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ladamedusoif · 10 months ago

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Visiting - Chapter 12: If I Must Have A Future

(moodboard by @agentjackdaniels)

Pairing: Professor!Ben (College AU) x OFC Lydia/fem!Reader (reader POV/2nd POV)

Summary: Seeking a change of scenery after her life falls apart, Lydia crosses the Atlantic and arrives in a small New England town, to spend a year expanding her intellectual horizons as a visiting professor of art history at a small liberal arts college. Her growing friendship with Ben Morales, professor of Hispanic literature, forces Lydia to confront the fallout from her past - and raises unexpected questions about the future.

Chapter summary: Spring break comes to Barrow, and with it a European trip with major consequences for Ben and Lydia.

Word count: ~18k words (I'm so sorry but HEY LOOK THEY'RE BACK!)

Rating: Explicit (18+, MDNI)

Warnings (chapter specific): Smut; quite a lot of smut really; oral sex (M and F receiving); unprotected but safe PiV sex; fingering; praise kink; very mild submission kink if you squint; self-esteem and body/weight insecurity; anxiety; angst; family dynamics; strong language; alcohol consumption; references to past instances of emotional abuse; fluff

A/N: Oh, boy. This was a labour of love. An incredibly important part of their story, and one that took me ages to get ‘right’. This is not the end of Visiting - I’m planning about three more chapters, which will not be as long as this one. So there is still more to come from Ben and Lydia.

I wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who was so kind and excited about the little Christmas one-shots I wrote for this pair - sometimes I feel like my dorks are the last kind of characters people want in this fandom, and it was lovely to see that they have readers who actually care (and even miss them!). Thank you too to everyone who voted in the poll about the chapter length. You wanted the full-on 18,000 words - you’re getting it.

And a special word for @agentjackdaniels, who screamed with me when we got one of the most Benergetic red carpet looks I’ve ever seen at the Emmys, who made my gorgeous new header image, and who has helped me see more times than I’d care to admit over the last few months that I matter and make a difference, especially around here. I hope I have done the same, too.

See the Series Masterlist for an outline of Lydia’s story and background.

Chapter 11 - Chapter 13

Cross-posting to AO3 (and if you’re reading on there, too, and yelling along in the comments, love you!)

Further A/N at the end of the chapter.

The title of this chapter is a line from the Fontaines DC song “I Love You”, which is not terribly romantic, all told, but I heard it over the holidays and this lyric hit me hard: If I must have a future/I want it with you.

Taglist: FYI I’m retiring taglists as they are giving me so much trouble with people not getting notifications - follow me on @ladameecrit and turn on notifications. But just in case: @agentjackdaniels, @tessa-quayle , @vermillionwinter , @iamskyereads , @tieronecrush, @perennialdoll247 , @love-the-abyss, @javierisms, @fuckyeahdindjarin , @littlemisspascal , @khindahra , @pedrostories , @readingiskeepingmegoing , @rhoorl , @red-red-rogue , @princessanglophile , @katareyoudrilling @survivingandenduring , @trulybetty @fictionismyreality @sunnywithachanceofjavi , @joeldjarin , @lahoozaherr, @s-u-t, @its-nebuleuse

“We will shortly be beginning our descent. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts.”

You have never been one for sleeping on planes. Ben, on the other hand, has been snoozing away for the last two hours, the thin airline blanket comically small on his broad frame.

You put a hand on his arm to gently rouse him. “Love? We’re almost there.”

He blinks awake, eyes sleepy and hair askew, and stretches out his arms. “Mmmmfff. Hi, Lyd. You excited?”

“Yeah, I am. I’m really looking forward to seeing them.”

You’d mentioned the trip shortly after Valentine’s, during a conversation after dinner about plans for the spring break.

Your spring visit home had been booked since well before Christmas. A few days at home, visiting your family and catching up, and then to Paris for a week of tying up loose research ends and some vacation time.

It sounded blissful at the time. Now, your anticipation was tempered with disappointment at the prospect of leaving him here.

“So, uh, what are you doing for spring break, love? You going west, or…”

He shrugs. “Ordinarily I’d try to get a few days in San Francisco. But everyone’s got plans and is out of town on various trips, so there’s no point.” He looks a little resigned. “So it’s time catching up on work and my reading here, I guess. Maybe do some prep for directing the student play after the vacation. When are you back from your trip?”

There’s a nervous knot in your stomach. Just ask. Just do it.

“Could you take your reading and directing prep on the road?”

He looks perplexed. You take a deep breath.

“What if you came with me?”

Ben’s eyes widen. “Come with you? To see your family?”

Oh, fuck. You’ve pushed your luck. This is too weird.

“No, don’t worry about it.” You stand up from the table and pick up your plates. “I just knew I’d miss you but it’s probably too much. It’s fine. Forget I said it.”

He follows you into your tiny kitchen and leans against the doorframe. “What if I wanted to come?”

“Wanted? I mean, you seemed totally stunned that I’d even ask.”

He shakes his head and smiles gently. “Not stunned, as such. Surprised, maybe? But not in a bad way.”

“Why surprised, then?” You cross the small linoleum floor and wrap your arms around his waist. He blushes, tucking his chin against his chest bashfully.

“I dunno. Just that you want to bring me home with you? It… it means a lot to me.”

“It means a lot to me just to ask you, love. But you don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

He looks at you with those big dark eyes and you feel your heart swell. “But I think I’d like to. As long as that’s okay with your family, of course? I don’t want to be in the way.”

You laugh and raise your eyebrows. “In the way? I think they’d be more excited about seeing you than me.” You rest your head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “You know they think you’re great, you’ve been on the video calls. My mother asks me more about you than she does about myself.”

He wraps an arm around you and kisses the top of your head. “It’s different in person, sometimes.”

You shake your head. “Mmmm, I don’t think so in this case. You haven’t been dealing with daily queries about the welfare and wellbeing of Ben Morales. And no, she doesn’t yet seem to realise she can just call you by your first name.”

He chuckles and holds you closer. “Guess I’d better go book some flights, huh?”

Ben pushes the luggage cart towards the sliding doors and out into the bright, bustling Arrivals area, where families wait excitedly at the barrier to greet their loved ones.

“LYDIAAAAAAAA!”

You immediately spot your parents, standing right in the centre of the barrier, aligned with the sliding doors. It’s still very early in the morning and you wonder how long they’ve been here, waiting at the perfect spot to see the two of you emerge.

You give Ben’s arm a reassuring squeeze as the two of you walk towards your excited family. “You’re not a stranger, love. They already love you. Remember that.”

Ben has barely exited the arrivals area when he’s enveloped in a warm embrace by your mother, who seems to have forgotten you entirely. Your father puts an arm around you and smiles widely while your mother coos over Ben. “And Ben Morales! Welcome, welcome. We’re so delighted to have you.”

Your mother has had her hair done and is dressed in an outfit that feels somewhere between “weekday lunch at a nice restaurant” and “Sunday best”. She’s also using what you and Kate refer to as her “telephone voice” when she speaks to Ben, more clipped and flatter than her usual tones.

“Mom, he knows what you sound like normally, you don’t need to put on the fancy accent.” You hug your father tightly and notice that his eyes are shining. He’s similarly neatly dressed, wearing a nice smart-casual pair of pants and a matching shirt and v-neck light sweater.

“I am talking normally!” your mother fires back, followed by a tinkly laugh as she tilts her head and smiles at Ben. He smiles broadly, though you know he’s shattered, and your mother gives you a look that says “See? Ben likes me.”

Your father shakes Ben’s hand before embracing him. “The two of you must be exhausted,” he says, arm still wrapped around Ben’s shoulders. “Let’s head to the car.”

Ben and your dad lead the way, your mother reaching for your hand and giving it a warm squeeze as you walk companionably a few steps behind.

“Welcome home, pet. I’m delighted he’s here too. We’re so happy for you.” She looks ahead and appraises Ben’s broad frame as he pushes the luggage cart and chats to your father.

“Grand big man, isn’t he?”, she says approvingly. “Don’t look at me like that, Lydia!”

“There’s milk there and bread and tea and coffee and a few biscuits and butter and a couple of bags of crisps and -“

“Mom, we’re fine. We’ll take care of ourselves. Okay?”

Your mother throws up her hands in resignation. “Alright! Just wanted to make sure you didn’t starve.”

Kate, Marc, and their little girls have taken over your parents’ house for the duration of renovation works on their own home, and in the interests of space (and your sanity) you’d booked a small holiday flat in your hometown for the visit. Now, with Ben in tow, the privacy of the flat was even more welcome.

“Thank you. I mean it. Now, can we please go and get some rest?” You hug her tightly and she kisses your cheek, before looking in Ben’s direction.

“Of course. We’ll see you later, though? For something to eat? Kate and Marc and the girls are that excited to see you, I think they might burst.”

You stand beside Ben, bringing your hand to the small of his back, and wave your parents off as they return to the car. They’re not even out of earshot when you hear your father saying “He wouldn’t let her lift a single bag! Not one! Helped her all the time. Lovely chap. Very nice. Far cry from the other fucker…”

Subtlety has never been their strong point. You just hope Ben is too jet-lagged to have heard what they said.

A relaxed family meal, she said. Nothing special, she said. Come over in the early afternoon. It’s just like a Sunday lunch, she said.

Your mother is reading Ben a list of menu options that’s longer than in some restaurants. His eyebrows rise and fall as he takes it in and considers the possibilities.

“Honestly, Mrs -“

“MARIE. I told you.”

“Honestly, Marie, I’ll just have whatever everyone else is having. It all sounds great. Do you need any help in the kitchen?”

“I most certainly do not. You can have whatever you want. You are the guest.”

“Seriously. Whatever’s easiest.” He looks nervously at you and speaks in a low voice. “What is easiest?”

You shrug. “Probably the beef.”

He beams at your mother and tells her he’ll have some beef. She tilts her head, smiles delightedly at him, and does that tinkly laugh again before returning to the kitchen.

The meal is delicious but, inevitably, chaotic. Your three-year-old niece Cora, who had insisted on sitting between you and Ben (Benjamoo, as she persisted in calling him), realises quickly that the family-style service meant she could help herself to her favourite sides as and when she wanted, chubby little hands rapidly making a mark on the mashed potato and carrots. Your mother keeps asking if the food is hot enough. Kate and Marc try to talk to Ben while corralling little Evie and making sure she gets fed.

Your father, meanwhile, veers between talking delightedly to the little girls and engaging Ben in a rapidly-shifting conversation that covers San Francisco, transatlantic flights, whether Ben liked sports, and a detailed description of the plot of a film he’d watched the week before. You couldn’t work out which film it was, but you knew it had Kevin Costner in it. Mostly because your dad kept referring to him as “Kevin Costner”, rather than by the character’s name.

You rest a hand on Ben’s knee, under the solid dining table your father had made for the family home when you were barely two.

“You doing okay? I know we’re a bit much…”

His warm hand covers yours and he smiles softly.

“I’m great, Lyd. And you haven’t been to a Morales family meal yet - now that’s a bit much. Just you wait and see.”

You grin and lean your head affectionately on his shoulder for a moment, winding your fingers through his, never noticing the conspiratorial, knowing look exchanged between Kate and your mother.

You and Ben insist on clearing the dishes, making short work of loading the dishwasher before your parents can tell you off for letting the guest do the chores. Through the kitchen window you see Cora running towards her little plastic play house, on temporary loan to your parents’ back garden while Kate and Marc’s building work is being completed. Kate follows swiftly behind, waving a soft fleece jacket at her daughter.

After wrangling Cora into her jacket, she appears at the back door. “Cora wants to know if Ben can come and visit her tea shop. Not you, Lyd. She was very clear about that. Only Benjamoo.”

He smiles happily and puts down his dish towel, before making a sympathetic face at you and kissing your cheek. “Sorry, Lyddie. I guess I better take up my invitation.”

It’s a hilarious and adorable sight: Ben, sitting cross-legged on the mat beside Cora’s house, hair a bit messy and eyes still a little tired behind his glasses, broad-shouldered in his grey Berkeley sweatshirt and decidedly out of proportion to the pink-and-white plastic cottage. You can hear him giving Cora his order and talking rapturously about the “tea” she serves him in a little pink cup, while she giggles and claps her hands.

Marc and your father arrive in the kitchen, your brother-in-law carrying little Evie in his arms. “Evie thinks she’s missing out on the fun with Ben and Cora,” he announces, opening the back door. “And we want to make sure Cora doesn’t try to force-feed mud cakes to your boyfriend.”

You’d been so nervous about this - not because you thought your family wouldn’t like Ben, or vice versa, but because by definition the first visit to your partner’s family feels a little like an audition of some kind. It has the potential to go horribly wrong, no matter how well prepared you are, or how many video calls you’ve had over the last couple of months.

But here he is, now, integrated happily into your close-knit family of origin, getting on famously with your parents, sister, and brother-in-law, and making your beloved little niece laugh like a drain as he pretends to drink from her toy teapot. Like he was always here. Or always meant to be here.

There’s a surge of emotions in your chest: deep love and affection, above all, but with it a reminder that your future together is by no means assured. Assuming, of course, that he wants a future together.

“He’s good with kids, isn’t he?”

Kate’s voice startles you. “Where did you come out of?”

“I’m stealthy when I want, Lyd. Anyway, you haven’t answered my question.”

You throw a bombastic side eye in your younger sister’s direction. “I know what you’re getting at.”

Kate shrugs, the picture of innocence. “I’m just observing.”

“Ben is a wonderful uncle. Just as I am a wonderful aunt. We like that. And that’s one of the things I love about him.” You lean on the kitchen counter, voice quieter. “So…what do you think?”

Kate arches an eyebrow in your direction. Your mother arrives in the kitchen with impeccable timing, as ever.

“What do I think of what?”

“You know what. Who. Him. Ben.”

Your mother laughs as she fills the kettle with water and puts it on to boil for some teas and coffees. She turns round to face her two daughters. “Well, Kate, I don’t know about you, but - he wouldn’t be for me.”

Your jaw drops. “Excuse me?”

Kate opens a cupboard and starts to take out some mugs. “I know what you mean, mom. Not really for me, either.”

“You know yourself, Kate,” your mother adds, finding a carton of milk in the fridge and filling a small milk jug, “Just not my thing at all.”

Anger spreads hot and warm across your face. “Good, because he’s not your fucking ‘thing’, he’s my thing and I can’t believe how two-faced you’re being. All sweetness and light and then saying he’s not really for you and -”

Your mother holds out a hand, expression deadpan. “Lydia, not everyone wants a man who’s kind and funny and genuine and clearly worships the ground his girlfriend walks on.”

“Exactly,” Kate chimes in. “Just because you love someone who’s really smart and nice and good with kids and is actually kind of cute in a dorky way doesn’t mean the rest of us do.”

For a moment, your confusion and anger doesn’t quite let you hear what they’re saying. “I’m not asking you to be in love with him, I’m just - oh. Oh.”

Marie and Kate burst out laughing.

“Well, fuck the two of you. Forty-two years and you’re still winding me up.”

Your mother wraps you in a warm cuddle. “Ah, poor Lyd. We’re sorry. We just couldn’t resist.”

“He’s so lovely, Lyd,” Kate adds, embracing you from behind. “I mean it. Marc thinks so, too. I know I said at Christmas that he looked like he’d been engineered in a lab for you and it looks like I was right. And Ben’s even cuter in the flesh, not that I notice such things.” She coughs for dramatic effect. “What with being a married mother of two.”

“And he loves the bones of you, darling girl,” your mother whispers. “And sure, why wouldn’t he?”

“I don’t know about you, love, but I’m shattered.”

Ben glances over at you and wraps his arm around your shoulders, bringing you in to nuzzle against his chest. He holds up his copy of the script for Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, multicoloured tabs fluttering like tiny flags.

“I’m just going to work through one more scene, is that okay?”

You hum contentedly. “Of course, love. How’s it going, anyway?”

He flicks through a few pages, scanning his notes and annotations. The comparative literature students put on a play every year, towards the end of the second semester, and Ben had to step in at short notice as director after a colleague in French fell ill. “It’s a relief we’re doing it in the English translation, put it that way. I just don’t know why Jen thought I could take this on, after Michèle went on sick leave.”

You idly rub his tummy and kiss his side through his old shirt. “Because she knows you’re great and talented and the students love you, Mr Director.”

He huffs a laugh, marks up another section, adds a tab, and closes the book before taking off his glasses and shuffling down the bed and wrapping his free arm around you. He kisses the top of your head and holds you tight.

“Thank you for bringing me home with you.”

You open your eyes and glance up at him. “Sure they haven’t put you off?”

“It would take a lot to put me off, Lyd. Anyway, they’re great. It - it meant a lot, to be welcomed like that, by the people you love.”

He looks down at you, and you place a light kiss on his jaw, smiling at the bristle of his beard against your lips. His gaze is solemn and intense as he reaches for your hand.

“I’m serious about this, Lyd. About us. You know?”

“I know. I’m serious about us, too. Deadly serious, in fact.”

He smiles, eyes shining, and kisses you, soft and slow, pulling you closer and working a path of kisses down the side of your neck as your body writhes against his. Tiredness is forgotten, for the moment, as you slip your hand inside the waistband of his loose boxers and tug them down, fingers wrapping around his cock. Ben sighs against your chest as you stroke him, his mouth finding your nipples as his long fingers trace the wetness building between your legs. With one leg hitched across his, you angle your hips just so and guide him inside you as he whispers your name against your ear.

After you’ve made love, Ben falls asleep mid-cuddle, and you tuck yourself against him and close your eyes. But sleep doesn’t come easy. You should be delighted, after the beautiful day you’d had. But there’s an anxiety building in the back of your mind that you can’t quite shake.

Serious this relationship may be, but spring will soon turn to summer, and with it the prospect of being separated indefinitely by an entire ocean and several time zones. Kate was wont to remind you that you “could just do distance for a while”, and she meant well. It was intended to reassure you.

The problem was, the more you thought about what that option would actually mean, the less comfort it provided.

Over the next couple of days, you introduce Ben to the world of your hometown, to the places and people that shaped you. It is strange, at first, to see him, whole and present, in the spaces that defined your childhood. But it is a beautifully intimate thing, sharing memories with someone you love. You lay yourself even more bare before them, revealing the you that was before they knew you.

The two of you have, of course, shared so much about yourselves and your pasts with each other in the time since you met. But this was different. Walking with him, pointing out your old schools, old haunts, swapping memories and stories, introducing him to random relations you meet in the streets: you are quietly knotting the strands of your past - with all its love, loss, joy and sorrow - with the man who, you hope, represents your future.

Kate and Marc insist on bringing you to dinner one night. “It’d be wrong not to,” Marc had explained as you sat in your parents’ living room, Ben playing peek-a-boo with Evie while your mother looked on approvingly. “Sure we have built-in babysitting while we’re staying with Joe and Marie.”

Your mother’s expression shifted instantaneously, shooting daggers at your brother-in-law. “Cheeky.”

Your hometown is not known for haute cuisine, but Kate booked a table at the nicest restaurant in town and it has been a perfect evening: good food, decent wine, and the pleasure of seeing how well Ben, Kate, and Marc are getting along. You and Kate go to the bathroom at one point, and she eyeballs you as you top up your lipstick, side by side, in the mirror.

“Think he’s passed the audition, Lyd.” She pouts and blows a kiss at her reflection. “Oh, and guess what? We’ve got a special immersive cultural experience planned for the rest of the night.”

You swivel and glare at her. “And what does that involve, exactly?”

Kate picks up her handbag and does a little shimmy on the spot. “The Roxy, Lyd. The ultimate method of integrating your lovely Benjamin into your native place.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

The Roxy was once the town’s cinema, built in the 1940s and made redundant by the coming of the multiplex in the 1990s. Its owners had moved swiftly, though, and transformed the Roxy into a nightclub. It was a site of memorable nights out dancing with your friends, of crying in the bathrooms when you realised your crush was interested in someone else, of bad kissing, of telling random men to fuck off when they told you to smile, of screaming with glee when “Hey Ya” came on.

If the Roxy was a taste, it would be peach schnapps and orange squash. Its smell, meanwhile, had lodged permanently in your memory: old cigarettes, sticky carpets, cheap aftershave, vanilla musk body spray.

She was not kidding. You and Kate sit on some banquette seating in a corner of the Roxy’s lounge - which was just a separate floor with slightly better, more old-school music - and take in the completely incongruous sight of Ben, followed by Marc, weaving his way through the habitual crowd of locals with your drinks in hand.

“Vodka tonic for Lyddie, gin and tonic for Kate.” Ben places the glasses on the table and nestles in beside you, giving your thigh a little squeeze. He reaches for his bottle of beer and raises it slightly. “Uh, cheers, I guess?”

Kate enthusiastically clinks her swimming pool-sized glass of gin and tonic off Ben’s drink. “Cheers! Now, you have to promise me you’ll dance. Otherwise it’s not full assimilation.”

You groan audibly and stir your drink with the straw as Ben chuckles. “C’mon, Lyd, you’ve got moves.” He raises an eyebrow at you mischievously.

You manage to stave off the inevitable for a while, finishing your first vodka tonic and about to suggest you go to the bar when a familiar opening melody sends Kate leaping out of her seat, excitedly grabbing her husband and beckoning to you.

“AS IT WAS?!? COME OOOONNNN LYYYYD!” Kate bellows back to you and Ben from the tiny dancefloor, where Marc is already showing off a move you can only describe as “rhythmic shuffling” while mouthing Harry Styles’ lyrics.

You look at Ben. He stands, removes his jacket, and offers you his hand, smiling expectantly. His hand rests gently on the small of your back as you join your sister and brother-in-law on the dancefloor, and he pulls you in to whisper in your ear.

“We can do better than them, can’t we?”

You laugh, leaning in as he wraps an arm around your waist, takes your hand, and helps you exorcise all those demons of heartbreak long past on the dancefloor.

As she clambers into a taxi in the early hours of the morning, Kate turns and yells “I’m telling mom you’re bringing a boy home with you from the Roxy!”, before collapsing in hysterics as Marc takes her hand and pulls her into the car. They grin and wave at you and Ben as it disappears up the street and back towards your parents’ house.

You lean against Ben as you walk back towards the little flat you’d rented for your stay at home, sighing contentedly as he drapes an arm around your shoulders.

“She’s right, though,” you giggle, “I’m actually bringing the hot boy home with me from the Roxy. I’ve come a long way from endless rejection and the odd bit of bad kissing.”

Ben huffs a laugh as you open the main door of the building and climb the stairs to the apartment. “Well, fuckin’ good.” He adds a sassy little head movement for emphasis.

“Excuse me?”

“Fuckin’ good. Because what would have happened to me if you’d been swept off your feet by one of those bad kissing boys back then?” He follows you into the little entrance hall and, for all his joking tone, there’s a vulnerability lurking in his beautiful eyes.

You cradle his face in your hands. “I’d have found you one way or another, Benjamin.” A coy smile crosses your lips as you take him in - danced out, hair mussed, and so stupidly sexy you still can’t quite believe he’s real.

Your fingers hook inside his waistband as you pull him tight to you, leading him into the living room and pushing him against the wall as you bring a hand to his crotch. “And I’d like to make the most of bringing the hottest man home from the club for once in my life, if you don’t mind. Especially seeing as he was worth the wait.”

Ben’s eyes widen and he half gasps, half chuckles as you undo his jeans and slip a hand inside his boxers, stroking his cock as you pepper his throat with tiny kisses. He leans down slightly to bring a hand under the skirt of your dress, hitching up the fabric and slipping two fingers into your panties to play with your clit as he kisses you: hungry, urgent, wanting.

But you’ve had something else on your mind all night. You break the kiss and begin to sink to your knees, hands around Ben’s waist for balance.

Your eyes flit up to meet his. “Let me make you feel good, darling.”

His breath hitches as he takes you in: hair a little messy, eyes wide and wild, lips slightly parted, the soft flesh of your tits rising and falling with your breathing.

“Fuck, Lyd, you’re amazing.”

“That a yes?”

He swallows hard and nods rapidly. “Fuck. Yes. Yes. Please.”

You lick your lips and smile as you carefully tug down the waistband of his boxer briefs. Your mouth presses into the softest, most sensitive parts of him: a kiss, a lick, a little nip to his belly; a course plotted down from his abdomen to the hardening cock you hold in your hand. You take him into your mouth, tongue swirling gently over the tip as you stroke him, revelling in the sensation and the moans of pleasure you’re pulling from the gorgeous man above you. Ben rests his hand on the back of your head and leans back against the wall, panting harder as you find your rhythm.

The ache between your thighs builds with his every grunt and groan. Your fingertips find your clit, rubbing little circles over it in a fruitless bid to find some relief. You ease his cock out of your mouth with a pop and Ben helps you to your feet before you take his hand and guide him to the couch.

You slip off your panties and encourage him to lie back on the sofa as you gather the skirt of your dress around your waist and straddle him. “Need to fuck you, my love.”

He grips the flesh of your hips and thighs, fingers pressing into your body as you take him inside you and begin to ride him, relishing the slow drag of his cock as you come undone. He looks beautiful underneath you, eyes wide and shining as he watches every move of your body.

“Fuck, Lyd,” he pants, smiling up at you. “You look incredible.” He reaches up and pulls down your neckline, groping your breasts and gazing at you like you’re the sexiest thing he’s ever seen: head thrown back, eyes closed, and vocal.

He begins to thrust up into you, finding a rhythm that complements yours, intensifying the sensation so much that you can’t help but cry out with pleasure.

“Yes, baby…fuck, that’s so fucking good, Ben, that’s fucking it, fuck!”

“Take it, Lyddie.” His dark eyes stare into yours, hands still gripping you firmly. “Ride me, take what you need…fuck, good fucking girl. I’ll give you whatever you need, whatever you want.”

And he knows what you need, in that moment. His thick fingers slip between your thighs and find your clit, circling it over and over as you keep on fucking him.

You come hard, the last flutters of your orgasm still working through you when Ben follows suit. He’s still inside as you bend forward to kiss him, trailing your hands over his beautiful face and through his damp hair. You rest on his chest and let the sound of his breathing start to steady you as he holds you close for a couple of moments.

“I love you so much, Lyddie,” he pants quietly, chuckling to himself. “You’re a hell of a woman.”

For your last day, Ben suggests that he might make dinner at the flat, as a gesture of thanks for your family’s hospitality. You suggest lasagne with some sides as a general crowdpleaser, borrow some dishes from your mother, and Ben gets to work while you lay the place settings.

The lasagne is cooking away happily when your mother arrives with Kate, Marc, and the girls. You look puzzled.

“Where’s Dad?”

Your mother rolls her eyes as Cora goes tearing off around the flat, Kate following swiftly behind. “He insisted he had to go to the football match tonight. Of course. Anyway, he said he’ll be here shortly.”

Ben emerges from the kitchen, clad in a navy and white striped apron you’d used back when you (briefly) did home economics at school. He kisses your mother and Kate on the cheek and hugs Marc, before bending down to give a delighted Cora a high five.

“I made you a present,” she says quietly, suddenly shy.

Ben brings himself down to her level. “A present? For me? That’s amazing.”

Kate rummages in her bag and produces a rolled-up piece of paper, handing it to Ben. “She did it all herself. Mostly.”

You stand beside him as he unfurls it and Cora looks down at her toes. The drawing features a large figure with a mop of dark wavy hair and a wide smile - “Benjamoo”, Cora points out helpfully - standing close beside a slightly smaller figure immediately recognisable as you. “Auntie Lyd,” she adds seriously, in case you weren’t aware.

The figures’ stick arms are touching. “Holding hands,” Cora says.

Ben looks at Cora, then up at you, and back to the little girl. “This is the best art anyone’s ever given me. I’m going to put it on my wall when I get home.” He stands, and reaches for your hand, noticing the tears threatening in your eyes. “Auntie Lyd will help. Won’t you?”

You nod and squeeze his hand. Cora starts to giggle and points at you and Ben.

“See? Holding hands.”

Ben and Marc pop out to the nearest supermarket shortly afterwards, when you realise you had neglected to buy garlic bread. You sit in the open-plan kitchen and dining area with your mother while Kate plays with her daughters in the living room.

“You alright, love?” Marie notices how you fiddle with the place settings and rub your fingers together, sure signs that something’s on your mind.

“Mmm? Sorry, I was miles away. Yeah, I’m… I think so.” You exhale. “I don’t know.”

Your mother gives you a little breathing room, waiting to see if you’ll open up more.

“It’s just… fuck. I don’t know. I - what the fuck are we going to do?”

She sighs softly and pats the back of your hand. “You and Ben?”

“Me and Ben. It’s spring break. And there’s no clear pathway about what we’ll do when my year in Barrow ends and I have to come back to my job over this side of the ocean.”

“Well, I mean… I know you hate the thoughts of it, Lyd, but have you talked about it? Kate’s right, you could always do long-distance for a while, until you knew what you both really wanted.”

You put your head in your hands. “We’ve said that we’re very serious about the relationship.”

“So then! There’s your answer. No?”

You look up at her mournfully. “Yes and no. Yes, we’re serious about each other. No, that doesn’t mean we have any idea how to manage the distance.”

Marie adjusts the salt and pepper cruets in the middle of the table. “People do it, Lyd. It’s a commitment but they make it work.”

You nod slowly. “I just don’t know if that’s what I want, at this stage in my life. We see each other every day. We’re practically living together.”

Your mother fans herself in mock horror. “And not a hint of a ring on the finger, goodness!”

You roll your eyes good-naturedly. “Forty-two, mother dear. But yeah. I don’t know if I could go from that to not seeing Ben for weeks or a month or more at a time. Not now.”

“So what does that mean?”

You swallow hard. “I don’t know. One of us moves. He moves for me. I move for him. But that means trying to find a permanent academic job and in both places that’s like finding a needle in a haystack.”

“And if there’s no job? Distance as a temporary measure?”

You bite your lip. “But what if that’s still too hard?”

“So move.”

“But that means him giving up his life for me, or me uprooting for him, and being so far from all of you and from here and…” You look up at your mother, feeling like a scared little girl again.

“I love him so much, Mom. I never thought I’d love anyone like that. Never thought I’d even meet someone like that. And for him to love me in return…fuck.”

Marie shifts closer and wraps her arm around your shoulders. “I know, love. I know. You love the bones of each other. And it’s real love. Everyone can see it.”

“What do we do?”

“Lydia, I can’t tell you what to do one way or the other. Only you know what’s right for the two of you.”

You lean your head on your mother’s shoulder and she gives your hand a squeeze. “I know. It’s just - fuck, why does it have to be hard? Don’t I deserve things to work out, for once?”

“You do, pet. Of course you do. No one deserves it more.”

“Sometimes it feels crazy, y’know? This time last year I didn’t know Ben existed, and now -”

“Now it’s like you’ve known each other forever? Like you can’t imagine life without him?”

You turn to face her, and smile. “Exactly.”

“That’s love for you.” Marie purses her lips, thinking. “I’m only going to say one more thing. Your happiness.”

“Huh?”

“Lyd, for years you prioritised someone else’s happiness over your own. I know, I know, that fucker moved for you when you got the job away, I know that. But apart from that…it was all you. All you, trying to keep someone else happy and cracking under the strain.” She inhales and exhales, trying to curb the fury that still burns in her when she remembers how you were treated.

“All I’m going to say is this: don’t worry about anyone else, Lyd. Not me, not Dad, not Kate, Marc, the girls, your job - nobody. Well, worry about Ben. But above all, prioritise your happiness. We have ours over here. It’s time for you to find yours.”

You hug her tightly. “One final question.”

She nods and waits.

“What does Dad think of Ben? I know it wouldn’t change my feelings but given everything from the shitshow, I’d like to know he doesn’t absolutely loathe him.”

She looks at her phone and pushes away from the table, walking into the living room and opening the door of the flat. “Ask him yourself, Lyd. Here he is now.”

Your father comes into the kitchen, talking about something that happened at the local football match he’d attended that afternoon and eyes already locked on the kettle, his mind focused on making a cup of tea.

“Joe? Lyd wants to ask you something.”

You roll your eyes at your mother. “It’s not a big deal.”

He turns around, tea caddy in hand. He’s been to this flat twice, you think, and he knows exactly where all the tea-making equipment is kept.

“Alright. Ask away, Lyd. Are you alright? Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine. Everything’s fine. I just - Dad, what do you think?”

“What do I think of what?”

“Ben. Me and Ben, specifically. But also just Ben.”

Joe switches on the kettle and leans against the kitchen counter. “Sure, my opinion isn’t what matters. What matters is how you feel. Isn’t that right?” He looks to your mother for backup.

“I said that to her, but she said she wanted to hear from you.”

He takes a mug out of the cupboard and drops a square teabag into it. “Lydia, is everything okay? Are you having any doubts about him, is that it?”

You laugh and shake your head. “Not a one.”

“And you don’t think he’s having any doubts about you? Because if he is I’ll fucking -“

“No, Dad. He… he’s very clear about how he feels.”

Your father nods in satisfaction. “Well, that’s reassuring. Would be strange if he wasn’t, given how he is with you. At least, what we’ve seen here.” He pours the freshly boiled water over the teabag and opens the fridge in search of milk. “But the point stands. You love each other, don’t you?”

You aren’t sure if your father has ever been so open or explicit with you in asking about a romantic relationship. Perhaps, you wonder, he regretted not being more honest about his concerns over the years of your longest one.

“We do.” Your eyes fill with tears, unexpectedly. You swallow hard. “We love each other very, very much.”

“Okay then.” He stirs his tea vigorously, the metal of the teaspoon clinking off the stoneware mug.

“But I still want to know what you think. It matters to me. Especially - especially after the last time.”

Joe pulls out a chair and settles at the table, your mother reaching automatically for a coaster and sliding it under the mug. “Lyd, you know what I’ve always said. There’s not one person walking this earth who deserves our lovely Lydia. Not one.”

Your heart sinks a little, and you nod. You’ve heard this a lot since your ex cheated and fucked off. You never really believe it.

“But.” Your father pauses and sips his tea.

“But?”

He looks at you and reaches out to touch your hand. “But - that lovely man you brought home definitely comes very close indeed.”

Right on cue, the front door opens and you can hear Ben and Marc chatting companionably and laughing together. Marc does a silly little dance into the kitchen, waving the garlic bread around like glow sticks.

“Now, please don’t destroy the garlic bread before it’s even gone into the oven, Marc!”

As your mother grabs the bread and sneaks a peek at the lasagne, now browned to perfection, Ben pulls you in for a quiet word.

“Lyddie, are you okay? You look like you’ve been crying.”

You lean against his chest as he wraps his arms around you. “I’m okay, darling. I just needed this. Needed you.” The oven timer pings and you look at him. “Time for Professor Morales to serve us his delicious lasagne. C’mon, we can plate up before my mother takes over.”

You thought goodbyes would get easier the longer you worked away from home, but the opposite turned out to be true. Your parents are doing their usual brave face routine at the airport: Joe clearly trying not to cry, Marie overdoing the levity to distract you and stave off her own sadness at seeing you go.

“Paris in the springtime, Lyd! It’ll be gorgeous. She’s a great tour guide, Ben, she knows it all.”

“She’s brilliant, Marie. But you knew that before the rest of us found out.” He reaches for your hand, holding it tightly as you start to feel the tears prickling.

He only lets go as you both embrace your parents in turn, Ben thanking them repeatedly for their kindness. Then, his fingers curl around yours again, holding you strong and steady at the entrance to departures.

“I love you both so much, you know? We’re so grateful.”

Your mother can’t hold back her tears any more, and her wet cheek presses against yours as she pulls you in for a final hug. “We love you so much. Both of you.”

She pulls away and holds your gaze. “Both of you. Remember what I said to you, Lydia. Remember that.”

You nod and give Ben’s hand a little squeeze. “We should probably head on through. Safe home - message me when you get back, okay? We’ll see you soon.”

You keep waving back with every sharp turn you take in the queue for security, until eventually your parents’ faces are obscured by the crowd behind you, and you face forward into the security area, still holding Ben’s hand.

“Paris par train ou Paris par bus?”

Ben shrugs as he pushes the luggage trolley. “You’re the expert, Lyddie. What’s easiest?”

You summon up the mental map of Parisian transport options that is always ticking over at the back of your mind. “Train is quicker but involves a change at Châtelet Les Halles - ugh - and then again at Bastille. Bus gets us to Opéra which means we can get right on to line 8.”

“Bus?”

“Bus.”

Ben stacks your bags carefully in one of the Roissybus’s luggage areas and exhales as he takes a seat beside you. “You know it’s been almost thirty years since I was in Paris?”

“Excusez-moi?”

He chuckles. “Came up on a very poorly-thought-out visit with some friends while I was on exchange in Málaga. Overnight trains, hostels, no money, cheap wine. I barely saw the Eiffel Tower, let alone anything else.”

The bus pulls out of Charles de Gaulle Airport and onto the motorway. You squeeze Ben’s thigh affectionately. “Isn’t it a good thing that you’ve come to Paris with a ready-made guide, then?”

He smirks and arches an eyebrow suggestively. “Oh, I’m really looking forward to doing some, er, exploring with her.”

“Is that so?” You move your hand ever so slightly up his thigh, smiling with satisfaction as Ben gasps a little and shifts in the seat. “I always like to try out new pleasures here, you know?”

A wiggle of your eyebrows has you both giggling, leaning against each other as the bus makes good progress towards the périphérique, the motorway that rings the city, and into Paris proper. You start to point out landmarks, locations, shifting into a stream of consciousness that spans history, personal memories, places to visit, and random observations.

Ben smiles to himself as he watches and listens, delighting in your joy and excitement as you prepare to see your old friend - to walk her streets, listen to her voice, and write another chapter in your long love story.

The advantage of Parisian connections: your friend Sophie offered you her apartment in the 11th arrondissement for the duration of your stay, as she was away in the south of France. You meet her upstairs neighbour outside the narrow, early nineteenth-century building on a quiet street just off the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine and collect Sophie’s key, taking note of the door codes.

“Holy shit. Look at this place!”

Ben has carried the bags up the stairs - thankfully, Sophie’s flat is on the first floor - and followed you into the little apartment. You turn and grin when you notice how entranced he looks, staring up at the wooden beams in the tiny hallway, peeking out into the communal courtyard, tilting his head this way and that to check out the books on Sophie’s shelves.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” You pick up your suitcase and lead the way into the bedroom, sitting on the end of the bed as you take off your shoes and wriggle your toes happily.

“It’s incredible. Exactly what you might imagine a Parisian apartment to be.” He drops his own bags in the corner and joins you on the bed, flopping back onto the mattress and yawning.

You lie back and turn to face him, resting a hand on his stomach. “Let’s do some exploring. I know we’re tired, but I want to show you around, get some dinner, buy some wine…”

The featherlight touch of his fingers, working their way under your denim blouse and stroking the soft skin of your waist, sends delicious shivers through you.

“We could do some exploring here, right now…?” he asks, eyes twinkling and a smile on his lips.

“You know how tempting that offer is, Benjamin, but let’s restore our energy first, hmmm?”

Dinner is Vietnamese food from a tiny restaurant just around the corner, a staple favourite from your time living in the city, followed by a walk around the neighbourhood and a stop at a nearby supermarket, to stock up on some essentials and a bottle of wine. As you climb the stairs to the apartment, the fatigue from a day of travel and the underlying, gnawing anxiety about your future starts to hit you.

You should just say it to him. Ask him outright what he wants to happen.

You push the thought down, down, as deep as it will go as you settle on Sophie’s tiny sofa and watch Ben uncork the wine in the coin cuisine, the little kitchenette tucked into a corner of the living room. You spot a portable speaker tucked on one of the bookshelves and connect it to your phone, scrolling through your playlists until you find what you want.

“Never let it be said that you don’t cultivate an atmosphere, Lyd,” he says, handing you a glass of the purple-red wine and joining you on the couch. “Let me guess: this is a Paris-specific playlist?”

You hide your face behind one hand and peek at him through your fingers as he laughs, leaning in to kiss your cheek as Serge Gainsbourg’s ‘La chanson de Prévert’ starts to play.

He rests his head on your shoulder as you listen to the song together. It’s a favourite of yours regardless, but tonight, with the man you love so deeply but still fear losing nestled in beside you, Gainbourg’s plaintive melody and lyrics about lost love are like a punch to the gut.

“Lyddie?”

Ben is sitting up, looking at you with concern. “You look so sad, all of a sudden - you okay?”

“It’s just the song, it’s so –” You halt yourself. No. Time to say it.

“I guess I’m just really feeling how close I am to the end of my time in Barrow, that’s all.”

His chocolate-brown eyes soften and he wraps you in a warm embrace. “Still got plenty of time, Lyddie.”

“And then?”

“And then…?”

“What happens? To us, I mean.”

He looks surprised at the question. “We’ll be okay, one way or the other. Right?”

But what does that mean?

You’re too tired to ask the question, you tell yourself. In truth, you’re too scared to - not because you fear his reaction, not at all. Rather, it’s because you fear that your concerns might upset him.

Ben’s head has barely hit the pillow before he’s sound asleep, one arm draped loosely around your waist. For you, though, sleep is elusive, arriving only as the dawn starts to break over the city of light.

You wake, exhausted, to the aroma of fresh coffee brewing and the sound of Ben pottering around the apartment, humming the melody of “La chanson de Prévert” to himself. With a groan, you remember you’d planned to do some research today and force yourself out of bed.

“Bonjour, la belle Lyddie! Du café?” Ben waves a little espresso mug at you and you nod weakly.

He is bright and cheerful as he moves around the kitchenette, pouring the coffee and joining you at the tiny dining table that acts as a kind of divider between the kitchen and the rest of the living area.

“Did you sleep okay?”

You look up, and his face falls when he spies the telltale redness in your eyes. “I’m taking that as a no. What’s going on, Lyd?”

A fortifying sip of the strong coffee. You sit upright and look at him, studying his beautiful face. “Darling, I meant what I said last night. About how anxious I am, how scared of what comes next, the…uncertainty of it all.”

“But we know we’re serious about each other? We talked about it,” he replies, sipping his own coffee. “You know that. Don’t you?”

“I do. I really do. And we are, but -” you pause to gather your thoughts. “But that doesn’t mean there’s an answer for what happens when I have to go home, and that’s eating away at me.”

He looks at you kindly, but you can see the confusion written all over his face. “What do you mean, exactly, Lyd? Surely we can see if circumstances change over the summer, and if not then we do distance until stuff gets figured out. Right? Things are going to be just fine.”

It’s so tempting to smile and agree, but you can’t. You owe him honesty, as much as you want clarity.

“Is that really what you want?”

“Distance? It’s not ideal, but if it comes to it I think we can make it work and - Lyd?”

You have closed your eyes, fearful of tears falling.

Say it. Say it. Be honest with him.

“I - I don’t think I want a long-distance relationship.”

Ben makes no effort to hide his shock. “You don’t want a long-distance thing?” He shakes his head in amazement. “Even if that’s the only option for the moment?”

“I just want certainty, not constantly saying everything would be okay or we’d see what happens when we don’t know that things will be okay, or what’s going to happen. I want you, love. I want a life with you, you know that. Don’t you?”

“But you don’t want long-distance with me.” His brow furrows and his jaw ticks as he stares at the floor.

“I don’t know, I mean I just want what we have now, I don’t know if I could cope with the implications of that kind of distance and -”

He exhales sharply, exasperated, and reaches for his light cotton jacket. “So it’s all or nothing. You would rather have no relationship than even try distance, is that it?”

Fury and sadness mingle and build in your chest. “Ben, that’s not what I fucking said.” Your hands fall to your sides, defeated. “I’m just - fuck, I’m not finding the words right now.”

“Well, if you find them later let me know.” He opens the door of the apartment and pauses for a moment. “See you, Lyddie.”

You sit staring into space for a good half hour at your appointed desk in the print room at the Bibliothèque nationale, before you open the grey archive box of lithographs you’d called up for the day.

The ritual of research is familiar and soothing, a useful distraction from the memory of the argument that morning. You set out your camera and prepare your customary scraps of paper inscribed with the call number of the collection, to make it easier for you to match up images with notes when you return to the materials at home. Wherever the hell “home” is supposed to be, now.

Assess each print. Study it. Immerse yourself in the details before photographing it and writing up your observations on your laptop. Repeat over and over, add to your research materials and stave off the metaphorical wolves circling in your brain.

Your stomach starts to rumble just before one o’clock. The garden courtyard outside the building that houses the print room is busy, with researchers and visitors taking an al fresco lunch and chatting over coffee. Salad consumed, you take your phone out of the transparent plastic briefcase you are required to use inside the library.

No message from him. Nothing.

You decide to make a call. She should be on her lunch now, too.

“Lyd! How are you? How’s Pareeeeee?” Kate’s voice is cheery and comforting, and exactly what you needed to hear.

“Hiya… um, can you talk for a few minutes?”

She immediately knows there’s something wrong and her tone shifts. “Of course, always… Lyd, what’s happened? Are you okay?”

Deep breaths. “Kate, I think I need to make a decision and I’m fucking terrified.”

Kate pauses, aware that she doesn’t need to ask you what this is about. “Okay. Talk to me. Let’s work through it.”

BEN: When do you think you’ll be finished for the day? We should talk. I’m so sorry about this morning x

LYDIA: Probably by 4.30 or so. Do you want me to come meet you?

BEN: I’ll come to you. You want food? It’s a nice day for a picnic dinner.

LYDIA: It is. Dinner is your choice. Meet me at the rue Vivienne exit at 4.30 or so? x

BEN: You say that as if I know where that is… I’ll find it. See you soon, Lyddie. Love you.

Ben Morales leans against the railings of the Bibliothèque nationale and looks at his watch. He’s early, so he meanders across the street and wanders into the Galerie Vivienne, admiring the fine detail of the mosaic floors and brass light fittings that adorn the nineteenth-century covered arcade. He pauses at an antiquarian bookstore and print shop, perusing the selection of vintage postcards displayed in wooden crates outside.

He’s standing at the entrance to the arcade when he looks up and sees you coming through the gates of the library, somehow managing to carry a backpack, tote bag, and small cross-body handbag all at once.

You don’t notice him at first, instead turning your head in both directions as you look for him. Ben’s heart soars when he sees you, in spite of the nagging ache he’s felt in the pit of his stomach ever since the argument you’d had that morning.

He calls out to you from across the street, raising his hand in an enthusiastic wave, and a warm, delighted smile spreads across your face when you realise he’s there, waiting for you. He’s as impossibly handsome as ever in his navy blue shirt jacket, white tshirt, and jeans, tote bag slung over one shoulder.

You keep Kate’s words from your lunchtime conversation in the forefront of your mind. “You know what you want, Lyd. You know what you need to do.”

“Sorry, I got delayed on the way out of the print room and then it always takes longer to pack up than I’d anticipated and then I thought I should pop to the bathroom before I left and then -”

Ben interrupts your explanation with a kiss and a hug. “I’m so sorry, Lyddie. I’m sorry about this morning.” He pulls away and holds out a small, flat brown paper bag. “A peace offering.”

The bag contains a selection of vintage postcards of Paris, postmarked in the early years of the twentieth century: Notre-Dame, photographed from the Left Bank; the place de la Bastille; the facade of the Bibliotheque nationale you’d just left.

“Some of your favourite places, right?”

You reach for his hand and lean in for a kiss. “You know me so well. Thank you, my love, they’re beautiful.” You spot a larger brown paper carrier bag in his other hand. “Dinner?”

Ben smiles, holding out the bag for your approval. “I ended up getting a selection of stuff from one of the Asian takeout places near here. And I picked up a bottle of chilled white wine, and some paper cups. Sound good?”

“Sounds perfect. Let’s go, Benjamin - dinner at the Palais-Royal awaits.”

“I have to admit, I did wonder when you said we were going to a royal palace. Didn’t seem very…Lyddie.”

Ben quirks an eyebrow in your direction. You giggle as you reach into the bag of takeout and retrieve boxes of rice, steamed buns, gyoza, and nems.

“I mean, technically it was a royal residence. But the gardens - where we are now - were public, as were the arcades and shops.” You set the boxes of food on a green metal park chair, serving as a makeshift table in front of your bench. “And it was an important location in the revolutionary period, so…”

He grins and opens the bottle of wine. “Ah! There it is. That’s my Lyd.”

His Lyd. Affection surges in your chest, and you place a hand on Ben’s knee, giving it a light squeeze as he pours some of the white wine into a paper cup and hands it to you.

He raises his own cup in your direction. “To my clever, revolutionary girl.”

You swap stories about your respective days as you dig into the food: Ben describing his informal solo tour of literary locations on the Left Bank, you talking through your finds in the print room. He shows you photos he took of Richard Wright’s apartment building, of the original site of Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company, and a selfie of himself looking completely perplexed at the plaque on the rue du Cardinal-Lemoine that refers to James Joyce as a “British writer of Irish origin.”

You burst out laughing at that one. “I’m so glad you found that. It annoys me every time I see it.”

“I sent it to Evan. He was not impressed.” He slips his phone back into his pocket and reaches for another spring roll. “And then I went and sat in the Luxembourg Gardens for a bit, worked over a little more of the play, thought about Beckett in Paris, watched the world go by. I remembered you said it was one of your favourite places to just sit and think.”

He smiles softly, almost shyly, at you, and with a pang you remember that some serious conversation lies ahead, no matter how tempting it is to sit here forever in the Palais-Royal, eating your picnic dinner and drinking your wine surrounded by the ghosts of writers and lovers and revolutionaries long past.

Lemon-scented wipes remove the residual traces of nems and dipping sauces from your fingers, and Ben stacks the empty food containers in the brown paper bag before topping up your paper cup of wine. You rest your head on his shoulder, and he wraps an arm around you to hold you close.

He sips his wine and takes a deep breath. “I wanted to talk about earlier.”

You raise your head, turn to him, and nod. He rests a hand on your thigh, tracing circles with his index finger on your leg.

“I’m sorry if it ever felt like I was dismissing your worries, Lydia. I - well, I guess I was avoiding the issue. Like if I kept saying things would work out, they’d just… work out.”

You smile gently and reach for his hand. “Without having to make the hard call.”

He squeezes your hand and nods. “Exactly. But I did a lot of thinking about that today. About the future, about what I want - what you want.” He gives you a nervous glance.

“You were right, Lyd, long-distance couldn’t give us…I don’t want long-distance with you, either. I couldn’t, Lyd. I want what you said you want - a life, us, together. Like now.” He caresses your cheek with his thumb. “I can’t imagine anything else.”

You bring your hand to rest on his and close your eyes, feeling tears prickling against your eyelids.

He takes a deep breath. “Lyd, look at me.” Your eyes meet his, dark and warm and serious all at once. “Lyd, I - I want to spend the rest of my life with you. That’s all I want, and - fuck, I think I’ve known I wanted that for a while now.”

You open your mouth to respond and he shakes his head gently. “Lyddie - Lydia - I want to be with you, no matter what it takes.” Another deep breath. “And that’s why - if you want, of course, only if you want - I’ll move back with you at the end of the year. I’ve got some job alerts set up, I’ll find something, you know? I - I just want to be with you.”

“You can’t give up your whole life, darling.” Your voice is quiet as you take in the significance of what he’s telling you, what he’s offering. To his astonishment, you burst out laughing.

“What’s funny, Lyd?”

“I did a lot of thinking today, too. You know you’re all I want, don’t you?” You look at him expectantly, and he nods. “And I was going to tell you that - if you wanted - I would try to stay in the US, so that I could be with you. So that we could make a life together, plan our future.” You turn to him and grin. “But now it seems we’re still going to be on opposite sides of the pond, just with swapped continents.”

Laughter rises from Ben’s chest, emerging as a bright, wide smile and eyes crinkling with delight. He cups your face with his hands and kisses you, over and over, before pulling away abruptly.

“Wait. You said I couldn’t give up my life, but you want to give up yours? And you know Barrow doesn’t do partner or spousal hires…”

“I mean, it wouldn’t be giving up my life. It would be living the life I want to live, with the man I adore. That’s better, no?” You reach over to brush an errant curl off his forehead. “Anyway, I can look for a position within commuting distance, right? I’d rather that than feel I had got a job I didn’t really deserve.”

He blushes slightly and looks at you from under his lashes. “Even so. I meant it, I would follow you anywhere. I’ll go wherever you want me to be, wherever you want to be.”

“Okay. How about this?” You sit up a little straighter, hands resting on his. “We’re clearly both prepared to move. So…we both start looking for jobs, you near my place and me around Barrow, and whoever gets an appointment first - that’s where we go.”

Ben looks into the middle distance and nods, turning over the proposal in his head. “That sounds like a plan, baby.”

“Then it’s a deal?”

He grins and kisses you softly. “It’s a deal.”

The evening is bright and warm as you meander hand in hand through the narrow streets of the Marais, heading east, homeward bound.

You spot a buzzy corner café and nudge Ben. “How about a drink, darling? Something bubbly, maybe?”

He smiles, and you know his eyes are sparkling behind his sunglasses as he squeezes your hand and follows your lead towards one of the small round tables arranged outside the café. The server is typically Parisian: efficient, polite but not overly familiar, and they take your order and return promptly with two glasses of champagne and little dishes of olives and mixed nuts.

“À nous deux, Paris!” Ben clinks his glass to yours and you giggle as the first sip sends bubbles bursting on your tongue.

“Quoting Balzac in the original French?! Where were you all my life, Benjamin?”

He shrugs and smiles to himself. “Could ask you the same question.”

Long, thick fingers begin to rub circles on the flesh of your thigh, feeling the heat of your skin through the light fabric of the button down sky blue shirt dress you’re wearing. You echo the gesture, tracing patterns on the back of his hand, and your expression becomes more serious, more intense, your voice quieter.

“I love you, Ben.”

He squeezes your thigh gently. “I love you, Lyd.”

Sipping champagne and nibbling on the snacks, you watch the world go by, content and cosy in the little bubble that is just you and him. You’re checking your appearance in the bathroom mirror when a realisation sweeps through you. Your eyes widen, mouth forming into a little “o” before stretching into a happy smile as you ascend the stairs from the basement to the main café and rejoin Ben at the table.

“So something occurred to me.”

He chases the last olive around the dish with a cocktail stick. “Mmmmm?”

“We’re doing this, aren’t we? We’re going to spend the rest of our lives together. That’s what we’ve said we want. Right? I didn’t imagine that?”

Ben lifts his head, puts down the cocktail stick, and looks into your eyes with a bemused smile on his face. “No, you didn’t. And yes, we are.” His eyes crinkle as he smiles broadly. “And isn’t it fucking wonderful?”

You nod excitedly and a surge of laughter erupts from both of you, quietened only by a warm, passionate kiss. You break away and run your fingers through the messy strands of hair around his forehead.

“I know people might think it’s soon, love. But… it’s not. I know.”

“I know too, Lyddie. When you know, you know.” He reaches for your hand and brings it to his lips. “And to be honest, I don’t think anyone who knows us will think it’s too soon.”

The server returns to take the empty glasses and dishes. “Autre chose?” [Something else?]

Ben winks at you mischievously and orders two more glasses of champagne.

The walk back to the apartment should have taken about twenty minutes. Or at least, it would have had you not both been tipsy, incredibly happy, and unable to keep your hands off each other.

It takes just under an hour for you to get from the Marais back into the heart of the faubourg Saint-Antoine, stopping here and there along the way to indulge in some making out in quiet side streets and passageways.

“I’m so glad there’s only one flight of stairs,” you hiss theatrically, Ben trailing a hand over your ass as you reach the landing and the door to the flat.

Once inside, you pull him tight to you and move swiftly in the direction of the small bedroom, fingers already hooked inside the waistband of his jeans as he holds your face in his hands and kisses you deeply, tongues sweeping over each other and lips pressed together so hard you swear they’ll be bruised by morning.

“Sit on the end of the bed, baby.” He nods and follows your instructions, undoing his jeans as he watches you standing before him.

You start to unbutton your dress, keeping your eyes on him as you ease it off and let it fall to the floor. Ben’s eyes roam slowly over you, mouth falling open slightly as he takes in the floral print of your panties, the light blue lace of your bra, the softness and curves of your body.

You move closer to him, standing between his legs as he wraps his arms around your lower back and buries his face against your breasts while you languidly trail your fingers through his hair.

You pull back and look at him, immediately giggling. He still has his glasses on, and those coffee-brown eyes are half-hidden behind a fog on the lenses.

“Let’s take these off, shall we, Professor Morales?”

The combination of champagne and a decision about your future together has made you joyful, more confident - and more direct.

“You’re so fucking hot, you know that, baby?”

Ben raises his eyebrows and his ears flush pink. “I don’t really think…uh…”

You kiss him, his hands moving to grab the flesh of your ass and pull you tight to his body.

“I think you’re hot as fuck, Ben Morales, and I’m going to tell you. And show you.” You wrap your arms around his neck and encourage him to move backwards a little, so that you can straddle him. “Lemme show you how gorgeous you are to me, my love. Hmmm?”

He grins, nods, and moans as his mouth passes over the velvet skin of your heavy tits. You help him out of his white T-shirt, and pause to take in the sight of him: your thighs framing his hips and waist, his hands resting on them; his tummy, somehow both broad and solid and yet soft, pressed deliciously against your own belly; his beautiful face, eyes filled with desire, and mouth begging to devour and be devoured.

The temptation is too strong, your hands moving to caress his face as your lips meet his again. You keep your forehead pressed to his as you break the kiss and whisper to him, murmuring about how his dark gaze can make you ache for him, what it feels like to have his lips pressed to your body.

Your hands move slowly across his shoulders and down his back, feeling the warmth of his golden skin, the strength underneath the surface. “This beautiful body, baby,” you murmur, placing tiny kisses to his collarbone. “When you’re above me, fucking me, or about to, and I look up and see you so fucking broad and solid…”

His breathing hitches as your mouth works its way down his chest and towards his tummy, lips and tongue picking out those little patches of freckles that you love so much, teeth sometimes scraping lightly over his warm, solid middle as you carefully move your body off his and onto the floor between his legs.

“You know how fucking sexy this tummy is, baby. Told you the first night we were together.” He looks sceptical and your hands roam over the warm softness of his skin, your cunt positively aching with need at the sensation.

“I’m serious, Ben. It’s so fucking hot, the way your body looks, the feeling of your tummy against mine…” You whine as you roll your hips and clench your thighs, and he sits up slightly to drag down his jeans and underwear, a hand wrapping around his cock as he seeks some relief of his own.

You reach for his other hand, holding it gently as you suck each finger in turn. “I love these hands, baby.” You kiss his palm and he gasps. “I love the sight of them, the feeling of them on me, in me, the things they do to me.”

His eyes are wide and dark with lust and adoration. “Fucking hell, Lyd, you’re incredible.”

And then your fingers join his, working the base of his cock and making Ben gasp with sheer pleasure. He moves his hands up to grope and caress your breasts, long fingers slipping under the lace of your bra to play with your nipples.

“Touch yourself,” he hisses, hands full as he massages the soft weight of your tits. You obey the instruction, keeping your eyes locked on him as you bring one hand to part your soaking folds while the other continues to jerk him off.

Ben watches for a moment as you rub small, firm circles over the aching bundle of nerves while pleasuring him simultaneously. “Fuck, baby, this is so fucking hot. You’re so good to me.”

You’re on your knees, now, and your mouth is actually watering at the sight before you. “Can I suck your cock, baby?”

He grunts his consent. “This…” You flick your tongue over the tip. “This is fucking gorgeous.”

“Please, Lyd.” You look up at him and he whines a little, completely turned on by the sight of you between his legs, one hand now caressing the firm muscles of his calf and the other holding his cock in place. You oblige, expertly trailing your tongue along his full length before beginning to take him, bit by bit, inside your wet mouth.

Ben cries out your name as you continue your ministrations, looking down at you with his eyes blown wide. “I‘ll come if you keep going, baby,” he hisses. “Wanna fuck you, please. Please. Need you.”

You swirl your tongue around the tip one last time before releasing him, bringing your hands to rest again on his legs, fingers massaging the muscles of his thighs as you hum in satisfaction.

“C’mon, Lyddie.” He gestures with his head and you stand. He pulls you to him with one hand, palm and fingers splayed across the small of your back as he tugs down your panties with the other. Two thick fingers slide into you with ease, and his eyebrows quirk with surprise.

“You’re fucking soaking?”

The tone of his voice makes you laugh, and he chuckles against the warm softness of your belly before kissing it, over and over, as your fingers wind through his curls.

“I told you, love, you’re so fucking hot. Don’t even have to touch me and I’m ready for you.”

Ben grins wickedly as you push him back onto the bed and straddle him again, reaching down and stroking his cock a couple of times before you ease him into you and sink down, moaning loudly as he stretches you, fills you, takes you. You’ve had each other so many times now, and yet the sensation of him inside you remains new and thrilling.

You start to move, shifting and rolling your hips in a careful, deliberate rhythm that has the two of you sighing and gasping with deep, delicious pleasure. You lean forward to come closer to him, desperate for his touch, for the warmth of his chest against yours. He eases down the straps of your bra a little and caresses your tits as he starts to fuck up into you, meeting your movements.

He lifts his head up, greedily seeking your lips. His hands trace the curve of your back down to your hips and ass as he watches your bodies moving together, and he smiles wistfully as he brings a finger to your clit. “God, I love fucking you, Lyd.”

You giggle and cry out at his touch, riding him harder still as you edge closer to coming. His finger draws firm, tight circles over the swollen bud, tracing the familiar path he has carved out in you so many times. “Fuck me, baby - gonna come, don’t fucking stop - you gonna come?”

He closes his eyes tightly as the fingers of his other hand press hard into your thigh, breath hitching and voice raw. “Mmmmhmm. I’m so fucking close. Hold on, can you?”

You nod and try to temporarily quell the orgasm that’s been building in you since you got him home, Ben slowing his finger’s steady movements over your soaking clit.

And then the pace increases again, and you’re there, and he’s there. Together.

Morning announces itself with a rustle of paper and a delicious, buttery aroma. Eyes blinking open, you become conscious of Ben’s soft lips on the nape of your neck - and aware that the enticing smell is right under your nose.

“Bonjour, Lyd.” Ben is holding an open paper bag just under your nose. “Croissant?”

You turn to face him properly and sit up in bed beside him. “Hi, darling. How long are you up?”

He reaches into the bag and takes out a croissant, before placing it on a plate and handing it to you. “Not that long. You looked so beautiful and content, I didn’t want to wake you.”

The flaky, buttery pastry melts in your mouth as you sigh with pleasure. “Jesus fucking Christ. Nothing compares.”

Ben stops just as he’s about to bite into his own croissant, throwing you a cheeky glance. “Nothing? Nothing compares? You’re sure about that?”

You rest your head on his shoulder, the cotton of his long sleeved T-shirt soft and comforting against your face.

“Nothing compares… in the world of baked goods.”

He nods, satisfied, and takes a mouthful of the golden viennoiserie.

“Oh, fuck. Maybe you’re right, Lyd.”

You giggle. “Thanks for these, love. You’re so kind.”

Ben shakes his head. “As if you wouldn’t have done the same.” He chews thoughtfully on the pastry. “Anyway, I feel like I still need to make it up to you. Yesterday morning, I mean.”

“You apologised, love, and we sorted things out. It’s fine.”

He shrugs. “I just feel bad. I shouldn’t have made you feel bad. Should have known by now that you struggle with this kind of uncertainty.” Ben reaches for your left hand, bringing it to his lips. “I’m sorry, Lyd.”

“Thank you, Ben. But we’re fine. I mean it. That’s what makes a relationship work, isn’t it? Learning about each other and knowing when we need to learn or listen more.”

He nods. “Exactly. And that’s why I’m so excited to spend the rest of my life with you. No matter where that is.”

The rest of the week is spent partly in research libraries, at least in your case, but mostly in the streets and cafés and galleries and museums of the city you love so much with the man you adore.

You watch with quiet joy as he sees Manet’s Olympia in real life for the first time, shaking his head in admiration and awe as he takes in the painting. He steps back and folds his arms.

“She’s really something.”

“She sure is. I’d be that confident too, if I was as gorgeous as her.”

He arches an eyebrow and looks at you. “You are. Much more so.”

You huff a laugh as you link his arm and wander off to see Courbet’s Burial at Ornans. “You want me to pose like one of Manet’s French girls, Ben?”

“Wouldn’t say no, Lyd.”

At Harry’s New York Bar, the legendary cocktail bar near the Opéra, you cuddle up in a cosy corner of the piano lounge in the basement, and drink French 75 cocktails while the resident pianist plays Gershwin late into the night. You follow your own tailor-made walking tours, spotting literary landmarks and movie locations. A night in a Saint-Germain bar ends with a visit to the late-night bookstore L’Écume des Pages (and an inevitable bag full of newly-purchased books). Ben oohs and aahs over the bouquinistes’ boxes that line the walls overlooking the Seine, unable to resist a quick perusal of their selection of rare books and vintage magazines. You share a Paris-Brest pastry from Angelina, moaning appreciatively as you devour the delicious dessert. Together, you drink coffee and sip wine and talk and laugh and people-watch to your heart’s content.

You could never tire of Paris. Even so, Ben’s wide-eyed excitement and enthusiasm makes everything new: the landmarks, the streetscapes, the food, the drink, the sounds and smells.

And you. He has made you new, too.

You feel it in the way he looks at you when you wave your hands and wax lyrical about god knows what painting or book or historical event. It’s in the reassuring weight of his arm around your shoulders as you wander through the narrow back streets, feeling like you’re ten feet tall. It’s there in the hundreds of little opportunities he finds during each day to touch you: the small of your back as you enter a building, the back of your hand as you sit together on the Métro, the side of your mouth as he brushes away an errant croissant flake.

It is in the moments when you stop on the street and pull him to you for a kiss, unconcerned by the Parisians tut-tutting as they have to walk around the two of you. It’s in the moans he pulls from you, and you from him, when you are tangled in bedsheets at night, or in the morning, or even - after a lunchtime trip to the movies that escalated into some heated back-row kisses - in the middle of the afternoon, languidly stretched out naked for him on the bed.

Just like one of Manet’s French girls, he joked.

Most of all, it’s there in the light that always seems to be shining in your eyes whenever you look at him, knowing that he is yours and you his.

“You’re a tolerant man, Ben Morales,” you say with a chuckle as you walk through the imposing gates of Père Lachaise cemetery one bright morning. “Willing to hang out in Parisian cemeteries with me as I fangirl over the tombs of people no one has cared about for a hundred years or more.”

Ben looks at the list of names on the cemetery map and smiles at you, squinting slightly behind his sunglasses. “I rather like your Gothic side, Lyddie. And I appreciate this too, you know - I want to find Balzac and Proust’s tombs, while we’re here.” He drapes an arm across your shoulders as you climb steadily up one of the winding paths leading through the oldest part of the cemetery, stopping here and there to look at some of the more unusual tombs and memorials.

There’s a certain part of Père Lachaise, its highest point, where you can look out and see the city unfolding below. You lead him there and sit on a bench, keen for him to take in the view. Other visitors and tourists meander past with their maps, chatting in various languages about Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison or any number of the luminaries whose remains lie alongside those of many more ordinary Parisians in this leafy enclave.

And then it’s just the two of you, side by side, contemplative. Little birds chirp and chatter in the trees, their song a moment of peaceful stillness in the bustling city.

Paris has a tendency to look particularly magical when you’re entering into the final hours of a visit. This evening, the fading spring sunlight cuts a path along the street below, gleaming off the windows and shop signs that line the ancient thoroughfare.

“My heart always breaks a little when I have to leave.”

Ben finishes combing back his hair, still damp from the shower and curls starting to form at the nape of his neck. He turns from the mirror just inside the door of the apartment, adjusting the collar of his white shirt.

“This isn’t the last time, Lyddie. Not for you, not for us.”

You nod sadly, picking up your purse and slipping into a pair of dark red patent ballet flats. “I know. I’ve been telling myself that for twenty-odd years, but it never gets easier. Stupid, huh.”

He shakes his head as he reaches for your hand. “Not stupid. You love this place, and twenty-odd years is a long time to be in love.” He looks you up and down admiringly. “You’re all fancy.”

You cock your hip and strike a pose as Ben laughs. “I like to dress up for my long-term lover, the city of Paris, Monsieur Morales. Anyway, you’re all fancy too.”

“Not like you, I’m not. You look…” He exhales as he takes you in. “You look like you walked out of a perfect French movie.”

Even you have to admit he’s got a point. Sure, the outfit had been a bit of a splurge, a treat to yourself from the BHV department store. But a classic, knee-length little black dress would never go out of style. At least, that’s how you justified it. That, and the fact that it hugged your body just so, working wonders with your curves, somehow narrowing your middle and accentuating your tits and hips in a manner that was impossibly elegant and incredibly sexy. It was a marvel.

For once, you got a flash of what Ben always told you he saw when he looked at you. It made for a pleasant change.

This evening you have accessorised with a vintage brooch and chunky brass earrings, the gold necklace Ben gave you for Valentine’s Day a permanent fixture around your neck. The spring evening is warm enough for you to get away with a dark red pashmina shawl in lieu of a jacket, though you worried bare legs might be a step too far and decided not to forego your black hold-up fishnet stockings.

Ben slips into his olive green suit jacket and you squeeze his hand. “Thank you, my love. You look beautiful, too.”

He does. But then, he always does: his beauty is easy, natural, effortless; as obvious to you when he’s bleary-eyed and bed-headed in his old t-shirts and pyjama bottoms as it is now, with him suited and booted and looking every inch the debonair Parisian intellectual in his clear-framed glasses.

For an instant you wish you could travel back to your broken-hearted self all those years before, to tell her that a better day would come, that real love would find you when and where you least expected it, and that it would arrive in the form of a man as beautiful on the inside as he is on the outside.

Most people would say the two of you are a little overdressed for your dinner destination. But then, you aren’t most people.

You catch a glimpse of the two of you reflected in a shop window as you walk along boulevard Henri IV. You, black dress and red accessories; Ben, green suit with his top shirt buttons undone, hair combed back and starting to form soft waves a little as it dries. The fact that you are both wearing sunglasses only enhances the sense of slightly retro European chic.

“Look at us. Not bad, hmmm?”

Ben stops, puts down the wicker basket he’s carrying, and winds his arms around your waist, kissing the side of your neck. “Perfect.”

You stroll past a little park near the river, pointing out a reconstructed bit of the Bastille to him, and wander in the direction of the Pont Marie and onto the Île Saint-Louis. It’s a little out of the way for where you’re going, but you have a good reason. He asked you a couple of days ago what your favourite view of the city was, and you intend to show him.

The evening sky is streaked with a palette of pale blues, pinks, oranges and reds as you reach the Pont de la Tournelle and stop to lean on the parapet of the bridge.

“This is it.”

He stands beside you and rests his hands on the parapet, following your gaze westwards along the river, taking in the silhouette of Notre-Dame - still obscured by scaffolding - painted against the vibrant canvas of the sunset, and the curve of the quaysides as the Seine splits around the Île de la Cité.

“This is my spot. When I stand here I feel as though I could wrap my arms around the city and as though it wraps its arms around me.” You look at Ben, a little embarrassed. “Sorry. That’s a bit weird, I know. I am aware that it is a city and I cannot hug it, please don’t run away.”

He looks at you with affectionate bemusement. “You know how beautiful that is, to have those feelings and be able to articulate them like that?” He reaches for your hand. “It isn’t weird. It’s you, and it’s wonderful.”

You rest your head on his shoulder and squeeze his hand. “The first time I came to Paris after…everything, I came here the first night. I stood here and I looked at the cathedral and the city.” You pause as the memory resurfaces. “And then I had a massive cry. See? Weird.”

Ben shakes his head and chuckles, pulling you close to him. “Not weird. Catharsis.”

“I guess it was. I was still here. Notre-Dame was still here. Paris was still here. It gave me a sense of hope, I think, for the first time. Like, I knew things would get better.”

“I’m so fucking proud of you, you know?” He kisses your forehead and leans in to murmur, cheekily, in your ear: “So did things get better?”

You wrap your arm around his waist, slipping it under his jacket so you can feel the strong muscles of his back under his shirt. “Eh, I guess you could say that.”

Dinner is simple: a baguette, a selection of cheeses and charcuterie, and a bottle of champagne. But you’ve made the effort to bring proper glasses and plates from the apartment, and you can’t fault the location: watching the river from the Quai Saint-Bernard on the left bank, waving at the people on the big tourist boats - the bateaux-mouches - as they pass.

“Hell of a view,” Ben muses in between mouthfuls of baguette and Brillat-Savarin cheese.

You gaze across the river at the Île Saint-Louis and smile contentedly. “It is perfection.”

He chuckles and leans in to kiss you. “I was talking about you. But Paris isn’t too bad, either.”

He looks back at the river, a smile playing on his lips, and you take a moment to admire a perfect view of your own: Ben’s handsome face in profile, hair moving gently in the breeze, the light tan he had acquired after a week of wandering in Parisian spring sunshine complementing the patches of grey-white hair at the hinge of his jaw.

You can’t help but marvel a little at how fucking gorgeous he is. Well done, Lyd. In that instant, as you take him in, you concentrate on the wonderful feeling of calm and safety that suffuses your body when you’re with him.

You’d only realised after the abrupt end of your last relationship that you’d spent a decade and a half walking on eggshells, constantly anxious and never wholly comfortable - even with someone who claimed to love you. You feared suggesting the simplest thing: a movie, a dinner, a holiday, lest it prompt a negative reaction or criticism.

With Ben, though? Even with the ongoing uncertainty about where, exactly, your future would be, you had never felt anything other than safe. With a clearer path ahead agreed together, the residual anxiety faded, too.

It was a new and marvellous feeling.

As the evening draws in, a little group of musicians set up nearby on the quay, accompanied by a cluster of couples who immediately began to dance to the band. Ben turns and smiles at the spectacle.

“They do this as soon as the weather gets warm here,” you explain, smiling widely as the dancers move around an open area on the quayside. “Sometimes it’s French classics, sometimes American big band, sometimes Latin, sometimes a more contemporary mix, like tonight.”

Ben stands up, dusts off his pants, picks up the picnic basket and extends his hand to you.

“Would you like to dance, Lyddie?”

How can you refuse, when he’s looking like that and asking you in that voice and smiling at you with such love and affection?

“I’m not good at this sort of thing, Ben, I warn you.”

He rolls his eyes affectionately. “Bullshit. Now: dance with me, Lyd.”

You get to your feet and he leads you in the direction of the makeshift dancefloor, leaving the picnic basket to one side as he brings you into a dance hold and begins to move, pulling you close to his body as the band and its female lead singer begin a cover of Mitski’s “My Love Mine All Mine”.

The rest of the city falls away as you dance with him, nuzzling against his neck as his hips sway gently, rhythmically against you in time to the slower tempo of the music. Ben’s lips press softly to the top of your head, and you hum in absolute contentment.

“I love this song, you know.”

He chuckles. “I do. You sing it very beautifully in the shower, sometimes.”

“I doubt it’s beautiful.”

“Trust me. It’s beautiful.”

You nestle against him and sing along, joining in with the lyric that always made you think of him, of how he had broken through your sturdy defences, smoothing and healing the jagged, broken pieces of your soul: “My baby, here on earth/Showed me what my heart was worth”.

You sing the words quietly against his chest, feeling the vibrations from your voice meeting the rhythm of his heartbeat in a curious music made of two lovers. As the song draws to a close, Ben tenderly lifts your chin and kisses you, enveloping you in those strong arms. Cologne, coffee, bread, paper, something that is just his: his scent, the scent of love and safety.

His big hands skim appreciatively over your figure in the new black dress as he inhales your own perfume, nose buried in the crook of your neck. “Delicious, gorgeous girl,” he murmurs against your velvet skin. “You look incredible tonight, you know?”

Ben pulls your body even tighter to his and you whine softly, the press of his broad form to yours enough to send a rush of wetness to your core.

“I think we need to get back to the apartment, my love.”

Ben sits at the end of the bed, wearing his shirt and boxers, watching as you take off your jewellery in front of the bedroom mirror. There’s something fascinating about the ritual: how you take out your earrings and put them in their box; the way you tilt your head forward as you remove your necklace.

He still can’t believe it, sometimes, the kind of love he has with you. He’s been desperate to get you home ever since you danced close and slow on the riverbank. That fucking black dress. Driving him slowly crazy all night, every time he looked at you. It’s the way it hugs your hips, accentuates the ample, full curves of your tits, and reveals just enough of your skin to make him want to ease it off your soft, welcoming body.

His cock twitches at the thought.

He stands up and crosses the floor, standing behind you. His hands gently caress you as you smile at the reflection of the two of you in the mirror.

“I love this.”

Ben kisses the top of your arm. “I love this, too.”

His lips find their way along the line of your shoulder until they reach the crook of your neck. A little tug to the zipper of the dress and his mouth moves downwards, kissing and sucking at the back of your neck, hands roaming over your body and grabbing handfuls of you as he goes.

He’s pressed against your back, murmuring your name. The extent of his desire is already very much in evidence.

“Fuck, Lyddie.” His breath is warm and urgent against your neck.

“Mmmm?”

“I’ve wanted to take this off since the minute I saw you in it.”

You chuckle. “Looks that bad, huh?”

Lips still on your neck, he caresses your breasts as he shakes his head. “Looks too good on you.”

Ben licks a stripe up the side of your neck and you whine with pleasure, closing your eyes and reaching to caress his face.

“Can I take it off, my love?” His voice is lower, smokier.

You nod, locking your eyes on his. A frisson of excitement courses through your body as Ben eases down the rest of the zipper and eases you out of your little black dress, letting it pool at your feet.

“Oh, fuck me. These new?”

When you bought the dress, you’d bought new lingerie, too. A bra in caramel and black lace whose delicacy belied its incredible construction, supporting your breasts perfectly. Matching underwear, high-waisted and full but completely sheer, made out of the same black lace that trimmed your bra.

And of course: the stockings.

You nod and close your eyes, trying to avoid seeing yourself in the mirror. You looked alright in the dress, but you still can’t quite face the body underneath it. Ben’s breath ghosts across your shoulder blades as he fondles your tits and kisses the top of your spine.

“Open your eyes, Lyd.”

You hesitate.

“Lyd. Open your eyes.”

You obey. But you keep your gaze fixed on him, afraid of your own reflection, of a body that you still cannot believe anyone like him would ever really want.

“Lyddie, please look.” Ben’s voice is firm but pleading. “Look at your beautiful face. Look at this gorgeous, sexy body.”

He trails a finger along the contours of your breasts, tracing the lace trim of the bra. He brings his hands to your waist, to your hips, pulling you back against him ever so slightly so that you can feel how hard he is.

You don’t think you’ll ever love your body. But, watching Ben drinking you in with his eyes, running his fingers over the black Parisian lace that clings to the most sensitive and sensual parts of you, you understand that you love the way he loves your body.

“This is what you do to me, Lyd, and I will tell you every day for the rest of our lives that you are the most beautiful fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” You turn to face him, his hands cupping your face as he kisses you deeply.

He breaks away and looks into your eyes, dark irises searching yours. There’s a vulnerability there, a hint of doubt, lingering in spite of his words.

“What is it, Lyd?”

You shrug, fingers lightly caressing the curls and waves that cluster around his ears. “I love that you think I’m beautiful. I… still don’t know if I ever will.”

He kisses you again, softer this time. “Can I at least try to convince you? Show you?”

You smile against his lips and wrap your arms around his neck. “I’d like that. Could… could you, like, take charge? For tonight?”

He quirks an eyebrow and returns your kiss, humming against your mouth. “Take charge?”

You feel embarrassment rising in your throat. You’d never really felt able to just ask for what you needed like this before. Old habits die hard.

“Ben, I never felt safe enough to ask a partner to take the lead like this…not before you.”

His expression softens. “I’d give you anything, Lyd. Anything you want.” He wraps his arms around you and pulls you to him, chin resting on your shoulder. “And I feel safe with you, too.”

You tilt your head to kiss him. “So…?”

“So, I’m going to take charge and show you exactly how fucking beautiful you are, how sexy you are, how fucking happy I am that I get to be with you.” He pauses to kiss you again. “And if I have to, like I said - I’ll do this every day for the rest of time, if necessary, until you see what a perfect goddess you are.”

Another, deeper kiss; the sensation of his broad hands on the soft skin of your tits and belly, pulling you tight to him, the press of his erection against you as he guides you to lean back against the wall and slips his fingers under the crotch of your panties, parting your folds and working your clit and pussy until you’re panting with desire and need.

For a moment, you think he’s going to fuck you. But then slowly, steadily, Ben sinks to the ground in front of you, mouth and teeth and tongue finding the softest, most yielding parts of your body as he works his way to his knees.

Ben looks up at you, eyes glittering with lust and adoration. He is a supplicant before you, ready to worship, to seek and give a pleasure as sacred as it is profane. He venerates your body with his mouth. His tongue traces the outline of your hips, his lips kiss the softness of your lower belly, his teeth scrape across the thick flesh of your upper thighs. He tugs the panties down completely, parting your legs and helping you out of the garment.

“I want you to keep the stockings on, okay?”

You nod your assent. Those perfect dark eyes find yours, a flash of mischief crossing his gaze as he gently pushes a finger inside you before placing both hands firmly on your hips, pressing into your flesh.

And then he tilts his head, just so, and you cry out as he brings his lips to your wet pussy, mouth and tongue working your entrance as his nose rubs with precision against your clit. You buck slightly against him but he holds you in place, grunting and groaning with pleasure as he goes down on you. The warmth of his breath against your core makes your cunt clench around nothing, desperate for him.

You wind your fingers through the soft waves of his hair, holding him in position and throwing your head back as you revel in every lap of his tongue, every brush of his beard against the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, every nudge of that beautiful nose against your clit. He’s eating you out like you’re his last meal, your moans and writhing body seemingly only serving to spur him on.

Even so, Ben senses that you’re holding back. The position is incredible, the sight of him, the sound of him, the feel of him making you want to come harder than you’ve ever done before. But you worry about whether your legs will give way - whether you’ll hurt him if you fall forward.

“I’ve got you, Lyd,” he murmurs, face still buried between your thighs. “Let go. I’ve got you. You’re so close. Come for me. Want you to come like this.”

With his fingers fucking you and his lips sucking and licking at your clit, your body yields and you cry out as you come against his face.

He stays on his knees as you ride out the orgasm, thumbs rubbing a gentle circle against your hips, before scrambling to his feet and wrapping you in his strong arms. Your legs are still trembling as you lean in and kiss him like your lives depend on it, tasting yourself on his lips. He manoeuvres you to the bed, laying you down with the utmost care.

You look up at him as he shifts into position above you, the low light catching the traces of your release that glisten across his face and his beautiful eyes flitting greedily over your face and body. You reach up to unbutton his shirt and he shucks off his undervest. An electrical current of desire courses through you as you rake your hands over his broad shoulders and down to that soft tummy you love so much. His eyes are warm and wanting: your darling, your lover, your partner. You are safe in his hands, and you are ready to give yourself entirely to him.

A little smile quirks at his mouth as he lies down beside you, turning on his side and trailing his long fingers across the velvet skin of your tits, still enclosed in the delicate lace of your bra.

“Do you know how much I want you, Lyd?” he murmurs, mouth working hot, needy kisses across your breasts.

“Tell me.”

“Want you all the time.” You can feel his cock hard against you. “Want to have all of you, want to touch and kiss and fuck every last inch of you. I’m going to use my mouth on you now, baby, okay?”

He nips and sucks at the soft flesh of your belly as you moan, pussy aching for him. “And the more I have you, the more I want you.” He finds your soaking folds again and drags two fingers through the slick, bringing them to your lips so you can suck them clean. “I love you. And I can’t get enough of you.”

You let out a half-laugh, half-groan as he pulls you to him and quickly takes off your bra, mouth finding your breasts and tongue swirling over your nipples. You slip a hand between the two of you, tugging down his boxer briefs and wrapping your fingers around his cock as you stroke him, feeling him becoming fully hard under your careful touch.

“Do you think you have another in you, my love?”

You nod.

“Use your words, Lyd.”

“Yes. I think so…fuck, yes sir.”

He groans loudly against you and slips his fingers back through your soaking folds, chuckling a little at the whine of pleasure you let out as his warm breath ghosts against your ear. “Fucking hell, Lyd. You look so fucking beautiful. Such a beautiful woman.” He hooks his fingers against the perfect spot inside you and you buck against him, hand still working his dick. “And such a pretty pussy, so tight and so wet for me.”

He eases you into a different position, your back against his chest as his erection nudges against you. First his hands, then - with a shuffle down the bed - his mouth caresses the plump flesh of your ass, lips and teeth scraping over the sensitive skin as you whimper. He shifts your leg up and nestles himself into position.

“Can I have you, darling?”

You whine into the bed, feeling your orgasm building and building. “Please, baby, I need you inside me - fuck, baby, please…”

“I thought I was in charge?”

His voice is low, honeyed, hot as he whispers in your ear. It tips you closer and closer to the edge.

“You are… I just want you so fucking much.”

“You want me to fuck you, is that it?”

“Please. Fuck me, my love. Hard as you want to.”

“Fuck, Lyd.” With a groan and some muttered expletives, Ben sinks inside you, pausing for a moment to enjoy the sensation. “Always feels so incredible inside you, baby,” he pants, one arm holding you around your tits and the other against your belly. “Just - oh, fuck - just perfect.”

It is perfect - perfect angle, perfect feeling of him stretching you, of his hands on you. He drags himself out of your cunt slowly, steadily, making you whimper at the loss of him. A snap of his hips and he’s buried inside you again, beginning a hard rhythm that has you crying his name into the bed as he fucks you, fast and deep, the softness of your ass cushioning his thrusts as he showers you with praise. His good girl. His beautiful woman. His love.

His. His. Only his. Repeated. Possessive. Perfect.

He shifts his hand from your belly to your pussy, working tight circles over the swollen nub of your clit as you get closer and closer, mouth sucking on the delicate flesh of your neck, never letting up the rhythm until you cry out and come on his cock, the wetness audible as he fucks you through it.

“Good, baby?” He pulls out as you’re still coming down, easing you onto your back and settling himself on top of you, carefully parting your legs.

You look up at him, cockdrunk, seeing stars, and with no way to express how you feel other than a satisfied whine as you pull him to you for a hungry, sloppy kiss. Ben smiles and chuckles against your lips as he reaches down to gently hook an arm under your knee as he sinks back into you with a guttural moan.

He picks up the pace again quickly, taking you harder now, rougher, even, and gripping the headboard of the bed with his free hand. His hair is dishevelled, errant short curls falling over his brow as sweat runs in rivulets over the freckles scattered underneath the hollow of his throat and lips finding yours as you start to babble to him incoherently, surrendering to the sensation.

He drops his hand from the headboard to find yours, pressing your hand and arm into the mattress as he holds you down while he fucks you.

“Talk to me, Lyd. Tell me. See how much I want you? Tell me.”

You mutter filthily about how deep he is, how big he is, how you love having him inside of you, how much you want him - need him - to fill you up. But then you look at him - at his beautiful face, screwed up and teeth gritted as he makes love to you - and another urge takes over, displacing the dirty talk with something no less intense, but softer, all the same.

“I fucking love you, Ben - fuck, keep going, that’s so good, fuck…”

He groans and reaches for your breast, groping it as he nears his own release. “You’re mine, Lyddie. All mine.”

“Yours, Ben. Every bit of me. Yours, forever, like you’re fucking mine.”

“My woman…my - oh, fuck - my good fucking girl.” You know he’s really close. “Keep talking, Lyd. Want to hear it.”

“You’re mine, baby - oh god, Ben, that’s so fucking good - all mine. I’ll give you anything. Everything.”

Ben rests his head against your neck, panting and moaning as his rhythm falters. “I’m all yours, Lydia, always - f-fuck, I’m gonna…”

You hold him tight, hands across the breadth of his back. “You’ll never be alone again, baby - fuck, Ben! - gonna take care of you, gonna be our own little family…”

He positively growls as he comes inside you, your head knocking against the headboard as he snaps his hips against yours before collapsing against your body. You hold him tight, gentle, slow, one hand winding through his curls and the other reaching for his hand as you plant soft kisses along his hairline.

He eases himself out of you with a final kiss and flops back onto the mattress beside you, still trying to catch his breath and with the most beautifully blissed-out expression on his face.

“I’m just going to clean up and take these stockings off, my love,” you murmur, shifting your body to the edge of the bed. “You okay?”

Ben grins and giggles to himself as he looks at you. “I am fantastic. Don’t know my name or what year it is, but I am fucking fantastic.”

You pad back from the bathroom as quickly as you can, discarding your stockings and climbing back into bed beside him. He’s reaching for you before you’ve even settled your body on the mattress, broad hands gently rubbing your belly, your hips, the line of your breasts. His breath is steadier now, face and body completely relaxed in the gorgeous afterglow.

“You are such a beautiful man.”

Ben opens one eye and meets your gaze. “Hmmmph?”

“I said, you are such a beautiful man. Don’t dare deny it.”

He smiles softly, closing his eyes again as your fingertips trace the line of his nose, brush against an errant curl, find the outline of the little bare patches on the side of his jaw. Your thumb swipes gently across his lower lip, fingers seeking out the texture of his moustache.

You go to speak, and stop yourself.

“What were you going to say, Lyddie?” His voice is heavy, sleep beckoning him.

“Nothing, I was just - no, it’s stupid.”

“Nothing stupid could ever come out of your pretty mouth.”

You giggle quietly and bring yourself even closer to him, resting your hand on his chest. He reaches up to hold it.

“It’s just that… I don’t know. When I look at you like this, at all the little things that are just uniquely you, it feels like everything fits. You know?”

He opens his eyes again. “Everything fits?”

“It’s like, ‘aha. Yes. That.’ Like I was always meant to be looking at this face. Like there was a bit of me that I didn’t even know I was missing and it just was…it was you. Even if I didn’t know it.”

He smiles and leans in for a soft kiss. “And now everything fits.”

He wakes her with coffee and kisses, knowing how much she hates prising herself from the warmth of their shared bed. A little incentive, a way to help her avoid panic later in the morning, one of those tiny acts of love they perform for each other every day.

She orders a taxi for a couple of hours’ time and strips the bedsheets, casting an eye over their shared luggage waiting for departure as she joins him in the living area. Having put the sheets on a wash-dry cycle, her hands rest lightly on his broad shoulders as she quickly kisses him on the cheek and heads for the bathroom to shower. Instinctively, she gathers all but their essentials - toothbrushes and paste, shower gel - and slips them in a ziploc bag, ready to go into one of their cases.

Once he’s showered, they continue their seamless little ballet of co-operation and partnership as they prepare to depart: a reminder to empty the trash here, an almost-forgotten phone charger spotted there, last few belongings squished into their hand luggage, and a final check on their passports and tickets. She checks every drawer and cupboard one more time while he places their trash bag in the small communal dumpster in the building’s courtyard.

It is a banal ritual: unthinking, unrehearsed, instinctive. But there’s something in the way they slot together so neatly, the way they complement each other, the easy, naturalness of it all, that speaks to a sense of partnership that works as well in the routines of everyday life as it does in the bedroom.

He carries the cases down to the main hallway as she checks the apartment’s small windows and locks up, following him downstairs after she drops off the key to Sophie’s neighbour.

He’s outside, standing with the bags on the pavement outside the building. The G7 taxi pulls up almost immediately, and he can’t help but smile with pride when he hears her confidently chatting away in French to the driver as they load the trunk with their luggage.

Her hand finds his in the backseat, head resting against his shoulder. Partners. A team.

As the car heads northwards towards the edge of the city, he casts a glance at his phone. Two new job alerts, for positions at institutions in Europe.

He resolves to check them out properly once they get home. For now, though, just a squeeze of her hand, a kiss to the top of her head, and a silent resolution that he’d follow her to the ends of the earth.

*******

Further A/N: I'm going to make a separate post with more details on the music, the locations, and the food in this chapter...

#visiting fic #visiting masterlist #mr ben snl #mr ben au #mr ben x ofc #mr ben fanfic #professor ben x ofc #professor!ben #professor!ben x ofc #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character fanfiction #pedro pascal character fanfic #pedro pascal #pedrostories

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m1d-45 · 30 days ago

Note

Asking The Important Questions and Answering:

-you still alive everybuddy?

~Yes, yours truly is alive, a year older for some time now already and suffering BECAUSE I'M MOVING WITHIN 2024!

-freshest news?

~i became an uncle/aunt for the 8th time, his name is (blank) and i'm VIBRATING! He's so tiny! And blonde and has these BIG eyes i wanna squish them! We're giving the parents a bit of themselves time but gosh i wanna gush over the wittle baby in person and not over pictures!

Anyways, do the people of teyvat celebrate babies?

We're celebrating in a few weeks!

-🥘Stew

waves!!!

minor spoilers for sumeru + natlan AQ, i use natlano instead of “” natlanese “”

1) i am still alive!!! somehow!!! however comma,

i am in college now!!! holy shit!!! and it has been HELL on my schedule be so fucking fr- i’m taking online classes and with the adhd you can imagine how that’s going (hint : bad). i’ve also just had a bunch of trouble that has killed my motivation (lotta personal stuff blah blah) and i’ve been falling back to less taxing blurbs rather than anything actually post-able. also as such i just have Not had the energy to answer asks,, i read them all and i love you everyone who sends them but i don’t wanna reply with the equivalent of “i ain’t reading that but good for you. or sorry that happened.” yk?

2) congrats on the new relative!!!! baby kids are WILD and i wish them good health.

for me… well, i’m finally getting a hold on things, and i can feel that i have more energy again, which i’m really excited about!! i’ve had some ideas SLOW COOKING for MONTHS that im very excited to serve!!! not really news though, just a Development,,,

(yes it took me like 2.5 months to get a grip on things. it’s the autism. shhhhh)

for actual news.. uh, i learned that there’s a 10$ fee for getting locked out of your dorm! uhhh i have the object permanence of a d6, how obvious is it

3) i think like.. remembering that teyvat still uses oil lamps, of course they’re happy about children!!! different nations show it in different ways, though.

mondstadt is a very “it takes a village” city, so celebrations focus on allowing the parent to recover and preparing for their new life. lotta time off work and pages of advice, you know?

if mond is the present, liyue is the future. lotta focus on practices for good health — that vary between families, ranging from calming teas for the parent to necklaces with herbs tucked in the pendant for the child.

inazuma is… inazuma. post-decree lifting, though, things somewhat go back to normal adjacent. like liyue, it’s about a prosperous future, but in non physical forms. intangible blessing and faith over physical jade beads, you know?

the forests of sumeru are run by the akedemiya. wisdom does not take breaks, and neither should you. one brief event close after the birth is enough — the closest to modern baby showers. gifts given, the clock strikes, and that’s about it.

the deserts, however, follow mondstadt’s lead, especially in places such as aaru village. children are very communal, and even those without biological children are often parental figures. health for the parent while the child is raised with the others, the best childcare this side of the chasm.

fontaine is extravagant. for some of the richer families, lady furina herself would come down and personally wish the child well. lotta impractical, flashy gifts given over a too many days. it’s a social event, for those around the new family just as much as it is the child themself.

natlan is also very aggressively communal. nobody fights alone, after all, no matter the shape of their battle. celebrations consist of the tribe giving practical gifts, anything from clothes and food to a promise to be there when needed. specific preferences switch between the tribes — the people of the springs someone give seashell necklaces for good luck, the scions of the canopy a set of soft gloves, suitable for new skin while also sturdy enough to climb ropes with. natlano treat the parent the best, i think.

snezhnaya is small, private. close family and friends only, whispered prayers and tight, worried hugs. the everwinter is not kind, so it is made up for with the embers of what was once a tight knit community. they cannot give what they once could, cannot sing and knit and give blankets with blessings woven into the fabric, but they do what they can. they huddle around the fire, hoping against hope.

#m1d : [chats]#stew🥘 anon #answering this with soup in my head how appropriate #putting on my neurotypical-sona to answer this ask. mentally i am thinking in binary.#stretching. i missed little asks like this #unfortunately my brain only knows redacted media and shutdowns #also i HATE ‘natlanese’ that’s such bullshit #in my head it’s natlano i don’t give a fuck. don’t care. bye #thanks mhy i’ll take it from here. i know you’re characters better than you do they told me themselves.

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peachyuka · 1 year ago

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"What you see is not real, it’s all a show"

I’m so excited about Fontaine! I’ve been tired from playing Genshin for the past months, but seeing the pretty city and cool set of new characters made me motivated again :D A little Lynette to celebrate!

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moremusic · 3 months ago

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This week’s guests are from my favorite city, New York. The Upsides play infectious music that will get into the core of your soul and leave you wanting more. Do yourself a favor and check them out!

Can you tell us a little history of the upsides. How did you meet and form?

My brother Matt (who is the lead singer and guitarist) and I have been playing together since I received my first drum set for Christmas in fourth grade. Matt DaSilva, our bassist, has been in different iterations of groups we’ve had over the years including a 90s covers band. Hopefully we’ve improved a little since those days. I met Hart (lead guitarist) in college although we never played in a band together there, we would just kind of jam together after a few drinks. I luckily ran back into him in Lower Manhattan after graduation and invited him to come to the next rehearsal my brother and I had lined up.

I am a big fan of your song “Jump In” can you tell me the meaning of this song?

Thank you! That one came about a few years ago and while all of our songs are collaborative, that’s a tune I had more of a hand in than others. Lyrically, it is really just about coming to a certain point in maturing as a person. Being more comfortable in your own skin and ‘jumping in’ if you will to who you actually want to be, rather than someone else’s idea of who you should be or what you should be doing with your life. It felt like a proper album opener particularly with the uptempo feel, sort of a “here we are” moment.

When you write, is it a band effort or does someone come to rehearsal with an idea or finished song?

For this first album, most of the songs were one person bringing forth an idea to the band that we would work together to fully form which was a great process. However, for the second album that we are beginning to work on we wanted to try to build songs from the ground-up as a unit in the rehearsal studio. We actually rented a cabin up in the Catskills in early July and had a really productive week forming ideas with that method. We’re really excited to finish out those songs that stemmed from a new writing process and it was invigorating to have a full blank canvas every day rather than quickly showing each other new ideas after a rehearsal in Brooklyn.

What is your career highlight?

It might be a toss-up between having our tune ‘Jump In’ played on either Pat Monahan’s (lead singer of Train) SiriusXM channel and also on WFUV 90.7 in New York City. We grew up covering Train in that aforementioned 90s covers band, and also grew up listening to WFUV which just had enough signal to make it to our hometown of Randolph, New Jersey. Shout out to Alisa Ali of WFUV who always supports local acts!

What is your favorite venue to play?

That would probably have to be Mercury Lounge right here in New York, where we had our album release show back in May. It’s an intimate vibe but always sounds great and has a great stage. You can almost feel the history of the bands who have played there over the years in the walls. And you can definitely see all the band stickers in the green room!

What does the next 6-12 months hold for you?

We’re going to be hard at work on album 2, hopefully finishing up demos for that by October and starting the recording process early next year. We’ll have a couple more shows in New York in New England to close out the year as well and then hopefully releasing more music as early as possible in 2025 and gigging in support of our second album!

What is your dream festival line up?

Speaking for myself, and keeping the list to a somewhat respectable number, I’ll go Cut Worms, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Fontaines D.C., Arctic Monkeys, then Queens of the Stone Age.

If you could open for any band who would it be?

Funny you should ask, I just asked that question while we were killing time driving to a show in Philadelphia. I picked Spoon. I’ve seen them live a few times and they’re just a killer band who has been at it for awhile growing organically and are about as authentic as it gets in my opinion. Other picks I can remember were Alvvays and Fontaines D.C.

Who are your influences?

It’s definitely a mixed bag which is something I really appreciate. Honestly, and I’m not just saying this, the first Atlas Genius album was a big inspiration for Matt and I as we first started writing our own songs. And Hart even brought up how he was doing some “Atlas Genius guitar stuff” when we were up in The Catskills. We definitely first bonded over a love of The Strokes but have sought to differentiate our sound from them, as they’re an easy band to want to sound like particularly being from New York. I really love Australian bands like Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and the feel of songs like ‘Jump In’ and ‘Grand Plans’ definitely comes from that influence. We all made pretty eclectic playlists of ten songs that were ‘mandatory’ listening ahead of the Catskills trip which was fun to see what ideas, even if it was just a quick drum pattern or chord progression, stemmed from that. Those playlists saw everything from Kevin Morby to The Chills (from New Zealand!) to Jonathan Richman to New Order.

If you were stuck on an island and could only take one record, what would it be?

‘Caravan’ by Van Morrison. I do have it on vinyl and it just instantly puts me in a good, nostalgic mood. Brings me back to sitting on the patio with my family growing up and is just timeless incredible music.

Fender or Gibson?

While I’m the drummer, I can definitively say Fender. Hart just got a new Fiesta Red Made in Japan Jaguar, so now we have just about every Fender option available other than a Mustang I believe. The Upsides arsenal includes a Stratocaster, Telecaster, Jazzmater, Jaguar, Precision Bass and Jazz Bass all from Fender. We’re open to a Fender sponsorship!

Any upcoming gigs you would like to promote?

Yes we have a big one on Saturday September 7th at Bowery Ballroom in New York! That will be in support of our friends Gooseberry and their album release, and another dear friend B. Miles will be on the bill as well. And then Saturday October 26th we’re going to make our debut up in Portland Maine which will be a blast.

Lastly, where can people find out more about you?

https://www.instagram.com/theupsides_?igsh=OTl2dHg4c3cxc2Fr

youtube

#Spotify #Youtube

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romaritimeharbor · 6 months ago

Note

Hi, it’s been a while hasnt it?

I would like to apologize for not active for these past few weeks, it’s been a busy month but i do still keep checking your blog from time to time. In my rare times of free time, i played Genshin Impact and finished the Fontaine Archon quest, i think i’ve already sent an ask about my feelings regarding that but to recap it again. It was amazing and my heart hurts for Furina. I had also finished the recent mission of HSR and like the Fontaine Archon quest, it was amazing and if you think about it, those two quest are kinda similar (how both of them have a strong connection to shows and acting, the many plotwist, the many deaths case). I also saw your post about almost finishing ch 3 of MORAL INJURY which honestly makes me excited, but not about reading the reader’s suffering part. Just the fact that a new chapter is coming soon but then again suffering and stuff should’ve been expected considering MORAL INJURY’S darker tone.

So yeah, that’s all from me for now. I wanted to say more but i was kinda lost on what i wanted to say. I hope you have a good day/night and take care of yourself

(P.S. are all the anons busy? I dont think i’ve seen any anon asks besides your moots asks)

- 🐱 Anon

AHH HELLO LOVELY!!! it has been quite some time, but you don't have to apologize for that <3 i did see your ask about that and am planning on responding to it soon! i have quite a few asks to catch up on, so i'm slowly but surely getting to doing that! i haven't done any hsr missions since penacony came out because i literally have no space left on my phone to finish the update HELP?!?!?!?! though i am currently working on fixing that issue. i am just about done with chapter 3 to be honest! i just have a little part at the end and at the beginning to finish and then it should be good to go.

thank you beloved!!!!! remember to take care of yourself RAHHHHH

(some anons are definitely busy, i would say. though there are some asks i have neglected to reply to, i have noticed that there haven't been as many from the other emoji anons recently! which is 100% okay of course hehe <3)

#✧— aphe's letters from 🐱 anon.

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moni-harmonia · 2 years ago

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Some thoughts about the characters

We have like... 60 characters now in Genshin? More or less. It’s so incredible to me, thinking about when we started and only had 2 regions. Now we’re going to go to the 5th one in just a few months.

My favorite characters are still Kaeya and Diluc, that won’t ever change, I was invested in their story (especially Kaeya) and I still am. Scenes with them are the most exciting thing in the game.

But with time, other characters have taken a lot of spotlight too. Scara/Wanderer has become my third favorite character. He’s been lucky to have a lot of importance, a good character arc and an awesome design (seriously, I love it). And he’s so fun to play too! I don’t usually mind gameplay stuff but if they’re useful in battle, that’s another point for them.

At first I thought Alhaitham was alright, I really liked his design, but personality-wise he was just ok. But when Kaveh came into picture that changed. I usually get attached to characters more if they have an interesting or entertaining relationship with another character (I love duos so much). So now that he had a character close to him, with very funny interactions, that gave him a lot of points, as well as Kaveh. They’re both really fun, I like them.

Others that I also like a lot, even though they’re not my favorites, include all the Archons as well as Xiao, Tartaglia, Cyno, Rosaria and Dain.

Even though I mainly focus on the guys, it’s not like I dislike the girls. But there are so many of them, like 2/3 are girls, which makes the male characters more notable. Aside from Rosaria, Ei and Nahida, I also like Klee, Jean, Collei and others.

Another notable thing is that with some exceptions, I feel more connected to the Mond cast. It’s not just because they were the first ones in the game, it’s just that I like how they feel like a very big family. I love when characters are so close that they’re like family, it’s so sweet.

I may not have all the characters, but I have those that I want to have. Lately I’ve been lucky to get them and not suffer in the gacha. I’ve been more careful to save for the future.

I look forward to Fontaine characters, but I feel like as we go on, I’m less interested in new characters because there are so many and some of the new ones don’t even get focus until later (like Faruzan).

I forgot to mention Lumine. I wasn’t very interested in the Traveler at first, but I have to say that since Sumeru started, the Traveler has been more proactive and has had more thoughts and personality. She’s not among my favorites, but I’ve taken a liking to her.

#Just felt like talking about this #I'd like to hear other people's thoughts if you'd like to talk #Genshin Impact #I'm just rambling #mine

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yandere-daydreams · 3 years ago

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Title: The Opposite of Love.

Pairing: Yandere!Diluc x Reader x Yandere!Kaeya (Genshin Impact).

Word Count: 3.1k.

TW: Imprisonment, Mentions of Kidnapping, Mentions of Non-Con, Physical Abuse, Manipulation, and Attempted Gaslighting.

Years ago, you heard someone claim that the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference.

There must’ve been more to it. A tangent, a theory, a philosophy to explain such a nihilistic sentiment. But, you couldn’t remember the rest, if it’d ever existed, and you’d walked away from that conversation with the general understand that feeling nothing is closer to hate than it is to love and feeling something is closer to love than it is to hate. Kaeya feels something towards you, so he loves you. He says he loves you. You’re willing to believe, for the sake of argument, that whatever he feels towards you could be called love.

Diluc feels nothing towards you, so he hates you. He acts like he hates you. He hates you.

He’s indifferent, so he hates you.

Or, he ignores you often enough to make it feel like he does, at least. You’d been here for months, tucked into the darkest corner of his winery and left to rot, but he never called you by name or addressed you directly or made any effort to interact with you beyond what Kaeya deemed necessary. Even now, he lingers in the doorway to your bedroom, his arms crossed and his shoulder pressed against the frame. From your spot sitting on the foot of your bed, he should be able to see you, but his gaze glances off of you in less than a second, moving towards Kaeya, instead, currently busying himself with the contents of your closet. Indifference.

Loathing, albeit the kind that could go unspoken.

“I’ve got clients from Fontaine arriving in half an hour,” Diluc starts, his voice gruff but nonchalant. You can’t remember ever hearing him yell. “Can I expect you to join us, or will you still be playing dress-up in my cellar?”

“Patience, love, patience.” He finds a piece of what he’s looking for, pausing briefly to splay it out over your bed. You catch a sliver of lace out of the corner of your eye, and force yourself to stare at the floor, instead. It’s easier, when you don’t know what he’s going to do to you. Anticipation would only make it worse. “I never rush you while you’re stalking around at night, searching for criminals to chase after. You’ll survive watching me tend to my (Y/n) for a few more minutes.” A flash of silk, this time, but not nearly enough. You force yourself to inhale. Diluc huffs. “It’s exhausting, watching you talk about ‘profit’ and ‘revenue’ and waste a perfectly good bottle of wine on such unappreciative guests. I want something pretty to come back to, and this stubborn little thing isn’t going to get dolled-up alone.”

Diluc stiffens. There’s a slight change in his stance, his expression. He doesn’t look at you. “Do you want me to…?”

“I’ll take care of it.” You feel the mattress dip, Kaeya’s arm snaking around your waist. You clench your eyes shut, but you don’t resist as he pulls you to his chest. It doesn’t hurt, but it would, later on, when he loses interest in pretty outfits and delicate fabrics and decides he can find more entertainment in bruises, and hickeys, and seeing how much he can get away with before you're willing to beg him to stop. It'll hurt, and you'll scream, and the next time you see Diluc, he'll pretend that he hadn’t heard a thing. “We just need spend a little more time together, that’s all. It’ll get easier, once someone starts to feel a little more cooperative.” There’s a pause, a sudden nip to your jugular. You jolt and Kaeya laughs, squeezing your hip gently. “Besides, I like it when my pets bite back. It keeps things exciting, doesn’t it, Diluc?”

“Anything you say.” His tone is light, mocking, but he��s smiling, grinning, making no attempt to hide it. You almost wish you could be surprised, that any amount of shock came with new evidence that his fondness for Kaeya overshadowed any empathy he might’ve had for you, but he’d never cared for you, even before he brought you here, before he left you at the feet of a much more proactive monster. He doesn’t feel anything, not for you. He doesn’t love you, so he ight as well hate you.

He’s indifferent, so he hates you.

“As long as it doesn’t involve me, do whatever you have to.

He’s indifferent, but he doesn’t hate you.

Kaeya usually leaves you restrained, in some way, shape, or form. A chain around your ankle, or cuffs on your wrists, or, when he could claim you’d done something to warrant it, a collar around your neck, left tethered to a bedpost under threat of a broken finger for every knot he found undone. Diluc's never tampered with it, before. He could, if he wanted to. It’s his estate, his property, and you’re his captive as much as you are Kaeya’s. He could, but he doesn’t want to.

Or, he’d never wanted to before, at least.

He doesn’t speak to you, not at first. He works silently, prying at the ropes around your wrists with only quiet determination and a small, muted sigh as he finishes, your restraints going slack, falling limp over the bars of the headboard. You don’t move, glancing towards him for approval, but Diluc only drops a flask into your lap, small and silver. Immediately, you’re aware of just how long it’s been since Kaeya left, of the pit in your stomach, the dryness in your throat. Of the fact that you probably wouldn’t see another drop of anything until sunset, when Kaeya comes back and decides whether or not you’ve been good enough to deserve a ‘reward’.

He helps, in his own way. “Drink,” He says, in a way that makes it less of a request and more of a demand. “Unless you have that much faith in Kaeya’s compassion.”

You opt to drink.

It’s only water, but you savor it like a gift from the gods, taking your time, draining the flask as slowly as you could. You consider asking Diluc for something to eat, too, but you don’t want to test the limits of his generosity, and he’s already sitting down, settling into the plain wooden chair positioned to face your bed. It’s a off-putting sight, his red hair slightly muted by the undecorated stone walls, his pale skin made sickly by the poor lighting. It makes you uncomfortable, but he doesn’t seem bothered. Why would he? This is his estate, as often as you forget anyone would live here willingly. He wouldn't bar himself of from a part of his own home.

But, you’d never seen him in this part of his home. Not after you’d arrived. Not after Kaeya sectioned it off for personal use.

Honestly, you’d started to think you never would.

“What did you do?”

You go rigid, lowering the flask. “Excuse me?”

“To get him to tie you up like that.” He sounds dismissive. His expression is blank, as unreadable as always. For a moment, you wonder if this is a set-up, if you’re supposed to answer, but abandon the idea quickly. Kaeya wouldn’t resort to plots so predictable. “What did you do?”

You shouldn’t talk to him. You should cross your arms, look away, play as shy and as stubborn as you do with Kaeya. Indulging his curiosity won’t help you escape, even if he brings you water every now and then, even if he never speaks a word of this to Kaeya. It won’t do you any good, in the long run.

“I think I bit him.” Your voice is distant, far away. Diluc hums, and you find yourself going on without further deliberation. “He treats me like a dog, so I acted like one. I might’ve drawn blood.”

A partially truth. You’d dug your teeth into his throat, tried your best to tear the damned thing out before he could pry you off. It hadn’t worked, and he’d fucked you with his hands around your neck, afterward, leaving a ring of bruises to match his open wounds. He must’ve been too proud to mention it, because Diluc lets out a breath of a laugh as you finish, a smirk replacing his usual scowl. It almost seems strange, on him. You’re not used to seeing him do anything but frown. “Serves the bastard right. Even a Knight should know better than to leave himself so exposed.”

You look away. “I thought you’d take his side.”

“He’s not my responsibility. If you want to call his bluff and smother him in his sleep, then I won’t stand in your way.” He gestures vaguely, and you notice there’s ink on his wrist, staining the cuff of his sleeve. Your lips quirk upward, a smile forming before you can bite it back. You don’t try to, not once it’s there. Not once he sees it, and his own smile brightens in return. “Although, I’d appreciate it if you tried to show restraint.”

“I can’t make any promises.” You bring the flask back to your lips, but it’s already empty. You want more. You want wine, or ale, or the cider merchants used to sell in outdoor stalls during winter, warm and sweet and thick. You don’t let yourself want many things, here. You shouldn’t let yourself want anything, from Kaeya or anyone heartless enough to enable him.

“But, I might be able to try a little harder on a full stomach.”

You shouldn’t, but Diluc isn’t Kaeya. He hasn’t hurt you, not directly, not yet.

He’s indifferent, but you don’t think he hates you, either.

Diluc grins, pushing himself to his feet.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Diluc’s not indifferent, and he doesn’t hate you.

He likes you, the same way a more domestic man might tolerate his lover’s pet. His gestures are small, but frequent – a glass of wine left on your bedside table by a skittish servant, an outfit that’s more than sheer lace and floral patterns, an excuse to be anywhere but the cellar, even his alternative comes in the form of a windowless office, small and sparsely decorated, the space only made more confining by Kaeya’s insistence that you stay in his lap, his arms loosely strung around your waist, your face buried in the dip of his shoulder.

It’s claustrophobic, but the air isn’t damp, and the walls aren’t bare, and there’s more to focus on than Kaeya’s hand on the small of your back, blunt nails occasionally brushing against the base of your spine. You can hear maids and butlers carrying out their morning chores on the other side of the door, quiet footsteps and muffled voices and proof that society isn’t as far away as you’ve convinced yourself it had to be, and you can let the rest of the world fade into the sound of Diluc’s quill scratching against paper, writing out a letter to a foreign investor or a contract for some new, bewildering arrangement. It’s comforting, as comforting as anything can be, here. It’s different. You don’t get to call many things different, anymore.

“Oh? See that, Diluc? We’re putting the poor thing to sleep.” You don’t notice your eyes closing until Kaeya works a hand under your chin, tilting your head back just far enough to force you to look up at him. You’re not tired, not really, but you know better than to correct him, only leaning into his palm, acting like something docile, something delicate. Something obedient, something that he’s made it apparent he wants you to be. “Just as well. Mondstadt’s not getting any closer, and Jean might find a way to work herself to death within the hour if I’m late.” A slight pause, a playful tap to your cheek. You try to push down the temptation to bat him away. “Looks your bedtime's coming a little early, sweetheart.”

You pout, tugging on his sleeve, but Kaeya only laughs, kissing the top of your head and moving to lift you up. Diluc stops writing. “Could you leave (Y/n)?”

Kaeya takes a moment to answer. “Replacing me already?”

“I could only ever dream of it.” He rests his cheek on his fist. “You know how dull it gets, while you’re away. I’m only trying to find a way to the time.”

There’s a sneer, a bark of laughter, and Kaeya drops you back onto the velveteen loveseat, leaving you scrambling to catch yourself. “Try not to break anything important,” He calls as he shoulders open the office door, the mocking lilt heavy in his voice. “It’d be such a shame if I had to start cleaning up your messes at home, too.”

The door shuts a second later, and you hold your breath as you listen to him walk away, only exhaling once he’s out of earshot. Diluc cocks his head to the side, but the most you can offer is a shrug, a small smile. “Thank you,” You mutter, almost inaudibly. “I… I really don’t like it, down there.”

“In that case, I’ll see if I can sneak you into the vineyard, next time.” A new sheet of parchment, another letter. Like it’s nothing. Like it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve gone outside in months. “Just don’t tell Kaeya. He’s never been very good at sharing.”

You can only nod, vaguely aware that you’re grinning like an idiot.

Diluc’s not indifferent, and he likes you.

Diluc’s not indifferent, but he doesn’t love you.

Kaeya claims to love you, and if it’d been him, he wouldn’t hesitate to lash out. He wouldn’t stand there for a second, then two, and he wouldn’t acknowledge the letter-opener with just a frown, just a small, disappointed scowl. He wouldn’t take it in so calmly, and he loves you. He thinks he loves you. You’re willing to believe, sometimes, that he might love you.

Diluc doesn’t. He can’t.

It’s already over for you, if he does.

His attention flickers between you and the letter-opener, the one you’d stolen from his desk a few days ago and stored under your mattress for future use. You consider stabbing him with it, briefly, but the Pyro Vision at his hip catches the light and you decide against it.

He seems taller than he usually does, filling the doorway with ease. You never noticed how small he always made himself, around you – sitting, leaning, minimizing the threat where Kaeya preferred to surround you with it, choke you with it. His voice is deeper, too, less refined, more gravelly. You try not to wonder if he's been trying to disarm you. You try not to wonder if it worked. “What do you think you’re doing?”

You drop the letter-opener. Your hands are shaking. “I didn’t…”

A step forward on his part. A step back, on yours. “Answer the question”

Your back hits the footboard, and Diluc stops in front of you. He hadn't closed the door, and you make a feeble attempt to dart around him and run for it, but he catches your arm without a hint of strain. His grip is bruising.

“I don’t want to be here.” The words stumble out without delicacy, without inflection, a last resort born of desperation and little else. “It’s humiliating. It’s dehumanizing. It’s… He hurts me, every single day, and you know that, you’ve seen it. I don’t care if there’s justice. I won’t tell the Knights, I won’t go back to Mondstadt at all. I’ll go to Liyue, or Sumeru, or smuggle myself into Inazuma, for fuck’s sake, I don’t care. I just can’t stay here any longer.”

Diluc doesn’t respond, for a moment.

Then, he shakes his head, letting out a deep sigh, and Kaeya steps through the open doorway, a smirk already plastered over his lips.

“I think you owe me an apology.” A hand on Diluc’s shoulder, a teasing kiss to his cheek. You don’t feel sick, or angry, or anything, honestly. The numbness is almost worse – vacancy, utter and complete. You wish that you’d stabbed him while you had the chance. “What did I tell you?”

Diluc sounds annoyed. Irritated, almost. Huffy. “You said it'd be worth a try.”

“I said it could be worth a try. Then, I asked you not to play too nice, not to be too lenient, and you swore up and down that you’d keep a firm hand.” You shut your eyes, digging your nails into your palms to try to stave off a more visible reaction, but Kaeya catches on quickly, cooing softly as he leans over Diluc. His fingertips brush against your jaw, the touch fleeting, oozing with faux-comfort. You’re tempted to bite him, again. You want to bite him. “Look at that. Did he get your hopes up, darling? Did you think our benevolent, valiant, golden-hearted Diluc would simply stand back and watch you slip away?”

“Shut up.” Kaeya laughs, and some of Diluc’s edge starts to dull. It makes you feel small. Everything about this makes you feel small. “Stop talking. I never—”

“You’ll have to make it up to us, then.” It’s more of a purr than a suggestion, lulling and blatantly self-indulgent, but Diluc doesn’t seem to mind. He leans into it, if anything, like he always does. Like he always has. You’d been a fool to convince yourself he’d ever been interested in doing anything else. “I think we both deserve to see how sweet you can really be.”

“I…” He lets go of you, and you hope beyond hope that he’s come to his senses, but your freedom is short-lived. A hand wraps around your neck, fingers burrowing into your throat and making it difficult to breathe, and in a moment, you’re on your back, pinned to the mattress, both of your captors standing above you. “I wouldn’t be against that.”

You think about begging, for a moment. About fighting, struggling, kicking and crying and screaming until one of them admits it’d be easier just to knock you out and let you wake up bruised and battered and sobbing. But, you already know it wouldn't make a difference. They wouldn't listen to you. Kaeya never has, and you doubt Diluc would try to, now. There’s no point. You’d still be stuck here, either way.

Diluc’s not indifferent, anymore, so he thinks he loves you.

That, or he hates you enough to call it love.

1K notes · View notes

ellitx · 3 years ago

Text

So if you’ve been following me in my alt account, @bard-twins, some of you may have known or seen I’m head over heels for Kosma in Honkai Impact. The past months I’ve been brain rotting a lot about Kosma and Senti being added in Genshin and I have this concept where you will have a harem with Venti, Kosma, and Senti.

So a little disclaimer there’s a lot of lore included here even though it’s not yet indicated in the archon quest. Some are not accurate to the genshin lore because of undetermined orders of events, so if you spot any, I apologize for that. And this is really long. It’s over 4k words so here’s a summary if you don’t want to read the whole thing.

Do note this is only the FIRST part. I don’t know how many parts it will take but yes.

TLDR for the first part;

Reader wields the Light/Whitenight element thru ley lines

Senti is one of the 10 Sovereigns of Celestia and she wields the Void/Evernight element

Second Throne of Heavens/Second Who Came is the highest supreme being in Teyvat

Celestia kidnapped reader to use her ley line energy as a weapon

Senti turned against Celestia and dragged reader out of there and fled to Fontaine

A giant red pillar appeared in Fontaine borders and a plague occurred where crops wither and people get sick

Fatui searches for Senti but was too late when Senti was held in a trial by hydro archon

Debate but instead it’s battle with blades and water

Senti and reader escape once again but encountered another special guest

And a TLDR diagram for the entire concept (spoilers i guess for the relationship chart):

World of Genshin

Credits: u/LiterallyUsername2

warning: don’t click the relationship chart link if you don’t want to be spoiled

Relationship chart

10 Sovereigns of Celestia

Let’s start off with reader. I would like the s/o to be similar to one of my stories, Illusory Sense, however, there’s a canon divergence where the flow of the story would go somewhere else.

You managed to escape from the tower and followed the former Dendro archon’s loyal entities, djinn, however right as you were about to question them, a conflict of Venti catching up stopped you from doing so. Just as he was about to lash out at the entity of taking you from him, an unknown person— who serves as one of Celestia’s “eyes”— intervened and knocked everyone out with a mere clap.

Waking up, you found yourself in an unknown place where everything was dark and ten thrones were in front of you. As you struggled to stand up, you found yourself chained. Both of your ankles and wrists were handcuffed and the chains rattled, alerting everyone in the room.

“Oh! She’s awake!” An excited voice chimed amidst the dark room.

“Calm yourself and don’t do any foolish actions lest she’ll break free.” Another voice joined in.

“‘Course I know that! Hmph, you think I can’t handle doing something as simple as this?!” You felt your wrist and ankle crushing from the excruciating tightness of the cuffs. You screamed in pain and cried, begging the holder to stop.

“Boo… She’s a weakling and here I was thinking she might have possessed strong powers for you to take her here.”

A clicking of heels echoed throughout the hallway. You don’t have the energy to look up but you can sense a strong and intimidating presence looming over your fragile form. An obsidian collared shoe came into your vision, and you would’ve thought you were looking down at the abyss if it weren’t for the harsh light impaling your eyes.

You squinted and slowly looked up until you were met with ruby eyes glinting in a childlike excitement yet with a hint of… enmity.

—

Now let’s move on to the crowd favorite, Sentience or Senti! I still have no idea what her alternative genshin name would be but I’m gonna call her Senti for now for our own convenience.

Senti was tasked by the rest of the higher-ups to keep an eye on you. It took a massive convincing (whining and throwing tantrums) for them to let her do this because she was bored and there was nothing interesting going on up in the sky. She doesn’t want to be with Aponia and Kosma is still somewhere unknown doing his own thing.

While she drags you like a doll, she tells you about what it’s like in Celestia. She often slides in to at least bully you once in a while to express how much she envies you, no physical harm just mocking you and calling you a weak mortal. She’s never scared to tell what she feels and she’s very straightforward in admitting she’s jealous of you because all the rest of the gods often talk about you.

This makes you anxious and at the same time keep your guard up if you’ve done something to anger them. You’re simply a human and the daughter of the God of Storms. You’ve been asleep for almost a millennium and the rest was history.

It’s hard to tell how long you’ve been up here in Celestia but at least you’re safe and still in one piece. You tried to gather information by exploring around and talking to some of the envoys. Some were kind enough to tell you the simplest things about Celestia and about the higher-ups and you managed to get a few names, most especially about Senti, who is by far, the youngest god among the 10 Sovereignty.

The envoys told you that if you happen to encounter one of them, never, and they mean never, say something that goes against their orders and beliefs. In short, keep your lips sealed and talk when necessary. It’s best to keep a distance from them except that Senti clings to you like a koala and follows you around like a little duckling.

Although she’s childish and often throws tantrums, the envoys know not to mess with her in fear she turns them into specs of dust with her illusive cataclysm and insanely powerful void abilities. This got you interested and at the same time scared to know that she possesses a unique power you never heard of.

By far you only know about the seven elements so perhaps this “void” element is only exclusive to the gods in Celestia. It’s hard to get away from Senti, more so get along with her– but you thankfully managed to get close to her after resting and meditating in the garden of gods. From what you can get she’s like a child despite being the older one between you and her.

The longer you stay up in the sky, the more valuable information you have gathered.

The 10 Sovereignty who reside in Celestia are the important figures– not only in this floating palace but the entirety of Teyvat. There is this one god who is called the “Second Throne of Heavens”. The 10 Sovereigns and the Second Throne barely make any contact with one another and the 10 Sovereigns leave it as it is and never question their absence.

One thing they must uphold is this order given to them long ago even predating the archon war: “The heavenly order”

Although The Seven also visited Celestia long ago, they barely make any contact with the 10 Sovereigns and have little idea about them. The orders are arranged not in strengths, but in their capabilities of ruling.

Sustainer of Heavenly Principles (Unknown God)

Unknown

Kosma

Unknown

Senti

While Senti talks about them, she often complains that they never pay attention to her and keep brushing her off whenever she invites them for a battle with her. But when they need her help, they will order the messengers to pester her until she abides and they won’t leave her alone. She’s not stupid that they want her to use her powers to get rid of those so-called hindrances they’ve been discussing which after that they’ll snatch her void powers if she dares go against the order.

The last thing she wanted was to be thrown away. Her relationship with the rest of the seats has grown bitter and distant. The only ones she’s attached to are Kosma and the Throne of Heavens.

When you asked Senti about the heavenly orders even she has no idea what you’re talking about— or perhaps she’s just bored and never cared to listen about all this “heavenly order” shenanigans the rest of the 10 Sovereigns are discussing.

Senti: “I don’t care about those kinds of stuff. But whatever the Throne of Heavens says for me to do it, then I’m willing to do it.”

As more weeks have gone by, Senti often comes to you and talks whatever comes to her mind. You listened to her talk and smiled seeing her happy and bright when she showed off one of her “cool tricks”. It is then later on where the divine messenger was being requested by the sovereigns that Senti must meet with them. Half of the sovereigns were absent and only five of them were there. One of the gods asked Senti about you.

Senti: “[Name]? I don’t know what you want me to say but she’s ordinary and normal as the rest of those little humans below.”

[Redacted]: “Do you sense any strange energy around her?”

Senti: “Energy… I guess the unusual thing that happened was when I used one of my illusions on her. She didn’t seem stirred about it.”

[Redacted]: “…the ley line energy is still present…”

Senti knew this discussion would bore her to death until they reached a point of a topic that caught her surprise. She cannot not listen to what they’re saying when they mentioned you being the most important instrument for the operation the sovereigns have been devising for centuries.

You’re simply a “weapon” for the Celestia hence why they kidnapped you.

An object and a tool in their eyes.

Ever since the former Dendro Archon, the God of Woods, has injected the everlasting sap (a sap from the Irminsul tree) into your body, ley line energy has come into you and stored everything there. A hundred years later after the Dendro Archon infused you with the sap, Celestia noticed the unusual flow of the ley lines that were directing.

Realizing the plans of the former Dendro Archon challenging them, they sent the Skyfrost nail to destroy and damage the Frost Bearing Tree in Sal Vindagnyr and half of the ley line stored in you has diminished.

Enraged from hearing the plans of Celestia, Senti turned her back against them and assisted you in fleeing the palace. Without giving thorough thinking of where they were going, both of you ended up in Fontaine.

The 4 present sovereigns in Celestia ordered the divine envoys to capture the fugitives, and if the archons happen to see these two, they must capture them immediately and hand them over. This is where Chapter 4 archon quest (Fontaine) will take place.

Bonus: (a little preview before we go to Fontaine arc)

Traveler meeting Liben in Sumeru.

Liben: We meet again, lassie/lad! Would you like to join once again in my business? Since traveling to Fontaine, my business abruptly went downhill! Oh woe is me…

Traveler: What happened there?

Liben: As I look for business opportunities there, rumors have spread across the city that a young merchant was selling valuable items! I paid no heed at first but when customers stopped coming by in my place, I decided to investigate what was going on and the business trend occurring in Fontaine. And I might as well study their business strategy.

Traveler: Were you able to find out how?

Liben: Hah hah, indeed I have! A big chook was there with that merchant dressed up as her with those silly dark glasses, and another young girl with a robe was there.

Liben: I must say that pet of theirs does the carrying for their business given how cute it is and they get to have free photos with it if they bought items that totalled over eighty thousand mora.

Traveler: That’s a big sum of money to spend on just to have a free photoshoot with the mascot… Maybe Paimon will gain a lot of attraction if we do it as well.

Paimon: Hey!

Liben: It seemed like that merchant's friend was stopping her instead of endorsing those valuable artifacts they have in store…

Liben: Everyone thought they were putting on a show so more and more people gathered in to buy their items because of their comedic duo. Ah, to be defeated by a newbie merchant, how could I let this happen…

Liben: As I searched through what items they have, they were all nothing but ordinary everyday items you can find everywhere. At first I thought they’re copying my business but the merchant tried to sell the “Blessing of Prosperity” to me, saying that if I whisper my wishes onto that orb my wishes will be granted. But I’m no fool to fall for their tricks despite how tempting it is to get that item!

Liben: As I search further and further, my eyes cannot believe what I saw…

Traveler: What did you see?

Liben: It was a 20% discount of the long lost artifact that belonged to one of the gods Celestia. Rumors say that only those people who are recognized by the heavens will be gifted with this. Only heroes can receive such a gift and no one has been given this for a thousand years so how in the world did this merchant get their hands on it?

Liben: And so I bought it thinking I should put up a museum instead in Fontaine to attract customers. If this lassie has precious items in their hands, then there must be more to it. So I decided to offer if she wants my business partner but the girls quickly declined it…

Liben: I was so entranced on dreaming about my possible business career and the next thing I knew, the stall was surrounded with angry mobs demanding they give their mora back. Unfortunately, before they could apprehend them, the bird and the merchant escaped with her carrying the other girl.

Traveler: …You’ve been scammed aren’t you?

Liben: It was all a hoax I say! A hoax! Ugh… back to square one again with my business… Fortunately I still have the artifact in my hands so I can have some professionals check if this is a real deal.

Liben: Wait a minute…

Traveler: What’s wrong?

Liben: The artifact… it’s gone!

A huge red pillar somewhere outside the Fontaine borders caused a huge uproar amongst the Sumeru scholars and Fontaine citizens. This is a huge piece of evidence that you and Senti were here. Some scholars presumed this must be a warning of a furious wrath of Celestia whereas others speculated it must have come beneath the surface signifying an archon’s power. But it seems out of place if this belonged to the dendro archon or the hydro archon and so the traveler was commissioned by the Adventurer’s Guild in Fontaine to investigate the sudden appearance of the red pillar.

While you and Senti were there, you told her to keep a low profile and not attract any attention. You have experienced being a fugitive back when your father ordered the knights to look for you and your mother, Amos, and bring you back to the tower so you have a clear idea of how to survive and bypass this current alerted nation.

Things didn’t go as planned when Senti decided to stray paths with you and admire the city of Fontaine. You can’t blame her for that, although the place is beautiful and it’s her first time stepping foot on the surface, you still need to keep up your guard and not get caught and raise suspicion.

Long story short: Senti started a business on the spot using her illusions to earn some mora and when the reports of scamming were raised in the heart of Fontaine, suspicion had arisen among the guards, and caught her red-handed for performing frauds.

The investigation team also concluded that the giant red pillar outside the city has the same energy as Senti’s so they want to interrogate her if she knows anything about the cause of the sudden plague however it was fruitless when she feigned having no idea which then they assumed she’s also another foreign merchant visiting Fontaine and/or victim of the unusual red energy emitting from it.

They don’t have enough evidence and clues to point out where it came from even though they hired Sumeru scholars to investigate it. The Fatui on the other hand was the first one to identify that the abrupt appearance of the red pillar and the cause of the plague belonged to Senti. Confidential reports have been sent to one of the harbingers that it belonged to her and they made their move to find that merchant again before the hydro archon’s guards could take her for another interrogation.

Unfortunately, Senti was under arrest and will be sent to a trial for fraud marketing.

Senti did try to use her illusions as an escape, but because of the foreign environment and due to unknown circumstances, her abilities were inoperative and futile to use against them thus leading you and her to be caught.

When hydro archon received reports about Senti’s arrest, she told the court she’ll be holding a trial with herself included to confirm her suspicions.

The rumors of the hydro archon holding a trial in the Court of Fontaine alerted the traveler and so they went up to check on what was happening and were surprised to see you there confronting the hydro archon and defending Senti.

Just when Senti attempted to escape, the archon entangled her with water chains and commanded all soldiers to apprehend the criminal.

The hydro archon knows well that the giant red pillar that emerged outside Fontaine belongs to Senti since she’d seen her before on one of her visits to Celestia. Because of its presence and usual energy flowing around it, the soil and vegetation in the area had a distinctive color, while unusual murky plants thrived on the surface. As a result, people who come near it get sick and the crops become poisonous.

With all this evidence presented and shown, the god of justice gave her final verdict.

Focalor: A traitor among the heavenly principles… those who go against the heavens must be torn down.

Reader: Let her go!

Time went slow for you as she slammed the gavel onto the wood. Drops of water began to sip out of her hands.

Focalor: The world has enough for everyone's needs, but not everyone's greed.

Clones of the hydro archon formed and half jumped onto you to pin you to the ground whereas the remaining clones grabbed Senti and put her in front of the judge.

Focalor: God of Sentience and 10th seat of Celestia, you shall be incarcerated as ordered by the heavens themselves.

Reader: Stop it!

The hydro archon pulled the chain tighter and an excruciating scream of pain echoed across the court as Senti’s bones cracked and her skin wounded from the harsh contact despite being in a form of water.

Focalor: To oppose the gods among the gods, was this an act of impulsive justice or a mere foolish move to rebel against your kins?

More chains linked to your ankles and wrists and a heavy weight of force pushed you down onto the ground.

Focalor: Justice must prevail.

The hydro archon manipulated the chains which followed along in twisting your limbs as if they’ll be pulled apart in any second the more she tugs it.

You weren’t going to let the hydro archon hurt Senti and you weren’t going to let the God of Justice send her back to Celestia.

Focalor: The 10th seat of heaven is a failure.

Reader: No…

Focalor: The heavens are enraged because of her childish wishes.

Reader: Senti’s not a failure!

Reader: She’s not a shadow! She’s…

The loneliness of being left behind…

Reader: She’s a child who yearns for approval and support by the gods…

Senti has always been putting up a strong front, but you know well deep within her is a lost and fragile heart. A lonely child…

When you first met her, she was constantly burning with rage and jealousy about you, throwing questions at you every minute with interrogative eyes. If someone disagrees with her, she’ll tell them they’re wrong and does her signature thumbs-down as the void swallows them whole.

The whole world will start to twist and turn into a massive vortex and threads of light will fly out, putting them in a trial.

Ever since she’s been part of the Ten Sovereigns, she was treated as “special”— someone who’s not part of the circle but above it. But that’s just like being abandoned.

But as you stayed longer with her, the rage in her heart diminished and you grew to understand more deeply about her.

Reader: If you think she’s unfit to create a world fit for humanity, loving and humane, then you’re wrong.

Unbeknownst to you, a surge of energy flooded through your veins. The water chains broke and shattered into pieces and the water in command coming from the hydro archon altered as it directly followed your movements.

Focalor made a water pillar and at the same time countless amounts of hydro swords and spears formed to attack you.

Focalor: No amount of struggles can change the result.

The hairs on your arm and neck stood up in a panic when it came close contact with your face; however, a shot of red and black elemental energy managed to stop it from slaughtering you.

Senti: I don’t care about the sovereigns or being a god and any of that celestial nonsense.

Her red eyes glared brightly as she smirked mockingly at Falcor and scowled at her.

Senti: If you’re gonna lay a hand on [Name],

With the remaining energy and strength she could muster, Senti summoned her own abysmal pillars, chains, and black blades out of thin air and pointed them toward the hydro archon.

Senti: Then you’re gonna have to get through me first!

As the blades and weapons lunged to the archon, she formed a water bubble to protect the citizens outside of the courtroom to block off and ricochet the weapons out of the way, creating a sole fighting area using her hydro mimics.

A black feather then came into sight. Distracted, Focalor didn’t notice an illusion of Senti appeared behind her and a loud boom of the clone exploded before her, giving you enough time to break Senti free from the hydro chains.

Senti: [Name] changed me and I know for sure she’ll change many ones as well.

Raising her arm up, dark clouds covered the sky and rain started pouring.

Senti: From today onwards, I want to travel with her and see the progress of this world. So…

Blue roots were visible on the ground and they were all directed to your body as the energy transferred within you. Closing your eyes to focus on balancing the power of light, a merge of a continuous blur of colors of red, white, and black came into view as it shot ahead at breathtaking speed.

Senti: …we’re not gonna easily surrender and give in to the likes of you!

Together with the light and void fused into one, fiery white and red flames ignited the blade of the great sword. The hydro archon’s eyes widened and formed another great wave and mimics of hands to deter your powerful blow.

The giant hand increased in size until it was enough to block off the unfamiliar element and cage you and Senti together in its palm.

Focalor: Your ideals can never be allowed by the heavens because this world will always be a cycle. Our fates have been already decided from the start in our constellations through Loom of Fate!

A beam of bright light strikes through the palm causing it to lose its form as the water drops fall onto the surface.

Up in the air, more and more black and white energy flowed through each respective element. Senti can feel her powers regain and together with your ley line energy flowing, she can create a more powerful red pillar and chains to strike through any of the hydro archon’s mimics.

Senti: Mortals enjoyed untold wisdom, and that wisdom was their boon.

Senti charged the spear forward with all her might and the red clouds spread even more across the sky, covering the entire nation.

Reader: Their prosperity brought pride and ambition, and the mind to question.

A giant orb of light assembled on your palms and you raised your arms to gather more ley line energy onto it to manipulate all forms of liquid into one colossal water drop.

Senti: For to question eternity was forbidden, for earth to challenge sky, inexpiable.

Senti: That’s what we always remind ourselves… If the gods are infallible,

In unison, you and Senti charged headfirst forward to Focalor for another powerful dynamic and immense strike.

Senti: Then it’s my turn to break off this cycle and re-weave the threads of fate!

Furious yet not giving up when she’s on the vulnerable side, the archon created more endless constructs and threw the weapon mimics at you, and right before it could impair you and Senti and sent the rest of the people flooding, you blocked off her great wave with another light energy you managed to gather.

You know you won’t be able to hold it longer due to limited energy but it was great timing the traveler came to block it off. With all your energy and strength spent to rebel against the God of Justice, your body collapsed and Senti was quick to catch you in time in her arms. It was a win on your side as Focalor was ultimately defeated by the 10th seat of Heavens and a mortal girl. While the archon is still fallen, the traveler took this as a chance to drag them out and escape the bubble of the Court of Fontaine.

More and more people have come into the scene including Fatuis.

Paimon: What— what was that?!

Traveler: Less talking, more running!

The hydro archon knows not to challenge the heavenly principles and knowing the risk of letting these fugitives escape when they’re right before her nose, she must abide Celestia’s orders and capture them in whatever means.

—

Senti: That rascal! I swear once I see her again, I’m gonna plum her to death and I’ll show no mercy!

Although you and the traveler and Senti were able to escape from the hands of the Hydro archon, Senti sensed the presence of a divine envoy following them. Right before she could throw her spear at them, the world went still and the sound of fingers snapping can be heard. Out of nowhere a strong force of energy was keeping them in place as they were pinned helplessly on the ground.

The grasses withered and a murky dark cloud surrounded them as the dew of grass evaporated in an instant when a foot came into sight before them. You could feel your bones cracking from the immense pressure and intensity of the gravity pulling you down. Even if you tried to move your limbs, it was futile.

Senti’s face paled when she saw the familiar ability. She doesn’t know whether she’ll sigh in relief or panic knowing who the owner of this strong power is. Looking up with hazy eyes, her speculation was correct when familiar expressionless golden eyes looked down at her.

“Kosma…”

The 10th Sovereign grunted and glared at him, emotions within her red eyes were mixed with betrayal, confusion, and misery.

“Kosma, you don’t know what you’re doing! Let go of us! Celestia isn’t what you think it is—!”

The man ignored her cries of distress and shifted his gaze to your limped and disheveled body. A patch of fluorescent flowers and dew grass cushioned your body as pure white energy flowed around your form.

“Take Sentience and that girl back to the palace.”

He ordered the heavenly envoys as he turned his heels and snapped his fingers, summoning a black void to quickly traverse between the heavens and surface. The followers nodded and picked you up and Senti, leaving the traveler alone on the ground.

When the traveler’s body began to recover, they immediately jolted up and chased after you two, however they were too late to grab them and the portal closed as the surroundings turned back to normal— except that the surface was still embedded with dark patches— and time flowed normally. The traveler fell onto their knees, despair taking a toll on them that he wasn’t able to save you and Senti on time. But now was not the time to grieve, from the corner of their eyes, they saw a familiar pendant on the patch of grass with the emblem of your royal family’s crest.

#elliwrites #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact reader insert #genshin impact lore #idk if i should tag honkai impact or not #imma do it #honkai impact #genshin x honkai #herrscher of sentience #herrscher of sentience as genshin character #kosma #genshin impact concept #genshin lore #if my kosma concept will be included here it will be over 8k lmao #venti x reader #genshin impact venti #venti

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officialscaramouche · 3 years ago

Note

Omg I love the angst of "did you at least think of me when you were having sex with her?" Can you please make a part 2? Thank you very muchhh

Thank you so much for waiting, anon!!! I like where this is going, but since I’ve been making u wait for so long, I’ll have to end it there. If u want a part three, let me know and I’ll write one but for now, here u go!

pairing: gn!reader x Scaramouche

word count: 1,342

tw: none. Maybe language, I don’t remember

prev next

He should’ve been happy. Maybe he just couldn’t be satisfied, even when he got everything he wanted. It was what he wanted, anyway. Back then, his confidence in his desires was unbreakable. But now as he looked back on it, he could see the naïveté in his eyes. He realized that in his heart he was blindly believing that this is what happiness was and that he’d forever be happy. All he had to do was throw away what he’d worked so hard on for many years. He had to throw away you.

The way you looked at him didn’t bother him at the moment, but as the palm of his hand made contact with your cheek and remembering your quivering lips, your glassy eyes, and the flush of red across your face, it was as if you drove a knife right through his heart.

Archons, how could he be so stupid? He treated you like shit. He never appreciated the things you did for him and he always found your presence annoying. He savored every moment he had alone because you just wouldn’t leave his side. He wanted so badly to shove you away and tell you to fuck off, but he hesitated every time you smiled at him. He should’ve known then that there was a reason— a reason why he couldn’t get rid of you. A reason why he didn’t want to get rid of you. But the new and exciting adventure that Mona had laid out for him was too tempting to realize that you were all he wanted. All he needed.

It had been years since he last saw you. He had been fine living with and loving someone else all this time until he woke with tears in his eyes, having a dream of being yours. Dreaming that he woke up next to you. Dreaming that he came home to you. Dreaming that all these years, instead of wasting it with Mona, he was spending it with you.

When he woke and it wasn’t you who he held in his arms, he had a nasty attitude the whole week. He always had an ugly personality, but he was exceptionally unfathomable today. None of his cohorts wanted to be assigned to missions with him, so he went alone. Mona didn’t appreciate his lack of respect for her, and she threw his stuff out. The Tsaritsa told him he needed to do some soul searching and figure out what he needed to move forward. The answer was as clear as day. He needed to find you.

It wasn’t hard figuring out where you had been all this time. Having been very intimate with the Harbinger, the Fatui brought you protection. His subordinates monitored your every move to make sure that no harm would befall you no matter where you went. It only took a few questions to figure out that you had been staying in Liyue. The apartment you lived in was in Tartaglia’s name. If anyone else were doing the investigation, they would’ve never found you. But with Scaramouche’s money on the line, it was only a matter of time until he found you.

When he arrived, Scaramouche was quite obviously not from Liyue. Word spread quickly of an “intricately dressed fellow with a strikingly large hat.” When word finally reached you, you pushed your plate of skewers aside and rested your chin in your hand as you pouted.

One of your friends, Signora, sat beside you and leaned in to look at your face. “What’s wrong? Not gonna eat your skewers?” The one sitting across from you asked, reaching for it.

“No, I lost my appetite. The two of you can have it.”

The skewer was snatched from your plate in an instant.

Signora glared, and put one of her skewers on your plate. “Try to be a little more sympathetic, Tartaglia.”

“It’s just Scaramouche,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

You folded your arms on the table and laid your head in them. “Yeah. But please don’t get involved guys, it’s already bad enough that he cut ties with him,” you emphasized, jutting your thumb out at Tartaglia. “You guys haven’t worked together in, what, like four months?”

“More like six,” Tartaglia corrected with his mouth full of chicken. “He really thinks we’re dating.”

“Give him more credit than that, will you?” She snickered. “I’m sure his little entourage has been spying on us. And I don’t doubt that he’s only here for you, [Y/N].”

“Please Rex Lapis in heaven, make him go away,” you plea, clasping your hands together in prayer. The other two laughed, but you weren’t joking.

Tartaglia slid the key into the lock and opened the door for you, letting you walk inside. “See,” he said with a smug look on his face. “He’s not here, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Don’t say that,” you sobbed. “You’re gonna jinx it.” You both kicked off your shoes and wandered inside, plopping onto the couch with a long and dramatic sigh. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do,” you said with worry. “I don’t want to see him.”

Tartaglia pulled you in for a hug, something he did often. He and Scaramouche were often paired together for work, so he knew the ins and outs of your relationship very well. You were another victim of Scaramouche’s abuse just like everyone else. But you were the only one to actually care about him. Tartaglia felt bad for you. But he also cared about you, so his sympathy wasn’t artificial at all.

“I’d say I’d stay to protect you but today’s my last day off.”

“That’s okay, I know. None of us expected him to be in town.”

Tartaglia kissed the top of your head then stood. “Okay, I gotta meal prep so I’m gonna go to Second Life then go home. Are you gonna be okay?”

You smile and wave your friend bye. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Write me letters from Fontaine!”

You picked up the tea bag from your cup and tossed it in the trash, leaving the mug in the sink before heading off to work. Tartaglia wasn’t going to pay your rent forever. You picked up a job at a restaurant and started saving money. Living with Scaramouche, he didn’t ask you to pay for anything so long as you took care of him and the house. He gave you allowances every other week that you could entertain yourself, but it wasn’t enough to rent an apartment all alone.

You slipped on your shoes, grabbed your keys and swung the door open to step outside, when you’re met face to face with the one person you didn’t want to meet. He smiled, looking up at you from halfway up the stairs, and waved. “Good morning, [Y/N]. I’m glad I’ve caught you before you ran off somewhere.” He raised his hand and dismissed the agents with him, all of them scurrying away to give the two of you privacy. “How have you been?”

“I’m sorry, Scaramouche, I need to go to work.” You quickly locked the door and ducked to go around the balladeer, but he grabbed your arm and held you back.

“Oh, you work now? Where?”

“It’s none of your business. Please let me go.”

“No, I want to spend time with you. How much money would you be losing? Let me pay you for your time.”

“No, Scaramouche. I don’t want to meet with you. I need you to please leave.”

“[Y/N], don’t be stupid. I’ve come here on my own time. Using my sick days to see you.”

“I’m sorry, but I do not want to see you. Now I really have to go to work.”

You brush past him and hurry on to work, hoping that it will serve as a good distraction from today’s events. If you shut him down enough, he’s bound to get the hint. But he’s a stubborn man, and you don’t know just how stubborn he can get.

#writing #request #Scaramouche #scaramouche x reader #scaramouche genshin #genshin impact #part two: prompt one

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kryptsune · 4 years ago

Text

Till Death Do You Part {Part 1} (UF Frans)

🌼Hummm I wonder why this is getting reposted with fully new edits. Could there be a reason I wonder?~

It was common for a girl such as herself to be betrothed to another even if she didn't know of him truly. A frightening prospect to promise your life to someone you had never met. Someone she knew so little of. Tonight was the night that they would meet and speak weeks before they would pledge themselves to one another. Just thinking about it made her nervous, hands fiddling with the fabric of her dress gently. Any moment now.

She was made up to look the most beautiful she had ever before but even then she was anxious, a shy and timid thing. Her auburn hair was styled in ringlets by her face amongst the bright ruby of a satin dress. Why had her father arranged such a thing? Wasn’t love the most important feeling? What if that was a luxury should would never be able to afford?

The young Lord yawned as he adjusted his cufflinks, going through the motions as always. He figured she would be just another pretty face, no mind to stimulate him, "I give her a month..." he murmured to himself before setting out for his first meeting. She was pretty, of course, and he always played the handsome and charismatic young suitor, "You must be the oh so lovely Lady Frisk."

Frisk didn't know who or what to expect as she twirled slowly to see whose baritone voice was addressing her. Was this him? The young lady picked up her dress taking a little curtsey out of respect. It was the proper greeting for a lady, "Yes Sire, though such flattery is not necessary. Frisk will do just fine." She had beautiful sparkling blue eyes like dazzling sapphires and a smile warm like the first rays of the morning sun.

She watched as he took a sweeping bow, "I would be your betrothed, Lord Red Fontaine." His hand extended out to her desiring the feeling of her own, "My... your beauty is astounding, I do not flatter my dear, there's no necessity for it.”

Well, he certainly was the charmer, “Forgive me, my Lord. I was uncertain and a lady should never assume. I thank you but I must confess my own thoughts on the matter, beauty only runs so deep. There are far more important qualities in a person.” She gingerly slipped her hand into his own. This was a gesture that most male suitors practiced at the time. The true test for her was his reaction to her confession.

He lifted that dainty pale hand, brushing his lips over the skin. A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth as he laid on his almost supernatural charm, "Quite right my dear. Beauty fades overtime, but the mind...oh the mind is wondrous in what it can do...It is a true rarity to find both qualities." She was different from the other pretty faces he had charmed over the centuries. Something told him this was going to be quite interesting.

Most men she had conversed with wanted dull and shallow girls, all things which she was not. That gentle kiss he laid on her hand did cause her cheeks to warm in a sweet pink glow, “Such a refreshing perspective my Lord. I am used to dulling the mind in pursuit of shallow appeals. As you can see I do not hold my tongue.” It was better, to be honest about who she was then proclaim a temperament that she could not uphold.

He could not contain the smirk that twisted his mouth, perhaps she would prove to be a challenge nearly after 400 plus years, "Indeed, I too find your outlook refreshing. It's so rare to see a young lady of the times actually use the mind they possess." His voice was soft as he pulled her closer to him.

Cobalt eyes locked with his as she was brought close enough to feel the velvet of his suit. She considered him swoon-worthy, a gentleman, and he agreed with her view of intellectual stimulation. A rarity if she ever knew one. Her nerves fluttered away, “It is unfortunate. I hope that I do not disappoint. I must confess my nerves have been keeping my attention all day until this point."

One of her many distinguishing features were those eyes that held a vibrancy to them that he hadn’t seen in all his centuries, "As they should... After all, women are expected to bow and behave for their men." He gave a boisterous laugh and waved a hand dismissively, "Bah with that. I want my bride to be herself. Something I suspect you'll do, won't you?"

She seemed like such a sweet little thing. Usually, the ones he chose were vain or dim-witted. They jumped on him as soon as they saw his looks but not her, "A good mindset to have my dear, come let us take a walk and speak more." All he got was that sweet smile and those gemstone eyes filled with newfound curiosity and excitement, “I can only ever be true to myself, my Lord. Nothing more.”

He smiled at her agreement, endeavouring to know her fully and of course more playing to what she liked, but he found he had to lie less around her, "Truly, I've had a wonderful time my dear. I look forward to our wedding and future life."

Frisk was the happiest she had ever been because of his genuineness. She wasn’t quite sure if she loved him but he made her smile and treated her like a human being, not just some prize to be won or a doll to display, “As do I.” That genuine smile practically caused her face to glow.

He kissed her forehead chastely knowing full well he had to play his hand sweetly for now. The young bride to be couldn’t deny his sweet forehead kiss was enough to melt her as his hand slipped from hers. There was no doubt that she was smitten with him. His voice was that baritone that would cause one’s knees to weaken, "Wondrous my dear, I shall see you quite soon~"

As he always intended of course. He left her soon after dropping her off back at her home, slipping into the shadows as he returned to his own estate. His mind wandered as he strolled past the lamps posted at every street corner, their flames bright behind their glass cases. As with every game they played he would relay his findings to his two older brothers. They would exchange their progress and in turn joke about their victim’s coming demise.

His return home prompted a sit down by the roaring fire and a glass of wine as he let them speak. Carthus, the second eldest, reclined upon the ornate fainting couch that rested to the right of the main sitting area. The eldest, Gered, took a seat to his right.

The conversation left him at odds even as he barely processed to the words that slipped from his mouth. His two brothers on the other hand reveled in the drab game they had been toying with for more lifetimes than he cared to count.

Carthus smugly teased his younger brother with her potential thoughts of him as the moon rose to cast its silver light upon the land. The beams slipped through windows casting a somewhat eerie glow within the room. He of course had no such worries of the dark but what about her? He could just hear his brothers mockery about how hypnotized by him she probably was, "Honestly brother what do you think she will taste like?~"

Despite his emotional confusion he placed a smirk on his face, leaning back, and taking a sip from the wine glass cradled in between his fingers, "She is rather spirited and I believe pure as well. A rarity. It did not take much to have her wrapped around my finger, brother, but you are well aware of what I am capable of." The smirk forced on his lips grew as he spoke, “I believe this time that the game shall be won by me. My bride to be will be easy to please~”

Gered chuckled from his place closest to the flames, "We shall certainly see. I cannot wait to see how this game will come to a close... of course, we shall see how our lovely ladies stack up when the time comes to evaluate."

Carthus was back to his teasing, leaning forward to make a point of it, "I cannot wait to see the look on her face when she finds out what you really are in her last moments of life." It caused him to pause. What would she think of him regardless of the outcome? No mortal had survived to tell others about the brothers. They usually lasted a few months once the wedding vows were finished.

He cleared his throat to respond to his brother’s rather sadistic humor, "Oh it will be quite sweet I assure you." The three laughed in unison as they toasted to their manipulative vice, “Their faces are always precious right before you devour them~" If he was honest he did not even remember most of them. They were a meal and nothing more. Those blue eyes, however, stuck with him even now.

The following day he would meet with her again though the visit was more of a surprise to her. He found her lounging beneath the shade of an old tree and drawing silently. A few sticks of charcoal were scattered about the lush grasses at her feet.

He put on his best smile as he drew a single red rose from his coat pocket and dangled it in front of her sight, "Good morning my dear one."

She blinked in surprise, that soft flush painting her cheeks, "Good morning. You took me by surprise for a moment. I am overjoyed to see you again so soon." Truly she never felt so affectionate toward another before. Her smile only grew when he took a seat beside her, "As am I my dear, I simply could not wait to see you once more."

Though her joy was genuine she still retained doubts in her mind. The idea of an arranged union was not one that usually ended happily. She gently set her book aside as she smiled at him sadly, "Is such a thing true? I wish for you to be honest with me and I shall do the same.”

Red inclined his head for a moment before brushing his fingers over the soft, cool skin of her shoulder only to find a strand of long auburn hair to toy with, "I am being honest with you my dear, that certainly seems an odd request. Do you think I am only telling you sweet words that you expect to hear?" That was exactly what he was supposed to be doing.

Frisk looked out over the water as her pink lips curled upward. A smile but one filled with sadness. He had rarely seen such an expression on such a pretty face before, “I apologize. I must keep a healthy skepticism. My heart flutters when you are near and yet it feels too good to be true.” Maybe that was because it was.

How to assuage her concerns? He truly did not know how to do so since he was the root of the deception, "Ahh I see." His back came to rest on the tree behind him as he made himself more comfortable, "I can see why... to potentially find one that we belong with. It's an amazing feeling I think. It truly feels as if nothing else matters."

The look still painted on her face gave off that aura of doubt. He could usually sweet-talk his way out of anything but she was far too sharp to fall too easily for his floral language and sweet promises. Her eyes now remained trained on the ground, “I fear I do not deserve something so wonderful.”

A comment like that shocked him. It was baffling, "why ever not my dear?" Curiosity swam within his eyes as he moved to tilt her chin up. What a sweet and pretty thing she was, so fragile and yet so strong at the same time.

“I am cursed for what runs in my blood is dark. A power unnatural and forbidden.”

A curious response, "Oh? What might that be my dear?" Forbidden? Dark? Unnatural? What could she possibly harbor that would lead her to believe that she deserved ill-fortune? The irony was that he was the worst omen she could have possibly received.

Her lips parted as she kept her attention on her betrothed, letting the word linger on the soft breeze that lifted her hair, “magic.”

A mortal with access to magic? A mage? A witch? She was rare indeed in more ways than he originally anticipated. Perhaps that was why he had been drawn to her, "Magic?" His tone housed a sufficient amount of curiosity and he wondered if now he had to be more careful. If the power of the mages slept within her blood then even his own abilities may not work on her.

She nodded softly, “Yes. It’s a part of me and it feels right and beautiful but... it’s known as something evil.” A lie she had been told nearly the entirety of her life.

As an immortal being infected by dark magic himself he knew that all too well. His past was far from joyous, "Magic.. is one of those things people will..." He sighed pulling her closer to him. How much would he be able to tell her without implicating his rather... bloodthirsty condition? She deserved some form of comfort, "The things that people do not fully understand become a threat. Even if such a thing is no more harmful than the smallest butterfly.”

He truly understood her even better than she could have hoped, “Something that they do not understand they seek to destroy or punish. Even something frightening does not mean it is evil or has ill intentions.” Her eyes fluttered open as her hands began to glow softly, when she opened them there was a small illuminated blue flower nestled in the center of her palm.

He smiled, letting a gentle finger stroke one of the magical petals, "Magic can be beautiful... It can be deadly. It is like a sword. It depends upon how you use it."

Her cheeks darkened further as he spoke, "That is what I believe as well. It is hard to try and hide who I truly am. I fear no one would understand or be afraid of me. It's why no one truly knows but when I am around you I feel as though I can speak my truth. Forgive me."

His hands reached for hers closing them around that luminescent blossom, "There is no need for forgiveness my dear. You need not hide anything of yourself from me. For I hide nothing from you." He smiled at her. Why did he care what she thought?

She scooted a little closer to him as his arm came to wrap around her as he held her closer to him. That gentle breeze soothed her as she enjoyed the afternoon. He would be able to feel how much joy she got from just being in his company, "I have been very lucky. Perhaps this is not a curse after all.”

He had a desire to say more but he kept his words simple, comforting, “Of course it is not. It is a natural part of you that should be nurtured not diminished. You shall never have to fear such judgment from me.” For I am something far worse.

Frisk rested her head gently against his shoulder feeling free from whatever chains kept her prisoner before, “I know. No one has ever looked at me the way you do it’s...” She toyed with the hands resting in her lap, “Nice to know you accept me for who I am.”

He smiled. "Of course I will Frisk. You are quite wonderful.”

She rested there in silence with him. It was so peaceful and all the following days were the same. They both began to know each other better just by speaking their minds. She even practiced some magic when they were alone so that she no longer lived in fear of it.

When the day of the wedding arrived everything seemed to go by smoothly. She had been nervous at first but the moment she said "I do" he could see it was one of the happiest moments of her life.

In the depths of his mind, he thought it was the dumbest choice she could ever have made, but his face remained with an overjoyed smile, exactly what was expected.

Even...perhaps...

When he pulled her toward him for the kiss that would seal their vows, he felt something. This was far more than just a childish game of superiority. She could be different and then this wretched cycle could end.

Until death do us part

There was only one problem...

Death... had already parted them…

#undertale #sans x frisk #frans #underfell #vampire prompt #writing #drabble #part 1 #quick little thing #Welcome to the Underworld #WTU #red x frisk #It feels good to write for the OTP #vampire sans #gothic #edited #curious how this returns...I wonder why~

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grimelords · 5 years ago

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So since the last time I posted one of these the entire world has changed dramatically and hopefully 4 hours of music will tide you over in quarantine for a bit longer. Strangely I’ve been busier than ever, and what started as a personal challenge to listen to a new album every day in February turned into me listening to 116 new albums in March and 124 in April. I’ve got a stacked google doc full of star ratings and dates now and it’s really been a lot of fun, I highly recommend trying it yourself. This is my March playlist, because I accidentally took a month off, and I’m thinking of either switching these playlists to weekly to make them a little more digestible or just dropping them whenever. Who knows. Let me know what you think and drop album recommendations in the comments please.

Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0k1JjT8fXcUFO6VpM3kaez?si=gWSv88vdShKSnHhLJ_80pQ

If you’d like to receive these playlists in a more digestible email format, please subscribe to my tinyletter here: http://tinyletter.com/grimelords

On A Slow Boat To China - Bing Crosby & Peggy Lee: Ok first off it’s amazing this song isn’t more racist. I don't remember now how or why I came across this. I think I was just thinking about crooners and how as a genre it's now existed in common popularity as a nostalgic idyll of a mytholigised past far longer than it was ever actually popular which is interesting. The origin of this song, according to wikipedia, is also one of the most 40s ideas I've ever read: "I'd like to get you on a slow boat to China" was a well-known phrase among poker players, referring to a person who lost steadily and handsomely. The idea being that a "slow boat to China" was the longest trip one could imagine. Loesser moved the phrase to a more romantic setting, yet it eventually entered general parlance to mean anything that takes an extremely long time".

Fight Night - Migos: I saw that Offset had some new show on Quibi the extremely fake sounding streaming service and I thought "how did Migos get so world conqueringly large that they get to make 10 minute shows nobody will watch for a $2 billion venture capital funded app that will never make any money?" They seem to have this massive reputation without having much to back it up. The last thing I remember everyone talking about was how Culure II was two hours long in order to game streaming numbers and was simply not good. They seemed to have sort of settled into making background music for scrolling instagram. But then I remembered Fight Night and I thought: "oh wait, that's right, Migos are fucking great". Where their other big hits like Bad And Boujee and Walk It Talk It have this sort of laid back vibe where they've comfortably nailed the formula and relax onto it, Fight Night commands your attention. StackboyTwan killed the beat - it has this propulsive momentum where it feels like it's constantly ramping up, moving up from the sidesick and bassline in the verse, up to the claps on the beat, and the big gang chants on the offbeat once the full instrumentation kicks in - then it just goes around and around and around with the constant bassline the whole tim. It's a perfect all-rise production because it never actually explodes, it's all building tension held down by an unchanging bassline.

Do It Puritan! - El Hombre Trajeado & Sue Tompkins: I am extremely delighted to announce that Sue Tompkins of one of my all time favourite single album bands Life Without Buildings has broken a nearly 20 year musical hiatus to appear on this song by El Hombre Trajeado. It is so nice to hear how her voice has changed and her approach has stayed the same. Her style is so unique and so good and I don't think I'll ever get tired of it.

5 8 6 - New Order: Before 'the incident' I had tickets to see New Order at the end of March and so I embarked on a big listen through of their discography, which has now unfortunately made it feel even worse that live music is cancelled indefinitely.

Oom Sha La La - Haley Heynderickx: First of all I love songs where they talking about how they're writing a song halfway through. And I love songs that seem like a pretty normal singer songwriter indie thing where someone just starts screaming near the end. I love this song. A great staring at the wall and absolutely losing your mind because you haven't done anything with your whole life anthem.

Elektrobank - The Chemical Brothers: Can you believe I've never listening to a full Chemical Brothers album before this month? Can you believe big beat ever went our of style? It feels insane that we ever swapped this sort of energy for the beige algorithm of EDM. I think there's a real triumph in this album, and in this track especially of replicating the live feeling in studio. Giving it this much space to grow and change and get very hairy near the end is amazing, it feels like it was just recorded live.

My Mind's A Ship (That's Going Down) - Katie Pruitt: It feels very rare to me that this sort of extremely smooth Nashville prduction actually makes a song better. It has a habit of strangling the life out of a song and making it blend into a boring paste of soundalikes, but with Katie Pruitt it works amazingly. Her songwriting is so distinct and clear and her voice, especially near the end where it punches hole in the sky, is so strong and so her own that it doesn't need anything else.

Water - Ohmme: "What if Tegan And Sara were a noise band instead?" is a question I didn't know I needed an answer to. I love any band that has the guts to write songs like this that sound like pop from an alternate history, so off kilter and odd and noisy but with this undeniable pop heart that the duo vocals make sound like schoolyard clapping chants remixed by Lightning Bolt.

Lions, Tigers and Bears - SLIFT: A friend put me on to Slift and described them as French King Gizz and really, I'm inclined to agree. This is the traditional long last song at the end of their new album, and as usual I am advocating that every song should be the long last song at the end of the album. I love this style of jam where everyone else goes to space but the rhythm section just digs in and works hard as fuck for ten minutes. Then the whole last 3 minutes of the song are just fat drone riffs. This song's got everything.

The Pines - 070 Shake: This 070 Shake album is unbeleivably good and it warms my heart to see the dark energy of The Pines live on through another century in yet another permutation. I have more to say about it later in the Jackson C Frank version coming up but it feels like this 070 Shake album kind of came and went but I implore you to listen, it’s an aoty contender for sure.

Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On - Funkadelic: If you can stop thinking about the intro, which I certainly can’t (Hey lady won’t you be my dog and I’ll be your tree and you can pee on me.) there is so much goodness in this song. For a while now I’ve been thinking about how, for lack of a better word, ‘positive’ music is consistently underrated in the critical canon. Dance music, disco and funk especially are derided as empty sugar music, while every cookie cutter metal band absolutely demands to be taken seriously. In dance music this manifests as genres like tech house sucking all the fun and individuality out of music until it’s just an endless parade of producers working to a schematic of the barest essentials. It feels like you can’t have fun and be taken seriously at the same time, which feels like an obvious contradiction but shouldn’t be!

Spoils - Dry Cleaning: Dry Cleaning are my Lock Of The Month Band To Watch In The Future Because They’re Gonna Go Off. They have such a great sound and I’m desperate for an album because I just need more. This song absolutely knocked me down when I first heard it. I love any band where it sounds like the singer has just wandered in while the rest of them were rehearsing. There’s a very good talking-songs movement happening in the UK right now between these guys, Do Nothing and Fontaines D.C and i’m excited to see where it progresses. I might put together a playlist a little later to show you what I mean.

As - Stevie Wonder: I finally listened to Songs In The Key Of Life this month, which is an experience I would recommend to everyone. This shit goes for 21 songs over 105 minutes and absolute bangs the whole way. The original release of this album was a double LP plus a 7", which is yet another reason I am grateful for streaming that I don't have to buy a damn box set to hear this thing.

Sleep Now In The Fire - Rage Against The Machine: I am working on a very niche playlist called Songs Where The Guitar Amp Accidentally Picks Up A Nearby Radio Station For A Couple Of Seconds and it's only 3 songs so far. A Man A Plan A Canal Panama by The Fall Of Troy, Melody 4 by Tera Melos and Sleep Now In The Fire by Rage Against The Machine. In every single one of those songs it feels like a critical component even though it's just an accident that's been left in because it sounds good. Here it's the perfect ending as the rage dies down and the commercial world fades back in. Anyway, my other question about this song is about the great Michael Moore directed video where they famously shut down Wall Street for an afternoon. There's a shot of a guy for a second holding a sign that says Donald Trump For President in 1999. Which is odd but not out of the question, he's been famous for a long time and there's always been freaks. My question is why the fuck did he have that sign that day? Was he amongst the Rage Against The Machine Fans that showed up? A counter protestor? Was he, perhaps most chillingly of all, just walking idly around Wall Street with his Donald Trump For President sign like usual and stumbled upon this whole hoo-haa accidentally?

Applause (Purity Ring Remix) - Lady Gaga: Did you fucking know that Purity Ring did a remix of Applause? If there’s something I’d love to know more about and it’s Purity Ring’s forays into pop production. After their first album they did some production for rappers like Danny Brown in the great track 25 Bucks, which is a good fit really - their sound is witch house with the tempo pushed back up, witch house of course just being chopped and screwed reinvented by tumblr users. So it’s a natural fit to take that new perspective back into the world of hip hop. They also did this fantastic remix of Applause after their first album. Then, after their second album they produced 3 songs for Katy Perry’s Witness album, and one Katy Perry song for a Final Fantasy mobile game soundtrack (?) and feel like the long silence and delay between their second and third albums is because of more behind the scenes pop production work - but if that’s true, where is it? Is it, as I suspect, part of my own personal Pepe Silvia, Katy Perry’s scrapped 2019 album that has vanished into thin air? Or is it part of Chromatica? I think Purity Ring have solidified an interesting place in pop, paving the way for Billie Eilish and Kim Petras’ dark anti-pop and so i’m excited to see where they go after this new album now that they’re the architects of the new wave.

React/Revolt - Drahla: The smartest thing you can do is add a saxophone to your band. The whole first half of this song could go for 20 minutes of growling screaming saxophone post-punk and I wouldn't mind. Then when the second half of the song kicks in it's fantastic in the way this whole Drahla album is: it's tight and sprawling post-punk at the same time with a complicated structure that seems to just pile onto itself instead of ever circling back.

And I Was Like - Porridge Radio: I'm seemingly having a real thing this month for songs that open with a bizzare acapella chant. Between this and the Funkadelic one it's a genre I'm very interested in hearing more of. Isaac Newton was a virgin and it's important to recognise that. The thing I love about this song is how it's in 3 distinc sections: Isaac Newton was a virgin, she's a birthday girl in a birthday world, and mum no please it's grunge, and they all feel like the concentrated energy of a 14 year old's thoughts. She sounds like she's almost crying when she sings 'she's a birthday girl in a birthday world'. The concentrated confusing teenaged energy of this song is just overwhelming.

Dirty Mattresses - Mama's Broke: So much of contemporary 'traditional folk' either exists as pure nostalgia music or as music that's trying too hard to be 'authentic' and evoke a mythology of a bygone time, but Mama's Broke manage to make it feel new and modern but honest and ��authentic at the same time. The super close harmonies and modern approach remind me of House And Land who I also love, but the songwriting is in another class entirely.

Building A House - CHOPCHOP: I don't know if you've ever seen Bad Boy Bubby but CHOPCHOP feels a little like the band that he ends up joining at the end. A musical ensemble built to enable the will of a very strange man. I think the band is from the UK and I'm not sure where the singer is from, but he has this incredible deeply accented voice that brings such a gravity to everything he sings in the way that anyone speaking english as a second language accidentally brings new weight to common turns of phrase.

Universal Soldier - Jay Electronica: It feels fitting, looking back, that Jay Electronica finally released his album right before the world ended. It was literally now or never. Some how Jay-Z is the breakout star of this album for me. He's got some of his best verses in years on here and he's a great opposition to Electronica's flow when they trade verses. I would also, as an aside, like to know the origin of the kids cheering sample throughout this, because it's the same one from AM//Radio by Earl Sweatshirt and Wish You Were Gay by Billie Eilish. So what's that about.

Sticky Hulks - Thee Oh Sees: I've been very slowly getting into Oh Sees and I love them a lot so far. Their unweildy, huge discography spread across a lot of variations of the same name makes digging into them very rewarding as well. There's a great line on their wiki detailing all the times they've changed their name that goes: Orinoka Crash Suite (1997–2003), OCS (2003–2005, 2017), Orange County Sound (2005), The Ohsees (2006), The Oh Sees (2006–2008), Thee Oh Sees (2008–2017), Oh Sees (2017–2019) Osees (2019) to give you some idea of what we're working with here. Basically it's just everything you could want from a pychedelic band like this: a history and discography as shaggy as the songs themselves.

Knife On The Platter - BODEGA: In reading about Bodega I learned that they don't have a drummer in the traditional sense. They have someone credited as a 'stand up percussionist', and in listening back I realised that's they key to the groove in their music. He's not playing a kit he's just slamming at a tom and a snare on a rack, while one of the singers plays hi-hat here and there. So all the drumming has this barebones caveman feel to it and I absolutely love it. The band feels a lot like The Fashion, and that whole mid-2000s dance-punk movement that I've been desparate to come back so naturally I love it a lot.

Against Gravity - Horse Lords: Horse Lords are one of the most incredible bands I've heard in a long time. Somewhere between a more analogue Battles and Laddio Bolocko, they make a kind of churning math-jazz that sounds like huge intersecting squares of rhythm slowly overlapping. It feels like there's an infinite depth in these songs, you can listen and focus on a single instrument and see it shifting in and out of place with everyone else, before you lose it again and it retreats back into the swirling mass.

Plain To See Plainsman - Colter Wall: I've been listening to this Colter Wall album a lot, and it's really beginning to rank among my all time favourites. I grew up around the flattest place in the southern hemisphere, so I love the plains and it's very nice to have a cowboy song I can relate to like that.

The Nail - Sarah Shook & The Disarmers: Sarah Shook has so much character in her voice I completely love it. She is also a fantastic songwriter that manages to make outlaw country punk that sounds authentic and doesn't have the rockabilly posturing that a lot of the genre suffers from.

Inner Reaches 慾望的暗角二 - Gong Gong Gong 工工工: The best thing about Gong Gong Gong is you can listen to this whole song before you realise they don't have a drummer. They're a guitar and bass duo that play and sing with such a layered rhythmic intensity between the two of them that they really don't need one. A drummer would just clutter the space already taken up by their ferocious rhythm.

Country Pie - Bob Dylan: I'm a big fan of Bob Dylan's dumb songs. He has a lot where if it's the first song you ever heard from him you would be mad at whoever told you he was the greatest songwriter to ever live for trying to trick you like this. What I especially love about this song is how abruptly it ends, like dad just came home and everyone panicked cause they're know they're not supposed to be staying up that late.

You Did It Yourself - Arthur Russell: It seems hard to believe that I've only just found out about Arthur Russel. He seems to be a mainstay of Music Guy lists and somehow I've only heard of him this month. I've been obsessing over the Iowa Dream album, which is a compilation of a lot of different (mostly extremely high quality) demos from the late 70s to mid 80s and what really shines through other than the singular strength of his songwriting is how readily and easily he bends from country style folk to romantic piano ballads, to groovy post-punk like this. What I love so much about this song is it's a great lesson in songwriting: sometimes a song can just be a vague review of a middling movie and still have emotional resonance. Incredible. There's a great NPR article about Arthur Russel and the process of assembling half-takes and demos into complete recordings that you should read if you're interested. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/20/779721417/which-arthur-russell-are-we-getting-on-iowa-dream

The Dogs Outside Are Barking - Arthur Russell: I love this song because it's such a perfect distillation of a teenaged moment: trying to find a moment alone with someone when you have no freedom at all to create one. The song cycles through potential situations but leaves the problem unresolved, existing in the moment of nervous romantic tension preceding an unasked question and it's just beautiful.

Men For Miles - Ought: I love the vocal melody in the verse here so much. Spiking up unnaturally at the end of the lines like a nervous and strange version of The Strokes. Even the way he cramps his words in in the chorus is so good, switching registers randomly like he's impersonating someone else.

Mister Soweto - Lizzy Mercier Descloux: https://pitchfork.com/features/from-the-pitchfork-review/9828-lizzy-mercier-descloux-behind-the-muse/ Pitchfork has a great article about Lizzy Mercier Descloux detailing how she is continually undervalued and underappreciated. I found her though my Discover Weekly and became immediately obsessed with this album - a perfect mix of off-kilter 80s bass and brass that is so colourful and seems to move in a million directions at once like the songs can't even catch up with themselves sometimes. I'm excited to dig into her discography more and try to understand her more because she has a truly unique approach that I can't get enough of.

Sweden - Marilyn Crispell: I've been looking for a while for other pianists of Cecil Taylor's calibre, rare type that it is and I am so glad to have finally found out about Marilyn Crispell. She plays free jazz like Taylor, but in much less percussive and disonnant style. There's a New York Times quote that seems to follow her that says "Hearing Marilyn Crispell play solo piano is like monitoring an active volcano. She is one of a very few pianists who rise to the challenge of free jazz." and it's really very apt. She will move with seemingly no warning at all from mediative, colourful stokes to a mad descent unto uncertainty and beyond, then back again without a moments hesitation. Her music moves like a dream, linking a stream of unlinked images with an ease that only seems incongruous on reflection.

Twins - Gem Club: I have loved this song for a very long time and I come back to it over and over and appreciate it anew. What I appreciate about on listening to it this time is the strangeness of it's structure, following up the verse with an instrumental break, and then a long instrumental intro to the chorus gives it so much space to spread out and breathe, giving the beautiful gravity of the song even more weight. Then after the chorus it moves straight to a bridge and then the intro and first verse again. It's a fantastic song that makes it's small parts so large, where another songwriter or another producer would pare them down.

Grand Central - Paul Cauthen: Something I've learned in listening to a lot of cowboy music is that the number one thing that cowboys hate and fear is getting hanged. They hate it worse than cats hate getting sprayed with water. I found out about Paul Cauthen combing through Colter Wall's similar artists looking for more of this brand of new old fashioned country and I really found it here. Paul Cauthen comes from four generations of preachers and left the church to pursue country music instead, which feels like an extremely old fashioned position to be in here in 2020 but I guess lots of people in Texas still live like that, and thank god they do or we wouldn't have Paul Cauthen's big mournful Elvis voice to sing us songs about the railway.

Serafina - BAMBARA: I love this sort of spoken word leather jacket rock and roll. It's so extremely Cool in an old fashioned way. Like a more rock and roll version of Enablers.

So 4 Real - The Hecks: I love love love this song that sounds like a sped up Prince demo. The strange thinness of the mix and the way the vocals are buried just makes it sound so strange and great, like it was put together on some ancient 4 track recorder that can't handle the pure energy of the song.

In The Pines (Version 2) - Jackson C. Frank: There's a very good 3 hour compilation of Jackson C. Frank recordings that came out a few years called Remastered And Unreleased that I listened through the other day. It's just magnificent. This version of In The Pines is one of my favourite I've ever heard, the mournful vocals coupled with his churning rhythm guitar really brings out the darkness of it in a way I've never heard.

(Tumble) In The Wind (Version 1) - Jackson C. Frank: Another favourite from this compilation that is slightly hard to listen to. I don't know if there's a date on it but I'd guess this was recorded near the end of his life. It is so beautiful, but you can hear in his voice and breathing that he's unwell. In Horseshoe Crabs by Hopalong she sings a story from his perspective this song really seems to fit in the second half of that. "Woke from the dream and I was old / Staring at the ass crack of dawn / Walked these streets up and down / Looking for Paul Simon / All I found was myself, lost in time / I tried singing my songs / But I lost my mind"

Sludge - Squid: I'm thinking of putting together a playlist of all the great Black Midi-adjacent bands I've found out about recently and Squid is at the top of the list. This new breed of art-punk is so fantastic and goes in a million different directions. I'm just so excited it exists.

Straight Shot - Quelle Chris: I love this song and Guns is a phenomenal album but there’s one thing bothering me. The ‘who are you, what are you’ part at the end sounds so incredibly familiar to me and I can’t figure out why. As far as I can tell it’s not a sample, but googling reveals that the english voice on it is fucking James Acaster the standup comedian. So what’s going on? Quelle Chris himself is less than helpful: “Straight Shot is one of those ideas that reached out to me, we got along and I simply showed it around town. The chorus, poem at the end and basic piano progression literally came to me in two separate dreams”. Who knows. Great song though.

Levitation - Dua Lipa: What I really like about this song is that she says sugarboo. This whole album bangs and Dua is really reaping the benefits of being the only pop star with the guts to release an album while everyone’s in lockdown I also have a half-baked theory about the way this song is almost interpolating Blame It On The Boogie in the ‘moonlight, starlight’ part as a sort of aggressive takeover of Michael Jackson’s cancelled legacy. Which is smart really. The same way Taylor Swift is re-recording her albums, let’s just get The Weeknd in the studio for a couple of days and give the world back it’s bangers.

Another Crashed Car - Nine Inch Nails: I am so glad Trent Reznor put out another two volumes of Ghosts. Ghosts I-IV from 2008 seems to have been the bridge from his Nine Inch Nails work to his film score work, and now that he’s had such success with that it’s nice to hear him writing in this style without telling anyone else’s story again. It’s also interesting for him to go back to this project now that Ghosts I-IV has paid dividends in the form of the sample at the centre of Old Town Road but that’s neither here nor there. It’s hard to pick and individual track from these, because they work so effectively as long form albums and not individual tracks, but I chose this one because I put the album on as background ambient while I was doing some boring data entry at work and this track is the point at which I realised I was going out of my mind with stress from doing the simplest tasks because of Trent’s Damned Chords.

Lilacs - Waxahatchee: This is a perfect song. It makes me want to like, draw charts about it and go through it bar by bar to figure out how she did it. It’s perfectly put together. It feels like she uses every trick in the book and it just comes together flawlessly in 3 minutes. Amazing.

Cool Water - Hank Williams: I decided to properly listen to Hank Williams because his shadow stretches over so much of country music, and while a lot of his music really alienated or bored me, and a lot of his songs feel like they would read as novelty songs today (like Hey Good Looking), this is the song that made me understand why he’s so revered.

In My Bones (feat. Kimbra and Tank And The Bangas) - Jacob Collier: Jacob Collier generally irks me. He makes brain music for redditors that lose their mind when someone shows them chord inversions or odd time signatures. Youtubers whose whole personality is ‘y’all heard Giant Steps?’ But he killed it on this song. It’s great despite him. There’s still a lot of corniness to work through, mostly in the big yuck funky lyrics, but structurally it’s a kaleidoscope and a big chunk of its success I’m putting down to Kimbra and Tank who understand that performance is a bigger part of a song than composition in a way Collier maybe doesn’t yet. He can overload the bassline and stop-start the rhythms as much as he likes but without actual personalities driving it it’ll just sound like a Peter Gabriel midi played at 200%.

Earthquake - Graham Central Station: I learned something wonderful in researching this band. The leader, Larry Graham, who was in Sly And The Family Stone is credited with inventing slap bass. He himself refers to the technique as "thumpin' and pluckin' ".

Quand Les Larmes D’un Ange Font Danser La Neige - Melody’s Echo Chamber: Once again furious that I’ve known of Melody’s Echo Chamber for years but never listened to them until now. I have been missing out. This is a perfect sprawling psychedelic jam punctuated with a bizzare cut-up recording about shitting yourself when you die and being declared brain dead in the vatican. It’s got everything. I had to look up who the drummer was on this song because he’s just nailing it, and it turns out it’s Johan Holmegaard from Dungen which is really a perfect fit.

Murder Most Foul - Bob Dylan: I was thinking the other day about how Bob Dylan is doing in quarantine. The man who hasn’t stopped moving his whole life and who’s been on a never ending tour since the 70s is now, I assume, just pacing a hole in a hotel carpet somewhere and jabbering to himself. The strangest part of Bob dropping this 17 minute song about JFK out of nowhere is that he hasn’t put out any original music since 2012. So a gigantic song like this is an even bigger surprise. I, already a huge fan of gigantic songs and Bob Dylan, unsurprisingly love it. I love the slow stirring of the instrumentation, like he hired Dirty Three as a backing band and I love that nearly the entire second half is just listing good songs that he knows. It’s a remarkable song and unlike anything i’ve heard before from Dylan or anyone else. It’s interesting to hear Bob Dylan step into being the great chronicler of the 60s like he’s been told he already was his entire life almost 50 years later, finally accepting the fate foisted on him. The other thing I love about this song is the line when he for some reason praises Lee Harvey Oswald’s shooting “Greatest magic trick ever under the sun / Perfectly executed, skillfully done”

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0k1JjT8fXcUFO6VpM3kaez?si=gWSv88vdShKSnHhLJ_80pQ

#playlists

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