#England x a brick

[dilemmaontwolegs]

Finish Line || LS2

Summary: A farewell fic to Logan because I'm a sookie and miss him already. Pairing: Logan Sargeant x fem!reader (living in America) WC: 4k

Summer Break 2021

Your mother always said, “Nothing good is easy and nothing easy is good.” To an eighteen year old fresh out of high school you thought she was referring to studying and exam results, not the more impactful experiences you would face once the red brick walls were left in the rear view mirror. 

It would only take a matter of weeks to learn the real meaning.

Loving Logan wasn’t easy but it was impossible to stop the feeling of falling that came soon after meeting him. From the moment you met there was an indescribable connection but the paths of your future were heading in completely different directions and you knew at the end of summer you would say your goodbyes.

In the meantime you would enjoy what the weather had to offer and what better way to emancipate yourself from the innocence of youth and broadcast to the world that you were an adult than a girls road trip to Miami? You may not have been old enough to drink but that didn’t stop the college guys on summer vacation from keeping you and your friends well supplied. 

Looking back, it only proved how young and naive you were. 

“Dalt, I really shouldn’t be here,” Logan complained as a red cup was thrust into his hand. “I could get in so much trouble for this.”

“Relax, bro, you’ll be fine.” His older brother clapped him on the back happily. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The beach house was right on the waterfront and Logan stepped out onto the white sand to dip his toes in the warm water. He didn’t know who’s family the place belonged to but Dalton seemed to know everyone by name. It only made him feel even more left out and he thought maybe he should have just stayed in England for the summer break. 

The house was stifling with the humid temperatures compounding to a sauna with all the bodies inside. The beer had started off cool but it had warmed in your hands and began to taste disgusting so you abandoned it into the hands of a stranger passing by who swiftly chugged it back before shouting the Greek alphabet you assumed was the name of his frat house. You had certainly bitten off more than you could chew and debated catching a Greyhound bus home where you felt safe but you wouldn’t ditch your friends who were absolutely in their element.

The beach wasn’t like any you had seen before arriving in Miami. The sand bars were tiny pockets of islands and each property seemed to be its own space divided by narrow canals that lead to dry docks for their expensive boats. 

“Mind if I join you?” you asked the stranger who sat in the sand at the water's edge. It was impossible to ignore each other’s presence when the rising tide had left such little space.

“It’s a free country,” he said with a small smile, his palm quickly swiping away the picture he had drawn in the sand. 

“I don’t know about that. Sometimes it feels like a prison. Sorry, that was really morbid.”

He laughed and tipped his head back to the sun that still beat down despite being late in the afternoon. “You’re not wrong though. I love coming home, but sometimes I’m glad I don’t live here anymore. I don’t know how to fit in with that,” he said looking back at drunken revelers who had stripped down to their swimwear despite having no inclination to actually enter the water. 

He looked like the rest of the guys there: tanned skin over a toned body and dirty blonde hair hidden by a cap he wore backwards. The southern drawl also confirmed the fact he called this place home. 

“Where do you fit in then?”

His shoulders shrugged as he picked at a desiccated chain of Neptune’s necklace that had washed up on the beach. He busied himself with plucking each individual bead off the seaweed and flicking it back to the water. “I don’t know.”

“Okay, well, what did you want to be when you were a kid?”

“A Formula One racing driver, or a fisherman.”

You buried your toes in the sand, wiggling them to dig deeper where it was cooler. “I thought the all-american dream was to be an astronaut?”

You met his blue eyes and saw the amusement that sparkled in them. “I’m afraid of heights,” he admitted with a grin before he held out his hand. “I’m Logan.”

“I think we are beyond names here, I already know your hopes and dreams,” you teased, shaking his hand. 

“But I don’t know yours, yet.”

“I can give you my name, but as for hopes and dreams, I have no idea what I want to be. I’m still trying to figure that out.” You realised his hand was still in yours and gave it another small shake. “I’m Y/N.”

As the sun fell below the horizon the party grew larger and soon it spilled into the slice of paradise you had carved out with Logan. Sand was kicked up as two guys tackled each other to the ground and Logan threw a protective arm around you before they could crash into your side.

“Back it up bro,” he said as he rose to his feet and pulled you up too, tucking you in behind his back. “You could have hurt somebody.”

“Aw, Sargeant, is that your girlfriend?”

Logan ignored them and turned to check you were alright. His eyes scanned over your body and slowed on their ascent before he cleared his throat and met your eyes again. “Do you want to get out of here?”

You scanned the crowd and spotted two of your friends dancing and the other sat on some guy's lap, smiles on all their faces. You couldn’t disappear and make them worry but you didn’t want to stay as the party only grew more chaotic. “Yes, please, I’ll just tell my friends I’m leaving.”

You weren’t going to attempt to get amongst the gyrating bodies so instead headed to Dakota. The guy sitting beneath her noticed your arrival first and grinned at Logan as he stepped in beside you, his hand resting on the small of your back. “You’re leaving aren’t you? Well, you lasted longer than I thought you would.”

“You two know each other?” you asked. 

“Only since birth,” Logan answered. “This is my brother, Dalton. Dalton, this is Y/N.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” you said before turning your attention to your friend. “I’m going to head off, Kote. Logan said he can drop me off at the apartment after dinner.”

“Are you sure? I can take you back if you want.”

You laughed and leaned into Logan, enjoying the warmth that came as his arm curled around your waist. “I’m good, someone needs to make sure those two get back.”

You both looked at the twins who had found dance partners and knew the rented 4 bedroom apartment was probably going to double in residents by morning. With a resigned sigh that she didn’t really feel as the group mother, Dakota nodded. “I’ve got them, you two have fun.”

The wink she sent you off with made your cheeks heat but you hadn’t actually planned on doing what the action implied. Of course Logan was attractive, and the thought of taking him to your bedroom was one that had you melting, but you were quite happy just enjoying his company too. 

“Are you hungry? I know this great spot but it’s a bit of a drive from here.”

Out in the street where the sounds of the thumping bass couldn’t reach your stomach rumbled and you smiled sheepishly. “Just a little.”

The restaurant he knew was on Key Largo, about an hour south of where the party was in Miami Beach and you were amazed by how many bridges had been built to connect the keys. It would have felt a bit scary driving over the ocean if it wasn’t for Logan recounting stories of growing up in the state. It was a good distraction to listen to the fondness in his tone as he remembered fishing off the now-closed piers that he pointed out. 

“I think this is where you fit in,” you said as he cruised along the highway in his pickup truck, the radio quietly playing an RnB station in the background. It was warm enough that the window was down and the breeze blew his hair back like a runway model.

He glanced across the car and lifted a questionable brow. “In Florida?”

“No! Behind the wheel. You look, I don’t know, comfortable? No, content, that’s the word.” 

On the beach Logan had shared how he was halfway through the season of Formula 3 in Europe and had hopes to join an F1 team in the future. It was also when he mentioned returning to the country he currently lived in, four thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean. Despite only just meeting him, you felt the four week countdown arriving like a dark storm cloud.

Those four weeks flew by almost as quickly as you fell in love. 

Summer Break 2024

The soy milk screeched and you winced at the sound before saving the new girl, and the coffee, from the machine. Thankfully it wasn’t scorched as the shop was already full with the busy morning foot-traffic and you wanted to keep it flowing for the customer’s sake. 

“Soy latte with a shot of hazelnut?” A hand went up and you passed the takeaway cup over. “Have a nice day.”

You looked at the next order stuck to the bench and immediately searched for the customer, a smile splitting your face when you found him. “Baby, you’re home! Why didn’t you call?”

Logan ducked under the staff counter and met your embrace with strong arms that pulled you to your tiptoes. “I called, but you must have been busy here. God, it’s good to see you, sweetheart.”

You checked your phone in the pocket of your apron and saw the missed call before slipping it over your head. “Marie, can you keep an eye on everything?”

“Yeah, course, hun, take your time,” the part time barista said with a wave. “Welcome home, Logan.”

“Thank you.” 

You dragged Logan eagerly through the swing door that stated ‘staff only’ and past the break room to the disused office at the back. “I’ve missed you so much,” you managed to say between the desperate kisses you shared as he kicked your door closed. 

“Missed you too.”

Your hands reached beneath his shirt and he chuckled breathlessly as he caught them before they could move any further. “Tempting, sweetheart, but not here.”

You pouted as you draped your arms around his neck instead and held him tight. “I have the studio booked in 20 minutes, did you want to come?”

Logan rolled his eyes at the stupid question and didn’t bother to answer as he tucked his hands into the back of your jeans and buried his face in your hair. “You smell like blueberry muffins,” he hummed happily. 

“I can steal one,” you offered but when you pulled away he quickly pulled you back with a shake of his head.

“Diet.”

You grabbed the flesh on his abdomen, feeling the hard muscle beneath. “You’re perfect, baby, one muffin isn’t going to change that - but it will make you happier. Go grab a seat in the staff room.”

You walked him back down the hall and let him settle into the couch while you grabbed a muffin from the front counter. Most of the rush had quickly cleared and with the lull in orders you made him his favourite drink. 

“You spoil me, sweetheart,” he said with a gratefully smile as you placed the plate and cup on the coffee table. “Thank you.”

“Anything for you.” You sank into the couch beside him and watched him pick apart the muffin, finding all the blueberries to eat first. He could feel your eyes on his hands as they fiddled with crumbs but before he worked up the courage to explain why he caught a flight two days earlier than planned. “What’s going on, baby?”

He exhaled a heavy sigh and wiped his hands clean before taking yours. “I think it’s over.”

Your heart cleaved apart and your ears started ringing as your world came crashing down. There was only one semester left in your art programme before all the plans the two of you made would come to life - plans that started with moving to England with Logan. Plans that were crumbling down.

“It’s over?” you repeated as silent tears streaked your face and your hands slipped from his.

Horror bled into Logan’s features and he snatched your hands back, placing them over his chest where his heart beat rapidly with panic. “Not us, never us,” he rushed with a harsh shake of his head. “Fuck, sweetheart, you are my everything.”

You sagged with relief as he wiped your eyes but the relief was short lived as you understood what he meant and the phantom pain in your chest returned. “Have you spoken to James?”

He nodded and leaned into your touch as your palms ran up his chest to cradle his face. “It’s not good.”

To hear the defeat in his voice was something you never wished to hear again. It was a sound that no 23 year old should make, he was too young to feel the immense pressure he was under and a weaker man would have been broken by it. But Logan was strong, mentally and physically - he would recover from this, you would make sure of it.

“Come on,” you whispered as you rose to your feet and tugged his hands. 

“Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you home.”

“But you have class.”

You grabbed your handbag from your locker and tossed him the car keys. “This is more important, and I can paint anywhere.”

—

The drive to Miami took most of the day and the frown on Logan’s forehead seemed to soften as the arid air turned humid and the paddocks turned to swamp before he sped through Alligator Alley. The top 40 charts played quietly on the radio and Logan hummed along with the ones he liked while he held your hand on your thigh. 

A contented sigh of relief exhaled from deep in Logan’s chest as the sunset and the city lights illuminated the horizon. Though he was tired to his bones, just the sight of his home was enough to rejuvenate him and he sat up a little straighter before taking the exit that would lead him to Fort Lauderdale. 

Madelyn and Daniel were already expecting Logan and the front door opened before he could turn the engine off. It had been a while since they last had Logan home and you felt a little guilty since most of his returns to home soil were to visit you instead, but they didn’t hold it against you. Madelyn was just happy that there was someone who loved and supported Logan as much as she did.  

It was immediately clear that she wasn’t aware of his current struggles as you saw him hide behind a confident smile as she asked how everything was going. 

“I don’t want to disappoint them,” he admitted as he closed his bedroom door after dinner. 

You placed your bag on the floor and took a seat at the headboard before patting the spot beside you. Logan flopped down on the bed and rested his head on your thighs while his long legs hung over the edge, looking up as if you had all the answers. 

“You could never disappoint them, Lo, they just want you to be happy. And, you're worrying about things that haven’t even come to pass. We don’t know what the second half of the season will bring.”

“I know you are being reasonable, but I can’t help thinking this is the end. Everyone else thinks so too.”

“You mean everyone on X, formally known as twitter,” you said with a roll of your eyes that made him chuckle. “How about no social media for the whole break? Just disconnect from it all for four weeks.”

“And what happens at the end of the break?” he asked quietly, sensing deja vu from the last time he asked this three years ago. It was an eerily similar state too with his head on your legs but you were on the white sands instead of a bed. You had already fallen in love but he was due to fly back to Europe and you would be getting in the car with your friends and heading home. He had forever changed you that summer.

You combed your fingers through his hair as you relived the same memory. “We will be grateful for the time we had together.”

A smile tugged at his lips and he sat up so he could pull you onto his lap. “I’m not letting you go again.”

“I should hope not,” you stated as your knees settled either side of his thighs and you reached into his pocket to fish his phone out. “Now say goodbye to this, I am having you all to myself.”

He plucked the phone from your fingers and tossed it to the side table before putting all those glorious muscles to good use. The room spun until he caged your body beneath his and he gently kissed his way across your collarbone. “You already have me, sweetheart.”

–

A sick twisting feeling gripped your gut as you waved goodbye to Logan through misted eyes. No matter what you had said, you could feel his stress growing as the break came to an end and now he was going back alone. You wished you could go with him.

The drive back to your apartment was too quiet but you couldn’t listen to the radio because the songs he would have hummed to would only make you miss him more. It always took days, weeks even, to reacclimate yourself to the loss of his presence when he left. It never got easier but the memories made were worth it.

The days dragged by as classes began again and the repetitive routine of life was reestablished. Finally it was the weekend and you could curl up on the couch and watch Logan’s practice on F1TV while you were surrounded by paintings of him. There were two new additions that had come back from Miami, one capturing his happiness as he reeled in a bluefish and the other capturing his perfect features as he sunbathed shirtless, that one was purely indulgent.

“Oh no, Sargeant has taken a big shunt into the barriers there.”

Your feet slammed to the floor as you jumped out of your seat and stumbled closer to the tv as if you could reach through it and help, but you were helpless to watch as Logan remained in the car in the middle of the track - red flags waving. 

“Come on, baby, get out of there,” you begged as you heard his radio saying he was okay, but then the back of the car ignited into flame. You were screaming for him to get out as George’s car rolled by, his hands gesturing wildly for Logan to get out too before he finally was free of the seat harness and jumping out over the halo. 

You finally breathed a sigh of relief but it didn’t last as the camera cut to Logan leaning on the barriers, his head hung in defeat despite the helmet hiding his face. You knew your boyfriend better than anyone, you knew exactly what was going on inside his head and you knew you had to do something.

The credit card Logan had given you years ago had been left discarded in the back of your underwear drawer. He said it was for you to use but you had never been with him for the money and even as a broke uni student you hadn’t used it once. But this was an emergency, and if you were ever going to use it then you could be damn sure it was going to be spent on him.

One quick email was sent to your professor begging for an extension due to a family emergency before you packed a bag and booked the first flight out to Amsterdam.

With shaking hands you typed a message: I’m so glad you got out of there, baby. I’m on my way and I love you so much xxx

You knew he wouldn’t be able to reply for a little while since he would have to get back to the team garage, and there would be other responsibilities first like having a medical check and debrief, but you sent it anyway along with the flight numbers so he knew where you would be and when. It was going to be a long day with the 13 hours of flights plus the change in timezone but nothing was going to keep you from getting to Logan before the race tomorrow.

–

A stranger with a whiteboard greeted you at the airport and the exhaustion of the trip faded away when you reached the paddock with a pass in hand and stepped into the Williams garage. Bodies of mechanics moved in sync as they rushed around the car preparing it for the race that was due to start in a few short hours but it was one man that was standing among them that drew you closer. 

“Lo,” you greeted softly behind him on raised tiptoes. 

A wide smile split his face as he turned to embrace you, lifting your feet off the ground as he buried his face in your neck. “Hellow, sweetheart,” he breathed against your skin before inhaling the familiar scent of your perfume. 

Your hands tightened on his waist as he pressed a kiss to your temple. “Are you okay?”

He pulled back and his smile faltered. “I’m better now that you’re here.” 

You reached up to trace the curve of his cheek where his smile had been but his team principal called his name before you could feel the shadow of his beard on your palm. “Can I borrow you for a minute?” he asked Logan before spotting you, a flicker of surprise on his face. “Hello, Y/N, it’s lovely to see you again.”

“You too, James,” you replied politely before stepping out of Logan’s arms and giving him a little nudge in the right direction. “I’ll wait over in hospitality.”

Logan spent what time he could with you, reassured by the feel of your arms wrapped around his neck and your cheek pressed to his as you sat on his lap in the single chair that furnished his driver room. The thin walls did little to dampen the noise of the motorhome and the crowd beyond but for a few minutes Logan could forget it all and the pressure that came with it - until the clock ticked away the precious minutes alone and reality returned.

“I have to score a point today,” he whispered like he was confessing a sin and he tipped his head back to stare at the roof. “No point, no seat. That's the deal.”

“Can they do that with your contract?”

“They can do whatever they want, sweetheart. I’m lucky they let me go this long without contributing.”

You cupped his face and tipped it forward so he was forced to look you in the eyes. “There are more ways to contribute to the team than just scoring points. You spend hours in the simulator every week so they can get their precious data.”

“And then I go and cost them $250k when I crash,” he laughed humorlessly and dropped his forehead to yours. “I think this is it. I’m tired and it’s so hard to enjoy it now. That’s the worst part out of all of it. I used to like my job, it was all I wanted to do.”

Your thumbs caught the tears that clung to his lower lashes. “What do you want now?”

“I honestly have no idea, I just know I want to be wherever you are.”

A knock at the door interrupted the promise you were going to make and someone in a William’s shirt said it was time to head back to the garage before ducking back out of the room.

“I love you” you whispered between the kisses you traced across the bow of his lips. “I want you to go out there today and forget James and points and all that stuff and just enjoy the race. I have watched you give everything to this team but today I want you to be selfish, okay? Enjoy it out there or it’s all for nothing, no matter the outcome. And when you get out of that car I will be waiting for you, arms wide open.”

Logan closed his eyes and exhaled a shuddering breath before he captured your lips in a passionate kiss that left you both breathless. Resolute and proud, he stood up and placed you on his feet before grabbing his cap and slapping it on his head. “I’ll see you at the finish line.”

[tradgedyinwaves]

Touch - Ch. 2

Poly!141 x chunky!reader tw: little creepy at the end, stalking vibes

By the time the other three members of Task Force 141 made the drive to Ghost’s hometown, he had already determined where you were living by following you from the market and was back in his own flat, swirling a glass of whiskey. The team sat down to make a game plan, almost treating you as if you were one of their missions while sitting around Ghost’s beat up old dining table. You’d be theirs, one way or another. 

A Week Later, Saturday. 

Bleary weather had plagued Manchester for the last few days, gray clouds hovering overhead while you attempted to find your motivation for your job. It wasn’t helpful that you’d received news from your mom that your cousin and Kit would be getting married soon. A brick settled in your stomach at the news, ending the call with your mom quickly as you forced down the tears you refused to keep crying over him. 

In an effort to cheer yourself up, you headed out of your flat and down the street to the sweet little flower shop you’d found your first week in Manchester. The owner, Magda, was a kind, gentle old lady who essentially took you under her wing when you had trouble finding your footing in the new country. She’d been a boon to you, telling you the best shops for everything from groceries to clothes. You’d helped her find her cat when the mangy thing had slipped out the back door to fight the stray living behind a neighboring shop.

The bell chimed above your head, banging against the worn wood. You were immediately greeted by the scent of the most beautiful flowers and Magda’s voice talking a man through the best choices for an apology bouquet. You caught her eye over his shoulder and waved, a soft smile on your face as your eyes drifted to the back of the man’s head.

He easily stood a foot and a half taller than the elderly owner, cropped mohawk adding to the already egregious height difference. His shoulders were broad, though not quite as broad as your masked man back in New York. Why were you thinking about him all of sudden? You shook your head, clearing your mind like an etch-a-sketch and headed straight to the hyacinths and lilacs, wanting the sweet scent of your favorite flowers to brighten up your flat and completely missing him turning to take you in.

“Pretty flowers. Almost as pretty as you.” A low voice startled you out of your reverie, spinning on your heel to face the man Magda had been helping previously. Now, you could see that his eyes were a shocking blue and the lopsided smile he provided you made your heart stutter against your ribcage. But the size of him was what intrigued you. 

You’d accepted that this was the way you were now. Despite doing months of working out and eating well, your body hadn’t changed much from when you’d left the States. The cleaner food of England helped you feel better though, breathing a little life back into you after everything you’d dealt with. But that also meant that men weren’t as courageous in approaching you, their bravado faltering in the face of society's expectations. So when an attractive man approached you, blatantly flirting, your first response was to think it was a joke, snort and walk away, effectively blowing him off.

A gentle hand on your shoulder a few minutes later had you whipping around to ask what the guy's problem was, but was greeted by Magda instead. Immediately, you looked around for the mohawk guy, but he was nowhere to be found and you could have sworn the bell hadn’t dinged against the door. Weird. Bringing your gaze back to the elderly woman, you raised a brow at the scrap of paper in her hands. “That sweet young man paid for your flowers and left this as well,” Magda handed you the piece of paper with a number and a messy name scrawled at the bottom. 

Johnny. 

You’d gone home with your overly expensive bouquet and the scrap of paper after, staring down at it as if it would burst into flames at any moment. You took a deep breath, telling yourself “Why the hell not?” as you punched the number into a new message chain. 🪻: Uh, hi. Is this Johnny?

🧼: Ay, it is, Petal.

🪻: Petal? 

🧼: Well, I don’t know your name, do I?

He made a good point, making you sigh as you released your own name to him in spite of your reservations. But maybe, just maybe, you could manage to make a few friends if he ended up not being interested in you.

The next few days were spent lounging around your flat, going to work, and texting Johnny. What you didn’t know, though, was that he was reporting everything back to his boys. It had only taken Simon’s word and the one picture to have each of them wagging their tongues and readying their arms to protect what they now saw as theirs.

By the time you were winding down on Wednesday night and brewing tea that Johnny had insisted you know how to make, you were smiling at your phone that lit up every few minutes with his messages. The two of you had discussed everything from your favorite color and food to what had brought you to England. When he’d heard the details of that night, sans your interaction with Ghost, and paired it with Simon’s recollection, he’d been furious. His fingers tightened around the phone to the point that Price had taken it from him in an effort to not have to buy another replacement.

Simon had been in the same boat as Johnny, opting for stomping out of the flat to walk off his rage and guilt, feeling it gnaw at him for not stepping up before and then abandoning you after. His feet carried him to your building, watching from the ground as you paced around your space. When your pacing brought you in front of the window, you paused and looked through the glass, heart hammering as you saw a dark shape of a man standing on the sidewalk. But the light of the lamp posts made one thing stand out very clearly,

the white skull painted on his mask. 

I didn't want to offend any Scots with trying to type out Johnny's accent. I have a feeling this is going to turn into some long winded fic, so buckle in if you're ready for that.

Thank you so much for your support!

[almondmilkcleanser]

𝐒𝐮𝐛𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 - O3

■ ` ♡ characters / fandom ; f!reader x sebastian michaelis - kuroshitsuji + in a binding agreement

■ ` ♡ tw ; begging ; dominance ; dirty talk ; cumming inside + more ; MINORS DNI

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■ ` ♡ VIP GUESTS TO THE MEAL ↷

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■ ` ♡ A/N → WOW! all I can say is thanykou you to everyone who has been a constant support of this series. I really started doing smut as a way to pass the time and reignite my love for writing but its because of you guys who support and anticipate my work that really keep my going and i cannot thank you all enough. i remember oh maybe 2-3 people would check out my writing but to see the GROWTH makes me cry happy Scorpio tears. thanks again everyone!

You two walked alongside one another. Your eyes looking around you, analyzing the crowds. Its mixture of women, men and children all scampering about their respective directions. 

Little children no older than 8 came up to you, their faces dirty and patchy hats overcompensating their little heads. They pulled at the hem of your pants, a hungry look in their eyes.

“Sir! Madam! Do you have any change to spare? Me and my brother are sooo hungry!”

“Ah, I’m so sorry but I don-” before you could finish your sentence, Sebastian pulled a large loaf of bread from underneath his jacket. You looked at him with bewildered eyes that screamed “when did you grab that?!” but his warm smile never faltered as he looked at the small boy.

“I think this should be enough. Off you go now.” the little boy, with a wide smile, stuffed the bread under his hat and scurried away. You looked at him with a small smile only to be met with his sharp stare.

“Don’t look at me as if this is a regular event. The Phantomhives have to maintain an image around England. And orphans are of no exclusion.” you gulped, looked away and rolled your eyes.

You don’t have to be so diplomatic about everything all the time.

You two continued to walk for an extended period of time until the crowds began to thin and the streets became silent. You continued to follow Sebastian, but your eyes bounced to the lack of activity surrounding them.

“Sebastian?” you turned around and there was nobody. The cobblestoned streets laid vacant. Distant shouts and echoes could be heard, but down the alleyway you were walking, there wasnt a soul. Like all society just vanished.

“Where are you taking me? This better not be one of your illusion tricks!” Sebastian chuckled. He pulled your arm, bringing you closer to him. Lifting your chin up, he looked down at you, his simmering stare molding through your very being. 

“I don’t need magic to take what’s mine during this interim period. You don’t put up much of a fight, little lamb?”

“Little la-” you shook your head to the left, attempting to relinquish his grasp of you. “Don’t you “little lamb” me! It was you who made all these loopholes in the first place! You could have been like any traditional man, had your three have at it’s, and leave me to my work. But noooo. You just had to invent- h-hey! What are you doing!”

 Sebastian grew weary of your monologue. He picked you up and pressed you against a discrete brick-laiden wall. The chills of the afternoon breeze sent goosepimples across your body as he held you by your hips with little to no effort. He turned his head at you curiously, trying to read your reaction.

“Is this what you prefer? For someone to just use you and make you feel like their personal pleasure puppet for a finite period?” he pushed closer to you, tracing his hand down between your sex. His movements were slight, but you could feel his intentionally tantric motions waver around your most vulnerable area. You pulled in your lip, looking away bashfully.

“I may be a demon, Y/N. But I’m no brute. I like for my meat to tenderize just perfectly before,” he buried his nose in your neck, inhaling your scent. “I take my most generous of portions.” He could smell the mixture of macaroons, powder and cherry wine permeating off your skin. He could sense the viscosity between your legs thickening, preparing for entry, prematurely adjusting itself to be thrashed by him. And it made him smile to himself. You buried your hands in his hair, feeling the nape of his neck, intertwining your fingers in his locks. He kissed your neck, trailing his lips up and down the sides. Your lips parted, releasing a confident moan from your lips. All of this teasing was driving you mad, but you had to put up a fight. You couldn’t just lay down to such an obscure agreement with an ongoing continuance of loopholes. You just could-

“Ah, Sebastian~ Don’t do that~” he bit onto your flesh, suckling at its firm yet tender layer of skin. With another hand, he rubbed your breasts around and around, while still holding you in midair with the other. His strength never ceased to surprise you, but what threw you for a loop was his skill in execution. It was like he knew every spot, knew which angle just right to make you squirm.

"Its more enjoyable for the both of us if I can see just how far your limits can be stretched. TIll you're on the brink of madness, yearning to feel me inside of you. I think that makes the lay more enjoyable than me just bringing you over a barrel and having my way with you. Where's your sense of adventure?" you sighed, halting yourself from rolling your eyes.

“You’ve been doing this long.” you breathed. You closed your eyes, leaned your neck to the side so he could gain a greater surface area, and took a deep breath. He fished in your shirt, touching your flesh with his gloved hand. He flicked your nipple back and forth, his kisses at the neck getting sloppier and sloppier by the second. His saliva trickled down your neck and dried at your collarbone. His teeth marks embedded in your flesh, darkening the pigmentation to tell the world of your passions.

“Too long.” he replied. “You are just one I enjoy more than the others. Now, as I was saying-" with another squeeze of your breasts, his lips traced up your jawline, to your cheeks, his lips almost connecting to-

“SEBAS-CHAAAAAAAAAN!” the rippling feminine scream echoed above the rooftops, making Sebastian furrow his brows in annoyance. Who was that? Another woman? Another lover?

“How could you be so cruel, Sebastian! To seduce another woman in front of me this way! The little brat wouldn’t be so fond of you meddling with England’s upper class whores!” Whores!? You heard a faint buzzing sound that grew louder and louder. What was that? Was it a-?

Out of the unknown abyss above, a large red chainsaw flew out of the darkness directly towards you two. You screamed, blocking your face from impact, but Sebastian thought otherwise. As quickly as the chainsaw made direct impact into the wall, Sebastian simply shifted to the right of it. Still holding you in the air, he wrapped his arm around your back with one hand and with the other, pulled the large whirring chainsaw out of the wall with little to no effort.

“Grell, we talked about this.” Grell?! “In no way will we ever be in a relationship. There’s no need for your jealousies to potentially decapitate the both of us.” his eyes flickered red as a large smear of annoyance graced his face as he held the chainsaw over the both of your heads for a moment, only to slam the body of the chainsaw straight into the ground. It groaned, whirled, and sputtered before eventually giving out, its chain dismantling and latching into the muffler.

“Oh, you’re just no fun!” out of the clouds jumped a woman with flaming red hair, glasses, and a borderline psychotic smile. She propped her hands on her hips, sulking in what appeared to be a bratty way.

“I JUST got my scythe out of the shop, and you ruined it all over again! How could you be so cruel, Sebastian? After i’ve professed my love to you, this is how you repay me?!” dramatically, she threw her hand up to her forehead, feigning tears in the corners of her eyes.

You could see the vein pulsating in Sebastian’s forehead, but you couldn't stop yourself from peeking over his shoulder.

You didn’t know whether to feel bad for this woman or be afraid of her.

NEXT CHAPTER

[unadulteratedsoulsweets]

A DC X DP IDEA #4 You’re worth is more than a penny.

Imagine dis…

We all read and saw fanfictions about either Jason, Constantine, Bruce, or even Jazz raising Danny when he became younger due to Clockwork’s interference, but what if we reverse the roles?

Alfred Pennyworth was raised by Phantom.

It was early 1900 in England where it is common for children were being sold like cattle for a penny. Among the rows of yelling parents who are willing to sell a few of their children for a few pounds to help themselves or the younger ones at home, one parent was loudly exclaiming that his child is merely worth more than a penny. A nameless child with skin and bones as a body, at the tender age of 6 years old he already knew the horrors of child slavery. Some were never seen again like the ones he saw outside playing tag and others return to their parents in a body bag. He also knew that no one would want a skinny child like him so he waited for the inevitable beating at this man’s house, He refuse to call that man his father nor that dingy four-by-four wall home.

Suddenly a distinguished gentleman walked past him and he was just in awe at what he had sawed. A young man that seemed like in his early 20s has a face of youth yet has an air of maturity around them. Wearing the cleanest pair of white waistcoats and black trousers, shaggy black hair, and striking blue eyes.

It was obvious that he was an errand boy looking around for new workers, his mind supplied.

The man looked at him with raised eyebrows and couldn’t help but think that this person may buy him out of this man’s clutches and put him to work that may or may not end his life.

The older man who saw the interested look of the errand boy tried to advertise him as his worth is merely a penny.

…

Danny was merely taking a break from his kingly duties after months, years, and centuries have passed since his adventures as Danny Phantom. Visiting a newly made dimension in the eyes of the king of Infinite Realms, he made his way through the early 1900s for some sight-seeing, with the insurance from his advisers, court, family members, and consorts (Tucker & Sam) he went and enjoyed the view and contemplating that why does Clockwork give him his farewell in a form of a cryptic message such as a father of a bat needs saving from his unexpected fate,  as well this universe felt like something interesting is bound to happen.

Being the High King of the Infinite Realms the realms itself chose him as their champion and king through countless rights of ascensions throughout the years.

Seeing that child slavery is still a thing at this point in time made him want to turn around and go to another realm less depressing than this time and come back later when they abolished slavery.

Though he caught an eye on this thin scrawny little boy who is nothing but skin and bones that the tiniest gust of wind will push him on the brick pavement, the boy’s parents however saw him taking interest and tried to get rid of the boy seeing that he was nothing but an extra mouth to feed due to his “responsibility” as a parent and tried to sell him for a penny.

Danny weighed the pros and cons in this situation, raising a mortal child may be both rewarding and satisfactory but the fact that he cannot break the ancient rules to make him immortal that was placed by the Realms themselves to uphold the balance between the living and the ancient realm, but he can bend it to an extent, so that if he can extend longevity in his lifespan to at least reach a century or so.

Added to the fact that Clockwork gave a message to protect him.

Bought the boy for a penny and carried the child towards the disguised horse carriage.

Now, how to explain to his family that he acquired a mortal child?

…

The nameless boy widened his eyes in surprise as the “errand” boy actually bought and carried him gently towards a clean carriage that looked like is owned by a king.

After making him sit beside his employer, his employer began asking him questions.

Such as his age, and name. likes, dislikes, and many other confusing questions.

At the mention of not having a name his employer began to frown, looks like he has made his new employer furious and he hasn’t even begun to earn his keep.

After a tense silence, his employer declared that HIS new name would be Alfred Pennyworth, as the word Alfred means counsel as he stated that he can see his future and that he would counsel different men who wish his advice, and Pennyworth, as his father is a fool for selling him for a penny as he is worth more than that.

At the time the nameless no…, At the time Alfred didn’t know what is the warm feeling on his chest that made him long for this man’s approval. He may be naïve or far too trusting for putting his trust in a man he met for a few minutes but at the time his only thought was he had his own name that he owns.

When the carriage stopped his employer carried him out of the carriage, and what greeted him is something he would never forget.

An endless green sky stretches along the horizon, A large black castle that reaches the sky that has growing vines all over its walls, at the front an entire estate dedicated to different and extinct plant life to flourish, and rows and rows of servants lined up and dressed in the fanciest clothing for maids and for all genders bowing ever slightly greeting and welcoming back their master in unison.

He looked behind him and around him for the master of the house but when he couldn’t see one, he turned his attention to the one who bought him as he is quite sacred for upsetting for not greeting the master in his own house.

But as he turn to the man for a plea for help he caught the small smile that his employer gave him and nodded towards the directions of the servants.

That was the time he learned that the man who bought him and gave him a name is his supposed master.

…

The next few days were confusing to the young Alfred Pennyworth, as he expected to be working on the animal shed or any menial tasks yet he was treated like a prince.

Free to learn what he desired, learning skills that he would never think of learning, free to eat anything his heart and stomach desired, free to have a soft bed to sleep on as well as having toys to ensure that he was not bored, given a wide variety of possible hobbies to take his mind off things. Gained and learned philosophies around the realms as well as had great teachers in teaching him essential things in morals, science, and more. Most importantly gained a family that he never thought he would even have.

He learned how to walk silently as a ghost, be swift in terms of movements waster no action, be present like a shadow, and use any weapon at hand, one’s body is a weapon itself. Discipline thy self in any temptation known to man, to integrate oneself to be unknown, eyes and emotions betray your mind be mindful of your facial and body movement as a single doubt will get someone you love to perish, but most importantly learned his new family’s motto.

Family is family.

Simple yet a powerful motto. No matter how cruel the man who brought and gave him a new life and purpose, the man who he saw as father, maybe in making decisions to ensure that the Infinite Realms stay balanced throughout the entire realms. How ruthless are his aunts and uncle to make sure that everything in between stays in the center of the balance as too much of the brings chaos

When Alfred was merely a teen he was given a blessing by his father, to be able to live a long life while maintaining his morality. One day he may die which is true, but it will be a long time before the reaper takes him to his next adventure.

Spending time with each member of the Nightingale family are memories that will be kept deep inside his heart. His mother Sam, taught him the wonders and secrets of flora, his other father Tucker, taught him how technology is used both in hope and destruction, His uncle Dan taught him about being an impenetrable wall in both mind and body, His older aunt Jazz taught him how to read his opponents in combat as well learning the beauty of human brain, His aunt Ellie who taught and showed him the wonders of the world in terms of the scenery, delicacy and culture, His grandfather Clockwork, taught him to be a cryptic as well moving on and forward as bad things are as natural as breathing and to move on is to let the time run its course.

Last but not least his father Danny, the High King of the Infinite Realms the man who he owes his entire being and life. The man whom he respects and wishes to turn out like him, the man who is proud to call his father. Taught him a multitude of things that one would not expect from a king, Be a Gentleman. A firm handshake combined with looking the other person in the eye carries with it respect, dignity, and strength, Honor Your Father and Mother, Respect Women, Be a Man of Integrity, Take Responsibility, and Work Hard, among the advice he gave and taught to him that they put into his life through action and words.

When WW2 came to his dimension he asked his father to be able to go back as it is still integrated into his blood to fight for the country that he was born into. As well as making a name for himself, to prove to the world his worth is more than a penny, to prove that all of their learning is not to be put to waste.

With the approval of his family, he set out to make his name.

S.A.S. Armed Services, fighting in 15 different operations between ages 18 and 20. A skilled medical and front liner soldier who was decorated. He later joined MI5, as well the secret forces of the Queen and later being knighted by her majesty

…

In this present time, we all know the current Alfred Pennyworth, the kickass ninja butler who is a mystery to the Batfam and has a lot of skillsets that are both surprising and expected to the Batfam. The butler who dared to out Batman the Batman. The butler is willing and dared to ground Batman for not taking care of himself. The butler carries a shotgun out of defense and we are pretty sure he is hiding a hidden bazooka somewhere in the manor. The butler who cooked delicious food and the one who raised Bruce Wayne

…

Working for the Wayne is not set to be permanent but the moment his ward Bruce Wayne becomes a hero just like his father and brings in his own version of a makeshift family he cannot help but stay for the sake of his ward that he saw as a son.

His family was there every step of the way.

Looking at the long dinner table that is filled with food with his ward/ son and his children he can't help but look fondly at the scene in front of him.

This is why he would not eat with the rest of the Batfam, the ambitious dinner or just being complete brings him back just when he was just a little boy looking at his father for guidance.

…

The Bat family are known to be good sometimes great detectives as they were taught by the greatest detective in the world, despite their wit and intelligence they still could not figure out their grandfather/ butler.

Having no presence before WW2 is common, as many orphans joined the war to bring acknowledgment to their names and presences. So when a glowing green letter made its way towards the kitchen counter, just as Alfred took a moment to look when he immediately snatched the said letter and ripped it open to see the contents.

Now mind you this was a never occurrence as Alfred Pennyworth is the epitome of calmness and neutrality so when he tore a letter like a kid who was given his first Christmas present all noise seemed to stop to look at the wide-eyed butler.

Alfred kept reading the said letter with wide eyes ignoring the shocked look of the people around him. Immediately telling Bruce that he will be going on an immediate 2-week vacation without even concealing his own joy in his voice and quickly turned around to pack a suitcase worth.

The entire Wayne’s both adopted and not are now invested what could the letter possibly contain that Alfred Pennyworth himself becomes a kid just by reading it?

Tailing the said butler was hard, following his quick steps which indicate impatience from the patient butler as well as a small smile that indicates fondness immediately became their new case.

Stopping at a large mansion surrounded by plant life that has a gothic aesthetic to it. As Alfred entered the gate he was tackled by a small black-haired blue-eyed child immediately followed by three teens and one large buff young adult.

All of them are hugging and exclaiming joy as Alfred reciprocated each hug with enthusiasm for his age.

Who are they and how does Alfred know all of these people?

 …

PS: If someone out there wanting to continue or make a fic about this you are free to do so don’t forget to tag me though.

[ellemaru]

"I Like Your Bike"

Biker!Simon "Ghost" Riley x Fem Reader

Summary: On your way back to the hotel with friends, a shiny black motorcycle that belongs to a mysterious serviceman catches your attention.

Word Count: 1,289 Cw | Mentions of alcohol and intoxication

A/N: The character is implied to be black, but you can imagine them however you like !

Drunken laughter mingled with the sounds of other chatter on the bustling street as you walked with your 2 girlfriends and talked with each other, recapping your first day in Manchester, England, and the first out of many stops on the two-month-long trip in Europe. Your heels had become uncomfortable long ago, making you ever so grateful that you had been smart enough to think to bring a pair of flats along as you indulged in Manchester’s nightlife. The group had barhopped and chatted with strangers all night, getting the full Manchester experience as everyone explored the city and took in the views.

As the group neared their hotel, something shiny appeared in the corner of your eye, causing you to slow down your walking speed, the swinging heels in your hand slowing down as your strides did. Your brown eyes narrowed slightly as you tried to make out what the thing was, struggling due to the fact that it was night and you were nearsighted. As you tapped your friend’s shoulder and began to walk toward the unknown object, your eyes adjusted slightly, realizing it was a motorcycle, one of the nice, slick, black ones.

You mindlessly began to run your hand along the smooth and shiny exterior of the motorcycle until a voice popped you out of the trance.

“Mate, you can’t just touch random people's bikes,” 

When you looked up, you were met with a brick wall in the form of a man. He stood around 6’3 and was obviously jacked based on the way his compression shirt hugged his pectoral muscles and biceps. His bright hazel eyes practically had you hooked already, was it the alcohol, or were they that pretty? No one knows, but you did know that this guy was HOT.

“Uhhh, I um,” you giggled and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear before remembering that 

You are NOT Debby Ryan and you are NOT on Radio Rebel

You forgot to lay the lace down again by your ear when you installed your wig earlier

The man cocked an eyebrow as he looked down at you, the action slightly concealed by the black balaclava he wore that had a skull print on it, an interesting choice considering the heat.

“Are you not hot in that mask?”

“Did you not notice your friends aren’t here anymore?” he replied with a teasing tone. 

When you turn around, you see that your friends have indeed left you with the mysterious man and continued on to their hotel.

“Lass, I think you need some better friends,” he let out a quick chuckle, like…the personification of haha.

“Your laugh is funny,” you giggle as you lean in closer to him, looking at the metal tags that hang around his neck. 

“Simon Riley,” you read his name slowly as you looked up, tilting your head to the side slightly, wondering if it was actually his name or if he was wearing a deceased relative's dog tags. He nodded as he looked back down at the smaller woman. They sat in silence for several awkward moments before you decided to break the silence.

“I like your bike,”

“Thanks,” annnnd it was back to silence again

“You don’t talk much,”

“Not much to talk about with a random drunk lass I’ve met,”

“Fair point…What kind of bike is that?” that question was all you needed to get Simon’s attention.

That one question led to a whole conversation as he explained the ins and outs of his bike which was apparently a Yamaha R1 but other than that, he was fluent in yapping. The only thing you were focused on was his deep voice, thick British accent, and the way his compression shirt hugged all the right places on his torso. It seemed he didn’t even notice that you were looking at him with hearts in your eyes, mainly due to the fact that you had drunk way too much earlier. 

“Wanna go for a ride?” he asked you as he leaned against his bike.

The first thing that ran through your mind was “What kind of ride”.

“Huh?”

“I asked do you want to ride my motorcycle with me, like, do you want to be my backpack?” he asked again, giving his signature, stereotypical haha laugh.

“Oh uhh sure! I mean um that sounds like fun or whatever,” when you caught yourself seeming too eager, you changed up the way you phrased your sentence quickly.

When he turned around to give you a jacket and a helmet, he patted his pockets like he always does when he’s missing something before groaning from annoyance and pinching the bridge of his nose with his gloved hand.

“Well, I unfortunately don’t have an extra jacket or helmet on me right now so it seems we won’t be doing any riding today, but we could always do it another time I guess, dunno,” he mumbled the last part, “How long will you be here in Manchester?” he inquired, wondering how much time he would have before you would leave the city and the country

“I think we’re going to be here for at least another week,” you shrug as you see him frantically pull out his phone, almost dropping it once before he hands it to you, the contact screen open. Once you two exchange numbers, silence falls upon the two of you again.

“I could walk you back to your hotel if you would like, I don’t like the idea of you walking alone at night, especially as a tourist. Plus my mom would kill me if she found out I didn’t offer,” he laughs as he holds out his arm towards you.

“That would be nice,” you smile as you hook your arm in his, your brown skin contrasting with his pale one. He quickly unhooks his arm to place his leather jacket over your shoulders before linking arms again and heading on your way to the hotel. During the walk back, the two of you got to know each other, learning about interests and current status in life along with cracking jokes and just breaking the ice. It was about a 15-minute walk back to the hotel and once the two of you got back, you sighed, a little sad that your time together was already over for the day.

“We’re here. Thank you for walking me back to my hotel again, it was really sweet of you to do this because you really didn’t have to,”

“Of course, what kind of man would I be if I didn’t offer?” he snapped a flower from a nearby plant and handed it to you, “a pretty flower for the pretty lass,” he winked as you took it.

“Ugh, you Brits are such charmers, I’m quite sad to say that it worked too,” you both laughed for a few moments as he unlinked your arms.

“You free tomorrow at 19:00?”

“I’m so glad I understand military time, and yes I am,”

“Alright lass, I’ll be here in the lobby then, make sure you’re on time,” he gently takes your hand in his gloved one and kisses it through his balaclava. He gives one more wink before he turns on the heels of his combat boots and strides confidently out of the hotel. You stood there, absolutely shocked at what occurred before you realized you still had on his leather jacket. You ran outside to find him and tell him he had forgotten his jacket, but by that time, he had already disappeared into the cool Summer night. At least that meant you were guaranteed to see him tomorrow because there was no way he would just forget the nice leather jacket.

[pitchsidestories]

tied to you II Esme Morgan x Reader

masterlist I word count: 1015

a/n: just something short and sweet tonight, enjoy. 🤍

Forward knot, forward knot, then a backward knot. One colour after the other.

Esme sat alone at a table knotting strings into one of her iconic friendship bracelets. She had made a bracelet for each of her England team members so far except for one.

This one would be her last one. And it had to be the most perfect one so far.

She was fully focused on her task, trying to avoid mistakes at any cost. In fact, she was so focused that she jumped a little in her seat when Lauren Hemps voice suddenly asked: “Esme, what are you doing?“

Catching her breath from the scare, she turned around to her while simultaneously trying to hide the bracelet in her lap: “Hempo, keep building your stuff with LJ and Lucy. I need to focus here.“

She nodded into the direction of your other teammates that sat at the other end of the room, stacking bricks on bricks.

Lauren ignored her completely and reached for the bracelet: “Let me see.“

“No.“, Esme replied, not letting go of the strings to avoid tangling.

“I thought you were done with bracelets?“, Lauren asked curiously. She eyed it cautiously, taking in the different colours.

Esme smiled and pulled the bracelet out of Laurens hands: “I am. But this is the most special out of them all.“

She continued working on it while her teammate watched on, her head tilted.

“This?“ Confusion mixed with judgement.

“It’s for my girlfriend.“, Esme nodded.

“Why aren’t you making a pretty one then? The colours are so chaotic?“, the winger laughed.

“Because each colour represents a different memory…“, Esme explained softly.

Niamh Charles appeared next to them, sitting down on the table: “What does the blue stand for?“

“And the brown?“, Lauren added before Esme could answer.

“Or the dark green one?“ This question was Lucys.

Esme blushed as she found herself surrounded by her teammates: “Guys, stop for a minute. Let me breathe, okay? So the light blue one obviously represents our time at City together.“

Niamh nodded solemnly: “Okay, that makes sense.“

“But that doesn’t explain the brown and green one.“, Lauren reminded her.

“Not to forget the pink!“, Lucy agreed.

“So, I chose the brown because it looks exactly like her favourite coffee order.“, Esme started. The girls surrounding her stared down at the cappuccino-coloured strand.

“That’s cute.“, Lauren commented.

“And the rest?“, Niamh prompted Esme to go on but she quickly shook her head.

“Oh no, she’s coming. Help me to distract her girls. I’m not completely finished yet.“

She hid the bracelet behind her back while her teammates got up.

You just entered the entertainment room with two to-go cups in hand when Lauren Hemp walked briskly towards you: “Hey, y/n.“

“Hi, Hempo. What are you building at the moment?“, you asked politely.

“I uhm… uhhh.“, she replied, seemingly surprised by your question.

“We’re working on that flower bouquet.“, Lucy answered in her stead, pointing towards a collection of square brick flowers.

You smiled: “How pretty.“

"You want to help us?", Lauren asked with a friendly grin on her lips. "Sure, have you seen Esme though? I've her hot chocolate order right here?", you wanted to know, your hands wrapped around the hot drink.

"She's right..oh, I mean no.", the blonde stammered. "So Es is in the room?", you looked around curiously. "I'll bring it to her.", Niamh offered winking.

"Okay?", you had a feeling that something was off and they were trying to distract you, but you didn’t know from what. Like what was Esme doing or hiding?

"Esme is busy doing something for the lionesses’ social media.", the defender explained quickly. "Oh, I won't interrupt her then.", you declared. "Come on, let's build some flowers.", Lauren smiled warmly. How could you say no to that? Impossible, plus it was so much fun. Later in the evening Esme gave you a long hug when she entered the dimly lit hotel room you shared together.

"Hi love, thanks for the hot chocolate earlier.", the defender whispered gratefully. "You're welcome, Es.", you replied. "I've something for you.", Esme winked conspiratorially. "You do?", you raised an eyebrow at your girlfriend.

"Yes, something I promised you for a long time.", she nervously put a loose hair string back behind her ear. "Is it a bracelet?", you asked the new Washington Spirits signing audibly moved. The lionesses teammates knew you were sad about the fact that everyone received an armband by her except you. "It's.", Esme confirmed excitedly before helping you to put her handmade bracelet on.

"Thank you.", you beamed at her. "I hope you like it.", the defender responded. "It's perfect.", you assured your girlfriend who's lips formed into a beautiful smile. "You like it?" "No, I love it.", you emphasized your previous words. Your shoulders slumped while you remembered how far you'd be apart when the camp was over. "What's wrong?", Esme questioned concerned.

"Nothing, I'll just miss you.", you admitted with a heavy sigh.

"I know. I'll miss you too. But that's why I made that bracelet with these colours.", the defender confessed, pressing a soft kiss to your wrist which made your heart flutter.

Does each one has a special meaning?", you looked at her interested. She took her time to explain it to you. How the light blue string stood for your time together at City, the brown symbolizing your coffee order and many more.

"Maybe that can help for the first few weeks.", Esme ended hopefully. "And the next lionesses camp won't be too far off.", you remembered.

"Exactly and we can always call each other.", the blonde added optimistically. Her words were like balm to your worries.

"We can do this, right?" "Yes. We'll be fine. Finer than fine.", your girlfriend smirked pressing sweet little kisses on to your face making you giggle. Deep down you knew that Esme was right. Together you were capable to face everything even long distance over two continents, the love you had for each other was strong enough and the bracelet was your everyday reminder for it.

[verstappensrealwife]

Reclaiming Lost Love - Fernando Alonso x Reader

Angst to fluff

Approx. 1100 words

warnings: idk xoxoxo

based on this request

fernando alonso masterlist - here. f1 masterlist - here.

The rift between you and Fernando had deepened, a chasm of conflicting desires. He yearned for the sun-drenched shores of a Mediterranean paradise, while you clung to the damp embrace of your homeland, England. Endless debates turned into heated arguments, each word another brick in the wall dividing your once inseparable bond.

One frosty morning, the silence between you became too heavy to bear. You made the agonizing decision to leave, to escape the suffocating grip of disagreement. With a heavy heart, you departed his Spanish abode, leaving behind shattered dreams and a hollow ache.

In the solitude of his home, Fernando's world crumbled around him. The vibrant hues of Spain paled in comparison to the vibrant memories of your laughter echoing through its corridors. The warmth of the Mediterranean sun felt cold against the emptiness in his soul.

As the bleak days of January dragged on, Fernando tried to piece together fragments of his shattered heart. But with February's arrival came a cruel reminder of what he had lost. Valentine's month, a time meant for love, mocked him with its saccharine sweetness.

Determined to mend what was broken, Fernando rehearsed his plea in the mirror, his reflection a ghost of the man he once was. "Go to dinner with me?" Each word dripped with desperation, a plea to bridge the chasm that separated you. 

Despite the bitter cold outside, Fernando's heart burned with a fervent hope as he stood outside your door, ready to lay bare his soul in a final, desperate bid for reconciliation. Flowers wilted in his trembling hands and a box of chocolates in the other, symbols of his futile attempts to win back your affections.

Just as he had steeled himself to knock on the unforgiving wood, the door swung open with a suddenness that startled even him. There you stood, framed in the doorway, your expression a mixture of shock and disbelief. He flinched at the expletive that escaped your lips, the harshness of it contrasting with the softness of your features.

"Jesus fucking Christ!-- Fernando? What are you doing here...?" Your words cut through the air like shards of ice, each syllable a painful reminder of the abyss between you.

For a moment, Fernando faltered, his rehearsed speech evaporating into thin air. He stood there, a lost soul, grappling for words that could bridge the chasm between you. Finally, he managed to croak out, "I... I came to... to beg for another chance."

His voice cracked with emotion, the weight of his longing heavy in the air. As he met your gaze, he saw the walls you had put up, the barriers that kept him at arm's length. But beneath the layers of hurt and anger, he saw something else—a flicker of something he dared to hope was still love.

Fernando's breath caught in his throat as he beheld you, a vision of ethereal beauty standing before him. Despite the passage of time and the weight of your separation, you remained as captivating as ever, a testament to the resilience of your spirit.

"God, how did you manage to get even more beautiful?" he whispered, his voice barely above a reverent breath. His gaze lingered on your parted lips, the brightness in your eyes, and the perfection of every strand of your hair. To him, you were flawless, an embodiment of all he had ever desired. "I miss you," he confessed, his voice a fragile thread woven with longing. "And- and I'd do anything for you, even if that means living here in your sad country."

You couldn't help but snort at his words, a mixture of amusement and disbelief dancing in your eyes. "Always a charmer, are you?" you teased, a hint of affection softening your tone. His shy smile in response only served to deepen the ache in your heart, reminding you of the love that still lingered between you. "I missed you too, but--" you began, your voice trailing off as uncertainty clouded your thoughts.

"Why does there have to be a but?" Fernando's voice was gentle, pleading, his eyes searching yours for reassurance.

"Because you might change your mind, Nando," you replied, the tenderness of his nickname slipping past your lips before you could stop it.

Nando. The affectionate name held a world of forgiveness, a beacon of hope in the darkness of your doubts.

"Not about this, not about you..." His words hung in the air, a promise wrapped in the warmth of his gaze. Despite the uncertainty that lingered between you, in that moment, you dared to believe him.

-

As the door clicked shut behind you, the warmth of the building enveloped you both like a comforting embrace. But while you basked in the cosy atmosphere, Fernando wasted no time in voicing his next complaint of the heat.

"God, do you ever stop?" you chuckled, watching as he aggressively shook his coat off his arms, as if trying to rid himself of the oppressive heat.

He flashed you a sheepish grin, his cheeks flushed from the sudden change in temperature. "I swear, it's like jumping from one extreme to another," he replied.

You rolled your eyes, unable to suppress a smile at his antics. "Well, you wanted to experience the joys of living in England," you retorted playfully, a hint of mischief dancing in your eyes. "Consider this a crash course in British weather."

You laughed, the sound filling the air with a warmth that had nothing to do with the building's heating system. 

The playful banter between you and Fernando continued as you shed your coats, the warmth of the building wrapping around you like a familiar embrace. With each shared laugh and teasing remark, the tension that had once hung between you melted away, leaving only a sense of intimacy and affection in its wake.

As Fernando flashed you a sheepish grin, his cheeks flushed from the sudden change in temperature, you couldn't help but feel a surge of fondness for the man standing before you. Despite the trials you had faced and the distance that had threatened to tear you apart, there was something undeniably magnetic about him, something that drew you in like a moth to a flame.

Leaning in closer, you caught the scent of his cologne, a heady mixture of sandalwood and spice that sent a shiver of anticipation down your spine. His eyes met yours, dark and smoldering with desire, and you knew in that moment that you wanted nothing more than to lose yourself in him.

[katiemccabeswife]

It's Not Your Fault.

Matildas x Fem!Reader

After losing against England in the semis, not only do you feel guilty but people are blaming you.

Word Count: 1.3k

Warnings: Vomiting, crying, threats (breifly mentioned), death (very breifly mentioned), self depricating thoughts, sad reader :(

You were one of the youngest players on the team, technically speaking you were the youngest being a few months younger than Mary. Despite your age, and compared to the other girls -your lack of experience, you were still a part of the starting lineup for the semi-finals against England.

You had played in all of the other games, if only for a few minutes at the end of a game, including the game against France. You participated in the penalty shoot-out and managed to get the ball past the keeper which brought you and your team to this point.

You were more nervous than excited but you wouldn’t admit that to any of the girls. The Matilda’s had made history for Australia and women’s soccer and that’s exactly what the girls would tell you for you expressed your worries about the game. They’d tell you that they along with the rest of Australia would have your back and no matter the outcome, everything would be ok. You didn’t want to listen to the girls lie to you, so you said that you were fine and excited.

It didn’t help that some of the girls apart of the Lionesses squad were your teammates from Arsenal. You were still kind of new to the club and were still building relationships with the girls and you didn’t want tension between the group if your team beat theirs or vice versa. Steph and Caitlin would be in the same position as you but they were already well settled into the team and you doubted a loss could ruin the relationships already built.

To sum it up you were shitting bricks and your stomach hurt from stress and worry. You smiled and chatted to the little girl you walked out with, sang the national anthem and smiled for the team picture but once the camera went down and you were in place, ready to start the game, you almost started crying and throwing up.

~

You didn't get any goals. Sam got one, but so did Ella. And Lauren. And so did Alessia.

You did however have almost the perfect shot but your anxiousness washed over you like a hot shower and you passed it off to Mary who missed. You know you should have taken it, everyone does. No one would blame Mary for missing but they would blame you for not taking the shot. Whilst the goal may not have made you win, it could have boosted morale and encouraged one of the others to get another goal that could have won it for Australia.

You passed the ball to Mary but you didn’t run towards an open space to give her options, you stood there with a blank face before bending over and clutching onto your stomach. You heard a few people boo when you chipped the ball and you knew they were booing you. You were booing you as well.

You walked up to Mary and pat her on the back, “I’m so sorry Mary, I should have taken the shot. I’m sorry, I panicked.” Your eyes had filled with tears and your free hand was still clutching your stomach.

“It’s ok, don’t worry about it,” Mary smiled at you in reassurance but you knew she was upset.

“I’m sorry,” You nodded to her before running back to position.

You lost the game for Australia and you felt worse than when you started. You barely held on when the final whistle sounded. You say yourself onto the floor before rolling onto your stomach and crying into your arms, trying to block out the lionesses celebrating. You tried to keep your shoulders still as you sobbed and held your breath when someone came and tapped you on the back or whispered to you that you played well.

You slowed your tears as you did the walk around and again when you and the whole team stood in a heart shape and listened to what Tony had to say, but you didn’t stop them when you walked through the tunnel. You didn’t say ‘Hi’ to any fans nor signed anything, you were sure no one would want to even look at you.

You walked right into the bathrooms and threw up everything you had in your stomach. You were dry-heaving when you felt someone rubbing your back. You leaned your forehead onto your arm and sobbed. The hand stayed there.

You weren’t sure whose hand it was as you stayed in the bathroom cubicle until Sam came and helped you stand before wrapping you into a hug.

“I’m so sorry, Sammy. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” You repeated over and over as new tears began to fall.

"It’s ok, chick. It’s ok,” She reassured with tears in her own eyes.

“Everyone’s gotta hate me, I lost the game for us. I’m so sorry Sammy,” You sobbed loudly.

She pulled you away for the crook of her neck and held onto the sides of your face, “Chick, this is a team sport. You didn’t lose the game, we lost the game. It’s not your fault, no one hates you,”

“Maybe you guys don’t but everyone else will,”

“Well they can go fuck themselves, I’d like to see them play professional football,” You laughed lightly through sobs, “C’mon let’s get goin',” She kissed you on the forehead and guided you towards the bus.

~

Sam was right, but so were you. The girls didn't hate you or blame you, that you knew of, but the rest of Australia did. You were messaged horrible things, threats, death wishes and they were also commented on all of your socials even going back to your earliest posts.

Hayley caught you scrolling through the gate messages, turned off your comments and blocked everyone that DMed you. You were rooming with her so she heard you crying under your duvet and in the shower and tried to cheer you up.

You were grateful for her efforts but if anything, it made you feel more guilty. Yes, not only were you mourning the loss but also fighting against the immense hate you were getting but Hayley was also mourning the loss and you felt guilty that she was trying to take care of you when she should have been taking care of herself.

You ended up spending a lot of time in bed over the next few days, opting out of team bonding time, either sleeping or crying. When it came to training, as you had the match for 3rd place coming up, you were pushing yourself to a new limit and staying afterwards to continue practising.

After dinner with the girls, Hayley came into your room and sat you up against the headrest before turning the TV on. After flicking through a few channels, a familiar face popped onto the screen.

"The good thing about playing a team sport," Sam's voice filled the room, "Is that it's never one person's fault, or it's never one person that made the team win. And I think that without Y/N the whole team, I mean Tony will probably tell you, that our whole team plan changes. She's such a...an amazing player, and being so young she holds so much potential"

You had tears in your eyes as you continued watching the news. Chloe Logarzo also spoke on the matter which made your heart warm as you had never even spoken to the girl and she was defending your honour. Hayley let the news continue playing as she pulled out her phone and wrapped her arm around you.

She pulled up Instagram and clicked on various stories. All of your fellow Australians had posted pictures of you and them saying how proud they were of you, Ellie's kindly saying, "My superstar, leave her alone <3". Some of the girls from Arsenal even posted similar things that Hayley showed you before going into her camera roll and showing you pictures of fans with signs for you, those who also posted for you and those who had DMed you expressing gratitude for you and congratulating you.

You were crying again, but tears of happiness. Hayley hugged you before bringing you down to the girls who hugged you 'til you were scared their arms would fall off.

[totaly-obsessed]

Goody-two-shoes

Katie McCabe x reader

-> Modeled after that insane Man City vs. Chelsea game. (I also have no clue how football works, please excuse mistakes)

-> Reader gets carded and doesn't quite know how to handle it - Katie is there for her

➳ Masterlist

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Referees can make or break a good football game -something that everybody knows, especially when being a professional footballer. And while you did believe in said statement, it had never been more obvious than now.

Emily Heaslip, the biggest Chelsea fan on this godforsaken planet. And while you didn’t necessarily think that, your girlfriend Katie definitely did. No one thought that Heaslip would referee another WSL game, after having been escorted off the pitch by security because of how angry she had made fans, trainers, and players.

Katie, a reliable candidate for yellow cards immediately knew that she would not be playing in the game against Tottenham – or at least she wouldn’t be in the starting lineup.

It had never happened before, that not only your opponent's tactics had to be talked through, but also the tendencies of the referee. The atmosphere was tense, no one wanted to play a game where a heap of yellow cards was guaranteed.

To Katie you were the only good thing during the week, always making the brunette laugh when you noticed her getting into her head too much. And she noticed you cheering up your other teammates as well – goofing off with Kyry in the gym, telling Alessia the dumbest jokes, and making a fool out of yourself, much to Beth’s enjoyment. If the Irishwoman wasn’t absolutely in love with you already, she would have definitely fallen for you by this point.

A few players of the WSL had their reputations – Katie with her yellow cards, Millie Bright the defensive brick wall, and Rachel Daly who seemed to make every goal she wanted to. All of them were quite serious, and then there was you. With your fair playing style and a bright smile always on your face, you had earned yourself the title of ‘goody-two-shoes’.

And you relished in it.

There were not a lot of people who didn’t like you, no matter what club they supported – the ones who really did not like you tended to think, that you were faking your personality.

A lot of fans find it ironic that you had ended up with Katie, who tended to get more cards in a season than you had gotten in your entire career.

But something was off on that Sunday, everything felt wrong. While it was okay that your girlfriend wouldn’t be standing next to you in the starting lineup, it felt wrong – especially in a game against Tottenham who were currently above Arsenal in the chart.

The start of the game was hesitant, with every player on the pitch walking on eggshells. It was Ashleigh Neville who got the first yellow card in the 22nd minute of the game. Her being the first player would seem weird when looking at the statistics at the end of the game.

And while you did not, Katie noticed a shift in the game – in the referee who got redder at any little thing that she saw.

It was Caitlin who got the next card, followed by Jen, followed by Lotte. Every card that Heaslip gave seemed wrong. Carding Lotte, when Beth England had stumbled over her foot – even the Tottenham player was confused by the card. Carding Cait when she accidentally ran Kit Graham over when jogging backward.

But then came the biggest shock of the game – you got a yellow card.

Kim had been roughly pushed to the ground by a Tottenham player, and you have had enough. You protested the ref, trying to explain to her that it was indeed not an accident but a punishable action. Emily Heaslip however had none of it, swiftly pulling out that annoying, little yellow card and holding it straight to your face.

The players fell into complete silence, not believing what had just happened. It was Kim who was up on her feet again, who pulled you away, patting your back in thanks.

Katie could see how the situation was messing with your head – no one was angrier than her, and she desperately wanted Frida to run over the ref as she had done before. The brunette tried to get your attention on the sidelines, shouting words of encouragement at you. “Oi! Keep ya head up!”

A few minutes later the whistle was blown for halftime.

Nil all.

The changing room was tense – no one was having fun. Jonas tried his best to give an inspirational speech. It didn’t matter how many goals you scored, it was important not to concede. Leah was pleading with the team to get your heads sorted out so that you could enter the second half with clear minds.

Your stomach felt uneasy as if it was at war with itself. Face dripping wet over the bathroom sink, eyes swollen and red, breathing heavily, is how Katie had found you.

“You did so well my love.” A warm hand found its place on your neck – gently guiding your still-dripping face into Katie’s dry and warm shoulder, letting you calm down for a second.

“Makin’ me so proud baby.” The thick accent felt like honey in your ears, numbing your mind temporarily before having to go out again.

Being back on the pitch felt like a fever dream, your head was not really where it was supposed to be but the game had to go on.

And go on it did – not to your benefit though. In the 62nd minute, Neville pulled a not-so-nice challenge on Kyra who was lying on the ground, arms raised in protest.

Arsenal was given a free kick, and you were supposed to take it. Beth England had brought the ball back where the kick was to take place.

It took you fifteen seconds until you decided on your target, Kim, who had run herself free from her defender. Just as you were about to take it, she was covered again, so you stopped in your tracks, only to shoot a second later when you saw your captain's hand gesture.

The Scot had just gotten to the ball when the shrill sound of the whistle could be heard. Not a single player on the pitch knew why. Both teams got loud with protest when they saw another yellow card being given.

To you.

You who already had a yellow.

Everyone was shocked. Katie couldn’t believe her eyes – after the yellow card followed the red which was held directly into your poor, shocked face.

‘Time wasting’ was what Emily Heaslip shouted at you. It took Kim everything to stop the others from rioting and instead guided you to Katie. The Irishwoman was standing at the sidelines, waiting for you.

The referee resumed the game, Arsenal now being down to ten players. The whole stadium was in uproar.

Your freekick had taken twenty seconds – the average took thirty. How was this time-wasting?

Katie could feel your body shaking as she pushed you into the shower and turned it on. She waited for you just outside of the door, a fluffy towel in her arms, ready to cuddle you to death.

She understood that you didn’t want to talk, instead filling the silence with telling you everything that had happened on the bench. “- and then Manu said that-“ She couldn’t keep going, her heart broke more and more, seeing you sit in your cubby, dressed in her sweatpants and hoodie, face all red and puffy.

Tears were still making their way down your face. “Oh, baby.” With soft coos the defender tugged you up and into her chest, just to sit down with you on her lap again.

You were exhausted, still not understanding why you had gotten a red card.

One after the other the girls came into the room – the game was over.

Kim was the first person at your side, pressing a gentle kiss to your head. Mumbling a little “Proud of ya.”

The others tried to cheer you up, but it was Katie who made you laugh. Your girlfriend, ever the jokester impersonating the referee who had gotten nutmegged by Alessia during the game. “God her face is just so stupid!” You just couldn’t help but laugh, Katie’s dimples smiling at you.

The brunette knew that while it was still fresh it would hurt but you would get over it.

And so would the fans – they were enraged with both of the cards you had been given, but it seems that your title of ‘goody-two-shoes’ would remain intact, even after getting a red card.

[theslushiestnoob]

——————————————————————————

American Boy (pt.1)

——————————————————————————

Word count: 2.4K

A scene where y/n and Hamzah meet for the first time 💕

English girl reader x hamzah

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The bright city lights of Toronto flashed past me as the taxi barreled down the street, a sense of excitement and nostalgia enveloping me. Arriving in early September was shaping up to be a good decision considering the beauty of autumnal Canada, the reddening leaves curling into themselves, the air cool but the brutish snow not yet setting in.

‘Going downtown, right?’ the taxi driver turned to ask me.

‘Yes please,’ I replied, repeating the name of my friend’s street in affirmation. I had landed from London the day before, and had given myself ample time to settle into my holiday rental before visiting Mandy, a lifelong friend of mine.

Despite the distance between England and Canada, we maintained our close bond through daily video calls and messages. Today would be the first day that I had seen her in nine years, since we were thirteen.

Organising this trip had been half spontaneity and half necessity - I had just completed my English degree at University, and was somewhat dreading beginning my teacher training. It was Mandy who suggested that I take a belated gap year, and within that time visit her in Toronto. It took some convincing, but the weariness from graduating was yet to subside, so it seemed like a good decision to get away. I would be in Canada for two months, a somewhat awkward amount of time - too long to be a mere vacation but far too short to put down any roots - but nonetheless I was excited. The possibility of adventure radiated from the metropolis of Toronto, surprise waiting around the turn of each street corner.

The taxi pulled up to the apartment block, the warm lights emanating from the facade casting a cosy glow into the air. It was the early evening, I was coming over for dinner and to officially meet Mandy’s long-term boyfriend, Martin. Of course, I had heard every detail of their relationship over the phone and had even spoken to him briefly on such a call, so he was not a total stranger. He seemed lovely and made Mandy so happy that I already cared for him vigorously.

I walked up to the third floor of the apartment building and knocked gingerly on the door. Despite how well I knew the girl, I was wracked with nerves. The door swung inwards, and there stood Mandy. Her round face crinkled into a wide smile, her cropped hair framing her soft features.

‘Oh my God!’ She exclaimed, rushing forward to pull me into a tight embrace.

‘I can’t believe you’re here. This is crazy,’ I returned her hug and giggled into her hair.

‘And Christ, you’re tall,’ She leaned back, hands lingering on my shoulders as she appraised me.

‘I know,’ I laughed. She was significantly shorter than me, a fact far less apparent when communicating through a phone screen.

‘I still can’t quite believe that I’m here, to be honest. It’s been so long,’ She began to pull me into the apartment, shutting the door behind me.

‘Argh! I’m so excited. You need to meet Martin.’ The warm smile that enveloped her face at the mention of his name confirmed my affection for him. As if summoned, a tall and slender man appeared from around the corner.

‘Martin! We finally actually meet,’ I say as he throws an arm around both mine and Mandy’s shoulders in a side-hug.

‘Hi! This one here,’ he pauses to give Mandy a tender kiss on the top of her head, ‘hasn’t stopped talking about you for the past week. It’s nice to officially meet you.’ He drops his arm and retreats back into the apartment, beckoning for us to follow.

‘So, Martin’s friend is coming over later to film, I hope that’s alright, but I thought that we could order takeout and watch some trashy TV.’ Mandy says as she walks into the open-plan living area of the apartment, a sleek black kitchen overlooking a cosy living room backed by an exposed-brick wall.

The far wall was entirely occupied by a large window, affording a stunning view of downtown Toronto. Two cats lay sprawled on the yellow plush sofa, and a small Chihuahua sat attentively by Martin’s feet. It was a perfect house, so quintessentially Mandy.

‘Sounds perfect.’ I grinned.

*

‘Oh my God, these people annoy me,’ I say, gesturing toward the TV. ‘Like, why can they never just be nice to one another?’

Mandy giggled, also engrossed in the latest episode of Love Island.

‘I agree, but I don’t think that would be half as entertaining as this trainwreck.’

There was a knock on the door, startling me from my comfy position snuggled into a plush blanket.

‘I’ll get it!’ Yelled Martin from the next room over, followed by the sound of his light footsteps and the door clicking open.

‘Hey, man,’ Martin said.

‘What’s up?’ a voice replied. The voice was deep but honeyed, carrying through the hall to where Mandy and I could hear.

‘His friend’ Mandy mouthed to me. I nodded and looked back to the television screen.

Martin walked back into the room, his friend following behind him.

‘Hi Hamzah,’ Mandy greeted him, smiling as he reached to pat her shoulder affectionately.

‘Hey Mandy,’ he replied, before his eyes flitted to me beside her.

His eyes held an intriguing intensity, as if asking a question. They were a warm, deep brown, and framed by dark eyelashes. His skin was the colour of caramel, his cheeks slightly flushed from the cold air outside. Dark curls framed his angular face, falling just above his thick eyebrows in somewhat unruly ringlets. His lips were plump and pointed, accentuated by a defined cupid's bow. A pair of rectangular glasses sat on the arch of his wide nose, enlarging his already big eyes.

‘This is y/n,’ Mandy said, acknowledging him looking at me. Almost instinctively, Hamzah reached toward his face and whipped off his glasses, shoving them in the back pocket of his dark jeans.

‘Hi, y/n. I’m Hamzah,’ he smiled, holding his hand out for me to shake. I smiled and took his hand, amused by the formal nature of the introduction.

‘It’s lovely to meet you, Hamzah.’

‘England?’ his voice rose at the end of the word, turning it into a question.

‘Uhh…’ I began to stutter

‘Your accent. You’re from England, right?’ He interrupted, an expression of genuine curiosity on his face. He seemed slightly flustered by the blunt delivery of his question.

‘Yeah, um, I’m from London,’ I smiled warmly at his recognition of my accent.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean for that to come out like that,’ He turned to Martin and smiled, partly for humour and partly for validation that he hadn’t been impolite.

‘You’re not Canadian?’ I ask, ‘You don’t say sorry like Mandy does,’ I point out, pronouncing the word the elongated Canadian way of saw-ree.

He laughed at my impression and Mandy shot me a death glare.

‘No, I’m American, actually. I was raised in Illinois,’ he nodded briskly, and I copied the motion.

He held his dark eyes on me as if appraising me, an indistinguishable look on his face. The prolonged eye contact made my stomach flip, yet I could not tear my gaze away.

‘Dude, we have to go film,’ Martin prompted him.

‘Yeah,’ Hamzah said, breaking the eye contact and turning toward Martin. They both walked out of the room.

I knew of Martin’s job as a YouTuber and had always been intrigued by it. It was every child’s dream growing up, and it was very impressive to me that he made a livelihood out of it. I never found the urge to look him up, though, only knowing the basic facts about his channel, that it was shared between him and a friend - who I now knew to be Hamzah. I also knew that Mandy was a sort of fan-favourite, and that she had started vlogging too. This fact was endearing to me, and I felt a surge of pride when she had told me. Of course she would be a favourite, I thought, who wouldn’t adore her?

Mandy and I returned to Love Island, commenting on the couplings and absurd challenges presented to the islanders, but all the while my mind was drifting to the other room.

*

The show had finished a while ago, so we had turned on some music to listen to while we caught up.

‘I mean it has literally been years,’ Mandy shook her head in disbelief as she said this.

‘It’s so weird, right? Seeing you all grown up in person is surreal. I mean, you’re basically married!’ I replied.

Mandy chuckled and hid her face with her wine glass.

‘What about you? Any men in your life?’ she asked, with a wiggle of her eyebrow.

I felt myself redden as I shook my head.

‘Nope. I was too focussed on school, to be honest. And I’m not really interested in the whole partying thing, so I hardly meet new people my age. But it's fine, I’m happy,’

Mandy looked at me sceptically, before sighing and rubbing my arm.

‘You never know what could happen on this trip,’ she said quietly, and I stiffened.

My mind instantly drifted to Hamzah. I imagined his beautifully rugged face, before dispelling the thought. I looked at the time on my watch and realised how late it had gotten.

‘Oh God, I should go. I’ll see you tomorrow, though?’

‘I’m working the morning, actually, but feel free to come round whenever, someone’s always here.’

As I rose out of my seat, the door to the adjoining room opened. Hamzah walked out of it, laughing with Martin who was following close behind.

‘Are you leaving now?’Mandy asks him as he passes by the sofa.

‘Damn girl, trying so hard to get rid of me,’ he deadpans.

Mandy responds with a withering death stare.

‘But yes,’ Hamzah concludes with a grin. He turns around and hugs Martin, smacking his back as he does so. When he turns again, he locks eyes with me once more. Standing, we are almost the same height, him being maybe an inch and a half taller than me.

‘She was just leaving now, too,’ Mandy says, ‘how did you get here again?’

‘I took a taxi, I’ll just grab another one. It’s only a twenty minute drive,’ I reply, pulling out my phone to call one.

‘Nah, I can drive you, if you want,’ Hamzah says, staring intently into my face, once again with an unreadable expression.

‘Are you sure? I don’t want you to go out of your way,’ I shake my head at the suggestion.

‘Really, it’s not a problem. C’mon, let's go,’ He says, starting for the door.

I turn to Mandy and see a sly grin on her face as she looks at Martin. She embraces me in goodbye, and I turn to follow Hamzah.

*

His car is parked just outside the apartment block, so it’s only a short walk in the whipping cold. Hamzah reaches for a handle and opens it, gesturing me inside.

Confused, I asked him, ‘Am I driving?’

He looked at me quizzically as I realised my mistake.

‘Oh, I forgot that you drive on the wrong side of the road!’ I say, and Hamzah’s face cracks into a grin.

‘You drive on the wrong side of the road, actually,’ he retorts.

I smile at him as I get into the car, glad for the relief from the cold night air.

He walks around the bonnet of the car and gets into the driver’s seat, ducking his head as he bends through the door.

He glances at me self-consciously as he reaches into his back pocket to retrieve his glasses. As nonchalantly as he can, he puts them on with one hand as the other reaches to start the car.

The car jolts into motion, thrumming mechanically beneath me.

‘Music?’ He asks, shooting me a sideways glance.

‘What are the options?’

‘Well, this car is old as fuck so I can only play CDs.’ He gestures for me to open the glovebox in front of me, and I pull out a holographic Disk.

‘Taylor Swift’s Red?’ I ask, narrowing my eyes in amusement.

‘Hey, don’t hate a man for having taste. Besides, it came with the car, so I’m being very frugal,’

‘Okay Mister Happy Free Confused and Lonely At The Same Time. No judgement here. Do you also have a keychain that says ‘fuck the patriarchy’?’

He grins at me and turns to focus on the road as I play the disk, the drums of State of Grace reverberating through the car.

Rain begins to slosh against the windows as the drive continues in silence, an air of awkwardness arising which I feel compelled to break.

‘So, what’s with the glasses?’ I ask.

He instinctively reaches up with his free hand to touch the frames, shooting me a sideways glance.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you just seem self-conscious about them, but I don’t know why,’ I stare pointedly at him and watch him absent-mindedly fidget with the frames.

‘Uhh… I don’t know, I guess, I don’t wear them often in public,’ He replies, avoiding my gaze.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to call you out,’ I replied, feeling guilty at the prospect of embarrassing him. ‘I just meant that there's no need to be. They’re cute.’

Hamzah snaps his head to turn to me, his eyebrows scrunched quizzically. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but seemingly decides against it. He returns to staring intensely at the road and the rest of the journey continues in silence, aside from the melody of Taylor Swift’s Treacherous.

This slope is treacherous

This path is reckless.

*

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I hope that you guys enjoy this! Please let me know if you want me to post more, I have written so so much for this fic and am only posting the first scene lol so I have more in the bank 🙈

Have a great day 💕

[srngrque]

you are losing me.

jude bellingham x fem!reader. angst authornote: whatever this was, angst. it is not the best, but i did it for my own sad life, thank you for reading. <3

It is not the first time you have been in a relationship. There were plenty that left and plenty you left yet there was a string of hope that bloomed with Jude, you felt this man, with all the hardship, it was the endgame for you.

With every moment with him where you laughed, smiled, and cried pierced into your mind as you stomped your way through the building he was sharing in England before returning back to Madrid.

The humiliation that burnt on your throat only ranged worse in every bitter minute. Tear filled in your eyes as you slammed his door open, ignoring all the greetings that were given to you in the hallway. "You cannot fucking do that to me." You laughed dryly, feet dragging toward him.

Jude stood in front of you, eyes scanning the room to see of his teammates lurking around. Glancing the face you missed so dearly while he was away. You shut your eyes not wanting to lash out, while you clenched your hand to resist touching him, to feel the man on your skin.

"Give me a reason," You asked stepping out from his boundaries. He stood in utter silence. His eyes soften as it landed on your eyes that were staring at his, that were begging his. He sighed still not giving you a word.

You nodded your head, "Alright, give me a fucking excuse." You screamed, hands on your hip in frustration on the man who broke you off through a simple text. You scoffed rushing your hand through your hair on the absurd situation.

Jude had explanations dancing on his tongue yet how stupid would he sound if he said out loud that his feelings were starting to become a burden, that he has no capability to put you or this relationship before his career and how not being around you has become a habit that with you, Jude has nothing to offer but meaningless words.

Yet his heart twitched seeing your eyes in tears that he caused, trembling lips he once kissed, and loved is now sobbing cries; and it is all him.

You nodded, "I understand distance is too much for you but we talked this through before, did we not?" You asked, pleaded for Jude to speak saying he did not mean it, to assure you he is not going anywhere, to hold you in his embrace.

"We have done this distance before and we were doing well."

"And for how long will we keep doing that?" He spoke loudly.

His voice crushed your heart on how much he was bringing himself to reason out this with you. With his eyes, it crushed your heart harder as for the first time, you saw the tiredness hiding in his eyes, the light for you getting dimmer. You smiled sadly, accepting his words and every meaning behind that did not leave his lips but pinched through your heart.

Jude has given up on you.

"See it was not that hard, was it?" You dryly chuckled, stepping further away from him. Jude reached out for you only for you to reject his touch. He has lost his rights on you, on each part of you.

"This would not have happened if you could have just explained yourself properly through your fucking text," You hissed at the man in anger, there were no reason for you to hold onto the brick of anger in pain. "Fuck, I am just standing here like a fucking fool in front of a man who does not even love me anymore."

Jude stared sternly. "Watch your fucking words."

"Am I wrong though?" You challenged.

Jude wanted to scream out, to agree that you were wrong, oh, he just wanted to hold you, hold you so much, to deny that he does not love you anymore, he does. He wanted to go down on his knees and ask for your forgiveness; but what can he offer you after?

Again, with nothing, he stood there. "Fuck you and your fuckass attitude." You shook your head in disbelief.

Sighing, you decided to walk out.

"If I still love you, what would happen next?" He asked, eyebrows furrowed in frustration. Frustrated with himself, with you, with this relationship that he has risked out for the sake of letting you go that he was really doing it for himself.

"Then we fight for this fucking relationship, jude. This is what we do when we decide to love each other earnestly, did we not?" You grieved out, reasoning out to fight, fucking fight for you.

Jude answered in silence.

You paused your footsteps outside the door, "I am giving you one more chance. Tell me we can do this together and I will forgive you." You screamed for him to hear, your back facing him. Tears free flowing down your cheeks.

"Jude, please." please, please please.

Pathetically you tried, "If I crossed this fucking door, I will never take you back, I will forget about you, I will . . never ask about you. So, just do not let me leave please."

Jude sat down on his couch, tears trippled down his cheeks as no words left his lips.

Pathetically you tried one last time, screaming, not caring who is out there to listen. "Do not ever show me your face, never."

"Denise, hi." You waved cheerfully in front of the Bellingham door with your fuzzy hat secured on your head and gloves on your hand. She smiled back, nodded her head in acknowledgement.

"Would you mind asking Jude to come out for awhile?" You requested, kicking the snow out from your way. In all truth, you were nervous, still nervous of her despite her apporval, "It is just, like, it is raini- hold up, not raining. I mean, snowing crazy. I just wanted to enjoy it with Jude." You giggled in uneasiness clear on your tone, endlessly touching your neck.

She glanced at you deeply. "I will ask him to come out, darling. Please, wait inside." You shook your head fiercely, there were not many confidence in you left to speak to Mark. Denise had already made her way in to notify Jude.

Hearing upon that, Jude rushed inside the shared room with Jobe, hurriedly grabbed his scarfs, mitten and a cozy hat before exiting. He saw you shivering regardless of wearing multiple layers under.

Jude rushed to embrace you from behind, spinning you around and around. You shut your eyes, giggling at your boyfriend's childish behaviour. "We will fall, babe." You whined to your boyfriend responded with more giggles leaving from him.

"Oh, we are falling, oh god, wai-" Jude laughed as he landed on the snow. You landed softly on his chest. With rosy cheeks, and red ears that were not covered enough.

You prayed for the moment to last forever but Jude has bigger dreams ahead of him that do not revolve on you anymore.

With no words exchanged, you laid on the road, Jude followed next to you. In silence, you observed the full moon up in the sky. The round moon that were as clear as your lover's eyes that stared down at you with so much love and pain.

"I am not ready to imagine how much I will miss you once you are gone but I know, I will be able to find you." You reassured the silent boy next to you. Jude did not speak, worryingly you glanced to see his eyes buried in his own tears. "Like how you will find me at the end right?" You chuckled, holding his hand tighter.

"I love you so much." He whispered, wrapping his arm around your waist burying his face on the nape of your neck. You nodded, "I know, baby. I love you too but you know, I am never going to give up on you."

You raised your hand to remove his face from your neck to look at your more closely. "Even if you break up with me, I will come running to you." He mumbled that were inaudible as you had your palm pressed on his cheeks.

"I will never do that to you." You assured.

How bittersweet that Jude Bellingham was your lover, but how fruitful that he was your first love, the lover you shamelessly stalk at the middle of the night to see more about his whereabouts, the lover you would talk about to your friends, or your acquaintances that you have experienced love that it was raw and true.

[yeeterthek33per]

It hurts (but I've got you)(Katrina Gorry x reader)

A/n I'm gonna warn everyone right now. This one is gonna get dark. It's a fresh loss, and I'm feeling ridiculously angsty. Warnings include mental illness, unaliving mentions, past abuse, self degradation, and panic attack warnings. and some seriously dark thoughts. A lot of mentions of trauma coping. Seriously, do not read if you guys can't cope with it or if it triggers you.

Also, this isn't the only Gorry fic I'm writing atm 😅

----------

It felt like you knew the moment your fiancee had been subbed off that this game was it.

3-1 down with just 3 minutes left of regulation time. Even with stoppage, nothing felt like enough. None of you were processing Tony's yells from the sideline, none of you could feel the rush you needed to.

And they just kept coming at you. The exhaustion was setting in and nobody could keep up with them anymore.

Sam couldn't get the touches she needed to.

Mackenzie wasn't communicating well with the girls at the back, and they weren't aggressing like they needed to

You felt helpless in the chaos, despite being in the midfield. Your passes weren't connecting, and every touch you had felt like it was a turnover to England.

It felt like Chidi wasn't being given enough time to work her magic. The English defence was reduced to several layers of blue. None of the strikers up front had the energy to challenge that.

Steph was completely out of it, Caitlin was trying, but she didn't have the strength.

In the end, none of your attempts were enough, and it was weighing on you like a pile of bricks. You felt sick. To the point where your sobs nearly turned to dry heaving.

You'd collapsed to the turf the moment the whistle blew. Hiding your head in your knees, you avoided any possible camera angles of your face, not wanting to be seen losing it like you were.

You could barely budge when you felt a hand on your back.

Everything was just overwhelming... not processing, but still somehow all setting in at once.

You felt several pats on the back over the course of a couple of minutes. You assumed the England players. Proven when you heard your old teammate Alessia, rubbing your back and mumbling to you how proud she was of you, especially watching you play throughout the cup.

You could barely acknowledge the blonde though.

Everything was screaming in your ears, all the pressure, the deafening silence of the crowd aside from the few England fans that did show up, the players off the side of the pitch yelling and celebrating.

The first person to force you out of your shell, though, was Katrina. She's knelt in front of you and tugs at your arms, pulling them from around your head and urges you into her embrace. You meet her eyes enough to see the tears, and that just sends you further. You feel like you failed her.

It didn't feel like enough. Nothing you did during that game was enough. Her voice is shaky but it's soothing enough to get you to slow your tears, but it's just piling up behind walls in your head at this point. It's being boxed up and padlocked.

Your first reflex is to apologise. And you do.

"I'm so sorry, it wasn't enough, I wasn't trying hard enough, I failed you."

Katrina feels her own heart crack a little further, hearing those words come from you. You'd played your heart out this entire world cup.

You were exhausted. You all were. But you couldn't see that you were doing all you could. It hurt more than anything to know you were blaming yourself for this. Though she fully expected it. You were still learning to process losses like this. She was hoping you'd made enough progress in case a loss like this happened.

It was something you'd both been working on. It's one of your childhood traumas. Losses were ingrained into you like life failures. You'd been taught from a young age that failure was never an option. That it resulted in beatings.

That it meant you should die.

That was something that you'd ingrained into yourself as a coping mechanism while you were still with your foster family.

Katrina knew of the abuse, but she didn't know much about the state of your mental health. It was something you'd only recently opened up with. Little by little, but not a lot.

It bounced around your head like a mantra.

You failed, it's over.

You failed.

You failed.

You're gently brought back out of your head, Katrina's hands on either side of your face, her thumb caressing your cheek, her forehead leant against yours.

"Look at me, baby, breathe, just listen to me, okay? You're in your head too much. Just listen to me and try to breathe with me. C'mon baby, you can do it. Come back to me."

You try to match her breathing. You hadn't even realised the panic attack had hit you.

Your chest was heaving, and you managed to slow it down a little.

"That's it, my sweet girl. You've got it."

You try to take in her words.

Just breathe.

You're a failure.

You're okay.

You've got this.

You fucking useless-.

Just breathe Y/n.

Breathe.

It's okay.

You're safe.

"That's it, you're safe here, Baby. You did so well."

Her lips press a kiss to your forehead.

"That's it, baby girl. You did it. I'm so proud of you."

Her hands shift to your neck to rub at it gently. Her nails scratch at the skin lightly, and you let it distract you. Your breathing is finally relaxed enough to let her pull you to your feet.

You almost can't bring yourself to look around. But you pick up your head and take a deep breath as Katrina keeps you looking at her.

"That's it, Y/n, that's it."

You close your eyes and take a final deep breath, and then meet her eyes again. You feel guilty for dropping this on her right now. Now is not the time for her to need to comfort you.

So you stone wall it back and fake a little relaxation in her arms.

"I'm good, I'm good, I'm okay. I-...I'm"

Sorry. I'm sorry.

You didn't say it out loud, but her face immediately shifts, and it seems you don't have to. It's almost like she can read your mind.

"Hey, no, uh uh. None of that, you don't need to apologise to me. You're my girl, and you're allowed to be vulnerable around me. I'm always gonna be here for you. Don't ever apologise for not being able to handle things on your own."

You let out a shaky breath, tilting your head back, blinking back any tears.

You've got this.

You nod, whiping away tears.

She rubs your shoulder softly. And you finally manage to look around at your teammates. A few of them are still just... sitting... contemplating the game.

Sam in particular. She looks like she's holding it in just about as much as you are, although more than likely a little better. The disappointment is still fresh in her eyes, though, and you can't quite face your best friend just yet. So you move to hug the others.

Katrina follows behind you a little. Not directly, but enough to keep a close eye on you as you console the girls. Charli and Kyra stick by her as well. The two of them had been the first to go to her after the whistle blew.

Though they do come find you after a few minutes. You were marrying their practically adoptive mother, after all. That and you were family to them as well.

Charli is the first to reach you. You let her hold you for a few minutes, and you rub at her back as well.

"Thanks, Cha Cha, I'm sorry you didn't get the chance to play today like we'd hoped."

She shakes her head.

"Doesn't matter. You all played the best you could today. I'm so proud of each and every one of you."

Your eyes well up a little bit, but you suck it back in.

"I know."

She ruffles your hair a little bit, managing a small goofy smile, and it gives you enough to let out a watery laugh.

"Atta girl."

It gets a little easier to breathe after that. And you find it easier to approach Kyra too.

"Hey, kiddo."

"I'm sorry it had to end like this."

"Not your fault, Ky. You played the best you could today."

You're quick to envelope her, too, pulling her into your chest, resting your head on hers. She's a little shaky but she's coping.

You both start to walk the pitch after that. Beginning to applaud the crowd for their support throughout the tournament.

It still stings. You know it will for a while. But each step is an easier breath. For now at least.

But at that, with each step comes a new echo in your head that you have to push down. It helps having your family there with you. Your real family.

You don't even register the huddle or the locker room talk.

When you get on the bus, Katrina is quick to shove her way into the seat beside you. Not that she has to, really. There's this unspoken rule about the team. Katrina is always next to you after a loss. They know it's for good reason, but they never pry or ask why.

By the time you're back to the team hotel. Its late and everybody returns to their own rooms.

You try convincing Katrina that you'll be fine, that you're just tired, but she's adamant about staying in your room. She reads you like an open book. Truthfully, you definitely aren't fine, and being on your own is not something she's wants for you right now. Harper is with Linda, Katrina's mother, thankfully, so she doesn't have to see this.

You go to join her in saying goodnight to her daughter, but she tells you to stay put for now. You can see her tomorrow.

You almost whine saying you missed the two year old, but you know not to push it, and you know you aren't in the right headspace to be around her right now.

You get ready for bed, and it only takes ten minutes for your girl to return again.

"She's doing fine, a little confused why Cha Cha didn't wanna play Aeroplane tonight, but she went down without much fuss."

You smiled a little at that, Harps was such an easygoing kid. It was hard not to fall in love with such a sweet little thing. Being in love with her mother certainly didn't help prevent that either.

"I'm glad she's doing okay then."

Katrina swaps out her (your) hoodie for one of your sleep shirts and strips down to just underwear.

"I think we'd both be a little better if her mama was too, though." It's not even subtle. You know she's not trying to be. She never is. She's gentle about it, though.

"What do you mean? I'm perfectly fine." It's said in a joking tone, but the unimpressed brow you get makes you feel a little guilty for that one.

"You want to talk about what happened?"

"Want to or want to?"

"You have to want to talk about it before we get anywhere. I won't force it out of you, I know it's still so fresh, but you need to want to before we can talk, sweetheart."

You sigh a little, resting against the wall behind the bed. You think about it for a minute. Before ultimately deciding to just hold on to it for a bit longer.

"Not just yet."

She nods in understanding.

"I'm here when you're ready baby."

"Maybe in the morning, it's just a little more tender than I'd like."

You still feel bad, though. Katrina played the same game you did. Lost the same game you did. Yet you couldn't handle it the same way.

You slip under the covers, and she joins you, slipping under, on her side and behind, spooning you. Her arm tucks itself over your waist, pulling you back into her shorter self. In that moment, you let her warmth lull you to sleep, thoughts of regret and guilt still plaguing your mind.

-------

It's weird. You've never seen Sam mad like this before. She's always been a relatively calm captain. Even after losses this big. You'd never seen her raise her voice at another teammate. Sure, sometimes people do stupid shit, and she has to pull them aside to speak with them, or lightly scold them, and that usually works, but...

Here you were.

She'd asked you to come to the meeting room downstairs first thing this morning. She's been yelling at you for the past five minutes. With each sentence, you just shrink, smaller and smaller, and it's like you're back on the pitch again.

"How could you let this happen?! Why did it take eight of you to let them through?! After all that hard work? How hard is it to keep them out?!"

"I-"

"How hard is it?! You're a defensive midfielder. You should know you have to keep them out, and you failed me!"

"Sam I-."

"You fucking let me down, I am absolutely fucking disgusted with you y/l. Why did you think it was okay?!"

"Sam, I'm sorry I-"

"'Sorry' isn't a fucking excuse, you knew you couldn't let us lose and you fucking let me down. You let them all down, you fucking failed us."

You're sobbing at this point, barely able to get a word in. You're curled up in the corner of the room, and Sam is standing over you. You can barely register the feel of artificial turf beneath you as the blaring lights of the stadium nearly blind you.

She's still yelling, but it's like she's muffled now.

Off to the side even.

You look up around you. She's still yelling, but you can't hear her over the crunching of grass beneath a pair of leather loafers. It screams in your ears, almost painfully. You know those sounds all too well.

Your foster father walks towards you slowly, with purpose. His belt bent and tucked back into his hand again.

"What did I tell you would happen, Jessica?"

It makes you tremble, and your body is rooted to the spot. You feel like you can't move. He always tried to force the name on you. Your foster mother just let it happen.

You open your mouth to protest, but all that comes out are more sobs and half met pleas. He's standing right over you now. His arm raises the belt in the air. And right before he brings it down. You see the angry and disappointed faces of everyone. Sam still yelling.

Steph, Caitlin, Charli, Kyra, Ellie. Katrina stands on her own, shaking her head at you. She turns away right as the belt comes down.

-----

Your eyes blink open. You feel the stickiness of dried tears on your face, fresh ones replacing them quickly.

You have to take a quick few breaths to gather your surroundings again.

It's okay. You're in your room. He's not here to hurt you.

Katrina's arm is looser around your waist now. You're tucked into her front but on your back now, and she's dead asleep on the pillow beside yours.

It's okay.

You're safe.

How could you let this happen?

Fucking dumbass.

Worthless piece of-.

That's all it takes for you to carefully slip out from under the covers. Careful not to jostle your sleeping fiancee. You couldn't get the look of disappointment on her face out of your head.

She'd looked completely done with you. She couldn't even look at you. She was so disappointed.

Tears were still flowing from your eyes. Your breathing was starting to become more rapid as you slipped out of the room's door, a small click behind you as you shut it.

You couldn’t stay here.

That was all you could think about. There was no way security would let out at this hour without questions, so you have to find a back door.

You sneak into what looks like an old busted fire escape hall. There's an old alarm attached to it, but it's not even enabled, you having prepared to bolt if it had gone off if you were wrong about it. You'd heard one of the staff talking about it needing replacing soon and that they'd disable it until it could be fixed.

Your socked feet are quiet, but slip on the tile floors as you walk out the back door. Looks like the alarm isn't enabled from the inside. You duck out quickly and just run down the road. You keep running. It's dark out still. You didn't even check the time before running off.

But it doesn't matter.

The thoughts in your head are spinning. Everything's just crashing down on you. You're curled up in an alleyway, beside a dumpster.

Fucking useless piece of crap.

You couldn't keep them out?

You're worthless.

You-

It's all just echoing around, piling in your head. Your head is between your knees as you rock back and forth.

It-

It scares the shit out of you when a pair of hands carefully rests on your shoulders.

You let out a little scream, not expecting anyone to have followed you. It's Katrina. You're relieved for a second but quickly tense again.

Shit, you hadn't meant to wake her on the way out.

"Hey, it's okay, it's just me. Im sorry I scared you."

She's hesitant to speak at first, processing what she's going to say, you assume. So you speak first.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up."

She shakes her head at that.

"Baby, that's not the problem. In fact, I'd rather you have woken me up... baby, what's going on? What's happening in that head of yours? Talk to me, why are we out here?"

"I-." Your voice is shaky, and you have to clear your throat. Your eyes drift to look anywhere but at her.

Her fingers on your chin bring your gaze back though.

"Look at me. What's going on?"

Your words are mumbled softly, like you're trying to force them out, but they just let out almost inaudibly. Thankfully, traffic outside had calmed down in the earlier hours of the morning. So she does hear you when you say it.

"It was just a bad dream, i needed some air."

Her face softens, but she's still sceptical. Thankfully, she doesn't have to prompt you further. Everything just feels so kept up. You let it out slowly, but the more you talk, the more tears that flow out to join the words whispered.

"It's just... God, I feel so stupid. It's not like everyone around me isn't dealing with the same shit."

She's silent as you try and process what to say.

"I- everything's just collapsing in on itself, it feels like... I know it's not the end for me, or for us as a team, but..." There's a little understanding dawning on her face. "Everything in my head has just been crumbling lately. Yesterday, just kind of, I don't know? Completed that? Compiled it? I don't know. It just built and built and built and everything's just being thrown back at me again."

"So that dream...?" She urges gently.

"Was just everything compiling in one go."

"Do you want talk about what happened in it?"

"I-not here, I won't make us have this conversation beside a dumpster."

Katrina laughs a little, letting her hand come up to hold your cheek. "Fuck baby, we could have this conversation on the edge of a cliff and I would still sit and listen. Whereever you wanna be my sweet girl."

You let yourself lean into the warmth of her hand, the cold now having started to seep into you as you're sitting down on the concrete.

You nod quickly. "Let's go. My ass is starting to freeze." She chuckles and pulls you to your feet gently.

Thankfully, Katrina had half the mind to leave the access door unlatched, and you sneak back into the hotel with little to no trouble.

Back in the darkness of the hotel room, you're leant back into her, sitting between her legs on the bed. Her hands run through your hair, gently scratching at your scalp as you replay the events of the nightmare.

"It was so daunting, and it just kept finding its way into my head, and just... god... I love Sam... and I know she would never, but... it just felt so real."

"And it just kept going. It just devolved into... well. My old foster dad... he just..."

Tears started to well up, and you couldn't finish it after that. The words wouldn't come out. At your hesitation, Katrina is quick hush you, pressing her lips to your temple.

"It's okay, baby, you don't have to say it. I'm so sorry you have to deal with that."

"S'not your fault, just my stupid brain."

" Your brain is just trying to help you process the loss, okay? You've suffered so much, and it's okay to be grieving and dealing with it how you need to deal with it."

You lean your head back against her shoulder, letting the tears fall. God, you didn't deserve this woman. She was an amazing mother, a brilliant football player, and an amazing soon to be wife, too. She doesn't wipe the tears away this time, and you let them go.

Instead, she holds you. She lets you cry into her.

She lets you cry into the super early hours of the morning before you finally manage to exhaust yourself into a heavy sleep, tucked between her arms and her whispering sweet nothings, soft praises, and promises of forever with you as you do.

"I know it hurts, baby girl, but we're all here for you, and I've got you, and I'm not gonna let go in a hurry or ever."

You may not be able to tell her everything yet, but she sure as hell would make sure she was there to listen when you do.

[blurredcolour]

In My Blood | Part Two

In My Blood Masterlist

Curtis "Curt" Biddick x SOE!Female Reader

It is no longer safe for you to remain in Belgium. With the Gestapo closing in, Curt is finally ready to make his escape with you. But is it too late?

Warnings: MAJOR canon divergence, Language, Violence, Weapons, Spy Craft, Detailed Description of Murder, Death, Injuries, Angst, Grief, Fear, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Mature/Explicit Themes - 18+ ONLY.

Author’s Note: This story contains revisionist history, read at your own risk. Reader is half-Belgian, half-English and has been given an extensive backstory and family tree. While they have been given the codename of "Marie," no physical descriptions or Y/N are used.

Italics used for non-English words and to indicate dialogue spoken in a language other than English.

This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the Apple TV+ series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.

Word Count: 6929

-------------------------

May 3, 1940

“Honestly Papa,” You protested in French, threading the telephone cord between your fingers as the line crackled and hummed with the standard overseas audio distortions,“I do not understand why you will not let me come home, nothing has happened in months–”

“Enough, my little monster,” Your father’s voice gently but firmly cut you off. “We have been over this a thousand times, it is simply too dangerous for you to leave England with war declared. Yes, it is quiet at the moment, but it is only a matter of time now that the weather has grown warm.”

Your eyes scanned across the neatly appointed Edwardian writing desk in your grandmother’s study before turning to eye the drizzly gardens of the Dower House through the spotless window behind you.

“If it is so dangerous, why do you and Mama insist on staying in Brussels? You are both more important than me and if those Nazi bastards invade you know that’s where they’re headed – straight for you.”

“Come, come now, don’t let your mother hear you using that language.” His chastisement was half-hearted and filled with laughter, pulling a reluctant grin from you. “Belgium is neutral, firstly, but if the worst happens, we will simply flee to the house in Wallonia. Chin-up my little monster, we are made of sterner stuff, are we not?”

“Yes, Papa,” You replied, feeling somewhat reassured and heartened, “we truly are.”

------------

October 28, 1943

The collision of your spine against the brick wall drove the air from your lungs, a strangled noise of pain seeping from your throat as the broken end of a bolt that had once affixed something to the side of the building tore through the fabric of your blouse and dug into the meat of your right upper arm. Gritting your teeth as your eyes watered at the searing pain and warm gush down your sleeve, your grip tightened on the handle of your knife, swinging it higher towards the vulnerable neck of the man you had lured into this alleyway.

He had been following you for at least twenty minutes, Gestapo most likely, on your way to pick up some material to then courier to another contact. You had been unsuccessful at losing him, and with the sun setting and curfew nearly upon you, confrontation had remained your only option. While sneaking out after curfew was perilous enough, being caught out around the fall of curfew was nearly suicidal. Parking your bike in front of a well-attended pub, you had made your way across the town square, wending your way through the emptying streets before ducking into this very alley to lay in wait.

Unfortunately for you, the man had proven to be much larger than you had first estimated, and along with a brutal case of halitosis, each sour breath assaulting your senses as it impacted your face, he was easily overpowering you, slowly turning your knife in your grip, threatening to use your own weapon against you. Unfortunately for him, you had been trained in all the ‘ungentlemanly’ ways one could undertake warfare, and he was utterly unprepared for the collision of your foot with his most tender parts.

A sound consisting of an intriguing mixture of a yelp and a wheeze escaped his mouth as he fell back, his oppressive weight finally easing off you. Seizing the momentum, you quickly struck with your blade, meeting the weak block of his forearm and drawing a yowl this time. While he was not proving to be a quiet kill, thankfully his racket resembled an alley cat, and could be explained away if necessary. Heart hammering in your ears, breaths coming in quick gasps under the heady influence of your own adrenaline, you swung the blade home into the defenseless flesh of his neck and tugged forward, sealing your opponent’s fate as he crumpled to the worn cobblestones.

Taking several awkward steps backward, you inhaled deep, greedy gulps of air as the man exhaled his last and grew still. It was both relieving and unsettling. Casting about for the large metal bins you had glimpsed earlier, you darted across the alley to quickly remove the lids from both, shifting the filthy contents from one into the other to make space for your deposit. Returning to his lifeless form, you assessed his bulk before struggling to strip him of his large, navy wool coat before dragging him down the alley and hoisting him into his final resting place. The wound in your triceps screamed in agonized protest with every breath until you had resecured the lid, the scene unremarkable enough in the long shadows of evening.

Shrugging into the bulky coat to conceal the damage to your blouse and retrieving your luggage, discarded moments before the altercation began, you forced yourself to exit the alley at a perfectly normal pace in the direction of Doctor Legot’s clinic, trusty bicycle abandoned for the sake of a speedy departure. Reaching the clinic well after closing, you slid around the back, setting down your suitcase to root around in the hedges for the upturned pot hiding the spare key known to only a select few. You took a moment to compose yourself, taking a deep breath and brusquely wiping at the tears of discomfort that had been stubbornly welling in your eyes the entire journey.

The lock turned soundlessly under your practiced hand, the door swinging inward to an unexpected shaft of light spilling from the patient washroom. Peering around the doorjamb, your eyes widened to see Curt standing at the small sink in the powder room, stripped down to his undershirt, carefully dragging a safety razor across one lathered cheek. Exhaustion and injury got the better of you, making you sway unsteadily, forcing you to catch yourself on the frame of the door, immediately attracting his attention.

“Marie?” He turned to look at you, well-defined muscles of his arms flexing with his movements, shaving cream adorably still adorning a great deal of his face.

Hastily lurching forward into the clinic, you quickly closed and latched the door behind you, depositing your luggage and shoulder bag before shrugging out of the claustrophobic overcoat.

“Jesus Christ, look at you!” His outburst, followed by the sound of his razor hitting the porcelain bowl of the sink, made you drop your gaze to your clothes, only to be greeted by the sight of your late opponent’s blood drenching the fabric.

“Oh, do not fret about me…” You had hoped to put on a display of bravado, but your voice was aggravatingly thin, “…the other fellow is much worse off.”

His startlingly warm palms cupping your elbows made your head jerk back up, meeting his furrowed brow, eyes darkened with concern. “That isn’t very comforting, gorgeous.” He muttered and began tugging you towards Doctor Legot’s office where a crack of light shone from beneath the door. “Doc?” He barked out before open the door without any further preamble.

Only a small noise of protest sounded before the doctor was shooting to his feet, quickly ushering you to take his recently vacated chair, rapidly looking you over before his eyes settled on your arm.

“I’m not going to ask how such misfortune befell you, Marie. I am a wiser man than that. But what, specifically, happened to your arm?” He murmured in Dutch as he retrieved a set of suture scissors to begin cutting away the sleeve of your ruined shirt.

“I backed into the shorn off end of a bolt with rather a bit of force.” You sighed wearily, glancing at Curt who remained in the room, eyeing the pair of you intensely from where he leaned against a filing cabinet. “Why is your guest upstairs?”

Your sentence ended in a hiss as you inhaled sharply through your teeth at the feeling of the doctor’s fingers prodding at the wound on the back of your upper arm.

“He cut himself shaving by candlelight one too many times. Once the cast came off, we made an agreement he could come upstairs between closing and dinner to wash up. You’ve had your tetanus vaccine?”

As Legot began to aggressively paint your wound with disinfectant, you pressed your lips together tightly against any further mortifying outbursts, and thus only managed a nod in confirmation.

“Good.” The room fell silent as he applied a square of gauze to your wound, securing it in place by wrapping your arm in a bandage, tying it off.

Your eyes drifted back to Curt who had not seemed to move an inch, not even changed position, the shaving cream on his face drying out, growing crusty against his skin. His silence was perhaps the most unnerving thing you had encountered this evening, his voice seeming to have filled every waking encounter you’d had with him thus far.

“It’s a lot of blood…” He muttered, eyes rising from your clothes, marred by scarlet quickly turning a mottled brown as the blood dried and aged.

“Mostly someone else’s.” You reminded him gently, earning a non-plussed grunt in reply.

A heavy sigh fell from the Doctor Legot’s lips, making you look up at him slowly. “Marie there has been…an increase in the Gestapo around town. A contact of mine was even questioned about a woman bearing a remarkable resemblance to you. And now that you seem to have had a run in, I’m…concerned.”

Despite similar thoughts ricocheting about your brain the entire flight back to his clinic, the breath you drew in felt like it contained thousands of tiny shards of glass which imbedded themselves deep inside your breast as you heard it from an external source. Rationally, to have survived so many months in your occupation was a feat worth celebrating.

An SOE agent typically had a life expectancy of six months, and yet to watch your ability to remain in Belgium, to remain useful to your fellow Belgians, crumble before you was incredibly painful. You allowed your exhale to accumulate in your cheeks before releasing it all at once through pursed lips with a nod, the feeling of having failed your people, your family, once again a yawning pit deep in your gut.

“It is time for me to move on.” You conceded flatly.

“If you are headed in a certain direction, might you be able to take a certain guest with you?” He asked with a nod in the American’s direction.“Couriers are still stretched thin.”

Your eyes widened slowly as it dawned on you that it was well over two months since Curt had become a guest in his cellar and should be well on his way to Spain by now. “He is well enough to travel then? Have they made him papers yet?” Your rapid-fire questions were greeted by frantic blinking from the doctor before he nodded quickly in the affirmative to both.

Turning back to Curt you tilted your head, reinvigorated by the chance to be useful one last time as you tried to remove yourself from occupied Europe, saving another’s life infinitely more important than simply trying to preserve your own. “Tell me, Curt, are you ready to head back to England?”

The apprehension that had drawn his features tight melted away, yielding to a bright smile, his eyes fairly sparkling with anticipation at the promise of beginning his escape at last. “You have no idea.”

You could do nothing to stop the uplift at the corner of your mouth in response, nodding slightly. “I’m going to change out of these clothes and then we’ll get ready to leave in the morning.”

Straightening from his lean against the cabinet, he moved to the door. “I’ll just go grab…” His voice trailed off as he disappeared down the hall before returning with your suitcase, setting it on the floor with a nod before departing once more, not loitering long enough to accept your gratitude.

Legot produced an old flour sack for you to deposit any clothes beyond saving, to be burned upstairs in his fireplace, before leaving you alone in his office. Feeling the chill of autumn in your damp clothes, you quickly stripped, using a towel to wipe any bloody remnants from your skin with water from the sink in the corner of the room, before changing into fresh clothing. Your mind was already occupied with plotting your route – to Antwerp, fetching supplies from the small flat you kept as a base of operations there, and then boarding a train to the border before crossing on foot then onto another train at Lille to Toulouse before meeting up with the Ponzán group to be guided across the Pyrenees. But this time, you would be one of the party making the crossing in neutral Spain.

Bringing your damp towel to try and blot any blood from the pilfered overcoat, hoping to save it for Curt’s benefit during the mountain crossing to come, you turned off the office lights and headed toward the storeroom, grabbing the garment from the floor on the way. Dropping it through the open trapdoor followed by the wet towel, you smiled to Curt as he appeared below, passing him your suitcase with your good arm before beginning your own descent down the ladder. Pushed well beyond all possible limits, your battered and bandaged arm gave out at your demand to bear your body weight, a yelp escaping as your right hand lost its grip on the ladder as a result.

Strong hands quickly landed on your hips, steadying and supporting you.

“Easy, gorgeous, good as you got the guy, he still hurt you.” Curt muttered behind you, the fresh scent of soap and aftershave radiating from his warm skin as he helped you down the last few rungs.

“Th, thank you, Curt.” You stammered, hugging your throbbing limb close as your feet settled onto the cellar floor, watching him easily climb up the ladder to swing the heavy trapdoor shut almost silently even from inside. “You’ve come a long way in the past few weeks…”

He smirked a little, carrying your luggage over to set on the foot of your bed for you. “Been doing a lot of shadow boxing down here.”

“Boxing!” You breathed in surprise, gathering the abandoned coat from the crumpled heap it left on the floor, trying not to notice the way his muscles moved as he pulled on a thick knit sweater in the cool damp of your hiding space. “If I had known, I would have gotten comics related to your interest…”

“I enjoyed the ones you brought, even read the book too. My teachers would be proud.”

A small laugh escaped you as you settled onto the edge of the bed, inspecting the coat for bloodstains and methodically beginning to blot them out. His own laughed intertwined with yours all too melodically, making you swallow tightly.

“That coat is awful big for you, gorgeous.” He teased, watching you from where he stood at the end of your bed.

“It’s not for me, Curt, it’s for you – you’re going to need it where we’re headed. Just need to get all the blood out first.” You murmured, turning the right sleeve inside out knowing you had surely bled on it yourself.

“Do I get to know where we’re going?”

You peered up at him a moment before shaking your head. “Other than England. That will suffice for now. I will share the goal with you day by day, but the less you know the safer you will be. Aside from a few key portions, the majority of the trip will be by train to start. Tomorrow, though, we shall have to try something new.” You trailed off into a mutter at the last, wrestling with the heavy fabric, shooting him a grateful look as he grabbed the hem of the coat to help you position it, allowing you to reach one of the last stains.

“What’s so special about tomorrow?” He prodded, clearly still listening even though your final statement had more been musing aloud than for his ears.

Pausing a moment you sighed before meeting his eyes. “I suppose you ought to know that I appear to be a known entity to the Gestapo, at the very least locally, and so we will take extra evasive manoeuvres when we leave town. I shall be disguised, we will leave just before dawn, and avoid public transportation. I have a few ideas for how we might reach where we are going first, do not worry.” You offered a reassuring smile, to which he returned a small nod. “Jan will have been by the take your photo and give you papers?”

“Oh, yeah, nice fella if a bit quiet. Gave me a couple sets of papers.” He stepped over to his cot to retrieve two well forged sets of identity papers, bringing them over for you to inspect.

Laying the now-cleaned coat to dry across your suitcase, you accepted them from him, looking them over before holding out those in your left hand. “These are your Belgian papers. I suggest you put these in your usual pocket – the one you will reach for first, so that you can produce them as naturally as possible. We will destroy them as soon as we have left Belgium.” You watched as he took them from you.

“Belgian papers, got it.” Curt made a tiny salute with the papers before grabbing a leather jacket from the back of a small chair that was a new addition to the cellar, sliding them into the inner left breast pocket.

“And these,” you held out those in your right hand, “are your French papers. You will want to keep these close, in a safe place on your person, but not somewhere you will mistakenly hand them over until they are needed.”

His eyebrow shot up playfully. “Hold up, Marie, I thought you just said you weren’t going to tell me where we’re going…”

“Did I?” You blinked innocently and his guffaw of amusement threatened to pull another unintentional smile from you.

Since when had your expressions become so very difficult to control?

“The most important thing for you to remember on our journey,” you soldiered on despite your inner struggle, “is not to speak. Your voice absolutely gives away the fact that you do not belong here. Many of the airmen whom we guide find the most success by feigning deafness. It explains both their inability to speak and the fact that they do not understand the language.”

 “You could just teach me French, or whatever you speak with Doc…”

“Flemish?” You found yourself fighting back laughter. “We do not have enough time for you to master either, Curt. We leave tomorrow. Now take your French papiers and get some sleep, we leave in a few hours.” You nodded firmly, but with a kind smile.

“You too, Marie, you need dinner or anything?”

Shaking your head softly, certain you could not bring yourself to eat even if you felt hungry, the pair of you settled in to sleep, the damp wool coat taking over the chair in the middle of the room to dry, looming in the flickering candlelight like some grim reminder of your actions. Huffing at your melodramatic thoughts, you pulled the blankets over your head and rolled over to get some rest.

As agreed upon, Legot woke the pair of you shortly after four with warm bread, apples, and granola. You could almost taste the ghost of butter, jam, sugar, and cream on your tongue – heavily rationed delights that had been hard to come by in England and all but non-existent here under Nazi rule. Downing your dry, brown breakfast, you opened your suitcase to retrieve a wig from its depths, gathering your hair and securing it beneath the false strands to disguise your apparently known appearance.

“I dunno Marie…” Curt’s musing were interrupted by an exaggerated yawn as he smoothed his hair with a pot of borrowed pomade. “Your natural hair looks so much prettier on you.”

Fighting the girlish urge to preen under his indirect compliment, you shook your head. “It’s a good thing I’m not trying to look pretty then, just different.”

“Well in that case you look nothing like your usual self.” He shrugged into his leather jacket before snagging the hard-won navy coat from the back of the chair and folded it in perhaps the most unmethodical way you had ever witnessed, but it still wound up flat and small enough to fit into his suitcase.

“Good.” You muttered and snapped the latches on your own luggage closed, heading over to the ladder to climb up.

“Wait, let me help you.” He hurried over, reaching out to grasp your waist. “You sure you can pull the cases up?”

Huffing a little, more in annoyance at being injured than his offers of help, you nodded firmly. “Absolutely.” Clenching your jaw, you forced your way up the ladder, stubbornly ignoring the ache in your still-healing arm, turning to reach out expectantly for the first piece of luggage once you were kneeling on the floor above.

A bemused expression greeted you before he easily hoisted the first, waiting until you had it tucked aside before sending the second up. Taking a moment to extinguish the candles still burning below, he then quickly ascended the ladder to join you, silently securing the trapdoor behind him.

“Right, this is it then.”

About to make your way down the hall to bid a final farewell to the doctor, you turned with a soft gasp to find him stand there with a small canvas bag of food.

“For your journey.” He held it out, nodding as Curt quickly stepped forward to sling it over his shoulder.

“Be safe, Doctor Legot, thank you for all your assistance.”

“The very same to you, Marie. Best of luck on your travels.”

A small, sentimental smile poked through your serious expression before your eyes widened. “If you are in need of a bicycle, mine remains outside the pub across from the town square. Farewell.”

At serious risk of lingering too long, you turned then and headed out the backdoor, glancing over your shoulder in the faint light of early morning to ensure Curt was following you. You kept a quick pace, cutting and winding through town towards a familiar farmyard, dairy cows grazing the fields, lowing softly, as the farmer and his daughters loaded containers of milk into the back of a worn truck. The sun had escaped the confines of the horizon by now, flooding the landscape with the golden light of an autumn sunrise as you cast another glance of confirmation over your shoulder, nearly tripping over your own feet at the unjustly stunning quality of Curt’s eyes in daylight.

“Whoa, easy.” He hurried a few steps forward to steady you by the elbow, catching the attention of Tillens who quickly sent his children back into the house.

“Hush.” You whispered firmly before waving to the farmer, who squinted at you a moment before relaxing as you greeted him warmly in Dutch.

“That you, Marie? You’ve done something new with your hair, didn’t even recognize you for a moment…”

“The point, I am afraid. Are you by any chance headed to Antwerp today?” You asked hopefully, stomach falling as he shook his head.

“Could take you to Brussels, but Antwerp is tomorrow.”

Brussels was the one place you avoided, far too many familiar faces and even more Nazis along with their collaborating government.

“How much could I offer to convince you to take us to Antwerp today?”

Tillens’ brown eyes studied your disguise before looking over at your companion. “It’s only one hour out of my way, Marie, for you there is no charge. Hop in the back and I’ll pack the rest of these around you.”

Your eyes widened before you quickly gestured Curt forward, digging into the bag on his shoulder and pulling out the loaf of the bread you found there. “Then please accept this, for your family.”

“Marie…” Tillens protested but you pushed it forward insistently and he accepted it with a grateful nod. “Thank you, every bit helps.”

“Thank you, for it truly does.” Grasping Curt’s elbow, you pointed into the back of the truck, watching him step up and weave his way towards the back.

Setting your suitcase on the tailgate, you reached for the handhold with your left arm, gasping as Curt’s hands were suddenly around your waist to hoist you in amongst the containers of milk.

“Gorgeous but stubborn.” He muttered under his breath, grabbing your suitcase and leading you over to a gap he had found just large enough for the pair of you to settle on the floor.

Pulling your shoulder bag against your body, you tucked your skirt beneath yourself as you sat down beside him, nodding to Tillens as he peered in at the pair of you before sealing you in with the last of his cargo.

“It’s about a two-hour drive, feel free to sleep.” You whispered, the back of the truck going dark as Tillens secured the doors shut, the motor growling to life shortly thereafter.

“So he speaks Flemish too?” Curt asked curiously as the vehicle jolted into motion and you nodded softly.

“It’s Dutch, really, with some regional differences. In the bigger cities you’ll find more of a mix of Flemish and French.”

“And you speak it all.” Curt smirked and you nodded, hugging your knees to your chest as the cargo rattled around you. “Really somethin’…” He muttered, leaning back to close his eyes and try to get some rest as you had suggested.

The drive smoothed out as the truck navigated onto the main road, and you felt yourself relax a little after the first hour of distance was put between you and Beverst. You were by no means out of danger – the Gestapo was an insidious organization, their network a far-reaching and interconnected tangle. The fact that at least one agent had come looking for you specifically meant that, if the entirety did not know of you yet, they soon would. You had to run all the way to be truly safe.

Of their own volition, your eyes drifted towards Curt’s sleeping form, his handsome face grown slack and soft in sleep, the youth of him both striking and painful. What would his life look like if Hitler had been able to keep his hands to himself…or better yet had never even come to power? What would your life look like? Certainly neither of you would be in the back of a dairy truck sneaking your way to Antwerp.

A roughened patch of road jostled his body, threatening to wake him and you quickly wrenched your eyes away, studying the handwritten labels from Tillens’ farm. Thankfully Curt remained asleep for the rest of the drive, the truck pulling to a stop amidst the hum of the city, and you gently prodded him awake with a shake to the shoulder.

“We’re here.” You whispered before pressing a finger to your lips and he nodded drowsily before straightening.

Light flooded into the back of the truck, the pair of you blinking owlishly as Tillens shifted the cargo to make a path of exit into a familiar alley. Climbing out carefully, you turned to unload the suitcases as Curt passed each, nodding sharply to the farmer before you and the airman assembled yourselves, and strolled casually out into the foot traffic on the sidewalk.

The interference and unpredictability of humans had you on edge, not appreciating the way Curt always seemed to be not where you expected him to be with every glance over your shoulder. After the fourth time you looked for him a little too long, your heart in your throat, you stepped around a rather annoying blonde making eyes at him, and seized his free hand with yours. To keep better track of him, of course. The fact that your throat tightened slightly as his blunt fingers wrapped around your hand in return, requiring a forceful swallow to clear it, was utterly irrelevant.

Turning the corner, you looked both ways before tugging on his hand, guiding him across the street to the unassuming building of flats from which you were intending to collect your warmer clothes and some other supplies. The sight of the rather nice car out front was the first sign that something was off. The next was the sound of your neighbour, an ancient, haggard woman named Josephine De Smet, speaking loudly in the stairwell, her creaking voice cascading down the tiled stairs to the lobby, halting your feet immediately.

Clearly distracted, Curt’s body collided with your back, forcing you to brace against the wall lest you topple over.

“Geez, why’d you sto–” His less-than-hushed whisper was cut off by your palm, forcefully freed from his grasp, slapping over his mouth as you quickly pushed him back into the corner of the lobby under the stairs, casting a sharp look at him before craning your ear back upwards.

Holding your breath, you listened intently, trying to hear the rest of the conversation. To confirm if the alarm bells ringing in your head were warranted.

“Just what has that hussy gotten herself mixed up in then, sir?” The old crone rasped in French, not her usual choice of language, and you pressed your lips into a line thin.

“I cannot say, madam, other than she is a monster and you’d best be wary.” The deep male voice, a German accent poisoning his pronunciation, made you inhale sharply through your nose.

Hand dropping from where it pressed against Curt’s remarkably plush and soft lips to grasp the lapel of his jacket, you pulled hard, yanking him out of the building and back onto the street. They were a lot closer on your trail than you had realized. Pulse rabbiting at your throat, you held your suitcase out to Curt in a silent request, grateful when he took it without question, following you as you took off down the sidewalk at a brisk clip.

Darting around the next corner, you led him on a chaotic, unpredictable, and hopefully untraceable path to a tramway stop several blocks away as you dug through your shoulder bag for the coins to make fare for both of you. Once that was secured, you traded his fare for your suitcase, tucking your own coins into the pocket of your light jacket, trying to suppress your grimace at the loss of your winter clothes in that now unvisitable flat. The feeling of Curt’s sturdy hand slipping into yours, enveloping your skin in warmth and his strong grip, halted you for half a step before releasing some of the tension in your lungs.

Propelling forward across the street, the pair of you jumped onto the tram just as it was about to pull away, shuffling into the heart of the crowded carriage to purchase your tickets and keep your faces away from the windows. It was not an overly warm ride to Antwerpen-Centraal station, but you could certainly feel sweat prickling in your armpits and rolling down your back between your shoulder blades. Tugging on Curt’s sleeve, you disembarked one stop short with him and ducked into an alley to yank the wig free, hanging your head upside down to shake out your hair before repining it. It surely looked sad, but given that identity papers were required to board a train, you needed to resemble your photo and thus the wig was shoved into a nearby trash bin.

“We will be asked for papers, there will be a lot of soldiers, try to remain relaxed and do as I do.” You whispered to Curt, and he nodded, patting the left breast of his pocket with an easy smile, though you watched his adam’s apple bob sharply as he swallowed. “We will be buying tickets and travelling to the border where will stop for the night, alright?”

“Lead on, gorgeous.” He nodded and turned to following you toward the grand, stone-clad station built at the turn of the century.

The presence of Nazi soldiers was pronounced, their bright red swatiskas flashing about the otherwise pleasant square like blemishes on a beautiful face. Keeping your expression perfectly neutral yet pleasant, confident yet not cocky, you took a moment to exhale slowly as you made it past the first hurdle into the building before heading to the ticket counter, requesting two tickets to Kortrijk. It was nothing short of a miracle that you managed a polite nod rather than kissing the ticket seller full on the mouth when he informed you the train would be leaving in twenty minutes. Pulling the bills from your bag, you accepted the tickets in return before leading Curt to track three.

Rolling your shoulders in and down your back, you confidently offered your identity papers to the Nazi soldier standing at the carriage door, immensely pleased when Curt did the same without prompting.

“Where are you two headed?” The soldier asked in clipped, stilted French, his piercing blue eyes wholly unsettling as they flicked between you and Curt before coming back to you.

“Kortrijk, sir.” You answered simply.

If he wanted to know more, he would need to ask more. You certainly had a lie prepared should he require one. He made a noise of displeasure, looking over your shoulder, implying the accumulation of other passengers.

“Off you go.” He grunted, returning both sets of papers to you and you nodded rapidly, climbing aboard quickly, even as your arm shook under the strain of hauling your body up the steps.

Shuffling down the hallway of the carriage, you at last came to an empty compartment, stepping inside and setting your luggage on the bench. As soon as Curt stepped in behind you, you slid the door shut behind him, knowing it was rude with a full train but not wanting anyone else to join you. As you turned back, he was already hoisting your suitcase up onto the luggage rack, making you smile fondly.

“Merci.” You murmured, hoping he would understand your meaning.

Judging by his responding smile, it seemed he certainly did. Despite your longing to collapse onto the bench seat, you sat with decorum, trying not to stare at your watch and count down the minutes. As the last whistle blew and the cars at last shunted into motion, you finally relaxed back into the cushion behind you.

“Is it always like that?” Curt whispered and you shot him a rueful look before shaking your head.

“I am deeply sorry, that…that is solely a complication of traveling with me right now.” You murmured in response, digging out his ticket and papers, returning them to him. “The conductor will arrive closer to our destination to check your ticket, then we show the papers again in the station after we detrain.”

You watched as he carefully took the items and tucked them back into his inner pocket.

“No apologies, gorgeous. We’re both not wanted here, so it’s a good thing we’re leaving.” He nodded and you looked out the window when rain pelted the glass as the train left the shelter of the station, biting the inside of your cheek savagely to keep your emotions in check. “Why don’t we have some lunch?”

He started to root around in the bag from Legot and you forced a smile, sharing the few apples and the small wedge of cheese, akin to a rare jewel, that the man had gifted the two of you with. After a minor squabble over who ought to be resting, Curt finally gave up and obstinately remained awake as you insisted that you must, staring out the window as the fields of Flanders rolled by. The train made numerous stops until the conductor arrived to check your tickets, signalling you were about to arrive in Kortrijk, the final stop.

Courtesy of your preparation, the process went remarkably smooth, and the pair of you stepped off the train once Curt had retrieved the suitcases from overhead. Another successful check of your papers and you were melting into the population freshly departing from their workday and making their way home. Within thirty minutes, you had arrived at an unassuming home on the southern edge of town, knocking the door in the prescribed way.

A young woman with a toddler perched on her hip opened the door, eyeing each of you cautiously.

“May I help you?” She asked in Dutch.

“Good afternoon, Ma’am. We were wondering if you might be interested in some new cosmetics?” You smiled broadly, delivering the passphrase.

A flash of recognition crossed her delicate features, her plump cheeks flushing in excitement as she briefly went rigid before she reined in her emotions. “Why don’t you come in and show me what you have for sale…” She stepped back, holding the door open wider for you and Curt to step inside.

Once the door was secured behind you, she led you through her small but tidy home up the narrow stairs to a small half door before opening it slowly.

“Here you are, dinner will take some time.”

“Whatever you can spare is truly appreciated, thank you.” You thanked her softly, sliding your suitcase into the attic before crouching down to crawl in after it.

The space was smaller than Legot’s cellar but larger than the back of Tillens’ dairy truck, enough room for each of you to lay flat, high up in the very peak of the small house. It was not a safe house you would have employed for a larger group. For the first time, you were grateful it was nearly November and not the heat of summer.

“Ouch!” Curt hissed as he cracked his head on a low beam, and you frowned, shifting up onto your knees to make sure he was alright. “Yeah, yeah, m’fine Marie, just an idiot.” He gave you a lopsided grin and you shook your head.

“Sorry it’s not the Ritz, but it’s not a cellar either?” You tilted your head hopefully.

“Never stayed at the Ritz, you?” He asked, settling onto the centuries-old wooden planks beside you.

“Hmmm.” You hummed noncommittally. “She says she’ll have something for us to eat in a bit, we will rest and then start out walking after midnight.”

“Walk…?” He prompted, eyebrow raised.

“It is not easy to cross the border, we cannot simply take the train into France, so we must walk. It is best to do so at night, and even better to do so rested. I promise we can linger a little longer at our next place, but we must get out of Belgium.” Despite your efforts to quash it, a slight tremor remained in your voice and Curt shot you a look of sympathy and utterly threatened your ability to maintain your composure. “So sleep.” You tacked on firmly and pulled off your jacket, folding it up to make a pillow before laying on your side with your back to him.

There was a decidedly awkward silence as he remained seated, looming above you, before laying down with a heavy exhale, clearly frustrated with you. Well that made two of you.

Dinner arrived two hours later with a soft knock, driving home the fact that you had not slept, but the warm vegetable hash was so very welcome and filling, giving you hope that you might be able to actually fall asleep for the last few hours of your stay here. As you lay back down onto your make-shift pillow, Curt’s breaths almost immediately evened out into the heavy sighs of sleep, making your lips twitch in a mixture of annoyance and amusement. Yet as you closed your eyes, all that echoed through your mind was the voice of your father ‘mon petit monstre’ and the Gestapo agent from the stairwell of your flat building ‘elle est un monstre.’

Petit monstre

Un monstre

Monstre

Monstre

Grief clawed at your throat, making you sit up sharply as you gasped for air, eyes brimming with tears as the realization that you would never again hear that nickname in your father’s voice – that it would now only come to you by way of anger and insult – sank like a stone in the pit of your stomach. Sniffling petulantly as your nose began to run, you jumped at the feeling of Curt’s hand on your shoulder.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong…” He whispered groggily, shifting closer.

Shaking your head quickly, you roughly wiped the tears from your eyes trying to hide the evidence, huffing as the action only caused fresh ones to spill onto your cheeks.

“Don’t tell me then, just c’mere.” He replied and gathered you into his arms, cradling you close against his chest.

Every muscle in your body went rigid at first, your rational, well-trained self knowing this was utterly inappropriate. And yet…

And yet, he was so warm, so kind, and he was holding you so tightly that maybe you could fall apart just a little without crumbling entirely. Surrendering to the fact that no arms had attempted to hold and comfort you in years, you yielded to his embrace, becoming pliant as you loosened the clenched-fist-grip on your grief just a little, allowing tears to slide freely down your cheeks in the darkness of that attic as his palm soothed up and down your spine.

“Shhh, I’m right here, you’re not alone…”

How very much you wanted to believe him.

-------------------------

Read Part Three

In My Blood Masterlist

Tag list: @precious-little-scoundrel, @luminouslywriting, @polikabra, @beingalive1

[mariacallous]

“The muddy depths are being stirred by new monsters and witches from the deep,” Gore Vidal once wrote of the resurgence of the far right in the United States. In the case of the rioting that has erupted across England and Northern Ireland this week and last, old hatreds have been stirred up using new technologies.

The initial spark for the violence that has plagued British towns and cities was the sickening murder of three young girls last Monday in the seaside town of Southport, stabbed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga session. It was the sort of horrific crime that is mercifully rare in Britain. The last comparable attack on children occurred almost 30 years ago.

The only suspect in the Southport murders, 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, was immediately arrested. We know Rudakubana’s name only because the judge in his case lifted an anonymity order—imposed as standard when the accused is a minor until legal proceedings begin—because false claims about the suspect’s origins were helping to fuel the racist violence. Social media posts claiming that the attacker was a Muslim, a refugee, a migrant, or a foreigner received 27 million impressions on Twitter/X in the 24 hours after the Southport killings.

Far-right groups descended on Southport the day after the stabbings. We know little about Rudakubana, but on Aug. 1 we did learn that he is a British national who was born in Cardiff to parents from Rwanda, a country with a large Christian majority. This has not prevented far-right thugs from rampaging through towns and cities including Manchester, Liverpool, Sunderland, Rotherham, Tamworth, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Aldershot, and Belfast, targeting Muslims

Many on the right have rushed to attribute the mobs to a sense of disillusion and a supposed social gap between the working class and the “elite”—a group in which they are never keen to count themselves. A few left-wingers have shared similar opinions. It is true that material factors have created a propitious environment in Britain for unrest. After 14 years of Tory government, before the recent Labour victory, the country is a poorer and more resentful place, its sclerotic and creaking public infrastructure barely functioning after years of neglect.

There is much to be angry about. Yet this does not adequately explain the nature nor the scale of the violence, much of which has been driven by a bourgeoning alliance between a right-wing elite and the mob—an alliance that, as Hannah Arendt once put it, rests on the “genuine delight with which the former [watch] the latter destroy respectability.”

For its part, the mob has attacked mosques, set buildings on fire, looted shops, violently assaulted ethnic minority bystanders, attacked cars on residential streets, and thrown bricks at the police. “We want our country back,” they yelled over the weekend while attempting to set fire to a hotel in Rotherham because they believed it was housing asylum-seekers. “P**i Muslims off our streets,” they yelled in Leeds. Footage from elsewhere showed men adorned with swastika tattoos, arms thrown up in Nazi salutes, voices yelling at anybody with brown skin to “go home.” This is not a rage that can, or should, be appeased.

This is not the first time rioting in the U.K. has been driven by bigotry. In Notting Hill in 1958, a mob of 400 white people attacked West Indian residents and their property. In the same week, racially motivated riots also broke out in St. Ann’s in Nottingham. Going further back, the Gordon Riots of 1780 saw an eruption of violent anti-Catholic sentiment.

Despite the atavistic nature of the hatreds unleashed this week and last, many who have taken to the streets this time around are creatures of social media. Several prominent far-right influencers have come out on social media in support of the mayhem with all sails unfurled. Others have been whipped into a near-homicidal frenzy by misinformation on apps such as X.

The kudzu spread of incendiary falsehoods began with the lie, first promulgated on X by the managing director of a clothing company, that the suspect in the Southport murders was an asylum-seeker named “Ali Al-Shakati.” The misogynist influencer Andrew Tate shared the false claim while asserting that the attacker was an “illegal immigrant.” The far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as “Tommy Robinson,” has used X to call for “mass deportations” and described Islam as a “mental health issue.” Meanwhile, disgraced actor Laurence Fox reacted to the stabbings by calling for Islam to be “removed from Britain.”

The mob responded accordingly. The day after false rumors about Ali Al-Shakati had began swirling around on social media, a group of white men attacked a mosque in Southport. The street violence has continued ever since.

Lurking in the background while disinformation is spread is a wealthy right-wing elite that has started to flex its political muscles. Some of the worst purveyors of misinformation have accounts on X only because right-wing billionaire Elon Musk has reinstated them—together with numerous other white supremacist accounts—under the guise of “free speech.”

Musk has spread misinformation about the riots on the app, claiming in one post that “civil war is inevitable” in Britain and amplifying one of Robinson’s posts. Robinson was reinstated by Musk in 2023 and today has more than 800,000 followers. Similarly, though he was banned from X in 2017 for claiming that women should bear “some responsibility” for being sexually harassed and assaulted, Tate was reinstated by Musk in 2022.

The takeover of media platforms by wealthy elites is driven by a right-wing adoption of the Gramscian belief that the conquest of power comes only after the conquest of culture. Musk, the world’s richest man, purchased X for $44 billion in 2022 in order to combat what he calls the “woke mind virus.” Together with renaming the platform, one of Musk’s first actions was to do away with legacy blue checks and open up verification on the platform to anybody with $8.

The move thrilled Musk’s sycophantic fan base, which had previously chafed with resentment at the status differential on the app between themselves and what they contemptuously referred to as the “legacy media.” But it also turned X into the world’s largest vector of misinformation. It is also of a piece with former White House strategist Steve Bannon’s idea of “flooding the zone with shit”—i.e., destroying the traditional media’s ability to give the public accurate information by letting it sink in a deluge of bullshit.

It isn’t only social media where influential right-wing figures have been allowed to blur the distinction between legitimate protest and far-right violence. Ever since the riots began last week, the British television station GB News has often sought to excuse them. Launched in 2021 and co-owned by the multimillionaire hedge fund manager Paul Marshall, since the murders in Southport, GB News has given airtime to an assortment of cranks, demagogues, and grifters. On more than one occasion, the station’s language has come dangerously close to incitement. The leader of the Reform U.K. party, Nigel Farage, who has his own show on GB News, also took to X in the aftermath of the Southport attacks to ask whether “the truth is being withheld from us” by the police about the identity of the suspect.

Earlier this year, Marshall—who as well as owning the reactionary website UnHerd is believed to be trying to purchase the Spectator and the Telegraph—was caught liking and sharing content close to the material that has been circulated this week by paranoid fascist weirdos. In February, the anti-extremist charity Hope not Hate revealed that Marshall had endorsed tweets calling for mass deportations and which suggested a civil war between “native Europeans” and “fake refugee invaders” was imminent.

Many of the presenters and guests on GB News have spent this week mocking Prime Minister Keir Starmer for labeling the riots as far right. Instead, the channel has sought to portray the street violence as driven by the “legitimate concerns” of disenfranchised members of the working class. The idea that the thuggish behavior of recent days is somehow representative of the working class is itself a form of middle-class prejudice—rooted in the unspoken assumption that working-class people are inherently stupid, racist, and violent.

GB News operates on familiar right-wing populist lines. Its prolier-than-thou presenters make superficial overtures to the masses while its modus operandi is to ensure that power is never truly shared or redistributed. But let’s not be too partisan about it: GB News is pushing at a door that has already been loosened by more “respectable” media coverage of migrants and asylum-seekers.

There is a self-pitying refrain on the right that you “can’t talk about” immigration. Yet the big mouths and shock jocks of the right-wing media seldom shut up about it. This time last year, the broadcaster James Whale suggested on Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV that the U.K. “should point weapons” at migrants in the English Channel. Even talking about migrants in this sort of bloodthirsty language is no impediment to getting on. A few months later, Whale was made an MBE.

The suggestion that the violent protests represent the last resort of Britain’s forgotten majority is, of course, laughable. When polled, nearly 50 percent of Britons wanted harsher-than-usual sentences for the rioters, 39 percent the usual norms of sentencing, and just 4 percent more lenient charges.

Less than five weeks ago, Starmer convincingly won a general election against a Tory party that campaigned on the slogan of stopping the boats carrying asylum-seekers to the United Kingdom. In truth, the ghouls who have haunted television studios this week making excuses for the rioters see any Labour government as equivalent to an occupying power. They want their country back because, after 14 years, they feel as if it has been lost at the ballot box.

But if anybody has a right to think of themselves as the voice of the people at the present time, it is the newly elected Labour prime minister. He may not own a television station or a social media app, but he does have a 174-seat majority in the House of Commons. The rule of law—and democracy—must prevail.

[flowerandblood]

Sweet kiss, sweet blood (8)

[ dark vampire! • Aemond x female ]

[ warnings: sex content, angst, smut, masturbation, fluff ]

[description: A centuries-old vampire lives in Victorian England, bored and discouraged. His old friend sends him a letter, inviting him to his new country house. Aemond arrives there to rest. Next to the property, there is a small chapel, visited by the faithful. It turns out that at night, a young lady prays in it. Slow burn, sexual tension, profanation, murder, blood drinking.]

I owe the idea for this wonderful series to: @qyburnsghost

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Previous and next chapters: Masterlist

_____

After two days of traveling they were in London. She pretended not to notice him taking a few sips once in a while from the bottle that he had hidden inside his coat. She knew it wasn't alcohol.

As they entered the city she couldn't believe it was really happening. She ran away, abandoned her family, started a new life. From hour to hour she experienced a nervous breakdown, then felt joy again.

She even cried into his shoulder a few times, but he sat beside her, calm, his arm around her, kissing her hair, wiping away her tears with his leather-gloved hands.

"I will not hurt you. I promise." He repeated it like a mantra, and for some reason she believed him.

She decided it was pointless to bring someone from so far away and hide them for the sake of blood. He could find plenty of women like her in London where it was easier to disappear in a crowd.

He told her on the way about how he saw it. He said he'd help her find a job. He wanted her to live in his townhouse where he'd give her a room of her own, at least until she got used to the situation and earned enough money to rent. He immediately proposed that she just live with him, but she refused to agree.

That was not the deal.

They arrived at his house late in the evening. His townhouse was beautiful, brick, all white with blue details, large windows with many quarters and a navy blue door with a knocker.

He opened the door and let her in first, taking off his top hat. The coachman helped them carry their luggage inside, then left them alone, closing the door behind him.

They undressed slowly and looked at each other, an awkward silence between them. Aemond knew she was still afraid of him, and he decided that he shouldn't touch her just yet to try to regain some of her trust.

He motioned for her to come upstairs with him and lead her to the room that he thought would be most suitable for her. It was light and airy, with a wonderful view of the busy street and huge windows.

It was the main bedroom in the house, but he didn't sleep in it because too much light came in through the windows. He thought it would be perfect place for her. He said he would order a dressing table for her in the coming days, and until then she had been able to use the mirror that was in the bathroom. He told her to make herself comfortable and leave her alone, wanting to let her get used to the situation.

Miss Whaterfield closed the door behind him, sighing heavily. She sat on her bed and lay on her back.

She did it.

She ran away.

She was with him at his townhouse.

With a vampire.

She thought she was a stupid idiot, feeling somehow happy and excited at the thought. She decided that even if her life were to end quickly, at least she would experience something interesting, intense. She sighed softly and began to unpack slowly.

She put her books and things on the shelves, hung her gowns and chemises in the wardrobes, although she had few of them, so as not to arouse suspicions of her parents.

She thought that she had no maid here and would have to do everything herself. Fortunately, when her sister still lived in their family home, Mathylda could not keep up with her duties and she was able to take care of herself. She felt there was something liberating about that independence.

When she was done, she locked the door and checked to make sure it didn't open. She sighed softly as she decided that it did, though she thought that if he wanted to it probably wouldn't have stopped him anyway.

She stripped off her gown and let her hair down as she changed into her nightgown. She slid under the sheets, covering herself tightly with it up to her head and stared at the view from the window. She felt very tired and excited at the same time.

She turned from side to side, but she couldn't sleep. Every creaking of the floor made her jump up and look towards the door. She heard him going up and down. She guessed that this was the time of his greatest activity and as long as she was with him she had to get used to it.

She sighed, laying back down, closing her eyes. Even though it was quiet at last, she couldn't sleep. She could still feel him kissing her hungrily. How willingly she responded to his tenderness, with what devotion she threw herself into his arms. She didn't know what had happened to her. The thought of having him at her fingertips made her want him.

She pursed her lips and lay down on her stomach, her hand hesitantly slipping between her thighs. A pleasant shiver went through her as she began to massage herself as he had done it in the chapel. She came this way many times since, getting a little more familiar with her body and how it reacts. The relaxation she felt after such caresses was indescribable.

She wondered if she would go to him he would touch her like that again. Would he give her pleasure again and then drink her blood. A cold shiver ran through her at the thought, but she also felt a throbbing between her thighs.

She sped up her movements, moaning, breathing quickly into the pillow, imagining him coming to her and touching her again. She was surprised at how quickly and hard she came, a soft, sweet moan escaped her lips. Only after she calmed down did she fall into a blissful sleep, her hand still between her thighs.

She woke up in the morning and looked around, wondering where she was. She sat up and looked around her new room. She thought it was really beautiful and airy in the daylight, lovely floral wallpaper all around her. She pursed her lips, listening carefully to the sounds of the house, but heard nothing.

She got up slowly, walking over to her wardrobe, taking out her simple home dress which consisted of a nice white shirt and a long black skirt. She braided her hair back, leaving some loose. She couldn't have gotten a prettier haircut until she had her dressing table with a mirror, but she figured she could walk around his house as she did now.

She quietly turned the key in the lock and peered through the door, scanning the corridor. She imagined his house as a spooky castle, but everything around her was bright and tidy. She decided that with a little dusting this property would be really beautiful.

She walked slowly down the stairs towards the kitchen. She saw on the table by the stove a package with a piece of paper on which she recognized his handwriting.

"Eat something from what I bought."

She looked inside and saw lots of different fruits, breads, eggs, hams and cheeses. She decided that it was too much for one person and probably some would be wasted. She wondered if he ate human food, but looking around the kitchen and seeing the complete emptiness she decided that probably not.

She sighed softly, taking the apple in her hand and began to eat it, looking around the room. She could cook a little, she thought if she read a few books she might try to make some simple dish.

She went up the stairs to the ground floor, continuing to eat her apple, looking around. She decided that she would spend the day acclimatizing and thinking about what to do next.

She was grateful that he didn't knock on her door at night, giving her at least a minimal sense of security and privacy. She thought that whoever he was, he had done her a huge favor. She felt that she should repay him in some way.

She figured that she'd clean up as much as possible. She'll wash the curtains, dust, wash the floors. She'll show him that she's really was capable of living on her own, so he won't keep her by force for long. She knew he would prolong her stay with him, not wanting to hear of her renting anything herself.

He told her not to go out without him just yet. She was afraid to walk around the city alone, so she decided that maybe it was the smartest thing to do.

She was just putting the books back on the big bookshelf she had wiped down, when she heard footsteps on the stairs. She turned and met his surprised gaze. She thought he couldn't help but be curious about the noise downstairs and came to see what was happening.

"What are you doing?" He asked in surprise, walking down to the room, looking around, seeing that something had changed, but he wasn't quite sure what.

"I'm cleaning your house. In gratitude for your favor." She said, going back to arranging his books. She wiped the thick volumes covered in dust and slipped them in back one by one. Aemond approached her uncertainly, keeping his distance.

"I'm not going to make you my servant." He spoke hesitantly, as if he was afraid that she thought that as long as she was with him she had to serve him in gratitude. She looked at him gently and smiled.

"I know." She said calmly, as she continued her work.

She shivered as she heard him walk closer to her. He avoided the sunlight that streamed through the windows, walking in the shade. She didn't look at him, but she could feel him standing behind her, looking at her intensely. She felt her heart pounding fast, a pleasant squeeze spread through her lower abdomen.

Her whole body shivered as he placed his cold hand on her shoulder. She felt him rest his forehead against the back of her head, his nose in her hair, inhaling her scent. She slowed her movements a bit, pretending not to feel anything as she grabbed next books. His other hand cupped her waist, his fingers on her stomach. She inhaled sharply at the feeling.

"I desire you." He whispered low, hesitantly, his voice trembling slightly. She inhaled sharply at his words. She wondered what he meant.

"How do you desire me?" She asked indifferently, sliding the small book back into the slot from which she had pulled it.

She felt his hand on her stomach pressing her against him. Even through her gowns she could feel his manhood all hard. She swallowed at the sensation, feeling the wetness between her thighs.

"In every way." He whispered, his face sliding down to her neck, planting wet, sticky kisses on it. Her body tensed, wondering if he was going to bite her and drink her blood again. She flinched as his nose moved to her ear.

"I still want to marry you. I want to live with you as with a wife." He whispered.

She felt her throat go dry at his words. His hand from her stomach slid down her skirt, between her thighs, starting to massage her through the thick fabric.

Despite the physical layers that separated her from his hand, her body responded with a strong thrill of pleasure. She rested her hand on the ledge in front of her, breathing uneasily, his pulsing manhood beginning to rub against her buttocks.

She thought that her parents were no longer with her to moralize her. She was responsible for her actions only to herself and God. She decided that she had never wanted anyone in her life as much as him. That she wanted it to be him, just this once.

"Take me to your bedroom." She whispered helplessly, and he moaned low, surprised, a strong shiver ran through his body at her words.

He spun her around to face him and grabbed her hips, lifting her up, heading for the stairs. She hugged him tightly and buried her face in his neck, feeling how her heart was pounding.

How badly she wanted it.

He opened the door with one hand without even closing it. His bedroom was smaller and darker, curtains blocking out the light completely, everything was in semi-darkness.

He laid her down on his bed, staring at her with his mouth slightly parted. He pulled his nightgown over his head with a confident movement, leaving him in only his boots and trousers. She swallowed hard at the sight and looked away, ashamed to see the naked body of a men before her for the first time in her life.

She thought that he was impossibly handsome, her thighs clenching tighter at the sight. She heard him take off his boots and climb onto the bed, straddling her without crushing her with his body.

His pale, cold fingers began to slowly undo the fabric of her white shirt. He looked at her, his gaze black and uncertain, full of something that made her shiver pleasantly.

"Are you sure?" He asked softly, as if he didn't believe this was happening and was hesitating himself whether they should do it. She nodded at his words.

"Yes. I can't stand it any longer." She whispered. He moaned softly at her words and pressed his lips to her mouth hungrily, parting the fabric of her shirt, exposing her breasts to him.

He broke away from her with a sticky click to look at her soft, pale breasts, his hand involuntarily grabbing one of them, squeezing it gently. She moaned loudly, squirming under him, looking away, surprised by this obscene gesture, feeling juices leaking from her thighs. His other hand grabbed her jaw, forcing her to look at him.

"No. Look how I caress you. What can I do with your body if you only wish." He hummed low as he leaned over her, his tongue brushing over her nipple, making her arch back in pleasure.

His mouth tightened on her breast, sucking her intensely, once in a while teasing her nipple again with the tip of his tongue. She moaned helplessly beneath him, stunned by the wonderful sensation that sent heat through her body, her hands clenching tightly against his hair, holding him close.

They both gasped as her hips began to rub against the bulge in his trousers, throbbing hard beneath her. Aemond lifted up the fabric of her skirt and nightgown impatiently, exposing her naked thighs.

He pulled away from her breasts, licking his lips, kneeling between her thighs, his misty gaze at her entrance dripping with lust. He ran his thumb over it, and she moaned loudly, red with embarrassment, looking away again.

"Look at me." He said dangerously and low, looking at her expectantly.

She swallowed loudly, glancing up at him, her body convulsing as his thumb confidently and painfully slowly spread her juices over her pearl, massaging it in circular, precise motions. She threw her head back and moaned helplessly as she felt his finger inside her again, slipping in and out of her with slow, gentle movements.

"You're so tight. Don't be afraid, we'll take it slow." He whispered, looking at her with a twinkle in his eye that both terrified and aroused her at the same time.

He slid his finger out of her and unfastened his trousers quickly, letting them down just enough to reveal his swollen, throbbing member.

She pursed her lips seeing how big he was, not knowing where to look, her body a complete mess, trembling all over. He smiled in satisfaction at the sight, taking her thighs in his hands, spreading them shamelessly in front of him. She pursed her lips, stifling a moan as his manhood began to rub against her entrance, sticky all over in her juices.

"Fear not, Miss Whaterfield. I'm sure all of it will fit inside you. Would you like to try how it feels?” He purred, his lower lip parted in desire, she felt his lenght throbbing against her skin in desperation to feel her.

She swallowed hard, disbelieving what she was doing, and nodded, her hands clasping the sheets at the sides of her head.

He grunted in satisfaction at her agreement, his gaze returning between her thighs. His hands parted the skin of her entrance slightly to the sides, as he tried to insert the tip of his member into her.

She sobbed softly, closing her eyes as she felt it. She opened her mouth wide in a silent moan as she felt him enter her a little, filling her to the limit, stretching her throbbing, wet muscles. He groaned low feeling it, and squeezed his eye shut for a moment as if to remember the moment.

"Just like that. Such a good girl." He whispered in delight, feeling her clench tighter around him, her greedily wet, hot walls pulsating around his manhood.

He licked his lips at the feeling, his hands gripping her thighs again, spreading them even wider. With difficulty he slid deeper into her, pushing apart her fleshy walls. She squealed softly under him in pain.

"He's too big." She sobbed softly, turning her head to the side, breathing quickly. She felt like he was about to tear her apart.

"Shh. Just a little more. He's almost in." He whispered tenderly, pushing his lenght deeper into her, to the very end, sighing with pleasure.

They were both panting, squirming beneath each other. He leaned over her, looking at her gently. He kissed her softly, comfortingly, soothingly. He brushed her lips, trying to calm her down, not moving an inch inside her, her walls pressed against him desperately. He tried with the last of his strength to simply not cum inside her.

“Look how wonderfully he fits. How well you did." He purred contentedly between sticky kisses, her fingers tightening on the bare skin of his back.

He slid out of her gently, then slid back in again, slowly, all the way. He repeated this simple, deep movement unhurriedly as he looked at her face. Her lips parted helplessly, she panted with him, her walls loosening slightly, allowing him to accelerate.

His hands tightened on her buttocks, thrusting his member inside harder and faster, rubbing her where his finger had touched her before.

"Just like that. Look how delightful it is. How wonderful it is when a men and a woman fuck like that." He gasped, losing control of himself, unable to bear the way her hot, wet womanhood pressed against him.

She moaned under him at his words, involuntarily spreading her thighs wider in front of him, feeling the tension in her lower abdomen reach its zenith.

They were both panting and moaning loudly, the wooden bed creaking beneath them from how brutally and quickly he fucked her. His movements were sure and fierce, his lenght thrusting into her with a wet, perverted slap of her juices.

His thumb teased her clit once in a while, making her lean back in pleasure. He looked at her dreamily, her hair scattered around her face in disarray, her cheeks red, her moist, shiny lips parted in pleasure.

"I'm going to cum in you" He whispered, looking at her with black eye. He was on edge already, his slaps chaotic and loud, fast and animal, her nipples sticking out painfully hard, her hips responding to his every thrust.

"Yes, please, please" She sobbed helplessly, unable to bear the tension in her lower abdomen anymore.

She knew it wasn't wise, but that was all she wanted. She moaned loudly as his thumb sped up, both of them tensing as they felt the impending fulfillment. She saw him squeeze his eye shut as his semen gushed deep inside her.

"Sweet God, yes" He gasped loudly as he cum inside her, his finger massaging her quickly and intensely. Feeling it, she leaned back, mouth parted wide as she mewled loudly feeling a wave of pleasure that she had never known before in her life.

She gasped as she said his name again and again, and he moaned softly above her, feeling her walls pressing against him so tight he couldn't breathe.

He just laid on top of her, crushing her with his body. They were both breathing heavily, trying to calm themselves down, his nose pressed against her cheek.

"Stay with me. Stay with me for eternity."

_____

Aemond Taglist:

(bold means I couldn't tag you)

@its-actually-minicika @notnormalthings-blog @nikstrange @zenka69 @bellaisasleep @k-y-r-a-1 @g-cf2020 @melsunshine @opheliaas-stuff @chainsawsangel @iiamthehybrid @tinykryptonitewerewolf @namoreno @malfoytargaryen @qyburnsghost @aemondsdelight @persephonerinyes @fan-goddess @sweethoneyblossom1 @watercolorskyy @astral-blossoms @randomdragonfires @amirawritespoorly @apollonshootafar @padfooteyes @darylandbethfanforever9 @fudge13 @snh96 @diosademuerte

Others: @talesofoldandnew

[winniemaywebber]

It's Been A Long, Long Time: Lover, Come Back

Harry Crosby x Jean Crosby

There's a surprise waiting in the mail for Jean Crosby - the news of her husband returning home a four week furlough. How ever much happiness this brings her, she must contend with the sadness of her best friend and roommate, Jo, who is facing the harsh realities of her own sweetheart, Rosie, reupping rather than returning home to her.

A warm evening breeze sweeps past Jean and Josephine as they begin the short walk home from the bus stop. It was finally Friday, the two girls looking forward to a couple days of rest over the weekend. They liked to keep one weekend a month free of any plans, where they could just laze about the house in their pajamas and rejuvenate before entering the workforce reality again on Monday morning - this weekend, the final one of June, was the one they’d chosen for the month, both of them greatly looking forward to it.

As they approach the brown brick house in the middle of a neat cul-de-sac, Jean spots the flag at mast on the mailbox. “Get the mail, doll,” she smirks, knowing Jo was practically chomping at the bit for the next letter from her love. Robert Rosenthal had just re-upped, separating the couple for much longer than Jo had initially envisioned, the subject always covered with disdain and sharp words whenever it was brought up. Jean knew by now to avoid it unless Jo herself sounded off about it.

With a heavy sigh, she silently hands the stack of mail to her companion after quickly rifling through it, hoping to spot that familiar scrawled penmanship on an envelope. “Not today,” Jo says through subtly gritted teeth, holding her hand out for the keys and unlocking the door before throwing her purse on to the telephone table. “It’s been two weeks, what on Earth could he be doing? Do you think the letter simply got lost?”

“No, dear,” she sighs. “You know mail has been a little slow lately, maybe it’s just taking its time to get here from England.”

“You don’t think…” she gulps, pausing with the fear that grips her throat, “you don’t think he’s the one that is lost, do you?”

“Goodness, Jo, darling,” Jean comforts, wrapping her arm around her friend’s heaving shoulders as she sits down on one of the dining chairs. “Sweetheart, you know Binger would contact us at the first sign of any trouble like that, hm?”

“I guess,” Jo shrugs. “Get it over with then. What do you have?”

Jean flips through the envelopes, spotting the only other handwriting that’s familiar to her. Jo sees it too, her eyes widening with fear as they fill with tears.

“Now, doll,” Jean says, trying her best to keep a calm voice. “I’m sure it’s just him writing to me to tell me the goings on on base. Breathe, Josephine.”

“Mhm,” she nods, her brow furrowed with the effort of speaking through a closed throat. Jean tears the letter from its envelope and begins to read.

“Mrs Crosby,

I’ll be on my way home to you next week. I’ll be with you for four weeks and I can hardly wait.

See you in New York.

Binger.”

Jean’s mouth drops open, trying to formulate words that won’t come out.

“Well?” Jo urges, eyes darting across her friend’s face to gauge any emotion. “What is it?!”

“He’s–he’s…”

“Spit it out, Mrs Croz.”

“He’s coming home!” Jean squeals, the information finally sinking in and causing her to emphatically jump up and down, her heels clacking on the kitchen floor. It’s when she stops to smile at Jo that she sees her face fall, hand on her chest to steady the ragged breaths she’s pushing from her body. “Jo? Oh, darling. Come here.”

“Should be me hugging you, not the other way around,” she sobs, dampening Jean’s dress. She gulps and sniffs, Jean pulling a chair from the head of the table to sit next to her. “I’m sorry, I really am happy for you, it’s just–”

“I wasn’t being fair,” she says with a shake of her head. “Being that excited wasn’t right of me.”

“No! You should be excited; you’re about to see your husband after two years. It’s just…I don’t know, Jean. I’m so…”

“Angry?”

“Yes!” she blurts out, wiping at her face angrily. “How could he sacrifice the future we’ve been planning together because he’s just so prideful? It makes me so mad. So disgustingly mad.”

“I know,” Jean soothes, holding Jo’s head to her. “But at least you’ll worry less with Bing around.”

“How?” Jo replies, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“He won’t lie to you. He’ll tell you what’s what. The truth about how Robert is truly coping.”

“That’ll help, I guess, but–”

“But you’d rather have him home,” Jean interjects. “To dance with at Minton’s and go home together.”

Jo nods sadly, fresh tears springing into her eyes. “I just want my Robbie home with me,” she weeps, whimpering like a small child.

“I know, darling. I know.”

“Ugh, I’m sorry,” Jo sniffs. “I really am happy for you, Jean. When will he be here?”

Jean pulls the letter out again, eyes rushing over the words. “Next week,” she nods. “Wants me to meet him in the city.”

Jo looks over at the note in her hand, scanning over it herself. She inhales, bracing herself for the reaction to what she’s about to suggest. “I’ll call Jules in the morning.”

“Whatever for?” Jean screeches, eyes narrowing.

“I can’t be here while you and Harry, you know…” she pauses, lips purse to try and hold in a juvenile giggle. “Make up for lost time.”

Jean releases the most girlish little giggle that causes Jo to break into the same laughter, the two girls holding each other as the amusement peels off them.

“While you’re correct - we absolutely will be doing that - it isn’t fair that you should have to go somewhere else. This is your home, Jo.”

“I’ll come right back after Harry has returned, mark my words. But, I don’t want to hear, well…all that making up for lost time!”

“No, no, I get it. You have to promise me you’ll come home though. Please?”

“Darling, I promise. Aside from Robbie, you are my person.”

“And you’re mine, too.”

***

With a heavy sigh, Jean exits her eerily empty house. When she had asked Jo to move in with her all those months ago, she could never have imagined an outcome where she was alone again after so long. Part of her understood why Jo had left, agreeing with the idea that the Crosbys needed some much deserved alone time after much time apart. However, the part that she hated was this; the underlying, constant loneliness until Bing was home with her again.

Josephine had kept to her word, calling Jules the day after the pair had received Jean’s good news. She had also received a call from Vika - the girl now an integral part of their little group since they’d met at the beach - offering Josephine a few nights at her family’s hotel.

“It’ll be like a holiday,” Vika had teased, sipping at a weak martini. “It’ll be fun, a way for us to get to know each other a little better.” Jo had agreed emphatically, Jean even spending a night there with her to have a little time with the girls before the big day.

Jean spots the girls waiting at the bus stop the moment the brakes of the vehicle hiss, them all waving at one another so enthusiastically that Jean is sure all their arms may drop off. They greet one another with a girlish, juvenile squeal, the girls pulling Jean into a tight embrace. Shouts of “Hi, Mrs Crosby!” and “Eeee, the big day is tomorrow,” echo across the busy city streets as they begin their jaunt to their favorite dress shop.

***

“Remind me again which ones you liked best in the magazine?” Jo asks as she picks through racks of beautiful dresses. She finds one that Jean falls in love with instantly: a mulberry swing dress with a sweetheart neckline.

“I don’t think I need to,” Jean exhales, taking the dress from her friend. “This is gorgeous.”

“So very you, my girl,” she smiles, going back to the rack in front of her. The hangars scrape as she leafs through, a furrow upon her concentrated brow. “Is it too premature to find one for when Robbie comes home?”

Jules seems to have the same idea, rifling through a discount rack at the back of the store as Jean scouts around to find where the dressing rooms are located. Jules holds a dress up to her body, sashaying this way and that in front of Vika.

“What do you think?” she asked, a worried tone to her voice.

“Hm, not really your color, Juliet. How about…” Vika rifles through the rack herself, finding a beautiful light green a-line dress that she knows will compliment her friend perfectly. “This?”

“Vika, you’re a dream,” she compliments, admiring how the color brings out her eyes. “Aren’t you looking for something?”

“Me?” she laughs, shaking her head. “I don’t have a sweetheart to dress up for, you know that.”

“Why don’t we find you one?” Jean asks, pulling the velvet curtain back on an unoccupied stall. “I’m sure one of the boys’ friends will be raring to have a date with you.”

“My goodness, yes!” Jo replies, eyes lighting up for the first time in a week. “Say, who was the man Olive mentioned in her first letter to you, Jules? Douglass and someone? Benjamin?”

“Bernard. Benny Demarco.”

“That’s the one!”

“I’m sure he’d love that. He’s with Johnny right now…” At the mention of his name, the reminder of where he is waiting out the remainder of this dreadful war, Jules suddenly lets out a little weep. “Sorry, girls, it’s just…sometimes I just forget and it all comes flooding back to me.”

“Oh, darling,” Jo coos, holding her. “I understand.”

“We all do,” Jean squeaks, making herself scarce behind the heavy drape. Once in there, she herself lets a thick cry escape her throat, covering her mouth to muffle the sound. Of course she understands; those endless nights without her husband, waiting for a phone call or a sweet love letter - though those had become scarce these last few months. She can’t stop the tears falling down her rouged cheeks, mascara falling down her face in thick, black trails as she pulls her chosen gown on her tense body.

“Jean?” Jo calls, her voice still wavering with emotion.

“Yeah?” Jean croaks in reply, her voice cracking again. “Be right out.”

Before she can wipe her face and make her exit, Jo scrapes back the curtain to find her friend in a hell of a mess: eyes puffy and swollen, lips red from where she had bitten them to keep the wails at bay, a stress rash attacking her pale neck. “Jean, whatever is it?”

“I don’t know, I just feel–I feel like an imposter. And I feel like I’ve let you all down and–”

“Oh my goodness, darling, come here.” Jo scoops Jean up from almost falling, sitting down with her on the dressing room floor.

“I feel like I’ve failed you all.”

“Now, what on Earth are you talking about?”

“Here’s me saying I understand how you and Jules feel, yet what are we here for? To find me a pretty dress for my husband’s furlough. I feel like I just should keep my mouth shut. I feel so unfair towards you both and–”

“Now, Jean, that’s enough,” Jo replies sternly. “You are not to feel this way, do you understand? We are so happy for you, can’t you see that?” Jean nods, sniffing and wiping her tears away. “Of course we are a little envious - as would you be if it was Robbie coming home, not your Bing. The same would be said for if John were still with the fellas and he got furlough. You see?” There is a pause as Jean nods along, trying to formulate a sentence without her voice faltering. “While I am excited to see Croz, I do wish it were Robbie. I keep thinking about the life we were meant to start and he chose–”

It is Jean’s turn to comfort her friend, holding her close as they both weep together. “Look at the state of us,” Jean laughs, sniffling. “What a sight.”

“Yeah, well,” Jo weeps, pulling a handkerchief from her purse. “Nobody else I’d rather cry with, hon.”

“Me, too.”

“You’re my other half, Jean. Robbie is absolutely my soul mate, but you? Well, I thank this ghastly war for putting us together. You’re my person, Mrs Crosby. I am so blissfully happy for you.”

“Ditto. Jo?”

“Yes?”

“Love you.”

“Softie…I love you, too.”

***

Jean almost collapses all over again when she hears the price of the dress. After she and Jo had calmed down, Jo had buttoned her into it. It had fit her like a glove, the material clinging to her perfectly. “Jean!” Jo had gasped, hands on her cheeks. “You’ve got to have it!”

Now checking out, the price had taken Mrs Crosby aback just a tad. Rummaging in her purse for extra cash, Jo pointedly lays down a stack of notes. “Had a bit of a whip round,” she winks, placing a hand on top of Jean’s to stop her panicking. “It’s from all of us.”

“Josephine!” she gasps, clinging to her. “And girls, thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome, doll,” Jules replies. “I know Harry will fall to his knees the moment he sees you in that. Dare I say, you won’t be wearing it for long.”

“Juliet!” Vika urges, giggling nonetheless.

“What? Am I wrong?”

“Let’s hope not!” Jean replies, taking the dress’ garment bag from the teller. “Come on, I need a drink.”

***

The girls arrive back at Vika's family’s hotel just before nightfall, Jean carefully uncovering the hidden martini ingredients from her suitcase. “Sure is hard to keep cocktail making quiet,” she laughs as there is a sudden rap on the door.

“Shit,” Juliet giggles, stashing the bottles under the blankets. The four of them laugh like schoolgirls at a sleepover, Jean laying across the smuggled alcohol as Vika answers the door, shushing her friends.

“You need to stop!” she whispers, trying to be stern but the tone is cracked with a fit of giggles, Vika covering her mouth to stifle the laughter. “Girls, stop it, I’m going to crack a rib!” She waves her hand in front of them all, them all hushing immediately.

“Mammi,” she greets, her voice going an octave higher.

“Ruthvika,” she says, nodding towards the girls. “Please remember to keep it down, yes? We still have guests.”

“Yes, mammi, of course.”

Mrs Patel looks between her daughter and the girls, beginning to speak in Gujarati as her glance carries on going between them all. “Okay?” she finishes, walking towards the door. Vika nods again, running to open the door for her.

“Goodnight, Mrs Patel,” the girls all chorus, their warmth seeming to envelope the room. Jean can see that Vika feels it, her body seeming to relax the moment they speak.

“Goodnight, girls,” she replies, smiling at them.

Vika closes the door before leaning against it, exhaling and holding her chest dramatically. “That was close.”

“Sure was, doll,” Jules giggles, the bottles clanging as she pulls the blanket back. “Now, who’s up for a drink? We need to have one for our Mrs Crosby, who we are so excited for.”

“We certainly are,” Jules replies, holding on to Jean’s hand and grinning at her. “We love you, Mrs Croz. Truly.”

“And I love you all, too. So much.”

***

“This is it,” Jo says, as she and the group hear the whistle of a train in the distance. “Now, have you got everything?”

“I think so,” Jean replies, her voice tiny, tight and anxious. She chews at the inside of her mouth with worry, the nausea beginning to settle in with each moment the train draws closer.

“Enough of that, Mrs Croz,” Jo scolds as she sees her friend's eyes glaze over and continuously bite her lips. “You'll make yourself bleed.”

“Speaking of having everything,” Jules perks up, “do you have a book for the journey, doll?”

“I don't,” she squeaks, remembering the rushed packing she had done days ago. “I didn't even think of anything like that.”

“Well, luckily for you, I did!” She triumphantly smiles, pulling a small paperback out of her purse. “Thought you'd enjoy this one. It's one of my favorites - Olive’s too.”

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Jean reads, stroking the titled cover. “Thank you, Juliet. So much.”

“And this is from Mammi,” Vika joins, handing her a small paper bag. “In case you get hungry on the way.”

“Oh, girls. Thanks ever so.”

The four of them look between one another, an awkward silence hanging in the air as Jean and Jo catch each other's eye.

“Come on, Ruthie,” Jules says, taking her by the arm. “Let's go wait inside, yes?”

“Fantastic idea. Bye, Jean!”

With Jean and Jo left alone for the first time in days, it takes everything in Jean to not break out into sobs. A moment of silence passes between them, the pair seemingly lost for words for the first time their entire friendship. Jean opens her mouth to say something, distracted by Jo pulling her into a tight hug.

“Have the most wonderful time, Mrs Croz.”

“Jo…I–I'm so sorry.”

“Enough of that, darling. You have nothing to apologize for.”

“But…”

“No buts, lady. I'll see you soon, okay?”

“I'll miss you so much.”

“I'll miss you, too. But, believe me, this is a good thing,” she sighs, pulling out of the hug, but keeping her hands on Jean’s shoulders. “For both of us.”

“All aboard!”

Jo hands Jean her suitcases, Jean planting a kiss on her cheek.

“Love you, doll.”

“Love you more.”

***

The train carriage feels stiflingly hot, Jean removing every layer she possibly can while trying her best to look calm. Her jacket is flung onto the seat next to her, followed by her silk scarf and pretty gloves, sweat dripping down her back and making her unable to get comfortable in the plush seat. She tells herself to try and keep breathing, taking shaky inhales and exhaling them as the train chugs on. Jean pays no mind to the scenery zooming past. It has all suddenly become so real, the reality weighing on her that she is about to see her husband for the first time in years.

Would he still love her? she wonders, as she pulls the book Jules gave her from her bag. Would he still think she’s pretty? Would he even be the same man? She wasn’t the same woman, that much was certain - she felt she had grown in great strides since he had shipped out, learning so much about herself in the time they had been apart.

The words begin to blur together on the page, Jean barely able to make a sentence string together in her mind by the time the train stops. The conductor calls out their location: “This is Grand Central Station. This stop is Grand Central Station.”

She feels the nerves bubbling up in her gut, the butterflies causing her to become weak at the knees and she hopes they can hold her up long enough to disembark the train carriage. As her foot touches the ground of the platform, she cranes her head up in the hopes of spotting Bing on the platform, the station seemingly the busiest it’s ever been on today of all days.

It’s when she cuts through a group congregating around a bench that she spots him in the distance - his hair looks different: slicked back to the side, his usually tousled curls combed into some new found submission, not tumbling down his forehead carelessly like they used to. He stands taller, hands less fidgety and his aura less anxious. Jean finds herself frozen to the spot, jagged breaths leaving her parted lips as she takes him in for the first time in what feels like forever. She’s not even sure she recognizes him at first; his sweet face is a little more aged from the stress and horrors he’s endured since leaving for England. But it’s his eyes - those big, brown, downturned cow eyes that send her heart aflutter and make her brain register that it’s really him. Those same eyes light up in recognition, his mouth slightly agape as she sees his chest fall at the sight of her after all these years.

She begins to run, closing the smallest space that’s been between them in years and leaps into his arms.

“Darling,” she weeps, her throat closing as tears fall onto him. “Darling, darling,” she repeats, her arms wound tightly around his neck.

“Jean…oh, Jean,” he murmurs into her, holding her just as tightly. “Let me look at you.”

He places her down on the ground gently, as if he were touching a precious antique. “My goodness, Mrs Crosby,” he says, taking her chin in his hand. “I could just kiss the face off you.”

“Well, what are you waiting for?” she giggles, the sound cut off by her husband’s mouth capturing hers in a tender kiss, neither of them wanting it to cease.

“I love you,” he murmurs into her mouth, never breaking the affection. “I’m sorry I ever went away.”

“I love you, Binger,” she replies, kissing him over and over, not caring who is watching. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

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