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itsayaze · 8 months ago

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Day Two - "Wait, what did we come in here for again?"

I woke up early that day. 6AM. When I wake up before I actually want to I lay there for a few minutes to see if I'm AWAKE awake. And I was. That morning, I hopped into a Discord call with my friends and just hung around with them whilst I wrote the previous day's journal.

After that, I went outside for a quick nibble. There's a Famima directly across from the hotel, so I dropped in for a drink and my trusty favourite: tuna mayo onigiri. I returned to the hotel and got ready for the day.

Later on, we made our way towards the day's destination: Akihabara.

However, there's a little detour we need to take first. So from Shinjuku, we made our way over to Ochanomizu's Hijiribashi Bridge, because we had a mission: can we get the fated triple?

We patiently waited as many trains came and went, chatting all the while about a theoretical Pokemon Snap-like for transporting, since its a fairly universal hobby. After a while, we'd assumed that it wasn't gonna happen, and just as we were getting ready to walk to Akihabara, the 3 trains (and a bonus fourth) all rocked up at the same time!

With that achievement bagged, we headed off towards Akihabara to continue the Chigyu Championship.

Now, I stayed in AKB with my partner in 2018 when we visited it last, so I'd like to say I know it pretty well. And whilst it is mostly the same, the lack of Club SEGA breaks my heart a bit. I don't WANT to get into the gaming oasis. I want to join club SEGA!

Round 2 of the CC found us at Sukiya. We ordered up, and the fabulous cheese gyudon arrived. At Sukiya, they also give you tabasco sauce, so I slathered it over and stirred. The cheese is better than that at Matsuya, and the addition of tabasco elevates the dish higher. Sukiya currently sits at top of the ranking. Next up, Yoshinoya.

Beefed up, we went to Excelsior Coffee, where I got a iced latte. It was there that my buddy showed me a sticker he'd stumbled upon in a prior visit to the city. It was a lenticular sticker of a guy driving a car, but pulling over to stop and look at you at the right angle. There was a website on it, and it's a Web 1.0 delight.

We went to go and see if the sticker was still there out of curiosity.

Curiosity satiated, and we went to start the day's mission proper.

My goal for the day was to try and find a neGcon, the weird PS1 controller made by Namco. Apparently, it's a really good way of playing Ridge Racer, so it makes sense to have one.

We went to a few places. Let's do a quick rundown:

Super Potato: Cool retro shop, but now has become so well known its basically a tourist trap.

Beep: "Super Potato but gooder" - they also carry a lot of PC-98 stuff. Recently, they published Radirgy 2?! I must remember to grab a copy... As soon as I spotted the Game CD section my quest for the neGcon went straight out the fuckin' window. I grabbed a whole bunch of Ridge Racer OSTs and a Phantasy Star Online Ep I&II arrange album.

Surugaya: I've known about Surugaya when importing stuff using OneMap. I bought quite a lot of stuff in here, mostly some nice gifts for my girlfriend.

Trader: Usually good, but way too busy today. Maybe I'll take a nose another day.

Mandarake: Was comically busy. We were both kind of hurting at that point so we turned around immediately. We're heading to Nakano Broadway soon anyway.

The hell began when we went across Akiba to Yodobashi Camera. Initially, we were going there because Dave wanted to find a fancy-ass cable for his fancy-ass phone with a weird charging standard.

Just over an hour and a half later, I've got a whole bunch of shit in my basket. As we're standing at the register to deal with the tax-free shopping process, I turn to Dave and say "Wait, what did we come in here for again?"

We headed back to the Chuo Rapid to get home to Shinjuku, completely forgetting that another one of the things we were going there for was to play the big sitdown Densha de GO!! cabinet at Taito Station.

But, not to worry, there's a Taito Station at the East Exit of Shinjuku Station! The DDG website said that on its location list, they had one, so we figured we'd drop in on the way home to right that wrong.

Whilst yes, they technically have a DDG cab, it is not the full-size model. Which makes sense, considering the real estate. Dave asked me "do you really want your first experience of the DDG cabinet to be on the small one next to a Taiko?" and on that note, we'd left.

Thanks a lot, Big Crappy!

After a soak with a strong zero to calm my leg muscles down, and a quick nap to put some more gas in the tank, we went to a Bankara Ramen for an outrageously great bowl of tonkatsu. After this, a little stop into the Game Panic. This is pretty much our home arcade since it's right next door to our hotel.

That day, we focused mostly on racing games. I'd set up my profiles for Initial D THE ARCADE and Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 6RR. (MaxiTune 6 is hilarious, we've gone from 6, to 6R, to 6RR. Sadly, 6RR+ comes out a few days after I leave Japan, and it adds the new Nissan Fairlady Z... I love that car, man.)

So many intense races, close calls and outrageous drifts. I love these games so much. After that, I played Chunithm until a staff member came over to inform us it was closing time. I grabbed some snacks and something to drink from the nearby 7-Eleven, including Coca-Cola K-Wave, which is a limited-time K-Pop flavour, and a pouch of Coolish, of which I am now a massive fan.

Time to rest up. Tomorrow is the RGG pop-up shop and potentially Nakano Broadway.

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eakdoeseurope · 2 years ago

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Yesterday morning, I took the train from Marseilles to Nice for my final leg of the trip. My hotel in Nice is the nicest so far, with free cold(!) filtered(!) water in the lobby (available sparkling, even!) and this lovely courtyard where I'm currently eating my breakfast (decaf coffee and a packet of "complete biscuits" (basically Belvita biscuits with less sugar). (Side note, that should be an insult: "you're a complete biscuit.")

A fun fact about my hotel is that in 1943 it was occupied by the Nazis and used to hold the Jews they rounded up before sending them to the death camps via the nearby train station (where I arrived from Marseilles). Okay, not really a fun fact, but a meaningful one. Thankfully the hotel has changed management since then.

There's a memorial plaque across the street explaining the whole thing, although I only learned about it because I was googling my hotel and one of the autocomplete options was "nice hotel excelsior gestapo."

#france #nice

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thegreenvoyage · 2 years ago

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lyss-writes · 3 years ago

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Excelsior (Part 9)

[9/12]

Looking back on that moment later in the privacy of his therapist’s office, Tom might have said any number of things. He might have said, Are you fucking nuts? (Pejorative, and potentially a trigger.) Or, Suppose you’ll want to be the one in heels, Ginger Rogers. (Passive-aggressive, with a subtle hint of good old-fashioned homophobia baked in, for flavor.) A simple No, thanks might have sufficed here, but.

The thing was, Greg used to do this competition with Andrew every Thanksgiving weekend. Greg, whose family was a grouchy Quebeçois hermit and a conniving New York news magnate and a handful of cousins who had never once mentioned him. Andrew, whose family was English and distant in every sense of the word. And now Andrew was dead, and Tom was going to—what, he was gonna tell him No, uh-uh, absolutely fucking not, Greg like some kind of homophobic monster, like some horrible beast who would sooner piss all over a dead guy’s memory than shimmy around a hotel ballroom in Spandex pants like some low-rent Midwestern Baryshnikov with his wife’s cousin?

Shiv. Now there was an angle. Oh, to think of Shiv discovering that Tom had taken pity on her poor widowed cousin! Oh, oh, oh, how she’d fall longingly at his feet when she heard all about his selfless act of kindness. How gallant he was! How dashing!

So he agreed, but—because Tom was smart and blessed with real business acumen when it came to cutting deals and closing tricky loopholes—Greg had to find a way to deliver the note to Shiv first. Send it first-class, via carrier pigeon, in a fucking stripper-gram, for all he cared. Just get it done, nice and discreet, and then they could talk about this… ballroom dance thing.

“This is a wonderful thing you’re doing, Tom,” Dr. Parfit said, smiling at him. “A wonderful, wonderful thing.”

Oh, it was wonderful. God, he was good. In awe of his own brilliance. He could be back home with Shiv by Christmas, if he kept playing his cards right.

“Gosh, is it? I don’t know,” Tom said, simpering. “I like to think I’m just… being a friend.”

“Of course,” Dr. Parfit said, hand to his chest. “Of course you are.”

But his therapist didn’t know about the letter. He didn’t know about the sneaky little (possibly illegal) side deal he’d struck with Greg.

Logan Roy had once said in a fit of passion that Tom was fathoms beneath his daughter. He liked to think that this bit of duplicitousness would do his father-in-law proud.

————————

His parents were thrilled, predictably. Less thrilled, when they realized who his new dance partner was. It seemed like everyone knew Greg somehow: as the twenty-nine year old widower, as the resident office nympho. His mom mentioned that Greg had shopped his wrongful termination suit around to the white-shoe law firms in the Twin Cities a couple months back, including hers, but he’d decided in the end that it wasn’t worth the time and money to pursue legal action. But gee, wasn’t that a terrible tragedy to happen, to lose his husband when he was ever so young, and so in love! And wasn’t Tom such a sweetheart for taking him under his wing. And did Greg know that he was welcome to come for dinner anytime—really, anytime at all, anything for Tommy’s new friend!

“Sure,” Tom said, just to get his mom off his case. “I’ll tell him.”

But first: the letter. He disappeared into his bedroom and settled at his old desk and wrote. And damn, it was good. Really moving stuff, just super romantic. Would Nate do this for her? Would he write a bunch of purple prose and wax poetic about how lucky he was to be married to someone so extraordinary, so breathtakingly beautiful? Would he break some smug bastard’s nose for daring to touch her? And, well. Would someone like him, so concerned with the plight of the working class, blah blah blah, do what Tom was doing for Greg? What was he doing right now? Was he making a difference in Shiv’s cousin’s pathetic life? Ha! As if!

He scrawled it all out on a bit of his mom’s stationery—proof of life, etc.—and sealed it up in an envelope to give to Greg at rehearsal.

————————

“Holy shit,” Tom said. “You’re telling me that this was a garage?”

He stood in the middle of what could have been a professional dance studio, which just so happened to be in a converted four-car garage behind an old derelicted Craftsman. It was gorgeously designed. Oak floors, an entire wall of paneled mirrors, a top-grade sound system with wall-mounted subwoofers.

“Yeah,” Greg said. “I know. It was a total mess before I moved in with my mom, but she let me, like, trick the place out. Cool, right?”

“Jesus,” Tom said, running a hand along a light switch panel on the wall: turn a dial, and the lights dimmed so that a single spotlight burned overhead; flip a switch, and there was a strobe effect that rivaled the display at a West Berlin discotheque. “How opulent. This must have cost a fucking fortune.”

Greg smiled, a little sheepish. “Roy money.”

“Ah.” Tom thought privately that it was probably a bit of a waste, throwing several hundred thousand dollars at a bachelor pad slash elite dance studio in your mother’s garage, but then again, if he had his hands on even a fraction of Shiv’s inheritance, God knew what he’d do with it. He probably wouldn’t be channeling his millions into funding the cure for cancer, either. Maybe that was why she’d been so insistent on signing a prenup. “I thought you said you weren’t much of a dancer?”

“I’m not,” Greg shrugged. “But it’s therapy, and it’s fun! And the walls in here are good because they’re soundproofed, so I can play music really loud and my mom doesn’t hear it.”

“Oh. That’s… useful.”

Greg plugged his iPhone into a speaker setup and started tapping at the screen, scrolling through a Spotify playlist. “Uh-huh.”

“So when are you gonna give it to her?” Tom asked.

“What?”

He pulled the sealed envelope out of his back pocket and held it up. “The note, Greg.”

“Huh?” Greg kept looking at his phone. “Uh, I don’t know. Soon. I thought I’d, like, email it to her? Do people even use the post office anymore?”

“You’re not gonna read it,” Tom said, eyebrows cinching in the middle of his forehead. “Greg. Tell me you’re not gonna read the note. It’s private. It’s romantic.”

“Fine, like, type it up for me if you don’t want me reading it,” Greg said, his eyes still glued to the phone screen.

“Greg, you know I can’t do that. I can’t use a phone, I can’t touch a computer.”

“Yeah, yeah. Right. I forgot, the restraining order.” Greg lifted a shoulder. “I’ll scan it, or something.”

“Good, good.” Tom hummed to himself, a little unsettled by Greg’s nonchalance. There was a lot riding on the successful delivery of this note. “It’s a good letter, though. I think.”

“Mm. I bet.”

“Yeah, Shiv’s not really much of a romantic, you know. Or, uh, she’s not really, uh, comfortable showing affection. Always hated PDA. She keeps her cards pretty close to the chest.” Tom cleared his throat. “But I think she’ll see where I’m coming from.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I mentioned in there, I talked about what I’m doing for you, the dance thing, how generous it is—”

“Very.”

“—and how I’m, ah, how I’m being of service to you—”

“No, like, yeah. Absolutely.”

“—to your need.”

“Right.” Greg took the envelope from Tom with a tight smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Uh, should we start?”

“Oh, ah, sure,” Tom said. Somehow he’d managed to forget that dancing was part of the deal. Apparently too much to hope that Greg would forget about it too, huh. “Show me what you’ve got, Stringbean.”

They warmed up for a bit in front of the mirrors, not so much dancing as they were swaying side-by-side to the beat of whatever treacly pop song Greg had pulled up on his phone.

I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind There was something so pleasant about that place

It was… fine, but not really danceable. Not in the way Tom knew how to dance, anyway. (Yes, he’d dabbled a bit in theatre, back in college. And yes, he’d taken lessons with Shiv before the wedding, a simple waltz, nothing too extravagant.) If they were gonna do this, then they needed some damn wedding music. Whitney Houston! The Spinners! Earth, Wind & Fire, for fuck’s sake. Real music.

So he cajoled Greg into switching up the playlist a little, and then they were, uh. Kind of dancing, the two of them, Tom leading with a firm hand on Greg’s hip. It was weird, dancing with someone taller than him, who also happened to be male, and gangly, and redolent of Old Spice deodorant, but he was also surprisingly… coordinated? And he didn’t seem to mind that Tom had taken the reins and was pushing him around the dancefloor like a housecleaner with a Hoover.

The level of automatic trust was unexpected. Which was nice, Tom had to admit. Weird, but nice.

“Hey, you’re, like, pretty good at this!” Greg said at one point. They were dancing to an oldie, a Sinatra song with a slower tempo, while they caught their breath.

“Don’t sound so surprised, Greg.”

“I didn’t know you knew how to dance, is all.”

Tom raised an eyebrow and spun Greg in a loose circle under his arm, and went in for a dip.

“Of course I know how to dance, Greg. Jesus,” Tom said, expertly tipping Greg. Yeah, he still had it in him. “I’m not a philistine.”

“I–I know,” Greg stammered, blushing, on his way back up.

Dancing was more of a workout than Tom remembered. They were flush and out of breath after an hour. Greg’s hair was damp, stringy with sweat, and his cheeks were pink.

He looked good, all worked up like that.

“See you tomorrow?” Greg asked when Tom went to leave.

“Yeah, sure, tomorrow,” Tom confirmed. “And, uh. Don’t forget about the letter.”

#title: excelsior #au: silver linings playbook #tag: tomgreg fic #status: WIP

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songtoyou · 4 years ago

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Chapter 2: First Meeting

Tolerate It

Paring: Modern!Tommy Shelby x Original Female Character

Story Rating: R (No minors should read this fic).

Word Count: 2,778

Warnings: Mentions of sexual assault. Sexual activity between two consenting adults.

Description: Tommy Shelby is the owner and CEO of Shelby Company Limited. Starting out as a Bookmaker, Tommy had big ideas to expand his riches. In the past ten years, the company has grown rapidly to expand its business ventures from bars to producing alcohol, manufacturing motor vehicle parts, and exporting. One of the richest men in Great Britain, Tommy Shelby, has it all. Unfortunately, the death of his wife, Grace, left the multi-millionaire mogul alone and depressed. He needed someone to fulfill his needs and deepest darkest desires.

A/N: Again, the response to this fic has been wonderful. We learn more about Rose and find out why Lizzie left. Rose meets Tommy for the first time and begins the process of solidifying their arrangement.

Note: Italics represent the past or past conversations.

Feedback is wonderful. It is nice knowing if people actually like this fic.

I do not permit my work to be posted on any other site without my permission.

Saturday rolled faster than a blink of an eye. Rose was not nervous about tonight's meeting with her new client. A part of her was looking forward to it. Taking the time to look up Tommy Shelby on the Internet, Rose found out more about the man she would be possibly spending most of her time around. His backstory was interesting. The man started from nothing. It was no wonder Tommy was a massive celebrity within the business community. Inspiring entrepreneurs looked up to him and how he accumulated his wealth.

Rose was aware that Tommy's business practices were not always ethical, just like she knew that Alfie, Luca, and her other clients all dealt in questionable behavior to stay ahead of the game. It was like these guys did not know that the 1920s were long gone, and their little gangs should have considered obsolete in these present times. But it was not her job to question them as part of her did not care. All Rose wanted was to get paid and have a little pleasure herself once in a while. She hoped Tommy was good in bed as Lizzie mentioned he was. She had no reason not to believe her former coworker.

It was a terrible incident at the club that made Lizzie leave for good. All because of Oswald Mosley and his sick and deviant behavior. Oswald was a Member of Parliament for South Staffordshire and the youngest member of the Conservative party. His influence within the party continued to gain strength as the young politician expressed his outlandish views that tended to lean towards fascism. Many other MPs have tried to rebuke Mosley's power but to no avail. His supporters only rallied behind him more. He was garnering more attention and enthusiasm to start his very own nationalist party within Great Britain. This idea worried many other MPs, even within the Conservative Party.

As Mosley's profile continued to rise, he found himself needing a form of release. It did not take long for him to receive an invitation to join Excelsior. Politicians were another form of clientele for the club. However, word soon spread about Mosley's odd behavior with the girls. The man had a weird fetish for rape and sexual assault fantasies. Not many girls wanted to partake in that act. Rose quickly passed on having Mosley as one of her clients since non-consensual/dubious consent was not something she gravitated towards when it came to pleasure.

Some of the girls confided in Rose they felt after being with Mosley. Many were scared to inform Izabella or Tatiana in fear of getting fired. Unfortunately, it took the incident with Lizzie that left her brutally scarred, both physically and psychologically, to have Mosley permanently banned from Excelsior. What made it worse was that no one could do anything to Mosley outside the club, no police reports, no arrests, nothing. He was too powerful.

The only thing Lizzie said to Rose was that Mosley took it too far and that she was rethinking her time at the club. When Lizzie did not show up for three days, Rose knew that she left the life of escorting for good.

Giving herself one last look in the mirror, Rose opted for the wine-colored long drape dress, with a silver belt to extenuate her hips, and topped it off with silver ankle strap heels. Satisfied with how she looked, Rose grabbed her clutch (silver as well) and walked towards the front door.

"Mom, you are coming home later, right?" asked Louis as he sat in the living room watching television.

"Uh…probably won't be home until late. I'm simply hanging out with the girls. Don't wait up, sweetie," said Rose kissing her son on the top of his head.

"Aren't you a little too dressed up for a girl's night out?"

"Louis, darling, here is some advice about women. We like to look nice now and then. It makes us feel good. So, don't ever question why your mummy is all dolled up, okay. The girls and I are celebrating Ellie's promotion at the firm. That is all. Now, do not stay up too late. See you later, love."

"Bye, mum."

Rose hated lying to her son, but there was no way she would ever reveal the truth to him about how they could afford their lifestyle.

As a teen mom, Rose worked tirelessly from different part-time jobs to get food on the table. She was tired of struggling to make ends meet. Rose wanted more for her son. By Rose's mid-twenties, she bit the bullet and became an exotic dancer. The nerves and humiliation wore off quickly when Rose counted her tips. It was the most she had ever made and all in one night. She had no intentions of ever becoming a high-end call girl. But again, the money proved to be too good to pass up. It also helped the Duchess and Princess give their girls some sense of agency and control over what they do and partake in certain activities. Rose's clients did not seem to understand or realize that she held all of the power. She was not a puppet, nor was she naïve.

Tommy continued to check his watch every fifteen minutes. Rose was not late by any means; it was merely a habit. It gave him something to do since he was not allowed to smoke at The Savoy. He instructed Rose to meet at the hotel's bar and restaurant at precisely 9:00 p.m.

He was not nervous as Tommy Shelby did not get nervous. He wanted to get the night started. The man needed some release.

"Mr. Shelby," spoke the hostess. "I have a Miss Turner here to see you."

"Yes, thank you. Send Miss Turner over, please," ordered Tommy and downed his glass of Irish whiskey in one gulp.

For a second, Tommy thought he forgot how to breathe when he saw Rose walk towards him. He would not deny that she was breathtakingly beautiful.

"Mr. Shelby," she greeted him with a quick kiss on his cheek. Thankfully, no lipstick residue on his face. Men hated when that happened, Rose learned.

"Miss Turner. It is a pleasure to meet you in person finally," said Tommy as he helped Rose into her seat. He could be a gentleman when he wanted to be one. His Aunt Polly raised him right.

After giving her drink order to the waiter and a refill for Tommy, the two were left alone for the time being. Unsure of where the conversation should start, Rose chose to cut to the chase.

"How do you want tonight to go, exactly? Are we here to talk about, I don't know what you call it, our agreement, our arrangement? Or should we…"

"I say we talk about what we like and don't like," Tommy cut Rose off.

When the waiter brought their drinks, Rose took a sip of her white wine, while Tommy sipped his whiskey.

"My file should have included my interests. What I will and won't do with a man," Rose reminded him.

"Indeed, it did, but a file can only tell me so much. I would rather hear it from you, Miss Turner. So, tell me, what gets you off?" asked Tommy in a low voice as he leaned over the table. Thankfully, the two were at a back corner table with no other patrons around.

Taking another sip of her wine, Rose leaned in as well. "I like being dominated. From your file, you like being the dominant one. I like being tied up, gagged, and made to cum over and over again until I can't take it anymore. Orgasm denial, I like that as well—humiliation or degradation, whatever you want to call it. I don't care for that at all. It has never turned me on."

"What about pain? What is your pain threshold?" Tommy questioned.

"Pretty high."

"So, nipple clamps, whips, floggers…none of that bothers you?"

Rose shook her head 'no' and asked Tommy what kinds of punishment he prefers.

"Spankings with my bare hands and edging. Punishments only occur if I deem you being bratty or don't follow my rules."

Rose nodded, indicating she understood. "Pretty standard forms of punishment for a dominant."

The waiter stopped by again, asking if they wanted another drink or order some food. "I'm okay, thank you," said Rose.

"I liked to order champagne for our room, please," Tommy requested and told the waiter his room number. Rose was not surprised that he was in one of the hotel's suites. On different occasions, she had been to The Savoy Hotel, mostly with her other clients for leisurely visits now and then when they called for her services.

Taking another sip of her drink, Rose started to feel unsure to ask Tommy next. "Is there anything particular that you like or don't like?"

Gulping down his whiskey once again, Tommy stood up from his seat and helped you out of yours.

"Let's head up, and I can show you what I like. You can take your drink with you," mentioned Tommy buttoning up his suit jacket.

Rose gulped down her wine and grabbed her purse. "No need. I'm ready," she said and looped her arm around his. Tommy kept his strides short throughout the walk to the elevator. Rose noticed how the other hotel patrons all seemed to fawn over the man she was with while the employees moved out of his way. Rose found it amusing when in the elevator the people who were already in quickly left, leaving them alone on the ride up to his suit.

"People go out of their way to accommodate you, don't they, Mr. Shelby. Must be nice to have all that power over others," Rose stated admiringly.

Tommy smirked and looked at Rose, "When you come from nothing, you work extra hard to achieve everything, even peoples' fear of you. What about you? Must you find it exhilarating to have powerful men at your fingertips? I would not be shocked that once your clients and I told Tatiana that I have an idea of who they are, well, they are not going to be happy about losing you to me. I have a lot of enemies, Miss Turner, but rest assure that while you are in my company, you will be safe and protected."

The elevator dinged indicated they made it to their destination. Leading the way once again, Tommy steered them down the hall and stopped at the door of his suite. Once he got Rose inside, he took off his suit jacket and opened the doors to the balcony where he could finally get his nicotine fix. He offered one to Rose, but she declined. Tommy watched as Rose looked around the suite. He took this time to look at the woman before him; she would not be deemed the model-type with her 5'7 stature, nor was she skin and bones. Dark brown hair ran past her shoulders, and her skin had a lovely complexion. Tommy took one last drag of his cigarette and stubbed it out on the balcony.

He slowly walked up behind Rose and wrapped his strong arms around, inhaling her scent; he began to grind himself against her backside. Rose promptly reciprocated and matched his rhythm. Trailing kisses down Rose's neck, Tommy moved his hands to squeeze her breasts. He quickly turned her around and began kissing her on the mouth. His dominant side was finally allowed to be released.

When Rose pulled away, it took Tommy by surprise. When he began to pull Rose back towards him, she put her hands on his chest. "I need to freshen up first, is that okay?"

Letting out a sigh, Tommy motioned her towards the bathroom. "I won't be long; I promise," assured Rose. Once in the bathroom, she began to take off her heels and dress. She hung her dress on the door hook, placed her heels to the side, and then looked herself over in the mirror. Smoothing out her hair, Rose dug in her clutch to quickly check her phone. No messages from her son. Now, Rose would be able to focus on the task at hand entirely.

Rose exited the bathroom to see Tommy waiting for her on the couch, no longer wearing his tie and vest, shirt partly unbuttoned. She walked towards him, where he indicated he wanted Rose on her knees. Spreading his legs, Rose kneeled and began unzipping his pants, reaching for his hardened member and gave it a few strokes. She looked up to see Tommy stretch and lay his head back against the couch, indicated he was comfortable and was ready for Rose to begin. Rose licked her lips and opened her mouth to take him in as much as far as possible. Rose did not stop until she felt him at the back of her throat.

Rose pulled away for a second to lick off the precum of Tommy's dick before proceeding to lick the entire length. She went back to sucking once Tommy put his hand in her hair. He bobbed her head back and forth at a fast pace. Tommy felt like he was about to explode his load in Rose's mouth he backed off. Rose took the time to catch her breath. She watched as Tommy took off his shirt and got up from the couch.

"Up," he ordered, and Rose followed obediently.

She never took her eyes off Tommy while he walked to the bedroom.

"Take this off," Tommy ordered, indicating he wanted her bra off.

Once again, Rose followed his orders. She tossed the bra to the side, and Tommy walked closer to her. He reached for her breast and began to squeeze them, tugging on her nipples. When he started to pull her nipples extra hard, Rose let out a little squeak.

"Too hard?" Tommy asked and released his tight grip.

"No. I mean, it hurts, but it feels good too," Rose answered truthfully.

Tommy once again started pulling on her nipples as hard as he could without hurting Rose too much. He pressed his lips against hers. Rose quickly reciprocated the action and ran her hands through his hair. Backing Rose towards the bed, he lightly pushed her, where she softly plopped down. Tugging her underwear down, Tommy tossed them to the side and ran a finger up-and-down her folds.

"Wet, as I expected. Let me see how many fingers you can take, shall we," amused Tommy and slipped, not one, but two fingers inside Rose. He soon began pumping his fingers in and out.

He kept going while Rose emitted more moans from her mouth. She was panting and getting closer to needing release. But she knew a sweet release would not come easy. No, Tommy was going to have Rose work for it. She was about the beg to cum when Tommy pulled his fingers out of her cunt.

Tracing his thumb against her clit, Rose let out a squeal at the new feeling. Tommy smirked. That feeling of control, control over this woman's body, it's what made Tommy feel at ease. It allowed for his head to feel clear. Tommy did not have to worry about business deals or rival gangs; instead, his focus was all on the woman before him writhing in pleasure.

Inserting his fingers back in her cunt, Tommy added a third finger this time. Rose sat up on her elbows to watch Tommy. She saw the looked of deep concentration on his face. When he reached that spot, Rose jerked up, and Tommy used his free hand to push her back down on the bed.

"I'm going to cum. I need to cum," Rose panted out, but Tommy kept going.

"Not yet," he merely said. "You do not cum until I say you can, understood." It was an order, not a question.

"Yes…yes sir," Rose managed to say. She did not know how long she would last.

"Cum!" Tommy commanded and Rose more than happily followed it.

Pure bliss is all Rose felt until Tommy pried her mouth open with the fingers that were in her.

"Lick them clean for me, love. Taste yourself."

When she licked his fingers clean, Tommy took off his pants and underwear. He crawled on top of Rose and began kissing her stomach, each breast, her neck, and finally lips.

"You're not tired out yet, are you love?" he asked her.

When Rose shook her head no, Tommy leaned in to whisper in her ear, "Good. It is going to be a long night for you."

#tommy shelby #tommy shelby x oc #tommy shelby fanfic #peaky blinders #peaky blinders fic

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fuzzysparrow · 3 years ago

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Which city is considered the capital of the French Riviera?

Nice, the 5th most populous city in France, is often considered the capital of the French Riviera, also known as Côte d’Azur (Azure Coast). It is located near the Italian border, close to the Principality of Monaco. The French Riviera spans the Mediterranean coast of southeastern France. It was often used as a health retreat in the 18th century, but from the 1960s onwards became a popular holiday destination. Tourists flock to Nice every year for its warm weather, as well as the abundance of activities in the area.

The old sections of Nice boast picturesque alleys, architectural treasures, markets, museums, theatres and churches, including the Basilica of Notre Dame. Built between 1864 and 1868, the neo-gothic building was constructed during a modernisation project. It is dedicated to the Notre-Dame de l’Assomption, a cathedral that once sat on Castle Hill in Nice.

Many people go to the French Riviera to be close to the water. Nice is famous for its Promenade des Anglais (English Walk) along the Baie des Anges (Angel's Bay). The trail was established by Reverend Lewis Way in 1820 after noting that many people liked to walk along the water's edge. It received its name in 1931 during an inauguration ceremony attended by one of Queen Victoria’s sons.

Queen Victoria loved the area so much that the city built her the Excelsior Regina Palace in 1892, which was mostly used as a hotel. It has since been converted into a residential building.

#Trivia #Nice #French Riviera

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mishinashen · 3 years ago

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Boléro violet by Henri Matisse, 1937

Suffused with the brilliant light of the South of France, Boléro violet is an exquisite portrait from one of the most important and creative periods of Matisse’s art. The arrangement of the exotically dressed girl, with her upper body posed diagonally across the painting, is invitingly intimate, with the sweeping arm of her chair creating a subtle distinction between the position of the model and the picture's surface. The emphasis Matisse placed on decorative patterns is particularly apparent in Boléro violet. The buttercup gold and orange striped wallpaper, vivid purple coat and strikingly stylised features of the model - her dark hair and red lips being especially pronounced - combine to create a beguiling vision of the artist’s opulent domain.

The model in the painting is Princess Hélène Galitzine, daughter of Russian aristocrat Prince Serge Galitzine and Helene Ghijitzky. Not yet eighteen years-old when Matisse created Boléro violet, her strikingly dark hair provided a perfect foil to Lydia Delectorskaya’s fair colouration. Throughout 1937 Hélène was one of Matisse’s principal models and posed for a number of important works, often alongside her cousin Delectorskaya. The pair continued to model together for the next couple of years, and posed for the monumental La musique in 1939 (fig. 1). In the same year he completed La musique, Matisse made a statement recognising the importance of his models: ‘The emotional interest aroused in me by them does not appear particularly in the representation of their bodies, but often rather in the lines or the special values distributed over the whole canvas or paper, which form its complete orchestration, its architecture… It is perhaps sublimated sensual pleasure’ (H. Matisse, quoted in Henri Matisse. Figure Color Space (exhibition catalogue), Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 2005, p. 40).

Throughout his life, Matisse approached clothing and textiles with the keen eye of a collector. Costumes of all descriptions could be found in numerous chests about his house and studio. From Romanian peasant clothing to Parisian ball gowns, Matisse’s appetite for clothing was enormous. He commissioned the celebrated designer Paul Poiret’s sister to make dresses for his wife and daughter, and on one occasion in 1938, he spent a day in the area around the rue de la Boëtie in Paris buying several items of haute couture at the spring sales. By the time he moved to his new apartment in the old Excelsior-Regina Palace Hotel in Cimiez in 1939, his collection of costumes required a whole room to store them. As Hilary Spurling has noted: ‘Moroccan jackets, robes, blouses, boleros, caps and scarves, from which his models could be kitted out in outfits distantly descended - like Bakst's ballet, and a whole series of films using Nice locations in the 1920s as a substitute for the mysterious East - from the French painterly tradition of orientalisation’ (H. Spurling, Matisse: His Art and his Textiles (exhibition catalogue), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2005, p. 29).

According to Lydia Delectorskaya in 1937 Matisse had become particularly fascinated with a set of Romanian blouses which he rediscovered amongst his studio props. These blouses had been a gift from the Romanian painter Theodor Pallady, who regularly corresponded with Matisse, discussing their art and in particular the important role of its more decorative aspects. Hélène Galitzine was photographed by the artist wearing one of these blouses (fig. 2), and he subsequently painted a number of works - using other models - that used the geometric oak-leaf embroidery as the central decorative motif. Similarly, Matisse produced several improvisations on the decorative qualities of a richly hued jacket decorated with elaborate gold embroidery (fig. 3). Matisse had used this coat in an earlier oil (fig. 4), and echoes of its orientalist charm are reawakened in his paintings in the late 1930s.

In a discussion concerning his working methods with the poet Tériade, which was later published in 1937, Matisse wrote: ‘In my latest paintings, I united the acquisitions of the last twenty years to my essential core, to my very essence. […] The reaction of each stage is as important as the subject. For this reaction comes from me and not from the subject. It is from the basis of my interpretation that I continually react until my work comes into harmony with me... At each stage, I reach a balance, a conclusion. At the next sitting, if I find there is a weakness in the whole, I make my way back into the picture by means of the weakness - I re-enter through the breach-end, I reconceive the whole. Thus everything becomes fluid again and as each element is only one of the component forces (as in an orchestration), the whole can be changed in appearance but the feeling sought still remains the same. A black could very well replace a blue, since basically the expression derives from the relationships. One is not bound to a blue, to a green or to a red, whose timbres can be introverted or replaced if the feeling so dictates… At the final stage the painter finds himself freed and his emotion exists complete in his work' (quoted in Jack Flam (ed.), Matisse on Art, Berkeley, 1995, p. 123).

Discussing Matisse’s portraits of the mid-1930s, John Elderfield wrote: ‘his model is shown in decorative costumes – a striped Persian coat [fig. 5], a Rumanian blouse – and the decorativeness and the very construction of a costume and of a painting are offered as analogous. What developed were groups of paintings showing his model in similar or different poses, costumes, and settings: a sequence of themes and variations that gained in mystery and intensity as it unfolded’ (J. Elderfield in Henri Matisse, A Retrospective (exhibition catalogue), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1992, p. 357). Boléro violet is an extraordinary example of Matisse’s constantly evolving perception of form and colour. The paintings of the late 1930s are the supreme outcome of decades of improvisation on these decorative elements, wherein contrasting patterns and colours of the present work harmonise, and the features of the young Hélène are transfigured into the epitome of timeless elegance. The first owner of the present work was Aldus Chapin Higgins of Worcester, Massachusetts. Higgins acquired Boléro violet from Paul Rosenberg’s Paris exhibition of Matisse’s recent works in 1937 which subsequently travelled to London. The previous year Rosenberg persuaded Matisse to sign a three year contract, thus becoming his principal dealer. These exhibitions in Paris and London, held for the next few years, helped the artist to sell directly to a large number of collectors from America and Europe. Aldus C. Higgins was a businessman who spent his entire career with his family’s firm, the Norton Emery Wheel Company. He also invented a water-cooled electric furnace which won the John Scott medal for exceptional achievement in mechanical arts in 1914. Higgins also commissioned the architect Grosvenor Atterbury to build him a house modelled on Compton Wyngates, the Elizabethan seat of the Marquesses of Northampton. The house was completed in 1923, and Higgins and his wife, Mary, lived there until their deaths when it was given to the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, of which his family had been tremendously supportive. Aldus and Mary Higgins were avid collectors of art, and during trips to Europe purchased many wonderful paintings including the magnificent Fauve canvas, L’Oliviers by Georges Braque and Georges Rouault’s Coucher du soleil which were both eventually bequeathed to the Worcester Art Museum. Boléro violet remained in Higgins' family possession until 1990, when it was acquired by the present owner.

#art #french art #henri matisse #postimpressionism

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admiralty-xfd · 6 years ago

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the exorcism of mulder and scully

A few folks asked for a continuation of the Plus One story I posted yesterday. This may not be precisely what you’re looking for, but I’m sharing a casefic I wrote that takes place directly after Plus One and before TLAOFS. It’s M/S undercover as a married couple, lots of MSR, spooky stuff, and deals specifically with what went down between them in Plus One. I’ll post the first chapter here but please click the link at the bottom to read the entire story!

Prologue

THE EXCELSIOR KEYS HOTEL

KEY WEST, FLORIDA

AUGUST 24, 1991 7:31 PM

His eyes opened slowly and there was only blackness and terror. He was afraid. He wasn’t sure exactly why, or of what, but the terror was real, and it was familiar.

He knew he must be in the hotel. He had to be; it was the only place that could create such fear within him. Ever since he began working here a couple years ago he’d felt it.

Cal Hodges had worked at many other establishments before, but none that were most definitely haunted. He’d never believed in ghosts before he and his wife moved to the Keys, but now… he’d seen things. He couldn’t deny the way he felt; the oppressive dread that coursed through his body whenever he was inside these walls. Outside it was better: he could think properly when he tended the lawn or replanted the petunias. But whenever he got a call to replace a doorknob or fix a leaking faucet, the fear returned.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness they darted around the room. He was lying on a bed, somewhere. His wrists were tied behind him and his feet were tied below and while he and his wife occasionally enjoyed an adventurous romp this wasn’t anything he recalled consenting to.

He could smell a faint odor of… something. It was hard to place, but somewhat familiar. Like herbs, musty and organic. He saw a silhouette approach him and a multitude of possibilities went through his mind, horrific possibilities but not one of them was what actually happened when the voice began speaking.

“From all evil, deliver us, o Lord. From all sin, from your wrath, from sudden and unprovided death, from the snares of the devil, we sinners, we beg you to hear us.”

Hodges felt water splash his face as the man drew nearer. He’d never been much of a churchgoer, but he recognized what was going on here. And he recognized the voice. His terror grew.

“Let me go!” Hodges cried. He tugged at the restraints.

“Just relax, I’m here to help you,” the voice said gently. “I’m the only one who can help you.”

“Help me with what?” Hodges asked, desperate. He hadn’t asked for help, had he? What was going on?

The man came up close to his ear.

“You got the demons,” he said. “You got ‘em in you.”

Demons?

His eyes widened in fear. Was any of this real? Is this what explained how he’d been feeling? The omnipresent shroud that seemed to cloak him every time he stepped foot inside this hotel?

The man put his hand on his shoulder, pressing him back, but he fought. Hodges pulled at his restraints, and either they weren’t very tight, or he was very lucky, but one of his wrists got free and he punched the man in the face. With a grunt, he went over the side of the bed, groaning pitifully.

The man didn’t get back up right away, as either age or weight precluded, and Hodges went to work on the other restraints. With a hand free, he made quick work of it, and was off the bed and out the door before the other man had even gotten up.

He hated this place, but he knew it like the back of his hand, and he tore through the hallways to the stairs, through the lobby and out the front door. There were no guests along the way, the hour the most likely reason.

He ran like his life depended upon it.

***

This fucking place again.

The young officer pulled his police cruiser up to the front curb of the old hotel. He’d only been on the job a few months but he was starting to learn this particular establishment was a running problem for the Key West police department. He'd definitely been called out here more times than he'd like.

The place wasn’t enormous but still had a definite sense of foreboding, and he was unnerved regardless of his skepticism when it came to ghosts and spirits. He’d moved to the Keys only recently but had already seen enough weirdness to last a lifetime.

The 911 dispatcher had informed him the caller had been a panicked woman, saying her husband had been killed, but she’d hung up before giving any more information.

He stepped out of the car and started to approach the front door when he began to hear music coming from outside the building. He changed direction, heading towards the source.

To the left of the hotel stood a small maintenance shed and he could hear what sounded like the plucking mandolin strings of R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion,” but it was somewhat distorted. As he drew closer he could see it sounded that way because the radio from which the song emanated had been smashed on the ground.

He pulled out his flashlight and peered inside the shed. As he entered he noticed a drastic change in temperature; it was August in Florida and this tiny shed had no right to be so fucking cold. A chill went through his body, from the top of his head to the ends of his toes. And just when he thought he was imagining things he saw the very thing he’d come for.

He tore across back the lawn to his car and picked up his radio, frantically dialing.

“This is Officer Myers responding to a 911 call at the Excelsior Keys. Sir…“ his eyes darted back to the shed, then to the hotel. “Sir, we’ve got another one.”

Chapter One

SOMEWHERE ALONG I-95

11:49 AM

PRESENT DAY

The landscape of I-95 flew by in a whir, and Scully shifted a bit in the passenger seat of the rented Explorer. Everything was moving so fast, too fast, not mind-numbingly slow, which was how she’d always been accustomed to things with Mulder.

They’d deposited the second rental car back in Henrico County and climbed into Mulder’s. His insistence (and her acquiescence) that they not further pollute the planet was the only thing keeping them from driving home in separate cars and avoiding their current situation entirely. Although they were doing a fine job of that anyway, sitting together now, mere inches away from one another, not uttering a word.

Road trip, business trip, X File, whatever they wanted to call it, at least it was the two of them again, doing what they did best. Our bread and butter, Mulder had called it. It felt nice and familiar.

Only it had been quite some time since they’d done it with the smell of sex lingering in the car, stolen furtive glances at every mile marker, the air thick with the kind of tension they’d much sooner ignore than address. That was most certainly the Mulder and Scully she remembered. That was their real bread and butter.

She closed her eyes and laid back against the headrest, allowing her mind to wander to last night. And, to this morning.

And, to again this morning.

It was hard not to do, impossible really, now that sex had become something she and Mulder were apparently doing again. She should have known once it happened once, the floodgates would open and she’d want to do it again and again.

He gripped the steering wheel and stared straight ahead, his sleeves rolled up to the crooks of his elbows in that way he used to back when she first fell for him; that way that drove her absolutely crazy. His inescapable Mulder scent snaked around the car and underneath her nostrils, her body responding in all kinds of inconvenient ways. She felt like Pepé le Pew, the horniest cartoon character ever thrust upon polite society, and it was all she could do not to tell him to pull the car over right now.

The sex had been amazing; of course it was. And in the moment it felt like the right thing to do. But as they drew closer and closer to Washington D.C., towards the safe boundary of home, she felt less and less like it had been the right call.

What would happen when they stopped the car? Could they just get out and pretend everything was normal like they always did, even though they both knew it wasn’t? There were too many things between them, twenty five years of stuff, a lot of it bad stuff that they had never confronted. She didn’t blame Mulder for that, not really; she blamed herself. She hadn’t wanted to look into the darkness anymore, so she simply stopped. Even if it meant turning her back on things they needed to discuss; things like their son, things like Mulder’s depression.

Things like their fundamental inability to communicate about any of it.

Now that they’d crossed this particular line, she worried what would happen next. What if they just continued to have sex without talking? They did that the first time around, and she regretted it. So much time lost, so much unnecessary heartache, and for what? Because they couldn’t tell each other the truth; that they’d been in love with each other for years and couldn’t speak of it out of fear, or some kind of misguided obligation?

She was afraid again, but this time it wasn’t because she feared he didn’t love her. This time she was afraid because she knew he did.

“Are you hungry, Scully? Because I sure am.”

His voice came from nowhere, an assault on her senses. That voice could do things to her she never dreamed possible; could make her do things she never dreamed possible. It was a timbre he had, a specific cadence, some intonation that had the power to burrow deep inside her psyche, convincing her of almost anything. Robert Patrick Modell had nothing on Mulder.

“Yeah, I could eat,” she admitted.

He pulled off the turnpike to a roadside diner, and she felt her stomach turn in reluctant anticipation of the greasy offerings in store for her. Such an activity had been so commonplace for them over the years she felt a sensation of dejà vú come over her.

He parked the car and the silence within was deafening. She could sense his discomfort; it matched hers perfectly. He sighed loudly, then turned to her and spoke.

“Look, Scully, I know this is awkward. But you haven’t said a word to me since we checked out.”

She shifted again, unbuckling her seatbelt. Truthfully, she’d been mortified by the side-eye the motel manager had given them. They weren’t exactly quiet last night, all night, she thought with a clandestine smile. But it only further demonstrated how powerless she’d been to her urges, how uninhibited she was when she was with Mulder.

Suddenly a greasy burger sounded like the best thing in the world. Anything to get them out of this car.

“I’m sorry, I, uh-”

“It’s me, Scully.” He looked at her with raw emotion and her only thought was how much she’d missed those eyes. “Don’t let this become another thing for us that just… happened. Please.”

For some reason her memory flashed to that night in her apartment years ago when she’d given in to those same eyes, only to realize it hadn’t really been him. It was Eddie Van BlundHt who wanted her that night, not Mulder. The realization of that in the moment left her feeling betrayed and confused about her own feelings. Things settled down after that and they both knew exactly what had happened, but neither ever acknowledged it. It was just… something that happened. It was the way they always dealt with their feelings for each other. It hadn’t been enough to push them forward. It never was.

They sat in silence for a minute, and her eyes met his, earnest and inquisitive. They communicated with hers in a way that said don’t shut me out, not this time.

She wasn’t an idiot, she knew what would happen if they didn’t talk. Something that just happened was exactly what this would become. She didn’t want that either, and it surprised her that he was being so forthcoming.

“It isn’t something that just happened, Mulder,” she sighed. “That’s what I’m afraid of, to be honest.”

There it was: brutal honesty. It was refreshing.

Mulder looked taken aback, but impressed. It was as if he’d been waiting for permission to reveal a little bit, too.

“Okay, then. That’s a start.”

He looked at her for a moment and she could tell he wasn’t struggling with this the same way she was. He appeared confident, sure of what he was saying. And he didn’t want her to get away with her usual brand of silence. It was so unlike him, so new. She liked it, but she wasn’t prepared for any of this. She hadn’t planned to sleep with him, but it happened all the same.

“What are you afraid of, Scully?”

She paused, then spoke. “I’m afraid… of this tidal wave I can see in the distance, coming for me fast, and taking me out. And I’m afraid I’m not ready for it, Mulder.”

It was the most honest she’d been with him in a while. She wasn’t sure what she wanted. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to get back together with him. She didn’t know if things would be better this time around, she honestly didn’t. And she was terrified of hurting him, of breaking his heart again. But she also knew deep down that being apart from him wasn’t right, either. She felt the connection to him still, in her bones. It had never gone away.

He nodded, looking right at her, like he could see into her soul. Like he always did, no matter which particular high or low they were riding. He reached over and took her hand, which wasn’t typically a big deal for them, and especially shouldn’t feel big after what they’d done mere hours ago.

Three times.

“Okay, I get it. A wave.” He covered her hand with his other one. “Is it too much for me to ask... that you at least don’t run this time?”

She looked at him with affection, surprised by his maturity. Who was this Fox Mulder sitting next to her, pleading with her to give them a second chance? Where was he years ago, when she needed him?

She shook her head, slowly. “No, it’s not too much to ask.”

“So… let’s just regroup, okay? Can we do that?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I think that would be good.”

“What happens in the field stays in the field?” he grinned, an eyebrow rising up high.

She smiled, accepting these terms he seemed to be laying out. Maybe some rules were a good idea. “Yeah, I think that’s probably wise.”

His lips curved into the smile that was her moon, her stars, her truth; everything they’d ever searched for together. Maybe he’d always be looking for something but she’d found it in him a long time ago. She was done looking. She couldn’t help but wonder if that was their whole problem in the first place.

She found herself falling back into that smile, the way she always had. She was powerless to his effect on her, and part of her hated herself for that. She knew it was the reason she kept her distance from him all these years. But the other part of her could only respond to the effect. She was still human, after all.

“Hey, Mulder.” She put her hand on his thigh to stop him as he went for the car door.

“Yeah?”

“We’re… technically still in the field, aren’t we?”

He pulled his hand away from the door, looking intently at her. She searched his eyes and saw the desire within them; she wouldn’t have expected otherwise. But this was new territory for them as a couple, or non-couple, or whatever the fuck they were anymore. Seeking permission, sending and reading signals. They hadn’t done this in ages.

Her eyes told him what she wanted, though, and his eyes said the same, and suddenly they were entwined again, a console between them the only wall in this moment left to break down. His lips met hers with the hunger he’d recently expressed, only instead of greasy food they devoured her, again, and despite her apprehensions she let him in, again.

Inside a rental car in broad daylight wasn’t an ideal sexual scenario but her need for him had been reawakened, and just as it was before everything went to shit, she felt the same feeling, the same magnetism that drew them together from the day they entered each other’s lives. It was a truth she couldn’t deny, and certainly wouldn’t now, her tongue gliding along his bottom lip, his hands delving underneath her shirt.

She was out of her own body, like the evil twin she’d seen mere hours ago. The twin was back, thinking and doing things she knew she shouldn’t be, and it felt so real she wondered if in fact she’d given that particular paranormal possibility enough consideration.

She decided to go with it. Blaming her evil twin sounded like a great way to fuck Mulder whenever she felt like it.

He lowered the seat until it laid flat, this particular routine perfected while they’d spent all those months on the run years and years ago. It felt like another lifetime, another Mulder, another Scully. But it made her feel alive again, remembering how intense those times had been, how much they’d relied on one another. When there was literally nothing else in her life that mattered the way he did.

There wasn’t anyone in the parking lot and the car was situated around the corner of the restaurant. No one witnessed the tryst taking place just outside an establishment with a single cash register, tattered vinyl booths and a twenty year old grill. Broken down and worn out, it had seen its share of shit, but still nowhere near what Agents Mulder and Scully had been through.

Pushing his chest backwards, she unzipped his pants, inside them seeking the relief she craved. And as she felt him fill her for the fourth time in about as many hours she wanted to cry, she missed this so much.

This is fine, this is okay, she tried to convince herself as she rocked against him, her desire for him only increasing with each time they gave in. We aren’t home yet.

We aren’t home yet.

They weren’t, not even close. But she wanted to go home, she wanted to, desperately.

She threw her head back and moaned his name, a plaintive cry of yearning she’d suppressed for years, now erupting with abandon in the hollow shell of this rented SUV. He pulled her in again, whispering her own name roughly in her ear, his hands entangling in her hair, disappearing along with their inhibitions.

After she came and he came and the moment was over, she laid spent across his chest, sweat dripping everywhere. She felt an untenable sense of guilt and shame for some reason. She wished it away but it remained. Several minutes seemed to go by and they said nothing, only their breathing audible. She was keenly aware he was waiting for her to speak, so she did.

“Mulder, I-”

“It’s okay, Scully… I get it.” He held her against him and she felt his heart beating through his chest, his hand softly stroking her hair, his lips pressing a chaste kiss to her crown.

She wondered if he really did get it, if he got how much she fucking loved him, how much she wanted this to work out. How hard she’d tried when he hadn’t seemed to try at all. She wondered if he was really ready to try again. And she wondered if this was all a terrible mistake.

His phone buzzed in the cup holder and he reached down to look at it.

“Shit. We have a new case. Meeting with Skinner at 1:30.”

“Are we even going to have time to go home first?” she asked, concerned. Then again, it was their own fault they hadn’t checked out on time. Skinner wasn’t privy to their activities. He probably assumed they were back by now.

“Probably not, no thanks to you,” he grinned, giving her backside a soft slap.

She knew he was just being playful but it occurred to her all the sex that took place over the past few hours she had been the one to initiate. She suddenly felt embarrassed of how unable she was to control her own impulses around him. Sitting up on his lap, she started buttoning her shirt, looking around the parking lot for onlookers, finding none, thankfully.

“Let’s go eat, Mulder.”

“Scully, I was kidding.”

“I know,” she interjected sharply, not wanting him to have the upper hand anymore. “Let’s go eat.”

The sooner they got out of this car the sooner she could refocus on pretending nothing happened in the first place.

Thanks for reading! This one is a ride. For their meeting with Skinner and the rest of the story, click here for Chapter Two.

#txf #the x files #msr #case fic #haunted house #mulder and scully #post plus one #fanfic #fanfiction #yep there's sex I promise

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preraphaelitepunk · 5 years ago

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Fictober19 Day 16: The Call of the Wild

Prompt #16: Listen. No, really listen.

Fandom: Good Omens

Characters: Aziraphale, Crowley

Rating: General

Warnings: None

On AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/20843936/chapters/50085128

“How did I ever let you talk me into this?” Aziraphale grumbled as the Bentley turned onto a particularly rustic path. “Camping, of all things.”

Crowley just grinned back at him. “Just wait, angel.”

“I mean, I can ‘rough it’ with the best of them. I certainly did, back in the beginning — but there was no choice back then. Why couldn’t we go to a nice five-star hotel instead of some wretched campsite?” They rolled up to the campsite as he spoke, and Aziraphale blinked. “Oh, my. Is that a yurt?”

“All set up and ready for us. Have a look ‘round.”

This was far from a wretched campsite, Aziraphale thought as he explored; it might even be a five-star campsite. There was a fire pit with teak campaign chairs around it, a hammock strung between two shady trees, a copper bathtub that was puzzlingly out in the open, and the yurt. . . .

“It’s been ages since I’ve stayed in a yurt, but it was never like this,” he breathed, examining the Persian rugs layering the floor, the mahogany chests and vanity, the huge bed piled with pillows and an exquisite linen duvet. There were hanging lanterns, candles, fairy lights. It was as if someone had transported a particularly fanciful and luxurious bedroom into the middle of a field.

“I have, in fact, met you, Aziraphale. Nothing but the best for my angel.” Crowley snapped, and their luggage appeared on the chest at the foot of the bed. “This place is the camping equivalent of the Westin Excelsior. Incidentally, catering is included: the menu is over there. Finest gourmet cuisine Powys has to offer.”

“Oh, Crowley, it’s simply marvelous.” Aziraphale said, looking up at him through his lashes. “I never should have doubted you.”

“That’s what I keep telling you.” Crowley said blithely, but his smile was fond. “Shall we get unpacked?’

*** ***

Starting a fire the human way was more difficult than Aziraphale remembered. He should have let Crowley do it, but he’d wanted to contribute something beyond just being the recipient of all this largess and pampering, to show that he appreciated all the effort his demon had gone to, and in his foolishness he’d chosen starting the fire.

“Oh, blast,” he muttered as the little bits of dried leaves and grasses he’d managed to light extinguished themselves. The faint stream of smoke seemed to mock him.

“Want some help over there?” There was a clink as Crowley set down the wine glasses and came over. (Of course the campsite came fully stocked with real crystal, actual china, proper silver cutlery. Crowley had spared no expense when arranging this rental.)

“Thank you, but I’ve got it quite under control.”

“Listen. No, really listen, angel. You’ll never get it to catch like that, one big log and a bit of kindling. You need a mix of sizes, stacked properly, and —”

The whoosh as the fire suddenly started blazing interrupted him. Crowley frowned. “I thought you wanted to do that the human way.”

Aziraphale pretended to be very absorbed in brushing off his hands. “Well, I changed my mind. It was taking forever.”

“I see.” Crowley didn’t quite chuckle as he handed the angel his wine, but it was obviously a near thing.

“Besides, now we can move on to something more enjoyable.” Aziraphale settled into the nest of blankets and pillows they’d created near the fire pit, and held out an arm. “Come sit with me, my love, and tell me about the stars?”

Crowley sat down and snuggled up under the proffered arm. “Aren’t you tired of hearing me talk about the stars, angel?”

“Never. Tell me about your favorites.”

“Well, you know all about Alpha Centauri by now. How about Betelgeuse?” Crowley scanned the skies, which were so much clearer than in London. It felt like the whole galaxy was strewn out before them, glittering on multi-shaded black velvet. “There, to the south. That one. Big red bugger; going to go nova any day now. I got the balance a bit wrong with that one,” he added regretfully.

“Does it have any planets? Any life?”

“Not unless you could fictional ones.” At Aziraphale’s raised eyebrow, he explained, “Ford Prefect was from a planet near Betelgeuse. Character from a radio show a few years back. A movie, too.”

Aziraphale brightened. “Books, as well. I must read them to you sometime; they’re quite ingenious.”

“Deal.”

Snuggling closer, Aziraphale returned to the matter of Betelgeuse. “Well, I suppose the nova will at least be pretty.”

“When viewed from a huge distance, yes.”

“Whereas some things are much, much better viewed from close up.”

“Er, yes?”

Huffing a little, but fondly, Aziraphale said, “That was your cue to turn your head and kiss me, darling.”

“Oh.” So Crowley did.

#fictober19 #good omens #good omens fanfic #ineffable husbands #ineffable spouses #my fanfiction #fluff #pointless cozy scene #stargazing

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tornrose24 · 6 years ago

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What animation rivalries must have been like in 2018

Pixar: Oh gee, another year of possibilities and good old competition! Well, it took us a decade and a half, but we FINALLY released Incredibles 2!

Incredibles and Pixar fans: *screams in delighted joy*

Aardman Animation and Wes Anderson: Who wants more stop motion animation?

Stop motion fans: *are happy*

Studio Laika: We got a movie for you guys next year!

Stop motion fans :*screams of insane happiness•

Disney: Well, as promised, we have our Wreck it Ralph 2 sequel–

Wreck it Ralph fans: *screams in delighted joy•

Disney:–which of course doubles as a huge love letter to ourselves and how we are slowly taking over the world. But hey, we got the Disney princesses in this ones like we–

Disney fans and fans of the Disney Princesses: *louder screams of delighted joy•

Pixar: So Dreamworks, how’re you doing?

Dreamworks Animation: Eh, nothing this year. We wanted to take a break. But we do have new shows on Netflix, including a new She-Ra cartoon–

She-Ra fans new and old: OH MY GOD, YES!

Some dumb hater: Lol your redesigns suck!

She-Ra fans new and old: SHUT UP, JERK FACE!

Dreamworks Animation fans:–A Trolls cartoon–

Trolls fans: *sings songs of joy at top of lungs*

Dreamworks Animation: –We also revived Rocky and Bullwinkle–

Rocky and Bullwinkle fans new and old: *extremely loud cheering•

Dreamworks Animation: Both Trollhunters and Voltron are going to have season finales–

Trollhunters and Voltron fans: *awkward silence*....We are heavily divided on the endings.

Dreamworks Animation: But we are doing part two for Tales of Arcadia with ‘3Below’

Trollhunters fans:*immediately brightens up* NEVER MIND, WE’RE GOOD!

Voltron fans: Well... at least we got a gay marriage at the end. Even if Steven Universe beat us to it.

Dreamworks Animation:–Also we actually had a Captain Underpants cartoon ready this whole time–

Captain Underpants fans: *tears of joy* YES! FINALLY! THANK YOU!

Dreamworks Animation:–and a Boss Baby cartoon!

Everyone: *long awkward silence•

Others: You’re joking, right?

Disney: Well hey, we made OUR small screen fans happy too!

Star vs the Forces of Evil and Ducktales fans: *awkward, confused silence*

Star vs the Forces of Evil:.. What is even happening anymore?

Ducktales fans: I don’t know. We want to be happy.... but... what is even happening anymore? Why are they forcing us on these roller coasters of emotion?

*MEANWHILE at Cartoon network*

Steven Universe fans: Yeah, we are with those guys too. What... what is happening? We had a huge reveal this year and–I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO MAKE OF ANYTHING ANYMORE!

Adventure Time fans: *sigh of bittersweet happiness• Well, it was fun while it lasted. Oh by the way, congrats SU fans for your show featuring the first gay marriage in an animated kids show.

Steven Universe fans: *happy* Aw thanks Adventure Time fans!

*BACK TO THE MAIN FEATURE*

Cartoon network: HEY! WE GOT AN ANIMATED MOVIE FOR TEEN TITANS!  Everyone: *groans in annoyance•

*LATER*

Most everyone: It was... actually ok?

Sony: Hey guys! To make up for our crappy movie from last year, we got another Hotel Transylvania 3!

Many people: *groans in annoyance*

Hotel Transylvania fans: We have a new ship for our harbors. :D

Warner Bros: So we got one more year until the Lego Movie 2 right? Well we got this movie ‘Smallfoot’ in which HUMANS are the mythical creatures–

Many people: *more groans of annoyance*

*ALSO LATER*

Most everyone: Well ok, I guess it wasn’t bad.

Others: ZENDAYA! OUR BEAUTIFUL GODESS! Hallelujah!

Sony: We also have worked on Marvel to make a new animated Spiderman film.

EVERYONE: HOLY S***!/NO WAY!/IT LOOKS AWESOME!/YAY!/MILES MOARLES SPIDERMAN!/NICE!/JOHN MULANEY!!!/ETC.

Marvel fans: *see’s Peter Parker’s death date in trailer being 2018. Recalls what happened a month before the film’s release and smiles to the heavens.* Excelsior.

Disney: Well Illumination, what do YOU have to compete with us on November? Another crappy Minions sequel?

Illumination: So we decided to adapt How the Grinch stole Christmas.

*Most everyone stares in horror*

Some: No.

Most: Oh no.

Those who remember 2012: OH GOD, NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAIN! I HAD TO TAKE THERAPY TO RECOVER FROM–

Live action Grinch fans: *laughs* Yeah, good luck with that!

Illumination: Well, we actually learned our lesson this time. Also, we refuse to abuse Max in our take, because that’s just mean. We actually stayed faithful to the story AND included the title character... unlike YOU Disney with your live action Nutcracker film!

Everyone: Yeah, what the hell Disney?

Disney: Uh... Oh look we brought back 2D animation for ‘Mary Poppins Returns’! *runs away while everyone is distracted*

Dreamworks Animation: Oh yeah, actually we are releasing the last How to Train your Dragon movie next year.

HTTYD fans: *screams of joy drown everything out*

Pixar: Well, I guess that’s that. Hopefully we won’t get any weird entries for the Oscars or the Golden Globes like last time.

Oscar judges: D’oh ho ho. We’re a bunch of old geezers that only nominate the most talked about or what appeals to us as adults! We don’t give a crap about animated films that try to deviate from the norm with toys or have unique animation designs! Certainly not like– *notices two groups of royally pissed off fans of two specific films that ESPECIALLY got denied certain nominations in 2018.*

Lego Batman Movie fans: You guys suck! You nominated f***ing Boss Baby over OUR movie?! ESPECIALLY over Lego Batman movie, which scored higher than most DC films thanks to the obviously smarter critics and fans?!

Captain Underpants fans: Seriously, what the hell?! Do you have any idea how much both our movies getting nominated could have meant for the animation community as well as for the kids watching them?! ESPECIALLY considering the themes and representations OUR film supports?!

Oscar judges: Oh please! Like we want to tarnish our reputation by allowing a film involving actual toys or a grown man in his underwear join the ranks of our considerations–

*both groups proceed to attack judges*

Pixar: Well, here’s to another year of animation!

Toy Story fans/Everyone else: Toy Story 4 better not suck, Pixar! We were happy with it ending on the third one, so you better not screw this up!

Pixar: Err.... sure... *laughs nervously*

Hopefully 2019 will be a good year for animation. And I’m sorry if I didn’t list all the animations of 2018. There was too much to keep track of.

…..

…Oh yeah, wasn’t there also a sequel to that film about those garden gnomes?

…..

….Like I said, too much to keep track of.

#animation #disney #pixar #dreamworks animation #warner bros #sony #too much to keep track of #no seriously there's too many titles listed #and i'm too lazy to write out all the movie titles #marvel

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imjustthemechanic · 6 years ago

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Natalie Jones and the Golden Ship

Part 1/? - A Meeting at the Palace Part 2/? - Curry Talk Part 3/? - Princess Sitamun Part 4/? - Not At Rest Part 5/? - Dead Men Tell no Tales Part 6/? - Sitamun Rises Again Part 7/? - The Curse of Madame Desrosiers Part 8/? - Sabotage at Guedelon Part 9/? - A Miracle Part 10/? - Desrosiers’ Elixir Part 11/? - Athens in October Part 12/? - The Man in Black Part 13/? - Mr. Neustadt Part 14/? - The Other Side of the Story Part 15/? - A Favour Part 16/? - A Knock on the Window Part 17/? - Sir Stephen and Buckeye Part 18/? - Books of Alchemy Part 19/? - The Answers Part 20/? - A Gift Left Behind Part 21/? - Santorini Part 22/? - What the Doves Found Part 23/? - A Thief in the Night Part 24/? - Healing Part 25/? - Newton’s Code Part 26/? - Montenegro Part 27/? - The Lost Relic Part 28/? - The Homunculinus Part 29/? - The End is Near Part 30/? - The Face of Evil Part 31/? - The Morning After Part 32/? - Next Stop Part 33/? - A Sighting in Messina Part 34/? - Taormina

They finally catch up with Madame Desrosiers, and she has something surprising to say.

As they rumbled along the road to Taormina, Sir Stephen refused to let his argument against archaeology go. “For another thing,” he went on, “the people and places you go to see did not ask to be objects of wonder. Your Princess Sitamun, from what I have read of the Egyptians, hoped to have her funerary temple tended while her body and its sarcophagus rested undisturbed. Or think of the villages we saw on the island of Santorini. The people living there do nothing but serve the needs of visitors. They have no industries of their own – I heard a woman tell her tour group that even water must be brought in, for there is none native to the island.”

“Pilgrimage towns were the same,” said Nat. “During the high middle ages, tourism was almost the only industry in Santiago de Compostela.”

“But the people there were doing God’s work,” Sir Stephen said. “And the relics of Saint James were meant to be seen, so that they could perform their miracles. Saint James himself, were he able to watch, would be pleased. Could you say the same thing of the Egyptians?”

Natasha just sighed. They’d had this argument a dozen times before and they would doubtless have it again. Sir Stephen just didn’t like digging up the dead.

“You can’t speak for them,” Jim spoke up. “You’re not an ancient Egyptian. You only know what you think.”

“I think I have a better understanding of the peoples of old than any of you,” said Sir Stephen, in a voice that rejected the entire twenty-first century.

“Princess Sitamun lived nearly three thousand years ago,” said Natasha. “You were born nearly a thousand years ago, but that’s still closer to now than it was to her. Even if it wasn’t, two millennia is such a long time, I don’t think it matters. None of us know what the ancient Egyptians would have thought of us.”

“Then none of us should presume to speak for them,” said Sir Stephen.

“Let it go,” said Sharon, patting his arm. “You won’t convince them and they won’t convince you. Personally, I think the Egyptians don’t care, because they’re dead.”

Mount Etna itself had not been visible from Messina, only its towering column of cloud. As they got closer, with dusk closing in, the volcano itself emerged from among the hills, taller than all of them and with its peak shrouded in mist lit eerily red from within. The town of Taormina below it was a tiny place among a dozen similar tourist towns that looked down on the beach. It was all arranged along one narrow, meandering medieval street behind a city wall, where shops sold everything from cheesy souvenir magnets and keychains to expensive designer jewelry, beach gear to hand-made marionettes and everything in between.

With the volcano currently putting on such a show, the population of the little town had swollen to capacity and beyond. Not only was the main street full of shoppers, diners, and people enjoying various entertainments, roofs and balconies were covered with people, many of them with binoculars to view the mountain peak. The whole place felt like it was having a party… but there was also an undercurrent of something much more ominous. In particular, there were signs set up at the sides of the roads to direct people who were evacuating from higher up the slopes.

The six members of the CAAP and Jim made their way through the crowds of tourists, locals, and intermittent stray dogs to the Hotel Isabella. Like the Europa Palace in Messina, this one had four stars, but as rather unprepossessing from the outside. Its façade was a narrow stone building with an arched door, wedged in between a place selling football merchandise and another offering designer purses. Nat went to the front desk, and asked if Mrs. Desrosiers were there.

“You missed her,” the clerk, a balding man wizened from a lifetime in the sun, replied. It had become a depressingly familiar phrase, but what followed gave Nat renewed hope. “Only by about ten or fifteen minutes, though – she met a friend and they went out for supper. I don’t know when they’ll be back, but we have a bar if you’d like to wait for her.”

“What friend?” asked Natasha. He couldn’t mean Newton, could he? Every indication thad been that the two alchemists despised one another. If it weren’t Newton, though, that suggested there was a third person involved here and that was the last thing they needed. “Was it a German, with long white hair and a very ugly hat?”

“It was an older man,” the clerk said, “but I didn’t hear his voice enough to know if he were German.”

Newton was far from being history’s only famous alchemist. Desrosiers had said her husband was dead, but history and legend were full of characters like Paracelsus or Agricola who, if alchemy were a real thing, might well be still around causing trouble. That was a depressing thought, and it was mainly on that account that Nat decided to stick to believing Desrosiers’ friend was Newton until she saw evidence to the contrary.

“We’re gonna have to split up and search again,” she told her companions. “If we’re only a few minutes behind her, we can’t lose the opportunity.”

“Somebody’s gonna need to stay here in case she comes back,” said Allen.

“Then you do that,” Nat told him. “The rest of us will have to search the nearby restaurants.” Unlike in Kotor and Santorini, most of the restaurants in Taormina were indoors, rather than spilling out into the streets. There simply wasn’t room for them here. That would slow them down considerably.

Sharon and Sir Stephen went together, of course, as did Sam and Clint, who seemed to have bonded in mutual mistrust of Jim. That left Jim himself with Natasha – and that, she realized, meant they were going to have to talk about their sexual dalliance and what the rest of the group thought of it. Nat would definitely pass on what Allen had told her, but she wondered whether Jim would believe her. Would he think she was just sparing his feelings?

Sure enough, once they were away from the others, Jim brought it up almost immediately.

“I think I need to apologize,” he said. “I didn’t realize they were gonna be so… it was selfish of me to ask you, and…”

“Don’t,” said Nat. “I can’t take any more apologies. You asked my permission, I gave it to you, we both enjoyed it, and they don’t care as much as it looked like. I talked to Dad about it.”

It seemed he did believe the explanation when she passed it on, because he looked relieved. “That’s… still really awkward. But I wouldn’t want your colleagues to think less of you.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t,” said Nat. “Trust me, I wouldn’t let them.”

Jim had to smile a little at that. “I believe you.”

Meanwhile, Natasha had realized that the two of them were clearly marching down the street with a purpose – they were not blending in. “We look too much like we’re on a mission,” she said. “Slow down, and put an arm around me.”

Jim laughed.

“Seriously,” she gave him a poke.

“Just for the mission, huh?” asked Jim. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in, until their hips touched. “Wouldn’t want to stand out.”

Nat smiled, too – she could have stopped herself, but right now it could be part of their act. She rarely got to enjoy this kind of closeness. Allen hugged her, but there was still a level on which he had to love her because he was, in whatever sense the word was meaningful, her father. It was possible to argue that Jim didn’t have much choice, either. He had no family or friends of his own, so if he needed human contact, his options to get it were extremely limited.

Yet at the same time… this was nice. Maybe the honesty had something to do with it. As Natasha had noted earlier, she rarely got to be honest with people. Allen encouraged her to be honest no matter how terrible the truth might be, and yet she rarely did, just because she was afraid of hurting him with it. Now, here she was and here was Jim, and they were both whatever they were. If either of them had wanted to get close to anybody else, they would have had to lie about it, but not with each other.

Nat’s phone buzzed. She stopped and pulled it out, and found a text message from Sharon.

We’ve got Desrosiers, it said. She’s alone at the sushi place above the bus parking.

On our way, Nat texted back. “Looks like we have to turn around,” she told Jim.

“Yeah, I saw,” he said. “Does this mean we stop blending in?”

“Of course not,” Nat said, and patted his hand on her hip, indicating she wanted it to stay right there.

Just outside the city gate, next to the self-consciously spectacular Excelsior Palace Hotel, was a very tiny mobile midway consisting of a merry-go-round and a bouncy castle in a car park. Just beyond those was a petrol station with a row of bank machines and a couple of elevators to go down to the parking garage below. Beside that was a little restaurant serving sushi and antipasto on a balcony overlooking the bay, and Madame Desrosiers was sitting there as if waiting for somebody.

She was, as always, flawlessly dressed in a flowing gray dress and very tall heels, with a tortoiseshell comb in her hair. She was sipping at a glass of water while staring out across the water at the lights on the Calabrian coast. Every so often, she would glance at her watch, but she kept her back to them at all times, which Natasha thought was suspicious in itself. If she were really expecting somebody, she ought to be facing the car park so she could see them coming.

Natasha approached. The others, who’d been waiting for her, Jim, and Allen to join them, followed her. When she got close to Desrosiers’ table, the woman looked up and said, “oh, it’s you again.”

“You say that as if you haven’t been sitting here for half an hour waiting for us,” said Nat.

Desrosiers sighed. “Very well, sit down,” she said. “I was worried I’d made it too difficult for you to find me, but I thought if I made it easy you’d get suspicious.”

“You’re right,” Nat said. “Right now I’m extremely suspicious.”

They arranged themselves around her. Natasha, Jim, and Sir Stephen sat with Madame Desrosiers, the other four at the table next to them. Nat did notice that although her back was to the door, Desrosiers was also sitting closest to it, with the least furniture in the way.

She didn’t try to run immediately, though. Instead, she looked at Jim and nodded. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Fine so far,” he replied. “I’d like to stay that way.”

Desrosiers shook her head. “There’s not much to be done for that. You can only continue to exist by being regularly replenished – and even then, you won’t change the way a human being would. You won’t get older, your hair won’t grow… you will look the way you do now for however long you last.”

Jim looked crushed. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?” he asked.

“Because you were already upset,” Desrosiers said.

He must feel like yet another bit of humanity had been stolen from him, Natasha thought. She felt sorry for him – and yet they had to stick to the point and learn as much as they could before Desrosiers ran off again. “Why did you want to meet us?” Nat asked. “Was it to give Jim more doses?” If it were only that, she would be… delighted on one level, deeply disappointed on another.

“No. The rest is at home in my workshop and I can’t spare it on short notice,” said Desrosiers. “I’m here to ask a favour. You have Neustadt’s notebooks. That’s why you went to Santorini, isn’t it? I need them.”

#fanfic #natasha romanov #steve rogers #bucky barnes #sharon carter #sam wilson #clint barton

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aittiadf · 3 years ago

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chapter 2

My eyes felt like screws after the seventh hour of manning the reception desk at New Ocean Hotel. My shift was almost over and every minute dragged itself over the slow blue sky. I went into the back bathroom, sat on the toilet and took a few hits from my vape pen. The high smoothed me over. I looked down at the checkered tiles of the bathroom floor and pulled out my phone. Samantha had texted me saying there was someone she wanted me to meet. This guy from her church who drank with her had just seen the lights for the first time. She described him as a sheepless shepherd who wandered around praying to a higher power. Aren’t we all sheepless shepherds I thought but then I realized maybe people had more meaningful ways of understanding their life.

She told me this guy was looking for a job and needed a place to stay. I didn’t really know how much I should care. Nothing really happened here and if some person wanted to be by the beach alone with an easy job then sure, he should come and stay for a while. If he had seen the lights at the very least it might give him some space to calm down. For me though it was boring. I’d worked here for over a year and only stayed because it gave me time to work on the free coding academy I had recently enrolled in. What I really wanted was to get out of this hotel and work for one of the startups in the bigger town to the south.

The only time the hotel got busy was during the summer. But even then, when tourist season was in full force, none of the rooms would be filled. But there was always a two-four week span when the fires forced people out from the valleys or the mountains and the rates would spike higher than they were the rest of the year. We would be filled to the brim during that time, having to deny people and everything. It was cruel to raise rates during an environmental crisis. Supposedly there was an algorithm that decided the prices for all the hotels in a thirty mile radius so the rates were always the same and there wasn’t any real competition. So it was all blameless. The mechanized blasphemous rate spiking that occurred when people’s houses were burning to the ground could be attributed to the cloud or some other unknowable piece of technology whose existence could only be hinted at and never named.

I walked back to the front desk and sat at the computer trying to decipher an error in the coding assignment I was working on. It was useless. My brain was fried and I wanted to walk out the door and go home. I couldn’t, so I booted up youtube instead. Fifteen minutes later, I was on my fourth video of this guy who had a hydraulic press. The niche of the channel was that he exclusively pressed food. Lately it seemed he’d been going to a lot of fast food restaurants. I stood there transfixed as I watched the steel metal cylinder pulverize doritos locos tacos, double doubles, fish filets and atomic chicken wings.

My manager walked in from checking on some of the rooms in the hotel and I told her to come and take a look. She sat there dazed for a while as well, occasionally offering some commentary.

“It's crazy to see food transform into such unrecognizable shapes”

“This is making me hungry”

“That actually looks kind of good”

I liked her. She wasn’t sympathetic to the owners. They directed most of their nastiness onto her and she remained nice to the employees. Sometimes though the stress from the owners overflowed onto us. But there was this mutual understanding we seemed to have of the hotel’s emotional economy. Which is to say that we were aware the owners were some real cretinous fiends who cared about nothing but the rates and money and caused people to teeter at the edge.

I think she knew I smoked in the restroom and she probably assumed I jacked off in there too, which wasn’t untrue. I indulged in what I was able to get away with. There was even this time me and this customer who I’d been chatting with locked eyes in the lobby when I came into work one morning. He and I went back into the bathroom and did all sorts of stuff. I think she knew about this too because we had security cameras but between us there was this tacit understanding that if you don’t have a big house with lots of dollars the coast in California is just a place where you go to dissolve into the sunset and burn off.

I told my manager I had a friend of a friend who needed a job and if she knew if we were hiring. She told me we weren’t but had seen that the steakhouse across the street was looking for servers. Both of us thought it was stupid that there was a steakhouse in this tiny little community. Apparently some silicon valley investor had got it in his mind that the real estate in this area would explode. The idea was that by developing some businesses and property in the area the energy of the coming boom would surge directly into his net worth. He had opened this all glass steakhouse, the type of building with exposed steel beams inside. So now, amid aging victorian homes and fields of wildflowers there was an all-glass restaurant that looked more like it made napalm than served ribeye. Maybe the meat was cloned. Either way, it had good reviews on Yelp.

I told Samantha that if her friend was really looking for work that it was available here at this pretty stupid steakhouse. We had this weird friendship that congealed around this time we did acid when we were seeing each other years ago. It was late and we were bored and awake so we decided to take a tab each and walk the couple miles down to the beachfront where we lived in central California. When we got there we took our shoes off and waded up into the ankles in the ocean. The wind was strong and the cold ocean water on our bodies began to feel like needles. There was this dingy beach motel by us with an iron gate that was rusted from the ocean breeze. It opened easily and we decided to take refuge in the stairway of the motel.

All night we stayed awake feeling the euphoria from the acid and having the full force of California beach kitsch weigh on us. I remember taking solace in eating a bag of popcorn we bought and staring at this dead fly on the windowsill. When the sun rose we walked outside and I remember Samantha made fun of me when I took a picture of the sunrise. I told her not to be an asshole, nobody is better than the sun.

On the sidewalk walking home we passed by subarus and lending libraries and stopped to look at the sky. There was a series of six orange lights high above us, moving fast and leaving a small streak of light behind them. We stood there walking with our heads fixed above. We watched them fly across the ocean and over the hills until they were far out of our sight. We didn’t even say anything to each other, we just kept walking by early morning joggers and freshly manicured lawns afterwards, staring at the sidewalk silently.

That was so long ago now and certainly before I came out and she became a Christian. We just had an unspoken understanding that we needed to head in different directions. So I moved further up the coast here and she got some tech job in the Bay Area. I remember getting these weird emails at the time from this place called Excelsior Corp about test piloting this hardware VPN product. The emails just had one line of text: “Looking for test pilots hardware VPN now” and pictures of this big black box I assumed was the hardware you would have to install to access their VPN. I always sent the emails straight to the trash but somehow they always bypassed my spam and ended up straight in my inbox.

But after some time not talking to Samantha I reached out. I was smoking my wax pen on my porch one night when I saw a bunch of shooting stars shoot over me in rapid succession. I thought of Samantha. I sent her a text asking how she was doing. She told me she’d been well but had been having these weird things happen to her. She mentioned all these emails she’d been getting and that she’d started seeing drones in the sky and lights every few months. I hadn’t seen the lights but I’d gotten the same emails. She was telling me about it and she sounded scared but also she said she was doing well.

“I’ve got a stable job and you know I go to church and stuff, and there are some really wonderful moments, just now I saw all these incredible shooting stars.”

She sounded anxious and I was worried for her. I asked her if she liked smoking dabs. She’d never tried one.

“It’s really chilled me out since that time we took acid.”

“I like my church and alcohol.”

I was happy though because despite her nervousness she seemed happy. I let her know I’d seen the same shooting stars and she was ecstatic. Since then we’ve texted and called about strange stuff we see, about weird things happening in our phones, about plans for the future, about her theories on the Greeks, about my times engaging in public sex, about the hotel, about god, and about other things. We were friends and I enjoyed hearing about her world, from the far reaches of the front desk of the New Ocean Hotel.

On the computer screen a wad of Chick-fil-A waffle fries were being squashed into potatoey dough. Me and my manager sat there watching until the steel cylinder had fully flattened the fries and the video faded to black.

My manager gestured at the steakhouse, “What do you think it's like working there? Surrounded by glass for everyone to see? I could never do that. When I worked in a restaurant the kitchen’s used to be closed off from the eyes of the customers. Now they leave it wide open, I feel like I’d go insane.”

I thought of the owners of the hotel lording over me and reprimanding me every time I looked at youtube. “I’d probably go insane too,” I said.

“I definitely would.”

When my shift was over I walked home and stopped at the convenience store to buy a pack of gummy sharks. I chewed on them while thinking about Samantha. I imagined her in church, with some ridiculous outfit on, sitting with her friend. I imagined them both listening intently to the words of the sermon, and getting up from the pews afterwards to fraternize with the other church members. I thought of how all that seemed impossible to me, making conversation to other people in a church. Maybe if I tried hard enough I could imagine it. I tried and my mind thought of being submerged in water. I thought of being in the womb. I thought of what it must be like to feel full. I thought of being in a congregation. What singing with others must feel like. I started to imagine myself there, sitting among the pews unable to join in with everyone’s song. I imagined what it would be like later on during the service, when the pastor gave his sermon. In my mind I listened to him while a stranger next to me reached for a bible on the shelf on the back of the pews and turned to the book of revelations. He placed the bible on my lap while I unbuttoned my pants and unfolded myself hard, smack dab in between the pages that talked about angels, blasphemy and a new Jerusalem. Then I imagined him stroking me while I listened to the sermon, my mind cascading through illuminated halos, until all that remained was a gold blur and me hooing softly like an owl, letting myself leak onto the thin paper pages and onto the carpet below.

It was funny to me that after that time taking acid Samantha started going to church and I got a hold on my sexuality. Too much of my life could be periodized around that trip and sometimes I felt at the brink, torn between the life I lived before and the life I was living now. But there was no actual break between the two, and they were both happening at the same time. I knew that in reality my life prior and my life after bled into each other, with experiences since then coloring the way I read the past and my life prior shaping the way I read the present. But a long black fissure stood there in my mind, dividing the two lives while they tried to congeal around the edges of the abyss. From that fissure too came not just me but Samantha, and maybe anyone else who had seen the lights. We sprouted out of it in different directions like vines, crawling out of black depths and over the grey plane of our existence, stretching into the bright orange line of the horizon.

My teeth smushed the blue-white body of the gummy shark in two. I chewed one piece and stared briefly at the shimmering half body of gelatin I held in between my two fingers. It would be possible for Samantha’s friend to find a job here. I even had an extra room in the converted apartment of the old Victorian house I rented. Then what? I suppose nothing, I would continue with my life, trying to learn to code and working at the hotel. Who knows what would happen when we met. There was this sensation I had though, that everyone who me and Samantha came in close contact with was somehow also sprouting out of the abyss, extending themselves over that grey plane and trying to reach the sun.

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