#dutch city oc

[arthiiwille]

In case you need more nijntje in your life 🐰🇳🇱

Dutch city OCs original design via twi: mi_kan1609

[sofarfarout]

Name: Cold Steel

Age: unknown

Gender: male

A tower of steel, reactors and mechanical ingenuity of his own design, Cold Steel is a brilliant roboticist and engineer. Growing up as an earth pony in the overwhelmingly pegasus populated city of Windschoten, Cold Steel found himself an outsider. He was seen as less than them, a mud horse, a pig pony, dirty, untouchable and below the pegasi. Even the few unicorns he knew of treated him with silent distaste. Though he was a bright colt that showed interest in tinkering and machinery at a young age, it seemed he would always be seen as lesser. Over the years, he has augmented and replaced his organic form with cyberized upgrades that give him capabilities far beyond that of a typical pony. Very little of his organic body remains. Cold Steel is gruff, ruthless, strict and logical, outright dismissing pony magic and believing in the superiority of science. He believes magic only leads to conflict and is used by ponies to lord over those that do not possess it and keep them underneath their hooves. Cold Steel loathes frivolousness and needless frills, preferring function over form in many aspects of life. He's abrasive as well, and about as cuddly as a pufferfish. His heart is not entirely cold however, as he still hangs onto his deep sympathy for those also looked down upon by ponies. Cold Steel prefers to stay in his workshop and continue to improve his cybernetics, but he may also be found searching the dump for anything he may use or repair or exploring abandoned facilities like factories and warehouses. He finds machines endlessly beautiful, and it saddens him to see them in disrepair, but it makes him very happy to see them still working after so long. He also enjoys strawberry cake but dislikes eating in front of others. He has a sort of Pixie and Brutus/mentor and student relationship with a young donkey named Sunflower Butter. He sees a bit of himself in her and wants to prepare her for a world that will not welcome her kindly.

Base- arcticwindsbases on dA

[visionofvoid]

Homewrecker - MV1 Part Two

Summary: “max, can you tell me the truth, just this once?”

Warnings: angst, moody max, jealous max, jealous kelly lolz 

Pairings: max verstappen x oc

Word Count: 1585

PART ONE  PART THREE 

Blake always enjoyed race weekends. If Kelly was busy with a shoot or meetings, Blake would look after Penelope for a couple of hours and the two would share pink and colourful snacks whilst watching the Formula One, whether it was practice, qualifying or the actual race. When Kelly had a free weekend and was choosing to visit Max and support him from the race itself, Blake would always come along for the ride. Sometimes it would just be the two girls childfree whilst Blake caught up with some of the friends she had made during her time as Kelly’s assistant or she would curate posts for Kelly on her social media. Though she did technically work for Kelly and knew her passwords to all her social media, her emails and some of financial info, it was never as if Kelly was her boss, they were just two friends enjoying life together. 

So, it came as a shock when Blake sat across from Kelly at a cafe and gave her the sad news. 

“I, I don’t understand. Do you need more money? I can give you more money. Did Penelope say something? Did my father say something?” Kelly questioned, making a spoon look elegant as she held it up, a little bit of cake sitting on it. Blake shook her head, smiling softly, thinking of reasons to give her friend and boss that didn’t involve her boyfriend. 

“I enjoy working alongside you, of course I do. I just think it’s time I move on from being a PA. I’ve had a few job offers and you know, I think this partnership has run its course.” Kelly pondered for a moment. “Of course I am absolutely grateful for the opportunity you have given me, but this is officially my notice. I finish up just before Silverstone, so I have about three weeks left to find you a new PA.” Blake couldn’t maintain proper eye contact and instead resorted to lifting her hot chocolate to her lips. 

“Job offers? From who?”

“Toto Wolff, at Mercedes. One of the PR advisors and I were talking at the last race and I just can’t stop thinking about it and it was a great offer.” Kelly’s eyebrows rose as she mentioned Max’s rival team but she remained stoic. 

“If you want a job in Formula One I can get Max to get you one at Red Bull.” The offer was kind but the mention of Max made Blake tighten her shoulders. “But, it is a great opportunity. I’m sad to see you leave, and I know Penelope will miss you too.”

The following months had been hell, that much was true. Whilst Blake was flourishing with Toto and Mercedes, travelling the world and relishing in the Formula One world, Max watched as Kelly’s world was failing. That may be a bit dramatic but the new personal assistant that Kelly had hired was way too under-qualified for the job. Not only did they not connect well with children but they had misplaced their VIP passes that allowed them access into the green rooms. 

It was stressful, and Max hated the fact that he missed Blake. He missed the bickering, he missed when she would bite back with insult after insult but made it sweet and funny that Kelly would laugh. He didn’t get to see Blake as often as he did when she still worked with Kelly and his world felt immensely different. He and Kelly hardly spoke unless it was at night off or one of them had a free day, but it was mostly due to the lack of experience on the new assistant behalf, or so he thought. 

Kelly found herself always comparing her new assistant to Blake and would vent to Max about how much both herself and her daughter missed Blake. Though they ended on good terms, Blake’s new position as Toto Wolff’s assistant meant less time to catch up with Kelly when they were in the same city. 

The 5th of September came around and it was time for the Dutch Grand Prix. Blake had finally settled into her new job as Toto Wolff’s assistant and she found herself getting along with everyone. She was the go to for advice for George and she enjoyed meditating with Lewis during her down time. The job wasn’t nearly as full on as Kelly’s, but she was busy a lot. Rather than watch a child or get a coffee that had fourteen steps, Blake just had to ensure that Toto’s meetings and schedule were all up to date, send emails and get the occasional coffee or lunch which was so much easier. She got paid to travel, paid to be friends with people in a sport she was beginning to love, life and breath and she finally felt as if she belonged. There was no expectation of having to dress a certain way like she did with Kelly, to feel like she fit in. 

Blake walked alongside Toto, going over the timeline for the first half of the day and handing him printouts full of necessary information before her legs became caught in the arms of a certain small child. Blake looked down, beaming at Penelope who just looked up at her with a cheeky smile on her face. She quickly glanced back at Toto, an apologetic look upon her face to which he only shook his head with a faint smile. 

“We don’t start for another hour and you’ve already done so much to ease my day. I’ll meet you there.” Blake nodded, grateful for her new friendly boss and bent down to hug the small growing girl. 

“And where is your mother?” Blake wrapped her arms around Penelope and picked her up. The young girl was dressed in Red Bull Racing merchandise which looked funny in comparison to her Mercedes uniform. 

“With Maxie! I was with Jenna but she was on her phone and I was bored. I missed you.” Blake started walking towards the Red Bull Racing back area where all drivers, team principles and other important people would be for the duration of the weekend when not at the pit. It wasn’t too far away from all the other teams so it took her no time. She showed her passes to security and walked right in. Red Bull colours were everywhere with Max and Sergio’s faces plastered on every free surface. She forgot how much Red Bull idolised their drivers. Back at Mercedes they were much more subtle, though still highlighting the importance of their two star drivers. 

“So, is Jenna the new assistant? Is she nice?” Blake happily listened as Penelope walked about Jenna. She found that she didn’t like to play with Penelope a lot but fed her lots and lots of junk food when on one was watching. It was mildly concerning to Blake and she was about to say something then she rounded the corner, stumbling on a fight that was occurring between Max and Kelly. 

“You need to hire her back. I’ll pay whatever she wants, Jenna is shit at her job!” Max seemed like he was trying to reason more than fight, but Blake knew that when there was some sort of confrontation that Kelly’s first instinct was to raise her voice and fight back. 

“Why? You made her feel insignificant, we all saw that. Why would you want her near you? With Penelope and myself?” Kelly’s eyes were burning into Max’s and Blake felt like she was imposing. Penelope was oblivious to the fight, babbling on about what Blake had missed out on the past couple months. Of course the fight was extremely loud, just enough to hear from a few metres away, plus it was fairly hushed in the building. 

“I never hated her! I-”

“You hate her, you don’t. I don’t understand. Why all the bickering, why all the stares across the room at her, why all the rolling of the eyes? I don’t understand. Make me understand. Max, can you tell me the truth, just this once?” Kelly had a tear fall down her cheek, Blake feeling immensely guilty for both eavesdropping and being the topic of the fight. 

Max’s eyes faltered and he looked to the ground, hoping it could somehow swallow him up and he could avoid this conversation altogether. But this was reality, this was real life and everything was coming back to bite him in the ass. 

“Max, Goddammit! Look at me. Look at me!” Kelly’s voice got louder, this time snapping Penelope out of her one-sided conversation in Blake's arms and looking around for the source of the voice. “Tell me the truth.”

“I don’t hate Blake. I never hated Blake.”

“You love her.” Blake was shocked, she even let out a gasp when Kelly said those words which seemed to make them both snap out of their heated fight. Max looked like a kicked puppy and Kelly’s face was bright red, fuelling with anger. 

“Penelope, there you are.” A woman who Blake could only presume was Jenna rounded the corner, rushing for Penelope and snatching the young girl out of Blake’s arms before anyone could protest.

“You don’t mean that.” Blake filled in the silence, her full attention to Max. “Tell me you don’t mean that. Tell me and Kelly that you hate me, that you hate my guts. Please, tell us anything that isn’t you loving me. You can’t love me, Max, you need to hate me.” 

[ohtobemare]

Cradlerobbing, Norman Nordstrom x fem!OC | Part 1

a Don't Breathe au short fic arc.

summary: She bought the house to the left. Expecting a quiet neighborhood, not the man next door. But Norman has quite a way of showing up when you least expect it. As a matter of fact, so does fate.

warnings: canon divergence, pregnancy, age gap, romance, surrogate to lovers, violence probably.

pairings: Norman Nordstrom, "The Blind Man" x fem!OC

“Well, looks to me like she’s pretty shot to shit, missy honey. Lookin’ at a total replacement, I think.” 

A total tear down. Frickin’ fantastic. “Oh, no no—you can't be serious! Really? Are you sure there’s nothing you can—” 

“—nope, not a thing. Shame, really.” 

A flick of a business card between arthritic, knobby fingers and the stranger named Val managed the thinnest, most disingenuous smile a man of his age could probably muster. Dentures, maybe as ancient as the threadbare flannel jacketing his waifish frame, shifted ever so slightly as his tongue clicked off the back molars. Mentioning something about the “office gal Donna”, he all but shook his head as curling fingers scratched through left-behind-from-what-was-probably-last-week’s shave. 

He all but assaulted her with the business card. Thrusting it into her hands, Millie McAffery could’ve sworn his skeleton cracked in two as he moved to retrieve his worn, strictly-80s briefcase from the floor. Welded in place, her feet cool from the half-stained walnut floor, her eyes trailed him as the man named Val exited the way he came–the kitchen’s dutch back door. Attempting to whistle, of all things. 

Mille bristled at the light crick of his dentures even across the room—until the roar of his oversized diesel pickup grumbled its way out of her driveway and down the street. Though, if you’d asked her, she wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. The low hum of the heavy engine matched the blood pistoning through her ears beat for beat, both seeming to rattle her bones. 

Seventeen days.

She could hear her father all the way from the Twin Cities, clicking his tongue and shaking his head. Hardly different than he had the first time he’d smacked eyes on the old Victorian, nestled quietly on the once-beautiful, presently decaying, Buena Vista Street. “I told you, Millie honey—” 

Looking at the card Val had passed into her hands, numbers to the office woman named Donna swam. Fresh tears bubbled up behind her lashes, herculean willpower funneling into attempts to keep her hands from trembling. Instead, her nose began to burn with the hot need to sniffle, stomach suddenly empty of anything but the stones that seemed to drop down the length of her throat and into the hallow chasm it had become. Rattling with every cardiac rhythm, for a moment she was concerned her heart had broken loose from behind her ribs. 

Swearing she was able to feel her stomach acid jostle as she lifted a hand to massage around her mouth, Mille managed a shaking breath. Seventeen days she’d been parked in her—her, mark that her—very own house. In her very own plot of grass and dirt, her very own story. Her closet wasn’t even unpacked, still eating out of the same bowl with the singular spoon she’d left unpacked from her boxes. Had just managed to position the couch exactly where she wanted it two nights ago when lightning had cracked across her bay window. Thunder opened the floodgates of a brutal downpour. 

Right into her living room. Mad dashing to catch water from ruining her freshly mortgaged walnut floor, she’d used everything from pots to the rolling carry-on Samsonite she’d opened and emptied to her mattress. Not daring a look to the scatter of makeshift catches on her floor, her eyes instead fell back to the card in her hands, Val’s estimate rolling through her brain like unforgiving, expensive lava. 

A whimper assaulted the back of her throat viciously. Burning and acidic, like it wanted to rip her uvula fron the back of her throat and use it to beat her bloody. Headache blossoming from her temple, she pushed her glasses up into her hair to rub at her eyes with the heel of her hands, eyes pinched close in an attempt to will the entire events of the morning into nightmare status. Where it wasn’t real, simply bad fiction. Like that book her sister had gifted her for Hanukkah last year. 

Twenty-six thousand dollars. Running average for a roof, sweet cheeks. Val’s look of sympathy almost drove her over the edge; ready to hand him the keys to her pickup and ask him to just end her and get it over with already. Use the life insurance to fix the roof and sell the house, send her back to Minnesota finally at peace and without burden. Instead she’d just gaped like a wobbly, hardly-with-it foal, knees all but shaking as Val had flitted his hand through the air, throwing out numbers as if it were bingo. 

No way about it. She needed a new roof—money. I need so much frickin’ money—

—knock, knock. Two hard thunks at the front door, which was through the living room and just off the stunning foyer and open-banister staircase leading to the upper floor. Jumping, Mille’s hand flew ot corral her rabbiting heart behind her ribs, stomach flipping as the house seemed to rattle at the effort of whoever had knocked at her front door. Swallowing, which felt painful, she reached to pull her pajama robe tightly around her middle, channeling all her anger into a closing, tight knot.

Padding into the living room, dodging the scatter of water collection vessels across her floor, she worked the deadbolt and the chain lock off the door before opening it a sliver, squinting into the galactically-invasive light of day. Blinking, she scrunched up her nose before wishing whomever–face blocked by stabbing morning light—a less-than-genuine good morning. 

A few seconds ticked by, her gaze corrected. The silver-fox of a stranger, standing rod-straight on US Bank’s mortgaged front porch, stared straight ahead as if she wasn’t even there. Millie recognized him instantly, the neighbor right across from her—she’d seen him walking his gorgeous Rottweiler the same time every morning she’d made herself coffee. Blind, her head had tipped to the side with a kind smile as she watched him not miss a beat, pounding concrete like he owned the world. And he might as well have, nobody lived on this street. 

Until her. 

“Norman, hi,” she tried punching energy into her voice, but it flopped—just as tired and flat as she’d feared. To his credit, Nordstrom’s expression only flickered for a moment; a light wrinkle of his brow, the faintest shift of his eyebrows up. Unmoving, his hand motioned for his companion to come up alongside him, Shadow shifting to accommodate with a lopsided little look on his face. 

Eyes immediately moving to the Amazon package in his hand, the corner of her mouth ticked up a little. “That’s mine, I guess?” Lifting the package, he passed it to her with the quietest smile and nod, shifting a shoulder lightly. Opening the door wide, she stepped aside to welcome him in. “Doors open, like always. You want some coffee? It’s hot and strong.” 

“Something bothering you, McAffery?” Norman’s perception amazed her, even after only a little over two weeks of acquaintance. He’d clocked her every time—that one day she’d been crying, homesick after the lock on the bathroom door had broken. When the dishwasher had stopped working, the light outside her door had flickered to a paralyzed nothing and she didn’t have the first clue how to remove the glass housing to change the bulb. She’d been over to Norman’s no more than half a dozen times, asking for tools. Once that awkward, high-I’m-you-neighbor-can-I-borrow-a-cup-of-sugar had breezed out of the way, she’d bounced herself over to Norman’s stoop every time the wind kicked up sideways. 

Slipping in through the door, he stilled. Uncomfortably close proximity, she could smell the mint on his breath. A bite of aftershave, the glisten of dewy, freshly-shaven skin along his jaw. His side profile was extravagant, devilishly cut and attractive in a way that should’ve been illegal for men his age. Because even well old enough to be her daddy, Norman was handsome. Chiseled, strong. An Adonis, truly–her but Icharus flying too close to his wisdom and bronzed, might-as-well-be-carved-from-stone, arms. 

Gently nudging her with one of his corded, ripped-with-muscle arms. As if he weren’t even challenged to see, the corner of his mouth lifted in a light, nearly teasing, smirk. For a man who lived alone, Norman was roughly flirtatious—with his expressions, anyway. “Y’don’t sound like yourself, Millie,” his hands slipped into the pockets of his perfectly-tight Wranglers, “Bubbly and shit-grinning and all that,” his smile was quicksilver, almost devilish. “What’s eating you, kid?” 

“Thanks,” she mumbled, trying not to chuckle. Choosing to ignore the probe, “Watch yourself, there’s stuff all over the floor.” A sharp whistle from the corner of his mouth sent Shadow trotting through the door, weaving through the collection across her floor to plop himself in the kitchen, right on the this-morning-unrolled rug. 

Toeing the door closed, she shrugged and reached to rub the back of her neck. Halting at her caution, Norman paused and checked her over his shoulder. Frowned severely. He looked genuinely puzzled—all the light, whatever could manage through the milky haze across his damaged eyes normally, evaporated. Simply standing there, he waited for her to come up beside him, one ear turned to her movements. Explaining her flooding disaster from two days ago, she toed aside the half-full Samsonite luggage parked in front of him.

Water sloshed over the size, landing in a fat plop on the walnut floor. Immediately keyed into the intrusion, he looked, amazingly, to the suitcase and then back to her as she came up beside him, looping her arm through his casually. Like old friends, like she hadn’t known Norman for less than ten days. A regular fixture already, in their otherwise ghost of an avenue that was Buena Vista Street. 

“That can’t be good,” he said, low, then looked up. “Could’ve told you it needed replacing though, McAffery. Jack and ‘Livia didn’t do a thing the last twenty years,” he shook his head, a low rumble settling in his chest, “Kids wanted out of the place, fuckups from Chicago.” Gaze still turned upward, as if he could see. Could make sense of the water stains littering the popcorn ceiling of her living room. 

“Yeah,” was all she managed. 

Swelling emotion flared hot behind her ribs, stung the back of her throat like a splash of acid. Swallowing back a shaking breath, her toes curled into the floor for a heartbeat before she stepped to guide Norman into the Victorian’s small breakfast nook, a used baker’s table and two barstools Goodwilled from her mother. Stopping at the table, she explained the barstool at his 11 o’clock, and went to slip her arm from his to see to coffee. 

Norman tugged her to a soft stop. Pulling up, her eyes moved from his hand, suddenly covering hers with a gentle, calloused squeeze to his face. Unreadable, as usual, though he managed to hold her gaze, again, like a seeing man would have. Half their brief relationship, she would’ve never guessed Norman was actually disabled—at first blush, she’d thought he’d been lying, he was so keen. But, when he’d counted the steps up to her front door just-so-slightly under his breath, she’d recanted her judgments. 

Hand inexplicably warm over hers, Norman stiffened up the corded muscle of his arm. Giving her a light smirk, his hand moved to clap her shoulder, lightly. “You’ll figure it out, McAffery. It’s just life.” His hand moved to cup her cheek for just a breath, before his fingers brushed lightly across her features. 

Reading her, as he’d asked to do when she’d showed up to return his toolbelt, eyes burning red and swollen from the sobbing session she’d had on her bathroom floor. The infancy of their hardly-mature acquaintanceship. But it had felt like she’d known Norman her entire life, the handsome stranger across the way anything but. And she wasn’t sure if that was ok–if that was normal, if the odd hammering of her heart against her breastbone at his hand over hers was acceptable neighbor-like behavior. 

It didn’t matter, not really. Norman was here. She wasn’t alone. 

“Smile, kiddo. Increases your facial value.”

tags: @itsgoghtime @horserad-ish@mongoosesthings @sarahsmi13s @permanentlyexhaustedpigeon88 @kmc1989 @strawberrylemonadesoda

@strawberrylemonadesoda

[nayziiz]

Shadows | LN4

Summary: [Mafia] In the face of dire financial troubles, Lando receives a desperate plea from his father to unearth a lucrative solution within the family business. Fueled by the pressure to rescue his family from ruin, Lando stumbles upon a seemingly perfect venture—using luxury cars as a facade for the clandestine world of drug trafficking. With the unexpected partnership of Amelia Rossi, his father's best friend's daughter, Lando believes he has found the ideal accomplice. However, as the Norris family collides with the ambitious Russells in a ruthless bid to establish their dominance, the perilous path Lando has chosen places not only his newfound enterprise at stake but also entangles Amelia in the dangerous crossfire that unfolds.

Warning: Violence, drugs, blood, smut, fluff, guns

Pairing: Lando Norris x OC (Amelia Rossi) - appearances from other drivers

Masterlist

Chapter 14

Max Verstappen was an old friend of Lando's. Amelia recognised the Dutchman from Lando's time karting when he was just a kid. Lando always dragged Amelia with, and she hated it at first because it was just a bunch of boys. Then she convinced her father to let her drive a kart and she was hooked. It made sense why she had such a love for supercars. She was always a speed freak.

In the quaint Dutch village outside Rotterdam, where Max had set them up, Lando and Amelia found solace in the simplicity of their surroundings. Surrounded by unfamiliar sights and sounds, they relied on each other to navigate this new chapter of their lives. The language barrier posed a challenge at first, but they soon adapted, finding comfort in their shared experiences.

As they strolled through the cobblestone streets, hand in hand, they couldn't help but marvel at the charm of the village. The colourful houses with their window boxes filled with vibrant flowers, the smell of freshly baked bread wafting from the local bakery, and the friendly smiles of the villagers all added to the enchantment of their temporary home.

Despite the uncertainty of their future, Lando and Amelia embraced the opportunity to explore and immerse themselves in this unfamiliar culture. They spent their days wandering through the bustling markets, sampling local delicacies, and learning about the rich history of the region.

And through it all, their bond only grew stronger. They laughed, they talked, they shared their hopes and dreams for the future. In this tranquil village, far removed from the chaos of their past lives, they found a sense of peace and belonging that they had long been searching for.

But their time in the Netherlands was short-lived. Soon, they received word from Max that it was time to move on to their next destination: Brazil. With a mixture of excitement and apprehension, they packed their bags and boarded a plane, ready to embark on the next chapter of their journey together.

In São Paulo, the heat enveloped Lando and Amelia like a warm embrace, a stark contrast to the mild Mediterranean climate they were accustomed to. Adjusting to the sweltering temperatures and bustling city life proved to be a challenge, but they found solace in the hospitality of Max's girlfriend, Kelly, who welcomed them into her Brazilian villa with open arms.

Nestled amidst lush greenery, Kelly's villa offered a sanctuary from the chaotic streets of Sao Paulo. With its sprawling gardens and inviting pool, it provided the perfect retreat for Lando and Amelia to unwind and relax. They spent their days lounging by the pool, sipping caipirinhas, and soaking up the tropical sunshine.

As they watched the locals cycle down the street, their laughter mingling with the vibrant sounds of the city, Lando and Amelia couldn't help but marvel at the beauty of their surroundings. The rhythm of life in São Paulo was intoxicating, and they found themselves drawn to its vibrant energy and diverse culture.

Despite the challenges of adapting to a new environment, Lando and Amelia embraced the opportunity to explore São Paulo and immerse themselves in its rich tapestry of sights and sounds. From sampling exotic fruits at the local markets to dancing the night away at lively samba clubs, they embraced every moment of their Brazilian adventure with a sense of wonder and excitement. And through it all, Kelly's warmth and hospitality made them feel right at home, easing their transition into the vibrant and bustling city.

Amelia's fingers trembled slightly as she dialled Charles's number on the burner phone, her heart racing with a mixture of anxiety and relief. She needed someone she could trust, someone who could help manage her dealership left behind in the rush to escape the UK. Charles had always been reliable, a steady presence in her life, and she hoped he would be willing to lend a hand in her time of need.

After a few tense rings, Charles finally answered, his voice a welcome sound in the midst of uncertainty.

“Amelia? Is everything alright?” He asked, his concern evident in his tone.

Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Amelia launched into an explanation of her situation, her words tumbling out in a rush as she recounted the events that had led to their sudden departure from the UK. She explained the urgency of the situation and the need for someone to oversee her dealership in her absence. To her relief, Charles responded with understanding and reassurance, offering his full support and assistance.

“Don't worry, Amelia. I've got everything under control.” He assured her. “I'll take care of your dealership as if it were my own. You focus on staying safe and getting settled wherever you are.”

Gratitude flooded through Amelia as she listened to Charles's words, a weight lifting from her shoulders knowing that her business was in capable hands. With Charles's help, she could finally breathe a little easier, knowing that she had someone she could trust to manage her affairs back home. As they finalised their plans, exchanging details and arranging for ongoing communication, Amelia couldn't help but feel a sense of relief wash over her.

Lando's concern was palpable as he watched Amelia complete the call with Charles, his brow furrowed with worry. It wasn't that he was jealous or distrustful of Charles, but rather, he was deeply anxious about the potential risks of making contact with anyone from their past life in the UK. Every call, every message, every connection was a potential link back to their old identities, and Lando couldn't shake the fear that their enemies might use that against them.

“Amelia, are you sure that was a good idea?” He asked, his voice tinged with concern as he approached her. “I understand you needed help with the dealership, but contacting Charles - it's risky. What if someone traces the call? What if they find us?”

Amelia glanced up at him, her own worry mirrored in her eyes as she considered his words. She knew Lando was right; every interaction they had with their past lives carried the potential for danger. But she couldn't ignore the pressing need for someone to oversee her business in her absence, and Charles was the only person she trusted to handle it.

“I know it's risky, Lando, but I had to do something. Charles is trustworthy, and he's the only one who can help me manage the dealership. I had to take the chance.” She replied, her voice trembling slightly with anxiety.

Lando sighed, running a hand through his hair in frustration. He knew he couldn't fault Amelia for wanting to protect her business and seek help from someone she trusted. But the thought of their enemies closing in on them filled him with a sense of dread that he couldn't shake.

“Alright. But we need to be careful. We can't afford to let our guard down, not even for a moment.” He conceded reluctantly, his gaze softening as he looked at her.

Amelia nodded in agreement, her heart heavy with the weight of their precarious situation. She knew that every decision they made from now on would carry consequences, but she was determined to do whatever it took to protect herself and the ones she loved, even if it meant taking risks along the way.

Amelia's discomfort had been building throughout the scorching Brazilian afternoon, each passing moment seeming to exacerbate her symptoms. Despite Lando's insistence that she take it easy and rest, she found herself unable to find relief, her mind plagued by a persistent unease. The sensation of sweat clinging to her skin, the persistent lightheadedness, and the gnawing emptiness in her stomach seemed to consume her every thought, leaving her feeling weak and depleted.

Relegated to the bed, Amelia tossed and turned, her restlessness only heightening her discomfort. With each shift of her body, her mind raced, searching for answers to the puzzle they found themselves trapped in. It wasn't until she turned onto her side for what felt like the hundredth time that afternoon that the pieces began to click into place, sending a surge of adrenaline coursing through her veins.

With a newfound sense of urgency, Amelia practically leaped out of bed, her movements fueled by a sudden clarity of purpose. Ignoring the protests of her protesting muscles, she hurried out to the terrace where Lando sat, the weight of her revelation pressing down on her like a leaden blanket.

“Baby.” She called out, her voice trembling with a mixture of excitement and apprehension as she approached him.

“Mmh.” Lando hummed in response, his brain numb from the events of the weeks prior.

“The Russells.” She began, her voice tinged with a hint of urgency.

“What about them?” Lando asked, confused, as he turned to look at her leaning against the door frame.

“Steve killed Clyde. If they had evidence my father was involved, surely there must have been evidence against Steve confirming he was the physical hitman.” She continued to explain.

“Yeah?” Lando urged her to continue explaining.

“If they want to continue building a reputation and grow their status in society, that information would derail everything. And, since my father had nothing left to lose, he wouldn't have hesitated to throw Steve under the bus.” Amelia added, breathless as she finished speaking.

Lando's brows furrowed as he processed Amelia's theory. The pieces of the puzzle began to align in his mind, forming a troubling picture of deceit and manipulation.

“So you think the Russells orchestrated everything to protect their own interests?” He asked, his voice tinged with a mixture of disbelief and realisation.

“It's the only explanation that makes sense. They had the means, the motive, and the opportunity.” Amelia nodded, her expression grave. “Nowhere in the documents George gave us did it mention Steve, so they’ve covered their tracks. And, we trusted George before all hell broke loose. Obviously he didn’t think we’d go through with the plan to expose my father.”

“It's a good thing you're so clever, baby.” Lando chuckled as he smiled at her.

Amelia offered a weak smile at Lando's compliment, though the gravity of their situation still weighed heavily on her mind.

“I just hope we can use this knowledge to stay one step ahead of them.” She replied, her voice tinged with determination. Lando reached out to gently squeeze her hand, offering reassurance.

“We will.” He affirmed, his eyes meeting hers with unwavering confidence. Lando's concern deepened as Amelia confessed her worries, but he remained calm, his voice steady as he gently stroked her arm. “Are you feeling any better?”

Amelia shifted uncomfortably, the weight of her unease palpable as she spoke.

“The heat is killing me.” She admitted, her voice tinged with frustration.

“I bet. Maybe we need to just see a doctor anyway, make sure you're really okay.” Lando suggested, his concern evident in his tone.

“If I tell you why I think I'm unwell, you might just lose your mind.” Amelia responded hesitantly, her gaze drifting away for a moment before returning to meet Lando's concerned eyes.

“Tell me.” Lando urged gently, reaching out to grasp her wrist and pull her into his lap.

“I haven't taken my birth control since we left London.” Amelia admitted, her voice barely above a whisper as she spoke the words that had been weighing heavily on her mind.

Lando's brows furrowed in concern as he processed her words.

“You think you're pregnant?” He asked, his voice laced with worry.

“No, but I think my hormones are all over and unbalanced and that's why I feel like shit.” Amelia explained, her voice tinged with frustration and anxiety.

“I see.” Lando murmured, his mind already racing with thoughts of how to alleviate Amelia's discomfort. “I'm sure we can get you the pills you need here too. No need to suffer, baby.”

As Lando delved deeper into his plans to take down the Russells, Amelia's condition continued to deteriorate, leaving her grappling with a range of unsettling symptoms. Each passing day seemed to bring a new wave of discomfort, from persistent nausea to debilitating headaches. At first, she attributed her malaise to common ailments like food poisoning or a bout of seasonal flu, but a nagging voice in the back of her mind urged her to explore every possible explanation. As Lando busied himself with devising a strategy with his father to bring down their adversaries, Amelia found herself consumed by a different kind of battle—one waged against the unknown forces wreaking havoc on her body.

As Lando immersed himself in an intense conversation with his father, Amelia seized the opportunity to slip away unnoticed. With a sense of urgency gnawing at her insides, she made her way to the waiting VW Beetle, the familiar hum of its engine offering a comforting reassurance amidst the chaos swirling within her mind. Each turn of the wheel brought her closer to her destination, the pharmacy that Kelly had pointed her towards—a beacon of hope in the midst of uncertainty.

Throughout their time in Brazil, Kelly had become a trusted confidant for Amelia, offering a sympathetic ear and invaluable guidance in navigating the complexities of their situation. Their bond had blossomed swiftly and effortlessly, forged by shared experiences and a mutual understanding of the challenges they faced. With Kelly's unwavering support, Amelia felt emboldened to confront her fears head-on, determined to find the answers she so desperately sought.

As she pulled up to the pharmacy, a sense of relief washed over her, tempered by a lingering sense of apprehension. Stepping out of the car, she squared her shoulders and made her way inside, the weight of her purpose heavy upon her. With each step, she drew closer to the solution she sought, her resolve unwavering in the face of uncertainty.

Inside, she wasted no time in procuring the necessary supplies, her movements swift and purposeful as she navigated the aisles with practised ease. With the familiar click of the cashier's register, she emerged victorious, clutching the precious cargo in her hands—a lifeline in the storm of uncertainty that threatened to engulf her.

As she made her way back to the waiting Beetle, a sense of determination settled over her, driving her forward with renewed purpose. And as she drove back to the villa, the weight of her burden felt just a little lighter, buoyed by the knowledge that she was not alone in her journey. She had Lando. She always had Lando.

With trembling hands, Amelia carefully made her way back to the villa, her heart pounding in her chest with each passing moment. She couldn't afford for Lando to realise she had slipped away, not when the weight of her discovery threatened to consume her every thought. As she reached the safety of their temporary sanctuary, she hurried upstairs to the bathroom, her footsteps echoing loudly in the silence of the empty villa.

Once inside, she wasted no time in tearing open the box containing the precious test, her fingers fumbling with the packaging in her haste. With the test in hand, she laid it carefully on the counter, her eyes scanning the instructions repeatedly as if searching for some hidden reassurance within their words. Each step felt like an eternity as she followed the prescribed process, her mind consumed by a whirlwind of anxious thoughts and fervent prayers.

With a deep breath, she steadied herself and allowed the moment to unfold, her gaze fixed unwaveringly on the white stick before her. As she waited for the telltale result to materialise, her mind raced with a myriad of emotions, each one vying for dominance in the tumult of her inner turmoil. She couldn't help but feel a pang of apprehension at the prospect of what the test might reveal—a single moment poised to irrevocably alter the course of their lives.

In those agonisingly long minutes, she found herself grappling with the weight of their circumstances, the reality of their situation casting a shadow over her hopes and dreams. She knew that Lando desired nothing more than to start a family of their own, and she shared in that longing with every fibre of her being. But now, as she stood on the precipice of uncertainty, she couldn't help but wonder if the timing was right, if their fragile existence could withstand the added strain of parenthood.

As the seconds ticked by with excruciating slowness, she paced the confines of the bathroom, her nerves frayed and her heart pounding in her ears. With each passing moment, the pressure mounted, the weight of her anticipation threatening to suffocate her in its relentless grip. And then, finally, as the three minutes elapsed, she dared to steal a glance at the test before her, her breath catching in her throat as she braced herself for the revelation that awaited.

“Lando!” Amelia exclaimed as she stood staring at the test on the counter. Her voice was panicked and immediately caught Lando’s attention. He waited a moment before hearing her call for him again. “Lan!”

As Lando reached the top of the stairs, his heart raced with a mix of concern and anticipation. He found Amelia standing in the doorway of the bathroom, her eyes wide with disbelief as she stared at something on the counter. Without a word, Lando rushed to her side, his own anxiety mounting with each passing second.

“What’s wrong?” He asked urgently, his voice laced with worry as he followed her gaze to the test lying on the counter.

His breath caught in his throat as he took in the sight, his mind racing with a whirlwind of emotions. Amelia turned to him, her expression a mixture of fear and uncertainty.

“I took a test.” She murmured, her voice barely above a whisper as she reached out to grasp his hand in hers.

Lando's heart skipped a beat as he processed her words, his mind reeling at the implications of what she was saying. Without hesitation, he stepped closer, his eyes never leaving hers as he gently squeezed her hand in a silent gesture of support.

“Okay.” He replied softly, his voice tinged with a hint of apprehension. “Is it positive?”

“Uh huh.” She whispered, studying his demeanour as he picked up the test.

“Wowie.” He echoed, his voice barely above a whisper as he looked back down at the test in his hand.

Amelia couldn't help but mirror his smile, relief flooding through her at his reaction. Despite the uncertainty of their situation, she couldn't deny the flicker of hope that ignited within her at the thought of starting a family with Lando. The thought brought silent tears to her eyes, trickling down her cheeks.

Seeing the tears trickling down Amelia's cheeks, Lando's grin softened into a tender smile. Without hesitation, he reached out to gently wipe away her tears, his touch warm and reassuring against her skin.

“Hey, why the tears, huh?” He murmured softly, his voice laced with concern and affection.

Amelia sniffled, struggling to find the words to express the tumult of emotions swirling inside her. She reached out to grasp Lando's hand, holding it tightly as she met his gaze with watery eyes.

“I don't know.” She admitted, her voice trembling slightly. "I guess it's just the timing with everything happening.”

Lando's expression softened further at her words, his thumb gently stroking her cheek as he leaned in to press a tender kiss to her forehead.

“Listen to me.” He whispered, his voice barely above a whisper. “I know things might seem scary right now, but we'll figure it out, okay? Together. We've faced tough times before, and we've always come out stronger on the other side. Now it’s you, me, and peanut in this together.”

Amelia's heart swelled with love as she gazed up at Lando, her fears slowly melting away in the warmth of his embrace. Amelia chuckled through her tears at Lando's endearing choice of nickname.

“Peanut? Really?” She teased gently, her voice still laced with emotion. Lando grinned, his eyes sparkling with affection as he gently caressed her stomach.

“Well, I bet it's still small, no?” He quipped playfully, his tone warm and teasing. Amelia nodded, a soft smile tugging at her lips as she leaned into his touch.

“That's true.” She agreed softly, feeling a surge of warmth and love enveloping her heart.

Lando's grin softened into a tender smile as he gazed down at her, his eyes filled with adoration.

“Oh, honey, you're going to be the best Mumma to our peanut.” He murmured, his voice filled with unwavering confidence and love.

Amelia's laughter mixed with tears as she nestled into Lando's embrace, feeling overwhelmed with joy and gratitude.

“A baby, Lan.” She whispered, her voice trembling with emotion.

Lando tightened his arms around her, holding her close as he pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head.

“Our baby. A little bit of you, a little bit of me, and a whole lot of magic.” He murmured softly, his words filled with awe and wonder. Amelia sniffled, her heart swelling with love as she looked up at him through watery eyes.

“Shut up.” She teased playfully, her lips curling into a watery smile as she reached up to wipe away her tears.

Lando kissed her gently and pressed her against the counter before lifting her up onto it to sit. He lifted her shirt and kissed her stomach under her belly button.

“Hey, little baby.” Lando whispered against her stomach. Amelia giggled as Lando showered her stomach with kisses, feeling a rush of warmth and love envelop her.

“Stop, you're too cute.” She protested, but her heart swelled with affection at his tender words.

“It's your Dad here.” Lando continued, his voice filled with adoration. “Be good to Mumma while you're in there so she can take good care of you when you're ready to be in the world with us.”

Amelia's smile softened, touched by Lando's words, but a hint of doubt lingered in her mind.

“Lan, baby, it could have been a false positive.” She reminded him gently, her hand resting on his cheek. Lando brushed off her concerns with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Oh, hush. Let me have a moment with my peanut.” He insisted, pressing a soft kiss to her lips.

[ilovetomatoesbro]

I finally decided to create my own OC

In short, I couldn't come up with a name for my character, but let's call her "THE PHOTOGRAPHER". She can mostly meet in crowded places (for example, parks, courtyards, embankments, shopping malls, and so on; sometimes she can meet at gas stations (where she took money from Nyon a couple of times; she managed to earn about $ 10 from him that day. She saw him in the car with Luther, Randall and the others a couple of times when they went camping, so she realized what was what, and began to say that his family would REALLY like the photo she took.♡)) to take pictures of people and get money from it, because photos "keep memories" and this is "a great reminder of yourself." Most of her photos cost no more than $1, but at large events, for example, like City Day or something like that, she took large sums from people for photos. More often she approached drunk people or families during those events. She is an investigator by profession, but a photographer on weekends and holidays. A "professional" photographer. As a kid, she would have been the head of the school media club, lol.

So, why would she need so much money? She spends them on cigarettes and books, perhaps…

As for her traits of character, she’s rather calm, yet will never let herself be offended by someone; she is determined and mature, but sometimes silly.

(I know she’s boring as hell, but this is my first time creating OC; sorry)

_____________________________________

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Type: Human

Age: ???

Known skills: photographing, painting, investigating; has a higher chance of surviving in danger (cameramen/photographers never die first), knows a lot of languages (English, Russian (her native language), Dutch, German)

Likes: brainrot jokes, riddles, music, marmalade eyes, space, photos, books (classics, detective novels, prose, dystopia, etc), money, affection.

Dislikes: playing “Hot Potato” (childhood trauma; in this game people line up in a circle and toss an object from neighbor to neighbor as fast as they can. At some point in the game, the action stops, and the person, who still has an object (a potato) in his hands, drops out of the circle, but one day she used to be a potato…), being bullied, paying rent.

Danger level: low

______________________________________

As for animation I created, I tried to voice her herself💔💔💔

English is not my native language, I’m sorry if I have some mistakes

[applepiesupreme]

American Apple Pie

Pairing: Low/Mid Honor Arthur Morgan and female OC.

Rating: Explicit

Summary: Savigne Ricci is a temporary guest at the Van der Linde camp. Her path crosses with the enforcer of the gang, Arthur Morgan, and despite their differences, a relationship develops between them. Whole lot of smut and fluff, slow burn-ish.

Chapter 32

AOC link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/54945853/chapters/150079369

Arthur was heading to his horse when Hosea called him over. He changed course and walked up to the older man sitting in a chair on Shady Belle’s porch. 

“Where are you going?”

“Gonna check on a lead in Strawberry. Heard some cash loaded wagons rollin' in twice a week.”

“That’s quite far now,” Hosea sighed. “The thought of riding out there alone makes me dizzy.”

“That’s what you got me for, old man,” Arthur grinned. “‘M gonna be gone few days. Ya need anything before I go?”

“I’m working on something.” He gave Arthur an intense look and the other man understood and drew closer. “Could be that last job we need.” Arthur grunted as if to say ‘go on’. “Talked to some fellow at the ball. Once I convinced him I'm some fur trader with a lot of cash but no bank to stash the profits in, he couldn’t stop babbling about how much money they keep at the Lemoyne bank in Saint Denis.”

The younger man’s eyebrows shot up. “Never robbed in a big city before,” he said warily. “Much less a bank.”

“I know,” Hosea waved his hand. “I know it’s risky. That’s why I said I’m working on it.”

Arthur sighed and sat on the steps next to Hosea’s chair. “It’s risky alright." 

“Way I see it…We can rob a hundred coaches - that’s a hundred times rolling the dice on things going sideways or not...or we can rob one bank - a well prepared, well executed robbery - and be done with it.”

Arthur bit his cheeks and squinted out to the camp, looking unconvinced. “Dutch say anything?”

“Dutch thinks we should move on that trolley job. Bronte whispering in his ear that it's foolproof. I ain't so convinced of Bronte's good nature.”

“Well I don’ like that neither,” was the grumble of a response. “Anything in Saint Denis is gonna have a hundred lawmen flockin’. Dozens of civilians in the way, each dumber than the next…”

Hosea didn’t say anything for a while. “I think he’s just trying to impress Bronte. There's also a little payback for Jack in there. Some tug and push between the two, I imagine. In my case…nothing personal, just business.”

“Bank is in Bronte’s town.”

“It’s one of the many branches of the Lemoyne Bank. Doesn’t belong to Bronte.” There was a short silence. “I know you don’t like it. But I’m not asking to go tomorrow. I’m working on it.” Arthur hummed. “Pinkertons breathing down our necks. Bronte and Dutch eyeing each other making me nervous, too. I feel like we’re on a timer here.”

“Yeah,” the younger man admitted reluctantly. “Told Savigne just a few more months and…gonna be that, soon.”

“Okay,” Hosea said, gripping his shoulder. “Good. We do this right, this might be it, son. But…” he eyed Arthur. “…might be a bit awkward for you with her still working in the city. She’d have to stay close and you’d have to run far after.”

“Said she sick of Saint Denis. Might not be a problem,” Arthur shrugged.

“That’s good then! Nothing certain yet, mind you. Still working out the kinks. But I wanted to run it by you, see what you think.”

Arthur groaned and rose to his feet. “Told ya, ‘m done with Dutch’s plans. I’ll follow yer lead. But..." he squinted in the direction of his own tent, "...also told Savigne I ain't takin' stupid risk no more. Ya gotta make sure, Hosea.”

Hosea nodded grimly. “Will do, son. Will do. I need some time. Won’t rush it.”

“‘M off,” Arthur adjusted his hat. “See ya in a few days.”

Savigne was fussing with her plate, turning it left and right to look at it from different angles. The scallops looked fine, but maybe a bit too symmetric? The dressing on the bottom looked like soup though. She thought maybe she could slightly thicken it with cornstarch and smear it on the plate instead for a more dramatic look. The shade could also be more vibrant.

She was contemplating these things, trying to juxtapose the imaginary version in her head on what was in front of her when Chef Ecco appeared by her station.

“Mr. Bronte was extremely pleased with the frutta martorana. He asked for you, but you were gone.”

“It was late,” she said politely, pretending to be absorbed with her dish.

“That’s when the real ball starts,” he said. “You should have stayed.”

She didn’t answer. Mr. Bronte and Ecco were the kind of people who were very capable of politeness when it came to their friends or customers, but had a blind spot for their workers. The idea that not everyone lived around the corner from the rich neighborhoods and needed to be home at a reasonable time was somehow inconceivable to them.

She expected it, but it still filled her with dread when it came: “I want to pay you, come to my office.”

Calm down, it's just payment, she thought and yet, couldn't quite convince herself. She wrestled with herself for five minutes before she could make her legs work and turned to head up to Ecco's office. 

When she entered, he was already sitting behind his desk. He pushed an envelope across and she took it and put it in the pocket of her apron, momentarily her mood lifting because it felt weighty. Just when she was about to scurry out of there, he said “Do you like it here?” and she froze and everything flew out of her head. Stupid, stupid woman, she thought. Why would you come back in here ever again? Why would a mouse follow a cat to a dead end? It immediately triggered her shivering. She felt her throat constrict and perspiration dot her forehead. 

“I’m learning a lot,” she found herself whispering.

This time the fracturing was immediate, organic. She separated from herself and stepped aside, leaving her twin in the middle of the room. 

Breathe, Savigne, her inner voice whispered. Nothing can touch you here. You are invisible. Invulnerable. 

“Good,” he said, pleased, eyes crawling over her rooted form as she glided to put her back against the wall, as far away as she could get from the both of them.

A long while later he rose to his feet. Savigne watched with fascination as her body shifted her feet but remained helplessly rooted while he came to stand to her left side. 

“You think me sadistic, Savigne?” he sighed in her ear.

“Yes,” her body droned.

“Ruminations of a small mind,” he said, fingers absentmindedly correcting the bow of her apron in the back. He walked to her right side, straightening the back of her collar. “You’re a good cook, but without guidance that’s all you’ll ever be. Some people will be cooks forever. All they will ever do is toss ingredients in a pot and expose it to fire." His fingers adjusted the lapels of her shirt to be perfectly symmetric, "But food - real food - is art, Savigne. Art is perfection. And perfection requires pain. Do you understand?"

She watched herself nod. 

"You are right handed, are you not?"

Her body blinked at this and nodded again. 

“There was never an artist who produced a masterwork without a proper buildup of pain,” he said quietly, gliding back to her left side. “Of humiliation. Of failure. Of rejection. Of shame. Not experiencing suffering is like being blind painter. It can not be done." His hand closed on her left upper arm. In her corner against the wall, Savigne just felt the slightest of pressure, but nothing else. 

“I require absolute submission. You are a tool in my hand. You will bend when I bend you. You will straighten when I straighten you. This…” he sighed with regret, “…is hard for some people. They can’t relieve themselves of their pride. But I have no use for such people. Do you understand?”

God, he really likes to hear himself speak, doesn’t he? her inner voice scoffed.

Her body shuddered slightly and shifted on her feet again, but stood steady. It was evident that Ecco's grip was painful, but in this corner, to her invisible self, it was distant, muted, like sound underwater. 

There was a mouse-like whimper from her body and a flush of color rush to her face.

“All these things I will give you. You will not like it. But you will excel under me. Just like a diamond forms from coal dust under pressure.”

Why won’t he apply that pressure to the likes of Ruth and Sarah then? Her inner voice mocked.

The cry of pain distracted her and she realized that it was coming from her body. She felt a stir of worry - she needed that body and didn’t want it to get hurt. Also…what if it left a mark? 

He knows it will. He wants you to worry. He knows you have a partner and he expects you to manage it.

Ecco shushed her and continued to tighten his grip until her body stopped whimpering - which was a long time - and only then did he release it.

Savigne noticed the tears streaking the cheeks of her double, saw the shuddering of breath she took.

“Well done,” Ecco cooed.

He walked around the desk and sat in his chair.

“Next time I call on you, don’t take as long as you did. My time is valuable. Now leave.”

Again, she walked around a long time thinking herself into corners and, in the process, walking into dead ends in Saint Denis. She tried to come up with things to console herself. Arthur was away, that was good. It was cooler now so she did wear a long sleeve nightgown to bed, that was good, too. The weight of the envelope in the pocket of her skirt was good. Then she got angry at herself for thinking these things and avoiding the real issue. Arthur was right, she really was a runner, a coward. And that would not serve her here, because the more she played along with it, the bolder Ecco got. Sarah might believe that he would eventually tire of her but Savigne had the gut feeling that he was only just starting.

So at long last when she found herself at the back door to the steakhouse again, this time she took a deep breath, pulled it open and entered. 

“Oh Lord,” Luther grumbled, lighting a cigarette. “Just when I was havin’ a good day.”

“I missed you too, Luther,” she said drily as she drew over the stool to perch up on it.

“Can’t miss ya if ya never stay away, ever think o’that?” he scoffed.

She didn’t say anything and just sat there, watching him grill the last batch of steaks for the day. That sense of shame came over her again. Like it was all her fault. For being ambitious and leaving the steakhouse, not knowing what a good thing she had. For not somehow being smarter or stronger. For convincing herself every time that it would pass when all it did was accelerate. For getting tangled in a mess she didn’t know the way out of. Even now, sitting here, she didn’t know what she was trying to accomplish except unload her problems on someone else and she felt shame for that, too. What if Luther was really sick and tired of her drama? He was an old man and had his own problems, didn’t he? Why did she come here to pester him with her own?

“What done happen now?” he interrupted her ruminating.

She felt the pulsing band of pain on her left arm, hot and searing as if she had pressed it against a frying pan and, to her own shock, exploded into sobs.

The big man stilled at this, but didn’t say anything for a while, just shuffled over and brought a cloth napkin.

“‘M sorry,” she cried, “I’m just…a sentimental mess these days.”

”It’s fine,” he said roughly and flipped some steaks. He brought her a glass of water and she drank it with shaking hands.

A long while passed as she slowly got herself under control and watched him cook. There was an admirable economy to his movements, a precision that came from long years of practice. His might not be art like Ecco’s food, but it was a craft - an inherent, almost instinctual sense of timing no matter the cut of meat. Something he made look easy, although she knew that juggling this many steaks with different requirements wasn’t easy. There was a reason Luther, despite holding a perfectly ordinary position, was like the king of the kitchen. As simple as it looked, he did his job extremely well. Customers could tell by the taste alone if he was at the grill or not. 

“You think Mister Harrison would give me my job here back?” she asked finally.

This surprised him. “Might could,” he said carefully. “Why? Ya finally sick of that fancy nonsense ya been cookin’?”

She shrugged and watched him work a little longer.

“Come to yer senses, have ya?” he teased her, probably to coax her out of her sullen mood. “Wanna cook real food again?”

“Yeah cause endlessly plating mashed potatoes is ‘cooking real food’” she rolled her eyes, wiping her cheeks.

“Apple pie is,” he countered.

“They have apple pie there,” she sniffed.

“But not mawmaw’s apple pie, is it?” he jabbed his steak fork at her. 

“What the hell is that?”

“True food,” he said around his cigarette. “Measured with instinct, baked with gut. Like yours.”

She clicked her tongue, a little abashed at the flattery. “It’s just plain pie.”

“Some things can’t be improved, Savigne,” he huffed. “Cause they perfect as is. Ya think on that.”

A few moments passed. “Why ya wanna come back?” he asked, more serious.

She hesitated. He gave her an inscrutable look at that, but didn’t push. 

“I’m thinking…” she mumbled, “…thinking…I just feel like…”

She couldn’t get it out, it was like a splinter wedged inside her. Taboo to look at, criminal to talk about. Luther turned some steaks and patiently lighted another cigarette. 

“Is it the work?” he tried to help.

She shook her head. He harrumphed.

“The pay, the hours?” She shook her head again. He hummed and contemplated that for a moment.

“Is it yer boss?” She felt the color surge up her face but even though he must have seen it, he didn’t push further. 

“Ya know I’m yer friend,” he said at long last.

“I know,” she whispered. Then: “Promise not to tell Arthur. Just in case he comes here. He probably won’t, it's very very unlikely, but just on the off chance…”

He gave her a long, heavy look and she blushed further under it. “Okay,” he said at last. “I won’ tell yer man.”

She nodded and took a deep breath. 

She told him everything, starting with Rachel. Then what Ruth had said. Then her hand. Then Sarah. What he had done in his office. Estelle. And then today. She cried about that last part and he offered her another big cloth napkin as she apologized again because of her ridiculous sentimentality. The cleaners came in and Luther dropped his apron, put on his jacket and his hat and ambled out with her in tow. She was grateful that Arthur was gone for a few days and enjoyed walking with him to the harbor, a comical pair overall, where they sat on a bank and watched the ships. Now that she had started talking, it was as if she couldn’t stop. Like it was a deluge no barrier could hold. She went on rants and side issues but Luther knew her well and reminded her to breathe and gently guided her back to the main subject.

There was a long silence after during which she just sat squirming as he smoked his cigarette. 

“You haven’t said a word in an hour,” she said finally, drawing her jacket closer against the chill evening. He took off his own jacket and put it over her shoulders. “No I’m fi-”

“Hush.”

A long while later she asked “What do you think I should do?”

“Ya should tell yer man.”

“He butchered a Murfree for touching me," Savigne hissed with some heat. "There isn't a chance he won't kill Ecco.”

Luther hitched his enormous shoulders. “Maybe the man needs killin’.”

She stared at him, speechless. “What does your Lord say about that?”

“Lord kills a lot of folks, don’ he?”

Savigne gave him a slow head turn at that. Sometimes she wondered if Luther really was who she thought he was. To her, he was a big plush teddy bear. But every now and then he said something that gave her pause. 

“Ya really gonna let this cockroach sink yer career? All them years of hard work?” he continued, his black eyes blazing at her.

“What choice do I have? I’m not letting him touch me again. It's just...escalating."

“Course not,” he scoffed. “Ain’t gonna just stay with touchin’ either, believe me that.” He gave her startled face a scoff. “Ya wasn’t born yesterday Savigne. You know for all his bluster, he just another sick gutter deviant.”

“Then I’ll just come back to the steakhouse. Or...I can find another job." She watched the reflection of the lights of Saint Denis swimming in the dark water. "Could also go somewhere far..."

“What about the next girl?”

She swallowed and looked away. “I know. But…what can I do? Do you think I should talk to the owners of Antoine’s?”

He chuckled with dark amusement. “They know.”

“You think so?”

He grimaced. “Course they know.”

“What should I do then? Don’t say 'tell Arthur' because I won’t. And you can’t either, remember that.”

He adjusted his hat and took a deep breath. “Lemme talk to Mr. Harrison.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Gettin’ late,” he groaned and rose to his feet. “‘M old and I need my sleep.” She handed him his jacket as they started walking towards the stables. “Ya gonna be okay ridin’ back?”

“Yeah,” she sniffed, then hugged his big chest and he gave her a meaty pat in the back. 

“Gonna be just fine, Savigne,” he sighed. “Gimme few days. And don' go up to his room no more. Ya hear?” 

“Okay,” she grinned with happiness and ran into the stable to pick up Cricket as Luther looked after her for a long time.

She swam back to consciousness and almost immediately felt his presence behind her, warm and heavy, sloping the mattress with his weight. She took a deep, quiet breath of relief and closed her eyes, reveling in the feeling of knowing he was safe. If this had been six months ago, he would be in his own cot right now and she would be waking up in her small tent, completely oblivious to him, unaware that he had even left. Now his comings and goings, his presence and absence were natural forces that colored her days like the Sun and the Moon. How strange to think that for months she had slept a stone’s throw away from him and hadn’t given him a single thought. He had been a background character in her own story, merely a stage extra in her play. A man that she occasionally spotted in camp and of no particular interest to her. There was something both flimsy and frightening about the notion that they could have passed each other like ships in the dark and she would have never known that she had just missed out on a man she would come to love so profoundly. Was all of life really just luck? Of being at the right time in the right place? What if Javier had walked out of those bat doors in Valentine that day? What if she had rejected Arthur's absurd ask? What if the O'Driscolls had never come to camp? Never taken her? And he had never pursued her? What if, what if, what if... 

She carefully shifted to lie on her other side to face him and watched the shadows on his face move almost imperceptibly with his breathing as he slept. Awake, he was magnetic, intense; his presence hard to ignore. In sleep he looked at ease and vulnerable. The sharp corners of his jaw softened by the days long beard, petering out on his throat, the ridge of his nose, broken at some point and healed over, the criss-cross of lines around the eyes, the sun spots on his left cheek, the chapped lips, that scar on his chin and the strong eyebrows framing his eyes. Her gaze glided over the slope of his shoulder and the fuzz of hair on his chest, following the firm muscles of his arm to his wide forearm, ending with a big hand, resting in a loose fist. 

She watched his breathing, slow and subtle for a long time, trying to imagine what he would look like a year from now, five years from now, twenty years from now. If he would still be here by her side when she woke up or long gone. The idea marred her perfect morning and she pushed it away. When she sighed gently to dispel the cobwebs of sleep, he opened his eyes and looked at her. Then he slowly blinked, waking up, drawing a deep breath. 

“Welcome back,” she whispered and gently ran a hand over his cheek, down his chest. The heartbeat against her palm was slow and subtle, his skin warm. “I missed you.”

He watched her a long moment. “Wasn’t gone long,” was his raspy answer. 

She smiled. “Felt long.”

Her fingers glided through his hair, tucking it behind an ear as his azure gaze rested on her. Then his hand cradled her hip, gliding to her waist. She wondered if he still had moments when, even if only for a second, he was surprised by her presence as he woke up or if she had become a constant to him now like he was a constant to her. 

“Do you ever miss your cot, your own tent from before?” she whispered as birds outside started their twittering. Less of them now that Fall was here.

His brows furrowed with confusion “Why?”

She shrugged deftly, fingers stroking his beard. “I was thinking, how a few months ago you would have returned to your cot and I wouldn’t even know you left.”

The hand on her waist flexed, thumb brushing back and forth against her hip bone.

“What ya think of me back then?” he mumbled, voice still hoarse with sleep.

“You scared me,” she grinned, brushing his cheeks. "Thought you were a mean man."

"Ya let mean men take ya to the woods, Savigne?" was his amused question.

"Apparently," she huffed a laughter. "Probably the best stupid thing I ever did." 

“And after?” he asked at the heels of a silent moment. She knew that he meant after that first night and shrugged coyly.

There was a spark in his eyes as he hummed. “Thought of me, did ya?”

“No.”

His gaze became predatory as he read her lie. “Tell me.”

“Nothing to tell,” she huffed.

The corners of his lips curled smugly. “What ya spin in yer head?”

“Please,” she bit her cheek in mock annoyance. “I can barely remember. I was drunk.”

When she shifted to lie on her back, he followed and rolled to lie on top of her. His lips sought out hers, gentle and coaxing, the kiss teasingly slow but deepening in waves, capturing her mouth, then releasing it, then closing on it again.

“Did ya think on me takin’ you against that tree?” he whispered into her ear as he suckled on her lobe. She felt herself getting wet. These days it didn’t take much, really.

“Maybe,” she gasped as her palms glided over his shoulder blades, feeling the firmness and the warmth of his skin, slightly sticky with sweat as he rose on his elbows and kissed her harder. This has to be the best feeling in the world, she thought. Waking up next to someone you missed and making love in the quietness of the breaking dawn.

His face traveled down her neck, then her chest. He suckled her breast, leaving a dark mark on the fabric of her nightgown. She arched into his mouth and gasped as his beard scratched her sensitive skin. 

“What else?” he mumbled, giving her nipple a long lick with the flat of his tongue, blue eyes locked to hers.

“Can’t…recall.”

The fingers of his left hand snaked into her bloomers and glided over her wet folds. He hummed with approval. “Think you can,” he whispered.

She moaned when his callused trigger finger teasingly circled, parted and then entered her, her inner muscles closing on it eagerly. He grunted and and kissed her again as her hands danced on his ribs, clutching at his lower back.

“I imagined you came to my tent,” she gasped, squirming under him, hips undulating to get friction. 

He perched above her on one elbow, watching her face as his finger pumped her slow and deep.

“Go on.”

“I just…” she moaned, eyelids fluttering.

“Tell me what I did,” he grinned as she writhed in pleasure under him.

She could feel his hardness against her stomach but he had better control over his needs than she did these days. 

“You…touched me,” she moaned and rose on her elbows to kiss him hungrily. 

“Like this?” He curled his finger and she cried out softly against his lips, her nails leaving trails on his back.

She nodded with delirium and fell back on the pillow, panting with need. 

“What else?”

“Kissed me,” she whimpered, clawing at the sheets. The intensity of her arousal was frightening, gaping in front of her like a an open maw, ready to swallow her whole and consume her.

He kissed a trail down her chest as she watched him disappear under the covers. Her breath hitched as her nightgown was pulled aside and a trail of hot lips and wet tongue strolled casually down her stomach. His left hand never ceased its merciless slack pumping while his right hand glided her bloomers off. The stutter of a moan escaped her as he traversed down the patch of hair. 

“Like this?” was his muffled question before his lips closed on her folds as he curled his fingers and ever so slowly brushed against her sensitive spot. 

The jolt of lightning that forked through her blindsided her. Her thighs clamped on his head as she was surprised as she came immediately with a guttural groan, desperately clenching around his finger. He gently licked her bud and fingered her as she rode her orgasm, eyes rolling back in her head, her spine arching off the mattress. When she bonelessly fell back, he withdrew his finger and lapped at her wetness, curling his tongue to enter her as she panted his name. She felt on fire, burning with some internal flame that sometimes flared, sometimes smoldered, but refused to go out entirely.  

He crawled back up and emerged from under the covers, hair mussed, a broad grin on his lips and obnoxiously proud of himself.

“Ya taste different, little bird,” he drawled. “Stronger. Sweeter. I like it.”

She shuddered as she watched him insert his trigger finger into his mouth, suck it to the tip and remove it with a slight pop. There was something so unabashedly perverse about it, she found her arousal stirring at it again. “Oh god,” she moaned, bewildered at the reaction of her own body. "Think I'm going crazy."

Arthur was well aware of her heightened libido and happy to exploit it with maddening brazenness. His hands ran up her thighs and her stomach as he gave her a heated look. “What else?”

“You fucked me,” she said breathlessly. 

He rose on his knees, pulled down his cotton bottoms and positioned himself at her entrance as his eyes, blown with lust, locked on hers. She gasped at the mixture of pleasure and pain when he pushed in slowly, watching her face. He muttered a “Damn yer warm” as he pulled out all the way to the tip, then his hands gripped her hips and he pulled her to himself as he glided back in. 

“Like this?” was his rumble of a question.

She hissed a “Yes”, hands clutching at anything they could find. Her arousal was like a wild, furious fire, flaring up every time he pulled out entirely and bucked into her again. She closed her eyes, squirming and panting as he repeatedly and slowly slammed into her, their harsh breathing and the slapping of flesh on flesh loud in the early morning quietness.

“Or like this?”

Her right leg was pulled up against his shoulder, secured against his chest as he increased his pace and crouched over her. She felt his hot breath on her breasts as he fucked her into the bed, the angle allowing him a deeper penetration. She whimpered his name and stuttered an approval as her body went up in flames.

“Lemme guess…” he panted above her, “…then I did…this.” His pace increased as did the fervor of his thrusting. Fingers found and started to roughly massage her still sensitive nub, tearing peals of desperate cries from her throat. She rose on her head, nails digging into his shoulders as he grunted and those cowboy hips started rutting into her. Her mouth fell open, slack with mindless pleasure. He let go of her leg still hooked over his shoulder as his hand gripped the back of her neck and he crushed his lips against hers when she came, swallowing the scream of orgasm that tore from her.

She whimpered and spasmed as he rode her through it and moaned when he continued on, helplessly bucking and jerking and slapping into her until he groaned into her lips and she felt the warm spurts of his cum jetting into her, filling her. 

He gasped and tore his lips off hers, puffing gasps against her face as he stopped moving while her inner walls rhythmically milked him empty. 

“Christ,” he whispered as cracked open his eyes and found her looking at him, flushed and panting under him. She rose a little and kissed him gently on the lips before she fell back on her pillow. He let her leg drop around him as he settled above her on his elbows, breathing into her neck and groaning with pleasure when she ran her hands through his hair.

“No, I don' miss my cot,” he huffed with amusement and kissed her neck before he shifted to lie beside her and pulled back up his cotton bottoms. He lightly grasped her hand as they lied side by side and watched the light run through its spectrum of color for dawn. She asked him where he had been and what he had done like she usually did and he answered in his signature stoic way, both happy to perform their little private ritual as they basked in the afterglow of their orgasms.

She wished it was Sunday and she could just stay here and didn’t have to go back to that hellhole. Or better yet, that they could spend the day packing the wagon and pull out of camp, heading somewhere far away. As the weeks ticked by and the timeline grew closer, she grew even more eager and restless with the notion of leaving and both of them starting fresh - like clean, pure snow. They said it can be done in America - starting fresh. They said it was a big, wild country; that there were still a lot of places that offered anonymity, where you could be a new person as easily as changing your outfit.

Eventually she rose, sighed away her daydreams, gave him a kiss and scrambled off the bed. “What do you want for dinner tonight?” she asked as she wiped herself clean, then wiggled out of her nightgown. “Don’t say lasagna, you always want lasag-”

“What happened to yer arm?”

She glanced at him lying sideways on the bed, watching her and shifted to point her left side away from him. “Nothing.” She put on a clean chemise.

In the corner of her eye he shifted to sit on the edge of the bed. “Lemme see.”

“I’m going to be late.” She put on a shirt and hastily buttoned it up, lifted her hair out of it, then turned to the shelf to find a fitting skirt. When he materialized right beside her as silent as a cat, she jumped a little with surprise. 

“Lemme see,” he said softly, his azure gaze locked on her.

“It’s nothing,” she said again and felt the stirrings of panic when he didn’t move away. 

“Wasn’ there when I left,” he drawled and stepped closer, watching her reaction. 

“I ran into something at work yesterday.”

A moment passed as they stood there and she felt the weight of his gaze crawling on her face. Savigne knew that she had never been a good liar, but it was utterly frustrating how even lies she thought she performed particularly well set off Arthur’s bullshit alarm.

She shifted on her feet, unable to hold his gaze and pulled up her skirt. 

“Savigne,” he said, voice soft but now the timbre of warning audible. “Show me yer arm.”

“You’re ridiculous, it’s nothing,” she rolled her eyes and fumbled with the ties of her skirt.

“Ain’t nothin’ if yer lying to me.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Then show me yer arm.”

She pressed her lips, flustered and couldn’t make herself lock eyes with him, afraid that she would blush and give everything away. He started to unbutton her shirt. She gripped his hand to stop him and their gazes collided. He seemed unfazed by her hard stare, returned one of his own, roughly pushed her hand away and continued unbuttoning her shirt. When it was done, he peeled the left sleeve off and lifted her arm to inspect it closer. The purple had faded to a weak red but the imprint of a hand was obvious. His eyes flicked up to her face immediately and he looked at her for a long time as she stood there, silent.

“What happened?” was his quiet question.

“Someone gripped me a little hard at work.”

“Thought ya ran into something,” he said, his eyes hard.

“Yeah, they gripped me so I wouldn’t, that’s what I meant.” 

Another very long moment passed. Her earlier mood of joy turned to ash in her mouth. It had always been hard to look angry Arthur in the eye, but that day she found out that it was ten times harder when his anger was directed at her. This was no flare of ire either - something crested in his eyes like an iceberg pushing up the surface of blue waters and kept rising as she stood there, a deep sense of dread in her stomach. Chef Ecco had hurt her and the pain had scared her, true, but that seemed very mild compared to the trepidation she was feeling with Arthur looming above her right now. Not exactly fear of physical pain, but a sense of dismay combined with anguish at the idea of what would follow - the collapse of all her dreams. Her mind scattered down the forks in the road and where the offshoots lead and each one promised a prospect worse than the next. 

“Gonna ask again,” he said finally, voice audibly strained now. “What. Happened?”

She stood under his hard stare, feeling obnoxiously exposed. Her heart was thumping in her ears and she had an irrational fear that he could hear it. She was about to respond but he was faster:

"And don' say nothin'."

She opened and closed her mouth like a fish several times and was unable to come up with something. 

He pulled a chair out and ordered her to sit. 

"I'm going to be la-"

"Don' care."

He pulled the other chair out and she flinched a little when he banged it down, ran a hand over his beard to calm himself, then sat across from her. 

Savigne morosely threaded her arm through her sleeve again and sat down, absentmindedly buttoning up her shirt. 

It got so silent, she heard the stirring of conversations in the camp even though it was a good distance away. 

"Arthur," she managed finally. "You have to trust me on this." She inspected her hands, unable to look him in the eye. "It's noth- it's not important."

"If it ain't important, should be easy to spill."

She wet her lips and started to draw shapes on the table.

"I was...I was..." she stammered, her mind going blank. At the orphanage, whenever her and her friends got caught doing mischief, Savigne had always been the weakest link. She would unravel immediately under the hard stare of the Sisters and spill everything, so much so that after a while the other girls didn't want her to string along anymore. When she had been angry and upset about this, arguing that she had just one of those faces and it wasn't her fault, her friends had told her that her mistake was not sticking to the lie. You have to stick to it, Savigne. No matter how absurd the lie, you can never stop telling it. Don't elaborate, don't explain, just repeat it. She had already messed up by embellishing the lie with the addition of how she almost ran into something, now she had to stick to it.

"I was going to run into something..." she started stubbornly.

"Woman..." was his growl.

"...I almost ran into something and someone in the kitchen grabbed me too hard," she rattled off. It reminded her of the prayers she would prattle off when asked to - a jumble of sounds that had been reduced to meaningless memorized gobbledygook with years of repetition.

Another long minute passed. "Did the same someone..." he said and she heard the creak of his chair as he slowly leaned his elbows on the table between them, "...grab yer hand back when, too?"

Her eyes jerked up to him in shock before she could control her reaction. She could have sworn that something ignited in his eyes then. It was eerie how clever Arthur was, really. It's like he never threw anything out and just stockpiled his memories only to be retrieved later to neatly line them up to reveal ghosts of patterns and conclusions that weren’t there before.

Regardless, she found herself saying "N-no."

"Y'aint denyin' someone grabbed yer hurt hand, then?" he said slowly, as if talking to a child. 

"I don't...remember," she whispered. She had been unable to look at him and now that she had, she couldn't look away.

He just sat there, gaze unblinking and so hard, it had a weight to it. He had never looked at her with this sort of anger before and she had an irrational fear that it would set her skin aflame. 

"Please," she whispered and wet her lips again. "It was just an accident." When he didn't respond, she was desperate to try again: "I'm going to be late."

He looked at her so long, she thought she must have not said it out loud and was about to again, but then, to her utter surprise, he suddenly said "Fine."

She hesitated, thinking she must have misheard him. Or that a "but" would follow with a threat of some kind if she left the tent. 

When nothing of the sort happened she dared to ask "Really?"

His jaw clenched as if he was fighting himself to say it but eventually he managed a "Really."

"Okay," she sighed and the relief that washed over her made her dizzy for a moment. "Okay. It was noth-" He looked away as if insulted and she swallowed the rest of the sentence. "Sorry."

She hastily got up and finished dressing and didn't even bother with her hair, just grabbed her satchel. Then she had a terrifying idea.

"You're not going to storm into Antoine's or anything like that, right?" was her timid question. 

"Was an accident, no?" was his sarcastic, bitter retort. 

"Yes. Accident," she said breathlessly. 

"Okay then." He clicked his tongue and grimaced like he was willing to humor her nonsense. 

In her gut, she knew he didn't believe a single word she had said but ultimately the danger had passed. She hadn't cracked under pressure and there was nobody else who could tell him, she had made sure of that. A relief flooded through her along with guilt. "Lasagna tonight?" she asked, eager to move on and to make it up to him.

He wouldn't look at her but nodded in agreement. Wary to push her luck further, she ran out after that, hesitated when she remembered that she hadn't kissed him goodbye halfway to her horse, then decided that it's not important right now and ran on.

Perhaps, if she had known that this was the last time they would make love in that tent, she would have decided otherwise.

[sl-newsie]

American Woman (Thomas Shelby x American OC) Ch. 3: Admiring Power

The family goes on chatting while I ladle soup into more bowls and pass them out, earning compliments as they dig in. I’m glad to see that they’re starting to accept me, but it’s still limiting since I’m the only one here who’s not a Shelby. I clean up what I can and then sneak off to my room, knowing that I have no reason to invade their family dinner. First I go to do some reading, but remember my only book is still in Finn’s room. All I have left is my Bible and a small embroidery project-

Huff!

I freeze at the new noise coming from outside the window. Cautiously, I creep over and stick my head out. What on Earth…? Oh. There’s a horse outside. But not just any horse. One of the most beautiful horses I’ve ever seen. Tall, black, and sleek.

“Well hello there,” I greet the animal. “Are you alone too? Want some company?” The horse tosses its head. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Sneaking out the window on my first night of employment might not be my best call, but I have better chances of making friends with this horse right now than I do with my employers. The window’s big enough to slide through, and the alley’s empty so I don’t have to worry about being seen. After I’m out and standing next to the grand animal, I hold out my hand for him to smell. 

“You’re magnificent. I bet you’re one of the Shelby’s horses. But I’m a bit surprised to find a horse like you being kept in this dodgy place. You deserve a wide, green pasture.”

“He has one.”

I nearly jump out of my skin when I hear Thomas’ voice, spinning to find him standing by a door a few feet away.

“Having a midnight rendezvous, are we?”

“N-No, Mr. Shelby. I was settling into my room when this creature asked to chat.”

Thomas raises an eyebrow. “He said that?”

“Well, no… But he does seem awfully friendly. When you’ve grown up in the city your whole life you don’t really get to interact with horses. Is this your horse?”

“Yes,” he states plainly.

“He’s beautiful.”

Thomas looks to see if I’m joking, but is surprised when I’m not. “Thank you. His name is Monaghan Boy, races at Kempton next week. Yesterday I arranged a bit of a magic trick to help him win.”

This surprises me, considering that Thomas seems to be the most bland of the group. “I didn’t take you for a man who believes in magic,” I say as I lean against the alley wall.

“You call it magic, I call it a publicity stunt. When Monaghan Boy wins he’ll gain more popularity and then everyone will bet on ‘im.”

“All profiting towards your business, I’m sure. You seem awfully young to run a bookkeeping business.”

Thomas cocks his head. “And you seem awfully young to be alone. What’s your story, love?”

At first my mind warns me to keep things simple and not to go into detail. No one needs to know my deep family roots, so I’ll keep it simple.

“My name is Verena Nora Steenstra. My father’s Dutch, and my mother’s Irish. All my life I’ve lived in Brooklyn, New York, and of course with my luck the first time we decide to take a vacation is when I get left behind.”

This gives Thomas an intrigued look. “That’s different. I’m sorry to hear that. Will your family come looking for you?”

I chuckle and give a halfhearted shrug. “Who knows. I’m the youngest of five brothers, and they’re always lecturing about how I need to ‘toughen up’ and ‘see the world.’ Maybe they left me here on purpose.”

“Seems harsh.”

“They’re family, I still love them.” I give Thomas a grin. “You’ve very good at interrogating, Mr. Shelby. A real gentleman, letting a woman do all the talking. But if you’re looking for any vital information I can’t help you. My father runs his business water-tight.”

Once again Thomas is fazed by my reaction. “Are all Americans this sassy? You’re much more sophisticated than I pinned you for.”

“Well thank you! I do admit I’m more reserved than some but when the time comes I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. But enough of me. Could you tell me a bit about how your family business works?”

Thomas suddenly goes stiff and looks around to make sure we’re alone. I don’t know why, but I’m finding myself opening up more to this strange character. He seems lost. Almost as if he can’t seem to figure out what to do with his life. He beckons me closer and I notice he smells faintly of mint, ash, and cigarettes. 

“I’ll tell you the basics, but you need to keep this to yourself. No blabbing to the coppers, is that clear?” He warns.

I nod stiffly. “Crystal.” I’ve known my fair share of keeping family secrets.

“Good. Arthur and Nipper work the books. Nipper’s not as important, Aurthur runs the show.”

“He seems… Nice.”

Thomas chuckles. “If you think that’s nice just wait ‘till you see him drunk.”

“I don’t plan to. And what is it you do, Mr. Shelby?”

Thomas gets a cocky look and steps closer, towering over me as his icy blue eyes seem to peer straight through me. “I think, so they don’t have to. I’m the one who drums up new money and keeps things in order. Such as discovering if new pretty faces like you are a threat.”

I stifle a laugh. “The closest I’d ever get to a threat is if you forced me to. My suggestion: keep your own business out of mine.”

This seems to please Thomas, because he gets a satisfied smile and leans in to whisper: “Good, then we understand each other.” He leans away, leaving me slightly dazed from him being so close. “Someone else you need to stay away from is Freddie Thorne. He’s the BSA union covener, and a communist.”

My eyebrows rise. “Better for me not to even meet him. If my father hears I’ve been involved with a commie he’ll disown me.” 

“Yeah, well, he didn’t used to be like that. If we have anything in common, we both give false hope to the poor. Freddie with his speeches, me with my horses,” Thomas remarks as he strokes Monaghan Boy.

“I can tell you’re very proud of your horses, as you should be. Seeing that black beauty of a beast trot through the street is enough to chill your blood.”

Thomas turns to me with a devilish grin. “You admire my horse?”

“I admire many things, Mr. Shelby.” Such as your suave demeanor and effective use of authority.

Something in Thomas’ eyes seems to flicker, a quick sign of vulnerability. “You know, normally I require that all employees call me that. However, since you’ve been hired to specifically help my brother and not to run the business, you can call me Thomas.”

Alright, what is this man’s angle? Butter me up and get me to spill my family’s secrets? Because I won’t. But that doesn’t mean his charm is going unnoticed. Never once has a man made my heart this light before and I’m hoping it doesn’t show.

“Very well, Thomas. Thank you for trusting me. I know that’s very important coming from you.”

“Sure is, love. Now I think we’d better get back inside before people start looking for you.” Thomas puts a surprisingly gentle hand on my shoulder and guides me to the back door, where I give one last wave to Monaghan Boy before he leads me back to my room.

“My room’s directly next to yours, so keep that in mind the next time you plan on sneaking out,” he warns lightly.

“Believe me, Thomas, you have no fear of me running off in the night. I don’t know where I’d go and probably wouldn’t be able to last one night without getting beaten to a pulp.”

Thomas tips his hat just before he goes to shut my door. “Goodnight, Verena.”

“Goodnight, Thomas.”

Once I’m alone again I quickly dress into my nightgown and turn off the lights, climb into bed and say a grateful prayer for all the help I’ve received today. Just before my heavy eyelids close, my last thought is of the unexpected feelings that Thomas Shelby has awoken inside me…

[ganymede-princess]

The Craving | Jack Conroy

PART 2

ship: Jack Conroy x fem!OC

warnings: mentions of death, brief description of healed frostbite

summary: Jack meets a musher girl on his first day in Alaska.

word count: 2826

a/n: I am actually extremely proud of this so I hope somebody reads it haha

written by @ganymede-princess

Living in the Yukon, you get used to craving. You crave warmth, food that doesn’t come from a can, a bed with a real mattress and a roof over it, the sight of a fresh face and fresh conversation. I had been out there for nearly seven years by the time I met Jack Conroy, and nearing my seventeenth birthday too. I stood at the edge of our camp, watching the prospectors stumble out of the narrow passage at the top of the pass, like rats spewing from a drainpipe. He caught my eye then, beet-red and fresh of face, dressed warm, but not warm enough, his eyes glazed with exhaustion and wonder. He reminded me of myself the first time I climbed the Golden Staircase, back when snow still glittered like pixie dust, and my father’s promise of a gold seam to call our own didn’t ring hollow as the wind through an empty mine. I knew Conroy instantly; the mirror of his father, the man who raised me better than my own. I kept my head down as he looked around, knowing he was there for Alex, but not wanting to face it. The Yukon would turn that boy hard as ice before long, and I didn’t want to watch it happen.

As he traipsed over to us, I crossed my arms and glared at him. Go home, Conroy. I thought. Go shack up somewhere warm, and be happy. He didn’t look at me once, so consumed with his mission. I shielded my face and retreated to the tent. The coffin was easier to face than Alex breaking his heart. Despite my reluctance, I knew I would not have minded taking him on. There were few young people so far into the mountains, except the few kids at the Tlingit village along the trail, but we never stayed long enough to get to know them. The boy could become my companion, of sorts. We would take him north-west from Dyea to Klondike, then set him loose to find his way to the Conroy claim to spend a few months frantically digging into the hill; and go home colder, hungrier, and poorer in spirit. I wouldn’t even have to see it break him. Alex wasn’t like that. He was a pragmatist. He and Skunker knew how to mush, and they took me on because I was the best scout you’d ever need, thanks to my daddy’s training. This boy was a city slicker, and the best he could offer the team was a morale boost, and Skunker was already too cheerful for Alex’s liking. We couldn’t take him. He’d be a dead weight. I tried to close my ears to his charming, eager voice as he tried to butter up old Larson. Soon enough, Alex stepped into the tent and nodded for me to help him lift the coffin. I set my teeth and heaved it. ‘Heavy’ doesn’t begin to cut it.

“Who’s in there?” Conroy asked, puffing a white cloud as he tried to catch his breath.

“Name’s Dutch.” Alex caught my eye and nodded in acknowledgement. I said nothing.

As sweet as his cold, dead daddy, Jack Conroy helped me lift the box. He waffled on in a voice tense with effort, about maps and letters, and gold dust in an envelope his father sent him on his deathbed. My heart ached at the thought of kind old Scotty, dying alone in his claim with that grey lump of diphtheria in his throat. We found him frozen one winter a few years past, and I left a bundle of purple lupines on his grave. My eyes started to burn and something in my throat thickened as I finished tying up my corner of the sled. I pushed past Jack to tie his side. He stumbled, his shoes struggling for purchase on the packed snow. Wolfish fury passed over his face as he regained his footing, then he calmed and went back to pleading his case.

“Everybody finds a little gold dust.” Alex assured him. “That’s what keeps you digging. But you have to strike it, and your father didn’t. Go home and find a regular job. You wouldn’t last a day out here.”

Something odd happened then. I caught the boy’s eye, still glimmering with hope, and realised three nuggets of truth at once: one; this boy was no stranger to craving adventure, glory, and a namesake, but craving food, craving heat? He had never wanted for these things in his life. Two; he had that grit in his teeth that showed the true conviction of his words. He would try to journey to the Conroy claim, with or without our help. And three; I had never known craving until I craved him.

“I’m a good worker, and I just want what’s mine.” He insisted, his soft voice strained in earnest as he trailed Alex’s heels. “I’m asking you to give me a chance.”

“Skunker!” I slapped the old man’s feet, sending him thrashing into wakefulness. You better back me up here you stinkin’ old bastard.

“Damn, what is it?” He exclaimed, limbs flailing as he leapt to his feet. “Alex!” He breezed past both Jack and me, still dazed with one foot in a fancy. “I was dreaming you, me, and Dutch was livin’ it up in Frisco! ‘Lil Quinn at a real college, the works!”

“Get the dogs ready.” Alex said coldly. This was his way.

“I hope Dutch appreciates this ride.” Skunker bemoaned, ignoring Alex’s crotchety comment and making no attempt to hide his annoyance for my sake. I damn well agreed with him. “‘Cause you shoulda died at your digs!” He hit the coffin with his fist. “Saved us a trip back.”

“Are you going near my father’s claim?”

“Scott Conroy’s son!” I called after Skunker. He turned on his heels, a half sceptical look on his face.

“What? Lemme see that face, kid.” He got up in the boy’s face and grabbed him by the chin, inspecting him close with beady eyes. Jack held his breath against the smell. “My God, Alex, he’s the spittin’ image of his old man! And I knew ya pa well. Clarence Thurston.”

“Jack Conroy.” Skunker slapped him into a frenzied handshake.

“You throwin’ in with us?” I knew I could trust old Skunker to have my back. I didn’t even have to plead a case for him.

“Yeah, I’d like to.”

“No.” Alex said simply. I knew this wouldn’t be easy.

“No? You’re taking him with you and you’re not gonna take me? He looks half dead already!”

I giggled. The first laugh I’d had since my daddy kicked the bucket. I slapped a mitten over my mouth to hide it and slipped away to wake up the dogs while Skunker bartered some gum out of him as an apology. Our wheelers, Fritz and Fatty, stirred and wagged their tails as I ran my hands through their fur, whining and baring their teeth in greeting.

“Hey, don’t worry about him.” Skunker assured him, waking up Digger and George, our swing team. “He’s just tired, that’s all.”

“Yeah, or he knows there’s gold out there and wants it for himself.”

“Woah, boy! You got the harness on the wrong dog.”

“Conroy.” I spoke up, meeting his hostile stare and forcing a calm over my body despite how flustered I felt. “If there’s one man you can trust in this damn place it's Alex Larson.”

He scoffed, seeming to ignore my words entirely, and rounded on Alex.

“Listen, if you don’t wanna take me, I’ll go by myself. I’ll get rich by myself too.”

“I think he’s crazy enough to do it Alex!”

“Skunker’s right.” I left the wheelers and sidled up beside him. “The Yukon will swallow him whole, we gotta take him.”

“Quinn, we can’t take him just because you think he’s cute.” Alex put on a shit-eating grin and tapped my arm with his glove.

“It’s not jus’ that.” My face heated up, but I saw no sense in denying it if it was already that obvious. “He’s got a musher’s spirit in him, even if he is green as snow peas, and I don’t wanna find him dead in the woods come summer and know we killed him.”

“Come on, Alex, he’s Scott’s boy!” Thank you Skunker! “Look at him, huh? How much trouble could he be?”

He cast a final sceptical glance at Jack, but conceded. Skunker winked. I stared him down for a second, admiring the swoop of his dark blonde hair, then let my lips twitch into a curt smile.

“I’ll take you as far as Klondike. Fall behind, and I’ll leave you where you drop. Understand?” Alex was all talk, as usual. Even if he wasn’t, he would realise soon enough that leaving this boy in the snow would mean signing two death papers at the Klondike post office.

“Yes, sir.” Jack beamed. At the sight of his smile, I felt the craving stir again, paired with a healthy portion of despair. I knew a virile young man like that would never make do with a musher girl who had lived amongst men so long that she had nearly become one, and often felt more dog than person; but to travel beside him for a while would be a gift.

Alex retreated to the tent to nurse his regret, and Skunker went out to the tuck tent to get some minced meat for the dogs. I went back to playing with the pack, settling beside them and letting the six team dogs crowd around me and vie for my attention. Jack came to sit beside me, eying me as cautiously as the dogs. The thin, agouti bitch who laid at the edge of the group got to her paws and came to watch him with her ice blue eyes. Her body was relaxed, though she let out a deep rumble

“Connie.” She turned her ear to me, but kept her eyes hard on the boy. “He’s a fine boy, he won’t hurt me. He’s Scotty’s boy.” Her ear twitched back up at Scott’s name. “Heel, Connie.” She stepped over to me, eyes always trained on Jack. “Sit now, girl.” She did. I reached over and laid a hand on Jack’s shoulder, stroking it like I would a dog. “Now do the same to me.” His eyes flickered to me, hesitant, but he did as I said. Connie cocked her head, then pinned her ears back and wagged her tail. “See girl, he’s alright.”

“Can I touch her?” His voice was full of wonder.

“You have to ask her. Give her your fist. Gentle now.”

Slowly, he raised his fist to her. Their eyes met. Connie froze, and for a long moment I thought she might bite him, but then her body relaxed and she licked his hand, then his arm, and soon she had climbed all the way on top of him to lick his chops. He giggled and squirmed under her weight and collapsed onto his back.

“Connie! Settle down, girl, he ain’t for eatin’! I know he looks tasty.” I wrapped my arms around her middle and lifted her off him.

“Thank you,” He puffed, clambering off the snow. “Um…”

“Quinn.” Meeting his eyes was almost painful. They were so blue, like a clear day when the sky reflects on the snow so bright it’s almost blinding.

“Ah, thank you, Quinn.”

I looked away and stroked down Connie’s hackles. Setting my teeth together to keep from chattering. Nerves make the cold so much harder to bear.

“How’d a girl like you wind up out here?”

“You noticed, huh?” I raised my eyebrows. “Not many folks do these days. I got used to being called ‘son’ years ago, on account of my boyish charms.” To his credit, Jack chuckles, though I was sure that must have been the first joke I’d told anyone but Connie-dog. “Doesn’t help having a boy’s name, neither.”

“I think Quinn’s a fine name for a girl.” He said it earnestly enough that I managed to spare a glance at him. “And I knew you were a girl as soon as I saw you.” I said nothing, only squished some snow between my fingers to hide my squirming. I almost wished he hadn’t seen me at all. “‘Cause I’d never known a boy to be that pretty.”

“Now, Jack-” I started, my embarrassment trying hard to fester itself into anger. Well, ain’t you living proof to the contrary?

“It’s the truth!” He shifted closer to me, and I shifted away in return, bringing my knees up to my chest and pulling my scarf over my nose. “So how did you end up out here?”

“Mushin,’” I gave him a sidelong glance. “Been out here with my daddy since I’s ten. It’s how I make my living.”

“Who’s your da- your father, who is he?” His face reddened, making me giggle. I hid my face in my knees to cover it.

“Who’s my daddy?” I lean a little closer, enjoying being the one to make him squirm. “Well, he’s a fella by the name o’ Ysbrandt Maarschalkerweerd, but ain’t nobody this side the Atlantic can pronounce that, so they jus’ called him Dutch.”

“Oh.” He took a moment to digest it. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, that’s life.”

“I-I suppose?”

“It is. People just up and die out here sometimes.” I pushed away one of the team dogs from licking up my ear without checking who it was. “It’s not so bad.”

“You don’t miss him?”

“Not as much as I miss yours.” I admitted. “He was more of a father to me than my own ever was.”

“Really?” He leaned in, brow furrowed in contemplation.

“Yeah. He checked on me a lot, and one time- musta been about thirteen- I stayed with him at the claim for nearin’ six months while daddy and Skunker mushed supplies up to Nome. That’s when he bought Connie-dog for me. We went down to Klondike a fair bit to watch the fiddlers, see, and one time there’s a little boy sellin’ puppies. Turns out ol’ Colton’s lead bitch got knocked up by a wolf while they were out in the woods. Cost your daddy a whole dollar, but she’s been an asset ever since.”

“Wow.” He stroked the brindled fur between her eyes with reverence.

“It’s right we take you to Klondike. I think if you live an honest life out here- you stay true, you never rob, or hurt your dogs- your bones turn into a new gold seam when you die. Your pa never struck gold, but he might have made some for you.”

“Huh.” He looked thoughtful.

“Don’t let this place kill your kindness, Jack. You might leave some gold behind.”

“I won’t.” He noticed the scepticism on my face and added more emphatically: “I won’t.”

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“Eighteen and still a green lil’ bean.” I shook my head. “You need better gear ‘n this. C’mon.”

He followed me dutifully to the sled where I dug around in my pack and produced my spare scarf, wool trapper hat that I usually wore under my coonskin, and a spare pair of fur cover-gloves to wear over his mittens.

“When you’re out in it, keep a scarf around your nose and mouth.” I pull the glove off my left hand with my teeth and show him the stub of my pinky finger, the missing tip on my index, and the hollow gouged into the pad at the base of my thumb. “‘Else you’ll lose ‘em like my fingers.” His eyes widened. “Wear these gloves over your mittens. I don’t have another coonskin, but you need more’n a baker’s cap to protect your ears. Tie it under your chin so it don’t blow off. You do that, you keep up with the sled, an’ you respect these dogs, and you’ll make it to Klondike with nothing missing.”

“Will they bite me?” He casted a nervous glance at the pack.

“No, but if you try anything abnormal I’ll bite you. They call me Dogtooth up at the Tlingit camp ‘cause a boy tried it on wi’ me and I bit square through his pecker.”

“Really?” He cringed, taking a step back.

“No.” I put my glove back on, smirking. “But you believed me, which gotta count for somethin.’”

“Did not!” 

“Did too!”

“Fightin’ already?” Skunker called out, hobbling along with two buckets full of fish.

“No, Skunker!” I waved him off. “Did too. Now come feed the puppies ‘fore they starve, get in their good graces.”

I turned to walk away, but Jack caught my shoulder and pushed himself flush against my back. I felt my heart quicken in that terrible, delicious rhythm as his lips brushed my ear. Every inch of me trembling with a craving like I had never felt.

“Did. Not.”

[arthiiwille]

❤️ I AMsterdam!

Original design twi: mi_kan1609

[magic-crazy-as-this]

[ Penelope Todd / Red Phoenix ] OC Profile

Name: Penelope Anne Todd

Name Meaning: Named for the brave queen of Ithaca from Greek Mythology

Nickname(s): Penny (only Jason calls her that)

Alias(es): Red Phoenix

Occupation: Vigilante/Crimefighter, Library Page/Intern

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Bisexual

Age/Birthday: 17 / 16 July

Height: 5' 6" (167 cm)

Hair Colour/Type/Length: Very thick and wavy dark brown/black down to her shoulder blades, she usually wears it up - especially when she's crime-fighting

Eye Colour: Hazel

Family:

Jason Todd (genetic brother)

Bruce Wayne (adoptive father) ( & other Batfamily etc.) She was very young when she and Jason were adopted and she was sent away from the Batfamily to grow up outside of Gotham soon after. She doesn't feel very close to anyone in the family aside from Jason.

Love Interest(s): Dick Grayson (kind of. it's a very precocious crush and probably nothing will happen.)

Skills/Powers:

Vanish: Penelope can teleport anywhere within line of sight instantly and soundlessly on the condition that no one is observing her when disappearing, nor the place where she intends to appear. This includes cameras and any animal with the intelligence to notice her disappearance. If she tries to teleport away when being observed, she can stay in a 'standby' state, but it is an uncomfortable and sometimes painful experience.

Eyebright: Penelope can always sense when someone is looking at her, which is an uncomfortable experience. The 'harder' someone looks at her (i.e. glaring), the more uncomfortable it makes her feel. She can sense someone's gaze through opaque masks and at a distance, but distance makes the feeling less pronounced.

Staff Fighting: Penelope is able to fight with a staff at a decent level and can mostly hold her own in a fight, but she was not properly trained by a hero and often gets in over her head. (In my Elseworld/AU, every Robin fights with a staff and the same staff gets passed on to each subsequent Robin)

Likes: Anything sweet, old cartoons, hanging out on rooftops, 24-hour diners, musical theatre, bad 80s power ballads, Aunt Agatha's Dutch apple pie

Dislikes: Sudden changes / loud sounds / being touched without warning (she's autistic!), her quiet hometown, tomatoes, country music

Backstory: Penelope Anne Todd was adopted by Bruce Wayne alongside Jason but when Jason decided to become Robin, she was sent away to live with Bruce's elderly Aunt Agatha so she would be safe and not a 'distraction' to her brother. Over the years, Penelope got to know the Batfamily, albeit distantly. She was invited to Wayne Manor for holidays and the occasional birthday but never had the opportunity to really hang out or spend time with anyone - not even Jason once he took up the role of Robin. Jason was killed by the Joker when she was twelve years old and it was at his funeral that she discovered her brother was Robin and that her adoptive family were all crime-fighters. She confronted Bruce about this and they had a massive fight that they never quite recovered from. Even still, she begged Bruce and Dick to train her to be a hero so she could continue Jason's legacy and every time she asked, they said 'no'. Now fresh out of high school, Penelope took off for Gotham City with a homemade costume and she is ready to prove that she can be a hero.

[zmwrites]

OC Kiss Week Day 1: Almost

WIP: Poppet WIP

Pairing: Dutch x Aleksander

CWs: vague mentions of injuries

Words: 835

Notes: Questionably canon, would take place before the story starts

Dutch leaned back on the table, propping herself up on her elbows. Aleksander brought the candle closer to her wound—one of the cultists had managed to slice the side of her abdomen before she’d gutted them. His brows knitted together.

“Don’t make that face. It’s not that deep,” she said.

“Last time you said that, you passed out from blood loss, fell off your horse, and spent the better part of two weeks unconscious fighting off an infection.” The corners of his mouth curved downwards but he didn’t look up from his assessment. “Forgive me for not taking your word on the severity of your injuries anymore.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t argue. It would’ve been futile; he seemed to be studying the basics of healing whenever they were apart, and she was his favourite pincushion to practice on. The why of his new hobby remained a mystery—his parents employed the best healers in the kingdom and he could easily afford to pay whatever a small town healer would charge—but she chalked it up to the eccentricities of the rich and royal.

“Any foreign princesses visiting when you go back?” Dutch asked, looking at the ceiling so he couldn’t see her winces of discomfort as he cleaned the wound. 

“One of Eletha’s cousins is coming to stay for a month,” he replied. Eletha was married to his eldest brother, and had a large family containing many single young women. “I’ve been forbidden from leaving Noxshire while she’s here.”

She almost felt bad for him. With his next-elder brother recently engaged, the family’s attention had turned to finding him a match. “The city or the duchy?”

Aleksander paused, then slowly grinned. “It wasn’t specified.”

“There’s a nest of giant spiders near the duchy’s border that’ve been thinning the herds of local farmers. Far enough from the city to warrant staying overnight. The pay’s shit for the level of danger, but that doesn’t usually deter you.”

“And we’d have to do reconnaissance, talk to the affected farmers. It could be a multi-week project,” he said. He helped her sit up and grabbed a roll of bandages.

She snorted. “Just assuming I’ll go with you?”

“Of course. Keeping me alive and unmarried is in your best interest.” His hands brushed her ribs, burning hot against the cool night air.

Her toes curled in her boots to keep a shiver from running up her spine, and the stutter in her breathing was barely noticeable. The bastard had done that on purpose. “And why’s that?”

“I can’t pay you to go adventuring with me if I’m dead or stuck managing an estate somewhere,” he said. “Besides, I pay much better than any of those merchants you escort through the northern mountains.”

She hummed her agreement, not trusting herself to speak as he tied the bandage over her sternum. His lavender eyes were focused on his task, but his damn fingers kept grazing the skin just below the raised hem of her shirt.

“And I’m much better company.” He raised his gaze and she realized how dangerously close his face was to hers. He stood with his hips slotted between her legs, and his hands dropped to the table on either side of her.

Dutch slowly lowered her shirt. It was her turn to be strong, to keep them from crossing the line they’d carefully drawn between themselves. Their relationship had to remain professional if it was going to work. It didn’t matter how blurry the line got as they travelled together, or how desperately they wanted to cross it after almost dying again; mixing professional and personal in her line of work never ended well.

“Aleksander.” Her voice was soft, gentle in a way she couldn’t afford to be.

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers, their exhales mingling in the limited space between them. She swallowed hard. One hand drifted up to fist the material of his shirt. For a moment—just one moment—she pretended that it was possible. That they could build a life, that they could be happy together, away from the expectations of his bloodline and her stained past.

But they couldn’t. He couldn’t leave his family and she couldn’t pretend she was anything but what she was.

“Aleksander,” she repeated as he cupped her face. “A bandit-turned-sellsword is not the company you should be keeping.”

“Sword-for-hire,” he corrected. “There are semantic differences.”

She exhaled a laugh. “Not enough of a difference to make me someone who belongs in your world.”

“I know. I know. I just—I wish—” His other hand rose to her face so both of his palms cradled her jaw.

“I know.” She rested her hands on his wrists.

He remained still for another five heartbeats before exhaling heavily and shaking his head. He stepped back and busied himself with packing up his medical supplies. “We should leave now if we’re going to make it to Vir Ezzadh before midnight.”

“Yeah,” she agreed half-heartedly, already missing the warmth of his hands.

[vogelmeister]

Do you know any shows or movies in dutch or even music? Im trying to improve my skills (but this language is terribly complicated)

I wrote a post on dutch songs a while back so ill pm it to you. However media is a different story, and I'm actually not that great on media, even in English- but i will show you where i learned basic dutch aka important words aka… very random words.

may i introduce you to

✨Wie is de Mol ✨

(everyone clap)

hello dear reader would you like to TRUST NOBODY? yes. okay. cool. picture this. you are a semi famous dutch person and you, along with nine other dutch people go off to a foreign country to complete super cool challenges (opdrachten) and earn money to go towards a group pot. except there’s a twist. theres a saboteur (de mol) and their whole purpose is to ensure the least amount of money enters that pot. during this de mol must obviously gain the trust of the group (kandidaten) and the kadidaten have to figure out who de mol is. at the end of the episode theres often a test and execution in which the participants have to answer 20 questions re who the mol is (questions include things like ‘what city was de mol born in’ ‘how much money did de mol earn in the lasergame’) and whoever does the worst has to go home. the mol can never go home. the winner is the person who guesses de mol with the most correct answers in the final and they get the contents of the pot. im not kidding when i say this show is equal parts hilarious (bc they’re human and do stupid shit), suspenseful and very fun (bc you can play at home!).

Some of my favourite seasons include:

Season 18. This season is my favourite by far. Had one of the gutsiest mols, all around good group and honestly one of the best game show reality TV plot twists of all time. Art’s last season as host, too.

(Also I definitely stole his surname for my OC bye.)

Season 19: Idk why this ones here I just felt like including it. I actually think the 2018-2021 era of widm is the best one so that’s why im putting it here, and this season is fun. Cool mol reveal too.

Anniversary Season: Honestly I definitely recommend watching some older seasons before diving into this bc they definitely reference shit from old seasons and bring back old mols, but asides from this the mol this season was pretty good and Tuscany is lovely to look at. Fun group too full of old kandidaten.

Season 14: Unpopular I know but I loved the mol this season- they definitely reminded me of myself but also I just remembered this season as being super fun with cool opdrachten. Also a really important thing gets introduced here which was a staple in newer seasons

Season 13: The superior South Africa season with a very fun mol.

Season 21: Honestly? Shit mol this season, I figured it out via a DREAM but the kandidaten this season are iconic and it has one of the best alliances in widm history in my opinion. Czechia is stunning and it was the first time i guessed de mol too

Season 11: Watch for nothing if not Art Rooijakkers and the most unsafe opdrachten ever.

(If you want my opinion on any other season pm me lol, it’s late and I don’t want to type them all but SEASON EIGHTEEN!!!)

Anyways all episodes are on YouTube with English subs, just google widm English subs and you’ll find them. The seasons often ten episodes long, 1 hour per episode, with the final episode being the mol reveal. I think if you want that channel also supports dutch subs but i cannot remember rn!

enjoy!!!

:)

[spoonhead]

uhhhh silly rdr2 self insert/oc i made

idk if his clothes are very time period accurate but hey i thought it was cute so…

anyways his name is Cal Everett and he’s a half Dutch half Thai orphan who’s parents died on their way to America. as a 14-15 year old orphan in a new country he spent a good while scrounging on the streets of the cities before eventually sneaking into Pearson’s wagon during a supply trip, where he stayed for a good week before being found. Dutch being Dutch took the kid in, although Cal was never the best with a gun and usually has to spend his time around camp. plus he’s 16 going on 17 during the events of the main story, and all he wants is to get out of camp and prove that he can do more than babysit

i’ll have a short one shot for him written soon don’t worry :)

[green-thots]

Life Waster - Meet The Crew

Master List

Authors Note: Henry and JJ are my OCs, but they both play a crucial role in the story once I get to writing that part, lol. Additionally, I also put the hometown for my ocs and y/n as Miami because I have some angsty plans for the Miami GP chapter trust the process. I also had to do some guessing when it came to the interpretation of favorite songs for everyone based on what fits the mood, what I think they would like, and my own tastes because not everyone has named a favorite song in interviews and such. The same thing is true with the fun facts :)

Also credits to Pinterest for the photos

Y/N L/N - The Musician

Age: 22

Hometown: Miami, Florida

Occupation: Formula 1 Driver for Alpha Tauri (#13), former Guitarist for Crimson Concord

Favorite Song: RUNRUNRUN by Dutch Melrose

Fun Fact: Owns two different Kawasaki motorcycles

Charles Leclerc - The Muse

Age: 25

Hometown: Monte Carlo, Monaco

Occupation: Formula 1 Driver for Ferrari (#16)

Favorite Song: The Adults Are Talking by The Strokes

Fun Fact: Owns an ice cream shop

JJ Miller - The Tragic Ending

Age: Forever 21

Hometown: Miami, Florida

Occupation: Former Lead Singer for Crimson Concord

Favorite Song: Asylum by Vended

Fun Fact: Played hockey in college

Henry Kim - The Childhood Best Friend

Age: 23

Hometown: Miami, Florida

Occupation: Choreographer, former Bassist for Crimson Concord

Favorite Song: Die For You by The Weeknd

Fun Fact: Cannot handle spice at all

Yuki Tsunoda - The Twin Flame

Age: 22

Hometown: Sagamihara City, Kanagawa

Occupation: Formula 1 Driver for Alpha Tauri (#22)

Favorite Song: Don’t Go Insane by DPR Ian

Fun Fact: Has watched Sailor Moon more times than he cares to admit

Lando Norris - The Comedic Relief

Age: 23

Hometown: Bristol, England

Occupation: Formula 1 Driver for McLaren (#4)

Favorite Song: Party In The USA by Miley Cyrus

Fun Fact: Will lose four different pairs of AirPods over the course of this series

Max Verstappen - The Mentor

Age: 25

Hometown: Hasselt, Belgium

Occupation: Formula 1 Driver for RedBull (#1)

Favorite Song: The Dutch National Anthem

Fun Fact: cat dad.

George Russell - The Gossip Girl

Age: 24

Hometown: King’s Lynn, United Kingdom

Occupation: Formula 1 Driver for Mercedes (#63)

Favorite Song: Run This Town by Rihanna & Jay-Z

Fun Fact: Is actually a fashion king

Alex Albon - The Third Wheel

Age: 27

Hometown: London, United Kingdom

Occupation: Formula 1 Driver for Williams Racing (#23)

Favorite Song: 3 Nights by Dominic Fike

Fun Fact: Lily is my girlfriend too

Oscar Piastri - The Rookie

Age: 21

Hometown: Melbourne, Australia

Occupation: Formula 1 Driver for McLaren (#81)

Favorite Song: Whatever “house music” is

Fun Fact: Is actually fucking fantastic at baking

Other Characters

Logan Sargeant

Pierre Gasly

Daniel Riccardo

Carlo Sainz

[charliesamerica]

ʚ♡ɞ 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐒𝐎 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐃, 𝐆𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐌𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓! ʚ♡ɞ

a masterlist of my interests! keep in mind that i do support darkfic/proship ideology. of course, these things are not condoned in real life. do not come to my blog to fight because it will go nowhere. i don't care about a stranger's opinion on fiction and neither should you! that being said, this is an 18+ blog. i am an adult and want to be surrounded by other adults.

🧷 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐒 ♡ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

the shadowhunter chronicles. the raven cycle. world war z. sharp objects. dark places. carrie. pet sematary. richard siken's work. the hunger games. twilight. the seven husbands of evelyn hugo. my best friend's exorcism. tokyo ghoul. lolita. the haunt of home. book of bill. chainsaw man.

🔌 𝐓𝐕 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐖𝐒 ♡ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

interview with the vampire. yellowjackets. supernatural. black mirror. house of the dragon. criminal minds. law and order: svu. catfish. ghost whisperer. american horror story. shameless (us ). shadowhunters. euphoria. you. cruel summer. chainsaw man. the untamed. fear: the walking dead. the summer i turned pretty.

💿 𝐌𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐒 ( 𝐍𝐎𝐍 𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐑 ) ♡ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

the marvel cinematic universe. the room. flowers in the attic. the twilight saga. 10 things i hate about you. the hunger games. the outsiders. lolita.

🔖 𝐌𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐒 ( 𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐑 ) ♡ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

the saw franchise. scream ( 1, 4, 5, 6 ). a nightmare on elm street ( 2010 ). house of wax ( 2005 ). silent night, deadly night. friday the 13th. freddy vs jason. longlegs. american psycho. my bloody valentine ( 2009 ). candyman. . . + more ( i have seen over 200 horror movies, these are the ones i fixate on mainly ).

🥤 𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐎 𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒 ♡ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

the sims 4. dead by daylight. phasmophobia. roblox. fear & hunger. fear & hunger: termina. content warning.

🎧 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐂 ♡ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

ice nine kills. onewe. oneus. ethel cain. xana. flower face. glass animals. waterparks. loveless. ha vay. maneskin. hatari. poshlaya molly. rain city drive.

🍡 𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 ♡ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

charlie walker. amanda young. quentin smith. billy chapman. jackie taylor. kanae von rosewald. the bin brothers. robbie mercer. john kramer. bo and vincent sinclair. patrick bateman. grace le domas. louis de pointe du lac. lestat de lioncourt. jem carstairs. magnus bane. alec lightwood. richard campbell gansey iii. peeta mellark. alice cullen. carlisle cullen. jasper hale. rosalie hale. embry call. kit walker. wen ning. bucky barnes. steve rogers. sam winchester. dean winchester. aegon ii targaryen. rhaenyra targaryen. daan von dutch. il dottore.

🌱 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐒 ♡ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

ocs. biblical angels. mythology. supernatural creatures. epic: the musical. cats. poetry. southern gothic aesthetic. religious horror. iceberg lists. video essays.