#When Mr. Hugo put his pen down. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hillnerd · 4 years ago

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puppies for sale

Rating: PG AO3 ff.net Summary: Ron goes to pick up the kids from the Burrow, which should be an easy thing- but there are puppies for sale down the road. Domestic Weasley-Granger family fluff. not beta-ed. we die like men ;) ------------------

“Mum, I’m here!” called Ron, as he stepped out of the floo to his childhood home, spelling away the soot before he tromped it all over and got an ear-full for it. The Burrow always remained the same, the only sign of the passage of time was the people inside, and the occasional photo or children’s artwork being changed out on the walls. A fragrant baking smell wafted through the house, and he could faintly hear the sound of children laughing.

“In the kitchen, dear!”

He happily trounced over to see what his Mum had been baking, hoping she wasn’t saving it for anyone. He hadn’t gotten in much of a lunch and his stomach was fiercely growling.

“Something smells good.”

“Fig rolls,” she said with a satisfied smile. Like his dad and all the rest of their older redheaded relatives, her hair wasn’t graying, just fading into a pale rose color with little white streaks here and there. “You look hungry. Help yourself to some rolls and a glass of milk.”

Ron gave her a kiss on the cheek before taking a still warm fig roll from the plate and quickly tucking in. He gave an appreciative sigh. “Can you write up the recipe for these?”

She took out a card from her recipe box and quickly duplicated it onto a spare slip of parchment.

“How was the shop?”

“Chaos as usual,” he said, wiping some crumbs from his beard. “But we’ve been working on some ideas recently that really have potential in defense and business markets, so I’m feeling rather good about that… Where are the kids at?”

“With your father near his shed. Don’t worry, I don’t let them go inside it!”

Ron furtively rolled his eyes. No matter how many times they all assured her of the shed’s safety, she remained staunchly convinced that everything in there could spring to life with ‘ekeltrickedy’ and murder any visitors. Why she thought only her husband could survive the death trap was beyond him, but he knew better than to question her at this point.

“Thanks for the food and the recipe! I’ll take a whack at it after the Halloween rush,” he said, heading out to find the children.

His dad was sitting in a Muggle folding camp chair Hermione had gifted him. He’d been giddy about it for months, and took it out so regularly it got banned from the house itself after he’d set it up in the dining room one too many times.

“Watch out, you might be accosted soon,” he warned Ron, twitching his head near the garden wall. There stood a few lean-tos, made from pieces of apple boxes, sticks, and decorated with a great deal of leaves. Magic was surely holding them in place, because they looked incredibly structurally unsound.

“Halt!” cried Rose, jumping from behind a tree. She jabbed a wand-shaped stick in Ron’s direction as he approached. “This is our society!”

“Yeah! Our sosety!” Hugo repeated from inside an apple box. He laid on his stomach and poked the dirt with his ‘wand.’

“It’s society,” Rose harshly whispered at her brother, making Ron shake his head at her tone. She sounded just like Hermione when she’d been a snooty first year. He’d have to work on that with her. Last thing he wanted was his little girl getting bullied for the same stuff her mother had. If Hugo had seemed at all upset Ron would have intervened, but instead Hugo had a gleeful grin on his face.

“SOCIETY!” Hugo boldly bellowed, pointing his own ‘wand,’ before laughing and flapping his hands in excitement.

“Careful now. Don’t put your eye out,” Ron said, flicking his wand to keep the flailing stick away from Hugo’s face, narrowly avoiding an accident.

“We made our own society!” Rose proclaimed. “You need to ask permission to come in.”

“Ah, well, may I enter your society?”

It wasn’t that hard to get into their society. Rose immediately took him by the hand and started giving a tour.

“Over there is our ministry, and a museum, and over here is the hospital, and over there the jail. Hugo’s been there a lot.”

“Oh? Now why is that?” Ron asked, looking over to his dad in concern. He didn’t want Hugo being picked on.

“He just liked that box the most,” Dad replied for them, as Rose had lost interest in the tour and was decorating the ministry roof with more leaves. “Rosie dubbed it a jail, and Hugo didn’t much care until she said it’s where ‘bad men go’. There was a spot of caterwauling about that, but then he found he’d rather be in a spacious apple box jail instead of the other buildings that were so cramped and falling over. Also, no spider webs in the jailhouse.”

“There are spiders in these?” Ron asked, voice going high. He began to tromp towards the ‘museum.’

“No no, only webs,” Dad laughed, patting Ron on the arm.

Not feeling as amused about the society Rose had created, he announced, “alright, kids. Time to wrap it up and head home.”

“No! We can’t go home yet!” Rose yelled, accidentally knocking her precarious ministry decorations to the ground as she ran over. “We were supposed to go look at puppies!”

“Daddy, we hafta see the puppies! We hafta!” Hugo whined, shimmying along his belly to work his way out of the apple box.

“Puppies?” Ron repeated.

“The Watsons have some puppies down the road,” said Dad, polishing his glasses. “They have them for sale right now.”

“Maybe next time.”

“Nooo, they might all be sold and gone by then!” Rose practically wailed, her face starting to turn red. Hugo’s brown eyes started to fill with tears at the idea.

Ron gave a sigh and looked to his father, who gave a shrug. He’d never hear the end of it if they didn’t get to see them.

“The Watsons…” Ron asked. “They’re the ones to the West with the goats?”

“That’s right.”

“Pleeeease can we see the puppies, Daddy?” Hugo asked, pulling at Ron’s trouser leg.

Unable to think of a reason to disappoint his children, Ron promptly told them yes. He made sure to bundle them up, as a crisp fall wind had picked up, then the three of them walked to the Watsons’ small farm.

Sure enough along the dirt country road was a cardboard sign stating ‘puppies for sale.’ Rose read the sign out loud for Hugo, and Ron had to quickly grab their hands before they dashed into the property. He helped them over the cattle guard, then walked them to the barn door where he could see old Mrs Watson shaking out a blanket. She was a stout hardy looking old woman, who had a genial face with deep craggy smile lines all over the place.

“Hello, dears. You must be one of them Weasley boys, aren’t you?” she asked, straightening her apron in a way that reminded him of his mother. Rose politely smiled at her while Hugo quietly hid himself behind Ron’s leg.

“That’s right, Mrs Watson. I’m Ron, Molly and Arthur’s youngest of the boys,” he said with a smile. “And these are mine. Rose and Hugo.”

“Goodness! I remember when you were just a sprout of a thing toddling about behind your other brothers. Can’t believe you’re old enough to have your own children!” She gave a shake of her head then squinted down at Rose and Hugo. “I imagine you want to see some puppies, don’t you?”

“Yes please,” Rose said in a burst of enthusiasm, as Hugo’s hands began to tug at Ron’s trouser leg.

“Well you go on in. We have them in the birthing stall to the right. Feel free to let yourself into it and pet them, just don’t let them out,” she said. Without prompting Rose hurried into the barn, while Hugo stayed attached to Ron’s leg. “Would you all like some hot chocolate to warm you up?”

“What do you say, Hugh?” Ron asked, craning his neck to see Hugo’s face.

Hugo pulled his father’s hand until Ron was leaning over, and whispered in his ear, “I wanna have chocolate and puppies.”

“You can do both,” Ron assured him, in a low voice. Hugo gave a small smile.

“Hot chocolate sounds lovely, Mrs Watson, thank you.”

“Alright me lovers, you go see puppies and I’ll have some hot chocolate in no time!” she said with a kindly look at Hugo.

Once Mrs Watson was gone Hugo enthusiastically pulled Ron into the barn, with Ron stooped the whole way.

Rose had waited outside the pen, though Ron wasn’t sure if it was for Hugo’s sake or because she wasn’t sure how to open the two-way gate latch.

Toddling about the hay were seven or so adorable fluffy puppies, some black and some brown. Rose and Hugo immediately were all giggles and squeals, kneeling down and enthusiastically getting investigated by the curious pups. They spent a long time getting licked and playfully nipped at, and Ron felt immensely grateful he’d decided to let them visit the pups, despite one chewing on his shoelaces and another whizzing on him. He surreptitiously spelled it away, not wanting to ruin the moment.

“Oooooh, look at its little paws!” Rose cooed, holding one in her lap, not noticing it enthusiastically teething her messy braid.

“I like this one!” Hugo said, holding a much more calm pup, who looked smaller than the rest of them. It happily nuzzled into Hugo’s arms.

“I have some hot chocolate here,” said Mrs Watson, bringing over some throw away mugs with plastic lids. “Figured if you couldn’t drink it all, you could bring it home for later.”

“Quite thoughtful, thank you,” said Ron, accepting the drinks, noting the kids had little enthusiasm for anything but the puppies still. Not wanting to be rude, he stayed next to Mrs Watson to chat, while the kids continued to play.

“How are your mother and father doing?” she asked.

“Mum’s still cooking away, Dad’s still working, but they watch the grandkids a lot. That’s why we’re here today.”

“How many grandkids are there now?”

“Hard to keep count!” he said with a smile. “But I think it’s... twelve now? I don’t think I’m leaving anyone out.”

“Christmas must be spectacular!”

“A bit crowded, but yeah, it’s quite nice.”

“I’m sure it is. I only have two grandchildren, but I love it when they visit. Had them up last weekend to get one of the puppies. Started with twelve puppies, same as your family, but now all are spoken for but one.”

“Which one?”

“The littlest one, but that Clark White down the road’s been saying he might come by to get one.”

Ron bristled a bit. He remembered Mr White, a sinister old bugger of a man. He never tended his fences, was always in disputes with neighbors, and his animals all had a forlorn look about them.

Just then there was a brisk knock on the barn door, and in came the man himself, looking surly as ever. He resembled a dried fig that had been bleached by the sun, and his thin lips were turned down in a permanent frown that only served to emphasize his jowls. He and Mrs Watson exchanged pleasantries, though neither looked particularly pleased about it.

“Which ones are available still?”

“I’m afraid only one,” answered Mrs Watson.

“Ain’t the runt, is it?” He snorted.

“It is, but he’s a hardy little thing. I doubt he’ll end up much smaller than the rest of the pups when he’s grown.”

The old man peered into the stall, and pointed a gnarled finger.

“That’s it, yeah?”

Hugo looked up at the old man and his eyes widened. He clutched the little puppy closer to himself.

“That’s the puppy, yes.”

Without preamble he opened the stall door and reached toward the puppy in Hugo’s arms.

“Now wait a second,” Ron began, but it was too late.

Hugo gave a small cry and the dog gave a sharp yipe, jerked by the scruff of his neck by the savage Mr White. Rose looked to her father with pleading blue eyes. Hugo let out a sob and buried his face in Rose’s stomach.

“Looks healthy enough,” Mr White said, roughly opening the puppy’s mouth to inspect its teeth. “I’ll take—”

“We’ll take him!” Ron cried out. Rose gasped, while Hugo kept his face safely tucked into his sister.

“What?” Mr White snapped, his severe face contorting into a nasty mix of shock and rage. Ron used the man’s surprise to pluck away the puppy and bring it to his own chest.

Ron found it hard not to smirk at the old sour faced prune. “I said, we’re taking him.”

“Really?!” Rose cried out, patting her brothers russet curls. “Hugo! It’s ok! Daddy’s getting the puppy!”

“I’ll give you five hundred cash, right now,” said Mr White, reaching into his mangy work coat to bring a wad of Muggle paper money out.

Ron’s self assured smile began to falter when he realized he wasn’t sure if he had any Muggle money on him. He patted himself, but realized there was no wallet. He didn’t have so much as two pence on him, just some knuts and galleons he decidedly could not give Mrs Watson. Panic reeled as his daughter looked at him with nothing but confidence in her beaming freckled face.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr White, but I’m afraid the puppy’s spoken for already,” said Mrs Watson, shaking her head. “Plus, as you said, it’s the runt. I’m just trading it for a few of Molly Weasley’s pies.”

“You’re joking,” Mr White snarled. “This is ridiculous! I told you I wanted one last week!”

“Well you never said which one, that I recall, but my memory’s not what it used to be… Sorry to disappoint you, Clarke,” she said with a large smile.

He gave an ugly look at them all before stomping out of the barn and slamming the door behind him. Hugo’s hands went to his ears and he further buried his face in Rose’s stomach. Not wanting to overwhelm Hugo further, Ron turned to Mrs Watson.

“I didn’t mean to cause you trouble,” he said, with an apologetic look.

“Oh it’s no trouble. Any excuse to slight Clarke White makes my day a little bit brighter, truth be told.”

“Well, I can’t let you give away the puppy for a few pies. How much is the pup, really?”

“Well, I’ve been asking three hundred. They’re purebred, good guard stock, with all their shots and de-worming and such. But I meant what I said. You just have two of Molly’s pies here some time before Christmas and we’ll call it quite even.”

“I’ll make sure you have them whenever you want. Thank you, Mrs Watson. And I’ll add in something more than just the pies,” Ron said, before slowly approaching the children.

Rose was still stroking Hugo, whose hands were firmly stuck to his ears. Ron knelt down and brought the puppy up between them. “Let’s sit down and sip our hot chocolate, and pet this new puppy of ours. We don’t have to deal with that mean, scary old man again, I promise you.”

It took some coaxing, but Hugo finally removed his hands and stroked the puppy’s fluffy little head, worrying the ear of the dog between his fingers. After some more calming down they drank most of their hot chocolate, bid Mrs Watson a fond goodbye (she was kind enough to give him a collar and enough kibble for a few days), and walked back to the Burrow, puppy buried in Ron’s coat. Even being a ‘runt’ and ten weeks old it was too heavy for the kids to carry for long.

Both his mother and father shook their heads at him for buying the puppy, but he didn’t want to bring up Mr White in front of the children so held his tongue. They flooed home, and Ron set about making a nesting box for the pup. Hugo and Rose were eager to help make it as cozy as they could with long abandoned stuffed animals and blankets.

“What should we name him?” Ron asked them, as the little pup sleepily walked in a circle before toppling onto his side to sleep.

“Broomstick,” said Hugo.

“Quaffle,” Rosie offered.

“I’m sensing a theme…” said Ron, looking about the nearest shelf for a quidditch book. “Perhaps we can name him after a famous quidditch player?”

“We could name him after Aunt Ginny!”

“He’s a boy, though,” Rose protested.

“Names are just names, they don’t have to be ‘boy or girl’ names,” Ron supplied, remembering an article Hermione’d given him to read about it a few years prior. “But I don’t think Aunt Ginny wants to share her name with a dog.”

“Why not name him after Viktor Krum?” Rose said with a smile.

Ron couldn’t deny the idea of having his dog named Krum wouldn’t be that bad, but then again he didn’t want to deal with Hermione’s wrath should she find it insulting.

“Hmm… Someone we don’t know?” he prompted.

“The Cannons!” Hugo crowed. “Wait I know!”

“Chudley!” they all three chorused together.

Ron gave a hearty laugh that made Chudley open his eyes before promptly falling asleep again. “You definitely are my children!”

Hugo lettered, with help from Rose, Chudley’s name across the side of the box. Only one of the letters was backwards, which was quite the accomplishment. Rose decorated it with a variety of stickers and hand drawn flowers, stars and Cannons logos.

Hermione owled to say she was running late. He would have preferred the ‘we have a dog now’ reveal to happen with the children present so she couldn’t give him as much of an earful, but her schedule had been quite mad at the Ministry recently.

The children were exhausted from all the excitement, so he managed to get them fed, bathed and asleep early and without much fuss.

Ron put on the radio, sat on the sofa and took out a notebook to make some notes for the Wheezes marketing campaign for Halloween. Chudley was curled up in his box with old Crookshanks curiously peering down from the hearth.

“You be nice, you old ginger bastard,” Ron said with a warning look. Crookshanks turned his yellow glare at Ron before jumping from the hearth onto the sofa, butting his head against Ron’s leg. He rolled over to show his old pudgy tummy.

“Oh I know that’s a trap! But nice try,” said Ron, remembering quite vividly the last time a vindictive Crookshanks had pretended to want tummy rubs.

The flames of the fire brightened, and he smiled knowing Hermione would be home in a moment. Crookshanks quickly schooled himself into a ‘good cat’ position for her, giving Ron the opportunity to rub the cat’s fur the wrong way tail to head.

“That’s what happens when you try to trick me into getting stabbed by your claws.”

Hermione flooed into the house, and a smile curled his lips. He hated when she was kept at work longer, but the one silver lining was that it always led to her hair going a bit mussed and wild. Today was not an exception.

“Hello, love,” he murmured, eyeing the ringlets around her face. “Did you already eat? I have Hugo’s favorite ‘spagooters’ ready and can heat it up in a jiff.”

She gave a tired but contented smile and collapsed onto the sofa beside him, giving Crookshank’s chin a scratch as the cat purred and preened for her, pitifully meowing for attention.

“We should call it spaghetti. I don’t want Hugo learning the wrong words for things.”

“Hugh knows it’s spaghetti,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Plus there’s nothing funnier than seeing that look on your face when we chant for spagooters.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to see them tonight... It was horrible at work. That abuse allegation mess I was telling you about last week is really coming to a head and some of those damn Wizengamots are just… I thought I couldn’t be shocked anymore by anything awful that happens, but then they really just prove they can sink to an even lower level than I’d ever thought possible! The way they sit there and act like over one hundred and fifty allegations of abuse is nothing is beyond me. They’re so bloody corrupt and uncaring I’m left truly shocked and speechless!”

Despite being speechless, she was able to rant about the Wizengamot for another fifteen minutes. While she ranted, he managed to get her shoes off, find out she had not eaten, and bring a meal. She ate around the ‘spagooters’ while nearly flinging tomato basil sauce onto his shirt as she gesticulated about the injustices in the world.

“So is there anything in place for victims?” Ron asked, taking her plate into the kitchen.

“You mean for victim support?” He nodded at her. “Nothing official yet, but I’m seeing what we can do. The Wizengamot has many in denial of there actually being victims, let alone that they need help and counseling.”

“Maybe we can figure something outside of the Ministry. Perhaps we could do a fund or something through Wheezes? I could talk to some other businesses or something... Have the proceeds go to some foundation or other?”

“That’s a lovely idea,” she said with a small sniff.

He leaned over the couch and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll talk to George in the morning.”

Chudley’s box gave a bit of a shudder and she finally noticed it.

“What’s that?” she asked looking over to the box.

“Er…” His hand went to the back of his neck. “That would be Chudley.”

“I gathered that much, since Chudley’s written on the outside of the box,” she said, raising her eyebrow at him and walking over to peer inside the box. “Ron…”

“So… I didn’t get a chance to ask if this is alright, but I bought us a puppy.”

She pursed her lips and said nothing as she stared into the box.

Ron felt a small touch of frenzied dread at how quiet she was.

“Normally I wouldn’t make such a big decision without you, but we were with Muggles and this old bleeder Mr White was about to buy it and I just knew he’d be treating it like shit because I’ve known him since I was a kid and he always treats his animals horribly, and the kids were crying as this old man made the puppy cry and buying it was the only way I could save it from him in the moment. I didn’t have my mobile on me, and even if I did I don’t think I could have reached you in time. It all happened really fast, and the kids were looking at me like ‘you can fix this!’ and I just had to, and Hugo had his little hands on his ears and- and if we have to find it a new home I completely understand and will make sure it’s all on me with the kids and not you at all, because this is really truly on me and—”

“Hush,” she said with a small laugh. “I think you’re upsetting Chudley.”

With that she reached into the box and gently cradled the little pup. She rubbed his little snout and scratched behind his ear making the dog’s tiny tail wag something mad.

“So you’re okay with us keeping him?” Ron asked hopefully. She nodded and continued to pet the small pup, who was crawling up her body to lick her jaw. Ron’s face split into a grin. “You won’t have to lift a finger for him. It’ll be me doing everything! Well me and maybe the kids a bit.”

“I can’t turn down a deal like that, can I Chudley?” she asked as the dog continued to lick at her. Crookshanks went to the top of the mantle to glare at them. “Be nice, Crookshanks! From the sound of it he was rescued from a dire situation!”

“He really was. I’m not just making excuses to have a dog.”

“I expect to hear the whole harrowing tale of why we needed to save Chudley later,” she replied, putting the pup in his box before casting a calming spell and accident-proofing his blanket.

“In bed?”

“I was thinking we could expand the tub tonight and catch up there.” She had a saucy smile on her face he couldn’t resist. He quickly took her hand and they laughed all the way up the stairs.

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author’s note- let me know what you think! :) or reblog if wording is hard

#romione #ronald weasley #hugo weasley #rose weasley #fanfiction #hermione granger #next gen #chudley #puppies #dogs of tumblr #my writing #fan fic

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fletchphoenix · 4 years ago

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Dog Days Are Over

Hiya!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Chapter four!!! okay, I love y’’all, thank you for your support and onwards with the chapter!

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It was Friday and, just to rub salt in the wound, the last period was an English exam. Just what Hugo needed when he was looking forward to a weekend of luxury and working on Olivia. His paper sat in front of him, the lines for answers sitting blank as he thought hard about his responses. His eyes grazed across the desk, noticing a small pen drawing in the top right corner, a smile gracing his face. He knew who’d drawn it immediately - Varian.

He hadn’t seen the other boy since they almost...yeah. He didn’t want to think of that and make his face flush in the middle of an exam about Romeo And Juliet, thanks. Still, the other had been supposedly avoiding him the whole time since the incident and he didn’t understand why. Honestly, the lack of hairstripe’s presence in his life was making him feel kinda lonely and combined with his sudden conclusion that he was head over heels for him..he’d kinda concluded he must’ve done something wrong and put the boy off. A cough and a clock tick prompted him to get back to work, Mrs Crick gazing at him before turning back to her book.

His index finger of his right hand absentmindedly and subconsciously traced his finger over the marking on the table as his left hand wrote furiously with a soft smile. He’d really fallen hard for the other boy in the short time they’d known each other, that time exclusively spent studying chemistry. He was intoxicating - one bit of the boy left him needing more and more. In all honesty, he was lying when he said he didn’t understand his part of the project just so he could spend time with the other. He’d intended to ask him out on a date or something, but he chickened out last time. On the bed. And then Varian hadn’t spoken to him since. Did Varian even like men? Huh. He hadn’t taken that into account. With his pen, he began to draw a little him on the desk beside the little stick man Varian had drawn of himself.

He could tell Varian was lying when he said he’d kissed “many, many ladies”, because..who the hell says that? However, it wouldn’t be Hugo’s first time crushing on a straight man (honestly, virtually everyone in this hellhole was straight, so curse the universe for placing him here) and he was too much of a coward to ask. It’s not as if he could just say “Hey Varian! I am deeply in love with you and wanted to know, are you gay or not?”. That would scare him off more than he already had. Maybe he could just..take him out? Take him somewhere nice to just talk for a while and see where it went. Yeah! He could be so smart sometimes, he praised himself with a grin. Finally the bell rang, he handed in his paper and sprinted down the hallway towards the exit of the school. He hoped he wasn’t too late - he was sure Donella would let him borrow the bike for the night. Now all he needed was his date.

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It felt like forever - though at last the weekend had dawned on them. The blessed days seemingly took their sweet, sweet time to arrive, teasing Varian the longer he had to wait. It was agony to have to wait so long for a break. But a weekend meant no school, no stress, no teachers..and best of all..

No Hugo.

Varian let out a sigh of relief at that fact. Thank god he didn’t have to see the other after their..awkward farewell a few days prior. He honestly didn’t know what was going through Hugo’s head or what he was trying to do. Was it a joke? Was he just trying to freak Varian out or something? Or did he really...no. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. In his eyes, they were sworn enemies and all Hugo did was tease him all the time. There was no way Hugo could actually like him, Varian reminded himself as he strolled out of the school and along the sidewalk before hearing a familiar voice yell his name. Brilliant.

“Hairstripe! Hey, wait up!” Hugo called from behind him, the other slowing his pace to let the blonde catch up. Ugh, of all the people it could’ve been - Nuru, Zander..hell, even Isla. It had to be Hugo Atkinson. Hugo Atkinson who became his rival and was making him extremely confused with his feelings towards him with every single movement he made. “I thought I’d lost you, aha..”

“What is it, Hugo.” Varian asked, admittedly sounding more annoyed than he’d intended.

“Geez, no need to be so rude, hairstripe. I was gonna ask if you wanna go out with me tonight. I’ll pick you up at 6 and take you somewhere nice - my treat for putting up with me for the week. Yeah?” He asked, no sign of ill intent in his face. Varian examined his face. Hugo did seem to be genuine with what he was saying, and it would be nice to spend some time with him..even if he was his rival and Varian was meant to hate him. His head entertained the thought for a moment.

“Yeah, sure. Don’t be late.” Varian replied before continuing to walk down the street. He didn’t turn around to catch the sight of Hugo silently cheering to himself and doing a funky little dance in the middle of the street at Varian’s response before racing home to get ready for their unofficial ‘date’.

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True to his word, Hugo showed up at 6pm sharp, a bouquet of flowers in his arms for Rapunzel consisting of an assortment of purple flowers, which she took gratefully. He looked kinda handsome too, his fringe slicked back though still in its regular ponytail. “Oh Varian! Hey!” he called out, a smile plastered on his face. Varian felt kind of bad..he’d put absolutely no effort into his appearance aside from brushing his hair for a few seconds, but Hugo...he’d gone all out. Varian nodded, walking down the stairs to stand beside the taller boy. “We won’t be too long, ma’am.” Hugo commented, gesturing towards a grey motorbike in the driveway.

It looked beautiful the closer they got to it, small dents and patterns over the bike more clear as he strolled closer. Hugo tossed a helmet over to Varian, a smirk on his face. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she? Fixed her up myself. And don’t worry, I know how to ride one of these things, but always wear a helmet, sweetheart.” he said smugly, “Though, you might wanna hold on tight.” he added as a second thought, swinging his leg over to sit down and letting Varian’s arms wrap around his waist as he revved the engine and starting to drive.

Varian laughed, exhilaration and adrenaline taking over and running through his veins as they sped through the city and past houses. Even though Varian had no idea where they were going, he shuffled closer and closed his eyes happily. This was beautiful, the sun setting in the distance as they drove. It reminded him of Cassandra, well, when she lived here before she moved away with her girlfriend Irene. He had to admit they were a cute couple, but he missed Cass dearly. She could’ve at least come to visit sometimes. He let out a contented sigh, his head resting against Hugo’s back as they drove.

Hugo, on the other hand, smiled as he felt Varian’s head rest against his back. Everything was going great so far - now all it had to do was stay like that. Or preferably get better. Either one would be perfect. Pulling into the beach parking lot, he swung his leg back over the bike and let his hands move to Varian’s hips, steadying him as he followed suit. “Woah there, freckles. Easy.” he muttered before taking Varian’s arm and gently pulling him along. He stood, his feet in the cold, salty water before he shot a mischievous grin towards the boy beside him. “Hey V.” he yelled, splashing the other and running. Varian gasped and chased him, tackling the other in the salty water and laughing as it soaked them to the bone. The pair stood, Hugo heading towards a bag he’d dumped on the shore and taking out two towels, carefully wrapping one around Varian and the other around his own lanky body before taking a seat on the sand and bringing Varian closer for warmth. TOTALLY not to cuddle.

They sat together, cuddling together for warmth and watching the colors of the sky blend into a beautiful sunset as both of them joked and laughed between them. Varian’s face flushed in embarrassment as Hugo cackled at his secret he just admitted. “Wait wait wait, let me get this straight. You-you created a whole new element. Like, a legally qualified element..and named it after your crush?!” Hugo asked between snorts of laughter, doubled over and smiling widely. Varian’s face twisted into a frown as he looked at the other boy.

“Oh shut up!” Varian shoved him lightly, Hugo pulling Varian along with him as he fell into the sand and thus the play fighting began. Eventually the pair ended up laughing in the sand, Hugo laying over Varian with nothing but adoration in his eyes as the other boy laughed. Varian’s laughter slowly ceased as he stared at Hugo, his cheeks flushed at the intensity of their staring match before hesitantly, his hand moved to rest on Hugo’s cheek and he placed a kiss onto his lips.

It was a terrible kiss for their first one, the taste of salt filling their mouths as they held each other close. Sand fell out of their wet, salty hair as they trailed their fingers through each other's hair, lost in the moment. It may’ve been slightly awkward and gross, but it felt right for it to be like that. For their first kiss to be initiated through a play fight on the beach as a hue of orange, red and pink swirled in the sky behind them while the sun set. It just fit right - felt perfect to both of them before Hugo broke the kiss and propped himself above Varian, laughter leaving his lips in gentle breaths before he pushed himself up to stand.

“I..that was-wow. Okay. I..need to take you back before Eugene tries to kill me.” he chuckled at the thought, helping pull Varian to his feet before placing a gentle kiss to his lips. Short and sweet, but telling Varian everything he needed to hear. Varian nodded and returned the kiss before heading towards the motorbike quietly, the towel still wrapped around his shoulders as they walked.

The ride back felt way too short, Varian hesitating before he ran inside. Silently, he turned around and placed a kiss to Hugo’s lips one final time. “Thanks for the night out. It was perfect.” he whispered with a smile before jogging inside, still wrapped in the towel with the new addition of Hugo’s jacket on his shoulders. As he walked upstairs, he sighed happily and a hand drifted to his lips. Wow. That really happened just now. He really just kissed his ultimate rival. A bubbly feeling built in his stomach as he leaned back against his bedroom door to close it, Ruddiger staying far away from him due to the salt and sand that covered his body.

He was in love.

He was in love with Hugo.

#varigo #varian and the seven kingdoms #varian x hugo #varian tangled #va #hugo tangled #tangled hugo #alchemy boyfriends #varigo high school au

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rkvok · 4 years ago

Text

Determination’s reward

You’re stopped as soon as you make your way to practice early on September 1st by one of your usual coaches. She takes you from everyone else and onto the higher floors of the building. After a quick stop to notify who you are to the secretary, the coach tells you to go inside a room you already know. Inside your boss’s office, you find her, Baek Jiyoung, and two other people. One is the lawyer who was with you when you signed your contract. The other you’re not really sure.

“Please, sit down.” Baek Jiyoung greets you with a smile and motions towards the empty chair in front of her. Once you do, she looks over to the man you don’t recognize. “This here is Mr. Kim, one of Nova Entertainment’s representatives who got in contact with us recently.” He gives you a nod of the head before she continues. “Before we proceed, I’d just like to say that what we’ll share in this room is extremely confidential, and we’re trusting in you not to share anything that’s said here to anyone else until you’re instructed otherwise.”

With a look at his direction, it is time for him to speak. “You probably heard already that PER_SE lost one of their members last month. He was the main rapper, Hugo. Moonbok, you haven’t been a trainee for a very long time, but we’ve been able to access your abilities from previous appearances. Plus, your coaches confirmed the growth you’ve had since joining Sphere. After discussing matters with Ms. Baek Jiyoung, we have decided to offer you the lead rapper spot in our boy group. This means you’d have to break your contract with Sphere and make a transfer to Nova.”

Jiyoung leans forward, bringing the attention back to her. “I had the pleasure of watching practice on these past months. I wouldn’t have let you go if this wouldn’t be of your benefit, or if you weren’t prepared for it.” She gives you another smile before the lawyer places a small stack of papers in front of you. “You’ll still need to work hard, of course. These here are the forms we’d need to sign to make your transfer possible. But, of course, this may be a lot for you to unload right away. If you’d like to take some time to think about it, your coach can take you to a private room where you can be by yourself. Remember not to mention any of these details to anyone.” The CEO finishes by placing a gorgeous pen on top of the files. “This can mean your debut, Moonbok. Please, consider it well.”

When he’s waylaid by one of the coaches as he enters Sphere on Tuesday morning, the only thought going through Moonbok’s mind is that he’s screwed. Completely and utterly screwed. He follows the coach with a bowed head and swirling stomach, fists clenched tightly by his sides to stop them shaking.

Which is an abysmal failure.

As they make their way through the building, with Moonbok realizing in horror where they heading, he racks his brains to try and figure out why he’s being summoned by the CEO herself. Besides the obvious reason, of course.

Was he not respectful enough to a senior? Did he do or say something during his S-POP audition to offend the company? Had he posted something he should have had on social media?

Or is it simply that he isn’t good enough? That he hadn’t improved enough since he was signed in November and Baek Jiyoung has decided enough was enough and is about to cut her losses and dismiss him.

Moonbok can feel his eyes filling up with tears and his bottom lip quivering dangerously as he and the coach wait outside Baek Jiyoung’s office. Taking a shuddering breath in, he quickly swipes his hand across his eyes and forces his expression into as calm a one he can manage as the door opens.

If this truly is the end, he’ll face it with dignity.

He makes his way to the desk he’d sat in front of only ten months earlier, the scene almost the same as back then. Him, the CEO and a lawyer. But with one crucial difference, a stranger he doesn’t recognize. For one wild moment he wonders if this is one of his family’s lawyers before he instantly dismisses the notion. With a hard swallow, he takes his seat and forces himself to meet Baek Jiyoung’s eyes, ready for her judgement.

Only to see her smiling back at him. And despite it all, Moonbok can feel a little of the tension in him easing slightly. Surely she wouldn’t be smiling at him if he was in trouble, right? Tentatively, returns the smile as the stranger begins to speak, only for it to morph into a expression of pure shock as the reason for his summoning becomes clear, all his previous thoughts blown out of his head as one phrase repeats.

“We have decided to offer you the lead rapper spot in our boy group.”

Is this a joke?! Some kind of hidden camera prank? Moonbok’s eyes dart around the room, but everyone’s expression seem far too earnest for a prank like this. And Baek Jiyoung’s smile only widens as she leans forward and speaks to confirm everything he’s just been told. Moonbok pinches his arm, though. Just in case.

Ow.

This isn’t a dream. This isn’t a joke. He’s being offered a spot in an actual idol group.

“Yes. A hundred times, yes!” It’s not the most eloquent way to put it, but Moonbok doesn’t need the time Baek Jiyoung is offering him to think.

This is what he’s been working towards for half his life.

His hand shoots out for the pen before his mind catches up with the situation and Moonbok stops short from grabbing it, hastily clearing his throat.

And giving the lawyers and Jiyoung a smile so bright that it could rival the sun.

“I mean, thank you so much for this opportunity. And for believing in me so much.” He lets out a slightly incredulous laugh. “I’m honoured, truly. Especially when there’s so many others who are deserving of this spot. I’ve always trusted you, Baek sagjangnim, and I’m not about to stop now.” He takes in a deep breath and reaches out for the pen with a lot more self-restraint this time.

“I’ll accept your gracious offer, I’ll become PER_SE’s newest member.” And without further ado, his signature is duly filled in on the marked spaces. After a few more minutes of talk and assuring them all he he doesn’t need time to consider his options, as he’s about to be dismissed, Moonbok stands up and as bows deeply as he can without actually kowtoing to the woman who’d taken a chance on him despite it all.

“Baek sajangnim… I’m still not sure what you saw in me that made you scout me and then offer me a contract. But from the bottom of my heart, thank you. You took a chance on me when no-one else would. I can’t repay you for your belief in me, but I promise… even though I’m leaving Sphere, I’ll make you proud. I promise that I’ll show the world your faith wasn’t misplaced.”

———————————-

OOC: Congratulations on being offered a spot at debut! By signing the contract, Moonbok will officialize his transfer from Sphere to Nova Entertainment and start his preparations for debut under the boy group PER_SE. Should he not sign the contract, this will not impact him negatively, and he may return to practicing as a regular trainee under Sphere. Moonbok is to keep her real reasons for transferring a secret until his position is revealed to the public.

#Arc; Sphere's Determinator #Arc END #Arc; PER_SE's new arrival #(IT'S REAL CRYING HOURS AAAAAAA)#(HERE WE HECKING GOOOOOO)#(Also this was waaaay longer than I thought it would be so it's NOT just ooc stuff under the cut dskjfs)#submission

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nextgensquad · 5 years ago

Note

i really love your writing! pearl, could you tell us more about your dominique? maybe the first time she falls in love or perhaps what she does after hogwarts?

dominique weasley doesn’t fall in love.

it’s not that she doesn’t believe in it or anything. she believes very strongly in love (it’s hard not to, when you grow up with parents like bill and fleur, who are so disgustingly in love that they managed to put their own kids off kissing for several years). it’s just that, well, when you grow up best friends with lily luna potter, some things have to go on the backburner.

lily is a whirlwind, a tornado, a hurricane, or any other natural disaster you might name. dominique hitched herself to lily’s ride when they were five and she’s not the kind to give up on something halfway. some people think she shouldn’t have been in gryffindor (too weird, too dreamy, too head-in-the-clouds, should’ve been a ravenclaw, should’ve been a hufflepuff) but the truth is that nobody but a gryffindor could ever keep up with lily luna potter.

(the first time dominique ever had a crush on a boy, it was alexander abbott in the year above, and he asked her out to hogsmeade when she was a second year, and they were sitting in madame puddifoot’s when he confided in her that he thought lily was “kind of a bitch.”

she walked out of madame puddifoot’s only after hexing his chair to fall apart.)

so it’s not that dominique weasley doesn’t believe in love. it’s just that, when you love lily, it’s impossible to let anyone else in. she takes up so much space, she’s like a whole solar system and the people who love her are moons in her orbit.

james and albus get it the best. hugo doesn’t get it at all.

“why do you let her drag you around to all her stupid shit?” he demands of dominique when they get partnered for a potions project in their fifth year. “you could be friends with other people, you know.”

dominique tilts her head, watching hugo as he chops up their mice tails. hugo with his ravenclaw tie and his ever-present scowl, hugo who’s the best student in their grade but never truly seems to enjoy magic. hugo, who barely even talks to his own sister in the halls, let alone his cousins.

“i don’t want other friends,” she explains. “and lily needs me.”

the truth of it is that lily needs dominique and dominique needs lily. it’s not about being cousins; it’s about being best friends. lily needs someone to enable her, someone to believe in her, someone to call her out when she gets toowild, too manic, too full of storms to see the sky. dominique needs someone to pull her out of the stars to see the earth, someone to push her, someone to understand why she spends so much time with tarot cards and crystals.

people think divination is about telling the future. dominique has been hanging aroundlily long enough to know that the future doesn’t matter one whit unless you’ve got a present worth fighting for.

the thing is, everything with lily is a fight—a fight for attention, a fight for space, a fight to prove her worth, a fight to prove that somebody else is worthless. a fight for love, a fight for hate. lily luna potter was born to fight the world; dominique was born to be a mediator. so it’s her who follows lily to all the parties she sneaks out to and makes sure she doesn’t drink herself into oblivion (again). it’s her who pleads with teachers on lily’s behalf to give her an extra extension on homework that’s already late. and it’s her who finds out which students have been selling stories about lily to the tabloids, and it’s her who finds a way to hex them so hard they’ll never speak lily’s name again.

“sometimes, i think you’re better at being lily’s older brother than i am,” al tells her ruefully. he offers her a cigarette, and she shakes her head. “she just makes it so hard sometimes.”

“she does that on purpose.” dominique watches al inhale, exhale, watches the smoke ribbon out in plumes of gray. lily smokes, too—a bad habit, just like all her other habits. “she wants to make it hard to love her, so nobody can.”

“we still do.” al waits a moment, then crushes his cigarette beneath his fingers. “have you ever thought about it? just… leaving her. cutting her off. finding your own friends. don’t tell me you’ve never considered it, dom.”

(has she ever considered it? has she watched the other girls in their dorm gathered around someone else’s bed, trading lipsticks and nail polishes and telling stories that lily and dominique aren’t invited to hear? has she felt her heart flutter when a cute boy from ravenclaw smiles at her, and then never spoken to him again because lily picked a fight with him over quidditch try-outs or potions homework or a girl she was feuding with who happened to be his sister? has she wanted to step out of the charybdis of lily luna potter and breathe, for once in her life?)

“i don’t give up on people,” dominique says. “especially not lily.”

(of course she’s considered it.

but there’s a reason she’s in gryffindor, isn’t there?)

in the end, lily runs away from hogwarts on a tuesday partway through their seventh year and upsets the whole balance of things on her own. no less than five of dominique’s cousins storm into gryffindor common room to demand answers from her that she won’t give.

james looks wrecked, when he gets there close to midnight.

“please,” he whispers. “dom, please, if you know anything… please tell me.”

dominique thinks of the note she found stickied to her tarot deck that morning, the trembling handwriting, pink ink, lily’s unmistakable scrawl—don’t tell anyone. please. she thinks of the set of numbers beneath it, so tiny like they had snuck their way out of lily’s pen unknowingly, a phone number for her to call. she thinks of lily’s voice over the phone, smaller than she’s everheard it, whispering to her as her train rumbles on in the background.

she looks at james, heartbroken, desperate james. she’s only seen him like this twice before: once, when al nearly killed himself in his sixth year, and the second time, when he’d found out he was going to be a father at twenty-one. there are very, very few things that can make james sirius potter rip his heart outof his sleeve. one is al, one is lily, and one is his unborn child.

she wants to tell him. she wants to tell him more than she’s ever wanted to tell anyone a secret before.

“i’m sorry,” she says. “i promised lily.”

james leaves without a word. all this time, dominique had thought she hadn’t got much of a heart left to break but clearly, she’d been wrong.

al is the only cousin who will talk to her after, when lily’s been missing through christmas holidays. victoire is disappointed, louis is ragingly mad, and james still won’t speak to her. she doesn’t even want to face uncle harry and aunt ginny, so she lies to her parents that she’s been invited to a friend’s vacation trip and sneaks away to al’s flat instead.

“will you tell me one thing, at least?” al asks when she’s curled up on his sofa with a mug of bitter, black coffee steaming in her hands, withdrawn and miserable and unwilling to break a promise. “it’s not about where she is.”

“what is it about?”

al looks at her with those green, green eyes, so bright like the killing curse. impossible to look away from. she thinks it’s lucky lily didn’t get those eyes. she would have been unstoppable with them.

“does she hate us?”

“no,” says dominique as fast and immediately as possible. this one isn’t a secret she has to keep. “no, she could never hate you.”

that, at least, is true. lily hates a lot of people, but she could never, ever hate her family, no matter how much she might want to, no matter how much al and james drive her crazy. she’s surprised al even has to ask, but if victoire hadup and vanished into thin air without so much as a goodbye note, dominique supposes she’d be paranoid, too.

it mollifies al enough, but when he leaves for his night shift, she’s left with scorpius malfoy sitting in the living room, studying her like she’s an art piece, or a puzzle cube. dominique is almost finished with her whole mug of coffee when he finally breaks the silence.

“is she knocked up?”

“what?”

scorpius shrugs, a malfoy shrug of carelessness and apathy. “lily. is she knocked up? is that why she left?”

“no,” says dominique, too forcefully, and realizes too late that he’s grinning at her.

“so you do know why she left.”

dominique rolls her eyes and stays quiet. practiced indifference, that’s what lily had always told her. just because we’re gryffindors doesn’t mean we have to wear every emotion on our faces. especially not to slytherins.

“you wanna know what i think?” scorpius continues seamlessly, as if he hadn’t been waiting for her to reply. “i think she just wanted more attention. she wasn’t getting enough at hogwarts, so she decided to make it the whole ministry’s problem.”

dominique has to carefully unclench her jaw. “and what if she did?”

“well, it’s awfully selfish,” says scorpius, as if surprised she even has to ask. “putting her whole family through this. putting you through this.”

“me?”

“you,” he confirms. “you’re the one who’s getting punished in her place, since she’s not here. your siblings will barely talk to you. i heard mr. and mrs. potter didn’t even get you a christmas present this year.”

he’s goading her, she realizes. it’s such an old slytherin tactic, she almost wants to laugh at him. but the truth in his words keeps her pinned to her seat, keeps her heart wrenched like a corkscrew in her chest.

“just say it,” dominique says, and pushes the pillows and the plush throw off her lap, scrambling up to her feet. scorpius rises, too, and he’s a good head taller than her, but she’s never been afraid of a fight with people bigger than her. “say that you think i’m lily’s bitch. that i let her push me around. that she’s ruining my life. it’s nothing everyone else hasn’t alreadysaid about me.”

scorpius looks down at her, dominique simmering with fury, her head a million miles away with lily on a bus. he looks at her, and looks and looks, and somewhere in the middle of the space between them, she realizes she’s not so used to people looking at her for so long.

(see, dominique had realized a long, long time ago that the best way to shove her veela sparkle down as far as it will go is to surround herself with someone who blazes so bright, she’s impossible to ignore. lily’s so beautiful, sodangerous, that nobody even notices that one-eighth of dominique’s heritage burning in her chest like a secret candle, like a light she never wants anyone to notice.)

“i don’t think that,” scorpius says, very slowly, like he’s trying to imprint his words onto her heart. “i think you’re very brave.”

dominique freezes. “what?”

scorpius shrugs again, but this one isn’t a malfoy shrug. it’s honest and helpless andhe tilts his head back to look up at the ceiling of his flat and exhales so slowly she can track the movement in his chest underneath his black t-shirt.

“if it were al…” he hesitates for a long moment. “if it were al, i would want to do the same thing. and if james or lily had come after me, i would have broken. i know i would have. i’ve never seen anyone stand up to al like you did the dayshe ran away. even i can’t do that, most days. not rose, not anyone.”

dominique blinks and feels, to her horror, the beginning of tears flickering in her eyes. she dashes them away, furious and wrecked all of a sudden, all at once.

“you’re braver than i am, dominique weasley,” scorpius tells her, his mouth set in a rueful, wistful line. “i guess that’s not much of a surprise. you are a gryffindor.”

“it’s not because i’m a gryffindor,” dominique blurts out without thinking. scorpius raises an eyebrow at her. “it’s… it’s because she’s lily. and i’m not much without her.”

scorpius breathes out a laugh, and for a second she thinks he’s going to try to comfort her, to say of course she’s something, she’s dominique weasley, she’s the daughter of curse-breakers, she’s going to be something great. all the things her parents and her sister and her brother have tried telling her over and over, trying to push her away from lily.

but he doesn’t. what he says is: “well, i’m not much without al, so i guess that’s one thing we have in common.”

dominique stares at him, at scorpius malfoy in all his sharp lines, all his pureblood grace. looks at the cut of his jaw and the lines of his shoulders. the ghost of a smile on his face, the way his gray eyes rest upon her so steadily. looks at him without al at his side and wonders how she looks without lily at hers.

“what a pair we make,” she says finally, feels something lift in her chest when he laughs for real.

“what a pair,” he agrees, and lifts his mug of coffee to toast hers.

(this is, although she doesn’t realize it then, the first time she falls in love for real. standing in her cousin’s messy flat, wearing her pink pygmy-spotted socks, listening to scorpius malfoy tell her that she’s brave. this is the first time she’s not thinking about the future. not thinking about her family. not thinking about the secrets she has to keep and the promises she has to break.

scorpius turns on the muggle radio and makes her another cup of coffee and this, dominique realizes with sudden clarity, is what lily was talking about: a present worth fighting for.)

#dominique weasley #lily luna potter #scorpius malfoy #albus severus potter #hp next gen #dominique and scorpius #ours #writing #pearl #oh man thank you SO much for this ask bc i fucking love dom so much #and warning that this turned out SUPER long and doesnt even get into post hogwarts at all #but i really wanted to write about dom and lily because they're one of my fave relationships ever #and ofc there are some of my other fave relationships here too #anonymous #ask #devils roll the dice

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badlesmisimaginesofficial · 6 years ago

Text

Imagine...

You have been working for years and it is finally ready. Pushing your cute-and-functionally-useless welding goggles onto your forehead, you stand back and admire your creation. The toil will be worth it: you have a time machine.

There's no need for seances now, when you can travel back and meet the man himself. Your heart is already racing at the thought of embracing your literary hero, and of seeing your own (encoded) name in his secret sex diary.

But before you can hurry off to the nineteenth century, there's something else you have to. After all, with time travel comes responsibility - and you owe it to your peers and the universe to set one thing right before getting down with Victor Hugo.

Heart in your mouth, you set the coordinates for the recent past - and with a flick of a switch transport yourself back to mid 2017.

There are so many things you could do here, but you cannot interfere any more than this. Gathering your fetching-yet-modest outfit around you, you storm off to the room where BBC writer Andrew Davies is sitting down to brainstorm ideas.

He looks up in surprise as you crash into his room.

'What are you doing here??'

A passionate response rises within you and with some force you squash it down. This situation does not call for a blunt instrument, much as you would like to scream at him about the brothel scene. Hell, it could be that which gives him the idea.

No, this situation calls for something altogether more cunning. He must not realise that it was your suggestion not to sex up Les Mis; it must come from him organically. Why, if you are clever enough, you may be able to put him off writing the adaptation altogether, and hand the reins to somebody else.

'Why, Mr. Davies,' you say seductively, biting your lip, 'I've heard you're the greatest writer of the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries ...'

He sets down his pen. The plan is working.

#badlesmisimagines #apologies for the lack of activity #andrew davies #andrew davies x reader #i don't have any apology for this though

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lfthinkerwrites · 5 years ago

Text

Riddle of the Minotaur 2: Daniel Mockridge Sucks

Title: Tales from Gotham Academy

Previous chapters: 1/2

Summary: A week before the trip, the kids compare notes, and plots begin to form. Oh boy.

"Attention, students of Gotham Academy. This is Principal Hugo Strange. As a reminder to our Freshman class, all signed permission slips for the Field Trip next Friday must be turned in to either Ms. Kringle or to your homeroom teacher by the end of the day today. The slips will be carefully checked for forgeries, and any and all forgers will be severely punished. This very much includes you, Mr. Todd. That is all."

At his friend's and sibling's usual lunch table, Jason looked at the nearest loudspeaker and flipped it off with both fingers. "Fuck you too, Strange."

"You know he can't hear you," Tim pointed out, not looking up from his phone.

"It's the principal of the matter, Timbo," Jason drawled, turning his attention back to his ham sandwich, and to his best friend Roy, who was sitting beside him. "I can't believe we're stuck with Coach Numbnuts all day next Friday."

"It's not just us, Jay," Roy said. "Machin's gonna be with us in detention too. He got caught giving out free copies of The Communist Manifesto to some freshman and their folks complained."

Jason groaned. "God damn it. That's just what we need. A day with Bolton and Lonnie. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll kill each other."

Across the table, Barbara rolled her eyes. "You know how lucky you two are that you're just in detention the rest of the school year. You were this close to getting expelled for that stunt you pulled with al Ghul's car."

Jason just laughed. "Good times. Good times." He finished off the last of his sandwich. "Still, I'd almost rather be on the trip. You looking forward to it, Timbo?"

Tim looked up from his phone and shrugged. "Not really, but at least Kerr's not around to make it even worse."

Dick piped up from Tim's left. "He wasn't on the trip mine and Barbara's freshman year, and that still sucked."

"That was a camping trip, wasn't it?" Stephanie asked from Tim's right. "And you got to be gone all weekend?"

Barbara sighed. "We were supposed to be, then on the first night, Professor Crane thought it would be a good idea to tell us a scary story about the Wendigo. Then someone started a rumor that he actually was a Wendigo, and a couple of kids chased him across the campgrounds and up a tree." She shook her head. "We were on the buses back home the next morning, and all trips lasting longer than ten hours were banned."

Duke shook his head. “Man and I thought seeing Kerr in a thong last year was bad.” The kids at the table shuddered, with the exceptions of Cassandra, who wasn’t easily bothered, and Ellen and Duela, who were distracted by Ellen’s furious sketching.

Jason finally looked down the table at the pair. “You two have been quiet. What are you working on? Another issue of Beautiful Captain Zodiac Sparkles?”

“No,” Ellen said venomously. She put her pen down and passed her sketch to Duela, who passed it to Cassandra, who passed it to Roy, who passed it to Jason. He put the paper down and inspected it. It was a drawing of a guy in a business suit, with slicked back black hair and a thin mustache that screamed: “I’m a corporate douchebag, please punch me in the face!” He was complimented with devil horns and a bolt of lightning about to strike

Jason cocked his head. "Who's this guy?"

"Daniel Mockridge," Ellen said. Jason was almost taken aback at how angry the little freshman looked. "He used to be my Dad's boss until he fired him, the fucking asshole!"

"Whoa, Ellie, language," Dick chided.

Tim suddenly looked up from his phone, his eyes wide. "Wait. Daniel Mockridge? The CEO of Competitron? That Daniel Mockridge? Your Dad used to work for him?"

"Yeah," Ellen answered, her anger replaced with confusion. "Dad used to be a game developer for them."

Tim's jaw dropped. "No way. Did he work on the original 'Riddle of the Minotaur'?"

"Yeah, he created it, but he didn't get any credit or money for it, 'cause Daniel Mockridge is a piece of shit!" Duela put her hand on Ellen's shoulder to comfort her friend.

Tim, on the other hand, looked like he'd had his mind blown. "Wow. Ellen, you realize that your Dad is a hero to the puzzle gaming community, right?"

"That may be the dorkiest thing I've ever heard you say, Timbo," Jason laughed.

Ellen groaned. "Oh, I knew I shouldn't have told you. Please, don't ask my Dad about it. He doesn't like to talk about working there after what Mockridge did to him."

Tim reluctantly nodded. "I won't say a word, I promise." His own face darkened a bit. "I'd love to hear what he thinks about Riddle of the Minotaur 2, though."

Dick and Jason let out a groan, and even Cassandra shuddered a bit. "Not again, Tim," she said. "I don't think I can listen to another three-hour rant about how bad Riddle of the Minotaur 2 is."

Tim however, would not be denied his rant. "$60 to pre-order the game, and then when it's released, it's so buggy it's unplayable!" He pulled up his internet browser on his phone. "Look, this guy uploaded a video after launch just to document how many bugs he found!"

Duke looked over Tim's shoulder to look at the phone. "Dude, that video's over four hours long!"

"Yeah! And this was just after launch! He released an update video last week and it's over six hours long! And then's there are all the microtransactions! You have to pay $80 to get the skin of the player character from the first game or grind for over 500 hours in a game where you get attacked by invisible enemies or the server randomly crashes! Why do you even have to play online!? It's a single player game!"

Stephanie turned wide-eyed to Cassandra, Dick, Barbara, and Jason. "Does he always get this worked up over video games?"

"Just that one," Cassandra said. "It got so bad Alfred had to ban him from the internet for three weeks last year."

Duela raised an eyebrow. "Alfred banned him? Not Bruce? Isn't Bruce your Dad?"

"Yeah, but Alfred's the boss," Jason said. He reached across the table to tap Tim on the nose. "Settle down, sport. You're scaring the children."

Tim swat at Jason's hand. "Jason, don't touch my face!" He took a deep breath, then put his phone back down. "But fine, I'll stop. Still. Daniel Mockridge must be the worst CEO of a gaming company alive."

"Of course he is," Ellen huffed. "He fired my Dad! And even when Dad still worked there, Mockridge treated him like shit! One time when I was in second grade, my Mom took me over to Dad's office to visit him. Mockridge was there, insulting my Dad's outfit! And then he hit on Mom right in front of him! I mean, they weren't together anymore, but still! Who does that?"

"I think we can all agree that this Mockridge guy is a jerk," Barbara said. "What I'm curious about is why he's coming up now."

Ellen crossed her arms. "Competitron owns the theme park we're going to next week. I heard Dad talking with Penny and Uncle Jon about it the other night. He thinks Mockridge is gonna be at the park." Her eyes narrowed. "If that jerk tries anything with my Dad, I'll beat his ass!"

"Ellen, in the first place, you don't know that Mockridge is going to be there. In the second, there is no way you're going to get away with beating up the CEO of a major corporation, even if he is a jerk," Barbara said.

"Barbara's right," Duela said. "If we want to get back at Mockridge, we're going to have to be a little more creative."

Now Barbara narrowed her eyes. "Not even remotely what I meant, Duela."

Dick raised his hands. "Hey, whatever you get up to, leave us out of it. Barbara and I are going to the beach next Friday."

"And Roy and I will be stuck with Coach Numbnuts," Jason moped.

"It's alright, Jay," Roy said. "I've already got some ideas on how to make our time with him and Lonnie very special." He and Jason then began to cackle.

Barbara rolled her eyes. Stephanie gave a worried look at Duke and Cassandra. "You two think you'll be able to manage being on campus with these two next week?"

Cassandra merely shrugged, while Duke gulped. "That's a loaded question Steph. You think you'll be OK on the trip?" He gestured to Ellen and Duela, who were whispering something to each other.

Stephanie bit her lip. "I'll manage."

Barbara sniffed. "I am so glad I'm graduating in three weeks."

#high school teacher au #the batbros #the batgirls #the kiddos

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stripesthesupervillain · 6 years ago

Text

DCULSS Chapter 3.5: Piggy

This took way longer and was way more lengthy than originally intended. That’s cool, though. At least I got it out. Anyshoe, this is a bit of a break from my third chapter of DCULSS, and surprisingly, it’s not a shitpost. If anything, it’s a SHIPpost, seeing as I hadn’t realized I was into this pairing until I was writing last chapter’s scene with the two together, despite the fact they won’t be too important moving forward.

So, warning: a bit of blood, but nothing graphic, Pyg isn’t actually in this one, and I guess implied shipping warning. I also took a few liberties with Zsasz’s background, sooo yeah.

Enjoy.

Professor Strange came to sit before the patient, adjusting his notepad silently. His pen met paper and soon he began to write. “Viktor.”

“Doctor Strange. A pleasure,” Zsasz greeted, his arms cramped from being tightly bound against his body. He would have sworn straight jackets had been put out of use by now. He didn’t mind it; it was something he’d grown used to during his initial years as one of Gotham’s most abhorred.

“Would you like to explain the mark on your neck, Mr. Zsasz?” Strange requested, gesturing to the scabbed-over mark that had appeared beside his jugular seemingly overnight. Viktor’s smiling expression didn’t flex at the comment, having known such a question would soon befall him. “A piece of discarded glass works wonders, Hugo,” was all his patient had to say about that, putting himself on a first name basis with the psychiatrist.

“What is it for, if you don’t mind me asking?” Hugo pried, showing no expression of suspicion towards the man. When given a small curious tilt of the head, he continued. “Your doctor, Dr. Chen, saw the mark and immediately assumed it was for her, which is why we sit together here today.”

“Miss Chen needn’t worry,” Zsasz told him calmly, feeling as though his head was clear for the first time in near ages. “The mark isn’t for her.” Despite his apologies, it was most likely they wouldn’t be interacting again for her safety; a mere obstacle, he reasoned, as he would easily find her once he was out of the asylum.

“Who is it for then?” Hugo repeated, his patience undeterred as his pen scrambled across the page with detailed notes.

Zsasz’ grin never faded, a faint song playing in his head that’s melody escaped between his teeth under the mounting pressure of the professor. “Can I simply say I needed the mark? Is madness not reason enough for you, Strange?” Sleepless eyes scanned over the other’s flesh with an internal ache to sink something sharp in there. He was already dreaming of the poses he could put the man in; playing cards, perhaps? No, something more professional. Draped over his own desk in a collapsed heap of sleep? Possibly. He was sure a workaholic was hidden somewhere behind those thick frames, aching to be set free from the limbo that was life itself. But where would he put the mark? For Strange, it had to be someplace special, and his palms were bare enough as it were.

“Are you implying that many of your marks are unearned?” Strange suggested, quite obviously using a triggering statement to catch the serial killer off his guard whilst he was lost in thought. Zsasz’s evaporation of his smile spoke volumes of his true thoughts. To even suggest any of his scars could be faked was an insult to the legacy of terror that sat before him. Hugo thought it redundant to pry more on the scars, and so therefor moved on.

“According to Officer Kieth, one of the guards that had been watching over you three, another officer had taken you, Valentin, and Wesker to get sorted out in Solitary, only to be found later in your cells. Would you perhaps like to explain what happened then?”

Zsasz’s brow raised ever so subtly, the frown retained on his expression. “It was all a misunderstanding,” was all he would offer, the foreign lilt of his voice not being able to disguise his contempt matching Strange’s. “Wesker apologized after all. The little man meant no harm towards our little Pyggy.”

Strange stopped writing for a brief moment and tapped the thin pen against his clipboard patiently, adjusting thick glasses that hid a more fiendish glint. Despite the disguise of those thin frames, Zsasz could see eyes searching for something; a crack in the wall or a well hidden doorway, perhaps. At this point the professor was poking around, scanning for that pressure point that would further split the cracks. He found them in his cellmate. “That’s good to hear, Viktor,” Strange congratulated. “We should never solve our differences through violence alone. Wesker could certainly teach you a thing or two.” Violence alone? “Perhaps I should meet with Mr. Valentin. I’m sure he would do well in holding you to the truth.”

That had Zsasz’s jaw working, although nothing was said initially. Viktor admitted to nothing, instead finding it rather irritating the man found a proper angle in the his cellmate. He took a moment to consider everything, keeping consistent eye-contact with the only other man in the room. “These guards of yours,” he said finally, a faux tone of curiosity drenching the cadence of his voice, “do you treasure them? They certainly are hard workers, aren’t they?”

“Arkham staff work very hard to maintain a peaceful environment,” Hugo said briefly. Viktor had a point to make and a story to tell. It was simply best to listen on and let him speak.

Viktor looked away, a scowl briefly crossing his features. “Yes, such lovely fellows. Gifted me with a little piggy, as you most certainly know.” As silence enveloped the room, he only continued. “Before my father had finally gotten big with his business in America and met his end in a… tragic accident along with my mother, he tended to the farm as much as he could back home.” He swallowed, remembering his parents fondly. “One morning when I was eight, he taught me about the pigs. Plump little creatures they were, blissfully unaware of the hatchet within my dear father’s shed. He used to tell me you could kill off the runt little piglets, do away with the deformed little monsters and keep their pork, but that sows were too valuable to the farm to kill off.”

Hugo said nothing, merely wondering where this would lead. The attempts at symbolism were far from subtle.

“Your guards gifted me with a horrid, deformed sow, hoping (praying perhaps?) that I would off the poor thing, or perhaps they he would eventually end me,” Viktor continued, grin slowly returning as his mood shifted back into proper place.

“They placed you in the same cell hoping you would kill each other,” Hugo stated matter-of-factly, surprise curiously absent from his stoic tone. Zsasz remained undeterred by the objective nature of the statement, only continuing with his tale.

“I took in this deformed sow,” Zsasz began once more. “I was patient and I waited and cared for this pig the best a man can do when constantly restrained by cuffs.” A chuckle left his lips. “And this Pyg, in return, gifts me with many little piggies as deformed and faceless as he is, but in an oh so different fashion; all living their lives unaware that they serve a purpose higher than simply living in the monotony that is the zombie infested world we live in today. He let the world see just what little zombies they were raising; that is a man who only deserves my respect, I truly believe, especially when he allows me to drive that icepick in myself.” He smiled gently, as if recalling a fond memory.

“What is your point, Viktor?” Strange demanded, receiving one of those mad grins he had seen countless times before. “My point, doctor,” Zsasz hummed, “is that when a man is desperate and starved they may have no choice but to kill off that sow when the poor Pyg has eaten up his convenience.” A grin split his face. “As much as I enjoy my time with the Pyggy, I’m afraid that if you involve him in this little… misunderstanding, he may not exactly be well enough to see you. And although it aches at my dying heart, sometimes you simply need to know when to put an animal down.”

Strange had been threatened many times before then; Joker enjoyed his threats of violence whilst Nygma was always keen on suggesting action for slights against his intellect. Rarely, however, had the threat been made of a person other than himself. This rather grandiose brand of criminality usually brought about conceited and more direct threats. Zsasz, curiously, always was a bit more practical. All he ever really needed was something sharp to get he job done; wasting words had no true purpose to him.

Strange considered the man for a moment, turning his attention away when the door to the room was opened. “Is he ready for Solitary, Professor?” an officer asked, two more flanking for what would certainly be a difficult transport. Hugo’s gaze returned to Viktor’s, who seemed rather anticipative for what he was sure was to come. Instead, Strange shook his head and gestured them to leave. “Fortunately, no. It seems to have all been a misunderstanding.” He savored the subtle look of surprise on the man who always seemed to be so in control of his own madness. “However, I would like a few more minutes with my patient.”

The guards merely looked at each other, before nodding and closing the door behind them. Zsasz had to bite his lip until it leaked blood to keep the grin off of his face. There were so many unspoken questions, and yet Viktor was content with not knowing the finer, more pointless details.

“Does Lazlo mean so little to you?” Strange asked, noticing with subtle curiosity the fading ink of his pen. He had only just realized his notes filled the page with him inquiries of the possibilities. Despite this, silence needed to be filled. “You seem just as happy to keep him around as you are to do away with him.”

Zsasz had been following the pen with his eyes mindlessly, only seeing pointless scribbles within the twists and turns of neat penmanship. “Pigs are as brilliant as they are for making good companions,” he noted, not caring for the implications of his words that would be enticing to any doctor within Arkham. Such a peek behind the curtains was such a rarity, after all.

Zsasz finally found it appropriate to take his gaze off of the finally dead pen. “Oh, what can I say, Doctor?” The killer smiled softly, wild eyes lifting to meet scrupulous ones. “I like pork.”

#Zsasz #Fanfiction #Professor Pyg #Lazlo Valentin #ship #DCULSS

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wearesungreenmylove · 6 years ago

Text

Chapter Eight: Senior Prank But It’s Third Years

Word Count: 2063

masterlist // previous // next

Luna’s tumblr is @stanverscom

also on ao3 and wattpad

Too soon, the Christmas holiday is over and everyone returns to Hogwarts. I’d never realized just how loud everyone was. Even just people studying, their quills scratching across parchment, is louder than I thought. It’s only the second day back and teachers have already started piling on the homework. Deciding to ignore the mountain of homework on my bed, I opt for a walk outside.

Scorpius joins me on the grounds while snow falls around us. We walk next to each other, the ground littered with big soggy flakes.

He shivers. "It is so cold out here." He tugs his cloak around him. His muffler hat is wrapped tightly over his head, but his nose is pink.

"And that is exactly why we're out here." He looks at me, a mixture of confusion and betrayal on his face. "Nobody else is out here because it's so cold, which makes it the perfect place to plan a prank.”

"Who are we pranking? And why?"

"We are gonna give James a taste of his own medicine."

Scorpius giggles a little bit at that. "What?"

"You said it yourself. James is a Gryffindor bully. But what if we made him pay?"

"Rose, what are you talking about? I mean, I can get behind making him stop, but what are you planning?"

"So I say that we use my Uncle George's swamp spell and put it in his bag. Or even better, his bed, but that would be too hard because we can't get into the Gryff-unless!" I turn to face him, excited. "We had a spy on the inside."

"Or..." Scorpius adds, slowing down our conversation. But he looks as if a light bulb just went off in his head."We could put it in his goblet at dinner. Of course, we'd have to make sure the swamp was harmless first, but imagine having a swamp in a cup! That would be so cool!"

"Okay, so-new plan. You go talk to Professor Longbottom about a harmless swamp. He's the professor, so he should be the best source. And I'll talk to my uncle."

"Rose." He gives me a sly smile. "I have an idea. When the Gryffindor house wins house cup again we could put it in James’ cup.”

I nod at him. “Vengeance.”

…

“I’m sorry. You’re doing what?” Victoire exclaims, confusion and anger in her voice.

“Look, all we need is details. Who could put it in his cup?” I ask.

“Why are you two doing this?”

I faux sigh. “Victoire. He’s basically just a Gryffindor bully.”

She half shrugs, her light blonde hair brushing against her shoulders. “Yeah, he’s a bit annoying and all, but I don’t think he means to hurt anyone.”

“Except for the Slytherins,” Scorpius mumbles.

Victoire ignores him. “Look, you two should just stop. Trust me, you don’t want to get on his bad side,” She says definitively and walks out of the Room of Requirement, leaving Scorpius and me alone together.

“Do you think we should stop? She seemed pretty serious.”

“The one time that she ever got on James’ bad side was when she and Teddy started dating. James ignored her for three months.” I exhale. “But, I trust her. So if she says we shouldn’t we shouldn’t.”

…

Scorpius and I are awkward around James for a bit afterwards. Victoire keeps eyeing us in the club as if she’s assessing us. James gets suspicious though.

“What are you two up to that I don’t know about?”

“No-nothing.” I blurt out.

He side-eyes me. “You’re lying.” He glances over to Victoire who is looking at us, her eyes pleading as if she thinks that just that is enough to keep us from pranking my cousin. He looks back at us and looks us both up and down. “This is gonna sound repulsive, but are you two dating?”

“No!” says Scorpius quickly.

“Hm. Interesting.” He steps back. “Alright, I’ll leave you two alone for now. But I’ve got my eyes on you.” He raises his index and middle fingers to his eyes, then points them at us.

We sigh in relief as he walks away.

“That was a close call.”

Scorpius gives me a small smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

…

“Are you sure we can’t send letters to each other over the summer?” I ask.

“My parents would freak. I’m sorry Scorpius.”

I shrug. “It’s alright. I didn’t expect anything different. I mean, I’m pretty sure if my dad found a letter you sent me he’d throw a fit too.”

She takes a hold of my hand and lightly squeezes it. I look up at her. Her red hair, her freckles all across her face, and her smile. I smile back.

This summer I’m gonna find a way for Rose and me to talk without owls.

We both get off the train, separately so our families don’t think we’re hanging out. I watch Rose out the window as she runs towards her family, their arms wide open for her.

My dad’s on the far side of the station, away from the entrance. Probably trying to avoid drawing attention to himself.

I wait to get off the train until her family has left the station through the bricks. My first time seeing my dad in 10 months is nothing like how Rose’s family reunion went. He stands there while I lug my suitcase and Andromeda my screeching owl towards him.

“Hey, Dad.”

He nods solemnly at me. “Son.” His eyes look pained, but I don’t know why.

Probably Mother.

This is gonna be a long summer.

…

This is gonna be the best summer of my life. Sure I can’t talk to my best friend, but I get to play quidditch with everyone else. And sure we have to visit Gramma Weasley and Grandpa Weasley, but we also get to use their backyard as a field for quidditch and spend our days out in the sun.

I’m not actually a big fan of professional quidditch, Mum says I get that from her, but it’s Weasley tradition to play when we’re all together over the holiday.

Albus and I spend a lot of time together when Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny bring him and James and Lily over. So we spend part of our days outside underneath blue rhododendron bushes, looking up at the sky in between the soft petals.

“I think I like Scorpius,” I say.

“Oh?” He sounds disinterested.

“Yeah.” And I leave it at that.

…

Something is wrong.

My dad won’t come out of his office to eat or sleep in a bed or drink water. Sometimes I hear soft snoring, and I saw him asleep on his desk, his head resting against an open book.

But… he still had dark circles underneath his eyes.

“Hey, Dad?” I’d prompted when he started behaving like this.

He responded only with a grunt.

And he hasn’t responded with anything since.

We don’t have maids or house elves; my dad insists we do everything by ourselves. So I make myself and him sandwiches and pasta. I take plates up to his study and leave him be.

I think he likes the pasta. He eats more of that than the sandwiches. A couple bites. Mum used to make pasta once a week, tortellini, angel’s hair, penne, linguine. We’d go to the store and she’d let me pick out the type of pasta we’d have that week.

I should tell someone about Dad. Maybe they can help him. My immediate thought is Rose, but she told me to not contact her over the summer because her family would freak out. My dad told me to never talk to my Grandpa Lucius, and Grandmother Narcissa died a couple years ago. And we don’t have any other family, so I guess my only choice is Rose.

In my room, I grab a piece of parchment and a quill and pen to her.

Dear Rose,

I know you told me not to contact you over the summer, but I think this is really important.

…

My dad hasn’t been talking to me or eating anything besides a couple bites of pasta and sandwiches every so often and he hasn’t left his study in days. Maybe your parents can help? I wasn’t sure who else I could contact.

Your friend,

Scorpius

I blink, trying to think about the letter Scorpius sent me.

His great grey owl Andromeda nudges my hand and I give her a treat. “You stay here. I’ll be back with a letter for Scorpius.”She preens her feathers, and I take that as a yes.

I run down the stairs, my feet pounding against the steps.

“Mum!” I call, knowing she’ll be more likely to help.

“What is it, dear?” She asks from her favourite blue armchair. Her glasses are slipping down her nose and she has a book in her hand, per usual.

I walk towards her carefully, making sure my dad isn’t around.

“Scorpius’ dad needs our help.”

…

“Malfoy needs OUR help?” My father exclaims. “And what has that idiot ever done for us?”

“Ronald, try and be a little more sensitive. His wife died last year and he’s obviously depressed.”

He grunts then looks up at my mum, and he seems to understand. He sighs in defeat. “Alright. But what can we do? Drag him out of his office? I doubt that would work.” Mum glares at him. “I’ll go call St. Mungo’s.”

…

“So what are you gonna do with the kid? He can’t stay in a big empty house all by himself. And it looks like the only living relative is Lucius Malfoy, who worked for You-Know-Who.” The guy from St. Mungo’s is standing there in a white doctor’s jacket, all buttoned up nice and pretty, staring down at me and my parents.

Someone else is inside talking to Scorpius and I saw multiple people go in to talk to his dad.

I feel bad for both of them.

Thinking about Scorpius, I almost miss it, but Mum glances at Dad, then says “We’ll take him.”

…

“You can’t avoid it forever.” Scorpius won’t look at me. He looks down at the dirt, rubbing the back of his neck. “Scorpius.”

He finally looks up, his eyes bright with tears. “I don’t want to see her,” He says. “If I see her, it makes it real.”

“You kids coming?” Dad is already inside the cemetery, and he waits behind while Mum and Hugo move forward towards the Black lot.

“Yeah,” I call forward, and I look to Scorpius.

He looks at me and sighs.

We move forward together.

…

Dad is already there by the time we reach her grave.

It’s not the first time we’ve visited, and it won’t be the last, but that doesn’t make this part any easier.

I look at Dad.

He looks at me.

The Weasleys lag behind, too polite to impose themselves in our situation, but I kind of wish they would.

Looking over me, Dad says, “Thank you.” It’s stiff and brittle and I’m pretty sure it’s the first time the words have passed his lips.

Mr. Weasley looks shocked. Then he looks uncomfortable. “Uh, yeah, no problem mate,” He says.

A bit of trademark distaste shows in Dad’s eyes, and I allow myself to relax. It fades without him saying anything- another first- and he looks back to me and steps forward to crush me in a hug.

I freeze, and he pulls away before I can hug back. He has tears in his eyes, and if he starts crying, I know I’m done for.

Instead, he says “thank you” again, and the Weasleys leave us alone to grieve.

I almost wish they didn’t have to give me back.

...

The summer is interesting, to say the least. After Scorpius’s extended stay at my house, life falls back into its normal routines. Dad tells me that he’s fine with me being friends with Scorpius now that he knows he isn’t “evil like his father” and I have to struggle not to roll my eyes.

You’d think after everything that happened Dad would have changed his mind about Mr. Malfoy, but I guess they have too much history.

The rumours I overhear on Platform 9 ¾ make me want to throw up.

Why can’t people just be friends?

#scorpius and rose #s&r #harry potter new generation #rose weasley #scorpius malfoy #harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #new generation #scorose #hp #hp new gen #simon writes

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lostinfic · 7 years ago

Note

Kink flashfiction: semi-public sex with Mercier/Betty? Please!

aneclipsedhabitue said to lostinfic:Just general Dom!Mercier x Betty¿

Anonymous said to lostinfic:Mercier x Betty + Dom/sub? ;)

Bonus kinks: teacher/student, roleplay, spanking (for the Hardy x Hannah anon)

➜ Kink flashfiction

Ao3

Mademoiselle

Betty never got to attend university. For her thirtieth birthday, she decided it was high time to remedy that situation. She thought it better to start slow, as she lacked confidence in her academic abilities, and enrolled as an auditor: no homework or exams, only classes.

She chose a French history course.

On her first day, she arrived twenty minutes early, wearing a pencil skirt and blouse. She sat primly in the second row, crisp notebook and a brand new pen laid out in front of her.

No one else walked in, and she double-checked the classroom number. Then triple-checked five minutes later. At last other students walked in, in jeans or sweatpants, most of them equipped with shiny laptops.

She avoided eye-contact with them and doodled in her notebook instead. She was here to learn, she didn’t have to fit in, this wasn’t secondary school (and thank God for that).

The teacher came in. He looked just like she expected with suede elbow patches and a battered leather bag. But he was younger than she’d pictured and certainly more clean-cut: straight tie and tailored trousers.

All eyes were on him as he walked through the rows of tables and handed out syllabuses. Students assessed him and tried to guess what kind of teacher he was. But Betty could only think that he was one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. Her heart beat faster as he neared her seat. When he reached her, her mind went blank, and she didn’t take the document he was holding out for her. He smirked, and put the syllabus down on her desk.

Oh, bugger, I can never show me face here again.

The teacher checked his watch and cleared his throat to get their attention. Chatter dwindled down, and he introduced himself.

“Bonjour, I’m Jean-François Mercier, and it will be my pleasure to tell you all about the history of my country. I’m not a professor. I work for the French Army and I’ve worked as a diplomat in various countries.”

She had to hold back a dreamy sigh upon hearing his light accent. She chastised herself for romanticizing the situation. Clearly she had read one too many Mills & Boons novel involving French men or teacher-student romances.

She liked that he wasn’t a professor. Some may turn up their noses at his lack of tenure, but to Betty his work experience gave him more credibility than someone high up in his ivory tower.

“I recently took a sabbatical to study and teach and share my passion.”

He locked eyes with her as he said that last word. Passion. Okay, maybe she would show her face here again after all.

He spoke for two hours. Whereas other students showed signs of impatience— perhaps they didn’t expect a full lecture on their first day— Betty drank his every word.

He gave some homework for the following week which was met with some groans.

Betty couldn’t wait for the next class, and the following Wednesday, she arrived early again. This time, Mr. Mercier was already in the classroom. She sat in the same spot, and he walked up to her. Up close, she noticed the light freckles dusted across his sharp cheeks.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle. Do you want to hand over your assignment right away?”

“Oh, I didn’t do it.”

“Why not?” His voice was stern which was not entirely unpleasant.

“Oh, I’m only an auditor, I don’t have to do any work, I’m just here to learn.”

His frown turned into a smile. “There is no such thing as just learning. That’s quite admirable.”

She shrugged off the compliment and fiddled with her pen.

“What is your name?”

“Betty.”

“Betty. My office door is always opened to those with a desire to learn.”

Betty’s mouth went dry. Was the flirty undertone real or wish fulfillment? She didn’t have a chance to find out because a group of students walked in.

For the next two hours, he talked about Paleolithic France, and she was fascinated by everything mere cavemen had accomplished. During the break, she even checked the university’s website for courses on prehistory. It had simply never occurred to her that Neanderthal men did more than pick berries, hunt mammoths and carry women over their shoulders— not that she was opposed to being carried over someone’s shoulder. Would Mr. Mercier be strong enough to do that?

The following week, she decided to take him up on his offer. He had office hours on Tuesdays, she traded shifts with Maria, and took the bus to central London. She wore a white dress with blue flowers, and told herself that it was to enjoy the last beautiful days of September. And the opened buttons? Better to feel the last sunrays on her chest… or his wandering eyes?

She took a deep, steadying breath before knocking on his office door.

“Mademoiselle Betty, hello.”

“Hope I’m not bothering you.”

“Not at all. You’re the first student to visit me.”

She wondered if he was nervous, she would be.

The room had none of the leather and oak she’d imagined, it was a rather bland space meant for temporary employees. But he’d brought in many books to fill the shelves and art prints to brighten up the beige walls.

Betty sat on the edge of a chair, twisting her skirt nervously.

“What can I help you with?”

“You mentioned an author last week, and I didn’t catch the name, he wrote prehistoric novels.”

“Aurel?”

“Could be.”

He gave her a few other names, indicating she should find them in the university’s library. Betty admitted she had yet to set foot there and had no idea how to find a book.

“I’ll show you.” He sprung from his seat.

Betty was taken aback by his enthusiasm but certainly couldn’t refuse his offer.

They crossed the campus together, commenting on the nice weather. A light breeze whispered through her dress, and Mr. Mercier’s eyes lingered on her.

He guided her through the high bookcases of the library to the French literature section. He stacked books in her arms, enthusiastically talking about his favourite authors. A librarian warned him to lower his voice. He looked exaggeratedly shamefaced, making Betty giggle.

“Tell me more about Molière,” she asked.

He answered her questions in a low voice, standing closer to her, almost whispering into her ear. They stood by a high window overlooking the campus and their hands brushed together.

She was back the next week, and the one after, asking for more book recommendations. Classics and contemporaries alike. Victor Hugo and Proust. Beaudelaire and St-Exupéry. Each visit lasted longer than the last, and they talked less about French history and more about their personal lives. Childhoods and past loves. Heartaches and dreams. Stendhal and de Beauvoir. Flaubert and Musso.

He talked to her as he would a friend, not a student. And the following day, in class, she watched him pace the room and listened, enthralled. Some may call his voice monotonous, but she loved its hypnotizing steadiness, calming, like the ebb and flow of waves. She sat there and let it transport her through history from Jeanne D’Arc to the Enlightenment. And sometimes she felt like she was alone with him in the room, that the class was all and only for her. That he chose moments in history that would resonate with the souvenirs and thoughts she’d shared with him in his office.

As eager as she was for the next class, each week also brought her closer to the end of the semester.

“I wish your class would never end,” she said.

“Fifteen weeks isn’t enough to cover all of France’s history, perhaps I can convince the university to offer a follow up course. Or perhaps I should offer some… private lessons.”

Betty blushed at the suggestion. Surely there were many things she could learn from him. And with him.

And just when she thought he was attempting to seduce her— not a difficult task by any means— he switched the subject and stepped away from her.

She knew there must be some restrictions against student-teacher relationships, but she was very much an adult and not a proper student. Is that what stopped him or was he simply not attracted to her?

And then one day, her doubts were lifted when he lent her a book from his own collection: Justine by Marquis de Sade.

He handed it to her with all appearance of nonchalance, but she knew the name, of course. And the subject matter.

She read it every night, for hours on end, savouring the lecherous words and his notes in the margins.

“When she’s abandoned her moral center and teachings…when she’s cast aside her facade of propriety and lady-like demeanor…when I have so corrupted this fragile thing and brought out a writhing, mewling, bucking, wanton whore for my enjoyment and pleasure…..enticing from within this feral lioness…growling and scratching and biting…taking everything I dish out to her…at that moment she is never more beautiful to me.”

Again and again she brought herself to orgasm as she imagined Mr. Mercier and herself as the protagonists.

The next week, Betty sat on the bus, holding the book close to her chest, her heart pounded under it. Halfway to the uni, it started to rain and by the time she got out, it was pouring. Rain soaked her clothes and hair, as she ran towards the faculty building. In her haste, she tripped. Justine landed in a puddle.

“Oh, no, no.”

The pages were already engorged with water.

Betty’s hands were shaking when she knocked on Mr. Mercier’s door. She got a few odd looks from two students entering the next door office.

Mr. Mercier opened the door. “Betty, my god, you’re soaked.”

He attempted to dry her with tissues which was completely ineffectual. His hands slowed, and he stared at her dress, cheap yellow fabric clinging to her body.

“Did you enjoy the novel?”

“I ruined it.”

“Pardon?”

She showed him the sodden book. “I’m so sorry, I’ve ruined your book. I was running and the rain and it fell. I should’ve been more careful.”

“Yes you should have, mademoiselle.”

“I’ll buy you another one.”

He scoffed at that. “It was a rare edition, it cannot be replaced. I thought I could trust you. I’m very disappointed in you.”

“Please, don’t be. I’m such a klutz, what can I do?”

He linked his hands behind his back and paced the small office. “How should carelessness be dealt with?”

“Dealt with?” she stammered.

“I cannot let you go unpunished.”

The scenario felt very familiar. Betty swallowed thickly as she realized what was happening, heat curled in her belly. “No, sir, you certainly can’t. I should be punished.”

He schooled his features so as not to smile. “Bend over, mademoiselle,” he said. “And do be quiet, the walls are thin.”

Betty released a shuddering breath and leaned forward on her elbows. Every hair on her body stood on end, anticipating the next touch. She’d never felt so alert to sensations: the crinkle of his crisp cotton shirt, the shift of air as he moved behind her, his woodsy cologne. When he didn’t touch her, she grew antsy and glanced at him over her shoulder. He stroked her back gently, soothing her. She closed her eyes, enjoying the calmness coming over her. She’d waited so long to feel his touch.

His warm hand, splayed wide, resting on her lower back. “Okay?” he asked.

“Yes.”

His hand slipped over the curve of her bum, he squeezed the flesh in a rather mechanical way. Betty pressed into his touch and heard a low chuckle. Red bloomed over her cheeks. Mercier squeezed the other side, hand lingering this time.

“Now, mademoiselle, how many spanks should you get for destroying my precious book?”

“I- I don’t know, sir.”

“Let’s see. How many chapters are there in the book?”

“Ten, sir.”

“Ten it is.”

Then came the first slap, mostly absorbed by her clothes. And another, before he flipped over her skirt, and his hand collided a third time with her arse. The shock was stronger, Betty gasped loudly.

“Shh. Professor Morton is right next door,” he said, so close she felt his breath on her neck.

He spanked her again and Betty squeezed her eyes shut. The heat on her arse cheeks spread wide, and she felt the first tingles between her legs. Mr. Mercier caressed the back of her thighs and it sent a quiver straight to her core.

“How many spanks left, mademoiselle?”

“… six?”

“Six.”

He spanked her three times in a row, then tugged down her panties. If anyone walked through that door, the first thing they would see was her bare arse and cunt. And somehow that turned her on even more.

Betty realized it wasn’t just her own ragged breathing she was hearing. Mr. Mercier ran a featherlight finger up the inside of her thigh, leaving goosebumps after its passage. Betty clutched the side of the desk.

“Please, sir.”

He stroked the other thigh. “Please what?”

“May I have another?”

Footsteps and loud chatter came from the hall.

“Do you think they heard you beg?” he whispered into her ear. “You do it so well.”

His palm smacked her flesh twice more. Harder this time. It resounded between the walls of his office. The sting ebbed into a pleasant tingling. She squeezed her thighs and felt the moisture between her folds. She was dying to dip her fingers in that wetness or better for him to do it. She dropped her forehead to the desk and stilled, her whole body tensed to stop herself.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Betty? Look at me,” he insisted.

Gone was the stern voice. She raised her head and met his beautiful, concerned eyes. It made her heart melt, and a less carnal sort of desire grew in her.

“One more, sir.”

She felt the warmth of his palm, but he didn’t touch her. He swished his hand, built the anticipation. A hairbreadth away. Another swish and the last blow landed between her cheek and thigh.

Betty squealed. She hoped his hand print would show.

“Ten. Have you learned your lesson?”

“I have. Promise. I’ll be more careful with your books.”

“Good girl.”

He pressed between her shoulder blades to keep her bent over the desk. He stood behind her. Staring? She felt exposed and vulnerable. And empty. Her inner muscles clenched around nothing. He sat on his haunches and bit into the reddened flesh of her bum. A drop of moisture tickled her sensitive nether lips.

“I see the Marquis de Sade was right: ‘it is only by way of pain one arrives at pleasure’.”

She glanced over her shoulder and caught him pressing his palm over the bulge in his trousers. She smiled, proud that he was affected too.

“Eyes ahead,” he chastised her.

He moved around for awhile then laid something on her back, then another thing, heavier, and a third. “Some of my favourite books,” he explained. “Diderot, Beaumarchais, Voltaire… on your lovely behind. Make sure you do not drop one of them.”

“Wha— Oh!”

Two fingers brushed down her slit. He caressed her slowly, lightly. Sometimes wiping his damp fingers on her thigh. Every time she squirmed for more contact, the books swayed and Mr. Mercier would cluck his tongue and stop touching her.

“Careful, mademoiselle.”

He pushed his middle finger in her, and she automatically bucked back. The books fell off her. He muttered in French, and spanked her with a leather-bound novel, twice on each cheek. She clenched her teeth and breathed deeply. Mr. Mercier put the books back on her, adding a fourth, and admired his work. She missed his touch already.

Someone knocked at his door.

“Should I open,” he whispered.

Betty shook her head vehemently, but perhaps, when he fingered her again, he felt her clench at the thought of getting caught.

Another knock and Mr. Mercier moved his fingers faster. Betty bit her fist to smother her moans. How she wanted to buck and thrust, deeper and faster, her legs quivered from the strain of holding back. She thought she might lose her mind. Sweat beaded along her spine.

“Good girl, you are doing so well.”

When no other knock came, Mr. Mercier stood up. She heard the rustle of fabric and a zipper. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, desire coiled low in her stomach.

“Stay still,” he said, holding her hips, before rubbing his length along her slit.

“Please, sir, I don’t think I can— the books. Please,” she stammered incoherently.

“Shhh, just a while longer.” He moaned, still teasing her, and teasing himself too.

The head of his cock rubbed her clit, and she choked on a sob. She wanted him to take her, any way he desired, she didn’t care.

“Please, sir.”

“Use your words.”

“Please fuck me.”

He removed the books, tossed them on a chair carelessly. “Stand up.”

She did as he asked, confused, knickers still around her ankles. Her eyes dropped to his opened trousers, and she licked her lips.

He cupped her cheeks and claimed her mouth. An all-encompassing, hungry kiss. Their lips moved eagerly together, with nips and licks. Betty melted into the kiss, clutching his shirt, arching into his body.

He hiked her up on the desk, she kicked off her heels and knickers. He tugged her legs around his waist, and entered her in one deep thrust. They groaned in unison, and Professor Morton slammed an unhappy fist into the wall between their offices. They laughed hiding their faces into each other’s neck.

“Don’t stop,” Betty demanded, voluntarily tightening around him.

Mercier moaned. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He snapped his hips as fast as he could, both too on edge for anything with more finesse. Teeth and nails dug through the fabric of their clothes. The musky smell of sex rose in the room as did their moans.

“So close.”

“Presque. Attends-moi.”

“Can’t— Ah!”

Betty’s toes curled, her thighs quivered and one last, deep push, triggered her orgasm. Bliss spilled through her blood. And Jean-François followed with a loud grunt.

He fell into his desk chair, bringing Betty with him. They kissed slowly, tenderly.

Betty giggled. “I can’t believe we did that.”

“Who says married couple have boring sex.”

“Not us… Can we do it again?”

“There are eight weeks left to the semester,” Jean-Francois said. “Will you still come to my class anyway?”

“Of course! I really do like it. I’m learning so much.”

He held her closer and kissed the top of her head.

“Me bum’s kinda sore,” Betty said shyly.

“Let’s go home, I’ll rub some lotion on your behind and make you cum again.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, ma belle.”

#lots-o-huggindoctor #aneclipsedhabitue #Mercier x Betty #teninch fic #kink flashfiction #lostinfic writes stuff

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thong-in-the-twist · 8 years ago

Text

Hostium munera, munera est

Words count: 8,587

Summary: A gift from the enemies is a gift nonetheless.

A.K.A I wanted to write something for Gong Yoo once again, and you were already graced with Gong Yoo in suits, so I wanted to have Gong Yoo in uniform. But at the same time I really wanted Prosecutor!Gong Yoo, so I asked myself: why not both?

It was based on The Good Wife's s02e02 episode: Double Jeopardy. I seriously love this series, and I have to say that episode is my favourite.

There is a lot of Latin quotes.

“Thank you, ma’am. Have a good day.”

You’ve never thought that you’d be called “ma’am” daily before reaching thirty, but there you are, and you are not complaining.

You smile to the security guard, taking your briefcase from his hand. Your fingers brush, and your smile grows a notch bigger. It’s not exactly forced, but you know that it’s not exactly real either. Just a little gesture to the guard, who is not bad to look at.

Making his day, makes your day a little better. And makes your ego swell.

So you take your Aznom Carbon Fiber Briefcase (bought with your first bonus, and treasured like a firstborn ever since), throw perfectly styled hair over your shoulder, knowing that it would spread your perfume (personal favorite, not that luxurious, Hugo Boss Orange Sunset, refreshing, but fierce), you glance the guard in the eyes, one last time, and you are off, heels clicking on the marble.

Your pencil skirt is sliding against nylon pleasantly, and it gives you a certain rush of adrenaline, thought of power, to name it.

There is a chatter in the halls, but more quiet than the chatter outside. In the end, this place deserves respect.

You need to stop yourself from dancing around the group of people barging your way, even if you want to. You feel light, but you don’t want to show it to people around.

You stop for a second under black boards, to check what is awaiting you today, and then you go to find your doors.

Not really find, of course, you know the way by heart. You reach the monumental, double winged doors, ones that should creak loudly and ominously when opened, but in government run building that shouldn’t happen. That can’t happen, and so the janitors in the building have a storage filled with WD-40.

The handle is cold and doors are perfectly silent, when you open them. There is a few people inside, and you walk past them, giving off confident vibe, but you don’t want to be overbearing. You walk past the benches, and you reach your table. You sit down, on the first chair, you take out your files and Montegrappa fountain pen (a present from a happy, happy client) and set them on the table. Then you put your briefcase under the table, next to front leg of the table, to make sure it has support.

And then, you are ready, but you have to busy yourself with something. Appearances. You open the first file, and you start reading it or at least it looks like that. In the reality, you make a conscious effort to slide your eyes over letters, one line after another.

You know you look elegant, intelligent, and very much engrossed. But your job is to be present, awake, and very much aware of your surroundings. And you are good at your job.

Doors open and you focus on the sounds coming from the corridor between benches, wanting to discern who is coming, without actually turning around. You can hear two different clicking sounds: one is hurried, frequency higher than the latter. The latter is sure in his steps, and heavier, clicking sounds deeper.

There is woman wearing high heels strutting behind man in elegant shoes, who thinks he owns the place.

You smile under your nose – your adversary came, with his second chair, and judging from woman’s hurried strut they know they will lose.

So you stand up, making sure not to drag your chair across the floor – you wouldn’t want the horrible sound to disrupt the scene you were reading yourself for. You straighten your skirt, and when you hear that steps falter, you turn around with pleasant smile to greet prosecutor.

Except you don’t see Mr. Lee. Nor you see his second chair, Mrs. Go.

And man shoes weren’t elegant – they were military shoes.

You are faced with tall, broad shouldered man, wearing military uniform. There are two rhombuses adoring his collar, and something in the back of your mind tells you that he is Lieutenant. Woman with him looks nearly apologetic as she looks at you from behind this man.

You look up at the handsome, but somehow disfigured face.

“Ma’am, I am Lieutenant Gong-Ji-Cheol.”He says, his voice is steady and deep as he stresses syllables in his name, as a military officer is taught to do.” I came to inform you that your client was arrested, and charged with first degree murder.”

Which is ridiculous.

Your client, was indeed arrested and charged with first degree murder – but it happened some five months ago! You spend last months fighting for his freedom – maybe you didn’t get to release him on bond, but you killed in pretrial motions, and you managed to knock out half of the evidence prosecution gathered against your client, not even allowing jury to hear it. The other half you destroyed during the trial, and you knew that you won. You were as sure as one can be faced with jury of their peers. And they can be as unforeseeable as weather and as capricious as 4 years old.

But nevertheless prosecutor felt that he was losing his ground, he even presented you with a plea of 8 years and second degree. You declined the offer (after conferring with your client and telling him that it’s his choice, but you are sure that you are going to win it) and today was supposed to be your big day!

And yet instead of anger of prosecutor and heartfelt tears of defendant, you see… This.

You school yourself, in the end it’s not your first rodeo, and unexpected things do happen. A lot. And the last thing you want to show is confusion.

“Sir, I am well aware of this fact, I have been defending Mr. Kwon for the last five months against this exact charge.” You say, as your mind starts to connect the dots, and you start to grow restless. Your client is not there, prosecutor is not there, judge is not there, but man wearing military uniform is standing in front of your repeating the charges of your client.

Fucking hell, it’s a court-martial.

There is only one court that could take precedence over district’s criminal court, and that is indeed military court.

You can feel blood drowning from your limbs, as you grow cold. It’s not that you are the one that is going to suffer, but your sure win in criminal court was just blown away, by the mere thought of court-martial. You nearly won your case by knocking out, one by one, pieces of evidence that prosecutor gathered against your client. You knew that, and Mr. Lee knew that, so he decided to forsake his own trial and he sold this case to court-martial. Because in the military trial getting evidence out of the question is not going to be easy.

“Yes, Ma’am, but at the time of the murder your client was a mobilized reservist on Title 10 orders. And as such, the crime falls concurrently under military jurisdiction.”

“That is a joke.” You say with a precisely controlled dose of spite in your words. Man in uniform furrows his eyebrows.

“Ma’am, as a commissioned officer in ROK Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, I do not joke.”

That could sound playful or pleasant, like a joke in the group of friends, if it wasn’t spoken with such deliberation.

There is nothing you can say to him, so you keep quiet, gathering your thoughts. After a second of hesitation lieutenant speaks up.

“Staff Sergeant Kwon was appointed court lawyer, but he wishes to retain his civil counsel. He has right to do so, so I came to inform you that court comes in session at sixteen hundred hours.” You look up at him, and you try not to scramble, as your mind tries to count what time it will be in civil time. You miss the moment Lieutentant’s face changes a little, but when he starts speaking again, and you look up at him he looks less formal and more confidential and apologetic.”District court does not have capital punishment, but military does. And we don’t refrain from using it. We offer you eight years. And it would be wise to take it.”

You stare at him, straining your neck to be able to look him in the face, as he is way taller than you are.

You don’t laugh, but you very much want to. He offered you the same exact bargain prosecutor did. It is a blatant answer to the question whether Mr. Lee sold his case.

You look away and gather your things. You bow to retrieve your Aznom briefcase, and you stuff all your belongings inside, taking care not to look hurried. If you counted correctly, you have less than five hours to prepare for military court.

“Thank you for this generous offer.” You finally say, handle of your briefcase fitting comfortably in your hand. “But we will have to decline.”

And you walk past him, heels clicking on the marble.

“Ma’am, you are obliged by law to present the offer to your client!”

You don’t turn back as you walk out of the courtroom.

“You told me that we won it!”

You don’t sigh. You wish you could do so, but that never brings anything good. It doesn’t look professional, it doesn’t resolve any of your problems, and it could aggravate your client even more than he already is.

He doesn’t need your answer. He goes on with his ramble, so you look around the room you are in. There is a flag on the wall, with coat of arms under it, and military coat of arms next to it. Your client is pacing under the window, and his court-appointed counsel is sitting stiffly at the sturdy, oval table. The one you are also seated at. It could be any conference room back in at the district court if it wasn’t for a guard wearing uniform with bulletproof vest and the fact that both Staff Sergeant Kwon and Lieutenant Shin wore formal uniforms. You are the only one wearing civil clothes and it doesn’t put you at ease.

“I did. Because in district court we did. It’s military court.” You answer the earlier accusation, and you see how Lieutenant Shin glances at you. When he introduced himself to you he looked steady and trust inducing. A man you know that you could get along with. “I am not sure whether I will be able to do the same here.”

“You have to! You have to! I won’t take the plea, I didn’t kill her!”

You nod.

“Of course you didn’t.” You answer simply and stand up. Lieutenant seems to be surprised, but he follows your suit. “We will see each other in the courtroom. Keep strong.”

After that you leave the room, and other counsel follows you out. As soon as the doors close behind you, you lean against the wall, looking at the ceiling. You finally allow yourself to sigh.

“Ma’am.” Prompts your colleague, quite shyly. You grunt something in answer, aware that you don’t have to protect your reputation here. You can already feel migraine coming, and you have yet to start your trial. You’ve heard horror stories about military court, and strangely you have yet to met somebody that actually took part in the proceedings to debunk or confirm the stories. “Do you believe that staff sergeant is innocent?”

You look at the lanky man, surprised. It’s such a naïve question.

“Does it matter, lieutenant?” You ask, lifting one of your legs to rotate your ankle.

“You seemed to strongly believe him.” It’s not a precise answer, but you’ve heard this line of thoughts many times before, especially back at the university.

“I’ll ask again, does it matter whether I believe him or not? I am his lawyer, I defend him, and I reassure him. And that is precisely what I did.” You are standing there, in the dimmed corridor, refusing to divulge into ‘right and wrong’ dispute, when you should be preparing for your the defense. Good thing that you had good enough practice during those last five months.

Lieutenant doesn’t answer, but you are quite sure that you didn’t hear the last from him. And just as you hear him inhale, pair wearing formal uniforms clears the corner.

You straighten yourself, recognizing Lieutenant Gong, but it’s your first time seeing woman next to him. But it’s easy enough to gather that she is his co-counsel.

“That’s Lieutenant Gong and Captain Seo, for the prosecution.” Says Shin, and you nod, not allowing yourself to look annoyed at his accolade. He is doing his job, and it’s better to be informed about the thing you already know, than not be informed about the things other party believes you know.

The pair reaches you, and you expect them to pass you, but captain stops to salute, and Lieutenant Shin immediately answers. She ignores you, and keeps going, but Lieutenant Gong, after exchanging greetings with Lieutenant Shin, turns to you.

“Ma’am.” He says as a greeting, nodding politely. You smile and nod in answer. Captain stops abruptly in her tracks, and looks back at her co-counsel expectantly, but he ignores her. So you answer his greeting.

“Lieutenant.”

“I am pleased to see that you’ve found military court without problems.” Is it a way to put you down? It’s hard to decipher, because man seems to be having a very good poker face.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” You say simply, and that seems to do the work, because man looks surprised. He opens his mouth to say something, and decides against it, once more bowing politely and turns to join his co-counsel that stares at you with her eyes squinted.

“Oh, Lieutenant!” You say, loud enough for him to hear, but quiet enough not to be calling after him. Both of them stop, and turn around to look at you. You can see Lieutenant Shin doing the same. ”I am pleased to convey that my client declined your offer, and we will be facing each other in court.”

His face doesn’t fall nor he changes his stance. He doesn’t even react, just turning around and walking away, forcing captain to trout to catch up with him.

Lieutenant Shin looks after them, before speaking up.

“That wasn’t smart.”

You shrug, choosing not to ask what exactly was “not-smart”.

“But it was fun.”

The courtroom is smaller and darker than the one you are used to. There is no gallery for on-lookers and everything looks more Spartan.

Definitely lesser stage for a person like you.

Lieutenant Shin shows you table away from the jury bench, and you look at him surprised, but when you see him sitting down you realize that this is indeed your table. You are used to being seated closer to jury, it’s obvious since you have to appeal to their conscience and remind them about presumption of innocence.

Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat.

The burden of proof is on the one who declares, not on one who denies.

Opposite counsels enter, and your client is lead into the room. When staff sergeant sits next to you, you move to reassure him once more.

“All rise!” The order is barked loudly and with a strong presumption that everyone will listen. You hear it every time judge enters the courtroom back in the district court, but the speed of all people around standing up at attention baffles you – but you are smart enough to follow their suit in the split of second.

The worst thing you can do is annoy the sitting judge.

The judge enters quickly, walking in a businesslike manner, but nobody dares to move, until she sits down and orders to sit.

You start to slide down to sit on your chair, feeling adrenaline in your veins, when judge’s stare stops you in your tracks. You straighten again, and it turns out you correctly guessed judge’s next order.

“Not you.” You shift on your heels, not wanting to look fidgety, but not being able to contain yourself. That was rude.

“Yes, Your Honor?”

“Are you familiar with Uniform Code of Military Justice?”

“Yes, Your Honor. And Lieutenant Shin will help me, if I ever find myself at loss.” You answer with a polite smile – just how you’ve learned to do.

Judge’s eye twitches, and you realize that you’ve made mistake. You don’t know what kind of mistake, but you’ve somehow annoyed the judge.

“Very well. Sit down.” She orders you coldly, and you obediently sit down, sending a surprised look to your co-counsel. He checks whether judge is looking and bends down to talk to you over your client.

“It’s better not to say more than you have to. It’s best to just answer yes or no.”

Oh, dear lord.

There are only 7 souls in the jury. Uniform Code of Military Justice says that there should be between 5 to 12 on the jury bench, unless the punishment for the committed crime is death – then there must be 12 in the jury.

Knowing that is one thing, but facing jury smaller than what you usually see, will be weird. But you are not going to lose your ground because of that.

Man is seated, you are standing in front of him, and even if the stage is smaller, you are still the best performer out there.

“And what do you mean by that, corporal?” You ask in your best courtroom voice, it’s clear and trust inducing, and soothing.

“My sister was a victim of domestic violence.” He answers you with a hint of annoyance in his voice. You can see in man’s eyes that he knows what you are going to say next, but he can’t stop you.

“Which means you cannot be objective faced with the case we have at hand.” You say slowly, wanting everyone around to understand your line of thought. That’s how you prepare your stage to say the next line. “Your Honor, I move to exclude juror number 7 from the proceedings, on the grounds that he may not be unbiased.”

Nobody moves, but judge eyes you carefully before turning to the jury member.

“Corporal, if I order you to be unbiased, will you be?” She asks, and you nearly sputter.

“Yes, ma’am!” He answers immediately, and you feel like you’ve been thrown into some kinky nightmare.

“Juror is seated. Pretrial motions in my office.” Gavel announces the break in the proceedings. You turn around to send astonished glance at Lieutenant Shin and he shrugs apologetically.

You are surprised, but nonetheless, you walk to your table to gather documents.

You lost this battle, but you are going to win the war.

Judge’s office looks exactly like the conference room your client was held in. So like if it was taken straight from military movie. Lieutenant Gong is standing at attendance next to you, looking taller and somehow bigger than you’ve remembered him.

You are standing straight, but you are not in the military and you gather that they could take offence if you tried to copy their ways. You are an outsider.

Judge is reading documents in the total silence, and you know better. You know better, but it’s not how it’s done in district court and you just slip, when you see her looking at the photos taken at the crime scene. There is your client with his clothes stained with his wife’s blood, among others.

“Photos are clearly prejudicial, Your Honor. “ Those are exact same words you said to Judge Ryo back in the district court. Those are the words that thrown this evidence out of the window.

“Denied.”

“Excuse me, what?” You sputter surprised. Judge’s eyes squint and she focuses on you. You can feel Lieutenant Gong inhaling deeply, but you don’t hear him exhale.

“Did the police take the photos?”

“Yes, but…”

“Is that your client on those photos?”

“Yes, Your Honor, but…”

“Then they come in. Jurors can differentiate between prejudicial and probative photos.”

You are once again lost for words.

“What’s more?” Judge asks, and this time Lieutenant Gong jumps to answer. You know that it’s not going to be good.

“Staff sergeant made a statement during the time of his first arrest, ma’am.” He says, and you feel yourself cooling down.

“Yes, but he was highly intoxicated at the time, law says that one cannot be held responsible for the words spoken at that time.”

“Not military law.”

“Excuse me, Your Honor?” You can feel lieutenant shifting next to you.

“This rule doesn’t apply in the military law, the statement is in.”

You can feel yourself losing ground – the things you did last time doesn’t work here, and you know that you are not ready for trial – you need a new strategy.

“In that case, I have to ask for the continuance, Your Honor.” You say, gathering your thoughts, to motivate your query.

“Denied. I have 7 active duty soldiers on that bench, I won’t allow you to waste their time any longer than it’s needed.” She says sternly, and shifts in her chair. She checks the hours and then continues. “I will allow a quick break for the meal, and we will resume our proceedings in… One hour, at eighteen hundred sharp.”

Six o’clock. She wants to start proceedings at six o’clock.

You are not sure how you leave the judge chamber, but you wake up from your stupor only, when you hear someone coughing next to you.

It’s Lieutenant Gong.

Of course it’s Lieutenant Gong.

“Yes?”

“Ma’am, would you like me to show you the way to the canteen?” He asks. “Lieutenant Shin is probably already there.”

Canteen. Does he really expect you to eat at the canteen?

“Thank you, lieutenant, that won’t be necessary.”

“And did the defendant make a statement at that time?” Lieutenant Gong’s voice reverberates nicely in the room, but you have to say that he is a little bit overbearing in this courtroom. A notch too high, a notch too broad in his shoulders, a notch too… Everything.

The testimony should be interesting, since you didn’t get to hear it during the first trial, since you managed to cross it out, but then again, it’s not easy to focus when it’s dark outside, and it’s after normal court hours.

“Yes, he did.”

Oh, good, a proper answer. You try not to yawn, but it’s hard not to, really.

“Detective, please read the highlighted part of that statement.” That might be a highlight of this testimony – not the words you are about to hear, but lieutenant walking to the witness to hand him a piece of paper. Until this moment he was standing at attendance at his seat, and that was quite boring.

But nothing about him moving in his uniform is boring.

“Detective: “she was cheating on you?” “She was sleeping with somebody, I know she was.” Detecite: “did you kill her?” “I– I don’t know.” “

Staff Sergeant jerks slightly next to you, and you put an arm on his shoulder to soothe him. It’s mechanic, but it seems to do the trick.

“Thank you.” Says lieutenant and you focus back on him. “One more thing. In the course of your investigation that night, did you search the suspect’s car?”

That alarms you, and immediately you jump to your feet.

“Objection, Your Honor.” You don’t even get to explain on what grounds, judge is speaking.

“Counsel approach.”

You glance quickly at Lieutenant Shin, but he offers no reassurance, so you approach the judge, once again standing side by side with much bigger Lieutenant Gong.

“Your Honor, “you start, putting all your strength to sound reasonable,” the police had no warrant to search the car.”

“They asked the defendant if they could search his property.” Counters Lieutenant immediately. You once heard prosecutor state the same exact thing. “He said yes. Is his car not his property?”

“It was parked two blocks away, Your Honor. It’s the reasonable man doctrine. Judge, he assumed they meant his home.” You believe in your words, civil judge believed in your words. So why you suspect that military one will not see the problem this way?

“Strictly construed, his car is his property.” You don’t even blink. “Overruled.”

You hold yourself straight as you go back to your seat, and lieutenant resumes his questioning. You don’t have to look at your client to feel his fear.

“Answer the question, detective.”

“We did search his car, and we found a backpack containing the defendant’s passport, a wig, and an envelope containing 2 million won in cash.”

Ei incumbit probatio non qui dicit, atqui negat.

The burden of proof is not on the one who declares, but on one who denies.

“What did he have that?”

“Excuse me?” You are back in the conference room, looking through the files trying to find something to help you win this case.

“Why did he have the backpack with all this stuff ready if he wasn’t going to fly after the crime?” Lieutenant Shin asks, while sitting down.

“Oh, that… His unit was getting deployed, so he was preparing to go AWOL.” You say shrugging. You discussed that during the first trial, and you thought nothing more than that. The silence that follows surprises you, because you thought that lieutenant would say something.

When you look up at him, he looks cold, disgusted, angry even. He locks his eyes with you, and says slowly.

“Whatever you decide to do, you can never tell that to military jury.” He throws a folder file on the table.” Look at that. I thought that might help.”

And after those words he just leaves the room.

Right. No one would look friendly at man that was getting ready to become deserter.

You reach for the folder. You realize that this is a copy of crime scene investigation done by the army. As you scan through it you notice one discrepancy. It states that they ran the prints from the house against military records, but they came back with only one match, your client – but you remember him saying that people from his unit visited his home on more than one occasion.

There is one person that could help you see through it, and he just left the room in rightful spite of anger.

“By rule, Criminal Investigation Command has to turn over every piece of evidence that’s relevant.”

It’s recited with such precision, one might thing that speaker is reading from the bylaws. Lieutenant Gong looks pained to say that, but you were quite sure that he won’t be the one to lie to your face.

You’ve been practicing law long enough to catch the loophole in his words. Every relevant piece of evidence.

“And what is being done with the evidence deemed not relevant?” You ask with a polite smile, and Lieutenant Gong looks like you’ve been pulling his nails and not asking questions.

Audentes fortuna iuvat.

Fortune favors the bold – and is it not bold to ask your opponent for the advice?

“I am entitled to see those files!” Once again you are faced with a wall that you can’t jump over. Why is everything so hard in the military?

“Yes, ma’am, but I cannot release that file to you without orders from Major Song.” Military officer on the other side of the windows seems to be having fun denying you the files.

“So where is Major Song?” You ask, trying and not succeeding to keep the sarcasm out of your voice.

“He is gone for the day. He will be back Monday, oh-eight hundred.”

That whole thing is getting ridiculous.

“But we are due back in court tomorrow, I can’t wait till Monday!” You argue, knowing that it won’t be enough. It’s never enough with people like this one.

“Ma’am, unless the major authorizes this, I cannot release the files.” You swear you can see a beginning of the smile on man’s face, and you can feel fury awakening in your gut.

“Is there a problem, corporal?” There is a sudden voice next to you, and you turn around to be faced with formal military uniform, with Gong Ji Cheol on the tag. And the tag on his chest is exactly at your eyes’ level.

“No, sir, Lieutenant Gong.” Answers corporal jumping to salute. Lieutenant doesn’t spare a glance at you.

“At ease then, and get the files.”

“Yes, sir!” Suddenly corporal is going out of his way to get the files to his superior as quickly as possible.

You don’t look after him, you focus on the opposing counsel. He is still looking straight ahead, but he probably feels you staring, because he flinches, and still not looking at you, he says with a shrug:

“Auctorias, non veritas, facit legem.” Authority, not truth, makes law. Never more true than in the army.

You smile, but corporal is back with the files before you can say something.

“Sorry, Lieutenant Gong.” He says placing the box on the counter. “Congratulations on your commendation.”

You somehow know that lieutenant is uncomfortable with that statement, and you realize that he doesn’t think that he deserves his commendation.

“Are you going back, sir?”

“No, I’ve been redeployed stateside.” He says stiffly, taking the box, clearly wanting to escape.

“I’ve heard it was pretty hairy, back there.” Corporal continues, and you know that this is not a plain gossip, he is truly awed with his senior officer. And you can tell that lieutenant is not happy with that. He grunts.

“As you were, Corporal.”

After that he walks away, and you follow him, your heels clicking hurriedly. He doesn’t say a single word as he leads you back to your conference room, and you don’t dare to speak up either, but there are milliard questions in your mind.

You finally reach the room, and you open doors for him, and he walks in, instinctively checking the surroundings, his broad shoulders seemingly filling the room. He puts the box on the table, and turns around to nod to you. After that he steers himself to the doors.

“Why are you doing that?” It’s the question that escaped you.

He stops, and hesitates before saying:

“Ubi dubium ibi libertas.” Where is a doubt, there is a freedom.

He leaves you alone after that, having probably said more than he intended to.

But you understood.

There were three, not one, pairs of finger prints, and you found matches for all of them in the military database. One of them was killed, the other two were deployed.

It wasn’t good, but it was something. You knew that you could teleconference the deployed soldiers, but you knew as well that the judge would deny your request unless you brought evidence.

But the best part was: among the discovery you got from the prosecution there where documents prepared by Lieutenant Gong, documents that had his writing on it, and on the witness list there was a cross next to the initials, you identified as initials of late soldier’s wife.

Which meant that Lieutenant has already interviewed her, and he knew that it would hurt his case. And that was probably the root of his doubt.

So it’s the only thing you have, the only chance to grab.

So you will hold on for your dear life.

“Ms. Lim, did the victim ever confide in you that she was sleeping with someone other than her husband?” You ask, knowing that she will deny it.

You are back in the courtroom, facing wife of the late soldier. Your investigator already confirmed your beliefs, that you were standing in front of the one person that could break or make your case.

As you expected, woman does deny.

“No, she did not.” She doesn’t flinch, she doesn’t look hesitant, she doesn’t even look smug. If you didn’t know better, you could have been fooled.

You smile pleasantly.

“Nothing further.” No one says anything, but you can feel the tension in the room. And you are so happy that you are the one that will drop a bomb here. “Your Honor, the Defense calls Lieutenant Gong Jicheol.”

There is consternation, and you can see a hint of surprise in judge’s eyes, but you can also hear the scratch of the chair on the panels, and woman’s voice. Lieutenant’s co-counsel.

“Objection, Your Honor. Lieutenant is not on the defense witness list.”

It’s so nice that finally, you know you will win the battle.

“Rule 6.0.7 of the Rules for Court-Martial, Your Honor.” You say, and judge focuses on you, her eyebrows slightly raised. “He doesn’t have to be, if I’m calling him as an impeachment witness.”

Judge smiles. She really smiles, as if she couldn’t help herself, and slowly, oh so slowly, nods and says:

“Overruled.” Is your imagination, or you really hear the satisfaction in her voice?

Lieutenant stands up, and you barely stop yourself from showing thumbs-up to your own co-counsel. Your impeachment witness is being sworn in, but the whole time he looks at you with a poker face.

Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.

I will either find a way, or I will make one.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” Prompts bailiff.

“I do.”

You don’t need more than that.

“Lieutenant Gong, you are prosecuting Staff Sergeant Kwon for the murder of his wife in the military court, is that correct?” You ask to set the tune.

“Yes, I am, as everybody around is fully aware.” He says, sounding a little hostile, but you can’t feel it. The hostility. More: you don’t really believe it’s really there.

“Lieutenant, did you personally interview Ms. Lim, just prior to this trial commencing?”

“I did.” There is something in his voice. Something rumbling, something deep, something you cannot really place, but it raises the little hairs on your arms.

“And did she convey to you her suspicions that the victim had been sleeping with someone other than her husband?” You ask focusing on your witness, rest of the room disappearing from your tunneled vision.

“Ms. Lim told me that she believed, the victim had been sleeping with the defendant’s commanding officer.” You can hear a slight murmur raising in the room, so you jump to follow up question.

“And that would be Captain Hyun?”

“That’s right.” Lieutenant is looking at you with such ferocity in his stare, that you find it impossible to keep the eye contact. Thankfully Captain Seo have an objection.

“Your Honor, I have to object here on grounds of relevance.” She sounds so proud and self-assured. You are a tiny bit thankful, because you can safely turn to the judge to fight the objection, but Her Honor is quicker.

“Overruled.” Having this woman overrule prosecution is one of the sweetest moments in your career. “Please continue.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.” You say, once again turning to lieutenant, and you see him exhaling.” And did she believe there were reasons for this sexual activity?”

Lieutenant Gong is silent for the moment, but when he speaks he is slow and sure, his eyes never leaving your face.

“Captain Hyun had told her he could keep the defendant from being deployed, in exchange for sex.”

You can see the seven members of jury moving uncomfortable in their seats. You can understand them, and their movement means that you are closer to wining than you ever have in this courtroom.

It nearly pains you to turn to the judge, and you can see her shifting in her seat as well. Good.

“Your Honor, based on this testimony, we ask that we be allowed to question Captain Hyun overseas via teleconference.”

“Objection.” Captain Seo’s reaction is immediate, but judge is already shaking her head.

“Overruled.”

”Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.” It’s a barest whisper, but you hear the words leave Lieutenant Gong’s mouth. You are probably the only one that hears that, being the one standing the closest.

I will either find a way, or I will make one.

You find yourselfthinking about those words when you return to your table – you know what they mean for you, but what is lieutenant’s goal? What game is he playing?

You smile, when staff sergeant pats your arm.

You are staring on the screen where you can see Captain Hyun’s face. It’s your first time questioning the witness via teleconference, half a world away, but that trial has seen a lot of firsts.

“So you were at the bar the night in question with Staff Sergeant Kwon?” You ask, your thumb caressing your other palm.

“Yes, ma’am. I left at twenty-three hundred hours, and drove Corporal Kim and Private Kim back to the base. “

“And then, where did you go, Captain?”

“I went home.” Lie, lie, lie.

“So you didn’t make a stop at the home of the defendant?” It sounds like you are just checking, but you know you are right. He is lying.

“No, I didn’t.” He sounds playful, like a child that did something wrong, but wasn’t caught.

“Because the victim threatened you, didn’t she, Captain? She was going to tell her husband, that you’d extorted sexual favor from her.”

“No.”

“You told her that you could keep her husband from being deployed.” Attack by ambush is your favorite type of attack. It’s only easier when they try to scramble.

“No.” He repeats, trying to put emphasis on this monosyllable. “I don’t have that authority.”

“But she didn’t know that, did she?” It’s a rhetorical question, you don’t allow him to answer.” And when you didn’t make good on your promise, she threatened you, and you went to her home.”

“I…” He tries to say something, but he clearly can’t – and you start to feel the rush of victory. But you know you have to press harder. You have to break him.

“You went to her home, and stabbed her thirty-eight times.” You can see his eyes moving, as if he was looking for a way out. But he says nothing.

Judge speaks up.

“Captain Hyun, this is Colonel Baek Areum.” She is wary, and you believe that she knows who is the guilty party. Her next words only confirm that. “Do you require counsel, Captain?”

“Counsel?” He repeats, stunned. Then something changes and he scoffs. “I want…”

But you don’t hear what he wants, because he disappears from the screen.

“Captain Hyun?” Calls judge furrowing her eyebrows, and you can hear the murmur of the jury behind you. This is not something innocent does. “Captain?”

Qui tacet consentire videtur.

The one who is silent, is seen as consenting.

There is a sound of a gavel, the one you wanted to hear so badly three days ago. Three days and it’s already after the trial.

Military justice is swift.

Let’s hope it’s just.

The jury member that you wanted to exclude, but judge overruled you stands up and clears his throat.

“In the matter of Republic of Korea versus Staff Sergeant Kwon-Ji-Tak on the charge of murder under Section 1.18, of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, we the panel find the defendant…” It’s always like that. Up till this point he was reading from a piece of paper, but now, just a moment before uttering words all the room was waiting for, he decided to look up, and face the judge. ”Not guilty.”

Pride, relief, astonishment, it all hits you at once, but as a contrast to your usual after-verdict surroundings, courtroom is quiet. Your client exhales, and he turns around to hug you, and to thank you, and after that he walks to his father, waiting for him. You shake hands with Lieutenant Shin, and as you turn to your things you see judge Baek nodding to you, before standing up.

One more time falls the order: “all rise”, and once again you are surprised to see all of the personnel jump to their feet.

You won.

Against everything, you won.

Maybe that’s why before you get yourself together and you gather your stuff the court is empty. You allow yourself one more appreciative look around the space, trying to commit to memory where you won one of your hardest cases. It may be one of your hardest victories to the date, but because of that success tasted way sweeter.

You take your Anzom Briefcase, you throw your perfectly styled hair over your shoulder, spreading Hugo Boss’s scent around, and you turn on your heel, feeling satisfied.

You won.

That is your job.

Vincit qui patitur.

Who endures, wins.

”Veni, vidi, vici.” Those are words that greet you outside courtroom. It’s Lieutenant Gong, of course it’s Lieutenant Gong. You smile, and stop in front of him.

“I came, I saw, I conquered?” You ask, shaking your head. “That might be the most overused phrase in Latin.”

“Might be, but doesn’t make it less right.” You nod, as if to agree.

“Ubi concordia, ibi victoria.” You say instead, because you want to, because you feel it’s right.

“Where is harmony, there is a victory.” He smiles, and that is probably first smile you see on his face. “That’s why I was waiting for you, ma’am. I wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me? I should be thanking you! You basically dragged me along the way to victory.” He nods acknowledging that, and it hurts your ego.

“But you did it beautifully. To admit the truth, I never wanted to prosecute this. And then I questioned Ms. Go, and it became obvious to me that we are prosecuting wrong officer. But I had my orders… And I had to make right by them.”

“Silent enim leges inter arma.” Laws are silent in the midst of arms.

He scoffs.

“I start to think that quoting Latin is the only thing one learns in Law.”

“It’s not the only thing, but it’s the funniest one.” You say as you start walking down the corridor. Lieutenant falls in step with you with practiced ease. You are surprised that now, after the trial you find yourself enjoying his company.

Wrong.

You were enjoying his company even before that. If your feelings from the moment you put him on the stand are something to go by.

“Could I invite you to dinner?” He asks, after a moment, and you stifle your smile – seems like the feeling is mutual.

“As long as it’s not canteen.” He laughs.

“Uxor formosa et vinum sunt dulcia venena.”

Beautiful women and wine are sweet venom.

You don’t really remember the dinner. It wasn’t important. Food was good, it wasn’t canteen, atmosphere was good, company even better, Latin remarks mixing with normal speech. But through the meal you could feel the anticipation pooling in your gut, and those feelings from the courtroom, the addicting rumble of his voice, it was all back, knowing that soon enough they will be allowed to resurface.

Hotel room is dark, illuminated only with neons outside, neither of you able to search for the switch. It doesn’t matter.

His lips attach itself to yours and refuse to leave, nor do you want them to. Your heels give you a little more height, but it’s definitely not enough. You are somehow surprised by how hard his body feels – you know he is a lieutenant, but you saw him just as a prosecutor in an foreign uniform – you didn’t think that the uniform would hide steel muscles.

Your back hits the wall, the counter, the wardrobe before it lands on the bed. You are going to feel it later, and you find yourself annoyed that you allowed him to lead you, during this passionate kiss, but your lips are tingling, and he is on top of you, and there are more important things to focus on.

His hurried hand drag your blouse out of your skirt, his calloused fingers caress your naked skin, rough touch rising hair, he seems to be possessing just enough power to break you. And you love the barest notion of that.

You reach for his jacket, knuckles bumping uncomfortably into medal ribbons on his chest, but you preserve and work it open, as his mouth launch on your neck. At his first try to mark you, you lodge your knee into his side.

“I have work tomorrow!” He growls something at that, but he doesn’t try again. You push his jacket off his shoulders, and he sits up, knees on the side of the bed, as he opens his shirt. You kick off your heels and slide up the bed, taking off the blouse and your skirt, but your hands are swapped away, when you try to take off your pantyhose. You are lost for a second, but then you realize that he wants to take it off himself.

Whatever sails his boat.

He has already taken off upper garments, and he is in the process of taking off his shoes, but he keeps eyeing you hungrily, elongating the process.

You whine. It’s a penetrating sound, protesting, urging for justice. That finally makes him speed up, but you can see the smile on his lips, and his head shaking in disbelief – you don’t care. You got what you wanted.

You always get what you want.

He is naked before you and you appreciate his body. Because it’s made to be appreciated if not worshipped. With body this sculpted, his fingers are surprisingly nimble, he opens your bra in no time. He also rolls down your pantyhose, his lips on yours. He takes off your underwear, with his mouth just above your breast. He bites down, and he sucks, and he does everything he couldn’t with your neck.

And you have no problem with that, it’s not like you will be flashing your torso at work. You appreciate the work put into that, your hands scraping the back of his neck, hair too short to comfortably grab onto.

His teeth scrape your stomach as he puts on the condom, and added feelings of his body on top of you, his teeth on your skin and knowledge that in a moment you will be welcoming him inside is making you shiver.

You mewl.

He travels up your body, face never farther than millimeters from your skin, actually he noses his way up, the tip of his nose cooling the fibers on its way. And in this one smooth motion he comes up, hitting his surprisingly narrow hips between your legs, driving into you.

You keen.

It’s been longer since you care to admit, your line of work not allowing stable relationship and not leaving you enough time to go out and find yourself company for the night.

And fucking clients is unethical.

But fucking opposing counsel, and as beautifully sculpted as this one? That was one of hell award for a job well done.

Your fingers slipped on his back, and you didn’t refrain from using your fingernails on your search for purchase. His body was impossibly close, one of his elbows resting just above your shoulder. He was big. He was just big, your nose fitting somewhere under his chin.

He still moves, but he seems to be collapsing into himself, his mouth founding yours and you mewl again, hips trying to come off the mattress, blocked by his body.

You can feel the perspiration pooling on your abdomen, you can feel yourself loosing breath, you can feel his eyes on your face, you can feel his hand creeping into your hair, your perfectly styled her, but who cares.

You dig your fingers into his ass, and his hips stutter, it’s good.

It’s just good. Your head trashes on the bed, and one of his hands fit between your back and bed, raising you up, changing the angle, maybe making it easier for him. You don’t know, but you love it. He is forceful but at the same time so focused. He seems quite mechanic, as if he knew exactly what to do and when, the greatest tactician.

You can feel the drop of sweat trail down your face, it’s hot, but it’s glorious, and your chest heaves fighting for every breath. But there is still one thing you want to do, before he brings you over. And you know he will. In the end, he is a justice officer. Those don’t cease until they reach the goal.

But he seems to be paying no mind to what is happening in your mind, he reaches out for the pillow and stuffs it under your sacrum – it may have stilled his thrusts for the second, but he effectively freed one of his hands. And that hand find its way to your clitoris.

“Age quod agis!” Do what you do.

You can’t believe that it’s Latin that leaves your mouth, but it is what it is.

He laughs, his face hiding in the hollow of your neck, and his calloused thumb presses on your clitoris. Your legs spasm, and you close them on his sides, fighting the pleasure.

“Brevis oratio penetrat coelos.” He murmurs into your skin, and you wish his teeth would roll your skin between them – but he won’t. You forbade him.

It takes you a moment, before you understand – short prayers reach heaven. True, and powerful, but you feel like laughing. Even though your impeding orgasm clouds your mind.

You exhale slowly, trying to calm yourself, which is truly futile effort, between his thrusts and his hands, but you get to say one more thing.

“Acta… Non… Verba…”

He snickers into your skin, but says nothing, his knees shifting on the bed, his hands dragging you higher onto his thighs. After that he just fucks you. Thoroughly. Earnestly. Meticulously. But there is a bit of madness to his moves, a hint of a beast behind the shadows.

And you love it.

You love every second of it, you love how you come apart, you love how he forces thoughts out of your brain, how he takes you down to the most primitive level, freeing you from your usual strictly professional, deeply logical, restricted self.

He fucks the confines out of your bloodstream, and for a brief moment you can feel absolutely liberated. This clear minded state comes with a full body spasm, and a soundless moan.

It ends with heavy body landing on top of you, no longer bothered with the thought of not crushing you.

You give him a moment. He did earn it – but you were growing uncomfortable. It was hard to breath, and your body was desperately asking for oxygen.

And you could feel that he was conscious. He was waiting for something.

“Do you mind?” You finally ask, feeling sticky and growing grumpy.

“Actions, not words.” He says, and you feel lost. But then you remember that is the last thing you said to him during sex. It’s hard to think in this state, your legs tingling, and useless. It’s also not like you can find purchase like that.

“Dum vivimus, vivamus!” You call, as a last resort. He laughs, but rolls over. You inhale abruptly, your chest heaving, and you look at him, breathing just as heavy. You sneer and your head rolls back and you look at the ceiling.

Dum vivimus, vivamus!

While we live, let us live.

#gong yoo scenario #gong yoo imagine #gong yoo #kdrama scenarios #kdrama imagines

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