#because ‘a man who knows his proverbs can’t be all bad’ and it shook. Me. To. My. CORE.

[itspileofgoodthings]

one time my mom was talking about something, I don’t remember what, and she said “have you ever known the poverty of having nothing to say?” and when I say nothing has ever punctured my heart quite like that statement

[teawaffles]

The Conspiratorial Bullet: Chapter 8 / End

“Hey, Helena. In the middle of the game, you suddenly went along with that guy and disappeared — where on earth did you go?”

“Hmm…… Explaining it would be a real pain. Just imagine what you like.”

The girl groaned in annoyance. “……Can’t you just tell me? Meanie.”

After the game had ended with the blue team’s victory, as he observed Helena and her former friend’s conversation from a distance, Bond spoke to William.

“Those two sure have gotten closer, haven’t they?”

William answered with a smile.

“Perhaps it’s like how after rain, comes fair weather.” [1]

“Though for the two of them, it must’ve been like a bolt from the blue, huh.”

After that modest exchange of proverbs, Bond wondered aloud.

“Moran-kun and I haven’t heard the details, but for now, can we consider the case closed without incident?”

“Yep; the perpetrator has been caught, and the threat to Helena and her family has been effectively eliminated.”

This time, the plan had been set up after William and the others leveraged their intelligence network to identify the criminal, and then shared the information they’d obtained with Helena. From his profile of Andy, William had read the man’s every move, then intentionally left him at large in order to catch him in the act — that was the entire flow of it. Hence, apart from the key players involved, the others had been told nothing more than that they would be “using the game to capture the criminal”.

William had put an end to it all. After hearing his report, Bond seemed satisfied.

“That’s great. To be honest, ever since I got caught up in the game, I’ve been thinking a little — that maybe, I haven’t actually done anything useful today.”

“Far from it; on the contrary, it’s because you took the game so seriously, that Andy dropped his guard and carried out his plan to frame Mr Kevin.”

“——So you’re saying the match between me and the old geezer was well and truly a serious one.”

Placing a hand on William’s shoulder, Moran joined the conversation. Behind him stood Jack and Albert.

Jack sighed in consternation.

“You’re quite persistent, you know. It was just one hit.”

Yet Moran was undeterred.

“Still, it’s a fact that I scored that hit. If it was a real bullet, you would’ve been a goner.”

“Wasn’t it because it wasn’t live that it managed to hit me……?”

Jack smiled wryly, and Albert spoke up in a cool voice.

“Furthermores, it’s an undeniable fact that you got hit right after. Isn’t that right, Colonel?”

“Ugh.”

Albert had been spot on, and the corners of Moran’s mouth twitched as he fell silent.

Having watched their exchange with amusement, William thanked them once again.

“I’m truly grateful to all of you for lending a hand today. Truthfully, it pained me to have involved everyone in catching just one criminal.”

Hearing that, Moran clapped him on the shoulder.

“As I said, we had fun, so it’s alright. In fact, it’s been a long time since we’ve fought one another all out, so I’m grateful for that.”

“Indeed: we’re also pleased to have had a showdown with Colonel Moran.”

“Now hold on just a minute. Don’t think you’ve won just because you caught me off guard once.”

Even now, Moran was still snapping at Albert. Seeing that, Jack spoke up in a grave tone.

“On the battlefield, even the slightest carelessness will cost you your life, Moran.”

“I’m well aware of the basics! Don’t give me those useless platitudes!”

Just like that, William and the others were engaged in an amicable conversation, when the parent and child who’d been the central figures of this case called out to them.

“Everyone: thank you very much for today.”

Having wrapped up her conversation with her friend, Helena thanked them in a light-hearted tone that was distinctively hers. Continuing from where she’d left off, Kevin stood beside his daughter as he gave the entire Moriarty household a deep bow.

“How can I ever thank you enough for this……?”

On behalf of all of them, Albert spoke.

“We have simply acted according to our sense of justice. In particular, Mr Kevin, I would like to apologise for not informing you of our plans.”

Kevin hastily shook his head.

“No no no; Lord Albert, you have nothing to feel guilty about: you all saved Helena’s and my lives.”

“That’s right — we’re really grateful for that. We’ll probably never forget this kindness.”

Upon hearing that inappropriate cockiness, Kevin admonished her at once.

“What’s this pomposity towards the people who’ve helped you? Also, you should be saying ‘definitely’ rather than ‘probably’……. Apologies; to have such an unpleasant exchange at this time…”

He bowed repeatedly as he said that. But suddenly, as he remained in a bow, Kevin looked up and asked a question.

“……Come to think of it, what happened to that man? It seems the other participants haven’t noticed anything at all.”

He was concerned about Andy Krueger’s fate. He had punched the living daylights out of the man, so much so he’d been knocked unconscious — that much Kevin himself knew, but as William and the others had taken care of the aftermath, he hadn’t heard the details of what happened after that.

“He’s now on one of our carriages, with Louis and Fred keeping an eye on him,” replied William. “We felt there was no need to blindly call in the police and spoil the fun.”

“I see……. Then, will he be taken to the police after this?”

Handing a criminal over to the police. That was what common sense dictated, but William deliberately tilted his head with a troubled expression.

“As much as we would like to, ……the nobility of this country wield an outsize influence, hence there is a concern that even judicial rulings will be twisted in their favour. If that were to happen, both of you may end up in harm’s way again. As such, we shall engage in careful negotiations, with the aim of preventing such things from ever happening again.”

A calm smile rose to William’s face, and unconsciously, Kevin gulped.

Normally, negotiating with a criminal outside the authority of the state would be out of the question. But William’s smile held a power that seemed almost divine, erasing all such doubts.

How would they deal with Andy after this? It was probably wiser not to probe into that. Anyway, it was true that they had saved both their lives. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

The unfathomable nature of these young men made Kevin’s blood run cold. Then, William changed the topic.

“So, what are your plans from here on?”

Kevin lowered his gaze a little, and met his daughter’s eyes as she stood beside him.

“Just like before, I’m going to spend time with my children. As for the plans for the new store…… To be honest, I’m worried about going it alone, but I intend to do my best anyway.”

“Hmm — I have no idea how to manage a store, but my brother and I will be supporting Mr Kevin together. Even though I don’t look like it, I’m good with housework and stuff, you know.”

“……Is that so?”

At their words, William nodded, and a strange silence settled between the two parties.

Kevin and Helena were trying to appear relieved at having overcome great danger, but even so, it must’ve been an immense shock to learn that a person important to both of them had been murdered. That emotional wound had yet to heal, and now that fact revealed itself in the form of silence.

“U-Um……”

In a hurry, Helena tried to find the words to dispel the unpleasant atmosphere. Right then, Kevin raised his voice a little as he made an announcement.

“In any case, we’ll be alright. Somehow, I believe we’ll overcome this tragedy and move forward.”

Helena nodded along with his words, and William broke into a gentle smile.

“Indeed. I shall be praying for your family’s bright future.”

After those modest words of encouragement, William held out a clenched fist towards Kevin.

“Also, that punch was very satisfying.”

“Definitely. You socked him with all you had — I’ve seen you in a new light.”

Helena did a swift one-two as she shadow-boxed, and Kevin ruffled his hair in embarrassment.

“It was unbecoming of me. Though, I don’t regret it one bit.”

“Since you had the courage to pull that off, I’m sure you’ll do just fine from here on.”

“I’m honoured to hear that. Well then, I hope we meet again someplace else.”

As Kevin bid them farewell, Helena stood up straight and looked at William and the others in turn.

“To everyone in the Moriarty household: today, we are truly in your debt. We’ll never forget this kindness, definitely not.”

With an uncharacteristically polite tone, Helena expressed their gratitude once again, and both father and daughter left the scene with peaceful expressions.

As he sent them off, the eldest brother asked his younger sibling a question.

“——Well now, is this truly the end of it, William?”

A hint of the Lord of Crime — who was striking terror across the country — revealed itself in William’s expression as he spoke.

“Of course not: we still have the finishing touches left.”

At those words, the entire Moriarty household smiled in unison.

T/N: Helena’s story isn’t over just yet — there’s one final piece of the puzzle, and it’s a big one! Stay tuned x)

Footnotes:

[1] This is the literal translation of the proverb 雨降って地固まる — essentially, it means that good things do come out of bad things.

Translator’s notes

The Moriarty household

I’ve translated the phrase モリアーティ家 as “the Moriarty household” when it is used to address everyone in the Moriarty organisation, since “the Moriarty family” suggests that only the three brothers are being referred to.

[shypotato-translations]

QTVW Chapter 7

Future* President's Fiancee (VII)

----

When An Mu Lan woke up, she found herself in an unfamiliar environment.

She sat up, squinting around.

It is dimly lit, but by the vague light it is possible to make out the layout of this room.

This is a bedroom, and where the light is brighter, there is a window covered by heavy curtains, but a few rays of light still shine through. It is also the curtains that obscure the light that makes this room extraordinarily gloomy.

Still feeling dizzy, An Mu Lan rubbed her forehead vigorously as memories from earlier came flooding back like a tidal wave.

She narrowed her eyes and clapped her hands together, a sounding crisp clap, causing the room's sound-activated lights to come on immediately. The layout of this room was also fully presented to An Mu Lan's eyes.

The tone of this room was cold and the furniture was arranged in a simple and monotonous way, a very familiar style of home decoration, which An Mu Lan found to be very similar to the style of Ling Xihan's villa and her office.

If she guessed correctly, this should be Ling Xihan's bedroom, and it was Ling Xihan she had vaguely seen when she was unconscious earlier.

An Mu Lan's eyes flickered and there was a hint of joy in her heart, so to speak, she was now within Ling Xihan's sphere of influence, so that card there, she was finally making initial progress in this matter of raiding the villain.

An Mu Lan smiled and felt another throbbing pain in her forehead, she frowned and stroked the spot on her brow, remembering the Li family's birthday party earlier.

At the time she planned and arranged everything, then passed out under the influence of drugs and wondered how subsequent events had developed after all this time.

She clicked on the invisible electronic terminal on her wrist, a blue screen popped up and a large list of web information appeared, An Mu Lan clicked on the search field and said to the screen,

"I need to know what happened after Miss Li's birthday party."

Within three seconds, a dozen blue screens were scattered in front of An Mu Lan's eyes, who looked over them one by one.

The big headline above, in dark font, reads,

"Is the broken marriage of Zhang and Li a case of someone doing evil, or a joke of fate,"

This is the title of the literary version; another writes,

"The Zhang family's youngest prefers Nanfeng and plays group P on the second day of engagement,"

This is the bold version; there are many more titles that broadly depict this event.

An Mu Lan's mouth opened wide in surprise when she saw the news that the Zhang family's youngest was good for Nan Feng, which was not mentioned at all in the novel's plot, ah.

What's going on? Is this also an auto-completion of the virtual space-time rules?

Puzzled by the thought, An Mu Lan pulled the screen of this page in front of her eyes, then line by line, read it carefully, and after about ten minutes of reading it, An Mu Lan snorted a laugh.

The news story says that after the announcement of the marriage between Zhang and Li, the banquet continued and many of the guests did not leave immediately. This is because such an occasion is where information is passed between the families, and where deals are most likely to be negotiated in the business world.

At around three in the morning that night, Li Jiarou suddenly had to find the young master of the Zhang family in a hurry because of some matters.

The Li family had quite a few bodyguards who launched a search at that time, and there was quite a lot of commotion, so all the guests present knew about it and started to pay attention to it, and some of them even took the initiative to find him.

The guests also noticed that something was wrong when Li Jiarou's face started to turn pale and lifeless, her body was shaking and she looked miserable.

And at that moment, the young master's sister, Zhang Yao, suddenly said,

"Is there a search within the Li family residence? Perhaps brother is there?"

When the crowd thought about it, it made sense, so they recruited the bodyguard to ask again, who said with certainty,

"I've searched all over the Li family residence, but I just can't find him. But ......"

As the bodyguard said this, his face went green and red for a while as he said,

"In the Li family residence, the first floor guest lounge which was locked, has not been searched because the key could not be found."

Zhang Yao immediately smiled and offered to go to that lounge to have a look, so the crowd all followed. Ten metres closer to that room, the extremely loud sound of water stains and the moans and groans of lust could be heard inside.

Zhang Yao took the initiative to walk up and pick up the key to open the door, only to see seven or eight tall, fit men toying with a fair, tall young man, a group P scene that was so unbearable to watch that many people instantly blushed until a female voice screamed shrilly, saying,

"It's the young master of the Zhang family!"

This roar immediately drew everyone's attention to the fact that the man being pressed in the very centre was none other than the missing young master of the Zhang family, who was now, in full view of everyone, gathered around to watch a thrilling spring, palace scene.

The news reported that Li Jiarou burst into tears and the patriarch of the Li family threw the "rubbish" out with a grimace, along with an unconscious half-*** on the sofa.

As things had come to this point, the Li family naturally had to withdraw from the marriage, and so this marriage between Zhang and Li came to an end in such a joking manner.

Although the Zhang family is a triad family and is very powerful in this future world, the Li family's power should not be underestimated as well, not to mention the fact that the Li family is also a political family and there is still some truth to the proverb that the people do not fight against the officials. So the Zhang family took it upon themselves to apologise and withdraw from the marriage after the first hour of this incident, and promised to take good care of the Zhang young master.

After reading the news, An Mu Lan's whole body went Spartan. Although she played a role in pushing this matter, she did not expect the subsequent development of this matter to turn out this way, which was too unexpected.

However, all in all, the person who profited from this matter was herself, so she smiled back and continued to browse up the news, and just then, the door of the room opened and a tall woman in a slim suit looked at her with an expressionless face and a dark gaze.

The smile on An Mu Lan's lips stiffened, and she immediately straightened her spine and said joyfully,

"Xihan, you're back."

Ling Xihan walked into the room, her steps slow and with a bit of carelessness, she walked up to An Mu Lan's side, leaned over and touched her forehead and asked,

"How do you feel now, is the headache better?"

An Mu Lan's wariness immediately rose in her heart, she felt that Ling Xihan was giving off a very wrong feeling at the moment, she tilted her head and looked at Ling Xihan's chin, smiled weakly at her and said,

"Much better already, thanks."

Ling Xihan curled her lips, her narrow eyes glancing at the translucent screens popping up in mid-air as she suddenly spoke,

"How's that? Happy with the result?"

Hearing these words, An Mu Lan's heart tightened and she was quick to smile and say,

"This news is really sudden ah, the young master of the Zhang family doesn't seem like this kind of person then, isn't sister Li Jiarou very pitiful?"

Ling Xihan moved closer to An Mu Lan and leaned in slightly to look at her, a deep and unpredictable look in her eyes as she sat on the edge of the bed, her right hand stroking An Mu Lan's still somewhat messy long hair before wrapping her whole body tightly in her arms.

An Mu Lan felt her closeness, but she didn't feel happy at all, instead she was in cold sweat, because Ling Xihan's right hand was on her heart, and her palm was in the shape of a claw, as if she was playing with the softness of her chest, but then the force was heavy and light, which made An Mu Lan's heart alarmed.

An Mu Lan shivered involuntarily, she cautiously turned her head to look at her, and saw that she was very different from her usual cold and detached appearance, at this time, Ling Xihan looked at her with dark and deep eyes, with a clear understanding and realization, which made An Mu Lan feel like she was covered in □□□□□, standing in the eyes of Ling Xihan, allowing all her secrets to go unnoticed.

An Mu Lan smiled hard and asked with a tilted head,

"What's wrong with you today? Did something bad happen at work?"

Ling Xihan looked at the blue screen in front of her, pressing her lips close to An Mu Lan's ear and asking into her cochlea,

"Are you concerned about what happened yesterday?"

An Mu Lan immediately shook her head and said,

"Not really ...... concerned, I ...... I just ...... wanted to see what news…..."

Her voice weakened and her words stumbled, for the way Ling Xihan looked at her made her whole body shudder.

Ling Xihan just looked at her, with a gaze that saw through everything, and she suddenly raised her hand to caress An Mu Lan's cheek, from her still baby-fat cheek, to her soft chin.

Then she lifted her chin and looked deeply into An Mu Lan's eyes, not missing a single detail in her eyes, and she said in an unhurried tone,

"You arranged it very well the other day, the marriage between Zhang and Li was something I didn't want to see, and I'm really, really happy that you did that for the sake of it."

With that, she clicked on a blue screen and looked at the news item "The collapse of the Zhang-Li coalition" and said,

"The Li family abandoned the Zhang family in favour of another partner, and as a helper in pushing the issue, the Li family naturally chose me as a subordinate, which would allow me to step into the political world more quickly;

And the Zhang family has so disgraced the Li family and dared to lay hands on the daughter of the Li family patriarch, the Li family will naturally not let the Zhang family go, and then down the road, the Zhang family's power in the underworld will naturally fall into my hands, and I, in turn, will become the new boss;

The Li and Zhang families are equally powerful, and the young master of the Zhang family has been ruined after this night, so the two families are battling each other, and the one who will benefit the most in the end is, of course, me;

The most important thing is that the young master of the Zhang family knows part of the truth of the matter, he is a vengeful man, think about it, that maid you bothered to deal with, and Zhang Yao who made you afraid and uneasy, are the targets of his revenge. One less morbid suitor for me, and you can continue to be my good fiancée in peace.”

Ling Xihan finished these words in a flat, unemotional tone, then licked the cold sweat off An Mu Lan's cheeks and said to her,

"What's wrong? Making so much sweat?"

[codedredalert]

abandoned lawsan fantasy magic royalty arranged marriage fic excerpt

(Earlier this year, I made a deal with @yukino-ks that I'd trade x words of my abandoned lawsan bigbang attempt depending on their exam results. They got 2.6k off me and I've been terribly slow in getting an excerpt I can actually show people. (There's a reason I abandoned over 20k and several editing passes.) It's unbetad and WIP and just an excerpt of a longfic so it has some notes mixed in, but I finally have something I'm willing to let see light of day. Sorry I took so long, and congrats on doing well!)

Warnings: forced marriage, dark themes, magic coercion (I mean, Doffy exists), general background awfulness, but hey cute heart pirates interaction 

.

The engagement ring sat heavy on Sanji's finger, warm with his own body heat and with the faint power of Law's magic. A pale blue stone on a white-gold band, the crisp blank sky of winter finally breaking, the white-blue of lightning, of a glacier cracking as it falls into the sea. 

Law on the marble floor collapsed when the King Donquixote no longer deigned to puppet his broken body with the betrothal ceremony finished. 

Absently, Sanji played with the ring, conscious of the feel of it against his skin, how it changed how he moved his hand. He wondered if Law was awake and about, or if he was still in the deep healing sleep that prompted his servants to close ranks and politely ask Sanji to leave. He wondered if he could ask, or if that would destroy the tentative sort-of friendship they'd started to form before the cruel proceedings of the day before. Sanji had followed his first instinct was to help, to kneel beside Law and help him bear up his weight on fractured bones, to help him back to his tower— it might have done more harm than good. Law was a proud man, and Sanji had inadvertently wounded his pride. 

A knock on the door dragged Sanji from his thoughts.

"Yes?" he asked, dropping his hand to his side and standing. The person at the door merely knocked again, so Sanji opened the door. 

It's Law, his hair messy and in simple sleeping clothes, dark, soft, and formless. His symbol is emblazoned across his chest in yellow. A hint of bruising and the peek of a bandage shows where the fabric drapes off Law's prominent collarbones. 

A stab of pity and empathy and solidarity goes through Sanji, and the hand he has on the handle of the door goes numb as it grips harder, where Law cannot see.

"Come with me," said Law. He started moving away, giving Sanji space to enter the corridor. 

Sanji raised a brow and the oddly visceral feelings evaporated instantly. 

"Good morning to you too," replied Sanji, even as he followed and closed the door behind him. It melded back to the stone wall, perfectly hidden. "Go with you where?" 

"Kitchens." Law's walking gait was slower and shorter than usual, and uneven though he still stood tall. It was almost like yesterday hadn't happened, except for the glimpse of pale metal and yellow stone on his hand. 

"Oh, you're wearing it," came out of Sanji's mouth before he realised how stupid that sounded. He couldn't let his guard down just because his bleeding heart had gone out to Law when it turned out that the Crown Prince was very human behind all the rumours. 

Law blinked at him in surprise, lifting his hand to look at the ring, as if he'd forgot it was there, like it'd always been there and he had only just noticed. 

"Yeah," he said, looking away a bit too quickly. "This way." 

===/\===

A set of heavy wooden doors opened to a cosy kitchen, packed to full with people seated at a long wooden table, laden with plates and bowls of sweet oat porridge, flatbreads, steamed buns, eggs and bacon and beans, with savoury rice porridge, with noodles— cuisines from all over. Sanji barely had a moment to take it all in as everyone at the table jumped up, cheering and clapping. 

"Welcome to His Highness' lover!" someone hooted and loud laughter ensued, whistles and cheering resounded. Someone shoved a champagne flute into his hand and another someone all but dragged him to the bench where somehow the rest of the table squeezed to make space for him. 

"Congrats on being a bad influence on His Highness," the redhead who dragged him to the table said cheerily as he squeezed his chair in to reach the table. "Bread roll?" 

Sanji took one and it was good bread, a crust which crunched lightly under his fingers, soft fluffy insides when he broke it open and placed it on his plate. 

"Bad influence?" asked Sanji, bewildered by the ruckus. He looked round for Law, and found him standing just behind his left shoulder. Law nodded, sipping from a bright yellow mug which he hadn't been holding a moment before.

"You defied Doflamingo," Law explained.

Oh, they had to be referring to the sarcastic backtalk Sanji had made when the giant pink-feather fashion disaster tried to get him to report on Law's comings and goings. So Law had been conscious for that. Sanji was suddenly very glad he'd decided to mouth off instead of try to pretend to play along. Besides, it had been a clever comeback.

"Anything that pisses off the King Asshole, or any of the assholes over in the Toybox, makes you alright with us," the redhead elaborated, dumping half a plate of greasy bacon on Sanji's plate.  

"And if you can get our prince to eat, everyone will love you," the person seated on the redhead's other side said. It was the man with the white and black hat, who had taken a half-unconscious Law from Sanji and barked out orders to the other servants before politely asking Sanji to leave. He frowned as the redhead took the rest of the bacon, stacking the empty plate beneath his own. "And dammit Shachi, I wanted some." 

"Not my fault your food scramble game is weak, Peng. Ask Ikkaku to pass some, there's another plate on the other end of the table," Shachi said unapologetically. The man in the hat rolled his eyes, but turned and yelled down the other end of the table for the bacon. 

Sanji took a moment to process all this and looked back to Law. 

"You don't eat?" asked Sanji, incredulous. 

"I do."

"Coffee isn't food," Peng recited almost like a proverb as he put some bacon on his plate. He did not offer it to Shachi. 

For a moment, Law didn't answer, and then pointedly, he sipped his coffee. It was so bratty and childlike that Sanji nearly choked trying not to laugh. 

Peng rolled his eyes and looked to Sanji. 

"You see what we have to work with?" he said, as if Law couldn't hear them. "The list of what he eats could be written on your palm." 

Now if that weren't a challenge Sanji couldn't refuse— 

"Write it down for me and give me free reign of a kitchen," Sanji replied. "And I'll see what I can do." 

"You don't have to," Law started to say, just as Peng grinned and said "Done!", reaching over Shachi's plate to shake Sanji's hand. 

Sanji shook on it, excited for the chance to cook again for the first time since coming to Dressrosa. Law rolled his eyes, but fondly. If he'd really wanted to, he could order otherwise. It was… nice, that he let this go. 

"Do you think I could try some?" asked the huge polar bear toy seated on Law's other side. Sanji startled, still not quite used to toys talking, but Law's hand just went up to pat the toy bear on his nose.

"You can't eat, Bepo. Otherwise I have to operate on you again and wash out your stuffing." Law paused. "I don't know why you like it anyway. It's not like you can taste it."

"It looks pretty and everyone else gets to eat. I feel lonely."

Law patted Bepo on the nose again comfortingly. 

"It's not that great," said Law. He finished his coffee.

Sanji resolved then and there to make Law eat those words with dinner. 

===/\===

[More conversation, Shachi and Bepo are escorting Sanji back to his room. Originally, I had fun worldbuilding stuff about how much Law hates the tower and Bepo's origin story but it's not relevant in the excerpt.]

"What's that?" asked Sanji. In a short joining corridor between this homey servant's kitchen and the lonely tower and its rooms which lock from the outside, there was a space where he could see a sliver of sky, and a splash of colour below. 

"What's what?" asked Shachi. Sanji gestured over the side of the open down to a sort of courtyard garden, with flowering plants grown in elaborate patterns so from the top down, they formed complicated motifs and images of a strange ship breaking the waves, a treasure chest and a heart. 

"It's pretty, right?" said Bepo cheerfully. "His Highness does it himself, he moves the flowers around when he's had a bad dream. He says it makes him feel better." 

There was space, paths amongst the flowers, a couple of benches and a small pavilion, along with the little pond and irrigation system and lights. 

"It's Law's garden, then," said Sanji, an idea coming to mind. "Say, is there a table in that pavillion?" 

===/\===

[Sanji cooks dinner for Law and they have a nice romantic dinner in the pavillion but Law Does Not Care about food and that is honestly kind of upsetting for Sanji. I had to cut my favourite part of the entire fic out and that hurtie just a bit.]

"If you've had enough of forcing me to eat—" Law said, and Sanji wanted to snap at that, but Law managed to finish his sentence first. "Do you want to take a walk?" 

"I thought you had work to do?" replied Sanji, a little coldly, but Law didn't seem to notice. He shrugged.

"It can wait, I'll be up late tonight anyway."

They walk. The air is cold, and clouds roll through the courtyard sometimes, wisp and damp and cold. The courtyard meets the side wall of the castle, and on the other side is the steep drop into a distant dark fog. 

It didn't take long to walk the entirety of the courtyard, small as it was. They sat on the lone bench, it was dewy with the condensation of the clouds and the rapidly cooling night. 

"So, with all this, I take it you want to try and act like lovers," commented Law. 

It was more a judgment than a question. Sanji stiffened, was Law going to make fun of him? 

"Not with that attitude," Sanji retorted. His hand went to his pocket for his cigarettes. He lit one, agitated and feeling like the effort he'd put into making the evening nice was, all in all, a nett waste. 

Law considered Sanji without taking any offence. 

"I'm not interested anyway. Don't get me wrong," Law added quickly, a hand outstretched as Sanji sat straighter, half-way to standing and walking away. "You're plenty attractive, and if it's sex you want, I could show you a good time." 

"You know the meaning of the word?" 

Law ignored his interjection. 

"It's the… other things," he continued calmly. "The holding hands and fancy dinners and being sentimental. I'm not good at that. I'm not going to stab you if you look at another man, and I'd prefer the same vice versa." 

Sanji looked at him flatly. 

"What." 

"It's common enough around here that there's a proverb that... never mind, the explanation is too long. The point is, if romance is what you're hoping to get out of this marriage, I'm going to disappoint. I can put up with it a little bit but not for long."

"Why the marriage, then?"

Law's head snapped to him sharply. His expression made him look more angry than confused, though his tone when he spoke was confused. 

"I told you, after the ceremony," Law said, as if he expected Sanji to remember every detail said when Law had been crumpled on the floor and bleeding through his engagement suit. "We both got signed away without having any say in it. I thought we had an understanding, and I'm surprised you want something more. I mean, it's…" He couldn't seem to find an adjective for it. "Well. it's something. That you want to try. I'm flattered." 

"You couldn't refuse this marriage?" asked Sanji, processing this new information. If it were true, that made Law more a fellow prisoner than a bored and slightly sympathetic jailor. That changed everything, it meant Sanji had more allies than he thought. Still— "But you tried. That time before the betrothal ceremony. You told the King you're not marrying anyone."

"And that clearly worked," Law retorted snidely. His glowing yellow eyes were less friendly now. "So, is that what you thought of me? And all this— the aid, the kindness, the food— was this you bending backwards to keep me happy? So I don't call off the engagement and leave you to face your family's wrath for losing a valuable alliance?"

He was angry, and right. Some of it had been a little calculated, so what? Sanji had nothing here, no rights of magic to stand on, no support, and people who would die if he stepped one toe out of line. That didn't mean he couldn't want something, anything, to make the days more bearable. That maybe, though married to a man he'd never met before, he might have something which passed for love.

"Not… exactly. You already know my situation, and besides, I'm meant to be an insult," explained Sanji, grim. He hadn't expected to speak of this, and it was harder than he thought. "You're the Crown Prince, you should have married my sister, or at the very least the eldest son. Not—" the third son who has no magic to speak of. "Not me. So, you're right. I'm at your mercy. But you've been decent. So I thought. Well. We could be friends at least." 

It took a moment but Law's glare softened, pacified. 

"Don't worry about that part so much. The insult bit— we know. Doflamingo thought it was hilarious. He wants to parade you around until you're the very symbol of the Germa and your father will be associated with you."

A pause. 

"Not liking that much either, " Sanji said, voice flat. 

"He has a shit sense of humour," agreed Law. "Your being fair-haired and a smoker is partly why he agreed, I'm sure. Or he wouldn't have forced me to give you that cloak." 

Speaking of the cloak, Sanji remembered the package he'd put in his bag. He fished it out, and offered it to Law. 

"You can have this back,'' said Sanji. 

"You don't like your betrothal gift?" asked Law, but Sanji noticed he was quick to take the offered cloak in hand. 

"It seems important to you."

… No answer, but Law draped the cloak around his own shoulders. It dwarfed him much like it had dwarfed Sanji. It seemed to be made for someone closer to the King's stature. 

"I was under the impression you're not that fond of the King," Sanji commented.

For a second, it seemed like Law would not respond. Head bowed and eyes closed, with the great cloak around him, he looked small and lost in memory.  

"His brother." said Law without opening his eyes, and he drew the coat tighter around himself with his hands. "My benefactor." 

He brought the sleeve up against the white light of the garden lamp. 

"See?" said Law, and his expression was so gentle that for a moment Sanji felt like he shouldn't have seen it, like it was some secret thing he had no right to. "The deep purple, almost black. It's hard to see, but it's there." 

Sanji tore his eyes from Law's face to look at the shadows of the cloak. Sure enough, there were purple sparks, almost lost in the brighter pink. 

"I see it."

"It's not a powerful type of magic," said Law, voice wistful. "I used to disdain it myself, when I was a child. This particular one is Silent Night— it blocks out noise to give the wearer a— a peaceful sleep."

Law's voice tripped over his words and he lowered the coat, curled over it, for a second he was so overcome with emotion he couldn't speak. Sanji averted his eyes, looking out over the gardens. The pale shapes of the white and yellow flowers in the white garden lights, and the distant moon. The flat blades of the leaves and the washed out mosaic tiles. 

"This—" Law's hands tightened on the cloak in Sanji's peripheral vision. "Means a lot. More than you could know. ...Thanks." 

It was awkward, but then, Law seemed the type unaccustomed to thanking others. 

"You're welcome," Sanji said simply, and they sat together in silence late into the night. 

[sockablock]

They stood in the snow on the path to Uthodern, tiny white flakes drifting slowly past their eyes.

Beau cracked her knuckles. 

“Well, then? Come on!”

Fjord’s gaze trailed across the dagger in his hands, then flickered briefly to the ground. Stacked in a careful pile at his feet was a whip, a glove, a shield, and an axe, slowly getting being buried beneath the flurry.

He sighed.

“Something just feels off about this. I don’t want to attack while you’re unarmed.”

Beau immediately groaned.

“You’re kidding right?” She waved her hands around. “You’ve seen me punch ghosts into dust, you think I can’t handle a stupid knife? This isn’t some chivalry bullshit, is it? That you can’t come at me just ‘cause I’m a chick?”

Fjord quickly shook his head. He raised his palms, dagger glinting in the light.

“No, gods, no, it’s...definitely not that. Believe me, I’m well aware of your power—”

“Good.”

“Yes, well aware. No, it’s just that...I…I just feel sort of bad.”

“Is it your chest?” Her aggressive stance eased, her head tilted to one side. “Should I go get Cad or Jester or something?”

“What? No, no, it’s not that either. It’s more of…well…that I’m being a burden.” He gestured off towards the distance, where farther up the silver slope, the rest of the group were gathered around a campfire. Smoke curled into the empty sky.

“You should be with everyone else, getting warm. Not standing out in the cold, training me.”

But Beau only frowned and crossed her arms.

“I told you it was fine, though,” she said. “And you know me, you know I’d rather be doin’ this than sittin’ there, bored out of my mind. I can only listen to Nott complain so many times before I try to kill her.”

“Come now, Beau. You can’t mean that.”

“You think I couldn’t take her?”

He exhaled. His breath clouded the greying air.

“I think you’re being nice to me,” he said, finally blunt. “I think you’re trying to make me feel better about...about losing my powers.”

Beau hesitated. She stared at him.

And then, slowly, her eyes narrowed.

“Well...well...so what if I am?” She took a heavy step forward. “It’s your fault anyway, goin’ around and saying that you’re useless and stuff. So sue me if I was tryin’ to be helpful. Plus you need to practice with all the shit we gave you, right?”

Fjord’s eye twitched. He opened his mouth as if to protest, but then, suddenly, he paused.

The dagger dropped to his side. He looked up, and wore a rather weak smile. 

“Gods, am I really that pitiful, like this?”

She quickly backpedaled. “It’s...it’s not…no, it’s not about pity. It…it…it’s just pragmatism…”

She trailed off as he shook his head. She watched him let out another breath, then glance down at his pile of weapons. He slid them gently into the snow, clearing the surface of Caduceus’s shield.

Then he sat down. He put his head in his hands.

Beau had never seen him do that before.

“This...this is completely insane.” His voice carried soft on the breeze. “Beau, I shouldn’t keep travelling with you all. I know—I know that you’re about to argue, but like this, I really am a liability. What’s happening now can’t just be fixed by me trying on different weapons. I can’t just...I can’t just be given a bunch of things that I don’t know how to use. Not that I don’t appreciate it,” he added hastily, “I…I do appreciate it quite a bit. Really.”

She shrugged, unsure of what else to do.

“None, uh, none of that shit was mine, you know. You don’t have to sugarcoat it for me.”

He managed a muffled snort in response. “I...am certainly not sugarcoating,” he said. “It does mean a lot to me. It means...yes, it means the world. I can’t express how grateful I am that all of you listened, and all of you heard. And that you didn’t…didn’t...well.”

Beau took another step forward, eyebrows raising as she moved.

“Didn’t what?” she echoed carefully. “Didn’t…?”

“...discard me,” Fjord muttered. “Leave...you know. Leave me behind. Magical items in account, I still real am of no help to you all.”

Beauregard closed the gap in a second, crouched in the snow just before his legs.

“Don’t you dare say that,” she ordered. “Fjord, don’t you ever say that. That’s—that’s...what do you take us for? Who cares how much help you are? Fuck, if that’s all we cared about, we would’ve replaced Caleb with Shakäste years ago.”

This dragged a ragged laugh out of Fjord, that faded into the windswept noon.

His posture relaxed a bit. He gave an eventual nod.

“Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, I…I do see that now. I, ah...I hope that didn’t offend you. At the time...well, I didn’t dare be sure.”

Beau nodded, mission accomplished. “I’m just makin’ sure you know you can be now. Brains can be a bitch, you feel?” 

“I...er...yes, indeed. Yes, I suppose that’s fair.”

She watched his mouth move. Her eyes flickered.

“Man, though, you really do sound different.” She leaned in closer and blinked a few times. “Gods, how’d you manage that ‘yeehaw’ shit for so long?” 

Fjord’s lips quirked up into a smile, the tips of his tusks just now barely visible. 

“Would you like to know a secret?” he asked.

Beau raised an eyebrow. 

“Is it gonna be weird?”

He shifted over slightly on the beetle skin shield, and brushed away a dusting of snow.

“Sit down,” he said. “I promise it won’t be weird.”

Her expression did not turn any less skeptical, but still, after a moment, she complied. 

His shoulder was warm against her own, sleeveless as she was in the grey northern wilds. The wind whistled low between the trees, and the afternoon sun, shining far above, was like an ivory disc through the clouds.

A few seconds later, Fjord sighed. He said:

“This is going to be a weight off my chest.”

“Yeah, well,” Beau examined her nails, “don’t keep me waiting, then.”

He nodded.

“‘Slop-dolly’ is made up.”

There was a very long pause for silence.

Then:

“What?!”

“Gods, it feels good to finally say that.”

“Wait, wait, wait, no…no...what?! Are you being serious right now?!”

His cheeks shone bright as he grinned.

“Serious as anything. In fact, most of my idioms were complete fabrications. And the ones I did remember, I’m still not sure if I used them right.”

“But…” she stumbled, “but...you said them so confidently…”

“I know, right? It was incredible.” There was a satisfied glimmer in his eyes. “It’s a mercy we never ran into anyone from Vandren’s town, because I’m sure they would have caught me immediately. I never got a hang of his colorful sayings.”

“Yeah, but...gods, you like a fuckin’ fountain of weird noises and shit.” Beau blinked, one last time for emphasis. “You’re sure none of them were real?”

“One thousand percent. You know, I thought I’d done a good job at making up my own. Slop-dolly was just one example. Once I told someone that they were—” for a moment, his old accent resurfaced, “—slower’n molasses goin’ uphill in Misuthar.” He chuckled. “Once I told Nott that she could eat through wire to get to corn and still be hankerin’ for dinner. I mean, gods—” his oldest accent returned, “I still have no idea where either of those came from.”

Beau laughed into the cold. “That is...alright, I gotta admit, you really had us, all these months. And those sayings—” she whistled, “—damn.”

“Thank you.” He grinned. “I really did try.”

They watched the snow fall together for moment longer. Then Beau tilted her head to one side.

“Still, though, you did a pretty good job. Even if you thought you were just pretending.”

“Well, that’s likely because I found a dictionary—”

She snorted. “No, no, not that. I meant you did a good job at bein’ leader. You know. At being our captain.”

Fjord’s cheerful expression faded. His gaze drifted back towards the ground. 

“Well,” he murmured. “Well, I just copied Vandren.”

She nodded along knowingly.

“You’re sayin’ that you did what he would do?”

“Pretty much.”

“So you followed his example.”

“Yes, Beau, that is what I mean.”

She leaned back and crossed her arms.

“You know,” she said, “where I come from, we also have a saying. You wanna hear it?”

“Is it real?”

“It’s an ancient proverb,” she carried on. “It goes: ‘you learned from him, you dipshit.’”

When he turned, she poked him between the eyes.

“All you’re saying sounds to me like you all that really happened is that you learned. You figured out, by yourself, how to be a good captain, but followin’ the example you were given. And maybe you didn’t realize what you were doin’, and maybe you were just copying, at first, but do you really think that none of it sunk in? That the experience didn’t help you grow?”

He blinked. He followed her hand as if he were afraid of another prodding.

“I…Beau, no, that’s not real—”

“Oh, but isn’t it? Are you sure? Can you tell me, definitively, that you didn’t learn anything? Or that you haven’t changed at all? You weren’t copying Vandren when you threw that sword, right? You weren’t copying him when you went and got Cad. And you weren’t copying him at all when you told the truth. You were talkin’ like some swanky upper-class fuck—”

“—well—”

“—okay, ignore that last part. But still.” She folded her hands together. “Still, according to you, right, you were nothin’ like him, yeah? Before you decided to adopt his persona? You were just some kid who got bullied who no one listened to, right?”

He sighed. “Ouch, but yes.”

“Yeah, well, that’s my point. Maybe before, no one ever listened. But we did, didn’t we? And I’m listenin’ now, even though you aren’t hiding behind some mask. Even though your voice is all sorts of different. And I hope you know, Fjord, that no matter what you sound like, all of us, every single one of us, we will only just keep listening. No matter what happens. That’s what friends are for.”

Her words settled in like the first grip of snow. Bright, and stark, and undeniably true.

Fjord was quiet. Then he dropped his elbows against his knees. The last imprisoned thought in his mind broke through.

“Still, I...I lied to all of you. I was pretending to be a fearless leader—”

“Oh my gods, who cares about lies?” She threw her hands into the air, scattering flakes with the force of her will. “Our whole fuckin’ group used to be made of lies! One of us would sneeze, and bam! There’s a lie! But that never really mattered! Or, if it did, it doesn’t now. We’re family now, you absolute moron. And—no, shut up, let me finish, and another thing, another thing is that you were being a fearless leader. You weren’t pretending, you were doing it. Even though we basically forced you into that spot, because none of us fuckin’ knew how to sail. Plus we did it ‘cause we’re assholes, and ‘cause we trusted you.”

She poked him one last time in the chest.

“And maybe that wasn’t fair to you, to make you do something you weren’t ready to do. But you can’t deny that you earned that trust, ‘cause we wouldn’t have done that if we didn’t. Trust you, I mean. Because...because...well, if you had just been pretending, that would’ve been one thing. Talkin’ a big game, I hate it when people do that. But you didn’t do that. You led us across the ocean, you led us into battle, and then you stood up to a fuckin’ demigod. A person pretending to be brave by throwing themselves into danger is still a person being brave, idiot. And if what you did, back then, and last night, if that ain’t bravery, then I don’t know what is.”

She crossed her arms. She stared into his eyes.

“I get...I understand that you’d want to find power. We have fucked up, dangerous life, and I’ll help you with that part, as best I can. But don’t think for a second that you’re weak. And don’t ever think you’re a liability, alright?”

She glanced back into the distance when Fjord didn’t speak.

But somehow, he didn’t think he had to. And it didn’t seem like Beau was demanding anything.

Instead the two of them just sat there, watching the snow sweep across the greying sky. The pines on the horizon quivered in the wind.

Fjord turned the dagger over in his hands. The shield was smooth against the backs of his calves, and the whip and the axe sat stoic by his feet. The glove was warm against his knees.

Beau nudged him in the shoulder. 

“C’mon.” Her voice was soft in the light. “We should probably head back to the others, soon. We’ve still got a few more hours to travel, and I don’t know about you, but I could really use a warm drink. At a tavern, you know? In an actual town?”

She paused, and waited for a response.

Fjord thought about Vandren would have said.

...but what did he want to say?

“Well?” she prompted. “You with me, or not?”

He realized, a second later, that he’d always known the answer.

He smiled. His tusks poked past his lip.

“Of course,” he chuckled. “Of course. Lead the way.”

[feelingfredly]

Keep Your Friends Close (And Your Family as Far Away as Possible)

(My contribution to Kitsunegeddon 2019)

Summary:            

“Relatives are the worst friends, said the fox as the dogs took after him.” – Danish Proverb

Long lost relatives, yokai politics, magical turf wars…  or just another day in Ichigo’s messed up life. He should never have taken up playing the shamisen.

Chapter 2: Strange Things Are Afoot at the Circle K(urosaki)

“Tadaima!” Ichigo called out as he dropped his wet gear in the genkan.

“Okaeri!” Yuzu stuck her head around the corner to the living room with a smile. “Ichi-nii! I was about to sit down to watch the newest episode of Princess Jellyfish.  You want to watch it with me? I made popcorn.”

“Maybe next time. Where’s Karin?”

Yuzu made a face.  “She’s still at soccer practice.  Her coach wasn’t happy with their ‘work ethic’ during the last game, so they’re doing extra drills.”

“I thought they won?” Ichigo frowned and Yuzu shrugged.

“Apparently winning isn’t everything.  Who knew?”

Ichigo shrugged back. “The world is full of mysteries.”

They stood like that for a second and then broke up laughing.  Kurosakis would take winning over mysteries any day.

“So, you want to tell me why you’re all wet, or should I chalk it up to another one of the world’s mysteries?

Ichigo snorted.  “Nothing that exciting.  I was practicing my shamisen in the park and got caught in a sun shower.  It wasn’t too bad, though.  I managed keep the strings dry, and the breeze on the walk home helped.”

Yuzu smiled.  “Oooh! I love kitsune no yomeiri. There’s something magical about that edge where two worlds mix.  Much prettier than the gate to Hell, although I can’t remember that as well as I’d like.  Still, it’s probably better this way.  Fewer nightmares.”

Ichigo stared at her for a moment, surprised by her matter-of-fact attitude about being kidnapped and taken to Hell, but then this was Yuzu.  Anyway, he’d prefer she never have nightmares at all. A faulty memory seemed a small price to pay.

“It’s strange that you mention weddings,” he pulled his thoughts back to the present. “I met someone while I was at the park. Nice older guy, but it was so weird.  He said he was there for his granddaughter’s wedding, but when I came out of the little clearing where I’d been playing there wasn’t anyone there. ��Plus, to top it off, he said he recognized me, sort of.  Said we were distant relatives through Mom’s side of the family.  I didn’t even know Mom had relatives outside of Ishida’s family.”

Yuzu opened her mouth and Ichigo raised a hand to cut her off. “I did!  I invited them to the house as soon as he told me.  He said they couldn’t come because of the wedding.”

Disappointment painted his sister’s face as he’d expected.  “He did say he’d see me again soon, so I promise, if I do see him around, I’ll make sure to bring him to meet you and Karin, okay?”

Yuzu nodded gratefully and gave a half-smile. “How cool is that, though, that he knew Mom?”  She looked over to where the poster hung on the wall, their mom’s happy face looking over them larger than life.  “It would be nice to talk to someone who knew her so we can get to hear something other than Dad’s crazy stories. I mean, I have so many questions, you know?”

Ichigo knew.

“He said that it was a big family, so who knows!  Maybe there will be cousins in the area that you can make friends with.” Ichigo stuck his hands in his pockets, fighting off the urge to give his little sister a hug, and bumped against the little stone that Hakuzosu had given him. “Oh and look at this!”  He pulled it out and held it out, a shiny distraction from too many feelings. “He gave me this, too!”

Yuzu looked at the ball rolling in his palm. “Uh, Ichigo?” She stepped forward and picked the almost-pearl up gingerly. “You say he gave you this?”

Ichigo shrugged a little awkwardly.  “Well, he showed up talking about the wedding and how I’d basically crashed the party with my shamisen playing.”

Yuzu gave him a sympathetic cringe and he nodded. “Yeah, I know, but he was cool about it. He said that I’d given his granddaughter a gift.  It was really nice, actually, and then we were just standing there talking, and he pointed at that on the ground by my feet.” He indicated the ball. “Hakuzosu-san thought I’d dropped it.  But I’ve never seen it before, and I told him so.  It was pretty, though.   When I picked it up it just felt…?  Nice, you know?”

The surface shimmered under Yuzu’s fingers, and Ichigo couldn’t help feeling like he wanted to take it back.

Something in her face told him he was missing something important.

“Ichigo,” she spoke, her voice hesitant, “you know that Dad gave me and Karin Mom’s jewelry box, right?”

The jewelry box was one of their most prized possessions, filled with hairpins and little bits of jewelry that Isshin had thought safe enough for the twins to keep, and when Ichigo nodded Yuzu let out a little sigh.

“Come with me,” she said, heading towards the room she and Karin shared, “I need to show you something.”

***

“And then she pulled out this one!”  Ichigo held up a second shiny sphere.  “She says it was in the jewelry box after Mom died.”

The green-striped hat covered even more of Kisuke’s face than usual and the band of shadow it cast was heavy enough that his eyes were simply a suggestion of movement in the darkness. Ichigo hated that hat.

He’d been hesitant to come in the first place, and now he wished he hadn’t. Trying to explain the weird maybe-relative that looked like Ichimaru Gin was bad enough, but Hey, look at this marble, isn’t it cool? Apparently, Mom had one just like it and the weird guy told me you’d want to see it made him sound crazy. Or desperate.  Or both.

Kisuke reached out and touched the glowing orb on the table between them and Ichigo imagined he could almost feel the contact.

“I wondered about this, once upon a time,” he said, gently rolling the ball back and forth with only the tip of his finger, “but your mother was very good at keeping her secrets.”  Kisuke peered out at him from the shadows and Ichigo realized there was a wariness there that he’d never seen aimed at him before. “Very good.”

Ichigo couldn’t argue with that; his Quincy heritage was still a mystery to him in many ways.  He could only think that Masaki would have explained things to him if she’d had time. That reminded him…

“Hakuzosu wasn’t a Quincy.”  Ichigo picked up his tea and tried to remember exactly what the old man had said. “I was wearing a thumb guard Ishida made for me, and as you can imagine, it’s blue and covered in little white crosses.   So, when Hakuzosu started talking about Mom and how she’d upset the elders when she married Isshin, I kind of indicated the crosses and he said No, boy, not those elders.”

Kisuke nodded, apparently unsurprised.  Ichigo wondered if he practiced that look in the mirror so that no one ever thought he was out of his depth, or if he’d simply seen so much that nothing fazed him anymore.

Or maybe he already knew about Hakuzosu and had been expecting the meeting. That would explain why Hakuzosu knew about Urahara and the shōten.

“Ever since Ichimaru’s look-alike showed up this morning, I’ve felt like I’ve been missing something.  Is this another weird Soul Society thing. You’re acting like it all means something significant, so why don’t you just come out and tell me?  Who was the guy, and why am I being set-up this time?  Is Mom’s marble some weird Quincy weapon that Kyouraku has decided has to come back under lock and key or something?”

Gray eyes snapped up to his.  Well, that was clearly a vote for Kisuke’s practicing in the mirror because that look was proof that something fazed him.

“For once, Kurosaki-kun, any machinations occurring have nothing to do with Soul Society.  Not that I blame you for jumping to that conclusion.”

The hint of frost in his tone implied the opposite.  The blond didn’t like the fact that Ichigo assumed he was being manipulated again.  The question was: did he dislike the assumption because it meant Ichigo was becoming harder to use, or because he didn’t like the idea of people using him at all?

It was probably a combination of the two.  Why be simple when you can be Kisuke?

“Let me see if I can translate the Urahara-ese.  You believe that there are machinations in the works, but you’ve eliminated Soul Society involvement, either because you’re already involved and you know they aren’t because you haven’t included them, or the little line between your eyebrows means that you’re miffed that someone else is running a scam on me without inviting you.  Since the Ichimur-alike pointed me in your direction, you clearly know something useful either way, and that means you’re my most likely source of information.” Ichigo leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “So, spill.”

“Don’t forget the third option, Kurosaki-kun.” Kisuke’s voice dropped, heavy with suggestion and just a hint of threat, as he lowered his chin and hid in the darker shadows his hat cast.

He was such a drama queen.

“You mean the possibility that you’re lying to me about Soul Society being involved?” Ichigo rolled his eyes. “No.  You may make me work for the truth, but you don’t lie to me anymore.” He shook his head in dismissal. “You said they weren’t involved, so they’re not involved.”

The certainty in his tone triggered an almost imperceptible response in Urahara and Ichigo couldn’t keep the satisfaction from his face. Honestly, he didn’t try very hard and the faint smile he got in response was worth it.

“I see I’m going to have to work harder on my inscrutability.” Kisuke shifted slightly, the dark and dangerous persona falling away from him like scales as it was no longer necessary, his focus shifting back on the twin spheres. “But, for what it’s worth, your summary is correct, and, again for what it’s worth, this mystery isn’t a creation of mine.”

They sat like that for a few moments until Ichigo got tired of waiting.

“Well, then, whose is it?”

Kisuke lifted Masaki’s sphere and held it up in the light.  It seemed to glow from within.

“Have you ever heard of hoshi no tama?” he asked, sounding almost sing-song as he turned the little ball this way and that.

“Star balls?  Like belong to kitsune?” Ichigo stopped as soon as the words were out of his mouth.  Surely Kisuke couldn’t mean….

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He looked down at the second, egg-sized stone.   Was it bigger than it was before? “Wait. Did mine grow?”

Kisuke placed Masaki’s sphere back on the table gently.  They were definitely not the same size anymore, and the larger one, Ichigo’s, now pulsed with a faint light.

Hoshi no tama.  It couldn’t be.

“Yoruichi always said there was something a little different about you, Kurosaki-kun.”

Ichigo snorted.  “You mean other than being a human-Shinigami-Quincy-hollow hybrid?”

Kisuke didn’t appreciate his humor.  “Precisely. Perhaps she could tell because of her ties to bakeneko.”

Amber eyes shot wide and the blond laughed.  “You didn’t think the cat-shape-shifting thing was something any Shinigami could do, did you? No.  Our Shihōin Princess has yokai blood, and you, it seems, may as well.”

Yokai blood didn’t sound good.  It didn’t sound good at all, but Ichigo couldn’t help but remember the stories that Masaki used to tell about wolf-like ōkami that protected little boys who kept adzuki beans and salt in their pockets as treats, and dangerous kappas who could only be defeated by clever boys who remembered to bow as deeply as possible so the monsters would spill the spirit water from the lilypad bowls they carried on their head and lose their powers. She told him about crow-like tengu who would punish the vain but could be called upon to help lost children find their way home, and tanuki who looked so jolly but would trick unwary people into parting with their food and wine with piles of money that turned out to be leaves come morning.

“Mom used to tell me stories.” He weighed his words, almost afraid to voice them but knowing that he must. “But they were just bedtime stories, Kisuke.  Fairy tales. Nothing more.”

Kisuke looked at him, gray eyes bright and focused, and Ichigo could feel a flush creeping along his skin.  Of course, now he was interesting enough to pay attention to, but for all the wrong reasons. Again.

“Don’t give me that look,” he snapped, and the blond blinked, slowly.

“What look is that, Kurosaki-kun?”

Ichigo counted to ten.  Twice. He didn’t believe that Kisuke was nearly as oblivious as he pretended, but if he insisted, the redhead would play along.

“The ‘oh look, a new experiment’ look.  It reminds me of Kurotsuchi-taicho, and trust me, you wouldn’t look nearly as good in that make-up.”

Thin pink lips quirked into a sly smile, and Kisuke chuckled. “I might surprise you, Kurosaki-kun. Who do you think brought Mayuri-san his supplies when he was still in the Maggot’s Nest? Plus, I ran more than my fair share of honey-pot missions for the Onmitsukido. A steady hand with an eyeliner pencil and a good lipstick go a long way.”

The flirtatious tone fell flat, and Ichigo sighed, more frustrated than flustered for once. How did they always end up like this—snarking at each other but never actually saying anything?  It was exhausting, and he didn’t have the patience for it today.

“You keep telling yourself that, Hat-and-clogs.” Ichigo picked up the two spheres and held them, one in each hand, between them. “Right now, I’m more concerned about these.”

Kisuke’s teasing smile faded.  “Yoruichi might be able to give us some insight, and there’s a tanuki that visits the shōten occasionally that I could…”

“A tanuki?” Ichigo practically exploded. “You can’t actually mean a real tanuki?  With the huge…?” he spread his fingers, unable to finish the thought.

“Testicles?” Kisuke finished the question for him, smirk back in full force. “I haven’t asked to see them, but yes I would assume so. I’ve done more than a few favors for him over the past hundred years, so he owes me, but tanuki and kitsune don’t get along very well from what I can tell.”

Ichigo frowned.

“It shouldn’t be a problem as long as Hakuzosu isn’t here, though, right?” There wasn’t another kitsune in the equation.

Kisuke took the larger sphere from his fingers and moved it slowly, watching the glimmer brighten the closer it got to Ichigo’s hand, “Well, that depends.”

Ichigo allowed the blond to drop the now glowing ball into his palm and was surprised by the rush of pleasure he got from holding it. There was something so right about it, and that was definitely not right. “Depends on what?”

The older man watched him for a long moment, a hint of fascination and curiosity and maybe even a little fear in his eyes, and Ichigo couldn’t look away, wanting nothing more than to have Kisuke look at him forever, the feelings of frustration washed away by a tide of something much more potent. His breath caught in his throat and his heart beat faster as he silently cursed his stupid attraction. This was so not the time.

“It depends on how much kitsune blood you’ve got flowing through your veins, Kurosaki-kun, and how the appearance of your long-lost relative has affected it.”

Ichigo groaned and dropped his hands to the tabletop with a thud. “I knew that was what you were going to say.”

The star ball glowed brighter and Ichigo tightened his fist around it.

“Just when I thought my life couldn’t get any more complicated, I have to deal with a freaking yokai. I swear, if Hakuzosu shows up and tries anything I’m going to kick his ass, kitsune or not.”

“Be careful, Kurosaki-kun,” Kisuke was still watching him so closely it made his skin prickle. “You don’t want to get on the wrong side of a yokai. They are far from harmless.”

“Kisuke,” Ichigo said, sitting back up in his chair and looking across at the blond in disbelief, “nothing in my life has ever been harmless, and none of us would have survived if I’d played by the rules.  Why should this be any different?”

The blond looked at him with an air of something approaching satisfaction.  “Why indeed?”

Once again, he had the full weight of Kisuke’s attention on him, and instead of the butterflies that usually took up residence in his stomach when that happened, he felt a lead weight.  He wasn’t a side-show attraction, dammit. Not even for him.

He held out his empty hand and Kisuke dropped the second ball in it.

“So,” Ichigo pulled in a deep breath, “you said you knew someone who might be able to help?”

Kisuke cocked his head to one side, like he was listening to a voice that was only speaking to him, and then nodded in agreement.  “Yes.  Shibaemon is easy enough to find.  I’ll contact Yoruichi and we will track him down and see if we can’t come to an arrangement.” The blond sighed. “Last time the two of them were together they drank all the sake in three bars.  Hopefully this time will not break that record.”

Knowing Kisuke he wasn’t nearly as innocent in that story as he pretended.   Ichigo wished he’d been there.  A tipsy Kisuke was a sight to see.

“Let me know if you need me there.  I don’t want to just tag along and have your tanuki friend—fuck, I can’t believe we’re talking about real tanuki.” He forced himself to calm down. “I don’t want to show up and have him upset over some possibly real connection to kitsune.”

Kisuke agreed. “Like I said, he’s nice enough most of the time, but he is a yokai, and they’re…  unpredictable.”

Ichigo snorted.  “The fact that you think he is unpredictable is the best warning you could give me.”

Suddenly a yawn cracked the redhead’s jaws. He was exhausted.

“I need to head home.  Yuzu was already upset enough with me for not managing to drag Hakuzosu back to the house to visit.  She’ll kill me if I’m late for dinner.”

Kisuke reached across the table and rested one long, thin finger on Ichigo’s arm.  “If I may,” he started, speaking in that casual manner that means listen carefully because something significant is NOT being said, “Kurosaki-kun, it might be best if you kept your new trinket in a…  safe place.  I’d be happy to provide such a place—Tessai could even put a kidō trap on it to be extra cautious.”

Any other time Ichigo would have taken him up on the offer.  Any other time the warmth of that finger would have burned his skin and given him fodder for weeks’ worth of daydreams.  Why, then, did the idea of turning his trinket over for someone else’s safe keeping make him feel like he couldn’t catch his breath and like snakes were squirming in his belly?

Ichigo’s fingers tightened inexorably around the supposed star balls and he shoved them deep into his pockets and leaned back in his chair. He’d think about those feelings later.  Much, much later.

“Nah, that’s okay. Yuzu will want Mom’s back ASAP, and I’ll just keep the other one with me.  No need to put Tessai out over something like this. It’s just a shiny stone.” He gave a careless shrug that fooled neither of them.

Kisuke retreated into the shadow of his hat’s brim.  “And if it is more, Kurosaki-kun?”

Ichigo’s fingers were still tightly wrapped around the now egg sized sphere and he gave an almost Gin-like smile.

“Hakuzosu said he’d be around, and if he is a kitsune like you suspect, and this is a hoshi no tama—mine or his—well, it’s probably better if I don’t have to break through a kidō lock to get it if I need it.  You know how Tessai hates it when I make a mess of the shop.”

[boreum-dal]

la confiture, pt. i

fandom: miraculous ladybug (adrinette, nino/alya)

summary: marinette dupain-cheng is one step closer to her dream of becoming a top chef when she’s hired to cook at the famed restaurant, la confiture. but to get to the top, she’s got to surpass adrien agreste, her rival and the son of la confiture’s owner.

too bad he’s so sweet that he’s nearly impossible to dislike.

and too bad she loves when he invites her over after work to test out new dishes at his apartment.

and too bad his relationship with his father makes her want to hold him and never let him go.

and–just like that, her dreams don’t seem so simple anymore.

cross-posted: ao3

Marinette had nearly forgotten about the fruit tarts. When she’d first seen them on the new menu for the week, she’d wondered, somewhat wildly, if Adrien secretly read her blog; after all, he’d introduced that dish into the dessert menu only two days after she’d posted about her fruit tarts. But even given Ladybug Patisserie’s immense popularity, she couldn’t imagine that Adrien Agreste, sous chef at one of the top restaurants in the country, found the time or the energy to read the weekly exploits of someone who couldn’t bake to save her life. It had to be a coincidence.

Adrien grinned, surveying the room. His eyes paused when they met Marinette’s. His head tilted to the side, and his lips quirked up ever so slightly at the corners, as if he were sharing a private joke with her that no one else in the room would understand. For a brief few seconds, Marinette felt the air leave her lungs, and then she blinked and forced herself to turn her attention back to her linguine.

It had to be a coincidence, she thought again to herself. Still, she was suddenly grateful she’d kept herself anonymous on the blog all these months.

la confiture

part i.

“Everything sucks.”

“It does not. You’re so dramatic sometimes.”

Marinette Dupain-Cheng lifted her head from her arms and aimed a glower at her best friend. “Do you have room to talk?”

Alya Césaire shrugged, shuffling mangled, dull looking eclairs that around on Marinette’s counter in a way that would have been quite aesthetically pleasing if the eclairs themselves weren’t so ugly. “I can admit it, at the very least.”

“Fine! I’m dramatic! But why can’t I be dramatic and good at baking?”

“Practice makes perfect,” Alya sang, lifting her camera up to her eye and squinting through the lens at the perfectly arranged, deformed eclairs.

“You’ve told me that a million times before,” Marinette moaned, dragging her feet to the love seat in her living room and flopping down into it. “How about a different proverb?”

“Fine, then. Some people just can’t have everything. How about that?” The camera clicked several times.

“Well, that’s just rude and discouraging.” Marinette blew a strand of hair out of her face.

Alya finally looked up from her camera and laughed. “Why are you so down on yourself, Mari? This kind of stuff is gold! You get tens of thousands of hits on your blog every time you post something new. Being bad at baking is your lifeblood. You should own it.”

“I don’t want to be bad at baking, though! I could be the best cook in Paris, but I can’t expect to ever make sous chef at La Confiture when I can’t even bake a cookie without burning it.”

Alya raised an eyebrow. “You really think you can beat Gabriel Agreste’s own son out of the position?”

Marinette pursed her lips grumpily. “I could if I had the baking part down. In a couple of years. Maybe.”

Alya shook her head and resumed taking photos. “I don’t get it. I’d much rather run a successful blog with thousands of followers than be a star chef at some boring restaurant.”

“It’s not just a restaurant, Alya!”

“I know, I know. It’s La Confiture.” Alya made a gagging motion.

“Whatever. You were salivating over that silk pie slice I brought you the other night,” Marinette said, walking back over to the counter and picking up an eclair. She took a bite and had to tug a little at the pastry with her teeth to get it to break. The pastry was rubbery and tough in her mouth, but the cream filling was pleasant, at least. She made a mental note to emphasize that on her upcoming blog post.

Alya grinned. “Didn’t you tell me Adrien Agreste made that pie for the staff?”

Marinette threw the half-eaten eclair at Alya’s face.

---

“You look like you need a drink.”

Adrien Agreste gave a weak laugh. “I was hoping you’d notice without my having to ask. Just a beer, please.”

Nino Lahiffe cracked the lid off of a green bottle and slid it over the bar to Adrien, who took it gratefully and sipped. Nino returned to wiping down the counters, which he’d gotten back to a relatively clean state after dinner service had finally ended. “What’s got you down?”

“Just tired,” Adrien mumbled, sliding the beer bottle between his hands on the lacquered surface of the bar. “You know, the usual.”

Nino frowned at Adrien’s slumped-over form. Adrien straightened up a little—although he knew Nino wasn’t the type to judge, the way his friend peered at him through the round glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose made him feel particularly scrutinized.

“Did you fight with your dad again?”

Adrien laughed. “That obvious?” He lowered his voice. “Don’t tell anyone, please.”

“Dude. You know I would never,” Nino said reassuringly. He glanced around before opening his own beer bottle. “Cheers.”

“Seriously, though, how did you know?”

Nino shrugged. “Just a guess. I saw him stalk out of here a few minutes ago with murder in his eyes.”

“Do you think any of the other employees saw?”

“Nah. And if they did, it’s not like their first thought would be that he must have had a fight with you. He’s just like that, so it’s not unexpected.”

Adrien laughed again, this time genuinely. The laugh felt good in his stomach, like a medicine. “Thanks, Nino.”

“Anytime. So what was it about this time?”

Adrien leaned against the back of the barstool with a sigh. “He’s upset about that Vogue interview.”

Nino frowned. “How could he be upset about it? Our reservations got booked into next Christmas after it went to publication.”

Adrien saw the printed interview, the crisp black-and-white portrait of him in his chef’s uniform, arms crossed and an uncertain smile on his face, in his mind’s eye, and wanted to retch. “I didn’t expect them to, but they published that line about me wanting to go back to school one day.”

Nino stared at him for a moment before bursting out incredulously, “That’s it? Where you literally just say, ‘I don’t know, it might be nice to go study astrology or something in another life’ or something like that?”

“Astronomy,” Adrien corrected. “And yeah. He said it doesn’t look good when I don’t say my whole heart is in cooking.”

“You were talking about another life. That was the question! ‘What would you do in another life?’” Nino shook his head and took a swig of his beer. “That man is ridiculous. I could never tell him, because he pays me, but he is ridiculous.”

Adrien smiled weakly. “I know. I get that he wants to pass down the business and that I have certain duties and expectations to fulfill because of that, but… I can’t pretend to understand the extremes to which he’ll go.”

Even though Nino did not respond, Adrien felt his friend’s eyes on him, and he suddenly struck with guilt. “But look, Nino, I mean—I… He’s not wrong. I should’ve been more careful, right? It doesn’t look great if I say that I’d rather do something else. It would’ve looked better if I’d said no matter what reality I’m in, this is what I’d like to be doing, don’t you think?”

Nino looked at him with an expression that Adrien couldn’t and didn’t want to place—a cross between exasperation and pity. “Whatever you say, man.”

---

 Adrien dropped his keys on the kitchen counter and immediately undid the top three buttons of his uniform. As he switched on the light, a black cat brushed up against his ankles, nudging its head insistently at his shin until he reached down to pick the cat up.

“Hi, Plagg,” he said, using one finger to scratch affectionately under the cat’s chin. Plagg’s purrs rumbled through Adrien’s chest as he held the cat against himself. “Did you have a long day, too?”

He let Plagg down and turned immediately to the laptop on his island counter, flipping it open and seating himself on one of the stools. When the screen loaded, he pulled up his browser and clicked on the first link he’d saved to his favorites bar. A header that read “Ladybug Patisserie” loaded, and immediately beneath that, the latest post, simply entitled “fruit tarts.”

Adrien felt a stupid grin spread across his face. He’d been hoping for and looking forward to this all evening. Ladybug’s writing describing her baking adventures always read in a sweet and hilarious kind of way that made Adrien feel like he was listening to a favorite song while driving or lying back on a soft mattress after a tough day. Tonight’s entry was no different.

After last week’s disaster with the eclairs, I decided that maybe I was just a little too ambitious about my (hopefully?) burgeoning baking skills. I purposely chose something much easier, by all accounts that the Internet and various cookbooks could provide me: the fruit tart. As one site so aptly states, “Fruit tarts are impressive-looking desserts that are not difficult to make at all.” Perfect! Exactly what I’m looking for! How did they know?

Whoever wrote that post was wrong, because that person has yet to meet me. The fruit tart has four components: the shortcrust, the vanilla cream, the glaze, and the fruit toppings. Please read below to see how I miraculously manage to screw up each and every element of this impressive-looking dessert that everyone in the world but myself is capable of making!

Adrien caught himself chortling loudly as he scrolled through the introductory paragraphs and onto the photos, which showed, in hysterically excellent lighting, Ladybug’s progress as she slowly assembled the elements of the dessert and the spectacular finish: soggy-looking fruit turning to mush over a lumpy vanilla filling that seemed mildly off in color somehow, all in a shortbread crust that had crumbled significantly when she’d removed it from the mold. She hadn’t even gotten to put the glaze on the fruit, as she’d burned it in the pot (also showcased in another well-lit and well-framed photograph).

Adrien laughed delightedly at the conclusion, in which Ladybug lamented her lack of intuition for baking but vowed to be back next Wednesday with something new, as usual. He scrolled back up through the post, trying to identify exactly where she’d gone wrong. Now that he was looking more for technical issues than humor, he could see some glaring problems already. He chewed on his lower lip, wondering if he should mention it to her in the comments. He’d never tried to interact with this faceless heroine who was easily his favorite person on the internet, even if he’d never seen her or met her or knew anything about her, other than that she was a horrible baker with a great sense of humor. But she’d made his day quite a bit brighter, and he thought the least he could do was offer her some simple tips to make this recipe easier next time around. His fingers hovered hesitantly over his keyboard for half a second, and then he began typing in the comments box below the post.

Hi, there, Ladybug. I’m a huge fan of your blog. Baking can feel like a thankless practice, and I admire your ability to keep a sense of humor about it instead of bashing your head into a wall! If you don’t mind, here are a couple of tips from someone who bakes regularly. First, I’m sure you know this already, but it seems like you’re not whisking quickly or often enough when you stir in the egg mixture. Even with a strainer, it’s hard to get a smooth filling without lumps in there if you let the entire bottom of the mixture solidify into cooked egg, which is what I suspect happened. As for the shortcrust, try using a food processor instead of your hands to make the mixture. It might feel less “authentic,” but it’ll get you better results, and no one (except for us) has to know. :)

Adrien paused, wondering if he should leave a name. He thought better of it on the off chance that someone else at La Confiture frequented the blog as well and would call him a know-it-all. His eyes landed on Plagg, who was now fiddling with a toy shaped like a fish that Adrien had bought him two weeks ago.

Thanks as always for your hilarious and uplifting posts. Looking forward to next week’s.

Adrien typed “Chat Noir” into the name box and hit “submit.”

---

Marinette pulled open the double doors of La Confiture with urgency and ran her way through the restaurant toward the kitchen, unraveling her scarf and shrugging off her jacket as she did so. She could already hear the noise of knives hitting cutting boards, pots and pans clanging over the dull roar of numerous conversations overlapping each other as various chefs de partie shouted orders to the commis chefs and porters.

She tried to tamp down her panic. Gabriel Agreste was absolutely unforgiving of tardiness, even when it was for a true emergency; Marinette couldn’t imagine the dressing down she’d receive for being two minutes late just because her doctor’s appointment had run behind. She kicked herself for not just leaving the appointment when she’d first realized she wouldn’t make work in time.

She ran through the kitchen doors and skidded to a stop, scanning it quickly and then breathing a sigh of relief when she did not see Gabriel’s face. Still, Adrien would be responsible for overseeing all the staff when Gabriel was absent, but—

“Ah, Chef Dupain-Cheng. You’ve decided to come in today, after all,” a voice said from beside her, and Marinette jumped so high that she could have touched the ceiling if she’d reached her hand up.

Adrien Agreste chuckled, arms crossed as he came up to her.

“Chef!” Marinette flushed. Even if he wasn’t his father, Marinette didn’t like getting caught being late, particularly by her rival. It made her look lazy and undedicated—the last thing she needed when she wanted to move up the ranks. And she wanted Adrien to consider her as serious competition. “I apologize for arriving late,” she said quickly. “I was at the doctor’s and my appointment ran over the scheduled time—I should have just canceled it—”

“Nonsense,” Adrien said, waving a hand in the air. “No one’s hurting for you arriving a few minutes late. It’ll be our little secret. Just try not to let it happen again when my father is around. He can be pretty scary, as you know. It’s not fun to get yelled at in front of the entire kitchen staff, trust me.”

Marinette stared at him, slack-jawed.

“Everything okay, by the way?”

“H-huh?” Marinette was still too startled by Adrien’s casual response in the face of her tardiness to really process his next question.

“You were at the doctor’s, you said. I hope everything’s okay.”

“Um—oh, yes,” Marinette blurted out. “Just an annual checkup.”

“Oh, good. Well, I’m glad you’re looking after yourself, Chef Dupain-Cheng. Not enough of us do in this profession, which is pretty counterproductive, if you ask me.” Adrien smiled at her. 

“I—” Marinette couldn’t muster up a proper response. What was the proper response? She’d never been spoken to with such… humanity by a superior in the kitchen, at least during working hours, before. The proper response, she supposed, was to shut up and get to work. “Thank you, Chef.”

She scurried toward the locker room to hang up her coat and scarf, willing herself to forget about the exchange with Adrien in its entirety. Gabriel had told her upon hiring her that there wasn’t any room for distraction in his kitchen; although he never mentioned anything about those distractions coming from his own son, Marinette suspected that still wouldn’t really constitute a valid defense.

---

Prep time passed in a quick, stressful blur, and Marinette still felt like she was hardly ready when it came time for the staff to eat before dinner service. She’d been quite prepared to skip the staff meal altogether so she could prepare more, but Mylene, the entremetier, had been insistent that she join the rest of the group.

“You’ve got to eat something,” Mylene had urged her, tugging at Marinette’s sleeve. “A chef who passes out in the middle of dinner service won’t be any good. Come on.”

Marinette took the seat next to Mylene in the posterior dining room where the staff ate their meals before service. The air in the room was jovial, with everyone discussing their plans for the upcoming holiday break as they passed large family-style bowls of pasta and salad from person to person.

Mylene reached toward the bowl of seafood linguine in front of them and began to pull some onto Marinette’s plate. “Hurry and eat, you must be starving! You didn’t have breakfast this morning, right?”

Marinette obediently stuffed a forkful of pasta into her mouth. She was grateful for Mylene’s maternal nature; growing up, Alya had always been the one to look out for Marinette when she needed it, and she realized how fortunate she was to find another figure like her at work.

“All right, everyone, could I please have your attention?” Adrien called, standing up from his seat at the opposite end of the table. “I’d like to run back over tonight’s menu for a moment.”

Marinette glanced up from her bowl. Adrien’s profile glowed with a faint gold lining produced by the already-setting Parisian sun streaming through the windows behind him. He began reciting the day’s dishes with a sense of poise and polished confidence beyond his years, and all eyes and ears in the room were on him now with an almost-reverent level of attentiveness.

Not for the first time, Marinette noted silently that somehow, even though he was not nearly as terrifying as his father, Adrien managed to command the respect of the staff in a way that Gabriel Agreste himself could not. Although she tended to keep her distance from Adrien, if Marinette had to guess, she supposed this had something to do with his kindness—how his energy filled the room with warmth, while conversely, the air seemed chillier when Gabriel spoke.

“Next are scallops from the Calvados coast, pan-seared, served with farofa and sweet red pepper chutney. The final dish before we move on to the cheese course will be honey-roasted duck with candied sweet potatoes, black garlic, and lemon…”

Marinette found herself daydreaming, for what had to be the thousandth time, about what it would be like for her to be the one standing up there, reciting a menu that she had gotten to create herself. She suspected it would take her eons to get to Adrien’s level of adeptness in designing the menu and the grace with which he led the crew, which was a little disheartening, given that they were around the same age. Then again, as Alya liked to remind her, Adrien had been trained for this his whole life by one of the top chefs in the world, while Marinette had only begun cooking in university and had risen quite quickly up the ranks since then.

“So you’ve already proven a lot can happen in a few short years!” Alya had told her just a few days ago.

“...and dessert will consist of sugared beignets in a bitter chocolate dipping sauce, and miniature winter fruit tarts topped with pear and persimmon and a grapefruit glaze.”

Marinette had nearly forgotten about the fruit tarts. When she’d first seen them on the new menu for the week, she’d wondered, somewhat wildly, if Adrien secretly read her blog; after all, he’d introduced that dish into the dessert menu only two days after she’d posted about her fruit tarts. But even given Ladybug Patisserie’s immense popularity, she couldn’t imagine that Adrien Agreste, sous chef at one of the top restaurants in the country, found the time or the energy to read the weekly exploits of someone who couldn’t bake to save her life. It had to be a coincidence.

“Have a great dinner service, everyone. Just think—one more night, and then you get a nice three-day break for the Christmas holiday!”

The room cheered, and Adrien grinned, surveying the room. His eyes paused when they met Marinette’s. His head tilted to the side, and his lips quirked up ever so slightly at the corners, as if he were sharing a private joke with her that no one else in the room would understand. For a brief few seconds, Marinette felt the air leave her lungs, and then she blinked and forced herself to turn her attention back to her linguine.

It had to be a coincidence, she thought again to herself. Still, she was suddenly grateful she’d kept herself anonymous on the blog all these months.

---

“The last customer of the night just left,” Adrien announced to the kitchen. “I couldn’t be happier with how smoothly things went tonight. Thanks to everyone here, we just had our most successful Christmas Eve dinner service in years.”

The kitchen staff cheered and applauded. Kim, the rotisseur, let out a loud whoop from the back. Adrien grinned. “Let’s finish cleaning up and get out of here so we can enjoy our breaks, shall we?”

Spirits high, the staff worked at double its normal speed to finish breaking down and cleaning the kitchen, and before Adrien knew it, workers were walking out the door in twos and threes, calling out cheerful wishes for happy holidays to each other.

Adrien waved goodbye to Nino, and then he glanced over the empty, immaculate kitchen with satisfaction, marveling at how efficient everyone had been today. It was just his luck that things would go this well when his father was traveling to a conference and not even here to see it, but he wouldn’t complain. Four days without Gabriel breathing down his neck, even if it meant spending the holidays without his only family, was a welcome respite from the tremendous pressure weighing him down lately.

He couldn’t wait to just sleep for the next couple of mornings, to stop at a coffee shop and really sit down to enjoy a café au lait, to visit the market with the intent to truly create and not to just to sell, maybe even to try to whip up something new in the comfort of his own kitchen without the specter of his father criticizing him, to—

To do all of this alone.

Adrien untied his apron and sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as he shuffled into the locker room and sat on the bench lining the wall. Grateful as he was for the break from his father, he deflated a bit realizing how lonely the next few days would be. Besides Chloé, who was in New York City for the holiday with her parents, the rest of the La Confiture staff were really the only other people with whom he interacted on a regular basis. Of course, he’d be the last person they wanted to see on their precious few days away from the restaurant. Even Nino probably needed a break from him, close as they were.

The slamming of a locker door startled him out of his thoughts, and he looked up to see Marinette Dupain-Cheng at the far end of the room, shrugging on a dark red pea coat and wrapping a black scarf around her neck.

“Chef Dupain-Cheng,” Adrien said, surprised. He stood up. “I didn’t realize you were still here.”

“Oh!” Marinette jumped and turned around, holding a hand to her chest. Her hat was askew over her hair. She walked over to him. “I didn’t even see you when I walked in here!”

Adrien laughed. “Sorry if I startled you.”

Marinette shook her head. “That’s okay, I should have been paying more attention.” She slipped her hat off of her head and held it in both hands before turning her eyes up at him. She paused, as if pondering her next sentence carefully, but when she spoke again, her question was quite simple. “What about you?”

“Me? What about me?”

Marinette looked around the dim locker room as if the meaning of her question were obvious. “Were you… Were you planning on sticking around longer?”

“Oh—no, I was going to lock up and head out in just a few minutes. Just…” He looked back at the bench. “I just needed a minute to take a breather after today.”

Marinette smiled. “That’s understandable.” She paused again, and then she let out a soft laugh. “There are rumors you sleep in here sometimes. I wondered for a second if I was catching you at bedtime.”

Adrien stared at her, momentarily stunned—it was the first time in the two months Marinette had worked at La Confiture that he’d heard anything unrelated to work, let alone a joke, come out of her mouth when she spoke to him. He burst into delighted laughter. “Is there really? I guess on occasion, it’s not too far from the truth. But I was planning on actually going home tonight, rest assured.”

Marinette’s smile seemed to touch her eyes more now, somehow, and Adrien felt his heart leap to life at the hint of a new friendship. Marinette had seemed so quiet and focused since she’d arrived at La Confiture; he’d accepted within a week of her starting in his kitchen, after a few unsuccessful attempts at casual conversation, that she had bigger things to think about than being friends with him. This was a lovely turn of events.

“Ah—by the way, Chef,” Adrien said, “your work was excellent today. I can’t tell you how many compliments your chutney received, even when the customers didn’t request to see you to tell you personally. You really are a wonderful addition to our kitchen.”

Marinette flushed. “Oh, I—well, thank you,” she murmured, tugging her hat—a black beanie with cat ears and green eyes knitted onto it—back on her head.  Adrien bit back a smile when he saw how much the hat reminded him of Plagg. “And thank you for not blowing up when I was late today.”

Adrien shook his head. “No need to thank me. My father and I…” he paused. “We have very different ways of running the kitchen.”

“I think your way works a little better for me,” Marinette muttered, and then her eyes went wide when she realized what she’d said. “I mean—no offense to Chef Agreste, of course—”

Adrien laughed again. “Your secret is safe with me.”

Marinette let out a sigh. “Thanks.” She looked up at him. “Are you—are you walking out now? Would you like me to wait for you to lock up?”

Adrien’s eyebrows rose. “Really? Yes, I’d love that,” he said, and then he blushed when he realized how desperate that sounded. “I—one second, let me just grab my stuff from my locker.”

He rushed off to grab his bag, elation and embarrassment warring with each other in his heart. When he returned and saw Marinette standing in the same spot where he’d left her, looking completely oblivious to his verbal blunder (and ridiculously adorable in that hat), elation won.

---

That concludes part one of this story! My plan is for it to be relatively short and sweet—no more than five parts, with each part being around ten pages or so. I hope you guys enjoyed! I love cooking, I love cooking shows, and I worked in a restaurant (although not nearly as nice as the one I’m portraying here) for quite some time, so I have really enjoyed working on this fic. That being said, I took a few liberties that probably need a little bit of explaining.

First, I’m not really sure that one needs to be an excellent baker to become a sous chef at a top restaurant. Here, Gabriel Agreste likes his sous chefs extremely well-rounded, and Marinette can hardly make a loaf of bread without ruining it. The mistakes she made are extremely amateur, so please suspend your disbelief—I unfortunately am not experienced enough in baking to know what kinds of mistakes are more common for people who know their way around the kitchen! 

Second, just by way of explanation: Gabriel is the chef de cuisine, or the head chef, of the restaurant. Adrien is the sous chef. Since Adrien is so experienced and good at what he does, Gabriel is in and out and takes on more of a managerial position, but he still commands the kitchen multiple days a week. Marinette has been hired as a saucier, or someone who prepares all the sauces and gravies and sautés the food. 

I tried to do a good bit of research about the environment in a top-tier restaurant like this, but of course, I’m likely to get things wrong with the zero experience I have actually having worked in one. If you catch anything that seems blatantly off (minus Marinette’s baking issues), please let me know!

---

next: ii

[dfroza]

Today’s reading from the ancient book of Proverbs and book of Psalms

for September 21 of 2021 with Proverbs 21 and Psalm 21, accompanied by Psalm 94 for the 94th and last day of Astronomical Summer and Psalm 114 for day 264 of the year (now with the consummate book of 150 Psalms in its 2nd revolution this year)

[Proverbs 21]

The king’s heart is like a channel of water directed by the Eternal:

He chooses which way He bends it.

Everyone may think his own way of living is right,

but the Eternal examines our hearts.

To do what is right and to seek justice—

these please Him more than sacrifice.

The lamp of the wicked lights his way;

a proud look, an arrogant heart—all sin.

A well-thought-out plan will work to your advantage,

but hasty actions will cost you dearly.

The fortune made by a swindler

is a fast-burning fog and a recipe for death.

Wicked people will be swept up in their own violence

because they refuse to seek justice.

Dishonest people walk along the crooked path they have made,

but the innocent travel the straight course they have laid.

It is better to dwell outside on the corner of your roof

than to live inside your house with a badgering wife.

Wicked people delight in doing bad things;

their neighbors never see even a hint of compassion.

A naive person wises up when he sees a mocker punished.

A wise person becomes even wiser just by being instructed.

The right-living understands how evildoers operate;

he subverts them and ruins their plans.

If you ignore the groans of the poor,

one day your own cries for help will go unanswered.

A gift given in secret soothes anger,

and a present offered privately calms fierce rage.

When justice is done, those who are in the right celebrate,

but those who make trouble are terrified.

People who wander from the way of wise living

will lie down in the company of corpses.

Those who live to party, who pursue pleasure, will end up penniless;

those who enjoy lots of wine and rich food will never have money.

The wicked become a ransom for those who live right,

and the faithless pay the penalty for their treachery against the upright.

You would be better off living in the middle of the desert

than with an angry and argumentative wife.

The wise have a generous supply of fine food and oil in their homes,

but fools are wasteful, consuming every last drop.

Whoever pursues justice and treats others with kindness

discovers true life marked by integrity and respect.

One wise person can rise against a city of mighty men

and cause the citadel they trust to collapse.

Guard your words, mind what you say,

and you will keep yourself out of trouble.

The name “mocker” applies to one who is proud and pompous

because he is defiantly arrogant.

What slackers crave will surely kill them

because they refuse to work.

All day, every day the greedy want more,

while those who live right give generously.

The offerings of wrongdoers are despicable to God;

it’s even worse when they bring them with evil motives.

The testimony of a false witness is eventually impeached,

but the person who truly listens will have the last word.

The wicked wears a defiant face,

but the right-living plans his path.

No one is wise enough or smart enough,

and no plan is good enough to stand up to the Eternal.

No matter how well you arm for battle,

victory is determined by Him.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 21 (The Voice)

[Psalm 21]

For the worship leader. A song of David.

The king is glad because You, O Eternal, are strong.

In light of Your salvation, he is singing Your name.

You have given him all he could wish for.

After hearing his prayer, You withheld nothing.

[pause]

True blessings You lavished upon the king;

a crown of precious gold You placed upon his head.

His prayer was to live fully. You responded with even more—

a never-ending life to enjoy.

With Your help, his fame and glory have grown;

You raise him high and cover him in majesty.

You shower him with blessings that last forever;

he finds joy in knowing Your presence and loving You.

For the king puts his trust in the Eternal,

so he will not be shaken

because of the persistent love of the Most High God.

King, your hand will reach for all your enemies;

your right hand will seize all who hate you.

When you arrive at the battle’s edge,

you will seem to them a furnace.

For the fire of the Eternal’s anger, the heat of His wrath

will burn and consume them.

You will cut off their children,

lop off the branches of their family tree.

The earth will never know them,

nor will they ever be numbered among Adam’s kin.

When they scheme against you,

when they conspire their mischief, such efforts will be in vain.

At the sight of you, they will sound the retreat;

your bows, drawn back, will aim directly at their faces.

Put Your strength, Eternal One, on display for all to see;

we will sing and make music of Your mighty power.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 21 (The Voice)

[Psalm 94]

God of Vengeance

A Wednesday song composed by King David

Lord God Almighty, you are the God

who takes vengeance on your enemies.

It’s time for you to punish evil!

Let your rays of revelation-light shine from your people and

pierce the conscience of the wicked and punish them.

It’s time to arise as judge of all the earth;

arise to punish the proud with the penalty they deserve!

How much longer will you sit back and watch the wicked

triumph in their evil, boasting in all that is wrong?

Listen to them bragging among themselves,

big in their own eyes, all because of the crimes

they’ve committed against your people!

See how they’re crushing those who love you, God,

cruelly oppressing those who belong to you.

Heartlessly they murder the widows, the foreigners,

and even the orphaned children.

They say to themselves, “The Lord God doesn’t see this.

Their God, the God of Jacob, he doesn’t even care!”

But you’d better watch out, you stupid fools!

You’d better wise up! Why would you act like God doesn’t exist?

Do you really think that God can’t hear their cries?

God isn’t hard of hearing; he’ll hear all their cries.

God isn’t blind. He who made the eye has superb vision,

and he’s watching all you do.

Won’t the God who knows all things know what you’ve done?

The God who punishes nations will surely punish you!

The Lord has fully examined every thought of man

and found them all to be empty and futile.

Lord Yah, there’s such a blessing that comes

when you teach us your Word and your ways.

Even the sting of your correction can be sweet.

It rescues us from our days of trouble

until you are ready to punish the wicked.

For the Lord will never walk away from his cherished ones,

nor would he forsake his chosen ones who belong to him.

Whenever you pronounce judgments, they reveal righteousness.

All your devoted lovers will be pleased.

Lord, who will protect me from these wicked ones?

If you don’t stand to defend me, who will? I have no one but you!

I would have been killed so many times

if you had not been there for me.

When I screamed out, “Lord, I’m doomed!”

your fiery love was stirred, and you raced to my rescue.

Whenever my busy thoughts were out of control,

the soothing comfort of your presence

calmed me down and overwhelmed me with delight.

It’s obvious to all; you will have nothing to do

with corrupt rulers who pass laws that empower evil

and defeat what is right.

For they gang up against the lovers of righteousness

and condemn the innocent to death.

But I know that all their evil plans will boomerang back onto them.

Every plot they hatch will simply seal their own doom.

For you, my God, you will destroy them,

giving them what they deserve.

For you are my true tower of strength,

my safe place, my hideout, and my true shelter.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 94 (The Passion Translation)

[Psalm 114]

A Song for Passover

Many years ago the Jewish people escaped Egypt’s tyranny,

so that Israel, God’s people of praise,

would become his holy sanctuary,

his kingdom on the earth.

The Red Sea waters saw them coming and ran the other way!

Then later, the Jordan River too

moved aside so that they could all pass through.

The land shuddered with fear.

Mountains and hills shook with dread.

O sea, what happened to you to make you flee?

O Jordan, what was it that made you turn and run?

O mountains, what frightened you so?

And you hills, what made you shiver?

Tremble, O earth, for you are in the presence of the Lord,

the presence of the God of Jacob.

He splits open boulders and brings up bubbling water.

Gushing streams burst forth when he is near!

The Book of Psalms, Poem 114 (The Passion Translation)

[master-sass-blast]

Strong as Stone, Part Two.

Wow! I have to say, I was really surprised by the response to my first Okoye x M’Baku fic thingy ( https://master-sass-blast.tumblr.com/post/171948341221/strong-as-stone ) (you’ll probably have to paste into the search bar, since Tumblr seems to be eating the link). I’ve also caught the ‘make it a long-ass story’ bug, so here’s part two of who knows how the fuck many.

I’m also thinking of making an AO3 account so I can upload everything to one unified spot, so let me know if that’s something y’all would like.

So, without further ado, onto the preamble:

Warnings: Moderate language, the joys of politics, and rare-pair frustration (all aboard the frustration boat).

Rating: Meh, probably PG-13 again. I do enjoy the occasional swear word.

Pairings (yes, plural this time!): Okoye x M’Baku and background T’Challa x Nakia.

@the-last-hair-bender. You know why I’m tagging you.

Breathe in, then out. Be like the wind. Flow around whatever obstacles come your way, carry whatever you need, and, when you don’t need it anymore, let it fall away from you and move on, unburdened.

Breathe in, then out. Let everything flow over you, like the stone at the bottom of a stream. Be refined by your struggles, but don’t let them break you.

Breathe in-

Okoye gritted her teeth as she tried to reach a mindset of relaxation, but her usual state of calm awareness was alluding her tonight. She’d tried meditative yoga, rhythmic breathing, and practicing martial forms, but nothing seemed to shake the edge of irritation that had been creeping up her spine all day. Out of options --and patience--she’d retreated to the palace gardens once more.

She sat under the tree she had sat under with M’Baku only a few nights earlier in a meditative position, mentally running over the various platitudes and proverbs she’d learned during her years as a Dora Milaje.

Okoye ground her teeth together as the irritation roiled underneath her skin. Platitudes and proverbs only go so far. If she had hair, she would’ve torn it out by now.

The day began as it normally would. Okoye woke with the sun, trained with Ayo in the courtyard for half an hour, then began morning training with the other members of the Dora Milaje. However, halfway through the session, she was interrupted by a messenger from the King: an emergency council session was being called, and she was needed immediately.

The last time a council session had been called so early in the morning, T’Chaka had died.

Okoye had freshened herself up as fast as she could, yanked on her dress armor, and practically sprinted to the throne room, only to stumble into a world of frustration.

The night before, the United Nations Security Council had issued a statement declaring that, due to its advanced technology, Wakanda could prove a threat to the rest of the world, and that the King needed to permit an inspection committee to come visit Wakanda to ensure the ‘good intentions’ of the Wakandan leaders, lest tensions and suspicions rise too high.

Okoye clenched her hands into fists and let out an irritated growl. Honestly, where did those colonizers get off? Wakanda hadn’t made any moves to claim other independent nations, hadn’t leveled any threats against any the outside world, and had just launched a massive outreach program to try and aid communities in need. The King himself had visited every new Wakandan outreach facility to ensure that everything was up to proper standard, and had listened to countless experts and social workers to make sure that Wakanda’s efforts to help the rest of the world were properly tailored to each respective community.

Granted, Okoye was ninety percent certain that some of T’Challa’s over the top thoroughness was to woo Nakia, if the red and purple hickeys peeking over the edge of his collar were anything to go by, but still!

She’d had to sit through three hours of the council members raging, debating, and --at times--insulting each other, before T’Challa had finally called the meeting to a close when the Mining Tribe leader had called the Merchant Tribe’s leader’s son an ‘uneducated pile of rhino shit.’

Okoye closed her eyes and leaned back against the tree she was sitting under. He had to call it off when it was finally getting good, too, and not an hour earlier, when they were just repeating the same three arguments.

The one fortunate part of that ill-fated meeting was that M’Baku had been there. Okoye had traded sly, faintly amused looks with the Jabari chief during the course of the debacle whenever one of the leaders said something particularly ridiculous. Despite the differences between the united tribes and the Jabari, Okoye was pretty sure that the hulking man held the same opinion about politics that she did:

Using a spear made everything move much faster.

She’d hoped to talk to him briefly after the meeting adjourned, to thank him for his kindness towards her a few nights earlier, only for T’Challa --and, by proxy and duty, her--to be whisked away because of another burgeoning disaster:

Donald Trump.

Okoye was perfectly willing to admit that her taste in politics --and, by proxy, political leaders--wasn’t a varied one; save for the King and his late father, she really didn’t have patience for any of them.

Okoye let out an irritated huff. Squabblers, the lot of them. Give me my spear and ten minutes, and I could accomplish as much as they could in two hours.

At any rate, the man that Shuri kept referring to as “the Annoying Orange,” had issued an egotistical statement during a press conference about Wakanda that, once one moved past all the insinuations about ability to woo a woman and dick size, boiled down to:

Wakanda’s refusal to share vibranium made them selfish, and thus potential enemies of the Western world.

Okoye remembered seeing red as the stupid man kept droning on and on about the “great dangers of Wakanda.”

At that moment, T’Challa had dropped his head into his hands and let out a sigh that sounded more defeated than the sobs of a grieving widow.

He’s talking out his ass! Okoye thought irately. He doesn’t know the first thing about us!

Unbidden, W’Kabi’s voice spoke in her mind.

Enough, my love. You are with me, now. Leave it all behind.

Okoye clenched her jaw hard enough that it should’ve cracked her teeth.

No. Not now. She was not going to think about W’Kabi. He didn’t deserve the effort. Okoye moved back into her meditation stance. Be calm, like the lake in the early morning. Let yourself flow, and deposit your burdens on the shore with the tides of your emotions. Breathe in, then--

“I take it this tree is a favorite of yours?”

Her spear was in her hands and ready, and she was on her feet, pointing the tip of her --Bast dammit.

M’Baku grinned down at her. “I would think that you’d recognize the sound of my voice by now.”

Okoye narrowed her eyes at him, but didn’t bother to hide the smile playing on her lips. “I might if you spoke more in the council meetings.” She retracted her spear. “What brings you into the gardens so late?”

“Enjoying the beauty of nature, hoping to run into you.” He motioned to the tree. “So, is this one a favorite of yours?”

Okoye blinked slowly. “It... it is a tree. I have no feelings towards it.”

“Ah, but the last time I found you here, you were crying. Tonight, I find you here in a rage strong enough to scare a rabid lion. So, clearly, you have a connection to this spot or you wouldn’t be able to come here to express yourself.”

Okoye looked up at the tree and its wide canopy. “I suppose I never thought of it that way.”

“I take it you had a long day?”

Okoye dropped back onto the bench with a weary sigh. “That would be one way of putting it. You saw the council meeting this morning.”

M’Baku grimaced as he sat down next to her. “That I did. It reminded me of why the Jabari are isolationists.”

“I keep telling the King to give me ten minutes and a spear.”

M’Baku chuckled. “And how does he react when you tell him that?”

“He laughs, then tells me to play nice.”

“And what happens when the legendary General Okoye stops playing nice?”

Okoye smiled at him wryly. “Files are redacted and witnesses go missing.”

M’Baku laughed, loud and hearty. “Remind me to never find myself on your bad side.”

Okoye managed to smile, but found herself groaning with exhaustion again. “Would you believe me if I told you that the day got worse from there?”

“That’s not possible.”

“Oh, but it is,” Okoye said with grimace. “So, in addition to the statement given by the UN Security Council, the United States President also decided to launch a statement of his own.”

“How bad was it?”

“Before or after the innuendos and talk about seducing women?”

M’Baku groaned, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Hanuman help us, what did he say?”

“He claimed that, given the actions of Killmonger, Wakanda likely had terrorist idealizations against the rest of the world, claimed that the outreach centers are secretly installations to brainwash the citizens of the ‘free world,’ and compared the King and the tribal leaders to the likes of North Korea, China, and the Islamic State.” At M’Baku’s blank stare, she said, “You don’t know what those last three mean, do you?” When M’Baku shook his head, she did her best to give him the basic idea of the atrocities committed by the other entities that Wakanda had been compared to.

M’Baku let out a savage growl. “This! This is why the Jabari are isolationists! This is why Wakanda should’ve never revealed itself! We try to extend a gracious hand to the world, only for it to be spat upon!”

Okoye crossed her arms over her chest. “It probably would’ve happened anyway. This latest president is a real ass. Besides, whether you agree with the King or not, you can’t deny that Wakanda couldn’t have hidden in the shadows forever.”

“No, but this was not the right time to reveal ourselves!”

“We’re talking about colonizers. There’s never going to be a ‘right time.’“

M’Baku slumped against the tree and let out a heavy sigh. “Fair enough.”

Okoye leaned forward and braced her arms against her knees. “You know what the worst of it is? The King looked so defeated by the end of the ‘speech.’ He looked so broken down at the words of a mindless idiot!”

M’Baku raised an eyebrow. “You clearly think highly of our King.”

“I have watched that man push himself to the brink to make sure this project goes well. He’s invested into each site, made sure that he’s targeting areas that really need our efforts, consulted with hundreds of experts to make sure that each center targets the specific needs of each community, he’s visited each center upon its opening, and for what? No one talks about the good that Wakanda’s doing, no one acknowledges the King’s efforts, it’s just ‘vibranium this’ and ‘vibranium that!’“ Okoye smacked her fist into her palm. “We are more than just vibranium!”

M’Baku placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You're frustrated.”

Okoye drew in a ragged breath. “I’m just... so... tired. I can’t tell you how many colonizers I’ve watched over the years belittle the royal family and making disparaging comments, just because of our perceived economic status, or our ancestry, or our skin color! And now, now that we’ve proven that we’re capable of impacting the world --now that we’ve opened up the idea that we might even be superior to the Western world--all they see us as is another pool to drain resources from, like they’re entitled to it.”

M’Baku rubbed his hand up and down her back. “They’re small-minded and prideful. Eventually, they’ll fall, and their foolishness will reveal itself.”

Okoye shook her head. “That’s the trick with colonizers. They always find a way to hang it on someone else’s shoulders.”

M’Baku moved his arm around her shoulders, and squeezed her in a gentle half-hug. “Not this time. This time, we’re watching, and there won’t be any room for them to hide.”

Okoye let out a derisive snort. “Pah. Watching is a politician’s game. Give me my spear any day of the week.”

M’Baku let out a quiet laugh. “May the Western world learn to fear the day when the indomitable General Okoye loses her patience and uses her spear.”

Okoye smirked as she let her head rest against his shoulder. “‘Indomitable?’ Have you been reading from a thesaurus lately?”

“I like to keep my conversations riveting.”

For the second time in almost as many nights, she found herself drained, yet strangely freed by talking to M’Baku. There was an odd comfort to it, in leaning against his solid, muscular form and listening to his rich, deep voice.

Riveting conversation, indeed, Okoye thought as his thumb traced small circles on her shoulder. She sighed as the warm night breeze swirled around them. “I need to go back to bed,” she said, despite the immediate inner protest she felt. “I’ve taken up enough of your time.”

“I’m still not in a hurry.”

“Well, I still need sleep so that when the fateful day comes, I’m rested enough to use my spear.���

M’Baku laughed as he stood with her. “You’ll have the world knocked into order in no time.”

Okoye smiled up at him. “Are you including the Jabari in that statement, or not?”

“Why, do you think we would slow you down?”

Okoye snorted, and rolled her eyes. “Hardly. I just want to make sure I have the most efficient path of action possible, and that means knowing what I’m up against.”

M’Baku grinned widely at her. “You are a force to be reckoned with, General Okoye. I pity the next opponent that underestimates you.”

“I never was able to thank you,” Okoye blurted out before he could depart from her. “For your kindness the other night, when I...” Her throat tightened as the guilt and pain surged forward, and she did her best to tamp it down. “When I was.. overwhelmed. You didn’t have to do any of what you did. Thank you.”

M’Baku stepped towards her, and took her hand in his. “Kindness creates kindness, General. I try to create kindness where I can.”

Okoye smiled, feeling shy in spite of herself and her training. “I know. Any man who could lose a fight, then turn around and save his opponent, truly knows kindness.”

M’Baku smiled --almost blindingly so, despite the night--and squeezed her hand before letting it go. “Goodnight, General Okoye.”

“Goodnight, Chief M’Baku.”

[firelord-frowny]

a bunch of rambling about madison and his history and my writing process under the cut, woooo

So, pretty much everything I’ve ever written about Madison for the past 11 years has been very much in a ~diary~ style - more or less stream of consciousness and told in the first person, with varying tenses depending on the nature of the diary entry. 

i don’t really do any sort of planning or mapping. madison’s life just kinda unfolds, and i document it for him, and it isn’t always in chronological order, his narrations aren’t always reliable, and i’m pretty much never aware of any foreshadowing or allusions or allegories as i’m writing them, even though they’re definitely present. 

the bit i was just writing captured my attention bc of the things that just sort of uncovered themselves after i was writing it.

madison is 26. his mom died from breast cancer when he was nearly 19. they had a hella sad relationship for many reasons, the majority of which had to do with his mom’s failure to protect him from abuses acted out upon him by his much older brother, and their dad (who wasn’t actually madison’s biological dad). the whole truth of the matter was that the dad was a whole grown man, like 27, when he began a predatory relationship with madison’s mom, who was only around 14. his family owned the business that employed madison’s mom’s parents, and so they were kind of manipulated/extorted into allowing this creep to make off with their daughter. he moved her away, knocked her up, married her, and pretty much just kept her as a pet and was decidedly Very Bad to her. 

madison didn’t grow up knowing about any of that and pretty much always viewed his mom as a stupid, selfish woman who didn’t care enough about her own children to get them away from an abusive spouse. for most of his life he tried hard to earn his mom’s love, but gave up in his mid-late teens and decided to just hate her, and make sure she knew he hated her. 

then she gets ill, and pretty much from the onset, it’s clear she’s not gonna live much longer. she tries to make amends with madison - tries to apologize for things and whatnot. answers some questions that he deserved to have answered. but he wouldn’t forgive her, and stayed angry, and made sure she knew he would always be angry, and those were the circumstances she died in. 

then he kinda lost his mind and went awol for a few years before resurfacing. 

madison had always been one of those reckless types who doesn’t really actively try to hurt himself, but he’ll let himself get into situations where there’s an above average chance that he’ll be hurt or even end up dead. and so, that’s the lifestyle he dove into when he ran off. but shit got a bit more real than he anticipated and suddenly he realizes - wait, i’m gonna have the rest of forever to be dead, im not so sure i’m okay with not being alive so soon. 

but by the time he had that change of heart, he was in way too deep in some really perilous shit and he spends the next two years fighting to keep his head above water long enough to get out of the shit he was in. 

So, he finally turns up back home like a coughed up furball on his best friend’s/ex lover’s doorstep, and he confronts all the wreckage he left behind, and then also has to deal with the fact that after everyone he left behind cleaned up all that wreckage, they all thrived in his absence. they’d all been struggling in a similar manner to him before, but once he was gone, they got carreers, they reached goals, they made enjoyable lives for themselves. And he’s stuck grappling with the fact that maybe he was the one holding them all back all those years. 

in the midst of all this, he’s sick. like, physically ill with Something. and he’s terrified to see a doctor because, remember, he FINALLY wants to live, genuinely wants to be ALIVE, and now he’s scared he might have a life threatening health issue, and he’s too scared to find out for sure. 

and as he begins the process of unpacking all these horrible feelings that made him build such a shitty life for himself, he kinda realizes that it all goes back to his determination to Stay Angry and Stay Hurt. Like. He went out of his way to avoid any form of closure or release because I guess he kinda felt entitled to his anger. 

so, slowly, he starts kinda going back through time and walking through the things and people and places that shaped the person he chose to become. he breaks into visits his childhood home. his brother died by suicide when madison was 16, and so he couldn’t confront him about a painful secret they shared, so instead he confides that secret secret in the one friend he knows might understand the impact it had on him. 

his mom is dead, too, so he can’t change anything with her, but his mom’s sister still lives in boston, so he goes to visit her. 

that visit is the thing i was writing about earlier today. 

the aunt was about 8 years old when madison’s mom, at 14, ran off with the man she ran off with. but over the years, the sisters still managed to keep in touch, and madison’s mom told her a lot about what life was like with her husband and two sons. 

so, madison hears a lot of stories from the aunt. learns for the first time that his mom was just a kid when she was basically taken captive by an abusive grown man. learns how she met his biological father, learns that she’d intended to leave her husband and move to south africa to be with madison’s real dad, and learns that she abandoned that plan in fear after her husband discovered she was pregnant and assumed the baby was his. 

that ~painful secret~ between madison and his brother is the fact that the brother, 17 years madison’s senior, sexually abused him a few times. (on the final time, the dad caught them, and proceeded to abuse him as well on just one occasion, but that detail isn’t super relevant here). 

at some point after the abuse, madison overheard his mom on the phone telling someone that she “hopes he doesn’t end up queer, because I think [older son] might have messed with him.” 

madison discovers that the person she was talking to was his aunt. 

and he’s immediately livid and heartbroken and let down to know that she didn’t try to intervene in any way. 

and she’s sorry, she’s remorseful, she’s been ahsamed for years and she wants to do her part to help madison be able to live a happy, healthy life. 

so, there’s a moment in madison’s internal dialogue where he’s realizing that he actually believes her when she says she’s sorry. 

and then there’s this bit that kinda shook me when i read it back to myself:

If my mom hadn’t died when she died, I don’t think I would have believed Aunt Carol. I think I would have been happy to just give her the finger like I did with mom. But now I have to live with that choice, and I hate it. I’m never going to be someone whose mother didn’t die believing I would never, ever forgive her. And I think, at least, that the one silver lining in it is that the part of me that was capable of holding on to that kind of grief and contempt died with her. 

So, I believe Aunt Carol. I believe she’s sorry, and that she would have done better if she’d known better, as the proverb goes. 

it’s this moment where he has an opportunity to sort of vicariously fix things with his mom. he gets to experience what it might have been like if both he and his mom had been emotionally healthy enough to make better choices. He can’t actually change what happened, but he has the privilege now of knowing that he has the capacity to be someone who can forgive someone who loved him for doing something horrible to him. he gets to understand, finally, that forgiveness has shit all to do with absolving someone of their sins, and has everything to do with releasing oneself from the burden of contempt. 

he figures out: yeah, he’s entitled to his anger, but he also deserves to not be angry. he has the right to stay angry at his mom for failing him so miserably, but he deserves to live without that anger. 

and i just!!!!! absollutely did not actually think through any of that. like. that wasn’t my intended point of this whole scene where Madison visits his aunt. All I really meant to do was just document this event in his life, but wooooow. 

Look where it took me. 

[the-voice-of-hell]

The Septagram

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-   Previous   -    First   -

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PART THREE:

JEALOUSY

”...Shall not all these take up a parable against him,

and a taunting proverb against him, and say,

‘Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his!’

How long? and to him that ladeth himself with thick clay!

Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake

that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them?

Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of

the people shall spoil thee; because of men's blood, and for

the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.

Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house,

that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered

from the power of evil!

Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off

many people, and hast sinned against thy soul.

For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and

the beam out of the timber shall answer it.

‘Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood,

and establisheth a city by iniquity!’”

                                       -This One is About Bezos

***

Bymaan looked down from her castle and saw a caravan of mortals driving slowly down the highway, their vehicles burdened with too many people and possessions to make speed.  Her expression softened like water, long heavily darkened lashes dipping tenderly at the corners.

“They want to flee us.”

“Some are your subjects, some are not.  Would you like to make the power of your bond known to those with the mark?”

“No, Abalaam!  There may yet be a use for your wrath, but not yet.”

“What would you have of me?  If you let them travel freely, you will have no subjects left to rule.”  He had compressed himself into a specific human form, and garbed himself in one of their uniforms.  He was the size of a child beside her.

“I’ll always have you, dear,” she said, tousling his hair.

He flinched away.  “In seriousness, Your Highness.”

“They will not find it easy to pass those roads.  Your brother has made the sharp vines thick upon them.  But if they so desire, they can leave us.”

“I detest it.”

“I will go to them, encourage them to accept our glory.”  She looked down at him affectionately.  “Try not to let your detestation consume you while I’m gone.”

“As you command.”

“Thank you!”  She turned and dropped from the precipice all the way to the lowest cracks in the upthrust earth.  Pink light still glowed there - a portal to Hell.  She took a gilt white horn from the chains at her hip and sounded a call.

The ground rumbled and the crack opened wider.  A galloping sound began to rise, and a great camel leapt out of the hole.  It landed at her feet and cocked its head, taking measure of its queen.  Then it grew to nearly twenty feet tall, all of its tack and bridle and decorative accoutrement growing in like.  It bellowed like a brass band gone mad before settling down into soft huffs.  She touched its face.

“So cute.”

It made a creepy smile, lower teeth jutting, and she laughed.  She mounted the beast and rapped its sides lightly with her knees.  It sprang all the way over the block, then into the trees farther down the hill in the next bound, then all the way to the Interstate on the next.  She turned it toward the tail lights of the caravan, rode toward them.

The great beast made the road wobble and crack in its wake, running fast enough to catch up to the cars easily.  She rapped it again and it leapt over the entire caravan, landing in the road ahead of it and turning to face them.

The cars skidded and crashed and ground to a halt.  The camel snuffled at one of the cars, its head as large as the biggest man inside, and honked almost like human laughter.  Bymaan held out her huge white arms as if to embrace the people and smiled with shining red lips.  “My subjects, rejoice!  Your Queen is come.”

***

Maddy paced the living room, her sneakers slapping the hardwood.  Grandma was upstairs trying to sleep, but Maddy could never.  Kevin gave up standing and slouched into a chair.

“C’mon, kiddo.  Jason will prob’ly be fine.”

“I can’t!  God!  You’re so bad at that.  Comforting.”

“Because I don’t make impossible reassurances like your dad?  But that way you know I’m telling the truth.”

“It doesn’t work for me.”  She shook her head and worked her hands in the air, overcome with anxiety.  “I’m doing it!  I’m going to do it.”

“Don’t take our car, Maddy.  What if we need it?”

“I’m gonna take it!”

“You’ve been saying that for an hour and you still haven’t.”

She whipped around to look at him with wild large eyes.  She still hadn’t fixed her mascara from the morning.  “That’s it!  Give me the keys, Uncle Kevin.”

“I don’t have them and I’m not going to tell you where they are wh-”

She stormed off to the garage.  Inside, she flicked on the light and grabbed the keys off a pegboard right beside the switch.

Kevin hustled up to the door, looking in at her.  “How did you know they were..?”

She set the garage door to open, unlocked the car with a button, and got in.

Kevin hustled in, getting in front of the SUV before the garage door was high enough for her to drive out.  “Don’t do it, Maddy!  It’s not safe out there!”

“That’s why I have to do it!  Out of the way, Uncle!”

He didn’t know what to do when suddenly she relented, turned off the car engine.  He was still standing with his arms at his sides like a bird distracted mid takeoff when a voice came from behind.

“What’s all the hubbub, Bub?”

He spun around. “Jase!  Oh thank God!”

“Do you get to say that when you got the Mark of the Beast, brother?”

Kevin was still reeling from his brother’s arrival and didn’t have a chance to get angry before Jason slapped him on the arm affectionately.

“Just kidding.  Hiii Snookums!”  He received his daughter with a big hug.

“Why’d you take so long, Daddy?”

“The Prius broke down.  Isn’t that just the way?”

“Awww!”  She didn’t believe it was that simple, but let it go.  She set the garage door closing and put the key back on the rack.

Jason was the first one back into the house, followed quickly by his brother and daughter.  He went to the kitchen for a beer.  “I’m getting a drink.  Anyone else want one?”

“We’re almost out.”

“Better get some more tomorrow, then.”

“Alright, fine.”

“Me too, Daddy.”

Jason came back with three cans and passed them around.  He settled onto a couch by Maddy and Kevin was already sitting across from it on a chair.

“So car trouble, huh?”

“Just like that.  Some stuff out there’s looking a little hairy, hehe.”  He choked back a more maniacal-sounding laugh at the realization of a possible double meaning, then sipped more beer.

“What’s going on, Daddy?”

“Well Princess, it’s like this.  I kinda thought maybe when those nonsense people ran over the house it was just, y’know, some kinda wacky thing going on.  But it turns out that crazy hoodoo stuff is real.  I won’t candy coat it - there’s demons and stuff.”

“Oh no.”  She was spaced out.  She’d come to that belief on the evidence of her own senses and reason already, but could understand how her dad would think she was still in denial.  “Did they try to get you?”

“I hid from ‘em real good.  Just...”  He shook his head and drank more.

“What?”  A quaver rose in her voice.

Kevin finally chimed in.  “What is it, Jase?  Really?”

“Nothing.  Nothing!  It was just kinda spooky.  But I’ll tell you what.  There’s not that many of them.  That wacky parade from this morning just lit out of here.  Not a lot of ‘em left behind.  We should be able to drive right by them.”

Kevin shook his head.  “No. Way.  You don’t know what’s out there, bro.  Maybe the parade is on its way back, maybe there’s monsters you don’t even know about that’ll get in the way.”

“Kev, we can cross those bridges when we come to them.  Do you wanna be here when your new president comes to collect taxes?  You wanna see what that looks like?  Anyway, the parade was heading south.  We take I-90 east through Snoqualmie, bing bang boom.  Long gone.”

“You really think so Daddy?”

“I do.  And before we leave, we can track down some guns - for just in case.”

Kevin shook his head.

“Kevin, I’m not leaving you and Mom here.”

“You do what you need to do, I will too.”

The tension in the air was thick, but everyone was too tired to do anything about it.  They all naturally looked toward the TV - the usual go-to in life for awkward family moments.  It was off.

Jason picked up the remote from the coffee table.

“Why not?”

“It’ll just be-”

“The Emergency Broadcast System.  This is not a test.  If--”

The TV displayed a red screen with wobbly yellow and white text saying go here, do that - all while playing a horrible tone.  Jason muted it and looked at the settings.  “I remember they shut off cell towers, especially on the south side, right?  Wonder if we have internet, or if the cable box will let us get around this screen and see some other TV channels.  Maybe it’s just on local...”

Kevin waved a hand dismissively.  “I don’t care.  Just keep it down unless you figure something out.”

“Honey?”

Maddy took the remote from him and went into the smart TV apps.  She tried to bring up Youtube, but it bounced for lack of signal.  Then she went into internet settings, connected to the wifi, and started over.

The home page sprang to life with recommendations - all jaw-grindingly banal or obnoxious, as usual.  But the news recommendations were dominated by streams about the local situation.  It was, of course, international news.

But they kept seeing a weird face in the thumbnails.  It was a white woman with a tall chin and thick makeup, darkish red hair around her face, some kind of shiny hat on, bare shoulders.  She was smiling.

“What the hell’s that got to do with…?”  Jason went quiet as they all read the descriptions.  ‘Demon Queen Announces Occupation.’  ‘Who is Baimon?’  ‘Giant Woman Seizes Seattle.’

Maddy considered clicking a news channel, but noticed one more thumbnail of the lady in the general recs, as a trending video with a lot of views.  She clicked it.

A young woman appeared on the video - not the one from the news.  She was on a street or bridge of some kind, at night.  The streetlights were on and some car lights reflected or flashed in the corners of the screen.  She was taking a video in selfie mode.

“Hiii, I’m Ja’nice and I’m with Queen Bymaan, who is a giant demon lady, and wants to say hello to the world.”

She turned the phone enough to accommodate someone else in the frame.  It was that white woman’s face, as big next to the lady as a polar bear’s head would be - maybe bigger.  The camera wobbled trying to acquire the ideal shot, and brought in glimpses of details.  The giantess was crouching to get close, was wearing a metal crown, and was generally dressed like a prostitute from a barbarian movie.

She smiled nervously and looked at the lady.  “Oh wow, nice.  Is it doing..?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.  What did you want to say?”

“Right.  Hi everybody!  I’m Bymaan, the new queen of this realm - a colony of Exalted Lucifer’s Empire of Hell.  I know it doesn’t feel great to be invaded, but we’re just taking over this land, from the mountains to the water to the forests around it.  I know your empire is vast, so surely you can spare a slice for some fallen angels on the rise?  If you attempt to take it back, we’ll be forced to seize the whole country, and you don’t want that.”

The woman wielding the cell phone camera came back like a professional interviewer. “Wow, that’s really intense.  But that’s not all you wanted to say, right?  When you showed up you were talking about…?”

“Oh, thanks!”  Her smile was massive, her teeth tall and white.  “Love!  I wanted to talk about love.  My master Lucifer’s sins included love for humanity - a sin many of us share.  So let me say that you’re all so beautiful and interesting!  Really, it’s a great pleasure to walk among you and anyone who wants to live here, to be my subject?  All are welcome!”

The interviewer looked sheisty and made a duck face, sticking out her pursed lips.  The Queen looked confused for a moment, then leaned in and gave her a quick kiss.  The woman busted up laughing and the phone shook furiously.

“What?  Was that not…?”

Maddy looked at Kevin and Jason, eyes bulging in fear and stress.

Jason put his big hand on her shoulder comfortingly.  But he also looked at Kevin.  Both of them were looking at Kevin, expectant.

“At least she’s prettier than I expected.”  He looked timid.

Jason jumped up and put him in a headlock, knocking over the chair.  “What the hell were you thinking, bro?!  You’re fuckin’ nuts!  God DAMN it!”

“Daddy, no!”

The video stabilized and the men paused their ruckus to look again.

The interviewer said, “I’m sorry, it’s just a little embarrassing to get kissed like that, on camera and all.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No problem, Your Highness.  Any other news for the people?  You gonna, I dunno, invest in tourism?  Take over Amazon?”

“Yes and yes!  But first we have to secure the realm.  So I have to go back to work.”

“Secure the realm?  What’s that mean for us?”

“Ah yes.  You can return to your homes if you like, take a chance on a new government.  I’d really appreciate it.  But it also means my advance legions will be drawing back to The Septagram soon, save for some sentries to guard the new borderlands.  My legions will need homes, so any houses that you do not return to?  They’ll be gifted to my demonic host.  Just letting you know!  I hope we can all come to live in peace and love, humanity.  Farewell!”

She stood to her full height.  Her body was shaped like a perfect pear, with thighs the size of people.  She was nearly naked, with gold chains holding in place the flimsiest covering for her naughty parts.  The demon queen walked without shame between parked cars and mounted a giant camel.  She waved to the camera, then bounded off the bridge.  The force of it shook the cars and dropped the interviewer to her ass.

The video ended.  Recommendations popped up on the darkened last frames, for a makeup tutorial and some funny animal videos.  Jason went back to pummelling his brother.

***

The cops started tossing the building, but Iphigenia had declined to join in.  She had said she’d leave with them when they were ready, but in a quiet, mumbling voice.  Distracted, and not getting better anytime soon.

Jelly Sue was enthralling.  Ippy didn’t feel love or lust like anything she recalled feeling before.  It was something else.  She told herself she wanted to help the girl out, treat her nice, keep her safe.  But she felt it too strong, too fast.  At least some small part of her was questioning that, but she was just happy to feel anything positive at all.  It was far less creepy than feeling proud of killing dozens of people.

She walked Jelly Sue around her apartment, trying to figure out some way to clean her up that didn’t involve a big bath or shower.  The cops would surely be done before she got finished with that, pushing them to move on.  Jelly walked behind her with a clip-clop of her shoes.  Ippy kept looking back to her, feeling her face run hot, and turning away.  She focused on her self-appointed task, but couldn’t think straight.

Ippy came to the bathroom, Jelly close behind.  “Maybe we should just go ahead.  Who cares about those dudes?”  The bathroom light scattered a few cockroaches and showed them ancient tiles and lead wall paint.

“I don’t know.  Who?”

“Heehee, it’s an expression, Jelly.”  Ippy realized there was no shower curtain - just dresses hanging on the shower rod.  Half were in dust slips.  She glanced to them, then to Jelly’s cotton-wrapped body, then back.  “We’ll just put a dress on you for now.  How would you like that?”

“You can put a dress on me.  I wear a lot of dresses.”

“I bet you do, pretty girl.”  Ippy took down one of the covered dresses.  The cover only reached about halfway down the skirt, so she took the cover off, rolled the top of the dress around her arm, and started slapping at it.  The dust was more oily than it looked at first, and mixed with the sweat on her hands and arms to make dark streaks.  A cockroach fell out and scuttled across the floor.

Iphigenia felt a surprising sense of horror come over her.  She trembled, ran past Jelly Sue back into the living room.  The dress was still wrapped around her arm and she shook it off in frustration.  “Nooo.  I hate this!”

Jelly’s voice from behind her, “Sorry.”

She spun around to look at the girl.  “You don’t have to be sorry.  You’re perfect.  I’m just...”  She looked at her arms.  Her sleeves were spattered with gore, her arms shiny with oily crunge.  “I’m fucking disgusting.”

“It’s OK.”

Ippy really didn’t want to cry in front of the girl but she did anyway, so suddenly she didn’t know what was happening.

Jelly came toward her with small even steps, clip clop.  Her face was nearly expressionless, she was raising her arms like a zombie.  Ippy couldn’t see her very well through the tears, which made the dim lamp lights blossom spider legs.

Jelly wrapped her arms around Ippy, patted her back in a slow rhythm.  “It’s OK, Ippy.  You’re gonna be OK.”

Iphigenia let her arms fall from her chest, but didn’t have the strength to raise them and return the embrace.  She buried her head in her shoulder and sobbed.  Then the spider lights broke apart into vermiform lightning and dashed from her eyes, leaving her in darkness.

Ippy woke up to weak daylight falling across her face and sharp pain in her shins.  She was still standing, propped up by the doll woman.  Her face was caressed by silky ringlets on one side, losing moisture into padded cotton on the other, and stinging with salt where it touched the air.

She fell down and grabbed her shins, overwhelmed by weird sensations.  She was in a grody apartment.  She was covered in filth.  It was brighter.  It was daytime now for sure.  And her shins hurt for literally falling asleep on her feet for who knows how long.

Victorian boots covered in white dust and loose gauzy wraps.  Ippy looked up at the young woman standing there.  Jelly Sue.  The emotion she felt before passing out had drained, leaving her in some kind of cold reality.  It was a moment of lucidity.

Where was Jelly’s family?  How long had she been trapped here?  Why was she so impassive and quiet?  What could Ippy do to help her?  She got practical again, easily.  She had been in a practical mode for survival for days and days, so it came into her by default.

The pain subsided enough for her to stand up again.  Jelly followed her movements with that impassive, perfect face.  Ippy snatched the dress off the floor, looking inside for roaches, shaking it out and beating on it vigorously.  She held her breath against the dust cloud, angling her filthy hands to leave the least marks on the silky pink dress.

Then she turned to Jelly and held up the prize.  “We won’t be very clean, but it’ll make you look nicer at a glance.  I mean,” some of the heat came back to her face, “You look perfect no matter what, but it’ll make you look less dirty at a casual glance.”

Jelly nodded.  Her hair bounced.

“C’mere.”  Ippy put the dress over the lady, who accommodated by raising her arms a bit when necessary, and then zipped her in.  She walked in a circle, appraising her work.  “I’m gonna wash my hands and then come right back for you, OK?”

Park opened the apartment door and Jelly shot him a blank look.  He shuddered.  “Ah, whoa, huh.  Where’s Iphigenia?”  He heard the water, answering his question, and gazed that way.  It was like he was embarrassed, like he’d seen Jelly naked, but he didn’t know why it felt like that.

“She’s washing her hands and she’s going to come back for me.”

“Nice, nice.  Me and Sergeant Infante are done, so...”

“So… Sew buttons.”

Park looked at her.  She was still staring blankly at him, until Ippy came back from the kitchen.

“Hey Detective.  Everyone raring to go?”

“Yeah.  What did you…  get… done here?”

“Not much.  We’ll be downstairs soon.”

“OK.  See you.”  He ducked out.

Ippy came to Jelly Sue and cocked her head to consider her presentation.  She didn’t want to take off her weird wrappings yet, in case there was a situation under there needing medical attention.  But they stood out - did not look like a shirt.  She held out her hand and Jelly took it, and she led her out to the hall, then into apartment 3-B.

The naked angel had indeed left behind spotless clothing, which hung on a coat rack near the door.  Ippy took the coat and put it on her, then rolled up the sleeves.  They were far too long, but the black silk lining revealed on the sleeves, the lintless dark wool, and the strange metal badges and bangles, it looked fun and kicky.  She realized why.  Together with her big hair, the presentation looked like something Janet Jackson would have worn in the late eighties.  She smiled and laughed out loud, just a little.

Jelly smiled and laughed too, then went quiet and blank, staring right at her.

“Uh… heh.  You have a pretty laugh.”

“Thank you,” said Jelly Sue.

But is she In. Con. Trol.?  Ippy wondered

***

Thurston and Clark figured out that the earthquake hadn’t caused any damage outside of the places where the towers rose, which made things easier.  They were able to hide in buildings or stash people in them as they tried to gather all the leftover people of Seattle.

Late in the night, news spread through their people stash about Queen Bymaan’s overture for peaceful colonization of the Puget Sound region and the talk began anew - should they just accept the new situation, or keep to their plans of flight?  But the idea of having a bunch of goat demons for neighbors pushed the consensus toward the latter.

By the next day they’d gathered close to two thousand people in a new-style condo on Eastlake.  It had a facade like a bunch of stacked shoe boxes and a plaza with quasi-maritime design on the roof.  They could only do so much running around and people started to bed down in purloined living spaces, even though it was daytime.

Clark slept peacefully but Thurston did not.  There wasn’t a good way to shut out the daylight in the apartment - the venetian blinds were too thin and the windows to large to improvise covers for.  Also, he couldn’t sleep comfortably with a blindfold around his face.

In frustration, he took a walk up to the plaza.  He was nearly alone there, on that uncomfortable expanse of weather-treated mustard yellow wood.  Just a few other people lurked in far corners, smoking.

One of the smokers spat their cigarette in shock and tried to hide behind the bench at the edge of the roof.  Thurston had spent all night running toward trouble, trying to keep Clark from being too daring with his newfound energy.  He hustled to the edge of the building and looked out.

The condos rose just above the edge of an elevated stretch of Interstate 5.  A camel rode there, saddled by the Queen herself.  They were larger than life, larger than he’d expected even from the internet video.

There was no point in hiding so he stood there, staring.  Maybe she had been out all night working as well, because she paid no heed to the little people on his rooftop, riding up the highway a little further before leaping off into the puffy trees of Capitol Hill.  He saw her emerge from the canopy again as the camel leapt impossible distances with each bound.  They were heading toward the citadel that had risen from Volunteer Park.

Now I know where she resides.  Then, with his attention to the south, he beheld a vast crowd of ants advancing through the city streets.  The advance army had returned, and were going door to door.

***

NEXT

-

[from-red-string]

É isso aí - Part 3

 Hello!

Here is the last chapter but not, at the same. Soon you get it ;)

I hope you enjoy it  💛

Thanks for proofreading Miranda (@lunambar) and Ellie ( @fangirlelliethings). A big virtual hug for you.

PART 1 / PART 2 / FINAL

----------------- 💛----------------------

  ‘Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes.' Is that proverb people like to repeat?

   If that's right, by literally walking in Simón's shoes, his shoes are the most comfortable thing I ever walked in, it's like walking in the clouds. Simón might feel as he is in the sky always. No wonder why he's such a dreamer or Luna's best friend, his head is always in the clouds. How could he not?

   Luna's best friend is just like her, hopefully not as annoying.

   The mansion is already in the next street, never getting there have been so quick. I wish this walk has been longer, walking with Simón and my finger interlaced in his. I can't believe I walked hand in hand with Matteo in that exactly street and the feeling was not a half as that, right now it feels like I didn't feel anything at all with Matteo.

   Maybe the reason is that Matteo and I were friends, best friends, then people started saying we were dating, we acted along people said, soon I didn't remember Matteo as my best friend anymore. So we were never in love.

   Not that I am in love.

   But the feeling is different with Simón.

   Simón turned to me and that when I realize I was staring at him, I looked away too late. Damn, he caught me.

    "Is everything okay?" He asked worriedly. I must have looked a little scary staring at him to be a worry.

    "Yeah. Just the sunlight is bright." I said, even that was not what I was thinking, the brightness was really bothering.

    "And why does the sunlight make you look at me?" I don't have any answer to give, that not tell the truth.

    "The mansion is right there." One-third of the truth, I can't let him now all in mind. "Our walk is finishing.” Our night is finishing. I eyed the ground wide eyes. Simón squeezed my hand, I couldn't hold back the smile to arise.

    "I still have to drop at your doorstep. That makes me a less terrible person, right?" Simón said swinging our hands, I giggled. I need to control my feelings, I can't stop smiling at him.

    "Nope." I highlighted the ‘p' in it. "You are not a terrible person if you tell about last night." I give it shot, I'm losing my hopes of learning what happened from Simón.

    "The only way is that?" Simón asked looking. Is he giving in? I nodded as soon as his eyes were on me. He looked away biting his bottom lip. Now I need some time to wonder why is he giving in, he was so sure about not telling me. What is he thinking? In a moment, he wants to let me dying of curiousness, in another he gives in.

    The proverb about shoes is bullshit. I can never get Simón's mind, it will not happen ever. He is too confusing. In a sudden point of the talk, he decides to...

     He cares about what I think of him. ‘That makes me less terrible person'. He doesn't want me to think he is a terrible person. If only he knew that I could never think is terrible in anyway. Now he is feeling bad about himself and it's my fault, I need to make it up.

    "Simón/Ámbar..." We said at the same time, as we release what we did, we laughed together. I tilted my head to the side, so letting him know I want to hear him first, he somehow understand it.

   "Do you really need it? Like is it that important?" Simón said giving me a look. He is almost giving up.

   "No, it's just another night of my life. I won't miss this couple of hours of my life at all."I couldn't help myself but say it in an ironical way. When I finished I saw the hurt frown on his face closed my eyes and breathed deeply. "Of course, it's important, pretty boy." I called him ‘pretty boy'? I need some pills of self-control because I can do it for myself. Simón smirked, even though his eyes were focused on my, his eyes seem to be far away from reality, but in a second he was back, his hand goes for his hair, scratching it.

    "Okay." He said a bit abstracted. "Sure. I... You..." He seemed to be nervous. Simón is nervous about telling my last night's acts. Damn, I hope was fully dressed all the time, it's not too much to ask, just to be wearing clothes on the whole night.

    "I can take it. Just tell me." I told him trying to ease him. I'm easing the guy who I spent the night so he can tell what happened. Is him this scary of me? "No need to be afraid. I swear by Jazmín's Gucci yellow shoes I will not beat you. All you have to do is started from the begin." He laughed at it. I still feel guilty for making him think he is a terrible person, so I know things. I am so sorry, Simón.

    "From the begin? You came in, then you stopped at a corner of the room..."

    "I told you that part already. Skip it, Simón." I interrupt and Simón arises his eyebrows. "Please!"

    "You disappeared for some minutes. The next time, I see you were laying in Gastón's garden grass." I scowled at this information. "Yes, you were laying on the ground with some real but fictional named friends." Should I know what this is supposed to mean? "That was the time I get you needed someone to take of you and took the role. We sat for looking the sky..."

    "Aquarius?" This came to my head and before I could stop slipped through my lips. I don't where this came from.

    "Aries. Did you remember something?" He asked hopefully, I shook my head. "The constellation. We were looking at Aries." He eyed the mansion ahead of us. We were getting close, I don't to it end. "Luna called for a game, I didn't want to play, but you wanted. We go play Sueca, better, you played, I stand behind you, being the referee to the game." He paused scratching his neck again. "After the game, you said you were tired and laid on the floor, I tried to get you up to go home, you didn't want to move a finger to help me get home, people were almost stepping on you. My best option of place no one could step on you was under the table. We slept, now here we are."

    I narrowed my eyes just to make sure Simón wasn't hiding anything. The things he told me are normal, nothing I could be mad at, less for the part I laid o grass and played a Sueca with Luna. By the way, what the hell is this game?

    Simón kept the straight face. My intuition was telling there's something more, but my eyes betrayed me. My eyes fell on his lips, pink and soft lips, kissable lips. And got to distract to remember my previous thought. When I realize we were face to face at mansion's gate and I was staring at his lips, I shook my head turning ahead.

    "The mansion," I said opening the gate. I though Simón wasn't getting through the gate, when he did, I frowned at him.

    "I really meant when I said I need to drop you at your doorstep."

    "You are not a terrible person. You could never be." I burst out, the thought of Simón feeling bad for my fault hit me. I couldn't let Simón down, he is the always sweet to everyone that's not called Matteo Balsano, he is the human form of a golden retriever, he can't be down.

    "I know." He smiled at me squeeze my hand. "I just want you near." He looked away pulling me to the front door. I think I'm dying, my heart forgot how to beat properly and my lungs forgot how to breathe air enough.’ I just want you near.’ I am not supposed to live after that, after that phrase I'm surviving only.

   The feelings I get from this boy is too much, I'm not only losing control of my mouth, now the control of my eyes, heart, and lungs are gone too. I never had control of my heart and lungs since they're involuntary organs, bit still they used to work nicely, not anymore at least.

    "No!" I almost yelled at him, pulling him away from the front door, making their way to the backdoor. "Not the front door. Rey is like a watchdog on this door. Open that door is more efficient than calling him by his name." I told him when I saw him frowned his eyebrows surprised by my sudden reaction.

   "You shouldn't let Luna hangout last night. Now she's in trouble." We heard Mônica say through the closed door, I looked to Simón while he kept looking the door, we stuck in the place, not been able of stepping forward or backward. When the knob moved, Simón wrapped an arm around my waist and made me run with him, which I did quietly.

    The first reason of following with my mouth shut is Mônica shouldn't know I still out at this hour, the second reason Simón having taking care of all night, it's not now that he would anything, right now I would follow him to Everest, not because I don't think straight when he is this close, maybe a bit is because of it, but most is because I trust him now. I thought couples of hours couldn't change much about what you feel for someone, I was wrong, I can't help myself but feel safe around Simón, I don't remember anytime someone did something without wanting a reward or just doing some random act of kindness, that I hope is not random.

    The third and main reason I kept my mouth is that if opened it, a pretty loud sigh will come out and it would be really weird. Simón shouldn't put his hands on someone waist with doesn't want this person to have a heart attack, or to faint by his smell, kinda sweet and wooden at the same.

    We stopped in the middle of a bunch, our bodies glued to each other.

    "Luna is not in trouble, the woman is just super uptight." Miguel defends himself. "Luna planned this party." His wife shot him a look. For Miguel's health is better to him shut up now, he is making his wife 5 am humor worse. "Even Ámbar is there, it will be okay." He tried the last thing, the wrong thing. Mônica stopped turning on her spot.

    "Ámbar is there? How this is turning things okay?" Ouch. I even bother Luna's mom, I know I tried to get them fired, but I didn't expect hard feelings from her. "Miguel, she is just a girl. We need to get her back here before Sharon wakes up, or Sharon will trouble her. Poor girl, she tries to be perfect." Mônica enters the car the next second and turned on the engine, Miguel ran to the car.

    Mônica cares for me? I'm confused, Luna's parents caring was something I always envy Luna for. I will think about it another time, the sleepiness is getting me. I yawned while Luna's parents were passing through the gates. Simón pulled me out of the bunch, somehow not a scratch marked my skin, this was a good hiding spot. Suspicious.

    "How did you know where to hide?" I asked narrowing my eyes at Simón, he turned smirking.

    "I was your gardener, ma'am." Oh, right this, the time he was living here. I face palmed myself, both my hands trying to hide my face. He almost had to go back to Mexico because of me. I'm a mess what I'm doing to people's life.

    "I'm sorry. I almost made you..." I stopped when his warm hands embraced mines, taking them away from my face. Simón had a serene smile, his brown shining eyes locked to mine.

    "It's okay. I still here, I'm here now. That's what matters." He whispered to me as this was a secret, I nodded, not been able of talk, even breathing correctly, his smell was breaking into my lungs, rushing in my system, recording this essence as ‘Simón's smell' in a way I'm sure even when he is not next will be able to recall it. He was too close, our breaths mixing, our eyes were not locked to each other's, they were fixed on the lips. I shivered when Simón's touched a lock of my hair next to my neck, at the same time the wind blows making me shrink. "You need to get inside, it's getting colder."

     We turned to walk side by side, this time we weren't holding hands. When we reached the doorstep, I felt my stomach flip. This was the end.

    "Final stop of our night." I tried to smile while saying it but I failed. In a sudden will, I hugged Simón by the neck. " Thank you for all," I said in his ear and his arms embraced my waist again, my lips brushed his neck. I might regret saying it or not say it, so... "Simón, you made the best night of my life, even if I don't remember half of it," I whisper to him and smiled sadly. I wished so bad I remember something of this night, anything of my time with Simón. I sighed into Simón's neck and saw Simón shudder, I bite my bottom lip, it's good to know I can get him some of the reacts he gives me. I stepped back, already missing his warmth.

   "On your doorstep as promised." He didn't move. None of us wanted to let it go, but sometime, it needs to happen. I moved closer to him and kissed his cheek slowly by an impulse, getting away right after when I realized our lips brush and the kiss that was supposed to be on his cheek, was actually on the corner of his mouth.

    "Goodnight, pretty boy." After this slipping out of my mouth, I freaked and quickly got inside, resting my back on the door breathless. I already fully kissed someone. Why am I freaking out?

     Breathless, my heart beating like a drum, my stomach flipping, letting thoughtless things go of my mouth. What is my problem? Why am I overreacting?

     "Sleep well, beauty." I heard Simón say through the door. He is finishing my death because my legs also gave up of working, making me sit by the door.

    Control, Ámbar. Breathing in, now breath our.

    Oh, I still in his shoes. How does it happen? You can't forget your shoes. Simón has to be Luna's best friend. Who other than them this two to forget their own shoes?

   Get up now. You are on kitchen's floor. Someone can see you.

    I slowly got up and quietly followed to my room. Once I got there, my bed seems to be calling me, but I resist a little and change my outfit to pjs. I sat at dressing table taking my make up off, already done with it, I eyed the mirror expecting a hard look eyeing me back, I didn't found it, the eyes were tired but enjoyed what they saw. I don't know why, probably tiredness or fulfillment, I didn't feel the urge to say anything to the mirror, so I just smiled seen my smile reflected.

    Then I got up, throw myself on the bed. I felt the blanket warmth and remembered of Simón's embrace. I smiled at nothing and closed my eyes remembered the awkward goodbye kiss, then it changed to lips glued, my hands in his hair, a hand making a caress on my waist, a true kiss with Simón while a song playing around us.

    It was Glad You Came.

    At this realization, my eyes shot open. We heard it last night, it wasn't a random song stuck in my head. So this kiss happened?

   Did we kiss?

   Why didn't he told me?

   That was what he was afraid of, telling me about the kiss. He regrets it and now it's better that I forgot, or had forgotten.

   I'm not getting any sleep. Everything is running inside my head. Anyone would enjoy kissing me, that person would have to be abnormal not to.

   But Simón is not anyone and not normal either, or have good taste for liking people.

   Now thinking about the way he acts all night, he seemed disappointed I didn't remember last night. If this was about the kiss, why he didn't tell me?

   What are doing to me, Simón?

[olusegundare]

Americana’s Diary III: Not Too Late

Americana's Diary III: Not Too Late

Mr. Bodmas as he was popularly called by us when we were in Secondary School those days has travelled out of the country called Nigeria for quite a while, the news I had about him was that he has been secretive and discretional in given out his phone numbers, even to some of his one-time closest friends.

Why was this? It was due to the fact that he was yet struggling in the States, he was yet to find his feet there. He therefore considered it that giving out his mobile phone number to his one-time close friends who may wish to call “hala” (means phone him) him at any time will put him at risk and this may also turn him to a liar before those people because of his instability. This instability has made him to be on his toes in the States moving from a place to another until he set things right, having a residential permit there. 

Having heard this from his sibling, I cannot but take his matter off my heart and joined others to pray with him that God prospers his way.

Not long ago, I saw an old secondary school mate, Dee, who told me that Mr. Bodmas is in Nigeria and specifically in the town. He thus wants us to visit him, and relive some of the pasts together. That is not a bad idea after all I said to myself.

We agreed on the time to pay him a visit, which was the following day. 

I quickly look at my calendar and schedules for the following day and discovered that all of my program is in between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. in the morning. We are scheduled to take off around 10:00 a.m. so that we shall get there around 11:00 a.m.

So as not to disappoint the person whom we are going to Mr. Bodmas house together I ensure that I attended to the early programs and the program that I ought to attend to around 10:00 a.m was cancelled because there is no way I could finish the program by 10:00 a.m. neither few minutes after 10:00 a.m. so that I won’t keep Dee waiting, because I do not like people keeping me waiting too, I have to reschedule the program till another date.

The person I wanted to see was an understanding one, he understands with me and another time was fixed for meeting with him.

At 9:30 a.m., I got out of my place walked to the main road to get a taxi that will take me to where Mr. Dee works. After about 7 minutes waiting for a cab, one arrives and fortunate for me he was heading to where I was going.

10 minutes to 10:00 a.m., I got to Dee’s working place.

He asked his secretary to go and usher me in from the receptionist’s place.

I was about to sit on the chair at the receptionist’s place when the secretary came out, greeted the receptionist and walked to me and asked politely, “sir, are you Mr. Segun?” I straightened my torso, looked back to where the question is coming from before replying, “Yes, I am darling”, I am now standing upright before her. “Can you please follow me sir? Mr. Dee asked me to usher you to his office”, she replied. “Oh that is nice of him.” I said as I started following her.

Within fraction of seconds we have gotten to his office as the secretary opened the door for me to enter, “please, go right in sir”, she said and turned back as I walked into Dee’s office and closed the door behind me.

“Good morning friend, how was your night” I asked

“Cool oh, Sege, and how was your night too and the family?” Dee asked looking up from behind the table that he has been sited.

“We are all doing great oh Dee”, thanks for asking

“I ought to come out and take you from the receptionist but I was two pages off finishing the file before me that was why I asked my secretary to come and usher you to my office”, he said, please give me some seconds I would be through with the files I just need to read through and add one or two points to it and signed it for her to take it to the welfare department”, he enthused bending down his head again to see to the file before him.

“That is no problem, that is very good of you. One needs to do the right thing at the right time and above all since you have not gotten another job, it is quintessential that you do not play with this that you have, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush” is that not what the grammarians say?”

“Uhmm mm”, he whispered and continued to write with red coloured pen on the paper inside the folder file before him as I continue to talk

“I have not been to any of the offices here before today I do not know this is how the architecture of your office is like.” He was nodding his head to what I am saying but not responding, I guess he does not want to make mistake, I thence stopped talking not to cause him to make mistake on the files until he is done with writing into the files. About 10 seconds later he finished writing and closed the file.

“I am sorry, I could not respond to all your comments”, he pressed a button on his table and another second there was a knock on the door to his office, without waiting for answer the person knocking entered who happened to be Dee’s secretary, “Sir?” she said

“I am through with this file, you will have to take it to the welfare department. As I told you before I will be going out any moment from now, I hope you are almost through with the manuscript I gave you to work on, type and edit?

“Yes sir”, she responded, “I am left with about 5 pages to be through with it”.

“That is great, you should have been through with it by the time I return”, Dee said while the secretary nodded her head in agreement to what her boss has said as Dee pushed the seat he sat on back and walked out of where he was, turning to me, “Sege, we can now leave”

“Alright.” I said as I stand up from the seat I was and Dee opened the door, we walked out of his office and he said we shall take a bike to the place because if we take taxi we may enter into traffic and I would not want us to get there late because I still have to return to the office before the office is closed to vet what my secretary is doing.

“That is okay by me”, I replied as we continue to walk to the main road where we shall get a bike. Not long after, we got a bike that carried two of us and we headed for our friend’s place.

When we got to his father's house, there were people outside, visitors who have come to rejoice with his father on his son's arrival. We left them and entered into the living room where we met his father with some other visitors, we greeted the old man, after greeting him, he called his junior brother who also happened to have come home with his wife to spend the weekend with their father and obviously to play with his elder brother who happens to be our friend. 

He was called out because they thought he was the one we have come to visit because it has been a while that our friend left the shores of this land and his father was not even thinking he would have a friend around because he was in another state working before he travelled out of the country. 

His junior one on seeing us instantly recognized us and having paid obeisance to us from the entrance to the living room he just turned back to call out our friend for us. 

"He will soon join you sirs", his junior one said to us as he turns back to go and call him out to us. 

"Thank you sir "we chorused 

About 60 seconds after this our friend, Bodmas came out

“Sege! Whao!” he bellowed, “Dee did not tell me that you will be accompanying him" as he stretched out his hands and we hugged ourselves 

“We want it to be a surprise ", Dee said. 

“Uhmn, it is really a surprise" he replied as he shook hand with Dee, using his left palm to pat the right palm of Dee, 

"You are glittering like gold," I said as we all laughed, I can hear his father saying to his friends who have come to greet him that "my son will come out of his shell today, because of his friends, since the time he arrived he has kept to himself" 

"Is that so?" One of his daddy's friends asked. 

"Yes oh", he replied looking at his friends. 

Another friend said, there nothing like good friendship 

"Human beings are our cloths, our covering", another added a Yoruba proverb

"When my first son who lives in London also returned home, he was not himself until Elder Aduralagba's son who is his friend came around”, one of his friends also shared the experience of his son with them as they keep talking while Bodmas said to us, "shall we go to the balcony to give our parents some privacy"

“Oh yea", I said, he was actually not waiting for our response because he has opened the door. "Shade "he called his junior sister

“Sir" She responded from her room, “on my way big brother”

“Please you and Tee should get my friends and I plastic chairs, table and wine 

"Yes sir" She replied. 

"Can't we take chairs along instead of waiting for them" Dee said pointing to some empty plastic chairs

"I think it is a good idea", I said as we walked back to the living room pulled out three plastic chairs while Shade went for the drinks. 

"I have been thinking of tracing out your Daddy's shop today or tomorrow, because I was told that you have relocated to another state. I said when I get to Daddy he will give me your phone number because I was unable to get it from our friends" Bodmas said as we put the chairs down to sit while Tee and Shade bring out the table and drinks 

"Thanks" Bodmas said turning to Shade as we continued with our discussion. 

"Dee branched at my place yesterday and told me that you are in town, although he has informed me earlier that you send message to him on whatsapp.com that you will be coming home and I told him that he should keep me in the loop when you arrive so that we shall come and see you together", I replied

“I am verily elated seeing you around” he said as he opened the Chivita fruit juice poured it in the wine cups for the three of us, taking a sip, then said, "em, tell me something why are you in town?"

"That is a million dollar question" I replied, throwing some chinchin into my mouth while Dee sipped his drink laughing as well as Bodmas and I 

[readbookywooks]

LETTER FROM MISS MINA MURRAY TO MISS LUCY WESTENRA

9 May. My dearest Lucy, Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed with work. The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes trying. I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air. I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan's studies, and I have been practicing shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I am practicing very hard. He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad. When I am with you I shall keep a diary in the same way. I don't mean one of those two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday-squeezed-in-a-corner diaries, but a sort of journal which I can write in whenever I feel inclined. I do not suppose there will be much of interest to other people, but it is not intended for them. I may show it to Jonathan some day if there is in it anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise book. I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do, interviewing and writing descriptions and trying to remember conversations. I am told that, with a little practice, one can remember all that goes on or that one hears said during a day. However, we shall see. I will tell you of my little plans when we meet. I have just had a few hurried lines from Jonathan from Transylvania. He is well, and will be returning in about a week. I am longing to hear all his news. It must be nice to see strange countries. I wonder if we, I mean Jonathan and I, shall ever see them together. There is the ten o'clock bell ringing. Goodbye. Your loving Mina Tell me all the news when you write. You have not told me anything for a long time. I hear rumours, and especially of a tall, handsome, curly-haired man.??? LETTER, LUCY WESTENRA TO MINA MURRAY 17, Chatham Street Wednesday My dearest Mina, I must say you tax me very unfairly with being a bad correspondent. I wrote you twice since we parted, and your last letter was only your second. Besides, I have nothing to tell you. There is really nothing to interest you. Town is very pleasant just now, and we go a great deal to picture-galleries and for walks and rides in the park. As to the tall, curly-haired man, I suppose it was the one who was with me at the last Pop. Someone has evidently been telling tales. That was Mr. Holmwood. He often comes to see us, and he and Mamma get on very well together, they have so many things to talk about in common. We met some time ago a man that would just do for you, if you were not already engaged to Jonathan. He is an excellant parti, being handsome, well off, and of good birth. He is a doctor and really clever. Just fancy! He is only nine-and twenty, and he has an immense lunatic asylum all under his own care. Mr. Holmwood introduced him to me, and he called here to see us, and often comes now. I think he is one of the most resolute men I ever saw, and yet the most calm. He seems absolutely imperturbable. I can fancy what a wonderful power he must have over his patients. He has a curious habit of looking one straight in the face, as if trying to read one's thoughts. He tries this on very much with me, but I flatter myself he has got a tough nut to crack. I know that from my glass. Do you ever try to read your own face? I do, and I can tell you it is not a bad study, and gives you more trouble than you can well fancy if you have never tried it. He say that I afford him a curious psychological study, and I humbly think I do. I do not, as you know, take sufficient interest in dress to be able to describe the new fashions. Dress is a bore. That is slang again, but never mind. Arthur says that every day. There, it is all out, Mina, we have told all our secrets to each other since we were children. We have slept together and eaten together, and laughed and cried together, and now, though I have spoken, I would like to speak more. Oh, Mina, couldn't you guess? I love him. I am blushing as I write, for although I think he loves me, he has not told me so in words. But, oh, Mina, I love him. I love him! There, that does me good. I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fire undressing, as we used to sit, and I would try to tell you what I feel. I do not know how I am writing this even to you. I am afraid to stop, or I should tear up the letter, and I don't want to stop, for I do so want to tell you all. Let me hear from you at once, and tell me all that you think about it. Mina, pray for my happiness. Lucy P.S. - I need not tell you this is a secret. Goodnight again. L. LETTER, LUCY WESTENRA TO MINA MURRAY 24 May My dearest Mina, Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter. It was so nice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy. My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs are. Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had a proposal till today, not a real proposal, and today I had three. Just fancy! Three proposals in one day! Isn't it awful! I feel sorry, really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows. Oh, Mina, I am so happy that I don't know what to do with myself. And three proposals! But, for goodness' sake, don't tell any of the girls, or they would be getting all sorts of extravagant ideas, and imagining themselves injured and slighted if in their very first day at home they did not get six at least. Some girls are so vain! You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can despise vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three, but you must keep it a secret, dear, from every one except, of course, Jonathan. You will tell him, because I would, if I were in your place, certainly tell Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everything. Don't you think so, dear? And I must be fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as they are. And women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be. Well, my dear, number One came just before lunch. I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them, but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don't generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to me, Mina, very straightfordwardly. He told me how dear I was to him, though he had known me so little, and what his life would be with me to help and cheer him. He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if I did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said he was a brute and would not add to my present trouble. Then he broke off and asked if I could love him in time, and when I shook my head his hands trembled, and then with some hesitation he asked me if I cared already for any one else. He put it very nicely, saying that he did not want to wring my confidence from me, but only to know, because if a woman's heart was free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one. I only told him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as he took both my hands in his and said he hoped I would be happy, and that If I ever wanted a friend I must count him one of my best. Oh, Mina dear, I can't help crying, and you must excuse this letter being all blotted. Being proposed to is all very nice and all that sort of thing, but it isn't at all a happy thing when you have to see a poor fellow, whom you know loves you honestly, going away and looking all broken hearted, and to know that, no matter what he may say at the moment, you are passing out of his life. My dear, I must stop here at present, I feel so miserable, though I am so happy. Evening. Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when I left off, so I can go on telling you about the day. Well, my dear, number Two came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow,and American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh that it seems almost impossible that he has been to so many places and has such adventures. I sympathize with poor Desdemona when she had such a stream poured in her ear, even by a black man. I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him. I know now what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl love me. No, I don't, for there was Mr. Morris telling us his stories, and Arthur never told any, and yet. . . My dear, I am somewhat previous. Mr. Quincy P. Morris found me alone. It seems that a man always does find a girl alone. No, he doesn't, for Arthur tried twice to make a chance, and I helping him all I could, I am not ashamed to say it now. I must tell you beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn't always speak slang, that is to say, he never does so to strangers or before them, for he is really well educated and has exquisite manners, but he found out that it amused me to hear him talk American slang,and whenever I was present, and there was no one to be shocked, he said such funny things. I am afraid, my dear, he has to invent it all, for it fits exactly into whatever else he has to say. But this is a way slang has. I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang. I do not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never heard him use any as yet. Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked as happy and jolly as he could, but I could see all the same that he was very nervous. He took my hand in his, and said ever so sweetly. . . "Miss Lucy, I know I ain't good enough to regulate the fixin's of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won't you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road together, driving in double harness?" Well, he did look so hood humoured and so jolly that it didn't seem half so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward. So I said, as lightly as I could, that I did not know anything of hitching, and that I wasn't broken to harness at all yet. Then he said that he had spoken in a light manner, and he hoped that if he had made a mistake in doing so on so grave, so momentous, and occasion for him, I would forgive him. He really did look serious when he was saying it, and I couldn't help feeling a sort of exultation that he was number Two in one day. And then, my dear, before I could say a word he began pouring out a perfect torrent of love-making, laying his very heart and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest over it that I shall never again think that a man must be playful always, and never earnest, because he is merry at times. I suppose he saw something in my face which checked him, for he suddenly stopped,and said with a sort of manly fervour that I could have loved him for if I had been free. . . "Lucy, you are an honest hearted girl, I know. I should not be here speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit, right through to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like one good fellow to another, is there any one else that you care for? And if there is I'll never trouble you a hair's breadth again, but will be, if you will let me, a very faithful friend." My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them? Here was I almost making fun of this great hearted, true gentleman. I burst into tears, I am afraid, my dear, you will think this a very sloppy letter in more ways than one, and I really felt very badly. Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it. I am glad to say that, though I was crying, I was able to look into Mr. Morris' brave eyes, and I told him out straight. . . "Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me yet that he even loves me." I was right to speak to him so frankly, for quite a light came into his face, and he put out both his hands and took mine, I think I put them into his, and said in a hearty way. . . "That's my brave girl. It's better worth being late for a chance of winning you than being in time for any other girl in the world. Don't cry, my dear. If it's for me, I'm a hard nut to crack, and I take it standing up. If that other fellow doesn't know his happiness, well, he'd better look for it soon, or he'll have to deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that's rarer than a lover, it's more selfish anyhow. My dear, I'm going to have a pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom Come. Won't you give me one kiss? It'll be something to keep off the darkness now and then. You can, you know, if you like, for that other good fellow, or you could not love him, hasn't spoken yet." That quite won me, Mina, for it was brave and sweet of him, and noble too, to a rival, wasn't it? And he so sad, so I leant over and kissed him. He stood up with my two hands in his, and as he looked down into my face, I am afraid I was blushing very much, he said, "Little girl, I hold your hand, and you've kissed me, and if these things don't make us friends nothing ever will. Thank you for your sweet honesty to me, and goodbye." He wrung my hand, and taking up his hat, went straight out of the room without looking back, without a tear or a quiver or a pause, and I am crying like a baby. Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots of girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on? I know I would if I were free, only I don't want to be free My dear, this quite upset me, and I feel I cannot write of happiness just at once, after telling you of it,and I don't wish to tell of the number Three until it can be all happy. Ever your loving. . . Lucy P.S. - Oh, about number Three, I needn't tell you of number Three, need I? Besides, it was all so confused. It seemed only a moment from his coming into the room till both his arms were round me, and he was kissing me. I am very, very happy, and I don't know what I have done to deserve it. I must only try in the future to show that I am not ungrateful to God for all His goodness to me in sending to me such a lover, such a husband, and such a friend. Goodbye. DR. SEWARD'S DIARY (Kept in phonograph) 25 May. - Ebb tide in appetite today. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so diary instead. since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty feeling. Nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the doing. As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thing was work, I went amongst the patients. I picked out one who has afforded me a study of much interest. He is so quaint that I am determined to understand him as well as I can. Today I seemed to get nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery. I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to making myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madness, a thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell. (Mem., Under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit of hell?) Omnia Romae venalia sunt. Hell has its price! If there be anything behind this instinct it will be valuable to trace it afterwards accurately, so I had better commence to do so, therefore. . . R. M, Renfield, age 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength, morbidly excitable, periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish, a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal. When duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident of a series of accidents can balance it. LETTER, QUINCEY P. MORRIS TO HON. ARTHUR HOLMOOD 25 May. My dear Art, We've told yarns by the campfire in the prairies, and dressed one another's wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas, and drunk healths on the shore of Titicaca. There are more yarns to be told,and other wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk. Won't you let this be at my campfire tomorrow night? I have no hesitation in asking you, as I know a certain lady is engaged to a certain dinner party, and that you are free. There will only be one other, our old pal at the Korea, Jack Seward. He's coming, too, and we both want to mingle our weeps over the wine cup, and to drink a health with all our hearts to the happiest man in all the wide world, who has won the noblest heart that God has made and best worth winning. We promise you a hearty welcome, and a loving greeting, and a health as true as your own right hand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to a certain pair of eyes. Come! Yours, as ever and always, Quincey P. Morris TELEGRAM FROM ARTHUR HOLMWOOD TO QUINCEY P. MORRIS 26 May Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your ears tingle. Art

[seanfiction]

Born for Adversity

Title: Born for Adversity (“A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” - Proverbs 17:17)

Fandom: Broughton Academy

Pairing: Samuel Devereaux-Montmorency/Ezra Winterbourne (Someone requested a pairing including Ezra which is just so nice? Like... I didn’t expect that at all! ♥)

Warnings: dub-con, breath play, a little recreational violence, a little bondage on the side, some D/s elements I suppose, no kink negotiations (one day I’ll write something purely consensual for this fandom)

Rating: NSFW

Wordcount: 2000 or so

“How would you feel if someone betrayed you and everyone you held dear? If they felt no remorse whatsoever as they cast you out into the cold and the dark? You and your family, your parents and siblings. Would you forgive them?”

Ezra couldn't forget Samuel's words, some of the first he had spoken to him.

“No,” Ezra had answered, “I don't think I could forgive them.” And he had meant it.

“So what about my brother?”

Ezra groaned. “Do you really need to ask that now?”

Without warning Samuel grabbed the collar Ezra still wore and pulled, effectively choking him. “Yes,” he hissed against Ezra's ear, making it quite clear just how unequal their relationship was.

He let go and Ezra gasped for air.

“Well?” Samuel demanded.

“I owe him no loyalty,” Ezra managed between coughs. “He doesn't care what I do. I told him, you know? All that had happened, the situation I was in, and he didn't care.” He hated how vulnerable he sounded but couldn't help it. He wasn't exactly on top of his game.

“Hm,” Samuel made. He sounded satisfied. “Very well.”

This wasn't a situation Ezra had expected to find himself in, even with the day he'd been having. When Samuel Devereaux-Montmorency had entered the scene, things had been looking up. Ezra had, at first, perceived him as an ally, if he played his cards right. He could not have predicted that mere hours later he'd be spread out on one of the cots, hands still in cuffs and baring his naked back to the very same man he had thought might save him.

He still might, but for a price Ezra could not have anticipated.

He had suffered numerous humiliations this day and had, again and again, tried to brush them off, but it never quite worked. When Samuel had taken him to a separate room and told him to undress, calm as anything, Ezra had felt himself blush. Heat had creeped to his cheeks, ears and down his neck and he hadn't been able to look Samuel in the eye until the man had demanded it of him.

“I like you, Ezra, and I could help you. But I need to know you are on my side,” is what he had said and Ezra understood that this was his one chance. If he had ever thought that Samuel's elder brother might have even the smallest spark of understanding for him, that hope was now long gone. The younger brother was easier to get along with.

So now he lay before Samuel, naked, on his stomach, wrists cuffed together and legs spread apart, because he was out of options and Samuel was his best bet.

“Do you want this, Ezra?”

He felt a manic laughter rise in his chest and suppressed it vigorously.

“I do,” he said. And he did, for certain values of 'want'. He wanted something, and for now, that something might as well be Samuel.

“That's good then,” Samuel said and Ezra could hear the smile in his voice. “I wouldn't want to force anything on you.”

How Ezra managed not to laugh he would never know.

“But you do understand,” Samuel went on, “that you can't gain anything without paying for it. Right?”

“Yes,” Ezra replied without hesitation because he did know that. And odd as it was, that helped him relax and when Samuel ran his hand up his spine it wasn't even all that bad. He could convince himself that this was what he wanted.

It was a bit harder when Samuel tugged on the blasted collar, made him arch his back like his was on display. He turned his head a bit but still couldn't breath properly. Nothing to do but bear it, he thought, fighting the panic as his vision started to go fuzzy.

Calm. Stay calm.

The world came rushing back to him when Samuel suddenly let go, laughing.

“So well-bred!” he exclaimed with joy, watching Ezra catch his breath. “You'd let me do anything to you, wouldn't you?” He sounded thoughtful and almost kind. He wasn't the enemy, Ezra reminded himself.

Samuel kneeled between Ezra's legs and spread them a little more to make room for himself. With his right he caressed the skin of his thighs, so surprising and intimate that Ezra couldn't hold back a soft gasp.

“I wouldn't want to do anything you don't want,” Samuel explained, hands wandering aimlessly. “So I'm going to tell you what I'm about to do, and you'll let me know that's what you want.”

Ezra didn't answer immediately and suddenly a hand came down on his leg with a loud slap. He made a startled sound; the blow stung.

“Understood?”

“...yes, Samuel.”

He felt Samuel lean over him and then there was a hand pressing his bound wrist into the thin mattress and lips pressing a kiss against his neck. Ezra took a deep breath, forced himself to release some of the tension in his body. His effort was rewarded with another kiss, a little lower.

Samuel's lips were soft and his hair tickled where it brushed against Ezra's skin and that was enough to distract him from anything else until he felt a slick object prod at his bared entrance, making him tense up all over again. The pressure didn't go away though.

“Relax, Ezra, this is going in whether you do or not,” Samuel announced rather matter-of-factly. “You do want me to prepare you, right?”

“Yes, Samuel,” he said at once, even though he didn't quite know how to relay his assent to his body.

“Breath,” Samuel said at length, patiently, and Ezra found his body obey the kind command. The object that Samuel now pushed inside Ezra's body was small, a little wider than a finger at its broadest part, then slender again so when Samuel let go it sat snugly inside of him, keeping him oddly open.

Ezra stared in front of him, wide eyed, seeing nothing, shaking a bit, until Samuel petted and kissed his lower back. It helped him calm down, although the curious sensation did not go away.

“It's a plug,” Samuel said as if that explained it all.

Ezra felt something press against the plug and then let out a surprised groan because it was growing! It was definitely growing and he squirmed, not trying to get away but pressing down against the sheets and Merlin... he hid his face against his arms. He was hard, very much so in fact, and leaking pre-come, staining the cot beneath him.

“Should I make it larger?” Samuel asked, one hand on Ezra's hips, drawing ever closer to where the plug rested.

“Yes, Samuel,” he said and meant it. He felt himself blush with embarrassment, his ears had to practically glow and even his chest and back felt hot, but it felt good, composure be damned, but it felt so good.

He felt the plug grow inside him, more so than before and forced himself to breath through the discomfort. He wanted this. Didn't he?

Ezra found himself losing track of time. Things started to blur together. The plug inside him, ever so slowly increasing in width, Samuel's encouraging words, whispered by his ear, and his erection rubbing against the sheet, teasing and slowly driving him mad.

When Samuel eased the plug out of him Ezra couldn't have stopped the whining sound escape from his throat if he tried. His forehead was pressed against the leather cuffs around his wrists and he licked his lips, tasting salt.

“Please,” he said, unsure what he was even asking for.

“Feels empty, doesn't it?” When Ezra didn't answer promptly Samuel hit him once again, sharply. “Doesn't it?” he repeated, harsher this time.

“Yes... yes, Samuel.” It was like that was all he could say at this point, but it was enough. The pain radiated from his leg through his body and it wasn't even all bad. It was a cacophony of sensations, overwhelming in a good way.

Samuel's hands guided him into a kneeling position with his hips raised up. He held still, incapable of questioning what was happening. Samuel knew what he was doing.

He felt when something started to push its way inside his body, slowly but surely, slick and hard. Weird. And then, suddenly, so very good. Was that his voice? Surely he wouldn't moan with such abandon?

Samuel hadn't undressed completely, just enough so he could – and there was no nicer phrase for it – fuck Ezra through the mattress. He had started out gently but then quickly picked up a faster pace and Ezra found he simply couldn't keep quiet. Each thrust of Samuel's cock inside him, the hands that left bruises on his hips because they gripped him so firmly, the smell of the leather cuffs next to his face, everything heightened the experience.

He gasped, choked. Samuel's hand was at his neck, pulling the collar back. Instinctively he tried to raise his hands but Samuel practically smashed their hips together and he lost his balance.

Distantly he heard Samuel laugh. “Don't fight it. Take it.”

He needed air, needed to breath, but Samuel was merciless. Ezra's mouth was wide open in a desperate attempt to breath. It was no use. Pleasure sparked in his body even as his vision slowly faded. And then Samuel let go.

Air rushed back into his lungs. Nothing had ever felt so good.

Ezra tried in vain to catch his breath, but Samuel's thrusts wouldn't cease, he didn't get a chance to calm himself down.

“Did you like that, hm, Ezra?”

He tried to speak, he really did, but there was just no way. He shook his head, still busy catching his breath. He dreaded what he knew was coming and at the same time awaited it eagerly.

It wasn't just one blow but two, then three, then it just kept going, raining down on his ass and thighs, and it hurt, yes, very much so, but–

“–just like my dear older brother, who would have thought...”

Ezra couldn't make sense of Samuel's words anymore. His arousal and Samuel's assault on his body made it hard to form coherent thoughts, he only knew he was close, knew it from the way his body shivered every time Samuel's cock brushed that point of pleasure inside him. Each strike sent currents of overlapping pain and pleasure right to his cock, he didn't think he'd ever been this hard, this ready to spill.

“Samuel,” he tried to warn him, “Samuel...!”

The beating stopped and instead Samuel's hand circled his erection, squeezing just right.

“Do you want to come, Ezra?”

A tremor ran through his body. “Yes, Samuel,” he managed to answer.

“Good.”

Samuel, too, sounded like he was about to come. His voice sounded breathless and his movements were increasingly erratic. Ezra didn't mind. It was perfect.

“Please...!” he said once more and he had hardly finished the word when Samuel's hand tightened around him and finally, blessedly, wrung an orgasm out of him. Ezra buried his face against the pillow beneath him, screamed his release into the threadbare fabric.

It was the oddest sensation when Samuel followed suit, spilling his seed inside him.

For a while all Ezra could hear was their shared labored breathing, and all he felt was Samuel's weight above him. His body was sluggish, and sore, but he'd be fine as long as he didn't have to move anytime soon.

At long last Samuel pulled out with a pronounced grown and dropped down next to Ezra and half on top of him; the bed wasn't especially wide. Fingers carded through his hair. He didn't much like it but couldn't master the strength to protest. And in any case, what was the point? He might as well bear with it.

Curiosity won out eventually and Ezra raised his head to meet Samuel's gaze. He smiled, but Ezra couldn't return it.

The caress turned rougher for just a moment before Samuel withdrew his hand.

“Satisfied? Nothing you didn't want, right?”

Ezra shook his head and looked away. “Nothing I didn't want.”

As long as it was worth it.

[charmed1998fan]

Can you write a one shot where Phoebe and Jason get back together?

I’ll go you one better, I’ll write a oneshot in which Phoebe and Jason don’t break up in the first place. It’s an AU of the episode Used Karma:

“Jason,”Phoebe said and lightly shook the man passed out on the ground in the kitchen.Jason opened his eyes to find his girlfriend sitting by his side, a concernedlook on her face. Paige was standing by the doorway, also seemingly worried.

“What’sgoing on?” he asked.

“Youfainted, baby,” Phoebe replied.

Uponhearing the answer, Jason’s memory kicked in and he remembered the reason why.“Did you, um…” He did not finish the sentence, finding himself at a loss forwords.

“Comeon, sit here,” Phoebe said, supporting Jason as he got up from the ground andsat on a nearby chair.

“Ifeel like I’ve gone mad or something,” Jason admitted. “I could have sworn Isaw you…” He remembered seeing his girlfriend and her sisters materialize infront of him out of thin air, surrounded by bright lights, but there was no wayhis memory was real… was there?

“Jason,there’s something I need to tell you,” Phoebe said and took a seat next to him.“It’s something I should have told you already, and I’m sorry that I didn’t.”

“What?”

Phoebetook in a deep breath, then announced, “I’m a witch.”

Jasonstared at her for a couple of seconds, then said, “Right! And I’m a vampire.”

“I’mserious, Jason,” Phoebe replied. “That thing you saw before you fainted, thatwas magic.”

“Whatare you talking about?”

“I’ma witch,” she said again. “And so are my sisters. We have powers, we can domagic—real magic. I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now, but I wasafraid you wouldn’t accept it.”

Jasonstared at her once more, then looked at Paige. “Okay, either I’m mad and I’mhearing things, or she’s mad and she actually called herself a witch,” he said,nodding his head toward Phoebe. “Which is it? I swear to god, I can’t tell.”

WhileJason was speaking, Piper arrived downstairs, carrying her baby son in herarms. “Is he okay?” she asked Phoebe, who just sighed in response.

“Isthis all even real or am I just dreaming? Am I still passed out?” Jason asked.

“No,you’re not dreaming. This is real,” Phoebe told him.

“ShouldI show him?” Paige asked. Phoebe gave a shrug, which Paige took as a yes. Shestraightened up, then orbed out from the doorway and in in front of the fridge.

Jasonjumped up from the chair. “WHAT THE FU—”

“Hey!”Piper interrupted him. “Watch your tongue! I have a baby here who just startedsaying ‘mama.’ I don’t want that to be his second word.”

Themortal stared at Paige, eyes and mouth wide open.

“Jason,”Phoebe spoke up, “I know it’s a lot to take in, but—”

“WHATTHE F—”

“Language!”Piper interrupted again.

“—fff…fork?”Jason said, and Piper smiled approvingly.

“Baby,please,” Phoebe tried again. “I understand how shocking this must be for you.It was a surprise to us too when we first found out.”

“You’rereally a witch?” Jason asked, looking at her as if she had grown a second head.

Shegave a nod. “Yeah.”

“Andh-h-how…” he stuttered, then sunk back onto the chair. “Holy mother, I… I-Idon’t… How is… Y-you’re a…”

“Maybewe should give you two some privacy,” Piper suggested. Paige nodded, and thetwo of them left the room.

Jasonlet out a breath and shook his head at Phoebe. “I-I don’t understand. How couldyou keep something like this from me?”

“Jason—”

“We’vebeen in a relationship for almost a year, and it’s only now that you tell me,‘Oh, you know what? Magic is real and I can control it.’ This is a big deal!How could you— How can I trust you if you keep these huge secrets from me?”

“It’sreally just one huge secret,” she pointed out.

“Forgod’s sake, Phoebe! Look, we were in China together for quite some time, right,so maybe you’ve already heard their proverb about lying.”

“Whatproverb?”

“Theone that says that lies are like tigers. ’Cause they’re bad.”

“Idon’t think I’ve heard that before,” Phoebe said.

“Well,I have, and it’s a good proverb, you should live by it!” Jason snapped.

Phoebesighed. “I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I shouldn’t have kept it asecret from you this long. I was afraid that if you knew I have magical powers,you would think I’m a freak and you’d hate me.”

Jasonsnorted. “Go figure!”

“Look,it’s not like I’m an evil witch who turns people into frogs and cackles whiledoing it. I do good. I use my powers to help innocent people, to protect them.”

“How?”Jason asked.

“Well,for starters, I can see the future.”

“What?!”

“Well,sometimes,” Phoebe explained. “It’s not like I know everything that’s going tohappen. Just sometimes I get visions warning me against danger, like…” Shestopped herself before mentioning demon attacks; she figured she should let himprocess the simple existence of witches before going into all that being awitch entails. “…Like, my first vision ever was of two boys getting hit by acar, so I got in their way before it could happen and I saved them.”

Jasonmerely blinked, too shocked to speak.

“AndI can also levitate. You know, hover in the air for bit. And sometimes I canfeel what other people are feeling.”

“Likewhen you said you loved me too!” Jason said, realizing what had happened.“Tha-that was magic, wasn’t it?”

Phoebesucked in her lips, glancing away. “You’re right, it was,” she admitted, “but Ireally do love you.”

“Oh,my god…” Jason let out a breath. “I can’t believe you’re…” He stared into spacefor a few seconds, then looked back at Phoebe. “A-and what about— What wasthat, that thing that Paige did?” he asked.

“It’scalled orbing.”

“Huh?”

“It’sthe power to teleport,” Phoebe answered, and Jason’s jaw dropped. “It’s called‘orbing’ because when you do it, your body disappears and appears in a cloud oflittle light orbs.”

“Whoa,whoa, hang on! You can teleport? As in go from one place to another inthe blink of an eye?”

“Well,Paige can do that, I can’t. We all have different powers.”

“Butbefore I fainted, I-I saw you do that thing, too. You and your sisters, you alldid it,” he pointed out.

“No,Piper and I were just passengers. Paige is the only one of us three who hasthat power, but she can take others with her.”

“Otherslike me?” Jason asked. “Or is it just other witches?”

“No,she can orb anyone.”

“Sowhat you’re saying is that, theoretically, your sister Paige would ableto teleport, say, with me to, say, Paris?”

“Well,yes, theoretically…”

“Andwill she?” Jason asked, his lips curling into a smile.

“Umm…”

“Imean, this is instantaneous, right?”

“Itis.”

“Holycow, Phoebe! With how much I have to travel for work, I mean… Do you realizehow much time I could save if I could teleport? We were gonna spend half a dayon a plane tomorrow, and now you’re telling me we can get to Paris”—he snappedhis fingers—“just like that?”

“Uh,yeah.”

“Really?Will your sister do that for us? Please tell me she will.”

“Um,sure,” Phoebe replied. “Yeah, she won’t mind.”

Jasonclapped his hands. “This is awesome!” he rejoiced. He jumped to his feet, thenbended down to give his girlfriend a kiss on the cheek.

Shechuckled nervously, then asked, “So you’re okay with me being a witch?”

“Oh,Phoebe…” Jason smiled like a child in a toyshop. “I’ve never loved you more!”