#and yet! and yet!!! i am forced to do it!!!!! stop it!!!!!!!!!!
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With death comes life
pairing: Agatha x Rio x reader
summary: To fall in love with both life and death is almost impossible. They contradict each other, they are different sides to the same coin. Agatha once managed the impossible. But time and grief can break almost anything, and this time it breaks what feels like everything.
a/n: there will be more parts to this. I find this dynamic rather interesting and I am definitely going to explore it. not a lot of warning in this part except for mild swearing. slightly protective Rio.
...
Life and Death go hand in hand.
One can not exist without the other.
It’s a partnership that transcends time itself.
Agatha Harkness does not understand this. She can not, because for the longest time all she has ever known is death.
All she has ever done is take. She takes and takes and takes until there is nothing left to give. Until there is nothing left you can give.
Death will love her. Life will despise her.
That is how it will be for centuries.
…
The witches’ road is a place that does not welcome you. It fights you every step of the way.
It is a graveyard. It takes what it wants without thoughts of sympathy or solace. It digs up fear and trauma like gold. It twists and stretches and tears the desires of witches brave enough to step foot on the road.
You hate it and yet you are summoned.
The dirt between your fingers is a sensation that feels as familiar as holding death's hand. Clawing your way from beneath the earth is not something you're very familiar with.
You're not usually summoned alongside her, this is different.
The echoes of multiple screams ring in your ears as you crawl your way out of a fresh grave, growling through clenched teeth when you finally break the surface.
Your joints and bones pop as you twist and jerk to realign what's been broken. You swear you're going to ring the witch's neck that's summoned you.
You tilt your head and feel a crack in your neck, you grimace before you jerk your head and relief seeps into your muscles.
With a flex of your fingers you adjust your clothes before the colors of the leaves scattered amongst the ground catches your eye.
Just as the realization settles and you finally understand where you are, a hand that brushes against the length of your back is the only thing that seems to ground you. You lean into her touch with a slow forced exhale.
Rio is here, that is the only comfort you feel.
You absolutely hate the witches’ road.
When you finally glance up at the witches who were just screaming bloody murder, you notice her right away.
Her thick brown hair falling against her shoulders, the white button up shirt that complements her dress pants, the locket that’s always with her.
Agatha Harkness and this coven of four have summoned you and Rio to the road.
The rage that heats your blood is a sensation that you will never get used to, it burns like the sun and yet it's all you can feel as you glare daggers at her.
The only thing that stops you from lunging at her is Rio’s quick reaction. The hand that was resting on your back has encircled your waist, she tugs you back against her, resting her chin on your shoulder.
“Easy there tiger.” Her soft chuckle of amusement is not distraction enough from what you want to say.
“What the fuck are you doing Agatha?” Your words are harsh and yet you feel no sympathy when she flinches at your tone.
“Excuse me?” The witch in the pink dress places a hand over her heart like you personally offended her.
“You’re excused.” You pay her no mind, your eyes are only on Agatha. “Now answer the question.”
Agatha says nothing. Her eyes look from you to Rio and back like she can barely believe what she’s seeing. Like she didn’t intend for this to happen.
“Cat got your tongue?” Rio teases, her smile predatory, the hold on your waist a touch possessive.
“How did you—?” This time she points at the two of you.
“We were in the neighborhood.” Rio interrupts her with a casual response. There is no need to explain further, she will know the truth.
“But uhh,” The youngest member of the coven, a teenage boy, lifts his hand up like he’s waiting to voice his question. You frown at the notion, not quite understanding.
“Yes Teen?” The oldest of the group turns to look at the kid who answers once the attention turns to him.
“Why are there two of them?” He gestures between you and Rio, his confusion clear as he then turns to look at Agatha like she has all the answers.
You scoff at the thought, she knows nothing. Not when it comes to you and especially not when it comes to Rio. That was made very clear centuries ago.
Agatha glares at you as if this time you truly have offended her but all you do is glare right back.
The moment of eye contact drags on longer than you thought it would. The witch's pride is a strong thing and you know she hates backing down first but you are not in the mood to give in.
You refuse to give her what she wants.
When fingers dance along the thin fabric that covers your ribs you jerk involuntarily, turn to glare at Rio. She gives you an innocent smile but her eyes burn with something that silently tells you to calm down.
“Doesn't matter.” Agatha's anger is a harsh bite, hiding the vulnerability that comes with seeing the both of you. “We have a green witch. Now let's go.”
The whoosh of her coat is followed by a slow breath that relaxes your shoulders. You can not let your anger get the best of you while here. The road will only take it and twist it until it gets a chance to throw it in your face.
“Being summoned is so much fun isn't it? Just like old times.” Rio teases you, presses a soft kiss to your shoulder in a silent apology.
Before you can turn and properly question her about why you are here a voice calls your attention. “Uhh hello?”
You roll your eyes but turn to glance at the three witches that have lingered after Agatha stormed off.
“Hello.” You merely say in return. You owe these witches nothing more.
“So uh did we summon two green witches?” The witch with red in her hair gestures to the two of you. You feel Rio shake her head from where her face is still pressed into your shoulder, her chuckle is low enough that the others do not hear it.
You find her amusement endearing and annoying.
“To keep things simple, yes.”
The continued looks of confusion merely make you smirk at the unsuspecting women.
With one last brush of fingers over your ribs, one last ghost of a kiss that tickles the skin of your neck, Rio steps away. Her smile is bright, the twinkle in her dark eyes promise nothing but mischief and self entertainment.
“We're supposed to walk this thing right?” She steps around you and points toward the road. When she only gets a few shrugs of consensus she hums in response before leaving you behind with these confused witches.
You shake your head with a soft smile, of course she would find a way to ignore all your questions for even just a little bit longer.
“Let's get this over with.”
#agatha harkness x reader#rio vidal x reader#agatha harkness x rio vidal#agatha all along#agathario#agatha x rio x reader#agathario x reader#agatha harkness x fem!reader#rio vidal x fem!reader
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ok, ok “suck on my fingers.” and “don’t make a mess, baby.” prompt with the worse wolverine? btw i love your words!!!
warnings: SMUT, MINORS DNI, squirting, fingering, dirty talk, overstimulation, cum eating (kinda? i think thats whats this called idk he just sticks his fingers in ur mouth after fingering)
600 follower drabble masterlist
a/n: I'm gonna be so real I am coping hard rn. I am devastated and worried for the future but if writing wolverine smut is what helps that is what I shall do. I hope you like it!!
How long has it been? Minutes? Hours? Fuck at this point you'd believe that you've been here for days. Wrapped in his arms. Trapped under his adamantium bone and super human strength. The sheets slip through your fingers as your grip grows weaker. Logan has been teasing you, playing with you like a piece of meat.
Logan is upright against the headboard. He’s got your back against his chest. One of strong arms is keeping you upright. Forcing you to sit there. His other hand is shoved into your panties. He didn’t even bother to take them off.
There’s something playing on the TV in your room but you lost any sense of your surroundings about an hour ago. Logan likes to play with his food. Always has.
Your big hot boyfriend loves to make a mess of things before he eats.
“Oh Fuck Logannnn.” You whine as he slips two of his fingers into your already soaked cunt.
Your panties are soaked from Logan’s touch. He won’t even bother taking them off. He likes the obscene sight of his hands down them. Loves seeing his fingers disappear and watch your cute face scrunch up in pleasure.
You’re trying with all your might to squirm away. Not that you wanted him to stop but the pleasure was overwhelming. Your body was moving without your brain at this point. Pure instinct. Logan growls in your ear. Shoving another finger inside to shut you up.
“Quiet. I’m not done with you yet.” You tilt your neck to the side as Logan’s rough thumb starts to circle your clit harshly.
The sounds of your pleasure are loud and Logan is unashamedly eating them up. His fingers movie faster and faster. Pounding into you with a force that makes you scream. Your dripping down his hands and onto the sheets. Logan tuts and shakes his head mockingly.
“Don’t make a mess baby.” He scolds as he drives his fucking fingers deep inside of you. Fucking liar. He loves when you make a mess. Nothing boosts his ego more.
He feels so good. His fingers are tearing you apart. He’s hell bent on making you come harder than you ever have. He can never get enough. It's like a competition with himself. Making sure you know only he can do this to you over and over. A pressure builds deep in your core and your eyes widen when you feel a certain feeling.
“Logan wait I-“ Your pleas are silenced as another moan rips through your throat.
You chant his name over and over as your legs start to shake. Logan watches in awe as you squirt all over the bed. He doesn't let up as he pulls as much as he can. You're moaning only pushes him further. He's whispering dirty things in your ear but you can barely hear him. Your body is screaming in pure pleasure and its all you can hear.
"Too much." You manage to whimper out as Logan continues to fuck his fingers into you.
He hums and in a moment of mercy decides you've had enough for tonight. Such a good pet. His fingers are coated. He pulls them apart and smirks as he brings them to your lips.
“Come on, suck on my fingers." He coos as you lazily open your mouth. Your perfect pretty lips surrounding his fingers, sucking your own juices from his fingers.
"Taste yourself, see why I can't get enough of this delicious cunt." His eyes grow dark as he watches your lips take his fingers so easily. You look up with glossy eyes. Completely fucked out because of him.
"Cute." He presses a kiss to your forehead and pulls you closer. His fingers slip out of your mouth and he dips back down into your soaked underwear. You whine when he gently brushes over your sensitive clit.
"Shhh sweetheart," His moves are softer this time, gentle.
"Just relax. Let me get my taste too."
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"Thank you."
Lavellan quirked her brow at him, roused from her contemplation of the whirling, flitting forms. "For what?"
With light tread, Solas approached her side, their shoulders barely brushing. He didn't want to push too much after their recent argument. He appraised her lovely face, noting the tension still held in her mouth and forehead. "Thank you." He said again, the words not flowing with their usual ease. "For not giving up. Even when it would have been wiser for you to turn away, you did not."
Solas swallowed down the regret and pain twisting in his throat. "I am sorry. For all that you have suffered because of me."
"Solas..." Lavellan sighed, and took his hand. Her affection for him overwhelming her anger. "I know you are. That is why we are here."
He shook his head. "I do not deserve-"
"No, you don't." Lavellan interrupted, giving him a wry smile. "But I'm here anyway. Being separated from you was probably the worst pain I've felt. Even through the intervening years the ache never really went away. I just got better at ignoring it."
Solas shifted, his features twisting.
She stopped him from speaking with a gentle touch. "I know you are sorry. Make atonement to me by allowing me to spend whatever remaining life I have by your side."
He drew in a shuddering breath, touching his fingertips to his bowed head. "Vhenan." While he gathered himself, a thought occurred to him, and he fixed her again with his lilac gaze. "I refuse to allow the remnants of my anchor or mortality to claim you. If you are willing to listen, I do have a proposal."
"A proposal?" Caught off guard, Lavellan almost laughed. "Are you hiding a ring somewhere too?"
"This is far more...in depth than the binding of matrimony. As I have done with the Veil, so would your own life force be bound to mine." Solas hesitated, conflicting emotions flitting across his features. "However, it is not something I would do lightly. Yet I have resolved myself to be honest and forthright with you regarding what awaits us."
Us.
Lavellan nodded, pensive. "Tell me more."
-
A rough draft excerpt from my fic found here
Also because I can't get that fanart of them making out against the fish tank out of my mind. The altercation in large part is going to be about Varric.
#veilguard spoilers#drabble#solas#solavellan#dragon age#fenharel#solas x lavellan#solas x inquisitor#solas x female lavellan#solas romance#solasmance#solas fic#solas fanfic#ao3#post veilguard#fix it#solas/lavellan#dread wolf
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Seamstress | Part 4
Part 1 here.
John lets the men simmer for two days. Mostly he lets their trip to his seamstress ride to see if they brought it up to him. They didn’t. Guess he would be playing this the sly way.
“Found an old quilt from my grandmother when cleaning out my mum’s house last leave.”
Johnny’s brain sparked on the word association just as John hoped it would.
“Found out I can get my family kilts fixed up and preserved. Met a pretty lass who runs a shop that said it was a possibility.”
“Oh?” John folded his arms across his chest, encouraging Johnny to go on by tilting his head in interest.
“Yeah, pretty bird, kicked us out when we started asking about-”
He cut himself off pretty quick but John gave him a small scary smile.
“Asking about who, Johnny?”
Johnny started to back up, hands raised as he babbled his excuses.
“Finish your excuses and go get the guys.”
Johnny turned tail and fled from the room. His muppets filed in the room, Johnny getting forced by the neck by Simon who glared down at him. Must have wanted to keep this a secret. Should have known better than to tell Johnny. The man couldn’t keep a non-life-threatening secret to save anyone’s life. Kyle and Gary slid in after the duo.
“Muppets. You will leave my seamstress well enough alone or I will make it a problem for you.”
“So she is yours?” Gary piped up from the side.
Shooting him a glare John continued.
“I am grown enough to not explain myself to the lot of you, but if I get a call again about any of you bothering her I will make it everyone’s problem.”
Kyle smirked and spoke out one side of his mouth.
“Seems like Price can’t get a date.”
“Kyle I swear to my god and yours I will make you disappear if you keep it up. If your clothes go missing, just know they will be back. Now get out of here the lot of you.”
His men shared smiles and eye contact.
They hustled from the room when he picked up his blackened coffee mug to throw at one of them.
“Fucking muppets going to send me to an early grave. I don’t even have her phone number yet,” he mumbled to himself as the back of them disappeared.
🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡
You think about John far more often than you should. He is a customer. Yes, he sleeps in your chairs and smiles at you in a way that pulls his cheeks to the moon, and yes he makes your heart flutter the tiniest bit but, but he is a customer who has never shown interest and you refuse to make someone feel uncomfortable in your shop. Your shop was a safe space, for everyone. Your flags are on clear display, so many, many flags, made sure of it.
He stepped through your thoughts carelessly. When you were wandering a superstore you somehow ended up in the camping section. A clearance foldable cot caught your eye and left the store with you. You maneuvered it into your tiny car and into the shop without allowing yourself to question why you had bought it.
John appeared two mornings following your purchase. You smile, wider than you should, at him.
“Hi John, welcome back! Got anything new and interesting for me today?”
Did you sound too chipper?
“Nothing crazy, one of my men needs a mask fixed.”
“Do you always bring in their items? I hope they are paying you at least,” you joke as you take the offered mask.
Spreading it on the counter you look it over, a tear over one ear and one from the eye portion. Both are decently easy fixes but would require your ring light and some time with a hand needle.
Looking up you offer John another smile. Fuck, can you keep the smiles to a minimum? He is going to think you are weird and then stop coming by.
“This shouldn’t take terribly long, I would say maybe an hour?”
John knocked one knuckle against the counter as he nodded. With both hands on the armrests, you remembered the cot in the back.
“Oh, John!”
He paused, ass halfway lowered into the seat.
“I..uh..” you stammer to a stop, unsure of how your words might be received.
“Yes?” He lifts a single brow at you, body not shaking as he waits.
Tucking one arm to your chest and the other to your mouth you speak from behind it.
“I found a cot. I brought it to the shop for you to use if you wanted?”
The words rush out of you, mumbled by your hand, and the speed by which you hurl them.
John stands, moving to stand next to the counter where the floor changes, noting the difference in customer space vs working space.
“What was that dove?”
Tightening your lips before biting the inside of your cheek you force yourself to say your words again. Slower, clearer you speak.
“I have a cot for you. In the back, so that you can sleep.”
His face goes blank as he blinks at you.
He looked a bit like a 404 code in the flesh.
A small smile breaks across his face as color spreads up his cheeks.
“For me?”
“Well,” you tighten both arms around your middle as you reply. “No one else seems to pay me for the privilege of sleeping in my shop, so yes?”
John rubs the back of his neck with one hand.
You awkwardly stare at him. What do you even say now? Do you invite him to lie down? No that sounded weird.
“Do you-”
“Why don-”
You both started and stopped at hearing the other’s voice.
Spinning on your heel you turned towards the storage room, confident John would follow. Popping the door open you can do nothing more than point to the cot, still covered in tape from the store.
John slides by you, chest brushing your arm and shoulder as he does. If you have to fight back the urge to take a bite? Well, he would never need to know.
“I can set it up for you if you don’t mind?” John looks back over his shoulder at you.
Knowing you are beet red you can only nod.
“I bought it for you but didn’t get a chance to,” you gesture at it as if your vague motion will explain all your thoughts.
John’s smile, eyes crinkling and shoulders softening, melted your heart.
“I’ll take care of it and then take a good nap. My men have started to comment that I am nicer to them after I get a nap here.” He knelt, pulling out a pocket knife and slicing open the package.
“Your men?” You lean against the door frame, unabashedly watching. “What is it you do for work John?”
“Special forces, I’m a captain. I lead a group of myself and four other men.”
“Well, that would explain a lot of the smells.”
He looks up at you, brow cocked.
“Smells?”
“Like fire, gunpowder, sweat, sometimes fear.”
“You get a lot of smell knowledge here?”
“I get a lot of everything here,” you shrug, unable to articulate how no matter how clean a piece of cloth some lingering smells clung.
John turns back to his task. You spend far, far too long watching him. The way his shoulders dip and arms change shape as he uses them. When the cot is built and John stands he turns and catches sight of you, you give a panicked smile and flee for the counter where you had left the mask.
Slamming your body into your chair you turned on your ring light, pulled your black thread, and focused diligently on fixing the holes you had been asked to address. John did not reappear for nearly an hour. You had finished the mask sooner than that but had not yet found the fortitude to go and wake him.
The creases on his face matched the lines on the shoulder of his shirt, and the slight drool stain.
“Right on time?”
You smile and nod.
“Well let’s settle up and I will find a reason to be back in a few days.” John returns to the customer side of the counter, sure of himself and you.
“You don’t have to pay me to come nap if that is all you need,” you start.
He cuts you off with a wave of his hand.
“My men are hard on clothes. If I can get you some business I feel less bad about using you for some shut-eye.”
Supposing you had to accept that answer you unlock your tablet and complete the transaction.
Once his card clears you pass over the mask.
“You’re jewelry box should be done by Christmas.”
He drops the statement as if he forgot to bring it up until now.
“Christmas should be fine, I don’t have many plans though I will be out of town the week of Christmas proper. I will be visiting my grandmother.” Paternal grandmother since your mother was not allowed to visit, but no need to mention that.
“We will have to find some time to ensure I can get you the gift then,” he smiled as he said it.
“I told you I would pay for it John,” you chide.
With a shrug, he tucked the mask into his pocket and stepped back from the counter.
“Can’t pay me for a Christmas present dove.”
With that, he waved and pushed through the front door.
“The hell I can’t,” you spoke to the empty shop.
Part 5
Masterlist
#cod#fanfiction#cod x reader#price x reader#john soap mactavish#soap cod#john price x reader#captain john price#simon ghost riley#gary roach sanderson#kyle gaz garrick#fluff
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idk if you’re hispanic/latino buttttt i NEED a pedri fic based off the song la santa by bad bunny (if you don’t know spanish you can just translate it and it’ll work jst fine) tyyyy i loveee ur work 🫶🫶
La santa — Pedri Gonzalez.
Pairing: Pedri Gonzalez x Fem!Reader
Summary: You weren’t supposed to fall in love with Pedri, but it happened nonetheless. You knew what you were getting into when it all started and you both knew despite nothing ever going further than casual, you would always come running back.
Word count: 710
Disclaimer/s: Slightly Suggestive (?) , angst
A/N: OOOOH this song is lowk girl i’m nodding my head thank yew. i also really had no clue how to go about this .. i actually hate it so much sorry this was so bummy
Pedri was dressing quickly. Too quickly. You knew you shouldn’t have even proposed the idea of taking the relationship or… whatever you could call it, further. He always got jumpy when you’d ask for him to stay even a few extra minutes.
You leaned back against the headboard, a frown planted tightly against your lips as you watched him zip up his jeans. “Jesus christ, Pedri. It was a simple suggestion! You’re acting like I told you I was pregnant.”
The mans eyes widen as they shoot in your direction, “you aren’t.. pregnant. Right?” That elicited a loud groan from your lips.
“Oh lord.” You rub your temples before looking back to him. He still wore the same expression, nearly making you laugh as you shake your head. “No! I am not.”
“Thank God.” He huffs, reaching for his t-shirt.
You chew on your bottom lip, suddenly annoyed. “You know what? This has to stop. For good.” He continued dressing like you weren’t even speaking, so you add, “I’m serious.”
Pedri sighs, tugging the shirt over his head. “You said that last week, last month, and matter of fact, two days ago. You know damn well it’s not stopping.” His lip twitches at the corners, a smug grin forming ever so slowly.
That just furthered your annoyance because, unfortunately, it was the truth. It also pissed you off because if he’d just take you seriously and stayed away, you wouldn’t crawl back to him every time.
You’d tried to stop sending him that text or responding to his, but you were weak. Your resistance only lasted about five minutes before you caved. You simply couldn’t stay away from Pedri.
“It’s different this time, and you know it! I can’t wait around for you to feel—“
“Woah!” His hands shoot up, stopping you mid sentence. “Don’t finish that sentence.”
Your lips clamp shut and your arms cross over your chest. “Well—“
“Cariño, you know it’ll never be reciprocated. You knew this the second we started the whole thing! Cut the lovey dovey act, I don’t need you doing that because I don’t know how to reciprocate it.” He finishes his rant, running a hand over his face as if the whole conversation was one big inconvenience.
Pedri leaned against the wall a few feet from your bedroom door, antsy for an escape yet also not wanting to leave you pissed off at him.
“This was only meant to be a fun thing.” He adds once the silence became deafening.
Pulling your knees to your chest, you frown. “Why though? Why is it such a terrible concept? You care about a lot of things, a lot of people, why would it be so different?”
His eyes dart to the door, he really needed to get out of here. “You know why. Just.. let’s keep this going and you’ll get over it, no? Why are you trying to mess with something thats fine just as it is?”
You were desperately trying to ignore the way your stomach churned at his words. The more he talked, the more you felt your heart sink. You knew damn well there was no changing Pedri and you most definitely knew better than to even have a sliver of hope.
“You’re right.” You finally force out, “no, yeah. I’m sorry I even thought about it.”
The hurt in your voice was unmistakable. Pedri heard it loud and clear and he almost felt guilty. Almost. But at the end of the day, he’d told you how he felt about relationships at the beginning of it all. He knew and you knew, exactly where he stood.
“I’ll see you when I get back from Sevilla, okay?” Pedri sighs, pushing himself off the wall.
Not daring to look at him, you stay quiet for a moment. A weak attempt at pushing him away, but you were just that. Weak.
“Yeah.” You huff, “make sure you lock the door on the way out.”
Pedri lifts one hand as a parting gesture, but you don’t return it and he leaves anyways. He leaves you feeling like an absolute idiot because you know when you get the text that he’s back in town, you’ll be waiting right where he left you.
likes , comments , and reblog’s are all appreciated. lmk if you’d like to be tagged in any of my fics, specific or all.
DTS , @halfwayhearted , @spidybaby , @gadriezmannsgirl !
#pedri gonzalez#pedri#pedri gonzalez x reader#pedri gonzalez x fem!reader#pedri gonzalez one shot#pedri gonzalez x you#pedri gonzalez imagine#pedri x reader#pedri angst#football#blurb#fc barcelona#fc barcelona fic
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inspired by this post by @epiphainie and people's awesome tags on it.
the messenger
The buzzer rang five minutes after Evan's text (Just coming back from our last call. Thank God. Not even stopping to shower I am outta here. See you in 20. 15 if I gun it. Start getting those clothes off.)
"Hello?" Tommy said, pressing the button. "Is someone there?"
"Oh, Tommy. I didn't even- Good." Something crackled on the other end. "Sorry, it's uh. It's Maddie."
Well, it was hardly his gate to keep. Tommy redid the buttons on his shirt. "Come on up."
Maddie arrived with Jee-Yun on her hip. She still had her work shirt on and she was mostly looking everywhere but him.
"Hi," he said, curiosity shifting to concern. He hadn't spent much time with the Han family unit. Not long after he and Evan became official, Maddie and Howie rescued a traumatized child from a group home and their free moments then went towards maintaining the connection between her and the parents she'd been ripped from, aka Hen and her wife Karen. But from what he'd heard about her, Jee-Yun seemed uncharacteristically subdued. Feeding off her mom, perhaps. "He's not back yet."
She looked up at him, very briefly, just long enough to give a good view of her reddened eyes. "Right. They're pretty much done. I asked Howie to meet us here."
She set Jee-Yun up on the easy chair with a coloring book and markers, then kissed her cheek. "Draw Mommy a nice picture, okay?"
Tommy ducked his head as she approached the kitchen, conscious of their differences in height. "Maddie?"
She took in a sharp breath, her eyes bright as she raised one hand. "I'm sorry. I'd tell you. I'd just hate to have to keep saying it."
"Okay." He touched her shoulder and left his hand there a moment. "I think there's... tea?" She was already too brittle and fragile for alcohol.
She nodded gratefully, her gaze going toward the kid quietly marking up a page of farm animals as he retreated to the cabinets. He thought about Howie's brother, Alfred- no Albert. His name came up occasionally in group conversations. He'd couch-surfed through the family, becoming a firefighter himself until he realized that being barely legal to drink and loving his hero brother weren't good enough reasons to stay at a job that didn't do it for him. After resigning, he'd gone back to Korea.
Tommy didn't ask. Asking would force her to answer.
He thought of some other names, which he also did not bring up.
They each had a mug of vanilla chai, which Evan never touched but Tommy loved. Tommy sipped his. Maddie only stared at hers. The door opened, letting in good-natured smack talk.
"Look, all I'm saying is, if it actually had been a rottweiler, you would've finished the call on the other side of the street."
"Okay, okay, Mr. I didn't enter the tiger apartment until Chimney tranqed it."
Tommy wondered at the logistics, whether Maddie's request of Howie arrived before Evan fled the station house, or if the two of them surprised each other by making it to Evan's building at the same time. Maddie breathed in, letting the motion straighten her posture, and stepped away from the counter.
"You didn't enter until after that, either!" Evan turned away from Howie and the grin fell from his face. "Maddie? What's going on?"
Howie glanced at Tommy, who gave a tiny shrug.
She took Evan's hand. "Buck," she said. "Come sit down."
Tommy discarded several names as Howie came and stood next to him.
Maddie sat next to Evan at the table, both of her hands covering his. "Mom called me about an hour ago from the hospital. Dad had been having some chest pain and they found a severe blockage. They went in for a double bypass, but-"
"But what?" Evan asked quietly.
Her face crumpled. "Something went wrong during surgery and they couldn't stop the bleeding." She removed one of her hands from his to stifle a sob. "Dad's gone."
"Shit," Howie whispered.
Maddie shifted the angle of her chair and leaned forward to throw her arms around Evan's neck. After a second or two of shellshock, he returned the embrace, tightening his grip around her. When he met Tommy's gaze, he didn't look sad, or angry. He just looked lost.
"Daddy!" Jee-Yun cried, making the entire room flinch, right before she launched herself at Howie.
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Tristella (SG Skystar songfic)
Song: TRISTELLA by Esperón. Starscream was offlined, but his spark did not went to the Well of the All Sparks - Instead, it followed the one and only bot his spark longed for. And thus, the other bot grieves.
WARNINGS: Angst and tragic romance. Character death. Using the name Skyfire instead of Jetfire. Shatter glass universe. My take on 'what happened after?'. Mentions of depression, suicide and self-loath behaviour.
All stars are the result of a balance of forces - a violent process. Starscream's death was like watching the birth of a star - bright. Loud. Painful.
Living up to his name - after getting shot by Goldbug on his back, barely missing his spark, the seeker wailed and his voice reached the stars. And Skyfire would have cried back if it wasn't the words of the seeker that managed to freeze him in place just for a moment.
The same words Skyfire always thought whenever he thought of Starscream, but desperately and coldly tried to change, but always failing to either forget it or say it outloud.
I love you.
The moment his spark got taken brutally, Skyfire's world crumbled down once again. He was doomed to always lose the one he loves, isn't he? He was scared to take his servo, to follow him, always doubting everything and himself - that's why the mech he wished to take as a conjux was now truly out of his reach. Even when he got to rescue Starscream's spark... there's nothing else for them after that. Just like any bot that was met with their demise, Starscream's bright spark was going to follow it's process and return to the Well of the All Spark...
The spark did flew from his servos once Skyfire escaped with it - and with a broken spark, the taller mech promised to do better, to end the war in the name of the mech he loved.
He was never going to aling totally to the Decepticons' cause, but he has long dettached from the Autobots - after the war ended, the Decepticons forgave his wrong doings and choices after helping them stop the Autobots. Still, Skyfire isolated himself from the new world it was being built - after all, he would rather have his voice than their causes.
Skyfire.
It started with small things - he would catch glimpses of a bright ball of light of both bright blue and orange color. Then the sight of sad yet full of love optics in any reflections for a few kliks before they disappeared. Soft whispers in the air and in the night. And finally...
You haven't been recharging - you'll catch a virus if you keep doing that!
The bright spark only produced bell-like noises - but somehow, Skyfire understood it... "I've lost my mind-" The mech said, staring at the spark that floated righ in front of his faceplate. But when his servo moved to touch the spark, it produced a giggle-like sound, to then twirl and then... disappear.
It kept appearing - either on solar cycles or the lunar cycles. At first Skyfire tried to ignore it. It was just a product of the guilt he kept carrying deep inside of his own spark, he was finally losing it. And yet, the spark kept appearing, making him company or following him. And it was just as stubborn as Skyfire.
"Leave me alone!" Skyfire once yelled, in the middle of the night, hurt and frustrated. "You are not him - he is gone! My Starscream is gone!" Even when the spark looked like him, the one he loved was no longer here... but oh, how he wished to have Starscream back, to hold him. The mech would never admit it, but after yelling at the spark, he broke down, crying his optics out and wailing (like Starscream wailed at the pain when he got shot on his back). And the spark disappeared - it left Skyfire in the darkness of his room... to then slowly start to reappear - this time, right between the mech's armplates, as if it was being held.
I may not be him - but I am what he felt about you. Even after everything, I've been there the whole time. Even when it brought him warmth or sadness, I've been there. And I'm still here, Skyfire.
With such sad eyes, the spark sang - and Skyfire wished he could actually hold the spark and kiss it. He allowed himself to cry as the spark kept him company, loving to listen the sphere of light and energy talk to him until he fell into a needed recharge he has been not allowing himself to have out of self-loath.
"I did this to you, Starscream..."
I did this to myself too, my love - everyone did this to me, and to themselves, and to everyone, too. We are culprits and innocents, at some degree.
"Even in your last moments, you forgave me for my weakness."
Deep down, I knew you were afraid.
Sometimes, whenever Skyfire would catch glimpses of the spark being a shooting star on the starry nightsky, he would ask himself if this was part of the process for a spark to go back to the Well of the All Sparks. Would his own spark look after a Starscream from another universe where he didn't die? Keeping him company and talking to him? Maybe - if it mean to attone to his sins.
Stop. It makes me sad to feel you like this, my love.
"You are not here with me - how can I not be sad?"
And yet, Skyfire would smile as he extended his servo, allowing the spark to 'rest' on it and hear his bell-like sounds, as if a lullaby it was. He wouldn't mind to have his spark go through the same process this bright spark was going through, too. He would be able to finally stop being a coward and tell Starscream how much he loved him, that his life was a gift for the seeker.
"How can I set you free?" Skyfire asked in a whisper.
I'm already free.
"Why haven't you go back to the Well of the All Spark, then?"
It was his last wish before he was long gone - to be by your side. I am not him, I am what he felt for you, Skyfire. Once the time arrives, I'll guide you to the Well of the All Spark, for him and you to meet again.
"I love you." He whispered.
"I love you too." He whispered back.
His love for you has always been there, and it's still here. And will always be.
The consequences of the war haunted Skyfire until the very last day of his life. Megatron saw it with his own optics. The former leader was always fearful to visit the other mech and find him long gone by his own servos - but thanfully, got to see the other mech still alive. Oddly enough, even in the sea of depression Skyfire was drowning himself, Megatron swears he could see a light of happiness in the optics of Skyfire.
"He offlined naturally - there are no signs of his own doing to provoke it. It was peaceful." Shockwave explained. Megatron looked sadly down at the cold frame of Skyfire.
"His spark is now in the Well of the All Sparks - finally, with Starscream's" Megatron said, sadly, but hopeful.
At night, among the many other stars, a bright blue-orange spark and a purple spark pass by as shooting stars, together. They are a memory of what they were before, but happy and together, at last.
Felt a rush of inspiration, here it is! I hope you all like it! Quite tragic, poetic even.
♪(´▽`) Vhaos out!
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ngl hdg kinda amazes me in its ability to cater to my kinks pretty much perfectly while simultaneously triggering several of the worst parts of my trauma.
like how is it that it hits on everything i like on the surface, provides semi-decent worldbuilding to back it all up and enable the creation of stories, and even has consistent backstory and stuff, and yet the entire damn thing instills this looming sense of dread and fear that i can't shake enough to properly enjoy it...
below the break im gonna talk in like. moderate detail. about the parts that scare me. so uh yeah be aware that it'll get heavy that's just how it is.
ok, so the worst thing for me. wellness checks. the idea is cute and kinda hot on the surface. "make sure you're okay and if you're not you're getting domesticated" (which is supposed to be like. a happy thing. "now you get to just chill and be happy and get taken care of forever and in return you give me only your submission"). yeah, fuck it, im into that. hell that's not even an uncommon trope in the realm of cnc/mc writing.
except whenever i read an hdg wellness check story (in the sense of those long-ish tumblr posts that people write—i haven't even really considered reading the longer form content on ao3) there's something viscerally... off... about the tone. it stops feeling like kink and starts feeling like a nightmare when things happen to line up just so, and then it clicks, and reminds me that i knew people, real people, who had "wellness checks" happen in real life, except that instead of it being a kink thing that made them happy and was genuinely for their wellbeing, it was that their parents had hired people to kidnap them and drag them to a psych ward when they just needed a therapist. not all of those people that i knew have come home, as far as im aware. some have been gone for years.
and what about the whole idea of the non-consensual part being okay because "it's for your own good". in hdg-land it is. it's genuinely good for you and everyone seems to be happy with it, other than the occasional "bad guy who hates good things" trope (feralists, in hdg, afaik). but that's exactly what they told me when they cut contact between my boyfriend and i while he was in the hospital. "it's for your own good." guess what, it wasn't. his parents didn't like our relationship. they wanted me to forget him. they either didn't understand or didn't care that i couldn't. it was a year and a half before he came home and i had forgotten nothing.
our loss of communication was the tipping point in a series of events that, had i made one decision differently in the end, would have killed me. thankfully i fucked it up and am here today, no longer in that bad of a place may i add. im choosing not to share any of what happened to me directly right now because i don't want to turn this into a full on trauma dump, but suffice it to say there are recurring themes.
it's so interesting to me because in a lot of ways i have found comfort from those experiences in kink and writing. take flames of averon: mech pilots are neurochemically bonded to their handlers. how different is this from what the affini do to their florets? well, you have to sign up to be a pilot, and there's no authority in the world threatening you if you choose not to. even the coalition military wouldn't dare force you to become a pilot against your will, though they might never stop sending you promotional flyers if they find out you're able to tolerate the cyberware /lh
hell, im into cnc. im really into it. i chose to leave it as an opening between pilots and handlers in foa. the implication exists that if a handler tells their pilot to do something the poor thing will have a hell of a time saying no. that's intentional. it's hot to me, on either end. but the safety comes from other things.
yes, your handler has a lot of influence over you at a level that's hard to imagine, but you chose them and they chose you (most of the time), or at the very least neither of you had any complaints to raise with your supervisor when the paperwork came in for syncing your link chips (holly and astrid from seat of consciousness).
yes it's true, you can't be reassigned now that you're bonded, but that doesn't mean you have zero recourse if your handler is treating you badly. if you need to, you can always file paperwork with your commanding officer to request that something be done.
plus, handlers go through a lot of training, which includes screening to filter out people who would actually harm their pilots. yeah, some handlers are a little sadistic, but when it comes down to it they are on your side. if that wasn't the case they would never have passed pre-basic.
put another way, as a pilot in flames of averon, the closest thing ive ever written to a floret, there are a multitude of points at which you could have said no and didn't, and although that's obviously still noncon in the grand scheme of things, it's "signing away your freedom" cnc compared to the hdg flavor of "you 'consented' via it being the best thing for you whether you like it or not."
even if your handler just told you to "stay" for the first time and you're currently panicking and trying to figure out why your legs won't move, you still have some tiny amount of agency—an escape hatch, so to speak—and you'll just never end up having to use it.
and to me, the loss of that minute level of agency which will never be invoked is the difference between "this is hot as hell and feels perfectly safe" and "this is the abuse that was once leveraged against those i cared about, and to some degree myself, and it's simply been repackaged with a kink sticker slapped on."
none of this is to say i hate hdg, it's fans, those who write about it, or even the parts of it which scare me. i do think the idea is hot. hdg is pretty cool. hell, it was one of my inspirations in writing a lot of the pilot/handler dynamics in flames of averon. but it does scare me. and no matter what i tell myself i can't shake that fear.
it's frustrating, because oftentimes fear can be part of what makes something hot, but the particular flavor of fear which hdg instills in me is one which makes bitter all that it reaches. maybe someday i'll grow out of it. the traumatic memories from which that fear stems were only created in the past couple of years, to be fair. but something tells me a piece of that fear will never be fully dislodged from my mind.
so, all this to say, while i am into hdg, it's a complicated relationship.
(and on a sillier in character note to lighten the mood—please feel free to respond to this with roleplay or whatever you like!)
to any Affini out there who might be reading this, know that im not scared of you. im not scared of what you represent. im only scared by the fact that you mimic that which has left the scars you see on my soul today. im not against being taken in as a floret, and none of this is to say that i hold any level of disdain for you.
i only ask that you be gentle with me. what has been broken once can be broken again. please, do not let it come to that.
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Missed Me?
Pairing: Park Jinyoung x female reader
Genre: fluff
Tropes: established relationship (of sorts)
Warnings: a tiny bit of 4th wall writing at the very end.
Word count: 849
Author’s Note: he’s back, and my heart and mind wasn’t prepared for how loud he’d be about it *rolls eyes*
Glancing up, you blinked in rapid succession before letting out a groan.
The man leaning against the doorframe pretended not to know why you had reacted like that at the mere sight of him, asking a soft “what?” in response. And yet, you saw the mirth within his dark gaze, the slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes giving him away. He was pleased to have you reacting to him again.
“Nope,” you declared, shaking your head to accompany the statement. “Absolutely not.”
“Haven’t you missed me?”
“Me? Miss you?” You forced out a laugh that rang somewhat hollow. But Park Jinyoung didn’t deserve the satisfaction of knowing you had thought of him often over the past eighteen months. You wouldn’t let it out that you would pause mid-action at times considering how he would have loved to be there in the moment. How you would hear something, and your immediate response was to contact him and tell him so. Late at night, when the darkness was your only companion, how you longed to be a little less lonely and curled up within his warm embrace. You had chosen to take his departure from your life as a clean break. And he didn’t need to know how much you had failed within your heart and mind to truly escape him.
A raised eyebrow in your direction made you sputter incoherently. He was too observant. You wondered how much your expression had given your pondering away. Jinyoung folded his arms across his chest, his toned physique making for quite a beautiful and distracting imagery. “Really? Not even a little?”
“Of course not! I was completely fine without you,” you lied with a straight face – at least you hoped so – and made a shooing gesture with your hand. “Stop leaning on the threshold. You’re not the main protagonist of my life, so you don’t need to do what main male characters do in fictional stories.”
He almost succeeded in keeping the smirk from truly crossing his lips, instead turning to his acting skills and crossing the room towards you with a pout gracing his annoyingly kissable lips. You immediately diverted your gaze to your laptop, then to your phone, failing to unlock it with your fingerprint, which flustered you further.
Curse him into damnation.
“I missed you,” he announced, and you flinched, equally being acutely aware of his proximity and not yet ready for the closeness of his earnest statement. His hand lifted to your chin and guided your focus back to his face. Oh, how you had yearned to see this man up close and in person again. You blinked several times, and he continued to pout. “I missed you so much it hurt.”
“You’ve clearly survived.”
“Did I?” he questioned, waiting to see how you’d respond. He let out a sigh when you didn’t take his bait. “I don’t know how you could do it, Y/N. A clean break from me? You’re stronger than I am.”
You narrowed your gaze. “We did have a clean break.”
“Did we? I beg to differ.”
“We did! I haven’t seen you once since you went away.”
“Not in person, no. But I’ve been following you on social media.”
You huffed, straightening to your full height. “You and social media?! It was like a ghost town with you over the past eighteen months! I had to resort to looking for glimpses in—!”
You clamped your hands over your mouth at what he had managed to weasel out of you and diverted your gaze once again.
A rich, melodious laughter rumbled out of Jinyoung, and you cursed your traitorous heart for swooning at the sound, revelling at hearing it again. Then your heart stalled altogether when his strong arms encased you, tugging you flush against his warm body.
“What am I going to do with you?” Jinyoung mused, his hand reaching up to your hair and ruffling it affectionately. “You know, normal people are elated when someone they love returns home. They bounce right into the arms of their lover and proclaim just how much they love and missed them. But not you. ‘Nope. Absolutely not?’ Of course, you would say something so ridiculous.”
“Well!” you grumbled out indignantly. “I wasn’t expecting you to be there.”
“You know me too well, sweetheart,” he claimed, pulling you back from him enough so he could gaze down at you, a bright smile gracing his handsome face. “You should have expected at the first chance I got that I would be back in your life.”
“As loud as ever,” you muttered.
However, this time, it was you who moved first, burying yourself deeper into his embrace, feeling his laughter vibrate up through his chest. Closing your eyes, you inhaled deeply, allowing yourself the moment of reacclimatising with your one true nemesis.
And truest love.
“And to think,” he started, making you grow rigid at what could possibly follow. “You haven’t really been writing of late. All I had to do was come back and now look at you. A whole story. All because of me.”
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@mischievouslittlecreature what's that sound? Ah yes, it's the sound of Luca seething about his stupid mistakes...it's bliss😌🥰.
I was there enjoying Luca getting told of by his mum for the billionth time 😂. I loved the scene you set with the descriptions of him sat chewing his tooth pick among the destruction he'd caused.
We’ll get her back.” “No, you won’t. Thomas isn’t going to let her out of his sight now.”But why is he still not listening? Hasn't he learnt his lesson yet? Listen to ya mama you fool! He's so smug to think he'll ever get that chance again. Mrs Changretta was right, if he wanted to cause unimaginable pain to Tommy, he should have taken Lucy out straight away. Good thing he's an idiot and didn't listen, because I can't have Lucy leaving Tommy alone in the world. I don't even want to imagine the depths of despair he'd reach if that ever happened 😭.
Ok, my weakness will always be seeing Tommy completely broken, but it's also animals. Asher's reaction to seeing Lucy was...💔. The fur baby just wanted to cuddle up to his mum and make her feel better, but I fear that even his body against hers would be enough to cause poor Lucy excruciating pain.
You really captured Tommy's heartache during this scene we've these little lines... Ada rested a hand on his upper arm while he bowed his head. “I don’t know what kind of permanent damage that might’ve done.”-"she looked at his hand still clasped tightly in Lucy’s. It's like the life's being sucked out of him as he watches Lucy sleep, he can't bare it 😔.
“I can’t stay here.” I can’t watch you love someone else. Oh Lizzie, would you please shut the fuck up. I don't care if she didn't say it, she thought it. Which means, she still doesn't give a shit about everything that's happend and is STILL thinking about herself. Please, can she stay in that little house so we never have to deal with her snotty remarks again??
I don't think I was quite prepared to see Lucy so weak, so fragile and scared in the next scene. I've seen glimpses of her doubtung herself, battling with her lack in confidence, but the following scenes were she's zoning in and out, thrashing half asleep during her nightmares was unbearable to see 😔.
“What use am I to you now?” she forced herself to ask in a hoarse whisper. Tommy’s eyes widened, scooting closer to her. I'm seriously so dumb that I didn't realise how being in that position for multiple days on end would effect the nerves in your arms. This honestly scared me for Lucy, not because I don't think she'll be able to maybe recover but because of what it will do to her already fragile mind. She's always someone that needs to have something to do, and this is only going to create more unease in her that she's no longer useful to Tommy, no matter what he says.
But he's right, she's more than an assassin. She has an incredibly sharp mind. I think it will take her time to realise that she might not be able to do the things she once could if it comes to that.
The part where she had her nightmare and how Tommy grounded her was so powerful to read, I loved every second of it. It's a tip I've used during my own panic attacks, I wouldn't be surprised if it's something Tommy has learnt to do over the years when his own anxiety and PTSD takes a turn.
You’re a good nurse.”- His chest buzzed pleasantly against her ear with a quiet chuckle. “You’re high as a kite, love.” He kissed the top of her head. “Go back to sleep.” ❤️ aww, I couldn't help but smile at this little part. Even though she may have been up with the fairies, I really think Tommy needed that playful normality from her before he too lost it to the horrors of Lucy's physical and mental state.
He had hardly left her side for the last week. Even getting him to let her use to loo on her own had taken a significant amount of convincing. Stop 😭! I knew he'd be velcroed to her 🥰.
Tommy's care and affection towards her is top tier right now👌🏼. He's so mindful about everything ❤️. But this scene is at the boxing match....which means, shits about to hit the fan...again 😳😬. And it also means that Tommy's attentions are gonna be drawn to Arthur and what's about to happen to him. She better not be left alone, not for one second!
Excited to see what happens, and see how Lucy continues to recover from everything. Eek 😍!
Part 21: The Shadow of the Abattoir
Fandom: Peaky Blinders
Pairing: Tommy Shelby x OC
Summary: Lucy begins the long recovery from what Luca did to her, while the Shelbys prepare for Bonnie's boxing match.
Word Count: 5,254
Notes: Warnings for depictions of PTSD, injuries, chronic pain, and references to torture.
Previous Chapter • Series • Fic • Next Chapter
Chapter 26: Lost Forever
Audrey entered Luca’s room to find it in complete disarray. The papers that he kept spread across his desk were all over the floor, chairs and tables overturned in the sitting room, a lamp smashed on the thin rug, along with the shattered remains of crystal glasses and a decanter filled with amber liquid.
Her eyes swept over the scene of destruction, lips pursing.
When Matteo came to her lodgings, eyes wide and begging her to please come at once, she had almost sent him away. She probably would have, had it been anyone else asking for her help. She was the matriarch of the Changretta family, and she answered the summons of no one.
“Luca,” she said, stepping deeper into the room, towards where he was seated on the couch, staring straight ahead, gnawing so hard on the toothpick wedged between his teeth that she thought he might splinter it in half. Glass crunched under her heels.
She lowered herself into the seat beside him, keeping her back straight, watching her son scrutinizingly.
“What happened?”
He didn’t answer her, and Audrey bristled.
“When your mother asks a question, you answer it, Luca.”
“She got away,” he growled, eyes still staring straight ahead. “She fucking got away.”
“Who?”
“The Red Demon. Lucy Winters.”
Audrey felt her stomach fall into her toes, though she did not let it show on her face. “How?”
Luca shook his head. “Shelby found her, we think. The fucking gardener was found this morning, laid out on the doorstep of one of our old businesses, with his throat cut and his eyes torn out.”
“The gardener talked? But I thought you had men protecting him…”
“Yeah. Two men who we can’t locate. They were last seen at a pub with Smith. They were probably drunk when the Peakys arrived. Didn’t stand a fucking chance. Not that anyone who was at the pub that night will tell us anything.”
Audrey cursed in Italian under her breath. “But you left guards with Winters.”
“They’re all dead.”
“All of them?”
“Yes. Shelby must have killed them all.”
“Or she did.”
Luca finally looked at her. “She was barely able to stay conscious when I left her. She’s cut up and beaten within an inch of her life. There’s no way that she–”
“How many times do I have to tell you to stop underestimating her before you listen to me!?” With a sharp, controlled movement, she cuffed him around the back of the head like she used to when he was small. “If any of your men gave her so much as a sliver of an opportunity, I promise you that she took it.”
“And killed all of them?”
She looked around the room, a casualty of Luca’s wrath undoubtedly after he learned the news of Winters’s escape. Her mind wound back to when Lucy Winters first arrived in Small Heath. The stories that had soon began to follow her. “She’s done it before.” She turned her gaze back onto her son. “You should have just killed her when you had the chance.”
“We’ll get her back.”
“No, you won’t. Thomas isn’t going to let her out of his sight now.” Frustration mounted in her veins, making itself known through a venomous look thrown Luca’s way, shaking her head. “You had the opportunity of a lifetime. You had her in your clutches. Do you understand how profound of an effect her death would have had on Thomas? They say he went half mad with grief over his wife’s death. What do you think killing Winters would have done to him? It would have crippled him. Or we could have used her as a bargaining tool. Or bait. Something.” She stood, towering over him, her disappointment mounting with every passing moment. How could he have been so stupid!? “And you just wanted to play out some silly little revenge fantasy. Instead of actually using your victory to your advantage. Your father and I taught you better than that.”
“Isn’t that what this all is? Revenge, mother? I was paying her back for all the pain she’s caused. She was there when they tortured my father. She’s already killed more than a handful of our men. She deserved to know what it felt like. Besides, she’s not going to be much use to Shelby at all with how badly injured she is.”
Audrey shook her head. No use. He really thought that the woman who likely kept Thomas Shelby standing upright with her mere presence was of no use to him. “You have not listened to a single word that I’ve said, have you?”
Luca looked up at her, hurt cracking across his eyes. “I’ve done everything that you’ve told me to do.”
Head shaking back and forth, she went to the door.
“There’s the boxing match next week. We’ll strike a blow, then,” Luca called after her.
“Better pray it’s a big one, then. Because you’re running out of time.”
∗ ∗ ∗
Lizzie pushed the door to the bedroom open with her fingertips, peering in to find Lucy asleep, curled on her side in bed, a quilt pulled up over her chest, bandages wrapped around what looked to be most of her body. Tommy was hunched over in a chair at her bedside, Lucy’s hand in his. Ada was standing next to him, her hand on his shoulder while she looked down at Lucy’s sleeping figure.
“How is she?” she asked. Tommy cleared his throat, wetting his lips.
“Her back is…shredded. He whipped her,” Lizzie saw his hand tighten where it rested against his knee. “He reopened all her scars from…” he paused as if unable to bring himself to actually say it out loud, “from what happened to her in London before she came to us.”
“Jesus,” Ada breathed, a hand going to her lips.
“She took a bullet to her shoulder. I removed it. Cleaned and stitched her up. Gave her something for the pain and to help her sleep.” He rubbed a hand down his face. “She said that he bound her from the ceiling so that she was dangling with her arms above her head for days. I don’t…” he had to pause to get his voice under control. Ada rested a hand on his upper arm while he bowed his head. “I don’t know what kind of permanent damage that might’ve done.”
“But she’s alive.”
“Yes,” he agreed, though there was something in his voice that seemed to indicate that he wasn’t wholly confident in that statement.
“I’ll take Charlie for a few nights. He shouldn’t see her like this.”
“Thank you.”
“And Polly and Arthur will deal with everything else for the time being. You don’t need to worry about it. There’s still Bonnie’s boxing match with Alfie’s boy, but…”
“Someone needs to call Alfie and tell him we found her.”
“Already done. He said to tell you that he’ll deal with the last few arrangements that need to be made for the fight.”
“Right.”
“Doctor Evans will be here within an hour.”
“Good.” Lizzie wondered if the doctor was going to be in for a good scolding for not coming right as soon as he was called.
There was the clack of nails against the hardwood floor in the hallway, and then Asher was squeezing around Lizzie’s legs, nosing open the slightly ajar door to wander into the bedroom. Bypassing both Tommy and Ada, he raised his head to sniff at Lucy’s face. His tail drooped, ears falling downwards as a small whine left his throat. Tommy reached out to stroke the dog’s back.
“I know, boy. I know. She’s okay.”
Asher looked back at him, then to Lucy, whining again. Tommy drew him away gently.
“Let her sleep, Ash.”
The black shepherd let out another soft whine, laying down next to the bed with his head on his paws, his dark brown eyes fixed dutifully on Lucy, watching over her protectively.
“Do you need anything else?” Ada asked, hand smoothing up and down Tommy’s back.
“No.”
“Call me if you do. I’ll gather up Charlie and head home. I think Polly was planning on sleeping over in one of the spare rooms.” She stood.
“Ada,” he called, mindful to still keep his voice quiet enough that he would not wake Lucy. She turned back to him. “Thank you.”
She gave him a tiny small and a quick nod, before going to the door. Her grave gaze met Lizzie’s, reaching out only to give her a squeeze to the arm before heading to the stairs, leaving her standing in the doorway alone.
Hands ringing together, Lizzie turned back to the bedroom, taking a cautious step forward into the room.
“Tommy?”
He started at the sound of her voice, head raising. His eyes looked red rimmed and tired. “What?”
She ignored the bite of hurt at his sharp tone, reminding herself that he’d had more than a trying couple of days. “I’m going to go home.”
His gaze sharpened. “Luca knows where you live.”
“I know, but I don’t think he’ll come after me right now. And…” she looked at his hand still clasped tightly in Lucy’s. Her heart twisted and fractured in her chest. “I can’t stay here.” I can’t watch you love someone else.
Tommy’s eyes searched hers, and she swore that she saw a spark of guilt as he read what was likely obvious in her gaze. “Does your house have a spare room?”
Her annoyance flared. “You’d know if you actually came to visit.”
Tommy looked away, jaw tightening. She took a deep breath.
“Yes, it does.” Her voice was softer.
“Skudboat will be sleeping there until the vendetta is over. And I’ll have multiple armed guards watching the house at all times. Isiah will be re-vetting all of your staff too, before they come back to work.”
“Fine.”
“All right, then.”
That was clearly her cue to leave, but she hesitated, gaze shifting to the tiny figure curled up on the bed. “Is she going to be okay?” she asked, voice hardly a whisper. Tommy’s shoulders heaved, and for a second she thought that he wouldn’t answer.
“No. No, she won’t.” His voice was low and mournful, as if she had died and was gone forever rather than asleep right in front of him. A shiver went down Lizzie’s spine, looking in slight alarm at the woman who’d caused her so much emotional turmoil.
Three days of brutal torture. That was enough to leave anyone scarred in and out for life. She wondered in what ways Lucy would be changed after this.
Chilled by the thought, Lizzie quickly made for the door.
∗ ∗ ∗
“Lucy.”
She sat on the edge of the bed, hands resting on the mattress on either side of her, eyes staring blankly at a spot on the floor. Tommy pushed the bedroom door closed with a click behind Doctor Evans, leaving Polly to escort him out while he came to sit down beside her.
“Sweetheart?”
A choked off sob left her lips, hand flying to her mouth a second too late to try to contain it.
“Hey,” he wrapped his arm around her carefully, pulling her into his side. “It’s okay.”
She shook her head furiously from side to side, turning her face to bury in his shoulder.
“It’s gonna be okay, baby. Doctor Evans said that all those cuts will heal…”
Yes, to leave disgusting, raised scars in their wake.
But that wasn’t even what was really bothering her.
“My-my shoulders…” she managed to whimper out, and she felt Tommy tense a little against her.
“He said with time and the right exercises, you might be able to minimize the long-term damage done to them…”
She shook her head. She’d seen the look in Doctor Evans’s eyes, same as he had. That much time spent with her arms positioned over her head, with her entire body weight dangling from them, had likely done catastrophic damage to the nerves. And yes, he may have given her a set of exercises and stretches to do once the inflammation went down and her cuts healed enough that she wouldn’t risk reopening them, but she had seen it in his face. It would never be the same again. Her range of motion in them would be permanently impacted, and she’d likely have pains in them for the remainder of her life.
“I can’t…I might not be able to…” Why couldn’t she just get the bloody words out? Was she really so useless now that she couldn’t even speak? “What use am I to you now?” she forced herself to ask in a hoarse whisper. Tommy’s eyes widened, scooting closer to her.
“What do you mean?”
Her mind tumbled over itself with all the potential implications that her injuries could have. “What if I can’t fight anymore? Or the pain gets so bad I can barely function? What if I can’t do my job? Or…or…or…” her chest started to spasm, cinching hard and closing off her ability to speak, sobs and harsh gasps rattling in her lungs.
“Lucy, Lucy, Lucy…” Tommy gathered her up in her arms, pulling her in close to his chest. “Shh,” he started to rock her from side to side, hand cradling the back of her skull protectively. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” There was so much confidence in his voice that she was in danger of actually believing him. “I’ll take care of you. If you need physical accommodations for anything, we’ll sort them out, all right?”
“But–”
“Love, you’re useful for far more than just swinging fists.” Tommy tried to reassure, leaning back to smooth away her tears with his thumbs, cradling her face in his big palms. “Don’t worry about any of that right now. There’s nothing that could ever make me toss you aside, okay?” His lips brushed against her forehead. “All you need to focus on is healing and resting, eh?”
She swallowed, nodding shakily, taking a deep breath to try to steady herself. Gaze fixing with Tommy’s, she let the deep blue of his eyes ground her, reminding her that she was safe and looked after. Tommy gave her a small, reassuring smile.
“Good girl. C’mere.” He guided her gently into laying back down on the bed on her side, and she felt a pulse of fondness at the way he immediately began fussing over her. Fluffing her pillow and pulling the blankets up to her chin. “What do you need? Are you hungry? I think Ada or Polly made soup, if you want some.” He stood at her bedside, ready to jump at any request she might give him.
“Could you just come lay with me for a bit?”
His eyes softened, nodding and climbing in under the blankets next to her. He rested his arm lightly around her waist, taking care not to touch her back or jostle her bandages.
“I’m sorry,” she rasped, cheeks warming at her little meltdown and how frantic and irrational she probably had seemed.
“Oh, sweetheart, no. You don’t have to apologize for anything.”
Resting her hand on his forearm, Lucy rubbed her thumb back and forth against the soft material of his undershirt. He had changed into just a white Henley identical to the one he gave her to pull over her bandages, and a pair of trousers.
“I’m so sorry that I didn’t find you sooner,” he said, thumb stroking her cheekbone.
She shook her head. “I know that you did the best you could.” Adjusting herself, she stifled a wince at accidentally placing too much pressure on her bruised ribs. There wasn’t really any part of her that she could lay on without any discomfort, but being on her side was significantly better than being on her back. “How did you find me?”
“Our boys found Lizzie’s gardener who sold you out. His name was Paul Smith. Xavier Smith’s father. You remember Xavier Smith, right?”
Ah, that explained why the old man gave her up, then. “Yes.”
“I got him to talk.”
“How?”
He looked down. She inched her face closer to his in encouragement, until their noses almost brushed.
“I pulled out both his eyes.” The way that he looked at her suggested that he expected her to recoil in horror, but she did no such thing, hardly even blinking at the revelation.
“Is he still alive?”
A tiny, half sheepish smile crossed Tommy’s lips. “No. Not unless he can live with his head nearly sawed off.”
“You did that for me?” she asked, eyes wide.
“Of course,” Tommy said, as if there had never been any question in his mind that he would. “I had to find you.”
She put her head on his chest, weak arms looping around his middle. He rested his palms on her gingerly, careful not to pull at her bandages when he held her.
“Try to get some more rest.”
“When’s the fight between Bonnie and Goliath?”
“In a week.”
“I want to come.”
He drew back to look at her worriedly. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to overdo it.”
“I’m sure. I…” biting her lip, she glanced towards the window, then back at him. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”
He looked her up and down. “Okay.”
“Thank you,” she put her head on his chest, blinking slowly as exhaustion took hold of her once more. Tommy’s hand continued to pet at her hair.
“Get some sleep, love. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
And he was, when she woke but only a few short hours later, screaming.
Her brain was fogged over with panic, hands scratching and scrabbling, legs kicking to try to fight off the monsters that moments ago she had been certain were surrounding her.
“Lucy! Lucy!”
Her eyes darted around the room madly, searching for any signs of Luca looming in the dark corners, wicked grin pulling at the corners of his lips as he prepared to elicit more pain onto her.
“It’s okay. You’re safe.”
A hand rested lightly on her shoulder, and she thrashed violently, crying out, swatting with flailing hands.
“Get off of me!” she screamed, trying to scramble away. He was here. He was here and he was going to hurt her again unless she managed to get away…
“Lucy.” Two strong arms wrapped around her waist, pinning her arms to her sides, keeping her from rolling away. She tried to kick out, one foot colliding hard with the wall to her left with a bang. “It’s me. It’s me. Come here. Come here.”
Her breaths were coming out in fast, frantic little bursts, eyes bulging in their sockets.
“Deep breaths,” the voice behind her commanded, and she felt a stockily built chest rise as its owner’s lungs filled with oxygen, then slowly lower as he let the breath out. “Match my breathing, come on.”
Her mind finally managed to catch up with what was going on around her, or at least enough that she was able to recognize that the voice rumbling her ear very much was not the hissing murmur that belonged to Luca Changretta.
Her lungs stuttered, then almost unconsciously started to match the deep rise and falls of Tommy’s chest against her.
“That’s my girl,” he said, at her growing still. “Do you see the pictures on the wall?”
She had to squint to make them out in the darkness, but across from the bed she found the painting of a horse standing in a forest, the leaves changing colors with the seasons and fluttering to the grass that the mare was grazing upon in a layer of reds, oranges, and yellows.
Tommy’s cheek was resting against hers, his breath warm against her ear. She could feel the rumble of his voice in his chest when he spoke again.
“The items on the nightstand?”
Her gaze cast over. To the little lamp. A half filled glass of whiskey. An ashtray dusted with black ash, with too many cigarette butts to count smashed in its center.
“Uh huh.”
“He doesn’t have you anymore.” She felt Tommy relax as he felt the tension in her start to slip away. “You’re safe,” his lips just barely ghosted across her temple. “You’re safe, Lucy. There you go.”
Certain that she was actually lucid and calmed, he loosened his grip on her, pulling away slightly to flick on the lamp, washing the entire room in its dull, golden glow. Lucy cringed and squinted at the sudden change in brightness.
Sinking down into the mattress, she drew her arms up to her chest, tremors starting to wrack through her body, eyes welling with tears. Her back connected with the bed, and she sharply jerked away from it with a yelp.
Whether it was that action that caused the following hurricane of pain, or just what drew her mind’s attention to it, she wasn’t sure. It didn’t entirely matter, the result was the same. She was suddenly deeply aware of just how much everything hurt.
It was howling within her, her wounds screaming and muscles aching. Her back once more felt as though it had been set ablaze. Her split skin throbbed. Her shoulders hurt so badly it sent sparks of white flaring across her eyes.
A sob left her lips, twitching as though she might be able to wriggle away from the pain. But moving only made everything worse.
“Luce?” And then Tommy was there, leaning over her with wide, worried eyes. “Sweetheart, what is it?”
“H-hurts…” she barely could get the word out, but it was enough. Tommy shot up, reaching for the nightstand, pulling from the drawer the bottle of morphine that the doctor had left for her, along with a prescription for more if she needed it. He snatched up the glass of whiskey, downing the remaining of the amber liquid, then pouring a small amount of her medicine into the glass.
“Drink this,” he held it to her lips. The morphine was cold as it touched her tongue and slid down her throat. “Come here,” setting the glass aside, he reached out for her, smoothing his hand along the side of her face. “Look at me. Focus on my voice. Just give it a few minutes love, hm? You’ll be okay.”
Just as he said, it took only a few minutes, and the pain was dulled, her eyes starting to feel heavy again.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, sniffing. Tommy shook his head.
“It’s okay.”
With a sigh, she let her head rest on his chest. “‘M a fucking mess,” she lamented sorrowfully.
“No, honey. No, you’re not. You’re just recovering. It’s alright. I gotcha.” He put his arms around her. “Light on or off?”
“Off.” It was too bright with it on. She felt his muscles flex against her as he reached over to flick it off. “You’re a good nurse.”
His chest buzzed pleasantly against her ear with a quiet chuckle. “You’re high as a kite, love.” He kissed the top of her head. “Go back to sleep.”
“You don’t have to stay.” She desperately wanted him to, but she didn’t want him to feel like he had to continue to stick around and gather up the pieces every time she fell apart. There was no doubt in her mind that she’d be waking up screaming and thrashing from nightmares probably for the foreseeable future. He was probably exhausted. He needed to rest too. “I’ll probably keep waking you up…”
“Good.” His thumb stroked her cheek. “I want you to wake me up every time that you need something.”
Her lips pouted with the desire to cry again at how nice he was being towards her. She stroked her fingers lazily across his chest, feeling how warm and strong he was; reassuring herself that she was probably as safe as was realistically possible when in the circle of his arms.
His fingers curled under her chin, tilting her face up to look into his. “I love you, Lucy,” he kissed her softly, lips soft as a pillow against hers. Tears filled her eyes.
“I love you too.”
He smiled at her gently, placing another kiss between her brows. “Sleep,” he said, and encouraged her to snuggle back down into his chest.
∗ ∗ ∗
Lucy stared at her reflection in the mirror in the washroom, hands gripping either side of the sink’s basin, knuckles white, lip caught between her teeth. Glassy, dead green eyes looked back at her, their judgment harsh and sharp.
God, she looked fucking awful.
The bruises on her face had faded into unflattering shades of purple, green, and yellow. Her skin was sickly, eyes bloodshot and surrounded by dark circles.
And that wasn’t even taking into account the rest of her. She looked like she had been patchworked back together, like a blanket with dozens of holes in it that had been mended with other various scraps of fabric. Or maybe like a crude attempt at dressing up like Frankenstein’s monster.
She knew that the other women–Polly, Ada, Linda, and Lizzie–had all planned to get dolled up in elegant, beaded dresses and expensive jewels and furs for the occasion of Bonnie’s boxing match. There was no way that she could go out like that. The best she would be able to do was dress in layers that would prevent her bandages from getting disturbed too much, and hope that she could hide most of the bruises on her face with makeup.
Tugging at the white button down and trousers she had already pulled on earlier with Tommy’s help, she frowned, pulling her belt a few notches tighter to cinch more securely around her waist. After three days of being fed only tiny scraps of bread, she had lost weight. Also probably not helped by the fact that she’d barely had the appetite to eat anything save for small servings of chicken noodle soup for most of the past week.
Leaning closer to the mirror, she dabbed a little more makeup over a bruise on her cheekbone, trying hard not to wince at the way that the movement pulled tightly at her shoulders.
She did not realize just how much she raised her arms up over her head until she was practically unable to. She couldn’t even grab her favorite mug from the cupboard because it was on a high shelf.
A soft knock sounded at the door. “You okay in there, love?” Tommy’s voice called. Lucy sighed, rubbing at her face.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Be out in a second.”
He had hardly left her side for the last week. Even getting him to let her use to loo on her own had taken a significant amount of convincing. But she appreciated the worry. Frankly the idea of not being close to him was enough to have her teetering on the edge of a panic attack.
Wiping her hands on a towel, she looked herself up and down one last time in the mirror, sighing and determining that this was probably about as good as she was going to be able to manage at the moment.
When she stepped out into the hall, it was to find Tommy leaning against the opposite wall, turning a cigarette over and over between his fingers anxiously. He straightened when he saw her, wedging the cigarette between his lips and holding out a hand to help usher her back into the bedroom.
Her fingers fiddled together as she stepped towards the bed, picking up her waistcoat and shoving her arms through the holes, thankful that it buttoned in the front so she wouldn’t have to raise her arms to get it on. Tommy approached her, reaching out to do up the buttons for her, then helping her into her matching suit jacket and coat.
It felt strange to be in her normal clothes after over a week spent in bed in little more than one of Tommy’s shirts. Not exactly a bad strange, though. It would probably do her good to return to a routine.
Tommy smiled down at her, brushing a fallen curl back behind her ear. “Ready?”
“I look like shit.”
His brows pulled together, thrusting out a hand for her to take so he could draw her closer to him, head angling down to kiss her. “You look beautiful. C’mon.”
His fingers squeezed around hers as he led the way down the stairs and to the door. The fresh air, no matter how smoky, felt good on her cheeks after so many days spent cooped up inside.
“You know, you don’t have to come if you aren’t feeling up to it. I’m sure Ada would be happy to stay with you,” Tommy said as they walked. His gait was noticeably slower than usual, to make sure that she wouldn’t struggle to keep up.
Lucy shook her head. The idea of not being with him left her feeling panicky.
“I want to stay with you.”
“Okay,” he didn’t question her. “But you let me know if you’re in pain. Or if you need to go home.”
“Okay.”
Once they got to the boxing ring, she stood at his side, keeping her cap on despite them being indoors, her head angled down to let the shadows it cast partially hide the bruises on her face. Her arms looped through his, hoping that it looked more like she was just lingering close to him as she so often did, and not because she needed to lean on him for stability. The shouts of men and the crush of bodies crowded together seemed louder and more overwhelming than usual. But that may have been because she was pretty sure that if someone jostled into her too hard, she would tip over.
Just before the first round started, Tommy drew her away, his grip firm to help support her as they weaved through the tight maze of hallways that made up the backrooms.
“I thought it would be good for us to sit somewhere quiet for a minute,” he explained, guiding her to a bench in one of the locker rooms. “How are you doing?”
“Fine,” she took the cigarette that he offered her, leaning into his side when he sat down beside her. He gingerly wrapped his arm around her, resting the side of his head against her hair.
Her physical ailments aside, what unnerved her the most was her mind. That feeling of numbness and desolation that had overtaken her the day that Tommy brought her home had not abated. Had not even eased at all, really.
Was this what her mind was to be like, now? Aching and constantly overstimulated? Both simultaneously feeling everything and nothing?
She did not want to live like that.
“Lucy?” Tommy asked, thumb stroking her shoulder through the material of her coat.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” she blurted out. It really meant a lot; she knew that she wasn’t particularly fun to be around right now, and with the thousands of other things he had to worry about, that he’d chosen to prioritize her was no small thing.
“Love, you don’t have to thank me for that. It’s what we do.”
She allowed herself a small smile at that, despite the unending anxiety that plagued her; that feeling that there was yet another piece of her that had died in that church. A part of her that was lost forever.
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#tommy shelby#tommy shelby x oc#tommy shelby x lucy#tommy shelby series#tommy shelby fanfic#tommy shelby imagine#peaky blinders#peaky blinders fanfic#peaky blinders series#peaky blinders imagine
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only seven more weeks before I never have to do ethnographic work again. it's so far away but also..... so close.....
#it's great if ethnography is the methodology you orefer but it is like sandpaper on my brain#i do not get it. it does not work for me#i do not want to be doing this but i have to. ughhhhhhhhh#ethnomusicology is a very interesting discipline whose methodology works Not At All for me. at least i know that now!#that's cool im glad of that#but if i never take field notes again it will be too soon. i really hate this lmao#and i need to for this class. agh. agh!!!!#also my prof adding more and more work outside of class. go interview people. go to these festivals on the weekend. go to these other#meetings after school. i think we should all go for this class.#sir. sir. i have A Life. i have Things To Do. stop adding more and more shit you expect me to do beyond the school day on my plate#in the middle of the semester with no warning. stop it.#i get you're passionate about this but i fucking hate it. i specifically picked archival work for our final so i wouldn't have to do this.#and yet! and yet!!! i am forced to do it!!!!! stop it!!!!!!!!!!#my brain is already being run into the ground every day trying to survive adding more bullshit to my plate isn't helping!!!#knock it off!!#i respect the professor as an academic but like. oh my god. if i never do this again i would die happy.#i hate this.#don't like the work. don't like the volunteering much. really hate talking to people. which i am forced to do. don't like the methodology.#all around ive learned: i will never do work like this! more power to you if you like it. i. do not.#school woes
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*Something poetic about the duality of humans or the impact our environment has on our behaviours and lifestyles*
#hazbin hotel#sir pentious#been wanting to do something that compares their design for like 5 or 6 months#and yet again I’d hid a bunch of details with the shading#I mean atleast you can still tell his fangs are different lengths#he’s fun to draw anyway#snake tails are fun x I hope he looks like a stuffed sock because that’s what I wanted#he’s so interesting as a character I used to hate him and now he is one of my favourites#he sucked being a sinner and I hope he continues to suck being a winner now#like he was so soft and goofy down below but up too maybe he’s too chaotic and has too dark a humour idk#it must be hard to be thrust into a pit for close to a century and a half and then placed somewhere else#and we may see some of his human life but if he was in his he’ll form for a century longer where does the real you start#and where does the person you where forced to be even begin#anyway I am spinning this around in my head like a microwave#also I hand spotted every scale and then at the end realise it looks like my sparkle brush but f it it’s too late#added over an hour onto my usual shading time but it’s cute so idk#ill stop rambling now….
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As soon as Adelaide read over the note, she had made up her mind about what she was going to do. Since departing from Arthur a few hours prior, her thoughts had been consumed by him. She was half-convinced that she was going mad. Of course, it went without saying that she did her best to converse with other gentlemen; polite conversation, small smiles... but nothing compared to the way she felt when she was around Arthur. It was almost magnetic, some sort of force residing over her drawing her in as she did her best to focus on something else, anything else. She had made several stops to the refreshments table hoping to find him there, or Matilda... a conversation with her sister would certainly confirm whether she was in her right mind. The note, now a carefully folded piece of paper secured within her reticle. It had already garnered such significance since reading it. His written word carrying the possibility that she may not be the only one feeling this... whatever this was. Her gaze glued to the windows, she found herself wishing time away. As soon as the moon came out she would meet Arthur. The glow of the moon quickly filtered through the ballroom providing the already romantic space, a romantic glow. Adelaide stepped out into the bitter cold of the evening, towards the gardens. If she had thought better about this perhaps she would have recognized the potential scandal posed. Yet, all she could find herself doing was yearning to see the man who had so easily invaded and captured her thoughts. Adelaide walked until she found the stone balcony that overlooked the gardens; gloved hands holding on, trying to ground herself in the reality she was currently in. A reality where she was growing fond of a man that she had only spent two dances with. She glanced to the left of her, immediately spotting him. "Lord Barnes, I am starting to think this is not mere coincidence," her tone was playful. "I hope it is not too improper to say... but I was wishing for the moon to show. I missed being in your presence." Her admission sent the rosy hue to her cheeks; one that seemed to be all too familiar when he was around.
Though lucky was not the word that Arthur would have chosen to describe how he was feeling about how much he yearned to stay in Miss Winslow's presence, once she said it, he could see that she was entirely correct. He was incredibly fortunate to have found someone who made the simple act of saying goodbye so hard; especially because he had been certain that he would never meet someone who made him feel this way again.
"Well, I....I suppose that I should not keep the swarm of suitors wishing to offer you a dance waiting." Arthur said softly, though in truth, he desired nothing more than to make them wait until they lost interest. He knew, though, that to do such a thing was unfair to Miss Winslow, that if she was to choose his company over the company of others, than it needed to, in fact, be a choice. "It has...truly... been amongst the great pleasures of my life, meeting you, and spending time in your company tonight, Miss Winslow." He bowed and offered her a smile, his eyes full of adoration for her, and hope for the two of them. "I have little doubt in my mind that...that we will meet again soon. Please, keep an eye out for my correspondence." And with one final smile, and nearly all the willpower that he possessed, he left her.
Some time later....
The evening was spiraling fast towards a close, and though Arthur had tried his very best to put Miss Winslow from his mind, to return his focus to his sister and her activities, he had still found himself looking with yearning across the room to where Adelaide was far more often than he meant to. Over time, he found himself fantasizing of a scenario where he could steal one additional moment with her before the night ended, which gradually turned from fantasy into a plan he was determined to make into reality. In a moment wherein they were passing by one another, just as he had orchestrated they would be, Arthur reached and discreetly placed a folded piece of paper within her gloved palm, hoping that she would unfold it and read the message scrawled upon it in hasty and excited handwriting:
I have heard a rumor that the garden here is quite lovely to look upon under the glow of the moon. Indeed, I have seen a great many of the guests here heading outside to steal a look within the past hour. It is my intention of going out to look at the top of the next hour, so that I may see for myself if it as beautiful as they say. Please do me the honour of seeking out my company there, so that, should the gardens fail to live up to their reputation, I may still look upon something lovely once more before the night's end.
~ A
As he made his way outside, it was to find that there were several people admiring the garden and speaking in hushed tones to one another. All he could do now was wait, and hope that Miss Winslow would accept his invitation.
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How many more times must i be forced to go through an awful day and then remind people, who I know personally and previously knew to be very intelligent, that the reason why some people get worried about whether or not an online person they interact with is “real” is because there is such a thing as fucking scams.
#getting a masters degree will not save some of you hoes actually. y’all are gonna wind up#Sending money to Nelson Mandelas wife bc she told you over Twitter she needed cash#stop thinking you’re too smart to be conned. If you haven’t been conned it’s only bc the right one hasn’t been run on you yet#Apartment flooded. Costs through the roof. Cleaning my apartment and trying to pack. And still I am forced#To put up with some of y’all. Can you guys please fucking vet the fundraisers you do? Y’all are gonna get information or money stolen#It’s fucking embarrassing. We got taught this shit as kids guys.#But what about their suffering?!?!!#Well idk man if you send 100 dollars to some fucking random con artist and not a person struggling through a very bad and dire situation#How are you going to feel? Bc I’ll tell u rn. If I lose 100 dollars to someone I’m gonna be fucking LIVID#Anyway daily reminder to actually verify your donation posts and make sure they’re reliable before spreading them.#THERE IS NEVER ACTUALLY A FUCKING CAT!!!!!!!!!!!#Guess who got an inbox message this weekend lmao
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been making concepts for magical girl adukin au.. i am forming a semi-consistent plot & having fun.. i might draw some other characters in magical girl outfits even if ive sort of laid out what the "canon" magical girls are for the au, but idk who i would draw.. maybe fusakin and syumitaro because well. ones a balloon with a human body and the other is God
#ekurambles#i really like this au if i am being honest even if it is just for funsies.. been working on it inbetween doodles and requests#i have a lot of things jotted down on how adukin even like.. became a magical girl in the first place#& i definitely think it could tie into her feelings in the maingame after the events of mo3#with her feeling like she wasnt as good of a person as jack is but instead of getting manipulated by mdcr#she sacrifices her own selfworth to act more like a hero and force herself to be someone she isnt (“magical girl adu”)#rather than accept who she is and not try to live as a cheap copy of someone who already loves & cares abt her *for* who she is.#taking on a much more dangerous nightlife as a magical girl just to feel like she can amount to any of what jack has done#& that'd probably also lead into jack and his magical boy form where he just wants to help protect her even though adukin hates that idea#she knows she can protect herself and she knows jack isnt trying to say that shes weak (he thinks shes really fucking strong)#but she cant accept his help without accepting herself first otherwise shes just going to keep comparing herself to someone-#-who already thinks shes perfect as the foulmouthed yet kind numa that she is#+ the whole thing with bachikin being the villain shes trying to defeat even if she doesnt know that#because like. she loves bachikin. it is an adubachi-based au afterall#bachikin is only doing these things to create what she thinks is a perfect world#where it's just her and adukin and nobody can judge them or keep them apart#shes been an awful person in the past and she doesnt know how to handle these emotions shes feeling#so she thinks that she has to deal with it the same way that she's dealt with all of her problems in the past#taking what she wants (adukin) and not letting anyone else near her#and bachikin is completely unaware that adukin is the one trying to stop her from doing this#probably in part because she doesnt want to believe that adukin wouldnt also want to live in that idealized world shes created for them-#-in her mind.#...Ok i gotta shut the fuck up this is way too long.
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it'll all be okay because there's only one more day left in the school week and after that it'll be the weekend. wait no what do you mean after the weekend I'll just have to go back to school? what do you mean the cycle of going to school and coming back home completely worn out is gonna continue?
#mole talks#ive been back in school for..... one week.#im so tired i can't stop feeling tired all of the time now this is horrible#i have to walk around school so much and im forved to be around other people anf its just exhausting#for me school would be better if they removed all social aspects#and all you would have to do is work and you wouldn't have to see other people ever#(apart from the teacher who is teaching you about the subject)#because if theres no forced socialisation that also means....... my classmates would never be ableist towards me again#:[ i can't believe i have to continue going to school#and ill probably have to continue going for many years to come#i hate how much it wares me out. i was si productive during the summer but now im not at all#and i JUST started school. it only gets worse from here#i just wanna learn. i dont want some annoying kid to call me slurs#i dont want to wear a uniform that makes me feel uncomfortable in my own skin#i dont wanna walk around the corridors feeling like everybody is staring at me and judging me#i dont want to go home feeling too weak and tired to do anything#i just want to learn stuff#i don't think i even really care about how going to school is good for my future because i don't know whats in the future for me#i just want to learn things in the present#:[#wow i have a lot of homework i need to do. i say i don't mind the work but i haven't finished all of this yet so maybe im just lying#im gonna cry. i dont want to go back to school tomorrow i dont want to be surronded by people who hate what i am#but also i dont want the teachers to infantalise me anymore! im not a kid. im 16. treat me like everybody else im not a kid#why am i crying into the tumblr void again
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