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weixuldo · 5 months ago

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Who's your Daddy?

Older!James Kelly x f!reader

(SORRY FOR BEING GONE SO LONG OMLLLL- i’ve never written anything other than starwars lol- but I hope this is enjoyable. I also havent ever written fauxscest and I wouldn't say i'm really into it, but I feel like it fits the character lowkey)

One of James' customer mistakes you for his daughter and you actually play along...James isnt thrilled

warnings: dead dove do not eat?, Fauxscest, age gap, orgasm denial, just regular schmegular smex, name calling,

________________

“Fuck Jamie!” you squealed as DILF!James Kelly harshly bent you over the old camaro that had been sitting in his shop for the past two weeks.

His strong tattooed hand had your nicely curled hair in a strong grip as he smacked your ass with the other. “You wanna act like a child so bad, then I’ll treat you like one” he said as he continued to spank you.

Earlier, James had been finishing up a job on an old Ford pickup and was negotiating payment with the owner when you skipped out from inside the shop wearing shorts and a tank top.

In James’ “office”- really just a room with a chair and desk that he’d toss papers on (or eat you out on)- he had a bowl of candy just in case a client brought around their kids. James never really knew what to do with kids, but you told him having a candy jar would make him seem less scary.

Of course he had one the next day.

But clients never really brought their kids around the shop so you got to enjoy the majority of the candy. Today you were feeling the cherry lollipop and twirled it around your mouth as you scampered out to see what James was up to.

As you walked out you saw James broad back facing you as he stood with his arms crossed towards a gruff man with gray hair. They looked like they were talking shop- how boring.

You sighed and were about to go back inside when the gray haired man noticed you.

“Kelly, you never mentioned ya had kids?”.

James was taken aback- kids?

He turned to see what the man was looking at when his icy eyes landed on your tantalizing form; it was nearly 97 degrees and humid as fuck- why the hell did you look so good?

He subconsciously licked his bottom lip before remembering the man’s comment; he turned back just about to protest when you skipped up to him and threw your arms around him.

“He’s never mentioned me?” you said with a fake pout.

“But dad- I thought you were proud of me? Why don’t you tell your friends about me?”

James was too stunned to speak- sure, you’d occasionally call him “daddy” in bed but he never thought that act would leave the bedroom. His left eye twitched as he looked down at your doe eyed expression.

“Haha- I’m sure yer Dad’s proud of ya kiddo- probably just wanted to hide you away cause you’d have all the boys riled up” the gray haired man chuckled as James fought to keep his frustration at bay.

“Is that why daddy?” you asked innocently.

James was pissed

…

and extremely turned on.

But he was really bothered that his client was obviously checking you out right in front of him. He clenched his jaw once more before straining out an answer.

“Yea thats why, sweetheart. I’d hate to have to get the shotgun out of the shed for something other than hunting” he falsely smiled.

You hugged him once more before heading back inside “Well I’ll let you two keep talking- Thanks for choosing my dad’s shop” you smiled at the man before your boyfriend.

He shot back a bright grin “Not a problem darlin’, I’ll be sure to come to yer Dad’s shop from now on haha”.

James clenched his fists at his sides, he could feel himself losing his composure.

The man finally paid James and added a little extra and told him to “buy somethin’ nice for that daughter of yer’s”.

Oh- James would definitely not be buying you something nice after the little stunt you just pulled.

“She's a looker Kelly, better keep an eye on her'' the man commented once more before hopping into his newly fixed truck.

James just nodded as he counted the money the man paid him, “Yea, i’m always lookin at her- especially when she's bouncing on my cock”.

The old man’s eyes almost popped out of his sockets; “Pardon?!”.

James finally met his eye once more with a smug look, “Yea, she’s not my daughter- that’s my girlfriend”.

The man just sat with the truck held in reverse as he tried to replay the whole interaction.

“And I’m gonna fuck her raw for that shit she just pulled- Thanks for the tip and have a nice day” he said before shoving the cash into his pocket and shutting the garage gate.

You had taken a seat at James’ desk as you mindlessly scrolled on your phone. You thought it was funny to play with him like that but you didn’t think it would get him too worked up- so when you heard him call for you to come out to the garage your body buzzed with nervous excitement.

He had called your name harsher than he normally would so you could tell he was feeling some type of way but you couldn’t quite put your finger on what… were you about to be lectured, yelled at, or fucked?

Maybe all three heh

James was standing domineeringly with his feet slightly parted and arms crossed tight as you entered the garage.

“Yesss? What’s wrong Jamie” you answered innocently.

He clicked his tongue and cut his eyes, “you know damn well what you were doing”.

You pouted your pretty lips and shook your head, “I don’t really see anything wrong with joking” you said smugly.

Annnd now you’re here, bent over his camaro with him ruthlessly plunging his thick cock in and out of you.

James’ veins popped as he tugged at your hair with one hand and angled your hips up with the other. He was panting like an animal as he forcefully thrusted into you, heavy balls slapping against your swollen clit.

“Fuck, please! Jamie- Slow down!” you cried as you grounded yourself on the hood of the old car as your boyfriend hit it from the back.

“Jamie?” he questioned, squeezing your ass harder.

“James!” you managed.

He let out a low chuckle that made you even wetter than before, “you wanted to call me dad so bad earlier, what happened, doll?”.

You could hear his stupid smirk in the way he spoke, you wanted to say something but all that was coming out were pathetic whimpers and moans.

You felt him shudder as you clenched your gummy walls around his throbbing cock- “s-shit” he cursed under his breath as he slowly pulled out until just his tip was left in you.

Your eyes were already brimming with tears-but when he stopped his movements, the tears started to flow. Your poor pussy ached for him to slide between your folds- once he started, you needed him to finish.

It was almost criminal how empty you felt without your boyfriend’s dick inside of you. You began to whine the longer he held still.

“You think you’re so slick, little brat” he growled as his rough palm made contact with your bright red ass cheek for the umpteenth time.

He leaned down to whisper in your ear and you felt the cool silver of his cross chain as it slid down your arched spine.

“Who am I” he asked with a dangerous lilt to his voice.

“James” you cried again, you knew that was the wrong answer but you needed him to keep going.

Without warning he plunged into you and bottomed out as your eyes rolled back in pleasure. But just as fast as he was in, he had resumed the previous position.

“Incorrect” he said before pulling completely out.

You whimpered before he flipped you around so that you were staring at his flushed face; God he was perfect. Looking down between the two of you- his hard cock was completely coated in your combined juices and twitched as he stood over you.

He grabbed your hips and lined himself up with your aching core once more before shoving himself in with an abrupt snap of his hips. You gripped onto his forearms as you yelped.

“Who am I” he asked once more, his voice low with lust.

“D-Daddy” you cried in humiliation as you shied away from James’ watchful eyes.

He halted his movements and leaned closer to your ear, “Almost. What did you call me earlier, doll?” he said with a devious smirk.

You took a deep breath and closed your eyes, “...dad”.

“What was that baby? Didn’t hear ya” James taunted.

“DAD!” you wailed as you dug your nails into your older man’s forearms.

“That’s it, Sweetheart” he smiled as he quickened his pace.

You moaned as his sloppy thrusts jiggled your breasts around for Jame’s viewing pleasure. You felt your high approaching fast.

“Fuck- I”m close- I” you cried as James continued diving deeper and deeper into your sopping cunt.

James bit his bottom lip and pulled out as fast as he had been fucking you; leaving you with a disappointingly empty feeling. You gasped at the loss of his massive member and your eyes shot open to see why your boyfriend felt the need to pull out.

There he was in all of his glory; brow adorned with sweat , face flushed, brows drawn together, and lips parted. Soon you felt his warm ropes of cum spilling onto your stomach, you whimpered at the wasted seed and your lost orgasm.

He finished stroking himself with a shudder and squeezed out the rest of his spend onto you with a low groan.

“W-why?” you almost cried as your boyfriend began to clean himself off.

“Good girls wouldn’t cum from their dad’s dick-” he tossed you a towel from the hanger on the wall, “I hope you’ve learned your lesson, little one”.

“Once you’ve had time to think about your actions and clean up- maybe I’ll consider letting you cum” he said before leaving you alone and empty in his dim office.

***

lol I hope you enjoyed :)

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sophaeros · 10 months ago

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arctic monkeys for q magazine, june 2011 (x) (x)

ARCTIC MONKEYS: Inside Alex Turner's Head

Words Sylvia Patterson Portrait John Wright

The day Arctic Monkeys moved into their six bedroom, Spanish-style villa in the Hollywood Hills, where the first-floor balcony looked over the patio swimming pool, they knew exactly what to do.

"From the balcony, you could get on t'roof and jump in't pool," chirps the Monkeys' most gregarious member, drummer Matt Helders, in his homely Yorkshire way. "We looked at it and said, That's definitely gonna happen. So by the end, we did a couple of 'em. Somersaults in t'pool, from the roof. At night time."

In January 2011, as Sheffield and the rest of Britain endured its bitterest winter in a century, Arctic Monkeys capered among the palm trees, eschewing hotels for a millionaire's Hollywood homestead as they recorded and mixed their fourth studio album, Suck It and See.

The four Monkeys, alongside producer James Ford and engineer James Brown, lived what they called the "American man thing": watched Super Bowl on giant TVs, played ping-pong, hired two Mustangs, cooked cartoon Tom And Jerry-sized steaks on barbecues on Sundays, had girlfriends over to visit, all cooking and drinking around the colossal outdoor kitchen area featuring a fridge and two dishwashers. Living atop the Hills, they could see the Pacific Ocean beyond by day, the infinite glittering lights of downtown LA by night.

Every day, en route to Sound City Studios, they'd travel in a seven-seater four-by-four through the mountains, via bohemian 60s enclave Laurel Canyon, blaring out the tunes: The Stones Roses, The Cramps, the Misfits' Hollywood Babylon. For the sometime teenage art-punk renegades whose guitarist, Jamie Cook, was once ejected from London's Met Bar for refusing to pay €22 for two beers, the comedy rock'n'roll life still feels, however, absolutely nothing like reality.

NICK O'MALLEY: "It were really as if we were on holiday. When we came back it's the most post-holiday blues I've ever had!"

JAMIE COOK: "It's hard to comment on that. It were just really good fun."

MATT HELDERS: "We always said, As soon as things like that feel normal, we're in trouble. But it's just funny. You might think it would get more and more serious as you get older but it's getting funnier. We've done four albums now and I'm still only 24, I'm still immature to an extent. So who cares?"

Alex? Al? Are you there?

ALEX TURNER: "Yeah, it were good times. But we were in the studio most of the time. So there's no real wild Hollywood stories. Hmn. Yeah."

Wednesday, 16 March 2011, Strongroom Bar, Shoreditch, East London, 11am. Alex Turner, 25, slips entirely alone into an empty art-crowd brasserie looking like an indie girl's indie dream boy: mop-top bouffant hair which coils, in curlicues, directly into his cheekbones, army-green waist-length jacket, baggy-arsed skinny jeans, black cord zip-up cardigan, simple gold chain, supermoon sized chocolate-brown eyes.

Almost six years after I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor became the indie-punk anthem of a generation (from the first of Arctic Monkeys' three Number 1 albums), and nothing prepares you for the curious phenomenon of Alex Turner "in conversation". Unlike so many of the Monkeys frenetic early songs, he operates in slow motion, seemingly underwater, carrying a protective shell on his back, perhaps indie rock's very own diamond-backed terrapin. The most celebrated young wordsmith in rock'n roll today talks fulsomely, in fact, only in shapeless, curling sentences punctuated with "maybe... hmn.. yeah", an anecdotal wilderness sketching pictures as vague as a cloud. He is, though, simultaneously adorable: amenable, gentle, graceful, and as Northern as a 70s grandpa who literally greets you with "ey oop?".

"People think I'm a miserable bastard," he notes, cheerfully, "but it's just the way me face falls." Still profoundly private, if not as hermetically sealed as a vacuum-packed length of Frankfurter, his fante-shy reticence extends not only to his personal life (his four-year relationship with It-girl/TV presenter Alexa Chung, whom he never mentions) but to insider details generally. Take the Monkeys’ Hollywood high jinks documented above: not one word of it was described by Turner. Before Q was informed by his other Monkey bandmates, Turner’s anecdotal aversion unfolded like this:

Describe the lovely villa you were in. AT: "Well... we certainly had a... good view."

Of what? AT: "Well, we were up quite high."

The downtown LA lights going on forever? AT: "I dunno. It was definitely that thing of getting a bit of sort of sunshine. Is it vitamin D? If you can get vitamin D on your record, you've got a bit of a head start. So we'd get up and drive to the studio."

What were you driving? AT: "Nothing... spectacular. But yeah, we'd drive up the studio, spend all day there and sort of, y know, get back. To be honest... we had limited time. So we spent as much time as possible kind of getting into it, like, in the studio.

So your favourite adventures were what? AT: "Well, they were really… minimal. We were working out there!"

Any nightclubs or anything, perhaps? AT: "You really want the goss 'ere, don't you?"

Yes, please. AT: "I could make some up. Nah!"

And this was on the second time of asking. It's perhaps obvious: Alex Turner, one of the most prolific songwriters of his generation (four Monkeys albums and two EPs in five years, The Last Shadow Puppets side-project, a bewitching acoustic soundtrack for his actor/video director friend Richard Ayoade's feature-length debut Submarine), is dedicated only to the cause – of being the best he can possibly be. He simply remembers the songs much more than the somersaults.

Throughout 2009, Arctic Monkeys toured third album Humbug – the record mostly made in the Californian desert with Queens Of The Stone Age man-monolith Josh Homme – across the planet. While hardly some cranium-blistering opus, its heavier sonic meanderings considerably slowed the Arctic Monkeys' live sets and on 23 August 2009, Q watched them headline the Lowlands Festival, Holland and witnessed a hitherto unthinkable sight – swathes of perplexed Monkeys fans trudging away from the stage. With the sludge rock mood matching their cascading dude-rock hair it seemed obvious: they'd smoked way too much outrageously strong weed in the desert.

"Heheheh, yeah," responds Turner, unperturbed. "That's your theory. You probably weren't alone."

Back in the Strongroom Bar, Turner's arm is now nonchalantly draped along the back of a beaten-up brown leather sofa. He ponders his band's somewhat contrary reputation…

"I think starting the headline set at Reading with a cover of a Nick Cave tune perhaps was a bit contrary. D'youknowhat Imean?! But to be honest, that summer, at those festivals, we had a great time. And I know some fans enjoyed those sets 10 times more. And you can't just do, y’know, another Mardy Bum or whatever. Because how could you, really?"

With Humbug, notes Turner, "I went into corners I hadn't before, because I needed to see what were there," but by spring 2010 he wanted their fourth album to be "more song-based" and less lyrically "removed". He was "organised this time", studied "the good songwriters" (from Nick Cave, The Byrds and Leonard Cohen to country colossi Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline), discovered "the other three strings" on his guitar, and wrote 12 songs through the spring and summer of 2010, mostly in the fourth-floor New York flat he shared with Chung before the couple moved back to London late last summer (the New York MTV show It's On With Alexa Chung was cancelled after two seasons). The result: major-key melodies, harmonised singing and classic song structures.

At the same time he revisited the opposite extreme: bands such as Black Sabbath and The Stooges ("we wanted a few wig-outs as well"); he was also still heavily influenced by the oil-thick grinder rock of Josh Homme, who is clearly now a permanent Monkeys hero. After four months' rehearsals in London, on 8 January the Monkeys relocated to LA for five swift weeks of production and Homme came to visit, singing backing vocals on All My Own Stunts. Tequila was involved.

"Tequila is probably me favourite," manages Turner, by way of an anecdote. "But it takes a certain climate... It's not the same... in the rain. Yeah. [Looks to be contemplating a lyric] Tequila in the rain."

Vocally, he developed the caramel richness first unveiled on The Last Shadow Puppets' Scott Walker-esque The Age Of The Understatement, finding a crooner's vibrato. "Everything before was so tight,” he notes, clutching his neck. "Probably just through nerves. That's just not there any more." Suck It and See contains at least four of the most glittering, sing-along, world-class pop songs (and obvious singles) of Arctic Monkeys' career: the towering, clanging She's Thunderstorms, the summertime stunner The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala, the heavenly harmonised title track and the Echo & The Bunnymen-esque jangly pop of closer That's Where You're Wrong.

Elsewhere, in typically contrary "fashion", there's preposterous head-banger bedlam (Brick By Brick, the rollicking faux-heavy rock download they released in March "just for fun", featuring vocals by Helders; Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair, and Library Pictures). News arrives that the first single proper will be Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair. Q is perplexed. Brilliantly titled, certainly, but arriving after Brick By Brick, the new album will appear to the planet as some comedy pastiche metal album for 12-year-old boys.

You've got all these colossal, summery, indie-pop classics and you've gone for... The Chair? AT: [Laughing uproariously] "The Chair! I'm now calling it The Chair, that's cool. Well for once it weren't even our suggestion. It was Laurence's (Bell, Domino label boss). And I were, Fucking too right! He's awesome. It'd be good to get a bit of fucking rock'n'roll out there, won't it? It's riffs. It's loud. It's funny."

If you don't release The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala as a single I'm going round Domino to kick Laurence's "awesome" butt. AT: "I think it'll be the next one!"

The record's title, meanwhile, could've been more enigmatically original than the un-loved phrase Suck It and See. The band, struggling with ideas due to the opposing sonic moods, invented an inspiration-conjuring ruse: to think of new names for effects pedals in the style of Tom Wolfe, Turner being long enamoured with the American author's legendarily psychedelic books The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, "cos that just sounds awesome".

"There's the Big Muff pedal," he elaborates, "That’s the classic. I've got the Valve Slapper. And there's the Tube Screamer. So we came up with the Thunder Suckle Fuzz Canyon. And… wait till I assemble it in me mind… em… it'll come to me… The Blonde-O-Sonic Shimmer Trap. So we were going for summat like that."

A wasted opportunity?

"Nah. Because some of those things ended up in the lyrics anyway. Suck It and See was just easier."

Alex Turner, rock'n'roll's premier descriptive art-poet, still writes his lyrics long-hand in spiral-bound notebooks. "Writing lyrics is a craft that I've practised a bit now," he avers. "In me notebook it looks like sums. Theories. There's words and arrows going everywhere. There's always a few possibilities and I write the word 'OR' in a square."

For our most celebrated colloquial sketch-writer of the everyday observation (all betting pencils, boy slags and ice-cream van aggravations) the more successful he becomes, the less he orbits the ordinary. "I'm not struggling with that, to be honest," he decides. "In fact I'm enjoying writing lyrics much more than I did. Stories. Describing a picture. Um. There's quite a bit of weather and time in this one. Which is probably not reassuring. 'Oh God, he's writing about the weather.' Maybe leave that out!"

There are also some direct, funny, romantic observations: "That's not a skirt, girl, that's a sawn-off shotgun/And I only hope you've got it aimed at me..." (from the title track).

Some of your romantic quips, now, must be about Alexa. AT: "Right. Yeah. Definitely. Well... there's always been that side to our songs, when we weren't writing about... the fucking taxi rank. It's kind of inevitably... people you're with." [At the mention of Chung's name, Turner is visibly aggrieved, head sliding into his neck, terrapin-esque indeed.]

It must have been very grounding being in a proper relationship through all this madness. Because if you weren't, girls would be jumping all over your head. AT: "Em. Hmn. Well, of course that helps you to... I don't really know.. what the other way would be."

Does Alexa wonder if the lyrics are about her? AT: "Oh there's none of that. Yeah, no, there's no looking over the shoulder."

She must be curious, at least. "Maybe."

Did you ever watch Popworld? AT: [Nervous laughter] "Em! Now and again."

Did you ever see the episode where she helps Paul McCartney write a song about shoes? AT: "Ah, yeah I think so, maybe I did see that."

Well, if I was you, I'd have been thinking, "She's the one for me." AT: "Well. Yeah... maybe that would've... sealed the deal! Hmn. But maybe that wasn't when i got the ray of light. When was? Nah [buries head in hands]. I might have to go for a cigarette..."

Q can't torture him any more and joins him for a snout. Turner smokes Camels from a crumpled, sad, soft-pack and resembles a teenager again. As early song You Probably Couldn't See For The Lights But You Were Staring Straight At Me says, "Never tenser/Could all go a bit Frank Spencer…”

In January 2006, when Arctic Monkeys' Number 1 album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not became the fastest-selling debut in UK history, inadvertently redefining the concept of autonomy and further imploding the decimated music industry (& wasn't their idea to be "the MySpace band", it was their fans': the Monkeys merely kick-started viral marketing by giving away demos at gigs), the 19- and 20-year-old Monkeys were terrible at fame. They weren't so much insurrectionary teenage upstarts as teenage innocents culturally traumatised by the peak-era fame democracy.

To their generation (born in the mid-'80s) fame was now synonymous with some-twat-off-the-telly a world of foaming tabloid hysteria where renown and celebrity meant, in fact, you were talentless. Hence their interview diffidence and receiving awards via videos dressed up as the Wizard OfOz and the Village People. Which only, ironically, made them even more celebrated and famous. (“That were a product of us just trying to hold onto the reins," thinks Turner today. "Being uncooperative.")

Q meets The Other Three one morning at 11am, in the well-appointed, empty bar of the Bethnal Green, Bast London hotel they're staying in (all three live in Sheffield, with their girlfriends, in their own homes). First to arrive is the industrious, sensible and cheerful Helders, crunching into a hangover-curing green apple. He has recovered from last year's boxing accident at the gym, which left his broken arm requiring a fitted plate. Now impressively purple-scarred, the break felt "interesting" and the doctor couldn't resist the one-armed drummer jest: "D'you like Def Leppard?"

Currently enjoying an enduring bromance with Diddy, he still doesn't feel famous, "it just doesn't feel that real, there's no paparazzi waiting for me to trip up." He and Turner, during the four-month rehearsals last year, became an accomplished roast dinner cooking duo for the band. "I reckon we could have us our own cookbook," he beams. "Pictures of us stirring, with a whisk."

O'Malley, an agreeable, twinkly-eyed 25-year-old with a strikingly deep voice and a winningly huge smile, is still coyly embarrassed by the interview process. A replacement for the departed original bass player Andy Nicholson in May 2006, he went from Asda shelf-filler to Glastonbury headliner in 13 months and still finds the Monkeys "a massive adventure". His life in Sheffield is profoundly normal – he's delighted that his new home since last October has an open-hearth fireplace: "Me parents had electric bars." He has also discovered cooking. “I’m just a pretty shit-hot housewife, most of the time," he smiles. "I cook stews, fish combinations, curries, chillies. I made a beef pho noodle soup the other day, Vietnamese, I surprised meself, had some mates round for that."

Recently, at his dad's 50th birthday bash, the party band, made up of family and friends, insisted he join them onstage "for ...The Dancefloor. So I were up there [mimes playing bass, all sheepish] and it were the wrong pitch, they didn't know the words or 'owt, going, Makin eyes... er..." He has no extra-curricular musical ambitions. "I'm happy just playing bass," he smiles. "I've never had the skill of doing songs meself. It'd be shit!"

Cook, 25, is still spectacularly embarrassed by the interview process. He perches upright, with a fixed nervous smile, newly shorn of the beard and ponytail he sported in LA: "Rockin' a pone, yeah, because I could get away with it." With his classic preppy haircut and dapper green military coat (from London's swish department store, Liberty), he looks like a handsome '40s film star. (Turner deems Cook "the band heartbreaker" and had a word with him post-LA: "I said to him, Come on, mate, you've got to get that beard shaved off. Get the girls back into us. Shift some posters.")

His life in Sheffield is also profoundly normal. He still plays Sunday League football with his local pub team, The Pack Horse FC (position, left back), remains in his long-term relationship with page-three-model-turned-make-up-artist Katie Downes and "potters about" at home, refusing to describe said home, "cos I'll get burgled".

A tiler by trade, he always vowed, should the Monkeys sign a deal, that he'd throw his trowel in a Sheffield river on his last day of work. "I never did fling me trowel," he confirms. "Probably still in me shed." He's never considered what his band represents to his generation. "I'd go insane thinking about it, I'm pretty good at not thinking about it… Oh God. I'm terrible at this!"

Back in the Strongroom Bar, Alex Turner is cloudily describing his everyday life. "I just keep meself to meself," he confounds. He mostly stays indoors and his perfect night in with Alexa is "watching loads of Sopranos. And doing roast dinners".

No longer spindle-limbed, he attends a gym and has handsomely well-defined arms – "You have to look after yourself."

Suddenly, Crying Lightning from Humbug rumbles over the bar stereo. "Wow. How about that? I was quite happy the other morning cos Brick By Brick were on the round-up goals on Soccer AM. It's still exciting when that happens. It was like Brick By Brick is real."

He spends his days writing music, "listening to records", and recommends Blues Run The Game by doomed '60s minstrel Jackson C Frank ("who's that lass?... Laura Marling, she did a cover recently), a simple, acoustic, deep and regretful stunner about missing someone on the road.

Lyrically, he cites as an example of greatness the Nick Cave B-side Little Empty Boat [from ‘97 single Into My Arms ], a comically sinister paean to a sexual power struggle: "Your knowledge is impressive and your argument is good/But I am the resurrection babe and you're standing on my foot."

"I need a hobby," he suddenly decides. "I'd like to learn another language." Since his mum is a German teacher (his dad teaches music), surely he can speak some German? "I know how to ask somebody if they've had fun at Christmas." Go on, then. "Nah!"

Where Turner's creative gifts stem from remains a contemporary rock'n'roll mystery; he became a fledgling songwriter at 16, after the gift of a guitar at Christmas from his parents. An only child, did his folks, perhaps, foresee artistic greatness? "I doubt it!" he balks. "Cos I didn't. I wasn't... a show kid." Like the others, he doesn't analyse the past, or the future.

"You can't constantly be thinking about what's happened," he reasons, "it's just about getting on with it." The elaborate pinky ring he now constantly wears, however, a silver, gold and ruby metal-goth corker featuring the words DEATH RAMPS is a permanent reminder of he and his best friends’ past. The Death Ramps is not only a Monkeys pseudonym and B-side to Teddy Picker, but a place they used to ride their bikes in Sheffield as kids.

"Up in the woods near where we lived," he nods. "Just little hills. But when you're eight years old they're death ramps." The ring was custom made by a friend of his, who runs top-end rock'n'roll jewellery emporium The Great Frog near London's Carnaby Street. Ask Turner why he thinks the chase between his writing and speaking eloquence is quite so mesmerisingly vast and he attempts a theory.

"Well, writing isn't the same as speaking," he muses. "Not for me. I seem to struggle more and more with... conversation. Talking onstage... I can't do it any more. Hmn. I'll have to work on that."

The ever-helpful Helders has a better theory.

"Since he's been writing songs," he ponders, “It seems like he’s always thinking about that. So even when he’s talking to you now, he’s thinking about the next thing that rhymes with a word. Even when he’s driving. We joke he’s a bad driver, his focus is never 100 per cent on what he’s doing. Which is good for us cos it means he’s got another 12 songs up his sleeve. I think music must be the easiest way for him to be concise and get everything out. Otherwise his head would explode.”

The Shoreditch.com photo studios, 18 March. Alex Turner, today, is more ethereally distracted than ever, transfixed by the studio iPod, playing Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, a version of I’d Rather Go Blind. Occasionally, he’ll completely lose his conversational thread, “Um. I’ve dropped a stitch.”

The first to arrive for Q’s photoshoot, he greets his incoming bandmates with enormous hugs (and also hugs them goodbye). Today, Q feels it’s pointless poking its pickaxe of serious enquiry further into Turner’s vacuum-packed soul and wonders if he’ll play, instead, a daft game. It’s called Popworld Questions, as first posed by someone he knows rather well.

“Oh, OK. Let’s do it,” he blinks, now perched in an empty dressing room. He then vigorously shakes his head, “Um…I’ve gotta snap back into it.”

Here, then, are some genuine “Alexa Chung on Popworld” questions (2006-2007), as originally posed to Matt Willis, Amy Winehouse, Robbie Williams, Pussycat Dolls, Kaiser Chiefs and Diddy.

Why do indie bands wear such tight jeans? AT: “Um. I supposed they do. They haven’t always. When we first were playing I was definitely in flares. You need to be quite tall to get the full effect, though. So, that's why this indie band wears such tight jeans, cos we've not got the legs for flares."

What makes you tick in the sexy department? AT: "Wow. Pass. What do I find most attractive in a woman? Something in the head? That's definitely a requirement. Well... Hmn. I'm struggling."

Tell us about all the lovely groupies. AT: "No!"

If dogs had human hands instead of paws, would you consider trying to teach them to play the piano? AT: "Absolutely. I'd teach Hey Jude."

How many plums d'you think you can comfortably fit in one hand? AT: "They're not very big. [Holds small, pale, girly hand up for inspection] It's a shame. Probably three. Diddy only managed two? Maybe not then. I can carry a lot of glasses at once, though. If they're small ones I can do four."

Are you cool? AT: "Not as much as I'd like to be. There's this clip where Clint Eastwood is on a talkshow and he gets asked, Everybody thinks of you as defining cool, what d'you think about that? And he gets his cigs out, takes one out, flicks it into his mouth, lights it and says, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Here, Turner locates his Camels soft-pack and attempts to do a Clint Eastwood. He flicks one upwards towards his mouth. And misses. Flicks another. And misses. "Third time lucky?" He misses. "I'll get it the next time." And succeeds. "Hey. Fourth time. Don't put that in! So there you go. I'm four steps away from where I wanna be."

Thank you very much for joining me here on Popworld, here's my clammy hand again. There it is, let it slip, hmmn. You can let go now. AT: "OK! Were you a Popworld fan, then? It was funny. Cool. What were we talking about, before?"

Blimey, Alex. What must you be like when you're completely stoned out of your head? AT: "Stoned? What d'you mean, cos I seem like that anyway? Yeah. A lot of people... tell me I'm a bit... dreamy. But I like the idea of that. Of being somewhere else."

Two days earlier, Turner had contemplated what he wanted from all this, in the end. Many seconds later he gave his deceptively ambitious answer.

"I just wanna write better songs," he decided. "And better lyrics. I just definitely wanna be good at it. Hmn. Yeah.”

—

RUFUS BLACK: AKA Matt Helders, on his ongoing bromance with Diddy

Matt Helders has known preposterous rap titan Diddy since they met in Miami in 2008. “He goes, Arctic Monkeys! Then he said summat about a B-side and I was like, He's not lying! I just thought, This is funny, I'm gonna go with this for a while." Last October Diddy texted Helders, suggesting he play drums with his Diddy Dirty Money band on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, to give his own drummer a day off. “I were bowling with me girifriend at the time. In Sheffield, on a Sunday." On the day of recording, says Helder, "We had a musical director. That were one of the maddest times of my life. Next day Diddy said, Why don't you just stay? Come along with me. So I went everywhere with him." Diddy had "a convoy of cars" and made sure Helders was always in his. "He'd stop his car and go, Where's Matt? You're coming with me! So I'd get in his car. Just me, him, his security, driver." Diddy, by now, had given him a pseudonym - Rufus Black. "He kept saying, I don't wanna fuck up your image. And I'm, I don't think it's gonna do me any harm!" He stayed in Diddy's spectacularly expensive hotel. Some weeks later, Helders almost returned to the Dirty Money drumstool for a gig in Glasgow. "But we were rehearsing in London. I were like, I might come, how are you getting there? And he were like, Jet. Jump on t’jet with me. But I had to stay in Bethnal Green instead.”

Love’s young dream: Diddy (left) with Helders

#arctic monkeys #alex turner #matt helders #nick o'malley #jamie cook #sias era #interviews #q magazine #my image id #bands #this is such a funny interview honestly shfjwjs #self proclaimed housewife nick my beloved......#also why did the interviewer describe alex's hands as small pale and girly HELPME #btw im missing page 93 it's probabky just a photospread but yeah #i managed to find the dead links' images on vk #eye contact #not my scan

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purplekissinger · 3 months ago

Text

The Cat That Looked at a King

The first magical war. Animagus Y/N spies on the Dark Lord. When she is caught, Voldemort decides against killing her.

Lord, what you're doing to me?

tw: psychological manipulation, crucio x 999, hurthurthurt/questionable comfort

‘Lumos’.

The weak light made you close your eyes, as if it was a spotlight. You tried to get up, but your aching head was pulled down, back to sweet unconsciousness. Dolohov looked at you with disgust, and for a moment it seemed to you as if he would slam the door and leave you in the blissful darkness, but this hope has fast evaporated. He stepped forwards and forced you to your feet.

‘Did you sleep well?’, he said. Every sound caused a painful shiver through your body. ‘You made Mulciber work pretty hard yesterday. I believe your memory has returned, eh?’.

You were silent. You were still getting used to the idea that your life was over, and that the remaining days or even hours of it would be spent in a nice company of Death Eaters. You had no time for retaliatory witticisms, and indeed no time for answers at all.

“Not the talkative type, are we?” Dolokhov was not even offended. “Well, suit yourself. Hope you haven't forgotten how to walk?..”

You nodded slowly and sank back to the floor, into the darkness, into the silence, into the calmness, and neither Crucio nor Avada Kedavra could stop you from that.

***

The summer of 1978 was probably the happiest summer of your life. Hogwarts was over, Aurorial Appraisal hadn't started yet, and between this and that James and Sirius decided to throw the Very Last Party on the coast: picnic, dancing, everything is top-notch, for Marauders and their girls only. You were a little bit of both, and you were invited even before Lily.

How you crammed into the unfortunate, well-worn Ford Anglia, wheeled by James, was a whole different story. Marlene McKinnon climbed onto Sirius's lap, Remus pressed himself against the door and rode like that the whole way. As for poor Peter, at first they wanted to push him into the trunk until he got the idea to transform into a rat and save space.

‘Oh!’ you exclaimed. ‘I’d do that too, otherwise Lily and Mary are not going.”

‘Just don’t eat Peter on the way!’ Sirius chuckled. It was an old joke that everyone got tired of back in fifth year, and no one laughed, so you just shrugged your shoulders and turned into a shaggy calico cat. Lily picked you up in her arms, and the race began.

‘Slow down, James, for Merlin’s sake!’ Mary Macdonald screamed, clutching the back of the seat. ‘You don’t even have a license, and we still want to get there alive!’ but he just laughed and entered every turn at such speed that made you meow pitifully. He couldn’t care less about the car that he got after his parents passed away, and he did not believe in his own death.

And then!.. And then you pitched the tent, jumped into the still cool water from the tower, then Remus took the gramophone out of the trunk and played “Somebody to love,” which everyone knew by heart, and when it became completely dark, you sat by the fire and roasted marshmallows . Lily rested her head on James' shoulder, the firelight playing on her hair. In the darkness, Peter timidly touched your hand, and you didn’t twitch, you didn’t even laugh.

‘We are all joining the Order, I presume?’ Sirius suddenly asked, biting a blade of grass. Marlene and Mary shushed him, but James snorted and waved his hand carelessly.

‘Come on, that’s no secret... Besides, you are either in Voldemort's team or playing against him nowdays, no ifs or buts. And how else can you be against him, if not joining the Order?’

‘But there’s no need to shout about it, you know’, Remus noted.

‘Who is shouting, though?’ Sirius seemed surprised. ‘Just saying. And there are no random people here, so?’.

‘Peter and I should be spies,” you said. ‘We both have the makings of a spy, like, no doubt. Sorry to tell you, James, but you’re out of luck with this one. Your animagus form is only good for an assault’.

James threw a marshmallow at you.

***

A lamp was on the table, an ordinary Muggle one, the kind of lamp you usually see in a library. The light was somehow cozy, and you stared at it mindlessly, trying to either forget yourself or gather your thoughts. Neither this nor that worked out. The room was tiny, with a high ceiling, no windows, and you couldn’t tell whether it was night or day, or which day even. Mulciber was making you wait. You probably really tired him out yesterday.

“I’m going to die here,” you thought dully. “That's it. My number’s up. I’m not getting out of here alive. Nobody is to the rescue. Mulciber will go on and on until I die or break, and if I break, he will listen carefully to everything I can tell and then finish me off anyway. Merlin, oh Lord, oh dear Lord, oh God, oh Lord, oh dear God?!..”.

The latch creaked outside, and you straightened yourself involuntarily, trying your best not to look at the door. The door slid aside and he entered the room.

For the first time in your life, you heard your heart beating.

“Good evening, Y/N,” Voldemort said in a casual and even somewhat disinterested tone, but the mere sound of this voice made you want to stop breathing, and you even tried to do so. ‘How are you feeling, how was your sleep?’

“It was fine,” you said, barely moving your lips. Your tongue seemed frozen. The lamp hit your eyes, and his face was hidden from you in the shadows; you only had enough strength to look at his hand. Strangely beautiful, with thin pale fingers, it was lying relaxed on the table.

“It was fine, my lord,” he corrected you.

“What?..”

“Crucio”.

Next frame: for some reason the legs of the table, ah yes, a spasm threw you out of the chair, and now you were silently writhing, scratching your nails on the plank floor. This went on for millions of years. When the pain subsided, leaving a ringing emptiness, he said peacefully:

“Get up, please”.

You obeyed.

“Sit down”.

You did.

“You and Mulciber didn’t get along, and I can’t blame him for that, you’re very stubborn. But maybe you’ll make an exception for me, huh, Y/N?’

‘Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh dear Lord oh my God’

“I already told you everything,” you sobbed. Merlin, you've never been particularly brave. Cheerful, yes, loved by everyone, yes, loving, yes, but not brave.

“First, you didn’t tell anything, at least not what I needed to know. Second, Crucio”.

This time you rose as slowly as if your bones were made of glass (and it felt like they were), but Voldemort waited patiently.

“I want to believe that you learned at least one lesson,” he said boredly. The lamp was now shining so that you could see his face very well.

“Yes, my lord,” you said drearly.

***

The autumn of 1978 was harder for you.

Back then it seemed that the most difficult thing was to become an Auror, and then everything would go like clockwork. A dream job, friends, fun, you’ll stick it to Voldemort in no time, and all your youth is waiting, and the war will end soon. The real-life reconnaissance turned out to be both more terrifying and much more boring than the fantasies.

In November, Lily and James threw a housewarming party in Godric's Hollow, this time only for Sirius, Remus, you and Peter. It was somehow quieter and more modest, but still very nice, and you brought pumpkin pie, although Halloween had already passed. You left early that day, because an operation was to be set tomorrow (nothing too serious, breaking into the house of one of the outer circle and casting some good ol’ wiretap spells). You desperately needed to get some sleep. Peter wanted to take you out, but you laughed it off. You didn’t want to see anyone, you wanted to cover yourself with a blanket and lie down, and never move again.

Of course you learnt to treat it as a job, otherwise you would go insane, and that’s when boredom set in. Probably, you reasoned, it’s one of two. It’s either you become a bundle of exposed nerves, choking with fear every time you are almost spotted, or you yawn (or meow) boredly, memorizing the names of the agents on the other side. You chose the latter.

Things were no better at Order meetings.

“Our poor Cookie looks a little down,” Marlene said sympathetically when, after discussing tomorrow’s plan, she had a free minute. “Cookie” was your call sign, assigned for the spottedness of your animagus form. ‘Did you quarrel with Peter?..’

“We didn’t really make peace in the first place,” you answered sharply. Then you said, tone softened: “Sorry, Marlin. Too much stuff on my plate’.

‘Well, feel free to take comfort in the fact that you are not alone in this!’ she winked at you cheerfully and climbed up onto the chair, her feet on the table.

But it felt like you were alone in this. There were a few targets that you kept an eye on, but it still was tough, too much information, too much responsibility, and doing all the tasks with a cat’s brain was oh so difficult. You were exhausted, staggering back and forth on the roof in the rain, pretending to be a stray kitty, and if anyone wanted to check you for traces of magic, you would instantly lose your disguise and then your life.

The first big success happened only at Christmas, as a gift, perhaps. You've began to close on Nott.

* * *

‘I was turning into a cat. Spied on Nott and Avery, no one else. I only kept in touch with Dumbledore,” you said in a whisper. “My lord, I don’t know what else to say. I really don't’.

He didn’t record your words the way Mulciber did (apparently, he wrote down your indistinct cries just in case). He just looked at you, tilting his head.

“That is, I have to believe that you were so special that Dumbledore made separate projects for you only and did not allow you to contact the rest of the group,” Voldemort nodded. “Seems like we have a top dog here. More precisely, a cat’.

‘My lord, I don’t know anything else!..’

‘You're lying’.

* * *

And from that day you started to close onto the Headquarters, slowly, very, very slowly and painstakingly. It was like you were unraveling a ball of yarn.

This ball could catch fire at any moment; any hurry could’ve become a deadly mistake. Losing one of the Order’s members wasn’t even the biggest problem, that’s what they are for, after all, but in January 1979, you and Dumbledore had a short conversation in a muggle coffee shop. He let you know that you had gotten ahead and were now getting closer to the inner circle, closer than anyone else. You couldn't lose at this point, there's more at stake than just your life.

You left the coffee shop in a strangely high spirits. You're finally starting to like your job.

Peter came to see you again on Valentine’s Day with a bouquet of conjured forget-me-nots, but you politely and carefully sent him - no, not to Mordred, to the Order headquarters, so he could finally get down to business. Spring was coming, and you wanted to stretch out like a cat before a hard day, work out all the leads and then kick Voldemort’s ass at last.

* * *

Of course, you didn’t fill him in on this detail.

The interrogation lasted only an hour or two, and you no longer knew where to look so as not to see his face: in the corner, at the lamp, at your feet, in the corner, at the lamp, at your feet, at the lamp, repeat. You wished to go blind, you wished to go deaf, you wished you could die. You wondered if he really had nothing else to do. Why is he clinging to you so much, is he teaching Mulciber a lesson or what?..

“I could help you with that, you know,” Voldemort said thoughtfully, playing with his wand. ‘ I could tell you what we already know about you, so that you don't have to lie. Not so obviously, at least. Would you like that, kitty?

‘I’d like that, my lord’.

You no longer understood what you were saying, you just knew that you had to agree with everything.

“We spotted you back in the summer.”

But isn’t it October now?!..

* * *

‘What will you give Harry for his birthday?’ Marlene asked, leafing through the “Prophet”. On the front page there was a column about yesterday's terrorist attack. Marlene's boots were resting on the coffee table again, and you pushed them off with a sharp movement. When will she learn to sit normally?!

‘A key to Voldemort's Headquarters’.

This was almost true, because now you knew its location down to the block, and it was a matter of time to get inside. When this finally happened, you were struck how ordinary it felt. There were no dungeons, no gargoyles at the entrance, no skulls on the walls. What you’ve found inside was furnished as in one of the most ordinary muggle offices, and everyone behaved like the most ordinary clerks, scurrying back and forth, cursing at each other, drinking coffee.

There were so many illusion spells on you that you feared they might start to conflict with each other. “I’m in the heart of the enemy,” you whispered to yourself as your own heart beat feverishly. How come they can’t hear this throughout the ventilation? “I am in the heart of the enemy, I am in the heart of the enemy. You’re all going down, bitches.” But it was still far from that. First of all, you had to build a floor plan, and slowly, inch by inch, you did it.

“Well done, Y/N. Smart kitty. Ten points to Catffindor,” you said to yourself in Dumbledore’s voice when you found out the date of the first major meeting.

* * *

“I still remember that thrilling moment,” Voldemort said mockingly, leaning back in his chair. “At first I thought there might be rats in the ventilation. Then I caught the eye of this one rat through the bars, and everything fell into place’.

You remembered this thrilling moment too, oh Merlin, you remembered it.

‘I gave the go-ahead to Avery, he began to dig into you. Since that day you have not taken a single independent step’.

The room floated before your eyes.

* * *

This probably explained the attacks of painful paranoia that began to torture you in August. Sometimes you woke up screaming, either at Order’s headquarters or at a safe house (you hadn’t been at home since July, and Peter didn’t know where to look for you), sometimes you walked along the Diagon Alley and turned into an side street, looking at a shop window for a minute or two, hoping to see something in the reflection, sometimes you would leave your unfinished coffee and rush out of the cafe because the man in the corner had his eyes on you. You became nervous, and, alas, in your job this meant professional incompetence.

“Our Cookie is completely depressed now,” Marlene told you as you left Dumbledore’s office. As gently as he could he suggested that you hand over matters to Sirius or Peter, then he said that this was not an offer and that you needed to start tying up the threads. Dumbledore probably suspected something.

In August, you went on yet another picnic. Without Lily and James, who could not leave the house anymore, everything was just not the same. Remus showed card tricks, and Sirius got drunk on firewhiskey and sang ABBA songs the whole night. You needed to talk to Peter in private because the project was supposed to be handed over to him, but you couldn’t make yourself talk about the job, and you didn’t want to spoil the last day off. You two sat on the cliff, watching the setting sun sink into the water, dangling your legs, throwing shells down and remembering Hogwarts. Peter didn’t seem to hold a grudge against you at all...

“Stop thinking about that rat,” said Sirius.

You turned to him and saw Voldemort's face.

“I’ve been looking through your memories for three hours now, trying to snag at least a grain of useful information, and you’re wasting my time on Pettigrew. You really don't want to cooperate, do you?

The setting sun turned into a lamp.

* * *

Not even Cruciatus curse made you scream this much.

Voldemort winced, rose from his seat like a huge black shadow, approached you (Merlin, let me die, let me die) and took you by the chin. His cold fingers made you fall silent obediently. After a short pause, he said softly:

“Let’s think about it together, Y/N, since you can’t do this by yourself. You already know that I could have killed you six months ago, that the information you conveyed to Dumbledore was fake, that your greatest achievement at the moment is to look at me. Thoughts?’

Well, here comes Avada, you thought happily. Is it over yet? He mocked you enough and now you can die? You did pretty well, come to think of it... Occlumency failed you, but he never pulled out any specifics…

“A cat may look at the king,” you said, relieved and ready to die. You seemed to be smiling.

He studied your face for a full second, and then instead of merciful death or even pain, your brain just turned inside out.

* * *

You are sitting by the fire. Lily laughs and taps out the rhythm of the song on James' knee.

“each morning I get up I die a little can barely stand on my feet”

Focus.

Peter with a bouquet of forget-me-nots tries to squeeze through the door.

How much longer do I have to look at this?

“i spent all my years in believing you”

Party at Hogsmeade. Sirius dances on the Ford’s roof. Quidditch match, snitch in the sun rays. Knockturn Alley massacre, Marlene is dead. Ford comes into the turn, Marlin is alive, she is yelling at James. Harry on a toy broom, laughing. Explosion at Mungo's, nurse sobbing. Knife plunges into the pumpkin pie.

So much garbage. So much unnecessary rubbish you keep in your head, dear Y/N.

“i just gotta get out of this prison cell someday i’m gonna be free Lord”

You look at Voldemort from the vents, he looks at you. Headquarters layout. Nott's window. Marlene's boots on the coffee table. Order’s headquarters layout. James throws a marshmallow at you. “Calico cats bring good luck,” Remus says seriously. “You will be our mascot.” The entire Order wishes you a happy birthday, you blow out the candles on the cake, but they just don’t go out.

‘somebody somebody somebody somebody somebody’

That’s more like it.

‘somebody to’

The setting sun falls into the water as the world plunges into darkness.

* * *

You're lying on the floor. You can't even remember your own name.

“It’s Y/N,” Voldemort prompts. He sits next to you and holds your hand, touches your fingers, strokes your wrist, and it’s so bizarre, strange and wrong that it can’t even be a dream. ‘Believe me, it can. But I would like you to gain the gift of speech and not force me to read your thoughts’.

“Yes, my lord,” you say slurredly.

‘Splendid. So, we concluded that any information you can give to me is useless, that you don’t like to cooperate and that you’re definitely not the brightest one. Of course, it would be easier and cheaper to kill you, but I decided against it. Why do you think I did that?’

‘I don't know, my lord’.

‘I’m going to break you’.

‘What?’

No Crucio this time. He just gives you a long appraising look. Works like a charm, just for one indulgence you already feel grateful and almost happy.

“We’ll take on you, sweet Y/N. In the Order, you had no one to look after you, and still, having no techniques, only raw talent, you plunged into the thick of it and even achieved something, and all it took was one word from Dumbledore. You managed to look at the king. Well, he looked back at you and decided that he needed a calico cat. As a mascot’.

“I'm going crazy,” you think. “The Cruciatus curse can do that.”

‘Why not? I think I can afford it, can’t I?’

“Yes, my lord,” you answer indifferently. Let the nightmare continue, it doesn't matter anymore.

“The old man kept trying to awaken mercy in me... Well, it seems like he had achieved his goal by throwing a kitten at Headquarters. I didn’t even expect such stupidity from him’.

Ceiling. You look at the ceiling, counting the cracks.

“I’ll break you into pieces,” he says, and for the first time in that voice, the voice that was so cold and unforgiving at meetings, so paralyzing, slips something that sounds almost like... concern? Tenderness?.. ‘I’ll take you apart and put you back together again. And the new you will serve me. I expect nothing but undying devotion. Is that clear?’

All right, absolutely nothing is wrong. It couldn't be more normal. The Dark Lord decided to make you the mascot of his team, this happens all the time.

“Don’t be afraid to be broken, Y/N,” Voldemort says almost tenderly, touching your cheek, slowly lowering his fingers to your neck. ‘For it is the first step towards becoming perfect. I wasn’t afraid of this in my time,” he smiled sadly. His smile is almost human. “Maybe I’ll even tell you about this someday, Cookie.”

#harry potter #tom riddle x y/n #harry potter x reader #tom riddle #voldemort x y/n #voldemort x reader #tom riddle x reader #marauders #marauders era #a little bit of peter pettigrew x reader #but thats like #for the plots sake

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justmeinadaze · 1 year ago

Text

We're A Family Part 17 (Steddie X You)

A/N: Thank you for your patience with me. I'm still moving a bit slow but I've been living in my comfort fics while writing a new comfort fic so yeah <3

Warnings: Dads Steddie and Mama Fem Reader, SMUT, mostly near the end with a lot of passion between da boys. FLUFF , we have an adorable addition to the Munson-Harrington crew <3 as well as Ro's birthday. ANGST because I'm me, Steve does something stupid with the best intentions, Him and Eddie get into a fight, Eddie's dad makes a cameo, Eddie talks about first moving in with Wayne, Dylan talks about divorce (dont panic! Its fine. We're all fine. Im not that angsty.) and I think that's it.

Word Count: 5369

“Ok, ladies and gentlemen, what are the bets this time around?” The doctor grins as he looks at your little family.

“We’re at 3 to 2 with girl being in the lead.”, Steve beams.

“I love it. Let’s take a look.”

It had been about four months since you found out you were pregnant again and this time around was rough. The first few months were spent throwing up pretty much everything you ate and your cravings had been stronger than they had been before. You found yourself getting grumpier and more irritable which the boys didn’t seem to mind, doing everything they could to make things easier.

You got the house by the lake and everyone (especially Wayne) was excited for the move. Aurora’s birthday was coming up soon which, while still happy, always made you and Eddie nervous. That first year his mom showed up at your door and the two birthdays after she called his phone begging him to come speak at his father’s appeal.

Steve finally told his mom that you were pregnant with his biological child and she was over the moon. He begged her not to tell his dad and so far she seemed to honor his request.

“Alright, Munson-Harrington gang. Congratulations, it looks like we have a healthy baby boy!”

***

“Ok, we have to think of a name.”, Eddie mused as he took a bite from the burger on his plate. “What do you think, kid?” Dylan shrugs causing the metalhead to playfully role his eyes. “You’re no help. What about you, my angel?”

“Han.”, Aurora smiles as she chews on her fries.

“I wouldn’t hate that. Harrison Ford in those earlier movies was so sexy.”

Your son makes a face as both men laugh. “You don’t have any special memories with a name? Like I did with Ro?”

Eddie thought for a moment before a smirk crept across his lips. “James.”, he nods, shifting his gaze towards you two. “When my mother left me with Wayne, I was confused. I genuinely thought she would be coming back so I sat on his couch by the door and just waited. Every now and then he would ask if I was ok or if I needed something and I always told him no. Right before dinner that night, he sat at his little table in the trailer with this rickety, old acoustic guitar and started playing Dio’s Rock n’ Roll Children.”, he chuckles.

Dylan leaned against his side and Eddie lifts his arm to wrap around his shoulders.

“Now my uncle is a god-awful singer but man could he play. I was so fascinated by how his fingers moved that I got up to sit with him. He smiled, placing a sandwich in front of me and I ate as I watch him. From that moment on, I knew I wanted to play the guitar. It took me a few days to realize Lynn wasn’t back but Wayne was always there with a new song. Anyway…”, he sighs as his voice becomes lighter. “The lead singers name is Ronnie James.”

You and Steve smile at him as you caress his leg under the table with your foot.

“I like James.”

“Me to.”, the other man agrees. “James Wayne Munson-Harrington.”

#########

“Oh, Y/N, you guys don’t have to do that.”, Wayne bashfully grins.

“We know but we’re going to because we want to.” Winking at him, you stick your fork into the cake on the counter.

“Honey, we have plates.”

“Yes, baby, we do. It’s this thing UNDER the cake.” Steve playfully narrows his eyes in your direction. “Look everyone else said they were full and I’m eating cake for two!”

He holds up his hands defensively as Eddie rounds the corner with Ro who reaches for her grandpa, demanding he hold her.

“Listen here you. No more birthdays. We’re stopping today at four, understand?”

“No, granpa! I��be…a big girl.”, she declares tossing her hands in the air.

The phone rings and Steve chuckles as he reaches over to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hello. This is a collect call from Hawkins Penitentiary from inmate: Al Munson. Will you accept the call and charges?”

The man glances at Eddie who now has a big smile on his face as he tickles Aurora who in turn hides in Wayne’s neck hoping her father can’t reach her. After a few seconds, he hangs up.

“Who was it, baby?”, you ask.

“Wrong number.”

****

Steve’s foot bounces as he waits behind the glass, eyes constantly searching his surroundings. A guard on the other side, opens a door and brings over the prisoner placing him front of the awaiting man. He had never met Eddie’s dad but he had seen a few pictures. The inmate looking at him now was much older and worn by prison life. He did have a lot of his husband’s features especially in the face but his eyes weren’t as soft as Eddies.

“You’re not my son.”

“No…no I’m not and neither is Eddie.” Allen squinted at his guest in confusion. “Look, I just came down here to tell you and Lynn to leave him alone. Every time we change our number, you guys always find it again and bother him on what is supposed to be a day about his daughter, not you. He spent so much time worried about you both and paying for the sins of everything you guys did to him. It’s time for him to be happy.”

“I see. And what are you going to do if I don’t, Mr. Harrington? Call the cops?”, he snickered. “I have done more than enough time to pay for my own sins. Edward could really help me out here and as my son he should want to.”

“What he wanted was a father and he found that in Wayne when your wife abandoned him. He gave up on you a long time ago.”

“Why are YOU here? Do you speak for him now since you fuck him?” Steve’s eyes narrowed in annoyance at the man’s comment. “Oh yeah. I know about you, him, and that girl…what’s her name. Honestly, I don’t give a shit about any of that. If my son wants to bend over and—”

“Don’t. Don’t fucking finish that sentence, Allen, or I swear God.”, he growled. “Listen, leave him alone and I can help you in here.”

“How can you help me?”

“I have some money set aside. I can give you some to make things a bit easier.”

Eddie’s dad’s jaw clenches as he weighs his options. “$500 a month and we have a deal.”

###########

A few months had passed and your little family had moved into your new home. Right on time to because about a month after James decided he was ready to join the Munson-Harrington clan.

Aurora was completely fascinated by the new baby.

“Dada, bra-der tiny.”

“He’s going to be tiny right now, honey. You have to be very careful with him.”

Her eyes widen as she gently pets the top of his head before leaning down to kiss his nose.

One night while he was crying, she watched as Eddie heated up a bottle and rocked him in his arms as he fed him.

“Daddy, what’s wrong wit James?”

“He’s just hungry, princess. Babies eat EVERYTHING.” He widened his eyes making her laugh. “Do you want to help me?”

She nods, following him to the couch and takes a seat in his lap. Placing her little hand on the bottle, he allows her to hold it up as the baby continues to suck at its contents eagerly.

Where Ro was a daddy’s girl, James was a mama’s boy. He loved being in your arms the most and the first time he smiled it was because you were kissing his chubby cheeks.

Dylan, as always, was a wonderful big brother. He helped out where he could and even offered to babysit his siblings every now and then so you and the guys could spend some time alone.

“Hey mom. I need some money for baseball. They said that we need $100 for boosters and some equipment.”

“Geez, isn’t that what boosters is for? To raise money for you people?” Dylan beams at you as he gives you a hug making you smile. “Steve? Little man needs $100 of baseball.”

“Jesus, why so much?”

You glanced in his direction taken a bit off guard. Usually when it came to the kids, if they needed anything financially, he didn’t think twice. Between the three of you, money wasn’t as tight but with the new baby and house things weren’t as easy as before so you let it go. Dylan answered his question and he dug in his wallet to give his son what he needed.

“Everything alright, babe?”

“Huh? Yeah, you know me. I just want to make sure we have everything, you know?”

Your head tilted to the side as your wife and mother senses started tingling again. He was hiding something but what could it be? If it was something involving a surprise for you or the kids his face and body language would normally radiate excitement. Something was wrong.

“Hey, Dylan, do you mind keeping an eye on the other weirdos while I talk to Steve for a minute?”

He nods as you grab the man’s hand and tug him out towards the back porch.

############

When Eddie got home from work, he found you sitting on the couch gnawing on your thumb as Steve paced in the living room. His eyes found yours as you motioned for him to come sit beside you.

“Is everything ok? Where are the kids?”

“I asked my sister to watch them so the three of us could talk.” You softly smile as you kiss his cheek. “Steve has something he needs to tell you.”

“Okay? What’s going on, Stevie?”

The way Eddie looked up at him with concerned eyes made him feel so much worse at what he was about to tell him.

“Um, so, remember how on Aurora’s birthday, you were ecstatic because your mom hadn’t called? Well, uh, your father actually called from prison that day. I answered and hung up on him.”

As the man spoke, you kept your eyes on the metalhead’s face as it slowly fell.

“I-I-I went down there to see him, Ed, and I warned him to leave you alone. He said he needed you and was tired of being in jail, that he and Lynn wouldn’t stop until you showed up at an appeal. So…” Steve’s panicked gaze shifted your way before he looked directly at the man he loved. “For the past few months, I’ve been paying Allen $500 to leave you alone.”

Eddie’s jaw tightened as he tilted his head subtly towards you.

“Did you know about this?”, he whispered.

“No. I just found out everything today.”

He nodded as he rose to his feet, placing himself in front of Steve.

“Eddie, I swear, I was trying to make things easier for you. I hated—”

The metalhead’s fist flew knocking the man backwards before climbing on top of him and swinging his arms.

“Eddie, baby! Stop!” You tried to break them apart but he was too strong. Quickly, prepared for anything, you pushed a few buttons on your phone, sending a text to the one person you knew could get through to him. Three minutes later, Wayne flew in and pried his nephew off the man beneath him.

“Hey! That is enough! I need you calm down, son.”

“How dare you fucking go behind my back like that, Steven! I told you both NOT to go down there!”

“I was trying to help!”

“By giving him money that can be used for our family, you fucking asshole! You think this is going to stop him?!” He tried to charge at the man again but his uncle held him back. “You have no idea what he’s like. I do!”

“Steve, maybe, you should go for a drive or something. Let him cool down.” He glanced your way and you softly nodded in agreement causing the man to hang his head as he quietly left the house. “Now you look at me, Ed.” Wayne grabbed the metalhead’s face forcing him to focus as he murmured low enough so only he could hear.

“Eddie, I know you’re angry. I completely understand that but I need you breathe, ok? Your kids may not be here but Y/N is and she’s worried.” His chocolate eyes glanced at your concerned face as you hugged your arms around your body. “There you go. Can you sit on the couch calmly?”

He nods as he moves to take a seat. Without looking your way, his ringed fingers gesture for you to come closer and he pulls you onto his lap, hugging you to his chest.

“I’m sorry if I scared you.”

“You didn’t. When he told me what he did, I was angry to. Not just because of what he did but because I knew it would hurt you. Eddie, you know how Steve is. He genuinely thought he was protecting you.”

“No. No, Y/N. This is serious. This isn’t like when you went to his mom for money so he could go to school. My father isn’t someone who can be trusted. So many things can go wrong that can get Steve in real trouble. I…”, he shakes his head as he feels his anger rise again.

“Baby, I’m not excusing what he did but, maybe, if you explain to him more about your father and how this could backfire—”

“Which I could have done if he came to me first.”

“I know, honey. I know.”, you coo as you rub his chest. “Wayne, would you like to stay here? You’re more than welcome. Plus, I’m sure the kids would love to see you when they come back tomorrow.”

***

Eddie’s uncle did spend the night while Steve ended up sleeping a hotel. He texted you letting you know where he was and that he thought it was best to give his husband some space.

The two youngest kids were excited to see their grandpa when they got home but Dylan sensed something was wrong especially when he walked in and noticed his dad wasn’t there.

“Is it because I asked for money?”

“No, baby. No.”, you whispered as you kissed his forehead. “He’ll be home later.”

Your answer didn’t seem to sooth him as he sat next to Wayne and watched him try to make James smile.

“Sir, you have the fattest little belly I have ever seen. I could just…”, he made munching noises in his stomach making the baby giggle as he scrunched his head into his shoulders.

“Beep beep.”, Aurora parroted as the front door opened and Steve cautiously entered the home. “Dada!” She ran to his arms and he scooped her up giving her a big hug. “Dada, you have an ouch.” When she pointed to the light swelling where Eddie had hit him, he flinched slightly.

“Yeah, dada is dumb.”

“No.”, she giggled before pointing at Wayne. “Granpa is here. He…he’s making…bra-der happy.”

Dylan’s eyes scanned Steve carefully as he sat across from him in one of the chairs. “You alright, dad?”

“I’m fine, dude. I just missed you guys.”, he smiles.

You come around the corner and playfully swat at Ro’s curls before tickling her neck with your finger. “You. Scoot so I can say hi to dada.”

“Mama! Stop.”, she laughs as she slides down and sticks her tongue out at you. “You’re mean!”

You laugh along with her as you climb onto Steve’s lap and wrap your arms around his neck.

“Are you okay?”

“No. I hurt someone I love. He should have hit me harder.”

“Baby…”, you sigh as you press your forehead to his cheek. “We’re going to talk again later after the kids go to bed especially since he’s had time to calm down and process everything.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys. I know I should have—” You fingers cut him off as you place them on his lips.

“We have eyes on us. Later, ok?”

Steve’s own orbs scan the room finding Dylan watching you both as well as Aurora before she smiles and waves in your direction.

###########

One benefit of having three parents in the house is everyone can focus on one of the kids at any given time. After coming in to check on Ro and kiss her, Eddie stayed behind to tuck her in. As you passed Dylan on the couch downstairs, you poked your head into James’s room to find Steve with a sleeping infant in his arms.

“Alright, my love.”, you exhaled as you dramatically plopped your body down next to your son. “Time for you to go upstairs and get ready for bed.” Silently, he turns off the tv and begins to stand but you tug on the back of his shirt, bringing him down into your arms. “I know you and I know your big, beautiful brain. You’re a worrier like me. You didn’t do anything wrong, ok? You know we don’t mind giving you money for something you enjoy.”

“Everything got weird after I asked.”

“And that has nothing to do with you. Believe it or not, adults have issues sometimes that don’t involve their kids.” Dylan chuckled at your sarcasm as you kissed his cheek.

“I just don’t want to be the reason you guys get divorced or something.”

As he began to stand, you quickly yank him back again. “Baby, they aren’t Charlie. Just because Steve wasn’t here this morning doesn’t mean that we’re going to break up. The three of us have been together too long and been through too much. And…”, you sigh hating the thoughts that fill your mind as you continue. “Playing the devil’s advocate here, if for some reason we ever did break up, I assure you no matter what, that reason would never be because of you guys or anything you did.”

Dylan smiles as he hugs you before getting to his feet and pulling you up with him. As Eddie comes down the stairs, he meets him half and tugs him into a hug.

“I love you, kid.”

“I love you to.”

The moment he hears his footsteps bang up to his room, Steve appears and softly smiles in your direction.

“Counseling degree at work again?”

“No, that would be my mom degree. I saw it on his face when you came home. Even though he knows you guys aren’t like Charlie, I think there’s still a part of him that feels like he could lose you at if one thing goes wrong.”

“I know the feeling.”, Eddie mumbles as he shuffles his feet. “Sometimes I was afraid Wayne would give up on me to. Obviously, that never happened.”

Your hand gently rubs his back and you gesture with your head for you three to head for the bedroom.

***

The silence was deafening as you sat on the bed near the headboard as Eddie placed himself on the edge with his chin near his chest. Steve pulled one of the chairs from the living room so he could sit in front of you both, fidgeting with his fingers as he waited for someone to speak.

“Did he ask you for money or did you offer?”, the metalhead asked.

“I offered. He came up with the amount.”

“Steven, what do you know about prison? In general, I mean.”

“Uh…”

“Did you know that things are snuck in all the time? Drugs, weapons, food, etc.” Steve shook his head. “Did you know he can use your money to get shit like that or give to other inmates to do that? Did you know that people could find out where he’s getting so much money from and send people to harass you for the same treatment?”

When the man shook his head again, his eyes downcast towards the floor in shame.

“Do you know how I know that? The first time my father went in Wayne tried to help him by sending him $100 a month. A couple months later he asked for more and my uncle told him no. The next day someone broke into his trailer and stole half his shit. We learned later Allen owed some people inside money and when they found out he would be getting out soon they wanted it all upfront. When Wayne told him no, my dad told them where he had been getting the cash from so they sent people to get the rest however they could. Thankfully, he was at work that night.”

“Eddie, I…”

“You’d think prison would reform him but it doesn’t. That’s why he’s there, Steve. He does the same shit in there that he did when he was out. He cons people or steals from them and every time he always loses.”, he sighs angerly. “And that’s just one of the many reasons I’m pissed. We just had a fucking baby, Steven! $500 barely covers half of what he needs, plus Aurora and Dylan’s essentials. That’s for the kids. The three of us need things to including this house!”

You scoot closer and wrap your arms around him as you lean against his shoulder. You had never seen him like this. When he had gotten angry with his mom at Ro’s first birthday that was one thing. Right now, this was fury out of fear for you five and something that could have been avoided if—

“But I think what pisses me off the most is you didn’t fucking talk to me. I have always been up front with you when it came to your parents and especially your dad. Your dad isn’t like mine Steve. He could get someone fucking killed and I’ll be damned if it’s someone in my family. I don’t just ignore him and Lynn for me. I do it to protect you guys. It’s a simple thing and you made it way more complicated.”

A tear escaped down Steve’s cheek that he quickly wiped away as he sat up straighter and cleared his throat.

“I’m, um…I’m sorry, Eddie. You’re right. I should have talked to you, both of you. No matter what my intentions were. I—”

“Don’t do that.”, you cut him off. “Don’t do that authoritative, businessman style voice and dialogue you do because you think it’s what people want to hear.” His eyes roll as his leans forward and his leg bounces. “Be honest, Steve. Be yourself.”

“When he called you were making Aurora laugh, Ed, while Wayne was holding her. Y/N, you were eating cake out of the pan with a fork because you were pregnant and you and Dylan were leaning against each other smiling…it was perfect. A perfect fucking day without Charlie causing problems or Lynn calling to trigger his pain. My dad wasn’t appearing out of nowhere to fuck shit up or you mom to remind you that you’re still the town whore!” Steve’s beautiful brown irises looked at anything but you two as he tried to control his emotions.

“For this one moment, everything was exactly as it should be. Then your dad called, Eddie, reminding me something was always waiting…looming in the background to fuck everything up. So, yeah, I went down there to protect us; to protect you. Motherfucker is lucky there was glass between us.”, he growled. “With Lynn and Allen, I don’t know how you turned out so fucking amazing. I can understand why you would want them out of your life for good.” Steve shrugs as he leans back again. “Since I couldn’t hit him and I couldn’t convince him, I did the only other thing I could think of.”

“Well thank God you didn’t become a businessman like your dad wanted or he would have lost a ton of money.” Their eyes meet for the first time since they entered the room as they both let a breathy chuckle. “Steve, when will you realize that you don’t have to protect us and be the hero alone?”

The baby monitor starts to light up and you hastily get up before they can to check on James.

“I’m sorry I hit you.”

Steve got up from his chair to sit beside Eddie and wrapped his arms around him like you had.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m so fucking sorry, babe.”

The metalhead sighs using his fingers to lift his chin and bring his lips to his.

“Even though I’m mad at you, I still love you. I hope you know that.”

The boy nods as he kisses his lips again before trailing them down his cheek to his shoulder.

##############

Allen glances at the three Munson-Harrington adults, sitting on the other side of the glass before really taking in his son in front of him.

Eddie knew he’d have to go down to the prison to fix what Steve had done but you were surprised when he asked you two to join him. On the drive there, he inhaled one cigarette after the other until you reached over and stole his pack so he wouldn’t overdo it. While you waited, his eyes darted around as he occasionally babbled to block out his internal panic.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been here. The last time was when I was 10, I think. My mom brought me and I remember them arguing about him being stuck in here. She said she couldn’t handle me alone.”, he shakily laughed. “Actually, it was more ‘what am I supposed to do with him.’”

“Eddie…” Turning his head, you kiss his lips as you caress his cheek with your thumb. “Everything is going to be ok. We’re right here with you.”

He nodded before gazing at Steve who was glaring into the void as Eddie reached to hold his hand before leaning to whisper in his ear. “Come back to me, sweetheart. I need you.”

“Well shit.”, Allen sarcastically smiled. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Your boyfriend and I already came up with an arrangement so you didn’t need to come down here.”

“Husband. Not boyfriend. Always glad to know you’re just happy to see me, Allen.”

“Allen? Really? You call Wayne daddy now?”

“More or less for the last about 18 years.” They glare at each other before Eddie snickers. “You’re not even going to pretend to be nice to win me over, are you? I have no idea why you or Lynn would ask me to lie for you if you can’t even say something civil like ‘Hey Ed. Nice to see you.’”

You intertwine your fingers with his as your heart breaks. This was probably just a taste of what little Edward Munson experienced and it killed you.

“Look, we weren’t planning on staying for long. I just wanted to tell you the money Steve has been sending stops now and if you tell anyone that my family gave you that, I swear to God, I will make it my personal mission to make your life a living hell in here. You think things are bad now…”

You’d be lying if you didn’t say his dominance turned you on. There was nothing sexier to you than seeing them both be protective over you and the kids. Usually, it was Steve acting as protector and when he did it with Mr. Osbourne it drove you crazy. Hearing Eddie do it now was not only making you proud of him but excited to jump him later.

“Fine but in return I want you to go the appeal for me.”

“No, that won’t be happening either and let me tell you why. If you keep calling me, sending letters, or any other bullshit like that, I will come to your appeal but it won’t be on your behalf. I’ll remind the judge that you’re a scam artist and a fucking car thief but I’ll also enlighten them on what a great father you were to me between the black eyes and verbal assaults.”

Eddie leans closer to the glass as his eyes burn into the man on the other side.

“I am not a kid anymore. You two think you can still bully me but you’re wrong. You both need me way more than I need you.”

With that, he rises from the chair to leave before pausing and gesturing towards his father to wait with his index finger. Abruptly, he grabs Steve’s collar and tugs his lips to his for a passionate kiss. When he finally lets him go, the other man smirks, drunk off Eddie’s taste alone as the metalhead flips off his dad and turns to leave him behind.

****

About a mile down the road from the prison, Eddie swerved his van into an empty area, hurling off his seatbelt and shoving Steve into the back where you had been sitting. You stayed out of the way, allowing the metalhead to take control. There was a sense of urgency in their kisses, both needing each other in that moment. Eddie needed to convey to him that he could take care of him to and Steve showing him that he could willing give up that urge to control for his husband to take be there for him.

As they shoved down their pants, you slid your fingers down your own, rubbing your clit as you watched Eddie spit in his hand and stroke his cock before breaching Steve’s entrance.

“Fuck, yes. I love you so much, baby. Let-Let me take care of you.”

All Steve could do was nod as he wrapped his arms around him and clung to him as Eddie pumped into him harder. His ring lined hand reached out into the air and it took you a moment to realize he was trying to find you. As you leaned into his touch he yanked the back of your neck, bringing your lips to his.

When he dipped his fingers into your jeans and between your legs, he couldn’t help but smile against your lips.

“You’re so wet, princess. You like watching us together?”

Your own palm held the back of his from the outside of your pants as you rested your forehead on his.

“I like watching you—mmm—take care of us. I love you, Eddie. I’m so proud of you.”

He heavily sighed as he thrust into you both faster. Hearing Steve loudly grunt, you two watch him as his face scrunches and he releases his spend near the bottom of his tummy. Eddie grins as you push against his hand, guiding his pace until he feels you shutter and cum on his fingers. As you collapse next to Steve, he leans over the boy’s face as he chases his high.

“You’re both so—f-fuck—fucking pretty when you cum.”

Watching with half lidded eyes, you softly smile as Steve reaches up to caress his face, listening as he whispers sweetly to him.

“I love you to, honey. So fucking much. Cum, Eddie, please. We want to see it. I want to feel you fill me up. You…you deserve to…fuck…” He struggled to get the last few words out as the metalhead pumped into him so hard you imagined the van was shaking from the outside. They both grunted at the feeling as the boy came inside of him and like you collapsed on his other side.

The three of you panted as you starred at the ceiling.

“I am sorry I put you in this position, Munson.”

“I mean… I put you in this position but you know me…I’m open to any and all positions as long as it feels good for everyone.”

They smile when you giggle as Steve shakes his head playfully. “You’re so stupid.”

“You don’t have to keep apologizing. I forgive you, Harrington.” He leans up on his elbow to kiss him before dramatically leaning across him to do the same with you. “Alright, you two recharge and I’ll drive us home.”

@dad-steddie @manda-panda-monium @alligator-person

#############

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shit-talk-turner · 4 months ago

Note

the blogs always forget Alex is not an idiot. He’s a man. He knows exactly what he’s doing and did we all forget one major detail??

Arielle didn’t have one picture with his parents and was at Glastonbury. Taylor has tons with his grandparents and two with his dad.

People say yeah but Alex doesn’t like public displays. Louise posted MANY photos of them on her profile. I know it’s not daily but it’s not like she’s hiding him. She would never miss an opportunity to post photos with his mom ESPECIALLY at a public outing. And they had a few!!!! His mom was at many shows this tour

Louise was in the London show looking like an absolute hooker which is fine but not for the parents. She had a series of photos via Amanda and Matt backstage and in the stands and the rest were with his jacket in the hotel room. He hides her.

Alex is close to them so that’s your red flag. He knows Louise isn’t forever and he knew arielle was a rebound. That’s why they get the friends and the over top gifts and trips.

This woman got Alex by cosplaying as all his exes. This man writes patterns into his lyrics. He is very aware. He just doesn’t care.

because it’s on his terms. You can tell with the way he talks about his work that it’s all on his terms. (Look at Alexandra’s album and the last shadow puppets. It’s all on his terms) He found someone who is happy letting him use her and that’s why she is very aggressive about the feminist issue. Because she doesn’t have it in her life. She posts books but does she read? She posts happiness but it looks sad.

there is no fashion show (she couldn’t keep a hold of a second tier company to keep her campaign piggybacking off her boyfriend. They posted more Alexa than her) , there is no wedding (and based on her aggressive hold on the feminist issue you know it’s not what she wanted, it’s what Alex wants so she has to convince herself) and there is no music unless James Ford or one of his producer friends takes pity

If any music she releases was produced by his friends, know for a fact they did him a favour. She’s not good, she’s generic. And worse yet? She can’t even be an influencer which requires no brain function

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troublemaker203 · 1 year ago

Text

James Sawyer Ford x Fem! reader - Tent Buddies

Word count: 1075

Summary: Imagine having to stay in Sawyer’s tent because you broke your ankle and every other tent is full.

Warnings: none, I think

“No! You don’t have to carry me! I’ll be all right!” you said, but it was already too late. “You cannot walk all the way back to camp. Have you taken a good look at your ankle? It normally does not look like that”, Sayid said, as he lifted you over his shoulder. You sighed. Your ankle did hurt really bad, but now you felt like a burden. “I’m sorry, Sayid”, you said. “Don’t be, I’ll be fine. Your ankle on the other hand...” You winced as you tried to move your foot. “Stop that and just relax.” Thunder rumbled in the distance. “There’s a storm coming. I’m sorry, but we’re going to need to hurry a bit.” Sayid started to jog a little faster, causing your legs to bounce up and down a bit, making you slowly cry out in pain. “It’s not far anymore, I promise.” You nodded, trying to hold back tears at the same time.

“Jack!” Sayid yelled as he entered the camp. Jack hurried out of his tent. “What happened?” he asked. “Y/N accidentally stepped into a hole in the forest and, well... her ankle...” “Yeah that’s not looking good.” Jack got a worried look on his face. “I have two other patients in my tent, so I’ll have to treat you here. I’m sorry Y/N. It won’t be comfortable, but I have no other choice.” You groaned. “Just do it. Just make the pain go away.” Jack hurried to his tent to grab some medical supplies and a sheet for you to lay down on. “Now, I am going to have to set your ankle. This will hurt, but only for a few seconds, okay?” You nodded, signifying that you understood and that he could continu. “Here, you might want to bite down on this.” He gave you a wooden stick. “Really?” you asked, annoyed. “This is so medieval.” “Trust me, okay?” You sighed and put the stick in-between your teeth. Jack put his hands around your ankle, making you wince in pain. “On three. One... two...” and as he said ‘two’ he pushed your broken bones back into place with a loud ‘crack’. You bit the stick as hard as you could and cried out in pain. “That was it! The worst is over!” Jack tried to comfort you,but you thought you were going to faint from the pain. “Y/N? Stay with me!” Jack shouted. “I’m okay”, you managed to mumble. Jack returned to his work. He had managed to make a pretty decent splint. “Normally, I would have asked you what colour cast you wanted, but since there’s not much choice, I’m afraid you’ll have to do with white”, he said, motioning to the white sheets he used to bind your ankle. You chuckled. “Thanks doc.” Big drops of water started to fall from the sky and the thunder started to get closer. Jack looked up at the sky. “There’s a storm coming. Where is your tent?” “I haven’t got a tent. I have just been sleeping outside.” “Shit. Sayid! Can you help me carry Y/N? We need to find her a tent to stay in.” “But the only tent where there’s still some room is...” “Yeah I know,” Jack interrupted Sayid, “but we haven’t got a choice. He doesn’t have a choice.” “He?” you thought. Who were they talking about? Jack and Sawyer carried you to one of the tents. “Sawyer?” Jack asked. Your eyes widened. “Oh no,” you thought to yourself. You have had a crush on Sawyer from the moment you had met him on the first day after the crash. It was pointless, however. You knew he had feelings for Kate, or so you thought, at least. “No,” Sawyer said from inside his tent. Sayid angrily pulled back the plastic blue tarp. “This is not a time for jokes, Sawyer. You’re going to agree to this whether you like it or not.” “Exactly to what do you want me to agree?” Sawyer asked, annoyed. “To let Y/N stay in your tent,” Jack stepped in. “I know you don’t particularly like company, but Y/N doesn’t have a tent to stay in and every other tent is taken.” “Why can’t she just sleep outside? It’s a lovely beach,” Sawyer said, without looking up from his book. “Because I had to reset the bones in her ankle just minutes ago and there’s a huge storm coming straigh towards us.” Sawyer sighed. “Fine. But you owe me,” he pointed towards Jack. Jack nodded and motioned to Sayid to get you from outside. “Congratulations on your new home, Y/N,” Sayid said and he carried you inside.

It took some time for you to get comfortable, since there wasn’t really any soft surface for you to lay down on. “I love what you did with the place,” you said, in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Thank you. Lucky for me, my favourite colour is blue,” Sawyer said, motioning to the blue tarp. You chuckled. He continued reading. “I like your glasses,” you said. “Hm?” “Your glasses, I like them.” “Thank you. Do they make me look smart?” “Very. What are you reading.” Sawyer held his book up to you so you could read the title: ‘Braveheart’. “Is it any good?” “It’s all right. Do you want a book?” “Yes please! I am bored out of my mind!” “Let me see what I’ve got for you.” Sawyer started rummaging through his collection of books. “Robinson Crusoe? Lord of the Flies?” “How fitting,” you said, sarcastically. Sawyer let out a small chuckle. “Aha, maybe this one?” He held up ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’. “Yeah I’ll take it.” Sawyer moved towards you to hand you the book. “Oh wait!” you slapped your head in a dramatic manner. “How stupid of me! I’m so sorry but I don’t have my librarycard with me.” Sawyer looked confused at first, but then he smiled. “You’re a funny one. But it’s all right. Only this once, though.” “Thank you.” You stretched out your arm to take the book. “It’s all right if you take off your shirt.” You immediately retracted your arm. “What?” “I’m kidding! I’m kidding!” He urged you to take the book and you did. “You can make it up to me once that leg of yours has healed,” he said with a wink. You could feel your cheeks starting to turn red and you quickly opened your book, hiding your face behind it.

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

Hope you enjoyed this! Do we want a part 2?

#JAMES SAWYER #James Sawyer Ford #sawyer #james sawyer imagine #james sawyer ford imagine #james sawyer ford x reader #lost imagine #lost #sawyer imagine #sawyer x reader

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nowhereisnearmyhome · 1 year ago

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The Cowboy by James Tate

source and transcript under the cut

Someone had spread an elaborate rumor about me, that I was in possession of an extraterrestrial being, and I thought I knew who it was. It was Roger Lawson. Roger was a practical joker of the worst sort, and up till now I had not been one of his victims, so I kind of knew my time had come. People parked in front of my house for hours and took pictures. I had to draw all my blinds and only went out when I had to. Then there was a barrage of questions. “What does he look like?” “What do you feed him?” “How did you capture him?” And I simple denied the presence of an extraterrestrial in my house. And, of course, this excited them all the more. The press showed up and started creeping around my yard. It got to be very irritating. More and more came and parked up and down the street. Roger was working overtime on this one. I had to do something. Finally, I made an announcement. I said, “The little fellow died peacefully in his sleep at 11:02 last night.” “Let us see the body,” they clamored. “He went up in smoke instantly,” I said. “I don’t believe you,” one of them said. “There is no body in the house or I would have buried it myself,” I said. About half of them got in their cars and drove off. The rest of them kept their vigil, but more solemnly now. I went out and bought some groceries. When I came back about an hour later another half of them had gone. When I went into the kitchen I nearly dropped the groceries. There was a nearly transparent fellow with large pink eyes standing about three feet tall. “Why did you tell them I was dead? That was a lie,” he said. “You speak English,” I said. “I listen to the radio. It wasn’t very hard to learn. Also we have television. We get all your channels. I like cowboys, especially John Ford movies. They’re the best,” he said. “What am I going to do with you?” I said. “Take me to meet a real cowboy. That would make me happy,” he said. “I don’t know any real cowboys, but maybe we could find one. But people will go crazy if they see you. We’d have press following us everywhere. It would be the story of a century,” I said. “I can be invisible. It’s not hard for me to do,” he said. “I’ll think about it. Wyoming or Montana would be our best bet, but they’re a long way from here,” I said. “Please, I won’t cause you any trouble,” he said. “It would take some planning,” I said. I put the groceries down and started putting them away. I tried not to think of the cosmic meaning of all this. Instead, I treated him like a smart little kid. “Do you have any sarsaparilla?” he said. “No, but I have some orange juice. It’s good for you,” I said. He drank it and made a face. “I’m going to get the maps out,” I said. “We’ll see how we could get there.” When I came back he was dancing on the kitchen table, a sort of ballet, but very sad. “I have the maps,” I said. “We won’t need them. I just received word. I’m going to die tonight. It’s really a joyous occasion, and I hope you’ll help me celebrate by watching The Magnificent Seven,” he said. I stood there with the maps in my hand. I felt an unbearable sadness come over me. “Why must you die?” I said. “Father decides these things. It is probably my reward for coming here safely and meeting you,” he said. “But I was going to take you to meet a real cowboy,” I said. “Let’s pretend you are my cowboy,” he said.

#poetry #james tate

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fablesrose · 8 months ago

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Ch 15 - The Zanzibar Marketplace Job

Series Rewrite Masterlist

Pairing: Eliot Spencer x Ford!Reader

Description: Maggie gets arrested in Ukraine for stealing a priceless artifact. The team's got to go work with Sterling to get it back and clear her name

Words: 6560

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nate decided to let us help sort through possible clients, so the four of us, Nate, Tara, Eliot, and I were sitting around a table in McRory’s, looking through files. Hardison and Parker stood at the bar chatting, not wanting to over crowd. Nate explained his file which described a family whose pension disappeared and had their land seized by the state under eminent domain.

“So these are all your lost sheep?” Tara asked, flipping through her own folder.

“Excuse me?” Nate asked.

“Well, you know, you can’t save them all.”

Nate didn’t have a response to that and just stood, saying he was going to get a refill of coffee.

Tara looked between the two of us, “You know he’s drinking again.”

“I know,” I sighed at the same time Eliot said, “I’m not an idiot, Tara.”

“I was told this was a problem,” Tara said.

“Drinking’s not a problem,” Eliot corrected, “It’s a symptom.”

The conversation didn’t go further as Nate came back. I kept my head down, looking at the file I had randomly selected, but I wasn’t actually reading it. They were right, but I didn’t know what I could do about it. I couldn’t do anything, really. Nate made his own decisions and he was one of the most stubborn people I knew. While I could support him, and hope he stopped again. I couldn’t make him.

As I was lost in my thoughts I didn’t realize Nate had focused on someone who had walked into the pub until he said, “Eliot, I’m gonna ask you not to do anything violent.”

I looked up at Nate with a curious expression, why would he say that? I looked over to Eliot to see he had a similar look, but what caught my attention was the fact that Sterling was standing behind him.

“What?” Eliot said, “What are you talking about? I only use violence as an appropriate response.”

“Hello Nate,” Sterling said.

I watched as Eliot’s expression shifted for a split second before he stood quickly from his seat, turned and clocked him across the face. Sterling tried to fight back, even whipping out a baton, but he was nowhere close to even slowing Eliot down. A quick look at Parker and Hardison revealed that they were enjoying the show.

“And this is…?” Tara asked.

“James Sterling,” Nate answered, “we used to work together. Insurance.”

“Seems to rub Eliot the wrong way.”

“You could say that,” I answered this time.

Nate walked up to the pair as Eliot pinned Sterling to the table he had been beating him on. “Hello Sterling. What are you doing here?”

“Actually, I came to offer you a job,” he strangled out.

“There’s nothing you could say to make us work with you,” Eliot said.

“It’s Maggie.”

Nate looked at me for a moment before telling Eliot to bring him upstairs. Eliot hauled Sterling up and kept a tight grip on him until we all got to Nate’s apartment. Sterling, of course was being a bit whiny and dramatic about being beat up, particularly that first punch across the face. I grabbed an ice pack out of Nate’s freezer and, a bit pettily, tossed it at him. I was aiming at his face, but miscalculated and it hit lower at his chest and shoulder. Though, he still flinched at the pack being cold and hard when it hit, so I called it a win.

Sterling held the ice pack to his face as he explained the situation. A Faberge egg worth nine million dollars due to its rarity, was stolen from a Ukrainian museum. Maggie, who was working in that museum verifying Russian artifacts, was the only one in the building when the egg was stolen, therefore, she had been blamed.

“Who is…?” Tara asked.

“Maggie is Nate’s ex-wife,” Eliot answered quickly.

“Okay, is there any chance she took the egg?”

“No,” Parker answered this time, “Maggie is the most honest person we know, but besides that she’s okay.”

“Tara, she is probably a significant reason why I turned out, quote on quote, ‘normal,’” I added.

Nate came rushing down the stairs from his room, “Maggie is being set up.”

“You live, and work here?” Sterling asked incredulously.

“Yeah.”

“I like the old place better.”

“Do not mention the old offices,” Hardison demanded.

“Maggie is where, precisely, right now?” Nate asked before that anger could get too far.

“She is currently awaiting trial in the Kiev jail,” Sterling answered. “Of course when I heard that poor Maggie was being held without bail, I rushed-”

“Please,” Nate interrupted, “As soon as you found out that the Faberge egg that your company insures went missing, you-”

“Rushed to the Ukraine,” Sterling finished. “Of course I was unable to clear her name.”

“But I’m assuming you have another suspect.”

“Absolutely,” Sterling put a picture on the screen, “Alexander Lundy, international real estate mogul. Very rich, very powerful. My only problem is that he works at the American embassy, which makes him untouchable by normal law enforcement.”

“Guys we’ve got to book it, our flight to Kiev leaves in three hours,” Hardison insisted. Luckily we had all been multitasking getting our documents together.

“Hang on,” Eliot said before we all scattered to finish packing. “I’m not working next to this guy,” Eliot stated, pointing accusingly at Sterling.

“You don’t have to,” Nate assured, “I’ll work with him. You have a different job.”

“What?”

“Well, you’re the retrieval specialist,” Nate said, “retrieve my wife from jail, let’s go.”

Once we got to Kiev, Nate and Sterling went to meet with Alexander Lundy, and Tara, Hardison and Eliot went to get Maggie released from jail. Parker and I didn’t have anything to do at the moment, so we decided to go sightseeing for a little bit. We went to the museum, though I think Parker and I had different focuses. While I was admiring the art and artifacts, Parker couldn’t take her eyes off of the cameras and motion sensors.

We returned to the I.Y.S. offices where Nate and Sterling were holding their investigation. They had boards with paperwork pinned to it, trying to figure out just how to prove that Maggie had nothing to do with the missing Faberge egg, and that Alexander did it.

“That lying son of a-” Nate said, “I mean, look at these financials, the credit crunch wiped him out. He’s maybe three, four months from declaring bankruptcy.”

“Lundy offers up the egg to the museum exhibitions, so it falls under their insurance policy,” Sterling said, “hires a bit of local muscle to help with the heist, tidy payout.”

“Now, we just need some proof.”

Parker sighed from where she was perched on the counter, “It was an inside job. Average keypad hack time is one minute nine point three seconds, inner door access card takes at least thirty seconds for anybody but Hardison, and the vault was an old Mark two Remington.” She puffed, “In and out average, seven minutes forty seconds. With these thieves, they did it in five minutes twelve seconds. Maggie had the best access, so the real thieves only had to get her codes and badge… yeah, only way they could pull it off that fast.”

Sterling looked at Nate and I, “How long has she been sitting…”

I just nodded at him since she had been there the whole time, but Nate didn’t even bother.

“Maggie’s on his calendar,” Nate said as he looked through some files, “he had lunch with her the day of the heist to discuss his collection. So while he’s keeping her busy at lunch, his men take her ID card and access codes… She gets framed for the heist, oh boy, I’m gonna nail this son of a-”

The door opened across the room and none other than Maggie, the woman of the hour, walked into the conference room.

“I can explain,” Nate said quickly.

I walked over and gave her a hug while Parker laid out some supplies on the table to show Maggie. Maggie hugged me back a bit confusedly.

“We’re here to help,” I assured.

“Maggie, it’s not what you think,” Nate also assured.

Parker dragged Maggie over to the table, “It’s your first time being a fugitive, so I made you a bag.”

“Thank you, Parker,” Maggie said, “It’s not that I don’t appreciate getting out of jail, I just can’t live my life as a fugitive.”

“But you're not a fugitive,” Nate corrected, “You were released, not broken out.”

Parker was busy telling Maggie all the supplies she included in Maggie’s go back including a lock pick, toothpaste, and explosive gel, important not to mix up.

“But you released me to run. I’m not going anywhere until my name is cleared.”

“That’s what I’m here to do!” Nate said, “to get the egg back and to clear your name.”

Maggie looked at me, thinking I was less likely to lie to her.

“Yes,” I backed Nate up, “That is what we’re trying to do, we just didn’t want you sitting in jail while we do that though.”

She turned back to Nate, “but you’re clearing my name with thieves! No offense Parker.”

Parker gave her a puzzled look, “at what?”

“Actually,” Sterling said cooly, “Nate and Y/n here have been rehabilitated.”

I scoffed, “Please Sterling, freelancing is a more honest profession than whatever you do.” The fact that I hadn’t done freelancing for months was not a fact that either him or Maggie needed to know.

“Fine, Nate has been rehabilitated,” Sterling amended, “he’s here on official I.Y.S. business as a consultant. I brought him on.”

“You’ve gone straight?” Maggie asked.

Nate nodded but didn’t directly answer her, “the only reason they’re here is to deal with the authorities and to get you released and everything. They’re not staying.”

“Absolutely not,” Sterling said, “I don’t trust them, they don’t trust me.”

“Eliot already punched him,” Parker added, trying to help.

“Yeah, it’s all above board,” Nate concluded, “it’s perfectly legit. You know, I think, really the best thing you could do is go back to the hotel, get cleaned up and everything, and I’ll call you if anything happens.”

Parker then ushered Maggie away with the intention of further explaining the go bag without the discouragement of Nate. I followed after them to maybe help Maggie escape if need be. I was eventually able to convince Parker that we needed to go and get her ready to ‘leave.’ It was a small lie in front of Maggie, because in reality Parker did have to get ready to leave, but it was for the American Embassy, not for home. Parker and Hardison went to the embassy pretending to apply for a marriage visa in order to get information off of Lundy’s phone.

“Alexander has a travel visa to the United Arab Emirates,” Hardison said once they gleaned the info, “He’s also setting up accounts in the Caimans, Macao, and Switzerland.”

“Yes,” Nate said, “countries with no extradition treaty. Tax havens. Yeah, this does not look like someone who is going to wait around for the insurance payout.”

“And this guy showed up on his phone.”

“I know him,” Parker said. “That’s Adrian Chernov, he’s a fence.”

“Fence? So he’s selling it,” Hardison said.

“Oh yeah, sure he’s selling it,” Nate responded, “He’s going to sell that egg on the black market and run.”

“Gotta hand it to the guy, it’s a pretty good plan,” Parker remarked, “I almost feel a little bad for screwing it up.”

“Really? I don’t,” Nate stated.

I shot him a look, questioning his attitude for this job. Sure, Maggie was involved, but this pettiness wasn’t going to help in the long run.

“Uh, Hardison? Can you get Chernov’s location for Tara and Eliot, please?” Nate requested.

Hardison did as requested and sent Tara and Eliot on a mission. I was surprised at how quickly they were able to get some information, though it didn’t seem like much. The only thing that Chernov had on him was an envelope with a plain blank card inside. None of us could figure it out, so when they got back we called someone who might.

“It’s a Zanzibar marketplace,” Sophie said when we showed her the card, “The marketplace is a one time event, it crops up in a city when an important piece has been stolen. You should have seen Stockholm after the Rembrandt heist. Parking was a bloody nightmare!”

“If it’s a one time event,” I started, “how do people know to come? It’s not like you can advertise.”

“Well, the prospective buyers are invited by their black market contacts,” Sophie answered. “They show up, verify the merchandise, and they make a sealed bid. Hey, shine an ultraviolet light on that card.”

Hardison dug through his bag, pulling a small one out.

“Seriously?” Eliot asked, “you have one, just laying around?”

“And you’re surprised?” I asked in return. I had been eyeing the two braids he had in his hair the past couple of days. They originated from underneath layers of his hair, but were accentuated with beads at the end. I took the opportunity to give a playful tug to one of them, playing a bit with the bead.

Eliot lifted his eyebrow at me, but didn’t tell me off. I gave a soft smile before dropping my hand, turning part of my attention back to Sophie and the card. I felt a bit bold touching his hair like that, I hadn’t attempted to do so until now. I didn’t want to push it though, even if he didn’t have a negative reaction this time. In fact, I hadn’t touched Eliot in any capacity very often. Still, the bit of hair I did touch was soft, and I theorized I would be thinking about it in the future.

“The bidder’s ID number and the time of the auction’s encrypted on the card,” Sophie continued. “The bidders write their bid on the back of the card, one number, no zeros, and they hand it to the seller in a sealed envelope. They leave town immediately. A week later, if they win, they transfer the money, and the merchandise is couriered to them by a messenger as soon as the heat’s died down.”

As Sophie was explaining this, Hardison shone his little UV light on the card, and sure enough a time and bidding number appeared.

“So no names, no contact with the money, or the item?” Hardison clarified. “Nice.”

“Alright,” Eliot said, “so marketplace means multiple buyers at the same time. Where’s he gonna do this without drawing attention?”

“At the embassy,” Nate answered as he entered the room.

The three of us shared a look, glancing at Sophie who made a cutting motion on the screen. In response, Hardison slowly lowered the laptop screen, effectively ending the call.

Nate continued as if he hadn’t noticed, “Yeah, the American Embassy is having a party tonight. Perfect cover.”

“It’s a great place to store stolen merchandise,” Eliot pointed out. “Pretty much American territory, local cops can’t even get through the gate.”

“Well, even if we can prove that Alexander has the egg, police can’t touch him or search for it.”

“If we can’t let loose the dogs of law enforcement on him, what do we do?” Hardison asked.

“We, uh, steal the damn thing back,” Nate replied simply.

I guess it was settled. Luckily formal attire has been permanently placed on my packing list, it seems you can never predict when there’s a time to dress up. All of us attended the party, courtesy of Sterling and I.Y.S., except for Hardison due to Sterling being petty about almost being blown up. At least, so I hear.

The plan was for Tara to be the buyer and once the egg was located, Eliot and Parker would snatch it back. Hardison was in a van to run any technical support needed and I was there for additional personal support. Probably to be a distraction at some point.

This plan was quickly foiled when Sterling conveniently forgot to tell us that Alexander and Maggie were in a relationship. This was only revealed when they walked into the party together. That meant that Alexander saw Tara with Nate, blowing her cover to be the buyer. It also meant that Eliot and Parker had to be extra careful to avoid being seen. Nate had Eliot be the bidder now, which required the envelope that Tara had with the card.

“Parker,” Tara signaled, “Double reverse on three.” She took an empty glass and placed it along with the card on a waitress’s tray who was heading in her direction.

I watched from a separate corner as Parker snatched the card off the tray and handed it to Eliot as they passed each other walking in different directions. “Damn, that was smooth,” I said, mostly to myself, clearly impressed and slightly jealous.

Eliot gave me a quick wink through the crowd as he headed off to the auction which caused a blush to cross my face.

I kept my distance from Nate and Tara as Maggie and Alexander approached, not wanting to get in the middle of that if I didn’t have to.

Tara and Maggie introduced themselves to each other after a pointed exchange between Nate and Maggie. Alexander then thanked Nate for helping get Maggie out of jail.

“Oh, don’t mention it,” Nate said. “After all, what was I supposed to do, let her sit and rot in a Ukrainian jail, to think about the poor choices she’s made? Without setting things right, or explaining herself?”

I sighed and said to myself, “What is it with everyone being petty today?” I then said pointedly, “ Nate, what the hell? Stop-” I wasn’t sure what to say, “Just stop with the attitude please, you’re acting like a toddler.”

Tara grabbed a drink off of a waitress’s tray and raised it to the group, “Cheers.”

Eliot made it to the auction saying, “Alright Nate, he’s hired some local security on the payroll, watch yourself.”

I glanced around the ballroom, picking out the few security personnel I could see. There was enough that suggested that there was plenty between who he hired and regular security to make certain menouvers difficult if not impossible. Hopefully if everything went to plan, it wouldn’t come to that.

The two pairs made painfully awkward small talk across the room; I was glad I had decided to stay out of it. When Alexander excused himself, we knew it was go time. Eliot signaled they were about to present the egg and the rest of us prepared to get it back. What we didn’t expect was that the egg was presented as a video feed, meaning we didn’t know where it was.

Hardison worked on tracking the signal of the feed and Eliot delayed the auction by having them move the egg on the screen ensuring it was a live feed and not a recording. Luckily, Hardison was able to work his magic and identify that it was not only still in the embassy, but what room it was in. He sent the map to us and Parker went to grab it.

I was not as successful at blending into the crowd as Parker was, Maggie spotted me and wrapped me into a conversation with her and Tara. It was pleasant conversation, small talk at first, Maggie getting to know Tara. That’s to say, it was pleasant until Maggie just had to catch up with me.

“So…�� she said, “anything happen between you and Eliot?” She had an innocent smile, but the intonation was more suggestive.

I gave her a pointed smile, signalling her to drop it. “No, nothing’s happened. You know, with Nate cleaning up, going straight, I’ve only seen Eliot a couple of times since LA,” I lied. “Besides, we both know it was just the job, his character,” I said, this statement much less of one, if not completely true.

Maggie gave me a hum and a, ‘if you say so’ look.

I glanced at Tara who had a lifted brow, curious. I lifted my own brow in return, almost daring her to say something, but desperately hoping she wouldn’t.

Luck was on my side in this particular instance as the conversation shifted from my imaginary dating life to specifically them dating Nate. I saw Nate was walking towards us, so I gracefully excused myself to ‘grab a drink’ despite all the waitresses walking around. I started after Parker just in case something came up and she needed help.

Unfortunately, something did come up. When the video feed ended, the guard who was in the room with the egg exited, and started guarding the door. Parker had no way in. Everyone else was out of position. I was on my way to help distract him when I ran into Sterling.

We looked at each other for a moment in the hallway. He raised his bottle half empty bottle with a tilt of his head. I nodded, inferring what he was going to do and encouraged him down the hallway, leaving me a gap to follow.

He started to coughing and staggering down the hallway just before he turned the corner where the guard would be. I left a roughly ten second gap before I started calling down the hallway after him. I jogged a little bit at the end, not very fast in the shoes I was wearing, but enough to show I was chasing.

“Dad!” I said as I finally spotted him drunkenly leaning against the wall. The guard was already starting to approach him cautiously. I grabbed Sterling’s shoulder as if trying to stand him up again. “God dammit, I turn away for one second…” I feigned struggling to help him and turned to the guard who had closed the gap.

“Do you need help, miss,” the guard asked. Well, for a goon of the bad guy, he was sweet.

“Would you please?” I asked, stepping away from Sterling to give the guard some room. “He’s a drunk, I can barely keep track of him sometimes.”

“I’m not a drunk,” Sterling slurred, “you are very strong.”

“Thank you,” the guard said as he supported him down the hallway we came from.

I glanced to the other side of the hallway to see Parker sneaking around the corner towards the room. I nodded at her before turning back to Sterling and the guard, keeping him occupied. Parker communicated no issues when grabbing the egg and getting out. It didn’t take too long for the guard to get Sterling to a more respectable part of the embassy and for us to let him go back to his now empty post.

“Your welcome,” Sterling said after the guard had gone. “I don’t know how you people ever manage-”

He cut off and stuck his finger in his ear. Hardison apologized for comm feedback, but everytime Sterling tried to talk, the feedback came back. I saw that Parker was cracking a smile similar to mine each time it happened.

We were prepared to clear out with the egg, but Nate was suddenly nowhere to be found. We decided to regroup back at our temporary base of operations, aka the I.Y.S. conference room, before doing anything too drastic. When we got back, Hardison tried everything he could think of to contact Nate, but to no avail. He couldn’t find him anywhere.

“The case is closed, people,” Sterling whined, “the egg is back, I’m sure Nate is breaking it to Maggie about her continued bad choice in men.”

Before I, or anyone else, could snap back a retort, Hardison’s laptop rang with a call from Nate’s cell. When he answered, it was not Nate on the other end of the line.

“We have your people,” the deeply disguised voice said. “No police. Await further instructions.” It then hung up.

I immediately looked to Eliot, but my gaze shifted to Sterling who had begun to dial his phone.

“What are you doing?” Tara asked, reading my mind.

“Calling the police,” he said simply, “they don’t get to-”

Eliot snatched the phone before he could finish, “We’re not calling the cops. Two hostages means they can kill one to make a point.”

I nervously started chewing on the tip of my thumb, purposefully avoiding the nail. The focus and pressure on both my thumb and teeth was a distraction and outlet from the rising panic and anxiety rising through me. I couldn’t remember the stakes being this high, and for some reason, it felt that all the previous jobs and even my life before this was on easy mode, or even a dream, and that we had just entered the real world. Or maybe this was a dream, not really happening. Before I could spiral further, Eliot took charge, bringing my attention back to him.

“Alright listen, there's three types of calls we can get next,” Eliot began, “One: amateur. Cash and a dump site. Number two: professional. That’s wire transfers and multiple location drop offs.” Eliot then hesitated for half of a second, “And three: targeted.”

“Targeted towards us?” Hardison asked hesitantly.

“No,” Eliot answered, “towards a specific ransom demand.” He looked at the egg that was sitting in a case on the table, “not cash.”

Sterling was not having it, “You know, risking a nine million dollar artifact-”

“It might be the only chance!”

“On a hunch!”

Eliot was clearly irate as he rolled his eyes and rounded the table to stand behind the rest of us, facing Sterling.

“Let me run this,” Sterling continued, “we track the calls, find out whoever it is, let the police-”

“Sterling,” Eliot finally cut him off, “I’m the retrieval specialist. That’s my job.”

Sterling took a hard look at us, “Your friends’ lives hang in the balance, and you’re gonna take your cues from a punch up artist, instead of me?”

None of us verbally answered, it was clear where we stood. Sterling shifted his gaze across every one of us individually, testing the waters until he came to me.

“Even you, y/n? You trust him to save your dear Uncle Nate and Auntie Maggie and not me?”

I swallowed with a set jaw before answering because it was clear this time that he wanted an answer, “Yeah, Sterling. I trust him. I’d trust him with this any day of the week over you. And to top it off, I like him better too. So let. him. do it. Or there’s gonna be problems.” I could feel myself trembling softly, mostly through my hands which I was hiding behind the table. I couldn’t decide if it was fear, anger, or something else, but I started to chew on my lip once I finished talking to release some energy and keep myself from saying something stupid.

Sterling made an expression of acceptance and closed the case with the egg in it and grabbed it off the table. “Call me when you need me. Cuz you will need me.” He then walked out of the room with the egg in hand.

The rest of us looked at each other once he was gone. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. I guess this was it. We had to get Nate and Maggie back.

Eliot directed Tara and Parker to try to see where Alexander was, Tara to check his house, Parker to check around the embassy. Hardison continued to work on his laptop, trying to prepare or find anything that would help.

I paced around the room a couple of times before turning to Eliot. I was about to ask what I could do when he shook his head.

“There’s nothing you can do right now, we just have to wait,” he placed his hand on my shoulder which comforted me more than he would know and directed me to sit at the table. “We’re gonna get them back, I promise. I’m gonna get them back.” He held eye contact long enough for me to know that he meant it.

I nodded, letting him know that I believed him. He then removed his hand and sat at his own seat, thinking. I was so tired, this night had been long and now the stress was draining my energy even faster. I folded my arms on the table and rested my head. Just for a second, to rest my eyes. As hard as I tried to not fall asleep, Hardison’s quiet clacking on his keyboard slowly lulled away from consciousness.

I awoke with a start when Tara and Parker walked in the room sporting no news of where Alexander was except not at his house and that his embassy car was checked out.

“He’s angry,” Eliot said, “We took his payday.”

Just then, the phone rang. Eliot spread his hands with an ‘alright’ and pulled the conference speakerphone towards him.

“Go,” he said simply when he answered it.

“If you follow our instructions, your friends will be returned unharmed,” the distorted voice on the other end said.

“We agree. Tell us what you want.”

Hardison worked on reversing the distortion and succeeded which revealed Alexander’s voice.

“You owe me nine million dollars,” Alexander said. “I still have a buyer for the egg, return it, and I return your friends.”

“I want proof of life, now,” Eliot demanded.

Alexander hesitated, “Agreed.”

It wasn’t long before a webcam video was provided showing a storage room where Alexander’s assistant was handcuffed. The accountant was talking about Alexander’s finances when Nate walked into frame, saying that we had found all of the fishy stuff in his accounts. Maggie then walked into frame and started arguing about us being here.

“There’s our proof of life,” Eliot said.

“I was in that room earlier,” Parker said.

“That’s the room the egg was in.”

“They’re at the embassy.”

“That doesn’t do us any good,” Tara pointed out. “We can’t storm it and the police can’t touch it.”

The feed cut out.

“I sent you the address,” Alexander said, “Come alone, at dawn. Bring the egg, or your friends die.”

Eliot hung up, shoving the speaker away.

Hardison pulled up the address Alexander sent, “Okay, the address is one of Alexander’s construction sites. Local project. Abandoned once his business got in trouble.”

“So now we have to go convince Sterling,” Tara said. “Who hates you-”

“Us,” Parker corrected, “He hates us.”

“To loan you a nine million dollar antique,” she continued, “so you can bring it to a ransom drop.”

“Listen,” Eliot said, “We know who’s behind this. We know what they want. We have the upper hand here. We do.”

We started to prepare for the drop. Eliot was coming up with the plan, predicting an elevator drop since we were directed to go to one of the higher floors of the building. There was a moment where he stopped mapping it out and stared at the screen again where the webcam feed used to be.

“What is it?” I asked him when I noticed the furrowed brow.

“There wasn’t sound on the video during the auction, but there was sound for our proof of life,” he said thoughtfully.

I sat and thought on it for a minute, trying to find an explanation. The video played over in my head a couple of times before I thought I noticed something.

“The assistant…” I thought out loud, “He didn’t seem… right. For someone who had been taken hostage. It sounded almost…”

“Rehearsed,” Eliot finished for me. He finally broke his gaze at the screen and looked at me, “I think it’s him doing this, not Alexander.”

I rested my head on my hands, “So what does this mean?”

He tilted his head, “He kept this pretty well covered up, blaming Alexander, he might try to pull something.”

I hesitated, “Like… leave no witnesses, pull something?”

Eliot nodded, “Yeah.”

I took a deep breath, “So what now?”

He turned back to his notepad, scribbling a bit more before setting his pen down. “Well, I have a plan. Now to see if Sterling will give up the egg long enough for us to get Nate back.”

“Do you want me to handle that?” I asked, trying to be helpful, knowing full well the tension that would be there.

“No,” he responded simply, “I’ll talk to him.”

I sighed a little annoyed, “Eliot, don’t baby me, let me do something. I’ve felt useless the last few jobs, I want to help. I want to help get Nate back.”

“Hey,” Eliot stopped me, “I’m not babyin’ ya. I know you’re capable. I didn’t like the way he spoke to you earlier, to be honest. Just… don’t worry about anything, okay?”

I nodded meekly before saying a bit more light heartedly, “yeah, you’re right, you should do it. The underlying threat of him being punched in the face might help our case, huh?”

He gave me a crooked smile and a wink before going to make the call.

I looked up after him as he walked away when my eyes caught Tara’s from across the room. It looked like she had been watching the exchange with a tilt of her head. I tilted my head back at her and she walked over to sit across the table from me.

“How’re you holding up?” She asked.

I rubbed my eyes, “You’re the grifter, I’m sure you can tell.”

“It’s still polite to ask,” she said pointedly.

I gave a murmured agreement before answering, “I’m… okay. I trust the team. It’s just…” I trailed off, trying to find the words. “It’s just another one of those moments where it hits me how useless I am. I can’t contribute anything, I’m just dead weight that they have to worry about in case something goes wrong. You all have done this for years, you know the risks, how to navigate them. I’m trying, and I want to be here, but…” I didn’t know how to finish, but I figured I didn’t need to. I didn’t need to dump on Tara, she was here for the paycheck.

“Well, maybe they need a little bit of normal in their lives. Keeps them grounded,” she answered unexpectedly, to me at least.

I looked up at her for a moment, “That’s kind of you to say, Tara.” It was clear I didn’t quite believe her.

She stood up again, “Fine, if you won’t listen to me, at least listen to Eliot. Stop worrying about it. You said you trust the team. So trust them.” She walked out of the room, most likely going to the hotel to sleep.

That wasn’t a bad idea.

The next morning I was still stressed, but resting helped me feel a lot better. I wanted to wait with Eliot on the higher floor to be there when Nate and Maggie arrived, but he told me to go help Tara with her task. I was going to protest, but the stern, yet reassuring look he gave me encouraged me to go.

Tara and I waited around the corner, waiting for the embassy car that the assistant would come in. Once they pulled up, he and his guards entered the building with Nate, Maggie, Alexander, and a suspicious looking bag in tow. I handed Tara a screwdriver and she handed back a license plate that Hardison had linked to a stolen vehicle.

We each took a side and began to switch the embassy plates, making it officially a civilian car. When I had just finished up, Sterling came out of the building, the Faberge Egg in hand. I was going to ignore him, but he walked right up to me and the car.

“Can you get me into the trunk?” He asked seriously.

I furrowed my brow in confusion, “The trunk? You want me to stuff you in the trunk?”

His face twisted in a way that told me that he didn’t like the way it was phrased, but finally replied, “Yes.”

“Okay,” he didn’t have to tell me twice.

They had been stupid, or confident, enough to leave it unlocked so I simply pulled the trunk handle that was beside me and opened it up.

“In ya go,” I grabbed his arm and shoved him towards the opening.

He barely was able to catch himself and landed ungracefully. He twisted around to face me and said sarcastically, “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” I closed the trunk lid on his head, bumping it a little. I heard a muffled swear. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I’m sure a bruise wouldn’t hurt the act,” I answered loudly at him. I didn’t wait for another muffled answer and went to the other entrance to head up to the floor where everyone else was. Tara and I waited around the corner to watch them speed off first though.

When Tara and I arrived, Hardison was explaining how he sped up the elevators and then stopped them to give Parker time to switch out the bomb from the elevator and then put the elevators on track to arrive on time.

“Looks like we missed the party,” Tara said.

“Did they do what we thought?” Eliot asked.

“Yup,” I popped the ‘p.’ “Hopped into their ‘embassy’ car and sped off towards the airport.”

Tara and I raised the license plates, showing the switch. She dropped hers on the ground while I inspected mine for a moment.

“Might keep a souvenir,” I commented.

“How did you…” Nate asked.

Eliot explained the sound on the webcam and how he figured out who was really behind the theft and kidnapping.

“After that, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out,” he finished.

“You know, people underestimate you Eliot,” Maggie said.

“That’s kinda the point,” Nate replied.

Eliot turned towards the rest of us with a content smile for a moment before Alexander asked where the egg was.

“Yeah, in order for us to get the egg from Sterling, he made some additions,” Eliot said.

“Wouldn’t let the egg out of his sight, or too far from his grasp,” I added. I thought back to him coming out of the building with it and pushing him in the trunk, “He’s got it safe and sound.”

That settled it, so we left to go pack up and head home. Once we got there, we gathered in the pub for our celebratory drink. Except, the news was on. It showed Sterling crawling out of the embassy car trunk and telling the news how he discovered who had the egg and got it back.

“Based on his work recovering the priceless artifact,” the news anchor said, “He’s been invited to join Interpol. He’s a real life Sherlock Holmes.”

“That son of a gun,” I said. “I should have hit him harder with the trunk, knocked him out.”

“Yeah,” Parker said to me, “Interpol? Seriously?”

“Sterling’s career gets another bump because of our hard work,” Hardison said.

“We didn’t even get paid,” Tara added.

“Nope,” Hardison answered.

“I hate this guy,” she concluded.

Eliot knocked his beer against hers, “Now, you’re part of the team.”

I raised my glass, “Cheers.”

A/n: Reblogs and comments are welcome and encouraged! Thank you for reading!

Tags: @instantdinosaurtidalwave @kniselle @technikerin23 @kiwikitty13 @plasticbottleholder

#eliot spencer x reader #eliot spencer #leverage #rewrite #slow burn #multichapter #nate ford #sophie devereaux #alec hardison #parker #ford!reader

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agendabymooner · 1 year ago

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mean ! max v. x ofc (hearth sister!ofc) - tltl series

"all you are is mean. and a liar. and pathetic."

summary: sylvie hearth and max verstappen didn't think that their friendship would come to the point where one of them would be attending a court hearing and earning money out of it. they also didn't think they'd come to the point where their friendship shifted into something more than "friendly." (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)

content warning: literally blurb/filler chapter, use of explicit language, brief court hearing scenario, spoiler: sylvie is getting a hot wheels shelf, shitty ex-friends, mentions bullying, defamation, protective!Toto, they're so in love and it's so apparent

note: mustang and cadillac are at it again :))) i also do not know much about where max's karting career as a child?? so forgive me if some of them are incorrect

masterlist

Sylvie Ford’s Former Racing Academy Issues an Apology Five Years After Her Expulsion, Claiming The Report of Misconduct Was False.

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen Addresses Sylvie Ford’s Expulsion from Their Academy - The young driver publicly expressed his guilt for believing the false information.

Sylvie Ford Sues Former Academy Classmates For Defamation and Emotional Distress — The Defendants Hoping to Receive $1M each for Damages in their Public Images.

2017

“This complaint was filed by Miss Tilly Hearth on February 12, 2008.”

“Yes.”

“Can you please tell us more about the complaint?”

“I don’t know much, but from what I am told, it was against me.”

“It says here that the report was made two months after Miss Hearth entered the Rotax Max Minimax class. You have been constantly teasing her about her abilities in the tracks.”

“If that’s what it says there,” Matt Bauer’s face remained impassive as he continued to look straight ahead.

“Looking at the records, it’s almost as if there is a report filed against you, Mr. Elias Whittaker and Mr. James Hudson every other month for the same reason from the same person— which is bullying,” Sylvie’s lawyer, Alicia, said.

“Objection,” the man’s attorney said from their table, “argumentative.”

“It’s not, Attorney Peterson,” the judge said, “Attorney Mason is simply stating the reports’ reasoning. Unless you missed something while you’re reading the evidence?”

Sylvie sighed quietly, her chin resting against the table while listening. Her other lawyer, Kim Halloway, sat next to her. The man nudged her side lightly, making her tilt her head in his direction before shooting him a smile.

She was getting bored of the hearing. But now that she thought of it, Aimee and Stevie were feeling that way somewhere in the back room.

This was way worse than Legally Blonde if you were to ask any of them. But then again, the Hearth sisters never really expected to find themselves in the court at this early stage of their adulthood.

It was already 2017, and what was a better way to start the year than to find out that your sister was bullied and kicked out of the academy without your knowledge? Not even their mother knew what happened, just that she left the class and continued her education.

Sylvie was headstrong, and she never backed out of a challenge. After each time her sister Tilly reported what she saw, Sylvie merely shrugged it off. She ignored the boys’ behaviour so much that she couldn’t face the consequences of her mental health.

Her family had been disappointed, of course, because why would she hide it away? She would’ve gotten the help that she needed. But the disappointment didn’t last long. Instead, they all started to find a way to speed up the process of the hearing— finding the best lawyers in England and getting each evidence to support her case.

And when Max Verstappen promised he’d be there for her, he never lied. He spent his Christmas with Sylvie and her family as they worked together on stating the case and essential details. Max decided not to spend his time with Dad, just telling him he’ll spend his time in England with Lando. Victoria had flown in to spend the holiday with him and their mother, Sophie, but left after.

He spent so much time with her that he nearly pissed himself whenever Toto visited the estate with Tilly and their son. Toto still didn’t like Max, and it was apparent. Was it because he was a Red Bull driver, or was it because he was a boy who was acting way friendly with Toto’s sister-in-law? Max really couldn’t tell. Looking at the Austrian man who would immediately turn his way was hard.

Regardless, Max remained there. By the third day of the hearing, he was brought up to provide his testimony. He gave them everything that needed to be heard, including how his “friends” manipulated him and how he felt so guilty about not finding out sooner.

And speaking of friends, Matt Bauer and the other two tried reaching out to Max, but the Dutchman didn’t have it. He never looked in their direction whenever they were outside the court, only keeping Sylvie close as they walked out of the courtroom.

So yes, this was more boring than Legally Blonde. Because Max wasn’t there as he finished his duty and nobody could sass her beside him. This wasn’t the kind of hearing she wanted. She really wanted him to chat shit.

She might text him after this.

The lawsuit hearing ended when the jury decided that Sylvie Hearth won her case. Therefore, she was receiving £1.5 million from the three men. Of course, they were outraged, but it was their fault that they had acted like fools. They couldn’t use the “boys will be boys” as an excuse because they all knew that even Max and their other racing friends wouldn’t do something as stupid as falsely exposing their only female counterpart, who had been kind and honest to them.

Hearing his phone going off, Max Verstappen peered down at his screen and found Sylvie’s childhood photo and her specific ringtone displayed. He excused himself from his father, who had asked him where he was going. He merely waved off Jos, going outside to answer the call.

“Hello,” he greeted her. He really should have worn earplugs.

“MAX EMILIAN!” Sylvie screamed through the other side of the call, “WE WON BITCH!”

“YAY!” Max nearly jumped up and down in joy as his smile widened. “You won!”

“I’m a million and a half pounds richer, Max!” She cackled hysterically, “They’re paying me a million and a half!”

“Look at you!” He exclaimed, “And I thought Christian’s paying you well this year.”

“A million and a half…” she muttered quietly before saying, “You know what that means, Max?”

“What?”

“WE CAN GET A CUSTOM HOT WHEELS SHELF FOR MY FLAT!” Sylvie squealed in excitement. Max could hear the kicking of her feet from the other end. “Max! My collection’s going to be displayed!”

Max only laughed at her excitement. He definitely missed her. This Sylvie, he meant. He missed Sylvie, who would get excited over any ordeal. It could be her podium win or the downfall of their enemy— he didn’t care; he missed Sylvie like this. God, the things he would do to see her giddy face.

Maybe it was terrible for him to laugh at his ex-friends’ demise, but it wasn’t that bad if Sylvie got the last laugh. Perhaps next time, they shouldn’t treat anyone like that again— they’d still be able to keep half a million pounds in their bank account if they decided to do so.

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muiitoloko · 9 months ago

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The World

Summary: Harry comes home tired, but you're there to relax him.

Pairing: Harry Deane (Gambit 2012) × Fem!Reader

Warnings: Smut and fluff.

Harry trudged through the door of his modest London flat, the weight of the day's frustrations heavy on his shoulders. He shrugged off his Tom Ford suit jacket, tossing it carelessly onto the nearest chair, and loosened his tie with a sigh of relief.

"Another day, another dollar," he muttered to himself, the memory of his encounter with the pompous Lionel Shabandar still fresh in his mind. That man had a way of getting under his skin like no other, with his condescending remarks and haughty demeanor.

Just as Harry was about to sink into the depths of his own misery, you appeared from the kitchen, a vision of domestic bliss in your apron, a smile playing on your lips. You crossed the room in a few quick strides, pressing a soft kiss to Harry's lips.

He dropped his document bag with a thud, the weight of it suddenly inconsequential compared to the warmth of your touch. All he wanted in that moment was to wrap his arms around you, to bury himself in the comfort of your embrace.

And as he nuzzled into the crook of your neck, inhaling the comforting scent of spices wafting from the kitchen, Harry felt the tension slowly begin to melt away. But deep down, he knew that there was only one thing that could truly ease his troubled mind—sex.

"Darling," he murmured against your skin, his voice husky with desire. "I don't suppose you could... help me unwind a bit?"

You chuckled softly, running your fingers through his hair as you teased, "Is that all you ever think about, Harry?"

He pulled back slightly, a mischievous glint in his eye as he grinned, "Well, it's certainly the first thing that comes to mind when I see you in that apron."

You playfully swatted at his arm, shaking your head in mock disapproval. "You're incorrigible, Mr. Deane." But despite your protestations, there was a spark of desire in your eyes, a mutual understanding passing between you as you shared a knowing glance.

So you sent him to wait for you in your room while you finished dinner, and Harry picked up his briefcase from the floor and headed to his room, anticipation bubbling inside him like a bottle of soda shaken and ready to pop. He dropped the suitcase with an exaggerated care that he hadn't had before, dropping the suitcase as if he were handling a delicate artifact in a museum.

With a theatrical flourish, he began the meticulous process of undressing, his movements almost choreographed in their precision. Each article of clothing was carefully folded and set aside, a testament to Harry's meticulous nature.

And once he was down to his underwear and socks, Harry paused, a mischievous twinkle in his eye as he surveyed the room. With a sudden burst of inspiration, he decided to strike a pose, channeling his inner James Bond as he lounged on the bed with all the suavity of a seasoned secret agent.

But as he attempted to find the perfect balance between sexy and casual, Harry couldn't help but feel a pang of self-consciousness. After all, he was no Daniel Craig, with his chiseled jawline and steely gaze. No, Harry Deane was just an ordinary man, with ordinary desires and a penchant for getting himself into extraordinary situations.

And here he was, a middle-aged art curator with a penchant for trouble, attempting to channel the spirit of Bond in his own modest flat.

You then entered the room, your hands absentmindedly smoothing down your clothes as you asked, "Harry, babe, wouldn't you like to have dinner first?"

But your words trailed off as you caught sight of Harry, frozen mid-pose on the bed, his expression a hilarious mix of concentration and uncertainty. He started at the sound of your voice, attempting to sound casual as he directed a sexy purr in your direction that only made you burst into laughter.

"Oh, darling," you chuckled, shaking your head affectionately. "What on earth are you doing?"

Harry tried to maintain his composure, his cheeks flushing pink with embarrassment as he attempted to explain. "Just, uh, trying out some new poses," he mumbled, his voice sheepish.

You couldn't help but laugh at his antics, feeling a surge of affection for the man who never failed to entertain you with his quirks and idiosyncrasies. Crossing the room, you climbed onto the bed beside him, pressing a soft kiss to his lips as you reached out to caress his chest.

"Are you sure you don't want to have dinner first?" you asked, your voice filled with teasing amusement. "I made your favorite—spaghetti carbonara."

But suddenly Harry's response was a low growl, his hands sliding down to grip her thigh possessively as he whispered in her ear, "I'm already having dinner, darling. The main course, in fact."

You couldn't help but giggle at his blatant innuendo, your cheeks flushing with a mixture of amusement and desire. "Well, in that case," you replied, trailing a finger down his chest teasingly, "I suppose I could skip straight to dessert."

And with that, you leaned in to capture his lips in a heated kiss, your bodies melding together in a passionate embrace. And when you trailed kisses down Harry's stomach, he tried to protest, insisting that he should be the one to take care of you after your long day of keeping the house in order. But you silenced him with a soft silence, your lips pressing against his skin in a trail of fire that left him breathless.

"Shh, Harry," you murmured against his abdomen, your voice soft and soothing. "Let me take care of you for once. You've had a long day at work, and you deserve to be pampered."

With that, you continued your descent, your lips blazing a trail of heat as you moved lower and lower, until you reached the waistband of his underwear. With practiced ease, you hooked your fingers beneath the elastic, slowly pulling them down to reveal Harry's half-hard length, exposed and eager for your touch.

Harry groaned at the sensation, his head falling back against the pillows as pleasure washed over him in waves. "Oh, fuck," he muttered, his voice a low growl of desire. "Yes, just like that."

You smiled against his skin, a sense of satisfaction coursing through you as you took him into your mouth, your lips wrapping around him in a tantalizing embrace. Harry's hips bucked instinctively, seeking more of the delicious friction you provided, but you held him steady, savoring the taste of him on your tongue.

"Mmm, that's it, darling," you encouraged, your voice a husky murmur in the quiet of the room. "Tell me about your day at work. I want to hear all about it."

Harry's mind was a whirlwind of sensation, his thoughts scattered as you worked your magic on him with practiced ease. But he knew he couldn't deny you anything, not when you looked at him with those eyes, filled with warmth and adoration.

So, he complied, and you continued to pleasure he with your skilled touch, his body responded eagerly, his breath coming in ragged gasps as desire consumed him. But amidst the haze of pleasure, his thoughts kept returning to the source of his frustrations—Lionel Shabandar.

"God, that damn man," Harry muttered between moans, his voice tinged with irritation. "I swear, he's like a thorn in my side, always there to ruin my day."

You sighed softly, your hand never faltering as you stroked him with practiced precision. "Why do you let him get to you, darling?" you asked gently, your tone filled with concern. "He's just one man, after all."

But Harry's response was tinged with bitterness, his words dripping with resentment as he vented his frustrations. "You don't understand, love," he replied almost irritably, his grip tightening on the sheets beneath him. "Shabandar treats me like I'm nothing, like I'm beneath him. It's infuriating."

You leaned in closer, pressing a soft kiss to his chest as you murmured soothingly, "I know, darling. But you're worth so much more than how he treats you."

Harry's breath caught in his throat at your words, a swell of emotion rising within him as he realized just how lucky he was to have you by his side. "I wish I could be like him," he admitted, his voice tinged with longing. "Rich, powerful, able to spoil you rotten."

You couldn’t help but smile at his words, feeling a wave of love and desire wash over you as your hand continued to please him with renewed fervor. “Oh, Babe,” you moaned softly, your voice a breathless whisper in the silence of the room. "You already give me everything I could want."

And with that, you redoubled your efforts, your hands and lips working in tandem to drive Harry to the brink of ecstasy. As his moans grew louder and more desperate, you knew that he was teetering on the edge, ready to succumb to the pleasure that awaited him.

"Hmmm, yes, just like that," Harry groaned, his voice a guttural cry of pleasure. "Fuck, I'm so close, darling. Don't stop."

And you didn't, not until Harry was consumed by the intensity of his release, his body trembling with the force of his orgasm. As he collapsed against the pillows, spent and sated, you couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction wash over you.

Wrapping your arms around him, you held him close, reveling in the warmth of his embrace as you whispered words of love and reassurance in his ear. And as the two of you stayed locked in each other's embrace, Harry's desire for you only grew stronger. With a tender kiss, he helped you out of your clothes, his lips trailing along your skin as he worshiped every inch of your body. He lingered on your breasts, leaving a trail of kisses and promises against your soft flesh.

"I'll spoil you, darling," he murmured between kisses, his voice filled with longing. "One day, I'll buy you the most exquisite jewelry, the finest clothes… anything your heart desires."

You moaned softly in response, your body arching into his touch as he caressed you over your cotton panties. "I don't need those things, Harry," you replied breathlessly, your words punctuated by the sensation of his fingers teasing you through the fabric.

But Harry was determined, his desire to lavish you with gifts burning brightly in his eyes. "It doesn't matter if you don't need them," he insisted, his voice husky with desire. "I want to give them to you, to show you how much you mean to me. One day, you won't have to save every penny anymore."

With a wicked grin, Harry slipped his fingers beneath your panties, his touch sending shivers of pleasure coursing through you. As he penetrated you with two fingers, he continued to whisper sweet promises in your ear, his voice a seductive melody that drove you to the brink of ecstasy.

"I'll give you the world, my love," he breathed against your ear, his fingers moving with expert precision as he brought you to the edge of pleasure. "And you'll never have to doubt how much you mean to me."

You could only moan in response, the overwhelming pleasure of his touch leaving you gasping for breath. "Oh, Harry," you whispered hoarsely, your voice filled with need. "One day, I hope you realize… you already are my world."

And with those words hanging in the air between you, Harry continued to pleasure you with unparalleled skill and devotion, his fingers taking you to heights of ecstasy you had never known before with anyone else but him. In that moment, as pleasure consumed you both, you knew that no matter what challenges lay ahead, as long as you had Harry by your side, your world would always be full of love, passion, and limitless possibilities.

#harry deane #gambit 2012 #lionel shabandar #harry deane x reader #colin firth #alan rickman

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ave09 · 1 year ago

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Ooooh Jack Ryan needs some lovin’!!! Maybe a cute fic in which Jack Ryan and fem!Reader (who is a baker) are married and he comes home from a long overseas assignment to his wife missing him since it’s their wedding anniversary and she wasn’t sure if he’d be home in time to celebrate?

ofc!!

i’m trying to get as many requests written and uploaded as possible, if you submitted one i’m sorry for the wait but i PROMISE i will get it written and posted!

time

harrison ford!jack ryan x wife!reader

you glanced at your watch again. 11:02 p.m.

the day was almost over, and yet, jack was not home.

you couldn’t be mad, of course, it was only a possibility he could return today, nothing was for sure. but you couldn’t help getting your hopes up.

maybe, just maybe, he’d have been home in time to celebrate your wedding anniversary. you had kept yourself occupied all day, baking far too many pastries for you or even you and jack to ever eat. baking was your escape. when you were frustrated, you baked.

when you were happy, you baked.

when you were anxious, you baked.

when you were missing your husband who was away overseas, you baked.

it was your outlet, a good one at that.

and you’d spent the entire day baking, trying to distract yourself from the day, and trying to distract yourself from the fact that jack most likely wasn’t returning home today.

you let out a sigh, nestling into the armchair you found yourself curled up in.

this was jack’s chair. the very chair he occupied almost all day whenever he had days off. he would read files, nap, cuddle with you.

it was his spot, and it felt so strange to see it constantly empty in his absence.

oh, how you missed him.

you watched the minutes tick by, hoping he would walk through that door.

but he never did.

as time crawled by, you found yourself overcome with exhaustion. slowly but surely, you slipped into unconsciousness, dreaming of your husband returning home to you…

— — —

“honey?”

that voice was familiar. very familiar. you stirred slightly, but remained most unconscious.

you felt a hand on you cheek, a thumb caressing the skin lightly, “oh darling, you weren’t crying, were you?”

now you knew you weren’t dreaming. you opened your eyes slightly, a blurry figure hovering over you.

“jack..?”

you blinked rapidly, your vision clearing as you caught sight of your husband’s handsome

face. “it’s me, darling.” you practically jumped awake, eyes widening as you threw your arms around his shoulders.

a deep chuckle came from him as he pulled you close, “i missed you too.” he whispered, burying his head in the crook of your neck. it had been months since you last saw him.

“god jack, i don’t know if i can keep doing this.” you mumbled, tears obscuring your vision.

“i know, darling, i know.”

he hated leaving you. but when he was called to serve his country, he had no choice.

“but i won’t have to leave for a long time.” you pulled away, confused. “what do you mean?”

“i mean, it’s our tenth anniversary. i talked to james, and i’m getting some time off.”

“what?”

“you heard me. time off. i’ve booked us a nice vacation at that cottage up in the mountains you love so much, a tenth anniversary is a big step, and i wanted to spend it with you. obviously my timing is a little off though but we make it work.”

you glanced at the watch, a smile gracing your lips as you read the time. 11:59. you looked back at your husband, “you’re right on time.”

you then kissed him, and it was just as magical as it had been at the alter all those years ago.

being married to a cia agent was tough, you’d worry constantly, wondering if he was going to make it home on time or even at all…

but you had jack, and that’s all that mattered.

#harrison ford x reader #harrison ford #harrison ford movies #young harrison ford #jack ryan #jack ryan x reader #jack ryan imagine #patriot games #clear and present danger #indiana jones x reader #han solo x reader

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modishmeliadus · 11 months ago

Text

Happy New Year!

Here’s my first chapter of my BMFM fic: Bonded.

(I would have updated to ao3 but I need an invite and I'm impatient.)

After her departure from the military Marianna Davidson has returned home to reunite with her younger sister Charley after six years of being separated. But, Chicago is no longer what she remembers, let alone the sister she left behind. Can she make up for their lost time? And can she get used to Charley’s unusual friends and the fear that they strike in her? And when the chips are down will she do what she can to save their lives, or will she let them fall?

Tw: explicit language, cigarette usage, slight panic attacks from original character, slight animal cruelty, and original character briefly thinking violent thoughts.

Will include more in-depth TW and synopsis when updated to ao3. For now, this is what the chapter offers.

Marianna was sitting on the curb outside of Steinhaur’s diner, the only place in Chicago she felt like being at right now when Hall came up walking out from his pickup truck that he parked somewhere behind her. Silently, and infuriatingly watching her as she smoked down her cigarette to the filter. She had just spent thirteen hours with the man in that rusted old Ford and was still unhappy to see him.

It was the coldest day in Autumn for Chicago on record, at least in the last six years that she could recall. She could see the electronic thermometer posted underneath a bank sign which happened to be directly across from the diner, still reading a cool twenty degrees Fahrenheit since the moment she sat down.

God only knew why this hellhole was staying so frozen months before winter.

Marianna worked as an army nurse and had been doing so for the last six years, which meant as of recently, her time was up in the military. She swore on her life, hand on the Bible that she would give her country seventy-two consecutive months of her life. Mainly, to administer penicillin shots and look at deformed genitalia at the base's military hospital.

But, she gave it regardless. Now, her time was up. She could have ripped her military contract up and traveled home in that instance. Giving the military the huge middle finger on the way out for all the grief she faced for the last seventy-two months. But, she lingered, for whatever ungodly reason she didn’t know.

Maybe it was the way the higher-ups or even the way Hall had coaxed her to think differently. To stay in the military, join the reserves, finish her education, and ‘come back better than ever!’. It wasn’t what most did. It wasn’t even brought up as an option to most people. People who were not interested in the fight for their country and leaning more on the healing side were just not as valued. At least, not in her experience.

“You never know,” Hall had told her with a knowing smile, “You could get a promotion one day!”

But, she already moved up in the ranks before. Straight from second lieutenant to first after she graduated nursing school, then remaining stagnant for the rest of those six years. She didn’t think she could move any further. Perhaps, that’s why she agreed. Wanting to achieve that little twenty-one-year-old’s dream of reaching Captain, or maybe even Major. That was the odd thing about moving up in the ranks, you didn’t get much from it. Perhaps a raise in pay, and a little respect. But, you still wanted it all the same. Mari had wanted that at one point, too.

But, unlike Lieutenant Colonel James Hall. Who was one of her base’s licensed nurses, her nursing professor, and above all, her superior. Whether or not Marianna wanted what he had was still up in the air. Marianna very much identified herself as a drifter and enjoyed being moved from place to place depending on her deployment. Climbing up the ranks meant stability, and having to stay and chip away at the mountains of red tape that a higher rank demanded didn’t seem like her speed. Now, Mari had already decided that Hall could keep all that responsibility to himself. Marianna, on the other hand, enjoyed going back to her bed at a cool seven AM after a full shift wherever she was sent. And not having to stay in one place for more than a year or two.

But, she still agreed to join the reserves despite it all.

She realized, somewhere at least, that she should be happy that she could avoid deployment for the first time in six years. That she could get off of active duty. That she served her respective time. She should have been thrilled. She could stay home, sleep in her bed, wash up in her shower.

Be with her family.

Marianna cringed back into her neck at the thought, taking one of the five empty cans of soda she was collecting as ammo and hurled it at the fat, plump-bellied vermin as it tried to cross over her feet again. She had been hurling cans at the little creatures for the past fifteen minutes as they ran back and forth on the empty street, occasionally running over her boots and bringing out an uncharacteristic amount of fear in Marianna. She watched as the little rat gave a pathetic squeak as the can banked off its chunky body and ricocheted away to be carried off by the harsh autumn wind. It looked back at her with offending, rabid eyes before it scurried away.

That was the one part of Chicago she hated. Or any big city for that matter. The rats. Rodents, specifically, were one of those creatures that Marianna had no trouble hating with their small, unblinking eyes and round bodies jumping with lice and all assortments of diseases. Normally, she wouldn’t show her cruelty for another life so willingly in front of another person. But, this time Hall had caught her like the sneaky sonuvabitch he was.

“What are you doing, Mari?”

“The rats,” She answered, realizing how lame she must have sounded when all the rats now had scurried away from her warpath moments ago, all beyond the last brave one she chucked at. “They kept touching my feet.”

Hall nodded once, briefly. He was a behemoth of a man, large and beefy with a blond buzz cut right down to the scalp. His eyes were a tired, graying blue, speckled with age and deep fine lines from his many decades in the service. He was out of his fatigues now, she noticed and wore a crisp white button-up with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, which contradicted with his rough and torn denim jeans. He looked at her closely, “You shouldn’t be doing that, you know. Those things bite.”

“I was throwing shit at them so that they wouldn’t bite me.” She answered, blandly.

Hall nodded as if the topic no longer interested him.

“I can tell you’re avoiding going in.” He said, tilting his head at the entrance of the diner before returning his gaze to her.

She didn’t answer him, just mindlessly twirled an empty can of soda in her hands as she waited for more rats to appear. Until she felt a sudden sharp poke on her left shoulder, forcing her to look back at him. Hall was pushing a small box of menthols into her shoulder with an easy smile. “You can’t avoid her forever.”

“She’s not even in there.” She said, waving a hand in the direction of the near-empty parking lot. Showcasing only three motorcycles and his pickup truck in the minimal spaces. Like this would have been enough to prove her point.

“But she’s going to be. You said so yourself, best to get the drop on her in a public space than just showing up at her home.”

Marianna grunted. Understanding that she did indeed say that and still believed it was a better idea than barging in her sister’s home, metaphorical hat in hand, and on her knees in forgiveness. She knew people had to do embarrassing, and sometimes rude things to be forgiven. But, a line had to be drawn somewhere.

Coldly, she gently took the menthols from his hand and began unwrapping the protective plastic. Reaching for her lighter in her jacket pocket with a fresh cigarette fitting neatly between her lips. Marianna had already changed out of her uniform fourteen hours ago. Opting to wear her faded tight blue jeans, under an army green tee-shirt that read “Army Nurse.” Her father’s worn leather jacket wrapped snugly around her form. Letting her red hair drape down her back to produce some well-needed heat to her neck.

She wanted to look like herself for her sister. Instead of the soon-to-be-nurse dreaming of saving all the heroes six years ago. That person didn’t even exist to Mari anymore.

Initially, she had been planning to take a bus or a plane from New York to Chicago. Hall, stopping her before she could even consider buying a bus ticket, already planned on going to Chicago for his annual trip to see his son. But, she knew his real reason for insisting he take her. He knew her history, knew she would take any reason to chicken out about going home.

“Your contract is up,” He had said to her, holding her luggage in one hand before tossing it into the back of his truck. “And your new one for the reserves doesn’t start for another two months. I’ll take you. It’s on the way. It’s cheaper.”

She still had no idea why she agreed. Only choosing to do everything on a whim before she changed her mind. The need to see her sister, her family, was so immense that she didn’t even bother to let the fact that she wouldn’t want to see Mari begin to cloud her judgment.

Now, she didn’t want to move, regret gluing her boots firmly to the payment. And instead of looking back at Hall, she looked over at Steinhaur’s parking lot again. Fixing on the same spot as she had been the whole time she was here.

Only six places were put side by side at the curb of the diner, and on any given day only three of four were used when she lived here. Even in the farthest recesses of her childhood, this place was never busy. Still wasn’t even now. Today, only three places were used with three motorcycles in the limited space beyond Hall’s truck. Marianna had been watching the bikes, waiting for the owners of the bikes to come out for a long while. Mainly, to ask them questions on their models and makes. But, when they never came out she just opted for just staring at them.

Two out of the three were packed into one space together. Modern and sleek in design. One was cherry red, perhaps a Suzuki series, she surmised. Made to be a sports vehicle to be admired and looked upon. The other was a dark blue motorcycle of what she believed to be a Honda Valkyrie. A true beast of a motorcycle with a monstrous amount of horsepower and purr in its engine.

The last bike, sitting alone in a single space beside its beautiful brothers, had Marianna salivating with envy. A brand new Daytona Harley-Davidson. Black, sleek, slim, and with bright shades of silver in its chrome trim.

If she remembered correctly, only 1,700 of those babies were produced. What she wouldn’t give to jump into its seat and take it for a spin.

Marianna used to work on bikes, cars, and vehicles of all sorts. Motorbikes are one of her favorites. She tinkered with them, played with them, and even blew one up in her father’s garage once when she was a teenager. She was never as proficient as her sister probably is now as an auto body mechanic, but she knew how to work a motorbike and how to make it work for her. It was the one thing she had pride in.

But, she noticed, the bikes had no logos, no insignia, no brand markings of any kind. Just smooth paint where the mark should be. And while she remarked that this wasn’t out of the ordinary. Even some of her old clients made specific remarks that they wanted old brand markings rubbed out, pulled off, and recovered with a new coat of paint. But, most wanted that status symbol. For people to see their brand new Honda or Harley-Davidson. It was an ego thing if nothing else.

Additionally, the designs were off in the small details of the bikes. As if the bikes were built lovingly by skilled hands from the ground up. Pieces were mix-matched, bending in weird shapes she didn’t recognize for particular bike parts, and above all, an odd shape was given to each of the bike's headlights.

They were shaped exactly like a mouse head. Round faces with rounded ears on each side. Or, at least as round as forging metal could provide. Which ended up giving the mouse heads a bit more of an angular shape.

A gang symbol, perhaps? She wasn’t sure, it had been so long since she had been involved with Chicago’s darker underbelly.

Marianna took a deep, final drag of her cigarette, mashed it out on the curb, and turned to look at Hall. He was leaning against the wall of the diner now, directly beside the entrance. His arms crossed, with that ensuring and relaxed look in his gaze. Waiting for her.

Grimacing, she got up, freezing, and strode over to him. Called him an asshole one more time, and opened the front door.

The first thing she noticed when she opened the door, is that she was right. Her sister was indeed not there, or at least, not yet. But, she knew the room; had known it all her life. It was rectangular, the walls a creamy white, and decorated with small black and white photographs. A counter ran the length of over half of the entire room near its center and was decorated with old-fashioned cushioned stools. On each side of the room was a table with decorated red and blue cushioning. Above her blue fluorescent lights flickered, carrying the dead and long-gone corpses of flies in their casings.

Not a single thing about this place had changed since the 50s, and that brought on a sense of comfort for Marianna.

In the back, through the kitchen window, she could see the head of Mr. Steinhaur. Still as tall and as lanky as she remembered, he lowered his head at whatever task he had at hand. She couldn’t see him, not fully from her angle, but could still see the wisps of white hair peaking out from his soda jerk hat, and that tanned patch of skin on his forehead; but she still smiled at him, at that small mental image she was exposed to. She knew he would still look like that old, jolly man that she remembered from her childhood and it had effectively cooled at what anxiety she felt.

Then she looked over at the three figures at the end of the counter closest to the kitchen window.

Good God, that is a lot of hair.

It was three men, or what she supposed were men. Each sits side by side at the far left side of the bar. They were young, maybe even Marianna’s age, but it was impossible to tell with all that hair in the way.

Two out of the three of them were ideally chatting to one another with loud and booming voices. One sitting calmly with his hand wrapped around a beer stein, the foam of it dripping off the sides and lazily onto his hand. Which was also covered in an unrealistic amount of fur.

The younger one, which Marianna decided solely based on his young, almost chubby face beneath the mounds of stark white fur. On his right side he appeared to have a metallic, chrome mask covering the entirety of his right eye and cheek. He was shirtless, beyond a pair of green bandoleers crossing over his broad chest. He was the instigator of his friend’s conversation. Waving his hands in an exaggerated motion, constantly moving, and speaking.

His companion, the Goliath of a man, had been listening quietly to his buddy’s rantings. A quiet and blissful smile on his gentle, gray features. His face was harder than the smaller ones. Filled with jagged and angular lines underneath the fat of his mousy cheeks. His face was partially taken out of view by a black eyepatch on his left eye. He was shirtless as well, beyond hard armor plates across his chest and strong shoulders.

As he listened to the younger one chat away he pawed at his right arm mindlessly with his other hand. It was bulky, sleek, robotic even. A prose hic that moved freely with unconscious movements as if it were his good arm.

Her gaze fell on the last of the trio. At the very end of the table sat the last man, sipping mindlessly at his overfilled glass and staring out into the diner. Regardless of the diner being empty beyond the five of them. His features were softer than the rest of his group, thoughtful, and pensive. His face looked soft, cushioned with shaggy, sand-colored fur that fell over his obscured eyes. Like the others, his face was shrouded in one way or the other. But both his eyes were covered by green-tinted shades that hid any color or movement he could give off. Again, he was shirtless, but he seemed to be the most covered of his comrades. Having a black vest covered over almost the entirety of his midsection and a cherry-red bandanna wrapped around his thick neck. A furry, rounded ear had perked up every once in a while when the conversation of his friends had hit a crescendo. Beyond this, he didn’t move, only looked out like he was observing the world through the eyes of Earth’s only outsider.

She eyed them, vastly aware of how her jaw hung open as if the hinges of an old door were loosened. Unable to close fully even if she tried. And how a cool sweat was starting to form across her forehead and the middle of her back.

Muscular, tall, covered head to toe in fur, round ears pierced by studs, protruding snouts, small black noses, large buck teeth, and swinging large, slender tails from behind their chairs. And shirtless. Why in the world were they shirtless?

They looked like mice. Gigantic, overgrown, rats.

She noticed then, that the blond one turned his head slightly to her. Her stomach lurched and she wondered if he was looking at Hall or her until he reached a hand up and pulled his green shades down to the bridge of his nose.

He was eying her with a curious, interested gaze. But, somehow, with eyes that she knew he wasn’t seeing her with. And she was too focused on how his eyes were a dark, ruby red. He winked and her body decided to make her hair simultaneously stand on end as well as pushing blood to her frost-bitten cheeks in a furious blush.

Then as soon as he pulled his shades down, they were back up on the bridge of his nose and hiding his eyes. Like nothing had just transpired between them.

Hall’s booming chuckle pulled her out of her stupor, along with a sharp elbow to her side. He was standing behind her, she realized, smiling with mirth at the three furred men at the bar.

“Ha! Hey look, Davidson! Halloween came early this year!” He chuckled, rounding her frozen form to walk to the bar and sit right beside the three men. “Come on, Mari. I’m starving.”

She looked at him with as much equal horror as she did with three mice just a second ago, and then felt that horror mix in with an unbridled amount of fury when she saw him walk up to the blond mouse, sit two seats away from him, and give him a generous wave.

“Howdy! You fellas sure do love the Halloween season. Love that for you! Mind if I sit? I always tell myself that sitting at the bar was meant for strangers looking for friends. I’m James, you can call me Jim.”

Mari watched Hall go on. Watched the three men smile politely at him, and chat with him idly. She watched him, feeling hot betrayal at his inability to read a room, to read her, and his insistent need to make friends with everyone he meets; then thinking one single thought over and over in her mind like a broken record.

I’m going to kill him. I’m gonna paint the ceiling with his gray matter, then do the same to myself. What the absolute fuck?!

Then another thought came rolling in as if to save her from her upcoming murder charge.

Halloween. Yes, that’s right. It’s the middle of October. She thought, letting the smallest amount of relief wash over her. That would explain the weapons, the biker boots, the armor, and even the lack of proper autumn clothes. These gentlemen must have been heading to an early Halloween party. Even the red antennae, that Marianna had just noticed was protruding out from the tops of their fluffy heads, was all a part of some elaborate alien costume.

Or, something for a Star Trek convention in town.

She mashed down what was left of her horror and made her way to him, wordlessly moving her legs to make contact with the seat to his left; a good and healthy barrier between her and the personifications of her murophobia. She relaxed, until she suddenly felt Hall’s strong hand on her arm, giving an exaggerated pull and then throwing towards his opposite side before she could sit down. She felt herself tumble and fall gracelessly into a seat. Unaware of where she had landed because her vision was currently lighting up with the short burst of pain in her chest. She had fallen ribs first into the surface of the bar.

She groaned. Blinking the pain away and simultaneously straightening herself in her seat to sit more comfortably. When her vision steadied, she was already looking up at him. His face softened to an apologetic smirk, but still one filled with jovial good humor.

“Sorry Davidson, didn’t meet to chorale you into the table like that.” He said, then turning his apologetic grin to the person behind her. “She’s so bad at talking to people. You’d think she wouldn’t be, being a nurse and all—that’s what we are, by the way. But, she’s terrible at talking to anyone that she doesn’t have an IV in!”

He was still babbling when she turned around to look at who he was talking to. Knowing she didn’t have to look. She knew who he chose to sit close to.

All three of them were staring fixedly at her when she turned. Sometimes switching their gazes to look up at Hall as he spoke to them and gave polite nods of understanding. Specifically, more from the gray and blond ones; but more often than not, choosing to look back at her with their feral red eyes. Their rounded ears twitched, and large slender tails moved around their backs as freely as wild snakes. Looking at her as if she was the strange one.

Could I blame them? Hall did toss me into this seat like a professional wrestler.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Hall shouted suddenly, placing a gentle hand on Mari’s shoulder and fanatically waving his hand in her direction, almost as if he was presenting a new car on the lot to welcome buyers. “This is Marianna Davidson, First Lieutenant of the United States Military. My subordinate.”

Mari scowled, shrugging off his touch. The last thing she needed was to be formally introduced to the objects of her irrational fear. Let alone be introduced as someone’s subordinate.

As far back as Mari could remember, she was afraid of rats, mice, and all rodents of any kind. There was something about their twitching pink noses, black marble eyes, and the way they would scurry across her feet in her bedroom at night.

She particularly hated the way they would squeal. Their tiny little bodies getting trapped in the nooks and crannies of piling garbage or too-narrow walls, and squealing their little lungs out with every death-fearing twitch they had in them.

She would keep her fear relatively bottled up. Usually, preferring to throw things at them from a distance, or keeping out glue traps and rat poison until the problem sorted itself out. It was easy to deal with, and easy to ignore. How often did a person who constantly had to travel and had a compulsion to keep everything neat have to deal with rodents?

Very slim to fuckin’ none, until I came here.

More and more she was realizing that coming back to Chicago was a mistake. First, she was dealing with her childhood phobia in the form of muscular nerds dressed as—

—Biker—alien—mice?

She breathed trying to cool the anxiety that was seeming to rise and fall in weird intervals in her. Knowing that her mind and her body were in a weird fight between logic and illogical fear. Creating a swirl of punching, fighting, clawing chaos that begged and screamed for her to run. But, also, kept her firmly seated on her cushioned chair. Her pride wouldn’t let her run from perfectly nice strangers. Even if their costumes were a little too realistic.

“Say hi, Mari.” Hall had said behind her.

Mari blinked, realizing that she was still looking up at the furred-nerd-mice-men. She hadn’t moved, perhaps hadn’t even had the opportunity to blink. She was simply looking up at their gigantic forms without even a sound leaving her mouth.

Then realizing she had spent a lot longer than a normal amount of time to summon the courage to speak, she choked out a shallow: “Hi. I’m Mari, like he said. Nice to—meet you.”

She paused, then looked over her shoulder to meet Hall’s gaze again for his assistance. “Misters?” She drawled out.

The white one chuckled first, his voice sounding light, and playful, “Misters? We’re the baddest mamajamas on this side of the universe, sweetheart.”

Oh, this is a bit. This is definitely a bit. “And that means—what?”

The gray one rolled his singular red eye and looked down at his smaller friend, exasperated. “Didn’t your mama ever teach you not to tease a lady?” Before that eye fell on her, and he smiled with the full of his crooked teeth.

“I’m Modo,” he said pointing a thumb at himself, then at his friend. “That’s Vinnie, don’t mind him Mari-ma’am.”

He said that last part soothingly. Stringing the words of her name and ‘ma’am’ like the words belonged together. If his face and blood-red eye weren’t so jarring, she would have found his low voice, and sweet tone endearing.

Then Modo waved a hand in the direction of the silent blond mouse, who was still looking at her. His face was stoic and still as stone, but holding a smile that was gentle and polite. “This is Throttle.”

Throttle nodded slightly in acknowledgment. The free hand not holding his half-drank stein was out in front of her. Furry fingers straight, palm open, waiting.

Mari swallowed thickly, mashing down her nerves and forcing a slight smile to pull at the corners of her mouth. It’s just a costume. It’s just a guy in a costume. A nice, weird, guy in a muscle man costume.

She reached out, and grabbed his hand, giving a firm but polite shake. Just like the military had taught her. Ignoring the way her skin immediately tingled from the contact, and how the contrast of his soft hair and the leather of his fingerless gloves made chills shoot down her spine in a rush of electricity.

“Nice to meet you, too.” He said. His voice carrying a calming, deep lithe to it.

Her stomach lurched, and she was almost ninety percent certain it was still a mixture of disgust and fear still holding a choke-hold on her body. But the other ten percent wasn’t sure, because a smile still pulled at her cheeks without her forcing it to stay.

They stayed like that for a long singular beat of a moment. Before he released his hand from hers and retrieved it to lay limply at his thigh. She only had a second to realize the contact was gone before she looked up and realized that his red antenna bounced slightly without the help or movement of his head.

Without helping it, she raised herself to sit taller and peak at the moving, bobbing protrusions.

I might as well ask them about the process of—whatever this is.

“How are you doing that?”

“Huh?”

“That thing you're doing with those antennae on your head.”

Through his specs, just barely, she saw his eyes dart from her to his friends. Who had now fully stopped their conversation to meet his gaze.

“I move it.” He said, chucking, and giving a slight wiggle to each protruding red thing.

“Well, no, I can see that. I mean, how are you making it move? Is it robotics? Are ya just bobbing your head?” She went on, leaning her elbow against the table to give a curious eye to the odd projections of his mascot head. When he made no motion to move away, but instead leaning in for her, she decided to give an experimental poke to one.

She realized then that it didn’t look as flimsy as she initially thought it did. Specifically when the little thing didn’t move or simply fell off his head from the slight weight of her finger.

Alarmed, but satisfied, she pulled her hand back, trying to graze over the fact that she touched that thing on him.

“I mean, I appreciate you committing to whatever it is you’re doing. It’s a very intricate bit to your costume.”

“Costume?” She heard them echo in mumbling tones. Even catching the attention of Hall as he also leaned forward to look at them past Mari’s shoulder.

“What are you dressed as, anyway? If you don’t mind me asking. It’s been a long time since I was involved in the sci-fi nerd scene. Haven’t done that since the 80’s. I get the mice part, I can see that, but the biker part is losing me. Are you biker—aliens, maybe?”

“Hey!” Vinnie suddenly gasped, pushing up from his seat to reveal that he had a good few inches on her. She pushed back the urge to fearfully jump, and waited, “I don’t know if you heard me the first time, or who you think we are, but nerds are far from it. We are, again, the baddest mamajamas on this side of the galaxy, sweetheart!”

She studied him at that moment, letting him glower at her playfully with those feral little red eyes. Then choosing to turn her smile up at him, trying to come across as cool and straight as Hall had been ever since he sat down. She fluttered her eyes and cooed up at him in mock appreciation, “Okay, I can play for you. I’m sure you are the most skilled and bodacious biker this side of the Milky Way.”

The young mouse-men’s eyes changed then. Carrying an air of teasing confidence, then swiftly transitioning to a surprised bashfulness.

She wondered briefly if his overconfident facade was his normal behavior. And if anyone ever agreed with his outrageous claims of grandeur.

She decided to push just a little further. Just to play. Just to tease. Just to make this whole situation less weird. “Did I mention smarts, too? I saw those bikes out there. I assume at least one of those is your handiwork.”

“Yeah, well, I—”

“Not to mention charm.”

“Ah, you—”

“And your sheer attractiveness. Has anyone ever told you how dreamy you are?”

“Sweet—”

“And that voice! Ugh, I’d pay you to read the phone book to me.”

His face was red then, painting the stark white fur of his mascot mask in a brilliant crimson. What a neat trick. She thought.

She noticed he was trying to stutter out. Perhaps a shy request for her to stop or maybe another snappy comeback for her sudden onslaught of casual flirting. She looked back at his friends. Cheeky grins took over their faces over the whole embarrassing display

“So, what are you, again?”

Her mind, admittedly, ran through the possibilities. Mostly sci-if dorks committing their entire being to small-time characters in some show that couldn’t even begin to understand.

What else could it be?

Throttle just shrugged his shoulders. “We’re mice, ma’am. Mice.” He annunciated the last word like this claim had made all the sense in the world, and explaining any further would have been a waste of his time.

“You were expecting turtles, maybe?” Modo added, chucking.

“Okay—” Mari paused, narrowing her eyes at them. “That makes absolutely no sense.”

“This part is always so hard to get through to people. I swear.” Vinnie said, evidently recovered from Mari’s display of affection.

Mari looked back at Hall, an expression of ‘what joke am I not getting here?’ falling on her face. Instead of an explanation, he patted Mari’s shoulder and shrugged good-heartedly at them. “Alright, keep your secrets.”

“Anyway, Mari,” Hall said, pulling her attention back to him. “I was about to ask our new friends here if they saw your sister in today. They’re regulars.”

“Oh.” She said, simply. Then looking back at them to eye them carefully. “Are you from here? Where did you go to school?”

Their faces suddenly fell one by one, making, something akin to a deep sadness shadowing their chubby faces.

“I—” She began, her skin prickling with that same anxiety that had gripped her when she first walked in and saw them. Immediately she had said the wrong thing. Even without knowing fully what she said to upset them.

I just asked them where they went to school.

“We’re—not from here.” Throttle said, “Chi-town is more of our home away from home.”

“Oh. I see.” She said, then added as if it was to recover from whatever rudeness she had forced to change the air between them. “So, my sister?”

“What’s your sister look like?”

She paused, thinking, then made a vague gesture with her hand as she imagined her sister as close as she could get. “Looks a little like me. But, her eyes are green, and her hair is more brunette-red. Tall, slim, takes no shit. She’s a mechanic here in town, she must have worked on your bikes at least once. You would know if you met her.”

Vinnie blinked, then looked over at his friends before he chose to look back at her. a look of deep concentration crossing over his face. “What did you say your last name was?”

“Davidson. Why? You think you know her?”

Vinnie and Modo didn’t move, not looking at her. But she saw Throttle give the briefest of nods. “Would her name be—?”

“Charley!” Marianna heard a voice say from the kitchen. She turned. Seeing Mr. Steinhaur’s top half of his body peek out from the kitchen window. Perhaps, leaning on his toes to fully get his head out. “I thought that was you I heard. I’m almost done with the boys—”

He stopped, his eyes finally focusing on her. She heard him swallow from here, “Marianna?”

She smiled, giving a small shy wave from across the bar. “Hi. Mr. Steinerhaur.”

“I—hold on a minute. Stay right there!” He shouted, his head dipping back out of the window.

Suddenly, she could hear the rattle of plates and silverware as they knocked together. The next thing she heard was the kick of a rubber shoe hitting against the kitchen door, Sending it flapping open wildly, and Mr. Steinhaur to come running out of it. Two trays of food were in his hands.

She barely noticed that he had placed the plates of chili hotdogs, and fries in front of her new, alien-looking friends before he was leaning against the bar and yanking her shoulders into a tight hug. She yelped, feeling the sharpness of his chin, and his top ribs, digging into her painfully.

“Sorry, sorry!” He said, loosening his grip. But, not letting go. “I just got so excited! You haven’t been to Chicago in six years!”

“Yeah.” She said, apologetically. Then giving him a gentle pat on his back before peeling herself away only slightly to look at him, and to breathe air fully back into her lungs. “Deployment will do that.”

She saw him give a glance to the three mice beside her, then back to Hall on her left. He nodded, pulling out a small notebook from his back pocket, and then producing a small pen. Still smiling, he clicked the pen several times.

“I see you’ve already met my best customers. I hope you’re getting acquainted well. Besides Charley, these three keep me in business. What can I get for you and your friend? I assume you wanted to eat before Charley got here?”

Hall nodded for her, briefly. Giving a polite smile while taking a small glance at the menu, just below the kitchen window.

While he ordered, she took a curious glance over to her new animorphic nerd friends. But they weren’t looking at her, or at the food that was placed in front of their waiting hands. Instead, they stared, they’re faced serious and hard. Not as saddened as they were when she asked them if they were from here. But in deep thought.

She lifted an eyebrow, “Are you guys okay?”

They looked up at her, surprised, but still didn’t answer.

Suddenly, she heard Mr. Steinhaur give a surprised joyful laugh. “Well, isn’t this just perfect? Speak of the devil, here she comes now. ”

The front door opened, and the front doorbell chimed loudly in the dead silent room. Marianna turned. Tears already pricking her eyes before she could fully set her eyes on her, but as soon as she did, a singular tear fell and dribbled down her cheek.

Charley stood there. Her hand on the bar of the door, holding it open and letting the cool autumn air rush in. Long hair flowing down her shoulders of her blue button-up. She was still wearing their father’s utility belt wrapped around her tight-fitting black jeans. She had looked the same as the day she had left.

And, to Marianna’s surprise, Charley’s green eyes also filled with tears, threatening to burst.

“Mari?” Charley uttered, her voice soft and breaking.

A million things went through her mind. Mostly every apology she wanted to give her for the past six years. The other things were the memories that she had. Raising Charley in that tiny garage beside her father; being there for her when their father died; leaving her behind for the military; and the fight that ensued afterwards. All the mean words she said to her, and the ones she said right back to Mari.

It was all right in front of her. Ready for her to grab and say to her. But all she could choke out was a small, weak:

“Hi, Charley.”

#writing #writblr #biker mice from mars #oc x canon #fanfic #6000k #tw cigarettes #tw language #tw panic attack #my first fanfic in like ten years #throttle #modo #vinnie #bmfm #no beta we die like men #be gentle #its a little wordy

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