#instead of approaching him the way he would say au/le and having a conversation first

[hirazuki]

I've always sympathized with Melkor, even as a kid, but re-reading the Ainulindale in its entirety for the first time since coming to a certain understanding of things as a child of narcissistic parents really makes it hit different.

I really just want to offer him some reading material, a highlighter, a pencil, and more sticky tabs than one should rightly possess.

[highdramas]

cherry - part three 🍒

a javier peña / little women au

summary: it’s been three years since that night in the pool with javi, but fate is not finished with you two yet. warnings: age gap ( reader is ten years younger than javier ), language word count: 2602

three years later…

your arms are locked with teddy’s as you stumble down the paris street, laughter dripping off your lips. she’s rattling on about some guy she met at the last club but you couldn’t care less-- your mind is in a certain euphoria. god, parisians really do know how to party, you think to yourself.

it’s been one year since you’ve moved to paris but you’ve never once regretted the decision. when things fell through with pauline after your grandmother died your senior year of college, there hadn’t really been much calling you back to the states. you still loved new york, and you liked to visit, but your hometown wasn’t at the top of your destination list. you still kept in touch with your parents, but you can tell that it’s not the same. margot has come and visited, and you went out to oregon to stay with nora and finn.

but pauline had told you to never talk to her again.

you can’t blame her for the resentment she holds against you. when your grandmother left everything in your name…

you try not to think about it all too much. you’ve kept the money in the bank and you have the key to her estate on your keyring, but it doesn’t truly belong to you, and you know that it never will. pauline had loved that house.

again, you try not to think about it all that much.

you’re older and you’re more mature now, and you don’t even think about javier anymore. most of the time.

there are late nights where he creeps into your thoughts, his lips on yours, wet and clinging to one another and sometimes you’re still not quite sure if you made it all up in your head or not. after that night, you two had never discussed the kiss. sometimes you wish you had slipped into his room the next morning, hushed whispers as sunlight broke in through the window. but you hadn’t. in the months after your kiss, javier’s feelings for pauline didn’t falter. it took only six months for him to confess his attraction to her plainly, fully, and for pauline to reject him. in the moment, you had wanted to fight her for it. you nearly had. she had javier wrapped around her finger, and she simply didn't want him? you had watched as javier drifted away from pauline, the gravity of the situation between them tearing them apart. it had been sad to watch javier drift from your family the way that he did-- he had been a member of the family. now, an awkward sort of tension holds the room when his name is brought up at dinner.

not that you’re invited to any of the family dinners.

when you got your first boyfriend in new york the following school year after the summer at javier’s, you found yourself incessantly comparing him to javi. how when he kissed you, it didn’t give you the butterflies that javier’s kiss had. the love affair had been so brief, not even a full night, yet it had left such a lasting impression on you-- you wish you could formulate why.

but, most of the time, you don’t think about javier and his soft hair and his tanned skin and the way that the sweat had stuck to it all summer. you focus on your art and on your very charming new french boyfriend. you focus on your friendships-- living with teddy in paris was a dream, and you still saw sam and esther often. you start grad school soon and you miss your grandmother every day. the one person who seemed to truly see you.

things aren’t perfect. not even close. but they’re good, and that’s enough.

“and god-- i just know that his dick is big. i know it’s big. you know?” teddy’s rattling off and you don’t know how long she’s been talking, but regardless, you’re comforted by the sound. you and teddy had been good friends in college, but moving to a foreign country together amplified that. she’s loud and she’s daring and she’s intelligent and she’s the kind of person who just got you. that was what you really craved for, at the end of the day. to be understood. years of pauline’s judgement and you finally felt free from that.

teddy’s words bring you to laughter and you both duck into an alley for a cigarette, the filter stained with a red ring on lipstick. you lean against the brick and it’s nice and cold, a contrast from the heat of the club you’d just escaped. your boyfriend, robin, was away from the city for the holidays. it’s the weekend before christmas and nora has extended numerous offers for you to stay with them over the holiday, but you hadn’t taken the bait. you were happy staying in france. sure, you were a bit sad robin hadn’t invited you home-- you can’t be too sad, it’s barely been two months since you two had started seeing each other, but a piece of you had hoped. you nearly invited yourself in the days leading up to his departure, but you’d stopped yourself.

so instead, you stay. you stay and you drink with teddy, who doesn’t get along with her own family, either. she has a cousin on gap year and the three of you have smashing plans to drink several bottles of wine in your flat and watch bridget jones’s diary. and it’s what you want.

you take another long drag off the cigarette and blow the smoke away from teddy, turning your head back towards the street. there’s a noise that fills paris that you’ve found as a comfort. the sound of laughter, conversations that you could hardly understand. the sound of kisses between lovers on the street. so many strangers that you would never know a thing about. you squint for a moment at the dark figure walking on the other side of the street, cars few and far between. he’s got a casual walk, his hands stuffed into pockets of nice dress pants, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. your eyes widen. so many strangers, but he’s not one of them.

“javier!” it comes out as a screech, stopping teddy’s speech instantly. you drop your cigarette and are bounding across the road, nearly getting hit in the process. you lay your hand onto the hood of the vehicle for a moment and wave to them, as if to say, thanks for not hitting my drunk ass, before you continue on your mission.

there he is before you. a bit more weathered than when you last saw him. his brows are furrowed but there’s a softness to his face that you’ve always loved. but finally, when he gets a good look at you and realizes exactly who he’s looking at, his whole face lights up.

he’s reaching out for you and your arms are around him and you’re sure that his friend is wondering who the fuck you are, but it doesn’t matter. you absolutely melt against him and a hold has never felt so right before. you pull away enough to see his face, holding it in your hand, squishing his cheeks together. “oh, fuck, look at you!” you’re slowly starting to regret that last vodka soda you had and you’re hoping that he can’t tell that you’re this drunk-- but do you care either way?

“i can’t believe you’re here,” he breathes and there’s laughter following it and god if you can’t bottle that sound and drink it. he pushes a piece of your hair back and all of those sentiments about not thinking about javier pena are as far away from your brain as they can be.

teddy grounds you. she approaches behind you and waves to javier’s friend and slowly, reluctantly, you remove your body from his.

javier shakes teddy’s hand and you shake his friends, steve’s, smiling at him. but your entire focus is on javier-- sparkly eyed and trying to wrap your head around the fact that he’s here. “what the fuck are you doing here, cherry?” he finally asks, that same delightful smile on his face. the summer house feels so far away but so close all at the same time.

you explain that you’ve been living in paris for a year. you don’t need to mention your grandmother-- he knows, you’re sure of it. he may not talk to pauline anymore, but that doesn’t mean family gossip doesn’t get back to him still. “well, i’m happy to have a familiar face in town,” he says with a grin, hands on his hips in that way that he always did. “let me take you out for a drink tomorrow night. we can catch up.”

“that’d be great.” you wish you could wipe the grin off of your face. you exchange whatsapp and embrace once more before you and teddy are hand in hand, walking in the opposite direction of javier and steve. you look back over your shoulder to sneak one last look at him.

you’re greeted with javier doing the same. and he grins, and it makes your stomach turn.

teddy teases you the whole walk home, but your ears are ringing and you feel like you’re floating. the whole interaction has simultaneously sobered you and made you feel utterly love drunk, leaning on teddy in the elevator, wiping your makeup off in your tiny bathroom, before you’re laying on your back on your bed on the expensive silk sheets you had no business purchasing.

you stare up at the ceiling for a moment. and as you do, your phone buzzes.

i can’t wait to see you again, cherry.

--

you’d texted javier on and off throughout the day. you’d discovered that he was in paris on business, though business was still a loose term for it. he’s advanced in his father’s financial advisory company even since you’d last spoken, working on his own entrepreneurial investing endeavors on the side. he’s meeting with a french client and decided why not stay and play awhile-- in true javier fashion, you note. you want to knock him for his playboy lifestyle, but how can you, when it’s brought him back to you in this way?

you were the one who suggested your favorite trendy bar in le marais. in the depths of an ancient historical building resided a small speakeasy in the basement. ambient lighting and hushed talking mingled with the sounds of easy live jazz. it was one of the first spots that your first local boyfriend had taken you to when you moved.

boyfriend. your thoughts trail to robin and his christmas getaway that you were not invited to. where there should be a pang of guilt for going and seeing javi, there is none. only pauline’s voice in your head. selfish little cherry, always getting what she wants, and not caring who is caught in the crossfire of her silly desires.

maybe she was right.

maybe she was so right, that even that thought wasn’t enough to get you to not see javi.

you stand outside your apartment building and hit your juul, the vapor being exaggerated by the blistering cold that brushes against your flushed cheeks, painting your nose a light shade of red. javier had let you know he would come to you before you set out on your trek. and so, you wait. it’s growing closer to eight o’clock and suddenly, a storm of anxious butterflies begin to flutter in the pit of your stomach. this was javi you were talking about-- javi, who despite all of his best parts, had his flaws. he was forgetful, he was flighty, he was the first one to run when the going got tough. he had proved that to you in the pool.

but five minutes to the hour, you begin to see his silhouette. he’s got his hands stuffed into his pockets, an easy grin on his face grows more and more visible as he comes closer to you. a smile spreads on your face and you brush your hair back from your face, just as he’s mere steps away from you. “hi.” the word is short, but there’s something else lingering in it.

“hi.” you jut your chin up and look past his shoulder, if only to give yourself a fighting chance in not melting right into his open palms. but, your eyes flick back to him to find that his have not left you. “i got worried you were gonna forget about me.”

a scoff rings in your ears, and he gives you a sidelong glance. you can see what lingers behind his eyes. an invisible voice tucked in brown eyes says, that’s ridiculous. for a moment, you simply stand there. there’s some sort of tether between you two that you can feel; it’s knowing. it’s understanding. you’d cultivated a life for yourself here, and now, the past runs to catch up with you. “so, this bar?” he says, and it sets the two of you off.

you walk in step with javier, quick dialogue popping between you two. there’s laughter and there’s light teasing, there is knowing looks and there is friendship there. there is--

“i spoke with pauline before i came to paris.”

it takes everything within you not to stop in your tracks. of course, is what begs to fall off of your lips. of course he had. “oh?” she raises a brow at him. “that makes one of us.” you play it off well, you think, an easy breezy smile on your lips.

but from the look he sends you, you can tell that he sees through your feigned attempt at humor. “she told me you still aren’t talking.”

“it’s funny, she always called me the family gossip. she must be projecting.” quick deflections are still no match for javier pena. he raises a brow in your direction, and you feel the air leave your lungs. “no. no, we aren’t.”

“why?”

“because she hates me? because i have everything she wants? because she’s jealous?” she pauses and stops, looking at him. “and because she hurt you. what she did, what she was doing--”

javier shakes his head. “no, no, no. this isn’t about me.” he looks nearly stern. “that’s your sister. that’s more important than whatever feelings i had for her.”

had, had, had. feelings had are not feelings current. your head tilts to the side. “and what feelings do you have now?”

there’s annoyance and it’s found in his brow, the furrow, the way he rubs his mustache before he begins to walk again. “you’re so nosey.”

“i think you like that about me,” you smile. “and i’m curious. we all saw it, you know.”

your mother was certain that javier and pauline would wed one day. they had been so intrinsically in sync with one another, it was hard to imagine they wouldn’t. for them, at least. you thought the contrary. biased reasoning or no.

the only sound around you two is parisian street noise and the clattering of your boots on pavement. “i don’t feel the way i did,” he says, finally. he looks over at you. “i think she was right. we were never going to work the way that i thought.”

it is not often that you are rendered speechless, but this is one of those moments. your eyes slide up to him, and you lean against him slightly, elbows brushing. “i don’t know about you, but i need a drink.”

🍒🍒🍒

xoxo, dee

[louisapennyfeather2021]

Newsies/Swiped AU

Davey Jacobs as James Singer

Spot Conlon as Lance Black

Jack as Hannah

Racetrack Higgins as Rachel

Albert DaSilva as Weasley

Hotshot as Daniel

Les Jacobs as Ashlee Singer

Sarah as Leah Singer

Summary:

Davey and Spot are college roommates, both are in a computer coding class. Spot does his own thing and does what he needs to get through the year. Davey lives by a rule book, especially since Davey wanted to get into MIT instead of the college he's in at the moment. It's as simple as that.

One day Spot, along with his best friends Albert and Hotshot, approach Davey. They want his help creating an app. Not a dating app, but a hookup app. An app where you can get together with guys or girls, but it never lasts longer than that one hookup. Davey disagrees for a while before Spot finally offers to help pay for a ride to MIT if he'll help with the app. He also might do it because Spot "guarantees that every guy and girl will be on the app.

This really convinces Davey because he has a crush on an old friend from High School, the infamous not so infamous Jack Kelly. And he hopes that maybe he can work up the courage to talk to Jack again after a rough patch in high school.

So they set to work. Their coding teacher, Professor Denton, doesn't believe Spot for a second when he says that him, Hotshot, and Albert are working on an app as their project in their class. Davey made it clearly known that he has no interest in being known as the true creator of the app.

The app takes off great. Spot, Hotshot, and Albert are as happy as they can be. Hotshot hooks up with any girl who wants to. Albert, the openly Bisexual in the friendship group, hooks up with the boys and girls who want to. Spot, the closeted gay of the group, hooks up with girls. He originally wanted the app as a way to secretly meet people, boys, but his own paranoia kept him from disclosing that to Davey. This doesn't stop the jealousy when Albert continuously hooks up with a certain blond boy who's profile on the app only has a name of Racetrack.

Meanwhile, Davey manages to at least amend his friendship with Jack. Jack expresses how dumb and horrible he thinks the new dating app is and discloses to Davey that he can't understand why people would voluntarily do something that hurts them, referring to how some of his friends have had bad experiences with the app already.

The first semester of college goes by. Soon everyone's off for Christmas break. Spot, Hotshot, and Albert stay on campus and spend most of the break living their dream with the success of their app. Albert's just happy to have the slight fame and some of the attention, Spot's happy with the success, and Hotshot's thriving from the fame, but not in an arrogant egotistical way. He's just happy

Meanwhile, Davey's back home. He loves with his older sister and younger brother in an unreasonably lavish home, only there because of their parents who are hardly ever home. Davey has a few minor arguments with Les, mostly because of Les' behavior while Davey was away. Including taking and making Davey's room his "Home Office"

Davey spends Christmas dinner with his siblings and the FaceTime of their parents. After dinner, Davey learns of Sarah having created a profile on a new dating app. She goes out one night, hoping to meet someone and start a relationship after her last one left her torn apart. Davey begs Sarah's friend Katherine (also the girl who's had a crush on Sarah fro years) to help him and Les essentially spy on Sarah.

It's not until after seeing Sarah's heartbreak that Davey decides the app has to stop. So it does.

Davey shuts down the app and any others like it, forcing people to go back to regular dating apps. This sparks chaos back on campus. Spot, Albert, and Hotshot are all but hunted down for the "update", as this is what they pass it off as.

Davey returns to campus and avoids the boys, saying he's working on fixing the "bug". The boys finally corner him, although they are separated by a door. They try to get into Spot and Davey's shared dorm, which Spot lost his key for, and Davey manages to sneak out the window since they're on the ground floor.

Meanwhile, this conversation is happening outside.

Spot: "Dave, open the door!"

Hotshot: "Hang on, I got this." *Pulls out a lock pick*

Albert: "Hang on, where did you learn to do that?"

Hotshot: "My cell mate." *Even though he's never gotten anything beyond a singular detention in high school*

Albert: *completely confused and worried mouthing the words* his cellmate?!?!

They see Davey missing and they start searching for him.

Davey, however, has snuck over to Jack's fraternity house.

It's not Jack to answer the door though.

It's Racetrack

And Jojo

And Romeo

And Mush

And oh boy, Davey had never felt so scared in his life. A bunch of angry, college level boys who know he's friends with Spot Conlon. He begs them to hide him, give him a place to stay long enough for Spot and the others to stop looking for him.

It's not until Jack greets him with a smile and says he's not harmful that they let him in.

They ask Davey about Spot's app and tell him about their experiences. None of it sits well with Davey and he decides to make an app based off of the people who want relationships. So he makes a proposition to the Frat House. He'll help them make an app by their own rules. The rules of actually dating. All he asks is that they provide him a place to stay just for a few hours. None of them really believe him, but Jack convinces them that it's just a few hours.

Sometime later, Davey's back in his dorm room when the boys finally catch up to him. He tries to run out again, but he finally caves while forming a plan. You see, Sarah knows he can't sleep sometimes because of his habits. And he's basically guilted Spot into getting him some food whenever he's busy because he is the one who made the app, did all the coding and everything. Sarah got Davey some tea that helps him sleep.

And he asks for some, saying it'll help him calm down. In the process, Albert and Hotshot ask for some. They're stressed because the app is down, what's wrong with a little bit of calming tea, right???

Davey never drinks the tea, but Spot, Albert, and Hotshot do. Davey notices them asleep and he quickly packs up his computer and makes an escape. But he didn't realize that Hotshot woke up right as he escaped.

And so began the chase for Davey Jacobs.

It was definitely one for the books.

Davey ran straight to the Frat house. It was Jojo who opened the door. He almost didn't let Davey in until Jack told him to. Davey convinced the boys to let him stay in a spare bedroom.

But Spot was smart, he knew where Davey would go. He figured out Davey's crush on Jack. So that's where they went.

And oh boy, were those three boys in for a rock ride.

It started with knocking on the door. Aggressive, desperate knocking.

Next came the boys. It was Jack first with Race there to back him up. The three boys though tried really hard at begging to get in.

And then came down the fury of the Fraternity.

I'm talking baseball bats, candle holders, someone's jock strap. Everything. They all but surrounded the three boys looking for Davey while Davey simply worked in the guest bedroom upstairs.

To put it simply, those three boys wouldn't even consider showing their faces around that Fraternity house for a long time.

Eventually, Davey came clean to the Fraternity. He said he helped create the hook up app, but that he was also the one to shut it down. And he helped design a genuine dating app that made it known that people wanted more than meaningless sex.

Bonus?

Jack was the one to ask Davey out. Davey was a nervous anxious wreck, but he said yes. Jack couldn't help but laugh a little bit as Davey stuttered a yes. He thought it was adorable.

Davey managed to help Spot realize what he wanted. The two apologised, along with Albert and Hotshot. They realized the cruelty of their app. And Spot came out to his friends.

Hotshot owed Albert five dollars for that one. Spot was slightly offended, but he couldn't be for too long.

Especially since he asked Albert if Race was anything more than hook up. Albert said that Race probably wouldn't even consider being friends and he told Spot to go for it.

With some encouragement from Les and Davey, Katherine finally asked our Sarah. It was so embarrassingly awkward that both boys wanted to erase the memory.

So sort of happy ending.

So that left Albert and Hotshot.

The conversation went something like this:

Albert: "So, everyone we know wants a relationship."

Hotshot: "And?"

Albert: "Wanna go on a date?"

Hotshot: "Dude, no, we've had this discussion."

Hotshot: "But like, pizza sounds great right now."

This is kind of plotless but so was the movie😂

[tsthrace]

White Knuckles

Awhile back, I asked y’all to send me a song so I could take its energy, lyrics, and/or feeling and write you a 1,000-word Clexa fic.

This one shot meandered way beyond 1,000 words. It’s based on White Knuckles by Tegan and Sara, as requested by @damiana-atx.

Angsty academia AU. No content warnings except for some swearing.

You can also find it on ao3.

-----------------------------

“Fuck, this is good,” Clarke said aloud to no one as she tossed the journal on the table. She leaned back in her chair. Godlessness Centered: Negotiating Queerness in The Left Hand of Darkness by Alexandria J. Woods, PhD. When Clarke had first picked up the journal, she scoffed. The Left Hand of Darkness? Really? And queerness? How overdone.

But it was brilliant. A discourse on Le Guin’s own spirituality and how it defied casual dualities.

I should have thought of that.

She looked at her watch. Twenty minutes.

---

Lexa smoothed the lapels on her blazer, though they were already perfectly flat. She gazed at herself in the hotel mirror, staring at the buttons on her shirt. She had a choice to make—the choice of the one awkward button. Button it, and she would seem, well, buttoned-up, uptight. But unbuttoned, it was a bit...revealing. There was no middle ground.

She pushed her glasses up on her nose and took a breath. Then buttoned the button.

---

They met in Bloomington, Indiana. All the sci fi literature conferences seemed to be in random small cities in the Midwest. They were strange events. Mostly men in khaki and tweed carrying beat-up leather satchels, experts on Vonnegut and Wells (H.G., that is). But there was also the overt geek element. Undergrad boys carrying frayed copies of Asimov and Gaiman, their laptops covered in Star Trek and My Little Pony stickers, and the occasional girl wearing a Strong Female Character t-shirt.

Then there was Lexa, sharp in a plain black cashmere sweater and grey herringbone slacks, her glasses suggesting both intelligence and the ability to break you. The geeks followed her but kept an admiring distance.

Clarke, for some reason, seemed more approachable. As she sipped her gin and tonic at the hotel bar, the kids (as she called college students) would creep up to her, their eyes down.

“Dr. Griffin?” they’d ask.

“Call me Clarke,” she’d say, smiling.

“I just had some questions on your takedown of the Darkover series.”

Clarke would always give them about twenty minutes then politely end the conversation, turning back to her drink.

She had had three such conversations when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Clarke didn’t mind the attention, but she was getting tired. She spun around, ready to dismiss herself.

“Dr. Griffin.” Lexa stood above her.

“Dr. Woods,” Clarke replied, nodding politely. She had read all of Lexa’s work. She had to. They were two of the only feminist sci fi lit scholars who were regularly publishing. But they’d never actually met.

“I don’t really prefer the term ‘doctor.’” Lexa said, looking just past Clarke. “It’s a little....” She didn’t finish her thought. After a moment she tilted her head. “Do you really think we should stop reading Bradley because of her scandal?”

Clarke put her drink down. “Scandal is kind of an understatement. And I didn’t say we should stop. I just said it’s hard.”

Without invitation, Lexa sat down at Clarke’s table. “If we bring every artist’s personal life into how we engage with their work, we probably won’t be able to enjoy anything.”

Clarke raised an eyebrow. “I never took you for a modernist.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“That sometimes shitty people create amazing art.” Lexa’s eyes lit up with her smile, like she was issuing a friendly challenge.

“Are you flirting with me?” Clarke returned her version of the same smile.

Lexa sat back and shrugged. She took a sip of her martini.

---

A few hours later, Clarke was sprawled across Lexa’s bed looking up, her hair in tangles across the pillow, a corner of the sheet pulled over her midsection. Lexa was curled up next to her, sweaty and wondering what just happened. She took a few breaths, looking for words. She squinted to herself, couldn’t think of anything to say. She felt Clarke shuffle a bit and prepared for the awkward banter that would come when they’d get up to look for their clothes.

“Do you believe in God?” Clarke asked instead. She didn’t get up.

“Pardon?”

“Do you believe in God?” Her tone was so casual.

“I...I don’t know.” Lexa looked up at the ceiling. She suddenly felt cold and reached down for a blanket. “Why do you ask?”

“I think I do,” Clarke said, not answering the question.

“Why?”

“I just look around this world, and it seems pretty incredible to me. Like it wasn’t an accident. Someone had to have created all this. Created us. Then made us creators.” Clarke shook her head and looked past Lexa. “It all seems like such a miracle.”

“Are you a Christian?” Lexa felt her face crumple.

Clarke laughed. “I don’t know. I do like the idea of the trinity.”

“When I grew up, my parents took me to one of those born again churches.” Lexa looked down. “It was mostly Jesus. I mean, I know what the trinity is, but…” Why was she telling her this?

“No, that’s not what I mean.” Clarke shook her head. “Not like God as some guy who makes you love him or else you burn in hell. That’s bullshit.”

Lexa squinted.

“The trinity. It’s like a dance between these three ways God reveals herself.” Clarke smiled. “It’s beautiful actually.” She looked at Lexa. “Did you ever read A Wrinkle in Time?”

Lexa side-eyed her. “Clarke, I’m a sci fi scholar.”

“Okay, so there’s Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Which…”

They stayed up the rest of the night, moving from L’Engle to Shelley to Jemisin and the spiritual worlds of their stories. Evil and suffering, goodness and hope. Retribution, sacrifice, and justice. Beauty and joy. Mouth to neck, hands to curves, skin to skin.

By dawn, Lexa had found God.

---

Lexa went back to UC Irvine and Clarke returned to her adjunct job at Georgetown, but they emailed constantly. Long, meandering messages about particular chapters of The Stone Sky and Spinning Silver. Clarke sent her Marilynne Robinson essays, and Lexa responded with questions. Together, they laid theologies over imagined worlds, mapped them out and connected them to other imagined worlds. They took down Ender’s Game, built up The Hainish Cycle, and even let themselves dabble in Stardust, which they both had to admit they secretly admired. Back and forth, tens of thousands of words over the course of months. They only talked on the phone a few times, but the emails were constant.

Not long into their messages, Clarke had mentioned how her father had died when she was young. Lexa hinted at being on her own at age 16. These details were wrapped in blankets of analysis and metaphor, the theological undercurrents of the imagined worlds they studied, the anthropology of beings who only existed on pages and in minds.

They made plans to meet in Cleveland to present together at a lit crit conference. A week before, Lexa bailed. “Sorry,” the text said. “An emergency came up.”

“Everything okay?” Clarke responded.

Nothing.

The conference was rough. Clarke knew it would be, but she thought she’d have Lexa’s powerful presence demanding attention. The lit crit crowd all secretly loved what they called “genre” fiction—sci fi and fantasy—but they publicly derided it as “unserious” or “not literary.” She held her own, but it wasn’t fun.

She texted Lexa when she got back to her hotel room. “Wish you had been here. Same straight white male bullshit as usual.”

Silence.

“Did I say something wrong?” Clarke texted a few days later. At that point, though, she knew Lexa was gone.

A heaviness set in on her. Clarke reread their messages looking for hints, but Lexa’s words seemed wide open, even joyful. What happened?

She immersed herself in a chapter she was writing for a textbook on book fandoms and lecturing on feminism and postmodernism in Harry Potter—not her favorite topic, but it was a popular course. She had almost let herself forget about Lexa when, six months later, she was flipping through Foundation: The Journal of Science Fiction and saw her byline in the table of contents. Justice & Joy: The God Revealed in the Feminist Imagination. By Alexandria J. Woods, PhD.

Clarke turned to page 137 and ran her eyes down the columns. She bit her lip. The essay was essentially a catalog of their emails, one idea bridged skillfully to another by Lexa’s pointed and lucid prose. But they weren’t just Lexa’s ideas. They weren’t just Clarke’s, either, but a stream of their thoughts flowing together like a river. It was beautifully done.

Clarke didn’t notice that her hands were balled into fists until she felt her nails cutting into the skin. She opened her laptop and pulled up the messages. Lexa had been careful to rephrase Clarke’s words, but it was all there, even with citations of Marilynne Robinson. The Death of Adam.

Clarke pounded out an email. How dare you...couldn’t even ask for me to be a coauthor...you hadn’t even thought about these things until you met me. She knew Lexa wouldn’t see it. She probably had blocked her address. She didn’t bother hitting send.

Her face fell into her hands. She remembered that night in San Diego. Lexa’s smile—that curiosity despite herself. The way her hands traced the skin over Clarke’s side.

That woman wouldn’t have done this. But there it was. Twenty-six pages of shared conversation now claimed for Lexa only.

---

Clarke’s department was buzzing about it the next day. The religious studies chair was also a huge geek who kept up with Foundation, and he had been blown away by how seamlessly interdisciplinary the article was. “I hadn’t thought to connect the Christian trinity and A Wrinkle in Time, but it’s really so obvious when you think about it.”

Clarke seethed. She thought about printing up the emails, sending them to Foundation and the UC Irvine Disciplinary Committee, but something stopped her. Allegations of plagiarism would ruin Lexa’s career as a scholar. And was it really plagiarism? Clarke wanted to be sure, but she wasn’t.

So she wrote instead. A deep and cutting rebuttal highlighting where Alexandria J. Woods’ religious arguments were rudimentary at best, illustrating how shallow her connections were, and then plunging further, mining Catherine Keller and other theologians for an even deeper exploration of the worlds of Butler and Clarke (Arthur C., that is). Foundation published her essay the next quarter. Lexa answered, bringing in Buddhism and Humanism. A spotlight grew around their debate, so they continued writing—back and forth between literary, cultural, and religious journals. WIRED magazine picked up the story: Feuding Feminists Shifting the Sci Fi Landscape.

That’s when the invites started rolling in. A conference on spirituality and pop culture invited them to speak on a panel together, but Clarke refused. She couldn’t bear to see Lexa in person. Instead, she accepted an invitation to lecture at NYU while Lexa spoke at Cal.

Clarke’s classes filled with long waitlists every semester, her success intertwined with Lexa’s and their endless intellectual feud. They both thrived. Lexa’s ideas sharpened Clarke’s, and Clarke’s sharpened Lexa’s. She couldn’t admit it, but she needed Lexa as much as she despised her.

---

Lexa was in her office when the call came.

“Dr. Woods?” A male voice.

“It’s Professor Woods.”

“Excuse me, Professor Woods,” he corrected himself. “This is Dr. William Porter at Georgetown. The chair of the Department of English.”

Lexa felt something jump in her chest. “Good morning.”

“I’m calling because a very generous donor has recently endowed a tenure-track professorship here specifically for women in science fiction studies.”

“You’re kidding me.” it felt like a prank, and a mean one at that. Lexa had never heard of such a thing.

“Uh, no.” Dr. Porter seemed thrown off. “We’re inviting only a few people to apply, and you’re on our short list. Is this something you’d be interested in?”

They hung up with lingering plans to arrange flights and meetings.

Lexa sat for a few minutes, her fingers tapping idly on her closed laptop. Clarke would be one of the other candidates—and maybe the only other candidate—she was sure. She looked down and shook her head, thinking back to that day when she made the worst decision of her life.

She had printed out some of the emails she had sent Clarke to reference them against some short stories when the dean knocked on her door. He noticed a copy of L’Engle’s Walking on Water open on her desk.

“What’s that about?” he asked.

“Uh, just a side project I’m working on.” Her face burned with the exposure of her new interest in religious studies.

“Mind if I look?” he asked, picking up one of the print-outs before she could answer.

She bit her lip as he read, his forehead creasing.

After a few minutes, he looked up. “Professor Woods, this is good stuff.”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “Thank you. I’ve been working with Professor Griffin at Georgetown—”

“But these are your words, right?”

“Yeah, what you’re holding. That’s mine.”

“You need to publish this. It could be really good for you and the department.”

“Yeah, Professor Griffin and I—”

“Lexa,” he said in that kind but firm I’m-A-Man-In-Charge voice, “there’s a distinction to be made between attribution and inspiration. I’m inspired every day by the ocean, by James Joyce.” Lexa hid her contempt. Scholars who pretended to understand Joyce were pretentious liars. “But I’m not citing them.”

“Dr. Titus.” Her voice was firm. “I couldn’t have written that without Professor Griffin.”

“Professor Woods.” He looked her straight in the eye. “This department doesn’t need a co-authored paper with someone from Georgetown. We need a win.” He tapped the paper. “These are your words. Are they the product of a broader conversation? Sure, but what isn’t?” He looked out the window at the budding trees. “We took a chance on your genre work. And I’m seeing some good stuff. But I need to see more if we’re going to keep you on.”

Lexa looked past Dr. Titus and took in a silent breath. Jobs in her specialty was rare. UC Irvine had invested more than most schools to create a department where someone like her could thrive. She nodded.

“Get me an abstract and outline next week,” the dean said. “The managing editor at Foundation is a former student.”

When he left, she took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She would need to cancel her panel with Clarke in Cleveland. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to look at her again.

---

Clarke let out a deep breath as she stepped into the crisp fall air. It had been a long day of interviews. She stopped on the stairs. She knew Lexa was close by. She had to be. They were the two people in the country most qualified for the job. She’d been on these interview panels before. Two, sometimes three, a day, candidates rotating between deans and panels. Clarke was surprised she hadn’t seen her yet.

She shook her head. Maybe she should have said something about that first paper. The job would be hers if she had. But would she even be considered without that paper? It had launched her career. Her public debate with Alexandria J. Woods, PhD, got her lectures around the country, a longform article in The Atlantic, and the keynote spot at conferences that two years ago would have never taken her seriously. Their refusal to appear together added to their mystique. Geeks and academics alike lined up on reddit and twitter to take sides.

Her success was bound to Lexa’s, two sides of the same double helix.

She bundled a scarf around her neck. It didn’t matter where Lexa was. Clarke loved the work she did, and she had rocked the interviews. But she was tired. It was time for a drink. She pulled out her phone to call a Lyft. Something about the fading purple sky changed her mind, though, and she decided to walk.

The cobblestones on O Street felt somehow comforting under her feet. Solid. Old. Not going anywhere. She thought about calling Dr. Reyes from the engineering department to join her—Raven was always good for either a loud night of much alcohol or a quiet night of raw, stinging truth—the latter of which was why Clarke had never told her all that had happened with Lexa. She shook her head. Maybe she just needed some gin and silence.

She sat at the bar at L’Annexe and ordered a Tom Collins. Bartenders always smiled curiously at her when she ordered one. Funny, you don’t look like a 75 year-old man to me. She’d smile back impatiently. Just make my damn drink. When the drink arrived, she took a sip and let out a deep breath as the gin started to glow through her. No one can fuck up a Tom Collins. It was simple and always felt good and sharp and bright going down.

She was halfway through her drink when a man sat next to her and ordered a scotch. Clarke glanced at his plaid scarf, wool sweater, and worn leather shoulder bag. Definitely a TA. He noticed her looking at him and smiled.

“I’ve seen you,” he said. “You teach that Harry Potter course.”

Clarke’s stifled a sigh. “That’s me.” She tilted her head back and drank the rest of her Tom Collins in one swig.

“Can I get you another?”

“No,” she said, picking up her bag. She made eye contact with the bartender. “I need to pay.”

“Whoa,” the man in the scarf said, raising his hands. “I’m just trying to be nice.”

“And I was just trying to be alone.” Clarke nodded towards the guy sitting on the other side of him. “Maybe you can be nice to him.” She dropped some cash on the check that had arrived and made her way to the door.

It was darker outside than when she’d arrived. And colder. She buttoned her wool coat and started making her way down Pennsylvania Ave. towards the bus stop.

---

Lexa was sipping a Syrah at a window table when she saw Clarke walk by outside. She took in a breath, remembering how Clarke’s eyes got soft when she asked, “Do you believe in God?” She shook her head. She could just let her keep going, and they could go on avoiding each other forever. Unless Lexa got the job.

Shit.

She grabbed her coat, leaving a $20 under her mostly full glass. By the time Lexa got out the door, Clarke was halfway down the block, almost lost in a crowd of loud students. Lexa didn’t button her coat, and it billowed out as she jogged down the street.

“Clarke!” she shouted as she got closer. She saw Clarke stop, her back straighten and stiffen. She didn’t turn around.

---

Clarke wanted to be angry. When she heard that voice, she wanted to spin on her heel and unleash a cascade of expletives that would make the passersby uncomfortable. She not only wanted Lexa to hear the words traitor, cheat, betrayed, she wanted her to feel the force of them rip through her body like a landmine.

But she froze. When she heard that voice, she felt tears sting at the corner of her eyes. She felt a slow storm in her chest, all rain and no lighting. She closed her eyes. She wanted to be angry, but all she felt was heaviness. She held her breath and waited.

When she opened her eyes, Lexa was in front of her, her eyes uncertain and her arms folded in front of her. “Hey…” she said after a few moments.

Clarke bit into her lip, hoping not to draw blood. She looked up, her blue eyes blazing, about to spark. She could tell Lexa was waiting for her to say something, so she stayed silent.

Lexa nodded. “I’m so sorry, Clarke.” She didn’t know what else to say.

Clarke’s eyes locked on Lexa’s, but she refused to respond.

“I don’t expect you to understand...” Lexa trailed off. “It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.” She looked past Clarke to a stoplight turning from yellow to red.

Lexa’s open coat revealed a gray plaid suit, smart and uncompromising, the top button studiously and chastely buttoned. So she had interviewed today. In this moment, though, it all felt wrong. Lexa seemed so small to Clarke. She wasn’t the woman she met at the hotel that night, but she also wasn’t the woman who submitted that article. This woman was drawn in on herself, her hair falling around her face like a curtain. Clarke remained silent.

Lexa sucked in her lips. “I know you probably hate me, and I get it.” She looked down. “I hate me, too.”

“No.” Clarke’s voice was deep and quiet. “You don’t get to do that.” She felt confused when she saw a shadow of relief cross Lexa’s face.

“You’re right,” Lexa said. “That’s not fair.” She took a long, deep breath and let it out. “I’m going to tell them.” She looked Clarke in the eye. “I’m going to tell Georgetown, and I’m going to tell Foundation. I’ll—”

“Don’t.” Clarke cut her off. “It’s done.”

“But—”

“Fuck you, Lexa.” She barely looked at her as pushed past, a slow fire burning through her as she walked briskly towards Dupont Square.

---

Lexa was freezing by the time she got back to her hotel room. She had stood on the sidewalk for a long time, watching Clarke get smaller and smaller. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting. Forgiveness? Punishment? Clarke had given her neither, which is what she knew she deserved.

She had never written a paper more carefully, never thought about the ideas so closely, never danced so delicately around sentence structure and tense. In a twisted way, she was proud of it. It was sophisticated but accessible, and completely defensible. Even if Clarke had tried to accuse her, she was sure she would have won.

She shook her head sharply. That’s not who I am. But it was. She was intelligent and ambitious and ready for a breakthrough. She knew Titus had been threatening her, but she also knew that what she had been writing with Clarke was good. Really good. She had never felt so alive in her work as when she was in conversation with Clarke. No one had ever challenged or inspired her like that. Even after that first paper, her debates with Clarke from essay to essay were electric, almost feverish. Clarke tapped something in her that was insatiable.

She picked up her laptop and opened some of the first emails she and Clarke had exchanged after Bloomington. She couldn’t help but smile. There had been a giddiness to them, this breathless excitement to constantly share new discoveries, interesting connections. They had sent seven, sometimes eight, messages a day. Thousands of words.

And that night in Bloomington.

She closed the laptop. Was it worth it? For months, Lexa had tried to convince herself that it had just been one night, that she didn’t even really know Clarke. When she saw Clarke on that sidewalk tonight, though, she knew that was all bullshit.

They had been falling for each other the best way they knew how. Lexa had betrayed all of it.

—-

Lexa was sitting on the floor outside Clarke’s office when she arrived the next morning.

Clarke sighed. “Seriously?” She didn’t look at her as she slid her key in the lock. “What are you doing here?”

“I had a meeting to cancel.” Lexa shrugged, not getting up.

Clarke pushed her door open. “I don’t have anything else to say to you, Dr. Woods.”

“I withdrew my name.”

Clarke froze. “Why?” Clarke noticed jeans and a sweater under Lexa’s coat. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun. She was serious.

“You know why.”

Clarke’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did,” Lexa said steadily as she stood up. The smallness from the night before was gone. She stood tall, her shoulders thrown back. “I don’t know who else they’re interviewing, but I’m not your competition anymore.” She swallowed and looked into Clarke’s eyes. “I don’t want to be your competition anymore.”

Clarke let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. She wanted to say, Good luck, Dr. Woods, and close the door behind her, but instead she felt herself pushing the door open, heard herself saying, “Come in.”

Lexa bit her lip. “You sure?”

Clarke nodded and ushered her in. The door clicked as it closed behind them. Clarke set her bag down and sat at her desk. She shook her head, frustrated. “I just want to hate you. That’s all. I want to tell you to fuck off, and I want to go on with my life.”

Lexa sat in the reading chair in the corner of Clarke’s office. She nodded, looking down at her hands. “Then why don’t you?”

Clarke huffed, a cynical laugh. “I can’t get away. You’re everywhere.” She threw up her hands. “I saw you on the fucking New Yorker site this morning. How did you land that?” A rhetorical question. “I assign your essays for my classes. I have to. I hate how good you are.”

“You’re good, too, Clarke,” Lexa said quietly. She looked up. “Very good. I keep researching and writing because you keep responding.”

Clarke closed her eyes. She knew it was the same for her, but she didn’t want to say it. Finally she looked up. “Why did you do it?”

Lexa looked past her at Clarke’s diplomas on the wall. Undergrad at Cornell. She shook her head, almost said I don’t know, but she didn’t want to lie. “I wanted to do something big.” She gathered the courage to look at Clarke’s face. “I wanted to do it with you, but my dean pressured me to take solo authorship.” She closed her eyes, ashamed. “And I was a coward.”

“Yeah.” Clarke leaned back in her chair. “You were.”

Everything that came into Lexa’s head to say felt like an excuse, so she kept her mouth shut. They both did, the loud ticking of the cheap clock on the wall cutting through the silence.

Finally Clarke shook her head. A corner of her mouth curved up. “It was really beautifully done.”

Lexa looked up, her head tilted.

“I was so fucking angry, Lexa.” Clarke breathed out like she was letting something go. “I should have been a coauthor, but, fuck, it was well written. Like it was on a whole other level.”

Lexa’s green eyes were bright as they locked in on Clarke’s. “You inspire me, Dr. Griffin.” She sat back. “It’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” She paused and sucked in her lips. “I think we should write a book together.”

As soon as Clarke heard the words, she knew it was a good idea. Maybe the best idea. But all that would come out was, “Fuck you, Lexa.” It was almost a laugh.

Lexa’s face was stone, but her eyes were alive. “An editor already approached me. If I brought you on…”

“You can’t buy your way out of the shitty thing you did, Lexa.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Lexa ran her hand over her hair then looked up, her face suddenly soft. “I meant it, Clarke. I’m better with you.” She shrugged. “And I think you’re better with me, too.”

Clarke bit her lip. She took in a heavy breath, and let it out in a long sigh. She stood up. “Come here.”

Lexa squinted her eyes.

“Just come here, please. You owe me that.”

Lexa stood up in front of Clarke. Clarke lifted her hand to her face and leaned in, her lips barely touching Lexa’s. Lexa didn’t move, but Clarke felt her shiver. She leaned in and kissed her softly. Then she pulled back.

“I just…” Clarke didn’t know where the end of that sentence was supposed to go, and she didn’t tried to find it. Instead, she lifted her eyes and looked at Lexa as her chest rose and fell, rose and fell.

Lexa held her breath.

Finally Clarke smiled, almost laughing at herself. “That’s not a yes, Dr. Woods. But it’s not a no.”

[tamorasky]

Mistress Anna Chapter 13

Rating: M

Summary: It wasn’t uncommon for the women to be eventually cast aside, Anna was just naive enough to believe it would never happen to her.

Relationships: Anna/Kristoff

Words: 4265

Canadian Frontier Au

AO3

Masterlist

Anna doesn’t see much of Elsa after the night of the fire. The two women do their best to avoid one another throughout the day. Elsa leaves early every morning and always returns well into the night. The younger sister carries out daily tasks around the house while taking care of Eliza, remaining vigilant to stay out of her older sister’s way. She isn't sure where she'll go once Autumn comes, only knowing her best option is to go east.

It was surprising to Anna, to say the least when Bulda asked if she would be joining them for the hunt that August. The young woman had only agreed after Bulda insisted that she needed to come south with the village and participate before she returns to Arendelle.

Anna rides with Angelique and the children in the back of the family’s cart, Gabriel leading the horses away from Ahtohallan . She smiles as Angelique’s little girls play with Eliza. Louise plays peek-a-boo with the toddler while Helene holds Eliza’s hands.

“Helene, be gentle.” Angelique scolds as she sees the middle child be slightly rough with Anna’s daughter.

“It’s fine, she didn’t hurt her.” Anna tries to reassure the woman seated across from her. Angelique shakes her head in response, brushing the hair out of her younger son, Guillaume’s eyes.  

“She’s started to think it’s okay to bite her brothers now.” Angelique rolls her eyes, pulling Helene back onto her lap. The raven-haired girl now perched on her mother’s lap tries to wiggle out of Angelique’s grasp. “If you keep acting like this, I’ll send you to ride with your Noohkoom et Koohkoom.

Grandmother and Grandfather

Anna stifles a giggle as the raven-haired girl gives up her fight, slumping against Angelique with a pout. The young woman looks back to Eliza and Louise, the older girl now wiggling Eliza’s toes with a smile.

Guillaume sits up with a toothy grin, quickly shuffling across the cart to kneel beside Anna. “Uncle Kristoff!” the eight-year-old shouts loudly. Anna looks over her shoulder to see Kristoff riding horseback next to the cart. He smiles warmly at his nephew, reaching over the gap between them to ruffle the young boy’s hair.

Kristoff urges his horse forward, weaving between the carts and various people on the road. He pulls up beside Sven and Elsa slowing, engaging with the two others. Anna watches as Sven speaks to the other two which causes Elsa to throw her head back with a laugh.

Anna hadn’t heard her sister laugh like that since arriving Ahtohallan, especially within this week. They hadn’t talked to one another since the fire. Anna had gotten what she wanted; Elsa had finally yelled at her.

You don’t belong here.

Those words have repeated in her head, again and again, nearly sending the young woman to the brink of madness. Anna knows she could go to Red River, where her mother was from. But she knows that if she doesn’t belong in Ahtohallan she will never belong in Red River. Hans had made sure to strip every ounce of her culture away from her to make sure she would never belong anywhere again.

Eliza’s shrieks pull Anna’s attention back to the small girl on her lap. A smile crosses Anna’s face as Louise begins to tickle the underside of Eliza’s feet. Angelique stares at Eliza, the desire to have another child evident across her face as she stares at the toddler.

“Do you want to hold her?” Anna asks, her legs slowly growing numb under the weight of her daughter.  

“I would love to.” Angelique lets go of her hold on her youngest child, reaching forward to pull Eliza onto her lap with a grin. The raven-haired woman coos at Eliza, pressing a kiss to the small girl’s cheek as she settles on Angelique’s lap. Eliza stares at the other woman wide-eyed, her chin slowly receding into her neck as she regards Angelique.

Despite her initial reluctance to settle with the other woman, Eliza finally relaxes in Angelique’s arms. The baby stays on Angelique’s lap for the remainder of the journey south to Les Montagnes des Cyprès.

The Cypress Hills

The convoy stops along the river when they reach the plateau, settling on the same fork of the creek they always have for the summer hunt. Anna holds the sides of the cart tightly as it comes to a stop, the rough wood digging into her palms as she does so.

Guillaume springs up from the bed of the wagon as it lurches forward to a stop, leaping off of the cart with glee to locate his older brother. Anna smiles at the boy’s excitement as he weaves through the various people, shouting at the top of his lungs.

Gabriel comes around to the back of the cart, lifting Louise out of the wagon with ease. The young girl sprints off, making her way to follow after her brother. Anna giggles as Angelique hands Eliza back to her, accepting help from her husband to slip off of the cart.

Anna refuses the man’s help, sliding off the cart with Eliza held tightly to her chest as she feels for the ground. Once she finds her footing on the grass, Angelique takes the young woman by the arm, holding her close. The two women walk arm-in-arm, trying to locate Bulda and Cliff in the crowd gathering around the creek.

As they inch closer to the river, Bulda’s voice carries through the crowd of people. Angelique breaks away from Anna, increasing her pace to find her mother. The auburn-haired woman stops, readjusting Eliza on her hip before continuing after her friend.

Reaching the site Anna can see the buffalo skin covering for the tipi lay on the grass, Kristoff and Sven carefully placing the poles on the covering; Kristoff secures the pole with the lifting tie at the center of the tent. Cliff stands over the other men, his hands tucked under his suspenders as he supervises his son and the Newfoundlander.

Bulda and Angelique stand off to the side, observing the bickering men, shaking their heads and laughing as the men struggle and argue. Anna approaches the two women, Eliza still perched on her hip as she comes to stand next to the older woman.

“You think papa forgot to pack a set of poles?” Angelique asks. Bulda raises her hands, exacerbated and stressing over the situation.

“All I know is that we pulled away from the lot, and I’m certain he left them by the side of the road.” Bulda sighs.

“He wouldn’t stop?” Anna asks, interjecting herself into their conversation.

“Men.” Bulda shrugs. The older woman pulls away from them, making her way to their cart to unload the woolen blankets. Angelique dramatically rolls her eyes, smirking at her friend while shaking her head.In the corner of her eye, Anna can see Louise approach her mother, shyly staring up at the young woman from behind Angelique’s skirt. Angelique places a hand on her daughter’s back, encouraging her to speak to the other woman.

“Anna, your arms must be getting tired,” Angelique states, giving up on her daughter to say the first word.

“It’s fine. I’ll put her down in a moment.” Anna insists. Unwilling to admit that her arms were getting tired; she doesn’t want to appear weak in front of these women.

“Nonsense.” The woman waves her hand, pushing her daughter forward towards Anna. “Give her to Louise, from what I hear Kai is sitting down to tell the children a story to keep them occupied while we get the encampment organized.”

Anna thinks for a moment of escorting the children to listen to the community Elder, knowing she has nothing to contribute to setting up the encampment. Instead, the young woman nods, reluctantly handing Eliza over to Louise.

Both women laugh as the seven-year-old takes Eliza from Anna, wrapping her arms underneath the toddler’s armpits and across her chest to carry her across the grass. Angelique withdraws from Anna’s side, making her way to help her mother unpack provisions.

She stands alone, her hands folded in front of her as she watches everyone around her keep busy with various tasks. Bulda and Angelique sort food, Anna knows she should help but feels as if she would only be in the way of their work. Her gaze is drawn back to the men. Sven takes hold of the long rope, as Kristoff lifts the tops of the poles, raising them high to the sky. Anna averts her eyes as Kristoff’s shirt lifts slightly, exposing his abdomen as he raises the poles higher while walking towards the base of the tipi.

Her cheeks feel flush, trying desperately not to think about the way Kristoff's muscles constrict as he raises the poles, nor how he would look now under his shirt after months of canoeing through Quebec. Playing with the skirt of her dress, Anna stares at her feet, her back resting against the back of Kristoff’s cart, trying to stay out of everyone’s way. She doesn’t know what she is doing at the hunt, she and Eliza should have remained in Ahtohallan.

“Water.”

Anna jumps at the sudden appearance of Kristoff’s voice, his deep voice rattling the young woman to her core as she looks up at him. “W-what?”

Kristoff huffs, nodding towards the cart. “Behind you.”

Looking over her shoulder, Anna sees a wooden bucket, filled to the brim with water. “Oh, …right.” She steps to the side, allowing the blonde man to access the back of the cart. Anna watches as he cups the water with his hands, noticing how droplets fall in his beard.

She resists the urge to reach up and brush the water out of the hair, knowing she had no right to be so familiar with him anymore. The young woman clears her throat, rocking on the balls of her feet.

“It’s warmer than I thought it be.” Anna comments, trying desperately to make small talk with Kristoff as he stands next to her. He looks down at her, his honey-colored eyes burrowing into her own.

He hums in acknowledgment, turning away from the cart to sit in the back. Anna feels a pit in her stomach as he doesn’t leave. Awkwardness filling the air between them as she leans against the cart once more. Anna opens her mouth to make a comment about the wind as well but closes it, deciding it is best if she says nothing.

The young couple watch as Cliff and Sven place the other poles. Cliff makes his way to the middle of the structure, grabbing the long rope to secure the poles together. Anna had forgotten about the entire process of raising a tipi. She recalls as a child waiting impatiently for Cliff to pitch the tent for both families.

In the corner of her eye, Anna notices another convey approaching. She had known that the Cumberland House convoy had been close behind their own but didn’t expect them to arrive so soon after their own.

“Is Louis coming south for the hunt?” Anna inquires, wondering if Kristoff’s younger brother might be with the Cumberland House convoy.

“He hasn’t come south for the hunts in nearly a year.” He responds, taking another sip of water. Without another word, Kristoff walks away from Anna, making his way back to his father and Sven, helping them with placing the covering over the poles.

A loud shriek resounds through the encampments, nearly stopping the bustling scene as it echoes through the crowd. For a moment, Anna thinks it might be Eliza’s, but she spots the woman rushing her way through the various people.

Anna watches this young woman weaving through the crowd, her hip-length chestnut hair flowing behind her as she runs towards their site. Kristoff’s cursing pulls Anna’s attention away from the young woman back to the men.

Kristoff holds a long pole, the other end abandoned as Sven turns away from him to face the young woman.

“Sven!” The brunette woman shrieks, nearly knocking Sven over as her body crashes into his. The brunette Newfoundlander begins to laugh as his arms wrap around the petite woman, lifting her off the ground with ease.

The young couple giggle gleefully as he sets her back on the ground. Sven places a hand on the back of her neck, crashing his lips to hers as he pulls her body flush to his. Watching the two of them, Anna smiles, remembering how passionately Hans once held her and kissed her like that. How she used to feel safe and secure with his arms wrapped around her waist.

She blinks away the tears, coming to terms that she would never feel Hans’ hands on her again. She would never feel that way ever again. Anna knew she had her chance with romance, now all that matters is Eliza.

Anna blinks, noticing the way Cliff and Bulda smile at the exchange between the young woman and Sven, and the way Angelique was practically bursting with excitement as the sight of the brunette. It suddenly dawns on Anna who this woman was.

Marguerite.

She could hardly believe that this beautiful woman before her is Marguerite. Kristoff’s youngest sister, who used to chase after them, begging to join in on the older kids’ activities. The young girl who used to clutch at Angelique’s skirts or Kristoff’s pants as she peered up at any stranger with judging hazel eyes.

Anna looks to Kristoff, noticing the way he rolls his eyes and shakes his head; the smile on his face revealing the happiness he felt for his friend and youngest sister. Angelique laughs, nudging her mother as she leans over to talk to Bulda.

“And you say Gabriel and I were bad.” Angelique teases causing her mother to chuckle. Marguerite breaks away from Sven, rolling her eyes as she faces her older sister.

“You two were!” The brunette exclaims, withdrawing from her lover. The two sisters giggle, ecstatic to be with one another again. Angelique envelopes Marguerite in her arms, the younger sister’s head coming to rest against her cheek as they clutch at one another.

Anna feels her heartache as she watches this exchange between the two of them. She wishes that her return home would have been more similar to this than what had transpired.

She blinks away tears, looking away from the scene as Marguerite comes to stand in front of her mother. Bulda cups her daughter’s face, regarding the young woman before pulling her into her embrace.

Anna wishes she could feel her mother’s arms around her one last time, for her mother to hold Eliza and dot on her. She wishes Iduna was here to help her readjust to their life, to their community. But she wasn’t. Anna had to do this one her own.

Bulda clears her throat, capturing Anna’s attention again as the two women come to stand in front of her.

“Daisy, you remember Anna.”

Marguerite smiles at the auburn-haired woman, taking Anna by the hands. “Of course, I do.”

“She’s visiting us while her husband is in London,” Bulda informs her daughter. With a strain, Anna fakes a smile and nods, confirming the lie she had been telling everyone for the past few weeks.

The brunette woman’s smile falters for a moment, staring at Anna. “How nice. I’m sure he misses you dearly. You married Mr. Westergaard from Arendelle, didn’t you?”

“I did.” Anna swallows the lump in her throat. Unable to be rid of the feeling that Marguerite knew the truth.

“He must be missing you and little Eliza dearly.” Bulda comments, placing a hand over her chest.

“Let’s not have Anna dwell on missing her husband, mama. I’m sure she doesn’t need to be reminded of it.” Marguerite pats her mother’s arms, indicating for the older woman to stop pressing the matter.

“Of course. I’m prattling on.” Bulda waves her hand. “Why don’t you two fetch more water while Angelique and I get everything set up in the tipi.”

“We’ll go further up the creek.” Marguerite states. Bulda and Angelique furrow their brows in a similar fashion. Quickly Marguerite clarifies “The water will be clearer to the north.”

“You’ll still have to boil it once you get back,” Angelique argues, unable to understand why her younger sister wishes to make more work for the two of them.  

“I know. I just want to go for a walk.” The younger sister huffs. “Grab Kristoff’s buckets; they are the best.”   “You better not lose those,” Kristoff calls as the men secure the covering to the tipi poles. Marguerite sticks her tongue out at her older brother.

“We won’t quit being a tuguy.”

Anna giggles at this, quickly covering her mouth to hide the smile crossing her features. She hadn’t heard that word in a very long time. Kristoff’s gaze snaps to Anna, the corners of his mouth quirking up at her laughter.

This is the Kristoff she remembers, the one who laughed at his younger sister and Anna’s antics as children. Not the brooding and short-tempered one she had seen for these past weeks.  

“Language!” Bulda scolds, lightly hitting her youngest daughter on her bicep. Marguerite laughs at her mother’s scolding, grabbing two buckets from the back of Kristoff’s cart.

“We’ll be back soon,” Anna says, following after Marguerite. The two women remain close to one another as they weave through the crowd. Anna expects any minute for the younger woman to break off to make her way to the creek, but she doesn’t. Instead, the two women continue further up the creek, away from the multiple convoys.

“I didn’t expect to go this far for water.” Anna jokes, breathily laughing as she notices how far they have gone from the plateau.

“We didn’t have to,” Marguerite says, finally stopping by the side of the creek. “I thought you might want to talk.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.” Anna’s face falls as the brunette woman peels off her moccasins, throwing them onto the grass.

Marguerite steps into the cold water, gazing up at Anna with a sigh. “I went through Arendelle a week ago to meet the new chief factor…and his wife.”

Panic overtakes Anna as she stares at the other woman, the pounding of her heart echoing in her ears as she considers her response. Marguerite shakes her head, wading out of the stream to come to stand in front of Anna.

“Are you going to tell your mother?” Anna quietly asks, looking down at her feet as shame overtakes her.

“It’s not my place to tell. I know how some of these people can be, judging others without looking at themselves. My family would never judge because of what happened to you, Anna.” Hesitantly Marguerite places a hand on Anna’s shoulder “You’re one of us.”

Anna scoffs, shaking her head in response. “Not according to my sister.”

The auburn-haired woman finally looks up, finding the courage to look Marguerite in the eyes. She expects to stare back into a cold, hard and unforgiving gaze. But instead, Marguerite’s eyes are full of understanding and warmth.

“Give her time, she’ll eventually come around.” The brunette woman offers her a smile. “But to come back to us and her, you need to tell the truth.”

Anna stares at Marguerite, wondering when did the little girl with the gap in her teeth get to be so grown-up. She sighs, nodding her head. “You’re right.”

“Besides!” Marguerite chirps, taking a step away from Anna. “If you stay here, you can marry my brother, and we can be sisters.”

Much to her surprise, this comment causes Anna to burst into a laugh. Remembering this is the Marguerite she recalls from their childhood. She regains her composure, her face hurting from smiling.  

“Which one?” Anna raises her brow, teasing the other woman.

“Kristoff, of course. Do you really think I’d subject you and your daughter to Louis?”

Anna giggles, unlacing her leather boots to discard them beside Marguerite’s moccasins as she shakes her head in response.

“No, that part of my life is over. I doubt any man would want to take another man’s child as his own.” Anna sighs. “Besides, Kristoff doesn’t want me. He’s made that clear since my return.”

“I know my brother very well. He’s an idiot. But, he’s a good man; I don’t doubt for a moment that he would treat you well and love your daughter as his own.” Marguerite says sincerely before submerging the bucket into the stream to fill it.

Anna reaches over, grabbing the full bucket from the other woman, handing her the second one. Her arms strain as she holds the full bucket while waiting for Daisy. “I’m starting to think coming out this far is a mistake.”

“It’s probably is,” Marguerite responds, emerging from the stream with the second bucket. With her free hand, the brunette picks up her moccasins, carrying them as she walks off. Anna follows close behind the younger woman, trying her best to ignore the water splashing on her skirt as they walk back to the encampment.

Both Anna and Marguerite lose half of the water in their buckets once they return to Bulda and Cliff’s site, where the first tipi is raised and a fire already burns.

“Put the buckets on the back of the cart, we’ll boil the water later,” Angelique instructs, passing the two of them with blankets in her arms. Anna follows Marguerite to her family’s cart, placing the buckets into the bed of the wagon.

Marguerite makes her way to Sven, standing on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek. Staring in the direction of the men, Anna notices Kristoff has left the site.

Her attention is torn away when Louise and Guillaume emerge from the tipi, shrieking as the daughter chases after her brother. Looking around the site, Anna tries to locate where Eliza is since the children have returned.

She meanders to the tipi, peering into the entrance only to see Helene sitting with her mother and Noohkoom.

“Where is Eliza?” Anna questions, her brows knitting together at her daughter’s absence. Both Angelique and Bulda look up at the young woman.

“Gerda held onto her while you were away,” Bulda responds. Anna nods, pulling away from the tipi to find the Grants. Kai and Gerda’s site is only a short walk away, much to Anna’s relief. With nearly 250 people in the encampment locating her daughter could’ve been much more difficult.

As she approaches the site, Gerda kneels on the grass, feeding fire embers with dry blades. The thin older woman looks up at Anna, smiling at the sight of the young woman.

“Anna, what a pleasant surprise.”

“Taaishi Gerda. I heard you have my daughter.” Anna responds with a sweet smile, folding her hands in front of her.

“I did.” The grey-haired woman responds. “but Marie came and took her from me.”

Anna sighs; she should’ve known better than to have expected Eliza to stay in one place. “Well, I’ll go to the Bernard’s site and see if she is there.”

The young woman walks away without another word, trying to locate her daughter. She doesn’t panic, knowing that Eliza had to be with someone she knew.

Eliza isn’t with Marie and Pierre Bernard, or Phillipe Laurent and his wife, Theresa. Nor is she with the Dumonts, or the Cumberland House Sayers.

Anna finds herself going in circles by the time she reaches the sixth site that day, exhausted from walking and the intense heat building in the plateau. She wipes the sweat off of her brow with the back of her hand as she approaches the river. Making her way to the McKenzie family site.

She stops in her tracks, placing her hands on the curve of her hips as her back begins to ache. Huffing in frustration, she debates going back to Cliff and Bulda’s site to wait for Eliza to be returned to her. This is becoming futile.

Her hope comes flooding back as she hears a familiar giggle. Anna’s scans the crowd, trying to locate where her daughter’s giggles are coming from. Her gaze stops at the edge of the stream, where she sees Eliza being held by Kristoff.

Eliza giggles reaching out to grab at Kristoff’s beard, causing the man to pull his head away and point to something across the river, trying to divert the little girl’s attention away from his facial hair by pointing out the pelicans; with no avail. The toddler remains transfixed on his beard, pulling at the hairs.

Anna’s heart warms as the corner of Kristoff’s mouth curves into a smile while he stares at the little girl. Then to Anna’s surprise, Eliza wraps her chubby arms around Kristoff’s neck, holding herself closer to him.

She withdraws without saying anything, knowing Kristoff would bring her daughter back to the site. Anna settles beside Angelique while they make dinner, looking up as Kristoff returns with Eliza in his arms.

The little girl coos at the sight of her mother, reaching out towards Anna as Kristoff comes closer to her.

“Hi, Sweetheart!” Anna stands from the ground, taking Eliza back into her arms.

“I found her with the Fort Qu’Appelle Giroux family,” Kristoff comments, reluctantly handing the toddler back to her mother.

“I appreciate it.” She offers a small smile as Eliza begins to play with the buttons on the front of Anna’s shirt. Her heart flutters as he returns the gesture, a sense of familiarity returning to her as he regards her warmly.  

“Of course.”

She finds herself disappointed as Kristoff turns away from her, Eliza reaching after the man with a whimper. Anna looks at her daughter, brushing Eliza’s wisps of hair away from her forehead as she turns to make her way towards the site.

“Come on, my love, let’s see if Bulda has the tipi ready for you to have a nap.” Anna bounces her daughter with a smile, trying to lift the girl’s spirit. She carries her daughter towards the tent, meandering slowly as she spares a glance over her shoulder.

Anna watches as Kristoff stands next to Sven and Marguerite, shaking his head and scrunching his face in disgust as his little sister cuddles closer to Sven. Her chest constricts as he smiles again, something which Anna would never tire of.   

Notes: Tuguy is a Cree slang word which means dick/penis. Metis buffalo hunts were a really large affair, the largest recorded one was in 1840 with 1210 Red river carts and around 1,630 people.Thank you so much for reading <3 Thanks to Melanie and Johanna for giving me feedback on this chapter!!

[tartagilicious]

Hey, I was wondering if you could do an Arthur request, where the MC mocks his accent (using all of the old British slang and attempting to match the accent?)

all the arthur requests in my inbox i-

-- 

When you’d first met the author, you had found yourself wary of him. Arthur was a smooth talker and even more of a rotten flirt, and that did little to hinder your initial hesitance towards the man. But, as you found yourself slowly getting used to him and your life in the mansion, your reluctance faded bit by bit until you could talk freely with him, almost as if you'd known him your entire life. 

Arthur was naturally overjoyed by this development, even if it stayed hidden behind a cat-like smile. He took your conversations with a great deal of respect and was strangely proud of you to have had the courage to make such a drastic change to your state of mind so quickly. 

He had enjoyed seeing you squirm at first, of course, but, dare say he enjoyed seeing you smile significantly more. You were so much more open now than you’d bothered to be earlier in the month, and Arthur was keen on keeping you that way until it was time for you to head back to the comfort of your own time. 

The responsibility he felt for you was backless but was still something he felt he needed to see over no matter what. Besides, how could he let a woman like you have the time to be upset?

Arthur was up and about quite early one particular morning due to having carelessly stayed up all night writing, and at one point, found himself too restless to stay in his room any longer. As he walked through the halls, his strides were long but unsystematic, showing his exhaustion as clearly as if you were looking at him through polished glass. 

The sun wasn’t even up from what he could see through the tall windows of the manor, not even a single bird chirping its daily good morning yet. But it wasn’t like he paid attention to the washy details. All that was on his mind was finding enough coffee to keep him running until the sun set again, and he was headed to the one place that might have what he was looking for. 

Sebastian and Napoleon frequented the kitchens more often than anyone else, but Arthur still wasn’t surprised to find the room empty when he pushed open the door. 

“By Jove,” he mumbled, adjusting his spectacles as his eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness. “I’m right knackered out of my mind.”

He used muscle memory to easily find his way to the counter the box of coffee grounds sat on, but had a hell of a time getting a mug from the cabinet quietly. His hands were unbelievably jittery from lack of sleep, and it had him cringing as assorted clinks and clangs boomed their way through the room. It almost even got to be enough to wake him up. Almost. 

But, try as he might, he stopped trying to be quiet quite easily in the end as there was no one around to wake up anyway. So, deciding to put his aforementioned troubles aside, he just went about the rest of his business as normal and went to fetch the kettle from its home in the cart in the dining room. 

He normally had a bone to pick with the kettle’s placement, but now he was just thankful he didn’t have to root around in the cabinet for it. 

Arthur took his sweet time walking to the dining room, though, humming softly to himself as he went over what he’d written that night in his head. Of course, he hadn’t meant to stay up so long, but, he didn’t regret it. After all, he knew better than anyone when creativity struck, it was best to make good use of it. 

He was stuck in his thoughts as he finally approached the cart, but stopped in his tracks again when he turned around to find that he wasn’t alone after all. He just blinked when he noticed you asleep at your place at the dining table with a journal of sorts laid open in front of you, your cheek resting on your arm.

Le Comte had given you a lavish room that any woman in London would be jealous of, but yet here you were, asleep at the table. But of course, the author couldn’t make fun. He’d done the same thing too many times to count. 

He looked down at the kettle in his hands and back at you, and for a moment considered waking you up so you could join him for coffee. But, when he walked over to you and noticed how peacefully you were sleeping, he vouched for leaving you a little note to wake up to instead. So, knowing you craved caffeine in the morning just as much as anyone else, he decided to slip the pen from your limp fingers and write of a pot of coffee waiting for you on the stove in the corner of the page. 

Then, as he began to write his message, you stirred. He tried not to wake you any further, but couldn’t help his smile when you whispered his name. 

“All right, ___?” He asked softly, his concentration not wavering from what he was writing until he slipped the pen back into your hand again. “How did you ever manage to fall asleep like that?”

A few moments passed before you mumbled, “...I don’t know... just writing.”

Your eyes were still completely shut as you talked, and your breathing was considerably heavy, leading him to believe that you were talking to him through dreamland rather than your rational thoughts. Now that he looked at you, you didn’t seem awake in the least. But that, he understood. The sun wasn’t even up, yet there he was, clambering around for coffee like a maniac. 

“I’m au fait with the feeling. But do me a favour and go back to sleep for a few more hours, ___. Trust me, you won’t regret it.”

As soon as the last words left his mouth, your expression shifted into a smile before you parroted, “au fait, hm?”

Arthur was quiet, unsure of how to respond. 

“By Jove, I’m bloody knackered!” Your quiet laugh morphed into a yawn as you continued into slight gibberish. “You sound like a character on the hotel television, Arthur.”

He couldn’t help but smile thoughtfully as he sat down beside you, setting the kettle down on the table. The way you tried to mock his accent was terribly funny to him, and he was having a hard time keeping a laugh down.

“How so?”

“I’ve never been to England.” You mumbled, lazily shifting your head on your arms. “But I think your talk is kind of outdated.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, you began spewing more gibberish he couldn’t ever hope to understand.

He stared at you with a quiet smile as your words went on and on, and was slightly disappointed when you began to fade out, giving discernable excuses that you were ‘just simply too tired to talk any longer’, before shutting down again completely. 

He put his head down slightly to look past your hair to your face and found his heart swelling with adoration when he saw you asleep again. He couldn’t help but find your small tangent adorable, and frankly couldn’t wait to tease you about it over a cup of coffee when the sun rose again.

[venusxxlangdon]

Hotline Bling

summary: Nothing foretold troubles when suddenly Michael’s phone screen lit up with an incoming call. Without taking his eyes off the laptop, he reached for his phone, thinking it was Gallant.

“Hello?” he asked

“Have you been a good boy?”

AU, where Michael is an art student at Hawthorne University with a penchant for rollerball lip gloss & fleece blankets and the reader, is phone sex operator who accidentally calls the wrong number

pairing: sub!Hawthorne Michael x fem!reader

warnings: dirty talk, smut, sub!Michael, mommy kink, humping

words: 3.3k

A/N: there will be part 2!

Michael Langdon had been having a penchant for nice things for as long as he remembered himself. He was soft and delicate by nature, so it was no wonder that he enjoyed fleece blankets and scented candles, wide linen shirts to wear around the house instead of old T-shirts paired with sweatpants everyone liked, fluffy socks that made him feel comfy, warm bubble baths, and cinnamon French toasts topped with cherry jam or powdered sugar.

However, not everyone had the same opinion on his preferences. Constance Langdon, his grandmother (may she rest in peace), who raised him like he was her son, had been trying to do everything in her might to make Michael fit into her idea of what boys should have worn, studied in university, and done in their free time. Although, after he brought home his first high school girlfriend she seemed to stop being so hard on him as if the fact that Michael was into girls was some sort of a relief for her. The truth, as usual, was somewhere in the middle: Michael had no idea who he was into and preferred to go with a flow and take interest in whoever he liked no matter their gender, religion, and social background. He was not only a good-looking guy — the blond mop of short curls surrounded his head like a halo; crystal blue eyes, made him look like an angel; cherry kissed lips sometimes had a touch of a peachy lip gloss rollerball he carried in his designer backpack, resembled the petals of a beautiful rose — but he was also beautiful inside, despite a blinkered mindset of his grandmother.

When he moved to a small apartment that was only 20 minutes away from Hawthorne University where he was majoring in art, he started decorating the place to his liking: curtains made of sheer organza flowed down the windows like sea foam; the transparent fabric allowed the sunlight to spill into the room, bounce off the walls and flood every corner of it with radiant warmth.

The endless list of things he liked to do in his free time mostly consisted of going to the exhibitions and gallery openings, attending independent movie premieres with his artsy friends, grabbing a strong espresso on the way to class every morning, and dancing to his favorite songs while cooking. He lived alone and was comfortable with it because truly deep in his heart he was a loner. Of course, he had friends, take, for example, Gallant. A very extravagant guy he had met at one of the events and immediately clicked with. Michael did not know whether he believed in soulmates, but Gallant was definitely one of those people in his life who understood him and shared the same interests. However, Michael always enjoyed his time alone in the perfect world he built around himself and spent so much effort maintaining and protecting from people who thought that it was their duty to call it too “feminine”.

“Angel! I’m home!” he stepped into the apartment and tried to shut the door with his shoulder because both of his hands were busy holding a new print he’d got from Gallant and a paper bag from Whole Foods.

A white cat appeared around the corner to greet his owner who never managed to come home without a handful of stuff. He cautiously approached the print Michael put against the wall.

“How have you been, little guy?”

Michael found Angel a year ago on the way home when he was returning from a bar he went to with Gallant and his boyfriend. It was during the time when he was recovering from an extremely painful breakup with his last girlfriend. It was a complicated relationship from the very beginning, but he thought that his love would have been enough for both of them.

In the end, it left him drained out, heartbroken, and utterly devastated. So there he was young and depressed, cringing at the bitter aftertaste of alcohol, he drank with his friends, on his way to his small studio where nobody was waiting for him. At first, he didn’t understand where the tiny mewls were coming from, but as he approached one of the waste containers, he realized that among the litter there was a small white (well it was gray at that moment) kitten. Alone and abandoned just like him.

“I missed you, love” he smiled at the cat, picked up his bags and made his way to the kitchen.

It was a regular evening for him with a homemade dinner and some tv show in the background. He was sitting on the couch with the blanket around his shoulders and a Mac on his lap, working on a digital project for the upcoming assignment. Angel was snuggling by his side, snoring peacefully, and the light scent of his favorite 26 Santal Le Labo candle was filling the room. Nothing foretold troubles when suddenly his phone screen lit up with an incoming call. Without taking his eyes off the laptop, Michael reached for his phone, thinking it was Gallant.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Have you been a good boy?” the question asked in smooth silky voice on the other end made Michael jump on his seat. He immediately looked at the screen but did not recognize the number, so he hurried to bring the phone back to his ear and demand the explanation.

“Ex-excuse me?” he stuttered.

“I’m asking you if you’ve been a good boy for mommy today,” he felt the blush bloom across his cheeks not only from the lascivious tone of your voice but the words you were saying. What on God’s green earth was that?

It took him a few seconds to first, close his mouth because his jaw had dropped indeed, and second, formulate a coherent sentence.

“I’m sorry, I think you called the wrong number” he bit his lip and looked at the display once again as if the range of figures would have turned into something different.

“Is this strawberryboy69?”

Michael giggled at the nickname and put his laptop aside, straightening his legs out.

“No, my name is Michael, and who are you?”

You started scrolling through the data to check if you had called the right number feeling the embarrassment wash over you. Nervously you scanned the table of clients’ names, and your brows frowned when you found out that you had done everything correctly. Strawberryboy69 was supposed to be the same caller that was being on the line, and his kinks should have been “age play, mommy kink, slight humiliation, choking, and spanking”. There could not have been any mistake unless the client had told the wrong number himself.

“I’m sorry, sir. There’s gotta be a mistake,” you murmured still confused. “Please, accept my apologies, I-...”

And before you even finished the sentence Michael asked:

“Wait, was it supposed to be a sex call? Like for real?”

He didn’t know why he even asked that question, and why his cheeks were still beet red. Of course, the girl on the line was a phone sex operator. Who else would’ve started a conversation asking if he had been a good boy? He unconsciously ran his fingers through his hair and caught himself thinking that the idea of having actual phone sex really excited him. He’d never done anything like that, and it felt forbidden. Even mysterious, since he didn’t even know your name. He looked at Angel nervously as if the cat was judging him.

“Yes, and it seems like the client gave me the wrong number. I won’t be taking your time unless you’d like to try...” you lowered your voice to emphasize the last part of the sentence. Having worked for over a year in this company you had learned that if a caller started asking questions it mean that you got his attention. Even though this guy wasn’t the original strawberryboy69, you could try your luck and make him your new client.

Michael’s breath hitched.

“Um, I am really not sure” he mumbled, hugging the pillow and pressing it hard against his chest trying to calm down. “I’ve never tried anything like this....how much do you charge per minute?” he felt the thrill of the rush tightening in his stomach.

You smiled to yourself. You got him.

“It’s a dollar per minute, and after the 10th minute, the rate is 0.50$. Don’t worry about being inexperienced,” the tone of your voice switched from cool and professional to lustful and teasing in a matter of seconds, and that was what got Michael aroused. “I got you.”

Michael let out a frustrated sigh and flipped on his stomach, resting his chin on the pillow.

“Okay,” he cleared his throat, “okay, I think I want to try this, but what do I start with?”

You leaned back on your chair and put your phone on the speaker ready for the show.

“I want you to tell me about yourself first. What do you like in bed? What are your secret fantasies?” you turned on the timer.

There was some mumbling on the other end, and you heard something like “God, I can’t believe I’m doing it”.

After a long pause Michael spoke:

“It’s nothing extreme”, he said, “I think I am boring, like...okay, so...I don’t really.. Oh God.. Sorry, I can’t do this,” he felt so embarrassed; his cheeks were burning bright red.

It was a normal reaction for the person who had never practiced phone sex, and you understood him. So you took the initiative:

“Michael,” you remembered his name, “do you like being in control and dominating your partner?” you purred.

Michael shook his head as if you could see him.

“No, actually, it’s the opposite. I like when my partner takes care of me. I like it nice and soft,” he felt his cock harden in his pants and instinctively snaked his hand down his crotch to slightly squeeze it.

You briefly made a note “soft, probably sub” on a sticker, brought a pencil to your mouth, and pensively started sucking on the tip. It seemed like you got a new strawberry boy.

“Hmmm, sounds good” he was making a progress indeed, so you made sure to praise him for that, “I would love to take care of you, darling. Tell me what you look like, baby?”

Michael felt hot. Suddenly the temperature in the room increased drastically, and he slowly started unbuttoning his blue linen shirt. He traced the tips of his fingers starting from the prominent collarbones and moving inwards. Gently applying pressure, he whimpered at the sensation. Using a circular motion, he splayed his hand out gently across his chest and brought his fingers together at the pink nipple.

“I’m tall, and that’s why I’m always slouching. My grandma used to be so mad at me for not being able to sit straight, and-...” he paused suddenly realizing what he was saying. “God, I’m sorry, that was absolutely unsexy. I don’t know why I even said that...”

You couldn’t help yourself and giggled in response.

“It’s okay, darling” you hurried to reassure him, “feel free to share whatever you like. I’m listening.”

Michael buried his face in the pillow.

“Okay, okay,” he muttered, “I’m blond, curly-haired, and I have blue eyes, what else...”

You didn’t doubt that he was actually describing himself even though he could have pretended to be whoever he wanted. Most of your clients usually told you that they looked like models or actors, everyone was “tall, skinny, with big 11-inch dick (yes, sure), and pornographic boobs.” You couldn’t blame them for that because it was their fantasy and they had every right to dream about it.

“Baby, you are so pretty,” you told him, “let me lace my fingers through your curls and slightly tug on them so I could kiss that pretty neck of yours.”

Michael involuntary bucked his hips forward, grinding his clothed cock against the sofa.

“I-I-I love neck kisses,” he whispered feeling hot flush wash over him. “And love bites.”

You hummed approvingly. Slowly, step by step, you were going to bring him out from his comfort zone.

“That’s wonderful, kitten” you said twisting a strand of your hair around your finger, “imagine my full lips on your neck. Kissing and sucking on the tender skin. I’d slowly run the tip of my tongue across your throat and bite on your collarbones, mark you as mine. Are you mine, darling?”

You heard a quiet whimper on the other side. Michael’s hand passed the hem of his pants and sneaked inside to wrap around his half-hard cock. His mouth dropped open at the feeling of the velvet skin around the glistening head under his touch.

“Yes, I’d like to be yours.”

“That’s my good boy,” you cooed, “now I want to you touch yourself, baby,” it was like you were reading his mind, and Michael squeezed at the base of his shaft imagining that you were actually watching him.

“Already”, he said brokenly, moving his hand up and down his length smearing the precum.

“You are doing so well, love.” Having worked as a phone sex operator for quite a while, you stopped getting off with your clients, but this time it was different. Maybe it was Michael’s inexperience that got you, or his low, silky voice that sounded hot even when he was apologizing for the unnecessary things, or his appearance that he described. You imagined how nice it would be to have a blond, curly-haired boy on your lap, all flushed with embarrassment and arousal. You started circling your clit with the tips of your fingers through the denim fabric.

“Imagine sitting on my lap, baby,” you couldn’t hold yourself back and miss out on the opportunity to act out that fantasy of yours. “All desperate for me. Rutting your hips back and forth, as my hands cup your ass and squeeze it. Hard.”

Michael’s eyes fluttered open; he lifted his head from the pillow and threw it back at the thought of straddling your thighs, moaning loudly.

“Ugh, please” he whined, jerking himself off. The rough material of the sofa didn’t provide the friction he wanted, and he howled in frustration. “It’s not enough, it’s not enough, please..” he muttered.

You closed your eyes.

“Baby, I want you to take a blanket and put it between your thighs for me. Tell me when you are ready.”

Michael’s trembling hands reached out for his favorite fleece blanket, crumpled it hurriedly and placed it between his thighs. He hooked the waistband of his pants and yanked them down his long legs along with his boxers. A broken moan slipped of his tongue when the tip of his cock brushed against the fuzzy fabric.

“Ready, sweetheart?” you wondered in anticipation. The sweet little mewls escaping the boy’s mouth were driving you crazy. Your pussy was throbbing at the thought of ruining him, messing up his curls, and making those blue eyes water with the unbearable neediness.

“Y-yes”, Michael answered waiting for the next order.

“Now I want you to slowly start humping it”, you said, voice dripping with seduction, “while thinking of my hands sliding down your body, caressing every inch of the exposed skin. C’mon, move your hips in circles.”

His skin felt like it was on fire. His abdomen tensed as he started drawing figure eight with his hips, and he had to bite at the corner of the pillow to muffle his moans.

“Let me hear you,” you whispered while rubbing your clit, “God, I wish I could see you. Tell me how does humping feel, hmm?”

Michael moaned in response. His long fingers formed a fist around the tip of his cock and started sliding up and down the length, matching the thrusts of his hips.

“Feels so good”, he murmured. He licked his dry lips and sighed heavily before asking, “could you, please...argh...” Michael hissed when he accidentally slid his thumb along the slit, “Please...”

“What do you want, Michael?” you urged him to speak up.

“When you asked if I’d been a good boy”, he couldn’t believe he was actually about to ask for that, “you called yourself mommy, and I really liked it,” he rolled his head to the side feeling so damn embarrassed and pathetic.

“Oh, baby,” the boy was insufferable. You spread your pussy and inserted two fingers simultaneously, pumping them in and out, “imagine that it’s mommy’s cunt is clenching around your cock.”

Michael was on all fourth, jerking himself off violently. When a sinful “mommy” rolled off your lips, he bit on his knuckles trying to suppress a desperate squeak.

“I told you not to hold your moans in,” his heart skipped a beat when he heard the stern tone of your voice. “If you want to be quite so desperately, open your mouth and start sucking on your fingers.”

And he obeyed like a good boy. Michael brought his free hand to his lips and stuck his tongue out to lick at the tips of his fingers.

“That’s a good boy”, you moaned at the sloppy sound of his lips sucking on his digits. “Keep going.”

You hoped that he was getting close because your own orgasm started building up inside you with every push of your fingers.

“Mommy, I’m close,” you smiled at Michael’s whimpers. You were definitely in sync.

“I know, baby”, you squeezed your thighs flexing your pelvic floor muscles. “Mommy’s close, too.”

“Please, may I come?” he pleaded, and who were you to refuse him?

“Cum for me, kitten,” you moaned feeling your orgasm unfold, and flooding every cell of your body. “My pretty boy, you’ve been so, so good.”

With a broken cry, Michael let go, and came in his fist, staining his blanket with white stripes despite his attempts not to make it messy. You wished you could have seen his face. Fuck, for the first time you actually wondered what your client looked like.

Michael rolled over on his back. Coming down from his high, he felt ethereal. Starting at the ceiling, he couldn’t believe that a stranger had made him come so hard. He looked at his sticky hand and closed his eyes. Holly shit.

“Thank you,” he whispered and heard your soft chuckle.

“The pleasure was all mine,” you said with a smile and quietly whimpered at the feeling of dump panties between your legs.

You should have already thanked Michael for the call, charged for his time, and hung up, but instead, you were still on the phone with him.

“Hey, listen,” Michael cleared his throat, “is there any way I can contact you later?”

A wide grin spread across your lips.

“Yes, you can use this number. I work from 8 to 11pm.”

You were not going to make it easy for him.

Taglist: @langdons-rep @babypinkstyles94 @sammythankyou @kaigitana @ms-mead @sebastianshoe @langdonsdemon @iloveziggystardust @chaoticevillangdon @sojournmichael @sloppy-little-witch-bitch26 @theghostoflangdon @divinelangdon @avesatanormalpeoplescareme @ticklish-leafy-plant @bbyduncan

People who might like it: @ccodyfern @1-800-bitchcraft @ritualmichael @wroteclassicaly

[thebeethathums]

Observers - 6

Pairing: Sherlock Holmes x Reader

Warnings: None

A/N: Now you're literally bouncing off walls. That was a bad joke. Sorry. Do people even read these things?

You came back burdened with glorious groceries, carefully balancing around a third of them on the forearm connected to your injured hand so it could still be useful but not actually have to do any of the work. No sooner than you had stepped through the door with a huff, your phone let out a cry for attention and you spun slightly in its direction as if that would free your hands so you could retrieve it from your pocket. You scrunched up your face and hoped John was close since Sherlock wasn’t likely to move from the couch to get it for you, “JOHN!” He popped his head out from the kitchen, his eyes widening slightly at the mass amount of things you had, and you let out a relieved sigh, “Oh good. Would you please get my phone? It could be important.” He approached you, hands hovering hesitantly as he tried to locate it before determining where it was and pulling it from your pocket to quickly answer it. He gaped at the pace the person on the other end started up at and then made his best attempt, “Uhh… Slow down, please… urm… could you just- if you would- one minute… u-un minute…” 

There was nothing he could do but reach over and press the phone to your ear as you let out a giggle over the situation and his confused face. You pinned the phone between your shoulder and cheek as you offered a cheery, “Bonjour!” into the receiver.  

John started taking bags from you as you nodded, pausing slightly to listen to your half of the rapid conversation that quickly ensued, “Oui, c'est moi… D'accord… Le Lundi?...Oui… C'est bon… Oui, à cinq heures. D’accord… Merci beaucoup. Au revoir!” You hung up the phone with your now completely free hands since John had removed all the shopping from you and did a small happy dance, “My things will be here on Monday!” You suddenly stopped, your face getting very serious, “There so much to do… that’s only three days away…” You lost yourself in your plans, shooing John out of the kitchen so you could make breakfast as you mumbled to yourself about brushes. Once both Sherlock and John had a plate in their hands, you plopped down in John’s chair and pulled your feet up to sit cross-legged, your posture perfect and your hands loosely resting in your lap. You looked like you were meditating, especially when you let your eyes slide closed. John raised an eyebrow, “You’re not eating then I take it?” You held a finger to your lips to shush him, “I need to think. Food is distracting.” He sighed, you were likely already in your creative space and there would be no getting through to you. Sherlock examined you curiously as you sat motionless for a bit and then began to wave your hands ever so slightly as if you were dismissing things. It was less than an hour later when you quietly unfolded yourself and left the flat without a word, Sherlock chuckling softly as he watched you go. You certainly were interesting. That was the last they saw of you until Sunday afternoon when there was a soft knock on the door before you swung it open to trudge in and flop down across from Sherlock in John’s chair. You were covered in smudges of paint, what looked to be some grease, and, surprisingly, some sawdust. John emerged from the other part of the flat, “Was that the door, Sherlock? Did you- (F/n)?” You lifted an arm lazily as a greeting, “Mind if I use your shower? The paint’s still wet in mine.” He managed to nod his head through the surprise and murmured, “Yeah. Go ahead.” He eyed you carefully as you forced yourself out of the chair and slowly shuffled to the bathroom with a yawn. The bandage on your hand looked relatively new and you didn’t look gaunt so you’d probably been eating but you looked absolutely exhausted. He let out a displeased huff but reasoned that at least you had sort of taken care of yourself. He knew you would go for weeks on end barely eating or sleeping just to not have to stop working. The shower was a great improvement as you came out looking not only clean but revived, your usual grin on your face. Sherlock couldn’t help but notice you still had a smudge of lavender paint behind one ear and decided to wait and see how long it took you to figure it out instead of telling you. John shooed you towards the table, first aid kit in hand again, “Are you done downstairs?” You gave an enthusiastic nod, “It’s all ready for the movers tomorrow.” Nodding, he pulled your hand to him, “Alright then, let see how this is healing.” He uncurled your fingers from the default protective position they took around the cut and gave a pleased nod, a hint of surprise in his eyes, “It’s healing nicely. You’ve been taking good care of it.” You chuckled, rubbing the back of your neck nervously, “Gotta take care of the tools of my trade ya know.” His chuckle joined yours, “I suppose so. I guess sometimes I forget you're all grown up and don’t need me to babysit you anymore.” You laughed, “You say that now but next time I get myself into a mess you're still the one that’s going to have to bail me out.” He let out a sighed chuckle and nodded, “I don’t think I’ll ever escape that responsibility.” You kissed the top of his head with a smirk as you stood, “Nope. Not even when I’m nighty-six and you’re a hundred.” He laughed and you ruffled his hair before starting to make your way back to his chair when Sherlock got a text and bounced up enthusiastically, “John!” “We have a case I take it,” John said, unable to hide the pleased smile that tugged at his lips. Sherlock didn’t answer, simply sweeping out the door in response, and John bounced up to follow him before he got impatient with having to wait for him. You gave your brother a little wave as he went out the door and then settled down into the chair that had been your intended destination before the sudden interruption. You jumped when your phone buzzed to inform you that you had a text message, it said it was from John but when you flicked it open it read, “The cab fare is already running. Do hurry. –SH” You bounced up, slinging your messenger bag over your shoulder as you tried to descend the stairs while pulling on your shoes. You tumbled roughly into the wall at the bend in the stairs as you lost your balance but kept going, stumbling down the rest of the stairs and then hopping to the door as you tried to tie your laces without having to stop. You gave up, bursting out the door and nearly tripping over them with a scowl as you practically fell into the cab. Sherlock caught your arm to steady you, “Just under a minute. Impressive. Next time try to keep up.” You huffed, rubbing at your shoulder where it had hit the wall, “I didn’t think you’d want me along. The stairway wall may need some repair.” John frowned at you as you leaned over to tie your laces properly but Sherlock started telling you both about the case so he opted not to ask how exactly you’d busted the wall in less than a minute. Once your laces were tied in pristine loopy bows, you pulled out a small mirror and a pouch from your bag. The next time John looked at you the bruise on your face was gone and you were using the mirror to fix your hair so it didn’t dry sticking straight out. He gaped, “How did you do that?” You snapped the mirror shut to sarcastically reply, “Magic. I couldn’t have the people you work with incorrectly assuming that I’m some sort of hoodlum now could I?” You could see Sherlock give a half smirk out of the corner of your eye as John floundered, “I- you- well I guess not but it looks like it was never even there.” You rolled your eyes, “That’s kind of the point, John.” This time Sherlock grinned and let out a soft chuckle as he turned to look out the window and John grumbled something obscene under his breath. You giggled and looked out the window yourself, watching the world passing by, this was going to be very entertaining.

[sablelab]

Covert Operations - Chapter 52

DISCLAIMER: This is a modern AU crossover story with Outlander and La Femme Nikita. LFN and its characters do not belong to me nor do those from Outlander.

SYNOPSIS: Later that afternoon an opportunity arises for Jamie and Claire’s to capture Madame Cheung unawares at her club where his team is on standby to put the profile into action.

The Madame Cheung storyline is nearing an end and there will be THREE more chapters that bring this arc to a conclusion.  My THANKS for reading my work in progress and I appreciate your support of my story in the plethora of so many talented writers. xox 

Chapters 1 - 51 can be found at …https://sablelab.tumblr.com/covertoperations

  CHAPTER 52

  Later that afternoon James Fraser made his way to Madame Cheung’s new nightclub premises in Patpong. The street in which it was located was hardly recognizable in the daylight and was vastly different this time of day and it was hard to believe that it was the same one they had come down last night. There was nothing to distinguish this area as a red-light district in the day time.  There were no spruikers enticing people into their establishments, no night time hawkers bartering with people and certainly no neon lights advertising the night time entertainment available.  It was as if these businesses didn’t exist.  Instead a farmers’ market had been set up in the lane where its overhead covering provided much needed relief from the heat and humidity of the day. Locals mingled with tourists as they bought their fruit and vegetables from the produce stalls set up by the vendors selling their wares along the pavement. Jamie, however, moved determinedly through the throng of people as he walked towards the club at the end of the lane. On entering the building by the same side door as last night he was once again met by Mali, the petite Thai woman who had welcomed them the previous evening. Madame Cheung’s assistant cordially greeted him. “Ah ... Monsieur Le Comte ... we meet again. Madame is expecting you but she will be delayed for a short time and has asked that you be taken care of in the best possible way.” “Thank you.” “Please follow me.” They made their way slowly up the stairs until they came to the lounge and bar on the second floor. There were a few people gathered there and when Jamie glanced to the other end of the bar, he recognised the beautiful Thai girl with ebony hair who had been their escort last night standing between two Asian men. It appeared that these people were in the employ of Madame Cheung in some capacity more than likely body guards. They exchanged a nod in acknowledgement and Jamie watched as she spoke to one of the men who glanced over towards him. As Mali and Jamie approached the bar, she pointed to the end where the three people were gathered. “I’ll leave you here Monsieur Le Comte. Suchin and Chatu will look after anything that you need. Madame Cheung should be along presently.” When Mali left, Jamie ordered some green tea. As he poured and drank from the small oriental cup one of the Asian men approached him at the bar. Walking over he stood beside him and trailed his hand across Jamie's shoulder as he did so.  Although the gesture appeared friendly Jamie’s suspicions were raised by the presence of these men here at Madame Cheung’s premises at this time of the day.   “Sawatdee Khrap,” He said as they exchanged a greeting in Thai. “Sabai dee reu?” “Phoot Thai mai dai,” Jamie replied indicating the he did not speak the Thai language. “Kor thoad ... Ah ... Sorry Monsieur Le Comte I will speak English. My name is Chatu Shinawatra.  I am an associate of Madame Cheung’s.  Suchin was just talking about you. Madame said you would be here this afternoon. We are very happy that you have the opportunity to do business with us.” “Thank you.” “It is a pleasure to finally meet the Monsieur Le Comte that Madame has spoken about so admirably. But ... please enlighten me ... How did you meet my boss?” “She didn't tell you?” The man had a closed look on his face despite the friendly manner he presented.  There was a coldness behind his eyes that Jamie knew only too well.

“She did ... but I want you to tell me.”  He smiled at Jamie as if he was bantering in jest but in fact, he was deadly serious. The smile he exhibited didn’t reach his eyes. 

Jamie realised that the man was testing him as to his association with Madame Cheung and if he was indeed who he said he was. He had seen the likes of this man’s type many times and knew just how to thwart Chatu with his reply.

“Through my connection with Sun Yee Lok.” “He does a lot of business in Vietnam, doesn't he?” He asked trying to catch Jamie out if he did not have a legitimate connection with the triad’s Dragon Head. “He's never been to Vietnam. He works out of Hong Kong.” Jamie replied aware of his ploy as he returned a look equally as menacing. “Quite right,” he stated as if the standoff tension between them was nothing more than cautious banter. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As they were talking Suchin joined the two men at the bar. On seeing her approach Chatu Shinawatra stated, “Ah, Monsieur Le Comte, I believe you have met Madame’s assistant already.” “Yes we met last night.” With a nod of the head Jamie acknowledged her presence.

“Sa-wat-dee Monsieur.”  She smiled at him, but Suchin turned and spoke in quiet undertones to Chatu whispering in his ear. Looking up at Jamie he relayed what she’d said to him. “Monsieur Le Comte, Madame Cheung knows of your arrival but unfortunately she will be longer than she first anticipated.” “I see.  I hope it is nothing serious?”  Jamie asked wondering what it was that was causing a delay.

“No, she is caught up with paper work that is all.  There is nothing to be concerned about Monsieur Le Comte,” Suchin answered politely.  “She has asked if you could please wait, but if not, Madame will see you back at the house this evening.”

“Certainly. I am prepared to wait until she has concluded her business.”

“Good ... Madame will be pleased. I will relay your message.” Stumbling forward in order to thank her, Jamie accidentally spilt some of his drink on the woman. “Je suis vraiment désolé, “he mumbled in French then repeated in English.  “I’m so sorry ... my apologies.”

While their attention was diverted by his clumsiness, Jamie took the opportunity to scatter minuscule tracking devices onto the floor one of the many small stalking tools Murtagh had given him that would stick to the shoes of unsuspecting victims.  

“No problem Monsieur Le Comte,” she replied brushing at her wet clothing where the tea had spilt. “I will let Madame Cheung know of your decision.”

Upon leaving the bar to go downstairs to talk with her boss, Suchin walked through the tiny self-adhesive gizmos that Jamie had dropped onto the floor would invariably be instrumental in tracing her whereabouts and the location and number of hostiles that may also be there. Clandestinely, he watched her descend the stairs knowing that back at Section One Fergus was tracking her every move.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In true Section mode, Fergus and Operations were indeed listening in on the conversation as Jamie and the Thai talked while waiting for the right moment to give the word to commence sequencing. Once Jamie had tagged the gofer and the devices attached to her shoes, Fergus was able to monitor her exact movements and he immediately set the wheels in motion. "Jamie’s tagged Madame Cheung’s assistant sir. She's heading in." “Good ... keep me informed.” The tags on her shoes gave Fergus all the information Section needed. He watched her movements on his computer screen tracking Suchin as she crossed the room below and entered a guarded hallway. Heat thermals appeared on his monitor as the woman joined Madame Cheung in her office. Looking at his computer screen he relayed the Intel to Operations. “Here we go.” “Fergus, what does your sat-thermo say?” “Thermo is hot. It looks like Madame Cheung’s got two bodies with her. Small ..., probably female. Right inside the door there's four more ..., larger ..., probably bodyguards.” “And Madame Cheung’s egress?” “Only one way out.” “Good. Download the game plan to the onsite ops.” “It’s done sir.” “Start sequencing.” ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Two of Madame Cheung’s girls had been watching the handsome stranger at the bar and once Suchin had disappeared downstairs they seized their opportunity to make his acquaintance. The winsome, beautifully attired women approached him and joined Jamie as he waited for Teams One and Two to get on mark. “Is there anything we can do for you?” One of the girls remarked capturing Jamie’s eye. “Two for one. Very good price,” replied the other vying for his attention also. The first woman started to flirt with Jamie brushing up against his side provocatively. “We will show you a very good time,” she whispered in his ear. Jamie in turn leaned closer to her in reply ignoring Chatu Shinawatra who was still standing next to him. Downstairs, Claire, Geillis Duncan and Rupert Mackenzie quietly headed for the guarded hallway that led to Madame Cheung’s office. As the women occupied Jamie’s attention Chatu glanced around. He saw trouble walk in the door as armed Section One operatives came up the stairs.  Abernathy’s team members were poised to make an assault on any hostiles in this room upstairs.  Realising that something was amiss, Chatu was about to raise the alarm, but was unable to do so, and when he attempted to grab for his gun, Jamie casually whipped out his hand snapping him in the throat throttling him, all the while giving his undivided attention to the woman beside him. Before he knew what had happened Chatu bent over gasping for air then dropped to the floor unconscious as   Abernathy took out the other target who was about to fire his weapon.  

With their backs to the action, the Thai women were oblivious to any ruckus and continued to flirt with the handsome man at the bar. “We can show you a very good time,” they purred in unison.

"Jamie ... Thirty seconds." “Sorry ladies but some other time perhaps,” he stated as he left the two despondent women standing at the bar pondering what might have been and joined his team downstairs before they even had time to realise what was going on behind them. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ When First team got to the hallway entrance, they took cover and pulled out their weapons. In front of Jamie was a lone guard. Signalling his intentions to the other operatives to follow he entered the corridor. Caught off guard by the appearance of unauthorised assailants who had surprised him with their stealth, the guard had tried to fire his gun but was quickly taken out before he could raise a whimper. As Jamie slipped down the hallway towards Madame Cheung’s inner sanctum, they took care of two more of her other bodyguards who had wandered into the passageway. Meanwhile, more of her guards descended from an adjoining corridor and from her office to investigate the commotion. On seeing several black clad attackers, the guards started shooting at anything that moved. “We’ve got shooters, everybody down.” Ricocheting bullets went flying every which way. The operatives immediately took cover from the melee then returned fire. The guards continued shooting and a hail of bullets was rapidly exchanged. Unfortunately, in the crossfire, Rupert Mackenzie was winged by a wayward shot to his shoulder. “Are ye all right?” Jamie asked. He slumped down the wall holding his arm as sticky, wet blood oozed through his fingers. “I’m fine,” Mackenzie replied taking his hand away from his wound. “Nothing too serious it’s just a superficial wound. I can still function.” “Good.” Madame Cheung’s bodyguards were dogged in their defence of their employer and they held the operatives at bay for a while. Nevertheless, the tenacity, quick thinking and precision accuracy of the team overpowered them and systematically all of her men were taken out of play. “All clear Fergus,” Jamie declared knowing that their main target Madame Cheung was now their main objective and within reach. “Proceed with Phase 2 Jamie.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

James Fraser continued down the winding corridor then stopped next to the closed door of Madame Cheung’s office. Pulling his gun out, he checked the ammo clip, reloaded his firearm and leant against the wall for a brief moment before bursting through the door with his weapon poised at the ready. Madame Cheung’s two assistants, Mali and Suchin were cowering on the floor in fright with their hands covering their heads. Jamie ignored them as he quickly glanced around the room to ascertain the situation. Unfortunately, it was not as he would like. “Fergus she’s not here.” Turning to the two frightened women he demanded, “Where is she?” “We ... don’t ... know,” the women fearfully replied as they huddled together on the floor terrified that he would hurt them. This menacing man was the complete opposite of Monsieur Le Comte who had walked into the club not so long ago. It was hard for them to comprehend the change in his demeanour. “Yes you do!” Jamie repeated more forcibly. “There must be some secret wall panel in her office.” Fergus interrupted in his comm. unit. Turning away from the two women, Jamie ran his gloved hand over the book case behind Madame Cheung’s desk searching for the mechanism that would open a hidden panel in the wall. Finding none, he walked over to the furthest bookcase. “Jamie, we’re running out of time. Madame Cheung will be long gone by now.” However, Operations interjected ordering, “Continue to search.” Pulling a homing device from his pocket, Jamie continued to search, and ran the device over the books along each shelf. The two women watched terrified that Monsieur Le Comte may discover the secret getaway button that Madame Cheung only used in cases of emergency and if he did, then what would happen to them. Suchin and Mali began to panic as they knew he was getting closer to discovering the secret passage, but they were too frightened to do anything but cower on the floor. Casting a terrified glance towards each other uncertain of their fate they huddled even closer together. “You've got to get out of there Jamie.” Fergus relayed. Jamie ignored Fergus’s warning and Operations outburst, and continued to search for the secret passageway anyway. Although he heard another commotion going on outside, he quickly scanned the lower shelves meticulously running his device over the surface once more. A red light soon lit up indicating that the secret opening was located in the book case. “I’ve found it.” “Good ... Proceed!” Haphazardly pulling out books from the shelves the hidden button was eventually revealed. Jamie depressed it and the bookcase rotated revealing a secret door that opened to some stairs and an alleyway at the back of the building. He made his way through the opening just as Geillis, Rupert and Claire, joined him. Making their way through the secret door, together they all headed in the direction of the alleyway and into the bright afternoon sunlight in pursuit of their elusive target Madame Cheung who had managed to escape the pandemonium that had ensued at her establishment.  

 Madame Cheung was convinced that she had outwitted any assailants who might try and find a way to follow her given that she had escaped through a secret passageway.  Any attempt would be hindered by this very fact and thus would give her crucial time to disappear into a crowd of people and become incognito.

However, little did she realise that the very individuals she had trusted were now hot on her tail.

  ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* to be continued

Sawatdee Khrap – hello spoken by a male

“Sabai dee reu? – How are you

Pood Thai Mai Dai - I cannot speak Thai

Kor thoad - sorry/excuse me

Sa-wat-dee - hello

[no-birdstofly]

12?

12. We were pretending to be lovers but I’m not pretending anymore and I have to know if you feel the same way

[very loose James Bond/Casino Royale AU]“Mr. Vietor, so glad to have you join us!” The old man who speaks with a wide smile is the definition of a gentleman, as far as Jon knows at least. His bowtie is perfectly knotted, his posture impeccable, his shoes so shined they reflect the lights.

Next to Tommy, he looks like a commoner. Tommy holds himself better, less like he’s trying and more like he’s never known another way. His casual half-windsor looks sleeker, his perfectly fitted dinner jacket looks richer, and the way it flows like liquid with the movement of his shoulders when he reaches out to shake the man’s hand, yet doesn’t expose his shoulder holster, makes it seem almost bespoke.

Tommy looks every inch the born and bred gentleman. The kind who could walk into a Swiss bank and surprise them with the number of digits before the decimal that his account number pulls up, the kind who has a penthouse in every major city, the kind who’s of the highest caliber, and who’s never had a rough day in his life. He looks perfectly at home in this room full of absurd wealth, all the custom suits and designer gowns.

Jon’s glad the calluses on Tommy’s hands aren’t noticeable in a handshake, that the healing bruises from his last mission are hidden under his crisp oxford shirt, and that his fake smile is convincing and warm so long as you don’t know him.

The old man introducing himself is the one who runs the game, and he’s saying something about it, how many rounds there’ll be, the breaks in between, the buy-in and all the ante amounts. Jon tunes him out in favor of taking in their surrounding and the other players, keeping an eye out for the target.

Tommy’s arm wraps suddenly around his waist, hand on his hip under his jacket. Jon tunes back in enough to hear Tommy say, “–my, um, friend, yes.”

Jon knows that slip up is purposeful, meant to make Tommy seem like he’s off guard, or embarrassed. So is his use of friend, instead of boyfriend or partner. Tommy’s playing up to the old money expectation, and this idiot is eating out of the palm of his hand. The euphemism is useless when he’s holding onto Jon like this, yet it sets the man at ease.

“A pleasure to meet you,” the man says, and offers his hand to Jon easily. His handshake is light, nondeclarative. He either doesn’t take Jon seriously, or he’s got a weak handshake. Or both, frankly.

“The pleasure is mine, sir,” Jon says performatively in perfect French, batting his eyelashes a little in the way that Lovett says looks ridiculous but everyone else seems to fall for.

“Oh, he’s a good one,” the man says, winking at Tommy.

“He is indeed,” Tommy responds, pulling Jon closer. Jon hopes the hitch in his breath isn’t noticeable.

When Tommy steers them away, still with a firm hand on his hip, Jon hisses, “Thought they weren’t supposed to know your real name, what the fuck.”

“And I thought I told you they already did,” Tommy says smoothly.

“Yeah, after you announced it to the entire hotel staff.”

“Calm down, dearest, and have some champagne,” Tommy says, grabbing a flute from a passing server’s tray and pushing it into Jon’s hand, stopping his angry gesturing. “You know I can’t bear it when we fight.”

In Jon’s ear, and presumably in Tommy’s, Lovett snorts. “He’s right, they already knew,” Lovett says. “Have a drink, Jon. You’re much more charming when you’ve had a few.”

Jon pouts, a little offended, and Tommy’s hand tightens briefly. Jon sighs and downs his champagne in a few gulps. Tommy laughs brightly and procures another from somewhere, releasing Jon from his grasp. Jon doesn’t feel any way about that at all.

“Can’t believe you’re encouraging me to drink on the job,” he mutters.

“Long as you don’t get too drunk, we’re set,” Lovett says in the earpiece. “Feel free to get as blushy and giggly as you want, it’ll make Tommy seem like less of a threat.”

“Besides,” Tommy says into Jon’s ear, putting his arm back around Jon as their target approaches, “even if you do, don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

Jon suppresses a shiver at that, and makes sure there’s a charming smile on his face as the French man he recognizes from the (extensive) file steps up to them. The man is terrifying, all sharp, controlled smiles, like a monster is hiding just below the surface, clawing to get out. Jon knows there actually is a monster, that this man is a war profiteer, that he works with terrorist organizations and has indirectly caused hundreds–if not thousands–of deaths.

Jon is thankful for Tommy’s arm around him, especially since it’s gotten tighter. They’re supposed to bring the target in for questioning, but they’re both not-so-secretly hoping he gives them a reason to shoot him first.

Well, gives Tommy a reason. Jon can shoot just fine, but he’s not armed, and that’s not his job. The only reason he’s along for this mission is because he speaks French and can provide a distraction (eye candy, according to Lovett). He goes on missions and all, he’s not a total desk jockey like Lovett sitting down in R&D, but he doesn’t have the allowances Tommy gets. He doesn’t have a blanket license to kill.

The target gives him an obvious up-and-down, and all Jon wants is to hide behind Tommy, or at the very least shudder. Instead, he forces himself to duck his head and look up at the man through his eyelashes, tapping his half-full champagne flute against his bottom lip. If they need him to play the tipsy flirt, he’s got that down pat.

“Welcome, Mr. Beach,” Le Chiffre says, refocusing on Tommy. “Or, should I say, Mr. Vietor? Apologies, I’m a little confused.”

“It’s fine,” Tommy says gregariously, shaking his hand, like Le Chiffre actually messed up and doesn’t already know his secret. Like everything’s fine. Jon’s skin crawls as Le Chiffre smiles.

“And this lovely creature is…?” he asks, the smile stretching the unsettling scar around his eye a little as he looks back at Jon.

Jon obediently reaches out a hand, with what he knows is a winning smile. He pushes for using real first names whenever possible, so there’s no slip-ups during the stress of fieldwork, and the department backed him this time. “Jonathan Cote.”

Le Chiffre’s eyebrows shoot up, and he asks Jon in French if he speaks the language. He’s pleased when Jon responds in the affirmative, and they have a brief conversation that Jon’s positive is meant to exclude Tommy and put him on the wrong foot all at once.

Tommy doesn’t walk away, though. He smiles blandly and looks unperturbed, and he keeps a claiming arm securely around Jon. Jon wonders if Lovett is feeding him a rough translation through the earpiece, running their talk through a program back at the office.

“Delighted to make your acquaintance, mon cher,” Le Chiffre murmurs, switching back to (mostly) English and giving Jon another once over before briefly glancing at Tommy. “And you, Mr. Vietor. I look forward to meeting you at the table.”

Jon makes himself smile, open mouthed and easy, as if he’s not sickened by Le Chiffre’s cold grin. Tommy lets go of Jon to shake Le Chiffre’s hand, and Jon feels suddenly cold. Like there’s a draft in the ostentatiously decorated game room.

“Drink?” Tommy asks, his hand low on Jon’s back as Le Chiffre finally walks away.

“God, yes,” Jon says in a rush, almost a groan, and it shakes a low laugh loose from Tommy’s chest. Jon joins in, glad to have something else to focus on.

Tommy orders some ridiculous martini for himself, something with too many fussy details in Jon’s opinion, and he hands Jon another glass of champagne. Or it might be cava. Jon’s not positive, but it’s pretty dry.

“What did he say?” Tommy asks, fixing his laser focus on Jon.

Jon looks around them for discretion’s sake, but of course Tommy’s already checked the area. “He, uh.” Jon laughs, looking down. “He invited me out on his yacht.”

Tommy snorts and takes a large swallow of his drink. “What’d you say?”

Jon looks up and meets his eye. “I told him I was here with the best sailor I know.”

Tommy’s expression softens a little. He leans in closer, so Jon can feel his breath on his cheek. In the middle of the room, the game handlers are calling for everyone’s attention. Tommy needs to join the other players. Jon can only think of how close he is.

He brushes a kiss against Jon’s temple and says, “I’ll see you soon,” before he downs his drink and heads off to the table.

“Good luck,” Jon croaks, and he didn’t think Tommy would hear him, but he turns his head and winks at Jon as he strolls up to enter his personalized password for the winnings.

Jon feels a little lightheaded, watching the tight, tight fit of Tommy’s pants, and he decides to switch to club soda after this drink.

“That was really smooth,” Lovett’s voice comes suddenly in his ear. “Get him all hot and bothered by speaking en francais, then swoon over his gross New England WASPy swag.”

Jon has to keep his voice down, but, “Swag?”

“You know what I mean,” Lovett grumbles.

“Uh huh,” Jon says, watching Tomy settle at the table with the other players.

“God I wish I had a video feed so I could watch you be an idiot, too.”

“Oh, is that why? Not because you want to watch him in that suit?”

Lovett’s quiet for a suspiciously long time. “It is a nice suit,” he finally concedes, and he sounds annoyed by it.

Jon buries a laugh in his champagne and watches the stretch of wool over Tommy’s biceps as he pushes chips into the pot. “Yeah, it is.”

At the first break in the game, Tommy beelines directly to where Jon’s perched on a barstool. He orders a drink and leans in close to Jon, laying a hand on his thigh. Jon swallows and tries not to make a noise.

“Come on,” Tommy murmurs, drinking his martini in a few long gulps. “I dropped the tracker, we need to go.”

There’s only thirty minutes before play resumes, so Tommy hustles him into the stairwell as Jon takes out his phone and asks, “You got him, Lovett?”

“Yup, should be pulling up… now!”

A 3D grid of the hotel’s many, many floors pops up on the screen, and they watch as the program narrows in on the blinking red light of the tracker. It rises in an elevator before it stops moving vertically and slides horizontally to what must be Le Chiffre’s room.

“Twenty-second floor,” Tommy says, pulling out his gun and chambering a round before flicking the safety back on and re-holstering it. “Let’s go.”

When they’re a few doors away from Le Chiffre, they hear shouting. “Go up to the room, now,” Tommy tells him. Jon turns to run to the elevator as Tommy strides to the room door. Just then, the elevator dings.

“Stairs!” Tommy hisses, but the voices are getting closer. Someone is about to walk out of Le Chiffre’s room.

Jon freezes, staring helplessly at Tommy. They’re going to be surrounded. Tommy rushes him just as the elevator doors are opening, pushing him back into the little alcove surrounding the nearest room door.

“Wha–?”

“Go with it,” Tommy says, and that’s all the warning Jon gets before he feels Tommy’s warm breath on his lips.

It takes him a minute to come to terms with that and realize that Tommy’s pressing his mouth to Jon’s now. He brings up his big hands to hold Jon’s face, tilting his jaw slightly to get a better angle, taking advantage of Jon’s gasp to push his tongue inside. Jon moans and clutches at his lapels, hoping the silk won’t wrinkle too badly.

“Oh,” he hears Lovett say in his ear, low and a little throaty. Lovett must be able to hear the sounds he’s making, he realizes with a jolt.

Tommy kisses down to his neck, and Jon can hear the footsteps of whoever came off the elevator getting closer. Jon knows he moved so he could look away easier, keep an eye out for their target and any danger, but Jon’s not complaining. It sounds like just one person, thankfully, and Jon rests his head back against the wall, both because then he can look out through his eyelashes at the man approaching, and because he’s a little overwhelmed.

The man is obviously armed, Jon can see the bulge of something below his jacket, not nearly as well tailored as Tommy’s. Jon moves his hands to clutch at Tommy’s neck, and Tommy meets his eyes briefly and nods the slightest amount. He dips his head to mouth at Jon’s throat.

“Get out of here,” the man says gruffly, his hand hovering near his lapel. Jon can’t place the accent, but he’d put money on Ugandan based off Le Chiffre’s recent involvement with the LRA.

“Sorry,” Jon says, and he has to put very little effort into making his voice sound breathy. The shouting from Le Chiffre’s room has quieted.

“Yeah, sorry,” Tommy says, pulling away from Jon’s neck and not sounding sorry at all. “Just got carried away, you know how it is.”

The man’s scowl deepens, and he pulls out a gun, pointing it at their heads. Tommy moves the slightest amount, like he’s just nervously shifting his weight, but he effectively shields Jon with his own body. Even as it puts Jon slightly at ease, it’s frustrating. Tommy doesn’t have body armor on, either. They’re both sitting ducks here.

Well, technically they’re better off, seeing as they’re both secret agents.

Jon slips his hand into Tommy’s coat, moving carefully so the fabric won’t rustle. He’s very thankful in the moment that they’re both left handed, so the gun is conveniently close in its holster. He’s not a terrible shot with his right, but they don’t have time for anything less than precision.

He sees Tommy’s eyebrows raise as Jon slips the gun out, still hidden by Tommy’s body. He ignores him, keeping his eyes on the man, watching for any movement. It feels like everyone in the hallway is holding their breath, and he’s glad to feel Tommy’s hand at his ribs, warm through the fine cotton of his dress shirt.

Tommy kisses him, soft and quick, both of them keeping their eyes open.

“I said go!” the man yells, taking a step closer.

Jon tenses, but then the door to Le Chiffre’s room flies open. The man looks away, his gun hand instinctively moving toward the action. Jon takes the opportunity and shoots, dropping him with a single shot.

He hears Tommy hiss in a breath, and then two more men come out, screaming about their dead comrade who’s falling to the ground. Jon barely manages to get off two more shots before they’re returning fire. He definitely hits one of them, but he’s not sure if it’s fatal. Le Chiffre’s door slams closed, trapping the other men in the hall with Jon and Tommy.

If these men are the LRA goons Jon assumes they are, they’re pissed at Le Chiffre for losing their money. Which, to be fair, was Tommy’s doing. It makes sense Le Chiffre would leave them to their own devices.

Tommy moves, quick and sure, to disarm the injured one, and then shoot him with his own gun. Jon drops into a crouch and fires back at the other guy, but he makes a run for the stairs. Tommy reaches out at a hand, and Jon instinctively hands over the gun. Jon’s a good shot, he’s required to be, but Tommy is amazing.

The survivor, who Jon IDs as the ringleader from their briefing, is just opening the stairwell door when Tommy shoots. It grazes the side of his head, causing him to duck and fall through the doorway. Tommy’s off, sprinting after him, leaving Jon to follow.

Tommy tackles the man on the steps, and they crash together down two flights and onto a landing, both their guns out of reach. Jon races down, trying to get past them to the fallen weapons. Before he can make it, Tommy has the man in a chokehold, and Jon watches as the life drains from the warlord’s eyes.

He stands, mouth agape, watching as Tommy checks the man’s pulse, shoves him away, and stands. He shakes out his arms and then straightens his jacket, like nothing’s happened. “Lovett,” he says, voice crisp, “get clean up to the stairwell between the twentieth and twenty-first floors.”

Lovett sighs loud in their ears, and Jon knows it’s because he’s relieved. “Aye aye,” he says. “Change of plans, by the way.”

“What’s that?” Tommy asks, slowly walking up to Jon. He puts his hands on Jon’s shoulders and runs them deliberately up and down his arms.

Jon is shaking from the leftover adrenaline. He’s killed before, of course he has, but it’s been awhile. He meets Tommy’s eye and nods. He’s okay, he can do this. Frankly, he doesn’t mind watching Tommy at work. Not even in the slightest. Not that he’ll ever tell Tommy that. Or Lovett.

“He doesn’t seem to have seen you based on the chatter, but new orders are to bring the asshole in alive,” Lovett says. “No matter what.”

Tommy makes a sound that’s not far from a growl. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Why, Agent Vietor, I wouldn’t dare,” Lovett says, completely deadpan.

In spite of everything, Jon laughs, the sound echoing in the stairwell. Tommy looks at him and grins, squeezing tight to his elbows.

“Clean up in twenty,” Lovett says. “I’m taking this lull as an opportunity to finally eat my fucking burrito. This time difference is insane. Do you know I missed lunch already?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tommy says, smiling fondly. “Talk to you soon.”

Lovett goes quiet in their ears, and Tommy still hasn’t moved away. Jon doesn’t know what to do. This has been a part of their cover all night, but no one’s around to see it now. At least, no one who’s still breathing.

“You okay?” Tommy asks, and Jon wonders if he’s purposely blocking the view of a dead body behind him.

Jon nods, and Tommy tilts his head down to kiss him again. Jon loses himself in it for a moment, forgetting where they are and what they’re here for. One of the lights in the stairwell flickers and it brings him back.

He pushes at Tommy’s chest. “You have to get back, the game’ll be starting back up any minute.”

“You’ll wait for the clean up crew?”

“Of course,” Jon says. “Try not to lose all our money.”

Tommy smiles, bright and sharp, and disappears through the door. Jon sags against the railing and stares at the strangled guy at his feet.

“Rough day, huh?” he says to him, and then laughs a little hysterically.

The clean up crew is early, thank god, giving Jon plenty of time to go back to their suite, shower, and change his sweat-soaked shirt before he goes back down to the game room. Tommy’s up, and he and Le Chiffre seem to be going for each other’s throats. It’s no surprise, and it’s satisfying to see Tommy’s stack of chips get higher than their target’s with every hand.

When the next break is called, Jon is nicely tipsy. Lovett’s fed him information on the LRA goons they killed, and reassured him that one of Le Chiffre’s men will be framed for the crime. Now they’re trying to think of ways to pass the time, Jon whispering answers to Lovett’s wild guesses for Twenty Questions.

“Ugh this is so much easier when you’re in the office,” Lovett says, because Jon knows he’d never say, I miss you. “We should’ve played Fuck, Marry, Kill instead.”

Jon chokes on his drink, laughing, when a warm hand slides under his jacket. He jumps, but it’s just Tommy, grinning slyly at him.

“You good?” he asks.

“Just Lovett,” Jon answers, so he gets to hear Lovett scoff indignantly in his ear.

“Let’s go,” Tommy says, taking the glass out of Jon’s hand so he can finish it himself. He steers Jon to the elevators and all the way to their room, hand hot and heavy on Jon’s lower back.

By the time Tommy twists the deadbolt, Jon is incapable of thinking about anything other than how his mouth had felt on Jon’s skin earlier.

Tommy bends to whisper into his ear. “I’ve got two hours until the next hand. You should take off your clothes.”

Jon moans lightly, and immediately starts to shrug out of his jacket.

“Huh,” says Lovett, startling a laugh out of Tommy. “Feel free to, uh, leave the earpieces in. I mean, if you want.”  

“Maybe next time, Lovett,” Tommy says dryly, removing his and holding out a hand for Jon’s.

Jon hands his over, but he can’t stop his shiver at the idea of next time.prompts are over here

[wilwywaylan]

and, uh, current fandom favourite ship (don't care if it's les mis, it's for u to go nuts over a ship u like)

Let’s talk NEWTDENCE !! :D

How differently do they think of each other now compared to when they first met? A LOT DIFFERENTLY !! At least for Newt, but that's what happens when you first meet your future lover in Obscurus form. Of course he thought, at least for a short time, that Credence was a dangerous creature, seeing the destruction he caused. Even then, that didn't stop him from trying to help. Because as much mayhem as he caused, it still wasn't his fault.Now he knows perfectly that Credence is a gentle, kind, sensitive person who's been pushed too far by several bad persons, and who'd never hurt anyone willingly. And who sometimes has a wicked sense of humor.At first, Credence was quite... confused about Newt, to be honest. That strange-looking man, with his weird accent, claiming he wanted to help while waving one of those damned wands around ? Was he an enemy ? Was he lying ? Was it a trap ? What what WHATWHATWHAT !!Now he knows that Newt is far from all those wizards who tried to kill him, and far too from Graves. He knows he's nice, awkward, and always wants to help. He's a big softie who doesn't even try to hide that he's a softie. And he loves animals so much, it's wonderful.

What do their friends/family think of their relationship? Let's just say Mary-Lou wouldn't welcome Newt. At. All. But then again, she's dead, so who cares ?Tina, Queenie and Jacob are all very happy for Newt, and for Credence. They are both very good for each other. Credence found a home, and Newt isn't lonely, they are both happy and safe. The five of them often organize dinner, or they just meet at their place with coffee and delicious, fantastic beasts-shaped pastries.After a while, Credence reunited with his sisters. Things were a bit tense at first, because of a number of unsaid things, but it got better quickly. They adore Newt and keep bugging him to let them into the suitcase, where they can pet the animals all day (he totally indulges them). As for Newt's family, he hasn't told them yet. To be honest, he fears their reaction. After all, he's living with a weird boy now, in his suitcase (and a bit in London too), and surrounded by the animals they think is a waste of time. So he's not very keen on telling them for now.

How do their personalities/skills complement or contrast with each other? Less than compliment, and more like "being awkward together". They are two kinda emotionnally stunted people who found solace with someone like them. But they don't push each other into something they wouldn't be comfortable in, and respect each other's personnality. As for their skills, Newt is of course better versed into the arts of magic, potions, and of course care of magical creatures, and he's a good, patient teacher. Credence is more organized and less forgetful that Newt, and he learns quickly. They make a good pair, as long as they are working with animals and not with people.

What is their favorite aspect of each other? Credence likes Newt's patience and gentleness the best. Instead of treating him like anyone would treat an Obscurial, with fear and disgust, Newt approached him gently, did his best to reassure him, and always makes sure he's not scared or startled. He doesn't blame Credence when he has moments, days even, where he doesn't talk and just sits there in silence. He just understands, brings him tea and the Niffler, and respects his privacy and space.Newt likes that Credence is gentle and quiet. Of course, it's partly due to everything he went through, from his abusive mother to what Graves did to him, and they are working on it as they can. But it's... relaxing to be with another person who can spend hours without talking, just taking care of the animals. He wouldn't be happy with someone chatting their head off all day. Credence is not talkative, and very understanding, and that's perfect.

Do either of them have pet peeves about each other? Credence keeps biting his nails. Newt hates it, as it means his boyfriend is feeling anxious at something. And since he doesn't always know how to ask and knows not to pry, it means it could be days before he finally gets to the crux of the problem. That, and it gives Credence jagged nails that scratch him each time Credence touches him.Credence just doesn't like that Newt always spreads the books all through the lab. And flat. And suitcase. Piles of books everywhere, where the animals can get them.... Books are fragile ! You take care of them ! He doesn't dare say anything, he still feels like a guest sometimes, and they are Newt's, he can treat them as he wants. That doesn't stop him from picking them after him and setting them all nicely on the shelves.

How would each reconcile with each other after a fight? Probably bribe the Niffler with something shiny and send him to the other with a little note. They would have conversations like that before feeling comfortable enough to face each other again.

What would be their ideal vacation getaway together? Anywhere remote with lots of intersting animals and no people. Maybe with lots of sunlight, but with their light skins, they would probably turn lobster red in no time. But still, perfect.

Think of a new way (AU, different situation, etc.) they could have met for the first time. STUPID HORROR B MOVIE ACTORS !!!! (thanks for the idea :D)Graves is that weird movie director who, without getting to the top, made himself a name due to his unique style of directing, audacious cinematography and very peculiar ideas. His movies are always spectacular, scary, and beautiful in their own ways. But working with him is not a walk in the park. He's authoritarian, sometimes brash, and places his vision of his movie above everything else. It can cause friction with some actors and crew who aren't used to his manners. To smooth things a bit, a lot goes through his assistant Credence, who's way gentler than him. Too much, maybe, because he's sometimes afraid of pushing other people. As a result, things don't get done as Graves would like, and he lashes out at Credence. As a result, the assistant feels stuck between a rock and a hard place, trying to please the director and not be rude to the crew.Graves' last movie may be his most ambitious to date : a complex story about witches, a curse, a few dragons, and a quest to save the world. As a result, he's at his most severe, and pushes his actors to do their best, and even better ! It... doesn't go too well with the lead. Newt Scamander is always cast as the awkward hero who gets designated to save the world, and he's quite a good actor. But in real life, he's more than awkward, and quickly gets flustered when someone is barking orders at him. Luckily, he's not alone in this. Queenie, who plays the ditzy princess, Tina, who's the smart witch who gets saddled with Newt's character, and Jacob his sidekick, all team up with him, and they help each other go through the shooting and Graves' tantrum without too many panic attacks.To his credit, Graves quickly notices that his lead tends to freeze every time he raises his voice, and decides to go through Credence instead to get him to do what he wants. It works way better because Credence can find the words, and he's nice and gentle. Less bumps on the road, less tantrums and screams. It's for the best, really. Of course, Newt and Credence both tend to turn all read and stutter, but that's only a minor inconvenience.As the end of the shooting gets closer and closer, Newt gets sadder and sadder. He hides if, of course, you don't want to mess a take by pouting, unless you want to be subjected to a lecture. But still. End of the shooting means he has to find another one, with another director. Work is not very hard to find for him these days, but other directors don't have a nice assistant with beautiful brown eyes and a cute smile... He finally tell Tina about it, after much prodding and poking, and she immediatly encourages him to go and talk to Credence. It takes him a few days of hmm-ing and aaah-ing, because talking to people about feelings is HARD ! Especially to cute, shy people ! But finally, on the last day of the shooting, as they gather to celebrate, Newt slides Credence a post-it decorated with a cute little duck, just marked with "coffee, 5 PM ?". Credence doesn't answer, and Newt is crushed. Until he gets a post-it with a little cat on it, and a big "yes !" marked on it. On the group pics they take before parting on, he has the biggest smile on his face.