that has him lifting hands and laying them on his little brother. Panting, he looks up from where he’s crouched. Jaw hard. Back of his hand swiping at the lick of blood on his lip. He hitches himself to his feet and reaches out a hand, waits until Andy reaches back and helps pull the other man to his feet. An honest dust up that’s gotten most things out of the way so that they can actually talk. “So tell me, Andrew, is it that she’s makin’ eyes, or that it’s not at you?”

����: who spends more time (possibly overthinking) what presents to get the other?

The adverts on the telly and radio and every bit of media give off suggestions. Every kiss begins with Kay. De Beers A Diamond is Forever. It’s all part of the carefully cultivated stratagems of the Syndicate. A means to control the economy based on the products it chooses to endorse, and which they decide to bury.  But the problem isn’t his fellow conventions, but rather the fact that Beth isn’t that kind of woman. She doesn’t want for material things, not in the way that can be neatly wrapped up in a box with a bow. She wants for the sea in her soul. She wants for a quiet acceptance. She wants for the soft kisses and hands pressed to hearts vowing forever at the end of the fairy tale. She wants an end to the War or at least an escape from it. She wants all of humanity to achieve this mystical Ascendance of hers, that reminds him of a song from the 70s or something What can you give a woman like that? You don’t exactly. You can’t. It means switching sides. It means becoming a traitor to your own. Not that she’s ever asked. Not that she has to, what with everything that is changing within him. She’s shown him things that he never contemplated before, things he’s never hoped to experience. For the first time, he’s starting to question the party line. And that’s dangerous. “Let me see the other one. The one with the pearls.”

💓: who initiates most physical contact?

She tucks her feet under his leg when they’re cold. Which is always. Her fingers find a home intertwined with his the moment he stops typing. Even if there’s a mile of couch, she tries to climb into his lap at every opportunity. She talks with her hands and smiles with her eyes and her lips at once. Small kisses on the back of his neck. Somehow she’s always brushing against him as she walks by. She’s always been the physical type. It’s a language as well as a form of affection and he thinks he’s starting to figure it out. Or at least he thinks he has, but then she changes the rules.

Suddenly she doesn’t quite meet his eyes. How she finds a way to not be in the same room even if they are seated right next to him. When she dances with him it feels like they’re on other planets.

For all that he wants to give chase, he doesn’t. Gives her space. Hopes that’s enough to bring her back around because he’s starting to miss the little things. Teeth has other things to say about it but you don’t always listen to your not so imaginary weasel.

💌: who is more likely to send cutesy texts to the other?

Sheryl from R and D eyes him when he laughs out loud. He waves a hand and recites the pithier parts of an Onion article he’d read weeks before. All while staring at the face she’s making, rubber glove on her head like a cockscomb. She’s always sending him little things. A picture from the ER. Something silly she saw on the way to or from work, depending on what shifts she’s taken. Corny little jokes he knows has taken her weeks to come up with. Things he memorises and deletes because he doesn’t want a single trace of her that can be caught by the higher ups. But that doesn’t mean that he wants her to stop. In a lot of ways it speaks volumes that she cares enough about him, that she thinks about him as much as he does her, that she sends them. His favourite so far is the Giraffe prodding a duck with one enormously long leg. He normally doesn’t send anything back, no channel completely secure, but he does make a point to mention it when he gets back to his place. Which reminds him, she’s been spending an awful lot of time there.

💟: who spends time reading their zodiac compatibility?

She sits sprawled on the floor. There’s books and charts, some ancient and some new, all around her. She has graph paper, pencils and pens, a compass and slide rule, all the trappings of higher mathematics. But she’s not solving complex equations or a new hypothesis for string theory. “It’s complete rubbish!” he laughs, stirring the garlic green beans around the wok with a touch of sesame oil. “The stars aren’t even in the same position as they were back then, some have burnt out, the gravitational axis of-” “Nu-uh!” she counters, just as amused, just as passionate. “Astrology one of da very firs’ sciences, William. In fact, ya very own Celestial Mastahs-” Void Engineers, Beth. They’re called the Void Engineers. “-spoke wide an’ advocated it in academic circle. Related it t’ astronomy, alchemy, me-meat- “Meteorology.” “Yeah, dat. An medicine. Da Greek, Chinese, Mayans, Egyptians, Macedonians. All’a da big civilisation. Even in da political circles of literature, li’dat Dante Alighieri an’ Chaucer, Shakespeare, Lope De Vega, Calderon de la Barca, who I don’ t’ink was related t’ Hannibal but mebbe. No was til da nineteen century when you guys edged forward wi’ da Sleepahs-” “Beth?” “Yeah?” “Could you come here a second?” She rises like a very strange Polynesian Venus from her sea of pseudoscience and pads her way over to him. He leans down and kisses her gently on the lips. She pulls back from him and shakes her head, flashing him her shark-smile. “See? See dat? Spoken li’ true Libra.”

💙: who is more protective?

He watches her from near the treeline, crouched down low, one set of knuckles in the deep loam offering himself balance. She rabbit runs and for a moment he is consumed more in her motion than watching the surroundings. Shapely legs and perfect little feet fleet, flashing their tawny hue in the sun. Braids bouncing down her back. Go, girl, go. She almost makes it. But on her blind side there’s a blur. Taller than her. Near twice as broad. Intends to take her down like a lion on the Savannah. Billy sees red. Literally. And he springs. Primium laced muscles and bone primed and pumping at optimal levels. Gives him a deceptive speed and the length of his stride eats up the earth at his feet. He clips the body at the waist, drives him to the ground. Makes him drop the weapons at hand that break harmlessly open. There’s a struggle. Of course there is. Half-powered punches that gain his victim no leverage, a rolling tussle where he keeps coming on top, shoulder crashing into chest until he turns and coughs. Gasping for air. Body changing to something harder than flesh, but slow. He gets in one more good punch.

“Billy.” He looks up. Andy’s standing there. Pinning her in his arms. Her feet dangle off the ground, her eyes wild. One of his hands wrapped around her throat. A short jerking twist and she’d-- ”Let him go.” He blinks. Looks down at Baz, sees him for the first time. Realises the weapons are water balloons. And Beth? She still has the football in hand, because she’d crossed the finish line. Their point, then. He still doesn’t understand all the rules to this combination flag {American} football and water balloons and trivia game. Billy hitches to his feet. Offers an apologetic hand to Baz who declines. Politely. When Baz crosses over to Andy’s side, Riley lets her go. Gives her a little shove toward Billy. There’s a fading hand-print around her neck, but she smiles and kneads her head into his chest. He puts an arm around her and glares at the other two who are checking each other over.

Riley will learn one of these days that he’ll keep his hands off her. And he’ll learn it a broken bone at a time, his or someone else’s.

💚: who tends to get sick more often? who is better at taking care of the other?

She stitches his skin. He feeds her soup. They sleep like the dead.  She tends to his scars the way he shepherds her dreams. They work.

💜: who said "i love you" first? or, if neither has said it yet, who is more likely to say it first?

He said once, the first time. She rejected it out of turn. She repeats it later. They never speak it again. But they do everything to make it manifest. Every touch and every look everything they do for one another.  But the words sit in their throats. Haunt their eyes. Loud. Shrieking. How the rest of the world doesn’t hear it, he’ll never know. She’s asleep now, and his fingers trail through her hair. She looks so innocent, so untouched by anything, even him as her chest rises and falls with quiet breathing.

How many times are they going to spiral around each other?  As many as it takes. Until they can howl down the heavens.

💛: who believes in soulmates?

Nails dig into the back of his neck as he holds her fast. One arm around her hips. One climbing the trellis of her ribs like ivy, fingers resting in the space between her shoulders as she arches back. His face pressed into the wide valley between her breasts. The harsh echo of his panting breaths, the sweeter song of the guttural moan he’s dragged out of her throat, her throat exposed, mouth parted in a rictus of pleasure-pain. She calls it the Lotus position, the way she’s seated in his lap, and he’s buried to the hilt. Legs wrapped like chains around him as the last twitches and jerks bleed him dry inside of her. She calls this tantric. Finishing together. Raising power. He calls it love and his is hers and hers alone. And there’s only one way that will ever end. “Death first, Izzy.” He writes the words across her sweat soaked skin. “Always.” She answers and swans her neck into his shoulder where her teeth draw blood.

[brooklynislandgirl]

Father’s Day || Accepting @tabbyrp​

“Naw. Time’s no on his side ya know. He’s seventy-one. I’m t’irty one in a couple days an’ Panda t’irty-six. Billy is a couple months younger dan me. Let nature take her course, an’ soon enough it’ll be me an’ my braddahs risin’ up an’ takin’ da reins of da family, changin’ it da way it need. An’ he’ll be dust an’ bone an’ a memory buried in our family crypt.”

[brooklynislandgirl]

[WOD] 🍻+ what do you think is the worst unforgiveable thing a person can do?

In Vino Veritas || Accepting

She gets right up close into her brother’s face. Head slightly tilted, brows drawn together, the wine sweet on her lips, but still some how tinted with the cinnamon that seems to always be on her breath. She searches blue with green, the ocean in that look, and she’s looking for something particular in his gaze. A seed of why he would ask, and it tightens her belly, unsettles every soft and comfortable feeling the wine had instilled in her.Slowly, she reaches up to put a hand on either side of his face. To hold him still or to feel him skin-on-skin…it’s anyone’s guess. Maybe both. And while the tell-tale signs are there that she’s maybe had one drink too many, her voice is surprisingly stead. Just a hint of husk to it, whisper soft.“Wha’evah ya worried about, don’. Dere is no kine ya could do dat I would no f’give ya for. Ya blood runs in me. Ya heart beat wi’ mine, an’ da t’ree of us…we’re all da same, no maddah who says different. An’ dat means I’m gonna love ya now til da day we cease t’ exist, body an’ soul. Okay? Okay.”She doesn’t pull back after saying that. Because there’s more that she wants him to know but Beth talks in short bursts, her mind still working to weave things together even when she’s sober, and it’s slower still when she’s had a couple of drinks. But she also doesn’t let go, as if there’s far more truth in her touch than her words.Maybe it’s always been that way.“Mos’ unforgivable kine I can t’ink of… is harmin’ a keiki. Wheddah it’s physical or mental or…da oddah kine.” She’s seen so much abuse ranging ages with what she does for a living that she wants to rip apart the perpetrators of those crimes like in the days of old; wishes more than anything that she was an avenging angel or maenad. She doesn’t tell him about those kinds of things. She doesn’t tell Andy or Baz either. Not the children, not the devastating corruption of innocence, not her desire to put the abusers in the ground in a permanent kind of way.“Abusin’ animals. What sense is dat make? Dey don’ understand, dey jus’…” She thinks it’s pretty explanatory, that things like that are so far outside of the cycles of nature that she can’t even see straight just thinking about it.There’s a laundry list of sins that Beth could leverage at humanity as a whole, things that drive her insane with anger, that wishes she could call down a Biblical Floor or the very fires of Pele’s heart to wipe it all away and just start over. But that is almost too dangerously close with what the others… the ones he’s in the process of defecting from… would do, if they could get away with it.

But suddenly a thought occurs to her.Makes her stomach sink to the floor and the contents of it become a little sour in the back of her throat. Her voice becomes a ghost of its former self, tight and tense and her fingers stiffen on his face.“Billy…wha’….what have you done? That you don’t think I will forgive you for?”

[brooklynislandgirl]

[w.o.d.] 🌲 - for our muses to pick out a tree

Winter Wonderland || -

For all of his dubious looks, particularly the one he shot her as they crossed the bridge because she INSISTS the best trees are all upstate, she can’t help but radiate enthusiasm. Beth loves Christmas, everything about it. The snow falling on the mostly empty road leading to the farm where she normally orders her trees ~something she’s mentioned at least five times in the last week~, to deciding they would spend the night in the little Inn down the lane from the farm ~so they could get a good look at the trees first thing in the morning~ to wanting to buy new ornaments to add to the old. She talks about making him a stocking and the kinds of carols she’s most fond of...and doesn’t seem to understand how loud her inner light is shining outward, how she’s practically vibrating across the truck’s cab. None of it seems to matter.Not for hours of driving at least, except for the forty five minutes of peace he got when she took a nap.One gloved hand points through the wind-screen. “Dere! Dat’s where ya turn. Ya gonna love dis place. All river-stone an’ real wood, room service an’ dey make da bes’ scones an’ tea f’ breakfas’!”The thermos of cocoa in her lap sloshes precariously.Maybe because she’s practically squirming out of the seat-belt, and drifting closer and closer to his personal space.“Isn’ it da bes’? Like you can feel i’ in da air, all da dreams an’ hopes an’ da cold make ya wan snuggle up warm an’ cozy. An’ is gonna be so really beautiful. Big ole tree wi’ dark branches an’ all da lights an’ bulbs an’...” And she takes a hold of his arm, a tiny death-grip that doesn’t seem to mind flesh and bone and other things under his skin, coupled with the way she’s looking at him with darkened doe eyes and that particular smile of hers.“But ya still no tell me wha’ ya wan f’ Kalikimaka. An’ is only a month away!”