#One day at work he was noticed by an American producer

[yore-donatsu]

“This script sucks...”

[onlyangel4]

Could you do Toto Wolff with wife reader? He's down bad for her and always looking out for her. Like giving her his jacket whenever it rains or when she doesn't have one; tiring her hair when it is getting on her face; holding her hands tightly/ hugging during the celebration and anything else. The team could see that and tease him endlessly. Just something fluff and romantic. Thanks!! :))

wifey. toto wolff.

toto wolff x author wife!reader

in which toto might as well have "i love my wife" tattooed on his forehead

warnings- cursing. the fluffiest fluff known to man.

author's note: this was so much fun to write! please do keep on sending requests, the more detailed the better!

being a busy woman meant that you were not the kind of woman to attend every race and toto understood this well. you were an author with a cult following that were always waiting for your next book to be out. your name had been at the top of the new york best sellers list more times than anyone could keep track of and you were always being praised for your work. this meant book tours, charity events and constantly brainstorming book ideas with your publisher.

this is why it had been so easy to surprise toto by attending the silverstone grand prix. you had told him that you were going to be in los angeles attending a big meeting with an american based publisher. however when you left your home in the english countryside you went to a hotel and not an airport.

usually you would never lie to toto but in your mind this was a good lie and you knew that toto was going to be happy about it so you weren't worried about any negative reaction, you were just glad that you were going to get to see your husband in the middle of an incredibly busy racing season.

the press went mad when they caught sight of you climbing out of a car parked at the paddock gates of silverstone. this was the first race that you had attended this season and every photographer was dying to get a glimpse of the woman that had toto wolff's heart in the palm of her hand.

you gave a graceful smile and a wave to the press but quickly made it through the paddock gates, excited to surprise your husband with your presence. your eyes scanned the people hanging out around the paddock looking for your man and soon enough your eyes landed on a large form clothed in a white shirt and slacks, you could recognize that back anywhere.

the drive to survive crew were currently stood in front of toto filming the team principle as he went about his day. one of the producers noticed you in the back ground and you winked at him giving him a thumbs up, telling him that he should film what happened next. you walked behind toto getting on your tiptoes so your hands could reach his eyes, "guess who?", you giggled.

"schatz!", he smiled brightly as he turned to look at you, his arms instantly going to their rightful place around your waist, "this is a long way from los angeles my love"

"guess my plane got lost", you laughed softly pressing a quick gentle kiss to your husband's lips, hyper aware that the cameras were still there, your husband was a private man you weren't sure whether he would be comfortable properly kissing you in front of a film crew.

"i deserve a proper kiss darling", he hummed before pulling you in for a long loving kiss one hand gently cupping your cheek as the other rubbed circles on the small of your back. once you pulled away toto made sure to keep his arm around your waist, just wanting to have physical contact with you.

toto turned to face the cameras addressing the camera directly, "this is my wife y/n. she has a very busy work life so she doesn't tend to attend races", he explained, "so it is safe to say that this is the best surprise ever", you were just stood by his side looking at your husband with pure adoration behind your eyes as he continued to speak a little to the camera before the crew went to go and talk to the mclaren garage.

toto took your hand and pulled you into the mercedes garage a bright smile on his face. toto leant down to press a kiss to your forehead "i love you so fucking much doll", he whispered into your ear.

"i love you too toto"

you spent fp1 and fp2 sat in the garage with carmen, someone you met when george first signed with mercedes, someone that you considered a good friend. "i swear, i have never seen toto this happy, he was in a bit of a mood this morning but as soon as he saw you he brightened up", carmen explained and it warmed your heart to hear that. you and your husband did not make many public appearances together, both liking to keep your professional lives professional and personal lives personal but whenever people saw the two of you in the same room they were forever commenting on how toto was a different man around you, how he was softer and more forgiving if you were about.

the first two practice sessions of the weekend had not gone as well as toto had hoped but he didn't seem to focus on the bad result as much as usual. instead toto decided to take you on a walk along the paddock giving you a tour of one of his favourite race tracks in the entire world.

you attentively listened as toto spoke to you about the different garages and the stragies he thought each team was going to use that weekend. he even introduces you to various people along the paddock, always introducing you as his wife as if it was not obvious by the way your fingers were interlocked. as you walked typical english weather began to hit the paddock, starting with a light drizzle of rain that within five minutes turned into full pelting rain drops.

at this point toto was half was through his little tour of the paddock and he did not want to stop so instead he dipped into a near by hospitality suite and stole grabbed an umbrella. he quickly returned to your side opening the umbrella and holding it over your head keeping you completely sheltered from the rain but he was still in the rain. "you can get in here too toto", you stated.

"but then you will not be fully covered, i can't have that dear", he spoke matter of factly and you knew better than to argue with your husband so you continued to walk with him. by the time you were back at the mercedes garage your husband was sopping wet and you were bone dry but toto was happy as ever, how couldn't he be? he had you by his side.

the next day you had decided to stay at your hotel for fp3 as your husband had kept you rather busy the night prior and you decided you wanted a little bit of a rest before the qualifying session. you had just gotten out of the shower when your phone buzzed with a phone call from your husband, one that you answered as soon as it popped up on your screen.

"schatz, the car is fast. we were first and second fastest"

"oh toto that is great love"

"i might be a little overzealous but i have a good feeling about this weekend. but that might just be because my good luck charm is in the paddock"

you laughed down the phone, "well dear i will be there in an hour to watch qualifying"

"okay honey, i love you"

"i love you too"

meanwhile both lewis and george had overheard toto's phone conversation with you and were giggling like school boys, "man he is so whipped", george spoke making lewis laugh.

"it is cute, they have been like this forever. when i joined merc they had been married a year and they were just as soppy now as they were then"

the drivers were just amazed as to how a man so intimidating could become a massive softie whenever it came to you.

your make up had taken a little longer than you had anticipated but there was no way you were going to miss the qualifying session so you had rushed getting ready and getting to the mercedes garage. in doing so you had managed to forget to tie your hair up. the wind in the paddock always made your hair go wild so whenever you attended a race you brought an ermegency hair band with you.

toto noticed that your hair was down as soon as you walked into the garage. you had been talking to carmen when toto had come up behind you and carded his fingers through your hair, carefully collecting it up into a neat ponytail while you continued you conversation. once satisfied with how your hair looked he kissed your shoulder, "i know that is how you like it my love", you thanked him already used to how doting your husband could be.

the qualifying session had been one of the best that you had seen. and the smile on your husband's face warmed your heart, there was just something so nice about watching toto wholeheartedly enjoy his job. you had been by his side through it all. you had been married to him for one year when he became the team principle of mercedes, so you had seen the highs and lows of the job. you had been the one to comfort toto when the news of lewis signing to ferrari hit. you were always there to help him pick up the pieces so it was nice to get to see the good parts of his job and how happy it made your husband.

"love come here", toto had spoken once the session was over and you did as you had been asked making your way over to where toto was sat at a desk with his laptop in front of him. he pulled you to sit in his lap. he then showed you all of the lap times thinking out loud about the possible strategies they could use in the race to maintain lap times like that. you didn't properly understand the things that he was saying but you didn't care you could listen to his voice forever and you knew that talking things out loud was how he worked best and you were more than willing to be the person that he spoke to.

the actual race had been the most thrilling one that you had ever been to. it had been complete emotional whiplash watching three british drivers fight tooth and nail for a home win. you had gotten worried when george dnf'd as the chances of a mercedes win had halved but you did not let your face show it. you just kept your eyes glued to the screens in the garage, occasionally glancing at your husband in race mode just to check in and make sure that he was not over thinking. when lewis took the lead you began to chew on your lip, just hoping that this was it. that lewis was going to win a race. and when his car crossed that finish line you burst out into a cheer, the brightest smile on your lips.

you were celbrating with a few of the engineers that you knew really well when toto ran over to you he hugged you tightly pulling your feet off the ground for a moment before placing you back down just so he could kiss you, "i have to go to the podium but i had to see you first my love", he spoke before his assistant dragged him away and towards the podium.

leaving you stood there watching him. the proudest wife in the entire world.

[sleepinghypnos]

The Creed...

Chapter 1 - Penthouse

Genre: Smut

Tags: F/M, F/F/M, F/F/F/M, Facefuck, Throatfucking Rough Sex, Dirty Talk, Harem, Self-degradation, Masochism/Sadism(?), Cum Play, Piss Play

(The things in the tags will be present when the time needs for it.)

Disclaimer: This work is a fan-fiction and does not depict the person/people mentioned in the story.

A/N: You can self-insert if you want...

--

Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt!

"What is it? I'm preoccupied, so make it quick." Vlad answered the call.

"Fine. Just send them to my house... but I will not be responsible if something happens to them." He replied with his slightly deep voice and end the call.

*Silenced Gunshot*

"Blame your competitor, not me." Vlad immediately packed up his sniper rifle and fled the scene while remembering what one of his close associates in the entertainment industry said few moments ago, he begged him to accommodate a number of female K-pop idols for the purpose of strengthening the bond between idols through a experimental project wherein they live together as Tenants, cameras will not be present just them living together and at the end of their time as tenants they will do an interview regarding the way of life living with other k-pop idols aside from their respective members. In this way, the fandoms of each k-pop group will stop fighting over trivial things on the internet and support other idols.

Vladimir Creed was a 26 year old Half-European and Half-American man. His parents died in a car accident when he was still a child and only his grandfather is his only family left. He's living a lavish lifestyle full of money, expensive cars and women...

His family or more like his grandfather founded a huge company in America and owns many stocks in the entertainment industry in Korea and since Vlad is not someone who actively makes himself noticeable or well-known, he parties without revealing his true identity to anyone with a few exception of course, he has few actual friends and all of them are also young masters of their own families just like he was and he rarely expresses his emotions so he has a hard time managing it.

In his typical days, he spends most of his time just relaxing in his penthouse, in which he bought himself with his own money. though it may seem strange since he parties every chance he get, he has a very unique talent and that is being a hired gun that even his grandfather didn't know.

And while relaxing, he usually goes naked after a shower because there is no one in the house, It's is personal space after all. His maids and butlers will only come if they were asked for and he cooks for himself.

His penthouse is in a small island near the coast and there is only one bridge connected to it. So, guests who'll visit the island can use the bridge without the need of boats.

...

Vlad arrived at his house but welcomed by cars parked near the main gate. "What the fuck is this?" He said to himself, he got out of his car to check what's going on then he remembered Eunseok, one of his close associates said few hours ago. "Now it makes."

Then he called one of the guards to let him pass, and so they did. He drove and the people blocking the path dispersed and he got in smoothly.

"Let them in, they are going to live here indefinitely." Vlad announced to the guards and went inside to change.

Most of the people outside the penthouse are already inside the living area, he saw the k-pop idols waiting for the master of the house.

"I'm Vladimir Creed, but you can call me Vlad. I'm the owner of this house, my friend already told me what you guys are going to do. So feel free live here." and he looked at managers of each of the group "There are places in the house that is not available, I don't care if they used the swimming pool, drink at the bar." Pointing at the wet bar near the kitchen. "Or anything, but, all of third floor is off limits because that's where my room is located."

The producer nodded and introduce the idols that will be living with him in the house.

He extended his hand for a handshake to ITZY's Yuna and Ryujin, Aespa's Karina and Winter, (G)-Idle's Soyeon and Miyeon, Red Velvet's Irene, Seulgi, and Joy, and Twice's Sana, Mina, and Nayeon which they received with a smile.

--

One day has passed, the girls are eating lunch in the long refectory table since they woke up late just like Vlad was and the maids and butlers were there to assist them.

After lunch, the Red Velvet and Twice members were gathered in the backyard, enjoying a beautiful sunny day by the pool. They were relaxing and chatting about their recent performances, when they suddenly heard a splash from the pool.

Curious, they all turned to see Nayeon filling up a water gun and aimed at them. Panic set in as they scream and run around the pool to avoid getting wet since they just want to enjoy the sun.

Running made them exhausted and they decided to have a friendly water fight. Joy and Seulgi teamed up against Sana and Mina, Nayeon and Irene. Laughter and screams filled the air as they chased each other around the pool, trying to get each other wet

In the living room, Ryujin and Karina were sharing a bucket of ice cream while watching a romantic K-drama. They were joined by Soyeon and Miyeon, who couldn't resist the delicious smell of the popcorn. They all cuddled under a blanket, enjoying the show and teasing each other about their favorite characters. Yuna and Winter are busy doing some tiktok challenge.

As the sun set, the members of ITZY, Aespa, and (G)-Idle joined their sun-kissed Seniors in the pool. They all gathered around the pool, sharing stories, and having a heart-to-heart conversation. For a moment, the backyard was filled with the sound of their laughter and friendship.

As the night came, they all gathered in the living room to watch a movie together. They munched on some snacks and cuddled on the couch, enjoying their time together. It was a perfect day off for all of them, a day filled with laughter, bonding, and memories that they will cherish forever.

Karina asked the butler where Vlad was and she was led to the study where he spends time if he's not doing anything.

When Karina entered the study, she was met with a tall, imposing figure staring at her from behind a large oak desk. Vlad's dark hair was slicked back, and he exuded a sense of power and mystery. Karina couldn't help but feel a pull towards him, she already know that this man is handsome the moment she land her eyes on him earlier in the morning.

"Um, Sir? I just want to asked if we can have some of the liquor in the wet bar." She asked while slowly approaching him.

"Didn't I told you girls that you can do whatever you want with the wet bar?" He answered and walked to towards her. "And you're asking me when you already half drunk."

Karina got embarrassed but it faded when a faint smile appeared on Vlad's lips, she was mesmerized. "Are you sure that's the reason why you're here?" he was close to her, Karina needs to look up just to meet his eyes.

Karina pulls him for a kiss and reciprocated it with the same intensity. It started as vanilla kissing until in turns into something like animals in heat and eventually began to make out with insane passion. Vlad grab her waist to pull her closer, her hands were hugging his neck.

He noticed she wanted more and so he obliged and brought one hand to feel up her breasts which made Karina moan between their kisses.

Their kiss was passionate, Vlad keeping her in his arms while she let herself be consumed by him. It lasted for few minutes until they both stopped quietly staring at each other.

"D-did you like it?" Karina said while catching her breathe.

"I did, your lips are sweet with a hint of whiskey... you really were half drunk." Brushing his thumb on her lips. "Want me to lead this time?" he asked her while caressing her face.

"Yes, please." Karina said.

“Do you think could handle it?” Vlad responded seemingly showing concern.

Karina nodded. “I did have my own few boyfriends before...”

“I won't doubt it but... I get rough. Really rough. I'm sure it's something you haven't experience before..."

“You are worrying about me and that's sweet but I think I'm gonna be fine... please don't hold back and just give it to me.” She said while making a serious face.

Vlad's hand roam towards her neck and stayed there and slowly gripping it. Her cunt throb as they kiss again and slowly stripping each other’s clothes off, his hands still in her neck slightly choking her.

As their bodies got liberated from their clothing, Vlad immediately attacks Karina's big breasts making her moan, her hands couldn't resist to push his head closer. His other hand goes to Karina's precious treasure and starts invading it.

"This fucking slutty tits of yours keeps leering people on." Vlad said while groping her breasts and assaulting them with his tongue...

"Fuck! Yes! It feels good, sir." Karina said.

Which made Vlad riled up even more. "Sir?" He stopped groping her breast.

"You don't like being called like that? I'll change it." She said while pleading to continue to pleasure her.

He doesn't like getting called Daddy/Oppa. The women he's been with keeps calling him that and he got bored by it, now he prefers to called by his name but this time around is different.

Sir? of all the things that someone can be called... Sir is the one getting him riled up.

"No, keep it that way... now get on your knees whore." Vlad said with a commanding aura. “I’m going to use your mouth as a fleshlight. Pull my cock out.”

Karina didn't expect the monster hiding beneath his pants. She could see the bulge of his massive cock. Now she knows why he said 'Something she haven't experience before.' because it's true. He is much bigger than the guys she's been with. So much bigger. She feels hotter and hotter than usual.

Vlad's dick stands proud at 10 inches and is almost girthy as a water bottle.

“You are so massive, fucking massive!” Karina said as she freed his cock and hit her in the face. She stare at his huge member mesmerized by it.

“My god! Why are you so big? Can you even use this?” She said as she grabbed his cock with with both hands. "And you're going to use my mouth with this thing?"

"What? Are you scared? I told you I'm rough and I mean it." He said seriously. "You are going to take every inch of my cock in your throat whether you like it or not."

Karina got nervous but her lust towards him is much heavier.

She showered his cock with kisses, admiring every inch, as if she's worshipping his massive member.

"Suck it." And she did, she gives him a slow and sensual blowjob, keeping her eyes on him.

"You came in her just to do that?"

“What do you mean, Sir?”

He grabbed her by the hair she opened her mouth and swallowed as much of him as she possibly could.

COUGH COUGH COUGH

Relaxing her throat as she let his girthy cock push through her throat. She struggled for a minute and he's watching her giving herself to him.

Vlad guides her and she bobbed her head up and down to see how deep she could take him over and over and over again. Her eyes were tearing up, saliva dripping down as she takes his girthy cock in her throat.

She taps his legs but Vlad ignored her protests and stayed in her throat. "I told you, I'm rough... you don't know what you get yourself into."

He is fucking her throat with reckless abandon and not caring if she can still breathe. Few seconds more and he let go and she breathe hastily. "Sh-shit! I almost passed out." She coughs. "Fuck!"

"Just accept your role as my slut from now on." He slaps her face with his massive heavy cock.

He forced his cock back into her throat. She gives in, letting this man use her mouth and throat as a fleshlight. Her eyes were rolled back into her head.

GLUCK GLUCK GLUCK GLUCK GLUCK

Her moaning and gagging sounds filled the study, the moonlight touches her silky white skin enhancing her beauty further while her throat is getting violated. Even though she already accepted her fate, she still needs to breathe and she tried to struggle for air but failed.

“MMMPPHKKKK!” She resists and got ignored.

“Just stay there, don't regret your decisions now.” Vlad said and spent another three seconds before letting Karina go.

She chokes and gags even though she's already freed from that monster of a cock. “Did I... do a good job, Sir?” She asked noticeably exhausted. She then received another batch of throatfucking and this time, it's much easier but it still hurts.

GLUCK GLUCK GLUCK GLUCK GLUCK

She's taking it like a good little slut, moaning and groaning every time Vlad thrusts too deep in her throat. Karina became accustomed to the massive rod destroying her tight throat and she slowly but surely loving the way he manhandle her without any care about her well-being.

"I'm cumming you little slut!" He said and starts speeding up in his assaults. After all of this, he gave her some leeway and pull his cock out of her mouth. "Want to drink it?"

“YES! T-thank you, feed me your c-cum! Please sir, I'm begging you!!!” She said before he shoved his cock back into her mouth again.

Vlad reached his climax and poured it all in Karina's throat, he releases an obscene amount of cum like he's been holding it for long while. She willingly swallow every bit of it. Few ropes of his cum left in her mouth, she put on a show by gurgling, swirling her tongue cover of his cum then swallowing it.

“Oh my god... fucking hell... that was heavenly!” She said as she crawled over to him and started to lick his shaft cleaning it. “I need to be treated like that again, Sir. Please! You are right, I never experienced that before..”

"Oh, That's only the beginning little slut." He said while grabbing her in the neck and pulling her up.

A/N: Another Series that I might abandon but... oh well. I planned on doing the Bodyguard EP. 6 but idk when to actually do it.

[nolita-fairytale]

Meeting Pastry Chef Luca from The Bear For the First Time Headcanon

a/n: inspired by @superhoeva, i thought i'd take a crack at writing a chef luca headcanon because we're all dying rn for will poulter as a sticker-sleeve tattooed chef. would anyone read this as a fic?? let me know.

edit: (7/3/23) i turned this into a fic called 'burn your life down.' feel free to read if you'd like!

you own a small restaurant in copenhagen. it's only been open for a year (this could potentially change if i write said fic). it's nothing fancy, but the food has soul. the food is an extension of yourself -- it tells the story of you.

inspired by noma, you grow some of your own produce outside of the restaurant in raised garden beds.

you begin to notice (as it's an open kitchen) and a smaller spot, that a tall, blonde brit has become one of your regulars. he comes in the same day each week at the same time. he always looks tired, like he's unwinding from a long day's worth of hard work, but he's always kind to your staff, and he has a quiet, powerful confidence to him.

week after week, he's there. he always orders one dish and one glass of wine, before paying the bill and leaving for the evening without a word.

your staff speculate about him: who is he, what must he do, that he's so handsome that he must have a partner. you don't pay much attention to the gossip, but it's hard not to notice that it's become part of his routine.

he always orders something different -- eager to try any new kind of special that you have on the menu that day.

it's not till one slower night of service that you finally meet him. you're short staffed that night and so you end up running plates out to tables -- finding it a great opportunity to connect more with your diners on a personal level. it's a very american hospitality concept, but since you have the time, you figure, why not?

he comes in at his usual time on sunday evening and you're curious to learn more about your weekly diner. you introduce yourself after walking his plate out and he's surprised that it's you who's serving him this evening.

"you're the chef?" he asks. "yes." "i can't think of the last time i saw a head chef work front of house..." he shakes his head in disbelief. "we're a little short staffed tonight." he seems impressed, raising his glass of wine to you. "cheers."

at the end of dinner service, one of your servers hands you a handwritten note that luca's left for you, inviting you to the restaurant he works at. the note reads: "thank you for all of the great meals. i'd like to return the favor, that is, if you're open to it," followed by a time, a date for tomorrow, and an address.

as soon as you realize which restaurant it is (much fancier, michelin starred, held in high regard) you only panic a little, but decide to go anyways. since both of your restaurants are closed on monday, you're even more nervous about the fact that you're meeting him at his tonight, while it's closed, considering you've barely had a conversation with him and how intimidating of a reputation the restaurant has.

he greets you at the door, right on time, and he leads you past the closed dining room, back to the kitchen where he's created a few dishes for you to try: two from his regular menu and one inspired by a dish of yours he's had.

"all of this... you did all of this for me... why?" you muster up the courage to ask. "your food is inspired and i don't think i've had something this inspired in a long time. and as chefs, this is what we do. we feed each other." and it's the beginning of, you're not quite sure what, but whatever it is, you're glad he walked into your restaurant however many weeks ago.

[deliciousangelfestival]

The Lady - 2

Character: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader, Eddie Horniman x Female Reader

Summary: After fifteen years away, a step-daughter returns for her Duke step-father's funeral, only to inherit a staggering 8 million pound debt and strike a risky deal with a criminal underworld figure.

Main Masterlist || support: Ko-fi

Chap 1, Chap 2, Chap 3 , Chap 4 , Chap 5 , Chap 6 , Chap 7.

Your ongoing support means the world to me! Reblogs are a fantastic way to help spread the word about my work. I'll do my best to reply to all your comments. Thank you for your continued encouragement!

Bucky leaned back in his chair, studying her reaction keenly. "I understand your concerns," he said, his tone surprisingly understanding. "But trust me, this is a business matter. We're not in the business of hurting innocent people."

"If someone died, I'd probably get deported," Bucky added casually, his tone belying the seriousness of his words.

"You're American too?" you blurted out, your voice tinged with disbelief. It was only now, under the stress of the moment, that you noticed Bucky's lack of a British accent.

"Yup. Just like you. So we have something in common," Bucky replied, his smile masking the underlying tension between you.

Leaning back in your chair, you feigned deep contemplation, buying yourself time to process the weight of Bucky's request. "After thinking thoroughly, it's not gonna happen," you finally declared, your words a thinly veiled refusal.

Bucky's easygoing demeanor vanished instantly, replaced by a steely resolve that sent shivers down your spine. Drawing closer, he rested both arms on Rupert's study table, his gaze piercing you unwaveringly.

"Your Grace, because of my friendship with Rupert, I'm giving you this last chance," Bucky declared, his voice low and commanding.

With a swift motion, he produced a business card from his suit pocket and slid it across the table towards you. "I'll be waiting for your call."

As he retreated, you couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding creeping over you. The stakes had never been higher, and you knew that the choices you made in the coming days would shape the course of your future in ways you couldn't yet comprehend.

The weight of the situation pressed down on you like a suffocating blanket as you surveyed the room, your eyes landing on the familiar photos adorning the walls.

Among them, a small picture frame caught your attention, capturing a moment frozen in time: you and Rupert, smiling at a polo game.

Your voice faltered as you addressed the silent figure in the photograph. "Why did you choose me?" you whispered, the weight of the unspoken words hanging heavy in the air. "Dad."

Feeling lost and overwhelmed, you pondered your next move. Should you confront your mother, who seemed to have kept secrets hidden all along?

Or seek answers from the twins, who had already distanced themselves from the burden?

After careful consideration, you decided to turn to your childhood friend, Eddie, for guidance. With a sense of determination, you grabbed the car keys and set off for Halstead estate, hoping that Eddie might offer some much-needed clarity in this sea of uncertainty.

As you stepped onto the familiar grounds of Halstead estate, memories of summers past flooded your mind. Despite the initial awkwardness of being left behind by your mother, the warmth of Eddie's family soon enveloped you in a sense of belonging.

The memories of summers spent here flooded back. Your mother left you behind, as the twins didn't want you to join the holiday. So, your mom left you here since Eddie's manor was closer to you.

Initially awkward, but it became enjoyable with Freddie always cracking jokes and Eddie, the adventurous one.

Reminiscing about fishing trips, horseback riding, and clay shooting, you couldn't help but smile at the fond memories made in this idyllic setting.

Suddenly, a familiar voice broke through your reverie, and you turned to see Freddie, Eddie's brother, approaching with open arms. Despite the passage of time, Freddie seemed unchanged, his jovial spirit shining through.

"Y/N! Come here. Give me a hug."

You embraced him. It had been 15 years, and he seemed different, almost radiant.

Freddie said, "I'm sorry about Rupert. I lost my dad last year too."

You replied, "I'm sorry too."

"So, it's obvious you're not here for me. You want to see Eddie?" Freddie asked.

"I am," you confirmed.

"He just finished a conversation with a guest. Let me take you there," Freddie offered, leading the way.

When you walked into the study room, you heard an elegant female voice saying, "I'll give the info later."

As she walked out, you noticed her stylish demeanor and sensed a mysterious aura around her. There was a hint of leadership in her presence, but what struck you as odd was the faint smell of weed lingering in the air.

She smiled at you before departing.

"I didn't expect you to come here so soon," Eddie remarked with a smile as you turned to face him. Seated in a leather chair, he exuded the air of a true duke.

"I didn't know where else I could go," you replied.

Freddie cleared his throat. "I'll leave you two alone."

Eddie offered you a seat and poured a drink, which you gratefully accepted.

"I heard you got the title. Congrats," Eddie said, raising his glass in a toast.

You chuckled softly. "The title is useless when all I've got is debt."

Eddie fell silent for a moment. "I went through a similar situation myself. What kind of problem are you having right now?"

"Do you know Bucky Barnes?" you asked.

Eddie clicked his tongue in response.

Crossing your arms, you continued, "So you know him. That means you knew about my stepdad's weed business."

Eddie leaned back in his chair, thoughtfully swirling the amber liquid in his glass. "Rupert got into the business earlier than me," he began, his tone reflecting a mix of resignation and regret. "The woman you saw before is Susie Glass."

"He had a business with her," Eddie continued, his voice tinged with disapproval.

You clenched your jaw, the realization sinking in.

"I didn't know much about the details, but your father was on the list that worked with the Glass," Eddie explained, his expression troubled.

"He wanted out," you interjected, your voice firm with determination.

Eddie nodded grimly. "And that's where Barnes came in. He's a syndicate, setting up a branch in the UK from New York. His business was unique and deadly."

The dimly lit study seemed to take on a more sinister atmosphere as Eddie spoke, shadows dancing across the walls like flickering flames. The air was tense, each word carrying the weight of unspoken truths and hidden dangers.

"Rupert owes Barnes 8 million pounds," you stated, the gravity of the situation sinking in.

Eddie hesitated for a moment before responding, his expression thoughtful. "That's..."

"I know, it's insane," you interjected, your voice tinged with frustration.

Eddie met your gaze, his eyes reflecting a mix of sympathy and determination. "I could pay off your debt," he offered quietly.

You recoiled slightly, taken aback by his proposal. "Then what? I'll still in debt. It never ends," you countered, a note of bitterness creeping into your voice.

You sighed, the weight of Rupert's decision heavy on your shoulders. "Why did Rupert choose me?"

Eddie nodded in understanding, his expression reflective. "I asked the same thing when my dad chose me instead of Freddie."

Your brow furrowed in confusion as you looked at him, prompting Eddie to chuckle softly. "Problem solver," he explained simply.

You nodded slowly, considering Eddie's words. "Both of us did join the military. Is it because we went through difficult situations?"

Eddie leaned forward, his gaze unwavering as he locked eyes with you. "Probably," he agreed, a reassuring smile playing on his lips. "But I'm sure you could handle it. If not, I'll be here to help you."

A warmth spread through you at his words, and you felt a slight blush creeping up your cheeks. "Thank you," you murmured gratefully, appreciating his caring demeanor.

You nodded firmly. "I've got all I need. I'll go now," you declared, trying to maintain composure as you turned to leave.

Eddie nodded in response. "Sure. I'll see you next time," he replied, his tone gentle and understanding.

As you walked away, you couldn't help but feel a swirl of emotions inside, like a whirlwind of conflicting thoughts and feelings. You tried to keep a cool facade, but deep down, your heart was racing.

Meanwhile, Eddie watched you go, a flicker of concern crossing his features. Then, a voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Did she notice?" someone asked quietly.

Eddie glanced over, meeting the gaze of the speaker. "Not yet," he responded softly, his expression thoughtful as he contemplated the situation.

You drove for what felt like an eternity until you finally arrived back at your own manor. As you stepped inside, you noticed Hugo playing in the living room with Susan. Ignoring your mother, your focus was solely on your little step-brother.

You were just ten years old when you first met Rupert, and he had quickly become the best father figure you'd ever known. During the eight years you spent here, you learned to appreciate Rupert's love for his legacy and the history of the manor.

Sighing heavily, you knew you were about to make a risky decision.

Heading to Rupert's study again, you picked up Bucky's business card and dialed the number. After just two rings, his voice filled your ears. "I've been waiting for your call, Your Grace," he said smoothly.

Rolling your eyes at his confidence, you replied, "Just one job and you clear the debt?"

Bucky chuckled, his tone dripping with assurance. "It would be a big explosion. They'll think it's a terrorist attack. But no, Your Grace. Five small explosions, and we're done."

Bucky's voice crackled through the line, his tone both humorous and tinged with an unmistakable edge. "Think of it as fireworks, Your Grace. Except instead of pretty colors, we'll be making a statement."

You couldn't help but let out a nervous laugh, the gravity of the situation juxtaposed with Bucky's nonchalant demeanor. "And what kind of statement would that be?" you asked, trying to match his casual tone.

"The kind that says, 'Don't mess with us,'" Bucky replied, his voice dripping with a dangerous charm. "We'll leave 'em scratching their heads and scrambling for cover."

Despite the seriousness of the conversation, you couldn't deny the thrill of adrenaline coursing through your veins. "And you're sure this will work?" you inquired, a hint of skepticism creeping into your voice.

Bucky's confidence was unwavering. "Trust me, Your Grace. When it comes to making a scene, I'm the best in the business."

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Hummingbird Has Landed, ch 2

Marcus Pike x female reader Co-written with @absurdthirst

After the debacle of his failed engagement and relocating to Washington to take charge of his task force, newly minted Special Agent Marcus Pike is ready to get back out into the dating pool once more. A slew of bad dates has him feeling a little down, and he takes an old friend up on an invitation to get away and get his head on straight. Imagine his surprise when he finds not only fresh air, but his soulmate as well - hiding in plain sight but in the unlikeliest of places.

Rating: Mature, but this blog is always 18+ Word Count: 12.6k Warnings: *Blanket warnings for this series: occasional mention of American politics, pregnant character, food/alcohol consumption, mentions of clothing/regulated dressing for occasions, mentions of therapy because we believe in self care here, reader is in a previous relationship, love triangle* Mentions of sick loved ones, mutual pining, personal guilt, relationship turmoil. Summary: After only knowing Marcus for a brief time, you can already feel emotions beginning to build. Will that spell trouble for the relationship you've worked so hard to build with Sam, or will something else altogether begun to sow seeds of doubt? Notes: Once again I'm afraid I have to ask forgiveness in the edit of this chapter. I went away for a few days this week and ever since my chronic illness has been utterly kicking my ass. Hopefully I didn't miss too many errors here.

Game night will probably go down in the year's history as one of the best and most fun times that Marcus has had in a long time. He had laughed until his stomach hurt, his abs aching the next week for at least three days. He's gotten an open invitation back, but he doesn't know if that was a good thing, if he's honest with himself. His attraction to you is something that he's got to get ahold of if he's going to socialize with you more. It seems like everything about you just makes the heavens sing and the sun shine. It's crazy and he hates that, considering you are very happy in a relationship.

Eastern Market is his usual haunt on the weekend, preferring it to a generic grocery store, and he’s lost in thought enough that he doesn’t notice a familiar face at the florist’s stand across the way as he’s walking through the stalls. "Some peaches will be good." Marcus decides, looking through some of the fruits that have been trucked in from warmer states. "Peach smoothies." He decides, walking towards the gorgeous plump peaches on display.

If you were any other person in the world, it would be you who bumped into him and not the Secret Service agent contractually obligated to come along on your errands. As it is, when Agent Bailey defends you from being bumped into by the familiar figure of Marcus Pike, you’re the one who apologizes. “Oh! I’m so sorry, excuse u—Marcus?”

“Oh, hi!” Marcus shakes his head, reaching out and taking your arm. “I am so sorry. I guess I wasn’t paying attention.” He apologizes. “Was focused on getting some peaches and didn’t notice anything or anyone, obviously.” He flushes slightly, feeling that pull towards you and hating that he looks like a jerk, or maybe just thoughtless, in front of you. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

"Not at all." The flowers in your hands and the canvas shopping bags on your arm aren't harmed either, and you find yourself smiling much more brightly than you were even a second ago. "No harm done to me or to Agent Bailey, not to worry. Is it errand day for you, too?"

“Trying to eat healthier.” Marcus admits, slightly upset by the prospect but he figures that just comes with getting older. “Figured the produce here would be better than in a grocery store. Are these for the inn?” He asks, looking at the flowers in your hands and immediately reaches for them. “Let me help.”

"I thought my apartment could use some brightening up." He's seen the organized chaos that you live in and you're not embarrassed by it by any means, but there is a small sting to buying your own flowers just a few days before Valentine's Day. Sam isn't a flowers guy and that's perfectly fine, but you're definitely a flowers girl. When Marcus scoops them up without a second thought and stays by your side, you can feel your cheeks heat up. "I, um—thank you.

“Of course.” He huffs, as if newly made acquaintances should always scoop up flowers from you. “You chose brilliantly. They are gorgeous. Have you already paid for them?”

"Yes, so don't even try." It's just a playful warning that comes with a waggle of your finger, but you really have a feeling that he would try to pay for them if you hadn't.

He grumbles at that slightly. “Well, okay.” It’s almost pathetic that he takes note of what kind of flowers you like and he smirks. “So which flower is your favorite in this?” He asks.

"These," you point out a geometrically fascinating flower with petals that seem to spiral endlessly. "They're called camellias. We called them Winter Roses when I was growing up, but I've always loved them." The intimacy of the question goes straight over your head, just excited to have something pretty to split amongst the small vases in your little space.

“Camellias.” Marcus repeats the flower, filing away the information even though he shouldn’t use it. “They are beautiful.”

"Not everyone has them, so I tend to get my flowers here just to make sure they're in the mix." Barely aware that you're standing in the middle of a bustling market with people trying to move all around you, you have to shake away the warmth settling in you that is definitely not due to any kind of attraction. Nope. Not even a little. Not at all. "You, um..." you gesture to the next stall, where he was originally headed when the collision happened. "Peaches?"

“Peaches? Oh right, peaches.” Marcus laughs at himself and shakes his head. “Yeah, sorry, I’m – I forgot.” He snorts. “I was thinking about fresh peach smoothies.”

"Ooooo, that sounds incredible." All of a sudden it's the best idea you've heard all day, and you grin mischievously. "It's not exactly standard, but the next time you're craving a sweet after having Indian take out? Make a peach smoothie. It's got that same vibe as a mango lassi but it's slightly sweeter, and it's the most refreshing thing ever."

“I was actually thinking about having Indian tonight.” Marcus admits with a grin. “To reward myself for eating healthier.”

"Best reward in the world." You agree easily. "I told myself I was going to cook tonight and make sure there were leftovers for another day this week, but I am teetering dangerously close to just calling for take-out as well."

"Well..." Marcus almost doesn't offer, because of the fact that you have a boyfriend, but he is truly meaning this as a friendly offer. "If we went to have Indian together, it wouldn't be as bad as ordering it as take out, would it?" He ventures, raising his brows in offer.

You should say no, You should absolutely say no. Not because the invitation is improper in any way — after all, he's a friend. But because of the way your heart bumps and skips at the offer like you hope he means it as more. He doesn't, and that is a good thing. In fact, Marcus and Sam got along fairly well at game night. But you can't help the way your cheeks burn pleasantly. "DuPont Circle?" You ask, confirming that he means he was intending to order from the same place you were. When he nods, you do too. "That sounds really nice."

"This way..." He's immensely happy you are agreeing to come to eat with him. "We can order the samosas and pakoras and not feel any guilt what so ever." He tells you, grinning at you.

"No guilt, but definitely extra time at the gym." His smile is dangerous, but apparently your self-preservation instincts aren't nearly as good as you think they are, because the only alarm bell going off in your head is the one that says Don't Let It Become a Date! which you just brush off. Surely that won't even be a possibility. It can't, because you and Sam have a good thing going. "Although, you're not masochistic enough to have my little brother as your biweekly gym buddy, so your trips are probably far less traumatic than mine," you offer with a laugh.

"Nope." Marcus chuckles. "I just torture myself by running around the Mall during my lunchbreaks instead of spending it in museums or at the food trucks." He snorts. "I just get to smell them just off the Mall."

"Have you lived in DC for three years without doing any of the food trucks out on the Mall?" That might be the most appalling thing you've ever heard in your life, and you nearly drop the peach that you had just picked up to add to your basket.

"Oh no." He laughs at that. "First six months I was here, I fucking lived off food trucks." He admits. "I was undercover and my contact checked in with me through the food trucks."

"Oh, thank God." The both of you laugh as you wipe imaginary sweat of your forehead as though it had made you nervous. "If you had never had Julia's Empanadas, I might have had to drag you down to the Mall right now."

"Then I wouldn't have room for Indian." Marcus groans, rolling his eyes at the thought of how many empanadas he would try to fit in his stomach if you went to Julia's Empanadas. "And I'm really craving Indian."

"I am too." Although, now you're going to be thinking about empanadas for ages. Maybe you'll have to try making some. "How has your week been?" Making small talk is easy with him, as you poke through the fruit bins to find peaches, apples, and pears to snack on this week.

"It's been alright." He shrugs slightly. "Depositions for a few upcoming cases. So I've had to revisit case files and work with the district attorney's office to make sure that there aren't any surprises."

"Paperwork and meetings," you nod in understanding. "I get that. Being my own boss is a hell of a lot more paperwork and meetings than I ever thought it would be."

"Ordering supplies, creating events to drum up interest. Balancing budgets." He nods. "I can imagine that it feels like it's hard to get a free moment for yourself."

The way you nod is tired but proud. Every ounce of hard work that you put into that inn is worthwhile, and you do it with straight shoulders and as much determination as you can possibly summon. "Today is my first day off in...two or three weeks? It's...a lot. But it's so worthwhile. And it means that Syd has her place, too. I wouldn't trade it for anything."

"So how did you come to have the inn?" Marcus has been curious about that. "Was it always your dream? Or something you fell into?'

"I really, really liked throwing parties when I was younger." That's the easy way to start, as you both move to the line to pay for your bundles of fruit at this particular stall. "That grew up into loving to have guests over all the time. And then dreaming about running a hotel. So I took my sociology and history double major and got a job a hotel in Philly after college, putting myself through a hospitality degree while I started learning the ropes. It was a lot of years of working my way up, but eventually I got hired as the manager for the Inn at Jones Point under the old owners. They were struggling to keep up with new technology and losing clients because of it, and then..." Your eyes flick up to Marcus, almost apologizing for telling him the whole story. "We found out the reason Anita was having so much trouble learning the new technology was early-onset dementia alongside a sizeable brain tumor. I bought the inn from them when they made the decision that a comfortable end to her life was the most important thing they could do. Michael – Anita's husband – he comes around once a week for dinner and to check up on the place now that she's gone. He likes to keep an eye on it for her."

“That’s….” Marcus softens so much at the background story. “Beautiful. You are maintaining their legacy while adapting it to the new realities of time. Weathering time.”

"That farmhouse has been standing since the 1700s. We're just part of its legacy, not the other way around." The pair of you step up to be next in line, with Agent Bailey standing mere feet away managing to look imposing and nonchalant all at once. "The best part is that it could give Sydney her restaurant, and Juan a way to find himself in all the event planning. We didn't know what a team we'd be until we got going and now it's...it's just amazing."

“That’s incredible, and the fact that the place runs so smoothly is a testament to your hard work.” Marcus praises. He’s read some of the reviews and they are all positive, even the ones that had events beyond your control.

“That’s very kind of you.” Kind is an operative word for Marcus. As are sweet, funny, intelli— Nope, stop it, you’re getting dreamy again. Even the momentary distraction of having to pay for fruit is a welcome one if it gets your mind off that track.

Ouch. Kind is such a word that lands him in the friend zone. Which is where he has to be with you, but it still hurts. No longer edgy or cool like he was when he was in his old band. “What else do you need to get?” He asks, swinging his head around at the options available.

“I’m almost done actually.” It didn’t escape you that he flinched slightly when you were trying to be grateful and at least a little complimentary, and suddenly your stomach flips in fear that he might not like spending time with you are much as it seems. Or that you’d done something wrong. “I just wanted to get some fresh bread. But…I don’t know how much more you have to do.”

“Nothing.” He promises, shooting you a grin. “The least I can do is carrying things. Since you are saving me from a night of trying to cook.”

“Never learned to cook or just never got good at it?” There is a difference, after all, and it isn’t about want. Some people find cooking to be an incredible challenge. He gives you a look when you take your parcel of fruit from the vendor and accepts it on your behalf with thanks. Like a damn gentleman, you think with a pant in your chest.

“Never really had the time or the inclination.” He admits. “It’s hard to be enthusiastic about cooking for one, you know what I mean?”

“But that’s when you get to experiment!” Maybe it’s years of being friends with Sydney, whose world revolves around her tastebuds, but cooking has always been an outlet for you. It’s one of the only things you dislike about your apartment —the teeny tiny kitchen. “You can test out new things and weird combinations, and if it’s not great then the only person who knows is you. But if it’s awesome?” You grin up at him like you’re unveiling some kind of ultimate secret. “You become a rockstar at the next office potluck.”

Marcus chuckles. “I’m a rockstar anyway.” He jokes. “I’m the one who brings in the pizza and Chinese for the late nights in the office.”

“Okay, actually, that does count for a lot.” Walking in the direction of the bakery where you get all of your sweet treats and fresh bread, you readjust your shopping bag on your arm and try to glance around the place to survey your surroundings the way Agent Bailey has been teaching you. A comprehensive knowledge of your surroundings, she calls it. “I can’t really cook for my staff much when they have Sydney’s kitchen nearby, but I leave baked goods in the break room from time to time as a thank you. They work so hard.”

“There’s nothing better than snagging a muffin or a cookie when you’re rushing around.” Marcus agrees wisely.

“Or a slice of pizza.” It sounds like he works hard to keep his team in good spirits the same way you do, and you have to commend that in someone who works in such a dour field. Even art crimes — being less violent in nature, according to what you looked up the other night out of sheer curiosity — can’t possible be all sunshine and roses.

“Exactly.” He nods. “Sometimes we have all night surveillance or going through the evidence when something is time sensitive. My teams work better when they are well fed, and know how much they are appreciated.” He shrugs slightly, “everyone could benefit from know that every now and again.”

"Sometimes the weddings we run are just...they're insane. Or last year we had an entire family reunion take over the grounds for four very long days. I can't imagine it's half as stressful as what you deal with but the days can be really long and busy in their own right." For what it's worth, at least, you do love your job. And it's obvious that Marcus feels just as passionately about what he does.

“Oof.” He winces. “I bet the staff wanted to break out a bottle of bubbly when they were checked out.” Marcus jokes, chuckling slightly. “Yeah a lot of people don’t understand that when you love your job, the long hours are worth it.”

"Yeah." A tinge of regret breaks your smile, barely twitching in the corner of your mouth, and you barely nod. He can't possibly know what kind of a nerve he's hit — hell, you barely know yourself and you're the one feeling it. It just...it stings.

“Did I say something wrong?” He asks, immediately concerned when your smile seems almost sad.

"No." You reassure him much too quickly, and flinch in your own right when he looks skeptical. "It's just...not everyone thinks what I do is as worthwhile as, say, something like what you do. A—and that makes sense. Running an inn and upholding the law are—they're not the same. I'm not saying they are. It's just...that important to me. That's all."

“Whoever believes that is wrong.” Marcus insists wholeheartedly. “Running an inn is absolutely crucial. Maybe not to everyone, but to the people who need a little escape, a retreat to relax and revive themselves, your inn is a haven to them.” He is speaking passionately because he believes it. “When I’m out of town on a case, I hope that I can book a little inn. Something more personable than a Holiday Inn, so when I come back, it’s like a little slice of home.”

“I appreciate that. Really. It’s—I guess it’s a sore spot at the moment and I didn’t realize it. That’s all.” And you are absolutely not going to allow yourself to indulge in the image of Marcus coming back to the inn for you. Your place is not his ‘ little slice of home’. Even if you’re wondering what the would feel like if it was real.

“Well, you can always gripe and complain if you need to.” He promises.

“No, that’s—that’s not it.” It’s a little embarrassing, if you’re honest, but that’s only because you’re fighting being attracted to the man beside you. Otherwise you would just be chatting to a friend. “I just…don’t get to spend as much time with Sam as he would like. That’s all. Because we both have busy jobs.”

Marcus winces. “With the job he has, it would be hard unless you didn’t work.” He murmurs quietly. “But what counts is that you make the time you do have together special.”

“That’s what I said. Making the most of our time it’s what is most important.” The topic had come up again in conversation when you and Sam had talked about next steps — through the odd avenue of discussing your commute. His house to the inn isn’t a prohibitive drive, but it will warrant either having a lot of work done on your car or getting an upgrade. Right now you have no commute whatsoever, so you’re barely using your car outside of town.

“My favorite thing to do with my ex-wife was to curl up and watch a movie.” He admits. “Or work on a crossword together.”

“Those…” You laugh quietly, almost self-consciously, and shrug with the air of someone who is just about to give up. “Are the things I do with my good friend Agent Bailey, here. Though she kicks my ass at the Times Sunday crossword every single week.”

He rolls his eyes at himself. “I know it’s an old person’s activity, but I was normally exhausted from the academy.”

“Don’t you dare besmirch the Times Crossword.” A waggles finger and disapproving tsk seems to amuse him and it makes you smile, too. “That’s a mandatory topic of conversation at my mother’s dinner table.”

“Your mother enjoys the Times Crossword?” He asks, grinning at you. “She would get along with my parents. They have two subscriptions just so they can each do their own.”

“I’m keeping that in mind for Dad’s birthday this year.” It’s a brilliant idea. They would love to make a competition of it. It would be the highlight of their week.

“My parents got it as a wedding present and they enjoyed it so much, they kept it.” He tells you, smiling fondly at the memory of the two of them arguing playfully over their crosswords.

“That’s incredibly sweet.” There is a crowd at the bakery, as to be expected, so you and Marcus step into line to wait your turn. “I love the idea of being able to share small things with your partner. They’re every bit as important as the grand gestures, if not more.”

“Sometimes the smaller gestures are the most meaningful.” He admits with a grin. “I love cherry Danishes, and so did my ex. We would find these combo boxes of assorted and she would get the cherry one.”

“Giving up your favorite Danish flavor is not small.” An attempt at lightening the already light and sweet conversation is maybe…just trying to keep your own mind off of things. But that somehow doesn’t keep you from admitting the truth before you can stop yourself. “I have yet to meet the man I would give up my lemon poppyseed muffin for.”

“That’s only because you’ve never traded for a raspberry crumble muffin.” Marcus vows, smirking at the way you look stingy, even though he knows for a fact you aren’t.

“You’re on, Pike.” The smirk on his lips spreads to yours as effortlessly as breathing. “But lemon poppyseed is pretty impossible to unseat.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever had a raspberry crumble then.” He huffs, looking offended at the idea. “But I don’t think this place has them. I get them from a little bakery near the Bureau. I’ll have to bring you one.”

“I’ll get you a lemon poppyseed from the coffeeshop I go to in Old Town.” Even as its coming out of your mouth you know it sounds like flirting, but the fact is that you just feel so naturally comfortable with him. There is nothing flirtatious about muffins, you tell yourself. Nothing at all. “We can compare notes.”

“That sounds like a plan to me.” Marcus is extremely happy that you would like to make plans with him, any plans. Even if it’s just a friendly wager. “I’ll get the raspberry crumble. I say we each get two. And if you like the other one so much, you have to give up both.”

“Deal.” You put your hand out to him, willing to make a friendly bet on almost anything. That’s gotten you and your brother in trouble before, but this is harmless.

Marcus grins as he takes your hand, imagining that lightning bolts are shooting up his hand. Winking, he laughs, “just don’t be disappointed when you break that little rule of yours for me.” He boasts.

“We’ll see.” The tone of the thing really tries for teasing, but you end up so taken aback by the electricity in shaking his hand that you fluster — which is only compounded when you end up next in line and completely forget the word for ‘sourdough’ in the process.

“I, uh, I want-“ you seem completely out of it, and the bored looking boy behind the counter seems to be getting annoyed with you. “Can we have just a second?” Marcus asks, pulling you back and allowing another couple to go ahead of the two of you. “I’ve completely forgotten what I wanted.” He takes the blame, not wanting to embarrass you.

“Bread?” You manage to supply, feeling like a world class idiot for clamming up on something so routine. If being around him is going to be this big of a problem, you need to get yourself in order.

“Yeah, bread.” He nods, wrinkling his nose slightly. “What’s that type that I like?”

At this point he could mean him or he could mean you, or he could even just be speaking in theoreticals, but you have you head in straight enough again to blow out a breath and remember yourself. “Sourdough. I forgot the damn word for sourdough.”

“Thats it.” He snaps his fingers and looks back at the boy. “Could we get some sourdough bread?”

“Sure.” The kid looks at the both of you like you’ve gone insane but turns around to bag a loaf of freshly baked bread without a second thought for his strange customers.

Marcus pays for the bread, even with you huffing beside him and guides you towards the clearing. “That wasn’t that bad.”

“Only because you saved me from sputtering like an idiot.” It’s beside the point that he is also the reason you were sputtering in the first place. That doesn’t matter. It’s the fact that you couldn’t keep it together that bothers you. “Thanks for that.”

“Not at all.” He waves off your thanks. “Everyone has those moments.” He promises, smiling at you.

There is such a moment of relief when you exhale again that you have to make light of it or else you’re in danger of feeling far more grateful than is probably necessary, and that makes your chest ache in a dull and insistent kind of way. “That’s either very sweet of you or a complete placation, but either way I appreciate it.”

“No placation, I promise.” He crosses his finger over his heart and smiles at you. “Anywhere else?”

“That was the last thing for me.” Even though you have plans to have dinner with him that night you still can’t help feeling a little disappointed that the impromptu shopping trip has come to an end. “Unless you needed something else?”

“Well…” Marcus looks around, not wanting to let you leave just yet. “Maybe I could find a plant to kill?” He asks. “Something to brighten up my place?”

"Bit of a black thumb?" The excuse to not say goodbye yet is welcome, and you end up smiling more broadly than you mean to. "Let's see what we can do about that."

“More that I forget to set up someone to water my plants when I go out of town and they die miserable, thirsty deaths while I’m away.” He flashes you a guilty grin. “I’m a murderer.”

“Very rude of you to do to your plants.” The wholesome, straight-faced nod that you cry for cracks on a giggle, though, and you nod in the direction of an entirely different florist stand than the one you were at before. “What you need is a succulent.”

“That sounds a little dirty.” Marcus admits, not even realizes how flirtatious that sounds.

It does. And you didn’t mean for it to. You were just talking about the type of plant he could get. But then there’s that grin on his face and it’s so fucking puckish and * handsome* that you practically groan about how unfair the whole damn thing is. “Whoops?” You offer, obviously not apologetic in the least.

He snorts and winks at you again. “I don’t mind. Sometimes being a little dirty is a good thing.” It’s borderline inappropriate, so Marcus doesn’t say anything else.

“Sometimes it’s the fun of an otherwise boring day.” But since you’re genuinely afraid you might say too much if you go ahead with this line of thought, and since Agent Bailey is steadily avoiding your eyes like an older sister trying not to bear witness to your trouble making, you clear your throat and change the subject. “I think I snake plant would work for you. They’re really easy to care for and great for beginners or busy people.”

Marcus takes your lead and nods seriously. “I’ll take some advice. Any advice.” He shrugs slightly. “I wish I had the time for pets, but I don’t and it’s wrong to do that to them.”

“If I could have a dog, I would have a little corgi or a Yorkie in a heartbeat.” It comes with an almost wistful sigh, but you feel the same way he does. It would be cruel to the animal you’re supposed to be taking care of. “But since I have no concept of work-life balance? I have plants.”

“I’ll start with plants.” Marcus huffs. “If I can keep one alive? Maybe I’ll move on to cats? They are low maintenance.”

“Cats are fantastic. Sydney and Anna Leigh always had a couple when we were growing up and they can’t be the sweetest animals in the world.” There is a florist that specializes in succulents and potted plants further into the market and you head that way, chatting as you go. “I just always said I would want my kids to grow up with a puppy.”

“Puppy, a swing set in the yard and dinner together.” Marcus adds wistfully, having his own version of that same dream. “Every kid needs a puppy pal.”

“That’s exactly what I said.” And the knot in your stomach tells you that that isn’t a coincidence — that the future you’ve dreamt about probably lines up with the one he wants in so many different ways.

“We had my dog for nearly twenty years.” Marcus tells you. “He was my best friend and the best soul I’ve ever met.”

“I got Alex instead of a dog,” you giggle, silliness tinging the edge of his sweet nostalgia. “My little brother.”

“Isn’t a younger brother the same thing?” He asks with a grin.

“Very much so. And Alex is as much Golden Retriever as he is human.” If he were here, he’d give you so much grief for that comparison, but you stand by it. “What kind of dog did you have?”

Marcus chuckles. “A golden retriever.” He tells you without skipping a beat. “I’ve got a picture of him, wanna see?”

“Absolutely!” They say you’re either a kid person or a dog person, but you’re definitely both. Anything cute and squishy is right up your alley.

Digging out his wallet, it might be a little old fashioned to carry a physical photo of the favorite family pet, but he likes looking at it sometimes. He’s holding his dog, Hansel, in the picture. The white around the dog’s snout indicative of the older age of the golden retriever. “Here he is. Hansel.”

“What an angel!” If you could jump right through the photo and squeeze his beautiful face you would — the only problem is that you don’t know if you mean young Marcus or the dog.

“Wasn’t he?” Marcus hums happily. “He slept in my room growing up. Hated me leaving for college, although I hated being apart from him too.”

"How could you possibly leave that face? Look at him!" Yeah, it's definitely the dog that you're talking about. At least right now.

“Yeah.” He smiles down at the photo, unable to resist brushing his thumb over the canine face with happy memories flooding through him. “He was the best.”

"So would you want another Golden Retriever?" Looking between him and the photo, you think you might be able to guess the answer yourself. "Or will no other Golden ever live up to him?"

“Probably not.” Marcus shrugs. “He was from a litter of puppies at the shelter. It was just a coincidence that he was a pure Golden.” He frowns slightly. “I would want to adopt. It’s the best way to give a loving home to an animal.”

"Adopting is the only way." On that, you can firmly agree. But you point to the florist stand up ahead and touch his arm gently in an unconscious moment of casual comfort. "First, let's get you a plant to adopt."

“Yes, I would prefer adopted over nursery grown.” Marcus jokes, trying to ignore how easy it is to be with you. You can just be a friend. It’s possible and it’s possible he’s lying to himself.

"Wild, orphaned plants wandering the lonely roads with all their belongings tied up in a little bandana on a stick," you tease, conjuring the image of a cartoon orphan as best you can. To the girl behind the counter, you turn your full attention and the best conspiratorial smile you can conjure. "We're looking for something he'll have trouble killing," you confide with a chuckle. "Something like a snake plant, maybe? Or if you have a better recommendation we're all ears."

“It’s best to start them out with a plant before having pets or kids, isn’t it?” She asks with a grin, eyeing Marcus in amusement. “But he seems like the trustworthy type to me.”

"A fine, upstanding citizen if ever I saw one." The smirk you offer her is playful, and you glance up at Marcus beside you. "Plus, I'll be keeping an eye on the situation. For the good of the adoptee, of course."

“Of course.” She nods seriously, even though there is a definitely shaking to her voice, like she’s holding back laughter. “Let me show you the best options for a recovering black thumb.”

It's several minutes of back and forth with the florist who parries your playful banter well, and you end up leaving her stand with not just a lovely potted snake plant for Marcus, but an identical one for your apartment as well. "I had to!" You coo, when Marcus laughs at the little plant that you're cradling like a newborn. "It's so precious! And they're twins! I couldn't just leave it abandoned."

“Well, we have to name them.” Marcus decides. “Twin names.” He grins at you, “what do you think?”

"Luke and Leia," you joke right away, because that will always be the first pair of twins you think of in any situation. "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum? Oh, do the creepy girls from The Shining have names?"

Considering The Shining was his first foray into horror when he was younger, it was also one of his favorites. "No, they were just called Grady Daughters one and two." He tells you. "But..." He whips out his phone. "They are Lisa and Louise Burns, in real life."

“So are the plants Grady and Burns, or Lisa and Louise?” Either way they’re exceedingly silly choices, and you’re going for it.

“Either one works for me.” Marcus laughs. “It depends on if the plants are male or female.” He jokes.

“I think we probably get to pick,” you joke right back, making a show of rolling your eyes at him even though you’re laughing.

“Hmmmmm.” He pretends to take a closer look at his plant. “I’m going to surprise you.” He decides. “My plant is female.”

“Oh, that’s no surprise to me.” The smirk you shoot back at him is probably the lightest and most carefree you r felt in ages, and just for the moment you’re not going to second guess it. You’re just going to revel in the moment. “All my plants are female.”

He snickers with you and then tilts his head. “Lisa or Louise for you?” He asks, before he answers. “I bet you want the name Louise. You’ll pretend it’s for Thelma and Louise.”

“I—how—” Staring at him in utter confusion does not help matters one bit, but you still don’t have any clue as to how he could possibly have guessed that about you after only having met you two whole times. “So?” You ask after a second, realizing you’re laughing with the absurdity.

You have the most beautiful laughs Marcus has ever heard, and he loves that he caused it. There’s a flash of guilt that comes with the thought and he decides to reel it back into the scope of reality. You are becoming a friend, nothing more. “Who wouldn’t?” He asks, still chuckling. “They were the greatest female duo in modern cinema. In my opinion.”

“They line up against Idgie and Ruth from Fried Green Tomatoes.” You’ll stand by that pairing until the day you die, but the way warmth is spreading through your chest and your fingers ache dully from wanting to reach out for him is a special, damning sort of agony. “And I will die on that hill.”

“I had completely forgotten about Idgie and Ruth.” He admits, hanging his head in shame. “Forgive me.”

“Just this once.” There is still a teasing grin on your face when your phone goes off in your pocket. Sam’s name splashed across your caller ID and guilt crawls through your veins immediately. “I’m sorry,” you apologize, glancing up at Marcus. “Just give me one second.”

Marcus catches a glimpse of the name and it’s like he’s doused with cold water. “Of course.” He murmurs politely, turning towards a little book stand to give you some privacy, beating himself up for flirting with another man’s significant other.

“Hey honey.” The second you pick up the phone with a plant in your other arm and your groceries weighing on your shoulder, that is the second you feel most self-conscious.

“Hey,” Sam’s voice comes over the line and he has a straightforward attitude, jumping into the reason for his call. “I’ve had a dinner invite tonight, some potential donors.” He tells you. “Can you make it?”

“I—” It’s not like it’s an unusual request. If he has a work event tonight then the best possible person he can have at his side is you. The idea of having dinner with Marcus had been so uplifting, and now cancelling on him makes you feel awful. But this is your boyfriend. “Yeah. Yeah, I can make it. Where and when? Is there a dress code?”

Sam rattles off the address and dress code. “Thanks honey, I knew I could count on you.” He tells you before he murmurs to someone else. “Hey, I’ve got to go, I love you.” The line clicks off immediately.

“I love you too.” It’s said to the silence, and you look down at your phone for a moment before pocketing it again. Marcus has stepped away to give you privacy, and you shift your weight from one foot to the other before walking back over to him. “I’m really sorry,” you murmur, actually looking as apologetic as you feel. “Can we postpone dinner tonight?”

“Oh….yeah, of course.” He hates the way the feels rejected, but you have priorities, ones that aren’t him. “That’s no problem at all.” He nods quickly and looks around. “Well, we should probably get your things to your car, right?”

“I—I’m really sorry.” Repeating it just makes you feel worse. But both of you feel worse, unbeknownst to you, and you walk in the direction of your car with Agent Bailey her usual two steps behind. “Something came up.”

“Not a problem at all.” Marcus promises you, plastering on a smile as you turn to him at your car. “I understand. Believe me, I’ve had plenty of things come up.”

"It was really nice to run into you today." There is no word of a lie or even exaggeration in that, and you take your flowers from Marcus's arms carefully, loading it into the backseat with your other bags and Louise the snake plant.

“Yeah, it was nice seeing you. Marcus holds up his plant. “Thanks for the help.” He hums. “Hopefully I won’t kill Thelma.”

"If you do, try to make it as spectacular as possible." Offering him a half smile, you realize that you just wish you could give him a big hug, but that would be totally out of line. So instead all you can think to do is shift your weight awkwardly again before opening your car door. "I'll see you around, Marcus."

“See ya.” He nods and turns around to walk to his car. He doesn’t turn around, knowing that it would look weird if he did.

Once you’re in the car with Agent Bailey and focused on getting back home to put everything away and make a cup of coffee before you have to start getting ready for the night, you sigh softly and sit back in your seat. You can feel the curiosity of the Secret Service agent beside you and you wonder if you look as guilty as you. “That was a nice surprise.”

“Yes.” Agent Bailey hums. “Special Agent Pike was quite a surprise.”

“He’s nice,” you defend, very aware that you’re defending yourself and not him.

“He’s very nice.” She agrees. “And exactly who he says he is.” Of course a background check had been done on the agent, which she was glad of now that he had popped back up on radar. Not quite sure what to make of the interaction at the market, it’s also not her place to judge it.

"Well, that's a comfort." The drive back to Alexandria won't take long, but you twist your hands around the steering wheel a few times before pulling out into traffic. "Unfortunately, tonight will be the opposite," you tell her with a dramatic sigh that cushions the blow of having to attend an impromptu event. "Sam asked me to come to a dinner party tonight. Last minute invitation, I guess somebody had a seat they needed filled and asked him."

“I see.” Now she has to find out where you are going to be, who is on the guest least and it means overtime tonight. She doesn’t sigh, but she wants to, much preferring to go to small Indian restaurant over some political function. “I’m sure it will be a lovely evening.”

"I know you have to vet everything." The process seems exhausting, but you would never question the agent's ability to get her job done. "It's a private party at Arthur Connesby's house. The aerospace tech guy? Apparently it's a party for his wife, but everybody invited are Sam's constituents. I have a feeling they're going to spend the night trying to pitch their own interests to him, but if nothing else they might donate to his next campaign if they feel like they got to be friendly with him." It sounds like it will be a fairly boring night of overly rich old men feeling self-important, but Sam asked you to be there and that's why you're going.

“Noted.” The agent is immediately firing off a text to her support team, letting them know about the change of plans tonight.

"I know it's not what we had in mind." The night has gone from staying home and watching a movie and maybe playing cards, to dinner out, to an entire party. It's a lot of jumps in not much time. "And I appreciate you being flexible. Truly."

“It’s my job to protect you no matter what.” She reminds you softly. She enjoys you, has gotten to know you and thinks you are lovely, but you are Hummingbird to her. The First Daughter of the President of the United States and her assignment. She would guard you regardless of what you were doing because it’s her job.

"Right." You nod slightly, eyes cast back out on the road, and try not to slump even a little as you drive. It's not necessary to be everyone's best friend. You know that on a practical level. Right now your energy is better served focusing on the night ahead. "Well, I can still be grateful. So thank you. For...being professional. An very good at your job."

She knows that you are disappointed, but one of the cardinal rules of the secret service is to not be emotionally attached to your assignment. It would be too difficult to make life or death decisions. “Protecting you has been my pleasure.” She promises.

"I appreciate that." For better or for worse, the Secret Service will be a part of your life for the rest of your life. So if you can't be friends, at least you can appreciate each other. For now, though, you ought to focus. A party with your boyfriend's constituents is no place to have your mind wander.

The dinner party is exactly what you imagined it would be. Self important people, boasting about how important they are as they fawn over ‘more’ important people. Or the people who could give them access to the power they wished to have. Sam was in his element, smiling and shaking hands. Listening to ideas with a feigned interest that comes naturally to politicians.

He's charismatic enough to keep their attention but has enough of his own heart left that he does seem to care about issues being brought to him. Unfortunately for these folks, they're talking about a whole lot of things that just one man can't change on their behalf. So all he can really do is listen and express interest in whatever plight it is they have.

You have found yourself in the rather unfortunate position of being inundated by the significant others of these men, and when the party turns to mingling after dinner they somehow manage to whisk you away to the garden where you aren't sure if they're planning on trying to get you to dance with various people, or maybe join their country clubs, You really can't tell which.

“You must tell me, how is living in the White House?” One asks you, under the impression that you are still living with your mother.

“I understand it’s very comfortable.” It’s almost a relief that these women seem not to know a thing about you beside who your mother is. Your greatest fear about the whole thing was being hounded through every day of your life — so far that hasn’t been the case. But it’s been barely more than a month. There’s time. “However, I chose not to reside there.”

“Oh, what a shame.” She hums, wondering why you wouldn’t want to call the most famous house in America home. “I hear that it’s haunted.”

“That is what they say.” And according to your little sister, it’s absolutely true. But an upscale party of relatively stuffy guests like this doesn’t seem like the place to spout tales of your sister taking her homework to the Lincoln bedroom. “And it’s certainly very beautiful.”

“I would love to take a tour sometime.” She tells you, hoping that you might offer to set it up for her. An intimate tour would be amazing.

“I’m sure that can be arranged.” You aren’t the sort of person who would exchange favors, so the thought that this could mean a donation for Sam’s campaign in the near future. Instead, you just know it would be something nice. “I can have something put together for you if you like?”

“That would be lovely!” She exclaimed, sending you a warm smile. “You know, you and the congressman make a beautiful couple. Possibly even presidential one day.” It’s a fishing expedition, feeling you out for your thoughts on a possible run.

"Possibly." And two weeks ago, you might have beamed at that implication. At the idea of Sam moving through his career with such gusto and motivation that he makes it all the way to the White House. But seeing what your father contends with as First Gentleman, the idea of being First Lady sounds overwhelming to you. It's even less likely that you would end up in politics yourself. "Sam takes his work very seriously, and he has high hopes for the future of our country."

“And what about you?” She asks. “You made waves, positive ones in my opinion, during your mother’s campaign about your stance on soulmates.”

"I don't have any political ambitions for myself." Of that, you can absolutely assure her. "While I'm more than happy to support the people around me, I'm very happy with my own career."

“At least until Congressman Chase makes an honest woman out of you.” She hums. “Then it’s so hard to balance your own career while supporting the ambitions of your husband.” There’s a rueful chuckle on her part. “Believe me, I know.”

"I won't be giving up my career." This is always a topic of conversation amongst significant others, you've found, and a topic that your father has contended with on multiple occasions. As your mother's career grew, he became a stay-at-home-dad and raised three kids. Because it was something he wanted to do, not because it was forced on him. And that has always been the key to you. "I own a business. So it's essentially my first child already."

“Oh?” Her brows wing up in surprise. “My apologies. I must have misunderstood.” Her eyes slide past you. “Excuse me, I must go catch Mrs. Jackson before she leaves.” She cuts off the conversation and hustles away.

It's a bit on and definitely abrupt, but the conversation wasn't very enjoyable to begin with so you smile politely and just let it roll off your back. Whatever she 'misunderstood' doesn't really concern you. Some gossip article must have speculated on the next steps of your relationship with Sam and you try not to let that kind of nonsense get to you.

“Having fun?” Sam comes up to you, his hand slipping around your waist and he presses a kiss to your cheek. “You look amazing, especially since it was so last minute.”

"You always like this dress." The first time you wore it was the nominating party after the Democratic National Convention, and then again to a fundraiser in Chicago. That was the night you met Sam, and he had remarked even then that the dress was particularly beautiful. It seemed like the logical choice for tonight based on that alone. "It's a nice party." The food was predictable but tasty, and the drinks are flowing, just like the way you expected the night to go. "Do we think there will be birthday cake?" You ask conspiratorially, looking up at him beside you with a smirk. "Is that something people still do for fancy fiftieth birthdays?"

“Cake is universal.” Sam snorts and nods. “I have it on good authority the cake is a chocolate raspberry mascarpone cream cake.” He tells you, knowing it will be an idea you carry back to Sydney.

"I know exactly what Saturday's dessert special is going to be." Somehow your best friend will turn a classic cake into something elegant and thoughtful, and you know the entire restaurant will go nuts for it. They always do, when Sydney gets to show off. "Are you having a good night? I know you had high hopes for networking tonight."

“It’s going well.” He hums happily and beams at you. “How about you? Working the other side for me?” He teases playfully, aware you don’t usually like campaigning.

"Nothing that will get me in trouble with my Mom's staff." Not that he would ever ask you to do anything like that. Sam doesn't go in for most of the entitled bullshit that other politicians do. "One request for a White House tour that I'll put through the appropriate channels. Nothing too odd."

“Interesting.” Sam looks thoughtful. “Who asked for that?”

"Shelly D'Amario." The wife of District Attorney-turned-Superior Court Judge Raymond D'Amario was one of the few people you had recognized from press coverage of events supporting your mother's campaign. Her husband's politics were lined up with most moderate Democrats, and he tended to hand down verdicts with thoughtful conclusions at the end of each case. He's one of those people you wouldn't have minded at all sitting at this dinner party with, but unfortunately the Judge was not able to attend.

“Oh.” Sam nods. “I was at another dinner with her and the judge just the other night.” He tells you. “Picking his brain about Constitutional law.”

“She was very nice.” Though instinct takes over, and you chew on your bottom lip for a second before going on. “Did you guys talk…about me at all? About us, I mean? At your dinner?”

“Well, naturally you came up.” Sam admits with a slight frown, wondering if Shelly had somehow insulted you. “Not everyone is dating the daughter of the current sitting President. But I didn’t share any private details about you.” He promises. “Or your family.”

“I know you wouldn’t do that.” If he was the sort of person who went around sharing personal details with anyone and everyone, you wouldn’t have been able to trust him. Especially not under the condition you met in. Campaigns are cutthroat. “She just…said something that kind of confused me, that’s all.”

“What confused you?” He asks, trying to recall the exact details of the dinner with the judge and his wife.

Without wanting to imply that he might have said anything, you still glance around you to make sure that Agent Bailey is the only one close enough by to overhear you. “She seemed to be under the impression that I would be quitting my job if we ever have a family. And when I said that wasn’t the case, she said she must have ‘misunderstood’ something and walked away immediately.”

Understand dawns in his eyes and Sam shifts slightly. “Well, that’s not something we’ve talked about just yet.” He reminds you. “That’s a conversation we need to have.”

"Right." You couldn't agree more. "Which is why I was confused that she seemed to have heard an opinion about it somewhere before. But it was probably just some gossip article."

He hesitates and then decides to come clean, you don’t like liars. “I might have voice my hopes for our future.” He admits. “It’s not so unexpected, is it?” He asks. “I’ll be spending a lot of time at different events and I will want you by my side.”

"Sam..." There's disappointment in your voice that you don't bother to hide. Of course he's absolutely entitled to talk about hopes, as he puts it, but you can't believe that he would ever think you would give up the inn. "I own the place, honey. It's not like taking a smaller role in an office or shifting to part time somewhere."

“Yes, you own it.” Sam stresses. “But you can have someone else manage it.”

"But I don't want to have someone else manage it." It's really like you can't believe your ears. Sam has never voiced anything like this before within the dynamic of your relationship and he knows very well how proud you are of your work at the inn and how much it means to you.

By the set of your jaw and the frown on your face, Sam knows that he can’t argue the point right now. He shakes his head, smiling at you and taking your hand. “You’re right. I—I wasn’t thinking about how much you love your inn.” He admits softly. “Let’s just forget about it, hm?”

"O—okay." There he is again. Your understanding, supportive Sam smiling at you and taking the stress out of the situation. The man you started dating almost a year ago. Dependable. "Okay."

“Good.” He pats your hand gently and leans in to kiss you softly. “But I do still want to talk about moving in together.”

"After our date on Tuesday?" The Valentine's night you had settled on together is dinner at a small, family-owned restaurant in his hometown followed by a fundraiser screening of short films made by local high schoolers looking to update their school's resources with the proceeds. Community-oriented is the theme of the night.

“That sounds appropriate.” He agrees with a nod. “For now, let’s just enjoy the rest of the evening.” He looks towards your secret service agent. “Will you be allowed to come to my place tonight?”

"I think that can be arranged." The invitation means you'll be sleeping over at his place twice this week, which is definitely more than you've been able to do lately and maybe that's a good thing. Maybe you just need to refocus yourself. And stop thinking about Marcus, for fuck's sake. You slip your arm around Sam's waist and lean into his side. "I just have to let Bailey know. Her relief agent will have to be told to go to your place instead of mine."

"Of course." Even though it irritates him, he nods. Understanding that you cannot help it right now. After your mother's term, perhaps you will decline protection.

"I know it isn't perfect." He's bristled about lack of privacy before, and though you can't say that you really blame him? There's nothing you can do about it. Secret Service protect for the President's immediate family is mandatory. And hell, you have a Secret Service agent in your apartment every night. At least when you stay with Sam, your agent usually stays in the living room or their car like a stakeout. It's typically left up to them. But still, you do understand the objection. "I'm sorry. It is what it is."

"I know." He sighs softly, hating that the evening has been sidetracked from what he imagined. "I understand. I just don't like them be so close when we are alone." He admits.

"I know." The last five minutes have become increasingly uncomfortable, but you still stick close to Sam and continue smiling, aware that eyes at the party might be on you just like they are anytime you go anywhere outside of your little haven at the inn. "But better that, than someone breaking into your house."

He doesn't point out that he has a security system and his townhouse is in a gate community. There's no point and it would just further cause an discussion that is best left for the relative privacy of his bedroom - with a secret service agent parked outside in his living room. He sighs. "Shall we get more wine?" He asks, trying to change the subject.

"Sure." There are people starting to dance to the music being piped through outdoor speakers, but you're not really in a dancing mood. There's too much swirling around in your mind to be light on your feet. "Wine sounds like a good plan."

Sam leads you over to the bar, ever the gentleman and stands beside you to look at the drink selections. "They have a nice pinot grigio." He murmurs softly.

"Is that what you want too?" The bar is open, of course, but the catering company has allowed the bartender to put out a small and discreet tip jar for the reasonably large party tonight, and you have a few more bills in your purse that you're happy to add to the jar.

"I think I'm going to stick with the pinot noir." He tells you, holding up his almost empty glass.

You order both glasses without hesitation and tip the very pleasant bartender, handing Sam his glass after it's put on the bar top. Just something nice to get the night back on track. At least as far as the two of you go.

"So I think that we should drink our wine and then dance." Sam suggests. It would be a good visual and romantic as a bonus. He's not calculating, but he does understand that optics are important in politics. It's a good opportunity to romance you and look good for the discreet photographers that are roaming around.

"And at some point, eat cake." Trying to lighten the mood a little is really your go-to for diffusing tension in any situation, and the air around the two of you feels a little thick, so you offer him a big smile instead of getting serious again.

"Eating cake is always a good way to spend a night." Sam agrees, smiling back at you.

"Morning." You haul yourself into the restaurant's kitchen the next morning when you arrive bright and early for your eight-a.m. start time looking vaguely less drowsy than usual. The other member of your Secret Service detail — Agent Sisson — has music taste more in line with yours and you'd listened to Duran Duran on your way back to town this morning. That and a cup of strong coffee means that you're feeling okay but definitely in need of breakfast.

“Wellllllll,” Sydney’s grin is bright as she eyes you. “I see the walk of shame has taken on a festive air.” She teases, laughing as she moves over to pour you a cup of coffee. “I take it last night went well?”

“I have enough time to go upstairs and change before work,” you grumble, though you’re smiling and accept the cup of coffee gratefully. “Usual boring party, but I bring you home a new cake flavor combination to try, and it was nice to see Sam.”

She snorts. “Nice to see Sam.” She mimics. “It’s like you ran into him in the store.” She huffs at you. “This is your boyfriend. The man you love.”

“And that’s why it’s nice to see him more than just one measly night a week.” Given that you have a few minutes, you hop up on a stool at the counter beside her work station and groan in appreciation at the slice of sweet Italian brioche and carefully cut piece of frittata she plates up for you without hesitation. “Oh my god, thank you. All I’ve had so far is coffee. We overslept and both had to run out to get to work on time.”

“Overslept…” she rolls her eyes and rubs her stomach. “I wish I could remember what that was like.” She grumbles. “This one is giving me heartburn all the time and keeping my sleep short.”

“They just really want to make sure you remember they’re there,” you tease, picking up a forkful of frittata and not even caring what’s inside. Everything Syd makes it incredible. “Twenty-seven whole more weeks of this, Mama. Get excited!”

“I am, I promise. But the kid can let me sleep in a little, right?” She huffs playfully. “So how was the dinner? You came back from the market in a hurry so I didn’t get to talk to you. Did you forget about this or was it last minute?”

“It was last minute. He got a spontaneous invitation to a potential supporter’s wife’s birthday party.” Oh my god, spinach and artichoke frittata, so fucking good. “She got the gift of bragging rights that a Congressman and the First Daughter came to her party, and a very nice bottle of champagne.”

“Sounds like a ton of fun.” Sydney likes hobnobbing even less than you do, preferring to be on the service side of fancy events. “So you ate mildly bland catered food and drank way too much wine?”

“Exactly. Which is why this tastes even more incredible than usual.” You point at your plate even while scooping up another bite. “So did you and Juanito ever decide what you’re doing tomorrow? I know you scheduled yourself for the dinner rush, but you’ve got to do something.”

“My husband is amazing.” She promises, beaming in delight. “He actually got us reservations at St. Regis for the Valentine’s Day Afternoon Tea.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet! It’s so utterly romantic I could barf.” The momentary flash of jealousy is nothing, and you’re genuinely happy that they’ll be able to get out and do something. They work so incredibly hard and never complain for a second. “It’s perfect, Syd. I want a full report.”

“I’m excited.” She admits, biting her lip and fiddling with her practical silicone wedding band that she wears in the kitchen. “I’ve also been promised a very relaxing massage and a few orgasms.”

“All things which you deserve very much.” You raise your coffee cup in salute to her and grin.

“At the very least.” She huffs, her own grin one of pure happiness. “I am growing Badillo’s baby.” She reminds you, as if it isn’t common knowledge at this point. She’s so proud of being with her soulmate and she cock her head at you curiously. “Have you given any more thought to that tattoo?” She pries gently.

“Yes and no…” It’s much more yes than no, if you’re honest with yourself, but the fact is that it’s probably not good to think about it as much as you have. It’s like a never-ending loop in your mind and you absolutely can’t shake it. “I just don’t know what good it would do to bring it up. Or who I would even bring it up to.”

“You know who you should bring it up to.” She huffs.

“Who?” You challenge, feeling like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place without doing so much as being awake this morning. “My boyfriend of almost a year who asked me to move in with him and wants to start planning our future? Or the guy I barely know who invited me to dinner yesterday when I ran into him at Eastern Market and looked so hurt when I had to ask him to reschedule that I still feel like I kicked the world’s cutest puppy?” Clearly it’s been on your mind, and Syd is really the one person you can talk to about any of it. But admitting that you’ve been thinking about Marcus feels like cheating and you have always despised cheaters deeply. Being cheated on will do that to a person.

“You ran into Marcus?” Her eyes widen with the new information and she immediately sets down her spoon and walks around the counter to hug you. “Oh honey, talk to me. What happened?” She asks softly. While she might be pushing you to at least ask if you might be soulmates, she doesn’t want you to be upset.

“It wasn’t a big deal…we ran into each other and we finished our shopping together.” It’s such a relief to have a space to talk about it, and yet you know you’re blowing it out of proportion in your head. It was just a coincidence that you ran into him. Not fate. “We were both talking about wanting Indian for dinner so he asked if I wanted to go to the restaurant with him. We were just going to hang out. Then Sam called.”

“And of course you said yes to Sam.” Sydney doesn’t exactly approve of the way Sam seems to think that you wait for his call and will drop everything to accommodate him, but she doesn’t say anything. “How did Marcus take the change of plans?”

“He said he understood and that it was fine.” Which is, technically, what happened. So when you shift your eyes away from hers, Sydney makes a noise and you cave. “He seemed disappointed,” you admit, throwing up your hands. “But I’m probably just projecting that.”

“Anyone would be disappointed to not spend time with you.” Sydney defends immediately, always the best cheerleader for you. “Maybe text him and reschedule?” She suggests. “Friends have dinner, it’s not cheating. You aren’t going out on a date.”

“I know it’s not cheating.” Syd knows better than anyone why you hate liars and cheaters. “I texted him on my way in this morning to reschedule, but I don’t…I don’t know if he’ll respond. He was probably just being polite asking in the first place.”

“I doubt that.” Sydney had seen the covert looks that each one of them had given the other when they weren’t looking during game night. Both of them were curious and she is interested to know about that hummingbird tattoo, it’s not common, despite what you might say.

“Then it’s because I’m best friends with his friend’s soulmate,” you reason instead.

“No, it’s because Juan said that Marcus was trying to be polite but that he was interested in you.” Sydney tells you.

You feel the blood drain from your face shamefully fast, and your eyes dart up to meet your best friend’s. “He said that?”

“Yes.” She isn’t going to lie to you, Juan had told her that. “But, he also said that Marcus respects relationships and he’s not the type of man to make a move on you if you’re in a relationship.” She knows how you feel about that kind of thing and she agrees with you.

“Well…I mean…that’s good? Isn’t it? That just means he’s respectful.” Still , you find yourself sitting on the idea that Marcus likes you and being halfway between mortified and grinning. It feels ultimately childish and yet like your chest is filling full of something very much like joy.

“According to Juan, Marcus Pike is the best man, the best person that he’s ever known.” Sydney acknowledges with a nod, deciding not to comment on your giddy expression. “Even though he was busy with training at the academy, he was always helping with housework or running errands to take care of things.” She shrugs. “His ex-wife was a med student. So I guess she’s a doctor now.”

“It’s just a coincidence.” This mantra of yours is going to get old quick, but you have a partner. A long term one, even. One that until a week or so ago, you had thought you had a future with. Now that resolve is waning and you don’t really know how you started to question yourself so easily.

Sensing that you’ve dug your heels in, she backs off, giving a small shrug. “I’m sure it is.” She hums. “So what are your Valentine’s Day plans with Sam?” She asks. “Did he plan something romantic?”

“We’re going to dinner and then a community fundraiser in his district.” It doesn’t sound romantic, you will admit that, but anything too luxurious you did can be perceived in a very wrong way by the general public if it gets out. A Congressman and the First Daughter going to a spa getaway or the symphony would be seen as being out of touch with the people. “He…wants to talk about the future.”

“And you don’t sound like it’s a conversation that you are eager to have.” She sits down, her own herbal tea in front of her and she frowns slightly.

“I’m…not sure, honestly.” Without hesitation and without filter, the explanation about your conversation with Judge D’Amario’s wife and what Sam said at dinner with them comes tumbling out of your mouth and you can’t help but cringe to yourself when you get it all out in the open air. “Am I overreacting? Please tell me I’m overreacting.”

Sydney winces and gives you a small shrug. “He has known from the beginning that you aren’t the type to want to be a typical politician’s spouse and give up your career.” She reminds you. “Remember that night out in Alexandria? Where we were bar hopping? I had a very frank conversation with him about that.”

“You did?” Your forehead scrunches as you take a sip of coffee. “Then why would he think I would be willing to have someone else manage the inn?”

“I don’t know if I can answer that.” She admits quietly. “But I think he gave them his true ideal. You quitting and being by his side for all his accomplishments.”

“It’s not that I’m not proud of him.” Some would argue that that is what it signals, but you and Sydney are not those types of people. “He’s doing such good work, and I do want to have kids and a house and all that domestic stuff. I just…I don’t want to give up working. And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life standing behind a podium waving politely. I’m—I want to be me, not an extension of my partner.”

“I know that.” She reaches out and takes your hand. “But does Sam? Really? I think that he can convince you that it’s what you want.” She huffs. “I know he’s a good guy, but is he the right guy?”

“Not everybody finds perfect,” you remind her quietly, knowing that that is exactly what she has with Juan. Their version of perfect is about support, respect, and unending silliness, and you’ve always craved the same. But there aren’t many men in the world like Juan. Not many at all.

“That doesn’t mean you need to settle.” She tells you, squeezing your hand gently. “If you are happy, I’m happy. All I want is for you to be happy.”

“To be honest?” Closing your eyes for a second to swallow a sigh, the best you can do is shake your head. “I didn’t think I was settling. But now I can’t help but wonder…”

“Then you owe it to yourself, and to Sam, to make sure before you commit any further.” She suggests, knowing that you would feel horrible about divorcing later on.

“How?” It’s an honest question, since the situation is tangled up in guesses and implied maybes. “Break up with Sam because Marcus might be my soulmate? What happens if I’m wrong and I regret the whole thing? Sam would never take me back and I would deserve it.”

“Ask Marcus to show you the tattoo.” She hums. “That’s not cheating. It would be no different than seeing him in swimming trunks.”

“If he ever responds to me.” Which you sort of doubt. You sort of did just drop plans with him the second your boyfriend called. But you are the kind of person who makes your relationship a priority. You always have been.

“And if he doesn’t….” She shrugs. “You just deal with that.” She frowns. “But I would be upset if you had done the same to me.”

“I’m not saying he doesn’t have a right to be upset with me.” Marcus has a right to feel however he feels. He’s human, after all. “This whole thing is just so out of left field. Especially after spending all of last year talking about freedom of affection and being happy with a partner who isn’t your soulmate.”

“Except you had never potentially met your soulmate.” She pauses and shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter, if you don’t want to pursue it, don’t. Juan won’t say anything and I’ll just encourage him to hang out with Marcus on a guys night.”

“I don’t know,” you admit honestly, poking at the remains of your breakfast with a frown. “First let’s see if he speaks to me again. I gotta go change my clothes for work.” A heavy blanket of tension works on you that wasn’t there when you came home, and you drag yourself off the stool with a swallowed sigh. “Thanks for breakfast, honey.”

“I’m sorry.” She murmurs, wishing for a moment that Juan hadn’t run into Marcus. Hadn’t mentioned a tattoo that was throwing you into a spin. “I’m here whenever you need.”

“Thank you.” Coming around the counter, you wrap your arms around her tightly and inhale, trying to remember your yoga and let the stress roll off your shoulders and not carry it into the work day. “And I’m always here for you. No matter what.”

“I know.” She grins into your shoulder. “You’re my best friend, bitch.” She teases. “I will go to war for you, bury bodies and not even think twice.”

"No hesitation." You link your pinkies together, the same way you have since you were little kids. "I really have to go change now. But thanks for listening to me ramble and fret."

“Anytime.” She scoffs, waving away your thanks. “You’ve listened to me plenty.” Lately it’s been about being a good mother and not completely wrecking Baby Badillo, but she understands the need to just vent. You’re there for one another, both of you, through thick and thin.

______

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[silantryoo]

BONUS [ LIKEALOOK ] — the last great american dynasty, pt 1.

jang wonyoung, throughout the years.

WARNINGS ; misogyny, toxic household, infidelity, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, absent parents, mentions of affair families, hints of eating disorders, overworking, health issues, fatphobia, implied depression, implied teenage pregnancy (5.5k)

jang wonyoung was born on august 31, 2004.

the newborn was nine pounds and twenty-one inches. with a head of dark, thick hair, the baby's cries rang throughout the hospital room as a tired jang jiyoung could feel the tears welting in her eyes. her baby was alive, and healthy by the sound of it. it was music to her ears.

her baby. her beautiful baby.

she could already imagine it. her beautiful baby boy, inheriting the jang name, passing it on. he'd run for office, just like his father, upholding its integrity, its strength. jiyoung would introduce him to one of her costar's friends, and they'd get married. he'd take care of her, as jiyoung would help his pregnant wife get settled into the family.

she loved her baby boy. her perfect little wonyoung.

"what would you like to name her?"

jiyoung's heart dropped.

her?

"i'm sorry?"

she must've heard wrong. it was just the post-labor haze that had been talking. not only would wonseok reprimand her for not producing an heir to the jang name, but she wouldn't have anyone to take care of her once she grew old.

at least, not someone capable.

the baby's cries continued, almost as if the baby was begging for a glimpse of its mom. with tiny little hands outstretched in the direction of jiyoung, tears poured down its chubby cheeks.

her baby. her baby girl.

"wonyoung." she said half-heartedly. "i'll name her jang wonyoung."

jang wonyoung was imperfect from the start.

her cheeks were too chubby.

any normal four-year-old would have been praised. chubby cheeks were a sign of health, a sign that your baby was eating well.

wonyoung knew it from the way her mom would stare at her, sometimes even pinching her cheeks harshly, almost as if she was trying to pull off the fat on them.

she tried to ignore it, always opting to color peacefully and blink the tears away.

she always drew four people.

her mom, hair flowing to her shoulders, her eyes the same doe-eyed ones as wonyoung. wonyoung always drew her with an angry expression. it was only on tv that wonyoung saw her smile. the youngest jang always stayed up to see her mom smile.

one day, she wanted to see it in person.

her dad was there too, who she rarely saw, but always held a frown whenever he came home. she noticed that he always smelt different, sometimes like the dark, but other times, like flowers. her dad was always serious, even when he was with her mom.

there was also her nanny, a middle-aged woman named hannah, drawn with a smile that made wonyoung feel warm and safe. from what she told wonyoung, she had been working for jiyoung back when she was lee.

wonyoung wondered if her mom smiled back then.

lastly, in the middle, the four-year-old stood. she'd draw herself out in blue crayon, holding her parents' hands with a happy smile. she wished they had a photo like that, instead of the rigid ones that they kept above the fireplace.

hopefully, she'd get a younger sibling soon, so she could love more people.

"enough drawing, wonyoung." her mom snatched her masterpiece away, eyebrows furrowed like the pictures. "your dad is coming home soon."

"he is?" she hoped that he smelt like flowers again.

"he is." jiyoung's face hardened. "you have to go to your room now."

"but i want to see him." she hadn't seen her dad in two months. her mom always said he was at the office, helping the next candidate for the upcoming election (whatever that meant). wonyoung didn't care though. all she wanted was to see her dad again.

jiyoung let out a long sigh, and wonyoung could feel the guilt starting to build up in her chest.

did she make her mom mad again?

"he's in a bad mood, wonyoung." her lips were in a tight line, and wonyoung could see her jaw clenching.

she just wanted her mom to smile at her for once. she wanted to stop making her angry, and her dad happy.

the young girl's eyes brightened, her cheeks turning a light red.

"i can cheer him up!" her dad always laughed at her jokes. if she could get him to smile, wonyoung was sure she could make him feel better. "my friend, sarang, taught me a magic trick. if i can just show dadd-"

"i said," her mom's voice was strict and firm, not the smooth melody she heard on tv. "go to your room, wonyoung."

"but-" wonyoung could cheer him up! she knew she could.

jiyoung sighed. of course, wonyoung would disobey her. she shouldn't have expected anything else from the younger girl.

"do you want him to be mad at you?" the older woman scolded her, jiyoung's finger pointing at the four-year-old in front of her. "do you want him to know that you're a stupid little girl who doesn't listen to her mom?"

stupid.

wonyoung hadn't heard that word before, not until now. her mom had always called her other things; annoying, loud, irritating, but she had never heard stupid before.

she didn't know why it made her feel bad.

"what?" wonyoung could feel herself shrinking into her seat, gripping onto the blue crayon in her hand. "what's stupid?"

"you." jiyoung's eyes were numb, void of all emotions. wonyoung hated it when her mom looked at her like that. "you're being an annoying, stupid little girl right now."

stupid? was she stupid?

wonyoung could feel herself crying.

she didn't want to be stupid. she just wanted to make her dad happy. she just wanted to spend time with him, even when he smelt weird, like the cabinet her mom would open frequently.

"i just wanna see daddy..." wonyoung hiccuped. her lip quivered as her mom glared at her, huffing.

her mom was mad. it was wonyoung's fault, again.

maybe wonyoung was a stupid little girl.

she didn't want to be stupid.

"he doesn't wanna see you." jiyoung whispered, her voice piercing the young jang.

wonyoung hung her head low.

she knew it deep down. she knew that her dad's laughs were to shoo her away. wonyoung could see it by the way he looked at her, and no matter how hard she tried, no matter how funny her jokes were, wonseok wouldn't look her way. even when she showed him her drawings, all he would do was nod.

wonyoung was a stupid girl.

"go to your room, wonyoung."

wonyoung nodded, her bottom lip quivering as she packed up her crayons. she cradled the box against her body, rushing upstairs as jiyoung poured herself a glass of wine.

the four-year-old swung the door open, jumping into her already-made bed. the box of crayons squished against the pale blue covers, various pinks, and reds staining them. it was warm in her room, blindingly bright for a night at 9pm. if wonyoung wasn't crying so much, she'd ask hannah to turn down the lamp and turn on her rabbit night light.

she loved rabbits. they looked like her mom.

"wonyoung." hannah laughed at the little girl, sitting beside her faced-down head. "your crayons."

wonyoung stayed quiet, letting her bed soak up the tears pouring down her face. she tried her best to be quiet, to not disturb anyone, just like her mom taught her.

hannah could still hear her sniffling, though.

the older woman rubbed the back of wonyoung's shirt, feeling the young heiress gasping for air. "what's wrong?"

wonyoung lifted her head up, squinting as she tried to adjust to the room's brightness. she could see the han river from where she was, the water glistening into the jang household.

the four-year-old looked at her caretaker, the kind woman smiling at her.

"mama told me to go up here." her voice was as tiny as she was. "she said daddy was coming, and that he was upset."

wonyoung was upset too, but she was okay with being upset if it meant wonseok would look her way.

"why are you crying then?"

she was crying because she was stupid. she was crying because she never got to spend time with her dad, and her mom only looked her way when wonyoung listened to her.

she was crying because she was jang wonyoung, and her parents didn't want jang wonyoung.

"mama said i can't see him." she hummed as the nanny stroked her hair, comfort washing throughout her body. "he'd get mad at a stupid girl like me."

hannah frowned.

she was worried that jiyoung would turn out like this, bitter and cruel to the younger girl. jiyoung had always resembled her mother, even back when the eldest lee was a baby. hannah had always hoped that she wouldn't hold the same parenting style as her.

"wonyoung." hannah bit back the quiver of her voice. no girl, especially someone as sweet as the young heiress, should ever think of themselves in such a way. "don't call yourself stupid. you're a very smart girl."

wonyoung shook her head. every word her parents had said was a sense of truth to the young child. every glare, every sigh made her feel sad. it made her hurt.

it made her feel worthless.

(but the four year-old didn't know that word yet, and it wouldn't be a couple years until she did. but it didn't matter, because she knew it felt the same when she was four as it did when she was twenty.)

"mama said i was." her voice was as little as she was.

jiyoung was her mother in every sense, just like she always wanted to be. hannah hoped wonyoung wouldn't meet the same fate.

"she's just stressed out right now." she felt guilty lying to the young girl, even though it was partial. "don't listen to her."

wonyoung wanted to believe hannah, so she nodded, sitting up and allowing herself to accept the excuse.

hannah smiled, her grin sending a warmth through wonyoung's body that made her feel loved. she wished that her mom would smile at her that way, but she didn't mind that it was hannah.

the woman looked at wonyoung's bed sheets, stained with the young girl's tears and her crayons.

"do you wanna help me clean this up?" hannah asked, watching as the four year-old's eyes lit up.

wonyoung always wanted to help her.

it made her miss her daughter.

"can i show you a magic trick first?" the young jang smiled, her chubby cheeks protruding from her face.

"a magic trick?" hannah asked gleefully. she pinched wonyoung's cheek lightly, trying her best to control her giddiness. she didn't understand how anyone could hate her this child. "our baby knows a magic trick?"

"can i?" wonyoung grabbed a crayon from the box, waiting for hannah's answer.

"of course, wonyoung."

wonyoung felt perfect.

wonyoung was stupid.

she didn't understand how she could get a 78% in english. perhaps she had been too enamored by their english teacher, the young woman from overseas who had cat-like eyes and a soft, comforting voice that felt like a blanket.

still, she should be doing better. she had gone to an english speaking preschool. most of her friends spoke english as well. she even had cousins across the planet that lived in english speaking countries.

the young heiress felt herself tense as she heard her father sigh beside her. her teacher, pretty and proper, sat in front of them, alongside the principal. only a dark mahogany desk separated the two parties, but wonyoung wished it was more.

"a tutor?" jang wonseok voice was sharp, yet deep and demanding. "why would she need a tutor?"

she needed a tutor because she was stupid. wonyoung was a stupid girl.

she held her tongue back, the knot in her throat increasing as she felt her father radiate anger.

"wonyoung is struggling in english." the eight year-old could hear the worry in her teacher's voice, but she didn't know if it was directed at her or at her father. "it's normal for kids her age too, but she has a hard time with the structure."

the young heiress wanted to go home. she wanted to sit in her dark room, in her closet behind the mahogany doors, the one that had twelve knots, an imperfection that was smooth to the touch.

it was the only imperfection she could bear because jang's can't come with imperfections.

wonyoung wished she wasn't a jang, or at the very least, she wasn't wonyoung.

"if it's normal then why does my daughter need it?" the young jang didn't need to turn to know that her father was scowling at the pretty girl in front of them. she could already hear it in his voice.

"well, since you did sign her up for the advanced placement in our school, it'll be hard for her to keep up with the class." her teacher was calm. wonyoung liked calm. "a tutor would help her and-"

"my daughter doesn't need a tutor."

she did. wonyoung knew she did.

but her father rarely acknowledged her, much less as his daughter. part of her had wondered if he did it purposefully, but it didn't matter. not right now, at least.

"right, wonyoung?"

wonyoung couldn't continue to be a disappointment.

"no."

"get up." her father smirked. he stood up, dusting his tailored dress pants. "we're leaving."

"yes, dad."

obedience was perfection, just like status was worth.

wonyoung just wished that it didn't have to break a part of her every time she did it.

jang wonseok stormed out, and wonyoung could feel the embarrassment fluttering across her chest. her eyes met her principal's, his face scowled in disdain.

jang's had pride, but wonyoung knew better than to leave as such.

the eight-year-old bowed. she bowed as an apology for her and her father and as a sign of respect for the two school staff who took time out of their way out of concern for her.

"jang wonyoung!"

her eyes widened, and wonyoung found herself bolting out of the room, her school bag clutched against her chest.

jang wonseok was scary.

the two made their way into wonseok's mercedes, wonyoung hopping inside, as her father started the car.

the two drove in silence, wonyoung knowing better than to speak once spoken to. she didn't want to anger her father any further, otherwise it would fall onto her mother, which would fall onto her.

she didn't have time for that. she needed to study.

her stomach grumbled lowly, the sudden sound making her head jolt up.

oh, she needed to eat too. she had forgotten about that along the way, too anxious about the parent-teacher meeting that happened to eat lunch earlier that day.

she needed to eat and then study. if she studied as soon as she got home, she would have time to draw or watch cartoons without sacrificing her grades.

was she even allowed to watch cartoons now? her mother had always called them nonsense but wonyoung liked to turn off her brain once in a while. maybe that's why she was stupid. maybe that's why she was like this.

or maybe she was just like this because she was wonyoung.

"your teacher pisses me off." wonseok turned the corner. "is she always like that?"

did she always care about wonyoung? yes, more than her father did.

but she wasn't going to tell him that.

"no."

"hm." wonseok hummed, the car coming to a halt as the traffic light turned red. he glanced at his daughter, gaze cold and stern. "you shouldn't be struggling, wonyoung. that's not how i raised you."

the young heiress wasn't raised by her father or her mother. at eight, she already knew that, and it angered her to think that they kept trying to take credit for her actions, whether it be good or bad.

hannah raised her. not jang wonseok.

but she still held his last name, like how his blood flowed through her veins, and how his title affected her daily life.

"you're a jang." the car started to move again. "jang's don't need help. you think my father helped me? you think he made me how i am?"

part of her wondered if her grandfather had treated her father like this, or if her father was just mean to be mean.

"do you understand what i'm saying?"

wonyoung nodded, obedient as ever. "yes."

"when you get home, i expect you to be studying." wonyoung frowned. her father would most likely be in his study, one that had a clear view of the kitchen. "hannah will keep an eye on you."

"hannah's sick." she was in no shape to take care of the young jang. in fact, wonyoung had been taking care of her. "she should stay in her room. i can just ask my friends-"

"how much do you know, wonyoung?" wonseok asked, practically waving her shortcomings in front of her face. the young girl stayed silent. "exactly. and your friends know as much as you do. hannah will be making sure you stay on track."

wonyoung knew better than to argue, so she listened like she always did.

"yes, dad."

wonyoung wished she could stop listening, just this once.

there were twelve knots on the inside of her mahogany-boarded closet. four were broken in half, caught in between doors while the rest scattered.

there were fifty slits on said doors, one hundred in total. she liked the way the light peaked in, and how warm she felt when it hit her face.

there were three pillows that scattered the ground in said closet. one was bunny-shaped, pastel blue with beady eyes that wonyoung had gotten for her ninth birthday. the other two were throw pillows, white in color, ones that her mother had given her this year, on her tenth.

the hard, cold ground was covered with a blanket, navy blue and fluffy, one that hadn't been washed in over two months. wonyoung's initials were stitched onto the side, but it was only a reminder that she and this closet, her escape, were owned by her father.

it was her father who owned this house, who owned her existence, just like he owned a second child.

her father was a cheater. wonyoung had heard it in between slits of the one hundred panels that made up the majority of her closet's entrance.

"cheater!" she heard.

"liar!" she heard.

crying, she heard.

she wished she could stop hearing it in her head, how her mother's sharp cries echoed in her skull, and how jiyoung blamed everything on the ten-year-old jang wonyoung.

it's my fault.

it always was.

a shadow passed through the holes of her closet, blocking the sunlight as it reached her eyes. wonyoung wondered how long she had been inside, the fighting reaching its climax at around four that morning.

she only wanted to study.

the shadow stayed still as if it was contemplating leaving. the young jang hoped that it was her mother, coming to apologize for the careless words that she had yelled an hour ago.

but jang jiyoung never apologized, just like she never cried.

the shadow spoke.

"wonyoung..."

the young jang stood up, opening the opposite door in a hurry.

the ten-year-old grabbed her arm, bracing it gently as the older woman smiled. she could see hannah holding a cup of water, waves rippling with each shake of her hand.

"you should be resting." she furrowed her eyebrows.

hannah merely stared, not budging as the young heiress felt herself getting more desperate.

wonyoung begged. "hannah, please."

"i'm not leaving until we talk." the older woman shook her head, standing her ground.

hannah was like her, stubborn in every sense. she cared too much to let wonyoung wallow in her sorrows. the young jang knew she would be lost without her guidance.

"can you at least sit?" wonyoung tried to reason, ushering hannah to her bed.

she nodded, allowing wonyoung to lead her. she sat down, handing wonyoung the glass, who took it carefully as if hannah was the one that was fragile.

the two sat in silence, and all hannah could remember was wonyoung at four years old, crying about her mother.

it was no different this time.

"it's not your fault." the older woman started. "your mom is just angry."

jiyoung was an angry person, like wonseok.

but wonseok wanted calm, and jiyoung hadn't been the person to provide that.

"do you think she would be happier if i was never born?" wonyoung asked, her thoughts echoing the shouting of her mother.

hannah couldn't fathom anyone saying such words about their child.

"if i could, i would." the ten-year-old wonyoung meant it truthfully. "i don't like seeing mom upset. i keep trying to fix it but i'm just too..."

wonyoung knew the word. she had felt it at four years old. she had felt it at eight. wonyoung was sure she wasn't going to stop feeling it until she died.

she knew the word because it's what she was.

"worthless."

the word that summed her up in all parts hung in the air as hannah stared at her in shock.

"wonyoung-"

"i am though!" wonyoung never raised her voice, but wonyoung wasn't perfect. she never was and never would be. "if i wasn't like this, mom would love me. dad would pay attention to me. he wouldn't have cheated if i was better."

wonyoung wondered how someone could be so imperfect. she wondered if she was doomed to be alone, to be unwanted, and to ruin every good thing on this planet.

"it's my fault."

"it's not, wonyoung." wonyoung wanted to believe hannah, but she couldn't this time. "your mom and your dad have a very complicated relationship."

wonyoung shook her head. she was the reason it was complicated.

"i wish dad would stop yelling at mom." wonyoung placed the still full glass on her counter. "i wish mom would stop yelling at me."

wonyoung didn't remember a time when her mother didn't yell at her. whether it was a bad grade or to wash the dishes, it was always a yell.

"i'm at the top of my class. i'm friends with all the people dad told me to be friends with. i even skipped a grade. everyone keeps telling them that they want a daughter like me, but mom and dad don't even want me." wonyoung just wanted someone to want her. "i don't know what to do anymore."

if she could, wonyoung would disappear.

"you're ten, wonyoung." this wasn't right, not for anyone and especially not for a ten-year-old. "you don't have to do anything."

wonyoung really wanted to believe her.

"i just want them to love me."

the young heiress had wished the unconditional love that everyone had talked about applied to her when it came to her parents. she had heard that it was supposed to happen as soon as she was born.

perhaps she missed out this time, in this life, because in this life, she was worthless.

but not to hannah. never to hannah.

"i love you."

wonyoung had never felt love from her mother, but she had always felt love from hannah.

"you do?"

"i do." hannah smiled sadly. it hurt to know that wonyoung had felt this way (and how there was a chance that her baby felt the same, wherever she was). "i know how complicated families can be..."

wonyoung had never heard hannah speak about her family, but she knew that the older woman would be a good, if not amazing one.

part of her was jealous that someone out there had a mom like hannah, when she had a mom like jiyoung.

"do you have family, hannah?"

the woman, hands shakey, grasped them together tightly. her lips were pursed, and a mournful expression seemed to overtake the comforting one from before.

"i have a daughter back home." her baby was nine pounds and twenty-one inches with a head full of hair. when hannah closed her eyes, she could hear her baby crying for her mother. "i had her really young."

her baby. her beautiful baby girl.

"do you miss her?" wonyoung asked.

"i miss her a lot." missing her was an understatement. "i haven't heard from her in years."

"why?"

she could think of a million reasons why, all of which she held to herself, in grief and in sorrow.

hannah was a bad mother for abandoning her child, and a bad daughter for being so reckless.

"i grew up really poor." hannah couldn't even begin to compare the jang's house to the one she had back home. "i couldn't find a job, so i moved overseas. i left my baby with my mom."

but her child lived, and her child was loved, even from afar.

"do you love her?"

"i do." hannah couldn't think about not loving her. "i love her so much."

"but you left her."

"i left because i loved her." wonyoung's eyes glistened at the word. she couldn't imagine leaving someone out of love. perhaps disappearing, but leaving was unfathomable. "i'd rather have her grow up hating me than die starving. i just wish i can go back. i just wanna my baby one more time."

this was the unconditional love that everyone had praised. it was the homemade bento boxes, and the tight hugs that wonyoung would see from her friends and their moms. it was the tearful goodbyes from her best friend's grandparents, and the thoughtful notes that her seatmate would find in her bag.

to love someone is to do what's best for them, to do the right thing.

was wonyoung the best for her parents? were her parents the best for wonyoung?

did they even love her?

"you're a good mom, hannah." wonyoung hugged her tightly. "i wish you were my mom."

wonyoung couldn't imagine it, having someone risk everything just for her to be happy. she couldn't imagine loving someone so much, but one day, whether it be a child or someone else, she would love to.

wonyoung wanted to love someone right.

she looked at the tearful hannah, the older woman smiling down at her.

"i promise that when i'm older, i'll make sure you can go back and see your family again."

it was a promise that wonyoung intended to keep.

"thank you, wonyoung."

hannah didn't doubt her. not for one second.

the jang's were never good at keeping promises.

jang wonseok was a politician. keeping promises and breaking them was part of the territory. every campaign he held at least a couple empty pledges, just like he did back home. the twelve-year-old jang wonyoung knew that.

plus, there was no way she'd actually believe what her father said. not after he betrayed her mother.

jang jiyoung was no better. being a news anchor, she had always run a tight schedule. for days, wonyoung wouldn't see her despite each promise that the woman would make, and although she didn't mind, sometimes the young jang did want someone to eat dinner with, even if it was just a cup of instant noodles they could share.

wonyoung thought she was different. that she was hannah's daughter and not a jang.

but it ran in her blood.

"hannah knew me before i knew her."

the microphone echoed, the twelve-year-old's shakey hands grasping tightly onto the paper in front of her, her fingerprints making light marks against the blank white.

"she went with my mom to get an ultrasound when she was pregnant with me." her parents were nowhere to be seen, her father at a meeting and her mother at work. "they said i was a big baby, but hannah said i was a special baby."

to love someone is to do the right thing. letting go was the right thing.

"i don't think i'm special. i think i'm just wonyoung." the crowd laughed. hannah would've laughed too. "hannah was the special one. she knew how to make me feel better. she knew when i was sick before i got sick. she even knew the weather before it happened."

wonyoung didn't want to let go, but she would, for hannah.

"hannah told me that she hadn't seen her baby in a while." she hoped hannah's baby knew how loved she was, and she hoped that her words could reach her, even if it was far away. "i promised her that when i was older, i would make sure she saw them."

the jang's were known to break promises.

"i thought she was gonna live forever. i wanted her to live forever, or just long enough so i can keep my promise. for once, i just wanted to make her feel better. hannah always made me feel better." wonyoung didn't know when the page got so blurry, or why water was pouring out of her eyes. "i thought if i loved her enough, i could fix it. i could do it."

she didn't know how she managed to fail the one person who believed in her.

"i want to apologize to her today. i should've tried harder." she had everything. why couldn't she try harder to give hannah this one? she might've been a twelve-year-old, but still. "i'm sorry, hannah. i'm really really sorry."

to love someone is to do the right thing, but wonyoung realized it was also to mourn, and to be angry at herself for not being better. her failures stared her in the face, the casket mocking her as if she was nothing.

she didn't want to think about it anymore. she had failed, and wonyoung wanted nothing more than for this pain to be gone.

sighing, she stepped down from the lectern.

hannah was her own. her mother.

and like a shadow, she was gone.

death seemed to round the corners of the jang household.

she could see boxes upon boxes piling up in front of their penthouse, her mother glaring into the distance half-heartedly, conflicted with her pain.

jang jiyoung was a lee once. she was the younger sister of lee jihuyn, and the aunt of the ten-year-old lee hyunseo.

lee jihyun always smelt like flowers whenever she was around. it was no wonder why jang wonseok was so fond of her.

"this is hyunseo." her father said, patting the heiress on her shoulder. it pained wonyoung to see him so happy to have his affair child around, especially after- no. wonyoung didn't deserve to think about her again. "she'll be staying with us."

wonyoung nodded bowing as the younger girl stared at her in wonder.

"hello, hyunseo."

wonseok smiled at the young girl in a way wonyoung never got when she was hyunseo's age. "wonyoung will show you your room."

wonyoung's face twitched in disdain before switching into a soft smile.

she led hyunseo up to hann a room, unoccupied yet cleared of any existence that came before it.

hyunseo didn't deserve this room.

wonyoung turned to the younger girl. "this is your ro-"

"can i call you unnie?" the lee couldn't help but gleam at her, her eyes bright as the han river glared back into her new room. "i never had an unnie before. it was just me, mom and dad all the time."

wonyoung bit back a scowl.

her dad. hyunseo was lucky she had a dad.

"i'll ask the butlers to bring your stuff up." wonyoung couldn't help but be cold. "i have a school tour to go to."

"oh..." she watched as the younger girl deflated, and wonyoung couldn't help but feel guilty. hyunseo bounced back, though, her expression brighter than before.

"okay!"

wonyoung didn't understand how she could be so happy.

wonyoung had never been to a public school.

her father and mother had always opted to have her in a private one, yet the presence of a public school with such a reputation around their area had the jang's interested.

wonyoung had to agree that the high school was fairly nice. it had its own swimming pool, and it was clearly popular among international students, wonyoung seeing a few as she passed by.

everything else was pretty much the same as every other school, though. nothing stood out, at least nothing of interest.

the heiress found herself walking back to the entrance, scrolling through her phone to get her butler to pick her up. as she dialed, screams and cheers could be heard from the gym.

she should've known better than to enter, but wonyoung's facade was wearing her down. the newly impulsive jang crept inside, more and more yelling filling her skull. it wasn't angry yelling, but a cheerful one.

she didn't understand what could be so interesting.

the heiress felt herself getting swept away, a sudden crowd forming around one of the players as the final whistle blew.

her eyes trained onto the figure, two adults, seemingly the girl's parents, hugging her tightly as the girl cried.

the girl was perfect in every sense, from her face to the way she smiled. she didn't doubt that the older girl probably had perfect grades, and a perfect family, with a set of perfect friends.

the crowd around her roared, and wonyoung realized that the girl in front of her was so loved, so respected, all because she was perfect.

to love someone is to do the right thing.

one day, she'd be perfect enough to have her parents love her. one day, she'll feel like she wasn't a mistake, that she wasn't worthless.

and one day, someday, wonyoung would be perfect enough to mention her name once more.

she'll do the right thing this time.

wonyoung was going to be perfect.

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[justforbooks]

Donald Sutherland

Commanding and versatile actor known for his roles in MAS*H, Don’t Look Now and The Hunger Games

Donald Sutherland, who has died aged 88, brought his disturbing and unconventional presence to bear in scores of films after his breakthrough role of Hawkeye Pierce, the army surgeon in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H (1970), one of the key American films of its period. It marked Sutherland out as an iconoclastic figure of the 60s generation, but he matured into an actor who made a speciality of portraying taciturn, self-doubting characters. This was best illustrated in his portrayal of the tormented parent of a drowned girl, seeking solace in a wintry Venice, in Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973), and of the weak, nervous, concerned father of a guilt-ridden teenage boy (Timothy Hutton) in Robert Redford’s Ordinary People (1980).

Although Sutherland appeared in the statutory number of stinkers that are many a film actor’s lot, he was always watchable. His career resembled a man walking a tightrope between undemanding parts in potboilers and those in which he was able to take risks, such as the title role in Federico Fellini’s Casanova (1976).

Curiously, it was Sutherland’s ears that first got him noticed, in Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen (1967). During the shoot, according to Sutherland, “Clint Walker sticks up his hand and says, ‘Mr Aldrich, as a representative of the Native American people, I don’t think it’s appropriate to do this stupid scene where I have to pretend to be a general.’ Aldrich turns and points to me and says, ‘You with the big ears. You do it’ … It changed my life.” In other words, it led to M*A*S*H and stardom.

Sutherland and his M*A*S*H co-star Elliott Gould tried to get Altman fired from the film because they did not think the director knew what he was doing due to his unorthodox methods. In the early days, Sutherland was known to have confrontations with his directors. “What I was trying to do all the time was to impose my thinking,” he remarked some years later. “Now I contribute. I offer. I don’t put my foot down.”

Sutherland, who was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, was a sickly child who battled rheumatic fever, hepatitis and polio. He spent most of his teenage years in Nova Scotia where his father, Frederick, ran a local gas, electricity and bus company; his mother, Dorothy (nee McNichol), was a maths teacher. He attended Bridgewater high school, then graduated from Victoria College, part of the University of Toronto, with a double major in engineering and drama. As a result of a highly praised performance in a college production of James Thurber’s and Elliott Nugent’s The Male Animal, he dropped the idea of becoming an engineer and decided to pursue acting.

With this in mind, he left Canada for the UK in 1957 to study at Lamda (the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art), where he was considered too tall and ungainly to get anywhere. However, he gained a year’s work as a stage actor with the Perth repertory company, and appeared in TV series such as The Saint and The Avengers. He was Fortinbras in a 1964 BBC production of Hamlet, shot at Elsinore castle and starring Christopher Plummer. He also appeared at the Criterion theatre in the West End in The Gimmick in 1962.

In 1959 he married Lois Hardwick; they divorced in 1966. Then he married the film producer Shirley Douglas, with whom he had twins, Kiefer and Rachel; they divorced in 1971. Kiefer, who grew up to become a celebrated actor, was named after the producer-writer Warren Kiefer, who put Sutherland in an Italian-made Gothic horror film, The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Christopher Lee played a necrophile count, while Sutherland doubled as a dim-witted police sergeant and, in drag and heavy makeup, as a witch.

In an earlier era, the gawky Sutherland might not have achieved the stardom that followed the anarchic M*A*S*H, but Hollywood at the time was open for stars with unconventional looks, and Sutherland was much in demand for eccentric roles throughout the 70s.

He was impressive as a moviemaker with “director’s block” in Paul Mazursky’s messy but interesting Alex in Wonderland (1970), which contains a prescient dream sequence in which his titular character meets Fellini. In the same year, Sutherland played a Catholic priest and the object of Geneviève Bujold’s erotic gaze in Act of the Heart; he was the appropriately named Sergeant Oddball, an anachronistic hippy tank commander, in the second world war action-comedy Kelly’s Heroes; and he and Gene Wilder were two pairs of twins in 18th-century France in the broad comedy Start the Revolution Without Me.

Sutherland was at his most laconic, sometimes verging on the soporific, in the title role of Alan J Pakula’s Klute (1971), as a voyeuristic ex-policeman investigating the disappearance of a friend and getting deeply involved with a prostitute, played by Jane Fonda.

Sutherland and Fonda were teamed up again as a couple of misfits in the caper comedy Steelyard Blues (1973). It initially had a limited distribution due mainly to their participation together in the anti-Vietnam war troop show FTA (Fuck the Army), which Sutherland co-directed, co-scripted and co-produced.

Sutherland always made his political views known, although they surfaced only occasionally in his films. In among the many mainstream comedies and thrillers was Roeg’s supernatural drama Don’t Look Now, in which Sutherland and Julie Christie are superb as a couple grieving their dead daughter. Despite the dark subject matter, the film was notable for containing “one of the sexiest love scenes in film history”, according to Scott Tobias in the Guardian, the frank depiction of their love-making coming “like a desert flower poking through concrete”. The actor so admired Roeg that he named another son after him, one of his three sons with the French-Canadian actor Francine Racette, whom he married in 1972.

John Schlesinger’s rambling version of The Day of the Locust (1975) saw Sutherland as a sexually repressed character – called Homer Simpson – who tramples a woman to death in an act of uncontrolled rage. Perhaps Bernardo Bertolucci had that in mind when he cast Sutherland in 1900 (Novecento, 1976), in which he is a broadly caricatured fascist thug who shows his sadism by smashing a cat’s head against a post and bashing a young boy’s brains out. “And I turned down Deliverance and Straw Dogs because of the violence!” Sutherland recalled.

In Fellini’s Casanova, the second of his two bizarre Italian excursions in 1976, Sutherland coldly calculates seduction under his heavily made-up features. The performance, as remarkably stylised as it is, still reveals the suffering soul within the sex machine.

In 1978 he appeared in Claude Chabrol’s Blood Relatives, a made-in-Canada murder mystery with Sutherland playing a Montreal cop investigating the murder of a young woman. More commercial was The Eagle Has Landed (1976), with Sutherland, attempting an Irish accent, as an IRA member supporting the Germans during the second world war, and as a chilling Nazi in Eye of the Needle (1981). Meanwhile, he was the hero of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), who resists the insidious alien menace until the film’s devastating final shot.

In 1981 Sutherland returned to the stage, as Humbert Humbert in a highly anticipated version of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, adapted by Edward Albee. It turned out to be a huge flop, running only 12 performances on Broadway. Both Sutherland and Albee played the blame game. “The second act is flawed,” Sutherland said. “Albee was supposed to have rethought it, but he never did.” Albee told reporters that he had scuttled some of his best scenes because they were “too difficult” for Sutherland because “he hasn’t been on stage for 17 years”.

Continuing his film career, Sutherland played a complex and sadistic British officer in Hugh Hudson’s Revolution (1985), and in A Dry White Season (1989) he took the role of an Afrikaner schoolteacher beginning to understand the brutal realities of apartheid. In Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991), he held the screen with an extended monologue as he spilled the conspiracy beans to Kevin Costner’s district attorney hero Jim Garrison.

After having made contact with young audiences in the 70s with offbeat appearances in gross-out pictures The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) and National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978), the latter as a pot-smoking professor, he was cast as an unconvincing bearded stranger in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992).

On a more adult level were Six Degrees of Separation (1993), in which he played an unfulfilled art dealer; A Time to Kill (1996), as an alcoholic, disbarred lawyer (alongside Kiefer); Without Limits (1998), as an enthusiastic athletics coach; and Space Cowboys (2000), as an elderly pilot. By this time, he was gradually moving into grey-haired character roles, one of the best being his amiable Mr Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (2005).

The Jane Austen novel was also featured in the television series Great Books (1993-2000), to which Sutherland lent his soothing voice as narrator. Other series in which he shone as quasi baddies were Commander in Chief (2005) – as the sexist Republican speaker of the house opposed to the new president (Geena Davis) – and Dirty Sexy Money (2007-09), in which he played a powerful patriarch of a wealthy family.

Sutherland continued to be active well into his 80s, his long grey hair and beard signifying sagacity, whether as a contract killer in The Mechanic, a Roman hero in The Eagle, a nutty retired poetry professor in Man on the Train (all 2011), or a quirky bounty hunter in the western Dawn Rider (2012), bringing more depth to the characters than they deserved. As President Coriolanus Snow, the autocratic ruler of the dystopian country of Panem in The Hunger Games (2012), Sutherland was discovered by a new generation; he went on to reprise the role in three further films in that franchise, beginning with The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013).

He played artists in two art-world thrillers by Italian directors: in Giuseppe Tornatore’s Deception, AKA The Best Offer (2013), he was a would-be painter helping to execute multimillion-dollar scams, while in Giuseppe Capotondi’s The Burnt Orange Heresy (2019) he was on the other side of the heist as a reclusive genius targeted by a wealthy and unscrupulous dealer (Mick Jagger).

Aside from James Gray’s science-fiction drama Ad Astra (also 2019), in which he co-starred with Brad Pitt, Sutherland’s best late work was all for television. In Danny Boyle’s mini-series Trust (2018), which covered the same real-life events as Ridley Scott’s All the Money in the World, he played J Paul Getty, the oil tycoon whose grandson is kidnapped; while in The Undoing (2020), he was the father of a psychologist (Nicole Kidman), reluctantly putting up bail when her husband (Hugh Grant) is arrested for murder.

For the latter role Sutherland was in the running for a Golden Globe, having already received an honorary Oscar in 2017.

He is survived by Francine and his children, Kiefer, Rachel, Rossif, Angus and Roeg, and by four grandchildren.

🔔 Donald McNichol Sutherland, actor; born 17 July 1935; died 20 June 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[uramilf]

Mutual Attraction - Part One

University chemistry professor!Matty x reader

A/N: As a triple science student I feel partially qualified to write this lol

Warnings: No smut in this part but mentions of sex, there will be smut in later parts, age gap relationship, teacher/student relationship, making out, mentions of weed and alcohol, smoking

       Y/N Y/L/N stepped into the lecture hall with shaking hands. Usually on first days at school, there was at least the comforting thought that it was everyone else’s first day too, but this wasn’t the case. A burst water pipe in her student housing meant that Y/N was late to move in, therefore late to start university. She considered herself to be late already, after having four years of work and travel after leaving secondary school. Now, at 22 years old, she felt ready to start her new chapter.  Her eyes fell upon him immediately as he sat at his desk typing an email. His dark curls were streaked with grey, a thin layer of stubble growing on his sculpted jawline. He was wearing clear-rimmed glasses that gave him a knowing and mature charm, which was lessened slightly by the boyish smile he gave Y/N as she approached his desk. “Excuse me, sir. Are you professor Matthew Healy?” she asked. “Yes, but please, all my students call me Matty. Professor makes me sound old,” he grimaced. Y/N laughed politely and introduced herself. Matty noticed that she was a pretty girl, with kind eyes and a beautiful smile. He tried not to think too much about it, mind returning to the matter at hand. “Ah, yes! I got an email this morning to say you’d be joining us slightly late. I hope the problem with your housing was fixed?” “Yep, I’m all moved in now. Sorry to bother you, I just wanted to check I was in the right room.” “No worries, Y/N. Take a seat anywhere you like, I hope you enjoy your first class with us.”

       As Y/N neared the back of the lecture hall, she met the gazes of a few of other students who had arrived even earlier than her. A group of them waved her over. There were three of them sitting together: Rhys, who was a tall athletic boy with wavy blonde hair and deep green eyes who was studying chemistry to one day develop his own brand of protein powder. His friends back home in Wales called him ridiculous, but agreed he was going rather far to achieve his goals, so supported him in his business venture. Orla, who had moved from Cork to London and was studying to be a medicinal chemist. Her parents were extremely proud of her choice of career, but hadn’t seen her in person in a few months. She wasn’t worried about this as it had given her plenty of time to dye her hair blue, get a collection of tattoos littered around her hips and lower back, and venture into her favourite form of medicine (marijuana, which she liked to pretend was to help with her joint pain). And Jasmine, an African American girl from New York City whose real future plans involved becoming a music producer, but didn’t have the heart to tell her parents, after her outstanding performance in chemistry throughout high school won her a scholarship to the very course she was currently sitting in.

      It was Jasmine who noticed Y/N first and, ever the social butterfly, called her to sit with them. “Hey! You’ve not been here the whole time, have you?” “No, I’m just starting today.” “Ok thank God, I’d never forgive myself if I hadn’t noticed you.” Y/N laughed. Rhys stood up to allow Y/N into their row of seats, shaking her hand as she passed.  “Sorry for Jasmine,” he grinned. “She feels the need to know everything about everyone.” “Do not!” “You absolutely do!” Orla started to introduce herself as her friends bickered. “Yes, Jasmine is nosy as fuck, but Rhys and I are glad to have her. She’s the reason we’ve all made friends so quickly, her being the biggest extrovert ever and all that.” Y/N chatted to the trio as she fired up her laptop and others filtered into the class. She felt more comfortable seeing that the lecture hall was full of people of all ages, some older than her. Rhys was in his early twenties too, and she agreed with being thankful for Jasmine that she was making some friends who knew what it was like to start uni a bit later.

     Matty stood up and started to speak, going through his powerpoint about redox reactions and reducing agents. Y/N was mesmerised by him; the way he paced as he taught, the way he scattered silly jokes throughout his lecture, the way he pointed to the screen as he made a point. The lecture flew by and before she knew it, Y/N’s new friends were begging her to join them for a coffee in the students hub across the road. “Maybe I’ll pop in later, but right now I have to speak to Matty.” Rhys, Orla and Jasmine left the hall, and Y/N overheard Orla say, “Fuck but he’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” Y/N couldn’t help but agree, and took a deep breath to steady herself before approaching Matty’s desk once again.  “Miss Y/L/N! I hope you enjoyed your first lecture with me?” “Oh, absolutely! I’ve been looking forward to getting started.” “I’m so glad to hear it, sweetheart. Is there anything I can help you with?” “Actually, yes. I haven’t had a chance to pick up a textbook yet, and I was wondering if you know of anywhere I could look for a second hand one.” Matty thought for a moment, before shrugging. “You know what, darling, I’ll only be teaching out of this one for a month or so. It’s sort of the beginner book to recap A-Level topics. I have a spare one at home. If you’ll come in a little early next lesson I’ll give it to you.” “Really? That’s so kind of you.” “Absolutely, love. Let’s say you come in about half an hour early next time and we’ll go over what you’ve missed, yeah?” Y/N was ecstatic that Matty had asked her to come early to talk to him. Sure, it was a catch-up session, but still. She left feeling like a giggly schoolgirl with a crush on her teacher, trying to justify her thoughts by telling herself they were both adults, and there was nothing wrong with how she felt. Matty himself hadn’t missed the glimmer in her eyes while they spoke. He had been trying not to let himself get distracted by the soft curve of her breasts, or the way her hips moved as she walked away. She was gorgeous up close, and the more he thought on it after she had left the more he had to try to keep himself grounded.  “She’s a student, for fuck’s sake,” he muttered to himself. “Don’t be a dick.”

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

        Y/N was back in her flat staring at Matthew Healy’s facebook profile like an obsessive teenager, heat rushing to her face when she saw the word ‘single’ in his info. She scrolled through his posts for a minute or two, smiling at videos of him dancing with his mates on nights out and holiday photos where he was grinning with a drink in his hand. That smile. Ugh. 

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

       Unaware of Y/N’s light social media stalking, Matty was sipping on a pint with his best mate George in a quiet beer garden near his house, a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips. The September breeze moved his curls gently against his forehead as George spoke, but Matty wasn’t really listening, “All I’m saying is that you should try and get yourself back out there. You haven’t even been on a single date in forever.” “Actually, I met a girl today and I think we really hit it off,” Matty blurted out without thinking, just to get his friend off his back. Fuck.  “Weren’t you at work all day? Better not be a student, Matthew,” George teased. “What?” Matty snapped his head up to look at George. “Calm down mate, it was just a joke.” “Oh. Right. Um, no, I met her in a coffee shop this afternoon. I don’t know, it probably won’t come to anything, but I’m gonna see her again soon.”

      The minute his front door closed, Matty groaned into his hands. Why couldn’t he ever keep his mouth shut? Now George thought he had a girlfriend, and would no doubt want to meet her. There was no way he could tell George that this mystery girl didn’t exist, and the one he had met was really a new student in his chemistry lectures. This was a fucking disaster. 

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

       Three days later, on Thursday morning, Y/N made her way into Matty’s usual lecture hall 30 minutes early. He was waiting for her, sitting at his desk. He had moved another chair to a space right beside his, gesturing for Y/N to take a seat. His cheeks went slightly pink when he handed her a cup of coffee, saying “I thought you might want this, what with it being so early and all.” “That’s so thoughtful, Matty. How much do I owe you?” “Oh, nothing, please. My treat.” Y/N’s heart was pounding in her chest, but what she didn’t know was that Matty’s was doing the same. He started to talk her through what she had missed in the first week, stammering slightly when their hands brushed as he turned a page in the textbook. Y/N tried, but she couldn’t look at the book as he spoke. She looked in his eyes instead. She could see the whole world in them. She had noticed as she had been getting to know him that they were some of the most beautiful eyes she had seen in a long time.

        Before long their time was up and other students were filtering into the classroom, including Jasmine, Rhys and Orla. Matty started to wrap up his summary, not before exclaiming, “Oh for God’s sake, I’ve left that spare textbook in the car. I’ll get it after class, ok?” He tried to convince himself he hadn’t done it on purpose to talk to her again, but he just couldn’t. 

      Jasmine was enjoying a brief interrogation regarding Y/N and Matty’s conversation. “You’re telling me he just asked you to come in here and talk to him for a whole half hour? Fuck, why didn’t I start a week late?” “Stop that Jas, you’re nineteen! You’re much too young for him. And so is Y/N,” Rhys scolded. “Are you serious? Y/N is the perfect age to have a scandalous little romance with him.” “She is not, that would be irresponsible and ridiculous. She doesn’t like him anyway, do you Y/N?” “Go suck off your personal trainer, Rhys,” Orla jumped in, feeling as though Rhys was being a little protective over Y/N, although they barely knew each other. “Actually Y/N, Rhys poses a valid question. What’s your opinion on the absolute sexiest lecturer I’ve ever laid eyes on?” Jasmine prompted. “Oh, y’know, just that I might be in love with him.” Jasmine cackled at the look on Rhys’s face and replied “That’s my girl.”

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

      When the hour-long class was over, Y/N once again allowed the rest of the students to leave before meeting Matty at the front of the room.  “Let’s go get you that book, sweetheart. Couldn’t have such an excellent student failing now, could we?” The pair walked out of the building together, Matty digging in his coat pocket for a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.  “Do you mind if I smoke?” “Not if you give me one.” “I couldn’t possibly condone that, darling,” he smirked. “I’ll give you a drag of this one if you promise not to tell.” He lit the cigarette and took a few deep drags before handing it off to Y/N. He watched her pouty lips as she exhaled the thick smoke, trying not to imagine what it would be like the kiss them right then and there. He took the cig back and inhaled again, throwing it on the ground and extinguishing it with his heel as they reached his car. He unlocked it and grabbed the book from the back, handing it to Y/N. The second their fingers brushed against each other, the light spits of rain that had been building all morning turned into a torrential downpour. Matty and Y/N looked at each other and laughed for a moment, at the awfully cliche ‘caught in the rain’ scenario, until Matty realised they were both soaked to the skin and ushered Y/N into the car. “Shit, where did that rain even come from?” Matty laughed. “Where’s your flat? I’ll take you home.” Y/N froze. Matty was offering her a lift home? Fuck, she was never getting over her stupid crush on her teacher now. “Y/N? Do you not want a lift home? I can drop you at the tube station or something, I understand if you’re not comfortable with me taking you home.” “No! It’s totally fine! I really appreciate it. I live on Elmwood Avenue.”

          When Matty arrived outside Y/N’s building, he parked the car and they sat there for a moment or two, trying to think of something to say. She could feel him looking at her, and she thought he was probably just waiting for her to get out of the car. “Well, thanks again, I should probably g-” Matty cut her off by crashing his lips against hers. She just sat there, not quite knowing what to do. She wanted to kiss him back, she knew she did, but she was frozen. He pulled away, embarrassed.  “Jesus, Y/N, I’m so sorry, I never should have-” It was her turn to cut him off now by placing a hand over his mouth and giggling.  “Don’t you dare be sorry,” she whispered, before pulling him closer by his black tie and pressing her mouth to his again. Y/N could feel Matty smile into the kiss as she tangled her fingers through his dark brown curls with one hand. The other hand cupped his stubble-covered jaw as their lips moved together. One of his hands was clutching at her waist and rubbing circles into her hip with his thumb, the other brushing her hair out of her face. He slipped his tongue into her mouth and she let out a quiet moan, making him laugh. Their tongues fought for dominance for a few minutes until Matty broke the kiss briefly to grab Y/N’s waist and tug her over the centre console to straddle him. He kissed her again as he gripped onto her hips, both her hands gripping his face now. After a few more minutes of kissing him, Y/N pulled back and looked him in the eyes.  “I really do have to go now,” she laughed, stroking the side of his face lightly. Matty melted into her touch and dropped his head down to place a trail of kisses to her jawline and neck. Y/N groaned quietly. “Stop, Matty, you’re making it so hard for me to leave right now.” “Don’t leave, stay with me.” Y/N rolled her eyes and climbed off his lap, opening the car door and stepping out.  “I’ll see you in class, then,” Matty sighed.

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

        Y/N couldn’t stop thinking about what he had said. “I’ll see you in class, then.” It made her feel dirty, and sneaky, but in the best way. She wondered how long she could keep her own scandal quiet. Sure, she would’ve loved to tell Jasmine, but Jas would never keep her mouth shut and she wasn’t sure if Matty would get in trouble if people found out. Y/N knew there were no laws against university professors and students having relationships, as long as the student was of age, of course. Which she was. But a part of her couldn’t help but feel that she was putting Matty in danger. Maybe she would’ve been better off staying away from him. 

           Back in his own house, Matty was drunkenly pacing the floor, freaking out. One part of him was thrilled that Y/N seemed to share his feelings, and the other knew that if he didn’t tell his boss about their interaction, he could lose his job. And although it was allowed, she was twelve years younger than him, and he knew their relationship would be frowned upon by many of his co-workers and other students. Well, maybe not so many students. Matty wasn’t stupid, he knew he was quite a hit with many people in his chemistry lectures, girls and boys alike. But either way, it would be hard for him and Y/N to be together. She would have to switch classes, and he wouldn’t be able to see her pretty face staring up at him during lectures, mesmerised by his voice. Matty’s heart sank. He had gotten what he wanted, but was it worth it?

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

       A week later, Y/N’s chemistry class had gathered in Matty’s lecture hall once again. As they were split up into groups to work on a project, she had to fight the urge to not tell her friends about what had happened in Matty’s car. He was much the same, trying his best not to let it slip to George, although he so wanted his friends to know about the amazing, beautiful girl he had met. Y/N told her friends once again that she needed to stay behind and talk to Matty. Rhys raised an eyebrow and Orla and Jasmine nudged each other. “What now?” Y/N snapped.  “You’re spending an awful lot of time in here ‘catching up��. Aren’t you all caught up by now?” “Oh, em, yeah, of course. It’s not about that. It’s just about the project.” “Well, is it anything we could help with?” Rhys asked, clearly trying to prevent further interactions with Matty.  “Oh, leave her alone Rhys! If the poor girl fancies Matty, just let her speak to him. We all have our little teacher crushes, right Jas?” Orla shot back.  “Whatever,” Rhys muttered and stood up, grabbing his bag and storming out the door.  “Jesus Christ, someone’s got a mard on,” Orla said, rolling her eyes. “Ignore him, he’s just being a dick because he doesn’t understand the Lana Del Rey-esque attraction we have to older men.” We laughed until we reached the front of the room, and the two girls left me to chat to Matty alone.

        “Hey, darling, you ok?” Matty smiled softly. “Yeah. I just thought we should talk.” “You’re right, we should. The truth is, love, I don’t think we should take this any further.” He watched Y/N’s eyes widen, giving her a pained expression. It hurt him too to turn down a girl so perfect, but he knew what he had to do. “Look, Y/N. I like you. I really do. From the moment you walked in here, I knew it. You are beautiful. You’re kind and smart and you make me laugh. You’re perfect, love.” “So why don’t you want me?” Y/N asked in a small voice. “I do darling, I promise. But you shouldn’t want me. Having a relationship with someone older than you, especially one of your lecturers, will not make university an easy experience for you. Other teachers might start to treat you differently. You would have to move classes, and everyone would know why. Your peers might look down on you. I don’t want any of those things for you, my beautiful girl. You deserve more than me.” Y/N’s heart was sinking. He had to be wrong. She needed him. She needed him to forget the consequences and just love her like she wanted him to. A tear slipped down her cheek and Matty wiped it away. “Don’t cry, love. I’m sorry. But if we start a relationship with each other, the only law is that I have to tell my boss. And that will only create problems for both of us.” Y/N lifted her head to look at the man in front of her, his glasses slightly askew, hair a mess from how many times he had run his hands through it during his little speech to her. God, she needed him.

“So don’t tell him then.”

         Matty looked at Y/N and saw the lust and the neediness in her eyes. He grabbed her by the hand, convinced that he could feel her blood pulsing through her body when they touched. He pulled her into his small store at the back of the hall and pushed her up against the wall. Much like the week before, his hands roughly grabbed at her hips as he connected their lips.  His tongue was immediately brushing against hers, his teeth nipping at her bottom lip every so often. This kiss was more passionate, more desperate than the one in the car. Matty broke the kiss to bend down slightly and pick Y/N up, her legs tightening around his waist as they kissed again. One hand stayed on her ass, supporting her weight, while the other roamed up and down her back. Both of hers were caught in his hair again. She tugged gently on his hair, forcing a soft moan to leave his lips, which she eagerly swallowed the sound of. Their kissing grew messy, both desperate for each other. But they knew they couldn’t have each other- not there. Matty pulled away and lowered Y/N to her feet. Their lips were swollen and glistening with wetness, and Matty’s eyes appeared to have darkened so much that his irises were nearly black. He devoured the sight of Y/N in front of him, wishing he had the guts to take her right then and there. But he couldn’t. It was irresponsible, basically asking to be caught. Plus, he would make their first time special. 

          Y/N checked the time on her phone and groaned. “Shit, I’ve missed the tube! I’m gonna have to run if I want to catch another one.” “Don’t be silly, I’ll take you home.” “But you did that yesterday. It’s a twenty-five minute drive with the lunch hour traffic.” “Shh darling, anything for my girl.”

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

A/N: Yay part one done! That was fun to write, let me know what you think!

[fly-pow-bye]

The Lost Blossom Shampoo Commercial

During my very early days on Tumblr, I was loving all the GIFs and I wanted to join the community. Along with my love of video games, I love animation and I love Cartoon Network, and I wanted to contribute even if my main Tumblr, which is all that I had back then, wasn't animation focused. I wanted to give something that nobody else has posted. I knew non-American commercials have unique animation not seen anywhere else, so that felt like a good idea. I decided, to add some unique Cartoon Network GIFs to Tumblr, to look through various Cartoon Network commercial reels on YouTube and Vimeo. One of the videos I found on Vimeo was this reel from Brendan Rogan, a producer at Cartoon Network Latin America. I found a clip of the Powerpuff Girls I had never seen at 0:32.

Wait, is this...a shampoo commercial? Seems really fitting considering the Blossom hair wave scene in The Mane Event, and I shouldn't be surprised someone decided to use something inspired by that scene in advertising. Not going to lie: I was intrigued.

After the break, my entire history of my attempt to track down this commercial.

Right after this part of Blossom that I made the GIF from is this clip of three superhero-like mascots flying around three different bottles of different hair products. The one on the left has a bubbly hairstyle that is the same color as the bubbles shown in the Blossom part, suggesting that these two clips are from the same commercial. I did not want to believe it at first, but it did fit pretty well. The Powerpuff Girls are 6 years old at the most, and they could still be using baby shampoo.

After my searches went nowhere, I e-mailed Brendan Rogan back in 2015, who was pretty much my only lead at the time, about it. Rogan asked me why I wanted to see the "full spot". I immediately recalled one YouTube video about people trying to find the guy from Active Enterprises of Cheetahmen infamy only to be met with an all caps "WHY DO YOU WANT TO KNOW THIS INFORMATION" and no further replies, and I was hoping it was not going to end like that video. I did e-mail him with honesty, saying I just wanted to see the context of the full spot, and I'm a big Cartoon Network and Powerpuff Girls fan.

Rogan did not reply back.

I did not e-mail him again because I did not want to pester someone about a baby shampoo commercial, and I was holding onto the hope that it'll appear in a upload of commercials on YouTube so I do not have to test my anxiety. Of course, it'd be in way higher quality if I got it from someone who worked on the commercial rather than a VHS recording of commercials, but I was not thinking of that at the time. At least he indirectly confirmed a full spot exists.

Years later, I found a promotional reel based on the Toonix era of Cartoon Network Latin America, dated to 2011. It advertises The Amazing World of Gumball and Johnny Bravo Goes To Bollywood, both from 2011, so I can believe the year. It seemed to be made for investors and advertisers, showing off Cartoon Network's programming, and how they can have synergy with other brands. This includes a bunch of cross-promotion. Showing up at 4:52, to my surprise, is the Blossom ad. It was almost the exact same clip seen in the Rogan reel. The keyword is "almost." I got out my video editing software, and this is what I can see:

The Cartoon Network reel does have more of the commercial we did not see in the Rogan reel, though it's just more of the mascots flying in from outside of the frame and a little bit less of Blossom waving her hair around. This does confirm to me that neither reel was showing a single clip from the full spot, but two clips from different parts of the spot, showing the Cartoon Network character and showing what that Cartoon Network character was advertising. It also reconfirms that what I am looking for is not a Cartoon Network promo, but a baby hair product line commercial.

I also notice that even with these two different appearances, we only have 2.5 seconds of what could be a 15 or 30 second commercial. That alone does make that intriguing even with the possibility that Blossom only appears for that one second and the rest is just a generic baby shampoo ad. I hope that's not it, but it would explain why the full spot was not uploaded.

I did find one other piece of this campaign. It's not from the commercial, but it is related. Maybe it was an extremely lucky Google Image Search, or I just somehow stumbled across it in one of my searches. This was from a company named Bau Print, who specializes in different kinds of printing, including printing on vehicles, and, hey look!

There they are! It's even a photo taken from a camera that wasn't edited, meaning I could see from the metadata that it was taken in April of 2010. That does narrow down the beginning end of my search, though I had no doubt that the spot was at least post-Powerpuff Girls Movie. It also made me realize a bit of lore about these three super obscure mascots: they each represent the three different kinds of intense hydration: shampoo, conditioner, and combing cream. There are no Powerpuff Girls, showing either these superheroes were not just made for the commercial, or they wanted to use them without having to contact Warner Bros. or Cartoon Network.

This picture does prove that this campaign, at the very least, got to the point where it was advertised on trailer trucks. I did have a feeling this was a part of a scrapped campaign; maybe Johnson's got cold feet for having their clean baby shampoo brand be associated with girls that have beaten monkeys, criminals, talking dogs, and clowns to a pulp. However, wouldn't it be false advertising if a campaign that fell through ended up in a video that seemed to be made for advertisers?

And that's where my search runs cold. I have searched a lot of Cartoon Network Latin America commercial breaks on and off over the years, and I even used Filmot to search YouTube's subtitles for phrases that could be a part of it, like that "salud es belleza" tagline on that truck, and the full spot remains elusive after years of searching. I guess I could just imagine what the rest of the commercial could be.

The City of J&Jville, where our heroic trio responds to a dis-tress call: Blossom, superheroine of Townsville, is having a bad hair day and won't have the confidence to beat up Mojo Jojo and stop his "turn everyone into chickens with his chicken ray" plan. Lather, Rinse, and Repeat are called to action, and with their ultra-cleaning powers, they go into Blossom's hair as she stares at the mirror, and her hair magically turns luscious again. With her newfound confidence, Blossom flies to Mojo Jojo, and knocks his teeth out, bruising him with all of her techniques, her flurry of punches, her eye lasers, and the dreaded ponytail whiplash! The day is saved thanks to Blossom, and Johnson's Baby Hidratación Intensa! (Warning: Baby shampoo will not give your baby superpowers, do not let them fight crime.)

...okay, maybe that violence wouldn't have happened, but there is only one way we can find out for sure, and I can only wish I could find that way. So uh, here's another shampoo ad starring Hanna-Barbera characters that appears to be unrelated. Yes, the Powerpuff Girls are technically Hanna-Barbera. Bye.

< n/a - Part 2 >

[mybeingthere]

“I figure that it’s better to be a

sucker who makes something

than a wise guy who is too

cautious to make anything at all.” -

Henry Darger

American, 1892–1973

Henry Darger was born in 1892 in Chicago, Illinois. He led a very isolated life and had no close relatives to speak of. After being orphaned and institutionalised as a child, being subject to the horrific traumas that came with that, he became reclusive, withdrawn and retreated from the world. As Darger grew into adulthood, he found work as a hospital janitor and dishwasher.

Away from his work, he would spend most of his time alone in the apartment he rented for forty-three years from photographer and designer Nathan Lerner and his wife, Kiyoko. Across the decades, Darger created his own fantasy world, a vast interior realm he kept hidden until the day he died.

On his hospital deathbed in 1973, he told Nathan and Kiyoko that anything they found in the flat, they could do with as they wished. Lerner then made a monumental discovery as he cleared out Darger’s abode, unearthing an extraordinary life’s work consisting of hundreds of paintings, including a 15,000-page hand-bound, hand-typed book called ‘In The Realms Of The Unreal’ and its 8,000 page sequel and several hundred panoramic illustrations.

Darger’s remarkable visual works, much like his stories, depict a fantasy universe where innocent and valiant child heroines The Vivian Girls battle against malevolent foes. This discovery set the art world on fire. Without question, Darger has posthumously become one of America’s most celebrated outsider artists, America’s answer to William Blake if you will – an artist who has admirers in artists like the Chapman Brothers and Grayson Perry.

Darger’s visual art has been much celebrated. Still, Darger’s stories and lyrics have been little known or cared for, until 2003 when million-selling artist, composer and producer Philippe Cohen Solal came across Darger by chance during a tour of the US with his band Gotan Project. While in the Big Apple, Philippe visited the Folk-Art Museum and as he stood in wonder in front of a Henry Darger panorama, he noticed that it had been loaned to the museum by a Kiyoko Lerner. The very same Kiyoko Lerner that Philippe was due to meet for tea the next day, as she was a fan of Tango.

Kiyoko Lerner turned out to be the keeper of the entire Darger estate, the widow of Darger’s landlord Nathan Lerner. This startling coincidence was the origin of a new musical adventure, one that has come to fruition with the release of ‘Outsider’ in February, a collection of ten heart soaked pop songs of twisted 50s/60s Americana – the first time that a musical and visual extrapolation has been made from the life and work of Henry Darger.

Philippe explains ‘It has been nearly two decades immersed in friendship with Lerner and Darger’s work. In 2008 I spent a week in her apartment, surrounded by Henry’s paintings, words and microfilms, talking about him at breakfast, lunch and dinner. The proximity to the artwork formed the seed for musical creation.’

Continue https://artlyst.com/.../outsider-art-henry-darger-a.../

[bomberqueen17]

Liveblogging the Aubreyad, book 5: Desolation Island pt 1

We left off after book 4 with Jack sent home with the news of the victorious Mauritius Campaign. The scene opens and we find that his reward for this was an appointment to the Sea Fencibles, which left him ashore for a considerable period of time. But with the various prize-money and head money from the Mauritius campaign he has been buying horses, making improvements to the house, and alas, investing in schemes and playing cards for high stakes.

However, his children are doing well and it seems a new appointment to a ship will be forthcoming. Ashgrove Cottage, as we see, is entirely staffed by sailors and former sailors, who are not intimidated by Sophie's mother, and Killick and Bonden are part of the household. Jack has paid off his mother-in-law Mrs. Williams's debts at least, and she is no longer living with them out of necessity, but rather because she prefers it alas.

Stephen has been staying with them periodically, and Diana Villiers is in England again, and the two have arranged to meet. Stephen's first appearance in the book is destined to be as part of a consultation of a number of physicians concerning Sophie Aubrey's mother's health.

But Jack has news of a new ship, and is eager to have Stephen join him aboard. He's been given command of a fifty-gun fourth-rate, an old unfashionable sort of ship, and it's none other than the Horrible Old Leopard, ostensibly bound for the East Indies by way of Botany Bay where they're to rescue Bligh from another mutiny.

We see the two men ashore a little bit, and come to understand that Stephen, tormented over Diana, has been taking perhaps too much refuge in laudanum, and has made some mistakes in his intelligence-work and, possibly, as a medical man. He is, however, still keen-witted enough to notice that Jack is being cheated at cards. Jack calls out Andrew Wray for it, who is a highly-placed secretary in the Treasury office, but Wray does not respond to the challenge.

They have a dinner before they leave, and have a chance to speak to Peter Heywood, who had formerly commanded the Leopard but also had known Bligh of Botany Bay in former days, had in fact been involved as a youngster in the mutiny against him. TOM PULLINGS attends, and we get a little paragraph to give us some appreciation of how much time has elapsed since the beginning of this series, now at least a decade ago:

Thursday brought Mr Pullings, and in his candid pleasure at seeing Jack and Stephen again he seemed scarcely to have changed from the long-legged, long-armed, shy, friendly, tubular youth Stephen had first met as a midshipman so many years ago; but in fact he was a man of far greater weight, more burly both in character and person. It was apparent, from his competent handling of young George, produced for his inspection, and from his behaviour to Captain Heywood, that he was now in the full tide of his life, and swimming well. His behaviour was of course perfectly deferential, but it was that of a man who had seen a great deal of service, and who thoroughly understood his profession.

Stephen tells Jack he cannot accompany him in the Leopard, and sets off to London to see Diana. But she is not there. She has left hastily and permanently, leaving unpaid bills and another Dear John note for Stephen; apparently government men came and took her away, and then she came back, packed up her things, and left with the American Mr. Johnson again, never to be seen again.

Stephen takes this badly, as you might understand. He is summoned to the Admiralty, where an Admiral in charge of intelligence makes an inept attempt to manipulate him into revealing information about Diana and her friend Louisa Wogan. This only infuriates Stephen, who nearly fights the man, but instead leaves. His friend Sir Joseph Blaine tracks him down and explains what's going on-- one Louisa Wogan was an agent for the Americans and used her charms to extract a great deal of information from various British officials. Diana had forwarded letters for her, and it is unclear how much Diana knew at any point-- likely nothing, but it was possible she was also an agent under deep cover.

What Sir Joseph wants is for Stephen to travel with Louisa Wogan, who has been sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay, and to try to uncover who she was working with. Sir Joseph has arranged for Mrs. Wogan to be transported on the Leopard, as well as some other prisoners, to give the operation camoflage.

Stephen knows that on some level he is being got rid of. He knows too much but has recently been unreliable. They cannot entrust him with any very sensitive missions. They cannot cut him loose. But he is so depressed he agrees to it.

Except Jack then balks, because he does not want to transport prisoners, thinks it ignominious duty for a man-of-war, is furious at the whole idea. Stephen makes a single effort to fix things, gives up, but then Sophie takes over with more spirit than she normally displays, throwing a candle on the floor and making Jack listen to her. Stephen had said he wanted to go, and she wants Jack to go with Stephen. She is, in part, afraid (she confesses this to Stephen earlier) that Jack will get into a duel with Andrew Wray and be killed, but she is also afraid that Jack keeps getting into more trouble with the scoundrels and speculators that are trying to drain away his fortune, and she also worries he has been pining for the sea. So she makes a rare show of temper, and then pleads with him that this would do Stephen good, Stephen has been disappointed by Diana again and must not be left here in England to brood in this cold climate, and surely Jack must do Stephen good. This argument quite destroys any resistance Jack had: he must do all in his power to help Stephen.

So they go.

Soon after departure, in heavy weather, the convicts murder their superintendent, and their surgeon dies falling down a ladder. They were supposed to be a self-sustaining little unit and not be under the purview of the ship's company, but Pullings discovers that their conditions are too squalid to tolerate. He and Jack completely scrap the accomodations originally set out by the transportation board-- a poorly-ventilated cage with awful drainage-- clean the whole area, and rehouse everyone in more reasonable accomodations.

(Stephen is in withdrawal, having quit his laudanum. It makes him very cranky. Jack and Tom are solicitous of him. “They could not tell that his whole person was shrieking for its usual dose, but they did know that he was in need of something, and having no more than kindness, coffee, toast, and orange marmalade, they offered these, together with tobacco.”)

They also, in the storm, have discovered a stowaway aboard the ship. Which is unheard-of, a man-of-war of that period being so starved for hands they would take anyone animate as a volunteer, usually. The young man is so seasick as to be incoherent, a starved little slip of a fellow. After he is taken away to the sick-bay, Pullings admits he's seen him before-- he tried to volunteer, and Pullings heard his educated accent and saw his soft hands and emaciated frame and turned him away, because he thought the work would actually kill him.

(Stephen recognizes him as well; the man had tried to speak to him outside a coffee-shop. He recognizes the name as well. He is Louisa Wogan's hopeless lover, one Michael Herapath, who was interrogated after her arrest but dismissed as knowing nothing of substance.)

We meet Mrs. Wogan, a beautiful young woman with genteel manners. She politely asks if someone can take away the dead rat that she had killed with her shoe. Stephen ascertains that while she knew Diana, she does not know him; Diana never mentioned him, apparently. Stephen also notices here and in a few other places that some of the rats on the ship seem to be sick.

[I'll pause here for some content warnings. As with everything in this series, it's all Period Typical Whatever, and I admit some of it passes by me and I don't notice it, so please be advised, there's probably racism and sexism and worse I'm just not remarking. But I will caution that among the convicts, there's discussion of some of them being "idiots", one of the women is a "half-wit" who in her simplicity has sex with literally any man who asks, and another is a "Gipsy", who tells fortunes and such, though Stephen does treat her as a person.]

The ship goes on about its way, Michael Herapath begins to learn how to be a sailor, and decides to learn how to climb the rigging. He contrives to fall in, and Jack rescues him. He writes Jack a handsome note of thanks, which impresses Jack, and while he is recuperating in the sick-bay (he struck an obstacle on the way down and was mildly injured) Stephen befriends him somewhat.

The second lieutenant, Grant, an older fellow who had his seniority stripped from him at some point for some matter of discipline, leaving him junior to Tom Pullings, is revealed to be a bit of a tedious blow-hard, who does not do subordination very well. He holds forth at length about the only possible place to cross the equator, the place he crossed it, until Pullings quite midlly asks how many times he has performed this feat? Twice, he answers, and Pullings points out that Aubrey has done so a score of times. Jack rejects this-- only eighteen times, he says, as he doesn't count all the times he crossed it when on a patrol that led back and forth over it.

This does not quiet Grant at all. He does not recognize that anyone else might have expertise on anything. He continues on his discourse, unmoved.

But meanwhile some of the convicts are ill, and after a little while it comes out that they are sick with gaol-fever (this is typhus, which had a very high mortality rate before antibiotics were discovered). It spreads throughout the ship's company despite Stephen's best efforts at quarantine (he does not know typhus is spread by lice). As the ship is becalmed in the doldrums or variables near the equator, drifting helplessly, more and more of the crew sicken and die, leaving the Leopard severely undermanned.

Among the sick are Stephen's assistant, an anatomist named Martin from the Channel Islands, and none other than poor Tom Pullings.

Herapath, being well-educated, takes over from Martin as Stephen's assistant in the crisis. Martin survives the fever, but before he can recover dies of pneumonia.

The ship drifts for twenty-three days, and 116 men die. But then the wind picks up at last, the ship begins to run again, and even the sick men perk up and begin to recover. Jack rates Herapath a midshipman to reward him for his service even though Herapath, an American citizen, is thus ineligible for any promotion beyond master's mate.

Stephen begs Jack to stop at the nearest land, which in this case is now Brazil, they having drifted so far west from their course in the doldrums. He needs supplies, and also needs to discharge a number of the gaol-fever convalescents, who are too fragile to survive shipboard life. First among these is Thomas Pullings, heartbroken, and so weak he cannot sit up.

Leading up to this, Stephen has contrived to get Herapath and Wogan time alone together, and has begun to feed documents to Herapath to give to Wogan, to poison her as an intelligence source. She produces some lovely, useful, illuminating letters, which Stephen gets ashore to the American consul in Recife along with his own reports on them, back to Sir Joseph.

Meanwhile the Leopard meets HMS Nymph, carrying despatches but put in to effect some repairs; she reports that there is a Dutch 74-gun ship, the Waakzaamheid, patrolling nearby, which chased her.

Jack has great respect for the Dutch and keenly does not wish to meet any Dutch 74s. As they make their way back across the Atlantic toward the Cape, he tries to get his diminished crew into some kind of fighting condition, setting up his two brass long nines as stern-chasers to be fired from his cabin and bribing his steward, Killick, into allowing this desecration of his housekeeping by letting Killick fire off some of the shots, which works beautifully to pacify him.

They see the Dutchman, and finally make a distant approach, close enough to signal, and after some signaling the Dutchman hoists his own colors and gives Leopard a broadside at extreme range, which does little damage. Leopard flees, but slowly, and they begin to exchange fire with their chasers. At dark, Jack has a barrel set adrift with burning pitch and crackers in it, to decoy the ship away from them, and changes course, pleased with the day's performance and certain to evade the Dutchman in the night.

In the morning the Dutchman is there, closer than before. Jack realizes that they are being driven southward, away from the Cape. This is what happens in a long, determined, eerie chase, the Dutch captain knowing exactly what Jack needs.

One night the Waakzaamheid makes an attempt at boarding, gliding up and opening broadsides, but Jack guesses what he's about, and does not return fire until he sights the boats-- far away, and on the other side of the ship, trying to sneak around him. The attack only fails because an errant breeze favors the Leopard and allows them to get away. They kill a number of Dutchmen in the boats with grapeshot, and barely escape. Jack knows his weak crew could not repel boarders.

He resolves to run down far enough south that the seas will be too rough for such capers again. The Dutchman follows him, much more driven and focused than is in any way warranted by what a dubious prize the Leopard would make. (Jack theorizes that perhaps in the attempted boarding, he killed someone the Dutch captain cared about a great deal; otherwise he cannot explain the dogged pursuit.)

Stephen has begun creating a false document, in French, purporting to have been among the affects of Martin (who had spoken fluent French), pretending to be the report of a French agent discussing British intelligence including all of the double agents therein. He creates this document intending to pretend to have found it, intending to ask Herapath to help him make copies for British authorities, which will thus enable Herapath to bring it to Louisa; this will admirably uncover whether Louisa's American chiefs have any direct connections with French intelligence, by implicating a number of their agents as traitors. Stephen of course has at his disposal a wealth of detail known only to himself, Sir Joseph, and a few men in Paris, to make this document very, very convincing.

Larkin, the master, has been drinking heavily and now snaps and murders one of the Marine officers. They confine him.

They meet a British whaler, who gives them news that they have not seen the Dutchman. Jack asks him to correct his navigational charts of the area, and gets valuable information about various remote islands in the region.

The master having gone insane, Jack realizes his duties had been neglected-- he does not know how much water they have. Stephen notices that Grant seems to be frightened; he has never been in action before. Jack doesn't understand what's wrong with Grant but recognizes something is amiss in his behavior.

The Dutchman appears again. He is stalking them. He chases them with reckless speed. One of the women aboard (the "Gipsy") gives birth overnight, and Stephen has to perform a Cesarian section on her.

The seas are enormous now and the Dutchman, gaining, opens fire with the bow chasers: he means to destroy the Leopard, not take her, for no boarding can be possible in this sea, and any damage to a mast means broaching-to and foundering with all hands and no hope of rescue.

Jack begins to return fire with the stern-chasers. The spray spoils the priming, and Moore, the Marine officer, suggests using a cigar in place of slow match, as one can hold it in one's mouth.

They run this way, exchanging fire, frantic activity; Leopard's mizen-top is hit, Waakzaamheid is gaining. They start their water to increase speed.

A splinter knocks Jack out, hitting his head. He is unconscious for some moments, and Stephen has to stitch his scalp back together.

He drags himself back up, helps run out the gun again. Moore aims and fires it, and Jack is knocked down again, his leg injured. But the shot flies true and hits the Waakzaamheid's foremast, bringing it down, and causing the ship to broach-to.

She is immediately overwhelmed by the following wave and vanishes without a trace.

'My God, oh my God,' [Jack] said. 'Six hundred men.'

I will call an intermission here.

[eddie-redmayne-italian-blog]

The Untold History of Cabaret: Revived and Kicking

As Broadway welcomes the ever-evolving musical, its star, Eddie Redmayne—along with Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, and Sam Mendes—assess its enduring power.

As director Rebecca Frecknall was rehearsing a new cast for her hit London revival of Cabaret, the actor playing Clifford Bradshaw, an American writer living in Berlin during the final days of the Weimar Republic, came onstage carrying that day’s newspaper as a prop. It happened to be Metro, the free London tabloid commuters read on their way to work. The date was February 25, 2022. When the actor said his line—“We’ve got to leave Berlin—as soon as possible. Tomorrow!”—Frecknall was caught short. She noticed the paper’s headline: “Russia Invades Ukraine.”

Cabaret, the groundbreaking 1966 Broadway musical that tackles fascism, antisemitism, abortion, World War II, and the events leading up to the Holocaust, had certainly captured the times once again.

Back in rehearsals four months later, Frecknall and the cast got word that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade. Every time she checks up on Cabaret, “it feels like something else has happened in the world,” she told me over coffee in London in September.

A month later, as Frecknall was preparing her production of Cabaret for its Broadway premiere, something else did happen: On October 7, Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel, killing at least 1,200 people and taking more than 240 hostages.

The revival of Cabaret—starring Eddie Redmayne as the creepy yet seductive Emcee; Gayle Rankin as the gin-swilling nightclub singer Sally Bowles; and Bebe Neuwirth as Fraulein Schneider, a landlady struggling to scrape by—opens April 21 at Manhattan’s August Wilson Theatre. It will do so in the shadow of a pogrom not seen since the Einsatzgruppen slaughtered thousands of Jews in Eastern Europe and in the shadow of a war between Israel and Hamas that continues into its fifth month, with the killing of thousands of civilians in Gaza.

Nearly 60 years after its debut, Cabaret still stings. That is its brilliance. And its tragedy.

Redmayne has been haunted by Cabaret ever since he played the Emcee in prep school. “I was staggered by the character,” he says. “The lack of definition of it, the enigma of it.” He played the part again during his first year at Cambridge at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where nearly 3,500 shoestring productions jostle for attention each summer. Cabaret, performed in a tiny venue that “stank,” Redmayne recalls, did well enough that the producers added an extra show. He was leering at the Kit Kat Club girls from 8 p.m. till 10 p.m. and then from 11 p.m. till two in the morning. “You’d wake up at midday. You barely see sunshine. I just became this gaunt, skeletal figure.” His parents came to see him and said, “You need vitamin D!”

In 2021, Redmayne, by then an Oscar winner for The Theory of Everything and a Tony winner for Red, was playing the Emcee again, this time in Frecknall’s West End production. His dressing room on opening night was full of flowers. There was one bouquet with a card he did not have a chance to open until intermission. It was from Joel Grey, who originated the role on Broadway and won an Oscar for his performance alongside Liza Minnelli in the 1972 movie. He welcomed the young actor “to the family,” Redmayne says. “It was an extraordinary moment for me.”

Cabaret is based on Goodbye to Berlin, the British writer Christopher Isherwood’s collection of stories and character studies set in Weimar Germany as the Nazis are clawing their way to power. Isherwood, who went to Berlin for one reason—“boys,” he wrote in his memoir Christopher and His Kind—lived in a dingy boarding house amid an array of sleazy lodgers who inspired his characters. But aside from a fleeting mention of a host at a seedy nightclub, there is no emcee in his vignettes. Nor is there an emcee in I Am a Camera, John Van Druten’s hit 1951 Broadway play adapted from Isherwood’s story “Sally Bowles” from Goodbye to Berlin.

The character, one of the most famous in Broadway history, was created by Harold Prince​​, who produced and directed the original Cabaret. “People write about Cabaret all the time,” says John Kander, who composed the show’s music and is, at 96, the last living member of that creative team. “They write about Liza. They write about Joel, and sometimes about us [Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb]. None of that really matters. It’s all Hal. Everything about this piece, even the variations that happen in different versions of it, is all because of Hal.”

In 1964, Prince produced his biggest hit: Fiddler on the Roof. In the final scene, Tevye and his family, having survived a pogrom, leave for America. There is sadness but also hope. And what of the Jews who did not leave? Cabaret would provide the tragic answer.

But Prince was after something else. Without hitting the audience over the head, he wanted to create a musical that echoed what was happening in America: young men being sent to their deaths in Vietnam; racists such as Alabama politician “Bull” Connor siccing attack dogs on civil rights marchers. In rehearsals, Prince put up Will Counts’s iconic photograph of a white student screaming at a Black student during the Little Rock crisis of 1957. “That’s our show,” he told the cast.

A bold idea he had early on was to juxtapose the lives of Isherwood’s lodgers with one of the tawdry nightclubs Isherwood had frequented. In 1951, while stationed as a soldier in Stuttgart, Germany, Prince himself had hung around such a place. Presiding over the third-rate acts was a master of ceremonies in white makeup and of indeterminate sexuality. He “unnerved me,” Prince once told me. “But I never forgot him.”

Kander had seen the same kind of character at the opening of a Marlene Dietrich concert in Europe. “An overpainted little man waddled out and said, ‘Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome,’ ” Kander recalls.

The first song Kander and Ebb wrote for the show was called “Willkommen.” They wrote 60 more songs. “Some of them were outrageous,” Kander says. “We wrote some antisemitic songs”—of which there were many in Weimar cabarets—“ ‘Good neighbor Cohen, loaned you a loan.’ We didn’t get very far with that one.”

They did write one song about antisemitism: “If You Could See Her (The Gorilla Song),” in which the Emcee dances with his lover, a gorilla in a pink tutu. At the end of the number, he turns to the audience and whispers: “If you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn’t look Jewishhh at all.” It was, they thought, the most powerful song in the score.

The working title of their musical was Welcome to Berlin. But then a woman who sold blocks of tickets to theater parties told Prince that her Jewish clients would not buy a show with “Berlin” in the title. Strolling along the beach one day, Joe Masteroff, who was writing the musical’s book, thought of two recent hits, Carnival and Camelot. Both started with a C and had three syllables. Why not call the show Cabaret?

To play the Emcee, Prince tapped his friend Joel Grey. A nightclub headliner, Grey could not break into Broadway. “The theater was very high-minded,” he once said. When Prince called him, he was playing a pirate in a third-rate musical in New York’s Jones Beach. “Hal knew I was dying,” Grey recounts over lunch in the West Village, where he lives. “I wanted to quit the business.”

At first, he struggled to create the Emcee, who did not interact with the other characters. He had numbers but “no words, no lines, no role,” Grey wrote in his memoir, Master of Ceremonies. A polished performer, he had no trouble with the songs, the dances, the antics. “But something was missing,” he says. Then he remembered a cheap comedian he’d once seen in St. Louis. The comic had told lecherous jokes, gay jokes, sexist jokes—anything to get a laugh. One day in rehearsal, Grey did everything the comedian had done “to get the audience crazy. I was all over the girls, squeezing their breasts, touching their bottoms. They were furious. I was horrible. When it was over I thought, This is the end of my career.” He disappeared backstage and cried. “And then from out of the darkness came Mr. Prince,” Grey says. “He put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Joely, that’s it.’ ”

Cabaret played its first performance at the Shubert Theatre in Boston in the fall of 1966. Grey stopped the show with the opening number, “Willkommen.” “The audience wouldn’t stop applauding,” Grey recalls. “I turned to the stage manager and said, ‘Should I get changed for the next scene?’ ”

The musical ran long—it was in three acts—but it got a prolonged standing ovation. As the curtain came down, Richard Seff, an agent who represented Kander and Ebb, ran into Ebb in the aisle. “It’s wonderful,” Seff said. “You’ll fix the obvious flaws.” In the middle of the night, Seff’s phone rang. It was Ebb. “You hated it!” the songwriter screamed. “You are of no help at all!”

Ebb was reeling because he’d learned Prince was going to cut the show down to two acts. Ebb collapsed in his hotel bed, Kander holding one hand, Grey the other. “You’re not dying, Fred,” Kander told him. “Hal has not wrecked our show.”

Cabaret came roaring into New York, fueled by tremendous word of mouth. But there was a problem. Some Jewish groups were furious about “If You Could See Her.” How could you equate a gorilla with a Jew? they wanted to know, missing the point entirely. They threatened to boycott the show. Prince, his eye on ticket sales, told Ebb to change the line “She wouldn’t look Jewish at all” to something less offensive: “She isn’t a meeskite at all,” using the Yiddish word for a homely person.

It is difficult to imagine the impact Cabaret had on audiences in 1966. World War II had ended only 21 years before. Many New York theatergoers had fled Europe or fought the Nazis. There were Holocaust survivors in the audience; there were people whose relatives had died in the gas chambers. Grey knew the show’s power. Some nights, dancing with the gorilla, he’d whisper “Jewish” instead of “meeskite.” The audience gasped.

Cabaret won eight Tony Awards in 1967, catapulted Grey to Broadway stardom, and ran for three years. Seff sold the movie rights for $1.5 million, a record at the time. Prince, about to begin rehearsals for Stephen Sondheim’s Company, was unavailable to direct the movie, scheduled for a 1972 release. So the producers hired the director and choreographer Bob Fosse, who needed the job because his previous movie, Sweet Charity, had been a bust.

Fosse, who saw Prince as a rival, stamped out much of what Prince had done, including Joel Grey. He wanted Ruth Gordon to play the Emcee. But Grey was a sensation, and the studio wanted him. “It’s either me or Joel,” Fosse said. When the studio opted for Grey, Fosse backed down. But he resented Grey, and relations between them were icy.

A 26-year-old Liza Minnelli, on the way to stardom herself, was cast as Sally Bowles. The handsome Michael York would play the Cliff character, whose name in the movie was changed to Brian Roberts. And supermodel Marisa Berenson (who at the time seemed to be on the cover of Vogue every other month) got the role of a Jewish department store heiress, a character Fosse took from Isherwood’s short story “The Landauers.”

Cabaret was shot on location in Munich and Berlin. “The atmosphere was extremely heavy,” Berenson recalls. “There was the whole Nazi period, and I felt very much the Berlin Wall, that darkness, that fear, all that repression.” She adored Fosse, but he kept her off balance (she was playing a young woman traumatized by what was happening around her) by whispering “obscene things in my ear. He was shaking me up.”

Minnelli, costumed by Halston for the film, found Fosse “brilliant” and “incredibly intense,” she tells Vanity Fair in a rare interview. “He used every part of me, including my scoliosis. One of my great lessons in working with Fosse was never to think that whatever he was asking couldn’t be done. If he said do it, you had to figure out how to do it. You didn’t think about how much it hurt. You just made it happen.”

Back in New York, Fosse arranged a private screening of Cabaret for Kander and Ebb. When it was over, they said nothing. “We really hated it,” Kander admits. Then they went to the opening at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York. The audience loved it. “We realized it was a masterpiece,” Kander says, laughing. “It just wasn’t our show.”

“PAPA WAS EVEN MORE EXCITED ABOUT THE OSCAR THAN I WAS,” SAYS LIZA MINNELLI. “AND, BABY, I WAS—NO, I AM STILL—EXCITED.”

The success of the movie—with its eight Academy Awards—soon overshadowed the musical. When people thought of Cabaret, they thought of finger snaps and bowler hats. They thought of Fosse and, of course, Minnelli, who would adopt the lyric “Life is a cabaret” as her signature. Her best-actress Oscar became part of a dynasty: Her mother, Judy Garland, and father, director Vincente Minnelli, each had one of their own. “Papa was even more excited about the Oscar than I was,” she says. “And, baby, I was—no, I am still—excited.”

By 1987—in part to burnish Cabaret’s theatrical legacy—Prince decided to recreate his original production on Broadway, with Grey once again serving as the Emcee. But it had the odor of mothballs. The New York Times drama critic Frank Rich wrote that it was not, as Sally Bowles sings, “perfectly marvelous,” but “it does approach the perfectly mediocre.” Much of the show, he added, was “old-fashioned and plodding.”

In the early 1990s, Sam Mendes, then a young director running a pocket-size theater in London called the Donmar Warehouse, heard the novelist Martin Amis give a talk. Amis was writing Time’s Arrow, about a German doctor who works in a concentration camp. “I’ve already written about the Nazis and people say to me, ‘Why are you doing it again?’ ” Amis said. “And I say, what else is there?”

At the end of the day,” Mendes tells me, “the biggest question of the 20th century is, ‘How could this have happened?’ ” Mendes decided to stage Cabaret at the Donmar in 1993. Another horror was unfolding at the time: Serb paramilitaries were slaughtering Bosnian Muslims, “ethnic cleansing” on an unimaginable scale.

Mendes hit on a terrific concept for his production: He transformed his theater into a nightclub. The audience sat at little tables with red lamps. And the performers were truly seedy. He told the actors playing the Kit Kat Club girls not to shave their armpits or their legs. “Unshaved armpits—it sent shock waves around the theater,” he recalls. Since there was no room—or money—for an orchestra, the actors played the instruments. Some of them could hit the right notes.

To play the Emcee, Mendes cast Alan Cumming, a young Scottish actor whose comedy act Mendes had enjoyed. “Can you sing?” Mendes asked him. “Yeah,” Cumming said. Mendes threw ideas at him and “he was open to everything.” Just before the first preview, Mendes suggested he come out during the intermission and chat up the audience, maybe dance with a woman. Mendes, frantic before the preview, never got around to giving Cumming any more direction than that. No matter. Cumming sauntered onstage as people were settling back at their tables, picked a man out of the crowd, and started dancing with him. “Watch your hands,” he said. “I lead.”

Cumming’s Emcee was impish, fun, gleefully licentious. The audience loved him. “I have never had less to do with a great performance in one of my shows than I had to do with Alan,” Mendes says.

When Joe Masteroff came to see the show in London, Mendes was nervous. He’d taken plenty of liberties with the script. Cliff, the narrator, was now openly gay. (One night, when Cliff kissed a male lover, a man in the audience shouted, “Rubbish!”) And he made the Emcee a victim of the Nazis. In the final scene, Cumming, in a concentration camp uniform affixed with a yellow Star of David and a pink triangle, is jolted, as if he’s thrown himself onto the electrified fence at Birkenau.

“I should be really pissed with you,” Masteroff told Mendes after the show. “But it works.” Kander liked it too, though he was not happy that the actors didn’t play his score all that well. Ebb hated it. “He wanted more professionalism,” Mendes says. “And he was not wrong. There was a dangerous edge of amateurishness about it.”

The Roundabout Theatre Company brought Cabaret to New York in 1998. Rob Marshall, who would go on to direct the movie Chicago, helped Mendes give the show some Broadway gloss while retaining its grittiness. The two young directors were “challenging each other, pushing each other,” Marshall remembers, “to create something unique.”

Cumming reprised his role as the Emcee. He was on fire. Natasha Richardson, the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richardson, played Sally Bowles. She was not on fire. She’d never been in a musical before, and when she sang, “There was absolutely no sound coming out,” Kander says.

“She beat herself up about her singing all the time,” Mendes adds. “There was a deep, self-critical aspect of Tash that was instilled by her dad, a brilliant man but extremely cutting.” He once said to her out of nowhere: “We’re going to have to do something about your chin, dear.” As Mendes saw it, she always felt that she could never measure up to her parents.

Kander went to work with her, and slowly a voice emerged. It was not a “polished sound,” Marshall says, but it was haunting, vulnerable. Still, Cumming was walking away with the show. At the first preview, when he took his bow, the audience roared. When Richardson took hers, they were polite. Mendes remembers going backstage and finding her “in tears.” But she persevered and through sheer force of will created a Sally Bowles that “will break your heart,” Masteroff told me the day before I saw that production in the spring of 1998. She did indeed. (Eleven years later, while learning how to ski on a bunny hill on Mont Tremblant, she fell down. She died of a head injury two days later.)

The revival of Cabaret won four Tony Awards, including one for Richardson as best actress in a musical. It ran nearly 2,400 performances at the Roundabout’s Studio 54 and was revived again in 2014. And the money, money, money, as the song goes, poured in. Once Masteroff, having already filed his taxes at the end of a lucrative Cabaret year, went to the mailbox and opened a royalty check for $60,000. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” he snapped.

Rebecca Frecknall grew up on Mendes’s Donmar Warehouse production of Cabaret. The BBC filmed it, and when it aired, her father videotaped it. She watched it “religiously.” But when she came to direct her production, she had to put Mendes’s version out of her mind.

Mendes turned his little theater into a nightclub. Frecknall, working with the brilliant set and costume designer Tom Scutt, has upped the game. They have transformed the entire theater into a Weimar cabaret. You stand in line at the stage door, waiting, you hope, to be let in. Once inside, you’re served drinks while the Kit Kat Club girls dance and flirt with you. The show’s logo is a geometric eye. Scutt sprinkles the motif throughout his sets and costumes. “It’s all part of the voyeurism,” Scutt explains. “The sense of always being watched, always watching—responsibility, culpability, implication, blame.”

REDMAYNE’S EMCEE IS STILL SEXY AND SEDUCTIVE, BUT AS THE SHOW GOES ON HE BECOMES A PUPPET MASTER MANIPULATING THE OTHER CHARACTERS, SOMETIMES TO THEIR DOOM.

Mendes’s Cabaret, like Fosse’s, had a black-and-white aesthetic—black fishnet stockings, black leather coats, a white face for the Emcee. Frecknall and Scutt begin their show with bright colors, which slowly fade to gray as the walls close in on the characters. “Color and individuality—to grayness and homogeneity,” Frecknall says.

As the first woman to direct a major production of Cabaret, Frecknall has focused attention on the Kit Kat Club girls—Rosie, Fritzie, Frenchie, Lulu, and Texas. “Often what I’ve seen in other productions is this homogenized group of pretty, white, skinny girls in their underwear,” she insists. Her Kit Kat Club girls are multiethnic. Some are transgender. Through performances and costumes, they are no longer appendages of the Emcee but vivid characters in their own right.

Her boldest stroke has been to reinvent the Emcee. She and Redmayne have turned him into a force of malevolence. He is still sexy and seductive, but as the show goes on, he becomes a skeletal puppet master manipulating the other characters to, in many cases, their doom. If Cumming’s Emcee was, in the end, a Holocaust victim, Redmayne’s is, in Frecknall’s words, “a perpetrator.”

Unwrapping a grilled cheese sandwich in his enormous Upper West Side townhouse, Kander says that his husband had recently asked him a pointed question: “Did it ever occur to you that all of you guys who created Cabaret were Jewish?”

“Not really,” Kander replied. “We were just trying to put on a show.” Or, as Masteroff once said: “It was a job.”

It’s a “job” that has endured. The producers of the Broadway revival certainly have faith in the show’s staying power. They’ve spent $25 million on the production, a big chunk of it going to reconfigure the August Wilson Theatre into the Kit Kat Club. Audience members will enter through an alleyway, be given a glass of schnapps, and can then enjoy a preshow drink at a variety of lounges designed by Scutt: The Pineapple Room, Red Bar, Green Bar, and Vault Bar. The show will be performed in the round, tables and chairs ringing the stage. And they’ll be able to enjoy a bottle (or two) of top-flight Champagne throughout the performance.

This revival is certainly the most lavish Cabaret in a long time. But there have been hundreds of other, less heralded productions over the years, with more on the way. A few months before Russia invaded Ukraine, Cabaret was running in Moscow. Last December, Concord Theatricals, which licenses the show, authorized a production at the Molodyy Theatre in Kyiv. And a request is in for a production in Israel, the first since the show was produced in Tel Aviv in 2014.

“The interesting thing about the piece is that it seems to change with the times,” Kander says. “Nothing about it seems to be written in stone except its narrative and its implications.”

And whenever someone tells him the show is more relevant than ever, Kander shakes his head and says, “I know. And isn’t that awful?”′

You can also listen the entire article here !!

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/cabaret-revival

I know it's a very long article , but very interesting!!

[headingalaxys-spicy]

hey there! i really loved your interpretation about japan and germany stalking a celebrity s/o! maybe you could do the 2p!allies next + 1p!romano and spain (just bc i love them sm lol)? thank you for taking the time to read this :3

finally I wrote this one. Also I’m sure you need a heavy dose of escapism.

2p England

Olivers makes nice with the Hollywood elites, directors, and producers. Oliver lures them in with his accent and gentlemanly charm. (Plus, Americans really fawn over a cockney accent) He’ll glean information about what things are like for you on set, whether is there a co-star you don’t like / butt heads with/ find creepy, etc, so that he has more ammo to use on you later. 

The dude definitely has a pristine shrine of yours decorated in pinks and blues, complete with enchantment candles, crystals, and incantations all designed to get you to notice him and think of him. Nothing has seemed to work yet, but you did like a few of his posts on Instagram and Twitter.  

Of course, he has sent you cupcakes and other goodies from his bakery to try, and since he runs a legitimate business, you don’t hesitate to eat. (It’s too cute not to eat since he had a decent level of popularity himself.) But don’t count on it always being poison/drug-free. The first few batches are to gain your trust.  

Once he’s gathered enough info, he has a full setup plan to nab you and keep MI6  off his trial and suspicion away from him. He’ll send you one last batch of assorted sweets that know you, your security, & entourage out. Oliver takes care of your video cameras with his magic & leaves no trace. No one will be able to find you. 

2p France 

He attends most of your shows with a VIP pass, where he’ll always want to shake your hand. François will give you his number every other time he sees you backstage in the hopes that you’ll shoot him a text. Every time you see him though he does make your neck hairs stand on high. 

He keeps a picture of you that he expertly took like a paparazzi cameraman in his wallet. He keeps a faint hope that maybe one day you’ll see him more than some adoring fan. 

François does have enough influence to have one of the interns who worked under you steal some of the lingerie or costume(s) you used in one of your shows. 

Follows all of your Twitter and Instagram posts so he can get a good dopamine hit. He will print out your saucy ones & pin them too his walls. 

2p China

Dude definitely has hacked your home security cameras so he has a decent idea of your habits and routines. 

Has spent time making a collage in his office made from magazine clippings, newspaper articles, things he’s found on Weibo, South China Morning Post, etc there isn’t a piece of news or update he’s missed form you. 

Zao is charming and knows how to rizz you up, and he managed to get you to go on a date with him. Being a drug lord who controls most of the Chinese trade and is a powerful political figure, it’s easy for him to take you somewhere exclusive and elusive for a date. Zao will sweet-talk you and shower you with expensive gifts. However, during the date, he’s careful not to give away how much he actually knows about you. He has to downplay that to keep you at ease. If you reject him and don’t want to have a committed relationship with him he won’t outwardly show his rage…at first. 

Zao and his crew will collect you when you’re at some glitzy party. Your critical thinking skills will be marred too much by booze and drugs, especially the ones that make it’s way into one of your drinks. 

2p Russia 

Viktor will keep a journal and give critiques on how you could improve your performances. He never misses a single broadcast, livestream, or when you’re featured in another person's song or in one of those daytime talk shows he usually abhors but you being a topic makes it interesting. 

When you walk the red carpet he’s stolen some member of the press credentials so he now has an advantage to get perfect shots of you, that he’ll later add to his scrapbook collection. 

Viktor will even indulge in reading x reader fanfictions he’ll find across the internet. Viktor is a lurker he won’t comment, subscribe, or interact with posts nada. He’ll observe and print his favorite ones he keeps in a file for his enjoyment when he has a shitty day. He does rank his favorites in which would be the most realistic senarios. 

He will dabble in poetry and pull some strings to ensure you see his masterpieces while you’re in your dressing room, along with a few gifts he’s left behind. 

2p America 

Allen is one of your more rowdy fans when he attends your live performances. Allen puts his all into it when he cheers for you. It feels like he’s reached a new level of euphoria when he sees you on stage hitting extremely high notes. 

Allen of course attends all of your concerts with backstage VIP passes. He will be extremely touchy with you. He doesn’t do anything that would get him kicked out but he feels up your upper arms, waist, and of course will want a hug from you. 

Allen will ask you to autograph his bicep. Later on he will get it tattooed on himself. 

He’ll clean himself up extremely nicely & chat you up at every club, event, & appearance you’re at. The mantra that he lives by: ‘Someday you’ll love me doll & I’ll have you for myself.’ 

2p Canada 

Mathieû had been following your career since it’s infancy. He attended all of your small events as they gradually grew. He was always in the background, recording, taking pictures, and notating your behavior. 

On occasion, Mathieû successfully followed you home & surveyed your entire house. He beats off other stalkers because that job only has one position for him. 

He knows your favorite cafes you like to frequent & once a month he will buy you your favorite drink and simply leave his signature with his cellphone number attached. 

You once left your jacket at a nightclub and yeah you’re not getting that back. Mathieû will relish in your natural scent & trademark perfume. He lets Kuma have a whiff so he can hunt you down when the right time has come. 

1p Romano 

Lovino's house is filled to the brim with all of your merch from concerts and brands that have endorsed you. 

Attends all of your concerts, appearances, & small VIP events. Nation’s meetings be damned! Seeing you again in show was far more important than attending those. 

Lovino does try to be discreet and smooth when stalking you when you’re out in public to get photos or to simply admire you, only to be apprehended by security. 

Bro has a Twitter stanning you and burning any fucker alive that criticizes you. 

Lovino has to fall back and stalk all of your socials. Writing & reading fanfics daydreaming about the days you’ll notice him. 

1p Spain

Only your music & flamenco plays in his house. 

Antonio's obviously happy face will be one you always see in the front row at your shows. He’s got a little bit of a tug on your heart with that charming and disarming smile of his. 

He’ll come armed with roses & a waterproof tracker hidden well within them. He will track you back to your house and strike when you’re away so he can claim your undergarments as his trophies. He will leave a singular red rose on your dresser with a card written in Spanish. It reads 

“Te adoro. 

Estoy enamorada de ti. 

Cásate conmigo y hazme el hombre más afortunado del mundo.” 

I adore you. 

I’m in love with you. 

  Marry me & make me the luckiest man in the world. 

[dimme-danger-little-stranger]

I'm continuing this little presentation of all of my OCs ^^ Today I'm sharing Heaven, who you already saw in several of my posts since he is engaged to Takemura ♪(´▽｀) Heaven J. Lachance is half-canadian half-american, and born in Night City, in one of the poorest suburbs of Rancho Coronado. When he was around 20, one of his moms joined the 6th Street and manipulated him into going into the gang with her. Heaven mainly stole cars for the gang, which he never intended to do, since he joined them only to maintain good relationships with his mother. One day, while driving a stolen car, his car got hit by another vehicule. The other driver, who was at fault, died in the car crash. Heaven stayed in the coma for a time, and almost lost his right arm. That was the trigger for him to get out of Rancho Coronado, and to leave the 6th Street. He moved away to Japantown, where he cumulates several small jobs to pay his rent. One the side, he started working on his life-long dream : writing a comedy show and becoming a comedian. It took him several years to make himself known, but he eventually managed to create his show, which he played in small bars and comedy clubs around NC. Eventually, Heaven will get noticed by a TV producer who'll give him a small spot in a TV show. It's enough for Heaven to really start his comedian career and to stop one of his side jobs. He's almost living his dream of being a full-time comedian, and that's already a lot ! And if you wonder how he met Takemura, well, I have a fic for this :

[mariacallous]

Whether you're a student, a journalist, or a business professional, knowing how to do high-quality research and writing using trustworthy data and sources, without giving in to the temptation of AI or ChatGPT, is a skill worth developing.

As I detail in my book Writing That Gets Noticed, locating credible databases and sources and accurately vetting information can be the difference between turning a story around quickly or getting stuck with outdated information.

For example, several years ago the editor of Parents.com asked for a hot-take reaction to country singer Carrie Underwood saying that, because she was 35, she had missed her chance at having another baby. Since I had written about getting pregnant in my forties, I knew that as long as I updated my facts and figures, and included supportive and relevant peer-reviewed research, I could pull off this story. And I did.

The story ran later that day, and it led to other assignments. Here are some tips I’ve learned that you should consider mastering before you turn to automated tools like generative AI to handle your writing work for you.

Find Statistics From Primary Sources

Identify experts, peer-reviewed research study authors, and sources who can speak with authority—and ideally, offer easily understood sound bites or statistics on the topic of your work. Great sources include professors at major universities and media spokespeople at associations and organizations.

For example, writer and author William Dameron pinned his recent essay in HuffPost Personal around a statistic from the American Heart Association on how LGBTQ people experience higher rates of heart disease based on discrimination. Although he first found the link in a secondary source (an article in The New York Times), he made sure that he checked the primary source: the original study that the American Heart Association gleaned the statistic from. He verified the information, as should any writer, because anytime a statistic is cited in a secondary source, errors can be introduced.

Dive Into Databases

Jen Malia, author of The Infinity Rainbow Club series of children’s books (whom I recently interviewed on my podcast), recently wrote a piece about dinosaur-bone hunting for Business Insider, which she covers in her book Violet and the Jurassic Land Exhibit.

After a visit to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Malia, whose books are set in Philadelphia, found multiple resources online and on the museum site that gave her the history of the Bone Wars, information on the exhibits she saw, and the scientific names of the dinosaurs she was inspired by. She also used the Library of Congress’ website, which offers digital collections and links to the Library of Congress Newspaper Collection.

Malia is a fan of searching for additional resources and citable documents with Google Scholar. “If I find that a secondary source mentions a newspaper article, I’m going to go to the original newspaper article, instead of just stopping there and quoting,” she says.

Your local public library is a great source of free information, journals, and databases (even ones that generally require a subscription and include embargoed research). For example, your search should include everything from health databases (Sage Journals, Scopus, PubMed) to databases for academic sources and journalism (American Periodical Series Online, Statista, Academic Search Premier) and databases for news, trends, market research, and polls (the Harris Poll, Pew Research Center, Newsbank, ProPublica).

Even if you find a study or paper that you can’t access in one of those databases, consider reaching out to the study’s lead author or researcher. In many cases, they’re happy to discuss their work and may even share the study with you directly and offer to talk about their research.

Get a Good Filtering System

For journalist Paulette Perhach’s article on ADHD in The New York Times, she used Epic Research to see “dual team studies.” That's when two independent teams address the same topic or question, and ideally come to the same conclusions. She recommends locating research and experts via key associations for your topic. She also likes searching via Google Scholar but advises filtering it for studies and research in recent years to avoid using old data. She suggests keeping your links and research organized. “Always be ready to be peer-reviewed yourself,” Perhach says.

When you are looking for information for a story or project, you might be inclined to start with a regular Google search. But keep in mind that the internet is full of false information, and websites that look trustworthy can sometimes turn out to be businesses or companies with a vested interest in you taking their word as objective fact without additional scrutiny. Regardless of your writing project, unreliable or biased sources are a great way to torpedo your work—and any hope of future work.

For Accuracy, Go to the Government

Author Bobbi Rebell researched her book Launching Financial Grownups using the IRS’ website. “I might say that you can contribute a certain amount to a 401K, but it might be outdated because those numbers are always changing, and it’s important to be accurate,” she says. “AI and ChatGPT can be great for idea generation,” says Rebell, “but you have to be careful. If you are using an article someone was quoted in, you don’t know if they were misquoted or quoted out of context.”

If you use AI and ChatGPT for sourcing, you not only risk introducing errors, you risk introducing plagiarism—there is a reason OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is being sued for downloading information from all those books.

Historically, the Loudest Isn’t the Best

Audrey Clare Farley, who writes historical nonfiction, has used a plethora of sites for historical research, including Women Also Know History, which allows searches by expertise or area of study, and JSTOR, a digital library database that offers a number of free downloads a month. She also uses Chronicling America, a project from the Library of Congress which gathers old newspapers to show how a historical event was reported, and Newspapers.com (which you can access via free trial but requires a subscription after seven days).

When it comes to finding experts, Farley cautions against choosing the loudest voices on social media platforms. “They might not necessarily be the most authoritative. I vet them by checking if they have a history of publication on the topic, and/or educational credentials.”

When vetting an expert, look for these red flags:

You can’t find their work published or cited anywhere.

They were published in an obscure journal.

Their research is funded by a company, not a university, or they are the spokesperson for the company they are doing research for. (This makes them a public relations vehicle and not an appropriate source for journalism.)

And finally, the best endings for virtually any writing, whether it’s an essay, a research paper, an academic report, or a piece of investigative journalism, circle back to the beginning of the piece, and show your reader the transformation or the journey the piece has presented in perspective.

As always, your goal should be strong writing supported by research that makes an impact without cutting corners. Only then can you explore tools that might make the job a little easier, for instance by generating subheads or discovering a concept you might be missing—because then you'll have the experience and skills to see whether it's harming or helping your work.