#have you ever seen a painting that belongs to an art gallery and then realized it's the one with your oc. that's exactly how i feel rn

[mourn-and-watch]

no way my bestie just made me the best bday gift ever. that's my little fucked up the great old one warlock and she's never been more gorgeous

[kitweewoos]

The Artist

Tommy Kinard spent his childhood being terrified of the idea of soulmates, hearing his father's drunken rants about how unnatural it is, how horrible, how absolutely disgusting it was that soulmates thought they were real and special. Then, when he was just about to turn thirteen, it appeared on his hip, a triangle that faded towards the bottom edge, right against his skin. He tried to hide it, and he almost managed it, until he was changing one night and his father stumbles into his room, drunk off his ass, trying to find the bathroom. He tried to cover it up, but his father had already seen it, and he was pissed. He dragged Tommy into a clinic downtown where a doctor put him under anesthesia and cut his soul mark out of his skin, leaving behind a small scar instead. When he was old enough to get out of his small town, he did, signing up for the army and signing up to learn to be a pilot. When he got out, though, his body hurt and he had nightmares. Instead, he turns to using his body in other ways, modeling for fashion magazines at first, then on fashion runways, in music videos, and fitness magazines once they realize he's physically fit. When he finally retires, he has enough money to follow his dreams of being an artist, a skill he's hidden for years and years, but now, he gets to put his work on display loudly and proudly.

The Model

Evan Buckley has wondered what his soulmate is going to be like since the small triangle appeared on his hip. His mother was overjoyed for him and started talking about having a daughter-in-law someday, and he let her celebrate however she wanted, because at least she was paying attention to him. His father was less thrilled but let Evan live his life regardless. He imagined, though, what his life would be like when he finally met them. After he escaped Hershey, he floated through life, trying to find a place to belong. He drew what he saw, and he sold paintings wherever he went, and he really just wanted to pursue a life made up of artists and gallery events. He finds his way to Los Angeles, and makes friends with a group that keeps him focused and calls him Buck. Art doesn't pay the bills so he takes the first modeling job offered to him by a friend, which leads him to another, and another, and another job, and he can finally pay his rent, and make his art without worrying about if this painting will pay for his next meal.

The Soulmates

It's a favor to his friend and now his brother-in-law to be, that he shows up to a stranger's studio to be a model for their new series. He's "perfect for it," according to Chimney, and this friend is a genius, Buck is going to want to be a part of it. So, Buck shows up to a studio with minimal info and finds the most gorgeous man he's ever seen waiting in a pair of paint-stained jeans and a smock over a blue Henley, with a square jaw and a cleft in his chin, and Buck immediately wants to know more.

"Hi, I'm Evan, Evan Buckley, or Buck, whatever you want to call me. Chimney said you needed a model?" "I do, yeah. I'm Tommy, and it's nice to meet you, Evan. Did Howie happen to tell you anything about what I'm looking for?" "He mentioned it involved nudity, but that's all." "Well, that's part of it, that's certainly a big part of it, but I'm doing a study on soul marks and how they move with the body." "Oh! That's awesome! Mine's not in a very malleable position, it's on my hip right here, so if that's not helpful, I get it." "Let me see?"

He doesn't expect the slight gasp as he lifts his shirt and tugs down his pants so that Tommy can see it. He doesn't expect Tommy to be drawn into him, to reach out and ask permission before tentatively brushing the dark triangle on his hip. He doesn't expect Tommy's soft little breath as he touches him. He doesn't expect Tommy to say, under his breath, that he never expected to find him, that he's given up on it.

"I'm sorry, are you saying that we're soulmates? Prove it."

Tommy takes off the smock and then draws up his shirt to reveal a long, harsh surgical scar in the same spot that Buck's mark sits.

"I can't. My father had it cut away when he found out. I can't prove it, I don't even have photos of me as a kid with it because of that, but - we are. Your mark, it's exactly what mine was before it was removed."

Buck wants to believe him, so he strips off his shirt, and tells him they'll start with one session for Tommy to work on his series and then they can get some drinks, some dinner, and if they're soulmates, they won't ever want to stop. Tommy smiles, and agrees, and sits down at his easel while Buck strips off the rest of his clothes and sits on a stool in Tommy's view. He turns the way Tommy tells him to, and sits well even when he wants to move, and Tommy praises him for how good he's doing, and how well he follows direction. The praise seems to be easy and free-flowing for Tommy, and Buck does want to stay here forever, listening to Tommy hum as he sketches and lets his eyes linger. He doesn't need to go to drinks or to dinner, he already knows that Tommy's it for him. This is forever, and he smiles to himself knowing that he's finally found his home, even if no one else will believe them when they say they're soulmates. It doesn't matter, because they know. They know that this is their fate, and they've found it together.

[brywrites]

Little Beautiful

Summary: In which Max’s art exhibit is a gallery of beautiful things, and Spencer Reid finds himself surprised by what it includes. Spencer Reid x Max Brenner

.......

Spencer Reid can name many beautiful things. He can talk in depth about the natural splendor of the Golden Ratio and why humans love symmetry. He can explain the history of the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa, recount the painstaking detail with which the Taj Mahal was built. He’s seen desert sunsets and shooting stars and the faces of parents reunited with children they thought they might never see again.

He loves all the great and beautiful things in the world. And nobody quite makes the world look as beautiful as Max does. She’s protective of her art, fiercely private about it, but the glimpses she allows him stun him. Then again, he figures he shouldn’t be surprised. After all, she’s beautiful.

Reid thinks he could never tire of looking at her. Her wide, brown eyes, her long eyelashes, the way her cheeks are painted pink each time he pushes her hair back from her face. Her smile just knocks him out. Her movements are graceful, elegant. And the sight of her bare body in the soft light of his bedroom makes him think that no word in any language could ever even hope to come close to describing this sort of perfection.

Everything about her puts a sunset to shame. Her laugh. The way she makes him smile on the worst days. The softness of her touch when her skin is on his. The warmth of her embrace. The kindness of her heart. There’s no doubt, Maxine Brenner is beautiful, in every sense of the grossly inadequate word.

But beauty has a way of reminding him of his own inadequacies. For all his love of lovely things, Reid knows the word is never one he could hope to claim. His face won’t ever inspire poetry. His hair is, at best, an unruly mess. His stubble is always a little scruffier than he’d like it to be. And while he managed to get physically stronger after Milburn, getting in shape didn’t quite happen. He can hold an unsub on the ground without worry, but he’s absolutely terrified each time he undresses before her.

But he loves her. Which is why when she hands him a flyer that reads, Little Beautiful, he knows he’ll say yes to whatever it is before she even explains.

“I have a confession to make,” Max says. “I didn’t want to tell you sooner because I was afraid I might jinx it, but now that it’s all official – I’m going to have an exhibition at Jolie Laide!” Jolie Laide is one of the District’s most revered contemporary commercial galleries, and Max is understandably over the moon.

“What?” he gasps. “When did this happen? How?”

“There was a call for submissions, and well I’ve been working on this idea for a while and I figured why not give it a shot? Spencer, they loved it! They actually loved my art!” she says, and the little hop of joy in her step makes him want to kiss her right there in the middle of the street. Is she even aware of how adorable she is?

“That’s incredible. I mean, I’m not surprised. Everything you do is incredible. But what’s the title mean?” he asks, pointing at the flyer.

“It’s a Van Gogh reference,” she says, and he smiles. Of course it is. The Dutch master will always have a spot in her heart, and in the small “Starry Night” tattoo on her inner arm. “Find things beautiful as much as you can,” she recites. “Most people find too little beautiful.”

She takes his hand in hers. Her hands are small and dainty. He could almost close his fingers around hers completely. It makes him think he must look so strange beside her, a mess of lanky limbs.

“I know that big parties aren’t really your scene,” Max says. “But the opening night is kind of a big deal and it would really mean a lot to me if you came.”

“Are you kidding me?” he laughs. They turn down the street to his apartment. “You’re my girlfriend. We’ve been dating for five months, three weeks, and five days. Of course I’m going to be there.”

“Well good. And tell your friends! The more the merrier. I think you’re really gonna like it,” she adds, with that mischievous sparkle in her eyes that makes his stomach flip.

“If you made it, I know I’ll love it.” Deciding the doorstep of his building is close enough, he leans down to kiss her.

Two weeks later, he finds himself standing in the lobby of Jolie Laide with the rest of his team. Many of them have decided to make a date night of the event, as it’s not often profilers have the excuse to attend a formal event. Reid shifts nervously from foot to foot as they wait for the doors to open. Somehow he still feels out of place in nice suit, wearing the “Starry Night” tie she bought him at a work trip she took to the MoMA. Everyone here looks so beautiful, and he feels like he’s playing dress up, like they’ll all be able to tell he doesn’t belong in a place like this. He’s all too aware of the way he hasn’t managed to tame his hair, of the way his shirt fits a little tighter than it used to, of the way the people around him exude an air effortless cool that he could never hope to.

To ease his mind, he takes comfort in counting the people waiting. They’re all here for Max, for the beautiful things she makes. The last time he was at a gallery opening like this he was standing in a sweater vest next to Gideon who was flirting with the artist while Reid tried not to stare too much at Lila Archer. The memory makes him want to laugh – how infatuated he felt at that time with her. And now with Max, he can’t imagine thinking such a feeling was love. It’s so different than the consuming warmth he feels when he’s with her, the way hearing her voice can bring him back down to earth when his mind moves too quickly, the way he he’s always hated touch but never seems to mind when it’s her. Rather he craves the feeling of her hand in his, her arms around him, her lips on his skin. He’s in love with her, and he’s in deep.

The clock strikes seven and the doors are opened. They step into the bright white gallery space. The moment he’s inside, he is in awe. He recognizes Max’s work immediately, and it’s everywhere. There are large canvas paintings of small objects that take up so much space. There are paintings that must be zoomed in, hyper-focused views of much bigger objects. And it’s all beautiful. Max’s work has the same mastery over colors as the Impressionists, but with contemporary details and precision. Her paintings don’t just look like something, they feel like something. There is a series of pieces of stunningly detailed school supplies – a crayon, a yellow pencil, a bottle of glue. They seem to reflect light, possessing colors far too rich for items so simple.

Max has made them lovely with her gaze, with her hands.

In one painting, a vibrant sunset is seen through a small window. In another, the trunk of a tree is made to look so close that the leaves the viewer stares up at are but a golden blur. Fruit, a butterfly’s wing, and a flower are made into a kaleidoscope of colors. He catches glimpses of familiar faces in portraits – her sister Michelle’s eye, her father’s hand, identifiable by his watch, holding a baseball with vibrant red stitching.

“Wow,” Simmons says, standing beside him. “This is amazing. I mean, I don’t always get art, you know? But damn. Max is talented.”

“She sure is,” Reid says. But he’s only half listening, because he’s taken in by it, by all of it. This is the world through Max’s eyes. All these little details, all the little beautiful things that she sees. And she has reflected them back to the world in a way that takes his breath away.

The unfamiliar voice of an man calls the gallery to attention through a microphone, and Reid makes his way back towards the entrance where all the guests are slowly gathering.

“I now have the pleasure of introducing tonight’s guest of honor, Maxine Brenner,” a man with tiny wire-rimmed classes says.

Reid joins the crowd, falling into place beside Garcia and JJ just in time to see Max walk over in a white lace dress. She is utterly radiant, resplendent. His heart quickens at the sight of her. She takes the microphone and thanks the man with a dazzling smile. “Thank you all for being here,” she says. “It’s truly an honor to share this night with you, and I’m thankful to Jolie Laide for the opportunity to do so. It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that Van Gogh is my favorite artist. He once said, find things beautiful as much as you can. Most people find too little beautiful. The concept for this exhibit was to find all the beautiful things that we overlook. I wanted to pay attention to their little details and find new ways to show the world what beautiful is and what it could be. Every painting is of something I’ve found lovely – whether it’s a natural phenomenon seen through a new lens or an everyday object that just needs someone to notice it or a person–”

She pauses and her gaze moves over the crowd until she spots him. And that mischievous glimmer returns to her eyes. “– who doesn’t realize how beautiful they are. I hope that tonight helps you all to see the beauty around you and in yourselves, and maybe encourages you to see things a little differently, and to find the world a little more beautiful.” As she bows, the room bursts into applause and he swells with pride. This is her moment, and she’s beaming, and he couldn’t be more happy for her.

He wants to go up and hug her, but a swarm of admirers immediately descends upon her with enthusiastic questions and curious remarks. This is her night. He knows that when she wants to talk to him, she’ll let him know. For now, he’ll let these strangers have their moment with her – he can have all of the time in the world with her. The team opts to take a break to help themselves to the refreshment table and Emily offers to grab him a drink, but he politely refuses. He wants to keep walking around.

He can’t help but smile as he does so, hearing the praise and wonder in the words of the other guests. Yes, he wants to tell them. Yes, she’s that talented. Yes, she notices things nobody else does. And she’s hilarious and generous and gorgeous and somehow, somehow I am hers. But how unsightly it would be of him, in his suit and crooked tie, with his messy hair and off-balance gait to interrupt these strangers reveling at the beauty before them. So he stays quiet, happy just to be here. Happy to have the privilege to even witness such beauty.

When he turns the corner, he’s grateful he declined that drink because if there were a glass in his hand, he surely would have dropped it. Many of Max’s pieces are gathered on walls or in corners in groups based on themes or subjects. And in this particular nook, he finds himself uncomfortably familiar with the face staring back at him from one of them. The same face he has stared down in the mirror a thousand times.

It strikes him – Max has painted him. Reid steps closer and realizes it’s not just one painting. The whole wall is him. There is a painting of just one honey-colored eye, gazing down. A hand on the spine of a book. His lips, slightly parted, just a little uneven. His shoulders and collarbone, the slope of his neck and the curve of his chin, a few wild curls visible in the narrow view of the painting. And two portraits where his face is fully visible.

The brushstrokes are so careful, the colors so soft. She paints him in curves and edges and tiny hints of unexpected hues. She paints him with such detail, as though she has tried to memorize every inch of him. She has painted him beautiful.

And for a thirty-six seconds he can’t breathe. He just stares. Because this is how she sees him. And she’s put it on display for all the world to see.

“There’s a level of precision in these that I didn’t see in the other portraits,” an older woman says to a young woman beside her. “I can’t explain it, but it somehow feels like they were more… lovingly painted.”

“Like she knew exactly how they should feel,” her companion agrees.

“The subject has such a striking jawline,” a man says to the woman holding his hand. “And I like the way she painted his hair. Every curl is so careful.”

“It’s really beautiful,” she says, pointing to one of the portraits. Max has painted him smiling, gazing upwards, and he isn’t even sure if he’s capable of looking that way. “I think this one might be my favorite overall.” When they step aside, he can read the small placard on the wall naming the paintings. It reads, “And if I asked you to name all the things you love, how long would it take for you to name yourself?” Series. Oil on canvas. 2020.

Reid swallows hard, past the lump of emotions lodged in his throat, and turns quickly to walk to another corner of the gallery, both to avoid recognition and because if he keeps looking he thinks he might cry. But when he turns, she’s standing right there. Looking up at him through her long lashes, her graceful hands clasped in front of her as she waits in that lovely lace dress.

“Do you like it?” she asks him, nodding at the corner.

“I don’t understand,” he says. “Why did you paint me?”

Max smiles. “I told you, Magic Man, I wanted to paint pretty things.”

He shakes his head. “But I’m not – I mean, look at me, I’m–”

“I am looking.” She reaches up to brush her fingers against his cheek, having to stand on her toes even in heels to do so. “And you are beautiful. My beautiful. I wanted to show you the way I see you. Because of all the beautiful things, none of them make me feel quite like you do.”

Max takes his hand and walks up to the paintings. She says nothing, just waits as he looks at them close up, unafraid of someone realizing he’s looking at himself. He stares at the light and shadows created by her paintbrush. The bright colors that draw attention over painted skin. The soft gaze, the eyes that seem to look so alive. Stray freckles, flecks of tan and gold. It feels so astonishingly intimate. There’s no denying that her work is remarkable. It is beautiful.

And this is how she sees him. Worthy of that sort of attention. Capable of bringing those kinds of colors to life. And when he faces her, he realizes – the painting with the smile. He does look that way. He can feel the movement of the muscles in his face forming a near mirror image as he realizes he only ever looks that way at her.

“Thank you,” he says. Max pulls him down to kiss him, her lips so sweet, and it feels beautiful. He thinks that if they were not here, surrounded by other people, that he would love nothing more than to avail her of that beautiful dress and paint patterns of her skin with his fingertips, give every inch of her the same level of attention with his lips that she did with her paints, and whisper over and over to her just how lovely he finds her.

But they’re not alone, not yet. “Well I’ll be damned,” Morgan says. All of his friends are there, having discovered this nook of the gallery. “Look at that! She somehow managed to make you look even prettier than usual, Pretty Boy.” Reid flushes crimson as they praise Max’s work. She joins them to walk around the rest of the gallery, her hand in his, and from time to time he swears he can see someone staring at the two of them, and he knows they recognize his face. But he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care how the rest of the world looks at him, so long as he knows the way he looks through her eyes. For the first time, he can see himself the way she sees him. As he is, not as he fears he is.

Somehow, this has become his life. Walking through a gallery of paintings made by his favorite person, while she gazes at him like he’s her only muse, telling him that he belongs among lovely things. Somehow believing it all. Somehow at home surrounded by strangers and a few of the people he trusts most. This is his life. And what a beautiful life it is.

[whatcouldgowrong-ohthat]

Hi! I saw you had request open, so I was wondering if you could write Bucky reacting to overhearing someone tell his starving artist friend that their work doesn't mean anything? It can be in head canon style or an actual fic, whichever you prefer. Thank you!

The Artist and the Baker

Pairing: baker!Bucky x artist!Reader

Word Count: 2601 words

Warnings: This is fluff. Mutual pining, that sorta thing, guys.

A/N: I honestly really love this request especially with everything going on. I think it’s very common for people to take artists and creators for granted and I have certainly been on the receiving end of that treatment. 

I hope you like this. It was fun to make, but I’m sorry if it wasn’t quite what you were looking for.

-.-.-.-

Becca’s Needs for the Soul – a two story creation that was well-loved and adored by anyone who passed through the splatter painted door. Most people never understood the name, not even her brother, Bucky. Until Rebecca asked him to co-own and start working at the establishment. His little sister, always full of dramatics, had created something for everybody.

It was a coffee shop and a bakery.

A bookstore and a gallery.

They even had nights where people came in to perform music, standup, anything the heart desired. There were other days where artists from around would come and paint, sometimes provide lessons for kids, and other days there was simply nothing but quiet.

It took no time for Rebecca’s little hole in the wall to become one of the community’s favorites. Especially when her brother and his two friends came on. They had gotten it down to a science really.

Rebecca would come in, organizing the bookstore, managing everything behind the scenes, and setting up any special events that would come up. Whenever it was time to decorate the store for holidays? Or even something seasonal that came to mind? She spent even more time out with the customers instead of behind the scenes.

And when she brought in her brother and two hunks to keep people company? It was a genius plan on her part. Especially when female customers spiked. But she would never admit that maybe that had been a smidgen of the plan all along. No, her real reasoning was for the boys. They needed something simple after returning from their second and final tour.

So she stuck two of them behind the counter. Her older brother often spent most days tucked back in the kitchen creating God knows what, but it always smelled wonderful. Any time he came out of his little hole, it was usually to help man the register while Sam slacked because he was flirting with too many customers.

But that was to be expected when Sam was the coffee guy. He was always creating new Holiday specials, deciding the best coffee beans for purchase, and trying something different. No one ever knew what it would be, but normally the smell of coffee and something filled the store.

And Steve? Well, he was one of the store’s more popular artists. He didn’t “officially” work for them, but he spent enough time there where people started nicknaming him the “curator”. He was the one who usually brought in new artists.

That was how Y/N had become part of their little group.

She was a photographer, but Bucky would always say it was more than that. For those who hired her, she found a way to make sure they were comfortable in front of the camera. Y/N always said she understood being nervous because of her own curvy figure, but Bucky just saw how she glowed. And her work that she put here? It wasn’t just portraits or landscapes. She had a way of combining paint and photos to create a way of reminding the world that imagination and reality were always linked. While Sam and Steve teased her for focusing on events to pay the bills, Bucky was the one who asked about which works she had planned.

With a smile and paint in her hair or staining her nails, she would tell him. Her eyes would sparkle with excitement that could only come from being an artist. She was so animated with her words, hands flying about and often looking like she belonged in some sort of cartoon. Her cheeks would always flush when she would realize how fast she was talking or how much louder she spoke.

But he never minded.

He liked having a friend who got so excited about her work. It was a different sort of excitement than Steve. The blonde was always smiling and had that same spark, but he was infinitely calmer compared to Y/N. Their artwork matched their personalities. Steve’s were extravagant and beautiful pencil sketches of people – raw and honest and revealing something that no one else could see but him. Y/N’s were stunning and extraordinary paint and photos – raw in a way that reminded the world to see what they were missing.

Their creations often balanced the walls of Rebecca’s shop. At least they did during the times Steve’s work wasn’t flying off the walls. It was that popularity that had him drawing at the shop. He often invited Y/N, telling her that people not only wanted to buy their work, but they wanted to watch their creativity.

Still, her best work came from the privacy of her own home.

Every week she brought in something new. Something special.

And today was no different.

The rules for artists selling their work were simple. They decided the prices. They worked the transactions. The shop itself provided a place to see the work, but took no percentage. They didn’t interfere.

These were unspoken rules that everyone managed to follow because…well, it made sense.

Until this guy – arrogant and irritating and looking to buy art. Sam had nicknamed him “Sweater vest.”

He had come in like any other day, ordering some tea before complaining that it was “too hot” and “too watered down”. It made Sam’s blood boil not because it was a complaint, but because it was the same order and same complaint every time. And every time, it was those complaints that kept him from tipping anything.

Even if he finished his tea and stuck around for a couple hours every damn time, admiring the artwork, fingering through books, but never buying anything other than his “not good enough” tea.

Sam’s too-big smile was still in place as he watched Sweater vest take a seat next to Y/N’s newest work. Both men glanced at the painting, but for entirely different reasons. Sam did because he couldn’t wait for Bucky to see it. Sweater vest did because today was going to be his first official purchase. And Sam hated that the artwork on the wall had to go to -

“Sweater vest is back.” Sam spat as the kitchen door closed behind him.

Bucky looked up, setting down the dozen cookies that had just come out of the oven. He knew exactly which customer Sam was griping about, always finding it entertaining that someone had managed to get under his skin. “And?”

“And he’s buying Y/N’s new painting,” Sam harrumphed, leaning against the nearest counter as Bucky started decorating a cake.

Bucky paused when he heard that, cursing when he messed up the piping. Setting the instrument aside, he carefully wiped away his mistake and glanced at Sam. Oh, he wanted to wipe that smug smirk off his face. “You’re point?”

“Nothing. I’m just surprised you haven’t gone and looked at it yet.”

“I’ve been a little busy,” Bucky said, gesturing to the creations that covered the counters.

Sam bit his tongue, barely able to hide his laugh. So that’s why there was so much flour on Bucky’s cheeks and in his hair. “Trade ya.”

“Your hands are too shaky. You’d screw these up.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever, but – “

Sam’s sentence died on his lips when he heard shouting coming from the front. Bucky glanced up, ears recognizing Y/N’s voice. The two men shared a look, muttering, “Sweater vest,” before rushing out of the kitchen.

Y/N’s new painting was off the wall and at her feet, tucked behind her as if she was a mama bear protecting her cub. They’d never seen Y/N angry before. Passionate, sure, but never angry. Anger was something she never seemed to reach.

Until today.

“The painting is decent, but it doesn’t mean anything. And I’m not paying three hundred bucks for something that has no meaning.”

“Then why the fuck did you waste my time asking about it?”

“Because I thought you would come to your senses and accept a more reasonable offer.”

“And what do you think would be a reasonable offer?”

“Fifty sounds more than reasonable. And I would be doing you a favor with my connections.”

“Fifty bucks and exposure?”

Bucky and Sam moved fast, knowing that tone of venom and irritation. Sam grabbed the painting, moving it out of the way as Y/N launched herself at Sweater vest, ready to tear him a new one. Bucky wrapped his arm around her waist, putting himself between her and the idiot. “Y/N, breathe…”

“Let me tell you this,” Y/N snapped at Sweater vest, pointing at him around Bucky’s arm. “I would rather never sell another piece of work than listen to your drivel for another moment!”

Sam placed a hand on her arm, tugging her back. “Y/N, let’s go to the kitchen,” he told her, talking to her as if she was a small child that needed to be calmed. He steered her behind the counter as he assured her, “Bucky just finished making some cookies. I’m sure we can steal a couple while he takes out the trash.” Sam glanced over his shoulder, giving Bucky a thumbs up of encouragement.

While Y/N might be completely oblivious to Bucky’s feelings for her, Sam was far from it. And he was completely sure that Bucky would have no problem fixing this situation. He just wished he had a camera to record everything.

Maybe he could borrow the security footage from Rebecca’s cameras.

When the kitchen door closed again, Bucky turned to Sweater vest. He straightened, coming to his full height and towering over the man. It seemed his large build was a firm reminder that Rebecca had ex-military working here because Sweater vest calmed rather quickly.

“I’m so sorry for disturbing the establishment. Artists tend to be a little soft-hearted when it comes to critiques.”

“Not if the critique is asked for,” Bucky told him, taking a step forward as Sweater vest took a step back. Though everyone had avoided looking at Y/N’s and Sweater vest’s argument, all eyes were curiously watching the baker that was often far more quiet than he was now. “Y/N is one of our favorite artists. Her work and company are always welcome in our establishment.”

“O – Our? I thought this shop was owned by a woman…a Ms. Rebecca Barnes.”

“It’s co-owned,” Bucky assured him, offering his best customer service smile.

“By…?”

“Her brother.” He held out his hand. “James Barnes.”

Sweater vest swallowed thickly, throat bobbing nervously as he took Bucky’s hand. The strength in Bucky’s handshake was enough to make him wince, barely able to withhold a cry of pain. Bucky’s other hand, a heavy and metal prosthetic, squeezed his shoulder and earned a cringe.

“While Becca’s Needs for the Soul is open to anyone, we take great pride in reminding our artists that this is their community first and foremost. So you? Are banned.”

Another step and Sweater vest was stumbling through the front door, his shoulder and hand released. “I – “

“Have a nice day.”

The door clanged shut with a ring from the bell. Bucky watched Sweater vest recover, smoothing himself out and making himself presentable once again before he turned and walked away. Bucky shook his head, turning back to the rest of the shop. They all stared at him as if he had grown a second head, never having seen Bucky so outspoken or protective before.

“Show’s over.” Everyone looked back at Sam who was standing in the kitchen doorway. It seemed that was all that was needed for everyone to go back to what they were doing. Sam grinned, asking, “So I could’ve had Sweater vest banned weeks ago if I just…”

“Shut up.” Bucky walked back to Y/N’s painting, picking it up and finally looking at it for the first time. He was…shocked.

It was a full painting – Y/N’s first.

The person was solid black, a shadow with only their eyes visible to the viewer. What he guessed was blue watercolor filled the subject’s irises. Around the person’s outline, breaking through its barrier – endless skies, constellations, galaxies – all messy and brilliant and bold. The paint was thicker, heavier there. He could make out every thick stroke of the person’s figure, of the world around it. Deeper blues, yellows, purples, greens – colors no one would expect to see from a night sky…were there. It was fathomless, endless, and the longer he looked, the more he found something new. She wasn’t connecting the mind, but the eyes, the soul, to the rest of the world.

And that idiot had the balls to say there was no meaning to this?

“I wonder who her inspiration was,” Sam teased, leaning against the counter as Bucky looked over his shoulder.

Bucky stayed silent, hanging the painting back where it belonged. Instead of commenting or over thinking it, he went back into the kitchen. There, sitting on the counter, was Y/N with a cup of coffee and a couple cookies. An apologetic smile curled her lips as she set the plate and mug down.

“Thank you for…that,” she finished lamely, gesturing to the door.

Bucky shrugged. “It’s no problem. You’re my friend.”

Y/N smiled hearing that. She had always wondered if Bucky looked at her as a friend and hearing that he did, it made her heart flutter in a weird sort of way. “Do you…need me to go?”

He shook his head, already returning to the cake he was decorating. The sooner he finished it, the sooner he could put it out to sell. He stood close to her; his eyes focused intently on his creation as Y/N watched him. She loved seeing him in his element. Though he would never admit it, his own creations were art. He poured so much of himself and his love in each dessert.

And it was adorable. But friends didn’t say things like that, so Y/N stayed silent. She was content with this, happy.

Silence fell so easily between them. There was a level of comfort in this moment that couldn’t be replicated by her friendships with Sam or Steve or Rebecca. It was Bucky being Bucky and Y/N being Y/N. Exactly what the other needed.

And neither had any sort of idea that Sam and Steve were watching them through the kitchen door.

Sam looked over at Steve, returning to the register as Steve went to his proper side of the counter. “Think either of them will ever admit it?”

Steve glanced at the glass case that held all of Bucky’s sweets. The first one was a customer-favorite at the shop. A creation that was made of fresh fruit and sweets – something that Bucky had spent all night making the day after he met Y/N. His eyes then shifted to Y/N’s painting, knowing very well who inspired what he believed to be her best creation. Shrugging, he leaned on the counter. “Out loud? Probably not. But there’s always a weird sort of meaning that comes from an artist’s work. They’ll figure it out eventually.”

Sam glanced back at the kitchen when he heard Bucky laugh. No doubt Y/N had done something. “Well, I hope they hurry it up. It’s getting to be a damn romantic comedy around here. And not one of the good ones.”

Steve laughed. Though he’d never admit it out loud, there was a bit of truth to Sam’s words. There always was.

[frodos-bizarre-adventure]

@gingerreggg oh yeah we're back baby

Heads Up- Part 19 (Joseph x Bust! Caesar)

▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪

"Shall we pack these up too?" Mark asked, as the maintenance man began unloading the artworks into the van. The winning masterpieces would be auctioned off to other museums, with the blessing of their creators, to find fame and bring fortune elsewhere.

"Take them all," said Professor Straizo nonchalantly, indifferent as he usually was.

It was late evening as Mark and Professor Straizo began dismantling the exhibit. The exhibition was over, and soon one by one the entries began to disappear.

Save for one.

One familiar-looking bust that was in secret unlike all the others.

"And this one too?" Mark asked, gently but uneasily picking up the sculpture and straining under its weight.

Professor Straizo glanced at the bust. Its brilliant green eyes gazed at him, seemingly piercing into his very soul, and it made him very uncomfortable looking at it for long.

"Put...put it away with the rest," he said, waving his hand away. "That Joestar boy can probably just make a new one with his skill if he wants it, just get it out of my sight."

"Huh, I guess he won't miss it all too much," Mark shrugged, as he lowered the bust into the van. "I'll just tell him where we took it in case he does want to see it again."

-------

All the while Caesar stood unmoving, on his pedestal, frozen in place like the lifeless art piece he was intended to be. He was waiting for Joseph to come back.

He was waiting for Joseph to take him home.

But now he felt himself being carried, handled, and transported by the maintenance man from the previous night. The strange, gloved hands felt uncomfortable and unwelcome upon his base.

This was not part of the plan.

He wanted to scream and cry and struggle, call out for Joseph's name. But he knew he couldn't. He knew he couldn't risk exposing his true nature to others, as Joseph had warned him about. The consequences would be dire. And he didn't even know what they would be. Besides, even if he did try to fight back, what else could he do? He was a bust.

He was helpless.

Joseph..., he thought silently, as strange hands lowered him into a crate in the backseat.

And if his handler had been looking more closely, he would have seen a look of sorrow on the inert figure's painted face.

------

It wasn't long before Joseph strode into the hall, eager as ever.

"Caesar! We've come to take you home! We've--"

And then his joy melted into horror as his greeting ground to a halt.

Caesar was nowhere to be seen.

"Caesar! Where are you?" he cried, searching all around the gallery. Everything else had gone too. The paintings, models and statues, all had been moved away to make room for the next exhibit.

"Jojo! What's the matter?" Suzi huffed as she caught up with him.

"It's Caesar..." Joseph said, his voice cracking slightly in despair. "He's gone."

"Looking for something, Mr. Joestar?" asked a deep voice, from behind. Both Joseph and Suzi turned around, to see the raven-haired professor of earlier, leaning against a wall.

"Oh, Professor Straizo," Joseph said, managing to maintain his composure as well as he could, "I was looking for my sculpture. You know, the bust? The one you graded earlier this day? I'm sure you remember him--it," Joseph pleaded.

Straizo turned away indifferently. "I'm afraid Mark has already taken the artworks to another gallery, perhaps to be auctioned or put up on display."

Joseph's heart sank. This was what he'd feared the most.

Losing Caesar.

"But...but I said Professor Lisa that I could take it home! That project was mine alone and belongs with me!" He fought back a tear and his swelling rage. He felt betrayed.

Straizo snapped. "Listen here, Mr. Joestar! What in the world is with your inordinate attachment to that disturbing figure? You could create another one if you want! It's just a piece of clay!"

"Not to me, it isn't," Joseph growled through clenched teeth. "That sculpture is not just clay for me. He means everything. I loved him more than anything else in the world. If only you knew..."

Straizo raised an eyebrow in utter bewilerment. What did he mean 'he'? And by 'loved'?

"This boy is delusional," he said to himself.

"Well, if you want it so badly then go plead to Mark, he's got your...whatever it is, at the auction gallery," he groaned in address to the increasingly distraught Joseph. "Do whatever you want with it as long as I never have to see that thing again."

Without another word Joseph stormed off, Suzi following behind.

He couldn't let them take Caesar.

Not on his watch.

--------

Caesar had no clue where they were taking him. The back of the van was dark, and he wasn't tall enough to peek out the window to assess his location.

But he felt uneasy. He knew Joseph was worried.

He knew Joseph would be wondering where he was. And he couldn't even call for help.

He hoped, with all his being, that Joseph would come for him.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted, however, when the van suddenly jostled, shaking violently and screeching to a stop. He was shaken in his box by the sudden movement, and before he knew it the vehicle had stopped in his tracks, and he could hear Mark's loud complaints from the front seat.

"Dammit! I think I busted a tyre..." he grumbled, stepping out the vehicle. Caesar heard a click, and saw a faint light shine into the back, freezing in place as the flashlight passed over him.

"Well, good thing nothing's broken," Mark mumbled as he inspected the contents of the van, relieved that none of the art was damaged in the little fiasco. He headed over to the front wheel, to check the damage, and his haste, left the back of the van open.

It was a big mistake.

Peeking through a slit in the box, Caesar could see a small figure approaching from the distance, and without warning, peeking into the box that contained him and grabbing it tightly. For a moment Caesar hoped it was Joseph come to take him back-- but he realized too late it wasn't his beloved Jojo at all, but someone much smaller.

And had Mark paid more attention, he would have noticed the small figure of a child dashing away from the van and into an alley-- clutching in both arms a crate that harbored the most unusual artwork of all.

---------

Twelve-year old Smokey Brown was a bit of a victim of circumstance.

He'd lived in the streets for years, surviving off his wits, after having fled from a neglectful household. It was a tough life for a young boy, but he had little choice in the matter.

It was the only life he had known for a long time.

He'd made a living off petty theft and pickpocketing, a livelihood he wasn't all too proud of, but one that filled his aching stomach when there was nothing else within reach. He'd lived off the kindness of strangers for so long, but over the years, they had become less generous-- and he had to play rough to make it out in the harsh and cruel world.

And today he'd hit a jackpot.

He recognized the van of the art department. Perhaps they had something of value? He'd seen an opportunity when the hapless vehicle had struck a flat tire, and the driver had carelessly left the back open.

Perfect.

He saw his chance, and seized it. Grabbing a small crate that was well within reach, he hurried off with his prize. It was heavy and made him use both hands, and inwardly he grinned, as he felt this was something of worth.

He retreated to a small, abandoned warehouse several streets away, where he'd been sheltering for the last few days. Exhausted from the strain of his thievery, he sat down against a wall and dropped the box heavily onto the ground.

And to his surprise, he heard a groan from inside.

------

At once Caesar regretted reacting to the rough handling.

He hoped his captor wouldn't notice, but as the box opened, he knew right away that he'd been exposed. He tried freezing in place, but it was too late.

The boy screamed in shock, prompting a startled cry from Caesar, who in his panic tipped the box over. He at long last got a good look at his unwitting kidnapper-- a small, dark-skinned boy with short, curly hair and a small braid at the back of his head.

He definitely wasn't Joseph.

And he most certainly didn't react the way Joseph would.

-------

Smokey stumbled back in shock at the sight of the contents of the box.

It was a head.

A sculpted head, but one that looked so real that for a moment he feared it was a real severed human head, until he touched it and was relieved to feel it was clay.

But his moment of relief was short-lived: for the head, despite being clay, had moved.

It was alive.

Somehow.

"Y-you're alive!" Smokey stammered as he tried to collect himself. "You're...real?"

Caesar sighed. He knew there was no point in pretending.

"You're like, the fourth person to ever see me and they've all reacted the same."

"You're talking..." Smokey gasped in shock, still not over the surprise. "You're a talking clay head." For a moment Smokey felt he was going mad. Was this some divine punishment tugging on his conscience for his crime?

Caesar laughed dryly as he struggled himself upright. "I get that a lot," he muttered, as he began to hop closer to the startled boy, who stumbled backwards and fell to the floor with a crash.

"Stay away from me!" Smokey pleaded, shuffling backwards at the sight of a talking, bouncing head. "What are you? Where did you come from?"

"Quit freaking out, kid," Caesar complained. "I can't hurt you even if I wanted to, and I don't", he scolded.

"What are you?" Smokey repeated.

"I am a clay bust courtesy of a certain Joseph Joestar," he answered. "I'm his grand masterpiece."

As surprised as he was, Smokey could see a hint of sadness in the strange being's face. And now he couldn't help but feel pity for the figure he had stolen.

He was a thief, not a kidnapper. There was a difference.

"Joseph Joestar?" Smokey asked. He'd heard of the name before. "Like...the artist?"

"Huh, so you have heard of him," Caesar mused. "Never knew Jojo was so famous." Smokey heard how fondly the bust spoke of his creator, and felt remorseful.

He scratched his head. "Listen there, clay head...man?" he mumbled. "Whatever you are, I'm real sorry I stole you. I didn't mean to, alright? I was after some stuff but...you're not stuff, I guess. You can talk, for one."

Even at the indignity of being stolen, Caesar couldn't help but feel warmly touched at being seen as a person, by someone else.

"Well then, kid, you can make it up for me by helping me find Joseph. I'm sure he wants me back."

-------

(Previous Chapter)

(Next Chapter)

[liunaticfringe]

(via How Lucy Liu became comfortable with the human body through her artwork | Datebook)

It can be an unsettling experience for any art student, particularly one who’s innately demure about nudity, to sketch the human figure from a naked model for the first time. Of course you’re there to look closely at the body, but is it really OK to stare? And how awkward is it if you happen to make eye contact?

“I think I was honestly in shock the first time,” says Lucy Liu, laughing as she recalls her bashfulness at her first life drawing class at the New York Studio School more than two decades ago. “Here was this person displayed and actually comfortable, and everyone’s just looking like it’s nothing, like it’s a wine bottle or bowl of grapes. But I was like, wait a minute! Where’d the real bowl of grapes go?”

The actress who is perhaps best known for playing a sword-slashing yakuza assassin in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill,” a sexy PI in “Charlie’s Angels” and, most recently, a socialite on the dark comedy “Why Women Kill,” visited the Napa Valley Museum in Yountville on a recent afternoon. Her first U.S. museum exhibition, “Lucy Liu: One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others,” is on view there through April 26.

Few of Liu’s legion of fans have been aware that during her time as an actress she’s had a parallel career as an artist, even though she’s started talking to the press more openly about her art in recent years.

Ever since she was a teenager growing up with her two older siblings and Chinese immigrant parents in Queens, N.Y., Liu has been steadily working in a wide variety of media — broad-stroked figurative paintings, abstract silkscreens, wooden sculpture and meticulous found-object assemblage.

Throughout her acting career, which took off back in 1997 when Liu landed the role of the fierce diva lawyer Ling Woo on the hit series “Ally McBeal,” her art-making practice has been an important, creatively sustaining part of her life.

“I feel an exuberance, and an extraordinary strength when I’m in the studio, working freely and not on a timeline, unlike when you’re on a set and every minute is accounted for,” Liu said. “In the studio, you can suddenly realize 16 hours have gone by and you’ve been in this extended magical moment.”

Liu has exhibited her work in galleries since the mid-1990s, yet she used her Chinese name, Yu Ling, until 2011. “I didn’t use my own name at first because I wanted people to come in with an open mind, a blank slate,” Liu said, noting that she did not want her art to be judged as that of a celebrity hobbyist. “I think (because of some of her hard-edged roles) people expect me to be this hard-ass and my work to be tough.”

Instead, visitors to the Napa exhibition will find that much of Liu’s work, particularly her figurative paintings inspired by Japanese shunga (erotic art popularized in the 17th century), is full of feeling and deeply personal, inspired by her own struggle to come to terms with an upbringing in which any frank discussion of sexuality was taboo.

In a high-necked, billowing white dress, high heels, red lipstick and an above-the-shoulder bob haircut, Liu, 51, sat in a quiet corner of the high-ceilinged main gallery surrounded by her recent large-scale paintings — anonymous, fleshy nudes and faceless family portraits (including a nostalgic one, re-created from a family photo, showing Liu as a toddler in a lavender coat during an outing to Flushing Meadows). A massive riff on Willem de Kooning’s 1950s “Women” series fills the back wall, and Liu’s meticulously crafted “Totem” series of small hand-embroidered spinal columns hangs in an adjacent gallery.

Earlier in the afternoon, Liu was the keynote speaker at the Wine Country museum’s Phenomenal Women fundraising luncheon. She used the opportunity to discuss with the majority-female audience her art-making practice and the themes that run through her work: displacement, a search for belonging and self-discovery, acceptance of oneself as a sexual being, and using art to overcome powerful familial and cultural inhibitions.

She spoke openly about forging a career in the arts that has baffled her parents (her father died in 2017) and how, through her art, she has struggled to overcome her deeply ingrained, and distinctly un-Hollywood, modesty.

“I didn’t know anything about the male body, I didn’t even know about the female body” as a young woman, Liu said. “Growing up, we spoke to each other in Chinese at home, and we didn’t talk about bodies, ever. We didn’t expose ourselves or look at each other. I’d never seen my parents nude. When I got my period, I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ I was so clueless about everything. I think that through the painting of these large bodies and the genitalia, I was able to start to understand that it’s OK. It’s not taboo. It’s not a dirty thing to be a woman and look at a female body or a male body and be curious about it.

“When I started in this business as an actress, people would make fun of me when I was doing a costume fitting because they would have to build a special section for me so that I could change in there. Working on ‘Ally McBeal,’ unlike everyone else who would just take off their clothes no matter who was there, they were like, ‘Let’s bring in the screen, it’s Lucy’s fitting.’ Oh my God, it was so disruptive for them because I had to go behind the screen every time I even wanted to change my shirt.”

Liu first started experimenting with collage as a young teenager “using just magazines, newspapers and glue stick,” she said. “That was my first discovery of art. I didn’t have brushes or paint, and we never went to museums. I didn’t even know what I was doing at first, but I knew I had to express myself.”

The actress and artist, who has never married, moved back to New York from Los Angeles 10 years ago. She paints regularly in a studio in Jersey City.

“As I progressed in the business in the past 20 years, I’ve become so much more comfortable with myself,” Liu said. “I have a  4½-year-old son now, and I let him run around naked, I let him see me naked. I don’t want him to feel uncomfortable with the human body.

She glanced around the room at her painting of two women kissing, another of an undressed woman, reclining with her arms above her head, seemingly utterly relaxed. “We’re all just a part of nature.”

“Lucy Liu: One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others”: Art exhibit. On view through April 26. Open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesdays through Sundays. The Napa Valley Museum Yountville, 55 Presidents Circle, Yountville. 707-944-0500. www.napavalleymuseum.org

[indiavolojones]

also a long... long time ago someone asked me for an artist!mc wanting to draw satan. I still 100% want to do it, but here’s a little placeholder in the meantime!!

Satan intensely examines the framed work in front of him--you think that it might be some kind of… statement on fertility? There’s definitely a feminine figure in the garish swathes of puke green. Maybe. Could also be a peanut. If you squint and tilt your head, it kind of looks like an animal? 

You’ve never had an eye for this sort of thing, only agreeing to come because Satan had invited you.

hope u guys don’t mind i completely veered off the request path.. but here’s something short!!

1.3kish words, gen, satan/gender neutral!mc 

~~~

“Mammon would be furious if he knew he missed you like this,” he grins, bowing and holding his hand out. 

The outfit is… fancier than anything you’ve ever really worn in front of the brothers. It’s perfectly tailored to your body thanks to Asmo, the vest cinched at your waist like one of Lucifer’s. It accentuates the slight curve of your waist, enticingly settling at the small of your back. 

Your brows raise at the outstretched hand, before rolling your eyes and snorting at the gesture. Satan looks like he expects you to playfully bat his hand away with some flustered complaint. To his surprise, you take his hand, and lace your fingers with his. 

Satan’s eyes widening is a sweet reward in itself. 

-

-

-

The art exhibit Satan takes you to is far fancier than Satan had led you to believe, so with each passing devil appraising you, you’re glad you let Asmo guide you into his closet for an outfit upgrade. 

Satan is dressed in a casual sports jacket and fitted slacks, but his natural good looks and the undeniable power radiating off him would have made him a knockout even if he was wearing a tracksuit. (Maybe. That actually sounds hilarious.)

You fiddle with the hem of the vest, at the quintessential, billowy-sleeved Asmo shirt he’d paired with it. You look like you belong in a fantasy novel as a princely character, but perhaps that’s what Asmo intended. If you had any doubts about how different your outfits are, the worries are blown out of the water by the sheer chaos of Devildom “high fashion”.   

Besides, Satan seems to like it, if his constant gentle touches mean anything.  

By comparison to the eccentric shades of Devildom fashion (some more... daring than others...), the art itself is nothing exciting. Once you’ve sipped enough champagne to calm your nerves, you realize that the art is actually... 

Terrible. 

You’ve seen some god-awful art up in the human realm, but it’s almost comforting to know that there are also snobby devil artists with bad technique and signatures as big as their egos. But… Satan likes it? You think. 

You’re not quite sure, honestly, and you don’t want to offend him by saying anything negative. He stares at every framed work with an intensity that would burn through the canvas if looks could kill. Sometimes it’s a few seconds, sometimes several minutes, but Satan will nod once he’s finished appraising the canvas, and then move on to the next one.

Almost without fail, he will place his hand on your waist or the small of your back and lead you to another… suspect… painting.

Satan intensely examines the framed work in front of him --you think that it might be some kind of… statement on fertility? There’s definitely a feminine figure in the garish swathes of puke green. Maybe. Could also be a peanut. If you squint and tilt your head, it kind of looks like an animal? You’ve never had an eye for this sort of thing, only agreeing to come because Satan had invited you. 

“This isn’t your kind of date,” Satan states, and you jump, looking at him with cinched brows. 

“I never said that--” Satan rolls his eyes.

“You’ve spent more time looking at me than at the art.” 

You’re a work of art is the infantile comeback that comes to mind, but you don’t have the strength to be so bold or cheesy. Crossing your arms sheepishly, you look anywhere but at him. 

“I… You seemed interested, and I didn’t want to tell you no?” You admit, and Satan sighs, like he’s not sure what he’s going to do with you. “Did you…” You fumble over the words, “Did you like this one?” 

Satan blinks as he looks at you, his head tilted. Huffing with amusement at what he finds in your expression, he shakes his head. He looks back at the painting and squints at it. 

“Honestly, no. It’s gaudy, the technique is terrible, and I’m sure the artist was drunk the entire time. There’s Demonus stains in the corner here.” he groans, pointing at the out-of-the-ordinary purple splotches that don’t match any of the other materials used. You can’t help the glee that fills your chest at Satan admitting that he also thinks these works are absurd--there’s relief as well. 

You’re not sure if you’d be able to stand another hour of this. 

“Why would anyone buy this?” You ask, and Satan looks at you helplessly. 

“I have no idea. Art is subjective, but most modern art makes me furious,” Satan says, shoulders shrugging, “Sometimes I try to stop and really, really look at the piece. Usually that works. I suppose if I bend over backwards, I can start to maybe piece together whatever asinine meaning the artist intended.” 

“What if you end up still hating it?” you question. Satan huffs. 

“Then I buy it,” Satan’s gaze shifts to look at you from the corner of his eyes, and he can’t help his wicked smirk, “And I use it for kindling.”

“What?” you ask, eyebrows cinched together. Satan holds his hands up noncommittally, and you shake your head with a fond, disbelieving laugh, “You’re terrible.” 

“You think so? Let’s just get on with the second part of our date. I think you’ll enjoy it much more,” Satan hums, and before you have a chance to ask, he’s looking out into the crowd. 

“Malphas!” Satan calls, and waves a hand over at a timid looking demon in an older suit. 

The demon, Malphas, shuffles over with a toothy smile--it was far too easy for Satan to get his attention in this crowd. Was the demon waiting for Satan to call him over? He shakes hands with Satan, grabbing the brother by the forearm in an enthusiastic greeting.  

“Satan! I’m glad you could make it,” he rasps, a row of sharp, tiny teeth in the demon’s mouth bared in what you think is a smile. 

“No, thank you for the invite.” Satan is charming--you’ve always thought so, but to watch him interact with anyone not you or his own family is an interesting change of pace. Malphas seems to be tripping over himself to gain Satan’s approval, even as his beady black eyes flicker between the two of you. Satan gestures at you with one hand, placing the other hand on the small of your back. 

You flush at the contact.

“Malphas, this is our human exchange student,” Satan says your name, and you extend a hand out to him. Malphas blinks down at your hand, as if it will burn him, and you realize that with how little you know of demons.  

Even if you forget when you’re amidst the brothers, there are quite a few devils who are hesitant about Diavolo’s integration ideals. You trust that Satan would never let you come to any harm from them, though. Malphas coughs, but then he’s bringing a small, clawed hand up to yours. His skin is clammy, and a strange texture, but you both manage the handshake under Satan’s careful watch. 

At the civilized shaking of your hands, Satan beams, “Malphas is the gallery owner. He invites me to shows for up-and-coming artists, and I attend when I can.” The brothers often comment on Satan’s popularity, with varying reactions of disbelief and envy, but getting to live it is a whole other experience in itself.

"Listen, Malphas," Satan points at the painting in front of you, "I'd like to buy this painting." Satan winks at you from the corner of his eyes, and you glance at the demon to see if he noticed Satan's wink. Malphas, however, only wrings his hands together and lets out a pleased growl, nodding his head. "Bill it to my account."

"Excellent choice, my lord," he chirps, almost like a bird, "I will get this prepared for you immediately!" 

Malphas skitters off, leaving Satan smiling at you and you staring at him in utter confusion. The hand on the small of your back slides to your waist, and Satan’s holding you close to his side--the mere concept of Satan buying this shitty painting is still enough of a distraction that you don’t immediately burst into flames at it. The opulence of this gallery opening also screams expensive. Satan hadn’t even asked for the price? You have so many questions. 

"But this… is awful?" You ask, trying to picture where the hell Satan would hang this. Its bright colors don't match the interior of his bedroom at all; if Satan were to hang this, you'd never be able to not see it. 

Another mischievous quirk of his lips, and realization dawns on your face. 

Oh.

-

-

-

Satan has an interesting definition of fun. 

Something about the ingredients inside the paint used on Devildom works causes a spectacular chemical reaction. You wonder how many poor portraits have fallen prey to Satan’s sadism--but remembering the work itself, you’re not particularly bothered.  

Ashes and paint dirty the sleeves of Asmo’s shirt and you worry about getting the stains out, but then Satan’s sidling up behind you... and you’re sure Asmo will forgive you if you compliment him enough! Probably!

Satan’s height allows him to rest his chin on your shoulder as you both stare into the makeshift bonfire, his arms wrapped loosely around your center.

“I thought you were joking,” you snort as the bright red smoke billows up into the Devildom sky. 

Satan’s hot puff of laughter tickles the hair by your ear. 

[thehighlandhealer]

Trick or Treat, Cont. || Charleson, Bronwyn, Lirim, Aedan, Rory, & Cynthia || October, 2020

Lirim: Lirim tossed his phone onto the table, smiling apologetically at his son. Their first outing with Charles. His first, that is. Bronwyn was another story.

"He said five's fine," Lirim called to Bronwyn. Paint was much more manageable than makeup, in his opinion. His son's whiskers, made of his mother's eyeshadow, would survive the next few hours. Aedan wouldn't care or much notice. His ears were free. When was he going to develop a tail?

Bronwyn: “Five it is!” Bronwyn called back. She was deep in her makeup drawer looking for a tube of eyeliner that seemed to have disappeared. “Why didn’t I draw the whiskers on with eyeliner, they’re goin’ to smudge. Oh! Marie and Lydia have asked us to stop by their houses. No one in this city will have better treats.”

Lirim: "You won't go touchin' your face, will ya, Aedan? Some settin' spray and you're ready to hit the town."

Lirim perked, looked over the mass that was his son's curly hair. "Oh really? Haven't seen them in ages." He hadn't seen much of anyone outside of the art gallery, so no surprise.

A thought occurred to him. Shit. "Guess that means I'm seein' Mason again."

Bronwyn: “Aye, darlin’, it does. Ha!” She returned to the room a few moments later with the eyeliner and her setting spray. “But don’t worry, ev’ryone will be on their best behavior. Includin’ him.”

Lirim/Aedan: Xavier's uplifting words rang in his memory as reminder. He didn't have to be afraid of him. Not anymore. Just confounding that anyone spent any amount of time with that demon.

He didn't have room to judge, considering his favorite Atlas, but he would.

Aedan was about having his fill of this face touching. The squirming had begun.

"Patience, puppers!"

Bronwyn: “I’m almost done, lovey.” Bronwyn made quick work of touching up Aedan’s whiskers before telling him to close his eyes for the setting spray. “There, all done!”

Lirim: "Ya know he's gonna have a fit when ya try and take that off." Oh well. It was just one night. His son was certainly no artist, putting up with the smell of makeup was easier than paint, and it was for a good cause. He didn't have whiskers and he wanted them.

"Alright, Toto, all done. Ready to meet Dorothy?"

Bronwyn/Aedan: “It won’t be so bad. Just one wee little makeup wipe and it’ll come right off.”

Aedan gave his mother a skeptical look but the excitement over the candy he would soon have won out.

“Yeah!”

Lirim/Aedan: "I shoulda gone as the Big Bad Wolf, Miss Riding Hood."

"Wolves are good!"

And Aedan wouldn't hear otherwise. "You're absolutely right. He just had an image issue." Bronwyn was given a look.

Bronwyn: Bronwyn smiled and nodded. “Absolutely. An image issue and questionable manners. Daddy should’ve gone as the Big Good Wolf.” That last added with a teasing look.

Lirim/Aedan: His parents were given a look. The look of a child aware but unable to articulate. Instead, going on about how he wanted a candy apple on a stick.

"You got it, Toto."

Bronwyn: “I think—and I’m no’ positive or anythin’—but I’m pretty sure Auntie Lydia is makin’ candy apples with red caramel.”

Lirim/Aedan: Aedan's eyes couldn't have been brighter.

"Oh boy, Toto's gonna need a leash."

And off their son ran across the house screaming.

Bronwyn: Bronwyn laughed. “Oh, aye. I probably shouldn’t tell him there are also goin’ to be cookies.”

Lirim: "Shhh. He'll be in a sugar coma before eight."

Bronwyn: “Eight?” she chuckled. “Aren’t we bein’ optimistic. My money’s on seven.”

Lirim: "That's better than eight. What ya wanna bet?"

Bronwyn: “Hmmm...” She tapped her chin. “Dinner.”

Lirim: "What ya want?"

Bronwyn: “Shrimp and grits with an ungodly amount of cheese.”

Lirim: "Homemade or restaurant?"

Bronwyn: “Homemade. What do ye want if ye win?”

Lirim: "I want... to paint you."

Bronwyn: “Paint me or paint me?”

Lirim: "I mean paint on your body in my studio."

Bronwyn: “It’s a bet. What do ye want to turn me into?”

Lirim: "We'll have to see. Been a long time."

Bronwyn: “Aye, it has.” She smiled and kissed Lirim’s cheek. “Ye can turn me into anythin’ ye like.”

Lirim: "Maybe I've some ideas. In the nude, of course."

Bronwyn: “Well that goes without sayin’. What’s a little nudity after ye’ve impregnated someone.”

Lirim: "Oh?" He laughed. "Speakin' of 'fore I get ahead of myself, how's the Viking?"

Bronwyn: “Still tall, stoic, and handsome. He got a kick out o’ my costume.”

Lirim: "They don't do Halloween in Iceland?"

Bronwyn: “Iceland kind of does a wee, Torsten doesn’t do it at all.”

Lirim: "Makes sense, I guess." Lirim looked in the direction of their son. "And he's good with Aedan?" Hundredth time asking. "He should... be here. He's gonna have a lot more Halloweens."

Bronwyn: She nodded. “Aye, he’s good with Aedan. I asked him to come with us but he’s in Iceland at the moment, takin’ care of some family business.”

Lirim: "Do ya want Aedan to call him dad?"

Bronwyn: “I want Aedan to call him whatever feels right to him.”

Lirim: "Ya'd think I'd be used to it. I mean he already -" He'd stop right there. "Anyway, Charles should be here any minute."

Bronwyn: She kissed his cheek again. “I love ye, Lirim Vivaldi. Ye know that? There’s no timeline on gettin’ used to it.”

Lirim: "Love ya too, Mama B. Ya know he calls ya that when we're alone? Totally picked it up from Lucien I know it."

Bronwyn: “He does?” Bronwyn positively melted at the sweetness of it all. “That’s adorable! And he absolutely did and I’m no’ surprised at all. I love bein’ Mama B.”

Lirim: "He asked about Lucien a few days ago. Didn't realize how often they were together."

Bronwyn: “Aye, the magic of teleportation. I’ve been wantin’ to learn it, I feel bad havin’ Vincent go back and forth so often.”

Lirim: "Can't be easy. I mean, that's why it belongs to familiars, and... demons."

Bronwyn: “Ye’re right. Avalbane is over three hundred and she can’t do it.”

Lirim: "Shit. What's she got over ya, though? Spells wise, I mean."

Lirim turned to the foyer mirror and adjusted his hat.

Bronwyn: “Sheer volume o’ spells. Decade upon decade of experience. That spell she used to help us with Aedan? It’s so obscure she found it on a stone tablet.”

Lirim: His smile softened. "Just had a conversation about that, actually, with Xavier Atlas." He watched for her reaction.

Bronwyn: She didn’t quite frown, but there was a definite tightness to her smile at the mention of that man.

“Were ye indeed,” she said as casually as she could. “Does he get his magic from stone tablets as well?”

Lirim: "I imagine if Xavier Atlas were reborn today, he'd be that bookworm child that turns into a mage. Or a mad professor. Or a politician. Can't really pin which."

Bronwyn: “Or held in a federal prison for tax evasion.”

Lirim: "I mean," he laughed, "they're not saints, but they're hungry, Atlases."

Bronwyn: “That’s definitely one way to put it. Do ye see him often?”

Lirim: "Nah. First time in...years."

Bronwyn: “Was it a good visit?”

Lirim: "I needed it. Been meetin' up with a few people I lost." He gestured to the front door. "Charles included."

Bronwyn: Bronwyn reached for Lirim’s hand and gave it squeeze. “Well for that, I’m glad. It’s nice to see ye returnin’ to yer life, spendin’ time with people ye enjoy. Ye’re like a flower bloomin’ after a long winter.”

Lirim: "Only a druid would say that," he laughed. He felt like he'd been doing more of that lately.

Bronwyn: He had and it had not gone unnoticed. It was such a welcome sound.

“It’s true! Ye’re our angelic flower.”

Lirim: Lirim shook his head, rubbed his cheeks with both hands. "Alright, Ridin' Hood, ya all set to go?"

Bronwyn: “All set. I’ve got ev’rythin’ we can possibly need in my basket.”

Charles/Rory: Charles gave a single nod, indicating that Rory could, indeed, be the one to ring the doorbell. He did so with great enthusiasm, before Charles guided him gently back.

Lirim/Aedan: Of course. The doorbell was piano keys, after all. This didn't have to be a child for someone to go to town on it.

"Someone's playing music!" called his son.

"No, I got it!" his father laughed, opening the door less than a moment later.

"Hey, fam!"

Bronwyn: Bronwyn would appear at Lirim's shoulder almost instantly, greeting their new arrivals with a radiant smile.

"There they are! Come in, come in! Look at ye, ye look great!"

Charles/Rory/Cynthia: Charles was all smiles for his friends, tipping back his pointed hat to more easily press a kiss to each of their cheeks.

Rory and Cynthia both were happy to see Bronwyn, Dorothy and a little Tin Man stepping forward for hugs they knew were coming.

"Hello, hello! Rory, Cee, this is... Mr. Lirim Vivaldi." He'd leave it up to the man himself to decide how he wanted to be addressed.

Lirim: "Hi!" The old saying of loving only your kids was relevant to Lirim; he didn't feel like a natural around other people's children and doubted he ever would. But these were Charles'. He got on a knee to shake their hands. He then called to Aedan to greet them.

Bronwyn: The children already knew her very well; they'd both be kissed and given a good squeeze that stopped just shy of mussing their costumes. Their father would be given equal treatment.

She smiled as Lirim greeted them, taking the opportunity to grab her camera from her basket and start snapping pictures.

"I can't get over those costumes! Ye're all so precious I could eat ye right up. Smile for the camera!"

Charles: Charles was not nearly so averse to being photographed as his husband, but there was no need to capture his ridiculous witch's costume for posterity. With a wry smile, he nudged his children gently toward where Aedan stood. "Let's get one of the kids together. Following the yellow brick road, and all that."

He had a sunny smile for Bronwyn and Lirim's son. After all, he did not share Lirim's opinions on other people's children. He'd certainly have chosen the wrong bloody profession, if he did.

"Nice to see you again, young man. You've gotten so big!"

Lirim/Mason/Aedan Mason lagged behind, still warding and locking down the townhouse just a few feet away. His hooded masked figure cut an intimidating silhouette compared to the others. By design, given the city. This was his city and his people, but this was his family, and a priority. He would be watchdog tonight. No doubt with Charles' ability, danger would not survive twenty yards.

Aedan began explaining his costume, as though it were required. Toto for Dorothy! With a bark as real as his dark brown ears perked tight with excitement.

Lirim adjusted his son's curls and returned to his feet. "He really has." The naphil stilled at the sight of the demon, taking a breath. A nod of acknowledgment.

Bronwyn: There was every need to capture Charles' witch costume for posterity and that was precisely what Bronwyn was going to do.

"Aye, let's! Ev'ryone move in closer and give me a big smile!" She snapped a couple of photos of the kids and a couple more of Lirim and Charles. "Mason!" she called. "Come see the cuteness!"

Charles: Charles was not the least bit concerned about the evening. Nor did he believe himself, Bronwyn, and Lirim incapable of defending against any unlikely danger. But he welcomed his husband's presence, all the same. He smiled fondly as Aedan went into the details of his costume. They really were an adorable trio.

"Are we ready to begin? We're following your lead, here."

Lirim/Mason/Rory: "Little terrors in disguise!"

Rory looked back to his father. "Nah uh!"

Lirim locked the door behind them with a flick of his hand. No one around to notice. "Start here and go counter-clockwise, then Coverdale?" he looked to Bronwyn for confirmation.

Bronwyn: Bronwyn mapped the proposed route in her head and nodded. "Sounds good to me! Ev'ryone stay together now, and if ye hear a verra cranky poodle, just walk on by. She only barks if ye give her attention and if ye give her attention she tries to bite ye."

Charles: Charles laughed openly, adjusting his hat as it slipped. "She sounds delightful. I'll keep a wary eye. Do you lot want to leave a bowl of candy out for any kids that come by?"

Lirim: "Last time I did the whole cauldron was gone!" Lirim laughed.

Bronwyn: "I'm convinced that kid who thinks he's James Dean and his mates took the lot."

Charles: "There's always one."

Lirim/Mason: "Should I?"

Mason was already off with the children to the nearest house on their side of the street.

Bronwyn: "We can, if ye like. It's still early, there's a chance bargain bin James Dean won't show up for another couple of hours."

Charles: "I like to, when no one's around to answer the door, but it's your bowl."

Lirim: "Out of that giant school? Not even a maid?"

Lirim unlocked the door with another flick, glanced at his son and ran inside for a jack-o'-lantern bucket, filling it with tiny bags of Reese's Pieces.

Charles: "In Cameron, or wherever else. There's always someone at the school."

Lirim: "Cameron?" The bucket placed. Lirim picked up the pace to join his son.

Charles: Charles followed closely behind, catching a speeding Rory as he returned from the door with chocolate in his once-empty bucket.

"Careful! Mhm. My husband has a house there." For now, anyway.

Lirim: Charles was given a quick glance. "Do you see it as a home, despite being a school?"

Charles: "I do. It's been my home for a long time, now. Well, our home. It'd just be an old house, without everyone else."

Lirim: "Funny, what we put stock in." He flicked his wrist back at the townhouse behind them. "Raised there. Was in stasis after my folks; lived with my Mema. Then it was mine again. Thought about gettin' rid of it, but there's too much in it. Don't have it in me."

Charles: He nodded, glancing at the house briefly, before turning back to watch his children sprint off to the next house. He buried the impulse to ask them to slow down. "I understand that. I might've sold the old place, if we hadn't needed it. And then the idea for the school took root in my head and I couldn't dislodge it. I'd never part with it, now. Means too much. And not only to me. I'll likely pass it on, though. When the time comes. To someone I trust who shares my vision."

Lirim: Lirim nodded, watched his son, his son's mother, the demon.

"Someone like that exist, or still lookin' around?"

Charles: "I imagine it'll be one of my staff. Possibly one of my students, when they're old enough and experienced enough. I'm not opposed to passing my legacy along to my children, but I suspect they'll forge their own paths." He snorted softly, mostly to himself. "Perhaps we need one more."

Lirim: A statement which put a smile on the naphil's face. They were indeed different.

"Got the parental itch for more, huh?"

Charles: Charles lifted a shoulder. "I wouldn't call it an itch, but I'm certainly open to the concept."

Lirim: "Do they all feel like your children?"

Charles: "Yes and no. I love them. And I feel deeply responsible for their wellbeing, of course. I am. But it's... different."

It seemed a poor word to describe the depth of devotion he felt toward his own children, but he couldn't think of a better one, presently.

Lirim: "Never taught anyone anything until Aedan. Can't relate." He adjusted his coat, face contorting with thought. "I take that back. I mean, I walk people through what I do in the studio, but that's -" he waved away his words.

"Anyway."

Charles: "I think I've always wanted to be academic. Teaching or learning. Teaching feels more useful." Less selfish. "Would you ever consider teaching art?"

Lirim: "People gotta learn, someone's gotta teach." But that being said, he scoffed. "Hell no. Probably hang myself bein' asked the same questions all the time. But! That's why people like you exist."

Charles: Charles laughed, a bright sound that carried on the early evening air. "It's not so awful. But, perhaps you're right. 'Those who can't do,' and all that. We should catch up with the children."

Lirim: Such sound paired well with Charles' emotion.

"I get the sayin', but I don't get how that applies to someone like you."

Charles: "Someone like me?" He raised an eyebrow, casting a half-smile at Lirim as he began walking just a bit quicker, slowly narrowing the distance between himself and his family.

Lirim: Bronwyn had gone ahead, probably for his old neighbor. Still, he didn't want her to feel alienated from the conversation. Not that he'd felt anything of the sort; he was thinking too much.

"Ya know. A genius."

Charles: Charles gave a soft little snort and shook his head. "I know geniuses; I'm not one. I'm merely studious. I've spent more than half of my life in a classroom. More than that, I suppose, if you count being on the opposite side of things."

Lirim/Mason: "Just didn't wanna leave the classroom?"

Mason glanced back at that statement, expression well hidden behind his mask.

Charles: He gave a soft laugh, head tilting ever so slightly at his husband. "I suppose not."

Mason: "Why him?" Mason whispered to Bronwyn.

Bronwyn: “Why him what?” Bronwyn whispered back, snapping another picture of the children. “Also which him?”

Mason: "Your him. Why him as the father?"

Bronwyn: "The real question should be why me as the mother."

Mason: "Not even the fuckin' question. Of course you."

Bronwyn: "I was originally a surrogate, remember? He picked me."

Mason: A growl of response. He hadn't appreciated that, either, but such was in the past.

Bronwyn: Bronwyn nudged him. "Hey now, why the growlin'?"

Mason: "I don't like the idea of ya bein' used."

Bronwyn: “Mason.”

Mason: "I know."

Bronwyn: She squeezed his arm. "No one used me. I offered o' my own free will and I'd do it again."

Mason: "Does he remember the other one?"

Bronwyn: "We both do," she said softly. "And fuck him right to hell."

Mason: "The kid remembers the wolf?"

Bronwyn: “Oh, never mind I thought ye were talkin’ about Lirim.” She shook her head. “No, we don’t think so.”

Mason: "Has he asked why y'all don't have ears?"

Bronwyn: Another head shake. “No’ yet. He thinks ev’ryone has them.”

Mason: Mason looked back to Charles. With no expression to give with a mask, his arm opened, offering warmth instead.

Charles: Words weren't necessary, and in this instance facial expressions were superfluous as well. Charles understood the offer for what it was and hurried to accept, closing the distance between them more swiftly and pressing himself against his husband's side. There was no skin available to kiss, so he settled for grabbing the hand that wrapped around him.

"Looks like they're getting on well."

Bronwyn: Bronwyn couldn't help but smile at them. They looked so happy; she didn't need to be able to see Mason's expression to see that.

"Aren't they just? They're so sweet," she said, snapping another photo of the kids. "This is a good bondin' activity for them."

Lirim/Mason: "Really glad he's able to have this. Sooner rather than later he's going to be with more of his people. Just need to set a date."

"Away with the druids?" Mason's question directed to Bronwyn. Charles' hand given a squeeze.

Charles: "It is," he agreed, with a nod. "They ought to spend more time together. It'll be good for all of them."

Charles turned his attention toward Lirim, still keeping pace with his husband. "Oh?"

Bronwyn: She nodded. "Yes to both. No' away as in away, but away as in goin' across the pond to learn with some other wee Druids."

Lirim: "Not like there's an angel academy. I want him with his people. He just happens to have more than one set of people."

Charles: "That's wonderful. I'm sure he'll enjoy himself. You'll both be going with him?"

Bronwyn: "It'll definitely give us an excuse to drop in on my family in Scotland more often. My grandda Owen loves Lirim's art."

Lirim/Mason: "Definitely goin' with him. I wanna see everything."

"They aware of everything he is?" Mason asked.

Charles: "Mm. That'll be lovely for both of you." He glanced to his husband, though the face he loved was hidden by that mask. "We should visit Scotland, after the house is built."

Bronwyn: Bronwyn nodded. "Mostly, aye. They know he's a Druid and they also know he's no' only a Druid, but I figured it was best that they hear the specifics from both of us in person."

Mason: "Your gran'mama gonna be there?" Of all those in her family, that woman he could trust. He didn't think highly of the half-angel among them, but that little boy running about with his son was a part of Bronwyn. Under his gray wing of protection.

Charles: "Mm. Such conversations are best had face-to-face. I'm glad you'll be seeing your family, soon." He only wished he had more family for his own kids to know.

Bronwyn: Another nod. "Aye, she never misses a chance to see Aedan or Lirim. Always asks about ye," she added with a smile over at Mason.

"I am, too. I always enjoy visitin' home."

Lirim/Mason: Lirim simply listened. What he felt from Mason was palpable like a humid summer afternoon. Forced trust through others was never real trust. This they could both agree.

"Next time, call me," Mason said, adjusting the hard plastic mask. Too long since he'd laid eyes on the woman that harbored his secret.

Bronwyn: "Aye, I'll do that, and I'll also remind ye to get her some flowers for deprivin' her of yer company for so long."

Lirim/Mason: "She tell ya s'what she wanted?"

"I didn't know he'd met your family," Lirim laughed politely.

Mason quickly brushed his fingers over Charles and Bronwyn's arm, walking ahead to check on the children. Rory and Aedan standing still, negotiating over some undesirable candy.

Charles: Charles kept pace with the remaining adults, but his gaze did skate frequently toward the children.

Bronwyn: "Years ago," Bronwyn said with another nod, smiling after Mason. "Back before I adopted Lucien, when I was...goin' through a wee patch."

Lirim: Lirim cast her a quick look, one of mild confusion, before nodding. "Mm. Feels like yesterday we all met."

Charles: "Does it?" Charles laughed softly. "Feels like it's been a century. I suppose that happens when everything you think you know about the world gets turned on its head." It was as though he could divide his life into two clean hemispheres.

Bronwyn: "I'm with Lirim. It feels like Aedan was still a baby five seconds ago. Feels like I was meetin' Lirim ten seconds ago. Time is a right old bastard."

Lirim: "When I'm with y'all it goes by like that," he snapped his fingers. "When I'm alone time stands still. Great for paintin'," he chuckled.

Charles: Charles pulled Lirim into a brief half-hug. "We should do this more often. Not Halloween, obviously, but the rest."

Bronwyn: "The kids would love it if Halloween came more often," Bronwyn laughed. "But, aye, we should. It'll be good for them and good for us."

Lirim: Lirim was pleasantly caught off guard by the random bit of affection. His smile blossomed.

"Absolutely. I'd love to get some paint on both of ya."

Charles: He lifted an eyebrow, chuckling. "On? As in a living canvas? Or do you want to see me struggle to form a decent stick figure?"

Bronwyn: "I personally would love that."

Lirim: "Now I wanna see the stick figure, but I mean literally on ya."

Charles: "Trust me, you don't. But my skin is at your disposal, sir. I've never been painted on."

Lirim: "I dunno what's stopped me, but it won't stop me now."

Charles: "Good. I'm looking forward to it."

Bronwyn: "It's settled then. Lirim will paint ye and then ye can wow us with yer stick figure paintin'."

Lirim: "What'll ya be doin' while I'm paintin' and he's stick figurin'?"

Charles: "An excellent question. I don't want to be alone in my artistic pursuits."

Bronwyn: "Bakin' probably."

Lirim: "So we get the smell of fresh baked bread mixed with acrylic and oil? Tasty."

Charles: "Sounds like a party. I've never been able to resist baked goods."

Bronwyn: "I've been wantin' to make some potato bread. Found a recipe that looks promisin'."

Lirim: "I'm gonna end up usin' brown and yellow paint and forget everything else."

Charles: "I love potato bread. Now, I'm starving." He was going to have to enact a dad tax on those sweets. "Rory! Cee! Have you gotten any Paydays?"

Mason: Mason looked back, wriggling a small PayDay - all sweets were small these days, weren't they? - before tossing in Charles' direction.

Bronwyn: Bronwyn laughed. "I'd be curious to see what magic ye can create usin' only yellow and brown."

Charles: He made a valiant effort to catch the candy, but it tumbled out of his grasp. With a sigh, he bent to retrieve it. Still good. "Thanks, love."

Lirim/Mason: 'Ya didn't play catch as a child,' his husband guessed, smiling through his mask as he turned back to the children.

"Challenge accepted," Lirim grinned. His pride as an artist on the line, he must! Already had ideas.

Bronwyn: "Oh yay!" she chuckled. "I'm definitely makin' potato bread while ye paint in hopes that ye turn Charles into a really beautiful artistic potato."

Charles: 'I did not,' he confessed, popping the little candy into his mouth and tucking the wrapper into his pocket to dispose of, later. He flashed a quick smile. 'I was more of a tree-climbing, bug-catching boy.'

With a snort, he shook his head. "Oh, yes. I've always wanted to be a potato. Dreams do come true."

Lirim/Mason: 'Of course you were. For science.'

"Not a potato! Maybe a uh... maybe a glorious sunrise," Lirim smiled.

Bronwyn: She just could not stop laughing. The mental image she'd conjured of Charles painted like a potato was tickling her pink.

"Aye, that would be lovely. Really anything ye do will be lovely."

Charles: 'For science,' he chuckled at their private conversation.

Charles pressed a kiss to the side of her head. A potato, indeed. "Perhaps not the dream, but I'm willing to be a sunrise as well."

Lirim: "Could paint ya both. Sunrise and sunset. Maybe a full moon. Yellows, browns, blue, black and white..." Annnnd he was going off on his own tangent.

Bronwyn: "And I'm more than willin' to be a sunset. Go crazy, darlin', we'll be yer muses. Won't we, Charles?"

Charles: He nodded, thoughtful. "I've always wanted to be an artist's muse."

Lirim/Mason: "No one’s ever drawn ya? Written a poem? Love letter?"

Mason picked up the pace to his children.

Charles: Charles lifted his shoulder. He wasn't heartbroken. "I've received very touching text messages?"

Bronwyn: "With that face? I'm sure there have been people who've drawn ye and written ye letters, even if they never sent them."

Lirim: "I can see that. Takes guts to give that up. Easy to make em, though."

Charles: He gave a soft laugh. "It's a flattering thought. I suppose we'll never know."

Bronwyn: "Aye, it does. I remember writin' a few letters myself when I was young and shovin' them away in a drawer somewhere."

Lirim: "Still around, maybe? My Mema had this book, had all sorts of love letters - and break up letters - from history. Went back two hundred years, I think."

Charles: "Oh, that's fascinating! Your own little piece of history!" He was delighted.

Bronwyn: Bronwyn nodded. "Aye, they should still be in my old bedroom somewhere. My mama didn't really move anythin' around."

Her face lit. "That's lovely! Does she still collect them?"

Lirim: "Probably. Some of em got published in a book about the same thing. Y'all want a copy?"

Charles: "I'd love one!"

Bronwyn: "Absolutely, I would, too. And ye're both welcome to my letters if I ever find them."

Mason/Rory: The children kept their energy for only four blocks before becoming distracted with their sugary treasures, talking to each other, and complaining of the cold. Despite the chilly wind, Rory, for the first time, refused a piggy-back ride from his father. Not in front of company! But he would ask to make smores, and for hot chocolate with pumpkin marshmallows.

Charles: Charles gently tugged on one of Cynthia's braids, holding out a hand for Rory's empty wrappers. "Done with trick-or-treating already? We can head back, if you'd like. Or home?"

Bronwyn: "I'm with Rory, smores and hot chocolate sound really good right now."

Bronwyn bent to pin back Aedan's hair to keep it out of his eyes. The wind was wreaking havoc with those curls.

"What do ye want, lovey?"

Mason/Aedan/Cynthia/Rory: "Can I have hot chocolate?" Aedan looked to his mother hopefully.

Cynthia was ready for warmth; Rory was ready for a chocolaty feast, which also translated to home.

Mason turned his son around, patted his back. "March."

Charles: "Back it is, then." Charles would not raise protest. He was always ready for warmth, but more importantly, this evening was about the children. "Did you enjoy yourselves?"

Bronwyn: She smiled and nodded. "Aye, but ye have to promise me to drink all the tonic I make ye first, okay?" Being part werewolf, Aedan's sensitivity to chocolate was always something they had to be aware of. Luckily, it was mild enough that with the right magical precautions, it didn't hinder him from enjoying it completely.

"Did ye get a good candy haul?"

Lirim/Mason: Mason watched in mild amusement as the children spoke at once, bedding down the urge to correct what was quickly becoming rising voices as they compared candy and bargained chocolate versus everything else.

"Gimmie a Twix before ya give em all away, child," said Lirim.

Charles: Charles slipped his hand into his husband's, similarly allowing the children to enjoy themselves without scolding, on such an evening. "Are we going to the party, or turning in for the night? If not, I'll ring Ro and let her know."

Bronwyn: Bronwyn laughed at the chorus of excited voices. Oh yes, it had definitely been a good haul this year. "Aye, a Twix for daddy and a cherry Jolly Rancher for yer mama."

Lirim/Mason: "We'll go t'the Moon if ya want," Mason said. The mask was removed once reaching their street. Placed on Rory's head, grinning at his son's scowl.

Lirim unwrapped his candy and stuffed the wrapper in his pocket. A quick cheers with Bronwyn before popping the whole thing into his mouth.

Charles: That face! He turned to kiss it, briefly. "Oh, yes. A trip to the moon is definitely in order. Perhaps for Christmas."

He spotted the empty cauldron that told of their arrival and laughed. "Gone, already! I hope at least some of the little kids got candy." Charles had a bag stashed at Mason's, just in case they were around if trick-or-treaters dropped by.

Bronwyn: She cheers-ed Lirim back with her Jolly Rancher and took Aedan's hand, continuing to discuss his candy and how cherry was clearly the superior fruity candy flavor.

The empty cauldron had her grinning from ear to ear. "That didn't take long at all!" she chuckled. "If that James Dean kid took his chance, it'll be the only one he gets. Candy's bein' handed out personally now that we're back. But first, tonic and hot chocolate. Ev'ryone take yer wrappers to the trash."

Lirim/Mason: "Make yourselves at home," Lirim smiled, dropped his hat as soon as they were in the door. Easily made a mess again with a quick swipe of his hand. "Pretty much a mirror image, right?" More colorful than the sharp white and neutral palette next door.

Something paused Mason in the doorway.

"Gonna have'ta get rid of that," he hummed, "'less ya wanna take my head off."

Lirim seemed dumbfounded for a moment before it clicked, eyes widening. "Right. Two sec." The many wards placed by - no matter. He'd assumed they'd faded, and then forgotten them completely.

"Bronnie, ya remember which board it was?"

Charles: His eyebrows vanished behind chestnut fringe for a moment. "No, we can't have that. I do prefer you with your head attached, dearest." And he'd stick by his husband's side until the wards were lifted.

Bronwyn: Bronwyn had forgotten them as well, mostly because she'd placed so many of her own.

"It's the one with the scuff mark from my high heel. Three boards to the right o' the bookshelf."

Lirim: "Got it." He'd almost got up for the kitchen, for a butter knife, before remembering his own damn abilities and pulling up the board with gentle coaxing from his hovering hand.

"There it is," he sighed. An unassuming brown bag no bigger than his palm.

"Is this really a ward, or a charm? I forget the damn lingo."

Charles: Charles gave Mason's hand a gentle squeeze. "Head safe? And the rest of your bits?"

Bronwyn: "It's a hex bag, they can be multipurpose. Let's put it somewhere out o' the way for now. I'll dispose of it properly later."

Lirim/Mason: "I'll put in the backyard." Seemed far enough, since being in the floorboard hadn't taken the demon's head living one wall away.

The children had already taken to the kitchen. Mason could hear gasps. A moment later seeing a fluffy white cat flee upstairs in a panic.

He held his hand out. A lack of static as Lirim excused himself to the back door. Fucking angels.

"Head's safe," he confirmed, stepping inside.

Bronwyn: "Don't scare Pancakes, lovies!" Well, one of them would be receiving a swipe at the ankle at some point this evening. Pancakes would require some soothing.

"Aye, verra much so. Sit, sit. What would ye like, what can I get ye?"

Charles: "Remember how it was with Frankie, in the beginning," he called to his children. "Be patient and don't harass the cat!"

He shook his head, fond, and took the offered seat. "I'm quite all right, darling. Thank you."

Lirim/Mason/Aedan: Lirim was laughing at the sight of Jude. The patient older tabby, accepting his fate in Aedan's arms, carried about with dangling legs.

"Y'all gonna say no t'some wine? What about some," what the hell was this, "pumpkin liqueur? When'd I get this? Was this you?" he asked Bronwyn.

Mason stood beside Charles for a beat, hand firm on the back of his neck, massaging. He separated long enough to find the children.

Bronwyn: Bronwyn looked at the label on the bottle. "Oh! Aye, it was me. I wanted to make an adult pumpkin spice latte. It was bloody good too. I want to try it in pumpkin pie."

Charles: "I'll never say no to wine." A statement that was perhaps a little too true. "Or pie."

Lirim/Aedan: "I do have a chocolate... mud... pie... thing. S'got some cake crumbled on top like dirt and -"

"GUMMIES!" Aedan shouted. "Mama! Can I - Can we have some?"

Bronwyn: "Let me make yer tonic first, then ye can have some. It won't take long, promise." She didn't want an upset stomach ruining his Halloween.

Luckily, she kept all the ingredients on hand and was able to get it going fairly quickly. "Do ye want me to mix it in water or in juice?"

Charles: "Sounds interesting. I can't say I've ever tried that before." But chocolate was chocolate. He reached out for the minds of his family. Where had they gotten off to?

Mason/Aedan: "Apple juice, please." Better manners around company, Lirim noted to self. That was usually the case.

The children had surrounded the cat tower and released Jude, who took to cleaning himself just out of reach at the top. The children were bored within moments.

"Put y'all's candy on the table. We'll go through em," said Mason, casting a quick glance to Lirim. Chocolate pie and red wine. This was turning into an absolute gem of an evening, Lirim thought.

Bronwyn: "Okay, I'll mix it with apple." She kissed the top of his head and got a jar. Time was she would've gotten a bowl and whisked everything together but shaking it until it was mixed was easier. And faster.

Speed was of the essence today.

A few herbs, a few mysterious liquids, and a little magic later, Bronwyn was pouring her concoction into a cup of juice and handing it to Aedan. The tonic made it take on a curiously orange color but the taste wouldn't be altered too much. It would be as if some strong, unsweetened tea had been added to it.

Charles: Charles smirked, but left them to their piles of sweets. Lectures about cavities and thorough tooth-brushing could wait until bedtime. "Can I help with anything?" he asked their host.

Lirim: "If ya wanna help me cut up some pie?" offered between grunts of effort as he argued with a corkscrew and a rather large bottle of zinfandel. Last time he tried to pull a cork via telekinesis had resulted in both a broken cork and bottle. His patience was not made for such delicate work.

Charles: "I think I may be better suited to opening wine," he offered, laughing, and stood to lend a hand.

Lirim/Mason: "He has a gift," said Mason. "If there's alcohol, he can open it. No safe too secure, no lock too strong."

"In the case," Lirim offered the bottle. Corkscrew far too deeply embedded.

Bronwyn: Bronwyn left them to the wine while she got the hot chocolate going, keeping one eye on Aedan to make sure he drank all the juice.

"If that is indeed the case, then Charles, there's a bottle o' scotch in my pantry that seems to have been welded shut. Yer help would be appreciated."

Charles: "Hilarious." He fixed his husband with a very dry expression before turning his attention to the lodged corkscrew. "Goodness." It took a bit of coaxing, but Charles really was a magician of bottle-opening. With a triumphant grin, he set bottle and cork on the table a minute later. "I'd be happy to help, Bronwyn darling."

Lirim/Mason/Aedan: "Lucien been gone that long ya gettin' your whiskey stuck?" Lirim laughed. There were only two Fera in existence which didn't frighten him to his core. Lucien was family, as much as he had fought tooth and nail.

Aedan handed his cup to his father, ready for his hot chocolate.

Mason settled between his children at the glass table, stealing another PayDay for Charles, and a swirly lollipop to bite like a heathen for himself.

Bronwyn: "It hasn't been stuck as long as that," Bronwyn chuckled, putting all her tonic ingredients away. "I was makin' somethin' with it and I'm pretty sure some caramel got stuck in the threads o' the bottle that I forgot to wipe off." That was her theory anyway.

Charles: He had to wince. Could a demon chip a tooth? He didn't know, but it just wasn't right. 'Heinous.' He smirked at his husband before plucking the candy from his hand. "Thank you." He fiddled with the wrapper.

"Bit of warm water should do the trick, then," he said to Bronwyn. "At least, that's how I get syrup bottles open." He thought idly of how perfect a stack of pancakes would be.

Lirim/Mason: Lirim glanced Charles' way, wondering what it was he was borderline yearning for. Maybe he didn't want to know. Sexual desire seemed to just exude from the two of them. Inspiring, but he was grateful to not be telepathic.

Mason watched his husband with challenging eyes, taking another slow performative bite.

'Should see me with jawbreakers.'

"Ffffriggin' hungry," Lirim sighed, catching that particular word split second. "Who wanted pie?" A few small plates had been filled. Ones for the children half size.

Bronwyn: Bronwyn grinned at Lirim. Nice save, she mouthed to him.

"I'm pretty sure we all wanted pie. I definitely do, and that hot chocolate. Is there such a thing as too much chocolate in one sittin'?" Probably, but it was Halloween! It was a day for treats.

Speaking of.

"I need to go refill the cauldron for any more kids we get."

Charles: 'You're a madman.' He shuddered at the very thought, but the lightning flash of a grin gave away his amusement. He popped the little candy into his mouth and bent to give his husband the briefest of kisses. They were guests, after all. Manners make the man.

"Not in my opinion, but I'm hardly an authority. I can fill it, if you'd like. Or start on the hot chocolate?"

Lirim/Mason: "You'll have chocolate every day, but hell hath no fury if it's spicy."

Lirim looked up at the couple, impatiently chewing and swallowing before speaking. "For serious? What about a chocolate martini? Or a mudslide?"

Bronwyn: "No no, it's fine. I'll get the candy."

She went to get the bag, only to poke her head back in a few seconds later. "Are chocolate martinis bein' made? If so I want one!"

Charles: His nose wrinkled in undisguised distaste. "Of course not. Spicy chocolate is an abomination." Charles lifted a shoulder. "I don't mind a splash of bourbon in my hot chocolate."

Bronwyn: "What's this spicy chocolate ye keep mentionin'?" Bronwyn asked the room at large. "Spicy like chilies or spiced like mulled wine?"

Lirim/Mason/Rory: "I mean I want chile-chocolate melted n'put in my mouth," said Mason. "With cinnamon."

Rory's eyes lit up. That was exactly what he wanted.

"I got a habanero in the fridge?"

Charles: Ugh. Corrupting the children. "I'll settle for whipped cream, if you have it."

Bronwyn: "There's a sweet shop near my store that has all kinds of chocolate. I'll bet they have chile chocolate."

Lirim/Mason: "Still open?" Another PayDay was swiped from the pile, now divided into three among the children. Cynthia had traded most chocolate for bubble gum.

"That pastry shop?" Lirim asked. "Oh! I got uh, Cool Whip?"

Charles: "That'll do," he nodded. All this talk of peppers had him needing a balm.

Bronwyn: "No, no' that one, although I have been meanin' to go into that pastry shop. The sweets shop is in the opposite direction, next to that maternity store I shopped at when I was pregnant with Aedan."

Lirim/Mason: Oh fuck, the memories. Both Lirim and Mason were staring, and both looked away almost simultaneously.

"Hot chocolate with cinnamon, then. Chocolate dipped peppers when home." To the delight of their son.

Plates were each given forks, and a cabinet opened of its own accord, so it seemed. A pot floating to the stove.

Charles: Charles lifted an eyebrow at that little exchange but said nothing. He finally claimed a seat and a plate to go along with it.

Bronwyn: Bronwyn noticed it as well, and though she had a clue as to the cause, she filed it away to ask later.

And there was the doorbell.

"Candy time!" Off she went to hand out treats.

Lirim/Aedan: Aedan ran off to help his mama, and Lirim only glanced over his shoulder before looking back at the cocoa powder, milk, and small jar of cinnamon. As though he'd never made this before in his life.

"Thinkin' hot chocolate and a chocolate martini."

Charles: "Do--" He chewed and swallowed a mouthful of pie before making another attempt. "Do you need a hand?"

Lirim/Mason: Lirim slowly looked back with apologetic eyes. "Aedan drinks Ghirardelli with peppermint because God only knows why. I dunno how to do it up fancy."

Bronwyn: "He knows it's the superior combination," Bronwyn said as she returned with Aedan in tow. "Don't ye, lovely? Chocolate and peppermint all the way."

Charles: Charles stood, pushing his plate closer to his family in case any of them wanted to finish his barely-touched dessert. "It's hot chocolate, my friend. It hardly needs to be fancy." He took a place beside his host at the stove. He was no cook, but warm drinks were a skill he'd mastered. Enough milk for everyone was tipped into the saucepan to heat.

Lirim/Mason: Peppermint? Rory was making a face. One Aedan had made at the idea of spicy chocolate. Mason was smiling at Bronwyn.

"I don't do fancy, but I didn't figure y'all'd want the Aedan special," Lirim chuckled.

Bronwyn: Bronwyn just chuckled, returning Mason's smile as she bent to kiss his head.

"One of us wants the Aedan special," she said, taking a seat at the table. She'd probably end up standing to get the door many many times before the night was out but in between she wanted all the time she could get with everyone.

Charles: "Oh, well, no peppermint for me, thanks. I'm a cocoa purist." He leaned against the counter while he waited for the milk to heat.

Lirim: "Purists go first, then." He looked around the room. At this blend of two families. He never would have imagined something like this years ago. Couldn't even imagine his son. Sometimes he still couldn't get over it.

"Happy Halloween, y'all."

Bronwyn: Bronwyn caught Lirim looking around and smiled. She wondered what was going through his head but judging from his expression, it was only lovely things. As it should be at moments like this one.

"Happy Halloween indeed!" she said brightly as the doorbell summoned her once more.

Charles: "Fair enough." He lifted his head in the following silence. Charles, too, was curious, but not enough to go digging. His mouth curled into a smile and he nodded. "Hear, hear!"

[aliceslantern]

Serendipity, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 1

ser·en·dip·i·ty | n -- the occurrence of an unplanned fortunate discovery.

It's all fun and games until someone gets pregnant.

Modern AU, Zemyx, Ienzo is afab trans

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

Ienzo hated parties.

No; "hate" was a strong word. As an eternal introvert, parties took a lot from him, and required several days' of mental preparation. But it was not always avoidable.

And anyway, he did want to go to this party. It wasn't often a childhood friend got their own gallery show, after all. There would be art and wine and probably intellectual conversation--something as designed for Ienzo as possible other than the social interaction. He sighed. All Naminé had said about the dress code was to "wear black" and the only thing he had since his unfortunate rebellious goth phase was a slightly-too-tight turtleneck that made him acutely aware of the fact that he was not in shape.

There was no point caring about his appearance. Who did he have to impress? If he cared, he'd actually do something about the hair growing directly into his eyes.

Ienzo was early. The city streets were narrow, and he needed a parking space. He walked slowly to the door of the gallery, trying to gather himself and smile. Naminé was already inside, of course, talking to one of the curators and adjusting the tilt of the frame just slightly. A few people were milling about, picking at the crudités that had been left out. He should've been later. Easier to blend in.

Well. No point backing out now. Once she turned away from the curator, she spotted him and smiled. "You made it," she said. "I thought someone was going to have to drag you." She leaned in for a hug.

"Congratulations," he said earnestly. "I do hope everything is for sale? I'd love to support you."

She waved a hand vaguely. "I'm just so in shock, to be honest. First time I haven't had to pay to be featured anywhere, never mind possibly making a profit. It does look so odd, right? To think most of this lived behind my couch until yesterday afternoon."

"Well, it's very much deserved," he said honestly. "It's about time someone noticed your talent."

She blushed. "Do you want any wine? Any snacks? It's all offered by them, so don't be shy."

He sighed. "That would be prudent, wouldn't it?"

By the time she'd walked him over, a handful of other people had entered the gallery, all of them wanting to congratulate the artist. Alone in her flowy white dress, she looked very much like a spec in the darkness. Pretty, free, glowing from the attention.

Ienzo spent a half hour or so wandering the gallery, with its exposed brick walls. It was nice, to have the excuse not to talk. She'd done a series based on portraiture and memory, something he forgot entirely until he was looking at a (thankfully small) charcoal sketch of his own face. Naminé had a bad habit of drawing anything not nailed down, and asking permission later.

"Hey, that's you!" a man said. Ienzo looked up.

He was blonde, his undercut gelled on the top. His black shirt was wrinkled and French-tucked. Ienzo knew this person was familiar, but wasn't sure how. Small town?

"Well--yes," he said. "I forgot I consented to sharing this."

The man reached up almost to touch the sketch. "She's talented, isn't she," he said, positively glowing with pride. "Oh! I'm not a creep, I'm her brother." A wry laugh. "Demyx. Hi." He offered his hand.

"...Ienzo. Pleasure." His hands were rough, callused.

"Oh, I know," he said breezily. Then, at Ienzo's blank look, "you're her friend. She talks about you."

"I'm sorry--all the years I've known her and she's never shown me a photo of you."

He laughed. "Our family is… weird," he said slowly. "It doesn't surprise me."

"...I see," Ienzo said. He wondered if it would be rude to go get more wine. "I suppose… every family has its quirks."

He nodded once. There was something in his teal eyes that contradicted the friendliness of his expression, something sharp and aware. Something that--to his chagrin--Ienzo found fascinating. But why?

"Are there any of you?" he asked lamely.

Demyx laughed again, that awkward, staccato sound. "Yes," he said. "It's--ah, over here." He rested a hand on Ienzo's shoulder and pointed him to another painting. Ienzo wouldn't have known it was a portrait unless he was told; blue green swirls and a flash of blonde showed an abstracted version of a person. "I almost drowned when she was little," he admitted. "I think she took it to heart."

"...I see." Ienzo looked over through his bangs at this man. He saw, very quickly when Demyx thought he wasn't looking, the man give him a once-over.

Ah.

He couldn't deny that he also found him attractive, despite the man being most definitely not his type (with that hair?). It was the look in his eye. The something more. "So what do you do?" Ienzo asked.

"Well, I'm also kind of an artist," he said. "A musician."

Figured. "...I see," he said politely. Well. No matter dwelling on a passing attraction.

"But for my day job I teach," he added, wrinkling his nose. "Music. At the college."

Ienzo's eyebrows shot up. (His heart fluttered.) "You're a professor ?"

Demyx snorted. "I don't look it, right? But I can prove it." He took out a beat-up wallet and brandished a faculty ID. "Read it and weep."

"You just look so--young," Ienzo said lamely.

Demyx shrugged. "It was sort of a happy accident," he admitted. "I was finishing my master's and the guy they hired to teach theory I and guitar crapped out. They offered me the job for a semester, and, well, I guess they liked me enough to stop looking." He grinned. "I tend to thrive under the radar. Want more wine?"

Ienzo's heart was racing. "Yes. Please."

---

They ended up talking for hours. Long enough for the gallery to close, for Naminé to waggle her eyebrows at him when she saw them sitting together. Long enough for Demyx to ask him to get another drink. Ienzo wasn't sure if it were his tipsiness, but this conversation didn't exhaust him the way previous dates so often did. It wasn't until the bartender was asking for last call did he realize how late it was--that, and he was in no shape to drive home. "Oh, goodness," he said. "I'm afraid I got carried away."

"Like how?"

"Like--I came out expecting to spend two very proper hours admiring my friend's art. Here we are."

Demyx smiled. "I don't know why she was hiding you," he said. "I've had… a lot of fun."

"Me too," he said earnestly.

"Would you want to go on an actual date sometime?"

He smiled. He was tired enough not to psych himself out. "Absolutely." He sighed. "Though I'm afraid I'm in no condition to take myself home."

"You could crash at mine," Demyx suggested. Then, seeing Ienzo's expression, "on the couch! Not what I meant at all." He chuckled. "Or I can call you an Uber."

"Is it far?"

"A couple of blocks. Think you can make it?"

"I'm not that drunk--just shouldn't drive."

He followed him out of the bar. It was very late, the moon hanging high in the sky, making everything quiet and silver. Demyx slid his hand into Ienzo's. He felt a little thrill, trying to recall the last time he'd enjoyed being touched so. His own attempts at dating hadn't exactly been fortuitous. Rarely did he ever meet anyone on an app that inspired real chemistry.

"I love this time of night," Ienzo said.

"Me too," Demyx said. "Nobody has expectations--the world is asleep. So calm. I come up with my best stuff at night. It's like I can breathe."

He bobbed his head. "I do sometimes have trouble with that. The annoying grind of mundanity. Easy to lose yourself."

"Yeah." He smiled sadly. "Well, here we are. Second floor."

It was a relatively new apartment building. The stairwell smelled like Pledge and dust. When Demyx unlocked the door, a small gray cat meowed indignantly.

“That’s just Janice,” Demyx said. “Come on. Be nice,” he added to the cat.

It sniffed Ienzo’s hand and nuzzled him. Blearily, Ienzo took in the apartment. It definitely seemed to belong to a bachelor--the furniture was plain and shabby, and the “couch” was a futon. The coffee table was a pair of milk crates with a board over it. There were some band posters on the wall. Thankfully the place seemed clean. It actually had good bones; the appliances seemed relatively new, the cabinets real wood.

“I’ll get you some blankets,” Demyx said. “Bathroom’s through there if you need. I might have a new toothbrush somewhere--”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ienzo said. “I’d hate to trouble you. Really.”

He blinked wearily. “Alright. Hang tight.” He came back with two blankets and a pillow. “Wifi password’s on the router.”

“Thanks again.”

He smiled. “Of course. Hope you sleep well.”

Ienzo was too exhausted to do much more than curl up on the lumpy futon. His tipsiness was good to him, and he drifted off.

---

Ienzo woke up to gold sunlight coming in through the blinds. There was something warm by his feet; he sat up slowly and saw the cat curled at the foot of the futon.

So. This had all happened.

Ienzo rolled onto his back and watched the light play on the ceiling. It had been a long while since he’d had so much fun on a date. It felt almost… odd. He’d told himself he was too busy to date, too set in what he wanted. But honestly? If he had seen Demyx on one of his apps, he probably wouldn’t have given him a second glance.

He heard movement from the other room. The other man was still in pajamas, his hair mussed and loose around his face. “You sleep okay?”

“Like a rock--then again, I always do when I’m drunk.” He sighed. “Thanks again.”

He smiled. “Don’t mention it. Better than you trying to get yourself home. Though I have to admit, it’s rare Janice cuddles up to a guest.” He leaned over to pet the cat, giving Ienzo a peek of his (surprisingly toned?) chest under the collar of his T-shirt. “Coffee? Tea?”

“I’d hate to be any trouble--”

Demyx rolled his eyes. “Which is it?”

“Whichever you’re having, I guess.”

He was handed a mug of black coffee. “I never asked what you do,” Demyx said. “We talked about so much stuff other than our actual lives.”

“I’m a librarian,” he said. “I work mostly in the research department.”

“Do you like it?” He sat on the other end of the futon.

“I love books, and I love research,” he said honestly. “It’s the best of both of those things. Sure, sometimes I have to help certain… characters with questionable projects, but it’s worth it to have so many resources.”

He cocked his head. “What do you research?”

“What don’t I research?” Ienzo asked, with a sigh. “Whatever strikes my fancy at the moment, I suppose, but I have a soft spot for linguistics and psychology. And gothic literature, but as my father is fond of telling me, that won’t pay the bills.” He rolled his eyes. “The joys of capitalism.”

Demyx laughed. “Sounds like he’s fun at parties.”

Ienzo smiled. “Oh, incredibly,” he said sarcastically. “But he… means well. Very doting.”

“Are you two close?”

“Closer than we were when I was a child,” Ienzo admitted. “His husband came ready-made with a child, and that transition wasn’t necessarily easy.” He wasn’t sure why he was saying all this. “You are… astoundingly easy to talk to.”

“Thanks, I’ll be here all week.” He looked into his mug, the glint in his eyes becoming sad. “I don’t remember my parents much,” he said.

“Naminé never brings them up.”

“They were… not so into childrearing,” he added, with a shrug. “Especially when I got older… there’d be food in the fridge, checks in the mail, but for the most part they sort of did their own thing. They call, once every few months, to see if we’re still alive, but that’s about it."

“So you were kind of on your own,” Ienzo said.

“Eh, I try not to get too hung up on it,” Demyx said. “No point, right?”

“I suppose not.” The coffee was strong, warming the pale shadow of his mild hangover.

He drummed his fingers on the edge of the mug. “So about that date,” Demyx said. “The library’s closed on weekends, right? How about today?”

Ienzo felt his face warm. Normally he’d need more warning, more time to mentally prepare himself, and to groom. But something about Demyx’s nature made that not matter. “Sure. Why not?”

They spent most of a day wandering around town, grabbing meals when appropriate, talking. Walking around the park, talking. Ienzo didn’t know how many words he’d been holding inside until they were coming out. It felt so good to hold Demyx’s hand, or to feel it on the small of his back. Something about it was so familiar. So… comfortable.

He didn’t believe in love at first sight. And it wasn’t love, not yet; but rather an intoxicating slurry of attraction and interest. Something that could… become. Perhaps this was why when Demyx asked him if he’d like to come up for “a cup of coffee” at the end of the day, he said yes.

And to be fair, there was coffee; they just didn’t drink much of it.

Ienzo found himself making out with him on that horrible lumpy futon. He wasn’t averse to casual sex, had done it multiple times, but typically when actually dating he didn’t immediately hop into bed with that person right out of the gate. With Demyx, he was absolutely breaking all of his own rules--seeing a creative, not making an extra effort with his appearance, not taking the time to fully process things before moving forward. But oddly, the rush of this made that all not matter.

Ienzo was sitting in his lap. He wasn’t sure if this made it better or worse, but Demyx was a very good kisser, especially compared to his last failed date. Ienzo’s mind stubbornly did not wander as it was normally wont to in these situations. Demyx’s hair was deceptively soft as he tangled his hands in it. Too soon, Demyx broke away. “This isn’t too fast for you, is it?” he asked breathlessly.

“No. Not at all.”

“Good. I just… I don’t know, I don’t usually do this.”

“What, instead of taking your time seducing me?”

He giggled. “Well, kind of.”

“I don’t usually either,” Ienzo admitted, kissing his jaw, his throat. Demyx was pressing up against him, the strangeness of hardness against denim. Despite himself, he felt his heart skip, this time with an anxiety. They’d talked about so many things, but not so much about one of the most important. He took a breath; and broke another one of his rules. “I… have to tell you something.” He swallowed.

“What?” Demyx touched his face. “Are you a virgin or something?”

“No, but it… might change things?”

“You’re shaking,” Demyx said. “What is it?”

He hated that he constantly had to explain himself. “I’m… trans. Transgender?” He shut his eyes. “I wouldn’t blame you if you want to cut things where they are.”

His expression was hard to read. “Oh.”

“I should’ve said something sooner.”

His hand was so warm through Ienzo’s shirt. “No. Thanks for telling me. It doesn’t change anything. I mean. It changes things, but it doesn’t change things. You know?”

He wasn’t sure whether or not to be relieved. “Oh?”

Demyx blushed and bit his lip. “I’ve never been with… a person with those parts. I’d… kind of thought, when I didn’t feel anything between your legs… I just thought I was doing a bad job.” He laughed awkwardly.

“That’s not it at all. I have a… packer I wear, but sometimes I can’t be fussed, honestly.” He could feel his face burning. “But it isn’t… difficult, if you’d be comfortable with that.”

His hand was shaking a little; Ienzo could feel it. “I’d be willing to try.”

“I could… show you, if you like,” he said slowly, unable to make eye contact. “Some other time… or now, whichever.”

Demyx kissed him, and for a moment they were lost in each other before he broke away. “I could try now.”

His heart skipped again. “Okay.”

“Come on.”

Demyx led him deeper into the apartment. Ienzo could barely take in the details, a combination of nerves and excitement making him feel vaguely dizzy. He thought he could smell incense, clean laundry, instruments on stands, a record player. Most of his focus was on the queen-sized bed. When was the last time he felt such genuine lust during a hookup, instead of mere curiosity? It was almost unfamiliar, making him shake and quieting the ever-present noise inside of his head. Demyx kissed him again, deeply, his tongue flicking against Ienzo’s before reaching for the hem of his turtleneck. He took him in with something like reverence before leaning down to kiss his collarbone, sending a fizz through his body. Ienzo reached up to take off Demyx’s own shirt, only able to look at him for a moment before he was eased onto the bed.

His thoughts were muddy, murky, and yet he was so inside of his own body. He struggled to unbutton Demyx’s jeans and felt him working at Ienzo’s, slipping them off. The nerves returned, making him acutely aware of the dampness between his legs, the insistent throb of his clit. He wondered if he might combust, and if that would be so awful.

Demyx broke away from the kiss. “Can I see it?” he asked.

“Yes--just--”

Demyx helped him out of his underwear. He was infinitely glad he was meticulous with his own personal grooming. He had not honestly thought this day would end with him getting laid. It felt a little awkward, to part his legs. Demyx ran his hand along the inside of Ienzo’s thigh, making him shudder. “Oh,” he said softly.

“I don’t believe this is the first one you’ve seen,” he said, attempting a drollness and a coolness he did not feel. “Not at all.”

“True, but… not in real life,” Demyx admitted. “But you’re so… god, you’re beautiful.”

He snorted. “Hardly.”

“Really.” He leaned down to kiss him. Ienzo tried to take off Demyx’s own underwear, his dick already straining against them.

The skin of it was warm against his palm. At least Ienzo knew he was competent at this. Demyx moaned against his shoulder.

“Before you… really go at it,” he said, with difficulty. “First tell me how to--”

A blush made him hotter. “Right. Ah--” He’d never had to explain this to any of his partners. “There’s a… little nub, the--”

“The clit?”

Thank god he knew that much. “Yes, just… that’s the most important bit.”

“Can I… can I touch you?” His expression was so tender. There was no way this was all real, Ienzo thought. There had to be a catch.

“Yes.”

He felt Demyx’s callused hand slide down his body, bringing with it a rush. After a moment where he seemed to struggle to find the nerve, he eased his hand over it, almost making Ienzo spasm. Demyx felt at it for a moment before he found the clit. “This?”

He swallowed. “That’s it. The… testosterone makes it… like that.”

“As long as I can make you feel good.” He kissed him again and began to stroke it, rolling it between his fingers. The feel of the calluses made Ienzo gasp aloud. “Is that bad?”

“No, no, it’s…” He could barely speak. “It’s very good.” With a trembling hand he fumbled to find Demyx’s dick, trying to move in rhythm with him. Hearing him struggle for breath only turned Ienzo on more. He could already feel the sensation building along his body, hot and electric. “If you want, you could… you could go inside me.”

Demyx looked up at him. “Are you sure?”

“Just--do you have a condom?”

His breath hitched. “Sure. Of course.” He dug in a bedside drawer that Ienzo honestly hadn’t noticed. He could feel his knees shaking. “Do you need lube?”

How had Demyx not felt how wet he was? “No.” Ienzo took the packet from him and eased it over his dick.

He laughed. “You might have to help me.” He guided the tip of it into him with one hand and gasped, his eyes closing. “It’s different.”

“In a bad way?”

“No.” He pressed into him a little more. “God, no. That doesn’t hurt you?”

“Doesn’t require as much preparation,” Ienzo explained. He opened his legs a little more, letting them rest against Demyx’s hips, for a moment just taking in the feel of his dick. It was more substantial than the hands or toys he’d taken over the past few months.

Demyx moaned. “You feel so good.”

“I could… say the same. Just kind of… slow and deep.”

He started to move against Ienzo. His skin was tingling, the warmth and weight of Demyx’s body combined with the thrusting bringing him again closer to that edge. The grind of Demyx’s hips brushed against Ienzo’s clit, forcing a small noise from him. He felt as though he were losing control--another rule broken--but found, in the moment, he didn’t care. Ienzo tangled his hands in that blonde hair and kissed him, finding a rhythm with him, smooth and gentle, a steadily growing heat blocking out anything else.

“Maybe a little faster?” he asked in a voice that wasn’t quite his.

Demyx made another noise and obliged him, moving harder. Ienzo could feel every bit of it, his body getting so sensitive the more excited he got. “Fuck,” Demyx said to his shoulder. He pressed his lips against his shoulder, his chest. “I--”

He let himself get lost in his body, his trembling thighs, the little waves of feeling starting to break over him in earnest, building smoothly towards that finish. “I’m really--”

Demyx’s hand reached down into the tangle of their bodies to find his clit again, and it was this more than anything that forced him over the edge.

It overtook him so fully and completely that for a moment he wasn’t sure where he was, a hot and demanding pleasure holding everything out at arm’s length. He couldn’t stop shaking. He could feel, on some level, Demyx thrust into him once or twice more before he seemed to finish too, his dick twitching a little inside of him.

Ienzo came back slowly, seeing the ceiling first, his hands trembling, his skin borderline raw. Demyx eased out of him, making him shudder, and threw away the condom. “Are you okay?” Ienzo heard.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m still--coming down.”

“...Me too.” Demyx settled next to him on the bed, breathing hard. “Do you cuddle?”

Another rule that would be broken. At this point why bother keeping track? “Yes.” If anything, the arms around his waist helped. “I’m not sure I believe that was your first time.”

He laughed. “What, because I paid attention to you for five seconds? What idiots have you been sleeping with?”

“...Idiots, indeed.” He found himself relaxing in this strange bed. He’d almost forgotten that sex with another person could be satisfying instead of mere physical upkeep. “I do believe that’s the best I’ve had for some time.”

Demyx brushed his cheek. “Fuck, me too. I just… where did you come from, Ienzo?”

“Here. Planet Earth.” He smiled. “Though I… haven’t experienced something so instant in a long while. Maybe ever.”

“Me either.” He kissed him, and for a moment Ienzo used that to ground himself. “I know it’s been… like, a day and a half. But I really like you.”

The smile was involuntary. “Maybe it’s against my better judgement… but I like you too.”

[nevaehporter]

the interrogation 

part one ( you. )

“do you have any criminal history? anything big or small that you want to make us aware of?“

nevaeh fiddled with her hands. this was an easy question to answer. but she was still nervous for some reason. she took a deep breath and tried to remind herself that she had nothing to be nervous about. especially with this question. “no.” she bit her lip, as she tried to focus on something other than the fact that she was sitting in a police station, talking about the death of the girl she was in love with and a death that she was apparently a suspect in. 

“how have you spent the few weeks back at college? what have they been like?”

she had answered this question a number of times, although they were always phrased a little differently. so many ‘how have you been’s and ‘are you okay’s and ‘how are you feeling since you know...’s. she was almost tired of answering them at this point because she never knew how to answer them. who would be okay after everything that happened? what did okay even mean? “they’ve been...rough.” she nodded. “like, i guess given everything that’s happened, that’s inevitable, right? i’ve spent most of the weeks either isolating myself or throwing myself into art and plants to distract myself from....everything.”  

part two ( daisey. )

“how did you know ms. rutherford? what was the nature of your relationship?”

this was one of the questions nevaeh dreaded. she felt like admitting her feelings for the now dead girl would somehow incriminate her. she had seen crime shows, jealous exes and crushes were always suspects. but she knew she couldn’t lie, not when finding daisey’s killer was on the line. she didn’t know exactly how to describe the nature of her relationship with daisey. there was the one on the surface, they were friends, acquaintances. and there was the deeper one that not many people knew about. the one that nevaeh wasn’t even sure daisey knew about herself. “we were friendly. i was in the student government with her.” that was their relationship on the surface. she took a deep breath and tried to find the words to describe their relationship on the deeper level. “and...” the words seemed to escape her. she rarely talked about her unrequited love out loud. mostly in paintings and poems, she barely uttered her feelings about daisey to others. besides plants. she focused on the fern sitting on the police officer’s desk and pretended it was one of her plants in the greenhouse. “we were friends, although i had always wished we were more. i fell in love with daisey the second i laid eyes on her. i picked flowers to give to her, although i mostly never had the courage to give them to her. there was just something about her soul that i was gravitated to, i guess.”

“do you remember the night daisey went missing? if so, where were you? what were you doing? who were you with?”

the night daisey went missing. even the day after, it was a complete blur. given more time, the night became even more blurry. there were some parts that were seared into her brain that she wished would just go away. she blinked, trying to remember specifics. she didn’t even remember why she went to the party, considering the fact that she hated them. but then she remembered. “i remember parts of it. i think i went because daisey was gonna be there.” she realized how...stalkerish that sounded and quickly added, “but also it was hosted by my cousin, oz and i went to see him too. and my other cousin, zo.” she took another deep breath and said, “a lot of that night is kind of a blur because i saw daisey leave a bedroom with someone and it just upset me. you know, because....i....uh, anyway. i cried in the bathroom, and then went on a walk with my cousin, oz. and then i left.” before she ended answering the question, she remembered the earring. there was a part of her that was telling her to not mention it. it was even more incriminating to have something that belonged to the victim than just harboring a crush. “daisey also lost her earring that night and i picked it up to give to her. but before i could, she was gone so i was just gonna give it to her in the next student government meeting.” the next student government meeting that never came. all that was left of daisey at those meetings was an empty chair where she used to sit and command the attention of everyone in the meeting. 

“did you notice anything strange about daisey’s behavior the night she went missing? did you notice anything suspicious about anyone else you ran into that night?”

nevaeh nodded. “there was something a little weird.” she wasn’t sure how weird or out of character it was for daisey. but if anything helped the investigation, she figured it didn’t hurt to tell them. “the person i saw daisey leave the bedroom with, they both looked disheveled and the person, i didn’t get a good enough look at them to identify them. but i'm pretty sure it wasn’t her fiance.” 

“where were you the night daisey’s body was recovered?”

nevaeh couldn’t really remember the exact details. that was becoming more and more common with her. not being able to remember things. “i’m pretty sure i was in the greenhouse when i heard the news. i remember seeing the notification.” she bit her lip and added, “i remember hoping that maybe they had found her body, alive.” her voice broke a little with that last sentence, much like her hope did when she read the end of the notification that day. 

“how familiar are you with the ashmont woods? have you been there often? have you recently ventured out here? if so, why?”

the ashmont woods. when nevaeh was a child and an adolescent, they were one of her favorite places in the world. she would travel to them to spent time with nature, with the trees, be one with the leaves. “i used to go there when i was younger. i’ve always loved plants and nature, so they were always nice to go in. when everything got to be too much, when i got to be too much, i would go into the woods and they didn’t care that i was too much.” she nodded, as she pursed her lips. “i haven’t been there recently. the botany program at st. etienne’s is pretty intense, so i mostly spent time with plants in the greenhouse. i think the last time i went there was when i was in high school.”

part three ( the investigation. ) 

“do you have feelings towards the investigation? any comments?”

nevaeh wasn’t really sure what this question meant. were they asking if she was going to cooperate? that didn’t make much sense to her because she was literally cooperating by going in for this questioning. did they think she was gonna say something about how she thought the investigation was stupid and further incriminate herself somehow? “i don’t really know what you mean but i hope it goes smoothly and they catch whoever did this.” she flattened out a wrinkle in her jacket before adding, “so we can all go on with our lives and daisey can finally rest in peace.”

“do you have any people you feel the police should look into? please, let us know who and why.”

she furrowed her brows as that inevitable question came up. were there people that she thought weren’t the nicest? sure. but she couldn’t think of any that would actually kill someone. maybe she was being naive, maybe she was giving too many people the benefit of the doubt, or maybe she just didn’t know these people at all. “i can’t think of anyone that i know of.”

part four ( weekly events. )

“what do you remember of the gallery opening? what did you do? who were you with?”

the gallery opening. only a few short days ago. the night still rung in nevaeh’s ears and mind constantly. she wasn’t sure if it would ever stop. she sucked in her lips a bit and nervously twirled her hair. she did that for a while, trying to gather her thoughts and feelings. “the gallery opening was supposed to be a good night,” she said, in a small voice, almost childlike. it was supposed to be a good night, she thought to herself again. one where she could show everyone one of the things she was most passionate about, one where she could show her friends and family everything she had been working on. “for some of it, it was. i got to see some of my friends and family and show them my art. i was with my cousins and i spent some time with zar -- i mean balthazar -- and julian.” she nodded before getting into the hard and dark parts of the night. “i was the one who found...the mural.” her voice was shaking, much like how her voice shook when she had made the police call to inform them of it. “it was pretty traumatizing. art has always been one of the places where i felt the most safe, my sanctuary from the storm.” her voice cracked a bit as a single tear rolled down her cheek that she didn’t bother to swat away. “and it turned into a crime scene.”

“what do you know about the vandalism that transpired that night?”

nevaeh took a deep breath. she really didn’t want to talk about this anymore. she had so many feelings that she didn’t know what to do with. she was all over the place in her mind and heart, and she didn’t know how to slow down. she could feel herself being reminded of that night again. in vivid detail. “i just know...i walked out of the gallery and i saw...i saw the bloody daisies. i thought maybe it was a wine stain or something before i looked closer at it, but then i saw it clearly.” she looked at the fern again. “it felt like a twisted joke. art was one of the only things that helped me stay sane and balanced, and now every time i close my eyes, i see the blood. art is supposed to bring people together, not do...this.”

“did you see anything questionable that night?”

nevaeh shook her head no. “the only questionable thing i saw was the mural.” she blinked, trying to keep one more tear from spilling but it was no use. this one she quickly swatted away, she was tired of crying, of not being able to sleep, of not being able to think about anything other than the damn mural and death. “yeah, that was the only thing that sticks out to me.”

[lobsters-on-their-heads]

OB Rewatch: Guillotines Decide

Pretty sure I used this shot for my first watch review, as well. It’s just too good.

You can read my first watch review, in which I wonder about Delphine’s shirt and her purpose at Rachel’s hotel, here: https://lobsters-on-their-heads.tumblr.com/post/163602794911/guillotines-decide

I loved

Cozy domestic Cophine. We need more of that.

Delphine getting a compliment from Siobhan in front of four members of clone club, including Cosima.

Both shots of Delphine in the hallway

Dude. DUDEEEEE, check it out! Delphine has the same gray shoulder bag here that she has in the elevator scene with Rachel in 2x10.

Since we know she didn’t take it to the island with her, I like to think Cosima got it from her apartment or something and saved it. There’s a ficlet idea in there somewhere.

Felix seeing Cosima again for the first time since she got her cure.

Adele - “Are you gonna get dressed?”

Sarah - “I am dressed.”  #relatable 

Speaking of Adele, I love her calling out Sarah. “She's thinking about your brother. Are you?” Because of course Sarah can't be happy for Felix for a day.

Delphine and Felix – a pairing we need to see WAY more of, as well. “I don't know Felix, maybe it's because we are up to something.” Indeed.

This shot. Look at those puppy eyes:

Felix's transition from reacting to Sarah's news about Ferdinand to shoving her into the gallery. Because he was totally right, it wasn't the time to be talking about any of that shit.

I usually hate watching people in embarrassing or cringe-worthy positions, but I LOVED seeing Ferdinand when he realized the flashdrive was empty.

Siobhan being such a mom at Felix's art opening, cheering the loudest, taking pictures or videos or both. Siobhan is the perfect example of a supportive parent of queer kids.

I did love Felix's Galaxy of Women speech. (And here’s a shameless pitch for the fic named after it: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11836590 )

Siobhan, regarding Rachel, to Ferdinand, “She just.. wasn't that into you.”

The scene at the laptop, even without knowing that Tat wasn’t supposed to cry. (also interesting to note that it’s Delphine’s laptop, not Cosima’s)

I liked

Kira's shirt has a great message for a show about clones.

Nice to have Gracie saying “after they cut out her tongue,” as Helena scraped her butter knife against the edge of the plate. It’s the little details that make this show so great.

Donnie offering Ezra a glass of champagne and then, realizing he didn't have any more, offering his bearded companion a napkin.

So, the “You own me” line. I am totally okay with it ON THE CONDITION that these two have had a long conversation prior to this scene in which any “ownership” or “belonging” is completely, 100% mutual. Like, Delphine said something about Cosima owning her or some shit like that, so it's bidirectional. Otherwise, it's terrible phrasing considering Cosima's issues with ownership at Dyad.

“I smell Neo shit!” oh, Helena

I didn’t like

I didn't need the drawn out scene of a doctor sewing up Rachel's eye. She could have just as easily collapsed in front of the elevator, then woken up bandaged. It was gore for the sake of gore, not for any kind of character development.

The opening scene lacks any sort of cliff-hangey punch to lead up into the credits.

There was a editorial or directorial slip when Felix starts off talking to Cosima about why she can't come, whichall people will be there, and then “you can totally come later if you want,” and then SARAH answers, “I do wanna come.” Sarah, no one asked you.

And Gracie's still around. It would have been better to have the scene with her and Helena first, and then show Mark on the island AFTER Gracie tells Helena that he's dead.

Don't like Siobhan brushing Sarah aside, especially since it was, I believe, JUST last episode that Siobhan was getting ready to storm Dyad with a couple of hand guns. I mean, she finally does say, “You're right, we can't stand down,” but it's very dismissive.

I don't like the line “it made me sick to work with the man who killed MK.” Just rubs me the wrong way. Not the sentiment, but the placement. Up until that point, as far as the audience was concerned, Delphine might’ve had no idea MK ever existed. And anyway, Delphine had reason to hate Ferdinand without knowing about MK (though poor MK’s situation certainly ratchets up the hatred). Plus, it’s a character stating their feelings rather than showing them.

Hell-Wizard as DJ / rapper was... fine, I guess. It didn't excite me nor upset me, but it was interesting to see a guy who's a security guard / comics shop owner and is also a DJ. But then, we just don't know Hell-Wizard very well. I do think the little rapping set was just there because someone wanted to give Calwyn Shurgold some screen time. It did not do much for me.

Felix fucking interrupting Cophine. Can these two have an on-screen conversation that doesn't get cut short, please?

I really didn't like the extended, dramatic shot of Siobhan getting the flowers ready and writing the letter. Siobhan’s death would have carried a huge emotional impact no matter how they did it, but these scenes are just ham-fisted.

Other notes

Starting shot = closing shot

I'm not sure I would recognize a kid who looked just like my mom did at 11. Not immediately like Kira does. But then, Kira had a bit of a head's up, perhaps.

It must have been really amusing for Siobhan to hang out with Charlotte, even for a moment, having known Sarah at that age. I have a feeling it would have been a trick getting Sarah into pigtails like that, though.

Look at this living space:

Three lamps 

old school radio (seriously, I think my grandparents had that radio when I was born) (no wait - actually it's a record player, and I hope it's the same one from the yurt in 4x09 and that Delphine just fucking took it with her when she went to Sardinia / Geneva)

a mysterious wall-door

swoopy bookends

candles (obvs)

fucking peacock feathers. 

But I LOVE Delphine's outfit here. I love it more than what she wears to the art opening and more than most of what EBro wears to fancy events and photo shoots.

They MUST have fucked before this scene. There's no way in hell Delphine would be this calm about Cosima's touch and proximity unless that itch got good and scratched. (Also, shameless plug for my first ever fic, Talk to Me: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11697588 , which takes place the day before this scene)

I know Cosima's looking at Delphine's mug of tea or coffee or whatever, but she is ALSO looking at Delphine's crotch, and smiling.

Hilarious, if kind of odd, that Felix addressed Sarah and Siobhan as “North American Scum.”

They have 144 doses of the inoculate ready to go in this episode. Just for, like, future reference.

Delphine's boots go over her knees. Women's fashion confuses me. Her coat is hot, though.

Adele says “We spiked our Glühwein with vodka” like that isn't something Swiss people would also totally do. Okay, they might use amaretto or something instead, but whatever.

For just a hot second I thought that was René Auberjonois from Star Trek: DS9. It isn't.

Both a like and a dislike, so here: I thought the concept of the clone swap as part of the show was clever, and very tongue-in-cheek. I have no idea how he'd replicate that anywhere else, or if it's even worth trying, which makes it strange when Ezra says it'll work in New York. Also, Alison (the first clone we see in this little line up) is super awkward, and it was hard for me to watch again.

Felix, you know damn well how Cosima feels about being shoved in front of a group of people. At least this time she doesn't have to give a speech.

Rachel thinks that Ferdinand “really loved” her. How sad is that?

Gracie didn't deserve to die, but I'm not upset about losing her. I'm more upset that Helena had to witness another murder.

I have questions

Was Sarah not informed of Felix's return? Or did she just forget? His art gallery opening must have been advertised, so it's not like anyone was keeping his presence in the city a secret.

“We bought a shit mountain of cheese.” God bless Adele. I want her in more of my fic. Let me find a way to make that happen. However, could they really bring cheese so easily through customs? Or did Adele mean that they bought it AND ate it in Switzerland?

What the hell order of nuns is Sister Irina in?

I don't know much about gallery openings, but are they usually set up, like, a few hours before the actual opening? Especially considering that Felix JUST got back, and before he left that was entirely his apartment.

When and how did Delphine learn about MK's death? For that matter, how did she learn about MK? Did Felix fill her in in Switzerland?

Where will Delphine and Cosima put that painting that Delphine bought?

Van Lier says they're no longer taking direction from Mr. Westermoreland. Which leaves the question, who is in charge? Who are they taking direction from?

Where is Siobhan's backup? Where's Benjamin? Why doesn't she call in some people to help her deal with Ferdinand? Hell, why not tell Art? I can understand her not telling Sarah. Did she call Delphine to give HER a head's up? I mean, I guess Ferdinand doesn't know about the Rabbit Hole? But still, I feel like Ferdinand would be pretty keen on fucking up Delphine's shit, too.

I don't know much about gun shot wounds to the chest (left ventricle, specifically), but... can people really hold conversations after being shot that close range in the heart?

I would’ve liked to have seen

Everything I wrote in Talk to Me - Cophine talking about everything that happened. I want to see them talking afterwards, too, about everything. They love each other, let’s fucking show it.

Ferdinand and Delphine left the hotel room together. How did THAT little hallway trip go?

I need to know how the hell Felix and Colin got back in contact. They are NOT over things, and their last meeting certainly ended on a sour (and slippery) note.

MAJOR missed opportunity not showing us Delphine watching Cosima dance. She wouldn't have needed to be in the main shot – she could have just been off to the side, looking all happy and puppyish.

[thepriceofburning]

As soon as she was out of the Commander's sight her face lost its innocence. Shit, she cursed silently to herself. What had she been thinking laying it on like that? Had she been thinking at all? Yes, she had. Far too much. Those warm brown eyes had sunk into her and she’d floundered. Worse yet, he’d seen right through it. She’d had him, she knew she did, and then she’d pushed it and raised his hackles.

She swore again as she blindly followed the path the other three women had taken before her. If anyone noticed she didn’t belong there, they didn’t say anything. It certainly looked as if she knew where she was going.

She turned over options in her mind as she followed the map Chanta was providing her. The Commander could be utilized, but she would have to be careful with him. For reasons she couldn’t define there was something about him that rattled her, and that was not a good position to work from. No, she needed someone a little more benign.

She looked up as she entered a large room and realized they were in some sort of art gallery. The walls were covered in painting, drawings, and tapestries. Sculptures sat on marble pedestals in various places around the room. She eyed a marble carving of a naked woman as she walked past and had to admit that the detail was exquisite.

The small group stood in a half circle facing a massive tapestry admiring the detail. Two of the Thyfa had taken up flanking positions by the door she had come through, securing the exit as per their training. Two more stood just a short distance from the group. Tower guards stood inconspicuously at every door.

“Tayanara,” Darien called, having noticed she had rejoined them. Grudgingly she put on her noble smile and joined the group. She was going to be playing at princess for the rest of the day.

With a polite smile she sidled up to Darien who looked every inch the disgruntled husband. With half an ear she listened to Mery’s recounting of the tale behind the tapestry and considered the woman critically.

Her smile was easy, but a little shy, and her eyes were bright and intelligent. Taya found the spray of freckles across her skin quite pretty. Feeling eyes on her, Mery turned to meet her gaze, and they studied each other quietly for a moment. Something in the way the witch looked at her made her feel like she was seeing more than the physical. A moment later she gave a blushing nod and turned her attention back to the group at large.

Unsure, Taya thought, but she has spine. Mery laughed prettily at something Alexa said and it was a sound full of warmth. Generous, kind, a caring soul, and probably quite stubborn when push came to shove, Taya surmised. That, she could use.

With a gentle suggestion and a motion of her hand Meryarna moved them on to the next part of the tour. Dani stepped up to keep her attention, and Darien and Taya fell back a few steps. When he offered his arm she clasped her hand around it lightly.

“Did you manage to make any headway with the Commander?” Darien asked quietly.

“Depends what you mean by headway,” she grumbled. “If by headway you mean making me even more convinced that Alexa should have been the hook, then yes.”

He gave her an unexpected smile. “She doesn’t have the grit.”

Taya narrowed her eyes. “What you mean is she’s too polished to pass as a street kid who made it lucky with a Duke and therefore would not garner as much interest or sympathy as I would, due to my lack of manners.”

“That about sums it up,” he delivered with a grin.

She tilted her head slightly as she walked beside him. “You are in an unusually good mood.”

There was a hint of something just a little malevolent when he spoke. “Perhaps having people bow and scrape and cater to my every whim appeals to me.”

Her mouth scrunched into a disapproving little twist and he laughed out loud at her expression. Three pairs of familiar eyes, and one unfamiliar, turned to look at them in mild curiosity. Taya pretended not to notice and Darien gave them all a dazzling smile. When they turned back and continued with their conversations, Taya shook her head at his audacity.

“Back to the point. Will the Commander be a problem?” He asked in more serious tones.

She breathed a small sigh. “I think he’ll be amenable… to a point.” Darien raised an eyebrow in question. “He’s got amazingly sharp gut instinct and he is definitely no fool. If we push it, chances are he’ll have it pegged that we’re not who we say we are pretty fast.” She paused for a moment. “What we need is a way around him. Someone who knows The Towers as well as he does, but whose latches are a little easier to flip.”

He cast her a sideways glance. “I take it you have someone in mind?”

She lifted her chin in the direction of the redhead leading the group. “Actually I do.”

He gave a small hum of approval. “I was thinking the same thing. See what you can get from her. I’ll have Alexa befriend the magic users, Dani on the staff, and Chanta on the townsfolk. The faster we can figure out what the Voro are looking for here and how to get it first, the better.”

Taya let her mind wander the surroundings as they were led through a large archway, the ever present tower guards standing like statues on either side. There was static against her skin and the smell of the air noticeably shifted and she realized that they must have entered the Second Reach. Mery began to tell the group about the various experimentations happening currently.

“You know,” Taya said in hushed tones, “with all the reports we’ve received of how the Voro seem to be gathering here, I expected this place to be crawling. I haven’t sensed one yet, Darien.”

Mery led them into a room that smelled so strongly of peppermint it almost made Taya’s eyes water and briefly introduced an elderly witch who began a rambling speech about the properties of the plant.

“Do you find that surprising?” He said with just a hint of disappointment. Taya’s impassive expression spoke volumes. “This place is full of magic users, Taya. I imagine that they would be quite easily detected if they couldn’t effectively hide it. Not to mention the Wolf Knights are a larger but less informed variation of the Thyfa. I’m sure the Commander is aware of the existence of the Voro, even though it’s doubtful he has any idea that they are actually a threat to his Towers at present.” There was just the hint of a sneer in his voice with the last statement.

“But,” he continued as the others patiently listened to the peppermint lecture, “they would be taking a huge risk sending any of their own in here. One gets caught and the Commander might get an idea that there’s something going on and do something to try and stop it. They wouldn’t send anyone in but their best. If they do have people in The Towers I’d say that they are using something like a barrier that would stop others sensing their differing energy levels. A dam let’s say.” A group of mages entered the room then, chattering among themselves and Darien cast a look in their direction. “And with so many people around, all they’d have to do is become a part of the crowd.”

Taya nodded on a breath. “I just wish we could catch one in here. If we could make one squeal-”

“What?” Darien asked sharply. “We could make all the Voro in the area aware of our presence and invite them to kill us? The reason we are performing this ridiculous act is so they don’t know they’re being watched, Taya. With as many Voro as there are in the area as soon as they knew we were here everyone would be in danger.” He shook his head with a lowered brow. “You should know better.”

Of their own accord her eyes found Alexa and she considered what would happen if the Voro learned her face or her name. They’d never stop hunting her.

“Okay,” she replied, “no torturing. So what? We just wait and see what happens?”

“Patience is a skill you’ve yet to acquire,” he said drily. “Yes, we wait. And while we do we learn every entrance and exit, every weak spot and malleable point. Then when we figure out what the Voro are after, it’s a simple matter of getting it before they do.”

Meryarna thanked the peppermint witch and asked them all to follow her in bright tones. Taya and Darien held back and watched as the other four women walked together, the conversation bouncing back and forth between them. It seemed they had quite an affinity for each other.

“I take it you have a plan to explain our extended visit?” she asked quietly, mindful of the way her voice carried in the hall they were in. When his only response was a lifted eyebrow, as if to say “of course”, she followed with the next thought. “Dani still thinks we should tell the Commander what is going on here.”

He glanced sideways at her. “Dani can howl all she wants but we all know she will not do a thing without your approval. Just remind her that our way saves lives and keep her contained.”

Taya gave a small nod of acknowledgement even if she disapproved of his tone towards her sister and went along easily as he drew her forward so that they could join the conversation. Other than polite smiles and nods, she offered nothing in the way of talk. Instead she drew inward and ordered her thoughts.

She felt his press against her mind and was a little surprised at it. They rarely, if ever, communicated in this intimate manner. She lowered her barrier.

You never told me how it happened. His deep, rich voice passed through her mind.

Outwardly her demeanor never changed but she passed the feeling of confusion along with her words. How what happened?

A charming smile lit his face as he replied to a question asked by Mery. How you got lucky with a Duke.

Taya pressed her lips together to contain the grin. Do you want the bar room version, or the dining table one?

She felt the sudden rise of his interest as he considered the possibilities. I remember the bar room version very well. But I wouldn’t mind rehashing the details.

She bounced her shoulder against his, causing him to side step a fraction and they both kept moving forward with heads held high without outwardly acknowledging the bump. Inwardly a mental grin passed between them and she set her mind to work on creating a dining table story of how she had met the Duke.

~Copyright C.J. Staunton Tag list - @stuffylana @atheona-darkclaw

[halffictional]

I just wanted to write a small blurb about an oc of mine

People who cannot fathom tragedy make it into an artform. They pluck the tears off their cheeks and mix it into colorful paints which they use to create sunsets and swirling oceans. They tear the shuddering breaths out of their throats to line them up and braid them into melodies. But most of all, they take the words which they cannot seem to say and crush them into ink. The wise can see through these masterpieces and pluck out the true intentions. The foolish create them and call themselves artists, songwriters, poets, authors, and more.Personally, I hate these people.

 So of course, I’m one of the many people who are seen as masterpieces, despite my disdain for the label. It may be the contrast that disturbs people enough to make me into a piece of art. The way my small seventeen year old frame compares to the hundreds of scars that trace themselves around my body. Or the way my childish eyes seem to continually have bags under them from sleepless nights, spent screaming into my pillow. 

Either way, art belongs in a museum. So that’s where I am currently, though not as an exhibit, despite the bittle boy who keeps pointing and asking his mother a little too loudly “why does that girl have so many scars?” 

His mother pulls him close and whispers something about how it’s not polite to point and stare. Not that I can tell the difference. Everywhere I go there will always be some sort of stare. Even the mother’s eyes linger a few seconds too long, before she can manage to tear her gaze away from the thin lines that line my face to find an exit. She leaves the room with hushed whispers to the young boy. No doubtedly they will have a discussion about how “some people get hurt, but you shouldn't point it out” or  if I’m lucky “I’m sure she’s a very nice person and we don’t want to make her uncomfortable.”Either way, it won’t matter. Like I said, there will always be a different mother and son in a different place. But the same stare. The same useless conversation. 

So you learn to ignore it, like I’m trying to do by staring intensely at a Monet. Another artist. He turned his feelings into flowers. ‘Blue Water Lilies’ is what the card calls it. It’s one of my favorite paintings, though all of the impressionists have beautiful art. I think it’s partially because they had to fight so hard to have it seen. After all, painters before them seemed to love drawing dark and dreary kinds of people. The concept of color was new and unfamiliar to them. I wonder if people used to take their child and speak in hushed tones about Blue Water Lilies. I wonder if there was ever a mother who pulled their son away and told him that he can’t look at the painting, because the “proper” paintings were in the next room over.

Slowly, I took a few steps to the next painting. I looked at their colors, brushstrokes, and wondered what tragedies the artist had been through that they felt there was some reprieve in art.The gallery I stood in was quiet and alone, the only noises coming from my breathing and the few steps I had to take between paintings. It was a time to be alone with my thoughts, though I still managed to have a  subject to keep my mind at ease. 

After a while I realized that I had managed to see the whole gallery. It felt like no time had passed, yet I knew if I checked the time, I had been in there for a few hours. Art galleries seem to do that to time. 

So, with the sun setting through the windows I turned on my heel and started to leave. The secretary nodded at me as I passed her desk. She had learned long ago that I was a less than conversational patron and had seemed to accept that fact by simply nodding at me or doing a small wave. It was nice, being seen, but not stared at. Mentally, I reminded myself to bring her some bread. She would appreciate that, if her constant snacking on toast was any indicator. 

The light of the city at night hit me like a brick wall, the way it always did. Some people looked up to see who had just exited the doors, but quickly averted their stares. After all, it's rude to stare at someone with so many prominent scars for too long. That would be insensitive. So instead, you cut the gaze short and treat me like some sort of taboo image.

I spat at the floor and they looked up again. Natural human curiosity usually made people look up when they saw a movement or a new noise. It was funny though, to see people scatter their stares and stifle their curiosity around me. I paused for a second, then made direct eye contact with each of them. Their pace seemed to quicken as their faces snapped away from me. Pfft- predictable.

Humming, I started my trek to the library. “I am a display! A masterpiece! A piece of art! A tragedy…”

Step

Step

Step

Dodge a person.

Step

Step

Repeat until you feel the need to stop.

The funny thing about people is they do the same thing for anyone they pity. I paused to look at a homeless man, holding a cardboard sign. He wanted some money. But I knew that deep down, he also wanted someone to notice him as a human. It was disgusting to watch people drive and walk past him, their eyes glued to anywhere he wasn’t. One teen girl even put headphones in and stared at her phone the whole time to avoid that “awkward interaction”. I watched her skitter past him like a scared animal and then immediately take her headphones out and put her phone back in her pocket. The man didn’t even flinch. Most likely he’d been having that sort of interaction all day. 

I went up to him and gave him some money. Not too much. I knew that too much money can make you a target to others. And the police rarely care about if a homeless man is robbed or beaten. The rich have money to protect themselves. The poor have to protect their money. 

So with a quick “thank you” he hid the money in one of his pockets. I wished him luck and kept walking. Though, I wondered what art he would make later. Would it be a song? A poem? Or maybe it would just be the way he saw the sunrise tomorrow- if he lasted that long. It was interesting though, how he looked at me. Art recognizes art. Tragedy recognizes its own. We are one and the same, yet our brushstrokes are so infinitely different. 

[britishchick09]

sherlock ep 3 the great game livewatch

since i did a live-re-watch of ep 1 and a re/new livewatch of ep 2, i figured i’d finish off the season! i’ve never seen this one, so it’s the first totally new livewatch of the year! :D

ooh spooky beginning!

sherlock is talking to a guy for a case why in an old school tho?

omg sherlock keeps correcting this guy’s grammar lol :D

the guy will get hung for it (sorry hanged) is this victorian england

dramatic intro strikes again!

YO GUN SHOTS WUT

sherlock just chillin

AND SHOOTING WTF LOCKIE

SMILEY FACE!!!!!

john: “what the hell are you doing??” SAME WTF MR HOLMES

he’s shooting because he’s BORED OMG SHERLOCK LOL

omg john almost said the f word :o

WHY IS THERE A SEVERED HEAD IN THE FRIDGE

ooh they referenced ep one’s title in john’s blog post!!!

does that mean john comes up with the ep titles coolio :D

sherlock doesn’t like it tho :/

he deletes things he doesn’t care about like the earth going around the sun woah sherlock computer! :o

sherlock just said ‘hard drive’ epic B)

sherlock: “UGH HELL, WHAT DOES THAT MATTER?? so we go around the sun or we go around the moon round and round the garden like a teddy bear IT WOULDN’T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE!” ...teddy bear?

oh hey mrs hudson

awww she called their argument ‘a little domestic’ :)

let me guess sherlock hates the quiet peaceful world

RIGHT!!!

MRS HUDSON SAID ‘BLOODY’ OMG

and she’s putting the smiley face on the rent ‘young man’ :/

OMG WHAT THE FRICK EXPLOSION

hey is that sarah cool! :D

oh crap THE FLAT EXPLODED!!!!!

WTF DID SHERLOCK DO????

i thought this would happen in like s4 since that’s super dark not s1!!!!

lol sherlock’s just plucking his violin like nothing happened :D

yo is that moiarty mycroft?

ok this is his bro so according to google it’s... mycroft!

mycroft: “a case like this would require... ‘leg work’” ...leg work?

in my holmes inspired series the sherlock and mycroft characters hate each others guts and act like children around each other so it’s good to see that these bros just act cold and keep correcting each other

mycroft: “your business seems to be booming, ever since you and sherlock became.. ‘pals’’ johnlock shippers be like: ;)

mycroft wondered if it was hellish and my holmes character describes his bro as hellish COINCIDENCE I THINK TOTALLY!!! :o

the plans were on a ‘memory stick’ does mycroft mean ‘usb’?

sherlock putting rosin on his bow during the conversation tho ♥

mycroft: “you need to find those plans, sherlock. don’t make me order you” wowoza older bro much?

is sherlock badly playing his violin to test it or to kick mycroft out faster lol :D

this is probably benedict cumberbatch really playing because he didn’t take violin lessons until s2 i think and even then there was an overdub!

OMG I JUST REALIZED I’VE BEEN SPELLING HIS NAME AS BENNEDICT WHY

sherlock: “i’d be lost without my blogger” aww he really does like the posts! ♥ also major johnlock squee there

sherlock likes the ‘funny cases’ ;)

hey is that lestrade cool he’s back

the first thing sherlock says while reading the letter is ‘nice stationary’

john: “that’s the pink phone!” guy: “from the study in pink!” sherlock: “you read his blog?” lestrade: “of course we all do!” awwww :D

everyone’s snickering at sherlock not believing the ‘earth sun’ theory lol :D

ooh a warning! :o

john: “hold on, what’s gonna happen again?” sherlock: “BOOM!” bada bing, bada... B O O M!!!”

mrs hudson can’t get anyone interested in the flat aww :(

some weird lady’s calling what

SHE JUST SAID ‘STUPID BISH’ WOAHHHH

woah she was a hostage??

sherlock wants john to delete 8 mycroft texts lol :D

sherlock sarcastically called john ‘doctor’ lol :D

molly: “why did you say ‘gay’? we’re together!“ WAIT DID SHERLOCK JUST SAY THAT?? JOHNLOCK SQUEEE!!!!! also sherlock is aromantic sorry molly :/

molly: “he’s not gay!!” woah john much?

also that was about  her bf sorry johnlock shippers :/

sherlock says his makeup and underwear peeking out make the guy gay RUDE MUCH LOCKIE??

john: “that wasn’t kind” yeah LOCKIE

john: *figures out who the shoes belong to* how did i do?” sherlock: “well, john, really well! i mean, you missed almost everything important” lol :D

sherlock is great at finding out things props to him :D

the shoes were bought 20 years ago just like su lin!

sherlock: “a child with big feet-“ you mean senpai lol

1989 is 21 years ago here wowza :o

oh no the kid had a fit in a pool and died :(

someone stole his shoes! :o

aww john wants to help :)

mycroft is texting john now lol :D

john: “it’s of national importance.” sherlock: “how quaint.” john: “what is?” sherlock: “you are” :)

john is wearing a suit to see mycroft how quaint ♥

john: “he’s investigating now. investigating away” that’s sherlock for ya :D

mycroft knows it all just like sherlock what bros they are! :D

oh no the kid had poison! :o

it’s cool how a 21 year old mystery could tie into a bomb from a day ago :D

NO IT’S CRYING LADY AGAIN

she lives in cornwall camilla who

ooh pager! :D

sherlock is bored WHY

OH GREAT IT’S THE ‘FREAK’ LADY FROM EP 1 UGHHHH

oh no another mystery caller!

sherlock guessed he’s ‘stealing another voice’ ooh :o

aww they showed the guy he’s crying :(

they have 9 hours to solve the puzzle!

sherlock is faking being super sad to get info from this lady oh lockie!

random lady: “fishing! try fishing!” john’s reaction tho :D (this is like ‘daang that’s rad!’ but not as funny)

sherlock says ‘mazda’ weird but it’s cool :D

sherlock: “you’re very helpful” ...he’s not

sherlock: “mr. hewitt’s a liar” SEE I WAS RIGHT!!!

the drops in the lab look like the intro :D

phone guy: “we were made for each other, sherlock” woah woah YOU’RE NOT JOHN

ooh the blood was frozen :o

the way lestrade says ‘columbia?‘ is funny :D

the case is solved yet we’re only 37 minutes into the ep hmm....

sherlock: “i am on fire!” YAS LOCKIE!!! :D

great another call...

why is this guy constantly crying WHO HURT YOU SIR?

a restaurant scene... ep 1 was queerbaiting, ep 2 was stereotyping and this one is... SHERLOCK EATING??? :o

epic 2010 smartphone ;)

john: “lucky for you mrs hudson and i watch too much telly” yas john!!! :D

CRYING LADY SAID ‘BISH’ AGAIN

12 hours now WHO ARE THESE PEEPS AND WHY ARE THERE TIME LIMITS

throughout the scene there’s a snoring sound... is someone sleeping in the afternoon??

a dead 54 actress died 2 days ago... connection?

she cut her hand on a rusty nail dean from supernatural who

sherlock: “goodnight vienna!” *ringo voice* ♫ na na na na na na goodnight viennaaa!!!!!!! ♫ :D

lockie’s mind is racing again!!

john’s dr skills and sherlock’s mind are perfect for this :D

sherlock: “do you want to help?” john: “of course!” ♥

lestrade: “tell me, what are we dealing with?” sherlock: “...something new’ ;)

ughhhh her again!! THREE HOURS HAS IT EVEN BEEN 12 YET???

awww kitty!!!! ♥

the kitty is so loud and cute awww :)

the tv lady taught mrs hudson how to do ‘colors’ aww :)

sherlock went to fan sites for the show coolio :D

...omg what if there are fan sites for him and people ship johnlock in the show besides mrs hudson :o

awwww kittyyyy!!!!! :D

john thinks the lady got tetanus because of the cat NOT THE KITTY!!!

so are the shoe kid, tv lady and creepy phone people connected?

the phone people are bombers so at least that’s a connection

great the phone lady wants help UGHH

she’s telling sherlock things about the guy GIVE THE ADDRESS LADY!!!

wait was that a gunshot

it was another gas leak explosion! :o

the bomber killed the lady oooohh :o

sherlock: “heroes don’t exist and wouldn’t be one of them” oh but you are lockie ;)

sherlock: “you SEE you just don’t observe!” john: “okay, okay, girls calm down!!” GIRLS OMG LOL :D

sherlock: “you’ll never find him (some guy named gollem). but i know a man who can” lestrade: “who?” sherlock: “...me.” ;)

lady: “any change for a cup of tea?” sherlock: *gives her fifty* wowza what a generous lockie!

onto part 2!

the lady said a message was left ‘on the landline’ how 21st century of you...?

other lady: “am i supposed to be impressed?/” this is sherlock holmes we’re talking about here lady

lady 3: “we were having a night in...” *wallace and gromit intensities*

joe: “are you the police?” john: “sort of” he’s a consulting detective assistant thank you very much :)

sherlock sure likes giving lots of change to people in need :)

and he said earlier he doesn’t care about people unless it involves the case!

aww moonlight walk ♥

they’re in the tunnels like the netflix pic! :D

i wonder if this inspired that pic...

YO THEY BE RUNNING

the lady is watching a show on jupiter a gas planet hmmm...

she just wants neptune :D (i know her fave sailor senshi...)

OH NO SHE DED!

the tape is going backwards it’s so weird

OMG IT BE GOLLEM!!!

john: “let go or i will kill you” oooohhh gollem’s in trouble...

yo wtf is going on

SHERLOCK SHOT

who is this fancy french lady

sherlock s n a p !

the painting is a fake and that’s why she was killed?

some kid is counting down WHO ART THOU SMOL ONE???

sherlock: “shut up it only works if i figure it out!” yeah that’s true

aaand it worked!

the planet film helped sherlock discover the nova in the painting coolio :D

the mystery kid needs help! but where is he...

i still have no idea what’s going on tho it all went by so fast!

is this new french lady the one behind everything?

THE WHISPERS ARE MOIARTY OH FRICK

lockie be like ‘oh god...’ i’d be the same way if my mortal enemy was behind the case

why is john talking about strawberry jam with lestrade

oh it’s blood?

cool lifejackets :D

a wild sherlock appears!

is memory stick british slang for usb or just a holmes bro quirk because sherlock said it too

sherlock just broke into someone’s flat lol

and their last name is harrison... george much? ;)

so harrison stole the memory stick and gollem put in the bomb, moiarty hiring them both and having creepy people call sherlock and kill the tv lady, the guard at the gallery with the nova painting and maybe the shoe kid? is that how all this is connected?

john: “i’m not the world’s only consulting detective” aww he considers himself one too instead of just an assistant! :D

HOLD UP there’s a pool... is this the infamous tackle scene from the sarah z tjlc vid?

john is wearing a big coat hmm...

this is the pool where the kid died CONNECTION!!!!

oh no is this the calling guy

why does he sound like a silly american

YO he’s an american pulling off a brit accent

MOIARTYYYYY

moiarty: “jim moiarty! hiiii!!!” lol :D

plz shoot him sherlock this guy sounds so stupid

DID SHERLOCK JUST CALL HIM ‘DEAR JIM’??

the near fake kiss in that one ep makes sense now

moiarty in a sing-songy voice: “daddy’s had enough nowww!!!!’ DADDY WHAT

moiarty said gay :o

he just called sherlock ‘johnny boy’ why

AND HE SAID ‘borr-ing!!!’ OMG MOIARTY WHYYYY

i already hate moiarty so much but his lines are so funny what a villian!

sherlock: “what if i were to shoot you right now?” please do lockie

sherlock: “catch... you... later.” moiarty: “no you won’t!!! :D”

sherlock took off the jacket was that the scene?

john: “you ripping off my clothes in a darkened swimming pool...” THAT’S THE SCENE OMG JOHNLOCKERS ARE SQUEEING!!!!

omg moiarty’s back how stupid

SHOOT HIM LOCKIE PLZ

the music is intensifying...

LOCKIEEEEEEE......

and it ended!! i’m guessing sherlock doesn’t shoot moiarty which is a bummer but hey at least we’ll get more lols next season with them! :D

this was a great season finale! the beginning was wild and it got crazier from there. this is my least fave ep so far, but i still really liked it for how insane it was (and that kitty/moiarty lols!). it took 4 years to reach the end of s1, but it was well worth the wait! :D

[withinthescripts]

Season 2, Cassette 3: El Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (1974)

[tape recorder turns on]

Welcome to El Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in Lima. My name is Caty Velasquez, and I am the curator of our current exhibition, “Cityscapes in Modern Art”. We have collected work from a range from all over the world, with help from several of our partner galleries. Included in the collection are three pieces by Claudia Atieno, including one on loan from the private collection of Atieno’s close personal friend and artistic contemporary, Roimata Mangakāhia. We are grateful for Roimata’s contribution to this collection, which she makes in addition to giving us insight into Atieno’s featured works on this audio guide. We are honored to have Mangakāhia’s insight into the once famous, now mysterious Atieno, who has been missing for over two years. The controversy over her disappearance has generated speculation, ranging from the plausible to the conspiratorial. The opinions expressed in this audio guide are those of the narrator alone.

You can find the works discussed here on the east wall of Room 2. For tapes discussing the other work included in this exhibition, please see the front desk.

[bell chimes]

It is impossible to discuss Claudia Atieno’s cityscapes without discussing her politics. Which is difficult, as she herself never discusses them with anyone. There is little ground for speculation about what her politics are, or what they were perhaps. The most we have to go on is her art. And she contradicts herself there frequently.

It’s possible to argue that her near constant rudeness to any government officials demonstrates feelings of antagonism, or even opposition to the society. But I’m not sure. It is true she was often rude. But this could as much be because of frustrations with bureaucracy as secret thoughts of rebellion.

Atieno sketches cities frequently. It’s possible that the ideas expressed in these three paintings were often on her mind. But she rarely committed them to canvas. The cities Atieno chose to explore fully always seemed to be those in a state of transition. It’s possible she’s less interested in cities themselves as she is in change, in adaptation and movement, whether for good or ill.

Of course there have been plenty of alterations and transitions during her lifetime, many more than these three included here. She must have had reasons to depict the three scenes she did. But as she is currently absent from the known world, hopefully not for sinister reasons although some seem to take a strange delight in spreading rumors, it’s up to teach of us to try and decide for what her reasons might have been.

[bell chimes]

One. “A Palace Removed”.

With the removal of nations in 1952, came the removal of the semblance of nations in the years that followed. Flags were destroyed, anthems forgotten, and vast buildings meant as much to give status to governing powers as to serve a practical purpose were demolished. There was preservation, of course, when the buildings in question were seen as having cultural significance outside of their nationalist roles, but often this included the careful moving of the building in question to a more remote area, where its presence would no longer inhibit the development of a more practical, necessary building.

Buckingham Palace, by this time more a symbol than a useful building and taking up valuable mid-city space, was carefully taken apart to be reassembled in Somerset as a museum to the history of former England. This process began in 1959 and took 18 months to complete, and in that time the once grand and revered palace became a shell and was taken away, brick by brick, until it was an empty space. And then a new complex of affordable housing, shops and office spaces was constructed in its place.

Atieno’s painting depicts the palace almost halfway through being dismantled. It is not particularly true to life. Indeed, it is close to full fantasy. Look at the demolition crew, each carrying with graceful ease upwards of half a dozen blocks on their backs. These stone blocks are almost 50 centimeters wide, and nearly as thick. Examine the crew member on the lower left. Their unnaturally wide smile. The sharp angle of their back.

How much can you carry on your back? How much do you smile when you do it?

In addition, the interior of the palace was stripped in the beginning of the process, in order to prevent looting and damage to invaluable artifacts. Atiano, however, recreated the rich décor in the half-undone building. Lash red carpets, stretched across the exposed floors, and lavishly upholstered furniture stands in its place. There are even ornate vases on rare marble pedestals, next to broken walls and wrecking balls.

Notice the shadows across each room. They appear at first to be simply cast by the cranes that surround the building, or by the clouds that scutter along the sky above. But if you look closely, these shadows appear almost humanlike, ghostly figures left behind.

Do you see the ballroom on the right side of the painting? Which monarch’s shadow do you think is represented here? One of the Henrys? [whispering] Victoria herself? Or perhaps it is of the, at the time, still living George the sixth, the last monarch of the Commonwealth, not a ghost at all, but an incorporeal symbol of a new powerless vigor.

It’s possible to interpret this is Atieno’s sympathy for the displaced monarchs, or regret over the loss of national borders and national identity. Many historians mistake Atieno’s criticism of the new society for cultural conservatism. Alphra Bond of the times called “The Palace Removed” [mocking voice] “facetious slander. Atieno wants to preserve history and culture, but not a the cost of progress and peace,” Bond wrote. I have trouble picturing this is as being the case. Claudia had little respect for personal ownership of anything, whether a palace or a paintbrush. Indeed, I often found her to have considered my paint brushes as her won, even when they were propped beside –my- easle, still wet with paint. She saw no sense in anything, if that thing was not going to be shared.

So regretting the loss of a lavish palace inhabited by one family seems to me unlikely for her. Claudia told me a story of inviting Bond to a gathering at her home in Cornwall. When Bond arrived, the entire party was wearing masks and silently staring at her. She tried to start several conversations, but upon realizing the futility of the endeavor, Bond drank a glass of champagne, ate a cucumber sandwich, and left calmly.

I believe that the shadows in this painting represent the future, not the past at all. The people who would find use and life and joy in the space left by the building. The ghostly figures belong to the people who right now [whispering] are living and breathing within the new walls that arose to replace those taken down.

Or of course, it could mean both those things, or neither. It’s possible Claudia simply saw it as an image she liked and adapted it to suit her fancy. Perhaps I shall ask her about it, when she – resurfaces.

[bell chimes] [tape recorder turns off] [ads] [tape recorder turns on]

Two. “The Parade in Paris”.

The wistfulness of a palace removed moves to strange melancholy in “Parade in Paris”. Paris did not look much like a city at all after the Great Reckoning, obviously, as so much of it has been destroyed or repurposed for military use. I am not sure whether the scene depicted in this work ever took place. Or if it did, whether Atieno was actually there or simply heard about it later. I don’t know how soon after the wars it’s meant to be or how far into the implementation of the new society, but perhaps it does not matter.

The scece shows a city broken. It is being rebuilt. There are cranes everywhere, and even one or two completed new buildings. But there is still, at this stage, more loss than renewal. Paris in the midst of the impossible task of civic resurrection. And along the streets, we can see a ramshackle, unofficial parade. Notice that the parade doesn’t have floats or balloons or a marching band, it is simply made up of people walking. Ostensibly, this is about citizens who own nothing, celebrating at the end of the Reckoning. They cannot afford music nor décor, but a parade is simply a momentous movement of people through a town. It is easy to look at the gathering and see the optimistic determination of humankind.

Look at the faces of those in the parade. Are they optimistic? Are you?

But the triumph of humanity is not Atieno’s story here. Look again at the parade. It is made of people, yes, but more specifically what kind of people? Do you see each man and each woman? Do you see their uniforms, their vests? They’re stopping work to march, perhaps it’s a strike. But there’s still plenty of workers doing their jobs. Look closer. Do you see their children? It’s a parade of families. There is no reason for them to be there. They’re not protesting anything, they’re not celebrating anything. Unless they’re simply celebrating their own existence. Unless they’re protesting the hardships contained within it.

Atieno released this painting in 1968, but I believe she painted it much earlier. The painting is full of families, and the families are full of joy. And though they don’t appear to realize it themselves, they’re walking towards a future with no families in them at all.

There are a lot of things Claudia could be saying here, of course. She could be deriding the implementation of a society that ignored the concept of family in the favor of universal peace. She could be acknowledging that there is a joy and unity in the midst of destruction. As it happens, I have a fairly strong opinion about this painting, although it’s not one that I can support particularly well with evidence. I think the painting is a farewell.

Claudia was not made to forget her parents and her siblings, as those of us born a few years later than her were. She has to leave them and relearn what they had taught her. She had to divest herself of that family loyalty and become part of a bigger world. But it turns out loyalty can linger in ways we don’t expect.

I like this painting. This is a painting [whispering] I like.

[bell chimes]

Three. “The Arising”.

Both the London cityscape and the Paris one deal in destruction. Although the view of Paris includes aspects of rebuilding and therefore renewal, they serve more to highlight the remaining destruction and loss that surrounds them.

“The Arising” looks at what was newly created in the changing landscape of society. It shows a street in Kota Tua, Jakarta, probably in the early 1960’s. Atieno visited the former Dutch East Indies with a mutual friends of ours, the artist Cassandra Resa. They traveled extensively together for a time.

The painting is simple at first glance. See how the street, while mostly empty, has been rebuilt from scratch with a specific purpose in mind. Low buildings line the street with an open grassy square about a third of the way down. The buildings are new. The square is carefully planned and cultivated.

Look at the children in it, playing together with hoops and balls. Some of them are reading. Some are sitting on the ground talking. What books are they reading? What are the children talking about?   You know, but you have been made to forget.

The complex depicted in Atieno’s painting set up on the abandoned street in Kota Tua was one of the first collective homes set up. You can see the caretakers dotted around. The children, of course, are all under ten. Once they’re ten, they’ll be set on the path towards adulthood, leaving behind every memory they made in this place.

It is a picture of innocence, but there is a darkness to it. look at the adults around the edge of the park, their backs stiff, arms straight, faces almost without features. Do you feel a sense of tightly wound control?

I only met Cassandra Resa once or twice when Claudia was there. I don’t know if Claudia knew that I’d kept in touch with Cassandra. That I’d even stayed with her once, at her home in Nicosia.

Cassandra has a large studio full of work that the public has never seen. Some of it was unfinished, some of it was barely started. I looked through it once. I don’t know if Cassandra knew that I saw that painting, the one of the street in Kota Tua, Jakarta, with the new buildings, with the square, with the children and caretakers and innocence stained by control. It was her painting. It was different than the one you are looking at now. Notice the children in the public park and the adults standing like prison bars around its perimeter. Cassandra’s painting had none of this ominous political subtext, it was a celebration of rebirth, of a ne world. It was beautiful and inspiring, and I hoped the world would see it some day. But I doubt Cassandra could prove at this point that she painted hers first. I can’t prove that either, but I know. All of us in Claudia’s life knew. In retrospect, I wasn’t surprised to find that painting. Honestly I would have been more surprised not to. I didn’t tell Claudia, I never told Claudia. I didn’t tell Cassandra, either. I don’t know what I thought Claudia would do if I told her what I had seen. Maybe she would have demanded that I acknowledge her painting to be the better of the two, anyway. Maybe she would have pretended not to understand. Maybe she would have – thrown something.

Maybe she’ll object to this if I ever see her again. I suppose I should say –when- I see her again. I’m sure we will have words if I see her again, but Claudia didn’t hold grudges. Doesn’t hold grudges. I’m trying to remember to use present tense. Didn’t hold grudges, doesn’t hold grudges. Uh uh, Claudia is, not was.

Claudia doesn’t hold grudges, but others do. [whispers] Present tense, Roimata. Present tense.

OK yeah, we’re done.

[tape recorder turns off]

Within the Wires is written by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson and performed by Rima Te Wiata, with original music by Mary Epworth. Find more of Mary’s music at maryepworth.com. the voice of Caty Velasques was Anairis Quinones.

And if you haven’t already, go to withinthewires.com and fill out our audience survey. It’s a brief thing and it only helps us with advertisers, it’s a great way for free to support our show.

Within the Wires is a production of Night Vale presents. Check out our other podcasts, like Welcome to Night Vale and Conversations with People who Hate Me, and our newest podcasts starting this month, It Makes a Sound and I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats.

OK, our time is done. It’s your time now. Time to stop by the museum giftshop, grab yourself a souvenir book of paintings about paintings about paintings. Pick up a poster featuring your Mom  and buy a commemorative vase made out of weird Twitter jokes.

-- Hey, thanks for listening to episode 3 of Within the Wires. Stay tuned right now of the pilot episode of Night Vale Presents’ newest fiction podcasts, It Makes a Sound, by Jacquelyn Landgraf. You can subscribe at Apple podcast, or wherever it is you get your podcasts.

You can read the transcript at https://itmakesasoundtranscripts.tumblr.com/post/165879604217/episode-1-are-you-listening

[vodkastinger]

I started working for W when it was still a fold-out newspaper format, so I’d been working a lot with Dennis Freedman and James Reginato, the creative director and the features director at the time, respectively. The three of us took a shuttle from New York down to Washington, D.C. one day in July of 1993 when we got the sitting appointment with Hillary. I’d never been to the White House before, and of course I was nervous — I was very, very, very nervous. And I was very rushed: I probably had about 10 minutes with her, which was a bit stressful because I don’t think we were even told in advance we’d get such a short window. They’d set up the situation so that she’d be on the South Portico, which was set for a kind of tea party scenario with café tables and little flower arrangements and gold bamboo party chairs. I think that this shoot was an effort to soften her image a bit, because until that time the First Lady was not politically active, and President Clinton had appointed her to become Chair of the Task Force on National Health Care Reform. That did not sit well with a lot of the political establishment in Washington, even though she already had a deep history of public service.

Still, I think she was a little uncomfortable about being photographed. It’s not one of her favorite things to do, but she understands it. I’ve taken some very elegant portraits of her over the years, even though you can always tell she just wants to push up her sleeves and get to work. And with that first portrait, taken on the afternoon of the Clintons’ very first formal dinner, they were trying to give the impression that she was going to be an entertaining, cookie-baking, housewife-y First Lady, though of course that wasn’t the case. I think it was maybe one of the last times she wore a skirt instead of a pantsuit. Her style, of course, became one of the most famously covered parts of the Clinton administration; her hairstyles also always made the news. In the private rooms of the White House, there was a hair salon with a framed poster of 50 or 100 of her hairstyles — Hillary definitely has a sense of humor about herself.

In early ‘99, I got a phone call out of the blue from Philippa Polskin, an art PR consultant who’d done some work on Hillary’s cultural projects. She said, “Darling, I’d like to know if you’re interested in some pro bono work.” And I said, “Well, I took Latin in high school, and I don’t think so.” She said, “No no no, it’s going to be a very interesting project, but I need your portfolio, and I can’t tell you what the project is.” So we played this funny guessing game, and I asked a number of questions — including if it would be photographing a house, to which she said, “I won’t say it wouldn’t be.” And I asked, “Is the address possibly 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?” And she said, “I won’t say it isn’t.” So she got my portfolio and FedExed it down there, which of course included the portrait I’d taken in ‘93. Hillary, apparently, really liked it, and remembered our 10 minutes together. I guess I made her feel comfortable.

After that, I flew down to Washington with Philippa, and I ended up living on and off with the Clintons for a few days at a time for a number of months during 1999 and 2000, the last of their administration. They wanted me to photograph the rooms in the White House for posterity, which apparently no President in history had ever commissioned before. The White House photographers, of course, had photographed some of the rooms, but they didn’t have the proper equipment or even use tripods. Hillary, though, was very involved working with J. Carter Brown, the director of the U.S. National Gallery of Art, to do authentic, historical restorations of the wallpapers, carpets, drapes, and furniture. I think since Jackie Kennedy’s efforts, not much had been done to the White House, even though the state rooms had become kind of sad and shabby. She and J. Carter Brown also realized that not a single woman or black artist was represented in the official White House art collection, so they fixed that, somehow acquiring a Georgia O’Keeffe and a 19th-century artist named Henry O. Tanner. And she also brought a lot of sculptural work to the Rose Garden over time, mostly on loan from the Cantor collection — but none of this was really promoted. Even though Hillary had a very involved role in bringing culture and art to the White House, it wasn’t greatly talked about.

I didn’t see her very much when I was there, though I lived on the floor above her, in a room called the “Prince’s Suite.” It had a bed frame that was abnormally high — about four feet up the ground — that turned out to be from Lincoln’s era. I did the pictures more on my own, and with Kaki Hockersmith, the decorator. We’d go out to dinner every night because working in the White House all day starts to feel a bit like living in a fishbowl, and when we’d come back to the White House, almost every night the President and First Lady Clinton would be playing a game of Boggle with some friends on the third floor, so we’d come and hang out. I saw her mostly at night.

The night before President Clinton boarded his last official Air Force One flight, to Little Rock, Arkansas, for a homecoming, I got a call asking me to accompany him. I went on Air Force One with the President, and it was very weird, the sensation of taking off sideways. But the most extraordinary memory was the night before, when I wanted to have a cigarette. Because the Clintons were the first Presidents to ban smoking in the White House, Kaki suggested we go to the Truman Balcony. We crept down the stairs from the third to the second floor, which is the President’s private floor, and I swear to god, Bill was standing there, probably right before midnight, in his khakis and golf shirt with a cigar. I’d just met him hours ago, but he said, “Hey Todd, have you seen the Treaty Room yet?” He gave me an hourlong tour of his private sanctuary, in which he’d curated every single object from the inventory of objects and books and paintings and furniture that belonged there over time. Apparently Presidents used to take chandeliers and anything they could get their hands on when they would leave, but Jackie Kennedy had a law established that the Presidents couldn’t take things when they moved out, to preserve it for the people. So they now have these enormous warehouses containing things a President might want — even Washington’s mess pail as his wastebasket.

Clinton was probably the most informed person about presidential history, or perhaps obsessed is more accurate. I think he’d read something like 800 presidential biographies. So he had a very specific reason for bringing in all the specific things that he had there, and it was so extraordinary how he’d personally selected each and every painting and object for their historical details that were meaningful to him. He pointed to a picture of Ben Franklin hanging on the wall behind the desk and told me this crazy story about how it’d gone missing for 150 years until it was found in Canada and returned to the White House. And under that was a photo of a Native American, and he turned to me and said, “Todd, you’re a photographer, you know [Edward S.] Curtis!” It was as if he’d known me — the level of his charm and focus on a person was like all the lights went out and the spotlight came on you. And there were other things in there, too, like a collaged box of golf stuff above the mantle he told me was a gift from Barbra Streisand. There was also a stereo behind the desk he pointed to and said, in his honey-dripped Southern cadence, “See that? That’s called a Bang & Olufsen. The Queen of Denmark gave that to me. You turn that up, it fills the whole house up with sound.” It was as if I’d never seen a Bang & Olufsen. It was very sweet.

Looking back, it was really an extraordinary assignment, especially because there were so many unexpected moments. I was actually sitting in the President’s kitchen the night that Al Gore gave his concession speech to George W. Bush in the Old Executive building, so I was literally looking down and watching the same thing out the window as I was seeing on the TV. And the Clintons very nicely invited my boyfriend Richard Pandiscio to the Millennium Gala dinner at the White House as a thank you.

For me, it was the best project ever. I’m hoping to have the opportunity again.

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