#he better have a cute little home in Oxfordshire

[phitstop]

GUYS BRITISH CARLOS SZN HAS RETURNED

[yikeswtfmate]

Strange Times || Ch. 1

main masterlist // Strange Times Series Masterlist // next part

Summary: Mickey Pearson sends Raymond to fetch his sister from the airport. He’s never met this woman, but he soon finds out she likes to play with her food first.

Pairing: Raymond (Charlie Hunnam - The Gentlemen, 2020) x Reader

Warnings: swearing; sexual themes; mentions of violence

A/N: Here it is my lovelies, the fic i’ve been telling you about with Charlie Hunnam’s character whom i fell in love with (it’s the beard....and the glasses....and the hair....and the suits......and the whole righthand to a drug lord thing maybe?). I’m still unsure about posting it here because it’s a different type of Reader that i’m used to write (maybe i’ll just switch her to an OC) and it’s not Bonky. So please let me know what you think and whether i should post the next parts as well (it’s already 5k long) but if you don’t like it, this is a “felt cute might delete later” type of situation so no harm no foul. And for those of you who haven’t seen the movie yet, slight spoliers ahead!

The office is quiet, save for the scratching of a pen on paper and the ticking of a clock that is starting to irritate Raymond to no end. He’s been meaning to either throw it out or switch it with the one that is in the living room, but he knows how his boss would not appreciate the disposal of a five thousand pound clock plated in gold. Raymond personally thinks it’s tacky, but it’s Mickey’s house after all, and he should be concentrating on sorting out the logistics for that shipment that’s supposed to go out to Italy anyway. He turns back to his laptop, intent on fulfilling his responsibilities for the day, when Mickey stops writing behind him and clears his throat, demanding his attention.

“Raymond, I need you to go to the airport tomorrow.”

Ray stands up from his chair at the desk and moves to the table in the middle of the receiving room. He’s learned all of Mickey’s tells during the ten years he’s been his righthand man, and when he stops sorting out his agenda to pour himself a cup of tea, Ray knows he needs to stand to attention.

“Any reason in particular?”

“I need you to pick up my sister and bring her to the estate.”

“Your sister?” Ray is utterly confused, mainly for the fact that this would be the very first time he’ll be meeting this woman.

He was aware that Mickey had a sister back in the States, but even though he knows every aspect of Mickey’s life inside and out, this elusive woman is his boss’ best kept secret. He’s unsure whether it’s just brotherly protectiveness, pure paranoia at the prospect of their enemies finding out there’s still another weak link next to Rosalind, or it’s simply the fact that Mickey doesn’t want to talk about his family back home.

He’s heard she’s been studying for a degree in business at Wharton, but he doesn’t know what to expect, for all the odd comments Mickey and Rosalind make about her when they think he’s not listening. One thing he’s completely certain of, however, is how much Mickey looks after her, considering the sizeable amounts of money that are going into her bank account every month.

Mickey raises an eyebrow over his teacup. “I don’t see why you’re acting as if you didn’t know I have a goddamn sister, Ray.”

Raymond shrugs, deciding that it’s best if he won’t tick off his boss at the moment. He’s been on edge ever since the whole debacle with Matthew Berger and Fletcher went down. Mickey’s decided to hold off his retirement plans until someone comes along with a better offer (preferably none of Lord George’s minions though), so he hasn’t only been stressed about maintaining the value of the goods, but also pissed off that he couldn’t just drink whiskey unperturbed all day in a countryside manor.

“I’ve sent you all the details you need. Don’t be late, I don’t want her left unsupervised for too long.”

Raymond nods, eager to go back to his laptop. It’s time for homework, and there’s nothing he love more than information.

“And Ray?” He turns back to Mickey, but the man’s just looking out the window, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Be careful.”

“Of course, boss. I’ll treat her like a princess.”

“It’s not her I’m worried about, you moron.” He says with a frown. “I meant you. She likes to play with her food first.”

*

The private jet should be a surprise, but when you’re in the line of business Raymond is in, he’s practically seen it all. The charcoal trench coat he’s wearing today is flapping in the whirl of wind so it’s a good thing he foregone the machine gun in favour of an inconspicuous handgun. He’s almost certain nothing would come up on their way from Heathrow to Oxfordshire, but he made sure David fully stocked the car before they left, just in case.

He’s waiting patiently in front of the car, lighting a cigarette, while he watches the airport’s employees fuss around the plane. The airstair is released and Ray stands up from leaning against the car. The smoke that he exhales blind him for a second, but he still needs to blink three more times to assure himself he’s not fucking hallucinating when a woman that he can only assume is Y/N Pearson steps off the plane. She drags a hand through her long curls, moving her head from side to side in what must only be slow motion. Her heels click on the pavement as she makes her way towards him, and Raymond smiles involuntarily.

“I see the money’s been treating you well, Raymond. Although I have to admit, I kind of miss the long hair.” She says before Ray can utter a word. She places a manicured finger under his chin, closing his mouth, kissing his cheek with a smack. “You don’t remember me, do you?” Her eyes are patient, as if exhausted after explaining a child the same exact thing for the past hour. “We’ve met fourteen years ago, when Mickey expanded the business to five farms. You were only an errand boy then, remember? Granted, I was only fourteen at that time, a gangly little thing with braces, of course you don’t remember me.”

Raymond’s mind flashes to a vague memory of a girl in a sequinted t-shirt, a choker that could only be worn with so much seriousness by a teenager, and boots with fur, mated in English mud. She blushed to the roots of her hair when he asked her if she knew by any chance where Mr Pearson was, having to deliver a parcel to him personally. She just pointed with a black fingernail towards her left and squeaked something unintelligible before ducking her head and running in the other direction.

“Ah, there he goes.” She sing-songs as she watches his eyes shift in recognition all over her, but there’s nothing left of her teenage self, having grown into her body, comfortable in her skin, confidence built up with precision and care, together with an appropriate, if rather extravagant fashion sense.

“I can’t believe how much you’ve grown.” He says, realising that he sounds like a cliché when she rolls her eyes.

“Right, that’s what happens in life, honey. Can we please go? We can exchange pleasantries in the car, this wind is ruining my hair.”

Raymond keeps the door open for her, nodding to David who just finished loading the trunk with her luggage and he hops in the backseat next to her.

“I hope we’re stopping for lunch on our way.” She warns. “I’m starving and I couldn’t eat anything since I woke up because of those stupid turbulences.”

“Mickey is expecting us to be there in an hour.” He responds cautiously.

“Mickey can go fuck himself. I want a pizza and I haven’t been to Zizzi in a long time, so you better take me there, Raymond, or I’ll just ask David to kindly move to the passenger seat.”

The man in question looks at Ray in the rear view mirror, awaiting instructions. Ray sighs and nods once again, now starting to realise why his boss felt the need to warn him in regard to his sister. He hopes he won’t have to deal with her for long after she’s safely delivered to Mickey, because for all her beauty, she’s starting to piss him off.

“Oh, don’t look so glum.” She chides, after a few minutes of him plainly ignoring her. “I’m good company, I promise. I’m just cranky because I’m hungry. I’m hangry, Ray. I just need you to feed me.” She flutters her eyelashes, and she rests her hand on his thigh, purposefully ticking him off.

Ray shifts in his seat, trying to put as much distance between them, to which she just scoffs and rolls her eyes. This woman is dangerous, and for all his sinful thoughts that have been going through his mind ever since he laid eyes on her, Ray has to remind himself that this is his boss’ little sister, little as in eleven years younger for fuck’s sake. He’s positively sure that if he even lays a finger on her, his balls would be cut off and fed to the hunting dogs.

They finally stop after a short silent trip, and he helps Y/N into the fairy lit restaurant, leaving David posted in front of the car. He hopes there will be no more trouble like last time, having had his share of adventures for the goddamn decade.

Holding a chair for her, Ray waits for Y/N to take off her coat, and now he suddenly feels the need to swallow hard, as he rakes his eyes over her body. She’s wearing a leather skirt that is too tight to possibly be comfortable, but long enough to almost meet her knee high boots; her sweater is thick, appropriate for the cold January weather in the south of England, yet Raymond can’t help but wonder if her nipples are as perfect as her lips. Speaking of which, they curl up in a patient yet satisfied smile, a raised eyebrow that wants to show him she’s merely allowing him to inspect her so blatantly.

After she orders her pizza and Ray asks for a glass of water, clearly showing his disapproval for this unexpected stop. He can feel a nudge on his shin and she smiles at him in a way that he can only describe as charitable.

“You know, I’ve had the biggest crush on you back then.” She says and Ray chokes on his water. “It’s true. You were this tall rugged man with long hair that I wouldn’t have known what to do with then, but would definitely know how to handle now.” She smirks, while Ray raises an eyebrow, silently asking her to stop talking. Mainly because his imagination is starting to go haywire. “The beard suits you. But I kept thinking about licking your jaw all the way here so it’s a shame really that I can’t now. Those were some long 8 hours, Ray, I had to occupy myself somehow.”

“Y/N, you should really stop talking.” Ray would give himself a pat on the back for all the restraint he’s showing at the moment. There’s nothing he would like more than to shove her in one of the bathroom stalls and have his way with her, and by the look in her eyes, she knows exactly what he’s thinking so she’s relentless.

“Why? Afraid Mickey would disapprove? I thought you were a big boy, Ray, who doesn’t have to ask permission.”

“It’s not about permission, and we both know it. Your brother would literally kill me if…”

His words are cut short by the waiter who’s bringing Y/N her food and brazenly ogles her down. Ray can feel his hands involuntarily clench into fists, his jaw set at the man who would not just fucking go and keeps offering her pepper, sauce, or his fucking cock for that matter, because it’s so fucking obvious that’s what he’d actually want to say. Y/N just smiles sweetly, humouring his clumsy flirting, and Ray is more than certain that she’s starting to form a habit of doing things just to piss him off. When she touches the waiter’s forearm, he growls lowly, directing their attention to him. She feigns surprise, but he can read her amusement, while the waiter seems to decide whether to apologise or take his chances and go off. Ray knows that his glasses might put people at ease, making him look approachable, friendly, easy-going at first, but he’s perfected the frown and posture to go with it that puts people immediately in their places. Not to mention that spending over a decade in the business would shape anyone in a ruthless brute if need arises.

“My girlfriend here would like to enjoy her food now, thank you. She doesn’t need anything else, mate, you can go.”

The waiter finally scampers off, and Ray knows he’ll regret saying anything before he turns back to Y/N. She’s smirking like a bloody Cheshire cat if he’s ever seen anyone actually doing it, satisfied beyond belief.

“Don’t.” He warns when she opens her mouth to make a smartass remark, but she raises her hands in surrender and proceeds to eat.

Another battle of restraint and patience, as this woman eats as if she’s in a bloody porn movie, and who the fuck can eat pizza seductively anyway, for fuck’s sake. Raymond takes a deep breath, fishing his phone out of his coat pocket and calls his boss, doing his best to ignore the moans, the finger sucking and the swirling tongue in front of him.

“Hey, boss. Got Y/N from the airport, we’ll just be a bit late.”

“She wanted to eat, didn’t she?” Mickey asks and Ray can hear the exasperation in his voice. Apparently his boss is well aware of his sister’s antics, but it would’ve been better if Raymond were better prepared for the full force of what this woman can get out of him in a short half an hour.

“Tell him to suck a bag of tiny dicks, I don’t need his judgment.” Y/N says between licking a side of her finger and plucking an olive off her slice.

“We’re in Uxbridge, hopefully we’ll be there in an hour or so.” Raymond notifies, choosing to ignore her again.

“Fine. Just…make sure she stays out of trouble. It can stick to her like a fly to shit.” And with that Mickey disconnects the call.

Raymond sighs and puts his phone back. There is an uneasy feeling flowing through him, his instinct telling him to run away in the other direction, to avoid interacting with Y/N at all cost until her return to the States, but there’s another part of him, more primal, more carnal that is drawn to her. He hates it, mainly because there is no logical reasoning behind it, and he’s a very cerebral person, and he can’t figure her out for the life of him. Maybe it’s just the fact that she’s probably the first woman to act like that with him, as if she doesn’t care about the consequences, doesn’t give a toss whether he’ll bite or not. She likes to play with her food first, were Mickey’s words, which make so much more sense now.

Raymond can’t put his finger on it, and although he can have his pick of women anywhere he’d step foot in – he is very much aware of how handsome he is, thank you very much –  there is something about Y/N that demands to be unlocked. Or maybe it’s just that her tits look really great in that sweater and it’s the whole “forbidden fruit” bullshit. Regardless, Ray just wants to drop her off and go back to London where he can drown himself in work so he can forget about her. Or maybe have a night out, pick someone at a bar and pretend it’s her, because he’s absolutely certain by this point that it’s just the novelty of Y/N that lures him in, and definitely not those eyes full of mischief.

***

Taglist: I haven’t tagged anyone in this, as I’m unsure whether you want to read something that’s not Bucky related. Let me know if you do! Toodles!

[almostafantasia]

Lancelot (14/14) - Epilogue

Lexa Woods, an impeccably dressed British secret agent for the covert Kingsman organisation, whose latest mission sees her sneaking through the corridors of the White House in the middle of the night, finds herself having to seduce the daughter of the newly elected President of the United States in a bid to save the world. It’s a surprise to Lexa when she ends up falling for her target as fast as she does, meanwhile Clarke doesn’t expect her gorgeous date for an international political gala dinner to drag her into a world of thrill and danger where one wrong move could cause a global disaster.

a clexa kingsman au | chapter 14/14 read on ao3

EPILOGUE

“Space!”

Lexa slams on the brake at Aden’s outcry, a move so sudden that it would perhaps propel them both out of their seats and through the windscreen of her car if they weren’t crawling around a busy car park at walking pace looking for somewhere to park.

“Aden, you can’t tell me there’s a space after I’ve already driven past it,” sighs Lexa.

“Yeah, well I didn’t bloody see it until after you’d driven past it,” complains Aden, folding his arms across his chest as he slumps back into the passenger seat in a teenage sulk.

Finding a parking space at Heathrow Airport, it turns out, is actually harder than trying to figure out and put a stop to a nefarious global plot masterminded by a bitter and power hungry old woman. Lexa would much rather face down the former Azgedan royal family once again than to have to spend any longer driving in circles around the car park getting directions from a grumpy thirteen year old who seems to think he could do a better job at finding a space.

“I tell you what, Aden,” says Lexa, her voice laced with sarcasm. “Why don’t you drive next time?”

“I wish,” replies Aden, taking his phone out of his pocket and tapping away at the screen. “We would have been here like twenty minutes ago if I’d been driving. You drive like a grandma.”

“Oh, piss off.”

Aden glances up at Lexa, eyebrows raised, “I’m telling the dads you swore at me.”

“Do it, I dare you,” Lexa challenges him.

Aden falls silent and Lexa knows that she’s won. There are advantages to being the oldest child, and one of Lexa’s favourites is that ever since she’s moved out, she gets away with a lot more than she used to. At twenty two, she’s hardly going to get grounded for swearing. The same, however, cannot be said for Aden.

“Space!”

Aden’s outstretched finger points dead ahead, where another car is reversing out of a parking space. Spotting another driver eyeing up the same space, Lexa accelerates forward and swings into the empty bay almost as soon as the previous occupant has left it, then cuts the engine.

“Finally,” grumbled Aden, opening the passenger door and manoeuvring his lanky limbs out of the car, before leaning against the side of Lexa’s car, his phone still in his hand.

“Come on,” Lexa calls out to him, as she climbs out of the driver’s side and starts looking around the car park for signs to the lift. “Clarke’s plane touched down ten minutes ago. We really should get moving.”

Aden looks up from his phone and starts following Lexa.

“Oh, so now you’re in a hurry?” he snorts, though he stays close behind as Lexa speedwalks across the carpark to the lift that will take them down to the arrivals hall.

Lexa presses the button to call the lift, then takes her own phone out of her pocket. There’s a text from Clarke announcing that she’s landed and is making her way through customs, and Lexa’s heart starts fluttering in her chest with the knowledge that Clarke is so close. It’s been three months since they saw each other and Lexa has been counting down the days until their reunion since her own flight back to England from Washington D.C.

Lexa doesn’t realise that the lift has arrived until Aden gives her a nudge with his elbow.

“I thought you were in a hurry,” he teases her, eyes flickering down to the phone in Lexa’s hand.

“Shut up or I’ll just leave you at the airport instead of taking you back home.”

Lexa sees Clarke straight away, as if her eyes are magnetically drawn to Clarke as soon as she emerges from around the corner. Lexa’s heart starts doing somersaults the very moment she sees Clarke, who squints and scans the crowd waiting at the arrivals gate. Clarke’s features relax as soon as she finds Lexa’s face, and she speeds up into a faster walk, weaving in and out of the other passengers with her suitcase trailing behind her as she races to get to Lexa as fast as she can.

Clarke lets go of her suitcase as soon as she’s close enough to touch Lexa, which is exactly what she does, flinging her arms around Lexa’s neck and wrapping her legs around Lexa’s waist. Lexa staggers back a couple of steps under the weight as Clarke jumps into her arms, putting a hand under each of Clarke’s legs to support her, and buries her face into Clarke’s neck so that she can inhale Clarke’s scent.

“God, I missed you so much,” Clarke half sobs. “Come here, I want to kiss you.”

Lexa lifts her face from Clarke’s neck and lets Clarke place a hand on either side of her head as she swoops down for a kiss. Clarke’s lips are softer than Lexa remembers, yet more insistent too, kissing Lexa with an urgency that seems far too indecent for such a public place.

Not that Lexa is bothered by that. It’s been nearly three months since she last saw Clarke back in D.C. at the end of her mission in the States. Nearly three months of having to make do with texts and phone calls at strange hours that never seem quite long enough. Nearly three months of only seeing Clarke’s face through a grainy webcam or in the photo of the two of them that Lexa has set as her phone wallpaper. Nearly three months of daydreaming about Clarke at every possible moment, and of having wildly inappropriate dreams about Clarke at night, and of crying out Clarke’s name into the darkness of her empty bedroom in the dead of night as she touches herself over and over again.

Nearly three months without touching Clarke. And now that Lexa has Clarke in her arms, she wants to whisk her away somewhere secluded and only stop touching Clarke when both of them are too exhausted to be able to keep going.

Except that she can’t, because they’re in public, and Lexa’s thirteen year-old brother is right there next to them.

“Gross!” exclaims Aden. “I didn’t come here to watch you two get off with each other.”

Lexa reluctantly pulls back from their kiss and Clarke untangles her legs from around Lexa’s waist so that Lexa can lower her to the ground again.

“Why did you even come here?” Lexa asks Aden, her hand grappling for Clarke’s and knotting their fingers together. “You’ve done nothing but complain so far.”

“Because I wasn’t sure if I should believe you when you said you had a girlfriend, and I definitely thought you were lying about her being Clarke Griffin.”

“Hi,” says Clarke, greeting Aden with a smile. “You must be Aden.”

Aden stops bickering with Lexa as soon as Clarke addresses him, wide-eyed and apparently speechless now that she’s looking at him. His gaze drops, ogling the low ‘v’ of the loose t-shirt Clarke travelled in without even a trace of subtlety.

“Her eyes are up here, pervert,” says Lexa, giving Aden a prod with one of her fingers.

“Sorry,” mumbles Aden, glancing away as a pink flush of embarrassment glows on his cheeks.

“No need to say sorry,” says Clarke. “I think it’s cute.”

Aden’s head snaps up and a slow, almost dumbstruck smile spreads across his face.

“She thinks I’m cute,” he says breathlessly. “Clarke Griffin thinks I’m cute.”

“Okay, stud,” says Lexa, rolling her eyes. “She’s just saying that to be nice.”

“Oh, are you getting jealous?” teases Clarke, her fingers squeezing Lexa’s reassuringly. “You’re pretty cute too, you know.”

Lexa smiles bashfully, then says, “Right back at you.”

“Guys, I’m right here!” complains Aden, startling them both to attention before they can even think about leaning in for another kiss.

“Aden, make yourself useful and grab Clarke’s suitcase,” Lexa instructs her little brother. She turns to Clarke and presses a tender kiss to Clarke’s cheek, then whispers, “Let’s get you home.”

“I’m terrified,” admits Lexa.

Parked on the driveway of Lexa’s family home in rural Oxfordshire, they sit in the two front seats of Lexa’s car, neither one making any move to get out.

“You’re terrified?” Clarke asks surprisedly. “I’m the one meeting your parents.”

“Yeah, my parents,” explains Lexa, reaching across the central console to rest her hand over Clarke’s. “I’ve never brought somebody home to meet them before. What if they completely embarrass me and scare you away? Oh my god, what if Maxwell doesn’t like you?”

“Your dog? Is that … is that likely?”

Clarke completely forgets that they aren’t the only two in the car until Aden speaks up from the back seat.

“Can you two, like, have your gay panic after you’ve let me get out?” he complains, tapping Lexa on the shoulder from behind. “Also, Maxwell likes anybody who gives him treats and belly rubs.”

Lexa opens the door on the driver’s side of the car and steps out, pulling the switch that tilts her seat forward far enough for Aden to be able to awkwardly maneuver his long limbs through the gap and out of the car. Getting out of her own side of the car, Clarke shuts the door behind her and moves round towards the trunk to fetch her suitcase.

“Okay,” she says, as Lexa pops open the trunk and reaches inside to haul out Clarke’s bags, “so treats and belly rubs for Maxwell. Any tricks for winning over your dads?”

“Just be yourself,” says Lexa, placing Clarke’s suitcase down on the gravel driveway with a gentle thud, before she seeks out Clarke’s waist with both of her hands and pulls her in close. “If I like you, then they’ll like you too.”

“Do you like me?” Clarke asks coyly, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from Lexa’s lips anyway.

Lexa’s mouth curls up into a shy smile, and she answers, “A little.”

“Only a little?” Clarke mock gasps, pretending to be offended.

“Okay, a lot,” concedes Lexa, pulling Clarke in tighter, as if afraid that she might run away. “Let me show you how much.”

Clarke leans in and meets Lexa halfway, only too happy after months apart to spend as much time as she can kissing those beautiful lips. She drapes both arms around Lexa’s neck and lets herself fall into the kiss. There aren’t the words to explain how much Clarke has missed Lexa, missed this, while they’ve been apart, but they have the next three weeks in England to make up for all that lost time.

Starting right now. Clarke pulls Lexa impossibly closer and briefly wonders if it would be wildly inappropriate to push Lexa against her car to make out with her properly.

Clarke doesn’t get the chance to make that decision because they’re interrupted by an amused voice calling out from the direction of the house.

“Hey, Peanut! Do we not get to meet your girlfriend before you kiss her on our drive?”

As Clarke detaches her lips from Lexa’s, though she keeps her arms draped loosely around Lexa’s shoulders, her heart does a nervous little flip at the word ‘girlfriend’. It’s not that they aren’t together - or at least as together as two people can be when there’s an ocean and a five hour time difference between them - but that they haven’t yet had that conversation. It’s much easier to let the ‘I miss you’s devolve into steamy bouts of phone sex than to try and have a real conversation about putting labels on a relationship that sometimes feels like it must be too good to be true.

Now doesn’t seem like the right time for that conversation either. Not when there are two dads waiting to meet Clarke and an impatient thirteen year-old lurking on the other side of the car. So Clarke chooses to deflect things away from the word ‘girlfriend’ and onto another word that whichever one of Lexa’s dads heckled them from the front door decided to use.

“Peanut?”

“So embarrassing,” whines Lexa, a pretty pink flush decorating her cheeks.

“It’s cute,” counters Clarke, before she asks, “Are you going to introduce me?”

Lexa nods and disentangles herself from Clarke’s embrace, reaching for one of Clarke’s hands before she starts leading Clarke around the car and towards the front door.

Lexa’s family live in adorably quaint cottage that looks like it’s stepped right off a postcard. Clarke didn’t realise that homes like this actually existed - a rustic stone exterior, vines creeping up the sides of the house and curling around windows and drainpipes, with a lush green garden that seems to be sprouting every flower that could possibly exist. It’s so far removed from Clarke’s own life, from both the bustling college campus where she spends most of her time and the high fences and armed security guards of the White House, but it’s so incredibly British and Clarke loves it.

Clarke nearly trips over her own feet when she sees the two men standing in the front door, awaiting her arrival. Because the house may not have been what she expected, but it still makes sense, whereas Lexa’s dads are the absolute opposite of what she ever imagined they might be.

They’re both huge, is Clarke’s first impression. Two veritable giants of men, with hulking figures and thick tattooed arms and some very impressive facial hair, and it all has Clarke thinking that they could both have just stepped off a Viking longboat, if it were not for their complexions that are too dark to be Scandinavian.

“Clarke,” says one of the dads. “Come on in and make yourself at home, pet.”

“This is my Pops, Nyko,” says Lexa, gesturing to the man who has just spoken, then turns to the other of her dads. “And this is Gustus - or Dad.”

“It’s so nice to meet you both,” says Clarke, offering out her hand.

“We don’t do that here,” says Gustus. “You’re part of the family, come and have a hug.”

Clarke finds herself being swallowed up in a hug, with two pair of muscular arms wrapped around both herself and Lexa. The dads hold them both for a few seconds and it’s a little weird to be embraced by two men that she hardly knows, but she knows that it’s with good intentions and she does immediately feel like she’s welcome in their home.

As they drop their arms and release the two girls from the hug, Aden drags Clarke’s suitcase up to the front door and hauls it up the steps and over the threshold into the house.

“There you go, Clarke,” he says brightly.

“Thanks, Aden.”

Both dads look surprisedly between Aden and the girls, but it’s Nyko who addresses Lexa.

“Did you leave your brother at the airport and bring home somebody else’s thirteen year-old?” he asks.

“He’s got a schoolboy crush on Clarke,” explains Lexa.

“Bore off!” growls Aden.

“And there he is!” grins Nyko.

Nyko reaches out and ruffles Aden’s hair, and Aden ducks out of the way with an incoherent grumble, lifting his hands to fix his hair. His cheeks are pink, and Clarke can’t help but smile to herself as she is immediately reminded of Lexa, and the flush that rises to her cheeks when Clarke catches her off guard with a compliment or a flirtatious comment. It amuses Clarke that she seems to have had both Woods siblings wrapped around her little finger within moments of meeting them, but she finds it nothing more or less than plain sweet that Aden has a soft spot for her.

“Come in, girls,” says Gustus, stepping aside so that they can enter the cottage.

They’re immediately greeted by another member of Lexa’s family. A dark mass comes bounding down the hallway, which Clarke quickly realises is Lexa’s dog Maxwell, and he jumps up in front of Lexa, barking excitedly.

“Whoa!” says Lexa. “Steady, Max. Down, boy.”

Maxwell stops trying to jump up, but he still runs back and forth in front of Lexa, tail wagging with excitement.

“Maxwell!” says Lexa, her voice a little sterner. “Sit!”

Maxwell’s ears prick up as soon as he hears his name, and he obediently drops into a seated position, head tilted slightly to the side and tongue hanging out of his mouth as he pants noisily.

“Good boy!”

Lexa drops to her knees and rewards Maxwell with a good scratch behind his ears. He immediately rolls over onto his back, his paws brought up to his neck, exposing his long torso for a rub. Lexa indulges him, using both hands to scratch lovingly at his belly.

Lifting her head to look up at Clarke, Lexa says, “So, this is Max. He’s basically a giant puppy.”

Clarke crouches down beside the German Shepherd and tentatively offers out a hand. Maxwell tilts his head enough to be able to sniff Clarke’s fingers, curious about this new stranger in his home, but he almost immediately relaxes again, resting one of his paws over Clarke’s hand and using it to try and drag her hand onto his stomach, as if Lexa’s two hands treating him to a belly rub just aren’t enough.

“Aww,” says Clarke, gently scratching Maxwell exactly where he wants her to. “He’s very clever.” Clarke softens her voice, and coos, for Maxwell’s benefit, “Such a good boy.”

“He’s very spoilt,” Lexa corrects, with a glance up at her dads, though she continues to smile and reward Maxwell.

“Just look at his eyes,” says Nyko. “How can you say no to those?”

Lexa stands up again, much to Maxwell’s disappointment, and Clarke gives him one final scratch out of sympathy for the whine he gives out before standing too.

“I’m going to show Clarke to my room and get her settled in,” Lexa explains to the rest of the family.

“It’s lovely meeting you, Clarke,” says Gustus. “Give us a shout if there’s anything you need.”

“Thank you so much,” smiles Clarke.

She makes to reach for her suitcase, which Aden has brought into the hallway, but Lexa steps forward and gets there first.

“Let me.”

“How chivalrous of you,” teases Clarke.

In the end it takes both of them to get Clarke’s huge suitcase up the narrow stairs leading to the upper floor of the cottage. Lexa does most of the work, hauling it up by it’s handle, while Clarke stands below and helps guide it around the corner and up onto the landing.

“How much stuff have you brought?” jokes Lexa, dropping the suitcase with a thud when they get to the top of the stairs, before she wheels it across the landing and towards a door with a crooked handmade sign reading Lexa’s room.

“Stop it,” replies Clarke, rolling her eyes playfully. “Do you want me to run out of clothes while I’m here? Wait -” Clarke could kick herself as soon as she realises what she’s just said, especially when Lexa shoots her a suggestive smile, “Don’t answer that.”

Lexa’s bedroom is just as quaint as the rest of the house, if not more so. There’s a slanting ceiling from where the roof meets the house, supported by wooden beams that stretch from one end of the room to the other. The room looks like it belongs to a teenage girl, and Clarke imagines a younger Lexa trying to make her room just perfect. The bedcovers are a soft blue colour, with a string of fairy lights hanging above the bed and a selection of candles littering the top of both the dresser and the corner of the desk under the window. There’s a tall bookshelf in the corner, crammed with so many books that some have had to be piled up in front of the others, too many to fit in neat rows on the shelf.

Clarke’s eyes are immediately drawn to a large photograph that hangs in a frame on the wall. At first, Clarke thinks it’s a photo of Lexa and a young toddler, but then she starts to notice the differences. The woman’s eyes are too light, greyish-blue instead of green, her face is slightly rounder than Lexa’s, her hair a shade lighter, and it’s only when Clarke’s eyes drop to the little girl in the photo and recognises her immediately, that she realises who the woman is.

“Your mom?” asks Clarke.

She phrased it hesitantly, caught between not wanting to pry into a relationship that Lexa probably hardly remembers, and wanting Lexa to feel able to open up to her about anything.

“Yeah,” replies Lexa.

“She’s beautiful,” Clarke tells Lexa. “She looks just like you.”

Lexa’s eyes widen, full of hope, and she says, “You think so?”

“Yeah. Do you miss her?”

Lexa hesitates before she answers, just long enough for Clarke to start regretting even asking, but when she does reply she doesn’t seem upset or angered by the question.

“I think that sometimes I miss the idea of her,” Lexa admits honestly. “It’s hard to miss her when I barely remember her, and especially when I’ve got two such amazing dads.”

“They really are great!” agrees Clarke, latching onto the opportunity to steer the conversation away from Lexa’s mom before she pushes and pries too far.

“Aren’t they just?” says Lexa, with a content sigh.

“They’re … they’re not at all what I expected,” admits Clarke. “I feel so bad - in my head I was expecting one or both of them to be a stereotype. But they both look like they’ve stepped right out of a motorcycle gang.”

Lexa grins, and then says, “They actually met at a biker rally. But they’re both huge softies. Dad keeps bees and Pops has a chihuahua that he crochets sweaters for. They’re like a pair of grandpas, honestly.”

Clarke can feel her heart melting just a little bit more with each word that Lexa says.

“I love them already,” confesses Clarke, making a mental note to express her appreciation of the dads to their faces later tonight. “And they’ve been so welcoming.”

“I think they love you too,” Lexa tells her. “I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them pulls me aside tonight and begs me to propose to you right now.”

“After knowing each other for three months?” gasps Clarke, feigning shock. “I’m pretty sure that would make us the stereotypes.”

It’s a whirlwind of an evening.

Clarke takes a shower to freshen up after her transatlantic flight, and then Lexa’s family jump right into making sure she feels at home. She meets Delilah the chihuahua, who wears a hand-crocheted sweater and is by the far the biggest diva in the house, then gets led out into the garden so that Gustus can show her the fruit he’s growing in the greenhouse as well as his four beehives. And after turning down a third helping of spaghetti and homemade meatballs, somebody produces a board game from seemingly nowhere and Clarke finds herself trying to reign in her competitiveness while Maxwell sits at her feet and Lexa’s thumb traces patterns across the back of her hand.

It’s so far removed from Clarke’s normal life as the First Daughter of the United States, but she thinks she could get used to this, to being a permanent fixture in Lexa’s life, to domesticity and dogs and dads.

Aden triumphs and is declared the winner of the game (both Lexa and Gustus make accusations of cheating and Clarke is struck by their obvious similarities, only falling more in love with this odd little family with each second she spends in their house) and then Lexa excuses them both to bed, yawning exaggeratedly to fake her own tiredness to give Clarke a reason to bid her goodnight and head upstairs too.

Clarke doesn’t realise how tired she actually is until she makes it to Lexa’s room. The time difference means that it’s still the afternoon back at home in America, but after an overnight flight with very little sleep on the plane, Clarke is starting to feel the effects catch up with her. Her eyelids are heavy and her entire body aches with exhaustion, and now that she can see Lexa’s bed, Clarke wants nothing more than to lose herself in that mound of pillows and wake up in twelve hours time feeling refreshed.

But it’s been nearly three months apart, and there’s also a really gorgeous girl at her side that Clarke would quite like to lose herself in too.

“I didn’t think it possible, but you’re even prettier than I remember you being,” says Clarke, wrapping her arms around Lexa’s waist to draw her closer.

Lexa takes the bait and dips her head, capturing Clarke’s mouth in a soft kiss. And it’s nice, more than nice, but Clarke hasn’t been waiting three months to be kissed softly. She wants Lexa to kiss her like she means it, and then throw her down on the bed and make her moan until she can no longer remember her own name.

But when she tries to deepen the kiss, flicking her tongue against Lexa’s in a silent request for more, Lexa is having none of it.

“You must be exhausted,” Lexa mumbles against Clarke’s mouth.

“Not too exhausted for you,” replies Clarke, lifting one of her hands up to cup the back of Lexa’s head in an attempt to bring Lexa’s lips back to her own.

“Baby, I want this, but I’m still going to be here in the morning,” says Lexa, hands squeezing Clarke’s hips in a reassurance that she isn’t blowing her off because she doesn’t actually want this. “You’ve been suppressing yawns since dinner. You need to sleep.”

Clarke is disappointed, but she understands, and her body betrays her with another lurching yawn.

“I think you’re seriously underestimating how much I’ve missed you because I’m pretty sure I’d be done in less than two minutes,” jokes Clarke.

“Three months,” says Lexa. “We can wait twelve more hours.”

“I’m going to be all over you the second you wake up,” promises Clarke, extracting herself from Lexa’s arms and bending down to rifle through her suitcase for a pair of sleep shorts and an oversized college tee.

“Can’t wait,” grins Lexa.

As it turns out, they can’t wait until morning.

They do manage to get a little bit of sleep. Lexa gets woken by Clarke rolling over to face her in the middle of the night, and when she blinks her eyes open to find Clarke’s face inches from her own, sleepily peering at her through the darkness, it takes them all of about five seconds before Lexa’s mouth is on Clarke’s and her hand is between Clarke’s legs.

When they’re finally done, after two orgasms apiece, Lexa tucks herself into Clarke’s side and drapes an arm across Clarke’s stomach.

“Is it a cliche for me to say that I’ve missed you right after sex?” says Lexa, as she tries to catch her breath back.

“Probably,” says Clarke, laughing softly. “But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be true.”

Clarke wraps both of her arms around Lexa and holds her tight, and Lexa has to try really hard not to cry at how nice it is to be held like this after three months of only being able to imagine it.

“You know what Dad shouted at us when we were kissing on the drive earlier?” Lexa mumbles against Clarke’s collar bone. “When he called you my girlfriend?”

“Mmm?” hums Clarke in response.

“Are you my girlfriend?”

Lexa’s heart pounds against her ribcage as she asks her question, and the way that their bodies are tangled together surely means that Clarke can feel it too.

“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?” Clarke asks, a hint of amusement in her voice.

“Well, I wasn’t sure if we already were, or not,” admits Lexa. “Because we agreed to be together and to not see anybody else but we also never put a label on it. And part of that was because I was scared that we weren’t going to make the distance thing work, but we are making it work and I would really like to have permission to refer to you as my girlfriend…”

“Permission,” laughs Clarke, pressing a kiss to the top of Lexa’s head as her arms squeeze her a little bit tighter. “You have my permission. I’d really like to be your girlfriend, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Okay,” Lexa exhales in relief and pushes herself up on one arm so that she can look at Clarke’s face. “Good. I’d like that.”

“You are really bad at this whole seduction thing,” Clarke teases her. “Like completely useless.”

“Hey!” pouts Lexa, flopping down onto the pillow next to Clarke. “You fell for me, so I can’t be that bad.”

Clarke considers this for a few moments, then replies, “True. And I’m so glad that I did.”

[entergamingxp]

Five of the Best: Gardens • Eurogamer.net

Five of the Best is a weekly series about the bits of games we overlook. I’m talking about potions, hubs, bags, mountains, anything really – but things we ignore at the time. Then, years later, we find they’re cemented in our memory, inseparable from our experience of the game. Turns out they were important after all. So now we’re celebrating them.

Five of the Best works like this. Various Eurogamer writers will share their memories in the article and then you – probably outraged we didn’t include the thing you’re thinking of – can share the thing you’re thinking of in the comments below. We’ve had some great discussions in our other Five of the Best pieces. Some of you have memories like elephants!

Today’s Five of the Best is…

Gardens! Lovely leafy gardens with bees and butterflies in. Peaceful places where birds chirp and your next door neighbour’s cat poos. There’s a serenity to gardens, and curiously enough, it seems to carry over into games. I wonder if it’s because games evoke the feeling of being in a garden, or if there’s something about what we see in gardens which brings the feeling of calm. Curious, isn’t it? I bet one of you knows.

But the real question is: which games have the best gardens? Here are five of the best.

Never forget.

Mutazione

A while back a desk plant craze landed in the office. We were all doing it, expensing purchases at the local artisan florist and muttering about growth periods and those funny spiders that can cause our leafy friends such problems. I had a beautiful rose-gold ficus, that over the course of a month or so was killed with kindness, watered and watered until I basically had a puddle of wanton ectoplasm next to my monitor.

I am better with plants now – my second desk plant is doing well in my living room while I work from home. But I learnt a lot about nurturing during that first homicide. Plants need work. They need thought and a certain kind of attentiveness, some of which is actually a form of intelligent restraint.

Mutazione gets this. Sure it’s a laid-back soap opera about a group of characters living on a neglected island. But it’s also a game in which you grow a series of gardens, learning which plants like to live alongside which other plants, which plants work in which settings, and even which songs to sing to get certain plants to grow.

It’s wonderful – a game of kindness and observation. A game of focus and restraint. I played it and poured one out for my rose gold ficus – a plant which, it turns out, I should definitely not have poured so many out for.

-Christian Donlan

StreetPass Garden

StreetPass Garden was one of several DLC titles built around 3DS’ delightfully quirky StreetPass feature which, for the uninitiated, encouraged players to go outside, potter about a bit, and, all being well, reap low-key rewards whenever they successfully encountered another 3DS-harbouring human on their travels.

Garden, it’s fair to say, wasn’t the most action-packed of the eventual dozen or so StreetPass games that made it to 3DS, but the latent, and later awakened, horticulturalist in me found it hard to resist its idyllic allure – all quaint rural charm, ivy clad cottages bathed in the hazy sun-dappled light of a warm spring day, even a ruggedly handsome gardener, Mr. Mendel, only too happy to lend a hand and tend to your bush.

It was, in essence, a sort of simple garden cultivation sim, where your pleasantly unhurried aim was to foster a burgeoning collection of plants, gathering seeds and nudging them to life – with success directly tied to the number of people you’d met on your recent real-life travels. These passersby would show up as Miis in-game, forming an orderly line of flower-pot-wielding weirdos, whip out their watering cans and bring your initially underwhelming seedlings to full botanical splendour.

Wonderfully, there was an unexpected, almost unnecessary, amount of detail to the whole affair, with over 80 plants to grow and a total of 300 colour combinations – all of which could be sold to order in the nearby “town”, raising funds to fancy up your own plot of land, selecting garden styles, splashing out on lovely pots, even cute ornamentation.

And that, for me, was its greatest appeal. As with a real garden, there was a certain amount of toil involved in getting things just so, but once the work was done, once you’d fulfilled your last order of the day, there was genuine satisfaction to be had, kicking back and momentarily revelling in the simple horticultural pleasures your efforts had wrought, and the calm of your own little leafy corner of the world.

-Matt Wales

Pikmin

Nintendo does a fine line in post-apocalyptic games, even if they’re counter to the typical fare. Splatoon presents a world without humans that’s brilliantly colourful, while Pikmin transports you to an Earth after some unnamed calamity that offers a different tone painted just as vividly.

There’s something quietly melancholy in pottering about an abandoned Earth, made all the more touching by your proximity to it all – in Pikmin, you’re stalking untended gardens that, much like my own backyard, are full of the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life: the tossed-aside cans, the discarded batteries and the downed garden tools. It’s a place after human life that feels entirely alive.

Oh, and it’s got plenty of its own life too, with all sorts of strange creatures pottering about. That’s what Pikmin gets so right about gardens, really – these are places that are so human, so familiar, and yet if you stop and stare awhile they’re places that are completely alien too. How very Nintendo to fit all that into a cutesy RTS.

-Martin Robinson

Untitled Goose Game

There are three gardens in Untitled Goose Game. Two are your traditional English back gardens, while the other resembles more of an allotment. Each garden has a distinct identity that, perhaps just like in real-life, seems to be an extension of the owner’s personality. Of the back gardens, one is nice and neat, with plants, paths, patio and a pond, while the other is more free-form. A statue of a fish here, an old bath-turned-flower bed there. There’s even an easel sat near the back that reinforces the owner’s eccentric and artistic ambitions.

These individual gardens do share some similarities though. They’re all perfectly tended and they present perfect snapshots of an idyllic life in the countryside. As someone who grew up in rural Oxfordshire, they feel like gardens I could have and probably have visited at some point in my life.

The inhabitants of these gardens go about their routines in a rather zen-like way, be it relaxing with a pipe and paper, hanging up washing and painting a picture, or simply cultivating some veg. It’s all so lovely and chilled, and all in all a rather blissful existence for the owners. That is until a goose comes along and wrecks everything.

The Goose is a hurricane in feathered form, with the swaggering confidence of a drunken teenager who’s about to boot over a garden gnome. Tearing up crops, toppling statues and swiping home comforts from under the owner’s nose, this beaky bastard cares naught for the bucolic vibes of these small plots of land.

But no matter how much mischief that ghastly goose makes for them, the residents will always put things back the way they were. Then, with a little sigh of relief, they’ll settle back into their routines. As they do so, you can almost hear them saying, “This is the life.” And to be honest, when all they’ve got to worry about is a troublesome goose, it really is.

-Ian Higton

Viva Pinata

I can’t read the name Viva Pinata any more without hearing Elvis sing Viva Las Vegas. Play it in your head a couple of times – see what I mean?

What I loved about Viva Pinata was how bold the idea was. A game about gardening. Who on earth makes a tentpole Xbox 360 game about gardening? A game about gardening to attract paper animals you usually string up on trees and smash to pieces. I remember seeing it for the first time and thinking ‘wow that looks gorgeous’, but I never thought it anything more than a play for a family audience.

But when Vivaaaaaa Pinnnata came out I was surprised by how hard it actually was. It wasn’t easy attracting the right animals to your garden, then getting the right candies to coax them into a bit of rumpy pumpy, then making sure they didn’t fight with the other animals, then making sure the baddies didn’t mess your garden up. There was a brutal simulation going on underneath the pretty exterior, and it could gobble up entire weekends of time.

I remember Eurogamer’s old editor Tom Bramwell being absolutely hooked on the game. He couldn’t put it down, nor could he stop boasting about all the rare beasts he’d attract. If only real gardening worked the same way!

-Bertie

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/04/five-of-the-best-gardens-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=five-of-the-best-gardens-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net