#life without colour part eight

[omgrandomwords]

ok so i’m incapable of keeping literally anything to myself but i am feeling very emotional abt this so

[archonofdivinity]

Oliver Fog - The Representation of Trade Unions Post-War

When most people talk about Oliver Fog, it’s never through an analytical lens. He is mostly used for the sake of shipping and sibling headcanons. And if his backstory is ever addressed, it’s normally taken wrong. Oliver isn’t a character who just hates work. In fact it could be argued that he is a microcosm of trade union representatives in his time period.

First I must discuss the importance of trade unions on Oliver’s character especially of 1953. I say 1953 because Oliver mentions that he has not worked overtime for 211 days in his anecdote. Trade unions at the time were much more powerful than they were today, and had much heavy tight links to the UK Labour Party, which was undoubtably much more left wing than it is today. The leader of Labour at the time was Clement Attlee who, while no longer Prime Minister, was one of the most influential socialists in UK history and helped to set up the NHS. I bring this up due to Attlee’s influence on the country and left wing politics as a whole, and as a civil servant, Oliver would have been aware of him.

Let’s now take a look at Arsenal. Oliver says he was a fan of them as a child since they were a popular team, but for that we must look at Arsenal’s history to find out how old Oliver would have been. Seeing how Oliver turns 15 in 1952, he would have been born in 1937, just before the outbreak of WW2. Highbury Stadium was build in 1939 and the Football League was suspended for the duration of the wartime period, meaning that it was impossible for Oliver to have seen them at a young age. The earliest he could have seen the team by walking out on his own was at the age of 10. At this point in his life, Oliver would have lived through the death, devastation and brutality of a wartime period and how it left Britain bankrupt. 

Arsenal’s red colour palette is also telling due to it being his favourite team - red is a colour that politically means left wing ideologies, and in the UK is a reference to the Labour Party, as well as its anthem The Red Flag, a socialist song about the labour movement. It’s possible that the fact Oliver’s favourite team being Arsenal was picked especially for this comparison, but at the same time it might just be me leaning in too far.

Oliver has a persistent want of an eight hour work day in reference to the social movement prevalent after the Industrial Revolution, where working hours were long and children were exploited for labour. While the UK to this day doesn’t have an eight hour limit to the work day, there have been major strides, and it was first accomplished in 1889 by the founders of the modern day GMB union. The fact Oliver specifically becomes part of this social movement is telling of his feelings about rights. There’s also his hatred of overtime, which adds onto this.

Oliver’s rant to A Knight could also be alternatively read as a rant on a predatory structure or system.

I’m not even supposed to be here! I’m just a boy, but because of your dreamed-up notions of purpose and responsibility, I was forced to become a Fogwalker. I never wanted to walk amongst the fog. I’m terrified of it… I just want to… I just want to stay alive.

Oliver is without hope at the beginning of his anecdote, lost in not knowing why he so readily took up the position of the Fogwalker. By the end of it he’s become aware of his true beliefs.

The Fogwalker is one who steps into the fog and brings light to others. Fundamentally, it’s a joke like any other, mundane as tightening screws or scooping manure. But that’s not all it is. My father once walked through the fog to bring me hope. On that day, he did the same. “This is my responsibility, and it is our responsibility.” […] On that day in 1952, he also brought hope to the people of London. The hope of survival.

Personally there are a few hints that Oliver falls along left wing ideology such as socialism. This could be especially true of his beliefs in social activism of his attitudes towards labour rights. Let’s take a look at his new garment. 

Version 1.8’s location is Russia, presumably in the 1910s before the Russian Revolution that would later set up the groundworks for the Soviet Union, so already the fact the garment comes out in this version specifically is telling. This garment set as a whole is called ‘Constructivism in Concept’. Constructivism is a theory where people acquire knowledge through experience and conversations, not through just seeing things, which could be reflective of Oliver’s anecdote. The garment itself is ‘See You At The Workers Club’. Workers’ clubs were something set up in the USSR and was a place for workers and their families to relax and also a place for propaganda. It was also sponsored by trade unions. I had to use Google Translate for the writing on the sheet metal, and the text reads, roughly, “let’s protect the eight hour working day”.

It’s easy to interpret Oliver as a microcosm through what he does and what he says. As a whole, he is a complex individual, a traumatised overworked teenager.

[uselesseaweedbrain]

Supercorptober - Leaves

Kara landed on Earth in autumn, on a carpet of crimson, dying leaves, creating a crater the size of which that forest had scarcely known. 

Kara exited the pod then, making sure the air was breathable, even though the pod's system had assured her it would be.

The air was warm and fresh, the wind a slight breeze, and as she stood on wobbly legs, Kara relished in the caress of the wind on her skin for the first time in years, settling on this welcoming, healthy, foreign soil. 

The trees had not yet lost all their foliage, and the sky was peppered with flashes of vibrant oranges, glowing yellows, poignant reds, interspersed with branches nearly bare.

Kara had arrived in autumn, at the end of a cycle that was culminating in ruddy orange and flaming red - colours once a reassurance and a manifestation of Rao, but no more. 

Red, for Kara, then, had long since become a cruel and permanent reminder of a planet imploding.

****************************

When Kal-El happened, another let-down, another cutting disappointment, Kara had raged in anger and despair.

It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t, that Kal, Krypton’s last hope and final descendent, should be stolen from Kara before she'd even gotten to him.

But thus it was, Kal - Clark - had been moulded to earthly customs, never to be returned, unwilling to acknowledge his Kryptonian heritage or his Kryptonian cousin, and- there. Kara was well and truly alone - guilty of failing her only assigned task, guilty of having let Krypton die, guilty of being alive when so many others - all the others - were dead.

Of course. Kara had thought bitterly. Of course another thing in my care wilted and died. Krypton’s last hope, vanished into thin air, and now I am all we have left. 

But Kara knew how heavy Krypton could be to bear, and-

Maybe it's a good thing I couldn't raise Kal. A good thing that I didn't touch him, didn't teach him, didn't contaminate him with our dying culture - my dying culture, Kara amends in her mind, mine - let him live free of my burden and Krypton's curse.

Kara was alone in her culture and alone in her family and alone on this planet, and all around, scarlet leaves rustled and dried.

********

When Jeremiah disappeared, never to be seen again, it was winter. The leaves were well and truly dead, decomposed, gone with the wind or burned on a pyre, the trees were bare and Kara found it fitting. 

***********

When spring happened, and Alex softened, and Kara made a friend, finally finding her footing on this strange planet, Kara started believing again. In Rao. In the dance of the sun and the stars, in the push and pull of the tide, in the balance of life and death - the leaves had grown back. 

Now Kara was surrounded with blooming life everywhere, glowing greens, dewy petals and burgeoning flowers, delicate and strong as they braved the wind and the rain to come out and live. 

The plants lived without directions or agenda or specific care. 

The flowers bloomed and blossomed because it was time, because the sun and the heat and the sap had ordered them to, and because they could, and Kara observed the phenomenon with desperate fascination. 

*********

When Kara interviewed Lena Luthor in the fall, she'd already seen forty-eight earthly seasons. She had grieved, and grown through them, yet most of her relations to them remained unchanged.

Kara still fell into a meditative state during autumn, reciting prayers to Rao in her head, afraid to say them out loud and set them free, lest they never came back to her, and she lost yet another part of her decaying self.

She still despised winter, a stark reminder of death and loss and emptiness, her grief palpable and her guilt crushing.

The feeling of spring remained bittersweet, clad in awe but tied down with fear and resentment, that flowers would never bloom again on Krypton. That her people - her leaders, her parents - had made sure of that. 

Summer was by far the easiest season of them all, comforting in its heat and nostalgic in its vermillion sunsets, still brimming with life as if holding its breath before the storm.

Summer, unlike fall, wasn't already shedding its dead weight, preparing to survive at all costs, doing exactly what it would take with no second thoughts.

Summer, unlike fall, wasn't calculating and pragmatic, utilitarian in its approach and cynical in its realisation.

Summer wasn't like spring, either, young and green and naive and too ready to live or die trying. 

No. Summer was running on the edge of a cliff fast approaching, choosing not to look and believing it would make it.

Summer was reasonable hope and measured expectations, wrapped in exuberance for life and faith in the future.

When Kara followed Clark Kent in Lena Luthor's office, summer was ending. The trees were starting to shed, and Kara was slipping into her personal refuge, every year more afraid that her last remnants of Krypton would fade into dust and scatter.

When Kara walked in, trailing behind Clark, she was thinking of her suit and her life and her limits - and how long she would last if she were to give up the latter for the benefit of the first. How she was, once again, allowing higher-ups to dictate her calling and orient her actions, and how, soon, she would become her parents, too entwined in the web of power and duty to put their foot down.

Kara had seen aliens be roughed up and mistreated. She'd seen many, arrested for petty theft or clumsy property destruction, walk into a cell and never come out. She'd seen selective justice, and she'd seen Jeremiah walk out of their house into the DEO, and vanish without a trace. 

Kara had seen and she had heard and she had executed orders still. 

And now there she was, too, following her cousin in his reporter footsteps and investigating a woman who had done nothing but be her brother's sister. 

And, Rao, how Kara knew about poisoned legacies and irreparable debts.

Lena Luthor walked ahead of them both, preceding them into the room with the rhythmic click-clack of her heels on the marble floors.

"There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I wasn't aboard the Venture yesterday”, she dove in, and Kara was impressed by the steadiness of her voice, the firmness of her tone and the constant pace of her heart.

"It was an emergency, regarding planning for a ceremony I'm holding tomorrow. I'm renaming my family's company, and I had to cancel", she elaborated.

Her back was turned as she poured herself a glass from her water jug, carrying it back to her desk.

Clark looked skeptical and Lena seemed aware.

"Lucky", Clark called her.

Lena laughed and Kara wanted to laugh with her. She didn't believe in luck. 

Neither did Clark, when it came to a Luthor. 

"Lucky was Superman saving the day", Lena deflected, and Kara smirked internally.

Clark's fake laugh rung out for a few seconds.

"Not something one would expect a Luthor to say."

Kara didn't like the accusation - wanted, somehow, to deflect and protect this woman that she'd barely just met. But Kara hadn't ever been well-spoken or at ease on Earth, her confidence sapped by the need for secrecy and the initial language barrier. 

So what she ended up saying was:

"Ah- uh- Supergirl was there too!"

Lena's attention was on her all of a sudden, and:

"And who are you exactly?”, she inquired with, maybe, a trace of genuine endearment.

"Um- I'm Kara Danvers." A second lie, a second half-truth, one more erasure of herself. "I'm not with the Daily Planet. I'm with CatCo magazine, sort of?"

An additional misstep, that Lena, of course, picked up on.

"That's a publication not known for its hard hitting journalism. More like 'high waisted jeans, yes or no'."

Kara shifted uneasily, and, thankfully, Lena didn't push further.

The CEO had sat down at her desk, and she was finally facing them.

"Can we just- speed this interview along? Just ask what you want to ask, Mr. Kent. Did I have anything to do with the Venture explosion."

"Did you?" Clark shot back.

"You wouldn't be asking me if my last name was Smith."

"Oh, but it's not. It's Luthor."

Kara recoiled at the barbed statement. Now Clark wanted to wield family ties as weapons? After giving up his Kryptonian legacy without a second thought? After dropping off his only living blood relative before even getting to know her?

Lena, unfazed, leaned back in her leather chair.

"Some steel under that Kansas tweed," she remarked playfully, a barely noticeable edge in her voice.

"It wasn't always." Lena stated next. 

She looked at Kara, then. Not the way others had, with friendly condescension or lofty endearment.

No.

Lena, as she unraveled her family's history, her adoption, her attachment to Lex and her grief at his madness, her vow to rebuild her legacy as her own, Lena was staring at Kara and seeing her.

"I'm just a woman trying to make a name for herself outside of her family. Do you understand that?"

Lena's tone had switched from defensive to soft the second she'd laid her eyes on Kara, and-

"Yes." Kara responded reflexively. 

Clark looked at her in shock. 

But Lena had seen her and her office was clean and her lipstick was crimson and her eyes were the colour of spring.

And, right then, spring didn't seem so naive anymore.

********

[gofishygo]

[PRIDE MONTH- WEEK FOUR] : through green hydrangeas (my heart lies) price x ftm reader (part 2/2) - UNFINISHED

(i will complete this once i am unsuicidal and motivated)

[PART ONE] | notes: medical settings, description of injury, should have a good ending but like rn its not necessarily very bonita for either of them

The next time you and Johnathan price meet each other is indeed, in Burningham.

The doctors treating you had come with a prognosis- a puncture to the intestine. Through the whole eight hours of the surgery, the whole two weeks of an induced coma, he’d shadowed it behind a glass window. His now practically immune to the scent of disinfectants, the lemon-stained chemicals burning at his nose until the chemoreceptors in them saw nothing, felt nothing. He compares it to a black hole, how his sensory limbs have dulled since his career; his ears are now half drowned, all noose shallow and diasporic, left behind at a botched mission in 2002 Moscow. The keenness of his nose now snuffed by a recent disaster with chemicals. His body is trying and failing, pulling the weight of the world on its shoulders and inside the gaping voids of his chest, always consuming, killing, but never truly settled. Never truly sated.

And now his eyes have resulted in you being eaten, now his ears have resulted in you being ripped at your core. His body has chewed you and, and was left to spit out your body, just like Johnny-

He is scared of looking into closed eyes-they remind price too much about him. So, he leaves the living pearls alone, refuses to peel the skin back to see your colours. He never wants to chew again, not after this.

In every other world be should have stayed attentive, should have yelled at you to not mount the doorframe. But now you are here, bandage wrapped vice-tight below your own scars under your chest and blanketing part of your tattoo, and guilt and pity and some dark festering emotion he couldn’t pinpoint layer and boil like bile in his kidneys. Threatens to spill over into his throat and all over the bed when he is finally allowed to take the compression off. It reveals the shooting star of a wound, crusted tail stretching and expanding into arms that seem to try reach across your skin, to take more of the body it had infested. And he fears you will meet the fate of Johnny- that the wound had claimed your soul instead of your life. And it was an early death too, for the man he had met, for the private who’d body he thought he’d fully memorised a decade ago. The short-lived life of the man who smiled with his whole face for the woman who couldn’t. He knows you have changed, have grown up and out of your past life.

But he can only hope that now; you are strong enough to live through it.

On the nineteenth day of your bedrest, John seems to notice that the slow trickle of bouquets and cards of condolence had been wrung dry, petals brown and crusting on the small bundle of roses that Gaz had left on the bedside since the beginning of your stay in the hospital. The colour of the wilt now matched his increasingly darkening eyebags, crow’s feet near buried, shallow dents in the corner of his peripherals. Pads of his fingers rest atop your forehead- and he knows no matter how dysregulated your internal temperature was since the mission, the number of degrees in your body would always be more than the amount of “get well soon’s” you were given. Some stone of pity seems to snowball at the tip of his tongue and lodge in his throat at the lack of a similar last name on any of the unopened cards left to collect dust on the table. Perhaps, since you’d dropped your original name, the people who’d carried your last refused to see you. And maybe, the idea that the number of degrees your body temperature was also outmatched the number of times you’d seen your relatives since your transition. And maybe, you had been alone for that stretch of years, without familiar flesh to grip onto or a face to share your ashtray and lighter with.

(When long-abandoned lawns are left unattended, they seem to flourish. Rainwater fills the cracks of pavement, toadstool and wildflowers sprouting between the roots of household weeds. In miracle, you had thrived in your isolation.) With one of your eyes slightly peeled open and fixed towards him, and voice barely gathering into the creak of a tree deforested, you ask what is wrong. Price swallows: and he replies with silence.

But even in your quarter-dead state, the captain can’t seem to stomp out the embers of your stubbornness. You’d always cared for him, affection growing teeth and latching onto him with a grip near impossible to pry. In warmth, it held him, in cold, it smothered him. “Put a lid on it, private,” its some form of rumbled warning, a predecessor to earthquakes that would split continents open. “Laswell called. All six targets got taken down, thanks to the work of you and the ULF. Another mission cleared, another day of living.” The dynamics of your exhale sound oddly like a rendition of price’s puff of a cigar. He can faintly recognise the lethargy, energy seeped out of your injuries, clearly exasperated by the way he slams shut at your prying. “You don’t need to worry about me,” But you’re attentive, even in your indigence, and notice how his eyes are not focused on the explosion of scab across your torso, but on the scars that adorned the underside of your chest. “Or is there something else on your mind?”

Price- he truly does hope that you register his stifled grunt and the widening of his eyes as shock instead of horror. Your words catch him off guard, a bear trap that ensnares his tongue instead of his legs, and he is left thrashing in desperation for new words. “no, it’s not- its not that you’re transgender. I don’t care for that. Why didn’t you contact me? What made you think that I would despise you, just because you changed? Just because you were happier?” did you think I could ever hate you for that? “no, its not your fault kid. m’ mistake.”

Silence from the only person who’d dared to raise their words to match all his own, isolation from the man whose touch anchored you down to the ground of the earth and the heat of his skin- it’s smothering him still, a phantom weight that chained the both of you to the bones in your knees and the cuffs of your necks. (If love Is liberation, maybe you two could have been set free-)

[callmewrinkles3]

That’s when - DR3 x Fem!OC

Masterlist

Summary:  First part here. It’s been eight weeks since Em left Australia, six weeks since she got on her train to Liverpool. But when her closest friends pool their resources to locate her she finds herself back where everything started, just four years later.

Word Count: 11.7k

Warnings: mentions of pet death (not Em or Dans!), emotionally/mentally abusive families, angst, mentions of potential cheating, Zak Brown (he counts), mentions of fatal crashes.

A/N: It’s heeeere! Thank you so much for the wonderful reception this fic has gotten, and we hope part two is everything you’ve been waiting for. This most definitely isn’t the end of Dan and Em’s story, we’ve so much more to write about.

May 2022

--

The worst pain that Emma thought she’d ever felt in her life was when she was six years old. She was barefoot on freshly cleaned floors, running around her parents house playing an imaginary game when she slipped and fell right into the doorframe. She remembered her yells for her parents, her baby toe pointing out to the side and turning purple almost before her very eyes. The joint still ached if the weather changed quickly.

Not even the lack of sympathy from her dad had hurt more than the pain when he found her sobbing on the floor of the hallway. Not the doctor at Alder Hey giving her an injection into the aching joint that didn’t fully numb her before yanking it into place. Nothing in her life had ever hurt as much as right then, and she didn’t think anything ever could.

At least, not until she’d left London for good and arrived back in Liverpool.

She’d built up a routine in the five and a half weeks since she’d gotten on the train. The traditional grey British skies helped too. There hadn’t been a single day of sun since she’d arrived, the weather echoing her mindset as she stared out her bedroom window to the housing estate. It was miserable and cold and near constant rain. It matched her mood, no respite from the constant exhaustion and nausea she’d been dealing with since she arrived making her not want to eat anything. She could hear Michael in the back of her head, telling her to just eat a bloody protein bar when she was stressed and had forgotten to eat. But Michael probably hated her. He’d said in his texts that he wanted to find her once, and she’d read them and stared at the screen. She’d nearly written back, not realising he was online and watched as he asked her for details but she ignored it. He couldn’t have meant it. She was the one who left them.

The rain also helped when she followed her routine to go get her coffee at 11.25 - after the boxing classes she went to but hated because the instructors weren’t Michael, but before she started job hunting - because it meant she could keep her coat on. She didn’t have to see the delicate number 3 tattooed on her wrist. That was a blessing. She kept the same routine every day, the only variations if she needed to stop somewhere or do something. There was a day she had to go to the job centre, the day she thought she needed the chemist but it turned out she didn’t need to. It was easier this way.

Em felt like Bella in New Moon, time passing by her rather than her moving with it. The grey skies and constant routine didn’t really help in that regard if she was honest. Everything felt like she was going in slow motion. Without the sun she could keep her mind focused, keep herself away from the memories that were so happy they made her want to sob. Michael forcing her to stand and stretch and go for a walk through the paddock because she’d been head down working in the one awkward position all day. Blake pulling her tablet away from her when they were on the deck at the farm during lockdown and she was making a colour coded calendar of sponsor videos that needed to be filmed and published. But more than that it reminded her of Daniel.

Sunny days made her think of his wide grin and the dimples that had captivated her from the very first night they met. The way he laughed when she made a stupid joke that yeah, the sun stopped the earth from freezing but his smile did the same to her heart. It made her think of summer Christmas in Perth, barbecues and no turkey in sight as she chased the kids around the garden before getting pulled into a paddling pool. Of the sun ring she’d given him. Of her matching moon one that she’d left behind and how much she missed it.

Sunny days reminded her of Daniel, but more than that they reminded her of everything that she’d given up and how maybe she’d gotten things so incredibly wrong. That she’d lost her Australian family. She’d given up her brothers and her sister and her nibbling and the parental figures who cared about her. Grace kept asking to FaceTime and Em sent one word responses back, unable to ignore her. She could pretend to ignore everyone else, but never Grace. Those sunny days meant her family and now she was alone and she was dreading summer.

Her parents weren’t helping either. As soon as she got on the train she knew that Liverpool was the wrong place for her to go to sweep up her heart. Staying with her parents was so definitely wrong, and she shouldn’t have been surprised by how badly it was going. Instead of asking how she was, if she needed anything, even if she was ok, all they wanted to know about was the rumours. About if she was sleeping with Michael, Blake, and Dan. If the photo of Lance hugging her from when he made his pole in 2020 was another “man she’d slept with”. Because, of course, none of them would like her for who she was. It had to be something else.

She was at the kitchen table for breakfast when she finally responded, siting there nibbling on a piece of buttered toast with a cup of badly made tea.

“You need to tell us if there’s going to be a scandal, Emma. We need to be prepared. Were you sleeping with them?” Her mother asked as the cramps low in her abdomen made Em want to get sick from fear and anger and loss.

“Blake and Michael were like my brothers. Daniel was my best friend. They couldn’t keep me employed any longer and we decided a break from our friendship would be good for a while. That’s it.”

She couldn’t go into the details of what had happened or it would all blow up in her face and that was the last thing she wanted. She couldn’t tell them that she was in love and now was utterly heartbroken. If she went into the details of how heartbroken she was Em would break right then and there. The last thing she needed was for her parents to judge her on the baseless rumours. If she cried in front of them she’d never hear the end of it, and she couldn’t admit that she’d lost the best friends she’d ever have and the man who was the love of her life. That she’d be followed around by Dan’s face every time she moved because it was Daniel Ricciardo.

That was why Em spent so much time in her childhood bedroom. It was the only place in the house that didn’t scream reminders of the life she’d left behind, that didn’t immediately make her think of Dan. Everywhere downstairs was filled with the memory of when Michael had been there once on the way home from a Liverpool match. But the bedroom that still had Westlife and Spice Girls posters on the walls - the latter quickly pulled down to get Geri Horner’s face away from her - was the best place to hide. If she had her way she would never bring Dan to the house, he’d never even go near Liverpool as a city. She wanted to keep him safe from the ghosts that haunted her past, and more importantly she wanted him safe from her parents.

Daniel was everything that they would never want her to have in a boyfriend. He was a man with too many tattoos, who hadn’t finished school let alone gone to university, who she’d basically been in a relationship with for four years. A man who travelled the world and wasn’t going to settle down any time soon, who drove fast cars at dizzying speeds. They’d call him reckless and feckless and judge him on sight, not caring what Emma saw in him.

They wouldn’t listen to her tell them that he was the person who made her laugh until tears of joy fell from her eyes and her stomach hurt from laughter. They wouldn’t know that before every race she kissed his helmet and told him to go fast. They’d have no interest that he was the most caring man she’d ever met, that he’d spent the last four years trying to make sure that she was happy and safe and looked after.

All they cared about were things that were unimportant to Em right now. A ring on her finger, two point five grandkids, a house in the suburbs and a steady office job. Not apartments in different countries and tax residencies, not having friends around the world. Not having racing be such a huge part of their lives.

Her parents didn’t care that she loved him more than she had ever loved anyone else in the world, that she would always love him more than anyone else. They didn’t care that he was bigger than her whole sky. She always said that he was her sunshine, but he was so much more than that.

He was her whole world. But she’d had to learn the hard way that she wasn’t his and that knowledge and understanding still ached in her chest. If Dan loved her he wouldn’t have sent her away alone in Saudi. He would have gone back to the room to check on her, even knocked on the door to let her know he was safe. He would have put an arm around her waist and asked “are you ready to leave, love” at the party in Melbourne because that was their code for him wanting to leave. He would have kissed her forehead in bed that night, he would have hugged her.

He wouldn’t have said what he said. The Daniel that she loved, the one that she thought was in love with her, wouldn’t have said that he was done with her. He wouldn’t have said that he was done with them. He wouldn’t have left. The Daniel that she thought loved her for four beautiful years would have spent every minute that they were together in Melbourne trying to convince her to change her plans and come to Perth after the race because he didn’t need to be in London. He would have roped the kids into convincing her to come stay with them and spend time with them. The Daniel that she loved would have never let her go like that.

The worst part was Em knew that she wasn’t blameless. She could have said something, should have said something. After Christmas when things felt oh so wrong she should have spoken up then. On their trip to Sicily when it felt like they were papering over the cracks with sex and food and selfies. When they’d been talking about finding an apartment for them in London but the conversation stopped. She should have said anything. But she was so afraid of things being broken that she hadn’t realised that there was a fundamental break in their relationship that could never be repaired. Because Dan didn’t love her like she loved him.

That’s what she repeated to herself. It played on a loop in the back of her mind every waking minute of every single day since that warm April evening that she stepped on the first plane out of Melbourne. Every single hour of the seven and a half weeks since she’d seen him she kept telling herself that it wasn’t real. She’d fallen so deeply in love with Daniel and wanted him to love her the same way she loved him, so she convinced herself that he loved her. But he didn’t. Not like that. She had to come to terms with the fact that every time he said “I love you” to her it was platonic. The “Emmy”, the “Baby Girl”, the “y’know, right” was all platonic. He was the Morgan to her Garcia the exact same way it was when they watched Criminal minds on quiet flights, except she had fallen so deeply for him. She was making it up and got everything mixed up in her head. That was all it was, a big misunderstanding.

Thinking that way hurt her so much less than the other thoughts that filtered through her head. The ones like Dan was bored of her. He was sick and tired of having her around. He picked the fight because he wanted her to leave. That he’d met the blonde from the photo in Miami before and that’s why everything stopped. He’d found a woman who looked the way the media said a Formula One driver’s WAG should look, so Dan wanted to get rid of her.

It was so much easier than the “I told you so” she’d heard as soon as her dad saw her again. Better than the judging faces she saw when she came out of her room wearing the cardigan Charles had bought her for Christmas. She hadn’t mentioned where she even got it, it wasn’t worth the “stop lying, Emma. We all know you were just an assistant”. It was easier to be quiet than deal with the shocked expressions on faces when she actually appeared at the anniversary party, her press smile firmly on her face and her aunts and uncles judging her. One of her uncles mentioned that it was too safe and she wanted to scream that she was in Spa that awful day three years ago, that it wasn’t safe and she’d seen boys who were too young hold burdens they shouldn’t have to carry. Some of her younger cousins asked questions about if she’d ever met a driver and she wanted to laugh.

She wanted to tell them the story of meeting a barely twenty year old Max Verstappen, gangly and growing into himself, who’d smiled and shaken her hand. Of Charles helping her with her French and Italian in return for being treated not like il predestinato, but like a normal human. Of being one of the privileged ones to get to pet Roscoe and Coco Hamilton and feed them treats, giving Lewis a card when Coco died. Of Esteban and Lance and Mick treating her like a big sister. Of Hanna Vettel handing over one of her kids for a brief minute just inside the Aston garage while Em was talking to Chloe because she was Em and she was always there and she was trusted and liked. That she’d lived and breathed that world for a solid four years, and she’d lost her family and friends leaving it behind. 

But she couldn’t. None of them would believe her even if she told the stories and showed the photos she had. None of them counted on her, they thought her flighty. Her leaving her job without a safety net was of course something that Emma would do. She’d moved to London in her teens and had essentially run off, coming home for Christmas and funerals and that was it. She was the one who’d built a life away from them, a life that her parents constantly talked badly about her “gallivanting around the world”. But now it was over and she had to make her peace with that. She’d walked away from everything she’d had, lost everyone she’d loved.

At least she thought she had.

Every single time the doorbell rang, Em ignored it. There was no way it could be for her, so why would she go to get it? Her debit cards remained unused in her purse, and nobody knew she was there. Nobody had any idea that she might even be there. The rare moments that she spent in the living room staring out the window reminded her of that.

“Nobody’s coming, Emma.”

It was the refrain her father said when she didn’t realise what she was doing. He didn’t just mean Dan. There was nobody else in her life coming to see her. Michael and Blake were probably too mad that she’d left her work behind to see her. Chloe and Scotty had enough going on that they might not have even noticed her disappearance. Her father was right, but she didn’t want to hear it. So instead she ignored the knocks and doorbell ringing, ignored the raised voices from downstairs. Her dad was doing his usual being annoyed at a delivery driver for being there and Em went to roll over on her bed to mute the noise. But then she heard it, clear as a bell.

“Wiggle!”

Each of the boys had given her a nickname in the four years they’d spent together. Emma had become Emmy from Dan, and Wrinkles after the first night they met. Blake called her Ems, or after her rant about how Tim Tams were basically the same as penguin bars she became Tim Tam. Or Timothy. Or Tamothy. Or whatever variation of the bars he could come up with in the moment. Michael was the most creative. She was Em to him, but after he walked into her dancing around to Speak Now he started calling her Wiggle when he compared her awful dancing to the kids show. It was their thing.

She went from having no nicknames for most of her life to having more than she could count. It was ridiculous and she joked that it was the result of spending too much time with Australians. But she loved it. It was one of the things that made her feel oh so loved. And there was no greater feeling than the one spreading through her when she recognised Michael’s voice calling her from downstairs thanks to the stupid nickname.

Em wanted a clean break from them all. She left everyone thinking it was the best thing for her to do, that the people she loved could move on without her around. But the second she heard his voice again she stumbled out of the bed and ran to the top of the stairs.

“Sir, I know she’s here. I know Em is here and I’m not leaving until I talk to her.”

“There’s nobody called Em or Wiggle here, I’m not sure what you mean.”

When she got to the top of the stairs Michael said her name again, and the moment she saw him a tiny “Michael”” burst from her, the tears in her eyes making everything blurry. Michael Italiano had found her and he was at her parents front door, arguing with her dad to stop him from closing it in his face. He was there.

Her big brother was right there and she didn’t know how he’d found her but he had. Em couldn’t tell you how she got down the stairs, tears spilling as she pushed through to Michael standing there. She didn’t stop moving until his arms wrapped around her, holding her tightly against him.

All she wanted to do was ask how the hell he’d figured out where she was but she couldn’t. How had he found her in the very last place she ever wanted to be? Between her near uncontrollable sobs and the knot in her throat all she could do was rest her head against his chest and hold him tightly. It was Michael. She could feel him and smell his usual deodorant and he was right there with her. It felt like a dream but it wasn’t. He was there. She could tell by the way that Michael was holding her and the way he kept pressing kisses to the top of her head that it was real. He was there. 

“I told you I was gonna find you, Wiggle,” he whispered against her hair. It was barely loud enough for her to hear it, a warning that her parents were still close enough to listen. “Can we talk?”

She didn’t want to let him go. Letting go of him meant that he could disappear, he could leave. She’d take her hands away and he’d be satisfied that she was alive and could go without a word and she couldn’t take it. He was right there.

Em nodded into his chest, looking up and beginning to loosen her arms but Mike knew her so well and kept one of his around her shoulder, pushing another kiss to the top of her head. The last time she’d hugged someone was eight weeks before in the hotel lobby in Melbourne, holding onto Isaac and Isabella before having to let them go and Joe wrapping an arm around her. She hadn’t touched another human since then. After almost four years with her boys and their families hugs and human touch were common and she craved it. Before now she hated it, but they’d converted her to it. She was so touch deprived that actually being held by someone nearly hurt.

If she couldn’t have Daniel there with her, if she couldn’t have the one she really wanted, at least this way she got to have one of her brothers there with her. Michael didn’t let go, keeping a hold of her as she led him up the stairs. They both ignored her parents questions as they made it into her room and sat down, Em leaning against his chest for another cuddle. They were perched on the edge of the single bed as Em took deep breaths, waiting for him to speak first.

“You don’t know how many people miss you, Wiggle. I missed you so, so much. Come home?”

“I can’t.” It was hard to say so casually but she did it, watching as his face fell in shock. “I appreciate that you’re here but I can’t come back. I’ve nowhere to live, I can’t. I can’t come back to London.”

“If you wont come back, at least let me FaceTime Blake? I had to fight him to stop him getting into the car with me, part of me thinks he might be in the boot. Let him see you and know you’re ok at least?”

“Ok.” She could do that. Michael kept his arm around her while he opened his phone, Em spotting the photo of the two of them walking through a paddock together as his Lock Screen. It barely rang before Blake picked up, hair unusually askew.

“Mate did you find her? Was Chloe right? Is she ok?”

“Hey Blakey.” Em smiled through her tears, watching the shock on his face as he realised she was there. His hands reached out to the screen as if to touch her face.

“TImmy, you ok?” She nodded, unable to speak while swallowing back a sob at seeing him again. “You scared us, you know that? We miss you so, so much. I can’t wait to see you.”

“I’m not coming back. Thanks for being caring, but I can’t. I need to be away. I can’t see him again.”

“Just come home,” Blake pleaded, barely taking a breath before continuing. “Emma, please. Please just come home to us. I need my sister home with me. Nobody needs to choose between anyone, TimTam. But we need you home.”

She wanted to say no. She wanted to tell Michael to leave, to let her stay in London and try to find her new normal. But she’d left to make life easier on them and it clearly wasn’t. She could go back with them and find a new life with them all still there. And that felt right to her. She could deal with Dan on the periphery of her life rather than in the centre.

“I don’t have anywhere to stay.”

“My spare room.” Em turned to look at Mike, a grin spreading across his face. “You can stay in my spare room, it’s your room now. You’re coming home with me.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah. I’ll come home.”

“Blake, I’ll text you when we’re in London. Gonna get our girl packed up and ready to go.”

It didn’t take long for her to pack, Michael making her stay sitting as she directed him to where everything was. She hadn’t even unpacked her things fully, just pulled out what she needed as she did. But the two cases were packed, Michael had gotten her chargers together, and he brought them downstairs as Em followed behind him.

“Where are you going, Emma?” Her mother asked, watching the way Michael kept his hand on Em’s back.

“Back to London. I shouldn’t have left.”

“We never wanted you to go, everyone’s just glad you’re coming back. Chloe knows I’m here, trying to convince her not to fly over has been tough.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. She was about to tell Lawrence what happened so he’d get involved in finding you. Lance really misses you. They’re the only ones who know everything, we told everyone else you’ve family stuff happening. Well, Seb, Este and Mick might have an idea from Lance. Natalie and Ted said to say hi and to look after yourself. Charles kept asking when he thought you’d be back.”

Em could feel her parents eyes flicking between them as he spoke, taking in the names.

“Who are you talking about?” Her dad asked, Michael squeezing her hand for a moment as if to ask if he could reveal everything. Em squeezed back hard, watching as he was let off the leash.

“Em’s friends in the paddock. Chloe Stroll, her dad Lawrence owns Aston Martin and her brother, Lance, is one of the drivers. Sebastian Vettel, Esteban Ocon, and Mick Schumacher are Lance’s teammate and best friends. They all helped Em when she learned French and I think Seb helped a bit with Italian. And then Natalie and Ted are Natalie Pinkham and Ted Kravitz from Sky Sports. And of course the last is Charles LeClerc. He got you that sweater, right?” Em looked down at the one he’d gotten her the year before, fingering the soft wool.

“Yeah he did. I told him I owed him for the Italian and French lessons and he told me he owed me for the English ones and got me this. I’ve missed them all.”

“They’ll be happy to see you in Monaco. We’ve got to get going to get back to London.”

“I hope this isn’t another mistake.” Em nearly stopped as her mother commented, but instead she just looked at her.

“It’s not. This is the right thing for me.”

“Let us know if there’s going to be another scandal. We need to get ahead if there is.”

Em turned and left, not dignifying it with a response. Michael was the one who got her suitcases into his car, opening the passenger door and watching as she settled in. It didn’t take long to get on the motorway, Michael pulling into a services about halfway through the drive.

“What do you want with your coffee?” He asked, Em shaking her head.

“A caramel latte is fine. I don’t need anything.”

“Did you have breakfast?” She shook her head. “You need fuel, Wiggle.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“A chocolate muffin?”

“Maybe.”

She sipped her coffee and picked at the muffin, barely eating any of it. But finally they were getting closer and closer to London, the motorway getting busier with people leaving the city after work. She was terrified and excited at the same time, completely unsure if this was the right thing to do. They’d said they wanted her back. They wanted to see her. People were asking about her. But really would she be wanted there?

Her phone lit up with an incoming call from Grace, Em sending it to voicemail. She couldn’t.

“Who was that?” Michael asked, Em taking a sip of coffee before speaking.

“Grace. I still texted her. She kept asking how I was and saying she was worried and I couldn’t cut her off. I was trying to do it slowly. It’s easier when she’s the other side of the world.”

Michael reached over to squeeze her hand, Em squeezing back.

“We’re home.” She looked around the familiar car park, panic starting to hit her chest. Michael recognised it in a moment, a hand on her shoulder. “I’m right here, Ems. Right here. Blake’s in the apartment because he couldn’t wait to see you. Are you ready for that?”

“Yeah.” No. She wasn’t nearly ready but she had to. She had to see him and apologise for leaving him lost with work. 

Again Michael insisted on carrying her cases, the two of them arriving in together. He opened the front door to let Em through and she saw Blake the moment she stepped into the living room. He stood up, opening his arms and Em walked straight into them and clung to him again.

“God I missed you. So, so much. I didn’t think I’d get to hug you again.” Blake’s words made Em want to crack, her sobs coming out so quickly.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry. I’m sorry.”

“You’re back, that’s all that matters TimTam. You’re home and we’ve got you.”

The afternoon passed quicker than Em expected, the three of them splitting takeout that she barely ate. They boys glanced at her, and she knew she didn’t look great, but she couldn’t stomach anything.

“I added you to the flight reservation for tomorrow, Ems,” Blake said and her head shot up, staring at him.

“What reservation?”

“To Nice. Monaco’s this weekend.”

“I can’t.” Cold fear caught around her stomach. Monaco was the beginning of everything. “You don’t understand, Monaco is-“

“Where everything started. Dan told us.” She looked at Michael, at the first mention of Dan he’d made. “Em the two of you need closure. Say goodbye to him in person. I’ll bring him to our hotel to do it so he’ll leave when you need him to. But you need this.”

“I don’t know if I can walk away again.” The words were choked, yet more tears flowing. She didn’t know she had anymore tears left to cry. “It was so hard the last time. I don’t think I can again.”

“He’ll be the one leaving this time. But you need it. Plus, Chloe and Scotty will be there. I put it in the group chat we found you and Chloe’s insisting. If it wasn’t Monaco she’d be here already.”

“Group chat?”

She listened in stunned silence as they filled her in on everything that happened since she’d left. Chloe’s flight to London, leaving her in laws behind, so she could try find Em. The gossip instagram sightings of her that had been used to find her. The way people kept asking about her. Brown wanting to cancel her paddock pass.

“It’s still active?” It was the one thing she was stuck on.

“Dan wouldn’t let them cancel it. He insisted that you needed it. He kept hoping you’d turn up one weekend.”

“I’ll come to Monaco with you.”

That night she lay in bed, staring at the wall. She was home. She’d get to see Chloe tomorrow, and nobody was mad at her. They all missed her and wished she’d talked to them, but they weren’t mad. She was going to get to say goodbye to Dan for a final time and then come home and start building her life up. She could do it.

Her phone rang and without thinking she answered in her half asleep haze, realising too late that it was Grace calling.

“Hello? Grace?” There was silence on the line, Em leaving it for a moment. “Are you there?”

With no answer she hung up, switching her phone off. She didn’t need this. She didn’t need to mourn anymore, not when she had a hard few days ahead of her because Monaco was the place where everything had begun and where it would end for good.

-

Dan stared at the track map in front of him, his finger tracing the oh too familiar streets of Monaco. He knew every single round of the track. Every single place he’d need to turn, he’d driven them the day before when he got back from Barcelona. When he came back to this apartment that reminded him of Emmy and cried sitting on the couch and spotting her shoes by the tv. When he sprayed her perfume on the pillow next to his because it helped him get a little bit more sleep.

He wasn’t ok. He knew that now. He knew he had monumentally fucked up and ruined the best relationship of his life because he never opened his mouth. He had flights booked to go home and tell everyone that Em was gone and he was dreading it. Having to tell his parents she’d left him, telling Michelle and Adam that she was gone. Telling the kids how much their auntie Emmy loved them but Dan had fucked it all up on them so she couldn’t come back again. 

His heart was completely broken. The one week between races meant he didn’t have to go to England, could avoid the apartments in London. His empty one and her former one he was paying rent on. Instead Dan focused on the next weekend. He ran through the circuit on the sim again and again until he was driving it as perfectly as he could but his lap times were still too high. He ate and worked out and used the sim and showered and slept and that was all he did. Focusing on anything else was too much.

Blake and Michael were still in London. They were getting in on Wednesday but not seeing him till Thursday, two days from then. And that was barely hanging on by a thread. Every morning Dan half expected Michael’s resignation letter. Blake hadn’t said anything yet, but it was coming. He knew his manager too well. The explosion and anger were going to happen and it was going to be deserved.

When Dan was feeling especially masochistic he dug down in his backpack and opened the green leather box hidden in a bottom pocket. Nestled in the black satin was a thin gold ring with a tiny diamond in it. Em deserved more, deserved a huge ring. But she’d never wear it. She always preferred dainty jewellery, made comments about how big stones were destined to fall out. He picked it out for her style, not his. He should leave it in a drawer or sell it but he couldn’t. It meant giving up on her, and he didn’t know if he ever could.

“Dan? Em? Are you home?” His head shot up as his hand dropped the ring into his bag. No. He knew that voice and she should be seven timezones away from him right now. Not walking into his apartment. 

“Danny? You here?” His mum and dad walked into the kitchen to see him, both of their faces brightening at seeing him there before taking in the expression on his face, the tears he’d let out thinking he was alone. “We thought we’d surprise you for Monaco. Where’s Em? Is she gone out?”

His throat went dry as he swallowed, watching the two of them taking in the scene. The lack of anyone else’s belongings. Her baby blue suitcase not there. 

“Danny? What’s wrong?” He hadn’t heard his mum like that since he was a teenager and scared to move to Italy.

“I…uh…I have flights to come home next week to tell you.” He swallowed desperately, unable to make himself say the words for a moment. He hadn’t said it out loud. “Em…I…Emmy left me. She’s gone. She’s gone for good and she’s not coming back and it’s all my fault.”

He could see the moment they hit his parents, the way they nearly rocked back. The devastation on his mother’s face, the shock and dismay on his father’s. 

“But you were going to propose?” Dan huffed a bitter laugh at his dad’s words, putting the ring box on the table where they could both see. “What happened?”

“I fucked up, Dad. I…I did something I never should have. I said things I shouldn’t have said. So she’s gone and she isn’t going to come back. I don’t even blame her, she was right to. I never even called her my girlfriend to her face.” They both sat and looked at him as Dan ranted, letting it out to the two people who he thought would still love him after he revealed everything. “She made me promise her not to leave her alone and then I not only did it, but I sent her away. And we fought in Melbourne. I told her I was done. She resigned when she was flying home from Australia. I haven’t seen her since the hotel and there was a letter in Blake’s and my stuff and she moved and she’s gone. I chased her away. She’s sorry for hurting everyone but I made her leave. I made her go. She’s never coming back.”

He watched his mum pull out her phone and hit a speed dial, putting it on speaker. It rang once, twice, three times, and then hit voicemail. “Hey, this is Em. If this is business related send an email. If not, leave a message after the beep.”

“Dan…” His mother wrapped him in a hug and Dan sobbed in her arms, everything hitting him now he’d said it out loud. Em was gone. His Emmy wasn’t his and she was never coming back. It had been nearly eight weeks since he’d gotten to even see her, it was nearly three months since they’d shared a bed. Not since the night before going to Saudi. She wasn’t going to run her fingers through his hair anymore. She wasn’t going to cup his cheek and kiss him, fall asleep with her arm over his chest. Curl up on his lap on a plane while he talked to the guys and she napped.

He’d never see her in the paddock again. Never get that jealousy when he saw her talking in French with Charles or Lance, never see her hug Chloe before they went to their own garages. Never watch her talk to Mick and tell him to keep his head up, that she was proud of him. 

He was never going to get to have a child who looked like her. One with her hair and eyes and nose. One who looked like him but with her personality. Never put the ring on her finger. Never ask her to please let him be her husband because he didn’t care about the rest of it, he wanted her. 

The list of things he would never do again felt sickeningly long. He’d forget how it felt to kiss her. How it felt when she woke up from a nap in his arms and smiled up at him. When they were in Sicily and ate food and he showed her where his great Nonna had lived, a house no longer occupied by Ricciardos but where his dad had carved his name into drying cement. The way she looked at him like he was her world. The way she said “I love you”. 

He was going to forget all of it in time. He’d never forget Em, never forget how she had changed his life and ruined him for any other woman, but he’d forget the details. He kept opening his messages praying for something from her but nothing. He was never going to get another one from her.

“You were going to propose.” Joe was caught on that detail, opening the box and looking at the ring he’d bought. “You had the ring, you asked me how I knew. How did…how did it happen?”

“I told her I was done.” It slipped out with another tear, Dan pushing his fist to his mouth. He’d replayed those sentences over and over and over in his head. “If that’s what you want, I’m fucking gone. I’m done here, I’m gone” Em’s face falling as he turned to slam the door. The way that if he’d taken even a second he’d have realised she knew him so well she pushed his buttons deliberately. He’d have known. He wouldn’t have left. He didn’t even kiss her goodbye.

“I can’t believe..you…I…” Joe burst into angry ranting and Dan half ignored it, feeling his mother stiffen at his back.

“Did you really say that to her?” Grace was quiet, and the quiet disappointment was worse than anything else. Italian mothers knew Catholic guilt, and at his heart he wanted to be a good son.

“Yeah. She told me to leave, that I’d been leaving her behind the whole weekend and I should go. So I told her if that was what she wanted I was gone. I was done. And then she went downstairs and said goodbye and I swear she planned it. She knew what she was doing. The resignation email was already queued. She knew she was leaving and I encouraged her.”

“The presents…” he could hear the realisation in his mother’s tone. 

“I have to tell the kids she loves them so much but she can’t see them anymore and she wishes she could be their auntie. It’s why I’m going home next week so I can tell everyone. I just want her back, Mama. I don’t know how to do anything without her. She’s my life.”

His mother sat opposite him, pulling Dan’s face up and wiping his eyes. He stared into that identical face, the same nose and curls he’d inherited.

“You can’t fix this, Danny. If she’s gone she’s gone. But if she saw you like this? You’re too thin, have you eaten?” He shook his head. “If she saw you like this she’d blame herself and you don’t want Emmy to do that, do you?”

“No.”

Exactly. So you’re going to put that away and we’re going to make dinner. You have media tomorrow and you need to get yourself ready for it. Understood?”

“Yes, Mama.” She pulled him into a hug.

“We’ll talk more when you’re ready for it. I bet Michael already told you just how angry he is?” Dan nodded. “I thought so. I’m so disappointed in you. You called her your girlfriend, you were going to ask her to marry you but you never told her that you’re dating?”

“I thought she knew!”

“You always say it. Did you even have an anniversary?”

“Monaco. It’d be four years on Friday.” Grace peeled back through the memories, shaking her head.

“I…that makes sense. You need to get ready for tomorrow. Go shower and change, and I’ll have food ready when you’re out.”

“Thank you.”

He ignored the quiet disagreement he could hear between his parents as he left the room. He just felt hollow, and when he got into the shower and caught sight of Em’s fancy custom shampoo his tears fell almost as hard as the water from the shower head.

—

Being in a hotel in Monaco felt too much like four years before and it was suffocating for Em. She shared the room with Michael, and the day before Chloe had appeared at the hotel room door, wrapping Em in a hug and pulling her to sit and talk. It was awkward and painful and part of the mistakes she’d made were full force in front of her, but it was also like she’d never been away. Having her best friend there as they people watched out the window and Chloe filled her in on the gossip she’d missed in the last few months. 

But it was Thursday and she was on a mission. Michael had agreed to bring Dan to the hotel that afternoon for her to say goodbye to him at last, and Em was on her way back to Dan’s apartment to pack up whatever was there. She wasn’t even sure what she’d left behind, but she needed to get it out of the apartment. She didn’t want to have to go to the place she almost considered home after saying goodbye to Dan for the final time.

For the first time since she’d answered Grace’s phone call and got no response on Tuesday night Em switched her phone back on, muting all her notifications but opening Spotify. Her Taylor Swift Heartbreak playlist was on repeat, big sunglasses hiding the bags under her eyes and making her blend in with the rest of the city. Last Kiss was playing through her headphones and she bit her lip as she went into the apartment building, pushing the button for Dan’s floor and waiting to go up. Their floor. Dan’s floor. He’d kept making the joke that she basically lived there, she should stay more. But London had always been their home base, really.

Never thought we’d have our last kiss. Never imagined it ends like this. Your name, forever the name on my lips. Just like our last kiss.

The music was blasting as she undid the lock, closing the door firmly behind her. Em didn’t notice the extra shoes in the hallway, didn’t hear the movement in the living room until she pulled an earbud out of one ear and heard movement. Looking up she stopped in terror as Joe and Grace Ricciardo were watching her with shocked eyes.

“Emmy?” Grace asked, worry filling her face as she took Em in fully. The panic filled her chest, her phone falling to the floor and the other earbud yanked out of her ear. They weren’t supposed to be here. They were supposed to be in Perth, far away from all of this. They were supposed to be the other side of the world and the apartment was supposed to be empty and she’d run away, why were they still here? Why weren’t they yelling?

Her hand reached out blindly, grabbing the side of the couch and holding on as it became hard to breathe. She didn’t know what was happening, panic filling her entire body as her thoughts fizzed out and she could feel herself shaking.

“Joe, get orange juice and some water? And put on the Red album, its by Taylor Swift. It’ll help her. Emmy I’m going to touch your arm and help you onto the couch. It’s just me, I’m right here Sweetheart. We’ve got you.”

“I’m so sorry, I’m so, so, so sorry,” she gasped out, Grace sitting her down and pulling her into a hug. 

“You don’t need to be sorry, we understand why. We get it. Deep breaths, deep deep breaths. Follow my breathing. In for four, hold it for seven, out for four. Follow my counting.”

She followed Grace’s counting, almost jumping when she felt someone at the other side of her. Em kept her eyes closed, afraid if she opened them it’d be just a dream. State of Grace was playing in the background and the irony made her want to laugh if she was less panicked.

“It’s just Joe. We’re both right here for you, deep breaths. We’ve got you Emmy. We’ve got you.”

“I’m right here Kiddo. Follow Grace’s breathing and we’re right here.”

It took time for her to calm down and the trembling to stop. Treacherous was playing in the background as she opened her eyes, looking at her hands. Two familiar hands were clutching hers, sandwiching her on the couch.

“You’re here?” Em asked, Grace and Joe both squeezing her hand.

“We got in Tuesday to surprise you and Dan. He didn’t tell us what happened. We’re so glad to see you.” Grace’s voice was low, Em looking over at her and leaning in.

“I was coming to get my stuff. Michael’s getting Dan to come by the hotel room so we can clear the air.”

“We missed you so much.” It was quiet as Em took it in. The warmth of the two of them beside her, the way Grace’s arm was still around her back and holding her steady. Leaving once was impossible, but leaving twice felt like torture.

“I should go. I’ll get everything when you’re not here.” She went to stand but Joe held her in place, making her look at him.

“Why do you think you need to go?”

“I left. I’m not sure why you’re being so nice to me.”

“You’re family, Kiddo.” Those simple words made her break. The tears that the panic attack had held back started, Em trying to wipe them away. They wanted her. Nobody ever wanted her and she’d walked away but they wanted her and Em felt like she was going to break in two. But Dan’s parents held onto her tightly, calming her down until Grace pushed a glass into Em’s hands.

“You’ve had a shock. Drink the juice and then we’ll talk.” Once Em drained the glass she looked at Grace, the older woman holding her hands as Joe held onto her shoulders.

“Dan told us about what happened. He told us about you not wanting to make people pick sides. But you’re our family, Emmy. Just as much as he is. No matter what happens or happened with you and Dan, we want you in our lives. Don’t take that choice from us.” She nodded, Grace beaming at it. “Now, the kids gave me presents for you. They told us you weren’t well so they wanted to make sure you felt better. Plus we picked up things for you too.”

Joe was the one who went to a suitcase and opened it, pulling out a pile of presents. There were two packets of Tim Tams to make her laugh, a giant Perth mug the size of Dan’s head, and her favourite of all. A hand made get well soon card with childish colours on it, Isaac written semi neatly and Isabella written in a scrawl inside it. Attached to the card was a small white teddy bear that could fit in the palm of Em’s hand. There was a thin red scarf on the bear, making Em grin. She let out another tear at the inscription in the card, written in Isaac’s messy handwriting.

Auntie Emmy,

Uncle Dan said you’re sick and you can’t go on FaceTime with us but we miss you! London looks like it’s raining so you should come to us to get better cause it’s sunny. Isabella named the bear London cause it’s where you are.

Lots of love and see you in winter!

Isaac and Isabella

“They don’t know?” Em asked, Grace shaking her head.

“None of us did. You know how Dan is when he’s hurt, he keeps it in.”

“We both do. He…he’s my whole world. And it’s over and I have to say goodbye tonight and I don’t know how to.”

“Emma, look at me.” Joe had never used her full name and she looked up, wiping away tears. “I shouldn’t say this, he said it to us in confidence. But Danny said the exact same thing about you. He called you his life. Now I don’t know all the details of what happened, but if the two of you miss each other so much then I think you’re destined to fix things. You don’t get two loves like this. He wants you back, Kiddo. And I think you do too.”

“Yeah, I really do.”

Em sat there, holding the teddy to her chest as Grace and Joe kept her penned in. All she wanted was to stay right there with them.

She knew she needed to leave but it was the last thing she wanted to do. Even with the assurances that she was still family it just didn’t make sense. Her family had never wanted her but the Ricciardos still did? They wanted to keep her in their lives? She couldn’t understand why. Time kept passing and the sun was moving across the sky but she couldn’t do it.

Before she could make herself stand up, the front door opened and the oh too familiar footsteps came in. Dan was right there.

“Mum, Dad, I’m home!” She stood up at his voice, Dan coming into the room and stopping still. “Emmy?”

“Hi.” He was gaunt, the tan not hiding how pale and drawn he looked. She knew they were nearly identically haggard, the split hurting both of them more than they could have believed. They met in the middle of the room, Dan opening his arms and wrapping them around her. Em clung to him, holding on so tightly that she thought she might break him. Dan was doing the same thing, pressing kisses to her head. She could hear movement around them, listening out for speech.

“We’ll make sure she’s ok,” she could hear Joe say.

“Really?”

“Yeah. If we need to we’ll bring her to the hotel ourselves.”

“Thanks.” It was Blake and Michael who’d spoken and left the room, Em barely paying attention.

“We’ll leave you two alone.” That was Grace, squeezing Em’s arm and leaving the room as Em looked up at Dan. He was staring at her, and the look in her eyes made her nearly want to look away. It was fierce and caring and she thought it was echoed in her own.

“Are you really here?”

“I’m here.”

“Are…are you going to leave again?”

Em took a breath, deciding to be brave for once. “I’m only leaving if you ask me to leave.”

The grin that spread across his face was the best thing she’d seen in months, the bright smile making her join in.

“Can I kiss you?”

She didn’t even get the words out, nodding as Dan leaned down to kiss her and it felt like coming home. He was there and they had so much to fix, so much to work out, but he was her home. The idea that she was going to walk away or leave him again was impossible.

“I love you. I love you so much and there’s so many reasons why I should have said it before now but I love you and I want you to be my girlfriend. I know we have to talk but I need you to know, Baby Girl.”

“I love you too. So much. I didn’t think you loved me. That’s why I left. But I’m not going anywhere Dan. I can’t.”

He held onto her as they made their way to the sofa, Em settling on his lap. She didn’t fit the way she used to but she rested against his chest, her hand over his heart as her other hand held the teddy against her chest.

“Who’s that?” Dan asked, Em smiling.

“Isaac and Isabella sent him with your parents, they called him London. He’s to make me feel better. They’re good kids.”

“They love their auntie. I didn’t say anything to them. I didn’t know what to say. Just you were sick and had some family stuff so you couldn’t go on FaceTime with me. Next time I talk to them you can too?”

“I’d really like that.”

It was quiet for a moment before they both tried speaking at the same time, identical words flowing into each other.

“I’m sorry.” A huffed laugh went between them, Dan holding out his hand for her to speak.

“I’m sorry. For running, for not talking. I shouldn’t have left but I couldn’t stay. I was convinced it was over and you hated me. I couldn’t stay waiting.”

“I’m so sorry for making you think that, Baby. I love you. I’ve loved you for so long. I never should have said that, I shouldn’t have sent you away in Saudi. I shouldn’t have stayed away from you in Melbourne and I definitely shouldn’t have just left the bed that morning. I should have been there for you. If you’ll let me I want to be there for you now.”

“Yeah. I want it.”

“Yeah?” Em reached up to kiss him, separating and kissing his nose next.

“We have so much to talk about. We have so much we need to fix. But we can’t do it now.” Dan went to speak but she held up a hand and he let her continue. “This conversation we need to have is gonna take time and we don’t have time in the middle of the season. When summer break happens we’ll do it then?”

“That sounds good. But if stuff comes up we talk about it straight away. I can’t lose you Emmy. When you answered that call on Tuesday I couldn’t speak. I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t lose me. Not again. And that was you?”

“Yeah. I thought you’d answer if you thought it was Mama, but I was in shock hearing you again. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Danny.”

She stayed curled up on him as they both half dozed, content to just be together. Grace and Joe came out a few moments later, looking at the two of them. Em fell asleep in Dan’s arms, unaware of what was happening around her.

“You gonna tell her everything?” Joe asked Dan quietly, watching as his son ran his hand up and down Em’s back.

“Yeah. We’re going to make this work. I got a second chance, Dad. I’m not losing her again.”

“Good.”

Em woke for dinner, actually eating the meal put in front of her. She still wasn’t hungry but having people around made it easier for her to eat. She was beside Dan, his hand on her thigh as they ate Grace’s cooking. It was quiet afterwards, Em pushing kisses to Dan’s cheek because it was something she could do now.

“Are you staying the night?” Dan asked, Em shrugging.

“I don’t know if I have anything here.”

“Your clothes are all still where they belong. I couldn’t move them.”

“Then yes.”

It was awkward as they got into bed for the first few moments, each lying on their own side and trying to get comfortable. Em took the first step, rolling over and putting her arm over Dan’s chest, resting her head on his pec and curling into him. One of Dan’s arms went around her, his lips pushing kisses to her to make her smile. It was the first night of uninterrupted sleep she’d had since she’d left Saudi.

Em woke to a kiss on her forehead as Dan eased out of the bed. “Hmm?”

“Go back asleep, Baby. Just getting up. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

She put her arms around his pillow and curled into it, smelling Dan again on it. He was there and he’d told her he was getting up and it was fine. Fifteen minutes later she woke to more kisses to her face.

“Wakey wakey, I’ve got breakfast.”

“What?”

There was a tray waiting for her, bacon and eggs and a pancake on a plate. Dan’s own meal was there too, along with a bowl of fruit for them to split and a coffee each. She grinned and sat up as Dan got back into bed.

“You made breakfast?”

“You always love when I do.”

“I just didn’t expect it.”

“Happy anniversary, Emmy.”

“Happy anniversary.”

Four years since she’d been in Monaco and watched him win, four years since that night in the club and the sex that had led to everything. To the happiest and saddest she’d ever been in her life. She couldn’t help but grin, eating her breakfast and talking to Dan before going for a shower.

In the bathroom Em fully realised just how she looked. She’d lost weight, her face tight and her hair dull. She looked sick, dark bags under her eyes. And yeah she was there with Dan now but she wasn’t ok, not really. She needed to get herself together and Monaco was not the race to be back in public for.

It was too early in the morning for them to really get up, but Monaco was always weird and Dan had more media that day before and after the practices. Em had insisted she’d be fine there alone, she’d be happy on the couch with F1TV on. But Dan had another surprise for her.

There was a knock on the door at eight, Grace opening it up and welcoming the visitor in. Chloe Stroll stood there smiling, hugging Em and kissing her cheek.

“Everything good?” She asked, Em nodding.

“My boyfriend and I are good.” Chloe grinned, hugging Dan and whispering something that made him pale.

“I’m here for the day. Practice day isn’t fun from the garage, and I figured you wouldn’t want to be around the paddock this week considering everything.”

“Thank you.”

Blake and Michael were the last to arrive, the latter immediately coming over to Em.

“I’m good. Really, I’m good.” She gave Michael a hug, giving one to Blake as well.

“We need to head. I got Nat to move your interview to this morning instead of last night. I told her Em needed you because of family stuff. She was good to move because it was for Em.” Blake nodded towards her after he finished speaking, Dan putting his game face on.

“Tell her I said thanks?”

“Of course.”

Everyone except Em and Chloe left the apartment, the two women sitting on the couch with coffee and Chloe catching Em up on everything that had happened. Apart from that it was relaxing, FP1 on. Em cringed at the times, nervous watching Dan going around the track. She’d seen him be confident on it and seen him be miserable on it, and this was reminding her too much of the year before. But she had lunch with Chloe and they spent an hour painting each others nails as FP2 began. Ems were blue and purple to match Dan’s helmet from the year before, just dry as she caught sight of an orange car going into the wall.

“No. No.” Chloe grabbed her hand as Em increased the volume.

“Is the car ok?” She heard Tom say.

“I’m ok.” She breathed a sigh of relief before standing, heading to the bedroom and putting one of Dan’s oversized hoodies on.

“Em? What are you doing?” Chloe called, watching Em slip on vans.

“I have to see him.”

“Ems, you can’t. He’ll be back soon, he’s fine.”

“I have to. Chlo…if that was Scotty and something happened on a half pipe, and you were a kilometre away. You’d run, right?”

“Yeah. I would.”

“Please.”

It took five minutes for Chloe to do Em’s makeup, hiding the worst of the dark circles around her eyes and the sickly pale complexion she had. The two women had their passes, Em picking hers up from the counter and putting it around her neck. It was an active pass, it was her pass, and it’d get her into McLaren which was where she needed to be. They scanned in and were mostly ignored, just looking like two more young women who were in the paddock. Chloe slipped into Aston, promising to text as soon as she saw Lance for Em to head over to them. Em walked up to McLaren, scanning her pass in front of the security who watched with suspicion as she was immediately allowed into the garage.

Grace and Joe were standing in the viewing spot and Em crept up, tapping Joe’s shoulder. Dan’s car was back, the suspension clearly an issue and the front wing gone. Joe wrapped her in a hug, Em returning it and giving one to Grace.

“How is he?”

“Ok. He got checked out, he’s just finished media. He was going to the med centre afterwards so he could be approved, and then he’s going to his room. Head up there, he’ll be glad to see you.” She nodded, turning and going straight to it. She caught sight of a nod from Andreas and a look from Brown, but they were mostly ignored as she set her sights on her target. 

The drivers room was small, Em sitting on the tiny couch and waiting. He’d be there soon. She’d see him and get to see him. He’d be ok. She could hear his footsteps coming down the hallway and when the door opened Em stood to see him.

She didn’t know who hugged who first, Em wrapping her arms around his shoulders to hold him. Her boyfriend was so much taller than her but she didn’t care, keeping him close and rubbing his back.

“I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve got a meeting in ten though,” Dan whispered, Em kissing his cheek.

“I’ll go down with you and sit in hospitality. It’ll be fine.”

Em held Dan’s hand going downstairs, walking into the garage still holding it as they got looks. Brown came over to call Dan to his meeting, but Dan leaned down to peck her lips before he said anything.

“I’ll be over when I can. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Chloe was just outside the garage, the paddock still mostly empty while practice was happening. She draped another lanyard around Em’s neck, nodding at Blake behind her.

“You’re in Aston Martin for the rest of the weekend, Dad said yes immediately. I thought it’d keep the media away, they won’t expect you to be there. Can you tell Dan?” The second part was to Blake who nodded, watching as Em was swept down to the green hospitality.

She spent the rest of the afternoon in there until she got a text saying they were leaving, the paddock now empty of media and Em putting her sunglasses back on to head down and walk out in the gaggle of people around Dan. She blended in and nobody noticed, Em tired after the day. Once they were further into the city Dan took her hand and she smiled up at him, the two of them able to do it in public. It felt so good.

That night Grace insisted on cooking for them before leaving to go for dinner with Joe, making their anniversary dinner before hugging them and saying goodbye. It was good food and smiling, Em ending up in Dan’s arms on the couch.

“I love you.” It felt so lucky to get to say it over and over and watch Dan’s eyes light up.

“I love you too. I booked flights to go to Perth on Monday. I was gonna tell everyone that you and I were over and you’d left. I thought the kids deserved to know in person.” Em sniffed, forcing back tears as Dan kissed her forehead. “Come with me. It’s a super quick visit, we’re back in Baku by Tuesday next week. But we need this. And I think you really need a hug from them.”

“I do. I really do. What do they know?” She hated asking, clutching the teddy they’d given her even closer.

“You were sick and there was family stuff going on so you couldn’t be on FaceTime. They didn’t need to know anything else.”

“They don’t need to know anything else.” She was firm, staring up at Dan. “They’re kids, they don’t need to know what happened. All they know is they have an auntie and an uncle who love them so incredibly much.” She nuzzled into Dan more, feeling kisses pushed to her head.

“Exactly.”

The next two days were exhausting, Em not fully fit for the experience. Dan was driving and looking miserable, she was constantly exhausted and felt like she was on the verge of having a meltdown. The noise, the movement, the people were so much. Chloe was great, Scotty there and holding her hand when she needed it in the hospitality. Lance came over to give her a hug on Saturday and she waved at Seb from across the room, getting a grin back in response. Her friends had learned she was there and it was secret meetings in the back of the Aston Martin garage where cameras wouldn’t see. The hugs Mick and Charles gave her made her grin. It wasn’t unusual for the two to pop by Aston, so they could be there in secret. She felt human again.

The practice and race were a wash. Dan wasn’t lapped, which was better than the year before, but she was so fed up of hearing Brown make comments about her boyfriends performance. Give him the car they promised and he’d be able to do something with it. This hunk of junk they’d given him that was designed around his shorter teammate? It wasn’t going to work.

They went back to the apartment that evening, Blake and Michael on the couch with her as she watched Dan change into a suit for a sponsor event. Em offered to go with him, put on a dress and heels, but Dan insisted she shouldn’t do it. She needed to relax and spend time resting, so instead Em kissed him goodbye and waved to Grace and Joe who were accompanying him. She was wrapped in one of the original Ric3 hoodies they’d designed and clutched London the bear as she dozed off. It was one more night until she got on the first flight to Australia and she couldn’t wait.

She woke being lifted off the couch, Dan holding her up and carrying her to the bedroom.

“Huh?” Em asked, still half asleep.

“Just going to bed, Emmy. I got out early and wanted to come home to you.” She filed the question about getting away early to one side, instead focusing on how Dan slipped next to her in the bed and she got to curl up beside him, arms around her as he kissed her forehead before going to sleep with her.

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[transformers-mosaic]

Transformers: Beast Wars - Second Chances - Page 4

Originally posted on February 2nd, 2011

Story - Mike Priest Art - Jeffrey Witty Colours - Jenny Son Letters - HdE

deviantART

wada sez: This was originally meant to be Page 5, with some of the later Waspinator stuff moved earlier. As envisioned by Mike Priest, all of the pages for the comic would have individual titles, but only he seemed to like this idea and none of them made it into the final product. He gave this page the title “Eternal Too”, a reference to the fact that this entire story is an expansion of his previous Mosaic one-shot, “Eternal”. See below for the original script and an early sketch by Witty, along with Mike’s “Writer Spotlight”.

Beast Wars: Second Chances- Page 5

“Eternal Too”

By Mike Priest

-

(FIRST PANEL- Depthcharge’s hand slaps down on wet sand; he’s just pulled himself from the ocean.)

(SECOND PANEL- A full side-view of Depthcharge, on his hands and knees crawling from the surf- wet, caked with dirt, seaweed hanging from parts of his body…we cannot see his chest.)

DEPTHCHARGE: G-geh…

(THIRD PANEL- Close-up of Depthcharge’s head, looking down at the sand, in confusion.)

DEPTHCHARGE: Huh…how?  I-I…thought…

(FOURTH PANEL- Depthcharge whirls and looks behind him in a panic, having heard a voice.  We still can’t see the front of his chest.)

RAMPAGE: (Dialogue bubble unlinked, border color differs) Well…THIS is certainly interesting.

DEPTHCHARGE: (Enraged) X!  WHERE ARE YOU??

(FIFTH PANEL- Depthcharge, horrified expression as he looks down at himself.  We see the pulsing glow of a spark from below off-panel.)

RAMPAGE: Where I’ve always been…

DEPTHCHARGE: (Small text) no…

(FINAL PANEL- Unveiling of Depthcharge’s chest- it is torn open enough for us to see a SECOND spark (smaller; it’s only a half) somehow messily “fused” onto Depthcharge’s larger spark, like some cancerous lump.)

RAMPAGE: …a touch more literally now, it would seem.  AHAHAHAH!

Ah, Beast Wars.  For me, it's a case of "third time's the charm!" Y'see, Beast Wars was Transformers' third coming for me.  And once it hit, I was snared for life.  As a wee lad, I was a fan of G1, from about the age of three 'til the age of seven or eight.  Oh, there was the Real Ghostbusters and Spidey and His Amazing Friends and whatnot here and there.  But Transformers was always the fallback, always something I could go back to when I lost interest with whatever the new fad was on the playground. Around 1991 or 1992, while there were still some Transformers toys on the shelves, I was growing more enamored with Ninja Turtles and Marvel Superheroes, and Transformers was largely on the backburner, possibly for good this time. But my growing love of comic books would bring me to Transformers yet again.  One fateful day in 1993, on a routine trip to the comic store with my older cousin, I saw it on the shelf. Transformers Generation 2 # 1.  Everyone can remember that cover -- Optimus Prime with bullets jutting out of his skull and faceplate and the tag "This is NOT your father's Autobot." I eagerly snatched it up and for the next twelve months, going to the comic store became a regular occurrence.  I loved Spider-Man and X-Men and Iron Man, but Transformers Generation 2 was the comic I HAD to have every month. You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered the book had been canceled after only twelve issues.  Without supporting fiction to give my toy "adventures" some measure of credibility, my interest waned as it had before, and Transformers once again only became a fond memory. Fast-forward to 1996.  My younger cousins tell me of an awesome "computer-graphics" show airing in the morning called Beast Wars.  "It's animals that transform into robots!", they tell me.  I chuckle, inwardly wondering if it is some rip-off of Transformers.  A few weeks pass and I catch an episode.  "The Web", it is titled, but what shocks me most is the "Transformers" subtitle underneath the prominent Beast Wars logo.  It isn't a rip-off, it IS Transformers! Of course, as a bitter, world-weary twelve-year old at this point, my initial reaction is "Turning into organic-looking animals?  Huh, dumb".  This doesn't stop me from watching the show on weekday mornings before going to school, rationalizing that "nothing else is on". Then suddenly, about midway through the first season of Beast Wars, I realize I'm not watching it because "nothing else is on" anymore, I'm watching it because it IS Transformers and it is AWESOME!  Before I knew it, I was hooked again!  And this time would be for good.  Never again would something push Transformers to second or even third-banana status with me.  I was a Transfan through and through and I owed it to Beast Wars for reminding me. To me, Beast Wars represents some of the very best Transformers storytelling has to offer and is unequivocally the best Transformers animated series of all time (so far).  I jumped at any chances to contribute to the Beast Wars universe in anyway, through fanfiction, through Transformers Mosaic, and now, through BEAST WARS: Second Chances. It's funny.  We're calling it "Second Chances".  But for me, Beast Wars was a THIRD chance.  And like I said before, third time's the charm! -- Mike Priest

[evans23]

I Shall Live On

Pairing : David Friedman x OC

Summary : It's twenty-three minutes before seven and the fate of David and his wife is at stake. It's twenty-three minutes before midnight and the fate of David and his wife was decided.

Tag(s)/Warning(s) : Angst. Mention of death.

A/N : Hello dear 😁 So, apparently people like to suffer in this fandom, so here it is. I tried something different, it's why my female character has a name, anyway I hope you still like it.

Also read on AO3

It was twenty-three minutes before seven in the night when the heart of Rose Benson Friedman stopped beating in her chest. She was twenty-eight, walking in the street of New Orleans after a day of work in a bookshop, ready to return to the house she shared with her husband, the detective David Friedman.

She had met David when she was twenty-eight, by a happy coincidence. He entered in the bookshop where she worked during her shift. He was looking for a book except that he didn't know the title. Only a part of the plot and the colour of the cover. It happened that it was the book she had been reading for two weeks at the time. 

"And what do you think of the book ? Does it live up to the good reviews we can read everywhere ?" he asked her.

Actually, David hadn't read any reviews. If he had, he would have known that the press had destroyed the book and his author. He just needed an excuse to talk with Rose. For the first time in a long time, he had felt something strange, warmth, and alive inside him. 

He hadn't felt like that since his divorce. To be true, he hadn't felt like that far before his divorce. He had married too young, his childhood lover, but after fifteen years of matrimonial union, they fell apart. David was so absorbed in his work that he didn't notice the distance that was settling in between his wife and him until he came back after long weeks chasing leads and pouring over shreds of evidence to find his wife in his bed with his best friend and colleague.

If he hadn't killed the man that day, it's only thanks to the alcohol which had numbed his senses. He still remembered how he had stood frozen on the threshold of the door, trying his best to not let the tears fall from his eyes. After all, he was a man, and never before had he cried in front of anyone. It was because of the alcohol. And the betrayal of his wife, of course.

He had run away, ignoring her wife shooting his name. He didn't remember where he spent the night, probably in his car, on the precinct parking since it was where he had woken up. In the morning, he came back to his home to gather all his things and he left while his wife was at work.

Six months later, the divorce was granted and one year later she married that little shit of Matty. 

After that, David dived deeply into alcohol and work. He could have died if it hadn't been for Rose. The day he entered her bookshop was a holy day. It had saved his life. Rose was his redeeming love. 

There was a ten-year gap between the two of them, but when they were together, sharing their thought, talking about their day or simply being domestic during a lazy Sunday, he felt more himself than he had ever been before. 

However, the beginning of their relationship hadn't been easy. Indeed, she couldn't put up with his bad habits to dig his sorrow into a bottle of alcohol. Not that David was violent when he was drunk, but it is not what she strived for in a relationship. Therefore, one day, she gave him an ultimatum : the alcohol or her.

This ultimatum led to an animated quarrel, but eventually, David admitted he had a problem and he sought help. He was afraid to lose Rose, but seeing how hard he was trying to get rid of this addiction, she supported him as best as she could, and after a long fight, he became totally sober.

Now, he only drank grape juice, and never had he touched a drop of alcohol again. All thanks to Rose, who had saved his life in every sense of the word. 

Because he had already got married once, without success, he wasn't up to commit himself again into marriage. After all, he didn't see the point of signing a sheet of paper to prove his love to Rose and she thought the same. However, when he got almost killed during an investigation, owing his life to Sadie, the FBI agent who became his colleague after their first investigation together and her retirement from the secret agency, he decided on a whim to propose to her.

Actually, not totally on a whim. More out of pragmatism. If he came to die, you would get nothing. Neither his money nor the house you were sharing. Maybe not even his ashes. Truth to himself, his proposal hadn't been romantic at all. She came to the hospital, sick with worry, but when she heard David complaining to a nurse before having the time to enter his room, she knew Sadie was right : David was more than fine. 

"You scream quite loudly for someone who had almost got run over by a car," she said with a smirk.

"Rose," said David with a little smile.

His whole face had brightened with her entrance. Only she had this effect on him. 

"Tell him he must rest !" almost ordered the nurse to Rose before leaving the room, slamming forcefully the door behind her.

"David, please, stop torturing the poor nurses," she joked, striding towards the bed where she sat down.

"I told them I was fine enough to go home but they want to keep me under observation for the night," he complained with a pout.

Rose kissed him softly, her fingers running through his blond hair with delicacy. 

"And you should listen to them. You almost got killed today David !" she chided him gently. 

"Talking about that, while I was in the ambulance, I thought seriously about something..."

He started explaining to her all the advantages of being married to a policeman. More interesting, a detective of his caliber. In fact, there were none if it wasn't for the sharing of love they had. 

"David, what if you just told me what's on your mind rather than beating around the bush ?"

He stiffened, his hazel eyes fixing the wall in front of him.

"David ?" she asked, squeezing slightly his hand. 

"I had a great deal of thought about something. Not only today. I've been thinking about it for some time now. But today, I realised I shouldn't delay it for any longer."

He felt silent, his eyes edging towards her suspiciously.

"Okay..."

"You do not have to answer me today. Or any other day. Feel free to say no. Besides, I expect you to say no. What an idea to say yes to such a stupid idea. I would never fathom what you can see in me, but hey, I'm not complaining, I'm lucky that you are smart but not enough to understand you could find someone far better than me..." he said with anguish, his hooked nose casting a shadow on his left cheek. 

"Ok, David, I don't know if you're scarring me or if it's just the drugs the doctors gave you," she cut him off.

David sighed heavily. She wasn't able to understand what he was trying to tell her. To be honest, even he couldn't comprehend what he was saying. Maybe she was right, his mind was dizzy with the morphine he had received earlier to alleviate the pain.

Nevertheless, he hadn't felt more conscious, wishing for her to say the word he really wanted to hear and not the one he was expecting her to say.

"If something happened to me, it would be better if you were my wife."

Her eyes widened so widely that she looked like a fish, that one people could admire in a Japanese garden. If he hadn't been afraid to hear her say no, David would have laughed at her funny face.

"Are you proposing ? To me ?" asked Rose with incredulity.

"Of course to you. Who do you expect me to marry ? The Queen of Saba ?"

Rose ignored his sarcastic comment, too flabbergasted by what was happening. 

"David, why does it sound like a business arrangement ?" she eventually managed to say. 

"I didn't know you wanted me to pull out all the stops. You told me you didn't believe in marriage," he groaned.

She rolled her eyes, reminding him that he had said the same thing to her many times. 

"Yes, yes... Only a fool doesn't change his mind. Don't tell me you want a ring," he moodily said.

"Of course, I want a ring ! A pretty one ! And Elvis," answered Rose with a smirk.

"Elvis ?" asked David, confused.

"Elvis Presley," she clarified.

"Isn't he a little bit dead ?" asked David, arching one of his brows.

"Oh, come on David, everybody knows he's living his best life on a private island. But I was talking about the one living in Vegas."

David had laughed so hard that he had almost popped his stitches. 

"So, will you ?" he said after having calmed down from his hilarity. 

"What ?" she asked, biting your lips.

"Little minx, you know what I'm talking about," groaned David.

"Yes, but I want you to propose to me correctly. Not as if you were trading an important business. We are not living in the Regency David !"

"Oh woman !" he grumbled.

Yet he obliged you by asking properly for her hand. And as a matter of course, Rose had said yes. 

They got married six months later, in Las Vegas, with Elvis acting as a priest and Sally as their witness. Rose had invited her parents, but they were living in London, her birth town, and her mother was too sick to travel so far away and her dad didn't want to leave her alone, something Rose had perfectly understood. She had been saddened by the lack of support of her friends, but since she had moved into New Orleans, she had fallen apart with almost all of her English friends, some of them having been in the green-eyed monster's grip when she had won the green card thanks to a contest, and she didn't have built any strong friendship in America. But none of that mattered anymore since she had David in her life. 

The wedding was everything both of them had dreamt about. Elvis for a bishop was obviously the greatest and misunderstood desire of Rose. David couldn't understand that fantasy of her, but as she didn't ask for much most of the time, he had graciously accepted, more than happy to get married in Sin City. Indeed, he had always wanted to try his poker skills at the great table of a casino. He didn't win that night, but he didn't lose too much either. After that, they ate some cheeseburgers and drank too much chocolate milkshake, then, David drove from Las Vegas to Los Angeles where they had spent their honeymoon.

Rose, who was a well of science in the field of cinema had led him all around the city, talking about all the anecdotes she knew about almost the beginning of the talking cinema. David always preferred books over movies, but seeing her so happy and in her element made him beamed with love and happiness. She had confessed to him once that she had tried three times to be accepted into one of the best dramatic schools in London, without success. She had finally given up, choosing to become a librarian. He never dared tell her that she was far too shy to be an actress, but she was skilled enough in writing to dabble with it and play aptly with words. 

"David, you're far better than me in writing. You should write some thriller. You had seen so many things, you could compete with the best criminal authors," she had said once. 

David had always written, but never before someone had acknowledged his talent for it. Not that he had thought of having any aptitude for that craft, but hearing her telling him how she loved his short story, something he had started to do when he went to therapy to cure his addiction, had made his ego thrive with pride. For the first time, someone was able to see more than his grumpy exterior and his being a detective. For Rose, he wasn't Detective Friedman. He was David, a man of many talents. A good cook, a writer, an affectionate lover, a support, her husband. 

After their wedding, David had been afraid to see her moving away from him as his wife had done. But it never happened. On the contrary, it had strengthened their bond. Rose was always there for him after a hard day of workwhen the horrors his work forced him to see took a toll on him and she never blamed him for his hectic schedule. She understood his job was demanding, but also the importance it had for him. And for that, he cherished her even more. 

For the first time, Rose and David were happy to be alive. Both of them had gone through difficult times, they had tried their best to get their life on track, their love had made him grow stronger, making them appreciate the little things in life, and able to see the hidden beauty of existence.

Unfortunately, life had a strange sense of humour. Five years after their wedding, Rose, thirty-three, collapsed on the ground of a little-used street in the Bayou. Superstitious, Rose consulted a medium twice a year. David always laughed at her, telling her it was all rubbish and she shouldn't spend her money on such a trivial thing, but she couldn't prevent the need to know, or at least having the delusion to know. She was a regular of Soraya, one of the most respected mediums in the vicinity. Rose would never forget what she told her the last time she consulted her. 

"There's a vampire lurking in the shadow. It'll steal what you love the most. It'll fill your soul with murderous torments. It'll take a toll on your fragile heart. It'll make your heart burn with a rancid venom. You'll wish to be dead, but be careful because sometimes, we get what we wish. Yes, this vampire will try to bring you down, but two angels will look after you. One won't be alive, the other one will be your salvation. Both of them will save you from the darkness you will be surrounded by. Yes, Rose, a vampire will encircle your soul with its cold arms, it'll feed your sorrow, but your ghost will help you to see the light and an angel will give back to your mind the peace and love that will save your life."

Soraya often spoke in riddles, and if Rose was utterly honest with herself, she would admit that the medium had never predicted anything true. Until that day. When she had left the little shop with the heady smell of incense, a vampire had touched her heart. A vampire called heart failure. That day, in a dark alley in the middle of nowhere, in the Bayou of the New Orleans, the heart of Rose Frances Benson Friedman had stopped beating. She had collapsed on the ground, with no one to notice her motionless body and the rain started to drench.

At the same time, on the other side of the town, the detective David Friedman was in the middle of a shootout. A madman with a Kalashnikov was shooting in all directions, shooting that he was Rambo. When he saw a little girl, who probably was five or six, totally unaware of what was happening, David, listening only to his courage, ran towards her, grabbed her by the waist, and threw her to the ground. At the same time, his partner, Sadie, had shot the man in the head. The little girl screamed and cried, protected under the tall frame of David. 

When the S.W.A.T. arrived to help the detective, the first thing they saw was a pool of blood. One of them, who had medical training, turned him with precaution. Another one took the little girl up in his arms, leading towards an ambulance while an emergency team was running towards David. It was twenty-three minutes before seven in the afternoon when a bullet reached the heart of David Friedman. 

He was rushed to hospital, when, somewhere in the Bayou, another medical team was choking Rose Benson Friedman with a defibrillator with little hope to bring her to life. Her body was cold, the rain having been of no help to keep her warm. The team didn't know when her heart had stopped.

She had been discovered by a homeless man who had phoned 911, explaining in bad English that a young woman was lying, probably dead, in the street of the worst part of the town. She didn't seem to have been assaulted. She didn't seem to be from those living below the breadline. She was probably one of those crazy people who had her fortune told by a so-called local witch. Maybe the bitchy witch had given her some brew to get pregnant, poisoning her involuntarily. 

Except that the homeless man was wrong. She hadn't been poisoned. It was just her heart that had broken. Little did he know that her life, if they were able to bring her back, would never be the same anymore. 

It was twenty-three minutes after seven in the night when both, David Friedman and Rose Benson Friedman arrived in hospital to undergo surgery. Sadie was in the hospital waiting room, trying to reach Rose, phoning her again, again and again, swearing under her breath against the woman who didn't answer her call. For God's sake ! Her husband was severely injured. Her place was here, in the hospital, waiting and praying for him. 

In another hospital, a medical secretary tried again, again and again, to get an answer from David Friedman, the emergency person of Rose Benson Friedman. After the tenth attempt, the young secretary swore that if it was there how a husband cared for his wife, she would never marry. Rose was dying, she would probably not last the night, she needed someone who loved her by her side. But no one was there for her. No parents, no friends, no husband. 

It was twenty-three after twenty-two in the night when David and Rose had been brought back to life twice and had died thrice. The medical team in both hospitals was doing their best, as did David and Rose. Both of them, even though unconscious, were fighting for their life in the abyss of death. 

Alone, in the little chapel of the hospital, Sadie who had finally been called by the hospital where Rose was losing the battle between the Angel's death, was praying for his colleague and his wife. She wasn't really a believer, but that night, she didn't know what else she could have done. She regretted having cursed David's wife for her lack of answer. But how could have she known the poor woman was in hospital ? 

Thankfully, the medical secretary, well decided to find someone who cared for poor Rose, had looked up David's name on the internet and found out his name in a small article talking of a corrupted Senator. She had given an educated guess and called the local precinct to ask to be put in relation with the detective who was working in another part of the town, for another precinct. It was Matty, David's nemesis, who had answered the call, explaining to the secretary that David was fighting for his own life but that he would tell his partner about his wife, and what he did, letting Sadie decide if she should tell David about it or no when he would come back from surgery.

Sadie wouldn't have to tell anything to David. Instead, she would drive across town to check on Rose who was in a coma. She would have to call her father, a man who had just lost his wife, and she would tell him that he might lose his daughter too in the same years, four months after the loss of his loved one. And if Rose ever woke up, what she hoped from the bottom of her heart, then she would have the heavy task of telling her.

It was twenty-three before midnight when the heart of Detective David Friedman stopped forever. It was twenty-three before midnight when the heart of Rose Benson Friedman had started again. 

[futurepastme]

Emrys and the council of the seven

Just another thing I need to throw in the void to see if it leaves my mind alone. This "chapter" is just a rambled info-dump that I started before falling asleep and decided to continue today, so I acctually still have more to this universe and might do a part 2.

Au where Merlin didn't turn his back on his kind and accidentally became the unofficial king of a secret kingdom that he created himself. ≈ 2400 words

Prologue: The vanishing door

Camelot was known to be the strongest kingdom of the five lands that composed what would one day be known as Albion, its knights were fierce and strong, its walls were tall and impenetrable, and its King was imposing and unforgiving.

The knights of the king were trained by their own Prince, a man known for his swordsman skill throughout the five kingdoms.

The knights were strong, noble men, whose family's loyalty to the crown surpassed generations, men who dedicated their lives to the king and to the people, sons of Dukes and Earls and Barons.

All men who came from a noble blood lineage could try for a position as a Camelot Knight.

The common man who didn't, however, could still try for a position as a guard. 

The guards that protected the castle went through rigorous training before being worthy of their station, difficult trials meant to test their loyalty, strength, and resilience would take place through an extended period of time. Only those who could pass them all managed to qualify for the position, and only those who could survive training with the prince could keep it.

The Prince was a man made for war. From a very young age he was trained in the arts of politics, strategy, and combat. He knew how to read an opponent as well as he could read a map, could come out of seemingly impossible situations like no other, and knew how to inspire his men to fight for his kingdom to the death and without hesitation.

Besides training the knights, one of the prince's duties was to come up with the rounds for the guards; they were assembled in a way to be confusing but efficient and were cautiously scheduled just so, so people couldn't figure out a pattern.

All these capable groups of men worked together to ensure the kingdom's safety, to ensure their walls were kept strong and to ensure that no one could breach their defenses without being caught.

It is why, after all this training and planning, it is almost comical that we can see the figure of a man seamlessly passing through every guard like they weren't there.

It was on a normal night, uneventful in its nature, that we could see this hooded figure dancing down the halls of the castle, taking advantage of every guard’s blind spot and every secret passageway known to him.

The figure never ran, he didn't have to. He would count down his steps and easily avoid anything that could possibly get in his way.

One, two, three steps forward and one backwards, to avoid being spotted by using a pillar as cover. Thirteen steps ahead and through the door on the right, waiting for six seconds before going out again, to avoid a group with three guards. Eight more steps and push down the torch bracket to go through a secret shortcut.

Step by step he went on his way through abandoned halls and others not so much, passing by paintings and tapestries, bedchambers and supply closets, down staircases and through secret doors until he reached his goal.

He went through one last door and finally found the abandoned staircase. Dark gray coloured stones formed the uneven steps, spiderwebs covered the broken sconces and a stale flavour weighted the air.

Behind the closed door he finally let himself relax completely, in a way he wasn't allowed during his daily life, and with a soft wave of his hand a floating white ball of light appeared, following him about as he continued his path down the cold steps.

After all this sneaking around, it might surprise you that the biggest crime this man committed so far was in the form of that small floating light.

Camelot was a great, strong kingdom that for over twenty years had been at war with magic users.

The purge, as it is called, has many beginnings. 

The baker that lived in the citadel his whole life, would whisper of how a sorceress enchanted the king into confidence and used this trust to try and kill the unborn prince, taking the queen's life in her attempt.

The shoemaker one town over would tell how the enchantress was actually the king’s old lover, who had learnt magic to steal his heart back and kill the queen to take her place, but botched the order her plan should go and forgot to enchant the king before getting rid of the queen.

A traveling merchant, that now could be found in the kingdom of Mercia, would spread the story of how the queen's own lady in waiting had traded her soul for the secrets of magic, but when the time for payment came she took the queen's life to try and offer it instead, effectively losing her soul and her heart along with what was left of her mind.

The bards would sing the sad prose of a king who had a sick wife with child. He begged an old friend to save his wife and son, not knowing that this friend had lost her soul to magic. The sorceress took the queen's life but was chased away by the brave king before she could get to the prince, and the king swore to protect the land from such evil, to never harm them again.

The court physician wouldn't say a thing, loyal to the king, he is one of the three people who were there the night the queen died. But from his mouth, the most one would hear on this matter is a solemn phrase and nothing more. The Queen died giving birth to the prince.

How many variations can one single story have? It's fascinating how one simple tale, retold a thousand times, can change form and become something so different from its origin that turns into its own thing. 

But if you look closely, all the overlapping facts and the substantial discrepancies draw one single truth.

The purge began twenty years ago, because the king lost his queen. 

After that night, no one with magic was safe. No woman, no elder, no child. The King chased and burned, slashed and drowned. He hunted down sorcerers with every man he had, with every dog he owned. He burned their books and burned their bodies, and no one could escape the rage of his darkened heart.

The ones that survived went hiding, running away from a destiny of pain and death.

As the years went by, the slaughter diminished along with the numbers of magic users found in the kingdom, but that didn't mean the king's hatred was any less latent. The use of magic or association with a practitioner of magic would still be punished by death at the stake, and any rumors related to magic would be met with search parties and red caped knights following a bloody mission by the name of the King.

The hooded figure reached the bottom of the stairs, his floating light following dutifully. 

He found himself inside a great cave covered in darkness. It was so big that he had to make the light shine brighter to be able to see the edge of the cliff that separated the entrance of the staircase from the rest of the abyss that composed the cave.

Once upon a time this cave was home to a great dragon, a magical creature, that was captured by the King during the worst years of the purge.

The dragon waited years to meet his liberator, until the same hooded man came through the gates of Camelot. He then told the man about the prophecies that for centuries predicted his birth, about his duties to his kind and about his destiny.

In exchange for this knowledge and many other insights that helped the man fulfill his part of the prophecy, the dragon was released. And now the empty cave had almost no trace of once being housed by a dragon, apart from the broken chain links that littered the ground and a few claw marks that decorated the walls.

The man approached the edge of the cliff, to an untrained eye there would be nothing but the abyss that dragged down the cold air and unbalanced unprepared men, but the man knew this cave as well as he knew the guards' rounds. 

Hidden by darkness, a barely accessible ledge could be seen a couple of meters lower than the edge of the cliff, big enough to fit a person.

With calculated care, the man jumped down to the ledge. 

If someone were to look down at him from the cliff, they would think our sorcerer was trapped, but the view from the top of the cliff had a blindspot that made it impossible to see that the ledge continued with a narrow path to somewhere under the castle. Somewhere only accessible by that ledge and the unassuming cracked slit on the wall by the end of it.

He continued on his way, slowly gliding through the narrow ledge with his back flushed to the wall, the tips of his feet losing ground for a second before regaining it later on as the ledge broadened slightly when he approached the slit.

Upon reaching the slit one would see that it didn't reach the ground of the ledge, with its bottom sitting at the same height as the man's chest, the slit from up close looked like a narrow tunnel. With the ease of someone who's done this before, the sorcerer jumped up and with a little bit of struggle managed to stand almost straight inside the tunneled slit.

He pushed his way through the tunnel, moving his body to fit through as its space changed size. Turning his body on the side when it was narrower and bending down when it was lower, avoiding sharp edges and tripping holes. 

After all the trouble he went through, one would be disappointed after reaching the end of the tunnel and finding nothing more than another empty cave. Different from the one that once housed the dragon, this cave was barely big enough to fit a dozen men, a frustrating sight to anyone who followed the man's steps hoping for adventure.

Jumping down inside the cave, he continued with confident pace towards the backmost wall of this disappointing place.

That wall was different from the rest of the cave, while the other walls were jagged and uneven, this wall was smooth from the bottom to the top. It resembled the walls that formed the hallways of the castle, except, instead of being made out of cut stones shaped for building, this wall was composed of one single smooth stone, like a vertical tablet.

The sorcerer let out a small sigh as he brought up one hand to glide across the stone's surface, at the same time he raised the other hand to the hood of his cape bringing it down and revealing his face to the emptiness of this secret place.

With dark blue eyes that never left the stone, the sorcerer brought both his hands to a chain that sat on his neck, pulling it out. His brows frowned as the chain got caught on one of his ears, he let a small sound fall from his mouth as he fought the bothersome thing off of him, leaving a small red spot on his ear caused by the aggressiveness he used to pull the chain.

Dangling from the chain was an iron key, simple in its look, the key didn't seem to be of any importance, just another key like many others.

The sorcerer held the key in his hand and took a second to frown down at it, letting mumbled curses reprimand the misbehaving object, as if it were its fault to get caught.

His gaze did a quick once over of the cave, as if daring the walls to say anything about what happened, before coming back to his senses. There was no one but him there, and the walls couldn't possibly be laughing at him. 

He brought his gaze back to the cursed thing in his hand and finally brought it up to the stone wall at the same height a keyhole would be. Once it made contact with the stone, it stopped for a second, before going through the hard surface and sitting in a perfect fit. 

He turned it once, and the little cave was suddenly consumed by a blue light coming from the stone as the frame of a door began to blink into existence.

He waited for a few seconds until the light diminished, and now in front of him was a hard oak door, with hinges, iron straps, a handle and yes, a keyhole. He turned the key two more times and reached for the handle.

The room was rapidly filled with a warm light that came from the open door. 

A waved hand dismissed the ball of light, relieving it from its duty now that the light coming from the door would be sufficient.

The man took the key out of the keyhole, stepping through the threshold inside the lit room before quietly closing the door behind him.

For a couple of seconds the cave was drowned in darkness, only a faint line of light escaped from underneath the door, before it was once again lit up with the same blue light as before.

Slowly, the magical blue light started to fade beginning from the frame of the door towards the middle, and as it went off, the door too began to disappear.

In a matter of seconds the stone wall conquered back its space, it consumed the frame, the hinges, the whole door until there was nothing but the keyhole. It blinked for a second before it too disappeared.

The stone wall was back to its natural form, inside a hidden cave with no trace a doorway could ever have existed, with no magic light to ease its darkness, and with no hooded man staring at its smooth surface.

On an uneventful night at Camelot, a sorcerer waltzes through the defenses of the castle to reach a cave that no one has heard about, with an illegal magic light that followed his steps, towards a secret door that didn't exist.

And as his journey through the depths of the castle reached its end with his magical disappearance through the said inexistent door, Camelot continued with its routine dance: the guards continued their rounds, a few knights drank at the tavern, and the prince slept on his bed, all of them unaware of the shadow man and his magic door.

[sadly-never-after]

Music in the EAH Universe and who listens to them Part 5.

This is just an excuse to try to make music puns and share music I think the characters would listen to. (Some of these are even canon by the books!) I don't even like a majority of these musicians but I am fully convinced of my choices here. I marked in colours the one that are canonically part of the EAH Universe.

Since Tumblr only allows 100 inline links for a post I have to make different parts.

Part 1 (Alistair, Apple, Ashlynn, Blondie, Briar, Bunny)

Part 2 (Cupid, Cedar, Cerise, Chase Courtly, Daring)

Part 3 (Darling, Dexter, Duchess, Farrah, Faybelle, Ginger)

Part 4 (Holly, Hopper, Humphrey, Hunter, Jillian, Justine)

Part 5 (Kitty, Lizzie, Maddie, Meeshell, Melody, Nina)

Part 6 (Poppy, Ramona, Raven, Rosabella, Sparrow, Tucker)

ᓚᘏᗢ ☾⋆｡𖦹 °✩ Kitty Cheshire ✩° 𖦹｡⋆☽ ᗢᘏᓗ

Godmother, Godmother (Burning Pile, Oh Ana, Verbatim)

The Neverland Experience (Cult of Dionysus, Queen of White Lies, Your New Boyfriend)

Spellanie Martínez (Pity Party, Tag, You're It, Mad Hatter)

Marina & the Diamond Cards (Hermit The Frog, Rootless, The Outsider)

Tailor Hall (You, Ruler of Everything, Turn the Lights Off)

♛ 🂱༺♥️༻🂱 ♛ Lizzie Hearts ♛ 🂱༺♥️༻🂱 ♛

Katy Fairy (Dark Horse, Hot N Cold, Teenage Dream)

Marina & the Diamond Cards (Lonely Hearts Club, I Love You But I Love Me More, Rootless)

Nixie (Your Best American Girl, Goodbye my Danish Sweetheart, First Love/Late Spring)

Yes, Yes, Yeses (Heads will roll, Shame and Fortune, Dragon Queen)

Lana d'Aulnoy (Without You, Dark Paradise, Chemtrails Over the Country Club)

☕ ׂ 𓈒 ⋆ ۪☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★🎩 Madeline Hatter 🎩★‧°𖦹｡⋆☆ ۪ ⋆ 𓈒 ׂ☕

Giantz (19-2000 - Soulchild Remix, Fire Coming out of the Monkey's Head, Pac-Man)

Plucky Tailor (Stout-Hearted Men, It Gets Better All The Time, Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing)

David Longbow (Under Pressure, Starman, Oh! You Pretty Things)

Of Wonderland (Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games, Lysergic Bliss, Peace To All Freaks)

Tailor Hall (Mucka Blucka, Banana Man, The Whole World and You)

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼 Meeshell Mermaid 𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

FKA Witch (Water Me, Ultraviolet, Give Up)

Florence & the Mill (Swimming, Never Let Me Go, Mermaids)

Lana D'Aulnoy (Mariner's Apartment Complex, Video Games, High by the Beach)

Nixie (Come into the water, Pearl Diver, Valentine, Texas)

Reigning Spectre (Tornadoland, Us, Samson)

⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆🐭⋆.˚✮ Melody Piper ✮˚.⋆🐭⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆

Giantz (Dare, Every Planet We Reach Is Dead, Tomorrow Comes Today)

N-Chant (Shoulda Known, Ball & Lead, Monday)

Lil' Swain (Forever, Annihilate, Mrs. Officer)

Twenty one King's Men (Message Man, Stressed Out, Guns for Hands)

Cage the Dragon (Trouble, Cigarette Daydreams, Telescope)

Tyler the Narrator (Earfquake, Corso, New Magic Wand)

🍄🦋🌸 Nina Thumbell 🍄🦋🌸

ABBA-cadabra (Chiquitita, I Have A Dream, Waterloo)

Dolly Charmton (Coat of Many Colors, Wildflowers, Love is like a Butterfly)

Elvis Princely (Burning Love, You're the Devil in Disguise, Hound Dog)

Ever After Authors (Best Day of My Life, We Happy Don't Worry, Daisies)

Joan Bard (The Night they drove Old Dixie down, Farewell, Angelina, Love is just a four-letter word)

You are trapped on an eight-hour long road trip with these guys and you have to give one of them the aux chord.

[fauxraven]

The Time Paradigm [VI]

pairing: Dream of the Endless x fem!reader

summary: the death of a Dream, the anguish of another

warnings: gore, Dream’s endless (but hot af) anger, character death

word count: 2.9k+

Enter the Dream, weary traveller

Chapter VI: Mutually assured salvation

GaiaPrime-57, Londinium, Half the Lifetime of the Universe,

A window snaps shut.

A droplet drops.

A zipper zips shut.

Zips open.

Chipping nail polish cracks further with every slide of the zip. Zip up; zip down. Zip up; zip down.

The suitcase slams on the floorboards. A frustrated groan leaves the chipping nail polish.

‘’Yes. Yes, I understand that too, Mr. Harris.’’ Up and down and up and down again until it jams. The phone gives a groan under cheap nail polish and exhausted fingers. ‘’Pedro, come—hop on my suitcase.’’

The curly head of a child pops around a corner; small, for his age, smallest of his class, in every aspect. He holds a soft toy that’s half bunny half elephant and about 5% extinct species. He hops on the suitcase silently.

‘’No, obviously, I don’t expect you to hop on my suitcase, Mr. Harris.’’ The zipper draws back, jams again. ‘’Pedro? Remember the Chuck E. Cheese ball pit?’’

The child throws himself onto the suitcase. The zipper is still stuck.

‘’Yes, I know. But the lease said—just one really. Yes, the other intends to stay. I don’t know, a few months. Yes, just me. She’ll stay. Yes—yes! Perfect, thank you, so much!’’ The phone drops on a red faux suede beanbag. ‘’Kid, this isn’t working.’’

‘’It was zipping a bit funny when Aunty Anna tried it too.’’

‘’Anna was within a file-mile radius of my suitcase?’’

The half-elephant half-unicorn dips a head of a cotton into a nod. She pulls him up and throws the suitcase open.

‘’You have got to be kidding me!’’

A pink garment falls to the floor. Followed by a white veil and a cable knit stitch the colour of ebony. Footfalls draw closer with every piece she plucks from the intestines of the suitcase.

‘’Pizza’s ordered. What? You said healthy; veg—what the bloody hell are you doing?��’

‘’You tell me. What part of ‘going there for work’ do you not understand?’’

‘’I understood perfectly! Blimey, I even packed you nice professional clothes.’’

‘’Lingerie? That’s what you call professional?’’

‘’Pleasure and business. Precisely in that order,’’ a lacy thong drops, adding to the growing pile forming on the floor. The child has gone away, thankfully. ‘’What if you meet a hot and loaded British bugger? What then? You’ll be glad I packed the essentials, that’s what.’’

‘’It’s a job in a quiet countryside house; the closest village is eight miles. The only guy I’ll see is pushing ninety and I’ll spend my days wheeling him around—passionately.’’

‘’Just loaded then?’’

‘’Business. I’m going there for business. I’m not like you, Jo. Hell, how many did you—okay, who needs this many thongs?’’

‘’That one’s a stray, actually.’’

On cue, the top layer of the unholy pile shifts into a ginger Tabby cat.

‘’Tell me you did not keep that thing.’’ Johanna snags in a beanbag, hissing at the cat when it tries snuggling up against her leg. She plucks a magazine from the coffee table and starts thumbing through gibberish. She isn’t really paying attention to the words; she isn’t paying attention to anything.

‘’I let you keep the kid!’’ The woman fires back, sitting on her haunches.

‘’Kids aren’t strays, love. Besides, this one’s just using ya for food and free snuggles, hope you know that.’’

‘’Since you’re missing the point, I’ll just cut to the chase—where did you find a whole kid? Where are his parents?’’

Johanna spares her a coy look over the magazine. ‘’Don’t you mean when are his parents?’’

‘’No, I really just mean where are his parents, the people who are supposed to care for him and report him missing should you decide to keep him any longer than you already have.’’

Johanna opens her mouth, tongue fit with a quick retort, but a zipper zips shut and a bell tolls; and life goes on. Without her. Always without her. She ought to move on too.

A sharp snap! rescues her from grim thoughts. A luggage handle is drawn and a decision is made.

‘’Looks like I’m all set. Walk me to the door?’’

‘’Promise to visit for Bommy Night?’’

‘’Sure. Why not Christmas or Easter or any other normal holidays?’’

‘’I want you on Bommy Night.’’

A suitcase is wheeled over the threshold of a small London flat. A dream leaves through the door.

‘’Hun, it happened four hundred years ago, think you can let it go, eventually?’’

‘’Bommy Night?’’

‘’Bommy Night.’’ She sighs. ‘’And do clean up while I’m gone. This place is a mess.’’

A door shuts behind an idyllic picture, a semblance of normalcy, a modicum of love.

In all her lives, Johanna Constantine has never particularly enjoyed loneliness. But loneliness far outweighs death, grief, sorrow, work. So she lets it go. She lets love overflow. She lets her only friend forge her own path through the world. A world cleansed of any demons, ghouls or whatnots that come bump into the night.

Still, she hangs onto the knob. Still, she pauses before the door. Still, she glances at the quiet flat.

A piece of paper and a mess of clothes strewn about a dust-covered couch.

All that’s left of her.

There’s a child in there somewhere, but she doesn’t bother finding him. She knows it won’t last. She knows nothing ever lasts.

An orange cat pushes its head against her calf, purring lightly through her bones.

She might take that gig at Saint-Anne’s. She might blow up the Houses of Parliament. She might phone Rachel.

Endless possibilities.

⌛︎ ⌛︎ ⌛︎

GaiaPrime-57, Edge of the Worlds, Mytikas Peak, Two Millennia Before the End,

He isn’t sure she is breathing.

Granted, his kind do not need to breathe, but nearly all living things do.

In the beginning, breathing was surviving.

Breathing was new, invented by some higher power, meant to be the latest trend in a series of many; holy gifts bestowed upon humanity before it even became humanity.

But in humanity breathing has found meaning.

One’s breathing tells a tale of life—of life and of love and of sorrow and of pain.

In times forgotten but not forgiven, he’d relish in the steady breath of sleepers.

He’d watch the ephemeral rise and fall of a passing chest with great fascination, overcome with a strange mixture of relief and indifference when the fleeting moment inevitably ended.

He’d listen to the soft thrumming of a laboured breath fanning across his own lips, bodies tangled, hearts mingled, minds miles apart. He’d pour his heart into everything that he was and everything that he wanted and he’d breathe them all into his arms… and they would always end up drowning. He’d choke the breath right out of them.

His sorrow was great; but his love was suffocating.

To add insult to injury, evolution has made breathing mandatory; essential.

But she has defied every rule, every law, every principle and sacred promise from day one.

So he is almost certain she is not breathing at all.

And he needs her to breathe.

He isn’t sure why—perhaps because she’s got a kind smile and she’s happy and she’s wounded and she’s saved his life.

A debt he can never repay, to his dismay.

He cannot stand between a flying sword and her lovely face. He cannot mend her wounds with a flick of his wrist. He cannot call out her name so sweetly and stir something buried within the depths of a blazing nova.

But he can save her life.

The hopeful thought digs, and soft golden grains of sand guide him to Chiron’s bedchambers.

He finds the Centaur reading. He calls to him, nearly falls to his knees.

Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, Oneiros, the Shaper of Form and everything he has ever been and ever will be—is utterly devastated.

Strangely enough, nothing gives the King away.

Nothing on the hard face, the wild hair nor deep eyes, nothing in the dark billowing robes and the shining ruby; it’s a feeling in the air, a rapture through time itself that tells Chiron something dreadful has happened.

That, and the dying girl in his arms.

For his usual aloofness, Oneiros proves to be very cooperative.

He lowers her to the cushioned table, per Chiron’s orders and stands aside to let him work.

He watches, powerless, as the doctor tears through fabric and blood-marred skin and frowns.

‘’What is it?’’ His voice is cutting, demanding, that of a sovereign hanging onto his crown with one hand. In the other, lie his wants and desires. Duty warring against something barely blossoming. Something deadly. Something very nearly dead.

‘’The stitches hold still.’’

‘’Is that not a good thing?’’

‘‘Terrible. Very terrible, Milord.’’

Gilded scissors cut deeper, digging into raw flesh and crusted meat alike, dragging unintelligible pained murmurs from the victim’s throat.

‘’She’s coming to, my lord.’’

‘’Not quite. Faster.’’

Scissors chop away, blood bursts everywhere, screams rip free, golden liquid bearing the smell of spoilt milk leaks through veins.

‘’By Zeus—’’ The Centaur curses; the Dream Lord hears it—neither moves an inch.

‘’What is that?’’ Oneiros rasps, anger lacing his even tone as he stares deeper into the leaking wound.

‘’Adiona—‘’ Chiron stammers, wide eyes burning a hole into a gaping canyon. ‘’Go, find Adiona, and any servants and willing gods.’’

Oneiros does not move. His star-filled gaze has darkened; the stars are slowly dying as they gawk at the trickling drops of blood and the large puddle of liquid gold pouring from the wound.

‘’Oneiros, go!’’ Chiron calls to him, they share a glance over the woman and then his eyes sweep over her fevered form again. A pale hand he hadn’t noticed falls from a limp grasp. He is gone in a swirl of sand.

What happens in the split second of his absence is a secret kept between the doctor and the universe.

But for clarity’s sake, the scene is as follows; this tale is not for the faint of heart.

Blood pours.

As a doctor, surgeon, centaur, son of a ruthless beast, he has seen blood. Some might say he is used to the sight of it. Blood and pus and bodily fluids, all fascinating in their diversity. After its inevitable loss, the human body can produce nearly one liter per day. That's two gallons full of pungent blood. He fears she might fill up five pitchers of wine with her blood alone.

But the blood doesn't bother him. It is terrifying.

Blood pours, pours.

Vicious droplets gushing from a gaping wound—a Sunday to him.

He'd operated during the Dhorian Invasion and all that followed humanity's first brush with extraterrestrial forces. He'd served as a soldier for a time, a nurse, a brother, a friend, a gravestone. He thought he'd seen all the world had to give and take.

He hadn't.

He probably still hasn't.

Blood pours pours pours.

Red splotches dot his skin—her skin, the difference is hard to tell anymore.

He reacts mechanically, his body switching to auto-pilot. His arm lifts, a hand reaches and nibble fingers dig through shining flesh and golden remnants of bone. He knows what this is, this gilded ambrosia spreading through her veins. He knows what it is and he knows what it does, so he carries on, hands digging through her entrails as her screams overpower the wet squelching of his crass ministrations.

He digs and he digs until the voice that comes from her throat is nothing but a distant echo carried by a Roman breeze, a flutter of a butterfly's wings.

By the time the doors to his antechamber burst open, he's elbow deep into the angry flesh of her.

A flurry of gods and goddesses and servants stand arrayed about him, gawking eyes narrowing at the sight of the carnage.

''Chiron,'' a voice calls to him, and then two, and then three and a thousand and one. They pierce through the silent spell in the room and noise comes back to him at once, a moist, most disturbing noise.

He carries on; acutely aware that somewhere along his ministrations, she had stopped screaming.

''Chiron, there's too much blood.''

''Is this all from the... inside?''

‘’I could not find Adiona.’’

‘’No matter. Hold her hand.’’

Wordlessly, he gives commands. A world of gods and servants obey, gathering tools and knowledge, changing bandages and spoiling cloth after cloth with dried pungent blood. It just never stops, the flow keeps pouring, rushing over all of Mount Olympus. The rivers of blood spread like gossip on Haloa, splitting into narrow paths, designing warped veins on the pristine floors. The irony.

The servants still the traveller. It is useless. The violent writhing has subsided, only slight tremors remain, faint whimpers and an assembly of gods.

Hephaestus beats her chest repeatedly with brawny arms.

A Cherub's small rounded fingers are pressed against her pulse. With every passing second, they press harder still.

Calliope, ninth daughter of the Hecatae, is sponging up blood and gilded pus from a corpse.

A painting that will never make it to a museum.

Oneiros knows she is no longer breathing. Her hand lays slack in his palm.

Chiron perseveres. Delicate fingers pry him off the body carefully.

The stranger-traveller-lover-of-dreams is... dead?

''It's alright, Chiron. You did your best.''

''You were very admirable. As was she; she shall be remembered as such.''

''Really nothing you could do.''

''Try again.''

A death knell drops. A pipe organ is playing somewhere deep within the bowels of the palace. The eerie melody cannot reach them. Nothing can save for sorrow and grief and the Dreamlord's quiet anger.

''My Lord?''

''Try. Again.''

Chiron holds his haunted gaze. The ninth daughter of the Hecatae raises a graceful hand to the side of his face. ''Oneiros—''

''Save her.'' he repeats, rasping voice never changing in tone. ''You owe her that much.''

''Do I?'' The doctor's eyes sweep over her form again. Just a moment ago she'd been laughing, mocking his customs and reminiscing gibberish. Just a moment ago, she'd been carried in by the prince of stories for whom she obviously harbored a strong inclination. ''Do you?''

Just a moment ago, she'd been more than a cold lump of meat on a decorative table.

''I know when to admit defeat, Dreamlord. Please, forgive me.''

''No.''

''Oneiros, he did all he could.''

Cold, starless eyes barely brush against some ninth daughter. Under his stare, she feels smaller than a grain of sand.

''No,'' Chiron says before the Dream Lord can retort. ''No, I did not.''

''Chiron—‘’

His shoulders deflate, turning away from Calliope's comforting touch. ''She came to see me this morning. After the feast.''

''Well, what did she want?'' a rough, gravelly voice asks. The Cherub hops on a corner of the table, bare legs brushing over the tip of her dead sandaled feet. She is a corpse now, everything about her is dead, expect, perhaps, her heart. It shall live endlessly.

''She asked me to check the wound. I had to remove the bandage and cut her up, I'm afraid.''

The temperature drops, the air turns crisp, burning the doctor's lungs when he draws a deep breath and looks into Morpheus' eyes.

''Tell me, is this your doing?''

''I wish,'' he surrenders, summoning all the strength left in him. His hands are covered in blood, his arms reek of death and his scalp is as damp as that of the victim. The blood has gilded vein-like streaks stretching across his arms. ''This—this is something else. Something impossible.''

He orders the blood-covered servants to leave. As they fill out wordlessly, he watches, scrutinizing them one by one. The doors close on blood and fabric and a forbidden glance.

To the remaining world, he whispers one word.

''Δηλητήριο.''

''Poison?'' Calliope echoes, frowning. ''It cannot be. Zeus had all the hemlock shrubs removed after the Phaedra incident.''

''Only this isn't hemlock, Calliope. This is something else. Something new.''

''Could it be lethal to us?''

''Of course not, dimwit! Why would you even think that?''

''Look what it's done to her, Anteros! A powerful beauty, was she? I mean no disrespect my lord.''

Hephaestus considers himself a man of bravery and honor.

He isn't anywhere near as obnoxious as Plutus, or inconsiderate as Aergia, and twice the man Anteros pretends to be. But he must admit that the tendrils of pure darkness sprouting from the Master of Dreams’ shadow make him a tee tiny bit frightened.

They expand, licking across the polished floors, continuing their creeping journey toward the foot of the table, snuffing out all light and life from the closest particles of this plane. The shadows grow, shape, de-shape and reshape in a senseless and endless twirl.

Calliope has always been braver than him.

She turns and in one graceful twirl places herself between the tendrils of darkness and her half-brother. Between the god and the Endless. She stares him down. He stares right back.

The tendrils tremble around the edges.

Chiron pinches the bridge of his nose wearily. A cherub sucks a thumb into his mouth, watching the game with bright amused eyes.

A shadow stills, the air turns sour.

A gasp is breathed, a heart is released.

A stranger-traveller springs from a table, cheered on by a collective shriek. A toddler tumbles from her table. A palm is pressed to her cheek, lovely brown eyes coming into view. Shadows retreat into the darkest parts of an ancient soul.

She breathes. She lives. She cries.

''Please, please, don't send me off on a burning boat.''

-

A/N: yes I am alive, no, I’m not sorry (a tiny bit still).

Also… finally introducing the premise, how do we feel about that ;)

Gotta sort the rest of my drafts before I update again, but I’m currently working on a Sandman x DBD crossover so updates on this series might take a while. And since the algorithm seems to be against me, I'd recommend a follow to be sure not to miss them!

[thelustybraavosimaid]

"Loneliness is a terrible thing, but so, too, is the hunger," Aemon felt for the lit candle before him, held onto it to warm his frail, wrinkled hands. "And with that hunger...when we do not heed it, we waste. Valyrians are meant to live long lives, as long as the dragons we claim—barring any maladies or ill-fated events, mind you—but without a soulmate and their blood, our lives are cut by half at the very least..."

Jon watched him as he adjusted the heavy chain resting at his thin neck, wondering. He flexed the fingers of his sword hand. Why is he telling me this? He was perplexed enough with his dreams...yet he couldn't help the curiosity that bloomed in his mind.

Jon may not be a Stark, but he felt Ghost's desire for fresh elk as if it were his own craving, the feeling so sharp on his tongue, the thought of hot crimson and chunked meat cascading down his throat mouthwatering. Was that common among werewolves with bonded loves, as it must be for vampyres? If so, mayhaps the Targaryens and the Starks were never so different, after all.

"...there was a girl I loved, did you know?" The skin around his milk-white eyes crinkled as he grinned. Jon was surprised by that; knowing how young he had been when he joined the maesters, he found it hard to believe he ever would have been romantically involved with another. Aemon sighed in remembrance. "I remember some about her, even still. The colour of her hair, the fairness of her skin, the soft way she spoke. I had already forged maester's links by then, devoted to my order and the lord I served. Yet I couldn't help the way I felt when I saw her.

I met her by chance; she served the lord as well, as a cupbearer. For a while we had gotten close, until I received the letter of my father calling his sons to the Red Keep. There was some...relief in leaving Oldtown. My father urging me to return home was a sound excuse, but there existed another reason why I had to, a deeper reason. A vampyre's bloodlust when it comes to our soulmates is almost consuming at times. It is painful when they're near and we cannot have them. In the past, such torment had driven some to madness.

My greatest fear was hurting her. I was torn back then; all I had devoted my life to was challenged with a single gaze of hers. Despite it, I had to choose my work instead. The both of us were miserable when I departed, but I knew it was for the best. I never would have forgiven myself if I had harmed her with my selfish impulses..."

Aemon's wizened voice drifted off as he fell into his memories. Jon sat in the silence as he dwelled in his own thoughts. Lately, his dreams had been strange, all-consuming, eerily real...but how much to reveal?

He decided on a far safer approach. "Do you remember her name?"

"I told you all the things about her that I can remember for a certainty," his smile carried a hint of morosity. "It has been nine-and-seventy years since last I glimpsed her. When you get to be as old as I, when the bond between soulmates is severed so early, you begin to forget certain details over time. My mind is still as deft as a blade, for the most part...yet I cannot remember her name..."

Silence fell over them once more, the quiet cut through with the occasional crackle of the hearth's firewood. Jon poured him a glass of wine, relieved when he accepted the goblet.

Aemon's white eyes peered over the rim of the goblet, finding him with ease. "You have had similar dreams, have you not? Do you know her name, Jon Snow? The one who plagues you so?"

...how could I forget?

Five years, eight months, and a fortnight had passed since he had last seen her, and yet the memory was fresh in his mind as if he had left Winterfell but a few hours ago. Jon closed his eyes, thinking of the last time he had seen her. She jumped into his arms when he gave her that skinny sword, stung his arm when she whapped him with the flat of her blade, drowned him in shy kisses in gratitude...

He thought of when she laughed and how the world felt warmer in response, chipping away at the jagged anger that lanced him.

He didn't want to leave, not her, not then...but after this, perhaps it was for the better. When he thought of her as she appeared in his dreams, of her striking grey eyes, her slender legs springy and longer, and the smell of earth and snow that clung to her skin, Jon's breath choked on a trembled gasp. His teeth sharpened, pressing down into the meat of his bottom lip. No matter how many years one had spent here, men did not forget their loyalties, their loves, their wants, and that rang true for him, as well. There was a darker edge to his love now though, if this was the painful bond the good maester had warned him about.

Hunger coiled in the pit of his stomach, worsening the more he thought of her.

Was that truly what she looked like now?

"You need not speak it aloud, dear boy," Aemon's hand drifted over Jon's, warm from the dying candle, "the love you bear her is plain enough, even without the seeing. And I hear the pain all the same."

He was grateful. He didn't want to say it in fear of being judged. Hells, he could even be wrong; dreams were but fragments of memory, often making mockery of men. If he wasn't, though...wouldn't the good maester understand, what with his Targaryen ancestry? Of course he remembered her name, though, and Jon was sure he'd never forget, no matter how much time would weather them both.

Arya Stark.

Jon stood. "Thank you for your time, Maester Aemon."

"Before you go, I suggest you take this," he rested his palm over a thick tome, the cover black and without a label. Along the spine, it said, Soulbonds and Bloodlust: On Vampyrism. "Septon Barth was a great chronicler of dragons, wyrms, wyverns...but little know how extensive his work had been on the lore of vampyres and our soulbonds. If you have the time, perhaps it can be of some use to you."

How could it be of any use when the last trueborn vampyre in Westeros was sitting before him, kept alive by the Wall's purported magic? Jon did not want to be disrespectful, though, so he took the tome from his hands. The book was massive, with a sizable weight to it. It was about vampyrism, of course, but maybe he could glean some understanding of his wolfish cravings all the same.

The old man smiled again. "And who knows, perhaps you may see your beloved far sooner than you believe."

Dare he hope? With a flex of his hand upon hearing the words, Jon thanked him, tucked the book under his left arm, and retreated back to the confines of his quarters.

[lauralot89]

Let all be put down exactly. Van Helsing and I arrived at Hillingham at eight o'clock. It was a lovely morning; the bright sunshine and all the fresh feeling of early autumn seemed like the completion of nature's annual work. The leaves were turning to all kinds of beautiful colours, but had not yet begun to drop from the trees.

Lucy's on the edge of death but let me wax poetic about the leaves exactly

"You must not take all the credit to yourself, doctor. Lucy's state this morning is due in part to me."

...

...

Listen, ma'am, I'm really, REALLY trying not to place all the blame for this on you, given that Van Helsing stupidly didn't tell ANYONE but Lucy that the flowers were medicinal, and he's an idiot for that, but do you have to be so SMUG? Who takes something out of a sick person's room in the first place?

You will be pleased with her, I am sure

Ron Howard: He was not pleased with her

As she had spoken, I watched the Professor's face, and saw it turn ashen grey. He had been able to retain his self-command whilst the poor lady was present, for he knew her state and how mischievous a shock would be; he actually smiled on her as he held open the door for her to pass into her room.

Van Helsing is a stronger person than I am, I must say, I would have lost it

Then, for the first time in my life, I saw Van Helsing break down. He raised his hands over his head in a sort of mute despair, and then beat his palms together in a helpless way; finally he sat down on a chair, and putting his hands before his face, began to sob, with loud, dry sobs that seemed to come from the very racking of his heart.

Okay this is at least half his fault, but you've got to feel for the guy

This poor mother, all unknowing, and all for the best as she think, does such thing as lose her daughter body and soul; and we must not tell her, we must not even warn her

Ron Howard: They did tell her and even warned her later this very day

"No!" he said. "To-day you must operate. I shall provide. You are weakened already."

You ever think about how Dracula tasted the blood of almost every member of the Crew of Light, and most of them he tasted through Lucy?

Presently he took an opportunity of telling Mrs. Westenra that she must not remove anything from Lucy's room without consulting him; that the flowers were of medicinal value, and that the breathing of their odour was a part of the system of cure

Great work, Van Helsing. Not to rub it in but why didn't you do that the first time

Then he took over the care of the case himself, saying that he would watch this night and the next and would send me word when to come.

Really should have done that before too

[pedriswife]

Pour it up ☆ Part 2 《read part 1 here》

Hola todos! Decided to add this request onto this fic because I felt like it would suit. Enjoy🫶🏼

Warning! Smut ahead (of course;)

It's been 2 weeks since Pedri last saw you. He woke up to an empty and cold bed, his clothes folded on top, no sign of you. No note, no number, no nothing. The only thing he knew was your name.

You on the other hand continued with life as normal; sure, you felt a bit bad that you had to end the fling in such a manner, but you couldn't let a hottie from Tenerife impact your studies which were currently your priority.

Right now, you were working at a local cafe, a needed Saturday shift just to get that bit of extra money to help with your expenses of living here. You spent the whole morning serving the customers at the quiet side of town, the buys mostly elderly people or university students trying to cram for an exam.

Coming up to the closing time, you were wiping down the tables and collecting any dirty utensils when you heard the front door ding, signifying that someone had entered the shop.

"We're closing, I can't serve you until tomorrow," you said, without looking up to see your customer.

You were met with silence, the person not replying but not leaving either.

"You know, I think I liked you better in that black dress. And those black heels. Especially when they were draped over my shoulders, " a familiar voice said, making your head snap up in shock.

You were met with Pedri's eyes, staring you down, a mixture of annoyance and disbelief visible on his face. You never expected to see him again, and yet he had found you.

"Why did you leave me bonita, huh?" He asked, his arm snaking closer to your waist pulling you in.

"It just seemed like the best thing to do," you replied simply, ignoring the buzzing of excitement going through you.

"Well, it wasn't. I spent these 2 weeks trying to find you. You had some sort of intoxicating effect on me, I just had to see you again. Even if it was just to see your face, I had to try, " he whispered, his breath hot on your ear, his lips inching closer.

"You've found me now. What you gonna do about it?" You teased, a smirk forming on your face. You had this man wrapped around your finger, and both of you knew it.

"I'm gonna take you home if you allow me. And we can see from there, " he answered hesitantly, not knowing what your response was going to be.

But who were you to deny him; both of you wanted this. "Go on then, let's see whether you can live up to that night's expectations."

He immediately pulled your arm towards the exit, you barely managing to close the shop, his hungry lips already on your neck. Once you got in his car, the two of you drove off to Pedri's apartment, not wanting to wait any longer.

☆

His hands were tugging at your clothes the minute you made it over his doorstep, his lips roughly kissing yours, your hand grabbing at the strands of his hair, pulling, making him groan out load.

You finally made it back to his bedroom, your clothes scattered in a trail leading up to it. Pedri's erect cock was already leaking precum, the tip an angry red colour, seeking release.

His lips were now on your neck, viciously leaving marks while you couldn't help but moan out his name, his smirk visible against your neck. He made his way down to your breasts, sucking harshly and tugging at your nipple, alternating sides, red marks already starting to form, your hands holding on for dear life on his back, scratching down the length of it.

"Tell me bonita. Are you going to leave me again?" He growled as his hand made its way into your soaked core, his fingers tracing a figure of eight over your clit.

"No - no, I'm not," you whimpered out, his fingers speeding up and occasionally entering you. Two of his fingers fully entered you, the squelching noise heard through the room as he drove them in and out of you. You were moaning his name, still leaving scratch marks over his back. He curled them up, hitting your g spot consistently as his mouth gently traced over the marks he left on your chest.

Your orgasm hit you suddenly, a moan ripping from your mouth, Pedri slowing down his movements, as he watched your euphoric face.

"You did so good for me bonita, so good," he murmured, placing a kiss on your cheek. "You think you can do two more?" He asked, stroking your hair as you came back to yourself.

You nodded in response to which Pedri tutted "words bonita, tell me."

"Yes, please, Pedri, do something" you said to which Pedri licked a stripe against your core, gathering all your juices, you arching your back at the feeling, still sensitive from the previous orgasm. Your hand made its way back to his hair, and you used it to tug him closer to your core, his tongue pressed flat against it, his nose pressing on your clit.

He continued to eat you out, slurping up your juices like a starved man. His tongue entered you, to which you pulled him in even closer, somewhat restricting his breathing as you bucked up your hips, wanting more pleasure. He was lapping up your juices, his nose still proving that extra pressure against your clit and in no time, you were cumming again, his name escaping your lips along with a string of profanities, Pedri pulling away as your thighs shook, his face covered in your cum. He licked off what was around his lips, the rest wiped off with the back of his hand.

You looked down at him, your face warm and hair sticking to your forehead, trying to catch your breath. He came up to your face and kissed you passionately, tasting yourself in the process. His hand was on his cock, giving it a few tugs before putting on a condom.

"Ready bonita?" He asked, moving you up further on the bed so you feel more comfortable. You grabbed his shoulders for support and whispered a "yes," and he entered you, the feeling of fullness coming back to you, same as you felt on the first night with him. Pedri groaned at the feeling, before bottoming out and slamming back in, his tip hitting your g spot once again.

You moaned at the feeling, Pedri's thrust continuously hitting against your spot, you feeling close again due to the two previous orgasms. You wrapped your legs around his waist, the position allowing him to reach deeper, making the two of you groan out loud. His hair was sticking to his forehead, perspiration visible on his chest, his cheeks having the signature red hue on them. He sped up his movements causing you to cum, screaming out his name once again. Feeling you clench around his drove him over the edge; his head dropped to your shoulder, groaning and letting out profanities, emptying himself out into the condom.

You lay like this for a while before Pedri got up and removed his condom, chucking it in the bin before going to the bathroom to get a towel to wipe you down with.

"You did so bonita," he stated, kissing you on the lips as you smiled up at him. He picked you up and made his way to the bathroom again, putting you down in the bath whilst filling it with water. He washed your tired body, massaging your muscles as you relaxed, content with how your night turned out.

Once finished, you got dressed in one of his t shirts, which was enough to keep you covered. You sat down on the bed once again, same as you did the first time you had sex with him, watching as Pedri battled with the TV to find some film.

He finally put on some Disney film, joined you back on the bed, and scanned through your face, looking for any sign.

You looked back at him, right into his warm brown eyes, and turned back to the TV, wanting to relax.

"Are you gonna leave me again bonita?" He asked, already knowing the answer but still asking, hoping that maybe he is wrong.

You nodded, not being able to look him in the eye now. The two of you went back to watching the movie, knowing that you probably won't have this encounter ever again.

☆

The end...

[pricescigar]

Vincent Saar Bowman

Cw: Mentions of murder & violence

Born: 5th November 1884

Age: 75 (Deceased in 1959)

Nationality: British

Gender: Male

Height: 182.88 cm (6ft)

Parent(s):  Unknown

Siblings(s): Unknown

Wife: Clara Jones (Deceased)

Hair colour:  Brown

Eye colour:  Brown

Nicknames:  Vin, Vinny _________________________________________

Personality:

Strong headed, stubborn, yet kind and caring on the inside. Vincent is protective of the family he made, and prone to violence when necessary when it comes to protecting mutants.

Likes: his family, wife, smoking cigars, travelling, protecting mutants, his club, music

Dislikes: Humans, loud spaces, disloyalty, Being late to things, his paranoia getting the best of him,

_________________________________________

Backstory:

Vincent Saar Bowman grew up in London, coming from a well to do family. He had the highest , most private education that was offered to him. The oldest of eight siblings, Vincent was the most intelligent put of them all, he was the role model, most responsible and the back bone of the family.

At 14 years old in 1894, Vincent suffered a traumatic accident which caused him great distress, what kind of accident remains unknown due to him to have never spoken about it.

What truly happened was that his parents and siblings died in a freak accident, leaving him the only sole survivor. Now the only surivor of the Bowman family. All inheritance was left to him.

Vincent began to hear voices a day after the accident. Voices that weren't his own, he thought he was going crazy but he always ignored it. Whenever he focused on people. He could hear thoughts, their deepest, darkest desires. Everything about them.

With his new found mutation. He didn't know what to do with himself, other than to try and keep it under wraps the best he could. Discovering that he could read peoples minds, make them do whatever he wanted was a great thing. Something he needed to control.

At the age of 18 in 1902, Vincent met his wife Clara who was also a mutant with the most beautiful wings he'd ever seen. Though Clara was always seen as a freak, after she was recently disowned by her parents he took her in and the two quickly fell in love. Truly it was love at first sight. By the end of the year the two got married.

The two moved out of London and moved to East Hanningfield for a new chapter of their life, and a better life for the future.

In September of 1903 , Clara gave birth to her daughter Harriet. Both of them were surprised that they managed to have a child, as they struggled to reproduce

Though Vincent was disappointed over the years that she didn't show any signs of her mutation. Yet, part of him was glad that the teo could have a normal child, without the curse of a mutation.

With Vincent determined to find other mutants like he and his wife, however he didn't know where to start. But part of him always knew, he would find someone like him one day.

Summer of 1928, Vincent met Sebastian Shaw, the two grew a close bond with one and another. Again, I feel glad that he and his wife went alone, Vincent proposed a deal to create am underground club for any other mutants they find. So that they could feel safe and protected.

August of that same year, Vincent formed "The Ministry." His own personal gang, or club however you may perceive it. Which included himself, Clara, Sebastian Shaw and five other mutants who joined in the later years.

With Harriet now an adult at the age of 25 and watching her get close to Sebastian Shaw. He approved of the marriage when Shaw personally asked Vincent for his daughters hand in marriage. He accepted of course.

1930 Vincent's daughter got married to Sebastian shaw, and in 1932 Harriet gave birth to Harper making Vincent a grandfather.

In the early year of 1939 , Clara got murdered by humans when they discovered she was a mutant. She died of injuries that were too severe, heartbroken by the news... It didn't take long for Vincent to track them down, and kill the humans with his mind.

Now more paranoid than ever thinking humans were constantly after him and his family. Any human that found out about his club, were killed instantly. Without a second thought. After what happened to Clara, he rarely trusted any human that he came across.

In 1940, Harriet ran away with Harper when she was only eight years old. That only increased Vincent’s paranoia knowing that humans aren't so kind when it came to mutants.

But no matter how hard Vincent looked, he was never able to find them. Leaving it to Sebastian shaw to try and find them.

At the height of the Second World War, his club got disbanded due to the increasing threat of the war. Sebastian Shaw went off to do his own thing, the other mutants disappeared to keep themselves safe. Leaving Vincent more alone than ever.

Over the years he grew more insane, spending so many years alone got to Vincent badly. He began to hallucinate, seeing things that aren't really there.

As he got older, he got sicker. Eventually he got diagnosed with dementia, and prone to having seizures sometimes he had such little time left.

In 1959, at the age of 75. He came across Harper again who was now and adult, but he had forgotten who she was. After suffering another severe seizure, losing control of his powers while accidentally hurting Harper.

Harper put herself and him in the astral plane, while the two had a heart to heart. With Vincent finally remembering Harper in his last moments, he used the last bit of strength he had to enhance Harper's telepathy to help her become stronger, to protect herself before he passed away.

[sequinsmile-x]

I'll Work for Your Love

Emily and Aaron take some time to reconnect and spend some time just two of them when life gets a little busy.

-x-

Hi friends!

This is a birthday present for my dear friend @jetaime-jespere! I love you so much, and meeting you through this fandom will always be one of the best things thats ever happened to me. You're one of my best friends and you deserve the world.

I know this next year will be your best one yet <;3

-x-

Words: 3.8k

Warnings: Smut, 18+

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

Emily groans as she sits down on the couch, her exhaustion feeling almost bone deep. Aaron chuckles from his place next to her, and he hands her the glass of wine he’d had waiting for her. 

“Did Mason go down ok?” 

She nods as she takes a sip of her wine, moaning at the taste of it against her tongue, a treat that she desperately needed after a long week at work. 

“Yes,” she says, smiling as she thinks of their three-year-old son and how he’d insisted that she was the one who put him to bed just like he did most nights, “Although, he did scam two stories out of me.” 

Aaron smiles and puts his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer, “He’s got you wrapped around his little finger.”

She scoffs and looks at him with her eyebrow raised, “Says the guy who let our eight-year-old paint his nails last week.” 

He makes a show of being mock offended, well aware from his wife’s demeanour and the way she was holding herself, the tension clear in her shoulders, that she needed cheering up. 

“I’ll have you know that Isabella said that ‘Cotton Candy Pink’ is my colour,” he replies, watching her intently as she smiles, her heart clearly not in it, before she takes another sip of wine, “Are you ok, sweetheart?” 

She blows out a steady breath, cursing him for knowing her so well, for picking up on the mood she’d clearly not covered as well as she’d hoped. 

“I’m fine,” she says, smiling tightly at him, “Just tired I think, it’s been a long week.” 

It had been a long few months if she was honest. Work had been busy and she felt like she had no energy to do anything beyond her job and doing her best to be a good mom.  After she had Mason, she left the BAU. It ended up being good timing more than anything, the Unit Cheif position for the Counterterrorism team became available as she was due back from her maternity leave and her experience with Interpol made her the prime candidate. It was largely office based in comparison to the BAU and it gave her more flexibility, more time with her children, and ultimately led to where she was now - a Section Chief in the FBI. At first, she’d worried that being promoted over Aaron, that becoming his boss, would make things tense, but he’d been nothing but supportive. A proud husband who never once indicated that he didn’t like working for his wife. 

It worked for them. But between their jobs and raising Jack, Isabella and Mason she felt like she barely got any time with her husband. She missed him, and whilst she loved their life, their family, a part of her missed those early days when they still worked on the same team and they spent all their time together. When their relationship was still a secret and they’d sneak into each other's hotel rooms when they were away on cases, nights spent just the two of them as they’d discuss everything from the case to Jack to anything that one of them had on their mind. 

She missed her husband, even though he was right next to her. 

“Sweetheart-” he starts, knowing that this was one of those times when he had to push her, when she’d simply curl back in on herself without his intervention. A defence mechanism she’d never quite been able to fully let go of no matter how long they’d been together. 

“I just…miss you, I guess,” she says, cutting him off because she knows he won’t stop. She shakes her head at herself, the admission sounding as ridiculous as it feels. She looks up at him when he places his hand on her thigh, his palm warm even though the material of her pants, and he frowns in confusion at her. 

“I’m right here, Em.” 

She sighs and places the glass of wine down on the side table next to her before she puts her hand over his on her leg, their fingers automatically linking together. 

“I know,” she says, her smile shaking a little, “I know that but, when was the last time we had any time just the two of us?” She asks, the question followed by a laugh, “Or went on vacation to somewhere that wasn’t DisneyWorld?” She shrugs nonchalantly, her eyes drifting down to their joint hands “I don’t know. Jack starts high school next year and that will come with a whole new load of activities and soccer games, and we’ll have even less time,” she looks back up at him, “I love our family and our life so much, Aaron. More than I can put into words, but...I miss when we had time just for us.” 

Her words hang in the air between them, and she watches as he tries to work out what he can do to make her feel better. He always wanted to fix everything, and it was one of the many reasons she loved him. Whether it was something like this, or Isabella’s bike or Jack’s gaming console, he’d do what he could to mend what was broken. She often liked to say that he’d started with her. He’d helped her put herself back together in the fallout of Paris and Ian Doyle, and he hadn’t stopped since.

“Why don’t we go somewhere, just you and me?” He asks eventually, his hand wrapped tight around hers, his thumb rubbing back and forth over the heel of her hand. 

She smiles at the thought of it, “That would be lovely, honey, but we have the kids and work-” 

“You know Jess wouldn’t mind watching the kids for the weekend. And as for work, my boss really likes me so I know she’ll approve my leave request,” he says, his eyes sparkling as she shakes her head lovingly at him, “Actually, it’s a little inappropriate sometimes. I’ve caught her staring at my ass more than once.” 

She rolls her eyes at him but she can’t fight her laugh, loud and full of love, “You’re an idiot.”

“But I’m your idiot,” he says, reaching for her hand and linking their fingers together. “We should do it, sweetheart. We deserve it.” 

She thinks about it, and dozens of reasons why it wouldn’t be practical flood her mind. The kids had soccer games and piano lessons. Mason struggled to settle if she wasn’t around, his separation anxiety worse than it had ever been. Work was busier than ever and it wasn’t slowing down any time soon. Despite all of that, despite everything she’d have to organise, she finds that for once she doesn’t care. 

She wants this. She wants to spend time just with him. To be Emily and Aaron for a few days instead of Hotch and Prentiss or Mom and Dad. 

“Ok,” she says, nodding, her smile widening to match his, “Let's do it.”

___

She almost changes her mind one month later as they leave for their long weekend away, when Mason has to be taken from her arms by Jessica, the little boy’s grip tight on his mother’s blouse when it became clear he wasn’t going where his parents were. The all too familiar mom guilt burning inside her chest as she can still hear him crying through the solid wood of Jessica’s front door. When she turns to look at Aaron, any thought about getting the kids and going home goes away. 

He’s standing a few feet from her, as casually dressed as he ever was in jeans and a black polo shirt that never failed to make her stomach flip, and she’s reminded of why they were doing this in the first place. 

“We should go if we want to avoid traffic,” he says, reaching for her hand and squeezing it, his soft smile letting her know he knows what she’d been thinking. 

“Yeah, let's go,” she replies, letting him lead her back to the car, “If you’re driving, I’m on DJ duties.” 

Aaron chuckles and pulls her in for a kiss before they separate to get into the car, “As long as you play at least some of the music I like I’m sure I can accept that.”

After bickering over The Beatles and Siouxsie and the Banshees, they settle on Bruce Springsteen, both of them singing along as they hold hands over the car’s centre console. ___

Years ago, when they were booking their honeymoon, they decided that she would always be the one to book hotels. It made sense for a lot of reasons, not limited just to the fact she’d travelled more than he had, but it was mostly so she could book somewhere without Aaron asking how much it cost. There were few things that Emily would actually label herself a snob over, but hotels were one of them. During her time at the BAU, they’d stayed in some questionable places, so during her time off she always wanted to ensure they were somewhere nice. And she had the money, they had the money since Aaron had full access to all of it, even if he rarely used it. She wanted to spoil him, to make sure they could fully relax, and this weekend was no different. 

They’d settled on Virginia Beach for their weekend away. It was close enough to home that they could go if they needed to for an emergency, but far enough away that it actually felt like a break from everything. The hotel was beautiful, and the suite Emily had booked was amazing. It had a huge private balcony and a sea view, and they’d slept with the door to the balcony slightly open so they could fall asleep to the sea breeze. 

The weekend goes far too quickly for Emily’s liking. The time melting away as she spends desperately needed alone time with her husband. Good food, great conversation and incredible sex easing the tightness in her chest that she hadn’t realised had been building for weeks. She can see a difference in him too, a lightness that she hadn’t expected, and she wants to talk to him about doing this more often, about making sure that they prioritise them when they can. 

On their last night before they head home, they go to a nice restaurant down the street from their hotel. Emily decides not to have any sides, claiming she’s just content with the meal she’s ordered, and Aaron orders extra because he knows from experience that she’ll always help herself to his. A smile on her face as she claimed that fries tasted better from his plate. 

They walk slowly back to their hotel hand in hand. She has her other hand wrapped around his arm, wanting him as close as possible for as long as she could, well aware that by this time tomorrow, they’d be back home. Whilst he’d still be there next to her they’d have everything from their beautiful ordinary life to take into consideration too, their time alone limited to when the kids had gone to bed and stolen moments around everything they had to do. 

“We should do this more often,” he says out of nowhere, breaking the silence they’d fallen into. It makes her stop, and she turns to look at him, smiling as he puts his arm around her and pulls her close. 

“I was just thinking the same thing,” she replies, leaning up to press a kiss to his lips, “It would be nice.” 

“I mean it, Em,” he says, not missing the wistful look on her face, how she was acting like it was nothing short of a pipe dream. He tucks some of her hair behind her ear, smiling as he sees a flash of grey hair at her temple, a sure sign that she’d dye it again soon even though he’d told her a long time ago he didn’t care if she let it grow out. He knew she was considering it, that she spoke of going to the salon every six weeks with nothing short of disdain, but that she’d have to come to the decision herself, “We should.”

She chuckles, “Aaron, we both know it’s not that simple.” 

“It could be if we wanted it to be, sweetheart,” he says, his hand on her lower back, “It could be exactly that simple. I’m retiring next year and that will open up more time. If we wanted to we could.” 

She bites her lower lip, trying and failing to contain her smile, and she nods. She knows once they are home and the vacation high wears off, practically will mean that it won’t be that easy. But right now, standing in the fading sunlight with the man she loves, she lets practicality fall away. 

“Ok,” she replies, kissing him before she pulls away and reaches for his hand, re-starting their journey to the hotel, “We’ll do this more often.” 

When they get back to their hotel room she watches him as he double-checks the lock on the door, a side effect of when he’d walked into his apartment a lifetime ago to find Foyet waiting for him. They exchange a small smile when he turns to look at her, and she places her purse on the table near the door. Aaron walks over and kisses her, crowding her against the wall as he presses his hands into her lower back, pulling her impossibly closer as she kisses him with just as much ferocity, her fingers tight in his short hair. 

He pulls back, ending the kiss as quickly as he’d started it, and he grabs her hand, linking their fingers together as he walks her towards the bedroom of their suite. Somewhere in the short walk the tempo changes, his gaze soft and loving as he turns to look at her, although there is no less fire in his eyes. 

They undress each other, clothes slipping to the ground and left in piles on the carpet. She lays back on the bed, watching him intently as he crawls up over her, his gaze as intense as she’d ever known it. 

She shivers as he runs his hand down her side, his fingers catching on her scars and faded stretch marks that she’d escaped when she had Isabella but had not been able to when she had Mason. Her skin was looser than it used to be, her hips wider from two pregnancies, and at first it had made her more insecure, but these days, so many years later, she never even thought about it. 

Aaron was different too. He was softer, a little thicker than he once was, and she loves it. Loves that it makes his hugs even more all-encompassing, that he makes her and their children feel safe with nothing other than his embrace and soft reassurances. 

She lies there as he maps out her familiar hills and valleys, her breath catching in her throat when he presses his lips to the brand mark on her chest before he leaves a trail of kisses down her chest to the blooming scar under her ribs. It was different now than when they’d first got together, the scar itself faded, silver and pale against her skin, but it had warped when she had Isabella and then Mason, the scar tissue stretched out in a way it had never quite recovered from. There were still moments, even now, when she wishes she’d given into her baser desires long before they got together. That he’d known her body before what it had endured at Ian’s hands, but she also knows if she’d slept with him then, if she’d fucked him in his office as she had so often imagined, it would likely have never turned into anything more than sex. And she wouldn’t have the life she now had, something that seemed impossible to even think about. 

Aaron groans as he presses a kiss just above her pubic bone, the sound muffled by her skin as his fingers drift between her thighs, moving through her slickness as she moans again.

“Always so ready for me, sweetheart,” he says, shifting so he’s laying between her legs, his hands on her inner thighs as he pushes them apart. He presses his lips to a bruise he’d left on her skin on their first night here, and he smiles when she jumps, her thighs tensing around his head in anticipation, and he does it again, “So needy.” 

“I swear to God, Aaron if you ever want me to-”

Her threat is cut off as he licks through her, the words dying in her throat as she whines instead, her hands in tight fists in the soft sheets they were laying on so she can hold onto something. She looks down at him, and her arousal only deepens when their eyes meet, his gaze intense as he watches what he’s doing to her without stopping. It was like he had an instruction book for her body and it always had been. The first time they’d done this explosive in a way she’d always known it would be. She thought she would miss those days, when they were desperate for each other, fucking at every and any opportunity, but she doesn’t. She much prefers this, the gentle intimacy of it, of being with the person she had been with for a decade now, with the man she loves. 

He builds her up slowly, using his tongue and fingers to bring her to the edge, every touch purposeful. 

“Fuck,” she says, the word catching in her chest, her breath stuttering around it, “I’m going to-”

“Come for me, sweetheart,” he says, his voice thick with his own arousal, the way he was always blown away by the fact he could do this to her. She does as she’s told and she lets go, her elbows giving out from under here where she’d been leaning on them, her head falling back to the pillow beneath her. 

“Holy shit,” she breathes out as her vision clears, every nerve ending tingling as Aaron climbs back up her, stamping kisses on her skin as he goes, making her laugh as he nips at her rib cage. She catches his head in her hands and pulls him upwards, “Come here.” 

He smiles as she kisses him, groaning as she tastes herself on his tongue, her legs falling even wider apart around him, letting him settle in the cradle of her hips. He pulls back and places one of his hands next to her head, picking up one of hers on the way and linking their fingers together, as the other grasps one of her thighs, hiking her leg over his hip. He notches over her, sliding back and forth for a moment in a way that makes them both shiver, her breath catching in her throat as he moves over her clit. She pulls him in for a kiss as he pushes forward, moaning into it at the familiar stretch of him as he enters her slowly, making her feel every inch of him. 

It’s gentle. Slow and loving as they kiss, their hands exploring well-known skin as Aaron sets the rhythm they’d long since established. He hikes her leg up high around his hip, and it makes her gasp, breaking the kiss as she clenches around him, his groan lost against her collarbone as he presses his face into her skin. He never could get used to it, the way she felt around him was still as incredible as it had always been. There were moments even now when he couldn’t believe that she was his, that she was the mother of his children. That out of everyone she could have fallen in love with, she’d fallen for him. 

He feels himself starting to lose control, so he builds her up again, the hand that had been in hers shifting to be in between them, his thumb gentle against her clit as he gives her the push he knows she needs to go over the edge. He follows quickly after, his hips stuttering against hers as he comes, his moan of her name lost as he bites down on her chest, well aware he was leaving a mark she’d wear for days to come. 

He tries to roll off of her but she stops him, her arms tight around his shoulders and one of her legs over his hip. She pulls him in for a kiss, their noses pressing into each other's cheeks as they enjoy each other. 

He moves first, always wary that he could crush her, and he helps her up, smirking proudly as her legs wobble as she stands. She rolls her eyes at him but lets him guide her towards the bathroom anyway, well aware that she was still shaky. They shower together, gently cleaning each other before they climb out and dry off. She stops him from pulling on his pjyamas, and he raises an eyebrow at her, his amusement clear. 

“We literally just showered.” 

She scoffs at him and walks past him to the bed to climb into her side, “I know that you asshole,” she says, her tone letting him know she was joking, “But we never get to sleep naked anymore. I want to take the chance when we have it.” 

He smiles and nods, walking over to the bed to join her. Mason snuck into their room most nights, just as Isabella had done when she was his age but still did occasionally, and it meant they always had to pull clothes back on after sex. The simple pleasure of being pressed up against each other like that was something they had gladly lost, both of them well aware that they’d miss their children seeking them out like they did when they got older. 

Aaron climbs into bed with her and wraps his arm tightly around her, his bare chest against her back. They both sigh, contently and she reaches for his hand, linking their fingers together before she lifts their joint hands to her lips to kiss his knuckles. 

“Maybe next time we should go to Atlantic City,” she says idly, the thought of having this time alone with him more often more appealing than ever. 

“Yeah?” He asks, pressing a kiss to her damp hair, the smell of her shampoo as strong as it ever was.

“Yeah,” she replies, tilting her head back to capture his lips in a kiss, “I could show you what I used to get up to on my sin to win weekends.” 

He furrows his brow and pulls back from her, his confusion making her laugh, “Your what?” 

-x-

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[heyidkyay]

I guess I'll take this pain, instead of your name

Part Eight

A/n: Just that I honestly love these two a whole lot x

Also- a change of pov in this one, so just a forewarning!

Summary: In life, things changed. The boys you'd once grown up with were men now, and famous ones at that. The type that toured the world and had millions of adoring fans.

The five of you shared a shit ton of history. But you also shared a lot of mixed emotions for one of them in particular, a certain drummer.

Warnings: Similar to the last chapter- mentions of trauma and some references to a serious but past event (not too much detail but still be mindful)

Masterlist

--

Ross’s face when I trailed into the pub just behind George was a right picture. Pint glass halfway to his lips as he stilled, shock freezing him in place. 

“Erm, alright Y/n?” He finally greeted me, flashing a look of apparent confusion over towards George who’d just headed straight on over to the bar without saying a word.

I grinned at the bearded weirdo, snatching up a seat and settling in. “Perfect, thanks! Everything is just perfect. We’ve worked it all out and at this rate, I figure G and I will be having a springtime wedding.”

Startlingly, Ross seemed rather chuffed by the idea. 

I stared back at him, gaping a tad. “I was being sarcastic, Ross.”

He pursed his lips at me, mumbling into the froth of his pint as he took a sip. “And you wonder why it all went to shit.”

In retort, I smacked him hard on the arm, catching him off guard which caused him to choke on the large swig he’d taken. 

“Fuckin’ hell, Y/n!”

I gave him a mocking grin in return, paired with a narrow eyed scowl. “And you wonder why people think you’re such a tit.” I snarked back, deepening my voice to imitate him.

Ross curled his lip up in retort, wiping down the front of his now beer soaked jumper just as George padded back on over. He frowned, taking in the scene as he handed me a rum and coke. I flashed him an appreciative smile and gave my thanks.

George simply waved me off though as he took the seat beside me, raising an eyebrow over at Ross. “What happened to you?”

“Ask your missus.” Was what Ross decided on, shooting me a half glare before he shucked off the jumper completely. 

I rolled my eyes at him, pleasantly sipping my drink and not paying any mind to the colour that now tinted George’s cheeks as he mumbled a quiet correction. 

Ross mimicked my first action, huffing out a put upon sigh, uncaring. “Whatever. You two gonna let me in on what happened then, or am I gonna have to work it out through a round of charades? I’m guessing that it must’ve went alright though if she ended up back here with you.”

“Lovely to see you too, Ross.” I dragged out, but he merely swatted away my sarky comment, his focus on George.

“You saw me last night and- oh, did you like your present by the way?”

Frowning, I tried to recall him or any of the others gifting me anything yesterday. I’d been quite adamant about the fact that I hadn’t wanted a thing. “What present?”

His forehead wrinkled and so he moved forward to pick up his pint again, sipping at it before a look of realisation dawned on his face. He was bobbing his head as it all flooded back to him. “Oh yeah, left it in the car. I remember now. Was meant to grab it before I left for Matty’s, but G was rushing me out the door.”

I blinked slowly, glancing between the two men. George was giving Ross a vengeful stare down, whilst the latter merely grinned over at me.

“You’ll have to come by and grab it soon.” He mentioned.

I shrugged, “Yeah, alright. We can watch a couple films, order something in. Make a proper day of it.”

Ross nodded his agreement and just like that I’d invited myself over to his and our previous spat was long forgotten.

The two of us had always been like that though. Out of all of the guys, Ross and I had always shared more of a sibling dynamic. He’d been the big brother I’d never asked for in a way. Looked out for me on nights out and made sure that no one messed with me when he was about, but we also bickered and fought like no one else I knew. We’d tussle and come to actual blows sometimes, then forget about it completely at the mention of food or after all the lingering anger had worn off. No apologies, no love lost. Just snap right back to normal again.

Because really, when push came to shove, Ross was someone I could always depend on. I’d call and he’d come running. And me, I’d do just about anything for him in return.

“Um.” George started then decidedly shook his head, not wanting to waste his time questioning us further. He should’ve been used to it by now though, so it was his own fault, really.

“Okay, so come on.” Ross prompted with a jerk of his chin, “Out with it. I want to know all the ins and outs. All the gory details. Did G cry like a baby? Did you kiss and make up? Was there any slapping of any sorts?”

“Why would there’ve been any slapping?” George asked him with a bewildered look, then proceeded to regret it. 

Ross cocked his head towards George, looking at him as though he thought he was stupid, then glanced back towards me from over the rim of his glass. “He says something daft. She slaps you. Pretty simple deduction, mate.”

“Why-”

But I cut the beginnings of George’s rambling questions short, unfazed by Ross on a whole.

“There was no slapping of any kind.” I informed the idiot, “There wasn’t much actual talking, in truth.”

Ross’s mouth pulled into a sly smirk, getting the complete wrong end of the stick there, before he proceeded to wag his eyebrows between the pair of us. I grimaced faintly, tilting my head in a way that said ‘really?’. He just opted for a grin.

“Not what I meant, you twat.”

The bearded giant actually looked a bit disheartened upon hearing that, but it was wiped hastily away when George cleared things up. “Actually, mate, we sort of ended up spotting Birdie’s mum.”

I peered down into the dark swirling liquid in my glass, suddenly finding it far more intriguing than the current topic at hand. But my interest was piqued not too soon after when I noted that Ross still had yet to utter a word, staying eerily silent.

When I chanced a glance back up, I found him looking more serious than I’d seen him in a very long time.

“What happened?” Was what he asked in the end, casting a long, hard glance over at George, who he knew would give him the God’s honest truth.

“Nothing.” I attempted to intervene with a scoff, “I didn’t even get the chance to speak to her.”

But it was a futile effort on my part and I should've known it. 

Growing up around a bunch of clingy lads often meant that you got tuned out whenever it came to any upset which involved you. They were fairly over-protective. Over-protective being the kindest way to put it. And whilst I typically loved the fact that they cared so much, it was tiring at the best of times. Take this as an example.

“George.” Ross then prompted with a no-nonsense air, and the man in question shot me an apologetic look before he turned to tell Ross exactly what had gone down. I huffed, realising it was a battle lost and slumped in my seat, forced to trump through it all over again. 

It was almost harder going through it the second time around, especially hearing it from George’s point of view. He made it seem so much bigger than it had been. When in reality, I’d just been severely caught off guard by seeing her. Which I granted to be a rather fair reaction in any case.

“So yeah, she ended up slipping out before we could really internalise the fact that she was there too.” George wrapped up and during the course of his long story, Ross’ face had only hardened. Any further and I figured he’d be made of stone.

“Good riddance, I reckon. Don’t know why you’d even want nowt to do with her after all the shit she put you through.” Ross scoffed unhappily, shaking his head as he lounged back further in his seat. But his words really rubbed me the wrong way.

“Well, that’s all good for you. Ain’t it? But you’re not the one who lived through it, so I think I’ll decide what’s best for me.” 

I necked the rest of my drink then, ignoring the blunt burning sensation that stung the back of my throat as I scrapped my chair across the floor and stood from my seat. 

“Headed to the loo." I mumbled, "Unless you want to dictate that too.”

—GEORGE’S POV—

George watched as she strode away, chewing harshly on the inside of his cheek. He should’ve just left it. Let Ross think that they’d talked somewhat and were on the mend. But he couldn’t. He was worried, and he supposed he had a right to be after that reaction. Still, his next breath was tinged with a smidge of regret. 

Ross’s voice is what drew him back to their table, his words still fuelled by his apparent irritation. 

In truth, George could understand his frustration, he really could, they’d all seen what it had done to her, they’d all had to watch on from the sidelines and allow it to play its course. Too young to do anything worthwhile, or to be heard by anyone who should’ve listened. And even now, after all these years, it was still so fucking hard having to watch her crumble at the very mention of it. To see the way she hardened so quickly in an attempt to not feel anymore hurt. But they couldn't be the jury here, they couldn't dictate her life for her. Because then they'd be just as bad as the rest of them.

“I’m right though.” Ross determined, scratching thoughtlessly at a fraying thread in his jeans. “She knows it deep down too, otherwise she wouldn’t be this pissy.”

George’s brow pinched as he tried to sympathise somewhat. “Yeah, but it must kill her, mate. I know it does me. You should’ve just seen her today. Never looked so small. Almost as bad as-”

“Don’t.” Ross cut him off before he could dredge up any old memories. One’s they all surely wished they could just burn and forget. “I know exactly what you’re about to say and I don’t want to hear it.”

“But that’s exactly why I’m saying it!" George implored, keeping his tone hushed even as he leant in a little closer, subconsciously fiddling with one of the table’s beermats. "We saw it, Ross. We were there, sure. But she fucking lived through it, mate. All of it.

“We don’t have a leg to stand on telling her how to feel about seeing her mum, or a right as to how she goes about handling it. That’s down to her. If she wants to ignore it, we’ll ignore it. If she wants to get stoned out of her mind and forget, then I’ll light the joint. But until she decides, we just have to wait.”

“But,” Ross hissed through clenched teeth, dragging an agitated hand across his face. “I just want to take it all away, you know? She’s… she doesn’t fucking deserve this crap! Never did.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” George retorted far too quickly, venom evident in his heated whisper, “I was there, man. I was the one she called! The one who held her, just the two of us alone, sat on that curb outside her house listening to the sirens as they grew louder and nearer.”

George stopped himself short, words now clogging up his throat. He sucked in a sharp breath, allowing his eyes to meet Ross’s for a moment. 

“She wouldn’t stop crying.” George choked out, saliva only thickening as a wave of nausea rolled through him at the sudden reminder. He'd blinked and it was almost like he was back there. “And me? I couldn’t do anything- say anything to make it better. I just had to be there. Me. I was the one who had to hold her hand, to whisper gently and calm her enough so that she’d let the paramedics near enough to get a good look at her, let alone touch. Me, Ross. She fell asleep in that hospital bed all those hours later, still tossing and turning, and I just remember walking silently into the bathroom and throwing up everything my stomach had to offer. Don't think I ate properly for days after that. And her? I couldn’t even imagine how she must’ve felt. Even now.”

The pub noise had since dimmed, it’d just become a frequent buzz in the background, like a fly trapped indoors. You just learned to tune it out until it was hardly there at all. 

George had to work on calming his breaths. Blinking back the wetness that had welled in his eyes and turning away slightly so that Ross could no longer see. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose before picking up his pint and taking a hefty gulp. Downing what little had remained.

It seemed like so much time passed before Ross finally spoke again.

“I’ve no right to put my two cents in. But I am sorry, mate. I didn’t realise just how much more of it you’d seen.” He inhaled quietly then, and George watched as he worked his jaw, gaze flitting over the other patrons briefly. “Listen, if you ever need to talk about it, or you know-”

With a hard glower, George cut him off, having just spotted Y/n making her way back over. Her hair tied up now, eyes red and glassy once again. He felt his heart break a little more each time he looked at her, but today, she was really going for the kill.

—

The wind outside the pub had just begun to pick up as we trudged our way outside. We’d stayed for another round, tried to talk about work and other things that were going on in our lives, but after the mention of my mum and my abrupt departure it had been a difficult task.

I rubbed at the back my arm as a chill danced past us, coming to a slow halt on the other side of the pub’s garden gate.

My mouth pulled up into a soft smile when Ross dragged me in for a long hug, me on my tiptoes whilst he crouched down so that I could comfortably rest my chin on his shoulder. He squeezed me tight, acting on the words he wouldn’t say. But I understood him all the same, and doubled my hold in turn, allowing my eyes to fall shut as I stole some of his heat.

“God, you’re like a furnace!” I giggled, and Ross chuckled into my ear as he moved to press a kiss to my cheek. It wasn’t typical Ross behaviour, not with me at least, but it wasn’t unusual. It’d occurred a couple of times over the years, but only whenever the situation had called for it. Still, I found myself smiling at the faint peck.

“Here if you need anything, remember that.” Ross murmured to me softly before he pulled away and casted me one of his cheeky grins. “And make sure you keep me in the loop too, alright? I want updates on this big makeup of yours.”

I raised a brow at him, having since parted, and glanced over towards George who was just shaking his head at the bassist in turn. “Why’re you so invested, MacDonald? Been betting on the pair of us?” I queried, sharing a knowing smile with George. 

“Only with Hann- he figures G will fuck up again. But I’m routing for you.”

I gave him a dirty look, wrinkling my nose and curling my lip on impulse. “That I’ll be the one to fuck it up?”

He snorted, amused. “That you’ll both stop being such dickheads and just get your shit together.”

Ross pivoted to embrace George then, clapping him heartily on the back, and the drummer shot a loaded look at me from over his shoulder that told me he was just as exhausted as I was. In the moment, we both deemed ourselves better off just letting it go and let Ross be, well Ross.

The two bandmates parted ways and Ross gave us another quick goodbye paired a flippant gesture in jest as he trailed backwards onto the street, starting his trek home. I waved and watched on as he drifted around a corner and disappeared from view, leaving George and I alone once more.

I figured it was probably about early evening now, round about the time the sun began to set, and was only proven correct when I glanced up at the sky to find a hazy whirl of colour pooling overhead. I found myself smiling at it, basking in the reminder that the day would soon end and a new would take its place. That no matter how bad things got, there was always a beginning and an end.

When I tore my eyes away, I found George just watching me- waiting, I supposed.

I stowed my hands away in the lining of my jacket to shield them from the nippy air and tilted my head up at him. “You headed home then?”

He stared back and gifted me a small smile, kicking off from the wall he’d propped himself against. “Not yet. Why, you got somewhere better to be?”

I chuckled, turning away from him for a split second when a wave of wind swarmed us, blowing some of the hair I’d thrown up in a bun earlier into my face. A hand reached out to tuck it behind my ear and out of my eyes before I could think to do it myself, and I swallowed thickly when the tips of George’s fingers gently caressed my cheek, trailing down to knock against the underneath of my chin. He was smirking down at me when I met his gaze again.

“So, have you?”

My mouth opened ajar as I blinked up at him, a little thrown. “Have I, what?”

That smirk of his only grew and he leant in closer. “Got somewhere better to be.”

I released the breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding onto and minutely shook my head. “Nowhere as of yet.”

“Good, ‘cause I’m starving.” George grinned, then rocked back to make his way down the cobbled path, leaving me to gaze after him. He pivoted on his heel to glance back at me and jerked his head, “You coming or what?”

I had to fight the bright smile which threatened to make itself known, dipping my head slightly to hide my face from view. Then promptly fell into a small jog so that I could catch up with his much longer legs.

Because when had I ever been able to turn George Daniel down?

Part nine>