#as you can see I’m feeling very normal and charitable today

[willowcrowned]

man it’s so weird that people are always at their most incompetent and deserving of ire when I have to wake up at 6:30 AM. surely this is a strange coincidence that is 100% their fault and not because I didn’t sleep enough

[plantfell]

Deed 3 - Drabble

What Knives’ last deed revealed is that it’s entirely possible that all of Knives’ deeds will revolve around random strangers. It’s possible, but it’s also possible that the last deed was a fluke or maybe even a sign. His plan had been to go to Livio and Wolfwood, but he hadn’t settled on who the fourth deed should be for. Maybe the stars threw the purse snatcher at him to tell him that he’s moving in the right direction. Give him a little push and cheer him on. Reassure him that there’s only two tasks left.

Yeah. Fat fucking chance of that.

Knives still moves forward with his plan to see Livio first, regardless. Either the brothers are or aren’t part of this. The only thing that’s changed is that now Knives’ head is on a swivel as he walks. If the good deed can be anywhere or for anyone, he has to keep his eye out for any more robberies in progress or burning buildings or whatever a deed might be.

As he stops to wait at a crosswalk, he takes note of an older woman coming to a stop next to him. She seems unsteady on her feet, and stumbles a little. Distracted by looking around, he thinks very little of reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder to steady her; if only to keep any fall from being a distraction for him.

“Oh! Thank you, dear,” She chuckles softly, “I’m not as good on my feet as I used to be.”

Knives doesn’t respond, but, as is frequently the case with little old women, she doesn’t seem to care much. His reaching out to her is the only invitation she needs to start talking his ear off while he’s held captive by the “don’t walk” signal.

“Usually, I would have my cane with me, but I forgot it up in my apartment, and I would have been late for my appointment if I went back for it,” She chatters, unphased by the aura of disinterest radiating from the plant, “My son and I meet at the cafe just over there once a week. He’s always so busy these days… I don’t want to miss a single second with him, so I- Ah, there’s the light.”

As the crosswalk signal changes, the woman toddles forward, but stumbles slightly again as she moves from the sidewalk to the asphalt. Normally, Knives wouldn’t pay it any mind, but he’s feeling charitable today. Something about the mood doing good deeds has put him in.

“Let me help you,” He says, reaching out to loop his arm around the woman’s. At first, he steps forward a bit faster than she can keep up with, but Knives is quick to learn her pace and match it.

“Aren’t you a dear. It’s always nice to see young people these days so willing to help their elders. You know my son, he-“

In the minute that it takes to make it from one side of the crosswalk to the next, the old woman seems to bend time and manage to prattle on for ten minutes at least. Knives only gives her short grunts of acknowledgment, but she continues to the trend of not caring that her words only go in one ear to immediately come out the other.

When they get to the other side of the street and close enough to the cafe, Knives gently pries his arm way. As might be expected, she thanks him before he’s able to get a single word out.

“You’re welcome,” He starts to say, but, he stumbles at the end, caught off guard by the woman taking his hand to put something in it and give it a gentle pat.

“Have a good day, dear,” She smiles, before making a surprisingly quick exit.

Knives looks down at his hand and confusion immediately spreads across his face. It’s a piece of the figure. Knives looks from his hand to where the woman had been. All he’d done was walk ten feet with an old woman. Surely that wasn’t enough to count as a good deed.

Except… Why wouldn’t it count? All a good deed really is, is making a positive impact on the world. It may have only been a moment in the grand scheme of things, but what he did was kind and benefited the woman. Even if she would have been find if Knives hadn’t intervened, he provided her with companionship. It was good. It was a deed. It made the world a little brighter.

He glances back down at the piece of wood, then tightly clasps his hand around it. It’s so easy to lose sight of that, with the weight of his sin. Every little thing he does makes an impact. As easy as it is to be cruel, it’s just as easy to put kindness out into the world.

[aristocratic-otter]

Hello, Y'all. Thank you, @bookish-bogwitch, @fatalfangirl, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @erzbethluna, @hushed-chorus, @artsyunderstudy, @stardustasincocaine, @cutestkilla, @nightimedreamersghost, @whogaveyoupermission, @ileadacharmedlife, @larkral, @facewithoutheart, @confused-bi-queer, @palimpsessed, @johnwgrey, @moodandmist for the tags on Today and Sunday. I've read some of y'all's work, but not all of it yet, I'm sorry😥.

I normally require myself to read everyone's amazing posts before I post my own, but I just found out I've been exposed to COVID, I'm feeling a little symptom-y (all in my head? Maybe), and I've been dying to share a bit of my new WIP, but I'm too tired to keep reading tonight. I promise, I'll get to reading and commenting on all of y'all's lovely work!

It's tentatively titled 'The Fall of Simon Snow', but that's very tentative, as I think there may already be a fic in fandom called that. But oh well, I've got plenty of writing to do before I have to decide.

The premise is that the War starts at the beginning of that winter break in CO, so chapter 61 never happens, and the old families launch their offensive during that scene in the white chapel in CO. Before the bit I'm sharing, our three heroes have been magically knocked out by invading old family representatives just after the Mage is killed.

The old families are not inclined to be charitable to Simon.

Beginning under the cut for length:

Baz

Simon’s magic is flowing out from him in thick, nauseating waves. The Humdrum is absorbing most of it; the boy is flickering in and out of existence beneath Simon’s hands, which have a death grip on the Humdrum’s shoulders. Bunce has fallen to her knees beside me, clutching her stomach. I struggle to get to Simon, but I can’t force my legs to move. 

~~*~~

I wake up, head throbbing, in the backseat of Fiona’s MG. I’m disoriented. Did…did all of that happen? Where’s Simon? And Penelope? How did I get here? Is everyone else dead?

“Where’s Simon?” I force out through trembling lips. 

Fiona startles and turns to look at me, and I wince, because she takes her hands entirely off of the steering wheel to do so. She takes in my state and then shakes her head. “Where’s Simon?” I repeat, with greater force. 

Fiona turns her back to me again and, to my relief, puts her hands back on the steering wheel. “Not your concern, nor mine, boyo,” she says tightly. 

“Fuck that!” I snarl. “What’s going on?”

“I’m taking you home, Basil. And that’s all you need to know right now.”

“The hell you are,” I mutter. She’s got the MG’s top down. She’s always got the top down. I think she likes how dramatic it makes her look, with her hair flowing behind her like a black flag with a white stripe. I glance over the side and calculate my chances. As per usual, she’s traveling above the speed limit. But the road we're on is gravel, so she’s exercising some caution—probably only crunching along at 40 miles an hour. 

I know I’ll survive the fall. I just want to be prepared for how much it’s going to hurt. 

I gather my courage, and then slip my seatbelt buckle free and vault over the side of the car like a gymnast jumping over the pommel horse. I hit the ground and hear an unpleasant crack from my ankle, and then momentum tumbles me over.

Once I stop somersaulting, I drag myself grimly to my feet. I barely notice the screeching of brakes behind me as I test my ankle to see if it will hold my weight. It will, barely. I set off running…well, limping. 

The last thing I hear is Fiona’s voice, shouting, “Rockabye Baby!”

Simon

Cold. 

I can’t remember the last time I felt cold.

Wait…yes I can. Sixth year. Baz’s forged note and the snow demons. That was cold. 

This is colder.

Tags and hellos and wishing you all a healthy Wednesday, @angelsfalling16, @annabellelux, @bazzybelle, @basiltonbutliketheherb, @carryonsimoncarryonbaz, @dragoneggos, @fight-surrender, @foolofabookwyrm-activated, @giishu, @ivelovedhimthroughworse, @frjsti, @krisrix, @prettylightsbigcity, @raenestee, @technetiumai, @tea-brigade, @urban-sith, @whatevertheweather, @yellobb-old, @yeonjunenby

[myherowritings]

PART 4. HOW THE RICH SUCK THEIR OWN DICKS

SUMMARY. Todoroki Shouto was a wealthy, young CEO who inherited his father’s enterprise. You were a barista at a local cafe who wouldn’t mind some extra cash. One day, Shouto came in during an early morning shift and tipped you such a large sum of money, you were certain it had to have been an accident. To your surprise and complete pleasure: It was not.

PAIRING. ceo!todoroki shouto x barista!reader

WORD COUNT. 2.9k

GENRE. ceo/barista au, fluff, eventual smut

WARNINGS. enji makes an appearance bleh, enji being classist, enji...ew, okay i swear most of the chapter is shouto and y/n being cute though 

A/N. ngl i have genshin brainrot real bad at the moment but i still have motivation for ceo!shouto and ceo!shouto only u.u there are only 7 parts to this series so we’re at the halfway mark already AHHH i hope u enjoy reading and lmk what u think!! :3 xx sof

SERIES MASTERLIST

© myherowritings — all rights reserved. reposting, modifying, copying, or translating of any kind is not allowed. do not read my writing as asmr. do not plagiarize.

Shouto’s day went from good to bad faster than it took to pull an espresso. 

It started off with a good morning text from you and having a brief, but pleasant, interaction at your work. Actually, the past few weeks have been going along a similar routine that he found himself settling into all too comfortably. You even upheld your promise of stealing him away one weekend to walk around the park, get food, and just have time to relax and be happy for once. 

Getting to be in your presence almost daily became so normalized in his life that even some of his employees heard about the cute barista with the best pastries. Yet, although he saw you often, he found himself wanting to talk to you more and more.

But for now, Shouto told himself to settle with starting the mornings off with you. They were the best mornings he’s had in a while and he didn’t want to sound ungrateful. 

Today, however, went sour fast after he heard his father was coming up to the top floor for a meeting with him. He didn’t find the idea of Enji visiting to be the most abhorrent thing, but the moment his father opened his mouth, Shouto quickly took that back. 

As expected, his father reminded him about the annual charity gala Todoroki Enterprises was expected to attend. Handfuls of galas ran through the year, but the once hosted by Naruhata Industries under the guise of raising money and awareness for the charities of choice.

In theory, a charity gala ball sounded humanitarian and a way for the upper class to give back, but in reality, most of the funds collected didn’t go to the actual charities, instead they went to paying for the venue, live bands, entertainment, the most expensive catering, decorations, and more. What presented itself as a charitable event in the eyes of the public was really a way rich people could flaunt their wealth and feel good about themselves for doing absolutely nothing to benefit society. A way for the rich to suck their own dicks, if you would. 

Shouto absolutely hated it. 

It was also a press opportunity and, in his father’s eyes, a way to gain public favor for the Todoroki business. Today, Enji attempted to tell him that bringing a date that fit the mold of high society was the best way for him to establish rapport through media coverage. Apparently, the image news outlets have placed on Shouto were either a heartbreaker and playboy with no care for other’s emotions, or a monotonous stoic who seemed like a robot with no care for other’s emotions.

In either cases, there seemed to be a theme of Shouto not caring for others. 

He sighed. 

“You can’t keep that image, Shouto,” said Enji with his arms folded across his chest. “If the media sees you with someone—a nice girl with a good upbringing—then your likeability will increase tenfold. If there’s no one you like, I’ll have to set up a date for you.”

For a while, he was torn between telling his dad to fuck off and trying to do as he said to keep peace within the family. But then, an image of you popped into his head.

“Actually, there is someone I like.” 

Enji narrowed his eyes. “Oh? An educated girl with wealthy parents?”

“There’s someone I like,” he simply repeated, the tone in his voice growing cold. 

He didn’t know anything about your upbringing or family nor did he exactly care. Shouto didn’t want to bring a date to the dumb gala, but if he had to, he would want it to be you. Only if you agreed, of course. But if you weren’t willing, then he had to face the facts that his father would most likely force a date of his own choosing upon Shouto. 

“That’s good you like someone, son,” Enji said through his teeth, “but we have to make sure it’s not some sort of...loose woman. That’d be even worse publicity—”

“I like someone and if you really cared about my happiness like you said you did, that’d be enough.”

There was a tense silence in the air. Shouto didn’t have enough fingers to count the number of times Enji had told him and his siblings that he would try to be a better dad. A caring dad who only wanted what was best for his children. A better husband for Rei. A better example for the public. The first few times, Shouto believed it. But Enji said the same things over and over again with no lasting change and Shouto was just fed up. 

After hearing the same lie told to him over and over again, it seemed to lose its weight. He seemed to lose his hope in his father ever changing.

Still, Shouto had to deal with him for as long as he lived. That much he knew as a son living in this society. 

But he hoped Enji at least had enough guilt to let him have this.

“Fine.”

Shouto blinked in surprise. 

Enji stated, “If you think your date can help your public image and not be a complete embarrassment to the business, you can bring them.”

That was the closest thing to approval Shouto would get today. He nodded and listened along to whatever else his father had to say, the only thing actually on his mind was thinking about how he would ask you out on a date to some stuffy gala. And hope that you’d say yes.

— ✩ —

“Wait, so, let me get this straight— You’re the CEO of Todoroki Enterprises and even after almost two months of knowing you, I had no clue?”

He inclined his head, looking solemn. “Yes, I’m sorry. Are you upset with me for not telling you sooner?” 

Initial shock aside, you couldn’t say that you were too surprised at the revelation. You knew Shouto was wealthy and probably in some high-up position in the business industry, but you never knew to what extent. A CEO? That had to be the highest rank in a company! And a company as well known as Todoroki Enterprises? 

The thought made you a little nervous. The guy you slowly befriended over the course of short cafe visits and silly texts was Mr. Todoroki? Or worse— The guy you stole away from doing work for a whole weekend was someone as busy as a CEO? You internally groaned. That had to be against laws of the universe or something. 

“I’m not upset, no,” you said with a shake of your head. “I just...can’t believe it I guess.” Eyes widening, you were quick to amend your words. “Well, I can believe it. You seem very intelligent and well-put together and, uh, rich! But I guess I just didn’t think a CEO would be so funny and kind.” You winced. “Oh no, is that mean to say?”

“I don’t think it’s mean.” He shrugged. “You’re right to say most people in this field aren’t known for their delightful temperaments.” 

You absentmindedly drummed your finger against your thigh, trying to process this new information. “So you’re Todoroki Shouto...and you want me to be your date to the Naruhata Charity Ball?” 

“Yeah. I know it’s a huge favor to ask, and I promise you can say no if you choose,” said Shouto in earnest. “I don’t want you to feel obligated to agree.” 

With a hum, you stretched your legs out under the table before crossing one over the other again. It was a Saturday afternoon where you had no work and Shouto managed to escape from his for a few hours of the day. You took him to your favorite ice cream place nearby and the two of you ate at a dining area outside the establishment. 

Just a mundane day as two friends hanging out with each other where you found out one of those friends was the chief executive officer of a billion dollar business headquartered in Japan. 

Totally normal, everyday occurrences, obviously. 

“And you need a date for this event?” you asked. In all honesty, you would be more than happy if Shouto asked you out on a date. He was fun and you enjoyed getting to know him. But these particular circumstances made you a tad bit more nervous.

“I normally wouldn’t need to bring one, but my father insists it’d help my public image and in turn the image of the company.” With a pinched look on his face, he took a bite of his ice cream. “In other words I bring a date or he picks one for me.” 

You weren’t the most caught up on super rich people drama, but it was almost infamous how estranged the Todoroki family was. Again, you didn’t know much but you did know enough to say that Todoroki Enji seemed like a Class A asshole. If you could help Shouto out with his weird dilemma, you saw no reason not to. 

“So this charita gala is like where they have those live auctions and silent auctions and get tipsy on fancy wine and champagne for hours right?”

He tilted his head to the side. “Yeah. Have you attended one?” 

“Not quite,” you said with a sheepish smile. “I’ve volunteered at one in school though. As one of those runners? It was fun. I got a bunch of those tiny complimentary candies!” Your mouth watered at the memory. “What kind of drug were in those candies? I’ve never had candy so good before!”

“The tiny, circular candies with the excessively big wrapper? The fruity ones?”

You shot up in your seat, excited he knew what you were talking about. “Yes! That’s the one!” 

The corners of his mouth quirked upwards. “I always see those at these types of events.”

“So… The candy will be there at the gala you want me to accompany you to?” 

“Most likely.”

“Can I take a bunch of those from candies there…?” you asked with an optimistic grin.

“I’ll be your accomplice in sneaking them out.”

“It’s a date!” you said before Shouto could get another word out. 

You’d be reunited with those yummy, fancy candies you’ve been separated from for far too long. What other reason did you need to agree? 

With a determined look on your face, you held your hand out for Shouto to shake to seal the deal. 

He blinked. “Wait. Did you want to discuss it some more? Maybe have a few days to think it through? I’m grateful, of course, but I don’t want you regretting anything.”

“No. I won’t regret it. I’d do anything to taste those candies again.”

Shouto looked unsure what to say. “Isn’t there some parable warning people not to be bribed by candy?”

“Not to take candy from a baby?”

“No. Not that one.”

“That’s the only one I know.”

“Never mind then.” 

The two of you exchanged confused looks before letting out fits of laughter. You weren’t sure if either of you knew exactly what the other was laughing at, but the moment was an enjoyable one nonetheless. 

“Yet another reason to bring me to that fancy event— I’ll make sure you’re entertained all the way through,” you playfully bragged, smoothing down the front of your shirt. 

“The event will definitely be more bearable with you there.” He licked a small bit of his ice cream from his pink spoon, making a sound of approval. “But you can change your mind about coming at any time, Y/N.”

“I won’t,” you said, holding a pinky out. “Pinky promise.”

With what seemed like a bashful expression on his face, Shouto extended his own pinky to interlock yours. You sealed it with a kiss and a heart, like you were a kid again. 

“Now, am I supposed to be in love with you at the gala?” you asked nonchalantly, finishing off your last bite of ice cream. He offered you a spoonful of his and you tried not to grow too flustered at Shouto feeding you his dessert. You murmured a quiet, “Thanks.”

He gave you a small smile. “You’re welcome. As for being in love… I don’t think that’s necessary. Just pretend you like being around me, I think.”

Under the table, you nudged his shoe with yours, pulling a face. “I don’t have to pretend about that, silly.” 

“Ah, well,” he paused, offering you another spoonful of ice cream, “I don’t either.”

“I’m glad.” Then, “Is this strawberry? I was never a big strawberry ice cream fan but for some reason this tastes so good.” 

You ignored the nagging voice in your head that said maybe it wasn’t so much the ice cream flavor but who you were enjoying it with. 

The two of you finished his dessert in peace and after cleaning up the area with a napkin, Shouto turned to you with an intent look on his face.

“Before the gala, would you mind if I talk you shopping so you could pick out what to wear?” he asked. “I would pay of course— It’s the least I could do to say thank you.”

You shook your head. “You don’t have to thank me! You’re my friend and I want to help.” You thought about it for a moment. “And get the candy.”

“Anything for the candy.”

“Exactly,” you said in complete seriousness. “But I wouldn’t mind going shopping with you. You could help me decide what to wear! I’m not exactly sure how to dress for an event as fancy as this.”

“You could wear anything to the event and still look amazing.” His words were ones of flattery but his tone sounded completely genuine. 

Heat rose to your cheeks at the compliment. “Look who’s talking— You’re practically runway ready no matter what time of day.”

“I’ve never walked a runway before.”

You stifled a laugh at his literal interpretation of your words. Cute. “Me neither.”

He looked confused at why you were grinning, but it still brought a smile to his own lips.

By now the sun had begun to set and Shouto was walking you to the train to see you off before you went home.

“Can I pick you up next weekend in the morning?” he said. “So we can get your outfit for the gala?”

“Sure! I’ll text you my address.” 

He nodded in contentment. “And again, you don’t have to worry about any costs.”

“Is this why my friends have called you a sugar daddy?” you teased, bumping your shoulder against his as you walked down the street, side-by-side. “But thank you. Shopping will be fun— We can even match colors!” 

“Mn.” He looked between the both of you, as if trying to picture what colors would complement each other. 

You crossed the sidewalk in a comfortable silence, enjoying the scenery by Shouto’s side. A few times, you even felt his knuckles brush against yours and you had the undeniable urge to hold his hand. Would that be weird? you asked yourself before deciding against it. 

Just because he asked you to be his date for the Naruhata Charity Ball didn’t mean he actually liked you, right? It was just a favor from a friend to a friend.

Something about that though made your stomach unsettled. Maybe part of you wanted it to be a real date— Wanted this to be a real date. 

“So I won’t be seeing you tomorrow,” you said after a moment’s silence, trying not to look too dejected. 

You knew he’d still text good morning and good night and ask you random things throughout the day (all of which you found really endearing, by the way), but it was still different from seeing him in person. Even though your time together in the morning was small, they still were enough to make your day. The thought of your waking hours being so entwined made you nervous, but for some reason it didn’t bother you as much as you thought it would. In fact, it was sort of...nice. 

“I’ll see you Monday morning, right?” you asked hopefully, though you were already fairly certain of the answer.

Shouto nodded. “Of course. It’s already marked on my calendar.”

“Ever the flatterer, hmm?” 

“Not flattery, just the truth.” He pulled his phone out and showed you his (rather packed) calendar app. To your surprise, a little reminder that said ‘See Y/N :)’ was marked on his Monday schedule. 

Unable to stop the beam from spreading across your lips, you hid your face in your hands. Gosh— Did he have to be so cute? He was making it harder and harder to only like him as a friend. And even now, you weren’t sure if you liked him only as a friend.

But you pushed those thoughts away.

That was something to deal with at a later time.

When you reached the train station you normally took home, you turned to Shouto, giving him a big hug. He was tall and warm. You could feel his lean muscles through his button-down shirt as you rested your head against his chest and arms around his waist. 

“Thanks for today,” you mumbled. “I’ll see you again soon.”

After a pause, he gave you a hug back, hands rubbing hesitant circles on your back in a way that made you smile. “Text me when you get home safe,” he said as you both reluctantly released each other from an embrace.

“I will,” you promised. “You do the same! Later, Shouto!” 

And with that, you waved goodbye and boarded the train, unable to shake the unwavering grin on your face all the way home.

a/n: when shouto started feeding y/n spoonfuls of his ice cream i cried (Ｔ▽Ｔ) that’s so cUTE OF HIM LIKE PLS SIR STOP BEFORE I FALL MORE IN LOVE WITH U !! >:O he’s such a sweetheart ahhhh,, i hope all the fluff made up for the brief appearance of endeavor ಠ╭╮ಠ  FHDJKF 

what to expect in the next part:

shopping for the gala time !! 

y/n struggles with their fEeLiNGs~ part 2

oh my, y/n has to try on dresses? oh my, it’d be a shame if they needed help putting it on :o *fake gasp* 

yeah things get just a lil steamy but shh

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I have always appreciated your thoughtful views on the defence of the British monarchy, and as a university historian it’s reassuring to see someone using history to make invalubale insights to a controversial institution. I wonder what are your own thoughts on the passing of Prince Philip and what his legacy might be? Was he a gaffe prone racist and a liability to the Queen?

I know you kindly got in touch and identified yourself when you felt I was ignoring your question. I’m glad we cleared that up via DM. The truth is as I said and I’m saying here is that I had to let some time pass before I felt I could reasonably answer this question. Simply because - as you know as someone who teaches history at university - distance is good to make a sober appraisal rather than knee jerk in the moment judgements.

Contrary to what some might think I’m not really a fan girl when it comes to the royal family. I don’t religiously follow their every movement or utterance especially as I live in Paris and therefore I don’t really care about tabloid tittle tattle. I only get to hear of anything to do with the royal family when I speak to my parents or my great aunts and uncles for whom the subject is closer to their heart because of the services my family has rendered over past generations to the monarchy and the older (and dying) tight knit social circles they travel in.

Like Walter Bagehot, I’m more interested in the monarchy as an institution and its constitutional place within the historical, social, and political fabric of Britain and its continued delicate stabilising importance to that effect. It was Walter Bagehot, the great constitutional scholar and editor the Economist magazine, who said, “The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people.” In his view, a politically-inactive monarchy served the best interests of the United Kingdom; by abstaining from direct rule, the monarch levitated above the political fray with dignity, and remained a respected personage to whom all subjects could look to as a guiding light.

Even as a staunch monarchist I freely confess that there has always been this odd nature of the relationship between hereditary monarchy and a society increasingly ambivalent about the institution. To paraphrase Bagehot again, there has been too much ‘daylight’ shone onto the ‘magic’ of the monarchy because we are obsessed with personalities as celebrities.

Having said that I did feel saddened by the passing of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. After the Queen, he was my favourite royal. Anne, Princess Royal, would come next because she is very much like her father in temperament, humour, and character, so unlike her other brothers.

I have met the late Prince Philip when I was serving in the army in a few regimental meet-and-greet situations - which as you may know is pretty normal given that members of the royal family serve as honorary colonel-in-chiefs (patrons in effect) of all the British army regiments and corps.I also saw him at one or two social events such the annual charitable Royal Caledonian Ball (he’s an expert scottish reeler) and the Guards Polo Club where my older brothers played.

I’ll will freely confess that he was the one royal I could come close to identify with because his personal biography resonated with me a great deal.

Let’s be honest, the core Windsor family members, born to privilege, are conditioned and raised to be dull. Perhaps that’s a a tad harsh. I would prefer the term ‘anonymously self-effacing’, just another way of saying ‘for God’s sake don’t draw attention to yourself by saying or doing anything even mildly scandalous or political lest it invites public opprobrium and scrutiny’. The Queen magnificently succeeds in this but the others from Charles down just haven’t (with the exception of Princess Anne).

However, many people forget this obvious fact that it’s the incoming husbands and wives who marry into the Windsor family who are relied upon to bring colour and even liven things up a little. And long before Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle (very briefly), or Lady Diana Spencer, were the stars of ‘The Firm’- a phrase first coined by King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II's father who ruled from 1936 to 1952, who was thought to have wryly said, "British royals are 'not a family, we're a firm,” - it was Prince Philip who really livened things up and made the greater impact on the monarchy than any of them in the long term.  

Prince Philip’s passing belied the truth of a far more complex individual: a destitute and penniless refugee Greek-Danish prince with a heart breaking backstory that could have been penned by any 19th Century novelist, and also eagle eyed reformer who tried to drag the royal family into the 20th century. At the core of the man - lost scion of a lost European royal dynasty, a courageous war veteran, and Queen’s consort - were values in which he attempted to transform and yet maintain much older inherited traditions and attitudes. Due to his great longevity, Philip’s life came to span a period of social change that is almost unprecedented, and almost no one in history viewed such a transformation from the front row.

Prince Philip would seem to represent in an acute form the best of the values of that era, which in many ways jar with today’s. He had fought with great courage in the war as a dashing young naval officer; he was regularly rude to foreigners, which was obviously a bonus to all Brits. He liked to ride and sail and shoot things. He was unsentimental almost to a comic degree, which felt reassuring at a time when a new-found emotional incontinence made many feel uncomfortable. Outrageous to some but endearing to others, he was the sort of man you’d want to go for a pint with, perhaps the ultimate compliment that an Englishman can pay to another Englishman. This has its own delicious irony as he wasn’t really an Englishman.

There are 4 takeways I would suggest in my appraisal of Prince Philip that stand out for me. So let me go through each one.

1. Prince Philip’s Internationalism

It may seem odd for me to say that Prince Philip wasn’t English but he wasn’t an Englishman in any real sense. He was a wretch of the world - stateless, homeless, and penniless. That the Prince of Nowhere became the British Monarchy’s figurehead was more than fitting for a great age of migration and transition in which the Royal Family survived and even flourished. That he was able to transform himself into the quintessential Englishman is testimony not just to his personal determination but also to the powerful cultural pull of Britishness.

He was born on a kitchen table in Corfu in June 1921. A year later in 1922, Philip, as the the great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria and nephew of Constantine I of Greece, was forced to flee with his family after the abdication of Constantine. He grew up outside Paris speaking French; ethnically he was mostly German although he considered himself Danish, his family originating from the Schleswig border region. He was in effect, despite his demeanour of Royal Navy officer briskness, a citizen of nowhere in an age of movement. From a very young age he was a stateless person, nationally homeless. Indeed, Philip was an outsider in a way that even Meghan Markle could never be; at his wedding in 1947, his three surviving sisters and two brothers-in-law were not permitted to attend because they were literally Britain’s enemies, having fought for the Germans. A third brother-in-law had even been in the SS, working directly for Himmler, but had been killed in the conflict.

Even his religion was slightly exotic. He was Greek Orthodox until he converted to Anglicanism on marrying Elizabeth - what with his wife due to become supreme head of the Church and everything  - but his ties with eastern Christianity remained. His great-aunts Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine and Tsarina Alexandra are both martyrs of the Russian Orthodox Church, having been murdered by the Bolsheviks; Philip’s mother went on to become an Orthodox nun and a “Righteous Among the Nations” for saving a Jewish family during the Nazi occupation of Greece, spending much of her time in squalid poverty.

His parents were part of the largely German extended aristocracy who ruled almost all of Europe before it all came crashing down in 1918. When he died, aged 99, it marked a near-century in which all the great ideological struggles had been and gone; he had been born before the Soviet Union but outlived the Cold War, the War on Terror and - almost - Covid-19.

The world that Philip was born into was a far more violent and dangerous place than ours. In the year he was born, Irish rebels were still fighting Black and Tans; over the course of 12 months the Spanish and Japanese prime ministers were assassinated, there was a coup in Portugal and race riots in the United States. Germany was rocked by violence from the far-Left and far-Right, while in Italy a brutal new political movement, the Fascists, secured 30 seats in parliament, led by a trashy journalist called Benito Mussolini.

The worst violence, however, took place in Greece and Turkey. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, what remained of Turkey was marked for permanent enfeeblement by the Allies. But much to everyone’s surprise the country’s force were roused by the brilliant officer Mustafa Kemal, who led the Turks to victory. Constantinople was lost to Christendom for good and thousands of years of Hellenic culture was put to the flames in Smyrna.

The Greek royal family, north German imports shipped in during the 19th century, bore much of the popular anger for this disaster. King Constantine fled to Italy, and his brother Andrew was arrested and only escaped execution through the intervention of his relative Britain’s George V. Andrew’s wife Alice, their four daughters and infant son Philip fled to France, completely impoverished but with the one possession that ensures that aristocrats are never truly poor: connections.

Philip had a traumatic childhood. He was forged by the turmoil of his first decade and then moulded by his schooling. His early years were spent wandering, as his place of birth ejected him, his family disintegrated and he moved from country to country, none of them ever his own. When he was just a year old, he and his family were scooped up by a British destroyer from his home on the Greek island of Corfu after his father had been condemned to death. They were deposited in Italy. One of Philip's first international journeys was spent crawling around on the floor of the train from an Italian port city, "the grubby child on the desolate train pulling out of the Brindisi night," as his older sister Sophia later described it.

In Paris, he lived in a house borrowed from a relative; but it was not destined to become a home. In just one year, while he was at boarding school in Britain, the mental health of his mother, Princess Alice, deteriorated and she went into an asylum; his father, Prince Andrew, went off to Monte Carlo to live with his mistress. "I don't think anybody thinks I had a father," he once said. Andrew would die during the war. Philip went to Monte Carlo to pick up his father's possessions after the Germans had been driven from France; there was almost nothing left, just a couple of clothes brushes and some cuff-links.

Philip’s four sisters were all much older, and were soon all married to German aristocrats (the youngest would soon die in an aeroplane crash, along with her husband and children). His sisters became ever more embroiled in the German regime. In Scotland going to Gordonstoun boarding school, Philip went the opposite direction, becoming ever more British. Following the death of his sister Cecilie in a plane crash in 1937, the gulf widened. As the clouds of conflict gathered, the family simply disintegrated. With a flash of the flinty stoicism that many would later interpret, with no little justification, as self-reliance to the point of dispassion, the prince explained: “It’s simply what happened. The family broke up… I just had to get on with it. You do. One does.”

In the space of 10 years he had gone from a prince of Greece to a wandering, homeless, and virtually penniless boy with no-one to care for him. He got through it by making a joke of everything, and by being practical.

By the time he went to Gordonstoun, a private boarding school on the north coast of Scotland, Philip was tough, independent and able to fend for himself; he'd had to be. Gordonstoun would channel those traits into the school's distinct philosophy of community service, teamwork, responsibility and respect for the individual. And it sparked one of the great passions of Philip's life - his love of the sea. It was Gordonstoun that nurtured that love through the maturation of his character.

Philip adored the school as much as his son Charles would despise it. Not just because the stress it put on physical as well as mental excellence - he was a great sportsman. But because of its ethos, laid down by its founder Kurt Hahn, a Jewish exile from Nazi Germany.

Hahn first met Philip as a boy in Nazi Germany. Through a connection via one of his sister’s husbands, Philip, the poor, lonely boy was first sent off to a new school - in Nazi Germany. Which was as fun as can be imagined. Schloss Salem had been co-founded by stern educator called Kurt Hahn, a tough, discipline-obsessed conservative nationalist who saw civilisation in inexorable decline. But by this stage Hahn, persecuted for being Jewish in Nazi Germany, had fled to Britain, and Philip did not spend long at the school either, where pressure from the authorities was already making things difficult for the teachers. Philip laughed at the Nazis at first, because their salute was the same gesture the boys at his previous school had to make when they wanted to go to the toilet, but within a year he was back in England, a refugee once again.

Philip happily attended Hahn’s new school, Gordonstoun, which the strict disciplinarian had set up in the Scottish Highlands. Inspired by Ancient Sparta, the boys (and then later girls) had to run around barefoot and endure cold showers, even in winter, the whole aim of which was to drive away the inevitable civilisational decay Hahn saw all around him. To 21st century ears it sounds like hell on earth, yet Philip enjoyed it, illustrating just what a totally alien world he came from.

That ethos became a significant, perhaps the significant, part of the way that Philip believed life should be lived. It shines through the speeches he gave later in his life. "The essence of freedom," he would say in Ghana in 1958, "is discipline and self-control." The comforts of the post-war era, he told the British Schools Exploring Society a year earlier, may be important "but it is much more important that the human spirit should not be stifled by easy living". And two years before that, he spoke to the boys of Ipswich School of the moral as well as material imperatives of life, with the "importance of the individual" as the "guiding principle of our society".

It was at Gordonstoun one of the great contradictions of Philip's fascinating life was born. The importance of the individual was what in Kurt Hahn's eyes differentiated Britain and liberal democracies from the kind of totalitarian dictatorship that he had fled. Philip put that centrality of the individual, and individual agency - the ability we have as humans to make our own moral and ethical decisions - at the heart of his philosophy.

At Dartmouth Naval College in 1939, the two great passions of his life would collide. He had learned to sail at Gordonstoun; he would learn to lead at Dartmouth. And his driving desire to achieve, and to win, would shine through. Despite entering the college far later than most other cadets, he would graduate top of his class in 1940. In further training at Portsmouth, he gained the top grade in four out of five sections of the exam. He became one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy.

The navy ran deep in his family. His maternal grandfather had been the First Sea Lord, the commander of the Royal Navy; his uncle, "Dickie" Mountbatten, had command of a destroyer while Philip was in training. In war, he showed not only bravery but guile. It was his natural milieu. "Prince Philip", wrote Gordonstoun headmaster Kurt Hahn admiringly, "will make his mark in any profession where he will have to prove himself in a trial of strength".

2. Prince Philip and the modernisation of the monarchy

In his own words, the process of defining what it meant to be a royal consort was one of “trial and error.” Speaking with BBC One’s Fiona Bruce in 2011, Philip explained, “There was no precedent. If I asked somebody, 'What do you expect me to do?' they all looked blank. They had no bloody idea, nobody had much idea.” So he forged for himself a role as a moderniser of the monarchy.

He could not have had much idea back in 1939. Back then in Dartmouth in 1939, as war became ever more certain, the navy was his destiny. He had fallen in love with the sea itself. "It is an extraordinary master or mistress," he would say later, "it has such extraordinary moods." But a rival to the sea would come.

When King George VI toured Dartmouth Naval College, accompanied by Philip's uncle, he brought with him his daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Philip was asked to look after her. He showed off to her, vaulting the nets of the tennis court in the grounds of the college. He was confident, outgoing, strikingly handsome, of royal blood if without a throne. She was beautiful, a little sheltered, a little serious, and very smitten by Philip.

Did he know then that this was a collision of two great passions? That he could not have the sea and the beautiful young woman? For a time after their wedding in 1948, he did have both. As young newlyweds in Malta, he had what he so prized - command of a ship - and they had two idyllic years together. But the illness and then early death of King George VI brought it all to an end.

He knew what it meant, the moment he was told. Up in a lodge in Kenya, touring Africa, with Princess Elizabeth in place of the King, Philip was told first of the monarch's death in February 1952. He looked, said his equerry Mike Parker, "as if a ton of bricks had fallen on him". For some time he sat, slumped in a chair, a newspaper covering his head and chest. His princess had become the Queen. His world had changed irrevocably.

While the late Princess Diana was later to famously claim that there were “three people” in her marriage - herself, Prince Charles and Camilla - there were at least 55 million in Philip and Elizabeth’s. As Elizabeth dedicated her life to her people at Westminster Abbey at the Coronation on June 2, 1953, it sparked something of an existential crisis in Philip. Many people even after his death have never really understood this pivotal moment in Philip’s life. All his dreams of being a naval officer and a life at sea as well as being the primary provider and partner in his marriage were now sacrificed on the altar of duty and love.

With his career was now over, and he was now destined to become the spare part. Philip, very reasonably, asked that his future children and indeed his family be known by his name, Mountbatten. In effect he was asking to change the royal family’s name from the House of Windsor to the House of Mountbatten. But when Prime Minister Winston Churchill got wind of it as well as the more politically agile courtiers behind the Queen, a prolonged battle of wits ensued, and it was one Philip ultimately lost. It was only in 1957 that he accepted the title of “Prince.”

Even though he had almost lost everything dear to him and his role now undefined, he didn’t throw himself a pity party. He just got on with it. Philip tried to forge his own distinct role as second fiddle to the woman who had come to represent Great Britain. He designated himself the First Officer of the Good Ship Windsor. He set about dusting off some of the cobwebs off the throne and letting some daylight unto the workings of the monarchy by advocating reasonable amount of modernisation of the monarchy.

He had ideas about modernising the royal family that might be called “improving optics” today. But in his heart of hearts he didn’t want the monarchy to become a stuffy museum piece. He envisaged a less stuffy and more popular monarchy, relevant to the lives of ordinary people. Progress was always going to be incremental as he had sturdy opposition from the old guard who wanted to keep everything as it was, but nevertheless his stubborn energy resulted in significant changes.

When a commission chaired by Prince Philip proposed broadcasting the 1953 investiture ceremony that formally named Elizabeth II as queen on live television, Prime Minister Winston Churchill reacted with outright horror, declaring, “It would be unfitting that the whole ceremony should be presented as if it were a theatrical performance.” Though the queen had initially voiced similar concerns, she eventually came around to the idea, allowing the broadcast of all but one segment of the coronation. Ultimately, according to the BBC, more than 20 million people tuned in to the televised ceremony - a credit to the foresight of Philip.

Elizabeth’s coronation marked a watershed moment for a monarchy that has, historically, been very hands off, old-fashioned and slightly invisible. Over the following years, the royals continued to embrace television as a way of connecting with the British people: In 1957, the queen delivered her annual Christmas address during a live broadcast. Again, this was Philip’s doing when he cajoled the Queen to televise her message live. He even helped her in how to use the teleprompter to get over her nerves and be herself on screen.

Four years later, in 1961, Philip became the first family member to sit for a television interview. It is hard for us to imagine now but back then it was huge. For many it was a significant step in modernising the monarchy.

Though not everything went to plan. Toward the end of the decade, the Windsors even invited cameras into their home. A 1969 BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary, instigated by Philip to show life behind the scenes, turned into an unmitigated disaster: “The Windsors” revealed the royals to be a fairly normal, if very rich, British upper-class family who liked barbecues, ice cream, watching television and bickering. The mystery of royalty took a hit below the waterline from their own torpedo, a self-inflicted wound from which they took a long time to recover. Shown once, the documentary was never aired again. But it had an irreversible effect, and not just by revealing the royals to be ordinary. By allowing the cameras in, Philip opened the lid to the prying eyes of the paparazzi who could legitimately argue that since the Royals themselves had sanctioned exposure, anything went. From then on, minor members of the House of Windsor were picked off by the press, like helpless tethered animals on a hunting safari.

Prince Philip also took steps to reorganise and renovate the royal estates in Sandringham and Balmoral such as intercoms, modern dish washers,  generally sought to make the royal household and the monarchy less stuffy, not to have so much formality everywhere.

Philip helped modernised the monarchy in other ways to acknowledge that the monarchy could be responsive to changes in society. It was Prince Philip - much to the chagrin of the haughty Princess Margaret and other stuffy old courtiers - who persuaded the Queen to host informal lunches and garden parties designed to engage a broader swath of the British public. Conversely, Prince Philip heartily encouraged the Queen (she was all for it apparently but was still finding her feet as a new monarch) to end the traditional practice of presenting debutantes from aristocratic backgrounds at court in 1952. For Philip and others it felt antiquated and out of touch with society. I know in speaking to my grandmother and others in her generation the decision was received with disbelief at how this foreign penniless upstart could come and stomp on the dreams of mothers left to clutch their pearls at the prospect there would be no shop window for their daughter to attract a suitable gentleman for marriage. One of my great aunts was over the moon happy that she never would have to go through what she saw as a very silly ceremony because she preferred her muddy wellies to high heels. 

A former senior member of the royal household, who spent several years working as one of Prince Philip’s aides, and an old family friend, once told us around a family dinner table that the Duke of Edinburgh was undoubtedly given a sense of permanence by his marriage into the Royal Family that was missing from earlier years. But the royal aide would hastily add that Prince Philip, of course, would never see it that way.

Prince Philip’s attitude was to never brood on things or seek excuses. And he did indeed get on with the job in his own way  - there should be no doubt that when it came to building and strengthening the Royal Family it was a partnership of equals with the Queen. Indeed contrary to Netflix’s hugely popular series ‘The Crown’ and its depiction of the royal marriage with Philip’s resentment at playing second fiddle, the prince recognised that his “first duty was to serve the Queen in the best way I could,” as he told ITV in 2011. Though this role was somewhat ill-suited to his dynamic, driven, and outspoken temperament, Philip performed it with utter devotion.

3. Prince Philip’s legacy

One could argue rightly that modernising the monarchy was his lasting legacy achievement. But he also tried to modernise a spent and exhausted Britain as it emerged from a ruinous war. When peace came, and with it eventual economic recovery, Philip would throw himself into the construction of a better Britain, urging the country to adopt scientific methods, embracing the ideas of industrial design, planning, education and training. A decade before Harold Wilson talked of the "white heat of the technological revolution", Philip was urging modernity on the nation in speeches and interviews. He was on top of his reading of the latest scientific breakthroughs and well read in break out innovations.

This interest in modernisation was only matched by his love for nature. As the country and the world became richer and consumed ever more, Philip warned of the impact on the environment, well before it was even vaguely fashionable. As president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in the UK for more than 20 years from 1961, he was one of the first high-profile advocates of the cause of conservation and biological diversity at a time when it was considered the preserve of an eccentric few.

For a generation of school children in Britain and the Commonwealth though, his most lasting legacy and achievement will be the Duke of Edinburgh Awards (DofE). He set up the Duke of Edinburgh award, a scheme aimed at getting young people out into nature in search of adventure or be of service to their communities. It was a scheme that could match the legacy of Baden Powell’s scouts movement. 

When Prince Philip first outlined his idea of a scheme to harness the values of his education at Gordonstoun by bringing character-building outdoor pursuits to the many rather than the fee-paying few, he received short shrift from the government of the day. The then minister of education, Sir David Eccles responded to the Duke’s proposal by saying: “I hear you’re trying to invent something like the Hitler Youth.” Undeterred he pushed on until it came to fruition.

I’m so glad that he did. I remember how proud I was for getting my DofE Awards while I was at boarding school. With the support of great mentors I managed to achieve my goals: collecting second-hand English books for a literacy programme for orphaned street children in Delhi, India with a close Indian school friend and her family; and completing a 350 mile hike following St. Olav’s Pilgrimmage Trail from Selånger, on the east coast of Sweden, and ending at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, on the west coast of Norway.

It continues to be an enduring legacy.  Since its launch in 1956, the Duke of Edinburgh awards have been bestowed upon some 2.5 million youngsters in Britain and some eight million worldwide. For a man who once referred to himself as a “Greek princeling of no consequence”, his pioneering tutelage of these two organisations (alongside some 778 other organisations of which he was either president or a patron) would be sufficient legacy for most.

4. Prince Philip’s character

It may surprise some but what I liked most about Prince Philip was the very thing that helped him achieve so much and leave a lasting legacy: his character.

It is unhelpful to the caricature of Prince Philip as an unwavering but pugnacious consort whose chief talent was a dizzying facility in off-colour one-liners that he was widely read and probably the cleverest member of his family.

His private library at Windsor consists of 11,000 tomes, among them 200 volumes of poetry. He was a fan of Jung, TS Eliot, Shakespeare and the cookery writer Elizabeth David. As well as a lifelong fascination with science, technology and sport, he spoke fairly fluent French, painted and wrote a well received book on birds. It’s maddening to think how many underestimated his genuine intellect and how cultured he was behind the crusty exterior.

He didn’t have an entourage to fawn around him. He was the first to own a computer at Buckingham Palace. He answered his own phone and wrote and responded to his own correspondence. By force of character he fought the old guard courtiers at every turn to modernise the monarchy  against their stubborn resistance.

Prince Philip was never given to self-analysis or reflection on the past. Various television interviewers tried without success to coerce him in to commenting on his legacy.But once when his guard was down he asked on the occasion of his 90th birthday what he was more proud of, he replied with characteristic bluntness: “I couldn’t care less. Who cares what I think about it, I mean it’s ridiculous.”

All of which neatly raises the profound aversion to fuss and the proclivity for tetchiness often expressed in withering put-downs that, for better or worse, will be the reflex memory for many of the Duke of Edinburgh. If character is a two edged sword so what of his gaffes? 

There is no doubt his cult status partly owed to his so-called legendary gaffes, of which there are enough to fill a book (indeed there is a book). But he was no racist. None of the Commonwealth people or foreign heads of state ever said this about him. Only leftist republicans with too much Twitter time on their hands screamed such a ridiculous accusation. They’re just overly sensitive snowflakes and being devoid of any humour they’re easily triggered.

There was the time that Philip accepted a gift from a local in Kenya, telling her she was a kind woman, and then adding: “You are a woman, aren’t you?” Or the occasion he remarked “You managed not to get eaten, then?” to a student trekking in Papua New Guinea. Then there was his World Wildlife Fund speech in 1986, when he said: “If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.” Well, he wasn’t wrong.

Philip quickly developed a reputation for what he once defined, to the General Dental Council, as “dentopedology – the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it”. Clearly he could laugh at himself as he often did as an ice breaker to put others at ease.

His remarking to the president of Nigeria, who was wearing national dress, “You look like you’re ready for bed”, or advising British students in China not to stay too long or they would end up with “slitty eyes”, is probably best written off as ill-judged humour. Telling a photographer to “just take the fucking picture” or declaring “this thing open, whatever it is”, were expressions of exasperation or weariness with which anyone might sympathise.

Above all, he was also capable of genuine if earthy wit, saying of his horse-loving daughter Princess Anne: “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay she isn’t interested.” Many people might have thought it but few dared say it. If Prince Philip’s famous gaffes provoked as much amusement as anger, it was precisely because they seem to give voice to the bewilderment and pent-up frustrations with which many people viewed the ever-changing modern world.

A former royal protection officer recounts how while on night duty guarding a visiting Queen and consort, he engaged in conversation with colleagues on a passing patrol. It was 2am and the officer had understood the royal couple to be staying elsewhere in the building until a window above his head was abruptly slammed open and an irate Prince Philip stuck his head out of the window to shout: “Would you fuck off!” Without another word, he then shut the window.

The Duke at least recognised from an early age that he was possessed of an abruptness that could all too easily cross the line from the refreshingly salty to crass effrontery.

One of his most perceptive biographers, Philip Eade, recounted how at the age of 21 the prince wrote a letter to a relation whose son had recently been killed in combat. He wrote: “I know you will never think much of me. I am rude and unmannerly and I say things out of turn which I realise afterwards must have hurt someone. Then I am filled with remorse and I try to put matters right.”

In the case of the royal protection officer, the Duke turned up in the room used by the police officers when off duty and said: “Terribly sorry about last night, wasn’t quite feeling myself.”

Aides have also ventured to explain away some of their employer’s more outlandish remarks - from asking Cayman islanders “You are descended from pirates aren’t you?” to enquiring of a female fashion writer if she was wearing mink knickers - as the price of his instinctive desire to prick the pomposity of his presence with a quip to put others at ease.

Indeed many people forget that his ‘gaffes’ were more typical of the clubbish humour of the British officer class – which of course would be less appreciated, sometimes even offensive, to other ears. It’s why he could relate so well to veterans who enjoyed his bonhomie company immensely.

But behind the irascibility, some have argued there also lay a darker nature, unpleasantly distilled in his flinty attitude to his eldest son. One anecdote tells of how, in the aftermath of the murder of the Duke’s uncle and surrogate father, Lord Mountbatten,  Philip lectured his son, who was also extremely fond of his “honorary grandfather”, that he was not to succumb to self-pity. Charles left the room in tears and when his father was asked why he had spoken to his son with so little compassion, the Duke replied: “Because if there’s any crying to be done I want it to happen within this house, in front of his family, not in public. He must be toughened up, right now.”

But here I would say that Prince Philip’s intentions were almost always sincere and in no way cruel. He has always tried to protect his family - even from their own worst selves or from those outside the family ‘firm’ who may not have their best interest at heart.

In 1937, a 16-year-old Prince Philip had walked behind his elder sister Cecile’s coffin after she was killed in a plane crash while heavily pregnant. The remains of newly-born infant found in the wreckage suggested the aircraft had perished as the pilot sought to make an emergency landing in fog as the mother entered childbirth. It was an excruciating taste of tragedy which would one day manifest itself in a very princely form of kindness that was deep down that defined Philip’s character.

When about 60 years later Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spin doctors in Downing Street tried to strong arm the Queen and the royal household over the the arrangements for the late Prince Diana’s funeral, it was Philip who stepped in front to protect his family. The Prime Minister and his media savvy spin doctors wanted the two young princes, William and Harry, to walk behind the coffin.

The infamous exchange was on the phone during a conference call between London and Balmoral, and the emotional Philip was reportedly backed by the Queen. The call was witnessed by Anji Hunter, who worked for Mr Blair. She said how surprised she was to hear Prince Philip’s emotion. ‘It’s about the boys,” he cried, “They’ve lost their mother”. Hunter thought to herself, “My God, there’s a bit of suffering going on up there”.’

Sky TV political commentator Adam Boulton (Anji Hunter’s husband) would write in his book Tony’s Ten Years: ‘The Queen relished the moment when Philip bellowed over the speakerphone from Balmoral, “Fuck off. We are talking about two boys who have just lost their mother”. Boulton goes on to say that Philip: ‘…was trying to remind everyone that human feelings were involved. No 10 were trying to help the Royals present things in the best way, but may have seemed insensitive.’

In the end the politicians almost didn’t get their way. Prince Philip stepped in to counsel his grandson, Prince William, after he had expressed a reluctance to follow his mother’s coffin after her death in Paris. Philip told the grieving child: “If you don’t walk, I think you’ll regret it later. If I walk, will you walk with me?”

It’s no wonder he was sought as a counsellor by other senior royals and especially close to his grandchildren, for whom he was a firm favourite. His relationship with Harry was said to have become strained, however, following the younger Prince’s decision to reject his royal inheritance for a life away from the public eye in America with his new American wife, Meghan Markle. For Prince Philip I am quite sure it went against all the elder Prince had lived his life by - self-sacrifice for the greater cause of royalty.

This is the key to Philip’s character and in understanding the man. The ingrained habits of a lifetime of duty and service in one form or another were never far away.

In conclusion then....

After more time passes I am sure historians will make a richer reassessment of Prince Philip’s life and legacy. Because Prince Philip was an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life; a life intimately connected with the sweeping changes of our turbulent 20th Century, a life of fascinating contrast and contradiction, of service and some degree of solitude. A complex, clever, eternally restless man that not even the suffocating protocols of royalty and tradition could bind him.

Although he fully accepted the limitations of public royal service, he did not see this as any reason for passive self-abnegation, but actively, if ironically, identified with his potentially undignified role. It is this bold and humorous embrace of fated restriction which many now find irksome: one is no longer supposed to mix public performance with private self-expression in quite this manner.

Yet such a mix is authentically Socratic: the proof that the doing of one’s duty can also be the way of self-fulfilment. The Duke’s sacrifice of career to romance and ceremonial office is all the more impressive for his not hiding some annoyance. The combination of his restless temperament and his deeply felt devotion to duty found fruitful expression; for instance, in the work of Saint George’s House Windsor - a centre and retreat that he created with Revd. Robin Woods - in exploring religious faith, philosophy, and contemporary issues.

Above all he developed a way to be male that was both traditional and modern. He served one woman with chivalric devotion as his main task in life while fulfilling his public engagements in a bold and active spirit. He eventually embraced the opportunity to read and contemplate more. And yet, he remained loyal to the imperatives of his mentor Kurt Hahn in seeking to combine imagination with action and religious devotion with practical involvement.

Prince Philip took more pride in the roles he had accidentally inherited than in the personal gifts which he was never able fully to develop. He put companionship before self-realisation and acceptance of a sacred symbolic destiny before the mere influencing of events. In all these respects he implicitly rebuked our prevailing meritocracy which over-values officially accredited attainment, and our prevailing narcissism which valorises the assertion of discrete identities.

Prince Philip was Britain’s longest-serving consort. He was steadfast, duty driven, and a necessary adjunct to the continuity and stability of the Queen and the monarchy. Of all the institutions that have lost the faith of the British public in this period - the Church, Parliament, the media, the police - the Monarchy itself has surprisingly done better than most at surviving, curiously well-adapted to a period of societal change and moral anarchy. The House of Hanover and later Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (changed to Windsor), since their arrival in this country in 1714, have been noted above all for their ability to adapt. And just as they survived the Victorian age by transforming themselves into the bourgeoise, domestic ideal, so they have survived the new Elizabethan era (Harry-Meghan saga is just a passing blip like the Edward-Wallis Simpson saga of the 1930s).

There was once a time when the Royal’s German blood was a punchline for crude and xenophobic satirists. Now it is the royals who are deeply British while the country itself is increasingly cosmopolitan and globalised. British society has seen a greater demographic change than the preceding four or five thousand years combined, the second Elizabethan age has been characterised more than anything by a transformational movement of people. Prince Philip, the Greek-born, Danish-German persecuted and destitute wanderer who came to become one of the Greatest Britons of the past century, perhaps epitomised that era better than anyone else. And he got through it by making a joke of everything, and by being practical.

I hope I don’t exaggerate when I say that in our troubled times over identity, and our place and purpose in the world, we need to heed his selfless example more than ever.

As Heraclitus wisely said,  Ήθος ανθρώπ�� δαίμων (Character is destiny.)

RIP Prince Philip. You were my prince. God damn you, I miss you already.

Thanks for your question.

[women-loving-art]

Alice Pike Barney Natalie at Seven, 1883 / Natalie and Missa, 1890 / Natalie Barney in Fur Cape, 1896 / Natalie with Necklace, c. 1900 / Lucifer, 1902

Some of the paintings that Alice Pike Barney (1857-1931) made using her daughter, Natalie Clifford Barney (1876-1972), as a model. 

“As the year [1900] closed, the fallout from Quelques portraits-sonnets de femmes [Natalie Clifford Barney’s lesbian poetry collection] caused a major break in the Barney family. It had taken months for word of the book to develop a strong buzz, but by now many people had read or at least heard about it. 

Natalie had been dropped by a few Washington society matrons, meaning that they refused to receive her in their homes. At least one family friend approached Natalie that summer, begging her to give up, for the sake of her parents, the course on which she was headed.

In response to her critics, Natalie claimed that she didn’t care whether or not Madame so-and-so deigned to greet her on the street. As she once said of Colette’s first husband, Willy, “Not everyone is capable of knowingly creating a bad reputation for themselves.”

There was a certain hypocrisy to the way Natalie was treated. [...] Discretion (or, if you prefer, sexual hypocrisy) was considered a duty. Among Natalie’s past and future conquests were socialites who, though they preferred the embraces of women, led ostensibly “normal” lives. As long as they married, had children, did charitable work, and managed fine homes, nobody much cared what they did behind closet doors. In the end, Natalie’s greatest sin was not that she was a lesbian, but that she refused to be quiet and ashamed about it. 

One day, Albert Barney [her father] picked up the society gossip journal Town Topics and read a small but fatal headline: Sappho sings in Washington. With that single headline, his world exploded. Highly intelligent and far from naive, his suspicions about his beloved daughter had long ago turned to certainty.

The Town Topics piece, entwining his daughter’s name with that of a perverted Greek harlot, fulfilled his worst nightmares of scandal. The fact that his wife had contributed the artwork to Natalie’s book [three of the four women who modelled for her were her daughter's lovers] constituted a double knife thrust to the heart. How, he wondered, would he ever live this down? 

The timing and exact circumstances of what happened next are impossible to pinpoint. The entire episode wasn’t one that anyone in the family wished to  remember, let alone document. It’s telling that Alice, who scissored from the newspapers each mention of her girls for permanent inclusion in her scrapbook, didn’t bother to keep the big Sappho Sings article.

What is true is this: Albert stormed into the editorial offices at Ollendorff in Paris to buy, and then destroy, the remaining copies and all printing plates for Quelques portraits-sonnets de femmes. His action doubtless accounts for the book’s extreme rarity today. 

He then brutally pulled the blinders from Alice’s eyes about the meaning of the poems in Quelques sonnets. He berated her ceaselessly, and would until his death, for having so naively contributed paintings of Natalie’s lovers to the book. 

The revelation about Natalie’s sexuality stunned Alice. The evidence had been there for years, obvious to all, but she had been in complete denial. Now, forced to accept the truth, she was shocked and sickened. For perhaps the first time ever she was unable to apply the laissez-faire philosophy that had defined her approach to life. 

In early January 1901 the Barneys boarded a ship to New York, leaving Natalie behind. Though weakened by illness, he constantly lambasted Alice, enumerating her countless sins, the greatest of which was the evil inherent in Natalie’s character. As usual, she endured the abuse by politely ignoring him. Deep within, however, she was awash in conflicting emotions. She loved and admired her daughter, but was horrified by her lesbianism. Late in January, she made her feelings clear in a letter that must have devastated Natalie:

It has come at last. Your father is quite crushed by this and really very pathetic. How perhaps you, through your disregard for us and your callousness, may remember my disgust when you would speak of this forbidden sin—and realize that every right-minded decent person is condemning you and us—as they would of the greatest evil... I am too sick and ill to write more. I used to feel sorry for Mrs. Hoy when people said things of Mattie—and how small her sin was—if true—compared with yours, which you broadcast about, as if being evil is not bad enough.

But you must in every way, to every person, make yourself a horror and a danger... Your only chance to redeem yourself is to change your life and writings and remember that in no way can you defend yourself—or reply to this [Town Topics] article... For there is not the slightest loophole. You have closed every escape. [...] You have done a bad thing—a sin against law and mankind and I can only hope that your ideas have shocked and horrified instead of converting.

It took months for Alice to accept Natalie’s nature, but eventually the truth brought mother and daughter closer. No longer engaged in subterfuge and lies, Natalie’s new relationship with Alice was easier, friendlier, and more honest. After her initial repugnance, Alice tried to see Natalie’s sexuality as simply part of her nature—a nature similar in many other ways to her own. “How much of myself I’ve passed on to you,” she wrote years later. “You’re cultivated and I—not—but we’ve got the same traits, grabbing here and there, dashing from this to that. So much of the monkey in us.”

There would be many times in the future when Natalie and Alice didn’t get along, but at its heart their relationship remained strong and loving. Each took pleasure in the other’s accomplishments. “I’m terribly proud of you,” Alice would write; or “I can’t express my admiration, my child.” They would collaborate in writing plays, visit each other, and always, no matter where they might be, there were the affectionate letters. 

Only once, many years later, did Alice reveal the pain that Natalie caused her. It happened when Natalie made a casual observation. “Mother,” she remembered saying. “You have so happy a temperament that I cannot imagine anything that has ever been able to cause you more than a passing sorrow.”

Alice drew back as if struck. She appeared embarrassed, and looked away. Natalie laughed, curious to know what could possibly have shaken her mother’s legendary equanimity, but Alice remained stubbornly and uncharacteristically silent. 

Growing uneasy, Natalie pressed for an answer. Alice hesitated, gazing back over the years to a moment of sorrow so great that it obviously pained her to recall it now. And then, slowly, she faced her daughter, staring with profound sadness into those ice-blue eyes. “You,” she muttered, almost as if speaking to herself. “You...’”

— Suzanne Rodríguez, from Wild Heart: A Life, Natalie Clifford Barney and the Decadence of Literary Paris 

[omg-im-such-a-masochist]

RESISTERE TENTATIONEM: CAPITULUM II

TĒCTUS: Covered, concealed, hidden, having been covered, hidden or concealed

Pairings: Damian Priest x Reader

Warnings: +18, mature content

Editor: @thenightmareismyreality

Tag: @ziasaph , @theworldofotps , @alyhull , @bellalutionn , @aerynscrichton , @serpantscorpio8497 , @ava-valerie , @omegasshyghuleh6661ghosts , @squirreledelman , @cazxcx , @sophiewolfheart-blog , @bayley-no-friends , @waywardwrestlewritingwaif , @sassymox

Notes: I would like to thank @letsgivethisonemoreshot , for not only being my partner in crime with this trilogy but also being one of the best friends someone could ever have 😘 This is fully written in Damian’s POV. If you’d like to check out my previous works, you can find them on my Masterlist

Want to hear a joke that’s really in poor taste? The Mother Superior of the famous Mary Magdalene Convent (isn’t that ironic) is being accused of hosting ‘parties’ to the oh so loving convent donors. And you know who isn’t invited to those parties? Jesus Christ. Because the Devil sure loves to be a part of them! Drugs, orgies, alcohol, prostitution, even black masses... you name it! Everything that is unholy happens in the so-called house of holiness, and if that isn’t a bad taste joke, I don’t know what is.

So here I am now, driving towards the Devil’s den: the Mary Magdalene convent for three torturous days of interviews. Out of all of the reporters from The New York Times, of course I was the one who drew the short straw and got assigned this article. Some people see this as a career changing opportunity... a blessing, but me? I see it as a fucking curse! I don’t like religion, I don’t like churches, I don’t like priests and I sure as hell don’t like nuns! Anything that has the word “holy” in it, I prefer to be as far away as I possibly can from. But today was not my lucky day….no, today was the day that I was going to be tested. The only thing I’m hoping for is to not fail.

I knocked on the convent’s door and a young lady answered me.

“Hi, good morning. I’m Damian Priest, reporter from The New York Times and I’m here for an interview with” I looked down at my notepad “Mrs. Y/N L/N? Whom I believe is the Mother Superior”

The young girl only nodded once and motioned for me to follow her, without saying a word.

I followed her in, mesmerized by the size of the convent, the whole place was fancy as fuck on the inside. Art pieces from famous painters were displayed on the walls, modern furniture, dim lights that made the place look cozy and inviting. *What a scam* I thought to myself. The young lady in front of me suddenly stopped walking and pointed towards the door in front of her before turning around and leaving.

Presuming that it was the Mother Superior’s office, I knocked on the door twice before someone told me to come in. You see, when they told me I was going to be interviewing the Mother Superior of a convent, the last thing I expected was for her to not only be beautiful, but young (considering I was under the impression that women in that position were around sixty years old). She was breathtaking to say the least! Soft features, her skin had an angelic glow to it and there was something in her eyes that trapped you in them...something you could not turn your gaze away from no matter how bad you wanted to.

“Mr. Priest, please sit down” She smiled

I nodded and sat on the chair in front of her desk

“Thank you for taking some time out of your busy schedule to speak with me, Mother Y/L/N-“

“Please, call me Y/N” Her sultry voice spoke

“Y/N” I tested the word on my lips and it sounded oddly pleasant

She smiled softly and...fuck she’s gorgeous! Her beauty was a painful and constant reminder of what you couldn’t have, couldn’t touch, couldn’t-“

“Mr. Priest?” She said softly

“Damian”

“Damian, would you like something to drink? Coffee, water, juice, tea perhaps?”

“No, I’m good. Thank you” I answered, while grabbing my notepad and a pen out of my backpack. Clearing my throat, I said “Can we get started with the pre-interview?”

“Of course” She smiled widely and reached for a cigarette pack on top of the table, which made me raise an eyebrow

“We all have our dirty little secrets, don’t we, Damian?” She asked, licking the cigarette filter before sucking it

*Am I going crazy?* I thought to myself

“Damian? Your first question is?” She giggled

“Ummm” I cleared my throat once again “Y/N, recently the convent was involved in a huge scandal involving drugs, prostitution, orgies and black masses. Would you like to clarify why an institution that’s deeply connected to the church is in the middle of something so profane?”

She grinned “God is in the most profane things, Damian. After all, the sinners are the ones who need Him the most, aren’t they?”

“I’m not sure if I follow-”

“You see” She took a long drag on her cigarette and walked towards me “God is our Lord and savior. He forgives us from our sins, grants us forgiveness to our most foul actions” She sat down on the chair beside me “If you steal from someone and repent; He’ll forgive you, kill someone and repent; He’ll save you, cheat on your wife with the hot, young next door neighbor and repent; He’ll brush it underneath the carpet and pretend it never happened” She shrugged “God doesn’t judge, Damian. He only forgives” She leaned forward on the arm of the chair, until she was uncomfortably close to me “So if the big boss himself doesn't judge anyone, then why should I?”

“And what does judgment have to do with drugs, orgies and sin?”

She smiled “How can God forgive you if you don’t sin, Damian?”

“And how can God forgive his so-called followers who incite others to sin, Y/N?”

“Incite others to sin?” She chuckled “Are you talking about the allegations, the donors or yourself?” She smirked

………………………………………………….......................

Since we’re so far from town I was informed that I would have to spend the night at the convent. They showed me my bedroom and it looked pretty fancy. King size bed, Egyptian sheets, expensive furniture. Everything was oddly normal, except for the weird dream I recalled having. I was at the convent, lost, calling for help because I somehow ended up locked in here. I was inside what looked like a large basement, the room was only lit by red lights, a faint smell of leather took over my nostrils as I heard someone moaning softly in my ear…a woman. And the weirdest thing was that I could’ve sworn I felt her breath against my ear. Needless to say I woke up with my dick as hard as a rock and had to spend a solid thirty minutes trying to get rid of a very painful boner, which did not leave me no matter how many times I came. Half hard and inside a convent...yeah, I’m definitely going to Hell!

“How did you sleep, Damian?” Was the first thing I was asked when I walked into the Mother Superior’s office in the morning. Something in her voice told me she knew exactly what I had done underneath the shower.

“Good”

“I bet you woke up feeling much better after a good night of rest, right?” She smiled devilishly and I just nodded

“Would you mind if we took a tour through the convent at some point?” I asked, quickly changing subjects

“Of course not! Let me know when you want one”

I nodded and began to ask my questions

“So, why do so many men keep coming and going from this convent? Seems like the place men shouldn’t be”

“The only men who come to the convent, Damian, are maintenance, the donors for the ‘thank you parties’ we host and now you” She smiled

“How do you get so many people to keep donating?”

“We don’t oblige anyone to do anything. People are still kind enough to see the work we do for those in need and they get touched by it. So God is the one who inspires them to donate, Damian. Not me”

“I’ve noticed a lot of fancy things here. Shouldn’t the money be going to something else?”

“The ‘fancy’ things you see are gifts from the donors. Things they felt in their hearts they should give us freely. We don’t buy things for the convent, apart from food. That’s one of the rules”

“Speaking of rules” I looked at her “Why are you smoking? Isn't that not allowed?”

“We don’t have rules against smoking here, Damian. The choice to do it or not is personal, but there are no rules for it. It’s not forbidden or a sin. Now, if you think nuns shouldn’t smoke, I suggest you pay a visit to the convents in Rome and give them a piece of your mind about their choices regarding health”

I chuckled at her comeback

“Why so cynical about our good intentions?” She licked her lips

“Because you don’t have any” I spat

“We live for helping those in need, Damian” She pointed towards my visible bulge

“Helping those in need, huh? And what do you get out of it?”

She walked towards me “Satisfaction in its purest form” She lifted one hand up and caressed my lower belly over my shirt “It’s incredible how much providing relief to others can trigger the biggest pleasure in our bodies...to see their eyes semi-closed in...relief is so rewarding to me”

I cleared my throat and shifted uncomfortably. “And just how needy do these people have to be?” I was speaking in financial terms of course

“Very needy” Her hand toyed with my jeans button “Some even have trouble sleeping due to their neediness, so you can see how a helping hand goes so well in this case...even the right mouth, you know to profess the Lord’s word”

“And just how many of these ‘charitable acts’ have you been involved with?” I felt my cock grow harder and harder

“Directly? Only when things get too hard, Damian” Her hand brushed against my hard bulge “That’s when I offer my help, so things can stop getting so hard and painful”

I gulped as I tried to shift away from her touch “So what, you just have all these other poor girls do your dirty work for you?” I try to keep my serious composure

“I’m not afraid of getting dirty, Damian. The girls do what they can, what they’re instructed to...but sometimes things get so hard that I have no other option but intervene” She pulled the fly of my jeans down “Then, once the seed of evil is finally spilled, things can go back to being soft again” She leaned in closer “Would you like a demonstration, Damian? I’m sure you have some kind of evil inside you that needs to be released” She asked with a sinister smile reaching her hand into the waistband of my boxer briefs

“I’m just here for work, Y/N, I have nothing to donate”

“Don’t worry about it. My girls will not be involved in this...it will be our little secret”

“I would like the tour now, please”

She smirked “Of course” and stepped away from me “This way” She went out the door as if nothing had happened

“Psycho bitch” I whispered to myself, as I pulled the fly of my jeans up and tied my hoodie around my waist to cover up the boner.

“This way we have the nuns bedrooms” She pointed towards a hallway “Kitchen, restrooms, archives, laundry room, storage for cleaning supplies, pantry” She explained each room, until we were outside “The patio, garden; where we cultivate flowers, fruits and vegetables, garage and the chapel is this way”

She walked towards a medium sized chapel in the middle of the garden, it looked like a regular chapel on the inside. It had an altar with a bible on it, a pulpit, a big cross, devotional statues of catholic saints, wooden benches and a confessional. Candles were lit up all over the place and everything looked normal. Scarily normal, until I noticed a few nuns who were sat on one of the benches staring at me with a weird look on their eyes

“Why are they looking at me like that?” I asked Y/N

“Like what?”

“Like, with...” I trailed off

“With desire?” She whispered in a mocking tone

I looked down at her speechless

“One could say that you’re a little too obsessed with the lust theme, Damian” She smiled “It’s all you can think about ever since you got here, dear. You should be careful” She licked her lips and pulled me by my hand towards her office again.

………………………........................................................

Later that night while I was trying to get some sleep, I began to hear some mumbling. Muffled voices kept saying something unintelligible and filling up the bedroom with mainly female voices. But one of the voices sounded too familiar to me...

I stood up from the bed and began to search in the room where those voices could be coming from, and as I almost gave up, I found it. A small hole of the size of a coin, in the concrete wall in front of my bed. Scooting closer to the wall, I knelt down and peeked through the hole, but weirdly enough, the room was pitch black. The mumbling started again and they soon became moans. Above all the moaning voices, one stood out to me. It was Y/N’s voice, she moaned softly while she said something I couldn’t quite understand. Her voice was filled with lust, her moans were pornographic and I could swear she was moaning my name. It both frightened and turned me on, so I did what any wise man would do. I returned to the bed, laid down and jerked off before falling into a deep slumber.

..................................................................................

“Wake up” Someone softly whispered in my ear

I quickly opened my eyes and my heart was beating at a frantic pace due to the fright.

A young girl was sitting down on my bed “Please, follow me” was all she said before standing up and leaving my room

I was so confused that I didn’t even bother to grab a t-shirt, so I just followed her down the hall barefoot and only with a pair of sweatpants on. Looking outside the hallway windows, I could see that the sky was still dark, which could only mean it was the late hours of morning.

She took me inside the laundry room and pressed a button underneath the folding clothes table. A door opened and a red light lit up the dark wooden stairs. I continued to follow her down the stairs, and we began to walk down a long hallway that looked more like a basement. The whole place had only red lights as the lighting source, so it took my eyes a while to get used to it.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked, but only received silence as a response

We walked for what felt like ten minutes until we reached a black wooden door with an iron door knocker. She knocked on the door four times and left.

“Is this a prank?” I asked myself, after five minutes of standing there alone. Suddenly the door opened, but I couldn’t see anything other than darkness ahead

“Hello?” I called from the doorway, but no one answered back

The thing that made me such a great reporter was my utter curiosity, and even with all my senses screaming ‘don’t go in there!’ I decided to listen to my curious side instead, and went into the room. As soon as I stepped a foot inside, the door behind me closed shut.

The room was pitch black and I stumbled across a few items. I placed my hand on top of what felt like a table so I could try to guide myself through the room, at least back to the door again so I could leave. When suddenly I felt several pairs of soft hands on my torso pulling me back.

“What the fuck?” I gasped in shock

But before I could make a move, my wrists and ankles were tied to a wooden surface and a red light turned on in the room

Five nuns were in front of me, staring silently at my body

“Leave” Someone said from behind me, and the nuns obeyed and left

“I would be lying if I said you weren’t a beautiful sight” Y/N said, and and walked in front of me

“You psycho bitch” I growled and pulled at the restraints “Let me go!”

She smiled “Oh Damian...You don’t want that!” Her nails softly scratched my lower belly “And neither do I”

“You’re sick! Let me go, you fucking-“

“Na ah” She slapped me across the face “I’m done playing these pretending games” She lit up a cigarette “Pretend you didn’t jerk off to my moans, pretending you don’t want to fuck me...that gets tiring” She dipped her hand inside my sweatpants and found my semi hard bulge “You’ve wanted to fuck me ever since you laid eyes on me” She giggled and I licked my dry lips

“Those sinful, filthy, thoughts you’ve had, Damian” She closed her fist around my erection “You wanted to know what we do here, right? We purge that demon out of you” And scooted closer until her lips brushed against my own with every word she spoke

“We send him away, so he can’t bother you anymore” She freed my cock from my pants and began to pump her hand up and down “We release you from the seed of evil”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I panted

Y/N knelt down in front of me and darted her tongue out, licking my slit “Give me the seed of evil, Damian” and gave an open mouth kiss on my tip “Feed me with it” Licked the underside of my shaft “Release yourself from what’s been bothering you ever since you got here” Darting her tongue out “Use me to purify your soul” And opened her mouth wider.

At such a sight I had no other option but to buck my hips forward…

And chase for my cleansing

If you’re comfortable with it, please let me know your thoughts on this? Feedbacks are always appreciated 🥰😘

[thedaredevilsgirl]

Can you write a smut where Sam Holland and reader are at a party and he gets jealous because reader is talking to another guy then he takes out his anger on reader at home in bed

Jealousy Jealousy

Warnings: Smut (angry sex, dirty talk, fingering, oral -fem!receiving- breath kink,Unprotected sex)

Word count:1282

N/A: the parts of the story in italics are flashback. Forgive any grammatical errors, English is not my mother tongue. I hope you enjoy 💖💖

Sam leans your body against the wall, holding your hands above his head.

Normally he didn't show that dominant side much, he liked to make love to you, to taste your body slowly, enjoying every moment. But Sam didn't want to be affectionate now, no, he was boiling with anger and jealousy.

•─────✧─────•─────✧─────•

When Harry invited them both to go to a pub that night they quickly accepted, they had nothing to do at home and were bored. They needed a diversion.

"You look so beautiful darling" Sam says hugging her body from behind and leaving a chaste kiss on her cheek.

"Thank you love, you..." Her speech is interrupted when a male voice calls her name in the crowd.

"Y/N, my God" A guy says approaching you and hugging you tightly.

"Joshua" You say the name that probably belonged to him.

Sam already knew all of his closest friends, at least that's what he thought since he had never met that guy and the two of them seemed pretty close.

"It's been so long since I've seen you" He says finally letting go of you.

"I think the last time we saw each other was during high school" you say nostalgically "Sam" you say looking at your boyfriend, who was already starting to think he had been forgotten "This is Joshua, an old friend from school, and Joshua this is Sam, my boyfriend" you introduce the two of them.

"Old school friend?" Joshua asks laughing "We were both much more than friends".

Sam starts to get annoyed after a while, you and your friend spent hours talking and reminiscing about old times, while Joshua blatantly flirted with you every chance he got.

"Remember that trip to the beach we took with our class? We had a lot of fun didn't we, especially that day" he says in a suggestive tone.

And it is at that moment that something seems to explode inside Sam. He remembers you telling him how you lost your virginity on the beach with your ex-boyfriend from high school, he puts the pieces together in his head and realizes, Joshua was that guy.

The drive home is silent, you even try to talk to your boyfriend while he is driving, but his answers are short and curt.

Sam was not a jealous boyfriend, much less possessive, it was one of the things he was most proud of himself, he knew that his fling with Joshua had been years ago, but the way your ex-boyfriend was flirting with you without even caring that he was there stirred something wild inside him.

•─────✧─────•─────✧─────•

That's how it ended that way right when they got home.

"Listen to me carefully because I'm only going to say it once" Sam says in an authoritative manner "I'm going to fuck you until your legs shake and the only word you'll remember is going to be my name".

You squeeze your thighs against each other to try and ease the arousal. You really liked the way Sam was as a boyfriend, the way he treated you, being all loving and caring, made you feel loved, but seeing Sam acting like that was extremely arousing

"Are we clear honey?"

You nod quickly, but he is not satisfied with that.

"I want words pretty girl" you say holding your face in his hand.

"Yes Sam, I get it" your voice comes out breathless.

"Good" he replies smugly before picking you up on his lap and carrying you into the bedroom.

You are thrown onto the bed and Sam's body is soon on top of yours, his hands find the neckline of your dress and he soon pulls it ripping it open and removing it from your body.

"Sam, that was my favorite dress" you say and feel a slap on your thigh, not to the point of hurting but burning a little, you groan throwing your head back.

"I don't remember giving you permission to speak, or did I?"

"No sir"

"That's what I thought."

Within seconds you and Sam are already completely unclothed on the bed, he gets between your thighs and runs his thumb over your clit going down to your entrance catching some of the moisture before putting it in his mouth.

"So sweet" he sighs "do you want to taste it baby? Want to feel how sweet you are?" You nod and he does it again, again picking up your wetness with his finger before taking it into your mouth, you moan as you feel the weight of his two fingers on your tongue.

"Delicious isn't it?" He ask smiling, It's so funny how I barely touched you and you're already all desperate for me.

"Sam" you say as soon as his fingers are removed from your mouth.

He spreads kisses all over your body, leaving one last kiss at the end of your belly, right near where you really wanted his mouth.

"I don't think you deserve what you want today honey" he says pulling away a little from your body, letting just two fingers shallowly explore your pussy.

"Sam, please" she writhes on the sheets.

"You haven't been a good girl today, not at all," one of the fingers finally enters you " Talking to your ex boyfriend all night, ignoring me, practically pretending I didn't exist" The second finger enters you without a warning.

"I'm so sorry" he whimpers tearfully.

"I guess it's a little late for apologies honey, you're lucky I'm feeling charitable today and will let you cum, but I hope this doesn't happen again, ok?"

"Ok, thanks Sam" he says sweetly.

His mouth soon joins his fingers that were inside you, trapping your clit between his lips, letting his tongue slowly caress the little pink bud, his fingers moving in a circular fashion on your G-spot making you throw your head back as you moan repeatedly begging for more, soon you are coming apart on his lips.

He doesn't even wait for you to recover before penetrating you.

"Look at you, my bad little girl, taking my cock so well" he goes fast and mercilessly, you closed your eyes at some point, ecstatic with the sensations your boyfriend was giving you "Look at me" you try to obey but your body doesn't seem to obey his commands anymore "Look at me" he repeats in an authoritarian way wrapping his fingers around your neck, your eyes open facing his eyes directly "Yes, that's my girl" he compliments you.

He continues to speed up the movements, holding your leg on his hip, while his other hand was still around your throat, you were so close and he knew it.

"That's it, cum for me, show me who's the only one who can make you feel like this."

"You're the only one Sam, the only one" you cum soon after, with a cry of his name and with a few more strokes he comes inside you.

Your legs were trembling as he pulls out of you, your breath panting and your body tired. He helps you clean yourself up before lying down beside you. And there was the loving boyfriend you knew so well.

"Was I too hard like you?" he asks nervously.

"No, you were very good Sam, you should act like that more often" you both laugh "Sam" he looks at your face "You don't have to be jealous, he and I are a thing of the past, and you are my present and my future, I love you".

He smiles lovingly and leaves a brief kiss on her forehead.

"I love you too baby, always."

[starshipsofstarlord]

Can you do a one-shot where the reader was born in 1996 and she’s the daughter of Nikki Sixx and Brandi Brandt and is the bassist and songwriter of Wallows and is best friends with her bandmates Dylan Minnette, Braeden Lemasters, and Cole Preston and she helps 5sos write songs for the album Calm and starts dating Ashton and the fans go nuts (in the good way) with shipping?

Wallowing

ashton Irwin x wallows!reader / masterlist

warnings; references to sex, swearing, threats

“Come in babe.” You opened the door, inviting your boyfriend Ashton into your flat. He had been having a hard day at the studio, and had asked if it was alright if he came over. Of course it was, but he had got a warning prior to his arrival, that they would not be alone, and that if he wanted to clear his head, it was certainly not the right place.

“Fuck you, you’re supposed to be on my side man!” At the sound of Dylan, yelling at whom you supposed to be Cole, you pinched the bridge of your nose, squeezing your eyes shut as you welcomed your partner into your home sweet home. Out of all days, they had to be playing COD in your apartment today.

“Sorry bout that.” A light grimace filled your face, but instead of giving you criticism, Ashton simply laughed, following you through the apartment, as you tried to slowly pass behind your band mates who were occupying your living room.

“Not so fast young Sixx, get your well endowed ass back here.” A sigh fell from your mouth as you rolled your eyes at Braeden, pausing your movements as he turned to lean against the back of your couch to peer over at you. “We need to have a conversation little lady.”

Groaning, you threw your head back, smiling a small apology towards Ash. “We were going to go to my room, I’d rather just you guys play my PS4 without needing to interact with me face to face.”

“Would you rather he FaceTime you whilst you’re getting down and dirty, or stand there like a kid’s doll and allow him to pull at your arm?” Dylan mumbled, as you crossed your arms, Ash greeting your band mates as you moved towards the tv, reaching for the side button and turning it off.

“Y/n what the hell?” Cole half screamed, breaking loose as he was close to finally beating Minette and killing his gamer character. His hands flailed as he expected an answer, raising in the air as he held the remote.

“I could ask you the same thing Preston, so what’s the schtick that’s making you keep me here, in my own apartment?” He gulped as you enquired at him, raising your brow, as you leaned back into your partner who stood awkwardly behind you like a supporting shadow.

“Congrats on the album Irwin, it’s great to see our own band member aiding your band. CALM is sick, and she makes me feel the same, just in a different manner.”

“Stop being a salty little bitch would you?” You asked, smacking him on the upside of the back of his head. He rutted his head back, clasping the behind of his scalp with his palm, firmly turning back to cast an icy glare towards you.

This was the normal behaviour around here, you all enjoyed getting under each other’s skin. It was a sign of true friendship, that whilst sometimes still triggering some real annoyance, that made your bond of being band mates that much deeper.

They were doing the same thing to you now, speaking prolifically showering your boyfriend in compliments, to side swab you with cockblockery. In all honesty, whenever Lydia or another girl was on the premises, you returned the favour, though that did not your pulsating frustration decrease at all.

“I’m going to assume there’s a problem here. Are you sure now is a good time for me to be here?” Ash asked reassuringly, his gentle touch applying a loving presence upon your shoulder, making you smile despite the situation that was running through the discourse of your veins

You craved him, to feel his body atop, or under, or however else against your own. It was infuriating to endure how your band mates dragged their greeting to him out, all you wanted was to discard his and your own clothing, leaving it as a jumble of forgotten material on the floor whilst the pair of you were caught up in mess upon the mattress, limbs inclined to coil around each arch, and breaths long overdue and escaping into the air.

“It’s a good time for you overall pal, considering that your sales are sky high, taller than this one that is practically trying to hump your arm. No problems with your presence, except the fact that it’s turning little Brandi’s baby’s hormones into overdrive.” Braeden spoke, earning a guttural growl out from your throat, as your nostrils flared furiously at his words.

If you didn’t get on with it, then the Red Sea of the month would cause a flood that would stain your underwear. You’d have preferred to take action before that happened. “The work isn’t just on my shoulders loser, if you want a worldwide selling album, put in some elbow grease, instead of playing stupid games.”

“I’m good, and by definition that makes you stupid, because they belong to you.” He remarked, Cole chuckling and offering him a high five.

“I could just kick you out.” You promptly supposed, as Dylan messed around with his phone, surrendering to the game, as he ran his hand to define the ruggedness of his silvery blue locks.

“Band rules say no to that.” Braeden stated. “And Ash, feel free to replace this one, we could do a switch. You’re basically ready to move in together, so we wouldn’t have to go anywhere else to have rapid fire nights.”

“Do I even want to know what that is?” Your boyfriend asked, and you, without any thought or hesitancy, shook your head. He certainly didn’t need to know about that, it was, least to say, a mess.

There would be dares, and drinks, and tattoos put in the most awkward places with that artist set that you kept very far under your bed. It was a shock that Ashton hadn’t seen the word ‘narwhale’ on the heel of your foot, or maybe he did, and decided against saying anything.

“I put up with these idiots.” Dylan sighed, though as you whipped your head around, you saw that he was not speaking directly to any of you, instead, his

“He’s on fucking insta live.” Cole realised, leaving over to get his face in the mirroring of the stream, waving a hand to the fans that spewed hearts onto the corner of the screen.

“Prick.” You called Dylan out, watching as he laughed at your lack of amusement, and poised the self proclaimed camera towards you, also catching the person beside you in the view.

“Calm.” Ashton softly spoke, sending you a small and reassuring smile, which you were defeated to not permit the same in return

“Funny pun Irwin, but shut up.” You laughed, and shook your head, him finally catching onto what he had said.

“Yes that is the incredibly talented 5SOS member Ashton Irwin. I know right, what is he doing with us?” Cole read, watching as Dylan rolled his eyes at his band member’s behaviour, wanting to get his phone back, though his attempts were lacklustre.

“Or more specifically, her?” Braeden asks, walking behind the sofa and grasping him, dragging him closer to where the phone was propped in Cole’s hand, giving the fans a clear image of his face. “Is he joining the band?” He reads from the flood of comments. “I wish, but we don’t draw that much talent.

“Speak for yourself.” You groaned, walking closer, leaning your head over Ash’s hunched shoulder, releasing an awkward smile as he raised it, gently bumping your chin with the slope of his muscle. “Rude.”

“Where are you guys? Well, we’re at y/n’s apartment. She just got back and dragged this old slugger in off the streets. How charitable.” Cole spoke, smiling up at Irwin as he lightly punched his face, already too comfortable with his hovering presence.

“Why is he there? This one makes me laugh, quick shag, ain’t that right buddy?” Braeden thoughtlessly worded, his eyes going wide in an instant as the fans quickly tended to the realisation of what he had meant. “Fuck, oops I guess.”

To say that you were furious was an understatement; you could feel an ache in your hands, wanting to tear the idiot into dismal pieces until there was nothing salvageable left to fix.

“You guess?” Dylan snickers, covering his mouth with his hand whence he saw your murderous expression conquer features. It was vastly more terrifying than any anger you had ever portrayed, and he could feel the couch moving as Braeden turned, and squirmed from the sight.

“Lemasters, imagine your head on a stick. That is going to happen, when I get my hands on you, your gonna turn cold as I strangle the living shit outta-“ Ashton grabbed you, as your arms tried to grasp and throttle your band mate, flopping in the air, intently furious at his revealing slip up.

“I think imma go.” He bolted, and as you struggled out of Ashton’s grip, you ran after him, out your front door and through the modesty of your building.

“She forgot her key.” Ashton noted, coming around and sitting with the remaining pair on the sofa. “How one of you think it’ll take for them to return?”

“As long as it takes for her to kill him.” Dylan grasps his phone back, fluttering his gaze over the comments. “They’re kinda cute together, found my new OTP. Sorry Dylan and Lydia. Oh don’t worry, that’s fine, we gotta take what we get and currently y/n’s not getting any because we have a tendency to cockblock her.”

“It’s our duty as the men of the band.” Cole spoke, a scream reverberating through from the hallway, audible to those online that were watching the two worlds merging.

“I think she got him.” Ash said, smirking lightly, as he heard your voice bellow out in rage against the male. Yep, your band was messy, but his wasn’t much different. He could certainly get used to it.

[finalgirlkateausten]

Sick Day

So this drabble goes with a larger au, which is currently an in-progress multichap that will be up... at some point. Huge huge thank yous to @freetobegrace and @andreasbayden for the inspiration for this! We've all kinda been talking about a Ted Lasso au where Rebecca and Rupert had a kid, and I've finally gotten around to writing it. Could not be more honored to brainstorm with these lovely people ❤

Summary: Rebecca gets a call from her son's school that she needs to pick him up because he's gotten sick... but technically, it's Rupert's week for custody.

Monday morning sees Rebecca in an utterly foul mood that even biscuits from Ted hardly help. It’s storming outside, a torrential downpour, she has three more days until she sees her son again, and coming off a semi-relaxing weekend to a mountain of contract re-negotiations and relegation costs is enough to make anyone miserable.

The biscuits and her lunch plans with Higgins are the only bright spots in a day she already knows will be filled with paper cuts and ink stains, so she’s even slightly relieved when her phone rings. Talking to another person is almost always better than staring at a screen or signing documents until her hand is cramping. She picks up her cell phone quickly, frowning when she sees the contact name for James’ school scrolling across the screen.

“This is Rebecca Welton,” she answers.

”Ms. Welton, this is Lucy, the school nurse at Richmond Primary School, are you available to pick James up today?” the young woman sounds unreasonably chipper, and there’s the sound of a keyboard clacking, even through the phone. ”He threw up in class and is running a fairly high fever.”

“Yes, of course,” she answers immediately, swallowing bile in her throat as she realizes what she has to say. “But, ah… technically James should go home with his father. He has custody this week.”

”James specifically asked that we call you instead,” the nurse responds. ”He says he’s felt bad all day, but his dad told him he needed to go to school anyway.”

Rebecca mulls that over. James isn’t normally one for exaggeration, but Rupert won’t be at all forgiving just because she got the call and their son asked for her. “Would it be too much trouble for me to speak to him?”

”Not at all.” There’s shuffling on the other end, and then James speaks, sounding tired and puny even over the phone.

”Are you going to come pick me up, Mum? I don’t feel good.”

“I’m very sorry about that,” she says, her heart aching at the thought of not being there for her son. “But James, you technically are supposed to go home with your dad.”

”Dad doesn’t even believe I’m sick,” the nine-year-old protests. ”I told him I didn’t feel good this morning, and he said I should ‘buck up and walk it off’. Even Bex-who-I-don’t-like--” he always says her name like that, all together, as if the descriptor is a part of it-- ”Put her hand on my forehead and said I felt warm. But he just ignored her!”

At that, Rebecca’s last flake of charitability toward her ex-husband vanishes, washed down the storm sewer with the rain. “Alright, I’ll be right there. You don’t have to go back to your dad’s this week, not if he can’t even take care of you when you’re sick. I’m sorry you had to go to school feeling bad, James. I love you.”

”Thanks, Mum. I love you too.”

Not half an hour later, she’s in the back of the Rolls Royce with James dozing in her lap. She clicks on Higgins’ contact in her phone-- she really needs to change that name-- and waits as it rings.

”Hello? Why are you calling me from your office?”

“I’m not in my office,” she says, keeping her voice low and absentmindedly stroking James’ hair. His forehead is damp with sweat. “Sorry, but I’m going to have to cancel our lunch plans; James got sick at school so I’m taking him home. I assume he’ll sleep and I’ll be able to answer emails and whatnot as usual.”

”Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Higgins says. She can practically hear his hesitation through the phone.

“I’d like you to call Rupert for me.”

All she gets for that is a sigh.

“He’s going to be spitting mad if he finds out at school pickup, you’d best call now,” she continues. “Quite frankly, I don’t care if I’m in violation of the custody agreement, James told him he was sick this morning-- and he was-- and Rupert blatantly ignored him.”

”I’ll do it, I’ll do it,” Higgins says, ”But I’m a director of football operations, Rebecca, not a divorce lawyer.”

“And you’re quite good at your job,” she says. “I’m just asking you to do me a favor, Leslie. Please and thank you.”

”Alright,” he agrees, ”but if he tries to press the issue, I’m telling him to call you.”

Higgins must offer some sort of suitable explanation, because Rebecca has a good hour of peace and quiet before her phone rings. She tucks James into bed, singing softly and rubbing his back until he fully drifts off. Once she’s positioned a trash can by the side of his bed, she heads to the kitchen, ignoring her work emails in favor of starting up a pot of chicken soup.

Even though the work she does ultimately have to do is the same as what she’d be doing at the club, it feels nicer at home, sitting in the large beanbag in the corner of her son’s room. Her back is going to complain to her about this later, but it’s worth it, to be able to watch over him. Rebecca occasionally unfolds herself from her cross-legged position to check on him closer, pressing her hand or her lips to his forehead. The fever doesn’t seem better, but she’s made an appointment with the doctor already, so that’s good.

When her phone rings, she heaves a sigh and steps from the room, crossing her fingers that the conversation stays civil, though she knows that’s unlikely.

“This is Rebecca Welton…”

[songbirdsingingthings]

Chapter Six - Skipping to First in the Ever Growing Line

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of these characters, they belong to Kohei Horikoshi

Previous Chapter ~ Next Chapter ~ Series Masterlist ~ Main Masterlist

Word Count: 2.5K

You hadn’t left your father’s side for a week and counting. Every waking moment was spent fretting over him - whether he was warm enough, whether he had enough to eat… whether he ate at all. You no longer made much of an effort to attend balls, much to Nemuri’s chagrin, and it had been a few days since you took a proper bath. Izuku was feeling just as drowned as you were - while you were serving as a caretaker of sorts, Izuku took on all of the work your father had to do on a daily basis; check the budgets, arrange business meetings, manage the family’s finances… it was just so much to do. Every time you heard your father croak or make a move to get up, you were always on your feet to aid him with whatever he needed. This kept you up late into the night and into the wee hours of the morning. You busied yourself with reading whatever you could to keep you awake. They whirled you away into their worlds of fantasy, romance, and adventure so rich and lovely that you wished to be swept up and dropped right into them. 

It was late, very late, and your nose was buried into the latest novel you had come across all the while making note of every time your father’s breathing was irregular and shallow. That’s why it surprised you when Mei stepped in quietly to say that you had company. You peered over at the little clock that was sitting atop the nightstand and looked back at her with a “are you serious?” look. She merely nods and motions with her head to follow. You don’t budge from your seat, instead pointing at your father who was asleep. With a silent motion, Mei pointed at you and then out of the door, then she pointed to herself and the chair that you were sitting in. You understood and, unhappily, rose from the wooden chair, patted her shoulder, and made your way down the long sweeping staircase. You were sure your hair was a mess and that your dress was all wrinkled, but you didn’t care. It was almost 1’oclock in the morning after all. What surprised you was that you didn’t have just one visitor, but four. All dressed in sharp suits and looking fresh as a daisy, the four young men looked up at you and gained a different response. There was Lord Iida who not only carried a briefcase, but also a vase of beautiful flowers. Well, his butler held that. Your gaze flickered to Shouto’s, and for a brief but fleeting moment, held them. And then there was Lord Kirishima and Lord Bakugou - the boys you had known for almost forever. Katsuki would tease Izuku relentlessly when you were younger, so he did the same with you, but it was all in good fun. Lord Kirishima became Lord Bakugou’s closest confidant - and you did expect that there was more to that relationship than they were letting on - and another one of Izuku’s friends. You cleared your throat as you stopped in front of them, gaining their undivided attention.

“Gentleman, to what do I owe the pleasure of this… lovely, yet early, meeting?” Your words come out a bit more harshly than you intended, but nevertheless you continued to stare the four of them down without your confidence shaking.

“Deku mentioned that he was in need of some help, Half-pint, ” Katsuki said, stepping forward. Katsuki had always been taller than you, hence your loving nickname that left his mouth so often. “Y’know where we can find him?” You didn’t have the urge, nor patience, to listen to why your brother needed four of them exactly, so you just led them to the study instead. You knocked twice and opened the door, revealing a frazzled Izuku sat at his desk, his sleeves pulled up to his elbows and his hair a frizzy mess. He looked up and his weary eyes met yours, and then the rest of your company.

“Midoriya, it’s been a while!” Kirishima said gallantly, walking over to him and putting a friendly hand on his shoulder.

“Seriously Deku, no words for a couple weeks and then we get a letter saying ‘need your assistance’? It would’ve been a shame if that got into the wrong hands and rumors started to float around.” Katsuki says, rolling his eyes. While the three of them conversed, Lord Iida stepped towards you, his butler in toe.

“I thought that you might be under a significant amount of stress lately, so I offer aid in any way necessary. He explains, earning a soft nod for you. “I also thought you might enjoy these flower arrangements - shall I have my butler place them in your parlor?”

“Yes, thank you Lord Iida. They’re lovely.” You decide not to mention how the arrangements were made up of white lilies, the flower that represents death. Lord Iida bows before you and in return you give him a quick curtsy. You slowly begin to step out of the room and you almost make it down the hallway before Shouto stops you.

“Y/N,” He breathes, his voice light but heavy with concern. You don’t correct him when he uses your first name. Instead, you turn to face him slowly. You see him open his mouth to talk but then hesitates.

“Would you like me to fetch a servant for tea? Because other than that, I genuinely do not know how I can be of service to you,” You sigh, bringing up one of your hands to daintily rub your eyes. I need to get back to reading, otherwise I’m going to fall asleep, you think to yourself. Shouto frowns and takes a step towards you.

“I want to be of service to you.” He admits. His eyes are soft and tender as they look at you, making you wish you had the strength to turn around and march back upstairs to your bedchamber. However, you were running on almost no sleep and hadn’t eaten in awhile, making you weak to his pretty face. Despite your fatigue, a small laugh escapes you.

“I’m not quite sure how that might work,” You say, letting one of your hands settle on your hip. “The young gentlemen of your social class, to my knowledge, have never been subjected to the studies of taking care of someone. That task normally falls upon the women of the household. And, from what I was able to see at your estate,” Shouto tenses at your words, remembering how your whole relationship dynamic swiftly changed when he brought you to his home, “you are up to your knees in servants awaiting your beck and call.” While your words might’ve seemed severe, they were true in all stances. Shouto knew this.

“I’m aware, I still want to help you.” His voice is no longer hesitant, but earnest and insistent. You give in.

“Alright then,” you murmur, motioning with your head that he could walk beside you. He took that opportunity quickly and the two of you settled into a comfortable pace, taking your time walking down the long hallway that ran through the left side of your house. The two of you are silent for a minute before Shouto decides to speak up.

“How much sleep have you been getting?” You expected this question, but that didn’t make it easier to answer. I should just tell him the truth, the bags underneath my eyes are evidence enough you think.

“Two, maybe three hours a night.” You hear Shouto suck in a breath and you peek over to see his eyes widen in concern.

“How much have you eaten today?” He asks more quietly, like he’s scared to hear the answer.

“Enough,” you say, hoping that will quell his questioning.

“Y/N,” He breathes, grabbing hold of your arm. Your nonchalant look seemed to cause exasperation from him. “You need to take care of yourself.” You shrug his grasp off.

“I need to take care of my father.” You say instead.

“Where are your kitchens?” He asks, provoking confusion to flash across your face.

“Is there a reason to visit them?” You ask, raising an eyebrow.

“We can get something to bring to your father.” And with that, the two of you began the ‘journey’ to the far corners of your home.

“Do you happen to know where everything is kept?” He asks you, peering over pots and pans that were hanging on the wall. You stifle a laugh at his incomprehension of how a kitchen works.

“The utensils and cookware resides there,” you point towards where Shouto was standing. “There is dried fruit in the cupboards over there and next to them are the fresh vegetables,” you motion to your left. “And the ice house is outside, which stores the milk, butter, and other perishables.” Shouto nods as he looks to where you had motioned, taking note of where everything was located.

“Perhaps we should bring him some dried Y/F/F,” He suggests, strolling over to the cabinet. With a small smile on your face, you shake your head.

“I have to disagree, Father can’t stand the taste for some reason,” You explain. Nonetheless, he digs through the cupboard and finds a little basket of dried Y/F/F. He places them in front of you on the small table.

“But you can. They’re your favorite.” He says, causing you to fluster.

“How did you know that?” You wonder, eyeing him.

“I would’ve loved to say intuition, but Izuku had mentioned it when I came into your parlor. That day when you so charitably entertained Lord Mineta?” A wistful smile fell across your face, thinking back to that time. Shouto had saved you from what would’ve been a most horrendous outing with that suitor, if you could’ve even called him that. “He said something about the fruit tarts on the table he and your father were sitting at, and mentioned how Y/F/F was your favorite. So, eat up. Then we can take something to your father.” You obliged his wants, taking a dried slice of fruit out of the basket and biting into it. The flavors seemed to wrap your taste buds in a warm, and much needed, hug that prompted your smile to grow bigger.

“Thank you,” you say genuinely. A small smile flickers across Shouto’s face at your words as he leans back on a countertop.

“Lord Iida’s flower choice was certainly interesting.” He says bluntly. You bark out a laugh and make haste to quickly cover your mouth, but the damage was done.

“I’m sure he meant no ill intent,” you try and reason, causing Shouto to roll his eyes.

“However he managed to become the suitor at the front of your ever growing line of them is beyond me.” You can hear the hints of jealousy in his voice, bringing you back to your conversation before you heard about your father’s condition. You choose to wave it off though.

“Ever growing line, huh?” You say, plucking another piece of fruit from the basket.

“You must know that you are the most desirable young lady that is out in the season.” He states. You cock your head to emphasize the point that you were in the dark about the subject Shouto was talking about, so he continued.

“Y/N.” The way your name leaves his lips causes your heart to leap. “Not only are you of high social status and come from an honorable and cherished family. You are kind,” he takes a step towards you. “Intelligent,” another step. “Beautiful.” He is now very close to you, maybe only about a foot away. It was when you looked up into his eyes that you knew. He was the one you must marry. Shouto was the only young man you have ever truly imagined a future with. He was not a bore like Lord Ojirou or disagreeable and sickening like Lord Mineta. You could be yourself around him. If you married Lord Iida, you would have to put on a show similar to the one you performed with his mother - the perfect little lady who was quiet, abiding… unspoken. Shouto liked your spunk and your loud little family. He treasured the small facts he learned about you with such care. He loved you.

“Shouto…” You whisper. To hell with the notion of marrying Lord Iida. You could deal with the social repercussions of that later, along with Shouto’s father’s clear disdain of you. That was all just white noise when you looked at the man in front of you and the tender look on his face. It was taboo to engage in serious romantic affairs before engagement, and even then, it was rare for a couple to show public displays of affection. But, you found yourself absolutely drawn to his lips. You leaned in just like the heroine from your book had, making sure that your eyes fluttered shut before you met his… but they never did. Thanks to the clamour coming from down the hallway, the two of you sprung apart and busied yourselves with something in the kitchen when the kitchen maids came in. Fighting a flustered expression, you made yourselves look up and meet your maids’ eyes.

“Oh Lady Yagi, we did not expect you to be here!” One of your maids piped up, curtsying to you and Shouto.

“It’s quite alright, Lord Shouto and I were just preparing something for my Father and didn’t want to bother you,” you explain, earning nods from the little group.

“Please, allow us!” They say, quickly working their way around the kitchen to whip up a small and nutritious meal. Cheese and crackers were placed atop a small tray along with a glass of chilled water. “Shall we take this upstairs to the senior Lord Yagi?” One of them asks, earning a shake of your head. You gently take the tray from her hands and smile.

“If you’ll allow it, I’d like to take it to him,” you say, your voice placated. The maid nods and curtsies again, letting you and Shouto pass through the small hallway together. Silence graces the two of you again but it’s different this time. It was no longer awkward and tense, but comforting and hopeful. The two of you would keep sneaking glances at the other, sometimes catching each other in the act.

“Can we discuss this…?” Shouto asks, his tone now shy again. You nod, not trusting your voice, and give him a smile. “Maybe on the promenade tomorrow morning?” You knew it was ridiculous to get as excited as you were about promenading with Shouto - for heaven’s sake, you already knew that he harbored feelings for you! But his invitation made it all the more real.

“That would be lovely.”

[idiopath-fic-smile]

more 1950s lesbian amis

continued from this.

in which grantaire makes coffee, and a friend.

“Good morning,” said Chester. “Is that a new dress?”

It was not. Grantaire looked up warily from her sketchpad. She wasn’t good-looking enough for this to be anything but a ploy.

“Do you need something, Chester?” she asked in her sweetest voice, all cotton candy fumes.

“Secretary’s out this morning,” he told her. “That’s why there’s no coffee yet.” And there, it all clicked into place. 

Grantaire schooled her face as blank as she could make it; if she was going to reach his conclusion, he’d have to drag her there.

“Thank you but I picked up a cup on my way here,” she said, nodding at her half-empty styrofoam cup. After last night’s disaster at the Musain, she had been unable to even imagine the L ride to the office without a fortifying blast of caffeine. 

Chester stared meaningfully; Grantaire stared back, meaningless.

“Grantaire,” said Chester, as if talking to one very stupid, “do you think you could brew us a pot?”

Grantaire blinked. “Does this normally fall to the staff cartoonist when the secretary’s away?”

Chester made a suppressed sound of deep irritation. He spread his hands, appealing. “Listen, I could struggle through trying to make coffee for the office and no doubt poison everyone trying, or you could do it, and add that homey little touch I know all the fellas would appreciate.”

Homey. It was not a word you’d apply to Grantaire’s garden-level one-bedroom, which boasted stained wallpaper and a stove straight out of the Coolidge administration. Homely, maybe. Chester was the one with a home, and a wife, and a fat little baby and the money for a comfortable life.

“It’s only fair to divide the work according to natural aptitude, sweetheart,” Chester was saying, and it was the sweetheart that snapped Grantaire like a rubber band, that word deployed like a pat on the head, like penny candy for a crying baby, like a scrap of baloney to a dog, like it could only ever be the bitterest pity or the cruelest joke in concert with Grantaire’s face, with Grantaire’s entire being.

“‘From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs,’” she murmured in an agreeing tone.

“Now you got it,” Chester started, then frowned.

“Karl Marx, Chester,” said Grantaire. “Keep up, or someone might need to place a call to ol’ Joe.”

Chester’s entire countenance soured. “This is why you should leave it to the men to make the jokes,” he said, “and stick to what you can do--”

Grantaire stood. “I’ll make the coffee,” she said.

“There,” said Chester, “did that need to be such a production?”

The “Golden Ratio,” according to a high school Home Economics course which Grantaire had frankly passed by the skin of her teeth, was one to two tablespoons of coffee for every six ounces of hot water. Grantaire remembered this by virtue of having gotten it wrong many, many times. She was no good with math but the machine took thirty-six ounces of water, which meant the ideal amount of grounds was somewhere between six and twelve tablespoons.

“Stars shining bright above you,” Grantaire hummed under her breath, measuring and dumping coffee grounds into the filter. One, two, three, four, five.

Grantaire had gotten it wrong in high school because nobody in her house drank coffee. She hadn’t discovered the jolting benefits herself until her first year of art school, as the deadlines began to pile and the available time to meet them began to wane.

“Night breezes seem to whisper, I love you,” Grantaire hummed. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

If there had been a way to brave the choppy academic waters of work and criticism without chemical assistance, that path had been invisible to Grantaire. She had tried, she had cried, she had turned down “diet pills” that the other girl in her program swore by only because Grantaire figured her own figure couldn’t afford to be more unflatteringly stick-thin.

“Birds singing in the sycamore trees--” Eleven, twelve. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.

The scrutiny and the pressure tempered the freedom of those heady days away from her parents. The expectation that Grantaire was only studying art as a way of killing time, until some charitable man came along to marry her, unless the poor dear simply couldn’t find anyone--she had found a survival strategy of her own, a roughly stitched-together patchwork of sarcasm and wine and more sarcasm, and coffee brewed so thick and strong it barely qualified as liquid.

“Dream a little dream of me.” Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Grantaire went ahead and dumped in the rest of the bag.

Grantaire was making shaky progress on her first deadline when Douglas stopped by her desk.

“Listen,” he blustered, “is this some kind of a joke?”

“Hm?”

“Your coffee’s undrinkable, it’s--” he faltered as Grantaire took a long swallow of the tarry substance in her mug. It was gritty and bitter, but by the standards of her art school years, only qualified as “medium dark.”

“Doug,” she said calmly, “if it’s too strong for you, you’re free to add plenty of milk and sugar.” She took another sip, meeting his eyes all the while. 

He spun on the heel of his expensive dress shoe. As he stormed away, she could hear him mutter, at a passive-aggressive volume designed to be just-barely audible, but audible nonetheless, “No wonder she doesn’t have a man yet, can’t even make coffee right.”

“Grantaire?”

She looked up. The secretary was back from wherever she’d been, apparently.

“Hello,” said Grantaire, hoping that if she kept a friendly enough countenance, the secretary might not notice that Grantaire did not remember her name. “Are you feeling better?”

The secretary smiled, polite. She was young but plain, although not as plain as Grantaire. “Thank you, it was my mother, actually. She’s a little under the weather so I stopped home to bring her some soup and heat it up for her.” Grantaire nodded as if that kind of filial duty was a part of her daily life, too. 

“Well, I hope her condition improves soon.” “Thank you, that’s very kind.” An awkward pause began to bloom. Into it, Grantaire blurted, “Sorry if you had the coffee today.” “Oh,” said the secretary, “no, no, I drink tea.” Of course she did, thought Grantaire. She had the look of someone well acquainted with the proper use of a cup and saucer. She lowered her voice slightly. “Douglas informed me all about this morning’s coffee maker adventure.” She lowered her voice a little more. “In some detail.” “Yes, I must have lost count spooning in the grounds,” said Grantaire blandly. “I can’t imagine how it slipped my mind.” “I can,” said the secretary with a crooked smile. Somehow, with both eyes wide open, she gave the impression of winking. “Say, Grantaire. I don’t suppose you could take your lunch break with me? There’s a park across the street, it’s very quiet. Private.” Grantaire nodded. “Good,” said the secretary. That crooked smile again. “My name is Combeferre, by the way.”

“You know, I saw you the other day,” said Combeferre as she neatly removed a packet of celery sticks wrapped in waxed paper from her lunch bag. “Did you.” Grantaire ran through her mental list of places she’d been over the past several days. If she was very, very lucky, maybe Combeferre simply meant that she’d glimpsed Grantaire at the Jewel, picking up some groceries for her tragically empty fridge. Combeferre glanced around the park in a very natural, off-hand way. “At the Musain,” she said. Grantaire’s stomach dropped. She could feel her grip on her turkey sandwich going white-knuckled. “Chester and Murray, such a pair of jokesters,” she said at last. “I suppose I was being hazed last night--” “No, I saw you last Thursday,” said Combeferre quiety. “By yourself.” Grantaire hadn’t been in there for more than forty-five seconds. Had all of Chicago seen? She felt something bubble up inside her. “So,” said Grantaire, trying to match Combeferre’s even, calm voice. “Is this blackmail, then? I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until I’ve gotten my first check, I’m a bit light at the moment.” Combeferre blinked. “Oh dear,” she said, “oh no, you misunderstand me completely. I saw you from inside.” “You were there?” said Grantaire, feeling very dumb for not having picked up on any sign of Sapphism earlier. There was nothing obvious in her manner or dress. The comment about stopping home to see her mother might have suggested she was still living with her parents, and thus unmarried, but plenty of girls did that. Of course, not every woman of a woman-loving bent chose to broadcast it to the world like that short-haired Amazon in the bar restroom. Combeferre’s hairdo and clothes were no doubt chosen for hiding, like Grantaire’s. “Do you have plans this weekend?” Combeferre asked, and Grantaire attempted not to look entirely pole-axed. Was this a pass? Grantaire felt no immediate pull, but, wretchedly, she realized she was lonely enough to consider it. She raised her eyebrows. “You see, I belong to, um, a social organization,” Combeferre continued, unaware. “We could use some new members, and it would be so nice to know someone else at work--” “Is it a book group?” said Grantaire. “A tupperware exchange? A cat appreciation society?” Combeferre smiled. “I do like cats,” she said. “No, we’re. Hm. The Chicago branch of a group of like-minded individuals who find ourselves on a slightly divergent path from the majority of mankind. It’s a very relaxed, informal thing. We’re meeting at the apartment of a friend for spaghetti dinner on Saturday. I can give you the details if you’re interested.” “And you’re all women?” Grantaire said. “We are,” said Combeferre. What the hell. It wasn’t as if there was a line of people waiting to make Saturday night plans with her. “Alright,” said Grantaire. “Wonderful.” Combeferre gave her an address, although Grantaire didn’t know the city well enough for it to mean much without a map. Her eyes briefly scanned the park again. “And I should add that you don’t have to use your real name,” she said. “In fact, I think most of us don’t.” “Some tupperware club you’re running, lady,” said Grantaire, and Combeferre half-laughed. “I was going to leave you a note,” said Combeferre, “on your desk, explaining everything in advance, but then my mother was sick and there wasn’t any time.” “If anyone saw what you wrote,” Grantaire started. “In shorthand, of course. None of the men would understand.” “I can’t read shorthand,” said Grantaire. “I took a course on it but that was about the time I realized my future would need to be elsewhere.” “I was going to be a physician,” said Combeferre dreamily. Grantaire turned to face her. “I had the grades, you know. Biology was my best subject, and I enjoy helping people.” “What happened?” Grantaire asked uneasily.

“Oh,” said Combeferre. “I had a marvelous professor. I’d asked him to write me a recommendation, and he pulled me aside and explained that if I’d have to do twice the work for half the respect, which was of course the truth. I considered nursing, but a life of emptying bedpans and dodging the head doctor’s wandering hands didn’t appeal.” “So instead you empty inboxes and dodge Richard’s wandering hands,” said Grantaire. “You’ll fit right in with my friends,” Combeferre said with another smile. “I’m sorry about what my friend said to you last night. She has an excellent heart and is a key part of our set, but she can be somewhat severe.”

“Do you mean the Hippolyta who cornered me in the powder room?” “Undoubtedly,” said Combeferre. Then, “oh, and definitely don’t call her that!” “Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Grantaire.

[gallowswhump]

Blue Eyes

The Start of Cirelc's story. In this he is still named blue. This is a look into his joining of the theives guild.

CW: Child Abuse, Child Abandonment, Homelessness, Theft, pickpocketing, broken bones, implied prostitution, starvation, attempted murder, serious injury, swearing, torture

It had always been like this, just barely scraping by on hand outs and sticky fingers. There was no reason for his fate that Blue could think of. Charity had left him barely enough for a slice of bread today, a couple of coppers in the mid week was nothing new. No holy day that would make people feel more charitable. No leftover coin from stocking for the week. Just tried people who had better things on their mind than the poor Aasimar boy begging for rations on the streat. Luckily, around the end of the day that meant lots of people with pockets heavy with coin would be walking from their place of work to their homes. He just needed the right mark.

A dwarf walking to the bar was a clear mark but Blue could already tell the man kept his purse close to his chest, patting it as he walked by the dirty urchin whose heritage is usually enough to make people think he isn’t a thief. A bad mark, okay the next one. A woman showing a little too much of her chest, the marks on her told Blue a different story of how her pockets came to be filled. Bad mark, no targeting the downtrodden even if they might have more. A man with dusty hair, rushing through the market. A bad mark, he knew the man, a coal worker seen carrying around a new baby on the weekends. The evening wound to a close and there was the sinking feeling of hunger setting in and the idea that his belly would go unfilled. There is a spectacle though, people moving out of the way of a group. Normally, a bad mark, people traveling together. The flashy clothes are what makes him take note. The two men to the side are dressed in clean black tunics, humans. The one to the left of their group leader is light skinned, bald. A nasty scar accents his general demeanor as he glowers at people who walk too close. The other one has dark skin, dark curly hair, not common to the area. He looks bored, his eyes lingering from shop entrance to shop entrance like he’s looking for some sort of entertainment. The leader, he is the attention grabber. A heavy large coin purse lies on his hip, that sort of gold was always too good to be true. He’s a tiefling, red skin dressed in very brightly colored flashy robes but Blue can see the hint of dark leathers under it. Ill gotten gold. No qualms about taking from other thieves, not ones with that kind of money. Blue circles the men for a bit, keeping out of sight as the leader peruses from shop to shop. He’s calm and confident talking up shop keeps about their wears. He buys an expensive knife with part of his gold. Blue waits in the shadows for the shopping to be done.

When they start heading for the tavern that’s when he pulls it. He runs through the marketplace, pretending like he didn’t see the brightly dressed man and runs head first into him. He doesn’t make the interaction long, taking the time of shock from the impact to pull the bag of gold from the tieflings belt, hugging it to his chest, covering it with his tattered cloak. He pretends to be hurt and shocked as he pulls away clutching his chest. He knows hands are coming for him, a reaction to push or to comfort he knew from adults but he dodges it. “Sorry, mister,” He voices in his best kid tone to make himself seem younger. Then he is off running like he has somewhere to be and now he does. A huge score was in his arms and he knows that the men aren’t likely to take his actions kindly. He needed a place to hide.

The woods were not the ideal sleeping space, especially with how much gold he had but he knew he couldn’t stay anywhere in town. He needed to move on and quickly. Trekking through the woods at night though was a dangerous prospect alone. One cold night out in the woods would be worth it just to get away with the gold. So, he finds a tree with a wide enough branch to sleep in and climbs into it. He could rest easy knowing that this would be the last cold night, the last hungry night. Those thoughts sit with him and let him sleep for a few hours.

Jerked out of sleep by feeling pain hit his leg and spine. He tries to raise his head. He had picked a wide enough branch that he shouldn’t have fallen out. His head is spinning but he can make out shouting in his sleep ridden mind. He feels a sharp kick to his side and he curls in on himself crying out as his brain catches up with the world around him, “Where is it you little shit!?”

“What?” Pain and sleep muttle his mind, forgetting about the actions he had taken only hours earlier. He’s grabbed by the collar and shoved back into the tree. He cries out his delicate wings taking the brunt of the blow. There was a snap and pain shot through his bones and up unto his spine.

“Don’t act like you don’t know I saw you take the gold!”

Tears start flowing from the young boy’s eyes, “Please I’ll tell you just let me go.” Smack. He’s hit across the face, hard. His cheek stings and the taste of blood wells up in his mouth.

“That’s not how this works you’re going to tell me.” Blue finally gaining control over his own muscles again struggles getting his hands up and trying to support himself on the bald man's arms. The force on his collarbone and into his misplaced wing is too much.

“Okay okay!” He cries out struggling. “It’s in my bedroll up there. There’s a false pocket sewn into the inside front.” He takes in a breath of relief kicking away from the man when he is let go. He pushes himself with his feet inching further and further away. The adrenaline starts coming down as he takes in deep breaths and the sharp piercing pain of a small broken bone hits him. He had broken fingers before, no big deal. A part of his wing though wasn’t going to be so easily patched up by himself. He wants to strain to look at it but his eyes keep focused on the man with the glower look as he comes down with gold in hand. More tears flow at the thought of what he just lost. No more security, back to hungry cold nights. Back to begging and thieving for every little luxury. He fights back a sob, he’s not a little kid he can’t act like one.

The man looks over, a smirk crosses his face as he pockets the coin into the front of his shirt, “You have no idea who you stole from do you?” Blue doesn’t answer, he just scoots back a bit more trying to get away. He knew that he could run and end it all but what little he did have was left in that tree. The man walks forward jerking his body in a threatening manner feigning another hit. “Answer me!”

“N-no, I don’t.”

A small tisc of his tongue comes, “Doubly bad for you.” Blue turns over and tries to get up when the man rushes for him but he’s grabbed by the legs and pulled back. They’re pinned underneath the man and he cries out.

“Please! Please you have the gold back, haven't spent a lick of it swear!”

He cringes away as the man whispers in his ear, his breath hot with the stench of liquor, “Boss doesn’t know that. I’m gonna get a gold bonus and catch the thief that stole from him.” The sound of a knife coming from a leather sheath is heard and Blue screws his eyes shut. “We’re all alone out here and I’m going to enjoy this.”

“Please stop! Get off of me.” His beg is met with the knife’s edge running straight along the exposed part of his back.

“Good for nothing street kid doesn’t even have manners.”

“Somebody please help!” Blue shouts as loud as he can knowing there was no reasoning with the man he had to hope someone would hear him. He struggles trying to get his legs free but the other man is almost double his size. His mouth is quickly covered and the blade is pushed up to his neck and his breath hitches. He didn’t want to die, not here, not like this. He gives muffled pleas for his life and the man on top of him lets it go on. He’s enjoying watching the boy beneath him cry and squirm. A large grin on his face and eyes that hunger to see someone’s life in his hands knowing full well he’s going to kill them no matter what.

“Cahir!” In a second the knife is pulled away from Blue’s neck. “Get off of him.” Blue can’t see who it is but his heart is racing. As soon as the weight is lifted from him he tries to bolt away but is quickly caught by the back of his shirt collar. He gives a gargled cry of pain reaching up for his neck.

“Oh no you don’t.” He’s thrown and pushed in front of the man who had him pinned down. He stumbles and comes face to face with the tiefling from earlier. His brow is furrowed and frown lines cross his face. Blue cowers away trapped between the man he stole from and the man who assaulted him.

“What is the meaning of this?” He talks past Blue keeping his voice steady but it’s ready to tip into full anger any second.

“He stole from you sir!” The man argues like he doesn’t understand what he’s done wrong.

“I am aware of that fact.” Blue looks between the two men wondering if he can make a run for it but decides against it. He wasn’t sure he could out run them even if he hadn’t just taken a beating. “I told you to stand your ground and stay at the inn.”

“We can’t let street rats get away with things like that!”

The tiefling glares the man down, “I gave you a direct order. I do not need to explain myself to you. Now hand me the gold and go back to town. I better not see you until morning.” Blue watches as the man walks up and he hands over the gold. He mumbles something under his breath as he walks away. He’s glared after until he’s out of sight and Blue takes the opportunity to try and slowly back away. He knows how to hide in the shadows, maybe he could get away that way.

Amber eyes fall on him before he can execute his plan. They don’t burn with anger anymore. They soften and brows now furrow in worry instead of anger. “You’re hurt. Let me help.” Blue pauses; he can’t trust this man.

“I’ll be fine.”

“In your state something is going to get infected and it’s my fault I don’t have better control over my men.” Blue bites his lip as he turns his head and stretches out his hurt wing to see the state of the damages. It’s hard to see between matted black and white feathers. Blood is coming from somewhere but he can’t tell where or what is broken. The red skinned devilish man is pulling something from his coat pocket. Blue looks over quickly but is surprised when it’s not a weapon but some kind of small jar. “I can help.” The man’s voice is slowly turning from strained calm to an actual soft worried tone.

Blue crosses his arms over his chest and pulls back, “Why would you help me?”

“You got my gold fair and square. I fell for one of the easiest tricks in the book because I wasn’t paying attention. That’s my fault. You taking my gold was entirely preventable on my part. I’m sure you can tell me every detail about that.”

Blue stays quiet before watching eyes make it clear that the man was serious for him to tell. “You kept it on your hip. Either you think that you could catch any thief or that much gold is a deterrent to any potential one. You were lost in buying and taking in the market. You could have seen me at any point in time and guessed that I was marking you. You let me run into you and the knot on the bag wasn’t very secure. Something stopped you from grabbing me when I first hit you, letting me run off.”

“Very good.” The man smirks, almost seeming proud. “Someone teach you that?” Blue shakes his head. That elicits a frown, “How long have you had to study that then?”

“My whole life.”

“How long has that been?”

“Dunno.”

“Best guess?”

“At least twelve years.”

“Where are your parents?”

“I don’t know.” Blue shrugs off the question, he doesn’t have any memories of anyone taking care of him.

“Will you let me help you?” Blue turns, looking around for his options of escape but he needs the bone set at least and he isn’t sure he can do it on his own.

“Fine…I have some bandages in my things” He moves, pushing through the pain to climb a couple of steps up the tree to pull down his bag and bedroll.

“Do you have a name?”

“Most people call me Blue.” He motions to his eyes the color for which he got his name sake. Tensing as he pulls out a roll of old cloth from his bag. The tiefling had come closer and he still didn’t have faith that this wasn’t a trap.

“Remy.”

“What?”

“People call me Remy.” Blue nods and he turns his back facing the gentleman. He can tend to the other minor scrapes and bruises himself. “You haven’t been taking care of these.”

Blue winces as a hand touches his wing, “It’s hard all on my own.” There is silence for moments where the man seemed to be focusing. Carefully moving matts and feathers out of the way trying to take a look at the damage without causing more pain.

“You know you surprised me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t even notice you until you ran into me. That isn’t common.”

“Yeah well.” Blue shrugged, he doesn’t want to talk, he just wants this to be over.

“Pushing these bones back into place is going to hurt.” Blue grits his teeth but finds himself unable to hold back a scream as a swift unwarned movement sets the bones of his wing back into place. He whimpers and stumbles forward but he’s caught around the chest with a full arm. It was clearly to try and prevent causing anymore pain. He wants to be strong but a sob wracks his body as he is gently pulled down to the ground. Everything of that night just washes over him. All of the pain from the broken bones and the beating, the loss of hope that a bag of gold could give, the tiredness from being uprooted from his sleep, the pain of hunger in his belly. He sobs. He turns into Remy and he just sobs. There isn’t any move to push him away or continue the pain; there is just a warm embrace surrounded by the scent of wood fire and paper.

Blue is allowed to let his emotions out, Remy figuring that the kid hadn’t really much time to just let go. With the bone set the minor scrapes and bruises could wait. Pulling the kid close and placing his chin on the top of the boy’s head in an attempt to comfort. Time passes eventually the sobs even out into shallow breathing. The tiefling isn’t surprised the kid fell asleep, childish but Blue was just a child. He shifts the sleeping boy around taking a look at his cheek. It would bruise if nothing was done. He sets the pot that’s been in his hand down on the ground, opening it with one hand the other, keeping the small boy close. The ointment would heal bruises and close wounds. He dips his fingers in before carefully applying a layer to the boy's cheek. He moves on checking and applying to other bruises and cuts he has. The wing would need time to properly heal. Remy wants the kid to sleep proper. He pulls away gently laying Blue down in the grass.

It doesn’t take him long to wake though, he lurches up looking around in a small panic. Remy holds out his hands motioning for him to calm down. “How-”

“Maybe half an hour.” The man waves it away and Blue can see the bags under his eyes. Judging by the sky it was deep into night and he guessed that the man must usually be asleep.

“Thank you.”

There is a small nod, “You know it doesn’t have to be like this.” Blue turns away. He knows there are people who would take him in but he’s scared. Adults have always been mixed in their kindness. That and he didn’t want to burden anyone with his pain. He could take care of himself. “You’ve clearly proven yourself as a thief. There is room in my guild for people like you. We have enough gold to make sure that our brothers and sisters don’t go hungry. You’d have a home to return to. A soft bed to sleep in.” Blue sits up looking over him for a movement. He seemed genuine. He pulls out the coin purse from earlier handing it over. “And there is a lot more where this came from.”

“Guild…” There is a small moment of realization. “You mean you’re a-” He covers his mouth knowing for sure now that this night should have ended very differently.

Remy though gives a good natured laugh, “You stole from a leader of a thieves guild? Yes.”

“But.” Blue looks to where the man from earlier left, then down to the gold, “What about…” That man had to have had a high ranking position. He can’t imagine himself being welcomed.

“Cahir?” Remy sighs, running a hand through his hair. “The man has a temper but knows how to behave in the guild. Besides, most aren’t like him. Most came to me lost, hungry, and hurt like you. They’re family. We protect each other.” Blue knows he doesn’t have to take it. The gold in his hand is more than enough to start a life. He doesn’t know what he would want to start though. What Remy was offering him sounded so appealing. A place in the world, with people who he could trust. He had already proven himself to be better than most people Blue had met.

“Okay. I want to join you.”

Remy stands up welcoming out a hand, “I won’t promise it will be easy but I have a feeling you already know that.”

[themummersfolly]

Sur la Mer

In which Montjoy is having the time of his life, and Constable d’Albret is having a bad bout of thalassaphobia. 

A southerly wind filled the sails, whipping foam from the crests of waves and making the pennants snap in the sun. Montjoy, chief herald to the King, held onto a shroud as he leaned out over the railing, watching as the ship’s motion carried him high enough to see to the horizon before dropping him down in the watery valleys.

“Careful, my lord! You don’t want to fall in!” The ship’s mate laughed as he said it. Montjoy stepped back, smiling.

“Well enough, it would ruin the trip. And such a fine day for sailing!”

“You been to sea often, my lord?” The ship was well underway; the mate could spare a few minutes for conversation.

“Often enough to wish it more often. It’s a fine day when the king’s business takes me to sea!”

“The truth, my lord, the very truth.”

The ship pitched, bringing the split-second thrill of weightlessness. Montjoy grinned ear to ear, gazing up into the cloudless sky. The very air seemed to flash like cut crystal. The mate moved off, busy with his duties, and Montjoy turned to go belowdecks. There were still a handful of dispatches to get ready, and he should rehearse his address before arrival...

The cabin door banged as he opened it, causing the squire seated inside to jump.

“Oh, hello Tetine, just coming to get my writing kit-”

Tetine shook his head, motioning to be quiet. Further back in the gloom, someone groaned.

“My lord Constable?” Montjoy blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

“What.” Charles d’Albret sat on his berth, clutching the edge of the cot in a white-knuckled grip. He was pale beneath his tan, his dark hair disheveled. Montjoy started; he had walked onto the ship that morning, in good health and apparently good spirits.

“Are—are you all right, my lord?”

“No.” D’Albret’s voice was hoarse; his normally genial manner had evaporated. A sour smell hung in the air, along with the smells of brine and bilge. Montjoy was about to ask what was wrong when the ship’s deck tilted, sending them rushing down the long slide between waves. D’Albret clamped his mouth shut and seized a bucket, retching.

“Oh.”

“Turnips—why, for the love of God—I didn’t eat turnips, I don’t even like them-” The Constable clung to his bucket, sweaty and shivering. Tetine crossed the cabin and gingerly took it to empty, handing him a basin in its place. Montjoy watched, pityingly.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“If you’re feeling charitable-” d’Albret paused, gagging, but nothing came up. “-you can find a cudgel and beat me about the head until I’m senseless. Or you can stop asking me stupid questions.”

Montjoy retrieved his dispatch bag from atop the rest of his luggage. “You know, my lord, the weather’s fine today. Some fresh air and sunlight would do you wonders.”

The ship pitched again and d’Albret clutched at the frame of his berth. “Guillaume—you are my friend, so I say this with the utmost affection: piss off.”

Montjoy met Tetine on the way out. The young man looked exhausted already, and slightly ill himself.

“It’ll be alright shortly, just give it a few hours.” Montjoy tried to be encouraging. The squire shook his head.

“He’ll be like that until we land. It’s always the same. Some men just weren’t born for the sea.”

 -------

The sun was beginning its westward descent as Montjoy sat on the deck, finishing a letter. A noise behind him made him look up.

“Lord Constable!” He hastened to his feet. D’Albret stood on deck, leaning heavily on Tetine. “You look better already. The fresh air really does help.”

“Wanted to- I owe you an apology, Guillaume, I shouldn’t have been short with you. I’m never quite-” He broke off, clapped a hand to his mouth, and rushed to the rail. As soon as he leaned over it, though, the little remaining color drained from his face. He staggered back, wide-eyed and stiff-legged, until he reached the mast and clung to it.

“Tetine!” he barked, voice somewhat higher than usual. “A hand here!”

Montjoy was closer, and moved to steady him. “What was it?”

“The watery depths of hell, trying to swallow us all up.” D’Albret spoke low and desperate, a man grappling with his own terror. “I made a mistake coming up here. On my life, Poseidon’s got it out for me!”

“You weren’t going to fall in.”

“You don’t know that, not in this bloody gale.”

Montjoy spared a look at the clear, sunny sky, and didn’t bring it up. “Let’s go belowdecks, my lord.”

Once out of the elements, d’Albret seemed to master himself. He braced himself against the bulkhead, slowly getting his breathing under control. Montjoy regarded him cautiously.

“I thought you could swim.”

“I can swim—in ponds, not in this damned abyss!” He leaned on the herald, still shaking. “Every time I have to travel by ship—I’d throw myself in the sea if the king asked me to, but I could never stomach a ship! Have to go up and make a damn fool of myself, no less-”

“Everyone gets seasick, my lord.”

D’Albret raised his eyes, wearily, pointedly. At last he shook his head. “I’ll not be myself until I have solid ground under my feet, I’m afraid.”

“Let’s get you to bed.” Montjoy offered a supporting arm.

“I don’t want to vomit on you.”

“I don’t think you have anything left to bring up.”

“I’m going to owe you a hundred apologies by the time we make landfall.”

“My lord, you don’t even owe me one now.” He deposited d’Albret, week-kneed, onto the cot. “Besides, the ship’s master says we’re making good time. We should arrive before noon tomorrow.”

D’Albret took the herald’s hand fondly. “I hope I didn’t ruin this trip for you, lad. I saw how happy you were when we left harbor.”

“Nothing can ruin my joy at being on the sea.” Montjoy pressed d’Albret’s hand, then let it go to pull a blanket over him. As an afterthought, he set the empty basin close by. “I only wish you could share in some part of it.”

“Looks like you’ve got it covered for both of us, Guillaume.” The Constable managed a weak chuckle, and for a moment he seemed almost himself. Then the ship rocked again and he choked, half sitting up and reaching for the basin. Finally, he relaxed, slumping back with an exasperated sigh. “For now, I’ll content myself with that.”

[drivingsideways]

WIP Wednesday

So @rain-hat​ said I should post a bit from the latest fic so she can read it (properly formatted and not in a chat window, I think??), so here’s a bit from an as yet untitled fic set post-canon verse TKEM, featuring our favourite cop-who-got-a-different-life and also orphan-who-got-a-different-life thanks to Lee Gon being a total ass. 

The White Lily Orphanage isn’t a state organization, instead it’s run by the nuns from the Sisters of the St.Paul of Chartres Convent, one of the earliest established Catholic orders in the Kingdom. It’s not a large home- they have the ability to take in around twenty children at a time, though at the moment they have only half the number. The youngest right now is a three year old ball of sunshine, Jia and the oldest is the lanky fourteen year old Jihun. Hyeon-Min has been attending Mass at the church attached to the convent with eomma since- well, since he was ten.

(God sent Prince Buyeong to us, eomma had said, having found God via the kindness of a stranger, we must be grateful.

Hyeon-min had accepted her explanation then, and now, twenty years later, he doesn’t feel the need to tarnish her faith with his cynicism. He maybe agnostic about God, but he knows that the sisters are kind, that they try to do their best by their young charges, and that’s enough.

He knows enough about the world that he believes that one of its rules should be to pass on the kindness of strangers.)

He parks his bike and grabs his gym bag with the change of clothes, noting a rather beaten up looking sedan in the parking lot. Perhaps there were some potential adopters visiting today, not a very frequent occurrence.

The rates of adoptions in Corea were low, compared to the number of children who needed families. Usually, children who lost their parents were taken in by grandparents, if they were still alive, or the parents’ siblings, if they were not. The ones who ended up in the system- they were truly society’s rejects, the ones who had no one left who cared about them; a patrilineal society obsessed with bloodlines didn’t see them as anything but an inconvenience, or a shameful secret. That their own king was an orphan was not a hypocrisy; Lee Gon was king first, orphan second.

The slack with respect to the less nobly orphaned was picked up by religious or charitable trusts, and only a little by the government. The rules governing adoption were prohibitive- Seo Ryeong had told him about the circles that eomeonim and she had to run to officially take Gyeong-ah into the family. At some point, it had come down to bribery. She’d been tight-lipped and her eyes had glinted in fury, when she’d told him,  though it had already been far enough in the past that Gyeong-ah no longer woke up crying from nightmares, and didn’t stuff her food down at each meal as though she didn’t know when she’d next get one, or try to take as little room as possible in their already tiny apartment.

Gyeong-ah usually accompanies him on these visits too, though she couldn’t make it today.

“LET ME SLEEP” she’d texted in all caps, “I DON’T WANT TO SEE YOUR FACE FOR AT LEAST 24 HRS HYUNGNIM” .

He figured that meant she’d drop by when he wasn’t around.

 Jia-ya is the first one to spot him when he enters the common room, which is where the kids are normally, at this hour. She runs toward him, almost tripping on her toes, with her hands already raised high above her head. He drops the bag on the floor and swings her up, twirling her around, while she squeals delightedly. When he lowers her, she throws her arms around his neck, placing a candy-sticky kiss on his cheek.

“Hyungnim, where were you??” she demands. “You’ve gone so long that Chia forgot you”.

Chia is her favourite toy- a rather ratty looking cloth panda.

“Sorry Jia-ya” he says, “I had a lot of work”

She pouts. “Have you got chocolate?”

“Mmmhmm” he replies, nodding, “But let’s share with everyone later, ok?”

He puts her down on the floor, and turns to the others who’ve come up, all grinning, except Jihun, who’s trying to look unconcerned, remaining where he’s seated at one of the two computers, headphones in, fingers flying rapidly over the keyboard.

“Hey everyone” he says, reaching out to ruffle a head, tweak a chin. “Ready for a game?”

They’ve got a small basketball court at the back, not professional, by any means, but enough for the kids to work out some of their energy. For soccer, and other games, Gyeong-ah and he take them to a nearby sports club. Ryeong-ah had been the one who worked out a deal with the local residents association that owned the club when she’d made Assemblywoman; it was her constituency after all, and she had cultivated her relationships at local level, as much as she had in the higher echelons. Thanks to (former) Assemblywoman Koo, the kids now had access on alternate Sundays to the club. Luckily, the Sisters of St.Paul of Chartres weren’t too strict about preserving the holiness of the  Sabbath rest; as long as the kids attended Mass in the morning, the rest of the day could be spent as they wished. Today is a Sunday when they don’t have access to the sports club, so Hyeon-Min’s plans are adjusted accordingly- a game, then lunch with everyone, and then piling them all into the small van the orphanage has and taking them for ice cream, before he has to drop back at the station, just to check in on Woo Ji-hyun and Bo-Young who have the day shift today.

“Where’s Sister Lee?” he asks, and twelve-year old Su-bin pipes up “She has a visitor today” and her twin, Yun-seo adds, “He’s a handsome oppa”.

“Is he now?’ Hyeon-min grins down at her.

“Not as cool as you, hyungnim” she assures him earnestly.

“Drop the flattery” he tells her seriously, “You’re not getting an extra scoop later. Everyone go on and get changed.”

The twins and the others- Ming-yu, Jun-ho, Min-su, Seong-min, Min-ji and Eun-ji- dart off.

He picks up his bag again, heading off to the guest room to get changed, calling “Jihun-a, c’mon, let’s go” only to get a shoulder lifted in a shrug, Jihun not even bothering to look at him.

Well, he thought, that was new.

He didn’t press him, confident that Jihun would find his way out later. The problem, perhaps, was that Jihun was a few years older than the others, almost fifteen, ready for high school. The next oldest were the twins, at twelve, and the others fell between nine and eleven, except Jia, who was everybody’s darling at three.

Jihun was preparing to write the same scholarship exam that Hyeon-Min had taken all those years ago, to get into CNA. His grades at the local public school were pretty good, and he excelled especially at art- but it was a tough school to get into, given the sheer number of candidates applying, even more than when Hyeon-Min and Ryeong-ah had given the test.

Hyeon-min thought he could recognize in Jihun the same kind of hunger that he’d seen in Ryeong-ah, all those years ago. And just like all those years ago, one part of him was amazed, and proud; another was just scared for Jihun, for what the world might do to him, outside of the safety of this place. He tried to shrug the fear off- what use could it be to Jihun- and had begun helping him prepare for the test, instead.

Perhaps Jihun was upset because he hadn’t been able to come by for three weeks, although he’d spoken to him a few times on the phone and had checked in with Sister Lee as well.

When he changes into his shorts and t-shirt and comes back to check in, Jihun’s disappeared. Perhaps he’d changed his mind and decided to join the game, after all.

He’s about to duck out of the room, when Sister Lee comes in accompanied by a young man- the “handsome oppa” of Yun-seo’s description, clearly.

“Ah, Inspector Kang” she says, giving him her usual warm smile. “Good morning. You finally have a day off, I see.”

“Good morning, Sister Lee” he greets her, bowing.

She turns to the man with her.

“This is Senior Inspector Kang Hyeon-min from Busan PD” she says, and the man gives him a strangely assessing look, and bows. He’s fair, slightly shorter than Hyeon-Min, a dark eyes and a sharp nose in a square-jawed face. The glasses and the clothes- a light blue button down shirt that’s unbuttoned at the collar over khaki slacks,  give him the look of a librarian on vacation. He’s probably a few years younger than Hyeon-Min.

“I’m Kim Jun-Yeong” he says, bowing toward Hyeon-Min.

“Mr.Kim teaches art at the school” she says, meaning the local public school all the kids here attend. “He came by to talk about Jihun.”

“Is something the matter?” Hyeon-min asks, immediately. “Is Jihun in trouble?”

“Nothing like that” Mr.Kim says, with a smile. “In fact, I came by to chat with Sister Lee about Jihun’s future plans. He told me that he was preparing for admission at CNA.”

Hyeon-Min nods. “I’m trying to help out” he says. “When I can.”

“Inspector Kang has been a huge support to the children here for years” Sister Lee says, giving him another warm smile. “And since he’s a CNA alumnus himself, he’s probably the best suited to help Jihun ace the exam.”

“Yes, of course”, Mr.Kim says, adding, “Jihun-a has told me a lot about you already, Senior Inspector Kang.”

“Oh” says Hyeon-Min, politely, “He’s never mentioned you to me.”

Something wry passes over Mr. Kim’s face at that, and it makes Hyeon-min feel a little silly.

“Mr. Kim is of the opinion that Jihun should perhaps try for an art school later” Sister Lee says, “And finish high school at some school less demanding than CNA, Kang-ssi”.

“Did Jihun-a say that’s what he wants to do?” Hyeon-min asks, stunned. Jihun had never mentioned it to him.

There’s an awkward silence.

“He did seem open to the idea” Mr.Kim says, sounding a little apologetic. “He started asking me about art schools and scholarships a while ago. I didn’t know then that you were already preparing him for the CNA entrance.”

‘But” says Hyeon-min, feeling like the rug had been pulled from under his feet.

Sister Lee says, thoughtfully, “Perhaps he was uncomfortable bringing it up with me or you, Kang-ssi.”

“We never forced him”, Hyeon-min feels compelled to protest.

“Jihun-a admires you a lot, Kang-ssi” Mr.Kim murmurs, “It is but natural he would want to follow in your footsteps.”

Hyeon-min looks at him and meets that calmly assessing look again.

“Did he ask you to meet Sister Lee and talk about this?”

“No” says Mr.Kim, “He didn’t. In fact, I think he was a little upset when he saw me today.”

Well, that explained earlier, Hyeon-Min realizes.

“Will you—” starts Sister Lee, nodding toward back, from where they can already here the shouts of the children.

“Yes” Hyeon-Min answers. “I’ll have a chat with him.”

“Good” she says, smiling again at him. “I’ll talk to him later as well.”

She turns to the teacher.

“Mr.Kim, I really appreciate your dropping by. It’s not often we get teachers who are so concerned with the well-being of our students.”

Mr.Kim says, quietly, “I was brought up in a home too- not as good as this one” he adds. “I know what it’s like.”

Oh.

Well, now, Hyeon-Min feels like a total piece of shit.

“Thank you, Kim-ssi” he says, and tries to infuse it with something more than stiff formality.

Mr.Kim gives him a short nod.

“I’d better head over before the fighting starts” Hyeon-min says, giving Sister Lee a smile. “I’ll see you at lunch, Sister Lee.”

They part ways, and when Hyeon-min reaches the court just in time to stop Min-ji from punching Eun-ji in the face, he sees that Jihun is there as well, but sitting on the side-lines, playing with Jia, although he’s changed into game clothes as well.

He darts a glance at Hyeon-min and then quickly looks away, flushing.

Hyeon-min jogs up to him.

“Get in” he says, clapping him on the back, “So I don’t have to keep the peace all by myself”

Jihun looks up at him, uncertain, as though he’d expected Hyeon-min to be- angry- with him.

“Jihun-a” he says, holding out a hand toward him, “ C’mon.”

Jihun takes his hand and lets himself be hauled up, and Hyeon-min even manages to get a one-armed hug in before he scampers off, suddenly cheerful.

 It’s a good game, and after, as they’re all chattering at the lunch table, Gyeong-ah comes in and plonks herself down opposite the twins, and they stuff themselves to the gills before piling into the van.

Gyeong-ah’s driving, and as they pull out of the gate, Hyeon-min notices a black Hummer parked in the alley, five cars away,  the glasses shaded so dark, he can’t see inside.

He has an idle moment of wondering what a car like that was doing in the neighbourhood but is distracted by Jia-ya climbing into his lap to tell him all about Chia’s adventures in the place she calls “Funderland” (like Wonderland, but fun, she insists).

 On the way back, Gyeong-ah drives again, and this time the kids are mostly in a food coma, some of them burping softly, sprawling on the seats, so he gets a chance to talk to Jihun, settling beside him, right at the back.

“So” he says, “art school, huh?”

Jihun glances at him quickly and then away, head bent.

“Do you know which ones you’re interested in?”

Jihun looks up then.

“You’re not angry?” he asks, uncertainty writ large on his young face.

“Just surprised” Hyeon-min admits. “Why didn’t you ever tell me or Sister Lee? You know we wouldn’t have stopped you.”

He shrugs, looking away.

“Everyone’s expecting me to become the first CNA graduate from the home” he says, softly. “All these years”.

“Nobody wants you to be anything other than happy, Jihun-a” Hyeon-min contradicts him, gently. “I’m sorry if I ever gave you any other idea.”

Jihun turns to him.

“I did think I wanted that too” he says, candidly. “But then—I don’t know, hyungnim, frankly, it sounds like an awful place in other ways.”

“Who’ve you been talking to?” Hyeon-min asks, surprised, because he’d never said anything to Jihun about it other than good things about the academics, and the opportunities it would open up for him.

Jihun gives him a pitying look.

“Hyungnim” he says, “You know the internet is a thing right? Or was it not a thing when you were young?”

“Hey” he says, “I’m thirty-one, not a dinosaur.”

Jihun looks unconvinced.

“Student forums” he says, helpfully. “And even Mr.Kim—”

“Mr.Kim went to CNA?” Hyeon-min asks, surprised again.

“No” says Jihun, “But I think he knows people. He’s a teacher, right, he knows this stuff.”

“Hmm” says Hyeon-min, miffed.

Jihun eyes him again. “Are you angry I didn’t tell you, but I told Mr.Kim?”

Wow, Hyeon-min thinks, dissected by a fourteen-year old, wonderful.

“Don’t give me your backchat, Jihun-a” he says, and Jihun grins at him.

Hyeon-min diverts the talk into the art schools he’s interested in, and they spend the rest of the ride like that.

 Later, before Gyeong-ah and he head off, they have a talk with Sister Lee.

Sister Lee Jeong-hui- or “Dragon Lady” as Gyeong-ah liked to call her- was a petite woman with delicate wrists, and long fingered hands that poked out of the sleeves of her habit. Unlike most of her contemporaries, she’d joined the Order, not as a young girl, but in her mid-thirties, after making a name for herself as a labour rights lawyer, working up north, in the mining communities. She’d moved to Busan when her health took a downturn- her asthma was something terrible- and she’d been shunted around the diocese until ending up at the orphanage ten years ago. She’d taken one look at the lackadaisical administration of the Orphanage- then run by Sister Pa, who was already in her seventies, taken a deep breath, and got to work. She’d transformed the place, scrounging funding wherever she could- sometimes by just persistently annoying the powers that be- and was currently in a long drawn out battle with the Bishop of the Diocese over her demand that they expand their current home to start a support home for single mothers- the people most likely to abandon their children, for lack of resources and societal stigma.

They talk about her latest efforts in that direction, after Hyeon-min tells her about his conversation with Jihun.

“Thank you Inspector Kang” she says, softly, “I hope you’re not too disappointed.”

“Of course not” he says, staunchly, though perhaps he was, a little. “Jihun’s going to be great at whatever he does.”

“Yes” she agrees, a fond smile transforming her rather grave face into loveliness. “He’s a blessed child”.

“Anyway” she says, sighing, “Perhaps it’s just as well. Even with a scholarship, funding for other expenses would have always been a tension. This way, we have some time to prepare before he goes to art school.”

Gyeong-ah says, “What did the Welfare Association say?”

When the Diocese had hummed-and-hawed about the home for women, Sister Lee had turned elsewhere.

Sister Lee makes a rather un-saintly face. “That government policy doesn’t include- and you won’t believe this, or perhaps you will- doesn’t include subsidizing and rewarding irresponsible behaviour”.

“I thought Ryeong-ah said they had a specific budget for women’s welfare” Gyeong-ah says, hotly. “They can’t deny it only to some women, can they? Plus it’s a discretionary budget.”

Sister Lee sighs. “Child, I don’t know if I have the energy to fight that battle right now. If we had someone on the Committee there- but it’s all bureaucrats who think of it as a sinecure position really…”

She shrugs, and pats Gyeong-ah’s shoulder, comforting.

“I’m not giving up, Seo-Gyeong” she says, “Not yet.”

They bid her goodbye.

 As she puts on her helmet and climbs onto the bike, Gyeong-ah says, abruptly, “Sometimes I’m so angry with unnie for what she did- because she fucked up her chance to help people like Sister Lee, who really need her”.

“ Song & Kim will get her out” he says, “Right?”

“But what about after?” she argues, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Her political career is probably over.”

“It’s never over with Ryeong-ah” he reminds her, belting his own helmet, and adjusting the strap of his gym bag over his jacket.

As they drive out of the gate, he sees that the Hummer isn’t there anymore.

[i-am-a-bad-influence-writes]

She is forever - Part 4

Series Masterlist - Stucky Masterlist - Full Masterlist

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OC, Bucky Barnes x OC (Ophelia Wright)

Summary: When Steve and Bucky went to the army there was a girl they went to school with who wasn’t allowed to go. She was left alone and never thought about again, until Steve sees a carbon copy of her on the streets outside Stark tower and she seems to know them just a little too well to be a stranger.

Word count: 1876

Author’s note: Normally, I update this story on Fridays but because something was off with my concepts in tumblr I posed three chapters at once in fear of losing them. The next chapter is in my concepts and ready to be posted this Friday, but I’m not quite sure if I’ll have anything for the week after.

“Dear Tony,

Thank you so much for supporting me and being a friend. I’m sorry things have to end like this, but my time has come to move on. I’m sure you’ve figured me out by now so all I ask for is for you to keep my secret so that I may live my life without constant torture. These paintings are a token of my gratitude. They’re yours to keep or sell or whatever you want to do with them.

Love,

Ophelia.“

Weeks pass like normal, because why would you look for a person who doesn’t want to be found? However, Peter has found a certain fascination in seeing Ophelia appear in different historical pictures. Just the sight of seeing someone you know stand in the place of a historical event fascinates him. He even found her picture in one of his history books. Steve tried calling the number from the businesscard Ophelia gave him a few times to see if she might not have cut off all contact, but to no succes. He caught himself feeling down and thinking of what might have been if they hadn’t been so hostile. Bucky tried to look unbothered, but everyone saw that it effected him gravely. The first week he didn’t show his face at all. He didn’t eat, his nightmares came back, and he punched multiple punching bags to shreds. It was clear he was angry at himself for scaring her away, but he wouldn’t say it. He didn’t want to admit it. And Ophelia?

With the winter still on full force, Ophelia decided it was too dangerous to move fully. She took shelter at Mary and Josh’s house and they let her. Being the mess that she was reduced to, there was really very little they could do to cheer her up. They tried to keep her eating and drinking, but to no avail.  At one point they thought she might die from the sheer amount of time she had gone without food or water, but she pushed through. Throughout the days, she came out of her shelter more and more and ended up taking care of the house to keep her mind off the friendship she had given up. It never concerned Mary and Josh too much as they knew this was just the process of grief. They all went through it enough times to know that they have to give it time, which is what they gave Ophelia. Time. And when the weather got softer, they helped her move all her art and the things in her apartment to her cottage outside the city. Usually, she would move farther away but she just couldn’t. And the weeks just keep passing by.

With summer just around the corner, Steve had taken up daily walks. The others would make jokes that it fit his age, but to him it was an excuse to walk past the gallery across the street and look at the artwork. Today is different though. There is a truck in front of the gallery and Naomi is standing outside with tears in her eyes. Being the person he is, Steve gets worried. He makes his way over to her. ‘Naomi, hey, what’s going on,‘ he asks putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. ‘I got a letter from Ophelia saying that she’s closing the gallery,‘ she tells him with teary eyes, ‘something about wanting to explore the world and being tied down.‘ ‘I’m sorry about that. I hope she did leave you with proper benefits.‘ Naomi smiles through her tears and nods. ‘She paid me for the remainder of my contract,‘ Naomi tells him, ‘but that doesn’t surprise me. She was always really charitable.‘ A small smile thugs on his lips. ‘Oh, and she left a note for you.‘ Surprised, he grabs the note from Naomi and reads it.

“Dear Steve,

I’m sorry I have to put a damper on the main event of your daily walks. Just know that I might not be across the street anymore, but I’ll always be close by. Say hello to Bucky from me.

-Ophelia.“

September 23th, 2020. Ophelia’s 400th birthday. The common room at the Stark Tower is like a pity party. Bucky and Steve sit on the couch reminiscing over stories from their past with a bottle of whiskey to share between the two of them with a third glass filled to the brim on the table. No one touches it.  Though neither of them can get drunk, they can pretend. And a day like this one is a day they are willing to pretend. ‘What are you two day-drinking for,‘ Tony asks as he walks into the common room. He sees how miserable the two of them are and notices the third glass on the table. ‘Oh, it’s the 23th, isn’t it?‘ ‘Right on,‘ Bucky says, raising his glass to Stark. ‘How old is she now?‘ ‘Exactly 400 years old,‘ Steve chuckles, ‘can you imagine being that old?‘ ‘How old,‘ a thundering voice asks. The three look over at Thor who just walked in with Loki in toe. ‘400 years old,‘ Tony repeats. ‘We’re over a thousand years old,‘ Thor bellows proudly. ‘Yes, but we’re not talking about a God,‘ Bucky informs them. A disturbing grin appears on Loki’s face. ‘You’re talking about immortal humans? Oh, they’re fun, aren’t they,‘ he says as he elbows his brother. ‘They are quite amusing,‘ Thor hums, ‘they make such a big deal out of it.‘ ‘Humans have an average lifespan of up to a hundred years so of course-‘ Tony stops in his tracks, ‘wait, you just said humans. As in plural. There is more than one immortal human?‘ ‘Yeah, there a few dozen,‘ Loki says, ‘most of them asked for death from the wrong God and were granted immortality instead.‘ ‘You’re talking about yourself, aren’t you,‘ Tony asks annoyed. ‘Of course I am.‘ ‘Okay, so do you know Ophelia Wright?‘ Loki looks at Thor with excitement. ‘Ophelia,‘ Thor laughs, ‘the prettiest maiden the Gods had ever seen. That one was not just Loki. All of us wanted to keep her around.‘ ‘She turned out to have a real nasty bite,‘ Loki tells them, ‘when she was granted immortality she cursed us all for ruining her. She stopped worshiping us. It’s sad that immortality is irreversible.‘ ‘Aren’t we supposed to visit her somewhere this year,‘ Thor asks Loki, ‘I think it has been 400 years.‘ ‘Didn’t you bet she’d come back to us after 400 years,‘ Loki laughs. Thor crosses his arms. ‘That was a valid bet back in the day.‘ ‘True, she did look like she was going insane,‘ Loki smiles, ‘yes, we should visit her. See how she’s doing. Is no one drinking that?‘ ‘If you touch it, I will chop your hand off,‘ Bucky promises Loki, looking as deadly as he did back in the day. ‘Can we come with you?‘

Ophelia sits outside on a garden bench with a blanket around her. She stares out over the grasland with withering wildflowers covering it. On the table in front of her are two full glasses and a third is in her hand. The bottle of whiskey could barely be called a bottle of whiskey anymore. It’s almost empty. Though it is almost empty, Ophelia feels nowhere near druk. She has been sipping the liquid throughout the day and had her normal meals. Right now, she’s working on a piece of cake. The remainder of the cake stands on the table. There is only one piece missing, but she knows it will probably be nearly done when she finally starts puking her insides out. These past years she had resorted to making her birthdays her personal hell. She hasn’t celebrated it with friends in centuries in fear of letting her real age slip once she drinks enough alcohol. But today is special. It has been another hundred years, so somewhere this week the Gods will stand on her porch and beg her to worship them again as that is what they gained her immortality for. When she hears thunder, she doesn’t go inside. She knows that it’s merely an announcement. The God of thunder is on his way to beg her, a mere human, to worship him. What an embarrassing sight for a God. Lightning strikes next to the huge tree in the field and Ophelia starts to see the shadow of multiple men. What a treat. More than one God on her doorstep this year. She doesn’t wait for them to approach. ‘FUCK OFF! I DON’T WORSHIP YOU AND I NEVER WILL YOU ENTITLED DICKHEADS!‘ She screams her lungs out over the grasslands, hoping they’ll take the hint and leave. But they don’t. So she admits defeat and sits back down, curling up in her blanket. She refuses to look at them. ‘Ophelia, how are you doing this year.‘ Thor asks her. She says nothing and closes her eyes. ‘You’re acting like a child,‘ Loki sighs, ‘can’t you even say hello?‘ ‘Why would I? You have made my life hell and I will never forgive you for that,‘ she tells them, ‘so take a piece of cake for the road and leave me alone. I will never worship you.‘ She hears a deep sigh. ‘Well, it was good to see you Ophelia. You’re still as beautiful as ever,‘ Thor tells her. ‘Wait, that’s it,‘ she hears another voice asks. One that is too familiar. Her eyes shoot open and she looks to her side. There are Loki and Thor, but with them are Steve and Bucky. ‘What the hell are you two doing here? I thought I made it quite clear I didn’t want to be found,‘ she snaps. ‘We weren’t ready to let go,‘ Steve admits, ‘and then we heard these two talk about visiting you.‘ ‘I asked for one thing,‘ she says as she feels tears build up in her eyes, ‘and you couldn’t even give me that one thing?‘ ‘You know it’s not that simple,‘ Bucky argues, ‘we thought you were dead.‘ ‘And I’ve thought you two were dead for a hundred years,‘ she yells at him, jumping up from her seat. ‘Then why did you leave,‘ Bucky yells back. ‘Because I didn’t want to go through that feeling again,‘ she screams, tears rolling down her face, ‘do you know how hard it was to have to bury two empty caskets because both of your friends died in some plane crash? It hurts! I don’t want to do that again!‘ Bucky and Steve look at her. At what she’s reduced to. An empty shell of pain and suffering. Bucky takes her in his arms to comfort her. She tries to fight it, but she doesn’t want to. Eventually, her arms wrap around his body as her sobbing becomes muted against his chest. He feels something wet slip onto his cheek. Is he crying too? He looks over at Steve. Steve is crying as well. Thor and Loki seem completely forgotten and the two decide its time to make their leave. Steve and Bucky stay behind. It takes a long time before all of them are done crying.  They sit down on the garden bench together, eat the cake and drink the whiskey. And Steve tells Ophelia they do the same thing on her birthday. They put a glass down for those who aren’t there. Ophelia admits she does it on their birthdays too. And so one subject flows into another as the sun slowly comes to setting. ‘I missed you two,‘ Ophelia tells them, ‘it was torture to think you were dead.‘ ‘We missed you too.‘