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wiypt-writes · 4 years ago

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Barking Up The Wrong Tree

Ransom Drysdale One Shot

Summary: It’s the Annual Pre-Easter meal at the Thrombey’s and Ransom and you are in attendance. As usual, there’s fireworks, a lot of swearing and there’s only one way you know he can get rid of his frustrations…

Warnings: Bad Language words. SMUT (NSFW) NO UNDER 18s!

Pairing: Ransom Drysdale x Reader

A/N: So this was originally written last year for @jennmurawski13 who requested a smutty one shot with an Evans character of my choice for her birthday. It was coined from a Brainstorming sesh me and @icanfeelastormbrewing had for our intended Ransom x OFC series (we might get round to it in 2022…so by then you’ll have forgotten if we use it again.) FYI Eighteen year old Ransom is totally Bryce from Fierce People, you can’t convince me otherwise… I also very much now see this being the same Reader as in mine, @ohthankevans13 and @sweater-daddiesdumbdork’s Real Life Tasks With Ransom Drysdale series.

Your brown leather, knee high Saint Laurent boots (a gift from the man whose lap you were curled up on) were on the floor by your feet leaving you in your grey, woollen over-knee socks. One of your boyfriend’s large hands was resting on your left shin, the other just at the top of your right thigh, almost on your ass cheek. You were well aware your black sweater dress was riding up so went to shift and shimmy it down a little, conscious that you were, after all, sat in the large drawing room at his grandfather’s house whilst the rest of his family milled around as the pre-Easter dinner, which always took place the weekend before the actual holiday, was being prepared.

“You okay?” Ransom looked up at you, noticing you shift on his lap and you smiled.

“Yeah, just don’t want to flash everyone too much if you get my drift.”

Ransom cocked an eyebrow at you, then peeked around the room, before he gave a snort as his eyes fell on his cousin Jacob who was watching the pair of you.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want Adolf junior getting a boner now would we?”

You gave a chuckle as you re-arranged your dress, making yourself more comfortable.

“He’s just a kid, Ran.” You soothed.

“He’s a deviant, Princess.” He replied, his voice quiet.

“So were you when I first met you.” You grinned, looking at him as you bent closer to whisper into his ear “Still are when the mood takes you.”

Ransom pulled back to look at you, his face inches from yours, his eyebrow raising slightly as that dirty smirk spread across his handsome face. “Stop it.” He warned, and you shrugged innocently, as he placed a soft kiss on your mouth.

“Come on son, put her down.” Richard’s voice rang across the room and instantly you felt Ransom’s entire demeanour change. Gone was the relaxed, jokey, happy Ran you knew and loved and in his place was Hugh Ransom Drysdale, asshole extraordinaire.

“Piss off, Father.” He shot back, his head moving back from yours, fixing his dad with a steely glare.

“Hey.” Richard glowered “Don’t speak to me like that…” he turned to Linda. “Did you hear that Linda?”

“Ransom…” Linda said lazily, not looking up from her phone. “Don’t speak to your father like that.”

Ransom rolled his eyes and you gently looked at him, shaking your head, silently telling him to stay calm. It was always the same with the Thrombey family gatherings. Ransom despised them for the simple fact that Harlan was the only one he had any time for, bar his mother on a good day, and you were inclined to feel the same way. It always ended in chaos, each individual nuclear sects within the extended family trying to get one up on the other, prove they were the best players in the game.

Frankly, they made the fucking Lannisters look normal.

All your friends were constantly asking you how you managed to stay tangled in this web of dysfunction, but the answer was right in front of you, his crystal blue eyes now narrowed as he shot a sarcastic reply back to his mother.

The simple truth was, you loved him and couldn’t walk away if you tried.

It hadn’t always been that way, mind. When your High School had been asked to submit nominations for the coveted position of Harlan Thrombey’s Summer research assistant, you’d been short listed along with 15 other candidates from the New England area. Each of you were asked to produce a five-thousand word thesis on a literary subject of your choice to be submitted for reading by Harlan. You’d been ecstatic when you received the call from his Publishing Company to say you’d made the final three and were requested to attend an interview.

You’d been and bought a new suit. Nothing fancy but decent enough quality. You made sure your hair was tamed, your make up was as on point as you could get it, and had driven the thirty minutes or so out to his mansion from the home you shared with your Nanna in Brookline, following the directions on your GPS to the area near Pierce Park where the Thrombey Mansion was located. You were greeted by his housekeeper and shown into the large office where the man himself was waiting. Harlan was nothing like you had expected him to be. He was eccentric, sure, but also dmaned good fun. He’d asked you a few questions about why you wanted the position “I’m going to major in English at college and I hope to work in publishing when I graduate, this would be an invaluable experience.” He had then discussed your paper with you and after a few more general questions he had reduced you almost to tears of laughter by telling you a about an incident when he had been at college and was almost caught climbing down the trellis of his girlfriend’s parent’s house following a late night rendezvous of the very naughty kind “Don’t think too badly of me, we ended up married for forty-seven years…”

Then, just as he was showing you out of his study a tall, well-built young man, your age you had correctly guessed, with a strong jaw, dark hair flicked to the left side of his forehead, and a pair of the bluest eyes you had ever seen, waltzed down the hallway. He was dressed in a pair of riding breeches, a polo shirt and wore a long pair of tan leather riding boots.

"Ransom?” Harlan looked at the young man “I wasn’t expecting you till this afternoon.”

“Yeah well, the fucking horse I should have been riding is lame.” Ransom shrugged “Which means I can’t ride, and I probably can’t compete this weekend.”

“Dressage?” you had asked, your mouth speaking well before your brain had engaged, for some reason thinking it was a good idea to comment. Ransom had looked at you with disdain, scanned you up and down and cocked his head to one side, his eyes cold as they locked onto yours.

“Polo.” He had answered, a sneer on his face “Do I look like a dressage rider to you? Mind you, from the state of your cheap high-street dress the nearest you’ve probably ever been to a horse is those shitty little trail rides they run at kids parties.”

“Ransom!” Harlan had snapped sternly “Enough!”

You felt the heat rise in your neck and cheeks, and you drew yourself up to your full height, folding your arms as you looked at the ass hole stood in front of you. One thing your Nanna had told you was that, despite your humble origins, you were as worthy as the next person, no matter how much money, status or self-importance they may have.

“My apologies. I always thought polo was played by arrogant, snobby, stuck up pricks.” You retorted as you made a show of looking him up and down in the same way he had done to you. “Actually, on second thoughts, I should have guessed.”

As soon as the words were out of your mind you let out an internal groan. Way to go, flush your chance of landing this summer internship down the fucking toilet by insulting Harlan’s grandson. Nevertheless, you held the gaze of the man in front of you who stared back, his expression and face utterly stoic bar the blink of surprise his eyes made.

You heard Harlan chuckle behind you and the old man dropped a hand to your shoulder. “Fran, could you see Miss Y/L/N to the door.”

Two days later Harlan had personally called you to offer you the position, and it had turned out to be everything you ever wanted, and more. Three weeks into your internship, to your utter surprise, Harlan confessed that he had been looking to fund a worthy, local candidate through college and as the successful applicant it was yours for the taking. Some strings had been pulled, and in the last week of September thanks to his generosity you started your English Major at Harvard.

And so did Ransom.

He pursued you with a dogged determination, seemingly viewing your indifference towards him and his advances as some kind of challenge. You weren’t fooling yourself, however. He was devastatingly handsome and your traitorous vagina and that part of your brain that controlled your libido harboured a deep desire to fuck his brains out, a desire you finally gave into at the end of your first year when, following your final exam, you got drunk and woke up the morning after in his bed.

It wasn’t all puppies and roses though. You were on and off more than his boxer shorts, as simply put, Ransom was a player. And it didn’t bother you to start with. He was a hook up, a way to relieve tension when you needed to, and he was a very handy person to know with his seemingly endless network of connections. But by the time you graduated you knew you were head over heels for him, and needed to break this seeming cycle of being in and out of his bed. So you turned down Harlan’s offer of a job at Blood Like Wine and were ready to move away from Boston after landing a job at a publishers in Manhattan…but then your nanna had been taken seriously ill and suffered a stroke meaning you had to stay.

As a result of her illness, your nanna was unable to live in your house in Brookline alone and so you were forced to sell it so she could afford to move into a supervised Retirement Village a five minute or so drive away. You were now jobless, drowning with the house-sale which would leave you homeless, and your emotions and been all over the place. You had no other family since your Grandfather had died at the start of your senior year so had no one to turn to.

Enter Hugh Ransom Drysdale.

You’d called him one evening, drunk and emotional and needing a release and he came over alright, but instead of fucking you into the mattress he made sure you drank water, ate something, and then got you into bed. The next morning, Harlan had shown up, telling you the job offer at his company was still open, and then to your utter surprise and initial horror he had offered to buy your nanna’s house, meaning you could remain there as a tenant. At first you had refused, insisting you weren’t a charity case but Harlan had simply waved your concerns away by insisting it was an investment. After a little discussion he agreed to allow you to pay rent which, all things considered, was a pittance in comparison to what other properties the same size in that area commanded but it was a rent nonetheless and made you feel better.

And you knew all of it had ben Ransom’s idea.

This was the side to Ransom he very rarely displayed to anyone. A softer side, a caring side, a gentle side. A side that held you as you cried at the thought that your nanna was growing old and may soon leave you behind, a side that made you a sandwich when you hadn’t eaten in days, a side that helped you pack up and move your Nana’s stuff to her new home, a side that turned up at 9pm with several tubs of ice cream and a bottle of wine after you’d messaged him earlier that afternoon to tell him what a shit day you were having when his Uncle Walt was being a dick at work.

The rest, they say is history. History which meant you were now curled up in his lap some eight or so years post that initial meeting in the hallway of this very house, listening to him bicker with his family, feeling his leg beginning to shake in that way it always did when he was agitated.

“Ran…” you said gently, squeezing his arm and you felt him take a deep breath and he looked at you, his mouth closing as you shook your head “Don’t.”

He turned away, looking to the other side of the room and his face glowered as he spotted Jacob once more had his eyes trained on your bare thigh. God the pubescent creep did his fucking head in, and if he stayed here he was going to end up putting the lanky streak of shit through the wall.

“Can we go?” Ransom looked at you, tucking your hair behind your ear.

“We’ve not even had dinner yet.”

“Please.”

That single word was enough to make you understand. It was a word he hadn’t learned until he’d met you, when he realised that his demands and arrogance got him nowhere with you. He still rarely used it mind, but when he did, you knew he was in desperate need of what he’d asked for.

“How about we take a walk?” You suggested “If you still wanna go after then we will”

He took a deep breath as he considered what you had said. Compromise was another word that hadn’t been in his vocabulary until you. His eyes locked onto yours and you looked at him, encouragingly and he took a deep breath, nodding.

“Okay.”

You uncurled yourself from his lap and stood up, him following so you could sit down and place you boots on.

“Are you leaving?” Linda asked, looking up for the first time.

“For a walk.” Ransom said simply, grabbing your hand and pretty much dragging you from the room. He didn’t say a word as he reached the coat stand and retrieved your lightweight Ted Baker belted mac, holding it out for you to slip your arms into, in a display of chivalry he reserved only for you. Once you’d done it up, he took your hand in his and you headed through the kitchen and outside into the reasonably mild April afternoon.

“Don’t let them get to you.” You said softly, leaning into him a little and he sighed, untangling his fingers from yours so he could drop his arm round your shoulders. He hated the fact his family could make him feel like this, like he wasn’t in control, like he was insignificant in the grand scheme of things. He could quite happily go without seeing any of them, well, bar maybe his grandfather, but you had told him he would regret it if he pushed them away completely because you had always wished you’d had a large family unit like that. So, despite the fact he knew deep down that was a load of bullshit, he played the game. He attended the damned gatherings more for your benefit than any as you adored Harlan and seemed to get on fairly well with Joni, Meg and his mother. He hung onto a glimmer of hope that maybe one day it would all change and he’d feel part of it.

But it never did. And he never did.

The two of you walked in comfortable silence across the Mansion grounds, round the lake where Ransom stopped by the small pier, looking out over the water.

“You know my most vivid childhood memories are of this spot.” He mused, his gaze focussed over the lake “Grammy used to bring me down here to feed the ducks.”

“It’s beautiful down here.” You agreed, snuggling further under his arm. “Peaceful.”

“Yeah unlike that fucking house.”

You gave a chuckle, as his hand curled over your shoulder, absentmindedly rubbing over the smooth material of your coat. He was agitated, you could tell, and there were very few ways in which he could calm down when he was like this. One was riding his beloved BB- a polo horse Harlan had bought him for his 21st, one was the pair of you curling up on the sofa with snacks and a good scotch or bourbon, getting drunk and watching Trashy Films, in particular horrors-you both loved to pick plot holes and insult the main characters, declaring the victim a dumb bitch for running up the stairs and not out of the door and the other, well…

You glanced around, checking you were alone before you pulled away from him, taking his hand and tugging on it slightly.

“What?” he asked looking down.

“Come on.” You gave his hand another pull.

“Y/N?” he questioned again, but followed nonetheless despite you not answering. You tugged him away from the lake, into the thin thicket of trees a little further round. You could still see the house here but you knew there was no way anyone from up there could see you.

“Seriously, Y/N what the fuck?” he groaned, as he stepped in the slightly squelchy mud “You’re gonna ruin my Gucci’s…” “Should have worn something a little more substantial then shouldn’t you?”

“I didn’t know you were planning on going fucking hiking in the fucking woods.”

“That’s not what we’re doing.” You said, stopping in front of a large oak tree, looking up at him.

“Then what are we doing? Reconnecting with Mother Nature? Or are we on the hunt for Oberon, Titania and Puck?”

“Ooh, good Shakespeare reference.” You grinned at him and he rolled his eyes as you slid your hand up over his navy blue lightweight Barbour jacket which was done up to his sternum, leaving his plain white, Armani t-shirt slightly visible at the neckline. “Does that make us Lysander and Hermia?”

“You got a hidden suitor called Demetrius I don’t know about?” he arched an eyebrow, his hands falling to your hips.

“Nope, I’m all yours Tiger.”

The sound of your ridiculous nickname for him drew a large smile across his face and he shook his head, giving a genuine chuckle. Here, with you there were no annoying voices to listen to, no family politics, nothing to care about but the gentle brush of the wind as it blew through the canopy of trees above your heads and the faint sounds of birds as they went about their business and Ransom felt a sense of comfort. Because you were his rock. The one person that saw through his bull shit, the woman in his life that knew all his horrible personality traits as well as his slightly less horrible ones and loved him all the same. The girl that had rounded off his harsher edges no matter how much he protested to the contrary.

You were his better half for sure.

“Well that’s good, because I don’t like sharing.” Ransom smirked, dipping his head to capture your lips in a soft kiss.

“Don’t I know it.” You mused against his mouth. His fingers flexed on your sides, pulling you closer to him as he slid his tongue across your bottom lip. You opened your mouth slightly, allowing him control over the kiss, knowing that’s what he craved when he was like this. His lips were soft on yours, tongue domineering as he kissed you deeply, slowly. Eventually he pulled back, his nose bumping yours slightly as he gave a little chuckle.

“I know you’re trying to distract me from those shit heads in the house.” He said, his tone playful and you loved playful Ransom. Another side to him only you really got to see.

“Is it working?” You played along.

“Yeah.” He nodded, his lips pressing to yours again.

“Good. Now why don’t you let your inner deviant come out to play?”

“You don’t need to ask me twice, Princess.” The words were barely out of his mouth before he had pressed you into the harsh, earthy bark of the tree behind you, kissing you hard again, groaning as you palmed his crotch through his designer denims. He grabbed your wrist, pinning it above your head before he did the same with the other one, easily holding both in place above you with one large hand, his other softly tracing up the outside of your thigh, fingers skating under your skirt.

“Is this why you wore this?” he smirked, toying with the material slightly. “So you could tempt me away for a fuck in the woods?”

It wasn’t, it was because it looked and felt good, but you decided to play along “Maybe. Was it a good choice?”

“Damned right it was…” he growled against your mouth, his long, soft fingers sliding your lace panties to the side. His index finger traced a path up your slit and you gasped at the feeling as he gently began to toy with you. Soft, teasing touches, his eyes never once leaving yours. That was one of his things, he liked to see your face, watch as your expressions changed as he undid you, fuelling his ego. Your hips gently started to move in time to his strokes as he played you, like an instrument from which he could always draw a tune. And in no time at all, he was listening to the music as you let out a soft keen, a purr almost as your head fell back against the tree, your mouth parting slightly.

“Like that?” he asked, and it was all you could do to nod, panting brokenly as the familiar feeing began to rise in the pit of your stomach, the fire growing hotter and hotter. “God you’re a fucking minx. Come on, cum on my fingers, you know you want to.” And you did, hard, your knees trembling, as you let out a loud cry of his name as the lights exploded in front of your eyes. Ransom pressed into you, his erection evident as it dug into your stomach, keeping you pinned between him and the tree as he coaxed you through your orgasm, before he moved his hands, allowing yours to drop to his shoulders as you held onto him tightly.

The clanging of a belt buckle, then the zipping of trousers and the rustling of fabric broke through the post-orgasm haze as Ransom undid his flies, reaching into pull out his painfully hard cock. He gently pushed forward, sliding the tip against your folds, gathering your slick as you gave a moan, the feeling of him sliding against your clit sent lances of red, hot desire through your veins.

His hands gripped the back of your thighs as he pulled you off the ground and you hooked them round his slim waist, ankles locking at the base of his spine. In a swift, fluid moment, no teasing, no gentle ease, he buried himself inside you with a deep thrust making you cry out as he filled you. His lips crashed onto yours as he drew back, then thrust back in hard, his cock dragging against your walls inside, hitting that spot that he knew would leave you seeing stars.

Yes, if there was one thing on this Earth Ransom knew he was good at, it was fucking you.

His lips traced a path from your mouth to your jawline, then to your neck, biting and sucking at any bit he could get to, his hips moving back and forth in a slow but deep pace which was torture, and you needed more.

“Ran, harder…” You groaned, digging your heels into his ass and he gave a dirty moan of his own as his hands held your hips.

“You’re such a needy little slut.” He smirked against your lips, not waiting for your reply as he picked up the pace, his hips snapping back and forth with a vigour that was merciless as he pistoned in and out of you again and again. Your hands gripped his shoulders tightly as you kissed him, teeth clashing together as your back repeatedly brushed against the harsh, rough surface behind you as you clawed desperately at the material of his jacket.

It wasn’t long before you felt another orgasm brewing and your head fell forward, teeth nipping at his ear drawing a growl from his throat. Your hands moved into his hair and you pulled sharply back causing him to hiss and look up you.

“Fuck, Y/N….” he groaned, the pupils of his eyes blown wide with a desire you would never tire of seeing. You pushed your hips down against him causing him to drive deeper and you let out an almost primal cry, the noise you made simply revving him up even more, his rapid movements growing even more urgent.

“Fuck Ran…” you moaned as your head rolled back against the tree, hands back on his shoulders, as once more that snake in your belly moved. Ransom felt the tell-tale flutter of your heat tightening round him and he continued his voracious pace, his eyes locked onto yours.

“You feel so fucking good…” he panted “So fuckin’ good Princess...”

His words made you moan again, and he pushed up once more, stilling slightly, grinding up against you as opposed to thrusting and a few rolls of his hips later you were done. The world faded around you as you came hard, with a loud scream before your head dropped to his shoulder, as you moaned his name, again and again whilst he pounded through your orgasm chasing his own.

“Shit, Y/N…I’m…fuck…” his words tumbled into your hair as his movements became desperate and he came a short while later with a loud yell. You felt him fill you up, as his hips stilled and he groaned, face buried into your neck, his chest heaving, sweat beaded both his brow and yours as he simply pressed into you, panting and shaking.

Neither of you had any idea how long you stayed like that, but eventually Ransom managed to gain enough control to pull his softening cock out of you and set you gently on your feet as he brushed the tendrils of your hair that had fallen over your face back with a tenderness he reserved only for you. He said nothing, simply looked at you, his lips gently greeting yours in a soft, loving kiss, a stark contrast to the violent ones you had shared moments before. You smiled at him, unadulterated love in your eyes as you moved your hands to brush his hair back before you leaned up and kissed him again, your nose sliding against his.

“I adore you Hugh Ransom Drysdale. Don’t ever forget that.”

“Don’t fucking call me Hugh.” He grumbled and you chuckled as he pulled you to him, nuzzling into your hair as he sighed. “But for the record, the feeling is mutual Y/F/N, Y/M/N, Y/L/N.”

You gave a laugh and were about to reply when you felt his head snap up, and his entire body tense and he let out an angry cry causing you to jump.

“Jesus Fucking Christ! The perverted little shit!”

“Ran?” You saw his face contorted in anger as he pushed back from you, striding away from the tree, rearranging his jeans as he went before he broke into a sprint. You watched him go and then, to your horror, saw the retreating back of a smaller male running away from the thicket of trees on the curve of the bank to your left and you felt yourself grow cold.

Jacob.

How long he had been there Ransom had no idea but he chased the little fucker all the way to the house, yelling insults and threats as he burst into the kitchen. Ransom finally caught up with him just as he ran into the hall and grabbed the kid by the collar, spinning him round and pinning him to the wall, arm crossed over his windpipe. “Enjoy the show did we?!” He yelled, the noise drawing the rest of the family out from the sitting room into the tiled hallway. Walt started to shout angry threats about what he was going to do to Ransom if he didn’t take his hands off his son, which then sparked Richard to bite back at Walt saying if he touched Ransom he’d give him a damned good hiding. If Ransom hadn’t been so focussed on the dirt little bastard he had pinned to the wall he would have laughed because the idea of his dad fighting anyone was hilarious, he couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag.

“Give me your phone.” Ransom demanded.

“I didn’t…” “GIVE ME YOUR PHONE NOW YOU PERVERTED PRICK!” Ransom yelled, and reached into Jacob’s pocket, grabbing his hand where it was curled around the offending item, bending the boy’s fingers back. Jacob gave a yell, pulled his hand out of his trouser pocket and Ransom seized the phone, yanking it out, just as you walked into the hallway.

He looked at you, then to Jacob and saw you pale as the realisation washed over you that you’d not only been seen but recorded or snapped, by a twelve year old boy nonetheless.

“Unlock it.” Ransom demanded, thrusting it back at him.

“Now listen here…” Walt started until Harlan turned to him.

“Walt, shut up.” He barked, turning to Jacob “Unlock the phone, now Jake.”

Jacob sullenly took the phone from Ransom and did has he was told, Ransom snatching it back. He glanced down at the screen, flicking to the Gallery and let out an angry noise as he saw not only footage of you both in the woods but ten or so photos of your bare thigh and close ups where he had attempted to see up your skirt when you had been on his knee before. Thankfully from the snaps there wasn’t really anything visible, but still the fact he had even taken them in the first place made Ransom apoplectic with rage.

“You dirty little prick.” he mumbled, looking back up at him. Jacob visibly recoiled under Ransom’s glare.

“Ran?” You questioned as you gently touched his arm and he tilted the phone so you could see the screen and your eyes widened, your entire body growing warm as you saw the close up of your thigh on the screen.

“How the fuck dare you?” You exploded, glaring at Jacob.

“Can you explain what he has supposedly done?” Donna, Jacob’s mother spoke for the first time and you turned to face her, your pretty features contorted in rage.

“He’s…” You shook your head “Taken photos of me, before up my skirt.”

Noise erupted in the hallway, Joni and Meg screaming about you being violated, Richard and Linda yelling at Walt and Donna whilst Harlan shook his head, making a noise of disgust. Ransom ignored them all as he selected the photos and images, deleting them, and showing it to you.

“Gone, Princess.” He turned the screen off before he leaned over and kissed your temple.

“Look, he’s a teenage boy…” Donna was protesting “He’s a bit curious…”

“He’s a dirty bastard.” Richard snorted and the irony wasn’t lost on Ransom as he’d seen his father eyeing you up on more than one occasion. He looked at his dad, eyebrow raised as Jacob bit back at the dig.

“I’m a dirty bastard?” The pre-teen snapped, his eyes flicking from Richard to Ransom “I’m not the one that was having sex against a tree!”

Everyone paused and their heads turned to you and Ransom. You gave a groan, your hands sliding up to your face to hide your utter embarrassment, but besides you Ransom’s expression never changed because, well frankly, he couldn’t give two shits about everyone knowing what you had been up to.

“I’m a grown ass man.” He snarled “If I wanna fuck my girl outside on private property I will”

He held Jacob’s phone out to him, but as Jacob went to take it Ransom opened his hand, dropped it to the floor with a loud “oops” and stomped on it, the metal and glass crunching under the heel of his expensive, leather boots.

There was more yelling, and Ransom simply turned, taking your hand in his. “We’re leaving.”

This time you didn’t argue. The pair of you walked away, ignoring the screaming which grew fainter as you headed down towards the large front doors, only to hear Harlan calling after you. Ransom stopped, took a deep breath and tuned to face his grandfather.

“Y/N are you ok?”

“Of course she’s not.” Ransom snapped but you gently squeezed his hand, shaking his head.

“I’m okay Harlan, thank you. But I think its best we go before Ransom commits murder.”

“Well, I can assure you I’m not far off killing the little turd myself.” Harlan shook his head, sighing. He then took a deep breath, looked at Ransom, and there was a flash of something which you knew only too well to be amusement in his eyes. “Which tree?”

Ransom frowned “What?”

“I asked which tree you two were doing the naughty against.”

You groaned as Ransom blinked and then shrugged “Just in the thicket to the south side of the lake, near the little jetty. Why?”

“Well, instead of barking up the wrong tree so to speak, next time stick to the North side.” Harlan grinned cheekily “It’s in the dip and no chance you can be spotted by anyone unless they’re a foot or so away.”

Ransom’s mouth curled up into a smirk as he looked at his grandfather then to you.

Meanwhile you simply wanted the ground to open up and swallow you.

Harlan bid the two of you goodbye as you headed out to Ransom’s Beemer. He stopped just besides it, turning to you, his hands falling to your hips again. “Well, I don’t know about you, Sweetheart, but all that excitement has made me a bit hungry. Seeing as we’re not getting dinner here, how about I take you to Asta?”

Your face lit up at the mention of your favourite restaurant and you gave an eager nod before you frowned “Aren’t we a little underdressed? And it’s Saturday evening, we’ll never get in.”

“Baby girl, enough money can get us in anywhere, and you look fine.” He said, dropping a kiss to your lips before he grinned “You might wanna brush the twigs outta your hair though.”

#ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale x you #ransom drysdale smut #ransom drysdale fic #chris evans #chris evans characters

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remedialpotions · 4 years ago

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Off The Train

Thanks to @mertronus for tagging me in the HPRomione Discord Popcorn game thingy! The prompt she gave me was: "I can finally see you."

I'm tagging @acnelli with the prompt: "You can't just keep pretending things are fine!"

***

”I can’t wait until you get off that train,” says Ron, his voice low and lazy with fatigue, “and I can finally see you.”

Hermione shifts in her bed so she’s lying on her side, mirror held out before her. This way, she can pretend - if she squints a bit, and ignores the crimson hangings of her four-poster bed - that he’s lying next to her, and not hundreds of miles away in London.

“What do you mean, ‘finally’?” Hermione, too, keeps her voice quiet. It won’t do, in her final days as Head Girl, to be waking her dormmates. “You’re looking at me right now.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same. I can see you, but I can’t touch you, or...” The corner of Ron’s mouth twitches up into a crooked smile. “Or do anything else for that matter.”

“Right. Well,” she says, trying to infuse positivity into her voice, despite the weeks since the Easter holidays dragging into what felt like months and years, despite missing him so much that it’s like a heavy fog surrounding her. “It’s only a couple more days, right?”

“Can’t it be now?” Ron looks like he’s reclined in bed too now, his fiery hair stark against the deep navy of his sheets. “Just get to Hogsmeade, then you can Apparate-“

“You know full well that I cannot,” she replies briskly, even though it’s tempting, really tempting. “It’s-“

“-behavior unbecoming of a Head Girl,” Ron finishes her sentence. “I know. I just miss you, that’s all.”

“I miss you too.”

“I love you,” he adds after a moment’s silence, before his eyes widen with inspiration. “Oh, I’ve got it. What if I Apparate to Hogsmeade, and then walk to the castle - I bet Hagrid would let me through the gates-“

“It’s only two days, Ron.”

He sighs. “Fine.”

“And I love you too.”

He grinned. “Yeah, I know.”

•••

Pigwidgeon is the last owl to fly into the Great Hall, his little wings beating wildly to keep him aloft. With a scrap of parchment clutched in his tiny talons, he struggles over to the Gryffindor table before somersaulting down into Hermione’s lap.

Hermione’s heart sinks, and not just at the sight of the exhausted little bird currently burrowing into the crook of her elbow. Their two-way mirrors mean they don’t usually have to resort to writing letters. Not unless...

Hermione, the parchment reads when she unfolds it. Got called on an emergency mission. I’m not allowed to tell you where or why or even how long but I’m hoping it won’t take too long. I’m still going to be there at King’s Cross, because I’m dying to see you and I can’t wait until all this is over and we can just be together. Anyway, I love you and try not to worry too much. I promise to do my best not to die.

Ron

“Oh, good,” comes Ginny’s voice from beside her, and Hermione turns to see her peering intently at the parchment. “He’s promised not to die, that’s a relief-“

“He’ll be there,” interrupts Hermione, tucking the note in the pocket of her robes before Ginny can further infringe upon her privacy. “If he thinks it’ll only take a day, then I believe him.”

Ginny blinks. “I never said he wouldn’t be.” Plucking Pigwidgeon from Hermione’s lap, she offers him water from her goblet. “I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about.”

“It’s probably just a quick day trip,” Hermione rationalizes, eyes focused hard on Pigwidgeon as he drinks so she doesn’t have to see the sympathy she knows is etched on Ginny’s face, “and he just wanted me to know in case - well-”

“In case he dies?”

Ginny’s attempt at a joke falls flat.

“Well, just in case, you know, something were to - to happen,” Hermione stammers, “and anyway, it’s just good for me to know - I like to know what he’s up to - not in a controlling way or anything, just-”

“Of course,” Ginny interjects bracingly. “I’m sure he just wanted you to know, that’s all. I’m sure he’ll be there.”

Hermione picks up her mug of tea and holds it close to her face so the steam washes over her. She knows what they’re both thinking but are unwilling to say: that in the year Ron and Harry have been Aurors, neither has had a mission run shorter than a week.

•••

And so Hermione sits with Ginny and Luna on the train, watching the Scottish Highlands slowly transform into the low, tidy hills of the English countryside outside her window and hoping against hope that Ron will be there on Platform 9 and ¾. But she hasn’t heard from him since that first letter, and his mirror has gone dark. This doesn’t worry her - not for his safety, anyway - but it does make it difficult to share in Ginny’s gleeful anticipation as the train pulls into King’s Cross.

She busies herself with tending to Crookshanks, who is furious about his prolonged confinement in his basket, as Harry and Ginny embrace on the platform. It’s not that she’s upset, not really. Ron is doing what he needs to do, and she would never want him shirking his responsibilities just so he can kiss her on a train platform for the first time since April. She just wishes things could be different.

After Harry and Ginny depart for Grimmauld Place, she flags down a taxi and rides alone to her parents’ home. The family car is parked in front, which is unusual for a weekday, but when she goes inside, she finds her parents have been eagerly awaiting her arrival and can hardly let her set down her trunk before whisking her away to an upscale restaurant in South Kensington.

“So, tell us about school,” says Mum with an eager smile once they’re seated at their candlelit table. “How were your exams? I want to hear everything.”

“I will later,” Hermione replies, raising her brows and tipping her head pointedly in the direction of the waiter currently pouring red wine into their glasses.

“Oh, right, right, of course. Well, anyway, dear,” she begins as the waiter sets down menus and strides away, “your father and I have a little surprise for you.”

It’s foolish, she knows, but her mind leaps instantly to Ron. Maybe all of this business with his mission has been a ruse, and he’s here in London after all, and she’ll be able to come up with an excuse to spend the night at Grimmauld Place…

Until she notices that her parents are still talking, and there’s no tall, lanky, red-haired wizard to be seen in this high-end French restaurant, but there are three Eurostar boarding passes laid out across the tablecloth.

“Sorry,” says Hermione, shaking her head to clear away the daydream, “what’s going on?”

“We’re going to Paris!” announces Mum with delight. “We thought it would be so lovely to spend time together since you’ve been away for so long, and you’re about to start your new job - and I know you’ve always wanted to go there. We’ve got ten whole days, and everything’s booked, so all you’ve got to do is pack.”

“That - that’s - that’s brilliant,” Hermione musters, forcing her lips into some semblance of a smile. Her parents beam so brightly back that it’s almost difficult to look at them. “Erm, so when are we leaving?”

She crosses her fingers under the table, praying they’ll say August, or her birthday in September, or Christmas, anything but-

“This weekend!”

Of course.

•••

Paris is beautiful. It exceeds every single one of Hermione’s expectations. She and her parents consume copious amounts of bread, cheese and wine, they visit museums and cafes and old bookstores, they ascend to the top of the Eiffel Tower and take in the view. She thinks of Ron constantly as she walks the cobbled streets, as she crosses the Pont des Artes and sees the countless locks affixed to its railing. Before she left, she sent Harry an owl to tell him that she was leaving, so Ron would know where she was if he returned home before she did. As they can’t communicate when she’s staying in a Muggle hotel, she truly has no idea where he is, but she tells herself that he’s still on his mission. It feels better that way, imagining that even if she stayed in London, there would still be obstacles keeping them apart.

On their last day, she nearly empties out a patisserie buying eclairs and macarons for Ron, and then they board the Eurostar back to England. Nervous anticipation grips her stomach as the train barrels through the tunnel (idly, she wonders if Ron’s dad is aware of this train that travels underwater, and makes a mental note to tell him), because she has no idea what awaits her back in London. What if Ron’s still away? Or worse - what if something’s happened to him, and she’s been off enjoying a holiday while he’s been suffering?

The train can’t move quickly enough. Hermione can focus on nothing - not the paperback romance novel her mother has loaned her to read, not the Muggle newspaper that her father is engrossed in, not even the argument of the couple seated across the aisle from them. It’s only a two-hour trip, so why does it feel like it’s taking days?

She checks her mirror, but it’s still dark.

“You go ahead, sweetheart,” says Dad when the train finally rolls to a stop in St. Pancras station. “We’ll get the cases.”

Hermione looks up at the luggage rack over their heads, then at her parents. “Are you sure? I’ll bring mine-”

“We can manage. Go on ahead, get some fresh air.”

She doesn’t bother reminding them that train station air is hardly fresh, and instead heads down the aisle with just her purse and the box of pastries in tow. Truly, she’s not sure why her parents have sent her off the train without them; with the station as busy as it is, they’ll surely lose track of each other.

But then she sees him. Standing a head above the crowd, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, his bright blue eyes scan the throngs of travelers. At first, she doesn’t believe her eyes. Surely, she’s just become so desperate to see him that she’s actually begun hallucinating.

But as she draws closer, he doesn’t ripple into nothingness, he doesn’t fade away. He’s really, truly there, his red hair curling behind his ears, one knee jiggling with pent-up energy the way it always does when he’s particularly impatient. As he turns his head, still surveying the crowd, their eyes lock and the rest of the station recedes into the background. Finally, they’re within sight of each other after months of hushed mirror conversations and stolen moments borrowing Professor McGonagall’s Floo. Hermione picks up speed, nearly skipping across the concrete in her haste, and flings herself into his waiting arms.

She fits against him perfectly. The fabric of his faded t-shirt is soft against her cheek as she breathes him in, and for the first time in recent memory, words fail her completely.

The box of pastries thuds to the ground.

“Hi,” he mutters, lips brushing her skin and sending chills up her spine.

“How - how did you-”

“Harry told me where you’d gone.” He presses a kiss to her cheek, and then, at long last, their lips connect. “It’s not that hard to look up train schedules.”

As reluctant as she is to pull away from him, she leans back just enough to look up at him. Behind the freckles scattered across his face, his cheeks have gone pink. “You’re amazing,” she tells him, rising on tiptoe for another kiss, unconcerned with the passersby and the blast of nearby train whistles.

Ron lifts one shoulder in a casual shrug when they break apart. “Had to meet you on a train platform somehow.”

#hpromione discord #romione #ron weasley #hermione granger #romione fanfic #ahhh I missed writing about these two dorks #also message me if you want to join the discord!

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camdentown-library · 3 years ago

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The flames in your eyes || ENG ver. Ethan Torchio x reader

❝ 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐚 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞, 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬. 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬, 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐠𝐨 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐚.

𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐧 𝐮𝐧𝐮𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐛𝐨𝐲, 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐚𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐬𝐞𝐭 𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠. ❞

Genre: Fluff ;; romantic ;; slowburn

Pairing: Ethan Torchio x fem!reader

Warning: English is not my native language, I may have made grammatical errors. do not hesitate to correct me

N / A: The facts told are purely the fruit of my imagination, it is not my intention to do any wrong to any person mentioned, and above all the character of Ethan could (surely) not reflect the person in reality.

Happy reading to you all!

CHAPTER 1

The first rays of July had cast on the roofs of the houses in Rome, giving the off-white plaster and rosy tiles a golden sheen that tasted like honey. The wisteria were in bloom, as was the medlar tree under Marlena's house; the scent of life in the full act of her cycle, always knocked on her dining room window, filling it with sweet fragrances.

The girl used to take her place at the table during the late morning hours, surrounded by books and tomes quite old and gnawed by the dust, with the good resolution that even that day she would read and study those very boring pages of that equally boring examination. of Egyptology. The university summer session had already begun, she had just taken a couple of exams last June and was now preparing two more that she would take in the first weeks of September.

That time could seem apparently short, Marlena didn't care that much, what could ever distract her from her work? She had no friends, and by now, even though she had crossed the threshold of 21 years in the autumn, the girl was now completely extinct her naive youth, as well as her desire to laze.

The out of tune and unexpected sound of the intercom triggered her head bent over the books of the young woman, who after having heaved a sigh perhaps a little annoyed, she decided to get up from her chair, leave the dining room and cross the wide and not too long corridor in the shape of an "L" of his apartment, finally arriving at a brisk pace towards the device it had croaked in order to answer.

"Yes?" she asked quite firmly but not too cordially.

"I'm the postman, will you open me?" answered a stranger, as she pushed the button to open the gate.

Marlena therefore opened the heavy old door of her house, remaining patient to wait for the man to arrive at the door. Although she had lived in that condominium with her father for as long as she remembered it, she had not yet found a rational explanation for its lack of mailboxes. Was it because it was a palace built in the 1920s? Well that would explain the absence of an elevator as well, but a damn mailbox wouldn't be hard to add.

The man's gasping breath brought her back to reality as her eyes saw him peeking from the flight of stairs. Was he already that tired after not even crossing the second floor? The young woman wondered a little disappointed.

"Are you Madam Levavi?" the postman then asked, catching his breath and rummaging through her purse. Marlena wrinkled her nose instinctively.

"Ahm ... not madam, I'm her daughter" she replied shaking her head, what could that postman ever care if she was "miss" or "madam"? The girl lightly bit the inside of her cheek as a reproach.

"Here you are. How many floors are there still?" She asked the man wiping her sweaty forehead with a handkerchief after giving her the mail.

"Two more ..." Marlena replied disinterestedly as she closed the door, observing her letters.

Bills for electricity, water, the tax to be paid for the next university year and ... a letter?

Well, it certainly wasn't sent by her father...

The girl looked at the text of that letter once more, rereading it and rereading it several times, wrapped in a silence that was probably inherent in memories that clouded her common sense, while slowly after taking a few steps back, she gently placed her back to the wall.

"Dear Marlena,

I know perfectly well that it might have been easier to call you, but you know I've always enjoyed writing you letters.

Unfortunately I noticed that in the last few I sent you you didn't answer, I guess it's because the university keeps you very busy ...

However, I learned that your father is out of Italy on a business trip and he will be away until the end of August; It seemed only right to invite you to spend these last months of summer in our house outside the city.

I know that since your mom left, you haven't had the desire to visit us anymore, but I think it would do you good to change the air for a while. The place is quiet, there is the sea and also a large and extensive countryside with a pine forest and the locals are really friendly and helpful.

You can also bring Lapo if you want, I know you are very close.

Either way, let me know your verdict.

A strong hug.

Grandmother Agata.”

She had distant memories of that house, distant but still happy. He remembered when he woke up early in the morning with grandmother Agata and grandfather Laertes to be able to go to the sea and his little hands while looking for hermit crabs and shells on the shore, as he remembered the music in the square and the laughter echoing in the same way as the bells of the church on Sunday, everyone was happy ... and life seemed to be less unfair to those who deserved it less, it tasted like jam and fruit jellies, salt on the lips and bees flying.

Marlena's chest swelled with air, as if she had been holding her breath until then...perhaps because diving into one's childhood was like floundering in a stormy sea pretending to stay afloat.

The cheerful barking of her dog Lapo brought the young woman back to the present, who decided to place the letters on a window sill not far from the front door and set off together with the playful animal towards the kitchen. Lapo was a nice Bernese Mountain Dog, with a black, brown and white coat. It had been given to her five years ago, perhaps because her father had sensed that even his absence had created in the heart of his only daughter, a sense of distressing loneliness, which had consumed her to the bone making her totally apathetic for certain verses.

But Lapo, Lapo had saved her from her, with Lapo she spoke and shared gestures of affection, such as caresses and little licks between her fingers and hair. Sometimes Marlena fell asleep in her bed, with the bulky dog on her, because feeling her warm and humid breath on her blankets reminded her in her sleep that she was not alone in the dark of the night. As long as Lapo's heart had beaten the young girl she was not afraid of having to wake up or sleep.

Although she tried to convince herself that staying in her comfort zone would be easier than answering "yes" to her grandmother's request, a part of her was again attracting her to that letter; her gaze was captured by the horizon of her mind, while in the distance she could almost hear the sounds and flavors of a place almost too fairytale to be part of the material world.

"I know I should answer..." she murmured as she was intent on washing the peel of a red apple in the kitchen sink. Meanwhile the dog sat up looking at her intensely while she wagged his tail waiting for her.

"...It's just that, that place...and then I should finish studying, I have an exam to take at the end of the summer, Lapo" but the dog tilted his head in disappointment and then got up and trotted out of the room, looking for of who knows what amusement, leaving Marlena to her thoughts, as she bit into the freshly dried fruit with the kitchen towel.

All of this would only be for a little over a month and a half, just a month and a half and then she would leave it all behind her again, as she did a long time ago.

“Hello grandma. I'm Marlena..."

Marlena after putting the letter back next to her bedside table, she grabbed the cell phone not far away and typed some numbers on the screen, not too convincingly, and then brought the object to her ear.

There were those ten seconds of waiting that seemed the stroke of half a century, until a voice said "Hello?".

Marlena had brought two large bags with her. One for clothes and the other full of junk such as: books, objects for the dog, tricks and everything that for her mind, not so familiar with travel, she considered indispensable. She was not so convinced that both of them would enter the trunk, but the exemplary ability to know how to adapt and make do with her grandfather always left her with amazement on the edge of her lips.

It took two days before grandfather Laerte's small and overly backward FIAT Punto made its peerless entrance next to the bottle-green gate of the small cloister of the Marlena palace.

The man had taken more or less ten minutes just to park, the niece had wondered how long it would take him to get there and start again.

The young woman was sitting in the back seats, together with Lapo. She held in her hands a small bunch of tulips that Laertes had brought her, made by herself. He said to her:

"I went for a walk in the countryside and tried to capture the most beautiful of all, like my granddaughter!" followed by a proud, croaking laugh. Laertes had always been a proud and incurable romantic, without ever giving up some of her drama, grandmother Agata did nothing but remind her of it in her letters.

Like when Marlena pointed out to him, that the steering wheel of the car was too damaged for the latter to be considered in accordance with the law, but he had always replied that a good soldier and partisan would appeal to his driving experience and a little 'of elbow grease, in order to be sure that the itinerary of the journey would be peaceful and without unpleasant hitches.

Lapo let out an enthusiastic bark when the croaking car left the endless concrete of the highway behind, and then took a narrow, winding, uphill road that would have led them to the small town.

Her gaze stared blankly at what was running, like tape in a movie camera, out the window; She saw the buildings of the city become less present, as well as the stench of smog, then there was a long stretch of highway, immersed in the wheat fields and every now and then some small farm or spare parts industry or other jobs would emerge.

In the car there would have been complete silence, had it not been for the old radio which played an entire disc of all of Lucio Dalla's masterpieces; Marlena's grandfather liked that singer, but not in the same way chatting while driving, because according to him it would have increased the chances of road accidents by 50%, and frankly, the granddaughter didn't mind at all this acknowledgment ... she didn't even know where she should have started and however much her relatives tried to make her feel at ease, she imagined herself as a stranger, a stranger, who had knocked on their door and was now just trying to learn and remember their common manners.

"If you look to the right you will see the sea, Marlena" Laertes informed her, while he struggled with the steering wheel at every bend, but he did not dare to make even a moan under stress. The girl decided to accept those words, and looking out (after rolling down the window) a crisp air of salt pervaded her nostrils like the balm of a mint. Her eyes tried to show as little as possible the defeat of an amazement that had overwhelmed her like a raging wave, making her heart pound.

The sea. Marlena loved the sea. And for a few moments she was wondering what she had forced her to shut up in the house all that time, but then her mind went back to static and clear. She knew why, and there was no other reason to get her back together, even if it was difficult.

Yet there seemed to be few people around the streets, perhaps because at that time anyone with a minimum of wit would have holed up in the cool four walls of their home, just to escape the scorching heat that did not yield until the stroke of five in the afternoon .

By now it was almost two in the afternoon when Laertes' car passed the threshold of the square of the small town, while the attentive (even if apparently lost) gaze of his granddaughter observed everything in detail.

Nothing seems to have changed in that place since the last one who went there. The street was always covered with the usual, old and coarse slabs of white stone and eroded by the weather, as well as the various shops that surrounded the square and the small houses side by side, glazed with a fresh off-white plaster and dark brown roofs, the fountain in the center, and the small restaurant with its balcony overlooking the long pine forest that extended at the foot of the modest hill that supported the town.

A jolt suddenly shook Marlena, when her grandfather decided to pull over and pull up the handbrake of his FIAT, thus causing a slight recoil unexpectedly enough to suddenly wake the girl from her thoughts. She cleared her throat, while she opened her door, so that Lapo could finally trot and wag his tail excitedly around, on the other hand she didn't blame him, it must have been hard for a dog to stay good in the car for so many hours.

"Here we are!" proclaimed the elderly man putting the car keys in his pocket and then ring the bell of the small house next to FIAT "Your grandmother will be so happy to see you, I bet she will have prepared ciambelle with red wine to celebrate your reunion" he added while he waited for the woman he mentioned to open to him, already anticipating on his lips the pungent and sweet taste of those sweets he loved so much.

"So I suppose you made at least thirty" commented the young woman ironically, as she dragged out the two bags with extreme difficulty, attracting the attention of Laertes who, hastily adjusting his frizzy white hair, hastened to reach his niece to give her your support.

“Ah don't worry, kid. I'll take care of it, maybe you can ring the door, your grandmother has now gone deaf as a bell...” he said as he gave a slight snort and then muttered something.

"C’mon, grandpa" Marlena replied then raising her eyes to the sky trying not to smile, how melodramatic could that man be?

After pressing her finger on the bell again, the girl waited for someone to answer and hearing the approach of some quick steps together with the rubbing of flip-flops on the floor, made her realize that Agata had finally heard their arrival. Marlena did not even have time to greet the elderly lady, who took her in her arms, wrapping her in an embrace that caught her unprepared and to which she did not respond immediately.

“Oh my love! I’m so happy to see you again! But look how you have grown! It seems only yesterday when you reached mid-thigh and now...” the hands a little gnarled, but from the soft fingertips of the woman, gently took the face of her niece like a cup, as if to feel if her presence was only fantasy or reality "...You are a woman to all intents and purposes" she whispered and then fussed with kisses all over her face, while Marlena whining pretending to be somehow annoyed.

After climbing a short flight of stairs that led to the house located on the upper floor, the girl's nostrils and consciousness were flooded with memories and sensations already savored. She observed the now old floor of the house, granite tiles that alternated with one hand painted and another not; Marlena rejoiced with a touch of amusement when she as a child she spent boring afternoons playing on them, jumping only on the decorated ones because according to her imagination those remains were made of incandescent lava.

The walls were always the same, covered with a light blue paint and slightly lumpy at times, she could feel it, when the index and middle fingers of her right hand absently brushed the surface.

The house of Marlena's grandparents was very simple and perhaps apparently a little cramped. Having opened the wooden entrance door, after having passed the landing and the stairs, she had in front of her a corridor that extended along to her right, thus marking the various doors of each room that the house gathered inside. Almost parallel to the entrance there was the kitchen door on the opposite wall, without doors, next to it the bathroom door, and then the door to the room of the two elderly spouses. At the end of the corridor there was a small balcony with the railing covered with hanging vases where, like a multicolored waterfall, a thick branching of coral red bucanville came out which, in addition to poetically letting itself fall from the small niche, climbed elegant and graceful on the handrail of the then hug the outside walls of the house.

Marlena took advantage of it, to be able to peep there, while she deeply breathed the fragrant and velvety scent of those petals, mixed with the sea breeze that came from beyond the pine forest that surrounded the town. She observed the small houses around her while if she winked she could distinguish the clear line of the flat and calm sea that merged in perfect alchemy with the clear sky on the horizon.

The young woman tried in every way to convince herself that that enchanted place, that little corner of paradise had never failed her...but she suddenly proclaimed herself foolish for having thought such a cynical thing in the least.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

#maneskin #ethan torchio #damiano david #victoria de angelis #thomas raggi #fanfic #fanfiction #fluff #imagine #imagines #chapter 1 #romantic #the flames in your eyes #ENG VERSION

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yuurei20 · 7 months ago

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Question, but do you know if anyone has made a timeline for the main game? Like the months that the books take place in, when the unbirthday party was, when was the club fair(or whatever it was called), how long are the winter/spring/summer/fall breaks? Etc etc

I'm pretty sure I'll have to make my own timeline for my fic but if someone else has already made one I can build off it or if not, any info you can give will help lol

Hello hello!! Thank you for this question!

I put together a collection of what months the books take place in (according to the occasional hints we receive from the characters) in response to a question to how often people have been overblotting, and also wrote about a potential reading order (1), as well as a follow up reading order (2), but those incorporate events, so there is some time-weirdness!

For a more straight-forward reference, I believe that this is what we know!

Book 1 takes place at the beginning of the school year, and the beginning of the school year is in September! So while no character says directly, "here in Book 1 it is September," it seems like a safe guess.

Book 2 revolves around the Interdorm Spelldrive Tournament, which Crowley says is in October.

Book 3 is much more vague! We know it begins on the last day of final exams, but that could be anywhere from October to December.

Book 4 starts on the last day of the first semester and ends after school has started for the second semester, implying December-to-January, but I do not think it is ever expressly stated how long the students were away.

The Culture Fair is held in mid-February but Book 5 itself begins "just over a month" before, so early-mid-January seems like a safe assumption!

Book 6 starts "a few days" after the mid-February Culture Fair, the same day that Idia observes that there have been five overblots in less than six months (and then immediately joins the club).

At the beginning of Book 7 the prefect observes that "it's supposed to be spring," but the timing is a little vague! It is presumably sometime between February and May, as there is a Spelldrive tournament in May that doesn't seem to have happened yet.

The question of how long breaks are is a very interesting one! :> I am not sure it has ever been explained anywhere how long the students are away for vacations, and with how NRC seems to be based on a variety of different school systems, it might be best to not make any assumptions yet. Maybe we shall be told someday! :>

#twstask #twisted wonderland

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killyourpoet · 3 years ago

Text

What to expect on 12th September? (NEET 2021)

Hey everybody, if you're appearing for the NEET 2021 exam this Sunday (12th September 2021), I've compiled a list of some important things you might want to keep in mind.

The National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET) is the national medical entrance exam in India. It is the only gateway into all medical schools in the country. It is conducted annually around May, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been postponed to September in 2020 and 2021. This year, 1.6 million students will be appearing for the exam.

[This list is by no means exhaustive, I only speak from my experience and the advice of friends and teachers. Feel free to add anything I might have missed out!]

How to make the most of this last week before the exam?

Do not experiment with anything new. Doing so might disturb the delicate subconscious programming that your brain has undergone through all these months of studying and practicing. By experimentation, I mean anything other than the routine that you've built while solving question papers. If you're used to starting with Biology, then moving on to Chemistry and ending with Physics, do not attempt to spice up your 3 hours by indulging in adventure sports like staring with Physics first. This will end in disaster.

Look through all the important things at least once. I know, I know. That's 10 fat books in one week. But remember that this is not the first time you're reading it. Skim. When you catch on something you're not too familiar with, only then should you actually read.

NCERT = holy book. Idk if you've heard but actually reading the books prescribed by the examining body will most definitely give you an edge over someone who hasn't. I cannot stress this enough. They will LITERALLY take out things from the NCERT and slap that onto the paper and call it a day. Remember that the examiners have to cater to those who do not have access to / cannot afford any sort of study material other than the NCERT. While study guides can help you interpret the NCERT, they cannot substitute it.

Have a plan. It doesn't have to be grand or very detailed. Just clearly defining what you intend to do with your time will suffice.

Set your internal clock. Practice at least one exam a day from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm IST because that's when the actual exam is held. You want to maximize concentration and attention at that time of the day.

Practice answering on OMR sheets. This year, because of COVID, all your mock tests were probably online. In that case, take a few hours to practice exams on the OMR. The time management on that is very different from online exams.

Eat well. Remember to drink plenty of water. Try to eat things that have come directly from the earth and onto your plate. I know it's hard and the anxiety is enough to make you under eat / overeat but messing up because of something as trivial as meal choices would kinda suck tbh. Please do not eat an entire large pizza all by yourself the day before the exam. Stay the hell away from carbonated drinks for at least this one week. I am begging you. You might not notice but they seriously mess with your head. Whole foods are the way 2 go babes

What to expect on the day of the examination?

The NTA will be releasing the admit cards 3 days before the exam. Your exam centre and time slot to show up will be mentioned on it. This is most probably done to (a) prevent unfair practices and (b) give students enough time to visit the centre.

Know your exam centre beforehand. If you're living with your parents who will be driving you to the centre, you could even ask them to visit the centre the day before just so you don't waste time searching for the centre on the day of the exam. Believe me, a lot of people have lost an entire year because of this.

The peeing. Listen. They'll allow you to go to the washroom in the middle of the exam, of course. But if you ask me, try to avoid getting up to pee. Try to time your water such that you wouldn't have to pee during the exam. Please make sure you pee right before the exam. Idk about you but the exam pee has always been a real problem for me and together with my anxiety, it has ruined a lot of exams. It also breaks your momentum and you'll have to re-orient yourself when you get back. NEET isn't like JEE - it's not about how smart you are, it's about how efficient and accurate you are, because that's what a doctor needs to be.

Eat a light, nutritious meal. Something that'll give you energy but isn't too hard to digest. You don't want to nod off during the exam. That would be highly inconvenient.

Be on time. If you don't turn up on time, no matter what, you will not be allowed inside. Again, a lot of people I know have messed up here.

Security check. You will be checked before entering the centre. Do not wear anything dark (black, dark blue, dark brown etc). Do not wear jeans or any tight clothes. All your clothes must fit loosely and they must be light. This is done to prevent people from sneaking in transmission devices. If you wear long sleeves, you will be asked to cut them then and there. Do not wear heavily embroidered clothes. Do not have any metal on you. Take off all jewelry at home. If you wear a bra, remember to wear a sports bra or one that doesn't have any metal hooks. You can't wear shoes - your feet must be visible. Wear flip-flops or thin sandals. People have been made to take off their shoes before and write the exam barefoot. They will provide a fresh mask at the centre and gloves. This time, due to COVID-19 restrictions, they will not be doing body pat frisking, they will not be checking your ears and mouth. There will be bluetooth jammers in the exam hall to prevent any transmissions and the entire exam will be videographed.

Stay calm. I know it looks like a high security airport check and you'll probably be scanned several times and subjected to several layers of screening but remember - this is done so that nobody has an unfair advantage over you. India has incredibly clever people, but sometimes for the wrong reasons.

While writing the exam:

Don't panic. If you see a question that looks hard do! not! panic! because we always know more than we think we do!! Wait a second, linger for a moment and the answer should come to you.

Know what to leave. If you aren't aiming to get a perfect 720/720 then you should leave time consuming questions and try to do as many questions you know as possible. If you are aiming for a perfect score, do the same but remember that you need to leave sufficient time at the end to come back to them.

Repeat. Remember - this is just another one of the hundreds of exams you've done. Follow the same strategy you're used to. Most definitely DO NOT experiment in the final exam.

Lastly, always remember that ur super cool and smart and amazing and one mistake won't define you. Your worth is inherent and not determined by an exam. Your timeline is very different from someone else's. This is not a race, it's about doing things right. Your physical and mental health are more important than anything else in life. Do your best today and try again tomorrow. And then the day after that.

If you have any questions, feel free to message me :))

Best of luck!!

— Svante

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mimisempai · 3 years ago

Text

Wait for me on the other side 1/8

Summary:

Mobius, a watchmaker, and Loki, a teacher, realize that they are separated by two years of time when they exchange letters from different years in the mailbox of the house on the cliff where Mobius lives. As the two lonely hearts feel they have found their soulmate, will they ever meet?

or the Lakehouse AU that nobody asked for.

Notes:

This is my very first multi-chapter AU. I hope you'll enjoy it. Chapters will be released on a weekly basis.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32948254/chapters/81773392

3772 words - rating G

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 (End)

When two people "connect" the bond between them can be so pure and simple as to stir hearts in heaven.

When they connect in all the right places at all the wrong times, heaven weeps for broken hearts. To heal these broken hearts, heaven breaks time.

—Blithe Spiritus

Loki took one last look through the rearview mirror at the cottage on the edge of the cliff, which was getting smaller and smaller as he drove away.

Shifting his gaze forward, his face slid to the crate on the passenger seat, where Croki, his pet alligator, was sitting.

"I hope you will like your new home..." Loki sighed.

Then suddenly, he braked abruptly, holding back the cage with one hand as it slid forward. Then he backed the car up.

"Shit. I'm sorry Croc'"

He walked over to the mailbox. He put his hand through the window, opened the mailbox and put an envelope inside. Then his long fingers pulled the red flag in a vertical position, to indicate that there was mail. All this under the eyes of Croki who followed with attention all his gestures.

He tapped the top of the cage, "Come on, this time we're off for good."

He rolled, speeding up, refusing to look at the sign for the tiny village his home was in, New Asgard. Loki rolled east, the cliff behind him, then passed a sign: New York, 35 miles.

The traffic became heavier as he approached the city.

After maneuvering through the various streets and making his way through the New York traffic, he stopped in front of an apartment building on a busy street. It was a very recent building, cold and sterile. The contrast with the tranquility of New-Asgard was striking.

He parked, got out of the car and took a moment to absorb the change in his surroundings. Then with a sigh, he began to unload his things.

**********

Loki stopped at the steps in front of the entrance to the imposing establishment - September High-School. He inhaled deeply to give himself courage before moving forward, climbing the few steps and pushing open the heavy door. He entered and walked to what appeared to be the front desk where a busy looking secretary was standing.

Loki asked softly, "Excuse me?"

"Just a minute, okay?"

Loki waited a minute, politely, then tried to get the secretary's attention again.

"Ahem... Excuse me, I need to..."

She handed him a stack of paper, while saying, without looking at him, "Just fill this out and wait for me there, okay?"

Loki handed it back to her.

"No, I'm Loki Laufeyson. I'm a new teacher. I was told to report here."

The secretary looked sheepish, "Oh, I'm sorry, Professor. You need to find Principal Romanov. She should be around here. A woman with red hair, dressed in black, you can't miss her."

He did indeed find the Principal in the hallway that the secretary had pointed out.

Natasha Romanov may have looked young to be a high school principal, but everything about her demeanor, her head carriage, her attitude exuded confidence and authority. She walked quickly down the hallway and Loki, though tall, had a hard time keeping up with her.

The principal handed him a large stack of files as soon as they arrived in her office.

"You will be in charge of the sophomores, this morning you will have three classes to teach and three this afternoon."

Loki repeated to be sure, "Three?"

"That's a quiet day, for a first day."

Loki looked a little dazed, he didn't think he was going to jump into the deep end and thought he would have some time to adjust.

The principal turned around, as if she sensed his hesitation, "The teacher you replaced let us down without notice, and it took us a while to find the right replacement, the students lost a lot of time for their final exams. We have to do our best to make sure they pass."

They walked past a student who was sitting alone on a bench, looking sulky. Romanov motioned to a supervisor.

"What's he doing here?"

The supervisor replied, "He was grounded because he took apart a computer to prove Professor Banner wrong and has to do an hour of gym under Professor Odinson's supervision. However, I can't leave the place unattended, and I was waiting for my backup to take him there.

"Peter get up," said principal Romanov in a sharp tone.

The young man stood up, a sulky look on his face.

"Professor Laufeyson, take him to Professor Odinson in the gym and then you can begin your lessons in this class."

The principal pointed to the door of the classroom in question, then turned and walked back to her office, not waiting for an answer.

"Well come with me, Mister...?"

The young boy followed his lead and replied with a pouty tone, "Parker, Peter Parker. »

"Then let's go Mr. Parker, the computer dismantler." replied Loki with a wink. He knew he couldn't condone what the young man had done, but he couldn't help but find it amusing.

Seeing that the professor didn't look reproachful as he said these words, Peter lost his pout and got a small smile.

"Although I'm curious as to what could have caused you to disassemble a computer."

Peter seemed to come back to life, explained to an amused Loki, that Professor Banner, who taught biology, had said that nothing could compare to the complex construction that was a living being and Peter had wanted to show him the opposite by dismantling the Professor's laptop.

"But I was about to put it back together though, I don't understand why he got so upset."

Loki couldn't help but laugh.

Peter's face frowned because they had arrived at the gym.

They walked through the door and there a giant blonde man came striding in, "Peter Parker, it's been so long! Tell me what you've been up to again." he ruffled Peter's hair who tried to shy away from it, then he held out his hand to Loki who had to hold back a wince at the strength of the professor's grip.

"Professor Odinson, but call me Thor. Nice to meet you. New professor?"

"Yes, I am the new literature professor, Loki Laufeyson, but call me Loki. I'll leave this promising young man to you," He winked at Peter before continuing, "as for me I'll be teaching my first class."

"Welcome here, and good luck!" threw Thor at him before turning back to Peter, "Go change, we'll start with 10 laps running around the basketball court."

Hearing Peter's grumbles, Loki smiled as he walked away.

A few minutes later, he stopped outside his classroom door and took a deep breath.

"It takes a little time to adjust, but most of the students here are exceptional and the teaching staff is really, really nice."

Loki turned to see who had just spoken.

He found himself facing a black man, taller than him, and very impressive. But despite his imposing nature, his smile and eyes were very warm as he held out his hand. "Heimdall, art professor, welcome."

Loki grasped it and replied, "Loki, literature professor."

Heimdall gave a small nod in the direction of the door, "Good luck." then walked away.

Loki, surprisingly relaxed following this little interlude, walked through the classroom door with a confident air, placed his belongings on the desk and with an engaging smile on his lips addressed his first students, "Hello, I am your new literature teacher and I hope we will work well together."

He paused, letting his gaze roam over the entire class before continuing,"O Captain! My Captain! Who knows where that came from? No one? No idea? It's-"

A young boy raised his hand at the back of the classroom.

"Yes Mister...?"

"Keener, Harley Keener."

"All right Mister Keener, I'm listening."

"It's a Walt Whitman poem about Abraham Lincoln. And it's plagiarism of Professor Keating's introduction played by Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society."

Loki didn't lose his confidence at all and replied, "Thank you Mr. Keener. I'm not going to apologize for the plagiarism. I didn't expect anyone to contradict me since this film was released long before you were all born. Thank you, Mr. Keener, for setting me straight. I won't ask you to call me Captain, Sir, or Professor, but simply Loki. Yes, Mr. Keener, Loki, as in the Norse god of mischief... "

The whole class, including Harley, laughed and Loki thought that it wasn't such a bad start.

But he still felt exhausted at the end of the day, and he slumped into the chair at his assigned desk in the teacher's lounge. He leaned in and put his head back, closing his eyes.

"So they've worn you out already?" it was the deep voice, which he recognized as Heimdall's. He opened his eyes to see that the art professor had sat just at the desk next to him.

"Yet the Famous Five keep talking about Loki, the new professor who is super cool. It's been a long time since I've heard a literature professor on such good terms." It was Thor who came to join them and pulled a chair to sit in the space between Heimdall and Loki.

"The Famous Five?"

Thor chuckled before answering, "They're called that because they're always stuffed together, probably five of the smartest minds in this elite school, and as a result always going out on the town to..."

"…the benefit of science." finished Heimdall.

"That's their argument every time they get busted," Thor clarified.

"Who are they?" asked Loki, curious.

"There's Peter who you met this morning, he's in the same class as his two childhood friends Ned and MJ. There's Harley who talked about how you put him in his place, when he thought he had fooled you. Captain my Captain huh?"

Thor chuckled before continuing, "and finally Kamala Khan, the newest one, a little brunette, a ball of energy who always wears a big red scarf, summer and winter and who the other four have taken under their wing."

"Interesting..." replied Loki, thoughtfully.

"Wait until you're the target of their prank and we'll see if you find these kids interesting." said an unknown voice behind him.

"Bruce my friend! Were you able to fix your laptop?" exclaimed Thor with a laugh.

Loki turned around, only to find himself standing in front of a man who was a little older than him. He stood up and held out his hand, "Professor Banner, I presume."

"Am I that famous?" the man asked, raising an eyebrow as he shook the outstretched hand in a firm grip.

"It's mostly that I had the pleasure of taking Peter Parker for his grounding to Thor." replied Loki

"That brat..." harrumphed Bruce. "He's smart... but his habit of proving he's always right..."

The other men laughed in unison.

"So boys? Are we having fun?" a young woman with short blond hair stepped forward and held out her hand, "Carol Danvers, homeroom teacher at this crazy school."

"Nice to meet you," Loki replied, shaking the outstretched hand.

Unaccustomed to being around so many people and especially such friendly people, Loki felt a little overwhelmed and suddenly the fatigue of this first day seemed to fall on his shoulders to the point that he had to stifle a yawn.

Thor patted him on the back and said, "I have an excellent remedy for that."

"What is it?"

Heimdall and Thor high-fived each other and said in unison, "The Bifrost."

At Loki's look of complete incomprehension, Carol explained, "It's a bar two blocks away, good burgers, good beer and for good company, that's us." she finished with a wink.

Loki realized they were inviting him to come with them but he hesitated and finally replied, "Thanks. I better not drink tonight. I'm dead."

Bruce retorted, "We're all dead."

"Yes, but I still have a lot to unpack."

They nodded, and did not seem disappointed by his refusal, even rather understanding. Loki really wasn't used to this kind of company.

Heimdall put his hand on his arm and then said softly, "Next time, then."

Loki, not understanding why his throat was tight, simply nodded.

A little later, they separated in front of the school gates. Loki on one side and the group on the other.

" Bye Loki!"

"See you tomorrow Captain!"

Loki lived only three blocks from the school and soon arrived home. When he entered he realized how sterile and cold his large apartment seemed.

He had not yet had time to unpack all his things and the boxes were scattered everywhere. The first thing he had unpacked was Croki's terrarium, which took up a whole room.

As he closed the door, he heard Croki's typical little paws coming and rubbing against him as usual. He patted his head and headed for the kitchen. Croki was a Cuvier's Dwarf caiman. Loki had once wanted to get a dog, but in the animal shelter he had immediately felt a connection with the animal, perhaps because he was different, like himself.

Loki opened the refrigerator which was desperately empty except for Croki's fish ration. He put it on a plate and put it on the floor while commenting, "Need alligator food. And human too."

He was going to have to do some shopping tomorrow.

After snacking on a bag of chips, exhausted, he took a quick shower before going to his room.

"Good night Croki."

His room was as functional and depressing as the rest of the place. He went to stand in front of the window. Outside it was all stone buildings. It was very difficult to even see the sky. He sighed, "What a view..."

He pulled the blinds and went to bed. Once his head was on the pillow, he fell asleep very quickly, which prevented him from thinking too much about everything he missed.

**********

A red pickup truck passed the New Asgard sign before parking at the side of the path that leads to the house. Its back end was filled with furniture and moving boxes. A mustachioed man with gray hair got out. He walked toward the cottage on the edge of the cliff and stopped, hands on hips, contemplating the view.

He opened the door, looked for the electric power meter. He turned it on and went to turn on the light in the entrance and then in what seemed to be the living room.

Mobius examined the place, satisfied. There wasn't much. A stereo, some books, an armchair. But the bare and cosy furniture matched perfectly with the austere beauty of the small cottage. He looked out the window at the cliff. He was going to like it here.

It took him a good four hours to unload his pickup truck by himself and install just about everything he had brought. Once finished, he grabbed a cold beer that he had put in the cooler and while drinking it quietly walked around the house before getting in the car to go shopping at the local grocery store that he had spotted on his way in.

Once he had gone around the store, with his groceries in his arms, he went to put them on the counter.

The young owner and his wife were behind.

"Hi, are you new around here?" the owner asked him.

Mobius smiled and replied, "More or less. My name is Mobius."

The owner replied, "My name is Clint and this is my wife, Laura."

Laura smiled and added, "You're going to like it. Especially now that the weather is getting warmer." Then pointing to the groceries, she added, "We'll get you some boxes for all that."

"Oh thanks." replied Mobius.

Laura fetched an empty box from a high shelf. Now that she was no longer hidden by the counter, it was obvious that she was pregnant. Clint rushed to her. "No, honey, let me."

Mobius looked at them, feeling moved and at the same time fully aware of his own loneliness. He paid, took his box and left, but not without promising the young couple to return.

He parked in front of the small road with his groceries in the back of the truck and noticed the mailbox with its flag up. He stopped and opened it. There was an envelope.

For the new tenant.

He took in the groceries, put them away, made himself a sandwich tray and taking the letter, he went to sit on the armchair in front of the bay window. He put his tray on a small table next to it, opened the letter and started to read.

Dear new tenant.

Hello and welcome to your new home and congratulations, blah blah blah. You have made an excellent choice, New Asgard is a wonderful place and this house is a gem, as you may have already noticed.

I'm sure you'll love living here as much as I do.

By the way, I'm the former tenant, Loki.

Mobius looked perplexed but also pleasantly surprised.

The post office forwards my mail normally, but if something should happen here, because the post service is what it is and we are never safe, my new address is below. Thank you.

Mobius turned over the letter.

P.S.: Sorry for the pawprints leading to the front door. They were already there when I moved in, as well as the box in the attic. I think it belongs to the owner.

Mobius stared at the letter in amusement and could not help but check the end of the letter.

He went to the front door. The floor was clean. Inside and out.

"What did he talk about?" he scratched the back of his head before heading for the ladder that led to the attic. He opened the hatch, poked his head through and looked around. It was empty. No box.

Mobius went back down, shrugged, crumpled the letter and threw it away.

He finished his meal and went to bed.

The next day, in his clock store, while repairing an antique watch with an extremely complicated mechanism, he couldn't help thinking about the letter and its more or less strange ending when he was interrupted by the doorbell indicating that someone had entered the store.

He put down his tools, wiped his hands, and headed for the store.

"Hey Mobius! I made lunch, shall we share?"

It was the bubbly and somewhat invasive, Sylvie. The owner of the antique gun store right across from him.

He replied, annoyed, because she had interrupted his work that he loved, "I can't, I have urgent work to finish."

"Oh come on Mobius, there's nothing urgent about an old watch."

"It is to its owner."

She made a disappointed pout, "Well, okay..." she sighed and headed for the door, then turned abruptly. "Is it true you bought a house? Where is it? How is it?"

Mobius rolled his eyes, used to Sylvie's chatter.

"It's an isolated cottage, in a small village called New Asgard."

"You're sick to isolate yourself like that!"

"It's what I want and I already feel at home there. And now, if you don't mind, I'm going to get back to my work, which is not urgent." He walked briskly toward his studio, annoyed by the criticism of his choice, and didn't even hear the door close.

In the late afternoon, after his day's work, he decided to repaint the faded fences that lined the small path. The manual work, like his work on watches, helped him to clear his head.

A few hours later, as the day was getting darker, Mobius was kneeling on the steps and applying a new layer of paint to the weathered planks. He finished, satisfied with the result, and began to put his equipment away.

Behind him, a small dwarf alligator trotted along the path. Mobius didn't notice it at first. The alligator sped up and before Mobius could react, he stepped into the paint and left footprints behind him. "Hey!"

Mobius tried to catch the alligator but it ran back inside the house whose door Mobius had left ajar. Mobius was about to follow him, wondering what an alligator was doing here and if he was dangerous, when he suddenly stopped.

On the ground in front of the house, there was a trail of paw prints.

Mobius rushed to the garbage can and searched with determination through his trash when he finally found what he was looking for: Loki's letter.

He stared at it.

Sorry about the footprints leading to the front door. They were already there when I moved in, as was the box in the attic. I think it belongs to the owner.

He remained for a long moment staring at the crumpled note.

*********

Loki went out to have lunch at a place he had spotted not far from the school.

Finding the weather warm, he opened his coat and continued walking.

When he arrived at the place, he sat down on a bench and started to unwrap his sandwich, a book in his hand. He enjoyed this moment of calm, even if the place was crowded on this beautiful day.

Once finished eating, Loki closed his eyes for a moment, letting the sunlight warm him up. Just aware of the surrounding sounds, the water of the fountain, the splashes and laughter of the children playing there, an old man grumbling about global warming, the pigeons landing not far away, hoping to get some crumbs from those who like Loki had decided to have lunch here.

Suddenly, a horrible noise, a high-pitched squeal and a horn made Loki sit up. He suddenly opened his eyes and looked around.

A few meters away, in front of Loki, a double-decker city bus was trying to stop. It was going pretty fast, although you could tell the driver was trying to brake.

Loki registered it all, the noise, the bus, before noticing the gray-haired man standing directly in the path of the bus. There was nothing to be done, it was inevitable and almost immediate, the man was hit by the bus, and Loki, horrified, saw his distant figure fly ten or fifteen feet into the air before crashing to the sidewalk. The faint sound of the impact reached Loki half a second later, due to the distance.

Loki automatically took out his cell phone and dialed 911. As he walked towards the impact point, he gave all the information to the rescue workers, trying to remain calm.

Once he hung up the phone, he started to run towards the lifeless body.

_______

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 (End)

As always, bear with me as it is not beta'd and english is not my native language I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless🥰

#Lokius fic #alternate universe #loki series #loki #mobius m mobius #slow burn #time travel #thor #bruce banner #heimdall #natasha romanov #carol danvers #peter parker #harley keener #ned leeds #MJ #kamala khan #croki

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zukalations · 4 years ago

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Takarazuka Revue – Torodoki Yuu’s retirement press conference: as herself to the end

I don’t usually post content on here directly, but I decided to cross post this translation of coverage of Todoroki Yuu’s retirement press conference in order to make it as visible as possible. I will put a link to the wordpress version, which contains the original sources, in a reply.

Takarazuka Revue – Torodoki Yuu’s retirement press conference: as herself to the end

Todoroki Yuu, Takarazuka Revue special advisor and Senka member, held a press conference in Osaka on the 18th, after announcing her retirement on October 1 of this year. With an open expression as if everything was as usual she said “As I have until now, I want to keep enjoying myself onstage to the end while working together with my fellow performers.”

Todoroki was born in Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto Prefecture. She discovered Takarazuka when she saw it on television, though it seemed so distant that she even thought “it was a bunch of foreign men acting in fluent Japanese”*. However, her fire of longing to join that dazzling world would not be extinguished, and when she entered middle school she decided to enter Takarazuka.

Todoroki said that she asked her middle school music teacher to play the sheet music of the repertory songs included with the application papers for the Takarazuka Music School, so she could figure out what the melodies were like. She was sure she failed the exam, but as she was in a taxi back to the airport, she told the driver “I’ll just go and see for memory’s sake,” and went to the results announcement. She said she was shocked when she found her own test number. “That driver was the first one to tell me ‘Congratulations!’ so I still remember that even now”

She debuted in March of 1985 with the Moon Troupe production If There’s Love I’ll Live Forever. In 1988 she transferred to Snow Troupe, becoming Top Star in 1997, and in 2002 she transferred to Senka as the successor to Kasugano Yachiyo, who has been described as ‘the greatest pride of otokoyaku’. As Senka star, she appeared in many productions, leading her juniors along. She excels in singing, dance, and acting, and the overwhelming presence she exudes on stage captured the hearts of many fans.

“35 years is really too long, so it’s hard to pick shows that stand out in my memory,” she said, but looking back she said that roles such as Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind, which has been called her masterpiece, and Reverend King in JFK, are “memorable roles” for her.

She decided on her retirement around September of last year. There was no particular inciting incident: “I realized in my heart that the time had come,” she said. “I’m grateful to Chairman Ogawa Tomotsugu, and everyone else who respected my wishes. She has no plans to continue as an actress, and what she will do post retirement is undecided.

In July, she will star in the Star Troupe performance ‘Gesaku’: Heir of Basara, which will be produced in the Umeda Arts Theatre Drama City and Tokyo Arts Theatre Playhouse. In the play, written and directed by Ueda Shinji, she will play a man full of a sense of justice, living in the Edo era. After that, the end of her career will be decorated with hotel dinner shows held first in Osaka in August and then in Tokyo in September. This is because of her desire to “say farewell to the fans properly from close up”.

When she moved to Senka, “I thought that I wouldn’t have a farewell recital or a descent down the Grand Stairs,” said Todoroki. “I want to be myself to the end and welcome the last moments.”

Finally, when the reporters asked “Do you have marriage plans?”, she said jokingly “Well, actually, it’s a non-celebrity, so as for the name, I can’t really…that’s as far as I thought that one through**…I’m taking applications.” The hall was filled with laughter.

* From the time this would have occurred, most likely this was a Rose of Versailles production.

** Todoroki is riffing on the near-obligatory ‘marriage question’ of retirement interviews here, rather than expressing any earnest plan to marry.

#takarazuka #todoroki yuu #article translation #sienne: todoroki yuu #troupe: senka

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imasimpforstevengrant · 4 years ago

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His (Part one)

Edit by the wonderful 💕💕💕 joker_jessica295

Instagram: @joker_jessica295

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Special thanks to @neon-umbrella-for-stella (thank you so much for the ideas!) and @darkshadow90 for the tips on certain scenes 💕💕

• Author’s note¹: Another Arthur/Harley smut. Yes. It took me more than seven months to write it, based one a suggestion from a reader on a different take.

• A/N ²: 447 FOLLOWERS? WHEN tHE HELL DID I GET SO MANY?! THANK YOU SO MUCH OMG

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Summary: A piece more centered in Harleen and her feelings towards Arthur, Flashbacks to the first meeting and kiss. More sex comes after their first night together as they open up about each other. Meanwhile, a clown has stirred Gotham City by murdering three young Wayne employees, awakening a popular fascination which not even Harleen won’t escape from. She doesn’t know this (wrongly) crowned hero is closer than she thinks.

Warnings: insecurity, self-hatred, swearing, darker Arthur ahead (possessive, lusty, crossing boundaries), age gap, strong sexual themes, sexual humor, oral sex (male receiving), fluff, breast oral stimulation, dirty talk, mild praise kink, possessive, unprotected sex.

WC: +9.946 (IT’S LONG I KNOW… I hope you don’t get bored!)

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November would mark one year since she got to Bronx Apartment after finishing her studies in Gotham’s University, obtaining a degree as a psychologist. Harleen was blessed with an exceptional intuition and a brilliant memory, this preventing her to burn her eyes away studying day and night for exams.

Once finished, she got a job as a therapist in social services. It had been hard to get but Harleen used her charm to convince the man she was ardently committed to social causes. A few smiles to the old, drooling creep during interviews and she got what she wanted. But with the unemployment rate increasing in the city, Harleen knew crisis couldn’t be avoided with a charming smile. Resenting her situation but with no other option, Harleen obtained a job as a bartender in shifts, most of them at night.

She was a frequent target of blatant ogling and indecent comments from men of all ages to which Harleen always replied with sarcasm that either scared them off or ended up with men insulting her under their breath. The first two months in the building were boring and gloomy, until she saw him.

Harleen had seen him a few times. He always seemed so mad, so drawn within himself and yet there was something oddly attractive about him. If not beautiful, it was certainly intriguing. He was the neighbor the other residents warned her about: the laughing guy from the eighth floor. Some told her he was ugly, deranged and creepy. Harleen got her first impression of him during a day off: she went for a drink when the mail boxes, surrounded by a small cage, were checked by the mysterious man.

There he was. The guy was wearing the usual yellow hoodie, navy blue pants, brown vest and a white polka-dotted shirt. Shoes were worn as much as his outfit, hair slicked back, gaze focused on the box that seemed eternally empty. She then noticed the frown that hardened his features, reinforcing the idea that he was always angry, while asking herself some questions about him. Who was he? What did he do for a living? Was he married? Did he have children? He looked old enough to have them.

What was his name?

She would have never imagined she’d figured it out months later. It was one particular night she went out to a party just to return home a little drunk. A catchy song refused to leave her mouth, while dancing in a lively way were enough to get the attention of the loner. He returned from getting his medicines. Hunched pace tracing his way back home, Arthur saw the young recently graduated young lady dancing shamelessly in the hall. She wore a short red dress and her lips shone in crimson gloss.

The image of her hair flowing, creating a blue and pink spectrum of colors turned out to be so unusual and beautiful that immediately sent involuntary visions of her in sexual situations. He hated the idea of her being out of his reach but felt a modest share of satisfaction just by seeing her. This became a common practice on his routine, with Harleen being completely unaware of it. She only saw her mysterious neighbor a few times from then, probably because he had to work. A lot, from what she could tell.

It was Thursday in the evening when she returned from the theater. Harleen was thankful she was on the taxi when the rain started. It was a small luxury she could gift herself after working so hard. She thought her day couldn’t get better when back home when she’d finally get what she wanted for so long.

Once in the elevator bag, in hand, she saw him. The door opening revealed the crestfallen individual, always withdrawn in his thoughts. That would explain why he almost jumped out in shock when he saw her, as if she was some kind of ghost. Harleen finally found the courage to grin and speak up.

“Hi”. One kind greet was enough to freeze him. At the same time, Arthur stared at her, examining the funny hairstyle that embellished her. Simple but pretty: a white sweater and jeans with short boots and a blue bag hanging from her left arm. Buns held her hair, blue the left one, pink the other one. A few platinum locks fell over her neck.

“Hi”, he finally replied. Doubt made his vocal chords tremble. His stare betrayed everything he felt for her, showing even how surprised he was for a woman like her to talk to him. He did his best to return the grin, his lips curving into a sneaky, playful one. Something inside Harleen trembled. Of all the reactions she expected, this was certainly an unexpected surprise. It was like a powerful bolt whipping her body. The odd attractiveness of her older neighbor caught her off guard. She did not expect him to actually have… charm.

There was something that tainted his unique beauty, however. She couldn’t help but stare in silent horror at the small bruise on his eye and a dry trace of blood on the bottom lip. His deep silence and mirthless look on his eyes despite the smile carved a deep wound in Harleen’s soul. He looked so destroyed and yet he managed to be polite enough to reply. She now paid attention to the adorable dimples embellishing his smile. The only thing she could do was smile back, not imagining the magnitude of the feelings she would unleash on him.

The bell rang. Harleen suddenly felt bad to leave for her flat, desiring just a few more seconds to appreciate his features. But she wasn’t willing to lose and her generosity gifted him an awkward but cute hand gesture, which Arthur took a long time to respond to. The absolute amazement in his eyes turned out to be an unexpectedly pleasant shock. That smile… so distant from the serious expression that usually carved his features, lost inside his thoughts.

Once in her flat, Harleen was incapable to stop thinking about him. And that wasn’t the only problem. Thoughts replayed the charming smile over and over again and became particularly intrusive while undressing to take a hot shower. She wanted to know more about him by being subtle, to increase the thrill this stranger had caused to her.

Probably the premise of “opposites attract” took a special meaning for the two of them, causing an authentic interest over the loner’s magnetism, not imagining how much of a surprise he’d turn out to be. What Harleen would have never thought was that the loner was also immensely interested in her…

Through fleeting glimpses of a yellow hoodie, she learned she had a secret admirer (this being a soft epithet for what it was actually an stalker).

Harleen became aware of it after noticing there was always a tall, thin man lurking in the shadows of the buildings in front of the playground she was always in during nighttime. It also happened while she was jogging or hanging on a rope to avoid any further danger lately. The latter was more interesting for him, given she could notice him better: still, predacious, not missing any second of watching her involved in such graceful moves, like floating in the air.

Harleen was sly, of course. She knew she was gorgeous. And the notion of being unreachable was highlighted by adding more sensual moves in this effective way to attract him, assuming the unpleasant cost of being constantly catcalled by other men. But of course her efforts paid off: the long expected meeting would occur on September. She actually expected another day to play innocent and let him stare at her instead of an actual interaction. A few pedestrians passed by, following a series of unpleasant whistling and blatant sexual commentaries.

But she couldn’t care less now, noticing it took him longer for him to show himself up through the dim lights in comparison to other days.

Harleen kept doing her job, however, repeating and extending the same moves to maintain her anxiety at bay. This resulted in more pirouettes so she could catch the familiar glimpse of the yellow hoodie near the darkened corner he usually stopped by to stare. The exercise turned out to be so pleasant that almost made her forget her initial goal, her focus now being to make a risky but stylish twirl.

There were no whistles or any indecent comments this time. Just a soft chuckle that evidently showed his amazement at the pirouette broke the deaf car honks, far screams from angry people that shattered the already silent place. Her swinging form immediately got down while trying not to lose the composure, calling him.

But far from what she expected, the man reacted horrified just to run away. She wasn’t going to give up, quickly jogging towards the fence that separated them.

“Hey!” she extended one hand, clawing herself with the other one. The hooded shadow stood there, panicking. He couldn’t bring himself to disappear in the dark, which made him look like a malevolent spirit.

“Come back!” she yelled, waving her hand incessantly to convince him to return, daring him to answer for such tenebrous and creepy attraction for her. It seemed her call paid off, since the man had no intentions to keep running, choosing to walk his uncertainty away through disoriented circles. He suddenly stopped walking, standing completely still now. Harleen rose an eyebrow, honestly expecting what he would do now.

That man had issues for sure.

The idea soon morphed into a fact. Once she saw him coming closer to her to finally face her, she found herself unable to hold back a gasp to discover it was precisely her handsome but distant neighbor she had seen so many times and the reason why she had let him cross the line. She liked intense emotions, and something told her this man could give her a good thrill. The loner, for his part, turned around and almost tripped once realizing the short proximity between them.

It was certainly shocking to see an apparently cold, aloof individual who never talked with such searing lust in his eyes. Her hands now clawed at the fence, her icy blue eyes stared at him, feeling a shiver down her spine while she their glare revealed more things about him, one being his complete bewitch (or more like aroused) hearing his breath becoming more and more shortened. But there was also a glimpse of guilt, lips twitching as if he was repressing a word or even a kiss, she’d dared to say.

The darkness highlighted the odd yet irresistible attractiveness that stole her heart, tracing a smile on her lips. He set his eyes down her body, ending the visual enjoyment focusing on the striking, extravagant mane that reached the upper part of her hips.

“You’ve been enjoying my show, have you?”, she went straight to the point.

A reply came out ringing in a remorseful, broken whisper:

“Yeah”

His name was Arthur. Harleen couldn’t be happier to finally know it, repeating it while taking her time to savor it.

Arthur Fleck.

Nothing prepared her to witness the very thing he was known for, however: the pained, cursed laugh that now resounded through the air.

At first she thought it was genuine but the horrifying shameful look warned her about his desperate attempt to stop and to breathe. The cackles were frustrating and, worse yet, exhausting to the point it made him lose balance while trying his best to look for something inside his pocket. She climbed up the fence to finally make direct contact with him. That seemed to shock him enough to distract his features in a more skeptical expression at the first time someone showing him kindness rather than giving him the usual disgusted stare.

A plastic, worn out card explaining his condition came from his pocket. The fit diminished to painful hiccups to tired sobs, relieved by a few reassuring words to make the stranger stay. It followed with a small talk about Thomas Wayne, unemployment in Gotham City and revealing each other’s “do for a living” but the topic of conversation seemed off. She could tell Arthur wasn’t used to social interaction, noticing how much it took him to find a tone and words to reply coherently. He never lost a sight of her, never taking his gaze off her as she spoke. The blonde felt actual amazement on the intense lust she had awakened on him, motivating her to test him, to see what things he would do to her in a more intimate place.

They arrived to the building. Harleen led her guest to her humble flat. Arthur was fascinated by the pink neon lights that banished the darkness to plunge his senses in a pleasurable, dreamlike numbness. They continued talking. Her flirty attitude and smiles made Arthur feel he was living the best night of his life. The loner was too lost in her bicoloured mane. A small smirk traced his lips, forming those dimples she secretly admired so much.

“It looks like cotton candy”, his mutter rang through her mind, resounding like a small demeanor confessed with relief. The sweet compliment was rewarded, subsequently, with a short, noisy kiss on his forehead. The action quickly makes him recoil for a few seconds, as her memory remembered, just to feel confident enough now to unleash a furious, hungry kiss on her lips. This violent outburst of passion had her lips against his dry, cracked lips, shocking her at first to eventually surrender and responding to the kiss. His inexperience was clear from the beginning but she had more of a convincing proof that the vehemence of the touch starved was, sometimes, more arousing than the dexterity of an experienced lover.

The sound of their lips breaking the caress made the sexual tension even more unbearable. He apologized; covering his mouth like punishing himself for behaving like a deranged creep but Harleen was just too impressed and lost after the spontaneous gesture, praising him for his passion instead of screaming at him. She had already accepted she’d never yearn for another lips except his.

It wasn’t easy for him, however. His rigid posture put in evidence his shame at the (obvious) first intimate contact he held with an actual person. With her head tilting tenderly, Harleen put a rebel curl behind his ear. He shrugged, stepping back, maybe processing the word she chose to describe him. As if that wasn’t enough, Arthur was too self-absorbed in his visible fascination over her chest. There was more than mere lust in his gaze over his disturbing fixation on her bosom, a far cry for the abandonment and yearning for intimacy but being too afraid to show it. Harleen fought the persistent (and reckless, utterly reckless, she had to recognize) urge to grab his hand and let them knead her soft forms, getting him to know her more personally.

Instead, Harleen took his hands on hers, caressing them tenderly. A defeated sigh, at last, made him regain composure. His whisper sounded broken but clear, much to her joy.

“Can you please...?” Arthur wasn’t able to even to complete the plea as the blonde closed her eyes slowly as her face broke distance with his to once again experiment the clouding, soaring euphoria their careless closeness brought with it. The party clown had a hard time processing the warm and maddening sensation of her lips on his, convincing himself that this was no hallucination. They took their time, finding the perfect angle to get a better caress from each other: Harleen had the initiative throwing her arms to his neck, causing the loner to respond by locking his arms around her waist.

Intimacy became too overwhelming when her tongue tried to play with his. The lovers laughed the nervousness off as the kiss finished momentarily to recover from the numbness. But he went back to devouring her to memorize every little sensation, growing more and more confident, tilting his head now to obtain a better taste of her mouth. It proved to be too much for him, however. She sadly felt him distancing from the embrace, most probably because his old fashioned ways deemed improper to sleep with a woman he just had met.

She felt so many things that fateful night misting her senses to verbalize her thoughts. But one thing was for sure:

She would burn Gotham to see him smile.

*-*-*

It was 09:33 am according to the green bluish digits on the old clock, light drizzle falling over Gotham City. A disheveled, yawing Harleen woke up by herself. Laziness held her muscles still until her stomach made clear that breakfast was a must.

She put on black shorts and a grey, long sleeved-shirt, combing her hair to then make a couple pretty braids that fell over her torso. The combination of pink and electric blue was pleasant to the sight, as the mirror revealed. Soon after the observation, she contemplated the empty space left by her lover: Arthur Fleck. She closed her eyes.

That name sounded (or more like tasted) so different now. The memory of this lonely, sad man turned into a sex crazed lunatic still shocked her, as her facial expressions brought out. The fierce passion he had just loved her with turned out to be hard to be believed considering how deprived he was of human contact.

It wasn't just the thrill of surprise but the tenderness of his vulnerability, an aspect whose contrast between despite looking twice as older than her and being a late bloomer just highlighted their affair: Arthur was so different in intimacy, letting go of that repression that harmed his soul since he understood his needs as a man. She smiled, still thinking about what they had done. The thought led her to look for him while her vision became sharper, slowly overcoming the persistent need to go back to sleep.

When she stepped outside her room, a chuckle reverberated through the air, making her come to her senses. Eyes blinking, a pleasant feel of lightheadedness befogging her mind as the silence was broken by a familiar voice.

“Knock, knock”. Harleen was still too sleepy to catch a clear glimpse of the loner behind her who, in turn, locked her form as if she was a prey.

"Huh?" she hummed, confused. But there was no verbal response from him. Arthur reacted kissing her neck with ferocious passion, holding her figure possessively, absorbing her scent. The blonde made an instinctive futile attempt to free herself to recover from the scare the sudden grasp had caused on her. A breathy whisper in her ear dissuaded any intention to undo the embrace.

“You’re supposed to ask who's there”

Harleen turned around, her long blond hair tickling his face. He wasn't gone but by God, she was thankful for that. Arthur undid the hug, directing his hands to her face to press kisses on it repeatedly.

"Mr. Fleck--" the blonde murmured, "I thought you were back on the business making people smile". Arthur smirked. A high pitched giggle left his mouth. He now directed his fingers to feel those attention drawn to her gorgeous, full pink lips.

"I am right now" the loner leaned his forehead against hers. Now that her vision was slightly clearer, she noticed Arthur had left her flat for a moment, given he was wearing a red sweater he didn't bring before. The loner then proceeded to take a black wand off his sleeve, offering it to her. Harleen giggled and took it, deciding to play his game. The object lost its rigid shape, causing Arthur to laugh at her disappointed reaction. He demonstrated his aptitudes as a party clown taking back the wand just for it to regain rigidity once on his hand. He whistled, adding a funny sound as he shook it against his other hand, checking its stiffness.

"What are you doing?" Harleen seemed completely taken by the action, her smile encouraging him to finally offer her the aforementioned wand as a bunch of flowers while humming a song. A tender, excited scream made him chuckle as her hands stopped shaking to hold carefully the gift. It had plenty of feathers of different colors but she loved the simplicity of it.

"Thank you" she placed them in the table, along a small pot of flowers.

Harleen stared at him, tenderly. All Arthur could do was smile, holding her hands briefly on his to then slide one up her arm to reach her face. She suppressed a gasp, which seemed to change the course of the original touch in thought, as his hand recoiled for a moment to return with more intensity to her face.

"We had one hell of a good fuck, Mr. Fleck" Harleen whispered, intertwining her fingers with his. Arthur burst out laughing as her swearing manners still made a great impact against his older ways. But he liked her honesty, nonetheless.

"I think we woke up the whole building" Harleen laughed.

“I don’t see the problem with that”.

“I never said it was“, Arthur replied, cocky. A deep intake of breath then happened, “You know I—“he stammered, nervous. With a cute giggle, the blonde slid down her hands through the soft fabric of his half buttoned shirt that left a glimpse of his chest, invigorating him to keep on. Arthur stared at her, not a word from his mouth, enticingly.

“I-- was just wondering-- what else we can do", he kept on after seconds passed by, trying to catch her mouth with his, nuzzling her face, “’because-- I told my mother I had a call—“, he continued, “from work… so I'd stay away from my apartment for a while. I need some—“he took another deep breath, trying to find the courage to look at her in the eye to pronounce his intentions.

“I need some space, Harleen…” Arthur stared up and down at her figure, hands sliding up the collarbone to rub her shoulders, persuading her to be an accomplice of this reprehensible deed, "but not alone”. The words, though flawed in pronunciation, were perfect to keep her gaze lost as if Arthur had cast a spell on her.

“I plan to have you all for myself today and I'm--" he closed his eyes, hiding his face in her neck, sniffing her hair while trying to voice his intentions despite the nervousness that made him stammer, "I'm eager to know you more personally".

Harleen was actually shocked with what she just heard. A mixture of utter tenderness and searing lust made her blood boil. Did he lie to his own mom to spend more time with her?

"Well with the riots out there, bar is closed for a couple of days so consider it your lucky day” her voice chirped in joy. His eyes shone with modest but genuine happiness at the good news. Then he smiled, flaunting those crooked teeth Harleen loved so much.

The blonde felt she was about to kneel and unzip his pants to give him the reward he deserved for such gesture when her stomach claimed for some food, impeding the spontaneous sexual fantasy to become real, earning a disapproving look on his face. It took them time to regain calmness, as their laborious breaths tried to cool down the fire inside them.

“Why are you doing that?” his tone of voice revealed impatience, leading her to express the idea to have some good meal before any intimacy could take place, causing his displeased expression to turn into a wide smirk.

“Great!” Arthur chuckled, granting her some personal space.

They made their way to the kitchen. Arthur took a sit while waiting, taking a cigarette to light it. Harleen quickly prepared the table, taking the electric kettle to fill it with water to pour it on the coffee machine, putting bread on the toaster and turning the radio on in hopes to increase the domestic bliss. The smoke filled the room but she couldn't care less. The news announced a cold, rainy week while announcing a new episode of the Murray Franklin’s show presenting a famous actor as a guest next week given the release of the film he recently starred in the next week. The announcement ended with a shortened version of the groovy organ of Frank Sinatra’s anthem “That’s Life” which Arthur hummed along. But as soon as the theme song ended on a fade out, he silenced himself to hear, much to his annoyance according to the tired, throaty groan that followed the happy hum, a reporter pronouncing the news related to the continuation of the garbage strike.

Both stood completely silent as the report that exposed most of Gotham's slums to insalubrities. The fear of the possibility to catch a severe disease was reinforced by the citizens who claimed to have seen the rat population increase. The piece of news changed to the Mayoral election, which seemed difficult given the riots and general dissatisfaction of Gotham citizens with unemployment rate and apparent authority's indifference in the matter. The note ended with Thomas Wayne promising order and prosperity if elected. More announcements followed, but the lovers didn’t pay any attention to it. His great displeasure caused Harleen to turn off the device.

"I just can't understand how my mother thinks he's gonna help us" his hand took the cigarette back to his mouth, adding that just because she worked for him more than thirty years ago did not mean he had the obligation to run in aid for her. Arthur rolled his eyes, making clear his profound dislike for people like him and the insufferable infatuation Penny felt for him.

“I’ve told her so many times she doesn’t have to worry about money. Everyone is telling me my stand ups are ready to make it on the big clubs”.

Harleen nodded, enthusiastic at the possibility of Arthur getting a name for himself in the stage.

“I’m not the man of the house for nothing”.

Harleen took the toasted bread and coffee kettle to the table.

“Man of the house, huh?”

“Yes, since I can remember. But even I need a break” he took another long drag, his lost look causing a deep sorrow on Harleen.

She lamented the prolonged solitude that caused him to pronounce such wounded words, hoping (maybe in an unconscious way to cope with stress) to get out the pain it caused him. The blonde extended her hand towards his, in a sweet attempt to cure or, at least, relieve his pain.

His absent gaze combined with the smile caused Harleen to feel a shiver down her spine. She laughed nervously to later pour the coffee in his mug to fill her own later. He didn’t laugh, staring at her and rubbing his forehead with his thumb. This dark glint promised her so many things, and few of them were good. He wasn’t afraid anymore to hide his intentions from her, seeing the affection was mutual. She could also see a spark of pride, engulfing his mind in another deep state of absent thoughtfulness. He pronounced no words, looking now at the recently poured coffee, whose steam slowly diminished to long twirls to nearly invisible white lines. She slowly and carefully extended her hand to his arm to convince him to leave the cigarette aside just to grab the large plate full of breads.

“Aren’t you a cute, little pleaser?”

The tender name immediately washed the worry away from her face while a reddish hue colored her cheeks. Arthur finally gave it a bite, cigarette finally left on the ashtray. The crunchy sound gave Harleen almost a cathartic relief. Whenever the chance to nurture him showed up she didn’t think twice to do it. He left the half eaten piece of bread aside to divert his attention to her.

“You wanna hear a joke?” the playful tone of voice and mischievous smirk made his face adopt such a devilishly appeal Harleen was unable to resist.

“Yes!” she said it as if that could convince him to have one more toast.

“Why are poor people so confused?” his grin drew those adorable dimples in his face again.

“I don’t know” a frisky look gleamed in her eyes.

“Because they don’t have any cents” he answered, before his voice exploded in a loud cackle. Harleen laughed at the simplicity of it. He was actually a funny guy, if only life could have been more generous to him. Bless his soul for making people laugh in such hard times.

Harleen was too lost in his joyful expression beyond if the joke was funny or not. His green eyes shone with a special light in the rare moments he could be in tune with his surroundings. It was as magical as seeing a shooting star. How she wished to take away the pain from him just to see his beautiful smile more often.

Throwing a smoking puff to the air, Arthur leaned in as if to tell her a secret.

“This is the first time someone is so nice to me", the loner confessed, shaking his head. He looked so lost, eyes following the smoke elevating in a single line undone by the move to breathe in the last remains of the cigarette. His personal battle against his warped perception of reality still gnawed his trust on her. A tender pout formed in her lips.

“You’re the first person who doesn’t feel uncomfortable around me” he muttered.

Her thoughts drifted to a greater, sadder horror: to make a difference in such a dark, mirthless man’s life just for being kind barely managed to even imagine the inhuman hardships he had been through during all his life. She lowered her head, trying to resist the actual pain in her chest. How a sentence that was so heartbreaking could also be so beautiful?

“I’m sorry, Arthur”. Her eyebrows arch in a sad expression that seemed to make him reconnect with reality.

“For what?” he frowned, confused. She tightened her eyelids, trying not to embarrass herself in front of him with such an explosive display of emotions, silencing her sobs the best way she could allow herself.

“Everything” Harleen finished. His instinct ordered him to show distrust, unconsciously trying to find any trace of lies. Nobody ever had apologized or even shed a tear for him. As he realized her care was genuine, his mind replayed the phrase over and over again while trying to process these intense, new feelings blooming in his heart over the typical, negative thoughts ghosting around his mind.

“Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. Don’t do that” Arthur reacted panicked, “please…” his fingers dried the watery creeks, “don’t make that face to me. I’m here to put a smile on your face”.

He inhaled deeply, before continuing:

“You know… a famous comedian used to say… uh –“ his troubled mind tried to remember the name but then opted to articulate a coherent word to elude anything that could ridicule him –‘a day without a smile is a wasted day’.

A soft hum left her mouth, though a far shadow of sadness still haunted the tender quote.

“You know what I like about you, Arthur?”

“Yeah?” he was genuinely intrigued to know.

“You could even put the fun in a funeral”

His wide and evil grin, made her put a loose lock of hair behind her ear as a result of an involuntary move to cope with the nervousness.

“Fun in a funeral?” he repeated, a loud and moved hum sounding like a purr, staring at her while a chuckle shook his shoulders, “How sweet”.

How didn’t he realize how attractive he actually was? She asked herself surprised.

“Come here” Arthur patted his thigh loud enough for her to listen to it for her to reply. After drying the creeks coming from her reddened eyes, Harleen calmly got up from the chair. Arthur took distance from the table to allow her a comfortable sit. His fingers held her cheeks to create a smile despite her watery eyes.

Harleen blinked, and a tear escaped. Arthur brushed it away once it ran over her face. He thought she looked pretty when she cried, though. She gave him a sad smile and soon found solace in his face, ruffling the fluffy hair to distract her mind from any unhappy thought. Arthur closed his eyes, slowly caressing her thighs in sensual payback for her little attentions.

Once their foreheads found each other, the blonde muttered:

“How’s that feel?”

“Feels… good” he hummed against her mouth. His lungs inhaled deep before adding:

“I thought I felt better when I was locked in the hospital”.

Harleen widened her eyes in surprise, taking a short distance from him, not knowing if it was another self deprecating joke or the truth, given the defeated tone the sentence was pronounced in.

“What?” but a castdown look was all she needed to figure out the sadness such place caused on him. It wasn’t a secret Arkham was a human dump, considering it held Gotham’s most demented and dangerous criminals and unfortunate souls who couldn’t go anywhere else. Harleen’s eyes widen in a horrified expression.

“Arthur” her hand caressed his cheek, worried about the lightness he seemed to take his life, she tenderly tilted her head, “why were you locked up in that place?”

His tone of voice revealed his annoyance mentioning that place. He shamelessly nuzzled her right breast, trying to avoid the subject:

“Who knows, maybe I lost it or tried to kill myself...I just didn't want to feel so bad”. Arthur gazed up to her. He had never been more honest in his life.

Her horrified reaction to be told being locked up, bashing his head against the wall almost everyday just reminded him how much worse was to have a significant other who made him feel alone. Months surrounded by people in white outfits, convincing him to take the pills to make him, at least, presentable to the world and also deprived of any loving contact from Penny’s part under the excuse of fright caused by doctor or anything related to hospitals. It reminded him how pathetic his life was. Sometimes he forgot how much forgiving he was with his mother’s recklessness concerning his own wellbeing.

Her kiss on his forehead, however, seemed to bring him back to reality. Arthur felt he had awakened of a bad dream, but found himself amazed as he noticed he wasn’t alone with a blanket on while an alarm buzzed, as it was his usual routine. The loner stared at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. Her blue eyes, dilated pupils, body full given in to him. The loner blinked, eyes half closed, fighting the dissociation.

“Arthur” she called him. He looked dizzy. The blonde felt a pulsing heat making a place between her legs when the loner held her waist to lift her figure in order for it to adopt a riding position. She gasped, clawing to his shoulder once her figure obtains the desired position.

“What is it?” she whispered. But there was nothing except for a dead silence. Maybe it was another relapse of a dissociative episode, which made his mind to distract so any negative thought would fade. He panted, hiding his face against the silky platinum braid falling over her breast. The blonde didn’t move an inch, anxiously expecting to know what he would do now. He was so hard to read most of the times, leaving so many doubts and thoughts capable to drift anyone off sanity. Maybe he just didn’t want to talk. Maybe he just wanted to bond through touches.

Harleen felt a shiver once his mouth kissed the covered breast, playfully nuzzling with the erect nipple highlighted by the thin fabric. Blood boiled, as if her body demanded immediately to respond to such attentions.

She could tell Arthur was immensely pleased at her receptiveness concerning sex. His breath shortened, fighting the lightheadedness their suggestive position caused on him, loving how her body rode his hips, like a thrilling prelude before any intimate encounter could take place.

An impish, seductive smile must have given him the hint to keep on but he was way too shocked at first to react immediately. Harleen tugged on the shirt for it to loosen enough in order to offer him a privileged view of her bare breast, awaiting his mouth to finish what it just started, setting aside a few obstructing locks. Arthur’s jaw dropped, a line traced by pleasure soon contorted his lips. She hummed softly, admiring the sight of the loner hungrily lapping his tongue over the pink areola.

“You’re such a surprise for a late bloomer” the blonde leaves a beautiful, mischievous expression take over her face. Arthur detached his lips from her to ask:

“You calling me ‘old’, Harleen?”

“No!” she rushed to explain herself. The sassy tone of the question eased down any thought of annoyance, “I just—”

“I may look old, but I’m a fast learner” he cut her off, mouth back on the sensitive part. Harleen threw her head back, not showing any sign of opposition while Arthur clumsily undid the garment to leave her topless. This only ignited the fire inside of him, hanging on to her waist to sink his head between her breasts, rejoicing in the softness of her skin as his arms imprison her body. The elation wasn’t strong enough yet to stun her muscles entirely, gaining a little strength to make paused (or more like patient) undulatory moves against his body. His eyelashes flutter, causing tickles up her chest.

"I want you to put more than just a smile on my face" she caught his bottom lip to devour his mouth hungrily. He consented the kiss but didn’t respond to it, not even bothering to close his eyes.

"And what would that be, Harleen?" he looked genuinely puzzled, intense hue of green piercing her soul. She combed his hair back, sliding her hands down to hold his face in them. Arthur felt like a youngling in love for the first time. And having her covered intimacy grinding the growing bulge swept away all rational thoughts, making him listen to his needs as a man for the first time without overthinking ruining it.

Harleen supported on his shoulders, intensifying the sinful friction. Arthur groaned, relaxing when she generously offered his body another warm rub that was close to send him to heaven. On his face a deep feel of pride and complacency traces his lines given the arousing effects he had on her. Shuddered and impressed gasps left their mouths, until her voice sounds again:

“You’re so hard. That’s a very good thing” a secretive whisper kept him enchanted, her flirtatious glare invites him to get up. Arthur frowned but let himself guide by her when the steps were directed towards the wall, where Harleen didn't hesitate to corner him with famished kisses, feeling his chest underneath the red shirt.

The blonde slowly undid his shirt to obtain a proper look of his upper body to worship with her mouth, starting with the neck, nuzzling a few curls out of the way to brush her lips against the curve lining down his collarbone.

His whole form shrugged, writhing and panting. The dubious nature of this situation slowly dissipated to allow him to enjoy the treatment her mouth gifted now to the notorious prominence coming from his neck, not missing any inch of skin with her lips.

It didn’t take long for his pants to turn into needy groans as soon as his chest was blessed with kisses, then his abdomen, the blonde was careful to not overwhelm him, holding on a few seconds before continuing to reach her goal: Mouth waters at the sight of his the rigid manhood covered by his pants, giving it a tiny nibble.

The mood was immediately killed when Arthur jolted in shock when he finally realized what she was going to do.

The irruption visibly took her by surprise, facial expressions changing from excitement to disappointment.

“Did I…?” she stammered, shrugging in fear, “did I do something wrong?”

He sighed, sliding his hand on his hair in a nervous reflex. Harleen then remembered this was new for him, despite how much enthusiastic he was. How much violence had he faced during all his life, she would never know.

Arthur cleared his throat, inhaling deeply, still processing all those hands on his body with the sole purpose to pleasure him.

“No, no”, he rushed. His voice quavers, afraid a laughing fit could ruin a intimate moment he had longed for so much with a girl, trying to put his mind in order, “This is the first time someone does this to me... and that feels like a good thing to begin…”

A bright smile returned to her face when one hand held up her chin while the other one caressed her cheek in a tender approval of what she was going to perform on him.

“You want this…” she seductively stared up to him, while her hands unbuttoned his pants, obtaining what she just craved: the underwear contains the hardened member, which she frees with a quick fumble on the clothing.

Arthur stared at his private spectacle in hypnotized ecstasy, still trembling.

“Yes…” he hissed, “oh yes, I do”.

Harleen took a few seconds to admire the twitching, aching arousal held in her hand. She smiled as her eyes were up to look at him.

“Then feed me some candy, Arthur Fleck..." his jaw dropped, felt his legs tremble, lust slowly dissipating any other thought. Being addressed by his full name, certainly had an impact on him. The enticing image of a partially undressed Harleen between his legs surely made him forgot how vulnerable he was before her by exposing his almost completely bare body.

However there was not verbal response from Harleen’s part. Her firm hand caressed his erected intimacy for a delightful prolusion, keeping her lover completely in a trance, causing his nervous hands to grab in a contained, almost angry fistful of hair. Nothing prepared him for the next.

Her tongue, of course, did its wonders. First a few, paused licks to the tip while giving him sensual, playful looks to then leave wet traces down that soon derived to long, hungrier licks sent the loner in a desperate, ecstatic state.

“Godfuckingdamni--!” was all he could be capable of articulate, before any feeble attempt to form a word distorted into desirous gasps and screams, Harleen rejoices at his reactions. To be the first woman to see him free from inhibitions, given in to his instincts, shaking away his polite, silent manners felt like a privilege.

“Keep doing that” his demand was desperate, dealing with it by uncoiling a few locks. A wide smirk approved her tongue to explore and taste more of him, feasting now on the tip to absorb it, so he could become more familiar with her mouth. The explicit image gave him the confidence to stop repressing his desires for the sake of decency.

Her greed to have a different taste of him made her take turns between moistening the full erect manhood to partially engulf it later.

He now couldn’t even stand still, writhing like a dying animal, incapable now to look at her in the eye, believing the mere sight would make him unleash his climax, hands held on to his thighs, climbing up to his hips, looking to elicit more sounds out of his throat.

His chest heavily went up and down while Harleen kept on her voluptuous routine: first oiling him with her tongue to then make the tip disappear in her mouth.

His closed eyes, completely given in with an overjoyed expression on his face moved her to cause a greater gratification on him. She waited for the right moment to make Arthur look at her so he could cherish what she had in store for him. For a more dramatic reaction, she choose to disconnect her mouth from him, the sound of her lips detaching from the tip had him about to pass out.

“You’ll love this” were the only words she said. No further explanations. Her tongue gifted him another paused, devoted lick. It worked to make the full intake more enjoyable for him. Arthur’s body rears up violently. Raspy, loud groans and moans elicited by the tease tore the air.

Harleen placed her hands on his hips, helping herself to feel more of him between her lips, staring up to him as she received his swollen, overstimulated masculinity.

Arthur gathered enough oxygen to talk to her.

“Harleen—“ his eyes widened in awe, focusing on not passing out. His chest shook violently still recovering from the initial shock, “you nev-- you never cease to amaze me”.

She let a sweetly sinful smile trace around him, bobbing her head in a faster pace, muffled moans struggling to come out as she savored the stiffened sex with voracious appetite.

“That’s it… that’s better” he hissed, lip twitching, completely bewitched by the scene, “you’re such a good fucking girl for me”.

A happy hum vibrated through his skin.

“Am I, mister Fleck?” her squeaky voice in false innocence crowned an scene so obscenely explicit with a comic touch.

"Yeah… Like that... Just--" he gently slammed his back against the wall. Further vocal expressions of elation came from his mouth, trying to appease the urge to scream his lungs out for whole fucking Gotham to hear him. A shiver ran down his spine. It was so difficult to keep eyes open in that moment but the need to set his sight on her triumphed over any sense of exhaustion. His worn out hand slid down to hold her nape to obey the instinct to thrust into her mouth, just to better cope with the wet, narrow warmth Harleen welcomed his manliness with.

The blonde placed her hands over his hips, executing a very subtle move to contribute to deepen the intrusion that maddened Arthur so much. The slowness of this action made her push him away to then bring him back into her over and over again, gradually increasing the rhythm that turned the party clown into a noisy, urging mess. The rapturing and breathtaking routine of her mouth colliding with his unrelenting length sparked a merciless shiver that weakened his thighs, a stunning reminder of the glorious pinnacle he was about to reach.

“Stop”, his tortured plea was unexpected.

The mesmerizing image of a joyful Harleen with him appearing and disappearing from her lips right below him at incessant speed was more than he could take without going insane. The situation was getting out of his hands when Harleen also gave it firm caresses and long, rushed licks.

“Please”, he whined, voice too weak, covering his mouth in order to quieten the moans, “oh, God--Stop!”

His command finally made Harleen react, seeing it was actually too much. It took him a moment to catch his breath and recover his strength to pronounce about his intentions.

“Arthur? Is everything okay?” she muttered.

“Take that off” his instincts took over his mind, leaning to get her up and direct his hands towards her shorts, lowering them. She doesn’t oppose, unable to respond verbally, having the feeling the behest was actually told to himself. It didn’t matter anymore. She smiled as she saw the impatient hands lining her curves, fingers clutching at the cloth to whisper, “I like it how it looks but I want it off”.

Harleen eyes the action in fervid silence while he couldn’t stop staring down at her fascinating nudity, directing one hand in a sinuous move to part her intimacy to delicately rummage the silky smooth folds he wanted so much to be wrapped around.

Harleen jolted, lolling her head back, amazed vocal expression resounded in his ears. Her eyes gleamed with resolution about his intentions, and a shivering gasp follows the brash action. A vocal expression of mischievous complicity comes from her.

“I see… you want to fill up the tank?” she chirped with a frisky giggle.

Arthur nodded in impatient muteness, while crashing his lips on hers in such a reckless way their feet ended up nearly tripping on the way to the couch. At the same time, he got rid of his underwear, undoing her braids, bicolored mane perfectly lining her curves now.

A firm push to throw her to the couch was just the beginning. She almost landed completely on her back, if it weren’t for her arms avoiding it.

“Easy, clown man!” her expression turned out to be so funny for the loner to let a cackle loose. From her angle, Arthur looked so frighteningly dominant. It embellished his figure like a statue, his disheveled hair highlighting the hungry and desperate expression which his carnal urges claim to be sated.

The magnificent preface maintains him from a considerable distance from her, surrounding the blonde like a prey, unable to decide what to do to her first.

Harleen makes the first move. to fulfill her purpose, she held her legs with a provocative glare, limbs hardly exposed her undressed figure to him. The wavy moves made Arthur crawl his way to her like a starving beast.

Her receptive reaction to the kiss motivated his hands to roam over her thighs, directing them up to the knee to untangle her legs, eventually.

A devilish smile approves the suggestive image of her pressing now his waist, sensing they were so close yet so far of each other. He devoured her mouth avidly at the same time his sense of newfound dominance urged him to place himself above her.

Harleen slid her hands up his battered back, breaking the kiss to hold and scratch his scalp to mumble:

“I want you deep inside me”.

Arthur hid his face on her neck, wallowing in the gentleness of her touches. She clings to his arms, abandoning all defenses, letting him know she was totally his to possess.

His biceps accentuate by supporting himself. Long, brow curls fell over the curve of his neck, eyes on her when his hips moved even closer to her. Harleen diverted her attention to it, but she immediately crumpled her lungs for air as Arthur teased the burning folds with the tip, becoming familiar with the part he was going to invade soon.

“More… more, oh, please” her lewd smile, cute little hums and whines mixed with his own shortened breath and surprised but satisfied groans made them forget about the world for a short while. Arthur constantly rubbed his manhood against her moistened entrance, exulting at the furious grunts the sweet torture elicited.

In exchange, she pressed her legs as a slight punishment for such daring move. But she was loving every second of it. Her eyes appreciated the paused caress between their bodies.

Seconds passed when his prolonged absence began to cause her actual pain, wrapping her legs around his hips. He let his hands fell beside her head, to plant a last kiss before proceeding.

"Knock knock" he muttered against her lips.

"Who's there?" She replied with anxious anticipation.

"It’s the mailman, miss. I’ve got an special delivery. It can hardly wait for you to see it"

She widened her eyes in surprise before his boldness to even joke in a moment too intimate as this but ended up exploding in loud cackles that left her breathless. Her reaction caused an expression of fascinated disbelief to take over his face. Both laughed it off shortly to resume were they left off.

His stare, predacious and craving, petrified Harleen.

Once his bare sex perfectly fit her hot, silky intimacy, Harleen threw her head on the pink velvety pillow, dramatically panting as her body focuses on adhering to this desired invader. His name leaves her mouth as a desperate prayer, as if he was her only saviour, much to his delight.

"You like that, don't you?" he hissed while giving her body another brutal thrust so she could feel him inside her as intensely as possible.

“Yes!” Harleen replied, not giving a fuck if it sounded indecent, “Arthur, I want all of it, please! Please!”

“All of it?” he smirked, reinforcing his invasion, obtaining louder screams from Harleen, doing her best to deal with the urging length in, searing walls flexing around him.

“Allofit…” but it was unintelligible for him. Arthur was too busy indulging in a deeper intrusion, eyes closed for a better focus. His thrusts were taken over by an animalistic despair, not hesitating to harden the pace even more as the eventual natural need for release set aside any sense of self control.

Nothing could take the wide smile off her.

“You are so good at this, mister Fleck…” the playful praise sounded more like a helpless little whimper, arousing Arthur in ways he would have never imagined. It lead him to lean into her, but she quickly took advantage of it by captivating his form, legs pressing his hips to deepen the intrusion even more.

Arthur threw his head back, stopping for a moment to process the pleasure the abrupt move had caused on him. Harleen contemplated in silent joy how his arms had taken a more muscular shape, gifting him an evil, yet charming smile when she held his face with both hands to pepper it with kisses, holding to his back as if her life depends on it, body ready and eager to obtain more of him.

He slowly made his way out of her just to violently slam back in, causing soft sobs that ended in more desperate praises, which played an important part during the act.

“Keep fucking me like that… I beg you” he closed his eyes, ecstatic, lips parted.

“I will” he gasped.

As soon as she moans his name, Arthur sensed his last sense of self control disappear. He could feel her nails in the skin of his back, which doubled the joy of another brutal thrust into her, exhausted groans leaving his throat. Harleen squirmed while dealing with the intense pleasure his unmerciful pace caused on her.

“Arthurarthurarthurarthurarthur” the blonde called him before losing her own sense of reality, the last coherent word before a lovely, mellifluous mixture of moans, groans, grunts and sobs seized her lips.

Him.

It was all about him, she realized. She swore everything had lost into oblivion. There was nothing except the throbbing welcome her tight walls granted to his twitching gristle.

In that moment she finally comprehended his impact on her life, remembering all the good moments they had shared, everything that led them to this moment, so close to end the act with thunderous moans.

She wasn’t afraid to accept this man had become her entire life since she had lied eyes on him, the first and last person she thought about every time she woke up and certainly the reason why sudden smiles traced her lips during work.

However, her body warned them about the proximity of the peak when the pulsing grip around him intensified, interrupting the happy daydreaming about him, returning her to the raw reality she was protagonist of.

The gorgeous moaning mess he had done from her had encouraged the loner to fasten the rhythm, loving to bring her to the brink, frantic spasms whipping his nerves while her moans echoed louder and louder. Her features showed an agonizing expression, lips partly open but unable to utter anything, mind fogged by lightheadedness.

“Arthur, I can’t— I—” the violent, feverish orgasm caught her unprepared: a blaring, euphoric cry served as the glorious conclusion of their union.

Arthur found the strength to distance himself from her, far too weak to resist the temptation to earn a good vision of her naked body in that moment. Harleen was still numb, hair covering her face like a curtain, blue strands all over her chest, contrasting with her pale skin. He followed the long mane down, eyeing her quivering figure, so full of him. He stopped to stare at their sexes still caught in a sore and reddened embrace.

The loner eventually surrendered with a powerful groan, exploding inside of her. He exhaled in stunned relief and sexual bliss. His eyes behold such beauty so full of him, retaining him even when her moans indicate that it was too much for her to bear. This let an even wilder side of him to appear when pushing slightly deeper, thinking it would go unnoticed, but she was too immersed in her thoughts about the man who lied over her. The stillness helped her to put her mind in order, dimensioning this feelings blooming in her heart.

It was hard to stare at each other at this point, but she slowly turned her head to see him despite the blue mane hinders a proper sight of him. Sunlight shone brightly on his face, curls tousled, from what she could see. It was like a little light of happiness shining at last. For the others, he was a deranged creep, but in that moment, Harleen felt he was the most beautiful man she had ever met in her life.

The blurred image eventually became sharper when his face came closer to hers, oozing his seed inside Harleen through his spurred flesh. It felt like hours passed by.

Small beads of sweat formed on his forehead, his open mouthed expression was of pure astonishment and fascination. The slender fingers set aside her hair, touching her lips, probably to kiss her again.

But nothing happened. Instead, Arthur decided to break the contact, paying attention to the zone in question.

With slow vehemence, he was finally gone.

The action left a thin, niveous line dripping from the tip, leaking from her in small creeks in a beautiful way their bodies demanded to reconnect each other.

“Fuck” he muttered, grinning. Despite the exhaustion, Harleen mimicked it. They couldn’t say anything else, for words were unnecessary. He wouldn’t know it, but Harleen had already accepted a great truth about him.

She was madly in love with Arthur Fleck. _______________________________________

Weeks passed. It was raining in a cold Thursday on Gotham City when Harleen returned home from work. The garbage strike was worsening, rioters looting any store they could and the mayoral candidate being the focus of criticism and repudiation of people. The reason behind it? She would find it out soon.

A taxi honking distracted from her quest for an answer but that didn’t stop her for too long. She heard people talking about nowadays and what Thomas Wayne had said about people in Gotham after something horrible had happened in the filthy subway. The macabre part awakened her curiosity. Was there something she didn’t know about? She looked for a kiosk at the end of the every block to see if there were papers about the aforementioned topic.

It was near a telephone cabin when Harleen finally found what she was looking for… but she didn’t know where to start. Just a headline in bold was enough to freeze her:

KILLER CLOWN ON THE LOOSE