#but i shall queue them up throughout the week

[starguider]

Sora - 'Super Smash Bros. Ultimate' Fountain of Dreams, Hollow Bastion, Lylat Cruise Photoshoot Part 1 / 3

[sunfyresrider]

*ೃ༄HUNT YOU DOWN | DARK!NETEYAM

✧Tags. Porn w plot, predator/prey kink, mild dubcon, queue play, knife play. ✧Author’s Note. Sorry for the late post, I have been unbelievably sick this past week and my brain has not been functioning. I really hope you like anon and I did your request justice!<3

After being married for so long things can become boring, the sex gets progressively less exciting once you do the same things a hundred different times. Which is why you and Neteyam are no strangers to experimentation, although to others you might seem insane. Each time to push yourselves further, trying more taboo and possibly criminal acts. You always have fun, but right now you are seriously rethinking your choice.

You aren’t as fast as Neteyam nor are you as athletically inclined so whilst he’s chasing you down in the midst of the forest at eclipse you’re becoming genuinely scared. You’ll see flashes of him in the bushes or behind trees, you’ve heard his feet approaching you quickly from behind but he never takes you down. The fear was exhilarating, thoughts of what came after he caught you whirling in your mind.

He has this innate ability to hide himself, to act as the perfect predator hunting its prey. The ground crunches beneath you and twigs snap, bioluminescence plants are your only light source. You hear Neteyam quickly approaching, finally failing to mask his own footsteps. You don't know where he's coming from so you make a mad dash, hoping he won't see you.

Until your breath catches, and suddenly the footsteps stop, and you stop with them, straining to listen out for him. Your heart pounded within your chest, adrenaline fogging all of your senses. A sudden crash sounded, you jumped as his arm wrapped around your waist. He lifted you up off of your feet, holding you tightly as you screamed in fright, squirming.

“Caught you, muntxate,” Neteyam spoke in an almost mocking tone. With a grunt, he pushed you back onto the ground, positioning himself above you. “What shall I do with you, hm, yawntutsyìp?” His fingers trailed down your back, tugging at the strings that kept your cloths in place. A shiver went down your spine as he traced the curve of your spine, stopping when he reached the swell of your ass.

He slapped it roughly, making you gasp. “Can’t do anything with these on now, can I?” You faintly heard him unsheathe what you could only assume as his blade, a new sense of fear swirling up inside you. For a moment you squirmed in place, before he pushed you down, firmly holding you. “T-teyam what are you doing?” The cool touch of the blade grazed against your skin, a wave of heat building in your core. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, you don’t get to question me. You’re my prey, remember?”

Neteyam slid the pointed metal downwards, slicing open the strings of your loincloth and top, revealing the rest of your body. His hands roamed freely, sliding over every curve. A sharp breath escaped you, biting your lip to prevent yourself from making any noise. Neteyam didn't seem to enjoy that. He reached up, gripping the base of your queue and pulling your head back, growling out a threat.

"don't hold back, muntxate. I want the whole forest to hear me fucking you.” He pulled on your queue, making your back arch. It was the most sensitive thing on your body, the pain sending shockwaves throughout you. Neteyam knew this, and he was taking advantage of that fact. His grip on you was tight, leaving no room for a struggle.

His cock throbbed in his loincloth, a wet patch forming in the fabric. His other hand gripped his cock, stroking it slowly, letting a loud groan slip from his lips. Seeing you so vulnerable drove him crazy, knowing he was in control of you. Neteyam teased your entrance, his hot pre-cum dripping onto you. You sucked in a deep breath, preparing to be stretched and filled to the brim.

The pain that came with so little preparation didn’t scare you, but rather fueled the growing arousal you felt. Neteyam pushed his way into your pussy, inch by inch until his full length was buried within you. You could feel him throb inside of you, his tip already hitting your womb. You were so malleable in his grasp, Neteyam wondered what else he could get away with.

His grip on your queue tightened as he began to thrust into you. Your screams of pleasure and pain lulling him into a state of hunger, his rough treatment turning you on. You were practically dripping around his cock, the lewd squelching sound of your pussy filling the otherwise quiet air.

Neteyam’s deep, guttural growls left goosebumps rising up your skin, each movement he made causing him to rub against your insides deliciously. Your legs quivered, tears welled up within your eyes as the wet tears trickled down your cheeks.

His fingers entangled with your queue, a newfound feeling blinding your every sense. It felt as though every nerve in your body was on fire, the sensation akin to pins and needles prickling across your skin. Your fingers scratched at the ground below, grasping desperately at the dirt. All of the feelings in your body heightened, the tight coil in your stomach threatening to break at any moment.

Your divine whimpers were still loud and clear, driving him even closer to his own climax. With every thrust, he hit the deepest parts of you, making sure he bottomed out each time. Neteyam’s teeth sunk into the crook of your neck. The mixture of emotions clouded your mind, overwhelming you. All you could muster were a few, slurred, pathetic words, incoherent yet recognizable all the same.

A shaky, pitiful whimper slipped from you as you struggled to say your words. "p-please..."

That was it.

Your cry was deafening, the final thrust stretching you to your limit. Neteyam forced his way into your cervix as thick ropes of cum filled you. The pain was nothing compared to the pleasure. Your cunt fully squeezing around him, milking him of all he had. The overwhelming intensity of your orgasm bursting through you, overpowering any other emotion in your body.

All you could do was writhe helplessly and clench around him, the last remnants of your juices splattering your inner thighs. The only noise left was the heavy sound of both of your breathing. The world around you becoming hazy and distant. You couldn’t hear the night creatures that lurked in the forest, nor the gentle breeze of the wind.

[warningorder]

THE LAST STAND OF THE GUARDS

The Gulf War’s Ground Campaign and Iraqi Resistance

Good day everybody! Since I loudly declared I would be leaving Twitter until the Afrikaner rodent was dead or missing, I felt I should post this pet-project of mine here instead of on Twitter as a thread.

The Gulf War, at least in its political aspects, was a modern iteration of the Battle of Waterloo, as it represented the decisive military triumph of reaction over progress and development. It was, as Victor Hugo once described Waterloo, “intentionally a counter-revolutionary victory”. It was Iraq against the status-quo. It was the revolutionary Arabism of Baghdad against the triumphant imperialism of Washington D.C, the reactionary backwardness of Riyadh, the comprador-ship and treacherous realpolitik of Cairo and Damascus. The final extinction of that vast people which had been in eruption for thirty-five years, since 1956–such was the dream.

However, that is not what I will be talking about today. See, as much as I would like to delve into the political & historical consequences of this great war, I wish to cover its military details, unlike what Hugo did with Waterloo. Today, I shall be focusing of the Coalition’s ground offensive and the Iraqis’ doomed attempt at resistance. So let’s set the scene.

Bombs over Baghdad and Gorbachev’s Deal

A month has passed since the Coalition started its massive air campaign over the skies of Iraq. A vast armada of close to 2.800 jets and hundreds of cruise missiles hit Iraq’s industrial centers, civilian infrastructure, energy production facilities, even research reactors, with the goal of quite simply returning Iraq, until then the Middle East’s sole modern economy, back into the stone age. More bombs were dropped on Iraq in a month than were dropped on Berlin, Germany’s capital, throughout all of WW2. The Coalition had more or less proven its point, and Iraq wanted out.

An agreement was reached with the Soviet Union, with the hopes that this would present a fait accompli to the Coalition and have them cease the bombings (and hopefully even end the sanctions). According to this agreement, Iraqi ground forces would immediately begin pulling out their units from the “Kuwaiti Theatre of Operations”, with the last units leaving in around a few weeks. In fact, a shadow retreat was already being allowed to happen, with individual divisions ‘melting away’ and reconstituting themselves back in Baghdad. With Tariq Aziz (Iraq’s Deputy PM & Foreign Minister) announcing Gorbachev’s deal and the pullout of all Iraqi forces from the KTO on the radio on the 22nd of February, this shadow retreat suddenly turned into a large and chaotic movement of units still under air attacks, with large traffic queues and more-or-less total abandonment of all Iraqi defensive works which had been prepared in the south of Iraq as well as inside Kuwait (like the well-known “Saddam line”).

As Iraqi troops were hastily withdrawing from their prepared defensive positions and clogging up the vast road networks of Iraq and Kuwait with huge lines of trucks, heavy vehicle transporters, tanks and other military equipment, the Coalition knew it had to act fast. The conclusion of the Gulf Crisis through Soviet mediation and without a crushing defeat of the mass of the Iraqi military was considered an unacceptable result, and thus plans were quickly drawn up to lunge forward at the retreating enemy columns and shatter the mass of the Iraqi military as it was attempting a cumbersome and chaotic march back towards Baghdad, Karbala, Najaf and Basra.

The first Coalition attacks struck (and quickly scattered) vastly outnumbered and confused stragglers from infantry divisions which had been attempting to withdraw from their prepared defensive fortifications. After quickly dealing with these minor centers of resistance, the Coalition units started a large-scale ground offensive relying on shock and speed to either cut off the retreat of Iraqi units on the road or to hit them from the behind and shatter them. Iraq’s military leadership, after shaking off the violent shock of the ground attack (and in their eyes, from the shock of Gorbachev’s betrayal), made the hard and rational, yet arguably callous, choice of ordering their armored-mechanized Republican Guard formations to immediately turn 180 degrees and lunge forward towards the Coalition offensive to either meet them in hastily and rather shoddily improvised defensive positions or to counter attack them with the purpose of delaying their general advance, so the rest of the 50 division strong Iraqi military could withdraw back to Iraq relatively unscathed. With great difficulty, these ‘elite’ formations were able to extract themselves from the large traffic jam which had almost entirely paralyzed the movement of panic-stricken Iraqi units and prepare themselves for the coming battle. This would be their last stand, for they were the modern iteration of Napoleon’s Old Guard, who had been cut down by British musket fire yet fought until destruction, to the bitter end.

Although the Republican Guard had been the preferred target of continuous Coalition air attacks from the outbreak of the war, they had not suffered serious losses due to their safety precautions and effective camouflage procedures. In an interview, a Republican Guard commander claimed that despite attacks from the most advanced planes at the Coalition’s disposal, his forces had suffered relatively few losses. In fact, attacks by A-10 aircraft would have to be called off for the rest of the campaign after suffering significant losses due to RG operated Strela-10 SAM systems.

When the ground offensive got underway on the 24th of February, the Coalition forces stepped up their bombing campaign on the Republican Guard, using large numbers of aircraft and combat helicopters that attacked them constantly. To make sure his units could set up mutually supporting defensive lines in the chaos of the 180 degrees turn and expected attacks by the Coalition’s tank forces, the commander of the Republican Guard decided to transfer the ‘Tawakalna’ RG Division to rear positions in order to close the gap between the ‘Adnan’ and ‘Al-Medina’ RG Divisions.

‘Mother of All Battles’

On the division’s way to its new position, they suffered an air attack followed immediately by an extensive armored assault in which 3 divisions from the American 7th Corps took part, with massive air support. The battle - known as ‘Battle of 73 Easting - was fought mainly between elements of the ‘Tawakalna’ Division and forces from the US 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions, the 1st Infantry Division and 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. American artillery and MLRS batteries played an important role in the battle.

The ‘Tawakalna’ Division fought an incredibly hard battle in difficult visibility conditions due to heavy dust that was stirred on the sandy terrain. Some of its formations were badly damaged but the division succeeded in reaching its rear positions, ending its participation in the war. Parallel to this, the Americans also attacked the lines of the ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ and ‘Adnan’ RG Divisions, even succeeding penetrating the Iraqi defensive lines on the morning of 27 February. As a result of the withdrawal and partial destruction of the ‘Tawakalna’ Division, Republican Guard Commander Gen. Iyad al-Rawi ordered the ‘Hammurabi’ RG Division to advance its 17th Armored Brigade to occupy new positions on the border between the sectors of the ‘Adnan’ and ‘Al-Medina’ Divisions.

The brigade moved to its new positions followed by 2 additional mechanized brigades and prepared for a counter attack. According to their version, the Iraqis sought a confrontation with the Americans advancing towards them from the West, and all of the Republican Guard’s artillery units bombarded American positions for over 3 hours. Next, the 17th Armored Brigade along with 21st Commando Brigade attacked in the sector of the ‘Adnan’ Division in Rumelia and managed to push back the forces that had occupied the defensive positions of one of its battalions. The ‘Adnan’ Division was later instructed to move in the direction of al-Qurna.

Another clash occurred between forces of the ‘Al-Medina’ Division and the American 7th Corps on the night of 26-27 February, after the latter attacked the Iraqi 14th Mechanized Brigade. The division mounted a counter attack with its 2nd Armored Brigade, reinforced by additional battalions, forcing the enemy to withdraw its forces to the rear. As a result, the American forces in the area increased their artillery fire in order to block the Republican Guard forces, who were attacking relentlessly and even making minor advances in some sectors.

The American 1st Infantry Division, which tried to advance across the sand dunes to flank the Iraqi line from behind, got stuck in this area, becoming a target for Iraqi artilllery and retreating helter-skelter from the area. At that point, forces from the ‘Hammurabi’ Division arrived in force in the sector between the ‘Adnan’ and ‘Al-Medina’ Divisions, deploying to mount a counter attack along with the ‘Al-Medina’ Division— a move that had the potential to threaten and encircle forces from the American 7th Corps in the Iraqi view.

While all this was taking place, forces of the US 18th Corps attacked the Special Forces Division of the Republican Guard in the Nasiriyah sector. An American force the size of a brigade (from the 101st) was also operating inside Iraqi territory in the Basra-Nasiriyah axis. The corps’ forces (82nd and 24th Divisions) mounted a frontal assault on the Iraqi positions from the south and west, attempting to gain control over them. Brutal fighting developed and continued throughout the day and into the night of 26-27 February, with the Iraqis, supported by heavy artillery fire, demonstrating very stubborn fighting spirit. In the end, the attack was stopped by the resistance of the Special Forces Division and by the heavy fog which covered the entire area.

Post-Battle Assessment

The Iraqis viewed these two battles - of the ‘Hammurabi’ and ‘Al-Medina’ Divisions and of the special forces in the Nasiriyah area - as a great victory for the Republican Guard, which had warded off a combined attack of two American corps on Basra and Southern Iraq. In their eyes, these developments, along with the 7th Corps’ failure to slice through the lines of the Republican Guard’s armored forces, had prevented the Coalition forces from taking control of Southern Iraq, destroying the mass of the retreating Iraqi military and/or disrupting their withdrawal back to Iraq. They portrayed the battles conducted by the Republican Guard as being among the greatest armored battles fought in modern history since WW2 in terms of the size of the formations and the number of armored vehicles taking part.

In their eyes, they had at least temporarily succeeded in effectively defending against and pushing back various American assaults, and even partially enveloping the American 1st Infantry Division, albeit very briefly. They concluded that the American High Command’s concerns about the 7th Corps taking further casualties and even being pushed back by the ‘Hammurabi’ and ‘Al-Medina’ Divisions caused them to agree to a ceasefire on the 28th of February and to put an end to the fighting. However, the Gulf War as a whole caused horrendous losses to Iraqi ground forces, who according to statistics from the USAF lost 2.500 tanks, 1.500 APCs, and 2.200 artillery pieces to enemy ground and air fire. However, later studies of Iraqi casualties during the war have shown them to have taken around 15.000 to 25.000 casualties, indicating that the RG had, in the end, succeeded in its task of sacrificing its own armored-mechanized brigades and divisions to allow the mass of the Iraqi army in the KTO (around 900.000 men) to retreat relatively unscathed back into Iraq. These forces, as well as the remnants of the RG, would prove pivotal in the Iraqi government’s response to the uprisings and mass-infiltration attempts of 1991.

Thanks for your attention! For further reading I would recommend Majid Khadduri’s “War in the Gulf”, the “Iraqi Perspectives Project” article covering the Gulf War, Pesach Malovany’s “Wars of Modern Babylon” and lastly the article “Correcting Myths about the Persian Gulf War: Last Stand of the Tawakalna Division”.

[anothertimdrakestan]

Batfam On A Road Trip HC

req: “Batfam on a road trip? It’s been on my mind for like a week-”

oh god it’s probably so chaotic... and like distinctly dangerous???

also this is my car AU where there’s infinite rows of seats in the car until I’m done.

we’ve got Bruce driving - even though Damian, Dick, Tim, Jason, AND Steph all tried to get behind the wheel but after last years incident the only people allowed to drive are Bruce and Duke but Duke doesn’t like driving with his siblings bouncing off the damn walls.

Speaking of Duke, mans snagged himself a window seat SO FAST it would make your head spin. He likes to sit next to Damian (who got put in the middle because he’s the smallest) and they share earbuds and Duke’s phone which is loaded with like 128 hours of songs. Against popular belief, Damian is actually good at sharing when it’s not with one of his more “obnoxious” siblings and he and Duke get along really well - they also have the same music taste. Duke changes between queue-ing songs, staring out the window making little stories in his head, and watching Damian draw. He occasionally is tasked with holding the sharp objects smuggled into the car after they’re discovered by Bruce as he’s the second most responsible (after Cass).

Speaking of the most responsible sibling, Cass somehow got shotgun next to Bruce. This is because she’s the only who makes him not want to throw himself out of the car and she’s a pretty good navigator. So, as she tries to moderate the back of the car she also is in charge of agreeing on pit stops and coffee breaks which works well because Cass is fair and no one can be an asshole to her. On the first road trip Cass discovered a Wendy’s Frosty and now she will usually write at least one Wendy’s stop into the trip - no one complains except Tim who is forbidden from ordering the spicy nuggets after last years incident.

Tim, the one notorious for threatening to throw himself out of the car most often, is sat in the far back. He someone gets a row to himself under the guise of “sleeping” when in reality he spends the trip typing away on his laptop, chugging monster energy drinks, and occasionally trying to make Dick bark like a dog through some kind of sleep-manipulation he read about one night at 2am. It involves him whispering in his ear and usually ends up making the whole car uncomfortable, except Jason who thinks it’s the funniest shit ever. However, after the incident his back seat gets thoroughly checked by Bruce for stowaways every pitstop, but he’d never store a secret in the same place twice...

We move to Jason! Who sits next to Steph. They’re the snack distributors. Known for throwing popcorn in the other’s mouths but it usually ends up being thrown at Bruce, Damian, or both. Jason is a champ at fruit roll up eating competitions. He claims it’s because his tongue is so strong from eating... nevermind. Jason is surprisingly organized about the snacks, and frequently restocks (with Bruce’s credit card of course) on pit stops. Jason likes to complain early into the trip but by the end he’s telling the most fun stories, singing the loudest, and causing the most trouble. His and Steph’s row is definitely the most fun. But he’s still on the list with Bruce after helping Tim become a world class smuggler during the trip that shall not be named.

Steph is the family interpreter. She shares messages from the back to the front and vice versa. She’s known for saying the back row is hungry when it was in fact her but everyone loves her for her honesty. She’s the first to ask for a leg stretch break, and the one who puts on good songs after Dick has had the aux for too long. She’s basically the lorax of the batfam road trip. She usually makes the snack packs that are distributed throughout the car and is known for memorizing everyone’s favorites to optimize the best snacks. Steph actually wasn’t in the car for the great incident, she often questions what happened but only knows what Dick quietly whispered to her, something about feeding nuggets to a foreign passenger...

Dick, the storyteller, the terrible-music-meister, the road trip organizer himself, sits on the other side of Damian. He was the one who purposefully cleared everyone’s schedule for the weekend and who roughly planned the route. Dick works closely with Cass to make sure they’re going the right way and he also mediates all fights that occur during the trip, and trust that there are a lot. Dick is known for being restless and often throws his head out the window on the freeway “just to feel something” his quote not mine. Dick is incharge of taking all dangerous items off Damian (and sometimes Tim’s) person before the trip and he was in the most trouble when the intruders were found during last years incident. But he took it with stride and promised Bruce this year would be better!

Damian, the deeply unhappy middle seater, can be found drawing and pretending he can’t hear Grayson blabbing on about “this crazy adventure he had as Robin so sooo long ago”. Damian is known for pouting through the first stop but after he’s had some quiet time he can actually be seen with the corners of his mouth upturned- especially if they drive past farms during the trip (Cass tries extra hard to make sure they do). Damian also had been known to try to run away during stops so he’s kind of heavily watched by Bruce and Dick. Luckily, his place in the middle seat means he’s far enough away from Tim to be “bothered by his mere presence” which is a significant win and close enough to Duke and Cass to keep him sane.

We are in fact missing two main people: Babs and Alfred. These two opt to stay home, getting the much deserved break they need. They like to have tea parties, cleaning extravaganzas, and (though they won’t admit it) the occasional dance break in the batcave when no one’s looking. They like to take the batmobile to get food and their guilty pleasure is watching rom-coms on the giant screen in the batcave while eating “trashy takeaways” as Alfred so eloquently calls them. These two have the best time, but if anyone asks they were simple awaiting the rest of their families return.

That’s how I think it’d go down! Overall I think it would be chaotic but not as bad as one might think, they are family after all : )

Oh wait, I forget, there are two more stowaways...

Bart and Kon are silent, Kon mostly flies above but occasionally slips into the trunk to rest with Bart. Bart easily slips into the trunk and is quite literally gone in a flash if Bruce ever suspects anything. Just because Tim can’t hand feed him nuggets doesn’t mean the boy isn’t read for road trip part two! He just hopes Kon made a flying stop at tacobell because he’s getting kinda hungry...

“Timmmm are we there yet?”

“DID I JUST HEAR WHAT I THINK I DID TIM”

“oh my god I finally experienced the great incident but now part two!”

“hi Steph! Yeah I’m here! Sorry Brucie, but yeah, can you pass me a twizzler?”

“HOW DID YOU DO THIS AGAIN TIM I SWEAR TO-”

yup, now that’s a batfam road trip : )

[usermoreid]

Darkened Nights (Violent Things)

Fic Week Day Two: Alternate ending to an episode

“I choose Aaron Hotchner. He's a classic narcissist. He thinks he's better than everyone else on the team. Genesis 23:4. ‘Let him not deceive himself and trust in emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense’.”

The silence in the room was palpable. In almost perfect synchronicity, every head turned to face the man in question only moments before he stormed out of the room, footsteps echoing throughout the house.

"I'm not a narcissist," he said, pacing back and forth as the others entered the room, slowly as if approaching a wild animal that could attack at any second.

"Come on. Look, you can't think anything from that. He's not in his right mind, Hotch," Gideon tried to reassure him, quickly stopping when he was interrupted.

"No, stop. Stop." The room fell quiet once again. "Alright, everybody right now - what's my worst quality?" His head turned frantically around the room, taking in everyone's hesitancy to answer. "Okay, I'll start. I have no sense of humour."

"You're a bully," JJ said hardly a second after he'd finished.

"I'm a bully," he repeated.

"You can be a drill sergeant sometimes."

"Right."

"You don't trust women as much as men."

"Okay, good. I'm all these things, but none of you said that I ever put myself above the team, because I don't, ever. So why did Reid say that I do?"

"Don't jump to any conclusions just yet. Reid is smart. For all we know, he could have been leaving clues this entire time. We just need to find what they are."

"Clues? We don't even know if Reid's aware that we saw that!" His voice raised at Gideon as an exasperated arm was thrown in the air. "What sort of clue is 'narcissist'? That doesn't lead us anywhere. Like you said, Reid is smart. His clues would be more obvious than that."

He turned on his foot, heading back in the direction he came from. The others all shared a look of trepidation before following after him. They'd never seen their boss so unsettled, and in turn it was fraying their nerves in an already precarious situation. Gideon was the only one to look unperturbed but even Emily, who had spent such little time around the man, could see the tightness around his mouth and the stiff way in which he stood. He may have been acting as though he wasn't bothered but they could see right through him. Despite this, they walked on without mentioning it, knowing how private of a man Gideon was.

Back in the computer room, the tension was so thick it was almost suffocating, squeezing their hearts like a clenched fist prepared to strike at any moment. They were all on edge, staring intently at each blank screen as if they would come to life, the answer to the question that was plaguing them all displayed clearly on the screen. But there were no bold letters written out in front of them. There was no easy solution. Their youngest team member was still at the mercy of an unsub that had seemingly no plan to let him leave alive and they had no way of finding him.

Hotch cursed softly under his breath and stalked out of the room once more after several minutes had passed without so much as a mumble from anyone. The team knew better than to feel any shock at Hotch's out of character expletive; none of them could blame the man for not acting like himself. Instead, they looked to Gideon for guidance. The older man held a single hand up, preventing them from joining him in going after Hotch. He searched through the rooms, not finding his colleague in any of them, and then the grounds outside. It was a few feet in front of the house that he finally spotted him. If it wasn't for the gentle rise and fall of his chest, he could've been mistaken for a statue.

"He's still alive."

Hotch showed no sign of having heard Gideon approaching or settling a few steps behind him, and yet he didn't startle at the words, his stare remaining off into the darkness.

"You can't prove that."

"It's Reid. He always survives."

A small sound filled the air. It would have passed for a chuckle if the bitterness had not been so clear, as if it had rotted within him before being set free.

"You know, sometimes I feel like God sent Reid to me for a reason; as if there was something I could do for him. I couldn't even teach him how to deal with the emotional side of this job before I sent him into what's probably going to be the most traumatising thing he's ever going to experience."

"Then you help him through the aftermath. You still have time, Hotch. Your work isn't done."

Hotch shook his head. "I can't save him."

"All by yourself? Probably not, but I wouldn't be surprised if you did. You've got an entire team in there, Hotch, ready to risk everything. You helped him become the agent he is. If there's anybody that can help him again now, it's you. You understand him. I'm sure there's something Reid mentioned that tells us where he is, but we need you to not treat this like he's already gone."

Neither of them spoke. The only noise between them was the delicate wind, soft whispers floating throughout the air as if sending a message that he couldn’t quite decipher. Hotch’s head dropped down to face the dirt below him, a queue for Gideon to leave that he thankfully took, making his way back to the house that he was beyond tired of seeing. A small breath left Hotch’s lips, almost a sigh but not quite. He knew that Gideon was right. Standing outside staring at the ground wasn’t helping anybody but Hankel, and yet he couldn’t quite find it in himself to turn around. Spencer’s words were playing on repeat in his mind.

“He's a classic narcissist. He thinks he's better than everyone else on the team.”

Was he right? Of course he was, Hotch thought to himself. Spencer was never wrong, and he wouldn’t use the word ‘narcissist’ so lightly. But if he truly did put himself above the rest of his team, could he really trust himself to do what was best for one of its members? After all, everybody else was in that god-forsaken house, working tirelessly to bring Spencer home, and here he was: standing alone outside, focusing on his own problems instead of helping them.

With a shuddering breath, he turned around, pausing for only a moment before heading back to his team. Reid may have been right about the narcissism, but he would do everything in his power to get him back regardless. Reid was still alive, and he intended to find him that way as soon as he possibly could.

They all worked until the sun came up, the bright gold rays almost taunting them as they shone in through the windows. It was as the morning light hit that Hotch finally managed to force some of them to sleep. Morgan, JJ and Garcia were the firsts to go, though Morgan was only out for barely two hours before he returned, letting Gideon rest instead. Hotch felt the need to ask if he’d managed to get any sleep at all but based on the drooping of his eyes and the anxious clenching of his fists, he felt it wasn’t necessary.

They continued the search, finding dead end after dead end, and all the while both Hotch and Morgan refused to sleep. Prentiss eventually conceded, taking JJ’s space once she’d woken up. Hotch was rather impressed by how well she functioned on such little rest but he didn’t spare much thought on the matter, knowing that there were more important things at hand. It was only after the third time that they’d nearly fallen asleep on each other that the two men finally accepted that it was time to rest. They needed their entire focus on getting Reid home and they wouldn’t be able to do that if they were incapable of thinking. With heavy hearts and much hesitation, they left the room.

Neither of them had wanted to sleep in the house, the knowledge that they were currently residing in the home of the man that had their friend was hanging over their heads, making it almost impossible to even stand in. Instead, they chose the comfort (or lack thereof) of the FBI SUVs. Hotch climbed into one as Morgan climbed into the other, both immediately sitting in the driver’s seat and laying it back as far as they could go.

Being mid January, there was a strong chill in the air despite the persistent shining of the sun above them. Hotch wrapped his suit jacket tighter around himself, trying to maintain any sense of warmth that the thin clothing gave him. His eyes fell shut and he attempted to fight back every thought that was swarming around in his mind, loud and obnoxious and refusing to leave. It felt like hours of trying to quieten his mind, though in reality it mustn’t have been more than thirty minutes, when the passenger side door opened. His head instantly turned, eyes flying open as the lack of sleep made him more paranoid but less alert.

“I’m guessing I’m not the only one who can’t sleep,” Morgan said as he dropped into the seat next to him, door slamming shut behind him.

Hotch grunted, eyes closing again. “I knew I should’ve just stayed there and continued working.”

“No, you still did the right thing coming out here. I want to be in there just as much as you do but we’re no help if we can’t even stand upright.”

He hummed non-committedly. “Maybe so. Doesn’t make me okay with being out here while my team is in there working.” Typically, Hotch would never speak to a subordinate in such a way. The lack of sleep, however, was really beginning to affect him, taking away his filter.

It was silent for a few beats, no sound to be heard in or out of the car, until Morgan finally spoke again.

“You know Reid doesn’t actually think you’re a narcissist, right?”

“I hardly think it matters. I’m his boss, he’s allowed to view me in whatever way he does and I have no say in that.”

“But you’re not just his boss, you’re his friend. He had to name someone so that Hankel would stop the roulette. He did it as a means of survival and that’s it. There’s nothing more to it.”

Hotch swallowed hard, still refusing to open his eyes. If he didn’t see Morgan there, he could almost pretend he was talking to himself.

“I just… he’s so young, Morgan, and he’s been through so much already.”

“I know,” Morgan replied quietly. “It’s awful just watching him go through it, I can’t imagine what it actually feels like to be trapped there.”

“We haven’t even seen a video of him in hours and I don’t- It’s not like I actually want to see him being hurt but I’m going out of my mind wondering why it’s been so long.”

Morgan sighed. “I wish I had an answer for you, man. I get it, though. Seeing him is awful but at least we know he’s alive. Right now we’re stuck in this weird limbo where Spencer Reid is both alive and not alive and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Schrödinger's Spencer.”

Morgan didn’t reply for a moment but when he did, it was with a snort. “That’s such a Reid joke to make.”

Hotch let out a light chuckle. “I suppose it is,” he said, his head gently falling back to rest against the seat behind him, “and I suppose that’s a sign for me to go to sleep.”

“Aaron Hotchner cracking jokes? Absolutely a sign to sleep. Good night.”

A small smile made its way to Hotch’s face for hardly a second but the weight that had been taken off his chest felt more permanent. “Good night, Morgan.”

It only took a few minutes after that for the two of them to drift off into a less than restful slumber, the anxiety still flowing through their veins making it difficult to stay asleep. It was enough, though, and by time they walked back into the house, they were ready to start the search again. “What have we got?” Hotch asked as they entered the room.

“Nothing new,” Prentiss informed them, a restrained disappointment seeping into her words. “We haven’t got any more videos, we’ve searched everywhere that’s connected to him, and there have been no new murders.”

“So another dead end." Morgan's fists clenched by his side but he managed to hold himself back from hitting anything.

“I know it’s difficult,” Gideon said, “but we just have to wait it out. I’m aware that the last thing any of us wants is to sit around doing nothing but until we have something to go off, there’s nothing we can do but be patient.”

“Patient,” Morgan murmured with a small scoff. “Right. I’ll just be patient while my best friend is off being tortured.” His eyes drifted around the room, lending on the stack of books sitting on the table. “I guess I’ll go through Hankel’s writing again, see if we missed anything.”

Hotch watched as he reached for one of the books. “I’ll help.”

---------

“We’ll have to watch the videos again.”

Every head turned to face Gideon. They’d spent the past few hours reading the books, over and over and over, looking for any little thing they could’ve missed. Garcia had conducted the most in-depth cyber search possible, trying to find anybody and anything that could be connected to either of the Hankel men. Everything had come up empty. The only thing they had yet to do was rewatch the tapes. They knew it was the next logical step but the thought of watching Reid go through that pain all over again made them feel sick to their stomachs.

“JJ, Garcia, neither of you need to stay for this. Go see if you can get some food together for us, it’s been a while since any of us have eaten a real meal. I know it’s already dark but take a car and see if you can find something. Prentiss, Morgan, you’re free to join them if you’d rather but your eyes would be of use here.”

Once Garcia had loaded the videos ready to be played, her and JJ followed Hotch’s orders, though not without some hesitation from the latter. Morgan and Prentiss immediately sat down without a word, prepared to watch them regardless of how much they wished it wasn’t necessary. It was an unspoken agreement to not acknowledge the way everybody froze momentarily as the first video started, an image of Reid coming onto the screen, clear signs of physical trauma evident.

“The other heathens are watching. Choose a sinner to die, and I’ll say the name and address of the person to be saved.”

“I won't choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher.”

“Did you see that?” Morgan asked. “The way he looked into the camera before he spoke. What did he say - ‘leave their remains behind like a poacher’? I think that’s a clue.”

Gideon considered him for a moment. “I think you might be right. Here,” he handed him his notebook and pen, “write it down.” He played the next video.

“Tobias, help me.”

“He can’t help you, he’s weak!”

All four of the viewers flinched as skin hit against skin; as whimpers and cries fell from Reid’s lips. Morgan’s fist hitting the table was ignored as the agent on screen fell back in his chair, head hitting the floor with great force.

“You came back to life.”

“Raphael.”

Their focus didn’t leave the screen, watching intently as Reid stared God’s Will directly in the eye and didn’t flinch, God’s angel holding the trigger.

“Choose.”

“I choose Aaron Hotchner. He’s a classic narcissist.”

Hotch exhaled deeply but didn’t stop watching, listening to the words that had been playing on repeat in his mind since he’d first heard them. Morgan’s mouth opened as if to speak when Prentiss suddenly raised a hand in front of her, stopping whatever he was going to say. The men looked up at her and she put a finger to her lips, her other hand pointing in the direction of the room next door. They remained silent, ears straining to hear what Prentiss was referring to. It was a few moments later that they realised what it was - a small thump.

Immediately alert, they all reached for their weapons, drawing them up and preparing to defend each other. Hotch crept forward, signaling for the others to get behind him. He moved soundlessly, slowly approaching the door frame that led to the front room. Once at the edge, he glanced into the room, immediately spotting the man standing on the other side.

Morgan moved to stand next to his boss. Gideon and Prentiss would’ve taken the only other door in the room, leaving him with no exit, but there was no path to get there without passing him. Instead, they pressed close, ready to charge in behind Hotch and Morgan. As they were about to move, the man turned around.

“Aaron Hotchner,” Hankel said, voice low but strong, back straight as he stared down his target. “You’re a sinner. Job 15:31. ‘Let him not deceive himself and trust in emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense.’ You must repent.”

His arm hadn’t raised more than a few inches before four different guns went off, bullets lodging into several different parts of his body. He dropped.

Gideon immediately pushed forward, crouching down to check the man’s pulse. “Dead,” he told them.

“Did you hear what he said?” Hotch’s voice was subdued, his gaze fixed on the body on the floor.

“What about it?” Prentiss asked.

“Job 15:31. He said it was Job 15:31. Reid said it was Genesis 23:4. Why would he get it wrong?”

“He’s under a lot of stress. It’s understandable if he misremembered something,” Morgan answered, though he sounded sceptical.

“But he didn’t misremember it. He misquoted it. So what does Genesis 23:4 actually say?” They all hurried to the bookcase that contained bibles, Hotch getting there first and instantly grabbing the closest copy to flick through the pages, sparing hardly a glance at each. “Here,” he said, passing his book to Morgan, “Genesis, chapter twenty-three, verse four. Read it.”

Morgan took the offered bible, finding where Hotch gestured before reading it out loud. “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me property, forbear a place among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”

“He wouldn’t get it wrong unless it was on purpose.” Shock and relief stretched his lips into a smile.

“He’s in a cemetery.” Prentiss realised.

At that moment, the door opened and in walked the two that had left earlier, each with a bag on their arm. “Oh my God,” Garcia gasped as she saw the man on the floor, bag falling next to her feet with a thud. “Who is that?!”

“Is that Hankel?” JJ placed her bag down next to Garcia’s but paid no more attention to the food it contained, her focus entirely on the face that was currently surrounded by a pool of its own blood.

“It is,” Hotch answered quickly. “Garcia, check to see if there have been any reports of poaching in the last couple of days.”

“Okay, okay, uh…” She trailed off as she rushed to the computer with the others following, taking care to not step in the blood. It took less than a minute for her to set up the system and conduct her search. “A farmer reported two sheep being slaughtered on his property.”

“Where are we talking?”

Garcia zoomed in on the map in response to Morgan’s question.

“What’s that patch of green there?”

“Marshall Parish,” Hotch replied to JJ. “I think it’s an old plantation.”

Emily leaned forward, catching everyone’s attention. “Wait. Tobias wrote in his journals about staying clean and keeping away from Marshall.”

“Does that say that there’s a cemetery on the ground?” Gideon pointed at the screen.

“We’ve found him,” Hotch breathed. “We’re going to save him.”

-------

“FBI!”

As soon as Hotch’s foot hit the floor after kicking the door open, he was moving. Along with some of the local police, the team entered the cabin, guns drawn and eyes on alert as they searched for any sign of their missing agent.

“Clear!”

“Clear!”

“Oh! What’s that smell?” Prentiss scrunched her face up against the overwhelming scent in the air, casting her glance around the room to find the source. She spotted it on the floor: a pile of burnt fish. The smell threatened to take over their senses as they coughed against it, fighting the urge to leave immediately.

“Let’s spread out. He has to be here somewhere. Let’s go!” Hotch stormed ahead, looking as though the stench hadn’t had the slightest effect on him.

Gideon watched as everybody fanned out to search the grounds as his eyes took one last look over the room, being drawn to the pair of handcuffs laying haphazardly on a chair that he clearly recognised from the videos. Spencer had been sitting in that chair. He’d had those handcuffs on him. He’d been surrounded by that smell. So where was he now? He couldn’t have let himself out of those cuffs, but Hankel wouldn’t have just let him roam free.

With that thought in mind, he left into the darkness of the winter night, the chill immediately seeping into his bones despite the thick clothing he had on to protect himself. An image of Spencer, as frozen as the real Charles Hankel, pushed its way to the front of his mind completely unbidden. He did his best to shove it back, knowing it wouldn’t help. It didn’t leave.

They scoured the cemetery, searching over every inch looking for anything that might tell them where Spencer was before it was too late. Hankel must’ve left him hours ago without a fire or any other means of warmth, it was no wonder that he’d finally become desperate enough to leave the cabin on his own accord despite the great risks it presented him, Hotch thought.

He was aware that Spencer could’ve made it to a road by now but judging by the presumed lack of shoes and warmth, as well as his recently sustained injuries, he felt that it was reasonable to assume that he hadn’t gotten far. Just to cover all bases, he sent some local officers further up, closer to where they’d arrived from.

They’d been searching for over twenty minutes when they finally found something. A patch of soil, packed more freshly than that around it. It had been recently planted within the last few days.

“Morgan!” Hotch yelled at the top of his lungs, above the noise of everybody else calling out a different name. He instantly dropped to his knees and began clawing at the dirt, scraping it out and throwing it in random directions, not paying any mind to anybody around him. A body dropped down next to him and hands joined his own but neither looked at the other, concentrating only on the cold ground below them.

They dug and they dug until they hit something - something colder than the dirt it was surrounded with, something much paler. They continued tearing at the floor even more savagely than before, desperation leaking through at the sight of the foreign object. Fear gripped them tighter than the cold did, making them work harder and faster until suddenly a white cloth was visible, soon followed by a familiar dark red.

“No, no, no, no,” Morgan muttered, each word faster and louder than the last. “Come on, man!”

Hotch pulled away dirt from higher up, more gently this time, though he refused to acknowledge what could be under it until he finally saw it. A face, skin soft and almost glistening in the moonlight, marred by dirt and blood. Spencer.

He wedged an arm underneath his back as soon as the opportunity presented itself, Morgan having pulled enough of the ground off of his arms for it to not cause any harm, and he pulled. Once the top half of his body was fully out of the dirt, his hand raised on its own accord in search of a pulse as Morgan set to work on the CPR.

No pulse.

His breath caught in his throat but his fingers didn’t move. He was vaguely aware of the ringing in his ears but he ignored it.

“Please, Spencer. Please,” he forced out through gritted teeth. “Wake up. Come on. Wake up!”

“Not like this, pretty boy. Not like this.”

Morgan hadn’t stopped the CPR, going harder than what was necessary. It didn’t escape Hotch’s notice that any CPR at all may be unnecessary as he took a closer look at the boy in front of him. His eyes were closed and his skin was freezing to the touch. At first Hotch assumed that he must have been buried only hours before, likely just before Hankel left on his final self-righteous mission. Now, though, as he stared at the blue-tinted pallor of the agent in front of him, he doubted it.

Spencer Reid had been dead for at least a day now.

“Morgan, stop,” he muttered half-heartedly, his line of sight not moving from eyes that wouldn’t open. He’d never forced Spencer to make eye contact with him before but he was wishing with everything he had that just this once, he would; that just this once, Spencer would open his eyes and stare right back at him.

The aggressive panting by his ear hadn’t stopped, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. What if Spencer opened his eyes for only a second as he looked away? What if he missed Spencer’s final breath? What if-

“Morgan. You have to stop.” His voice was weak but it was all he could muster, still not looking away but being able to see the hands still pumping down on Reid’s chest as he periodically reached up to perform mouth-to-mouth. “Morgan.” He didn’t stop. “Morgan!”

He finally snatched his eyes away from those in front of him, becoming frozen in place as he watched Morgan lose control of the tears rolling down his face. Small sobs fell from his lips but he was clearly holding them back, trying so hard to save a dead man. It didn’t look as though he’d even heard Hotch’s words.

With a shaking breath, Hotch put his hand on Morgan’s arm, not surprised when it was instantly thrown off in a rather violent manner. He put his hand back, holding tighter but still getting thrown off. He forced himself to sit back, body threatening to collapse under the stress of it. Harsher than before, he gripped Morgan’s arm and pulled. Nothing. He pulled again. Nothing.

“Morgan, he's dead. You have to stop.”

Morgan furiously shook his head but otherwise didn’t acknowledge him, leaving Hotch with only one other option. He wrapped both of his arms around the man’s torso and pulled as hard as he could, refusing to let go no matter how much the struggling man tried to get away. Morgan’s arms flailed wildly but Hotch didn’t budge.

“You did all you could, Morgan. You did all you could. There’s nothing more to do. I’m sorry,” he murmured into his ear, the low volume not entirely on purpose.

“No!” Morgan shouted, fighting harder against the restraints of Hotch’s arms. “We can’t just give up on him!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeated, finding himself unable to stop apologising despite the fact that the words were unable to reach the ears of the person they were meant for.

“Hotch, we can’t- we can’t just give up. We can’t just give up.” At this point Morgan had stopped struggling, both against Hotch and the sobs that were now ripping their way out of his throat. His head buried itself into Hotch’s shoulder as his hands came up to grip onto the arms around him, his legs slightly curling up as wails of agony tore through him.

Around them stood the rest of the team, watching the scene in front of them unfold whilst knowing that there was nothing they could do to help. JJ and Penelope were wrapped around each other, tears falling freely from their eyes as they listened to the slowly quieting cries of the usually hard-to-break agent. Emily was completely frozen, her breath slowing to almost a complete stop. Gideon’s face remained unchanged, though the tears blurring his vision were hard to miss. He took one more look at the man he considered his son, and he turned around, walking away back into the darkness.

Hotch’s arms loosened but didn’t let go of the man inside of them. His apologies hadn’t stopped even as his eyes became less focused, his mind trying to take him somewhere far away but failing to take him further than that cabin. It was ironic, he thought, that a house belonging to someone so dedicated to his worship could be so void of God. No, there was no God here, but there had been an angel, and he’d taken Spencer Reid away from them.

“I’m sorry,” Hotch whispered. “I should’ve understood.”

[leejeongz]

PETTY

genre: fluff w a tiny bit of angst, enemies to lovers

member: treasure’s jihoon

word count: 2.3k

never in your life had you realised how much you hated biology until you had to study the carbon cycle, which is pretty ironic considering you cared so much about the environment. you could tell your classmates felt the same way too, most of them were doodling or whispering or just generally looking like they’d rather be anywhere else.

“i’m not sure you’re all getting this” your teacher realised, giving up on her powerpoint and going to sit down “how about you tell me what the carbon cycle is. this can go towards your grade, this can be your presentation!” she got more excited with every word coming out of her mouth “present to me the carbon cycle! this time next week, dress nice, it's going to be recorded. okay, you can leave early for today, gives you more time to work on the presentation” she smiled sarcastically, dismissing you all.

dumping all of your stuff into your backpack, you sighed rather loudly. you teacher looked over towards you, the teacher you could have murdered right now. “i hope i get to hear that volume from you during your presentation y/n” she joked. she was a nice lady, well she was usually nice to you, you had a similar sense of humour, but she could be lazy at times, maybe it was because she’d already got her qualifications, as she kept reminding you all.

“hurry up” you looked up to see your seatmate haruto had waited for you and was planning on walking home with you.

both of you were pretty puzzled by the task since your teacher had told you nothing and so you decided to sit in the library until the end of the school day, trying to figure out what was going on, rather than going home and winging it.

“i mean, i think i get it now” he announced, looking up from his book which he secretly had hidden his phone in “i’d help you but i don’t want our presentations to be so similar that mrs ‘i’m too lazy to teach you anything so do it yourself’ thinks we copied from each other”

you gave him a dirty look, knowing he was joking. “well then maybe i will no longer be your seatmate, no more cute stationery for you, unlucky pal”.

“now now, don’t be too hasty” he said while packing his things up once again “my friend said he can help you”.

Haruto had been obsessed with setting you up these days, ever since you told him you were ready for a relationship, he’d been trying to make one happen. now was the perfect opportunity to hook you up with yet another one of his friends, it was an unlikely relationship, he thought, but who knows.

“who? which boy is it this time? do you even have any friends left?” you asked.

“his name is jihoon, he got an A* for biology so i think he’s qualified enough to teach you.” he presented to you his phone with a picture of him on it.

you knew exactly who he was talking about. park jihoon. the name sent shivers down your spine. he was the head boy at your school when you first moved there. you had such bad memories of him. he once “accidentally” spilled water all over your work in the library, he always told you off for your uniform being “a mess” even though it was always immaculate, you saw him litter on numerous occasions and to make things worse, he tried to a rumour that your old school had lice and that you’d probably brought them with you. luckily not many people believed him, a lot of people shared the same opinion as you: there was just no way he was a nice guy.

“yeah, i don’t think it’s gonna happen” you scratched the back of your head “people whose name start with j… i’ve been warned about them”

“literally shut up that’s the most pathetic excuse i've ever heard. i’ve just sent you his address and he’s already agreed”

you couldn’t really not go now… you weren’t a bad person like jihoon was so you didn’t want to let anyone down. you put on your school hoodie and some leggings in a rush to get to jihoon’s house on time, it was the other side of the city and you didn’t want to be late, especially considering how bad the bus service was.

when you arrived, you suddenly remembered how attractive this boy was and it made you even more unwilling to knock on his door, how could someone so mean be blessed with such a nice face? before you even had the chance to consider knocking, a smiling young boy answered the door.

“hi! i’m-“ he stopped, making eye contact with you for the first time. he stood tall in what you presumed was a new sweatshirt and jeans, your heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. “you? you want my help? is this some kind of joke?” he scoffed “i guess you can come in” he shut the door behind you while whispering “the audacity” under his breath.

you sat on his scratch free leather sofa, it was brown and matched perfectly with the freshly decorated living room, you gathered he’d just moved there, probably his first house. you thought it was funny how his cute hello kitty socks really juxtaposed the whole vibe of the house, a small smile forming on your face. you were so caught up in your thoughts you didn’t even realise he’d asked you a question.

“did i say you could sit down?” he asked sternly. you never really knew what you did wrong to him, you just kind of… accepted it.

“right yes sorry” you stood up and awkwardly adjusted the hem hoodie. “uhh so it’s on the carbon cycle and i have no clue-“

“i know what it’s on you idiot, i wasn't gonna agree if i didn’t, was i?” he interrupted “well are you gonna sit down then?” he asked only to receive an eye roll from you as you sat down again.

you placed your bag next to you and pulled out your laptop. positioning it on his coffee table, you failed to notice jihoon had already left the room.

“what’s that?” he asked, placing two glasses of juice on the table “is it from the 90s?” he asked, following it up with an extremely condescending laugh.

you looked up at him, the heat radiating off your face resulting from a mixture of anger and sadness. “what did i do? why have you hated me since day one huh?” you finally snapped, it’s a shame jihoon barely heard you though.

“i’m gonna presume you asked why i hate you and the answer is” he cleared his throat “your old school”.

your face had definitely cooled down by this point “my old school?” you laughed.

“as head boy it was pretty much my job to hate any other school and the students there, just a shame you were one i guess” he confessed, his stern face softened as he spoke. “it was petty really, but petty is my middle name so what can i say?”

“i can tell” you responded, eyes narrowing as a sarcastic smile formed on your face. “shall we get to work now?” you asked, not wanting to waste any more time with him because somehow it made it even worse that the reason he hated you was just your old school.

“oh did he not tell you?” you looked at him puzzled and shook your head. “tonight we were just supposed to get acquainted because i don’t have much time, i’m going out later and i want to look fresh for the ladies.” he pulled twice on his sweatshirt, that typical cliche “cool guy” action just suited him for some reason. “so we have like 3 hours that’s all.”

“what, 3 hours won’t be enough to complete this?” you could have cried thinking about it, throwing your head back when you saw that jihoon had shook his head. “i’m gonna have to come over again aren’t i?” you asked, dreading the answer you already knew you were going to receive.

“fraid so” he responded.

it took some time, but you finally came around to the idea, not that you had a choice, you couldn’t do this without him. you reached into your bag once again, this time pulling out your metal straw and placing it into the orange beverage on the table.

“ooo fancy” jihoon cooed, eyes following your hands. “let me get mine” he got up, dashing to the kitchen and returning with his pink, silicone straw. “save he turtles, am i right?” you naturally laughed along with him which you soon stopped when you realised you were joking? with park jihoon?

throughout the next half an hour there were countless incidents which were similar, only you’d begun to let yourself laugh. were you maybe finally starting to like this boy too? this is the closest you’d ever felt to liking one of haruto’s friends, it just felt weird that it had to be him.

as if on queue, you received a phone call from haruto. you answered sheepishly, not wanting to distract jihoon who was now intensely staring at his phone as if he was waiting for an important message. “hey ruto, can you text me instead?” you requested. before he could answer, you put the phone down. a few seconds later your phone chimed.

ruto 🍩: how is it going? made any moves yet? i mean done any work yet? ;)

you tutted as you read the message which caught jihoons attention. “what is it?” he inquired, getting out of his chair and moving your bag. he sat down right next to you and peeked over your shoulder. the intimacy was nice, you didn’t like that it was nice, but it was.

“a little privacy please?” you moved your phone from his eye line and turned to face the other way.

you: i kind of like him ya know? it’s too early to tell. i mean i don’t hate him now i guess 🤷🏻‍♀️

swoosh, away your message went. had you really just told him that you liked someone you used to hate?

ruto 🍩: interesting… i’ll have a word with him.

a certain panic set in, but you couldn’t do anything about it when you heard a beeping noise coming from jihoon’s kitchen. you suspected it was a fire alarm, the way he abruptly got up and rushed in there.

“it’s ruined” he shouted, there was a hint of anger in his voice that seemed familiar. you hesitantly walked towards his kitchen and asked what he’d supposedly ruined. “nothing it’s nothing, just go back and start working, we can do it in 2 hours if you work fast. are you capable of that?”. the soft jihoon that you were just getting used to had suddenly disappeared, it felt like a kick in the stomach and you knew your presentation wasn’t gonna be great now.

for the next hour or so you worked tirelessly on the presentation, now making a poster instead of a powerpoint since what jihoon wanted to do, you HAD to do right now. there was undiable tension in the air, neither of you wanted to talk about it but it didn’t stop you from being curious. an occasional phone buzz broke the silence, but neither of you checked your notifications. not until you once again threw yourself back into his sofa, this time your head was in your hands. you understood nothing going on in your poster and the “help” you were getting was minimal.

jihoon grabbed his phone, not really sure on what to do when he saw you.

haruto: yes jihoon, they like you now make your move

haruto: bro… ur silence is concerning what’s going on there?

he gently placed his phone on the glass table, slightly moving the oversized poster, brushing your leg as it moved and catching your attention.

he stood up from the carpet and sat beside you.

“i’m sorry i flipped like that on you” he whispered while his hand made its way to your knee. “we can come back to it tomorrow” he glanced at you.

“wont you be hungover, or won’t you be trying to shoo away some one night stand? i know your type” you sniffled through tears. no one had seen you cry before but for some reason you didn’t feel embarrassed.

“well actually i’ve decided to not go out tonight. i have a netflix account that isn’t getting used and i was wondering” he started, shuffling closer to you “if you wanted to watch something with me? you know, just to take your mind off things” his eyes widened looking back at the disastrous poster in front of him.

“maybe” you thought for a while, remembering what haruto said he was gonna do and realising he’d probably done it “on one condition” you smirked.

“what is it?” he flirted, prepared to do anything for you. by now he’d somehow managed to wrap his arm around your shoulders too, just adding to the ambiance he’d created in 0.2 seconds.

“tell me what you ruined in the kitchen” you begged.

“it was-“ he paused for a second, wondering if he should tell you or just show you. he pulled his arm from around you and quickly went to get the tray from the kitchen. “i attempted to bake some cookies in the shape of clouds and the sea and cows, but as you can see they are definitely not medium rare, more well done i’d say. i was thinking we could have filmed a little video with them tomorrow or something when they were cool as your presentation. kinda glad they burnt, why would i want to waste such a good idea on you” he emphasised the “you” and faked heaved, a teasing tone evident in his voice.

“we could still ice them or paint them or something” you enthused.

“anything to spend more time with me, huh?” he teased further, foreshadowing the future of your relationship with each other.

🔅please let me know what you think about this! i’m not really confident posting it so any feedback would be much appreciated! i also just wanna say that the character i made up for jihoon does not reflect him as a person! i’m sure he’s not an evil person irl i just wrote this for entertainment🔅

[yeoldontknow]

❧ check in tag

tagged by the sweetest angel @propinqxity to do this little tag. this is such a cute list of questions, and some of these i dont think ive been asked before. thank you so much for the tag and the tumblr crush mention lovely. you truly are a bright spot on this website and i mean that sincerely <333

going under a cut because im certain i will ramble ~

1. Why did you choose this url?

its sort of like a pun between yall dont know and the fact that, hopefully, sincerely, chanyeol does not in fact know that i run this blog lmao i changed to this after a long time of being bread-jinie and i wanted to rebrand. i will, however, do my best to never change URLs again because the masterlist switch over was a complete hassle

2. Any sideblogs? If you have them, name them and why you have them

i have a fic recs blog called @yeoldontknowiread. as to why i have it, i know it hasnt been updated in ages since ive been kind of on hiatus, but i think reading and sharing work on this platform is immensely important. i actually read quite a lot of fanfiction, and i try my best to share the things i read. im very very behind on recs at the moment cause i try my best to write something substantial for every recommendation i make. as a writer, i know exactly the kinds of thoughts and feedback on fics that make my heart soar so i try to put in the same energy to my recs. community is only fostered when there is reciprocation

3. How long have you been on Tumblr?

hmmm since april 2017. i actually had my 4 year anniversary this year and i did have plans for things but i got roped into real life things and couldnt celebrate the way i truly wanted to :(

4. Do you have a queue tag?

no but sometimes i think i should. i view tags as a library on top of my knee jerk response to things. most of my tags are just my initial thoughts or feelings at any given moment, so those take precedence over a specific queue tag

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

when i was getting into exo, i was reading fanfiction like crazy. i used to write fanfic quite a lot in other fandoms, but at that time i hadnt written anything in about 2.5 years. exo was the first re-introduction to that feeling of excitement and inspiration. after about 3 weeks of straight reading, i decided i wanted to write again. i wrote the prologue to hero in about two hours and tried logging into AO3 to post it. sadly i forgot all of my log in information because it had been years, and was getting frustrated. i really wanted to put it somewhere out of fear that id lose interest if i didnt do something with it, and everything id read had been on tumblr. so i made a tumblr just to put hero lmao i didnt have any mutuals. it was a blog with straight 0. i hadnt even created an account to interact with writers before that moment, i really thought id be a silent reader forever. but exo woke me back up and for that i am eternally grateful.

6. Why did you choose your icon?

the yours music video is...so stunning? like the colour theory throughout the whole thing is truly so inspiring and gorgeous. and this shot of chanyeol looking at the painting took my breath away, truly. tulips and the color of peach, like do you know how evocative that is? ugh

7. Why did you choose your header

my header was made by @jamaisjoons for my birthday this year because shes literally the most talented person when it comes to graphics. and this was so kind of her to do, i cried a lot

8. What's your post with the most notes?

uhm....either the body through time or truth i cant remember which but i checked recently and its one of those

9. How many mutuals do you have?

honestly at this point im not even sure. i know ive lost a bunch while i was on hiatus because i was basically a dead blog, and some people do dash cleanses. and im certain others have left, too, for their own reasons. still, i have a good core of friends though who are active and that is enough for me

10. How many followers do you have?

more than i probably deserve

11. How many people do you follow?

399

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

uhm i guess? there was a time when nng was not updated and every wednesday id post the days go by music video in sadness and grief but im not a big shitposter. if i make a text post its usually a life update or me crying about chanyeol, theres no inbetween lmao

13. How often do you use Tumblr every day?

tbh i havent used tumblr that often, not since march i think. i used to use it many times a day, checking in on friends and stuff, but once i started focusing on my phd applications i was only here sporadically. i didnt make an announcement either, just let my blog run on queue so i wasnt totally gone. i think i was checking in twice a week or maybe once every two weeks to refill my queue and check mentions etc. but now that my interviews are done im trying to get back on here daily to reconnect

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? Who won?

ive had my share of disagreements with people and any details about those situations shall remain as they are meant to: private

15. How do you feel about "you need to reblog this" posts?

in what context? like, you need to reblog this or your wish wont come true? or like, please reblog this to spread the word/spread awareness, etc? in the case for the former, i scroll right by. in the case of the latter, if im around and see someone raising a go fund me or some major event is occurring and i find a post with good sources or charities i will reblog. mostly though, the full extent my activism isnt really on this blog. its my escape from reality. my activism is usually placed on other platforms.

16. Do you like tag games?

i doooo!!! theyre so fun i love learning about my friends

17. do you like ask games?

i love those too! theyre so cute and usually a nice way to have interaction immediacy with people in the community

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous?

no one. can we please abandon this notion of fame on tumblr? arent we all here to write about some dick and some smut and some fluff and then hang out together and log off? lmao tumblr isnt reality and followers/fame is so arbitrary on this platform, no one has any control over any of it

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

i am in love with so many people here. let me name a few:

@yehet-me-up @kyungseokie @jenmyeons @j-pping @jamaisjoons @inkedtae @kookdiaries @yoonia @dulcetvk @kithtaehyung @imdifferentshadesofpurple @ditzymax @sugaurora @sahmbtsficrecs @junghelioseok @yeojaa @augustbutwinter @joonscore @btssavedmylifeblr @cutechim @sunshinekims @kimtaehyunq @ouvuo @delhyun @exo-stentialism @sooibian @softyoongiionly @jinseunie @zibermuda @bratkook @1kook @luffles424 @xjoonchildx

and so many other people and mutuals that i am certainly forgetting. love is such an expansive feeling, and it encompasses platonic ardor and creative desire. i admire every single person listed for so many different reasons, and cherish and treasure them or what they provide to the community. love is such an important and broad experience. truly, i hope they feel adored every single day x

[winterisakiller]

Get Better - Chapter Nine

Title: Get Better

Chapter: 9/18

Character: Tom Hiddleston/Cath Richardson (OFC)

Genre: Romance

Rating: Teen and up

Summary: Love. Companionship. Family. These are all of the things Tom Hiddleston desperately wanted. But his life and his choices left that a distant and unlikely prospect. So he did his best to move on and live his life as is. When an opportunity to return to the theater arises, he jumps at the chance and along the way finds that maybe, just maybe, those distant and unlikely prospects are closer than he could have imagined. Sequel to Brave Face.

Authors Notes/Warnings: So as I was writing Brave Face I knew that Tom’s story wasn’t over, even if that particular part of it was. And while I knew, more or less, what the overall ending to the story would be, its taken me a while to figure out the time in between. Thanks to @redfoxwritesstuff for letting me continually throw ideas off and at you. I still can’t fathom why you put up with it, but I am eternally grateful you do. This story will update on Thursdays.

Tag list: @tinchentitri @noplacelikehome77 @theheartofpenelope @blacksuitofdoom @nonsensicalobsessions @messy-insomniac-bookgirl @wolfsmom1 @just-the-hiddles @theoneanna @hiddlescastle @echantedbytwh @alexakeyloveloki

Previous Chapter

CHAPTER NINE

 “I don’t know how or why I let you talk me into this,” Cath groaned, leaning her head back against the cool wall behind her. Every inch of her ached, how she was ever going to manage making it from the studio floor back into the changing rooms she couldn’t begin to fathom. “I’m dying.”

 Gemma tossed her head back, her short, light blonde hair flying back from her face as she let out a loud laugh which echoed throughout the now empty room. “You are not dying.” She placed a hand on her hip surveying the sight before her, shook her head, and bent to offer her hand to her deflated friend. “Besides, it’s good for you.”

 Cath reluctantly took the proffered hand and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. She limped pathetically towards the changing room behind Gemma, not bothering to keep pace with her much taller friend. How could she be this out of shape? It was mindboggling. When Cath had gotten the call yesterday afternoon, she’d gladly taken Gemma up on her offer to attend a yoga class with her the following morning. After all, how difficult could it possibly be? Oh, she thought with a biting cynicism, to be young and naïve once more.  

 What she had assumed to be a basic yoga class (something she’d been so sure she could handle. She was reasonably in shape, after all, and not completely inflexible) had turned out to be anything but. This was evil yoga. Sweaty, difficult, insane yoga. God, Gemma must have been out of her mind to think that Cath would possibly enjoy twisting herself into positions the human body, or well her body, had absolutely no business even attempting.

 Gemma turned back as they reached the door and let out a sympathetic chuckle. “You’ll feel better after a shower, trust me.”

 Cath scoffed. “The last time I trusted you, I ended up here. You’re track record isn’t exactly speaking highly of you right now.”

 She’d known Gemma since uni; they’d ended up suitemates in their first year and hadn’t initially gotten on. Clashes happened frequently over study habits, music choices, and hundreds of other little things; leaving both at each other’s throats more often than not. Gemma had been an only child of only children; sharing a space hadn’t come easily to her and Cath, while typically an unfailingly patient person, was finding her resolve wearing alarmingly thin. It hadn’t been until halfway through the semester and the pressure of midterms that they’d bonded. It was amazing what a bit of alcohol and breaking into tears of frustration at three in the morning could do for a friendship. They’d remained close ever since despite conflicting schedules and occasional (well more than occasional, if she were being completely honest) clashes of personality. It was an odd friendship between them, but it worked more often than it did not.

 Gemma shook her head and wandered towards the showers. “My track record is flawless, not my fault you can’t keep up.”

 “Why am I friends with you again?”

 “Because you love me,” Gemma’s voice echoed from the showers.

 “And that love shrinks by the day!”

 Gemma’s resonating laughter echoed from the other room. Cath shook her head and, with a grimace, found the locker where she’d stored her change of clothing and shower supplies (something she had almost left in her flat, despite Gemma’s instance that she bring them along. It was yoga after all, nothing too strenuous. Ha, yeah right.), and gathered what she needed before making her way to the showers with a slowness bordering on comical.

 The hot water, however, felt amazing against the tenseness of her shoulders and back. As she stood beneath the torrent of water, Cath felt herself start to relax. It was with the greatest reluctance that she tore herself from the sheltering warmth of the shower fifteen minutes later. She dried and dressed with care, while the water had done wonders she didn’t want to chance anything by moving too quickly. Gemma was dressed and leaning haphazardly against the wall of the dressing area as Cath ran her towel over her hair one last time and quickly pulled it back into a bun at the top of her head; she would worry about drying and styling it once she got home.

 “So you up for joining me again next week?”

 Cath snorted loudly, covering her mouth in a futile gesture. It took several moments for her to compose herself. “Absolutely not. I barely survived this time.”

 Gemma shook her head. “It does get easier each time. And besides,” she added with a wicked gleam in her eye, “it’ll do wonders for your skills in other areas…”

 She didn’t bother to cover the loud and obnoxious laugh Gemma’s words tore from her. “Be that as it may, I’ve currently got no one with whom I am trying to impress so those ‘skills’ would be wasted on me.”

 Gemma shrugged. “Still it’s something to file away for a rainy day…”

 “As fun as that sounds, I think I’ll pass.”

 The tall blonde smiled and shook her head. “Fair enough.”

 The two said their goodbyes and Cath took off down the street towards coffee shop that had caught her eye two hours prior on her way to the yoga studio; a small brick and glass front building with a hand-painted sign hanging above the door bearing the name Uncommon Grounds in bright, clean lettering. The caffeine was practically screaming her name and, honestly, who was she to ignore its call. Bag stashed over her left shoulder, she pushed the shop door open and paused as the scent of coffee, pastry, and spices flooded over her. God, she would never tire of it.

 What was not so pleasing, however, was the queue that formed from the counter nearly towards the door of the shop. Just great. It moved quicker than she’d expected, given its length, and within ten minutes she was out the door again, double vanilla latte in one hand and a Triple Chocolate Meltdown muffin in the other. It was definitely not one of her better choices but once she’s seen it in the display case, Cath had known she was a goner. Besides, she’d reasoned with herself, after all the work she’d done that morning she’d earned the damned thing. And she was definitely going to let herself enjoy it.

 She flirted with the idea of heading directly towards the Underground station and home, she was certainly tired enough for it to be an intriguing idea, but found herself instead heading down the pavements and into the nearby park. It had warmed up enough to make the idea of enjoying her hard-earned treasures on one of the benches overlooking the heath below well worth it.

                                                            —

 Cath popped the last piece of her muffin into her mouth and sighed, leaning her back farther into the wooden slats of the bench. It wasn’t a particularly warm day, but nice enough that the heath below was dotted with people running around; parents chasing children, people walking dogs, couples walking and in hand. She took another sip of her latte and closed her eyes, letting the slight warmth of the just barely visible sun warm her face.

 That peace, however, was short-lived.

 A loud, and strangely familiar, series of barks exploded from somewhere down the main path. Cath’s eyes shot open in time to see a streak of reddish brown baring straight for her. Without thinking she leapt to her feet, a flash of panic racing through her, and nearly swallowed her heart when the blur came to an abrupt stop before her. The blur, now clearly a brown spaniel, barked once and sat panting, eyes wide and filled with mischief.

 “Bobby?” The name spilled from her lips in confusion. Surely this couldn’t be Tom’s dog. The spaniel let out a woof as if confirming he was, indeed, the dog she believed him to be. “What are you doing here? Where’s your human?”  She glanced around behind him, hoping to see Tom hurrying along the path behind the dog. There was not a soul. Damn.

 She knelt to the ground, reaching out and scratching him behind the ear. She noted with a flash of amusement that he was without his usual harness, though his collar was still intact. The spaniel leaned into her hand, his tail a blur of motion. “Oh young man, something tells me that when Tom finds you, you’ll be in quite the spot of trouble.”

 Cath pushed herself back up to her feet, scanning the area around them once again hoping to see Tom jogging up the path. No such luck. She looked down at Bobby whose attention seemed now laser focused on the tree behind her. “Oh no you don’t.” Bending down, she looped her fingers in his collar. Bobby whined but didn’t try to pull away. She held him for another minute before slowly letting go. He wriggled but didn’t take off. “Alright. Let’s see if we can find Tom, shall we?”

 Grabbing her gym bag from the bench behind her, Cath rifled through it and pulled out the laces from her trainers, tying them together in a crude but effective knot. Just because he seemed to be listening to her now didn’t mean she trusted the spaniel not to attempt bolting at the first distraction. From the stories Tom told, and from the small amount of time she’d spent in the spaniel’s company, Bobby was not one to be trusted over much. She quickly looped the end of the lace around his collar, double knotting it before wrapping the other end around her free hand. It wasn’t ideal but the last thing she wanted was for him to run off.

 They’d finished a loop around the nearby pond when a high pitched squealing caught both her and the spaniel’s attention. Cath spunk around to find a strawberry blonde little girl in a bright pink coat and blue wellies charging at them at a fair clip yelling “Bobby!” at the top of her voice. “Bobby! Bobby! Bobby!”

 A few paces behind her, a harried look etched across his features, was Tom. “Allie,” he bellowed, “no!”

 The little girl paid Tom absolutely no mind as she continued to barrel at both Cath and the spaniel in question. Bobby excited by all the chaos began barking like mad and darted off in the little girl’s direction, ripping free of Cath’s grasp, shoe lace trailing behind him.

 “Shit,” Cath hissed and sprinted after him.

 Bobby and the girl collided with a mess of barks and tears. Tom reached them first, dropping to his knees and picking up the girl, quickly looking her over from head to toe to rule out injury. Seemingly satisfied that she was, in fact, alright, he rocked her gently and kissed her head. She continued to whimper and cling to him. Probably more startled by the happenings than truly hurt, Cath reasoned. “Darling, it’s alright,” Tom admonished, rocking her slowly back and forth until her crying seemed to slow.

 Cath stopped a few feet back from Tom and the little girl. Allie, she corrected herself, remembering the name he’d called. The last thing she wanted was to intrude but leaving without saying a word felt…wrong. She instead, fixed her attention on Bobby, who sat on the grass beside his master and the girl confusion painted clearly across his features. He hadn’t tried to bolt again, though, and Cath counted her lucky stars. She had absolutely no desire to play another round of chase at the moment.

 Allie appeared to be calming, her wailing had begun to die down into the occasional sniffle. Once it was clear that particular crisis was over, Tom’s attention snapped toward Bobby who began to whimper and then quickly up to Cath.

 “It seems I owe you a debt of gratitude for finding this little trouble maker.”

 Cath shrugged, “More like the escape artist found me. As soon as I realized I knew the barking terror bolting at me, I figured grabbing him and trying to find you was the most sensible option.”

 Tom laughed, sending a ripple of amusement and warmth coursing through her. “I am forever in your debt, my lady.”

 “Uncle Tommy silly,” a muffled voice echoed from his lap, turning both of their attentions to the little girl still tight in Tom’s arms.

 It was Cath’s turn to laugh. His niece. That answered several of her questions and brought to light countless more. She filed the information away to process later. “He certainly is.”

 Allie pulled herself back from her uncle’s embrace and turned her hazel eyes on Cath, interest and confusion warring for dominance across her small and reddened face. After several moments silence she declared, “You’re pretty.”

 It was such a frank and matter of fact statement that Cath blinked at her for several seconds before breaking out into a wide and toothy grin. “Thank you. You’re quite pretty yourself.”

 The girl beamed, squirming her way out of her uncle’s embrace and darting towards Cath. She wrapped her arms around Cath’s leg. “Princess?” Cath blinked again in confusion. Allie pulled back, turning towards Tom and exclaiming, “Princess! Princess!”

 Tom looked first at Cath, offering her a sheepish smile, then down at his niece. “Allie, sweetie, I don’t think…”

 Cath laughed, catching on to the girl’s train of thought. She bent down and smiled brightly at Allie. “I’m not a princess, but I do work with them sometimes in the theatre.” Allie’s eyes widened. “What about you, Allie? Are you a princess?”

 The young girl nodded enthusiastically. “I’m a princess!”

 “It’s one of her favorite games as of late,” Tom provided, smiling and rubbing at the back of his neck. Bobby barked, clearly not thrilled at being ignored. Tom sighed, his eyes darting down towards Bobby, and a slight confused frown spread across his face. He grabbed at the spaniel’s collar and fingered the attached shoe laces with amusement before returning his gaze towards Cath. He held up the end of the makeshift lead. “Creative.”

 Cath shrugged. “He darted on you once and I wasn’t taking that chance…Besides the laces were all I had.”

 Tom laughed heartily. “Can’t fault you there.”

 He bent to reattach Bobby’s harness and lead, untying the laces and handing them back to Cath, whose attention was steadfast on Allie. The little girl was talking a mile a minute, bouncing and laughing, about dressing up and going to balls like ‘Uncle Tommy’ and asking in turn which princesses Cath had worked with. “Belle?” she’d asked with wide, hopeful eyes.

 “Yes, I did actually,” Cath laughed, watching the delight and awe spread across the young girl’s face. “And she is just as charming as she seems.” She’d worked on a production of the musical in the West End a few years back and found herself smiling at the memory. It had been a draining, chaotic, but fun several months.

 The more the girl talked the more Cath found her utterly enchanting. It was clear she idolized her uncle, and honestly, Cath couldn’t blame her. She let her eyes drift over to where he was standing. The man seemed almost too good to be true, and experience taught her to be wary of him because of it. By all accounts she’d known Tom to be just as he appeared; he’d never once given an indication of being anything other than a thoroughly decent man both on and off the stage. Everyone she’d met who knew or had worked with him consistently sang his praises. But still, sometimes looks were deceiving.

 “Alright, Allie, I think we’ve taken up quite enough of her time.” Tom moved to place a hand on the girl’s back, his other still tightly gripping Bobby’s lead. Allie looked up at him, pouting and eyes once again on the brink of tears. Oh Lord.

 “Don’t wanna go,” she ground out defiantly.

 “Alice Marie…” There was a warning in Tom’s tone Cath recognized from her own mother, and any parent she’d ever encountered, while dealing with a stubborn or unruly child.

 She watched the interplay between them with a wry sense of amusement. It was clear that Allie was prepared to throw quite the fit if not granted what she wanted and it was just as clear that it was the absolute last thing that Tom wanted, though he was prepared to stand his ground regardless. He’s the makings of a fine father. The thought stole its way across her mind and she furiously brushed it aside. That was the last thing she needed to be thinking of. But still…

 As if sensing weakness Allie turned, focusing her wide, tear-filled hazel eyes on Cath. Strong. She needed to stay strong. But then the girl’s small lip began to tremble and Cath knew it was a lost cause. But still she tried. “Allie, sweetheart, your uncle said it was time for you to go.”

 “No. Wanna stay.” The tears were now slowly running down her reddened cheeks. Cath looked helplessly from Tom to Allie and back. “Wanna stay with princess.”

 She swallowed thickly, “I know you do, sweetheart, but I think your uncle has things he needs to do before he has to go to work tonight.” Cath glanced helplessly at Tom. Stubborn, temperamental actors she could handle in spades, but crying children…

 “And I’m sure Cath has things she needs to get done as well,” Tom added, smiling softly at his tearful niece. Allie only shook her head, the tears coming in earnest now. The panic in Tom’s eyes was impossible to miss.

 Cath took a deep breath and commended her soul to god. “I can stay for a little while longer, Allie sweetie, but then I do need to be getting home.”

 Allie’s face immediately brightened. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and looked hopefully between Cath and her uncle. “Ice cream?” She pointed vaguely down the jogging path towards a small stand selling ice cream bars and ice lollies.

 Tom let out a soft groan. “Your mum is going to murder me.”

 “Won’t tell.” The grin Allie gave him was wide and hopeful. Cath could see Tom’s resolve crumbled just a bit further. She laughed at the sight, trying desperately to cover the action with her hand. Tom’s sharp glare told her she’d utterly failed. And that only seemed to make it harder for her to stop.

 “You’ll get one small thing. One mind. And you cannot mention this to your mum or granny.” He turned his attention briefly to Cath who was still struggling to regain her composure. She took a deep breath and did her utmost to school her features back into proper order.

 It was completely unfair what seeing Tom like this was doing to her resolve. He’s a friend. Thinking him anything more is just going to make it worse. She watched as he wrestled Allie up into his arms, still maintaining a tight grip on Bobby’s lead, and settled her across his shoulders. Allie giggled in delight and shouted “Ice cream! Ice cream!”

 Cath shook her head, laughing, as she followed the trio down the path towards the ice cream stand.  If he ever has a daughter she’s definitely going to have him wrapped round her little finger.

                                                            —

 Allie sat on the bench, happily consuming the colorful fruit flavored ice cream bar she’d chosen (after Tom had vetoed the chocolate and caramel monstrosity she’d initially wanted. Sucker or not, he knew that giving the girl that much sugar in one go would be a terrible, terrible mistake). Bobby had placed himself at her feet, head resting on his outstretched paws, his eyes ever vigilant for dropped bits. Cath found it adorable the way they interacted, it seemed Allie had all the Hiddleston men wrapped around her finger. And she’d told Tom as much when he handed her the coffee flavored ice cream bar she’d chosen (the hell with good eating choices today).

 Tom flushed and ran a hand through his hair. “She’s quite the character. There is a great deal of my sister in her that’s for certain.”

 “Is that a good or a bad thing?” Cath asked, licking the remains of her ice cream from the wooden stick before rolling it up in a napkin and stowing it in her bag to bin later.

 He let out a loud laugh, “God, it honestly depends on the situation. I love Emma dearly, but she can be a complete pain. She was the baby of the family…”

 “I know about that all too well,” Cath added with a laugh of her own.

 His eyebrows rose. “You have siblings?” She nodded. “Older or younger?”

 “A mix of both. I have an older brother and a younger sister.”

 Tom grinned. “Middle child? Welcome to the club.”

 She looked him up and down, smiling. “You’re a middle child. That explains so much."

 “You don’t exactly have room to talk, now do you?” Tom countered with a raise of his eyebrow. She stuck her tongue out at him in retaliation. “So mature.”

 Cath grinned. “I try.” She settled herself down on the bench beside Allie, who smiled brightly and attempted to grab her arm with sticky fingers. Tom was quick to swoop in with napkins.

 “Not so fast, Allie love. We mustn’t grab with sticky hands.” The girl reluctantly allowed her uncle to clean her before returning her attention back to original goal.

 She bombarded Cath with more questions about princesses and asked repeatedly if she could be made into one. Tom had told the girl that Allie worked with him (‘making people look pretty’ he’d explained to the girl’s wide eyed amazement as they’d walked to get their ice creams). “You would have to ask your mummy sweetheart,” Cath had answered as diplomatically as she could. She watched as Allie worked through the idea, her small face scrunched in thought.

 After several moments her face cleared and she once again smiled brightly. “Okay!”

 Beside her, Tom chuckled. “And you said she had me wrapped around her finger.”

 “Watch it, Hiddleston.”

 “Whatever you say, darling,” he countered, still smiling. “Whatever you say.”

 Cath shook her head and turned to face Allie. “What are we going to do with your uncle?”

 Allie laughed, “Uncle Tommy silly.” She pointed at Tom. “Silly!”

 Bobby barked twice, wagging his tail. And they all dissolved into laughter.

 “He certainly has his moments,” Cath agreed once she’d calmed enough to speak. “He is a very silly man.”

 Tom shrugged. “Makes my line of work infinitely easier.”

 “And mine that much harder,” Cath added, amusement coloring her tone. As much as she liked the man, Tom could be a complete pain when in her chair; like sitting still and not fucking blinking or squirming where things that happened to other people. She shook her head. It was a damned good thing he was so likeable or she just might hate him.  

 She raised her eyes to Tom’s face and watched as a frown slowly spread across his features as his eyes swept over the overly complicated watch on his wrist (why he insisted on wearing something that ridiculously complex as a means to tell time she’d never understand). Cath could clearly hear the curse words he’d been dying to utter but would not as he knew the little ears in his presence would not only hear them but repeat them loudly and most likely at the worst possible moment.

 He grimaced instead and let out a huff of annoyance. “Allie darling, we best be off. Your mum will be back soon.”

 Allie’s face crumpled as she looked between her uncle and Cath. It was clear she didn’t want to leave but at the same time, she very much wanted to see her mother. Cath leaned over and nudged the girl lightly with her shoulder. “It’s alright. I have to go home too. But it was wonderful meeting you Allie. I hope I get to see you again soon.”

 “Promise?”

 Cath nodded, “I will do my best.” Allie beamed and launched herself into Cath’s lap, enveloping her in a fierce hug. Beside her she could hear Tom laughing and Bobby’s quiet woofs signaling his apparent desire to go. The little girl pulled back and climbed off the bench, grabbing her uncle’s hand. Bobby immediately jumped up, resting his front paws onto Cath’s lap, barked once, and licked her hands. “Such a ham,” she laughed, cutting her eyes up to a bemused Tom. “Just like your human.”

 Tom simply laughed and shook his head. He pulled gently on the lead and Bobby, with great reluctance, let himself be lead down the path beside Tom and Allie and out of sight. Cath smiled as she watched them go.

Next Chapter

[infinitysdecendants76730]

Infinity’s Descendants

“The first Date”

There he stood in his velvet emerald green habit habillé with gold trimming embroidered along the coats edges and around the pockets matching green breeches and high heeled satin slippers with gold clasps to match the embroidery his coat. He dabbed at a bit of sweat on his forehead with an embroidered handkerchief before speaking again.

“Please excuse my tardiness. Is it too late for you to accompany me?” He asked. “Maintenant?” This wasn’t a total surprise. Part of her was expecting something like this as she had wore her finest dresses to the shoppe every day this week. « Oui, maintenant » Céleste thought about her sister. “Zaz will understand right? She’s probably with Jean-Laurent as we speak” she thought to herself. Céleste looked once more at Cassius. “Yeah Zaz will be fine” she thought to herself. « Donnez-moi un moment pour fermer la shoppe et rassembler mes affaires » she said with a smile. « D’accord. I will wait outside » Cassius smiled, turned on his heels and exited the shoppe. Céleste had began to overheat from running around the shoppe trying tidy up and grab her things. She peaked out the shoppe’s window at Cassius. He was conversing with the coachman. This gave her enough time to cool herself with her fan and try to settle her nerves. Cassius glances at the window and that was her queue. Céleste excited the shoppe fan in hand in her beautiful dress.

« Mademoiselle » Cassius smiled and extended a hand to her. He helped Céleste into the carriage and the coachman closed the door behind them. Céleste kept a smile on her face but remained quiet. She glanced over and looked at Cassius; he sat there, one leg crossed over comfortably confident in his outfit. Just sharing the same air with him made Céleste’s stomach fill with butterflies. Just when she thought he couldn’t get any more attractive he held an entire conversation with the coachman in a language that she had never even heard before. “If you don’t mind me asking, what language was that?” she asked. “Latin” he replied. “Latin? But I thought people stopped speaking that language ages ago?” she said puzzled to which Cassius smiled. « My coachman is very old, mademoiselle LeBlanc » he winked.

“I am pleased you agreed come. I feared you might’ve forgotten me” said Cassius. “Really, why is that?” She could never have forgotten him. “Mademoiselle Leblanc, I am well aware that as woman as beautiful as you has a plethora of suitors” he said. “Oh Monsieur, your are just being modest” Céleste looked away in a failed attempt to conceal her rouge kissed cheeks. « Non, mademoiselle. Je dis là vérité. This night has been all I have looked forward to since my departure from Marseille » Céleste could tell by the tone in Cassius’ voice that that admission made himnervous. “Me too” Céleste replied and a beautiful smile spread across her face. This being a relief to Cassius he returned her smile.

During their ride Cassius carried the conversation. He asked her about her family and if she had any siblings. He inquired about her about her passion for dress making and where her love of fashion came from. He never interrupted her, instead he watched her as she talked, as if he was memorizing her mannerisms, the way she spoke, the way she moved and the way she sighed with contented smile after talking about something she truly enjoyed and loved.

The carriage was slowing. “Perhaps it may be too late to inquire but do you like Théâtre?” he asked nervously. Céleste’s face lit up once more. “I love Théâtre” “Great, tonight we will see Hérode Et Mariamne” He said.

Cassius and Céleste entered the Opéra de Marseille arm in arm. It wasn’t long before they were being approached by nobles of all sorts from absolutely everywhere. The women were initially drawn to Céleste seeing as though she had made a fair few of the dresses being worn tonight but their attention was quickly placed on Cassius as she figured it would be. He was dressed spectacularly and was apparently of the noble class and even though she was on his arm Céleste knew very well that that would not mean the women would assume he was spoken for they would have to see for themselves. A very loud woman with an extremely elegant dress approached. “Céleste dear! I simply cannot thank you enough. This is beyond my expectations and I have told every woman I know to employ your services”

After Madame de Montcourt finished thanking Céleste for her beautiful dress an extremely handsome man approached.

“Monsieur Cassius, what a surprise to see you here. With a guest as well” he diverted his gaze to Céleste her cheeks immediately flushed pink. She smiled politely to try to play it off. “Should you not be working?” The beautiful man continued. “Ah Leo, you know a man would perish if he was all business and no pleasure” Cassius said dryly. “C’est vrai” Leo never took his eyes off Céleste. « Quelle est votre nom, mademoiselle? » asked Leo. « Je m’appelle Céleste » she replied. “Ahh Céleste, pleasure to meet you” he bowed and kissed her hand. Looking up at her his lips lingered just above her skin “You smell delightful Mademoiselle” “Merci Monsieur” she replied smiling shyly. “Careful Cassius. A women who smells this nice and is this beautiful will be highly sought after” Leo smiled and gave Céleste a playful wink. “Leo, do you not have business of your own to tend to?” Said Cassius. Leo laughed at the subtle dismissal. “As a matter of fact, I do. Mademoiselle Céleste it was a pleasure to meet you” For the first time since he had approached, Leo looked at Cassius. “Cassius, I am in town for the week. Perhaps we can hunt together?” he proposed. “Sure, come by anytime. Profite du spectacle” replied Cassius.

Cassius and Céleste made their way to their seats in the top of the theatre were most of the nobles were sitting. Céleste was truly in her happy place taking in all the exquisite fashion. Leo’s eyes met Céleste’s from the floor below and he nodded politely. “Your friend is nice” she said. “I wouldn’t call him my friend persay. He is more like a fellow businessman” he replied. “Business, is that how you got these seats? Commoners like myself don’t generally sit up her with les dieux” Céleste said playfully. “Actually, Madame Lecouvreur gifted me with these seats” replied Cassius. “You know Adrienne Lecouvreur? The best actress in all of France” Céleste asked in disbelief. Cassius replied with a smile and something told Céleste that the details of how he knew her may be something she doesn’t want to know so she refrained from asking.

The show reproducing the tale of the tragic death of Mariamne at the hands of her jealous husband Herod the Great was absolutely abysmal but somehow Cassius was making it enjoyable. Sooner than both Cassius and Céleste wanted however the show came to an end.

They were about to enter the carriage and Cassius appeared to be troubled. « Qu'Est-ce que c'est? Is something wrong? » Céleste asked, looking around them anxiously.

« Mademoiselle, Je déteste vous demander cela, mais serait-il possible pour vous de passer le reste de la nuit chez moi? You see my coachman has had very little rest today. The fault is entirely mine as I was in a rush to see you, nevertheless, I worry about his well being as well as ours if he attempts the ride back to your home. My home is only a few minutes ride from here. I assure you we will ride out first thing in the morning » said Cassius. “I suppose that will be okay. I wouldn’t want him to harm himself” Céleste respond before she truly gave herself time to think. “Merci Céleste. I shall inform of the change in destination” Cassius helped her into the Carriage once more before going to speak with his coachman. « Oh mon dieu, qu'ai-je fait. Zaz va me tuer. » Céleste said placing her face in her palm.

Cassius home was no home at all, a beautiful sunset kissed chateau greeted them as the rounded the turn.

They coachman opened the Carriage door for them and the front door to the Chateau opened as they reached the top of the steps. “It is late, I will show you to your room” said Cassius. Céleste was speechless as she admired the architecture, the decor, and the murals throughout the chateau.

Cassius opened a set of double doors. “You can sleep here for the night” “êtes-vous ? Where will you be?” Asked Céleste. “Oh I’ll be around. I don’t get much sleep” She thought about how hard it’d be to sleep in a house this big alone and she had to admit she’d find it difficult to get much rest too. “If you need anything Charles will either fetch it for you or come find me”Céleste .

« Bon nuit mon chérie » Cassius pulled the door closed leaving Céleste in the room.

[aaronleong]

Musings On The 2020 Chanel Price Increase

Wednesday, May 25, 2020

A Chanel boutique at 31 Rue Cambon, Paris. Photo: CloverSac.

Gossip of a global price increase for Chanel began circling around the Purseblog forum weeks before the hike in May. There was plenty of speculation among the ladies on the percentage increase this time but more resonating was a protest over the timing in such a situation as now. 

People queue to enter the Chanel boutique at a department store in Seoul, South Korea, May 13, 2020. Photo: Reuters

The global price increase started in the second week of May, with Europe getting its revised prices on the 11th, followed by Asia on the 14th and finally the USA on the 25th. 

Regarding this increase, Chanel stated in an email to Reuters that “these adjustments are made while ensuring that we avoid excessive price differentials between countries, in line with our commitments regarding price harmonisation.”

Classic and Reissue price comparison between 2019 and 2020. 

I will solely be focusing on the Classics and Reissue models throughout this critique as they were affected heaviest by the price hike. Although the WOC and Boy models were also impacted, they hovered below a 10% raise, making the increase not unusual from the standard annual price increase year over year. The United States was affected the least by the increase in prices, never climbing over 12%. However, Europe and Australia was hit the hardest with skyrocketing increases over 15%. While the price differences across the 3 continents are now closer compared to 2019 prices, sales tax and VAT has not been factored in yet. 

A 3 year price history of the Mini Square Flap.

A perfect example is seen above, looking at the price history for the Mini Square Flap over a 3 year period. The most striking increase would be a steep 31% raise for Australia. However, such a drastic disparity in pricing is to be expected with a harmonisation strategy, considering the weaker Australian Dollar in comparison to the Euro Dollar. 

While Chanel has given its official statement regarding this year’s price increase and owing it to a global price harmonisation, I still harboured suspicions about a subtle reasoning behind their increase. It is not to say that this is the first time that the storied French maison has chosen to conduct its annual price increase in May. However, the last increase in May took place in 2017, with the consecutive 2 yearly increases occurring in November. 

I will be taking a look at two plausible reasons behind the raise which arrived at the height of an ongoing pandemic worldwide.

Covid-19 And Its Effects

Megs Mahoney, editor at Purseblog, speculated before the official raise that this year’s substantial increase was a recovery strategy enacted by Chanel due to the ongoing crisis. After all, the French luxury brand had made the decision to halt all retail and manufacturing operations, instead transforming its production towards hygiene equipment. The multi billion dollar corporation had also opted out of the French government’s partial unemployment assistance, choosing to personally fund the salary of its employees working from home. 

My issue towards this speculation is this - no matter how well intentioned they may be, why should consumers pay for the brand’s altruistic decisions? Chanel isn’t a new startup or independent designer that is financially struggling during this economy downturn. This is a multi billion dollar corporation we are addressing here. Are we as consumers going to reap the share of profits when the brand performs well? No. Prices will not be reducing either. If anything, this speculation is akin to a millionaire organising a fundraiser on social media and requesting the public to donate. 

However, WWD reached out to Chanel seeking clarification and the brand had responded that “the current situation has absolutely no link with this decision (price increase).” That being said, it looks like any speculation on the economy’s influence on the price hike is right out the window. 

Misaligned quilted diamonds on the Classic Flap in black caviar. Photo: Purseblog

Investing Into Higher Quality

“Like other luxury brands, Chanel is making financial efforts to secure its supply of very high-quality skins by investing in the supply chain and acquiring suppliers. These investments are essential to guarantee the longevity of such iconic products [and to keep them] up to the standard’s Chanel’s clients expect,” Chanel continued in its email to WWD. Chanel has stated that the brand is investing to maintain its product standards. It’s no secret among the handbag community that the brand’s quality and workmanship has deteriorated. Customers on handbag forums have cited poor stitching, malfunctioning hardware and shoddy handiwork that does not justify the ever rising premium prices. With new supply chain investments, the least Chanel could do would be to improve the quality of its products, especially for the handbag line. 

A New Alignment In 2020

“We also take great care to maintain the positioning of our creations as the highest in quality and the ultimate in luxury. We wish to retain our unique place in the eyes and hearts of our clients, and therefore offer rare and exceptional products. All of this adds value,” Chanel continued in its statement to WWD. I believe that the last sentence holds the true reason behind the sharp rise in prices - a realignment of the brand’s market positioning. 

3 year price comparison between the Reissue 227 and Birkin 30.

With prices soaring after this year’s revised prices, Chanel is borderline in the Hermes price range, albeit without the legendary exclusivity and resale value that Hermes is renowned for. Women on handbag forums have compared the new prices of the Maxi Flap and Reissue 227 to the current price of a Birkin 30 in Togo leather. I was curious to see how the prices differentiated over the years and I decided to track both bags over a 3 year period. 2018 and 2019 still saw a huge disparity between both handbags and it was only this year that the gap narrowed significantly by only €650. 

Having the audacity to conduct its annual price increase during the height of a global economy downturn is certainly a bold move for Chanel. Women may be fussing for now but the allure of the brand will always be there and they will soon be purchasing again. Chanel knows that. A small majority of handbag lovers like myself may stop purchasing new Chanel bags altogether. Of course, the brand isn’t affected in any way but we know better. Chanel has pretty big shoes to fill as they enter a new price range. Or they might just not care at all about the fine details. After all, the elite and rich never scrutinise that deep. We shall see. 

[suitofvibraniumarmor]

Yours Truly [Part Nine]

Summary: Layla leaves for Minnesota with her grandparents, which allows Sadie and Chris to explore the feelings between them. Pairing: Chris Pratt x OFC, Chris Evans x OFC Word Count: 2115 Warnings: FLUFF. A/N: This fic was previously posted on my multi-fandom account; in honor of OC Appreciation Day, I figured I would queue it all up for your reading pleasure throughout the day! This was a collab with @captain-s-rogers , and I will link her chapters at the end of all of my posts! Some GIFs were difficult to find again, so if there’s no credit, they’re from Google Image Search or from the original post. 

July 9

Caroline,

I … what do I say? Is it awful that I’m excited you finally got some good sex? Okay, so it’s not the greatest of circumstances, and Charlie isn’t horrible, but Caroline – Chris is perfect for you. If I could handpick someone for you, it’d be Chris Evans! Handsome, obviously interested in politics and the country but not necessarily a straight-up politician. He gets your life but he would keep you grounded in the non-political world, too. OH! And if you guys got together, you’d be this amazing husband-wife team, running the country. Tell me that’s not your dream life!

By the way, stop thinking about what other people would think. I know you! STOP thinking that RIGHT NOW. Neither the media nor the public is ever completely pleased with the President and the way he lives his life, so don’t let that dictate anything you’re doing. Live YOUR best and happiest life.

Okay. I’m ending this letter here because I’ve been watching TV while I write this (Layla left for Minnesota with her grandparents this morning) and I just saw a clip about you and Chris. Hot but … yeah. I’m just gonna call.

Yours truly,

Sadie

Feeling under the weather for a few days after Fourth of July, Daniel told the family they would put off the trip back to Minnesota for a few days. It was no big deal; just more time for Chris to spend with his family and more time for his parents to get to know Sadie.

By the time the morning came for Daniel, Kathleen, and Layla to begin their road trip, Layla was on pins and needles. She had convinced herself that once she left, her father and Sadie would – well, actually, Sadie was pretty sure that Layla had no idea what she really wanted to happen, the five-year-old only knew that she wanted them to be together.

“Sadie,” Layla whispered, coming into Sadie’s room before the sun was even up, “I’m ready to go now.”

Sadie forced her eyes to open. She turned on the light and took in Layla’s appearance: mismatched shirt and shorts, and boots on her feet. Her hair was still a mess from a night of excited sleeping. Sadie chuckled.

“Take off your boots and come up here with me, silly girl,” Sadie said, turning off the light and patting the mattress. Layla did as she was told, cuddling up to Sadie. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too. But I’m going to bring you a surprise from Minnesota. Oh! And Daddy has a surprise for you, too.”

“I do like surprises.”

“Good.”

Layla was asleep again not too long after that, but Sadie was awake for some time after, wondering what Chris’s surprise for her could be.

Chris and Sadie watched the travelers pull away from the house in the small camper, head down the gravel driveway, and, finally, out onto the dirt road.

“Can’t believe she’s gonna be gone for a whole week. I’ve got a couple of interviews, but I’m going to miss her like crazy,” Sadie sighed.

“Mmhmm.” Chris was still staring down the driveway, arms crossed over his chest. He seemed distracted by other thoughts, and it suddenly occurred to her why that would be the case. Sadie felt a little selfish; after watching Emily leave, no doubt watching Layla leave, even with his own parents, had to stir up some of those feelings again.

Sadie cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, that was probably insensitive of me. Of course you’re going to –”

Chris turned to her and interrupted her apology. “Do you want to have dinner with me tonight?”

“Dinner,” Sadie repeated. “You mean – dinner. Like a date?”

“Yeah, a date.” His voice read confidence but his teeth gnawing on the corner of his bottom lip gave away how nervous he felt.

Sadie licked her lips, an action borne of her own nerves. “Would this be the surprise that Layla told me you had for me?”

“Part of it,” Chris smirked. “I didn’t tell her everything, but I did want to make sure she was going to be okay if I asked you to dinner. Don’t want to give her a complex or anything.”

“Oh,” Sadie nodded. She licked her lips again and nodded. “Yes. I’d love to have dinner with you tonight.”

Chris’s smirk turned into a full-on smile. “Great. Seven-thirty work for you?”

Sadie nodded. “Sure. I’ll be ready.”

Chris nodded and walked around back of the house to get to tending the fields. Sunflowers would be blooming soon, he had told Sadie the other day, so she knew that tending to them now was as important as ever.

Letting her smile break into an ear-to-ear grin once Chris was out of sight, Sadie headed into the house to write a letter to Caroline.

The phone only rang twice before Caroline answered. The friends went right into a discussion about the news piece covering the pictures taken outside of Chris’s house which hinted heavily toward some sort of affair. Sadie couldn’t believe how relieved she felt after finally having a voice conversation with her best friend after so long.

The conversation started to wrap up, but Sadie knew she couldn’t just let it end without updating Caroline on her life as well.

“Uh, since we’re on the subject of love lives …”

“So I was right then, you got Farmer Pratt to fall in love with you,” Caroline chuckled.

Sadie chuckled, too. “He’s not in love, C. But we do – okay, I don’t know which letters you’ve gotten yet, but Layla is spending a week with her grandparents in Minnesota. Chris and I held hands on Fourth of July – I know, that’s no big deal, but it feels like a big deal. As soon as Layla and her grandparents were out of the driveway this morning, he asked if I wanted to have dinner with him. Oh, and did I mention that he has a sunflower farm? I’m rambling. I need to stop.”

“A sunflower farm? Seriously? It’s like you were destined to find this job and him. So, he asked you to have dinner. What did you say? Yes, I hope. Is he taking you out? Are you staying at the house? I mean, isn’t this technically your first time alone with him since you started the job?”

“I said yes. I’m not sure I’d be capable of saying no. Yeah, except for a couple of times that Layla was in town with her grandparents, it’s our first time alone with each other. I’m still staying at the house because I’m looking for jobs in the area. Is that a horrible idea?” She ran her fingers through her hair. “Why am I freaking out? Also, I’m assuming we’re going out. I should have asked.”

“Good, I’m glad you said yes! And I don’t think that’s a horrible idea at all. Looking for jobs in the area is a great idea, especially if things work out between the two of you. You’re freaking out because you like him, he’s technically your boss, and he owns a damn sunflower farm! It’s like he was made for you. But try not to stress out about it. I’m positive that it’s gonna be an awesome night for you!”

“You’re right. I just need to calm down,” Sadie said, letting out a deep breath. “And you know what? I think things are going to be fine for you, too. You and Chris. Together. I can feel it. This is our summer. Or something.”

“I don’t know about me and Chris but I know it’s gonna be great for you. You’re right, though, it is our summer. Or something.”

They both chuckled, promised not to get into the habit of calling each other, and to stick to letters for the most part going forward. Once the call disconnected, Sadie set her phone down on the couch next to her and let out a few deep breaths. With time to herself since Layla was gone, she decided to go into town and find something to wear for her date with Chris.

At seven-thirty on the dot, Sadie made her way into the front room. Chris was waiting for her there, dressed in crisp, dark blue jeans and a cream-colored button up shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows. It wasn’t unlike his outfit for Layla’s birthday, save for the tie. He had cleaned up his facial hair, but left some scruff behind. His hair was styled with pomade, and he smelled so good, Sadie’s nerves instantly multiplied.

“I brought this outfit with me for interviews, actually,” Sadie said, somehow feeling underdressed in her blue-and-white striped dress with the brown sandal wedges. “I went into town to find something that would work for a date, but I wasn’t happy with anything they had so I just –”

Chris stepped forward and took her hand. “I think you look amazing.”

Her rambling stopped; she didn’t bother to hide her smile or her blush. “Thank you. So do you.”

“Thanks. You ready to eat?”

Sadie nodded. “Yes. Where are we going?”

Chris squeezed her hand. “Come with me.”

He led her to the back patio. A table for two was set up there, dinner on covered plates, and a few sunflowers in a vase in the middle of the table. Chris pulled out her chair for her, pushed it back in once she was seated, then took up the chair across from her.

“I know this probably isn’t what you had in mind when you accepted, but – I don’t know. I got it into my head that I wanted to do this for you and couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

Sadie smiled at him. “Chris, this is so perfect. I didn’t tell you when you told me about what you farm, but I really love sunflowers.”

“Those are the first blooms of the season,” Chris informed her, pointing to the flowers.

“They’re beautiful,” Sadie replied. “Thank you, for doing all of this.”

Chris nodded. “My pleasure. Shall we eat?”

Sadie giggled at his feigned English accent. “Yes, let’s.”

They carried on good conversation while they ate, and continued over coffee afterwards. Chris set up the iPod speaker and let music play quietly while they sat across from the other, getting to know each other in a way they had toed the line on with Layla around.

“I love this song,” Sadie smiled, humming along to one of her favorite country songs.  

Chris stood and offered her his hand. “Then we should dance to it.”

Sadie slipped her hand into his, nervous all over again. “I haven’t danced with anyone in a while.”

“Me either. Let’s see if we can figure it out together.”

As it turned out, after a few moments of stumbling, they found an easy position to hold each other, and swayed back and forth to the music. Sadie held Chris’s gaze as the song began to build up, and Chris willingly stared right back.

“You’re something else, Sadie Coleman. Layla and I always had each other, but you – you filled a hole in our home that I don’t think we even knew was there.”

Sadie shook her head. “You’ve held her together. I just taught her the alphabet and some numbers.”

“You taught her way more than that – academically and otherwise. And you’ve taught me a thing or two.”

“Oh, really?” Sadie chuckled. “What’s that?”

Before Chris could answer her, a clap of thunder sounded from the sky overhead; a shower of rain immediately followed. The couple went into action, picking up the things that couldn’t be left out in the rain and rushed them inside.

With the things on the kitchen counter or in the sink, they looked at each other, and burst into laughter, until the next boom of thunder, when Sadie shuddered.

“Cold?” Chris asked, pushing a wet tendril of hair behind her ear.

Sadie shook her head and blushed. “It’s the thunder.”

Chris slid an arm around her waist. “If I kissed you, would it help you forget the thunder?”

Sadie nodded, the only affirmation she was able to give at that moment. Chris cupped her chin with his free hand, tilting her mouth upwards to meet his.

She was ready for the soft touch of his lips against hers. She was ready for both of his strong arms to tighten around her, pulling her closer. She was ready to find the hair at the back of  his neck and comb her fingers over it while they kissed. She was not ready for what happened when he pulled away from her.

“I love you, Sadie.”

Part Ten

[manjuhitorie]

Hitori-Escape Tour 2019, they're at the halfway point, so time to post reports!

消せます！

Disclaimer: These were all pilfered, ransacked, polished and ravished from my JP Twitter mutuals,,,, Who are all such kind souls,, Not only have they used their memory skills to seed Rie's words, but they even bothered to share the concert's happenings with the world wide web, AND they have urged me forward to keep on translating them... So I'll take the liberty to post them organized here... When you pass by any JP Rie fans on twitter, click hearts...💘 Shinoda’s name is shortened to SND, ygarshy’s to yg(a), and Yumao to Yu(ma) throughout...!

1 Hitorie's Hitori-Escape Tour, 9/3/2019 at Takutaku in Kyoto! Report! 

Yumao's tweet "Our tour starts today! I have cut my hair too short."

The first show, the first step….

SND looked back at both of the members to say “Let’s do our best guys.” Yg nodded back. Yuma started it up…

●SND played FAST guitar while singing, yg howled out harmonies on [a] chorus. Yu snickered at one of SND's slips.

SND used Leader’s jaguar on a [very very special song].

They did their best…

●SND “Its hoooot... We always came to Takutaku in the winter so now I’m experiencing Takutaku in it's true form.... Can I take a drink break, fwaaaaah, it's hot y'know? I'm even properly hydrated y'know? This water is gonna churn in my stomach, gehh I feel sick....”

SND: "RAISE THE AIR CONDITIONING!!!!!!!!!! I DON’T GIVE A DAMN IF ALL OF THE POWER IN KYOTO GOES OUT!!!!!! GIVE TAKUTAKU ALL THE ELECTRICITY!!!!!!!!!! LIKE IT'S OPERATION YASHIMA!!!! (*In reference to the wonderful Evangelion episode: https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Episode:06).

●Shinoda’s band introduction was “On bass ygarshy, on drums Yumao, and on guitar and vocals is I Shinoda. Music and lyrics brought to you by wowaka.”

●SND “Umm…We have merch…But the towels? T-shirts? They all sold out… No seriously I’m just…. We really did bring a hefty load of stock…Thank you all… Also what else sold out?” Crowd “The cap! Pens! DVD! Pouch!!” Shinoda “‘OK, whatever..... Thank you…’” ←That is exact verbatim, SND spoke in English. All that Netflix watching is showing.

●SND “By the way ygarshy, did you know they’ve stopped selling HimoQ?" yg: ....... >>>*BWOON*<<< *responds with only the sound of his bass* *HimoQ is an old school gummy candy by the brand Meiji, and-

--yg turned away with a smile that couldn’t be concealed. While behind them Yumao was playing his drums while just repeating “HimoQ.... HimoQ..... Why HimoQ...”

●Lastly there were also many reports on people being showered on by SND’s sweat. Stay hydrated please sensei

●Nishimaki Taichi their cameraman’s comment: I was drenched in the sweat of Takutaku’s splintering heat until just a minute ago, yet now that I’m almost back home, this whole day feels like it could’ve been a dream. Lol

This is the start of a fabulous new year.

●Shinoda’s comment My ears are still pulsing,,, Takutaku of Kyoto, thank you so much. I’m glad I was able to come and be a part of your 45th anniversary, I’m happy I was able to see everybody’s faces. The journey begins. We’ll be in Okayama tomorrow, hope to see you there.

●The setlists I won’t repeat, just to avoid spoilers for any possible goers!

2 Hitorie's Hitori-Escape Tour, 9/4/2019 at CRAZYMAMA 2nd Room in Okayama! Report!

All members have interactions, I'm relieved..

●SND “Yesterday was so hot I thought I was going to puke, I’d only ever been to Takutaku in the winter not the summer… I came to Crazymama today shaking in fear but… Air conditioning is the BEST! The number one necessity for any venue is!!!! heavy-duty!!!! Air-conditioning!!!!!”

●As soon as SND started talking about yesterday, Yumao dashed up front in a rush to talk. He asked to borrow SND’s mic so he could join in on the MC,

The way they were standing next to each other got them called out for looking like a stand-up comedy duo.

●Yu “Yesterday I mouthed the words ‘Were concerts always this painful?’ to ygarsh 5 whole times and he didn’t understand me,” SND “Well of course not (laughing).” Afterwards when Yu did ask him, ygarsh responded with "They aren’t." Yu thought he was the only one dying, ah sweet relief~, he says.

●Yesterday did Yuma really get exhausted enough to collapse against the wall? Did SND slide atop speakers to then stick the landing, singing with his knees against the floor? It's out there...

●Yu and SND bickered with each other over who watches more Netflix. (They both praised the Netflix show The Naked Director etc. on Twitter recently also).

●SND “By the way ygarshy did you know that cicadas actually live longer than 1 week?”

ygarsh “BWOON♪”

(Cicada’s having only a life span of one week is a common myth in Japan. Also this interaction mimics yesterday, is SND subtly taunting yg in new ways the new staple for the Mannequin intro? Amen.)

●SND tweet: "Thank you Okayama, after doing 2 concerts in row, I see that I really am capable of singing. We'll be back,, until then,,"

●Katou Haruhisa, the founder of LUCK'A Inc. who’s produced Rie’s merch for so many tours, QRTed today's official backstage photo and strutted with pride: "They're all wearing great shirts lol #I made this"

3 Hitorie's Hitori-Escape Tour, 9/12/2019 at the five morika in Iwate prefecture! Report!

Yumao's tweet "Tomorrow is Morioka. The next day is Sendai. I hope to see you there!" 

●In a small box with but a platform as the stage and a metal bar between the rockstars and the crowd, what happens if a SND sizzles up and sits down on the bar, gets up and gets down on the floor? FAN SERVICE. LOTS OF FAN SERVICE, THAT'S WHAT. SND was poked by fans, clapped by fan, had his head pet by a fan…. Amazing..

●SND praised the drama "Methanol” he watched on Amazon Prime. ●SND blessed the cool air of Morioka and rebuked the weather up in Tokyo. "I've still been walking around in shorts and sandals." *Looks down and checks himself out* "I ate such a ridiculous amount of grilled meat yesterday, I'm worried about my figure" "We all ate a ridiculous amount"

●SND "By the way ygarshy did you know that honeybees' body temperature can go up to 50 degrees celsius?"

　yg "....*BWOOON*" (goes into bass intro)

(The series...It's certain.. last time it was SND's provocative tidbits about a snack discontinuing.. then long-living cicadas, now..this.)

4 Hitorie's Hitori-Escape Tour, 9/13/2019 at Sendai darwin in Miyagi prefecture! Report!

●All the effects smoke made Yumao, in the back of the stage, look like a mirage... Yumao got up and called himself a mirage... Yumirage bamboozle... From there the crowd was riled up into cheering: “Yumao~ Yumao~ You’re so cute Yumao~” 

Yuma kept posing and hugging his hands against his chest* “Thank you...” SND “You pretty boy...” Yuma “I'm snatched everybody... My wig is like snatched...” SND “Snatched, snatched... What are you a Twitter fangirl.”  (*Yumao was using the fujoshi term "尊い".) ●During encore intermission the electric fan next to the stage picked up yga’s shirt and blew it up, exposing yga. Laughter was induced among the crowd, and SND, who missed the whole thing, was left all confused as to why everyone was laughing—. ●SND “By the way ygarshy, it’s Friday the 13th but, did you know that Jason doesn’t actually use a chainsaw?”

　yg “*BWOOOON*” ●Someone dived during the last song... As in, a fan started climbing up on other fans and rolling around up there. Staff handled it, and their love for Rie is blazing but... Etiquette and respect for the show space is the best way to enjoy the best show!! Please... SND’s tweet: “Sendai performance complete. Thank you, thank you, thank you”

5 Hitorie’s Hitori-Escape Tour, 9/25/2019 at Koube VARIT in Hyougo prefecture! Report!

Yumao's tweet "Today is Koube, tomorrow shall be Hiroshima. I hope to see you there!"

●SND MC speech "Did you guys have fun today? I think there's a lot of mixed emotions right now. If you didn't have fun, know that we're coming back here again. And then if you still don't have fun again, we're still coming back here again." ●Encore intermission! Crowd as they were walking back out "ygarshy! Yumao! Shinoda!" Yumao, pretending to be a person in the crowd in a scheme for instigation: “Yumao~~!” The crowd “Yumao….?” Yumao “Yumao…? Yumao!!!” Crowd “Yumaooo~~~!” SND “You sound like a Pokemon, crying your own name as if you’re a Pikachu.” Yumao “Yumao!" SND "Can neither of you (or yg) talk normal on mic."

Yumao *Goes and sits down at his drums* Crowd "Yumao~" *Plays a drum trick*  “Yumao~~~”  *Plays an even more flavorful trick*  “Yumaoooo~~~”  *EVEN MORE*  “YUMAOOO~~~~”

 SND “He’ll keep doing that if you keep it up, so keep pampering him.”

●SND “Backstage, they have redbull right, so before the show I couldn’t get over how delicious it was and I kept glugging, and so I was ready to burp throughout the whole first song. SND tweet after: I was in danger of deranging into the wet pants monster.  ●Also Shinoda was hopping around playing guitar and he bumped into ygarsh at some point, of who seemed super annoyed—. ●SND “Remember last show, I mentioned Jason, I said there's actually no chainsaw? Well I watched the second movie and, he gets attacked by a chainsaw in that one!” yg *Makes a face as if questioning if that gag was his queue* SND *Nods* yg *>BWWOOON<* (Into the Mannequin intro)

●In the post concert photo Yumao seems to be drinking a Chocola BB, a vitamin B2 supplement to help with acne, mouth sores, and overall exhaustion....

●SND tweet: Koube concert: complete, thank you all. Playing at VARIT is, truly, fantastic,,, I’ll meet y’all in Hiroshima tomorrow. Until then,,,

6 Hitorie’s Hitori-Escape Tour, 9/26/2019 at Second Crutch in Hiroshima prefecture! Reports! 

●SND “By the way ygarshy-kun, did you know that Mocomichi Hayami started a youtube channel!”

  yga *>BWWOOON<*

(*Mocomichi, dubbed “The olive oil fairy“, is an actor who gained internet fame after his displays on the TV show ‘MOMO’S Kitchen’ where he would dump HUGE AMOUNTS of olive oil over his food, ignore the recipe requested of him, and then praise his cooking like crazy in the end. He was a riot! And he’s truly skilled at cooking! He's won Gourmand cookbook awards, he loves olive oil, he has his own kitchen brand, he was in the Kamen Rider 555 movie where he got killed by monsters halfway through, he loves olive oil- Anyway his channel is here.)

+ SND used wowaka’s red jaguar guitar in today and yesterday's concerts. Introduced (W)HERE with "As Hitorie we only make good songs, we only make God songs. And this is a good one even out of the good ones".

●Crowd “What did you guys eat for lunch!” SND “For lunch I ate soba.” Crowd “Booo! Eat okonomiyaki!” (*Hiroshima is famous for it) “Screw that assholes!!!” “Whyyyy just try it!!!”

THEN YG TALKED

SND “And ygarshy gave Yumao an egg sandwich.” yg “… ...Uhm..”  Crowd “!?!?!? Woooahh!!!” yg “Shut up for a second.” Crowd *Still bustling, not listening* yg “Over something so silly…. why are you all excited….” yg “… So uhm I just wanted to say that…. Yumao likes eggs.”

Post show Yumao tweeted “I like eggs.”

●SND tweet  “The Hiroshima show: done. A rare event occurred today huh. Y’all were lucky… in a way? That aside I had fun. Thank y’all. I’m off to have a drink.”

7 Hitorie’s Hitori-Escape Tour, 9/26/2019 at Sapporo SPiCE in Hokkaido prefecture! Reports!

Yumao's tweet "Today is Sapporo. I hope to see you there! Ahh the first magnitude stars".

●SND ”Hokkaido, you’re so full of spirit! It’s ‘cause RSR had to cancel the first day, isn’t it!? How many of y’all missed out on seeing Number Girl?” *Hands rising all over* SND “Muahaha!!!! Well I already got to see them!!! Poor you!!!” (*Rocking Sun Festival last month was canceled due to Typhoon 10 hitting Hokkaido).

●Shinoda rued and revered the heat. Said that Sapporo’s been the second sweatiest show after Kyoto.  Crowd “Let’s make it the hottest!” SND “No! You can’t beat it. That was a traumatic experience, I thought I was gonna die. But we can still make the excitement levels the hottest!”

●Encore intermission and the usual outfit change: SND “Aren’t you hot in that?” Yumao “Yeah, this sweatshirt is way too big for me. Oh, because it’s Shinoda’s” It was too hot for SND so he made Yumao wear and promo the official merch. SND opened his mouth to make a comment when the crowd slipped in with “Yumao you’re cute wearing that~~ so cute~~!” cheers. SND “Shut up I’m talking!!” SND “….I’m sorry for yelling!” ‘Apologizes before things go downhill’ Crowd kept the spirit high by asking ygarsh if he wanted to eat pizza, yg nodded his head, then scooted towards the mic as if to say something- but turned back... He tricked everybody!  Rie weren’t going to let him get away with that, they had to pick on him for revenge!

Crowd “Hello! [At yg]” SND “What?! You’re resorting to teaching him the basics of conversation?” (SND and Yu laughing out loud) SND “He’s not an AI y’know??” (Yuma has his hands on his stomach at this point). yg *Still not talking* SND “Ahh what are we gonna do with him” SND “yga~rshy~kun~, have some fun with me~~!”

　yg “*>>>BWOOOOON<<<*

●SND tweet: Sapporo concert: complete!! That was way too fucking hot!! Damn ridiculous! That’s what makes it so good. Thank you.

8 Hitorie’s Hitori-Escape Tour, 10/10/2019 at UMBER in Shizuoka prefecture! Reports!

Yumao's tweet "Today's Shizuoka!"

●A wild cockroach appeared before Yumao and SND backstage during the intermission.

It was a huge one, scurrying across the stage walls throughout the end of the show regardless of its own size.

●yg offered Yuma the rights to his front stage mic for Yuga and SND to be able to talk about it together, so he pulled at his mic in front of him…. Only for the cable to come spiraling out, yanked from the jack, off went the XLR connector, and all. yg's power move left him laughing hysterically. yga laughed!!!!! He laughed as he gave Yumao a powerless mic!!

●With the power move to piston off of, “Professor Yumao” was on the case to give a “lecture” with his cockroach wisdom! He told us about how the ones with the perfect figures come from the outside and live under trees, german cockroaches like to stay inside and come from the inside...

SND “Back when I used to live in a rundown apartment in Nagoya, there was 2 perfect cockroaches always waiting for me in front of my apartment”. Yu “Outside, right!!”

yga *Frozen up and now hiding against the wall*

●Prof. Yumao also gave another lecture about Shampoo from the anime Ranma 1/2, complete with “Ne!” imitations, SND piped in also until he realized something- and then got angry at Yuma because only few will know who he’s talking about....

SND “So tell me, what time is it?” Yu “Time to talk about things everybody will understand!” SND “No it’s encore time!” Yu " :O "

yg *Still hiding against the wall away from the nerds*

●SND “ygarshy! Ygarshy! Get a good look at this!” yg *Nods at him* SND *Proceeds to pose like the Dragon Ball Z Kamehameha* “Hah!” yga “>>>>*BWOOOOOOOOON*<<<” 

●SND tweet: “Shizuoka show: complete, thank you so much. I had a lot of fun. We’ll be back. Nagoya will be tomorrow. Until next time,,,”

9 Hitorie’s Hitori-Escape Tour, 10/11/2019 at SPADE BOX in Aichi prefecture! Reports!

●Hasegawa-san, the drummer of SND’s past past band “Dr. Right” from around 2007 (See video of youngin SND and crew performing: https://nico.ms/sm11604475?ref=share_others_spweb…), he also payed a visit to the show!!!! And took pictures with SND!  >See https://twitter.com/toshiya230/status/1182631585230704640

●First song SND immediately messed up the first note and the music halted, Yu and the crowd had to urge him onward-!

●SND “Hitorie is great. Hitorie’s songs are great. Only badass songs. Before I joined, Leader sent me demo versions and said “I want to do songs like this”… Electricity rushed through my veins, this is gonna be a revolution, am I really going to be a part of this?! I thought.”

●The stage at the venue is one that shook like crazy from everyone’s vigor, Rie seemed to enjoy the ride.

●SND “I left Nagoya, went up to Tokyo, and now I’m back in Nagoya, singing nonetheless... I’m not embarrassed carrying the mic to sing non-guitar songs anymore."

●SND "After 9 shows doin’ this, it's really hit me. Hitorie really make great songs! But even among all of them this one is peachy… Wait no one says that? This one’s at the tippy-top. ….Wait no one says these words in Tokyo, nor Nagoya?? Ah whatever let’s go” (The original words were ドンズバ and ダントツ, both old niche words).

●Encore intermission, Yumao came out in front of the mic then… Clenched his fist up into the air and stood stout! SND “You’re not gonna talk, now, what are you doing?” Yu “Freddie Mercury, is in the house!!”

“This move isn’t in Bohemian Rhapsody, b/c once the scene starts he’s already on the piano but, before the show Freddie does the *poses again*!!! SND “So that’s what you were doing? Even though you play drums? Drums aren’t a piano?” Yu *��* SND “They are a little bit similar huh hahaha”

●Rie wished everyone safe travels home through Typhoon 19! They even cut the MC short to ensure swift departure- SND “I bet y’all would go off tweeting “Their chitchat was so long I couldn’t get home! Fuck them!” Well we’re fortunate, one day later and it would've been cancelled.."

●Then, the usual Thing.... SND “ygarshy, ygarshy! A fly seems to have sorta, landed on your bass over there!” yg *>BWWON*< (Interrupting SND’s sentence with a rushed note).

●SND tweet "Nagoya concert: complete. SPADEBOX shakes like crazy, it's such fun. Thank you so much. Make it home safe y'all. And let's meet again. Until next time."

🍕~~END~~🍕

((((((Shinoda, constantly: "I have a phobia of bugs" Also Shinoda, constantly: *His ways to provoke ygarsh involved cicadas, bees, cockroaches and flies.* + *Advises people dealing with heartbreak to go watch videos of giant hornets VS Japanese honeybees.* + *Draws super detailed cicadas in his manga Chikyuu Monogatari.*

Shinoda you maso.)))))

Ahhhh also! If you're a member Hitori-Atelier!-- (Which you should be!!! Because not only are Hitorie snazzy and there's the upcoming message campaign, but ALSO because Rie is always seeking more vigor which I KNOW YOU GUYS HAVE, I've seen your liberal usage of the almighty exclamation marks and emojis. You can't hide it, so show 'em some more of your energy!!!!!🙌🙌🙌)

--Shinoda has been periodically blogging about backstage tidbits and I've been translating those for fun so, plop: https://privatter.net/u/boat_manju 

[bluesfortheredj]

Plus One.

The older you got the more save the date cards seemed to appear on your doormat, and none of them were any easier to read than the last with the elaborate scrawls of what you assume to be your name on each one. This one was a little different to the rest though and it was your sister getting married this time, so of course you’d already saved the date anyway. You were to be maid of honour of course and although this had been put in place a long while ago, seeing the card with the date that was surprisingly closer than you thought on it was jarring.

The two words that struck fear into you more than any of the others were ‘plus one’ and you still had no clue who to take with you. Your ex had already confirmed he was going with his new squeeze, and you sure as hell weren’t going to let him have the satisfaction of you turning up on your own. There was one person who you could possibly ask but it was a stupid idea and you’d put the thought firmly to the back of your mind after much deliberation with yourself.

“Come on, (Y/N), you must have a date sorted by now. It’s only a few weeks away!” your sister groans as you meet up for one of her last wedding dress fittings.

“Well it’s not my fault I haven’t got them queueing down the street for me is it?” you sigh.

“What about Taron?”

“What about him?”

“You said he could be a viable option for a plus one… Have you asked him?”

“No! I talked myself out of that one pretty quickly.”

“Why?! He’s easy on the eye, what more do you need to show off to you know who?”

“This isn’t all about him you know.”

“I know! I just want you to be happy, and I think that Taron would be ideal. Call him now,” she insists, bringing your phone out of your pocket.

“Hey! What the hell?”

“Do it,” she says sternly as she dials his number then hands you the phone.

“Fuck’s sake- Taron! Hi...”

Your sister pokes her tongue out at you as she stands there fussing with the train of her dress in front of the mirror, then you slope off out of the changing room for a little more privacy.

“Listen, I have a really massive favour to ask you but please don’t feel any pressure to say yes to it...”

“I’m intrigued, do go on!”

“So it’s my sister’s wedding in a few weeks and I was wondering if you’d like to come with me?”

“As your date?”

“You don’t need to call it that. A plus one, if you will.”

“Of course I’ll be your date,” he replies, ignoring your comment to illicit some sort of annoyed reaction from you.

“Okay, well thanks for agreeing to be my plus one,” you emphasise, “I’ll message you the details and all that jazz. Wear something pretty, yeah?”

“You know me, (Y/N), always a pretty boy,” he chuckles.

“And on that note, I’m off. Thank you though, honestly.”

“Any time, date.”

You hang up pretty quickly after his comment and find yourself blushing at the interaction you’d had. Your sister soon appears with a knowing grin and she gives your arm a playful nudge as she passes.

“Glad he said yes!” she calls back.

The wedding ceremony itself was surprisingly beautiful and all thoughts of Taron appearing at the reception had been wiped from your memory as you sat at the front of the church watching the person you were closest to marry the love of their life. Soon enough though, the reality of Taron turning up hit you like a brick wall on the way to the reception and you started panicking about running into your ex before he got here. As soon as you arrive at the isolated country house for the dinner and dance you spot him waiting outside, and suddenly your nerves dissipate as you step out of the vehicle.

“Fancy meeting you here,” you smirk as you walk up to him. He does a double take as he realises it really is you in a floor length red strapless maxi dress with matching lipstick and his mouth opens but goes a couple of seconds without any sound emanating from it.

“(Y/N)?” is all he can manage at first and you laugh.

“The one and only!”

“Sorry. Of course. I wasn’t expecting-”

“Shall we just go and get a drink? I’m parched,” you smile as you loop your arm through his and walk inside. He nods as you lead him through the grand double doors to the bar, then into the huge hall where the wedding breakfast would take place. The wedding planner soon ushers everyone in to take their seats and Taron sits proudly next to you with almost his whole body facing you instead of the table. The speeches are kept short and sweet, just how your sister wanted them, and dinner disappears quickly now that all the pent up nerves had fizzled out after the ceremony.

“That meal was amazing,” Taron comments as he takes your hand when you leave the hall to prepare for the proper party to start.

“I think I’m too full up to dance,” you giggle.

“No such thing,” Taron grins as you both stop outside where the DJ had already started to play some retro wedding tunes. There’s a lingering look between the both of you as you study each other’s faces trying to figure out what each of you were thinking, then your brow furrows as you realise you haven’t thanked him for coming.

“Shit, I forgot to say thank you. Taron, honestly, thank you so much for coming today, it really was cheeky of me.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” he scoffs, “it’s nothing! I’m really enjoying myself actually. So thank you for inviting me.”

He pulls you into the room where the music is thumping and spots your ex before you do, so takes the opportunity to spin you around on the dance floor and face you in the other direction. His hands take yours as you sway from side to side to the familiar 90s pop song then the DJ ruins the moment and transitions messily into a slow song.

“That was not the smoothest,” Taron laughs as you give each other a grimace at the change in pace. He pulls you close as his hands glide around your waist to hold you against him while your swaying slows and your arms wrap around his shoulders as you lean your face close to his. You feel one of his hands move down slightly to the top of the curve of your backside and after eyeing him since getting out of the car, you were in no position to stop him. His strong body filled the suit he was wearing perfectly, and the small glimpses of skin you caught when his shirt strained against his muscles had certainly held your attention more than anything else going on around you.

“(Y/N)?” Taron asks as the music fades into yet another love song.

“Yeah?” you ask as you lift your head from his shoulder to look at him.

“You look absolutely beautiful,” he whispers as his voice gives way to nerves, then he starts to sing along to the song that begins playing, “I’ve never seen you looking so lovely as you did tonight, I’ve never seen you shine so bright...”

You throw your head back as you start laughing uncontrollably, then join in on the chorus as you press your cheek against his.

“The lady in red is dancing with me, cheek to cheek!” you both giggle. The laughter soon turns to a realisation for the both of you as you pull away to see each other properly, and Taron takes your hand and leads you out of the room, grabbing two flutes of champagne on the way out and handing you one when you’re making your way upstairs. You both walk quickly down one of the long corridors as Taron tries every door handle he possibly can and when he finds one that opens up into a bedroom with a single bed, he drags you inside and secures the door behind you both with an old key that was conveniently left in the lock. The champagne is drained from the glasses that are then placed gently down on a dresser and one last look shared between you both signifies your mutual feelings before your lips come crashing together in a teeth clashing kiss. His hands roam your body without any plan of where they are going and yours head straight for his crotch where you feel just how hard he is already.

“Taron!” you gasp through the kiss as the outline of his erection fills your hand.

“Look at you!” he mumbles against your lips.

You leave his lips to trail kisses down his neck then drop to your knees and free him within seconds to wrap your lips around his length. He watches your bright red lips take him almost all the way and he hisses as your cheeks hollow out when you suck as hard as you can on him.

“Fuck,” he groans as one of his hands weaves its way through your hair to keep you in place and guide you that little bit deeper, “oh shit.”

You hum around him to send vibrations throughout his body and he bucks his hips into your mouth at the sensation while one of your hands cups his balls and gives them a gentle squeeze every few seconds.

“Stopstopstop,” he says just before he spurts down your throat, “I can’t, I’m not going to last.”

“Then let go,” you say as you briefly take him out of your mouth before taking him once again as far as you can without gagging. He fucks your mouth with a raw enthusiasm as he continues to look down at you on your knees in front of him and with a couple more massages of him and some long sucks he spills his warm arousal into your mouth, and you swallow every drop of it. He pulls you up by your wrists and studies your smudged lipstick carefully before kissing you hungrily then pushing you down onto the bed roughly.

“So that’s how it’s going to be?” he questions as he raises an eyebrow at you.

The next thing you see is soft red fabric floating its way down towards your face after he throws the bottom of your dress up out of his way and shuffles your underwear down your legs. You manage to get the fabric out of your view just as Taron pushes your knees apart as far as they can do then shoots you a wink before disappearing between your thighs and licking his way up your centre.

“Oh!” you cry out involuntarily as he leaves a trail of dampness along your sensitive folds. The tip of his tongue pushes deep into every crevice then he attaches himself to your clit where he sucks and nips roughly to give you a taste of what he went through with you. He was hoping this was going to be slow and loving, but after your skilful mouth made him ejaculate a little earlier than planned, he was determined to get you back and make you come undone as quickly as possible.

“Shit, Taron, that’s too much,” you whine as you move your hips up and down, his nose coming into view with every down movement, then disappearing again.

“Is it?” he questions, then flicks his tongue over the oversensitive button which creates a jolt of pleasure throughout your whole body.

“Fuck!” you pant.

Licks come thick and fast, then his tongue dives inside of you in an unexpected move and you gasp loudly as his thumb takes over circling your clit. His eyes meet yours once more after his tongue has pumped in and out of you a few times and he returns to your sweet spot with a renewed enthusiasm while he watches your face as you try and hold out as long as you can.

“Taron...” you whine unashamedly.

He smiles then sticks his tongue out as he dives right back in again and makes kissing noises as he sucks at you. It doesn’t take long for your knot to release itself with a leg quivering orgasm and your upper body lifts off of the bed as you ride it out on his mouth. When he’s got everything from you that he can, he flops down next to you with his trousers still in disarray around his knees and lets out a long sigh. You turn to him and start to giggle at the sight of his swollen lips.

“Your lips are as red as mine,” you tease.

Hi, can I request a fic where reader's sister is getting married and she needs a date to the wedding to avoid an ex and asks Taron to take her and things end up going a lot further than just a friend helping out another friend? Drinking, dancing, laughing, all ending up in some smut?

@egerton-sweetie @lizziespidiepridie @original-criminal-fanfics @anantheminmyheart22 @oheggsyno @tiffleen @marvelmakeuplover @welcometotheg0odlife @istandandan @leanimal90 @5-seconds-of-sarcasmm @baileythepenguin @hartirl @manners-maketh-taron @dragonluver9393 @xsinfulltrashx @jenloveshaydenchristensen @mmdarko @winsky1989 @venomhazcoffeewithpeterman @bohemianrhapsody86 @theworldisugly-22 @lilspacepandaboy @ediblemurderer @sprinkleofhiddles @wrrkamrrvelka @deetle625 @excellentbecca @a-goddessofmischief @tvwhoresblog @taronxfiction @queenof-wakanda @wheresmylightinthedark

[paralleljulieverse]

“One day I’ll be famous. I’ll be proper and prim...”

Sixty years ago, more or less to the week, the famed Italian painter Pietro Annigoni unveiled his latest masterwork: ‘Eliza’, Julie Andrews in ‘My Fair Lady’ (1959).

At the time, Annigoni was the most celebrated portraitist in the world. His dreamily romantic 1954-55 oil of Queen Elizabeth II catapulted the hitherto little known Italian painter to international fame (Wynne-Morgan: 17). Almost overnight, Annigoni became "the most sought-after portrait painter of the decade” (Shearer: 4) attracting a glittering line-up of celebrity subjects including Princess Margaret, Prince Philip, the Duchess of Devonshire, the Shah and Empress of Iran, the Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur and Margot Fonteyn. His services were so in demand that he reportedly “had to refuse thousands of commissions –– 90 out of every 100 ––as the queues of VIPs waiting to be immortalised stretched around the world” (Turner: 8).  

It was against this backdrop that Julie Andrews’s longtime manager, Charles ‘Uncle Charlie’ Tucker, approached Annigoni in 1958 with an invitation to paint his client who was riding triumphant at the time as the star of My Fair Lady. Tucker made the approach via a mutual friend –– Max Farber, an American newspaper editor and PR man who handled publicity for Annigoni’s first US exhibition in 1957 (Randolph: 6) –– which no doubt helped seal the deal (”Surprise”: 7). In his memoirs, Annigoni (1977) recalls:

Although I hardly knew who Julie Andrews was then, I agreed, but nearly a year went by before I was able to start the portrait. On the day I arrived in London, the manager Charles Tucker, took me to see the show and to meet the young actress. I was pleasurably surprised by both and decided there and then to paint her in the costume and character of Eliza Doolittle, the show’s Cockney flowergirl (121).

The meeting of these two disparate celebrities –– the serious, gruff Continental painter and the trilling English Rose –– was the stuff of PR dreams and it drew considerable media attention. “There’s no need to say she is very pretty,” Annigoni is reported to have remarked as he sized up his subject in her backstage dressing-room, “But I expect I shall need some 30 sittings before I am satisfied” (”Surprise”: 7).  

In the end, Julie went to sit for the artist at his Chelsea studio exactly 28 times between April and June 1959 (Rydon: 5). Following these sessions, Annigoni would continue to work on the painting for hours, often late into the night. Ever the perfectionist, he even arranged for a copy of Julie’s flower-girl costume to be sent over from Drury Lane and worn by a model so he could hone the finishing touches (ibid.).

Throughout the more than two month period of the portrait’s production, Julie continued to perform in My Fair Lady, as well as prepare for her wedding to Tony Walton in mid-May. It was a pressured schedule that inevitably led to the odd timing mishap, a source of great irritation to the exacting Annigoni. When, on one occasion, Julie arrived at his studio more than twenty minutes late, the artist was so enraged he refused to answer the door, necessitating a diplomatic flurry of contrite telephone calls to smooth his ruffled ego (Andrews: 258; Annigoni: 121). “He was an arrogant man,” Julie recounts, “the epitome of the temperamental artist” who “demanded total dedication and punctuality” (Andrews: 258). 

For all his irascibility, Annigoni in his memoirs looked back fondly on Julie as “a very sweet girl” (Annigoni: 121). He was especially grateful when, after complaining of a pain in his right arm, Julie arranged for a special house call from Tony Walton’s doctor-father who diagnosed “a cracked humerus” and “treated it successfully” (122). Annigoni was, by all accounts, equally pleased with the portrait itself, quietly considering it to be one of his finer works (Rydon: 5).

Once the commission was complete and the portrait delivered, the enterprising Tucker set about negotiating the sale of reproduction rights to select newspaper and magazine outlets. It was a canny move that not only helped recoup much of the initial £2000 commission fee but ensured optimal publicity for both the portrait and its star (Annigoni: 122). Images of the painting were carried in the international press as far away as Australia (“Annigoni’s Fair Lady”: 122). In October, Tucker licensed Woman’s Own –– a high-circulation magazine that had previously published several stories on Annigoni –– to run a lavish full-colour centrefold “presentation copy” of the portrait (”Star Feature”: 29-31). This special issue was strategically timed to coincide with the PR lead-up to Julie’s four-part BBC TV series in November/December 1959, the first episode of which featured Annigoni as a celebrity guest (Cottrell: 126). Tucker also floated plans –– ultimately unrealised, alas –– for future portraits of Julie as Guinevere in Camelot and “all the different characters of every show she has been in” (Private Correspondence to Max Farber, 21 April 1959; see also “’My Fair Lady’ Star”: 4).

As with much of Annigoni’s work during this period, the Julie Andrews portrait was well received by the public and middlebrow commentators –– “a breathtaking canvas” (Rydon: 7); “surely will rank...in the future with the famous ‘Mona Lisa’" (Cartmel: 16) –– but it proved far less pleasing to ‘serious’ art critics. Indeed, for the most part, the arts intelligentsia of the day took a pretty dim view of Annigoni. The artist’s predilection for representational classicism, coupled with his vocal opposition to then fashionable traditions of abstract modernism, made him an "isolated anachronism” in the post-war arts scene and a frequent target of critical scorn (Turner: 8). Many critics dismissed Annigoni as little more than a technically-accomplished draughtsman, a “purveyor of Old Masterish pastiche” (Rogers: 96). 

When the Julie Andrews portrait was shown at the annual Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1960, many reviews were openly derisive. “I suppose it has a faded Victorian charm,” sniffed The Observer (Clutton-Brock: 19). “Signor Pietro Annigoni’s Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady...belong[s] in every fibre to the times and dull skill of late Victoriana,” echoed the Daily Mail (Jeannerat 1960: 7). While The Stage huffed: “With his oil of Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady, Pietro Annigoni could not have been more conventional and unexciting if he had tried with all his might” (”Not Much”: 21). 

The intervening passage of time and the resurgence of interest in figurative portraiture has afforded a less jaundiced view of Annigoni and his place in art history. Following the artist’s death in 1988, his work was subject to a growing critical reassessment that saw him redeemed as an important figure of twentieth-century ‘classical realism’ (Lack: 50-59). A 1995 feature-length documentary mounted a passionate defence of Annigoni as “a prolific and complex artist...a philosopher with the skill to capture a person’s soul” (Bond and Smith). Major retrospectives of his work have since been held around the world and in 2008 a dedicated Annigoni museum was inaugurated in the artist’s native Florence.

It is a context that encourages renewed consideration of Annigoni’s portrait of Julie Andrews as a serious artwork. Pace knee-jerk dismissals of it as mere decorative Victoriana, close reading reveals that, beyond the attractive veneer –– what one critic sneeringly termed “the prettiness of the chocolate-box” (Jeannerat 1961: 3) –– lies a work of considerable intelligence and interpretive depth. For all his technical realism, Annigoni approached the practice of portrait painting as effectively that of an expressive character-study. “I have always painted to please myself,” he declared, “and interpret the sitter as I see and understand [them]” (Shearer: 4). A good portrait needs to be accurate but also communicative, he believed, an expression of character and moral quality beyond the mere impression of outward appearance. It’s an approach that orients his portraits to structural and conceptual duplexity: “he captures the soul of beautiful women...but he also catches the deeper side” (Sullivan: 92).

Here, it is worth recalling the ‘official’ title of Annigoni’s portrait of Julie: ‘Eliza’, Julie Andrews in ‘My Fair Lady’ (Jackson: 84). It suggests that, far from a simple depiction of a single physical subject, the portrait is in fact a complex study of plural subjects. It ‘portrays’ Julie Andrews –– in technically consummate, if idealised, likeness –– but in the guise of Eliza Doolittle, a celebrated character as reimagined in a contemporary hit musical. There are thus three interacting spheres or layers of representation in the work: real person, fictional character, and theatrical role. Looking at the portrait, the observer’s mind moves inexorably between all three, posing an interpretive conundrum: are we looking at an actress in character or a character as realised by an actress?

Taking the idea of layering further, the portrait, like much of Annigoni’s work, is quite literally a work of layers. As part of his commitment to traditionalism, Annigoni was noted for his exacting use of Quattrocento production techniques. Chief among these was the practice of tempera grassa whereby an artwork is painstakingly created on a chalk-gessoed panel through composite layers of pigment mixed with a binding agent, typically egg and oil, interspersed with coats of lacquer (Cookson: 43ff). It is a labour-intensive form of stratified image-construction that lends Annigoni’s paintings their characteristic luminosity with dynamic hues and complex interplay of shadows and light. It also enhances their disarming trompe l’oeuil effect where minutely detailed realism –– limpid eyes, flesh flushed with sanguine warmth, textured fabric–– and precise geometric perspectivalism combine to simulate a sense of perceptual depth that draws the eye in and across the painting’s spatial field and its various objects (Hoopes: 21).

Annigoni’s portrait work is equally characterised by a parallel layering of compositional form. Much like his Renaissance masters, the artist typically sets his subjects in and against a background rich with symbolic import. His celebrated 1954-55 painting of the Queen, for example, was as famous for its romantic depiction of the young monarch resplendent in her ceremonial robes as for the fact that she appears Diana-like towering triumphant over a sylvan English landscape at misty dawn, gazing into “the light of...a new Elizabethan age” (Wynne-Morgan: 17). 

In the case of the Julie Andrews portrait, Annigoni chose to depict his subject against a backdrop of peeling theatre posters. Such was the importance of this background to Annigoni’s vision that he reportedly scoured London to obtain historical playbills from the very date Shaw’s original production of Pygmalion, the source text for My Fair Lady, opened at His Majesty’s Theatre on April 11, 1914 (Rydon: 5). Cracked and peeling in burnished hues of faded gold and green, the backdrop is clearly redolent of age and historical memory. In fact, the curled strips of paper look not unlike autumn leaves falling with the passage of time. Combined with the work’s classical style and bronzed patina, it strikes a decided note of wistful, even melancholic, longing. But what redeems the endeavour from being a simple exercise in sentimental nostalgia –– a common criticism of Annigoni’s work –– is that this elegiac reference to times-gone-by sits within a broader frame of markedly mixed temporalities. 

In a way that neatly parallels the painting’s fusion of representational levels mentioned above, the portrait conjoins past, present and future in convoluted, and ultimately irresolvable, ways. Out of the golden past of Edwardian theatrical history, Shaw’s Eliza –– herself a resurrection of the ancient Greek figure of Galatea –– is reborn anew in My Fair Lady, the contemporary hit show of the painting’s ‘present’ in the late-1950s. That she is embodied here in the form of Julie Andrews, a then-tender 23-year old on the cusp of global superstardom, adds additional layers of futurity to the mix –– as does the fact that Annigoni chose to paint Julie in Eliza’s early flower-girl guise where she is still dreaming of an as-yet-unknown “loverly” tomorrow.* 

The multi-levelled temporality of the portrait was not lost on commentators at the time of the painting’s unveiling:

Annigoni has painted Julie Andrews, who created the leading musical ‘My Fair Lady’ but it is Shaw’s eternal Eliza (46 years old next year––the first performance was in April 1914) who shines through...The portrait was commissioned by Miss Andrews’ manager, Mr Charles Tucker. The woebegone waif, clutching her purse shawl, with her melting mouth and a tear n her cheek, will hand in house. Until he dies. He has willed the portrait to Miss Andrews, a legacy of her first fame (“Annigoni’s ‘Fair Lady’”: 122). 

This 1959 prediction as to the ‘future’ of the portrait was close to the spirit, if not quite the letter, of what transpired. After hanging for many years in Tucker’s London office, the painting was eventually put up for auction at Sotheby’s in late-1975 where it generated considerable interest (Hickey: 9).* Following spirited bidding, the painting sold at fall of hammer to an anonymous bidder for £7000 (£60,000 in inflation adjusted prices) (Jackson: 84; Walker: 11). The bidder was subsequently revealed to be a proxy advocating on behalf of Blake Edwards who had bought the portrait as a gift for his wife. So, in the end, ‘Eliza’, Julie Andrews in ‘My Fair Lady’ came back full circle to its subject who, in her own words, is “thrilled to own it and it hangs in my home” (Andrews: 258).

Notes:

* Some commentators have pointed out that the portrait contains another coincidental allusion to the star’s future as one of the playbills glimpsed in the background appears to spell out the half-hidden words: The Sound of... “How prophetic!” notes Julie (Andrews: 258).

** Several sources, including Annigoni himself (1977: 122), state that the painting was put up for sale by Tucker’s widow after his death. The Sotheby’s catalogue does indeed list “Mrs Charles L. Tucker” as the lot consignor but Tucker was still alive in 1975––he passed four years later in 1979––so his wife’s name was possibly used for taxation purposes (”Obituary”: 6). In her memoir, Julie alludes to the fact that she and Tucker had a gradual professional alienation which resulted in a change of management sometime in the mid-60s (Andrews: 221). She also mentions apropos the auction that: “I heard that Charlie asked whether [the portrait was being bought] on my behalf, and he seemed happy when the fact was confirmed” (Andrews: 258).

Sources:

Andrews, Julie. Home: A Memoir of My Early Years. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008. 

Annigoni, Pietro and Wright, Robin. An Artist’s Life. London: W.H. Allen, 1977.

“Annigoni’s Fair Lady.” The Sydney Morning Herald. 11 October 1959: 122.

Bond, Richard and Smith, Stephen. Annigoni: Portrait of an Artist [DVD], Italy/Canada: Artatak/Rainbow Films, 1994.

Cartmel, Frank B. “Splendid.” Daily Express. 1 October 1959: 16.

Clutton-Brock, Alan. “New Non-Conformists.” The Observer. 1 May 1960:18-19.

Cookson, Dawn. Painting with Annigoni: A Halcyon Decade as a Student in Florence 1958-68. London : Unicorn Press, 2000.

Cottrell, John. Julie Andrews: The Story of a Star. London: Arthur Barker, 1968.

“Fair Deal.” The Guardian. 13 November 1975: 6.

Hickey, William. “Under the Hammer: Annigoni’s Fair Lady.” Daily Express. 29 October 1975: 9.

Hoopes, Donelson F. Pietro Annigoni: A Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Brooklyn Museum, 1969.

Jackson, Anne, ed. Art at Auction, The Year at Sotheby Park Bernet, 1975-1976. New York: Rizzoli, 1976.

Jeannerat, Pierre. “Christ at Cookham...the Epitaph of Genius.” Daily Mail. 29 April 1960: 7.

_________. “Just Chocolate (Annigoni flavour) Likenesses.” Daily Mail. 26 April  1961: 3

Lack, Richard. "Classical Realism: The Other Twentieth Century," Utne Reader. July /August 1989: 50-59.

Laws, Frederick. “Annigoni’s 1961 Old Masters So Depressing.” Daily Herald. 26 April 1961: 39.

McIlhany, Sterling. “Pietro Annigoni: Contemporary Florentine Master.” American Artist. 36: 359, June 1972: 24-30.

“’My Fair Lady’ Star Seen as Fairest of Them All.” The Age. 18 November 1959: 4.

“Not Much at the Academy.” The Stage. 5 May 1960: 21.

“Obituary: Charles L. Tucker Dies; Impressario [sic].” Hartford Courant. 14 May 1979: 6.

Randolph, Nancy. “Chit-Chat.” Daily News. 11 December 1957: 6.

Rogers, Malcolm. From Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II: Master Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery. London: Art Services International, 1993.

Shearer, Lloyd. “The Ladies Love His Portraits.” Parade. 5 January 1958: 4.

“Star Feature: Annigoni’s Portrait of Julie Andrews.” Woman’s Own. 3 October 1959: 29-31.

Sullivan, Robert. “Pietro Paints the Queen.” Daily News. 5 June 1955: 92.

“Surprise for Julie: Annigoni arrives to paint her.” Daily Express. 16 April 1959: 

Turner, Francesca. “Annigoni: Isolated Anachronism.” Evening Post. 9 May 1977: 8.

Walker, John. “Meet...Understated Superstar.” Observer Magazine. 6 June 1976: 10-11.

Welles, John. “Meet Julie Andrews: Understated Superstar.” The Observer Magazine. 6 June 1976: 

Wynne-Morgan, David. “Painter of the Queen: Annigoni, a Dazzling Story of Success.” The Age Literary Supplement. 15 December 1956: 17.

Zeri, Federico. Italian Paintings: Florentine School: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: MMA, 1971.

© 2019 Brett Farmer All Rights Reserved

[winterisakillerwrites]

Get Better - Chapter Nine

Title: Get Better

Chapter: 9/18

Character: Tom Hiddleston/Cath Richardson (OFC)

Genre: Romance

Rating: Teen and up

Summary: Love. Companionship. Family. These are all of the things Tom Hiddleston desperately wanted. But his life and his choices left that a distant and unlikely prospect. So he did his best to move on and live his life as is. When an opportunity to return to the theater arises, he jumps at the chance and along the way finds that maybe, just maybe, those distant and unlikely prospects are closer than he could have imagined. Sequel to Brave Face.

Authors Notes/Warnings: So as I was writing Brave Face I knew that Tom’s story wasn’t over, even if that particular part of it was. And while I knew, more or less, what the overall ending to the story would be, its taken me a while to figure out the time in between. Thanks to @redfoxwritesstuff for letting me continually throw ideas off and at you. I still can’t fathom why you put up with it, but I am eternally grateful you do.

Previous

CHAPTER NINE

“I don’t know how or why I let you talk me into this,” Cath groaned, leaning her head back against the cool wall behind her. Every inch of her ached, how she was ever going to manage making it from the studio floor back into the changing rooms she couldn’t begin to fathom. “I’m dying.”

Gemma tossed her head back, her short, light blonde hair flying back from her face as she let out a loud laugh which echoed throughout the now empty room. “You are not dying.” She placed a hand on her hip surveying the sight before her, shook her head, and bent to offer her hand to her deflated friend. “Besides, it’s good for you.”

Cath reluctantly took the proffered hand and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. She limped pathetically towards the changing room behind Gemma, not bothering to keep pace with her much taller friend. How could she be this out of shape? It was mindboggling. When Cath had gotten the call yesterday afternoon, she’d gladly taken Gemma up on her offer to attend a yoga class with her the following morning. After all, how difficult could it possibly be? Oh, she thought with a biting cynicism, to be young and naïve once more.  

What she had assumed to be a basic yoga class (something she’d been so sure she could handle. She was reasonably in shape, after all, and not completely inflexible) had turned out to be anything but. This was evil yoga. Sweaty, difficult, insane yoga. God, Gemma must have been out of her mind to think that Cath would possibly enjoy twisting herself into positions the human body, or well her body, had absolutely no business even attempting.

Gemma turned back as they reached the door and let out a sympathetic chuckle. “You’ll feel better after a shower, trust me.”

Cath scoffed. “The last time I trusted you, I ended up here. You’re track record isn’t exactly speaking highly of you right now.”

She’d known Gemma since uni; they’d ended up suitemates in their first year and hadn’t initially gotten on. Clashes happened frequently over study habits, music choices, and hundreds of other little things; leaving both at each other’s throats more often than not. Gemma had been an only child of only children; sharing a space hadn’t come easily to her and Cath, while typically an unfailingly patient person, was finding her resolve wearing alarmingly thin. It hadn’t been until halfway through the semester and the pressure of midterms that they’d bonded. It was amazing what a bit of alcohol and breaking into tears of frustration at three in the morning could do for a friendship. They’d remained close ever since despite conflicting schedules and occasional (well more than occasional, if she were being completely honest) clashes of personality. It was an odd friendship between them, but it worked more often than it did not.

Gemma shook her head and wandered towards the showers. “My track record is flawless, not my fault you can’t keep up.”

“Why am I friends with you again?”

“Because you love me,” Gemma’s voice echoed from the showers.

“And that love shrinks by the day!”

Gemma’s resonating laughter echoed from the other room. Cath shook her head and, with a grimace, found the locker where she’d stored her change of clothing and shower supplies (something she had almost left in her flat, despite Gemma’s instance that she bring them along. It was yoga after all, nothing too strenuous. Ha, yeah right.), and gathered what she needed before making her way to the showers with a slowness bordering on comical.

The hot water, however, felt amazing against the tenseness of her shoulders and back. As she stood beneath the torrent of water, Cath felt herself start to relax. It was with the greatest reluctance that she tore herself from the sheltering warmth of the shower fifteen minutes later. She dried and dressed with care, while the water had done wonders she didn’t want to chance anything by moving too quickly. Gemma was dressed and leaning haphazardly against the wall of the dressing area as Cath ran her towel over her hair one last time and quickly pulled it back into a bun at the top of her head; she would worry about drying and styling it once she got home.

“So you up for joining me again next week?”

Cath snorted loudly, covering her mouth in a futile gesture. It took several moments for her to compose herself. “Absolutely not. I barely survived this time.”

Gemma shook her head. “It does get easier each time. And besides,” she added with a wicked gleam in her eye, “it’ll do wonders for your skills in other areas…”

She didn’t bother to cover the loud and obnoxious laugh Gemma’s words tore from her. “Be that as it may, I’ve currently got no one with whom I am trying to impress so those ‘skills’ would be wasted on me.”

Gemma shrugged. “Still it’s something to file away for a rainy day…”

“As fun as that sounds, I think I’ll pass.”

The tall blonde smiled and shook her head. “Fair enough.”

The two said their goodbyes and Cath took off down the street towards coffee shop that had caught her eye two hours prior on her way to the yoga studio; a small brick and glass front building with a hand-painted sign hanging above the door bearing the name Uncommon Grounds in bright, clean lettering. The caffeine was practically screaming her name and, honestly, who was she to ignore its call. Bag stashed over her left shoulder, she pushed the shop door open and paused as the scent of coffee, pastry, and spices flooded over her. God, she would never tire of it.

What was not so pleasing, however, was the queue that formed from the counter nearly towards the door of the shop. Just great. It moved quicker than she’d expected, given its length, and within ten minutes she was out the door again, double vanilla latte in one hand and a Triple Chocolate Meltdown muffin in the other. It was definitely not one of her better choices but once she’s seen it in the display case, Cath had known she was a goner. Besides, she’d reasoned with herself, after all the work she’d done that morning she’d earned the damned thing. And she was definitely going to let herself enjoy it.

She flirted with the idea of heading directly towards the Underground station and home, she was certainly tired enough for it to be an intriguing idea, but found herself instead heading down the pavements and into the nearby park. It had warmed up enough to make the idea of enjoying her hard-earned treasures on one of the benches overlooking the heath below well worth it.

                                                          —

Cath popped the last piece of her muffin into her mouth and sighed, leaning her back farther into the wooden slats of the bench. It wasn’t a particularly warm day, but nice enough that the heath below was dotted with people running around; parents chasing children, people walking dogs, couples walking and in hand. She took another sip of her latte and closed her eyes, letting the slight warmth of the just barely visible sun warm her face.

That peace, however, was short-lived.

A loud, and strangely familiar, series of barks exploded from somewhere down the main path. Cath’s eyes shot open in time to see a streak of reddish brown baring straight for her. Without thinking she leapt to her feet, a flash of panic racing through her, and nearly swallowed her heart when the blur came to an abrupt stop before her. The blur, now clearly a brown spaniel, barked once and sat panting, eyes wide and filled with mischief.

“Bobby?” The name spilled from her lips in confusion. Surely this couldn’t be Tom’s dog. The spaniel let out a woof as if confirming he was, indeed, the dog she believed him to be. “What are you doing here? Where’s your human?”  She glanced around behind him, hoping to see Tom hurrying along the path behind the dog. There was not a soul. Damn.

She knelt to the ground, reaching out and scratching him behind the ear. She noted with a flash of amusement that he was without his usual harness, though his collar was still intact. The spaniel leaned into her hand, his tail a blur of motion. “Oh young man, something tells me that when Tom finds you, you’ll be in quite the spot of trouble.”

Cath pushed herself back up to her feet, scanning the area around them once again hoping to see Tom jogging up the path. No such luck. She looked down at Bobby whose attention seemed now laser focused on the tree behind her. “Oh no you don’t.” Bending down, she looped her fingers in his collar. Bobby whined but didn’t try to pull away. She held him for another minute before slowly letting go. He wriggled but didn’t take off. “Alright. Let’s see if we can find Tom, shall we?”

Grabbing her gym bag from the bench behind her, Cath rifled through it and pulled out the laces from her trainers, tying them together in a crude but effective knot. Just because he seemed to be listening to her now didn’t mean she trusted the spaniel not to attempt bolting at the first distraction. From the stories Tom told, and from the small amount of time she’d spent in the spaniel’s company, Bobby was not one to be trusted over much. She quickly looped the end of the lace around his collar, double knotting it before wrapping the other end around her free hand. It wasn’t ideal but the last thing she wanted was for him to run off.

They’d finished a loop around the nearby pond when a high pitched squealing caught both her and the spaniel’s attention. Cath spunk around to find a strawberry blonde little girl in a bright pink coat and blue wellies charging at them at a fair clip yelling “Bobby!” at the top of her voice. “Bobby! Bobby! Bobby!”

A few paces behind her, a harried look etched across his features, was Tom. “Allie,” he bellowed, “no!”

The little girl paid Tom absolutely no mind as she continued to barrel at both Cath and the spaniel in question. Bobby excited by all the chaos began barking like mad and darted off in the little girl’s direction, ripping free of Cath’s grasp, shoe lace trailing behind him.

“Shit,” Cath hissed and sprinted after him.

Bobby and the girl collided with a mess of barks and tears. Tom reached them first, dropping to his knees and picking up the girl, quickly looking her over from head to toe to rule out injury. Seemingly satisfied that she was, in fact, alright, he rocked her gently and kissed her head. She continued to whimper and cling to him. Probably more startled by the happenings than truly hurt, Cath reasoned. “Darling, it’s alright,” Tom admonished, rocking her slowly back and forth until her crying seemed to slow.

Cath stopped a few feet back from Tom and the little girl. Allie, she corrected herself, remembering the name he’d called. The last thing she wanted was to intrude but leaving without saying a word felt…wrong. She instead, fixed her attention on Bobby, who sat on the grass beside his master and the girl confusion painted clearly across his features. He hadn’t tried to bolt again, though, and Cath counted her lucky stars. She had absolutely no desire to play another round of chase at the moment.

Allie appeared to be calming, her wailing had begun to die down into the occasional sniffle. Once it was clear that particular crisis was over, Tom’s attention snapped toward Bobby who began to whimper and then quickly up to Cath.

“It seems I owe you a debt of gratitude for finding this little trouble maker.”

Cath shrugged, “More like the escape artist found me. As soon as I realized I knew the barking terror bolting at me, I figured grabbing him and trying to find you was the most sensible option.”

Tom laughed, sending a ripple of amusement and warmth coursing through her. “I am forever in your debt, my lady.”

“Uncle Tommy silly,” a muffled voice echoed from his lap, turning both of their attentions to the little girl still tight in Tom’s arms.

It was Cath’s turn to laugh. His niece. That answered several of her questions and brought to light countless more. She filed the information away to process later. “He certainly is.”

Allie pulled herself back from her uncle’s embrace and turned her hazel eyes on Cath, interest and confusion warring for dominance across her small and reddened face. After several moments silence she declared, “You’re pretty.”

It was such a frank and matter of fact statement that Cath blinked at her for several seconds before breaking out into a wide and toothy grin. “Thank you. You’re quite pretty yourself.”

The girl beamed, squirming her way out of her uncle’s embrace and darting towards Cath. She wrapped her arms around Cath’s leg. “Princess?” Cath blinked again in confusion. Allie pulled back, turning towards Tom and exclaiming, “Princess! Princess!”

Tom looked first at Cath, offering her a sheepish smile, then down at his niece. “Allie, sweetie, I don’t think…”

Cath laughed, catching on to the girl’s train of thought. She bent down and smiled brightly at Allie. “I’m not a princess, but I do work with them sometimes in the theatre.” Allie’s eyes widened. “What about you, Allie? Are you a princess?”

The young girl nodded enthusiastically. “I’m a princess!”

“It’s one of her favorite games as of late,” Tom provided, smiling and rubbing at the back of his neck. Bobby barked, clearly not thrilled at being ignored. Tom sighed, his eyes darting down towards Bobby, and a slight confused frown spread across his face. He grabbed at the spaniel’s collar and fingered the attached shoe laces with amusement before returning his gaze towards Cath. He held up the end of the makeshift lead. “Creative.”

Cath shrugged. “He darted on you once and I wasn’t taking that chance…Besides the laces were all I had.”

Tom laughed heartily. “Can’t fault you there.”

He bent to reattach Bobby’s harness and lead, untying the laces and handing them back to Cath, whose attention was steadfast on Allie. The little girl was talking a mile a minute, bouncing and laughing, about dressing up and going to balls like ‘Uncle Tommy’ and asking in turn which princesses Cath had worked with. “Belle?” she’d asked with wide, hopeful eyes.

“Yes, I did actually,” Cath laughed, watching the delight and awe spread across the young girl’s face. “And she is just as charming as she seems.” She’d worked on a production of the musical in the West End a few years back and found herself smiling at the memory. It had been a draining, chaotic, but fun several months.

The more the girl talked the more Cath found her utterly enchanting. It was clear she idolized her uncle, and honestly, Cath couldn’t blame her. She let her eyes drift over to where he was standing. The man seemed almost too good to be true, and experience taught her to be wary of him because of it. By all accounts she’d known Tom to be just as he appeared; he’d never once given an indication of being anything other than a thoroughly decent man both on and off the stage. Everyone she’d met who knew or had worked with him consistently sang his praises. But still, sometimes looks were deceiving.

“Alright, Allie, I think we’ve taken up quite enough of her time.” Tom moved to place a hand on the girl’s back, his other still tightly gripping Bobby’s lead. Allie looked up at him, pouting and eyes once again on the brink of tears. Oh Lord.

“Don’t wanna go,” she ground out defiantly.

“Alice Marie…” There was a warning in Tom’s tone Cath recognized from her own mother, and any parent she’d ever encountered, while dealing with a stubborn or unruly child.

She watched the interplay between them with a wry sense of amusement. It was clear that Allie was prepared to throw quite the fit if not granted what she wanted and it was just as clear that it was the absolute last thing that Tom wanted, though he was prepared to stand his ground regardless. He’s the makings of a fine father. The thought stole its way across her mind and she furiously brushed it aside. That was the last thing she needed to be thinking of. But still…

As if sensing weakness Allie turned, focusing her wide, tear-filled hazel eyes on Cath. Strong. She needed to stay strong. But then the girl’s small lip began to tremble and Cath knew it was a lost cause. But still she tried. “Allie, sweetheart, your uncle said it was time for you to go.”

“No. Wanna stay.” The tears were now slowly running down her reddened cheeks. Cath looked helplessly from Tom to Allie and back. “Wanna stay with princess.”

She swallowed thickly, “I know you do, sweetheart, but I think your uncle has things he needs to do before he has to go to work tonight.” Cath glanced helplessly at Tom. Stubborn, temperamental actors she could handle in spades, but crying children…

“And I’m sure Cath has things she needs to get done as well,” Tom added, smiling softly at his tearful niece. Allie only shook her head, the tears coming in earnest now. The panic in Tom’s eyes was impossible to miss.

Cath took a deep breath and commended her soul to god. “I can stay for a little while longer, Allie sweetie, but then I do need to be getting home.”

Allie’s face immediately brightened. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and looked hopefully between Cath and her uncle. “Ice cream?” She pointed vaguely down the jogging path towards a small stand selling ice cream bars and ice lollies.

Tom let out a soft groan. “Your mum is going to murder me.”

“Won’t tell.” The grin Allie gave him was wide and hopeful. Cath could see Tom’s resolve crumbled just a bit further. She laughed at the sight, trying desperately to cover the action with her hand. Tom’s sharp glare told her she’d utterly failed. And that only seemed to make it harder for her to stop.

“You’ll get one small thing. One mind. And you cannot mention this to your mum or granny.” He turned his attention briefly to Cath who was still struggling to regain her composure. She took a deep breath and did her utmost to school her features back into proper order.

It was completely unfair what seeing Tom like this was doing to her resolve. He’s a friend. Thinking him anything more is just going to make it worse. She watched as he wrestled Allie up into his arms, still maintaining a tight grip on Bobby’s lead, and settled her across his shoulders. Allie giggled in delight and shouted “Ice cream! Ice cream!”

Cath shook her head, laughing, as she followed the trio down the path towards the ice cream stand.  If he ever has a daughter she’s definitely going to have him wrapped round her little finger.

                                                          —

Allie sat on the bench, happily consuming the colorful fruit flavored ice cream bar she’d chosen (after Tom had vetoed the chocolate and caramel monstrosity she’d initially wanted. Sucker or not, he knew that giving the girl that much sugar in one go would be a terrible, terrible mistake). Bobby had placed himself at her feet, head resting on his outstretched paws, his eyes ever vigilant for dropped bits. Cath found it adorable the way they interacted, it seemed Allie had all the Hiddleston men wrapped around her finger. And she’d told Tom as much when he handed her the coffee flavored ice cream bar she’d chosen (the hell with good eating choices today).

Tom flushed and ran a hand through his hair. “She’s quite the character. There is a great deal of my sister in her that’s for certain.”

“Is that a good or a bad thing?” Cath asked, licking the remains of her ice cream from the wooden stick before rolling it up in a napkin and stowing it in her bag to bin later.

He let out a loud laugh, “God, it honestly depends on the situation. I love Emma dearly, but she can be a complete pain. She was the baby of the family…”

“I know about that all too well,” Cath added with a laugh of her own.

His eyebrows rose. “You have siblings?” She nodded. “Older or younger?”

“A mix of both. I have an older brother and a younger sister.”

Tom grinned. “Middle child? Welcome to the club.”

She looked him up and down, smiling. “You’re a middle child. That explains so much.“

“You don’t exactly have room to talk, now do you?” Tom countered with a raise of his eyebrow. She stuck her tongue out at him in retaliation. “So mature.”

Cath grinned. “I try.” She settled herself down on the bench beside Allie, who smiled brightly and attempted to grab her arm with sticky fingers. Tom was quick to swoop in with napkins.

“Not so fast, Allie love. We mustn’t grab with sticky hands.” The girl reluctantly allowed her uncle to clean her before returning her attention back to original goal.

She bombarded Cath with more questions about princesses and asked repeatedly if she could be made into one. Tom had told the girl that Allie worked with him (‘making people look pretty’ he’d explained to the girl’s wide eyed amazement as they’d walked to get their ice creams). “You would have to ask your mummy sweetheart,” Cath had answered as diplomatically as she could. She watched as Allie worked through the idea, her small face scrunched in thought.

After several moments her face cleared and she once again smiled brightly. “Okay!”

Beside her, Tom chuckled. “And you said she had me wrapped around her finger.”

“Watch it, Hiddleston.”

“Whatever you say, darling,” he countered, still smiling. “Whatever you say.”

Cath shook her head and turned to face Allie. “What are we going to do with your uncle?”

Allie laughed, “Uncle Tommy silly.” She pointed at Tom. “Silly!”

Bobby barked twice, wagging his tail. And they all dissolved into laughter.

“He certainly has his moments,” Cath agreed once she’d calmed enough to speak. “He is a very silly man.”

Tom shrugged. “Makes my line of work infinitely easier.”

“And mine that much harder,” Cath added, amusement coloring her tone. As much as she liked the man, Tom could be a complete pain when in her chair; like sitting still and not fucking blinking or squirming where things that happened to other people. She shook her head. It was a damned good thing he was so likeable or she just might hate him.  

She raised her eyes to Tom’s face and watched as a frown slowly spread across his features as his eyes swept over the overly complicated watch on his wrist (why he insisted on wearing something that ridiculously complex as a means to tell time she’d never understand). Cath could clearly hear the curse words he’d been dying to utter but would not as he knew the little ears in his presence would not only hear them but repeat them loudly and most likely at the worst possible moment.

He grimaced instead and let out a huff of annoyance. “Allie darling, we best be off. Your mum will be back soon.”

Allie’s face crumpled as she looked between her uncle and Cath. It was clear she didn’t want to leave but at the same time, she very much wanted to see her mother. Cath leaned over and nudged the girl lightly with her shoulder. “It’s alright. I have to go home too. But it was wonderful meeting you Allie. I hope I get to see you again soon.”

“Promise?”

Cath nodded, “I will do my best.” Allie beamed and launched herself into Cath’s lap, enveloping her in a fierce hug. Beside her she could hear Tom laughing and Bobby’s quiet woofs signaling his apparent desire to go. The little girl pulled back and climbed off the bench, grabbing her uncle’s hand. Bobby immediately jumped up, resting his front paws onto Cath’s lap, barked once, and licked her hands. “Such a ham,” she laughed, cutting her eyes up to a bemused Tom. “Just like your human.”

Tom simply laughed and shook his head. He pulled gently on the lead and Bobby, with great reluctance, let himself be lead down the path beside Tom and Allie and out of sight. Cath smiled as she watched them go.

Next

[haruine]

DAY6 GRAVITY in JAKARTA // 30.11.2019

OH. MY. GOSH.

Best concert ever. Period.

I just wanted to share with you guys about my experience going to GRAVITYinJKT, it was truly amazing that I still suffer from my PCD until now. It’s not that severe but believe me, whenever I heard Best Part playing accidentally on my playlist I would go sksdkddjs and try hard not to scream lmao.

So, first of all, I will tell you the background story of why I chose to attend their concert. Well, it was because I’m very curious how cool is their live performance. I watched a lot of YT videos about them and read many MyDay (and non-MyDay)’s comments about seeing their live performance. At the same time, I have just joined the fandom and falling in love with their songs day-by-day. I’m still a 5-months old baby MyDay now hehe.

When I saw their tour announcement on Twitter, at first I was like ‘oh wow they’ll go on their 2nd world tour’ but then idek why I was willing to go and watch them. Really, my decision was out of the blue. Then I introduced DAY6 to one of my close friends by watching their videos on her YT lol. Initially, she said that the songs are good and catchy, but some days later she texted me that she watched DAY6′s MVs, her bias is YoungK, and she even listened to their songs regularly. I was surprised, and even more shooketh when she finally said “you said that you wanna go to their concert, right? let’s go to their concert, shall we?”

The night before departure to JKT

On Thursday night (November 28th), I read on Twitter that the boys had arrived at Jakarta. My heart was beating so fast, remembering that tomorrow I will go to Jakarta and on Saturday I’ll see them.

Departure to JKT

After the whole stressing weeks (yes November was that month), on November 29th me and my friend flew to Jakarta by plane. My friends who knew that I’ll watch DAY6 said have fun and gave their warmest greetings to DAY6. Around 5 pm, we reached Jakarta and head off to our hotel.

D-DAY GRAVITYinJKT

We woke up at 6.30 am (if I’m not mistaken lol), respectively took a shower, applied make-ups and did our hair nicely even though no one would look at us haha. Afterward, we checked our belongings and went to the venue to get our wristbands. At the venue, we finally met our senior from college and she introduced another senior from my college that just graduated. We greet each other and stick together until we got our wristbands and went to get lunch at the nearest mall.

Around 2.45 pm, the three of us got back from the mall and entered the gate to take our queue number. Why only three of us that went back? Bcs the other one was from the yellow section, and at the mall, we met our junior from college that also watch DAY6 in the yellow section. With that, she decided to went back with my junior when the gate is opened for their section. (the three of us were from the blue b section)

After we got our queue number, we queued for the photo spot and made friends with 3 MyDays. They were chill and fun to talk to, and our queue numbers were in sequence. By that, we decided to always stick together until the end of the concert and didn’t forget to follow each other’s social media accounts. While waiting, it was raining so hard. Until finally my section got to enter the venue first, and I was really excited.

6 of us stood in front of the extended stage and we were standing beside each other. When the time strikes 6.57, the opening VCR played and every MyDay screamed. The moving screen opened and there stood five men, holding their own instruments, that I’ve been waiting to see for 3 months. Best Part opened the concert, and I couldn’t do anything besides screaming, literally. I love the song.

I jumped freely and sang their songs on top of my lungs like I have nothing to worry about. I remembered Jae saying that we should take our stress off our life first when we attend their concert to enjoy the whole event, so I kept that in mind throughout the concert.

Until when it came to them performing on extended stage, I couldn’t stop saying ‘oh gosh’ when they walked towards it. And what made me even happier was, 

Jae noticed me.

Yes.

Park Jae-hyung from DAY6 noticed me.

However, I forgot to record it bcs it was so sudden :”””). Jae was squatting in the extended stage to greet MyDays, and when his eyes were locked with mine, I immediately waved my right hand at him and said ‘Jae, hi!’ while smiling so wide. Jae smiled back and waved his hands at me, I still remember him mouthing ‘hi hello’ and I couldn’t stop smiling. After he mouthed ‘hi hello’ and waved at me, he waved at other MyDays.

It was beyond my expectations that DAY6 is so kind to MyDays and their performance was sooo amazing to witness. I cried when YoungK said this on his ment,

“Honestly, with that much energy, I think you -- each one of you -- will be able to achieve whatever you want. Whatever you want in life.”

Literally, I choked up and couldn’t hold my tears. Remembering that before I came to see them, they’re my motivation to do well in college, until now they still are. Then he told us to made a pinky promise with him, he said:

“Even though I said this a lot, please promise me to always be happy and stay healthy until we meet again.”

Anddd my tears were back again when Sungjin said this on his ment,

“I trust you guys, so you guys trust yourself. Bahagia dan sehat selalu, ya.” (= always be happy and healthy, okay.)

I truly felt the sincerity in their ments, but mostly YoungK and Sungjin’s that hit my heart the hardest. What made me happier was when Wonpil suggested MyDay to sing, he said that he got two songs in mind but he forgot the lyrics so he played the notes. Guess what? He played When You Love Someone first, and the second is I Smile. YoungK asked MyDays what song that we wanted to sing first. 

Since I Smile is my most favorite, I energetically waved 2 fingers and saw that other MyDays were waving their 2 fingers too. YoungK said "I see a lot of peace signs *chuckling* okay then, number 2 it is!" so Wonpil started the song immediately. After singing I Smile, he played When You Love Someone. My friend aww-ed, bcs that is her favorite song.

Even Wonpil tricked MyDays with singing JYP’s You’re The One, but we still sang it anyway. Then after he said he was joking, he started out I’m Serious. MyDays singing it with him. At the beginning, they were saying let’s make tonight a festival, and it was really a festival.

If I describe how they are when seen in person... Jae, he was lanky and he has that cute baby face, Sungjin looked handsome + dashing and he’s funny omg, YoungK is what Indonesian MyDays called gembul, which means chubby in a cute way, and his smile is so captivating!

Wonpil is indeed looked like a prince, he’s that soft and uwu, and his solo stage is my #1 among the 5 solo stages. Dowoon? He! Babie! He’s so adorable I can’t, when he sang on Wanna Go Back and Get Lucky I can’t stop squealing over his voice like for real. When he talked also screams uwu, I laughed when he fist-bumped YoungK and said “come on, come on, hit the beat” >.<

After the concert, the promotor prepared freebies for us, that is, a DAY6 postcard. I got YoungK originally, then my friend found a MyDay who willed to exchange her Dowoon postcard for my YoungK postcard. (...you know who my heart belongs to guys hahaha)

I had a lot of fun at the concert. Even though I cried when I saw on the D2 of the concert the boys went down from the stage (yeah I’m such a crybaby bcs of that lol), I still feel grateful and happy bcs I went to see them. 

Sometimes it’s true, experience is a lot more worthy than anything else. If you miss a valuable opportunity (when in fact you can achieve it), the next opportunity may be different from what you expect. We can’t predict what will happen in our future, right?

If you guys were asking me, did you ever feel any regret about choosing to go to DAY6′s concert? The answer is: no, absolutely not. I’m proud that I can afford myself a ticket and accommodation with my own savings. Also, I’m sooo glad that I joined the MyDay fandom, this fandom is literally filled with kind people and they’re fun to be with.

And if you guys were also asking me, will you attend their next concert? The answer is: yes, certainly, without a doubt.