#making jean complicit in something he had no part in

[lizardson]

god i wish I posted on tiktok because the need to make one of those "do you feel ashamed / when you hear my name" videos about kevin and jean is overwhelming

[beautifulpersonpeach]

BPP, oh my god, the MHJ New Jean's news?? Do you have any thoughts? That's actually insane! What do you think is going to end up happening with New Jean's?

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Ask 2:

Have you read about what’s happening with Ador and Hybe? What do you think?

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Ask 3:

The TEA today about Ador Ceo was sad but not surprising. BTS is the story of betrayal by outsiders.

I was surprised when Tae worked with HER for his album. I didn't see that collaboration coming.

I have to wonder if she purposefully misled Tae into a "mid" album. Look, Layover isn't a bad album but its not a masterpiece regardless of what Tae solos believe.

The results are so different between albums like JITB, Astronaut, DDAY, Indigo, Face and Layover its crazy. The depth/personal experience reflected in those albums is undeniable while Tae's was all surface.

Golden is departure and its own thing. JK went for global popstar and achieved/ate!! His choreo reflected his status as part of 3J and his vocals were on display. Gorgeous!!! (Had to add that in because in this house we don't leave out members)

I feel bad for Tae today realizing he worked with a traitor. I will always wonder what he could have released if he had just worked with the Bighit team instead of Ador Ceo.

Maybe you have more insight into all this?

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Ask 4:

Sooo... what are you thinking about this inter-hybe conflict between belift and ador? I know you're a nj fan but I think I've also heard you say that people are too quick to call things a nj copy, so I'm curious what you think about mhj's claims. I'll be honest that I thought that what I've seen so far seemed kind of unhinged-main-character syndrome to me but I also don't follow these groups and don't know how deep this goes. Certainly, I think mhj has been very deliberate and successful in building nj's brand, but I found this public argument unnecessary and potentially damaging to both groups. What kind of fallout do you expect?

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Ask 5:

Bpp! Thoughts on the Min Heejin Hybe mess? I thought we were done with the corporate drama but tuns out no!

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There's really nothing to say... yet.

News leaked that HYBE has leveled some allegations and accusations at ADOR, most likely based on a tip off, and launched an audit to ascertain if these allegations are true - in HYBE's statement confirming the audit, they don't name the people accused, but the news leak makes a point to name Min Heejin specifically, keeping the name of the VP who is accused of committing the acts unknown.

Min Heejin has responded in an exclusive interview and statement by ADOR, that she's innocent of most of the accusations and that this dispute started because HYBE has refused to curb inter-label plagiarism of her ideas with NewJeans. She refers specifically to Be:lift's new girl group Illit, noting how everything from choreography to visuals to styling to sound is based on her ideas, without proper attribution to her from Belift, nor an apology for what she calls blatant theft of concepts she's developing at ADOR. She accuses Bang PD of being complicit and prioritizing short-term profit over long-term viability of the new groups he's pushing out.

There are reports (unconfirmed) that HYBE has called for Min Heejin to resign. If ADOR doesn't call for a shareholder meeting by tomorrow, HYBE has indicated they might sue. The fact the meeting is being called before the audit is concluded, has all the hallmarks of a textbook corporate power play move, and implies to me something else than what I'm seeing most people here allude to. But still...

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...there's nothing to say because what we're seeing is the middle innings of a power play game. There's simply too little info to make any decisive statements.

I immediately get a headache whenever things like this happen in k-pop because, even for more innocuous subjects, there's nobody more mind rotted than the average k-pop stan. And before long we'll have people whose only experience with executive/corporate power struggles is watching Succession, giving us endless takes in endless discourse. And this particular discourse is going to be more annoying because (1) Min Heejin is a woman who is already widely disliked, (2) There's an overwhelming amount of intersectional motives and interests both within and outside HYBE given the nature of the dispute, which typically leads to people infusing moral language into the discussion. It's going to be the HYBE-Kakao-SM discourse on steroids (and even in the HYBE vs SM drama, we had far more information to go on that what's available in this case).

I mean... Anon 3, you're already convinced this is a story of "betrayal", and claiming she is a "traitor", and you're tying a corporate power struggle to BTS. Not like I'd expect to see anything less from most other people to be honest.

This is really a dispute between Min Heejin and Kim Taeho (Belift's CEO), with increased grievance due to Taeho supposedly enjoying Bang PD and Park Jiwon's support and Heejin, supposedly, not.

The fallout, predictably, is going to be nasty. Given all the above. NewJeans is slated to have a comeback next month, Illit is only just ramping down debut activities while ENHYPEN is just starting the final leg of their FATE+ tour. If HYBE is indeed demanding MHJ resign, it's likely they only mean for her to resign from the CEO role but remain as the Creative Director of NewJeans - because the reality is that if there is no MHJ, there is no NewJeans. And it's that reality that in my view, is the primary leverage MHJ has. And she doesn't strike me as the sort to bluff. The worst case scenario is she leaves HYBE completely and NewJeans is put on hiatus, or the members sue to break their contracts with HYBE to follow her while she courts outside investors, similar to the Fifty Fifty situation.

Inter-label competition and drama is expected in a company like HYBE, it's wonderful because it can yield truly incredible results and unique approaches, but also potentally horrible because it can result in cases like MHJ's vs HYBE. There are ways to properly manage this competition to prevent the latter case, but I can't say I've seen any indication that with Jiwon nor Bang have done so. I said above that MHJ leaving HYBE completely is the worst case scenario for NewJeans, but it looks like the scenario most preferable for certain parties given it's one of the only viable outcomes from having this news broken this way. And so, most likely to happen. Unless Bang PD develops some hitherto unseen business acumen... so yeah I'm not holding my breath.

I have nothing insightful to add. My opinions about the suits at HYBE and Bang PD's business decisions for the last 2 years have skewed mostly negative, and that's not changed in this case. I'd rather not share my full opinions because I feel they run contrary to the dominant talking points here, and partly because they're not fully formed and nobody here is paying me to fully develop a view. I'm really not going to do that work for free.

We're all just going to have to wait and see.

What I will say though and something I find particularly interesting, is that HYBE has been accused of what Min Heejin is alleging, since at least the start of last year. Also, Belift in particular has been accused of plagiarism since the start of the year, twice, on issues unrelated to NewJeans. The first was when 'mobiius_music', an indie music producer on Instagram, accused them of lifting his music almost bar for bar for ENHYPEN's 2023 GDA dance break. The second was when Kelley Sweeney, an American choreographer who shares her routines on Instagram and tiktok, accused Belift of using her choreography for Illit's pre-debut practice without credit. Both times it was for low-level offences as it wasn't related to official music releases or album content, and so in that way Belift is better than bigger and more known agencies, but it still reflects a lax vetting process in the best case and unethical creative practices in the worst.

Anyway, my concern is for the artists involved while the suits try to play god with their careers. I can only hope that whatever happens is only the best possible outcome for all involved.

[angelsarecomputers]

in addition: what little we DO have of jean’s character is very relatable to a lot of people. he suffers from depression and mental health issues. he was in an abusive situation with an addict that he couldn’t really escape from without risking his career and, very possibly, said person’s life. he’s an incredibly cynical man living in a crumbling society. these are all things that the DE fandom as a whole can relate too quite a bit, and i am no exception to this. i think jean is a character that a lot of people project onto quite a bit, which is one of the reasons why he’s such a popular side character. not only is there a lot of commonly-accepted fanon surrounding him, but there’s also a lot of room to vent about your own headcanons and experiences onto a relatively blank slate while still having it fit well with his established characterisation

(if I were to be more cynical, id also say it’s because he’s a somewhat conventionally-attractive edgy white man with a french accent and thus, very good sexyman/blorbo material)

this is all well and good for the most part- it’s pretty standard fandom M.O and the headcanons and fanon surrounding him are something i personally enjoy quite a bit- but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to criticise the fact that a lot of people flat-out ignore the bad aspects of his character. there has been an exhausting amount of discussion about this and at this point I’m probably just adding to the pile but i think it speaks to a wider issue within the fandom about how the majority of individuals spend most of their time ignoring the games themes of systemic injustice and oppression perpetuated by the RCM. this could be a whole post in itself that i, as a white person in a position of privilege, probably am not qualified to make, but you’d have to be blind not to notice that the RCM are most definitely the baddies. even some people that engage with the more communist and radical aspects of the game tend to ignore this, though why i think this happens is a conversation i won’t get into here

as for how it relates to jean’s character, it means that not only is he a literal cop working as a bodyguard for “five fat men in the occident” (thanks Elizabeth) aka the moralintern aka a group of brutal oppressors hiding beneath a thin veneer of humanitarianism, he is also likely complicit in covering up police brutality. i very much doubt that he had nothing to do with ‘the unsolvable case’ incident and making sure that harry didn’t get into trouble for disabling a man for life for the crime of being drunk and disorderly (hypocrite) but by virtue of being a cop he is participating in a violent system of repression. this shouldn’t be something that has to be spelled out, in my opinion, but i think it’s worth emphasising that, by virtue of being a police officer, jean viquemare is an inherently bad person. that doesn’t mean he can’t be complex, that doesn’t mean he can’t do good things or have good aspects, but his continued participation in a toxic police culture makes him, overall, a bad person.

now, that doesn’t mean he’s not a good CHARACTER from a story standpoint. but that’s not what this is about really

and then there’s the issue of him being incredibly ableist towards harry, which has been dissected to hell and back by many more qualified people than i. I’ve seen discussions about how tue way he acts reflects commonly-held attitudes towards disabled people in 90s Eastern Europe, which is an interesting thing to keep in mind. regardless, I’m not here go discuss whether or not this behaviour is acceptable- it’s not- but the way the fandom reacts to it- mainly by either ignoring it or framing harry, whether intentionally or not, as ‘deserving it’

this attitude mainly stems from interpretations of what we know of Harry and jean’s relationship before martinaise. we know that harry was an abusive alcoholic and drug user, and that their relationship was probably very unhealthy and toxic. people have a wide variety of headcanons on what their relationship was like, ranging from those who believe that they were just good work friends for a while to those who headcanon them as having had romantic and/or sexual relations. regardless, most people agree that their relationship was abusive, but there’s a worrying subset of people who seem to think that harry could have been the only instigator of this abuse. I can see why people think this; Harry is both older than Jean and has significantly more power than him in terms of his position in precinct 41 and his reputation. he’s a drunk who showed a repeated pattern of physical and verbal aggression. in my opinion, he definitely abused jean, but the behaviour we see from JEAN towards harry is more abusive than ANYTHING harry can do to him in the game

harry is a severely mentally ill man, likely neurodivergent, and a very dependent addict. in real life, people like him are at an incredibly high likelihood of being taken advantage of an abandoned, and we see this happening in elysium too (e.g the pigs). does this excuse all the bad things he does? no. if he did abuse Jean, does it excuse that? no. but it does provide us with a rather disturbing insight into how jean might have treated harry before martinaise. I’ve seen some people say that the only reason why jean acts the way he does in-game towards harry is because he’s so fed-up with him by now that he doesn’t want to be nice, and while I somewhat agree with that interpretation, it still doesn’t excuse some of the things he says. after all, if he’s willing to act like this NOW, what is there to say he didn’t act like this prior? there must have been so many points in the past where jean was put in a very similar situation of being exhausted by harry- the game practically states this itself. what it tells me is that this is a repeated pattern of behaviour, which means that, even before martinaise, jean was taking part in the abuse of a mentally disabled person. that abuse was almost definitely mutual, of course- these things can and do happen, and harry was hardly helpless. what im saying is that Jean definitely participated in this abuse, just like he participates in the toxic cop culture of the RCM. even if he was a victim of it as well as a perpetuator, just like all the citizens of revachol are, in some way or another, victims of the coalition, it still doesn’t excuse it. i think Harry and jeans relationship could in some way have been intended to speak to that dichotomy- of the abuser and the abused, of the powerful and the privileged, and how class traitors like the RCM officers we get to know in disco elysium speak to the blurred lines between the two. kim is a biracial homosexual man who actively participates in a culture that likely oppresses both of those groups. harry is a disabled person and drug addict who ruined the life of another drug addict for no reason and can leave another disabled person to die or rot in a jail cell. jean is a mentally ill man who works in a system that oppresses mentally ill people and participates in the abuse of his disabled colleague/friend, despite/because he is abused himself by that same person

the powerless are often the most eager to become the powerful. that’s the core of the reason why many of the RCM officers we meet probably joined; to increase their power against the downtrodden instead of joining them to create a better world.

…anyway. sorry that this is bible-length. this was meant to be an analysis of how the DE fandom treats jean vicquemare and why, but i got a bit carried away at the end there. hope you enjoyed regardless

I think the main reason why the DE fandom as a whole likes jean so much is because he has hardly any backstory apart from being Harry’s long-suffering partner. we don’t really know him as a character, but we have enough crumbs (e.g him having very persistent clinical depression and being in a by all accounts mutually abusive codependent relationship with a superior) that it provides incredibly good fodder for headcanons, and we all know that people love fanon interpretations of characters (for better and for worse)

[96thdayofrage]

What is Critical Race Theory?

Basically, Critical Race Theory is a way of using race as a lens through which one can critically examine social structures. While initially used to study law, like most critical theory, it emerged as a lens through which one could understand and change politics, economics and society as a whole. Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic’s book, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, describes the movement as: “a collection of activists and scholars engaged in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power.”

Kimberlé Crenshaw, one of the founding members of the movement, says Critical Race Theory is more than just a collective group. She calls it: “a practice—a way of seeing how the fiction of race has been transformed into concrete racial inequities.”

It’s much more complex than that, which is why there’s an entire book about it.

Can you put it in layman’s terms?

Sure.

Former economics professor (he prefers the term “wypipologist”) Michael Harriot, who used Critical Race Theory to teach “Race as an Economic Construct,” explained it this way:

Race is just some shit white people made up.

Nearly all biologists, geneticists and social scientists agree that there is no biological, genetic or scientific foundation for race. But, just because we recognize the lack of a scientific basis for race doesn’t mean that it is not real. Most societies are organized around agreed-upon principles and values that smart people call “social constructs.” It’s why Queen Elizabeth gets to live in a castle and why gold is more valuable than iron pyrite. Constitutions, laws, political parties, and even the value of currency are all real and they’re shit people made up.

To effectively understand anything we have to understand its history and what necessitated its existence. Becoming a lawyer requires learning about legal theory and “Constitutional Law.” A complete understanding of economics include the laws of supply and demand, why certain metals are considered “precious,” or why paper money has value. But we can’t do that without critically interrogating who made these constructs and who benefitted from them.

One can’t understand the political, economic and social structure of America without understanding the Constitution. And it is impossible to understand the Constitution without acknowledging that it was devised by 39 white men, 25 of whom were slave owners. Therefore, any reasonable understanding of America begins with the critical examination of the impact of race and slavery on the political, economic and social structure of this country.

That’s what Critical Race Theory does.

How does CRT do that?

It begins with the acknowledgment that the American society’s foundational structure serves the needs of the dominant society. Because this structure benefits the members of the dominant society, they are resistant to eradicating or changing it, and this resistance makes this structural inequality.

Critical Race Theory also insists that a neutral, “color-blind” policy is not the way to eliminate America’s racial caste system. And, unlike many other social theories, CRT is an activist movement, which means it doesn’t just seek to understand racial hierarchies, it also seeks to eliminate them.

How would CRT eliminate that? By blaming white people?

This is the crazy part. It’s not about blaming anyone.

Instead of the idiotic concept of colorblindness, CRT says that a comprehensive understanding of any aspect of American society requires an appreciation of the complex and intricate consequences of systemic inequality. And, according to CRT, this approach should inform policy decisions, legislation and every other element in society.

Take something as simple as college admission, for instance. People who “don’t see color” insist that we should only use neutral, merit-based metrics such as SAT scores and grades. However, Critical Race Theory acknowledges that SAT scores are influenced by socioeconomic status, access to resources and school quality. It suggests that colleges can’t accurately judge a student’s ability to succeed unless they consider the effects of the racial wealth gap, redlining, and race-based school inequality. Without this kind of holistic approach, admissions assessments will always favor white people.

CRT doesn’t just say this is racist, it explains why these kinds of race-neutral assessments are bad at assessing things.

What’s wrong with that?

Remember all that stuff I said the “material needs of the dominant society?” Well, “dominant society” means “white people.” And when I talked about “racial hierarchies,” that meant “racism.” So, according to Critical Race Theory, not only is racism an ordinary social construct that benefits white people, but it is so ordinary that white people can easily pretend it doesn’t exist. Furthermore, white people who refuse to acknowledge and dismantle this unremarkable, racist status quo are complicit in racism because, again, they are the beneficiaries of racism.

But, because white people believe racism means screaming the n-word or burning crosses on lawns, the idea that someone can be racist by doing absolutely nothing is very triggering. Let’s use our previous example of the college admissions system.

White people’s kids are more likely to get into college using a racist admissions system. But the system has been around so long that it has become ordinary. So ordinary, in fact, that we actually think SAT scores mean shit. And white people uphold the racist college admissions system—not because they don’t want Black kids to go to college—because they don’t want to change admission policies that benefit white kids.

Is that why they hate Critical Race Theory?

Nah. They don’t know what it is.

Whenever words “white people” or “racism” are even whispered, Caucasian Americans lose their ability to hear anything else. If America is indeed the greatest country in the world, then any criticism of their beloved nation is considered a personal attack—especially if the criticism comes from someone who is not white.

They are fine with moving toward a “more perfect union” or the charge to “make America great again.” But an entire field of Black scholarship based on the idea that their sweet land of liberty is inherently racist is too much for them to handle.

However, if someone is complicit in upholding a racist policy—for whatever reason—then they are complicit in racism. And if an entire country’s resistance to change—for whatever reason —creates more racism, then “racist” is the only way to accurately describe that society.

If they don’t know what it is, then how can they criticize it?

Have you met white people?

When has not knowing stuff ever stopped them from criticizing anything? They still think Colin Kaepernick was protesting the anthem, the military and the flag. They believe Black Lives Matter means white lives don’t. There aren’t any relevant criticisms other than they don’t like the word “racism” and “white people” anywhere near each other.

People like Ron DeSantis and Tom Cotton call it “cultural Marxism,” which is a historical dog whistle thrown at the civil rights movement, the Black Power movement and even the anti-lynching movement after World War I. They also criticize CRT’s basic use of personal narratives, insisting that a real academic analysis can’t be based on individually subjective stories.

Why wouldn’t that be a valid criticism?

Well, aren’t most social constructs centered in narrative structures? In law school, they refer to these individual stories as “legal precedent.” In psychology, examining a personal story is called “psychoanalysis.” In history, they call it...well, history. Narratives are the basis for every religious, political or social institution.

I wish there was a better example of an institution or document built around a singular narrative. It would change the entire constitution of this argument—but sadly, I can’t do it.

Jesus Christ, I wish I could think of one! That would be biblical!

Why do they say Critical Race Theory is not what Martin Luther King Jr. would have wanted?

You mean the Martin Luther King Jr. who conservatives also called divisive, race-baiting, anti-American and Marxist? The one whose work CRT is partially built upon? The King whose words the founders of Critical Race Theory warned would be “co-opted by rampant, in-your-face conservatism?” The MLK whose “content of their character” white people love to quote?

Martin Luther King Jr. literally encapsulated CRT by saying:

In their relations with Negroes, white people discovered that they had rejected the very center of their own ethical professions. They could not face the triumph of their lesser instincts and simultaneously have peace within. And so, to gain it, they rationalized—insisting that the unfortunate Negro, being less than human, deserved and even enjoyed second class status.

They argued that his inferior social, economic and political position was good for him. He was incapable of advancing beyond a fixed position and would therefore be happier if encouraged not to attempt the impossible. He is subjugated by a superior people with an advanced way of life. The “master race” will be able to civilize him to a limited degree, if only he will be true to his inferior nature and stay in his place.

White men soon came to forget that the Southern social culture and all its institutions had been organized to perpetuate this rationalization. They observed a caste system and quickly were conditioned to believe that its social results, which they had created, actually reflected the Negro’s innate and true nature.

That guy?

I have no idea.

Will white people ever accept Critical Race Theory?

Yes, one day I hope that Critical Race Theory will be totally disproven.

Wait...why?

Well, history cannot be erased. Truth can never become fiction. But there is a way for white people to disprove this notion.

Derrick Bell, who is considered to be the father of Critical Race Theory, notes that the people who benefit from racism have little incentive to eradicate it. Or, as Martin Luther King Jr. said: “We must also realize that privileged groups never give up their privileges voluntarily.”

So, if white people stopped being racist, then the whole thing falls apart!

From your lips to God’s ears.

[itslieutenanthawkeye]

Heatstroke

Mikasa Ackerman asks Jean about his reasons to offer himself as the one to inherit Eren's titan in her stead.

AO3

Jean dragged his feet towards the showers at the far end of their camp, yawning every couple of minutes. His muscles were stiff, and there was a bit of a pounding in his head that was thanks to the hours and hours of working under the sun.

There were hints of red in the sky still, even after the sun had fallen behind the horizon, bloody stains that vaticinated what was to come in Marley. But Jean didn’t want to think the worst. Not now, when things had not been decided yet. The future wasn’t written in stone, and he didn’t want to think their best efforts could amount to nothing to change the war to come.

Enough people had died. Enough things had been lost. Enough things and people would be lost in the future, even in the cheeriest of situations. Eren and Armin were part of that group who would inevitably succumb to the titan curse, and then Historia’s offspring would be condemned to keep reproducing just to keep that line of defense alive.

Not thinking on the worst would be for the best, at least for now.

“Hey, Jean,” Sasha called, running up to him. She jumped and wrapped her arm around his shoulder, almost making him lose his balance. “What are you doing, walking in that direction? The hizurans brought their fancy waggon meat.”

“It’s wagyu,” Jean corrected.

“That,” Sasha agreed with a snort. “Come on. It’s going to run out if you stop by a shower first.”

“I’m not going to go like this, Sasha. We smell,” Jean replied. Despite the breeze from the train ride, Jean could still feel the sweat lingering on his skin. “Besides, there are a bunch of diplomats in there, and military officials. You should think about showering.”

Sasha gave herself a sniff. “You’re just trying to be fancy like those folk. But you’re not, Jean, you’re as much of a peasant as I am. The only two royals here are Historia and Mikasa, now, I guess, if you count the whole Hizuru thing,” she laughed, pulling his arm towards the dining hall. “Come on. You’ll sit with Connie and me, it’s not like you’re gonna sit with the hot hizuran ladies.”

“It’s not like I want to!” Jean exclaimed. The hizuran ladies Kiyomi had brought on this visit were rather lovely, with their long dark hair and fancy way of speaking. But Jean wasn’t interested in them, at least not in the way some of the other members of the military were. He enjoyed seeing them perform their music instruments, and hear them talk about art and paintings, but that was about it.

“Oh, I forgot,” Sasha teased, stepping closer to him to whisper complicity, winking as she did so. “It’s just one hizuran lady that you want, isn’t it?”

Jean stepped back, heat rushing to his cheeks. “What the hell are you saying, potato girl?” He snapped, looking behind his shoulder, hoping nobody else had overheard Sasha. “I-I can smell you from here!”

Sasha smiled, unbothered by his taunt, and folded her arms over his chest. “I can see through your mask, Kirstein,” she said, proudly. “You’re just blushing because you’re in love with—”

“You know, he’s right,” Mikasa said, walking up to the two from their dormitories, a bucket and towel in hand. Jean and Sasha turned to look at her, suddenly silent: Sasha because she knew she’d almost slipped a detail a little too loud, a little too near Mikasa, a detail a little too intimate for Jean’s liking.

Jean, on the other hand, simply fell silent because she looked beautiful in the fading sunlight. “Sasha, you need to shower before we go to the dining hall,” she said to their friend.

“Mikasa, the food…you saw what the hizurans make with fish. It’s so fantastic and delicious,” Sasha said, like a child pleading to their mother for a couple more hours to play outside. “And the meat they bring? Everyone loved it. It’s so fancy. It’s too fancy, and we only get a few portions each. If we don’t hurry—”

“I asked Niccolo to save you some,” Mikasa said, giving Sasha a pointed look. She outstretched her hand to her, offering Sasha her towel and the bucket with the soap and shampoo. “But you need to wash first.”

Sasha gave her an awkward smile as she took the towel and the bucket. “B-but these are your washing things—”

“I have a spare,” Mikasa replied.

“But, this is your favorite soap,” Sasha replied, rummaging the contents of the bucket. “Y-you know, the ones Jean’s mom sent us all last month? The one that smells like honey?”

Mikasa exchanged a quick look with Jean. “Jean’s mom can send us more. Right, Jean?”

“Right.” Jean stammered in agreement. His mother had kept sending little presents for him and his friends for a few months now. Snacks, soothing lotions for the muscles, towels, soap, handknitted socks…it was stupid, but he guessed a little pride came with the fact that his mom had made her favorite.

“Besides, I got a hold of the one Eren got,” Mikasa added, arching an eyebrow. “So, I’ve got a spare soap, too.”

“No surprise that bastard doesn’t like soap,” Jean muttered under his breath.

Sasha slouched her shoulders and gave her an awkward, defeated smile. “Do you promise he’ll save us some? Did you make it swear?” Sasha asked. “If you make it swear on his honor as a marleyan, he does anything you ask him to.”

Mikasa gave Sasha a tiny little smile. “He’ll do it. I told him it was for you.” She said, narrowing her eyes slightly immediately afterwards. “You still need to hurry, though. He can only do so much.”

Sasha’s smile wavered a bit. “Can’t I—”

“Shower, Sasha,” Mikasa said with that motherly tone of voice she so often used to boss everyone in their squad around. “I won’t let you stink up our room.”

It seemed like Sasha would’ve protested further, but it only took for Mikasa to raise her eyebrows and look in the direction of the showers for Sasha to drop her stance, groan, and begin her march away from the dining hall. Jean watched her walk, feeling a little pity in his chest; she really did love that wagyu steak from Hizuru, and if it ran out…

Mikasa took a couple of steps to stand next to him. His heart began to beat faster at that, but that rational side of his mind told Jean was also sure she was just doing it to get a better view and make sure Sasha entered the showers. He gave her a quick sideways glance; there were hairs clinging to her forehead due to the sweat, but there was something about the way she carried herself despite the tiredness that didn’t make her seem disheveled. It was fantastic, the way she moved through life with such quiet elegance.

Or maybe he was just head over heels for her.

No, that couldn’t be it. He could see her flaws alright; most annoyed him, yes, and he could see them clear as day…and said flaws took nothing away from the quiet, strong beauty that was her.

“I already saved her some meat,” Mikasa said casually, her voice low and tired.

“You saved steak for her?” Jean asked, surprised.

Mikasa made an affirmative noise. “I snuck some out while no one was noticing,” she said, pausing for a second before looking at him. “Don’t tell her, please.”

Jean felt the corners of his mouth going upwards in a complicit smile. “You want it to be a surprise?”

“Yes, I think so,” Mikasa said, looking away from him.

A silence followed her words, but it wasn’t an awkward one. Silences were common with Mikasa Ackerman, they were to be expected. And while he’d overheard some saying she could be boring to be around, Jean enjoyed her silences. Too many people were too loud lately, including himself at times. With her, the world seemed to slow down a little bit. Her presence was soothing like that.

“Jean?”

“Yeah?”

“Earlier today…” she lowered her face, almost as if she were looking to hide it inside her scarf as she so often did. But she’d taken off the scarf in the morning, like each time they were sent to work on the railroads. When she didn’t find the familiar fabric around her neck, her eyebrows shot up and her mouth fell open, as if she’d just recalled her scarf wasn’t there.

Despite her serious face, the gesture was utterly adorable.

“Why are you smiling?” Mikasa asked suddenly. Not angry, but curious.

“Nothing,” Jean said, looking away from her. He cleared his throat; he didn’t like staring at her, or doing anything that would make her remotely uncomfortable. Most of his glances were stolen glances. But sometimes, she looked too pretty to not be admired, and those times he did look intently, he hated himself a little bit.

She doesn’t like you at all, you dumbass, he told himself¸ don’t make her feel weird.

“What was it that you were saying?” Jean asked.

“What were the reasons?”

“Huh?”

“You said I can’t take Eren’s titan,” Mikasa began, taking a breath before continuing. Jean turned to look at her again, but Mikasa had her eyes firmly set on the ground. “You said there were a ton of reasons why it couldn’t be me, apart from me being an Ackerman and half hizuran.”

Jean smiled, scratching the back of his head. “I guess I did say that, didn’t I?”

He’d spoken in sudden panic, panic he’d carefully masked as indifferent, logical thinking. In truth, the idea of Mikasa shortening her lifespan filled him with dread. The idea of her closing her eyes, disappearing from this world…it frightened him. And he didn’t know why.

No. He did know why. He just would never say it out loud.

“I’m asking you now,” Mikasa said, pulling him out of his reverie. “What are those reasons?”

The world became very quiet in his ears. The distant chatter from the dining room, the violins playing to welcome the hizurans, even the birds in the sky became muted. How was he supposed to tell her that the very idea of her dying broke his heart? How was he supposed to say that all those other reasons were stupid and selfish and all based on the fact that he loved her too much to allow her to sacrifice her life for a stupid war.

“Why are you asking?” Jean was able to say, despite the sudden dryness in his throat.

Mikasa gave him a quick sideways glance. Thankfully, the sun had hidden behind the horizon, and the lights outside were barely being turned on. Maybe this way she wouldn’t see his cheeks.

“I thought, they must be important,” Mikasa began, speaking slowly, as if choosing her words with care. “These reasons you didn’t say out loud. They are important, aren’t they? If they’re important, I want to know them.”

Jean wiped the sweat off his brow. She was a person of few words, but the little words she used had become more and more poignant as the years went by.

“Why do you think they are?” Jean asked with a chuckle, trying to hide how nervous he felt (and perhaps failing miserably).

“Because you offered to take the titan in my stead and shorten your lifetime first, before anyone,” Mikasa replied quickly, turning to look at him just as he turned to look at her. “I want to know what those reasons were.”

They were facing each other now, Jean realized. Since killing all the titans and opening the island to the world, it had been a while since the last time he’d had a proper conversation with her, without Eren, Armin, Sasha, Connie or Levi hovering around. In fact, if he thought about it, it was the first time in several months that he’d been alone with her and without the threat of imminent death hovering above them.

“Jean?” She asked, her voice inviting in his ears. She probably had no idea that, had she asked him to bring down the moon or a star down to her, he would’ve found a way to do it gladly. “Are you going to tell me?”

How could he tell her he loved her, though? He knew where her heart lied, Jean already knew who Mikasa loved. And it was not him. And now that Eren’s lifespan was quickly reaching its end, Jean knew it would only seem like he was taking an advantage of the situation, he would be nothing but a bird of prey in her eyes.

He’d seen her after they’d broken the news to them about Armin and Eren’s shortened lifespan; he knew how much that certainty of a young death for her dearest friends (and the one boy she loved) had damaged her.

“Jean, tell me,” she repeated, almost in a whisper now.

He couldn’t tell her about his feelings. He could never, ever do that. And that was okay. He’d come to terms with it. But how could he deny her the truth when she asked so sweetly? How could he deny her when she looked so lovely?

“Jean?” Mikasa asked, her hand hovering over his arm, her voice growing concerned with each word she pronounced. “Jean, are you okay?”

No, he was not at all okay. His brain felt like it was boiling, and the sole presence of her had caused his breathing to become shallow. She had no idea what she’d done to him with her question, how all the bottled up feelings had come rushing into his brain all at once: the fear of losing her, the grief of never telling her how he felt, the love he’d never get to share with her, the hurt for her losing the two most important people for her. It was all there.

Mikasa put both hands on his arm, keeping him from falling. “Jean, I’m sorry, are you—”

“Oi!” Eren’s voice called from afar. “What are you two doing there, Mikasa?! The food is gonna run out if you don’t hurry!”

Jean held a hand to the neck of his shirt and unbuttoned it, his breathing quick and shallow, as if he’d just swam for a great deal of time. “Do you need to sit?” Mikasa asked him, moving to stand before. “Do you need water?”

“Didn’t you guys hear me?” Eren shouted again, this time sounding irritated. “What is horse face doing that’s so interesting?”

“I need water,” Jean told her, fixating his eyes on her. “Heatstroke.”

“Oi!” Eren shouted, jogging to stand next to the two. “Aren’t you guys even listening?”

“I’ll get you water,” Mikasa said, helping him sit on the ground, then turned to speak to Eren, who was most likely heading their way. “Jean has a heatstroke. We need to give him water. Call Levi and Armin so they can take him to the showers.”

“I thought horses could go on for a while without water,” Eren said, giving Jean a little smirk that inevitably brought a smile to his face.

“And I thought idiots could take orders from better soldiers,” he snapped back, not looking at him. If he looked at him right in the face, he would just feel his chest twisting further in pain. Jean cursed himself; he was such a baby.

“Stop,” Mikasa commanded. “You two, stop fighting just now. Jean, stay quiet. Eren, get me Armin and Levi.”

“Can’t you and I take him to the showers?” Eren asked.

“If we take him into the showers…” Mikasa stopped a moment. Jean looked up for a moment and even in the dark, Jean could see the blush in her cheeks. “I’d have to see him naked. I won’t make him uncomfortable.”

Ah, that idea did nothing to calm his panic attack. In fact, it made Jean even breathe quicker. Jean buried his head between his arms, the panic attack washing over him in full force. “Eren, we need to hurry,”

___________________________________________

Mikasa watched Jean nibble on a piece of meat while sitting next to the window; his hair was wet after the shower, and his arms were a bit bruised from Levi and Eren helping him reach the showers. He’d been rather quiet after they’d calmed him down, and Mikasa didn’t dare to speak much and make him strain himself.

Levi had told them to watch over him while he went to get a physician for Jean, but Eren was outside, talking to Armin about the things the hizurans had brought over in this visit to the island. He’d left her alone again, but that didn’t matter, because the constant chatter from outside between him and Armin reassured her he was still there, he was still alive.

She was sorry about Jean, though. It had been a while since the last time she’d spent time alone with Jean, a long while. She couldn’t have been good company. Not to him; she saw how he was with Sasha and Connie. Those three, much like Armin and Eren, were a constant stream of conversation, stream of conversation usually lead by Jean himself. Mikasa was too shy, too quiet to keep him comfortable while keeping him company.

“Thank you,” Jean said, sliding the plate over to her. “Sasha will be angry I ate her stuff.”

“I saved plenty for her.” Mikasa replied, taking the plate in her hands.

Jean arched an eyebrow. “Thief.”

Mikasa lowered her head, realizing he’d almost elicited a chuckle out of her. “I’m—”

“I was just playing,” Jean replied, smiling slightly despite her awkward reaction to his joke.

“I’m sorry,”

“For what?”

“I’m too quiet.” Mikasa said, looking outside the window to avoid his gaze.

“I like quiet. Quiet is good nowadays,” Jean replied. From the corner of her eye, she noticed he’d shrugged. It was weird, how his words sounded so sincere. She could tell people got bored with her presence quickly; even Eren, she’d seen his urge to find Armin whenever they found themselves alone. But Jean didn’t look bored. He wasn’t like Sasha, who spoke constantly and nonstop and helped fill the gaps in their conversations caused by herself. He looked…strangely at peace, almost at home in her silence.

Which only urged her to want to fill that strange gap with words.

“I-I kept asking you while you were having that heatstroke,” Mikasa continued. “I’m sorry for that.”

“Those reasons—”

“Rest,” Mikasa said, interrupting him. For some reason, all her curiosity had disappeared the moment she’d seen him on the verge of passing out back there. “I’m the strongest of all. I’m more useful without a titan, and I know it would be troublesome to lose your best soldier after only thirteen years.”

“No,” Jean said firmly, his voice so firm, so adult sounding that Mikasa had to turn to look at him. “Those reasons…you’re not a soldier. And those reasons go beyond just keeping you alive for fighting.”

“What?”

“Maybe I just want to see you live a long life too and that’s that,” Jean replied, looking away from her, staring at the window. “As for the rest of it, maybe I don’t want to tell you just yet.”

Mikasa looked at him for a long while, trying to figure out what he’d meant. Of course, they all wanted to see each other live long lives. But, much like his comfort in her silence, his words felt different. If she’d heard them from Sasha, or Connie or even Armin, they would’ve sounded much different, for some reason she didn’t understand.

She frowned, not quite comprehending the situation, not quite comprehending why he didn’t want to look at her. She wasn’t good at things related to social interactions, and this situation wasn’t the exception. What was he trying to tell her? Why did she want to figure it out so intently?

“Or maybe it was just the heatstroke speaking,” Jean added, with a shrug.

Mikasa looked back at him. He hadn’t meant that last part, and she knew that by just looking at him. But it seemed like a good little excuse to diffuse the sudden tension between them. “Maybe it was.”

Jean offered her a smile she returned in what she felt was a stiff gesture. “I’m too awkward.”

“No, you’re not,” Jean replied, snorting. “You’re great as you are.”

Mikasa turned to look at him again, but Jean was no longer looking at him. Thosewords he had meant. And she found herself smiling a little more naturally this time. “Thank you, Jean.”

[wkemeup]

By Any Other Name (8)

series summary: When Special Agent Bucky Barnes is tasked with infiltrating the notorious gang Hydra and gathering evidence against its leader, Brock Rumlow, Bucky finds himself drawn to the woman who doesn’t seem to belong in this world of violence, the wife of the head of Hydra… you. pairing: bucky x reader chapter word count: 9.1k (I know, I know. I couldn’t help it) warnings: subtle implications of previous sexual assault, brock rumlow remains the #1 asshole, fancy galas and dancin’ on baloncies, bucky struggles to hold himself back  🌹series masterlist 🌹

When you returned home from the boutique downtown, James was trailing close behind you with the dress wrapped tight in a garment bag draped over his forearm. A deep chuckle echoed in his chest after you’d told him you texted Clara before he pulled into the driveway to start the kettle for you.

You had a few hours before you’d need to start on your hair and fumble your way through a decent makeup tutorial, and you’d hoped you could spend it with James curled up in the library, letting yourself lean against his shoulder as you’d turn a page and see whether he pulled away. You wanted to fill your senses with sweet apple caramel tea and the faded leather on James’ jacket and maybe the brush of his hand as he settled in beside you.

Smile bright on your face as you pushed open the door, you’d felt relief for the first time in weeks since Peter was dragged under Hydra’s claws. The warm gust of air pushed through the frame as you stumbled into the living room, turning back to James to tease him about how long he had to finish Goblet of Fire, when you noticed his smile fall away instantly. Replaced with a stone-cold expression, hardened features, he was focused on something beyond your shoulder.

Brock.

“You get what you need?” your husband asked from his seat in the living room, nursing a half-empty glass of scotch. The bottle was close by. There was malice in his tone, a threat, and you felt pride in it.

“Yup,” you said, popping the ‘p’ on your lips as you shrugged off your jacket. James took it from you without a word and placed it on the coat rack.

Brock stood and crossed the room. He gestured for the garment bag from James and zipped it open, peaking at the dress inside. He didn’t say anything but you could tell by the sliver of disappointment on his face that he was hoping for something more revealing, with a deeper cut and tighter fabric, but he didn’t have the control over you he used to.

“I hope you have appropriate attire for tonight, Karpov,” he said to James, eyes flickering down to the dark wash jeans, t-shirt, and black bomber he usually wore.

“Of course, sir,” James responded shortly, and there was a slight flicker of resentment, something like a challenge in his voice that caught you off guard. Brock didn’t seem to notice but you wondered if his change in attitude towards your husband had anything to do with his relationship to you – whatever that was.

“Best to give my wife ample time to get ready for tonight,” Brock added, as if you weren’t standing right next to him. “You know how long women can take to get ready.”

James wasn’t laughing, but your husband was. He was looking at you, checking for signs of distress as Brock tried to usher him out of the living room. He paused in the frame, like he was waiting for your approval before he departed and you gave him a slight nod. It was the last thing you wanted but you needed him to know you were okay to be alone.

Brock was an ass but you never felt threatened by him. You were safe despite your hatred of the man and you smiled softly for James. He gritted his teeth, still hesitant, but Brock nudged him further out the door until he had no excuse left to stay.

The door closed and, then, he was gone.

Without another word, you turned on your heels and started to make your way upstairs when you felt Brock’s hand snake around your wrist. You yanked it harshly from his grasp and he had the nerve to look surprised.

“Why so cold, baby?”

“Don’t act like we can play pretend anymore, Brock. You’re not foolish enough for that.”

He stepped back, licking at his lips as his eyes trailed along your body. He was displeased with your torn jeans and band shirt, favoring you to dress like the wealthy wives he’d seen in the papers and in press conferences next to their husbands; tight, short dresses, heels, and a full face of makeup, even on days they didn’t leave the house.

You started to turn your back to him as he reached out to your shoulder, but you slipped out of his grasp once again.

Brock grunted, arms folded over his chest. “You’re still angry about the kid.”

It wasn’t a question. The fact that he even dared to bring up Peter said enough about his limited ability to see anything past his own interests, his own cruel and selfless agenda. 

When you didn’t respond, Brock straightened his back, fake smile falling from his lips and turning into a hardened frown. “I hope you’re still aware of--”

“What?” you scoffed. “The fact that you’re keeping me complicit in your crimes and this hell of a marriage to hold onto some perceived notion of power? Or that you’ve dragged the only family I have left into constant danger just to blackmail me into staying with you, as if the threat of jail time and extortion wasn’t enough? I do not need reminding, Brock!”

You watched as he clenched at his jaw, the muscle flickering beneath the surface and you grinned. It wasn’t often Brock was speechless, riddled silent in anger alone, and you thrived on it. Maybe you would have been too afraid to confront him like this before, but something had changed, something had renewed your spark and your drive for freedom from this monster, and if you really let yourself think about it, you knew it had to do with startling blue eyes.

“If you’re worried about tonight, rest assure that I will play my part in front of the cameras,” you said, voice low and detached. “I’ll be the loving, submissive wife for the sake of the press and your immeasurably small ego, but inside these walls, I owe you nothing.”

Brock parted his lips to speak but you were already halfway up the stairs, back turned to him and for once, he didn’t dare to follow.

You stormed your way into your room with heat and fire and gravel in your veins and yanked out an entire drawer worth of clothes. You carried it down the hall and into the guest room, the one with the painting filled with sunset colors you'd purchased from the bubbly college student named Wanda down at the artisan coffee shop and dumped the contents onto the bed.

Two, three, six drawers, and half of a closet later and all of your clothing was sprawled out onto the comforter. You didn’t stop there. No— you went back for your books in the nightstand, your toiletries from the bathroom, the jewelry sitting on the dresser and your shoes lining the floor of the walk-in closet.

It was barren when you were finished.

You collapsed down on the guest bed amongst the piles of clothes and let out a heavy sigh of relief, wondering why the hell you’d waited until now to do that. The surge of confidence was new, the absence of the fear you once carried for your husband, too, because what else could he possibly do to you? He’d already trapped you within this home and this marriage. He’d pulled Peter into his world. There was nothing left he could take.

You thought then of blue eyes, but pushed the thought away quickly. He didn’t know anything about James. That, you were certain. If he did, he wouldn’t be lying in wait. Brock was a jealous man. He would have retaliated by now.

After you managed to find your curler and makeup bag amongst the mess of clothes and shoes upon the bed, you made your way to the bathroom. You’d managed to get ready for these events dozens of times before with no issue, though you’d come to despise the false lashes, intricate hair styles, and heavy makeup you’d mask yourself in.

Those were things Brock wanted.

He wanted you to be the envy of the room, the embodiment of every fashion trend and style, just so he could claim you as his own. So, he put you in skin tight dresses to accentuate your curves, the most expensive of jewelry along your neck and your hands, and heels higher than you could run in.

You looked down at the curler in your hand, studying it for a moment, before you started to smile.

***

An hour later, as you slipped the dress over your head and spent an embarrassingly long time twisting around yourself to pull up the zipper on your own, you caught sight of yourself in the mirror. For the first time in years, you looked like... well, you.

Subtle, soft waves down by your shoulders with a few pieces pulled away from your face and tied back in a simple silver clip you’d worn hundreds of times. Neutral colors in your makeup, strengthening the natural beauty your mother had always reminded you of. Diamond posts in your ears and a thin chained pendent around your neck, gifts from your father after he’d missed another one of your recitals in your school days; jewelry Brock could never touch.

You stepped into the shoes you’d worn every year to the graduations at Columbia. Nude in color and with a wide enough heel that you weren’t wobbling on your ankles, they were still a little worn but they were comfortable, familiar, and you found yourself smiling at your reflection.

A single chime from your phone rang out and you turned to the bed, eyes narrowed. It took a moment, digging through the massive pile before you found your phone hidden under your fall sweaters and summer shoes, but you swiped open the message.

A hand set over your mouth, smiling so wide it almost hurt and you tried to chew on your bottom lip to keep yourself from free falling too much, but what else could you be expected to do when James sent you a message like this.

An imagine first. A picture of him sitting on what looked to be a couch that would have fit in amongst the graduate students you mentored years ago, half of his face covered by the top edge of a book, though you could tell he was smiling from the wrinkles up by his eyes. He was nearing the end, maybe only a few pages left of the same book he’d been working on for a few weeks now; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Classics weren’t limited to ones written by authors before you were born, you know.

Under the picture, a simple text, and it still made your heart soar.

I warned you not to underestimate me, doll.

Heart pounding, cheeks aching, you clutched the phone tight to your chest before sinking back onto the piles of clothes.

You were such a goner for this man.

***

No.

Nope.

Jesus H Christ.

If you thought you were done for before, you should have waited until James walked in the front door in a suit.

Hair pulled back away from his face in a low hanging bun, a few flyaway pieces falling back to frame the strong line of his jaw. Black jacket draped over his arm, white button up shirt folded along the sleeves to his elbows from the heat of your living room, and pale blue tie slightly slacked at the neck doing the most to draw your attention to his eyes.

But it was the way he was looking at you that did you in.

As you stepped down the stairs, his words seemed to die on his tongue, his full attention watching you with every step; the softest, smallest of smiles pushing at the corners of his lips like he was surprised, relieved, maybe even proud. You imagined Brock would notice the change in your makeup and hair from your usual, that he might scoff at your lack of ‘effort,’ but it wasn’t his opinion you cared for.

As you neared the bottom step, James darted forward, shaking himself from his daze and offered you his hand.

It was like you were a kid again. Heart thunderous in your chest, uncontrollable smile, stomach fluttering under the pressure of a thousand butterflies coursing through you, all ignited by his touch. For a second, you were alone with him in this room and you wondered what would happen if you gave into every instinct, everything you’d been craving, and let yourself chase after someone for once instead of being chained to a wall.

But the second passed and Brock emerged into the living room; the fantasy world you’d built for yourself in that moment shattered with the stomp of his feet and the slam of the door against the wall. James dropped your hand immediately, stepping away before Brock could see, and as caught up in himself as he usually was, he didn’t seem to notice.

“There you are, baby,” Brock called, waving towards the door impatiently. He was staring at his phone, hadn't even bothered to look up at you yet, but when he did, there was an ounce of disappointment to see you in the lavender dress. His frown made you smile.

“Follow in the car behind us,” he said sharply to James as he quickly turned out of the living room and began making his way to the car.

You rolled your eyes, huffing out a sigh and you mimicked his voice to James, earning you a hushed laugh in response. He offered you his arm and helped escort you down the front steps and to your car where Brock was already waiting inside.

“See you there,” you said softly before you slipped into the seat, as close to the door as possible to put some space between you and Brock.

James nodded, carefully closing the door behind you, though he lingered for a second on the other side of the window; hand pressed to the glass like it was some kind of extension of himself, keeping him tied to you for just a moment longer.

You studied the lines on his palms, the slight callouses and the nicks in the skin. You almost reached out to touch the window where his hand was placed, like you might be able to touch him if you tried hard enough, but then Brock cleared his throat.

“Let’s get a move on, shall we?”

When you turned back to the window, James was gone.

***

The blinding flash of the cameras as you emerged from the Bugatti was never something you were able to get used to in all your years with Brock. The light of it stung in your eyes, leaving behind blurs of stars in your vision, almost like a haze, as reporters and paparazzi called your name from all directions.

Brock rushed around the car, holding out his arm for you to take as you slipped your legs from the car, careful of the long slit in your dress. It was the only time he resembled a decent man; when he was under the watchful eye of the press.

The gala was host to New York’s wealthiest, set to raise hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, for the city’s budget. Everyone who was anyone would be in attendance and that included men of a less than moral standard. They put on their smiles and paraded under the disguise of business fronts for their criminal schemes and everyone pretended like they were none the wiser. It didn’t matter where the money was coming from, it seemed, as long as it cleared in the bank.  

“Brock! Mr. Rumlow! How was your meeting with the commissioner?”

“Over here, sugar! Show us that dress!”

“Brock! A word on the jump in stock at the Lernaean?”

“Give us a smile, honey!”

You forced a curve onto our lips, though it seemed to ache in your cheeks, teeth gritting beneath the surface as Brock pulled you aside to answer the question of a pretty reporter holding out a microphone and wearing a long, red dress. He took his time answering her question, his gaze noticeably traveling down to the plunging neckline at her cleavage, though she didn’t appear to mind. She leaned into it, curved at her shoulders to make the exposure more pronounced. She knew what tactics to use to get his attention and get her quote. You’d admire her if you weren’t so angry with Brock for keeping you amongst the chaos of the photographers longer than necessary.

Though, even when you made it inside, there was no relief.

Instead, swarms of Brock’s business associates, local politicians, and sons of generations’ worth of inheritances crowded you as you stepped foot inside the extravagant ballroom.

Brock introduced you to Ulysses Klaue, a man with a nasty scar over his face and rotten teeth, claiming his money came from his family’s restaurant downtown and not the trading of weapons down at the docks.

Then, Grant Ward, the newly elected councilman already in your husband’s pocket with a boyishly handsome face and cold, dark eyes. The one you’d seen in your kitchen earlier that day as Brock coerced you into attending this event.

Finally, on your left, Obadiah Stane, who found his riches profiting off of a grieving, orphaned kid of billionaires.

You’d met all these men before.

Several times.

Brock, nor none of these men, ever seemed to remember. You supposed they only took in the pretty dress and the flow of curves, but never your face, and certainly not your name. Men like this didn’t much care for the character of the women in their lives.

You found yourself glancing around the room, in search of something, though it took you a minute to realize you were seeking out James. He didn’t seem to be anywhere in the main room and you hadn’t seen him pull the car up behind you and Brock at the front entrance. Your heart sunk a little, wondering how long you’d be left alone with your husband without reprieve.

He had promised he’d be here, hadn’t he? It was the only reason you hadn’t completely broken down twice as you’d done up your makeup. It was part of your usual routine anyway. The idea of acting as a trophy, a visually pleasing object at Brock Rumlow’s side for him to show off to his friends, wasn’t just humiliating, it was degrading. These events were nightmares to you until James.

He had to be here somewhere, you reasoned. He wouldn’t have lied to you. He wouldn’t have left you on your own. He was better than that, you were sure of it.

It only took four minutes of mild conversation and blatant objectifying comments of a young woman by the bar before Brock turned to you with a hushed whisper and said, “why don’t you go sit with the other wives? I have some business to take care of.”

It always came to that eventually. This sort of comment where he’d dismiss you when he no longer required your presence, when your purpose expired and he held no use for the pretty, silent woman at his side.

You glanced over to the gathering of wives at the center of the ballroom and scoffed at the prospect of being around those women. They were as ruthless and cruel as their husbands, Lady Macbeths standing amongst expensive couches in fear of wrinkling their dresses and gossiping amongst themselves, comparing riches and their husbands’ latest business ventures.

Still, there was relief in not having to wear this mask any longer; of acting like the doting, loving wife, hanging off his arm for his friends to admire and stare at. You nodded without another word and quickly made your way to the bar.

Brock didn’t even seem to notice you’d left.

There had been a time that you’d been incredibly self-conscious on your own in a venue like this, dressed in garments worth twice your last paycheck and nursing a glass of red wine alone. You’d come to crave the solitude. It meant you weren’t listening to Brock’s endless self-praise or dealing with catty wives or forcing out a smile. It gave you a chance to just breathe.

Though, of course, it never lasted long.

You swirled the wine glass in your hand, watching as the burgundy red liquid chased the widest curve of the cup. Mesmerizing and dizzy with the alcohol in your system, you brought it to your lips and took back a heavy sip. It ran like warmth down your body, a comforting blanket.

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing on your own?” a voice suddenly purred from behind you, low and deep and unfamiliar, as a hand snaked its way from the low of your back around your hips.

You gasped, jumping out of the man’s hold and nearly spilling the wine down the front of your dress if the bartender hadn’t pulled it from you hand in time with a short grimace and placed it on the counter.

Your cheeks were flushed, the man staring down at you with little regard for his wondering eyes.

“Try hitting on someone else, creep,” you sneered.

“Come on, sugar,” he purred, ignoring the way you tried to step out of the space he invaded and moved closer to you, “I know you’re looking for some company.”

As his hand started to reach out to you again, suddenly it was stopped midair by a tight grip on the wrist. Wide eyes darted to the assailant before he was shoved away from you. A thick wall stepped between you, like a shield, and a wave of calm swept through your chest, easing your racing heart.

“She said no, asshole. Back the hell up,” James growled, his hands curling into fists.

You set a hand on his shoulder blades, a reminder that you were just fine and despite this man’s wondering hands and eyes, he didn’t require the brunt of James’ job description as punishment. The quiver in his stance would suffice.

“Fuckin’ prude. Not worth it anyway,” the man grunted before stalking away in search of his next target. He didn’t spare you a final look.

It took a minute before James turned around, but as he did, the hardness of his features softened immediately upon seeing you.

“You alright?”

You nodded. “’Course. Comes with the territory of these things.”

James clenched his jaw, clearly chewing on the inside of his lip. It bothered him that you’d become so used to the unwanted touches and the blatant staring of crude men. He wanted to say more, that much you could tell, but he sighed instead.

“It’s not so bad now that you’re here,” you said teasingly and his cheeks heated a slight shade of pink. How a man like James Karpov could manage to blush was still a mystery to you.

“That so?” he smiled, letting go of the tension as he finally turned away from staring daggers into the man he’d nearly assaulted.

James leaned back against the bar and picked up your wine, placing it into your hand. He looked over you as you took another sip, smile filling his face, pushing up by his cheeks and wrinkling by his eyes.

“I was right, you know,” he shrugged casually, glancing back out into the sea of guests. You raised an eyebrow, not sure what he was referring to, but as a stunning blonde woman walked by in a dress two sizes too small and the cleavage of her chest near spilling out the top, James didn’t even spare her a glance. “You’re the most beautiful woman in the room.”

Face burning hot, you tried to hide behind the wine glass, hardly able to even look at him, but he didn’t let up.

“Gave all these women a chance too, just like you asked,” he tsked. “Still don’t hold a candle to you in that dress.”

You chewed on your lip, tasting the lipstick you’d put on just an hour earlier you were sure was completely faded away by now. Your stomach was alight with fireworks and your heart was thumping so hard, you wondered if he could hear it over the string quartette playing just a few feet away.

“Almost thought you were gonna bail on me,” you said, changing the subject quickly because he was making it incredibly hard not to jump into his arms, and ravage him right on the bar, even amongst all these people and your husband laughing away with his associates not too far away. You squeezed your thighs together and cleared your throat awkwardly. “You get lost?”

He chuckled, unfazed by your lack of response. You supposed the slight tremor in your voice was enough for him.

“I’m not allowed the privilege of the front entrance,” he said. “Parked around back and checked out the security first.”

You nodded, taking another sip, hoping it might give you confidence. “I don’t remember Rollins ever taking precautions like that. You take your job very seriously, don’t you?”

He pursed his lips, a slight shake of his head. A beat, and then, “only when you’re in the room.”

He said it so simply, as casually as one might order a second drink or exchange pleasantries with a cashier at the store, like it was second nature. You found yourself staring at him, wide eyed and certain he could see every ounce of your heart spilling out from your chest, but he only winked at you with that charming smile of his before turning out to watch the guests.

He was trying to kill you; stop your heart, steal your breath, something, because he kept saying things that made you feel impossibly weak, words that made your stomach twist in ways you hadn’t even experienced in the years Brock was pretending to love you and he’d purposely sculpted himself into everything you ever wanted in a man.

James was still somehow so much more.

***

You stood there with James for nearly an hour, laughing at the high-end attendees as they attempted to one up one another with stories of their latest vacations or libraries baring their name on college campuses. You made fun of a couple bickering with the waitstaff and the twenty-something son of a billionaire donning sunglasses indoors, wobbling on his feet and carrying around a half empty bottle of tequila while his father ignored him.

After a few times turning you down, James finally agreed to the drink you’d ordered him nearly twenty minutes prior and started to sip on the bourbon like it was honey. You could smell it on his breath but it didn’t repulse you in the way it did when Brock smelled of it. It was sweeter, lighter, and he wasn’t drowning in it. It made his cheeks a little flushed and his smile a litter bright, his muscles a little looser, and you wondered if you could adore him more than you already did.

His laugh was like the kind of melody that got stuck in your head after a single listen; a captivating kind of key change and a series of lyrics that punctured you straight through the chest. He was charming and kind and impossibly sweet and if left unchecked, you were certain you’d free fall for him straight into an abyss.

Though, you’d already made that jump months ago, hadn’t you?

“Think you might be up for Indian this time?” you asked as the conversation began to drift to your upcoming Sunday afternoons. He’d promised to meet you down by the bridge a few hours earlier so he could join you and Peter for lunch before Peter snuck off to find his ‘not-girlfriend’ Michele at the climate change rally downtown.

“I told you, Y/n, I’m up for anything. Whatever you want to do,” James smiled, taking another sip of his bourbon.

“You say that every time! I know for a fact the peppers at that Thai place we tried last week almost killed you,” you teased, thinking back to how quickly his eyes watered and he started coughing at the first taste, though he insisted he was fine even as he’d asked a water refill twice in the span of ten minutes. Peter was in near hysterics. You struggled to hold back your laughter. “You’re allowed to disagree with me, James.”

“Me? Never.”

You swatted at his arm until he started to laugh and you realized your cheeks were hurting from how wide you were smiling. Some of the guests glanced over in your direction, eyeing you under narrowed stared before they scoffed and turned away. You didn’t mind at all. It barely even fazed you.

But as with every good thing in your life, Brock found a way to insert himself right into it, leaving you with no relief. He was waving in your direction, a slight sway in his stance as his drink sloshed up over the side. You realized then he wasn’t looking at you at all, but at James.

“I think you’re being summoned,” you said disappointedly with a slight roll of your eyes. You nudged James’ shoulder and pointed in Brock’s direction as he nearly stumbled onto a friend of his.

James pressed his lips, pretending like he didn’t notice. “No, I don’t think so.”

He could hardly keep a straight face. It brought a smile back to your own. 

“You better go before you get us both in trouble,” you warned, pushing him along. You were laughing before you realized it. 

“You’ll be alright?” His smile was softer now, more serious, concerned. It fluttered straight to your chest and warmth burned around your heart.

“I can manage without you, you know,” you teased. He raised an eyebrow, about to challenge you with that grin of his, but you pointed to the back gardens. It was quiet out there, away from wondering eyes and you could use a break from the heat of the ballroom and the wine. “I’m going to get some air. I’ll be fine, James. Go.”

He gave you a short nod, quickly gulping back the rest of his bourbon, leaving you to laugh as he wiped his lips and turned to head towards Brock.

You watched him as he left, a cautious look over his shoulder the further away he got, like he was checking on you, making sure you were as fine as you insisted, and only turned back when you gave him a smile of encouragement. Brock had never done anything like that in your years together, even when he was playing his part so convincingly. But to James, it was an instinct.

Brock slid back into his chair, a little uneasy and you were certain he was drunk. It was a frequent occurrence at these events anyway. He'd waste himself in expensive alcohol until he could barely stumble home if he wasn’t practically draped over your shoulder and he’d let his hands wander in the car on the way home and as you’d put him to bed. No matter how many times you swatted his hands away, he’d slide his fingers up the thigh of your dress, or kiss at your collarbone as you took off your makeup, until you'd eventually give in just to get him to go to sleep.

It had been months since you’d last let him touch you. You couldn’t stand the idea of his mouth on you, his hands trailing over your skin and taking what he desired. It was like venom, poison, and you couldn’t just roll over and close your eyes anymore. You’d found a courage to say no and you realized, as you watched Brock grab onto James’ collar and yank him down close to say something quiet in his ear, it had something to do with the kind blue eyes that still managed to watch you intently from across the room.

Brock shoved a glass into James’ hand and pressed him to sit amongst his inebriated friends. There wasn’t much about Hydra and Brock’s criminal life you knew details about, but you knew enough to wonder the sorts of things he was asking of James, the kind of conversations those men must have amongst each other.

James was reluctant, gaze flashing back in your direction, but you had already moved away from the bar. You watched as he narrowed his focus, glancing around for you until he spotted you walking towards the back doors. There was a slight exhale in his shoulders, though his expression remained stoic, almost longing, before he sat down next to your husband.

The double doors leading to the gardens were lined with reflective panels, the walls too, and it reminded you of the hall of mirrors in Versailles. Brock had taken you there on your honeymoon, back in the days when he was pretending to love you before your father’s money became available to him. He’d done such a convincing job back then and you wondered most days how you could be so foolish as to fall for his act.

With a heavy sigh, you watched your own reflection as you approached the doors. The lavender dress really was stunning; the softness of the color standing out amongst the sea of dark reds, deep blues, and forest greens. You never suspected James was lying about how well it suited you, but it felt nice to see yourself in something you liked, too, something you felt comfortable in and allowed you to resemble even part of how you saw yourself. You weren’t interested in transforming into Brock’s ideal woman with the hair extensions, false lashes, and skin tight dresses.

You just wanted to be you, if only for once.

The air was cool as you stepped out into the gardens. It raised goosebumps on your arms and you ran your hands along the exposed skin. Still, against the flush in your cheeks from the busy, crowded ballroom and the alcohol in your blood, it was a relief.

It was really quite beautiful outside as you leaned against the balcony and looked out into the sea of flowers and bushes. Vibrant colors surrounded by infinite shades of green, all sitting under a star covered navy sky. It was like something out of your novels; a scene you’d never appreciated before until you found someone you wanted to share it with.

Starting to wonder if you’d find him again that evening, you picked up the hem of your dress, turning to head back inside when you were met with a wall of muscle; a slight chuckle in his chest and a hand extended out to you.

“Dance with me.”

James smiled softly at you, simply waiting, and you could only stare at his hand. The melodic tones of the string quartette filtered out into the balcony, playing a waltz you recognized from your time at Columbia. Your office had been by the music department and you’d slipped into the orchestra’s practice hours to grade assignments in the back row most nights.

Your eyes slowly trailed up to his face to find he was as sincere as he sounded.

“Dance with me,” he asked again. There was no impatience in his voice, if anything, there was amusement, enjoyment.

“What—What did Brock want?” you asked, changing the subject abruptly because he couldn’t possibly be serious, but he didn’t drop his hand and he didn’t step away.

“Nothing important,” James shrugged. “He’s too far gone to be talking business anyway and ended up trying to rope me into ogling with his buddies at a woman on the arm of military weapons manufacture with an ego the size of the empire state building.”

“And?”

James narrowed his eyes. “And what?”

“What was the consensus?”

You didn’t even know why you were asking, but you couldn’t seem to tear your eyes away from his hand. He let it fall then, but only to step closer to you. There was a softness in his features, a kindness that shouldn’t be there for a man of his profession, and yet, when he touched you it felt like he was handling something precious, something like paper thin delicacy with the calloused hands riddled with scars.

“She was pretty,” James admitted with an exhale, “but she’s not you.”

He stepped back again, extended his arm, that boyish grin on his face returning and you swore he was going to be the end of you.

“Now, dance with me.”

“James,” you sighed, eyes flickering inside to where Brock was laughing with his partners inside, a whiskey glass in hand as the amber liquid slipped up and over the edge with every jarred movement. “I don’t know if we can—this is— he’s right there.”

“Just one dance, doll,” James said sweetly, curling his fingers at you. “It would be a shame to wear a dress like that and not get a dance out of it. Come on, Y/n. It’s harmless.”

It most certainly wasn’t and he full well knew that.

“He can’t see us, you know,” James reminded you quietly, sensing your hesitation as he watched your gaze trailing back inside where your husband sat, a lingering hurt in his voice you didn’t expect. “Those are two-way mirrors. All they can see from the inside is a reflection of themselves. I think it’s rather fitting, don’t you?”

Right. You’d noticed that when you came outside.

“Dance with me, Y/n,” he asked again, persistent but never demanding. His hand was still there waiting for you to hold.

You stared at it, the open palm and the patience in his stance. There was no doubt that you wanted to, that you would have thrown yourself into his arms at his first invitation, but there was danger in that. With Brock so close, the risk of him finding out, of exposing whatever it was between you and James, it didn’t just terrify you, it was a constant source of dread.

Brock was an angry, jealous man, and he’d tear James apart if he knew even half of how you felt for him.

But the temptation was strong. James gave you the kind of choices Brock never did. He was kind and patient and understanding. He was everything you had once thought Brock was and still, somehow, so much more than that. He was sincere and genuine and you could never quite reconcile how he’d ended up working for a vile organization like Hydra. He was too good a man for that. You were certain of it.

You glanced up at his eyes to find him simply watching you, curious; shades of ocean blue and the light pink of his lips curving as your resolve began to crumble. It always would when he asked you to.

“One dance,” you warned, tentatively slipping your hand into his and he seemed to melt at the relief of it alone. His hand was cold, like ice to the heat of your palms.

He echoed your words, though once your hand was locked in his, his other sitting gently on your lower back as he guided you to sway along to the tempo of the music, you both knew one dance would never be enough.

You’d been in his arms once before, the night he’d come rushing over after Brock had dragged Peter into his underworld, already in the car before you could even get the words out to ask him to come. He’d held you as you cried and soothed a hand along your back until your eyes dried, but this was different. This was intentional. This was something you’d only allowed yourself to dream about in the furthest corners of your mind, never once believing it was anywhere within reach.

Yet, here he was.

You could smell the soapy fragrance of his shampoo, the oak of his cologne. You could feel the warmth of his breath so close to you that it brushed against your cheeks with every exhale. You felt the grip of his hand, the slight readjustments of the one on your back, like he might be as nervous as you were despite his charming demeanor.

“Don’t know the last time I danced like this,” you whispered, the words spilling from you before you could stop them. It seemed to surprise James for a moment before the realization clicked; the understanding that your husband was not a man of love and tender moments such as these. You wondered if it had been since your wedding day. You couldn’t remember.

“Well, I can’t tell at all,” James said, smiling softly at you. “You’re a natural.”

“Only because you’re leading every step,” you teased and when he started to laugh again, you swore there wasn’t a more beautiful sound in the universe.

“Have to have a good partner for that.”

You pulled your lower lip between your teeth, trying to stifle the smile pulling hard against your cheeks.

The two of you danced for at least three songs like that, swaying back and forth, a twirl under his arm when he decided to mix things up to pull a laugh from you, and a brief moment where he attempted to teach you to waltz properly, but you’d stepped on his toes enough times he brought you back to the simple swaying, teasing that you were going to put him out of commission with moves like that, though he promised to teach you next time.

You liked the sound of that. Next time.

After the melodies playing inside began to soften, turning to long, drawn out notes amongst the deep sounds of the cello and the fragrant notes of the violin and violas, James lifted your hand to his neck, releasing his hold on your hand and slid it to meet his other at the base of your spine. You relaxed into him, resting your cheek to his shoulder, closing your eyes because you’d never felt as safe with any man as you did with James.

You could hear his heart thumping beneath the jacket of his suit and for a moment, you were reminded that you weren’t alone in your fears. You weren’t the only one who knew how dangerous this was, how much you were risking, how terrifying it was to care for someone the way you did for him. Fingers danced in the hairs at the nape of his neck, brushing at the baby hairs there and flattening your hands against his back, feeling as much of him as you could.

His nose pressed into your shoulder, arms snaking tight around your back, and you wondered if he’d been dreaming about this as much as you have. He held onto you like it was the last time, the only time, like he might not ever be given a chance again, and you realized you’d never known that kind of longing before. It nearly tore right through you.

“Your heart’s beating really fast,” you said quietly, not even sure he could hear you as your hand slipped around the base of his neck to settle against the rush of his heart. Under your palm, you could feel every pulse, and it was loud, frequent, and it seemed to channel right into your veins.

“Yeah,” he sighed, “it is.”

“Why is that?”

It was a dangerous question but you asked it anyway.

“I think you know,” he replied tenderly, his fingers tracing patterns in the small of your back as he leaned forward to press his nose to your shoulder. You shivered as he inhaled, his lips grazing your skin before he pulled back and swept a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “You... you make me do things I shouldn’t. You make me want things I shouldn’t.”

There was more than what he was saying, words he was holding back, confessions on the tip of his tongue but he bit them away. You couldn’t imagine anything more forbidden that to fall for your husband’s right-hand man, his enforcer, and for him to care for you in return. Brock was not a man many have dared to cross and when they have, well, they’ve ended up like Rollins – asphyxiated alone in a prison cell.

And still—there was something else. Something else holding him back but you couldn’t place what it was. There was guilt in his eyes, shame, he didn’t have when he spoke about your husband. James knew that your relationship to Brock was a sham, nothing more than a publicity stunt and you held no affection for him. It wasn’t a matter of adultery or breaking hearts. There was more going on than what he told you, but you didn’t press him. Not now.

“Sometimes I wish I could just run from all this,” you whispered slowly, clinging tight to the lapel of his jacket. You didn’t dare meet his eye but you felt as he stilled, as the sway of his steps gently pulled to a stop. “I think about getting on a plane and going somewhere far from where Brock or—or Hydra could find me. But then I think about Peter and Aunt May and—and you.”

His breathed hitched. You felt his heart race again and his grip on you tightening, though he didn’t say anything.

You took in a shaken breath, trying to find courage as you rested your cheek to his shoulder.

“I’m not naïve. I know what you do for Hydra, but there's something in me that can't accept it. It just doesn’t make any sense and I keep racking my brain trying to figure out how you ended up in this world being as kind and compassionate and sweet as you are and I just... I can’t. I can’t figure it out because you’re nothing like Brock. You’re nothing like any of his men or Jack Rollins and I... I don’t understand. I hate everything about Hydra, what they do, what they stand for... but you... you don’t belong with them, James. You can’t.”

Heart in your throat, hands clenched so tight into his jacket your knuckles started to ache, the words left you before you could stop them. You held your breath, wincing at what you’d said because they had just tumbled out one after the other without much room for hesitance.

James swallowed thickly and you started to register his hand trailing along your spine, gentle reassurance, as he slowly brought it up to around your neck, then to rest on your cheek. As tenderly as you’d ever been touched, he guided you off of his shoulder to meet his eye.

There is was again; that guilt you swore had little to do with your husband but it was eating him alive.

“When this is over, I’ll take you away from all of this,” he whispered and your breath hitched.

You blinked a few times, not quite understanding. “Over? I don’t--”

“You’ll never have to see him again if you don’t want to. I promise,” James continued, determined, and he cupped the sides of your face. His thumbs traces along your cheekbones, almost desperately and his eyes flickered down your lips but he snapped his gaze away almost instant, like he was reminding himself the dangerousness of that thought. He cleared his throat. “I just need more time, sweetheart. Just a little more time.”

“Time?” you sighed, shaking your head slightly. “James, you’re not making sense. Time for what?”

Neither of you realized the quartette had stopped playing minutes earlier; the chirp of the crickets and the bristle of wind the only melodies left in its place. You reached up to his hand, holding it against you, wondering if this had anything to do with the shame clouded into the blue of his eyes. He didn’t answer your question, but you could tell from the clench his jaw how much he wanted to.

He parted his lips, like he just might tell you, but his eyes flickered to the floor and the words died before they touched his tongue. You sighed, turning your head slightly to kiss the palm of his hand as he held it by your cheek. It surprised him, ocean blue flashing up in an instant and you smiled softly at him.

Heart thunderous in your chest, you pulled yourself closer to him, enough that you were flush against his chest. His hand wove into the hairs at the base of your neck, stroking gently into the nape, and you felt the heat of his breath brush against your nose.

So close. Impossibly close. Closer than you’d ever been and it wasn’t enough.

You leaned in, inching away the space between you, enough to feel the sharp intake of breath as his lips parted. Aching, yearning. 

Your lips only grazed his for a second, a glimpse of the love and care and affection you’d been missing for years, before it was stolen away.

The doors to the balcony swung open, slamming against the stone walls and you jumped out of James’ hold, a gasp in your lungs. He took several paces down the terrace, brushing at his lips, his hair, eyes glued to the floor, as Brock sauntered into the garden.

His whiskey still in hand, the amber liquid barely kept within the glass as most of it ended up on the floor. With every step, he was stumbling, laughing to himself under glazed eyes, until he spotted you.

“There you are, baby!” Brock slurred, fumbling his way to you and you winced at the reek of alcohol on his breath. A few drops of the whiskey stained onto your dress.

You glanced over at James as he watched you from a careful distance. He was tense, hands clenched at his sides as Brock threw an arm around your shoulders, nose nuzzling at your neck and you tried to squirm out of his grasp as you felt the wet of his lips touch your skin.

“Ready to head home, sir?” James gritted from the corner.

Brock popped his head up, a drunken grin beaming on his face. “Didn’t even see you there, Karpov! You been hanging around my wife, huh? Trying to get some side action?”

James didn’t respond, his face as stone, but your heart was pounding.

“Well good luck!” Brock laughed, grabbing at your ass sharply and you swatted him away, ready to near smack him until he tugged you up under his arm again. His grip was strong for a man with alcohol in his veins. “Haven’t gotten a lay out of this one in ages. She’s a real tease.”

Your face was on fire as Brock dragged you back inside. There wasn’t anything you could do, not in front of all these people the way you could at home. He’d never allow it, even in this state, and it left you feeling weak and pathetic and shame coursed through you like poison.

James was only a few steps behind you and you could feel the anger seething off of him. There was a moment as Brock led you through the front entrance of the ballroom outside to the valet, when he told James to meet him back at the house, that you realized you were to be left alone with your husband again and the defiance in James’ stance made you question whether he’d ever follow Brock’s orders again.

It took him a second to respond and in Brock’s drunken state he almost didn’t notice, but James said, “I can escort Mrs. Rumlow home if you’d like to attend your meeting downtown.”

Brock paused, pursed his lips as he glanced over James, then to you. His eyes trailed lower, down to your cleavage and you looked away, far down the street where neither of the men could see the rush of embarrassment on your face.

“I think I’m good for tonight,” he smirked, tugging you tighter to his side and you counted down the seconds until you crossed the barrier into your home and you could crawl out of his hold without repercussions, lock yourself behind the door of your new room and wait until morning.

“I don’t mind, sir,” James pressed, studying the way you couldn’t quite meet his eye anymore.

Brock raised a brow. He wasn’t used to be questioned and he appeared for a moment, that he might retaliate, until he broke out into a smile as if he’d been in on the joke.

“Go the fuck home, Karpov!” Brock laughed, waving his hand. “I’ve giving you a night of freedom. Grab a woman and get laid, will you? God knows you need it.”

Brock gestured to you rather dramatically as the car pulled up. He leaned forward, nearly losing his balance in the sudden movement, and opened the back door.

“Let’s go,” he ordered, waiting for you to slide inside.

You swallowed, eyes catching on James and you could tell from the clench of his fists, the twitch of the muscle behind his jaw line, that he would have started a war in that moment if you asked him to.

You’d be fine, you told yourself. You always were. Brock would run his hands up your thighs in the car and he’d stumble his way to the bar cart as soon as he made it into the living room and he’d forget about you. He was too drunk to try anything tonight, but it didn’t seem to lessen the look of absolute rage on James face.

You resided to text James as soon as you could, the moment you got home. You'd make a laugh of it, tell him how Brock face planted on the stairs and how he could barely get his own coat off. You'd tell him you were used to it and you were making tea and catching up on your latest novel, even if you were huddled under layers of sheets, clinging to your phone, crying behind locked doors.

You’d tell him whatever he needed to hear because the look on his face broke your heart; too see how much he wanted to defy all orders and take you into his arms and away from the man who made you retreat so far into yourself you barely recognized your reflection.

But James was no fool. He knew the consequences of disobeying your husband. He wouldn’t survive them.

“Goodnight, James,” you said, voice as even as you could manage it. It was your promise to him that you were alright, that you'd be okay if he left, even if none of it was true.

You pushed out a polite smile, one your husband would not question, and without another look – simply because you knew you’d never be able to walk away from him if you turned back now – you sunk into the back seat of the car, crawled to the outside window and made yourself as small as you could.

“Goodnight, Mrs. Rumlow,” you heard James say in response, soft and aching, before Brock slid in behind you and closed the door.

The air smelled of whiskey. It burned.

[yespolkadotkitty]

Catfish for Dinner

A dark!Catfish piece inspired by @pajamasecrets​ ‘ HCs here (and thank you for the beta!!). This will be a series of one-shots like my Hummingbird and Nightingale ‘verses.

My Asian OC has been tasked with infiltrating a dangerous weapons cartel undercover.

Warnings: Violence, insinuations of violence, and insinuations of rape.

Catfish for dinner, the note read. I stuffed it in my mouth, chewed, and swallowed without tasting. If anyone were to discover that Maria the cook had been passing messages to me…. my stomach whirled at the thought of what might happen to her.

What the note meant, I had no clue. I only had to stay alive until I found out.

Later that day, the buzz of a small plane interrupted a make-out session I was enduring with one of Cerrino’s lackeys. I didn’t dare look up; I continued moaning as if his mouth was a gift from God (it wasn’t).

The pilot of the little Cessna 172 appeared at dinner. The staff served their usual smorgasbord of mediterranean fish, steak, and vine leaves, with copious amounts of wine.

Cerrino stood and gestured widely. “Ah, at last, our new pilot,” he announced. “May he live longer than Nikolai.”

I swallowed, the wine like dust in my mouth, as I recalled the end Nikolai had met. Unsavoury was a severe understatement.

The stranger stood on the steps leading up to the big table, silent. A ballcap that read standard oil company was tugged low on his head, hiding his eyes. I got the impression of a strong jaw, scruffy at the edges, and broad shoulders. He wore a faded red button down and dirty jeans atop aged hiking boots.

“Meet Catfish,” Cerrino drawled, toasting with his glass. A little wine sloshed down out of the glass and on to one of the cartel lackey’s heads. He did not react; he knew better. “Before you sit at my table, I need to know you are loyal.”

Without preamble, he pulled a Glock 19 from his waistband and tossed it to Catfish. The tanned man caught it and checked the cartridge.

Cerrino yanked up the lackey he’d spilled wine on by the collar. The man’s dyed blond hair was streaked with red from the alcohol, a twisted sort of foreboding. “Kill him.”

The lackey started trembling.

My gaze was riveted on Catfish. He lifted his head and I caught his gaze for a fraction of a second - big soulful brown eyes that looked very, very tired.

He pulled the trigger. His hand didn’t shake. Not once.

A couple of lackeys came to clean up what was left of their colleague. Cerrino sat back down and stuffed a vine leaf in his mouth like he wasn’t covered in blood spatter.

Catfish had made a clean kill - a single headshot. But my stomach still rebelled. I covered it by taking a tiny sip of wine, holding the liquid in my mouth, and trying not to vomit.

“Come, sit.” Cerrino gestured to the space between me and another girl, also Chinese, her inky black hair pulled into a high ponytail. Cerrino and his fellow arms dealers seemed to have a thing for Asian girls. Not that I could complain. It was the reason I’d been able to infiltrate them, wasn’t it?

Catfish slid the pistol into the back of his waistband and moved over to our side of the table on silent feet, despite his rangy, muscular form. He wasn’t big, but lean and lithe. Dark hair curled out from under his ballcap. As he pulled out a chair and sat, I glimpsed a smattering of grey in the patchy scruff clinging to his jawline. His scent reached me, motor oil and clean sweat and just a kiss of thyme. A combination that could quickly become addictive, if a girl wasn’t careful.

One of the staff moved to pour him wine. He didn’t react.

I clenched my free hand on my thigh, nervous. Was this who Maria’s note had meant, and if so, was he going to say something?

“The house is yours,” Cerrino said across the table through a mouthful of oily fish. A little grease ran down his chin; he didn’t bother to swipe it away. “As are the girls. Any you like; I am generous to those who... remain loyal to me.”

The unspoken subtext in his words were crystal clear.

Catfish sipped his wine. His gaze darted to me and then to Abigail, the girl on his other side. She smiled at him nervously. Newer than me, she’d cried the day before yesterday and narrowly escaped a beating for it.

Abigail - not her real name, I suspected - met my gaze behind Catfish’s back, and shook her head minutely. She’d been a virgin when she’d arrived here-- I knew.

I hadn’t even breathed a syllable about my real intentions here to anyone. Even Maria, on agency payroll, wasn’t a hundred percent sure who I was-- only that I was important and that she was to feed me whatever information came her way.

Resolutely, I winked at Abigail. I would make advances on the man between us to save her from having to bed him. I let my gaze rake over him. Tall, rangy. Mid forties, perhaps? Those big dark eyes would be nice to look into while I pretended to enjoy myself. Over the last six months I’d become very good at pretending. 

If I didn’t get out soon, the line between pretense and reality would blur even further.

Abigail’s face deflated in relief and she went back to picking at her food.

“What’s the matter?” Cerrino asked, his wine glass full again. “Those two not to your liking?”

I looked up and around the room. I had become used to this debauchery at dinner. Several of Cerrino’s inner circle had girls on their laps who fed them tidbits of food. Sometimes they fed  us girls, either with their hands or directly from their mouths. That was my least favourite.

Cerrino’s right hand man, Addison, sat to his left, his tongue so far down a girl’s throat that he could easily have been examining her tonsils. I hated kissing Addison.

I’d been surprised an hour earlier when Abigail and I had been seated together, no man between us. Now I knew why.

Catfish set his wine down and drummed his finger on the table. If I was reading him right, he had no wish to dally with either of us, but I knew Cerrino when he was drunk. He liked everyone under the cartel’s influence to fall in with him; share his vices, be equally complicit.

“Kiss me,” I hissed.

Catfish’s dark brow winged up.

“Not Abigail,” I murmured, smiling through it as I leaned into him. “Me. Abigail is scared.”

If he understood what I meant, he didn’t show it. Instead, he gave me an almost imperceptible nod, and then pushed his chair back and tugged me on to his lap. I perched on his thigh as his arm came tight around my waist and he lifted his face for a kiss. I couldn’t read the emotion in his bottomless brown eyes--if indeed any emotion was present--but I’d rather it was me than Abigail, so I lowered my head and met his mouth.

He kissed me hard, licking into my mouth right away. He tasted of red wine and just a shiver of mint, and the scruff on his top lip tickled my skin. At any moment, I expected his free hand to come up and grope me, somewhere, anywhere, but he only kissed me, nipping my bottom lip as he ended the contact.

Cerrino had sat down to eat again, apparently satisfied. I knew what would happen now. I would have to go to this man’s room tonight. I would be at his mercy. 

Dinner continued. Catfish held me on his lap, saying nothing, and I wondered if I would ever hear his voice. I kept replaying the moment he’d shot the lackey in my mind, like taking a life was nothing to him. If that was so, he truly belonged among these terrifying men.

I tried to eat. Catfish didn’t comment as I forced down a few bites of vine leaves and fish. The food was delicious as usual, spiced and savoury, and I gulped water. For his part, Catfish seemed to listen to the conversations between the men and Cerrino. His face seemed relaxed, but I could feel the tension coiled in his long, lean body as he sat beneath me.

I peeked over his shoulder. The Glock sat there, just a few inches from my arm around his neck. 

Abigail saw the path of my gaze and shook her head minutely.

I could do it, though. I knew I could.

I just needed a distraction. Was I planning on shooting anyone right now? No. Of course not. But a gun, stashed somewhere in my tiny little room, that’d be something worth having. Even if it had only that one bullet in it. I could surely steal the correct ammunition from somewhere in this Godforsaken pleasure pit.

Humming as if I was having a grand time, I trailed my hand up Catfish’s chest, toying with the open neck of his button-down shirt. He didn’t outwardly react, but I saw a muscle in his cheek tic. I’ve got you, I thought, my fingers slipping over the hollow in his throat, as the palm of my other hand slowly descended down his back.

“Dancing with the devil, honey?” he asked, and the endearment was not said as such.

In that moment I realised two things: one - his face might be nice, but his voice, that husky-edged, kiss of Texas drawl, was made for absolute sin - and two, Catfish was a guy I wouldn’t be able to win over as easily as most of the one-brain-cell lackeys here.

“Just getting a taste of what’s to come tonight,” I lied, sweetly.

Catfish snorted. I noticed he’d barely touched his wine. Either he, like me, was here on false pretences, or, even more dangerously, he was one of them, but without the usual vices of women or alcohol to dull the edge of his more unsavoury appetites.

Which one it was, I would find out soon enough.

******

 Part 2: Off the Deep End

Tagging: @emmy-dandiliom918​ @spacegayofficial​ @thirstworldproblemss @cinewhore @poenariuniverse​ @keeper0fthestars​ @scarlettvonsass​ @casually-introverted​ @knittingqueen13​ @phoenixhalliwell​ @10-96dispatcher @buckstaposition​ @agirllovespasta​ @songsformonkeys​  kiizhikehn-cedar

[littleshrimpcat]

                                          Armie and the Art

In 2010, I barely registered Armie Hammer when I watched The Social Network. Although he played 2 characters, he registered about half an impression. Tall, blonde, buff…douchey. And then in 2017, I stumbled across the trailer for Call Me by Your Name on social media. I was hooked – the music, the Italian countryside, Timothee Chalamet’s elfin beauty. Yep…all that from a trailer. When the movie came out in Canada, my sister found a way to send me a copy. I downloaded the movie in the morning and then headed to work. The whole day, I fidgeted and squirmed, hoping that my below-average internet speeds wouldn’t let me down. For once, it didn’t. I came back, bathed (in a rush), ordered dinner and sat down to DEVOUR the movie.

 To say I loved the movie is an understatement. It was at a point where I was examining my own personal relationship to the concept of love. I won’t go into what I loved about it, because I believe it’s a movie that evokes a personal response in everyone who watches it (a response that I don’t want to share).

 Needless to say, it became a Sunday ritual. I would make my favourite stir-fry, cuddle into bed and watch it on weekends when I had nothing to do, nowhere to be and no one to love. Sufjan’s voice would croon to me about the Mystery of Love as I headed to work on muggy Mumbai mornings. I would roam the remote villages in Italy during breaks. I grew to love both Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet (as much as one can love celebrities, we know nothing about).

 And we did know nothing.

 In the last few weeks, I’m sure you’ve seen stories about Armie Hammer. It started out as bizarre and then gradually transformed into traumatic. As is the story with many celebrities and the work they create, I found myself in the unpleasant and uncomfortable situation of wondering whether I could separate Armie and his art.

 It’s happened before, hasn’t it? A celebrity has been exposed, investigated and cancelled. This is followed swiftly by an investigation, reckoning and maybe a cancellation of their art. 2 years ago, I stopped listening to Michael Jackson’s music after a documentary about his child abuse was released. I sometimes feel a guilty urge to listen to Billy Jean, which I squash ruthlessly. Any participation or enjoyment of these works feel like endorsing the crime. Enabling the guilty. Helping them profit, despite their actions. In essence, you feel complicit. A little dirty.

 At first, the allegations against Armie Hammer seemed almost unreal. I say almost, because I never stick with my first impressions (the first tweet, article, think piece). I kept reading, and it just kept getting worse. And at the back of my mind, I started to wonder, what is this going to do to my Sunday rituals? How is this going to change my relationship with one of the best love stories I’ve watched?

 I’ve had these discussions with countless friends and family members. Can you separate the art from the artists? Up until this point, I would have said no. But given how special this movie was to me, I had to relook at my decision and the answer is… I still don’t know.

 So, instead of looking at Armie’s relationship to the movie, I wondered about my relationship to the art itself. Everyone has a different reaction to a piece of work. I’ve read and heard of people who were completely indifferent to it, those who were angry about two straight actors being a part of a queer love story. Some people I know, had never heard of it. Some people like me, have formed very strong memories around it. It then comes down to us, to decide… can we look past Armie and simply see Oliver?

 Can we think of the movie as not just his work, but the work of an entire cast and crew? Can we think back to the book it was based on? Can we draw a thin but firm line between a character in a movie and the character of an (alleged) privileged, abusive actor?

 Or, will we see Armie in every frame? When he lifts Elio’s foot to place a soft kiss on his ankle, will our skin crawl? As an artist, Armie would have brought something of himself to this role. Just like I have brought my own confusion into this piece.

 I haven’t had the courage to pick up the remote and examine my new relationship with the movie. Part of me, doesn’t want to know. And that is my choice right now. I am choosing to keep the memory of the movie alive in my head, instead of tarnishing it with what I know.

 And what I know is this… Armie Hammer is tainted in my mind forever – no matter where this story goes. But the roads of Crema, the hallways of the house, the crackling fire in front of Elio continues to burn bright in my mind.

[wistfulcynic]

The Meet-Cute, Part One

In which Ruby decides that what Emma’s love life needs is a good old-fashioned meet-cute, and sets about arranging one for her. Or two, or three, or six...whatever, she’ll set up however many it takes for her friend to meet The One. But it may turn out that Emma doesn’t need any help finding The One after all...

Rating: T Words: 5.2k (first chapter)

On AO3

-

LOOK @optomisticgirl I WROTE THE THING.

Also, @ohmightydevviepuu, @shireness-says, and @distant-rose you are complicit in the writing of the thing.

-

PART ONE:

“What you need, Emma Swan, is a meet-cute.”

Emma swallowed a sigh but couldn’t hold back the accompanying eye-roll. “I’m pretty sure that’s the last thing I need.”

“No, hear me out,” Ruby insisted, her eyes alight with excitement. “This is actually perfect for you.”

Emma let the sigh go this time, reminding herself firmly that Ruby was her best friend and had been for years.

“All right,” she said. “Tell me why I need a meet-cute.”

“Yesssss,” said Ruby. “Okay, listen. There’s nobody at work you’re interested in dating, right?”

“My co-worker is literally my brother.”

“Yeah that’s kind of what I meant. Most people meet their future spouses at work—”

“That’s not a real statistic.”

“—but—yes, it is real—but there’s no one at work for you and that’s not likely to change, so you have to look elsewhere. Now, the next most common place to meet someone is where you live—

“Seriously, you’re just making this stuff up.”

“—but there’s no one for you there, either,” Ruby pressed on, ignoring her. “No cute guys across the hall—“

“No straight ones anyway.”

“—and seeing as you are for some strange reason dead-set against online dating—”

“I absolutely am.” Emma shuddered at the hideous thought.

“—which actually does work, by the way.”

“It doesn’t. You and Mulan are just outliers.”

“Look, Emma, don’t knock the matchmaking power of Good Omens Discord chats until you try them.”

“Yeah, no thanks.”

“Well then,” Ruby declared, in a voice that suggested she thought she’d won the argument. “That leaves you with no option but the meet-cute.”

“Really, that’s my only option?”

“Just think about it, Emma.” Ruby’s eyes grew dreamy. “Adorable mix-ups in coffee shops… picking up the wrong leash at the dog park…”

“I don’t have a dog.”

“…you both reach for the last croissant…”

“Where am I going to find a croissant in Storybrooke?”

“The last bear claw then, the pastry is really beside the point.”

“And what is the point?”

“The point is that you meet someone and it’s fucking cute, okay? And then you fall in love and live happily ever after.”

“Or I could just, you know, go on as I am, not meeting anyone.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, woman,” said Ruby sternly. “Do you want to live the rest of your life alone?”

Emma shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing.” Better than being stuck with someone she didn’t love, just for some dumb reason like—

“Do you want Henry to grow up without a father?”  

—like giving her son a decent man in his life.

“Henry has a father,” she reminded Ruby. One he hadn’t seen for the best part of a year, but still.  

“Do you want Henry to grow up without a father figure who isn’t a massive douche?” amended Ruby. Emma sighed again.

“Neal does the best he can,” she insisted.

Ruby snorted. “Sure he does.”

“He does, really. He’s just… not cut out to be a parent.”

“Well, that’s for sure.”

But Emma didn’t blame Neal for being a shit dad, though she knew her friends and family did. It wasn’t his fault it was hers, for stupidly falling for and getting knocked up by a guy whose ‘best’ was showing up once or twice a year to shower Henry with presents and promises before disappearing again without a word a few weeks later. At first it had broken both their hearts—Henry’s from disappointment and Emma’s from anger and guilt over his disappointment—but Henry was twelve now and starting to learn that the parents he adored were human and flawed, and to adjust his expectations accordingly. Emma had to admit that it was a relief not to have to cover Neal’s ass anymore by trying to make excuses for him, however deeply she regretted Henry’s loss of innocence.

And yeah, it would be nice not to have to raise her kid alone. Neal got to be the fun parent, buying Henry all the stuff she couldn’t afford and taking him on trips to exciting places, leaving Emma to enforce bedtimes and check homework and try to make Henry eat the vegetables she herself hated. Having someone else around, a real adult she could rely on to share those responsibilities with her, that would be good. Great, really. Wonderful, in fact. But dating was hard enough without having to start it off by explaining that even though you yourself weren’t yet thirty you came in a two-for-one deal with a near-teenager, and Emma had had far too many first dates end early and awkwardly to hold out much hope that she would ever meet the man of her dreams, be it cute or any other way.

“I appreciate the thought, Rubes, I really do,” she said. “But I’m just not looking for anyone right now.”

“But don’t you see?” Ruby cried. “That’s the best time to meet someone—when you’re not looking.”

Emma threw up her hands. “You are impossible and I’m not talking about this with you anymore. I’ve got to get back to work anyway.”

“All right.” Ruby shrugged and let the subject drop, but the glint that still remained in her eye warned Emma that this wasn’t over—not by a long shot.

—

Before she returned to work after her lunch with Ruby, Emma stopped by the library. Belle wasn’t at her usual spot behind the desk so Emma ventured into the stacks on her own, in search of some books that would help Henry with his school project on the solar system. She was standing in the astronomy section with her hands shoved into the back pockets of her jeans, frowning at the frankly baffling array of options when a voice spoke just to her left.

“Can I help you find something?” it said.

Emma turned with a smile that stalled abruptly as her mouth dropped open. “Um,” she said, blinking in confusion at the blue eyes and dark hair that very definitely did not belong to Belle, and the bright smile that took her breath away. “I actually could use some help, but—sorry, but do you work here?”

The owner of the voice—and the hair and the eyes—laughed. “I do, for the moment at least.”

“Did something happen to Belle?”

“To her grandfather, apparently,” he replied. “I’m not sure of the details but Belle told me she had to go back to Australia for family reasons.”

“Oh. I didn’t hear anything about that.”

The man’s eyebrow twitched in a small frown. “Well, it was quite at the last minute, so she probably didn’t have time to tell everyone. But I’d spoken to her recently and mentioned I was looking for a quiet place to spend a few weeks’ holiday and so when she asked if I could come here and cover for her for a while, I gladly agreed.”

“And why would she call you?” Emma nearly flinched at the harshness in her tone but the man’s smile widened and his eyes twinkled, sucking even more air from her lungs.

“We’re old friends from library school,” he explained, as Emma struggled for breath. “My name’s Killian Jones.”

His smile began to crumble as Emma just stood and stared at him, until she managed to shake herself out of her breathless haze and smile back. “Emma  Swan,” she said. “I’m the town sheriff.”

“Ah.” Killian’s grin brightened again, and Emma thought vaguely that he should really have a licence for that thing. “That explains all the questions.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. We don’t get many new faces in Storybrooke and, well—”

“Aye, of course, you can’t be too careful.”

“Um, right. Exactly.”

“Well, Sheriff Swan,” said Killian, with an absurd little waggle of his eyebrows, “I can assure you that haven’t broken any laws, but then I did only arrive in town last night so there’s still plenty of time.”

Emma laughed. She couldn’t help it, his goofy humour and ridiculous eyebrows were too charming. “But if you broke the law I’d have to lock you up,” she replied, and fucking hell was she flirting with him?

He seemed to think so, if the way his eyes glinted as he leaned in closer was any indication. “I might not mind being locked up, if you promised to stay and guard me,” he murmured.

Emma’s breath caught again at the look in his eyes, the edge of danger behind the flirty charm. “Do you talk like this to all library patrons?” she asked, cursing the raspiness in her voice.

“Definitely not. It’s highly unprofessional, but then there’s not much else I can say when you still haven’t answered my question.”

She swallowed hard. “Wh—what question?”

“Can I help you find anything?”

“Oh.” Duh, Emma. “Um, yeah, actually. My son has to do a project on the solar system, so I’m looking for some books he could use.”

She waited for Killian to freeze up, to awkwardly withdraw from her now that he knew she had a kid. But he simply nodded and asked “How old is your lad?”

“Ah, he’s twelve. Sixth grade.”

“Hmmm, in that case I’d recommend this one.” He reached over her shoulder to take a book from the shelf, giving Emma a whiff of some spicy cologne and a briny scent like he’d been out on the sea. Her knees went weak, and when he held out the book she stared blankly at it, trying to marshal her scrambled thoughts back into some kind of order. “It’s an excellent overview of the solar system with plenty of details on all the planets,” Killian explained, “but the language is accessible for someone your boy’s age.” His eyebrows rose again in an expectant look.

“Um. That looks great, thanks.”

“See how he gets on with it, and if he needs more information I’d be happy to make another recommendation.”  

Emma nodded and followed him to the check-out desk, wordlessly handing him her card and watching as he completed the process of checking out the book. When he finished he tucked a bookmark between the pages and handed it to her with another warm smile.

“Well, Emma Swan, it’s been lovely talking to you,” he said. “I hope it won’t be a one-time thing.”

“I—I’m in here a lot,” she replied. It was only a slight exaggeration. Henry was in the library a lot and she often came to pick him up. “So I’m sure I’ll see you again.”

For the third time in fifteen minutes Killian Jones stole her breath with his smile. “I’m looking forward to it already,” he said.

—

The next morning Emma was at Granny’s waiting in line for coffee when out of nowhere someone gave her a hard shove, knocking her into the man in front of her, who had just accepted his cup from Ruby.

“Oh my God!” she cried. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened!”

“It’s okay,” said the man with a tight smile, shaking droplets of coffee off his hand as Ruby’s eyes grew comically wide.

“Oh, no,” she said. “What a terrible accident. Let me get you another cup, sir.”

“Thanks,” said the man, and Emma’s own eyes nearly rolled clean from her head. Ruby was known for her lack of subtlety but this was ridiculous, even for her. Emma glanced over her shoulder just in time to spot the tip of Mulan’s braid just disappearing through the door.

“So,” the man was saying to Ruby when Emma returned her attention to him, leaning on the counter and giving her a crooked grin. “You come here often?”

“Every day,” said Ruby dryly. “I work here. But maybe you’d like to ask Emma that question.”

The man’s pale blue eyes flitted to Emma, then rapidly away. “I’d rather ask you.”

Ruby gave a frustrated huff. “Here’s your coffee.” She thrust the new cup at the man and turned her back.

“What’s her problem?” the man muttered.

“I don’t know,” snapped Emma, “maybe you should ask her wife.” The man’s eyes widened in alarm at the look on her face and he backed away, slowly edging towards the door.

“Have a great day,” she called after him, then turned to her best friend as the man fled the diner.

“I hope you’re happy,” she hissed.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Ruby asked, the picture of innocence. Emma rolled her eyes.

“I’m guessing this was your attempt at a coffee shop meet-cute? I spill the man’s coffee, apologise profusely, he laughs it off. I offer to buy him another cup, he refuses but asks me to dinner instead? Was that the idea?”

“...maybe.”

“And you see how well it turned out?”

“He was clearly just not The One,” said Ruby stubbornly.

“There is no ‘The One’ Rubes, that is a myth, and I cannot believe you roped Mulan into this nonsense too.”

“I didn’t rope her in, she volunteered! We both want you to be happy, Emma.”

“And you think dumping coffee on the world’s creepiest doctor will make me happy?”

“What? Have you met him before?”

“Yeah. Last year when Henry broke his arm. You’ll be pleased to hear that he tried to hit on me then. Right in front of my kid.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. Meet-cutes only work in romcoms and fanfics, Ruby. Here in reality they just piss people off.”

“Well,” said Ruby, handing Emma her coffee, determination clear in the set of her jaw. “We’ll see about that.”

—

Emma: What do you want for dinner?

Henry: What have we got?

Emma: Nothing, that’s why I’m asking. I can stop at the store on the way home.

Henry: I suppose pizza isn’t an option?

Emma: We had that yesterday.

Henry: Not a problem for me. But chicken or something would be okay too.

Emma: One of those rotisserie chickens?

Henry: Yeah, sounds good.

Emma: Okay, kid. See you at home.

Emma was standing in the grocery store, frowning as she compared the rotisserie chickens when a voice spoke just to her left.

“I don’t think there’s much of a difference between them, love.”

Her heart leapt and her skin tingled, and yet when she turned to face Killian Jones—and his damned smile—she was still not prepared.

“Hi,” she said breathlessly. “I, um, didn’t expect to see you here.”

“No reason why you should, I guess, except that I like all people do need to eat from time to time.”

“Of course.” She felt foolish, but his expression was warm and only slightly teasing.

“How did your son get on with the book?” he asked.

“Really well! He read for like two hours last night. Thanks for the recommendation.”

“Any time.”

They stood grinning at each other until someone behind them cleared his throat and they both gave a little start. Killian rubbed the back of his neck as he moved aside to allow Mr Clark to select a chicken.

“So, um,” said Emma after he’d left. “Are you getting stuff for dinner?”

“Aye. I’m staying in the apartment above the library and this morning I discovered that the oven doesn’t work, and the repairman can't come until tomorrow. So I need something that comes pre-cooked. Hence rotisserie chicken.”

“Solid plan,” said Emma, though she felt sad thinking of this lovely man eating dinner alone in that tiny apartment, and that was the only reason that she blurted out “But, ah, why don’t you come over and eat with Henry and me?”

“Oh.” Killian blinked in surprise.

“Since we’re both having the same thing it makes sense not to waste a chicken,” Emma barrelled on. “When Henry and I get one we’ve always got leftovers, so… I mean, you don’t have to if you’d rather not—”

“No, no. I mean, yes! Yes, I’d like that.”

“Oh. Um, good.”

He smiled again, bright as always but with a hint of shyness that caught her off guard. “Is it, ah, just the two of you?” he asked. “Presuming Henry is your son, that is?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “His dad’s, um... not in the picture.”

“I see. Well then I would love to share a meal with you, Emma Swan. And your son. And perhaps you would allow me to bring dessert?”

Emma’s heart was pounding so loudly now she was sure he must be able to hear it. “That’d be great. Um, here’s my cell number, just at the bottom of this.” She took a business card from her pocket and handed it to him. “Text me and I’ll send you directions to our place. Can you come over about six?”

“Six it is.” Killian slipped the card into his own pocket carefully, as though he didn’t wish to harm it. “I’ll see you then.”

—

Emma finished the rest of her shopping in a daze, wandering haphazardly through the aisles and putting random things in her cart without thinking before giving herself a mental slap and a stern admonition to get a fucking grip. She removed the strawberry syrup from her cart (she and Henry both hated fake strawberry flavour) and the tuna (what the hell had she been thinking?) and then remembered that Henry was nearly out of peanut butter. His favourite kind was the most popular one and the store could hardly keep it stocked, so she was pleased to see that there was one jar left as she approached the shelf. Just as she was reaching for it, though, another hand appeared and snatched it from her grip.

“Hey!” she cried indignantly. “That was mine!”

“Sorry,” said the man who’d taken it. He didn’t look sorry in the slightest. “Maybe they’ve got more in the back?”

“Are you kidding me?” Emma huffed.

“Nope,” the man replied. “Look, I really am sorry but someone needs this peanut butter. She sent me in here to get it specifically.”

Emma hissed her breath out through her teeth. “She did, did she? And did she say why she couldn’t get the damn peanut butter herself?”

“Ah, no,” said the man, frowning warily at her. “She didn’t. But listen, lady it’s just a jar of peanut butter.”

Emma’s lip curled into a snarl and the man’s eyes widened in alarm. He backed away from her, nearly stumbling in his haste. “So, um, I’m going to, ah, go now,” he stuttered. “Bye.”

He turned and fled towards the checkouts with Emma close on his heels. She followed him to the self-checkout line where he kept shooting nervous looks over his shoulder at her and she amused herself by giving him darker and darker glares each time and keeping her eyes fixed on him when he took the jar of peanut butter and ran out the door.

When she arrived at where she’d left her car Emma was entirely unsurprised to find Ruby there, leaning against the hood and looking slightly sheepish.

“So what was the plan this time?” asked Emma. “That we would both reach for the last jar of peanut butter, our fingers would touch, sparks would fly, and we would exchange cute banter with sexually charged undertones ending in a date?”

Ruby nodded. “Something like that.”

“Ruby, I keep telling you, that is not how real life works!”

“Oh yeah?” Ruby challenged. “Well, what about David and Mary Margaret! They had a meet-cute.”

“He mistook her for a burglar and she hit him in the face!”

“Exactly!”

“How is that a meet-cute?”

“How is it not? They met, it was cute, and now they’ve got an amazing story to tell their kids.”

“I met Neal when I tried to steal the car he’d already stolen,” Emma pointed out. “That’s an amazing story and yet our relationship was a fucking dumpster fire that I’d be happy to forget all about if it weren’t for Henry. Not all cute meetings end in happily ever after, and frankly I don’t think a squabble over peanut butter in a small town grocery store is the best way to jump-start true love.”

“And what would you know about true love?” Ruby snapped, then gasped in horror as her eyes went wide and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God, Emma, I’m so sorry,” she whispered through her fingers. “I didn’t mean it.”

Emma’s chest felt tight. “It’s okay,” she muttered.  

“No, it really isn’t.” Ruby gripped Emma’s hands in hers. “I love you, Ems, and you’re one of the most loving people I know. That’s why I want so badly to see you happy.”

“I know.” Emma nodded and gave Ruby’s hands a squeeze. “I know you didn’t mean to say it.” However true it might be, she thought bitterly.

“Let me make it up to you—”

“Oh my God, please don’t—”

“—with this free jar of peanut butter!” finished Ruby triumphantly. She reached into her bag and removed the jar, offering it up with a flourish.

Emma smiled as she took it. “Thanks. I wasn’t looking forward to telling Henry how someone stole the last jar right out from under me.”

Ruby flashed a grin, then turned solemn. “Are we okay, Emma?” she asked hesitantly. “Truly?”

“Of course we are,” Emma reassured her. “Truly. I do have to get going though I have—uh, Henry will be getting hungry.”

“Of course.” Ruby stepped back to let Emma unlock her car door. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, see you.”

As Emma drove home she tried not to think about why she hadn’t told Ruby that Killian was coming for dinner. It might stop her friend’s meet-cute-ing attempts if she knew Emma had a—well, not a date exactly but a man coming over to... well, just to eat really, but still. She could have spun it so it seemed like a date and got Ruby off her back, at least for a while. Yet for some reason Emma wanted to keep Killian just for herself. At least for a while.

—

Killian Jones was punctual and he could follow directions, Emma thought when her doorbell rang that evening at six o’clock precisely. That alone put him head and shoulders above Neal... and what the hell was she doing comparing a man she’d literally met yesterday with her son’s useless father, even just in the privacy of her own head?

She smoothed her hair and the front of her blouse and took a deep breath to calm herself before opening the door, and still she was not prepared for that stupid, gorgeous smile.

“Good evening, Swan,” Killian greeted her. “I come bearing brownies.”

And wine, she couldn’t help noticing as she stepped back to let him in. “Great, uh, brownies are my favourite,” she lied. “Um, Killian, I’d like you to meet my son, Henry.”

Henry came forward with smile on his lips and mild confusion in his eyes. “Hi Killian, nice to meet you.”

“And you, lad. I hope you like brownies as well.”

“I love them,” Henry replied. “Though my mom usually prefers—” he broke off when Emma gave him a Look. “Ah, she prefers hers without nuts.”

“Well, she’s in luck because these are nut-free.”

“Sounds perfect!” said Henry brightly, and Emma didn’t think she’d ever loved him more.

“Let me just take those from you,” she said, relieving Killian of the box of brownies and bottle of wine. “Henry, can you show him into the living room? Oh, and Killian what would you like to drink?”

“Whatever’s easiest, love.”

“Water, soda, beer?”

“Beer would be great.”

“Coming right up.”

Emma fled to the kitchen, doing her best not to look like she was fleeing. Once safety through the door she set the brownies and wine on the counter and desperately drew air into her lungs. She wasn’t going to survive spending much more time with Killian if she didn’t learn to breathe around him, she thought wryly, and also why was she even thinking about spending more time with him—this was nothing but a casual, friendly meal and they had only just met.

“Get a fucking grip, Emma,” she reminded herself firmly, and went to pour some beer.

When she entered the living room a few minutes later Killian and Henry were sitting next to each other on the sofa, deep in discussion about the solar system. Henry had his project notes spread out on the coffee table and Killian was rubbing his chin, listening intently as her son spoke, and Emma’s heart absolutely did not melt at the sight of them. It didn’t.

She set a glass of soda in front of Henry and a beer in front of Killian, who looked up at her with a smile.

“Thanks, love.”

Aaaand there went her breath again, thought Emma. Damn it.

“Ah, I’m just going to go finish up dinner, um, if everything’s okay in here?” she said.

“Aye, I think we’ll be all right.”

“Mom, guess what? Killian knows all about astronomy and he’s going to help me make sure my project’s good!” Henry exclaimed.

“All about astronomy, eh?” teased Emma.

To her astonishment Killian’s cheeks and the tips of his ears turned pink. “A slight exaggeration on the lad’s part,” he said, scratching at a spot just below his ear. “But it is an interest of mine and I’ll do my best to be of some use to him.”

“He’s already helped me with Saturn’s moons, and now we’re gonna talk about the rings on Uranus,” said Henry excitedly. “Did you know Uranus has rings, Mom?”

“I did not,” said Emma, biting her lip as amusement glinted in Killian’s eyes.

“Yep,” Henry continued, oblivious to their mirth. “Just skinny ones, though.”

“I suppose bigger ones wouldn’t fit,” said Emma. A muscle danced in Killian’s jaw as he clenched it tight. Henry frowned.

“Uranus is still pretty big,” he said. “Not as big as Jupiter or Saturn but—hey! Are you guys laughing at Uranus?”

“Of course not, lad,” said Killian. “Uranus isn’t funny at all.”

“It’s very serious actually,” said Emma.

“I certainly take it seriously,” Killian agreed.

Henry glared at them. “You guys realise I’m the twelve-year-old boy, right? If anyone should be making Uranus jokes it’s me.”

“Well you have been letting some excellent joke opportunities slip by you, my boy.”

“Yeah, Henry, we’re just picking up your slack.”

“Much like rings on Uranus might.”

“Oh my God,” Henry groaned, as Emma lost control of her laughter and collapsed onto the sofa. Killian was grinning like a maniac, ridiculously pleased with himself, which only made her laugh harder. Henry held out for nearly a full minute before he started giggling too, then all three of them held their stomachs and roared.

—

Their fit of shared hilarity helped Emma relax, and the dinner ended up being one of the best evenings she’d had in a long time. Killian, as it turned out, had spent several years in the navy before he became a librarian. He had hundreds of stories about his adventures in far-off lands and seemingly endless patience for inquisitive twelve-year-olds who wanted to hear every single one.

Emma sat and ate and listened as Killian regaled her son with his tales, and tried not to think too hard about how simply nice this was. Like the sort of pleasant family meal she’d always dreamed of as a child and regretted that she couldn’t give Henry, and she really needed to stop thinking about Killian like he was an actual part of her life when she’d barely known him for a day. She knew better than that. From bitter experience.

And yet. Killian’s kindness to and interest in Henry was genuine, she was sure of it. There was no hint in his words or actions to suggest that he was trying to use her kid to get to her, or that he was only pretending to care about Henry’s project. Her superpower didn’t even twitch. Every instinct Emma had was screaming that the most sinister thing about Killian Jones was how dangerously attractive she found him. He was just a nice man who knew how to talk to children. A nice, insanely hot man with the prettiest eyes she’d ever seen and a smile that stole all the air from her lungs, who not only didn’t run when he found out about her kid but actually liked him.

Fuck, she thought, as Killian caught her eye and gave her a little half-smile that had her gasping for air. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

—

“Well, thank you for a lovely evening, Swan.” Killian’s hand was on the doorknob but he seemed in no great hurry to leave, and she was equally not eager to see him go. “I had a wonderful time.”

“Me too. And thanks for being so nice to Henry.”

“Your boy is a delight, it was no hardship.”

“Still. It meant a lot to him.” She didn’t mention Neal and Killian didn’t ask, but she had the strangest feeling that they both wished they could.

You only just met him, damn it!

“It was my pleasure,” said Killian, and the way his voice went gruff on the word pleasure set her heart racing and heat blooming across her skin, and when his breath caught and his gaze dropped to her lips she had to force herself to remember that this wasn’t a date and she didn’t actually know this man. But she could tell from the rasp in his throat and the flush on his cheeks that he was feeling the same things she was, that he wanted the same things just as badly, and it would be easy, so easy just to lean in and press her lips to his—

Too easy, and far too risky. Emma gulped and stepped back as Killian gave a shaky exhale, closing his eyes as his Adam’s apple bobbed and Emma shoved her hands hard into her jeans pockets. He opened his eyes and then the door and gave her a brief smile before stepping into the hallway. Emma dug her fingers into her legs and firmly squashed the tiny part of her that wanted to beg him to stay.

“Well, ah, thanks for coming,” she said. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

“Aye.” He took two steps then stopped and turned back. “Er, perhaps next time you might allow me to provide the meal?” he said hesitantly. “Just for you?”

“Um. What?” said Emma, then immediately wanted to kick herself.

Killian’s nervous expression softened. “Well you see, as much as I enjoyed Henry’s company this evening, I’d very much like to take you out, Emma,” he said. “Just the two of us. On a date.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Aye, really. On Friday, perhaps, if you’re free?”

“Ah, yeah, I can be,” she replied, trying not to sound too eager. “I’ll have to see if I can get someone to watch Henry, but… yeah. I’d like that.”

That breath-stealing smile broke across his face as she knew it would, and yet she still wasn’t ready for it. “It’s a date, then,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at seven. Wear something warm.”

“Uh.. okay.”

“And love, if you can’t find someone to look after Henry at such short notice I’d still like to spend the evening with you.” Killian’s face was earnest now. “With both of you, I mean. We’ll just postpone our date until a more convenient time.”

A lump rose in Emma’s throat and for a moment she thought she might cry. “I—that’d be good too. I’ll let you know.”

He nodded. “Good night, then, Swan.”

“Good night.”

—

@katie-dub @thisonesatellite @spartanguard @kmomof4 @stahlop @mariakov81 @teamhook in case you’re interested :)

[litwitlady]

2x13 Interlude

Takes place immediately after they find Tripp’s body beneath the tool shed and Michael ostensibly moves yet another body. This is very heavy Alex angst - please be warned. Warnings also for anxiety and panic attacks, abuse and violence. The end is slightly fluffy, I promise. But it takes a minute to get there. I wrote this mostly for myself, but thought I’d share anyway.

After Michael leaves, Alex slips back into the house and heads directly to his old bedroom. The one he shared with Flint for so many long, miserable years. The door is ajar, and he nudges it fully open. He sucks in a breath as he looks around and notices that next to no memories from his childhood remain. The walls have been repainted; all his stuff removed – likely thrown out with some random week’s trash. In the corner by the window, a single desk and chair remain. Both flea market finds he and Greg had hauled home one Christmas. Alex walks towards the small desk and opens the top right drawer wondering if it’s possible his old eyeliner had somehow managed to escape his father’s purge. But no – just a bare, wood drawer. Only the memory lingers.

Alex sits in the middle of the floor and notices one of his knuckles is bleeding. He sucks on the injury and lets the coppery taste of iron sit on his tongue. He thinks about how much blood the past has taken from him, from Michael, from Tripp. That tool shed built by an evil man and maintained by another evil man. Both men a part of him. Connected through the very same blood he spent so many years shedding at his father’s hands. The overwhelming shame of his legacy still clasps at his heart, threatening to never let go no matter how many tool sheds he destroys. Tears crawl down his face, burning his skin along the way.

He reaches inside his shirt and grips Tripp’s dog tags that are quickly becoming the lifeline he never knew he needed. Not every part of himself is inherently evil. God, how much he wants to have faith in that belief. He lays back, staring at the ceiling trying desperately to believe Tripp is just as much - if not more so - a part of him than Harlan, than Jesse. Alex knows he’s done evil things – in deserts halfway across the world. To people – men, women, children – that he’d never even met. How many times he’s lain awake staring at similar blank ceilings reliving those memories and trying to convince himself what he did was for survival, for love of country. But ultimately being left with the hollow truth that none of the people he’s killed had to die in order for him to live. A truth locked deep inside his heart, but not so deep that he can ever forget. No. He’ll have to live with that truth for the rest of his life.

His thoughts wonder back to Michael, replaying the way he’d swung that axe so gleefully. Alex could almost see the weight falling off his shoulders. Closing his eyes, he tries to write that memory onto his heart. That’s how he wants to remember tonight. As a healing for Michael – the boy, the man – he’s loved for the past 11 years. And it doesn’t matter if Michael never loves him again because he’ll have this memory to keep him warm now. Maybe it will never replace the horror of what Jesse did all those years ago. But it’s enough for now. Like a cozy blanket he’ll pull out when those terrible images reappear. He’ll wrap himself tight in this memory of a sweaty, smiling Michael Guerin wildly swinging an axe and destroying the thing that has haunted his hand, his memories, his heart for over a decade.

Several long minutes pass as Alex lays there running his fingers over Tripp’s engraved name again and again. He wants to call Michael. Ask him to come back. To lie there with him for the rest of the night. Maybe the rest of forever. But he can’t because Michael is no longer his. The ache in his heart pulls more tears from his eyes as he curls up on his side. He knows he needs to go home. Take off the prosthetic. Do his PT. That he’ll regret this in the morning when the muscle spasms come for him. But there’s a small voice inside his head whispering that maybe he deserves that pain. After all, he, too, is complicit in so many of the ways Michael Guerin has hurt over the years.

A soft knock on the door jars him from his emotional spiral. He turns to find Greg looking down at him clearly concerned. He sits up, dropping the dog tags back down his shirt to rest against his heart. Greg reaches out a hand to help him up. Alex gladly accepts but can’t quite meet his brother’s eye. ‘You alright?’ Alex sighs and nods. He can tell Greg doesn’t believe him and well, who would?

‘Guerin go home? You guys did some real damage back there.’

Alex doesn’t say anything, just shifts all of his weight to his left leg and grimaces at the pain in his right hip. Greg grabs his elbow to help him balance. ‘Come sit down and talk to me, Alex.’

But Alex doesn’t want to talk. He wants to go home, crawl into bed, and spend the rest of the night chasing nightmares. Or maybe he’ll finally take one of his sleeping pills and erase the world for a little while. At least he has options.

Greg seems to understand. ‘Well, at least let me drive you home. No need to stress your leg any further.’

Alex finds the energy to speak and shakes his head. ‘It’s okay. I drive with my left leg, anyway. Plus, both my crutches are in the car. I’ll be fine. Just been a long day.’ Week. Year. Life. He swallows and tries to muster up something he hopes resembles a smile. Greg’s face lets him know he’s failed. ‘Listen, I’ll come back tomorrow. Help you eat all those disgusting casseroles. I’ll explain everything. I promise.’

Greg helps him out to his car. Once he’s inside with the door blissfully closed to anymore questions, Alex deflates, sagging back against the leather seat, and starts to cry again. He knows that there’s something incredibly broken deep down in the dark place he tries not to think about. The stress of the past week is finally catching up with him and he knows he needs help but can’t figure out how to ask for it. Instead, he starts the car and heads home, tears freefalling and chest heaving. He’s scared to look at the passenger seat, scared he’ll see his father sitting there. Smug and gloating that somehow even in death he’s still winning.

Alex focuses as best he can on the road directly in front of him and manages to make it home safely. When he turns into his driveway, he’s shocked to find Michael’s truck parked in his regular spot – tailgate down and waiting for him like so many nights ago. Alex’s chest clenches at the memory of Michael’s ‘I like Maria, okay’. He can feel panic rising and worries that he’s now in danger of a full-blown panic attack if this night doesn’t end quickly.

He shuts the SUV off but doesn’t move. Tension begins to coil in his chest, wrapping his lungs in a vice grip that he’s having a hard time breathing around. Michael must notice that something’s wrong because he hurriedly moves to open his door and unbuckle his seat belt. Alex barely registers any of this as he tries to focus on his breathing. He can distantly hear Michael calling his name, feel his hand wrap around his neck. And then there’s Michael’s hand on his chest and his hand on Michael’s chest. Alex can feel Michael’s heart beating solidly beneath his palm. Can feel the strong in and out motion of his breathing. He clings to that and tries to match him, breath for breath. It takes a moment, but eventually, the pressure in his head eases, sounds return to normal, and the weight on his chest finally subsides. He sucks in as much oxygen as he can in long, deep breaths.

Michael takes a step back giving him some space, not knowing what to do next. Alex hates the lines of worry written across his face. Hates that he’s the one who has put them there. But he’s also never needed someone as much as he needs Michael in this moment. He moves to get out of the car, but his right leg is no longer obeying him, and he can’t hide the groan that escapes him as he shifts towards the door. But Michael’s hands are there to catch him and ease him off the seat, taking the brunt of Alex’s weight onto his own shoulders.

‘My crutches are in the back.’ Michael helps Alex lean against the driver’s side door and then turns to grab the crutches from their perch on the backseat. He hands them to Alex and watches as he puts his arms through the grips, adjusts his stance until he’s as comfortable as he’s going to get. Alex closes the door behind him and notices that Michael has his keys. He presses the lock button on the key fob and follows Alex up to his front door in silence. Alex suspects Michael’s using his telekinesis to ease the walk. They turn to face each other, neither knowing what to say. All that comes to Alex is a simple thank you. He knows it’s not enough.

Michael thumbs away the tears that are somehow still falling down Alex’s cheeks and unlocks his front door. The alarm starts to beep when the door opens, and Alex gives Michael the code to disarm the system. He makes his way into his bedroom and collapses on his bed. Michael takes the crutches from him and places them next to his nightstand. He kneels at his feet and begins taking off Alex’s shoes. He glances up at Alex, asking for permission to remove the prosthetic next. Alex gives a small nod and watches how gently Michael tends to him, all soft tugs and gentle pulls. He’s too tired to care how intimate a situation this is between the two of them. Too tired to think about Maria or not being good enough. He just unbuttons his jeans and lets Michael pull them off him as he tosses his shirt to the floor.

He watches as Michael grabs the lotion from his bedside and begins to massage the tight muscles in his right thigh, from his knee to his hip. Alex relaxes back onto his pillow, closing his eyes and thinking that maybe the nightmares won’t find him after all. His thoughts drift as Michael’s fingers continue to work their magic, shifting to his left leg knowing how much extra work it’s put in today as well.

What feels like a just a moment later, Alex jerks awake suddenly not realizing he’d fallen asleep. Michael is curled up next to him, snoring softly. He considers waking him and telling him to go home or to Maria or wherever he belongs now. But he can’t bring himself to give up the alien warmth and the way his body fits so perfectly next to his own. It’s selfish and he knows it. But he doesn’t care. Alex settles back against Michael and pulls his arms tightly around him. Michael’s left hand comes to rest on his chest and Alex realizes that the bandana is gone. And for the first time, Alex thinks he feels something inside him start to heal.

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Secrets & Fury || Morgan & Blanche Feat. Agnes Bachman

TIMING: Current

LOCATION: Bachman House Ruins

PARTIES: @harlowhaunted & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Morgan and Blanche make contact with the past. The truth is not meant to soothe.

CONTENT: brief mentions of suicide

The only thing left of what had once been the Bachman House was a few outer support beams and a wall, sticking out of the ground in a way that wouldn’t have been possible unless the ground swallowed the house whole. Which, in fairness, it did. Blanche remembered Morgan, Cassie, and herself throwing themselves out of the home and into the adjacent garden as the ground trembled and swallowed the cursed house… Blanche had never asked Morgan where the house went. Was the house still lingering below the soil or had it disappeared somewhere else entirely? Blanche stared at the dirt, grimacing at the patches of weeds that had feebly tried to break through to no avail, and decided that she would ask ahat at different time. There were no spirits here, not this time. The cool chill that ran up Blanche’s spine from time to time was the cold December air… And the dark, leafless trees that loomed around the area as if they were watching her. As Blanche painstakingly drew the circle in the dirt, she couldn’t help but feel as if she was doing this in front of an audience. Like this was a final test to see if it was worth it -- if she was worth it.

The silver, jeweled barrette kept her blonde hair out of her face, and every once in a while, she would reach up to run her fingers along the smooth, teal gemstones encrusted on the trinket. It made her feel better. Blanche remembered what Jasmine said about Focal Points, and even if it was false, at least it gave her peace of mind. At least it brought her closer to the one she missed most of all. Even that made her feel more powerful than before.

This was what she was doing when Morgan arrived. Blanche glanced at her, her hand falling back to her side as she gave her a strained smile. “Hey,” she said softly, and she grabbed her pink lighter from her pocket. Time to light the candles. “You can put it in the middle of the circle. What you brought of Agnes’, I mean.”

Morgan had tried to come early. She hadn’t been to the old Bachman house for even a drive-by hello since it had tried to collapse with her, Blanche, and Cassie in it. She couldn’t see the place as a benign victim of circumstance after having to face off against Hannah Bachman, hearing the ways she mimicked her own mother in her brand of cruelty. Pulling alongside the street now made her feel as though the wood and nails had been as complicit as Constance in the horrible things that had happened here. What she had expected to find, to get used to, she wasn’t sure. All she knew now was that Blanche had beaten her to the punch and settled into a circle inside the ruins. That’s what happened when you got too anxiously punctual people together, she guessed. “Fancy seeing you here,” she said wryly. “Our appointment isn’t for another ten minutes, Blanche.” She reached into her bag and took out the arm bone she had stolen from Agnes’ grave, wrapped in fabric. Deirdre had been able to identify her with just a touch: thick dark hair like Morgan’s, large eyes that were brown instead of blue, and an anguished look as she laid down in a rickety bed and worked a pillow around half her face, a pistol in her hand. She had been crying, Deirdre said. Morgan couldn’t think of any other way she might have gone, not with what she’d been made to live with. “Genuine, banshee-identified great great grandma Agnes,” she said softly. Agnes’ family title sounded strange, knowing that she had died only a few years older than Morgan. They felt more like equals now, women who had been ground up and bent into the wrong shape, who were tired, who just needed to catch a break for once. Morgan sat down just outside the circle, careful not to disrupt any of the markings. “You um...when you bring them here, you don’t have to see how they died, right Blanche? I mean, she’ll look…” Like there’s a massive exit wound on the side of her skull. “How she did when it happened. But that’s not something you have to carry, is it?” Morgan asked.

“I’m nothing if not efficient,” Blanche replied. The grin on her face didn’t quite reach her eyes, though she was pleased to see that Morgan looked alright. Blanche had been here for forty-five minutes already, but she wasn't’ about to tell Morgan that - she sought out the flattest part of the ruins and spent an absurdly long time drawing the circle. She looked sharply at Morgan, the question burning in her throat. How did great, great Grandma Agnes die? Not that it mattered, because she would do the seance no matter what, but she couldn’t help but think of the bullet wound inside Sammy’s skull and Winn’s chest, and how Bea’s head never sat quite right on her shoulders… But Blanche shook her head. “I’ve seen some pretty gruesome deaths,” she said. Blanche didn’t know Agnes, so she hoped her appearance wouldn’t stay burned into her memory like her friends. There was some part of her that knew this wasn’t true, she remembered spirits maimed in all sorts of ways… But as Blanche finished lighting her candles, she stood, brushing the dirt off her jeans. “She’ll look how she chooses too,” Blanche said, “If she’s been around since she died… Then she’ll probably have learned to change her appearance by now. But if she hasn’t or she doesn’t want too…” Blanche reached to fiddle with the hair clip in her hair again, chewing on her lip in thought. “That’s her choice. It won’t prevent us from doing what we’re here to do.” She examined her circle for the upteenth time, looking for imperfections. She could find none. With a small breath, she looked back to Morgan. “Are you ready, Morgan?” She waited for Morgan to nod, before going to settle into the dirt.

Blanche took a few deep breaths, glancing over at Morgan to really make sure she was ready, before she began reciting the sanskrit. The power Blanche felt flowing through her and the circle was almost on par with the deep seeded resentment in her soul. It was strange and exciting and somehow different than when they had been in her apartment. It was a mistake, Blanche decided, to not have come here the first time. Wind howled around them, the flickering of the candles erratic but never going out as it circled them. She was clear headed, drawing her energy from the back of her mind - rather, the back of her head, she supposed, where her great grandmother’s clip lay. She focused on that as she opened the portal of communication, the chilling wind whining in protest as she pushed forward. It was tiring, but slowly, a woman flickered into sight. Slowly, her transparent form grew stronger, and Blanche could make out her features and the frumpy old clothes she wore. With a push forward, Blanche ended the opening of the ritual.

“Are you Agnes Bachman?” Blanche asked, glanced at Morgan for confirmation before anything else.

Morgan kept her eyes trained on the center of the circle, like letting her hair blow the wrong way might turn everything around for the worse. She heard the wind in her ears, saw the small candle flames surge on their wicks. Doubt gnawed in her stomach, she’s not coming, she’s not here and she’s not coming and I’m never gonna know what really happened. Shit, was she awful for trying to reach out with her will and pull her toward them? For wanting her to be stuck here all this time, just to have someone she could talk to? Morgan didn’t have time to find an answer inside herself. A silhouette formed in a circle, then a face.

“Oh, shit…”

Agnes Bachman didn’t have a hole in her head. Her wavy hair hung just below her jaw, styled in waves Morgan had seen in fashion panels from the 1910’s. She had loose housecoat, or maybe it was just a regular day coat that had been retired after getting too big and patchy, hung heavy on her frame. (Morgan couldn’t figure out how that worked, the woman before her didn’t have a body, so how could anything be loose or tight or anything in between? And yet just from looking at her, Morgan could imagine the pointy ends of her joints and the ridges on her stomach from going hungry on and off for years.) She had a bemused half smile, one that was way past surprise, and a face that looked hauntingly like the one Cece had pulled out of the magic trunk. “It’s you,” Morgan whispered. “This whole time, I’ve been looking at… Agnes.”

“Is there someone else I would be?” Agnes asked. She had a high, tired kind of voice, not unlike the wind that had swelled around them only a minute ago. It was a reedy voice, torn up from too many cigarettes. Smoking was unladylike in Agnes’ time, but maybe she’d stolen her husband’s cigarettes, or bummed some off people with more money. Maybe after a certain point she had decided not to care. She looked around, taking in what was left of the house, the hole in its core, the stars above and the jagged, splintered ruins reaching through it like so many broken fingers. “I remember this place.” She scoffed, smirking. “It feels a shame I’m not more surprised to see it in pieces. You’re supposed to bond with the place you grow up. It’s how you maintain your ties with the earth.” She turned back to them, gesturing self consciously around her temples. “Is anyone gonna tell me what this party’s about...?” The smile she gave each of them was thin, like she was afraid something bad was going to happen. How often had she been blamed or yelled at for Constance’s mess? “One of you has to know something, if you’re pulling me cross-country to my old house.”

“Y-yes. I mean...we...uh…” Morgan fumbled for words and gaped at Blanche, silently asking for help.

Awestruck by her success, Blanche stared at Agnes in a sort of wonder. The wind grew calm around them, still lightly tugging at loose hairs and flame to let them know it was still there. She had done it. She pulled Agnes Bachman back here. Blanche gaped right back at Morgan, suddenly speechless herself. All coherent thoughts flew out of her head and suddenly she forgot how to speak any language whatsoever.

“Wha-” Blanche stuttered, and then realized she was the one supposed to be running this ‘party’. She almost leapt to her feet, but stayed rooted to the spot so she wouldn’t jostle the circle. “Agnes,” Blanche tried again. “My name is Blanche Harlow. I’m a local medium in White Crest. This is Morgan Beck, she’s your great, great Granddaughter. I’ve… We, rather… We’ve contacted you because we want to ask you about the past, specifically relating to Constance Cunningham.” Her words were formal, but they were at least confident.

“Is it alright if we ask you a few questions?”

Agnes hadn’t stopped looking at Morgan since she’d appeared. Morgan straightened her shoulders under her gaze and angled her head this way and that, trying to find the angle that would give her the most ‘respectable impressive descendant’ look, not that she knew what that was. Agnes smirked at Blanche’s fumbling and Morgan noticed an array of little smile wrinkles that gave her some comfort. She must have been happy, or something like it, for a little while.

“I should tell you,” Agnes said, leaning in with a conspiratorial look, “I told my kids not to settle down, so they maybe wouldn’t have any of their own. But I’m not surprised they didn’t listen to me. Kids never do, so don’t get any ideas.” She squinted taking in more of Morgan. “But that’s not going to be a problem for you, is it, sweetie?”

“No,” Morgan whispered. “I mean, I have a...I haven’t really discussed it with my girlfriend, we’re gonna wait fifty, maybe a hundred years first. That’s the kind of family planning you get with a zombie and a banshee!” She laughed, shrill and pained. Was this how you were supposed to talk to your grandmother? Did it matter when she only looked five years older than you? “I died. Because of the family curse. Seven months and change, so I’m still adjusting. But it’s fine! I mean, it’s not, but it will be.” She gripped her wool skirt, fighting the urge to crawl closer to Agnes.

“Girlfriend, you say? I’ve seen things get better for some girls like that in the last hundred years. I should’ve figured it ran in the family. Mama was right about something after all.” The smirk she gave was bitter, scratching an old scab on her heart, and if Morgan hadn’t already heard about Hannah Bachman’s dismay from Leah, she would’ve seen the cut her response had left in Agnes’ face. “Your death, sweetie, does that mean the magic doesn’t touch you anymore? Whatever you and your girl do, are you safe from it?”

Morgan nodded, eyes beginning to well. “Yeah, we are. The curse didn’t follow me after. We’re good. It’s just uh…” She looked sidelong at Blanche. “It’s Constance? She’s here and she is…” Evil. Cruel. A walking nightmare. “Really, really determined to make up for what her curse can’t do anymore. And I...we were wondering...if you could tell us what really happened. I read Lucrecia’s diary, but I want the truth from you. And before you say anything, I don’t blame you. I don’t know where it started in the family, but I know you didn’t deserve to carry this like it was all your fault, and I don’t blame you for what she did.”

Agnes straightened up. “I can’t talk about Constance,” she said flatly. “And the person who started that story was me, because it was true.” She turned to Blanche. “Can you put me back somewhere? It doesn’t have to be home, I don’t much like my new grave. But somewhere else, please.”

Blanche thanked every God that may or may not have existed that she had excellent memory recall. She backed off of Agnes, ready to do what she, as a private investigator trainee, did best: listened. The true extent of the Bachman curse had been made apparent to her when Morgan died violently in the middle of town and became a zombie, but Constance never put into thought that there could be life after death… Funnily enough, Blanche hadn’t put that much thought into it either, before she met Remmy. Blanche rested her hands in her lap, leaning forward on her knees as she concentrated on keeping the line of connection open.

“You can’t talk about Constance? Or you won’t talk about Constance?” Perhaps Blanche’s voice was a little sharper than it needed to be, but she wasn’t here to pull punches. She was here for the truth. After the truth was known… Well, then she could deal with Agnes. Agnes, from what she felt, would need to move on. But one ghost problem at a time. This seance wasn’t for Agnes, it was for Morgan. And, to an extent, though Morgan could never find this out, it was for Constance too. Constance deserved closure and peace - the last thing Blanche wanted for her was to Cordelia or Lauren Langley.

Blanche leaned back, her head tilting to the side slightly as she examined the ghost. “Don’t you want to make sure the right one is known?” Maybe she didn’t, though. Blanche pressed her lips together for a moment. “I won’t be sending you anywhere,” she said, “Until we get some answers. And I’ll have you know… I’m very persistent.”

“Is there much of a difference as far as you’re concerned?” Agnes asked. Her squinting gaze turned on Blanche, running up and down to appraise her. Morgan’s mother had a similar look when she was trying to worm out of a conversation she didn’t want to have, but Morgan didn’t get the sense that Agnes was looking for points of weakness or ways to hurt Blanche. It looked more like she was working a puzzle. “If people think badly of me, it’s because I got the ball rolling. I don’t have any right to be sore about any tall tales that have gotten rolled into the truth.” She looked at Morgan again, smiling in a sad way that made the zombie’s heart lurch. “You should blame me. And I am sorry, I will always be sorry, for my part in your death. Even if it means you get to wait a hundred years to have a family with a woman you love--” she paused, staring off somewhere Morgan couldn’t follow. “It shouldn’t cost you what it has. Death is too high a price, especially after what you must have suffered. It’s not much of a life to begin with.”

“Don’t say that,” Morgan whispered. “I know you’re...yes, I was miserable and I didn’t get to do anything I set out to, but you didn’t cast the spell. You didn’t take one falling out and turn it into a hundred plus years of--”

“No.” Agnes’ voice turned to rock while somehow never rising above her quiet. “No, Morgan. I’m not going to discuss it in those terms. Or at all.” Agnes looked over at Blanche, checking to see if her point had been effectively made, but Agnes had never gone up against Blanche ‘I do what I want’ Harlow. She withered under the young woman’s look and pursed her lips as her position sank in.

“Listen,” Morgan said gently. “I’m going to get her back for what she did to you, to all of us. However hurtful, however awful or complicated, it didn’t merrit what she did for retribution. I’m going to make sure she…” Morgan winced, not wanting to throw her position in Blanche’s face. Of all her friends, she had been the most honest, and the most kind, about her position. “I’m going to make us even.”

Agnes’ face dropped with horror. “You what? You can’t. Sweetie, whatever you’re up to, you can’t do that to her. You have no idea what she--It was my idea to run away! I made her take all the risks. Crafting the glamours that would make us look older, hiding the money I’d stolen in her tree, hiding travel clothes, securing our transport. My mother watched me at all times, I was afraid we wouldn’t stand a chance if I slipped away somewhere I couldn’t explain. I was selfish and I was scared and I made her do everything for me, and then I--” She looked helplessly at Blanche again, her wish transparent in her eyes: please, please. “I let her fall for me too,” she said. “We were caught, the morning we were set to leave. Constance told the truth and I--I didn’t. She had given a story and I knew we were sunk and I wouldn’t see the light of day for weeks unless I did something different. I--”

Agnes’ reedy voice seemed to snap. Her silent appeals to Blanche were going nowhere; the medium only stared her down harder than before. And every, “hey,” and “you don’t have to be afraid,” that Morgan gave only seemed to make her more desperate.

“I said she was kidnapping me. That she’d hurt me.” Agnes said at last. “We had stolen pistols from the Logan’s house to protect ourselves. I told my mother to check her reticule, where I’d told her to put them and she thought it was proof. I didn’t know they were going to tell everyone or turn her into a pariah. I thought she would be run out of town, dropped on the nearest cart, never to return. I had no illusion of being forgiven, but gods help me, I did not know my mother would leave her with nothing and make her live like some poor animal. When I realized, it was too late.” Agnes clenched her airy fists, fighting the impulse to cry. “I would like to go back now. Send me back now and have done with it.”

Morgan tried to reach for her, forgetting everything except how badly she wanted to know the woman in front of her. “No, you can stay, Agnes. It doesn’t matter what happened before—”

“Now. I want to be gone now. Please. I will not answer anything else. I won’t.”

Anger was an emotion Blanche was used to, and the more Agnes said, the more angry she got. Fury and disgust twisted into her stone faced expression as she sat there, her arms crossed as Morgan and Agnes conversed. Finally, with a wail, Agnes turned to her, begging to be set free. “Coward,” Blanche said unkindly. “You’re a coward.” Blanche pushed herself up to her knees, as if she was going to move to stand. She didn’t, however, because her energy was being spent in keeping the connection open. Still, Blanche’s eyes flashed angrily.

“I’m not naive enough to say Constance is blameless. Constance is to blame for a lot of things -- Morgan’s death and the subsequent death of others in her path for revenge - but you…” Blanche shook her head, “You chose wrong and you lied. You lied to save yourself and threw the one you loved under the bus.” Blanche scoffed in disgust. Never before had she felt such anger towards another ghost. The closest that came was Lauren Langley, but even that held a different sort of anger than the rage that bubbled in the pit of her stomach now. If she could, she’d throw a fist in Agnes’ face.

“You are not to blame for Constance’s actions,” Blanche said, folding her arms over her chest. “She is able to make her own decisions and do what she will but… You are to blame for hurting her. You are to blame for lying. You are to blame for the misery that was thrust upon her as punishment for a crime she did not commit. You lied because you were a coward. And that -” Blanche jabbed a finger at Agnes. “- Is what you should feel remorse for. That is what you need to reflect on. And then you’ll be able to move on.” While Constance was on a warpath for vengeance that would end up destroying her. It was hard not to blame Agnes for everything.

With a sweep of her hand, the wind howled around them, growing louder as Blanche recited the end of the ritual that would close the communication with Agnes. She didn’t want to hear what Agnes had to say, even as her pain stricken face was seared into Blanche’s mind even as she disappeared from the circle. The wind quieted and the candles surrounding them extinguished. The ritual was over. Blanche slumped back into the dirt, exhausted, but too angry to give in to sleep.

“All of this…” Blanche said, sneering at the place Agnes once stood. “Because of a cruel lie…”

Morgan flinched at Blanche’s words as if they had cracked against her skin. She called out her name, trying to interrupt, “That can’t be the whole story, there has to be something else…” But Blanche’s fury had found its target, and though Morgan couldn’t fathom why, she understood that it would not let go. “Don’t be cruel. Blanche, please!” But please only got Blanche to say the words that would send Agnes back to wherever she had been before. Morgan grasped at the air as Agnes vanished, her face shut and clenched with shame. Something in the air lifted, like heat diffusing a cold room. Morgan continued to stare into the circle. There had to be something else. Maybe Hannah Bachman was the real culprit, for making her daughter so afraid that she wanted to run away in the first place. Maybe Agnes had sensed something unstable, even dangerous in Constance and took her change to back out rather than run away with someone who was willing to sign off on the misery of generations of people. There had to be something, because if Morgan’s family had been right about Agnes, then how was she supposed to split her vengeance between them? Who was she destroying Constance for besides herself if Agnes had tried so hard to beg her not to? Morgan’s gaze dropped from the air where Agnes had just sat and down to her own hands: discolored around the nails because she was between meals, protected by gold cuff bracelets on her wrist, so no one would see the bite that made her what she was. Ruth Beck hadn’t cared a wit that she was going to be avenged, Morgan wasn’t even sure if she believed it. Morgan’s father had lost his last tie to the earth when he saw her happy with Deirdre. Deirdre herself insisted the choice was hers to determine. And now the memory of Agnes’ horrified face stood frozen in Morgan’s memory. Was it still fair, and still enough, if this was for her satisfaction and hers alone?

“She was just…” Young? Stars above, could Morgan really say that without it getting thrown back in her face two seconds later? “She was scared. She didn’t know what was going to happen and we don’t know why she really…” Threw someone she supposedly loved under the bus. If Hannah was so dangerous, enough to run away from, why wouldn’t Anges have figured out that Constance was going to suffer without her protection? Wouldn’t that have been obvious? Was her ignorance to the consequences just another lie too? Morgan shivered, frowning into the ground. She was long used to disappointment, but she hadn’t thought that meeting Agnes would leave her more confused than when she’d started. “I don’t know,” Morgan sighed. Nothing she put together in her mind fit the way she wanted it to. “Whatever, why-ever she really did anything, she paid for it with her life and a hundred years of being hated.” Slowly, she lifted her gaze to Blanche, scrutinizing her expression. She had seemed more invested in Morgan’s family drama than she had before. Morgan had taken great care to keep her out of it as much as possible. “What was that all about, just a minute ago?” She asked gently. “I’ve never seen you like that with a ghost before. Is everything okay…?”

She was just - Blanche almost snarled the word ‘young’ right back at Morgan. Constance was just as young. She was nineteen. Blanche could remember, back in high school, where her only long term boyfriend broke up with her and how devastated she had been. If that situation had been anything like Agnes’, which it hadn’t, and Logan had wronged her in some type of way, Blanche would have wanted to curse him and his entire family too. The thought was snide, and filled with anger. She realized, with a start, that she was two seconds away from defending Constance’s honor, and that wasn’t right either. Constance had done wrong, Blanche reminded herself, her palms suddenly sweaty. She hadn’t meant to, mostly, of course. Maxine had been an unfortunate accident, and the incident with Nell… Blanche wanted to believe that she really didn’t know that Nell had been in the car until it was too late. And Morgan had said intentions matter. Blanche wanted to believe that, and she wanted Constance to give up this calling of vengeance on Morgan’s family because at the end of the day, Morgan hadn’t done anything wrong. Morgan hadn’t done this to Constance. Agnes, she thought the name with disgust, started this.

But that didn’t make Morgan’s target goal right either. She had the cold reminder that Morgan’s end goal was to torture and erase Constance from existence. The thought of her being in pain made Blanche… Well, it made her sick to her stomach. Constance didn’t deserve that. She needed to be at peace while she was still able. At least, then, she would be happy. She would be able to move past what Agnes had done, and it wouldn’t have to lock her into a toxic storm of resentment and fury.  At Morgan’s question, though, Blanche’s palms frew more sweaty, and she wiped them on her jeans. “I wasn’t wrong,” Blanche mumbled to her shoes, shaking her head. She refused to look at Morgan, instead turning to start gathering her things in her back. Her face had flushed, but it had been a little pink already from the anger she burst out with during the seance and from the exhaustion the clung to her. “In order to move on, Agnes needs to come to term with her choices she made while she was living. She can’t do anything to change them, not now,” Blanche’s lip curled in disgust as she carefully stuck the candles in her bag, straightening to sling it over her shoulder. She went to the magic circle she had so carefully carved into the dirt with a sharp stick and some chalk and destroyed it. While Blanche hadn’t listened to Granny’s teachings, she did remember that Granny said to never leave a circle unattended, just in case. Finally, she reached up and pulled the jeweled, silver hairpin from her hair, letting her blonde hair tumble down. Carefully, she put that in a separate pocket of her backpack. Her shoulders slumped tiredly and looked at Morgan, “I’ll talk to her again soon,” Blanche said, decidingly. “I’ll call upon her again and speak her more closely, once… this is all over.”

Silence froze and bristled around them; Morgan held her tongue. Blanche’s ire was hot and sharp as a needle fresh out of the fire. She didn’t have to say a word for Morgan to know she was angry at her too. For Constance. For being “unfair.” Maybe if she wasn’t the one crushed over her whole life and promptly murdered, Morgan could understand these good for nothing principles, or whatever strange projection was going on from Blanche’s angle. She’d confounded people on moral questions before. Only the stars above knew how many passes she gave Deirdre, and that was just for starters.

“No,” Morgan admitted quietly. “But I never said you were. That wasn’t my point.” The point was that Agnes’ mistake should have only destroyed two people, at most. Tragic, but contained. Constance had driven Agnes to the kind of misery that made her want to end her life. And then proceeded to do the same to every other Bachman descendant, those who weren’t horribly killed by her meddling out right. It was unbalanced to the point of grotesque. What pity, what understanding was there left when Constance’s last stand was with someone she’d never met, except to try and destroy? At least Morgan was taking a stand for her own family.

“If there’s another way to get Agnes to White Crest, some way she can be around without a circle, I’ll look after her so you don’t have to keep your hotel for ghosts open longer than you already have to. She’s my family, I should at least try to help her. I want to.” And she wanted to understand why Agnes was so opposed to her finishing this ugly game Constance had turned their lives into. Seeing Ruth’s total apathy at the news had been one thing, but Agnes’ horrified face sat heavy and sick in Morgan’s stomach. She shouldered her bag and dusted herself off, looking down at Blanche with guarded concern. “I still don’t know why you’re so determined to help me, but thank you, Blanche.” She reached out a hand to pull her up. “You need anything right now?” She asked quietly. The differences between them felt as strong as the similarities in this moment, certainly nothing that could be solved with a trip to a diner or a few twenties stuffed into Blanche’s bag. But Morgan was tired of losing people, and she had a sick, prickly feeling in her stomach, almost like guilt, and she was desperate to be rid of it.

It was a strange fury that had settled in Blanche’s stomach, and she didn’t understand it. Blanche knew Morgan held different opinions on the whole subject and that their end goals were different, so she wasn’t understanding why she was so upset at Morgan’s insistence that Constance was the only one in the wrong here. It wasn’t fair - none of this was fair. Perhaps Constance had been right in that the Bachmans - that Agnes Bachman and whatever that thing Cassie, Morgan, and Blanche had confronted in the house so many months ago - were the evil ones. Whatever that meant made Blanche’s head spin because she also knew that no matter what, killing Morgan was inexcusable. How was it possible to care so much for a ghost that did something so horrible to a friend? And was she so determined to help Morgan, or was she determined to help Constance? Couldn’t there be a way for her to help both? Why was the answer one or the other? Blanche was sick of having to choose and she was sick of having to ask herself hard questions and she was sick of having to think.

Not for the first time, Blanche felt that fuzzy, static feeling in her head.

“You could summon her, or she could travel herself,” Blanche finally said, her tone devoid of any true emotion. “What I just did isn’t anything other than opening a line of communication. If I don’t close the line, she could get stuck in the circle. That’s why, even after you dissipated wrong Agnes, I had to close the ritual. But it’s not a permanent means of keeping them here.” She swallowed, wrapping her arms around herself as she shook her head. Blanche was quiet a moment as she hoisted her bag over her shoulder, and looked at Morgan. There were words on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t quite find them. Confusion and anger melded together, and Blanche realized that it might be better to not say anything at all. “I don’t need anything, no.” Blanche said. “I’m going to go home though, I’m… I’m tired.” It wasn’t a lie, she realized. She was exhausted, and Blanche wondered if she hadn’t overdone it. There was supposed to be a balance so she didn’t feel like complete shit afterwards. But as she turned on her heel, giving a quiet goodbye to Morgan as she trudged back to her jeep, she started to think that maybe the energy she spent on the seance wasn’t the only reason why she didn’t feel well.

[aion-rsa]

Kevin Can F**K Himself Shows Why The Laugh Track Needs to Die

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The title card for the new AMC series Kevin Can F**K Himself isn’t accompanied by a jaunty tune or a wild sound effect. When the title appears on the screen, it’s soundtracked by a smattering of aggressive laughter. Creeping up below the laughter is a distressing screeching noise, meant to indicate the rapidly fraying sanity of our heroine. 

So it’s quite fitting that Kevin Can F**K Himself makes a compelling case for why laugh tracks (or canned laughter) need to die a quick death. The series centers on Allison McRoberts (Annie Murphy), a woman trapped in a marriage to the titular Kevin. Kevin is an infuriating man-child. He throws keg parties on his wedding anniversary, spends obscene amounts of money on sports memorabilia, and treats Allison like an accessory. He is emotionally abusive, often making Allison feel worthless by telling her things like she’s a bad driver or that she never finishes things so that he can keep her all to himself. 

Approximately a third of the series takes place in lala sitcom land in which the lighting is abundant, the set is clearly facing an audience, and Kevin is always there, chewing up the scenery like Pac Man chowing down on glowing dots. However, whenever Kevin exits, Allison finds herself in a more contemplative and complex (aka: single-camera) existence. The trouble is she doesn’t have much of an identity anymore because her entire life has hinged on being Kevin’s long-suffering wife. The juxtaposition of the sitcom world against a more realistic setting serves to illustrate just how jarring and unnecessary canned laughter is to a TV show. When we watch dramas, we don’t hear people bawling over the sad parts or gasping during the shocking moments. Nope. So why do laugh tracks persist?

As an early millennial, I grew up in a world in which laugh tracks were the norm. From “Must See TV” on NBC in the ‘90s to the vintage sitcoms on Nick at Nite, comedy was always served up with a heaping side of giggles and guffaws. Historically, the sitcom cadence did rely on a call-and response reaction as they actually were often filmed in front of a live studio audience, but it was rare that the responses that made it to the final episode were genuine and uncut. 

To be clear, when I’m referring to canned laughter here, I’m not just referring to the prerecorded kind. Sure, that might be the official definition, but even the laughter we hear from live studio audiences is goosed in some way prior to airtime. The practice of “sweetening” the laugh track, or adding in favorable reactions to amplify certain jokes has been in practice for decades, and it’s still in use today. While the creators of a show might be able to proudly say that the reactions came from an actual audience, the reactions are almost always tweaked in post-production in order to punch up the jokes that the creators or network want to land. Therefore, the laugh track on all of your favorite sitcoms is a lie. 

An argument could potentially be made that the practice of adding in a laugh track might make people feel a sense of camaraderie or community with others watching. And this is somewhat true. In a 2011 article on laugh tracks, NBC News noted a 1974 psychological study in which it was found that people laughed more frequently if they heard canned laughter following a joke. These types of social cues can make individuals feel comfortable, but they can also promote conformity. Looking back on the history of sitcoms, it sure seems as if laugh tracks have been complicit in keeping misogynistic and racist messaging at the forefront of comedy.

Kevin Can F**K Himself plays with this idea in every frame of its sitcom world. Nothing is actually very funny within the brightly lit walls of the McRoberts’s house. As previously established, Kevin is simply awful. He’s a huge loser. Yours truly wanted to throttle him, Homer Simpson style, during every scene he was in. Yet, since the sitcom land dictates that Kevin is a damn delight, the audience plays along. 

(It’s worth noting here that Kevin Can F**K Himself was filmed in front of a studio audience. However AMC tells us that, due to COVID restrictions, the audience was small and far away, so the laughs were not picked up on the audio. Therefore, much of the laughter you hear on the show was added in post-production.)

The dynamic between Kevin, Allison, and the viewers in the studio is an exaggerated version of a tableau that has been unfolding on our TV screens for decades. We see a harried, hot wife play a straight man to a dumpy doofus husband, and we’re all supposed to think it’s simply hilarious. It’s worth noting that Kevin Can F**K HImself cribs its title from the Kevin James’ sitcom Kevin Can Wait, in which the series unceremoniously killed off James’s first super hot wife on the show (Erinn Hayes), only to replace her with his prior super hot sitcom wife, Leah Remini. Because women are oh so very interchangeable in the sitcom world, the laugh track on that show never skipped a beat. 

Canned laughter has historically enabled the entertainment world to lift up mediocre men such as Doug Heffernan (Kevin James), Raymond Barone (Ray Romano), and Kevin Gable (Kevin James, again) at the women’s expense. For ages, only a very small handful of white males were allowed to create content as showrunners, directors, and writers at networks. As they had control over the laugh track, they became the arbiters of what was funny and what was not funny. They got to shape reactions according to their worldview, painting the schlumpy dudes as heroes and the women as eager sidekicks. 

While there are oodles of examples of the long-suffering wife throughout sitcom history, we rarely think of these women as victims. All in the Family is considered a classic, but Archie Bunker was viciously verbally abusive to his wife Edith in almost every episode. Sure, it was a different era (and Archie surely isn’t intended to be a role model), but take away the laughs, and what’s left is a depressing portrait of a red-faced husband straight up screaming at his beleaguered wife. And don’t even get me started on The Honeymooners classic line, “to the moon, Alice!” Ahahahaha, yes, spousal abuse. Hilarious. Well, the laugh track thought so, anyway. 

In more recent years, verbal abuse on sitcoms focusing on husband-wife dyads has given way to a more subtle form of emotional abuse. Often, this appears in the form of financial abuse in which a spouse spends or hides money from the other in order to keep them in their place. In Kevin Can F**K Himself, Kevin consistently spends money without consulting Allison first. In one episode, he even proudly states that a recent purchase cost “more than our wedding, but less than our car.” 

This type of abuse has played out in sitcoms forever. Doug Heffernan often hid his spending from Carrie, Raymond Barone invested in a go-cart venture without telling Deborah, and even Fred Flintstone stole money from Wilma’s hidden stash (yep, The Flintstones was a cartoon, but it inexplicably also had a laugh track). These transgressions are generally perceived to be harmless on screen, leading to those canned laffs and a resolution in 30 minutes or less, but in real life, this type of clandestine behavior in relation to finances can be catastrophic, trapping an unhappy wife in a relationship with no means to escape. 

Even TV series that didn’t utilize the wife/husband premise – notably Frasier and Friends – often used audience laughter to support misogynistic punchlines. Friends notoriously used the laugh track to support harmful jokes about fat shaming and transphobia while Frasier’s archaic attitudes towards women were often played for comedy. Personally, I will never ever get over how Frasier Crane treated Roz Doyle, slut shaming her at every turn for over a decade when, in fact, Frasier was sleeping with half of Seattle with nary an eyebrow raise in his snooty direction. (Sorry, rant over. But, seriously, Peri Gilpin rules. #JusticeForRoz)

Laugh tracks help normalize these behaviors. If you’re not laughing at the joke when everyone else is, something must be wrong with you. Women have faced this exact dilemma since the beginning of time. Laugh along or be judged as cold and unfeeling. Be in on the joke or be tossed to the side. This truism is even noted in the recent HBO Max series Hacks in which aging comic Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) confesses to a newbie comedienne why she makes fun of herself in her own act. With a wan smile, Deborah says, “I realized they would rather laugh at me than believe me.”

These are the same exact challenges that Allison finds herself facing in Kevin Can F**K Himself. When Kevin is around, Allison tries her best to play the role she’s been given so that he won’t make her life even more miserable. No one believes or cares that Kevin is awful because they think Allison is lucky to even have landed a man at all. The series overtly illustrates that these types of stories have always just shrugged at viewers, telling us, oh well, boys will be boys, while women’s suffering is shoehorned into punchlines instead of taken seriously. Rather than confronting the thorny reality of disentangling the institutions that lift the Kevins up and keep the Allisons down, the sitcom world treats women’s pain like a joke.  

After years and years under Kevin’s oppressive thumb, Allison isn’t laughing anymore. She’s full of rage and ready to break free. When we see her in her life without Kevin, there are no prescriptive beats dictating what’s funny and what’s not. And it’s so refreshing. Life can be funny! Sometimes Allison is funny in her real life too! Annie Murphy is also very very funny! And yet, even in the absence of a laugh track, viewers can pick up on the funny. Because in this modern age of entertainment, viewers are savvy enough to know what they feel. 

As canned laughter has slowly disappeared, TV has opened up to more nuanced emotion, allowing viewers to discover and explore the highs and lows for themselves. It’s probably not surprising to learn that the few existing series that do still use laugh tracks, such as United States of Al and Bob Hearts Abishola – both airing on CBS and both created by Chuck Lorre – have been critiqued for leaning on racist and sexist stereotypes. Oddly enough, an urban myth has been circulating the internet for years, claiming that everyone on laugh tracks is actually dead because the recordings were made so long ago. As modern audio engineers now update their recordings regularly, this is not true, but the truth is that the laugh track itself is soon headed to an unmarked grave in the entertainment cemetery alongside tube televisions, Smell-O-Vision, and home video rentals.  

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With critically acclaimed comedies such as Schitt’s Creek (also starring Annie Murphy!), Fleabag, and The Good Place getting laughs without any pre-recorded assistance, home audiences are getting more savvy as to what’s actually funny and what’s just a cheap shot. In addition, social media and the ubiquitous sharing of memes have effectively displaced the laugh track, as people can now actually be part of an interactive community with others, watching and reacting to the same show at the same time. 

In Kevin Can F**K Himself, canned laughter has finally taken its rightful place as a relic of the past. The chuckles and chortles that pepper the series are a knowing nod to a bygone era in which TV series tried to force the funny on viewers instead of letting them find their own way. Finally, laugh tracks aren’t in on the joke; they are the joke.

Kevin Can F**k Himself airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.

The post Kevin Can F**K Himself Shows Why The Laugh Track Needs to Die appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[what-big-teeth]

Reveal (Cambion Boyfriend, pt. 2)

Gender Neutral Reader x Male Monster [Part 1] [Part 3] tw: hostage situation ; threats ; blood ; death

An icy sharpness jolts you awake. 

You hear dripping as you splutter out a breath, but can’t determine the source. A wetness that stings at your face and gathers on your pants soon becomes apparent. Water. It’s aggravating the scratches on your nose and brow. With a small hiss, your eyes dart around the area to find the source. 

They land on a woman holding a dented, metal pail. She stares at you with a piercing green gaze as she tosses the bucket to the side. It lands with a sharp clang that hangs in the air and skids against the concrete to a stop. Makes sense as you’re inside some sort of warehouse. The rusted appearance of the rafters, the sporadic flickering of the fluorescent lights, and the gaping emptiness surrounding you say enough. This place has long been abandoned.

Which means nobody would think to look here to find you.

The woman huffs out a breath, almost sounding inconvenienced. She turns on her booted heel and seemingly glides to a nearby pile of wooden palettes. One of her pale hands cards through her straight, short, jet-black hair while the other grabs onto something. A wickedly, sharp gleaming battle axe. 

You instinctively attempt to place some distance between you and the weapon. But your back only slams against something cold and solid while your arms refuse to budge. Glancing up, you see the rusted remains of one of the metal support beams. You’re stuck in every sense of the word. But maybe if you can just maneuver—

“Don’t bother.”

A deep masculine voice reverberates in the air, making you freeze in place. The man it belongs to is tall and muscular with short, natural hair. But it’s the wicked scar that interrupts his light brown skin diagonally from one eyebrow to his chin that draws your eye.

“Your meager human strength isn’t enough to break the bonds holding you. So just stay still, like a good little hostage.”

As if you had a choice. But that doesn’t mean you have to remain silent.

“What are you planning to do with me?” you ask.

Unsurprisingly, you receive no answer. The temptation to ask more questions is squelched by a heavy, palpable tension that vibrates in the stale air. It all but screams for your complicit silence...lest something horrible happen to you. You swallow your words with a muted gulp.

In the meantime, the man loads his weapon. Its shape reminds you of a shotgun, but just barely. It’s nothing you’ve seen before thanks to the illegible etchings in the metal and the strange enhancements. The woman smiles as she skims the edge of her axe with the pad of her thumb. It draws blood, which beads onto her skin then drips onto the concrete. Her smile widens into a sharp grin.

“Do whatever you want to the cambion, Saul,” she says. “But I claim his head. Don’t mar it.”

The man gives her a more subdued grin.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Mara. I’d rather not get in the way of that infamous bloodlust of yours.”

The casual way they speak of dismemberment and killing roils your stomach. The surrealness of the situation begs the question of who these two are. As if reading your thoughts, Mara glances your way with a pleased smile on her painted lips.

“I guess we can let you in on our little secret,” she says, hefting her broad axe over her shoulder without any effort. “It’s the least we can do since you won’t live to tell anyone what will happen.”

Before you’re able to fully process her words, she fishes something out of her jean pocket with swift fingers. 

It’s a photograph. Of you. 

The still image portrays you at work behind the bar, serving customers on one of the restaurant's more busier nights. You appear in your element, as you usually are, and look carefree. Too busy conversing with Cam and handing him a drink to notice a camera pointed at you both.

“You’re a rather dull person,” Mara states. You think you hear a hint of boredom in her tone as she says your full name. She then rattles off more information. Where you attended school, where you currently live, the previous jobs you had in the past. 

“Simply put,” she says, “you're bait. To lure out the cambion.” 

Your eyes widen as she taps a fingertip against the image of Cam. But that doesn’t make any sense. You’ve known Cam since kindergarten, all the way until high school. Surely you would’ve noticed something different about him. Your mind’s attempts at grasping Cam’s hidden supernaturality is interrupted by Mara’s harsh laugh.

“Look at you. Your body language all but screams how much you want him. That smile, that open stance, the way you brush your fingers against his. Disgusting. In any case, you’ll be helping us rid the world of another demon. You should be grateful; the Conclave is rarely so hands on when it comes to such missions.”

It takes all your efforts to not retch in disgust. Nipping your tongue to steal yourself, you try talking again.

“You don’t know if he’ll come for me,” you say. “He could be working with the authorities instead.”

“Oh, he’ll come alright.”

The man, Saul, steps forward, carrying his weapon with a self-assuredness that makes you shrink away. He primes it with a quick motion of his hands.

“Monsters like him have a tendency of releasing their pheromones around those they’re close to. Think of it as a warning to other supernaturals that they’re protected. In turn, those pheromones react to the hormones of those they’re attached to.”

“The cambion’s keen sense of smell will pick up your distress along with his own scent,” Mara says. “And he’ll follow it all the way here.”

You try to refute their words, but are interrupted by the lights overhead flickering and shutting off. 

“I’ll check the perimeter,” Saul mutters. 

“Go.”

You’re barely able to hear Saul’s fading footsteps; in fact, they fall completely silent in the massive, empty space. When the electricity is restored, the grin Mara shoots you promises bloodshed. You can barely stand up to her stare.

“Right on cue.”

Thankfully, Saul’s return acts as a distraction. His loose grip on his modified weapon sends a frisson of fear up your spine. You hadn’t heard anything resembling gunfire. Or maybe the weapon has a silencer of some sort?

“False alarm,” Saul says. “Breaker box must be on the way out.”

Mara doesn’t reply. She only stares at him. And slowly, but surely, a vivid glow bleeds into the green of her irises. She hurls her axe at him with a swiftness you can barely see. Saul dodges out of the way with a jump, landing beside you in a crouch as the axe bites into rusted metal. There’s no time to flinch away. Not with Mara’s harsh words.

“Cut the shit and reveal yourself, demon.”

Before your eyes, Saul’s appearance wavers, like ripples on a pond’s surface. It shifts and ebbs, revealing someone else. 

Red, slitted pupils stare up at Mara surrounded by black scleras. Massive black, bat-like wings protrude from their back as black, scale-like armor appears on their upper arms, ending at the black, sharp claws tipping their fingers. The scales also cover their pelvis and digitigrade legs, ending at their clawed, three toed feet. Something long and whip-like sways out of the corner of your eye. It’s their tail, which flares out into an inverted triangle at the tip.

“Are you alright?”

You’ve know that voice and have since you were little.

“Cam?”

He nods and you notice the curled, ram-like horns jutting out from the sides of his head. 

“I’ll get you out of here,” he says softly. “Promise.”

A strange, low hum fills the air, making the hair on your neck stand on edge. In a matter of moments, Mara’s axe flings itself from where it struck and its handle comes to rest in her outstretched hand. 

“Nice illusion, cambion,” she says. “It would’ve fooled me if I wasn’t able to smell you out. Guess that’s a perk of being infused with the blood of a demon.”

Like Cam, the whites of her eyes bleed black until there it’s the only color surrounding her glowing, green irises. They soon turn a sickly green shade, one you can’t help but wince against.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?”

Mara hurls her axe again. But this time, Cam barely dodges out of the way. The force of her throws creates a breeze that skims by your sweaty face. And like before, it returns to her hand when called. 

This continues for a time with you scarcely able to keep up with their movements. If Cam isn’t fully human, then neither is Mara with the way she moves. Her motions bring to mind a feral animal in the heat of bloodlust. 

“Adding your head to my mantle will be easier if you just. Stay. STILL!”

Mara uses her whole body into her next throw. It hits true, to your horror. The blade clips Cam’s shoulder, laying him flat on his back. His wings twitch with the sudden impact as he hisses. 

“Cam!”

Mara laughs with glee, the sound crazed as it grates on your ears. You ignore it and focus on Cam.

Only to blink and see he’s vanished. 

Mara’s laughter has ceased; she’s noticed as well. Her eyes dart around and above her as she grits her teeth. 

“Show yourself!”

Only silence. Cam is nowhere to be seen. That’s when she turns her inhuman gaze to you and gives you a bloodthirsty grin.

“Guess you’ll be useful after all.”

Axe in hand, she stalks towards you. You can only mutter “no” over and over as she raises her weapon and aims the blade at your head. 

“Mara?”

She freezes. Mara looks over her shoulder with her weapon still poised over your head. 

Cam stands a stone’s throw away, holding onto his injured shoulder. In return, Mara gives a sadistic smile. Before you can formulate a warning, Mara is bearing down on Cam with a chilling scream.

“No, wait—!”

Something blocks your vision before the axe hits true. But you can still hear the wet, pulpy aftermath intermingled with pained, piercing howls and laughter. A gentle touch to your clammy cheek grounds you, refocusing your attention and blurred vision. Bat-like wings, curled ram horns...

“Cam?”

It shouldn’t be possible, but as if to confirm what you see, Cam brushes the back of his knuckles against your skin. 

“I’m here. You’re okay.”

The more he keeps repeating those words soothingly, the more you’re able to believe them. They’re so effective, you’re able to tune out what’s happening behind him. Soon enough, you’re free from your bonds and attempt to stand. But your legs buckle and a sudden dizziness overtakes you, leaving Cam to catch you. He repositions you so he holds you in a bridal carry. As a reflex, your arms wind around his neck and lock together for leverage.

Cam tucks your head under his chin, as if to prevent you from accidentally seeing any carnage. 

Neither of you say anything, even after he carries you out of the warehouse and onto the empty streets. The warmth his body naturally gives off almost lulls you. But you’re able to regain clarity after seeing what he looks like.

“Something wrong?” he asks.

“You’re...normal now.”

He looks exactly as he did when he stopped by the restaurant earlier, coke-bottle glasses included.

Cam lets out a chuckle, but you hear the nervousness interwoven in the sound.

“Can’t really walk around in my true form out in the open.”

His strained laugh is a tell-tale sign of him clamming up. You know you’ll have to keep him talking if you want any answers. 

“That woman...she mentioned illusions. What happened back there, was that an illusion?”

Cam slows to a stop and his grip on your back and thighs tightens marginally.

“Yeah. It was my doing.” 

He explains to you how he first encountered Saul and managed to get the jump on him. He then took on Saul’s appearance to get close to you. When Mara injured him, he was able to hide and retreat using another illusion. Your rescue was assured once he tracked down Saul, gave him the same injury, and cast a more complex illusion which let the both of you escape. With the crime Mara committed, she’ll soon be no more, thanks to the Conclave and their stringent rules. 

“So then,” you hedge, “the one that Mara killed was Saul.”

And it was technically by way of Cam’s doing. Cam doesn’t confirm or deny your statement. In fact, he can’t even bring himself to look you in the eye. The realization causes a painful thud in your chest. 

“Can I at least know how you found me?”

Cam resumes walking. You mention what Mara and Saul told you about pheromones and human hormones.

“That’s part of the reason. But you should actually thank Jacqui and Ben. She was able to deduce how you were taken and Ben was able to help me after I lost the trail. She used to be a hunter for the Conclave and Ben...well, he’s like me. Him and his family.”

That...would explain why Jacqui was always traveling while visiting sporadically. Your best guess is that her unpermitted absence goes against one of the Conclave’s rules, if not many of them. But with Ben… Your brows knit together, wondering if it’s possible for a whole family to be half-human and half-demon. You ask Cam this, your curiosity getting the better of you.

“What I mean is they’re supernatural,” he says. “They’re werewolves.”

Cam pauses after, and you wait quietly to see if he has anything else to say. 

“Sorry. But that’s all I’m comfortable sharing. You should talk with them directly if you want to know more.”

You nod in agreement and let your mind wrap around what you’ve learned. Without Cam’s explanation, you honestly would’ve never known about the double lives Ben and Jacqui led. After all, you didn’t know what signs to look for concerning an ex-Conclave member or a werewolf. 

The same is true for a cambion.

You push that thought towards the back of your mind for later. With the awkward air surrounding the two of you, now isn’t the time.

“Can I know if they’re safe?” you ask. 

“Don’t worry. As soon as Ben confirmed your location, he returned to his family to inform them of the situation. Don’t be surprised if the Moores decide to keep a closer eye on you. As for Jacqui, she volunteered to handle the hunters. Or at least, what’s left of them.”

“She’s going to have to leave afterwards, isn’t she?”

Cam answers with a nod. But in spite of the truth, you can’t find it in yourself to be sad. Jacqui has always been resourceful, even before meeting you. And without fail, she always shows up in town for a visit, no matter how short it may be. You know she’ll be alright, now knowing a bit more about her past and thanks to the Moores. 

That just leaves the odd air between you and Cam. 

Ignoring the fatigue building behind your eyes and in your body, you look up at him.

“Can I stay at your place for a while?”

Cam tenses, but does his best to hide his nerves with a small smile.

“I was actually about to ask you the same thing. If the hunters knew enough about you to track you down and kidnap you, it’d be best for you to lay low for a while.”

You mutter your thanks as you lay your head against his shoulder. Before exhaustion can fully take hold of you, you manage one last question.

“Are we going to fly to your place?”

Cam lets out of a muffled snort. 

“I was thinking it’d be better if I drove. My car’s back at Papa Ruben’s. It won’t take long for me to walk us there.”

With the sound of Cam’s steady heartbeat against your ear, you can’t find the energy to respond. You close your eyes and let him take control, finally feeling safe.

[twoidiotwriters1]

Pure Blood 9 (Sirius Black x F!Oc)

A/n: Maybe the longest chapter I've written ... for now. 

Words: 3,298

Masterlist

Chapter 8  // Chapter 10

Chapter 9: Lies

"Jenna, please wait," I say, taking her arm. She stops and turns to me.

"What do you want?"

"Sorry, seriously, forgive me for being so abrupt with you the other day, it was not my intention,” She raises an eyebrow waiting for more. I sigh, "Sorry for being a bad friend.”

I pout and try with my best puppy eyes.

“You'll tell me what happened with Lupin?"

Oh, that.

"It's no big deal on its own…" I bite my lip. "He agreed with Evans to be the best in every class, a stupid plan to make me fail my classes. I found out and talked to Slughorn."

She looks at me in confusion and analyzes my pathetic excuse, but seems satisfied.

"Idiots, nobody can compete with the Slytherin princess,” I smile and she imitates me. That was close.

"That's me. We’re fine, then?"

"We are," She locks her arm with mine, "Let's go to Hogsmeade"

“Wait, you’re not going with someone else? It seemed like you had a plan-” I suddenly realize what’s going on, “You knew I was going to beg your forgiveness, right?"

She lets out a laugh.

"I know you very well P," I should have guessed.

We both walked to the carriages and arrived in Hogsmeade in no time. At this time, it was already starting to get cold, it wouldn’t be long before it began to snow. Hogwarts is beautiful when it’s covered in white.

I’m wearing my usual jeans, boots, light sweater and a small scarf, while full Jenn wore boots, gray socks, a pink skirt and a cream sweater. Her blond hair is in a cute ponytail, several boys sent flirtatious smiles and she ignores them all the same.

“D'you know what would be great?"

"Eat?" I answer when I feel my stomach roar. She laughs.

“Yeah, but just before you came to your knees to apologize,” I growl. “A senior boy invited me out. I said no because I didn't feel like it. I want to start studying, I have a herbology test soon.”

"And?" She sighs.

“It's something I had to tell you before but I was angry. The thing is, I don't see anything fun in dating guys anymore”

“Maybe you’ll find someone during our vacations”

"I wish- ah, yes!" She says, shaking me, "I talked to Regulus the other day, will you stop ignoring the poor puppy?"

“Don't call him that, and yes. We're fine, I'll talk to him later,” We arrive at the three broomsticks and sit at a table near a window. A waiter took our order and left.

Jenna updated me with all the gossip at school after being a couple of days apart. When did so many things happen? I have no idea. I’d never been aware of anything, Jenna and Regulus took care of that, even if I didn't ask for it.

"Evans rejected Potter again, but this time he made a whole scene, some say he took all that out of a muggle book, Juliet and-"

"Romeo and Juliet- Shakespeare,” I interrupt her and she seems surprised.

"How do you know that?" I feel my cheeks burn and I shrink in my place.

"I heard it once,” Vile lie, the other night Remus and I talked about the popular Muggles books. He told me the plot and read some lines.

"Anyway, the plan did not work and Evans rejected him, it was fun," In that we heard the bell of the entrance and a group of girls come laughing. They sit a couple of tables away from us. "Talking about the devil…”

Lily Evans was with her friends: Marlene Mckinnon, Alice Longbottom and Elsa Smith. They haven’t noticed our presence.

"Just ignore them," I say without thinking. Jenna looks at me confused.

"That's what I usually say, because you, my dear friend, are the first to get her claws out, especially with Evans." She says raising an eyebrow. I shrug.

"I'm not in the mood to fight,” The waiter brings our butterbeers and our food.

"Wait, I didn't ask for food-“ I raise my head to call the waiter, but Jenna doesn't let me.

"I asked, I know you haven’t eaten well and that should stop.” I grimace. "Now eat, it's just a chocolate croissant, you love chocolate!”

"You play dirty,” She laughs.

The conversation continues smoothly, but something’s changed, I could see Jenna looking at the table where Lily was. She watched, sighed and turned to me with an absent expression.

"You're good? Is the table over there more interesting than my super story about how I plan to be the best Auror ever? ” She is startled.

"Everything is fine, just-" She laughs nervously, "One of the girls has a beautiful blouse, I would like to know where she got it," she says… blushing?

Wait. What?

"You should ask them, they are not far" I say finishing my plate. She shares her head.

"I know you wouldn't be comfortable if I asked, besides, I don't want to bother.” I frown.

At what time has Jenna stopped doing things to avoid making me angry?

“Come on, I know you want to go there, don't worry about me. You're just going to ask them something”

“Sure?”

“You don't have to ask me for permission, Jenn. Just go.” She nods, happier than I thought. She gets up and goes to the table.

She interrupts the conversation, but something catches my attention: they receive her as another one of their group, make a place at the table.

I may be clueless, but I thought she was not welcome in that group either. I remember that Evans also treated her like me. This is odd, but I decide not to intervene and I only watch while I drink my beer, I surely look crazy, but I don't care.

They talk and laugh, Jenna seems in her element, when did they become such friends? I think I should pay more attention, will she ever tell me?

No, I dont think so. I finish my beer and the waiter arrives to collect everything, I pay him.

I think it's my time to go, I don't want to be watching all the time.

I get up and approach the table only to say goodbye to her, but on the way I realize something.

Marlene Mckinnon and Jenna share looks and complicit smiles, both are sitting facing each other and it seems they’re not really paying attention to Alice's story. 

I frown, but it all makes sense before my friend's actions. She takes Marlene's hand under the table and holds it affectionately, then they both laugh, Jenna places a strand of her hair behind her ear and at last, approaches Marlene to whisper something. She laughs.

This can’t be.

This cannot be.

That is the technique she uses to flirt! Actually, she has several, but with Marlene she has put them all together.

Jenna likes Marlene!

“Do you need something, Singh?" At that moment I notice that I’m right in front of your table, just watching and probably with my mouth open.

I shake my head.

"Sorry I just-" I don't know what to say, Jenna looks at me, maybe wondering if I saw her technique and of course I saw her. I share a look with her and bite my lip. "I... I was leaving and-"

I say, and they all just looked at me confused. Jenna gets up and takes me by the shoulders. I thought the surprises were ending, but no. A small glow catches my attention. I look at Marlene's hand and let out a gasp. Jenna quickly covers my mouth and surrounds me with her free arm.

"Well girls, we're leaving," She says as I try to talk about her hand causing only stifled noises. I move to get out of her grip, but it doesn't work.

Jenna drags me through the place until we get out of it, walks to a small alley and forces me to be against the wall without removing her hand from my mouth.

"Persephone!"

"You never call me that!" It's what I wanted to say, but only muffle noises keep coming.

"Stop moving!”

I can't with this. I pass my tongue over her hand and she screams.

”Persephone! That's gross!”

"Yes, good. You should wash your hands more often,” I complain and fix my clothes, “What the fuck was that?” She grimaces.

"What are you talking about?" I'm too tense for this.

"She has your bloody ring, Jenna!" I scream no matter who could happen to hear us, she doesn't try to shut me up, "Marlene Mckinnon! She has the ring that you never take off, the one you don't let me touch, the ring your mom gave you since you were little! Why the fuck does that mudblood-?”

No wait. That’s wrong. Jenna looks down for a moment and when it looks up my heart is shattered into a thousand pieces

"No, I mean-“ I clear my throat "Why does she have it... why?" Yes, better.

This is what I call progress. Her eyes tear up and she fidgets.

“Sorry, I didn't want to call her that. Sorry…” I say hugging her.

She cries a little on my shoulder and then returns the hug.

"What's going on, Jenna?" I say as we part, she waves a hand near her face.

"I didn't want you to know,"She sobs

"Wait, all that speech that you were fed up with all the boys here, was because you wanted to date girls?”

"Something like that,” We’re silent for a few seconds.

"I'm stupid."

"Persephone, I know what you think and maybe that's why I didn't tell you, but I think... I really like her, I don't care if we're girls or Muggles-“

"Stop there,” I say raising my hand "I am processing this.”

“P-"

"All this time, you haven't dated anyone since we came here, and I just told you that you would find another idiot out of Hogwarts?”

"Yes?" She replies.

"I'm stupid. How did I not realize before?" I hit my forehead, "Sure, because you could only be with a boy- ugh,” I growl. "There are also girls-“

I look at her.

"Of course you can be with one of them- well you're with one-“

"Wait, I don't understand. Are you upset that you didn't realize?" It seems like a joke, but yes. I sigh.

"Sorry for not being aware of all this, Jenna" I hold her hands, "I feel like I've been very selfish for many years…”

"Hey, honey," She takes my chin and laughs. "It's okay!”

"No, it isn't" I let go of her grip, "I just thought about my problems and I didn't realize many things -with Regulus or with you- I feel like crap.”

She laughs again.

"What are you laughing at, idiot? I'm having a moment,” Now she laughs louder.

"P, I can't believe it," She says, trying to calm herself down. "I was scared that you might get mad because I like a girl or because she is Muggles' daughter, but it bothers you that you didn’t know."

"I don’t see whah’s so funny,” I pout.

"Quiet, P. Everything’s fine,” She smiles shyly.

"Do you really like her?" I venture and she nods. Suddenly I scream, "My best friend is in love!”

She tries to cover my mouth again, but now I stop her, we both fight as we laugh.

"Don't say that strong word!” I let out a laugh.

"Strong word your ass,” At some point, my leg fail and I fall to the ground, Jenna just laughs.

“It's a pleasure to be your clown, seriously. I live for that,” I say sitting up. I rub my back.

"You're an idiot.”

"You too. An idiot in loooove,” I tease and she blushes “Oh, are you shy now?”

"No, it's just weird to hear you say it," She says, helping me to get up.

“It’s not bad to say it or be it. Besides, you are in love, why would you give her your ring if not? ”

I say brushing off the dirt from my clothes.

"Well, I had to give her something, after being together for so long,” I frown.

"How long have you been dating, Jenna?" She is surprised and realizes what she’d said. “Jenna?”

How is it that a few minutes ago we were laughing and now I'm afraid of what she could say?

"Two years…” she whispers, but I can hear her perfectly.

"What!?" She steps back.

"I can explain it-“

"I hear you…” I step back a little and cross my arms. She opens and closes her mouth several times. "You have been dating her for two years. And you didn't deign to tell me?"

"I didn't know how to tell you!” The tears are coming back.

“When were you going to do it? When we leave school? While living together or would you also hide it? While one of you were expecting a baby!?” I exploded.

“No- I…” I can't do this, I don't want to see her crying, but I can't just say ‘Oh, okay, it was only two years that you lied to me.’

“After the scene you did before coming here because I hid something from you and you had the biggest secret of all…” Now I’m tearing up. "You know? It hurts that you couldn't tell me, I thought we were friends.”

"We are, but... you don't understand” I let out a dry laugh.

“I don’t, you're right- For two years…”

I’ve had enough. I leave the alley and walk through the streets of Hogsmeade.

I may be exaggerating, maybe she really didn't know how to tell me, was she that afraid of me? She thought I was going to be angry about her blood status or her sexuality? How bad have I been? She was wrong not to tell me, but I was worse at creating that insecurity.

My vision is clouded by tears, I don’t see where I’m going until I collide with a man, I step back a little and clean my eyes.

"I'm so sorry, I didn’t know where I was going-“

"My intention was to come to you, sweetie." I look up to meet a tall man, he’s got dark hair and eyes. His face is covered with freckles and a kind smile.

"Alphard?" I say with a smile.

He opens his arms and smiles. I don't wait any longer and hug him as hard as I can.

“This is a good hug, not like Sirius's. That boy is shy for everything,” I laugh in his chest. We break apart.

"Why were you crying, my love?" He says touching my cheek.

"Oh, it's nothing" He stares at me.

"You know you can't lie to me,” I huff.

“I argued with my best friend…”

"Tell Uncle Alphard everything.”

________________________

"Did you talk to Sirius?" The man nods, eating his candy. After going to Honeydukes we sat on a bench near a small bush.

"Yes, he seemed very upset, he told me about the great news of marriage," I shudder, "How do you feel about it, honey?” I sigh.

"Being honest- I'm angry, I didn't think they were going to do it, but at the same time I'm not surprised they did it,” I take a bite of my chocolate frog.

He nods.

“I understand you both. I think the strange thing was that they prepared it so soon, for me they did it at the beginning of my seventh year.”

"But you were never married, Uncle Alphard-“ He laughs.

"Maybe, but that didn't stop them from trying to arrange a marriage for convenience," I look surprised.

"How did you get out of that?"

"Oh, you have the same look as Sirius, but I'm sorry, it's not like I got out of that responsibility, sweetie," I grimace.

"So?"

He sighs.

“I had a girlfriend when I was about to finish school, of course she was pure blood. Not that it was a requirement for me, since I was young I did not share the same beliefs as my family, but I suppose I was lucky to find Endora,” He smiles nostalgic, “she was sweet and affectionate, it was also pure luck that her parents had a Good job in the ministry. We were in love, and we planned to get married. I was willing to leave a lot of broken hearts.” He jokes and I hit his shoulder. We both laugh.

"What happened?" His smile is erased.

“She… she got sick. Shortly after she died- I was devastated, my parents felt sorry for me, they also loved Endora- so they didn't pressure me to get married”

I see the man sitting next to me, looking at the floor, maybe remembering those good moments.

I always thought of Alphard Black as the best uncle anyone could have. He’s funny, affectionate, always helped us with mischief or covered us when we planned something. He made fun of the other adults and didn't take things seriously, he was our best accomplice, the best partner.

"If Sirius dies, I may have a chance," I said half-joking.

“I don't believe it, sweetie. My sister can be hell, I don't think she is as compassionate as our parents,” He says.

We both laugh. He looks at me and puts a lock of my hair away.

“You look as beautiful as ever, I don't understand why Sirius and you aren’t together…” At that moment I feel a knot in my stomach and I groan, causing a laugh from him.

"Don't even joke about it”

“Oh, young people… so stupid. They don't realize anything-”

"Shut up, old man.”

"Do you remember when we stole Walburga's birthday cake?" He says excitedly, like a little boy. I nod laughing.

“You distracted the adults while we stole it. But Regulus was very small and clumsy, the cake fell down getting everyone's attention.”

“The best thing was that we ate it anyway!”

This was what I liked most about Alphard, he always makes the pain in my stomach go away.

"Uncle, I thought you were gone…” The four marauders come to our side.

I settle in my place, uncomfortable because of their presence. Remus gives me a smile and I return it for a brief second.

“Can't I enjoy a day in Hogsmeade with a beautiful young lady, nephew?”

"You can, just that you're missing the beautiful lady.” James and Sirius laugh like idiots and I roll my eyes.

“Don't be a jealous child, Sirius. Behave.” I look at the man. Sirius stops laughing and clears his throat. The only adult he listens to is his uncle.

“It's a pleasure to see you, Mr. Black,” adds Remus, always so polite.

"Yes, it’s cool. Sirius was very selfish in not telling us that you would come,” Potter teases, hitting his friend.

"I had to talk to him about important issues," Sirius mumbles, looking at me.

“I'm glad to see you guys too. But I think I must go…” I can't help pouting, watching his movements, “Come on, sweetie. I promise to have another meeting with you” I nod while Sirius lets out a snort.

Alphard gets up and gives me a hug.

“You know you can write to me whenever you want, Persephone.”

“Okay…” He kisses my forehead and moves away a little. He waves goodbye to the others and puts a hand on Sirius's shoulder.

“I hope our conversations has served you, guys. Although, I forgot to mention something…” He smiles, “You should ask for help from your friends, you’d be surprised of how many unions can be ruined by a good plan”

Everyone sees the man in utter confusion. Everyone, but one person, that understood clearly what he’d meant.

Taglist: 

@treestarrrrrrrr @siriuslysirius1107 @thagreenmoonblack @madmaiden2890 @bloodorangemoonlight​   @ren-ela​   @avipshamitra​  @auroraaawrites   @findzelda

[itslieutenanthawkeye]

Day 2 of Jeankasa Smut Week 2021: First Time

"In the moonlight"

Ao3

Before they move out for college, Gothkasa takes Jean to the place where she wants them to have their first time.

Disclaimer: This contains explicit smut. Please make sure to practice safe sex.

Jean pulled up to her driveway at six, sharp. She didn’t like to wait long for dates, so he always made a point of showing up in time. Some of his friends always made fun of him when it came to all the things he did to keep her happy, but Jean didn’t care. Those guys would never even stand a chance to date someone as smart and beautiful as Mikasa Ackerman.

Besides, it wasn’t like she demanded to be spoiled to be happy; in fact, Mikasa was surprisingly easy to keep happy.

That was why he made an extra effort to keep her extra happy. A woman like her was not one to be left waiting, a woman like her deserved nothing but sweet, honest words and actions, presents, quality time together.

“Kirstein, I can’t believe you went ahead and got it,” she said as she stepped out of her front porch. She looked as lovely as ever, with her dark eyeshadow, pink cheeks, and purple lipstick. Today, she had her hair loose, which cascaded down her shoulders, dark as a raven’s wing.

Her clothes, however…Jean had to force himself not to stare. She wore a short, sleeveless dress that only reached her midthighs. The rest of her legs, she’d covered with pretty black stockings that were almost see through. On her neck, she wore a lace collar, while her collarbones and chest were exposed.

“I-of course!” Jean said, shaking his head to keep himself from staring. “We’ll be in college next month, won’t we? I thought this would be a good way to move around.”

They were going to move in together to an apartment in Trost in only a couple of weeks. Jean would’ve married her right out of school, but his family and her parents had insisted on holding off until they lived together for at least half a year to start thinking about long term commitments.

“I can teach you to ride it,” he said as he climbed off the motorcycle and offered her the purple helmet he’d bought for her.

Mikasa smiled when she took it. “How can I pay you back?”

Jean smiled back and put a hand on her waist to pull her closer. Her lips met his readily, welcoming and sweet. “Just keep looking pretty.”

“I was thinking about another type of payment.” She said, looking up at him with serious eyes. “Something that involves my body,”

“Stop teasing,” Jean cleared his throat, suddenly feeling hot in his face, but Mikasa’s lips were on his before he said anything.

He welcomed her mouth, parting his lips so she could put her tongue inside him, and sighed in delight when she put her arms on his shoulders and pressed herself to him. His hands went to her waist, and then to rest on her buttocks. When Mikasa pressed the spot between her legs on his thighs, Jean squeezed her butt in his large hands, feeling his dick grow inside his pants.

“Mikasa,” a sweet voice said from the door. She stepped away from him, turning to see her mother standing on the doorstep. “Honey, you forgot your backpack. And stop making out on here while your father’s inside.”

Mikasa took the backpack from her mom, and they exchanged a tiny smile. “Hello, Mrs. Ackerman.”

“Hi, Jean, darling,” the woman said, giving him a sincere smile. “That’s a nice motorcycle.”

Jean scratched the back of his head, smiling awkwardly. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“He bought it himself,” Mikasa said in a complicit tone of voice.

“To get yourselves killed, I’m sure,” her father said, showing up at the door with a newspaper in his hand and a frown. “Hey, Jean, how are you tonight?”

Jean cleared his throat; he always felt like a little kid when Mikasa’s parents were around. “I’m good, sir, how about you?”

“I’m concerned about you two, thanks,” Mr. Ackerman said, then his eyes went to the motorcycle. “Are you two going out in that?”

“We’ll be fine,” Mikasa said, standing on her tiptoes to give her father a kiss on the cheek. “Dad, we’re eighteen. Jean has a permit. We’ll be alright.”

Mr. Ackerman wasn’t satisfied with her words. “How far are you two going again, Jean?”

“It’s the sea festival,” Mikasa explained, going down the steps and walking back in Jean’s direction. And again, Jean forced himself to not stare at the swaying of her breasts as she went towards him. She must’ve been wearing one of those flimsy lace bras she loved so much; heavens, how much he longed to see how it looked on her (although he knew she surely looked fantastic).

“All the way to the beach?” her dad said, his eyes wide. A second later, he was shaking his head. “No, you’re not going in that to the beach.”

“Dad, we’re moving out in a month,” Mikasa said. “We’ve been on a motorcycle before.”

“If it’s a festival, people are going to be drunk on the way back,” he told her. Mrs. Ackerman was looking at her husband with a gaze so sweet, Jean wondered if he and Mikasa should just head out and let them be at peace. “And you’re not even using pants. What if something happens? You’re going to get so injured—”

“Dad,” Mikasa said, walking back towards her parents. “What do you want me to do?”

Mr. Ackerman peeked into the house for a second before giving her a pair of keys. “Take the car. Also, don’t get drunk.”

Mikasa took the keys and looked back at him to shake them questioningly, and Jean nodded in agreement. He loved her too much to say no to her, and besides, her father had made plenty of valid points. As much as he wanted to take her out on a ride on their new motorcycle, he didn’t want to risk her getting hurt. He loved her too much.

__________________________

Mikasa looked out the window for a moment, noticing the full moon peeking through the trees as they moved away from the city and into the highway. Taylor swift was playing on the radio, and she smiled when Jean started to sing the lyrics to Paper Rings in a low voice while moving his head to the rhythm. He was untangling her earphones, which she’d buried deep in her bag that afternoon, when the very last bell had rung to let them know school was over.

“That lipstick of yours is good,” Jean said absent mindedly. “It didn’t even smudge when you kissed me.”

“It smudges when you get your mouth really wet,” Mikasa said, casting a glance at her boyfriend. He wore a silly pair of trousers today, but the fabric of the pants wasn’t as thick as Jeans would’ve been, and Mikasa had felt the bulge in his pants when they’d kissed.

He wanted her as much as she wanted him, she was sure.

“So, how’s Eren?” Jean asked, giving her a sideways glance.

“He sent me a picture today,” she said, dipping a hand in her back to bring out her phone. “Look it up; he and Armin climbed the volcano today. Armin roasted marshmallows on the way to the top.”

Jean put his fingerprint against the home button, and the phone unlocked. They had access to each other’s phones not out of insecurities, but simply because it was easier that way. Things were ridiculously easy with him, and she adored that. She loved the quiet, peaceful certainty that she was loved by a man whose feelings would not change; she loved that she could love him back as intensely and as weirdly as she wanted, and he would not judge her for it.

“Hey, Armin’s face is all red, and he looks like a dumbass,” Jean chuckled, pointing at Eren. “They go to the islands next, right? It looks like they’re on vacation, though. Aren’t they supposed to be helping Grisha on his expedition?”

And to think she’d considered him annoying before. Mikasa smiled, then gave Jean another look.

“What is it?” Jean asked as she turned to look back at the road.

“I’m glad the charm didn’t work,” Mikasa said, recalling that repellent charm she’d given him on their first year of high school, in which he’d incessantly tried to get her to go out with him. She’d found him annoying, incredibly annoying, but they’d been young. Now, they were proper adults. Well, now they were both eighteen, and things had changed.

“What charm?” Jean asked, confused. “Did I buy you the wrong things?”

Mikasa shook her head, smiling more. He didn’t only not judge her interests, but also took an active part in them, he was interested in everything she did, and she was pretty sure he’d had a conversation with the great god of the underworld during one of their full moon seances. He was also smart, and he could stay in silence with her for long periods of time without feeling uncomfortable.

And wickedly handsome, especially now that his hair had grown a bit, and there was a stubble adorning his chin. He’d also grown taller. It all made him look more like an adult, and Mikasa trembled at the thought of being held by his muscular arms.

She clutched the steering wheel and took a deep breath, trying to not let her nerves get the best of her as she turned right, into a stretch of road she’d scouted weeks ago, a little while after Jean had asked her to live with him after school finished.

“This isn’t the exit, babe,”

“I know,” Mikasa said, turning on the headlights. The road was quiet, and the only sources of light were the moon and headlights from their car. They drove in silence for a little while until the road stopped abruptly in front of a thick stretch of forest. Mikasa parked the car in front of the trees, turning off the headlights.

“Mika, this isn’t the way to the beach,” he said, staring at the forest ahead. “What are we doing?”

“Jean,” Mikasa said. “Kiss me?”

She never had to ask twice when it came to kissing. He always said yes when she asked, he always did it enthusiastically. When his mouth met hers, his kiss was sweet, slow. But Mikasa didn’t want that. She pushed her tongue into his mouth, making him moan against her lips. She rubbed her tongue against his, moving it in circles as she caressed his hair.

“Mikasa,” Jean whispered, looking at the rearview mirror as she kissed his neck. “What if someone sees us?!”

“No one will see,” Mikasa said, then reached out to adjust the seat he was on. Jean fell backwards, kissing her nonstop. Her hands went to the zipper of his pants, searching in the low light.

“Mika!” Jean said. “Someone might come.”

“Yes, you will come, in my mouth,” Mikasa said as she searched inside his pants and released his dick. She gave his shaft a hard stroke; the light was too dim to see much, but she could feel it beginning to throb and harden in her hand. “Jean, let me make you feel good.”

Breathing heavily, Jean took a hold of her head and brought her lips back against his, and this time it was his tongue the one that was desperately playful. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then, yes,” he moaned. “Yes, please, do anything you want.”

Mikasa smiled and straightened again, giving his dick another rub before tying her hair back in a ponytail. The sole action of her tying her hair made his dick twitch wildly, and it also made Jean groan from deep within his throat. She leaned forward, rubbing his shaft both hands. Jean was tall, and she guessed that played a part in how big he was, but it never failed to turn her own, feeling his girth in her hands.

She licked the base of his dick, then her tongue made the sweet journey across his shaft all the way to the head of his penis. There was precum there, and Mikasa licked it off his skin. Jean groaned, one of his hands was on her butt, underneath her dress and already looking for a way inside her panties, while his other was rubbing the top of her head.

He was holding back, she knew. He always held back when she gave him head; she understood he didn’t want to hurt her nor make her uncomfortable, and she loved that sweet side of him, but now she wanted something else to accompany that sweetness.

Mikasa parted her lips and took him into her mouth. The first time she’d given him head, she’d almost choked on his dick by the sheer size of it, but that had been a month ago. Now, she was used to the feeling of his cock against the back of her throat; her body had adjusted to that huge piece of meat he carried between his legs.

This time wasn’t the exception. Mikasa brought her head down, feeling her chin opening further to allow him deeper inside, and made a sucking motion as she came back up. Jean was breathing heavily now, and she knew, from the throbbing of his dick inside her mouth, that he would reach his orgasm soon.

She pulled out the dick out of her mouth and went to give his balls a lick. She put them whole inside her mouth, all the while rubbing him. Jean’s groans became faster, but she wasn’t sure if that was because she had his balls in her mouth or because the hand inside her panties had found her wetness.

“I’m going to cum soon,”

Mikasa let go of his balls and put his dick into her mouth again; she went down and up on it, one hand squeezing his shaft, the other squeezing his balls as she sucked on him. Jean’s free hand hovered over her head, but he withdrew it a second later.

She knew what he wanted to do, but she also knew he didn’t want to overdo it. Mikasa smiled, his dick inside her mouth still. He was so sweet.

She pulled out to look up at him now that their eyes had adjusted to the dark. Her hands didn’t stop rubbing him when she spoke; she didn’t stop teasing the tip of his dick with her fingers. “Go ahead, Kirstein, you know you want to do it.”

Jean looked at her with reddened cheeks, his eyes full of pleasure and longing. “I don’t want to make you sore,”

“I’m giving you permission,” she said, coming back up to his mouth to kiss him quickly. “You can do it. Please, do it.”

Mikasa went back to pay attention to his cock, and this time, when she opened her mouth and took him inside her, Jean grabbed a handful of her hair in both hands and brought her down all the way to the base of his dick. Mikasa moaned as he moved her head up and down in sweet, but passionate movements. One of her hands went under her shirt, to stimulate her already hard nipples. She crossed her legs, feeling a delicious throbbing between them. She wanted him so badly.

“I’m going to cum,” he groaned deeply. “Come up here, I need to cum. I’m gonna fill your mouth otherwise, Mika—”

Mikasa shook her head, and continued sucking on his cock. He didn’t take long to finish after that; hot liquid spread in her mouth and deep down her throat, the taste salty and familiar. She could feel her panties sticking to her skin now; less than ten minutes of giving him pleasure and she was already soaked.

When she straightened again, Jean held her face between his two large hands. He leaned forward and kissed her, uncaring about whatever remains of his bodily fluids lingered inside her mouth. She’d discovered he was naughty in that regard, and he never refused a kiss after she’d given him head. “Now, it’s your turn,” he whispered, licking his lips in anticipation. “Lie back, I’ll make you come all over my face,”

Mikasa shook her head, giving him a shy kiss on the cheek. “Not here,” she said, unlocking the doors.

Jean blinked, confused. “What do you mean?”

“There’s a spot not too far. Join me,” she said, giving him another quick peck on the cheek. Jean smiled, and she knew he’d never refuse her. He adored her, he adored her with every bit of his being. And Mikasa adored him right back.

_________________

She held his hand as they walked through the forest, walking with certainty, certain of where she was headed to. Jean followed her in silence; he was used to her little seances and moon rituals in the woods by now…he’d even grown to enjoy them, although he hadn’t enjoyed that one time in which that scary voice had spoken to him.

The clearing was forty-five minutes away from where they’d left the car, and it was a beautiful place by the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean. It had the shape of an almost perfect semi-circle, lined with tall willows and a small creek running on the westernmost part of it. “This is a new place,” he said, recalling most of their midnight seances were in the woods by her mother’s shop.

“I found it a while ago,” she dropped her bag in the middle of the clearing, where the moonlight illuminated the stretch of tall grass perfectly. Jean walked towards the creek; he loved it when she found little pockets of nature like this, but he also didn’t like picturing her walking that stretch of woods on her own. “I was with Armin and Eren, don’t worry. They came with me,”

Jean sighed; at first, it had only been him the one able to read her like a book. She’d learned this past year, however, how easy it was to guess his thoughts. “This is cute,” he said, pointing out at a series of mushrooms growing on the sides of the creek. “The colors are—”

Mikasa pulled him back by the arm, shaking her head. “Don’t touch anything,” she said in an urgent tone. “They will be angry.”

“Who will?”

“The forest spirits!” Mikasa whispered.

“I’m sorry,” he said, unsure which forest god or spirit she was talking about. He looked over his shoulder, smiling awkwardly at nothing. “I’m sorry!”

She giggled, leading him to where she’d laid out a thick blanket and a series of pink and red candles. There was a bottle of wine and chocolates, and some preheated pizzas “What’s this?” Jean asked, giving her a kiss on the temple, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Is this a romantic dinner for me?”

Mikasa smiled up at him; she was tall, but the more time passed, the more Jean grew, and now he was a full ten centimeters taller. He knew she didn’t like that cocky part of him, but Jean had to admit he liked being taller than her. “Sit with me, please,”

They sat in the middle of the clearing, under the candlelight and the soft silver light coming from the full moon above. Jean ignored the food and went for her lips; the purple lipstick was properly smudged after giving him oral, and Jean wanted to take the rest off with kisses.

“Jean,” she said, pushing him away a minute later. “Look at me,”

“I am,” he said, cupping her face with a hand. “What is it?”

Mikasa took a deep breath and, in the dim light, he was able to see her cheeks were of a deep shade of pink. “Tonight, I want you to make love to me here.”

Jean’s mouth fell open in shock. They’d started doing things other than making out a month ago, mind you, and he’d supposed they would make love the moment they finished moving into their new apartment. This request was new, a surprise he had not seen coming.

He’d showered, he’d shaved, he’d put cologne on…because he thought they would spend most of the night at the sea festival, and he wanted to look good while out and about with the most beautiful woman in the island.

“A-are you sure?”

Mikasa looked up at the moon, then back at him. “It is a perfect night.”

“Is this some sort of ritual?” Jean asked, suddenly concerned. “Mikasa, if you’re doing this just because of what those books say, I don’t want you to force yourself to do something—”

She put a finger against his lips, squirming and pressing her legs together. Her dress had gone up to her upper thighs, and from there he could see the wetness coating her pretty pink panties. “I saw this place and knew this is where it had to happen,”

“What are you talking about?”

Mikasa went to her knees, putting her hands on his shoulders, straddling his thigh. The feel of her soft skin was enough to drive him insane with desire. “Our first time,” she whispered, leaning forward to kiss him as she pressed her wetness on his thigh.

Jean had to force himself to think clearly. “Are you sure this isn’t some sort of ritual?” he asked her; he had fun joining her in her expeditions into the woods, but he’d never made love to another person. He wanted his first time with her to be special, he didn’t want it to be just the preamble to one of her moonlight rituals.

She lowered her face. “It isn’t a ritual. I want to make love to you, Jean,” she said, and he could almost feel the heat in her cheeks. “But I don’t want my first time to be in just an apartment. I saw this place, and I knew I wanted you here.”

“Why’s that?”

Mikasa lowered her head a little more. “It’s romantic,”

“And?” Jean asked, sensing there was still something she wasn’t saying.

Mikasa closed her eyes, her voice becoming lower even. “It reminded me of that Twilight scene, when they’re in that meadow…”

Laughter bubbled up in his chest, but Jean forced himself to not react loudly; she’d just admitted something embarrassing, and he didn’t want her to think he was mocking her. He grabbed her face with one hand, then chuckled. “You are so cute,” he said, using his other hand to firmly hold her against his thigh. He moved her back and then forward, and the rubbing motion made her moan out loud. “Mikasa, I love you.”

She blushed at that. “I love you too,”

“I’ll make love to you anywhere you want,” he said, brushing her hair away from her face. “I just want to know if you’re sure. We can wait a little longer, you know? We can come back here when the moon’s full again. I can wait—”

She pressed her mouth against his, moving back and forth against his thigh, as if she were riding a horse. The wetness was leaking, dripping, he could feel it dripping onto the thin fabric of his pants. “I want you now,” she said, licking the corner of his mouth. Mikasa rubbed herself a little more on his thigh, and Jean didn’t even care about the wet stain she would leave in his pants. “I want you inside me now,”

Jean grabbed her by the waist with both hands now. “I want you too, Ackerman.”

He’d wanted her for so long, it almost seemed like a dream to be in her arms then. His younger self had only wanted to take her out for a bite to eat, that was that…think that she’d kissed him now, and she was asking for him to make love to her…Jean smiled widely as his hands searched her dress and lifted it over her head.

He was the luckiest man in the world.

“Holy fuck,” he said when he saw the lace bra she wore, which had intricate strappings that were tightly adjusted against her pale skin. The lace was transparent, and when Jean caught a sight of her pierced nipples, he almost came in his pants. “When…when did you get them pierced?”

Mikasa smiled; in the month they’d started doing naughty things, they hadn’t seen each other properly naked yet, and she was clearly amused by his reaction. “Just a little while ago.”

Jean ran a thumb over each nipple through the fabric of her bra, making her moan. “They look so fucking good,” he muttered, running his thumbs over the nipples again, loving the way they perked up and hardened. “Can I?”

She smiled at him. “It unclasps at the front.”

Thank god for that, Jean thought. It would be much easier to make sense of the straps that way. It was a sexy bra, there was no doubt, but Jean was a virgin still. He hadn’t mastered the art of unclasping bras.

“You’re so beautiful,” he muttered, running his thumbs over her nipples, giving one of the little rings a pull, fascinated by her squeal. “Can I suck on these?”

Mikasa nodded, closing her eyes. She looked so beautiful, sitting naked on his thighs. Jean enveloped her pink nipple with his mouth and gave a little suck, feeling the taste of metal and sweat, fascinated by it. His girlfriend moaned, pressing her face against the top of his head, squirming even more on his thigh.

He sucked on it more, using his other thumb to stimulate the other nipple. “You’re perfect,” he whispered hotly as he moved from one breast to the other. “I could suck on these all night,”

Ah, he could. Her breasts were full and soft, and her nipples hard with the touch of his tongue. He wanted nothing other but to suck and lick them for hours and hours…but there was another spot that required attention, a spot he adored having on his mouth. Jean straightened and went to kiss her lips, teasing and squeezing her breasts and nipples the whole time.

“You’ve got purple lipstick all over your face,” she giggled, running her fingers across his mouth to wipe him. The purple was almost gone from her lips, but Jean didn’t care. She looked perfect with and without make up.

“You’ve got purple here, too,” Jean chuckled, giving her nipple another teasing, gentle pull. Indeed, he’d stained her pale breasts with some of the lipstick lingering on his mouth. “Lay back now,”

Mikasa climbed off his thigh and laid on the blanket, pretty and naked as the moon. Jean kneeled in front of her, running his long, lean fingers across her legs, caressing every bit of her body. She watched him with lust in her eyes, her chest rising and falling quickly, seductively.

He placed himself in front of her legs and parted them, revealing her soaked panties. He could see the outline of her slit from how wet she was, he could see her throbbing. His dick was hard in his pants, and all he wanted was to be inside her.

“You’re dripping,” he said, running a teasing finger alongside her slit. Mikasa shivered at his touch. “Can I take these off?”

She nodded, biting her lower lip.

Jean removed her panties painfully slow, enjoying the anticipation that grew in her face. She was so cute. “I’m going to make you cum now,” he informed her, parting her legs even more. “I’m going to lick you until you cum all over my face.”

“Jean,” she panted, closing her eyes. “Stop teasing me,”

He smiled wickedly, admiring the pretty color of her wet pussy. He gave it a tentative lick, running his tongue from bottom to the top of it, pressing the tip of his tongue on the pleasure bulge he’d touched in the dark before, when their kisses had turn into touching. Mikasa moaned loudly, and Jean was sure that they would need to get some sort of soundproofing for their apartment.

“You taste so good,” he moaned before burying his face in her wetness.

He’d learned to please her through trial and error the past month, but now he knew how she liked her clit played with, he knew what movements to do with his mouth to have that delicious juice of hers spill out of her pussy and onto his face.

Jean found the little bulge of pleasure and spat a little on it, then he enveloped it with his mouth and sucked. Mikasa drew in a breath, and a lovely moan escaped her throat. Jean sucked on it a little more, teasing the entrance of her pussy with his fingers as he gave her sweet nipples a tug and a squeeze.

He buried his face in his pussy, enjoying her taste, her scent, her sweet moans. Giving her oral was a feast of senses he would never tire of, and now they wouldn’t stop at just giving each other oral, or touching each other. Tonight, they would go all the way.

Jean moved his tongue with more intent, and introduced his index finger in her slit, just a little. She moaned louder; with his thumb, he made the same circular motions on her nipple as the one he was doing on her clit with his tongue. The juices were piling up on his face, and she was already dripping onto the blanket she’d laid out.

Jean straightened, wiping his face with the back of his hand. Mikasa looked up at him, her eyes demanding, telling him to get back to what he was doing. He smiled at her, giving her nipple a little tug. “Just a second,”

He took off that ridiculous looking yellow vest his mother had forced him to wear (to cause a good impression to her parents) and then he unbuttoned his shirt, certain he would get soaked if she kept leaking the way he was. Then, he came to his feet, struggling slightly with his pants and underwear. As he did so, however, he saw her rubbing her clit as she watched him, while her other hand was busy tugging on her nipple the way he’d been doing it before.

Jean leaned forward again, moving her hand away from her pussy. “Let me do it, please,” he said in a hoarse whisper, burying his face again. “I love eating you out.”

His tongue flicked over her clit, and his finger went back inside her. He ate her out hungrily, like a man who had not drank a drop of water in years. He didn’t even know where his movements came from; he acted on instinct, guided only by her moans, and Jean liked to think he did it well. Mikasa grabbed him by the hair, lifting herself off the ground and moaning loudly.

When she came, Jean opened his mouth as much as he could to catch all the wetness. And once his thirst had been satiated, he used his tongue to clean the inner part of her thighs.

She was breathing heavily by the time he came back up to kiss her, and she welcomed his lips without any qualms or protests. “I’m ready,” she panted, her cheeks of a bright red, her nipples hard against the skin of his chest. “I’m ready now, Jean.”

“Wait, protection—”

“I’m taking pills,” she said, then pointed at her bag. “There are condoms in the bag.”

“Very resourceful,” Jean said, smiling flirtingly. She’d known what she wanted to do tonight, and he had had no idea. He loved it, but still, Jean wished he could have prepared mentally for it.

He leaned forward, kissing her while his hand massaged her clit, making her wet to take him inside. This was the girl he’d loved for so long; this was the woman he wanted to be with forever. When he said he wanted to marry her, some people said he was young and that the world was larger and had many more women out there waiting, but Jean didn’t care about other women.

This woman was the one he wanted, the one that filled his soul with warmth. He was young, but he was so, so in love, he didn’t want to imagine anyone that wasn’t her. He wanted to love her, spoil her, he wanted to please her as much as he could.

Jean stopped kissing her suddenly. As good as he’d gotten at giving her oral, he had no experience with actual sex. Heavens, he’d barely held on for five minutes when she had sucked him off in the car. She was wet, but he knew he was well endowed. What if it hurt her? What if it hurt her and he only managed to last a minute?

He would never be able to look at her face again.

“Jean,” she said in a low voice, cupping his face between two hands. “Do you want us to wait?”

“Wait?”

She gave him a shy smile. “You look scared,”

Jean smiled, exhaling as he neared her neck to kiss it. “I want to make you feel good.”

“I know. And you are.”

“What if I’m not good?” Jean said, looking at her in the eyes. “What if I only last a minute? Mikasa touch me, I’m about to burst—”

She lifted her head and kissed him, her hands finding his dick and giving it a long, hard rub. “I’m new at it too,” she said, massaging the nape of his neck.

“I want to make you feel good. I’m scared I won’t,”

Mikasa frowned for a second, then considered his words for a minute. “I don’t care,”

“Huh?”

“If the first time isn’t good, we can do it again,” she said, using her sweet hands to rub him more, bringing all the blood back to his cock. “And again…”

“And again,” Jean finished saying, smiling. Mikasa nodded, then ran her hands across his torso.

“I’m ready,”

“Alright,” he said, parting her beautiful legs. The moon shone down on her, almost making her pale skin glow under the silver light. Her face, her shoulders, her neck and ears, it was all red, and she was heaving in anticipation. Jean rubbed the head of his dick against her entrance, and more wetness came out of her slit, making delicious, lustful noises. Fuck, she was so hot. “Tell me if it hurts, please.”

Mikasa nodded, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Jean kissed her mouth, then pushed inside.

_____________________-

She’d decided this would be the place in which they would make love weeks ago, on an expedition with Armin and Eren to find a good spot to watch the yearly meteor showers. Armin hadn’t liked it, since there were so too trees blocking the view and there was too much humidity that would put his telescopes at risk.

Mikasa had loved it, though.

And during the weeks leading up to the end of school, she’d dreamed about having him naked in the meadow. After reading about how the full moon increased sexual arousal, she’d determined that the festival night would be the perfect night to do it for the first time, before they left to live in the bigger city.

She hadn’t told Jean because she knew he would freak out the days leading up to it, and instead had decided to study her best to be prepared for the night. Yes, she had read books about first times, and she’d mentally prepared herself for the pain, for the awkwardness of it all.

So far, it had been perfect. But Jean had that beautiful, special talent to make her feel at ease and comfortable anywhere.

Jean went into her slow, his eyes locked on hers as he made his way inside her. Mikasa’s body opened to give way to him; there was a bit of a stinging that came with it, but it was nothing like she’d read in books.

In most romance books, the female lead always described losing her virginity as painful and uncomfortable, but there was nothing painful about Jean entering her. There was a bit of a discomfort and pressure at first, but it was soon overshadowed by the wetness, by his fingers rubbing her clit softly and slowly.

“You are perfect,” he whispered, kissing her forehead and then her lips. She heard her skin connecting to his, and knew that all of him was deep inside her.

“I love you,” Mikasa whispered, holding onto him with both arms.

“I love you too,” Jean replied with a smile, then kissed her again, his tongue rubbing hers. His mouth fell open.

“Can I start moving?” Jean asked, his mouth falling open, his breath erratic. She could feel him twitching inside, she could feel his girth spreading her open, adjusting her muscles to his size.

“Please,”

Jean thrusted into her slowly, pulling back and coming back down with his eyes on her, on the gentle swaying of her breasts. Soon, he pressed his mouth to hers, and then he went looking for her nipples. She had wanted to get them pierced for a while, and she’d done it as soon as she had had the chance and money. She hadn’t told Jean, however. She’d wanted it to be a surprise.

He sucked on her erect nipple, while his hand rubbed her clit with those circular motions she loved so much, and Mikasa cried out in pleasure. His cock was rubbing up against every nerve ending inside her and, sending waves of pleasure across her body.

She ran her hands over his back; he’d grown more muscular this past year, and she adored the feel of his hardened body underneath her fingertips. Her hands landed on his chest as he thrusted in and out of her, and Mikasa gave his nipples a little pinch, like the ones he’d been giving her tonight.

Jean groaned in pleasure and went faster, sending a bit more pain across her lower abdomen, which Mikasa ignored. She propped herself up on her elbows and caught one of his nipples in her mouth, sucking it the way he’d sucked hers.

“Fuck, Mikasa,” he said, and she looked up at him. Jean caught her mouth with his, and both of his hands went to cup her face. “I…need to cum…soon.”

His face was completely red, and when Mikasa squeezed his nipple once more, Jean rolled his eyes to the back of his head in pleasure. “Stop, please,”

“Why?” Mikasa moaned, kissing his neck. His thrusts were faster; she could tell he was still trying to be gentle with her, but he was failing at holding back.

“I’ll cum…I’ll finish too quick,” he grunted, reaching her neck to give kiss her.

“Why is it bad?”

“I haven’t even lasted ten minutes,” he said, grimacing. He wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer, she thought.

“We can try again,” Mikasa replied.

“But, I want to give you a good impression and—”

So, Mikasa leaned forward, burying her face in his neck, and gave his skin a long, gentle suck that didn’t help him at all in holding back.

He grabbed a handful of her hair and started going faster; this wasn’t love making anymore, he was fucking her now, fucking her fast, fucking her hard. Mikasa buried her fingernails in his back, then moved onto another spot in his neck to give it a little suck.

“You’re mine, Kirstein,” she said in a low voice, feeling all the pleasure accumulate inside her loins. Two of his fingers were still rubbing on her clit; but it was obvious he would reach his climax before her. “You’re mine, are you not?”

“I am,” he moaned, his voice a mixture of lust and love she’d become addicted to.

“Then, do what I say,” she whispered. He was fucking her so good, so, so good, but it was clear he wouldn’t withstand it for much longer. They were eighteen; they had their whole lifetimes to make love to each other. “You can cum now, Jean.”

Jean thrusted three more times before he released all his pleasure; he moaned low against her ear, and she felt his cock throbbing inside her as he came. When he became very still and his breathing steadier, Mikasa held onto him, running her hands across his hair, enjoying the feel of his half-hard shaft inside her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered after a while in silence. He lied on his back to stare at her, his cheeks flushed in embarrassment when he looked at the watch on his wrist. “Fucking hell, not even eight minutes? I’m a loser, I’m—”

Mikasa went to lie on his chest, hugging him. “I love you,”

“I love you too,” Jean said, wrapping her body with his muscular arms. “Mika, if you don’t want to see me again, if you don’t—”

She perked up, narrowing her eyes. “Why would I not want to see you again?”

Jean flushed again. “I was a disappointment,”

“I had already come once,” she said, giving the corner of his mouth a little lick.

“Yeah, but you made me come twice,” Jean said, closing his eyes. “I’m a disappointment. So, it’s okay if you want to break up,”

“It’s not a competition, Jean. And you’re overthinking things again,” she said, lying on her side, running her fingers across his nipples. She noticed how her touch made the little hairs on his arms stand up and smiled a little more; she’d found a weak spot. “I don’t want to break up…”

Jean sighed, relieved. “I swear I’ll make it up to you,”

“…I want to get married,” Mikasa finished saying easily. His mouth fell open, but the way she rubbed his nipples was enough to make him struggle at keeping his focus. She smiled again; it was mean to tease him like this, but she loved her Jean flustered, and hard…and she could see his cock beginning to twitch and throb again.

“You want to what?”

“Get married, Kirstein,” she said, leaning into him to kiss his lips. Her hands went to take off the condom they’d used, and she gave his shaft another rub, uncaring about the semen spilling down her hand.

“You are so naughty,” Jean muttered, looking down at his cock at the same time as she did. He looked back at her, with an excited glint in his eyes. “Do you really wanna? Get married, I mean?”

Mikasa nodded, pressing the tip of her finger to the tip of dick, from which all the precum was leaking out of.

“I’ve been wanting to marry you for a whole year,” Jean laughed, and Mikasa smiled back at him. She knew; she’d seen him looking up for engagement rings online. He hadn’t been precisely discreet about his intentions of spending the rest of his life with her.

She adored that.

“I want to make love to you everyday.”

“We can do that no problem,” Jean said, kissing her temple.

“And I want to make babies with you,” she said, sitting up and straddling him. Jean’s hands went to her nipples again, and she guided one of his hands towards the wet spot between her legs. Now, he was properly hard. “We need to be married to make babies.”

“We-we’re so young, though,” Jean stammered, and Mikasa leaned forward to kiss him, arranging her hips so the tip of his cock was pressed against the entrance to her body.

“Not now, Kirstein,” she said, giving him a bunch of tiny kisses on his stubble. “Now, we’re going to practice until we get passed those eight minutes.”

Jean chuckled, and she was glad to know he was past the initial embarrassment. “We need to put a condom on, then,”

“I want you raw,” Mikasa kissed him, then lifted her hips to bring herself down onto him. There was a bit of a stinging that came with having him inside again, but Mikasa welcomed it gladly. She liked how big he was, she knew it would bring her more and more pleasure the more they made love.

“Mikasa!” he protested, but he couldn’t bring himself to push her off him. “Your dad is gonna kill me if you get pregnant…fuck, that feels good.”

She moved up and down, slowly, getting used to the feeling of riding him. “You’ll finish outside. We’ll get a pill,” she said, brushing his lovely light brown hair away from his face. “Right now, we’re going to practice.”

“How much practice will I get tonight?” Jean asked teasingly, making her smile.

“A lot,” she said, kissing his lips. “And then more tomorrow, and the next day, and so on.”

“You’re my dream girl,” he said, whimpering against her lips in both happiness and pleasure. “I want to marry your right now,”

“We already are for all I care,” Mikasa said, pressing her body against his and starting to jump, finding a rhythm at which she could ride him comfortably. He was just so big. She didn’t need any sort of papers to know this was the man she wanted, nobody else. She’d been confused for a while before, but now things were as clear as the naked moon in the sky. He was hers, and she was his. And absolutely nothing would change that fact.

[mobscene-london]

BASIC INFORMATION:

NAME: Jean Palfroix. AGE: 34. PLACE OF BIRTH: Paris, France. AFFILIATION: The French Organization. OCCUPATION: Commandant of Haringey. FACE CLAIM: Aldis Hodge. AVAILABILITY: TAKEN.

  BIOGRAPHY:

To say he’d had a rough upbringing felt like an understatement.

It seemed the only people who honestly thought Paris was some bright, beautiful dream were those who had never visited its suburbs. God forbid all those drugs, gang fights and arson attacks hurt the tourist pull, huh?

Maybe it was counter-intuitive to deal to the outcasts of French society when drugs were the very reason things had always been so shit for him and his little brother. If his father hadn’t been a violent fucking crack addict, maybe his kids would have had a better shot at turning things around. Jean knew he should’ve been averse; not wanting to put other children through what he had suffered from his parents whilst they were gagging for their next fix.

Too bad money trumped morals when you were dirt poor.

Thanks to the neglectful parents he despised, raising his little brother Eliott—and himself, for that matter—fell very much to him. Jean never really felt like a father figure, and the ideal didn’t mean all that much given that he’d never had one, but that didn’t stop Eliott from seeing him as one anyway. In school, they were inseparable. Eliott had a penchant for starting fights, but it was usually his brother that ended up finishing them. They were a formidable team, and soon enough, that translated to the streets where they would head in search of a second chance.

Everybody in the Parisian Banlieues had heard tales of the St. Clair family, and his teenage years hailed what the cités began to refer to as The Exodus. Those who were lucky enough to be spared dealing to their own left for the city proper to be utilized by the Commandants. What appealed most of all—and earned the favour of its lowest ranks—was that it wasn’t just a hunt for slave labour that they could treat like trash further down the line. They had as good a shot as the city boys at making something of themselves, and for Eliott in particular, that was a big fucking deal. There was no hope in Hell of getting anywhere if they stayed.

By the time he was nineteen, Jean and his best friend, JJ, had made their names as two of the most reliable, no-time-for-anyone’s-shit drug dealers in the area. Unfortunately, before his reputation could earn him the favour of the French Organization, however, he ended up getting his ass sent to jail for armed robbery. As if losing his freedom wasn’t enough, leaving his little brother of sixteen out on the streets alone filled him with fear. They were not kind, and if his absence meant he came to any harm, there was no way he could’ve ever forgiven himself.

Little did he know that the kid would prove more than capable of handling things.

It soon came to his attention that Eliott had done what he could not; attracted the attention of the French Organization. When life in prison started feeling a little easier than it had done before, he knew it was because the St. Clairs were extending gratitude for Eliott’s efforts in the only way he would’ve wanted; by keeping his big brother safe.

Of course, it earned Jean’s favour. And that was very much the point

As soon as he was finished serving his time, there was a job ready and waiting for him in Paris. Eliott had earned the trust of his new found family so quickly that Jean’s standing was solid by association before he’d arrived. Even if he’d by some miracle come to the conclusion that crime wasn’t worth his freedom whilst serving, there was no way he could decline after what they had done for him. After they had looked after his brother when he could not.

Much in the same way they had back home, the two brothers, alongside their best friends Thierry and JJ, found themselves back on the drug scene. It was what they knew best, and where they felt comfortable enough to excel. Working for the St. Clairs wasn’t always easy, but it was most certainly fair, and that wasn’t always a courtesy extended by suppliers. When Jean got pinched for a second time—this time to serve three years—the authorities had attempted to flip him for information on his new friends. Silence made things harder this time, but he would not cave, and for his loyalty, he was rewarded immensely.

It was the first time he’d felt as though he really had a family. There was no chance in Hell he would turn his back on them now.

Jean was leading a life he could never have dreamt of as a child. He had respect, ambition, and loyalty to something other than himself. He had legitimate goals that went beyond making it to the next day, for fuck’s sake. Even though he and Eliott were still immensely close, his little brother had gone off to take a Commandant’s position in the United States. Launceston was the city the Parisians seemed least interested in serving in, but only because it was so heavily contested that those in roles of leadership didn’t seem to last very long. Knowing how dangerous it was for his brother was something he had to learn to live with, but Jean was so proud of him that he supported any move that made him happy. Even if it meant Launceston.

So for his brother to lose his life in a fucking fist fight in Porto Velho? 

That fucked him up.

For all his years in prison, the Frenchman had never been as angry as he was when he found out Eliott had survived the bloodstained streets of the most hellish city on the face of the fucking planet only to die at the hands of an Italian in the British attempt at New Vegas. As much as he blamed the Auditores, though, the fact that Lara fucking Rutherford chose not to end the fight despite calls to do so made her complicit in his brother’s murder. Although he’d never paid much thought to leaving Paris, when he found out that the French were gearing up to take London from the Rutherford family as punishment for their many other indiscretions in Porto Velho, he couldn’t say no.

The promotion to Commandant was merely a bonus.

Jean might’ve been waiting years already but somebody, eventually, will pay for his brother’s unjust death.

For what it’s worth? He hopes it’s her.

SOCIAL CONNECTIONS:

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Not specified. FAMILY: Eliott Palfroix (younger brother, deceased) CONNECTIONS:

Thierry Vendroux: Best friend. Even though he was always closer with JJ growing up, since getting out of prison, it’s Thierry that has become his go-to person. Whilst he might’ve lost Eliott, he still finds some comfort in the fact he has another brother at his side. Without him, he’s sure that London would seem even more daunting. Jean also finds himself incredibly protective of Thierry; particularly as he, like Eliott, enjoys taking part in Lara’s fights.

Delphine St. Clair: Good friend. During their first proper meeting, he hadn’t realised who she was. Jean had spent the night drunkenly hitting on her, and she’d rewarded his efforts with a broken nose. It wasn’t until later that Thierry explained who she was. The next time they crossed paths he’d expected a frosty reception. To his surprise, however, Delphi had a sense of humour about what’d happened. The two have been good friends ever since, and their harsh banter is legendary amongst the bros.

Lara Rutherford: Enemy. Despite almost three years having passed since his brother’s death, Jean still holds onto all of the bitterness of losing him. Whilst he can’t get his hands on the Italian responsible for dealing the fatal blow, he’s hoping for the next best thing: the bitch who not only organized the fight to begin with, but refused to stop it despite knowing that things were going to end badly. Jean doesn’t care what it costs him, he’ll make sure she pays.