#exeter glass

[onglass-co-uk]

[travelling-my-little-pony]

Star Glider is in Exeter Cathdral, admiring Luke Jerram’s Earth and also the architecture of the cathedral.

(A huge Earth is hanging in the cathedral itself.)

In Devon, England.

[ewanmitchellcrumbs]

Shipping Out

Pairing: Tom Bennett (World on Fire) x f!reader Warnings: Drinking, smoking, public sex, smut. Word count: ~1.5k

Summary: Just trust me on this one, and read all the way to the end.

Author's note: A little birthday treat for @bottlesandbarricades. No tag list. Follow @fics-by-ewanmitchellcrumbs and turn on post notifications. Community labels are for cops.

The pub is crowded and noisy, the humidity of the air making her carefully coiffed curls cling to the back of her neck with perspiration. It’s not often that she frequents this side of Manchester, but the change of scenery is a refreshing switch of pace to the monotony of everyday life. Laughter, music and the clinking of glasses is preferable to the whir of the factory sewing machines.

She taps her red lacquered nails against the wood of the bar, wrinkling her nose at the stickiness of the wooden surface beneath her palm. If the frequency with which it’s wiped down is any indication of the attentiveness of the barkeep then she’s in for a long wait for a drink.

Sighing, she fishes her cigarette case from her handbag, flipping it open and plucking one out. No sooner has she placed it between her lips than a hand is clicking a flame to life before the end of it, turning it a glowing cherry red. She casts her gaze upwards through the steady plume of smoke, met by twinkling blue eyes and a cocky smirk, as the chivalrous stranger deposits his lighter back into his trouser pocket and regards her with a tip of his head.

“Thanks,” she says with an easy smile, taking the smoke between her fingers and exhaling a tight line of vapour up towards the ceiling.

“Don’t mention it,” he replies with a wink. “What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this then?”

God, that’s a terrible line.

She bites back a laugh, and decides to humour him. “Trying to get a drink, service in here is awful though.”

He purses his lips, eyes raking over her from head to toe, before nodding. “Can’t be having that.” Slapping a hand against the bartop, he calls out, “Oi! My lady friend and I are dying of thirst over here! Anyone serving?”

She raises her eyebrows in disbelief, but doesn’t have to wait long until a middle aged, irritated looking woman makes her way around the corner to the pair of them and grumpily takes their order. She’s long since finished her cigarette by the time the glasses are placed heavily down in front of them.

He doesn’t even ask what she wants to drink; she ends up with a gin and tonic, while he has a pint. It’s what she would have ordered anyway, but the bold presumption unsettles her regardless.

Sipping her drink, she relishes in the way the fizzy bitterness envelopes her tongue as she takes in what he’s wearing; navy blue slacks and a matching long sleeved smock, with a white striped collar.

“Shouldn’t you be on a boat somewhere, sailor?”

He grins, setting his glass down on a dog eared beer mat. “Just so happens I’ve been given a night of shore leave. I ship out again tomorrow.”

“Lucky me,” she says with a coy smile.

“If you play your cards right you might be.”

There’s that smirk again. She watches as he takes out a packet of Lucky Strike, perching one between his lips before offering one to her. She gratefully accepts, and he’s quick to light it for her, before doing the same to his own.

Every table is full, but she doesn’t mind, she’s content just to prop up the bar with him, ignoring the ache of her feet as they lapse into effortless conversation. He’s handsome, if a little overeager and she pays rapt attention as he entertains her with stories of his time aboard the HMS Exeter.

She’s on her third gin and tonic of the evening when he leans in to whisper to her.

“So, I might not see another woman for months after tonight. You gonna help me make it one to remember?”

Feeling her cheeks heat up, she giggles softly. “What did you have in mind?”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll find a way for you to thank me for my loyal service to our country,” he tells her, taking her hand and leading her out of the pub.

Allowing the gin to fuel her confidence, before she can change her mind, she lets him guide her outside. Even met with the sobering chill of the night air, she offers up no protest when he pulls her into the ginnel, the brickwork biting into her back as he pushes her up against the wall and captures her lips with her.

It’s a messy kiss, moist and desperate with need. He tastes of beer and tobacco as she welcomes his tongue against her own with parted lips, her fingertips sliding over the breadth of his shoulders and up into the cropped softness of his sandy coloured hair.

Pressing tighter against her, he groans appreciatively, mouth moving from hers to travel a path across her jaw and down her neck, as his hands find their way up her skirt. One teases the top of her stocking while the other presses against her clothed core, making her gasp.

His touch is hurried, not as thorough as she’d like, yet she feels a growing stickiness between her thighs regardless. The warmth of his fingers and lips against her makes her feel desired, and she is lightheaded, almost giddy, to see the effect she’s having on him.

Instinctively, she parts her legs wider as he dips beneath her knicker elastic, stroking eagerly through her folds.

“Christ, you’re soaked,” he rasps against the shell of her ear, “bet you’d let me fuck you right here, if I wanted, wouldn’t you?”

She bites her bottom lip, stifling her quiet whimper as his strokes against her cause her to throb. “Please…”

“Since you asked nicely…” He pulls back, blue eyes dark with intent as he makes quick work of unbuckling his belt, lowering his trousers and briefs just enough to free his erection.

Even in the darkness of the alleyway she can see that he’s thick and heavy, and he pumps lazily at himself, while his free hand reaches into his pocket.

“Leave that,” she tells him, as she spots the foil of the sheath wrapper.

He raises an eyebrow, pursing his lips as he stares at her. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” she whispers.

That’s all the confirmation he needs, slipping the packet away and surging forward. He pulls her underwear to the side, grasping the base of himself and pushes forcefully into her in one motion.

The movement knocks all the air from her lungs. Though she is wet, the public nature of their tryst leaves little time for him to prepare her fully, the luxury of time is not on their side, but in their desperation neither one of them cares. It stings, the fullness of him pushing against her, but it’s a pleasurable hurt.

Her breaths leave her mouth in shallow pants as he pistons his hips into her, lifting one of her legs to hook her thigh around his hip. She wraps her arms around his neck, clinging to him as he rocks into her, his forehead pushed up against hers.

“Filthy slut,” he grits out, “bet you’d let me do anything to you, wouldn’t you?”

“Y-yeah…” she whines, feeling his fingers press tighter into the meat of her thigh.

His brow furrows, and he grunts, his pace becoming sloppy and erratic. While the ache builds steadily inside of her, she worries he’ll finish before she does. The thought is fleeting, and as though he’s read her mind, the hand not gripping her thigh slips between them, fingers rubbing tight circles against her bud. She clenches around him, the added stimulation serving to intensify the tightening in her lower belly.

“That’s it,” he mutters, “come on.”

He pulsates inside of her, knocking against a spot that makes her tip over the edge suddenly, and she lets out a choked cry, a rolling wave of weightlessness travelling from her head to her toes. Her walls spasm around him and he pushes himself in to the hilt, a groan of relief escaping him as he spills himself inside of her.

They stay like that for a few moments, both catching their breath as their bodies relax. He grins as he pulls back slightly, before leaning in to pepper her face with soft, playful kisses.

“Tommy!” She huffs a laugh, swatting at his shoulder.

He slips out of her, stepping back to tuck himself away and fasten his belt. “Thought we weren’t supposed to be using our names? Part of the fun was pretending we don’t know each other.”

She scoffs, putting her gusset back into place as she feels his spend start to drip out of her, and smooths her skirt back down. “Think you ruined that when you ordered my drink without asking what I wanted. A stranger wouldn’t know I like gin and tonic!”

Tom rolls his eyes and chuckles, offering his arm for her to take. “Right, right. Well, I’ll remember for next time. Whatever you need for me to fulfill your fantasies.”

“Right now, my only fantasy is being at home in bed. That pub is horrible,” she tells him as they begin to walk down the street arm in arm.

“You wanted the uniform. I wasn’t gonna take us somewhere someone we know would see and take the piss.”

She laughs, gripping his arm tighter as she looks up at him. “Was fun though, wasn’t it?”

He gazes down at her with hooded eyes as they continue to walk. “I’ve had worse nights.”

[fictionandfixation]

Older Bachelor headcanons!

Older Bachelor stardew headcanons because I’ve been playing lots recently! All sfw, some mentions of smoking/alcohol 💕 also please bear in mind I am no SDV expert, so sorry if these go against canon occasionally!

Harvey ☕️🔬📚

• Secret smoking habit that he would rather die than tell anyone about. Not often, but during flu season when he’s stressed, you can find him cooped up in his room with an imported cigar or a Marlboro Gold, an espresso and an Agatha Christie.

• Plays classic soul, funk, golden oldies and jazz in the foyer of the clinic on an old-timey record player, and chooses every day from his large record collection. Frequently irritates Maru with the extent of his Doris Day enjoyment.

• Kind of wide-set - very broad shoulders, and quite tall.

• Packets of salted peanuts and cookies on the clinic foyer desk which he restocks every week.

• Goes to fetch you personally from the mines or Skull Cavern sometimes when you get knocked out. And he also keeps a vintage forest green car behind the clinic to pick you up in. He hopes one day you’ll wake up on the way back and compliment his tasteful vehicle choice or notice he’s bringing you home. You don’t.

• Best friends with Evelyn. Worst enemies with George.

• Tennis player. Plays with whoever will say yes in the mountains and always manages to punt the ball into the lake somehow. Also used to be in a rock climbing club at university, and has sort of sinewy forearms as a result.

• Outrageous flirt after a few glasses of Pinot Noir, mostly because I think he’s on the spectrum but also because I think it would help him stop being quite so nervous.

• Brown suspenders. Every. Single. Day.

• Gives Jas and Vincent candy after their checkup.

• “Sweetheart/honey” as a nickname for you.

Elliott 📜🖋️🐚

• Striped. Matching. Pajamas.

• Finds, forages and cooks mussels when he needs to impress someone. And on that note, very much a French cuisine enjoyer.

• If blue cheese has no fans Elliott is dead.

• Rizz master. Silver tongue. Read so much romance when he was a teenager that it has actively become a part of his personality to be a book boyfriend.

• Very willowy and slender. Metabolism of the gods. Puts away food like it’s nobody’s business.

• Can read several languages, but just can’t master an accent so never uses them in a spoken context. Definitely a student of Latin.

• English accent headcanon! Probably spent the first couple of decades of his life in somewhere high-income like Warwickshire, or (more likely) Cornwall or Exeter, on or near the coast. I am also envisioning him as having been to an old collegiate university like Durham, or maybe a college at Oxford (Merton I reckon).

• Writes and then burns poems about everyone he’s ever been in love with. Starts keeping them when he meets you.

• Chats fashion history with Emily and Haley.

• Religious about his collection of cravat-style ties because he’s seen the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice a few too many times.

• Frequent book club gatherings with Caroline, Marnie, Robin and Jodi (mostly because mothers love him, the main selling point here being that he has definitely read at least one Jodi Picoult book. He does not remember anything about it, he’s just glad to be invited).

“Dearest/my love” as a pet name.

Shane 🍺🍕🐓

• Snores. Very quiet about it though.

• I know a lot of people HC Harvey as oldest but I reckon it’s Shane. He also acts the most like a bitter old man whereas I feel Harvey is just ‘mature’.

• Could be convinced to grow a beard. Maybe.

• Goes for a jog three times a week. Hates it. Refuses to stop and really isn’t even sure why he does it himself any more.

• Secret Lana Del Rey enjoyer. Mainly a fan of Midwest emo, classic rock, nu metal and sometimes country but the kind of country where they sing about killing people and getting away with it.

• Raised by heavily Christian parents in the Deep South. Yes this is a Southern accent headcanon. Yeehaw.

• Lets Jas put eyeshadow on him sometimes. Shaves properly only when she wants to put makeup on him.

• Craft beer’s number one opp. Wants an ice cold tap Budweiser only, and if there isn’t enough head on it he will be asking for a refund. Not that Gus would ever do that to him.

• Has muscle with padding. Very strong, very wide in stature, but not lean at all. Biceps wider than your neck that you could (and would) use as pillows.

• Makes the most insane hangover breakfast known to man. Bacon. Pancakes. Sausage. Home fries. Butter. Syrup. You’re putting on a bit of healthy relationship weight for sure with Shane as your partner.

• “Darlin��/baby” user. “Sweet cheeks” as a joke. Kind of a joke.

Hope you guys enjoyed these!! I am down irretrievable for Older Bachelor content because I love ✨older men✨

Please let me know if you’d like some more for these characters or the other bachelors and bachelorettes!

[noneorother]

There's a *puppet* show going on in the magic shop, and it looks awfully familiar...

(Insert unhealthy number of rewatches here) The magic shop in S2 is a real jewel box. There's so much symbolism and so many easter eggs, it starts to make your head spin. But I found something really weird going on with the puppets (or should I say angels) in the background...

Here's 1941 : you can see on the left what looks like closed red curtains, and a coatrack with puppets behind Crowley here.

Where am I going with this? Well, don't those puppets look familiar?

For my money, they really look like silly versions of Crowley and Aziraphale, with a few other familiar puppets hiding on the other side of the rack.

Now here's that exact same shot in the present. The red curtain falls away to reveal: An extremely symmetrical arrangement of truly weird puppets. The puppet in the glass case near the back is the same.*

It probably just looks like a creepy display, with our familiar Aziraphale and Crowley puppets, until I do this:

To me at least, this arrangement really looks like a depiction of a synaxis of the hosts of bodiless powers (i.e. angels) before Jesus. If you study European art history, you can't escape medieval religious iconography. It's kind of a big deal. I've put this example of Mary flanked by the nine ranks of Angels from a Cathedral in Exeter above, but you can find 100 examples of this kind of eerily symmetrical and hierarchical ranking of angels with god, Jesus, Mary etc... Before I break it down, you have to know that in the medieval period, and especially in religious art and iconography, the relative size and position of figures is WAY more important than realism or accuracy.

Obviously the costumes don't match one to one, but you get enough of a vibe that once you start seeing it you can't UNSEE it. The relationships of position and size here are fascinating to me. For one, what the hell are two Crowleys doing in a host arrangement in present day? He's not even an angel. In the second row we have archangels Gabriel, the flopsy twins Uriel and Michael, and a slightly larger Saraqael head in the center. Is Saraqael actually more important here? Technically Jim is still an archangel, so he gets the mirror of the Gabriel position, but as a sad clown wearing a tartan blanket. We also have two tiny dolls (not puppets) with star name tags, one keeled over wearing brown, and one sitting up and smiling, wearing blue. I've named them tentatively Adam & Jesus for now, because that's the vibe I'm getting, but who knows. Here's the usual position of the Jesus in a synaxis for comparison.

In the lowest row, we bizarrely have arguably the most powerful angel, The Metatron (shown here with a dark floppy overcoat hiding the fact the doll has no body) and what I can only imagine is Maggie with blonde hair and blue eyes? What? Now, the doll I'm calling God in the middle for the large size, and the fact their head is always cut off above the framing in the shot. God is clearly looming large over the rest of the host, but is in a lower hierarchy (with Muriel, Crowley & Aziraphale being fairly low ranking at this point in the show) and also has NO HANDS, a clown face and BLOOD SMEARS on their overalls. Yikes. If you take a look at the top-down shot of the dolls, you can see how they had to completely redo the god-doll's hair. This is a specific vintage English doll called "Bimbo the clown". You can see the original hair always has a fringe, and the yarn locks are usually much bigger. Compare with the new hair in the top view of the present-day shop.

Hey. Does that hair style look familiar to anyone?

Look. I don't want to go claiming something THIS insane from one doll's hairstyle in a background shot. I'm not trying to convince you this is irrefutable proof that there's some sort of storyline where Nina is actually God. But it's interesting they took the trouble to re-make the doll's hair (and costume) to look like Nina's, even when it is almost never seen, much less noticed. The fact that the god-doll is also a clown got me thinking of the Gabriel and Jim dolls, and that maybe there's another doll in the shop that should double with Bimbo? *Here's the only other doll with a name card in the magic shop in either time, the one in the glass case :

Even though we barely see it, we can tell it's wearing the same outfit as the 1941 magician. Why? If this one is the equivalent of the real god, and not the sad clown version, and if it's locked up in a box somewhere, unable to free themselves, is that why we haven't heard from them in season 2....? So many questions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thanks to @kimberleyjean and @embracing-the-ineffable for additional pictures.

[acesw]

Knowing our Arcanists 2: Eternity

Welcome to entry two of my series: "Knowing our Arcanists"! This is a series in which I introduce and tell the stories of our fellow characters in Reverse: 1999, and next up is: Eternity!

Eternity was my first main DPS in the game and she had always been intriguing as she has quite the vague story even as a 1.0 character. As such, a lot of this write up is mainly an interpretation of my own. Now, lets get started.

Eternity, born Winnifred, is an American arcanist coming from Exeter, Rhode Island,USA. Born on December 25th, she currently holds a very interesting arcane skill: immortality maintained via connection to aquatic creatures. She has a large connection to the ocean and its animals, and she maintains her immortality by the consumption of sea animals and blue blood. At the same time, she's known to be able to tame sea creatures and manipulate water (or blue blood) to lull one's mind into placidity.

Half of this makes the idea that she is a vampire, which isn't wrong, however she's not exactly one, per se. Since vampires in this game are more known to be associated with the Infected. (which she isn't)

While we don't know much about her childhood, her story starts out early into her adulthood, when she left her candy business in Exeter to avoid being hunted down by the townspeople. Eternity was 'accused' of being a vampire as young people were dying left and right due to an unknown disease—later found to be tuberculosis—whilst Eternity herself thrived without struggle.

Upon leaving, she started out a new arcanum shop business, which sold various items that has a quite range of uses; they may be functional but they're also a bit unconventional. (she currently has a feud with the Foundation about an invisibility cloak and was known to have sold transfigured frogs lmao) This made her an efficient arcane craftsman and businesswoman over time.

Eternity is a very social person, being popular amongst people across the US in all the eras of the 20th Century. Yet, to keep a low profile, Eternity makes efforts to ensure that her identity as an immortal is never revealed. Never making too close of connections, moving from place to place, dismissing people's assumptions about her familiarity. She rose to popularity in the 40s as a socialite between various soldiers (before they were sent off to WWII), then between the 60s to 70s as an actor and TV host, and then in the 90s again as an information broker.

However, she is also a very simple person, never attending late night balls nor staying up past 10 pm. She ends her nights by sitting down and watching The Night Show with a glass of milk. She has a love for talk shows like that, and even wishes to be a guest on it.

Eternity's kindness, transparency, and insightfulness is also known among people who indeed attempt to get close to her. Such one case is of Brian Finn, one of the few people that Eternity made consistent contact with over the course of their lifetime. He left an impression on her as a courageous and unshaken person who never abandoned his ideals over time, even to his deathbed. As such, she rewarded him with a calming and peaceful end.

While continuously growing to be alone as an immortal, Eternity always try to catch up to the latest things to fill that space; tries her best to avoid growing too attached to material things as they're slowly eroded by time. But loneliness can't be escaped, nor can she do anything more to change it. So instead, she remains cordial and involved; always tying up the loose ends, and ensuring to maintain the tranquility in her current life.

[sykesandskittles]

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER ONE

Harlow

Sometimes I feel cursed.

Okay, well, not cursed exactly. But I’ve had my share of challenges in the nineteen years I’ve been on this planet. Well-meaning people—usually adults—have always told me to be thankful for my hardships. It makes you stronger. More capable. Independent.

I wish all that were true. Really, the events that have shaped my life just settle like silt inside me, tainting every thought, every action. Until I’m convinced misfortune has been braided into my DNA.

Generational trauma, isn’t that what they call it?

I dig my toes into the wet sand and look out at the Pacific Ocean. It’s hard to feel cursed here, though. Malibu is a magical place, soaked in sunshine, with a surprising small-town feel. But its best quality is how far it is from Fresno. From home. From the events of last year.

The sharp wind whips through my hair and stings my cheeks. My best friend, Talia, and I wandered down to the beach hours ago after we’d unpacked our boxes and set up our dorm rooms.

Talia called me crazy when I waded into the frigid water, dunking my head under the salty waves like some kind of baptism. Maybe it was a type of cleansing. The ghosts of my past washing away with the tide.

If only forgetting were so easy.

“Hey, look what I found!”

I turn to see Talia walk up to me with something cradled in her palm. It’s a piece of green sea glass. “It was probably a beer bottle or something originally.”

Picking it up, I angle it toward the fading sunlight, looking at it from different angles, admiring its beauty. The power of the ocean is wild—transforming an ordinary beer bottle into something so beautiful. I wonder if it has the power to transform me, too. “What are you going to do with it?”

Talia shrugs. “Turn it into a necklace or something, maybe.”

Another gust of ocean Taliaze whips through me, and my teeth start chattering. “It’s almost sunset. We should head back to the residence hall.”

Exeter University West—one of the West Coast's most prestigious colleges—is right on the beach. When Talia and I applied last year, it was a long shot. A pipe dream. We both have decent grades, but nothing spectacular. So, months later, when we were both accepted, it felt like a miracle. Then when I scored a full scholarship, I finally started to believe my luck was changing.

Exeter is the escape I’ve been desperate for. A fresh start.

I look down the length of the beach and see a huge Victorian mansion perched on a cliff, overlooking the ocean. I noticed it when we first got to campus a couple of days ago. It’s hard to miss. The giant Gothic structure is painted a dark, crimson red with navy blue trim, and ornate woodwork that makes it look out of place on a modern college campus. I was probably here first, though, and the university just encroached gradually until the house and grounds were consumed by the sprawling campus.

It’s a creepy-looking house, though. No lie.

“Our residence hall is right on the other side of that weird house,” I say.

“Okay, let’s go,” Talia says, her bottom lip quivering. “I’m turning into a brine-flavored popsicle.”

The sharp wind continues to cut through us as we walk along the sand, getting dark quickly, and we’re two girls walking alone, so I’m on full alert—glancing behind us, my hand resting on the small stun gun tucked into my front pocket.

But the beach is empty—which is surprising, considering the amount of students on campus. It rained a little earlier, and it’s freezing, so maybe that’s why no one is here. But cold or not, there would still be a couple of people out here, at least, right?

“Slow down,” Talia pouts. “Your legs are longer than mine.”

I pause so she can catch up. “Have you noticed there’s no one else out here? That’s weird, right? I mean, it’s cold, but it’s not that cold.”

“There are people out here,” she says, pointing ahead. I squint, and sure enough, there’s a fire burning about half a mile in the distance, on the beach directly below the creepy house. I don’t know how I missed that, but to be fair, the beach isn’t straight—there’s a shrub-capped berm in the way, and the fire is partially hidden behind that.

“Oh, yeah, huh.”

Talia shakes her head and continues walking. “You are so blind. I keep telling you to go to the eye doctor.”

“I’m not blind.”

“Oh, really?” she says. “So when you walked up to that girl back in high school and started telling her off because you thought she was Veronica?”

I frown, trudging after Talia in the sand. Now it’s me trying to keep up with her. “Okay, but in my defense, they could be twins. I’d like to see the DNA report on those two.”

Talia stops and rolls her eyes at me. “The girl you accosted was three inches shorter than Veronica, and has glasses—which you also need.”

I blow out a breath. “Details. Whatever.”

With a scoff, Talia turns back around and we both keep walking. The beach narrows as we approach the fire, so we have to climb over the berm to get to the other side. It’s rough, and the shrubs are spiny, but we manage to make it down the other side.

“I’m remembering why we didn’t come this way originally,” Talia says. “The sidewalk was a lot easier.”

The sidewalk also dips between several university buildings, and in the dark, there’s no way I’m taking that route. I don’t want to say that, though, so I just shrug. “This way is shorter.”

Talia just pushes out a frustrated breath.

The closer we get to the fire, though, it becomes clear that something is sketchy. There are several people, all wearing robes with hoods, gathered in a half-circle around the fire, facing the ocean, chanting something.

Chanting.

What the…?

I reach out and grab Talia, pulling her back into a crouching position. We had to walk up and over, so we’re somewhat concealed by the random tufts of brush, but not entirely. And we’re only about thirty feet away, but thankfully, I don’t think we’ve been seen.

“Holy shit,” Talia whispers.

I blink rapidly to try and see through the murky twilight. There’s one guy, drenched, and completely naked, cupping his family jewels, shivering in front of the cloaked group.

“What are they doing?” I ask my tone low.

“It could be a frat, but the robes are weird. I think this is the Society of the Burning Crown,” Talia says with a note of awe in her voice.

I swallow. “What is that? Please tell me it’s a chess club or something.”

“Does this look like a chess club?” Talia hisses. She grabs my hand and pulls me forward, but I dig my heels into the sand. “Come on, we need to get closer.”

Closer? Is she insane? “Oh, fuck, no. Whatever this is, I don’t want anything to do with it.”

She manages to drag me several feet forward, but only because fighting her could draw attention to us. So far, we’ve managed to go unnoticed, and I’d like to keep it that way.

We crouch down again, and I try to quiet my breathing. It’s not likely they can hear anything over the roaring ocean, or their weird chanting, but I’m not taking any chances. If I could stop breathing altogether, I would.

Someone from the half-circle approaches the fire. I can’t see their faces, but I’m guessing by the person’s size, and broad shoulders, it’s a guy—and he’s probably the leader. He has a long, metal-looking rod in his hand that he shoves into the fire.

“Okay, we’ve seen enough,” I whisper. “Let’s go.”

Talia just waves me off, her gaze fixed on the odd ritual in front of us. Whatever this is, I get the distinct idea that Talia and I aren’t supposed to be witnessing it. And I would love to honor that.

The chanting continues for a couple of minutes, then Lead Guy approaches Naked Guy and says something to him that I can’t hear. Whatever he says is swallowed by the sound of the roaring ocean.

In response to what was said, Naked Guy nods once, then turns to face the ocean, and falls to his knees. His shoulders curl forward, exposing the length of his spine, and I watch as his thin frame vibrates violently against the cold.

Lead Guy takes another step forward, his hand jutting out like a surgeon silently requesting his scalpel. Someone from the circle removes the rod from the fire and places it in Lead Guy’s outstretched hand.

My breath is held, my gaze cemented to the scene as I watch Lead Guy pull his arm back—almost like he’s doing it in slow motion. Is he going to hit the other guy with that rod? Is this actually happening right in front of me?

As Lead Guy’s arm juts forward, and the tip of the rod makes contact, Naked Guy screams out in pain, the sound echoing off the cliffs surrounding us. He’s being branded. The barbaric act is so shocking and so unexpected, that a scream is ripped from my own throat, and I lurch forward.

“Shit, Harlow!” Talia hisses, pulling me back.

I shove my hand over my mouth to silence the whimper that bubbles up from my throat. It’s too late. They see us. Every hooded figure is turned toward Talia and me, and their leader—God help us—is already crossing the sand, closing the distance between us…

HIS EYES ARE A COLD, Dark Brown. That’s the first thing I notice as the leader of this group stalks toward us, shadows from the moon playing across his masked face, half-hidden under the hood of his robe.

Intensity radiates off this guy, his large body moving with confidence across the sand. When he stops right in front of us, I gulp. He looks like a bouncer, ready to toss us out of a club.

Talia and I are standing side-by-side, but when he speaks, he looks directly at me. “Leave. Now.” His voice is muffled by the mask, but it's deep and harsh, and sends a shiver of fear down my spine. “Go back the way you came.”

I’m already half-turned, opening my mouth to tell him, “Yup, no problem, we’re already gone,” when Talia grabs my wrist, stopping me.

“Hold on,” Talia says, looking over his shoulder at the other robed figures. “What are you guys doing out here?”

The guy’s jaw clenches tightly as he drags his gaze away from me and settles on Talia. Behind the mask, his eyes narrow, and if we needed evidence that we don’t belong here, there it is. Right there. That deadly stare.

“Talia,” I say, practically pleading. “Let’s go.”

She doesn’t hear me, or she’s deliberately ignoring me. Either way, she steps up to Lead Guy. “If you don’t want people watching you, then you shouldn’t be doing this—” She waves wildly at the scene in front of us. “–out in public.”

“This is a private beach,” he answers through gritted teeth. “And you aren’t welcome here.”

I grab Talia's elbow firmly and dare a glance at Lead Guy. “We’re leaving.”

I don’t love the idea of taking the sidewalk all the way back to our residence hall, but it’s either that or walk straight through this creepy-ass ritual. Mmm, no thanks. Hard pass.

Talia struggles against me, but I manage to keep my grip. “You can’t tell us what to do!” she practically yells at the guy. “We’re just walking along the beach. You’re the ones doing sketchy shit.”

Oh, damn. He inadvertently triggered Talia's defiance. I’ve known her since middle school, and she’s always been strong-willed, even to her own detriment. Tell her not to jump off the bridge, and she’s going to do it just to prove she can.

Right now, though, my job is to make sure we don’t end up as the topic of a true crime episode.

“Talia,” I say firmly, yanking her in the direction we just came. She digs her heels in, but I manage to move her a little—enough to encourage me to keep pulling. “Let’s leave the nice Jedis alone.”

I hear the stranger grunt as we walk away, and I feel the weight of his gaze pressing on me until Talia and I reach the top of the berm. I release Talia and quickly make my way down the other side of the small hill, then head up the beach, toward the sidewalk. It’s a steep climb, but I make it in record time, Talia trailing behind me.

“Slow down,” she says, annoyed.

I shake my head and pick up my pace. “We shouldn’t have seen that,” I say.

“Oh, who cares, Harlow? They shouldn’t have been out in the open if whatever they’re doing is such a secret.”

I stop abruptly and turn to face her. “The beach is empty.”

I’d noticed that earlier, but I’d assumed it had something to do with the rain. Now, I wonder if people had gotten the memo that something was going down tonight, and had deliberately stayed off the beach.

Lord.

We stumbled onto something we weren’t supposed to see, and I can't help but wonder what the repercussions of that might be. None, I hope. We left, and hopefully, that’s the end of it.

But ever since the incident last year, my mind has been stuck in survival mode. It feels like everything and everyone is a potential threat. So I doubt I’ll stop worrying about this whole thing anytime soon.

It’s taken a mountain of therapy just to get me to this point–willing to leave my hometown and start over somewhere new. And, honestly, if it weren’t for Talia, that never would have happened. In my darkest moments, she was there, guiding me and encouraging me. She’s the one person in my life I can rely on.

But her impulsivity can get her into trouble, and I feel like I’m always trying to rein her in. Even when we were kids, I was saving her from herself. Trying to get her to think before she tumbled right off that proverbial bridge.

“You have to admit, that was amazing!” Talia says, clapping her hands excitedly. “Shit. I never thought we’d get to see something like that.”

I keep walking. The faster we get to the residence hall and off this dark sidewalk, the better. “A guy was getting branded. What’s amazing about that?”

“I’m pretty sure we just witnessed the initiation ceremony for the Society of the Burning Crown.” She’s walking behind me, and I don’t need to see her face to know she has a smile stretched across her face. I can hear it in her voice. “No one gets to see that. Unless you’re a member, obviously.”

I stop and turn around to face her. “That—what we just saw—was super shady. Branding, violence, anything like that is strictly against the university’s policy.”

She looks lost. “Okay, and? What does that have to do with us?”

“Are they going to be worried we’ll tell someone about it?”

Talia snorts. “You’re afraid they’re going to come after us? They aren’t the mafia, Harlow. They don’t give a shit about us.”

Secret societies are like cults in my mind—and cults can do some pretty crazy shit to keep their secrets hidden. I should know—my mom has been in a cult for the last eight years. She joined when I was eleven—just skipped right over to Florida, leaving me to live with my grandmother. That’s the kind of power these types of groups wield.

Talia grabs me. “Harlow, you’ve got to stop worrying so much.” I sigh. “I’m trying, but it’s not easy.”

Her expression softens. “I know, but everything is going to be fine. How were we supposed to know, right? We were just—” She motions casually “–walking along the beach.”

“Yeah. You’re right.”

But as we walk back to the residence hall, an uneasy feeling gathers in my stomach. The whole idea behind coming to ExU was to blend in. Start over. Stay away from drama. Classes haven’t even started yet, and trouble has already rooted me out.

We get to the building fine—thank God—and I swipe my key card. I’m on the second floor, and Talia is on the third, so we part ways on the second-floor landing.

“See you tomorrow!” Talia calls out, walking up that last set of stairs to her floor. “And stop worrying!”

I just roll my eyes and open the door that leads to my floor. It’s going to be tough to fall asleep tonight—but not because I’m worrying. I know the second I lay my head down to sleep, all I’m going to see in my mind’s eye are a pair of electric brown eyes…

The next morning, I’m barely awake when my roommate, Emily, taps me on the shoulder. “Um, Harlow. Are you awake?”

My eyes are practically sealed shut—how could I be awake? Moaning, I roll over onto my side and face the wall. “No,” I say, pushing my voice through the gravel in my throat.

Last night, just as I predicted, I got zero sleep. As I lay in bed, staring up at the dark ceiling, last night’s events were on repeat inside my head.

Was there something I could have done differently? Inside the safety of my thoughts, I’m always braver than I was out there on the sand—and I say something snarky and clever back to Lead Guy. It’s different every time, but he’s always taken aback by my clever response.

I finally fell asleep around five, just as sunlight started bleeding into the night sky.

But my roomie is an early riser—or so she told me yesterday. And that obviously still holds, even though classes don’t officially start for another two days.

“Okay, well, there’s a note or something here for you. I’ll just put it on your nightstand.”

A note?

I wonder if it’s from Talia. Usually, she’d just text me, but if I’m not answering then she might resort to a handwritten note.

The door clicks shut as Emily leaves, and I flip over onto my back, stretching until I feel a pleasant sting spread across my shoulders. Then I blink and pick up my phone. It’s only eight in the morning. My God. Where on earth could Emily possibly be going this early?

Sitting up, I yawn and glance at the note she left on my nightstand. It’s a black envelope with my name scrawled on the back in all caps—not Talia’s swoopy cursive. I open the envelope and pull out a piece of black cardstock. There’s a symbol on the front. It’s a crown, embossed in gold, flames erupting from the tips

.

Oh, shit.

Didn’t Talia say the society we encountered last night was called the Society of the Burning Crown?

I flip the card over.

Preference Ceremony  

Ten O’Clock  

Rush House

Uh.

I immediately text Talia with a photo of the invite, followed by a full screen of question marks.

Talia is in my room within fifteen minutes, sitting on my bed, cross-legged, looking at the invite from every possible angle. “Well, it looks legit,” she says, scratching the gold embossing.

“What’s a Preference Ceremony?” I ask.

Before arriving on campus, Talia did a ton of research about the university—history, culture, clubs, party scene…any information she could get her hands on. Maybe she ran across a website that mentioned it.

“Never heard of it,” she says, tossing the invite onto the bed next to her. She picks up her phone, types something in, then starts scrolling. “There might be something online about it.”

I do my own search on my laptop, but there’s nothing. All I can find on the Burning Crown is general information that’s been posted on a random forum dedicated to secret societies.

“Listen to this,” I say. “The Society of the Burning Crown is a secret society, founded in 1890, on the campus that is known today as Exeter University West. Rush House is the society’s headquarters and sits on the edge of the university’s 124 acres.” I turn my computer, so she can see the photo that’s been inserted between the paragraphs. It’s that creepy Victorian house on the cliff. I pull my computer back and continue reading out loud, “Little is known about the inner workings of the society, but the rumored structure is a larger membership known as the Circle, and a smaller, ruling class, known as the Omen boys. The Omens are the direct descendants of the four founding members.”

Talia scrapes her teeth over her bottom lip, thinking. “Hm. Does it say anything about what a Preference Ceremony is?”

“Nope.”

She lifts her hands, slapping them back down on her knees. “Welp, I suppose we’ll just have to find out then!”

I shake my head. “No way.”

Talia frowns at me, her delicate features scrunched up and contorted. She never really looks ugly, though. She has a pert little nose, high cheekbones, and long, dark eyelashes that are 1000% real. The girls in high school always hated her for that.

She shoves her bottom lip out in a pout. “Oh, come on, why not? It’ll be an adventure.”

“Yesterday, that guy was pissed that we’d stumbled on their…whatever that was. Then this morning, they slid an invite under my door?” I press my lips together. “If that’s not weird, then I don’t know what is.”

“Maybe they just want to make amends,” Talia offers. “You said yourself that they might be afraid we’ll tell someone. So maybe this is their way of, I don’t know, smoothing things over.”

I pick up the envelope that the note came in, reading my name over and over, almost as if I stare at it long enough, it’ll give up its author’s secrets. It just makes me more uneasy, though, if anything.

“How do they even know my name? And why just give me an invite?”

My tone is rising, and Talia must sense how tense I’m getting. She knows the year I’ve had, and how desperately I just want to have a normal freshman experience. Quiet. Boring. No drama.

She reaches over and places a hand on my arm. “Harlow, it’s okay. Societies like this have their hand in everything, and if someone steps foot on their campus, they usually know about it. It’s not personal to you.” She shrugs. “And you probably got the invite because you’re closer to the building entrance. Why bother sending two invites when they know we’re together?”

It’s a paper-thin theory and doesn’t even make sense, but I cling to it because believing there’s a deeper meaning would seriously threaten my mental health. And the whole idea behind starting over is not over-analyzing every little thing. Or so my therapist, Dr. Cunningham, says.

I take a deep breath. “Yeah, okay. Doesn’t matter anyway, because we’re not going.” I snatch the invite up off the bed and rip it in two.

Talia lunges at me, her green eyes wide with horror. “Harlow, what the fuck?” She grabs the two pieces from my hands and tries to fit them back together. “We have to go. No one gets invited to these things. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

I lean back against my pillows. “You know how I feel about cults, Talia. Don’t ask me to do this.”

“It’s not a cult. It’s a secret society. There’s a big difference.”

I push out a sigh. “That’s disputable.”

I know her, though. If Talia wants to do something, she’ll do it, no matter what I say. And I can’t let her go to something like that alone—it’s way too sketchy.

“Maybe they want to apologize for last night? And if we don’t go, then they might see that as an insult.”

I make a face. “Apologize? The guy from last night didn’t look sorry. He looked pissed.”

“Okay, let’s compromise. We’ll go, see what they want, and if there’s anything shady happening, then we’ll leave. Easy. No stress.”

No stress. I practically snort at that. I’m already stressed.

I think about it for a second, then take the invite from her hands, shoving both pieces into the black envelope. “Fine, we’ll go under two conditions.”

“Okay, shoot,” she says, and I can already see she wants to squeal with excitement.

“One: we find out what they want, then leave.” I hold a finger in the air before she can respond. “Two: if they even hint at trying to recruit us, we bail right then and there.” Talia opens her mouth to argue, but I stop her. “Ah! We leave immediately.”

She deflates a little, but I think she knows this is the only way I’ll do it. And the envelope has my name on it, which gives me a little leverage. She could try to go without me, but there’s a chance they’d turn her away at the door.

Talia leans back. “Fine. Deal.”

I nod, satisfied. But deep down, I have a sinking feeling there’s more to all of this than a simple apology. Something much darker…

[fattsexyperson]

the palisade sexy player character bracket is here!

round one:

coriolis "cori" sunset v exeter leap

the figure (in bismuth, in concrete) v levitation "levi" cascabel-gardner

byes:

thisbe

kalvin brnine

phrygian

august righteousness

eclectic opposition

the witch (in glass, in crystal), clem

[assortedseaglass]

The Seamstress & The Sailor - Chapter Twenty

[Masterlist]

Warnings: Strong Language, Smut, Violence, Depictions of War, Mentions of Death, Injury Detail, Mentions of Sexual Assault, Depictions of Reproductive Health, Suicidal Thoughts, World on Fire Spoilers.

Word Count: 6.1K

October 1940

The bombardment started the second he rounded the corner.

“Got time to play?”

“Maybe later, Joseph.” Joseph Mason, his older brother Albert and little sister Betty ran along the ginnel in Tom’s wake. A few of the younger children, which were Mrs Mason’s Tom didn’t know, struggled to keep up on their chubby legs.

“Haven’t you got anything else to wear?”

Betty shushed her brother. “It’s his uniform!”

“Well?” Joseph ignored her. “Haven’t you?”

“Free sweets and tram tickets with the uniform, Joseph.” Tom continued ahead, his little battalion of children trotting along beside him. He smiled.

“What’s that?” Betty pointed to the silver coin pinned to his navy shirt.

“Distinguished Service Medal.”

“Are you a hero?” Albert suddenly seemed interested. Tom smirked.

“Always was, always will be.” Thank God Bess wasn’t here to hear him say that. Or Albie. He’d have laughed himself into next week.

“What you doing here then?” said Betty.

“Hitler sunk my ship, gotta find me a new one.”

“Did you kill any Germans?” Albert was still awed by Tom as he tried to keep up.

“Loads.” Tom said, turning on his heel. The children stopped abruptly and stared up at him. A wry grin quirked the corners of Tom’s mouth. “Killed a few kids an’ all.”

They shuffled back in fear. Mrs Mason told them to keep away from Tom Bennett before the war. Now he was back, and he’d actually killed people! Joseph found his quavering voice. “What for?”

“Asking too many questions.” Tom left them behind in the ginnel and turned into the street. The smile faded from his face. The kit bag on his shoulder fell to the floor and, for a brief moment, his mind stilled. The house. What had happened to the house? Why was there rubble across the road? His mind sped up, images flashing like a zoetrope through his mind.

“Lois?” he croaked, running to the house. “Dad!?” His feet carried him up the pile of bricks scattered outside the front door, and he peered into the kitchen. The table and chairs had splintered, fragments of them remaining, and he saw it. The bomb. Its inactive shell lying before the fireplace. Pressing his face against the little glass that remained in the window, Tom looked up. His father’s iron bedframe dangled precariously from the hole in the kitchen ceiling, and above it, the cold and grey Manchester sky stared back at him.

Tom slipped as he took a step back. His chest was rising rapidly, the panic that accompanied him every day since the Exeter awakening every nerve. Blood pumped through his fingers. He balled his fists a few times to regain their feeling. Find them. He was as untethered here as he was at sea. Find them. An image, Vera in her little cot, gazing up at the ceiling as it came crashing down around her, flashed into his eyes and he rubbed it away. Find them. He slid down the rubble pile and before he’d taken his first step towards the abandoned kit bag, terror froze him once more.

The Vaughn house. It was intact. Still standing, but the windows were boarded with black-painted wood. Tom hammered on the door. “Fergal? Dot?” He waited. Nothing. Not a sound. Not a whisper.

“Fuck.” The word hissed from his mouth in panic. He grabbed his kit bag and raced to the only place he could think of. The hospital. If anything’s happened, they’ll be at the hospital. And Bess – fuck – Bess will be on shift. She would have been on shift, why would she be in Longsight? Please let her have been on shift.

“They found you a ship then?” Joseph shouted with a smile as Tom ran past. He didn’t hear. All he could think about was his family. His little family, shrinking. I can’t lose anyone else, not after mum. Not after Vic. Not after Albie. Already, the world felt smaller as he ran towards the Royal Infirmary. Through the parks, ginnels and scrapyards, the world was the hiss of his breath, the thundering of his heart and thoughts of his family. He rounded into the dockyard, sprinting towards the canal bridge that led to the city’s centre. The dockyard.

In an instant he changed direction, pelting along the dockside between engineers and labourers. Some tipped their caps to him, offering their thanks and “welcome back”, others hissed at him to get out of the way. Still, Tom thought of only one thing.

“Fergal?” He called as he pushed through the crowd of workmen. “Fergal Vaughn? Does anyone know where I can find Fergal Vaughn?”

“Tom?” The rasped Cork brogue cut through the clatter of metal. Tom launched himself at the squat man in relief, his arms wrapping around Fergal’s broad shoulders. Fergal barely had time to comprehend this out of character display before Tom pulled back and unleashed a tirade of questions.

“The house-I-I went home and the house-” Fergal placed his hands on Tom shoulders to calm him but the young man continued. “Bess? Bess? Is she ok? And Dot? And-”

“They’re all fine, my boy. Just fine.” Fergal rubbed his shoulders soothingly. “It was the same strike as what got your place. Only blew the windows out, thank the Lord.”

“And Lois and Dad? And the baby? Where are they? I-I don’t know where to go,” Tom’s voice cracked, thinking of his childhood home destroyed, the last place that held any concrete memories of his mother. Through his panic, he saw a piece of Fergal’s lightness dissipate. The round and reddened face of Fergal Vaughn, the man Tom had known since childhood, displayed that one thing he had never seen cross it before. Pity.

“Oh, my dear boy.” Fergal said softly, taking Tom by the hand to sit between the metal sleepers and tell him everything.

Bess was in no mood to stop and chat. Sister Stern had given her a bollocking for not changing the beds quickly, and Joan was in a foul mood because the soldier she was seeing had dumped her unceremoniously. So when she approached Carver Mills to see Mrs Russo waving, her cigarette leaving a trail of smoke in the air, Bess groaned. The silk scarf wrapped about Mrs Russo’s head took flight on the autumn wind and bustled towards Bess’ feet, and she knew a conversation was unavoidable.

“Ta, Bess.” Mrs Russo said brightly, holding her hand out for the scarf.

“Hiya,” Bess rubbed her eyes and fussed with her keys.

“Had a good shift?” Mrs Russo’s voice was offensively loud.

“Yes, fine.” Bess shifted uncomfortably under Mrs Russo’s watchful gaze and tried to squeeze past the round woman to reach the door.

“I’m expecting best behaviour from you girls while I’m away at my daughter’s,” Mrs Russo said, tying the scarf around her permed hair. “Caught Joan trying to sneak in that new beau of hers-”

Bess pushed the door open wearily. “They aren’t together anymore.” Mrs Russo paused her bustling.

“Poor girl. I’ll see if I can get some chocolate at the corner shop. Try and cheat my ration book.” She winked and tottered away. “Ta-ra, Bess.”

The door to the old mill swung shut heavily behind Bess, and she trudged up the stone stairs towards her flat. A glint of light cut the gloomy stairwell in two, and Helen poked her head out of the door to her own flat.

“Bess! A few of us are going to The Crown tonight for a lock in, do you want to-” She stopped as Bess turned to face her. “Christ, you look awful. Tough day?” Bess could do naught but nod. “Tell you what. You stay home and rest, I’ll take Joan. Best way to get over someone is to get under someone else and all that. There’s bound to be a desperate soldier looking for an easy girl.” She laughed and closed the door.

A moment later and Bess was in the welcome peace of her little home. Smalls were strung across the kitchen on a length of rope. The morning’s empty cup of tea still sat on the rickety table beside an old copy of Vogue, the christening dress she was making for Vera abandoned on the armchair by the window. Since the start of the war, fabric was hard to come by, lace and silk especially. Douglas let Bess take a cutting from Marie’s wedding dress. She wanted something from each side of the family, and parting Robina from her store of antique lace had been a challenge, but she persevered. Still, the gown was almost complete. Bess removed her nurse’s wimple and placed it by the garment, running her fingers over the ivory silk. Darling Douglas. The christening couldn’t come soon enough. After everything, Lois needed some happiness. It would be even better with Tom on leave. Bess’ heart skipped and she padded to the bedroom. She perched by her simple vanity, a mirror balanced on a school writing desk, kicked off her shoes and took the stack of Tom’s letters out from the drawer.

October 16th can’t come soon enough. Lois’ food, Cora and Dot making a fuss. Little Vera and you.

The last letter was dated early September. Bess knew Tom couldn’t write all the time. He was either too busy onboard or, on occasion, they were prevented from writing during particular missions. Her only knowledge that he was ok were the continued reports of the Navy’s skirmishes on the wireless and in the newspaper. The HMS Keith had sunk, but Lois received a telegram that Tom was fine and awaiting the next ship home. Bess looked at the calendar on her wall. October 15th. Tomorrow. God willing, he’d be here with her, tomorrow. Instinctively, her hand reached for the photograph of Tom, now propped against the mirror. Every morning and every night, he watched her in sepia as she dressed and undressed. She kissed it and, placing it back, caught sight of herself in the mirror.

Helen was right. She looked awful. The swift removal of her wimple caused tufts of the hair to stick up at odd angles. The uniform she wore was bloodied and dirty. Her hands, hard now from hours work at the hospital, were grubby. She wiped them on her face. Her dark eyes were framed by circles of purple and grey, and her usually plump cheeks were gaunt and pale. The only thing that remained were her full and pink lips. Against the dullness of her skin, they looked garish. Bess sighed and one by one removed her hair pins. Watching her hair come undone, in some places curled from the pins, others straight and frizzy, she wondered what it was that had so changed the Longsight boys towards her. How she went from “witch” to something desirable. What drove Walter Watson from bullying her to forcing himself upon her behind the Palais.

It wasn’t as though she had changed all that much from those difficult years to now. When presented with the option to speak or remain silent, Bess always chose the latter. That is, unless someone cast insult over her chosen few. Then, as Cora said, “there’ll be none so fierce as Bess on judgement day”. She wasn’t as kind as Cora, with her thoughtful gestures and selflessness. Nor did she have her gentle charm and beauty. Dot, on the other hand, was an entity unto her own design. Despite her tendency for the flighty and sudden outbursts of judgement, wherever Dot went, the sun seemed to follow. Funny and light, the world seemed brighter in her company. Bess still stared at her reflection. What did she bring? A haughty quietness that most found intimidating? Her use as a seamstress and pianist? Over her shoulder, she caught sight of the photograph pinned to the wall by her bed.

It was at Albie’s birthday celebration in the summer. Dot had taken it with the camera Harry gave Bess in the spring. In it, Tom and Bess stood side by side. His arm was gripped tightly around her middle, pulling her to him and highlighting the slightness of her waist and fullness of her hips. The blouse she wore, tucked into her slacks, curved around her breasts. At her ear, Tom was whispering something sinful; Bess could tell by the girlish giggle captured in celluloid. For the first time, she was embarrassed by the image. Her womanhood was so wantonly on display. So, that’s what the boys saw in her, that summer she came back from Manchester.

“Never thought I’d be in this position with Bess Vaughn. That little freak from school.”

Vomit rose to her mouth as the memory of stale smoke and alcohol flooded her nose. Bess’ eyes snapped from the image to her reflection. Gaunt face, dark eyes, grey skin.

“Then you came back from Manchester with this. And these-”

Bess rubbed her hand across the bodice of her uniform. Her chest felt tight. Heavy and not her own.

“This is all you’re good for, Bess Vaughn, all you will ever be good for.”

The memory of Walter’s assault on her was plaguing Bess of late. With Tom at war and Douglas-. And Douglas-. Her two defenders were gone. At night, alone when she imagined Tom with her and her hand slid beneath her nightdress, Bess recalled the way his neck strained as he screamed at the man. The crack of his fist against skin. But no sooner had the memory of Tom’s dominance warmed her cheeks, chest, thighs, was Walter’s sweaty face swimming into view and ruining her bliss.

“This is all you’re good for, Bess Vaughn, all you will ever be good for.”

Her near lifeless eyes blinked back at her in the worn mirror and, body humming with hatred, she pushed herself away from her reflection. The stool fell backward with a thunk onto the wooden floor and Bess stood motionless. The day had been full of misery at every turn. Bloodied soldiers to be sewn back together. Wrecked buildings pouring onto Manchester’s streets. Her own self-loathing. Too tired to drag her body to bed, Bess hovered at the centre of her room, lulled into an imitation of sleep somewhere between lucidity and nightmare.

Downstairs, the front door of the mill crashed closed, and she jolted from her half-sleep. Joan was obviously back from the infirmary and still in a foul mood. Bess sighed, ran a hand through her tangled hair and uncovered the duvet. The clock read 6 o’clock and she hadn’t even removed her apron. Beyond the door, Joan was tearing up the stairs of Carver Mills, her heels sounding more like jackboots as she pounded the steps. Bess stomped across the floor. Her hand closed around the doorhandle, ready to slam it shut-

BANG BANG BANG

She froze. From her spot in the bedroom doorway, Bess watched the front door rattle on its hinges. On tiptoe, she edged forwards. The thundering fists hammered on the door again.

BANG BANG BANG

She tried to remember if she had locked it behind her. No, of course she hadn’t. Shit. Only Mrs Russo and the other nurses had access to the flats; there was no need to lock it until curfew. Not even Helen or Joan, in her anger, would bang down the door. Bess rushed forwards, ready to bar the intruder as best she could. She knew there was little she could do to stop them. Even with her nurses’ strength and steeliness, an intruder would overpower her. Walter Watson flashed across her vision. What if he was home? What if Queenie or Frank told him where to find her?

BANG BANG BANG

Hang on. An intruder wouldn’t knock. Again, she froze, this time in confusion. The last knock had barely rung out when, as if in slow motion, Bess watched the handle turn. The door flew open and the person on the other side stormed in.

It was like watching a cat stalk its prey. The whites of his eyes burned like a wild beast’s, the blue at their icy centre darted around the room madly until they landed on her. They widened, then narrowed. A predator locking onto its next meal. For them, everything faded from view. The peeling wallpaper, the laundry, the few scattered belongings. Everything, except for Bess. Excitement, or was it fear, fluttered in her ribcage. The pathway to her was blocked by the kitchen table and, striding towards her, he threw it aside in one swift motion. She shivered, swaying where she stood at the flex of his hands. Bess barely had time to register his thin cheeks, the lines that framed his eyes, before those same hands gripped her face hard.

“Tom-” His mouth crashed into hers. It was hard, a clash of teeth and tongue. With her words stolen, Bess grew light-headed and struggled for breath between Tom’s harsh kisses. A hand moved from her face to her neck as she tried to speak, keeping her head in place against him. The other fell to her waist and gripped the flesh there roughly.

“Tom, I-” He silenced her. Swallowing Bess’ words, he roughly tugged the hair fisted in his hand and bit the exposed flesh of her neck with a growl. She whimpered, hand gripping onto his shoulder for support. For something real. Surely this wasn’t real? “Tom,” His assault on her neck was rough and through it, still Bess struggled to speak. “Tom, I thought-I thought you weren’t back ‘til tomorrow-”

He ignored her. The hand holding her waist moved to grope the fullness of her bottom and pull her harder against him. The strength of the action forced the breath from Tom’s chest in a huff as, overwhelmingly, his world became Bess. The scent of her sweat. Old perfume. Her pathetic whimpers. The small hands clawing at his body. The swell of her breasts pressed against his chest. The ripe flesh of her bottom. The smell of her sex. He was an animal on the hunt. Uncontrollable. Terrified. Surviving. Hungry. He bit the meat of her shoulder and she cried out, at last pushing him away. Tom’s hands flew once more to the sides of her face and held her in his vice-like grip.

They stood watching each other. Beneath the furrow of Tom’s brow, the hard crease of his forehead, the usually bright eyes that Bess so adored, always full of mirth and mischief, were desperate. If she looked closely, she swore she could make out tears, taunting him. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, the air passing through his flared nostrils. The line of his mouth was shut firm, though swollen from the way he kissed her, and his jaw- fuck, that jaw, was set hard and strong. Bess should have been worried. Scared even. Instead, her heart flooded with unease.

The dark eyes that Tom so adored, always full of certainty and knowing, were searching. Not disgusted by his depravity, or the violent lust with which he needed her. Her hands wound up his arms and grasped the hands still on her face, and Tom watched as the same emotion that had washed over Fergal’s face, washed over Bess. Pity.

He didn’t need fucking pity. He needed stability. Comfort. Home. Something real. One of Bess’ thumbs stroked the side of his hand and he snapped at its tenderness. Tom brought his face to hers, devouring her in a hungry kiss. He walked them backwards until Bess hit the bedroom door. Breaking momentarily from her lips, Tom bent down, a hand sliding up one of Bess’ stockinged legs, and hitched it around his waist. She barely had time to steady herself before he thrust his groin against hers, his hard length pressing against her through the sturdy cotton of his bell bottoms.

Still, he didn’t say a word. As Tom’s hands roamed greedily across her backside, her hips, her breasts, Bess tried not to think about his silence. It was true, she had imagined the devouring ferocity of what having him would be like when he returned home. But each time, it was bookended with tenderness. Whispered adorations and gentle devotions. Not this…anger. The first prickle of fear ran over her. Not at what he would do, but why he was doing it. She tried to reach out to him. To caress his face or run her hand through his hair. He batted it away, gripping her wrist and pinning it to the door as, with ferocity, he ground his hips into hers. The movements were hard and desperate. Whether by the hand caught beneath his bruising grip, or the urgency with which he rubbed his clothed length against her, Bess’ mind went blank and she moaned. At last, Tom spoke.

“Fuck.” His head lolled to nuzzle at her neck, and when she met his hips with the thrusting of her own, he growled. He could take no more of this. He lifted Bess over his shoulder and kicked the bedroom door open. It banged against the wall, and when Bess shushed him, he ignored her. Tom threw her down onto the bed and knelt between her parted legs. Without hesitation he tore at her uniform. Tom pulled the apron so hard its bow gave away, and he tossed it aside. His hands fisted her layers of skirt to reach her suspenders. He unhooked them roughly and pulled down Bess’ woolen stockings. The second ripped, and through the haze of her increasing arousal, Bess noted that they’d need darning. The thought vanished when Tom pushed her knees away and rolled her suddenly onto her front.

“Tom-” Whatever she was going to say died in her throat at the sound of ripping fabric and buttons hitting the floor. Tom tore the back of her bodice open, kissing the skin there as he pushed the sleeves away from her shoulders. Bess slipped out of her uniform, squealing when Tom let go of her. Her body fell forward onto the bed and he roughly pulled the skirt away from her legs. Bess was near nakedness now, and excitement warmed the apex of her thighs. When Tom pushed her small chemise over her bottom and smacked the skin there, she burned.

“On your knees.” His voice was low and cracked, as though his throat were full of gravel. Her cunt clenched. Immediately, obediently, Bess pushed her body off the bed. She was too slow for Tom. He grabbed her by the hips and wrenched her towards him. Resting on all fours, Bess tried to look over her shoulder. Tom pushed her face away. “Don’t look at me.” The darkness of his order made her shudder. She faced forward, toward the damp-stained wall and the photograph of her and Tom. The one she’d been gazing at mere moments before he arrived.

“This is all you’re good for, Bess Vaughn, all you will ever be good for.”

No. She shook Walter’s words from her mind. This was Tom, not Walter. Rough and angry and needy, yes. But Tom. Not Walter.

Tom’s hands rested on the apples of Bess’ backside, and she felt him lean his weight there a moment. Heard him hit the ground. He was kneeling, wrenching the now soaked knickers she wore down her thighs and, before she could comprehend it, lapping greedily at her core. How long they stayed there, with Tom’s arms wrapped around her thighs as he worshipped her cunt, Bess couldn’t say. Only that with every grunt of his throat, every suckle at her sex, every eager flash of his tongue against her folds, the tension in her abdomen increased. The worry she could not put aside, did the same.

If the callous and unashamed way Tom devoured Bess caused her arousal and anxiety to grow, his next movement all but obliterated any thought of him regaining his senses. With one last smack to her bottom, Tom departed. Bess’ thighs clenched. His sudden absence was frustrating. Infuriating even. She knew she needn’t wait long for him, though. Atop the mussed bedding, the navy of his uniform shirt landed. A thud on the ground indicated he had abandoned his boots, and the hush of fabric and panted breaths told Bess he was battling with his slacks. She yearned to help him. To turn around and with fast hands rid him of his last barrier of restraint. But Tom knew Bess. He’d known her long enough, well enough, to recognise her craving for control and independence. Not today. Not now. She was alive. She was here before him, bottom raised, sweating gleaming at the dip of her back, panting with need, doing whatever he asked of her. Just as she began turning her head, he ran two long fingers through her wet slit and she moaned his name, pushing backwards against his fingers for relief.

“Sheath.” Tom grunted, taking himself in hand. He was painfully hard, precum already weeping from the angry head of his cock. His eyes roamed over Bess’ exposed heat, pink and slick and waiting for him. The urge not to drive forward, full into her, was overwhelming.  

“We used the last before you left,” Bess was breathless, waiting. A hard warmth brushed against her entrance and she groaned. “Please, Tom.” He wasted no time. That was the certainty that the sheath didn’t matter. One hand one the small of Bess’ back, the other gripped at the base of his cock, Tom thrust forward, heading falling at the tight heat that welcomed him. Both hands holding the flesh of her hips, Tom withdrew himself from Bess before slamming forward. Bess buried her face in the bedsheets, muffling her cry. She had missed him these last months, and though her fingers temporarily satiated her longing, nothing could prepare Bess for the sensation of Tom Bennett filling her completely.

Over and over, Tom’s hips snapped into Bess’ cunt. His sandy hair was plastered to his forehead, sweat pouring from his brow. The hands that held Bess in place were unmoving, the nails biting into her tender skin. Over and over, Bess moaned his name. When she tried to reach a hand back, desperate to touch him, Tom seized it and, body bent low across her back, held it against the bed. His breath was hot in her ear, hard with pants and grunts of what should have been desire. Between her paroxysms of pleasure, Bess thought they sounded angry.

Like all these other thoughts, they disappeared with every thrust of Tom’s cock into her. His passion was confirmed again when he gripped the auburn hair at the base of her neck and bit her pulse point. Pain fluttered through her veins and excitement lit her core. When Tom did it again, she sped towards painful release. Her hip was burning under his hand, the skin of her buttocks sore from the continued slam of his hip bones. Her back, bent and pressed against the bed, ached and the pulse of a headache crept under the spot were Tom pulled her hair taut. Tears were beginning to prickle her eyes, and when Tom pulled again on her hair, a mangled sob of pain and pleasure ripped from her throat as her walls spasmed around him.

That was it. With a final few violent thrusts, Tom spilled himself inside her. Blinding white light flashed across his eyes and his whole body seemed to crackle with electricity. This wasn’t a release of passion or love, but something more depraved. A violent shock to the system that proved he was still alive. Could still feel. He’d seen men charred beyond recognition, heard the tear of bombs through the sky and torpedoes in water. The groaning of metal as it gave way to bullets. Feared drowning, being mown down or else ripped limb from limb by enemy explosives. Come home to find his childhood didn’t exist and missed the death of his father, years after he watched is mother slowly succumb to nothingness.

Tom looked sideways at the body beneath him. Though her face was half-hidden in the bed, hair frizzy and in disarray, there was no mistaking the tear tracks that ran down Bess’ face. Her breath was ragged and erratic, the small whimpers she made so different to her usual sounds of pleasure. Tom pulled out of her suddenly and though she didn’t move, she gasped. He looked at her lying there, so still and vulnerable. With tentative hands, he caressed her legs and knelt on the bed to lie beside her body. She didn’t look at him, even turned away once he had brushed the hair from her face and, crumbling with shame, Tom buried his face in her neck and began to cry.  

7 o’clock. The sun had just descended below the Manchester skyline and only Tom and Bess’ laboured breathing could be heard throughout the flat. Bess hadn’t moved. Not for a long while. Against his thighs, Tom could feel the gentle shake of her legs. Breath still shuddering from their exertion, her back occasionally brushed against his hard chest. The sight of her like this, quaking because of him, should have made Tom proud. But when she shivered, actually shivered, he felt nothing but disgrace. He should have ravished her when he got home. Instead, he'd used her. And she’d let him.

“Are you cold?” he whispered in her ear.

“A little, yeah.” Grabbing the quilt from the floor, Tom draped it over Bess, his warm hand beneath the patchwork rubbing lazily at her side. It was only then did she roll over to face him. Her small hand, with its long, dexterous fingers, brushed across his cheek. Tom knew she was studying him. “You’ve become a man far too quickly,” she said. Tom didn’t need her to explain. His hair was lighter, already on a stress-induced course to grey. The youthful fullness of his cheeks had gone, and now the skin stretched too tightly over his prominent cheekbones. Sometimes, when he caught sight of himself in a mirror, he could see his skeleton sitting just below the surface of his pallid skin. He knew too, that the hardness had settled not just about his face, but in his soul. War had sunk its terrible claws into him, and the man he swore he’d never become, his father, was beginning to appear. Tom brushed some sweat-stuck hair from Bess’ forehead.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.” She continued to stroke his face, and Tom placed a palm there to stop the action. If she carried on with this gentleness, he’d cry again.

“I just had to make sure you were real,” At this, Bess laughed.

“What do you mean?”

Tom sat up, leaning on his elbow and, distracted by the hair wrapped around his finger, hurried his words. “When I saw the house, I just panicked-And I didn’t know where to go and then I went to your dad-I was thinking-I was gonna come here but I didn’t know if you’d still-and then I went through the dockyard and your dad-your dad told me everything-and when he said you were ok I-I,” he took a shaking breath. “I had to come and see for myself. That you’re still here.”

Bess was silent. Her eyes darted about his worried face, unsure of what he meant. “Did you think something had happened?” It was Tom who looked confused now.

“Bess, I went home and the fucking house had been blown up and neither you or my family were anywhere to be seen.”

“But, I thought-”

“No. I didn’t know.” Tom spat. His anger was flaring again as he swung his legs off the bed and pulled on his bell bottoms. What he was planning to do, he didn’t know, and when Bess quietly said his name, he deflated, slumping back onto the bed. “I didn’t know,” he said weakly, and immediately Bess was at his side, rubbing circles on his back and kissing his bullet wound scar. He collapsed against her, and slowly she pulled him back under the covers with her, his head resting against her naked chest.

There was nothing to be said. What could she say? Tom Bennett had been away at war and come home to learn his father had been killed by the very thing he was fighting. As if reading her mind, Tom spoke quietly into her chest. “What’s the point? We go and fight, to keep you all safe, and it doesn’t fucking work.”

“That’s not the only reason-”

“It is for me.” Tom said firmly. “I’ve got nothing else but my family, and you. You’re what makes this bastard war worth fighting.” Bess looked down at him. At his elegant nose and furrowed brow. At his lean and muscular body curled around hers, and her heart swelled with enormous affection for Tom Bennett. She kissed his head and he settled for a while. Content to have him home, nose buried in his hair, the first comforts of sleep beckoned to Bess.

“Your dad said you were there.” Though quiet, she jumped at his voice and, swallowing the lump that appeared in her throat, she murmured that yes, she had been there. Tom chewed his lip, considering his next question. After Bess, it was all he had thought about since Fergal told him of that night’s events. “What did he look like?”

Bess froze. “Tom, you don’t need-” He cut her off.

“It can’t be anything worse than what I imagine.”

He had a point. Gripping one of his hands in hers, she told him about the events immediately after the bomb detonated over his childhood home.

“Dadda was trying to get us back to the shelter, it was difficult to see because of all the smoke, but when the ambulance arrived, I could see it was Lois and Connie. And when Dadda came out of your house, there was blood on his uniform. I didn’t know what state your dad was in, but I knew that whatever it was, Lois couldn’t see him. So me, Connie and one of the paramedics went in to get him out.”

Tom sniffled against her chest and Bess hugged him tighter.

“He looked so peaceful, Tom. I won’t lie to you and say he was perfect; a beam from the ceiling got his arm so there was a messy gash there, lots of blood, and what I assume was falling rubble had caught his head. Nothing dreadful!” she quickly said when Tom flinched. “Just a few little cuts around his face. But he was sat in his chair by the fire, newspaper hanging out of one hand. Like he’d just drifted off to sleep. Thinking of you, I expect.”

“Shut up,” Tom wiped his nose. “He was probably thinking about Mrs Chase’s smalls-”

“The sooner you realise that your dad adored you, Tom Bennett, the better!” She pinched his arm. “You know, him and Lois had a fight that day. She’d gone off to work and he was so down in the mouth about it, we said we’d look after Vera that night.” Tom said nothing and she continued. “What did Lois say when you saw her?”

“Eh?” Tom looked up at her through his long lashes.

“Lois. What did she say when you saw her?”

Tom’s arm around her waist grew tighter. “I came straight here.” Bess hid her smile from him, trying not to let her joy show as she ran her hand again through his hair.

“I think perhaps you should go and see her. Now,” Bess added when Tom tried to argue. “Tom, she’s so unhappy. Missing you, and your pa, raising little Vera alone. I suppose Dadda told you about Vernon?” Tom nodded. “Go. Now.” She kissed the top of his head and shooed him from the bed. “I��m not going anywhere.”

Notes: I read an article about a gunner who fought in the Battle of River Plate getting the Distinguished Service Medal, so I figured Tom would get one too. The HMS Keith actually sunk during the evacuation of Dunkirk but for the sake of the story, I made its sinking a little later.

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[exhaustedcatte]

Padfoot

Remus looked out the window of the apartment, the sun was high up in the sky, shining yellow over the unassuming muggles.

The full moon had come and gone three days prior, but Remus could still feel the wolf in the ache in his limbs. He threw the blanket off of himself, sitting upright to assess the state of his bedroom.

It was as clean as he could have it. Nothing broken, nothing torn, which meant Moony must’ve been really exhausted. Few clothes on a rickety rocking chair that was a gift from. Anyway, he loved that chair too much to part with it.

He sighed.

He was definitely going to be kicked out, he couldn’t afford to pay rent in London without splitting with – yeah, he was going to move out before the owner could humiliate him into it. Damn it, he’d quite liked his neighbours here.

Remus brushed and cleaned up as best as he could after having passed out for close to a day post-transformation without treating his wounds. He pulled on the cleanest clothes he could find in the pile on the old rocking chair.

Then Remus carefully applied salve to the newer tears on his skin that the wolf had inflicted and then wrapped it in a few spare bandages that Pomfrey had given to him the last time he’d accidentally apparated onto school grounds after a mission. No more of those at least, he thought bitterly to himself.

Remus steadied himself and leaned against the mirror, shaved his face, washed his hair in the sink because it smelt too much like the iron rust of his shackles.

Finally feeling a bit hungry, he decided to take a stock of his pantry. A loaf of mouldy bread and a tin of soggy biscuits.

“Fucking – god.”

He took another look at the sky, it was really really bright. Surprising for London.

After counting his coins and the bills he had left from doing a bit of plumbing for the unit above his, Remus decided to go get himself some fresh lunch. He deserved that.

He stuck his hand into a drawer, pulled out a long leash, whistled and then – Remus remembered.

Mechanically, he put the long corded thing away, and stuck his arms into a jacket too small, too tight and too leathery for his taste.

When he closed the door behind himself, the echo of the empty house rung in his ears till he reached the little bodega two blocks down.

“Two san– one ham and cheese, please.”

“Right away!”

Remus stuffed the cling-wrap of his sandwich in the pocket of his jacket.

“What’s –”

In the right pocket was a paper that read:

wash moony’s socks

buy prongslet baby food

buy james new hole-less pants

get lily hair ties

order meeting at 6

Baby food. That paper must have been from when Harry was only a few months old. So back when they were absolutely smitten with each other. Why did he –

Remus felt his resolve crumble looking at the neat cursive print.

He ground his teeth. No. No. Remus didn’t ask for anything more than faith. But they’d all gone and jumped to conclusions and –

James?

Remus blinked.

No. He refocused. Just a muggle with unruly hair and soda glasses. Not James. Never James, never anymore, at least. He was gone. Like Lily and Peter and.

Remus inhaled sharply.

“C’mon,” he muttered to himself. “You can’t have a meltdown on the street.”

He walked past a sweet little park he used to visit regularly right after he’d moved to this part of town with.

“Oh, look! Remus, is that you?”

Remus looked up from where he was admiring the gray cobblestone with glassy eyes. “Emily,” he smiled in greeting. “And Walt. How are you?”

It had been a while since he’d last met the couple. They used to make frequent visits to their son and his family in the unit adjacent to his and.

The family had moved out, to stay with their old parents, so he hadn’t seen them in close to four months, especially since he’d stopped walking Padfoot down the road the Russets lived.

“Oh, we’re doing great. My granddaughter got admitted to Exeter, so we’ll be running a visit sometime soon,” Emily beamed proudly.

Remus cracked a real grin. “That’s great! Tell her my congratulations, she must’ve worked really hard.”

“I will!”

Walt, though, appeared to be looking around for something.

“All good, Mr Russet?” Remus asked peeping around for dark robes and wands on foolish wizards.

“Where’s Padfoot? Haven’t seen the big ol’ guy in ages,” Walt said. “Must admit, I kind of miss him.”

Remus’ throat closed up.

“I knew you liked being ambushed by the little fella!” Emily laughed.

“Not that little,” Remus reminded, trying to smile.

“Is he okay?” Emily asked, noticing Remus’ grin slip away. “Walt’s right, I haven’t seen you walk him in a while. I miss hearing about the noise complaints from Ms Burney too.”

The noise complaints only came when there was a scuffle about Remus leaving without any preamble. Which, well, they deserved that.

“Yeah, I do quite miss watching that wack old woman yell at that sweet pup,” Walt laughed, scratching his beard.

Ms Burney only screamed at Padfoot because he had taken to chewing up all her plants. Not because she was wack.

“I saw little Luis at the mart last week and it reminded me of how he’d sit on Padfoot and beg for rides. Gertrude said he’s in preschool now! How quickly time flies!”

How quickly indeed. It felt like only yesterday when he was walking the big black dog. Now he was left with a dog collar and leash that he had no use for.

But he couldn’t break their hearts like his own.

“Padfoot’s at my Mam’s, actually. I took him there a while back.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I’m planning on moving out.”

“Oh dear, how so?” Emily frowned. Walt tapped her arm reassuringly.

Remus felt the tears build up in his throat at that gesture.

“London’s a bit out of my budget at the moment, and my mam is getting too old for fieldwork.”

“You’re a good son,” Walt said kindly.

No, he thought, just a poor one.

“Thank you.”

“Do bring him if you ever do visit. Which you must!” Emily said. “Send pictures of dear old Padfoot in the meantime, and write me a letter about every silly thing you both indulge in, okay?”

Remus laughed weakly. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll bring Padfoot next time if I can.”

I don’t know if we’ll ever see him again.

[britishassistant]

HI, I was just wondering if the story 'But

I Like One Piece' is discontinued, or if your just going on a hiatus for that story for a bit?

@era-the-witchy-birdkid asked: You know I just did a reread of but I like one piece and I miss it so much. And I just want to tell you I'm eagerly waiting for the next time you want to update it but don't feel like in a hurry I can wait.

;)

“Be that as it may,” Grumbles the old lady. “I hope you didn’t call us out here over a children’s craft project and overactive imagination, Nara-san.”

Shikamaru’s dad narrows his eyes at her. “Hardly, venerable Councilwoman. Inoichi, Chouza and I, in addition to seventeen eyewitnesses, all saw the same thing. Unless you believe a ten year old still in the Academy can cast a genjutsu sophisticated enough to ensnare us?”

The old woman eyes her suspiciously.

She tries her hardest not to look guilty of…whatever it is they’re accusing her of.

She has a sinking suspicion that they may have covered it in class once.

“If it helps, honored Councilwoman,” Iruka-sensei pipes up. “Ketsugi-chan…needs improvement when it comes to controlling chakra. Or sensing chakra. Or…to her credit, she is highly capable in taijutsu and a pleasure to have in class! But—”

“How much improvement is ‘needs improvement’ Umino?” The old man in the glasses snaps.

Iruka-sensei glances at her hesitantly.

At the old man’s glare, he says. “…Ketsugi-chan is currently ranked lowest in her year in this particular subject, honored Councilman.”

Lowest in her year?!

Mayu gapes at him.

She feels the part of her past life that worked tirelessly to get into Exeter and come away with a double first collapse into a heap in a corner of her soul and start wailing.

“Mayu.” It’s never good when Otou-san and Okaa-san say her name in unison like that.

“I’m good at everything else!” She protests. “Iruka-sensei said so! It’s just—chakra’s not right! It’s evil!”

Shikamaru’s dad makes a small gesture towards her with one eyebrow raised, like she’s somehow proven a point he’s made.

The old man with glasses and the old woman nod grudgingly, like they’re in agreement with this.

She has never wanted to kick anybody in the shins quite so badly.

[butternuggets-blog]

DRACULA: A Modern Adaptation

My script for a modern tv adaptation of Dracula, based on the novel by Bram Stoker Also on AO3

EPISODE TWO

201     EXT. CASTLE DRACULA

There is a figure standing inside the now-open door, far enough back that Jonathan has room to enter. It is DRACULA, holding an antique silver lamp, standing stock still like the world’s most awkward dinner date.

DRACULA

[in English] Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!

That was a strange turn of phrase. Perhaps something was lost in translation. Dracula’s English is heavily accented and practised but slow, each word carefully chosen. He is new to the language. He looks like a tall, old man with white hair.

Jonathan steps across the threshold. His fate is sealed.

Dracula, smiling, darts forward and shakes Jonathan’s hand. Jonathan winces; his grip is too strong, too tight, and the flesh deathly cold.

JONATHAN

Count Dracula?

Dracula nods.

DRACULA

I am Dracula. Come in; the nights are cold in the mountains and you must be starved.

JONATHAN

I am quite hungry, yes, but if it’s too much trouble-

DRACULA

No trouble at all!

202     TRACKING SHOT - INT. CASTLE DRACULA – DINING ROOM

Dracula leads Jonathan “along the passage…up the staircase…and along another passage” to the dining room [possibly a drawing room, judging by the description in the novel] set with plates for dinner but no food. Dracula opens a side door and shows Jonathan the guest bedroom and ensuite bathroom.

203     INT. CASTLE DRACULA – GUEST BEDROOM

DRACULA

Please, wash your hands and refresh yourself, and I will summon the servants to come and lay out dinner.

Dracula leaves.

204     INT. CASTLE DRACULA – GUEST BEDROOM ENSUITE

Jonathan washes his hands, noticing that the bathroom has no mirror.

JONATHAN

That’s odd.

205     INT. CASTLE DRACULA – DINING ROOM

Jonathan leaves the bathroom and returns to the dining room where Dracula is waiting. He is pleasantly surprised to see that the table is laden with a feast: “..roast chicken…some cheese and a salad…and a bottle of old Tokay, of which [Jonathan has] two glasses”. He sits down and begins to eat.

JONATHAN

My compliments to the chef.

DRACULA

I will pass it along.

Dracula is sitting opposite Jonathan, at the head of the table. He is not eating.

JONATHAN

[gesturing] You won’t…

DRACULA

No, thank you. I have dined already tonight, and I do not sup.

He speaks fluent English with an intonation from another time.

JONATHAN

Oh, before I forget-

Jonathan pulls out an envelope and hands it to Dracula. He opens it and retrieves the letter inside, unfolding it.

Dracula tuts, sympathetically.

DRACULA

Gout; a painful condition indeed. Mr Hawkins has great faith in you!

JONATHAN

I should hope so; he helped train me!

DRACULA

Oh?

JONATHAN

While I was still doing my solicitor training in Exeter he let me sort papers and answer phones in his office. And now I work for him! It’s all come together quite brilliantly, really.

DRACULA

And led you here to me! Tell me, how are you finding our little part of the world?

JONATHAN

The Carpathians are…quaint. Very rural…not that there’s anything wrong with keeping to tradition! It’s good to be able to hold onto culture.

DRACULA

Our traditions are what is holding this country back! We need to divorce the past and marry the future if we are to survive this evolving world.

Jonathan looks self-conscious. He wants to ask an awkward question but isn’t sure how to broach the subject. He goes for it.

JONATHAN

…on the ride here, the people in the coach were calling you-…things.

DRACULA

Ordog? Stregoica?

Jonathan nods.

DRACULA

Capitalism makes monsters of us all. I am an eternal optimist looking to raise people to the exalted peaks of the twenty-first century, and everyone else prefers to consign themselves to mud.

Wolves howling outside cuts through the conversation, startling Jonathan. He looks nervous; Dracula takes notice, smiles.

DRACULA

Ah, you city dwellers. But you must be tired. Sleep well and dream well, and stay abed as long as you want. I have to be away till the afternoon.

Dracula stands up; Jonathan does as well. Dracula opens Jonathan’s bedroom door for him, bows deeply, and leaves.

206     FADE IN – INT. CASTLE DRACULA – GUEST BATHROOM ENSUITE

It is day again; late afternoon specifically. Jonathan, dressed messily in pyjamas and a bathrobe, walks sleepily into the bathroom. He pulls a toilette bag out and is surprised to find that his modern mirror has been replaced with an antique silver-backed hand mirror.

207     FLASHBACK - INT. GOLDEN KRONE HOTEL – ROOM SEVEN

The Old Man rifles through Jonathan’s belongings. He swaps out the mirror with the antique, pocketing it.

208     INT. CASTLE DRACULA – LIBRARY

Montage of Jonathan getting dressed, having breakfast, and entering a library. Jonathan is astonished; he wanders the room slowly, with a look of wonder on his face. As he moves in a slow circle around the library, carefully inspecting the collection, the windows set in the walls behind him show the sped-up setting of the sun.

The library collection holds many glossy, modern books, magazines and newspapers. They are in excellent shape if well-read and all dated to the early 2000s. There is a Whitaker’s Almanac on a table sitting beside Jonathan’s work document case.

Go wild set dressers! Throw in some Lonely Planet, some National Geographic. Whatever’s funniest!

The Count enters the room.

DRACULA

[gesturing to the bookcases] I see you have found my friends!

JONATHAN

You have an impressive collection.

DRACULA

I thank you. I have tried to capture London, and England, within these walls but the true spirit of a country must be experienced! It cannot simply be read. I have taught myself English but even that…[vague gesture]…to speak words in another tongue I have only parroted back to myself; it is not enough to know the grammar and form, I must be fluent!

JONATHAN

But you do! You speak very well, especially for being self-taught.

DRACULA

[raises a finger] “Very well” is not fluent. Here I am noble, I am boyar. The people know me and their place and I am master. But if I am a stranger in a strange land, one who cannot make myself understood with the correct inflections, the correct intonation…no. You must correct me when I make error-

JONATHAN

Make ‘an’ error.

DRACULA

What?

JONATHAN

You mean…um…when you make “an” error.

Dracula smiles warmly, “…his lips [run] back over his gums, the long, sharp, canine teeth showed out strangely…”, his arms wide. Jonathan blinks at the fangs but he’s British; politely ignoring the eccentric appearance of wealthy people is in his bones.

DRACULA

There! You see? I am learning already. Now, tell me about the house you have purchased for me in England.

JONATHAN

Oh! Yes.

He retrieves a sheaf of papers from his document case. The bag has a four-digit combination lock; one…seven…zero-seven, Mina’s birthday.

JONATHAN

The estate is called Carfax…

209     INT. CASTLE DRACULA – LIBRARY

A montage begins of Jonathan and Dracula reviewing and signing the paperwork for the estate.

Jonathan pulls out printed maps and blueprints for Carfax. He shows Dracula drone-shot photographs, and has him sign a thick sheaf of forms.

Behind them, night moves on.

Dracula leaves temporarily; while he’s gone Jonathan packs away his forms and circuits the library again. Reading the spines, he finds a well-worn book with no title. It’s an atlas; it falls open in Jonathan’s hands to a map of England.

[Camera zooms in] There are three places circled; the area in Purfleet where Carfax is, Exeter and Whitby.

210     [FADE-IN] INT. CASTLE DRACULA – DINING ROOM

The perspective fades through the map to show Dracula and Jonathan seated in the dining room again, talking and eating- well, Jonathan is eating- dinner. Perspective fades through the scene again; now they are sitting before the fire, still talking, Jonathan nursing a crystal glass of brandy.

A loud rooster crow sounds from outside the castle. Dracula, startled by the noise, jumps to his fleet.

DRACULA

Look at the time; it is dawn again! I apologise for keeping you up, my friend, you must get some sleep. You are far too interesting a tour guide for new home!

Dracula bows politely as Jonathan smiles, pleased and self-effacing. Jonathan returns the bow as he stands; he turns slightly to put the glass down on a side table beside his chair and when he turns back Dracula has vanished.

211 INT. CASTLE DRACULA – GUEST BEDROOM

Jonathan is lying asleep in bed, twitching, tossing and turning restlessly. Eventually he comes out of REM sleep and sighs heavily; it’s clear he is not going to get much sleep.

Jonathan opens his eyes and gets out of bed.

212 INT. CASTLE DRACULA – GUEST BATHROOM

Jonathan is shaving, the camera focussed on his reflection in the silver-backed mirror which shows the audience the entirety of the room.

As he scrapes the safety razor down one cheek, there is a visible depression on his right shoulder as if someone is placing a hand there even though there is no one standing behind him in the mirror.

DRACULA

Good morning

Jonathan startles. The razor slips. Jonathan hisses in pain and drops the razor; he fumbles with his toilette bag for a plaster but an inhumanely strong grip on his shoulder forces him to turn around. Up this close Dracula seems a little younger; one or two fewer wrinkles, and there is grey peppering his white hair.

There is a hungry fury blazing in his eyes.

Dracula lunges for Jonathan – aiming for his face? His throat? Jonathan stumbles back a step and the movement shifts the crucifix up and out from beneath his shirt a little.

Dracula’s fingers brush the beads and he snaps back as if slapped. Jonathan, breathlessly, and Dracula, resentful, eye each other for a long moment.

DRACULA

Be careful with yourself. Bleeding can be more dangerous than you think in this country.

JONATHAN

…I know..germs…

DRACULA

Mmm

Dracula suddenly grabs the mirror and dashes it against the wall. It shatters. Jonathan gapes at the sudden carnage. He does not notice that Dracula has vanished.

JONATHAN

Wha-

He is standing in the bathroom alone.

213     INT. CASTLE DRACULA – DINING ROOM

Jonathan leaves his rooms and finds breakfast set for him in the dining room. Dracula is not there.

[fade out, scene overlap] Jonathan wipes his mouth with a napkin, and gets up from his chair, having finished his breakfast. He starts to leave.

214     INT. CASTLE DRACULA

[Aerial shot] Jonathan walks the corridors. A few doors, close to the guest quarters; [close up shot; side profile] Jonathan tries one door but, rattling the handle, finds it locked.

He is confused; many old manors shut up sections of the house if they are disused or in need of repair but this room is close to his own, clearly clean and well-used. It should be fine.

He lets his fingers drag on the door handle as he releases it. Dust. Jonathan looks confused and deeply concerned.

[Close up shot; side profile] Jonathan dashes to another door. [Close up shot] Dust on Jonathan’s fingers; another locked room.

A montage of frantic hands rattling dusty, locked doorknobs attached to various doors. [Aerial shot] Jonathan runs deeper into the castle, [various camera angles] finding more and more doors to numerous rooms locked tight. At first they were mostly clean; by the end Jonathan is reaching through thick cobwebs and layers of dust to try the doors.

Jonathan has double-backed on himself and stops. Light from a blue sky shines through the gap in the walls. Jonathan walks forward.

215     EXT. CASTLE DRACULA - BALCONY

[Aerial shot] The hall is leading him out onto a balcony. “…The view [is] magnificent…the castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice…a thousand feet [down]. As far as the eye can see is a sea of green treetops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests.”

[Upper bust shot; close up] Jonathan slumps, pale-faced and shaking, against the balcony railing. The full horror of his situation finally sinks in.

He is a prisoner.

JONATHAN

[shakily] He's his own servants. ...that's actually quite impressive.

He does not like he finds his remark funny. He looks terrified.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

For Mina's birthday, I used the day and month of Florence Balcombe's birth. She was Bram Stoker's wife.

[legolasbadass]

Office Hours, Part 23

Summary: Lorelei Browning has just secured a job as an assistant professor at Exeter College in Oxford. Naturally, she is eager to prove herself and meet every challenge sent her way, but what she does not expect is the tall, handsome stranger who will quickly become much more than a colleague…

Relationship: Richard Armitage x OC (Professor AU)

Word Count: 3.3k

Rating: M

Read on AO3

When I woke up on the morning of the conference I felt faint, and there was a tightness in my chest that no amount of deep breaths could dislodge. Richard reassured me, saying that I had no reason to panic. That I would be brilliant and all would go well. I do not know if I was brilliant or not—though based on the rushed comments I received after my presentation, I daresay it went alright—but now that the last paper just ended, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. 

Natasha and I are bombarded with questions and thanks for organizing the conference as we squeeze our way through the Fitzhugh Auditorium. Situated in the Cohen Quad—the new addition to the college campus which first opened to the public in 2017—the auditorium is a grand, modern room built to accommodate a number of events. A striking curved roof floats down like a cloak from the head of the room, where a large screen that was used during today’s papers stands. The south-facing side of the auditorium is made entirely of windows, which open onto a small, moonlit courtyard. All around us, dozens of Ph.D. candidates, researchers, and professors mingle together, exchanging notes on today’s papers or sharing details about their research with each other while enjoying drinks and hors d’oeuvres. 

“Oh my god,” Natasha suddenly says, her voice slow and heavy with relief. “I have been dreaming of this glass of wine all day.” 

I laugh heartily as I take a sip from my own glass. Over the course of my academic career, I have attended countless conferences, but tonight I realize that there are more advantages than I had realized that come with being a professor at Oxford. In the past, I have had to pay for grossly overpriced drinks at events, and on a few occasions, there was no alcohol at all. Tonight, however, the generous budget granted to us by the university has permitted us to have an open bar for the evening, and after the stress of the day, I am especially thankful for this privilege. 

“I’m really glad we did this together,” I say with a smile. “It’s been such a great learning experience for me.” 

“I’m happy to hear that!” Natasha replies with equal enthusiasm. “We’re a good team, you and me.” 

“I think so, too,” I say and take another sip of wine. “I also think— if the university allows it—we could totally make this an annual conference.” 

Natasha’s eyes widen in enthusiasm as she nods. “Absolutely! What could our next theme be?” 

“Monsters.” 

Natasha raises an inquiring eyebrow. 

“Yeah. The Monstrous Middle Ages. I recognize that is a very broad topic, but we have months to work on that.”

Natasha nods pensively, then chuckles. “You’re just looking for an excuse to write another paper vindicating Grendel’s Mother.” 

“But she’s been betrayed by scholars and translators alike for so long!” I exclaim, chuckling despite how important this subject is to me. “I will never forgive Seamus Heaney for calling her a ‘monstrous hell-bride’!”

“Am I interrupting something?” 

Recognizing Richard’s rumbling baritone voice, I smile and turn around just as he leans in to kiss my cheek. His hand comes to rest against the small of my back, its warmth familiar and comforting. 

“Hey! I was wondering where you were,” I say as I lean into his tall frame. 

“There was practically a line to come talk to you two, so I figured I’d let you enjoy your success before coming to congratulate you myself.” 

I smile, and a sudden urge to kiss him washes over me, like the first sunrays in the morning that fill the land with their golden warmth. But then Natasha speaks. 

“I’m glad you could make it—I didn’t know you’d be here!”

“Of course—I wouldn’t miss it,” he replies before taking a sip of his own drink, and I allow myself to gaze a moment longer at his tempting lips as they wrap themselves around the rim of the glass. “So are you happy with the turnout?” 

“Oh yeah!” Natasha and I reply in unison. “We were just saying we’d love to do this again next year.” 

“I’m sure Professor Bennett would be pleased about that,” Richard says. 

We talk some more about the day’s events before Natasha notices someone in the crowd and declares she will catch up with us later before heading to the other side of the auditorium. 

“So, what did you think of my paper?” I ask Richard once we’re alone. 

“You were absolutely brilliant,” he gushes as he squeezes my waist. “I didn’t understand all your jokes, but everyone else was laughing, so…” He accentuates his words with a shrug, and I chuckle. 

“I’d have to teach you Old English for you to understand.”

“Hm, private lessons with the sexiest, most brilliant medievalist in Oxford? I wouldn’t say no to that.” 

Warmth floods my cheeks as I shake my head and say, “Don’t look at me like that here!” 

“Like what?” he asks, but the mischief gleaming in his eyes tells me he knows exactly what he’s doing. 

“Like you’re picturing me lying naked on the nearest flat surface.” 

Richard bursts out laughing, causing the people around us to glance in our direction. “Oh, love, the day I stop fantasizing about you, please take me to a hospital—it means I’m not well.” 

Laughing and blushing all the more, I lean in closer and smooth out the lapel of his blazer. 

“I have to tell you, though—I missed the beginning of your paper because I got here late. I’m so sorry.” 

A small frown wrinkles his forehead, and I smile to reassure him. “Don’t worry. You’re here now—that’s what matters.” He squeezes my waist once more. “How come you were late? I thought your last tutorial ended at 3?” 

“Yeah, but I had some other things to deal with after so I had to rush to get here. I’m really sorry—”

“Stop apologizing. It’s fine,” I insist, reaching out to place a gentle hand on his bicep. “But is everything alright?” 

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine,” he says, but he still seems distracted, especially when he pulls his phone out of his pocket, only to put it away with a small frown. Our eyes meet, but before I can question him further, he smiles softly, wraps his arms around me, pulling me tight against his warm chest, and says, “Can I kiss you?” 

The low rumble of his voice sends shivers down my spine. I wonder if there will come a time when I will not be affected so deeply by his voice alone, but for now, I am more than happy to be so aroused by it, because I know he will not stop declaring, murmuring, purring his love for me anytime soon. 

I glance around, then gaze back at him with a playful smile. “Everyone’s probably had at least one drink, so I don’t think anyone will be scandalized if you kiss me.” 

His grin widens as I stand on my tiptoes and he leans in, his nose gently rubbing mine before our lips meet. The kiss is soft and reserved, but as his free hand cradles my face, his fingertips losing themselves in my loose hair, I float on the waves of passion I can feel simmering inside him, and the crowd around us disappears. When we pull apart, it takes me a few moments to attune to my surroundings once more. 

“And you need to stop looking at me like that,” Richard says playfully. 

I raise an eyebrow. “Like what?” 

“Like you’re imagining my lips all over your skin…” His voice drops to a low, irresistible murmur. “Between your thighs.” 

Pleasure swirls through me, painting my cheeks red and soaking my knickers. “I wasn’t,” I manage to breathe out. But now I am. If I wasn’t so aware of the importance of mingling with my colleagues and the opportunities that could from the connections I make tonight, I would drag Richard out of the auditorium and into an empty room in an instant. I’d let him pin me against a wall, or push him onto a chair and straddle him. I’d undress him, kiss his neck, his chest—every inch of his body until he moans my name over and over again. 

When did it get so warm in here?

Richard smirks at me in a way that tells me he knows exactly what naughty thoughts are running through my mind, and I have to look away to restrain myself. That is when, out of the corner of my eye, I notice someone in the crowd. Someone I definitely had not expected to see here. I gulp. Suddenly, I am transported back to a rainy afternoon, standing on the outskirts of Regent’s Park. The key to his flat digging into my palm. To my dismay, I notice him walking towards us. He has not changed at all; slightly overdressed, clean-shaven, his hair a mess of dirty blonde curls.

“Lorelei?” Richard’s concerned voice pulls me away from the painful memories, and I find him watching me intently, his face creased in worry. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” I reply despite the sudden tightness in my chest. “Er—see that guy walking towards us? Well, that’s my ex.” I wait for Richard’s reaction, but he merely continues to watch me. “ I—I didn’t know he’d be here. I’m sorry—”

“Lorelei, it’s alright—” Richard begins to say as he rubs my back gently, but he is too soon interrupted by the unexpected guest. 

“Lorelei! It’s good to see you!” Jason smiles widely as his eyes flick between Richard and me. He smiles at me like it never happened. Like he never lied to me. Like he never betrayed me. 

“Hi, Jason,” I say and conjure what I hope is a convincing smile. “How are you?” 

“I’m good!” he replies with a nod. “And you?” 

“I’m good,” I say. Richard squeezes my waist, and I shake my head in sudden realization. “Er, Richard—this is Jason. Jason—this is my boyfriend, Richard.” 

“Nice to meet you, Richard,” Jason says, extending his hand to Richard, and just as their hands meet, he says, “Lorelei and I used to go out.” 

I want to rip his head off and feed it to a pack of wargs.

“So I hear.” 

I never told Richard what Jason did, but Jason doesn’t know that, and he flinches at the unmistakable edge in Richard’s voice. 

“So you’re working at Exeter College now.” 

“I am.” 

“Congrats! It seems to be agreeing with you.” He looks deep into my eyes as he smiles, and it is like I am reliving it all again. All the lies. The pain. The shame. I just wish I could go back to five minutes ago when I was blissfully unaware of his presence. I raise my glass to take a sip of wine, but it is empty.

“I can get you another drink if you want—” 

“No, thanks,” I reply curtly, unable to hold back the annoyance in my voice. He has the nerve to look surprised. 

“So … how have you been?” 

Fantastic since you were out of my life. “I’ve been great. Listen—there’s loads of people we want to talk to so…” 

“So I’ll see you around.” 

I fucking hope not. I signal the end of the conversation with a nod of my head, then grab Richard’s arm and lead him as far away as possible from Jason.

When we reach the bar, Richard wraps one arm around my waist and forces me to meet his eyes. “Okay, I’m guessing that’s not your default reaction to bumping into an ex,” he says, and I sigh. He knows me too well. “So what was that about?”

“Nothing.” 

“Tell me what he did,” he insists, his voice growing softer despite the anger in his eyes. 

“I’ll tell you later.” Richard opens his mouth to protest, so I say, “Please, Richard. I can’t do this here.” I take a deep breath to settle my uneven breathing as he rubs my back soothingly. “I’ve worked hard to make this conference happen and I won’t let Jason ruin it for me.” 

He remains silent for a moment, his blue eyes ablaze, but then he swallows hard and nods. “If that’s what you want.” 

I nod. With his hand on my back, Richard continues to watch me uncertainly as he orders drinks for us, and I silently thank him for being so patient and understanding with me. But after we receive our drinks, Richard pulls away from me, and I frown. 

“Alright, I guess I’ll let you mingle,” he says as he glances at his phone. 

At the risk of sounding like the most annoying, most clingy girlfriend ever, I say, “I’d feel better if you stayed with me.”

Fortunately, Richard seems almost relieved by my admission, and the lopsided smile he offers me is like a balm for my heart, a reminder that I am with him now, and he loves me and that whole mess with Jason is in the past. 

“I won’t let you out of my sight,” he promises playfully, and a moment later, we are swept back into the cycle of introductions, networking, and discussions with the other scholars in the auditorium. 

 ***

 A few hours later, I lean against the quartz counter in Richard’s kitchen and take a long sip of water to quench my thirst. The house is quiet, and outside, only the occasional, distant sound of cars disturbs the tranquillity of the night. It is so much more peaceful here than at my flat in the busy city centre, and as I let my eyes flutter close, I can almost forget about all the stress of the evening. 

Almost. 

The creaking of the stairs announces Richard’s approach, and a moment later, he steps into the kitchen, stifling a yawn with one of his large hands. He has shed his chocolate brown blazer, and now wears only his white shirt, now untucked from his pants, the sleeves rolled up, and the collar unbuttoned. In the low light of the pendant lights above the kitchen island, his skin is soft and golden, and I offer him a soft smile despite my heavy heart.

“So, are you happy with how the conference went?” Richard asks. I can tell he wants to discuss Jason but is uncertain about how to broach the subject. 

“I am!” I reply earnestly. “It would have been better without Jason’s appearance … but overall, I’m very pleased.” 

Richard frowns. 

“I suppose I need to explain—” 

“Only if you want to,” he says despite the curiosity and concern in his blue eyes. 

“He cheated on me,” I admit, knowing there is no point in beating around the bush.

“What?”

I nod slowly, now looking down at my feet. “We met at UCL—he was another P.h.D. candidate in the English department. We’d been together for two years when … when I found out.” Richard takes a tentative step closer and takes my hand in his, his thumb gently brushing my knuckles. “I was going to a conference in Edinburgh for the weekend. Well—actually, it was only from Friday to Saturday, but my return train was booked for Sunday afternoon. But it was our anniversary that Sunday, so I did everything I could to get an earlier train back—and I did. I was going to surprise him— and then I got to his flat … and she was there. Emma Cavell. She was another P.h.D. candidate in the department. She was my friend—or at least I thought she was.…” 

“Oh, Lorelei—”

“When Jason showed up, I confronted him and—and it was horrible. I’ve never been in a fight like that … the things he said to me …” 

“What did he say to you?” I can feel the anger boiling inside him, but his voice remains gentle as he squeezes my hand, and despite the years that have passed since Jason broke my heart, I cannot stop the tears clouding my vision from rolling down my cheeks. 

“He said I was always busy with classes and research and so he had no choice but to—to seek comfort elsewhere—that’s how he put it.” 

“That bastard.” 

“He said he loved me but I was never there for him—which was a lie! I missed tons of conferences to spend weekends with him. I even declined a summer research opportunity at Columbia because he was teaching a class for half the summer and he didn’t want us to be apart for so long.” 

“How could he do this to you? And on your anniversary too?” 

“That wasn’t even the only time.” 

“What?” 

I swallow past the painful constriction in my throat and say, “He’d been cheating on me for four months.” In an instant, I am surrounded by Richard’s strong arms, my face buried in his chest. One of his hands traces soothing circles on my back, then trails up to caress my hair, all while he whispers words of love and reassurance in my ear. “Almost everyone in the department knew. Even my supervisor. It was so humiliating.” 

Richard kisses the top of my head and squeezes me tight. “Why? You did nothing wrong. That prick’s the one who should be ashamed of himself.” 

Sniffing uncontrollably, I look up to meet his worried gaze. “Because everyone knew that this guy I loved had been shagging someone else. Someone they all knew! And the worst part is that a lot of people I considered to be my friend kept hanging out with him after that. I felt so alone. And seeing him tonight just made all those feelings come back. It’s pathetic that I’m still upset after all this time but—”

“Hey—it’s not pathetic!” Richard hastens to say as he forces me to meet his eyes with a gentle tug on my chin. “That bloke is a fucking arsehole and what he did to you is unforgivable. You deserve so much better than that.” As he speaks, his hand caresses my cheek, then my temple, then slides back down to my jaw. “And all those people who sided with him after what he did aren’t just terrible friends, they’re incredibly unprofessional.” Then he frowns, and a look of realization falls over his face. “That’s why you were so worried about dating me. A colleague.”

Biting my lower lip, I nod. 

“Sweetheart, you should’ve told me,” Richard says, but he is not reproaching me anything, he is simply concerned. 

“I only ever told this to Beatrice until now. Even my parents don’t know—I just told them things didn’t work out between Jason and I.”

“Why?” 

“I know I had no reason to feel humiliated, but I did. Everything was a mess after that until he left UCL. Every meeting, every conference.”

Richard buries his face in my hair, pressing a series of kisses there, then down along my cheek. “I’m so sorry you had to suffer that, sweetheart.” 

I shrug, but his words mean so much more to me than I could ever express. “I was so scared when I started to develop feelings for you. I could just see it happening again … everyone thinking I wasn’t dedicated enough because I had let these things happen—because I had let myself fall for a colleague,” I admit in a low voice, thinking back to last Autumn and how I desperately tried to ignore my growing affection for him. But then I think of our first kiss outside my flat, and all the moments we have shared since. “But I’m so glad you persuaded me to give us a chance.” 

He smiles and leans in to press a soft kiss onto my lips, his nose tenderly brushing mine. “I can be quite persuasive when I need to.” 

“Oh, that you were,” I concur, giggling softly as I recall his method of persuasion in my office on that rainy October day. 

His eyes shine with concern and tenderness as he squeezes me tight, and I bury my face in his chest, desperate for the comfort only he can offer me. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

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[bethanys-adventure]

Leading Lady

A short (wlw/friends to maybe more?) story

(Hopefully it's alright, I wrote this in my notes app during my breaks yesterday!)

As Tilly Holden - the blossoming rose of British cinema - sat in her makeup room, she found herself becoming lost in her thoughts. For some bizarre reason, she couldn't stop herself from thinking about her fellow leading lady, her on screen girlfriend.

Tilly never usually signed on to Rom-coms, but there was something about the script that charmed her. Probably the stunning backdrop of rural Cornwall, or quite possibly the fact that it was a lesbian love story. But regardless, that was how she crossed paths with Mollie Chenoweth.

Mollie was an up and coming actor, having just finished her final year at university (in a subject other than drama, no less). She was a pretty down to earth kind of girl, she was a local and never lived too far from the film set. She grew up in a working class mining family in Camborne with a twin brother and worked her way into a bursary at the University of Exeter (the Penryn campus).

Outside of her education, Mollie did it all. She was chair of the Paddle-boarding Society and had links to the pride society, Cornish language and culture society and was an understudy for the university's acting group (which is how she got scouted).

At first, Tilly found herself feeling jealous towards Mollie. She didn't care about her public image, she wouldn't have to worry about where she was seen and with who. Mollie could be whoever she wanted to be, Tilly's management had spent her entire teenage life trying to create a perfect persona for her that the press would love. And whenever Mollie talked so candidly about the dates she'd go on with both men and women, Tilly would always feel an ache in her heart - but she was never sure why.

But Tilly couldn't hate Mollie. There was nothing about her that Tilly could hate. She couldn't hate the short auburn curls, her freckles or how she wore glasses when reading her script. She couldn't hate the tattoo of Hokusai's Great Wave on Mollie's inner forearm, or how she lit up whenever someone asked her about it. Nor her infectious smile or the cheeky glint in her eyes whenever someone suggested sneaking off set for a long drive. The way she would sing "Smooth Operator" in her Fiat 500 with the windows down, her curls rustling in the breeze.

The way she cradled Tilly's cheeks as they kissed on camera for the first time...

Tilly shook her head.

No, she couldn't think about those memories. It would only distract her more.

But as the makeup artist repositioned her head to continue her work, the door to the trailer swung open.

"Mornin' all!"

And there she was, Mollie Chenoweth in all of her glory. She was in a black crop top, which showed off her prized Hokusai tattoo and her athletic frame from years of paddle boarding - alongside a simple pair of jeans.

And of course, Mollie took her seat right next to Tilly. The two locked eyes and Mollie grinned.

"Hey! Are you ready for the big scene today?" Mollie had rolled her shoulders with a tired groan before the hair and makeup artists started their work on her.

Tilly found herself glancing over at Mollie in the mirror with a soft smile "I've been psyching myself up all morning. But Julia's on set, so we're in safe hands!"

Ah yes, Julia - their intimacy coordinator. She was the one who made sure that every scene involving the leading ladies' relationship dynamic didn't jeopardise Tilly or Mollie's mental health or didn't cross any boundaries.

Mollie closed her eyes as some eyeshadow was applied "I'm sure we'll survive!" She giggled softly "Besides, we can always take some time to sneak out to the nearest Maccies - park up by Marazion and get the view of St Michael's Mount?"

"Sounds like a plan!" Tilly grinned before she was given the all clear to head to costuming.

Mollie laughed and winked "It's a date then! I'll see you on set and we'll have a run through the scene with Julia!"

And as Tilly walked out of the hair and makeup trailer, a blush on her cheeks, she had come to the realisation that she may not be straight...

And that she may have fallen in love with her leading lady.

[sarahlizziewrites]

OC Kiss Week - Day 7 - Sloppy

#ockiss23 - Day 7 - Sloppy - part 1/2 - 1,848 words

a/n - I am clearly having way too much fun with this story, because it became a behemoth lol. So I'm splitting it into two parts to make it easier to read. Look out for part 2 coming soon.

Part 1 gets a little spicy, but part 2 will contain mature content.

This is an AU of my vampire tale, Grey-Sky Lark, in which our protagonist meets Matthew before he is turned, in 1890.

I'm not sure what brings me in here. There's no appeal to be had from ale or wine, and the beast inside me is relatively sated by my recent meal of a debt collector who was threatening a young single mother.

Not my most ethical kill - not my least, either - but she was certainly grateful.

In any case, I left Reading after that. No need to stir up the local constabulary in search of a young black-haired man who drains blood for a living. Not when I could find a different town, lie low for a few weeks, find another meal, then quietly move on again. 

Going to a public house is hardly lying low, though. But there's something about the warm and inviting interior of this place - framed by the geraniums in the window boxes, the carved hop flowers in the door - that offers me something I didn't realise I'd been craving. No, not blood. Company.

The sound of chatter from inside draws me in. I pay for a small glass of red wine and pretend to drink it, watching the room from a small dark end of the bar. Clusters of men crowd around small, lamp-lit tables, pints of ale in their hands. Someone starts up with a fiddle in the opposite corner.

Company comes, unexpectedly, in the form of a bar patron speaking to me in Scottish Gaelic.

"Tha thu à Alba." It’s no far leap to say he’s handsome. Fair hair, blue eyes, and tall, with a dimple in one cheek when he smiles. He leans in a little closer than strangers should when he speaks, his voice a mutter over the sound of the bar.

My surprise must show in my face: how does this handsome stranger speak a near-dead language? And moreover - how does he know I speak it? Memories of my time many years ago on Islay return briefly to me, the feel of salt-sea spray on a wild Atlantic breeze; the clinging smell of burning peat.

"Ciamar a tha fios agad?" I reply. How do you know?

He has a slight hint of ale on his breath, and at his neck, over a pulse point, what smells like a dab of cedarwood oil. Smiling wider as he leans in again, as though to speak, I can tell that he is a little giddy with drink. A rising flush on his cheeks stirs the interest of something dark and forbidden inside me. A temptation that I haven't let myself succumb to in a long time. A dangerous game to play with mortals. 

He places a finger against my chest, gently pressing the brooch I’ve been using as a tie pin. A silver brooch, two hearts intertwined around an amethyst.

"Do bhràiste Luckenbooth."

"It's a good luck charm," I say softly in English, subconsciously lifting my fingers to the spot where the pressure of his is now missing. I feel silly, because if the man speaks Gaelic and knows about Luckenbooth brooches, he's probably aware of what they represent. "Supposed to ward off evil spirits."

"How's that working for you?"

I huff out a laugh, and a thrill runs through me when I sense his pulse flutter close to his skin at the same time. "Worse than you can imagine."

He offers the hand that leans against the bar for me to shake. "Matthew. Linguistics. Exeter." The fingertips of the hand that isn't shaking mine come to gently touch the back of my wrist, intimate and warm. He flatters me with eye contact and his full attention, pupils large in the dim around an iris of ice-blue. "You?"

I almost forget the question. His gaze, his touch, his smell - it's like warfare, and I'm outgunned. "Oh…I - um." I’m not normally like this. "I'm not a student." 

He spares half a glance back at a table in another part of the pub. "Listen, I…" he says, leaning in even more, as though divulging a scandalous secret. "I wonder if you can help me. You see, I have a bet on with my friend." He twists again, and gives a coy little wave at a young man at the table behind him, before fixing his eyes back on my face, somehow even closer than before.

"What's the bet?"

"He bet I couldn't get you to come home with me tonight."

Air leaves my chest as he levels me with a look from under light sable lashes, filled with a thousand promises. The sounds of the bar fade away, and all I can see, hear, smell is this man - Matthew - and his cedarwood pulse. 

Here’s where I should flee. Here’s where I should turn back, abandon the folly of seeking out company for the evening. 

But then his eyes flick down to my lips, and a different kind of hunger swells within me.

“How much is the bet?” I shift forward on my stool a little, submitting to the pull of his magnetic presence, my knees falling apart just wide enough for him to notice. He does notice, gaze dipping lower before dragging it back up my body.

“Five shillings,” he finally says. “A month’s worth of drinks.”

“Awfully confident of your abilities, aren’t you?”

A salacious smile forming on his face, he takes my hand from where it rests on the bar, gently turning it over in his hands so my palm faces up. I am still wearing gloves, but the touch is shockingly intimate nonetheless. “That depends,” he says, fingers lightly tracing the centre of my palm, before trailing to the inside of my wrist, indecent on bare skin below the cuff. “On you.”

Those blue eyes meet mine again, and I’m sure as hell not hiding it in mine that he’s already won his bet. 

In this dark corner of the bar, the far-too-intimate hand touching goes unnoticed, as does the way he fucks me with his eyes. And a good thing too - if he's kidding, he's putting his neck and his reputation on the line, and if he isn't, he's risking a lot for a thin-framed stranger who will leave town in a few weeks. And he's also literally putting his neck on the line.

One way or the other, the rest of this conversation needs to happen in private.

"Where's home?" I abandon my wine and rise to stand from the stool. He actually seems a little surprised, to his credit. I stand half a head shorter than him, and I tilt my chin up to look at him, a challenge. Our bodies are much closer now, edges of suits brushing together, heat of a body just beyond.

He blushes beautifully, as though he didn't expect his little thing with the hands to work, and lifts a palm to rub against the back of his neck. "Well, I'm from Bristol originally…oh, you mean," he stutters. Outgunned, indeed. "It's not far."

It's my turn to give him a look; a 'follow me', a 'worth a try'. I collect my coat and hat, turning neatly on a heel and out of the pub.

What am I doing? This is going to be messy. In the last several hundred years, I have let myself get close to precious few humans, because of what happens when I do. Inevitably, they get hurt. Or worse.

And if none of that happens, then they find out what I am, and they leave in disgust.

Not Matthew, not yet. He follows me into the darkened street, tailing on my heels like a puppy. His change in demeanour is, quite frankly, endearing, especially when he helps me put my coat on. Ever the gentleman, even if it is just another excuse to touch me. A sturdy hand leaves an electric trail up my back, lingering a little longer than is proper at the nape of my neck, and an unwelcome feeling that is more than simple attraction floods me. This is dangerous. 

“If I may,” he asks as we walk along the cobbles. “Just asking as a scholar. Where is your accent from? I can distinguish the Scottish, of course, but, as for the rest…” He tails off.

“The rest is to be learned later.” My attempt at diffusing the question ends up being flirty - I can’t help it. I can’t help smiling at him either, God help me, when he smiles with that boyish charm. He can’t be more than twenty, and I picture him at school, not more than a few years ago, athletic and popular.

Through a gatehouse, where Matthew speaks to the doorman, all locked eyes and smiles. To a dormitory, large enough barely for two beds and a long desk.

He must see me looking at both beds. "He won't be back," he says, gesturing to the one on the left. "He just, you know. Lost a bet."

Miscellany covers the walls and the shelves: to the unknowing eye, random junk; but presumably to Matthew and his roommate, fondly stashed treasures meant to invoke memories; trophies from nights out. Beer glasses, no two the same, evidently stolen from pubs. A crumpled opera playbill pinned to the wall. A policeman’s hat, pilfered. Books on every available surface; some, well-loved, by his bedside, musty, pale and frayed with age. A framed photograph of a young man - Matthew, perhaps a few years ago, squinting and grinning into the sun - in cricket whites, gripping a trophy. The trophy in question, on a shelf above. Stuck behind the photograph, half a dozen postcard-sized watercolours, an amateur’s determined attempt to capture the delights of a summer spent punting on the Thames.

Simple pleasures. A seemingly easy life. For a moment, I envy him.

Fascinated by his ephemerae, I hardly notice him come up behind me. I do, however, feel the jolt of something twisting in my stomach when he places his hands on me again, this time under the pretence of removing my coat. The feeling continues up my limbs, and somehow into my mind, clouding judgement I had once thought so reliable. 

“I don’t mean…” he begins, eyes darting away bashfully again. I have my eyes fixed on where his neck has escaped his collar, tendons and soft skin there flexing and twitching over a dry swallow. I’m desperate to kiss it, to taste the oil that he wears there, to mark that space, to feel his flesh give way under my lips, my teeth…

No, that is too dangerous. No teeth.

He starts again, looking directly into my eyes now, focus - or courage - regained. “I don’t mean to presume, but I hope I made my intentions clear earlier that I didn’t just bring you here to win a bet…”

I cut him off by weaving one hand into the short hair at the back of his head and drawing him in for an urgent kiss. 

After all, do I have anything to lose?

When he pulls back and looks at me with pupils blown wide, pink-slick lips parted around humid breaths and a sloppy, open-mouthed smile, I realise with a sickening clarity that the answer is yes.

[mercymiku]

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