#bewitched was a show and the girl at school was wonder woman to me though

[whereisthedamndaddymanual]

I always kinda laughed at the different types of lives our parents came from

Well educated social media analyst (once only *shrugs*)

Poor brilliant devil (if not crazy and wrapped up in hedonism....especially with sex)

A south and a north. The one in the north(fuck you north is still north even easterly which is west)

[stockholmdolly]

Should I?

Summary: He is happy, he's been married for 20 years, he's the co-owner of a very successful bar chain with his best friend since childhood and has a really hot and strong wife at his side, a beautiful redhead named Natasha Romanoff. His first love since high school. He can't ask for anything else.... right? 

Pairings: godfather/uncle!Bucky Barnes x female!reader (try to make her the most neutral possible but her mom is Mexican)

Warnings: smut, age gap (20 years), somnophilia, dub-con but not really, cheating (”uncle” Bucky is married to Natasha) and a lot of bad English grammar hahaha

Word count: 2,791 at least that’s what word said lol 

Author’s note: Hello fanfiction world, it is me! Stockholm Dolly, I’m new to this wonderful world so I’m going to try my luck. Don’t destroy me that much. It’s the first time I write something. I think I switch from 3rd to 1st person, I’m a mess but I’m happy with the result hahaha 

PS. You’re gonna see my hate towards Natasha Romanoff on my stories, yeah, I blame you guys hahaha you always make her the bad guy and my mind can’t unsee that anymore.

He is happy, he's been married for 20 years, he's the co-owner of a very successful bar chain with his best friend since childhood and has a really hot and strong wife at his side, a beautiful redhead named Natasha Romanoff. His first love since high school. He can't ask for anything else.... right? 

Having kids was always something he wanted but Natasha was reluctant to have because she didn't like them, so he agreed to not have children, he was perfectly happy watching his goddaughter grown up to an amazing woman. 

Steve Rogers was always his best buddy, they grew up together, so it made sense that even when married live next to each other. After 30 years of friendship, they're more like family than everything. Steve got married a little later than him, Bucky couldn't wait to make Natasha his partner forever so they got married at 20 years old. But Steve always was different than him, he wanted to be sure about marriage, he wanted to be with a person who be his equal, his first love Margaret was strong, independent and beautiful but something was missing for him, maybe it was how she wanted him to move to London or how she started stranded him from his friends, so he made the decision of breaking things with her. That's when he met his wife, in a weekend getaway, Bucky and him went to Cancun to celebrate a huge merger with a hotel chain. And there she was a beautiful receptionist, he was smitten since the beginning and Bucky had to play wingman because he became a stuttering mess but he got the girl, Valentina is his name, they got married 3 years later in the same hotel in Cancun, and a year later they welcomed their first child, a baby girl named Y/N Rogers-Y/L/N, it wasn't even a question if Bucky and Natasha wanted to be her godparents it was a fact.

Bucky loved the baby girl, was love at first sight, he took care of her when her parents wanted to go out, he taught her to ride a bike, he consoled her when her dad punished or yelled at her, it was like a daughter to him. That's why 20 years later, he can’t believe he's feeling this way.

Everything started one day at night, Natasha was with her sister and he was having alone time, when he looked at his window he saw his goddaughter dancing...in a pole with a little too nothing for wear and he couldn't took his eyes of her, it wasn't a show, she wasn't taking her clothes off, but the sight was enticing, he was bewitched by this woman dancing, enjoying her body, looking damn good, he forced himself out of that trance and went to bed, he couldn't think about anything else, he wanted to be there in first row watching Y/N dancing, he wanted to feel her skin against him, he wanted to be inside her and make her world crumble with his touch. Natasha and him have a weird marriage, maybe it was because they got married at 20 years old, they are good pretending though, they had to do it to keep appearances to all the benefits and bar openings. But they haven't been a real couple for the past 10 years. Slept in different rooms or different places. He loves her, but not in the way he thought he would. He respects their marriage, never have cheated on her, of course, a lot of women throw themselves at him, but he never accept them because he didn't want to be that guy, his ma taught him well.

He was staring at the ceiling trying to think in anything but his goddaughter when the power went off and he could hear a yell, quickly, he got up and looked through the window and Y/N was nowhere in sight, then he heard a knock to his door, hurriedly went to answer and it was Y/N with a huge jumper than only covered till her mid thighs. He was speechless till she spoke.

- Hi uncle Bucky, sorry to bother you but the power went off and I don't want to be alone, I was wondering if I could stay with you and auntie Nat?

uncle Bucky, he thought, it was like a stab in his heart, well, more likely in his pants, because he was thinking not so uncle-y things about her 10 minutes ago.

- Of course, cariño, you know you didn't have to ask, you're more than welcome in our house, just it's going to be the two of us, auntie Nat it's at Yelena's.

- Thank you so much, you're my personal hero. She said hugging him.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and was tempted to lower his hands a little just to feel the swell of her ass but he refrained from her.

- Come in cariño, I’m gonna put some candles in the living room.

they sit beside each other and he took this opportunity to ask. What were you doing?

- Oh, I was practicing my pole dance routine.

- Pole dance huh? You have to show me one time. I bet you're excellent at it.

- Of course, uncle, whenever you want. there was silence in the living room for a moment and the she spoke. I'm a little tired, can I use your guest room?

- Oh, cariño the guest room is being remodeled, something about Nat wanting new vibes. But you can use my bed and I can sleep on the floor.

- Of course not uncle Bucky, I'm not gonna send you to the floor in your own house. Maybe we could.... she hesitated and look flustered about saying this, maybe we could share? Just like when I was younger.

- First of all, I told you a lot of time that you can call me Bucky cariño, second of all are you sure? I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. He was feeling excited about it, but had to play it safe, he didn’t want to scare her.

- Sorry unc… Bucky. Of course, I would feel better if you were beside me. I’m a little scared.

BUCKY’S POV

I lie here and stare into the darkness...watching the outline of her body rise and fall with every breath she takes. I hold myself as still as possible to listen to her. She sounds so sweet and innocent as she sleeps. I slide my hand underneath the covers to touch her. I just can't resist the feeling of her skin. I place my hand on her side and rub it gently with my thumb. She’s so soft and warm to the touch. I hear her sigh softly...I suddenly feel so safe, so content next to her. Yet I yearn to be deep inside of her.

I breathe with her breathing as I think about taking advantage of her. I feel myself slowly growing, underneath the covers. Poking through my boxer briefs. The darkness engulfs us...and the thought of her rocking back and forth on my cock while she slept consumes my mind. I slide up closer, touching the tip of my cock against her thigh. "Should I?" My mind races one hundred miles per hour. I slide my hand underneath and behind her panties to touch her ass...moving in slow circles. My groin aching now, not wanting to make her do something she didn't ask for. "Should I?...Should I?...Should I?" runs through my head like a freight train...Slowly and methodically I slip her silky panties down, working them from side to side down to her knees. I think to myself, "what will I say if she wakes up and finds me pulling her panties off?" The thought slowly fades away into the blackness of the night.

I rub her thigh with my right hand and pull off my boxers with my left.... I jostle the bed a bit and hear her stir in her sleep. I lie very quiet as she takes a deep breath and turn to her back. I'm not sure if she’s awake or half-awake or not at all. I wait patiently a few moments before continuing. I pull my boxer shorts off all the way after what seems like an eternity. I creep in closer to her.

My eyes have adjusted to the light now, so I slide the covers off of us to look at her lying there almost completely naked. I run my hands down both of her sides softly and slip her panties off past her knees, down to her ankles and onto the floor. Feeling now very daring that I've made it this far without waking her, I get to my knees and start move her legs apart. I feel as though I'm about to pop so I give myself a few strokes to keep from fucking her brains out. I move in between her legs...

Looking down at her.... lingering on her face to see the expression as she sleeps. I lean over and give her a kiss on her cheek and play with her hair just a little. I kiss my way down to her neck and worship it my tongue and lips. I hungrily sample her breasts with my mouth, tugging at her nipples with my teeth. I feel myself getting tingly and warm inside as her nipples perk up and harden in my mouth. I suckle them for a few moments more, savoring every second of her beautiful breasts before I kiss my way down to her navel. I trace a circle around it with my tongue.

Feeling so confident now I bring my hand up and rest it on her mound stroking it softly. I raise my head to see the expression on her face. What was once a peaceful look upon her face, has turned into something of a soft smile. I focus on her kissable lips for a few moments and move my hand further south. Watching closely, the expression on her face I tease her pussy lips a little. I spread them apart to feel her warmth with my eager fingers. A deep sigh escapes her mouth as I slowly but surely slide my finger into her. I hold my breath and stop for a moment, sitting in the dark with my finger inside of her up to my second knuckle.

Mind racing again, this time I think I can’t hold myself back much longer. My throbbing cock is on fire it seems, and I feel the only way to quench this flame is to bury it deep inside of her sex. I withdraw my finger and bring the nicely coated digit to my mouth. I suck on it for a moment like a child with a lollipop. She’s so sweet to my taste buds. I think for a moment, "Why did I do that? Now I'm really in need of more..." I pump myself a few times to tame my thoughts to no avail. Her pussy looks so much more inviting than ever.

I sit back for a moment to try and calm myself down. I try to look away from her. My eyes wander back somehow. I glance at her eyes and think of how easily it is for me to get lost in them with one simple expression on her face. I see her delicious breasts again. I think about how I could spend hours just worshipping each of them…playing with them in my mouth.... caressing them with my hands...squeezing them so firmly in my hands. I shiver. I look down further. Her pussy is glistening in the moonlight coming from the window. I squint further to make sure of what it is. She’s are dripping wet. "Is she awake? Have I gotten her excited in her sleep?" I mouth to myself.

I can't keep my hands off myself. I slide closer to her in preparation of what I am about to do. I try to rationalize with myself not to do what I'm getting ready to do, but it seems I move closer. I lean down and give her inner thigh a kiss. Not only do I want to put my lips against your skin, but I need to whiff her familiar smell that she emulates, into my nostrils. She’s so sexy I have to hold back from just burying my face into her right then and there. I slide my knees underneath me to get a better angle and spread her legs apart slowly.

I lean in and put my throbbing cock to her shimmering pussy lips, touching the head to it. Slowly, but surely, I stimulate my head by rubbing it vertically against her. I coat the tip with her juices, hoping to squelch some of the fire building up in me. It only rises further, and I find myself pushing into her. I look down just in time enough to see me guide the slippery end penetrating her cunt. The ridge of the head becomes engulfed and slips into her opening.

I feel something suddenly. She’s lifting her hips, stretching in her sleep. My heart skips a beat. I look down at her face and see her eyes blinking. I run through a multitude of things I might have to say to her as she looks drearily up at me. I smile nervously, speechless. I've given into my innermost desires, and I'm not sure how she'll react to my obvious weakness to her hypnotic body. She smiles back at me with a sleepy smile and bring her hand to touch my cheek. And I hear the sweetest music of it all, keep going uncle Bucky, please, feels so good. I breathe out deeply with relief, she’s obviously enjoying this as much as I am. Still somewhat unaware of what is going on, she raises her hips more to meet her curious fingers. Her eyes open wide and her pussy jolts around the head of my cock. She’s surprised, but pleased that she found me there inside of her.

Looking deeply into my eyes in the dark, licking her lips, she tells me harder uncle bucky, please, ruin me I know that look on her face. I grin. She push herself onto me. Wrapping that silken pussy around my cock makes my jaw drop. I shudder, she’s so warm inside. Go on cariño, fuck yourself on my cock, you’re so fucking tight and wet, I never want to be outside this pussy.

I lift her legs up around my waist and she lock her ankles. I push myself in deeper and she sigh loudly in content. She contracts her pussy muscles around me. I hold her hips firmly and pull her to me. I lean in and press my pelvis into her clit and gyrate my hips. She tells me "more" in a moaning, robust voice, and I push in harder...increasing my rhythm, grinding myself into her clit while my cock explores her pussy walls. I groan loudly and I move quicker, now separating myself from her to draw away and crash back into her. She purrs and whimpers at the same time as my engorged cock feeds hungrily inside of her dripping wet sex. Her body heating up, bringing mine up to temperature as we meet in the middle.

Both sweating and breathing heavily, we collide with each other. Round after round of skin slapping against itself. Her pussy convulses around my cock as it slides in and out of her, hard, my hands grip tightly the headboard. Her body tenses and her back arches. She cries out into the night, sending me over the edge. I spurt my hot, cum into her. Her walls clench around my cock as she milks it for everything its worth. Feeling herself fill up, she climaxes with the most amazing and pornographic sound I've ever heard. A warm river of our own mixture flows out of her. I slip two fingers into her pussy to grab the mixture of our fluids and feed it to her, she cleans my fingers clean with eagerness, and I’m just can’t help but admire her beautiful fucked face. Fuck cariño, you’re so beautiful

She relaxes and I collapse on top of her. My head falls to her chest, softened by her breasts like a warm pillow. We pant together, catching each our breath. Our tense muscles, so loose now, bodies pressed together with my cock deep inside her warm, safe haven, we are leaning to kiss each other when I hear the door of the bedroom open, and there she stands…. Natasha, my wife.

[ipuckwithhockey]

Easier Said Than Done- M. Tkachuk

a/n: So this is just a little snippet of something I’m working on. Not sure if I’ll run with this or not, I just kind of want to get a feel for if people are interested. Let me know if y’all want more. 

Warnings: None

——

Matthew had no idea what he was doing here. He definitely didn’t fit in and he felt like he was sticking out like a sore thumb. He walked through his captain’s home, taking in the over the top decor that Lauren had draped throughout the house. Matthew didn’t understand why an eight year old needed an extravagant birthday party, but he could see how kids would probably think this was cool as hell. The theme was Minecraft and there was everything from life-sized creepers to a gigantic Minecraft bouncy house in the backyard. 

Kids were running about and parents were congregating around the house. Matthew wasn’t really sure where to go or what to do so he continued to wonder through the house until he finally found Gio. 

“Chucky! There you are!” Gio was in a group of other parents when he spotted the curly headed boy awkwardly walking around his home. He waved him over and introduced him. 

The captain had invited him to his son’s birthday in an attempt to kickstart his new, more mature lifestyle. People had been urging Matthew to leave his wild bachelor days behind. He had an A on his sweater now, and it wasn’t for adultery— well at least not yet and Gio thought that bringing him around some more adults and showing him how happy he could be if he settled down would be a good idea. What he hadn’t factored in to the equation was the babysitter. 

You used to be a staple in the Giordano home as you were their first choice of babysitter on any given day. That was back when you were in undergrad, and since you’ve embarked on your journey through law school, you’ve had to cut back on the hours you spend with kids. Lauren and Mark were sweet enough to invite you to the birthday party, saying that the kids missed you but that they missed you even more. You really couldn’t say no, and so you found yourself walking up the front pathway to their home on a beautiful Sunday morning. 

As you made your way through their home you admired Lauren’s dedication to throwing a perfectly curated party, even if it was for an eight year old. You’ve babysat for a few of their friends as well and they greet you happily as you move through the house and out to the backyard. 

The kids spot you first and before you know it you’ve got two little ones climbing you like a tree. You’re definitely regretting wearing a short sun dress that’s only being held up by two thin straps now, but the kids don’t seem to mind as they greet you enthusiastically, asking you a million questions and telling you how much they’ve missed you. You can’t be mad though, you love these kids and their parents. Mark and Lauren have always been more than generous to you and their kids, although wild, were total sweethearts who had won you over immediately. 

“Hey, hey, hey. Leave her be!” Gio comes running over shooing the kids away and back toward the bouncy house. 

“Sorry hun, they don’t know you’re off the clock today.” He says. 

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve missed those little rascals.” You reply as he takes you in for a quick hug. 

“Well, you can take them if you want!” You laugh at that. Mark likes to joke about getting rid of his kids, but you know he’s a family man at heart, and he wouldn’t give them up for the world. He’s asking you about school when Lauren walks up, bringing you into a big hug. It’s funny standing there with them looking so proud that you’re doing so well in law school. Since you moved to Calgary they’ve been like your second set of parents and you’re realizing now how much you’ve really missed them in your life.

Lauren is quick to whisk you away so that she can show you the new curtains in Mark’s office. The two of you had slaved over dozens of books of fabric samples, trying to find the perfect fit and a fabric that would get the approval of her husband. It took months and while you thought it was comical to put this much effort into upholstery, you always had fun indulging in these luxuries with Lauren. 

“What do you think? I think they turned out so great!” Lauren says she admires the curtains. You have to give it to yourself, you guys did a great job picking our this fabric. They look great and you’re sure that Mark really doesn’t care, but when he finally approved a fabric that you both also liked, it was worthy of a big celebration. 

“So, tell me about everything! We haven’t talked in so long, and don’t tell the others but none of our other babysitters compare to you!” She says. 

“Everything’s good, I’m stressed and all I really do is eat, sleep, and study, but it’s good. I miss you guys though.” You say simply. 

“Well, you’ll just have to come over more often! Even if it’s not for the kids, I need some Y/N time. You know our doors are always open!” She replies. “And if you’re stressed, then we’re definitely scheduling a shopping date, and don’t worry, it’s on me!” You don’t have words for how much you love this woman. She’s like a big sister and mom all in one, and you can’t do anything but bring her in for a hug in response. You talk a bit more, but she has to get back to her hosting duties so you let her go and you slowly wonder back through the house, stopping in the kitchen to grab a beer before heading out to play with the kids. 

Matthew spots you as you’re running around with the kids. It looks like the kids are playing tag and you’re obviously letting them tag you out. It’s like everything is moving in slow motion as you running around with your hair flowing gracefully behind you and the skirt of your dress rippling in the wind. He’s entranced and he doesn’t even notice when Gio walks up beside him. 

“Don’t even think about it.” He says bluntly. 

“Think about what?” Matthew says, trying to play it cool, like he wasn’t just checking out the girl still running around with his kids. 

“Oh, come on man, I’ve seen that look a hundred times. She’s a nice girl. She used to be our babysitter but she’s in law school now, and doesn’t need you coming into her life to break her heart.” He scolds Matthew, and Matthew knows that he definitely has the right to say it but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. There was a part of him that did want to settle down, to find the girl that would be his wife, and leave his single life behind. It was just easier said than done. 

As much as Matthew wanted to ignore Gio, and walk up to you and lay it on thick, he also respected his captain way too much to disobey him, especially in his own home. Instead, he told Gio he would stay away, and that night he went home thinking about a beautiful girl he couldn’t have.

Was it just the fact that he wasn’t allowed to have her? Or was it that her eyes were full of joy and her smile could cure the world of sadness that had him so bewitched? 

[ginnyweasleymybeloved]

heartbeat on the high line / fred weasley

unresolved angst for freddie because i felt like it <3

summary: fred broke your heart a long time ago and a walk through diagon alley brings up old memories for the both of you

word count: 2.9 k

warnings: post-war timeline, mentions of torture sort of?, mentions of being underweight because of said torture, fluff sort of if you squint?, angst, open ended, tiny mention of death, let me know if i missed anything!! <3

let me know what you think <3

this is based on the song “cardigan” by taylor swift but it’s not a song fic <3

Skies of dark grey released heavy sheets of rain onto the cobblestone streets below, the pitter-patter of the torrential downpour barely muted the sound of your high heels against the all too familiar stone street. A stark black umbrella held primly above your head shielded you from the typical English weather as you strutted through Diagon Alley.

Truthfully, you hadn’t planned on showing your face in the magical hotspot, not so soon after the war anyway. Years worth of memories haunted every twist and turn of the street you seemed to own in the moment, light grey stones darkened and slick from the rain completely devoid of any feet other than your own.

You recalled all of the significant moments, each bookmarked by a certain area of the various alleys. Flourish & Blotts; where you’d met your first love all those years ago, at the age of eleven you’d been so bright eyed and sure of the future, sure of him. In the distance you could make out the bright orange exterior of Weasleys’ Wizard wheezes; where you’d walked away from your first love, all those years later however not so long ago that the sight of his legacy, as vibrant and joy inducing as it always had been, didn’t elicit an uncomfortable pang to spring in your chest. As you progressed past Olivander’s, your lips quirked up ever so slightly as the aging paint of the shop expelled all misconceptions you had about the boy who still haunted all of your “What If?”s, the lightly rusting windows screaming at you as if to remind you that, actually, he hadn’t been your first love. Olivander’s Wand Shop had been the true site of your first love and you’d found that first taste of true, pure, untainted love in the form of your phoenix feather core, thirteen inch, English oak wand.

A wistful giggle left your lips, your feet unmoving, rain lashing down aggressively and sliding off the edges of your umbrella, creating streams of water that fell around you but never got close enough to you to so much as dampen your outfit. Losing yourself in the joy of recalling how happy you’d been upon being chosen by your fateful wand, you failed to notice the familiar frame who had made his way to the doorway of the shop. The creaking of the old door pulled you from your thoughts, a dazzlingly grin broke out on your face as Mr. Olivander himself leant against his propped open door, keeping himself dry inside the comfort of his warm shop.

A grin similar to yours adorned his lips as he called out rather loudly over the rain, “I do recall that smile getting you out of quite a bit of trouble, back in your Hogwarts days,” your smile only widened at his recollection.

“To this day it’s the secret to my success,” you beamed jokingly as Olivander shook his head and released a low chuckle. He had no doubt that you’d be going places, ever since the first moment he’d clapped eyes on you he knew you were destined for success, of course, it was also no wonder that bewitching smile of yours had helped you get there. Like your wand; you chose your company carefully, held nothing but passion for the things you craved, were fiercely determined and surprisingly flexible without breaking your morals.

“I also recall thinking you’d grow up to become one of the brightest witches this country had ever seen. It seems as though you proved me right, dear girl,” he spoke with such reverence that you almost wished to cower away from his gaze, however, you held your confident stance and let your smile melt into an adoring grin once more.

“Don’t act as though you had nothing to do with it, sir,” your voice carried through the wall of worsening rain between yourself and the older wizard, “If it hadn’t been for your encouragement during the war, I think I’d have simply given up in the cellar of Malfoy Manor,” it was a dark time, of course it was, it had been a war after all. You supposed, the love you held for your coveted wand extended to the man who had supplied it to you in the first place; Mr. Olivander, he was more than just the slightly daft wand shop owner, he had been- for longer than you cared to remember- your cellmate, the man who had slid you his rations from across the dungeon when you’d faded to nothing but skin on bones, the one who encouraged you to pursue your dreams of becoming a journalist with the hopes of shining light on issues far more important than the ones covered by that roach Rita Skeeter. He was a lot of things, but above all else, he was your friend.

“Now, now dear,” he chastised teasingly, the mischievous twinkle in his eyes as lively now as it had been on the day he was born, and, every day since, “You better be getting to Gringotts. Lots of galleons and sickles to collect I’m sure. Being the head of the Daily Prophet surely keeps those money bags heavy, eh?”

Your laugh echoed through the street one again, your lips which were painted black, supplied him with the very best smile you could possibly muster. “I suppose I should get going. Look after yourself.” Olivander shot you a wink before retreating back into his shop.

A familiar lamp caught your attention, the ghosts of your past passions rising as brutally as the rain fell. You could remember it, clear as day.

His laughter mingled with yours, the hearty belly laughs bellowing through the darkened street as the pair of you stumbled out of The Leaky Cauldron in the early hours of the morning, systems altered by the copious amounts of fire whiskey you’d managed to consume. His hand held yours in a tight grasp, he swung your interconnected arms childishly.

One second you’d been walking and the next he was twirling you around beneath the spotlight of the flickering post above you. Drunkenly, you’d spun your little heart out, spurred on by his slightly slurred, yet somehow sweet, singing. He admired you as you shimmied ahead of him, completely free, fresh out of school and not yet weighed down by the darkness that loomed in the distance. When your eyes caught his you shot him a smile, he knew it well, it was the smile, it shun like sequins when they caught light and he knew it was worth more than all of the gold in Gringotts. You beckoned him over to you with a finger, taking his hand when he got close enough you spun him around and laughed weightlessly.

The feeling of his hands gripping your waist would be imprinted on your skin for as long as you lived, you’d thought, charmed by the look in his brown eyes when you internally swore that you would’ve loved him for a lifetime.

What you didn’t know, as you shook off the phantom hands on your waist, was that he’d seen your eyes that night and despite his heavily intoxicated state, he noted your devotion and even now, when he’d lay awake and think of you; it was that look and that sequinned smile that haunted him. Just as the streets of Diagon Alley haunted you.

Thinking of the sequence of events that led you to walking away from the person you’d honestly believed to be your once in a lifetime, perhaps even your once in twenty lifetimes, or infinite lifetimes, did nothing but torment your already scarred heart. He was always hard to pin down, how could he not be? With a face like his and the world wrapped around his finger, he knew he didn’t have to settle for only one of each thing.

Chasing two girls excited him, at the time. All of the secret keeping, high stakes secret meet ups, illicit affairs and sensual politics had kept him energised. Until the novelty wore off and he was left with nothing but a side-piece whose favourite colour he hadn’t bothered to learn. But he’d known yours, he knew everything about you, he still did. He knew you, he remembered how you’d stared at him, eyes heavy with betrayal and filled to the brim with tears the day you’d confronted him, your bags already packed as you made it clear that; yes, you love him, but no, he couldn’t fix this. No matter how hard he’d fought to change the ending to your fairytale-esq love story, you’d slipped through his fingers like water.

Various knick knacks that had once been yours still lived in his flat, above the shop you’d encouraged him to open, back in school. For weeks, your scent lingered like a tattoo kiss on his skin, his clothes, his bedsheets, his everything as a constant reminder that he’d forced you away. He’d practically paid for your ticket for the last train out of London that day. He told himself that he was only seventeen; what on Earth did he truly know about love? And again he reasoned; he knew you.

Months before the war he swore time and time again that he’d seen your face amongst the busy, condensed crowds of Diagon Alley. On countless occasions he found himself chasing down strangers like a madman, hoping for nothing more than to catch even a glimpse of the woman who made his heart smile as beautifully as she herself did.

Chin tilted upwards as you passed his renowned joke shop, you walked with a sense of importance willing your feet not to stop, but you couldn’t deny the urge you had to check up on him.

The last time you’d seen him, the world around you had been in complete chaos. You’d only just been saved from the months of endless torture you were forced to endure. Nothing like now, you’d been frail and weak and hollow. But still, you’d saved his life. Without a word you’d saved him from being crushed, as if he had been just another person to save, as if he hadn’t shared the most intimate of moments with you, before rushing back off, back into the fray until the battle had been won. That was the last time he’d seen you in the flesh and he ached to see you again- so he could thank you, so he could tell you that he was grateful to be alive but his life wouldn’t be worth half as much if he never got to hold you in his arms again.

The rain smashed unyieldingly against the windows of the shop as he worked on the tills, the shop was unusually empty, nobody willing to do any sort of shopping on a day so miserable. With a bored sigh, he stared out the large window before him, only one woman walked the street, an umbrella struggling to fight off the rain. The raindrops that accumulated on the window blurred his view of the lady’s face but there was no amount of rain in the world that could hide your signature strut of defiance from him.

Quickly he scampered out from behind the counter, “George! Watch the counter!” He screeched, bombing it out the front door while George released a tired sigh, hoping his twin wasn’t regressing back to his chasing strangers phase.

As soon as he’d entered the open air, he was completely soaked to the bone. Your heels clacking like the countdown on a ticking time bomb as Fred stood frozen as few meters behind you. His hair sopping wet, his shirt sticking to his body and his face completely desperate as he called your name.

His heart was beating so aggressively that he was positive you could hear it from up the street. You’d stopped in your tracks upon hearing his voice, your stomach erupting with butterflies while simultaneously dropping in anticipation when you turned to face him.

“You’re here,” he stated dumbly, swallowing the lump in his throat as he took you in. As beautiful as you’d always been, he carefully inched towards you, you stayed rooted in your spot but let him advance on you. The phantom feeling of his strong hands on your waist clouded your judgment and made you long to have him come back to you.

You nodded your head, “I’m here.”

Fred nodded too, exhaling a deep breath now that he was sure he wasn’t imagining your presence as he had countless times before. Before either of you knew it, you were standing within arms length of each other, however, far too unsure to touch. The rain was roaring and Fred began to blink rapidly, the water hitting his eyes ruthlessly before you took a single step forward and saved him from the onslaught of droplets. You were close now, so close Fred could smell your perfume and see every detail of your face. The handle of your spacey umbrella rested in between the both of you, acting like a barrier so he wouldn’t tug you against his shaking form and hug the daylights out of you.

“You never let me say thank you,” he started, tears very quickly forming to mix with the raindrops that slid down his freckled face. “At the battle. If you hadn't been there, Y/n, I would’ve died.”

“Don’t say that,” you begged, you’d mulled the scenario of “what if I’d been too late?” over in your mind, more times than you were willing to admit, and the image of Fred cold and dead, despite how terribly he’d hurt you, made your gut wrench so violently that you thought you might be sick. “I was there. That’s all that matters.”

His brows furrowed and suddenly the hands on your waist weren’t that of a past ghost anymore, they were his; very real and in the moment. “Why didn’t you stay? After you saved me you just ran off, I couldn’t find you after it was over-“ his voice was so vulnerable, it cracked and hitched and you forced yourself to cut him off, your umbrella shaking in your hand.

“Because I didn’t want you to see me like that- the way I was after Harry got the others and I out of Malfoy’s,” you told him honestly, biting back tears as you offered him more elaboration while he shook his head in a frantic sort of disbelief, “I was weak and skeletal, I couldn’t face you. Not when I saw the way you looked at me.”

“I looked at you the same!” He exclaimed and you tugged your bottom lip between your teeth.

“Exactly, Fred! I was vulnerable and damaged beyond belief and even after everything- every screaming match, or slammed door or horrible words that we wish we could take back you still looked at me like I was your favourite thing!” You rambled, chest heaving painfully as you tried, uselessly, to keep your building tears at bay. Fred didn’t waste a second before he was pulling the umbrella from you and tossing the thing, that had become more of a hindrance than a help, away from you before he cupped your cheeks urgently.

Rain enveloped the both of you and Fred knew he shouldn’t have been thinking it, but merlin, you seemed to glow in the rain and he acknowledged the fact he’d been aware of all along; you were truly an angel.

“Because you were! You are,” his voice was dripping with honest desperation, “I might not have known anything else back then but I knew I missed you, I knew that hurting you would be the worst thing I ever did and when I saw you that day I knew I still loved you and my life wasn’t worth living if it wasn’t spent with you!” You were at a loss for words at his shouted, emotionally charged confession. His eyes searched yours for the look that haunted him, the promise to love him forever that was hidden beneath your irises and after the next words slipped from his lips, he thought that maybe he’d uncovered it.

“I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make things up to you. You’re quite literally the only reason my heart is beating and I’d sooner actually die than let you go one more second thinking that you aren’t the greatest thing that has ever happened to me in my stupid, idiotic life.”

[windsweptlassie]

On Love

So as you know I made this uquiz with an open-ended question at the end, tell me something about love, and I’ve gotten the most wonderful responses! They range from descriptions of wonderful partners: 

Lauren: oh, how long I went without being myself until I met him and he showed me who I truly was and that my worth was higher than I ever thought was possible

Levi: I love who we are with each other. I love who I am with you. In your company I am me. In your company I am the best of me. The best with the best, I've told you. I wouldn't give you up for anything

Daniel: i fell in love for the first time when i was 17... at the time, i didn’t realize it was the first time, i thought i’d been in love before, a couple times actually, but falling in love at 17 was such a fulfilling experience, it felt so forceful yet so right. it’s when i first truly understood what love was. never before had i felt so understood and so cared for as i did when i was in love with her, and she was in love with me. it’s been nearly 4 years since then, and nearly 3 years since we broke up and stopped talking, and still, i think about her almost every day. i’ve never known anyone like her; to me, she was love itself.

El: oh i’m in love with everyone that i know op!!! especially my girlfriend, of course ,but also my friends and my family and random people on the street and uh

Grace: i’ve met my soulmate and we plan on getting an apartment and marrying after college

A: I’m going to ask the woman I love to marry me and I just wanted to tell someone because I am so excited

Jeremy: you ever have that feeling where basically after years of denying that someone couldnt understand you in a way or love you and then the next thing you know you happen to find that person and its just great from then on out? idk how to explain it anyways I love my boyfriend so much he means the world to me

Lucy: i am so happy i have found the one i love

to descriptions of best friends and favorite people:

Nightbyrd: Love is a hug from an alzheimer's patient who hasn't the foggiest idea who you are, but they know you're worth hugging.

H: I have been doing so much yoga with my roommate recently!! It's a great way to center my mind for an hour

Riv: [platonic] i’ve literally never met anyone who understands me in the way that my best friends do. they’re literally the best people in the whole world and i genuinely don’t know what i’d do without them. i love them with my whole heart

Cillian: when i talk about how much i love my best friend i get so teary eyed because i cant believe that such a genuinely wonderful person wants to speak to me every day - i care for her more than anyone else on this planet

O: my two besties are my sources of happiness and they’re so pretty i would die for them :D

to beautiful quotes:

Kai: "you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on." DARCYYYY PLS MY HEART CANT HANDLW THIS PAIN

Dorian: When the plane went down in San Francisco, I thought of my friend M. He’s obsessed with plane crashes. He memorizes the wrecked metal details, ____the clear cool skies cut by black scars of smoke. Once, while driving, he told me about all the crashes: The one in blue Kentucky, in yellow Iowa. How people go on, and how people don’t. It was almost a year before I learned that his brother was a pilot. I can’t help it, I love the way men love. (accident report in the tall, tall weeds- ada limon, bright dead things)

Adam: every day I think about lemony snicket I will love you if I never see you again I will love you if I see you every Tuesday or however it goes. and it KILLS ME. love only fits in small things

Hero: “Your heart beats in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God’s… The divine magnet is in you, and my magnet responds.” - Herman Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne

Mary: "Love is watching someone die."

Alex: "meet me at blue diner, i'll take coffee and talk about nothing baby"

Sparrow: "How dare you love me like you've never known fear?" and "For you, the world," and "Darling, I was born to press my head between your shoulder blades," and "Will you start where I end?"

V: " You want to die for love. You always have. " and "someone will remember us, I say, even in another time" are living rent free in my mind 24/7 and I'm shaking. When will I finally be not the only one falling ?

Sahar K: To love another person is to see the face of god!!!

Miriam: all the love in the world is useless when there is total lack of understanding- kafka

Juls: Don’t you think they are maybe the same? Love and attention

to practices of love:

Leo; i love feeling happy bc somebody that i love is happy and comfortable....like its not about me i just love seeing you smile. we are safe together...idk i just feel it bro

A: I like to think love is leaning on each other during the light or dark days. Its a personal mission of mine to find out who I am and what I want. Yet I never seem to find my place in this world and as I look and look , I realise the only place I can be myself even with or without the efforts to find myself was done on that day or not, I am always tired so shall I lean on you? And you can lean on me as well. I shall be your fig tree and you shall be my favourite willow tree.

L: It's too late at night to be soul searching, but it's a journey we all seem to find ourselves on these days.

Anthi: feeling safe and at home, I guess (also I love frogs)

Julia: ive found that loving someone is like becoming your own thesaurus. you have to find or come up with infinite ways to say, you’re beautiful, or, i love you. it’s a gift

Galexies: ive been writing letters to the person i'd love one day since i was 14. i write them in a little journal usually, but i've been digitizing them into emails and sending them to one account that i'll give to them someday. i'd like to put pictures, but i haven't been outside much recently so theres that. i wonder if they'd like the sunsets i have on file, or if they'd find my cat cute in a bowtie.

Caeles: Love is sharing fruit slices and making someone tea at random

Dundy: Love is sending your friends cursed shit and watching them react in horror

to crushes and potential loves: 

Jess: I have a crush on my roommate. It sucks, but it's also wonderful. I get to be around him all the time when we're at school. we share a life together; it's rather domestic. I think a lot about marrying him and being domestic with him forever. It won't happen, and I'll move on eventually, but I'll be happy with him for as long as I can. I hope you feel loved tonight, because you are. Sleep well.

Aki: I so desperately want to believe that love is fake because I’ve seen what happens when loved ones leave but whenever I start to convince myself that I’ll never love anyone my best friend messages me telling me she loves me. She’s the only person I’ve ever pictured having a future with but love scares me and I don’t really know what to do but I think as long as she’s with me in some way, I’ll be fine

Hi: her her i keep thinking abt her.... gonna see her in 8 days or so i really miss her. its ok if shes never gonna love me like i want her to really being her friend spending time with her makes me the happiest girl on earth.... outsold antidepressants

Kit: this guy i have a crush on has hypnotically dark brown eyes and he's wonderful and shows me kindness like no one else

Juno: my crush has all the stars in his eyes

Mads: When I have the courage to meet my eyes with hers, the world stands still

Be Nice To Me: Look bro I never do these but I am yearning to hold them SO badly right now and someone needs to know it besides me

to the trials of love: 

Pppppp: I just wanna love like from the movies and what I read about.. but everyone tells me that that’s fictional and rare to find in the real world and it sucks bc it seems like all the guys I’ve met are terrible and the norms of society are all about not respecting women and uthdjdjdk

Manny: I have been in love before and I will be again but I’m not now and I miss it

Ok: I don't think I've ever been in love, though I love many people. I am waiting for the day I look at someone and can say, YES. IT'S YOU.

Chloe: idk rn i'm like okay with my love and i'm happy so we'll see i'm just a little cautious rn bc my last partner told me i didn't know how to love

L: love is so fucking complicated I don't even know where to start

Corrin: He’s not real and it worried me that I will never allow myself to live or be loved because I will always be waiting for him

Sean: Good luck it dont exist

Serena: i want 2 b in love :(( </3

13: I don’t know anymore

M: I just really don’t like dealing with it lol

to beloved characters: 

Janaya: I’m madly in love with my comfort and kin character and I hope maybe in the afterlife I can relive a life with him in some sort of dimension

Jhgjdf: when i was a kid i had a crush on ash ketchum from pokemon and id always daydream about being a female pkmn trainer and meeting him and we fall in love

to advice and prose: 

Mikolai: Love is earth, gentle and soft at first flight but upon being broken, drowns you in the dry choking wastes of its consequences...

Thex: Your hands will not go cold without someone to hold them. I am here. I will be here.

Kat: it is the nearest proof to god that i find myself surrounded by people who love in a way that complements so wonderfully the way i love

H: believe in love out of spite believe in love to prove everyone wrong believe in love because you were told not to and we will not do what we’re told anymore believe in love because it’s the strongest act of teenage rebellion we have left believe in love because it’s easier not to and when is easy worth doing? believe in love because everything says otherwise but you are untouchable, you are your own, you are not made by their design believe in love because, perhaps, you are love

Ali: I used to want a kind of love that feels like coming home and now I want nothing more than to be away from home on many different adventures

Em: you dont need to love yourself to accept it from others

to the small, the simple, and the sweet:

Ireal: Poems

O: Flowers

Fay: ah im sorry that i’m feeling unmotivated but you are very kind.

Ad: we love LOVE

A: <3

Isak: small things

H: intense

Hey: Listening to a clock ticking away

S: her

E: <3

Hania: Amorous, I adore that word ^^

Catboy: wholesome

J: i love love so much it hurts

Emmy: hi i love the song darkest of discos!! try and give it a listen!! <3

Nora: Love is painful, but most of the time love is great

Ariel: i like the comfort it can bring

M: i love love

to food!

Cool Whip: Matzoh ball soup!!

Woop: I love sausages.... I hope that's ok with you?

and animals too <3

Nee: hmm i have pet geckos and i love them very much!

96: raccoons ????

DJ Big Penis: cats

:3: I Love frogs,,, love is stored in the frog,,,

I hope that this serves as a sweet compilation of what love means! Love to all of you, it warms my heart so much to hear about your people and your geckos and your characters and soup and all the songs and quotes you love. <3 Strength to all of you who are figuring out to do about your feelings for your crush, and congratulations to you who are proposing or moving in with your person! Your words are a source of light to me, truly.

[for-ests]

Falling For You- Tom Holland x Reader (Part 2)

Part 1

Word count: 4, 073

Warnings: None 

✭♡✭♡✭♡✭

Tom scanned the park for you, feeling his nerves grow with each passing moment. What will you think of him now? Did you still like him?

He sighed loudly as he watched the cars pass by. Your bewitching smile refused to leave his head. 

He had been nervous all day, knowing that deep inside, he needed you more than ever. You were more beautiful than he remembered, your maturity radiant and refutable. How did he miss the potential you promised? 

This date was impulsive. But Tom couldn't deny how long he'd been waiting to see you again. With how much he had missed you, the only cure was to try and mend things. 

If only he had been more courageous back then. If only... if only. 

He never got the chance to tell you how he felt back then. And now, the young man was starting to second guess himself. His heels began to ache from standing in an awkward position for too long, eyebrows narrowing as he wondered if you would appreciate what he had planned out. 

Tom was too shy, too self-conscious. But thankfully, his trip to America had settled those conflicting thoughts. He was now a different person on the inside and the outside. More confident, physically, and mentally. 

He had worked so hard to improve his acting skills; with hard work came success. He'd been working out regularly for months now, and his body was starting to sculpt into the complexion he'd always dreamed of having. Now, all that was missing was a woman by his side. Tom may have changed his appearance, but he was still the same softie his parents had raised him to be. He still cared for his home, his family, and his friends. That would never change, no matter how famous he got.

Just like his feelings for you. He had hoped and prayed they would go away in time, but they kept growing stronger. When he saw your face last night in the pub, it all came crashing down like a tidal wave. 

He remembered your tenderhearted ways, how you had always been there for him even when he didn't deserve it. He was too childish to realize it then, but he was deeply in love with you and didn't know how to deal with it. Tom had not been ready, even if he desperately wanted to be. 

He could tell the same realization happened to you. It was evident in your eyes, in your reserved yet hopeful body language, and in the slight blush that crept along your cheeks every time he uttered your name. 

The passion was still there. It had to have been, or else you wouldn't have said yes. 

Tom leaned against the chain-linked fence, glancing back every once in a while just to see if you had arrived.

He wanted to see you so badly. The anxiety was killing him. What if you didn't show up? The anxious boy grimaced. That would be reasonable. That's essentially what he did to you. He left without saying goodbye. 

He felt so much better about himself now, but that didn't mean you would take him back. What if you secretly hated him? The romantic side of him that he had saved for you was just waiting to emerge, begging and grasping for attention. 

It was starting to cloud his consciousness. 

Tom exhaled deeply and scrolled through his Instagram feed, reading a few recent comments that fueled his ego. He had about 200k, which was good for an amateur actor who hadn't landed any starring roles. A small fan base was better than nothing, and all of this newfound attention was from his own hard work and dedication. 

But he was getting there, his dream role was a few weeks away. That audition would mean everything, but for now, he needed someone to help take his mind off things. You were the perfect person to do so. The person who always did, back before all of this started. Even before he was able to pursue his dream. The thought of losing you permanently had always scared him, so much so that he wasn’t able to form a proper goodbye. One that caused all this pain to begin with. 

Tom hadn't seen you in ages, and you looked better than ever. If he'd fancied you back then, he couldn't even imagine what he would do for you now. His heart began to beat faster at the thought. It was scary, as he realized he might possibly do anything. 

"Tom?" Your voice snapped through the silence, everything else becoming mere background noise. 

He lifted his head and almost melted right then and there.

Your hair drifted so peacefully in the evening breeze, seeming to light up the entire atmosphere. You smiled shyly at him and tucked a few strands of hair behind your ear. "What's up?" You greeted, sighing deeply as your breath misted into the air. Your cheeks were starting to redden from the chill, but you didn't seem to mind.

You looked just as nervous as him. Possibly distracted by your own thoughts. 

Tom hadn't really thought it through when he asked if you wanted to take an evening walk. But when was London ever a comfortable temperature?

"I promise we won't be out in the cold too long." He chuckled, shoving his hands in his pockets from the brisk air. "I just wanted to take you one place."

Dismissing his statement, your eyes focused on his hands. You started to rummage through your purse. "Do you want mittens? I have an extra pair."

"S-sure." He said between shivers, graciously taking up on your offer. Tom took his hands out of his pockets and slipped the warm fabric on. "Thank you."

He's always appreciated how prepared you were. He knew you had prepared yourself for heartbreak, even if you did not show it. Only someone with a genuine and kind heart would be so bold. You were there to hear him out. 

Because last night, even drunk, Tom could see the look in your eyes. There was a longing you held that he was unable to notice before.

"It's no problem." Your nose crinkled in the most adorable way as you smiled. "Now, we can hold hands." 

The last part came out as a whisper as if you were unsure of your own rash actions. Regardless though, you followed through, grasping his hand tightly. 

Without blatantly making your intentions known, he had gathered the hint. You were willing to try and make things right. That was all he could have asked for. 

Tom noticed you had become surprisingly cheerful. Knowing you all too well, he understood that your cheerfulness was a way to protect yourself, a facade of sorts.

Embarrassed, Tom glanced away briefly. If he failed to win your heart back on this date, things between the two of you would no longer exist. The young man knew he couldn't deal with that. You were far too important. 

"Ohhh." He laughed, intertwining his coated fingers with yours. "I'm the one who's supposed to make the moves, not you darling."

You leaned against him and tittered, feeling more confident with Tom's true intentions. You had already surpassed your high school awkwardness in less than five minutes. It had taken you and him three years to get this close back in the day.

But you were different, and so was he. 

Breathing deeply, you discarded those thoughts. You glanced up, and the cold that had previously surrounded you disappeared when you looked into his eyes. "Where to?"

Tom squeezed your hand firmly, his entire body warming at the sight of you so content by his presence. "You'll see, I think you'll like it."

✭♡✭♡✭♡✭

You tried your best not to laugh as Tom guided you down the rocky and secluded path. You could hear each step you took, the snow crunching underneath your weight. The snow threatened to push over the hemlines of your socks, but you persisted farther.

To you, the entire situation was comical. The sun had begun to finally set, and you were slowly hiking through a forest with a man you had once known in grade school. A branch brushed against your jacket as Tom slowly but surely helped you through the forest. 

You did not need the help but you knew how proper Tom was. And because of it, you were able to cling to him longer than necessary. 

"Where in the world are you taking me?" You ventured to ask, already knowing he wouldn't give you the answer. You found this quite the adventure for a first date and reunion. The place he was leading you to seemed familiar, but in a way, you could not describe. The landscape had been cast into shadows, yet the atmosphere was one you found yourself resonating with. Nostalgic vibes from deep within your soul, masked under the guise between good and evil. 

"Shh!" A deep chuckle followed shortly after you stepped over a fallen tree, it was hardly visible. "Almost there." He spoke without looking behind him. The two of you were completely alone, and that thought made you excited.

You were quiet after that, but your grin stayed constant- your true feelings unable to remain hidden. The little things he did made you feel special. Tom could make your heart flutter with just one glance.

Tom’s hat was covering the hair you adored, but his curls were poking out slightly. You wondered if he still hated them, even though all the girls used to swoon over his locks. Unbeknownst to him, you had engaged in that endless dialogue. 

Keeping your eyes focused on the back of his head, you almost didn't realize that you had come to an opening. A large boulder was placed in the middle. It was big enough to seat a few people comfortably.

It took you a moment to remember its significance. But as soon as you did, a blush appeared on your cheeks. Tom thought it was adorable.

"The kissing rock?" You squeaked.

"You were my first kiss." He reminded, turning to you with a shy smile, reflecting on the more awkward moments of your relationship. Though sometimes unbearable to think about, bittersweet they remained. 

You blushed at the memory. You both had your first kisses with each other one night when you and all your friends decided to play seven minutes in heaven. A freshmen year hangout circle that sometimes pressured you to partake in activities you wouldn't typically have. 

At fifteen years old, your heart began to pound loudly in your chest. Watching the lone beer bottle land on your best friend and crush caused your eyes to go wide. Admittingly, you had hoped that you might be able to kiss him, but now that it was happening, your anxiety spiraled until you were unable to move. 

"Uhm-i-" You stuttered, open-mouthed. You were only brought back to reality by a flood of teasing and laughter. Your girlfriends knew how infatuated you were with him. Yet they also knew how shy you were. An interaction like this would never happen in any other scenario. 

Your best friend cheered you on with a smirk of approval. 

"Let's go then." Tom eagerly stood up, watching your cheeks grow noticeably red. He tried to usher you into the room and away from the gaze of all your so-called friends. 

Once the closet door closed, you exhaled roughly. You'd never kissed anyone before, and Tom knew that. What if he was grossed out by you in this way? Would you be able to keep your mouth shut? 

"Well, my friends say you have a crush on me." He whispered, leaning as nonchalantly against the wall as he could. Even through your own sheepishness, you could sense his nerves. "So we can kiss if you'd like to." 

An excellent proposal indeed, but the fact of any boy being aware of your true feelings sent your sense into a frenzy. How could they possibly know you were in love with your best friend? 

"If you want to." You bit your lip, glancing away. 

A short, goofy, and inexperienced Tommy spoke under his breath. "I've always wanted to." 

"Okay." You said, sitting up a little straighter. You didn't know what else to do. Weren't the guys supposed to lean in? Were you supposed to keep your eyes open? 

Tom moved towards you, testing the waters by setting one hand on your shoulder and tucking the other by the low of your back. His touch was shocking in this way, and your teenage brain was desperately trying to sort through the motions. 

Naturally, and almost perfectly, he leaned in. Your lips touched hesitantly at first but then pressed hard once the two of you were able to kiss with closed eyes. You gripped him suddenly as the kiss escalated. You weren't ready for that, though part of you wanted to continue. 

"Someone might see, Tommy." 

Tom pulled away, trying hard not to grin.

"Then, we pretended like nothing happened." 

"Yeah." He scratched the back of his neck, awkwardly. "Then you started dating Jerry." 

"Fucking Jerry." You chuckled heartily. "What a bloke." 

"Yeah." He smiled, biting his lip as he noticed your anxious expression. You didn't seem to be as excited as he thought you would be. Maybe you didn't have any good memories here? Tom pondered on your high school relationships. He'd never kissed anyone here back in the day, but he had heard great things from his mates. 

Most serious couples in your high school had kissed here after school. It might be cheesy, but he wanted to kiss you here. He always had. If you shared terrible memories with this place, he wanted to try and make a good one.

Tom thought that making this relation would cheer you up. Nostalgia was a fitting cure when times were low, especially when you had been away from home for years. 

"Follow me." He urged, taking your hand in his, and pulling you towards the rock.

Your hesitation soon faded as your hands intertwined again. This wasn't what happened back then. It was different, Tom was here with you, and you were adults now. 

Smirking to yourself, you shook your head. You two were alone, you were adults, and you had feelings for each other. Right? So why were you so afraid? 

Taking this leap would mean there was no turning back. Whatever happened tonight would determine your entire relationship with him. 

“Y/N?” He chuckled, waving his hand in your face. You had zoned out for a moment. 

“Sorry,” You laughed with him, smacking his hand away from your face in a teasing manner. 

Tom helped you climb up the boulder, his hands resting firmly on your waist to hoist you up. You blushed at the contact, knowing he was gripping lower than he needed to. Chills were sent up your spine as his warmth moved elsewhere. 

Once you had gotten on top of the rock, you turned around to give him support, only to find he was already sitting next to you. You rolled your eyes, shaking your head lightly. "I see you're more athletic now."

He scooted next to you, a cheeky grin upon his lips. "I'm only trying to show off, you know that, right?"

Your eyes darted in the opposite direction, trying to keep your eyes focused on the long stretch of forest. Tom was much more blunt, much more confident. The old Tom would have never been so straightforward. And as much as it embarrassed you, you loved it.

You turned back to him once the burning sensation in your stomach died down. "You're going to have to do more than that." You teased, becoming aware of how close you were. His lips were just inches away, and he was starting to seem irresistible. 

Tom noticed it too. His urges growing stronger as he watched your tongue run smoothly across your lips. The action made them glossy and far more kissable. Were you waiting for him to do it?

After a moment of searching for an answer in your expression, he started to lean in. He closed his eyes and went for the kiss. Tom could feel his heart racing, he had wanted to do this so badly, and it needed to be perfect. He had to make up for the years he had failed to make you his. Maybe it was for the best, but the time you had spent apart had only caused both of you pain. 

If that was not a sign, Tom couldn't fathom what would be. Everything about you felt right. Everything about you, he loved. It was about time he was brave enough to come forth and admit it. 

And perfect it was. As soon as your lips touched, he felt his emotions ignite in a peaceful yet passionate blaze that he had never felt before.

You shivered from the contact, knowing that if you were standing, your knees would have buckled. Being there with him, like that, was everything you had ever dreamed it would be.

You kissed him back, deepening the kiss and asking for more. You were in love with him, and he didn't even know it. Maybe this was your last chance to show him, perhaps this moment with him was all you had left. 

"Tommy--" You gasped against his lips, literally melting into his warm embrace. His hand brushed against your cheek, guiding you closer with a gentle touch. The second kiss was wet, much sloppier than the first. Your emotions were poured into every movement, your skin aflame and senses alive. 

More. I need more. 

The way you moaned his name encouraged him to take a step forward and pull you closer. He had waited so long to do this, and he never thought he would be able to. That's why this was so special. He was getting a second chance with the love of his life.

The kisses intensified, and your lips parted, inviting him for more. Practically begging for it. 

Your lips began to move in sync, the kisses turning sloppy, filling with hunger and need from all the time you had spent apart. From all the years of denying your love.

Tom's hands began to wander, feeling you up and down from all the angles you had always imagined he would explore. You let him readily, relishing in his praise, becoming drunk on the sensation his lips gave you. You wanted more, you needed more.

You held his face in your mitten-covered hands, kissing him tenderly as you moved to sit on his lap. The contact caused Tom to groan, his arms looping around your waist and holding you as close as he could through the thick clothes you were wearing.

He wanted to feel your skin against his. He knew this wasn't enough to satisfy the passion building up inside him. You were too tempting and always had been. Tom knew you were innocent, and that's what made you so much more alluring. You were waiting to become his, and now was finally the right time.

The two of you pulled apart briefly to catch your breath. Tom tilted his head back to gaze at you. Your cheeks were flushed, but it might of been from the cold. Your expression was sheepish, but not ashamed. And your eyes... man, your eyes seemed to promise him treasures he could only dream of.

"I've been waiting so long to do that." Tom managed to string together a full sentence. It was true, and he has been repeating that to himself for the past two years.

You hastily glanced away. "M-me too." You whispered, acting as if you still did not believe it happened.

Wishing for it to continue, but knowing you had to stop before things got too heated, you crawled off his lap and sighed. You couldn't stop smiling.

"I really fancy you." Tom blurted, eyes widening at the realization of what he said. "If you couldn't tell..." He added, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. That's what he did in embarrassing situations.

"I figured that out when I saw the rock." You blushed. "I remember you saying that you wanted to bring your future girlfriend here."

He couldn't believe you would remember something like that. It made him feel warm inside, a fluffy, and respectful kind. That must mean that you felt the same, or at least you did. It made him sad to think that you liked him back in high school. Hearing him say something like that must have broken your heart.

"I guess that wish came true," Tom said.

Your eyes widened. What did that mean?

"I want to be with you, Y/N." He whispered, all the presumptions of his youth fading away with just one sentence. Now, he seemed like a man. A man who was able to admit, and make sense of his decade-long feelings. 

You could not find the words to speak, your mind analyzing all the possibilities of what that could mean.

"I really hope you know how sorry I am for leaving you." The words came out in a flood, and Tom's composure crumbled in front of your eyes. "When I saw you yesterday, I realized how much I hurt you. You don't deserve that Y/N." He took a deep, shaky breath. "I hope you can give me another chance to make things right... and to possibly be more than friends."

You were deeply pained from his tone and the way his voice faltered when thinking of the past.

"Tommy, it's okay. I understand." You smiled sadly, wrapping your arms back around the boy. You didn't want him to feel bad about it. Though both of you had suffered, there was no going back to fix it. The time apart, though excruciating on bad terms, helped bring you back together. Being away from him for the first time, helped you realize how special he really was to you. He wasn't just your best friend. He was not just a crush. He was the love of your life.

Tilting your head, you pressed a chaste kiss to his chilled cheeks. 

It's not like you had confessed to him before, or made your feelings known. You were both oblivious about your feelings. But why did he leave without saying goodbye all those years ago?

Tom could tell what you were thinking by the grief-stricken look on your face.

"I left without saying goodbye because I knew I couldn't face you. I was afraid to confirm my love for you, Y/N..." He hugged you back, burying his head in the crook of your neck. You smelled as amazing as he remembered, your warmth engulfing him in comfort no other woman could. You were what he had always been craving, and you were always right in front of him.

"Love?" You whispered astonishingly, picking up on the word as he breathed its existence.

Tom pulled away, nodding slowly.

"You love me?" You gasped, tears starting to gather at your eyelids. The fear of your feelings blossoming further in a one-sided relationship faded. It was going to be okay. 

"I love you." He confirmed, all his nerves vanishing as your expression beamed brightly back at him. For a moment, silence consumed you. Before you could think further, tears gathered in the corners of your eyes. Reaching your sleeve up, you quickly wiped them away.

"I love you too." You choked out, the words feeling so good on your lips. So right to say and express. "I always have..." You admitted, eyes flickering away as you said it. "I was too afraid to tell you, and it killed me."

"But I'm here now, I've realized my mistake," Tom assured, pulling you into his chest and squeezing you tight. He couldn't believe how stupid he was back then to leave someone like you behind. You were meant to be together, you had to be. There had never been anyone else that had come close. 

He wasn't going to let you slip away again.

"Come back to my place," Tom commanded more than he asked. The cold was starting to become unbearable, now that the passionate heat that sparked between you had calmed.

"I want to show you how much you really mean to me."

[twoidiotwriters1]

Written In The Stars XXII (Harry Potter xFem!Oc)

A/N: My uni is really out there asking me to write formally like I’m so kind of scholar, thank god they can’t see me cry about it– But! luckily dear Mel is having a much lovelier time, this is sort of a ‘break’ from emotional madness that Mel always carries around lmao enjoy!

Words: 1,930

Warnings: None!

Series’ Masterlist

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Chapter Four: A Lovely Morning.

"So - what's the story, Harry?" said Ron impatiently. "What's been happening?"

Harry told them all about Dobby, the warning he'd given Harry and the fiasco of the violet pudding. There was a long, shocked silence when he had finished.

"Very fishy," said Fred finally.

"Definitely dodgy" agreed George. "So he wouldn't even tell you who's supposed to be plotting all this stuff?"

"I don't think he could," said Harry. "I told you, every time he got close to letting something slip, he started banging his head against the wall... What, you think he was lying to me?"

"Well," said Fred, "put it this way - house-elves have got powerful magic of their own, but they can't usually use it without their master's permission. I reckon old Dobby was sent to stop you coming back to Hogwarts. Someone's idea of a joke. Can you think of anyone at school with a grudge against you?"

"Yes," said Harry and Ron together.

"Now boys," Mel sighed, "you can't possibly be thinking of that idiot, who has the time for something as stupid as that?

"Draco Malfoy has it," Harry turned to the twins, "He hates me."

"Draco Malfoy?" said George, turning around. "Not Lucius Malfoy's son?"

"Must be, it's not a very common name, is it?" said Harry.

"I've heard Dad talking about him," said George. "He was a big supporter of You-Know-Who."

"And when You-Know-Who disappeared," said Fred, "Lucius Malfoy came back saying he'd never meant any of it. Load of dung - Dad reckons he was right in You- Know-Who's inner circle."

"I don't know whether the Malfoys own a house-elf," said Harry.

"Well, whoever owns him will be an old wizarding family, and they'll be rich," said Fred.

"Yeah, Mum's always wishing we had a house-elf to do the ironing," said George. "But all we've got is a lousy old ghoul in the attic and gnomes all over the garden. House-elves come with big old manors and castles and places like that; you wouldn't catch one in our house..."

Did Erick have one? Now that she thought about it, Mel didn't know a lot about his life outside school, of course, she knew he didn't like to travel and that he was a pureblood, but nothing else.

"I'm glad we came to get you, anyway," said Ron. "I was getting really worried-"

"Oh, were you?" The girl huffed.

"-When you didn't answer any of our letters. I thought it was Errol's fault at first-"

"Who's Errol?"

"Our owl. He's ancient. It wouldn't be the first time he'd collapsed on a delivery. So then I tried to borrow Hermes -"

"Who?"

"The owl Mum and Dad bought Percy when he was made prefect," said Fred.

"But Percy wouldn't lend him to me," said Ron. "Said he needed him."

"Percy's been acting very oddly this summer," said George, frowning. "And he has been sending a lot of letters and spending a load of time shut up in his room... I mean, there's only so many times you can polish a prefect badge... You're driving too far west, Fred"

"So, does your dad know you've got the car?" said Harry, guessing the answer.

"Er, no," said Ron, "he had to work tonight. Hopefully we'll be able to get it back in the garage without Mum noticing we flew it."

"We didn't have a choice though, little lady here kept nagging until we agreed to help her get you, she's a pain-"

"Sod off, Fred," Mel scoffed, "I'm not ashamed about it, unlike you, I care"

"The point is, we made a plan and we got this old thing out of the garage without telling our parents"

"What does your dad do at the Ministry of Magic, anyway?"

"He works in the most boring department," said Ron. "The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office."

"The what?"

"It's all to do with bewitching things that are Muggle-made, you know, in case they end up back in a Muggle shop or house. Like, last year, some old witch died and her tea set was sold to an antiques shop. This Muggle woman bought it, took it home, and tried to serve her friend's tea in it. It was a nightmare - Dad was working overtime for weeks."

"What happened?"

"The teapot went berserk and squirted boiling tea all over the place and one man ended up in the hospital with the sugar tongs clamped to his nose. Dad was going frantic - it's only him and an old warlock called Perkins in the office -and they had to do Memory Charms and all sorts of stuff to cover it up -"

"But your dad - this car -"

"Yeah, Dad's crazy about everything to do with Muggles; our shed's full of Muggle stuff. He takes it apart, puts spells on it, and puts it back together again. If he raided our house he'd have to put himself under arrest. It drives Mum mad."

"I think he's lovely," Mel smiled, "he's kind and interesting, the first days we spent there he asked me and my mum all kinds of questions about our muggle life, I like him a lot..."

"That's the main road," said George, peering down through the windshield. "We'll be there in ten minutes... Just as well, it's getting light..."

Few minutes passed until they were finally reaching the house, the sky was starting to clear, and Mel was feeling rather sleepy. She was pleased to discover that flying cars didn't make her sick, but she wasn't comfortable sleeping on the backseat, so she couldn't wait to get to her bed.

"Touchdown!" said Fred.

"It's not much," said Ron once they were out of the car, he was talking about his house.

"It's wonderful," said Harry happily.

He was always so sweet.

"Now, we'll go upstairs really quietly," said Fred, "and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast Then, Ron, you come bounding downstairs going, 'Mum, look who turned up in the night!' and she'll be all pleased to see Harry -along with Emily- and no one need ever know we flew the car."

"Right," said Ron. "Come on, Harry, I sleep at the - at the top-"

Mel crashed into him, she hadn't noticed his movements coming into a halt, too distracted by her own weariness.

"What's-?" She looked up, feeling her heart fall to her stomach.

"Ah, "said Fred.

"Oh, dear," said George.

Mrs. Weasley came to a halt in front of them.

"So, " She said.

"Morning, Mum," said George.

"Have you any idea how worried I've been?" said Mrs. Weasley in a whisper.

"Sorry, Mum, but see, we had to -"

"Beds empty! No note! Car gone- could have crashed- out of my mind with worry- did you care? - never, as long as I've lived -you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy -"

"Perfect Percy," muttered Fred.

"YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY'S BOOK!" yelled Mrs. Weasley, "You could have died, you could have been seen, you could have lost your father his job -"

"This looks like entirely not my business," Mel muttered, trying to escape from the woman's screams.

But it wasn't long until she crashed against another body, this time her mother's.

"Oh, bloody hell," Mel mumbled.

"Mel Dumbledore," Her mother said in a thin, angry whisper, "you better have a good explanation"

"Bars," Was all she said.

"Bars," Emily's frown grew, "oh lady, you are in so much trouble"

Emily took her to Charlie's room and scowled her endlessly. Mel was ashamed, she had never lied to her mum like that.

She had hidden information, yes, but never lied to her. She was guilty, but every time she thought about Harry finally safe, she couldn't help but feel all giddy inside.

Ginny appeared a second after Emily had left the room to go and fetch her a plate with scrambled eggs before starting the day (she wasn't going to let her sleep at all) and sat eagerly at the edge of the bed.

"Harry's here," She commented.

"I know, Ginny," Mel yawned, "I was there..."

"I ran as soon as I saw him!" The little girl hid her face in embarrassment, "he saw me in my nightdress!"

"Don't worry about it, Harry's silly, I'm sure he didn't even notice"

"My brothers won't stop teasing me about it"

"If your brothers tease you I'll make sure to give them hell, all right?" Mel offered.

Before Ginny could reply, Emily walked in. The little girl stood up and quickly left the room, afraid of the woman's reaction.

However, Mel's mum seemed much more relaxed now.

"Harry looks skinnier than before if that's even possible..."

"They put bars on his window and locked him up," Mel said gloomily, "they also put a cat's door so they could pass him food while he was in there. A bloody cat's door, mum"

"A what!?" Emily walked around the room in pure outrage, "I swear- If I could, I swear I would take Harry away from those monsters- starving him to death!"

"I couldn't leave him there mum, I'm so sorry"

"I know you did it thinking it was the best thing," Emily passed a hand through her hair, "but you could've been caught, you could've had an accident! What would your poor mum do without you?"

"I'm sorry," Mel looked away, "I know I let you down, I hate lying..."

"It was a good cause," Emily hugged her daughter, "I spoil you too much, but you're a sweet girl, you could never let me down"

Moments after hearing Mr. Weasley's arrival and his argument with Mrs. Weasley, Mel peeked through the door and came face to face with Harry and Ron, climbing up the stairs in silence.

"Oh," She opened the door completely and got out of the room, "is everything alright downstairs?"

"It'll be," Ron shrugged, "want to join us? I'm about to show Harry my room"

"Sure," She followed them.

When they got to the third floor she heard a door slamming closed and jumped on her place.

"What was that?"

"Ginny," said Ron, then he turned to Harry, "You don't know how weird it is for her to be this shy. She never shuts up normally, when Mel arrived we could barely spend time together 'cause Ginny was always around"

"She's so nice," Mel beamed, "I'm so happy she'll go to Hogwarts this year, that way I won't miss her as much"

"The day you tell us you can't stand someone, that day I'll be surprised," Ron shook his head.

"Don't tease her," said Harry, "she's just being a good friend"

Mel smiled at him and kept going, completely missing Ron's confused expression at Harry's reply.

Once in the room, she let herself fall on her friend's bed and closed her eyes, sighing happily.

"I could take a nap, just five minutes..."

She opened her eyes slightly to watch Harry as he walked through the room and observed everything around him, she felt Ron sitting next to her, waiting nervously for Harry's verdict.

"It's a bit small," said Ron quickly. "Not like that room you had with the Muggles. And I'm right underneath the ghoul in the attic; he's always banging on the pipes and groaning..."

"This is the best house I've ever been in," Harry smiled widely, "I mean, after Mel's house, of course."

She only smiled in return, her eyes finally giving up and closing, falling fast asleep.

Next Chapter —>

Taglist.

@tiphareth2018 @vampiregirl1797 @siriuslysirius1107 @celestialhayi @omiwashere  @mikariell95

[the-quiet-winds]

Hyde Awey

[I really like the way this one turned out.]

“Maybe if you weren’t such a conniving little witch, none of this would have happened!”

That’s it, right there, the death sentence everyone had been waiting for.

Boleyn recoils, physically flinching at Aragon’s harsh declaration. Her eyes narrow, her nostrils flare, her lip curls. “I am not a witch.”

“Say that to your sixth finger, love,” Aragon growls sarcastically. She, to be completely honest, doesn’t know where this anger is coming from, Boleyn had made a simple mistake. She just couldn’t calm herself down. “It’s a shock that Henry beheaded you instead of burning you at the stake.”

“Like your daughter did?”

At the mention of Mary, the other queens physically retreat. 

“How dare you.” Aragon steps closer. “How dare you even speak about my daughter?! All she did was try and fix our country, because someone decided to bewitch,” she pointedly uses the word again, “my husband and caused him to fracture our country on its religious beliefs!”

“Trying to fix the country?” Boleyn laughs. “Sorry, love, it was my daughter who brought England into its Golden Age, remember? Sending people to the New World? That was my Elizabeth. Your daughter slaughtered hundreds. You wanna talk about a witch?” Anne grins wickedly. “You’re the one who taught her everything she knows.” 

Aragon, before she can stop herself, lunges at Anne. Boleyn jumps back, just out of reach, as Cleves and Jane grab Catherine’s arms to keep her from advancing further. 

“Let me go!” She demands.

“Not until you calm down,” Cleves says firmly. “You need to cool down.”

“And she needs to pay for her words!”

“Catherine,” Jane says soothingly, “we can all work this out-”

Aragon roughly pulls her arm back and, anger pulsing through her blood like oxygen, she brings the back of her hand to connect with Jane’s cheek, sending the third queen toppling to the floor.

“Mum!” 

Katherine rushes over to help Jane up, as does Parr, and they all look to Aragon for answers.

But she’s gone, and the front door is still barely open.

---

Four drinks deep, Aragon is still feeling horrible. But it’s a murky, indistinguishable kind of horrible, the kind where she can’t sort her fears from her pain and can’t decide if she wants to cry because she misses her daughter or if it’s because this is some of the worst wine she’d ever had.

“Rough night?”

Aragon looks over, and a woman is sitting next to her. Her face is blurry, her accent unrecognizable, yet she’s incredibly familiar in the weirdest sort of way. Catherine figures there’s not much more that can go wrong this evening.

So she starts talking.

Her own words don’t reach her ears, her throat making syllables of its own accord, and Catherine can’t keep herself from talking no matter how hard she tries.

“Looks like you’ve been through the ringer today,” the woman concedes. “Can I buy you a shot?”

Aragon agrees.

Two shots appear in front of them. The woman smiles and raises her glass to Aragon. “To all the things that can go wrong in a night.”

Without hesitation or comprehension of her companion’s words, Aragon downs the drink. It goes down in the weirdest ways, tingling a little too much in her throat and far from warm in her chest.

She looks over and her companion has slipped off.

It takes Catherine another three seconds to realize the drinks were definitely coming back up, and she rushes to the bathroom as quickly as possible.

Crowded in the tiny cubicle, she hunches over the toilet and empties the contents of her stomach not once but twice. She clutches at the wall, desperate for anything to grab to to keep her head from spinning.

She throws up once more and then things get fuzzy.

In all honesty, Catherine isn’t entirely sure how she gets home, but somehow she does, stumbling through the door at half-past midnight as her attempts to be quiet fail miserably. 

“Let’s get you to bed, love.”

It sounds like Jane, it has to be, the sweet voice she hears. 

She barely makes it to her bed before she passes out, a soft cadence echoing in her ears.

“Thanks Jane,” she slurs before falling asleep.

But Jane Seymour is tucked up in her own bed, passed out with Katherine tucked under her chin.

---

Catherine wakes up the next morning with no hangover, surprisingly. She feels rejuvenated, she feels amazing, like all of the bad energy had been taken away from her.

“Good morning queens!” She greets, grinning, as she enters the kitchen. 

Jane looks up from stirring her tea. “You’re awfully chipper this morning.”

“Had a great night out.” She stretches. “And thanks for helping me last night.”

“I didn’t-”

Jane is cut off by Boleyn entering the room, immediately glaring at Aragon. “Good morning,” she says pointedly.

Parr nearly drops her mug as Aragon swiftly crosses the room and takes both of Boleyn’s hands in hers. “Anne, I’m so sorry about yesterday. Everything I said was completely unreasonable and cruel. Do you think you can forgive me?”

Boleyn is baffled. Such an enthusiastic and surprisingly heartfelt apology from the eldest queen was certainly something unfamiliar. “Uh, yeah, I guess,” she says.

Aragon smiles brilliantly. “Wonderful.” She releases Anne’s hands and crosses back towards the kitchen, her grin growing brighter when she notices the wonderful array of breakfast foods Jane has put out. 

“Thank you for the breakfast, Jane,” she says brightly, kissing the woman’s cheek. She fills a plate and splits back up to her room, leaving four (Cleves, as usual, is still asleep) very confused queens behind.

“That was… completely out of character,” Parr comments.

“Agreed,” Anne says. She shakes her hands out a few times. “Even her touch,” she muses. “Everything felt wrong.”

“Like she was a different person or something,” Katherine mumbles.

“You don’t think…”

“Henry? Never,” Parr says surely. “This would not be his strategy at all. This is something else.”

“What, then?” Boleyn challenges.

“I don’t know.” She sighs. “But we need to figure it out.”

They do not, in fact, figure it out. Aragon is so bubbly and out of character that it’s hard to get a serious word out of her mouth. 

Boleyn can’t even get Aragon to seem even a smidgen like herself. 

“Cathyyyyyy,” she groans. She enters the room without knocking, which is usually enough to warrant a full stop from Aragon herself, but the queen doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest.

“Annie!” Catherine greets. “Come in, darling. Make yourself comfortable.”

Those words, that tone, is enough to make Anne very uncomfortable.

“What has gotten into you?!” Boleyn finally bursts out.

Aragon cocks her head to the side. “Nothing, I am just in such a great mood!”

“No,” Boleyn says immediately. “I’ve seen you in a good mood, and this isn’t it at all. Who are you and what have you done with Catalina de Aragon?!”

The sound of her Spanish name, coming from her formerly sworn rival, cuts swiftly and cleanly through Aragon’s ‘facade.’

“You’re not allowed to call me that,” she declares sharply. 

This switch throws Boleyn for a loop she was not expecting. “Oh, does that make you mad?” Boleyn taunts, hoping she’s drawing the normal, not super-scary-cheerleader-Aragon back to the surface.

“I am Catherine,” Aragon says. “You of all people should know that.”

Boleyn smirks. “What are you going to do about it?” She teases again.

But it’s not right, something isn’t right. There’s a darkness in Aragon’s eyes that Boleyn isn’t expecting, her brown eyes looking almost black.

“I’ll do what I didn’t do last time,” she warns, stepping closer, “and I’ll make you wish you’d never stepped foot back in England.”

Boleyn wisely ducks out of her room after that, assuming Catherine would cool down and all would be well for the show that night.

But oh, how we dream to be destroyed.

By the time the queens are lingering behind the curtain for the show, there’s a nervous electricity crackling in the air, intangible yet too real. Cleves, Katherine, and Jane linger in the back having a quiet conversation, while Boleyn and Parr rapidly discuss one topic, Aragon, in a swiftly whispered French. Aragon herself sits on the edge of the risers in front of Maria’s drumset, casting murderous looks at not only Boleyn but also Bessie, standing a mere foot away. 

“Places, ladies! Places for the top of the show.”

Aragon swears loudly in Spanish and stands up. Maria barely is able to swat at her shoulder with her drumstick.

“Cállate, Catalina!” Maria whisper-shouts.

The intro starts, Greensleeves echoing slowly and melodically through the theater, before giving way to a low static hum as Aragon prepares her first line.

“Divorced!”

No one lets it show, but that single word is spoken higher than any of them had ever heard out of Aragon’s mouth before. 

She’s smiling insanely brightly. “And tonight, London, we are…”

There’s a long, long pause, as usual.

The show goes as normally as it possibly could, although it’s not hard to see that Aragon is bouncier and more excited than usual - even her quips lack their usual bite.

It’s an odd show. The audience, those who hadn’t seen the show a hundred times, at least, probably didn’t think anything was wrong, but the queens could sense there was most definitely something about Aragon that was amiss. 

Stagedooring, though, proves this thought even further. 

Almost every night all the queens left through the stage door to meet fans waiting for them. They’d sign programs, take pictures, and even receive gifts from fans. It was a great way, for the most part, to wash away the stress of a show and reassure themselves they were doing a good job.

One fan approaches Aragon trepidatiously, fingers fiddling with the program’s spine as she waited her turn. Aragon gives her a broad grin and invites her closer.

“I thought you were amazing,” the girl says quietly as Catherine signs her program. “You were always my favorite to learn about in school,” she adds. Aragon chuckles softly to herself, and the girl’s confidence grows just a smidge. “Something about the great Catalina de Aragon and her fight to the English throne-”

But she doesn’t get to finish her statement, because in barely three seconds, Aragon has dropped her program and marker to the floor and retreated back through the stagedoor.

The girl shakily picks up the discarded items and struggles to hide her tears as she makes her way to the next queen in sight, Anna.

“Hey babes,” Anna greets casually. She cocks her head slightly to the side at the sight of tears. “What’s got you down?” She takes the items from her hands and signs the program. 

The girl doesn’t answer.

Anna gently nudges her with her elbow. “What is it, kiddo?”

“It was Aragon,” she mumbles out, shifting her jacket around her sides. “She was really nice to me at first, and then she just… walked off.” Her voice tapers off to a barely-there whisper.

Cleves raises an eyebrow, then looks around to the other queens. There are almost no fans left in the room, so Anna wraps a gentle arm around the girl and leads her towards Boleyn and Jane.

“Hello, love,” Jane says softly. “What do we have here?”

“Go on,” Anna encourages, “tell them what you told me?”

The girl shakily repeats her story, not leaving out a single detail and barely noticing as Parr and Katherine move closer.

“It’s like earlier,” Anne muses. The others looked at her, confused, so she goes on. “I was talking to Cathy when she was in that great mood earlier, and all of the sudden her mood changed, almost exactly like that.”

“Maria did it too, but the other way around, I think,” Jane adds. “Right before the show.”

Boleyn snaps her fingers. “I know what we have to do.”

After making sure the fan was alright, Boleyn leads the march backstage to their shared dressing room, catching Aragon just as she was about to leave.

“Not so fast,” she calls. 

Aragon freezes in place. She turns slowly.

“I’m going back to the house.”

“Like hell you are,” Boleyn says. 

“Well who is gonna stop me?” Aragon snarls. “Maybe you’d like to lose your head again?”

Anne can hear Katherine give a slight, tiny whimper behind her but she doesn’t back down. “My head is staying pretty firmly attached to my shoulders, thank you very much.”

“Catherine,” Jane interrupts, “this isn’t you. Something is happening-”

“Yeah, you all are fucking annoying,” Aragon says as if its the most obvious thing in the world. She juts her chin in Jane’s direction. “And you,” she marches forward, absolutely effortlessly pushing Boleyn out of the way to get to Jane. 

That, for one thing, is new. It isn’t a surprise that Aragon is strong, it’s something that all the queens knew rather well. But she shoves Boleyn aside as if she were the tiniest pebble next to Aragon’s boots. 

Did Aragon get taller as well?

Catherine jabs a finger into Jane’s chest. “You’re the one who stole my daughter from me,” Aragon hisses. She forces Jane backwards with such ease it almost seems like they’re gliding on ice. The queens part like the sea until Jane’s back hits the wall, Aragon absolutely towering over her. “You took her from me and now you’re going to pay.”

“Oi!”

Aragon turns, staring down the owner of the voice. Boleyn.

“You again,” she groans. “What do you want now, you pestering little witch?”

Boleyn’s confidence falls a smidge. But she carries on. “I have something to say.”

Aragon rolls her eyes. “Well? Go out with it, you stupid woman.”

“Catalina.”

The change is so instantaneous and bloody obvious they all feel stupid. Aragon crumbles back into herself, seeming smaller by the moment. She shakes her head, once, twice, then looks to the terrified Jane.

“Oh my God,” she breaths. “What happened?”

Cleves steps forward, just slightly. “Catherine?”

There’s no change.

Cleves swallows. “Catalina?”

There it is again, Aragon building herself back up until she basically towers over all of them - Boleyn and Cleves included. 

“What is happening?” Katherine squeaks.

Parr sucks in a deep breath, swallowing her anxiety at doing exactly the thing she’s about to do. “Catalina, Catalina, Catalina.”

Aragon’s eyes blow wide and she sinks to the floor, hands grabbing at her head as she tries to regain any semblance of control.

“Help,” she barely whimpers out. “Voices… too many voices… all at once-”

Jane hushes her gently. They all kneel around her, creating a protective circle as if it could ward off whatever ails her.

“Come on, now,” Cleves whispers, “we’re going to figure this out. Together.”

“Too many voices,” Catherine cries softly. “I can’t-”

“Catalina…”

A singsong voice drifts down the hallway.

“M-mother?”

“Catalina…”

“No,” Catherine whimpers, “no, please-”

“Catalina…”

It’s too late, and the spell takes effect again. And this time, they landed on the wrong side of Aragon’s coin. 

She glares intensely at all the women around her, and with a strength no one knew she possessed, forces them all back. 

The blow is strong enough to knock Jane to the ground, Katherine rushing over to help, and Aragon advances on Parr, Boleyn, and Cleves.

“Come on, Catherine,” Cleves pleads, retreating slowly towards the emergency door. “you’re stronger than this. If anyone can beat this, it’s you.”

“Well it certainly wouldn’t be you, Miss I-Never-Had-A-Problem-In-My-Life.”

Good to know Aragon kept her wit thought all of this.

Jane looks helplessly down the hall to where Anna, Anne, and Parr were helplessly trying to fend off Aragon, but there’s someone else moving towards them, stepping over Jane’s legs like she barely exists, the train of a long dress trailing behind her.

“Who are you?!” Jane demands, feeling much stronger than she knows she looks.

The woman stops and turns. She looks down at the two women with a pitying gaze and a sadistic grin. “You should really know who I am, Jane,” she murmurs condescendingly.

She sweeps off.

“Aragon!” Boleyn cries out. “You have to beat this, whatever it is!”

Catherine doesn’t respond, except with a growl and a shove on Cleves, pushing the woman into a nearby room. She continues to press on Boleyn and Parr.

“Why are you doing this?” Parr whispers.

“Because it’s what she wanted.”

They barely have time to contemplate the voice before their backs hit the emergency door, Catherine of Aragon towering over them.

“Catalina, talón!”

She stops dead in her tracks like an obedient dog.

It’s then that Parr and Boleyn notice the presence of another woman behind Catherine, dressed in royal gowns and approaching them at a slow, menacing pace.

“What do you want with her?” Parr demands, voice nearly shaking as much as her legs. She looks to her godmother, so vacant yet so feral.

“Oh, darling Catherine,” the woman croons to Parr, “I’m glad we have finally met.”

“Whatever you’re doing,” Boleyn warns, “it can’t continue. Let Aragon go.”

The woman laughs and sets an affectionate hand on Aragon’s shoulder. “But it’s what she wanted.”

“Stop with the riddles! What have you done with her?” Boleyn cries.

“Well that’s not important, is it?” The woman grins. “All that matters is I have my Catalina back.”

Parr steps closer and takes one of Catalina’s hands. “Come back to us, please.”

The woman pulls Catalina out of reach. “She’s nothing to any of you. Not any more.”

In her rage, which she didn’t even realize she had at first, Parr reaches to slap the woman across the face.

Catalina, even in her passive state, effortlessly shoves Parr into the same room as Cleves, leaving only Boleyn.

“I’ll ask you one more time,” Boleyn growls. “What have you done with her?!”

“And I gave you an answer, I did what she wanted from me.”

“This,” Boleyn gestures to Catalina, “is what she wanted?”

“Practically begged for it, darling.”

“Being controlled and emotionally unstable?” Boleyn laughs. “Doubtful.”

“Not emotionally unstable,” the woman corrects, “freed.”

“What the hell did you do?”

“She was so upset,” the woman says with a false pout, “that she couldn’t control her anger, she wished there was a way she could just take it all out. So I did one better, I made her two different people. And soon,” she checks the clock on the wall, “the spell will be permanent.”

“Then undo it,” Boleyn says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Now why would I do that, when I have my daughter right where I want her?”

“Your daughter?” Realization paints Boleyn’s face white. “You’re-”

“Isabella of Spain, precisely. And this,” she gestures to the obedient, barely-contained Catalina, “is the girl I raised. The girl I fought to put on the English throne that you all have corrupted.”

“We’ve done nothing,” Boleyn spits, “of the sort. She’s one of us. Family.”

There’s the barest glint of recognition in Catalina’s eyes. “Family,” she mumbles, as if in sleep.

“That’s right,” Boleyn encourages. “Family.”

Thought begins to flicker through Catalina’s face. “Family,” she repeats, slightly more sure.

“No,” Isabella interrupts, tightening her grip on Catalina, “not family. They all mean nothing to you.” She points to Boleyn. “She stole your husband. She had you exiled.”

“And Jane basically had me killed,” Boleyn states. “Old news. We’re different now.” She sees Jane past Isabella’s shoulder and gives a tiny smile. “Family. We’ve forgiven each other.”

“Family,” Catalina says again. Her voice is stronger now. “Yes, family.” Richness floods back into her eyes. “Family. They’re my family.” She shoves Isabella away from her. “You don’t get anything from me,” she declares, that familiar fire in her words. “You never even responded to my letters when I was locked up in England for seven years.”

“Catalina, I-”

“My name is Catherine,” Aragon declares proudly. She steps away to open the door of the room Parr and Cleves were in. “And these women right here?” Catherine presses her mother back against the wall. “They’re my real family.”

“Catalina-”

“Goodbye, mother.”

As if she were never there, Isabella fades into the wall and disappears.

Catherine takes a massive inhale and falls to her knees. The others rush around her: Boleyn landing in front of her, Parr and Cleves on her right, Katherine on her left, and Jane behind her, gently bracing both of her shoulders for support.

“You’re alright,” a voice whispers. Cleves? Cleves. “It’s okay now.”

Boleyn takes both of her hands. “We’re here for you.”

“We’ve got you, love,” Jane murmurs behind her.

Aragon starts to cry - not loud messy sobs, just silent tears streaming down her face. She feels so utterly weak, so drained. Whatever spell her mother had used on her had taken its toll.

“Let’s get you home, Cathy,” Boleyn says. She grins when Aragon gives her the tiniest mad face, which is completely derailed by the tears on her cheeks.

“Home,” Catherine repeats in an empty echo. 

“Home,” Parr says, “with your family.” She presses a soft kiss to her godmother’s temple. 

“I’m sorry,” Aragon all but whimpers, “for all of this. I was drunk, and-”

“It’s alright,” Cleves cuts in softly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Catherine looks up at Boleyn. “Anne,” she squeezes her hands very gently. “I’m sorry about what I said to you when we were fighting. I didn’t mean any of it-”

“I know, Cath-”

“Please,” Aragon interjects softly, “let me finish.”

Boleyn nods. “Go on, then.”

“You’re not a witch,” she says, “I promise you you’re not. Farthest thing from it. I shouldn’t have said it.”

“And I shouldn’t have said what I did about Mary,” Boleyn says, and she sees Aragon flinch at the mention of her daughter again. “But it’s over now. Can we move on?”

Aragon smiles and tugs on Boleyn’s hands, pulling the other woman into a hug. 

“I think we can,” she says, then smirks softly. “Annie.”

Boleyn protests the nickname and tries to pull away, but Aragon just laughs and holds her tighter. 

———————————————————————————————————–

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[elles-choices]

Chapter 4: Here Comes The Bride (MC x Mr. Sinclaire)

Book: Desire & Decorum

Summary: Their wedding day has arrived. Mr. Sinclaire cannot wait to see his wife to be. Clara cannot wait to become his wife. Will everything go according to plan?

Pairing: Mr. Sincaire x MC (Clara)

Words: about 2650

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Choices by Pixel Berry

Note: This mini series called “Marrying you” is about the final preparations for MC and Mr. Sinclaire’s wedding, their wedding day and night and their honeymoon… I hope you guys enjoy it :) Thank you for stopping by.

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Chapter 1: The Last Fitting (Marrying You, MC x Mr. Sinclaire)

Chapter 2: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue  (Marrying you, MC x Mr. Sinclaire)

Chapter 3: The “S” Question (Marrying You - MC x Mr. Sinclaire)

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Clara’s life has changed completely since the death of her mother. One moment she was struggling, knowing that she was loosing the most important person in her life and she would be alone in the world; the next, she was being told not only that her father was alive, also that he was an Earl. 

In the same day she left her childhood home to move into Edgewater, she was introduced to him — the man she is a few moments away from marrying. After everything she had gone through with her stepmother, becoming the Countess of Edgewater was the biggest honour she could ever achieve - some thought. To her though, the best was still to come for nothing compares to becoming Mrs. Ernest Sinclaire.

———————————

Clara watches carefully her image in the mirror. Although she had seen herself in her wedding gown before, this Wednesday morning everything looks more magical for her wedding day has finally arrived. 

She hears a knock on the door and soon the Dowager Countess entered her room. „Dear, the carriage is ready to take us to the church“, she inspects Clara’s hair, pulled back into a messy braid embellished with tiny little white jasmine blossoms and secured with Briar’s blue ribbon. She smiles by the sight of Clara, „You are the most beautiful bride I have ever seen, Clara“.

Clara turns to her grandmother and hugs her tightly. „Would you help me with my wedding charms, Lady Grandmother?“, the Dowager Countess looks into her big green eyes and smiles as Clara hands her the diamond bandeau tiara, she giftet her not long ago. 

„The things with tiaras, dear, is that they tend to move around“, she looks in her bag for something, „Ha! Pray, take a seat… your great-grandmother taught me this trick. All you need is a needle and almost invisible treads“, she looks carefully at what she is doing, while Clara wonders if this will really work. „Perfect! Pray, move your head quickly from one side to another“, Clara does as asked and her grandmother smiles satisfied with her work, attaching her veil to her hair. „So, what are the other charms?“.

„Mr. Parsons borrowed me her pearl bracelet, it is beautiful, is it not?“, her grandmother smiles and nods putting it on her delicate wrist. Then, Clara turns to her dressing table, where Mr. Sinclaire’s gift lies waiting for this day, „This one is from Mr. Sinclaire. I have not seen it yet…“, she opens the beautiful wooden case to find a diamond encrusted collier with a huge emerald in the center of the pendant, matching her engagement ring. „Oh, Ernest…“, she smiles touched by how thoughtful he was. 

The Dowager Countess is amazed by the sight of it. „My dear, this collier is beautiful! Mr. Sinclaire has a quite exquisite taste — Well, I should not be surprised since he is marrying my granddaughter“, smiling to Clara, she takes it from its case and gently places it around her granddaughter’s neck, fastening it on the side. „Now all you need is a lucky sixpence in your shoe and we can head to Church.“, she hands it to her granddaughter and they leave her dressing room.

————————————

On Clara’s arrival, she could hear the bells of the church ringing, a sign that the wedding was going to start very soon. She looks at Annabelle, Briar and Miss Sutton, each one wearing white as participants of the bridal party and she smiles with teary eyes „Do not start crying, Clara or you will make us all cry and puffy eyes is not a look we wanna wear today!“, Annabelle hugs her friend, then brushes away a couple of tears from Clara’s face. She gives her a reassuring squeeze of the hand and gives her the bridal bouquet —a mix of wild flowers and white roses; Mr. Sinclaire had picked them from his garden the day prior to the wedding. „Much better…Are you ready?“, Annabelle smiles and Clara nods, leaving the carriage and heading to the vestibule of the church, where Mr. Sinclaire and his groomsmen were waiting.

Mr. Sinclaire seems very tense — he paces from one side to the other looking constantly at his pocket watch. His best friend, James Banks, one of the groomsmen, smiles and lays a hand on his shoulder, „I do not think I have ever seen you this nervous, my friend. I believe there is still time to run away“, he whispers jokingly. Suddenly he looks at the door excited „Or not… Your bride is already here. And may I say, you are a very lucky man, Ernest“. Mr. Sinclaire turns slowly to the doors of the church and as he sees Clara entering, he feels as if his heart stood still for a moment. Their eyes lock and she smiles as he heads to her. He is completely bewitched by her beauty, nervous like a school boy trying to talk for the first time with the girl he fancies.

„I… hmm… There are no words that could describe your beauty today, Lady Clara“, he takes her hand and kisses her knuckles never taking his eyes off her. 

She lowers her glance shyly, „You looking dashing as always, Mr. Sinclaire“. He is wearing a navy blue frock coat with a white waistcoat, a folded cravat and grey trousers. Mr. Sinclaire rises her chin up, so their eyes meet again and tries to lift the veil of her face for a short moment, when he hears the Dowager Countess clearing her throat.

„I believe this is not the proper time for that, Mr. Sinclaire. And if you want to get married today, I recommend you get in line, so the procession can enter the church“, Mr. Sinclaire blushes self-conscious of all eyes looking at him.

He looks at his bride and whispers, „I love you, sweetheart“, before leaving to take his place in line.

---------------------

Close friends and a few distant relatives of both parties were already waiting for the ceremony to commence. The first groomsman, his best friend, entered with Annabelle, the first bridesmaid. The  others followed together with flower girls and ring bearer. Mr. Sinclaire walks down the aisle together with the Dowager Countess upon his arm. Clara had decided to do this walk alone as a sign of her grieving -- she was still sad that her parents were not there, however, she could feel their presence somehow and this brought her some comfort. 

Upon her arrival at the altar, she hands Annabelle the bouquet, then, takes her place upon the left of Mr. Sinclaire, in front of Bishop Monroe — her Grandmother standing by her right side. Mr. Sinclaire lifts her veil seeing her clearly for the first time today. He caresses her cheeks with his thumbs quickly, a gesture she really appreciates.

„Dear Beloved, we are gathered here today in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation to witness and celebrate the union of Mr. Ernest Sinclaire and Lady Clara, Countess of Edgewater in holy matrimony. With love and commitment, they have decided to join together as husband and wife. At this moment, I would like to share a passage from the holy book with you: 

‚Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love I am only a resounding gong or clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and can understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have faith, that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I give all I possess to the poor, and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;  does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.’

These two persons present come now to be joined, therefore if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully join together, let him now speak or else here after forever hold his peace“, after a long second of silence, Bishop Monroe smiles, „After reviewing that there were no impediment why you may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, I do now ask: Ernest Alexander wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her, in sickness, and in health? And forsaking all other, keep thee only to her, so long as you both shall live“.

Mr. Sinclaire looks at Clara and smiles: „I will“.

„Clara Marie, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love, honour, and keep him, in sickness, and in health? And forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as you both shall live?“ 

She smiles at Mr. Sinclaire: „I will“

Bishop Monroe looks at the Dowager Countess „Who giveth this woman to be married unto this man?“, and she gives Clara’s hand to him, who hands it to Mr. Sinclaire.

Mr. Sinclaire looks into Claras eyes, smiling and repeats Bishop Monroe words, "I, Ernest Alexander, take thee, Clara Marie, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forth, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us depart, according to God's holy ordinance: And thereto I plight thee my troth“.

Clara hold his gaze whilst Mr. Sinclaire caresses her knuckles: „I, Clara Marie, take thee, Ernest Alexander, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forth, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, to love, and cherish, till death us depart, according to God's holy ordinance: And thereto I give thee my troth“. 

Bishop Monroe blesses the ring -- Mr. Sinclaire takes her hand in his and repeats after the Bishop: „With this ring I thee wed: with my body I thee worship: and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.“, he puts the ring on her finger and kisses it. After a last prayer, the Bishop joining their hands together declaires: „Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. Forasmuch as Ernest and Clara have consented in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company, and thereto have given and pledged their troth either to other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving of a ring, and by joining of hands: I pronounce that they be man and wife together“. Annabelle hands Clara her wedding bouquet, lifts her gown’s train and Mr. Sinclaire, Clara and two witnesses follows the Bishop to the vestry to enter the marriage lines into the parish register book. 

Mr. Sinclaire signs proudly his name and Clara giggles as she signs her new name for the first time: Clara, Countess of Edgewater, Mrs. Ernest Sinclaire. As they leave the vestry, Mr. Sinclaire escorts Clara outside the Church and into his carriage. 

In the minute their carriage takes off to Edgewater, Mr. Sinclaire sits by Clara’s sides and without any other word he kisses her passionately, something he wished he could have done as soon as he laid eyes on her this morning. His hand cups her face, her hands caressing his strong arms — it was a special kiss, the first as husband and wife. It was fiery and demanding, there was nothing holding Mr. Sinclaire back anymore — she was his and he was hers. His lips leave hers and he looks intensely into her eyes „Mrs. Sinclaire… there is so many things I wish I could have told you this morning, however, the most important of all, I want you to know how blessed I am for having you as my wife. I cannot wait to start my life with you… to tell you everyday how beautiful you are and how I appreciate everything you do. I cannot imagine another day without you by my side, Clara“, before she can say anything he presses his warm lips against hers once again.

——————————

Upon arriving in Edgewater they head to Clara’s room for a moment alone whilst their guests arrive from the church for the traditional wedding breakfast. Clara shuts the door behind her and smiles, „I do not think you have ever been to my chambers, Ernest“, she walks to him and brushes her lips against his cheeks, „Would you please free me from this veil?“, she turnes around allowing him to take a look at it.

„I cannot say I have...“, he does as she asked, then lowers his lips to her neck, kissing his way to her shoulder. His hands pulls her towards him, „You look stunning... I know better than starting something I cannot finish, however, you are irresistible, my Lady“, his hands moving from her waist to her thighs. His touch sends a shiver down her spine.

Clara turns around, she crosses her arms behind his neck and pulls him closer, „You have been able to resist me for the past seven months, what are a few more hours of waiting?“, she caresses his cheeks.

„Eternity…“, he chuckles, „However, we only have a breakfast to attend to, some socialising to do and in the afternoon I will not be going home alone. I will hold on to this thought!“. He kisses her gently „Will you dance with me, love?“, his eyes are sparkling and his smile is broad.

Clara giggles and blushes „Mr. Sinclaire, I thought you hated these kind of activities. Also, there is no music we could dance to“, she lays her head on his chest, her hands holding him.

„I would not say that I hate it, I just do not enjoy it as much as the others. However, I would enjoy it with you… here… right now. We do not need music, we have each other and that is all we need“, he lays his hands protectively around her. She looks up to him and he gazes upon her. For a while, they move their bodies slowly in a rhythm only they know. He twirls her around, dipping her, then he leans forward, staring at her big green eyes. Clara feels her heart skip a beat, her face turning to a light shade of pink as he closes the distance between their lips, kissing her for a second and then pulling her back up. „I would love to forever dance with you, my love, however we should go and celebrate with our guests“, Clara nods and they leave the room.

—————————— 

The weather is so lovely that tables were setup outside. Into the afternoon, after receiving congratulations, having a lavish breakfast with their guests, cutting and boxing the wedding cake for the attendants, Mr. Sinclaire takes Clara to her new home: Ledford Park.

He stands with Clara and Briar in front of Clara’s chambers: „Miss Daly, would you please give me a minute alone with Mrs. Sinclaire?“, Briar nods and Mr. Sinclaire guides Clara into her new room. After shutting the door behind him he holds both of her hands in his: „Before I leave you alone with Miss Daly, is there anything I can do for you? Is there anything you would like to do today? Ride somewhere, for example?“, he kisses one of her hands.

„Thank you, Ernest. However, the weather is changing and it will soon rain. I would rather spend sometime alone with you…“, she blushes looking at the floor.

Mr. Sinclaire smiles and kisses her cheek gently, whispering: „There is nothing else I would rather do, love“, his strong arms surround her into a gentle hug, „I will light the fire in our marital chamber’s fireplace before I go freshen up. This door will take you to our room“, he points to the dark wood door with golden knob behind Clara and kisses her forehead „I love you!“, he heads out throwing one last glance at her before leaving.

--------

Read more: 

Marrying you: Chapter 5: “Ever Thine, Ever Mine” (NSFW — MC x Mr. Sinclaire)

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[maddie-grove]

Bi-Monthly Reading Round-Up: July/August

Playlist

“Mama Tried” by Merle Haggard (The Mars Room)

“Summer of Sam” by Lana del Rey (Sharp Objects)

“Keep Searchin’” by Del Shannon (Those Girls)

“No One Knows” by Dion and the Belmonts (Fortune’s Lady)

“Unpretty” by TLC (90s Bitch)

“Everybody’s Got the Right to Love” by the Supremes (Fool Me Twice)

“Loving Arms” by the Dixie Chicks (East)

“Spare Parts” by Bruce Springsteen (Joe College)

“You Said You Loved Me” from Bloody Blackbeard (Tomorrow and Forever)

“Hot in Herre” by Nelly (Miss Wonderful)

“Growin’ Up” by David Bowie (The Charm School)

“Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye (The Beggar Maid)

“Henry Lee” by Georgia Fireflies (Fairest)

Best of the Bi-Month

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (2006): Troubled journalist Camille Preaker returns to her claustrophobic Missouri hometown to report on the brutal murders of two teenage girls. The gruesome nature of her assignment is only matched by the cruelty and senselessness that fills her childhood home. Flynn marries a beautifully constructed plot with a wealth of distressingly vivid details, and the result is unforgettable. It’s like if V.C. Andrews had cared about being a more conventionally “good” writer. (No disrespect meant to V.C. Andrews, who didn’t really need to be any better, but she very much did her own thing re: plot and style.) Also, I love Camille a lot.

Worst of the Bi-Month

Fairest by Marissa Meyer (2015): In this prequel to The Lunar Chronicles, Princess Levana leads a luxurious existence on the moon colony ruled by her family, but lives in fear of her sadistic sister and believes she can never be loved because of the terrible scars hidden beneath her glamor. Her desperation for affection and validation eventually turns her into the Evil Moon Queen of the series proper, or something like that. Levana is probably meant to be a lonely, misguided girl who slowly descends into evil due to a barrage of disappointments, or else a conscienceless rapist (yes, rapist) whose suffering renders her somewhat pitiable. I honestly can’t tell, but the result is incoherent, to say the least. 

Rest of the Bi-Month

The Charm School by Susan Wiggs (1999): In 1850s Boston, painfully awkward spinster Isadora Peabody decides to leave her stifling, shallow family and work as a navigator/translator on a clipper ship, much to the frustration (at first!) of its raucous captain. This is a rollicking  romance with a nice Old Hollywood feel, partly because it owes a lot to Now, Voyager. Isadora’s character development is engaging, and there’s some interesting social commentary about the damaging effects of being forced to perform femininity.

The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro (1977): In this collection of short stories, Rose grows up poor and unshielded from the sordid realities of her mid-century Canadian town. Education and marriage change her life almost beyond recognition, and then she changes it again of her own volition. Munro’s descriptions are so perfect that I barely ever had to make an effort to imagine what anything looked like, and her observations about people are uncomfortably accurate. The stories become a little too sedate in the last quarter of the collection, though.

Joe College by Tom Perrotta (2000): Working-class Yale student Danny, equally at sea with his carelessly rich classmates and hostile townie coworkers, runs into even more trouble during a spring break spent driving his father’s lunch truck. Although the story takes a while to get started, it features several terrific setpieces (notably a dinner hosted by a classmate’s personally charming, politically heartless father) and has a thought-provoking ending.

Fortune’s Lady by Patricia Gaffney (1989): In 1790s England, Cass Merlin’s father is hanged as a Jacobin traitor, leaving her disgraced and practically alone in the world. Recruited/blackmailed into acting as a honeypot for a suspected Jacobin ringleader, she doesn’t expect to fall for Philip Riordan, her fellow spy, but you know how these things go. This is probably my favorite of all the Old School romances I’ve read. It has a fun if overly lurid plot inspired by Notorious, a compelling if occasionally idiot-ball-carrying heroine, and a hero who is only occasionally terrible. On the other hand, the villain is a bisexual who hates Edmund Burke, which (a) is kind of offensive and (b) makes it really hard for me, a bisexual who hates Edmund Burke, to hate him.

The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner (2018): Romy, a single mother and stripper from San Francisco, ends up serving two consecutive life sentences in maximum security prison after killing her stalker. This novel pissed me the fuck off, not because it’s bad, but because it showcases the blatant unfairness of the justice system for indigent defendants and the proudly heartless attitude that many people have towards prisoners. Kushner has a terrific style and makes lots of references to 1960s country music, which I appreciate, but she loses steam about two-thirds into the book.

90s Bitch by Allison Yarrow (2018): Pushing back against the wave of nineties nostalgia, Yarrow details the sexism rampant in the decade’s politics and media, covering topics like the Clarence Thomas sexual harassment controversy, the downfall of Tonya Harding, Dan Quayle’s war on Murphy Brown, and the watered-down feminism of the Spice Girls. Yarrow’s account is entertaining as the subject matter is infuriating, but I wish she’d spent more time establishing how the eighties were any less sexist, because that doesn’t sound quite right.

East by Edith Pattou (2003): Ebba-Rose grows up happy with her large family on their early modern Norwegian farm, until poverty, illness, and the exposure of a big lie threaten to end it all. Then a polar bear shows up at the door and offers to fix everything in return for Rose coming to live with him--an offer that Rose feels compelled to take not just out of desperation, but out of wanderlust. I’m not that familiar with “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” but this seems to be a fairly straightforward retelling. It’s charming, though, and it really picks up after the candle incident.

Miss Wonderful by Loretta Chase (2004): Threatened with financial consequences if he doesn’t marry an heiress within a year, Napoleonic war veteran Alistair Carsington says “fuck that” and goes into the canal-building business with a friend in order to come up with the necessary cash. However, going into the canal business brings him into contact with the bewitching Mirabel Oldridge, who fucking hates the idea of a canal running through her village. This Regency romance turned out to be a lot sadder than I thought it would be--the hero and heroine spend just as much time dealing with PTSD and grief for a parent, respectively, as they do bantering--and it was a richer story for all of that. The start was pretty slow, though, and I could’ve done without the disdain for the lower class.

Fool Me Twice by Meredith Duran (2014): Desperate for safety, Olivia Holladay cons her way into a housekeeping position at the Duke of Marwick’s house, hoping to find letters that will keep her murderous stalker off her back forever. Then she becomes way too invested in the welfare of the duke, who has become agoraphobic and borderline feral after his wife’s sudden death. This Victorian romance had an even slower start than Miss Wonderful, and I never got a coherent sense of the heroine’s personality; she’s a combination of prim goody-goody and wily con artist, and those two sides never really gel. I did like the conclusion, and Duran’s style is excellent as ever.

Tomorrow and Forever by Maud B. Johnson (1980): Tricked into boarding a bride ship and brutalized by Blackbeard’s pirates, New England girl Marley Lancaster finally finds love with Captain Bates Hagen after they’re set adrift in a dinghy together. They start a new life in Bath, North Carolina, but can it survive the fact that Bates is kind of a dirtbag? I rather enjoyed this Old School romance, partly because of the unusual setting and partly because I just liked the heroine. She’s kind of weak-willed and not very good at solving problems, but she struggles through life anyway and I really rooted for her. Bates, for his part, is...not a rapist. He’s actually the least rapey man in the story, which is how it should be, right? Still, he’s a dirtbag who ditches his common-law wife in a hostile colonial town and seems affronted when she doesn’t stay put. Plus I feel like only half the rapes in the story were narratively necessary.

Those Girls by Chevy Stevens (2015): Three sisters flee their rural Canadian home after the youngest kills their abusive father, only to face more horrible violence from men. Years later, after they’ve started a new life in Vancouver, the past reemerges and, you guessed it, there is more horrible violence. I finished this book and asked myself, “Is a woman made to suffer?” Like, I obviously read a lot about women suffering (see: most of this list), but this whole story is just women suffering, briefly trying to get revenge, and suffering more because of the revenge. 

[buffyversefanfiction]

Buffy: Chaos Bleeds (Twisted Remix)

Warning: I do not own the rights to the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its spin-off series Angel, its dark horse comics continuation series, or any of the characters created by Joss Whedon and others in the Buffyverse. 15 years +, Mild to Strong Violence, Sexual References. F/F, F/M, M/M, Other +

LEVEL TWO HERE

Level 3 - Blood Factory

“Here is the thing I do not get if this is the shadow demon’s game then why are you here, no offense but are you not meant to be dead?” Dawn quizzed her nephew Tristan, as she, Tristan and Willow walked up towards the Blood Factory in Sunnydale. “I am not quite sure where I stand on the whole being dead thing anymore, some former flame of my biological father’s decided to change my living status without me knowing and before I could even get back to the living I’ve found myself in the world of yesterday.” Tristan replied to his aunt. “The point is your back, are still good and are not behind this…right?” Willow asked the male slayer, as she, Tristan and Dawn stopped outside the front doors of the Blood Factory. “No, I am not behind the sudden return of Sunnydale if I was going to bring something back it would be something cool like Atlantis, something I’d love to discover the secrets of not some boring ass small town.” Tristan told the redheaded witch, once again trying to make both Willow and Dawn believe his innocence. “Oh now if we were all on the island of Atlantis I would totally accept the blame for that, being something of a study enthusiast I would love to get to the bottom of that mystery and learn everything there is to learn about Atlantis.” Willow responded with a little too much excitement. “There is something rather thrilling about making the unknown known which I guess is one of the reasons I wound up being a slayer.” Tristan admitted to his mother’s best friend. “Hey, me too! Well except I am a witch and not a slayer…I love slaying to Buffy.” Willow replied, happy to have something in common with her best friend’s son. “I guess now is the time we get to the patrolling not that much ever happened here anyway.” Dawn chimed in, clearly not believing they would find anything here. “Are you kidding me?” Willow scoffed at Dawn. “Spike once had me and Xander held hostage here, then Cordy wound up being impaled not to mention the whole Oz and Cordy catching me and Xander…actually never mind about that part.” “Cordelia that’s the name of the higher being who has the hots for Angel or had the hots for Angel, can higher being’s even have hots for beings that are not higher?” Tristan mumbled, as he realized Cordelia had more history with the group than he first realized. “Okay, so now this place has gone from a boring abandoned old blood factory to the place where my child’s father cheated on his partner with a woman who does not even like men.” Dawn complained, not happy with Willow’s little trip down memory lane. “Oz was nice though I liked him, weird to think he’s settled down with a child of his own now.” “Yeah…I mean other than the fact Cordelia’s dead and Giles still being Giles, Buffy and I are the only ones from the old days that has not settled down with a family.” Willow realized, not sure whether that a family was even something she wanted. “Well Buffy has her slightly unhinged son who should technically only be a few years old.” Dawn told the witch, attempting and failing to reassure her. “I would be totally offended by that description if it was not totally and utterly accurate!” Tristan replied to Dawn.

It had been a long time since Willow Rosenberg had thought about Sunnydale, often finding it too painful to reminisce about all the things she had lost before she lost Sunnydale itself and of course the greatest pain came from the death of her true love Tara Maclay at the hands of the wicked Warren but now she was back there and at the Blood Factory nonetheless, a place which brought back different kinds of memories. Willow was left shell shocked after walking through the front doors of the Blood Factory with Tristan and Dawn by her side, only to find her former bewitching friend turned enemy Amy Madison sitting in the middle of the floor within a pentagram chanting in a long forgotten language. “Well if it is not the big bad Willow,” Amy greeted her with a wicked smirk, temporally stopping her chanting. “Now let us see who the wickedest witch of them is really.” “Seriously, Amy are you still envious of my surpassing you in every way?” Willow asked her fellow witch, as four vampires; three male and one female, began walking into the factory from different entrances and different directions. “You need to get over the fact that as a witch you are as much of a failure as you were in high school.” “I personally think you should turn her back into a rat!” Dawn suggested to Willow as Amy began chanting once more. “I second that,” Tristan agreed with his aunt before teasing her. “You just stand there and try not to get killed while I slay these vamps.” “Yeah to hell with that one,” Dawn snapped back at him, as she pulled out two wooden stakes from her jacket and handed one to Tristan. “As a feminist I choose the woman, you can play with the boys!” Tristan wasted no time in agreeing or disagreeing with Dawn as he charged towards the three male vampires ready for a fight with Dawn quickly following suit by charging towards the one female vampire. “I guess this means it is just you and me again.” Willow said to Amy as she walked towards her. “I’m all for rehabilitation but I think with you it is going to work better in rat form then no more casting until you learn to be less Pinky and the brain and more Mickey Mouse.” As Willow began chanting away in a dead language casting a spell to counter whatever Amy was doing, Tristan quickly staked his first vampire and watched it quickly turn to dust before going one on two with the other two vampires, getting in as many hits as they were delivering on him. Meanwhile Dawn charged towards her vampire without hesitation and with a little luck and experience she managed to stake the female vamp before the vampire had a chance to even react or counter Dawn’s attack. “Girl power all the way!” Dawn said with pride as she watched her enemy turn to dust. Willow continued to chant as Tristan managed to stake his second vampire which began turning to dust as he started fighting with his third and finale vampire but before he could deliver another attack on him he turned to dust before his eyes, quickly finding Dawn stood where the vampire once stood looking smug with herself. “Yeah, well, I totally softened him up for you!” Tristan told her in a childlike manner. “I guess that makes the kill count two all,” Dawn replied with a sinister smirk. “Not too bad for a non-slayer or maybe bad for an actual slayer…you decide!” “No!” Amy screamed, demanding Tristan and Dawn’s attention immediately as they looked over to see Willow now standing above Amy within the pentagram. Before Amy could cast another spell or say another world she was met by Willow’s right fist as Willow punched her across the face with force causing Amy to completely fall to the ground as Tristan and Dawn watched on with awe. “I wonder what the spell was for anyways.” Tristan said to Dawn as they watched Willow beginning to chant away once more. “Who knows? Whatever it was it would not have been much Amy was never much of a witch to be honest…or maybe every witch seems abysmal in comparison to our Willow.” Dawn responded to her nephew as both her and Tristan watched as Amy transformed into a rat.

Elsewhere in Sunnydale, within a cemetery not too far away from the Blood Factory, Spike had just finished off the last zombified corpse as Buffy delivered her finale move on The Master, staking him with Mr. Pointy and watching him turn to nothing more but dust and bones. “How come his bones remain?” Spike asked as he walked over to Buffy, to examine The Master’s bones. “I have never seen that with a vamp before.” “You know I never got that too I once thought it was his age but Kakistos was so old he had pig like hands and when Faith dusted his ass he was just dust like all the rest.” Buffy replied to peroxide blonde-haired vampire. “Must be something special about him maybe something to do with being turned by a descendant of the demon lord Archaeus but then again you and Angel are from that same bloodline and you were both nothing more than dust when use died.” “I am sure there is some sort of explanation somewhere no doubt Giles would know.” Spike suggested before looking around the cemetery, realizing the mystical energy ball was gone. “Hey, when did that magic ball disappear?” “No idea…speaking of Giles we should probably head back to the Magic Box.” Buffy responded, before realizing it had been a while since she had said something along those lines, another hit of nostalgia from this nostalgic driven other worldly dimension.

LEVEL 3 = COMPLETED

[huffleporg]

The Catfather :: Chapter Three - East of the Sun :: [G] :: 3/? :: 14k so far

Thomas O'Malley couldn't say he had the perfect life, but after adopting Swan the cat and her two kittens, Thomas finally had a sense of normalcy restored. That was until the day his dead wife's long lost son Henry Mills showed up on his doorstep, claiming that not only is his wife alive, but her name is really Emma, he's really Captain Hook, and that it's his job as her True Love to find her and save her so she can save everyone else.

Quite a lot to swallow before breakfast.

From the Beginning  (Ao3)

Thank you to bewitching. over at TDA for making me this awesome graphic.

This fic is NOT season seven compliant. It was planned out completely independently and fully developed long before season seven spoilers started getting out, so you will not find *anything* from season seven here.

I am sorry that it took so long to update, but between medical school, hurricanes, and just learning how to adapt, I took a lot longer than I would have liked. But here it is finally. Chapter three.

The arching spikes of the letters written on the flyer stared back at Thomas. “‘He can help,’” he read out loud, as if saying it would some how clarify the whole matter. “Who is ‘he?’”

Despite all of his previous long-winded explanations, for a moment all Henry could do was shake his head. Finally, the Author managed, “I don’t know.” He looked up at Thomas. “I don’t even recognize this handwriting. But, you know what this means, right?”

Thomas was still staring at the yellow paper. “Someone was watching us.”

“Someone remembers,” Henry said. “And they want us to see the Kings of the Highway preform tonight.”

Stepping between the two adults, Lucy said, “We’ll have to go and see ‘him’ then!” She walked towards the back of the car. “Come on,” she said, her hand on the car door.

“Not so fast, kid,” Henry said grimly. “We don’t know if this is a friend or if it’s a trap… What if whoever cast the spell has been watching us and left us this message?”

As Henry spoke, Thomas nodded, though he hadn’t thought of all that himself. It still made sense to Thomas, given everything that he had learned since this morning. Someone wanted them at The Blue Village tonight, but didn’t want them to know who he or she was. It was as suspicious as the message was cryptic.

Lucy’s hand fell to her side, but the determined frown still remained on her face. “And what if it’s someone who wants to help us, but can’t reveal that they remember? What if they have to lie low? What if they’re scared of whoever cast the Curse?”

Henry folded the paper back up. “We can’t count on that. I want to believe it. I want to think that it’s not a trap, but Lucy, we have to be careful. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here, or who might be on our side,” he said. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t go. We should. But, we need to be smart about it. Come up with a plan… just in case things go wrong.” He glanced over at Thomas. “Killian, can you look up this band… Kings of the Highway?”

Thomas pulled out his phone from his jeans pocket. “Sure.” He tapped the screen, quickly typing in the name. “There’s a web page.” He scrolled through it frowning at the brief description of the band’s history and style. The blurbs from reviews that had been written about their performances. None of it seemed particularly useful. “I don’t think it’ll be much help. There aren’t any pictures of them.” He handed the phone to Henry to see for himself.

“Of course there aren’t,” sighed Henry. “That would be too easy.” He used his index finger to scroll. “At least it confirms what the ad says. They’re playing tonight at The Blue Village at eight. Don’t know who’s running the page, so can’t entirely trust it, but that’s promising.” He handed Thomas back his mobile. “Do you know who owns The Blue Village?”

“No,” said Thomas. “Like I said, I’ve never been there. I don’t like jazz. And I haven’t really gone out in years. Not since…” He stopped. “I guess I’ve never actually been out.” If Anna’s death was entirely the result of memories given to him by a curse along with all his past, then he had never been out in Fairyland.

“Oh, you’ve been out,” said Henry. “Killian Jones went out… a lot. You liked taverns.”

“Liked,” emphasized Thomas. “I stopped going to bars in my mid twenties. Don’t think I’ve had more than a couple beers since… well… however long this curse has been.”

“Knowing you, you probably drank the night before the curse came,” said Henry with a grin. “We’re wasting time,” interrupted Lucy with an exasperated sigh. She folded her arms across her chest. “Our family is in danger and you are just standing there looking at....” She paused, clearly struggling to find a way to explain a smart phone, “... those rectangular things.”

“Lucy, don’t be rude. And they’re called phones,” said Henry. He started towards the car. Catching Thomas’s look of confusion, he offered, “She has a point, and we need to figure out what we’re going to do.” Henry swung open the car door and slid inside, Thomas quickly joining him.

“So we’ll go to the club tonight,” said Lucy. “But we have to be smart about it.” She leaned forward from the back seat so she was in between the driver’s and the passenger seat.

Henry turned back in his seat to look at his daughter. “I think that we have to do a stakeout, before the show,” he said. “See who shows up to open the place up. See who works there. And try not to be seen in the process.” The way the younger man spoke, Thomas had no doubts that this wasn’t the first time Henry had ever planned a stakeout. Years of experience seemed to form his words. “What time does The Blue Village open?”

A quick google search later and Thomas said, “Six.”

“That means the earliest people that work there will start arriving will probably be five. Maybe four-thirty,” mused Henry. He checked his watch. “That leaves us with a few hours.” He stroked his chin. “Does Fairyland have a clock tower?”

Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Clock tower? I don’t think so.” It was a little bit too quaint for this place, even if it was named Fairyland.

“Worth a shot,” he murmured. He glanced out through the dashboard out into the vague distance of buildings and roads. His forehead crinkled deeply as he left Thomas and Lucy to wonder in silence just what the author was planning.

Thomas glanced in the rearview mirror to see what Lucy was up to, only to find her dark bistre eyes looking straight at him. He opened his mouth, trying to think of something to say to the girl, but Henry spared him the effort.

“Is there anything in Fairland,” began Henry suddenly, “that is… broken? Or vacant? Or not open?”

Thomas turned in his seat to look better at Henry, his forehead wrinkling.

“Just ‘cause, in Storybrooke, there was a clock tower, but it was stuck, frozen in time during the curse. It was on top of the library, which was closed until Belle woke up and became the librarian, and below that was a dragon protecting--”

“A dragon?” laughed Thomas. “A real dragon? Now that is something.”

Henry smiled and said, “Yeah. You met her, actually. Her daughter and my mom had a complicated past, and she’s a dragon too. They’re both probably here somewhere.” His eyes scanned the scene before him, as if by some miracle the women he was talking about would walk right by. “But I was thinking, there might be something like that here.”

“Fairyland is a city,” said Thomas. “Something is always closed or out of order.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t say that I’ve noticed anything particularly… well…” For a moment he wracked his mind, trying to recall anything that could perhaps be of use to Henry. “I really can’t think of anything that might be of use.”

With a tone that betrayed a hint of frustration. “The Curse probably doesn’t want you to notice stuff like that,” said Henry. “When I was trying to convince everyone that there was a Curse on Storybrooke, no one seemed particularly bothered by any oddities or noticed stuff like that.”

“Maybe if we just drive into town, we might see something like the clocktower or library,” suggested Thomas.

“Might be the best,” Henry said. He glanced over his shoulder and said, “Okay, Lucy, buckle up,” as he pulled his own seat belt across his lap. “Let’s go.”

As the car started, Thomas turned his gaze to the suburban scene out of the window. Over the next few minutes of restless silence, Thomas watched the yards grow smaller and smaller, until finally, they practically vanished as the car entered the city again. Pedestrians began to appear on the sidewalks, strolling past shops and other business of Fairyland. The car began to slow, allowing for closer inspection of the passersby.

“Who is that?” asked Lucy, pointing at a balding man jogging half-heartedly on the sidewalk.

Henry took his eyes off the road for a moment, and said, “I never actually learned his name, but I know he’s a Viking. Or used to be.”

“A Viking?” repeated Thomas, staring at the man. It was hard to imagine the man in a tank and sweatpants holding a brightly painted round shield and a sword like the Vikings he had seen in movies and drawings. It was also hard to reconcile how a historic group of people could be here in Washington, but he supposed that with all the stories and legends that had been told about them over the years, not to mention their own myths and folklore, it was possible that they belonged here, just like Snow White and The Evil Queen.

“And what about her?” Lucy pointed at a slender woman with a long black braid walking a speckled mutt.

“Oh, that’s Guinevere,” said Henry, his voice rising slightly with what Thomas could only interpret as surprise.

“What? Were you not expecting to see her here?” asked Thomas. He watched the legendary queen bend down, pulling out from her pocket a purple plastic bag, to perform a task he doubted that she had ever had to do in her former life. Or is ‘real life’ a more accurate term?wondered Thomas, almost missing Henry’s answer.

“Last I heard, she was in Camelot,” said Henry. “So either she came back to Storybrooke or the Curse affected more than just Storybrooke. But I don’t even know if that’s possible.” He paused. “It shouldn’t be. But… I don’t know that guy,” he gestured at a man in a green windbreaker talking on a cellphone, “and I’ve never seen that woman before…” He nodded at a woman in her mid-thirties pushing a stroller with a rather chubby toddler strapped in. “They’re not from Storybrooke. And if Fairyland is a city, but Storybrooke a small town…” His eyes met Thomas’s for a moment.

“The people had to come from somewhere,” supplied Thomas.

“Exactly,” Henry said, giving a small nod.

The car continued to roll on, at least five miles below the speed limit. Thomas marvelled at the fact that no one had honked at them or driven around them out of frustration.

Abruptly, the car lurched forward to a quick stop. Inertia sent Thomas forward before his seatbelt caught him, reigning him back.

“What?” asked Lucy and Thomas in almost unison.

Henry’s hazel eyes had gone wide, as he stared at a tall woman crossing the street. Her thick red hair, streaked with white, fell down her back. Gaze directed straight ahead as she jaywalked past the silver Toyota, oblivious to the three people following her.

“That’s… that’s my aunt. That’s Zelena.”

“The Wicked Witch?” asked Thomas, remembering the illustrations that Lucy had showed him. There was certainly a resemblance, even if the woman seemed around a decade older than she had been in the drawings in the book.

“We’ve got to follow her!” declared Lucy, her voice trailing upwards.

“First I’ve got to find a place to park,” muttered Henry.

Thomas pointed to a vacant space on the next block. “There’s a spot up there.”

On the sidewalk now, Zelena turned to proceed in the opposite direction of the car. Lucy unbuckled her seatbelt and got up on her knees, leaning against the back seat to watch out the rear window. “She’s going that way!” she said, pointing behind them.

“Damn it,” Henry swore under his breath. “Lucy,” he said in his normal tone as his eyes quickly flitted around the scene, “if I ever teach you how to drive, you never, ever should do this.” He quickly spun the wheel around, causing the car veer into a U-turn.

Thomas barely had time to grip the handle above the door to brace himself against the turn. He could hear Lucy laughing in the back seat. He scanned the sidewalk for the redheaded woman. “Up there!” he said, pointing at the former Wicked Witch.

“Charge!” shouted Lucy, with a laugh.

Henry pressed on the gas and the car lurched ahead just in time to see the woman turn down a one way street.

As Henry put on the turn signal, Thomas said, “Don’t you think you’ve broken enough laws today, mate?”

“Since when did you care about the law?” the younger man asked.

“Since the curse I guess.” Pirates weren’t exactly known for following the rules of society, but Thomas had his limits. Even when he had been driving often rather than relying on the buses, he hadn’t ever gotten a speeding ticket. Seeing Henry, a man who was supposed to be his step-son, about to break another law, he felt obligated to speak up.

“We’re going to lose her,” protested Lucy, craning her neck to try to follow the woman with her eyes. “Dad…”

Henry sighed and quickly pulled up to the curb right in front of a fire hydrant. Before Thomas could open his mouth, Henry was already saying, “Not a word. I’ll take the ticket.”

Thomas sighed, but said nothing, instead opening the door and pulling himself up out of the car. He heard the sound of Henry’s car lock beeping as the three of them crossed the street to hurry to the side street. Lucy started running, something that Henry quickly began to do as well. Thomas quickened his pace, realizing why the father and daughter had started running as he started down the street properly. The woman was no where to be seen.

“She’s not here,” said Lucy after stopping in front of another side road. She hurried down the block, much faster than Thomas could keep up with. “She’s not here either!” Even from the distance of a block, Thomas could hear the desperation in her voice.

“Stay there!” shouted Henry, as he tried to catch up with his daughter. Henry reached her within a few seconds, with Thomas coming up last, panting. “She wasn’t running,” began Henry. “So she has to be around here somewhere.” He turned around and scanned the linear park that ran parallel to the street. Neither the group of preteen girls walking by a small patch of wild flowers, nor the old couple feeding birds seemed to spark anything in Henry, nor was his aunt anywhere in sight.

“Maybe she went into one of the shops,” suggested Thomas, nodding at the shops that lined the street. It was the best explanation he could think of as to how they could have lost the woman so quickly.

Turning to face the nearest storefront, a shoe store, Henry said, “Possibly.”

Lucy cupped her hands around her eyes and pressed her face up against the window to peer into the shop.

“Is she in there?” asked Henry, leaning forward to try to see better into the shop.

Instead of answering, Lucy straightened up, shaking her head, and walked down to the next shop, Henry and Thomas trailing behind her. A quick pop into the second hand shop was enough for the three to ascertain that Zelena was not there. The next shop over, a cramped ice cream parlor likewise was proving unsuccessful for their witch hunt. Finally, “Is that her?” asked Thomas, pointing at the barista in the coffee shop. Her back was turned as she went about preparing something for a customer who stood in line, boredly scrolling through a phone. Even through the dark tinted windows, there was no mistaking the firy red of the woman’s hair.Henry nodded and opened the door, Lucy following suit.

Thomas barely had time to register the logo on the door - a crescent moon overlapping the edge of a sun, with touching faces that looked almost like they were kissing. “I’ve been here before,” said Thomas. “West of the Moon.” He joined Henry and Lucy standing close enough to the counter so that they could read the menu displayed up on a chalkboard hanging about the bar. “They’ve got a great croissant.”

Henry didn’t seem to be listening, instead his eyes were trained on the back of the woman’s head, eyes almost boring into her. At last, the barista turned to hand the customer his drink, and Thomas heard Henry sigh. The woman standing behind the counter was most definitely not the same woman that they had seen crossing the street.

“Merida,” murmured Henry.

“Are you trying to swear?” laughed Thomas.

“No,” said Henry. “That’s Merida. Only she’s straightened out her hair. When I saw her it was… wild.”

“Oh well,” sighed Thomas. He turned around to exit the coffee shop, but he stopped when he felt Henry grab onto his right arm. “What?” he asked, looking back and Henry only to see that his stare was now focused somewhere else other than the redheaded barista. Thomas followed his gaze and saw in the corner of a shop, a petite woman with hair swept up into an elegant bun, except for a lock of silvery hair that had escaped, separate from the rest of her auburn hair, falling in front of her face, as she poured over a book, the rest of the four-person table occupied by several other books and legal pads with notes scrawled on it.

Not missing out, Lucy asked, “Who is she?”

As if he was suddenly interested in the display of scones on the counter, Henry looked away from the older woman. “Belle,” he said softly. “That’s my step-grandmother.”

Thomas couldn’t stop himself from giving the woman another look. “Where’s her beast?” The man who his prior self supposedly had spent centuries hating and plotting to kill. This woman and him had supposedly been friends before, back in Storybrooke. As he watched her gesticulate in conversation, he willed himself to feel something, some sort of spark of recognition, like the ones he felt before. Nothing came, and he quickly joined Henry in examining the scones. “How about you two go and get the table next to her,” whispered Thomas, “and I’ll get us something so we look like we belong.” They couldn’t be kicked out if they had bought something.

Henry nodded at the plan and motioned Lucy to follow him. While the two took a table several tables over from Belle’s - a better idea now that he thought about it - Thomas went to counter, glad that he wouldn’t have to wait in line. He smiled at the woman behind the cash register, trying to see the similarities between her and the cartoon that he remembered being advertized years ago. “Hello… Sally,” he said, reading the name tag pinned to her pink babydoll tee-shirt.

“Good afternoon,” she said, returning the smile. “Welcome to West of the Moon. What can I get for you today?”

Though he had never actually seen the movie, Thomas was fairly sure that the Texan accent hadn’t been a part of it. “Two coffees,” said Thomas. “One with cream and one whatever sweetener you have handy.” He paused trying to remember just how Henry had liked his coffee. “The other with two sugars and a dash of cream.” It wasn’t too different from how Anna had liked her own coffee. She had always preferred her coffee sweet, but had liked a little more dairy in hers. “And a chocolate chip cookie,” he added, thinking of Lucy.

“Coming up.”

As Merida-Sally busied herself getting the order ready, Thomas leaned on the counter to try to casually glance in the direction of Belle. She seemed completely engrossed in the book, unaware of the fact that there were three pairs of eyes staring at her.

“Here ya go!”

Thomas practically jumped out of his skin, only to realize that it was just the barista back with his coffee. “Sorry.” He gave her a small apologetic smile.

“Oh no worries,” she said. She paused. “I put everything on a tray.” She nodded at his prosthetic.

“Thank you.” He pulled out a twenty dollar bill - more than enough to pay for the coffees and cookie. “That woman,” he said, his voice dropping low, even though Belle wasn’t really within earshot, “do you know who she is?”

“Yeah,” said Sally apprehensively. “She comes in here regularly. Professor of Literature up at the university.” Her voice dropped low and she gave a conspiratorial grin. “What? Would you like me to send her a coffee from you? Like from her special secret admirer at a bar. Always wanted to do that.”

Taken aback by the woman’s obvious eagerness to aid in the pursuit of romance, Thomas’s eyebrows went up. “I… I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” He glanced over his shoulder at her, Henry and Lucy. Henry mouthed something that Thomas was fairly sure was ‘what.’ “Just her name, I guess.”

The woman’s smile faltered. “That’s Linda Argenteuil. She taught at least two of my brothers a couple years back,” she said.

“Thanks.” He handed the redhead the money and picked up the tray and walked over to the table Henry and Lucy had picked out. The thrill of minor espionage and intelligence gathering made him quicken his pace. He sat down beside Lucy and handed her the cookie. As he handed Henry the coffee he said, “This one’s yours.” He leaned closer to the two of them. “Evidently your step-grandmum teaches English up at the university. Goes by Linda Argenteuil.”

“That’s.... oddly fitting,” said Henry, surprise raising his voice upward. “Usually curses give people lives that don’t entirely…” He frowned and his voice dropped even lower. “She’s even dressed how she dressed in Storybrooke. But her shoes look far less painful. Makes me wonder…”

“Her shoes make you wonder?” asked Thomas glancing over to see the pair of strappy sandals on the professor’s feet.

“No, but her life makes me wonder if… if Mr. Gold cast the curse,” said Henry. He blew on his coffee.

“Isn’t Belle the person he loves most?” asked Thomas.

“His true love,” answered Lucy.

“There are many different kinds of love,” Henry said. “And you can use them to cast a curse.” He took a sip of his coffee, and Thomas followed suit only finding it much too hot still to drink without blowing on it first. Perhaps Henry was too worried to notice, supposed Thomas.

After a minute of silence, “You have to talk to her.”

Thomas stared at Henry. “Why me?”

“You were friends,” said Henry. “There should be some lingering spark or something. There was for people in the first curse. My grandmother became friends with Grumpy.”

It was a sign of just how much his perspective on the whole matter had changed over the course of mere hours that Thomas didn’t burst out laughing at such a ridiculous statement. He merely nodded it, and accepted that there was a chance that what Henry was saying was true, and if that chance allowed for the possibility that Anna or Emma or whatever her name truly was was in fact alive, Thomas was willing to entertain it. “Okay,” he said, getting up again.

“Worst comes to worse,” Henry continued, “you could just flirt with her.”

With a sigh, Thomas shook his head and turned around. As he drew closer to Belle, he could make out the title of the book that she was reading. “‘A Tale of Two Cities,’” he said out loud, standing a few feet from Belle’s table. “Been a few years since I read it, but I remember it was about the best and worst of times.” He grinned a little bit at his joke.

Startled at the sound of someone speaking to her, Belle’s eyes widened and flicked up to meet Thomas’s gaze. “Uh, yes,” she said. She cleared her throat and put a yellow ribbon in the book to mark her place. “More specifically it’s about the French Revolution.” She set the book down on the table. “I’m teaching a course this semester on historical fiction, and I like to prepare by re-reading all the books before the semester starts.” She nodded at the other scattered books on the table. “Or rather, I skim them at this point. I’ve read so many of them so many times, I could practically recite them.” She smiled a little.

“If you’re doing historical fiction and you’re reading ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, then you’ve got to read ‘Les Mis,’” said Thomas.

Belle picked up her backpack and opened it to reveal a well-worn copy of Les Miserables. “Way ahead of you on that one,” she said with a wink. “I do it as a compare and contrast. Always get some interesting papers as a result.”

“I can imagine,” he said. He reached for an unoccupied chair at her table. “Mind if I sit here, Professor…”

“Argenteuil.” She shook her head. “Not at all,” she got to her feet. “I actually should be going. I’ve got to pick my son up from practice. I’m just lucky you came over. I was quite enthralled by Dickens’ prose.” She began to put each book in her bag one by one.

A son. He glanced over at Henry and Lucy, both were leaning forward. He could imagine what they were thinking, as it was most likely the same question he was wondering. “Oh, well,” he said, awkwardly scratching his ear. “I had hoped to be sitting with you, but I suppose that you’ve got to your son… back to your husband.” The words felt so foreign to him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had flirted with anyone. He hadn’t wanted to since Anna had died, and for years before that she had been the only one who he bantered with like that. Even back when he had been trying his hand at pick-up lines and cheeky jokes, he had never been particularly adept. As he spoke now, however, he felt an unprecedented ease that told him what timber to hold his voice at and where to pause for effect.

The professor stared at him for a moment before letting out a laugh. She put her final legal pad away and swung her backpack onto her shoulder. “No. Just me and my son,” she said. Walking around the table, she continued, “and I do appreciate the attention, I’m not really interested.” She tilted her head to the side and gave him a sympathetic smile. “You’re just not really my type.”

All Thomas could think to do was just nod and say, “Okay then.” He took a few steps back. “Have a good day.”

With a small wave the professor said, “You too,” before leaving the coffee shop.

Feeling a little bit defeated, Thomas returned to Henry and Lucy with a sigh. “So, we know she has a son, no husband, but not much else.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Sorry I couldn’t get much more out of her.” He picked up his cup of coffee and took a sip. Finally it was cool enough to swallow directly.

“It’s helpful, though,” Henry said. “What is really strange though, is that Professor Argenteuil was Belle. Without her memories. But she was pretty much Belle.” There was a pause. “And you were you. For a moment there.”

“Was I?” Thomas said. “I suppose that explains-” Before he could continue, he felt a buzzing from his pocket. He pulled out his phone and checked the screen to see a picture of his upstairs neighbor. “It’s Marvin.”

“Blackbeard?” said Lucy with a grin.

“Sure.” He still had trouble seeing it. “Let me get this.” He got to his feet and hurried out of the cafe. Once he was outside, he tapped the answer icon on the screen. “Hey, Marvin?”

“So, you’re not going to believe this,” came Marvin’s voice, “but I’ve got your cat.”

“Which cat?” asked Thomas. Really it didn’t matter. The thought of any one of his cats out of the apartment where they were safe made him feel the push of worry.

“Uh, Swan… She’s the big one, right?”

Even though Marvin couldn’t see him, Thomas nodded. “Yeah. That’s her. What happened?” He started walking back and forth, across the length of the building and back again.

“I’m not exactly sure, but I was gardening, and there I see this white thing across the street, and I look, and I see that it’s your cat! I don’t know how she got out,” Marvin said. “But somehow she did. Gave me quite the workout running after her. I don’t mind. I need it. But seriously, your cat can run.”

Anxiety still gripped him. “But you have her.”

“Yes. She’s here with me now.”

There was an unmistakeable meow that immediately melted away some of the tension inside of him. “Good.” He paused. “What about the kittens?” If Swan could get out, then there was no reason to expect that the kittens couldn’t have followed their mother. And knowing them, the kittens had.

“I haven’t seen them.”

“Can you check for them?” Thomas asked, voice growing tight at the end. “Like, use the key under the rabbit statue out back? See if they’re inside. They should be there. They’re probably in my bedroom. And maybe see how Swan got out…” He kept on trying to remember what he could have possible left unlatched or open that could have allowed her to get loose.

“Sure, no worries,” said Marvin’s voice reassuringly. “I’ll let you know what I find. Going to go find the rabbit.” With a click and a few dull beeps, the call ended.

Thomas tried to swallow, but found his mouth was too dry to do it without getting caught.

Hearing the tinkling of a bell as the door to the cafe opened, Thomas turned around to see Henry and Lucy coming out. “Sorry about that,” he apologized. “Marvin just…” Compared to Operation Wookie, the matter of a cat that had gotten out and been found and too possibly missing kittens really was nothing. “Nevermind.” He forced the corners of his lips to raise up into a feeble smile. “So what do we do for a stake-out?” he asked, hoping that whatever was going on at The Blue Village would be enough of a distraction to get him through however long it took for Marvin to find the kittens.

[mingxias-blog]

hi, butterflies ! my name’s tea, and i’m over-the-moon thrilled to introduce you all to my adorable, bright-eyed broken bird ⌜ WU MINGXIA. ⌟ she’s a muse that i’ve planned out for the past week, and i feel as though i’ve ( finally ) perfected her. please read onwards if you’d like to learn more about her, and if you wanna plot, show me some love by LIKING THIS POST so i can message you. let’s get this party started, shall we ??

╰ ° ♡ ・ﾟ ╮   ❝ 𝕒𝕡𝕡𝕝𝕚𝕔𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 !

*✧･ — woah, was that ⸤ ZHOU JIEQIONG ⸣ i just saw walking around seoul? oh, never mind, that’s just ⸤ WU MINGXIA ⸣. they’re an ⸤ EIGHTEEN ⸣ year old ⸤ STYLIST ⸣, known around the city for being the ⸤ PARACOSMIC ⸣… i guess that’s because of their ⸤ BEWITCHING and SERAPHIC ⸣ tendencies, though, be warned, they are also rumoured to be ⸤ MENDACIOUS and FICKLE ⸣. this particular ⸤ OUTSIDER ⸣ identifies as a ⸤ HETEROSEXUAL CISFEMALE ⸣, using the pronouns ⸤ SHE/HER ⸣.

╰ ° ♡ ・ﾟ ╮   ❝ 𝕝𝕚𝕗𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕪𝕝𝕖 !

⌜ ONE. ⌟ born in the hustle and bustle of shanghai, china, mingxia was the only daughter to an esteemed, highly regarded fashion designer and his current muse —— a model that he had an affair with. even though he was married at the time ( which was quite the scandal in the media ) the two of them decided to test their waters; staying together to raise their little one, hoping so much that they’d be blessed with a son due to the one-child law. however, once the day arrived, both of them were surprised, but happy, that they were blessed with a happy, healthy daughter —— one with a smile so bright and skin so fair that the rising sun of dawn was envious of her from the moment she took her first breath of fresh air. due to that, they decided on the name MINGXIA ( which means bright halo, or shining. )

⌜ TWO. ⌟ despite all of the negative attention her birth received from chinese media outlets, mingxia lived a happy childhood —— attending a private school that her father could afford due to large amounts of cash he received for his designs. however, due to the backlash he, himself, received from multiple sources, his business took a huge hit, and her mother lost out and lots of jobs as a model. they both had to survive with money they had stored in their bank accounts until the little-to-no income was too detrimental on their lifestyle. having some extended family in south korea, the wu’s decided to move over there; packing up their lives in search for a brand new start. although this was only meant to bring goodness to them, mingxia couldn’t help but feel upset that she’d have to give up all her friends, and her home in shanghai. she’d never had to say goodbye before, so that was rough on her.

⌜ THREE. ⌟ once touching ground in the illustrious city of seoul, their small family was met with a world full of new cultures, and a democracy that they hadn’t necessarily experienced living in china: a communist country. however, they were extremely excited that they’d be closer to some of their family members, and after a few years pass, her father had every intention to start-up a new line of fashion with a string of new boutiques all throughout the city. until then, they moved into a sumptuous house in the gangnam district, and mingxia began going to a new school and was incredibly anxious about it. she was in a place where she didn’t know anyone whatsoever. that, and all of the children in her class were almost fixated with her, in a sense. no one had ever taken such an interest in her before, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. either way, she was quick to make some new friends —— most of which were girls that had lots of things in common with her, so she felt right at home in due time.

⌜ FOUR. ⌟ fast forward a few years to middle school. by this time, her father had waited long enough and he began to work on sketches for his latest work. now that his daughter had blossomed into a beautiful young woman, he used her youth as inspiration for his latest line. using a different name this time, he launched his career once more, and after a few years, was a household name in seoul. this only skyrocketed mingxia’s popularity with all of her friends —— especially with the girls, since they were often gifted with free clothes to wear around school in order to start trends. however, male classmates were quick to notice her too; her maturing appearance eye-catching, to say the least, and lots of them had crushes on her. oblivious to all of this, she remained the happy-go-lucky girl she’d always been. not once in her life had she ever been a difficult child for her parents to raise, and they were often quite proud of her. she was almost too perfect in their eyes.

⌜ FIVE. ⌟ then, unfortunately, things began to get quite sad for mingxia. it all started in high school, specifically at age fifteen. she’d met a boy there, and he wanted to be with her so, so bad. she remembered him from elementary school, and knew that he was the boy that would pick on some of the other kids that were smaller than him, or that came from less money, and she had her reservations about him because of that. sure, it had been several years since then, but she couldn’t help but hold those memories in the back of her head. however, he seemed charming, and no other boy was ever brave enough to approach her, so she decided to give him a chance —— hoping that he’d changed since then. after going on a date, the two of them had a great time, and she was pleased that he was different. after a few months of hanging out with one another, they decided to become official ; giving their relationship a title. at first, things were great. he treated her to wonderful gifts, and she’d return the favor, and so on. a year later, things began to grow really serious, and with all those new transitions came all of the hurt that she’d endure.

⌜ SIX. ⌟ at sixteen, the two of them began to experiment sexually, and she knew that they were too young for that, but he wanted it, and she loved him, so she went along with it —— finding her own enjoyment out of being so close to him. however, this only made him incredibly jealous and possessive of her ; often getting angry with her whenever other men would talk to her. soon, he’d even get upset whenever women would talk to her ; her own friends almost banished from spending time with her. none of this was okay with her, and she’d voice her opinions, but whenever she would, he’d become violent. shoving her, covering her mouth with his hand, threatening her. it was all becoming too much. then, to top it all off, she discovered that she was pregnant. horrified, she ran to her mother and told her all that had been going on. the abuse, the pregnancy, and how quickly things had escalated. her once pristine life had taken a total turn for the worst, and she had no idea where to turn. knowing that she wasn’t old enough to raise a child on her own, her mother planned an impromptu trip back to shanghai for the two of them —— her father never in the know about any of this, until after.

⌜ SEVEN. ⌟ due to abortion being illegal in korea, she knew that they’d have to take advantage of their dual citizenship in this scenario —— scheduling an appointment with a doctor in china in order to get the deed done. as much as it broke mingxia’s heart to know what was occurring, she couldn’t help but know that her mother was right. once all of it was complete, she felt a huge relief, but also a deep sadness... one unlike anything else in the world. surrounded by her family, she recovered in good spirits, and returned to korea a few weeks later; her boyfriend enraged due to her absence. however, in the time she was gone, she was able to file a restraining order on him, and for her health, become homeschooled. the changes that she went through completely drained her emotionally, and she slowly, but surely, spiraled into a dark depression. the burden of an abortion, the scars from the abuse, and the hurt in her heart were overwhelming, and it was then when she began to see a therapist. it took a few years, and a prescription of medication, but by eighteen, she finally feels level-headed once more —— her feet now planted into the ground. 

⌜ EIGHT. ⌟ now, she attends school for fashion design and works as a stylist for korea’s elite and most-esteemed celebrities. additionally, she models for her father’s line exclusively, and her face is one that many recognize from around the area. however, she’s nowhere near a large-scale star. still incredibly cheerful, she’s been through a lot in her time on earth, and has done her best to remain positive throughout all of the madness. she hopes that, one day, she could meet a man that’d erase all of the negative memories she has about her first love, and that she could become as successful as her old man, but for now, she’s getting through life one step at a time... and that’s enough for her.

╰ ° ♡ ・ﾟ ╮   ❝ 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖 𝕚𝕟𝕗𝕠 !

thank you all for taking the time to read about mingxia ! she’s a broken little dove, but she does her absolute best to remain happy and healthy. if you’re interested in learning more about specific connections needed for her development, please don’t hesitate to message me so i can inform you on some. i’ll be working on a more in-depth connections page for her, but that will come in due time. once again, thank you, and i can’t wait to rp with you !

[simone-garnett]

title: i see your true colours shining through (and that’s why i love you) rating: mature word count: 6150 pairing: archieronnie infomation: soulmate au where you can’t see colour until you kiss your soulmate on the lips.            ao3   //   ffn

She hears him before she sees him.

His voice is like a punch to the stomach, winding her. Veronica stops immediately, a statue in a crowd, people pushing their way past her, away from him. As though it were possible to ignore such beauty, such tragedy. She can hear the brokenness in his voice, the soft crooning of heartache and pain, only accompanied by the strumming of the guitar. The words wrap themselves around her heart, the voice etching itself in her soul.

And she wonders what it would be to be loved like that - so wholly, so completely. So devastatingly.

She searches for the man whose heart was shattered into fragments, each shard cutting into her as she hears his story through his lyrics. There is so little beauty in a world only black and white and all the shades of grey in between, and what she is denied by colour she seeks in other aspects of life, and music - she finds it in music most of all. She wanders through the throng, pushing others aside as she swims through the sea of people, against the current and toward the broken soul that reverberated with her own.

And suddenly she is there, he is there. She finds him.

Her breath hitches as her gaze lands on him; it is a cliche and she hates them, but it is as if her world slows down, everything blurring around him. It is picture she'll never forget, his head tilted toward the sky, eyes closed as he sings of love lost, of struggling to get by. There is a magnetic pull, drawing her to him and she doesn't dream of resisting the pull. She stays there bewitched, captivated by it all.

He opens his eyes as he strums the last chord, widening as he sees her standing before him, a picture of perfection. He stutters in his movements, slinging the guitar behind himself, biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself from looking foolish in front of the beautiful young woman before him.

Because she was beautiful, incredibly so. And she held herself up with such poise that he could barely believe that the look on her face was for him and his voice. She looked in awe, eyes shining, lips pulled into a grin that left him feeling out of sorts.

"Veronica Lodge," she says, hand out for a handshake.

"Archie Andrews," he replies, taking her hand. He feels the electricity in his veins, the spark at their contact. He almost jolts at the touch, tingles remaining long after they let go.

"I have a feeling this is going to be a very good friendship." And he can't help but agree with her words.

She buys his time, asking him how much he would usually make in an hour and paying him double if he would just sit with her, talk to her if that was okay. He looks at her agape as she slides the cash into his hands, head nodding as he continues to stare. She cracks a joke, and it seems to break him out of his trance, Archie shoving the money into his pocket, slipping his guitar into the case.

He follows her into a restaurant he had only ever walked past, cheeks hot as he catches the maître d's judging gaze. But Veronica can sense his unease, snapping the attention back to herself, taking a protective step forward before the man she had only met ten minutes earlier. They are led to the back of the place, cozy and sweet and he doesn't know what to do with himself in a setting like this, with a beautiful girl like her. She was so different from everyone else from his past and yet he could see bits of everyone inside of her. She sits down, beaming at him as he places his guitar case by their feet, slipping into his own chair, eyes darting around. He jumps when the waiter slips a menu before them, eyes wide as he looks through it.

"Order anything, it's fine." Her voice breaks through the noise in his mind, the calculations running through it as he tries to figure out if he can afford anything. "It's on me." She winks at him, and he clears his throat in response, mouth dry.

"No, I - I couldn't," he manages to get out. There were meals on it he couldn't pronounce, figures he had never seen in his lifetime.

"Come on Archiekins, I paid for your time, I demand you eat." She nods as though it should be enough to convince him, and he follows her instructions, hesitantly pointing toward whatever seemed the most familiar to him when the waiter returned. He looks up from the menu, meeting her gaze, a smile

The meal is delivered in silence, and they are midway through the meal before Veronica drops her cutlery against the plate, the clatter getting his attention.

"So," she starts, voice dropping in a way that sends shivers down his spine. "Tell me about yourself." And so he does, talks about the small town of Riverdale where he grew up, talks about his best friends Betty and Jughead, about being ignored throughout most of his schooling life. (She laughs, rich and honest, at his words. He earnestly maintains he was never popular however, and she believes him, she can't help but do so). He skips over parts, and she can see the storm in his eyes, see his jaw clench, spine straighten. And she takes his hand, sliding her fingers into his, a smile of support on her lips. And he smiles back, he tries, tension seeping out as he brings himself to the present. Veronica squeezes her hand around his before pulling away, ignoring the burning feeling after the contact.

"I gotta ask, who are you singing about?" He stills, but she continues calmly. "Oh please Archie, anyone with ears can hear you're singing about someone. Is it your soulmate," she gasps horrified. "Did your soulmate break your heart like that?" He shakes his head, memories of his ruined childhood, of the past he was running away from and yet could never fully let go.

"It was a - " he stops floundering. Because how could he tell her of Ms Grundy, the person who lit a fire in his soul for music - who destroyed everything she touched in his life. She taught him believe in love and then she left him to learn how to navigate through the loss and heartbreak of it. It took him years to overcome the scars of his relationship with her, music tainted by her memory and yet the crutch he relied on in his darkest times. "Bad high school romance," he mumbles, hoping she would leave it. And she does, lips pursed as she watches him, dissecting his every move. They finish their lunch talking about trivial things like favourite bands and first concerts. Soon the one hour turns into two and it has Veronica cursing, prior commitments bringing it to a conclusion.

Archie feels a twang of sadness at it ending, but she slips him her number, telling him to call her.

He does.

They meet more frequently, Veronica going out of her way to see him, Archie going out of his way to be there when he knows she'll be going by. It is wonderful and fills her heart with joy every time she catches glimpse of his smile, every time she hears his voice. Months pass, the two of them getting closer with each other. They talk about everything and nothing at all, the smallest of things, of their deepest secrets and embarrassing stories.

He tells her of how he met Valerie Brown, the legend and his girlfriend. He talks of how he walked into the underground bar, and he saw her with the other Pussycats, jamming out to one of their singles. He laughs as he recounts watching them, learning from them, soaking in everything that they could teach. Josie didn't like him initially, even less when he started seeing Val, but - he says with a hint of pride in his voice - he seemed to be winning her over.

She confesses one day about her desire to meet her soulmate, her fear that she couldn't have one - that she doesn't deserve one. She is nervous saying those words out loud, fingers fiddling with the napkin as she eats out at his favourite diner, blinking constantly as she refuses to meet his eyes. He says her name lowly and takes her hand, asking her why, why she thought that a beautiful, strong, wonderful woman like her wouldn't deserve it.

And so she tells him about her past, the cruelty she inflicted upon others in her teenage years. It brings tears to her eyes, voice cracking as she expresses her guilt and remorse, how she hates who she used to be. And she asks how anyone could love a person like that. And suddenly she feels two arms wrap around her, embrace her. She sniffs, burying her face into the crook of his shoulder. He doesn't let go, his chest tightening as he feels her tears run down his neck. He doesn't let go, doesn't want to. It's only when she pulls away, embarrassment in her eyes, hands wiping away the traces of her tears. And he wants to tell her not be ashamed to show him her feelings, to never feel like she needs to hide from him. But he can't find the words.

It strikes him fiercely, this woman by his side, a stranger on the street only months ago, now one of the most important people in his life, an anchor in a turbulent world, a stronghold he could rely on. And he wanted to be that for her, he wanted to be someone she would turn to.

"I'm sorry," she starts, "I don't normally do that in front of people."

"It's fine Ronnie, really." And she looks up at him, gratitude shining in her eyes.

(And he realises, that maybe, just maybe he is that to her.

The thought brings a small smile to his lips at night.)

"So you wanna meet your soulmate, huh?" he teases, a smile on his lips. He hadn't put that much thought into the idea; many people went through their lives without ever seeing their soulmate or colour - and as the confirmation only came through a kiss on the lips, some had let the opportunity pass them by without knowing. And while he and Val may not be soulmates, they were happy together, and that's all he was looking for. Happiness.

"Stupid, huh?" she mumbles, more to herself than Archie. But he catches the words, catches the waver in her tone.

"Nah, it's not stupid. Many people want to meet their soulmate. It just makes you human." He looks at her, a twinkle in his eyes. "And all you need to do is go around kissing every guy you know on the lips until you see colour."

She punches him in the arm at the words. But she laughs and calls him a jerk, the smile lingering, and he thinks that maybe she'll be okay after all.

"Why couldn't my soulmate be you," she bemoans one evening, falling onto his couch, eyes closed as she listens to his laughter. And it's nice, she thinks, the dulcet tone warming her up. "Life would be so much easier." Veronica adjusts herself, laying across the couch in her dark blue dress, heels hanging off of her toes. It was another date night, Reggie Mantle from one football team or another at the same party as her. He was cute, she remembered thinking, cute and tall and strong. So she asked him out. And he said yes.

"I don't think Val would like you testing that out," he laughs, a smile on his lips as he lifts up her feet and slides on the couch beside her. He drops her legs on his lap, massaging the soles of her feet. She whimpers and groans, Archie laughing at her over-the-top reactions. "Was Reggie really that bad?" he asks, stopping his actions, turning to look at her. She pouts at him and he hums a laugh before continuing, Veronica smiling content at the feeling.

"No," she sighs. "And that's the problem. He's a great guy, sweet, very nice on the eyes and amazing in bed but -"

"He's not your soulmate," Archie finishes, his sadness carrying in his voice.

"Yeah." She looks so sad for a brief second, and he can't have that. So he tickles the soles of her feet, grinning as Veronica squeals in laughter, kicking her feet to escape him, unable to with his hands banded around her ankles. Soon it dies down, Veronica relaxing in the seat, Archie resuming his massage. Silence fills the room, only broken by her moans, toes curling as he hits a sore spot on her legs. "Archie Andrews," she says, voice thick. "You have fingers my exes would die for. Hope Val appreciates those magic hands." He clears his throat and shifts in his seat, his movements faltering for a few seconds before resuming again.

She cracks open her eyes, watching as his cheeks darkened. He was blushing, she realises with a a touch of delight.

That one moment makes up for the otherwise disappointing night.

Veronica had thought of kissing Archie before, the thoughts usually fleeting , brushed off with a laugh at herself, shaking her head at the notion. She's wondered about his arms, how nice they feel around her when he gives her a hug, she wondered what they would feel like tight around her waist, whether he would run his fingers through her hair if he were to kiss her, whether his grip would tighten and pull. Or would he be gentle, fingers skimming over her skin, driving her crazy for more.

She feels guilty every time; he was dating Val, she likes Val, and to be fantasising about her boyfriend makes Veronica feel strange.

And it only ever happens when she's drunk and alone, mind wandering to the guy who had become one of her closest friends in the city, the beautiful smile, his mouth.

But she had never dreamed of him. Not sexually.

Not until that night.

She wakes up gasping, core throbbing, wet and needy. She pulls open her bedroom drawer, reaching for her vibrator. Veronica is almost blinded by images of her dream as she struggles to find it and turn it on, flashes of his mouth, of his kisses - wet and dirty - trailing from her mouth down her chest, sucking and biting. She dreams she sees colours, and it's beautiful she thinks. But no more beautiful than a shirtless Archie Andrews between her legs, tongue and mouth and fingers, sucking against her clit, curling inside her, pushing her closer to the brink. But then she awakens.

She's already so close, so desperate, that the smallest vibration is enough to have her tumbling over the edge, his name whimpered through her lips, his face on her mind as she comes. It isn't enough however, the itch underneath her skin, driving her insane. She feels no shame imagining his fingers running over her body, imagining his lips against her ear, whispering all the things he had wanted to do to her. Veronica's not alone in the room, not really, not with Archie pinning her down, stealing a kiss as he slides into her, moving until she comes around him.

And then she is so very alone, the hum of the vibrator echoing in her room, accompanied only by her pants. But she smiles at the thought of Archie and her, her body boneless and content. She sleeps well that night - it is only in the morning, when she thinks over it in the light of day, does she feel guilt seep in.

When Veronica meets him again, there is something off with her. She can't meet his gaze, her voice changing as he discussing his attempts to learn the keyboard - his fingering all wrong - with her. He is worried for her, stopping constantly to ask how she is and what is wrong. She brushes off his attempts with a laugh that is in no way convincing. She chooses to push it down until it goes away, pretending that her feelings towards him were still unchanged.

(It never really does and she knows they are.)

She loves his hair, loves the feeling of it between her fingers, loves it when he lets it grow slightly, loves running her hand through it.

She asks him about it during his break one day, Veronica promising to pay for his lunch if he would just sit for a moment with her to bask in the world around them. She was persuasive and he was weak to her smile, ducking his head as he played around with the idea, nodding as he caved in. And the smile that followed... it was intoxicating.

"It's red," he says so resolutely she feels something inside her twist. She doesn't understand why, until he continues with "I've never seen it myself, but this girl from my old town, Cheryl, she came up to me when she was five, so sure I was related to her because we both had hair like fire." And she feels relief flood her, chest deflating from the breath she didn't realise she was holding, a smile stretching across her lips.

(she'll ponder the intensity of these feelings later, when she is alone in her apartment, ice cream in one hand the remote in the other, the romance film before her playing in black and white.)

"Oh," she starts, a smile in her tone. "So she's met her soulmate when she was a baby?"

"I dunno," he frowns at the thought, as though he were just now curious as to how she was so sure. "She's always been able to see colour. And I've never seen her love anyone but Jason - her twin" he clarifies. Inside Veronica cackles at the implications, another story of Archie's she wants to know more of.

She finds that there are a lot of those - details of Archie's past and present that she wants to know, wants to see. It used to put her on edge. Not anymore.

They were planning their weekly movie night in their favourite diner, Veronica introducing Archie to the classics he had missed out on in his childhood, wilfully missed out on if his conversations indicated anything. She is horrified at the look of confusion when she mentions Hitchcock and vows to introduce him to everything.

"You need to meet Jughead," she laughs at the absurd name, smiles at the joy mentioning his name brought Archie. "You and your movie references, he'd love you," he finishes with a dimpled grin, swiping some of her milkshake as she pouts and complains, stealing some of his chips in response.

"What about you Archiekins, do you love me?" She coos the words to him, teasing tone to show that she was joking. And she was, until she wasn't. It hits her suddenly, this uncertainty - this fear. Her life had been full of people who used her in one way or another, friends for popularity, boys to get attention. Her parents to avoid an extended prison sentence. She expects to be used constantly, so it scares her, the thought of this young man, one of the few cherished people in her life, being tainted in that way.

"Always Ronnie," he cracks a grin at her, full of youthful innocence, of a soul uncorrupted by the harsh realities of high school in New York. He puts his arm around her, pulling her close, and it was all she needed, Veronica melting into his side, smile reciprocated easily. But then he glances at his vibrating phone, face lighting up as he reads the caller. "It's Val, I gotta go."

Archie presses a soft kiss against her temple, barely a brush before pulling away.

But it has her heart beating faster, mind soaring and she thought in that moment she could see colour, full of wonderful hues and vibrancy. But just as it came, it left, the world all the different shades of grey once more. It went by so fast she is sure she imaged it - especially with Archie walking away, whistling to himself as though nothing had happened.

And that was - Veronica convinces herself late at night, when her heart so desperately wants to believe in the impossible - because nothing did.

He plays more desperately when he and Val are no longer together, pouring his heart and soul and very essence into the music. The breakup was swift and devastating, and it is only then that Veronica realises that he has no one else in this city - all his friends were Val's, she had introduced him to a world he never would have imagined existed without her. She was like a hurricane, storming into his life, turning it upside down. Val had inspired him and pushed him, and then she left. Leaving him utterly alone in a city where most never truly cares to know your name unless they can benefit off of it.

Archie had no one,

but Veronica.

She steals him away whenever she can, determined to bring back the same energy and vigour he possessed before. He would smile whenever she tries, an empty smile that did nothing to hide the pain in his eyes. But more often than not he is playing, pouring out his heart and soul, draining himself until there was only but a shell left. And it hurts her, aches her to see him like this, wandering lost.

She frowns as he plays one day, a fortnight later, his chords sloppy, his vocals slightly off. He winces during a song, stopping mid chorus. Without realising Veronica found herself rushing to his side, concerns arising as she saw him stretch his digits. He hisses as he touches the tips of his fingers, shaking his hand as the pain shoots down his arm.

"Archie" she gasps from behind, peering over his shoulder to see what was giving him issues.

He had played until his fingers were raw, until the skin was peeling and bloodied. She swears low and long, tugging him with her, barely giving time to pack up supplies before she walks into the nearest convenience store, picking up their first aid kit. He mutters that he's fine, but she staunchly ignores his words, purchasing it and pulling him to the nearest seat. She doesn't say a word when she opens it up, hands shaky as she uses the anti-bacterial wipes, as she picks up the bandages and wraps them around his fingers.

"Ronnie." He sounds so lost, and she doesn't know what to do or how to make it better. And she hates herself.

She takes his fingertips, eyes fluttering closed as she presses her lips against the bandaged fingers. She hears a sharp inhale she is sure is from Archie, but all she can focus on are the fireworks inside her at the contact. She had heard of kisses between soulmates working on areas other than the lips, and she finds herself hoping that she'd be able to see colour, her heart hopeful and fearful - fearful it would still be black and white when she opened her eyes. And it is - but the way that he's looking at her, there is something in his eyes that makes her not care as much.

It takes a few days for his fingers to heal, a few more weeks for his heart, Veronica by his side whenever needed, stopping by every day as he sings. She listens to his words, of his loss, of pain. Of trying to heal. Of healing.

But there is a new song, one about love and hope she had never heard it before. She is heady listening to the lyrics, the words sung from his lips going to her heart, moving her, etching itself on her soul. There is a beauty in his words, and god, how she wanted to be his inspiration, to be the woman who made him believe again, to be the anchor in the storms in his life.

It is a terrible time to realise that you're in love with your best friend.

She does so anyways.

He takes her out for dinner one night, fidgeting with his fingers, constantly checking his phone, for a call or a text she isn't quite sure, only that it was plaguing his mind. She snaps her fingers before him a few times, Archie jumping at the sound. He looks sheepish, ducking his head slightly in embarrassment.

"Sorry, I'm terrible company."

"It's nothing Archiekins," she says with an extra bounce in her voice, before softening. "What do you have on your mind?" He opens his mouth as if to speak, but nothing comes out. Instead he closes it, smiling gratefully at the waitress who brings them their meals of burger, chips and a milkshake. Veronica gives him a suspicious glance, before picking up the burger, humming her approval of its taste. He smiles at her reaction, but even in the joy, his expression is marred by worry. She sighs, putting down the burger, arching an eyebrow at him, daring him to refuse her. "Come on Archie, spill. What's up?"

"Have you ever wondered what it would be like if I didn't come here?" Her stomach plummets and Veronica loses her appetite. "What if I didn't leave town to pursue music in New York?" His voice wavers, and he moves to hold her hand. But then he hesitates, gaze focussed downward, unable to look her in the eyes. And so she takes his hands in her own, giving him a squeeze for support.

"I can’t answer that Archie, but we wouldn’t have met, and that would’ve been a tragedy of epic proportions." He smiles faintly at her words, but she can see the sincerity in it and that means more to her than anything else.

"I could kiss you for that," he jokes.

"I wouldn't stop you," she replies, voice steady even as her heartbeat accelerates. He laughs at that, but it dies fast as he catches her gaze.

"Ronnie?" he starts, and there is a rough quality to his tone, something that sends a shiver down her spine and goosebumps across her arms. He looks as though he would devour her, and she was a willing sacrifice, a thrum of electricity underneath her skin as he motions to move from the seat across from her to the one beside her. She takes a sharp inhale, but then the spell is broken, Archie's ringtone blasting through the diner. He smiles apologetically, sliding out of the booth to answer the call, leaving her alone with her burger and fries and her favourite flavour of milkshake.

He does return much later, eyes a different shade of grey then before. He doesn't say much, doesn't eat much either, asking for his meal to be placed in a go-to box. Archie sits there in silence, a stormy expression on his face. He thanks the waitress when she returns with his food and tips her heavily, a quick apology to Veronica, telling her that he had somewhere to be before rushing off.

He leaves her again, and he isn't returning. She sits there confused, a half eaten burger and milkshake in front of her.

Something's happened, she knows. And she's fearful of the answer.

There is a change in him, a quiet difference that screams in her mind. It haunts their every interaction, every conversation. It leaks into his voice when he sings, into his lyrics and sing choices. Archie is pulling away from her and yet holding her tighter. Her breath hitches every time she finds his eyes on her, so dark and intense, as though memorising the sight of her. He touches her more, constantly running his fingers on her skin, through her hair, driving her mad with desire.

It all comes to a head one cold, Saturday night. They had gone for drinks together, Veronica determined to get him so drunk he would forget about whatever plan he had concocted to be acting in this way. But drinking only seems to make him worse, Archie more morose than ever before, mumblings of apologies. She can sense the conflict inside him, the resignation.

"You know I love you Ronnie," he slurs. She thinks that maybe he too intoxicated, but there is a clarity in his eyes that belies her assumption. "So much." He pulls her close, buries his face in her neck, breathing her in. It is a shaky exhale, and his hold on her tightens, as though she would slip through his fingers if he had loosened it. "So, so much."

"Archie you gotta talk to me," she murmurs. He says nothing, and she'd assume he hadn't heard her if he hadn't stiffened against her. He lets go eventually, shoulders slumping as he takes another swig of his beer.

"You don't wanna know," but she does. Seeing him in pain is destroying her, but she can't help if she doesn't know what's going on. So Veronica tells him that, a bittersweet smile stretching across his face at her words. And so he does tell her.

She hears the words dad and sick, hears the word business and needed. But the word that rings in her ears is l e a v i n g. He was leaving - leaving New York, leaving his dream to be a musician. Leaving her.

"I see." Her voice is dead, and her heart is breaking. Somewhere deep down she knows it is the right thing to do, that he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't do anything to help his family, knew it would destroy him every single day he stayed away. But knowing didn't stem the wave of hurt inside her, couldn't stop the tears that were welling up.

"Ronnie, listen to me." He reaches out, touching her shoulder. She recoils as though she were burned. It hurts them, both of them. And she can't be there anymore, can be in the same room as him. It was stifling and she couldn't breathe, she needed to breathe.

"No Archie, go back to that good for nothing town, with those people who would destroy you. Go back," she hisses, "see if I care." And she turns on her heel and storms away, ignoring the tears leaking from the corner of her eyes, head held high as everything inside fell to pieces.

She pushes the backdoor open and breathes. She can smell the rain, the earthy smell permeating the air. It is refreshing to have something than the stench of smoke and body odour, but it does nothing to soothe her aching heart. She leans against the wall beside the door, the coarse bricks digging into her skin.

But she can hear the commotion behind her. She knows what is happening.

Hesitating for only a second, Veronica pushes herself off the wall, walking through the pouring rain, hoping that the raindrops will hide the evidence of her tears. Hoping Archie wouldn't follow her at all.

(Hoping that he does.)

"Ronnie," he calls out, his voice hoarse. "Wait, please."

And so she does, heels tapping the wet pavement below her feet, arms crossed against her chest as she stubbornly refuses to move towards an shelter, refuses to shiver because of the cold. Archie spares no hesitation, rushing after her into the rain, shirt thoroughly soaked, clinging to his frame.

"What you ginger Judas, what do you want?" she spits at him, gaze unwavering as he approaches her determined. He gets close, so close she could see the freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose, so close. And he was getting closer.

But then he is kissing her with lips and tongue, hands cupping her face, holding her against him as though she would dream of pulling away. Her eyes flutter closed immediately, the taste of alcohol and mint and something so uniquely Archie she would spend her whole life willing to determine what exactly it was. It ends far too early for Veronica, but still leaves her eyes closed and leaning into his body for strength. He pulls away, forehead resting on her own. She can't find the energy to pull herself away from his embrace or to open her eyes. She rests on him, harsh breaths filling the air as the rain pour around them.

"Oh gosh," she hears him whisper under his breath, awe and amazement in his tone, and love. She hears the love.

She opens her eyes to look at him, and she can hear herself swear at the sight.

The first colour she sees is red, bright red hair matted over his forehead, she sees the paleness of his cheeks, no longer a light shale of grey, but the pinkish hue, so light it could be considered white. Her gaze flickers to meet his own, eyes shining like emeralds, green and marvellous and Veronica can feel herself being swept inside them, drowning in the intensity of his gaze.

"You -" he whispers fragmented, unable to finish his sentence. There is such disbelief in his voice, such hope in his eyes. Instead of speaking he lifts his hands cupping her face, hands trembling - from the rain and cold soaking into his bones or the revelation he isn't sure. She nods in his hold, unable to resist leaning into his touch.

"Speak to me Archiekins," and her smile flickers just that bit. "What's going on in that head of yours?"

She expects words, of surprise maybe, a confession of feelings hopefully. But he does none of that, only ducks his head towards her, stealing her breath in that one action. He hovers over her lips, only a hairbreadth away. She can feel the hot air fanning her skin, can feel his hesitancy of making the first move yet again. And so she lifts herself up, kissing him as she had dreamt of, smiling against his lips as he relaxed his shoulders, his arms winding themselves around her waist, tugging her close. It's fierce, explosive. Just like his music he doesn't hold back; his hand is tight against her waist, tugging her closer, the other sliding up, cupping the back of her head, holding her against him as he kisses her over and over and over again. She can taste the rain still falling over them, can taste the beer he had been drinking hours earlier. But there is more, something she can't quite describe or remember, but a familiarity all the same. Her hands find themselves in his unruly locks of red, her left hand sliding down, nails scraping against the stubble growing, a small thrill down her spine at the feeling of it against her skin. She holds him close, afraid of letting go.

He would never.

He tells her a story in his movements, one of a story that has been building for so long, and only just getting to its climax. But soon they need to breathe, need to talk it through. (need to move to her bedroom, pronto.)

"So," Veronica heaves, a smile lighting up her face. She lifts her hand, wiping the smudged lipstick on his lips, laughing as he presses a gentle kiss against finger. "Soulmates?"

"I don't know what you mean Ronnie," he lets out in an exhale, eyes dancing with mirth. And she can't hold in the happiness inside her, escaping in a laugh, her arms sliding around his waist, his own around her shoulder. "I've just always wanted to make out in the rain." They move toward the closest building, unable to stop looking at each other, meandering slowly.

"Aww, Archiekins, I knew there was a girl inside of you, waiting to be let out." And then, more quietly. "I'm glad it's you, I -" Her words stumble and he stills, pulling her back toward him as she keeps walking forward. "I - "

"I know Ronnie," because of course he does, he had been living it for the past few months himself. "I know." He pulls her into a hug, tight and strong. It was all she needed, relaxing into his arms in the middle of the sidewalk, head curled into the crook of his neck, Archie whispering to her all that he could never put to music, things that he didn't feel he could share to the world. But he shares it with her, because she was his world, and that was enough for him.

And it's perfection.

And it was hers.

[cwalshuk]

Doctor Who review - Can You Hear Me?

Spoilers! Obviously.

If you haven’t watched the seventh episode of the 2020 series, then go watch it now. Seriously.

This episode is a nightmare. Or, rather, it is about nightmares, fears, anxieties and other mental health issues.

Episode seven of a ten episode series is the equivalent of episode ten of a thirteen episode one. By that I mean that minds start to wonder towards the finale, particularly when the marketing is already building up to it. There's a two-part finale this time, which inevitably takes some of the impetus out of this episode and the next one, relegating them to ‘filler’ stories.

But that doesn't mean that Can You Hear Me? is a dud. Indeed, it is one of the more imaginative and ambitious episodes of Jodie's tenure as The Doctor. It demonstrates that show runner Chris Chibnall has chosen a great writer. Here, he shares credit, billed second to Charlene James. A playwright by trade, James has a couple of TV credits to her name, including for A Discovery Of Witches, increasing that show’s links to Who even more. James’ Wikipedia entry, at time of writing, notes that she is only the second black writer for televised Who, following Malorie Blackman last series. Given the topics her plays have been about so far, it is clear that James was the best choice for this episode.

So, what happens? The Doctor brings the fam back to Sheffield, giving us a chance to see each of them interact with friends and family for the first time since Spyfall.

When the show returned in 2005, then show runner Russell T Davies decided that companions would want to call home, having The Doctor turn their mobiles into super phones, so they could do so wherever, and whenever, the Tardis took them. The problem, as the technology in our phones grew ever more sophisticated, is that they ran the risk of ruining plots. If a character gets lost, why don't they just call The Doctor? If they think they've seen a monster, why not film it on their phone?, etc. As far as I can recall, in the Chibnall era, it has mostly been The Doctor who uses a mobile during episodes not set on contemporary Earth, allowing for lovely little sequences such as the one which brings the fam back together later on in Can You Hear Me?.

Not giving the fam super phones has, however, rather isolated them from their pre-Doctor lives though. They don't have superphones do they? Perhaps they do but they've exercised great self control in not using them?. This episode suggests that they don't, since Yaz is furious that they are 77 minutes late, and asks her sister Sonya a bunch of questions she wouldn't need to if they’d been in constant contact during her Tardis trips. Yaz and Sonia are marking an anniversary with a meal, without their parents. It clearly means a lot to Yaz, but we're kept in the dark as to why, for the moment. I wonder if the choice of Whitby for the parents trip is a nod to Dracula, which would have been in production at the same time, and shared a premiere date with Who? But that's not important. What is important, is that we're given more Yaz backstory!

So, Yaz is back home. Graham is with friends, playing cards. The jury's out on whether these friends pre-date him meeting Grace, but whether they are bus-driving mates or not, they are well aware of both Graham’s cancer status, and the fact he is a widower. Graham himself is cheerful though. I didn't pick up whether this scene takes place at Graham and Grace’s home or not, but it would be interesting to know if not, since Ryan doesn't return there. Instead, he is following up face-to-face with Tibo (Buom Tihngang) his friend, last seen attempting to keep track of Ryan’s long list of reasons why he hadn't been playing basketball, in Spyfall. Tibo has not been doing well, to say the least. He has sent Ryan lots of messages, which Ryan seems only recently to have received. He is alarmingly security conscious, and scared to sleep alone in his flat. He asks Ryan to stay over. Yaz spends the night at home. Graham keeps playing cards.

That covers the humans of Team Tardis, so let's circle back to The Doctor. Somewhat at a loose end, she jumps at the chance to follow a mysterious something which affects the Tardis temporarily. We see a creepy old man, played exquisitely by Ian Gelder, but she doesn't. She tracks the mysterious something to Aleppo, Syria, in 1380, the setting of our cold open.

The Tardis materialises in the same place, just after the attack. The Doctor notes, to no one in particular, that it is a mental health hospital, and that Islamic medicine at that time is well-respected. Surveying the damage, The Doctor finds a terrified Tahira (Aruhan Galieva), but nobody else. Then one of the monsters appears and roars in The Doctor’s face, but leaves after Tahira shouts at it, leaving no sonic-detectable trace.

Now, I’ve heard that some fans don't see why we visit Syria, arguing that Tahira’s role in the plot could be added to Tibo’s. But the point of delving back to 1380, and to an Islamic country too, is to show that humanity, as a whole, has been facing up to the challenges of poor mental health for a long time.

The people of the UK have been more open, and less ashamed about, our mental health challenges in recent years, with awareness campaigns all over the media. Presumably the need for such campaigns was properly identified and measured. What might we be ashamed about? Being thought mad? Being locked up?

I’m suddenly reminded of a scene from The Shakespeare Code, a Tenth Doctor story, where, for plot reasons, we visit an architect locked up in Bedlam, having been bewitched by the Carrionites (?). That would have been 2007 or 2008, right? That can’t have been the last time that Who has visited a mental health hospital, of any kind, can it? In any case, it serves as a useful comparison to the humane treatment in the Aleppo hospital Thirteen talks about in this episode. Would have been useful to have seen how the hospital actually treats patients though.

Anyway, back to Can You Hear Me?. The fam’s in modern day Sheffield, The Doctor’s in 1380 Aleppo. The creepy old guy starts appearing to Ryan and Yaz, and it turns out Tibo’s seen him before. Graham, meanwhile, sees visions of a mysterious woman asking him for help. Worried, the fam each call The Doctor, who, still in ancient Syria, has to merge the calls together to get any sense out of them. Tahira does remarkably well to understand what's going on, and is rewarded by being welcomed onto the Tardis.

Deciding to concentrate on Graham’s vision of the trapped woman, The Doctor hooks him up to the Tardis’ telepathic circuits, leading them to a space station. Stepping out to explore, Yaz does a great job of explaining to Tahira where they now are, and of praising The Doctor’s skill in getting them there. I’d have liked to have seen more fam-Tahira interaction, and perhaps we will in the two-part finale, since she leaves the episode entirely unmindwiped.

Whilst uncovering a little more about the mysterious trapped woman's prison, team Tardis fail to notice that Tahira has wandered off. After The Doctor frees the mysterious woman, she learns that the creepy old man, aka Zellin, has captured Tibo, Tahira, her friend/mental healthcare worker, and the others. We get a nice confrontation/villain exposition sequence, including a charming animation which explains that the mysterious woman, called Rakaya, was supposed to stay trapped. Now back together, Zellin and Rakaya (a fantastic Clare-Hope Ashitey), decide to terrorise Earth by infiltrating humans’ dreams and feeding on their fears. They lock up The Doctor too, before they leave.

On Earth, Zellin and Rakaya waste no time. He appears in a little girl’s bedroom, as she waits in the street to feast. But wait! The Doctor shakes herself out of a dream (?) about the Timeless Child, and out of her shackles too. She appears in Aleppo just after Zellin and Rakaya have arrived, the pair having decided to visit to marvel at the monsters he created to terrorise the hospital. The Doctor isn't alone though, she's freed everyone else who was locked up on the space station, bringing them to Aleppo in the Tardis. The Doctor, her fam, Tahira and Tibo confront Zellin and Rakaya, telling the pair that humanity isn't pathetic because it has fears, but strong because we overcome them everyday. Then Tahira commands one of the monsters to attack Zellin and Rakaya, which she can do since they were born of her nightmares, and The Doctor traps the pair with the monster, so it is they who will feel fear instead. A taste of their own medicine, perhaps?

The day saved, we see that the events he’s witnessed have helped convince Tibo to seek some talking therapy, which Ryan is pleased about.

Yasmin sits and thinks back to the events she and her sister were marking with an anniversary meal at the start of the episode. Three years ago, she ran away from home, due to not-quite-explained issues which might have been bullying at school but could have also been something much worse. I can't decide if there was more in these scenes which was cut, or if they want to keep it vague to reveal more later, but what we are shown is that a police officer convinces Yaz to return home, having been alerted by Sonya that she might be about to do something stupid, and she visits her later to say thanks and catch up.

With the fam back in the Tardis, Graham tries to talk with The Doctor about his fears about his cancer, but she's no help. What Graham really needs is human help, like Tibo got. Ryan wonders with Yaz if this is their life now, on a diverging path from their loved ones, but they are interrupted by The Doctor, who is thinking about Frankenstein…

All in all, this was a good episode. It took different sorts of villains to engage with the issues the writers wanted to raise, and they were well written. It left me wanting to know more about ancient Aleppo, and exactly what happened to Yaz, and it got me intrigued for the next episode, so job done on lots of counts.

The next episode, the last before the big two-part finale, is set during the famous holiday which led Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein, and looks to be a cracker.

I can't wait! And luckily, I don't have to wait much longer!

[amongushq]

Welcome (back) to Among Us, FLEUR! MAXWELL AHN ( with the faceclaim of JUNHONG CHOI ) has found shelter in NEW ATHENS, where we hope HE will fit in nicely. Please make sure to check the “after applying” section of our navigation here!

Some people struggled with the interviews, especially if their characters weren't big talkers. However, you managed to use the interview format to introduce the character through different perspectives as well. It's certainly a different take from everything else we've seen, so it's a big plus. The explanations were also on point - we were given an accurate description of the character’s personality and their backstory, all in one place. At the same time, we could see the connection of your character with their foster parent and it’s certainly a sight to see!

AND YOU ARE…?

What is your full name, and when were you born?

“Maxwell- what a stupid name. Her choice, no doubt. Always needed to feel special, that one. You couldn’t even pronounce it as a child, kept calling yourself ‘Masg-ell’ until I taught you your family name. This at least you didn’t get from her. Complicated woman gave you a complicated name. Now your father, he was a simple man until she bewitched him. He was into Arts, a dreamer; but dreaming doesn’t make a person more difficult, it only makes them soft. You, on the other hand, aren’t soft. You’re merely spineless. Probably comes with being a water sign.”

— He loves his name. It’s the only thing he’s got from his parents, the only proof he’ll ever have that they loved him. His mother picked a name for him, making him hers. His father made him part of his family by giving this unexpected son a last name. Complicated then simple, it has a nice ring to it. It reminds him there once were people who gave a damn who he’d turn out to be.

Maxwell Ahn, born March 8th, 1997. Meaning he is currently 20 years old, and a second decan Pisces.

Have you been claimed, or do you belong to a legacy? If yes, state your godly parent / heritage.

“I know how she seduced him. Oh, you think I shouldn’t talk about that, do you? That you’re too young to hear? She was younger than you when they met, and that didn’t stop her. I don’t care what you think, your mother was a…” …. “There’s no such thing as loving someone with your body. What sort of ridiculous concept is that? Love comes from the brain. No, not the heart, you hopeless fool ! Bodies are sinful. This woman was the devil incarnate, a succubus. Your father was smart, driven, ambitious; he nearly threw his career away for her, stopped training as much as he should have. A dancer’s body is a beautiful machine, but it needs work. She didn’t care about any of that. Instead she’d take him to the ocean, do silly things like walk out in the rain — he got so sick I thought he’d cough up a lung. And where was she then? When he wasn’t so carefree, so joyful, where was she? Ah, sure, she brought in all the fun. But when there was trouble, when she stopped enjoying herself, who was there to pick up the pieces? That’s right, I was.”

— But no matter what she says, his fondness for his mother grows the more Vivian’s hatred shows.

Maxwell is a son of Hedone, goddess of pleasure and enjoyment. Being a daughter of Eros, no need to point out what kind of pleasure she specialises in.

Where are you currently based? Are you attending a Camp (Half-Blood / Jupiter), or are you living full-time in New Athens / New Rome? Is it a combination of both?

“Where are you living now? I wasn’t expecting this. You live nearby? I’ve never seen you. I don’t know that it’s a chance meeting. Chance means luck, doesn’t it? Seeing you won’t make me find money on the sidewalk. There’s a town offshore? Ah, near the shore? That’s good for you. Well I’m— I’m doing good, why do you ask? Do I not look good? Oh Maxwell, what a silly question. Men never stay, I don’t embarrass myself with them. A what? You’ve got a- oh. Oh, that’s surprising. I wouldn’t think you’d be interested— why, of course because of the way you dress. Yes, the whole rest of you as well. A flat? Hmm… You seem to be doing well for yourself.” Scoff. “I’ll sound surprised if I damn well want to.”

— While living in New York with Rose had been a dream, and their reason for moving more than dreadful, he can’t help but thank his lucky stars for allowing him to lead a happy, healthy life.The gods know he was never told he could make it, and that makes this victory feel like a miracle.

A nice flat in New Athens. He splits the bills with his girlfriend and tries very hard not to eat all the chocolate, out of fear she’ll kick him out. Some things are more precious than they seem.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? ( If you’re applying for a canon character, are you diverging from book-canon? If so, how?)

“Sometimes I wonder what I have ever done to be burdened with a child like you. The mothers and nannies at school used to look at me with envy, they thought you were such a gift. Of course as soon as you started growing up they realised something was wrong with you and you were more of a curse than a blessing, and they stared with pity instead. Honestly, Maxwell, I’ll never understand you. It’s a wonder to me why you keep hoping for something I wouldn’t even know how to give you. After all, you make no effort to understand me, do you? Have you ever, just once in your life, tried to see things from my perspective? I didn’t have to keep you, but I did. For your father. All I ever wanted from you was to not get me in trouble, but every time you could stand out, you did. I could never walk with my head held high from the moment you started talking — honestly, child, what in your life was so difficult that you’d be the one people should feel sorry for?”

— The day he was claimed, Hedone’s own understood why Vivian could never fit him in her life: she had forgotten all about amusement, taking care of herself, enjoying life. She had no room for a smile when her lips were pursed and her jaw constantly clenched.

The journey of Maxwell Ahn is a long one: born to a goddess who couldn’t keep him by her side, although she would have loved to, it didn’t take long before he was placed into the care of Vivian Wu, an embittered former dancer whose dream had turned to dust after an injury. Maxwell’s father did his best, for a few months, to look after his son; but his intense devotion to his trade and a certain recklessness due to the love of his life leaving soon got the best of him. While Vivian was only supposed to care for the child until the man she loved healed and regained his usual strength, heart failure isn’t forgiving when you don’t listen to its first warning. Which is how the small boy was lawfully entrusted to Wu, something his mother oversaw with a frown and a silent, disappointed shake of her head.

If asked to recall his life before camp, Max would have a hard time give any details: the whole thing is vague, a nagging feeling more than memories. He knows he only ever made friends for a little while before they found him too strange, a kind word compared to what he would later come to hear. There was the way he would never play unless the entire group was satisfied with the game of choice, would go out of his way to make everything pleasing and beautiful. He created a world around himself for everyone to enter, which made it hard for anyone to feel welcome. Not that he minded, at the end of the day: he knew how to keep himself busy, he had his stories and colouring books, his imagination and the dolls the nice neighbour had given him in secret, because Vivian hadn’t wanted to buy him any. Sometimes in summer he’d spend more time cleaning all his toys in a small inflatable swimming pool that he’d do actually playing with them.

How his godly heritage came to his attention he can’t remember, either. There must have been a satyr involved, the young boy attending camp every summer from the young age of twelve. He wasn’t claimed until his second summer there, though, something that made puberty this little bit more awkward. Childhood had been fine by Maxwell, his round face and easy smile opening doors behind which younger kids waited, always girls; yet as he grew older the perception of his visit started to change in the adults’ mind. Suddenly he wasn’t allowed too often, too long, especially not with the door closed. He knew in their eyes he was becoming a man, and that hurt: he didn’t want to be a man. Coming to think of it, he didn’t want to be a woman, either. All Maxwell wanted was to be himself, a person. Why could no one else see him as just a person? Why would imagined behaviour and feelings get in the way when he wasn’t guilty of any of it? He said that much to his friends at camp, and for the most part they understood. After a couple more years it was easier to explain how ‘he’ or ‘she’ or ‘they’ were empty words to the child of Hedone, who couldn’t find a person in either suggestion. He didn’t shrug that first coat of ‘him’ and ‘his’ he had been assigned, as he was used to it and there wasn’t a better alternative anyway; but whenever he could he’d tell people about the vacuity, the lack of depth and meaning that came with it all. How the less those words were used, the better.

All this didn’t go well with Vivian, or the people at school, or the teachers. When you have the monopoly of normalcy it’s harder to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, and the gap between camp and the rest of the world had never been wider. Pleading with Chiron took longer than asking Vivian to let go of him; if anything, the woman was relieved. Her love for the late father hadn’t made it into any kind of fondness for the child, whom she had signed up to keep fed and clean and under her roof, but never to feel for as she would have her own. Good riddance, her eyes said as she dropped Hedone’s child off with all the clothes he had decided to bring along on that new adventure.

After that, things were as uneventful as one could expect with a second Titan war. Lots of training and steeled fear, but nothing Maxwell would later come to deem out of the ordinary. The calm that followed was much worse: while most people were either mourning life or celebrating it, one of Maxwell’s friends headed back to her native Ireland, only to find herself prisoner to a goddess with shifty motivations. It was from uneasy letters he received that Max figured out what had happened, and he knew then he couldn’t leave his best friends in the clutches of a chthonic menace. Yet what was he to do, the frail son of Hedone who was still afraid of the dark if no one was holding his hand? He needed help. He needed knowledge. He had heard of people going to the Underworld before, and in his desperation thought he might as well do it too. Get familiar with the type of surroundings, sing the Ghostbusters theme to himself before heading back out, see if he’d be capable. Just a test. Foolish, ridiculous, test.

The daughter of Nyx who had brought him just inside what she had called a ‘back door’ must have been surprised when, a relative amount of time later, someone else completely walked up to her, grin cutting at the edges, eyebrows dancing like a provocation. “Don’t worry, your friend’s with me,” the stranger said as he tapped two fingers against his temple. When they left the Underworld, Maxwell’s body was hardly noticeable, encased as it was in the pyrite-encrusted wall of the tunnel he had ventured in.

Between being given free reign over Eden’s body (such was the name of the strange boy who had, somewhat, robbed Maxwell Ahn of his spirit and channelled it into himself) only once in a while, and waking up at the back of his head only to hear or see the most troubling thing, the months spent as a “head-space roommate”, as the chthonic demigod called it, were not exactly what the amateur dancer would have called ‘fun’. He had rescued his friend, a victory Eden loved to attribute solely to himself when he hadn’t been alone on the quest, but Max despaired to ever be anything more than a ghost again. Luckily for him, with Gaea’s half-awake mumbling, disruptions had caused underworldly dwellers to pay more attention to their surroundings — which was how Angelos, a goddess the grandson of Psyche had never heard about but would come to profoundly respect, figured out how her only child had managed to get away from her. As much as Eden had tried, as he was chastised, to keep his insubstantial friend from hearing all that transpired between his mother, another feminine voice, and himself, said friend managed to overhear snippets of their conversation — something about being on Angelos’ ground and territory, not Hades’; talk of a warped place, apparently where he had gotten lost and met Eden; hushed tones when it came to someone’s body being left here doesn’t mean they’re dead, it’s the opposite. Souls stay here, bodies don’t. We’re actually complying to the natural order of things by sending him back—

Home sweet home: it was back in his body and with Eden in tow that Maxwell reintegrated the Hedone cabin, after a lengthy talk from Chiron (another lengthy talk). It took as long as it had to make his body his again as it had to actually get it back, but it was all worth it. Not to mention the knack for the creepy and eerie the whole adventure had brought him: nothing spectacular, of course, but in the mortal world he’d be able to pass for a medium. There were perks to having been walled up in hell.

What were you doing prior to The Recall?

“…”

— Does he miss her? Maybe, sometimes. Not really. He wonders what she’s up to, if she’s finding peace like he has. Hopefully someone, something will come along and fill her heart to the point of bursting with excitement and the certainty of happiness lying ahead.

Between the natural charm of a daughter of Aphrodite and the quieter kind of attraction a child of Hedone could bring, Max and his girlfriend, Rose, were living pretty decently in New York. Their flat was entirely decorated to their liking, their neighbours liked and trusted them, monster attacks were swiftly taken care of or averted (lots and lots of sage burning and lavender stuffed in throw pillows)… They even adopted Easter, a dog that started out as a trap so Rose would forget all about her partner eating her chocolate. It worked, which gives the younger one a good idea as to how honest mistakes could be atoned for in the future. Truly, life before the Recall was everything Maxie could wish for and more, and while he understands the urgency behind Zeus’ order, he longs for the day things will be peaceful again.