#kat talks fragrance

[pacinglikeghosts]

assigning sydcarmy signature scents

happy s3 release week! i am obsessed with fragrance and this is kind of like my hidden talent and love to do this so im using it on them. if this isn't clear, i am NOT sponsored, just obsessed and want to share.

**also, to be clear, they are definitely NOT wearing these on the day-to-day. more like...special occasions**

sydney:

starting with syd because i have a clearer vision for her. i think she'd really want something clean and fresh, but not like household cleaner clean, which is why i leaned towards tea scents with citrus. this scent, which is "matcha meditation" by maison martin margiela's replica line (or "serene green tea" from alt fragrances, which is a dupe and like....a quarter of the price) has a bright, summery opening, and ultimately dries down to something a bit warmer and cozier--a lot like sydney, bright and enthusiastic, but warm and welcoming once you spend time with her. this is on the pricier side, so i think sydney would get it once as a gift from some random family member and opt for the dupe, since it's not as much of an "essential" to her as some other things may be.

carmy:

oh carmy. in all honest, he would definitely be rocking some basic ass fragrance he can get at macy's or walgreens or something like axe, but we can pretend. i mostly picked this one (which is "CK Free" from Calvin Klein) because i think the makeup is interesting, and again, a reasonable enough price (the fact that it's calvin klein is also a bit funny to me). i imagine he's got a wood-y, rich scent to him, which is only amplified by the cigarettes (depending on how you feel about those).

that's it! again, this is just for funsies, so feel free to take it as seriously as you'd like. i had fun doing it, but i know everyone has their own interpretations, so let me know what you think :) i love talking about fragrance and i never really do it except a couple other analyses and a poll on coco chanel so PLEASE talk about it with me if you’d like. whatever you want, whether its more characters or my personal stuff. shoot me some asks and ill answer them!!

[straykats]

angry sounds bc i was about to go to sleep but then red lights came on and i fricken LOVE this song so much so now im about to be stuck in a loop of "just one more song"

[direwombat]

tagged by @poeti-kat, @natesofrellis,��@funkypoacher, and @confidentandgood for this little questionnaire!

forwarding the tag to: @thomrainer, @harmonyowl, @adelaidedrubman, @strafethesesinners, @schoute, @aceghosts, and blanket tag for anyone wanting to do this and tag their circle of moots :)

❤️ last song you listened to

broken horses by brandi carlisle was the last one played in full; redemption day by sheryl crow and johnny cash is currently playing as of typing (i’m pulling together a proper playlist for syb and both of these tracks are on it) 

🧡 ideal pizza toppings?

depends on my mood, but sausage, mushrooms, green pepper, and onion is my go-to combo if i have complete control over the order

💛 dream vacation

trip through scandinavia. i wanna see those mountains and northern lights! (and get laughed at by swedes as i earnestly try to speak their language but butcher it anyway)

💚 earth, air, fire, or water?

born under a fire sign (sag babey) but as someone originally from the Great Lakes region, i do love me some big bodies of water

💙 cartoon you grew up on?

pbs kids and abc family were the only channels that played cartoons in my house growing up so uh, it was arthur before school and cyberchase after school, and then shows like kim possible and emperor’s new school on the weekends 

💜 favourite scent?

freshly mulled apple cider and pine. autumn and winter have my favorite seasonal fragrance candles. but also coconut and lavender if we’re talking any kind of personal product like shampoo/lotion/deodorant 

[100yearoldcomics]

March 5, 1922 Krazy Kat by George Herriman #1: Full-color Sunday page from the St. Louis (MO) Star & Times

TOP PANEL [ID: Ignatz, Krazy and Officer Pupp stand around a marble fountain in the middle of a field. /end] Ignatz: Yes, "Krazy," this is my fountain of youth. Krazy: How nice. Officer Pupp: Hm-m. There's a familiar fragrance about that fountain.

MAIN COMIC [ID: A bee pours out a bottle of hooch onto a small sapling. It is the middle of the night. /end] Caption: "Bum Bill Bee," he who possesses the indistinct distinction of being more of nobody than anybody but himself, pauses a moment on his way to nowhere to pour upon a thirsty child "maple tree" the entire contents of his flask. Ah, yes, but this was years & years ago.

[ID: A large tree sits in the middle of a scenic desert landscape. /end] Caption: In time, fired with the vigor of that ardent liquid coursing through it's fibre, it grew to magnificent maplehood.

[ID: Ignatz walks past the tree. /end] Caption: "Ignatz Mouse" looks upon it, and his keen eye sees prospects of a big business in "syrup."

[ID: Ignatz begins tapping syrup out of the maple tree. The bottom of the tree is ringed with bottles. /end] Caption: Into which, with his usual energy, he embarks with generous gusto. Ignatz: I'll soon be gifted with great wealth.

[ID: A crowd of "satisfied patrons" walk off with bottles of Ignatz's syrup as Officer Pupp interrogates him. Krazy walks up to the tree, whistling. /end] Caption: So far, (as you may have surmised) this has been "Ignatz Mouse's" story. Told by him, for certain reasons to "Officer Pupp:" Pupp: But dawgunnit, "Mouse," there's the tang of rye to that syrup, it smacks powerful of strong licker. How come, huh? How come? Ignatz: Haven't I just told you, that "Bum Bill Bee" saved it's life with a certain alcoholic beverage. And through all these years, the flavor, the fragrance, the soul of that revivifying drink has lingered. And there you are.

[ID: Officer Pupp walks off, frazzled. Krazy spies a secret door in the back of the tree. /end] Pupp: I dunno. Rabdabbit!! I dunno. Ignatz: Good day, Officer Pupp, good day. Krazy: ?

[ID: Krazy opens the door and peers inside the tree. /end] Krazy: ??

[ID: Krazy opens the door all the way to reveal a barrel of moonshine, marked "XXX." Ignatz, on the other side, returns to the tap and fills another bottle. /end] Ignatz: I've got just about enough to last the week out. Then I'll retire, rich. Krazy: ???

[ID: Krazy closes the door. /end] Ignatz: Very, very rich. Krazy: Thenk goodniss I've at last had a chence to look inside a mapil tree, and see with my own eye where the "mapil sirrip" comes from.

[ID: Krazy walks around the tree to talk with Ignatz. Officer Pupp stands in the distance, eavesdropping. /end] Ignatz: Why hello, "Krazy," old dear. In one week, I'm going to retire from the "maple syrup" business, and I've decided to give it to you. Krazy: Oh, do you mean it, "Ignatz," do you?

[ID: Pupp rushes up to their conversation, incensed. /end] Pupp: Means it!! You bet he means it, and I'm here to see that he means it. In one week, this maple syrup tree is your's, "Krazy." Krazy: Oh, Offissa Pupp, of course he means it. Ignatz: I sure do.

[ID: Officer Pupp stands by and angriliy watches as Ignatz signs over the deed to the maple tree to Krazy. /end] Caption: One week later, the transfer of a certain business was recorded in Coconino. Ignatz: Here are the "papers," old dear, which give you full possession of my "maple syrup" business. And now I will get on my private yacht, and cruise on the "Mediterranean." Good bye old chap, good luck. Krazy: Thenx "Ignatz," and when I get rich I'll meet you on the muddy geranium in my yott. Pupp: Fine, all's well. I've shown that "Mouse" that he can't fool me. Dag nabbim.

[ID: Krazy, carrying the deed, walks with Pupp over to the maple tree. /end] Krazy: And now, "Offissa Pupp," let me show you the inside of a mapil tree where the mapil sirrip come's from. It is werra intrisking. Pupp: Good, I always had a great desire to see where maple syrup came from.

[sexydreamgirl]

https://sexydreamgirl.tumblr.com/post/674394878286987264/yall-i-kinda-wanna-shift-to-euphoria-and-slap

I have a whole plan, I’m gonna uplift her, then tell her about Cassie, then let her deal with that and comfort her.

Then I’ll go to Rue and slap this lil bitch, bring her down her high. I’ll also go talk to jules and Elliot and maybe like… you know give him my kitty cat.

Then I’ll go talk to Kat and try to figure out if Ethan was the one in s1 with the black screen

I’ll then go and hang out with Fez and Ash

AND THEN I’m gonna hang with bibi, bb and Lexi

you have a whole plan LOL you better come back and update!

also ask maddy what her favorite songs are and what fragrance she used

[bamon4bamily]

TVD 9x15 - Dream a little dream... (Part 1) Enjoy! =)

Cut to – the secret facility, around 3am. All the guests from the Thanksgiving dinner party have left. Augustus and Darius are having a little one on one before heading to bed.

 AUGUSTUS: So, how does it feel to be back from La-la land? You really had us worried for a while. Thought you were a goner.

DARIUS: How long was I out for?

AUGUSTUS: Almost a month… You’re lucky Veritas was able to use his psychic juju to break the illusion. I was about to give up.

DARIUS: Given our history, I’m surprised you even tried.

AUGUSTUS: Well, bygones. And, Pietro can be very persuasive, he insisted we get you back.

DARIUS: I’ll have to thank him for that. Listen, I know we don’t always see eye to eye, and I know I made some mistakes, but we need to find a way to get over our differences, and see this through to the end.

AUGUSTUS: I agree. That’s the only reason I accepted to do this. Also, I have to admit, you do have some irreplaceable talents.

DARIUS: As do you, from what I’ve been seeing… I could have sworn I saw Tamara at the dinner party. What are you, making clones now?

AUGUSTUS: (Smirks) Oh no, clones are of no real use. And, unlike you, I don’t like to tamper with nature. What you saw was technology at its best.

DARIUS: So, like robots, basically?

AUGUSTUS: Not exactly; more like artificial intelligence. Specifically, it’s called ASI, an artificial intelligence superior to human intelligence or ability. The superhuman, as we like to call it in the geek community.

DARIUS: And they call me the crazy one.

AUGUSTUS: Don’t confuse using technology in our advantage with a god complex, and a bad case of fatal attraction. You really lost it, Darius; almost sabotaged the order’s plan to cater to your fantasies. We can’t have that happen again, so, I hope you understand, some adjustments had to be made.

DARIUS: What are you talking about?

AUGUSTUS: Let’s just say, you didn’t get that scar on your head by accident…

DARIUS: What did you do to me?

AUGUSTUS: Don’t worry, nothing drastic. All I did was install a type of control button, to put it in a way. Just to make sure you don’t go rogue on us again. Can’t blame us for including an insurance policy after the mess you made. (Yawns) Well, I think it’s time I call it a night.

DARIUS: Question, did that “tweak” of yours involve some sort of weird programming with the movie Sunset Boulevard?

AUGUSTUS: The fifties noir film?  

DARIUS: Yes.

AUGUSTUS: Well, I am a big fan, but no; that’s all you, pal. Anyway, I need my rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.

DARIUS: Sweet dreams…

AUGUSTUS: (Somewhat confused) Uhm… okay. Make sure you get some sleep (he leaves).

DARIUS: I will, eventually…  (Darius dozes off in a daydream sort of state; the song Wicked Game by Hula-Hifi, lingering in his mind).

Cut to – The Salvatore mansion. Damon and Bonnie’s room, around 3 am. Damon wakes up suddenly, sweating and breathing heavily. He turns to Bonnie, she’s not in the bed. He gets up, knocks on the bathroom door, no answer. He opens the door, she’s not inside. Vamps downstairs, finds her watching T.V in the family room.

 DAMON: Hey, Bon-Bon; what are you doing?

BONNIE: Couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to wake you, so…

DAMON: (Peeks to see what she is watching) Sunset Boulevard, love this movie.

BONNIE: Come, join me.

DAMON: (Vamps speeds to cuddle with her) You okay?

BONNIE: Fine, just a bad case of insomnia.

DAMON: Want some popcorn?

BONNIE: Is the answer ever no when it comes to that question?

DAMON: (Smirks, gets up) One order of large popcorn coming right up (gives her a peck on the lips, and vamps to the kitchen. Bonnie continues to watch the movie; at some point she begins to feel sleepy and dazed, almost immediately, she falls into a deep sleep).

 Cut to – 1950, Hollywood, California. The cast and crew, of what promises to be the next Oscar winning film, are getting ready for another day of shooting on set. The lead actress, a true Hollywood diva, is in her dressing room rehearsing some lines. The lead actor walks in the room, hands her a cup of coffee.

 KAT: Every day I tell you I hate that…

IAN: And every day I do it anyway.

KAT: Can you just get out, before I have security take you out.

IAN: Is that any way to treat your co-star?

KAT: The only reason you got this job is because your daddy is the head of the studio, you are a horrible actor.  

IAN: Kitty Kat, that hurts my feelings. Not everyone can sleep their way to the top, if you know what I mean… Shall we do the count? Joseph, Chris, Michael… Oh, and let’s not forget your recent one, my lovely brother, Paul… I told you, everyone knows about you two, or almost everyone… Aw, poor Candice! Anyway, you can drop the act now.

KAT: And, I told you, who I choose or don’t choose to sleep with, is none of your business, or hers. So, butt out.

IAN: You know, you are quite cute when you get mad (smirks).

KAT: I actually look cuter when I’m kicking someone’s ass; want to see?

IAN: (Wiggles is eyebrows) Ooh, you are on fire today!

Keep it up, maybe you will finally nail at least one scene. (The film director walks in). 

MATT: You two are up. And please, stop with the bickering, it’s getting very annoying. Be professional for Christ’s sake!  Come on, chop, chop! You are on in five (leaves).

KAT: How dare he speak to me that way! Does he know who I am?!

IAN: Apparently, he doesn’t care; ouch! (Hands her the coffee cup) Here, have some, looks like you are going to need it.  

KAT: Shut up… (grabs the cup reluctantly, and takes a sip. Another actress comes barging in, venting).

CANDICE: I swear if I have to do another scene with that incompetent fool, I’m quitting!

KAT: What did Chris do this time?

CANDICE: He can’t tell his left foot from his right one. How on earth did he get the part!

IAN: (Looking at Kat, teasing) Gees, I wonder how…

KAT: (Rolls her eyes, turns to Candice) Come on, he’s not that bad.

CANDICE: Please, you only say that because you slept with him. Not that I’m judging, he’s very hot, but he definitely can’t dance!

KAT: Well, he makes up for it in other areas (smirks)…

CANDICE: (Grins) Naughty, naughty… Anyway, where is Paul?!

IAN: Missing someone? Don’t worry, Blondie, he should be here soon, he’s just running late. Think you can handle a few minutes without him?

CANDICE: God, I hate you…

KAT: That makes two of us.

IAN: (Looking at Kat) You know there’s a fine line between love and hate (smirks).

KAT: In your dreams.

IAN: Every night, at least twice.

KAT: You are disgusting.

IAN: I know (winks. The Assistant Director walks in).  

STEVEN: Miss. Graham, Mr. Somerhalder, we are ready for you.

KAT: Let’s go.

Cut to – LAPD Headquarters. The Chief of Police is in his office, smoking a cigarette, looking at a photo of a victim who was found brutally murdered the night before. The victim, an aspiring actress who had just landed her first role, a minor part in a high-profile production.

This town… A concrete monument of decay. From the outside it might seem glamourous, with its movie stars and divas, but it’s nothing more than a sewer filled with rats. Nights reek of booze, gun powder, and flesh blood, masked with a cheap imitation of expensive perfume.

Days are no better. The only difference between the two is that during the day, it’s harder for the predators to hide, or so they think. In reality, the true gangsters hide at plain sight. They mock us, thinking they are always one step ahead, always above the law.

But not this time… not this time… (Caresses the victim’s photo, a tear scrolling down his cheek) My sweet Nina… who could have possibly done this to you? And why?

(The song “The Two Of Us” by Mark Isham, plays in the background, as the Detective has flashbacks of the woman and the horrendous murder scene; tears keep rolling down his cheeks).

Cut to – the film set. Kat and Ian are shooting one of their scenes.

 IAN: Don’t go with him… you belong here, with me.

KAT: Please, don’t say those words. You know I want nothing more, but I can’t stay… He is my husband.

IAN: And I am the man you love.

KAT: Always and forever; no matter how far.

IAN: (Kisses her passionately. As she begins to walk away and the rain begins to pour, he runs after her, turns her around) I’m sorry, but I won’t let you go (kisses her again, the song Godot - The Fragrance of Dark Coffee + Rainymood, starts to play. 

The raindrops continue to fall as they hold each other, probably for the last time…)

MATT: And, cut! Beautiful! Now that’s what I call cinema! We are making history people!

KAT: (Ian is still holding on to her). Didn’t you hear cut?!

IAN: No, must have bad hearing… (he smiles; she tries to resist, yet can’t help but smile herself).

MATT: Okay, everyone, let’s take 30 while we prep for the next scene.

KAT: (To Ian) Did you hear that? (Pushes him away) Now, shoo, skedaddle! (She walks away, he follows behind, teasing her).

STEVEN: Mr. Davis, there is a Detective here to see you.

MATT: What? Why?

STEVEN: I think it has something to do with that actress that didn’t show up on set today.

MATT: Which actress, Steven, there are plenty of them around here.

STEVEN: Nina.

MEET: Nina, who? Doesn’t ring a bell.

STEVE: She’s the actress that is playing Miss. Graham’s handmaiden.

MATT: Oh, yes, I think I remember. What about her?

STEVEN: I don’t know. Why don’t you talk to the Detective.

MATT: Fine. Send him my way.

ZACH: (Shows him his badge) Detective Zach Roerig, LAPD, can I ask you some questions?

MATT: Sure, just don’t take too long, we need to keep shooting while we still have the proper lighting.

ZACH: (Takes a picture of Nina out of his pocket and shows it to him) Do you know this woman?

MATT: Barely, she is just an extra with a very small part, we don’t interact. I only work with the stars, so my assistant might be able to give you more insight on her.

ZACH: I’ll talk to him, that’s for sure. But you are the one in charge of this production, correct?

MATT: I am the Director, so yes.

ZACH: Maybe you should pay more attention to your “not so important” cast members as well. Miss. Dobrev was found brutally murdered last night; just one block from here.

MATT: Oh, lord, that is terrible. What happened?

ZACH: Was I not clear? She was murdered, decapitated to be exact. And, we suspect the one responsible for this heinous crime, is part of this little film of yours.

MATT: That’s absurd! No one here would ever do such a thing!

ZACH: You’d be surprised what people are capable of, especially in a town like this. It ain’t all lights and glamour. This is an official investigation, so we are shutting this production down until we get some answers.

MATT: You can’t do that! We are on a schedule.

ZACH: Well, it looks like you’re going to have to make some changes. I need you to call in everyone in the cast and crew, and I mean everyone. No one leaves, until we clear them.

MATT: Do you have any idea who you’re talking to? I don’t take orders from anyone.

ZACH: You Hollywood types and your sense of entitlement. You are in for a reality check, no one is above the law. Here is a warrant to search the premises and question every single one of you. So, make yourself comfortable, we might be here for a while. I’ll need your office for questioning, while my squad processes the area. I take it you don’t mind. And, to prove I’m not all that bad, I’ll start with you. Lead the way.

Cut to – the Director’s office.

 SUSPECT # 1 – THE DIRECTOR

ZACH: For the record, state your full name.

MATT: Matthew W. Davis.

ZACH: How did you know the victim?

MATT: I told you, I didn’t. Apart from directing the few scenes she has been in, I have never talked to or interacted with her at all.

ZACH: What were your whereabouts last night, from 11pm to 2am?

MATT: I was here, filming. Went home around 3am.

ZACH: (Shows him a note that reads: You were great last night. Keep it up, and you might become a real movie star someday…). Do you know what this is?

MATT: (Looking nervous) Where did you find that?

ZACH: I’m the one that will be asking the questions. Is this your handwriting?

MATT: It is.

ZACH: Can you explain how, and why, this was found in the victim’s purse the night she was murdered?

MATT: I have no idea. That note wasn’t for her.

ZACH: Oh, really? Who was it for, then? And why do you reckon Miss. Dobrev had it with her?

MATT: I can’t tell you who it was for. And, I have absolutely no idea why that woman would have that note.

ZACH: Oh, come on, try harder.

MATT: This is ridiculous, I want my lawyer.

ZACH: You are in your right to request one, but that would only make you more suspicious. So, I would advise otherwise.

MATT: What do you want from me? I already told you everything I know.

ZACH: Who was the note for?

MATT: Okay, okay… it was for Candice.

ZACH: Doesn’t make much sense though, she’s already a movie star…

MATT: She is, but not a diva, like Miss. Graham. That’s what every woman in Hollywood wants. And I am the only one that can give that to them.

ZACH: That’s a lot of power to be in one man’s hands.

MATT: I worked hard for it, trust me.

ZACH: Sure you did… Okay, I’m gonna let you go for now, while we verify your alibi; but trust me, we will talk again.

MATT: Whatever. Can I leave?

ZACH: Yes, and send your assistant in.

SUSPECT # 2 – THE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

ZACH: For the record, state your full name.

STEVEN: Steven R. McQueen.

ZACH: How do you know Miss. Dobrev?

STEVEN: She is one of the actresses in the film.

ZACH: More like, was…

STEVEN: What?

ZACH: She was murdered last night, about a block from here. Know anything about that?

STEVEN: No, no, of course not. Oh, god, she’s dead?! This can’t be true… How, why?

ZACH: Well, that’s what I want to find out, pal. Think you can help me figure it out?

STEVEN: Whatever I can do to help, you can count on it. Miss. Dobrev was a lovely gal.

ZACH: Were you two close?

STEVEN: Not really. I met her when we started filming. We talked from time to time, but that was about it.

ZACH: Just talk, ha?

STEVEN: Yes, Detective, I swear.

ZACH: I believe you. Look, you seem like a decent guy. I’m sure, if anyone, you are the one that knows what really happens around this set. Help me out? Miss. Dobrev deserves some justice, don’t you think?

STEVEN: Of course. I will tell you everything I know.

ZACH: Good. Why don’t we start with Mr. Davis’s real relationship with the victim…

Cut to – Kat’s dressing room. Kat, Ian, Candice, Paul, and Chris are talking about the situation.

 CANDICE: With all due respect, but who is this Nina person?

KAT: She’s the actress playing my handmaiden.

CANDICE: Oh, her? Well, you can’t really refer to her as an actress, I mean...

CHRIS: She’s a nobody, so who cares.

PAUL: Judging from the Police take-over, something big is going on.  

CANDICE: Why do you care?

PAUL: I’m just saying, it doesn’t look good.

IAN: Well, I agree with Mr. slippery shoes and Cinderella, who cares! We should be shooting, don’t want to lose the good lighting.

KAT: Of course you wouldn’t dare to care about anyone but yourself….

IAN: Really, Kitty Kat? This coming from little Miss me, myself, and I. We all know who you are.

KAT: No you don’t, so stop pretending you do.

PAUL: (Sarcastically) Ouch, bro.

CHRIS: (To Kat and Ian, sounding quite bitter) Can you two stop bickering, for like a second! Gees, just get married already! So freaking obvious…

KAT: Please, he wishes!

IAN: I might like a little pain here and there, but I’m no masochist… unless you ask nicely, of course (winks; the Director walks in). Matt, can you please tell us what the hell is going on!

MATT: We’ve been shut down, until further notice. Oh, and no one can leave either, so make yourselves comfortable.

IAN: What! Why?!

MATT: Well, that wannabe actress playing Kat’s handmaiden was murdered last night. Ruined our entire schedule! The Police think one of us did it… ridiculous!

KAT: Wait, what!? She was murdered? No, no… that can’t be… Oh my god!

CHRIS: And I’ll say it again, why do we care? She is a nobody! Or was, whatever!

KAT: Don’t say that! You have no idea who she was…

CHRIS: Neither do you, Kitty Kat.

IAN: (Pushes Chris away from her)  First, no one calls her that, but me. Second, back off…

CHRIS: (Sarcastic smirk) Oh, please. Don’t you get it? She will never love you. Once she gets what she wants from you, she’ll throw you out like a piece of trash. So stop trying so hard.

IAN: (Grabs him by the neck) Listen, psycho boy…

PAUL: Stop, both of you. Is it too much to ask for you to act like adults, for once? We really don’t need your little pissing contest drama right now.

KAT: Nor any of this… Everyone get out, I need some space.

IAN: (Looking concerned) Kat...

KAT: I said, get out! All of you! (They leave).

Cut to – the Director’s office.

 ZACH: Thank you for your cooperation, this information is critical to our investigation.

STEVEN: (Looking scared) Please, Detective, promise me you won’t tell them you heard those things from me, I would be completely ruined.

ZACH: Don’t worry, your secrets are safe with me, trust me. Now, be a sport and send Miss. Accola my way, will you?

STEVEN: Will do, Detective.

ZACH: Thank you, we will talk again soon.

SUSPECT # 3 – THE ACTRESS

ZACH: For the record, state your full name.

CANDICE: (Flirtatious) Detective, you don’t believe I had anything to do with this, do you? I mean, look at me… do you really think I would be capable of such a thing?  

ZACH: Perhaps you didn’t hear me. I said, state your full name.

CANDICE: Fine… Candice Rene Accola. But I swear, Detective, I never even crossed a word with that woman.

ZACH: Funny, that’s not what I’ve heard…

CANDICE: From who? Whoever said that is obviously lying! I have a reputation to protect, I don’t mingle with the extras.

ZACH: Oh, I’m sure you don’t, but I wonder if you get jealous of them?

CANDICE: (Laughs) That’s absurd! Why on earth would I be jealous of her!? She’s a nobody.

ZACH: Maybe she had something you wanted…

CANDICE: What could she possibly have had that I don’t? If anything, she was the one jealous of me.

ZACH: I hear you are quite smitten with an ex of hers.

CANDICE: An ex? What are you talking about?

ZACH: Just cut the bullshit Miss. Accola. I know for a fact that Mr. Wesley and Miss. Dobrev where previously engaged, that is until you came into the picture…

CANDICE: (Nervously) Please, Detective, let me explain…

ZACH: Please, do.

CANDICE: It’s not what you think. I mean, yes, I knew they had a thing in the past, but that was a long time ago. They went to the same Highschool, in this godforsaken town in the middle of nowhere, or something along those lines. But, I swear, I never even spoke to her, nor did he, after that. No disrespect for the deceased, but she was weird, she didn’t belong in the same circle as us. There are levels, and she is, well, was, way below ours. If you are looking for a real suspect, I suggest you talk to Mr. Wood, I know there was something going on between those two.

ZACH: Really, why would you say that?

CANDICE: They are both whack jobs. They would get together after shooting; hang out at this weirdo trash bar down the block called “The Grill”, where all the other city looneys hang out. Trust me, they were into some really creepy stuff.

ZACH: What kind of creepy stuff?

CANDICE: Some obscure vampire nonsense. I’m telling you, totally cuckoo.

ZACH: Vampires?

CANDICE: Yes, I swear! If you ask me, I wouldn’t be surprised if Chris turned out to be one… I mean, if they were real, of course. Only a crazy person would believe those things.

ZACH: I agree. So, you are saying Miss. Dobrev had a dark side?

CANDICE: Oh, for sure! No one ever bought her little “Mary Sue” act.

ZACH: Well, that’s quite specific information for someone who claims not to know anything about her.

CANDICE: I’m just telling you what I’ve heard from others, specifically, from Mr. Wood.

ZACH: Okay, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on that, for the moment. Now, (hands her the same note he handed the Director) can you explain what this is about?

CANDICE: (Looking genuinely clueless) I have never seen that before, I promise.

ZACH: Fair enough. Moving on, what where your whereabouts last night, from 11pm to 2am?

CANDICE: I was here shooting, until about 3am, I think. I went straight home after that.

ZACH: 3 am? Doesn’t seem like a safe hour for a lady to be driving home alone…

CANDICE: Oh, of course not. I had my driver take me home.

ZACH: What’s your driver’s name?

CANDICE: Mr. Trevino, you can ask him if you don’t believe me. He’s right outside my dressing room.  

ZACH: No need, just yet. You are free to go, for now. Let Mr. Wood know I’m expecting him next.

CANDICE: Sure thing. (As she is walking out) Detective, one more thing… I probably shouldn’t say, since she is my best friend, but I feel obligated to mention this, it’s in my duty to do so. You should know Miss. Graham and Miss. Dobrev used to be very close friends, best friends actually. She doesn’t know I know that, but I do. In fact, Kat is the reason Nina got this job in the first place; and the reason why Nina moved from that Mystic place to LA. Just thought you should know… Hope it’s useful information (flirtatious smirk).  

ZACH: (Flirting back) Very useful, Miss. Accola; thank you for sharing.

Cut to –  Kat’s dressing room. She is looking at herself in the mirror; she seems somewhat sad, but a lot more worried. Ian knocks.

IAN: Kat, please, let me in… I’m sorry… (Kat opens the door, he walks inside, she looks around to make sure there is no one else there; shuts the door after him).

KAT: What do you want? I thought I made myself clear when I said I wanted to be left alone.

IAN: I needed to make sure you were okay (looks around the room) … I didn’t know you knew her outside of the film, I’m sorry if I was insensitive.

KAT: (Goes to her mini bar, serves and hands him a glass of bourbon) It’s just you and me, look for yourself. You can stop pretending now.

IAN: (Relieved) Okay, good… I don’t know how much longer I would be able to keep up with the act.

KAT: As long as it takes; we can’t risk them finding out.

IAN: I know, Kitty Kat, but I’m freaking out here! This place is infested with cops. What the hell are we going to do...?!

KAT: Calm down, we will think about that later… (kisses him passionately, and throws him on to her dressing room bed…)

*Not my art, loads of credit to the creator, this ilustration is awsome!  

TVD 9x15 (part 2) coming soon! Hope you stop by, read, and enjoy! =)

[nxtritething]

for anna : penthouse , perfume , jazz / for orpheus : diamonds , lace , lipstick / for tara : champagne , roses , sheet mask / for kat : bubble bath , faux fur , gold

♡¸.•* 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐲 : 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈

( anna )

penthouse: what would you consider your dream home? describe it.

❝ hmmm...  nothing too big. comfortable. almost a cottage in the woods feel, but y’know... not in the woods. there’s bits of art and color everywhere. lots of neutral tones and plants. ooh, a big comfy bed too !! ❞

perfume: if you could make your own signature fragrance, what would it smell like?

❝ something that reminds you of s’mores !! like that woodburning smell, burnt marshmallow, and even that faint smell of chocolate. ❞

jazz: name a song that resonates with you and your emotions. explain the reason why.

❝ make a move by lawerence, because i’m such an awkward mess when it comes to flirting and talking to pretty people in general. or, at least, that’s what people tell me. ha... ❞

( orpheus )

diamonds: how do you feel about excessively spending money?

❝ well, i’ve never had that much money that i could excessively spend it... even if i did, i most likely wouldn’t splurge on much. you can’t buy happiness, after all.  ❞

lace: what is something in your life completely different from last year?

❝ well, a lot considering i remember a lot more. like, i have remember the song i was working on. or... the song i finished, but is it really finished ???  ❞

lipstick: do you enjoy talking to strangers?

❝ i don’t particularly dislike talking to strangers. i don’t go out of my way to talk to new people, with few exceptions, but i wouldn’t say i necessarily avoid it either... ❞

( tara )

champagne: what topic could you talk about for hours?

❝ oh, dude, i go through phrases. one week, it’s the rock cycle. the next, it’s how i’ve been teaching myself how to ollie. then another... it’s about gold mining. this week, it’s video games though, specifically this stupid mmo. ugh ! i keep getting matched with freakin’ noobs !!  ❞

roses: If it had to be winter, autumn, spring or summer for the rest of your life, which would you choose?

❝ easy. summer. don’t need to worry about layers and staying warm. ❞

sheet mask: what’s your favorite lazy activity?

❝ ugh, all of them? i love being lazy, man. but, uh... if you’re gonna make me pick, it’s probably video games. ❞

( kath )

bubble bath: do you have any routines before bedtime? like skin care, etc. what are they?

❝ i shower, i brush my teeth, check my emails... usually wish my mom goodnight. nothing too exciting. ❞

faux fur: describe your wardrobe.

❝ a lot of button - ups and blouses, mostly patterned... jeans, modest skirts, almost all high - waisted. there’s a lot of neutrals and blues. lot of that. as for my shoes, most don’t have a heel ; either it flats, boots, or nicer sneakers... ❞

gold: describe what you would call the most perfect meal.

❝ i’m not much of a foodie but... maybe one of my mom’s pasta dishes? she makes a good lasgna, funny enough. it obviously wouldn’t be perfect if it wasn’t with my mom. like a chill night in, no worrying about work, maybe even a chick flick. a dinner and a movie, if you will.  ❞

[roaminginspiration]

The Empty Space Next to Me

chap 1 (x)  / chap 2 (x) /  chap 3 (x) / chap 4 (x) / chap 5 (x) / chap 6 (x) / chap 7 (x) / chap 9 (x) / chap 10 (x)

Chapter 8

Steve has been in Louisiana for a month. He has naturally fallen into a pleasant routine and the guesthouse has begun to feel more and more homely.

This morning he is woken up by wet kisses in his neck. Long, slobbery kisses.

He cracks his eyelids open and groans slightly, gently pushing away the affectionate lady in the bed with him.

“Riley, how did you get in?” he mumbles and the Golden Retriever’s tongue runs across his face. He chuckles and tilts his head away before propping himself up on his elbows. Riley is wagging her tail with an open mouth smile. He strokes the back of her ears and her head shakes approvingly. “You gotta stop doing that,” he says.

He sits up and Riley hops off the bed. He makes his way to the en-suite bathroom, showers and gets dressed.

When he comes down to the living room for breakfast, he finds the other two ladies in the house chatting across the table, with a mug of coffee in their hands.

Eliza and Kat greet him with a smile.

He smiles back and goes to pour himself coffee from the warm glass jar. He then sits down next to Katherine and helps himself to one of the freshly-made French toasts lying in the plate.

“Tomorrow night the Donovans are hosting their annual party and all the locals are invited,” Eliza begins.

Kat leans closer and nudges him gently with a smile. “You should come,” she says.

“Are you going?” he asks.

“Carol would resent me and take it to her grave if I didn’t,” she laughs. “It’s quite nice. It’s just people coming together and drinking a lot. This year should be even more special being the first one since the Second Snap. And you now belong to our community too, so.”

Katherine smiles. She seems enthusiastic about it.

“Then I guess I’m in,” he says.

The early evening of the party, Steve quickly stands in front of his bedroom mirror to have a look. He has put on a casual — albeit visibly more elegant— white shirt, sleeves rolled up, with dark jeans. He is a little nervous although Eliza assured him his presence would go unnoticed and that it was very unlikely any of the guests would recognize him. “They’re just a bunch of either old people with undiagnosed cataract or rubes. Or both,” she told him.

When he comes downstairs, he finds her waiting by the doorstep in a long floral dress with a light grey cardigan over her shoulders. She is wearing a necklace and has a bit of mascara.

“You look fantastic,” he tells her.

“Does it mean you are officially my plus one, then?” she jokes.

“I intended to be your plus one all along,” he answers walking up to her.

She holds her arm out and he gently slips his under to stand by her side.

Eliza smiles. She tugs her short hair behind her ear and shows her pearl earrings. “Robert bought me those to celebrate our 35th anniversary.”

Steve smiles. “A man with great taste.”

The sound of footsteps rings out upstairs. Katherine’s black high-heeled appear at the top of the staircase. Steve looks up and watches as she comes down.

She is wearing an elegant and slinky, knee-length black dress flowing gracefully. The sleeves are short and fall over her shoulders. Her red hair is down and styled in natural-looking but full waves. She goes to the coatrack and turns, revealing a slightly glamorous but elegant back cleavage. She picks a dark red shawl and throws it over her arm.

“I’m ready,” she says.

Steve can hardly speak. She looks nothing short of stunning. He has seen Natasha in evening dresses before — dresses far more fashionable and stupendous than this one — but there is something about Katherine’s simple bucolic charm that strikes him just as powerfully.

Her eyes look him up and down. “You look really elegant,” she says cordially.

He clears his throat quietly but he is sure Eliza heard it. “You too,” he says.

Katherine walks through the door and he stands motionlessly for a couple of seconds. When he normally responds again to his surroundings, he finds the woman at his arm smirking softly.

All three of them get in the Chevy and drive over to the Donovan farm. He pulls over and leaves the car among the bunch of pick-ups randomly parked along the path. The sun has barely begun to set.

Then they make the way to the big barn from which emanate strong, warm light and the distant sound of country music. The gates are held open by straw bales where a couple of men are chatting with a bottle of beer in their hands.

They walk through to a large, bright room, painted red with hay bundles and equipment at every corner. Down the room, there are large rectangular tables with food, glasses and an immense glass punch bowl almost filled to the top around which gravitate a dozen guests.

Right across there is a group of people talking loudly. Some children whiz past them, across the barn to the exit where they are still standing. Three or four couples are already dancing on the improvised dance floor which majorly consists of an old wooden floor with straws scarcely scattered.

George — the man who regularly brings in milk and cheese — and a woman come over with big smiles. They hug Eliza first, then Katherine, and shake his hand.

“Enjoy the evening. The ribs are still hot. You should go and grab some before the young Johnson stuffs them all down within ten minutes.”

George pats Steve’s shoulder warmly and goes to greet new guests.

A familiar slender figure suddenly appears behind them and cover Katherine’s eyes with their hands. She smiles and spins around, holding Jake in her arms.

“Wow,” he simply exclaims as he looks down at her. Holding her hand, he comes over to greet Eliza.

“Good to see you, too,” he says to Steve while shaking his hand. “This party is like a big event around here. Just a festive come together.”

He then turns to his girlfriend. “Oh Kate, there’s someone I wanted to introduce you to.” He turns to Eliza and Steve. “Do you mind if I steal her from you for a moment?” he asks. He then plants a kiss on her cheek and takes her away, far across the barn.

The moment lingers, drags on to become an hour. When she finally joins them again to have some nibbles, Jake eventually rolls in again and takes for a dance.

Which becomes two.

Which becomes three.

On and on.

Steve throws glances from across the barn, sitting on a bench next to Eliza who is looking at the audience with a remote calmness which resembles tame disinterest, a gentle fixed grin on the lips.

“Looks like you’ve blended in,” she says. “Fully incognito.”

“And without reading glasses,” he says with a smile. Earlier she had suggested he’d wear glasses to keep his identity crisis, as it seemed to work so well for Clark Kent.

“Since the Second Snap,” she says softly, “people have been craving a sense of normalcy. They’d do almost anything to resume their satisfying, unordinary life…even ignore the elephant in the room. They’d rather convince themselves you’re the new, vaguely familiar-looking handyman than acknowledge who you really are.”

He nods musingly.

An amused smirk tugs at her lips. “Glasses or no glasses.”

After a while, when Katherine returns, her face slightly flushed from the exhilarating dancing, the elderly woman says she is going home and asks one of the locals on his way out if can drop her off.

She presses a hand on his arm in a motherly manner. “You enjoy yourself.”

Katherine fills up her seat next to him. She casually props her forearm on his shoulder, leaning over.

“Jake has gone to get me a drink,” she says then looks at him. “By the way, why are you the soberest person in the room?” she asks.

She ostentatiously glances down at the glass of punch in his hand.

He smiles. “Super-soldier serum,” he sums up in a low voice.

She looks amazed. “I think that’s the coolest of your superpowers.” She pauses and a cute deeply concentrated expression comes on her face. “Or wait…it’s not.”

He snorts. “It’s not,” he confirms. He can vividly recall the times in his life when he would have needed some assuaging boozing but couldn’t get it.”

She pouts sympathetically. “I’m sure you won’t mind if I help myself, then,” she says as she leans in — he smells the subtle scent of her fragrance—reaches for the glass in his hand and takes it to her lips.

“You haven’t found yourself a partner yet?” she asks. She throws a look around the barn and at the many women standing alone in the barn. “I mean, I can see half a dozen women who are desperately waiting for you to invite them for a dance. Like that blonde over there.”

He follows her look and sees a charming-looking blonde standing by the exit, with a glass in her hand, eyes roaming across the room. They meet his, freeze for a second, before darting away sheepishly.

He laughs. “I don’t really do dancing,” he simply comments, putting aside the complicated history behind it.

She frowns, perplexed. She is about to ask why when Jake turns up with a bottle of beer for her. She takes a sip and curls her lip. “I think I like the punch better.”

Jake invitingly holds his hand out to her. She takes another gulp from the glass and slips it back into Steve’s hand. She gives him a smile then puts her hand into Jake’s. He pulls her up and takes her back to the dance floor.

Steve bites his bottom lip, he watches as Jake takes her by the waist and twirls her with insolent confidence. His eyes then wander across the room. Eventually, they fall on the blonde woman again. He notices she has long straight hair and light blue eyes.

She smiles at him. He glances down at the nearly empty glass of punch in his hand. He looks up again and grins.

More to himself.

She reminds him of Sharon Carter. And he realizes how much time has gone by and what a different man he has become. He is no longer that undecisive man fearful of rejection who kissed agent 13 under a bridge.

It took him to go through years of being a fugitive, failing to stop the decimation of half the Universe and living 5 years with the guilt of it, but most importantly it took him to lose the very woman who stood by his side through all those hard times to acknowledge how much he loves her; to know, without the shadow of a doubt, she is the only woman he will ever want to be with, because she has filled all the room there is in his heart — and expanded it in the process— to the point it simply has no space left for anyone.

He could watch marry and be happy with another man but that would never stop him from wanting to be with her. He would literally wait a lifetime until the two of them have become so old they can barely stand and if she asked if she could sit by his side and hold his hand for the little time they have left, she would find the empty space next to him, kept vacant just for her.

If the Universe has decided that he could never have Natasha — or Katherine — in this lifetime, in this reality, then he would wait until the next one.

The blonde woman takes his grin as an invitation and walks over to him.

_____________________________

Katherine and Jake stand still as the band, composed of known members of the community, are taking a short break to have a sip. She runs her hand through her hair and instinctively turns, looking for Steve.

She finds him standing by the punch bowl, chatting with the very blonde she pointed to him. Her beaming smile fades, almost turns dull. She freezes, thrown off by a sight — and emotion— she did not expect.

Standing behind her, Jake glances over her shoulder, following her gaze. He smiles satisfyingly. “Looks like he’s found some company.”

Katherine drags her gaze away and turns to her boyfriend. “Yeah. Good for him.”

The band resumes playing, hitting the first notes of slow-paced music. Jake takes her in his arms and both start slow dancing like the many couples around them. She presses the side of her face against his arm and her eyes flicker to the buffet table a few times.

At the end of the evening, when over half of the guests have headed back home, Katherine calls it a night. Steve politely says goodbye to the woman who kept him company, Lorna.

He grabs Katherine’s shawl from the bench and she comes to collect it, draping it over her shoulders.

Jake has had one too many drinks and obviously leaves it to Steve to drive her back home.

“Do you want me to come with you?” he asks,

“Just let Tom take you home. Steve and I will be fine.”

She kisses him on the cheek then glances at Steve. They walk to the exit together, say George and Carol goodnight before heading back to the Chevy.

They are driving back home, down a long and quiet rural road, with nothing but the car lights cast over the black asphalt. She leans over to turn the radio on and some soft music begins playing in the background.

“You had a good evening?” she asks.

“It was nice,” he answers.

She lays her head back on the headrest, she watches him musingly as he gently steers the old wheel.

“You didn’t dance. I’m sure the girl you talked to wanted to dance.”

He smiles. “It’s complicated.”

She tilts her head, gazing at him. “Try me,” she says softly.

“In the 1940s, I met someone. We thought we were each other’s right partner and we thought we would finally have our dance when the war is over. But things turned out differently — I never saw the end of the war — and we didn’t have our dance.”

Her features have turned stern. “So, you’re still waiting on the right partner?” she asks.

He snorts softly. “I’m way past that kind of sentimentalism. I just don’t know how to dance and I’d find it awkward to have my first time with a complete stranger.”

Kat frowns. “And I never danced with you? Cold,” she comments.

He smiles, eyes on the road, then glances at her. “Well in your defense I’d never told you about this before…until now.”

She eyes him intently, surprised by this unadulterated and selfless blast of honesty. They drive in silence for a short while as she pensively bites her thumb.

“Pull over,” she suddenly says.

He shoots her a quizzical look. “Pull over,” she repeats.

He does as she asks and pulls over on the side of the road. He turns to look at her but she has already opened the door on her side and stepped out of the car. Still holding the wheel, he watches her walk around the Chevy, in front of the bright lights, to his side of the car.

“Let’s have that dance,” she says.

He puffs. “It’s fine, Kat. The last thing I want is some pity dance. You don’t owe me anything just because I shared that old story with you.”

She arches an eyebrow and probes him. She then leans and lays her arms over the edge of his window door.

“I never do anything out of pity,” she affirms resolutely. “I want to have a dance with you, Rogers. But knowing that I will be your first is an honor.”

He leans his head back on the headrest and smiles. “You seriously want to have a dance here, in the middle of the road? Somebody could see us…or even get run by a car.”

“You know you are quite fearful for a hero,” she teases.

“Comes with the job.”

A beguiling smirk tugs at her lips. “Too shy or too scared?” she purrs.

He nervously taps his fingers on the wheel. It hits him he has never indulged himself to any kind of fanciful whim, because he was an Avenger with responsibilities and the weight of the world over his shoulders. But here, in Louisiana, he is just Steve — a normal man having a normal life. And right now, he is a lucky man invited for a dance by the most stunning woman at the party.

He reaches for the handle. The clicking sound makes her smile triumphantly and she takes a step back to let him out. He leaves the door wide open and the slow music on the radio resounds a little louder.

Her fingers pinch the shawl hanging along her arms and with a pull, makes it slowly slip off of her. She then puts it on the hood of the car and steps back to stand in the middle of the road.

It is a starry sky, a long straight road with nothing but grass and trees for as far as the eye can see.

He suddenly feels very nervous at the prospect of getting so close physically. He walks up to her while she waits like a wild bird that lets someone come near. He lifts her hand and her fingers gently grasp his hand and she pulls him toward her. He puts his hands on her waist while she rests hers on his arms and slowly, very naturally, they sway to the music. He is amazed by how easy it is — how obvious. His palms wrap up closer around her waist as the music guides him along. Then he pulls away, raises his arm and twirls her; she turns around with a smile then steps back toward him as they both swirl together, his arm clutched around her and her hand brushing up his shoulder before nestling at the nape of his neck.

They smile. He wonders if she feels what he is feeling, the sheer bliss born from their effortless harmony.

The moment seems to last forever and yet the song hits the last note. They dance on a little longer, finding a melody in their impeccable synchronized pace. Eventually, they stand still, right there and then in the middle of this country road, staring into each other’s eyes.  

She bites her bottom lip and slowly pulls her hand away from the base of his hair; he lets go of her waist, too.

After a pause as she seems to try and read him, she smiles. “Thank you for this last dance,” she murmurs. She slowly steps out of his vicinity, back to the car.

She picks up her shawl on the way back to her seat.

________________________________

The following day goes normally with no mention of the midnight dance. They chat about the party over breakfast with Eliza before resuming their respective work.

A couple of days later, Steve is sitting at the living room table, calculating the spending for finishing the flooring. He hears what he assumes is Jake’s car pull over as he came earlier to take Katherine out for dinner. Loud voices echo from the distance. He hears fast footsteps go up to the porch, followed by others.

“I try, I really do. But you gotta give me something,” he hears Jake’s voice exclaim helplessly.

He catches sight of her silhouette standing on the porch. “Go home, Jake!” she shouts.

His shadow is cast over the shadow. A sigh echoes and his shadow disappears. A moment later, the engine of the car is on again and the car is driving away.

Katherine comes into the house. She takes off her denim jacket and lays it over her arm with a sullen expression. She is headed towards the stairs when she sees him.

She freezes. She doesn’t seem upset he heard them. She walks over to the kitchen.

“I need a drink,” she says apathetically as she goes around the kitchen, opens the top cabinet and takes out a bottle and two glasses. He takes the second glass as an invitation to stay.

She comes back to the table, slides one of the glasses toward him, flips around the chair in front of her and straddles it. She opens the bottle and fills their glasses.

She raises a toast and drinks it up, shutting her eyelids tight as the strong liquor travels down her throat. She pours herself another glass while his is still wrapped in his loose hand.

“Want to talk about it?” he ventures.

Her fingertips are massaging her temple, elbow propped on the table.

“No. Maybe,” she says, staring into her glass. “Jake is a good guy — he’s a great guy, actually — but it’s apparently not that simple to date someone with amnesia.”

He nods, listening closely and focused.

“Every relationship needs time,” he says. “Each grows and blossoms at their own pace.”

She smirks an ironic, tainted with some sadness.

“Did it take time for us?” she ponders aloud. Her eyes heavily turn in his direction. “I mean, you’ve made it look so easy and obvious since you got here.”

He snorts quietly. “Yeah, it took a little while.”

Her thumb goes to her bottom lip, pinching it lightly. She glances around the room, looking both hesitant and decisive. Her eyes finally dart back to him.

“Were we lovers?” she asks grimly.

The question takes him by surprise.

“No,” he answers with a similar stern and collected expression.

“Did you want to?” she continues.

He feels a lump in his throat and his heart is racing but he does not lose his composure.

Sitting here before him with this somber look and a disappointed heart, all he sees with certainty is how much he loves her.

“Yes.”

The word slips out of his lips with astonishing ease, releasing the burden of a secret he had kept for so long. He’s afraid it might put her off, frighten her, make her flap her wings and fly away.

Katherine’s face is unfathomable, still and expressionless.

“Did you think I wanted to?” she asks with similar aplomb, imperturbable.

He reminisces their many conversations, their banters infused with innocent but deliberate flirting, the unmissable intimacy between them in a busy room, her complete loyalty to him beyond professional bounds and logic, her wistful expression whenever she caught him looking at the compass.

“Yes,” he says softly.

She stares at him intently, stunned, then her expression finally cracks. She glances away. When she looks back at him, it seems her green eyes are covered with a fine gleaming screen. Her lips part a little, and a for a brief second, not a sound can come out.

“Then why weren’t we?” she murmurs, bemused.

He has asked himself the same question many times — even more so during the four months he lost her. His gaze mirrors hers, with a sorrow far more profound as it carries years of fond memories and unfulfilled desires.

“Because you and I, we put others before ourselves.”

And there is an immediate understanding between them. Wordless and fated.

[shawtygonemad]

My Dog Eared Hero: Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Nursing Fractures  

Katara started to slowly come out of her sleep to the smell of something cooking. She scrunched up her face from both the fragrance in the room and her body being sore. Not sure if it was from the ground she was sleeping on or the injury on her back, but regardless she sat up and stretched.

“She’s finally awake!” a small voice said. 

Katara opened her eyes to find the young fox demon, Shippo, sitting in front of her with the kitten Kirara. 

“Sleeping until noon. Some things never change,” Kagome giggled as she turned the food roasting on the fire. 

“It’s just a good sign that she’s healing well,” Sango smiled.

“That could be. However, this is how late she usually sleeps whenever she comes home to visit us,” Kagome teased.

“Hey, it’s that damn time change! My body clock gets all messed up from jet lag,” Katara pouted. 

There was a break in their conversation after that. Katara noticed a few members of their group missing. She had officially met them all when her and InuYasha returned last night. Kagome was shocked to say the least when they both walked in together. She was properly introduced to Miroku, Shippo, Kirara, and the Priestess Kaede who’s hut we were currently residing in. They were all really kind to Katara even after the fiasco she put them through when she first arrived here.

“Where are the boys, and lady Kaede,” Katara asked. 

“There were rumors that demons were nearing the village, so they went to check on things,” Sango explained. 

Katara didn’t even flinch at the thought of demons this time. Normally she would be put into a panic attack at the very thought. She must be getting used to this place. Speaking of which…

“Kagome… Do you think I would be able to travel home?” She asked her cousin.

“You want to leave already,” Shippo whined.

“I just, I want your thoughts, Kagome.”

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to since you managed to get here. However, you didn’t have any of the shikon jewel shards on you, so I’m not really sure how you managed to pass through,” Kagome wondered.

“Maybe there’s something here that you’re connected to,” Sango therorized. 

“What could possibly be here that I’m connected to,” Katara questioned. 

They were suddenly interrupted by InuYasha bursting through the door. He scrunched up his nose and smelt the air. He practically drooled. 

“Something smells good. Is lunch almost ready yet, Kagome?”

“Just about!” Kagome said as she kept turning the food over the fire.

The demon suddenly plopped down and sat beside Katara. His arms were in his kimono. He didn’t look at her as he spoke. 

“Figured you were dead when you didn’t wake up this morning,” he said blankly.

Katara just stared at him with a cold face. “Well thank you for caring about my well being,” she said sarcastically. 

“Heh, why should I care about the life of a puny human,” he scoffed. 

She just stared at him in amazement. “Because most of your friends here ARE humans, dumbass!”

“What did you call me,” he turned towards her and growled. 

“Dumb.Ass. Is my Japanese not clear enough for you? Maybe I should explain it to you in English?” Katara suddenly switch to her native tongue. “You’re a dumbass!” She yelled in English.

“I have no idea what you just said, but it seems like you’re looking for a pounding,” InuYasha growled while holding his fist up as a warning.

“I am in need of a good pounding, but not from you, buddy,” Katara shouted back slyly.

Sango let out a small gasp and quickly covered Shippo’s young ears. InuYasha turned his beat red face away from her in embarrassment. 

“Gah, you’re just like that perverted monk,” he stuttered out.

“What, getting embarrassed over talking about sex,” Katara teased him.

Before InuYasha could retort back Kagome butt in. “Alright, you two knock it off!”

“But (he) (she) started it,” the pair said together.

“Well I’m finishing it!” Kagome stated, before giving Katara a look. “Kat, this isn’t like America, or our own time for that matter. People around here are not used to talking publicly about… you know…” 

“Yeah, yeah! Fine. I’ll keep my remarks to myself,” she finally stated. 

They were all suddenly removed from their conversation when a loud child’s cry could be heard somewhere outside. It sounded like they were in pain. Katara’s nursing instincts kicked in and she sprung up to run out the door. She scanned the area for the crying child. Luckily she spotted a group of kids carrying a crying little boy back into the village. He looked to be around 10. Katara rushed over there so assess the situation. 

“What happened,” she asked them calmly, taking control of the situation.

“He fell off the stone wall over by the river and hurt his foot,” one of the boys said quickly. They all looked freaked out.

“What’s wrong,” Kagome asked as she ran over with the others. 

“He hurt his foot,” she told them before turning to address the kids. “Can you put him down gently so I can have a look?”

The kids placed their friend on the ground before stepping back to give Katara some room.

“What’s your name,” Katara asked the little boy.

“Sh- Shiori,” he stuttered in pain.

“Shiori, my name is Katara. I’m a nurse, so I’m going to have a look at your foot, okay?” She explained to him.

“P-please don’t hurt it more,” he cried.

“I’m going to be as gentle as possible.” She calmly explained before getting to work. 

She softly lifted his ankle with a hand while the other was inspecting it. It was extremely swollen and already starting to blacken with bruising. It could be broken, but they couldn’t know for sure without medical technology.

“Can you move your toes?”

The boy cautiously wiggled all of his toes. 

“That’s a good sign,” she smiled at him. “How about moving your foot?”

The boy quickly shook his head no.

“Okay. Well the good news is that I don’t think it’s broken since you can move your toes. The bad news is that this is a severe sprain. It’s going to hurt to walk on it for awhile, so what I need you to do is follow the R.I.C.E. steps.” Katara explained.

“Rice?” Miroku question.

“Rest, ice, compress, and elevate. Sango, can you go find some wrap so I can find him a make-shift brace?”

“Of course!” She replied before hurrying off.

“Kagome, you don’t happen to have any ibuprofen on you, do you?” Katara asked her cousin.

“No… but I do have some Tylenol!”

“Okay, that’ll help with his pain. We just need something that’ll help with the anti-inflammatory,” Katara sat and thought. “Is there any herbs that you know of around here that’ll help?”

Everyone was silent for a moment before InuYasha spoke up. 

“What about Polygonum Cuspidatum,” InuYasha questioned. “My mother gave me some when I was younger. I had a tendency of getting hurt a lot.”

Katara gave him a soft smile. “Why am I not surprised?”

“I’ll go look for some,” he quickly said before disappearing with the others to retrieve their items.

While they were off, the little boy’s parents arrived and Katara explained everything to them. The others finally returned, so Katara got back to work. Kagome gave him some Tylenol while Katara tightly wrapped his foot and ankle into a temporary brace. InuYasha returned with the herb, and told the boy’s parents that the best way to take it is to mix it in with some tea.

“I would take that about twice a day,” Katara explained to the family.

“Thank you so much, for everything,” said the boy’s mother while her and her husband began to carry their son off home.

Katara got up from her crouched position on the ground and dusted her jeans off.

She turned and saw the group staring at her.  

“What,” she questioned.

“That was amazing! You knew exactly what to do,” Sango praised.

“Well it is my job after all,” Katara chuckled.

“Wait, you finally got your certification,” Kagome asked excitedly.

“I did,” Katara responded proudly.

“That’s so great! Congratulations,” Kagome squeaked as she hugged her older cousin.

“Thank you.”

“With how much all of us get injured, we could really use someone like you around,” Miroku said.

“Yeah, Katara! You should stay with us!” Shippo exclaimed.

Kagome turned to Katara with an excited gasp. “I would love that!”

Katara didn’t respond right away. She glanced over at InuYasha expecting him to make some smart remark. He stayed silent, but she caught him studying her curiously. This made something in her chest tighten. She quickly looked away.

“I don’t know…” Katara started.

“C’mon Kat! Please,” Kagome begged.

“I guess I don’t really have anywhere else to go,” Katara said slowly. It never really hit her until now. 

“Don’t you have-” Kagome began but was cut off by Katara.

“I sold everything when mom died. The house, the furniture, everything.” Katara started to get choked up, but forced the tears back down. “Without her, I don’t have a home anymore,” she whispered.

Kagome noticed her cousin was in distress and pulled her in for another hug. “You do now,” Kagome said quietly in her cousin’s ear. “With us.”

[pacinglikeghosts]

assigning ronance signature scents

because i am obsessed with fragrance and this is kind of like my hidden talent and i want to use it on robin and nancy. 

this is not historically accurate because i really am just out here having a silly goofy time, i mostly just use this as a resource in my fics and wanted to share!

nancy: 

starting with my best girl because i actually have info to help me with this! during the filming of s1 natalia bought a vintage bottle of charlie blue (which i also bought, as an experiment) to wear and get into nancy’s headspace (it was literally awful. she made joe keery sneeze or cough according to the story). but to get to the point, charlie blue is a floral fragrance, leading me to pick two floral perfumes for nancy. more specifically, i picked “pure white linen” from estee lauder (left) and “sun moon and stars” from karl lagerfeld (right).

not only do i think nancy would stick with florals, i also think she'd stick with name brands (like what you could find at macy's). charlie blue is a revlon perfume, so it led me to believe that while the wheelers have money, they aren't exactly spending it on something like fragrance that is just going to be drained. i also think karen may have bought nancy her first fragrance based on what she knew, because that's what her mother did, and nancy never bothered to venture out until she was older. "pure white linen" gives me daily use vibes, while "sun moon and stars" is more special occasions/dates. i also think she has a permanent lingering smell of ink and paper but that's not featured here.

robin:

oh robin. to the surprise of no one, these are a bit more gender-neutral to masculine than nancy's. when thinking about robin, i wanted things that were masculine, but still had a touch of softness and sweetness to it. fragrance has no gender, but a lot of masculine fragrances created in the 1980s were very masculine (think branding for men like GLACIER ICE FREEZE vs soft vanilla woods for women) so if she were to buy fragrance in the 1980s, i think she'd steal steve's cologne or spend five hours trying to pick a cologne that is slightly less overly masculine. that all being said, i picked 'skins x vilhelm' by vilhelm parfumerie (left) and 'ambre topkapi' by mdci parfums (right)

as you may notice, there's a lot of lavender, sandalwood, leather, and tea in these fragrances. that is completely on purpose, because i find that those pull especially gender neutral-masculine on a lot of people that is soooo appealing. they also don't flag incredibly masculine on first sniff, making it so most people can get away with wearing them and not smelling like a forty year old man named Tim that works a 9-5 and plays golf. the floral and spice notes work as countering pairings of each other but in the best way, and i could totally see robin wearing this in her full butch glory. also, the queer history of lavender is not to be ignored and robin certainly wouldn't ignore it. to me, i see robin wearing 'skins' on a more day-to-day basis, and 'ambre' as a special occasion/date thing.

anyway that's it! i love talking about fragrance and i don't think i've ever really talked about it here except for the coco chanel poll so PLEASE talk about it with me if you'd like.

[kondo-hijikata]

Pairings: Established Kondo/Hijikata Rating: M Summary: It’s simple. Peddle medicine and find purpose. But after Hijikata is caught in a downpour that leads him right into Kondo’s arms, he realizes things are a little more complicated than he’d like to believe. [AO3]

<< Chapter 3

.*After the Rain*. Chapter 4

Tendrils of honeysuckle twisted fragrant blooms over the outer stone wall, bringing embellishment and vitality to a modest silver nameplate that bore the words Sato Residence. The habitant butterflies and hummingbirds were unfazed when Kondo hurried by their earthly paradise of flora, still impassively flitting about even when he swept beneath the bough that had grown over the main entryway.

That wasn’t to say a proper welcome wasn’t in order, however.

“Kat-chan!”

Kondo unclasped his hat and pulled it free with a shake of the head, his chin immediately lifting to the woman who stood up on the porch before him. At her side were a young girl and boy, each flailing and cheering while jumping about in delight. “Uncle came to visit! Uncle, uncle!”

“Shh!” she hissed, swatting at the space around them. “Not so loud!”

“Nao-chan, Gen-chan! Hello!” Kondo offered a wave to help placate their excitement and then turned back to Nobu, his voice falling as serious as his expression. “I’m real sorry for showing up like this without notice, but I rushed over the moment I got your letter.”

“Oh, Kat-chan, please. Do you not see these kids right now? You’re always welcome here.” She guided the children a few steps back to give him room. “Come on up!”

With a nod, Kondo placed his hat and the cloth-covered box he’d carried on the wooden floorboards, before pivoting to toe off his sandals. “Sorry for the trouble,” he said out of polite habit (and over little voices now chanting, “Big feet! Big feet!”), while bounding up to join them on the porch. Within seconds, tiny arms were tossed around his legs to deliver enthusiastic hugs. Kondo’s shoulders dipped forward so he could place one hand atop each child’s head and he greeted them with warmth. “Hey, you guys.” However, worry was written across his features when he looked to Nobu again. “How is he?”

“Besides his usual stubborn self?” The words alone were harsh but they’d been delivered with the same fondness Nobu always used when talking of her brother. She crossed her arms and one hip leisurely swung out to the side. “Doing better, thankfully. He’s still feverish but at least he’s finally in bed.”

Kondo exhaled with relief, his lashes falling as he nodded once. In the background, he was vaguely aware of teeny toes stepping on his, their owners continuing to yap about the extraordinary size of his shoes.

“Ugh, the strings I had to pull to get him to rest, Kat-chan…” Blowing out a breath, Nobu’s brow creased and she tilted her head. “You should’ve seen him this morning. Flushed! Sweating! Exhausted and grumpy, and completely unreasonable. But he was so insistent on getting dressed, no matter what.”

Connecting the dots, Kondo felt color rush to his own cheeks then and his eyes parted a little wider. “Oh no…”

“I felt so bad that it came to sending a courier and worrying you like this. But with Hiko-chan out giving lessons like the good husband he is…” Nobu closed one eye and raised her shoulders a touch. “Honestly, that letter was the only way I could convince Toshi to get himself back in bed this morning. Even then, he was up and about soon after, pacing.” A beat. “He was really looking forward to seeing you today.”

Raising his palm to his cheek, Kondo huffed as his features softened and he peered off to the side. Soon after, his focus crept back up to her with a shy apology. “I’m so sorry for the trouble, Nobu-san.”

“What are you sorry for? You know best of all that obstinacy and flair for drama are traits around these parts!”

In response to that bit of truth, Kondo could do nothing except stifle the laugh which demanded escape from his tongue. So, the pot was calling the kettle black again… His hand fell and he absently pulled at the hem of his hakamashita to keep himself in line; the last thing he needed was another Hijikata on his case for something minor, especially when Nobu could be just as irascible as Toshi—if the mood was right. “Hardly,” he finally replied, not daring to agree with her assessment, no matter how accurate. “Anyway, I’m just glad he’s okay.”

“He’ll be fine. And speaking of the other dramatics in this family.” Nobu’s gaze appropriately fell to her children then. “All right, you two, that’s it! Let’s give him some space.” The girl of seven, Nao, pouted before releasing Kondo as her mother insisted but her younger brother, Gennosuke, made no such move; he clung even tighter, then lifted his chin. “Is Souji-niichan coming?”

“Souji, huh,” Kondo exhaled. “Afraid not. He stayed home today since Uncle Toshi caught a cold.”

“Aww…”

Kondo grinned and ruffled Gennosuke’s hair. “Don’t worry, you’ll be seeing him soon.” It was a promise he’d have to make good on, for as much as this boy wanted to see Souji, Souji had wanted to accompany Kondo on his visit here; the deadpan look and manner with which his brow had twitched upon hearing the remainder of his day would be spent with Gen-san were almost comical. Alas, though, Kondo had known war tales and tea would pale in comparison to the potential thrill of antagonizing Hijikata when he was already contentious and moody. His decision to come alone had been made in the best interests of all.

In all honestly, he’d felt awful about breaking the plans which occupied Souji’s excitement for the last few days, and even sought his permission to do so; unimpressed green eyes had fallen half-lidded with a sigh. “Hijikata-san is ruining my life as usual, I see.” Despite the warranted complaint, Souji had turned on his feet afterward and wandered in the direction of the sitting room, all as Kondo’s palms met in appreciation before taking off, himself.

He’d make the blunder up soon enough. For now…

Upon hearing Nao call his name, Gennosuke let go of the leg he’d wrapped himself around, instead favoring to chase his sister across the porch and through open shoji. Kondo used this opportunity of newly granted freedom to retrieve the elegant box he’d set down earlier. Picking it up, he offered it to Nobu once she finished gently scolding the children again for their noisiness.

“Nobu-san, it’s not much, but…”

“Kat-chan!” she admonished. “You never have to bring anything.”

“I know, I know. But I ran into a fruit vendor and couldn’t pass this up though, look.” Reaching for the tied ends of fabric, Kondo loosened them slightly and fragrance drifted up from inside.

“Ara?! Peaches?!” Nobu exclaimed. “They smell so good!” She inhaled again and a large smile graced her lips. “Oh, Kat-chan, Toshi’s gonna be so happy, you don’t even know. Between you visiting and bringing these? I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s cured in a split second.”

Kondo smiled widely at that, a hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. “That would be ideal, wouldn’t it?”

“Only one way to find out! C’mon,” she said with a wink and toss of her head, “let’s go see how bad of a mood he’s in.”

~

Companionable silence descended as Nobu led Kondo down a long stretch of porch and then around the corner, leaving them both standing at the threshold of a closed door.

“Toshi,” Nobu called softly while placing her palm against the entrance. When no reply came she tried again. However, upon being greeted with quiet for a second time, she carefully slid the shoji aside and peered in with Kondo leaning over her to do the same.

“Ah…” he whispered, lingering a moment more before righting himself. Nobu looked up at him with questioning eyes and Kondo nodded once to offer his agreement. And just like that, the door was closed as quietly as it had been opened.

“You know, Kat-chan…” When Kondo offered to carry the box for her as they began walking again, Nobu only hugged it closer. “I’ve known my brother for almost twenty years at this point and it’s still hard to believe that that…innocent face he makes while sleeping belongs to him.”

“Mm?” Kondo chuckled.

“Almost makes me believe in those ridiculous stories about shapeshifters…those scary ones that really do terrify the hell out of you when you’re younger but you never want to admit it.”

“Are you admitting it now?”

“I guess I am!”

Suppressing what would have been a hearty, resounding laugh, Kondo managed to control the volume of his amusement and then agreed. “You have a point, though. Angry Toshi is certainly scary Toshi.” A beat. “And it’s always a good idea to stay on his good side…unless you’re brave.” Upon arriving back at the front of the house, he cast a glance toward the main gate and his lower eyelids lifted just a touch. “Souji is brave.”

“Oh, that kid is a master of getting under my brother’s skin for sure. But make no mistake about it!” Nobu stamped one foot to drive her point home. “Toshi cares deeply for him. I know, if just from seeing how he interacts with my own.”

“Heh, I know it, too!” Kondo crossed his arms with a grin pulling far into his cheeks. “Those two may be like oil and water, but in some cases, oil and water can actually work together, you know. I can’t imagine my life without either. Everything just feels…” Affection swelled in his chest and perhaps had him speaking a bit too openly. “…so complete.”

“That’s good,” came the matter-of-fact voice at his side. “Because I can’t imagine Toshi’s life without you in it, either.”

With a blink, the contented expression fell from Kondo’s face and when his attention turned back to Nobu, he found her studying him with an inkling of pensiveness. “Oh…um—”

“Ne.” She cocked her head toward the kitchen. “You comin’ in?”

“Ah, Nobu-san, I don’t wanna put you out or anything. I just came to make sure—”

“Here, then. Since you’ve been insisting on carrying them.” Nobu thrust the peaches into Kondo’s arms. “Now you’re useful. Follow me.”

“I—” Kondo pursed his lips when he received a very familiar piercing gaze over her shoulder and the sight of it had him immediately relenting. “Mm, right. Yes, on my way.”

Tiny crimson baubles dangling from Nobu’s hair pin danced with a laugh just as animated. “That’s more like it! My last name may be Sato but never doubt I’m a Hijikata through and through!”

“Believe me.” Kondo stepped into sandals (small and uncomfortable, but they would do) waiting on the finished stone floor of the kitchen and set the box on a counter. “I’m smart enough to never dream of doing that.” His gaze drifted around the space and he watched while Nobu approached the pot that had been set over a small flame. The air smelled of comfort—of burning wood and appetizing rice porridge.

“I want to talk with you about some things, but I need to take care a few odds and ends in here first.” She picked up a hand towel to protect herself from the heat and then slid the cover off just enough to look inside. A billow of steam rose from within and the lid was immediately replaced. “Am I right to assume you’re gonna fight me if I tell you to go relax in the sitting room?”

“Who could possibly just sit around when there’s porridge to garnish and other things around here to do?”

Nobu huffed out of her nose. “You’re a good man, Kat-chan.” She opened a nearby cabinet and procured a jar. “Impossibly humble, but certainly good.”

“So, those scallions over there…which knife can I use?”

“Taku.” However, Nobu was grinning softly as she nodded toward a drawer. “Any one you want.”

“Got it.” With that, Kondo plucked the light green stalks from the vegetable basket, brought them to a free area of countertop, and began dicing. Across the way, Nobu removed handfuls of pickled plums from the jar and began extracting the pits.

“You know,” she started, while nimble fingers worked at their task with quickness and efficiency. “I’ve known you for a pretty long time too, but I don’t know if I ever thanked you. Have I?”

“Thanked me?” Kondo asked, his tone gentle and rising with curiosity. “For what?”

“Toshi’s my brother, but…well, I suppose it sounds a little silly since we’re so close in age, but I also think of him as my first son. After our parents died, someone had to step up and I guess it was just in my instinct to be the one who would.”

“It’s not silly at all. That explains why Toshi is so strong.” Chop, chop, chop. “Because Nobu-san is.”

“Cht…please.” Her voice fell, but Kondo could hear the smile she tried to conceal. “Anyway, he was our family’s little prince and I just wanted him to have a good life, especially after all that happened. And I still do.” Kondo finished his task then and peered over at Nobu; she stood still, her digits paused in mid-action of pitting with her chin raised and eyes focused on the wall before her. “It’s tough, though, the balance of having my own kids and everything.” Her shoulders shrugged and she went back to her work.

“I can only imagine…”

“That’s why we tried sending Toshi for that apprenticeship. Everyone here was so adamant on turning him into a successful merchant.” Nobu cocked her head. “But we all know how that turned out.” A beat. “…Bowl’s over there if you wanna put those scallions in something.”

“Well, I’m not following…didn’t it turn out for the best?” Kondo asked, while doing as he was told. “I mean, sure, the textile business didn’t work out but now he’s so good at selling your family’s medicine, so…” He drifted off when Nobu quietly chuckled, and then joined her with a small laugh of his own. “What?”

“That’s the point I’m getting to, Kat-chan. You’re always so encouraging, always have something good to say. Can Toshi do no wrong in your eyes?” She looked up to meet his gaze.

“Uh…I mean, no one is perfect.” He set his mouth in a line. “I’m certainly not, so how could I expect that of someone else?”

The corners of Nobu’s mouth twitched further with fondness. “If you want my opinion, I don’t think the reason why he’s so good at medicine peddling is because of his apprentice work. Maybe he learned some skills there that helped, but…” She paused. “I think it’s because you drive him to do his best.”

Kondo finally turned all the way to face her. “…Me?”

“Toshi was never exactly going down the wrong path, but I still worried about him,” Nobu spoke while tossing the readied plums on a dish and gathering discarded portions in her palm. “He wasn’t happy with the idea of just owning a shop or even inheriting our land. And I agree. I think he’s made for something different.” She discarded the refuse in a bag, then found Kondo’s eyes. “Something more.”

He licked his lips and glanced at the floor, as guilt began to pang within his stomach. What Nobu was saying sounded positive, but Kondo wondered if there was an ulterior motive to this conversation that wasn’t so promising in the end; after all, he’d been the one to tell Hijikata it was all right to have not finished the apprenticeship, that it’d been okay to not want to spend his life on a farm.

Kondo hadn’t said any of it lightly or with the intent of frivolous enablement; the words had been meant to both comfort and appeal to Hijikata’s best interests—but perhaps his best interests hadn’t aligned with the vision this family had for their youngest. And if that had caused a wedge between them…

“Kat-chan…” The kindness in Nobu’s voice brought Kondo back to her. “What I’m saying is, I wasn’t sure how to set him on the path to finding happiness. But I think you can. Or, that you already have.” She closed her eyes and with a huff, shook her head. “My older brother would go crazy if he heard us talking now because I know for damn sure he doesn’t agree. But, this world is changing. And I think we should all be able to chase what we dream of most. Like…what makes us excited to get up in the morning, instead of just living out of obligation.”

A choppy breath left Kondo’s lips then and his chin fell in a strong nod. “I agree.” His hands met his waist before a second guess made him wonder if it was too direct a stance; he therefore settled on crossing his arms before him instead. “I agree with that so much. Especially with my situation.”

“It’s what I’m doing too, after all.” Nobu grinned. “I have my family. That’s really what I wanted more than anything. And I want each of them to lead the best life possible, but it’s hard to keep tabs on them all, especially with…” She patted her midsection.

Kondo stared at her in confusion—and then it clicked. “…Oh.” His spine went a little straighter. “Oh, wow! That’s…that’s great news! Congratulations!”

“But when your family’s growing, everything’s so busy all the time. I can’t always be there for Toshi.” Nobu put out the flame beneath the porridge and once the bubbling background noise died out, she turned back to Kondo. “So, thank you for being the one who is.”

Absentmindedly itching at his jaw and then massaging the side of his neck, Kondo’s gaze fell down and off to the side. “Um…it’s…” He found himself incapable of stopping his own shy grin then. “It’s mutually beneficial. If you think I’ve done him any good at all, well…you should hear about all he’s done for me. It’s incomparable. I mean, if it weren’t for Toshi, then I—” His words trailed off when he noticed the softness falling from Nobu’s expression. “Sorry, I’m…talking a lot, aren’t I?”

A huff. “Oh, no.” With a swift turn to the counter, she braced the heel of palms against it and pushed her lips out. “Not at all.” Nobu’s tone dropped. “But maybe I have.”

Bewildered, Kondo caught onto the conflicted expression that was ascertainable even from seeing just the side of her face. His mouth opened but he stopped himself before speaking again, as the clear shift in demeanor indicated something profound had happened right under his nose without him even noticing.

“...Nobu-san,” Kondo ventured gently, taking a step toward her.

“Kat-chan, look. This might be overstepping. And maybe it makes me a terrible sister who can’t mind her own business. But.” She drummed her fingertips twice before pushing away from the edge, and when their eyes met, concern was clear and present in hers. “Has Toshi…” Nobu shook her head once with a wince before finally giving in. “Has he talked to you about this long trip he’s planning to take?”

Kondo blinked.

And though he couldn’t say he’d been surprised by her question, his heart seemed to grow a mind of its own as it began pounding hard against its ribbed enclosure. Then, from that central place in his chest, an ache swelled and burned—permeated right from the core to paralyze him.

Or at least that’s how it felt, for in that moment, it seemed to Kondo that he’d forgotten how to speak.

Kondo exhaled with relief, his lashes falling as he nodded once. In the background, he was vaguely aware of teeny toes stepping on his, their owners continuing to yap about the extraordinary size of his shoes.

“Ugh, the strings I had to pull to get him to rest, Kat-chan…” Blowing out a breath, Nobu’s brow creased and she tilted her head. “You should’ve seen him this morning. Flushed! Sweating! Exhausted and grumpy, and completely unreasonable. But he was so insistent on getting dressed, no matter what.”

Connecting the dots, Kondo felt color rush to his own cheeks then and his eyes parted a little wider. “Oh no…”

“I felt so bad that it came to sending a courier and worrying you like this. But with Hiko-chan out giving lessons like the good husband he is…” Nobu closed one eye and raised her shoulders a touch. “Honestly, that letter was the only way I could convince Toshi to get himself back in bed this morning. Even then, he was up and about soon after, pacing.” A beat. “He was really looking forward to seeing you today.”

Raising his palm to his cheek, Kondo huffed as his features softened and he peered off to the side. Soon after, his focus crept back up to her with a shy apology. “I’m so sorry for the trouble, Nobu-san.”

“What are you sorry for? You know best of all that obstinacy and flair for drama are traits around these parts!”

In response to that bit of truth, Kondo could do nothing except stifle the laugh which demanded escape from his tongue. So, the pot was calling the kettle black again… His hand fell and he absently pulled at the hem of his hakamashita to keep himself in line; the last thing he needed was another Hijikata on his case for something minor, especially when Nobu could be just as irascible as Toshi—if the mood was right. “Hardly,” he finally replied, not daring to agree with her assessment, no matter how accurate. “Anyway, I’m just glad he’s okay.”

“He’ll be fine. And speaking of the other dramatics in this family.” Nobu’s gaze appropriately fell to her children then. “All right, you two, that’s it! Let’s give him some space.” The girl of seven, Nao, pouted before releasing Kondo as her mother insisted but her younger brother, Gennosuke, made no such move; he clung even tighter, then lifted his chin. “Is Souji-niichan coming?”

“Souji, huh,” Kondo exhaled. “Afraid not. He stayed home today since Uncle Toshi caught a cold.”

“Aww…”

Kondo grinned and ruffled Gennosuke’s hair. “Don’t worry, you’ll be seeing him soon.” It was a promise he’d have to make good on, for as much as this boy wanted to see Souji, Souji had wanted to accompany Kondo on his visit here; the deadpan look and manner with which his brow had twitched upon hearing the remainder of his day would be spent with Gen-san were almost comical. Alas, though, Kondo had known war tales and tea would pale in comparison to the potential thrill of antagonizing Hijikata when he was already contentious and moody. His decision to come alone had been made in the best interests of all.

In all honestly, he’d felt awful about breaking the plans which occupied Souji’s excitement for the last few days, and even sought his permission to do so; unimpressed green eyes had fallen half-lidded with a sigh. “Hijikata-san is ruining my life as usual, I see.” Despite the warranted complaint, Souji had turned on his feet afterward and wandered in the direction of the sitting room, all as Kondo’s palms met in appreciation before taking off, himself.

He’d make the blunder up soon enough. For now…

Upon hearing Nao call his name, Gennosuke let go of the leg he’d wrapped himself around, instead favoring to chase his sister across the porch and through open shoji. Kondo used this opportunity of newly granted freedom to retrieve the elegant box he’d set down earlier. Picking it up, he offered it to Nobu once she finished gently scolding the children again for their noisiness.

“Nobu-san, it’s not much, but…”

“Kat-chan!” she admonished. “You never have to bring anything.”

“I know, I know. But I ran into a fruit vendor and couldn’t pass this up though, look.” Reaching for the tied ends of fabric, Kondo loosened them slightly and fragrance drifted up from inside.

“Ara?! Peaches?!” Nobu exclaimed. “They smell so good!” She inhaled again and a large smile graced her lips. “Oh, Kat-chan, Toshi’s gonna be so happy, you don’t even know. Between you visiting and bringing these? I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s cured in a split second.”

Kondo smiled widely at that, a hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. “That would be ideal, wouldn’t it?”

“Only one way to find out! C’mon,” she said with a wink and toss of her head, “let’s go see how bad of a mood he’s in.”

~

Companionable silence descended as Nobu led Kondo down a long stretch of porch and then around the corner, leaving them both standing at the threshold of a closed door.

“Toshi,” Nobu called softly while placing her palm against the entrance. When no reply came she tried again. However, upon being greeted with quiet for a second time, she carefully slid the shoji aside and peered in with Kondo leaning over her to do the same.

“Ah…” he whispered, lingering a moment more before righting himself. Nobu looked up at him with questioning eyes and Kondo nodded once to offer his agreement. And just like that, the door was closed as quietly as it had been opened.

“You know, Kat-chan…” When Kondo offered to carry the box for her as they began walking again, Nobu only hugged it closer. “I’ve known my brother for almost twenty years at this point and it’s still hard to believe that that…innocent face he makes while sleeping belongs to him.”

“Mm?” Kondo chuckled.

“Almost makes me believe in those ridiculous stories about shapeshifters…those scary ones that really do terrify the hell out of you when you’re younger but you never want to admit it.”

“Are you admitting it now?”

“I guess I am!”

Suppressing what would have been a hearty, resounding laugh, Kondo managed to control the volume of his amusement and then agreed. “You have a point, though. Angry Toshi is certainly scary Toshi.” A beat. “And it’s always a good idea to stay on his good side…unless you’re brave.” Upon arriving back at the front of the house, he cast a glance toward the main gate and his lower eyelids lifted just a touch. “Souji is brave.”

“Oh, that kid is a master of getting under my brother’s skin for sure. But make no mistake about it!” Nobu stamped one foot to drive her point home. “Toshi cares deeply for him. I know, if just from seeing how he interacts with my own.”

“Heh, I know it, too!” Kondo crossed his arms with a grin pulling far into his cheeks. “Those two may be like oil and water, but in some cases, oil and water can actually work together, you know. I can’t imagine my life without either. Everything just feels…” Affection swelled in his chest and perhaps had him speaking a bit too openly. “…so complete.”

“That’s good,” came the matter-of-fact voice at his side. “Because I can’t imagine Toshi’s life without you in it, either.”

With a blink, the contented expression fell from Kondo’s face and when his attention turned back to Nobu, he found her studying him with an inkling of pensiveness. “Oh…um—”

“Ne.” She cocked her head toward the kitchen. “You comin’ in?”

“Ah, Nobu-san, I don’t wanna put you out or anything. I just came to make sure—”

“Here, then. Since you’ve been insisting on carrying them.” Nobu thrust the peaches into Kondo’s arms. “Now you’re useful. Follow me.”

“I—” Kondo pursed his lips when he received a very familiar piercing gaze over her shoulder and the sight of it had him immediately relenting. “Mm, right. Yes, on my way.”

Tiny crimson baubles dangling from Nobu’s hair pin danced with a laugh just as animated. “That’s more like it! My last name may be Sato but never doubt I’m a Hijikata through and through!”

“Believe me.” Kondo stepped into sandals (small and uncomfortable, but they would do) waiting on the finished stone floor of the kitchen and set the box on a counter. “I’m smart enough to never dream of doing that.” His gaze drifted around the space and he watched while Nobu approached the pot that had been set over a small flame. The air smelled of comfort—of burning wood and appetizing rice porridge.

“I want to talk with you about some things, but I need to take care a few odds and ends in here first.” She picked up a hand towel to protect herself from the heat and then slid the cover off just enough to look inside. A billow of steam rose from within and the lid was immediately replaced. “Am I right to assume you’re gonna fight me if I tell you to go relax in the sitting room?”

“Who could possibly just sit around when there’s porridge to garnish and other things around here to do?”

Nobu huffed out of her nose. “You’re a good man, Kat-chan.” She opened a nearby cabinet and procured a jar. “Impossibly humble, but certainly good.”

“So, those scallions over there…which knife can I use?”

“Taku.” However, Nobu was grinning softly as she nodded toward a drawer. “Any one you want.”

“Got it.” With that, Kondo plucked the light green stalks from the vegetable basket, brought them to a free area of countertop, and began dicing. Across the way, Nobu removed handfuls of pickled plums from the jar and began extracting the pits.

“You know,” she started, while nimble fingers worked at their task with quickness and efficiency. “I’ve known you for a pretty long time too, but I don’t know if I ever thanked you. Have I?”

“Thanked me?” Kondo asked, his tone gentle and rising with curiosity. “For what?”

“Toshi’s my brother, but…well, I suppose it sounds a little silly since we’re so close in age, but I also think of him as my first son. After our parents died, someone had to step up and I guess it was just in my instinct to be the one who would.”

“It’s not silly at all. That explains why Toshi is so strong.” Chop, chop, chop. “Because Nobu-san is.”

“Cht…please.” Her voice fell, but Kondo could hear the smile she tried to conceal. “Anyway, he was our family’s little prince and I just wanted him to have a good life, especially after all that happened. And I still do.” Kondo finished his task then and peered over at Nobu; she stood still, her digits paused in mid-action of pitting with her chin raised and eyes focused on the wall before her. “It’s tough, though, the balance of having my own kids and everything.” Her shoulders shrugged and she went back to her work.

“I can only imagine…”

“That’s why we tried sending Toshi for that apprenticeship. Everyone here was so adamant on turning him into a successful merchant.” Nobu cocked her head. “But we all know how that turned out.” A beat. “…Bowl’s over there if you wanna put those scallions in something.”

“Well, I’m not following…didn’t it turn out for the best?” Kondo asked, while doing as he was told. “I mean, sure, the textile business didn’t work out but now he’s so good at selling your family’s medicine, so…” He drifted off when Nobu quietly chuckled, and then joined her with a small laugh of his own. “What?”

“That’s the point I’m getting to, Kat-chan. You’re always so encouraging, always have something good to say. Can Toshi do no wrong in your eyes?” She looked up to meet his gaze.

“Uh…I mean, no one is perfect.” He set his mouth in a line. “I’m certainly not, so how could I expect that of someone else?”

The corners of Nobu’s mouth twitched further with fondness. “If you want my opinion, I don’t think the reason why he’s so good at medicine peddling is because of his apprentice work. Maybe he learned some skills there that helped, but…” She paused. “I think it’s because you drive him to do his best.”

Kondo finally turned all the way to face her. “…Me?”

“Toshi was never exactly going down the wrong path, but I still worried about him,” Nobu spoke while tossing the readied plums on a dish and gathering discarded portions in her palm. “He wasn’t happy with the idea of just owning a shop or even inheriting our land. And I agree. I think he’s made for something different.” She discarded the refuse in a bag, then found Kondo’s eyes. “Something more.”

He licked his lips and glanced at the floor, as guilt began to pang within his stomach. What Nobu was saying sounded positive, but Kondo wondered if there was an ulterior motive to this conversation that wasn’t so promising in the end; after all, he’d been the one to tell Hijikata it was all right to have not finished the apprenticeship, that it’d been okay to not want to spend his life on a farm.

Kondo hadn’t said any of it lightly or with the intent of frivolous enablement; the words had been meant to both comfort and appeal to Hijikata’s best interests—but perhaps his best interests hadn’t aligned with the vision this family had for their youngest. And if that had caused a wedge between them…

“Kat-chan…” The kindness in Nobu’s voice brought Kondo back to her. “What I’m saying is, I wasn’t sure how to set him on the path to finding happiness. But I think you can. Or, that you already have.” She closed her eyes and with a huff, shook her head. “My older brother would go crazy if he heard us talking now because I know for damn sure he doesn’t agree. But, this world is changing. And I think we should all be able to chase what we dream of most. Like…what makes us excited to get up in the morning, instead of just living out of obligation.”

A choppy breath left Kondo’s lips then and his chin fell in a strong nod. “I agree.” His hands met his waist before a second guess made him wonder if it was too direct a stance; he therefore settled on crossing his arms before him instead. “I agree with that so much. Especially with my situation.”

“It’s what I’m doing too, after all.” Nobu grinned. “I have my family. That’s really what I wanted more than anything. And I want each of them to lead the best life possible, but it’s hard to keep tabs on them all, especially with…” She patted her midsection.

Kondo stared at her in confusion—and then it clicked. “…Oh.” His spine went a little straighter. “Oh, wow! That’s…that’s great news! Congratulations!”

“But when your family’s growing, everything’s so busy all the time. I can’t always be there for Toshi.” Nobu put out the flame beneath the porridge and once the bubbling background noise died out, she turned back to Kondo. “So, thank you for being the one who is.”

Absentmindedly itching at his jaw and then massaging the side of his neck, Kondo’s gaze fell down and off to the side. “Um…it’s…” He found himself incapable of stopping his own shy grin then. “It’s mutually beneficial. If you think I’ve done him any good at all, well…you should hear about all he’s done for me. It’s incomparable. I mean, if it weren’t for Toshi, then I—” His words trailed off when he noticed the softness falling from Nobu’s expression. “Sorry, I’m…talking a lot, aren’t I?”

A huff. “Oh, no.” With a swift turn to the counter, she braced the heel of palms against it and pushed her lips out. “Not at all.” Nobu’s tone dropped. “But maybe I have.”

Bewildered, Kondo caught onto the conflicted expression that was ascertainable even from seeing just the side of her face. His mouth opened but he stopped himself before speaking again, as the clear shift in demeanor indicated something profound had happened right under his nose without him even noticing.

“...Nobu-san,” Kondo ventured gently, taking a step toward her.

“Kat-chan, look. This might be overstepping. And maybe it makes me a terrible sister who can’t mind her own business. But.” She drummed her fingertips twice before pushing away from the edge, and when their eyes met, concern was clear and present in hers. “Has Toshi…” Nobu shook her head once with a wince before finally giving in. “Has he talked to you about this long trip he’s planning to take?”

Kondo blinked.

And though he couldn’t say he’d been surprised by her question, his heart seemed to grow a mind of its own as it began pounding hard against its ribbed enclosure. Then, from that central place in his chest, an ache swelled and burned—permeated right from the core to paralyze him.

Or at least that’s how it felt, for in that moment, it seemed to Kondo that he’d forgotten how to speak.

[blaqpanther]

Should our fire turn to dark (take my heart with you)

“Were you expecting someone?” Sophie questions, eyes on the door.

“Nope.” Kat hops up, strides across her loft and opens her door. She can’t breathe, she can’t swallow, she can’t blink, she can’t move a muscle. They just take each other in for long moments before Kat finds her voice. “Uh… what are you doing here?”

“I would like to talk. If that’s ok.”

A hand touches Kat’s shoulder and she almost jumps out her skin. She’d rudely forgotten about her guest.

Sophie just chuckles and shakes her head a bit. “Adena, I presume?” she asks, looking at Kat.

A tiny nod is all she can manage, this is beyond overwhelming.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt, I should have called.”

“Don’t worry,” Sophie starts as she slips her jacket on. She walks past Adena, looking her up and down. “I’m sure this is a more than welcomed interruption. See you later, Kitty Kat.” And she’s gone.

“I really am sorry.” Adena says, peering down the hall.

“It’s fine.” It doesn’t feel fine. It feels like every defense Kat has built up is quickly tumbling down. It feels like nothing is in its rightful place, least of all the woman standing in front of her after so long apart.

“May I come in?”

Adena brushes past and Kat feels sick to her stomach because she doesn’t recognize whatever fragrance she’s wearing. She doesn’t smell like her Adena anymore. She watches Adena’s eyes scan the loft she redecorated. She removed all things Adena related, she even got a new bed.

“Your things are upstairs, I packed it all up.” Kat had no idea where to send the remains of her ex girlfriend so they just sat there, buried in the corner out of sight.

“Thank you.” Adena here now feels so foreign and it breaks parts of Kat’s heart she never knew existed. “Can we sit?”

They both quietly have a seat at Kat’s kitchen table. Adena has her red hijab loosely draped over her head so Kat can see how long her hair has gotten. She has a new tattoo on her wrist. Her eyes look brighter, her skin is glowing and Kat is trying to stay still. Trying to not keep shifting away from the pain she feels. Why is Adena here, sitting at her table and not just grabbing her belongings and leaving? There’s a flutter in Kat’s stomach that she hasn’t felt in so long; that she thought was no longer within her. This is hard, too hard, but before she can ask Adena to leave, she speaks.

“So, I needed to come here. To apologize. I’m very sorry for Paris. Sorry for leaving you in the hotel. Sorry for not showing up that night. Sorry for not telling you how I was feeling.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know, I was scared I think. Scared of losing you.”

“Until you weren’t.” It stings Kat’s tongue to say it but the expression on Adena’s face hurts even worse.

“Kat…”

Kat jumps from her chair, knocking it back slightly, her fists balled tightly by her sides. She wants to hit something, she wants to scream, she wants Adena to just not be here looking at her with those big, beautiful eyes. Here, in what was once their kitchen where they kissed and fought and hugged and cooked and fucked against the refrigerator. She wants Adena to disappear just like she did over a year ago.

“You just left me, like I meant nothing to you! One minute you were here, you were my girlfriend and the next you just disappeared!”

“Kat, could you please sit?” It takes her what feels like forever to grab her chair and sit back down. “Thank you. I was wrong, and I’m sorry. I don’t… I really don’t want you to take this into your next relationship.”

Kat scoffs and looks away. “What?

"The girl who just left, you’re seeing her?”

Sophie is far from Adena’s business. “Something like that.”

“Well it’s important to me that you don’t carry what happened between us from relationship to relationship.”

“Are you seeing someone?” Kat shocks herself. She shouldn’t care, doesn’t want to care, maybe doesn’t want to know but she asked anyway.

She does that thing she always did. That small, adorable smile as she looks down, shaking her head slightly. “I decided to be single for an undetermined amount of time. What I did was not about you Kat, it was about me.” When she looks back up, she’s not quite smiling, but her face, her eyes are so soft. Kat can barely stand it. Then, “I’m sure you didn’t think your first love would turn out this way.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I never thought of a first love. Not for one second. I was perfectly content having meaningless sex and flings. Then I met you. Then it was all over.”

“Could you just let me explain myself?”

“There is no explanation, Adena, not one I wanna hear anyway. Just get your things.” Kat gets up again but there’s no escape unless she wants to lock herself in the bathroom but she’s definitely more mature than that now, no matter how badly she just doesn’t want to be near Adena. So she turns her back to her, arms crossed, and hopes that she’ll just leave and that her arms will hold her together until she does.

“Kat, please…”

“We are done!” Kat screams as she whirls around. “We’re over, we are nothing to each other, just get your shit and go.”

Finally Adena accepts defeat with a nod and goes slowly up the steps. Kat watches her so she can remember why she never wants to do this again, with anyone. She needs to burn this moment in her memory out of self preservation.

When Adena is almost out the door she turns to Kat once more. “Can I say one more thing before I go? I love you, Kat. You’re an amazing woman, you’re the most amazing woman. We just aren’t right for each other. I truly hope that one day you can find it in yourself to allow me to be in your life again. Because I want that more than anything.”

Kat’s tears break free and she hates herself for it. “You just don’t want to be with me,” she chokes out. “Why? Why am I not the right one for you? Why don’t you want me?”

“Kat,” she grabs Kat’s arms, forces her to make eye contact “when you find the person you are meant to be with, you will look back at this and realize I was right.”

“But I…” she wants to swallow the words but they slipped out anyway. “I can’t see anything past you.”

“Oh, Kat.” Adena pulls her in for a tight hug. “You will. I promise.”

“I love you,” she cries into Adena’s neck.

“I love you too, Kat.”

Kat doesn’t even think before her lips are on Adena’s and she reciprocates fiercely. But when she pulls away Kat knows she won’t be seeing her for a very long time. She can’t even begin to fathom getting over Adena. It’s been so long since Paris, but she hasn’t let herself begin to heal. Maybe that can start now.

“Goodbye, Kat.”

“Bye, Adena.”

[resetting37]

Fragrance, photo album, and ufo for Audrey. Chess board & lightning.

Thank you !! From this prompt.

what do your OCs smell like?

Audrey smells like apple perfume !! I vaguely remember answering this before so I looked back in my tag, only to find out I’ve done this prompt before. whoops I forgot about that !!

describe one of your OCs’ favorite memories.

When Morgan first moved into Audrey’s apartment, Advik insisted the rest of their friends meet her so he invited them all to the park at sunset. There was no structure to their night so they ended up walking downtown and Audrey and Kat ended up drifting away from the rest of the group to talk by themselves.  Kat talked about her tattoos, Audrey talked about ones she wanted and Kat drew some stuff inspired by Audrey’s ideas. Audrey kept the art, but she has yet to get any tattoos. 

identity! what are some key identifying qualities or traits of your OC(s)? how to they identify in regards to gender/sexuality?

In terms of role in the world she’s surrounded in, she thinks of herself as a pioneer. She wants to introduce Evelow to the outside world be full of opportunities, not something to shut itself from.

Audrey’s a bi girl, it was never something she really took the time to find an identity in, she just grew up with the label and found it comfortable. 

who is the most logical? or the schemer/planner?

Aurora is the most prone to scheming, even if she falls off her map to success for a moment she can easily pick herself back up and in the end, she’ll be a few steps ahead of her enemy. Even if it doesn’t look like it or even if that person doesn’t appear to be an enemy. 

While Aurora will never purposely appear weak (she has too much dignity) she can mask how much power she’s truly got in a battle. She’ll make allies and friends and be honest with them, but she’ll never reveal everything. She doesn’t trust anyone that much. 

who’s the most impulsive character? and who is their impulse control?

Morgan is one of my most impulsive, Advik is 90 % of her impulse control. It’s a mutual beneficial relationship, as Morgan prompts Advik into taking chances more. I don’t think I can add any more character dynamics as Morgan and Advik are the closest to perfect “impulsive vs. hesitant” friendship

[alexcastro-me]

Chapter 35: Granada

“I dont Think I Can Live Without You” By Alex Castro

Summary:

"I love you Magnus," Alec said. At that moment, Magnus forgot his nostalgia for past lives, and only that moment with Alec's existed, only Alec's gentle touch, only the soft feel of his lips, and the sheltering sensation of his strong body.

Chapter Text

Magnus put a few red seeds in Alec’s mouth, and Alec closed his eyes for a moment and let the sweet and tangy flavor of the fruit explode like tiny bubbles on his tongue, filling his mouth with the taste of sunshine. Alec inhaled deeply, and the mixture of the citrusy and flowery fragrance of the fruit and the sweet and creamy scent of orange blossoms filtering in through the window filled his senses. Alec had never had pomegranate before, the red rounded fruit with its hard shell and seeds that resembled rubies. But as the tiny arils filled his mouth with their juicy treasure, he thought that mother nature must have been thinking about making love on a warm starry night when she crafted the fruit. For its taste, scent and texture was perfect for a night in the arms of a lover.

Mesmerized, Magnus stared at Alec’s pleasure-filled face, and thought, not for the first time, that the Shadowhunter looked like an angel with his eyes closed, his face peaceful, his hair in disarray, and the gentle but suggestive smile that lifted the corner of his mouth. If Magnus could magically give Alec wings, he thought he would make them silver to reflect the sun and the shine in Alec’s eyes when he smiled.

When a tiny bead of juice escaped between Alec’s lips and colored them in exquisite vermillion, Magnus couldn’t resist any longer and hungrily and greedily claimed those lips for himself, the sweet taste of the fruit and of Alec mixing like an elixir that no sane person could resist. He kissed him with more passion than he had anticipated, his tongue and Alec’s starting a familiar dance in each other’s mouth, a dance that was an invitation and a promise.

“Again warlock?” Alec asked softly during a brief pause in their kissing a few minutes later, his eyes shining, his breathing shallow. “Aren’t you sleepy?”

“Not possible to be sleepy with you in my bed,” Magnus replied and kissed him again, and this time he wrapped one leg around Alec’s hips and pulled him closer, wanting to melt into him and become one with Alec.  

They had been in bed practically the whole time since when, hand in hand, they walked home from their visit to the palace the evening before. They had been pretty much cloistered in their bedroom; feeling no need for clothes on a night that was surprisingly warm considering that it was officially winter. They had made love with increasing abandon and surrender; rejoicing in a sense of completeness and connection that was already familiar. They had also talked, laughed and made plans.

At some point, Magnus’ stomach had growled loudly, and Alec had laughed. “I think it is time we get some food in you Magnus. I don’t want you to faint on me.”  He had gotten out of bed and, after putting on a t-shirt and track pants, had gone to the kitchen. Magnus had heard him rummaging through the cupboards and the refrigerator, and a few minutes later, he had returned with a tray containing figs, oranges, grapes, cheese, bread and, of course, wine. They had eaten in bed, and Alec had feed Magnus small morsels of cheese and bread dipped in olive oil and they had reminisced about their midnight picnic under the stars in the Atacama Desert all those weeks ago.

“I want to go back and visit Kat the next time we have a chance to get away,” Alec had told Magnus, and Magnus had said that would be a great idea because, surprisingly, he missed his friend since she went back home.  

“What is this?” Alec had asked and had handed Magnus a pomegranate.

“Don’t tell me you have never had pomegranate,” Magnus had stated with surprise. “You cannot come to Granada and not eat pomegranate,” he had added. “In Spanish, this fruit bears the name of this part of the world.” With a simple spell, Magnus had to cut the fruit, removed its luminescent red seeds, and deposited them in a colorful ceramic bowl. Alec had given him a look of surprise and amazement, one of those looks that Alec gave him every time that Magnus performed magic for him in the intimacy of their shared life; one of those looks that told Magnus that Alec didn’t take his magic for granted, or felt entitled to it, the way so many Nephilim had done before. It wasn’t that Alec forgot that Magnus had powers; rather he never expected Magnus to do magic for him. Even when he hired Magnus’ services for Nephilim businesses, Alec always said ‘please’, ‘thank you’, and ‘only if you feel up to it’, which made Magnus feel both free to refuse and compelled to say yes.

Their trip back to Spain had been a surprising request by Alec. After weeks of nonstop efforts to sort out the mess that Annaliese Fen left behind; of trips to Idris to assist in the investigation and appear before the Council; of working incessantly to fix the almost unfixable relationship between the Children of the Angel and Lilith’s Children; of countless hours writing reports; of endless meetings to secure the release of wrongly imprisoned warlocks; of quick shared meals and of shared nights that were too short, Alec had finally asked that they go away for a few days.

“I think it is time we finish the vacation that Annaliese Fen so rudely interrupted,” Alec had stated one morning over breakfast a few days ago. “You still owe me Granada and the Alhambra, our last stop in our trip.”

“Can we take the time to go away?” Magnus had asked fully aware of how busy Alec was with the Institute, as well as how busy he, Magnus, was trying to mend things among the warlocks. He had smiled then realizing, not for the first time, how easily he had begun to speak of his and Alec’s life in the plural: our time, our work, our Saturday night plans. Life as a couple was a marvelous experience, one he had thought he would never again have.

“We must make the time,” Alec had declared, “or nobody is going to make the time for us.”

They had done precisely that. After leaving the Institute in the capable hands of Jace, Clary and Izzy, and rearranging their many commitments, they had portalled to Granada the day before. At Alec’s request, they had found a small apartment with a terrace and an unobstructed view of the Alhambra and the Sierra Nevada mountains. Alec had even arranged for groceries to be delivered. This would be a quiet and intimate getaway, he had told Magnus: home cooked meals, evening strolling the city or the palace, and absolutely no Shadowhunter or Downworld business.

After a simple meal out in the terrace, they had set out on foot up the hill towards the Alhambra palace. The day was sunny, warm and dry, so different from the winter scenery they had left in New York. As they walked along the trails that led up to the fortress, Magnus had told Alec stories of his previous visits to the Alhambra; of the many people, mundanes and downworlders, he had met in Spain over the centuries; of horseback rides from the coast, along the path that bordered the mountains to visit the Spanish court when it occupied the palace. He also told Alec of the work he did in the 1930s, when a group of archeologists and historians hired him to excavate some of the palace’s original reflective pools. The pools had been buried by some of the people who had occupied the palace after the Moors were spelled from the region five hundred years before.  

“Where you here when the Moors still occupied Granada Magnus?” Alec had asked when Magnus was telling him about the history of the Alhambra.

“Alexander, I know sometimes I pretend to be older than I am, but the truth is that I am not that old. The Moors were expelled from Granada in the fifteenth century, at least two hundred years before I was born.”

“I can’t imagine what it is like to speak of centuries as if they were decades,” Alec had commented as he looked up towards the palace’s walls. Magnus had said nothing because there was nothing he could say. Immortality was so hard to understand for those who didn’t get to experience it.

They had spent the rest of the afternoon walking along the rooms, corridors and inner courtyards of the Alhambra, admiring its breathtaking architecture, its column arcades, its fountains and reflecting pools in which water seemed to have been flowing nonstop for the last five hundred years. Magnus explained to Alec the value of the monument as an example of Islamic art, with its Arabic inscriptions, complicated mathematical patterns and intricate mosaics and wooden ceilings. He had told him about being hired once to translate some of the most obscured inscriptions and how that allowed him to spend a few weeks practically living in the palace. He spoke of his friend Gabriela, a young historian and artist, and of an evening picnic by one of the fountains with her, a picnic that included an inordinate amount of wine and that resulted in a few hours Magnus couldn’t completely account for.

Alec, as usual had laughed at Magnus’s stories, but for some reason, he seemed a little nervous or perhaps absent, as if his thoughts were only partially in the present.

As the sun begun to make its descend towards the horizon, the red bricks walls that made up the fortress, and the red clay that covered the nearby mountains had become almost luminescent and the landscape had been painted in the most spectacular tones of red and orange. “This is why the Moors called the palace Qalat Al-Hamra, The Red One,” Magnus had explained as he and Alec admired the scenery from one of the terraces. “The palace closes at sunset,” he added, “we should start heading down.”

“Can’t we not stay a little longer?” Alec had asked. “I can use glamor, or you can use magic to hide us.”

“Why Alexander! Are you proposing I use my powers to break the law? When did you turn into me?” Magnus had taken Alec by the hand and pulled him into a dark corner and with a flick of his fingers, had cast a spell that made them both invisible. “What should we do now?” he then asked, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

“I can think of a few things,” Alec had replied and pushing Magnus against the wall, had sought his lips for a kiss that left them both breathless. As he hooked his fingers on the belt loops of Alec’s jeans and pulled him closer to him, Magnus had thanked the universe for the simple invisibility spell that concealed them from the visitors that were slowly beginning to leave the palace. They had kissed long and slow as oblivious to the tourist as the tourist were to them. After a while, they had left their refuge and walked hand in hand towards the gardens that surrounded the palace, and after strolling along pathways and around fountains and flower beds for a while, they had reached a water fountain that stood in the middle of a knot garden.

“This is one of the fountains that I helped dig out,” Magnus had commented recognizing the intricate design. He looked at the beautiful water fountain with some nostalgia and wondered whether Gabriela had completed its restauration, and then, remembering how much time it had passed, realized that his friend must have died decades ago.

Alec had stood behind Magnus and wrapped his arms around him, and Magnus had leaned back against the sturdy and sheltering body of the Shadowhunter. “Thank you for bringing me here Magnus,” Alec whispered in his ear. “I know that it is not always easy to revisit places that hold so many memories for you, but this trip feels like the end of a process for me, the closure of a stage and the beginning of another.”

Magnus had squeezed Alec’s hands but had said nothing. Alec was right, this felt like the beginning of a new phase in his life, or rather in their lives. Since they had returned to New York, they had rarely spoken about that night in Venice, or about the effects of the protection spell. Perhaps they felt there was nothing more to say; perhaps they were both still trying to sort out what everything meant, what their future would look like. They had walked back to their apartment at twilight, and Alec had not let go of Magnus’ hand despite the fact that they were no longer invisible. As soon as they walked in and closed the door, Alec had guided Magnus to the bedroom and had kissed him long, gently and passionately before slowly taking off his clothes.

“I love you Magnus,” he had said. At that moment, Magnus had forgotten his earlier nostalgia for past lives, and only that moment with Alec’s existed, only Alec’s gentle touch, only the soft feel of his lips, and the sheltering sensation of his strong body.

Magnus now took a few of the pomegranate seeds and sprinkled them over his own chest, the red little jewels gleaming in the soft glow of the many candles he had magically lighted around the room. He gave Alec a mischievous smile, his eyes issuing and invitation or perhaps a dare.  

“Is this a challenge, warlock?” Alec asked with a mischievous smile of his own. He then licked one of the seeds off Magnus’ golden skin, and the breath caught in the warlock’s throat. But rather than continuing, Alec stopped, fixed his eyes on Magnus, gave him a teasing smile, and bit his own lower lip in that way that always made Magnus lose his train of thought.

“Oh, don’t tease me Shadowhunter,” Magnus retorted, his voice carrying a feigned tone of complain.  

“I am sure you can find other enticing places to spill those seeds,” Alec whispered in Magnus’ ear. He chuckled softly when he saw the goosebumps rising is Magnus’ arms and the glamor vanishing from his eyes, gold taking over black as Magnus’ pupils constricted.  Suddenly, Magnus’ eyes sparkled as if they were precious stones, their shine competing with the red glow of the pomegranate seeds. Magnus smiled seductively, grabbed another handful of seeds and, just like Hansel did in the fairytale, began to drop them like breadcrumbs along a path, a trail that clearly demarcated all relevant landmarks in the geography of his body and which Alec was happy to traverse.

Alec slowly licked the seeds off Magnus’ skin, following the path the warlock showed him, the sweetness of skin and fruit mixing in his mouth, stoking the fire in the center of his being, that fire that never seemed to completely go out. When Alec thought that he was drunk in the sweet taste of fruit and Magnus, in the scent of forest and fresh mountain air from Magnus’ skin, Magnus wrapped his legs around Alec and shifting their positions, pinned him under his own body, the movement catching Alec by surprise.

“I love you,” Magnus whispered, his voice husky, his eyes like bottomless pools of gold honey.

“I love you too Magnus, always,” replied Alec, and entangling his fingers in Magnus’ hair, pulled him closer, seeking his lips.

They got lost then in the texture and taste of each other; in the urgency of their increasing desire; in the sensations of their bodies moving together in a dance only people who truly love one another can ever really master. They should have been surprised that, after making love almost nonstop since they first walked into their room hours before, they could still feel such raging urgency for one another, but they weren’t. Instead, they let themselves be carried away by the torrent of their need, by the sounds of their passion which drown all other sound, and by the sight of their pleasure-filled faces which erased everything else. When Alec saw that Magnus gripped the sheets in an attempt to contain the climax he already knew was building like a volcano in the center of Magnus’ being, a volcano that no amount of restrain or effort could stop from erupting, he let go of his own attempts at self-control. His body began to move with increasing speed as he urged Magnus to take flight with him, to let go of all ties to the world and allow himself to be transported to that place between heaven and earth in which only they existed. When he heard Magnus calling his name in a tempest of pleasure, he too orgasmed in a chain of loving promises whispered in the warlock’s ear.

“Pomegranate is definitely my new favorite fruit,” Magnus whispered as his breathing settled, his arms firmly wrapped around Alec, containing and anchoring him, as the last of the aftershocks washed over the Shadowhunter.

They laid in silence for a while and after a few minutes, Alec’s breathing changed as he drifted off to sleep, one arm wrapped around Magnus’ waist, his head resting on Magnus’ shoulder, his nose in the hollow of Magnus’ neck. Magnus kissed him on the forehead, the gesture tender and almost paternal and silently thanked him for insisting on this trip. They needed this, he thought: this time without interruptions, without duty or responsibilities.

When he was certain that Alec was deep asleep, he slowly and quietly got up and after donning on his black silk pajama bottoms and one of Alec’s t-shirts, he silently opened the French doors and walked out onto the terrace. The full moon looked spectacular as it hung high on the sky, bigger than usual, its silvery shine almost obscuring the lights that illuminated the Alhambra. The night was quiet except for the seductive call of the nightingales. Magnus leaned on the veranda that surrounded the terrace and contemplated the surprising turn his life had taken in the last few months.

Previous to this trip, Magnus and Alec hadn’t really had any real time to themselves since, well since those two days they disappeared from the face of the earth right after they returned to New York from Venice. The days and nights following Annaliese’s death had been hectic to say the least. The whole team had remained in Venice for a few days, helping with clean-ups and cover-ups to ensure that mundanes remain oblivious to the Shadow World and to the crisis that had so narrowly been averted. They had also welcomed the representatives of The Clave and the Head Inquisitor who, as usual, arrived when it was too late to do anything productive, when it was no longer dangerous for the Nephilim of Idris to step beyond their borders.

Magnus had always thought of himself as capable of adjusting to almost anything. He had, after all, been born during a time and in a place without many of the amenities and comforts of the modern world. However, after six days in an apartment with five Shadowhunters and another warlock, and the constant interruptions of Nephilim walking in and out without regard for privacy, he had been at the edge of insanity. It was funny, Magnus thought, that an apartment that had seemed spacious when he and Alec had stayed there, seemed to be full to bursting when the whole team occupied it.

Magnus had always found Alec’s fastidious attention to order, cleanliness and tidiness endearing, but that didn’t mean that he was prepared to live with four other Shadowhunters with the same habits. It was just too much. And then, there had been the lack of privacy; the people sleeping on sofas and in sleeping bags in the hallway; the arguments over whose turn it was to use the bathrooms; the constant teasing because Magnus spent too much time doing his hair. Magnus had never had siblings; had never really had a family, and the last time he had lived with others it had been in Annaliese’s plantation in Batavia. As a result, he was not prepared and had no inclination to live in close quarters with a bunch of Nephilim.

He and Alec hadn’t had a single moment to themselves during those few days. He was all into adventure, but there was no way that he would make love to Alec with all those Shadowhunters sleeping right outside their door, and most nights Alec had been too tired for sex anyway. They had, at the end, resorted to stolen kisses, evening strolls through the city, the brushing of fingers when passing in the hallway, and looks of longing from across the room. Magnus had felt that he was back in time, back when platonic love, looks of desire that promised more than delivered, and little somethings whispered in the ear was the most common way in which people expressed romantic feelings for one another.

There had also been the stares from some of the other Nephilim, the looks of rejection and even revulsion when they saw Alec and Magnus together, and which had reminded Magnus of the bigotry and prejudice of some of the Angel’s Chosen. In front of Magnus, Alec had pretended not to notice, but Magnus knew that Alec had gotten into more than one heated argument over their relationship. Magnus wondered about the effect of their relationship on Alec’s career and reputation as a Shadowhunter.  

Magnus had already decided to return to New York by himself when Alec finally announced that they were going home. Magnus loved Venice, had loved it at different points in its history, and had never imagined that he would want to leave the city with such eagerness.

“Take me home,” Alec had whispered in Magnus’ ear as soon as they had stepped onto the New York Institute’s roof. Turning to his parabatai, Alec had asked Jace to look after things for a couple of days and to not call unless the sky was falling on the Institute, and only if they couldn’t figure out how to hold it up.

“Remember that I haven’t been back in my penthouse since we left for Europe last summer,” Magnus had mentioned as he and Alec walked towards the subway. “Forgive the mess.”

At the end, there hadn’t been any mess. Catarina, who had returned to New York with Luke and Raphael a couple of days after the battle, had been by and had tidied up and stocked the refrigerator and cupboards with food. However, Magnus didn’t think it would have mattered much if his place had been in ruins. For as soon as Magnus closed the door behind them, Alec turned and grabbing him by the lapel of his jacket, pushed him with unbelievable strength and certainty against the wall. He then kissed Magnus with a passion and hunger that took Magnus’ breath away and with surprising urgency reached for his belt buckle.

“I couldn’t have stayed one more day in that crowded apartment,” Alec said when he took a break from kissing Magnus a moment later. “I wanted you so badly that I thought I was going to go crazy.”

It was Magnus then the one who had grabbed Alec by his shirt and turning, pinned him against the wall rejoicing in the feel of Alec’s strong and tall body against his own. “I know exactly how you feel Alexander” he said as, with his lips and tongue, he began to trace maddening lines along Alec’s neck, breathing in the mixture of lemon, soap and desire in Alec’s skin.  Alec had caught fire and Magnus had burned, and at an almost blinding speed, they had peeled each other’s clothes off searching for the feel and taste of each other’s skin. In minutes, they laid naked on the soft rug Magnus had bought for his hallway during a trip to India, and they were moving at the rhythm of their uncontained need and passion, searching for a quick release to their accumulated longing. They had possessed one another hastily and with a hunger that made them almost clumsy, and before their minds had a chance to catch up, they had had been climaxing with such intensity that Magnus was sure the neighbors would evict him for disturbing the peace of the building.

Afterwards, Magnus had gotten to his feet, had reached for Alec’s hand, and had guided him to the bedroom. By soft candlelight, he had spent the remaining of the night savoring Alec slowly and unhurriedly, and Alec had savored him in the same way. For the next two days and two nights, the apartment had become a place of magic and Magnus and Alec its magic inhabitants. Their room became a place in which gravity didn’t always behave as expected; a place without glamor or disguises; a place of shooting stars and tiny full moons, of golden magic lines obscuring runes, reaching out from fingers in search of connection and home.

They had spent two days and two nights completely oblivious to everything else going on in the world, lost in a universe of their own design in which only the other existed and mattered. Alec had, as usual, been as demanding as he had been generous and with his habitual open heart had given and taken pleasure from Magnus in equal measure, possessing and allowing himself to be possessed with no need to dominate or submit. He had laughed openly and wholeheartedly with Magnus’ stories and had been, as usual, caring and gentle, bringing Magnus coffee or food, brushing the hair away from his forehead and wrapping his arms around him when they sat on the sofa. He had also been adventurous and inventive in his lovemaking and, once again, Magnus had been surprised that someone for whom this was his very first experience, someone who just a few months ago had been closeted, could be so comfortable with this new intimacy. “I have a good teacher” Alec had answered when Magnus commented on it.

“Can I meet him?” Magnus had teasingly asked.

In those two days, Magnus and Alec had healed the last of the wounds the previous few months had inflicted on them, and by the time Magnus found Alec making coffee and breakfast on the third morning, fully dressed in his usual Shadowhunter clothes, the last barriers Magnus had erected around his heart were a distant memory.

“Can I come back after work tonight?” Alec had asked as he handed Magnus a piece of toast with butter and jam. The question had sounded like a plea, as if Alec didn’t feel entitled to Magnus’ space or company; as if he was giving Magnus a way out, an opportunity, however unnecessary, to say no, to set boundaries, to put distance between them; as if he was offering his heart without the expectation that Magnus would take it.

“Move in,” Magnus had replied without thinking or planning, because it was the most natural of things to suggest; because he wanted to build a home with Alec; because he knew that only with Alec his life felt right. Alec had smiled broadly and had hugged Magnus tightly.

“I will see you tonight,” he had said and had kissed Magnus at the door. Since then, Alec’s clothes –all of them in the same tones of grey and black –occupied a small corner of Magnus’ walk-in closet; his toothbrush had found a home beside Magnus’ in the bathroom; and Alec’s black socks cheerfully spin with Magnus’ more colorful ones in the dryer. Magnus had even emptied the closet by his front door, so Alec could store his weapons when he came home after a night of shadowhunting.

Magnus had lived a long time and would likely live for many centuries still. Yet, with Alec, he felt that his life had found containment, an anchor, something to tether him and keep him from being blown away by the unceasing winds of time. He was in love, he had known it for a long time, and looked forwards to a long life with Alec. Yet, as he now looked up at the moon, he couldn’t help thinking that perhaps Alec was being shortchanged in the arrangement. Alexander was a mortal, someone with a limited number of decades to experience life. He, Magnus, had lived so many lifetimes, had seen so many mortals come and go and, thus, had a sense of how short and fragile mortal life was, how little time mortals had to experience living. He had been Alec’s first and only relationship, his first date, his first kiss, his first lover. When Magnus had asked Alec to move in with him, he had also asked him to give up his freedom, to close the door to the possibility of other relationships. It wasn’t that Magnus had asked Alec to be just with him. He didn’t need to ask; he knew that it was in Alec’s nature to be faithful. But perhaps Alec deserved to experience more, to live more, to go on adventures, to taste other lips and be in other arms. The thought of Alec being with someone other than him caused Magnus deep despair and a feeling of possessiveness that was new to him. Still, he didn’t want Alec to look back on his life one day and wish he had done more, seen more, feel more.

“What are you thinking Magnus?” Alec asked from the doorway, his voice a little hoarse and still heavy with sleep. He was putting on a t-shirt over his track pants. As he approached Magnus, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand. He then looked up at the moon as Magnus had done before, and the sight of his moonlighted face took Magnus’ breath away. Once again, he thought that Alec looked like an angel, and something in his heart melted and spread surprising warmth throughout his body.

“Nothing,” he replied. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I woke up and you were not there,” replied Alec and the words and the expression on his face reminded Magnus of just how young Alec truly was. Alec put one hand over Magnus’ which rested on the edge of the veranda, “The moon is beautiful, and you look beautiful under its glow,” Alec added and, placing his other hand on Magnus’ cheek, kissed him slowly, lovingly and fervently. Magnus rested his free hand on Alec’s chest and through his shirt felt Alec’s heart beating at the same steady rhythm as its echo on the omamori mark on his own chest.   They kissed for a long time, neither of them feeling the need to take things further, contented in the taste and feel of each other’s lips, and in the sensations of each other’s touch.

“I want to ask you something, Magnus,” Alec said after a long while of kissing. He then turned and looked out towards the distance, his shoulder touching Magnus’, one hand still resting on Magnus’ hand.

“Sure” Magnus replied offhandedly as he too followed Alec’s gaze, apparently oblivious to the nervousness that had creeped into Alec’s voice.

“You know that I love you and that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I am wondering whether you would consider being just with me for the foreseeable future. I mean I know that you have had many relationships before, men and women, and I would understand if you don’t want to be exclusively with me, but if you do…” His voice trailed off a little, as if he was unsure how to proceed, and Magnus realized that Alec was unusually nervous, and that his voice contained a tone of uncertainty he hadn’t heard in a long time.

“I love you too Alexander, and I don’t want to be with anyone else. I told you I am a one-soul-at-the-time kind of man. Why are bringing this up now?”

“Because if you think that you could be with me for the rest of my life, I wonder if you would consider asking me to marry you.” With shaking hands, Alec took a small black box from his pants’ pocket and presented it to Magnus.

“What?” Magnus asked. He looked down at the box and then back at Alec as if doing a double take to ensure that he had heard correctly. He took the box but didn’t open it.

“I would like you to ask me to marry you Magnus,” Alec replied, his voice considerably more certain than it had been when this conversation started.

“Alexander, marriage is a big commitment, especially for a Nephilim…”

“I know that,” Alec interrupted. “That is why I want us to do it. I want everybody to know that what we have is serious, as serious as any marriage. I mean, we are already closer than most married couples are. Our lives are already bonded together…”

“But that doesn’t mean that we have to get married,” Magnus retorted. “I didn’t cast that spell so you would stay with me forever, Alexander.”

“I am not with you because you cast that spell Magnus. Let’s agree that neither of us owes the other anything. Let’s agree that we are together because we both want this. Unless, of course, you don’t want to…” Alec’s voiced trailed off again and Magnus’ heart broke a little seeing the sudden uncertainty creeping into Alec’s voice.

“Alexander,” he hastily said. “I love you, you must never doubt that, and if you would have me, I want to build a long life with you. I told you, I look forward to getting old, grey and wrinkled with you. But we don’t need marriage for that, and you are still so young. How do you know this is what you want? I mean how do you know that one day you won’t want someone else? I am your first relationship, you may want to experience other relationships.” His earlier thoughts suddenly weighted heavily in Magnus’ mind, and despite knowing how much it would hurt him, he was certain that he didn’t want to rob Alec of any chances to live life to the fullest.

“I may be young in comparison to you, Magnus,” Alec stated, all uncertainty gone from his voice, “and I may not have all the life experiences you have. I will never know what it is like to count life in centuries, but I know my own heart. This is what I want. I want you to be my life partner. I don’t want or need anyone else, and I don’t want anybody, Nephilim, mundane or downworlders, to ever doubt my commitment to you.”

“But marriage Alexander?” Magnus asked, a knot lodging itself in his throat.

“I plan to marry only once in my life Magnus, and I want to do it with you. I want my people to recognize and honor what we have,” Alec replied, his voice full of unquestionable conviction.

“Are you sure? I am not the best choice for a Shadowhunter’s husband.”

“Do you say that because you are a man?” Alec asked. “I thought we were past that.”

“No just because of that, you must know,” Magnus replied.

“Because you are a warlock then.”

“That too…and because I am not white. I mean, you must know that a marriage with me will raise eyebrows among the Nephilim. Many will object to one of Idris’ most beloved sons, a member of a prominent and respectable Shadowhunter family to marry someone who is a warlock, a man and not white, it can’t get any more unconventional than that! What would your parents say? What would this mean for your career?”

“Magnus,” Alec replied, and as if to quiet his concerns, rested his hand on Magnus’ chest, the familiar echo of two heartbeats reminding him of the unbreakable bond between them. “I see everything about you, and I love all of it. I love you because, and not despite, the fact that you are a man of color who is also a magic-maker. Can you love me with everything that I am, despite belonging to a society that still needs to change so much, despite the limitations of my mortal life? If you do, I promise that I will make sure my family and the rest of my people accept us. It is time the Nephilim got over their prejudices, racism and sense of superiority. But if you don’t want to ask me to marry you because you are not sure, I will understand.” Alec looked down at his hand resting atop Magnus’ chest, and the sadness in his expression stirred something in the pit of Magnus’ stomach.

“Why do you want me to ask you? You could ask me,” Magnus said, and his eyes searched for Alec’s eyes, enticing him to look at him again.

“Because I want this partnership to be between equals,” Alec replied. “I know that the Nephilim have treated you as if you were inferior, as if you had no choice but to serve them and do what they asked. This is my own imperfect way of telling you that I will never behave like that with you. You don’t have to ask me if you are not ready; I just want you to know that if and when you do feel ready, I will say yes because there is nothing else I want more in the world.”

Magnus took a deep breath and smiled because, at that moment, he couldn’t find any words to convey the feelings that were making his heart beat faster and his thoughts race. As he had seen Alec do in his encounters with other Downworlders, Alec wanted him to know that he had rights and power in their relationship, that he could say no, or make his own choices independently from what he, Alec, wanted. In his own peculiar way, Alec was relinquishing control to Magnus. Magnus looked down at the small black box in his hand, the box that Alec had handed to him with shaking hands. He opened it and inside, nestle if black velvet, he found two rings, two simple white gold wedding bands, heavy and sturdy, without adornment or jewels, but solid just like Alec.

“I saw them in the jewelry store on Ponte Vecchio in Florence when we were there during our vacation,” Alec explained. “I told the jeweler to hold them for me and meant to go back to get them, but then things happened, and our life took a turn. Last week, I asked Catarina to portal me back. I know they are not as glamourous as you are used to, but I wanted them to match and I cannot wear anything too intricate while I am at work and I don’t want to have to take mine off every time I need to wear gear. If you don’t like them, we can choose something else…”

“They are perfect,” Magnus interrupted, and he was suddenly seeing Alec through a thin veil of tears. He swallowed and took a deep breath to rein in his emotions and steady his hand. He then looked up into Alec’s eyes and smiled.

“Alexander Lightwood,” he said, his voice a little shaky, the small black box opened in his hand, the wedding bands reflecting the light from the full moon. “Would you do me, Magnus Bane, the great honor of accepting my hand in marriage? If you say yes, I promise to love you for the rest of my life.”

Alec smiled broadly and brightly, and, for a moment, the smile almost outshined the full moon. “Yes, Magnus Bane, I do,” he replied and touched his forehead to Magnus’ as if wanting to convey that their union would be of heart, body and mind. “I promise to love, honor and protect you with my very life and for as long as I draw breath,” he added, his voice carrying the full force of a solemn oath.

Alec and Magnus would marry by mundane, warlock and Nephilim law two years later, and would profess their commitment in vows of love and loyalty in front of all their friends and family. It would take them that long to marry because Alec would spend that time making sure that Nephilim law recognized their bond and their union as equal to any other Nephilim marriage. Theirs would be the first of many such unions that over the years, decades and centuries would slowly change not only the make-up of Nephilim society, but also the relationship between the different peoples that made up the Shadow World.

Yet when, over the years, people asked them about the moment when their relationship was decided, they would not speak of their wedding, or of the night when Alec brought Magnus back from the grip of death by using the magic bond that existed between them. Rather, it would this night and these words that they would recall as the moment when their bond was sealed. They would remember this night under a full moon as the moment when their destinies became one. As Alec closed the distance between him and Magnus and tenderly kissed him, his hand still resting on Magnus’ chest, the reassuring sensation of his and Magnus’ hearts beating as one, he knew that he would spend the rest of his life doing everything in his power to make sure that Magnus never regretted trusting him with his heart and his life.  

Magnus wrapped his arms around Alec’s waist and pulled him closer, and for the first time in his very long life, he was not afraid of what the future would bring because he was no longer alone, no longer an orphan, no longer an abandoned child without home or kin. For Alec had claimed him, recognized him as equal, beckoned him to become his partner in life, and in the process, Alec became his home, his country and his kin.

[ofaphrcditearchive]

crowns task 6 // aileen o’conor

name: aileen ciara o’conor

place of birth / date of birth: 20th may 1985. aileen was born in dublin, ireland at the same hospital as all of her cousins, her big sister and her niece. naturally.

star sign: taurus

sexual orientation: heterosexual/romantic

relationship status: single, feels like she doesn’t have the time to start a relationship with work and aine.

religion: was christened catholic at home. she doesn’t follow it strictly but still finds comfort sometimes in prayer and goes home every easter/christmas etc to celebrate the holidays with her family.

spoken languages: speaks english and also knows gaelic conversationally but doesn’t really use it. also knows french and spanish and could probably get by in basic conversations.

lives: in primrose hill in a yellow terrace house with aine and her cat, named crumpet after aine’s favourite breakfast food.

drives: she got her license back in ireland when she was 17 before she left for uni and does own a secondhand jeep that she loves but hardly ever gets to drive it in london. mostly uses the tube to get around and to and from work. 

occupation: practising human rights law in a london firm near kings cross.

education: up to degree level. studied llb (hons) law (european and international) at sheffield where she also got her masters whilst working as a paralegal up there.

parents / brief family history: grew up in a very happy and close family. her parents owned the popular local so aileen and her sister kathleen grew up above a pub and they loved it. the regulars were also slipping the sisters packets of crisps or ‘tipping’ them a couple of euros to take their glasses to the bar. both the sisters had their first saturday jobs there of course. leaving her family to go to university in the uk was terrifying for aileen because she had to leave her family behind, and was especially difficult when her sister’s husband died and left her with a newborn baby. not long after, kathleen and aileen’s dad died in a car accident and it broke her heart. still, she took aine in and the family are gradually moving past this tragedy, though there will always be a hole.

tattoos/piercings: aileen only has one piercing on each lobe. has a four leaf clover tattooed on her ankle, also has sunflowers on her right side.

fashion sense: aileen likes to experiment with her fashion and actually does try to follow trends despite not having the time to go out and shop most of the time and when she does it’s always for aine. she’s a girly girl, loves a skater dress, lot’s of florals and pastel colours and has a guilty pleasure high heel collection. wears a lot of pencil skirts for work with cute frilly blouses. accessorises with scarves in her hair and owns a lot of jewellery, loves a chunky necklace and bangles. on the weekends she’s very bo-ho and does have three leather satchels that all pretty much look the exact same.

music: she’s an 80′s girl at heart okay. loved bowie and michael jackson, george michael (she loves wham pls), bon jovi, queen, journey, fleetwood mac, madonna. anything soft rock and she’s there. b*witched were her youth tbh and she met them once at home and freaked out like a fifteen year old. anyone irish and she’ll listen to them even if they’re shit. hates galway girl, thinks it’s the worst song she’s ever heard.

sleeping habits: aileen sleeps like the dead all the time. only wakes up when aine literally jumps on her back otherwise would sleep through the whole of sunday. she’s an old soul, so aileen is usually in bed by 9 and either stays up to read a book or watches trash tv, loves i’m a celeb and big brother especially, also a secret towie and made in chelsea addict. honestly as long as she has a cup of tea before bed then she’ll go out like a light pretty easy. has to get her eight hours or she’s proper moody.

eating habits: look she’s basically a football mum okay. so she does her best to make sure that her three year old niece gets all she needs. i’m talking five a day, no fizzy drinks in the house, only drinks water and milk but on the weekends she cracks and it’s dinosaur nuggets, potato waffles and beans because you can’t be good all the time. does her best to have three meals a day, always strives to have breakfast with aine and to get home in time to have dinner too since aine spends most of the day with a nanny she feels she owes it to her to be there for mealtimes. oh and she bakes, god does she BAKE.

social media: isn’t a huge social media person. she keeps facebook updated mostly for the sake of her mum, so she can see what her daughter and granddaughter are up to in england. does have instagram and it’s mostly cute pics of aine or inspirational quotes, or dorky selfies tbh. snapchat is an utter loss to her and she literally only uses twitter to keep up to date with news and pop culture. has tweeted a few times but she mostly retweets cat videos or chrissy teigen, and she loves baking twitter. 

hobbies: aileen loves to read, will literally read anything tbh but loves a good sappy romance novel because she’s still and always will be, a hopeless romantic. she loves to cook and on weekends aine is her little helper in the kitchen, where they make a ridiculous amount of cakes for two people to be able to finish. so aileen often has to bring in cakes to work which her office does not mind at all. still loves to sing, karaoke is her favourite thing ever though she misses dueting with kat. used to play piano, fiddle and the violin but doesn’t really have time for it now. loves going for a run round the park, recently joined a mummy and me class with aine at the local parish centre. still knits, because she’s a grandma.

cologne / perfume: PRADA CANDY EAU DE PARFUM. “to embody this explosive femininity, miuccia prada wanted an excessive fragrance with too much of everything. the Prada style oriental eau de parfum is a unique signature in keeping with the traditions of high perfumery, combining laotian benzoin, a synthetic caramel accord and a more neutral cocktail of musk.”

hogwarts house: obviously aileen is hufflepuff, there’s just no sidestepping it. she’s loyal and always works hard to get where she wants to be. doesn’t believe in having anything handed to you and things you need to earn it. she’s kind to a fault, has a heart of gold and she wears it proudly on her sleeve even if that gets her hurt more often than not. some might call her naive, but she’d argue she’s just optimistic. 

[elusiveremnantsofthought-blog]

Skin care and Birchbox

Hello, everyone!

So, recently I decided to hop on the monthly Birchbox subscription train.  I have never purchased any type of box sub.  I have never been big into makeup or everything that goes hand in hand with it.  A large reason for my aversion to makeup and skin care products is my skin type.  I have extremely sensitive skin!  To the point that most fragrances and dyes wreck my body.  Medium to harsh chemicals burn me and cause lesions.  Also, any product that says “fragrance” in the ingredients causes painful hives anywhere it touches.  Naturally, I use 7th generation laundry soap, fabric softener and dryer sheets.  I have found a product out of CA called Petal Fresh that is all organic and has never left me red or hiving after a shower.  Another struggle along with that is my sensitivity to jewelry.  If it isn't pure gold or silver and isn't stainless steel or surgical steel, then I can’t wear it.  My skin corrodes the metals and it wrecks my piercings!  With all that being said, you can see why I shy away from most makeup, skin care products and random boxes of unknown items with unknown ingredients.  I mean I can’t even use bath and body works products.  :(       

With all that being said, I just started my new skin care routine and spoiled myself with the gift of Birchbox!  I'm first gonna talk a little about Birchbox and then I will touch on my sensitive skin care routine!  

Honestly, I was really blown away by the Birchbox set up, app and presentation!  The app is easy to use and it goes into such detail about your skin type profile!  I really appreciated them selling and listing hypoallergenic and organic products.  They are hard to find at a reasonable price and I think this company does a great job of providing high end sample to encourage proper care items for you vs buying whatever is on sale at Walmart!  I cannot describe how excited I am for my first box.  I can’t wait to tell you all more when it comes in!  To anyone looking for an extremely versatile makeup/hair care/ skincare/ beauty product site or monthly box.... I would highly recommend this for you!  :)

Alright, on to my new skin care routine.  I am gonna be completely honest, I haven't had a skin routine in quite a few years.  It really boils down to me being scared of products.  So many times I would buy a product that was “all natural”, “natural fragrance” or “hypoallergenic” that made me want to hide my face and body due to extreme hives.  I am so very happy and excited about these products that I researched.  And let me tell you what, I did my research!!!  I have now started to use the CeraVe SA renewing cleanser.  I am currently pairing that with the Burt’s Bees sensitive daily moisturizing cream.  I have been doing this routine for almost a week now and I can totally notice a difference in my facial skin and the texture of my skin.  I haven't had a single red spot nor seen any hives.  I am so very happy I decided to do some research and try again.  Cannot say enough great things about these products!

Thank you all for reading this!  Hope to hear from you about some of your experiences not only with Birchbox, but your own stories about your skin!  I will post more about my favorite sensitive skin makeup products and the contents of my Birchbox!  Happy New Year to each of you!  Hoping for wonderful things this year for you!  

                                                        *Kat*