#by the girl whose eyes are black as coal

[iwritepoemswhenifeellikeit]

Something that I lack

I just don't feel

Like I'm truly real

And the flower of my heart

Is slowly starting to die

I simply feel numb

Is this really dumb?

Staying all day in

Trying everything to feel

Something inside of my stone heart

[pasukiyo]

Hey!! Idk if you are taking requests but can I ask for a Tom Riddle x Hufflepuff reader imagine where they are academic rivals and are fighting over a book in the library and Tom pins the reader to a bookshelf and it turns into something heated, the book long forgotten.

Bonus if when they have finished with their make out session, the reader sneakily grabs the book and leaves while childishly smirking at Tom who just stands there with a small smile.

Btw I love your writing and can you please tag me if you write it?

THE DISPLEASURE IS ALL MINE

tom riddle x f!hufflepuff!head girl!reader word count; 1,473 warnings; arousal mentioned lol summary; in all your years at hogwarts, you'd been competing against tom riddle. you were always at one another's throats, and today wasn't any different...

 She blinked at the hand covering hers, her fingers curled around the leather spine of the book she’d been searching high and low for in the Hogwarts Library. With a wrinkle in her brow, her gaze trailed up the black sleeve of the hand’s robes until it reached the person’s chest, a shining, silver ‘Head Boy’ badge pinned above the Slytherin House crest. 

 The furrow in her brow deepened and her lips curved down into a frown at the realization of whose hand was atop of hers, eyes narrowed as she peered up into the dark gaze of Tom Riddle. 

 “Tom,” she deadpanned. “How unlovely it is to see you here.”

 A corner of Tom Riddle full, pink lips curled into a sneer as he stepped in closer, fingers slithering over the back of her hand until they curled around the edge of the book she held a firm grip on. 

 “The displeasure is all mine,” Tom replied, glimpsing over to the Charms textbook they both held. “Forgive me for not wishing to stay for small talk,” he said, tugging the book forward and she fumbled to keep her grip on the spine, pushing it back into the wooden shelf. 

 “And forgive me, Tom, but I believe I had this book first,” she replied, anger already beginning to swell in her chest and bubble like magma at the pit of her throat. Tom already seemed to have this effect on her anyways, but why, why of all days did he have to have this book now, when she needed it so desperately?

 Tom’s eyelids narrowed and her glare hardened right back in challenge— he must’ve somehow already known that she’d be needing this book. Oh, she wouldn’t put it past him— perhaps he’d eavesdropped in on the conversation she’d had with her fellow Hufflepuff, Clara Wingrave, earlier when she said she’d be spending her night studying for her Charms N.E.W.T. She had every intention of finishing off her seventh year at Hogwarts as top of her year— there was no way in hell she’d allow Tom to best her this time. 

 “I’m not so sure,” Tom straightened, his displeasure evident in the coal black of his eyes and she puffed out her chest, the ‘Head Girl’ badge above the Hufflepuff crest on her breast glistening even in the dimly-lit library. Tom’s eyes flickered there and oh— he was doing it again. 

 He’d always do this to her, always give her those eyes, that look like for a moment, he wanted her. He’d done it ever since they were fifth years when they’d both been named prefects and nearly toppled into one another trying to be the first ones into the prefect compartment on the train ride to Hogwarts. He’d done it every time they had debates in the middle of Transfiguration, every time they practiced charms in class, even when they had been assigned to a duel in Defense Against the Dark Arts. 

 He’d do it almost every chance he got, and this time certainly was no different. She knew he knew what he was doing and what was worse— sometimes, she feared it was working. 

 Tom was trying to weaken her, to expose a weakness within her and exploit it, use it against her. She’d admit that warmth would flood in pools at her cheeks when his gaze lingered on her lips a moment far too long, just as it did now. But when Tom’s own mouth began to curl into a smirk, she knew that she had had enough. 

 Years of competing against one another, of trying to outdo the other, of trying to prove her worth over his, of repressed tension, and outright frustration was beginning to prove to be rather exhausting. To say she’d had enough was the understatement of the century— so when her gaze flickered down to his lips and she could feel the tips of his fingers ghost over her knuckles where they still stayed splayed on the spine of the Charms book, she snapped.

 She was like a rubber band pulled past its limit, the way she threw herself into Tom Riddle, the boy she loathed, or at least, spent all these years convincing herself she hated. Her lips were like a meteor crashing into his like he was the earth and Tom nearly recoiled from the surprise. With her hand not on the spine of the book, she grabbed a fistful of his robes, drawing herself in closer to him to deepen their kiss, her tongue swiping over his. 

 Her heart was pounding against the inside of her chest— what was she doing? What was she even thinking? Was she even thinking at all?

 She didn’t know the answer. Her mind focused solely on Tom Riddle and his lips, his tongue pirouetting around hers once he’d gotten over the initial shock that she was, indeed, kissing him. One of his hands slithered around her waist, palm pressed against the small of her back, while the other cupped the side of her neck, drawing her in even closer. She hummed into his mouth as her hand not fisted in the chest of his robes snaked its way around his neck until her fingers reached his nape, ringlets of his perfectly-tamed dark hair woven between them. 

 For a moment, nothing mattered. For a moment, it was like there was no bad blood between them, nor had there ever been. She kissed Tom Riddle like she’d been pining for this for forever, like she’d been waiting for this moment since the first moment she’d laid eyes on him. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered if she always had, if there were a part of her that always dreamed she’d be given the opportunity to kiss him, to have him in such a way. She wondered if a part of her was giddy, while the other half of her wondered if she was just stupid. 

 Their lips broke for a moment so air could be ushered back into either of their lungs and her eyelids fluttered open to find that Tom was already staring down at her, gaze so dark, she wasn’t sure where his pupils began and his irises ended. A string of saliva bridged between their lips and she looked between it and back up at Tom, already hungry for more. 

 “You’re a lousy kisser,” she managed between breaths, attempting to rekindle at least some of the animosity between them, for normalcy’s sake. Tom’s eyes flickered back down to her mouth, eyeing the thread of saliva stringing their lips together. His head shook, head bowed as he leaned in closer. 

 “Be quiet,” he murmured before his lips were on hers again, using the hand he had on the side of her neck to push her up against the bookshelf, her hands darting for the elbows of his robes for balance. 

 His opposite hand palmed at the flesh of her hips through her own robes and she mewled into his mouth as their muscles wrestled against one another. Trying to overpower Tom was proven futile, and while for her dignity’s sake, she wanted to keep fighting, she couldn’t deny the pleasure she found in letting him take control, in letting him explore her mouth deeper, more freely. She could feel her core pulse with the ache of her growing arousal, feeling sweat begin to bead at her hairline from her face’s heat. 

 Merlin, what was she doing?

 This was a boy she hated, a boy she’d been competing against for years now and here she was, snogging him in the library where anyone could catch them any moment now. 

 And she had N.E.W.T.s to study for. 

 She peeled her eyelids open, thankful Tom’s were closed as she removed her hand from one of his elbows, eyeing the Charms book from the corner of her eye. As carefully as she could, she stretched her arm until the tips of her fingers could hook around the top of the spine, her chest surging into his as she yanked it from the shelf, savoring the taste of Tom Riddle’s mouth before she pushed him away altogether. 

 Tom panted as his eyelids snapped open, reaching up to wipe their mix of saliva that had begun to slide down the side of his mouth. Although flushed and clearly out of breath, she held the Charms book proudly up for him to see, spit-covered lips curving into a mocking smile as she began to speed walk away. 

 “Thanks for the book, Riddle! Don't worry, perhaps you'll get your turn after N.E.W.T.s are over,” she called over her shoulder and just before she turned to face the right direction, she swore she could see the pearly whites flash behind Tom Riddle’s lips in a smile. 

a/n; omg i'm so sorry, you literally sent this request in MONTHS ago and i've been so behind 😭 i do hope this is somewhat what you imagined, and i hope you enjoy it!

TAGLIST;

@orphicmortala (thank you for the request <3)

@your-nanas-house

@sallowsarchives

@michelle-26

@iamthejam

[oneatlatime]

The Awakening

Season 3 let's goooooooooo

These Fire Nation cells are absurdly spacious.

I do love that Momo's first reaction is kisses.

Not a cell. Oops.

Well that was confusing. I was arguing so vociferously that the SWT weren't pirates and then they go and gank a ship.

Mai girl get it! Questionable taste in men, but I love to see a lady getting exactly what she wants.

Mai: "how are you?" Zuko: *existential dread* Mai: "babe. Shut up."

Aang says he's the only one who's completely out of it, but Appa's behind him in full faceplant mode.

Actually, by the hair growth standard established by Zuko, Aang's been out 5 days at most.

Season 1 bitchy Katara is back again. I hate season 1 bitchy Katara.

I'm impressed by how much of these characters' identities is tied to their colour palettes. I see all these water tribe guys walking around in reds and blacks and I have no idea who I'm looking at.

Aang's eyes are back to brown this episode.

I love that Katara has no idea how she healed Aang. Superpowered does not mean superlearned. So much more believable than supergenius tweens.

It's the old ladies! They're wearing croissants on their heads. Why not.

This is a cool way to do exposition. A royal proclamation narrating a flashback.

These Dai Li don't know shit about loyalty huh.

SONG! HI SONG! I MISS YOU!

CORNY BABY & FAMILY! HI CORNY BABY & FAMILY! I DON'T MISS YOU! My guy why haven't you unpacked yet.

Given the welcome Zuko gets from the Fire Nation crowds, I'm thinking the exact cause/terms of his banishment were never made public? They're hyping him up like a wrestling entrance. That doesn't track with someone known to be honourless.

I want whatever's in Bato's bowl. Those noodles have him mesmerised. He's staring at them like they're telling him the secrets of the universe.

Are you telling me that Appa successfully landed on the deck of one of these ships without sinking it?

I love how Gaang's reaction to everything going wrong is to go find their dad.

STOP GOING ON ABOUT THE INVASION PLAN. IT WON'T WORK. STOP.

"Yep! The whole world thinks you're dead. Isn't that great!" Sokka. TACT.

Sometimes Sokka's brain gets too far ahead of itself.

Poor Aang. Not many people whose deaths are wrongly cause for celebration live long enough to see those celebrations.

How do the topknots fit inside the helmets?

This is silly beyond words. It's a two second throwaway gag but they're so into it.

Aang saying "I hate not being able to do anything" to the girl whose whole existence was not doing anything until recently is certainly a choice. And honestly, wasn't Season 1 Aang's whole point not wanting to be the Avatar? Actual responsible adults are handling the problems for once. He should be ecstatic.

I just realised this Fire Nation disguise ship plan means there are people in the Southern Water Tribe who know how to run coal powered ships. Neat.

One of the things I really love about Avatar is how much love they put into the side characters. This guy on the left is a nameless mook, but in the three to four lines of dialogue he gets, we see a world of political and bureaucratic headaches and a bunch of normal, humanising emotions (who hasn't been angry at that one coworker who can never be bothered to email?). The writers didn't have to give him that much personality, but they did!

Also, how often do Fire Nation ships get captured, if two pieces of bureaucracy not lining up causes this guy to jump to that conclusion, rather than think the bureaucracy messed up?

Someone in the Fire Nation has invented extra buoyant metal.

Turtleducks are scared of Azula. Turtleducks are good judges of character.

An awful lot of this episode is flashback footage.

Toph is a missile launcher. This is all I wanted out of life.

For the first time ever, Aang gets to play the role that Sokka plays in every bending heavy battle.

Since when can Katara do bending moves this big?

Sokka once again harnessing his ability to speak the opposite of what he wants into existence.

They said they passed through the serpent's pass a few days ago. Clever foreshadowing I completely missed.

Don't you love it when all your problems cancel each other out?

Aang. This is not the hill to die on. Also please don't throw tapestries around in a room with unguarded candles until you can firebend.

Wow Aang is just taking all the wrong lessons from this. And he's stealing Zuko's lines.

Turns out the Firelord is just some guy with an unfortunate goat beard.

Katara finally gets a chance to be her age, complete with nonsensical emotions and misdirected anger. I hate bitchy Katara but I love seeing her expressing the root of that bitchiness. And I love how illogical it all is, and that she acknowledges that! Emotions ARE illogical and messy!

Contrasting Hakoda winning Dad of the Year with Ozai setting off every alarm bell known to man is a choice. A really good choice. But wow. Not subtle.

I knew Azula always lied, but to her own dad/Firelord too? That's a dangerous move.

Aang. What are you doing. Stop.

Leave the door open. Peak sibling move.

In a turn of events that should surprise absolutely no one, Zuko's been played like a fiddle by his sister and is now as trapped as ever. The surprising part is that Azula thinks she can get away with lying to the Firelord too. Don't know how that's going to go for her long term.

So much for me saying the Avatar universe doesn't do ghosts. This season opener is surprisingly backwards-looking.

No offense to ghost Yue, but I think the saving the world she's referring to is the time she and a massive fishman saved the world, not strictly Aang.

How did they get past the blockade and find the right island?

I cringed at Katara's knee slide.

How are they standing on that island or breathing the air if it's hot enough to do that?

Final Thoughts

...what was that?

Seriously. This episode was a disorganised and aimless mess with the occasional gold mine of characterisation bobbing around. Did the writers not have a plan for what would happen after season 2 ended? This episode feels like the writers had as much plan as the characters did. If I was feeling charitable, I would say that this episode was a hot mess as a metanarrative commentary on Aang and the world's state, but I'm not feeling charitable. I think this episode was just a hot mess.

First, the good bits.

I liked that Sokka was very in character. We've seen before how he can run away with an idea to the point that he forgets to mind the human element. This episode's Sokka felt very much like Sokka. I liked that the beat up Sokka quota was replaced with 'Sokka dares the universe to play chicken and actually wins for once.' His optimistic characterisation this episode didn't grate like his inexplicable optimism did in Ba Sing Se, because here he has a reason to be happy. He's got his dad and a plan. Being around his dad and their people has done him good.

I like Toph the Ballista.

I like the noodle hypnosis.

I loved Katara's emotional blow up. It doesn't matter how noble or important the cause, leaving your kids for a cause is still leaving. I love that she points out how illogical her emotions are being. And I love that Hakoda creates a no-judgement-all-comfort-safe-to-rant zone for her. She's been waiting to do that for a while, and some of it came out at Zuko last episode, so it's been established that she's at boiling point. Fun fact: Katara has now had emotionally fraught venting sessions at Hakoda, Zuko, and Jet if you squint. I don't know what to make of the fact that the show has grouped these men into the same category of 'safe for Katara to vent to.'

I liked a couple of the throwaway gags, and the throwaway characters.

I liked the framing of Zuko's reintroduction to his father. Great use of angles and shadows. We've had two seasons of build up to this guy as the Biggest Bad, and the scene of Zuko kneeling in the throne room while Ozai paces around and delivers the world's most menacing praise felt big enough to be the crowning glory of that payoff. Especially contrasted to the loving father daughter reunion of equals it was interspersed with. But...

The bad bits.

Why did they immediately undermine two seasons of hype and all of the episode's menace by showing the Firelord as a gullible idiot who can't spot a bold-faced lie coming from a tween? I am legitimately pissed off that they defanged him as a threat so soon after introducing him. And I don't think showing that Azula can successfully lie to the Firelord builds up Azula as a threat - I think it also undermines her, because it's a stupid move. This episode could have introduced the biggest bad and reinforced the threat posed by last season's antagonist. Instead, it completely neutered the biggest bad and made Azula look like an idiot. I am actually mad about this.

Other stuff I didn't like: Aang's whole deal. Of course he was going to lose his mind and not be ok about what went down in Ba Sing Se. But he's never this dismissive of his friends, and a huge part of his early character is the fact that he would absolutely love it if some qualified adults stepped in and did the job he was unwillingly born into. Aang this episode felt self-centred and out of character.

Zuko's usually not this dim. I had figured out the angle Azula was going for by the end of the turtle duck pond conversation. Why can't he figure out for himself why Azula has redirected the potential blame if Aang is found to have survived?

The pacing felt off. The A plot flipped between action set pieces and emotional stuff. The B plot was purely talking. But the action set pieces felt out of place in an otherwise quiet episode. I get that you need something to interest the 8 year olds hyped up on sugar who only want explosions, but I think this episode would have been a lot better without the 'Aang almost drowns but gets a pep talk from a couple of ghosts who say exactly what everyone else has already said to him for two seasons but for some reason Aang listens this time and it works.' Why couldn't we have had a quiet episode?

Speaking of, why are Roku and Yue randomly popping up? Last time Aang talked to Roku, it took a trip into the Avatar state and the destruction of a very stupid general's whole army base. The ONLY person who's talked to Yue since she died is Sokka, and that took a magic swamp. I just don't get it. I don't get why they were there, why they said what they did, why those particular words in that particular order worked on Aang when no one else's words were getting through. I don't get why hiding out in the Fire Nation is the plan of choice over chilling with the Southern Water Tribe (other than because the plot says no responsible adults allowed).

The action piece with the Snekky Boy was fun. Even if what set it off was contrived (which it was), I think it was a fun watch and the only action the episode needed.

This episode was also so dark that I spent more time contemplating how much I really need to clean my screen than watching stuff happen.

I got so pissed off at this episode that I totally forgot about Mai. Go Mai! I am WEAK for romance arcs that boil down to 'Girl sees boy. Girl wants boy. Girl gets boy." Go Girl! Like I said above, questionable taste, but if it's what she wants, then congrats on getting it. I love Azula noticed and is like 'my resident goth appears to be broken.'

I have decided that Toph carved an underground harbour like the refugee station on Full Moon Bay and stashed all the water tribe ships in there, because those ships are too pretty to scuttle.

If I could surgically remove that scene between Katara and Hakoda and insert it into some other episode, I'd never watch this one again.

[bebepac]

Traditions

This is a special holiday edition of School Dayz. To catch up on the series in general please click School Dayz

I am participating in @choicesdecember2023 for Christmas

I am also participating in @choicesprompts holiday rewrite challenge in which I used the candy cane gram scene from Mean Girls.

I am also participating in @choicesflashfics christmas prompt # 59: "Ice-skating? Do you seriously trust me with knives on my feet?" will appear in bold. I also used a previous prompt as well Are you seeing this too or am I having a stroke?

Series: School Dayz

The Book: TRR (no royals)

The Pairings: Liam x Riley

Word Count: 1464

Warnings and Ratings: None. This is for anyone who has eyes. A total fluff piece.

Original post: 12/31/23 at 7:15PM EST.

Science class was different for me now that I no longer sat next to Liam, and shared a table with my sister, since Mrs. Barbour decided to make the class sit in alphabetical order, which I think the only reason for the change was to make taking roll easier. I glanced across the room to Liam whose partner was now Rashad.

My adorkable boyfriend who caught me watching him, smiled and held up his hot cocoa cup to toast me from across the room. Liam was the sweetest boyfriend and stopped by the local coffee shop Brew Bros and always got hot chocolate every morning the way that I liked it.

So I smiled while holding up my cup.

“Oh my God, can you two be any more nerdy?” Taylor asked.

“He’s nice, and you reap the benefits of it too. My boyfriend brings us both hot chocolate, or in your case a coffee drink you like every day without us asking.”

Taylor cocked her head to the side and air toasted Liam, taking a sip from her drink when the door opened.

“Ho , Ho, Ho!!!!! Candy Cane Grams, sponsored by the National Honor Society.”

“Make it quick, Santa.” There was a hint of sarcasm in Mrs. Barbour’s voice as she went to sit at her desk for a moment.

“And his lovely assistant Max Noel!”

“Wait… a sec… Are you seeing this too or am I having a stroke?”

Taylor doubled over in laughter “It is!!!! It’s Drake Walker-Claus.”

Taylor’s laugh seemed to antagonize Drake for a second, but good thing he had his assistant Maxwell. His brooding mood was offset by Max Noel making the class laugh with his dance versions of Christmas music as he followed around the room behind him.

“Hana Lee one for you.”

“Chris Powell four for you, you go Chris Powell!”

“Do we have a Riley Brooks here?”

“That’s her Max Noel. She’s Riley Brooks and looks nothing like the girl sitting next to her. Those two can’t possibly be related.”

“Riley Brooks here you go, one for you.”

“Thank you Santa.”

“Um….”

“And nothing at all for Taylor Brooks, not even coal or black licorice, bye.”

Drake and Max ran out of the room.

Taylor looked at me with curious eyes at the candy cane gram in my hand.

“Who’s that from?”

It wasn’t any of her business. I opened the envelope and read silently to myself.

Liam’s sweet words made me smile, and I didn’t have to answer her, and I looked at him from across the room.

“Oh my god. You guys are too much.”

Taylor looked upset, even though she shrugged it off. Later I found out why at her locker.

“I told you to get me a candy cane gram Nico!!!!”

“Well you telling me to do it, takes the surprise out of it. Me not doing it, guess what you were surprised weren’t you?”

My sister who was always loud looked at him and said nothing.

Before I knew it the words flew out of my mouth.

“Wow, you’re a really bad boyfriend Nico, my sister deserves better than you.”

I slammed my locker walking away from the two of them. I found out later that day, my sister broke up with him, in front of everyone in true dramatic Taylor fashion. I was proud of her.

Christmas Eve

Everyone had come over and was enjoying mom’s Christmas cookies and snacks. My dad brought in a big box sitting it down on the floor.

“I want to thank everyone for coming over tonight to spend time with our family. Our children picked people they care about to spend this time together with you. Ren and I are happy to have you in our home. We both grew up in the foster care system, and learned early in life, sometimes the people that care about you most, are not your blood relatives. So we try to celebrate that.”

“And when we had the opportunity to open our home up to two adorable identical twin girls, we couldn’t say no.” My mother chimed in.

“It’s the best decision they ever made. I went to sleep one night wishing I had a little sister. The next morning I woke up with two.” Jaiden spoke up.

“And we know what it’s like to be alone on Christmas, or missing someone special on Christmas that you were once close to. So we wanted to do something special. Liam would you mind sharing the Christmas Eve tradition you had that you told me about?”

“Christmas was my Mom’s favorite holiday. Every Christmas Eve that I can remember she’d dress us up in these ugly Christmas sweaters

and we would go ice skating on Lake Pine. She loved to ice skate. Then she’d make us take these dorky pictures in our Christmas sweaters that matched. I miss her a lot.”

“I miss her too. I’m not adopted, but Liam’s Mom always made me feel like I was her son too. So I really get what you’re saying about family not always being blood related. She was my mom too.”

Liam hugged his brother.

My dad opened the box.

“With a little help from Riley I found some what I would think are hideously awesome ugly Christmas sweaters, and am secretly happy for your love of Star Trek too. I’m sorry Liam, you can’t be the Captain, this is mine. But this one is yours.”

“Well if I can’t be Captain, being the science officer is the next best and most logical choice.” Liam took his blue sweater graciously.

“That’s what I said! Dad please say you got me a blue sweater too.”

“I did.”

After all the sweaters were handed out, there was still one left in the box.

“Guess you guys bought this before I broke up with Nico. No big deal.”

Once everyone was dressed, they headed out to the vehicles, and Liam stuffed the extra shirt into Leo’s trunk.

“I really don’t know how this is going to go Liam.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ice skating? Do you seriously trust me with knives on my feet?”

“Well good thing you’re not just Riley Brooks today, you’re the science officer for the USS Enterprise. Live long and prosper.”

Liam expected Riley to be as horrible on ice skates as she had been on roller skates, but Riley amazingly was incredibly balanced.

“Have you ice skated before?”

“No! I don’t know how I'm good at this! I usually have no natural balance.”

“You’re a natural at skating…”

“Ice skating. Let's clarify that.”

Taylor was still sitting on the bench watching the couples skate by. “She still hasn’t gotten out on the ice yet. I think she’s feeling lonely and the extra shirt probably made her think of Nico.”

Liam’s phone beeped. “Why don’t you go sit with her for a little bit, and I’ll be back in a few with some hot cocoas for us all.”

“Is cocoa your favorite drink?”

“Yes, and my mom used to always say your heart won’t feel cold if you always have a nice warm cup of cocoa. It always makes me feel better.”

I went to sit with Taylor and Liam continued walking toward the concessions stand.

“You okay?” I asked Taylor.

“I just don’t feel like skating, and look over there.”

Nico was there, with another girl on his arm.

“To be honest I never liked him Taylor. He called you T, like you were a drink or a shirt or something. He wasn’t even really that nice. Good riddance, I say.”

“I never thanked you for standing up for me that day Riley. It really meant a lot.”

“You’re my sister Taylor. I will always have your back, even when you pull me into a tornado.”

“Not on purpose!” She laughed.

“Oh it never is.” I remarked pulling Taylor closer to me in a hug. After a few seconds she pulled away from me.

“What are you doing here?”

“Helping Liam deliver hot cocoa. This one is yours.

I don’t like all the extra stuff in mine.”

Drake handed Taylor her cocoa, as he sat down next to her.

“Just hot and cocoa pretty much then right?”

“Exactly. I’m not that difficult to understand.”

“Do you like to ice skate, Drake?”

“Like it? It’s okay, but I can. Would you like to skate Taylor?”

Drake took off his coat wearing the remaining ugly sweater.

“Okay.” Taylor said in a nonchalant voice.

Taylor’s mood picked up immediately as she skated around with Drake on the ice. She never once glanced in Nico’s direction.

“That was really nice of you to do Liam.”

“He really does like her, you know. Maybe now she can finally see him with Nico out the way.”

“You’re so adorkably sweet Liam.”

“I know Riley, I know.”

[alexandreaiteiaabronia]

The Lotos-Garland of Antinous

by John Addington Symonds

Behold a vision of the world-old Nile—

Of porch and palace-tower and peristyle

Glassed in the oily current smooth and calm,

With many a fringéd mile of sultry palm

Shimmering in noonday sunlight! O the roar

Of the full-voiced swart-visaged swarming shore,

As the gilt barge, with flash of oars, and cry

Cast on the waters of shrill minstrelsy,

Down the broad tide bears Adrian the king,

Lapped in luxurious ease and winnowing

All husk of hard thought from his heart this day—

So men surmise—to laughter given and play!

Lo the full sails of Tyrian silk out-spread

Like wings of wildest plumage overhead;

The cedar masts with crusted pearl and scale

Of Indian beetle rough; the bellying veil,

Star-sprent, gold-dusted, hyaline in hue,

That tempers like a mist the burning blue

Ofthose bronzed heavens; the heavy-scented flowers,

Plucked from what dim mysterious temple bowers

Deep in the dewy twilight—tuberoses,

Starred jasmines, lotos, crimson chalices

With myrtles woven! Mid that bloomy sea

Are girls, half-seen, reclining dreamily;

Some white as swans unruffled, pure and cold;

Some glowing with the delicate dim gold

Of amber, warm on throat and neck beneath

Black heavy coils of lustrous curls that wreathe,

Snake-like, smooth temples. O the subtle stir

Of laughter and of little feet, the whir

Of fans like night-moths fluttering, mid the wild

Voices of choiring boys, that naked piled

On Persian broidery, to the sound of flute,

Viol and fife and soul-subduing lute,

Make music, piercing shrill and sad and clear

With yearning memories the drowsy ear!

On glides the flashing galley. But the king,

In Roman strength austere, each goodly thing

Serenely reckons. He hath felt the glare

Of shadeless deserts; by the Libyan lair

Of lions hath out-watched the fiery day,

Patiently waiting for his royal prey:

The clash of arms he knows, the thirsty march

O’er sands with wormwood set, where fevers parch

Black lips and tongue, and hollow eyes grow dim:

No Syrian wreath or crown of rose for him

The circlet of the Empire! And behold,

This morn in Theban temples dusk with gold,

While spiry flames from smoking altars flew,

And incense clouds voluminously blue

Sun-proof involved those columned aisles, the seer

Foaming with eyes fixed on the unseen Fear,

A rede of death enwrapped in riddling gloom

Had uttered:—yea, that even for him the doom

Of icy death, unless some spirit free

Of man or boy, unbought, might willingly

Yield life for life, amid the dance and feast,

When hollow-eyed grim Death seems last and least,

Lurked shadow-like. So spake the shuddering priest.

And Adrian heard; yet trembled not, but read

As in a book the doom of Rome dismemberèd:

For on his life alone the Empire hung;

And to his single strength the nations clung,

As clings a vine with leaves and weighty fruit

To some strong pine’s stone-circling massy root.

And none but Adrian heard—save one who stayed

Beside him; one in whose quick pulses played

Fire of free life imperious; a boy

Of nineteen summers, framed for power and joy.

Crisp on his temples curled the coal-black hair;

White myrtle flowers and leaves were woven there:

His eyes had solemn light in them, and shone

Flame-like ‘neath cloudy brows: his cheeks were wan

With passion; and the soul upon his lips,

Smouldering like some fierce planet in eclipse,

Breathed fascination terrible and strong,

As though quick pride strove with remembered wrong.

But oh! what tongue shall tell the orient glow

Of those orbed breasts, smooth as dawn-smitten snow;

The regal gait, processional and grand,

As of a god; the sunny-marble hand,

Grasping a silk-enwoven cedar-wand?

He heard, Antinous! and in his breast

His heart leaped, and his flaming eyes confessed

The fervour of his spirit; still and calm

Standing the while, like some full-fruited palm

Tall by a river-bank. Then forth they went,

The youth divine and royal victim, blent

In silent awe and blind bewilderment.

Down to the Nile they came, and eager men

Pressed round them myriad-voiced with wonder: then

Taking their barge, upon the stream sailed forth,

Downwards all day steering by West and North.

All day the lazy ripple to the prow

Whispered; and all day long by palms arow,

By cities populous with blazing quays,

By tracts of flowering bean and verdant maize,

They glided. Towers and temples sunny bright,

Like mirage in the desert, swam from sight

Behind them; and the wild tumultuous noise

Of nations shouting with a single voice

Grew fainter on the current. All day long,

Lulled to a slumberous symphony of song,

Sails flapped, oars flashed, and boys and maidens made

Cool music in the silken scented shade.

But Adrian dreaming lay, and at his side

Antinous with large eyes blank and wide

Lay dreaming. Thus adown the sleepy tide,

As in a trance toward Lethe through still air,

Lost to the joy of living did they fare.

But now the sun who all day long had driven

His glittering chariot o’er the enamelled heaven,

Began to wester. Level smote his rays,

A furnace-fire of splendour; and the blaze

Burned upon stream and city: in its fire

The pillared shrine and solitary spire,

Tall cypress or thick tamarisk-tangle, swam

Like clouds you scarce can see amid the flame

Of sunset; and the whole vast concave through,

Across the light-irradiate airy blue,

Ran conflagration. Then, ere day was dead,

The slaves who had that service came and spread

The Emperor’s table; and Antinous rose,

For his it was before the banquet’s close

To bear the wine-cup, at his master’s knee

Like Ganymede serving imperially.

He rose, and from his shoulder’s ivory

The veil fell fluttering to his rounded thigh:

Naked he stood; then on his forehead set

A crimson wreath of lotos, cool and wet,

Fresh from the tank, with ivy mixed; and bound

Roses about his breast; and from the ground

A tendril-tangled thyrsus raised, and flung

The quivering leaves aloft that clasped and clung.

Next half the lustre of his limbs he hid,

Like some night-reveller or Bassarid

Fresh-flown from Indian thickets, with the fur

Of panthers streaked and spotted, sleek with myrrh

And musky-fragrant. In his hand a bowl,

Carved of one beryl, soft as if a soul

Throbbed in its flush, he took, and called his crew.

They to their Bacchus with loud laughter flew,

Tossing flame faces, twinkling tiny feet

In measured madness to the timbrel’s beat—

Wild hair behind them flying, loosened zone,

And flowers about their flanks for girdles strewn.

Girls were they, girls with vine-leaves garlanded,

Or jasmines white as their own maidenhead!

Boys too; ye gods, the beauty of those boys,

Lithe as young leopards! the soul-thrilling noise

Of their shrill voices!—Bells are at their feet,

And silver armlets, tinkling as they meet,

Make the air mad.

Behold, in such wild glee,

With dance and music and with witchery,

Paced forth the youth, for whom it seemed that all

His life to come might be one festival.

Yet in his soul was sadness. Well he knew

That ere those lotos-flowers had lost their dew,

He forth would fare upon the dismal way

Of dying.—Thus of many thoughts that day

This one had triumphed: he would die to shield

Adrian from death, if so the doom revealed

By god-sent oracles might be withdrawn

From that great head.—Like Phosphor in the dawn,

Solemn he was and tender; larger eyed,

Of more majestic stature; and his wide

Bare bosom swelled with nobler weight of thought

Than e’er within his heart had yet been wrought,

Since from his fields Bithynian and the play

Of childhood, on a lustrous night of May,

He had been borne by pirate hands, and woke

To weep his mother.

Through the awning broke

The clear-voiced choir; but Adrian in good sooth

Rose from his pillowed couch to greet the youth,

So proudly paced he: and the dying sun,

Shooting that moment from low vapours dun,

Transfigured all his face; and in the glow

The ruddy lotos-flowers upon his brow

Blazed ruby-like, and all his form divine

Blushed into crimson, and the crystalline

Bowl of the gleaming beryl flashed, and dim

With dusky gold the fur that mantled him,

Spread tawny splendour. So he stood and smiled,

Bending his crowned head, like a god who, mild

To mortals, will be worshipped. Such a sight,

So framed, so sphered in music and sunlight,

Had ne’er in court or theatre or grove

Fashioned by Nero for his insolent love,—

Nay ne’er in Syrian valleys where the Queen

Mourns for her lost Adonis, on the green

Of Daphne or of sea-girt Tyre been seen.

He spake: ‘To thee, in semblance of a god,

To thee supreme, who Jove-like with thy nod

Scatterest states and kingdoms, lo! I come

Bearing strong juice of Bacchus. See the foam

Leaps in the crystal for thy lips, and red

As rose or maiden in her bridal bed,

Glows for thy kisses! Health for thee, my king,

Health and long life within the cup I bring.

Yea, were it mine, this youth thou thinkest fair,

(Fair in thy thought, for verily whate’er

Thine eyes have praised, is fairest,) were it mine,

Brief as it is, scarce worth one thought of thine,

(For lo, it blooms to-day, to-morrow dies,

Nay even now is fading, as the skies

Fade after sunset)—were it mine to give,

Thinkest thou, king and master, I would live?

Were it not well to die for thee, and know

There in the scentless myrtle bowers below,

That thou wert living this new life? What breath,

How sweet soe’er, were sweeter than such death?

Nay, Lord, I flatter not. This is no smile

Of hollow semblance on false lips to wile

Kind speech from thee, much prized by us who serve

For could I, from this will I would not swerve!’

Thus spake Antinous, and the table round

Murmured approval; for the honeyed sound

From those calm lips on idle ears like dew

Fell with fresh fragrance and a pleasure new.

Sophists were there, whom Adrian fed, and they

Clapped loud applause, averring the long day

Had kept till eve her flower of perfect speech:

For such fine flattery, like the perfumed peach

Most subtly flavoured, could no palate cloy.

Thus clamoured they, wine-wanton; but the boy,

Bending his lilied brow beneath the wand,

And kneeling to his master, with one hand

Lifted the cup:—a lotos falling stirred

The wine refulgent; then, without a word

Or smile, he raised the sunlight of his face.

But Adrian drank, keeping the flower to grace

His wreath; and bade Antinous take the bowl

Of beryl. Then he turned with graver soul

To some grey counsellor beside him placed;

And the cup-bearer with his revel passed

Forth from the tent imperial.

Lo, the West

Bathing with liquid lustre brow and breast—

Lustre of orange, amber, green and blue,

Glassed on the waves, and gemlike in the dew

Of heaven translucent; the cool breeze that flew

Past silken sail and tent-roof; the black bars

Of palm-groves and of porches; shimmering stars,

And the low moon to eastward, pearly pale

Mid roseate refluence! In one woven veil

Of varied hues the universal world

Seemed by some hand omnipotent enfurled,

Where in the midst the barge, a moving spark

Herself of light, yet mid such splendour dark,

Slept on her shadow. And was this the night,

Centre of all things fair, for thee to blight

Thy blossom with cold frost of death—to die,

Sweetest of all sweet things beneath the sky?

The decks were vacant, as at even-tide

Of chills and sudden dew-fall. Free and wide

The sandal planks thick-matted with bright wool

And furs and flowered embroideries beautiful,

Spread for his pacing; and the lazy plash

Of rippling waves that round the galley wash,

Cooled the clear air. He went as in a dream

Forth to the prow, land o’er the luminous stream

Leaned; and behold, a golden lamp up-borne

By Isis (on her brow the sacred horn,

And at her waist the lotos, leaf by leaf,

And flower by flower, twined in a jewelled sheaf

Of lilies) cast a glimmer pure as pearl

On the veined marble of the watery swirl.

Here stayed Antinous, while the darkening west

Deepened from crimson into amethyst,

From fire to blood-red orange thin and still,

Under faint streaks of tenderest daffodil

Which faded. Soon, as drops of fiery dew

Gleam on a withered primrose, so there grew

Forth from this pallor the intensest glow

Of Hesper’s love-star: tremulous and low,

Poised o’er the palms, he panted; and his beam

Danced like a living lamp upon the stream.

Then spake Antinous: ‘My hour is nigh!

Night cometh, and the guardians of the sky

Illume their cressets!’ So he rose and spread

The panther skin and thyrsus, and the red

Wreath of dead lotos laid upon the ground:

Next in his hand the bowl of beryl, crowned

With roses, from a gleaming golden jar

He rilled; and gazing at the level star,

Thrice made libation, crying: ‘Father Nile,

And Isis and Osiris! ye who smile

On mortal births and burials! lo, I give

My life for Adrian’s! Wherefore should I live?

Have I not learned to trail my manhood’s pride

In the world’s golden gutters?—Like a bride,

Sumptuous with sacrifice and pomp and choir,

Forth from the doors I issued; and the fire

Of Flamens shone to light me: now, alone,

With saffron veil unbound and broken zone,

My blossom withered, lo, a wanton’s doom

Awaits me, or the purifying tomb!—

Nay, even now I weary. Day by day

It irks me to consume the hours with play;

Hearing soft speeches, propped on pillowed down,

To gather smiles; or, when I choose to frown,

Drink womanish tears. Better I ween were strife

With lions than this fulsome flower of life!

And when the flower is faded, what remains?

Yea, heaven, I thank thee: lo, the little pains

Of dying bring me guerdon of great gains!

For in my bloom I perish, having bought

Unending honour. What I give, is nought

But a mere piece of boyhood thrown away:

While he, the Emperor, lives. Even so. This day

Dates a new aeon in the age of Rome;

Wherethrough, a name for ever, in the dome

Of people’s praises, I shall pace, and be

Equalled with heroes in mine infamy!

Nay, what on earth more godlike? I have heard

Of soldiers dying at a general’s word;

Of patriots who drained their hearts to save

A nation: they beside their fathers’ grave,

Before their city walls and smoking shrines,

Fell on the long resounding foeman’s lines

And perished: this was easy; yet they bore

Victorious crowns and hymns for evermore.

But I, what city or what home have I?

What duty, dear or sacred, bids me die?

A slave—the toy and bauble of a king,

Picked from the dust to play with—a cheap thing,

Irksome as soon as used—a cup to sip,

Then fling with loathing from the sated lip!—

Therefore I die more nobly. Where are ye,

My father and my mother, and the glee

Of brothers and of sisters, who were dear

Far off in years forgotten? Not one tear

Shall your calm unfamiliar eyes let fall

For me.—How like a gilded dream is all

The life that I have lived in glorious Rome!

How like a dream it leaves me!—Lo, I come,

Ye awful, soul-exacting, pitiless Powers!

Prepare your laurels and the moony bowers

Of myrtles! Not ignoble, not a slave,

I perish, but of mine own will, to save

The Father of the Empire.—I have seen

In Roman theatres the dying queen

Of weak Admetus, pale Polyxena,

Cheiron, Menoikeus; and the people, ah!

The people how they shouted! Tears and cries

Greet even an actor when he nobly dies:—

Will not the people of the unnumbered dead,

Showering their pallid crowns upon my head,

Nobly receive me noble, dying thus,

Calm in my strength, young, proud, luxurious,

Not torn by pangs, not wasted, not outworn,

But in my splendour?’

As he spake, a horn

Shrilled through the twilight; and he saw the tower

Of Besa, where that night they tarried, lower

Dusk o’er the champaign. Speechless from the bark

He dropped: she onward glided o’er the dark

Breast of the glimmering Nile with lamp and light:

He through the mirrors of the cool black night

Unruffled, dying drifted; and his death

Was seen by no man. Nay, there lingereth

Old legend in the town Antinoë,

Called by his name, a fair town and a free,

How that a flight of eagles from the sky

Down swooping, bore him, rosy breast and thigh

Lustrous like lightning on their sable plumes,

Up to the zenith, where, a star, he blooms

In that bright garden of the grace of Jove,

The martyr and the miracle of love.—

Of this the truth we know not; but we know

That in the town of Besa, where the flow

Of Nile is stayed upon the eastern bank

With wattles and with osiers, for a tank

That draws therefrom through sluices deep and wide

The living waters of the sacred tide,

There in the morn was found as though asleep,

The perfect body of the boy; and deep

Around him, known not till that day, there grew

Great store of lotos flowers, red, white, and blue,

But mostly rose-red, flaming in his hair,

And o’er his breast and shoulders floating fair,

And with his arms enwoven, pure and cool,

Screening his flesh from sunrise. Thus the pool

Burned with a miracle of flowers; but he,

Raised on their petals, pillowed tenderly,

And curtained with fresh leaves innumerous,

Smiled like a god, whom errands amorous

Lure from Olympus, and coy Naiads find

Sleeping, and in their rosy love-wreaths bind.

https://paganreveries.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/the-lotos-garland-of-antinous-by-john-addington-symonds/

Picture: My Antinous

[gyokujyn]

Lost Boy!!

For WIP Game

This is a modern fantasy Supernatural AU set in a world where supernatural creatures are real, but rare. Sam went missing investigating a business where fake supernatural creatures of various kinds are being pawned off as real. Dean poses as an interested buyer to try to find his brother, but soon learns that some of the creatures of the menagerie are very real and very dangerous and the menagerie protects its own secrets, drawing Dean into a world he doesn't actually know how to escape from--a sort of Alice in Wonderland meets Dante's Inferno. Here's an excerpt from very early on in the story:

"Who are you looking for?”

Dean glanced over his shoulder at the voice, turning slowly to see soft, auburn hair spilling round a pale, trim face. Anna, he remembered, the one he’d been warned off of by Jessica. Hazel eyes, too big for her innocent face, stared up at him.

Surreptitiously, he glanced around, but they were alone in the gallery, “Sorry, what?”

“He said you were looking for someone, but he didn’t say who,” she started, quickly, hardly even stopping for breath as she glanced down, fidgeting with her fingers, “Well, no, he didn’t say that, exactly, he said, I mean, he doesn’t say much, but when he wants me to know, I do and he said, that he wants, I mean, what he wanted me to say was–” she paused, took a small breath, and looked back up into his eyes purposefully. “He wants me to tell you that you can find the man you’re searching for, if you’re brave.”

Dean blinked.

Had he been discovered?

Or, was this girl just bat shit fucking crazy?

He glanced around the room, again, sure that someone must be watching this exchange, biding their time to catch him exposing his real mission. But, save for himself and Anna, the gallery was empty, the doors still barred for the night. He found his eyes back on the girl, unsure and unsteady. Anna merely stared at him earnestly, blinking those huge eyes and waiting for him to respond.

A few more moments passed before Dean finally scoffed, “Who?”

It was as if a dam had broken, the words spilling out of her, “He didn’t tell me who–I mean, he didn’t tell me anything, but I heard him and I heard that you would find him. He was quite sure–you could find him if you were brave. That was very clear.” As if to underscore the point, she nodded.

“No, no,” Dean muttered, shaking his head, freckled brows knitting as he pinched the bridge of his nose and gathered his thoughts with a sigh, “I mean, who–I was asking who told you that?”

“Oh,” Anna said, simply. She looked over her shoulder with a tender smile. “He did.”

Dean followed her gaze to the far edge of the room, beside the main stage, where cold iron bars held the menagerie’s mute angel. Dean often forgot about him, still and silent as he kept. Even now, he stood in the center of his cage perfectly poised–like a statue–dressed as always in a white linen perizoma with the finest silver chain Dean’d ever seen wrapped around his waist. His chest did not rise nor fall with breath, his coal black wings pinched painfully between the floor and ceiling of his tiny cell, bent and stooped from strain. The pitch colored feathers pressed haphazardly against the wooden planks at his feet and stuck out of the bars that crossed over his head, as unruly and unkempt as the mess of almost-black hair atop his head. His hands made the only movement Dean could see, fists clenching and unclenching almost imperceptibly at his sides, blue eyes burning brightly straight through Dean. As Dean’s eyes met his blistering gaze, the angel tipped his head slowly to the side, like a bird. No, Dean thought, like a raptor. A bird of prey, in whose sight Dean was squarely caught.

Unbidden, a chill ran down Dean’s spine.

“So, who are you looking for?” Dean dragged his eyes back to meet Anna’s hazel stare, as intent, if not as intense, as the angel’s.

“Hm? Um,” he scratched his forehead absently, suddenly happy to be looking anywhere but back into that cage. “N-no one–how do you even know about that?”

“See, I think people talk a lot around someone who doesn’t answer, I mean, when you’re so quiet, you hear a lot of other people because they don’t like to hear what they think about in the silence–have you noticed that? It’s probably why everyone’s so nice to me, I don’t make them think of all the things that people think about when it’s too quiet to hear anything but your own thoughts,” she smiled absently.

Dean laughed shortly, “Come again?"

“Well, you know, if you’re quiet, you can hear more than if you talk. That’s why Mother always says it’s a wonder I hear anything, but I hear him,” Anna smiled, red lips spreading wide.

“You hear the angel?”

She nodded.

“That’s gotta be a nice trick. He’s mute.”

“Just because he doesn’t talk doesn’t mean he can’t sing. I hear him sing in my head and I know why they call him an angel.”

Dean smirked. “You don’t think the wings might be part of it?”

“The wings are fake, but his voice is real and he sings in my head like heaven. He sings with the stars. I hear them. They burn and they die, but before that, they sing. All of them. All the angels.”

[kraykraykratos]

They find the remains of an old Greek Temple that holds different pictures of the gods. It had been hidden in the waters until it washed ashore and Kratos goes with them to explore. He tells them of some of the gods such as Hera and Hades, as well as some whose paintings are either not present or impossible to see. He speaks little of Zeus and none of them, Mimir, Freya and Arreius, bring him up afterwards.

They get deeper into the broken up hall and Freya finds a painting of him, taking up a hall wall yet hurried in the back. They all walk over when she calls out and take in all the details though faded and broken. He’s standing tall with his hands at his side, face blank aside from a sternness and eerie light in his eyes. It’s different to all the others who help objects or smirks of power, he seems much more like a man all too aware of what he is, being either spiteful or resigned to it. They take in the blood red markings that have faded to a dull pink and the red and gold attire he wears. The symbol of a spartan resting on his belt.

What they all note more than anything else is the being by his side. She looks like a young girl with black and red hair like burning coal, bright blue eyes piercing in a contrasting cold. Long black nails adorning her hands curl around his wrist, close to cutting into his pale skin. She wears a Toga that layers to resemble a fire, much like the flame surrounding her feet and trailing up her legs, mirroring the blood at Kratos’s. They feather like detailing, as if she has wings wrapped around her. Her eyes are bigger than they should be, with slit like pupils and thin mouth agape slightly to show sharp, thin teeth. Her face looks haunted, as if her very being is dead.

Atreus asks the obvious question on their minds, “Who is she, father?”

Kratos, for the first time since entering, looks reminiscent and fond as he speaks, “Acrasia. Just as Odin has his crows and Hades had Cerberus, I had Acrasia. She was a Phoenix I rescued from a cruel god before my ascension. Cursed to forever be a child and never age nor die, she was abused by most. They sought her flame and healing, which could make a mortal live as long as god and a god live forever. I saved her and, upon me not demanding her power, she chose to stay by my side. I taught her life, as it should be, and in return she spied on my enemies. I never ordered her to, but she wished to repay me and held a hate for gods that rivalled my own. A Phoenix does not die, nor burn out, so when I made choice to fight the gods… I sent her away. She needed not the sight of bloodshed but of peace, which I did not want. I… do not know what happened to her after it all.”

They look at the girl again, now knowing she was a being of endless power and wondering how she looked so small and weak. Kratos holds his hand to the painting, at her small face, and speaks to his son, “I would not have accepted you as my child if she had not taught me my own patience. I fear I would have never let your mother love me if she didn’t show me how ones past does not become them. I owe her more than even I can comprehend.”

He walks out, saying something about preparing dinner, leaving them all to ponder his words. He seemed to want to leave it, but unlike the topic of Zues, this seemed more out of regret or respect.

Atreus is ignited with a hope and, with the help of his friends, sets out to the Acrasia. If the temple survived, perhaps she did too.

[etruatcaelum]

Summer halts when Tyrian and Arthur do, but she doesn't look around. Hysterical threats do not frighten her, and she's not in the fucking mood to coddle or appease or indulge this shared little persecution-inferiority complex the two of them have going on, two grown men seething in jealousy because a girl half their age won't play pretend with them that Salem is some horrible baby-eating tyrannical lunatic overlord who revels in their suffering.

Fucking God under the ground.

If that's the way they see her, if that's the make believe world they want to live in so fucking bad that not even Salem herself bending over backwards to placate them will penetrate, she really doesn't know why the fuck they're even here. But so be it.

They think Salem's an evil bitch?

She closes her eyes, breathing out. The light presses up cold behind her lids; for a moment, nothing else exists in the world but that heatless, colorless radiance. Life and dreams are only shadows cast by the light which shines through the cracks. Death waits in its somber silence behind the mirror. The glass between them is fractured, white as the migraine moon and cold as fallen snow. Reach out: touch it. Feel how the boundary shifts under the skin like a broken bone. Knock, and it shatters.

The truth is this:

Summer Rose was a warrior, but she has never been a hero. The silver-eyed warrior is a legend, a fiction, a lie. So too is the witch who writes the ending to her tragic fairytale. Light and shadow and the glass in between.

It takes two to break a mirror.

"That's," she says quietly, turning, "enough."

Her eyes open–

—and there is light.

Not the avenging gout Summer had seen erupt from the top of Beacon Tower, and nothing like the lightning flicker Salem had described to her of that boy's panic: Summer knows what the fuck she's doing, and her light pours out in a tidal bore of glacial anger.

It doesn't wound them. She doesn't want it to. But it fills the corridor and sweeps through the house, blind white, coiling around the grimm with a fierce protectiveness she hopes to God that Salem can feel. Her conviction gleams bright and hard as a diamond in the center of that light: because Salem matters to her more than anyone else in the world.

Fourteen years, it's been, since she learnt the truth and saw that ancient sadness looking back at her. Twelve since that night—finding Salem shattered on the floor, stripped of all her defenses and laid bare by pain as silver's aftershocks rotted her body from the inside out. How her own eyes, tarnished coal-black for two years by the sundering of all she knew, had risen white as the moon again.

Let me protect you, she'd said.

And now she can't.

The stinging light becomes mist and the mist fades away, and there is only a silvering of frost on the walls and the visible stream of her breath like a dragon's fire. Summer balls up her hands into fists, eyes still bright with chilly afterglow.

"That is enough."

She blinks once, irises dimming to pale silver.

"I'm not like Salem," she says levelly. "I am not going to sit here biting my tongue and baby you while you act like you two are the main fucking characters of the universe and the only ones whose feelings matter. You wanna believe you're the innocent little victims of Salem's personal crusade to torment you so fucking bad, fine! Go crawling back to Ironwood and cry to him about how mean the big bad witch is to you! See where that gets you! But don't fucking pretend you give a shit about her."

Summer rounds on her heel. "I'm gonna make dinner, and call Cinder to let her know what's going on. You two can keep your mouths shut and eat, or go back to bed, or leave. Do whatever the fuck you want, but don't ask me for sympathy right now. I'm fresh out."

Really, if Arthur could roll his eyes hard enough that they'd fall out of his own head, he probably would have. At any rate! Since Summer doesn't seem to want him to actually keep quiet on behalf of poor, pathetic little Cinder Fall, then he won’t.

"You and Salem both act like Tyrian and I regularly went out of our way to find her in the castle and torment her. As if we weren't perfectly content to avoid her. We only spoke to her when circumstances forced us to be in her presence and all of you bloody well know it.”

Not that he had been kind to her in those moments, but. He wasn’t exactly prone to being kind to anyone, bar Tyrian.

(“Summer, please stop, he just got back, he’s still hurt,” Tyrian is whispering, but nobody seems to hear it. He'd been so- hopeful. Renewed, even. But seeing Arthur and Summer at each others' throats like this makes it all come crashing down. He tastes sour panic. “Don’t call Cinder yet, please. Let’s wait til morning like you said. I'll even make the soup, too. Arthur can rest, and Summer, you can-“)

“I've already discussed all of this with Salem, and rest assured if she didn't move me to tears over the girl, you certainly won't, either. I mean, with the way you treated your own children, I’m shocked you think you did anything here that helped Cinder.”

(“Arthur, don’t, that isn’t fair-”)

"Cinder can 'hide her injuries' and pretend to cry around you two all she wants. I never did worse to her than mock her insufficiencies and you know it. She's no colleague of mine, either, and if you honestly believe for a second that she was scared, or if you think anyone here is shocked or confused about why she threw this pathetic little fit, then you're as blinded as Salem.”

(“Both of you stop, please stop, please. I don't want to do this anymore.”)

“You’re out here crying about what an ‘active danger’ WE are to HER when she was consistently the only one who ever made a move that would have resulted in physical harm. And you fucking know it. I can only hope fate takes pity on you when this inevitably blows up in your face worse than it already did when she took your daughters-“

(“How about I just put an end to this silly little argument myself?” And the thing that had been coiling tighter and tighter in Tyrian ever since Arthur had shaken him awake finally snaps.)

And damn, Arthur had always felt so secure in his belief that he was one of the exceptions to Tyrian's bloodlust (and that Summer might be, too, because Tyrian has always seemingly gotten along with her), but when he hears a snicker and looks behind him and sees Tyrian's face, he suddenly isn't so sure anymore.

He really should have been more careful. Tyrian had been a hair's breadth from losing control of himself for nearly the entire conversation - it was a mistake, to think Tyrian's elation over remembering the existence of the airship would have undone all of that.

"I'll do it," Tyrian rasps. "I'll kill you both right now, if you don't shut up. Summer, you've always insisted that you're not actually more special to Salem than the rest of us. Arthur, my dear, I’ve not had you back 24 hours and you’re already threatening to vanish again. So why don’t I just…help things along quicker? If Salem doesn't care about you as anything special, Summer, and if you, Arthur, want to leave...Why, I could even take the airship after and go make Miss Fall’s apparent fears a reality by splitting her stem to stern! And, after Salem fells me in retaliation, then, only then, will she have the peace she desires. Because none of Ozma’s forces will want to work with me, or either of you, or Cinder. Not with Salem, either, but maybe they will if she has nothing. If she can point to our corpses and say, ‘See how the people of this world have fallen. How easily this could be all of you.’”

(Arthur tries to think of something to say or do that might calm Tyrian down, but his mind is static. About the only thing keeping his Semblance from activating on instinct is the memory of Tyrian’s face when he’d said, You’ve come back to me.)

“Tyrian,” Watts manages to try, and to what little credit he still has for anyone in this castle, he shifts so he's directly in front of Summer. A shield, if Tyrian really does - let loose. Sure, Summer's Semblance gives her this curious intangibility, but if he can keep things from getting to even that point-

“Tyrian, I know this has been a long, long day for you. You're still recovering. Why don't you take a breath-"

“I am breathing just fine. I am not the one of the two of us for whom that has been in question, the past eleven days.”

“Okay. Okay. That’s okay. You are- supremely upset, I know, and worried, and you’re trying to- keep it together. You’ve been doing- so well. This is a lot. I know, I- Calm down. It’s going to be okay. I’m sorry I lost my temper.”

(Tyrian's hair, loose and wild, hanging partially in his face. Shoulders heaving, hands wringing the front of his own coat like he wants to tear it from his body. Purple eyes. Tail arched in such a way that it looks a warning of killing intent even without his prosthetic on. Lethal, predatory, ravenous. Sharp inhales, like Tyrian cannot find air.)

“I don’t want to hear another excuse about Cinder. I do not pity her, I will not pity her, I will not have my intelligence insulted with explanations of why she’s so scared, ‘oh you two deserved everything she did, the poor girl, why don’t either of you get it?’ I’m not fucking STUPID, Summer. Or can't you get it through your head that- that Salem- Cinder is hardly punished for anything, but I am- for every mistake, Salem leaves me to suffer. And Arthur. Dear Arthur. I won’t hear another word about how repulsive and detestable I am to everyone but you. You- are using- you're making our relationship leverage to hold over me-”

“Tyrian, I never said everyone finds you repulsive or detestable! And if you don't want to leave, I'm not going to force you, I never would, you- You'll always have me, no matter what separates us. I promise-”

“Salem wants to let Cinder kill us and give the girl little more than a mere slap on the wrist for it? Fine! Salem wants to burn me, insult me, leave me alone, let me suffer the weights of my sins, let me stay maimed and broken for as long as she deems fit while she lifts everyone else? Fine! Arthur, you need to leave? If that will make you feel better, fine! If I repulse her, it doesn't matter. Summer, if you only speak to me because Salem tells you to, it doesn't matter. Arthur, if I am keeping you trapped here, then go! Don't stay because of me, Arthur. Summer, do what you want for who you want, you don't have to pretend to like me. I'm wretched, so wretched, but if I- I am still useful, I- She said- if I served her in this final battle, then I could- go home! She said I could go home if I did, that it would be alright-“

His tail lashes.

“I’m so hungry. I’m so tired. I can’t- sit here- and listen to you tear at each other- I don’t want to hear it I don’t want to hear it I don’t want to hear it-“

“Summer, go to the kitchen. Let me talk to him, he just needs-“

“What do I need?! I need to get out of here and-"

Tyrian seems to choke on his own words, stumbles forward, and Arthur is relieved that his instinctive move to catch Tyrian is not met with a prodding from the tail, because that would have been a sting - figuratively, if not literally, thanks to the small mercy of Tyrian being without the prosthetic, at the moment.

"Arthur- Summer-"

"You're crying-!"

"I need one of you- to claw this anxiety out of me. Just- get it out. Tear it out of me. Get a Grimm in here and let them have me. Just- Please."

And Tyrian looks so mournful and so distraught and so beseeching that all Arthur can say is, "I’m sorry."

How is it that I never know how to help you.

[indie-bard-maiden]

~The Clinic~

(the Vampire story, apart of my short story collection 'The Ballad of Hollowfaye' also available to read on Wattpad).

Synopsis:

A girl notices her boyfriend has been acting quite strange since she had sex with him for the first time during a family camping trip. Eyes turning black, not reflecting in mirrors, head burying into her neck for longer than should be necessary. Even if bro IS a little horny. What is wrong with him?

Little does she know, Bro is going through it. He is, after all, the one with eyes turning black, the one not reflecting in mirrors, the one who keeps burying his head into his girlfriend's neck with an insatiable thirst he's never known before. WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM???

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

Word Count: (to be determined)

(CH. 6)

The hobgoblin stood before her realized whose skin he wore—loose and wrinkled around the edges and festering gray, with coal-black eyes bulging from their sockets, meat and tendons caught between razor-sharp teeth dangling from his chin.

A pause. A deep inhale, like he was breathing himself back to life. 

He fell to his knees at her feet.

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[faibleprompts]

Only One

Hunger Games story based off of today's Faible prompt:

Katniss stood alone in her room within the Victor’s Village, her hands trembling as they clutched the edge of the sink. The gaping silence of the house echoed Peeta’s absence. The white tiles were pristine, almost mocking in their sterility. This was not home. Home was the smell of coal and pine, her old house and the sound of Prim’s laughter. Here, silence was punishment and peace a distant memory.

Her eyes met her reflection; a girl too young to carry such scars, and yet, there they were. Unseen, but felt in every breath, Peeta’s absence lingered like a ghost. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, though no one was there to hear her.

Suddenly, a knock at the door jolted her from her thoughts. Wiping her eyes swiftly, she composed herself and went to answer it. Standing on the porch was Effie Trinket, impeccably dressed, holding a small black envelope. Her usual garish cheerfulness was coated with an uncharacteristic solemnity.

“Katniss,” Effie said, carefully. “President Snow wants to see you. Immediately.” The words hung heavy, each syllable a weight pressing down on her chest.

Without waiting for a response, Effie turned on her heel and began to walk back towards the Capitol car waiting at the end of the path. Katniss felt a knot tighten in her stomach; nothing good ever came from Snow’s summons. Taking a deep breath, she followed. The air outside was crisp but did little to clear her mind.

As the car sped towards the Capitol, Katniss’s thoughts swirled in a storm of fear and defiance. Snow’s face loomed in her mind, a man whose smile was poison. She needed to be strong, she needed to survive, and maybe, just maybe, she could find a way to fight back.

—

Katniss stepped out of the car, her heart a steady drumbeat in her chest as she followed Effie into the Capitol building. The grandeur of the place had lost its luster long ago, leaving only the grating sensation of false opulence. Marble floors and ornate columns felt more like the bars of an elaborate cage.

Effie led her through a labyrinth of corridors until they stopped before a pair of heavy wooden doors. “Good luck,” Effie whispered, a rare touch of sincerity in her voice before she slipped away. Taking a deep breath, Katniss pushed open the doors and stepped into President Snow’s office.

Snow was seated behind an immense desk, surrounded by an eerie garden of white roses. The scent was overpowering, sickly sweet. "Ah, Katniss," Snow greeted her with a smile that never reached his cold, calculating eyes. "Please, have a seat."

Katniss sat, forcing her expression to remain neutral. "President Snow."

Snow leaned back, studying her as if she were a particularly intriguing specimen. "You've been quite the focus of attention, haven't you? And now, as the sole victor, more so than ever."

She swallowed the bitterness rising in her throat. "What do you want from me?"

"We have more to gain from this arrangement, Katniss, than you might realize," Snow said, twirling a white rose between his fingers. "The districts see you as a symbol now—of hope, of defiance. Perhaps it is time to redefine that symbol."

Her pulse quickened, but she kept her voice steady. "And how do you plan to do that?"

"By ensuring you remind them of fear," Snow replied smoothly. "You will participate in the Victory Tour, of course. And on this tour, you will extol the virtues of the Capitol, the strength it provides, the peace it ensures. You will pacify them, Katniss."

"And if I refuse?" she asked, knowing the answer but needing to hear it.

Snow’s smile turned icy. "Your family, your friends—everyone you care about—they are not beyond my reach. Do you understand?"

Katniss nodded slowly, the weight of her choices crashing down around her. Cooperation was her only option, for now. But if she could use this tour to gather information, to understand the Capitol’s plans, perhaps she could find a way to turn this against them.

"I understand," she said quietly. Snow’s gaze was intense, piercing, as if searching for any hints of rebellion.

"Good," he replied, satisfied. "The tour begins in a week. Prepare yourself."

As Katniss left the office, her mind was a whirlwind of plans and possibilities. Snow wanted her to be a puppet, but she had other ideas.

—

Katniss arrived back in District 12 just as the sun set, casting long shadows over the dusty roads. The familiar sights and smells offered a bitter comfort, a reminder of the contradictions in her life—opulence in the Capitol, oppression at home.

She made her way to the house in the Victor's Village, where her mother and Prim were waiting. The sight of their worried faces brought a pang to her heart. Prim ran to her, wrapping her arms tightly around Katniss's waist. "You're home," Prim whispered, her voice full of relief.

"For now," Katniss replied, her voice steady. "We need to talk."

They gathered around the kitchen table, and Katniss took a deep breath, choosing her words carefully. "President Snow is sending me on a Victory Tour," she began, watching their reactions. Her mother’s face tightened with fear, while Prim’s eyes filled with concern.

"What does that mean?" Prim asked softly.

"It means I need to be the Capitol's spokesperson. I’ll have to say things I don’t mean, to keep us all safe," Katniss explained. "He made it clear—if I don’t cooperate, he’ll come after those I care about. That means you, Gale, everyone."

Her mother placed a hand on Katniss’s arm. "We’ll be careful, Katniss. We’ll do whatever it takes to stay safe. But you must promise to be careful too."

Katniss nodded, the weight of the promise heavy on her shoulders. "I will. But we need to be prepared. I want you both to stay close to home, avoid drawing attention. Prim, don’t stray too far. And, no matter what you hear, remember: I am doing this for you."

Prim's eyes brimmed with tears. "What about Gale? He’ll want to help."

Katniss hesitated. Gale was a wild card, passionate and unpredictable. But his loyalty was unwavering. "I’ll talk to him. He needs to understand the risks. And he should be prepared to help in case something happens."

Her mother’s grip tightened. "And what about you, Katniss? How will you manage this?"

"I’ll survive," she answered, her voice firm. "I’ll find a way. I always do."

Katniss spent the next few days tirelessly coordinating with Gale, ensuring he understood the gravity of the situation and what was expected of him. They spoke in hushed tones, always wary of listening ears.

As the days passed, a plan began to take shape. Katniss would cooperate, gathering information and waiting for the perfect moment to strike back. Her family’s safety would always be her top priority, but she would not let Snow turn her into a puppet without a fight.

—

The night settled gently over District 12, blanketing the village in a rare tranquility. Katniss decided to use this precious time to be with her family. She gathered her mother and Prim in the small, warm kitchen of their Victor’s Village home. A fire crackled in the hearth, casting flickering shadows on the walls.

“Let’s cook something special tonight,” Katniss suggested, trying to keep her voice light. The heaviness of her impending departure lingered in every unspoken word, but she pushed those thoughts aside for now.

Prim’s face lit up, and she quickly began gathering ingredients from the pantry. “I can make the bread!” she exclaimed, flour dusting her fingers as she worked. Katniss’s mother bustled about, her focus a comforting constant. It was a balm to the unrest outside their walls.

As the delicious smells of baking bread and cooking stew filled the air, the three of them shared stories and laughter, bathed in the simple joy of being together. Katniss felt the warmth of her family’s love, knowing she would carry it with her wherever she went.

They sat down to eat, plates filled with a modest yet hearty meal—stew, bread, and a few precious greens. “This is perfect,” Katniss said softly, her heart aching with both gratitude and sorrow.

After dinner, they moved to the living room. Prim brought out her healer's kit, eager to show Katniss the new herbs and remedies she had learned. The pride in Prim’s voice was unmistakable, and it reminded Katniss of why she fought so hard to come back to her.

“Promise me you’ll keep learning, Prim,” Katniss said, her voice catching slightly. “The more you know, the safer you’ll be.”

“I promise,” Prim replied, her eyes serious and full of determination. “And you, Katniss—promise me you’ll come back safe.”

Katniss swallowed the lump in her throat. “I promise.”

As the night grew late, they gathered in front of the fire, wrapped in blankets. Katniss sang a soft lullaby, a song her father used to sing. The notes weaving around them, warming them more than the fire ever could.  

The flames flickered low and the house grew quiet, the weight of the world outside forgotten, if only for a moment. Katniss held onto the peace, knowing it would have to sustain her through the turbulence to come.

When she finally rose to go to bed, she glanced back at her family, etching the sight into her memory. Tomorrow she would face the Capitol, the Victory Tour, and all the dangers that came with them. But tonight, she was home, with the people she loved most.

—

You can finish this story for yourself at Faible: https://app.faible.ai/#/story/c84ab97a-3994-4dbe-b713-09737cb96cd0/1

[denimbex1986]

'****

As producer and lead actor, Cillian Murphy has brought to the screen a piercingly painful and sad story with a very literary intensity, juxtaposing the detail of the present with flashback memories of the past. It is about Ireland’s notorious Magdalene Laundries: the church’s homes for unwed mothers who were made to work in an atmosphere of wretchedness and shame and had their babies taken away and sold to foster parents. Enda Walsh has adapted the much admired novel by Claire Keegan and the director is Tim Mielants.

This subdued but absorbing and eventful film is rather different from Peter Mullan’s extravagant The Magdalene Sisters – which also featured Eileen Walsh in its cast – and different also from Stephen Frears’ bittersweet dramedy Philomena. Murphy shows us once again his sightless stare of fear and pain, as the witness to something terrible not just in the real world but within himself. He plays Bill, a coalman in County Wexford in the early 80s; a soft-spoken, thoughtful man who has built up a good business through years of hard work, though money worries are never far way. He is married to Eileen (Walsh), and they have many daughters whose education comes courtesy of the church and whose future weddings will doubtless cause more worry and expense.

One Christmas, good-hearted Bill appears to be on the verge of a midlife breakdown. Long submerged memories are rising to the surface, and he is in the habit of getting up in the middle of the night to make tea and gaze out of the window. He stops his van one day to talk to a poor boy who is pitiably collecting sticks, claiming only to want them for his dog but obviously, in the most un-Christmassy way, gathering winter fuel. Bill is assailed by his own memories of Christmas poverty: getting a hot water bottle for a present instead of the longed-for jigsaw puzzle.

And then the film shows something breaking his gloomy pain into the open, a terrible revelation that he has somehow been expecting. Delivering coal to the church laundry – a place from which locals avert their eyes, as if from Dracula’s castle – he walks straight in and sees the terrified girls for himself, like abused serfs. Each of them, he realises, resembles his own poor unmarried mother, who would assuredly have ended up in a place like this had she not been taken in by a wealthy local woman. The church sister – a dead-eyed performance of cool bureaucratic tyranny from Emily Watson – is icily aware that Bill is now in possession of a secret that could damage her and that, as a man, his (possible) objection would carry far more weight than one from the town’s women. But she has his daughters’ educational future in her hands.

There is something very Dickensian in this story, signalled by Bill’s boyhood ownership of David Copperfield, though with a fierce pessimism and anger that Dickens might not have favoured. And the ending is deeply strange; is it actually happening or not? I was so rapt, so caught up in this film, that I wasn’t aware that it was going to be the ending until the screen faded to black. It is an absorbing, committed drama.'

[fairytsuk1]

Incubus aizawa????

in hindsight, it was a joke! something silly, something that wasn't actually meant to come to fruition!

your friends had come to you, eager smiles and mischievous thoughts as the exclaimed that the legendary "Aizawa" would only present himself on the days leading up to Halloween and you had to do the ritual.

"are you sure?" you feel anxiety thrumming in your neck as you stared at the supposed picture of the Incubus... he was pretty attractive.

huge muscles with wispy hair that gave him such a manly aura, horns that stuck like mountains out his head and black hair that was luscious in nature but you reckoned could wrap around you like snakes.

he shouldn't be hot, but he looks exactly your type and it's been a bit of a dry spell lately...

"yes, you just have to say it! he's totally your type right?" kimiko explains excitedly, sleepover pajamas pink and cute as she gets in your face, "you wanna fuck him right?"

embarrassment burns in your core as you sit in the middle facing the framed photo of Aizawa; clad in your own thigh-high socks. apparently he liked those, he sounded like a pervert to you.

"oh my god, just shut up so I can do the ritual!"

and then you shift anxiously before beginning to murmur, growing to a chant.

"my daemon Aizawa, i give myself up to you. I want you to devour me whole, and if I shall not please you..." your minds blanks and there's a helpful whisper from toga, "you may feed me to your beloved three-headed cat, insomnia."

and nothing happens.

"i told you it was stupid! it was never gonna work!"

sighs of disappointment ring out around the circle of girls, and none of you can hear the heavy steps of a daemon making his way through your apartment with tired eyes and donning an all-black outfit.

you're sleeping soundly, and you're still wearing his favorite outfit. normally, well, more like rarely; aizawa liked to feed these weak little mortals to his cat and call it a day.

dare he say it, you were too cute to be eaten. and so you awoke with a heavy feeling on your chest and slick dripping between your legs.

"you give yourself up for me? you're a dedicated one, huh? and i'm a pervert? that's a bit mean."

you can hardly breathe and you're not even sure you want to with the mass whose shoulder come out of your chest ghostly, "wha? wha's goin' on? are you...!"

and then he's rising, fog coming off him in billows of clouds that dose the room in a heavy haze. he's intoxicating, and you feel yourself mewl as he climbs out of your body and looks down at you.

you were right, hair as black as coals that could strangle you at any moment. but he doesn't kill you, he just grins.

"giving yourself up to me is a huge sacrifice."

"i didn't!"

"oh, but you did, my love. you did when you wore..." he snaps the band of your socks, "these. and when you said that chant of course. i was going to take your body the minute it happened."

his hand, cold and veiny wraps itself around your throat as his grin grows even wider, "and one more thing."

"daemon is too aged. call me daddy, and i'll make you cum so hard you'll think you're dead. okay?"

against your better judgement, you nod.

"good. now, let's see what's under these pretty panties hm?"

and you give yourself up wholly to him once again, you just hope he leaves your soul alone after he's done with you.

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased to meet you, chapter 5

Summary: After moving to Jersey City, you meet a Benjamin Miller...

Pairing: Frankie Morales x French fem!Reader. And I guess Ben Miller x French fem!Reader 👀

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: Let's all pretend this is a world in which there is no such thing as visas... Also, heartfelt apologies to anyone from Jersey City, whose city I'm making up almost entirely, albeit very respectfully. It's the city of Reader's recovery ❤️

This chapter contains a direct nod/reference/homage/straight up plagiarism of one of @frannyzooey genius post that can be found here. I plead guilt. I love her and her brain, your Honour. Kelli, thank you for your help on this chapter. Ily more than words can express 🧡

Word Count: 4.8k.

[prev] * [series masterlist] * [next]

Chapter 5: Boy meets girl

There’s a hardware store, not too far from the bookstore where you work, a gigantic, monster of a place whose size fits that of this country. Alleys and alleys of power tools and appliances of all sorts, hammers, screwdrivers, hinges, rivets, nails, screws, bolts, and things you can’t even name in your native language. It’s your third attempt at getting the material you need to hang the black-out curtains you bought three months ago, currently laying in a shopping bag on your living-room floor. None of the four windows in your apartment have blinds, and if it doesn’t matter much in the living-room, you can’t sleep if the bedroom windows are not blacked out. You’ve been waking up at dawn since you moved in, and if it didn’t matter much back in February, it is August now, the summer flew by, and you’re exhausted. And it’s beginning to show… 

Standing in front of neatly displayed rows of… screws? Are these screws? You feel as out of your depth as if you were to perform brain surgery. You curse yourself as your mother’s voice rings in your ears, “Vraiment, tu ne pourrais pas être plus inutile. Écoute, tu n’es pas manuelle, sors de ma cuisine” [“Could you be more useless? You’re not a manual person, just get out of my kitchen”]. 

No, manual, you are not. However, you still need to hang up these damn curtains. And your mother can go grill her ass on smouldering coal because you will. Hang up. These damn. Curtains. 

“You need help with something?”

The loud and booming voice jolts you out of your thoughts. You’re mumbling, your face scrunched up in concentration. It’s a few seconds before you can extract yourself from the memory of your mother’s impersonal kitchen, the smell of chlorine burning your nostrils. The voice belongs to a very tall, very handsome man, standing a few feet behind you on your left. Thirty-five years of being a woman fending for herself in big cities and travelling on your own, distrust is something of a survival instinct. 

“No, I don't”, you shoot back reflexively before catching yourself. “Wait yes, I do, do you work here?” 

You eye him sceptically, scanning him up and down in appraisal with a raised eyebrow. Worn out dirty blue jeans, Metallica T-shirt, shaggy, dark blond hair, he’s not wearing any name tag nor the ugly green vest employees have to sport here. He flashes you a charming smile. Wow. Very charming. Plenty of good teeth. 

“Nope,” he says, obviously not deterred by your suspicious demeanour, “but you look lost and… you’re kinda blocking the view.” His deep voice rumbles in the alley, yet it’s not exactly unpleasant; almost velvety, it resonates in your chest.

“The what?”

“The view. I just need to grab…” he plunges past you and picks up a pack of small metallic whatever-the-hell-they-are, “… these. What are you looking for exactly?”

Interesting. He doesn’t look like he wants to leave. You can ride with that. 

“I’ve got these curtains, or drapes… no, big heavy curtains I need to hang in my flat. I mean apartment. I’ve no idea where to start.”

“Do you have a power drill? Your place, is it drywall or concrete?”

You’re pretty sure you’ve never looked dumber when you blurt out your answer of “Dry…what?”

—

“Please tell me you got his number.”

Rosie doesn’t mean any harm but the implicit allusion still makes you involuntarily wince. You try to cover it up and roll your eyes so hard you can feel your retinal muscles strain. 

“Ah ah,” you answer flatly. “Yes, I got his number, and he’s got mine.”

“And he’s gonna help you with the curtains?”

“With the curtains and something else maybe?”

Rosie’s eyebrows shot to her hairline as she nearly chokes on her rice. 

Tuesday is one of your two days off, and on Tuesdays you share lunch with her near the Jersey City Medical Center, where Rosie works as a nurse in the imaging center. “Work” being an inadequate word to describe her level of  commitment to the job. A few months after moving into your own place, you’ve successfully convinced her to negotiate more day shifts (“It’s ridiculous, Rosie, they’re just using you and you’re letting them. You never get to enjoy them gardens you’re so obnoxious about.”), and you soon instated a weekly date to catch up with each other. As with everything between you and Rosie, a new routine soon felt like an established tradition, and whether she’s working or not, you share lunch, gossip and deep thoughts every Tuesday. Over tacos, more often than not. As a joke (typical of Rosie’s humour) and because of the proximity of a taco place on the hospital’s grounds. Weather permitting, you sit outside. The New York City skyline draws a jagged line against the horizon. You’re fond of this view from Jersey City, different from the one tourists are usually fed through postcards, cheap art, tote bags and what not. You’ve always enjoyed a change of perspective. Across the Hudson bay, midtown Manhattan and its bustling cacophony, and further still, Brooklyn. And Greenpoint. An empty apartment and a bare window.

“What’s his name again?” she asks in between two sips of orange juice. 

“Benjamin. He asked me to call him Benny.”

She groans in approval. 

“You said he was tall?”

“Mmh”, you nod, swallowing your mouthful of nopales taco, “you’d like him, he’s a giant. Nearly two meters tall.” You ignore her clueless shrug, weights and measures a bottomless well of misunderstanding, and carry on with your bulleted list in a clinical tone. “Thick blond hair, on the darker side, rather unkempt, dark blue eyes, or maybe grey, I didn’t look too closely, good shoulders, good teeth, nice voice, what else… he was wearing a band t-shirt, but I can’t remember which one, something metal looking, with a skull on it? That’s a point for him –”

Rosie speeds up her shewing and dabs her mouth with her paper towel; you pause and wait for her intervention. 

“Wait, blond hair blue eyes? You kidding me? I thought we didn’t do those anymore?" 

“Oh trust me, he’s got nothing to do with Éric.”

It’s going to take more than your good word to convince Rosie. 

“How? Elaborate.”

You lower your taco and lean in closer for dramatic effect, so she can take in the mischievous glint in your eyes when you say, conspiratorially, “He’s fucking sexy, Rosie.” 

Her dark eyes grow wider, she folds her hand in mock prayer. 

“Oh my fucking god, tell me you texted him already.”

The levity of the conversation makes you giddy. You feel lightheaded, exchanging knowing looks and giggles over cheap tacos, as you discuss your next possible date with a ridiculously handsome man you met in a ridiculously large hardware store. You can’t help but recall where you were just over a year and a half ago, however hard you try to push back the memory, lest tears come prickling the corners of our eyes. You want to hug Rosie, crash your mouth onto hers, squeeze her tightly against you, so she can never ever doubt your love and gratitude.

“No”, you swallow thickly, “no I didn’t, I’m waiting until tomorrow, you know, the three days rule thingy…”

“Love”, she scoffs, “we live in the time of Tinder, that stupid rule expired like in 1997”.

Rosie treats sex the same way she handles the other aspects of her life: casual efficiency. She did date the birthday boy from her improv class, Kyle, aspiring Broadway actor, blond hair, blue eyes… Invested six years of her life into their relationship, sharing an overpriced apartment in Park Slope complete with succulents and two cats, only for him to break up with her the minute his parents threatened to stop financing his Bohemian Brooklyn lifestyle if he didn’t change at least one parameter of his life. That parameter being his girlfriend. A simple nurse with a crushing student loan, skin at least two shades too dark, the illegitimate daughter of a Colombian single mother, Rosie didn’t stand a chance. It didn’t matter that she put herself through med school or that Dolores was a business owner. She didn’t fit in the picture. There simply was no room for her in this wasp heaven, between Christmases in Aspen and summers in the Hamptons.

She hurt, then, you know she did, the true reason behind the break-up causing a shockwave that reached far beyond the end of a romantic relationship. The following summer, you convinced her to join you in Europe, and together you spent a week in Berlin, exploring the city museums and touristic landmarks by day, getting blackout drunk at night. Rosie being Rosie, she grieved for a while, but all things considered quickly moved on. She has been, ever since, on a strict one-night-stands regimen, enabled by recent technology, enough to sustain her sexual drive but no further injury. 

“Text him now. We do it together. I don’t trust you. But no date on Sunday, we’re going to my mom for chicharron.”

“Rosie, the guy I’d skip your mom’s chicharron for is not fucking born yet.”

Well he is. But you lost that number…

—

On your first date, you meet Benny in a crowded bar downtown. Slightly nervous, he put in an effort: clean hair, clean jeans, clean-shaven. 

Your choice of clothing caused quite the fuss over the meal in Dolores’s living-room, until you brilliantly won the argument. 

“I know what I’m gonna wear: I’m gonna wear that 70’s jeans –” you ignored Rosie’s protests, “the one that I got in your store –” you pointed your fork at Dolores, “that looks two sizes too small, and my T-shirt that says ‘The future is female’. You wanna piece of this sweet ass, you better be a feminist.”

“Shit.” Rosie kept a straight face as she raised an eyebrow. “That’s pretty good, actually”. 

The last time you went on a date, Bush was in Office. The year was 2007, and it was with Éric. Yet, you’re strangely relaxed, confident, even. Benny’s the one who asked you out, and you’re here with him; in your mind he’s out of your league, it’s apparent that for some reason, he thinks you’re out of his, so whatever happens next is a bonus. 

The two of you trade the usual information over a pint of beer. Benny likes the great outdoor, live music, running in the morning. He tells you he enjoys singing and that he plays the guitar; you note that he doesn't make it sound like he’s boasting. It’s just one of the things he loves and wants you to know about. You like museums, books, analog photography, but you find several common grounds with food, dogs, and movies. That’s more than you ever shared with Éric. You remain vague as to why you left Paris but ramble on for twenty minutes about your former job, the priceless first editions, the patrimonial treasures, the secret access to the rooftop of the Hôtel de Ville de Paris, until you stop abruptly to apologise for talking too much. Old habits die hard. He asks you to keep talking, says it’s “pretty awesome” when people love what they do so much.

He mentions his previous career in the military but doesn’t elaborate on what he does now. He talks a lot about his older brother, a guy named Will, whom he describes as his role model and the reason he joined the army. He drives a Mustang 1967, something he’s proud of, says it was a lifelong dream he paid for in sweat and blood. He’s touching, like an overgrown kid, when he speaks about his hometown of Somewhere-you-don’t-catch, Colorado. You ask him to repeat the name twice. He thinks your accent is nice and he tells you as much. He’s got good shoulders, and an endearing smile.

His honesty is unsettling, bordering on bluntness. It’s refreshing. What you see is what you get. 

When you get home later that night, you call Rosie and feed her each and every detail. You certainly had a good time, but the giggly conversation with your best friend is priceless. You’ve already agreed to see him again. You’re more carefree than you’ve been in a long while.  

—

The following Sunday, you take him to an obscure cinema to see a black and white Argentinian art-house film with subtitles. You feel bad about this one, but you want to know if you’re losing your time. You’re not. He’s not into it, but for you, he’s willing to be. After the movies, he proposes a drink; neither of you wants the evening to end. 

In the bar, he hardly sits still, avoiding your eyes and rubbing his palms dry on his jeans. His nervousness puzzles you, you thought the date was going fine, maybe you overdid it a little with the movie. Rosie’s going to shred you.

“Look”, he starts, his loud voice startling you, “before we go further, I mean, you know, if you want to, I mean go further, I gotta tell you what I do. For a living.” 

Or maybe you’re going to shred Rosie for pushing you to text him. You nod, indicating you’re listening.

“I’m in the MMA circuit”. 

Your face remains impassive. That doesn’t tell you anything. You wait for him to expand, but he just looks at you, lips sucked in and brows furrowed. It tugs at something inside your chest, you want to reassure him, or at least put him at ease.  

“Ok… MMA is a French insurance company, but I got a notion that’s not what you’re talking about,” you say tentatively.

“No, that’s er… Mixed Martial Arts.”

“Oh, you mean the thing where you wear funny costumes and throw chairs at –”

His face takes on an indignant look and you understand you’ve said something stupid, perhaps even hurtful. But the way he speaks next, sitting up straight in his chair, animated and passionate, is a definite improvement from his anxious behaviour.  

“No! Fuck no! That’s WWE! No, MMA is a real sport, you use techniques from different combat sports, like, from all over the world, it’s based on –”

“Wait”, you interrupt, “you’re telling me you get hit in the face? For a living? Real punches?”

“No,” he scoffs, “‘cause I'm fucking good, but yeah, it happens.”

“I don’t believe you”. You shake your head to emphasise your disbelief. 

“What do you mean, you don’t believe me?” 

“Well, look at your face! You can’t look this pretty and get hit in the grill on a daily basis!”

He relaxes in his chair, flashing you his most charming, mischievous smile. 

“You think I’m pretty?”

You narrow your eyes, seemingly not impressed. 

“Oh come on, you know you are. Can I come to see a fight, one of these days? When’s the next one? I can cheer you on.”

“I don’t know,” he hesitates, “don’t take this the wrong way, but I can’t imagine you in this kinda crowd…”

“Gimme enough alcohol and I’ll mingle in any kind of crowd.” 

Eager to make your point, you down half your beer in two sips, draining the tension from his frame. He looks like himself again. You ask him if there’s good money in it, he shrugs, explains that with his military pension it’s enough, he doesn’t need much. That’s another point for him.

“So that’s not a dealbreaker?” he asks.

“No. A dealbreaker is if you’re a Trump supporter or… or if you think equality is a dirty word… or… You’re not a Trump supporter, are you?”

“Nope.” His lips make a popping sound on the P, and you briefly wonder what they would feel like pressed against yours.

“OK, then. We’re good,” you declare.

You’re good. 

—

Before your third date, Rosie comes over and waltzes into your apartment with a command.

“This time you're wearing a dress.”

You don’t own many, but she digs out a short wrap dress in a dark shade of blue that you bought years ago in Sorrento and haven’t worn since. The kind of outfit you only feel brave enough to wear on a holiday abroad, far from home and your usual self, only to relegate it to the depth of your closet once you come home to your everyday life. It certainly is flattering and, as she declares, it means business, so you comply. 

When you meet Benny outside the dinner, his hungry expression speaks a thousand words. Rosie was right, as always. You share fries and milkshakes, the thing so quintessentially American, you fancy yourself in one of the 80s flicks you grew up watching. The conversation between you is easy. But tonight, you both have something else in mind.  

His house is small and you’ve been to tidier places, but it’s clean and homey. The small living-room is dwarfed by a big, comfortable looking leather couch in a caramel tone. There is no ceiling lamp, the warm light is provided by two disparate table lamps and a floor lamp holding up straight with duct tape. Above the couch, a poster of Twin Peaks, and on the adjacent wall, a large framed print of a colourful landscape, a lake surrounded by rocks and fir trees and on the horizon, a mountain, which you assume to be in Colorado. Acoustic and electric guitars are laid against furniture across the room. There’s a vintage stereo and a record player, no books but neatly stacked rows of vinyls, a big television and, you note with delight, a VCR player.  

“I didn’t think you’d come here tonight,” he apologises, swirling around the place, putting dirty dishes in the sink, picking a T-shirt from the floor, kicking a pair of running shoes near the door. 

Walking over to the shelves to take a peek at the records, your attention is drawn to two framed pictures. In one of them, an official-looking portrait, a young Benjamin stands proudly against a plain blue studio background, looking dashing in a military uniform. His hair is short and a lighter shade of blond, his serious face in contrast with his childlike features. You pick up the other one to study. A little kid with a wild mane of honey blond hair, dressed in a cowboy outfit, is holding a baby in his arms, standing on an outdoor patio. His face is grave, and a golden retriever stands by his side. The colours got saturated by the years, the picture now in shades of orange. 

“My brother and me,” he says, taking the frame from your hands and replacing it face down on the shelf. “You wanna drink something?” he offers, standing so close now, his hooded gaze fixed on your lips. 

You shake your head no. He undoes the knot of your dress, and holds it open, taking in your body, his blue eyes darkened with lust. 

“Fuck, baby, I’ve wanted to do this all night. You’re so beautiful.”

You let him crash his lips onto yours and open up for him, trying to fight back thoughts of the last person to ever call you baby.

— 

After that night, you see each other twice, sometimes three times a week. You meet in bars, at the movies, or directly at his house. It’s three weeks before he asks you to meet Will. You agree without hesitation, you understand that you have to be granted his older brother’s seal of approval before he can commit himself further with you. Will is slightly shorter than his younger brother, strongly built, bulkier. He wears his blond hair short, and his sharp chin is toned down by a neatly trimmed beard. An independent contractor, he's responsible for a support group at the VA and gives regular lectures to new recruits. He’s a quiet man, observant and reserved. To your surprise, the two of you strike an instant friendship. A profound bond that makes Benny suspicious at first, until he realises there’s nothing remotely sexual about it. You recognise something in each other, an original wound, deeply rooted in your childhood, one you two have yet to disclose. You share an interest in books and museums. An art student, he dropped out of college to enrol after 9/11, his little brother just fresh out of high school following suit. Their mother still resents him for it. Strangely enough, Benny never talks about his years in the army. It is Will who provides you with this information. 

It’s another couple of weeks before you introduce him to Rosie. She takes an immediate liking to him. They’re not unlike each other, open, enthusiastic and straightforward. But mostly, she likes him for the way he looks at you, with covetous eyes, for the way he makes you feel worthy of it, for the way he makes you laugh.

Benny runs every morning, cold, rain or hangover be damned. He tirelessly asks you to come with him, you tirelessly send him to hell with a hearty laugh. When you order food, you bet on who will get the most copious dish. You watch marathons of classic horror movies. You spend entire evenings debating which installment of the Alien franchise is the best, and whether The Shining is a Stephen King adaptation or a Kubrick movie.

It’s a longer while until you agree to stay the whole night at his place, always coming up with a good excuse, but after having done it once, you do it more and more often. 

He asks you to come with him and Will to Colorado for Thanksgiving, but you decline, arguing the holiday doesn’t mean anything to you. He’s not deterred, he never is, and asks you again before Christmas. This time, you’re celebrating with Rosie and Dolores. His third attempt is for New Year’s Eve. You loathe what you hardly consider as a holiday, but you don’t find it in you to turn him down, instead telling him you’d love to kick in the new year with him, provided you stay at his place. He surprises you with Irish whiskey and French cheese and the complete collection of The Tales from the Crypt on VHS. It’s by far your best date, although you don’t watch TV for long. As often happens, you end up naked and entangled on the living-room floor. 

Benny likes it rough, and so do you. You’ve had four and a half years of tepid intercourse with Éric’s flaccid dick, rolled in cold sheets in your pitch-dark bedroom, before he stopped fucking you altogether. You love it when Benny bends you over the kitchen table and pulls your jeans down, nudges your legs open with his booted feet, spits on your cunt and shoves his hard cock inside you without any other preamble. You love it when he cups your pussy through your clothes and presses against the fabric until he makes you come in the dark of the movie theater. You love it when he drags you out of the shower and hauls you onto his shoulder, a wet, laughing mess, throws you on the bed and fucks you with your legs hooked on his shoulders. You love it when you’re lying with him on the couch, and he grabs the remote, pausing whatever it is you’re watching and tossing it on the floor before lifting your shirt with a growl of “you think you can rub these fucking gorgeous tits on me and I ain’t gonna do nothing about it?” 

He’s got a filthy mouth, you love that too, and gets a kick out of detailing the nasty things he’s about to do to you, his deep voice thrumming through you like boulders down a cliff. He texts you when you’re at work to tell you he’s fucking his fist to the scent of your shampoo on his sheets. And you love this, too. One day, you ask him if he minds your sensible underwear, does he wish you wore more intricate and refined lingerie, lace and such? His answer is unequivocally straight-forward, “baby, I don’t give a shit what you wear as long as you can take it off fast enough.” To the point.

He fits you like a glove, the girth of him sliding perfectly inside you, filling you up without stretching you, you’re always ready to get down to it. You don’t let him fuck you bare, however, even though you two are clean and agreed from the beginning to be exclusive. You tell him it’s because you don’t use any contraception. “It’s a feminist statement, Benjamin, women are fertile four days a month while men can impregnate us 365 days a year. Contraception shouldn’t be our fucking problem”, and Benny doesn’t argue. He never does. And when you tell him it’s political, you almost believe it yourself, it’s so much easier than to acknowledge the true reason. 

There would be clues for him to pick up, if he only knew that he was to look for them. But how could he? He’s never been to your apartment. Never got around to hanging these curtains. He would happily spend every waking hour in your company, but he understood early on that you need long periods of time on your own. Your apartment is where you retreat, then. Sometimes you wake up with a start in the middle of the night and fumble blindly in bed. When your hands find his body, you turn onto your side; he doesn’t think much of it, it’s probably just a bad dream. He has a lot of these himself. You told him about Éric, eventually, and the reason why you moved here. He listened through clenched teeth and tight fists, and when he fucked you after that, it was the softest he had ever been. He treats you like a wounded wild animal: his hand always extended, letting you approach at your own pace. He has no way of knowing your heart is hollowed in the shape of another man. 

—

You settle into a comfortable routine, one that the two of you enjoy. Unless you chose to be alone, you spend Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights at his place. On Sundays, when you’re not driving to New York with Will to visit some exhibition or other, Benny likes to take you upstate for a hike, and more often than not, draws you away from the trail to fuck you standing against a tree, the bark bruising the soft flesh of your back, the cold biting your naked legs, his hand pressed against your mouth to muffle your mewling sounds. You go to every one of his fights, screaming his name until your lungs burn, embarrassing the fuck out of Will, and afterward, you languidly suck the tension out of his cock, his sore hand tugging your soft hair, telling him how well he did, how watching him fight makes you proud and turns you on, even when he loses, which he rarely does. 

Tuesdays are for Rosie and on Fridays you’re on your own. That’s when he meets “the guys” in their usual dingy bar outside of town. “The guys”, this tightly woven pack of men, the individuals indistinguishable from each other in your outsider’s eyes. When Benny talks about them, it’s with such devotion, such absolute loyalty, you wonder what they’ve been through together. You don’t ask, even though for the first time in a long while, you actually genuinely care; he’s not innately secretive, but there are underlying forces in his refusal to discuss his time in the army that you don’t fully understand. In the meantime, you provide him with something else, warmth and a cosy familiarity. 

Once, you tried teasing him about what you called their silly code-names, Pope, Catfish, Redfly, but were quick to realise you struck a nerve. You know Will is Ironhead, because he told you himself, but that’s as far as it gets. Now you refer to them as The Goonies. You made sure Benny knows it’s affectionate. 

So you are quite happily surprised when, on a Sunday morning, he announces nervously that Redfly’s in town the following week, and if you’d want to meet them.

“Meet who? The Goonies?” you ask, your spoonful of cereal hanging in midair.

“Oh fuck off,” he shoots back, failing to keep a straight face.

“Oh my god it’s happening! This is a code red! I’m gonna meet the Goonies!”

“You ok with that?”

“Sure! You know it’s one of my favourite movies.”

“No but for real, baby. I’m serious. It’s important. You wanna meet the guys?

God, he’s cute when he’s nervous. You lower your spoon and put on your softest smile when you reply. 

“Yes, Benjamin Miller. I do want to meet the guys.” 

“Ok. It’s done, then. Now c’mere, I’m gonna fuck those glorious tits and come all over that pretty face.”

“Can I finish my cereal first?”

"Nope”.

You love that popping sound.

****

Thank you for reading till the end! If by any chance you liked it and would like to read further installments, I made a taglist.

Taglist (thank you💕): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine

[rcksmith]

Not you — Five Hargreeves

Requests: “Five Hargreeves x fem!reader, Fluff prompts 9, 52 and 53, please? (You can do this whenever you feel like it) Five and Y/n are both hit by one of Hazel and Cha-Cha’s bullets in the Gimbel Brothers store and they immediately go to the academy (Five wants Y/n treated as soon as possible.) after they’re fine, the siblings start to question them on Five’s protectiveness over Y/n”

“Hii could I request 4 & 23 off the fluff prompts for Five pls ty 😌✨”

Fluff prompts:

4. “Sweetheart, you’re my entire world”

9. “So you're saying that girl is your girlfriend?!" "No, that girl is my wife!”

23. “i’ve dreamt about this.”

52. "Help her first."

53. “There are no limits when it comes to you. I’ll do anything to keep you safe.”

A/N: We not tolerate any pedophilia here !!

I write about Five with their 20s. I write the same about the characters of Harry Potter.

I hope you guys like💖I decided to compile these two requests, since they were the same energy and they prompts connect to a central plot. I added all the elements that were asked for individually, and made sure that all ideas were respected and written down. Good reading.

I used here some fragments of the central plot of Five, but, guys, keep in mind that he is 20 years old, and that when he comes back to 2019 Five does not make a mistake in the calculations. I changed the location of the fight too, but a really I hope you, Anon # 1, don't mind.

English is not my first language, so I so sorry if have a mistake.

Requests are open. Love you ❤️

Couple: Five Hargreeves / Fem! Reader.

Warnings: blood, mention of death, swearing, fluff too.

— — — — —

You remembered perfectly when you met Five Hargreeves, the commission's golden ball, The Handler's award-winning shamrock. If you closed your eyes, even after years, you could still smell the male cologne wafting in the air, and you could relive the same feeling in the pit of your stomach that you had when he looked at you with those obsedian eyes.

Five Hargreeves was gorgeous. Absurdly gorgeous. But absurdly arrogant, boastful, presumptuous and completely absent of any delicacy in relation to empathy and kindness. He was the type who would open the door for you to enter first, but who would be the first to make fun of your erroneous reasoning.

And that was why, at the time, when you were assigned to be his partner, you lived in conflict with what you really felt. It was a mixture of tantrum and physical attraction.

But unlike all the people around Five, when he spit fire at you with all the anger at his difficult temper, you didn't run. In fact, when it exploded the first time in front of you, you crossed your arms, arched an eyebrow and looked at him with boredom.

“Have you finished your show yet?” You said, as if you didn't care, leaning against the hood of the car while Five screamed through the 7 winds “Stop to imply with everything.”

Five had been your partner for a few months now and it became clearer each day that the irritation was mutual. He made it perfectly clear that you pissed him off until his last hair.

But, unlike you, it was for another reason.

Shit, you were a fucking goddess! Your beauty was notorious, but that was not all that caught his attention. You were smart, canny, brave, Five never saw you in fear of any situation or shaken by any scene of blood. You knew your goals and went after them. It was strong, decisive, and, goddamn, he loved it. You had a fist, you were firm, and you always made it very clear that you were no helpless maiden.

It felt like you had gotten out of his imagination, from the daydreams in which Five rambled about what kind of woman he admired. And, hell, you came with the full package. It was a combination of overwhelming beauty, intelligence, dexterity, and he never thought that someone like that could be real.

But of course you were. And now Five was completely irritated because you were real, and not just another his dream and daydream in which a sublime woman starred.

“To Imply?” Five turned to you, eyes on fire “To Imply?!”

“Like a 2-year-old who didn't take his afternoon nap. It's not the end of time, it doesn't have to be childish.”

Now Five felt himself ignite. He was a dry, rough fire and you were gasoline, igniting everything saw ahead.

Was that damn woman calling he a child?! You?! Just you, the person whose Five wanted to tie the bed and do all kinds of sinful things.

Oh hell no!

Five came forward, furious, like an angry god, his coal eyes never leaving your direction.

“Childish, isn't it?” He snarled “I'm going to show you the childish!”

Five held your face tightly in his hands and pressed your lips to his. Fierce, needy, set on fire, lost in half sentences of feelings about you. He slid his hands to the back of your neck, closing his fingers in your hair and invading your mouth with his tongue, letting you taste the caffeine, danger and lust he had.

You sighed, or Five, or both. You held him as close as he was, with the two of you being on the same mission: to conquer, to take, to possess. But Five had an extraordinary intensity, a magnitude that managed to win you

Then your touch became more docile, your kiss became submissive and you were surrendered. When Five walked away, not with his body, he still held you against him, but with his head, enough to look you in the eye, you sighed.

“I’ve dreamt about this.” You gave up your game, because you couldn't pretend anymore, and Five responded by kissing you again, this time tasting your whole mouth.

After that day, Five and you never came apart. You two were like a dynamic duo, crime partners in the morning and intense lovers at night.

But Five spent so much time with affection, love and caring being denied that when, on a night when work got the best of him, Five fell into the bed you shared in a Motel room, very close to your lap and you smiled sweetly and ran your fingers through his black hair, establishing the affection there, Five was catatonic.

His wild mind wanted to take it away and go, tell you to swallow those loving gestures and that he would never need them. That they were a nuisance, a distraction.

But his body and heart... well, they begged Five to stay another second. Just one more second enjoying that touch, the care, the importance that someone felt for him. He liked to be pampered, who knew.

So he ended up falling asleep with your touch and, after that day, Five realized that if his body and heart couldn't get any further from you, then no one would ever take you away from him. You would stay with him, until the end. As long as you wanted to stay.

And you wanted to. You wanted all the stages, all the moments, all the fights. You wanted Five, completely. And after some time like that, he said that you two were going to get married. It wasn't a request, it wasn't a speculation, it was a fact and that's it. You laughed, it was Five's style to be embarrassed about something and treat it more coarsely, just because he didn't know how to deal with the emotions he felt.

“Of course I do.” You reassured him by bringing your hands to his face, tracing affectionate circles on his cheek with your thumb.

“You would have no other option.” He grunted, not looking at you, trying to divert attention from his own racing heart.

You laughed and sealed the future of the two of you with a kiss.

After five years of making it official, Five said he had found a way for him to get home. And as he spoke, you noticed a flickering hesitation in his eyes. You knew, at that moment, that Five would leave it behind if there was a chance that you wouldn't want to go along. He promised to love you, in joy and sadness, in difficult times and in good times, and he never broke a promise.

Five Hargreeves would stay for you. In 1963, in 1988, in 2019, it didn't matter the season, the year. It wouldn't be worth anything if didn't have you by his side.

But, like him, it was logical that you would never abandon him, ever. So you went along. It was together in the murder in 1963, it was together at the time of the target, and it was together when he jumped in the portal. You were with Five when he reunited with his family, they all amazement by the 13 year old little brother who disappeared to reappear as a man of 25. On top of that accompanied by a girl.

But Five still couldn't administer his emotions properly, he still couldn't say that he missed his brothers and that being without his family had been terrible. His past contained many shipwrecks and he did not know how to open up about it. After so many years alone and then killing without any judgment, it was difficult to connect with emotions.

So, instead of saying everything that screamed inside him, after just some time with the siblings he took your hand and pulled you out, telling the Hargreeves that he would go after a decent coffee.

“I wish I could have talked to them better.” You grumble whit Five and he rolled his eyes.

“As if they were going to understand the things you were going to explain.” He murmured, covering the whole issue of the Commission and time jumps.

“This is not difficult to explain.” You raised your left hand, signaling the silver circle that hugged your finger.

Five laughed, sipping his coffee.

“You will be my wife forever, there is plenty of time for you to tell that.”

But as soon as Five's words had just left your lips, blowing in the air like fog, the door to the store opened, and you two didn't have to turn around to find out who they were. Years on the commission have earned you enough training to even recognize the sound of their footsteps.

The exchange of looks that Five and you gave was enough to know what each one was thinking and how they would act. That was your secret language, the superpower that you two shared. No words were needed to understand each one like the back of your hand.

You took a deep breath, while your fingers on your right hand steadied yourself on the coffee cup and Five on the knife. There was no waiting for speeches, exchanging words, you both knew that the Commission would send the best agents besides you, and Hazel and Cha-Cha were not known to be late at work.

Then the action started, Five turned and teleported with the knife, shoving it into the leg of one of the agents covered in rabbit masks. You didn't stay behind and swivel your chair around, throwing the sizzling coffee into the second's hands, causing him to drop the gun on the floor. You didn't wait to kick him in the chest, making him stagger backwards as you got up from the chair. You and Five were good, but so was Hazel and Cha-Cha, and you couldn't count on the powers to dodge physical attacks.

Everything was very fast indeed, windows were broken, punches were exchanged, blood was plucked. But when you looked to the side and saw who was probably Cha-Cha pushing Five against a broken glass stake, you understood why love at work was so dangerous. You understand completely. Because you've lost your focus. It took a thousandth of an instant for years of training and improvement to be thrown out the window. Only the possibility of Five getting hurt got you off track, and that was fatale.

The agent who fought with you took advantage of your distraction, reaching for the gun that was on the floor in that split second. And a shot reverberated through the place.

Suddenly, the world for Five stopped the axis. Everything was suspended, appalled, frozen. And in that very second, his body shivered from head to toe, as if misfortune had sighed in his neck. Five Hargreeves never feared anyone, even death itself. But as soon as he heard the sound of the shot, Five tasted death. Was rough, metallic and cruel, the blood drained from the body and the world released a dark and funeral note, sinking into a black sea.

Because fear is not the bullet hitting you, but someone you love.

Five turned back, eyes wide, hands shaking, and he didn't know what was beating faster: his fear or his heart.

He would remember that moment as the most cruel and frightening of his entire life, years in the apocalypse and killing had no comparison to the terror that was seeing your white shirt start to be stained with blood, the bullet hole marking your abdomen. You looked up at him, shocked, livid, and Five could see death perfectly, pulling the vitality out of your eyes.

He didn't think, he didn't reason, he just teleported himself to you, taking your body in his arms and teleported you two away from there. Five’s hands were shaking, a visceral pain snaking through his body and suffocating him with the worst sensation Five had ever felt in his life.

He took you both to the Hargreeves mansion in the blink of an eye, his powers failing when the blue flash left you both in the giant living room.

“Five!”

Maybe it was Luther's voice, or Klaus, or Diego, he didn't know. Everything was a distant echo, a note submerged in the water. Five saw or heard nothing but your body in his arms, your eyes closed and face frighteningly pale, his right hand, which was pressing on your wound, was already soaked in blood.

It was too much blood, the smell was overwhelming, and for the first time in a long time, Five Hargreeves was in despair.

Hands touched his shoulders, and Grace's voice was heard in the background. But he didn't want treatments, whatever the goddamn his wounds were going to be.

“Help her first!” Five shouted, his voice finding strength in the terror he felt. And also in fury.

The Handler would pay for that, and so would Hazel and Cha-Cha. And, by God, the whole world would pay if you never opened your eyes again.

“Right now.” Maybe it was Pogo “But, Five, are you…”

“No!” He ordered “She first!”

Then Grace's hands took you out of his arms and Five refused to leave you for even a second. He was beside you at the operating table, holding your hand, with him bloody fingers of your blood and the agent he had fought.

But Five didn't care about the himself state, the people around it, or anything. His eyes were focused on you, his face frozen in a livid expression.

And when Grace said that you would need a blood transfusion and Five barely let her finish speaking before rolling up the manga and extending his arm, the siblings Hargreeves and Pogo were shocked. What they saw in Five's eyes was not a man afraid of losing someone, but of losing the person he loved.

I shouldn't have come back. Was Five's first thought when the surgery ended well and you were still asleep. It was his fault that you almost died. And everything was buzzing in Five's head like a propellant.

“So…”

Klaus appeared in the kitchen, with the siblings, while Five was washing the blood from his hands, now calmer since you were alive.

“That was heavy.” Luther let out a little gasp, a kind of choked laugh.

“Aren't you going to tell us what happened?” Allison sat at the table.

“She almost died because of my decision, that's what happened.” Five replied, turning and picking up a cloth from the table, drying his hands.

“Five...” Allison made his eyes go towards his sister “Who is she, actually ?”

Five gave a bitter laugh. Who were you? How would he explain it?

You are everything. The reason wake up everyday was good, what made the summer breeze and the sun's rays warm, the reason why his world was still spinning.

Who were you? It was absolutely everything for Five.

“Someone very important.” His whispered escaped.

“So you're saying that girl is your girlfriend ?!" Luther looked at Five in shock, as if the possibility of him having a girlfriend was absurd.

“No.” Five looked at Luther with fire in his eyes, his voice hoarse “That girl is my wife!”

The room's breath evaporated, everyone was dumbfounded and bewildered. But Grace came in at that moment, saving Five from continuing that conversation.

“She woke up.” His mother's voice was soft, and Five dropped everything he was doing and disappeared into the blue flash.

The first thing he noticed when he entered that room was you sitting on the bed, your back against the headboard.

“Hey...” the smile you gave made Five's world spin again.

He didn't wait a second before walking up to you in quick steps, holding your face in his hands and sealing your lips in a desperate kiss, as if that could prove that everything was fine.

“I thought I lost you.” He whispered against your lips, hands shaking, thumbs stroking yours cheeks.

“Bad vase doesn't break early.” You joked and Five laughed softly, his forehead touching your. “Were you hurt?”

He denied it, still with you, as if letting you was impossible. Maybe it was.

“I got distracted, I'm sorry that we let them escape and...”

Five interrupted your sentence

“Sweetheart…” You stopped, bewitched by his tone of voice “You’re my entire world.”

Five wasn't calling Hazel and Cha-Cha right now. He would kill that entire Commission later. Later. Now the only thing that mattered was you.

“I shouldn't have broken our contracts with the commission. I shouldn't have put you in this.” He said “But ... but I am very selfish, and even though I knew it would be better to let you go back to the Commission, I cannot live without you...”

“Hey, I not go come back.” You held his hands that were on your face, looking at him with love "My place is with you.”

“I promise you that I will never let anyone else hurt you. Even if I have to kill every single person on this planet. ” Five guaranteed “There are no limits when it comes to you. I'll do anything to keep you safe. ”

You smiled, put your lips together in a passionate kiss and whispered:

“I only need you, my love. Forever.”

[thelustybraavosimaid]

Mance nodded. "Good. You'll go with Jarl and Styr on the morrow, then. Both of you. Far be it from me to separate two hearts that beat as one." (Jon II, ASoS)

--

Two hearts that beat as one. Mance Rayder's mocking words rang bitter in his head. (Jon III, ASoS)

To separate two hearts that beat as one is a curious phrase.

If one of my men told me his sister was in peril, I would tell him that was no concern of his. Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard's heart. (Jon VI, ADwD)

--

"The heart is all that matters. Do not despair, Lord Snow. Despair is a weapon of the enemy, whose name may not be spoken. Your sister is not lost to you."

"I have no sister." The words were knives. What do you know of my heart, priestess? What do you know of my sister?

Melisandre seemed amused. "What is her name, this little sister that you do not have?"

"Arya." His voice was hoarse. "My half-sister, truly…"

"…for you are bastard born. I had not forgotten. [...]" (Jon VI, ADwD)

--

"You are cruel to come to my hill, cruel. I gorged on grief at Summerhall, I need none of yours. Begone from here, dark heart. Begone!" (Arya VIII, ASoS)

The "two hearts that beat as one" had already been separated, way back in Jon II, AGoT.

"Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle. Who knows?" (Jon II, AGoT)

--

She yearned to see her mother again, and Robb and Bran and Rickon...but it was Jon Snow she thought of most. She wished somehow they could come to the Wall before Winterfell, so Jon might muss up her hair and call her "little sister." She'd tell him, "I missed you," and he'd say it too at the very same moment, the way they always used to say things together. She would have liked that. She would have liked that better than anything. (Arya I, ACoK)

There is a quote of Jon's that parallels this.

He missed his true brothers: little Rickon, bright eyes shining as he begged for a sweet; Robb, his rival and best friend and constant companion; Bran, stubborn and curious, always wanting to follow and join in whatever Jon and Robb were doing. He missed the girls too, even Sansa, who never called him anything but "my half brother" since she was old enough to understand what bastard meant. And Arya…he missed her even more than Robb, skinny little thing that she was, all scraped knees and tangled hair and torn clothes, so fierce and willful. Arya never seemed to fit, no more than he had...yet she could always make Jon smile. He would give anything to be with her now, to muss up her hair once more and watch her make a face, to hear her finish a sentence with him. (Jon III, AGoT)

--

She would have given anything if Jon had been here to call her "little sister" and muss her hair. Not that it needed mussing. She'd seen her reflection in puddles, and she didn't think hair got any more mussed than hers. (Arya V, AGoT)

It's the memory of Arya's laugh that kept him warm on the (eighteen days?) trip to the Wall, which directly implies that Arya is the symbol of warmth to him.

The memory of her laughter warmed him on the long ride north. (Jon II, AGoT)

--

Chunks of coal burned in iron braziers at either end of the long room, but Jon found himself shivering. The chill was always with him here. In a few years he would forget what it felt like to be warm. (Jon III, AGoT)

He feels lonely without his family, but he misses Arya the most especially, even more than Robb, who he himself described as his best friend and constant companion.

[ladytshelby]

So We Meet Again

Tommy Shelby x f!Reader

Part 1

Summary: Reader goes to The Garrison after work and sees the man she's been thinking of all week. Just overall sweetness where they both have a nice evening that will hopefully lead to something more.

Word Count: 3419

Warning: mild swearing, drinking, some kissing, and things (if I left anything out, please let me know).

I have finally finished the 2nd part of "That First Meeting." I desperately love sweet Tommy and cannot get enough of him. In my opinion, soft Tommy and love-struck Tommy are the best.

I hope you enjoy the story. Let me know what you think.

It's been a week since you met the infamous Thomas Shelby at the fancy club your best friend Sarah dragged you to, and you would be lying to yourself if you said you weren’t thinking about him.

You often catch yourself thinking about his piercing blue eyes or sharp smile. The way the air seems to be sucked out of any room he’s in. Your meeting can’t be called anything but brief. You shared a drink, a few laughs, a couple of glances, an evening you desperately want to experience again and again.

But to your dismay, he still hasn’t called you. Deep down you knew he probably wasn’t going to. He didn’t get your number thanks to his brother beating someone to a bloody pulp and ruining the moment. He said he would find it and you imagined him frantically looking through the phone book like a mad man whose sole mission was to get a hold of you, but that’s just the hopeless romantic in you talking.

“Hey, are you listening to me?”

You look up and see the face of Sarah extremely close to yours. You can see the small smudges of mascara under her eyes from her habit of rubbing her eyes throughout the day. She chose to wear bright red lipstick with a black dress which usually means she’s up to something.

The two of you have been best friends and thick as thieves since childhood when she moved next door to your house. Most of your fondest memories are with Sarah. They range from splashing in the cold Birmingham mud puddles, getting in trouble because you ruined your best Sunday stockings to sneaking out to drink whiskey and watch handsome boys play cricket.

You smile, shaking your head. “I’m not even going to lie and say that I was.”

She tries to flick your nose but you easily fend her off. “As I was saying until you rudely went off to la-la land probably dreaming about a certain handsome fella with blue eyes. A couple of ladies at the front desk are going to The Garrison in Small Heath and I told them we would go with them.”

“And what if I already had plans, hmmm?”

The look Sarah throws your way can be equated with 'get real.'

She knows more than anyone that you don't have much of a social life at the moment. Work and an ill mother rarely leave room for leisure. when you get home you hardly possess half the mind to change out of your work uniform and crawl into bed.

"Don't make jokes, Y/N, it's unbecoming of you." Sarah smiles and steals a grape from your lunch bag. "You're coming and I will not take no for an answer."

"I don't have a dress. I can't go in a nurse's uniform."

She laughs, "You simply cannot, my dear. That's why I have a spare, just for occasions such as this."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sarah indeed had a dress stored away in the coat closet at the hospital. It's a simple pale green that fell just below your knee and thankfully looked okay with your white loafers. The only thing is it sort of smells like dust and cleaning supplies making you wonder how long it sat in the closet. But alas, it’s nothing a bit of perfume can't fix.

The late evening air of Small Heath was cool and clear. You can smell the burning coals of the factories mixing in with the strong smell of motor oil. A couple of small girls are playing in the street in front of what you assume is their home. They have dirt on their dresses and faces while they laugh at each other and the awkward dances their dolls are making. The youngest one looks up and gives you a small wave which you return immediately. You remember being that small. You only cared about what was right in front of you at the particular moment, no stress or fear about tomorrow, just living in the moment.

“Hey Y/N, catch up. We’re almost there.” Sarah calls from several feet ahead of you.

“Coming.” You hurry and catch Sarah’s hand and give it a tight squeeze.

Maybe you should take that advice and just live, not simply exist. At least for one night.

~~~~

Cigarette smoke and whiskey greet you when you walk into The Garrison. There are people everywhere. A group laughing over by the bar, a man sitting alone and drinking at the table next to the stage; his cigar ashes falling onto the white napkins as he watches a young gentlemen polish his trumpet, a pretty blonde girl folding napkins behind the bar in a pale blue dress laughing at something the other barkeep said.

~~~~~~~~

After a few drinks, the laughs are flowing as freely as the music was dancing through the packed tavern.

You waft the smoke out of your face and nudge Sarah who was shamelessly flirting with some bloke with snow-white hair. “Hey, I’m going to get another drink. Do you want anything?”

“No Darling.” She slurs and pats your cheek and gestures to the man behind her. “I’ve got all I need right here.”

Laughing at your friend’s antics, you make your way to the bar, making sure not to trip over a random foot. The woman barkeep sets down a glass and gives you a big smile asking in a cute Irish accent “What can I get for you?”

You open your mouth to give your order but it’s not your voice that answers her, “She’ll take an Irish whiskey, Grace. Make it two.”

She-Grace nods, “Of course, Mr. Shelby”

You turn and meet the blue eyes of the man you’ve been thinking about all week. There were times when you thought you dreamt the whole night, a cruel and wonderful concocted fantasy made up by your subconscious. But here he is standing right in front of you dressed like the gentleman he wants the world to believe he is. You can tell even though you have only spent a few hours with the man, he wears his suits and smiles like armor, hiding his true self underneath.

“So we meet again, Mr. Shelby,” You say as you blindly take your whiskey from Grace and mutter a soft thank you.

“So we do, Y/N, so we do.”

Well, at least he remembered your name and how you like your whiskey. You reach to find the money you crammed in the dress’s ridiculously small pocket, but Tommy puts a large note on the bar and nudges you toward his table in the very back, his arm brushing against yours making your skin tingle and hair stand on end.

You use the opportunity to get a good look at him. He’s even more handsome than you remember if that’s even possible. The sharp lines of his shoulders and the obviously toned body underneath. The coat he is wearing is jet black and expensive. His shoes are worn but polished.

The table is small and round with only a couple of chairs. You notice the table is positioned where no one can outright see it but because of a couple of well-placed mirrors, Tommy can see the entire room.

He takes his coat off and slings behind his chair before sitting down and you do the same.

“I could have paid for my own drink, ya know.”

“I’m positive you could’ve but what kind of gentleman would that make me if I didn’t pay?”

“Are you a gentleman, Mr. Shelby, or are you just playing one?” You raise an eyebrow at him.

He smirks and rests his hand very close to yours, “And are you a polite, lady-like woman, or are you just fooling everyone into thinking you are?”

You slowly take a sip of your whiskey, letting the warmth wash over you. “You’re going to have to find that out for yourself, Mr. Shelby.”

Tommy laughs and it sounds like a genuine laugh. A laugh you imagine many people don’t get to hear too often.

After both, your glasses have long been empty, Tommy stubs his cigarette in the glass ashtray, touches his knee with yours, and whispers, “Dance with me.”

You glance around and notice a few couples gently dancing to the music while the rest of the patrons are in their own little bubbles laughing, drinking, chatting the night away.

Moving to stand up from the table, your body decides to now remind you of the alcohol you’ve consumed. As you focus on staying upright, Tommy’s hand gently wraps around your arm to steady you. You mutter a soft thanks and smooth down the front of your dress. His hand then travels down grabbing your hand and lacing your fingers together. His hand dwarfs yours and you can feel the rough calluses contrasting with the softness of his palms against your own. He leads you to the middle of the dance floor and rests his hands on your hips. You mimic his movements wrapping your arms around his neck. The two of you begin to sway, not talking, just letting the music and moment take over.

You notice a couple of patrons watching the two of you. Most of them look at Tommy with admiration and awe while a few others have a glint of fear in their eyes, holding their partners a little tighter. It is a gentle reminder that the man who has been nothing but a gentleman has a ruthless and dark reputation. Tommy must sense the added attention and pulls you closer and you respond by leaning into his chest and moving your arm to wrap around his strong waist. His thumbs start rubbing small circles on your back.

When the song comes to a close and the singer turns to speak to the other musicians, you look up at Tommy and tease, “You’re a very good dancer, I thought you would be stepping on my toes.”

“I’m glad I’m exceeding your expectations.” He smirks and lightly brings his foot down on your foot.

You jump back. “Hey, don’t go stomping on them now; these are very fancy shoes, ya know. Can’t be having scuffs all about them.”

Tommy looks down at your shoes and slowly tracks his way up. Slow enough to make your cheeks warm. with his eyebrow quirked. “Those shoes are bloody awful.”

You pinch his arm and retort, “I happen to think they are the height of fashion. I saw the queen herself sporting a pair the other day. But of course, they’re horrendous, Tommy! They are nursing shoes.”

He laughs that laugh again. You decide you want to keep hearing it over and over again. You’re going to fall asleep thinking about his laugh and the fact it was you that made him do it.

“You know, Tommy, I thought you’d forgotten about me, that I dreamt our meeting or something.” You confess to him, finally letting him know what has been bothering you all week.

Tommy takes your hand and turns you in a circle and Sarah catches your eye. She is also dancing with the man from earlier. She smiles and makes kissing faces at you.

“Dreaming about me, aye?”

You scoff, “Not by choice, believe me. I would have rather been fast asleep.”

After a couple more songs, Tommy leans down and whispers in your ear to follow him. You silently agree and take his hand once again. He brings you to a room that smells of old smoke and mischief. The single light in the room illuminates the dust particles floating in the air, and the table has a crack running down the middle with small stains that suspiciously looks like blood. The booth seats are small with cracking green leather and a yellow cardigan crumpled in the corner.

You turn when you hear the door behind you shut and lock. Tommy slowly makes his way towards and takes your hand bringing it up to his lips placing a soft kiss on your fingers. “I did try to find your number, your address even, but it turns out,” He turns your hand over and places another hot kiss, this time on the inside of your wrist. “You are very difficult to find.”

Warmth begins to spread through your entire body as if your blood has been lit on fire. You watch as his fingers dance their way up your arm and over your shoulder to then tuck a stray piece of hair behind your ear. His other hand wraps around your waist and pulls you closer to him.

“I’ll forgive you this time.” Your voice comes out as barely a whisper.

“Just this once?” He questions.

You nod meeting his gaze. “Just this once.”

“How very generous of you.”

Wrapping your arms around his neck, you laugh, “You should feel lucky. I don’t give many people second chances.”

You can still hear the music coming from the other room. It’s faint, and you can’t decipher what the man is singing about.

Tommy slowly starts to sway and you along with him just letting the music wash over the two of you like before. He rests the side of his head on top of yours and you play with the ends of his hair. You can feel the beat of his heart. Its beat is calm and strong and steady. You think that yours must be going a million miles a minute and surely about to burst out of your chest.

Tommy breaks your train of thought when he says, “At the moment, I consider myself the luckiest man in all of England.”

You look up and find that he is already looking at you with a small smile.

“Just England?” You retort, smirking.

Snorting, Tommy removes one arm from your waist and flicks your nose. You try to swat his hand but miss. “Okay smartass, the luckiest man in the entire world.”

“That’s better.”

The song slowly comes to an end but you continue to gently sway. He is still looking at you and you are looking at him just the same. You decide that his eyes can only be compared to what you remember the ocean looking like. You have only seen it once when you were a child, and even then, you are sure it would not compare to the light blues and small swirls of dark blue that you can only see when you’re up close.

As a child, you remember Sarah telling you about sirens and how they lure sailors in with their song, only to drown them and steal their treasure. In this case, Tommy is a siren. Luring you in with pretty words and a beautiful face.

And like a pirate in the storybooks, you have this overwhelming urge to kiss him, to be pulled under, letting him take anything he wanted from you just as long as he keeps looking at you the way he is. So you stand on your toes and do just that.

He responds almost immediately, placing his hands on either side of your neck, gently caressing your skin while you fist your hands into his shirt. He is kissing you in a way that makes your knees weak and head spin. He is touching you in a way you only thought possible in the silly little novels you read and joke about with Sarah.

You gasp into his mouth when he suddenly bites your lip allowing him access to your mouth with his tongue. He moans softly when you match his movements. He eventually breaks the kiss just to turn his attention from your lips to your neck. He trailed all along your throat, whispering sweet nothings between each searing kiss. They ranged from, “you are so beautiful,” “I’m glad you decided to stumble into this place tonight. Right into my arms.”

“I didn’t stumble.” You whisper breathlessly.

Tommy removes himself from your neck and looks at you confused. His lips are swollen and his eyes shiny. You know yours are probably the same. “What?”

“I like to think I walked in here rather gracefully.”

He throws his head back and laughs before resting his forehead on yours. Amusement paints his face when he says, “Out of all the things I said, you decide to focus on that.”

You giggle and kiss his nose, “I just don’t want you to think I am some clutz or something.”

“I promise I would never think such a thing.” He replies before closing the gap between you. You can feel him smile into the kiss causing you to do the same. His hand moves to your shoulder and edges the sleeve of your dress down so he could kiss your bare skin. You hum and move your hands to his chest. You want his lips back on yours so you grab his face and move it back to yours.

This kiss is different. This is more passionate, heated, and all-consuming instead of the sweet and slow one moments before. His hands are everywhere and you can hardly keep track of where they started and where they’re going. You honestly don’t care as long as he keeps doing it.

He begins to slowly move you to the booth behind you but stops when there is a quick knock on the door. You both freeze but don’t take your hands off each other.

“Y/N, are you in there? We are about to head home.” The person outside the door was Sarah. She sounded drunk, her words coming out slow and slurred.

You look up at Tommy and see that he is no longer smiling. He is not mad but a look of disappointment covers his features. You want to kiss that look off his face and make him smile again, but you know you need to go. You have work tomorrow and you don’t want Sarah to have to walk home with girls we barely know.

“I should go,” you whisper, “But I don’t want to.” You want to stay in this room with Tommy forever. Now that you got a taste of him, you want more and more.

“Let me take you home.”

You shake your head. “We will be fine, I promise. We don’t live very far from here.”

Tommy moves to get something out of his jacket pocket. He grabs your hand, giving you a small pocket knife.

“What is this for?” You look at the object, it still being warm from being in his jacket. It is small and silver. It looks old and well used. His initials are engraved in what can only be called a child’s writing.

“Just in case you run into trouble.”

“I can’t take this, Tommy. It looks special.”

He nods, pulling you in for a quick kiss. “It is special. That is why I am giving it to you, so I can see you again to get it back.”

Laughing, you kiss him again. “You’re very cunning Mr. Shelby.”

“That I am.”

“Y/N?” Sarah’s voice again cuts through the moment.

“Just coming. One moment please.” You shout back.

You begin looking around the room to look for a pen to write your contact information down. You are not leaving until he has it You want more nights like this one. Nights full of dancing, kissing, laughing. Of just having fun.

Under the table, you notice a stub of pencil and you reach down to grab it. You take a napkin and hastily write down your address and phone number.

“What are you doing?” Tommy comes up behind you, placing his hands on your hips as you write.

“I’m doing the work for you.” You turn around and stuff the napkin into the pocket where a pocket square would normally be. “Now do not lose that and forget to call me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

He places a kiss on your cheek and then your lips one more time. Before the kiss can get deepen, you break away from him. “I better go before she busts through the door and either passes out or vomits and trust me, we don’t want either of those things to happen.”

You give him one last quick kiss before moving towards the door, his pocket knife tucked tightly in your hand. “I’ll see you again Tommy Shelby.”

He gives one last smile that you will surely dream about until you can see him again. “You damn sure will.”