#I just feel like this would be one of his grifts

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

I'm very skeptical about Charles just giving Tom PB a title - to me it would suggest Tom is Charles' natural son, which is not the sort of implication anybody with sense would want.

I think the PBs are the new Andrew/Fawcett: they want to appear close to the throne, so they can sell access to Charles on the down low. Upper class grift.

About the Midds, what I find curious is that there is no PR about George or Charlotte or Louis being close with their cousins... So I think the whole clan has been sidelined for now, with just grandparents Carole and Mike, retired with no business interests to profit on, making the occasional appearance.

William is very careful to avoid any suggestion of allowing his inner circle to profit from the connection. It works to keep Harry away, and it will repair the credibility damage done by Andrew and "cash for honours" Charles, in time.

I mean, it's definitely a concern, but I don't think it's that big a deal. As far as I'm aware, no one thinks Tom is Charles's son. (For me, Tom looks way too much like Andrew PB for his paternity to be in question, but I know that looks can be subjective.) So a lower-ranking title like a lordship or a barony or a knighthood - the same kind of title that normal people get for extraordinary accomplishments - probably won't give anyone pause. (I mean, yes, we'll definitely side-eye it, but I don't think anyone will be questioning Tom's paternity.)

Again, I want to reiterate that I don't think it's likely that the PB kids will get titles because there are certain people who would block it, but I do feel that Charles has some kind of desire to recognize his stepchildren because it would make Camilla happy and it would reward her, especially after this year of being by his side during his cancer treatments and (if you believe her friends) suffering through Australia.

I don't think the extended Middleton family has been sidelined. Pippa, Alizee, and the Jameses routinely and regularly show up in the royal sphere - they were at the carol service, the coronation, and the Platinum Jubilee. We don't hear about Pippa's and James' children in context with the Wales kids because they're private citizens and minors - in other words, there's no story and no information to share, and the parents aren't trotting those kids out for papwalks (Pippa's kids have blurred faces these days in pap photos, which means the photos were taken without parental consent). And the Waleses haven't attended public events with their MIddleton cousins where we could see them interact - unlike with their Windsor cousins, where we've seen them all playing at polo, on the Trooping balcony, and at the jubilee/coronation concerts.

I mean, we never saw William and Harry hanging out with their Spencer cousins when they were small, but that doesn't mean they didn't have a relationship. It just means we didn't see them hanging out in public.

[mulletmik]

Any Steve Pinington fans in the house tonight?

[batsplat]

a very much plausible scenario played out in my head, where acosta and works ktm are a potent mix contending for a title, and pecco would usually have his terrible season start with marc asserting himself as primary rider to fight acosta. that would, perhaps, mean ducati will team order their reigning world champion pecco. it would be preferable for ktm to still not quite be there and prepared to take on the challenge, as i’d like to see how marc and pecco match up when they have only the two of them to worry about, but, hey, i’ll take what the season will give me!

the thing about ducati and team orders, right, is that usually they have five existential crises and try to powerfully hint to riders that they would like them to team order themselves and then have another existential crisis or twelve and are so terrified of the whole thing becoming a discourse point that... they're actually really bad at issuing them. like, yes, in an ideal world they'd like everyone to back their preferred challenger, but in reality it was usually up to the individual riders in both 2017 and 2022 whether they played ball. there were definitely late 2022 races where ducati riders caused pecco some real trouble, and the ones who most clearly made way for him on-track were ones who actually wanted him to win the title (aka his fellow academy riders). in 2017, they tried team orders in three races, and it didn't really do much to help dovi in a single one of those. the great thing about team orders is that you can just... ignore them. also, and this part is key - they only really happen late in the season. pecco has been through some very crazy championship fights by this point and he won't believe he's out of it until he's mathematically out of it. so, yeah, this would really only be relevant at the end of the year

quite honestly, even if this scneario does pan out and you get marc taking on acosta for the title, I really struggle to see a world in which pecco helps out marc's championship bid. I mean, you'd have to have a close title fight at the end of the season between those two (or indeed marquez v martin), and if marc's so clear of pecco on that ducati then I kind of doubt it's going to come to that. also, ducati will do obscene amounts of hand wringing before they come close to issuing an explicit public-ish instruction to pecco beyond 'try not to crash into your teammate'. and even if it did come to that... I think at most pecco does a lorenzo and plays lip service to the idea that under very specific circumstances he'd help marc, but they're specific enough that they just won't happen. and even if they did, he wouldn't help marc anyway lol. it'd be funny if you got to a situation where ducati does feel they need to ask him but. yeah. no. pecco's not doing it

[lovrre]

Agreement prt1

Art Donaldson x Fem black reader

Warnings: cursing, infidelity(kinda), slight smut (fingering) sub ish Art. Slight he loves her more trope, needy Art and probably some other stuff

Word count: 2k

Summary: Despite being engaged to one of the top and richest tennis players in the US, you feel unfulfilled. But everything changes when you transfer schools and meet Art Donaldson, who just can’t quit you.

Author note: GUYS GUYS, PLEASE DON’T KILL ME. MY WRITERS BLOCK HAS BEEN SO BAD YOU DONT UNDERSTANDDD, But I’m finishing all my requests and unfinished fics soon so stay tuned. 😚

Sitting on the bed in your brand new silk pajamas, you found yourself distracted, just like you had been the day before and the day before that. You played with The edge of the book you were attempting to read,mindlessly repeated the last sentence over and over in your head trying to retain anything. The loud television and the whirring of the ceiling fan only added to the chaos. Plus the freezing cold air conditioning of the hotel room made it impossible to concentrate.

In a desperate attempt to regain some semblance of focus, you clumsily reached for the remote, hoping to silence at least one of the distractions. your eyes falling on your fiancé who was sleeping peacefully, his dark hair all messy, in his crisp white t-shirt that matched perfectly to the expensive hotel sheets, he looked so sweet,so innocent. You thought if he slept more, maybe everything could work out

Mike slept while snuggled into your side. Like he often did when you two shared a bed, You had attempted to remove him several times but every time he ended right back at your side so you gave up, In any other scenario his action would seem romantic but they only made you feel worse than you were already feeling. In an effort to relieve some guilt you liked to reminded yourself your engagement was never out of love but business. But then again the line did blur in the beginning of your relationship. Before you left for Stanford, you and Mike got caught up in the act of pretending be in love.

After that you could never really tell real from fake with him, he didn’t like you talking to other men. He’d shower you with really expensives grift but then leave town and not answer your calls or text for days. But when no one was watching he’d try to hug and kiss you. The whole thing was confusing, You had known idea how he persived your relationship but you knew You Felt guilty, without all the technicallys, you knew that you still lied,

The people ate up the role you and Mike played. occasionally you’d have to leave campus and go out in public holding hands or sharing kisses in the rain. But it was all for show, at least on your end. Your Dad made sure to reminded you That, it was the love sick tennis player in love with his coaches daughter that sold tickets. kept the stands full of women hoping to catch the world win romances in action. Also Brought in a large number of his clientele. He promised It wouldn’t be forever unless you wanted to be. And Really how could you complain? 20 years old engaged to One of the wealthiest and most talented tennis players in the world and he wasn't bad looking either. Before all this, you weren't too keen on love anyway, so what were you really missing out on?

~~~

Ten months before

Patrick serves but Art's attention is elsewhere. The ball zooms past Art for the second time, prompting Patrick to turn around and finally see who's behind him. His gaze lands on you, playing tennis alone on a smaller court. The sun shining off your smooth, glistening skin, and your pink tennis dress gracefully flowing with each jump and run.

"Oh, I get it," Patrick chuckles, glancing back at Art. "She's hot. You should talk to her, maybe offer her a lesson. She could use it," Patrick suggests, looking back at you as you let another tennis ball from the machine fly past you . "I think I've seen her somewhere before," Patrick mutters, tapping his racket against his leg.

Still in a daze, Art jogged over to your court. "Oh, you're serious," Patrick murmured watching as he went over to you following closely behind him. "Hi," Art greets, slightly out of breath walking up to the net. "Hi?" you respond, slightly confused, giving him a small wave.

"Are you new here?"

"To the school or the court?" You ask

"Both."

"I'm new to both” you say a little breathless wiping sweat from your forehead.

“I just transferred," you explain.

"Where did you go before?"

"A small community college in Virginia."

"What about tennis?"

"You have a lot of questions," you laugh, tapping your tennis racket against your leg.

"Im just curious “Art jokes.

"I'm just doing this because my fiancé is a tennis player. I thought I'd try to learn," you reveal.

“Finance?” Art questions.

“Yep”

“ how old are you like 20?”

“ actually 19, I turn twenty in a couple months”

“And you're getting married?” Art asked clearly dumbfounded

“Yes” you laugh at his forwardness

", is he a pro or college?", Art asked, assuming the answer would be college.

“Pro," you replied, letting your curls fall freely from your hair tie. Art couldn't help but admire how beautiful you were,too young to be tied down

"Anyone we would know?" Art asks following you as you walk over to the bench with your tennis bag. "Hmm, maybe," you hum, sitting down to tie your shoe. "Mike Fitts."

"Your fiancé is Mike Fitts!" Patrick exclaims a little too loudly. "Mhmm," you confirm, starting to tie your other shoe. "If Mike Fitts is your fiancé, why are you here?"

"Are you referring to the court or the school?" you ask, looking up at both Art and Patrick.

"Both," Art and Patrick respond in unison.

You chuckled as you stuffed your tennis racket into your bag. "Well, whether I'm engaged or not, I always planned to graduate college. And Mike is too busy right now to teach me, so I'm trying to teach myself."

The two of them nod in understanding as you stand up. "It was really nice meeting both of you, but I have class," you announce, throwing your tennis bag over your shoulder. "By the way, it would be great if you guys could keep the whole fiancé thing on the down low. I'm trying to keep it as quiet as possible for now."

"Yeah, no problem," one of them replies.

"Of course," the other adds.

"Thanks, I really appreciate it," you say giving them a small smile before turning around to leave the court.

just as you're about to walk away, Art calls out after you, "Wait! You said you're trying to learn, right? we could coach you if you want” Patrick gives him a look and Art ignores it waiting for your response.

You pause, considering the offer.

”the both of you?” you asked gesturing between them. Art gives you a nod. at that moment The risk didn't seem too big so you said

. "Sure," with small shrug

"How about tomorrow at 12:30?" you suggest, checking the pink Bvlgari watch Mike got you.

"Perfect," Art responds with a shit eating smile

“Ok see you guys ” you laugh walking out the court

~~~~~~

“Yeah see” Patrick says reading a newspaper. “Olympic coach, Dylan yLn, Daughter engaged to Olympics gold medalist Mike fitts” Patrick reads next to a photo of you and Mike smiling as you showed off your huge

engagement ring. “She wasn’t bull shitting”

“Let me see” Art says grabbing the newspaper. “She didn't have on her engagement ring when we saw her...” Art trails off

“You can't be serious” Patrick laughs

“What?”

“She’s engaged Art, not to anyone either,” Patrick leaned in on the table so only he could hear. “she’s engaged Mike Fitts!”

“I didn't say anything,” Art defends

“ you don't have to” Patrick says stealing a fry off Arts plate plopping it in him mouth.

”I know you,”

~~~~~

After that day, everything seemed to blend together. Art and Patrick dedicated themselves to training you throughout the weekdays for three entire months until you got tired of it and decided on once a week. You told Mike you found a coach but never told him who. Since they were kinda the only people you knew in the entire school, the three of you grew close fast. You started going out to bars and parties together. you had your most memorable college moments with the two of them. And then, your birthday arrived. Patrick had left for some torment and it was just you and Art.

You two were just having so much fun that night. On thing led to another And before you realized it, the two of you were constantly having “fun together”. It didn't matter where - in the dorm, in the shower, or even on the floor. It was bad, but you two couldn't stop

Trying to clear your mind you Let out a sigh. you carefully remove Mike from your side sitting up to taking a sip of you're water on the nightstand. Trying to ignore the ache of your core. This is how you spent every night away from him, needy, uncomfortable. You heard a knock at the door which almost caused you to spill water on yourself. You Quickly put your drink down and run to answer it before the person could knock again careful to be quiet not to wake up Mike.

You swung the door open to find Art standing there, hair slightly damp, with huge smile on his face. "Are you out of your mind?" you whisper, stepping out of the room and shutting the door quietly behind you. You can't help but notice his thin athletic hoodie and gym shorts. Slightly wet clinging to his skin as if he just stepped out of the shower.

"It's past one ,"Art huffed out , his voice filled with urgency and desire as he leaned in for a kiss. his hand gently cradling the side of your face in the process.

When the realization of what was happening washed over you, you pulled away, but still stayed close enough to feel his breath against your skin. "Art," you breathed out, eyes darting down the hall to check if anyone saw. Your hand instinctively found its place on his strong chest, you savored the feeling and the look of your manicured nails there, not knowing when you be able to do it again.

"I like these," Art hummed, playing with the hem of your pajama shorts. He rolled the fabric between his fingers, his big hand gracing you thighs in the process. The little touch sent shivers down your spine. You somehow composed yourself pushing him away gently with your index finger, creating some distance between you two.

He looked at you with sad eyes like a rejected puppy. "Mike’s sleeping inside," you whisper, worried someone could hear. "What does that mean?"

There was a long pause as you carefully choose your next words. Art stared at you intently, trying to decipher your expression. "You slept with him?” Art asks, as if he already knew the answer.

"No, I didn't sleep with him!” You whisper yelled, “He just showered and fell asleep," you explained,

"What's bothering you then?"

"I feel guilty."

"You didn't feel guilty at Stanford."

"Mike wasn't at Stanford."

“You care about Mike's feelings now ?" Art's asks furrows his brow, his voice filled with a mix of confusion and hurt.

" I don’t know… he’s been nicer lately and were supposed to be married in three days”

“You’re actually thinking about going through with it?” Art asked the hurt now evident in his voice.

“There’s nothing I can do now, I signed contracts, this isn’t just about us anymore I’ve told you this”

“What about the private investors?”

"That's just a 'what if,' a perfect 'what if,' but we don't even know if he's seeing someone."

“ If I win tomorrow?”

“Art If you win are lose tomorrow it doesn’t change anything, my Dad expects me at the alter on Sunday regardless, nothings gonna change that”

“But you don’t love him ”

“ I could” your words come out more a question, maybe a hope. “I loved you?”

“You love me” Art corrects

"There's too much at stake now, Art. This is my father's career. We don't come from money, this is all he has."

“You honestly believe this will ruin his career?”

“It could” you reply with a small shrug your voice cracking slightly.

“It won’t” Art response

“You don’t know that”

“ Don’t do this ” Art whispered closing the small space between you. He sounded so tortured, like he was pleading with you.

you hadn't realize it but tears welled in your eyes Threatening to spill any moment. When You blinked an a tear fell down your cheek. Art tenderly brushed it away with his thumb. The stress of the last two weeks had finally caught up to you. “it wasn’t supposed to be this hard” you murmured, your voice barely audible, tears streaming down your face as Art wiped them away.

“Do you love me?” his questions sounded genuine but you knew, he already knew the answer. ”more than i’d like to” you joke, using the back of your hand to dry your eyes.

“Then let me make you feel better,” Art whispered leaning down so he was directly above your ear.

“You’re right about what you said earlier, Mike wasn’t there at Stanford”. He paused for a second moving a piece of your hair out the way, “I was,” he hummed brushing his face against yours “just me and you” he whispered leaving a trail of kisses on the outside of your earlobe down your neck. Causing Your breath catch in your throat .“We had fun right?” Art question, his voice deep and breathy causing you to instinctively press your legs together as you leaned back against the door. “Art” you mumble trying to shake the sexual haze that was swirling inside you.

“I missed you” he whispered his free hand slinking up the side of you short griping your thigh, hiking your leg up slightly. “So bad…All day”

“we can't” you manage to breathe out unconvisingly.

“I’ll beg,”

“Art” you warned

“I’ll do anything baby” he mumbles leaving slowly kisses on your neck. “Anything you want me to” he says kissing under your chin. “ I need you” he hums kissing down your neck, ”don’t you need me?” Art asked kissing below your ear. You don't respond giving small nodd biting the inside of your lip. “Can I hear it?” Art asked, the way his voice sounded so desperate, Damn near whiney had you looking for friction. ”I need you so fucking bad” you basically moan pushing your body against his.

“I love you so much you don't understand” Art said smiling against you cheek. sliding his free hand down the front of your shorts. He rubs his fingers through your folds collecting your wetness on his fingers. You throw your head back with a quiet moan, quickly biting your lip to silence yourself. “Fuck your so wet” Art groans before pulling his hand from your shorts, sucking his fingers clean like it was second nature. You clenched around nothing at the sight.

“I missed that taste” he groans returning his hand to your heat. “Can I make you cum right here” Art huffed out peeping down the hall.

"Yea,” you breathed out, nodding your head feverishly. He could have asked you to drive to the moon in that moment, and you would have said yes. Art slowly pushed two fingers inside of you creating a medium pace before bringing his thumb to rub your clit, you moan lifting your hips to meet his fingers. “Fuck I could eat you out right here” Art groaned watching you Practically fuck yourself on his fingers. “Promise me you won't ever let him see you like this” Art goans leaving kisses on your collar done. “this is mine”

”You can bearly hear a word he's saying the feeling of his thumb on your clit and finger damn near touching you cervix was too much to bear. “I’m gonna cum” you moaned out grabbing Arts shoulder hard in an effort to ground yourself. “I can feel it,” Art breathed pressing his forehead against yours. He presses down harder on your clit causing you to buck into his fingers, letting out a loud moan You cum. his movement don't falter, he continues to pump them in and out while still rubbing your clit until he feels like you've finally had enough.

he removes his fingers from your pussy returning them to his mouth. “I’ll never get tired of that” Art laughs leaning in for a kiss, you return it, taste yourself on his lips. He gently places you leg back on the floor and you stumbled slightly grading his shoulder for balance. He instantly goes to your waist holding you steady. “You ok?” Art ask slight consern on his face. You don't respond afraid of what your voice would sound like after an orgasm like that.

You nod with a smile and Art led you to the hotel room directly next to yours, pulling out a key card from his pocket with a grin.

“You didn't,” you exclaimed as he opened the door.

“I did,” he replied, motioning for you to enter.

“How did you even know our room number?” you ask, stepping inside.

“I have my ways,” he answered, closing the door behind you.

“How did you afford this?” you asked, looking around.

“Are you going to keep ask questioning or are you going to take of your clothes” Art laughs , watching as you sit on the bed.

“You first,” you countered, settling back .

“Yes ma’am,” Art chuckled, starting to undress.

~~~~

Morning arrives and you found yourself back in your original room. Mike was in the bathroom getting ready while you fix your dress in the mirror of the bedroom. As you adjust the straps, you notice a hickey you hadn't seen before, one you forgot to cover up after coming back last night. You laid your hair over it and walk towards the bathroom to retrieve your makeup bag, slightly tripping as your sore legs gave out on you. "You good?" Mike asked, raising an eyebrow. "Yeah, I think I'm just sore from tennis practice," you say, reaching past him to get your makeup bag.

"You know no one expects you to play," Mike laughs while drying his hair with a towel. "I'm not doing it for anyone, I want to learn," your words come out more offended than you intended. "I just mean you could spend your time doing something else."

"Like what?" You respond plainly, walking out of the bathroom back to the mirror. "Like calling your dad and asking him what time he'll be here," Mike says from the now open bathroom. "Is your phone not working?" You asked rhetorically, pulling out your concealer . "I don't want to fight today, okay," Mike Replies sternly, looking at you through the reflection of the mirror. "This is a big match," he mumbles while running his toothbrush under the water.

"I thought you said it was going to be 'nothing,'" you chuckle dryly, applying the concealer as his face was turned. "It is, but from what your Dad's been saying, he's been getting good. So I'd like to be on my A-game and not have you trying to start shit."

"Whatever you want honey" you respond, quietly laughing in disbelief. He had resorted right back to his old ways,How could you ever agree to marry someone like him, someone so vastly different from the man you spent the night with.

~~~~

soon as you and Mike were finished getting ready, your father called you to come downstairs to join him for breakfast. You and Mike both stood in line, slightly overdressed, picking out your favorite breakfast items. Mike only getting French toast, disregarding his strict diet. Suddenly, you heard a familiar laughter and turned around to see Art chatting with your father near the entrance. Your heart sank as your father motioned for you both to come over. After dropping off your plates, you and Mike walked towards them, feeling Mike's hand slip around your waist.

"I'd like you to meet someone," your father announced with a smile, putting his arm around Art's shoulder. "This is Art Donaldson," he introduced, "the man I'm competing against today." Mike stated extending his hand for a handshake, and Art reciprocated. Your stomach churned at the sight. "This is Mike, you know him, he's also my daughter's fiancé." Your father says with a smile.

"Stressful, huh?" Art jokes. "Oh, you have no idea," your Dad replies, laughing. "You're both at the same college, right? Stanford?" your Dad asked, nodding towards you. “maybe you could try your luck at training her because I just can't get through," your dad jokes. Art's eyes rake over you, as if looking at you for the first time. "It be my pleasure" Art smiles, looking directly at you. You to discreetly warn him with your eyes but You notice Mike's grip on your waist tighten, clearly not pleased. "Actually, I've been training y/n already, she's improving every day," Mike says, planting a quick kiss on your head.

"Really?" Art inquires, trying to keep up the act to the best of his abilities. "Monday through Friday," Mike replies with a smug grin. “How do you manage with your Busy schedule?” Art asks tilting his head to the side slightly in the process.

“You find time for the people you love,” Mike says with a fake smile. You had to physically hold back your laugh. But you played it off as wiping your face. He had taken a line straight from media training. Silence filled the air as the two have a silent conversation with their eyes.

“Well I wanted to introduce all of you, as I will officially be coaching Art starting next fall,"

Your Dad says in an attempt to break the tension. But it only makes it worse, Somehow Mike's grip on you tightened even more, now you were concerned he’d leave a bruise . "When did you make this decision?" Mike asked, his face showing no emotion but you could tell he was angry. "two weeks ago, and I've been waiting for the right moment to properly introduce you two. I know the timing is awkward with the match, but it's better to do it now than later."

Mike doesn’t say anything giving an expressionless nod. There was another awkward pause before you decided to speak up. "It was nice meeting you…Art?" you trail off , purposely sounding unsure. He nodded with a knowing smile. "But our food is getting cold," you joked, trying to escape the suffocating tension. "I wouldn't want to keep the couple from their food," Art said, while a smiling again only looking directly at you. You wanted to scream, he was being so obvious and the way Mike was already acting, you knew you wouldn’t hear the end of it. "You two eat, I have to go handle some things, I won’t be long" your father said, gesturing for you and Mike to sit at the table before walking off with Art.

Once the two of you sit back at the table you feel caught. "I don't want you near that guy," Mike says, taking a sip of his coffee. You roll your eyes and stab at your scrambled eggs. “He was basically eye fucking you the whole time, and it doesn’t help that your dress is so tight”

“I think you forget sometimes this isn’t real,” you reply, taking a bite.

"Lower your voice," Mike warns, glancing around to see if anyone heard.

"You didn't care about it being real when you accepted the gifts," he scoffs, "or in Virginia."

"It was once, Mike. And every day, you make me regret it."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. You don't get to control me just because you buy me shit. Anyone can buy me shit."

“I told you i’m not doing this with you today” Mike laughs dryly standing up from the table. "I'll see you later, okay babe?" he says a bit louder, forcing a fake smile as he plants a kiss on your head before walking away. You try your best not to flinch when he touches you. Once he's gone, your phone buzzes, and you glance down to see an unsaved number. It's a text from Art.

“meet me at the restaurant next door in 20, alone.”

Author note : GUYS FEEL FREE TO COMMENT I LOVE READING COMMENTS

[faorism]

every once in a while, when it's a quiet moment between him and one of his partners—could be anything from a stake out to a long drive in lucille to the warm moments between making love and sleep—eliot will turn to them and say, tell me something i don't know.

parker will usually tell him secrets. the bits of history that only exist between her, bunny, and now eliot. there's a lot from living on the streets, when she was young. she tells him about training with archie; eventually, she tells him what it felt like. she tells him about loneliness and not understanding and frustration and how her hands hurt when she wants to flicker them around; when he asks her why she doesn't let them, she says to ask another night. that's too big a secret to share when another's been revealed already. he does ask, and she does answer. once, she says in a shaking voice, i love you and hardison so much, and parker feels silly because duh eliot knows that, hardison knows that, but eliot heard something deeper than she could express, so he held her tight and kissed her hair as she shivered through the weight of her confession. after sharing with eliot, sometimes parker feels comfortable enough to share with hardison, peggy, sophie, or a client who needs to know they are not alone in the mess and hardship of the world. much later, the fact that parker has shared something once makes it easier to tell her shrink as she gets on SSRIs, which she seeks out after confessing to eliot that even if it had been based on a lie to grift hurley, maybe there was something to her treatment at the second act rehabilitation center that she missed. occasionally, she'll tell him about art. he listens just as patiently as anything else she decides to divulge and she loves him all the more for it.

hardison infodumps. parker didn't press eliot for what he meant the first time he asked; hardison did. eliot had shrugged, anything you wanna share. hardison nips out a testy, so if i go off about (he paused thinking of something that would surely turn eliot off) optimal simcity street design strategies, you wouldn't mind? eliot didn't back down, even when hardison went into a two-hour spiral that branched into different iterations on the concept, including rollercoaster typhoon. eliot made a few comments here and there, asked some clarifying questions now and again, but otherwise let hardison rail on. the next time, the question was framed as what you working on? but the effect was the same. eventually, hardison stopped hesitating and started looking forward to these monologue sessions. hardison doesn't think anything of them other than he's got some quality time with his partner, until one day on a job with some leverage international trainees, eliot manages (elle woods style) to untangle the lie at the heart of a condo scam with a few pointed questions about the plumbing. when one of the trainees asked how the hell he knew that, hardison expects to hear over the comms how eliot once dated a plumber or an architect; instead, eliot scoffs, you met my partner. genius knows a little of everything. which is when hardison remembers once infodumping about sprinkler systems. eliot gets the tightest of hugs when he gets home for truly listening to hardison.

[emeritusemeritus]

Hi!

Can I request a oneshot,where the weasley twins got to a arguement with you, because they were a little extra flirty and their pranks going to far to the point it upset people,then it cause you to ignore them for 5 days straight. Making sure that you didn't bump into them in the hallways,didn't sit with them at (breakfast,lunch,and dinner),if you guys have classes together (since your in the same year) you either group up with someone else,or just simply not looking at them at all. Acting like,you didn't have two boyfriends who were always staring at you, thinking of a plan to get you to atleast look their way.

Then it all just ends with smut,the rest of the story can be anything you want.

THANKIES,LOVE YOUR WORK SO MUCH!💝😸😍😘

Hi lovely Anon! I hope you are well. Thank you very much for your kind words and for this request, I hope you enjoy! I’m sorry there’s not much smut at the end, I’ve been writing it pretty much for two days straight so it’s more an a non-graphic, implied kind of smut! 🖤

Warnings: a bit of angst, a bit of smut. Non graphic smut, implied sexual references. The twins being unapologetically themselves. Pranks, injury, minor genital injury, no blood.

Word count: 2.9k

Actions and Consequences

It had been five days since you'd last spoken to your boyfriends after that night in the common room. You were done with their stupid antics. For too long now you'd come second place to their inventions; you could deal with the long hours spent working on their creations, the aftermath of them testing their products on themselves and the amount of time spent grifting for sales but what you absolutely wouldn't deal with was them completely ignoring you for the sake of their 'customers'. Not to mention their completely lack of morality or remorse for anyone even as people suffer and endure the consequences of their stupid pranks. Or their complete blindness to real life consequences which had really bitten them in the arse lately... not that it seemed to make a blind bit of difference.

It may have all been funny once, but this time they'd gone too far.

You'd spent your time in the library, walking the grounds, helping out Hagrid and hanging out with your other friends, finding that without the twins' constant disruptions you were so much more productive. You actually had free time again, had gotten ahead of your school work and were completely up to date with your homework. Besides the crippling heartache, you were doing okay. Or maybe you weren't, but you wouldn't allow yourself to give them the satisfaction of knowing how deeply you were pining for them, or give them even a slight clue that they occupied your mind almost 24/7.

You'd ignored every one of their attempts to communicate, wanting them to feel exactly as you had when your wants and needs had been ignored. You knew it was petty but you just couldn't be around them right now, too hurt to carry on as you were. Fred had tried first, tried to bulldoze his way through your emotional boundaries under the guise of yet another joke or prank, another chance to break the rules. He'd learnt very quickly that this method did not and would not work, throwing him off completely. George had been slightly more sensitive in his approach but had still missed the mark entirely. Neither of them had apologised, not to you and not to Neville who had been caught in the crossfire of their invention testing. They'd even sent Hermiome over to try and 'talk some sense into you' but you'd quickly shut down her feeble attempt at being an unwitting participant and had instead diverted the conversation to S.P.E.W, which had earned you an hour long lecture on Elf rights, but at least the topic of the twins was quickly forgotten.

Any further attempt to reach out to you fell on deaf ears and was met with a neutral yet disappointed expression and absolutely no enthusiasm. You'd taken to eating with Katie and your other friends, trying not to spend any time in a place where the twins would be able to find you.

Their gazes upon you were constant, their eyes almost more persistent than their words. You could feel the heat from their stares on you morning and night, in the great hall, in classes, the common room. Sometimes you just felt like you were being watched constantly, though of course you weren't.

But you couldn't deny that your days had become infinitely more boring since you had been ignoring your boyfriends and trying to teach them some consequences. Boring but peaceful, you kept reminding yourself as you felt your stubbornness starting to slip. You missed them badly by the fifth day but reasoned that they had a lesson to learn even if it made you suffer in the process. You'd walked into your dorm after classes to find some fizzing whizbees placed on your bed that you knew would be from the twins. It made your heart pang for a moment as you looked upon the gift, knowing that they were your absolute favourite chocolate and that the twins didn't have any money so they must have begged borrowed and stolen for this. But then you remembered why they didn't have any money, bloody Ludo Bagman. With regret and a growling protesting stomach, you'd given Ginny the Whizbees, telling them to give them back to her brothers, though you knew that it was a step too far for your broken heart.

"What's it going to take?" Ginny asks, looking up at you from her bed as you hand her the delicious treats.

"An apology," you reply.

-♡-

"I have an announcement. Oi gits, put down your knitting and listen here!" Fred suddenly shouts from the centre of the common room, immediately grabbing everyone's attention. It's Friday night and everyone had been sat around the common room after dinner, branching off into different activities. You hadn't seen the twins since dinner and figured they were off somewhere causing mayhem, thinking no more of it. Dean reaches out and turns down the radio as the buzz of talking and laughter fades quickly, everyone falling silent as they look towards Fred. You heave out a sigh, really not wanting to give him anymore attention and so you didn't look up to him, choosing instead to keep your eyes on your book.

"I Fred Gideon Weasley, would like to formally apologise for my behaviour and careless actions the other night, well since birth actually," he says as he stands on top of one of the high tables near the stairs, as if he even needed the extra height to tower over everyone. Truthfully, you'd stopped reading the minute he's started talking, only feigning interest in the pages so that you wouldn't have to look at the stupidly handsome man. You could see the faint outline of him in your peripheral vision and it was enough.

"And I George Fabian Weasley would like to mirror that apology," you hear George say, pulling your attention even further, but you still don't look up. "And extend my greatest apologies to Neville Longbottom who unwillingly consumed one of our canary creams last week, turning him into a great big yellow bird. We're sorry we didn't warn you."

"Or know that you were terrified of birds," Fred adds, but you can almost hear the smirk that he's wearing.

"But to our girl," Fred adds, your heart pounding. "We want to apologise to our beautiful girl y/n y/n."

"Our long suffering girlfriend," George adds.

You look up now, completely forgetting the book in your lap as your eyes meet George's and then Fred's. They don't look remorseful per se, but you knew when they were being genuine. Your heart constricts, feeling suddenly awkward that they are doing this in public.

"We're sorry Angel, never meant to upset you or ignore you and this is our public apology to you."

"Of course we'll apologise later in private," Fred says with a smirk, earning a feel whoops and cheers from the crowd at the suggestion and you feel your cheeks heat up at the insinuation. He chuckles finding your wide eyes and flushed face in the crowd before continuing. "We never meant to embarrass anyone, even old Neville, no offence Neville." You watch as Neville raises his hand slightly in response to Fred, having been called out personally.

"So, in an attempt to show you that we are clearly reformed men who want nothing more than their future wife to forgive them, we're giving our sweet girl the chance to embarrass us, right here, in front of everyone."

You frown, thoroughly confused by their words.

"Ronald, be a dear," Fred calls out to his younger brother sat closest to you, gesturing for him to bring you up to them. He flushes bright pink, the smile slipping from his face at the audience participation section and you make it easy on him, placing your hand on his shoulder as you walk past towards the twins, your book long forgotten.

"A round of applause for our beautiful girl!" Fred says with a menacing grin, waving his arms frantically as the common room erupts with a loud roar of applause, making you want to run and hide.

"Now princess, you can do."

"Anything at all," George adds.

"To embarrass us," they say together.

"As justice for our professional negligence."

You don't have time to think of your options nor react as a deafening crack echoes around the common room as it falls silent, each person waiting in anticipation for what was going to happen. The twins shoot each other identical looks of shock and horror as the loud creak turns into a brief snapping noise, followed instantly by them tumbling to the ground with an almighty thud as the table beneath them splinters and collapses under their feet. You rush forward towards them, careful to avoid the masses of falling books, ornaments and the many many pieces of wood that had splintered around.

George appears first, completely unharmed and unfazed with a wicked smile on his face. The common room erupts in laughter and cheers but dies down slightly when you reach Fred who is doubled over, clutching his groin.

Apparently he'd landed awkwardly and had somehow managed to injure himself in the process, catching the 'family jewels' on the way down.

He stands slowly with your help, keeping a firm hold of your hand as he raises one arm, still slightly hunched over, forcing a smile onto his face as the common room cheers again. People begin to disperse after that, the show over and not wanting to be part of the cleanup. You wave your wand and begin to tidy the mess, hermione and Ginny helping levitate larger pieces and ornaments off to one side for now as Harry lifts the shell of the bookcase and flings it into the corner.

"Don't think you'll be apologising in the way you wanted Weasley," Seamus says as he walks past, a cheeky grin on his face as he wiggles his eyes at Fred.

"Shove off Finnegan," Fred shoots back, though his voice is still strained. "Git."

"Well I still can," George smirks, throwing his arm around your shoulder and giving you a smile, winking in your direction.

"Come to our dorm?" He asks into your ear, earning a little nod from you in conformation.

"Think you can make it big boy?" You ask Fred, seeing his face still scrunched up. He looks up towards you and squints in a mock glare, not caring for your apparent lack of sympathy.

"We are sorry Angel, we went too far," George says as he pulls you into his arms. You don't resist, more than happy by their attempts of apology. "We didn't really think about it and we'll try better next time. We promise that we'll never ignore you or put you second again, you're everything to us."

"I think it's been ripped off," Fred murmurs from behind you, still clutching his groin as he walks slowly into the dorm, closing the door with a flick of his wand.

Ignoring his twin completely, George smiles down at you, hand reaching up for your chin to keep your attention on him.

"Can we still call you our girl?"

You smile back up at him and nod, feeling better in his arms than you had all week.

"Don't go missing on us again," he says, "you're ours remember." He leans down to kiss you, hands simultaneously wandering and holding you tightly to his body.

"I'm never going to get hard again. It's done for, I'm ruined for life."

You realised almost as soon as their next big idea struck that long term consequences were just not a consideration for George and Fred, though this time you were neither angry nor upset. You'd realised somewhere along the way that the last thing the twins needed was someone else picking them apart, playing on their faults and trying to teach them a lesson of conformity. What they really needed was understanding and support of their future business and an occasional redirection for their more wild attempts. Though of course the main lesson had been learnt and then did now consider how their pranks and stunts would affect someone else, which was a big step (Ron didn't count in that agreement apparently).

So when the twins were mercilessly flung back from the Triwizard cup, landing on the stone floor with a great thud and immediately began spouting big white bushy beards, hair and eyebrows, you laughed along with everyone else. You were doubled over with laughter as they rolled on the floor squabbling about the consequences of the ageing potion and whose fault it was, knowing yourself that they were equally as guilty. They laughed along with the crowd who were in hysterics and when Fred caught your eye, seeing you with tears of laughter streaming down your face, he only laughed harder.

"Well, What do you think?" Fred smirks, running his hand through his white beard that could rival Dumbledore. Your vision was blurry with your tears of laughter, only made worse when he gets close to you, the ridiculousness of his appearance even more absurd up-close.

"I think you're an idiot," you say with a smile, holding back a wheeze.

"Come on baby, you're telling me this does nothing for you?" He says, trying to reach out for you and wiggling his ridiculous eyebrows at you suggestively.

"Not unless you're holding a sack and giving out presents... don't!"

He bursts with fresh laughter at your words, followed by another boom of laughter when George comes up behind you and attempts to kiss your cheek, the white bushy beard feeling awful against your cheek. You squirm out of their holds, completely disgusted at the thought of kissing them whilst they looked like that.

"I'm hurt, injured, I'll never recover, my girl swerving from my kisses!" George says dramatically, raising his hand to his forehead as if he's ready to faint from the hurt. You simply roll your eyes with a smirk on your face.

"Turn back ginger and you can have all the kisses you want," you say towards George who is still trying to cuddle up behind you despite your mocking attempts to bat him away. He chuckles in your ear and suddenly reaches out to press a wet, sloppy kiss to your cheek before running away with a boyish laugh. You grimace playfully, wiping the spit away from your cheek as you attempt to recover from the feel of his beard ghosting your skin.

"But it's like a view into the future," Fred adds, gesturing as his white hair.

"Then I want to break up."

"Can I at least keep the beard?"

"Madame Pomfrey now... then come find me later," you say suggestively, reaching and stroking his tie, making his eyes widen in excitement.

Immediately he runs off towards his twin, finding it easier than ever to spot him amongst the crowd as you try and locate someone else amongst the crowd.

"Boys!" You shout, earning their attention straight away as they pause, turning to you with curious looks on their faces just as they are about to exit the hall.

There's a blinding flash and they squint at the sudden brightness as you thank the boy beside you, gratefully accepting the Polaroid that Colin had snapped for you. Your laugh echoes around the hall as the moving picture develops, seeing their surprised faces, wide eyes and wild beards captured eternally on the film.

"One for the wedding album," you smirk, shooting them a wink as you place the photo in the pocket of your robes, still laughing as you walk away.

-♡-

"You know, I really like your hair long like this," you say to George later on that night in the privacy of their dormitory. Lee had been unceremoniously shipped off the second the twins had arrived back from the hospital wing looking 100 years younger and back to their gorgeous ginger selves.

"Why's that baby?" George mumbles as he kisses the skin of your thighs, adding to the fire that threatened to consume you. You smirked, reaching out for his soft shaggy hair, running your fingers through the long beautiful strands of fire red hair before giving a gentle tug as you move him closer to your weeping core.

"Better for steering," you smirk, biting your lip as you give him your most seductive smile. You're instantly rewarded with a chuckle from the very naked twin behind you and secondly with a deliciously arousing swipe of George's tongue through your folds, the tip of his tongue deliberately catches your aching clit making you gasp out his name and throw your head back onto Fred's shoulder behind you.

"So you don't like older men then princess?" Fred teases as his hands reach out to cup your heaving breasts, his thumbs gliding over your hardened nipples at the very same time that George's lips suck on your clit perfectly.

"Just you two," you manage to gasp out as your hips rise for George, keeping your fingers firmly embedded within his hair, thinking of how incredibly lucky you were to be in this opposition, dealing with the consequences of your actions.

[qqueenofhades]

I may very well be getting too far ahead of myself here, but reading your last two (back to back, hot diggity damn, queen!) essays got me thinking about the future. In the beautiful possible future where we keep up the fight, elect Kamala, and keep Trump out of office for another 4 years, do you think there's a real possibility we'll be seeing the same election (Kamala vs Trump) in 2028?

I hear the arguments against the possibility - he's old and unhealthy so he'll probably die (not counting in it), the Republicans cannot be stupid enough to try again (they can), his fragile ego will be too broken to try again (his ego disconnected from reality long, long ago), he'll be in jail (unlikely with this Supreme Court, and hilariously we have no laws preventing someone in jail from running), but even the sum total of them doesn't seem like enough to count him out.

Mind you, if he does run against Kamala in 2028, I feel like the odds would be on our side? I'm just. So. Tired of this guy. I'll keep fighting till the day I die, but it'd be nice if we could actually see this dude go down and take on the next one.

We honestly have a good shot to shut ourselves of Trump forever at this election, because of the simple fact that he is in rapid dementia decline and I honestly don't think he'll be remotely sane in another 4 years. Not that he's sane now, but at age 82 after another four years of associated legal troubles and/or penalties complete with his rapidly unraveling mental state... I just don't think it will be possible even for the withered husk of the GOP to trot him out again, and I say that as someone who always unfortunately knew he would be the nominee again in 2024 despite some overly optimistic prognostications to the contrary by others. As I've said before, this is the last-chance saloon for Trump in any number of ways, and that is part of the reason he is so desperate now.

We can't count on the legal system to rid us of Trump before the election, but the delayed sentencing in his NY felony trial is coming a couple weeks afterwards, the Jan 6th trial has restarted, and the 11th Circuit is fairly likely to reinstate the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. Trump running for president is a convenient grift to pay his legal bills, and if he gets crushed in November, even the most faithful MAGA diehard are going to find it hard to keep coughing up for his various fundraising appeals. I mean sure, he'll get something, because some of the cult members will be in it to the bitter end, but overall, he will be fucked. On many, many levels.

This is the delightful vision that is fueling me and frankly should fuel all of us, so yes. Vote. Remove stubborn orange stains, once and possibly fucking finally for all. Please.

[hedgiwithapen]

Leverage: the trampoline job

(Sometimes the titles of these jobs is literal, and sometimes it’s a metaphor… this is the latter. AU of the Big Bang Job!) “There’s just one problem,” Moreau said, the tip of his polished shoe pressed against Hardison’s chair. “I don’t believe you.”

He kicked, sending the chair backwards into the pool with a splash. Eliot kept his face blank, a grift to make even Sophie proud.

“Eliot, you really think I’m that stupid? That I didn’t look for you after you ran?” Moreau chided. “In Serbia two years ago, at that orphanage…Moscow last fall. So I may not know exactly the game you’re playing, but I know you’re no middleman.”

Eliot’s throat tightened. This was why he’d brought Hardison, not Sophie. His plans burned, one after another till he got to L. 

“That’s Alec Hardison,” he said. “And if you’ve ever believed anything I’ve told you, believe that you want him alive.”

He jumped into the water, hoping the intrigue would be enough to stay Chapman’s trigger finger and still expecting a bullet in his back. 

Hardison was sputtering when he got him above water, choking on the chlorine. Eliot dragged him to the side of the pool, using the ladder for leverage to boost Hardison and the chair both out before clambering up himself, keeping in front of his friend. 

"I'm listening," Moreau said. "walk me through why, exactly, I shouldn't let my man here kill you both."

"Eliot," Hardison warned.  Eliot ignored him.

"If you know what I've been up to, you know who he is." He kept his voice even. An act, but one he'd perfected. 

"A hacker," Moreau dismissed. "But one you'd die for."

"Not just a hacker," Eliot said, ignoring the back half of the statement and hating how easily Moreau read it. "The best."

He could feel Hardison behind him, pride and confusion at war. He pressed on. 

"Vector's out, and he was never much of a player. Keller's gone.  They can't hide your money, can't move it either. Hardison can move it like a kid moves checkers on a board. Not a chance anyone catches on, if he's working for you.  You won't have to pay out in bribes, either.  You want him."

"And He came here looking for a job?" Moreau asked. "I find that hard to believe, too."

"He'll do it." Eliot said. The bitter sharpness in his voice isn't all for show. "He's a geek. Half of what he cares about is proving he can do it. The other half is staying alive. He's not stupid. He knows what you can do."

"Yeah, I'm learning all kinds of new things today, traitor," Hardison spit. 

Eliot took the barb like the blow it was.

"Well. Color me intrigued, then." Moreau's smile curdled Eliot's blood, but there wasn't anything for it.  This was why he brought Hardison.

There was always a chance things broke down, and Hardison was the one he could keep alive. Chapman grabbed the back of the chair, dragging it and Hardison through the door the models went through. “Let’s chat logistics,” Moreau said. Eliot eased his heart rate, trying not to picture the look on Hardison’s face. Fury and… god. Heartbreak. There wasn’t another word for it. “Let’s,” he agreed, like it was the easiest thing in the world to say, and not poison in his mouth. 

The team always recovered, bounced back, like Parker on a trampoline. They figured out a new plan, a new trick, something last-ditch and crazy. They'll manage it. Hardison's the one they can get back. 

[aysathenotsogreat]

hbomberguy posted a video and i have opinions about it

i never made the active choice to stop watching James Somerton's content but when i stopped having a job that'd let me listen to videos for hours straight, I slowly became interested in other creators. i remember finding a couple of his videos contradictory in their analysis and do remember being annoyed by the "white women/teenager girls" comments a lot. oh yeah and that TELOS PICTURES ALWAYS REEKED OF A SCAM. Hearing James describe himself as a business major first in the pitch video weirded me the hell out. I feel like not enough people are talking about this particular part of the story but the man crowdfunded $60k USD and has produced nothing but stock image posters in return after years.

this man saw his community as nothing but to steal from and profit off of and clearly sees himself above those voices he robs. the point in the video that broke me was right in the beginning in the james half was the Mulan section. the tactic of erasing Jes Tom's words and passing it off as a personal observation of the community instantly reminded me of all the times James has confidently talked on the experiences of trans, nb and all queer people of color throughout his career and the fucking similarity of the language. that moment made me pause and scream. it instantly put into scale that this wasn't just one of the first video essays he'd ever made, it was EVERYTHING.

I want to pretend the queer media I see is made from a place of genuine care of the community, all of us do. but we as a collective need to stop catering to the consumption of content sludge. we need to be more critical and more aware. any time james mispronounced a character or place's name, i would always brush it off as a bad voice take kept in because of the videos' length that wasn't fixed in production. no, that was because james didn't care enough to learn the principle facts of the topics he was covering. (him spelling "shonan" in that AoT script made lose it). he wanted our ad revenue and your patreon money and by stealing the work of actually talented queer people, he basically won.

hbomberguy, lovely chaos bisexual, did a service to our community by making sure millenial and zoomer queers will never let this mf try to grift his way into the entertainment industry again. i have more to say about this video, especially illuminaughii bc she's an especially abusive and toxic person who i also watched a fuck ton at my old job. i certainly need be a bit better about where i get my info from, especially if i'm going to be repeating it to someone else. in the age of tiktok and the speed of misinfo there being insane, i just beg us young queers to think a bit more critically before we post.

[scarletttries]

What One Piece Characters Are Like With A Reader With Walking Sticks...

Request: "So... I was thinking, how about headcanons of the straw hats with a S/O who has a disability with their feet and use walk sticks to move around freely but they can use their walk sticks as their weapons too! I would truly appreciate it if you could add Buggy the Clown and Dracule Mihawk in the headcanons too, thank you."

Pairings: Luffy x Reader, Zoro x Reader, Nami x Reader, Sanji x Reader, Usopp x Reader, Buggy x Reader, Dracule x Reader

Luffy:

- Luffy sees every characteristic about a person as an unending strength and advantage and your disability would be no different. Luffy wouldn't even have to see you fight before he begged you to join his crew, being able to see just how special you are in a way unkind people tend to overlook.

- The first time he sees you use your sticks as a weapon, that might be when Luffy really falls in love, cheering and screaming at the top of his lungs as you take down the enemies pursuing the pair of you and pulling you straight in for a kiss the minute you two are alone.

- Luffy treats you with the saming loving exuberance he does his whole crew, but somehow dialled up by a thousand since you have his whole heart. His beaming smile follows you everywhere you go, and he always feels safe and at home with you by his side.

Zoro:

- When Zoro first accepted the bounty for your capture, he had to admit he thought the price might be a little too generous. He followed you for the better part of a day, sure from the kindness you radiate that he could almost just ask you to come with him and you'd do it with a smile. And then he saw the way you easily fought off two other hunters who had come to take you in, watching the whole encounter with a smirk on his face as he realised no price would be enough for your capture.

- Instead, Zoro introduced himself to you that evening, coming clean about why he had come to find you, and hoping you would take mercy on him and let him buy you a drink anyway. Luckily he had been right about your kindness and you hooked the nearest bar stool with your crutch and dragged it close enough for the pair of you to sit knee to knee for the rest of the night.

- After a night of swapping stories and weapon handling tips, Zoro is infatuated, knowing he's found an equal partner and fellow free spirit he could explore the world with free of worries. You two are famed for taking on the most difficult bounties, never backing down from a fight, and rarely keeping your hands off each other.

Nami:

- Nami has spent so much of her life being wildly underestimated that she recognises a dark horse when she sees one. She's trying to pull a grift in a bar inside a military base, but can't get a word in edgeways with every cadet tripping over themselves to help you; fetching you drinks, offering out their arm every time you want to change seat, trying to one up each others brave stories as you applaud their efforts. Only Nami sees your true capabilities as you take keys from their pockets as they settle beside you, or make an obvious mental note of their name to use later. As the night descends into star speckled darkness she follows you back to your boat, determined to find out your plan and not paying enough attention as she rounds a corner and trips straight over your outstretched walking stick.

- Laid out on her back as you smile down proudly at her, she can feel her stomach do a flip. She never wanted a partner in crime before tonight, but when you extend out your hand she can feel herself drawn to you and the possibilities the two of you could get into together.

- She happily accepts the hand you offer and in return gives you her unwavering loyalty, the two of you becoming the unexpected family you had both always been seeking.

Sanji:

- Bless poor pathetic Sanji, he truly does not know how to handle himself around you. His heart is so immediately head over heels that he wants to treat you like the undeniably precious gem that you are, even when you can look after yourself far better than he's ever looked after himself.

- Deep down he knows you can handle yourself, and that he never has to worry, but dear god does he love you so much that he's going to worry anyway. He's going to offer you a piggyback whenever you have to walk more than a few steps. He's going to sprint ahead of you and pull out a chair even though he's more likely to fall over than you are. And you better believe he's going to constantly fear that you're not eating enough and he needs to feed you right now.

- Sanji is truly captivated by everything you do, and when he sees you fight, that man just drops to his knees in worship of your strength and skill. Honestly Sanji would fall to his knees and beg for your affections and company any time you asked, so completely devoted to you and your happiness, even if he's not always showing it in the most helpful way.

Usopp:

- Usopp can hardly believe how cool you are when he sees you fighting off fellow pirates with your walking sticks. Before the battle is even over he's narrating your incredible skills and the badass way you defend yourself when your enemies underestimate you. By the time all your foes are on the ground he is bounding over to you with a beaming smile on his face and his hand stretched out to shake yours.

- Usopp has always struggled to be brave, but somehow being around you finally brings out the best in him. He finds himself more willing to lead the pack, to step up and be his own captain, wanting more than anything to make you feel proud of him.

- Usopp will never not think you're too cool for him, but he's so grateful and excited the first time you kiss him that he practically sprints off to tell Luffy the good news, leaving you stood blushing as he shouts with joy that he feels like the luckiest guy in the world.

Buggy:

- Buggy knows how much strength it takes for someone to turn a disability into a personal advantage so you know he really truly appreciates you for exactly who you are. He likes to keep you very close, not for some outdated feeling of protection, but because he genuinely values your insights on all the decisions he faces as a captain.

- Buggy isn't afraid to put his hands on you, lifting you onto his pirate throne or pulling you suddenly into his private captain's quarters to steal a moment of your time. He's impatient when it comes to spending time with you, a hollow feeling creeping up inside of him whenever you have to be seperated.

- If you're ever feeling tired or worn out, Buggy will happily leave an arm wrapped around your waist to guide you with his intense strength, grateful for his strange gift if it means he can support you wherever you are.

Dracule:

- It's not often anyone manages to land a hit on the world's greatest swordsman, but that's exactly what you do when he inadvertently sneaks up behind you in a winding village street. Instincts taking over you catch him off guard and sweep his leg with your stick, sending him tumbling to the ground with an absolutely awestruck look on his face. Naturally you apologise as you realise he wasn't actually sneaking up on you, but by then the damage is done and Dracule is head over heels physically and emotionally.

- He insists on apologising himself but only so he can offer to make it up to you by buying you dinner tonight, immediately overwhelmed with feelings for you and desperate not to be parted from you so soon.

- He's so easy to talk to, a life spent roaming alone rarely letting Mihawk connect with anyone like this, and when the night draws to a close he's sure he'd die happy if he never spent one more night away from you.

[timeslugarts]

So I really just wanted to draw Vera and talk a little bit about her.

Also I’m working on all the things, I promise. All the requests, part 3 of the Vera x Vox comic, and more 💖

Vera aka the Spitfire Demon

She runs almost purely on rumors alone, no one knows who the “Spitfire demon” actually is, but chances are they’ve heard a rumor or two. Which might not even be true, she’s just that elusive.

The burning flames that can always be seen around her are the souls that she owns, they were made with contracts however it was in a very dire situation. Each of these five souls were a friend that Vera had and moments before they were exercised she managed to make a deal with them to save their souls. Now they’re her little friends that always hang around. They have a bit of a mind of their own and can and will set you on fire. They are EXTREMELY hot. If they like you though, you can touch them.

When she was alive she was 100% a grifter, getting rich husbands that would mysteriously disappear, it wasn’t until her last husband caught her stealing that he set the house with her in it on fire and made off with the insurance money.

Her and Vox’s relationship starts off with her doing her original grift, but it slowly evolves to something more mutually beneficial. Eventually the two catch feelings for each other, much to the dismay of Valentino who has been dying to put her in one of his movies. Vera and Velvette get along well enough, enjoying sleepovers and making fun of the boys.

I love this girl very much! I want to put her in ALL the outfits!

[recurring-polynya]

Bleach Returns 2024 - Day 7 - Aftermath

This was the first thing I started for Bleach Returns 2024, and the last thing I finished. For theme weeks like this, it's always nice to have ideas that can fit under more than one of the prompts, in case you have to switch it around. This one could just as well have ended up under "Unlikely Pairs" -- they day I turned out to have skipped, but I needed the extra time, and I think it fits better as an "Aftermath" story anyway.

In any case, I have held the belief in my heart for ages that a truly underrated part of the Blood War was the fact that out of everyone in the Gotei, the only two people that got to see Komamura's wolf-man form were Iba and Hinamori, and I wanted to know if they ever talked about it later. I accidentally wrote it in the present tense, so it came out about a thousand times more melancholy than I intended it to be, but I'm actually pretty happy with how it came out. Consider this my Komamura Tribute Fic: you were a real one, sir, and for, like, 30 seconds you were a total smokeshow. Somehow I doubt you truly gave up your heart for good.

Rated T for one mild curse and endorsing lying to your boss | read on ao3 |

---

"Why are you asking me?" Rukia frowns. "Renji is a perfectly adequate liar." And your friend, she doesn't add.

Hinamori has an answer for this. She would have preferred to ask Renji, too. "He's too nice," she explains. "I know that I'm really bad at this, and he'll tell me I'm fine when I'm not. This is important. I need to do it right."

Rukia screws up her face and for a moment, Hinamori worries that she feels insulted, either on her own or on Renji's behalf. It's usually pretty rude to come up to a person and ask for their help in crafting a convincing fib. Hinamori knows Renji well enough-- she knows Rukia well enough now-- to expect that it would be taken as a compliment. But maybe not.

Rukia huffs. "You're right," she grumbles. "He's always been like that." She sighs expansively. "But if he were capable of running a team grift on his own, we never would have met, so I suppose I can't complain." And without any further preamble, she launces into a dissertation on the theory and practice of lying.

Hinamori blinks as she tries to take it in. There are fundamental precepts. There are classic techniques. There is ontology. There are hand-movements and eyebrow wagging. Hinamori should have brought a notebook, not that she could manage to get it all down. A lot of what Rukia says sounds like something Renji would say, but with far more conviction. He always used to say that he learned most of his chicanery from Rukia, and for the first time, Hinamori starts to believe it.

Rukia stops abruptly in the middle of an illustrative anecdote that has something to do with Kurosaki Ichigo's gym teacher. "What, exactly is the falsehood you need to fabricate?"

Hinamori tells her.

Rukia squirms for a moment. Momo realizes that she doesn't know if Rukia was asked to testify at any inquiries regarding her own captain. She wonders if she should have asked Renji after all.

"Look," says Rukia, in a way that is somehow simultaneously gruff and delicate, "Hinamori." She clears her throat. "I know it's extra weird because he's the Captain-Commander now, but you can just lie to Captain Kyouraku. It doesn't have to be convincing. He will ask you the question and you can say what you need to say and he'll write it in the official report. Whether or not he believes you is unimportant. He wants you to lie."

"I know," says Hinamori. "But I don't want it to just be a nod and a wink. Captain Komamura wouldn't have liked that. He was a good captain and a kind soul. Iba told me that he often tried to help people save face. I want to do a good job on my lie, for him. For Iba, too."

Rukia's brows furrow. She sets her jaw. "Your heart is very big, Hinamori," she says. "There are special techniques for lying with your entire heart. I will teach them to you."

"Thank you, Kuchiki-san," says Hinamori.

---

"Shortly after I became his lieutenant," Iba says, facing forward, standing at his fullest height, "my captain informed me that, in the case of his death, he had arranged a special exemption from the standard funeral rites for Gotei captains. He said that, if it was within my power, I should make sure his body was returned to his people."

"That is correct," the Head-Captain agrees. "Werewolves have a different path through the resurrection cycle than we do."

It takes Iba a moment before he is able to continue, but when he does, his voice is steady. He speaks in the cadence of a Lieutenant Delivering a Report. They can all do it. They all do do it. Momo does not remember anyone ever teaching her how. It just comes with the job. Iba's voice is naturally a little froggy, which Momo has noticed before, but it's even more evident when he is forgoing his usual tough guy turns of phrase.

Iba describes the damage sustained by his captain's bankai during the battle with Sternritter E. He makes a remark for the record about the unique relationship between Captain Komamura and his bankai. In this case, Iba says, the damage was more than Komamura could heal, would ever be able to heal. Iba states that by dismissing his bankai, Captain Komamura was able to eke out a few more hours of his life, but that his end was inevitable. This is why Iba and his captain did not regroup with everyone else, and why they declined medical assistance. Iba fought Soldat with his captain until the bitter, bloody end. At that time, zombies had begun to appear on the battlefield, and Iba felt it vital to deliver the body of his captain to the werewolf clan as soon as possible, so that it did not fall into enemy hands. That is why there is no corpse. "But my captain died honorably, in battle," Iba concludes. "I was there when he fell."

It takes some time for Head-Captain Kyouraku to finish up his note-taking. Lieutenant Ise is faster at transcription, Momo thinks, but she is not here. There is so much to do these days. She must be busy with something else.

Kyouraku's eyes scan quickly over his notes. "Thank you, Lieutenant Iba," he says. "Very complete. I don't think I have any further questions."

"If you think of anything later, please don't hesitate to ask, sir," Iba replies.

Kyouraku turns his gaze to Momo. "I understand you are able to corroborate portions of this, Lieutenant Hinamori?"

Momo straightens her spine and clears her throat.

You are telling a story, Rukia reminds her. Parts of that story are true and parts of it are not. Start with the parts that are true.

Hinamori tells the story of fighting her way through the Soldat-flooded city, trying to rejoin her captain. It is their practice to maintain distance when he is using his zanpakutou, but she likes to be within shouting distance. In case he needs her. She talks about seeing the columns of light and feeling the burst of strange, acidic reiatsu as the Quincy unleashed their Voll Stern Dich. She does not mention the way her feet were already moving even before she felt her captain's reiatsu plummet.

One of the things that makes you a bad storyteller, Hinamori, is that you always needs to add in extra detail, even when it doesn't add to the story, even when it makes you not look great. Especially when it makes you not look great. It's like you're always afraid of people thinking you are lying, so you want to lay everything out there up front.

This is still the part that is true, and Rukia said it was important to build up some momentum, so Himamori allows herself the indulgence of being a bad storyteller. If I tell the true parts poorly, she reasons, the lies will be less obvious.

"When Captain Hirako was injured, I made a poor decision. I wanted to save my captain. I thought I could get the drop on Sternritter E. I thought I could fight her fire with mine." Hinamori swallows. "Captain Komamura saved me. I know he wanted to go on and fight Yhwach, but he stayed back to protect me and my captain. I know it's not really relevant to this inquiry, but I would like it added to record anyway, if possible."

"Captain Komamura was always looking out for others on the battlefield," Head-Captain Kyouraku murmurs as his brush makes soft swishing noises over the paper. "I've made a note. Please continue, Lieutenant."

It's not a lie to not say something. It's just editing. Hinamori had wanted to tell Kuchiki the thing, the thing she had to edit out, but Kuchiki didn't want to hear it. Kuchiki had, in fact, put her hands over her ears and sang "LA LA LA LAAAA" until Hinamori gave up. It had been a little bit rude, in Hinamori's opinion. You want to tell me because it feels like a secret, Kuchiki had scolded. It's not a secret. It's extraneous information. Throw it in the trash. Burn it to a crisp. Forget about it forever.

It sure feels like a secret, the thing she had seen. She tries not to think about it, afraid that if she does, it will leave a hole in her story the size of a werewolf and the shape of a man. Instead, Hinamori continues. "Captain Komamura ordered me to take Captain Hirako and leave. I wanted to stay. I wanted to help. But I had seen her explosions, and I knew he needed the space. He went to bankai as I left."

"You didn't actually see them fight, then," Head-Captain Kyouraku surmises.

"Captain Komamura's bankai is--was--very large," Hinamori states the obvious. "As I left, I could see it taking explosion after explosion. I could hear and feel the bombs. They were deafening. I shouldn't have, but when they stopped, I… I looked back. I saw Captain Komamura's bankai crumble to pieces. It did not seem like a thing that would be possible to survive."

"Indeed," agrees the Head-Captain. "A great loss for the Gotei."

"Agreed, sir."

Iba draws in a long breath, but says nothing.

"Anything else, Lieutenant Hinamori?"

"No, sir. That is all."

"Captain Hirako has declined to give testimony. He said he didn't think he had anything to add."

"Probably not, sir. He was unconscious for most of it."

Kyouraku nods as he finishes writing. He puts his brush in the holder, and folds his hands. "Thank you both. I'm sorry we had to go through all this procedure for something so simple as a death in battle, but he was a captain, after all. Usually, the Central 46 would hold a hearing, but I think this--" he pats his stack of paper-- "should suffice."

She has done it. It's over. Kuchiki was right. It was barely a lie. It was a careful arrangement of true things. Hinamori feels like she has run a thousand miles and bench-pressed the Soukyoku. She wants to throw up. She wants to go to sleep for a million years.

"It was an honor to serve under him," Iba says.

Hinamori has no regrets.

---

Okay, it turns out that Hinamori does have regrets. Not about the statement. She receives a short note from the Captain Commander several days later informing her that the ruling of "Killed in Action" has been accepted, and thanking her again.

She wishes she had said more to Iba.

Hinamori is very busy these days. There have been three wartime actions in the last two years, and for once, Hinamori has come through relatively unscathed. She wants to make the most of this by helping everyone she can. She and Captain Hirako take on paperwork from the Tenth while its leadership needs extra treatment to purge out the last after-effects of the zombification. It's only fair. Hitsugaya has done enough of the Fifth's paperwork. She goes to PT with her Third Seat, who ended the war with a pair of prosthetic legs. She volunteers once a week at the Pop-Up Mess Hall the Ninth has been running to help out the squads whose facilities were destroyed, or who simply can't spare the manpower (also, the Ninth has a lot of talented cooks, and it's as good an opportunity to socialize as you can get these days). She tries to make time for all her friends, but especially the ones who are injured or grieving or overworked.

Hinamori is friendly with Iba, but she's not sure they are friends. He's not quite part of the close-knit core of the lieutenants that she hangs out with. He has his own friends, she's sure. He's pals with Abarai (who isn't?) and Madarame, who finally showed up to a lieutenant's meeting this week, even if he did so with a facial expression like he'd just drank a glass of slugs. Hinamori just isn't sure…well, it's not that those guys aren't sensitive to each other's feelings--scratch that, Madarame is definitely not sensitive to people's feelings--but Hinamori can't help but wondering if anyone has extended Iba any sympathy that didn't come the form of a moment of manly, stoic shared silence or possibly a punch on the shoulder.

Hinamori intends to swing by the Seventh shortly before the end of the work day. She isn't sure how this is going to go, and she wants to leave her options open. Her plans are derailed slightly when, on her way out of the door, she runs into Ise with a pile of new forms and feeling chatty to boot. By the time Hinamori walks into the Seventh's administrative building, it is half an hour past quitting time. The hallways are already pretty empty, and even as she knocks on Iba's door, Hinamori resigns herself to trying again tomorrow. "Lieutenant Iba?" she calls tentatively. "It's Lieutenant Hinamori. Are you in?"

"Ah, yes! Come in!" Iba's gravelly voice calls back.

Hinamori slides the door open and steps through. Iba is hunched over some paperwork. "Sorry!" he says. "Just a moment! I'm trying to finish up--there!" He looks up. "What can I do for you, Lieutenant Hinamori?"

For a long, long moment, Hinamori stares at him.

Iba has brown eyes. He blinks them once, then suddenly scrabbles around on his desk, shoves over a pile of forms that looks suspiciously like the one Ise just foisted on her, grabs his sunglasses, and crams them on his face. "Sorry!" he croaks. "Sorry!"

"No, no!" Hinamori waves a hand frantically. "It was my fault! I didn't-- I didn't see anything!" Her stomach clenches. Why is she always seeing things she isn't supposed to see? She looks away, frantically, and her eyes land on the floor next to Iba's desk. There is a pillow there, and on the pillow, a handsome dog regards her judgmentally. "Oh!" she says. "Hello, Goro!"

Iba clears his throat. "He's, uh. I don't keep him in here all day. He just had his dinner, and I'm going to take him for his walk as soon as I…" He looks at his stack of papers and then looks at Hinamori. "I'm sorry, what did you need? Are those more new forms?"

Goro puts his chin on his paws and sighs.

Hinamori looks down at the pile of paper nestled in the crook of her arm. "This?" she says, trying to get her thoughts together. "Oh! Right! No, no new forms! I got some flyers printed up for my weekly meditation circle! Do you remember, I mentioned it at the last lieutenants' meeting?"

"Oh…oh, yeah," Iba manages. "Yeah, that's not really my…"

"For your squad," Hinamori emphasizes. "I was hoping you might be able to post them in a common area. Or you could hand them out to anyone in particular you thought might benefit. Everyone's working so hard and dealing with so much right now. It can be, well, sort of a subtle way to suggest that someone takes a little break. I got a little stipend from the Fourth, so we have snacks afterward, now!"

Iba nods. He obviously does not need even one more thing to think about. "Ah, okay! Yeah, great idea! Thanks, Lieutenant Hinamori."

Hinamori slides the stack of flyers onto an extra table that Iba has pulled up next to his desk, apparently for increasing its paperwork-holding capacity. "You can have someone deal with these tomorrow," she says gently. She kneels down to scratch Goro's head. "Are you doing all right, Iba-san?"

Iba misinterprets her and immediately begins to bluster. "All of this looks much worse than it is! I'm getting the important stuff done! Ask anyone in Squad Seven--who have been champs, by the way! You see how empty this place is? It's because I make everyone go home on time, that's why! They'd be working night and day if I didn't make them take a rest. Maybe I'll send the whole lot over to your meditation whatsit!"

"That's not what I meant," Hinamori cuts him off. Unlike the Head-Captain's office, this is a place where she doesn't need to be parsimonious with the truth, so she goes on to say, "I only brought those flyers over as an excuse to come see how you were doing. You must miss him so much, and you can't even talk to anyone about the way it really happened."

Iba's mouth opens as he starts to say something, but then he closes it again. "I do," he says finally. He jerks his head towards an extra chair sitting along one wall. "You wanna pull up a seat?"

Hinamori does so. "Have you…heard anything?" She knows that Captain Komamura is still alive because Iba told her when he came to ask her to testify at the hearing. When he came to ask her if she would help him tell the story the way Captain Komamura would prefer it to be told. All the same, she is wants to let Iba be the one to say it out loud first.

"Ah, one of his relatives is a regular at the weekly market outside the eastern gate. There was a letter." Iba is silent for a moment. "He's healed up from his war wounds. He says there are some faces he's glad to see again." Iba reaches down to scratch Goro around the ears. "The cousin, he sells mushrooms, actually, really good mushrooms, I guess they sniff them out of the woods or something. Anyway, he says that, ah, well… they're happy to have him home."

Hinamori feels sadness settle on her chest like a stone. She barely knew Captain Komamura at all, but she knows he must have overcome so much in order to join the Gotei, in order to live in the city. She loves Junrinan, and yet she remembers feeling the cold terror that she might be sent back there after…when it seemed unclear whether she could still be a shinigami. "I'm sure it will be an adjustment," she says slowly. She wishes she could think of something else to say.

Iba regards her for a long time. "You get it," he says. "I can tell." He groans and leans back in his chair. "Aaah, Hinamori, you're right! It's been agonizing not bein' about to say anything! Everyone thinks I'm sad 'cause he's dead, and I gotta pretend that's true, but I'm actually sad 'cause all I can think about is his wolf-mom given' him a bunch of grief about wastin' his time on shinigami shit!"

"Does he have a wolf-mom?" HInamori asks, suddenly curious.

"Hell if I know! He never talked about werewolf stuff, so I've just been coming up with stuff in my head. I'm sure it's all wrong."

"I feel like if he has a wolf-mother, he would love her very much," Hinamori said. "He seemed like that type."

"You're right, Lieutenant Hinamori," Iba said, wagging a finger at her. "You're absolutely right." He cleared his throat. "While you're here. Listenin'. Well--there's something I been wanting to say so bad I feel like I'm gonna explode sometimes. You, ah, don't mind, do you?

"Of course not," Hinamori agrees. "Go ahead."

Iba leans forward, crumpling some of his paperwork. One side of his mouth curls up into a boyish grin. Goro looks up, curious. "He was awesome, there at the end, wasn't he?"

"Oh," says Hinamori, "oh, my, yes."

"For the length of that fight, he was immortal. Untouchable."

"I will never forget how I felt when I saw his bankai," Hinamori blurts out. "It gave me shivers."

"I know! It was absolutely incredible. I've--I've been working on my own bankai and I just…it's never going to be that."

Hinamori tilts her head to one side. "It might be," she says.

Iba frowns thoughtfully. "He gave me something to shoot for, for sure. What a captain he was!"

"Mm," Hinamori nods, thinking about captains she has loved.

Iba looks away for a moment, then looks back. "Hinamori, I gotta ask. You saw my captain. In his human form."

Hinamori is momentarily shocked to hear the secret thing, said out loud and in such a casual way. "Yes," she says eagerly.

"He was…he was, like, better than average on the looks scale, right? I'm not…I'm into ladies, you know, I'm not much of a judge of that kind stuff. But, like. Wow."

"Oh, yes," Hinamori, who is generally very circumspect when offering opinions on other people's look. "He was--well, that's not really my type either but--" She clears her throat primly. "Whew!"

"Whew!" Iba agrees.

Goro whines and puts his paws over his nose. Iba laughs, the kind of big hearty one that comes from getting something off your chest. "I know I've already taken up too much of your time, Hinamori, but, uh…I don't spose you'd like to help me take this guy on his walk?"

Hinamori smiles. "I'd love that."

[the-bar-sinister]

The One Piece universe is, by and large, extremely hostile to, and hazardous to children. Basically every character we see as a child has had to raise themselves and act as an adult from a very young age. And because of that, I feel that it's really unfair to judge the teenage characters of One Piece as "children."

By the time we meet them at the beginning of the story in the East Blue saga, none of them are kids. That is to say, none of them have been living like children. They've been living, for the most part, as independent adults for years.

Nami (19) has been working for a villainous pirate gang for the last 10 years of her life, which, at least in recent times has involved going out sailing by herself, and grifting and stealing and generally living by her wits. She hasn't had an adult figure taking care of her since she was little when her mother figure died in front of her.

Zoro (19) has been making his living as a bounty hunter when we meet him in the series. We don't know how long he's been doing this, but it's not implied to be a short time. We also see him as a child completely without parents, showing up by himself to a martial arts temple. Zoro has been making his own way for a long time.

Sanji (19) we do admittedly meet while he's working for his father figure, and thus, we could say he has a little less life experience. On the other hand he's been working in professional kitchens since he was about 10 years old when he ran away from his abusive bio-father. So I'm not exactly inclined to say "Sanji's just a kid" either, especially when he has facial hair and a smoking habit and a 9-5 job.

Usopp (17) you can also make more of a case for "being a kid" except then you remember that he's been orphaned and on his own since he was a small child. We don't see any particular person having raised Usopp, he's just on his own and people in the village consider him a nuisance. 

And then there's Luffy (17). Luffy who was raised in a bar until the age 7, whereupon his child-beating grandfather abandoned him to a bandit clan, and he ran away to live in the woods. Luffy is not a child, he's feral.

Robin? Living on her own from age 10, hunted by the government.

Franky? Abandoned by his parents at age 10 and has held down an actual job ever since.

Yamato? The less said about his upbringing the better. (locked in a cave)

Miss Goldenweek/Marianne is working for a criminal organization at age 16.

Baby 5 was abandoned by her parents as a small child and immediately became a criminal assassin.

Let's not talk about Law's childhood! We can definitively say he's been a pirate on his own since he was 13 though!

Buggy and Shanks have one of the softest childhoods and they were literally raised as violent pirates.

Doflamingo and Rosinante were hunted down and viciously beaten by a mob as ten year old children, whereup one became a gangster and the other joined the military.

Speaking of Doflamingo, did you know the ages of the executives in the flashback when we meet them? Vergo (10) Pica (9) Diamante (15) Trebol (18).

All I'm saying is that the world of One Piece is as openly hostile to "children" as it is to adults, and it's unfair to infantilize people who have been living and working on their own for years due to how we would treat them at their age in our world.

[writtenonreceipts]

Rowaelin Month Day Two: Spies/Heist @rowaelinscourt

Month Masterlist // AO3 Link

Inspired mostly by Leverage but also White Collar

Will be a mix of being set in the US and with Terrasen being a real place bc I can be more lenient with history and art and such this way.  Just go with it.

Summary: She’s a thief with only one thing on her mind: finish the job and move on.  When she’s asked to break into Terrasen’s Museum of Art, Celaena has her doubts.  Mostly because she’d much rather be grifting her way across Europe.  But when she learns what needs stealing?  Well…her schedule clears right up.  Enter the client, a pain in her ass.

Warnings: None, ~3.6k words

.*.*.*.*.

The Too Far Gone Job (Part One)

There was a subtly to her job that no one quite understood.  It wasn’t surprising this day in age, but Celaena was a bit insulted by it all the same.  Too often people were so precocious and proud in themselves that they failed to recognize that beauty was in the details.  Many things took a great deal of care to be done properly.  A brain surgeon didn’t rush in with a scalpel after hardly reading scans.  A gymnast would spend hours and years perfecting that one little twist to bring the perfect flip.

And a thief?  Well, a thief would take her time with understanding every intimate detail of her target before attempting a break-in.  The Mortimer Wyrdlock for example was the best, most secure safe in the world.  Built with seismic sensors as well as heat sensors, biometric scans, and thick, metal that no mere handheld saw could touch—it was suicide to even try and get close.

Celaena always put her faith in the underdog.

Concerto No. 4 in F Minor played through the grand halls of Terrasen’s Museum of Art.  She’d always preferred this concerto to the others mostly for the violin.  For the feeling it evoked for the way it always felt like there was a game afoot, a secret to be held, all with the slow building crescendo.  It was beautiful.  Once, she’d been able to play it on the piano, rather compellingly if she could say so herself.  That was before she’d been ushered into her current lifestyle.

All of the things she loved about the song were only emphasized by the marble and vaulted ceilings of museum.  And even though the song was still just an afterthought to cover the chatter and scuffing feet of the party, Celaena could appreciate all the subtle nuances of the song.  Glorious and powerful.

She weaved through the many bodies meandering about the hall.  Most, if not all, were too consumed with the expensive champagne and caviar floating around them.  It was far too easy to pick a target in all the men (and women) surrounding her.  Especially the senator that was already drunk with his fancy watch hanging out in the open like that.  Of the string of Eyllweian diamonds that another woman wore.  So easy.

But she had a plan.

And it only seemed right that this plan be executed here.  It had been ages since she’d stolen something from this museum.  Twelve years to be exact.  She’d been twelve and pressed to execute a flawless grift. 

The architecture of the building was flawless, truly.  The vaulted ceilings, the tall windows that stretched along the walls to look over the Oakwald Mountains.  It created an atmosphere of elegance and finesse.  It was one of the oldest buildings in all of Terrasen, one of the last remaining from the war. 

Which made it the perfect target.

Celaena fingered her glass of champagne as she moved through the masses of people.  She could have spoken to a few of them, that was what she loved most about a job.  The grift.  The subtle machinations she made to ease a mark into doing what she wanted.  It wasn’t lying and it wasn’t stealing, it was merely encouragement. It helped that most of her marks were bastards and the very thing that was wrong with society.  Usually.  Most of the time she just wanted the shiny things. (Alright so it was lying and it was stealing, but could you really blame her?).

Truth be told, she was just a little distracted by all the beauty surrounding her.  There were the vases from Mesopotamia, the old book of King Brannon, the Darcus blades.  She really wanted to steal those, but it would almost be too easy.  All she needed to do was flirt with the security guard doing a terrible job to blend in with the party.  The poor thing was in a cheap suit and poorly done tie…how had he gotten approved for this job?  It would almost be mean to target him.

Celaena moved through the party with ease, setting her champagne flute on a passing tray, only acknowledging the server with a small nod, the server barely offered a smile.  A strand of Celaena’s red hair fell over her eyes and she flicked it back casually.  Her dress clung to her frame, thin as she was.  She allowed her own confidence to carry her when she felt weak.  Because she was more than capable of this task.  In all her years of the grift, her appearance and the way she interacted with those around her proved to be the surest way to get a job done properly.

So, Celaena wore her too thin frame to her advantage and became what everyone expected: daddies little girl slumming her way through a party. 

She was invisible when she wanted to be which let her slip down an un-manned hall.

The archived vault of the museum often held the more private items.  Those that were not to be displayed without express permissions of certain clients.  Celaena’s target for tonight actually was one such item.

It was far too easy to slip down a service staircase.  She’d gotten her hands on a universal scanner so she could hack various systems with ease.  Usually if she was doing her job right, the mark was opening doors for her.  Unfortunately for her, tonight she needed more finesse and isolation.

Holding the skirt of her dress in one fist, Celaena moved down the stairs.  Her research on the museum told her that most of the below staff would be dismissed for the Gala above.  There would be one historian finishing up cataloging and a security guard to keep them company.  The security guard would have a simple enough rotation, likely only venturing on rounds once every thirty minutes.  This area was even better secured then upstairs, the guard needn’t worry about a thief like her.

Celaena couldn’t help but smirk at the thought.

She wished she could be back upstairs mingling and grifting.  It was what she preferred.  She liked putting on that mask, liked slipping away into another persona, liked pretending she was anything but herself.

As she turned down a one of the halls, she checked the small signal reader she’d stuffed into her bra.  Her comms had remained silent all night, not surprising.  But she’d thought there would have been at least something.

Four steps forward to a small alcove where the old diaries of some old white man were held.  Two breaths.  Duck back out and then left and straight.

The Mortimer Wyrdlock stood before.  The chrome fixtures glinted in the overhead lights leaving the safe looking like something out of any thief’s wet dream.  Elide was going to kill her for this.

“Hello, beautiful,” she murmured.  The safe really was deserving of all sorts of praise.

A soft noise came from the other side of her comms.

“Anything you’d like to add?” she said, keeping her voice low.

Nothing.

Celaena rolled her eyes and approached the safe.  The lovely little beastie practically called her name.

She stayed in her little alcove waiting a beat, two.  Down one of the other halls she heard the subtle conversation of the historian and security guard in one of the labs.  Unsurprising, she’d encouraged a meeting between them last week, prompting a friendship.  A small little hack into their lives revealed them both to be bird enthusiasts.  A little nudge here and there and they were automatic best friends. 

She wished it were that easy for her.  Making friends.  But what could she do?  Tell someone what she really wanted to do was bungee off the Eiffel tower?  Break into the Louvre?  Steal one of Terrasens national treasures?

No one understood her on that level.  Not anymore.

She approached the keypad lock of the safe and set to work. 

Elide had worked a system override into the scanner that Celaena smuggled in with her.  All she needed to do was hook it up to the safe and let the code do the work.  That would take getting a wire into the system.  Something that Celaena wasn’t the most comfortable with.  Maybe she should have tried the flirting and grifting route…but the client had been clear on the way the job should go.  They couldn’t even have a hint of anyone being manipulated and used.  Rude, honestly.  People were used and coerced every day.  Tricking someone into giving her the Ring of Mab didn’t seem so problematic when you really thought about it.

Celaena made contact to the keypad.

Her handheld device ran through a string of numbers and binary as it worked.  Gooseflesh rose on her skin, but that was to be expected.  Before the Gala, Celaena had made sure the heating system when down to alter the heat sensors readings.  It also helped that the sequins of her dress were heat reflective and had been tested to throw off certain sensors.

As she continued to work, Celaena didn’t want to think about how long it had been.  Usually she didn’t have to, but in this case, she was on the clock.

Her fingers flew over the screen as she manipulated the numbers just as Elide had taught her.  It was simple enough, but if she ran into any walls or blocks, Celaena had no idea what she would do.  She knew the basics to get what she needed and wanted on any other job, but the Mortimer?

As her heart pulsed in her throat, Celaena punched in the last sequence she needed.

She couldn’t help but hold her breath as she waited for the system to respond.  She was taking too long.  She knew she was taking too long.  Even with the chill of the room, she could still feel sweat collect along the back of her neck.

And then the cogs began turning.

As the vault swung open on silent hinges, Celaena allowed herself to take a breath.  She certainly didn’t get the same charge out of this as Elide.  Give her a cocktail and a trust fund baby any day.

She didn’t bother worrying about her fingerprints as she pulled the vault door open further.  Those had been burned off as a birthday gift when she was twelve.  And consistently afterwards.  Eventually most of her prints stopped regenerating and only the pinky finger of her left hand and middle finger of her right were legible.  She’d learned to adapt the way she touched and handled things. 

Inside, the vault wasn’t as spacious as the movies made scenes like this appear.  Even though it was nearly seven feet tall and five feet wide, there were still shelves that lined the walls and smaller casements for various items.  Once Celaena entered she felt constricted over the small space.  Pushing those sentiments aside, she went straight to the back of the vault where her target was clearly laid out.

The Eye of Elena, to some, was a simple necklace.  Easy in design without too many adornments and gems.  But the story behind it was what was truly remarkable.  Once, it was said to have belonged to an ancient queen who had worn it as a shield of protection and power.  This queen lived under many names, many faces, and led to the redemption of her kingdom from invaders.  The legends said it was magic and the hand of the gods.  Historians said she was a brilliant tactician with skilled generals (while also indicating that there was no way a woman could have accomplished all that she had done).  Celaena liked believing in the greater legends.

The glass case of the Eye was what made the Mortimer Wyrdlock so special.  It had personalized individual sections for specific items that could be adjusted to various parameters.  The sight of the necklace though, sitting on that satin pillow with a gold light shining down on it—it sparked a bit of rage within her.  The necklace didn’t belong to the museum and it didn’t even belong to her client.

And here she was stealing it.

The card inside the case indicated the donator it was on loan from.  On loan.  More like coerced.  Everyone felt intitled to something just because it glittered in the light. The original owners had indeed donated it to the museum, with the promise of getting it back.  But Celaena had seen the drawn-out documents between lawyers and directors insisting that it belonged to the museum.  That the owners had forfeited their rights to the necklace due to the smallest of red tape, coercion.  Control.  Lies.

The necklace didn’t deserve to be treated this way.  Strange to say about a necklace but true none the less.

This case used biometrics to open which was a little tougher to hack, but they’d been prepared for that.  It only took a few keystrokes to trick the technology to accept Celaena’s eye scan and the case popped open.

In her comm, Celaena heard a small cough.  She rolled her eyes.

“You could have done this yourself, retrieval specialist,” she murmured, knowing the comm could pick up just about any soft-spoken sound she made. “Give me five.”

Nothing on the other line.

Celaena took that as a victory and went to work.  Carefully, she opened a small drawstring bag lined with traces of led and dropped it in the necklace.  And the card.

She tucked the sachet in a secret pocket along the lining of her dress and replaced the lid.  She made her way back out of the vault before pausing at the doorway.  She ran her hand along the edge and allowed a little smirk to play on her lips.  Her work would run for just a moment longer.

.*.*.

The alarm went off just as Celaena left the archival stairwell.  She let the door shut behind her and slipped into the crowd of guests that were being ushered out of the museum.  Protocol stated that all guests were subjected to a search before and after leaving.  The good thing about being a thief and a grifter?  The rules didn’t apply to her.

She ducked into a storage closet just past the Van Goh exhibit to find a duffle bag already waiting for her.  Inside was an extra server uniform, pair of black shoes, and a taser.  She made the change of clothes quick and smooth, just as she’d practiced.  The sachet and necklace went in her bra and the scanner to an ankle holster.  Thankfully the uniform dictated flared pants for women and not a skirt.

From there it was easy to blend in with the catering crew and then disappear into the night.  Truly, some people were really unobservant.

When she ducked into an alley a few blocks away, it was the first time that Celaena took a breath.  A deep breath that filled her lungs.  It wasn’t clean or clear, but she was breathing and she was free.

Just thirty yards away waited a plain white van with the decals of a plumbing company.  She was about to make her way to it when she heard a scrape come behind her.

Spinning, Celaena’s hand went to the taser in her pocket.  She really wanted to tase someone.

“Well done,” a deep voice said from the shadows. “Only took you an hour.”

“You sound surprised,” she replied, fingers still reaching for the taser.  “You should know better than to underestimate me.”

It really was insulting when people doubted her…even if most of what anyone knew about her was based on rumor.

The man only hummed in response.  He came a few steps closer before stopping.  The pale lights of the street lamps barely permeated the night, but it was enough to get a decent look at him.  She’d only met him once before, heart rumors of him aside from that.  Well, their meeting had been less of a meeting and more of a shower of bullets.  She recognized him all the same.

His silver hair, his large build, the sharp angles of his face.  Tonight, he wore dress pants and a black shirt rolled to the elbows, leaving powerful forearms on display.  He was a force to be reckoned with, a fighter, a killer.

Everything about Rowan Whitethorn screamed danger.  Celaena knew better than to trust him.  But for this particular job, she wouldn’t regret being selfish.

“Oh, I’m not a fool, Rowan said.  He held out a hand. “Which is why I’m here.  My necklace?”

Celaena sneered at him. “My payment?”

“Transferred.  Don’t you trust me?”  He smirked at her, coming just a step closer.

Did he have to be so big?  And as much of an asshole as he was?

“I don’t trust anyone.”

“You can check your accounts, it’s all there.”  Rowan didn’t look at all worried or concerned over her lack of faith.  Instead, he merely waited as she pulled out her phone (which was essentially the scanner she’d used for her thievery) and checked her account as prompted.  It was all there.  All hundred thousand.  She was honestly a little surprised he’d kept his word.

Celaena said nothing as she took the necklace from her bra and walked it toward him.

“Can I know what your plans are for it?” she asked, tone neutral and even.

“No,” he said.  He adjusted one of his sleeves, making sure the cuff stayed rolled up properly. “Just know that it’s going to well taken care of.  You don’t need to worry.”

Celaena dropped the sachet into Rowan’s hand and he returned the comm she’d given him for the night. “As long as you know about the curse.”

Rowan raised a brow before he opened the bag to peek inside. “Curse?”

“Sure,” she shrugged and took a slow waltz in a circle around him. “The old queen who slaughtered an army who dared try to steal from her?  She still haunts that necklace, you know.”

Rowan didn’t bother acknowledging her.  He only tucked the necklace in his pocket. “Aren’t you a little old for ghost stories?”

“Nope.”

She stopped in front of him once again and clasped her hands behind her back. “Sleep well, Mr. Whitethorn.  I hope your dreams are nightmarish and bloody.”

“Try not to miss me too much,” he said in reply.

Celaena spun on her heel and headed to the van.  She didn’t look back until she was already pulling the driver’s door open.  When she had settled herself in the driver’s seat and looked through the windshield, the alley was empty.

Scrubbing a hand down her face, certainly smudging any remnants of her make-up, Celaena drew in a deep breath.  It had been a long night and was only going to get longer.  It didn’t help that she had a massive headache brewing behind her eyes.  She waited a few more minutes to make sure the alley was empty before reaching into the other side of her bra, drawing out another black baggie.

Upending the bag, a display card and golden necklace fell into her lap.  The necklace she’d given Whitethorn was an exact replica of the original.  A damn good replica if her supplier knew what they were doing.

Celaena glanced at the card and made a small promise to herself, and her family.  She would get the necklace back to its proper owners.  And then maybe she could finally be herself again.

Donated by the Ashryver-Galathynius Family

She ran her nails along her hairline before she tugged the red wig from her head and tossed it to the back of the van just as the passenger door opened.

“Next time I get to break into the fancy safe and do the stealing,” Elide said as she clambered in.  She still wore her server’s uniform of white and black, her hair pinned in a tight bun. “I hate people.”

“Sure. Next time.”

“How beautiful was the Mortimer?” Elide asked, a small pout forming on her lips. “Did you see how the wiring connected?  How did the scanner do on the hack?  Did I program it right?”

“It was big and black and a safe,” Celaena said.  She yawned and shook out her blonde hair until it fell around her shoulders. “You took a little longer tripping the alarm then I thought you would.”

Elide pulled a face. “Because I don’t set alarms off.  Looks like you tricked the client.”

“For now,” Celaena said.  She passed the necklace and her phone to her friend. “Transfer the payment so he can’t take it back when he notices the switch.”

“You think someone can hack an account I set up in the first place?” Elide let out a mirthless laugh. “Oh sweet honey child.”

Celaena rolled her eyes and started the van. “Just do it.  Let’s get back to base.”

“Home, it’s your home,” Elide insisted.

Except it wasn’t a home.  It hadn’t felt like a home in so long that she wasn’t even sure what the word meant.

“Whatever,” Celaena said. 

She pulled out onto the road and began the trek across the city.  She made sure they weren’t being tracked or followed, that would put a damper on the evening.  She’d rather be across the country before Whitethorn realized she tricked him.

Her plan wasn’t exactly foolproof.  Steal a priceless artifact and what?  Give it back to the rightful owners?  What would they do with it except give it back to the rightful owners who would then be hit with insurance fraud.  She’d been impulsive and reckless.  Moreso than she usually was.

But she would think about that later.  For now, she would just revel in having the necklace in her possession.

*.*.*.*.

Not gonna lie, am really excited about this one! I hope you enjoy it! It'll be three parts total, the other two parts coming on other days during the month. Thanks for reading, reblogs and comments are appreciated!

[goodnightmemes]

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE SEASON ONE SENTENCE STARTERS (PART ONE)

episodes: s01e01 - s01e04

❛ There are stories out there that need to be told. ❜

❛ Mortality beats a heavy drum. ❜

❛ Things didn't end well the last time, so forgive me if I'm a little nervous. ❜

❛ Do you not know your value? Do you suffer these indignities for some larger purpose? ❜

❛ Let the tale seduce you. Just as I was seduced. ❜

❛ Stop! Don't do that shit here! ❜

❛ Dishonesty breeds dishonesty. ❜

❛ It ain't easy, the work I do. Nothing but broken souls around me, and the ones that ain't broke are greedy. ❜

❛ The Earth's a savage garden. ❜

❛ How do you do that? Get in my head like that. ❜

❛ I had no room for feelings like these in my life. ❜

❛ I have seen death over and over and over and over again. It's boring. ❜

❛ Easy prey for the discerning predator. ❜

❛ And rather than fix it like a man should, I run like a coward. I run to the bottle. I run to the grift. I run to bad beds. ❜

❛ I laid down with the Devil. And he has roots in me, all his spindly roots in me, and I can't think nothin' anymore but his voice and his words! ❜

❛ I'm not the Devil. You were wrong about that. But I can give you death. ❜

❛ What rage you must feel as you choke on your sorrow. ❜

❛ I can swap this life of shame, swap it out for a dark gift and a power you can't begin to imagine. You just have to ask me for it. ❜

❛ For the first time in my life, I was seen. ❜

❛ Be my companion. Be all the beautiful things you are, and be them without apology. For all eternity. ❜

❛ Memory is a monster. We forget, it doesn't. ❜

❛ We live off the blood of the living. Lap up the blood of the deceased and it'll suck you right down into death, along with your victim. ❜

❛ You have the power to subdue anyone you want, but sometimes restraint is your most powerful weapon. ❜

❛ This is your home now. ❜

❛ The sun gives life to everything but us. ❜

❛ The life of a vampire has its challenges and its rewards... ❜

❛ Do you contemplate the life of the rabbit before you cut it? Or do you simply cut?❜

❛ These are nightmares I'm having, not dreams. ❜

❛ One might think the ability to read a mind a most useful gift, but, in reality, it's quite mundane. ❜

❛ Every human thought boils down to three things..."I want food", "I want sex", "I want to go home". ❜

❛ You chase after phantoms of your former self. I'll break you of it. ❜

❛ You hide from me this long again, I'll hunt you down and slap you sideways. ❜

❛ I had powers now and decades of rage to process, and it was both random and unfortunate, the man picked that night to dabble in fuckery. ❜

❛ You are a library of confusion. ❜

❛ I don't like sleeping angry. ❜

❛ For the record, if disrespect was done to you, I would have killed him myself. ❜

❛ If you love your family, as I know you do, spare them all the pain that you are causing them. ❜

❛ I ain't never gon' have a family of my own, am I? No sons, no daughters. ❜

❛ I'm your family. ❜

❛ I've been neglectful of our romance. ❜

❛ He was my murderer, my mentor, my lover, and my maker… all of those things at once. ❜

❛ There is one thing about being a vampire that I most fear above all else... and that is loneliness. You can't imagine the emptiness, a void stretching out for decades at a time. ❜

❛ We must stay together and take precaution and never part. ❜

❛ Well, I don't say that you have to enjoy it! Kill them swiftly if you have to, but do it! Embrace what you are! You are a killer! ❜

❛ Come now, love, let's get you to the couch to die. ❜

❛ If you'd listen to me, if you finally submit to your nature, you will be filled, with all the life you can hold. ❜

❛ You will see death in all its beauty, life as it is only known at the very point of the death. You alone, of all creatures, can see death with that impunity. ❜

❛ You alone, under the rising moon, can strike like the hand of God. ❜

❛ Do you ever think that we, that's to say, our kind...were put on Earth for a larger purpose? ❜

❛ I put you on this earth. Your purpose is to enjoy yourself. ❜

❛ I desire blood as much as you do. But I wonder, should we be more selective? ❜

❛ Hunting is pure instinct. Reason is a set of leg irons. ❜

❛ Every one of them is capable of abomination, even the ones worthy of admiration. ❜

❛ Don't mind the shaking. I've snapped his spine. It's merely his nerves spasming. ❜

❛ I don't wanna kill people anymore. ❜

❛ So much of that year was a blur. And you can imagine what time's inevitable hammer does to the minute details. ❜

❛ This is the odyssey of recollection. ❜

❛ Oh, come now. I don't bite. ❜

❛ Aren't I enough? ❜

❛ We'll be together ten thousand nights, a hundred thousand.  ❜

❛ What we're doing is hard. Anything that wards off the dungs of the everlasting road we walk. ❜

❛ There. I said it. We're communicating so much better now, no? ❜

❛ You ever think about those old days when we were kids? ❜

❛ You wanna come around, you come around when people are awake. ❜

❛ Well, I thought we could have an orgy. You can fuck them, and I can eat them. ❜

❛ What can I say? I'm a lot. I'm not perfect. ❜

❛ I heard your hearts dancing! ❜

❛ You watched the whole thing like some creeper! ❜

❛ This is not a life! ❜

❛ Am I from the Devil? Is my very nature that of the Devil? ❜

❛ Take a black man in America, make him a vampire, fuck with that vampire, and see what comes of it. ❜

❛ You're here to threaten me, I suppose. ❜

❛ Why is your heart beatin' so fast? ❜

❛ Did you not smile when he begged? Did you not feel pleasure as you carved him up? ❜

❛ You did what you did because it gave you pleasure. ❜

❛ We should make this our anniversary. ❜

❛ That's why you and me ain't never gon' work. That's why you're always gonna be alone. ❜

❛ You were ready to abandon our home. Now you want a third. ❜

❛ I'm not human no more, am I? ❜

❛ I'll teach you, but not if we're going to have family secrets. ❜

❛ We're a family? ❜

❛ You're not a girl. You're a devil. ❜

❛ Hungry? You just ate a man twice your size. You can't possibly be… ❜

❛ I'm so hungry. I think I'm gon' die. Is that how vampires die? From starvation? ❜

❛ If you made me and you made [name], who made you? ❜

❛ When I'm tired, I'm not so kind. ❜

❛ Fighting sounds funny in French. ❜

❛ A girl vampire needs her own space if she's gonna find herself in this no-day world. ❜

❛ He got secrets. He don't give good answers to questions, sits on the truth like it's his chair or somethin'. ❜

❛ I thought we weren't supposed to keep secrets. ❜

❛ Sometimes, old people don't like talkin' much about the past. ❜

❛ For a killing machine, I kinda like her. ❜

❛ You wouldn't believe how time flies when there's people to eat and money to spend. ❜

❛ We do like mortals do. We fight, we eat, we laugh, we sleep, we love. ❜

❛ Never seen a dead one look so peaceful. You know what her last words were? ❜

❛ Wakes were invented in places where it snows. ❜

❛ You've been too sheltered, my belladonnic beauty. ❜

❛ You must be most ferocious, hmm? ❜

❛ There's something back there, something evil. ❜

❛ Yeah, I'm surprised your fancy parents let you out at night. ❜

❛ I finally got a few secrets of my own. ❜

❛ You're an angel. ❜

❛ This is why we never get close to mortals. Because sooner or later, they end up dead. ❜

❛ I had a daughter. ❜

❛ That means there's so much more fun out there to have. I'm just getting started.❜

[dujour13]

Owlcatober 25. Smooth

Fandom: Wrath of the Righteous

No spoilers in this one but it does make reference to some shenanigans in The Lark and the Crow.

Also on AO3

---

They nabbed him just as he turned the corner and hauled him up hard against the alley wall. Both arms pinned, trachea crushed by an elbow, Woljif began a choked incantation and then stopped himself as three overfed moon-like faces loomed into sight. The Brevan braggarts.

Ah. No need to panic after all. This was salvageable.

“What can I do for you gentlemen?” he wheezed. His tail snaked along the wall and hid itself behind his leg, recalling a previous incident with these same “gentlemen.”

The middle one leaned in. His breath stank like Gran’s—only instead of cheap moonshine, the top-shelf stuff. “Those potions of Mighty Prowess and Virility you sold us. They don’t work.”

“Yeah,” said the left one, popping the cork on a vial and knocking back its contents, and then staring pointedly at Woljif as nothing whatsoever ensued. “Do I look mighty and virile to you?”

“Uh. I don’t get it. What in the Nine Hells?” He managed to shrug them off him with the big innocent puppy-eyes. “Lemme try one a’ those.”

A vial was thrust at him and he downed it in one gulp. Very much exactly what he expected, because he was the one who brewed it: cheap mead mixed with beet juice.

He screwed up his face. Looked at the sky. Folded his arms over his chest.

“Huh.”

“You are gonna pay up, guttertief, one way or another.”

“Holy Inheritor and all the good gods, I been grifted!” Woljif cried, blinking up some moisture in his eyes. “I can’t believe it. Those scoundrels! And I gave ‘em every last copper I had to my name and now my ol’ Gran’s gonna go without supper, all because I was too green to see it, and with her sick and all. Oh, what have I done?”

Over the course of this performance the Brevan who had drunk the potion began to make an odd face.

If it weren’t for the subtlest hint of jasmine on the breeze Woljif would have been hoodwinked. As it was he watched with carefully suppressed glee as the Brevan puffed himself up, flexed his muscles and let out a bellow like a bull.

“It’s kickin’ in,” Woljif said helpfully while the other two Brevans looked on in wonder at their companion.

“Then how come the other potions didn’t work?” One of them turned on him and made as if to push him up against the wall again but he ducked aside.

“Must be you gotta build up a head a’ steam, a little, you know, emotion. A little rage. A little passion. To start the fire.”

The Brevans nodded, wide-eyed as their companion whooped, picked up a barrel in one fist and threw it down the alley, where it splintered spectacularly against the wall.

“I got a few more in stock,” Woljif called after them hopefully but they were already gulping potions and heading whooping back out into the city.

As soon as they were gone he started to slip away in the opposite direction but there before him out of thin air was the chief, every clashing color of the rainbow and smiling from ear to ear.

What was that weird flipping-over feeling in Woljif’s chest? He made a mental note to see Sosiel and get his heart checked.

“Anevia caught wind you might be in trouble, so I came down to make sure you were all right.”

“I had it under control,” Woljif muttered. Why did his face feel so hot? It wasn’t the “potion,” anyway, that much was for sure.

“I know,” the chief shrugged. “That was pretty smooth. I hope you don’t mind if I had a little fun with the old Elysian enchantment.”

Is he pullin’ my tail?

Not a sign of it. Nothing but a complicit gleam in his handsome hazel eye.

The shy smile that crept up on Woljif was quickly effaced. “Yeah well, I reckon I owe you one.”

“Buy me a drink?”

“Sure.” Woljif’s whole stupid body said it before his brain could catch up, and then he spent the walk to the Half Measure grappling with wild swings of humor between sourly calculating the price of Andoren wine and giddily aware of the comfortable glow of the chief at his side, and it wasn’t until he was seated at the bar at the Half Measure watching Siavash take a long, appreciative sip that he realized he wasn’t the one who’d been smooth.