#WRITTEN ON A HURRY WHILE IN THE SUPERMARKET LINE HELP

[madame-fear]

Yn is betrothed to Jace but seems very unhappy. Jace, bless his heart, speaks to yn, releasing her from the betrothal so she could be happy. (Nauurrrr💀😭😭😭 but he would totally do that 😢)

YESSS HE WOULD, ABSOLUTELY YES, YOU'RE ON POINT MY BELOVED ANON. 😭

You don't need to say anything to him whether you're happy about the betrothal or not, he can already tell by your face and your way of being around him that you are clearly not satisfied — even though you do appreciate the gentlemanly sweet way he has of being with you.

However, being the good and adorable little prince charming he is, he will probably reach you at any private moment you get to be alone together, and he'd talk to you about how he notices you're notoriously unhappy with the betrothal. So, with his entire approval, you are released from your betrothal with him just to seek your one and true love, and be genuinely happy. Or, you can play the betrothed couple in the public view if truly needed for the union of your Houses, and behind doors he'll offer you as much liberty as you wish to be with whomever you desire to be with and stay as good besties if you want to.

Seeing the tremendously joyful glint on your eyes at his proposal would bring him so much happiness, for real 🥺 The idea of keeping you stuck in an unwanted marriage is awful for him, so he'd literally help you out with anything he can do in his power just to see you happy, and free. ❤

♡ taglist : ♡

@damatheirin @jacesvelaryons @capellaadara @tchatso @tickle-euphoria @kyuupidwrites

[drakenology]

Their S/O is shy. With Bakugo, Todoroki and Midoriya!

author’s note: HIIII! So I got this idea from work today. I’m a shy, reserved person in real life and I imagined a headcannon where y/n was an uwu girl. enjoy! I’m going to do the Bakusquad next time. 

warnings: suggestive themes, light violence, fluff, and cussing.

Bakugo 

thinks you’re the cutest

teases you a lot. 

will smack the shit outta anyone who tries taking advantage of your kind and shy demeanor.

loves how your shyness comes to play in the bedroom; he likes trying to get you to loosen up a little.

Would butter you up with compliments and praises.

“I dunno what you’re so shy about. You’re fuckin hot.”

likes how he’s the complete opposite of you

VERY protective over you. 

You and Bakugo are out at a restaurant on a date. You’re looking through the menu to see what you want, not being able to decide between the burger or the quesadilla (yum!). 

“I think I’m gonna get the steak. What about you, babe?” Katsuki asked, peering over to look at your menu. 

“I dunno.. I think the burger sounds good. I think that’s what I’ll get” You say, sitting your menu down. Bakugo is staring down your dress, oogling at your ample cleavage popping out of the v-neckline. You notice his gaze, blushing profusely. 

“S-Stop it, Katsuki.” You say, covering up your chest with your menu. He smirks and runs his hands up your thighs causing you to fold your legs to try and stop the wetness coming from your panties. Even though you never admit it out loud, you loved when he groped and stared at you. It made you feel like the sexiest woman in the world. Katsuki grabs your chin and kisses you.

“You’re gonna get it tonight, princess.” He whispered in your ear. You blush as you notice the waiter coming your way, swatting Katsuki’s hands away from you. The waiter walked towards your table and sat your drinks down.

“Thanks. Ready to order, babe?” Bakugo looks towards you. You nod, feeling a little nervous to order yourself. You were very soft spoken, so ordering food was a bit of a challenge for you. But today, you had worked up the courage to order without Bakugo’s help. 

“Hi, u-um.. I’ll have the burger, please. Also could I get that without any onions? I’m allergic.” You say, looking down at your menu instead of at the waiter. 

“Certainly. And for you, sir?” The waiter said, motioning to Bakugo.

“I’ll have the steak please. Well done. I don’t like my steak pink. If I see pink, me and my lady are leaving without payin’, ya got that!?” Bakugo said aggressively. To anyone not knowing him, they think he’s being rude and difficult but you know he’s just trying to make the waiter nervous on purpose as a joke. 

“Yes, sir. Coming right up.” The waiter says, leaving in a hurry. 

“Katsuki, you’re giving the waiter a hard time.” You say softly, your voice sounding like a disappointed mother. He sighed, grabbing your hand and kissing it. 

“Alright, I’ll lay off.” He said, laughing. You two chatter about what you guys did for hero work that day, laughing and enjoying each other’s company until the food came. Finally, the food comes; the aroma coating your nose as you get excited to eat.

“Enjoy.” The waiter said dryly, clearly not liking Bakugo’s attitude. You both shrug it off and prepare to dig in. Bakugo seemed to like his steak but your burger had onions all over it. Even if you had picked them off, it still wouldn’t have been safe to eat. You sigh, poking at your burger in disappointment.

“What’s wrong? How come you’re not eating?” Bakugo asked, his mouth full as he wiped steak sauce from his mouth. You shake your head, not wanting to make a scene. He looked at your plate, seeing your burger teething with onions. He’s way angrier than you are, waving the waiter over to your table with fervor. 

“K-Katsuki, I can just take them off it’s not-” You’re interrupted by Bakugo, who isn’t having any of it; already knowing what you’re about to say. The waiter clearly didn’t like Bakugo’s attitude so he messed your order up on purpose because he noticed how soft-spoken you are. He didn’t chance fucking up Katsuki’s order because he knew he’d have a fit and probably kick his ass if he got short with him. 

“No Y/N, it is a big deal. Look at it! It’s got onions all over it. You can’t eat that shit, you’ll get sick even if you pick ‘em off. I’m givin that asshole a piece of my mind!” He shouts, still trying to get the waiter’s attention who was clearly ignoring you two. 

“HEY! I KNOW YOU FUCKING SEE ME. GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE, NOW.” Bakugo shouts. Oh god. The waiter rolled his eyes, walking over to your table.

“Is there a problem, sir?” He asks, not eager to help at all. 

“You’re fuckin’ right there’s a problem. What did my girl order, huh?” Bakugo says, standing from his seat. 

“Katsuki, please.” You say, tugging his sleeve trying to get him to sit back down.

“She ordered a burger.” the waiter answered with attitude. 

“Yeah, with NO ONIONS you idiot! GO TELL THEM TO FUCKING FIX IT OR I’M TELLIN’ YOUR BOSS AND YOU’RE FUCKED.” Bakugo yelled, grabbing the waiter by his collar. The waiter; scared out of his mind, is now sweating with fear. 

“V-Very sorry, sir. I’ll fix that for you right away!” The waiter said, running back to the kitchen to fix your order. Bakugo sat back down in his seat, going back to eat his steak as if nothing happened. The whole restaurant was staring at you both, you sinking into your chair from all the eyes on you. 

“THE FUCK ARE YALL LOOKIN AT!?” Bakugo yelled, getting everyone in the room to turn their attention back to their own tables. He looked back to you, seeing a frown on your face. 

“Don’t you think you went a bit too far?” You ask, crossing your arms. 

“Nope.” He said, feeding you some of his steak until your new burger came. 

“Nobody messes with my baby.”

Todoroki

is such a mom omg

just as protective as Bakugo (if not more)

encourages you to open up

supports your small wins (awww)

fucks the shyness outta you hehe

loves you and your shyness no matter what 

You and Shoto are getting ready to go out when you’re having a difficult time deciding what to wear. You had pulled out a few garments to wear; a red strapless bodycon dress that Shoto got you to accentuate them curves of yours or a simple bulky sweater and jeans. You were a little nervous to dress sexy for Shoto, unsure of yourself and your body not to mention all the potential unwarranted stares from others. You sigh and start dressing yourself in the boring outfit you picked out and sat down at your vanity to do your makeup. Shoto walked in the bedroom from your bathroom to see the dress sitting on the bed. 

“Why aren’t you wearing your dress, love?” He asked, concern written all over his face as he stood next to your vanity. 

“I-I just don’t want all the attention on me. I’m nervous. What if everyone stares at me?” You say, tears burning your eyes. Shoto takes you by your hand and leads you to the full body mirror mounted on the wall of your bedroom. He pushed your hair back and kissed your neck, running his hands on either side of your body. 

“You don’t have to worry about the stares. I’m going to be there to protect you, okay?” He says, sweetly kissing your cheek. You smile warmly and nod. He was right. You change into the dress and slipped on some heels to match, giggling at the praises and encouragement from your boyfriend as he reached for your hand to kiss it. 

“You’re so beautiful, baby.” Shoto said, taking a good look at your curves. He feels himself harden at the sight of you, involuntarily groaning as he pulled you close to him for a deep kiss. 

“How about we stay in tonight instead?” 

He was determined to make you open up... one way or any other teehee.

Midoriya 

loves you SO MUCH OMG

doesn’t care that you’re a little shy and soft-spoken

speaks for you when needed

stands up for you

loves to motivate you 

thinks you’re sinfully adorable

You and Midoriya are walking through the supermarket, shopping for food for your shared home. Izuku was always such a huge help, lifting all the heavy things and putting them in the cart or reaching for things that were too high for you to reach. You loved shopping with him and he loved it too because he could look after you and spend time with you at the same time. 

“Crap, I forgot we need meats for dinner tonight. What did you want again, Izuku?” You asked, looking up from your shopping list. 

“Pork, please. You always make the best pork curry, Y/N” He said sweetly, kissing your forehead. You blush and walk over to the meat department while Izuku gathers the rest of the ingredients for dinner. You stand in line with your number and waited your turn patiently. Suddenly, this big burly man comes out of nowhere and cuts right in front of you in line. You hated when situations like this happen because it was always so hard for you to stand up for yourself. You gulp and muster up enough courage to confront him...sorta?

“U-um excuse me.. I was ne-” You’re interrupted by the man shouting over you.

“Shut up, bitch! I’m in a hurry so why don’t you just wait a little while longer.” He yells. You’re shocked at how he spoke to you, clearly this man lacked manners. You stand there, dumbfounded and scared. You were so frustrated with yourself you’re brought to tears, wiping them away as you stand in line and wait your turn. 

“Bitch?” you hear a familiar voice repeat. It was Midoriya, standing beside you with your cart in toe. “You thought this woman was alone, didn’t you? Fucking coward.” Izuku walks towards the man, intimidatingly calm. The man scoffs until he sees Izuku’s face. The pro hero Deku was standing right in front of him and he was angry.

“H-Hey.. I had no idea okay? I’ll back o-”

“If it was me standing there would you have cut in front of me and called me a bitch?” Izuku asked, grabbing the man by his shirt. “You get off on bullying women don’t you, you spineless bastard? Think that just because your big and ugly that you can just push people around? People like you make me sick. Get in the back of fucking line before I lose my temper.” The man does so, glaring at you as he walked to the back of the line. You sigh in relief as your number is called, Izuku leading you to the counter with his hand on your back. He turned around and glared at the man who gave you a hard time one last time. 

“What would you like to order, miss?” The butcher said with a smile.

“Pork, please.” You sigh.

[raabsfunnylittleworld]

Misha’s Tweet

Me and my friend were discussing the famous tweet where Misha had received a dollar with his name on it.  Decided to write this.

________________________________________________________________

"Kimberley, can you unpack some stuff in the pasta aisle?"

I sighed. Another day at Walmart. This day was just dragging and it seemed like it would be a long shift.

I had been working at Walmart for a year but it really felt like longer. It wasn't that I didn't like it but there were more exciting jobs and noone wanted to work at Walmart for the rest of their lives, right? Still, bills had to be paid and I had a job. I shouldn't complain really.

Erasing all thoughts from my head, I continued to unpack pasta to the shelves.

"Pasta carbonara, ready in 3 minutes", "Immediate pasta bolognese" "Fettuccine alfredo, just add water" I looked at it. Who would eat all these substitutes? I already knew the answer. People who are in a rush, that's who. At the times we are in now, that's everyone. Every American seems to be in a rush these days. Never having the time to take a coffee break and just relax.

"Pasta, why do we always run out of pasta?" Darn kids." I heard a man mutter.

"Excuse me, can I help you?" I asked him. The man looked up from his shopping cart. His bright blue eyes looked tired but his lips were in a mischievous smile.

"Oh, no thanks I'm good. My kids are just going through a pasta phase. They're forcing me to make pasta and jam sauce." He grimaced. I raised my eyebrows.

"I have to admit, that's a new one."

"Yeah, they are originals, that's for sure." He sighed and continued with his shopping.

A while later I had moved on to unpacking some flour when a message was heard on the speaker.

"Staff to cashier number 3 please." I hurried over. Met a coworker on my way.

"Heading to cashier 3?" He grinned.

"Yup." I grinned back

"It might happen today…"

"But most likely it will never happen," I finished the sentence and laughed.

Cashier 3 was the joke of the staff. A few months ago, a customer had paid for her food with cash, one of them being a dollar note with the text "Are you Misha Collins?" scribbled in ink on it. When asked about it, she just sighed and explained that it was not she who had written it, she had four of those dollars and was just as confused about it as we were. Since that day, that dollar had been there, as an inside joke for the staff if a Misha would ever come around.

I started scanning wares, forcing myself to focus on the job. Just because I found the work somewhat mundane didn't mean that the customers should suffer.

I looked at the line. One of the customers was the guy with the pasta and jam. I smiled, eager to find if he was actually going to buy pasta and jam. Just as he was unpacking his stuff on the conveyor belt, his phone rang. He grimaced in a typical "wrong time" way but still answered.

"Misha Collins." Had I heard that correctly? No way!

"Yes, this is Misha." Oh dear lord. I had.

"I'm actually at the supermarket now, I'll have to call you back." He hung up.

"Stupid Jared and Jensen, always prank-calling" he grinned for himself.

"Okay, that'll be 25 dollars please."

"Sure." He handed me 30 dollars.

I had to. I handed him 5 one-dollar notes, including THE note. I giggled a bit when I gave it to him. He looked questioningly at me.

"Sorry sir, it's just been a bet going on if this note would ever be handed to the right person," I said and gave him the note. He took it and read it out loud.

"Are you Misha Collins? What is this?"

"I don't know, I was hoping you could tell me. Have a good night and good luck with the pasta and jam sauce."

He just chuckled as a reply.

When I came home that evening, I searched for Misha Collins and found his twitter.

It was a picture of him holding the note with the words. "Also, can someone please explain? I received this as change. You do realize its illegal to deface currency, right?"

From that day on, I was a fan of Misha Collins. A weird guy with even weirder fans.

[the-quiet-winds]

A Thousand to One, A Million to Two (part one)

[Co-written with @ichlugebulletsandcornnuts. TW for blood and violence]

[Part 1: I’m the One Who’s Selling You Out]

the letter itself hadn’t scared jane at all. 

when it was sealed in its pristine white envelope, addressed from her landlord, it wasn’t threatening at all.

it’s when she opened it that things go south. 

due to a change in the housing market, jane’s landlord was increasing her rent by two hundred pounds a month. 

two hundred pounds, jane thinks, can’t possibly be that hard to save. she trims her budget a bit - buying slightly less food, spending less on herself, and most importantly making sure katherine doesn’t notice. 

but this slimming isn’t enough. 

the due date is creeping closer and jane is still short on the check. she knows that kat would contribute wholeheartedly, but jane can’t bring herself to ask. katherine deserves to save her money, put it away for if she ever wanted to travel or finance an education. jane wouldn’t impede on that. 

so she decides to try and get a second job. 

she sends out some feeler applications, promising kat she would work mornings.

“i’ll get out early and be back before you even wake up, love,” she tells the nervous katherine. “you won’t even notice i’m gone.”

to jane’s relief, within a week she’s been offered an interview for a part-time job. it’s nothing too well-paid but it’ll boost her income just enough to be able to afford the rent, and at this point jane isn’t too picky. it’s a job at a warehouse, preparing online orders for delivery and helping the delivery drivers load their vans, and they offered her an early morning shift, about 5am to 10am.

katherine is still hesitant about the idea, but jane feels a weight lift from her shoulders. they wouldn’t have to change house, jane would arrive home just as katherine would be waking up anyway, and everything seemed to be getting back on track.

her first day altogether isn’t terrible. she’s put in charge of stock and inventory, finding what needs to be shipped out and making sure they has an accurate count of what they do and don’t have. 

she returns home just as katherine is waking up, and she’s immensely relieved to see jane in one piece, not all that worse for the wear. 

day two, jane finds, is drastically different. 

she’s no longer under the warehouse manager’s wing, and things go strange. 

the other workers smoke in the warehouse, horrible combinations of tobacco and marijuana, even though it’s explicitly against the rules.

jane asks one of the linemen about it, and he simply blows his smoke in her face and roughly tells her, “you snitch and this job’ll get a hell of a lot harder for ya, darlin’.”

after that, jane resolves to keep her head down and get her work done without engaging with the other workers, if possible.

most of the other workers were men, and jane was surprised how little men had apparently changed in the last 500 years. for example, some of them seemed to consider spitting on the floor a totally acceptable practice, and they had no qualms in pushing jane out of the way if they wanted to get past her.

there was one other woman in her immediate working area, a middle aged woman with close-cropped hair and a tired expression. jane learns that her name is Sara and she works here in the mornings, before leaving at half past 8 to take her kids to school and going straight to her second job at a supermarket. she’s relieved to have another woman’s company during her shift, and even though sara doesn’t talk much it’s clear she appreciates jane’s presence too.

by the end of her first week of working in the warehouse and doing eight shows, jane is dead tired. she forgoes the usual end-of-week-drinks in favor of getting a few extra hours of much needed rest. 

on the third day of her second week, one of the line workers, clive, comes in raging. clive was built like a weightlifter, with massive muscles and standing a full foot taller than jane herself. 

jane tucks herself in one of the corners of their unit, counting computer parts and telly remotes.

“we need seven webcams!” jane hears clive yell. she sets down her clipboard and counts out seven cameras and carries them over to where he is waiting with the box. 

only three steps away, she hits a patch of water no one had bothered to clean up and stumbles. one of the cameras rolls out of her hands and hits the floor, the lens breaking. 

“oi, seymour!” he yells, preventing her from hurrying back to pick up another. “clean that up.”

she does as told without any argument. she kneels down and starts cleaning up the remnants of the camera’s lens when a piece of glass slices her across the ring finger and she hisses in pain. 

“clean it up,” clive commands again, ignoring the blood pooling on her hand. 

when she’s finally done, her entire finger is red and she has tears in her eyes from the pain. 

“back to work,” he gruffs. “don’t go lame on me now, seymour. you need this job, remember that.”

jane tries her best to get back to work but her finger is still dripping blood. she still has an hour left of her shift and, as sara has already left, she has to do it alone. she pulls her handkerchief from her pocket and ties it around her finger, wincing in pain as she puts pressure on the wound. it’ll have to do, she decides, as Clive is already barking out orders to bring him another webcam to replace the one she broke.

by the time jane gets home that day, her handkerchief is covered in blood and she feels exhausted. as she unlocks the door she hears katherine making her way sleepily down the stairs, and in a panic jane shoved her injured hand into her coat pocket and fixes a smile on her face.

“morning, love,” she greets gently. katherine, still half asleep, leans against her in a half hug. jane kisses her forehead. “how did you sleep?”

katherine murmurs something along the lines of ‘good,’, then gives a tiny smile as jane kisses her head again. “do you think you can manage breakfast for yourself, love?” jane asks. “i really need a shower before we go do the matinee.”

katherine scrunches her nose a bit then agrees, saying something about toast. she disappears into the kitchen and jane heads upstairs.

as she undresses the wound, she bites her lip harshly to not cry out in pain or disgust. she’s still bleeding quite a bit, and, frankly, should go to the clinic and get stitches or something, but can’t bring herself to worry katherine. so she showers, ignoring the fierce stinging in her finger, then wraps the still bleeding slash in three neutral colored bandages.

she manages to keep her hand surreptitiously hidden throughout the morning, all the way until they’re getting ready for the matinee at the theatre. jane is just pinning her hair into place when one of the bandages snags on a hairpin, ripping it away from the cut and making jane gasp in pain.

katherine turns suddenly from where she was doing her makeup at the sound, eyes wide with concern.

“you okay, mum?” she asks.

jane forces her grimace into a half smile. “just a snarl in my hair, love,” she calls back. she looks down and sees the blood beginning to pool around the base of her finger again. “i’ll be right back, kat, don’t worry.”

katherine can’t help the slight anxiety she feels, but she reassures herself jane is fine, it’s all fine. 

jane holds herself together until she gets to the bathroom, then lets out a pained gasp as she removes the rest of the bandages. she’s bleeding profusely, the wound having not even healed a little since the morning. she sighs and bites her lip as she runs her hand under the sink, washing out the wound painfully. 

there are only a few bandages left in the first aid kit under the sink, but they’ll have to do as she forces the stiff pieces to meld around her finger tightly, hoping to prevent another incident.

the bandages manage to hold while jane finishes getting ready, and through the first half of the show jane thinks she might get away with it. between the shows she could pop to the doctors as quick as she could and get an emergency appointment to get stitched up, and then be back in time for the evening show without any worry.

it’s in the middle of Get Down that jane starts to notice the blood beginning to seep through the bandage. instantly she starts to panic, not least because katherine’s song was next and the choreography required her to put her hands on katherine. what if katherine noticed the blood? and jane couldn’t rightly put her blood-soaked bandage against katherine’s skin, it would be incredibly unhygienic.

her mind is so busy fretting along these lines that she doesn’t seem to recognise the more pressing issue of losing more and more blood out of her cut every second, and although it may not have seemed much she had been bleeding almost solidly for seven hours.

she feels herself growing lightheaded during the transition to katherine’s song, to the point where she can’t even react when katherine ‘mocks’ her. she gnaws on the inside of her cheek, forcing herself to stay conscious. 

katherine’s song starts with the familiar drum beat, and jane does everything in her power to avoid using her damaged hand. she’s so focused that she doesn’t recognize where they are in the song, her feet are on autopilot and her facial expression excruciatingly neutral. 

black spots flicker in front of her eyes during the climax of the song, and jane finds herself struggling to keep her eyes open.

she manages to stumble offstage on cue with the rest of the queens, leaving katherine alone on the stage to finish the song. jane places her uninjured hand against the wall to steady herself, scrunching her eyes closed and then opening them again in an attempt to stop them from hurting.

onstage, katherine takes a brief moment to enjoy the applause but part of her mind is taken up by worry for jane. katherine had noticed the blank expression on her face, had tried to make eye contact with her, only for jane to ignore her gaze completely. what’s even more worrying, however, is how jane doesn’t follow the other queens back onstage.

the dialogue begins as normal, but all of the queens share slightly worried, barely perceptible looks of concern as to jane's disappearance. 

just as they all begin to argue, jane finds her way back to the stage. 

"well it looks like jane finally figured out where the stage was," boleyn ad libs a zinging joke. the audience is so distracted by uproarious laughter, the other queens all give jane a concerned look. she doesn't give any answer, but does speak through her mic. "well, anne," she says, "at least i know how to keep my head attached to my body." 

the audience loses their minds. jane sees the confused and slightly hurt look in anne's eyes, but the pain in her hand and the fuzziness in her head keeps her from fully responding.

cleves tries to keep the show moving and introduce parr’s song, and jane spends the next few minutes trying to keep upright. the rest of the show is a struggle, and the second the final beat of Six ends jane breathes a sigh of relief. she needs to do something about her hand, she knows that, but to rush off before the end of the megamix would make katherine undoubtedly more worried than she already was, so instead jane practically counts down the seconds. only about two and a half minutes, and then jane could get help for her hand. that’s all she had to last.

she moves on autopilot through the rest of the song. her voice may have cracked during her solo, but she couldn’t say for sure.

as soon as the megamix ended, she danced her way off stage and beat it to the dressing room. she sloppily changed, hands shaking, before grabbing the car keys and practically bursting out the stage door to avoid any fans and, more importantly, katherine. 

she drives probably far too fast to get to the hospital, knowing she’s too far gone for just her normal physician. 

“stitches, please,” is all she can say to a nurse on duty.

jane gets brought into a waiting room to wait for someone to become available to stitch up her cut. the wait isn’t all that long considering, but her headache is steadily increasing and every second that ticks by is one that will make katherine worry, she knows. she bounces her leg restlessly, sending endless glances at the time on her phone and noticing that she had no signal in the hospital; if katherine or anyone else tried to contact her it wouldn’t go through.

finally a nurse calls her name and shows her to a bed. he talks to her while he sterilises the wound. the conversation is friendly enough, but jane supposes he’s really checking if jane is cognitive enough after losing all that blood.

he frowns a bit at how spacey jane is. “you really should have come in earlier,” he says. 

“didn’t have a chance,” she answers. 

he gives another frown but begins to stitch her up. 

another twenty minutes pass before she’s free, after the doctor closed the wound and bandages it, then all but forced her to have a cookie and some orange juice like she had just donated blood. 

as soon as she steps outside her phone explodes. messages and missed calls from all the queens appear at once, and ‘my PERFECT daughter <3’ had sent her nearly thirty messages and called her seven times. 

“please talk to me, mum,” the most recent text reads. “you’re scaring me.”

she walks to the car while waiting for the phone to connect.

“kitty-kat,” she says soothingly as the call patches through, and she hears katherine’s panicked, albeit slightly relieved breathing. “it’s mum. i’m here, love. i’m okay.”

“oh, thank god,” jane hears her mumble, before katherine’s voice gets slightly louder. “where are you?”

“i’m on my way back to the theatre,” jane says, avoiding the question. “don’t worry, love, everything’s okay.”

there’s a moment of silence on the other end of the line before jane hears a choked noise.

“i was so worried.” katherine’s voice is thick with the built up stress and emotion of the past hour.

jane hushes her gently. “i know, love, i’m sorry. but i’m coming back now, okay?”

katherine mumbles out an ‘okay’ and jane feels secure enough to hang up. 

she’s pulling into the theater lot when she gets another phone call. 

clive. 

she answers it and his voice immediately begins to bark at her through the receiver. “oi, seymour, we need you down here now.”

“i can’t,” she says, “i’m at my second job.”

“that little stage show? please,” he gruffs, “get down here to the real job or don’t bother coming in tomorrow.” 

he hangs up. 

jane resists the urge to throw her phone and instead calls grace. 

“can you cover for me?”

“of course, jane, what’s up?”

she sighs. “something came up. just tell the others i’m not feeling well, alright?”

grace gives an awkward sigh on the other end of the phone, then after a brief pause she says, somewhat apologetically: “katherine’s not gonna buy that.”

“i know,” jane closes her eyes briefly. “i’m sorry. i have to go, though.”

“i’ll give vicki a heads up in case she has to go on as well,” grace says, and then her voice gets a tiny bit more serious. “jane, i know it’s none of my business, but i hope whatever it is gets sorted soon.”

jane gives a half smile. “thanks, grace. i’ve got to go now.” after a quick goodbye jane hangs up and puts her phone down, and begins pulling back out of the car park. it takes her just under fifteen minutes to get to work, and she runs in as fast as she can. clive was not a patient man and she didn’t want to keep him waiting any more.

“look who decided to show up,” he grunts with a twisted smile. 

“what do you need me to do?” she asks, hoping whatever this is is well worth her missing the show, and katherine. 

“massive outhaul to a third party tonight, we need all hands on deck.” 

she holds up her clipboard. “where am i going?”

he laughs again. “not that kind of outhaul, sweetheart.”

she looks at him, confused, before he jabs a thumb over his shoulder. 

jane leans around him to see several of the other line men carrying paper and duct tape wrapped squares. 

“is that...” she trails off.

“cocaine? yes.” he gives a devilish smirk. “new buyer tonight.” he takes her clipboard and pen. “go help them out, darlin.”

jane stares at him, open-mouthed. “you can’t be serious!”

“serious as a heart attack, sweetheart,” clive grins.

“but... but that can’t be legal,” she protests, and clive’s expression rapidly falls.

“listen, seymour,” he growls. “you let me worry about that, while /you/ get on with the job you’re being paid to do, or you’ll find that you don’t have a job any more. understand me?”

jane’s gaze darts from clive to the piles of wrapped parcels.

she know she needs this job, she can’t let her and kat lose the house. so she forces herself to lug the parcels around with the other linemen, bringing what must have been ten kilos out to the delivery van driver. 

“seymour! you’re going with,” clive commands. 

her jaw falls open. “no way, i won’t.”

he glares. “we need someone unintimidating to help deliver.”

“i won’t go,” she protests fiercely. 

“you will or you’re fired.”

part of jane wants to shut up and do what she’s told, but another part of her knows that if she gets caught then that’s that. prison, most likely, and katherine would be left on her own, and she definitely wouldn’t be able to cope with jane being in prison. she can’t bring herself to do this, not even for the money. she would do anything to keep katherine safe, and that’s why she couldn’t do this.

“no,” she stands her ground. “i’m not going.”

clive stares at her for several seconds. “fine,” he grunts. “sara, you go instead.”

sara’s eyes widen. “me?” she asks. “but- but I need to pick my sons up from school soon, they’re too young to get the bus by themselves.”

“well, /jane/ has decided she’s too good for this job, so it’s down to you,” clive sneers.

jane panics mentally. she couldn’t do that to sara, with two boys even younger than katherine. she looks around wildly. 

“what about nick?” she cries out. “he’s ‘unintimidating’.”

nick was a scraggly, redheaded guy around clive’s age but looked far younger.

clive contemplates for a long few seconds, then agrees.

nick and the delivery driver, as well as a few others, take off. 

“looks like it’s just us now, ladies,” clive says with a shark like smile. 

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tag list: @percabeth15 @kats-seymour @qualquercoisa945 @jane-fucking-seymour @a-slightly-cracked-egg @justqueentingz @annabanana2401 @wolfies-chew-toy @broad-way-13 @tvandmusicals @lailaliquorice @aimieallenatkinson @sweet-child-why03 @gaylinda-of-the-upper-uplands @funky-lesbians @thinkaboutitmaybe @hansholbeingoesaroundzeworld @messanaa @beeskneeshuh @prick-up-ur-ears @theartoflazy @justqueentwo @brother-orion @paleshadowofadragon @lafemmestars @beautifulashes17 @jarneiarichardnxel @idkimbadwithusernamesandstuff @ladiez-in-waiting @mixer1323 @boleynssixthfinger @aimieallen @elphiesdance @boleynthebunny @krystalhuntress @lupin-loves-chocolate @bellacardoza16 @bluify @katherines-choker

[timetoresurface]

EXCHANGE / JJK (2)

to give something and receive something of the same kind in return

Note: First of all I want to thank everyone who took their time reading, liking, commenting and reblogging. You guys are always surprising me with your kindness and support. The second thing I want to talk to you about is how good our boys looked at the BBMA’s, like how are we supposed have a life of our own when they look like Gods.

Pairing: reader x Jungkook

Genre: romance, non idol AU

Warnings: none

Word count: 1835 words

PART 1 / / PART 3 / PART 4 / PART 5 / PART 6 / PART 7

Summary: Yes, you are an exchange student. You noticed EF also organized trips to Seoul and you wanted something different than the same five people in your hometown. You came to the beautiful city to learn and relax, most definitely not to fall in love with one of the teachers. Definitely not the young extracurricular teacher who seemed to be good at everything.

*Y/N = your name *Y/C = your city/country

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

It took you about one second after waking up to absolutely hate yourself because of the excruciation headache you were having. It took you a bit longer to find out where you were exactly. The familiar smell of filter coffee entered your nose and you dared to sit up. You realized you were in someone else’s sofa and this couldn’t be yours because you didn’t have one. The only thing you had was an annoying roommate who only wanted to study Korean, even though you wished you were a bit more like her at the moment. She probably didn’t have a throbbing head or a bad taste in her mouth. She probably woke up feeling very content and safe because she was in her own bed.

Out of the corner of your eye you could see the skilled hand of the coffee maker pour just the right amounts of everything into the cup.  He was wearing a black jogging with a tight black t-shirt, but he seemed to always look extremely fine in simple black outfits. It was a struggle to get out of your comfortable position but your stomach was making its characteristic whale noises and these were hard to ignore. With the blanket wrapped around your body you started your adventure toward the kitchen area where Jungkook was pouring a second cup of coffee. 

“Good-morning sunshine.” He beamed while handing you your cup of deliciousness and you silently thanked him. Not sure of what to say you just stared at him, hoping he would speak first. It had the opposite effect really, he just kept his hands busy with making breakfast. Bacon was being grilled an eggs were cracked by his large hands and the only thing you could do was stare.

“I usually make a great hangover soup but I lacked most ingredients so I hope you like my hangover eggs.” He said while setting up two plates on his dining table. The bacon in the supermarket packages turned your stomach inside and out: the blood and the white fat that ran through it. You hated the look of it. Yet once cooked it got you under its bacon spell, perfectly crisp with an aroma that wouldn't let you step away, it was something to be devoured, nothing more.

You quickly took place and felt no need for pretentious manners as you stuffed your mouth full with eggs and bacon. Now it was his turn to stare but you tried to ignore his questioning eyes and kept your focus on the food in front of you. When your eyes lock over the breakfast table he started to eat. He ate rapidly, stuffing his mouth too full so he had to chew with his mouth wide open. 

“Thank you.” It was silly but he stopped eating for a bit. He looked deep in thought about what to say or do but settled with simply nodding his head. 

“I also want to say I’m sorry but my memory is lacking me and I can only imagine the worst.” To you it counted as an apology as you barely said the words out loud. The embarrassment started to creep in your system and the only thing you wanted to do was run. “I’ll get going now so you can get some well deserved rest after seeing whatever you saw last night. Again, thank you so much for-“ you gestured at the sofa and the food on the table “for all of this.”

“No problem at all. You’re definitely not a problematic drunk, only a forgetful one. Next time put your room number and passcode in your phone so you don’t get lost again.” His comforting words made you feel a bit more at ease but you could feel the heat growing in your cheeks. By now they must be beyond an attractive rosiness. You felt as if all your insecurities were written across your face and there was nowhere to hide.

“Thank you.” You thanked him again and practically ran out of his place with the blanket still wrapped tightly around your body. 

**

It was midmorning and you still had a head that felt like an axe was planted in it. Your eyesight struggled to cope with the daylight and you fumbled tying the belt of your simple dress. With your brain still struggling to recover from the previous night's abuse, the only thing on your mind was trying to be on time for class. You grabbed some stuff and threw them in your bag hoping you had everything with you to make it through this day. 

With sunglasses hiding your swollen eyes you entered the classroom and to your surprise you were one of the first to arrive. Alfie was sitting in the back with black sunglasses matching yours. You both laughed at the coincidence. 

“We made it.” You simple stated before sitting next to him. 

“Barely.” He grunted and planted his head on the desk.

“Nice sunglasses.” You complimented him and this got a little laugh out of him. Your short conversation was interrupted by the teacher entering the classroom. Half of you were still missing but he didn’t care and just started with whatever he wanted to start with today. If he had noticed yours and Alfie’s sunglasses he hid it well. The both of you tried to pay attention but you were more aware of the cracking of your head than anything else. The day slowly continued and when your class had finally ended you and Alfie decided to lay in the grass together.

“Maybe I should’ve just gone on a simple summer camp to France.” Alfie admitted while rubbing his eyes.

“But France is just France. We’re in Seoul, which is way cooler than France.” You tried to cheer him up but he was still struggling with his hangover which surprised you. You were feeling a lot better, just tired.

“Yes, but a summer camp doesn’t have obligatory lessons.” He grunted and you wanted to respond but Jungkook was quicker.

“You can also wait to start drinking after Friday classes and spend all of Saturday in your bed.” Jungkook laughed while positioning himself next to you on the warm grass. He had changed out of his black relaxing outfit into tight fitting blue jeans combined with a white shirt and he looked even more handsome in white.

“We made a mistake. Apparently Koreans are better drinkers than us Europeans.” Alfie patted my shoulder as if to symbolize our European bond or something. Jungkook’s eyes glared at Alfie’s hand but he didn’t seem to notice or maybe he did. Because he suddenly planted his head on my thigh and closed his eyes while humming some melody. A minute ago there was a huge bunny smile on Jungkook’s face but due to Alfie’s actions his smile had disappeared into a straight line. 

“Y/N you still haven’t applied for any extra activities. If you need any help deciding, I’ll be at the front desk.” He excused himself and walked quietly away from us. You couldn’t help but stare at him while he was walking so carefully over the grass. 

“He sure does take an interest in you.” Alfie commented with his head still resting on your leg. 

“Oh shut up, it is his job to lure people into paying activities.” You muttered.

“All I’m saying is that he hasn’t willingly spoken to anyone off our class outside you.” He finally opened his eyes and tried to study your reaction. You tried to ignore the weird morning you had with Jungkook and how he had cared for you and your hangover. 

“Because most girls go and talk to him first. They don’t give him a chance to go and talk to them.” You glared at Alfie while pushing him off your leg. “Now, if you would excuse me, I have to apply to some extra activities you have already applied too. I can not let you go alone on a hike, right? Who would catch you?” and with these final words you walked away from a laughing Alfie rolling in the grass. 

He sure was a special character. He didn’t seem to care what people thought of him. He didn’t even seem to care what he thought of himself. He just existed to have fun, have drinks and learn a few things along the way. It was a simple life, or that’s what he liked people to believe. We tend to live in stories of our own creation and without realizing we’re just following a script we made for ourselves. Alfie was just following his own I-wanna-be-cool script and somehow he fooled most people, including you for a second.

“Please be safe.” He yelled once you were almost out of sight. All eyes were on you and for the trillionth time since you were in Seoul, your cheeks turned into the reddest of blushes. You silently cursed Alfie under your breath and hurried inside the building. 

**

You were kind of disappointed when you didn’t see Jungkook at the information desk but the lovely Jenna, Australian born and married to a Korean businessman, was also lovely. She chatted about her wonderful life but also didn’t forget to ask you some questions. Where you were from, what motivated you and whatever she could think of. She was a huge help and thanks to her you had signed up for half of the activities, almost filling up your whole schedule. You still had a few free nights that you intended to spend roaming through the city alone. Nothing was better than going on an adventure by yourself after a glass of wine, or two.

Speaking of alcohol, your hangover was almost completely gone. The only thing remaining was the constant graving for greasy food and stuffing your face to satisfy your belly who had worked so hard getting rid of the strong liquor. Right on cue your stomach started to make some loud noises making people turn their heads in your direction. 

“Are you hungry?” A voice behind you asked, startling you. It was Jungkook. Again. He seemed to always know where you were when something embarrassing was about to happen. A sixth sense leading him to you and your blushing cheeks. 

“Can you please not-“ you tried to come up with the correct words “-scare me.” You finished satisfied. He did always surprise you and therefor scare you.

“Let’s have dinner together. My way of apologizing for scaring you earlier.” He said it so quickly you had to blink a couple of times before fully registering his words. Even he seemed surprised by his straightforwardness and doubt started to color his face.

“I mean, you don’t need to feel obligated or anything.” His hand found its way through his hair and for a second there you were mesmerized by his actions.

“I’m starving.” Was the only thing you could say but this was enough to replace his doubt for excitement. 

[eddiemunsonspantschain]

Right Before Our Eyes Ch.9

Author’s Note: I’m back,bitches...I’m sorry

Synopsis: We learn what happened to Taylor

Warning: Rape (not fully written out but it’s in there), Blood and Violence

Tag List: @jodiereedus22 @crossbowking @daryldixonandfrogs

It didn’t take long for me to launch into the story of what had happened to me. The hardest part was looking at Daryl. As much as I wanted to I couldn’t bring myself to look at the handsome man. Something told me if I did I was going to lose it. This was something I didn’t want to do yet. I spent the last few days crying. Crying when I woke up in fear or even crying in my sleep. So instead of looking at Daryl I kept my eyes on my lap as I told my tale.

A few months. A few months we had been launched into the end of the world as I had seen it. James and I tried for the city but it was clear no one was getting in. When we heard it was unsafe as the infected were there James had decided we were on our own. If it wasn’t for James I wasn’t sure I would be alive. He’s my best fucking friend in this whole world. He always has my back and I have his. Hell I remember when he moved into my apartment complex. He was the new guy two doors down from me. The little old ladies whispered about how a Vet was staying in the complex now. A young hot one who was back home from duty. I had to laugh. Those ladies had nothing better to do. While I didn’t make a point to go meet him he had made a point to come meet me. His opening line: ‘So...you play Call of Duty?’. Maybe wearing my C.O.D shirt around had been a bad idea. At least he ended up liking the game and invited me to play with him. From there we were the best of friends.The little old ladies speculated more but we were never like that.

“C’mon. We gotta find somewhere to hole up for the night.” James called back to me. I huffed,blowing some hair out of my face.

“Never in my life did I think having a best friend who’s a soldier would come in handy.”

“Oh now you’re thankful,huh?” James teased,flashing a grin back at me. I grabbed a twig off the floor and flung it at him. “Let’s go short stack. You know the night makes the infected rowdy.”

It didn’t take long to find a house to hole up in. We were in a small suburban area but in the outskirts just in case we needed a quick get away. We were too afraid to go farther in. There most likely were more infected or normal people inland. Already we had run into some territorial folk. Supplies were running low so humanity was losing itself. We had run into survivors. Always friendly to us and us to them. They would even offer a place for us. We always politely declined. We were never ones to turn away from someone in need though. It had happened many times where we stumbled on some poor son of a bitch cornered by an infected. We always helped. It was the right thing to do after all.

“Here we go. It’s still nicely in tact. Maybe some supplies too.” James grinned as he began looking around the house.

“Maybe. If only the water and power hadn’t cut out weeks ago.” I sighed,looking into the open bathroom just wishing to take a shower.

“Streams,cupcake. They’re just as good.” James called back to me.

“But it’s not the same!” I whined,flopping onto the couch as James laughed at me.

That night we ate what was left in the house. It looked like someone had gotten themselves out in a hurry. For now this place was good enough for home. 

The next morning James and I ventured further into the suburban area,hoping to find friendly people or some scraps. It was hard since there was infected roaming the streets. In the end we went back to the house to make ourselves a plan. However after a few days James was at his wits end. We needed to run for supplies soon.

“I’ll go to the supermarket. That big one. It looked untouched down the road.” James decided as he looked over a map and pointed out the supermarket.

“We’ll both go.” I shrugged but James shook his head.

“No. You’re too weak. You’re skin and bones,babe. I ain’t risking you passing out on me in there. Just stay here. We haven’t seen anyone for weeks! I’ll be a few hours,max.” James reassured me,shutting down any argument I was going to make. I always made sure James ate more. He was the muscle after all. He needed the energy. As much as I didn’t want to admit it. I did feel weaker. I was starving. Mostly surviving on sips of water and fighting off moments I felt light headed.

“Fine. Be back quick though or I’ll come look for your ass.” I huffed,ignoring the smirk on James’s face.

Soon he was packing up the car and he was gone.

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

By now it was getting dark. At least James had the car with him. I didn’t need to worry about that. I was sitting in the house,flipping through a book that had been in the living room when a crash outside startled me. 

“What the fuck...” I whispered,grabbing my gun and crawling to the window. I peeked outside and saw a man,scrambling away from two infected coming for him. Without thinking I shot up from the floor and ran outside.

“Hey!” I yelled,making both infected turn to me. I shot the first one down and quickly took down the second one.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!” The man cried,sitting up now from the ground.

“What the hell,man!? You trying to get yourself killed?!” I yelled at him,putting my gun in my back pocket before going over to him. I reached down,grabbing his hand to pull him up.

“No.” The man answered as he started to get up.

Suddenly a scream sounded and something warm began dripping down my stomach. It was then I realized it was me who screamed. Looking down my mouth fell open in a silent scream seeing a knife dug into my chest.

“But you are.” The man grinned,letting go of the handle of the knife. Black spots began to take over my vision and I scrambled for the words to tell this guy he was a fucking asshole. My legs turned to jelly as the man walked towards me. The last thing I could see was a fist coming right at me...then nothing.

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

“Dude, you couldn’t take the fucking knife out?”

“Take the knife out and she bleeds out,man. Don’t you know anything?”

“He’s right. The only reason she hasn’t bled out yet is cause of the knife. A nice sharp bottle topper it is.”

“On one hot as fuck bottle.”

“Eh,she’s ok. Pussy is pussy.”

As much as I loved hearing the conversation I didn’t even have the energy to open my eyes just then. All I could do was listen. Slowly I started twitching my fingers,hoping they didn’t fucking notice. They beat me to the punch though as a second later someone was tapping my face and the tapping got harder until I was being slapped. A groan ripped through me and I slowly opened my eyes. I hated being right sometimes. As I thought there were four men around me. My eyes move down,taking in the handle of the knife protruding from my chest.

“Hello there,” The man on top of me cooed,suddenly grabbing onto the knife. A high pitched scream ripped through me at the contact. Him just grabbing the handle made the knife move inside me.

“Who goes first,boys?” One man asked and suddenly the only one I recognized was standing.

“Hey,I took care of her. I should get first dibs.”

“Why does bait take first round?”

“Shut it! Tiny,go ahead.” With that the man on top of me sighed and got off of me,stomping off to sit on the couch.

The man known as Tiny giddily made his way over,stopping beside me to look down at me. I knew I looked a sight. Dirty,thin as hell with blood caked on me. I could feel my back was soaked from what blood seeped out and down the side of my body. Before I knew it the man in front of me was pulling his pants down.

“No wonder they call you Tiny...” I hoarsely murmured. If I was going to die. I was getting some shots in while I could.

One of the men barked in laughter and Tiny turned a bright red color. With a yell he descended on me,punching me a few times for my ‘harsh’ words. When he stopped I turned my head,spitting the coppery liquid from my mouth in the process and letting it drip down my chin. Soon a new pain was ripping through my lower half and a scream louder than I had ever made ripped from my lungs. That night it wouldn’t be the only scream coming from my lips. Multiple times they had their way with me. They didn’t stop there. Cigarettes put out on my skin,experimental cuts made to my flesh wondering how deep they could cut until I screamed. It was a nightmare. No...I wish it had been.

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

The sun hitting my face was what I was met with. My eyes fluttered open as I looked around. I was still in the house. I looked down. I still had a knife in me. I looked a bit farther down and realized more blood was around there too. I let my head fall back on the floor. My eyes began to burn and my lip trembled. Soon I was sobbing,ignoring the pain coming from my abdomen and vagina. At that moment I wished I was dead. Everything on me hurt. Every. Fucking. Thing. Death would be merciless. Death would be an escape. Those thoughts brought my eyes to the handle still embedded in me. ‘Take the knife out and she bleeds out,man. Don’t you know anything?’

“Don’t you know anything?” I murmured,gripping the handle of the knife. I took a solid breath in before ripping the knife out. One final scream ripped from me and I dropped the knife beside me.

“Taylor!”

Suddenly the door behind me flew open. I hadn’t even heard the car pull up. It was silent for half a second before James was by my side.

“Taylor,cupcake. No,no,no.” James breathed,ripping his shirt off and pressing it to my abdomen. “C’mon,sweetheart. Ya can’t leave me here on my own. We’re in this together,remember? You promised. You ‘n me til the end bay bay.” James panicked,looking around the room wildly. “Hold this. Hold it tight,now!” He barked before getting up and running back out again.

I weakly moved my hand onto his shirt,holding it to my chest. Tears of relief began falling down my face now. James was here. He was here to save me. James came running back in with a large first aid kit in hand. Just as he began to work on looking over the stab wound my vision began to fade again.

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

“The next time I woke up I was screaming and crying. James came to comfort me and I almost socked him in the jaw.” I murmured,playing idly with the blanket in my lap. 

Daryl’s stare had solely been fixated on me. I could feel the heat of the rage in his eyes and radiating off of his body. His heavy breathing told me he was pissed. I hadn’t even realized I was crying until then.

“And them?” Daryl managed to grind out.

“We tracked them down. Followed them until I was strong enough. James was the one who incapacitated them. Used some of his military skills to do it. When he had them all right where we needed them and helpless...I finished the job.” I whispered,somehow shame creeping up on me.

“Good.”

Finally my eyes moved to Daryl. He approved? I know those men were monsters...but still. Some people didn’t think it was right. “You’re okay with the fact I murdered four men?” I asked him.

“They weren’t men. They were fuckin boys,Taylor.” Daryl growled,shaking his head in disgust. Suddenly his eyes went to my abdomen. I knew what he was wondering.

I took his hand gently into mine,pulling it under my shirt and resting his hand on my abdoment. Right under my breasts was a nice scar only about two inches long. It was raised and a faint pink color. I watched Daryl’s jaw clench as his fingers traced the scar.

“When Doc first saw it he said I was lucky to be alive.” I whispered,letting go of Daryl’s hand. He continued to feel the scar and it wasn’t long until he brushed another one. This one circular. It was then he took his hand away. “I got a lot more where those came from.” I sadly smiled at the archer.

Daryl shook his head,looking like he wanted to say something but soon he seemed to decide against it. “C’mon.” He finally said as he shifted his crutch to lay on the floor. He moved closer to me before settling himself beside me on my tiny bed.

“What’re you doing?” I asked him,looking down at the man making himself comfortable in my bed.

“Ya ain’t sleepin alone. Not with that shit floatin ‘round in that head a yours.” Daryl answered,crossing his arms over his chest and shutting his eyes as if to say the conversation was over.

It was too much to argue with him right then. If I was being honest: I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted Daryl beside me. I felt more relaxed with him than I had since I came home. He protected me once. He would do it again. With that I turned off the lamp and laid myself carefully back down beside the archer. It wasn’t long until his gentle and slow breathing lulled me to sleep.

[egoiistas]

may i feel, said he (14)

first | tag | ao3 | ffn

[co-written with @tsaritsa]

a/n 10k views on ao3 and nearing 20k on FFN. we're absolutely gobsmacked.as always, ty for all ur comments!!! we hope this update will satify u - ana has been waiting a very long time to write one particular scene and we've had to push it back so many times...I finally let her have it.

Warnings: Sexual Content ™, cursing Words: ~7.5k || Rated: M - Royai 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

salt-laced and arched / dorianne laux, this close

The days, then weeks go on without Olivier.

Easier than it should be, Riza adjusts to another walking out the door. Every once in a while, a sad wave of nostalgia washes over her when she sees the significantly vacant living room or looking at the bare wall that once held frames and chic paintings. Even if some called her icy and dull, she had impeccable taste and Riza misses the colors on the wall. These small moments creep up on Riza when she least expects them, during the most inane moments of the day, and it's hard not to feel the loss and how it still stings like an accidental pinch to sensitive skin.

Perhaps she judged Olivier incorrectly, a voice in her head tells her snidely. Perhaps you chose wrongly, a darker, but smaller voice said. Riza can’t fault her former flatmate’s inability to understand her affair, no matter how much or how little it stings. It burns in the hollow parts where their friendship used to be, knowing that this man has a better and more intimate understanding of her as a person than Olivier would ever be capable of or want to be capable of. The sentiment is selfish and she knows this. In other situations, she respected Olivier’s ability to remain steadfast in her convictions.

All this comes to mind on a Friday evening, a quiet one when they are rarely so for Riza. Earlier she relished at the fact that she could take advantage of the quietude to get lost in her annotated-to-death anthology of Pablo Neruda’s works; to be comfortably situated in her own bed and just take in the evoking prose, and catch up on her laundry she was woefully behind on. The space would do her some good, she reasoned. A lot had happened in the last few weeks and a bit of alone time with her favourite poets and a Greed pizza from Hell’s would do her some good. It’s been a while since she’s had a moment with just her and a book and four walls.

Riza looks at the time, the walls, the fading pages, and realizes … why did she ever come to miss this. When did she grow to enjoy company?

Rebecca had come and gone after her classes, commenting on how rare it was to see her there on a Friday. Riza tried to explain but her friend looked like she was short for time, making a racket with her closet and in the bathroom. Riza could hardly catch where she was going, she’d hardly made mention of it as she was hurrying out of the apartment and then those words were cut off by the slamming on the door. Not that she expected it, but the lack of invitation probably meant that it was a date or something of the sort. That was hours ago and Riza finds herself a little disappointed, but mostly strange, that her phone isn’t blowing up with a play-by-play of the date’s shortcomings or successes. The commentary is a specialty of Rebecca’s humor.

Her friend was right: ordinarily, she wouldn’t be here. Over the course of a few months, Riza has slipped into a routine that she is loathe to have issue with. A bus would take her on a route that went past his neighbourhood, following her afternoon biochem class. Sometimes, she’d make a detour to the supermarket nearby to pick up a few things if a mood struck for something in particular, but more often than not she was content with takeout. It was a nicer environment than the library - she could spread out all the work she needed to do on the coffee table in his lounge and sprawl herself along his couch. The hot chocolate powder that had mysteriously arrived in the pantry one day wasn’t amiss either.

This time, however, her excuse was moot and she couldn’t expect a phone call or exchange of texts to change that either, because tonight he was travelling to Central for a conference where chemistry nerds were converging to relay to each other the latest findings. Roy was not as excited as she expected. In fact, he looked particularly disgruntled by the way he told her about it two weeks ago. He whined how not even professors were spared from homework, or ‘paperwork’ as he referred to it.

Eventually, she pushes away the distractions and enthralled for the millionth by The Heights of Macchu Picchu when her phone lights up and pings on her desk. Mindful of the book in her hands that is practically falling apart, she sets it down carefully, before stretching out to pull on the charging cable. The phone falls into her hand with practiced ease, and Riza can’t help the smile that grows on her face as she sees the name - nickname - emblazoned on her lockscreen.

Spanish Inquisition, 7:02pm I had a very interesting visitor today Spanish Inquisition, 7:02pm  You didn’t think to warn me?

A chill runs down her spine. She’s trying her best not to jump to conclusions but a familiar sanctimonious smirk appears in her mind’s eye. She wouldn’t...would she? Calmly, she responds:

Avecilla, 7:02pm I would if I knew who to warn you about.

Spanish Inquisition, 7:03pm So you didn’t know. Hmm. Spanish Inquisition, 7:03pm Your other flatmate. Not blonde. Bushy black hair. Very opinionated. Spanish Inquisition, 7:03pm And loud

Spanish Inquisition, 7:04pm Came into my office hours in middle of a meeting with another student.

Her relief is short-lived as the reality settles in. Palm meets skin and she smacks her forehead. She loves Rebecca - honestly, truly - but the girl lived in the moment and rarely considered the consequences of her actions in the aftermath. She can’t discern his reaction though, not through text alone. Her thumb hovers over the icon at the top of the app. Surely he would’ve called her if he felt the conversation warranted it.

Avecilla, 7:04pm becca? Avecilla, 7:04pm oh fuck

Spanish Inquisition, 7:07pm ah so, becca’s her name! I wish she would have told me that

Spanish Inquisition, 7:07pm She said a lot about a lot of things, but not her name Spanish Inquisition, 7:08pm tbh I wasn’t really given a chance to say anything Spanish Inquisition, 7:08pm Do you know how weird it is to be lectured in my own office

Riza mutters a string of curses under her breath.

She switches messaging windows to Rebecca’s and stares at the blank chat box wondering which side to approach this from. Her fingers rest on the bridge of her nose imagining the scene of a riled up Rebecca busting in through that office door, telling the unsuspecting student to scram and then potentially ripping Roy a new one about who-knows-what with the signature hands-on-hips stance. It’s frustrating, it should be incredibly frustrating. What she had said, the manner in which she barged in, how it’s interpreted - all of it could be her demise but a chuckle bubbles up because... Classic Rebecca.

Unaware that the screen had dimmed, she sees it light up again with a call this time. “Hello?”

“You left me on read?” The other voice on the line greets her with hints of playful tones under that indignant choice of words. He continues smoothly, “Are you starting to think you’re the exception in all of this, avecilla?”

She snorts, smiling as she sat up. As far as she can tell he’s not irritated. “No exception to the embarrassment knowing Rebecca did that. If I had known that was even remotely crossing her mind - well, I would have stopped her.”

“Something tells me even if you did know, there’s no much that you could have done from stopping a force of nature like that.” Despite the noise of what she assumes is Central all around him, she can hear the tired smile on him.  “I think you’re very lucky to have such a loyal friend who has terrifyingly specific medical knowledge on how to best remove a penis.”

“She didn’t...” Riza groans and leans back against her pillows, sliding the dog-eared anthology back from the edge of the bed before she covers her face.

“She did. I was perplexed for most of it, blinking at her as she paced in front of my desk.” Riza let the words sink down with her mortification and then she’s frozen when he says, “Does she do this with all your boyfriends?”

She isn’t sure why it tenses her; maybe its because it's finally given a name, even if it’s only a label, and an unsure, timid smile crosses her face. “Consider yourself special for getting the Rebecca treatment.”

“I consider myself lucky for other reasons, Riza.”

Her demeanor changes with the teasing lilt in his words. A half-smile begins to spring up over her lips, thankful he’s understanding - in whatever capacity - of this. “Care to share with the class?” She says coyly.

“Yes, that no one else heard. Or made any comment about it.” He says sternly and she sinks back into her pillows.

“I don’t know why she thought storming into your office would be a good idea.”

“Well it certainly worked out well enough for you, didn’t it?” Even though he’s making fun of her, she bites her lip at the memory, and the way his voice has dipped now, sultry and inflected with the accent that he was well aware that made her weak in the knees. He’s blatantly flirting with her.

Riza scoffs. “I believe our aims were a little different if we are going to be making comparisons.”

“Ah, so you did come with a goal in mind then.”

“Yes, sir. I-”

There are stifled chuckles on the other end. He is one of the few people clever enough to really get under her skin, get her riled up.

“If I recall correct, you admitted that I was baited into your office because of your stunt.”

“Mmm, did I now?” he asks, low and throaty.

At least the whiplash from the back and forth keeps her on her toes; she looks at them wiggling even now as she talks to him. “Mhm, I was there.”

He chuckles lightly and she hears someone greet him faintly in the background. “Let me call you back so I can get into this hotel room.”

“Oh, of course.”

They don’t share many phone calls but even from the first day, she’s known his voice was pleasant. Especially when he wants it to be.  His laugh was warm down the line, and inexplicably she finds herself missing him, despite talking to him this morning however briefly.

The phone rings and she greets him with a standard “hello.” When no sound comes from the other end, she checks the screen to make sure the line is connected.

“So…” he starts and it sounds like he plops on a bed. “What are you wearing?”

She blinks. “What?”

He enunciates each word. “What - are - you - wearing?”

She sinks down the length of her headboard. “You’re not serious.”

He tuts. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Clothing.”

“You’re no fun, Miss Hawkeye.”

“Maybe it’s because I’d rather have you here to show me what you want.”

“So would I.” There’s a wistful edge to his voice. “Do you have other plans? I was under the impression that you had a date with some laundry and pizza.”

“I had a date,” she emphasises. “Besides... I don’t think I’d be too good at it.”

“Trial and error, right? There’s no pressure to do anything you’re not comfortable with and we can always stop whenever you’d like.”

Likewise, she gets up and locks the door to her bedroom even though she knows Rebecca won’t be home for a while yet - certainly not after that stunt. “What a gentleman.”

“I like to think so.” She can hear his smile. “So...what are you wearing?”

Riza smiles in turn, feeling foolish. It’s such a ridiculous question on top of a ridiculous act. Tightening her grip on her phone, she figures telling him the truth of her rather vanilla pyjamas would probably detract from the mood of… whatever this was. She knows enough about “phone sex” - even in her mind it leaves a weird, tingly feeling - to at least humor him. She sighs into the phone, “It’s warm tonight, so I decided to wear something comfy to bed. Something so I can wiggle under the covers without feeling ...constricted.”

“Shorts?” The voice at the other end sounds surprised and she clearly sees him, in her mind’s eye, leaning in closer with interest and probably a smirk.

Riza bites her lower lip. “Less.”

“Oh.” He sounds delighted. “Well, if you’re going to have me guess what Riza Hawkeye wears on her days off… the top to her pajamas and her small clothes.” 

He knows her too well. With little movement, she slides her underwear down her legs, letting them fall to the floor. She laughs, a little nervously. “Less.”

“Aren’t you naughty tonight?”

“I’ve been asked to,” Riza teases and shifts against her pillows. “Now, tell me something.”

“Yes?”

She’s unfamiliar with this certain kind of ...adventure. Nonetheless, she’s still willing to try. “How... excited are you?”

“Mhm. Let’s see.” She faintly hears fabric shifting, zippers unzipping, and if she wasn’t listening so intently, she would have missed the light groan. “Very.”

She licks her lips, imagining him sitting on the edge of her bed. Her legs cross; as a pleasant surprise, her arousal settles hotly in between them. “Tell me why.”

“You. Your legs. Spread and losing myself between them. Your body on mine.”

“You’re worse than me, sir.” There is a throbbing pulse right at her core in rhythm with the hard thrumming in her chest. It feels warm and slick without having to touch herself, though the temptation to is becoming harder to ignore. “What would you do?” she asks, cradling the phone between her shoulder and her ear. “If you had me there.”

His laugh is delicious - she closes her eyes as a shiver runs over her bare skin. “Enough about me, avecilla. How eager would you be if you were here?”

“I’m hardly-”

“Try.”

Leaning back, Riza tries to imagine her own fantasies. “If I was there-” she hears a throaty chuckle, “- I’d get on my knees, relieve you of those pesky trousers...” A daring hand slips in between her legs and her fingers are glistening when she lifts them back up to the light.

“And?” His voice has become husky, rumbling through his throat.

“I’d take you into my mouth.” She answers automatically, distracted from her slow stroke, playing with herself. It’s true - previously, with other fumblings, she had done her part to make her partner feel good - but with him she is surprised to find herself enjoying the act so thoroughly. Maybe it’s a power thing. The image of him watching her take him into her mouth with hooded eyes and a slack jaw is something she holds close to her heart. She does that to him.

Nobody else.

It takes him a moment to respond and when he does, his words are marked with a smidgen of strain. “Fast or slow?”

She doesn’t realize until this moment that her eyes have fallen shut, her head thrown back. “Slow at first, tasting you, feeling how hard you are in my mouth and growing harder with my tongue.”

“At first?” Roy asks curiously. “You’d want me to make you go faster, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I do-” she admits, gasping with the building pleasure of using two fingers to stimulate her clit.

“Grabbing you by your hair to so you can feel me go deeper.”

“Yes…” His fingers coiled in her hair, his cock around her lips getting wetter each time she retook him in her mouth, the aching between her thighs increasing with every second -

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, sir.” Riza thought a laugh would leave her, instead she moans into the phone, feeling a warmth flush her skin pink. She’s wet enough to hear it, rubbing herself. She settles on the bed properly now, lying flat with the phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear. Gasping lightly, Riza slides a finger, then two inside herself as her other hand grabs her own breast, ghosting over the tip of her sensitive nipple.

“And where would you like me to fuck you?”

“Take me however you’d like me.” The truth is she can’t really think. She’s lost in her own fantasies. Against the wall with her legs over his hip; from behind where he could dig his nails into her as they picked up the pace; on top of him where she could feel him reaching depths that had her voice filling the room - it didn’t matter. There is an aching in her that her fingers cannot fulfill. He was too far away. She wants him here, with her and her shitty second-hand bed and the evidence is soaking her digits to her knuckles.

His groan reverberates through the phone lines and into her ear and she can almost feel the hot breath in her ear and his familiar scent.

She breathes in as hoping his phantom scent would materialize just for her.  She begins, “I’m y-”

Her bedroom door opens.

“Rebecca!” she screeches. Mortified, she drops her phone, urging her roommate to get out. She can only imagine his confused expression as she swears black and blue and Rebecca is cackling madly in the background. She covers herself with her blanket, chasing her out and slams the door behind her. There’s a chuckle wedged in between the “I’m sorry!” Rebecca shouts from the other side of the door.

Her phone is still lit up, the call remaining in progress as she approaches her bed. “Roy..?” she breathes after the entire debacle. Paper crinkles beneath her feet. She quickly pulls them back and hisses under her breath.

“I’m here,” he responds after a moment and he sounds a little spent. “Did we have unfortunate timing again?”

She sighs as she kneels down, her blanket pooling around her feet. “What’s the matter?” he presses.

Riza groans as she sees the scattered pages across her room. The hardcover of her anthology lies face down, open. The spine of it must’ve hit the floor first. She crouches though her legs shake and picks up the annotated papers. “It’s nothing.”

Other than the shifting of someone on a bed, there’s silence on the other end until he speaks again. “It doesn’t sound like nothing, avecilla.”

She nestles the phone in between her ear and shoulder as she collects the remnants of the book in earnest. “A book I was reading before you called fell off the bed and the pages came apart.”

“You certainly haven’t shown me that kind of vigor to make a book fall apart.”

She huffs into the phone, hoping her flattened brow expression would be received telepathically. “It was old.”

“I’m not that old.”

“The book.”

She can hear him stifle a chuckle, but he fails by snickering anyway. It makes her smile too. “Now I see. In any case, I’m sorry to hear that. Which book was it?”

Riza flips the cover as if she didn’t already know. “An old poetry book I bought when I was younger. Neruda.”

“Ah, that’s unfortunate.”

“What’s unfortunate is that I was… almost getting into it,” she admits, slipping on a different pair of underwear.

She can just imagine the disappointed expression on his face. “That’s even more unfortunate. But there’ll be other times if the moment is ruined.”

Again, she smiles because of his understanding, despite her embarrassment and she’ll admit to herself that she’s little forlorn over missing the opportunity to hear him reach an orgasm right in her ear. “I think for right now it is. I need to clean up this mess and then there’s my other date that needs tending to.”  

“Laundry isn’t that necessary, is it? By all means, walk around naked if you’d like. I certainly won’t protest.”

Riza grins, holding back the laughter. She manages to sternly volley back, “One of us has to remain civilized.”

He scoffs. “I’m hurt.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“Call me back once you’re done?”

Genuinely and warmly this time, she smiles. “If you behave.”

“So no dick pics?”

It takes a lot of willpower not to snort audibly. “Surprise me, sir.”

With his return, she realizes only a few weeks remain before classes end officially. Riza’s always taken initiative for her assignments with diligence, but there’s always the influx of assignments at the end of the term, projects to wrap up, or reports to finalize. Still aiding him when she can in the evenings, her free time becomes increasingly limited.

There’s a new, long list of journals and books that Roy requires for his research that they read and eventually determine the value of this information. On top of this already tedious work, she offers to help grade the essays from the two 100-level courses he teaches in addition to her Chemical Literature class.

It’s boring, menial and uninspiring work: the amount of grammatical, spelling and formatting errors has Riza throwing her pencil away from her in frustration on more than one occasion. The content of said work is of an even lesser quality. It aggravates Riza when it’s obvious to her that some these students don’t give a flying fuck about their education. Or they do, but they have a shit way of showing it.

Some dark part of her forms from this trial and she takes joy tearing into the worst of the essays via text messages to him. In turn, he responds with the excuses and the pleas for extensions or redacted frantic emails that come in once students factor in the weight of the participation grade.

Spanish Inquisition, 11:53 pm 3 years Spanish Inquisition, 11:53 pm 3 years and they still ignore the bolded text Spanish Inquisition, 11:53 pm It’s in caps you know. Spanish Inquisition, 11:53 pm PARTICIPATION GRADE: 35% Spanish Inquisition, 11:54 pm It’s almost like they forget that in order to participate they have to attend class.

Avecilla, 11:57 pm Strike them down Spanish Inquisition, 11:58 pm HA Avecilla, 11:58 pm I mean Avecilla, 11:58 pm How cruel are you going to be?

Spanish Inquisition, 11:59 pm Most will get a B or similar Spanish Inquisition, 11:59 pm Not enough for them to storm to the dean and complain i’m unfair, but maybe enough to encourage them to maybe try next time

 The weeks fly by because of this and she can only think of one time in the last few weeks where they’ve actually managed to do more than just kiss. Riza isn’t one to keep tallies, but it was after a late night of simultaneously grading, reading and working on her final assignments. She was tired. She knew he was too, and while she could only blame herself for suggesting it, it didn’t make her any less frustrated when he drifts to sleep with his dick in her mouth. Rebecca harbored no sympathy for her either. She merely texts ‘HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA’ and then sends far too many tongue-in-cheek gifs implying Riza was “thirsty.”

 Even if she was, Riza muted her best friend and finished herself off, but not before almost succumbing to sleep once or twice.

 Every time after that, when they managed to have more coffee or sleep in, they were rudely interrupted in some other way. As if it were sacrilege he had taken that one time for granted, he jested once, and it soon became laughable what the universe kept throwing at them.

 The workload was understandable, forgivable, and inevitably out of their control. Then, it was constant miscalculations of how little time they had: either she had a class or he had one to teach or office hours, or I’m about to crash and we both know how the last time worked out. It was driving her up the walls - and not in the ways she’d preferred.

 They reach a point of recklessness. They take advantage of his empty office with a locked door on the final days after class. He cancels his office hours that morning after her assurances that her assignments were up to par and she could afford the distraction. Riza finds herself pleasantly nestled between euphoria and giddiness from the frantic way they paw at each other’s clothes. Or it’s the way she sat on the edge of his desk and the cool air tickled in the moist heat in between her legs. Or the little tinge of pride from cancelling his office hours just for her. Or perhaps a combination of it all. Irresponsible, to be sure, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t flattered how much he desired her, as if it were anything to question. She thinks, in foolish desperation, that the odds are in their favour this time.

 She’s wet and ready from his fingers playing with her as they kiss, bringing him closer with her legs as her soft moans are muffled by his lips. Her hands reach for the buckle of his belt and she chuckles lightly when she detours further south to palm the erection under the cloth of his pants. Let’s free it, she thought then and refocused on the buckle, because she is fed up with all this teasing and none of the fingering. He’s given her a light orgasm already - the kind that leaves her wanting, that she only needed to bite down on her lip for - but it’s made her insatiable now. There’s just something so good about having him in her, and as much as she loves his fingers and dexterity, they cannot mimic the stretch and feeling of fullness he alone provides.  “I want you,” she murmurs under his lips, drunk from her lust, as she unbuckled the belt with practiced fingers.

 Loud and obnoxious, an alarm suddenly blares. Sound fills the room and it’s like a bucket of cold water over her; it takes them both a moment to recenter themselves back to earth. Her fingers uncurl from his pants and inwardly she mourns the loss of contact. The urge to keep going is strong; after all, when are fire alarms set off for a legitimate reasons anyway? It’s an irrational thought and Riza can hardly hear anything else. They fix themselves up hastily and exit the building; everybody they pass seemingly none the wiser. She lets herself drift away from him - a few metres and several people between them when they reach the evacuation point, reminding herself that there are other people here and this close to the end of classes is no excuse to relax her standards. She’s just...frustrated. A voice that sounds a lot like Rebecca’s teases that she’s actually just horny.

 If she’s honest, she hates the shame that trickles down her spine at this unadulterated want. In a different time, with a less conservative upbringing to influence her choices, she wouldn’t find this shame and guilt currently she’s currently wrestling with. She would be more like Rebecca or even Olivier where it’s not on her radar, coming and going as she pleases. But if her circumstances were different, she probably wouldn’t even be here, studying for a Bachelor of Science as a means to connect with her absentee father.

 Riza miraculously catches his eyes as the crowd slowly shuffles further back on the field as more people spill out of the Joseph Hunter Science Building. He mouths something to her, but her lipreading is terrible and she shrugs her shoulders, lifting up her phone to their field of vision.

 Spanish Inquisition, 10:23am 10 minutes leaves enough time to return the favor of the other night.

 The fire alarm had killed most of their time before her next class, but she forgoes punctuality in favor of four minutes of feeling his hair in between her fingers while his lips kiss in between her legs. In the end, her tardiness was excused.

 Finally - finally, she thinks they’ve managed a miracle. Her final assignments are as ready as they’ll ever be, waiting for one final read-over before submission, and his last block of essays have been graded and handed back to their respective classes. Draped over him in the same chair in his apartment study where they first fucked, she’s allowing herself to celebrate as she cups his jaw with her hands, her tongue sliding against his pleasantly.

He hardens underneath her and she’s none too shy about unbuttoning his shirt as he has done for her. Pushed down to her elbows, the shirt is rid of her and it’s a painful few seconds when she pulls away to be free of it properly. He looks sinfully decadent beneath her, a lazy smirk growing on his face as one hand deliberately hooks a finger under her bra strap, tugging it down. Her lingerie choices have been adventurous in recent weeks - the pastel blue lacy number she’s currently wearing is definitely not designed for any exercise more taxing than walking, and judging by the way his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, Riza knows with certainty that she’s found a keeper.

His fingers brush over her nipples, and she briefly shuts her eyes as he pinches before pulling the fabric down and draws her close, tongue soothing the puckered skin. Her hands curl into his hair, scratching at his scalp and Riza’s uncaring of the breathy moans leaving her - this is divine, and the wait has certainly been worth it.

Roy’s hands drift down and slide under her skirt, fingers gliding over the sensitive skin on the inside of her thighs, leaving tingling sensations in its wake. He is only mere inches from her arousal and a great deal of willpower goes into preventing herself from pushing his hand forward.

He takes off his glasses and she sets them behind her on the large desk. Her hands go through his hair as he cups her breast and brings her other nipple into his mouth, using his tongue to tease the tip and even nip at it gently with his teeth. His other hand clutches at her ass to bring her closer as if the distance they have was remotely unbearable. Riza gasps into his hair, grinding her hips over his lap, and his scent is mixed with sweat. It’s a dangerous, addicting blend, and she shudders in his lap as his fingers stroke across her bare skin. He releases her nipple slowly from between his teeth before shifting back to her other one and she remembers a joke he said about her breasts deserving equal treatment.

And then, in the middle of this achingly wonderful treatment - his ringtone goes off.

Roy groans for all the wrong reasons, throwing his head back. He keeps them steady as he awkwardly reaches his back pocket for his phone. “Pfft, it’s just Hughes,” he mutters after a concerted effort and sets the cell down on the chair of the arm. Softer and locked on her other unattended breast, he mumbles with a mouth full of her, “He can leave a message.”

Riza doesn’t remember which one is Hughes and she’s not given much time to think about it when his mouth returns to her breast and his hand squeezes, massages, tweaks at the other. She’s at the point of moaning out if you say so when the vibrations and standard tune rings out again.

He stops altogether and after a few seconds, it dies to a stop only to start up again. His attention is needed again, and she’s never felt quite as pissed off at an inanimate object as she does right now. Roy growls and sits back, picking up the phone. “Let me just see what he wants.”

She nods wordlessly and he starts the conversation, going beyond standard small talk after a few moments. She can hear the other man talking; an excitable person who gets even more excited when he talks about certain topics. She can’t discern what they’re talking about exactly, but Roy gives the occasional mhm and yeah when it’s warranted.  

Riza figures she can go wait for him in the bedroom. Perhaps sprawled out with a bright, blinking sign that says ‘insert here’ in between her legs should he fail to see how much she wanted him that afternoon; she blames Rebecca’s influence for that kind of ridiculous humor. Riza starts to climb off him and stops when she’s kept in place from his hand gripping the fabric of her skirt. He wants her to stay there? She frowns and points at the phone. His brows furrow and he shakes his head, putting a finger over his mouth, telling her to be quiet.

Well, she can go be quiet in the other room. She can respect his privacy. It’s not a big deal; they had the entire evening to themselves. Well, nearly - but she’d be damned if she’d let any other distractions interrupt them after this call. She deserves to be fucked thoroughly.

Roy is apparently impatient, however. The hand holding the finger over his mouth flattens over her thigh and coasts up to the edge of her skirt. He thumbs the skin there, teasing the idea that he could touch her in the middle of this conversation. She looks at him knowingly when he crosses underneath the folds of her skirt, yet he continues on talking as though nothing has happened. He caresses the skin inside her thighs as he talks about something or the other: Riza isn’t concentrating on that, instead absorbed with the sensation of his fingers drifting higher and higher. She waits patiently, but his touch somehow makes her hotter, wetter. A devious finger lightly ghosts over the linen of her damp underwear and he says a perfectly timed “Oh?” towards the caller and to her. Riza blushes and grabs at his wrist.

She can sit up, she can leave the room, she knows that he’d respect that, but she doesn’t want to. She realizes there’s a morbid curiosity as to how and why he does things and she always wants to know. This is moment is one of them. It’s why she doesn’t stop him when he tugs aside the cloth of her underwear and wets his fingers with what’s in between her lips. Her frown dissipates and she gasps as if she’s been starved from his touch, like it’s an electrifying drug she’s been having withdrawals from. The sensations of his fingers rubbing against her clit is familiar and unknown, and she lets her head fall back, relishing in the feeling and clawing lightly at the armchair.

His fingers leave her and he cleans them off with his mouth before gesturing her to be quiet with a finger over his mouth again. She thinks she can hear his friend say “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he responds, looking directly at her with a devious glint in his eyes. “Just eating. Go on.”

A warm tingle shoots down her spine and spreads across her abdomen down to her groin. She’s been enraptured by a lunatic and she’s allowed it to happen, even now when he aims to touch her again.  With a bite to her knuckle, she grasps at his loosened shirt when his fingers return to remind her how obnoxiously needy she has become. Giving into this notion, she moves to hover over his lap for shameless access. He bites a bottom lip at this, staring her from the wrinkled mess of her skirt to her flushed, knuckle-biting face. She’s wet enough that an easy orgasm is on the horizon from the slow, rubbing stimulation on her clit. Riza makes the mistake of thinking he’ll stop there, because then one finger enters her and then another. Her reaction is unexpected, even to her. She falls back to his lap and bites the fleshy side of her palm to quell the noises. Her spread legs allow him to finger her, so he does. Slowly. In and out, and the noises would make her die of mortification if she weren’t enjoying every satisfyingly building moment of this pleasure. His palm is hitting her stimulated clit with each stroke and she’s grasping at his shirt once more, trying to salvage what solid ground she can keep as the pleasure rises within her..

He slows down when she’s at the precipice of a delicious orgasm that she even licks her lips, and decides to become an active participant in his phone call. But it’s not in English. He shifts to Spanish while his hand moves against her more patiently. She tries to catch her breath from holding it but it’s impossible not to listen to the way he’s talking. It’s fascinating how melodic a different language sounds and how much of a turn on it is for her. He speaks this language faster. His R’s roll off his tongue and somehow there’s more sensuality in his voice. It’s mesmerizing.

His attention turns back to her when moments ago he was staring at some place off to the side. He looks to her hips and she doesn’t even realize - until he does - how subtly she was moving them. Roy pauses, eyebrows furrowed before a downright hungry grin forms on his face, and his fingers begin to move once more.

“Estoy eschuchando,” he answers the person on the other line, his diction shifting into a huskier tone, each syllable pronounced lower and slower. She thought it was bad enough when he spoke it casually, but when he did it deliberately? She can only handle so much stimuli, and by this point she’s uncaring of how shameless she’s acting, how she’s become putty in his hands. She’s drunk on this orgasm she can feel barrelling towards her, on the lust and desire she feels for him. She’s never felt it quite like this before - this want that feels more like a need with every passing second. She wants to take the phone and hang it up for him, but she opts for pulling at the collar of his partially unbuttoned shirt and biting the taut muscle at the meeting of his neck and shoulder. He maintains that paced fingering in and out of her. She knows she’s tightening around his fingers because of the paced movement.

With his deliberate words at her ear, his fingers inside her, and the smell of his bare skin, she climaxes against him, taking deep breaths and every measure to stifle the moans and groans. Her head rests over his shoulder, hot breath hitting his neck. She can see him swallowing and doesn’t know why she didn’t think to give him the same torturing she just endured.

He’s hard. She can feel it and see it in this light. She palms it, clutches it, strokes it, and he swallows thickly again. He sounds strained when he cuts off the caller and abruptly says, “I’ll have to call you back.” Roy ends the call and the phone is tossed to the wayside as his fingers slide out of her.

She grabs his cock harder and he surprises her by standing up, supporting her by her underside until she’s laid on his desk directly behind her, over the papers she had spent last week meticulously highlighting. She lifts her hips to help with the removal of her own underwear. As he works with his own pants she tries to salvage what’s underneath her to little success. Distracted by her menial task, she gasps, surprised, when her wrists are manacled and set at either side of her head. Her breathing is heavy, his too. The tip of him nudges at her entrance and she moves against it, towards it just for the stretch a little bit more of him inside her.

“A little bird tells me you have a secret.”

Riza smiles coyly after a futile attempt to use her legs to bring him forward. “Hardly a secret if you know about it,” she manages, half-heartedly trying to move her arms. He doesn’t budge an inch, his smile dark and promising. She supposes at this point nothing should really surprise her when it comes to her newfound appreciation for less-than-vanilla sex, but there’s just something so inherently sexy about being pinned down by him, even as simply as she is right now. The temporary loss of control is so easy to lose herself in.

Roy observes her hungrily. “A kink then.”

The initial thrust makes her gasp sharply and he groans pleasantly. Her limbs dangle off the side as he fucks her over his desk. Where he was well-paced before, he is erratic now, but he won’t find complaint from her in that regard. She has no means of quieting herself with her hands where they are, and biting down at her teeth proves inefficient when each of his thrusts touch places she’s been yearning for weeks, when the stretch she’s been hungry for is finally given to her. Her eyes are shut, mouth open, body subject to this carnal movement. She doesn’t think to see beyond her eyes for the time being, what expressions his face is making or anything that will  take her away from the here and now of the feelings of the sex. She feels selfish for relishing in this, but fuck, it’s been a long time coming and this sex proves it.

He lets go of her wrists and brings her toward him to hang just a little more over the desk by way of her legs.  She reaches over her head at the other end of the desk, moaning into the inside of her arm, clutching the edge as if it were her salvation from plunging into the deep.

Her eyes open suddenly when he thumbs her clit. She looks at him and there’s a wolfish grin on his face, enjoying her reactions in the ways she squirms, moans, mewls, and tightens. Her fingernails scratch at the desk for purchase, for breath, but he continues with sweat beading his brow until he grunts a little louder and his final thrusts hit deeper as he cums inside her.

Her own orgasm follows shortly after, and she’s left quivering on the desk, well aware of the sight she is before him. She can feel his seed leaking out of her as her pulls out, and automatically her fingers move to catch it - like hell was she going to completely debase the paperwork that was crumpled underneath her. He utters a strange, strained grunt, running a hand through his hair roughly.

“I’ve told you, you can’t just do that with no warning.”

“Oh?” Her hand rises back up to her mouth and she wets her lower lip in anticipation. “Do this?” Her tongue darts out to lap at the milky, viscous fluid and while the taste is not delightful, the reaction that he has most certainly is. She barely has time to repeat her actions before his hand closes firmly over her own, and pulling her up to a sitting position at the edge of his desk.

���No,” he tells her firmly, though the matching smile on his lips belies any real annoyance. “If you’re going to be the death of me I’d at least like to get my money’s worth.” The kiss he drops on her forehead is soft. “I’ll get you a washcloth,” he says, fixing up his trousers loosely. The faint trail of hair sticks out against his lower abdomen like a beacon and Riza swallows the urge to coax him back for another round.

She adjusts the straps of her bra back up on her shoulders and nicks his discarded shirt from the ground. Her skirt is a crumpled, lost cause, and Riza makes a mental note to pick up an iron at some point this weekend - she hadn’t noticed it immediately, but of the many appliances Olivier had taken with her, the iron was the one she had relied on the most. Rebecca had bitched endlessly about the mini espresso machine that had also disappeared, though it had quickly been replaced.

She rolls up the sleeves of his shirt as she walks down the hallway towards the kitchen, humming under her breath. Roy would probably appreciate a cup of coffee, she thinks, focusing on doing the buttons up correctly as she passes by the island countertop and the man sitting there.

She stills, before turning to make sure she’s seeing right. The man looks up from the plate in front of him and raises his mug in greeting, the lowlights from the kitchen reflecting strangely on his glasses.

“You kids had fun?” he asks, before taking a sip. His tone is light, breezy, and he gestures to the plate in front of him when she doesn’t respond. “You’re probably hungry after that, uh-” he breaks off laughing, ducking his head “-after that workout. My wife made a quiche - you should have some, it is the best in the world, and I’m not biased.”

next

[davidbuddbg]

Chapter 7: What if it’s worth it?

Quick note: You can find the entire fanfiction under the following link: https://www.wattpad.com/story/174400042-what-if-it%27s-worth-it

The next morning, I was in a hurry. Just like the past few nights, sleep escaped me and I had only started dozing off minutes between the alarm went off. I felt like I was both moving and thinking in slow-motion. Dave woke up as well by the sound of the alarm but I told him to stay in bed, feeling too cranky to have company during breakfast, even his.

I had to meet my thesis advisor in thirty minutes and then head to the office. I put on a fresh dress, not bothering with showering even though last night had been sweaty. When I re-entered the bedroom to pick up my bag, Dave was sitting in bed, absentmindedly rubbing his injured leg while on his phone. Most likely, he was texting Vicky, I thought. And when he raised his head to look at me, his blue eyes more beautiful than ever, it felt as if I was okay again, at least for a few seconds. But then, it passed and my inner-self was crumbling to pieces again.

“Have a good day, Dave,” I said with a sort of enthusiasm I didn’t feel before leaning down to kiss him on the cheek but he moved his face on purpose, and our lips touched instead. At least, this still felt awesome, I thought, trying to reassure myself that everything would be okay.

I pulled back quickly, running around the room, looking for my bag. “Alright, so you have a nurse coming over at 10 to check your wound and change the bandage,” I droned as I bent down to search under the bed. Nothing. “And if something’s wrong you call me. Okay?” I asked, insisting on the last word when I finally found my handbag behind the door and sighed with relief. “Okay?” I repeated myself, pointedly looking at him but Dave just seemed amused.

“Okay, love,” he chuckled, before stretching out. “Have a good day!”

---------

Professor Hartley was more understanding than I’d expected. First, he didn’t even point out I was fifteen minutes late. Second, he told me he was pleased with my pace which we both knew was a lie. I hadn’t touched a single law book since St Matthew’s and he knew that. But for whatever reason, everyone seemed to think you deserved to rest after living through something like that, even if you weren’t injured. Everyone, except my brain it seems.

All night I had spent thinking about someone having tampered with his gun. Obviously, it wasn’t the Police when they searched his house, they would just have confiscated it. Which only really left one option: Someone had broken into his place. I had desperately wanted to discuss it with him but he had fallen asleep soon after sex, and considering what an emotional rollercoaster his day had been, I couldn’t wake him up. Even if that meant I couldn’t fall asleep myself.

On our way to the Home Office HQ, I asked to stop at a pharmacy. I stood in line, rummaging through the mess inside my handbag until I found the folded piece of paper I’d been looking for and handed it to the pharmacist. She raised her eyes at the prescription, but remained silent before leaving to go look for it in the back. I was fidgeting, rhythmically tapping the tips of my fingers on the wooden counter and though I knew I was annoying everyone, I couldn’t physically stop myself. A few minutes later, she appeared again, holding a box each of Trazolan and Sonata. I quickly paid for my purchases and hurried back into the car.

Nervously, I popped out one pill of each and threw them in my mouth, not even bothering with water. I was well aware I shouldn’t take them both at the same, the doctor had repeated it a dozen times, but desperate times called for desperate measures and if I were to fall asleep on my job, then who fucking cared.

But I wasn’t lucky enough for that happen. Instead, I spent my workday ineffectively going over legal documents and aimlessly wandering the halls, but sleep never came. I took a few more pills but by the time 5 o’clock came around, I was still conscious and yet feeling dead inside.

I wasn’t sure the guards were telling in on me to my parents, giving them all the details about my whereabouts, but I didn’t really care at this point. I asked the guards to drive me to a small supermarket, or rather a limited grocery store I knew all too well. Inside, I grabbed a bottle of orange juice and some biscuits to make it look less suspicious and walked over to the cashier.

I placed the items on the counter and grabbed my purse. “I’ll also take some flour, enough for 10 muffins, please” I added and the young cashier looked me in the eyes for a couple of seconds before opening a small drawer on his side and taking out some miniscule plastic bags. I quickly paid in cash and walked over to the car.

“Do you have everything, miss?” The man bald inquired, giving me a quick look through the mirror before turning on the engine.

“Yes, thank you. I was just running out of breakfast necessities,” I replied, absentmindedly as I grabbed my phone, having heard a message notification.

“I’m having a pint with a colleague tonight. Don’t know what time I’ll be home. Love you.” David had written. Somehow, you could really notice that he wasn’t a millennial by the way he wrote his text messages and it made me chuckle. I was glad though that he had taken the time to text me and let me know everything was okay.

“Have fun!” I sent back joyously though I felt nervous and worried about his safety. The bomber was still at large. Yesterday only, there had been a false alert on the Vauxhall Bridge and you only needed to walk in the streets of London for a few minutes to notice the tension. I tried calming myself, if he was going out with a friend, it meant he was feeling better, right?

Being alone tonight would actually be good for me. I’d have time to work on my thesis and even do laundry, something in which I was running behind.

Arriving at the flat, I started boiling some water to make mac n’ cheese and then opened one of the small plastic sachets I’d just bought on the marble counter before arranging the powder in a straight thin line and snorting it with a short straw I found in one of the drawers.

At first, it burnt like hell, just like it always did. And then, it felt as if you had gotten brain freeze  by eating ice cream too fast. When I was done cooking, the positive effects had kicked in and I finally felt poised, just like I always used to be.

I had dinner in silence as I checked my twitter feed with the TV playing softly in the background. However, by the time I was done eating, my head was a whirlwind of ideas and I had to put them into paper before I forgot them.

Hippocrates of Kos, an ancient Greek philosopher, was now best known in the area of medicine. But in the Hippocratic Corpus there’s a treatise called “Air, waters, places” in which the author stated that our climate defined our physical and mental characteristics. And according to him, Europeans were brave and strong, but inconsistent just like the weather. And although, I didn’t believe a single word of that, I just didn’t care because it made the perfect introduction to explain how the law of war originated in Europe.

By the time Dave arrived, I had completed the introduction.

“Good evening!” I hollered as Dave closed the front door behind himself. I stretched out comfortably before setting down my laptop for the first time that evening. “I’m in the living room.”

“Hello, love,” Dave smiled as he approached me, still taking off his jacket. He placed a quick kiss on my cheek before lazily sitting down on the couch the next to me and I immediately took the opportunity to rest my calves on his lap. “I didn’t expect you’d still be up.”

“I had to work on my thesis,” I replied while readjusting the cushions behind my back. My parents somehow had a talent to buy expensive, beautiful and extremely uncomfortable cushions.

“You’re okay?” He asked, staring down at me, appearing somewhat puzzled as he started giving me a foot rub. “You’re talking too fast and I can hear your heart beating from where I am.” He was now eyeing me closely and I was glad for the dim light and my dark irises for hiding my dilated pupils.

“Yeah, I just had a red bull.” I replied, misleading him, brushing off his concern. Considering all that he was going through, I didn’t feel like adding another layer. “So, how was your day?” I wondered carelessly, before remembering something. “You did see nurse before going out, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dave replied, mocking me and I struck my tongue at him. “They called me from the office. They wanted help interviewing Nadia so I went over to the station.” He was speaking lightly, as if this was just chit-chat but he did seem worried.

For a moment, I couldn’t remember who Nadia was but then I figured it must be the woman Dave had stopped from blowing up the train on 01/10. “Aren’t you supposed to be on a leave, though?”

“I cannot just lie back and do nothing,” David sighed before letting out a small groan as he leaned his head back, exposing his throat. “She didn’t identify Mahmood as the bomb-maker.”

I took a few seconds to process his words. On the one hand, I knew this was bad news because the Police most likely had no other leads. But on the other hand, I had chatted to Mahmood a couple of times, and I never really believed he could have been part of something like that. “That’s good. It means the Home Office wasn’t infiltrated.”

Dave’s Adam’s apple bobbled before he spoke. “I think she was lying. Even in custody under police protection, she’s still afraid of her husband,” Dave said with honesty, before biting lip and unintentionally squeezing my foot.

“I don’t think her being a woman immediately makes her the victim, David. Not every woman needs to be protected,” I blurted out softly, not thinking my words through before saying them out loud. “Maybe she’s not collaborating because she does believe in the cause,” I added, clarifying my previous thoughts.

David shook his head softly, as if in deep thought. “I don’t know, love,” Dave murmured, conflicted. “I believe her.”

“Yeah, forget what I said,” I muttered casually before yawning with fatigue. “You’re the cop, so you’re better at this than I am.”

As we were heading to bed, I finally remembered to ask Dave to come to Julia’s funeral the next day but he refused, and I immediately regretted asking. Everything closely relating to St Matthew’s was a touchy subject for him.

------

The next day, I woke up early after a good night’s sleep for the first time in a whole week. I took the time to take a long shower before doing up my hair in a bun and picking a black lace dress. I wasn’t sure I should even go. I had gotten my invitation at the office, but knowing she was alive turned all of this into a farce. I wondered if the coffin would be empty or if they’d put something heavy in it to give the illusion of a corpse. These thoughts made me shiver and I locked myself in the bathroom with another dose of the heavenly powder before my body could start shaking and freaking out again.

I asked the guards to drop off Dave at the Police station before driving me to the funeral. As expected, there weren’t that many people and I still I was sure Julia didn’t like half of these people. I made my way into the church, just to see Roger Penhalington greeting the guests alongside Julia’s mom and I was glad for the drugs in my blood, otherwise I’d have thrown a fit.

In what world, is the ex-husband considered to be mourning as much as the mother?! Julia and Roger didn’t even speak to each other, and when they did, it was more arguing than anything else. “Mrs Montague, Mr Penhalington, I’m so sorry for your loss,” I intoned when it was my turn. Julia’s mother nodded, but Roger seemed surprised at seeing me here. Hell, even I was surprised I showed up.

After watching Julia’s empty casket being lowered six feet under, I was ready to leave this masquerade when Roger ambushed me, showing up out of nowhere. “Mr Penhalington, is everything alright?” I asked politely, faking concern as to put up a show for the people standing around us.

“Did you happen to retrieve any of Julia’s personal belongings?” Roger asked in a low tone, seemingly agitated. When he noticed that he was fidgeting, he put his hands inside his trousers’ which made for a bizarre look on him. “Her handbag, briefcase or anything?”

“No,” I replied hesitantly, furrowing my brows as if I was thinking it through. “I remember she left them in the side entrance’s anti-chamber at St Matthews, but I don’t know who retrieved those items. Why?” And just when I asked the question out loud, I figured it out on my own. He was looking for the kompromat.

“They’re of sentimental value,” he added, obviously disappointed by my lack of help, but at the same time, not entirely convinced by my answer. And then he left just as quickly as he had appeared in the first place.

After the funeral, I decided to call Sara and meet up with her for some cocktails. She first made sure I was alright after the attack and then we began speaking about more trivial matters. “Actually, Cedric and I are getting married,” Sara announced proudly, before pointing out the new shiny ring on her finger and I felt bad for not having noticed on my own.

“Oh my god,” I blurted out, genuinely happy for her. “Congratulations!” She hugged with such excitement that she almost broke me in half. “Do you guys have a date, yet?”

“Yes,” she replied before taking a large sip of her Margarita. “In exactly one month, in Cancun.” That was soon!

The truth is I didn’t meet up with Sara just to have a fun time. Roger didn’t believe a word I said, and I’m sure he had me followed when I left the funeral. Going back home in a hurry would have looked shady and suspicious, but going out with a friend? That doesn’t sound like someone who’s hiding something.

A couple of hours in, I told Sara I needed to go home and work on my thesis. Once back at my parent’s flat, I went to retrieve my laptop and the tablet from their hiding spots, and finally found a place where to put them for safekeeping.

“I’m walking to the library to do some research,” I announced to the bodyguards on duty, leaving the flat again less than ten minutes after getting there.

For the first time, I was thankful for my father’s insistence on providing me with protection. Roger was a politician, the kind who do Politics not as a passion or as an end in itself, but as a means to access power and I knew well enough, that those were the most dangerous kind.

As soon as I arrived at the law library, I retrieved a key to a temporary locker and put my coat and in bag in there. And then I headed towards the computers, needing to make time as to not make this visit to the library appear suspicious either. Especially, because the Police believed I had lost my laptop. I made a mental note to go buy a new laptop the next morning. It was what any normal student would do if they lost theirs. I stayed there for two hours, doing random law related research on the Internet without truly paying attention before heading back to the locker and picking my empty bag and coat. Making sure no one was looking, I hid the key in my bra.

Outside the library, the guards were waiting to walk me back to the flat.

When David got home, I was already asleep. Now that Dave was working again, even if only officiously, I didn’t know when he’d be back home. In fact, I barely saw him the next couple of days apart from in the mornings when we would both get ready for work. Surprisingly, I wasn’t too concerned. He texted me often enough to let me know he was okay and truth be told, working seemed to be a welcome distraction for him though I didn’t exactly know what he was doing apart from helping interviewing Nadia. Was he still in on some dubious business, like when he was spying on Julia?

The next day, I stopped by an Apple store in the morning before going to work. At the internship, I was trying to figure out who exactly knew about the kompromat. Stephen Hunter-Dunn knew without doubt. That’s certainly what they talked about that morning at the hotel when Julia asked me to leave them alone. But did Mike also know? And what about Sampson?

Dave sent me a text message, asking me to call him back as soon as possible and I decided to take my break sooner than expected. Alone in the breakroom, I called him back and he picked up after the very first ring, as if expecting my call.

“Dave, what’s wrong?” I inquired in a hushed voice. Even though I was alone in the room, I couldn’t be sure they hadn’t bugged the entire building.

“Someone came to Vicky’s work yesterday, telling her about us,” Dave snarled quickly, almost out of breath as if he was running.

“But she already knew, so?” I was puzzled. What was David getting at?

“It’s was that man, Longcross. The one Julia with whom had a private meeting at the hotel once,” Dave explained. I remained silent and after a few seconds, I heard him sigh. “I know you were spying on me.” Yeah, that came as shock and I had definitely not been expecting that. How did he know?

“Look, Dave, I’m sorry. It’s, I don’t-” I was stammering.

“No, love, it’s okay,” Dave jabbered. “Has Longcross ambushed you as well?” I could hear the concern in his voice.

“No,” I said honestly.

“Good!” David breathed out with relief. “Stay with the guards at all times, please.”

I wanted to ask him where was and what he was even doing but he hung up before I had a chance to. Later that day, arriving at the flat after work, I realized we had been broken into. They left the apartment upside down but nothing was stolen because they obviously didn’t find what they came for.

“Miss, we need to call your parents and the Police,” the bald bodyguard announced, his cell phone already in hand.

“Don’t!” I blurted out aggressively before recomposing myself. “That would just make them worry and this doesn’t appear to be anything else than a failed robbery attempt.”

David got home all wet that night, he had probably been outside in the heavy downpour. When I asked him what he had been doing, he just avoided the question. He appeared quite secretive these past few days. It started worrying me that with all this going on, we were still keeping secrets from each other and I sensed this would come to bite us in the ass.

The next morning, Dave left early again. Something about searching Julia’s flat with DS Rayburn. So, this meant the Police knew about the kompromat but they didn’t know I had it. And considering, the secrets between David and myself, I wasn’t sure whether he knew I had it still. I texted Julia to let know the Police was closing in on the tablet business.

The day was passing and David wasn’t answering to any of my texts, and even the Cocaine wasn’t managing to keep me calm now. At 11pm, I still hadn’t heard of David. All my texts were left unanswered and he wasn’t picking up the phone either. Just as I was about to take another dose to help me destress, there was a knock on my door. The Police.

---------

“Good evening, Alma,” DS Rayburn greeted me in an awfully neutral voice as she and DCI Sharma sat down at the opposite side of the table in the interrogation room. “Thank you for meeting us so late.”

“You didn’t exactly give me in an option,” I replied sassily, a big smile on my face, but on the inside I was screaming and crying at the same time. None of them seemed to take offence from my tone of voice.

“Last time we met, you confirmed the relationship between yourself and PS Budd had gone beyond the professional boundaries,” DS Rayburn drawled, not really expecting an answer from me. “Was the relationship consensual or did PS Budd threaten you in any way?” Rayburn asked, and both police officers were now attentively staring at me.

I just stared back at them, throughout confused. Were they insinuating David had forced himself upon me?! “Of course, David didn’t threaten me!” I blurted out, offended they’d even consider that. “Our relationship has always been consensual.”

“Listen, Alma,” DCI Sharma spoke almost patronizingly, his crossed hands on the table. “You’re either his victim or his accomplice.”

“The hell are you suggesting?!” I spat out, my voice raised but neither of them were intimidated. They left me a few seconds to recompose myself before Rayburn took a photograph from her file and showed it to me.

It was a white male. I couldn’t even estimate his age because half his face was deformed with severe burn scars. “This is the shooter from Thornton Circus,” Rayburn explained. “Have you ever seen this man before?”

“Never,” I answered honestly. “I’d remember a face like that, certainly.” Sharma and Rayburn were both nodding softly, as if my answer had confirmed their theory. “Why?” I inquired, with curiosity.

“This man is Andrew Apsted,” Sharma detailed but I cocked my eyebrows. Was I supposed to know that name? “He served with PS Budd in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, for two rounds.”

I remained silent, but internally I cursed myself. Why had David hidden this from me? And more importantly, why hadn’t I figured this out on my own?

“I wasn’t aware David knew the shooter,” I admitted, my voice barely a whisper. I was frankly embarrassed at my ignorance. Sharma and Rayburn looked at each other, making sure they were on the same wavelength before one of them said anything else.

“We suspect PS Budd is involved in the St Matthew’s bombing,” Sharma put into words what we were all considering at that point and the accusation shocked me even though I had been expecting them to say it all along. Hell, for a few seconds I even wondered myself if David had anything to do with it, but I quickly brushed off that thought. There were lies and secrets between us, but I truly cared about him and I was deeply convinced it was mutual. He wouldn’t ever have deliberately put me in danger like that.

“I cannot imagine for just one second that Dave had anything to do with that,” I retorted quickly but none of them seemed to care about my opinion.

“We’ve been trying to locate him for a few hours now, but we’ve been unsuccessful so far,” Rayburn admitted with disappointment. “We never really suspected you of being involved, but we wanted to know if you knew where he was.”

“I don’t where he is,” I confessed, shaking my head in slowly. “I haven’t seen since this morning.” Technically I wasn’t lying, I simply wasn’t telling the whole truth.

DS Rayburn and DCI Sharma let me go but asked me to let them know if I heard from Dave and not to leave London until this was over but I never had any intentions of doing that. As soon as I arrived at the flat, I used my iPhone to track down David’s. When I had handed him his cell phone, I never told him I’d activated this function. After all, it was only for emergencies and considering he had tried putting a bullet through his brain, my precautions didn’t seem exaggerated.

To my disappointed and aggravation, I wasn’t able to find his current localisation. Most likely because the phone was turned off. However, the most recent one I could identify was some downtown bar two hours ago. Without giving it further thought, I made sure I still had the gun in my bag and retrieved a silencer from the freezer, before asking to be driven to that bar.

[rahmitacahyaning]

A Rhapsody? Trip to Japan🇯🇵

January 2018 probably is one of best moments I have experienced in life. I got my first overseas experience ever. It was on Friday, 26 January 2018 when my friend and I flight to Japan for the first time and actually we got this chance due to academic purpose, yes, we had to attend a scientific conference in Tokyo. We began to move to Japan at dawn and had to wait two hours approximately in the airport. In fact, the direct flight to Japan from our country took almost seven hours. We flight around 8 a.m. and my friends and I got separated seats, so we had to sit between strangers but that was okay.  I was planning to bring my novel and other books to read in the plane, but unfortunately, I didn’t manage to, I forgot to put it all on my bags.

Around 1 a.m. JST, 27 January 2018 we finally touched down one of Tokyo international airport, Haneda Airport, our flight took much longer than it should be since we had to transit in Kuala Lumpur first before we continue to fly to Japan. When we were in the airport, we didn’t know the situation outside the airport, neither the weather nor the air. After looking for the information center, we continued our trip towards a place where we would stay for couple days in advance. The stay was located in Jujo, and we had to take some trains or taxi to go there, but the information woman in the airport said that we should take taxi to go because it was almost dawn and the train was no longer available. Afterwards, we took airport train to one of stations that could bring us out of the airport. After getting out from the train, we looked for the exit gate to catch taxi.

The weather was so nice and cold! It was minus one degree Celsius back then when we out from the station. The city was pretty quiet but it still could be seen that there were shops which still opened at that hour. We were walking from the station’s exit door to wide spaces that was basically pedestrian sidewalk and all of sudden there were bunch of people seemed in hurry to make a line in the sidewalk, and I was so surprised that they did that to queue for a taxi. Without any hesitation, my friend and I also followed them to make a line. We had to wait more than thirty minutes for our taxi to arrive because the queue line was long. The taxi was super warm and the driver was so good, we talked about some little things on the way to the apartment.

We had some urge to get into the apartment once we arrived, it was so cold and we were shivering outside. We moved upstairs, quickly turned on the heater, and got frustrated because the damn heater couldn’t work. We were so desperate at that time. I had to clean my face, brush my teeth, and wash my feet and my hands as well before sleep but I also didn’t know how to turn the water heater, but still I forced my skin to feel the super cold water, and all of sudden my skin turned into red because it frozen. And the worst moment is we had to sleep in such a cold air, the bed also felt extremely freezing, the blanket was useless. It was horrendous, I swear.

Early in the morning, we decided to take a bit walk around the neighborhood. First and foremost, thing I love the most in Japan is the air. It was absolutely good, the weather wad quite warm in the morning even it was winter, probably around three degree Celsius. We had a chance to visit some little shops in the district. We bought some pairs of cute hand gloves in local market also had chit-chat with the citizens there. The residents were super friendly, they would never feel disturbed when we asked them about anything, even an owner of small clothes shop told us to visit Japan again when sakura is blooming, she showed us some photos of best sakura spots in Tokyo. We also tried Japan rail, and principally most people in Japan would use e-money to take the train, but we bought ticket instead. We enjoyed our first day by walking around till the sun almost set. After reached the apartment we cooked something to eat along with the food we brought from home.

The second day, we still had some free time to do our own things. We met an acquaintance of my friend in Tokyo. His name is Ken, and he speaks English good so we didn’t experience any language barrier among us. He was super nice and warm. We promised each other to meet in one of stations in Tokyo, I forgot the name of the station though. He brought us walking around Asakusa, visited Sensoji-Temple, tried local foods in the market, blame my brain because I forgot all the foods’ name, and of course we ate sushi together. At that moment, I just finally figured it out how the original sushi tastes like, so I could stop wondering. Ken also told us all Japanese stuffs, Japanese dramas, and other amazing things, also his perspective about Japan, including Japanese girl but I will just keep it secret. Ken is basically from Hokkaido, an island that full of snow, but he had been stayed in Tokyo for years, and he felt happy because Tokyo is warmer than Hokkaido. And thanks to Ken, because of him we had so much fun.

After we said good bye to Ken since his duty already called, we continued travelling Tokyo. I really could say the city is full of pleasure things. The sidewalks were super wide and filled by bunch of people walking. Sadly, we rarely seen signs written in English. Most of the street signs are written in Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean. I felt somehow relieved they also write Korean because I still can read the alphabets and understand little things, yet at that time my Korean was not considered good enough, but still it helped a bit in certain moments.

The third day, a day when we had to take part in a conference. We went to the building in Shinjuku where the conference was held. It was the day when we had to do our presentation in front of the attendees. And again, I didn’t know since when but I got the flu at that time, I can barely talk because my voice was gone. Luckily, I have supportive friends, and the presentation went well. In the conference, we met so many people around the world and that was interesting. We took some photos and had some time to eat together in the hotel restaurant. After attending the conference, we had to move to Edogawa, one of districts in Tokyo because we had to change our stay.

First time when we reached Edogawa, there was no words in my mind except serenity. Yes, I think the word suits it well.  The neighborhood was super calming and full of peace, the breeze was cool, and the sunshine was warm. That was amazing. In Edogawa we stayed in a house that typically Japanese traditional house. We rented a room and had many people stayed next door and most of them are Japanese young people, seemingly college students. We slept in Futon, a Japanese traditional bed and even could see a lot of shojis (a paper that usually be used in Japanese window and sliding door).

The next day, we decided to do this kind of things again, yes, we walked around to enjoy our time in Japan. We walked down the neighborhood. Roughly about 100 meters away from our house, there is a large field and park. Apparently, locals use that to relax and do some kind of things such as play football, have talk with some friends, and so on. We bought instant noodles at supermarket and ate them while joking around at bench of the park. The park colored gold since it was winter and the sky was in good blue, the wind was fine and we could hear some birds were humming. That was nice. We met Japanese kids and they were extra cute, their cheeks were red due to cold weather, even many of them said hello to us and we did too as well. We went back to the house after visiting tennis park, small playground, and walking by the local school in the evening.

In the evening when we were talking about so many things we had experienced then suddenly someone knocked our room’s door. My friend opened the door and saw a man from next door stood. I could not clearly hear what he said but I knew he said hello and gave us some of foods that you can see at the supermarket, probably because he knew that we are foreigners. That was so touching, and to reciprocate his kindness, we also gave him our local supermarket foods that only could be found in our country. I hope God always bless him. And unfortunately, it was the last day of our trip in Japan.

Next in the morning, we prepared to leave Japan. We still had time to travel around the city before the time we had to fly back to motherland. We brought our luggage around the city and moved to Narita Airport, we waited there for much hours and finally had flight departed. Overall, our trip in Japan was beyond amazing, yet regrettably there are many places that I still couldn’t to explore. I really and high-key hope that I can visit Japan again someday. Japan is undoubtedly amazing and full of excitements, and filled by a lot of incredible thing. Wish me luck!

Written to remember all the things since my long-term memory is lacking. All photos are taken by iPhone 7. 

[coopdigitalnewsletter]

8 May 2019: Net zero by 2050. Unstaffed shops. The shop in your car. Food delivery.

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter - it looks at what's happening in the internet/digital world and how it's relevant to the Co-op, to retail businesses, and most importantly to people, communities and society. Thank you for reading - send ideas and feedback to @rod on Twitter. Please tell a friend about it!

[Image: Climate Change Committee.]

Net zero by 2050

MPs passed a motion making the UK parliament the first in the world to declare an “environment and climate emergency”.

The UK could end its contribution to global warming within 30 years by setting an ambitious new target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, says the Committee on Climate Change. The report says that we could achieve 0% for the same cost as an 80% reduction was anticipated in the Climate Change Act 2008. Critically, the required technology is fairly well understood, so there’s no magic wanding in the report. What’s needed is policy and legislation. A good summary and commentary. Box 4 on page 25 of the report is a useful checklist of things people can do individually. (Related: your food choices and climate change.)

The headline aim is big and far off. Assuming that this gets translated into legislation and policy, it would be good to see many smaller milestones as the targets. Otherwise it will be just too easy to gradually fall into a “well, we knew we weren’t going to make it, shrug” trap. The Scottish gov responded immediately, committing to carbon neutral by 2040 and zero emissions by 2045.

Unstaffed shops: scan and bag as you go

Ringing changes: UK's first till-free grocery shop opens in London. Sainsbury’s sensibly picked a store opposite head office and which already had a high percentage of contactless payments. It has been remodelled to remove checkouts, and the range modified to streamline the transaction process (eg no products requiring age verification). This builds on Sainsbury’s 2018 trial of app payments in a handful of London convenience stores.

The service presents customers with some barriers at the moment: you need to know your Nectar account’s login details in order to sign into the app. (That piece thinks that a larger amount of customer data is being collected, and makes the related point that cash payments are under threat on high streets. You could imagine a supermarket leading with a strong privacy story and guaranteed free cashpoints.)

The shop or the warehouse in your car

Ford joins GM and Volvo in allowing Amazon deliver to your car. The idea is that you can get things securely delivered to your car while you’re at work or out shopping. Perhaps it’s a less alarming idea for shoppers than the prospect of delivery right into their kitchen.

Another way to see this is that the retailer is getting you to do the last X miles of delivery to your home - you might think of it as a halfway house between retail and delivery. But if you need to drive somewhere in a hurry while a delivery to your car is scheduled, can the delivery still happen? Would an Amazon delivery van chase your car around town? The other thing in that story is car manufacturers integrating apps into their in-car services: you’ll be able to buy car washes from some Fords.

So you could imagine a couple of directions from here:

The car becomes a local warehouse: Amazon delivers goods to your car and you get discounts, Prime points or cash money if you provide the last-five-mile delivery service for others who live near you.

The car becomes a shop: and where the cars aren’t owned by you, the in-car app experiences become a way of paying for the ride.

Related: McDonald’s is streamlining menus to reduce operational complexity and speed up drive through times.

Food delivery

The future of food delivery - an interesting deck, a bit US- and Uber-centric, written by a former Uber Eats data scientist. Notable: DashPass uses an Amazon Prime-like flat monthly fee to cut out delivery fees - they’re growing fast. His conclusion is that the US (and presumably other territories) will eventually see delivery services that bundle many deliverable services into one app like Meituan’s, or at least into an operational back end - Amazon, Uber maybe?

But food delivery is an expensive business. What’s a supermarket with many locations to do? Perhaps look at the opposite: instead of adding delivery-to-home, have everything come to the supermarket. Make it possible and inviting for shoppers to get *everything* they buy delivered to the supermarket? Supermarkets would need more lockers or an Argos- or post office-like back stage area for storage.

Crypto corner

Bitcoin ownership among 18-35s is not far off stock ownership. “To help put the millennial proclivity to Bitcoin in perspective: Only 37% of people under 35 are invested in the stock market  -  so the data point that 20% of those in the same group own Bitcoin is particularly surprising.” If that survey is representative, either cryptos are going to do pretty well in the next 20 years, or people currently under 35 may face disappointingly mathemythical retirements.

Amazon has opened up access to its Managed Blockchain service - "It appears AWS is targeting businesses dealing with finance, logistics, retail, and energy management for the service, highlighting they can rely on it to keep an immutable record of their transactions without the need of a trusted authority." Though there is a central authority of sorts, Amazon.

Ordinarily there would be no need to read a long piece about cryptofans having a conference on a cruise ship, but this one is good.

Other news

Walgreens Boots is spending $300m “digitalising” its business, and hopes to save $5-600m yearly in IT costs. The spend is going on partners (eg Microsoft Azure) and internal programmes.

“Acting ethically is hard. We face constant countervailing pressures, and there is always the risk we’ll get it wrong. Unless we acknowledge that, we leave room for the tech industry to turn ethics into “ethics theater”—the vague checklists and principles, powerless ethics officers, and toothless advisory boards, designed to save face, avoid change, and evade liability.”

Four things we’ve learned about government payments platforms - Public Digital.

Co-op Digital news

Data ethics canvas: helping us make good data decisions from the start - “The canvas allows teams to design with data in mind [and helps] teams move forward quickly and autonomously and feel confident that they’re doing the right thing for our members, colleagues and communities.”

Events

Public events:

Cloud Native Manchester - Wed 8 May 6.30pm at Federation House.

Manchester Word Press user group - Wed 15 May 6.30pm at Federation House.

User Research North: An evening with Jared Spool - Tue 28 May 6.30pm at BookingGo, 35 Fountain Street M2 2AN.

Internal events:

Co-operate show & tell - Wed 8 May 10am at Federation House 6th floor.

OIS May showcase - Wed 8 May 10am at Miller House 5th floor.

Data management show & tell - Thu 9 May 3pm at Angel Square 13th floor.

Membership show & tell - Fri 10 May 3pm at Fed House 6th floor.

Delivery community of practice meet-up - Mon 13 May 1.30pm at Fed House.

Shifts show & tell - Tue 14 May 10am at Fed House 6th floor.

What has the web team been up to playback - Tue 14 May 1pm at Fed House 5th floor.

Food ecommerce show & tell - Tue 14 May 1.30pm at Fed House 5th floor.

Line managers' drop-in clinic - Tue 14 May 2pm at Fed House 5th floor.

Health team show & tell - Tue 14 May 2.30pm at Fed House 5th floor.

Data ecosystem show & tell - Wed 15 May 3pm at Angel Square 13th floor.

More events at Federation House - and you can contact the events team at  federation.events@coopdigital.co.uk. And TechNW has a useful calendar of events happening in the North West.

Thank you for reading

Thank you, clever and considerate readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to the newsletterbot’s flunky @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend!

If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog.

[booksbakingandblogging]

I did it, guys! My holy grail, my unicorn of baking, has been captured. I finally managed to make a near-perfect macaron (over 20 of them actually)! After five attempts (divided over about as many years) that ended in differing degrees of failure, I can finally say that I have baked a successful macaron – and could probably do so again, meaning it wasn’t a fluke. Who knew I had it in me? I certainly thought it was a lost cause.

Longtime followers of this blog might know that I have a love/hate relationship with macarons: I love them and try to make them and then I cry over the fact that I’m terrible at it and don’t try again for over a year. I’ve written three posts about macarons over the years (one, two, three) detailing my failures (or relative successes if you want to be glass half full about it). Here’s some proof of my previous botched attempts:

2014

2015

2015

2017

2017

Yep, they’re not looking great. I was pretty bummed about it each time (except for the first attempt – I was still young and optimistic back then), but I consoled myself with the fact that these little buggers are really finicky and hard to make. I was determined to one day bake a proper macaron, though, because in my head I wasn’t a successful baker until I’d managed to make these. I know, that’s a bit harsh; welcome to my brain.

So, let’s turn to last Saturday, the day when it all went right. I was actually a little nervous about it, but also ready to rock (although, honestly, I’m not sure what I would have done if this attempt didn’t work out – probably abandon hope forever). I had everything I needed and I had CupcakeJemma to guide me through the process. It was her extremely detailed and helpful video that made my macarons a success.

I think I must have watched this video about twenty times now. I don’t think it’s necessary to watch it that often, but I would recommend watching it at least twice if you want to give these a go. Jemma and Dane explain perfectly what to do, but unfortunately, they don’t provide a written recipe (apart from the ingredients). So, for my own convenience, but also for yours, I’m going to write down exactly what I did to make these macarons. I don’t have any pictures to help you along, though, and you really need to see what’s happening and how things should look when you make this. So, again, I urge you to watch the video first if you want to give this recipe a try.

The recipe

You’ll need… (for a whole bunch of macarons)

Macaron ingredients

205g icing sugar

190g ground almonds

144g egg whites (at room temperature!)

190g caster sugar

60ml water

optional: food colouring paste/gel

a filling (I used lemon curd from the supermarket, Jemma uses a nice white chocolate ganache – check the video for more inspiration)

Equipment

food processor

candy/food thermometer

stand mixer with whisk attachment (maybe you could use a handheld mixer too but I’ve never tried and I think it’d be even more stressful)

additional big metal bowl

sieve

rubber spatula

saucepan

piping bag with 1 cm round nozzle

baking sheet

parchment paper

optional: macaron template, I used this one (print out multiple copies so you have enough for your baking trays)

optional but very useful: freestanding thermometer (this is to make sure your oven is actually at the temperature it claims to be)

and an oven, of course! These macarons need to be baked at 165 °C (don’t forget to preheat your oven!)

So, let’s get baking!

Tip: before you start, carefully read through the entire recipe. You don’t want to do something only to find out you did it wrong in the next step.

1. First things first: preparations Before you start throwing ingredients together, it’s a good idea to prepare all of your equipment and measure out all of the ingredients you need.

First of all, take a paper towel and moisten it with a little bit of vinegar or lemon juice. Use this to wipe all of the equipment that’s going to come into contact with the egg whites. You’re degreasing these things so that you’ll be able to whip up the egg whites perfectly. This is an essential step so don’t skip it.

Prepare your baking sheet (or sheets, if you have multiple). Line them with parchment paper and the macaron template underneath that, if you’re using one.

Next, measure your ingredients. Separate the eggs, making sure you’re left with 144 g of egg whites. Transfer half of this, so 72 g of egg whites, to the bowl of your stand mixer and put the other 72 g aside – you’re going to use those soon. Also, measure out the rest of the ingredients and put them at the ready on your kitchen counter. This way, you won’t have to hurry later on when you need the ingredient in question. That’s tip #1: make things as easy as possible for yourself!

2. Process icing sugar and ground almonds Put the icing sugar and ground almonds into your food processor and grind them up. You do this to make sure the ground almonds are as fine as possible. In the video, they warn not to over-process it because then the almonds might release some of their oils and that’s not what you want.

3. Sieve mixture above bowl Take your big metal bowl and sieve the ground almonds and icing sugar mixture into it. There will probably be some bigger pieces of ground almonds left in your sieve. Don’t push them through – throw them away.

4. Add egg whites Once you’re done sieving, you add the 72 g of egg whites you put aside during step 1 (so not the ones you’ve put in the bowl of your mixer) to the bowl with the ground almonds and icing sugar. Use a rubber spatula to mix the egg whites through and create a paste. Don’t be too careful; you can be quite vigorous (don’t overmix it, though, or you’ll have the problem with the almonds releasing oils again). If you want to add food colouring to your mixture, this is the moment. Add the food colouring gel a little while before the paste is completely mixed, to avoid overworking. Add more food colouring than you think it needs: the colour of the paste needs to be quite intense, because you’re going to add a big batch of white meringue later that will dilute the colour a lot (if unclear, watch the video to see what I’m talking about!).

Tip: are you a first time macaron maker? I’d recommend not adding any food colouring the first time around. Try to master the basic recipe before adding any extras. Also, if you are using food colouring: always use gel or powder, never liquid colouring as this is likely to affect the consistency of the batter too much.

5. Put the paste aside Cover the bowl with cling film (so the paste doesn’t dry out) and then put it aside for later. Onto the next step: the meringue!

6. Make the sugar syrup We’re going to do a couple things at once for this step, so be ready for it! First, put the 190g of caster sugar and 60 ml of water into a saucepan and heat this mixture on the stove. Use your candy/food thermometer to keep track of the temperature. The mixture needs to be heated up to 118 °C. Remember those egg whites in the bowl of your stand mixer? Turn on your mixer (medium to high speed) to whisk the egg whites once the sugar syrup reaches about 90 °C. The egg whites will whip up to a frothy consistency. Once the syrup reaches 118 °C, take it off the heat immediately (don’t let it get above 118 °C – so pay close attention!). While the mixer is still mixing, carefully pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl and into the egg whites. Make sure you don’t pour it onto the whisk.

7. Whip meringue to room temperature When you’ve added the sugar syrup to the egg whites, leave it whipping on a medium to high speed until the mixture is at room temperature. It will whip up into a nice, glossy Italian meringue. This will take about 5 or 6 minutes. The meringue shouldn’t be too stiff; it should flop over nicely when you get some on your whisk attachment and hold it up (if unclear, watch the video to see what I mean).

8. Loosen up paste with meringue Get out your almond and icing sugar paste and add one generous dollop of the meringue to it. Mix this into the paste to loosen it up a little. There’s no need to be too careful at this point; you can be quite vigorous.

9. Fold through rest of meringue Now, this is where the truly tricky part comes in. It’s time to fold the meringue into the paste. Add all of the meringue to the bowl with the paste and start to carefully fold it in with your rubber spatula, scraping down the sides of the bowl and cutting through the middle. This way, you won’t knock all of the air out of the meringue. It’s quite difficult to properly describe this process, so please do take a look at the video to see how it’s done. You want to mix like this until, when you hold up the spatula, the mixture ribbons of it and doesn’t melt into the mixture in the bowl right away. Jemma and Dane explain it perfectly in the video. It’s easy to overmix at this point, and if you do that, there’s no way back, so pay close attention.

10. Transfer batter to piping bag Fit your piping bag with a 1 cm nozzle and fill it with the batter. Make sure the batter can’t run out: you can turn up the tip with the nozzle, or use a handy clip to keep the piping bag shut at the end while you’re putting the batter in there.

11. Pipe! Now, it’s finally time to pipe the macarons onto your baking sheet. The trick for piping macarons is to keep the piping bag completely vertical to the baking sheet. Keep the nozzle close the sheet and squeeze some batter onto it. If you’re using a template (which I recommend you do): squeeze until the hole is just filled. The batter will spread a little bit, but don’t worry about that. Jemma and Dane recommend keeping about an inch (2.5 cm, apparently) between two macarons.

12. Tap baking sheets on counter Once you’re done piping, you’ll need to tap the baking sheet on your counter a couple of times to knock out any air bubbles. You’ll ensure your macarons will come out nice and smooth. If there are still a few bubbles left, you can use a toothpick to pop them and then smooth out the batter again.

13. Leave them be You’ll need to leave your macarons alone for a while now. Depending on your climate, they’ll need to sit for half an hour (colder climates) up to an hour (warmer climates). You’ll know they’re ready to go into the oven when you can carefully touch a macaron and the batter doesn’t stick to your finger. They’ll have dried a little bit.

14. Bake! Ah, the next bit where it can all go wrong… The baking! Make sure your oven is preheated properly and check your freestanding oven thermometer for the exact temperature. Put in one baking sheet at a time and bake the macarons for about 12 minutes. You can test them by touching them and seeing whether the top comes away from the bottom. If this is the case, they’ll need a minute or two longer in the oven.

15. Let them cool and make your filling Once the macarons are done baking, take them out of the oven and let them cool. They’ll cool faster if you slide the parchment paper off of the baking sheet. Don’t try to take the macarons off of the parchment paper yet at this point; wait until they’ve cooled completely, otherwise part of it might stick to the paper and you’re left with half a macaron. While the macarons are cooling, prepare your filling. I just use storebought lemon curd and put that in a small piping bag.

16. Add filling Sort the macarons into pairs when they’ve cooled completely. Some will be bigger than others, but with a bit of luck, you’ll be able to match every macaron to a friend of equal size. Pipe a bit of your preferred filling onto one half of the macaron and then press the other half on top of it. Do this for all of them.

And that’s it! You’re finally done and you’ve got yourself some delicious macarons! Even if they’re not looking perfect, they probably still taste pretty damn good.

Oh wow, what a ride. It was stressful, but also so much fun! Thanks to CupcakeJemma for providing such a useful guide and thanks to my trusty oven for making it work. Now it’s time for me to have another macaron because they taste like heaven and I’m hungry after typing all of this up.

I never thought the day would come, but I managed to make near-perfect macarons! Here's how I did it... I did it, guys! My holy grail, my unicorn of baking, has been captured. I finally…

[sublime-samantha]

When She Gets Sleepy

- This is my first “fic” well it will be more of a drabble -

I REPEAT THIS IS MY FIRST FANFICTION EVER!!!

Warnings: unedited, first fic I’ve ever written, hopefully super fluffy fluff

Poly!Hamilsquad x reader

Summary: The boys have been really busy lately, reader is sleepy and clingy, the boys just love the way she acts when she needs more sleep.

AN: I hope this is good for the first imagine I’ve written, I was inspired by @a-schuylerr  ‘s poly!hamilsquad imagine, “heavy eyes”.  I wrote all this in one sitting, feel free to tell me if you like it or tell me some improvements, thanks :)

Enjoy~

     Now you weren’t going to lie, You haven’t been sleeping very well the past few days. 

     All the boys were very busy. Hercules with his tailoring, he is having to deal with a very picky rich woman who wanted everything to be her way or the highway. 

     Alexander was busy with all the work his boss, George Washington, was giving him. Then there is always fighting with Jefferson. 

     And John is busy…. Well you aren’t really sure what he’s been busy with, he’s just going in and out of the apartment constantly.

     Then there was Lafayette. He was busy with volunteering at a local high school, tutoring children learning French. In fact, he is loving teaching his native tongue to the youngsters so much that he is thinking of possibly applying to be an official French teacher.

     Now listen, it wasn’t that the boys were ignoring you, not by any means. They were just all so busy. Alex was staying up all night until dusk working on god knows what on his computer. Here being kept up late in his shop working on all his clothes he was making. John doing whatever it was John was doing.

     The point is, they all got into bed once you were asleep and all at ungodly hours in the morning. You missed cuddling with them. And you tried you damn hardest to get them all to go to bed at a reasonable hour, but no matter your persuasive tactics, they would not budge from their respective places.

     You all had the day off today, though they were at home, they were all still doing work. You were up, but still very sleep deprived and feeling sorta needy, you needed to touch them, you missed them. 

     But, it didn’t matter that you missed them and all you wanted to do was cuddle and watch a movie and eventually fall asleep. It didn’t matter because you had to go to the supermarket to get some food.

     “Hey guys, I’m going to go to the store to get some food, anyone want anything?” you asked by the front door slipping on your favorite pair of boots, ‘cause it’s cold as hell in New York during the winter.

      To your surprise, both Laf and John jumped up and said they’d join you.

      You were more than happy to have them come along. The three of you set off down the stairs of your building after you all put on your coats, Laf made sure both you and john had on a scarf and a beanie and were warm enough. 

     Once at the store you took out your list of items you needed and the three of you set off to look for your desired items. The trip ended up taking much, much longer than anticipated, it took two and a half hours.

     By the time you were in the check-out line, you were leaning heavily on Laf’s shoulder with your hand intertwined with his. John was looking at the two of you with so much love in his eyes. 

     “Mon amor, are you tired?” Laf teased.

     “Mhm,” was the only response you were able to produce.

     While you were waiting in this horridly long line, you closed your eyes. Above your head John and  Laf glanced at each other, down at your sleepy form, back at each other, then smirked.

     The boys love it when you got sleepy, ‘cause when you got sleepy you got clingy and cuddly and become very dependent on your four boys to take care of you and hold you. 

     John quickly texted both Herc and Alex to tell them that you were in this mood. He told them to get some blankets out and wrap up whatever they were working on.

     All whilst checking out, you leaned on Laf and mumbled half awake sentences about hurrying up. John and Laf only internally “awwww”ed and lightly chuckled at you behavior.

     On the car ride back to your apartment you sat in the back with John cuddled up to his side, your head on his chest. His soft humming, one hand running through your hair, the other rubbing your thigh in soothing motions, and the steady rise and fall of his chest were all coaxing you into sleep. 

     When you got back to the apartment building, John shook you awake. Your eyes fluttered open, you closed them again, your eyebrow creasing with the unwanted and unexpected awakening. You slowly brought you hands, curled in loose fists, to softy rub your eyes.

     “W-wha’s goin’ on? Wha’ happened?” you murmured sleepily

     “You fell asleep, baby girl, we’re back at the building now, you gotta get up,” John replied, a smile on his face. You were just so damn adorable.

      “Oh,” you pouted slightly, you were so tired you couldn’t see straight. You lifted your arms with as much strength as you could muster and made grabby hand at Laf, signaling to him that you wanted to be carried,

     Laf chuckled and did that thing people do when they see something so cute they frown and smile at the same time, trying not to exclaim out loud how cute and adorable and precious you were being.

     Laf scooped you up into his arms. You wrapped your legs around his waist, you arms wound tightly around his neck and nuzzled you head into the crook of his neck. His hands rested at you lower back and one under your jean-clad bottom to ensure you don’t fall. The placement of his hands pushed you closer to your boyfriend, you hummed contently, loving the physical contact.

     Oblivious to you, Laf’s head shot up to make eye contact with John. Their eyes wide, trying their damnedest not to make any noises about you kola like behavior. 

     Laf, with you curled around him, carried you to the elevator, John strolled behind you two, looking at your head and how every now-and-then you would nuzzle your nose into his neck, your eyes closed and a content smile in your face.

     When you finally got to your floor and into to the apartment, Laf set you on the bench near the front door that the five of you use to put extra bundle necessities in, and to sit in to put on and take off your shoes. 

     After taking off his own shoes, John bent down to unite and take off your shoes. While he was busy doing that you very slowly took off you coat and other winter accessories. 

     You softly rubbed you eyes again and looked up at John, who had now stood at full height, looking down at you making sure you got everything off without trouble. He smiled at you and offered you his hand. You smiled a small smile back and took his hand. He helped you up and you leaned against him.

     As you neared the living room, your feet dragged. You were just so sleepy. 

     Alex was sitting all alone on the couch. Unknown to you, Laf had quickly gone to him once he saw Alex was seated on the couch and told him of your adorable sleepy clingy behavior. He kissed him and told him he needs to cuddle with you alone for a minute. 

     Once Alex saw you his face lit up, when he saw how you leaned on John and how cute you looked. His smile got bigger and internally thanked whatever god or gods there were that this beautiful woman, and handsome freckled man beside her, loved him. Alex could write for days on how beautiful and adorable you looked, clinging to John’s arm.

     “Awwww, come here sweetheart,” Alex said to you, winking at John, silently telling him he knew what was going on and what was going to happen. John walked the two of you over to the couch, you crawled into Alex’s lap nuzzling you head into his neck, one hand at your side, the other wound in his hair. 

     Above your head John gave Alex one or two affectionate greeting kisses. After they parted, John planted a soft, lingering kiss to the top of your head, then headed to the kitchen to help put up the couple of food bags Laf had taken from him before you even registered that you needed to take off you coat, just seconds ago. He kissed Herc for maybe a little longer than needed, but nobody was objecting. The two men who went with you on your shopping trip filled in Herc on how cute you were acting, how they just love you leaning on them, your clingy-ness, your little stumble shuffle combo as you attempt to walk at a reasonable pace. 

     Alex looked down at you fondly and said something you didn’t quite catch… Wait, when did you get into Alex’s arms. Ohhh, he so warm, and smells so good. And him rubbing soothing circles on your back, the other on your knee and thigh. Good lord- you could drift off into sleep right now. You feel his warmth and affection seeping into you, you were just too tired to know what was going on. His actions soothed you, you were falling asleep again, but you felt as if somewhere, far away, someone was trying to talk to you. You whimpered, burrowing your face closer to his neck, if that was even possible.

      You are just about to fall asleep once again you feel his chest rumble as he says, “Hmmm, how ‘bout that,love? Would you like that? Did’ya hear me, little one?”

     You grunted out a small “what”, getting metaphorically drunk of his warmth, sent, and the warm breath being blown on to your neck as he talks.

     He chuckled lightly, if you’d have been fully responsive at the time you would have heard the smile in his voice as he repeated himself, “I said, how ‘bout we get you out of those jeans and into some sweats and we can all cuddle in bed, we have all had a long week, I think we all deserve a cuddle session.”

      You slowly nodded, liking that idea, but not quite understanding in your half-asleep, well mostly asleep, daze.

     As soon as you had finished nodding, your other three amazing boyfriends came out of the kitchen, Herc in the lead, eager to see you and cuddle you. 

     Herc crouched down in front of you and Alex and rested a hand on your thigh softy to get your attention. Your eyebrows crease once again, like they did in the car before you slowly lifted your head from the crook of Alex’s neck and was met with the face of your fourth lover, who had an endearing smile on his face, looking at you fondly.

     “Hey there, sleepyhead,” Herc murmured to you, but the room was quiet enough that everyone herd it, even Laf and John who were embracing each other and smiling fondly and the small group on and in front of the couch.

     “H-herc, hey, man, I m-missed you,” you mumbled, not having enough energy to speak very loud. You slowly lifted your arms from Alex to attempt to latch on to Herc.

     Your lovers all chuckled, they found it amusing yet endearing that you called people “man” and “dude” when you were, or weren’t, tired.

     Herc easily picked you up spun around in the direction of the bedroom, all after you had wrapped yourself around him, just like you had done with Laff not even ten minutes ago.

     The rest of the boys followed in suit, John stopping by the thermostat to turn the heat down a little, once you were all five in bed, with all those big, furnace bodies *cough, cough* Laf and Herc *cough,cough*, somebody is bound to get a little over heated *cough, cough* you or Alex *cough, cough.*

     Herc set you down on you feet, Laff by your side to keep you from falling over. John get you someone’s boxers, probably Alex’s, and grabbed a Black Lives Matter shirt, probably Herc’s, judging by the size, just a little bigger than Laf’s shirt.  

      John tossed the boxers and shirt to Laf so he could help you undress and dress. While Laf help you, the other boys got in more comfy clothes as well. 

       Laf slowly slid your jeans down your legs, being very patient while you wobbled and grabbed his shoulder to steady yourself when stepping out of them. Next came you panties, you were fine with being bare in front of them, they loved you for you. He steadied you as you stepped into the boxers. He slid them up your legs, when he stood at full height, he looked down at you and smiled, seeing your eyes closed and head tilting forward. 

      John kissed the place where Laf’s shoulder meets his neck and murmured in his ear, “You get comfy, I’ll finish changing our sleepy little one.”

     Laf nodded an okay, turned and kissed John on the lips, only to part a couple seconds late when they heard your tired needy whine. Laf chuckled against the freckled man’s lip, and muttered to him, “Our princess sure is cling today, better get moving, she just might, how you say… pass out? Oui, pass out.”

     Now it was John’s turn to nod. He pecked Laf’s lips once more, then turned to you. Your eyes were drooping closed, trying to stay awake, but failing.

     “Hey, darlin’, lets get you out of that shirt, huh?” John murmured against your forehead, his southern drawl coming out on certain words in his sentence. The more relaxed he was, the more that sweet hint of southern twang came out. Normally that would have soaked those boxers you were wearing, but you were much to tired to even fathom that.

     John slowly got your shirt and bra off, then slowly slid the shirt down your torso, his fingertips purposely skimming the sides of your breasts and your sides making you shiver and whimper a little. When you were sleepy and not focused, your skin’s sensitivity became heightened. But John knew not to go father, besides he was becoming more and more tired himself. When the shirt got to your waist he let go of the ends letting it fall and end a couple inches past your bottom. He pulled you in for a hug, which lasted at leas thirty seconds, your head facing sideways on the front of his shoulder.

     John released you from his tight embrace. Alex swept you up into his arms and guided you to the bed, where you crawled to the center, the sheets where ice cold making you whine as your sensitive skin came in contact with the ice cubes you called sheets. But hat discomfort faded away quickly as Herc settles in on your right, John cuddled beside him, Alex to your left, Laf on the other side of him. 

     You sunk into Alex and Herc’s warm embrace with no effort, sleepily think about how much you love your boyfriends. Them bed became warm. as the room filled up with the love and affection you held for each other. 

     You were the first to fall asleep, your boys soon to follow. 

     As you drifted off to sleep Alex’s arm curled around your waist, and Herc intertwined his fingers with yours. 

[magnusbane-lightwood]

It's me again :D 1. How seriously amazing is your header? I'm so very in love with it, I've been staring at your tumblr page for 5 minutes :DDD 2. I've started to read your number prompts and they are all so cute

And for the anon who asked: Can I have 17 written?Hi sweetie!

First of all: THANK YOU SO MUCH! Seriously, I tend to go back to this message and just get this incredibly goofy smile on my face. You’re seriously so damn sweet, thank you so much for, well for liking the things I write basically. It seriously means the world.

Second of all: This one got really long and since my day fucked up entirely and I won’t have time to write the last 1000 words right now, I thought I’d post it in chapters (hopefully I’ll be able to post chapter two tomorrow - since it’s almost finished - so you won’t have to wait long at all, please forgive me!)

Anyway, here’s chapter one! I hope it was at least somewhat along the lines of what you wanted (It takes place in the shadow-world still, but in this story Magnus and Alec didn’t meet because of Clary…):

You can read it on AO3 HERE if you’d like to!

17. “Looks like we’ll be trapped for a while…”

Isabelle frowned when she walked into the dark loft. Magnus and her had decided to meet up for lunch two hours prior and when the warlock hadn’t shown up, Isabelle had assumed he’d gotten caught up in work and forgotten about the time again. So she’d gone to his apartment to find him, but seeing the empty space had her instantly worried. It wasn’t all that unusual for Magnus to forget about the time whenever he was caught up in some spell, but he was a gentleman and if he would be out of his apartment for work and risked being late, then he’d always make sure to tell whoever he was meeting up with as much.

She’d met the High Warlock of Brooklyn at a downworlder party she’d gone to for her previous boyfriend, Meliorn, a few months back and their mutual interests in both fashion and science (as Magnus had explained - mixing potions wasn’t all that different from what she was doing in her lab) had the two of them instantly clicking. Despite the night having ended with a breakup for her, after she found Meliorn in bed with two vampires, she’d still considered it a success after Magnus had invited her over to his loft for drinks to “celebrate her getting rid of the trash”, as he’d called it. Although they both knew that the Seelie had never made any promises of exclusivity to the Shadowhunter, Isabelle had still found herself appreciating the supportive sentiment. They’d been best friends ever since.

Which was why she knew something most definitely wasn’t right with the picture before her.

Picking up her phone from her pocket, Isabelle dialed Magnus’ number and waited for the dial-tone, praying to the Angel that he’d pick up - Only to have the call cut off almost immediately. Her heart beating slightly in panic, she started looking around the loft for any indication to where her friend might be. After looking through the entire apartment without any results, she picked up a shirt to try tracking him. The light flared around her hands and an image of Magnus flashed before her eyes. He was in what looked to be a cage, shouting something she couldn’t hear. She tried to focus on getting a location, but before she could get so much as a hint, something slammed into the vision and it blinked out. With a curse, she stuffed the shirt into her bag and ran towards the institute.

She needed a stronger tracking.

***

“Alec, I need your help!”

Alec looked up from where he’d been planning out next week’s patrol-schedule and raised his eyebrows in question to his sister’s abrupt entrance.

“I thought you were having lunch with your friend?” he said, straightening up and looking his sister over. “What’s wrong?”

“I was, but something is wrong. He didn’t show up and he wasn’t at his apartment. I tried tracking him, but I got cut off by something. I need you and Jace to use your parabatai bond to track him”, Izzy explained and Alec knew better than to question his sister’s instincts. So he simply pushed off the table and started walking towards the training-room, where he knew Jace would be - especially since Raj had walked by earlier with a put-upon sigh that told the oldest Lightwood-sibling that his brother had roped the poor guy into training with him again.

“Sorry to interrupt guys”, he announced their presence when they walked in and almost smiled at the sight of Raj throwing Jace down on his back and pinning him with a knife to his throat before they both looked up at them.

“That”, Jace panted, his eyes on Raj’s smug face, “Does not count. Alec distracted me!”

The other man just huffed a laugh, helped him to his feet with a roll of his eyes and turned to Alec with a rise of his eyebrows.

“What’s up?” Jace voiced Raj’s unvoiced question.

“Izzy needs our help to track her friend, she thinks he might be in trouble”, Alec explained and Jace nodded as he started to remove his training-gloves and walked towards them.

“I could use a small break anyway, you want us to go out with you to find him too?” he said and Alec shook his head.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll go with Izzy to check it out, call you if we need backup. You should probably go make sure Clary’s doing okay with her rune-studies anyway, leave Raj alone for once?” He gave Jace a pointed look and Raj mouthed a ‘thank you’ to him from where he was packing away the knives they’d been using.

“I have some work I need to get done anyway. You can try to beat me some other time, Blondie”, he said as he walked past them out of the room, patting Jace on the shoulder. Alec shook his head at Jace’s frown as he watched his retreating form.

“Still beating you, huh?” Alec asked and Jace returned his eyes to his parabatai with an exasperated look that made the corner Alec’s mouth lift, amused.

“I don’t know how he does it, the man is a freaking ninja! I figure out how to block one move and he’s already on to the next. It’s insane!” he answered and Alec just shrugged at him in a ‘what can you do’-manner.

“As much as I enjoy this little fanboy-moment of yours, Jace, we need to hurry up. Magnus is in trouble and I need to get to him”, Izzy spoke up, thrusting the shirt she’d brought towards them and Alec went into mission-mode as he grabbed the shirt along with Jace’s hand and started focusing on tracking the warlock.

The familiar feeling of Jace’s energy surged through him as the light swirled around their joined hands and a blurry picture opened up in his mind. He could make out the siluett of a man sitting cross-legged in a leaf-filled cell, light coming from somewhere above him. Magnus, Alec assumed as there didn’t seem to be anyone else around. He redirected his focus from the image to get a feel of where this cell was when a force slammed into him and both him and Jace grabbed the other tighter as they fought it to stay on the track. A symbol on the side of the cell caught Alec’s eye and as Jace gave his hand a small tug, he knew his parabatai had seen it to. Breathing out slowly, he felt Jace’s energy leave and slowly opened his eyes as he let go of the other’s hand.

“He’s in the Seelie-realm, in a cell of some kind. Doesn’t seem hurt though, but you’re right - we should hurry to get him out”, he answered his sister’s questioning look before walking away to get changed.

***

Magnus Bane was bored out of his freaking mind. Bored and irritated. He’d been stuck in this cage for hours, unable to do anything but wait for someone to notice his absence and come save him. He really hoped Isabelle hadn’t left him a message to cancel their lunch, because unless she noticed that he was gone no one would come for him in the next 24 hours. The prospect of sitting in this muddy room, with his magic drained enough to keep him from breaking out, for an entire day had him letting out another groan and letting his head fall back against the wall.

“If someone could send me a knight in shining armor to save me, that’d be great”, he grumbled towards the man-sized hole in the roof where the light was being let in. It was too high up for him to reach and possibly escape from and Magnus wasn’t too keen on risking a broken ankle in trying either, so he simply stared longingly at it and wished for a grand rescue of some kind.

***

“We should split up, we’ll cover more ground that way”, Alec suggested and with a confirming nod from his sister he broke away to search for her friend. He wished he could say that it was a surprise to hear that the Seelies had thrown the High Warlock of Brooklyn into a cage for some reason, but considering that during Alec’s last meeting with the Seelie Queen, she’d been just about ready to do the same to him for not wanting to sleep with her, he really and truly wasn’t. Honestly, what was a surprise to him was how the rest of the faerie-folk were still accepting her as their leader. If Valentine and his people were what gave the Shadowhunters a bad reputation, then people like the Seelie Queen most definitely was what gave downworlders theirs. He’d discussed the matter of damaging downworlder-leaders with Luke and Raphael a few days prior, and the two of them had suggested they’d bring in the High Warlock to their monthly meetings, since he apparently had the most sway over the downworld as a whole.

Alec had never met Magnus Bane, but from what he’d heard about the man he seemed like a good person with a rather wild reputation. The latter was just from what he’d been told by his parents though. Izzy had protested wildly as they’d argued that her new best friend was, in their father’s words: ‘Somewhat of a lothario who is nowhere near fitting for a young shadowhunter woman to be socializing with’, and Alec couldn’t blame her. Especially since his father, who followed Valentine blindly for years, most certainly wasn’t in any position to judge anyone else. Alec sometimes thought back to how he’d viewed downworlders only two years earlier, before befriending Luke and Raphael after Clary had stumbled into their lives and turned it upside down, and felt ashamed of his past self. He hadn’t known better at that time, of course, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d thought of himself as above so many people when he’d had no right to.

Stepping over a few fallen branches, Alec surveyed the area around him, trying to see if anything looked even the slightest familiar to what he’d seen in his tracking-vision. It was no use though, they’d been forced to leave the vision too soon and hadn’t had a chance to see anything above ground from where the warlock was held. Alec heaved a frustrated sigh and continued moving forward at a swift speed.

He didn’t even make it another two yards before something sounded behind him and Alec whirled around, bow drawn and at the ready, only to be immediately blinded by a flash of light so bright he had to shield his eyes. In the shock he took a step backwards, and where he was certain there had been solid ground just a second before, were now nothing but air. With a surprised scream, Alec fell through the gaping hole in the ground.

***

Magnus looked up with a frown at the bright flash above him, just a second before something - or rather someone- fell through the hole in the roof of his cell with a scream and landed right in the middle of the little room. The man looked up towards the hole with a frown, obviously cursing its existence, before rubbing slightly at where he’d landed on his hip, grimacing slightly.

“I’m not at my full power because of the stupid wards on this place, but I’m pretty sure I could heal that for you if you want?”, Magnus spoke, rising and walking towards the man, surveying him calmly as he did so.

He seemed to finally notice that he hadn’t fallen into an empty cell and snapped his eyes up towards Magnus’ voice. The warlock felt his breath catch as the light from the roof-opening hit them, making them appear almost golden, but gathered himself quickly and reached out his hand with a gesture towards the man’s hip.

“So? You want some help with that, then?” he prompted, with a rise of his brows. That appeared to be enough to shake him out of where he’d been outright staring blatantly at Magnus - obviously still surprised that there was someone else in this stupid cell, not that Magnus could blame him all that much for that - and he started rummaging through his pockets until he finally drew a stele from one of them.

Ah, a shadowhunter then, Magnus thought and finally noticed the rune running up the man’s neck as he bent over to activate his Iratze.

“Or you can do that, I guess” he mumbled and dropped his hand before returning to sit against the wall. When the man had finished healing his hip, he returned his gaze to Magnus, cocking his head slightly to the side, and the warlock was once again struck how gorgeous this man truly was. In the shadows, his eyes appeared almost green and Magnus reached his hand out again:

“Well, if we’re going to be stuck down here together, I feel like we should at the very least know each other’s name. I’m..”

The man rose slightly from his seat to grab Magnus’ hand this time as he interrupted.

“Magnus Bane, yeah I know. I’m actually…” he started, before looking around, a frown etched on his face once again.

“Uhm… Well, I’m here to… To rescue you, actually. I came with my sister, she was worried when you didn’t show up for lunch and…” he looked at Magnus again and, to the warlock’s delight, seemed to forget what he was talking about the second their eyes met. Magnus raised his eyebrows in question at the statement and hummed in acknowledgement before he spoke:

“As much as I appreciate the whole ‘handsome knight in a not-so-very-white and shining armor coming to my rescue’, they usually tend to avoid falling into the cage with the princess. Well, prince in this case”, he teased and smiled as a blush rose on the other’s cheeks.

“Yeah, that’s… That wasn’t exactly part of the plan”, the man admitted and Magnus squeezed his hand where he was still holding on to it, dragging him slightly towards him to lean against the wall instead of sitting in the middle of the room. The shadowhunter followed without complaint and Magnus smiled to himself at that.

“Well, since it looks like we’ll be trapped here for a while why don’t you…” he started and then the man’s words from earlier registered with him and he looked up at him with a huge smile blooming freely on his lips.

“Wait, did you say sister? Isabelle sent you? She’s here?” he asked, more than excited about the prospect of the man not being all alone on this rescue-mission.

“Yeah, we split up and she went the other way. I… I’m not entirely sure when she’ll be here though”, the man confirmed and then muttered something about hoping she was smarter than him and didn’t accidentally fall in here with them too. Magnus cocked his head as he regarded this new information. Isabelle had told him she had three brothers and looking at the man before him he registered the physical attributes his friend had used to describe them all with. He hummed slightly to himself before saying:

“Tall, dark hair, gorgeous hazel-eyes and a preference for the bow… You must be Alexander then?” he purred and the blush on the man’s cheeks deepened furiously.

“Alec”, the man - Alec Lightwood apparently - corrected him with a nod.

***A/N: I hope you like it thus far and I’ll try to hurry up and get chapter two up for you by tomorrow! Also: I’m writing some other fluffy malec-things that were supposed to be posted during the day, but since my day just got completely fucked up they might have to wait until the weekend… ugh, life! Sorry!If you have any prompt you’d like to send me (or simply share your thoughts on some matter), my ask-box is always open! If you’d like to give me one of the number-prompts, then you can find the different numbers HERE!

[s-line-diary]

transcript from 율리하루’s diet video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5oMiYKfAfw

Hello, everyone. I'm Yuli. Well, today is the day I've never told anyone before. I've never really talked to my close friend about my diet. I'm trying to talk to you about something. I've written down some of the parts that I need to tell you. But today's recording is still going on. I think it's gonna get longer anyway. First of all, a lot of people are saying that I didn't gain any weight. You might think I'm the one who's the most likely person to have the best weight. When I filmed it, I graduated from college, and now I've been doing it exponentially since then. When I started to gain weight and hit 62.8kg, it was the highest point. My I'm about 156 to 7 in my life. If you weigh 62.8kg, you'll find it chubby. That's the weight. Once I was a student, I remember not thinking much about dieting. Your legs look a little thick, so... I wanted to cover my thighs and calves. I'm not wearing gym pants, I'm wearing long clothes, I'm covering up like this. I remember. none the less If I'm really on a diet, It wasn't a stage where I had the thought and the will to do it. Just do it. I spent my school days. And now, slowly, slowly, gradually, gradually, gradually, gradually on the steam I went to work right after I graduated from college. No. I had a little time before I got to work. during that period The flesh is really exponential. I'm starting to steam. I've gained a lot of weight. That was when we shot the most. That was when I didn't meet so many people. I graduated from college. Of course I don't meet my friends when I'm a student. You know, I'm in social life right now. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no I'll eat, sleep, and eat at home. And now that I've been sleeping and doing this over and over again, I've gained a lot of weight exponentially. That was probably summer. Now, what was the stage? I'm getting fat. I don't want to lose weight right now. It's just fun to eat. I don't want to leave you out that much. I can get out of here in a minute. With this kind of rationalization, he shied away from exercise. I know from my eyes that I'm overweight, I'm so scared of the weight gain that I really weigh myself. I've been pretty quiet for a while, and now it's summer. I registered for a gym nearby, the first day. You're measuring that inbody. the first day I've measured the inbody. But I can't even imagine it. The front seat is six. I've never thought I'd be six in my life. I've never done it before. I know I'm chubby, but I've never done anything wrong to think that it's gonna be six. I don't have one I just took the in-body test, and the front seat was six. That's when I remember. It was 62.8 to 7. If I still remember, When the impact hits the in-body machine, the moment you go up, you gain weight first, and then you go on. It's like body fat and muscle mass. It's gonna take a while, so you're gonna have to stand. It works. But just as soon as I've weighed myself, I've been standing there. I just want to go home. That's why you have that in-body type. I took the paper and I took it. Now the gym can't even throw it away. I don't know if anyone's interested in seeing it. I took the paper home, and I threw it away. And now I'm in shock. But then I thought maybe I'd start with the gym. I thought I needed to work out, so I signed up for it. You said it was summer. It's getting fat. It's got thighs and inside thighs. Inside your thigh like this. You'll be swept away when you're walking around. It's very painful. You've felt the need. I'm sure only you know. But you're feeling a little uncomfortable, and now you're getting fat. And then I went to the gym, and when I saw my weight, I really wanted to work out. I got a promise. So my first start was 62.8 kg. There's gotta be some kind of trigger when a lot of you start to go on a diet, like a goal or something. In my case, I've gained a lot of weight, so I'm shocked by it. in a hurry I won the case that I started working out. I want to wear pretty clothes because I'm slim and pretty. That's why he's so slim. That's why he's so confident. I think it worked a lot. I'm not going to be honest with you about how I went on a diet. I've lost a lot of weight, and I've never seen anything like this before. Honestly, I didn't want to talk to anyone. Because I've been trying so hard to get a reduction. The trial and error I've been through. The good thing is, I got these things from my own experience. with difficulty There were obviously trials and errors. I'm sure there were some tips that helped me on my diet. Honestly, I'm showing you my old photos. When I revealed my old weight, I'm still a little bit scared to do this. Because you've had a history like that? Piggy. He was fat. It's the kind of thing that's gonna hold you back. Mental or me? I think I'm on a diet and I'm only getting honey tips. I wouldn't have made a video like this if I had good things. But I'm more than 10 kilograms. What we've been doing since we lost it's. The trial and error made a huge difference to me. I don't know if it's 100 minutes or 1,000 people who've seen If they hadn't lost something like me when they started on a diet, I encouraged myself to do this. speaking of The introduction was too long. Anyway, I want you to think it's the stage where you understand me, and I want you to see everything. I'm going to talk about diet and exercise. I am 50 50 motion for a diet with and go on a diet. Such as in the case. Big muscle-based calorie consumption is a little high. I've been working on some of the exercises that line is supposed to be. I'm not going to be able to do that. I I'll get ready and talk about my diet today. It's your diet that you know and you're wrong. You just need to exercise. I just don't want to work out, and I can do stuff that's annoying and hard. It's not that difficult. But it was really hard to keep a real diet. In my case, I thought the most important thing in my diet was that I had four things to sort out We're going to start dieting now. before the beginning I want you to keep your body clean and make your stomach smaller. That's what we need. It's kind of important. When I thought I needed to go on a diet, I always take that time to go on a diet. Now, once you're on a diet, you're on a diet and you're exercising and you're on a diet. It's getting bigger, it's losing calories, but I'm eating less than I normally do. The guy who worked out all the time with the digestive absorption is suddenly this big. He doesn't have much activity, so he's having a hard time holding on. That's why you feel hungry, and you give up quickly, leading to binge eating. In my case, I used two things: ground fruit and soy milk. honestly I can't do it until two days. A day and a half is enough. To do, just one day before starting a diet just for one day. A cabbage, tomatoes, a Weird things. Just. At the thought of you, fruits and vegetables are worthy of a better for your health. Just the juice you can do is search that much of toxins inside the Clean with juice the drink to that. I've been through the whole day. But he's got a lot more satiety than I thought. Just leave it that way. Now it's a well-built base for dieting. From then on, the part about the diet becomes touchy. Make the stomach smaller. in the form of You're gonna go on a diet. with a complete change in diet If we're going to proceed, Because I felt so much of the difference That's why I think that day is important. ground fruit juice with cabbage I'd like to make as many recommendations as possible. If that's a bit difficult. If you're doing this, There's a lot of juice in the supermarket with vegetables and fruit on it's. There's that, there's soy milk, there's black bean curd. That's the kind of thing you're gonna have to look at. One breakfast, one lunch, one dinner. I don't mean to suggest it as him. For the rest of the day, Don't get hungry while you're eating. You can keep eating whenever you're hungry. I did. That's how I always eat too much in the stomach itself. He's always full and he keeps eating. You know, the first time I did it, it was a lot easier He went to the bathroom better. honestly So I didn't think it was hard. Anyway, the process is just a day to two days long. And then you go straight into your diet. I'm sure there's a difference between when there's no time to prepare. You're gonna have to fly a lot. You know, you'd have to eat this much before, if you had a feeling of satiety. I'm full now. I'm helping you feel like this. If you play that role in the beginning, You know, when you're on a diet, you're going to be able to beat it up a lot easier. That's very, very important. I think it's important that it's the first calm. And the second is oat rice. During my diet, I was so effective in oats and rice. It's a real compliment. It's one of the efforts I've been trying to make sure I'm on a diet. I really want to eat oats. I tried. Oats know your protein is twice as much as rice. The protein is much higher and the gi index is low. It keeps your satiety very long. The oats are covered like this. So oats There are people who don't like that stuff. I like that kind of texture. I like that kind of rough texture. It's a good fit. I didn't cook rice mixed with rice or something. I only ate oats, but I had oats. Bring to a boil for about 2 hours, then stir when the rice is finished. I had a subdivision in a plastic bag. The amount of rice to eat a meal. Yomanha just in a bowl. Frozen in the freezer and all cattle with his teeth in anger so. Prepare meals We took them out one by one, put them in the stove, and we ate them. It's good to sue oatbap. And that's how it works. Once you've chewed it hard, He's got a lot of time in his body. So I feel very secure after eating. It's slow to absorb, so I'm forced to do it. There was a time when I went on a diet while eating rice. It's a lot more manageable than when it was. He's got a lot better abdominal care. And then soy milk. But I don't like bejimil yolk. What do you eat? Black beans, soy milk. Black bean curd or sweet bean curd is fine. That's why I've used as much black bean soy milk as I can. I'm going to go up in the fridge like this. I got you a big bottle of soy milk. And now you have a set diet. There are times when I'm hungry after eating that meal. But I don't want to put up with it. I drank a cup of soy milk to keep me full. So I'm really hungry. I want to eat something. I made him want to be full so he wouldn't think like this. If you make the boat full, The way someone's eating, there's no such acute reaction. Let's just be objective enough to see it from a distance. Because I'm the one who's going to have a boat I'm in a little bit of a state. Keeping it that way helps you when you're on a diet without getting carried away by something really emotional. You're not hungry. You're full. I want to eat too much when I see or do things like that. I don't want to eat too much. I'm freaking out. That's not stress-free at all. No, it's just delicious. Yeah, but it's okay. I can reduce stress to this bitter extent. But that's really important. Most of the emotional stress you can't ignore is broken down by it. That's why I gave up. But to control it, I'm so hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry. Don't make a lot of it. The most important thing is not to have as much sense of hunger as possible. So I've been drinking soy milk for a while. I've used as much as I can. You know, I'm on a diet. But soy milk is a little sweet, and besides that, there's some calories, and I know that. I'm just eating cucumber, carrot, sweet potato and so on. I'm going to do this while I'm eating. There are people who like cucumbers and carrots. It may be a snack for those who like it. It's like people who don't usually do it. in case of Because I'm on a diet, it's just food that I have to eat. Eating wild cucumbers doesn't satisfy me, no matter how hungry I am honestly That's the kind of cucumber I don't even like. If you eat carrots a hundred days, you'll get hungry. Why am I eating this? Don't do that. It's okay to just have soy Soymilk or fruit juice I'm not talking about sugar-filled fruit juice. It's true that when I try it, I still have to replace it with something that tastes sweet and delicious. I'll tell you about chicken breasts. My conclusion is that if you eat only one kind of chicken breast, it will be a loss. There are so many different kinds of chicken breasts. I recommend you order. If I open the freezer now, there are more than three basic types of chicken breasts. I've ordered a lot of munchies at once. That's how I eat the same thing. I'm getting tired of it very quickly. But if there's more variety, it's much less quality. This is a fact. Open it in the fridge, and I'm just a ranking chicken. You know that. There are many kinds of chicken breasts. Now there's a place where they sell it in Superna. I bought it at a butcher's shop or something. As long as you don't boil it and eat it, It's more expensive. so 10 kg of internet, 8 kg of internet. I recommend you order this way and eat a gift to That's how the minimum is now. There are 4 kinds of 5 kinds of tools. I've been eating it all the way back to it. It's a chicken breast with a requirement slice. It's okay when you eat a little bit of spicy rice. Like next-time requirements for a watermelon steak, There's something spicy here. And this is a chicken breast with cheese in it. It's just like this. Delicious And what I want to tell you about this is that it's not a problem. If you look behind the chicken breast, It's calorie-producing. Calories. It's a lot of calories. Sodium is higher now and this is lower. Don't ever think like this. Never No matter how high they are in calories or sodium, Anyway, they're all chicken breasts. That's why it's just... I want to eat it when I see it. I think it'll be okay. If you think it's a good chicken breast, you can just buy a variety of things and order them. Don't worry. I've never looked at a calorie before. Oh, this is like this. That's like that. Do I have to buy this. Don't ever get stressed out like that. Guys. It's really small, but the stress I've wasted is too great. You need the energy you need to keep your diet going. Don't use it when it's weird. Just pass it boldly. You can just order first. And then there's some sort of snack. There's a lot of food that can replace them. I've been trying so hard to keep it diverse on purposely. As you all know, snacks aren't just about to fill your satiety. Something sweet that you can't fill with a meal. To get that kind of fulfillment. I have to limit what I eat when I'm on a diet. But there's a lot of things that you can eat to replace them. It was a fruit. It was a protein bar. such a protein bar For fruit, forties, Honestly, I didn't really like fruit until I went on a diet. I didn't eat it. My mom would shave it off, and I'd eat When I went on a diet, I've come to love fruit so much. For example Grapefruit strawberries are fine, too. Grapes, but grapes, I'm not the only one who's I liked it. Grapes are very high in calories. later on in terms of quantity I've been on a diet for a long time and I know how to control it, so I can eat a bit It was okay, but if I wasn't good at brewing, if I was a novice dieter and ramen, It would be good to choose grapes as a substitute for diet fruits. There was a day when I did a prenatal hernia. I did a prenatal hernia in the morning. When you get home, you'll have strawberries and grated. If you put in a little milk and change it and have a drink, the real thing Oh, my God, there can be something so delicious. I can eat it so deliciously Barry, I really liked him. If you go to Costco or something, you'll get a big bag. I'm selling frozen blueberries. You got yogurt. I put in blueberries and mix them up. I eat a lot of them. In case of an apology, I ate them for breakfast. except for snacks Next, protein bar. I went to a lot of protein bars. I ordered this and that. The last thing I ate was silver. I took the order with my fastballs and I ate it. It's really good, but it's good. Once you eat something that's out of control and that's too high of a party. The sweetness of the feeling is too strong. I didn't think it was right, so I recently changed it. That's it. The jungle protein bar. If you look at the nutritional content, it's about 5% fat. I'm holding him like this way 0.5% saturated fat, and all the rest unsaturated fat. When did you first get to know that Milwaukee bar? I got involved in a small business campaign. during a small commercial camping trip. There's a guy who sells pro team bars I was so interested in that. I've been looking at the storm, and I've got a smack in it. As I said earlier, unsaturated fatty acids are very high and good. She's the kind of girl I've tried. It's really good. The sweet taste is good and the cacao powder is But I don't eat it all at once. I tend to eat it in half and twice. So I'm going to do this, which I've never told anyone before. Among the diet stories, It's a very, very small part of the diet. I've arranged a little bit about that diet, and I've told you all about it. And then when you have more time to spare, I mean, the athletic part, and I'm on a diet. The trials and errors that we've been through. I'll make a video and prepare it. See you in the next video. Hi.

[tortuga-aak]

19 unwritten restaurant rules you should avoid breaking

The INSIDER Summary: Don't be that couple that aggressively starts making out in the restaurant. If you're kid is throwing a tantrum, chances are you're ruining other guests' dining experience. Whether you're dining among Michelin stars or 5 feet away from a rustic handcrafted backgammon set at a Cracker Barrel, it's a combo of common courtesy and modest respect for unspoken social contracts that keeps our collective dining culture intact. As Cracker Barrel Founder Dan Evins himself once famously quipped, "Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use."

Actually, that might have been Emily Post.

At any rate, after weeks of deliberation, presented are the 19 unwritten rules of dining in restaurants... except, I guess now they are actually written. So, this is kind of embarrassing. Look, maybe you should just go ahead and start reading the list. And remember before you comment: Judge not lest ye be judged even harder, OK?

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1. Know the difference between a server and a busboy

A busser's job is best described as "overall mucky." Which is to say, not good. And while they attempt to drag a bus bucket filled with lobster guts and soiled napkins back to the kitchen, they don't need the added weight of some slack-jawed sweater jackal grabbing them by the elbow and starting to ramble off an order. This is pretty much the most "dad" thing you can do at a restaurant -- aside from replying, "It's OK, so am I," when the server warns that your incoming plate might be too hot to handle.

2. Never snap your fingers at a server. Or busboy. Or anyone.

Unless you're choking, trying to wake someone up, or thoroughly enjoying a new bossa nova-themed Cuban fusion concept, there is absolutely no excuse for snapping your fingers at anyone or anything in a restaurant setting. But normally, it's No. 1 on "shit that pisses servers off," so this is as much an unwritten rule as an outright warning. Simply put: If you do it, you might be asking for a loogie glaze on your creme brulee. Also, if you're choking, just use the international hand symbol or hope there's an imposter British nanny around.

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3. Respect your reservation time

If you are more than 15 minutes late on your reservation, there is absolutely no room to get indignant if a restaurant gives your table away. Ninety-five percent of Americans own mobile phones (so, you can give them a heads up, en route), and 100% of Americans who are cognizant enough to plan ahead and make reservations should be able to follow through on this very-much-so important social contract. Ghosting on your res is even worse, and a cardinal sin in the service industry: It really screws things up for everyone. Just call them! Even made-up excuses will suffice. Tell them either: A) Your sister is giving birth (!) or B) Your date has diarrhea. Either way, they won't ask anymore questions.

4. You can't treat wait times as an exact science

There's a reason why every host/hostess ever will immediately precede their estimated wait time with a hard "umm, about... " There's no way to know exactly how long it will take Great Aunt Linda to polish off her lima beans. Not even Great Aunt Linda really knows. And "about 10-15 minutes" can easily turn into 45. It's simply one of the many inconvenient truths of dining out. Remember: Patience is a virtue, and yelling at restaurant employees is a one-way ticket to never getting a table. And if you are truly too important to even waste a few minutes on a lagging restaurant, there's an app for that, naturally. Luckily, many restaurants have long-implemented a "hold this buzzer-thing till it flashes red" system to give diners-in-waiting a slice of hope to literally hold onto.

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5. Don't be that couple that sits in the same side of an otherwise empty booth

A restaurant is not a venue for your performative cuteness. What's the endgame here? Under-the-table hand-holding? Lady and the Tramp-ing your way through a plate of pasta? You're weirding out the entire establishment, and, as Steve Carell knows, subjecting yourself to cripplingly weird neck angles.

6. Definitely don't be that couple that sits in the same side of a booth and starts aggressively making out

Because it's really not the appropriate venue. Though if you DO witness such a happening, don't make it worse by making a scene, like this lady. It's SO much worse to be that lady. Just snicker about it quietly and talk about them later like a normal person.

7. A communal table is not an invitation to make new friends

While the virtues of "communal seating" (and its slightly less annoying cousin, the super-close table arrangement) are still up in the air, one thing is certain: Group and/or tight seating means you'll be eating uncomfortably close to other people. But there's a big difference between eating next to someone and with someone. Exchanging pleasantries with the stranger you happen to be rubbing elbows with is fine... and maybe even courteous. Acting like you're at the kids table at grandma's can interrupt other diners' experiences. The whole point of going out to restaurants is to be around people without actually having to interact with them, right? Read the room. Be aware of your surroundings. And for God's sake, never broach a private convo with "I couldn't help but overhear you, but... "

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8. If your phone is distracting other tables, it's a problem

It's 2017, and complaining about people Instagramming their food and other conventional mid-meal smartphone uses reached "old man yells at cloud" status a long time ago. That said, if your flash is popping off repeatedly in a darkened restaurant, your 15-person birthday dinner is pausing mid-meal to take 150 different variations of a group photo on 12 different phones, or your conversation with your sister about her thyroid problem is grabbing the attention of wide swaths of the restaurant, well, maybe you're a cloud who deserves to be yelled at.

9. If your kids are distracting other tables, you're a problem

Kids and restaurants are way too varied to make a one-size-fits-all proclamation as to whether or not they ought to be present -- that's up to individual restaurants. But if precious little Braxton throws a category-five tantrum and you haven't whisked him outside in the first 30 seconds, you're making him everyone's problem. And if that's a regular occurrence with Braxton, maybe wait a few years before making Friday night steakhouse dinners a regular thing.

10. The menu is not a blank canvas for your creativity

Substituting a side salad with rice alongside your duck à l'orange is probably fine. Asking to substitute fresh ground beef for the duck and a pack of melted green Skittles for the citrus sauce is going too far. While that's an unrealistic scenario, there's a line here that can't be crossed. If you are augmenting more than half of an order's ingredients, maybe you should opt for something else. Restaurants should be willing to cater to you, of course, but you can't expect them to act like your own personal chef. If you want that, get rich.

Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

11. Don't make servers split the check 15 ways

Entire articles could be written on this very topic (and actually have) but it boils down to this: You're an adult, you probably have Venmo, and you definitely have access to an ATM. Just use modern technology to your advantage, dude.

12. You can't send food back just because you suck at ordering

There are real, legitimate reasons for sending a plate of food back to the kitchen. The fact that you were too distracted thinking about your sister's thyroid problem to ask what "chitarra" was and it turned out to be pasta and even though you're not "gluten-free" or anything you've been trying to avoid carbs on every other weekday is... definitely not one of them.

13. Never blame a server for a kitchen mistake

If your server accidentally told the kitchen to make your ribeye a teeth-shattering, flames of Hades "super-well-done" instead of the requested "medium-rare," that's one thing. But it's highly unlikely they asked the cooks to make your broccoli soggy, and it's certainly not their fault if the restaurant runs out of salmon. That's like berating the dude who sells popcorn at the movie theater because you thought Suicide Squad sucked.

Forsake Foto/Flickr

14. Fibbing to get free food is not OK

Some well-meaning restaurants give out free food (or discounts) based on birthdays, military service, or just because they're good people. If you try to score some of said free food through some manipulation of the truth, you're either a shitty teenager showing off for his shitty friends (Braxton's future?), or an even worse adult. The servers already have to sacrifice their dignity when they halfheartedly serenade you around your one-candle sundae. Don't sacrifice yours.

15. Don't use the restaurant as your personal supermarket

If you are taking more than three packets of condiments in your to-go box and/or purse, you are the reason we can't have nice things -- or in this case, freely available ketchup -- anymore. And yes, this rule applies even if you are old. Sorry, grandma. Your days of stocking up on jelly at the IHOP are over.

16. No lingering in a busy restaurant

While restaurants shouldn't be trying to hurry you through your meal in the interest of turning tables over, it goes both ways. If it goes a way that involves a 20-minute conversation after the bill is paid when no one has anything but water in front of them as people salivate hungrily in the waiting area for your table, it's gone a bad, bad way.

Chris A / Foursquare

17. Cheap food does not equal a cheap tip

This issue was most pronounced in the heyday of Groupon and other imitators like the one your friend's cousin was trying to get you to invest in (dodged a bullet there). But the fact remains: Whether it's a coupon, a gift card, or 10-cent wing night, if you paid less for the food, the server didn't do any less work. Tip on the full amount. Especially if the establishment in question has low prices to begin with. If you're busting out the old tip calculator to figure out what exactly 15% of a $19 tab is, you're a mathematically precise monster. Put another way: If you received table service you shouldn't ever be tipping less than two bucks.

18. Don't show up and order food five minutes before closing

Picture this: You've worked a long, hard day at the office, but now you are literally five minutes away from heading home. Yay! Then, all of a sudden, your boss dumps a DJ Khaled-high stack of documents on your desk and tells you to parse through them all and create a brief PowerPoint on what you've learned... immediately. This is what it's like when you waltz into a restaurant five minutes before the designated closing time expecting to be served. Just because Google says they are open till 11 doesn't mean it's cool to order the rack of lamb at 10:57. Remember: Restaurant workers are people with lives, families, and breaking points, too.

Vasile Cotovanu/Flickr

19. Coffee and desserts are group decisions. Always.

If an entire table was prepared to forego dessert and move on with their lives and then you chime in to order yourself some tiramisu and an espresso, you deserve to have the whole crew desert you. Get it?! But for real, hopefully they leave you alone with just the one make-out couple and the piercing shrieks of little Braxton. Dessert is a "we" decision, not an "I" decision.

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[a-dancing-bear]

He killed the one he loved the most

[Note: original article in Chinese here]

2016-10-31 20:49:13

Author: Zhang Juanfen

Ardent supporter of Taiwan's “Society for the Abolishment of the Death Penalty”, active for many years in social movements, closely follows gender and capital punishment issues.

----

Gaoxiong Detention Facility was located in Gaoxiong county, Yanchao village. Like so many other small towns, the most lively place in Yanchao was one particular street, but of course the detention facility wasn't located there. Rather, it was on the outskirts, in a place where it wouldn't be an eyesore. I walked 15 minutes from the friend's house where I was staying to the Gaoxiong station and rode the northbound train for two stops up to Nanzi, then took a taxi to the detention facility. The trip took an hour.

The detention facility's visitor center was somewhat deserted, because morning visitor registration was only until 11am; all that was left was the last batch of waiting relatives. The counter on the left was the in-person meeting registration area, and the right was the gift inspection area. Both had already closed up for lunch. Only the counter at the center remained open; it was where relatives could purchase various items. This purchasing area was occupied by a white cabinet showing various food items and daily necessities; when you added the blue metal chair in front of the cabinet, the space looked like the psychiatric department of a hospital.

The purchasing area's prices were fairly reasonable: a large bottle of soda for 45 NTD (New Taiwan Dollars), instant noodles for 50 NTD, fruit for 70 NTD. There were also a few more fashionable items, such as green tea and some more expensive fruits. The most luxurious item was an eight-inch birthday cake for 400 NTD.

I thought, “I wonder when Deng Wugong's birthday is.”

I then promptly abandoned the idea. That wasn't necessary.

1

While copying down the prices at the purchasing counter, I suddenly caught sight of a cookie tin filled with many identical slips of paper. I figured they were receipts or applications of some sort, so without a word I stole a bunch of them and, acting as if I had done nothing out of the ordinary, retreated to a corner to examine them more closely. They were receipts for money brought by relatives. When meeting with the inmates it was not permitted to exchange any items or cash, so any money one wanted to give to an inmate would have to be recorded on these slips and surrendered at the counter. One receipt for 2000 NTD, two for 1000, and then one for 500. The receipts were printed on brown paper, thick and coarse. I sighed; how could this wife come to all the way to this desolate place to visit her husband and only give him 500 NTD?

At 12:10, the tenth batch of visits to the male ward began. All the relatives swarmed a small doorway; in less than a minute they poured out once again and mobbed the purchasing counter. Shut away in prison, so close to the outside world and yet so far away, the inmates were counting on their relatives to satisfy their needs.

According to the display case on the right, the inmates ate tilapia and pickled vegetable soup for lunch that day. The previous night, they ate diced curry chicken and fried banana fish with soup made from Job's tears and mung beans. The total number of visitors in a single morning was about 220 people. Based on what I saw, about 80 percent were female; their social status was apparent from their taste in clothes. None of them were dressed in a particularly ostentatious way, but many had a preference for sequins. Judging from the ashtray outside the building, these relatives smoked like chimneys and were habitual betel nut users.

The gift inspection area had a scale, basically identical to the ones in supermarkets, very Taiwanese in style. The weight limit for items was two kilograms, and a sign stuck to the counter warned, “Please do not conceal illegal items inside gifts. Inmates will be penalized upon discovery.” Most people brought food they made themselves, like soups and broths, so the gift inspection area also sold plastic bags for 2 NTD each. A woman with a harelip brought a package of food that happened to be a bit over the weight limit. In frustration, she walked outside and dumped some of the soup into a flower bed, remarking stubbornly, “How about I give these some flavor.”

Afternoon visits started at 2pm; as the time grew near, almost a hundred people came onto the scene, filling the air with restlessness. Workers shouted out numbers in hoarse voices; meanwhile, those in front of the counter whose numbers had not yet been called refused to budge. Everyone was crowded together anyway, they must have figured. I vaguely recalled that Taipei used to be like this in the old days, before it became civilized and emotionless. Those who had waited for a long time ceaselessly shuffled their registration forms, using the rustling sound to heckle the workers at the counter: hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.

I lined up with everyone else to wait for a “normal visit”, but my form and ID were automatically transferred to the neighboring counter for “television visits”. When I went to the gift inspection area so they could approve a book I brought, the worker wanted me to write the inmate's name and number on it, so I quickly wrote this information on the title page. The worker growled, “Where did you write it?”

“The first page.”

“Write it on the outside.”

In that moment I understood that I had entered a world with no sense of aesthetics. I picked up the thick marker on the counter and crudely wrote on the cover of the book. It was like the book itself was barking out: 405, Deng Wugong!

2

Now it was my turn to walk through that small door, which as it turned out led me to a room in the basement of the place. After passing through a corridor that had never seen the light of day, I arrived at another, iron-barred door and once again turned in my registration form and ID. This was a long, narrow room with two rows of people lined up back to back. On one side was the “normal visit” section, which had about 12 windows; the other side was the “television visit” section with roughly five seats. There were not many people waiting for a “television visit”. It seemed that for the most part friends had been moved to that section, though the person next to me was here because the inmate they were visiting was ill.

There was a roll-up metal shade over each window. As each prisoner arrived, the shade was pulled up, but there remained three metal bars in the center of the window, as well as a type of forest-green window screen I hadn't seen since I was a child. The “television visit”, on the other hand, consisted of facing a 15-inch computer monitor. A video camera was positioned about three feet overhead, and you spoke into a phone receiver, just as if you were video chatting with a friend online. The only problem was that because the camera was so high up, every person looked like a big-headed dog. But at any rate, if you got a “normal visit”, every person's face was tinted green and had three black lines on it, so relatively speaking, looking like a big-headed dog wasn't half bad.

A bright dot blinked on the center of the monitor and Deng Wugong appeared. After the usual pleasantries, I asked him why he didn't want any help. He said it wasn't that he didn't want help; it was just that he wasn't good at expressing himself, so he hoped I could go see the director of their ward and have him set up a special visit so he could talk with me face to face and explain his situation.

I felt a little awkward; it seemed that asking the director to set up this visit was his only desire and an overly optimistic one at that. But he continued, “This is a democratic age; our director is good to us, and he really cares about us. Last time he visited, he asked how things were for us here, and I told him we were all doing well.” Then he repeated his plea for me to go meet with the director.

His green-tinted face filled the screen before me; there were three wrinkles on his forehead. As I looked at him, I imagined I smelled the scent of betel nuts. My Minnan language wasn't terribly fluent, but this was actually for the better. The fact that I spoke so poorly made him less nervous. Actually, I felt he seemed not the least bit nervous, nor was he introverted or shy around strangers. He asked and answered questions glibly, his tone even eager at times.

I explained to him that our association could help him make a special appeal or request a “pardon”. He felt there was no hope of a “pardon”, and I was just grasping at straws. I started to feel a little nervous myself; if he didn't show repentance, what could I do?

“Haven't you still got three children? Where are they? With your older brother in Yunlin?”

“I don't know where they are. My brother told them to come back and they didn't come. Do you know the terrible things they said about me in the police investigation records? The way I see it, I sacrificed so much for this family, I raised you, and then you do this; well, enough is enough, I give up. So I had my brother tell them to forget about coming here.”

“So how are they going to survive?”

“My wife had an insurance policy. It was originally supposed to be divided among four people; now it's only split among three, over 700,000 each. Their uncle got the money out for them.”

I got the sense that my earlier feeling of foreboding had been proven true. Maybe his attitude wasn't self-righteous in itself, but he appeared to believe he had no choice but to do what he'd done. He had written a memoir in which he described his case, and although I had not yet read it, I could guess that it was mainly explaining how he had no other alternative. It was like he was anticipating the day when his children would know better, read it, and thereby understand his suffering. He was still full of hatred, and still proclaiming to the world that his hatred was justified.

I asked him the address of his home in Pingdong county, and he replied, “Jiuru town, Sankuai village...Sankuai village...I forget. I've just been trying to forget these things. I'll look it up tomorrow and tell you.”

I exited the detention facility into the fresh air of the southern Taiwan afternoon with a heavy heart. I thought back to that woman with the harelip. Nobody would bring home-made meals to Deng Wugong, would they? Nonsense. The only person who might bring him food had already died by his hand.

3

I really wanted to read the memoir Deng Wugong had written. The 30 minutes allowed for a meeting were limited indeed; perhaps his memoir would allow me to more fully understand his mental state. It wasn't necessarily factual, but it could still serve as a map of his mind. I decided to seek out the director and see what I could do.

The director's last name was Zhong. He was tall and powerfully built, with a large ring of keys at his wrist. He said that when Deng Wugong first arrived he had violent tendencies; he would often fight with his fellow inmates—the word they used was “classmates”—and he was always trying to kill himself. Now, he was much more stable. Nobody ever came to see him.

“I saw that the purchasing area has fruit and things like that. If no relatives come, what can he do?”

“He depends on me for that.”

Deng Wugong had already been here for three years. “What about you?” I asked.

“Me? I've been here five or six years. In this time my hands have sent off ten death-rowers. It's really kind of sad to talk about it. I never treated them like they were on death row; I never treated them like criminals. They all like me, but I will be leaving next month. I've been promoted, so I'll be moving to central Taiwan. Now they're all nervous because they don't know what the next director will be like.”

His choice of words shocked me. What did he mean by “my hands”? I asked, “What role do you play in the process of carrying out the death sentence?”

“Psychologist, consultant, and executioner.”

I was stupefied. I had asked him a simple, concrete question, and he had given me an abstract response!

Director Zhong explained, “Every afternoon I go down to chat with them. Sometimes I only get notified after 3pm that I have to carry it out on that day—but I just talked with that guy! It really gets to me.”

“You find out at 3pm?”

“Only I know, because I have to do a lot of things in preparation. We bring the guy out from his cell; they don't want to come out, so I have to go in and bring them out myself. At their last meal, they don't want to eat, so I have to urge them to eat. Once they've eaten, they don't want to stand up, because once they stand up an officer will lead them out, so I have to make them stand up. When it's time to carry out the sentence, the warden has to be there, as well as the deputy warden and the managers of the general affairs and the personnel office. There are more than 20 people at the scene, but in the eyes of the convict, it's just him and me.”

All this time, this “four-star” police officer had not relaxed his guarded attitude towards me. I inquired about how Deng Wugong would be moved from his cell when it came time for his execution; he evaded my question with the excuse that he had business to take care of, standing up from his chair. When I started to walked back out to the visitor area, he muttered as if to himself, “So you're going to make a special appeal for him...very well then, see if they can commute it to a life sentence...” I turned back to say goodbye and found that he was already standing in front of a gleaming silver door, turning one of the keys on that large keyring at his wrist in the lock.

The taxi that took me back was driven by a grinning man named Ah Bai. He was just like the one who brought me here; the drivers always tried to pretend that I had come to do something else—do I have a friend who works here? Am I here for a meeting? Anything was better than coming to visit a criminal. I was dressed rather shabbily, not “Taiwanese” enough, so I didn't look like a relative. At any rate, this well-intentioned misunderstanding proved that the family members of criminals were a target of discrimination. This cheerful Ah Bai brought passengers here every day, so he must have seen a lot—I planned to test his cheer.

“I just went to see someone on death row.”

“Huh?” In the rearview mirror I could see Ah Bai's benevolent air vanish; after a moment's shock, his face seemed to darken, and his speech became cautious. “What's he in for?”

“Murder.”

“How many?”

“Two.”

Ah Bai was silent for a moment, then asked, “Who is he to you?”

“I don't know him.” Ah Bai seemed relieved to hear this, letting down his guard towards me.

I told Ah Bai that I was part of a public interest group that came to visit inmates and see if they needed anything, because in many cases nobody else would come to see them.

Ah Bai said, “Huh. So you ask them if they want to donate their organs?”

4

The next day, I went to the detention facility to meet with Deng Wugong again.

“Did you know that I went to see Director Zhong yesterday? Has he told you?”

Deng Wugong smiled. “Yes, he laughed at me.”

“What was he laughing about?”

“Uh...he just was laughing at me, I guess. If our director is in a good mood, it's all good. He makes all of us laugh.” He spoke of Director Zhong in a tone full of reverence and gratitude.

Today's conversation was more relaxed than yesterday's; Deng Wugong was no longer as worried that nobody would understand his case. He said that when he turned himself in, he didn't want to be alive anyway, and it was in this state of total resignation that he was questioned and sentenced. It was only later, in jail, with the prison instructors and Director Zhong's constant guidance, that he stopped wanting to die so badly.

When I asked him how they got him to change his mind, he didn't know what to say. “I guess they...just helped me reason things out,” however, “right now I still have that idea, I feel there's no point; anyway, I was going to walk this road sooner or later. My family's broken; I don't have any reason to live.”

“Now, when you think of your wife, how do you feel?”

“I'd say my heart seems to 'harden'; it's very painful. I often think of how we were before. We married for love. From the time I met her when I was a soldier, to the time that the incident happened, that was exactly 20 years. I was so good to her...”

“What about the man?”

“Relatively speaking, I don't think of him much. He destroyed my family and brought chaos into our lives; he deserved to die. I didn't want him to die, though. At that time I was really pissed at my wife, totally 'out of control', I really wanted her to die, but I didn't want that guy to die. He died later after going to the hospital.”

“Afterwards you settled out of court with his family, right?”

“Right.”

“How much did they settle for?”

“1.57 million NTD.” I lowered my head to write down this number, and he automatically added, “Not  paid.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it's not paid yet. They went and checked on the land I owned, it's my ancestors' property. They tried to auction it off, but it didn't sell, so they'll be trying to auction it again.”

“Who came to negotiate the settlement?”

“Lawyers. The relatives didn't come. It was settled in the first court hearing. I didn't have a lawyer, so it was just me representing myself.”

“Okay, I have one more question to ask. You previously had a case in which you were accused of intentional injury resulting in death, and you appealed that. But I see that you only appealed that case after you were convicted on this homicide charge. This seems really strange to me. Why would you go to the effort of appealing this injury charge when you were already sentenced to death?”

I had found his criminal history by searching online. 1995, drug offenses; 2002, interference with personal freedom; and then a few months later, this double murder. In the “interference with personal freedom” case, he had referred a drug dealer to a new buyer. The outcome of the meeting was that the buyer shot the dealer. Eager for revenge, the dealer sought out Deng Wugong to get people together. Deng Wugong had no choice but to go with them to strike back against the buyer. After stabbing the man a few times, they left him on the side of the road, where he later died. Deng Wugong was at the scene but he hadn't done anything, so he was charged with “interference with personal freedom”.

This case was a real can of worms, as it may have been a prelude to his subsequent crime of passion. One of the accomplices testified that after the attack, the dealer “invited” everyone to shoot heroin as a thank-you for their help, and nobody said a word about the man they'd left bleeding on the side of the road. Could it be that this experience showed Deng Wugong that human lives were worthless, and therefore, not long after, he decided to kill his ex-wife?

Deng Wugong's face was full of confusion. It seemed like he was making a great effort to think back to that time and see if anything was missing in his memory. This shook me a little. We had met twice, and he always answered questions quickly and lucidly. Didn't he just say that man deserved to die? This other affair was a simple case of interference with personal freedom, so why wouldn't he admit to that? Could it be that it wasn't him?

“Do you have any previous criminal offenses?”

“I don't. There was a car accident in Jiayi, but that was settled. I also sued someone in Jilong because he hit me when he was driving.”

“Huh? So the case I mentioned wasn't you?”

“It's not me! I've never done drugs. That wasn't me.”

It wasn't him! So I had to start from zero in my evaluation of him. He hadn't done drugs, he was never a middleman, he had never committed interference of personal freedom...I had to completely rethink this man, and erase the shadow of that other Deng Wugong.

This Deng Wugong was straightforward and honest; in our 30 minute talk today, he candidly admitted many negative things about himself, never trying to conceal the truth or evade my questions. For instance, he admitted the settlement wasn't paid, and that he wanted a victim to die. There was also the thing he'd said yesterday about his wife's insurance, that it was “originally supposed to be divided among four people; now it's only split among three”. It was as if he was imagining his own share of the payout. He wasn't tricky or clever; you could say he was a plain dealer.

When I received Deng Wugong's memoir from Director Zhong, that was even more of a shock. Deng Wugong was a big-headed, coarse, strongly built middle aged man, but his memoir was written in characters as small as grains of rice. The few sentences of formulaic pleasantries which Director Zhong said to me were as guarded as his words yesterday, and he didn't even sit down, departing in the blink of an eye.

5

Deng Wugong started dating Huang Jinling when he was a soldier. Family members opposed their relationship, but the two married anyway.

Deng Wugong was from Yunlin, while Huang Jinling was from Pingdong, both of which were rural areas. Deng Wugong thought the only opportunities were in the city, so he went to Taizhonggang and became a tow truck driver. After he had earned a bit of money he was able to become his own boss and started a small business. He also bought a house, which was registered in Huang Jinling's name.

He worked long hours, spending the whole day away from home. Meanwhile, Huang Jinling stayed at home taking care of their three children. She often suspected that Deng Wugong was seeing other women. Sometimes Deng Wugong would go to dinners or parties, but he said this was part of doing business, and he always did his best to get home as soon as possible. The parties had “hostesses”, but he did not have any dealings with these ladies, and the ladies had never spent the night with him. Basically, the couple were constantly fighting, so Deng Wugong ultimately decided to leave this line of work, moving the family to Jiuru village in Pingdong county.

That was Huang Jinling's hometown, and her two older brothers lived there. The oldest worked in the marble industry. The family rented a house from this brother and Deng Wugong started fresh, learning how to cut and process marble. He felt he had sacrificed a lot for his wife; he had been demoted from boss to inexperienced apprentice.

After a few years, they took out a loan and bought a house in Jiuru village. They also started their own independent marble processing operation, with both husband and wife working together. But the economy was unstable, and so was business; likewise, the couple's relationship had its ups and downs. Later, when it became apparent that their income wasn't improving, they had no choice but to close up shop. Deng Wugong went back to being a wage slave, driving an oil truck, while Huang Jinling went to work at the fish market run by her second-oldest brother.

Comparing their present situation to the past, Deng Wugong felt frustrated. If he had known it would turn out like this, he would have just stayed in Taizhonggang, where at least he had the connections he had worked for ten years to establish. Now he was back where he started, and it was like all his hard work had vanished into nothing. Moreover, he was surrounded by his wife's family members, which may have contributed to his sense of psychological imbalance.

The couple's old problem reared its head once more. He was driving more than ten hours a day, and his wife worried he was having affairs. A new problem also came into being: now, Huang Jinling was a career woman, and she experienced her own developments and changes. She started smoking, and her job at the fish market gave her the chance to socialize with male customers. Deng Wugong was angry and jealous, and he began to doubt his wife's faithfulness as much as she did his.

They had married young and their three children were almost grown up; the oldest daughter already had a job. Deng Wugong and Huang Jinling's earnings, added together, amounted to over 80,000 NTD, which in fact was more than enough to live comfortably. Around this time, Huang Jinling decided to get a second job. At the fish market she had met a customer named Chen Qinquan who was the foreman at the Guotai Leather Goods Factory, and he invited her to work the night shift there. Deng Wugong was furious. He was convinced this man had bad intentions. Furthermore, the family was not wanting for money, yet Huang Jinling insisted on taking the job; she was certainly interested in him as well.

Deng Wugong's bitterness kept accumulating. His job wasn't working out, he felt trapped among his wife's relatives, and his wife was quite possibly sleeping with another man. He placed the blame for all these things on Huang Jinling's head. Deng Wugong couldn't keep himself from imagining the Guotai Leather Goods Factory in the dead of night. Besides the security guard in the booth at the entrance, in that massive workroom it was only the two of them, Huang Jinling and Chen Qinquan. Chen Qinquan was the foreman; if the two did no work for the entire night, nobody would be the wiser. So what were they doing?

Deng Wugong was not a man with a good temper. It wasn't just his wife he was on bad terms with; his three children weren't close to him either. In the fights between husband and wife, the children were more likely to side with their mother. The oldest daughter once swore at Deng Wugong, which angered him to the point of grabbing a kitchen knife and trying to kill her. He was stopped by the leader of the village. Once, when arguing with Huang Jinling, Deng Wugong had also smashed the family's wine cabinet and used scissors to tear holes in his wife's clothing. His pent-up resentment would boil over in the form of violence. He tried to kill himself many times, each time prevented by relatives.

Huang Jinling was set on getting a divorce, and Deng Wugong felt like even more of a failure. The family was broken. It was like investing for years in a company's stock and then seeing its share price drop to nothing, losing everything you owned. He signed his name to the divorce decree on paper but not in his heart. Huang Jinling, for her part, didn't move out. Their life continued on much as it always had; a certificate of divorce did not bring any significant change. They had always fought among themselves anyway, and now they fought the same as before. They also continued sleeping in the same bed.

About 40 days after the divorce, Deng Wugong decided he would go back to his family's home in Yunlin to find an acquaintance who was a notary. He would sell his ancestral estate to this acquaintance and take the money to the mainland. After spending it all, he would just go somewhere to die. He gathered together some clothing. From the bathroom he could hear the sound of gurgling water. He opened the door and, to the familiar yet blurry figure amidst the rising steam, said, “This is the last time I will see you take a shower.”

The November night must have been cold as Deng Wugong drove off. By the time he got back, it was 8 o'clock in the morning. He was stunned to discover that overnight, Huang Jinling had taken all her things and left. Greatly upset, he rushed immediately to her parents' house to implore her to return, despite the fact that he had already gone three days without sleep. But Huang Jinling had had enough. Her twenty years of marriage ended here, and she wanted nothing more to do with him. Huang Jinling's oldest brother and sister were there; every word they said sounded to Deng Wugong as if it was full of thorns. Once again he found himself trapped; everyone seemed to be against Deng Wugong, and he felt like they had all ganged up to bully him.

All he could do was go home, but in his heart he knew he had no home anymore. He couldn't sleep; he stared blankly at nothing, crying, smoking, drinking. When his children came back at night, he explained to them matter-of-factly, “After today you won't see your dad anymore. You'll have to look after yourselves, plan for yourselves.” Then he went to the Guotai Leather Goods factory.

6

He was honest, but he wasn't trustworthy. What he recounted was Deng Wugong's version of the story, while Huang Jinling's version died by his hand. He said she was always “finding an excuse” to get on his case about inconsequential “little things”, but in Huang Jinling's version, those things may have been a big deal. On the other hand, the fact that she started smoking cigarettes, and was even brazen enough to smoke in front of Deng Wugong's relatives, was a big deal to Deng Wugong, but in Huang Jinling's version of the story this may have been trivial: my smoking is none of your damn business.

I maintained a guarded stance towards his interpretation of events, but on the whole I trusted the specific details he provided, because in the two interviews I'd had with him he had always given me one feeling: that he held nothing back. When I asked him the address of his family home in Pingdong and that of his wife's parents' home, he told me both of them, never once asking me, “Why do you want to know?”

His memoirs did not start with himself; rather, he began by writing about the time when he and Huang Jinling had met, and the focus was always entangled in the relationship between the two. It was like if one didn't mention Huang Jinling, there was no way to define Deng Wugong.

This was a love letter written too late, a dying testament written too early. Throughout it Deng Wugong was murmuring: I love her so much, I do this for her, and that, and that too; but she still hurt me like this! It was as if he had written it in a trance, forgetting that he had already killed Huang Jinling.

Deng Wugong's memoirs were his verdict against Huang Jinling, and killing her was how he carried out her sentence. Because he had never caught her cheating on him, he also used his memoirs to...prove her guilt:

--He told her not to take the job, but she didn't listen; something is fishy here.

--The job demanded long hours for little pay, but she still wanted to take it; something is fishy here.

--Night shift with only one man and one woman in the factory; something is fishy here.

--She bought snacks for the foreman to eat every day; something is fishy here.

--She always knew where the foreman was; something is fishy here.

--She wouldn't answer her phone or say where she was; something is fishy here.

--While on the road, she twisted her ankle and called the foreman, of all people, so he could come rescue her like a knight in shining armor. Obviously fishy.

--She asked for a divorce, and if that's not fishy, nothing is!

The last third of the memoir was verbose and depressing, because in it Deng Wugong was constantly imploring Huang Jinling to come back, incessantly calling her, going to her parents' house, running over to the factory to plead with her. This behavior seemed like obsession to me, but Deng Wugong saw it as him offering tolerance, giving her another chance. If he had read Ouyang Xiu's works, he may have learned one line: “I want to find a way for us to live, but I'm powerless.”

Deng Wugong was still immersed in his hurt feelings; regret had not yet arrived.

“Although you could say I took both their lives, maybe there was also some justification for what I did. After enduring stress and attacks for so long on my own, exhausting myself psychologically beyond repair, I had to go through still more humiliation. This was beyond what any person should have to bear; what should I have done to face it? With regard to what has already happened, of course it's not what I wanted, and even more so, I never wanted to walk this road. I always hoped we would grow old together, living a normal life, and now I'm grieving over her. This was fated to happen.”

What happened after the incident at the Guotai Leather Goods factory was this: Deng Wugong drove to Yunlin to find his older brother, to which he explained what had happened. He then went to his aunt's general store, grabbed two bottles of Gaoliang liquor, and got in his car to leave. His older brother told him he should turn himself in and not worry about anything. He shouted back at his brother, “If I turn myself in I'll get a lighter sentence. Don't worry about me, I'll take care of things myself.”

He drove into the mountains in Nantou, where he stopped and drank one bottle of liquor. He sliced his left wrist. When he awoke, he felt greatly disappointed; how was he not dead? He would have to go back and get the courts to hurry up and sentence him to death. It was in this state, only desiring his own self-destruction, that he headed back to Pingdong and turned himself in.

The police evidence records were quite thorough. The murder weapon was a 30-centimeter sashimi knife whose paper cover was also found at the scene of the crime. The blood on the knife was Huang Jinling's and Chen Qinquan's, and Deng Wugong's fingerprints were on the paper cover. Black gloves were left at the scene, as was a full-coverage safety mask. Huang Jinling died at the scene of the crime; her windpipe was almost completely severed. She was 38 years old. Chen Qinquan, severely wounded, had fled to the security guard's booth for help. He was taken to the hospital, where he later died. But before his death, he managed to get his testimony into the police records: the culprit was Huang Jinling's newly-divorced ex-husband.

After two retrials, Deng Wugong was convicted and sentenced to death. Some people came to the detention facility to teach introspection and meditation; Deng Wugong copied down a few of the scriptures, but when he thought of Huang Jinling who he had spent most of his life loving and hating, his heart still “hardened”. It was extremely painful for him; “I was so good to her; how could she do this to me?”

His two daughters and one son had no sympathy for him; in police records, they always described him as a terrible husband and father. The son said he once beat Huang Jinling after drinking. Hearing this angered Deng Wugong to no end. He swore he had never hit his wife; in the worst fight they'd had, he wanted to get out of the house for a bit to cool his head, but Huang Jinling wouldn't give him his keys and refused to let him leave. After a struggle, he held her on the ground and grabbed the keys from her, then got in his car and zoomed off. It was possible that the son saw this and assumed his father had hit his mother. The more Deng Wugong thought, the angrier he got. His wife was disloyal; his children were disrespectful. To hell with all of it, why not give up! He told his older brother and sister to relay the message to his children: “Don't come to see me!”

But he still quietly wrote a 13,000-word memoir, using ruled writing paper and glue to assemble a handmade book. His writing was careful, neat, and very very small; if you divided each line of the writing paper into nine smaller lines, his letters would fill the center line exactly.

7

Deng Wugong was arrested in Pingdong county, Jiuru village; the place he was now being held, Yanchao, was just across Gaoping Creek. He committed murder on the eastern shore, and was imprisoned on the western one. He still had thoughts of giving up from time to time, awaiting the day death would come to bring him across the river. His life was not yet at its end, but the end had already been determined; in the words of Yang Zeshi, his “life was not worth living”.

He had already been held on the western shore for three and a half years. Director Zhong was his guiding light; he looked forward to their chats every afternoon, but he knew there would be a day when the director would have to lead him to his execution.

And on the eastern shore, things had already changed completely. Huang Jinling's two brothers were long gone; people said they were fleeing creditors. The son had gone off to be a soldier, while the two daughters never kept in touch; he didn't where they were now.

I was going back to Taipei soon, so I went to say farewell to Deng Wugong. I didn't want him waiting expectantly every day, thinking I might return.

Today I planned to ask Deng Wugong a few more penetrating questions.

“The police found the knife, the mask, and the gloves that day. Why did you wear gloves?”

“Because I was driving. When I drive for a long time, my hands get sweaty, so I always wear gloves.”

“You mentioned in your memoirs one time when you fought with your wife; she hit you and you hit her back. What was the worst beating you ever gave her?”

He used a Minnanese verb in his reply that I didn't understand. As far as I could tell, it wasn't “hit”, nor was it “strike” or “struggle”. I asked, “Did you say you 'pushed' her?” Deng Wugong explained that it was when the two of them were struggling and he snatched the keys from her hand.

“In the newspaper, it said you divorced because you had a girlfriend?”

“Miss Zhang,” Deng Wugong's tone carried a faint note of indignation. “Think about it. If I had a girlfriend, wouldn't I have left soon after the divorce? Why would I stick around that place?”

As I walked back through that underground hallway that had never seen the light of day, I wondered if there would ever be a day when Deng Wugong's children would come through this same corridor.

Seven court transcripts, 90 minutes of conversation, and a 13,000-word memoir. This is the sum of my knowledge of Deng Wugong. I can't, nor do I plan to, claim I understand him. There are surely many more things in his life that I know nothing about.

It was only after I returned to Taipei that I read Deng Wugong's “pardon” request. A presidential pardon seemed unlikely, but the Society for the Abolishment of the Death Penalty thought it best to try anyway. So, the Society prepared a draft of a message to the president, leaving the lower half blank so the convict could explain in his own words why he felt himself worthy of a pardon.

This is what Deng Wugong wrote:

“I want to fully understand, what is love? I love my children; I love my family. I spent day and night riding the highways, driving all over the country. I poured out my heart and soul to support my one and only family. A wise man once said: 'If a chaste woman goes astray, a lifetime of virtue is forfeited; if a harlot settles down, a lifetime of sin is forgiven.' How did someone who never harmed a soul become the disciple of evil? Why did a man who couldn't bear to kill a chicken end up a murderer? Do I feel sad? Do I feel regret? – 'Without knowing why, without feeling, the tears flow down.'”