#agatha christie my beloved

[furbyqueen69]

Rakastan kuinka aina ku mummi kertoo et telkkarista tulee agatha christie niissä on homoja

[poirott]

Agatha Christie's Poirot costumes [8/?] ↳ Miss Felicity Lemon's green outfit in 3x02 "How Does Your Garden Grow"

"There have been a lot of comments about the wonderful frocks I got to wear. We had a lot of very good costume supervisors and costume designers. Barbara Kronig was one of the original ones. She worked with the late Sheila Buckland who had an incredible store of vintage frocks, most of which I wore in the series. Sheila was very pleased with me because when the frocks were returned she always used to say she couldn't tell it had been worn. Because I really take care of costume, I'm very particular about that. Sheila was meticulous to a degree, she really was, and I've got the most wonderful shoes to wear as well. The production values were extremely high [on the series]." -- Pauline Moran on the costumes she wore as Miss Lemon, Fantom interview, May 2020

[rain-shoshana]

Arthur Hastings is your man for any rough stuff that arises!

[pflanzidiezimmerpflanze]

+ bonus:

[senoritacraftyyy]

Hastings saving the day

(Great Detectives Poirot and Marple chapter 2)

THE BOY u.u

I simp him

[spindlesaurus-rex]

Eothiriel murder mystery au mark 2

Because @konartiste asked!!

After the Funeral

It was, in the end, a beautiful day. The sun was strong for September and the air was warm. The beech trees in the garden of the graveyard of Meduseld’s parsonage gently waved and light fell through them, dappled and surprised, onto the neatly trimmed verges that were as they had ever been. The blackbirds were singing, ready for the autumn glut in the hedges and ditches, bright and clear in the morning air. It was an English morning, pure and true. And Uncle Theo was still fucking dead. 

Eomer Eadig, Earl of Meduseld, and just plain Eddie to his friends was currently attempting, in his own way, to square up to that fact. He stood by the fresh earth of the grave, alone, and tried to find some sort of meaning in it all. He did not succeed. All he saw, instead, was the earth that covered his uncle’s body and the neighbouring plot that held his cousin and no rhyme or reason for why he still stood there at all. 

He wondered just how much Wynnie would resent him if he took the bike and left. Just drove out of the grounds and down, away from all the sober suited people who must still be milling about the chapel grounds or starting up the vast lawn and through the yew walk to the house. His house. Damnit, he didn’t want the thing. Besides, that manicured thing that George the gardener called a lawn wasn’t the way to come upon the house anyway. To see it properly you needed to go via the meadows instead, wild grass in the wind, tramp down the path that wound from the hill and trip down those final steep steps until you came upon the roof below you, blinding in the sun. The wildflowers would be out, purple mallow bright against the green and yellow of the long grasses. 

How hideous it was to love something so fiercely, he thought, and be so afraid of loving it at the same time. From behind him came a little cough. 

“They’re starting to head up, old chap. Wyn’s in the lead, so they’ll be alright for a while, but I promised I would come and tell you.” 

Imrahil, master of the neighbouring Amroth Hall, stood tall and unbent. His hair was beginning to grey, silvering his temples and his clipped sharp beard. It lent him an oddly roguish air, as if one could ever forget that he had spent his youth running about in rigging. Eomer loved him fiercely, and had since childhood, having spent the best and earliest days of it running around Imrahil’s home and his own. Neighbouring was a stupid word for it, it took the better part of three hours to ride from one to the other and by the time you had the vistas changed from rolling ranging hills to the sharper cliffs of the sea, but neighbours they were. Imrahil had been staying at Meduseld for the week, helping everywhere. The idea of him leaving this afternoon, of all of those people who only a moment ago he had resented leaving him alone in that great big house without Theo or his Uncle suddenly threatened to bend him in two and he pulled air sharply into his lungs to say something, anything but the words wouldn’t come and he staggered slightly. Imrahil put out an arm. Steadied him. The sun fell brightly still through the trees and, for just a moment, Eomer wept. 

The breeze stirred the leaves above them. Eomer passed a hand over his eyes. Imrahil squeezed his shoulder and he straightened, turned to face his dear friend. “You know I’ve told Wyn to go?” he asked softly, gesturing at the path ahead of them.  

“She’s worried about leaving you.” Imrahil matched his stride, knocking his shoulder against Eomer’s as they left the churchyard and headed into the sunshine. “And I can’t say that I blame her. I don’t like the thought of you rattling around in Meduseld just now on your own. You know you’re welcome with us, don’t you? For as long as you like? Alfie would love it above all, you’re my grandson’s favourite as we all know, and -” He broke off. Eomer was smiling at him, softly, but shaking his head nonetheless. For a while, neither of them spoke. The birds sung still in the hedges about them and the yew walk came into view. Finally, Eomer cleared his throat. 

“I can’t. He trusted me to do this. I have to begin it.” 

Imrahil sighed beside him. “We’ll stay, if you like, as long as you want. Or simply ride over. You can or we will. Hell, I doubt you’ll be able to stop Lola -”

“Lothiriel? Your Lothiriel? Little Lola? I thought she was still in Paris?” Eomer did not try to hide his surprise. He hadn’t seen Imrahil’s youngest child, his only daughter, for some time. She had been in some theatrical or something her brothers had dreamed up, a last hurrah before she went off to school. He remembered her collar, starched and wide and white against the navy of her dress, and how she blushed when they all applauded, pleased with herself. She had blushed, too, when he had kissed her hand in a show of appreciation meant more to make her brothers laugh than to please her. Yet he had been fond of her. She and Wyn, when they could, would sneak away from any governess and join him and the brothers, Amrothos always so brash and Erchirion always so cunning and Elphir trying to keep them all from anything too dreadful, and all of them roving the hills with grass-seed in their boots and plans packed in their bags alongside the ginger beer. Lola and Wyn had never turned from a thing, giddy alongside them. He hadn’t thought to age her in his mind and, for an absurd moment, he imagined her riding over on the pony she had had then, collar flapping. 

Imrahil laughed. “I wouldn’t recommend calling her Little Lola to her face, old thing. I think she’d likely take a parisian heel to your tenderest toe! She tried to make it back for today, of course, but her train was delayed in London. She’ll be here soon, I shouldn’t wonder. Telephoned from the hotel this morning to say she’d buy a car if she had to. She was very fond of your Uncle and - well, she wanted to be here. So she’ll be down and around and about in the shire. I’ll need you to keep her out of trouble, I shouldn’t wonder” 

They had almost made it within sight of the party. Already Eomer could hear the voices, the bubble of polite chatter. Within moments he would be back amidst the thick of other people’s grief and there would be right things to be said and done and thought. He paused, and Imrahil, catching his movement, paused too. 

“She isn’t going back?” He asked. “To Paris? To school?” 

Imrahil laughed again. “School?” he fixed Eomer with a questioning look “She’s twenty two, Eomer. She’s been done with school for some time. She took a degree and has been keeping my sister company. But now Irviniel is coming back and Lola claims Paris has delighted her long enough. Even if it hadn’t been for this, she would have come back over with Ivy in a month.” 

“I can’t think of her as twenty-two, I don’t think” Eomer confessed softly and Imhrail snorted as they resumed their steps. 

“Imagine being her damn father,” he muttered and together they rounded the corner and came upon the rest of the funeral. 

[skyriderwednesday]

There's the way ACD handles his injured veteran narrator, which is specifying Watson's injury in the first book, completely changing it in the second book, and then getting increasingly vague in all subsequent mentions.

And then there's the way Agatha Christie does it, which is to not specify what got Hastings invalided out of service at all, just vaguely referencing it to handwave why a young man is wandering about in 19teens Essex rather than off doing WW1 things.

These approaches are equally as valid.

[grusinskayas]

watching the poirot tv series episode of death on the nile today

[shanti-ashant-hai]

wanna read textbooks the way 13 year old me read agatha christie

[philtstone]

Sam & Bucky, “grabbing onto their arm”

soooo ... i watched "why didnt they ask evans?" remembered that i loved agatha christie novels and immediately landed here. obviously wave the historical accuracy away bc i did just enough research for Flavour but not much for anything else. premise: everything remains the same as canon except bucky didnt fall off the train & a whole lot of characters were born much earlier in the 1900s. this isn't technically finished yet but it's enough to justify answering the prompt; i want to try to get the latter half of this "part" done & perhaps if the fates align even write a part 2 to actually complete the story but for now have this!! if you'd like to see more pls let me know <3 thanks for the prompt zainab love u

Sam figures this is just typical. So he’d decided to go to New York – get that loan. Hell, they need that loan. Boy, don’t do it, Sarah had said, but Sam figured it was his right just as anyone else’s, and Stark talked all that talk about his new GI grant. They won’t have you, Sarah said, and like an idiot Sam went anyway. He went, and he sat himself down in that nice fancy apartment building lobby across the room from the saddest lookin’ white fella he’d seen in a while, which was saying a hell of a lot. He got up, walked over, he spoke to the nice receptionist, he wrote his name down.

Of course, he was right – they would’ve taken him. Had the paperwork done up and everything. Stark may have been a bit crazy, hell if Sam knew, but he had money to throw at things. 

Only then, the very next day, Howard Stark died. 

HEADLINE EXCLUSIVE: HOWARD STARK FOUND DEAD IN ALLEY BEHIND MANHATTAN APARTMENT

The New York Times, Monday, October 12th, 1947

Nation mourns death of eccentric millionaire inventor and war hero Howard Stark, found dead of a gunshot wound this morning in the alleyway behind his Manhattan home. With him, also dead, was socialite fiance Maria Caruso. Police have yet to identify the nature of the death but have not ruled out suicide. However, sources confirm that the firearm found at the scene was not Stark’s, but rather belonged to Stark’s comrade and fellow veteran Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes.  

The thing about Peggy is that she understands him, which is just a bitch and a half sometimes.

“You threw the weapon out.”

She’s repeating this, flatly, but with enough inflection that Bucky comprehends the are you perhaps a massive idiot implied therein. Peg would say it like that too — use perhaps and massive and arch her eyebrows.

Bucky presses his hands harder where they’re clutched at his temples and grimaces. “Look, I wasn’t thinking clearly, alright?”

“James.”

James, full name, not Jim like when she’s being chummy and of course Agent Margaret Carter of His Majesty’s Royal Service never quite got around to following Steve’s lead on the Bucky front. Bucky grimaces harder. Peggy will stare and be sardonic and, God help him suspicious until he explains.

“I dunno what you want me to say, Peg – it was there in the drawer and I couldn’t bear lookin’ at it anymore.” 

Her resultant expression is just a touch too understanding for his taste. 

“How the hell would I know that tossing a Colt into the Hudson in the middle of the night would get Howard killed?” Bucky adds, to move past it.

Minutely as possible Peggy flinches. Balls of steel, he’s always said. The other guys thought the same, but none of them had the guts to say it aloud. Speaking of other guys –

“Dugan’s coming over.”

“Like hell he is,” Bucky says.

Peggy takes an elegant drag of her cigarette. She’s sitting at the dull brown edge of his made-up bed and being careful enough that the ashes don’t spill. What difference that’ll make Bucky’s not sure. His apartment’s the definition of sad. Becca nearly cried last week when she visited, but then instead of crying yelled at him ‘til he relented and got a pillow. 

“Evidently,” says Peggy, still on the topic of Dum-Dum, “he has not considered the double agent angle. His wife made you casserole.”

“Mm,” says Bucky, grim. He walks over to his meager kitchen, pulls a dusty bottle out from the cabinet and unscrews it. “Gonna get him killed one of these days.”

“Given my ongoing conviction that you are not in fact a spy –”

“Jury’s out on you though,” Bucky says, raising the bottle at her.

“-- you do realize that you are a prime suspect in the murder of our close personal friend.” She blows out. “If we can’t rely on our comrades, we’re rather fucked.”

“I am, you mean.”

Her mouth turns mulish and she looks away to the window then back. Maybe she did mean we, lumping the two of them under the tarp of some morbid umbrella. Steve’s dead and gone and sacrificed nobly, isn’t he.

“You didn’t kill Howard and he didn’t damn well kill himself,” says Peggy, steely. “I’d like to know which bastard did.”

Bucky puts his drink down. Sighs. Crosses his arms.

“So?”

“I’ll poke around at SSR –”

“You really do think it’s a spy –”

“Stay here. Word is they don’t want this in the press just yet, which, well. Neither of us were born yesterday.” 

“You callin’ me old, Agent Carter?” he asks, just on the right edge of bratty.

Peggy steamrolls forward, “Don’t do anything untoward, please.”

“You’re the one sitting on the bed of an unmarried man,” Bucky says. He walks over to the window and tugs it open, letting cigarette smoke out and giving him an eye to the dank alley below. It’s spring and the sunlight’s pale and his room’s not too high up; were anyone to jump, they’d barely sprain an ankle. And Howard’s fucking dead. Bucky turns back and flicks a thumb under his chin. “C’mon,” he says, “gimme the rest of your cigarette. I’m the one wanted for murder.”

“Christ,” Peggy mutters, getting to her feet. 

She hands the cigarette over anyway, and Bucky spends the minute it takes her to leave wiping off the lipstick stains. It’s a lost cause, more or less. 

He has to put it out, against the peeling windowsill. 

Sam’s rung the service bell a third time when the receptionist finally appears. 

“Concierge’s assistant,” she corrects in a trill voice. Her curls are pinned tightly and her skirt waist more so. The red of her lipstick clashes garishly with her hair. Her nametag reads Dolores. “Can I help you?”

“Um, yeah,” says Sam, “Ma’am.” He grips his bag. “I'm here to inquire about my loan.”

The lobby he’s in is just as fancy as it was the first time around, with tall ceilings and crystal chandeliers and fine imported rugs on the floors. It was pretty empty last time too, quiet and genteel the way rich white people pretend to be. Only last time Sam was kept company not just by Miss Dollie’s red lipstick but the scowling, oblivious man she kept batting her lashes at; this time the place is empty. Police have roped off the elevator and even the white folks’ plush seating area is out of bounds. Dollie looks pastier than usual.

“Oh,” says Dolores, “oh. From –”

“Yesterday,” Sam says, slow and expectant.

“You’d better go home,” says Dolores.

“They took my name down,” says Sam, a second time. “I wrote it on paper and everything.”

Dolores has busied herself with some stationary thing under the desk and distractedly says, “I just don’t think dead people can give loans. It’s a shame, don’t you think? He was a real dreamboat.”

“Ma’am – Ms. Dolores –” She stops looking wistful about Stark’s erstwhile good looks and refocuses, “Now c’mon. I paid train money for this. My sister’s got two kids – our family’s business is on the line. I’d like to talk to someone.”

“I’d guess you oughta get a lawyer,” Dolores says mournfully. 

“Dollie,” Sam starts, “can I call you Dollie?” She perks up, which is inconvenient, as Sam remembers that he knows better than to flirt with a white woman. “Don’t they have some kind of insurance in place?” he asks. “His family – estate, somethin’? I mean, Howard Stark, a guy like that wouldn’t leave millions lyin’ around.”

Not that Sam knows much about men like Howard Stark. But if the police won’t bother listening to him, he’s just gotta run with his own theories.

“Jeez,” says Dollie, sniffing. “I couldn’t tell you. The whole back door’s swarming with cops. No one’s even gone through the rooms yet.” And then she says, “Oh – oh!” And bursts into tears.

Sam hovers awkwardly on the other side of the reception desk and offers her his ratty handkerchief until she has collected herself enough to wave him off with one hand and stumble away to the bathroom. Her low heels thump unevenly on the carpeted floor as she goes. He straightens the tie of his dress uniform and looks around again. He can hear voices, but far past the desk, closer to the alley door and the mail room. Hell, he’d bet even the cleaning staff have been either sent home or brought in for questioning. 

“Ain’t this just our luck,” Sam mutters. 

There’s no one around. The elevator is right there. Sam takes a deep breath and heads upstairs.

Upstairs is fancier than downstairs in the sense that Sam’s been in lobbies before but has never been in the type of suite that takes up a whole floor. The tall gilded windows look out on nearly all of Manhattan. Someone – he guesses the same police who told him to stop wasting their time, they had better things to be dealing with – has taped off the entrance to each room, but other than that, Dollie was right: it’s more or less untouched. 

Which makes sense, ‘cause there’s a whole lot to touch. Sam can barely see the bedroom (with its big four-poster bed) or the bathroom (with its marble counter) because there is stuff everywhere. There’s a painter’s easel with a feminine aura to it in the corner and paints laid out, slowly drying, and yesterday morning’s newspaper. A large cylindrical contraption moves back and forth beside the desk, over the carpet in one corner, like someone forgot it there; it emits a loud suctioning noise (Sam can see the carpet hole forming) while steaming a smoking jacket to misshapenness at the same time. The coffee machine has three levels, one each for cream, milk, and sugar; the coffee smells burned. These are not the weird things. The weird things are the three stacks of metal drawers emitting a strange humming noise, and the industrial sized ice box, and the half-deconstructed bicycle sitting on top of the desk with what looks like a freakier version of a machine gun strapped to the handlebars. It has wires and hydraulics and everything comin’ out of its ends.

“Just check the desk and leave, Sam,” Sam mutters to himself, pushing down his nerves. You’re the fool who got yourself into this, says Sarah’s voice in his head.

She ain’t wrong. 

The glossy desk is smaller than Sam expected. He checks it; two drawers with locks on them, and the third opens to a couple loose lead pencils rolling around. He supposes an important man like Howard Stark wouldn’t keep his papers sitting just anywhere. Under the desk, maybe?

Nothing. Not even a damn cardboard box. 

He straightens, hums at the locked doors. In front of him a lopsided chalkboard reads CADILLAC IN OUTER SPACE???? ASK JARVIS in giant block letters. 

“Going around wastin’ my time …” Sam mutters, picking his bag up and rubbing behind his neck. “Maybe we do need a lawyer.” 

Then he narrows his eyes. 

There.

Right there.

Someone has picked the lock. 

The first drawer sits just off its latch and the second has scuff marks under where the key goes in. “Well, shit,” he mutters. He gets back down on his knees. There is definitely a splinter, right down the middle of the second lock, like someone wrenched at it when a gentle picking didn’t do the job. “Now why the hell would he have to do that if he’s got a key?”

Sam’s habit of asking himself rhetorical questions is very suddenly put on the spot when, instead of the silence he usually anticipates, he is answered by a faint creak from the foyer beyond the study door. Sam freezes. He doesn’t think his dress uniform is enough to stop him getting arrested if anyone were to find him here now. Then again, with these locks and the general strangeness of the situation, arrest could be the safer option. Scooping up his bag, Sam slowly rises to his feet and pads softly around the desk, just barely missing the steam-cylinder and its jacket (it lets out a sad whistle), and slips a small pocket knife out from the inside of his left sock. He stalls at the doorframe, trying to breathe as quietly as he can. There’s definitely someone on the other side.

Inhaling sharply, he pounces.

“Oomph!”

“Shit!”

On instinct Sam grabs the arm that swings at him. He brings his knee up and his elbow down and there is a moment where they grapple, with strong emphasis on the moment part – very suddenly Sam finds his arm knocked out of the way and himself grabbed by beneath his chin, and slammed into the foyer wall like his cousin Deedee’s flour sack doll, so hard that all the breathe leaves his lungs in one fell swoop. His hat gets knocked off of his head with the force of it and falls to the floor.

Sam blinks. There is a scruffy, pale face in front of him, which features two big blue eyes that are blinking right back, looking equally startled.

They stay frozen like that for the space of two heartbeats. Sam’s fingers tighten where they’re fisted at the guy’s collar, refusing to yield. He’s pretty sure his knife has skidded under the shoe rack. 

He really liked that knife, dammit.

“Who the hell are you?” asks the man suddenly, both loud and Brooklyn about it.

“Funny,” wheezes Sam, “I could ask you the same thing.”

He releases Sam, which is nice of him. Stumbling, he moves a few steps back, and looks quite suddenly more bewildered than before. He’s not much taller than Sam is, with dark floppy hair that hangs over one eyebrow and a frame like a heavyweight boxer. Despite his startling strength – Sam aint exactly the smallest of men – there’s an exhaustion that sits fragile under his eyes and a tense, well-concealed tremble in one arm. There’s something very familiar about his face. His slacks have scuffs at the knees and he’s wearing a lumpy-looking knit sweater that does little to mask what Sam’s dress greens are plainly revealing to him – that whoever he’s just run headlong into, trespassing in a dead guy’s bedroom, is a fellow soldier.

Or was, anyway. No more war to fight and die in. Sam tugs at the hem of his jacket. It’ll be a pain in the ass to steam again, and Sarah will raise hell about it ‘cause he’ll beg to borrow her steamer. They don’t get all that nice starching stuff at the dive motels Sam can afford. 

“No one’s supposed to be up here,” insists the man, still looking baffled. 

Sam straightens and rubs at his jaw, which feels like it just got caught in an industrial press.

“Sorry to disappoint,” says Sam, “but I am. Why are you here?”

“I asked first,” says the man, so unselfconsciously mulish that Sam can only stare.

“I didn’t just slam me into a wall.”

“You came at me with a knife!” protests the guy, which Sam thinks is a little unfair; that knife was kind of useless. He narrows his eyes. He oughta pick his hat up from the floor, but he figures it’d be kind of stupid to let his guard down. They stand there, eye to eye, at impasse. After the weird-looking carpet cleaner has whistled three times the man says,

“You don’t look like a German spy,” muttered, like he’s really thinkin’ about it.

“Seriously?” splutters Sam. He says this so forcefully that the other guy has the nerve to look a little offended. But now, come on – come on, Sam thinks. It’s a fair question. Only Sam’s been having a really difficult forty-eight hours, so he doesn’t appreciate it.

He decides to consider the situation a bit more fairly; how does he know this crumb hasn’t been having a tough time, too? 

It’s here that something big and important feeling clicks in Sam’s head. He’s seen that scowl before – just yesterday, ignoring poor Miss Dollie.

And just this morning, in the papers plastered all over his motel lobby.

“Oh,” says Sam, “you gotta be kidding me.” 

But alas, there’s no kidding to be had. 

“From the paper – they think you killed him, man!”

Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes pales three shades under what little tan he has, but otherwise doesn’t react. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says instead, a divot deepening between his thick eyebrows. “It isn’t safe.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” says Sam. “Some guy just grabbed me by the throat.”

Barnes does not seem to find this amusing. Instead, he looks a funny cross between ornery and miserable, and sets his jaw to considerable mulish effect. Sam hums to himself. Fact of the matter is, Barnes has had plenty of opportunity to kill Sam so far and hasn’t taken advantage of it. If he really was guilty – Sam thinks, briefly considering the warped mind of a cold-blooded killer, a few inches removed from the necessities of soldierhood – wouldn’t he want to get rid of any witnesses or evidence? 

And yet here Sam is, very much not dead.

“Well … you don’t look like a murderer,” he says aloud, slowly, but keeps his arms crossed. Somehow despite his sardonic tone and clear mockery (at least, that’s what Sam hopes is coming across), there is something profoundly relieved about the expression that flickers across Barnes’s face.

Then it is back to its customary scowl.

“You gotta leave,” he repeats firmly, pacing once, back and then forth. Sam watches him carefully; there’s that tremble again, along with a steady, even tone and deliberate eye to the skyline behind them. More than just Barnes’s face is familiar. 

But Sam is still annoyed.

“Through the window?”

“There’s – a stairwell.”

“Through the stairwell definitely crawling with cops?”

“For the love of God –”

“I am just listing my options, here.”

“Just leave, go away, pretend you never saw me,” Barnes says, waving two hands in front of Sam’s face like he’s batting the whole morning away, and looking harassed. “Okay? Jesus, it ain’t that hard.”

“Pretend I never saw you, creepin’ around the apartment of the fella you’re supposed to have killed,” Sam says. “Yeah, no, I’m gonna tell somebody.”

“Seriously?!” It’s Barnes’s turn to sound offensively incredulous.

“Or,” Sam says, “you could tell me what’s goin’ on.”

There’s a long pause. Sam hardly thinks his voice is friendly – if anything, he’s annoyed as hell – but Barnes opens his mouth, two beats, a sudden vulnerability stuck to his chin. Too vulnerable for whatever Sam’s asking. In that split second it sucks the breath outta the room.

Sam doesn’t have any idea what it is that’s just made Barnes’s head whip around until a bullet explodes into the lobby mirror above their heads.

“Fuck!”

Two rough hands shove him back into the study and Sam nearly knocks over the artillery bicycle; he looks up in time to see Barnes throwing his lanky frame against the opposing wall and holding his arms up over his head, yelling loudly in annoyance when another three bullets spray into the beautiful engraved wood above their heads and nearly bring down the chandelier. The coffee maker starts whistling out of control. Sam groans. 

“Gimme your gun!” demands Barnes, which is beyond unhelpful.

“I don’t have a gun,” says Sam, waving one hand in the air to demonstrate this. “Where’s your gun?”

“I threw it in the fucking Hudson!” says Barnes. He looks like a guy who’s had a very long forty-eight hours; Sam can relate. “I’ve been framed for murder, remember?”

“We actually never established that that’s the truth,” Sam feels the need to point out, a second before another bullet tears through the poor over-steamed suit jacket.

Bang.

“Common sense!” exclaims Barnes.

Bang.

“Somethin’ you don’t seem to have much of!” yells Sam.

Bang.

“THERE IS A MAN SHOOTING AT US.”

Bang.

“HOW IS THAT MY FAULT?!” 

Jiminy Christmas, says Sarah’s voice in Sam’s head. His sister is not gonna be happy about this.

They scramble for the front door as another two bullets sound off. Sam just barely has the time to reach down and grab his hat, and can just make out a slight, shadowed figure ducking back behind the wardrobe in the bedroom before they burst into the elevator lobby – right in time for the elevator door to ding open, and the tomato-red of the huffing police commissioner’s face to peek through.

Barnes has grabbed him by the arm again and pushed him into the stairwell going back downstairs before Sam has any time to react. 

And, maybe importantly, before any of the many police officers squeezing themselves out into the hallway can see him.

Huh, he thinks, a second before the other man’s bulky shoulders burst through the door in turn, knock haphazardly into Sam, and half tumble them down the staircase with a garbled, “Come on, move!” tacked right onto the end.

“Can’t run anywhere with you fallin’ on top of me!” Sam says.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”

And for all that Sam was raised Southern Baptist, he has to agree.

[dikdikpronouncedxylophone]

[koostarcandy]

remedy

summary: "i think, just think, if you stay here, just for a while, play with my hair or whatever, i may fall asleep, just saying."

pairing: jungkook x reader

genre: jeon jungkook rotting my brain fluff

wc: 875 words (tiny baby)

a/n: lmao look who's back because she fell asleep on jungkook's live (like literally my phone was on my face) also for this story's sake, this took place in the dark of morning and not the dawn :] also, also, there's a spoiler for the pale horse by agatha christie in here :P happy 10 years everybody! here's to more ♡

-

"how was the book, my love?"

you trip over the soft rug placed infront of the bathroom door, startled that your boyfriend's still awake at 3:33 a.m. you figured he would fall asleep after watching spiderverse reels and coming up with tons of theories about the final movie of the trilogy. jungkook lies on your side of the bed, fluffy mop of dark hair covering his tired eyes. you take your time with your skincare routine, describing the agatha christie you've been reading for the past 2 and a half hours, knowing it was gonna be a long night anyway.

"it was thallium poisoning, koo, not witchcraft. i never knew your hair could fall out in clumps because of that." you gently massage the serum into your face, looking around from the mirror to jungkook's gaze on you, slight smile playing on his pierced lips.

"did you put this before heading to bed, koo?" he moves his head absentmindedly, eyes darting from the small bottle in your hand to your face back again. you take it as a yes, meticulously placing the bottle in its designated place. you all but rush to bed, sneaking under the covers to his side of the bed.

your beloved shifts from lying to his side to on his tummy, chin placed on his special neck pillow, cheeks getting squished from his hands holding up his head. you scoot closer to him, brushing the bangs away from his face. you finally catch the stars in his eyes, nose scrunching in delight at the impromptu head massage.

"what's on your mind, baby?" you mumble into his hair, when he finds his way to your chest, arms immediately wrapping around you tightly in the softest way possible. "dunno," you feel his shoulders go up and down when shrugs, "there's always something up there now, you know?" he practically buries his face in your neck, placing a chaste kiss here and there. his fingers trace their way all the way from your hipbone to your shoulder, fidgeting with the thin silver necklace holding the delicate pendant he had given you on your birthday.

"wanna sleep and at the same, i don't wanna," he pouts, moving away from you ever so slightly to look up at you. "and why is that?" you ask curiously, smiling at him shivering at the touch of your cold fingers at the back of his neck. jungkook gazes at your eyes boring into him like warm rays of sunshine after a sudden spring shower. your moon-like eyes turns into pretty crescents when the silence gets comfortable, your bodies blending into one for warmth, despite the sultry heat outside. jungkook flings his leg over you, practically intertwined with you like vines on a lamp-post. its like his mind has come to a standstill, in a good way. the million thoughts running in his head has suddenly ceased, all because of your firm yet tender hands on him, one playing with his hair absentmindedly and the other tracing hearts on the upper part of his tattoo sleeve.

jungkook knows, despite not answering your question, you see right through his silence. he has wondered and pondered, over countless nights and self made whiskey cocktails, what exactly plagues his mind to avoid him catching up on some shut eye. he is no stranger to insomnia, often finding himself with new hobbies to while away the time till he finally gets sleepy. he boxed, karaoke-d, cooked his way through it all, that is until, he found you.

his own personal remedy, in the form of the most emotive, sometimes amorous love. nights spent with you is new everyday, no matter the place or time. you both could be on the couch, tummies full and hearts content at 9:45 p.m and jungkook would find himself asleep within seconds, something he could rarely achieve by himself. your lingering touches are something he thought he could only dream of, often waking up to you rolled over to the other side of the bed, grumbling to himself about your adventurous sleeping habits, wondering why you could never stay in one place, knowing he's subject to your teases about the same everyday. he gently pulls you to him anyway, spooning you until he finds the warmth he was searching helplessly for so long in his dream-like state.

"i can only sleep well when you're here with me," he confesses, a whisper into the dark space you both fondly call home. you catch his doe eyes on you, the night lights from outside never failing to enhance the galaxies you wake up to and sleep to everyday. jungkook clasps the back of your shirt in his hand, a subtle sign that he's succumbing to sleep's heavy hold.

"i think, just think, if you, just for a while, play with my hair or whatever, i may fall asleep, just saying."

your hand immediately resumes it's precious job, chuckling slightly at his quiet request of a head massage. his eyelashes flutter when his eyelids betray his mind, wanting one last look at you before he sees you again. before you know it, he's snoring away to dreamland in your arms, where you trust you'll meet him soon.

-

taglist: @soobhyun ; @september-husband ; @snoozeagustd ; @cherishoshi ; @fragmentofyourlife ; @jjkeverlast ; @nlsonsprings ; @starlight-1010 ; @swga-ficrecs ; @zharoszn

[zukkaoru]

do you have any fave fics on like. any bsd female characters? like character exploration etc.

good fics centered on female characters are pretty hard to come by in the bsd fandom but i have compiled a list for you <3

if i am lost for a day by featherx THEEEE louisa fic of all time!! ft minor montcott, but mostly a louisa character study

the quintessential girlhood of yosano akiko by lizandre yosano character study, ft transfem yosano

we die alone, we'll all die young (what you care to die for?) by hannieuphoria gin character study, canon divergent au, mind the tags but ohh this fic is So Good

Morning glory by CureIcy kyouka-centric, ft. transfem kyouka

so temporary by justadino agatha christie x zelda, brief agatha character study, very good i love it

blue moon by ringingmaybelles kyouka-centric centering on platonic kyouka & atsushi

now i feel my stars align by thatwasanticlimactic higuchi-centric with black lizard found family and minor higugin

if i leave in the morning, don't be mad by paperkids lucygin no powers friends with benefits to lovers (there's no smut; it's rated t)

desert to ice floe (i will follow) by littencloud9 ranpo & yosano siblings fic (the focus is spread about evenly between yosano and ranpo)

Dreamhouse by halfpastmonsoon montcott with lucy being horror movie protagonist coded. as she should be <3

The Castles Garden by TheMidnightThief higugin royalty au fluff

forget-me-not by feralshadowdemon kouyou character study (haven't read this one myself but it was written by a beloved mutual whose other fics i love)

a butterfly in the country of spring by hail_hex yosano-centric, also haven't read this one but i've heard good things

and i'll add some of my own fics because why not!

beneath the candy-coated clouds higuchi/margaret florist x candy shop employee au

the wonder that we'll inspire  lucygin with gin adopting a lizard

with sweet understanding higuchi-centric valentine's day higugin

i'll hesitantly put my akutagawa siblings characters study fic here too since it has a lot of focus on gin, but with a disclaimer that gin is written as nb transmasc, and obviously there's focus on akutagawa as well since it's a study on both of them

[crowsmischief]

happy birthday James Potter, you will always be my favorite and most beloved sunshine boy ☀️🫶🏼

one of the things i love most in the marauders fandom is that all of us perceive them in a unique way so, in honor of his birthday, here's a couple details about how i perceive James with a little context of my own in no specific order:

sunsets and the beach. since he was little his parents would take him every summer to the beach and monty would enroll him for surf lessons. he remembers the sea breeze and his parents slow dancing with the most beautiful orange sky behind them.

tattoos. got his first one matching with sirius, remus and peter when he turned 17. a year later sirius learned to tattoo and ever since, he would get little significant ones all over his arms. he has the words "mamá/papá" (mom/dad) one in each arm inside little hearts.

legos. he specifically likes the star wars sets, one of his favorite hobbies that helps him clear his overthinking mind and calm his anxiety. this is one of the rare activities he actually prefers to do by himself.

mexican culture. he's half mexican, so of course he loves to talk about the culture and traditions he grew up with, one of his favorites is "día de muertos", so every year he makes an "ofrenda" and never waste an opportunity to educate his friends about the history of the ritual. he introduced traditional food, games and music in spanish to his friends and he loves to speak spanglish.

formula 1. never misses a race, no matter what he needs to do to make it happen. he's a ferrari victim. his favorite drivers are sebastian vettel, michael schumacher and lewis hamilton. his favorite circuits are silverstone and monaco.

books. big fan of a good mystery novel, he really enjoys agatha christie. ever since he saw remus' annotations on one of his oscar wilde novels, he wanted to do it too. while remus' were more critical and analytical, james' most of the time looked like a wattpad comment section. he loves it.

baking. he'd do it with effie all the time when he was little and it's one of his most precious memories. she used to say you do it for the people you love the most in this world. so he does. he often shows up with dinosaur shaped cookies, cars movie themed cupcakes or spiderman decorated brownies for his friends and family on random days, because he loves them always.

memory box. he has this box full of little things like souvenirs, gifts and letters from people that have been part of his life. he has the wrapper of the first chocolate frog sirius gifted him, a postcard remus sent from his trip to argentina, a rock peter painted for him and so much more. he is made of memories.

[bansheeso]

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT OC'S

Nero.. My beloved

Name: Nero Strong

Type: Marine iguana

Age: Young adult

Height: 184 cm (6'0'')

Sexual orientation: Heterosexual (sorry boys🥹)

Like: Dogs, fighting arts, psychology, his job (he is police officer), after a busy day at work, he often prefers peace and quiet, make crafts from wood, pizza, Agatha Christie detectives, strong coffee

Dislike: Romantic comedies, injustice, naivety, prunes, winter holidays, when something goes wrong, beer (he is cocktail boy), impudent teenagers

[reluctantjoe]

‘Baddies are my new type’: Mathew Baynton on Ghosts, Wonka and wicked villains

He is about to say goodbye to his role in beloved spectral sitcom Ghosts. But dastardly turns in Wonka and the a festive Agatha Christie drama suggest the actor’s future is bright – if somewhat nefarious

“I feel like I’m moving into really wanky territory now,” says Mathew Baynton, looking a little anxious. We are talking about Ghosts, the much-loved comedy about a gaggle of spirits consigned to spend the afterlife in a crumbling country mansion, which Baynton co-writes and in which he plays a deceased Regency poet. After a triumphant five seasons, Ghosts officially breathed its last in October – except there’s now a Christmas episode on its way. (Last year’s Christmas special drew 5.9 million viewers, making it the BBC’s biggest comedy of 2022.)

When I ask Baynton what it is about Ghosts that struck a chord with viewers, he worries he might sound pretentious. “But here goes,” he says. “I have learned that, as a writer, you don’t always know what you’re writing. There are the quite boring times where you have an idea and it comes out as you imagined, and there’s no mystery in that process. But when it’s exciting, you have an idea and it leads you to places you don’t expect.”

With Ghosts, he and his co-writers initially imagined hundreds of spirits haunting Button House, which would have allowed them to tell different stories with a new set of characters each week. “But when we looked at the taster tape we made, we all went: ‘Hang on, there’s something much richer here,’” Baynton continues. “We realised it was a show about people being stuck together, potentially in eternity, and how they find ways to get along. All of which is to say that I’m enamoured with Ghosts too because, right from the get-go, we had absolutely no idea what it would become.”

Baynton, who is 43, is talking from his study at home in north London where he lives with his partner, the film historian and film-maker Kelly Robinson, and their two children. He is self-effacing and thoughtful, choosing his words carefully and, at intervals, wondering if he could be expressing himself better. “I think it’s partly the writer in me,” he says, “but I do come away from conversations thinking how I’d like to rewrite things I’ve said.”

As an actor, Baynton has cornered the market in ultra-sensitive men who walk a fine line between pathos and silliness. Along with his lovelorn poet in Ghosts, there was his turn as a Victorian psychiatrist in 2017’s Quacks, who masterminds a new treatment for patients called “talking”; his lute-playing bard in the 2015 film Bill, about the early life of Shakespeare (“London is not going to know what hit it!”); and good Samaritan Sam in The Wrong Mans (2013-14), which he co-wrote and starred in alongside James Corden.

But this winter heralds a new set of projects that Baynton has dubbed “my Christmas of villainy”. In Murder Is Easy, based on the Agatha Christie novel about a spate of killings in a sleepy English village, he plays a doctor who, he says, “is an awful person with some very awful views”. Next year brings A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, based on Holly Jackson’s bestselling YA novel, in which a young true-crime enthusiast investigates a five-year-old murder case; Baynton can’t reveal too much, although he confirms his character is a far cry from the puppy-eyed romantics for which he is known. And in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory prequel, Wonka, released in cinemas earlier this month, he plays the devious Fickelgruber, Wonka’s Brylcreemed rival in the confectionery business.

Baynton can’t account for this sudden pivot into treachery beyond the fact that “a few [casting directors] had the same idea at the same time … Acting is strange like that. You do one notable thing early on and you are put on a track that for 10 years that can be hard to get off. Perhaps baddies are my new type.”

Wonka was co-written by his friend and Ghosts compadre Simon Farnaby (who also co-wrote Paddington 2) and was filmed at Warner Bros Studios in Hertfordshire. For Baynton, it “felt like you were with the same kids but in a plush playground … Even though you’re working with this huge Hollywood star [Timothée Chalamet, who plays Wonka] and you’re on a set that probably cost the same as an entire series of Ghosts, it’s still a comedy with a big heart, so for me it felt like home.”

Baynton and Farnaby first came together on the set of Horrible Histories, the anarchic children’s sketch show that recreated history’s most ludicrous and bloodthirsty moments, alongside Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond. Shortly after it finished its decade-long run, the six of them wrote the madcap puppet comedy Yonderland, largely because “we couldn’t bear that we weren’t going to get together for more mucking about in front of the camera”. This was followed by Bill, and, four years later, Ghosts. They have even given themselves the collective name Them There, mostly for production credits, though “no one actually calls us that”. Aren’t they more Britcom’s answer to the Brat Pack? “I don’t know about that,” Baynton says, bashfully, “though it depends on which of them you think I am.”

The youngest of three children, Baynton grew up in Southend on a diet of sea air and his dad’s Monty Python cassettes. He reckons being lowest in the pecking order at home contributed to his desire to perform and be noticed. In his teens, he went through a morose period during which he was overtaken by self-consciousness, but then he discovered theatre via a production of Bruno Schulz’s The Street of Crocodiles by Theatre de Complicité “which moved me to tears in ways I couldn’t understand and ignited something in me. I knew I wanted to be in that world in some way.”

Baynton went on to drama school, where he studied directing, but when he got there he realised acting was his calling. He spent a summer as assistant to Cal McCrystal, then director of the physical theatre group Peepolykus, who pushed him to join in with improv games. Later he went to Paris to study under the renowned clown Philippe Gaulier, which cemented his love of slapstick. Upon returning home, McCrystal gave him his first break on the stage in a production of Joe Orton’s Loot.

But it was Horrible Histories that really opened doors for Baynton, both as an actor and writer. On being offered the job, he nearly turned it down, fearing that he might get stuck doing nothing but children’s TV, but his agent persuaded him to take the job by telling him: “No one will see it.” In a talk last year at the Oxford Union, Baynton remarked how, were they making it today, they would do certain things differently, such as not using white actors in tanning makeup to portray Egyptians.

“I think it’s important that we examine where the line is [around portrayals of other cultures],” he says now. “It’s a murky area where intention sometimes doesn’t match reception. Certainly, no one had bad intentions making Horrible Histories and none of us at that time, in the culture as it was, hesitated and thought: ‘Hang on, maybe I shouldn’t play an Egyptian.’ But times have changed and I would hesitate now.”

If the odd Horrible Histories sketch hasn’t aged well, it is worth observing the sensitivity and inclusivity that runs through Ghosts. Baynton notes how throwing together characters from different historical periods allowed them to “highlight wrongful attitudes and interrogate how they had arrived at them. At one point, there’s a gay wedding at Button House and [the ghost of] Lady Button is appalled and goes on this journey in which she faces her own homophobia. When we were writing that story, it felt like I was having a conversation with my homophobic nan.”

Baynton is content moving between acting and writing, not least because “if I’m between acting jobs, it means I get to dream up new projects for myself and my friends”. Keen to avoid any signs of egotism as his career soars, Baynton keeps his feet on the ground by recalling the “pure dystopian hell” of his time as a school leaver working in a call centre. There, every second of the day was monitored and he was once upbraided by a manager for taking too many toilet breaks. “So when I’m on set in a scratchy costume or I’m feeling a bit tired and thinking what a terrible time I’m having,” he says, “I remember that time, and what a privilege it is do what I do.”