#i even mistrusted him when he took the mail

[theworldibuilt4you]

[Addie balked at the deflection of guilt.]

W-well, yeah. You've done it before! I know you don't like Sonny, and so you never liked the plan to begin with. You even told us you'd tell if you didn't like where the plan was going!

[Addie's shame was mixing with frustration. Why couldn't they just understand? Why couldn't they see how hard it was for them, too? That they were all simply operating on the same wavelength of mistrust at the time?]

I… I know he was doing good. B-but you have to understand our perspective… Admin made him unstable. He was never meant to hold so much power, and it was hurting him.

[Addie took their tail in their hands and wrung it out a bit harder than they usually did, the pain from their wrinkled scales a welcome distraction.]

And just look at him...! He's looking so much better already! I've never seen him sleep so peacefully!

[They were trying to bargain, now, grasping at anything to make a connection.]

-Addie

[He had been sleeping really soundly. Aside from the gentle flick of his gills when they brushed up against either Owl or the bedding they both laid upon, he didn't seem to be moving much. Gently tail flicks from time to time, a nuzzle of his cheek to get closer to the heat source that had been his friend holding him so close.]

[YOU'VE GOT MAIL!]

[From: ADDIE]

[To: OWL.RRA]

[eva-cybele]

prompt: main tank

(I managed to write something for the first time in a while, have some post-EW anxiety and learning to heal while doing a treasure map during vacation)

Kaede curled her hands tightly around the twisted gold of her staff, willing her shoulders to relax in her new healer’s garb. The light cloth sat strangely on her skin and scales, fitting like it had been made for her, but more revealing and ornamental than she favored – but that was Thavnair in a nutshell, wasn’t it? At once both familiar and foreign.

There was nothing familiar about her role here, however. For all the training she’d done with Y’shtola and G’raha, nothing prepared her for the fear and the anxiety that came with having to step back and watch someone else take the hits that she could easily deflect with shield or greatsword – to be the one to have to mend the wounds that were suffered in an effort to protect her. It felt… wrong.

‘Twasn’t as if she had never stepped back to let another lead, of course. When she had been learning red magic in Gyr Abania and Othard, Marz had carved them a path with naught but an axe and sheer stubborn bloody determination.

Even that had been hard, and she knew better than anyone how indomitable her fellow Warrior of Light could be. The unstoppable force to Kaede’s immovable object. But she had ever trusted Alphinaud’s magic to keep them both safe.

She was not sure she trusted herself with the same burden, now that she had stepped into his shoes. Worse, it was Aymeric who stood in her place – and a finer knight she had never known, and the treasure halls of the Excitatron were not exactly what she would consider mortal danger… But the fear still ate at her, even as she wrapped him in veils of protective magicks, bathed his flesh in healing aether so that wounds knit closed ere they had time to bleed.

The drain on her mana reserves began to take its toll before long, the once nigh-endless well running quickly dry, in the aftermath of her exertions in Ultima Thule. But still she stubbornly soldiered on, unwilling to ask for a reprieve as they fought through waves of enemies. If she should falter, doubtless the others would insist she return to Megaduhta to rest, and gods but she was tired of all the fucking resting.

As Marz and Aymeric argued over which door to take – Aymeric said right, while Marz stubbornly advocated for left, as was her custom – Estinien’s steel grey eyes fell on her as he slung his lance across his back. His sharp gaze took in the white of her knuckles and the clench of her jaw, and he shook his head in exasperation.

“You’re pushing yourself too hard, you know. He’s not some fragile maiden. Trust him to take a few hits.” The dragoon folded his arms over the mail he’d borrowed from the Radiant Host, far more suited to battle in Thavnair’s humid jungles than his own normal armor.

Kaede grimaced up at Estinien and settled her staff across her own back, shifting her shoulders at the unfamiliar lightness of it. Shoving her bangs out of her eyes, she huffed, “It’s not him I mistrust, it’s me. What if I wait too long to mend a wound, and it slows him down, so he doesn’t dodge something that he otherwise would? The enemies in here aren’t much of anything to us, but he’s not an adventurer, and these aren’t heretics or dragons or even Garleans. They’re fucking weird ass moon abominations, unlike anything he’s ever had experience with. I just…” Kaede let drop the hand that had risen, unbidden, to punctuate her words with sharp movements, and wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t like it when I can’t protect people.”

Estinien snorted softly, and shook his head. “Would you be coddling Marz like this?”

It had taken the combined force of the accumulated despair of the universe, and the singular focus and will of Zenos yae Galvus, to drive Marzanna Kimbatuul to the edge of death – and Kaede herself, even untrained and exhausted, had been enough to keep her from tumbling over that precipice. A few dozen enemies placed by the Lopporrits for a thrilling – but ultimately nonlethal – challenge was nothing that would ever trouble her for a moment.

Kaede shot Estinien a disgruntled glare, annoyed to watch his mouth curl up into a faint smirk.

“Fine. I take your point. I’ll ease off.”

A large, armored palm smacked between her shoulderblades, threatening to throw her off balance, but she quickly shifted her weight to keep from being knocked forward. “Good. I’d hate to see the man get clobbered by some great hulking thing and you be too tired to scrape him off the floor. Ishgard might try to make me take his place, and Fury knows I’m shite at paperwork.”

“It’s true, I never could get you to turn in a proper report.” Aymeric’s shadow blocked some of the brightness of the Excitatron, and Kaede relaxed a bit as she reflexively checked him for any signs of injury, and found none. He adjusted a bracer, rolling his shoulders under the much-lighter pauldrons of the Palakan armor that Vrtra had loaned him, twin to the set Ahewann had worn. “You know, I thought your tales of Hannish alchemy strengthening the cloth fibers were exaggeration, but this is surprisingly good protection. I’ve scarce felt a thing.”

Before she could stop it, the memory of the former satrap being bitten in two by a blasphemy flashed into her mind, and Kaede flinched away from it, bile rising in the back of her throat as her mind drew the inevitable comparisons between the two men. Not good enough.

Long fingers tucked an errant lock of blonde hair behind one of her horns, and Kaede forcibly yanked her attention out of the past and back into the present, where she found a pair of worried blue eyes regarding her steadily. “Are you well, my dearest? You turned a bit pale for a moment.”

“I –”

Whatever she had meant to say died unspoken on her lips, as the lights of the Excitatron spun and pulsed in a riot of color. With a flourish, the doors to the final floor opened – on the left side of the arena, to Marz’s extremely loud and obvious delight.

Kaede chuckled and watched as Marz and Estinien soared on aetheric wings to the golden platform in the distance, and made to follow them, until Aymeric’s hand wrapped around her wrist and tugged her back to him.

“Talk to me. Please.”

The sincerity and concern in his face – the same she had seen too often in the middle of the night of late, after she had woken him once again with her sobbing or screaming – made her attempt to demure crumble before it had even begun.

With a sigh, she stepped closer and laid a hand on his chest, not meeting his eyes as she murmured, “In Ultima Thule, as I watched my friends die, two by two, all I could think of was how glad I was that you weren’t there. The fact that you were in Ishgard, safe and protected by stone walls and brave knights, gave me no end of comfort. Even on the front lines at Ghimlyt Dark, I did not worry for you overmuch, because I could protect you. But here… Even though the danger is mostly for show, it still makes me feel sick to think of you hurt in my place.” She shrugged, and glanced up with a wry twist to her mouth. “I fear I am better suited to shield than salve.”

One palm brushed over her cheek, cradling the side of her face with even more gentleness than he usually showed her. “I know you would never allow me to come to harm, whether you wear robes or armor. And I hope, for your part, that you know that I would not allow anything to hurt you, either. And so what other option is left to us than to emerge victorious?” A smile crinkled the corners of Aymeric’s eyes, but Kaede could still see the worry in them, the concern that her spirit had suffered more than her body during her journeys at the edge of existence.

Perhaps he was right to worry.

But also perhaps he was right about the other thing, as well – that together, there was no foe that could stand before them.

That when he so wished to be, he too was an unstoppable force.

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Kaede willed the tension to leave her shoulders, forcing it from her body. Summoning a smile to her face, she tipped her head at him, pleased to see him relax in turn as her mood lightened. “Fair enough. I suppose we should go emerge victorious over whatever awaits us in the final chamber, or else Marz and Estinien might get impatient and have all the fun without us.”

Aymeric bent one arm and offered it to her, and she tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and let him escort her towards the exit. “Well, we can’t have that, can we? They’d claim all the spoils for themselves, and have the gil spent on nonsense in a sennight.”

“Did I ever tell you what Estinien paid for a hair tie when he first came to Radz-at-Han? I haven’t seen Tataru that upset since Alphinaud spent the majority of the scion coffers on Gosetsu’s katana…”

Laughter smoothed over the sharp, brittle edges of the wounds in her spirit, covering them again with a salve of warmth and comfort and joy… until the next time something tore the scabs open anew, hopefully each time doing less damage than the one before.

[en-qq]

ooooook so i’m picking up amnesia again, after not playing it since 2016? and not getting even one single ending (maybe slight spoiler in regards to touma and ukyo idk)

this time, i landed on toumas route and so far, he’s been really sweet (i love older brother types so muchhh~~) but i’ve also been spoilered so i can’t bring myself to trust him TT

like, i’m on august ninth? now, i think?? (edit: sixth), just a day after the memory in the alley. in the alley the heroine asked him “touma... was it you who i loved??” and he had this pained expression and said “let’s not talk about this right now” or something like that and the next morning he told her he’s her boyfriend. but knowing what i know, mainly the general idea of his bad ending AND that he isn’t the true route makes me think that he maybe lied to her???

so, please let me explain: during her memory, the heroine seemed to talk to someone (who it was isn’t specified). she said “maybe he doesn’t even see me as a normal girl” and “i’ve been crying about it all the time” know ur pain sis and all that and it generally seems like she’s seeking advice from that someone and i feel like that certain someone was maybe touma in regards to ukyo, so the true route as far as i know?? and the reason why touma seemed so hurt when the heroine was fainting and asked whether she loved him was because she rejected him ((maybe even in the same alley??)) and he was internally like “why do u have to scratch this wound open bbiTT”

AND NOW that he had the entire night time to think, i think maybe he just went with it? i mean, orion even said that someone might say that they’re your boyfriend even though they aren’t??? so it’s a “what the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over” kind of situation and he basically snatched her away???

and

yeah

that’s it thx for coming to my ted talk maybe there’ll be more maybe there won’t

[fallenangelontheceiling]

“About madeleine’s motivations in Matera” god thank you for putting it into words ! Like, I’ve read so many reviews of people not understanding Bond/Madeleine’s relationship and only seeing the weaknesses of the plot (why would she betray him now when she could’ve killed him in Spectre or anytime after when it was just the two of them and the obvious framing voice Mail and blah blah blah) they’re flawed characters and mistrust is such a part of themselves, and even if I’m still personally bitter over this ending and the time they’ve wasted because they are who they are, it does make sense. The script is far from being perfect and everything moves a bit too fast but again, this is a Bond movie, time is a luxury they can’t afford. I just like reading reviews from people who can ignore that and see the great parts between the weak spots.

Thank you so much!

You hit the nail on the head: “ they’re flawed characters and mistrust is such a part of themselves [...] the time they’ve wasted because they are who they are.” It’s very emotionally realistic for a blockbuster movie and I love that. The Craig films actually have an arc and emotional continuity and I’m glad they mined and built on that in the final chapter. 

Despite this meta I don’t actually have too many thoughts on the film as a whole yet lol. My thought process: ‘oh this looks FANTASTIC, these side characters are fun, wow we’re two hours in and I’m only now starting to get bore - ATOMIC BLOND STAIRWELL FIGHT!’ I’m someone who has a hard time making judgements about media that is either unfinished/I’ve seen once. But Madeleine’s storyline gripped me. I thought about it for days after, as you can clearly tell lol. 

I’ve only see Spectre once as well (technically parts of it on in the background and then a proper rewatch a week before NTTD). I thought it was pretty meh. I thought Lea Seydoux was wasted and was actually a bit disappointed Madeleine wasn’t a secret Spectre agent in that movie lol. But that made me intrigued with how they planned to use her in the next film. I like how they played with the audience expectation going into NTTD that she might betray him. They took her hollowness as character in Spectre and turned it into maladaptive secretiveness in NTTD. 

Even though Bond taking Blofeld’s bait is a bit dumb, it does make sense. It’s in line with everything else about his character in the last four movies lol. And he literally just got ambushed with bullets while finally visiting Vesper’s grave, so give the guy a bit of a break. 

I did notice problems with Safin as a villain. If they had just clarified his motivations a bit, like having him say ‘I want to kill bad guys just like you Mr. Bond, except here’s my weird broad definition of ‘bad guys...’ instead of the weird ‘everyone wants oBliViOn speech’ that would have helped me a lot. I know, I know... ‘Bond Villain’ is literally shorthand for stock villains that want to watch the world burn Because Plot, but that feels more like a lazy cop-out than a homage, especially when so much of the rest of the film isn’t lazy at all??  I thought he let Mathilde go way too easily too. And I actually would have liked to see him be a bit more obsessed with Madeleine lol. I thought Rami was wonderfully creepy, which is why it’s a shame. 

[marvel-and-mischief]

Lavender

Part of my Floriography Series

Pairing: Frankie Morales x F!Reader Words: 1700 Warnings: reader is mother of Frankie's newborn, swearing, angst, talk of death Synopsis: Frankie is met with a sour welcome when he returns home from South America

Lavender: mistrust

💐

The blood red door hid the scars of your last encounter with Frankie. The wood had been a pure white but in your fury at what your husband was about to do, you let a gravy jug fly through the air where it landed with a smash in the middle of the open door, denting the surface and chipping the original paintwork. You repainted it a few days later with the only can of paint you’d found in the garden shed, the same paint Frankie had used to decorate your baby’s room halfway through your pregnancy.

It was that very door that you were stood next to now, staring at the man that had walked away from you a few weeks before. You had cried your tears of disbelief, heartbreak, frustration, you had cried them all out. All you had left was indifference at the sight of him returning home.

“Honey,” Frankie pleaded, shoulders slumped, eyes tired and tinged pink with emotions. He looked haggard, drained of everything that made him Frankie. He didn’t seem to even have the energy to look sorry, or hopeful that you wouldn’t slam the door in his face. He just looked defeated.

You didn’t say anything, what could you say? Part of you still loved him and that part refused to turn him away. You left the door open as you turned around and entered the living room. You took a stand in front of the TV on the other side of the room as you heard the door click softly shut and Frankie’s boots shuffled across the carpeted room. It was then you felt your heart rate spike.

Your husband had returned.

Frankie had survived his escapade to South America and was back looking worse for wear. He was back but you knew him well enough to know he had left a part of him somewhere else.

He paused in the doorway, unsure of himself despite the familiarity of home. He helped to pick this house; his pros had been the large driveway at the front to fit his truck and your family sized car, the quiet neighborhood with a park just down the road, the fenced in garden at the back for the puppies he’d always dreamed of having. He’d laid down the carpets himself, fitted the electrical appliances in the kitchen, paid half the mortgage. But as he nervously wrung the strap of his rucksack over his right shoulder and swallowed around the lump in his throat, he looked completely out of place.

“I thought you’d be gone longer.” Your voice was tight and came out frustratingly croaky as you tried to hold it together.

“I came back as soon as I could. Is she-?” Frankie pointed towards the stairs behind him, indicating his three month old daughter who was sleeping soundly in the cot he built.

“Asleep, just gone down.” Don’t go upstairs, don’t disturb her. But what you really wanted to say was you’re not going anywhere near her until we’ve sorted this out. Fortunately Frankie nodded in understanding.

You bit your lip and sighed. “D’you want a drink?”

“Water please.”

You hurried passed Frankie and into the kitchen before the first tear slid down your cheek. You bit your lip against the barrage of emotions threatening to overwhelm you, clutching onto the edge of the sink as you took deep, silent breaths.

You knew this day would come, if he hadn’t died on his little trip that is. In some ways you could have dealt with that a lot better. It was easier to prepare a funeral and carry on life as a single mother than it was to have to have a conversation with your husband about why he upped and left to go on a dangerous mission to steal millions of dollars from a drug lord, leaving his wife and newborn baby behind without any contact to say he was okay.

How do you explain to him that you wanted to kill him yourself when he left? That you felt betrayed that he would leave you in search of something neither of you needed and you certainly didn’t want? That you felt as though he was prioritising money over the importance of him in you and your baby’s life? You had begged him not to go, to tell Santi no, but he went anyway and that still pisses you off.

It pissed you off on day one and every day after. You’d nurse your daughter in front of the window, watching every car that drove by hoping it was Frankie’s truck but always being disappointed. Your ears perked up at every car horn, at the mail being pushed through the letterbox, at your phone ringing from a withheld number.

You let out a shaky breath, grab a glass and fill it with water. You would let him talk, let him grovel, it’s the least he deserves for what he put you through.

When you returned to the living room Frankie had taken a seat on the couch. You placed the glass of water on the coffee table and sat in the armchair across from him.

“I know you probably hate me right now,” Frankie began, eyes trained on his hands as he absentmindedly picked at a hangnail, “I should have listened to you. The whole thing was a bust.”

“So Santi was talking shit about the money?”

“There was money, too much of it. We all agreed to give it to Tom’s family.”

You felt your body go cold. “What happened to Tom?”

You heard Frankie’s muffled sob and you knew without needing to be told that he lost more than just money in South America.

“Fuck,” you deflated into the armchair and watched as Frankie threw his cap to the floor, running a hand through his unkempt hair.

“I should have listened to you,” Frankie repeated himself, quieter this time as he rubbed at his eyes in frustration.

“And the others?” You were close with Benny, regularly cheered him on at his MMA fights before you had the baby. Will was a good man, always asked after you and had your back when you and Frankie had gone through a rough patch a few years ago. And Santi, you’d never seen eye to eye with him, you knew if anyone was going to lead Frankie down the wrong path it would be him, but Frankie loved him like a brother.

“They’re alive,” he confirmed and you nodded in relief.

“That’s good,” you replied, because what else was there to say? The worst had happened but you were glad it wasn’t your husband coming back in a bodybag. As much as you hated him right now, the thought of never seeing Frankie again, of having to tell your daughter one day that her daddy was dead, tore you apart. You were glad he was in front of you to be angry at.

The two of you fell silent, the news of Tom’s death and the mission going wrong hanging heavy between you. You didn’t know what to say without sounding harsh. Fortunately it was Frankie that broke the silence.

“Have you both been okay?”

You wanted to laugh, remind him that you would have been a hell of a lot better at dealing with a newborn if her father was around to help but you bit your tongue and calmed your mind and remembered that what was done was done.

“Good. She’s still not sleeping through the night, but neither am I so it works out fine,” you shrugged. You wouldn’t go into detail why you weren’t able to sleep, you’d keep to yourself that you had nightmares of all the different reasons why Frankie wouldn’t make it back home. The way his eyes widened in guilt told you he probably knew anyway.

“I can take care of her tonight, if you want to try and get a good nights rest,” Frankie offered cautiously, his expression hopeful.

And how could you say no to that? He was a good dad, a natural, doting father and the reason why he’d left the two of you in the first place. And if you wanted to rebuild your relationship you would have to learn to trust him, even though you didn’t.

“That might be nice,” you halfheartedly agreed.

“I don’t want to step on your feet.”

“You’re not. You are but it’s fine. I think she missed you,” you admitted, meeting his eyes with a passive smile. You were trying, that was all he could expect of you.

You saw how tired he was, the pink in his eyes from exhaustion, the wrinkles in his brow from tension he couldn’t shake off, the downward turn of his lips and you suddenly felt the same. You couldn’t fight with him tonight, maybe tomorrow but Frankie needed sleep and peace and the feel of his baby in his arms and you didn’t have it in you anymore to deny him that.

“Go up to her,” you whispered and you think you saw the briefest flash of happiness in his eyes, “but if you wake her it’s your problem.”

Frankie wasted no time in jumping up from his seat. It looked for a second that he was going to step towards you but he thought better of it. He shucked off his boots and coat and padded up the stairs.

And that’s when you cried. All the pent up emotions of his return flooded out of you like a dam breaking. You let the tears fall but contained your sobs, not wanting Frankie to know just how much pain you were in. You were glad to see him home just as much as you were angry he had left in the first place. You had your husband back but you didn’t trust him like you once did, you didn’t trust that he wouldn’t drop you again when Santi called.

For now you’d let him hold his baby and you’d try and get some sleep for the first time since he stepped out the front door. Maybe tomorrow you could continue to repair the cracks in your home.

Permanent tag list: @autumnleaves1991-blog @phoenixhalliwell @anu-simps @computeringturtle @bts17army

[iamnotalyona]

Jaime and Brienne parallels

1) Both lost their mothers in childhood

2) Sharing meal with Paynes

When Little Lew Piper came galloping up with a helm full of blackberries, Jaime ate a handful and told the boy to share the rest with his fellow squires and Ser Ilyn Payne.

AFFC Jaime

She purchased Podrick an orange on the Seastrider, a cog just in from Oldtown by way of Tyrosh, Pentos, and Duskendale.

AFFC Brienne

3) Offensive names

They called him the Lion of Lannister to his face and whispered “Kingslayer” behind his back.

AGOT Jon 1

“Brienne the Beauty, they name her… though not to her face, lest they be called upon to defend those words with their bodies.”

ACOK Catelyn

4) Failed betrothals

“I once hoped to marry your brother to Lysa Tully, but Aerys named Jaime to his Kingsguard before the arrangements were complete. "

ASOS Tyrion 4

Connington laughed.

Jaime did not. “You speak as if you know the lady.”

“I was betrothed to her.”

That took him by surprise. Brienne had never mentioned a betrothal.

AFFC Jaime

5) Both avanged each other

Jaime’s golden hand cracked him across the mouth so hard the other knight went stumbling down the steps. His lantern fell and smashed, and the oil spread out, burning. “You are speaking of a highborn lady, ser. Call her by her name. Call her Brienne.”

AFFC Jaime

Timeon was still trying to fight as she pulled her blade from him, its fullers running red with blood. He clawed at his belt and came up with a dagger, so Brienne cut his hand off. That one was for Jaime.

AFFC Brienne

6) Both meet Stark widows in a camp

Jeyne never saw him at all. The widow rode with downcast eyes, huddled beneath a hooded cloak. Underneath its heavy folds, her clothes were finely made, but torn. She ripped them herself, as a mark of mourning, Jaime realized. That could not have pleased her mother. He found himself wondering if Cersei would tear her gown if she should ever hear that he was dead.

AFFC Jaime

“Because it will not last,” Catelyn answered, sadly. “Because they are the knights of summer, and winter is coming.”

“Lady Catelyn, you are wrong.” Brienne regarded her with eyes as blue as her armor. “Winter will never come for the likes of us. Should we die in battle, they will surely sing of us, and it’s always summer in the songs. In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining.”Winter comes for all of us, Catelyn thought. For me, it came when Ned died. It will come for you too, child, and sooner than you like. She did not have the heart to say it.

ACOK Catelyn

7) Remembering Harrenhal bath

He was grateful when the bath was deep enough to conceal his arousal. As he lowered himself into the steaming water, he recalled another bath, the one he’d shared with Brienne.

AFFC Jaime

Only a cramped small tub like this one. At Harrenhal the tubs had been huge, and made of stone. The bathhouse had been thick with the steam rising off the water, and Jaime had come walking through that mist naked as his name day [...]. He climbed into the tub with me, she remembered, blushing.

AFFC Brienne

8) Thinking they are not able to be anything other than warriors.

Other men might be fathers, sons, husbands, but never Jaime Lannister, whose sword was as golden as his hair. He was a warrior, and that was all he would ever be.

AFFC Jaime

She would not be here now, dressed in man’s mail and carrying a sword, hunting for a dead woman’s child. More like she’d be at Nightsong, swaddling a child of her own and nursing another. It was not a new thought for Brienne. It always made her feel a little sad, but a little relieved as well.

AFFC Brienne

9) Feeling helpless without sword

“Fighting is better than this waiting,” Brienne said. “You don’t feel so helpless when you fight. You have a sword and a horse, sometimes an axe. When you’re armored it’s hard for anyone to hurt you.”

ACOK Catelyn

He had dreamed that he was maimed, but it wasn’t so. Relief made him dizzy. My hand, my good hand. Nothing could hurt him so long as he was whole. ... If only I had my sword, nothing could harm me.

ASOS Jaime

10) Both have young squires. Pod and Peck. Both boys participated in the battle of the Blackwater.

11) In the company of Jaime Pia who is in love with him, and in the company of Brienne Hyle who wants to marry her.

12) Both abandoned the inheritance and joined the kingsguard for love.

13) Both are heirs to their houses.

14) Both are quite chaste.

Jaime had only one woman, and after the breakup with Cersei this:

Remember your vows. Pia is more fit for Tyrion’s bed than yours.

AFFC Jaime

And Brienne is a virgin:

A maid has to be mistrustful in this world, or she will not be a maid for long, she was thinking, as the rain began to fall.

AFFC Brienne

15) Both were accused in murdering their kings

16) Both were captured by Starks: Jaime by Robb, Brienne by Lady Stoneheart

17) Both are injured by members of bloody mummers. Jaime lost his hand, and Brienne's cheek was bitten.

18) Both have issues with their first crushes (loves). Jaime is not loved the same way he loves, and Brienne’s love to Renly is one sided. And in both cases their relationship are impossible: one is incest and in the other one Renly’s gay.

19) Both suffered when their loved ones married others.

20) And the cherry on the cake. Even their ancestors Duncan and Rohanne were in love with each other.

Who else dare say, that they’re not meant for each other? ♥️

[managingmymuse]

Plotting

for writer's month

day 24: fake dating

(original fiction | ???)

I read and reread the King's declarations more times than I could count. Soon the words grew blurred from my fingertips, and the paper threatened to peel apart at the folds. Still, I kept pulling it out, picking at it like one picks a scab.

I forced myself to wait a week before sending a reply. Before I made any answer to the message at all. I needed that time to compose myself, to ensure that I could write without a shaking hand or tears dripped onto the page. It was terribly rude, of course, but at the moment, I was quite over politeness. If Timothe had an issue with it, he could consult my father, seeing as everything I'd told Timothe so far had been ignored.

The betrayal hung on the back of my tongue like acid. It made me short with my mother when she came to discuss gowns, and shorter still with Marcel Imons who was still pestering Abigail Lyon. When he approached her near the lake by the girls' dormitory one afternoon, I dispensed with my usual diplomacy and used a burst of magic to fling him in it.

Abigail's roommates laughed themselves sick.

By the end of the week, I'd calmed down enough to write with a clear hand. My missive was short, and to the point.

What possessed you to do this without asking me?

The reply came quickly. Mail between Yarrow and Imena didn't often take long.

My dearest Desdemona,

I must beg your forgiveness. When I returned from Imena, I was in deep pain at the loss of your company. My suffering was so great that my magic diminished as well. When my father discovered this lack, he dispatched his orders immediately, and without consulting me.

I regret that I have not had the opportunity to ask you properly. I promise, upon my next visit, I will make it up to you in full.

Ever yours,

Timothe

I'd frowned at the letter. And then, in a fit of pique, I'd burned it, using my rage to fuel the flames.

It was only later that the mistrust began to settle over me. When we'd been together, Timothe had always seemed self-possessed. Confident. Unlikely to wallow in supposed heartbreak. And when we'd parted, he'd seemed resigned to our future relationship as companions, if not outright friends. But by the time he got to Yarrow, he was disturbed to the point of magic disruption? After a mere day's drive?

Something did not tally. Not at all.

Timothe's triumphant return, presumably with a real proposal and a ring, was scheduled for the next school break, only a week away. Many of our classmates were returning to Yarrow for the solstice, but I would stay here with my family. And Timothee, apparently, would be visiting us.

My mother went into a flurry of preparations. She just about cleaned out every larder in the county searching for chocolate jellies and lemon drops. The staff was given a verbal thrashing every time she saw a button loose or a shoe unpolished. Every room on the main floors was laden with pine boughs until the whole house smelled-- and looked-- like it would belonged in a forest.

While my mother obsessed, I made my own preparations. I borrowed a particular spell from Lady Rathburn's extensive library.

She grasped my arm when I turned to leave her. "Think very carefully before you use this," she said, grey eyes bright. "The truth is not always kind."

I knew that already. Perhaps better than I should. "Don't worry about me," I said. "I shall be the very soul of discretion."

And I was. Rather than send servants for my supplies, I shopped for them myself, trailing along Spill Street like a lady at leisure rather than on a mission. I purchased the ingredients I needed in three separate shops, mixed in with a dozen more items that I never intended to use. Anyone who recovered my shopping list wouldn't know what I was shopping for.

I brewed the potion and let it steep two nights beneath the moon's rays. When it was done, I had a thin vial of a brownish liquid that would make any man, woman, or child, spill their secrets they'd much rather take to the grave.

Arranging a meeting in private was a much more difficult task to manage. My mother wanted to lavish the precious prince with hospitality, and even my father thought it would be impolite not to greet him upon arrival in our city. In the end, I had to do my very best impression of a lovesick girl to get them to consent to allow me to have tea with him in private so that he might propose properly.

It worked, I'm ashamed to say. Very ashamed indeed.

Timothe's carriage rolled up one wintery morning. I watched from the window as he strode up the stairs of our home and knocked precisely once before our butler greeted him. I rang for tea while the butler helped Timothe off with his coat and gloves and settled myself in a rather demure position on the sofa a mere moment before the door swung open.

"His Highness Prince Timothe," the butler said.

I nodded and stood to offer a curtsy. Timothe strode into the room in grand spirits, crossing the distance between us in a matter of seconds. "Darling," he said. He seized both of my hands in his, bringing them up between us to press a kiss to each.

The back of my neck prickled with unease. "Pet names now?"

"You're unhappy with me," Timothe said. "I understand."

"Do you?" I glanced at the butler. "You may go."

With a swift nod, he withdrew.

A heavy silence fell about the room. Embers crackled and burned in the fireplace.

I motioned toward the high-backed chair in the center of the room and allowed Timothe to be seated before I resumed my own position. A knock sounded on the rear door to the room, and a maid entered, bearing the tea service I'd summoned just moments before.

"I've had tea prepared," I said, motioning the maid to set it on the table nearest us. "It's just the thing to warm you after such a cold journey."

"My dear, the only thing I need to warm me is your kind regard."

Ugh. I nodded to the maid, indicating that she could leave before reaching forward to pour the tea.

Timothe's gaze was a hot brand on my neck as I carefully added liquid to his cup and dropped in a single sugar cube. "You're angry with me."

"I'm furious," I said. I offered him the cup and saucer, and he took it. "We discussed this the last time you were here. I said I don't wish to marry."

"Yes, and I tried to respect your wishes," he said. "But once I got home, I realized how much I missed you. My magic suffered. I'm ashamed to say I moped."

"You might have written me before you told your father we were to be married."

"Would it have changed your position?" he asked. "Knowing of my heartbreak?"

My lips firmed into a thin line as I poured my own tea. "You ask too much."

"On the contrary. I think I ask just enough."

He took a cautious sip of his tea, and a bolt of triumph flared through me, lighting me from within.

"Think of how happy we'll be," he said. "How powerful. Between the two of us we'll have the political capital and brute strength to rule this bloody empire, my brothers be damned."

I just stared at him. I watched the color drain from his face. I watched dawning horror pull at his lips.

"Why-- why did I say that? Did I--" His gaze dropped to his tea, and his lip curled. "How did you get this recipe?"

"I am a witch," I said. "You seem to forget it."

"On the contrary. It's the only reason I'm interested in you at all."

I expected that, but it still stung. I took a delicate sip of my own tea before I set the cup down.

A range of emotions was flashing across Timothe's face. Rage and confusion and fear. "Sweetroot tea is illegal."

I lifted a shoulder. "Then have me arrested."

His lip curled. "You know I won't do that."

"Because you love me?"

He outright snarled. "You know I don't love you. Or you wouldn't have fed me this this brew."

That one didn't sting nearly as much. Not with the victory of tricking him dancing in my veins. "If you don't love me, why force me to marry you?"

"Why does anyone marry?" he said.

"That's not an answer."

I have to give him credit, he fought it. But the recipe I'd used for the Sweetroot potion had an extra kicker of joja berries mixed with acanthus oil. In precisely the right quantities, it was formulated to make the reluctant more forthcoming.

"You saved my life," he said. "I need you to do it again."

"Are you in some sort of danger?"

"My brothers. They're trying to kill me."

He stood up at that. His hands were curled into fists at his sides, and the cold shadow of fear passed over me.

"How-- that is, I-- how dare you," he said.

I affected nonchalance and drank some more tea. "If beating me into a pulp will make you feel better, then by all means, try it. But I warn you-- I fight back."

He snarled at me. Outright snarled. And for some reason, it filled me with more pleasure than I can even describe.

"Leave if you want," I said. "Storm down the streets in a rage if that would make you feel better. But I think it would be more productive if you would just tell me the truth."

"The truth." He sneered. "Why would I tell you anything?"

"You're trying to force me into a marriage with you," I said. "A marriage that I don't want or even particularly need."

"Honesty is not necessary for a marriage."

"It's a rather good start, though."

He scowled again. From the expressions on his face, I could tell he was fighting the sweetroot once again.

Finally, he dropped into his chair. His fingers clenched and unclenched on the air in front of him. "Fine. You want the truth? I'll give you the truth. My father has designated no heir. All three of us are eligible to assume his throne. My brothers have been trying to kill me for years. Last summer, one of them nearly succeeded."

"What does that have to do with me?"

"You're the one who saved me from his curse."

I sat back in my chair, startled. "That was only a falling branch."

"It was an ill luck spell," Timothe said. "I'm a magnet for danger. Literally wherever I go. I've been thrown from three horses, nearly run over by multiple carriages, and been injured by my sparring partner twice already."

I took a delicate sip of my tea. "I'm surprised you haven't been poisoned."

Timothe leaned forward, an odd glint in his eyes. "You have the distinction of being the first to attempt it, my love."

"Don't call me that."

"I don't see why I shouldn't."

"Because I'm not your love. I'm not your anything."

"But you will be."

The strength of that conviction, under the influence of sweetroot, was horrifying. Nevertheless, I forced myself to set my cup down gently on its saucer. "I'm not marrying you."

"Why?"

"Because I don't wish to marry," I said. "You in particular."

"Charming."

"I figured I might as well trade your honesty for some of my own."

I gave him a demure smile, and Timothe bared his teeth at me in a shark's grin.

"I don't need your agreement to force you into a marriage," he said. "I can have the papers filed with or without your consent."

"That's true enough," I said. "Heaven knows I can't stop you from filing paperwork with the courts."

"So you see that resisting this is idiotic."

"On the contrary," I said. "Resisting this is the only option I have left."

He stood up at at that, rolling his eyes. I half expected him to storm out, but instead he began to pace. He moved up and down the length of the room, cracking his knuckles as he muttered to himself.

I could see the wheels turning in his head. My calmness, such as it was, was getting to him. Good. It was bloody hard to hold onto my cool head.

It was time to push him over the edge. "What's to stop me from just letting you die?"

He turned to me. "What?"

"You heard me," I said. "If your plan is to have a bodyguard in the form of a wife-- well. An unwilling wife is irritating. An unwilling bodyguard is a legitimate problem."

"You would let me die?" he said. "Your own husband?"

I lifted a shoulder. "Quite a few women adore widowhood. It's not what I imagined for myself, naturally, but it's not the worst state one can find one's self in."

I thought he'd scowl at me. Rage and threaten, stomp and storm. But instead, a sort of calm passed over his face. He strode back to his chair, seating himself upright with the kind of courtly bearing that made me want to throw him across the room. "What do you want?"

"For you to leave me alone."

"That's not what I meant," he said. The glint was back in his eyes, and it sent a shiver rolling down my spine. "What do you want to act as my bodyguard?"

"You would hire me as a bodyguard?"

He laughed, and it sounded as if it rippled up from the core of his cold, dark heart. "I can't have a bodyguard. Not in truth. That would be a display of weakness."

"And moping and pretending to lose your magic isn't?"

"Sentimentality is not weakness," he said. "Was our country not founded by warrior-poets?"

"Our country was founded by pompous windbags."

"Those are my ancestors."

"They are, aren't they?"

Timothe's smile was broader this time. There was still an edge to it, but it seemed-- genuine?

"This is going to be fun," he said.

"It's going to be your death sentence."

"You asked me to hire you, which means that your services can be bought," he said. "How much?"

I scowled at him. "I don't need money."

"Everyone needs something."

I kept the scowl firmly in place. "There's nothing I need that would make marrying you worth it."

Timothe chuckled. The sound was deep and resonant, and it sent alarm bells pealing in my head. "Am I really so bad?" he asked.

"Not everything is about you."

He smiled at that before standing again. He paced to the window, looking down into the street. The snow-bright light from outside washed onto his face, making him look like a figure from one of my sister's fairytales.

Not a handsome prince, I thought darkly. Or, well, not just one, anyway.

"I'm willing to compromise," he said. "I'd like to maintain the fiction of an engagement between us for the time being. But in exchange for you ensuring that I don't die an untimely death, I'll break it off long before we ever near the altar."

"That's not much of a compromise," I said. "What's in it for me?"

"Is it not enough to assist your sovereign in his time of need?"

"You're not my sovereign," I said. "And at this rate, you'll never be."

"But you can change that," Timothe said. "Help me reach the throne, and I will grant you anything your heart desires. One royal favor. How about that, my sweet?"

A favor. With a favor from the king I-- well, I could do anything. Possibilities spun in my head. A school in the north. A girls school where they were allowed to study more than dance and flower arranging.

"Never call me that again," I said, "and you have yourself a deal."

He swung around then. The grin on his face was almost impish. "I knew I could get through to you."

"Don't look so happy," I said.

He practically bounced across the room. "Why wouldn't I look happy? I've just secured a wonderful new fiancee."

"Spare me."

Instead of returning to his chair, this time he settled himself on the sofa next to me. It was a flagrant breach of propriety, and I suspected that he did it just to make me uncomfortable.

My suspicions were concerned when he took my hand in his and slowly brought it to his lips. "Come now. When we're in public, you'll have to pretend to be madly in love with me. You might as well start now."

"If this is your attempt at charm, it's failing," I said. I extracted my hand and reached for the bell to summon the butler. "It's been enlightening as always, your majesty."

He only smiled. "It has, hasn't it? It really has."

***

@saltnpepapig You asked to be tagged if there was more. This got out of hand, so let me know if you changed your mind.

[atlas-of-a-human-soul]

Skinny love [2]

Summary: Ethan reveal some things Grayson wasn't aware of.

Warnings: angst, talk of abortion, swearing

Part one

"I hate you."

When she said it, Grayson thought it must be a cosmic joke of sorts. It had to be a fucked up joke the universe played on him because how else would he justify the love of his life saying she hates him and the lack of tenderness in her eyes. Her eyes are hard, unmoving and filled with disgust toward him and his presence.

But now? Grayson still struggled to let go of the hatred she inspired that day and months before she ever uttered the spiteful, bitter words. Even as he heard she might be hanging on a thread, Grayson only leaned on the wall and looked up at the ceiling, clenching his jaw as he contemplated what he'll do.

"Do you want to see her?" The nurse asked a little louder, aware the man before her might be in shock because his wife might die at such a young age, leaving him a single dad with no clue what he's doing because none of them really know what a baby is until they end up smeared in shit, gagging at the smell and on top, the baby decides to scream, spit up and pee in a physically inexplicable direction. They're all brave until they're fathers and they have to stay home with the baby alone.

"Huh? Who?" Grayson blinked, swallowing thickly as the woman frowned, deciding to give him some time to truly accept what has happened.

"When you're ready to see either of your girls, find me at the desk."

As the nurse walked away, Ethan slapped a hand over Grayson's shoulder, giving it a tight enough squeeze to earn himself a death glare.

"What the fuck are you waiting for? Your daughter needs you, regardless of what relationship you and Y/N share. You always wanted to be a dad and now you are!"

But Grayson just chuckled dryly, dragging a hand over his face, letting his index finger linger on his stubble for a few seconds longer while he twisted his tongue.

"Yeah. I always wanted to be a dad, but how do I know if this is really my kid?"

Ethan coughed, nearly choking on his own saliva before lowering his voice and awkwardly leaning in to whisper.

"What the fuck are you talking about, huh?"

Pacing. It's all Grayson could do. Pacing the room with a positive pregnancy test in his hand, losing his fucking mind while his wife was nowhere to be found, the third time that week. She spends most her time outside the house, usually coming home in the early hours when she counts on him being asleep. But he's not asleep and he's not indifferent about her absence nor about the lack of communication between them. He's not celebrating the growing distance and mistrust nor the fact that he no longer believed she was faithful to him.

"You're home early." He piped up as Y/N came into the room, her eyes noticing the test immediately. She stared at it blankly, not batting an eye as Grayson outstretched his arm and pointed the test her way.

"I was gonna tell you." She licked her lips, pushing herself to look into his eyes, the man she could no longer rely upon. He's become the man she always hoped to avoid and while this test tied her to him, she felt her love turn sour, to hate. She hated how it trapped her in a loveless marriage where her husband had no respect, no understanding, no patience and definitely no affection to give her.

The last time they had sex was because they were both pissed at each other and they were tired of fighting. It was also the last time he kissed her. Knowing that made her sick to her stomach. If he couldn't love her, why was she the one who had to love him? It felt unfair, unjust in every possible way, cruel even. If he didn't love her, she didn't want to love him, even if his DNA was now forever a part of her.

"Before or after you told whoever you're screwing behind my back?" Grayson retorted, noticing her flinch with the words and he was so sure he finally caught her in the act. He expected her to admit to the affair, to tell him she was leaving and to end their endless cycle of suffering. A part of him hoped it was all true, the cheating, the baby not being his, that she was going to be the bad guy in their story, but she didn't fess up.

Instead, she took the test in her hand and let out a heavy sigh. She looked up, her eyes swimming I'm tears as the last of his disrespectful insults resonated with her. She looked into her husband's eyes and saw he thought of her as a whore. There was nothing more to fix the damage now. Not while she felt her heart bleeding and she refused to bleed in front of him. She couldn't afford vulnerability with a man who no longer cared for her.

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but this child has your DNA. But if you don't want this or either of us, just fucking say so. Don't throw around accusations without any foundations."

"I'm saying she never said she didn't cheat. What if she did and she tried to pass the kid as mine to get child support?" Grayson spoke in hushed tones, looking at Ethan with genuine worry before Ethan landed a slap on his cheek. Not hard enough to hurt him, but hard enough to shake some sense into his brother.

"Do you actually believe the shit coming out of your mouth or do I need to slap you harder?" Ethan spat, ready to square up. "That girl lives and breathes for you, always has and if you can't see that, you're the idiot!" Ethan shakes his head, stepping away before he did something he'd regret but Grayson didn't miss what his brother said. He spoke in present tense.

"How the fuck would you know, E?" Grayson cocked his head, his lips pressing together as Ethan laid out the truth.

"Those nights you just told me about? She was with Katarina! They spent all the time drinking and dancing and likely bitching about how fucking hard it is to love a Dolan twin. She's been staying with Katarina these months too! I'm not supposed to know about it, but I know! Just as I know she's convinced you're the cheating asshole!" Ethan whisper shouted, lowering his voice further at the end so no one would hear them or record them.

"And the ring they told you about?! The one she got stabbed over?! I'm pretty sure it's the engagement ring and wedding band she put on a necklace Katarina loaned her around her neck. She hated how she still loved you when there was no fight for your marriage on your behalf. And while I wanted to tell you, I fucking hoped you'd wise up on your own and fix it! I don't know if that's possible at all, mostly because getting her to admit she actually gives a flying fuck about you would be a fight of a lifetime, but we both know she is fucking worth it. And if you don't try, you're not the man I thought you were."

And as Ethan walks away, Grayson slides to the floor, his head covered with his hands and he can't help but wonder why is it so easy for us to assume the worst in those we love the most? His fingers trail down to his necklace, pulling it out of his shirt to gaze down on a ring he's been hiding finally see the light of day. How does the trust, the love shared just disappear like it's a letter lost in the mail? People jump at the opportunity to protect themselves, finding no trouble in tearing their loved ones down in the process. It was so easy, too fucking easy to make Y/N out to be the bad guy in their marriage, but Grayson finally realized he is the bad guy in her story as well.

Tags: @beinscorpio ​@peacedolantwins ​ ​​ @heyits-claire ​ ​​ @dolandolll ​ ​​ @godlydolans ​ ​​ @dolanstwintuesday ​ ​​ @iwastornsincethestart ​ ​ @graydolan12 @graysavant

Part 3

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

Northside Complex Riot II— May 26, 1981 “Tension remained high at the State Prison of Southern Michigan over the weekend. Outside the prison, the MCO and prison officials publicly exchanged accusations, each blaming the other side for Friday's riots.  "Inmate Uprising at Jackson, Corrections Head Blames Guards" was the banner headline in Saturday's Detroit Free Press. Perry Johnson denounced the Michigan Correctional Officers Union's action as an "illegal strike" and said he empathized with the inmates' frustrated response. Inmates were locked down the next day (Saturday, May 23), and many reported abusive retaliation by the guards. One stated:

During the lockdown there was lot of things [the guards] did that prompted guys to want to do something. They'd come in your house, handcuff you to the end of the gallery, and throw your stuff out on the base [that is, they would throw it over the railing and let it crash on the floor of the lowest tier]. They'd say, "That's not your number" [engraved on the item], or "It's contraband." A lot of stuff I bought through the store, they threw away—guys' typewriters, TVs. I guess they called that getting revenge.

Another remarked:

They locked us down, and fed us poorly. They had been feeding us through putting food on a plate and pushing it through the bars. The bars were about that wide [indicates a distance of about one-half inch]. It was atrocious, man. It wasn't sanitary. A lot of people were angry about it. We made noise in the block. Some of us busted jars; some guys threw stuff on the gallery.

Also on Saturday, Warden Mintzes met as promised with the Northside inmates who had approached him during the Friday riot. The "Group of Thirteen," as they had come to be known, complained to the warden about handling of inmate mail, medical treatment, and processing of inmate grievances. Also on their agenda was "amnesty" for inmates who participated in Friday's riot. The inmates' position was that since the guards had "started" the riot, inmates should not be punished for it. Mintzes refused to discuss "total blanket amnesty," which the Group, in one member's words, took as a "sign of defiance." The Group left with the firm impression that Mintzes had agreed to meet with them on Tuesday. One of the Group indicated that Deputy Warden Willie Cason had told them this, but it later turned out that Mintzes wasn't party to this understanding. This turned out later to be an important point, but we do not have firm information on it.

Many inmates were mistrustful of the Group of Thirteen, believing they were out for themselves or even "stool pigeons." But as inmates discussed the riot over the weekend, their solidarity increased and plans for action were developed. "Between Friday and Tuesday, we was all trying to figure out what had happened," reported one inmate. "Rumors [were] going around that we would have to materialize that we was unified, and maybe retaliate in another form." Another inmate recalled:

Word got back that they weren't going to give up anything, that it was going to get worse. Barry Mintzes' attitude was he washed his hands of it. It came to be a thing where the general feeling, the attitude, was like a sense of solidarity, like a chance for us to change the structure. It was an attitude of general frustration. They [the negotiating committee] came back and said, "They ain't giving us nothing, and the state police are on 24-hour alert." That's when guys started organizing in small groups—"You get the kitchen, you get the modules, you get the blocks." It was get them before they get us.

Question: Was it actually that organized—dividing up the blocks, the modules, and so on?

Inmate: Yes, but I don't think it called for a hell of a lot of organizing ability.

On Sunday, the warden ordered the end of the lockdown and a return to normal activities. There was nothing normal, though, in the situation. Sunday night, a small fire was started in storage room on the Northside; the following Monday, a small group of Central Complex inmates looted what remained of the inmate store. Rumors circulated that the modular units of Northside would be burned down at noon on Tuesday; even the Monday, May 25, Detroit News reported them, having been phoned about them by an inmate.

Warden Mintzes later claimed not to have heard these rumors, but everyone else in the prison apparently did.

At 7:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, a group of inmates wielding clubs collected near the "hole in the wall" to prevent inmates from going to work assignments in the Central Complex. As educational and medical employees arrived, they were told that a riot would occur that day and that they should leave by noon. During the 8:30 a.m. exercise period, many inmates armed themselves and began to discuss what should be done. Three positions emerged. The Group of Thirteen and their supporters were opposed to a second disturbance. This group pinned its hopes on negotiations with the administration, which were scheduled to begin at 11:00 a.m. that morning with (as they understood it) the warden and a representative of Director Johnson. "With the pressure rising now on the yard," recalled one member of the Group of Thirteen, "we tried to hold a constructive meeting of our own in the school building before the meeting with Warden Mintzes." They discussed the demands they would try to win, still including amnesty. They then circulated around the yard, "telling the guys to hold off until we could speak with the warden." A second group of inmates, mostly those who lived in the modules, feared that a riot would destroy their personal property, cause them to lose their privileged housing assignment, and result in a long lockdown. "This is my home and I don't want it burned down," said one modular resident. "About a hundred" inmates were talking about organizing to protect the modules and prevent a second disturbance, estimated another inmate, "but it never got done."

The inmates actively organizing the riot were mostly residents of the cell blocks. Many inmates perceived them as "hotheads"—younger inmates who were less adjusted to the institution and its discipline. This group distrusted the Group of Thirteen and was scornful of the anti-riot inmates as "profiteers" and "connivers."

As noon approached, the balance of power shifted in favor of burning the modules. The riot organizers agreed to give the residents of the modules time to remove their personal property; in return, at least some of those residents agreed not to interfere with the riot. "Why should we fight each other about something that belongs to the state?" said one."Let's move our stuff out, then they can do what they want."

Warden Mintzes and Johnson's representatives did not appear at 11:00.

One of the Group recalled:

So some of the guys said, "They're playing games with us." Many of us began talking to residents to buy time. I was trying to keep a lid on things, but the guys wouldn't wait no more. It's nothing you can do. You can't beat them up. They have knives and pipes and all that, what you gonna do?

Lunch was served at 11:00 a.m. without incident, but rumors were flying:

A guy working in the chow line said they would burn modules at 12 if the warden wasn't back with a package deal. . . . The noon chow was ran without any problem, but about 12:10 p.m. all hell started breaking loose.

A group of about 12 to 15 inmates gathered near the quartermaster with flammable materials. They announced that inmates should wear white armbands if they were "neutral" and would neither join the riot nor attempt to prevent it.

It seems to us that by this point inmates had accomplished a great deal in the way of open mobilization without any interference from the guards or administration. Things had gone beyond the stage of rumor five hours before, when Northsiders had stayed away from their assignments en masse—out of solidarity, intimidation, or desire to be on hand to save their possessions.

Every inmate in the complex apparently knew what was being planned by whom; meetings were held; strategy was debated; and throughout the whole morning the administrative structure remained utterly passive. A reasonable explanation for this never appeared in the press or the official investigations. Our best guess, though, is that the Northside administration believed that the guards reporting these phenomena were crying wolf.

From their point of view, the guards had caused the earlier riots by their alarmist and insubordinate plans for a lockdown. The guards were still determined to get that lockdown, but the administration merely wanted to return to normal operation. We suspect, then, that guards bringing tales up front about the inmates' alarming activities were disbelieved. If so, it was a mistake.

The riot organizers set on fire the quartermaster and then moved into Block 1 and Block 2, wielding knives and clubs. They chased six guards through the blocks until, finally, the guards made their way into a caged catwalk that connected the two cell blocks. The guards slammed the gate closed and locked it. The inmates tried to pry it open, but couldn't. They they then set mattresses on fire in an attempt to smoke the guards out. This too failed. The guards broke waterlines and used their wetted shirts as gas masks. (The guards remained there for an hour, until they were rescued by a gun squad.)

Around 12:20 a.m., the group of active rioters, augmented by reinforcements from the blocks, approached the modules. A crowd of modular residents assembled, ready to defend them. But the truce discussed earlier was brought into effect. After the residents were allowed to remove their property, all but two of the units were set on fire. About the same time, fires were started in the food services building, the academic building, and the gym. By 1:30 most of Northside Complex that could burn was ablaze. Two exceptions stood out: a lens-grinding shop (which many inmates felt was beneficial to inmates) and the library. Inmates roamed the yard for the next seven hours. Absent was the good- humored, festive atmosphere of the riot four days earlier. The mood, wrote a newspaper reporter, was tense and angry, as inmates sat in the yard, many of them with cardboard boxes filled with their personal possessions. . . . Where they had bounced basketballs and swigged soda in the prison yard on Friday, they brandished two-by-fours, shovels, and lengths of pipe on Tuesday. Some inmates climbed the chain-link fence in an apparent escape try, but were turned back by shots from a guard tower. Shortly after the riot began, the warden, who had been conferring with officials in Lansing, arrived at the prison and had the Group of Thirteen called up to meet with him. As soon as the riot began, Central Complex was locked down. Around 3:00, fire equipment from three departments arrived at the prison. Gun squads were assigned to each fire engine, but by then many of the buildings were nearly destroyed. Gun squads were also assigned to the two blocks and to the roof of the administration building. Reinforcements were obtained from the Jackson Police Department and the Michigan State Police. Plans were made to retake the Northside Complex by force. About 8:00 p.m., 100 armed correctional officers entered the yard and formed a line at one end of the yard. Other officers used the state police public address system to order inmates to move into the two cell blocks. At this point, some of those inmates who lived in the blocks asked if they could return to their own cells. They were given permission to do so, and it was announced that inmates from the modules could double- or triple-cell inmates of their choice. Inmates dropped their weapons and moved into the blocks without further coercion.” - Bert Useem and Peter Kimball, States of Siege: U.S. Prison Riots, 1971-1986. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. p. 138-141.

[ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes]

Roguish Women Part 33

Summary: Kate is an American who fled to Paris to escape her past life. Now she's dancing and playing the part of a courtesan at the Moulin Rouge. There she meets Tommy Shelby who thinks she can be useful in expanding his empire. But has he been blinded?

Part 33:  Kate finds solace in her new friends and Tommy wants to escape for a bit. 

            When Michael returned to the office, it was tense, to say the least. He and Tommy got into shouting matches a few times and everyone could clearly hear them in the office. But it seemed that Michael was too invested in the company to let things get in the way. As well as Tommy wasn’t willing to give up his accountant.

            So, things died down a couple of weeks after he returned. Meanwhile, the deal was written and the company was now working with the Forty Elephants. Kate kept in regular contact with Alice and Maggie, building a repertoire as she did with Alfie. Of course, like with Alfie, she found she enjoyed the women’s company. They were women who understood her, understood the things she did. Before, Kate had no one who really understood her other than a group of men. Still, how could they understand what it was like to be a woman in their line of work?

            So, being friends with Alice and the rest of her close cohorts was refreshing.

             “So, Alfie told me you were in Boston for some time.”

            Kate had invited Alice and a few of the other women to join her for lunch at Arrow House. Maggie came along as well as Ruby Sparks and Lillian Goldstein. What looked like a typical ladies' lunch out on the patio was actually a gathering of some of the most dangerous women Britain had ever seen. And Kate felt right at home with them.

            “There were things from my past that caught up with me,” Kate admitted. “Things I needed to take care of.”

            While Alice looked genuinely interested, Maggie seemed a bit more intent on digging for anything that might garner mistrust. The contract was signed, but that didn’t mean they completely trusted each other yet. They were women who knew the true value of loyalty and how rare it was to find.

            “Stuff like what?” Maggie inquired.

            “A man I had dealings with.” Kate realized that there was no reason to skimp on details. These girls would understand. “I hired him to kill the man who killed my mother. A man in the Chicago Outfit. I promised him money for doing it but fell through. The deal was either I paid or I married him.”

            Ruby made a noise of disgust. “Fucking pig. Who on Earth does he think he is?”

            It made her smile a bit even though the memory was so painful. “He caught up to me eventually so I had to return to Boston.”

            “Do you need him killed?” Alice asked bluntly. “You name the day and way, love.”

            “Fucking castrate him and throw him out on the streets,” Ruby muttered into her teacup.

            “Thank you, but he’s dead,” Kate assured them. It was different, hearing them become angry about it. The reactions were similar to Alfie and Tommy. They all wanted to kill the man who treated her poorly. But Alice and the others were acting on empathy instead of sympathy. They understood the plight of being a woman. Struggling under the thumb of a man. They understood the anger and desire to change the tides. To make other men feel the pressure on the back of their necks. It was a shared existence. And as hard as he could try, Tommy wouldn’t understand.

            “Good.” Alice nodded. “You killed him?”

            “I wouldn’t let him kill me.” Her voice quieted as her brow furrowed in thought. “He took so much from me.”

            Lillian, who seemed to be the gentlest of the group touched Kate’s arm. “You’re still standing. You’re still here. He couldn’t take that away from you.”

            She nodded, not sure what else to say about the matter. There was comfort in knowing she had allies who understood. Then, Kate noticed the ring on Lillian’s finger. “Oh, I didn’t know you were married.”

            Alice, Maggie, and Ruby all snorted. “I’m not, technically.” Lillian looked to Ruby at her right. “Ruby and I…”

            It took a moment for Kate to connect the dots but she finally realized when they looked at each other. “Oh, oh of course. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed.”

            Maggie studied Kate’s reaction with scrutiny. “It’s something we accept.” She spoke in a firm tone as if to ward off any criticism.

            “Of course, no I…I completely understand,” Kate assured them. “There are no rules when it comes to love, least not in my eyes.”

            Lillian smiled as Ruby reached for her hand. Both of them seemed relieved to act normally around Kate. There wasn’t anything to hide between the women.

            “We hope your men understand that as well,” Alice added.

            “Well, I can certainly talk to Tommy about it if you want me to. But I wouldn’t call them my men.” She laughed softly. “I don’t call the shots around the company.”

            Alice just shook her head with an amused look. “Men can think they’re in control, but it’s usually not the case. It’s usually the woman behind him.”

            “Yeah, the one who’s got his balls in her purse.” Maggie quipped making them all burst out into laughter.

            Kate realized how nice it was to laugh again.

 ~~~~~~~

            That same night, Tommy came home earlier than usual. Kate found him downstairs smoking a cigarette and flipped through some mail.

            He smiled when he saw her walk into his study. “Did you have a nice lunch today?” He asked. “Mary said you four were in stitches the whole time.”

            Kate laughed softly. “They’re very fun to be around.” She agreed.

            “All they do is give me the cold shoulder.”

            “Hm, maybe it’s how you come across.” She walked over to him, adjusting the collar of his shirt to turn his attention away from the mail in his hand. “I wasn’t very fond of you at first.”

            “That’s not true, you liked me.” He dropped the envelopes to pull her close.

            “Eh, you were difficult to like. At least you’re handsome.” She teased.

            He scoffed and shook his head. “Those women are a bad influence on you.” He joked.

            Kate laughed and ran her fingers through his hair. “It’s nice to have other women to talk to. It’s boring talking to men all day.”

            “Hm.” He hummed and wrapped his arms around her waist.

            “But I am glad to see you again.” She murmured and kissed him.

            He deepened the kiss, pressing his hands to the small of her back. But he knew it was up to her to lead. There had been a few times when Tommy overstepped, getting carried away with the moment and Kate shied away. She said it wasn’t his fault, but he knew he was responsible for making her feel safe.

            She pulled away and hugged him close, inhaling his cologne mixed with cigarettes to feel at home again.

            He lightly peppered kisses down her jaw and neck, holding her tenderly. “Want to go away with me this weekend?” He asked.

            “Sure, where to?” A little break sounded like heaven to her.

            “Doncaster. I’m going to buy another racehorse and there’s an auction there on Monday. But I figure we could make it a longer trip. If you’d like.”

            “That sounds perfect.”

            “We could make a week of it.” He proposed. “Go further north, somewhere on the ocean. Scarborough has a nice place to stay by the water.”

            Kate lifted her head to look at him. “I’ll follow you wherever, Tommy Shelby.”

~~~~~~~~~~~ 

            “Morning, Kate.” Michael greeted her as she entered the office.

            “Michael, how are you?”

            Tommy’s cousin didn’t answer because he noticed she had a luggage case with her. “Are you going somewhere?” He asked.

            “Tommy and I are leaving this afternoon for Doncaster then to Scarborough.” She answered, setting her case down so she could take a paper that Michael was holding out for her.

            The young man seemed a little disgruntled at the fact that his cousin was taking the time to have a holiday while the rest of the family was in turmoil. But there was little he could say or do. Mentioning anything would only lead to another argument. And Michael didn’t have the energy. He was only barely making it by, using snow to keep from crashing as he worked tireless hours.

            “I suspect he’s getting another horse,” Michael noted, remembering the last time he went to Doncaster with the rest of the family. When they were all still speaking to each other. Before the terrible nightmares, he had.

            “I suppose. I guess we’ll see when we get there.” Kate looked to the door. Tommy had followed her into the building but stayed on the first floor to speak with some of the workers. “How is your mom?” She asked. Seldom could she ask Tommy about the others. He never wanted to talk about what happened and always cast aside her concern.

            Michael sighed. “She’s not well. S’been seeing things because of the tablets they have her on.” He admitted. “Talks to spirits.”

            Kate had always known Polly as the strong, woman in charge. Secure and reliable, it was hard to hear how the imprisonment had such a negative effect on her. It didn’t matter how strong one was, there was always something that could break them. “I’ve tried to talk to Tommy about everything, I really have but…”

            “I know.” Michael nodded. “It’s okay, Kate, it’s not your place to fix things. It’s Tommy’s responsibility.” He scrubbed a hand over his weary eyes. “But they’re all too headstrong to face each other.”

            “Right, I’m aware.” She agreed, still glancing at the door every so often just to see if Tommy would walk in. She didn’t mind if he heard her talking about his family. But she also didn’t want the subject to sour their trip together. “And John and Arthur?”

            “Out in the countryside. Linda’s due any day now.” Michael figured. “Ada said she’d tell me when the baby was born. He won’t talk to me. Ada’s been…well the buffer I suppose.” He mumbled.

            “I haven’t spoken to her in a bit.” Kate admitted. She’d been so caught up in the deal with the Forty Elephants that she’d neglected to stay in touch.

            “Tommy’s sending her to Boston soon.” Michael shrugged. “Guess he’s got plans out there.”

            Kate’s heart nearly stopped. “What?”

            He looked at her blankly. “He didn’t tell you?”

            “No…no he didn’t.” She cursed under her breath. “I’m going to leave this here for a moment.” She said, gesturing to her luggage before leaving. “I need to find Tommy.”  

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[caroline18mars]

A Man On Fire - Chapter 79

“Harper, babe, come on..let’s talk about this” Jared had to run to catch up with her outside, when he grabbed her arm she stopped and the look in her eyes was pure bewilderment “talk about what?” she looked at him like she had absolutely no clue what he was talking about. “Harper, are you serious? We need to talk about you, and everything that is troubling you right now, you’ve got so much to deal with and you’re walking around like a zombie” he bit his lip, the worry scribbled all over his face was undeniable, “I’m fine..I just need some time alone..would you mind if I just went back to my apartment..alone?” the look of detachment she gave him squeezed his throat together, of course I don’t want you to go anywhere by yourself, and especially not now, but what can I do? I need to respect your boundaries “no..you go and do you..I understand..if you need me, you know where I am, ok?”. There was no kiss to calm his racing mind, no touch, all she did was nod in appreciation, turned on her heels and half ran-half walked away from him without even looking back, who was it that once said ‘if you love someone, set them free, if they don’t come back to you, they were never yours to keep’? don’t care, all I care and wish for is that you find your way back to me real soon. With a heavy heart and lead in his shoes he started walking in the other direction, get some air, distract yourself, thinking about her walking away from you is unbearable, central park, a little bit of nature and away from this racing city will do you good. Evening was throwing its’ last rays of light around as he walked back to the hotel, so weird that every corner of every street in this crazy city seemed to hold so many memories even if they had been together for a relative short time, he saw her dance and twirl and giggle in front of his eyes everytime he turned a corner, just come home to me babe, please. “Good evening, Sir, will you be dining out? Do you need reservations?” the clerk at the hotel reception asked him as he handed him his keycard, “Uhh, no..not tonight, I’ll order in I guess..” with a friendly nod he took the key and headed on up to his room. Flicking through the channels on TV, checking his phone for the umpteenth time, checking his iPad, checking his hair for split ends, nothing could calm him down, he brushed every device from his lap and got up to stare through the window, should I call her? Send an app? Start an e-mail? Tempting but no..leave her be for a bit, if she hasn’t come back by tomorrow morning, you can go over to her apartment, give her some space.

After hours of tossing and turning his mind finally welcomed the sweet darkness of sleep, somewhere in the distance he heard a door open and close again, he was dreaming,..five minutes later he could’ve sworn he felt the mattress dip, still not waking up, I’m still sleeping. It was the arm digging under him and an arm folding over him and a warm body glueing itself against him that had him resurfacing, his eyes slowly fluttered open only to find himself wishing he wasn’t dreaming, and he wasn’t because there she was “I’m ready, Jay..I’m coming back to LA with you” her breath was warm and sweet against his cheek. Wide awake now, he rolled on his side and kissed her full lips “are you really sure? I mean..I don’t want to pressure you”, even in the darkness she could see the worried cloud veiling his eyes. “I’m not sure of most things anymore, but the one thing I’m sure of is that I love you and I want to be with you”. Jay gently pushed a strand of hair away from her face “I love you too..we’ll take it step by step, ok? We can evaluate after a month or so..”, his words made her tap his nose “now you make it sound like school, with all those evaluations..let’s just agree that whenever there’s an issue we’re open about it” she clarified, he nodded. “Thanks for giving me some alone-time” she added, “yeah..are you ok? So, did you go back to your apartment?” he tried to get to the bottom of her Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde act, but it obviously was a bridge too far because she instantly shut down again “I’d imagined you being a lot happier about me moving in with you”. He stole another kiss from her lips “Honey, I've just been woken up after hours of tossing and turning, so I'm really sorry that at my age it gets more and more difficult to do all excited cartwheels in the middle of the night” he gave her a fat, exhausted grin “but trust me, I'm deliriously happy” his finger tracing the perfection of her nose. “I knew I had to give you some space but tonight was hell..being here all by myself, I barely managed to not drive myself insane” another kiss and she put her head back down against his chest “I'm trouble, Jay, plain and simple trouble” her warm breath tickled against his naked skin. “Oh no, you're not, you're exquisite trouble, but more importantly you're all the trouble I love so much..I'm not exactly your typical choir boy either, now am I?” his arm caressed her back which made her cuddle up even closer. “Shame..I could do with a choir boy in my life..” she giggled as he slapped her butt in response, “oh really? Well I may look like Jesus but what do you think I let Satan out to play?” he rolled her over and pinned her down on the mattress.

The doorbell rang, oh god, she was nowhere near ready and Jay was already there, she had left the hotel early this morning to start on getting most of her stuff ready, and even though there wasn't much to pack apart from some clothes, she didn't know where to start on all her brushes, paints, pencils. “You ready?” Jared pushed open the door, “no..I'm so sorry, I don't know where to start..it's gonna take forever to get all my stuff packed up” she nervously puffed a strand of hair out of her eyes, while he looked at the warzone in front of him. “Oh honey, you only need some clothes..I was gonna keep it as a surprise but everything you need to paint and more is being delivered to my house right now, so you can keep everything here..so next time we're in New York you can come and paint here without having to move everything”. Huh? She looked at him in shock, “but..it took me years to collect all this stuff, do you know how much even one of these brushes cost?” but his reaction was just a shrug “I haven't got a clue, does it matter? You'll have two sets now”. Was she being ungrateful? Uhg, yeah she was “thank you, Jay..just promise you'll let me pay for it?” it was the least she could do now she finally had some money in the bank, “I will do no such thing, consider it a 'welcome to your new home' present” he gave her a fast wink before he folded his arms around her waist and kissed her. “You are amazing..I couldn't have done all this, gotten through all this without your help..I don't think you know how grateful I am” she wrapped her arms around his neck, “Oh trust me, I do know..I felt your gratitude last night” he grinned, stealing kisses “there's nothing I wouldn't do for you, except keep our plane waiting, so come on, let's get your stuff and let's get out of here, the sun is waiting for us”.

Was it having to say goodbye to New York? Was it all the drama with her family? Whatever it was, she was zoning out again, during the flight down here, she had seemed so absent, she had been staring out of the plane window completely lost in her own thoughts. The car drove up his driveway and he squeezed her hand “home at last”, Harper sat up and grabbed her bag, it was like she saw his house for the first time..she didn't remember much from a couple of days ago, the size of his house still shocked her. “How can anyone ever afford such a house?..I don't remember it being this big” she jumped out of the car “and I thought my parents' house was ridiculous but this one is just next level”. Jared, clearly embarrassed, shrugged, was it really that over the top? Looking at it..actually yeah..it was much bigger than the previous house “it's just a house, darling..a roof over my..our head, and aren't you glad to be out of that frikkin' cold of New York?..that's why I love LA so much, the climate is real constant all year round, good for my old bones”. A smile on the verge of a giggle curled around those delicious lips, “come on, golden oldie, take me inside” she hooked her arm in his, all the doom and gloom of the plane and car ride suddenly completely forgotten about, or was that just a fine example of excellent acting?. “Did I already tell you that your bedroom is actually the size of my entire apartment?” she dropped her bag, taking in the beautiful room full of light with an enormous, plush looking, bed against the only wall, all the rest was windows all around, guitars neatly lined up in one corner of the room..guitars? “do you keep those around to serenade all your conquests for the night?” she looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “This room has got the best acoustics..that and the inspiration usually comes in the middle of the night, so I like to have a guitar at hand” he couldn't help but be a little annoyed, why was there always a sense of mistrust? “and it's no longer my bedroom..it's OUR bedroom”. Did she even listen to anything he had just said? She just sat down on the side of the bed, clearly absorbed with whatever was dancing round in her head, “what is it?” he sat down next to her, twirling a strand of hair around his finger, “huh?” to his surprise she got up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, staring at the city of Angels underneath her “now that is an iconic view” she tried to change the subject, the last thing she wanted to talk about was the mess in her head. “Yeah it is” he came standing behind her, folding his arms around her waist as he kissed the side of her neck, you don't want to talk about it, fine, just know that you're gonna have to talk about it sooner or later.

This house was a maze, you needed a sat nav to find your way round here, down another set of stairs, what would be behind this door? Was that another living room? Oh, a recording studio..this house was packed with two things: music and there was some damn fine art hanging on the walls, but did it feel homely?..nope, it actually felt like a well designed roof over your head, nothing more, this house didn't feel lived in, it just had no soul..and a soul was what the owner of this house had in abundance. When she finally found her way to the kitchen, he just put his phone down “there you are”, why did she have the constant feeling that he was 'scanning' her? Like she would walk into a room and the first thing he seemed to be doing was checking her mood or her behavior. “You know I used to have a turtle as a kid and when the grass in the backyard would get long, I used to stick a little flag on his shield with gum, so I could spot him instantly at all times, I think I need someone to stick the same flag on my head because this place is a frikkin maze, I get lost every single time”. Jared started giggling behind her, “great idea! I bet you look amazing with a little flag on your head, we can make it a feature every time I throw a party”, she opened the fridge looking for something to drink, ok, water, juices in every single flavour, beers, bottles of wine..this fridge was nearly as big as his house. “Looking at your fridge, I think you probably do throw a party twice a week” she picked something fizzy and sat down next to him “do they know?”, he gave her a puzzled look “who needs to know what?”, a sip of her drink “all your friends, do they know I live here now?” oh, was that what was bothering her, nervous about meeting his friends and family, , understandable, those wackos were pretty possessive at the best of times. “No, they don't, not yet at least, it all happened so sudden, but I'll keep them up to date this week and maybe I can even plan a lovely dinner soon with them and us, they'll love you” she couldn't see that he was crossing his fingers behind his back.

[forcri]

The Andy Bird Diaries

The penniless Englishman who seduced Madonna"

PART ONE Exclusive by Alice Fowler.

The letter was and, heartfelt, and surprisingly vulnerable especially when one considers that the writer is perhaps the most famous woman on the planet.

'I will never get over you,' it said. 'You have touched me in an unfathomable and unexplainable way.   'You say that there can be no love without trust and I couldn't agree more. But you mistrusted me long before I behaved in an untrustworthy fashion.   'All of this just perpetuated more negative and reactive behaviour in both of us. We went to our corners and drew our swords. 'The irony now is that I'm alone completely. Alone with my thoughts and my memories. I have so many fond memories of you in my house and, m fact, they we the happiest memories of my life. It is so very hard to let go of them. 'I wish so many things. I wish that we were together and happy. I wish that we'd had a child wish that you were feeling fulfilled, artistically and creatively you have such a brilliant mind I wish I wish, I wish...' 'Most of all, I wish you happiness and peace in your heart and mind. Please know that you are my last thought before I go to sleep and my first thought when I wake up. 'My love for you is profound and immense. Confusing and mysterious. I long to put my arms around you.'

These were the words that Madonna wrote to the man who was the last great love of her life before her marriage to film maker Guy Ritchie a dreamy impoverished Englishman named Andy Bird. They came towards the end of their tumultuous 18 month affair. For Madonna, Bird followed a long list of high profile partner's including Sean Penn and Warren Beatty, pop singer Prince and John F Kennedy Jr. But as her letter suggests, this anonymous figure stirred deeper feelings in her than any of his celebrity predecessors. Indeed, had fate taken a different twist, perhaps Andy Bind rather than Guy Ritchie might have followed Seen Penn as Madonna's second husband. Certainly, but for a harrowing abortion that we will return to later, he would now be the father of Madonna's child. Few would recognise Andy Bird's name today. Yet his relationship with Madonna spanned a crucial period in her life, ending in bitter arguments around the time she met Ritchie. At the start, they were blissfully happy. The lyrics of Madonna's song Beautiful Stranger To love you is to be part of you, I've paid for you with my tears, And swallowed all my Pride - were inspired by Andy Bird.

Extraordinarily, Madonna, wealthy, ambitious and famously astute lost her heart to this charming drifter who slept on friends' sofas. It was an attraction of opposites the material girl and the man with nothing; the health conscious singer and the chain smoker; the glamorous star and the face in the crowd. But together as we are about to discover, their life ran a rollercoaster course from the heights of emotion to arguments about Bird's sweaty feet (she would make him disinfect them before he came to bed). The affair wrenched this unassuming figure from the provinces born in Birmingham, the son of an accountant and an educational social worker to the centre of a very different and dazzling world. Bird came to know the private Madonna: the woman who would sing snatches of opera as she cooked Pop Tarts for breakfast, whose hopeless driving would cause havoc on the roads, who gave him clothes that ware invariably the wrong size.   To learn the inside story of their relationship - as we will do during this exclusive Mail series, which continues on Monday - is to gain an entirely new insight into the world's most scrutinised woman. She emerges as a far more tender and attractive figure than previous accounts have suggested.

Over the coming days, we will discover the truth about that abortion which left them both drained and distraught; their extraordinary life together with Sting, Stella McCartney and some of showbusiness's greatest names and the very public clash in which Ritchie scuffled with Bird at a London bar. Until now, Bird has never talked publicly about his love for Madonna. He has shrunk instinctively from the public gaze. The reason he has chosen to speak out now, he says, is to put right the many inaccuracies which continue to be written about him. By telling the truth, he hopes, he can draw a line under the past and move on. It is not a task he finds easy. At times, as we talk, he squirms with reluctance. That Madonna should fall for this likeable, irresponsible man far younger than his years, is the greatest surprise of all.

Madonna, after all, is famed as a manipulator, renowned for her need to control - most notably in her affair with Carlos Leon the handsome fitness instructor seemingly picked out to father her child. Lourdes, then cast aside. Perhaps the clearest sign of the depth of Madonna's feelings for Bird is that she found it impossible to discard him in the same way, He was her 'beautiful stranger' and for many months, even after she had met Guy Ritchie, impossible to let go. They met in the summer of 1997 through a mutual friend. Alek Keshishian the moviemaker, who had directed Truth or Dare: In Bed With Madonna, the film of her 1990 world tour. Andy was 32 seven years her junior and living a bohemian life in London's Notting Hill. A former art, student, he was Involved on the outer edges of the film industry, working as a runner for production companies and creating film scenarios of his own. He earned money sporadically, sleeping on friends' sofas for weeks at a time, and wrote a script for an off-beat comedy that he showed to an American film producer he met In London. The American agreed to fly him to LA, using her surplus air miles to try to develop the project.

The week before he was due to leave, Andy went to see Keshishian in Paris to talk about his LA trip. Alek was well known in Hollywood, with no shortage of contacts. 'On a couple of occasions he let slip: Oh I know someone who'd likes you,' Bird recalls. 'He said it was someone I'd really get along with, but he never mentioned who it was. He's the kind of person who knows everyone and likes to show off the fact. 'While I was there, he was on the phone and suddenly said: 'Andrew, say Hello to Madonna, 'Why he did it I still don't know. 'Anyway, I took the phone and said "Hello to Madonna and there was a little giggly voice at the other end. Though he knew Alek was a friend of Madonna, Andy was still unsure whether he really was talking to the singer. It could just have been some strange joke. 'But we chatted for a bit and by the end of the call she seemed like a really nice person, whoever it was I was talking to. The conversation ended with her saying: 'Tell Alek to give you my numbers in L.A'

It seems extraordinary for a star like Madonna to give me her telephone number so freely. Perhaps, says Andy, Alek had already mentioned him to her. He took the number, and. on the Eurostar back to London, decided to find out if they were real, 'I rang up and said: Hi, how are you doing?' and she said 'I'm practising yoga,' or whatever. 'I remember thinking she sounded sweet. She's got a very nice phone voice; quite low and soft. There was a connection between us.' By now there was no doubt he was talking to Madonna herself. 'I suppose other people would have found it really weird to be taking to her, but somehow it didn't feel that strange,' says Bird. I just thought I was speaking to a girl I was getting on really well with. I was speaking to the person, not the icon. 'To start with, we just chatted about Alek. But she also was making an album with the producer William, Orbit, whose work I really admired, and I was very Interested in that.'

Even though Andy hadn't been looking for a relationship, one soon started to develop. 'We spoke several more times. It ended with us talking for a couple of hours a day on the phone before I even got to LA. She was flirty - she's a very flirty person, and I just flirted back, I asked her: 'Do you want me to bring you a present when I come over?' She said; 'Yes some of those waffle biscuits they sell on the Portobello Road.' 'Our conversations, were a first-thing-in-the-morning, last-thing-at-night kind of deal. There was certainly a degree of intimacy at that point. By the end we were actually saying, 'I miss you'" when we hadn't spoken for a few hours. There was a genuine keenness to meet.'

Back in London for the few days before he left for LA, he made no secret of his strange new friendship. My phone would ring in a bar, and it would be Madonna saying 'How are you?" My friends were a bit surprised and it was a big joke for five minutes, but after that they got used to it,' Perhaps his friends were too anxious to seem 'cool' to exhibit mere excitement. Whatever the explanation, Andy admits this lack of interest was one of the reasons why, later, he was unprepared for the frenzy of attention when their relationship became more widely known.

Full of anticipation, he flew to LA and went to stay with his producer friend. The next day, he called Madonna. 'It was three clays before we eventually met up. I was a bit nervous.   I met her at this photographer's studio where they were shooting a cover for Rolling Stone magazine, 1 had to wait outside because I couldn't smoke in the studio. 'I had a Safeway bag with her biscuits from Portobello Road in it. I was wearing a fake-fur coat a mate had given me. At that stage I was into wearing ripped?up clothes and holding them together with tape.   'After 20 minutes I was called in. She war hiding behind a curtain. I think her first words were: "Hello, you!" My first impression was: 'Isn't she tiny?' She had very long, blonde Goldilocks-style hair at the time, and she was dressed all in black. 'We chatted for a bit, and then we got into her car and she drove us to a dinner party she'd been invited to.' Madonna, it appeared, was nervous, too. 'She reversed into a wall as she was turning round, She was screaming: "'Andy, I hit something I think I probably swore - but it was only surface damage' he adds wryly. The dinner was informal. 'Everyone was in the kitchen, sitting on benches. Even so I felt a bit like a fish out of water, because I didn't know a soul, including her. People always ask questions when they don't know you, and I hate being asked questions. 'Somebody asked: 'Where do you live in London?' Madonna piped up 'He's a sofa surfer' because she knew I slept on friends' sofas. We were teasing one another from the outset.' Madonna seemed to be testing his reactions, checking out if he could really handle the prospect of a relationship with her. 'We were driving back after the dinner and she said: 'Shall I drop you at a hotel, because that's what I usually do with my dates, or do you want to come back to mine and call a cab from there?' 'It was all very flippant so I just said: 'I'm bloody going to yours.'She made some coffee and called a cab. I think we kissed.'

By then we were feeling at case with one another. We'd spoken so much already that a lot of barriers had gone down.' Andy also had his first glimpse of her LA home, an old Spanish-style house, filled with antique furniture and paintings. It was, he says, stylish but understated - a place where a guest could feel at home. 'It felt very natural, not at all forced. And she wasn't at all Madonna-ish, in a predatory way. She was warm and affectionate and womanly. She's really very normal: a lovely, traditional, sweet person. 'There was no problem being alone with her. I was more worried about getting back and waking up my producer friend to borrow some U.S. dollars to pay the taxi.'

Next evening, the two went out to dinner alone, at a restaurant near Madonna's studio. This time it was Andy's turn to tease her. I remember saying to her: "Kindness costs nothing," when she got fed up with waiting for a table and snapped ever so slightly at the waiter. 'Funnily enough, she seemed to think I spouting 'from some fount of knowledge. For me it was just a proverb, but perhaps in California it sounded like a deep spiritual insight. 'And after all, it was only our second date. We were hanging on each other's every word.' That evening. Andy mentions in passing, was also one of the few times he paid for dinner. In the excitement of a new relationship, such disparities - her vast wealth, his total lack of it - seemed not to matter. Perhaps, I suggest, it even added to the romance. In hindsight at least. Andy thinks otherwise. 'She's very much a realist: she probably saw it as problematic but chose to ignore it,' he says frankly.

Already the relationship had developed a sexual spark. 'It was brilliant: warm and exciting but quite gentle,' Andy remembers. 'We were holding hands, she was taking my arm, pretty much from the outset. 'It all seemed very natural. I'm a romantic anyway, and she's got a very big heart.' When he arrived in America, Andy had scant knowledge of Madonna's life. 'I knew she had a daughter, but what her name was I didn't know. 'I was aware she'd had relationships in the past, but none of them was an issue. I'd kind of separated Madonna as a pop star from the person I was with. 'You get so wrapped up with the person that their past really doesn't matter. We were in the throes of becoming infatuated, falling in love. 'The magic that goes on inside you when just sitting in a traffic jam can be brilliant, because you get to spend time with that person. That's probably why I was oblivious to the whole fame issue.'

Perhaps, for Madonna, that ability to see her as a normal person was the clue to Andy's appeal. In him - in contrast to so many hangers-on, she may have felt she'd met a man who valued her purely for herself. Whatever the reason, within the space of a week, Andy Bird and Madonna became lovers. Was he nervous, I ask, and Andy looks mortified. 'It wasn't like that. I was having a relationship with a woman called Madonna. I was no more nervous with her than I've been with anyone, before or since. She was an individual I wanted to share a closeness with.' He pauses, looking wistful. 'It was quite a soulful thing.'

So who really is this Englishman who captured Madonna's heart. When I first speak to Andy Bird, by telephone, his voice is deep and laconic: the kind that might, indeed, suggest romance.   When we meet, he is more shy and diffident than I expect. He is tall, with long dark hair swept back from his face, and striking green eyes. But at 36 he displays an unhealthy pallor, honed on a diet of Diet Coke and Marlboro cigarettes. Later, when he shows me a photo of himself with Madonna and Lourdes, I am surprised by how much brighter and healthier he appears, the intervening years you sense, have left their mark on Andy Bird.

His parents, he says, were middle-class mavericks who left the city to start a new life in the Warwickshire countryside when he was two. They kept pigs and lived their version of The Good Life. At school - first a local primary, then a nearby prep school, followed by a comprehensive Andy was an unacademic student, spending most of his time 'messing wound with friends in bands'.   After school, he went to London to study design at Kingston Polytechnic. When he left, he drifted. Good-looking and easy-going, he began modelling, his trip to America was partly financed by a fleeting appearance in a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial - and made karaoke videos. Affable and relaxed, he made friends easily 'I was meeting lots of different people, going to trendy bars, being put on the right guest lists,' he recalls. By the time he had met Madonna, he had, he says seriously, 500 friends. His social life revolved around fashionable restaurants such as 192 in Notting Hill, his gym on Portobello Green and the Met Bar, where he was friends with the manager. Many of his friends were connected to the media. It should have been obvious that, when he began a relationship with Madonna, there was no chance of it staying secret. Five hundred 'friends' were ready to sell information to the newspapers. To Andy's surprise if no one else's - his old, bohemian existence would blow up in his face.

Back in the autumn of 1997 though, Notting Hill felt far away. Andy was in LA caught up in a burgeoning love affair. Madonna was working in the studio, finishing her best-selling album, Ray Of Light. Andy spent almost every night with her, staying at her house in Los Felix. Quickly Andy's life fell into a routine. In the morning, he and Madonna would wake up early and takes it in turns to make coffee. Then, while she practised yoga for a couple of hours, he would play with Lourdes - Lola, as her mother called her, or 'set up meetings on his still unrealised film project.   In the evenings they would meet for dinner, sometimes at the tiny macrobiotic restaurant 'really good and cheap' and maybe watch a film. He also spent time with the rest of the household: Daisy the maid, Lola's nanny Clara, and Manual the gardener. When I meet Andy at a hotel in England, he swiftly befriends every waiter; in LA, though he was dating a superstar, his behaviour was no different. He rented a Dodge pick-up and often would meet Madonna and follow her in his car. It was a rapid introduction to one of his new girlfriends surprising quirks - her terrible same of direction. 'I'd only been there a short time, but I'd still work out we were going completely the wrong way,' he remembers. 'Following her was a nightmare. You'd be at traffic lights, and out of nowhere she'd edge her way across the lanes and in the lane for turning left, and there was no way you could follow her. It's ironic really somebody with so much direction in their life not to have a clue where they were going.'

While he struggled with her driving, Madonna would try to get him to wear new clothes. 'She's given quite a lot of stuff by designers and fashion companies, and so a black velvet suit showed up that, thankfully I didn't fit into. Then there was a velvet double-breasted coat all Dolce & Gabbana that was too big. 'It was a bit like getting presents from your granny at Christmas things you'd wear for a couple of days just to please them, and then forget about.'

For the most part, though, the couple enjoyed their new found closeness. 'For both of us there was a real sense of familiarity. You know, when you feel you've met somebody before.' says Andy. 'My feelings were strong, and so were hers. There was a powerful physical and emotional attraction between us. 'There was also a sense of vulnerability the way there is when you meet someone new. She would ask my opinion on a lot of things. 'At that time, Lola was less than year old. Madonna was unsure about motherhood what was normal and what wasn't. I helped out as much as I could.' In the beginning, Andy had intended to go to LA for just three weeks. In fact, swept up in the passion of a new relationship, three months passed before he begun to think about coming home. That November, Madonna was visiting Britain to prepare for the release of Ray Of Light. Andy was short of money and starting to feel homesick. They decided to come to London together, as a couple. Andy came over a few days before her 'It was brilliant to be back. I knew I'd missed my friends, but I'd been in such a cocoon I hadn't realised how much,' he says.

Three days later, Madonna's private jet landed at Luton airport. Andy picked her up in a Range Rover with blacked out windows. 'It was great to see her again. She was staying at a house in Tregunter Road, close to The Boltons, one of the most exclusive areas of South Kensington. It was a kind of unspoken assumption that we'd be there together'   For a day or two, no one knew about it. Then Andy took her to a friend's birthday party. Next day, he says ruefully, everything went crazy: their relationship was front-page news.   'It was just awful.' Andy remembers, shrinking into his chair, 'My phone rang incessantly; stories were being written about me. I was being followed. 'One of the red-top tabloids printed a number for anyone who knew mystery man Andy Bird to call. There was even a phone in on Radio 1 for people to say what they thought about Madonna's latest choice of boyfriend.'

For Andy, the media onslaught was a total shock. I knew they'd all be interested in her, but I didn't really think they'd care about who she was dating. 'I know it sound, ridiculous now, and I was obviously being downright stupid but 1 just perceived me as being me and I knew her as somebody else my girlfriend.' Surely Madonna herself must have known what would happen? 'You would have thought so, but I don't think she wanted to acknowledge the fact it might have a detrimental effect on us, or on me. 'Also, after 15 or 20 years in the spotlight it becomes normal, I imagine. It only became an issue after my reaction to it. It made me really withdrawn. 1 felt paranoid. I hadn't realised I would care what anyone wrote about me, but it really did upset me. 'Most hurtfully, says Andy, he was labelled a 'wannabe'. 'The implication was that the only way I was going to get fame and success and some semblance of a career was by hanging about with Madonna. That hurt my pride a lot.' The differences between them, which in America had hardly mattered, were rammed in their faces in Britain. At the same time, Andy was still trying to treat Madonna like any other girlfriend. He took her to friends' flats in West London. 'Most people were fine, but some were horrified at the idea of this superstar coming into their homes. 'No! It's filthy!' they'd say. 'You mustn't come!' 'Others went wild with excitement and you'd think: 'For God's sake, calm down.' Madonna, he says, was charming add polite I think maybe she felt like a novelty, being wheeled about. I think she quite shy in a certain way. But she was my girlfriend and I wanted her to meet my friends.'

Andy was also keen to introduce Madonna to his parents, Horace and Kathleen. 'I wanted to show her another side of me, to show her where I grew up. I didn't envisage spending a lot of time with them; just introducing her and going for a country drive perhaps. 'I rang my parents and said please don't make any more effort than you normally would," and they were fine.'   On a Sunday afternoon, Andy drove Madonna and Lola to the large house his parents built 30 years ago near the village of Clifford Chambers in Warwickshire. With its wide, pitched roof and adjoining garage, it looks like the kind of house stockbrokers retire to. The three of them arrived late. 'It took us ages to get out of London because we were having to sort the baby out and deal with the paparazzi waiting outside our house. 'And, of course, Americans only drive at 50mph, so me doing 90mph down the motorway isn't go down very well at all. 'We didn't actually get there until 4pm, and when my parents opened the door they were dressed in their best clothes. They saw my face and said: 'This isn't for you we're going to a drinks party. We can only stay 20 minutes.' My mum said to Madonna something like: 'Oh, let me give you a kiss because I always kiss Andrews girlfriends.'Then she got the baby photos out: 'Here's Andrew naked in the sink at three months old.Few families you imagine, would have reacted so calmly to a pop icon sitting on their sofa. Andy's, he explains, is different: 'They hardly watch TV and don't read tabloid newspapers. I suppose you could say the whole cult of celebrity has passed them by 'They were at their ease they're very down to earth people They were more worried about being late for their drinks party than anything else.' There was, however, one unexpected hitch. A paparazzi photographer had followed them from London and was waiting outside the house. 'That made it very difficult,' says Andy, still indignant at the intrusion. 'We had to close the curtains so he couldn't see in.' Andy was angry most of all with himself, for bringing his parents into the public eye. All the same, he adds, he eventually took the photographer a cup of tea and some homemade cakes. 'I felt sorry for him' he explains helplessly.

Next day, he was shocked to find the visit was a major news story. I still had no idea that my parents' house would be on the front page of one of the tabloids. When I saw that, I realised the whole visit was a mistake. I didn't want to involve my parents in all that.' For both him and Madonna, the strain was starting to tell. 'I was starting to withdraw into myself. She could tell I wasn't happy. 'We tried to make light of it, but the situation had changed. It did get to me, and I didn't handle it very well, I was frightened to answer my phone. My stomach churns just talking about it, 'We still really cared about each other, but I was becoming much more aware of how difficult life would be with her. She was frustrated that this stuff upset me. At one point she said to me 'Oh Andrew you love me, but you hate my life.'That was completely true. But what do you do in that situation? I still loved being in her company. I thought the papers would get bored. But I wanted my freedom back.' Late one night, when their visit to London was close to an end, he went for a drive on his own. 'I needed to forget about the whole situation. 'I was questioning everything. I'd begun to feel that perhaps I really was this no-hoper everyone said I was. I didn't want to end the relationship, but I had to prove I wasn't just trying to ride on Madonna's coat tails.' Finally, after driving for many hours, Andy made his decision. He would not go back to America with Madonna, but stay in London and rebuild his life. He hoped their relationship could survive; if not, he would have to accept it.

When he got back to Tregunter Road, Madonna was waiting for him. 'She wanted to knew where I'd been for all this time. 'I just said: 'Listen I've been thinking and I've get something to tell you.'Before I could say another word, she said: 'Well, I've got something to tell you, too.'And that's when she told me she was having a baby.' The pregnancy was totally unexpected 'We were careful.' says Andy, his voice a whisper. 'I was numb, shocked, happy, panicked, sad, tired. I was looking into her eyes, trying desperately to see how she felt. 'When you're really fond of someone, there's a part of you that's happy in that situation; another part that thinks 'Oh no.'It was very early days in our relationship, and I was beginning to realise events were running me, not the other way round. 'I was full of self?doubt anyway, because of all the things being written about me in the newspapers. I wasn't sure I should even be allowed to father a child. I was in a tumultuous state, but trying my hardest to be calm.' His main concern was for Madonna. 'When someone tells you that kind of news, your overwhelming sense is to know how they are. A man feels that even more keenly, because it's something that goes on in the other person's body and you are completely cut off from it.' He pauses, looking helpless. 'I wanted to do the right thing,' he says. 'Whatever that was.'

Daily Mail - 21 January 2002

"The penniless Englishman who seduced Madonna"

PART TWO Exclusive by Alice Fowler

Madonna was pregnant and the timing could hardly have been worse. It wasn't that she didn't want another baby, it was no secret that she was keen to provide her only daughter, Lourdes, with a brother or sister. But November 1997 simply wasn't the right moment. Her relationship with the unborn baby's father, Andy Bird, was just three months old. And already their passionate affair, Madonna's last great romance before her marriage to Guy Ritchie, was under enormous strain.

Andy, a charming English drifter whom she'd met through a mutual friend, was finding the publicity surrounding their unlikely liaison impossible to live with. Virtually penniless, and a stranger to the public eye, he'd been sucked into a world that was utterly alien to him. As we saw on Saturday in the first part of this series, his very indifference to fame had enabled him to stir deeper feelings in Madonna than any of the celebrity lovers of her past. Later, she would describe her memories of their times together as 'the happiest of my life'. For once, it seems, she felt sure that her boyfriend valued her for herself, rather than her public image. But was he the right man to father her baby? Could their relationship survive the worldwide attention that her pregnancy would attract? The events of the next few days were to be pivotal in Andy's life and Madonna's.

'I wish that we were together and happy she wrote to him later, when the relationship finally began to unravel. 'I wish we'd had a child.' On the night that Madonna learned she was pregnant, Andy was driving through London on his own. He wanted time to think about his future and had made up his mind not to return with Madonna to America when she left to promote her new album. Ray Of Light. Instead, he intended to stay in Britain and hide from the glare of the media. If that meant the end of their relationship, it was a risk he was reluctantly prepared to accept.

But before he could reveal his decision Madonna stunned him with her own momentous news. 'I don't think she was sure how she felt,' he remembers. 'She was experiencing the same turmoil I was. Everything about the relationship was in flux'. They had little chance to talk on what was the last night of her stay in London 'We were packing, getting everything done, there were people calling up. We weren't alone, there were nannies and assistants, and her friends coming over to say goodbye. For Andy, already questioning every aspect of his life, there was no one he could turn to for support, I couldn't tell a soul, because I didn't know whom I could trust. I didn't even tell my parents.' Instead, next morning, he and Madonna flew to Miami.

For Andy all thoughts of staying behind in London had evaporated. They spent a few quiet days together at Madonna's three?storey Twenties house in Coconut Grove, next to Sylvester Stallone's estate. For a while, the pregnancy increased their closeness. But, for Madonna in particular, pressures were mounting. 'She was working very hard,' says Andy. 'She'd just finished Ray Of Light and was preparing for the videos. She had a Vanity Fair shoot coming up with Mario Testino the top photographer, and Dolce & Gabbana, had made all these clothes specifically for the shoot. 'There's no getting out of things like that. And they take forever.' They talked about what to do about their unborn child. 'I wanted to support her in her choice, whatever it was,' says Andy. According to the line pedalled by one of Madonna's most recent biographers that choice was made for her. In this version of events she had a miscarriage in her seventh week. The same biographer even repeats claims by Madonna's friends that Andy Bird knew nothing of her condition until after the event. The facts are rather different and sadder. For a few days, the singer wrestled with the decision. In the end, she had an abortion. 'I felt terrible. Absolutely terrible,' says Andy, with painful emphasis. Even now he is unable to talk about a loss so personal he refers to it only as 'the event'.

For them both, it sounds a lonely, desolate time. 'We didn't even have that much time to talk together' he says quietly. 'She had to go to New York for a tribute to her murdered friend Gianni Versace, but she wanted me to go back to her house in LA to get things ready for when she joined me in a few days. 'I felt estranged from everything, and I assume she did, too. It was terribly sad. We were deeply upset. 'Perhaps it would have helped to sit down together, without even talking, and to share a closeness. But long, shared silences don't work the same way on the telephone. They're just long silences and I do remember quite a few. I tried to be supportive, though whether I succeeded is another matter.'

On his own, he felt an overwhelming sense of loss. I wanted to be able to compensate in some way for what had happened. But at the time I was flat broke, I didn't even have a credit card. 'I couldn't arrange for a bunch of flowers to be delivered to her, let alone arrive with one myself. I felt guilty about that as well.' Why didn't he ask Madonna to fly him to New York so they could be together? 'I didn't want to impose on her,' he says awkwardly, 'I wanted to be able to do these things without asking her permission. Perhaps, after such a traumatic event, neither was behaving rationally, but was there not, for Andy at least an element of relief at avoiding the responsibility of becoming a father? 'After three or four years, yes,' he says honestly. 'At the time, not even remotely.' In the past, Madonna had undergone other abortions, including one in 1990 when she began pregnant during a short-lived relationship with the bisexual film extra Tony Ward. The foetus was unhealthy and doctors advised her to terminate the pregnancy.

Throughout her 30's, the singer had given public hints of her hopes of another child. By the time she became pregnant by Andy she was 39. It is not hard to imagine why, this time, Madonna was so devastated by the choice she had made. When she returned to LA from Miami, she and Andy tried in vain to recapture the happiness of their first three months. 'It was coming up to Christmas, and I was very pleased to see her and Lola (her nickname for Lourdes),' he remembers. 'But things were never the same after that. The innocence in the relationship had already started to disappear. We couldn't go back, no matter how hard we tried.' Andy, normally laidback and gentle was becoming increasingly volatile. 'I was going to ridiculous lengths to keep out of the headlines, trying never to appear in public with her. 'But she had to do all this work: the organisation of the album and the promotional tour. My moods were very up and down, and it was difficult for us to get time together.'

In February, he decided to move out of Madonna's and rent an apartment of his own, in a part of LA known as Venice Beach. 'She was about to embark on a tour around America and Europe, and I didn't fancy the prospect of staying in the house on my own,' he says. He also wanted more autonomy, to arrange his life as he wanted, rather than constantly fitting around hers. It sounds like the beginning of the end of the relationship, but that is to underestimate the strength of their bond. Through the months that followed, as Andy tried (without much success) to establish a career as a Hollywood screenwriter, he and Madonna continued to share a deep commitment.

For Andy's birthday on February 3 the first they had spent together. Madonna threw a surprise party. 'We went to my favourite restaurant just off Hollywood Boulevard, and when we walked in I saw this huge table, full of people I knew. 'She had called up all the people I knew in Los Angeles and asked them to be there. 'Just as I sat down, two friends of mine from London - Ben and Martina walked through the door. They were the manager and assistant manager at the Met Bar, one of my favourite hang-outs in London, and she'd met them when we were in Britain. She'd paid for their flights and put them up at the Mondrian hotel, one of the best in the city. 'It was a really lovely thing to do. She knew how homesick I was. 'Martina and I were pretty close and Madonna watched us hugging and kissing each other. On our way home from dinner she turned to me and said: "Why do you like me, Andrew, when Martina is so stunningly beautiful?' It's quite sweet to think that somebody like Madonna could feel a little bit insecure and admit it.

But as Andy says it just goes to show that she's a thoroughly normal person.' For Valentine's Day that same month, she bought him a silver Swiss Army knife from Tiffany with 'Birdy be my Valentine' inscribed on it. 'Which I subsequently lost,' adds Andy, looking sheepish. With money he had saved he bought her a Tiffany necklace, with a tiny diamond. 'I used to joke with my friends, 'What do you buy the woman who has everything?' but she was actually really easy to buy presents for. She was always really gracious when she received gifts.'

Andy, meanwhile, was living a life of extraordinary contrasts. On impulse he had bought a battered 1971 Chevrolet Impala coupe. Because it broke down so often, he got to know the owners of a garage in Santa Monica. Soon, he got a job helping out there, to supplement his income from 'bits and pieces' of film work. With Madonna, meanwhile, be was attending some of the glitziest premieres and events in Hollywood - even though, to avoid the cameras, he usually joined her only at the parties afterwards.

Parties like that are work to Madonna, 'he says. 'Deals are done there, and she is brilliant at networking. Occasionally, we would catch each other's eye and have a quick chat but most of the time I just let her get on with it.' When she presented the Best Song statuette to Celine Dion at the Academy Awards, Andy missed the event itself but went to the famous post-Oscars party given by Vanity Fair magazine. 'She'd gone on ahead but had given me the passes to get in. It was great turning up at this fantastic restaurant, behind a line of presidential limousines, in my ridiculous old car.' At the party guests were given cookies decorated with the cover of the magazine in icing. It was meant to be the ultimate going-home present, a sign they had been at the most coveted social event of the year. Andy typically, was unimpressed 'I got very hungry, an I ate mine,' he says, looking mischievous.

On nights on the town like this he would rub shoulders with stars such as Jack Nicholson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. 'I was always trying not to stare,' he says. 'I remember seeing Tony Curtis, whom I'd watched in Some Like It Hot and Spartacus. It was a shock to see a really old man with a well built platinum blonde on his arm.' He met Madonna's friend, Stella McCartney, the celebrity designer, a couple of times 'a lovely girl' and quite often saw her close friends Sting and Trudi Styler. His happiest times, however were spent at home with Madonna and her daughter Lourdes. 'In some ways, Madonna's a very ordinary woman who enjoys doing ordinary things,' he says.

'Like eating liquorice sticks, watching videos in bed or reading the newspapers over breakfast and not saying a word. 'A lot of people see Madonna as being quite an unhappy moody figure, but she spends far more time being happy than she does being sad. When she wants to, she can have a great sense of humour about herself. 'She used to send herself up by calling herself a creamy smooth pop icon goddess and then she would sing opera when she was heating up Pop Tarts for breakfast. 'A lot of the time we would spend playing with Lola or we'd go on family outings to Disneyland. That was probably the most fun we had, being together like a normal couple with a child. 'She got so much joy from her daughter. Just watching Lola trying to run in the park with her little legs flailing about, would set her off laughing. Nannies would take Lola over to the studio when Madonna was recording and she would take at least a couple of hours out to play with her.

I remember the first time she ever spent a night away from Lola. She had to go into the desert to shoot a video and she was so tearful at being apart from her daughter. 'I stayed at the house with Lola and the next days a car was suppose to take her out to the desert to meet her mother but it broke down. 'Madonna was just distraught she was in a state of panic until the car finally arrived and she could see Lola was safe.' Andy also met members of Madonna's family, including her brother Christopher and her father, Tony Ciccone, who owns a vineyard and winery in northern Michigan. 'He's a lovely man, very down to earth. I remember him talking about special varieties of grape that grow under heavy snowfall. 'One Christmas she bought him some piece of irrigation equipment because that was all he wanted. That's how star-struck he is.'

Madonna spoke little of her mother who died of breast cancer when she was five. 'Everybody knows she lost her mother when she was very young, and I can't even imagine how traumatic that must have been for her,' says Andy. 'I think there is probably an element of that loss in some of the lyrics she writes. You can sense it in her work. 'Her mother was deeply religious and quite passionate about the shrine at Lourdes, which is why Madonna gave that name to her daughter.'

With a flair for art and style, Madonna had many friends in the world of fashion, including the designers Donatella Versace and Stefano Gabbana. 'Because she was quite influential in launching Dolce and Gabbana by wearing their clothes in her videos, they look after her very well,' says Andy. 'At their studio in Milan they have a mannequin with her measurements and a bootmakers last in her shoe size. Vans would regularly turn up at the house with rails of their clothes for her to choose from.' Even so, not all her clothes were from designers. 'She could wear the tattiest pair of jeans and still look good in them. Often she'd walk round the house in just a Hennes vest and look fantastic. She once said to me if she didn't do what she did, she would love to have been in fashion journalism. She is very creative.' There is affection and admiration in his voice; Madonna's, he says often, is a lovely woman.

Yet, for Andy at least something had changed. For all the happy times they shared together, and his growing fondness for Lola, the differences between them, those that had first surfaced in London only to be pushed aside were becoming harder to ignore. Andy's self confidence was suffering, trying to develop film projects of his own, he felt he was only taken seriously as Madonna's boyfriend. 'I felt cheap in a way, that I'd got where I was through no merit of my own. 'When opportunities were offered. I didn't take them. I was suspicious of everyone.' Madonna, who had encouraged Andy's career was disappointed at his lack progress. 'I think she thought I had to have a career within that world in order for us to continue a successful relationship. 'Her work is so important to her, and she needed someone whose career was equally important to them. She's very driven, and she ended up wishing I was more driven, too.'

At the start of the relationship, Andy's lack of money had never seemed a problem. Now, his pride became an issue. Simple things, such as Madonna's effort to make her unashamedly scruffy lover wear new clothes, made him angry. 'I eventually bought myself some smarter outfits, but not until we'd been seeing one another for quite a while. I'd hate to think of myself m someone who can be bought. We were fighting more: such as 'Where are my socks?' - 'In the bin' - 'But they've got months left in them.' Our relationship was gradually breaking under the strain of all the things I didn't like about the situation. 'It was changing me: I certainly wasn't the person she had met. I knew I didn't belong in LA. I felt like, a child among a group of adults. And Madonna was changing, too. As time went on, she was less ready to look at the problems between us in a rose-coloured way.' Both recognised the pressures they were under 'I'm so sorry that you were threatened by my career and fame and past,' wrote Madonna sadly to Andy, later in their relationship. 'I wish I could erase all the bad memories between us and go back to LA before we left for New York and London. Before we both got scared.'

The passion that remained between them led to fierce, arguments. 'That in itself can almost make a stronger link between you, because you become locked in battle,' says Andy. 'Everything was heightened.' It was clear the situation could not go on. Finally, Andy decided to leave LA and return to London. Even then, their relationship continued, in angry phone calls and long, heartfelt letters. Neither could let go completely. It was not until late 1998 that the situation began to change.

By then, as we will see tomorrow, Madonna had met the man who would transform her life once more: a little known film-maker named Guy Ritchie.

Daily Mail - 22 January 2002

"The penniless Englishman who seduced Madonna"

PART THREE / FINAL Exclusive by Alice Fowler

Andy Bird remembers clearly the moment his girlfriend Madonna first set eyes on Guy Ritchie. There was, he notes carefully, a 'chemistry' between them. Ironically it is the very word he uses to describe the start of their own extraordinary love affair, just a year before. Bird, an unassuming and virtually penniless Englishman, who was scratching out a living as an aspiring film screenwriter, had been introduced to her through a mutual friend. A sexual spark was struck, and he suddenly found himself the boyfriend of the most famous woman on the planet. It was one of the most unexpected but tumultuous affairs of Madonna's amazing life.

As we have already seen, in this series, she was carrying Andy's child within three months. But although he stirred profound feelings in the singer touching her more deeply than previous celebrity lovers such as Warren Beatty and John Kennedy Jr, Andy was unable to cope with the constant blaze off publicity in which she lived. Uncertain of their future together Madonna aborted their child. And by the time she met Ritchie in the summer of 1998 she and Andy were living apart. Madonna was in the US with her daughter Lourdes (known as Lola), promoting her album Ray Of Light. Andy was in London, resuming his bohemian life in Notting Hill. His first job when he returned was to work on the door of his old haunt, the Met Bar in Mayfair, not surprisingly, the fact that Madonna's boyfriend was working as a glorified bouncer instantly made the papers.

'I was flat broke.' he explains shrugging apologetically 'The manager was one of my friends, and I needed the money.' His relationship with Madonna continued in long, fraught phone calls and letters in which they tried to make amends for the rows. 'It's Mother's Day, and I have just put Lola to sleep,' wrote Madonna in one typical letter. 'The past few hours I've been distracted with thoughts of you and our last conversation. 'I hate to fight with you especially around Lola. I hate it when you call me names. The whole time we argue, all I really want to say to you is that I wish you were here and I was looking to your eyes. 'It's been so long since we've seen each other - and nothing would make me happier. But we never seem to get to tenderness because you we still so angry with me. You save your tender words for Lola and it hurts me so.' Both of them feIt anxious and insecure.

When the newspapers discovered that Andy was back in London, they labelled him 'broken-hearted Andy Bird' and were quick to speculate that Madonna had moved on to other men. Andy says: 'I read one report that Robbie Williams had been having dinner with her. In fact, it was all down to some over-zealous public relations person, met they'd never even met. 'But when you're on the other side of the Atlantic, you think: 'What the hell are you doing?' It would frustrate her that I would suddenly start quizzing her about stuff in the papers.' Madonna had questions of her own. 'She knew I'd recovered if not all then certainly some of my anonymity. To a certain extent I could run around and do what I wanted to do. If I'd have wanted to have an affair, I could have done. 'There was hostility on her side.' How would I know if you were doing anything?'she would say. It wasn't really jealousy, but it was definitely uncertainty.' Did they stay faithful to one another? 'I can only speak for myself,' says Andy. 'But yes, I did. The trust in the relationship had pretty much disappeared by then, but not because we'd started having other relationships. It's just that when you're arguing all the time, you do lose your trust.'

Despite the tensions, neither was prepared to give up on each other - or as Andy puts it, 'concede defeat.' Almost every other weekend he would fly to the U.S. 'I'd spend two or three days In New York, then fly back to London for a couple of weeks. It sounds glamorous but it wasn't at all. It was actually quite laborious. 'We couldn't really communicate. By the time we'd be getting used to being with one another again, it would be time for me to leave. 'Madonna was still very helpful, she paid for the flights far more regularly than I did. But you have to be very solid to continue a long-distance relationship and our foundations were really non-existent.' At times, the affair seems to have descended into farce. 'There was always an issue about how smelly my feet were, especially when I was travelling backwards and forwards to New York. When I got to her apartment and took my shoes off, Lola would be going, 'Pooh! Stinky Andrew!' Madonna used to make me wash my feet before I got into bed, with hydrogen peroxide, which Americana use as antiseptic.

'Her apartment in New York had a balcony overlooking Central Park, with a big urn on it. Once. I ran out there in my stockinged feet to have a cigarette, and took my socks off and put them in the urn. 'I got a call from her three weeks later saying Lola had been pointing at this urn saying "Stinky Andrew" because she'd found my socks. That kind of thing was very funny. But I think I as beginning to stretch Madonna's sense of humour somewhat.' Yet - remarkably, perhaps - a deep well of affection remained as Madonna's letters show. 'We haven't spoken for a week and it makes me very sad, but there's nothing I can do, so I'm sending you this note and some music I'd like you to listen to,' she wrote after one argument. 'I think of you so often when I listen to music. I feel it's the one thing we have that has not been tainted is a love of good music. 'You have a very good ear. The fact is there is nothing you wouldn't be good at, given the right circumstances. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you have so much talent and creativity inside you. It just needs to be manifested. 'You have so much to offer the universe I look forward to seeing into your heart. You are still so deeply embedded in my heart.'

Sometimes she would send Andy touching presents. 'After one bout of arguing, she put together a lovely little parcel for me, with a scented candle, some magazines, a little picture Lola had drawn, a letter and a CD,' he remembers. 'Occasionally, she would send money. That would make me feel pretty rough, and I'd invariably give it away. But I suppose she wanted to help and show she cared.'

For weeks the relationship waxed and waned. 'Just when I thought I couldn't take any more, something would happen to give us breathing space for the next round. She'd write me letters and I'd write to her. 'We'd be breaking up all the time, maybe not talking for a few days. Then we'd call each other up, or send long faxes. There was never a point when it really ended.' This was the stormy, uncertain background against which Madonna first met Guy Ritchie another handsome Englishman, also involved in film-making, although with rather more success than Andy Bird. The singer had come to London for work, and had been invited to a barbecue at the Wiltshire home of Sting and his wife Trudi Styler. Trudi was a close friend of Madonna and was also involved in Ritchie's new film, Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels.

For Andy and Madonna's, the day of the barbecue had started badly. She was keen for him to come with her, while he wanted to see some of his friends. 'I was heading home after seeing her at her hotel when she rang me on the mobile, asking if I was sure I didn't want to go,' he remembers. 'I wasn't keen because I was still wearing the clothes I'd had on the night before and was hardly dressed for barbecue, but I agreed to go with her. 'Her chauffeured Mercedes people-carrier picked me up on Pack Lane and I just jumped in next to the driver. Madonna - who was in the back with one of her assistants and Lola - interpreted this as a snub. 'It wasn't meant that way at all - but things went downhill from there. By the time we got to the party we were hardly speaking to each other.

'Trudi introduced us both to Guy and I could see a chemistry between him and Madonna. They looked good together - they kind of fitted. There was an instant interest and they started chatting straight away.' When they all sat down for dinner Madonna wanted Andy to sit next to her. Instead, he sat at the other end of the table with Lola. At least sitting next to Lola, I knew we wouldn't have an argument. Madonna ended up sitting next to Guy and they seemed to be getting on really well. Surprisingly, perhaps, Andy insists he felt no jealousy. 'There didn't seem to be anything to be jealous about. I'd seen that they'd hit it off at the start but now they were just two people at a party, chatting away like everyone else.

To this day, Andy insists that he knows nothing of how Madonna's relationship with Ritchie developed over the following months. But by March 1999, when he next met Guy, his own relationship with Madonna was over and Ritchie had very obviously taken his place. Their chance encounter at the Met Bar was to generate sensational headlines suggesting Ritchie had flattened his supposed rival in an ugly brawl. But that's not how Andy Bird remembers it. 'I was there with friend, and he was, too,' Andy says. 'We ended up having a chat. It was very loud and we went to have a talk about things in the lobby, which was quieter. 'I suppose I was saying 'no hard feelings', which was obviously a one-sided sentiment. Probably I said something derogatory about her, or about her life. Whatever it was, he suddenly pushed me over. 'It was out I nowhere - I was sitting on a chair and he pushed me off. But it wasn't the big brawl that some people have claimed.' Wisely, Andy did not respond and returned to the bar, while the doormen threw Ritchie out.

Why, though, did Guy react so violently? Perhaps he saw Andy as a threat, or at least a thorn in his side. Bird remains mystified by the scuffle, but refuses to speak harshly of the man who displaced him in Madonna's affections. 'Who knows what Madonna might have told him about me?' he says. 'But it wasn't like I was standing in his way. I wasn't in touch with Madonna by this stage and I don't think I even had her phone number. 'He clearly had - and has - very strong feelings for her. He'd had a drop to drink, and love can make you do silly things,' Possibly, Ritchie was simply aware of how intensely his girlfriend still cared for Andy.

In the months after Guy and Madonna met, she had continued to see Andy regularly. For her 40th birthday in August 1998 - not long after her first meeting with Guy it was Andy whom she flew but to be at her side. 'I went over to New York for a week and we had a couple of days together at her apartment,' Andy remembers. 'Then she chartered a small sea-place to take us from Manhattan to this gross Hugh Hefner-style mansion in the Hamptons that she had hired for her birthday. 'There were the two of us, her brother Christopher, her assistant, plus Lola, the nanny and a couple of friends. Then we were joined by about 30 people at the mansion and we had a lovely dinner party. 'We played silly party games and everyone seemed to have a great time. Her masseuse came along and gave everyone massages as her present to Madonna. 'After dinner, we went into this huge cinema that was in the mansion and watched the new film of The Avengers. But it was so awful that I went off into the video library and came back with In The Heat Of The Night, with Sidney Poitier, which everyone enjoyed.' At the time, Madonna was deeply influenced by Memoirs Of A Geisha. Arthur Golden's compelling novel about the eroticism and exploitation of a Japanese geisha. Back in London, Andy had bought an antique kimono for Madonna and a smaller one for Lola. 'I also got a huge chunk of silvercoloured metal and, with a friend of mine, carved her out a huge silver heart, which I took over for her. It must have weighed more than a house brick and she seemed to appreciate it. 'But we still had an argument, even on her birthday. I wasn't feeling well and kept disappearing to throw up, and she accused me of being ill on purpose to spoil her birthday.'

For months the arguments dragged on. 'One of us would slam the phone down and ring back just to slam it down again,' says Andy. 'She changed her numbers, I changed mine. It was almost like a competition, neither of us wanted to admit defeat. Neither of us was very good at saying sorry and we would never admit to being in the wrong.' For Madonna, Andy's whole approach to life was the easy-going, impulsive style that had helped bring them together in the first place - was wearing thin. 'I'm irresponsible in fundamental ways, which did become an issue' he concedes. It was about whether I could say to Madonna: 'I can look after you.' That was important, Madonna may have grown up looking after herself and everyone else around her, but I think she does want to be looked after. 'Not looked after financially, necessarily - that would be a daunting task. But to have someone who at least contributes to the household, who organises things, takes responsibility for things. 'Even if you can look after yourself particularly well, as she can, you want that.'

Certainly, Madonna had always been frustrated by Bird's laid back attitude to his career. In Guy Ritchie she found a man whose ambition matched her own.' But it was also a matter of emotional commitment. The truth is, with seven years between them, Andy and Madonna may simply have wanted different things. 'I think she was looking for a caring, stable relationship. I know she wanted another child, but I knew that I wasn't ready to become a parent.' Had fate run a little differently, it is conceivable that Madonna could have ended up marrying Andy Bird rather than Guy Ritchie. But Andy remains sceptical - even if they'd had a child, he says, it would not have made a difference. 'We would still have broken up. There were serious difficulties. Having a child wouldn't have changed our personalities, it ought have made us a little less headstrong but I don't think, ultimately, we would have stayed together. The relationship might just have lasted a little longer, that's all.'

Indeed, looking back, he is unsure how deep their feelings really were. 'In hindsight I'd have to look deep inside me to say we fell in love. 'It's very difficult to quantify those feelings when you're in the moment, whether it's infatuation, or desire, or love. But I don't really think we were in love.' It's a difficult claim to accept when you look back at Madonna's letters to Andy, where she talks of a love she describes as 'profound and immense' add tells him, 'I will never get over you.' The evidence, indeed, appears to entirely contradict his self-effacing verdict. But then, even though he has chosen to tell his story, Bird is a touchingly diffident man, determined not to exaggerate his role in Madonna's life.

In July 1999, over two evenings, they saw each other for the final time. Madonna had flown to London and was staying at the exclusive private members' club, Home House. Out of the blue she phoned Bird and invited him over, after seeing Guy Ritchie earlier that evening. 'I don't know why we saw each other then,' Andy says. 'Maybe it was just so that we could, in some kind of way, say our goodbyes to each other. The chemistry was no longer there. 'The anger still flared up because we are a couple of fighters, but our feelings had changed. The passion that had been there at the beginning of our relationship had gone by that stage. 'We had dinner together and chatted about what we had been doing, I can't remember what our last words were that night, I remember the emotions more than the words. There was resignation and a certain amount of sorrow, but no regrets that it hadn't worked out between us. 'She's certainly not one for regrets, She's very forward-looking and positive, as you can see from what she's achieved in her life.'

Even then, Madonna could not part from Andy completely. She called him the next day and arranged to meet him for dinner at a restaurant called Bali Sugar in Notting Hill. 'We actually got on much better that time. She had just got back from staying at Donatella Versace's place on Lake Como, and she'd bought a video camera with her so I could see where she had been staying. We had a pleasant conversation and then she went back to Home House, packed and got on a plane that night. Even then, we couldn't say we would never see each other again and we spoke subsequently on the phone. 'I was supposed to go over to Miami for her birthday the following month but it was at the height of the season and I couldn't afford the £800 for the flight. 'She was saying things such as 'If you really loved me you would find the money and I was saying, if you really loved me you would understand my situation.' So we didn't see each other again. I think we were both exhausted and had finally ground each other down.'

That Christmas, Madonna wrote to him one last time. 'It was just before she and Guy announced her pregnancy, She just said 'Hi, I hope things we OK with you. Lola still mentions you occasionally. Maybe we should meet it would be nice to have a chat about things.' Andy did not respond. 'It didn't really warrant it. It was just a few words on a Christmas card. She sent it to a restaurant I used to go to, and I only got it a month and a half later.' By then, he explains, the moment had passed: the world knew she was having a baby. 'I felt she was opening a new chapter in her life. By that stage, I definitely had as well.' How did he feel, after the loss of their own child, hearing Madonna was pregnant with another man? It didn't affect me,' he says evenly. 'By then, my head was somewhere else. Already it seemed another life. 'I did feel pleased for her. And from the little bits of information that filter through to me I understand they we very happy.'

It seems an odd coincidence that, after Andy, Madonna should go on to marry another Englishman. Andy, however says he saw little sign of a hankering for English men. 'She was married to Sean Penn and had a long relationship with Warren Beatty, and there's nothing remotely English about them. 'Since she and Guy got together, she's probably discovered quite a lot of nice things about England. But I don't think she was looking for an English husband.' While Madonna has found happiness with Ritchie - and given birth to a son Rocco - Andy has stepped back into the shadows. Today, he has another, happy relationship. He has grown up, it seems, in the past few years. Even now, his phone still rings with people wanting to talk to him about Madonna.

There have been some false suggestions that he is planning to write a book about his experiences, in fact, he hopes that by telling his story in this series, he can draw a line beneath the whole episode and get on with the rest of his life. He has, he says fervently, few regrets. I can look back and categorically say Madonna's a lovely, lovely person. But I definitely wasn't the right person for her, add she wasn't for me.' In the end, the contrasts that once seemed so alluring tore the relationship apart. Then love was at its best, an extraordinary fairy tale. Sadly, as with most real-life fairy tales, there could be no lasting happy ending.

[stardancerluv]

Interesting Developments

Part 2

Summary: Roman and you have been dating for awhile. You got some horrible mail while he’s away....could this be the end?

Side story to Creative Fervor

Warning: swearing, smut, unintentional exhibitionism, daddy kink, fluff

“Now sit the fuck down.” He commanded after he got off the phone.

In the almost two years that you had been dating the infamous, Roman Sionis he had never spoke to you in the tone of voice. You immediately did what he asked.

He came over and placed a hand on each arm rest. “Y/N, so believed this rubbish?”

His blue eyes were like chips of ice, normally. they were warm, loving or passionate. You shrank back into the chair. You shrugged.

You watched as he tilted his head back, “Fuck it all.” He shouted to the ceiling.

“Roman,” you finally said softly. “You are an incredibly handsome man,” You swallowed. “and I know your desire and need...that girl...well she was...” tears welled up, filling your eyes. You looked up at him, through the tears. “She looked so glamorous. And well I’m just me.”

He grabbed you by your shoulders so fast and hard you barely were able to blink, much less breath. “She did satisfy an itch but well before you and I ever became an item.”

You swallowed. “Really?” You trembled, the tears fell from your eyes.

“I have and never will fucking lie to you.”

You melted, wilting in his grasp. His hands moved so he then was holding you close. He looked down at you, and just shook his head. “You’re the one I want by my side.” You wrapped your arms around him.

You planted a kiss on his throat, then another and another till you reached his jaw loving the feel of his scruffiness.

He moved, to look down at you. “Are you trying to butter me up for not believing me?” He rose an eyebrow.

“Yes.” You said in a soft voice. You kissed him again. You hoped he wasn’t too mad for your moment of mistrust.

He smirked. “It’s working.”

“I missed you.”

“I’m going to show you how much I missed you.” With a bit of a huff, he picked you up and put you over his shoulder, walking with to the bedroom you shared. Out of no where, he reached back smacked you very hard on the ass. You called out, it really smarted. Twisting, you looked at him.

“That’s for not trusting me.”

“That’s fair.” You let your shoes fall to the ground as you neared the bedroom.

“It better be.”

He easily tossed you onto the large bed. To play coy a little you smoothed down the skirt of your dress.

“Stop playing coy.” You met his eyes.

He slipped from his shoes, then moved so he was over you in moments. He bad one leg over you, as be was already holding you again his gloved thumbs caressing your cheeks.

“That was a very long seven days.”

You swallowed, “It was.”

“Next time, I am bringing you with me.” You opened then closed your mouth. No time to discuss that or attempt to protest. You really didn’t want to anyway.

“You belong to me. I want you with me.”

You sighed as his thumb caressed your bottom lip. You moaned as he finally kissed you. You had mot realized how much you missed the feel, the taste of him.

He sat back, he gestured to the dress. “Take that off.” He smiled, when you easily pulled it off. “Take those off too.” He gestured to your panties and bra. Easily you unhooked and shimmed out of them.

You noticed he was still in his suit. You couldn’t help but lick your lips. Him in his suits had always turned you on and this was no exception.

He knelt on the bed, he crooked a finger at you. “Come and undress daddy.” The silkiness of his voice, the passion burning in his blue eyes made you ache.

You crawled over to him, then you rose yourself up in front of him. You were becoming breathless with your heart racing. You carefully undid the buttons and smoothed off his suit jacket. Grabbing it, you tossed it onto the bench at the end of the bed. “Good girl.” He smiled at you proudly. You knew to take care of his things.

Undoing his belt, the button and lowering of the zipper of his slacks was next. “Help me with this part daddy.”

He easily accommodates you for that but kept his boxers on. Smoothing your hands over him,, you slipped off his shirt, him helping where needed. You brought one of his hands to come and rest on you as you then gently removed one glove then did the same with the other.

“Lay back into the pillows daddy, I want to make you feel good.”

He did, just laying there made your mouth water and yourself grow wetter.

You went over and easily tugged down and removed his boxers. He was all ready for you hit you wanted him to feel even more ready.

Slipping lower down his legs, you hovered over him. Gently taking ahold of him, you licked and then just suckled on his tip. Inciting and pulling moans from his mouth. Then lowered your mouth completely over him. Loving his taste, something masculine and mysterious you always mused.

You enjoyed moving your mouth, your tongue up and down his length. When his phone rang interrupting everything.

You let him pop out from within your mouth. “Answer it, you have to....but I am going to tease your while your on the phone daddy to remind you, that your with me right now.”

He swallowed. “Ok.” He put it to his ear. “Zsasz, what is it?” His voice was strained.

You smirked. This was an opportunity you had been waiting for. You languidly bent over him again. You took his free hand and slid some of his fingers very easily into your wetness. Then balancing yourself just right you, you took him back into your mouth.

“Get out with it.” He coughed you looked at him through the strands of your hair. His fingers began to move making you shiver, you moaned around his cock. He coughed, it was a fake one you knew it. You almost chuckled.

“Take those fuckers to the warehouse.” You could hear Zsasz muffled voice, couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“Ok, see you in an hour.” Then you saw him toss the phone.

He pulled his hand out from your wetness and he smacked your ass hard for a second time. You yelped. “That was horrible to tease daddy like that while he had to take care business.”

“Sorry daddy.” You licked up his hard length.

He let out a moan. “Damn you mouth feels so good.” He met your eyes, “Come ere’ and straddle daddy. He wants to watch you.”

Easily you climbed up and as you lowered yourself, you both moaned together.

“Your cock feels so good, daddy.” You were able to say once you caught your breath. And with his hands on your hips you began riding him.

“Who’s cock baby?” He asked as he slammed into you.

You called out, moaning. “Your cock, daddy.”

Then together your moans mingled as you moved above him.

Being apart the longest the two of you have been, it was long till you felt close.

You bent down down as you moved and kissed him. Loving the taste of him. Then you gave a small gasp as be moved and you were under him. The sight of him above you, excited you further. You writhed and arched against him.

“I am so close,” you whimpered.

“Let me hear you.”

Holding onto him, your fingers nestled into his soft hair you grew closer and closer.

“Roman!” You called out. You melted under him. Loving how he looked above, his hair in face.

Thrusting harder into you and with a moan that was your name you could feel as he came hard in you.

****

Zsasz, should have immediately ended the call after he said. “Ok, see you in an hour.” But he had grown distracted as he watched the back stabbers get their limbs tied tighter before being stuff in the trunks of their cars.

Thinking, Roman wanted to say something else when you heard something at the other end, he put a finger to his ear so he could hear boss better then he turned away from the other men, his eyes grew wider. As he heard him and you moaning, exchanging sexy spars to which he could imagine what you were doing to boss. After a second, he hung up shocked...and even a little embarrassed at what he heard.

****

As you laid cuddled up to his side you looked up at him. Enjoying how soft he looked compared to earlier. You gently, brushed some strands out of his face.

“When, I feel like its safe again we will go and get your clothes.”

A pang went through your heart. “You noticed?”

“Yes.” With his arms around you, he squeezed. “These are bad men, Y/N. I am keeping you here when I head out.”

You trembled. “Bad men?”

“They have some specialities that were needed but obviously they were playing games. They hit where my heart is.”

You went up on your help. “Your heart?”

“Yes, you silly little girl.” He pulled you over him. He cupped your face. “I might be a tough man, and we’ve discussed how I don’t care about anything but you....you took a hold of whatever you want to call my damn heart.”

“Oh...Roman...” You cried and kissed him here and there, until he was laughing. “I will be your silly little girl always.

“Good.” He smacked you on the ass again. “We better get dressed. You have to see Daddy off before be goes and deals with these men.”

@darling-i-read-it @spn-obession @vintagemichelle91 @xxxeatyourh3artoutxxx @ewanfuckingmcgregor @zodiyack @angel98624 @starwarsprequelfangirl @nebulastarr @emyliabernstein (here’s your first tag!) @top-rumbelle-fan @rosionis​ @johallzy​ @shantellorraine

[tinytotalitariantortises]

His Girl

Pairing: 40′s Bucky x Reader

Warnings: ANGST! With a tiny bit of gore. 

Word Count:  2372

A/N: Okay so the universe this is in is kind of weird. There’s no Steve and there’s no Hydra. 

Summary: Bucky falls in love with the right girl at the wrong time. 

He’d just returned from some feral battle - shaken up and jittery, but surprisingly unscathed. Some higher up had insisted he and a platoon advance on enemy territory. So, like any good soldier, he’d done as told.

Only this time, he hadn’t expected it to be so bloody.

Red.

That’s all he recalled.

Pools of red. Mangled flesh. Stray limbs. Uniforms blackened with blood. Disfigured faces.

Every image he’d seen earlier that day had embedded themselves into his mind with no plan of leaving.

His feet had found their way to the far corner of the mess hall, far from his loud companions. He looked down, and a tray of dry chicken and even dryer potatoes had made their way before him. Numbly, he took a bite.

A firm hand had landed itself on his back, causing him to jolt a bit. Turning around, Bucky had immediately noticed the face. It’d been one of the men from the tank. He was surprised he’d made it.

“You alright Barnes?!” The man grinned, breath reeking of liquor. Bucky straightened up a bit and mustered up his signature maverick smirk. He cleared his throat as the clearly intoxicated man plopped down next to him.

“I’m just… fine and dandy. You?”

“Couldn’t be better!” The man’s gaze lowered to Bucky’s crotch. “And… apparently, neither could you.” Bucky looked back at his brother in arms, embarrassed and even more confused. “Romantic dinner with the missus, eh?”

The Sargent tilted his head “what are you -”

Then he looked down in his lap.

“Oh.”

And there you were. Sitting crossed legged on a bench in some place that looked like Central Park. There was a bow in your curled hair. You smiled toothily, shoulder popped, bright-eyed and glossy-lipped, knowing exactly how good you looked. Along the length of your body, ran an expensive looking dress that outlined every dip and curve flawlessly. It’d been satin, he figured, and sleeveless with just the right amount of cleavage showing. You were an image of tantalizing damehood and girlishness, all rolled up in one.

Absolutely breathtaking. He thought.

The only thing was, Bucky had no idea how the bewitching woman ended up in his lap.

“I sure wish I had her to go back home to.” His fellow soldier grumbled, taking a bite of Bucky’s chicken and standing. “You’re a lucky guy, Barnes! Always lucky!”

“Yeah…” He held you between his thumb and forefinger. “I guess I am.”

And with that, the man left. Leaving Bucky and his stranger completely alone.

Bucky squinted at the photo in his hand, attempting to absorb the angel before him. Finally, his eyes landed on the upper right corner of the portrait. Scribbled in wobbly cursive were a Brooklyn address and your name. Silently, he put the name to the beautiful girl and it all made sense. Surely, you were a sign from God. Something to take his mind off of the trepidation he’d endured that day.

There had been no better remedy.

Before Bucky knew it, word spread around the camp like wildfire. Everyone asked to see Bucky’s girl, and he’d show you off willingly. Many men would whistle and make lewd remarks. The more sentimental of the bunch would show him the pictures of their wives and reminisce. Amongst the bickering and scrapping in the camp, there’s one thing everyone could agree on:

Bucky was lucky to have such a knockout of a girl.

He wasn’t exactly sure how you’d slithered your way into his breast pocket, but he wasn’t complaining.

⋆⋆⋆

It’d been a week since the war ended. In a matter of a few days, Bucky had been shipped back home from Europe and he’d made it back to his little corner of Brooklyn. It’d been late afternoon when he’d finally reached. Music flowed into the streets from the apartment windows. Streamers hung in the barber shops and diners and lamp posts. For the first time ever, Bucky had seen a sense of community in his little niche of New York. But amongst all the carousing, nothing was as beautiful as the girl he kept in his breast pocket. As he neared your street, he could hear his heart pounding in your ears.

Would you like him? Would you be just like he imagined?

It was getting dark when he stopped in front of your door. From the outside of the small townhouse, he could see a warm light emitting from behind the flowery curtains. Those curtains emulated you. With a sudden burst of bravery, Bucky stepped forward, knocked and waited.

Needless to say, he wasn’t met with the bright smile he’d been expecting.

Instead, a quivering young woman emerged from behind the door, a patterned shawl thrown around her shoulders. You examined Bucky with furrowed brows and a wary frown. It was clear you’d just woken up.

“Yes?”

You sounded just like he imagined. Silvery and light. He’d practically melted on your doorstep in spite of your cold, guarded demeanor. Even in her semi-conscious state, she was alluring.

“Can I help you?” You asked again, hands tight around the doorknob.

Bucky shifted his weight on his feet. “Uh... yeah. Yeah, you’re Y/N, right?”

You nodded slowly. Once. Then twice. 

“Can I come in?” He asked, entirely knowing he was overstepping some boundaries.

You gave Bucky a once over, then nodded again and cracked the door open a bit wider. Bucky stepped into the threshold, clumsily tripping over the copious amount of shoes in front of the door. While you closed the door, the young woman voiced a small apology. If he squinted, he could have sworn he saw the tiniest smirk pull at your lips. Instantly, his ears went warm. “You can sit here.” Bucky shuffled over to the open living room and sat on the velvet couch. You sat across from him in a chair that looked all too uncomfortable. If he stared long enough, (which he did a few times) he would have seen that you mimicked the crossed legged posture of that in his photo only far less glamorous.

Once he took you in a few more times, he glanced around the room.

He was taken back by the look of the place. He expected each windowsill to be brimming with potted plants, the tables to be polished, the floors and counters to be pristine. He expected to be met with the smell of vanilla and clean laundry. Instead, it smelled faintly of cologne and peeling paint. Everything was mostly grey, with the occasional splash of beige, brown, or green. The small living room had been littered with letters, all of which were torn open, some of which were strewn across the dusty floor. Every table and wall was covered with framed pictures of you and another man. One who looked all too familiar. It had taken all of this to make Bucky realize that the world he’d dreamt up for you was one of fallacy. From the looks of the tiny flat, you’d had been a paycheck short of being dirt poor.

“I don’t understand... are you a friend of my husband?” Your small voice snapped him out of his thoughts. You’d been watching him this entire time. Bucky cleared his throat and straightened up. “Yes. No! I mean... I... I found him.”

The memories came flooding back from that July afternoon.

Pools of red. Mangled flesh. Stray limbs. Uniforms blackened with blood. Disfigured faces.

In the heap of bodies stood out one soldier in particular.

A tall man lay in the mud with a particularly peaceful face. His hair was neat under his helmet. His jacket was buttoned all the way to the top. His glasses were fastened ideally on his face.

If one were to ignore the way his torso trailed feet away from his legs, it would almost look as if he were sleeping.

As Bucky inched closer to your husband, he felt a pang of survivors guilt. If there was a man who looked the closest to alive, it was him. If he made it home, Bucky thought, he seems like he would have made a good lawyer or accountant. A good provider.

“He was… waitin’ to be buried. I opened his jacket and there you were…”

Upon further inspection, Bucky could see something sticking out of the front pocket of your husband's breast pocket. Curiously, and knowing he shouldn’t, Bucky pulled out a letter and a portrait. Your portrait.

The look of mistrust on your face was replaced with horror.

“... You took my photo from him?” The crack in your voice made him want to cry. Bucky nodded slowly, internally cringing at how horrible it had sounded in retrospect.

“It was next to the letter.” His leg bounced frantically.

You were sure you’d opened every one of your husband’s letters.

“What letter?”  

“His letter back to you. It was like the one that… if I died, I’d want to have mailed home. Not stuck in the ground with me.” Bucky eyed his shoes, afraid his heart would shatter into a million pieces if he looked up at you. “No man wants to think his last words won’t make it home so I told myself I’d take it home” he took a shaky breath “to you.”

“Where is it?”

“Huh?” He looked up and met your unwavering gaze.

“Where’s the letter?” You urged.

Shakily, Bucky reached for the letter in his pocket. You watched his hand with insane precision. Finally, he pulled out the letter. “This was all that was left.” Instantly, you recognized your husband’s penmanship. The bottom half of the paper was completely singed off.

Your bones went stiff.

“No! No! Hey!”

Bucky was no medic, but he could tell when someone was going into shock.

He stepped over the coffee table and caught you just in time with big eyes and strong arms. “There was a fire in the field and I accidentally dropped it!” He lied. “Your husband wasn’t burned! He wasn’t I don’t know how he died, but he wasn’t burned, alright?”

Your breathing calmed as he ran his hand along the expanse of your back.

“Alright, Y/N?”

Had it been under any other circumstances, you would’ve fallen in love with grey-blue eyes. You straightened and nodded curtly, trying not to get too distracted. Bucky helped you back onto your couch and sat next to you. His hand had made its way into yours. The contact felt all too good. It’d been months since you’d been touched by your husband, let alone any man. To have this stranger next to you, holding your hand, face inches from yours, was overwhelming. In the back of your mind, you felt the tiniest urge to kiss him.

Instead, you bolted to the kitchen, discarding your shawl and straightening your blouse on the way there. Bucky followed you like a lost puppy. “You alright, miss?”

“Where are my manners?” You turned and feigned a flimsy smile. “Are you hungry?”

Bucky nodded.“I could eat…”

“Good! I only have crackers and coffee? How does that sound?”

Bucky watched you from the threshold, as you scrambled to find ingredients, frantically yanking open cabinets and slamming drawers closed. You never managed to find the crackers. So you searched the top cabinets for the coffee. As you stood on your toes and reached, the tin of coffee grounds toppled off the shelf and emptied itself all over the kitchen tile. You dropped along with it and began to weep.

Feral. That’s what your wailing sounded like. More like an injured animal than a woman. Again, Bucky’s arms found themselves around your heaving shoulders, almost as if he wanted to squeeze the heartache out of you. He pressed small kisses onto your forehead and hair. He let you cry onto his jacket. It’d been the only way he knew how to help. Once your breathing became even, Bucky lay his chin on your head, inhaled, then began.

“To my dolly Y/N,” he cleared his throat.

Your shoulders tensed.

That was your nickname.

“I cannot tell you where my Earthly body will be as I write you this, but I can tell you where my heart lies. It’s with you at home. You’re reading your book in my chair. I’m returning from the garden with dirt under my nails. We’re meeting for the first time. I hold you in my arms. You’re saying yes to my proposal. We’re walking down to Nathan’s together. Your stomach swells with our children and we’re hand in hand. It’s in all these places where my heart lies. Keep my shoes by the door, keep my coat on the stand. I mean to come home to you. And only death will stop me. In that case, I’ll send you these words. I love you. For always and always. Your guy, Tommy.”

With that, his arms loosened their grip on you. You missed the closeness.

“Sorry…” Bucky scratched his neck. “I didn’t mean to memorize all of that.”

“Thank you.” You turned in his arms and looked up at him, fat tears still running down your face.

“I know - I’m sorry I took you from him... I just... needed to...” I needed you to get me through that. “I needed to get this to you. It’s what he wanted.”

You nodded once. Then twice. Then rose to your feet.

“How about you take a seat out there and I’ll make you some soup?”

“Sounds great.” He said, standing and brushing the grounds off of his trousers.

You smiled. Genuinely this time. Toothy. Just like in the photo.

Satisfied, Bucky made his way back to the living room and sat. He heard you click on the radio.

There was the sound of a broom brushing against the tile. The knife against the chopping board. The bubbling of the pot on the stove. The sounds of home. But not his home.

With one final peek into the kitchen, Bucky slinked to the door and slipped your portrait and the singed letter into a pair of Tommy’s shoes. He was careful not to step on them as he headed outside and into the cool September night.

Not in this lifetime,

He thought.

But maybe in another.

~Fin.

Did you guys like this one? Feel free to reblog and comment!

[gwynplaine89]

Smile and put on your best face

Multi-chapter fanfic. Arthur X Sophie.

I own NOTHING. Todd (aka God) does.

Will be updating regularly.

Chapter 1: A chronic underachiever

The bus is full. Seems like I will have to stand this time. No, wait. There's a free spot in the back. I drop myself on the last seat. I'm still in pain due to the beating I took this morning. Some kids assaulted me outside the music shop. They stole the sign from my hands and ran away. I followed them but they ambushed me in an alley, beat me down and hit me. There were five of them. I know the broken sign will be deducted from my paycheck. And there's not much one can deduct from that salary anyway...

The way home is long. All days resemble each other. Always the same route, the same streets, the same lights, the same people. But sometimes, and only sometimes, there's something different, something that catches my attention. A little boy. In the front seat. He turns around and watches me with curiosity. He seems to be very interested in me. He's the only one in this bus for whom I'm not invisible.

I had washed my face earlier and removed all the clown make up, but it doesn't matter. Kids, unlike adults, posess fantasy. Just by making some funny faces the boy is already laughing. Suddenly, his mother turns around and looks at me in anger.

- Stop bothering my child!!

- I wasn't bothering him...I'm sorry...

I was just trying to make him laugh. People always seem to be upset...

And suddenly I feel laughter crawling up my throat. Oh no...please no, not now.

- HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA

The woman turns around again.

- WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT??!!!

- HAHHAHHAHAH no....no HAHAHHAH. I'm not...I'm not laughing. HAHAHAHHA. I'm s-sorry. HAHAHAHHA.

I need air. My throat hurts. I can't speak. My hand reaches to my pocket, I grab one of my "presentation cards" and hand it to her. Normal people always carry those with them. They say things like "LAWYER", "DOCTOR" or "CEO". Mine is a bit different.

"Excuse me if I laugh. I'm sick. My laughter is involuntary.

Please kindly return this card"

The woman reads it, looks at me with mistrust and hands me back the card. My laughter slowly calms down, but I've already made her uncomfortable. Her and everyone else here. I feel all those eyes on me. There's still two stops before home but as soon as the bus halts, I get off. I sit down on a bench at the stop and wait for the next bus.

A man approaches and sits down beside me. He carries a newspaper and begins to read. Thomas Wayne, who is running for mayor of Gotham, is on the cover. I laugh a bit upon seeing him because I remember that my mom has a weird obsession with mailing him letters. And then my laughter gets out of control.

- HAHAHHAHAHHAAAA

I cover my mouth with one hand to smother the laughter. But I can't.

- What's wrong with you?- he says, visibly annoyed.

I just shake my head no. I try to say something but again I fail. My laughter only gets worse and louder by the minute.

- HAHHAHAHAHAHA

- WHAT'S SO FUNNY, ASSHOLE??- the man yells, throwing aside the paper.

Again I reach for my card and hand it to him.

The man reads it. Now he is the one who laughs.

- You're sick?? Hahhahaha.

- Yes, Sir...

- Really?? You poor thing...HAHAHHAHA YOU THINK I'M STUPID OR WHAT??- he yells.

- N-no!! I...

The man tears the card into pieces.

- No!! Please...I need it!!

It was the last one I had left over.

- Fucking freak!!- he says and throws the pieces of paper in my face.

Great, in just one day I managed to get myself beaten up, have  some deducted from my paycheck, and my last card torn. My life is such a success.

People are not only impatient...sometimes they are cruel just for the sake of it.

I let the next bus pass me by. Despite the fact that it's gotten dark and it's winter, I think I prefer to walk today. The cold of men is worse than the cold of the night. It's a voluntary cold.

Chapter 2: Penny and Murray

To get home it's necessary to climb a set of never ending stairs. It's something I'm used to, but every step hurts due to the punches and it takes me twice as long to get to the top. From here, I continue to the right for two more blocks. The wind blows intensely and I fold my arms over my chest to protect myself from the cold because my yellow sweater doesn't keep me warm enough.

It's hard to make way through the garbage that threatens to bury all of Gotham. The rats, on the other hand, are something one gets used to after a while. Personally, I don't mind them. I think they suffer the same luck we do. They just wander around desperately in search of a bit of food and shelter.

The building where I live is a damn horrible shack. It's old, collapsed and it sucks. Inside are at least two hundred appartments where people live cramped together like sardines. Mine is number 8A. There's barely enough space to fit in my mom and me. But, in spite of it all, it's the only good moment of my day when I get here, home.

- Happy, you're late! What happened?

Happy...that's what my mom calls me. It's ironic...Mom never leaves the house, her health is very fragile and she needs my help for almost everything. She can no longer work. Her name is Penny. I always prepare dinner and take it to bed for her. There's only one bed. Sometimes we share it and sometimes I sleep on the couch in the living room.

- I missed the last bus...- I explain while I take off my shoes and warm her a bowl of soup.

- Come quickly! The show is about to begin!

Every night before going to bed, we watch Murray's show. It's the best part of my day.

Murray is not just a comedian, he's the best comedian there is. He is everything I dream to be one day. When I watch his show, I often imagine that I'm there, that Murray invites me, that I tell hilarious jokes, that people applaud me and I make them laugh. Mom says that my purpose in life is to spread joy and laughter. It's something I take very serious. Mom and Murray are all I have, they are my company every night when I get home.

- Will you not eat, son?

- I'm not hungry.

- But look how skinny you are...eat a little, yes?

- Don't worry, mom...I'm fine.

After the show mom goes to sleep. I stay up for a little longer. I light a cigarette and take off my shirt. In days like these, I'm careful not to do it in front of mom, so that she doesn't see the bruises on my body or how terribly skinny I am. She doesn't need to know that people hurt me in the streets or that a clown's salary doesn't buy enough food for the two of us.

I try to write my diary, just like my therapist said. It's mostly lose thoughts, insignificant stuff that comes to my mind during the day. I don't wish to see anyone and at yet I need someone to speak with...and I solve the problem by talking to the paper. That said, it's not always easy to write down my thoughts because words have limits and thoughts don't have them.

For today I write a single line:

There is a certain amount of punishment in the mere fact of existing.

I am a clown, and to complete myself, or perhaps to complicate myself, I am also a dancer. Sometimes I start dancing in the dark, alone with the street lights peeking through the window. I don't need music, one carries music on the inside. I always picture an audience that admires me and says "Arthur, you're such a great dancer!"

-"Thanks!"- I reply and wave to my public.

How amazing it would be to be like Murray and fascinate the crowds every night. How awesome it would be to feel the sincere appreciation of the people. Their respect, their admiration, their love...How great it would be, even for just one day, to belong to the world of the happy.

[janiedean]

Hi! Forgive my terrible memory today, but does Brienne definitely want children? I recall her thinking about if her first betrothal had worked out and how she felt like a little sad but also relieved? I think she’d be a good parent(al figure), but I felt more like she could take or leave it.

that’s it pretty much but if you look at the whole thing:

"They will." Lord Tarly's son. Young Dickon's to be wed. She tried to recall how old he was; eight or ten, she thought. Brienne had been betrothed at seven, to a boy three years her senior, Lord Caron's younger son, a shy boy with a mole above his lip. They had only met the once, on the occasion of their betrothal. Two years later he was dead, carried off by the same chill that took Lord and Lady Caron and their daughters. Had he lived, they would have been wed within a year of her first flowering, and her whole life would have been different. She would not be here now, dressed in man's mail and carrying a sword, hunting for a dead woman's child. More like she'd be at Nightsong, swaddling a child of her own and nursing another. It was not a new thought for Brienne. It always made her feel a little sad, but a little relieved as well.

and counting:

"I never knew such a mistrustful maid as you." Brienne curled up beneath her cloak, with Podrick yawning at her side. I was not always wary, she might have shouted down at Crabb. When I was a little girl I believed that all men were as noble as my father. Even the men who told her what a pretty girl she was, how tall and bright and clever, how graceful when she danced. It was Septa Roelle who had lifted the scales from her eyes. "They only say those things to win your lord father's favor," the woman had said. "You'll find truth in your looking glass, not on the tongues of men." It was a harsh lesson, one that left her weeping, but it had stood her in good stead at Harrenhal when Ser Hyle and his friends had played their game. 

and most of all:

"A daughter." Brienne's eyes filled with tears. "He deserves that. A daughter who could sing to him and grace his hall and bear him grandsons. He deserves a son too, a strong and gallant son to bring honor to his name. Galladon drowned when I was four and he was eight, though, and Alysanne and Arianne died still in the cradle. I am the only child the gods let him keep. The freakish one, not fit to be a son or daughter."

my general idea was that she actually wishes she could be both ie the daughter that can grace her father’s all and the strong and gallant child who can honor his name, and given the wording in the first chapter, I’ve always been on the side of the fence saying that she’s a little sad for not having had children but relieved because she doesn’t think she’s fit for that because everyone else made her think she wasn’t when (as said in quote two) before her septa told her that people complimenting her were lying she actually was okay with being called things that the ideal daughter she describes in the last thing I quoted would actually be.

like, that is why the show fucked it up imvho, because the whole thing is... obviously aimed for the point where she actually gets to be both and not just the strong and gallant part of the equation when instead they didn’t let her also embrace the parts of her she has more of a complicated relationship with ie the feminine ones and I hate it because that’s one of the reasons why I’d honestly die for brienne of tarth, but tldr: I always took the sadness in that first quote to be about the fact that she had to give up the part of her who actually does want marriage/children but she’s also relieved that it didn’t happen because she doesn’t think she’s very fit for it. but like, I think she does want that, she just isn’t even taking into consideration that there’s a chance in hell she could have it. or at least they’re my two cents XD