#meaning the faculty takes bloody forever to get back to you

[non-un-topo]

Starting to think I’m not getting this research award.

...Send cute doodle prompts? I sort of miss drawing squishy toddlers.

[bohobooks]

In the Shadow of the Past // Chapter 2

     The inside of the Great Hall was already bustling, the returning students greeting their friends with hugs and shouts. Luna stopped shortly after entering the room, hazel eyes scanning the room for her friends. She had spotted Poppy halfway down the room by the Gryffindor table, talking animatedly to Natty and Garreth. When she didn't see Sebastian or Ominis, her shoulders dropped a bit in disappointment. That is of course until two strong arms wrap around her from behind, spinning her around causing her world to blur. 

"There you are!" a deep familiar voice whispered into her ear. After her feet planted themselves permanently onto the ground, she spun around face to face with Sebastian.

"There YOU are," she pushed her finger into his chest, grinning wildly.

Her heart fluttered a bit when Sebastian smiled down at her, their eyes locking for a brief second. Ominis stepped around from behind Sebastian, evidently catching up after Sebastian had sprinted away from him the second he spotted Luna.

Ominis smiled over towards Luna and opened his arms a bit, "Do I get a world famous Luna hug too?" 

The small girl wrapped pressed herself into his chest, feeling his arms wrap tightly around her. Her body and mind felt calm. She was at home with these boys. Through everything they've been through and all of the things they've done, they were connected forever.

Luna pulls away from Ominis' arms and smiles at the pair, "How was your summer?"

Taking each others arms, the trio walked over to the slytherin table.

Sebastian grunted, over exagerating as per usual, "Oh so bloody boring. Ominis wouldn't let me have any fun."

From Luna's other side, Ominis chuckled, "Well, yes. Knowing your ideas of fun, I couldn't allow such shenanigans."

They made it to the table Sebastian and Ominis taking the seat across from Luna.

"How was your summer, Luna? According to your letters, you stayed in the castle the whole time? Sebastian was convinced you were so bored and lonely that he was going to come break you out."

Luna smiled brightly, "Oh I wasn't terribly lonely, I had Deek and Aesop. The later kept me quite busy with training, that man has work ethic beyond my comprehension."

Sebastian raised his eyebrow, "First name basis with Sharpe now, are we?"

Luna blushed, waving a hand at Sebastian and glancing towards the faculty table where Sharpe was already looking at her, smiling warmly. "I mean, technically, like legally, that is, he's my father. Calling him Professor Sharpe is a bit too formal. Of course, during class I'll call him that."

Sebastian followed Lunas eyes to where Professor Sharpe sat, grinning and waving. In turn, Sharpe narrowed his eyes and did the 'I'm watching you' gesture.

Sebastian slowly lowered his hands, eyes wide, and turned back to his friends. Luna was chuckling and Ominis looked a bit confused on what was so funny.

"I think Professor Sharpe just threatened me."

"For some reason Sebastian, I whole heartedly doubt that," Ominis smiled, "Any way Luna, who is this Deek fellow?"

Lunas eyes widened in surprise. Huh, I guess I never did introduce these two to him, she thought.

"Oh my! I'll introduce you to him after  the sorting and dinner. I'm sure atleast one of our prefects won't snitch if we don't automatically return to the common rooms."

"What won't I snitch about?" Imelda plopped down beside Luna, causing the small girl to jump a bit.

"Merlins sake, Mel. You scared the shit out of me. I was just saying you probably wouldn't mind if the three of is didn't head to the dorms straight away."

Imelda shrugged, "I suppose I can look the other way. As long as there's no funny business," she shot a glare at the boys, who in turn blushed violently, "AND if you bring me some snacks from the kitchen."

Luna rolled her eyes, "No funny business. But snacks? Wow you are needy."

Imelda playfully smacked Luna, and the hall fell to silence as Professor Black gave his speech, and the sorting of the first years began.

__________________________

A/N: A short one.

Pretty please vote and comment, this is my first time properly writing anything other than a journal for a very long time. I wanna know your thoughts!

Xo

[carryonsimoncarryonbaz]

whumptober day 8, 10, 11, 12

Ok I’m totally falling apart as far as staying on schedule here so tonight you are getting another combo fic, incorporating four prompts!!

Day 8: Stabbed

Day 10: Unconscious

Day 11: Stitches

Day 12: Don’t Move!

Penelope

It started off easily enough. Cross the water to Long Island, a uninhabited islet near Hampshire. It didn’t take us all that long to get there. Langstone Harbour is a little over an hour from Watford.

Took longer than that with the bus but there’s no helping it.

I must say the Mage is simply terrible with logistics. He saddles Simon with missions but never tells him how to get there or how to get back. He doesn’t even spring for tickets or reimburse Simon for expenses. I’ve half a mind to send a letter to the Faculty Board or the Coven but I don’t want my mother getting wind that I’m helping Simon. I’d probably be able to hear her yell from here. And Morgana knows what spell she’d magic up to stop me from helping again.

I’m not going to risk that. I’d rather deal with the Mage’s stingy ways than have my mother find out what we’re doing.

It turned out that this place isn’t much of an island at all, name notwithstanding, although my preparatory research did reveal that it was inhabited in the Bronze Age and even up into Roman times. That’s why the Mage wanted us to go there.

There’s some sort of talisman he’s discovered through scrying. I didn’t think the Mage believed in crystal balls or images in pools of enchanted spring water.  Simon says he uses all available means of magical discovery and that scrying is a fairly common practice in Wales. That’s where the Mage is from. Simon says he rarely speaks of it.

We made our way to the island right before dusk and I magicked up a causeway. Simon wanted to steal a boat. Why steal when we can use magic? A stolen boat leaves a trail, a memory for the Normals, something out of the ordinary. A magickal causeway and a judicious “through a glass darkly” is all that’s necessary for something like this. No one will even know we were here.

Or so I thought. The Mage neglected to mention that this island is protected by the Mer people. And that this talisman has some magical significance to them. Typical.

We made it over without incident and I cast a few finding spells, using a sketch of the talisman the Mage had provided. It took about an hour but we found it, plucked it out from the center of a stone mound and stashed it in Simon’s pocket, wrapped in a scrap of cloth.

One of Baz’s linen handkerchiefs to be accurate. Simon can be so petty sometimes.

It took a fair bit of magic to keep the causeway up that long—the island was a fair distance from the coast, and the span wasn’t as simple as a footbridge across a river or ravine, like I’ve done before. I could feel my magic waning as we made our way back across.

Which is, of course, when the Mer people showed up. They rose up out of the water, on either side of the causeway. Dark-haired men, heavily muscled, wielding tridents at us. Mer people have their own kind of magic and they don’t particularly like anything crossing over their watery domains. Particularly not mages. There is all kinds of history there, none of it good.

I could see my causeway start to shimmer ahead of us. We only had a short distance to go, the shore wasn’t that far ahead, but then the causeway had flickered completely away in front of us, leaving me and Simon balanced on the edge. I darted a look behind me.

Merlin’s teeth. They’d erased it behind us too. We were stuck on the little remnant, surrounded by them.

Reasoning didn’t work. Simon called the Sword of Mages and made quick work of a few of them, slashing through their tridents and slicing some arms off as he did. It got a bit ugly then. Simon got blurry at the edges, like he gets when his magic rises up. He was moving so fast I could barely keep his sword in sight. He had me tucked behind him with a “can’t touch this.”

I don’t know why he didn’t do it over himself too but Simon never casts protective spells on himself.

He won’t weatherize himself either, even if it’s pouring rain. I don’t know if he forgets or he’s just incapable of doing it. I think he just forgets. He doesn’t think of himself that way, as needing a shield or a defense. Just everyone else.

We were outnumbered and Mer people are fierce when they’re feeling slighted. Or anytime they’ve got strangers near them, to be honest. I was trying to cast nets and churn up the water but it was difficult to cast when I was stuck behind Simon and hard to avoid getting him tangled up or knocking him off this remnant of my causeway.

A trident had whipped in front of my legs but the spell held it off.

Simon hadn’t been so lucky. He got speared in the side by another raging Mer-man. It was enough of a shock to make him go off. We ended up on the shore, under a tree.

It takes me a moment to clear my head and brush the sand off me. That’s when I get a look at Simon.

He’s bleeding and there’s a huge gash along his side. It looks like he got stabbed and then the trident tore along the surface of his flesh. It’s nasty looking.

Wide. Gaping. Blood pouring out of it.

“Don’t look at me like that, Penny. I’ll be fine. Just give me a “get well soon” and I’ll be alright.”

His breathing is too fast.

I point my ring at him and it gives me a half-hearted glow. Fuck a goblin. I need more power than this. I point it at him and cast a “get well soon” and a “right as rain.” The bleeding slows up and his breathing slows too, but the wound is still there.

I can’t think of any other spells right now. “Early to bed” comes to me and I cast it. Simon grabs my hand. “It’s all right, Penny. It’s better. I can manage.”

He can’t, the great thumping git. He’s got a bleeding hole in him, literally a bleeding hole, and a good eight-inch gash along his flank.

I need help. I don’t know how I’m going to get him back to Watford. The bus will take too long and we’ll draw too much attention if he’s bleeding on the bus. I doubt a “nothing to see here” will last long enough, the way I’m casting right now.

I find a blanket in a rowboat nearby and I cast “sanitized for your protection” on it before I tear it into strips to bind Simon’s wound with it. I make it snug enough that he gasps when I tighten the last bit.

“Bloody hell, Penny.” “I can’t have you bleeding out, Simon.” My voice is curt but I pull his arm over my shoulder and we limp our way to the station. He rallies a bit for the trip home.

It feels like we’re traveling forever.

We finally make our way to Watford by cab and blast it, the bloody drawbridge is up already. Fuck a nine-toed troll. I am going to skin the Mage the next time I see him, I swear to Merlin.

What am I going to do with Simon? I need to get him inside, I need to get him to the infirmary. We’re standing here, staring at the drawbridge, at the moat, at the gap between us and the wall, trying to figure out what to do.

Simon chooses this exact moment to pass out. He slumps right down, sliding away from me and falling into a heap at the moat’s edge. I drag him back. The mer-wolves have a keen sense of smell and I wouldn’t put it past one of them to crawl up out of the water to investigate the scent. They have a unnerving nose for blood.

I’ve had enough of bloody mer-creatures for one night, thank you very much.

I’m wracking my brain trying to think of a way to contact Agatha. If I could reach her she could get the nurse or the Mage or even Miss Possibelf, if the Mage is gone. He’s gone half the time as it is. He sends us off on these blasted missions and isn’t here to claim the artefact he sent us to find in the first place, the barmy bastard.

I’m on my knees casting “get well soon” on Simon again when I hear a voice calling my name.

“Bunce?”

I look up to the ramparts and see Baz’s pale face shining in the moonlight.

“What the devil are you doing out there, Bunce? And what have you done to Snow?”

Beggars can’t be choosers. Baz Pitch is a blessed sight at the moment.

“Stop chattering, Basilton Pitch, and help me. Simon’s hurt and I can’t get across the moat.”

He frowns down at me and for a moment I think he’s going to turn away. Next thing I know he’s over the ramparts and floating down across the moat, calm and collected, as if he casts “float like a butterfly” every day.

“What’s the situation?” he asks, as he lands, sinking to his knees next to Simon. I can see why Simon gets irritated with him. He even makes kneeling in the mud look elegant.

I give him as vague a story as I can. He shakes his head at me. “Can’t the Mage do his own dirty work?”

It’s startlingly close to my own opinion on the matter. It was fun and exciting the first years. But we’re sixth years now and it’s getting a bit irritating to always be at the Mage’s beck and call. It would be nice if he did some of this on his own. I don’t know why it always has to be Simon.

Baz’s grey eyes meet mine. “I don’t know if I can carry him over the wall with the spell,” he says.

I know that.

“And I can’t magic the drawbridge down.”

I know that, too.

“Can you get the nurse, Basil? Or Miss Possibelf?”

He looks down at Simon then and in an uncharacteristic motion takes Simon’s hand in his, pressing his fingertips to Simon’s wrist. “His heart’s racing. How bad is he hurt?”

“Bad enough. I got the bleeding to slow down but the gash wouldn’t heal.”

Baz’s nostrils flare at my words.

Oh fuck.

I point my ring at him, leaning over Simon menacingly. I hope I look menacing. I’m not sure. I probably just look tired. “Don’t move, Baz. Stay back.”

He knocks my hand away. “Calm down, Bunce. I’m not going to hurt him. I may loathe Snow but this is perhaps the least sporting way to inflict damage on him.” His expression softens. “Let me help.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“I don’t trust you either. Now will you shut up and let me help or not? You’ve dragged me into this, I may as well make myself useful.”

His wand is in his hand and he’s pointing it at Simon. I want to push him away. I want to shout at him to stop.

I want him to help me.

He casts a “get well soon” and I can feel the power of it. I press my fingertips to the blanket bandages and they come away wet.

“I think we’ve got to close the wound. I think that’s the only way we’ll get the spells to actually take.”

“Unwrap it then.”

“Can you handle it, Basil?” I’ve never addressed this with him. I’m not even sure I believe Simon. About Baz being a vampire.

But I can’t risk it. I can’t risk Simon.

Baz raises one eyebrow and quirks his lip. “I can handle a little blood, Bunce.”

Baz

Aleister Crowley, I hope I’m right. Thank magic I fed just a bit ago. I’ve got a full belly, blood sloshing through me still. The rats were plentiful tonight and I was thirsty.

It should be fine. Everything should be fine.

The scent of Snow’s blood hit me when I was still up on the ramparts. It’s what made me look down. I know that scent.

I’d recognize it anywhere.

I’ve smelled it all too often; from when I’ve hit him myself, from all the nights he’s crawled into bed after one of the Mage’s missions.

He smells like bacon and warm cinnamon buns. Like hazelnut coffee and campfire smoke.

He smells good enough to eat.

I can’t let myself think like this.

I have to do this. I have to help Simon.

“It’s fine, Bunce. Unwrap the layers yourself, if you don’t trust me.” That keeps me from getting blood on my hands. I don’t know if I could handle that right now.

Bunce meets my eyes and we stare at each other for a long moment. Then she nods and unwraps what looks like a plaid fleece blanket from around Snow’s waist.

The gash is ugly. It’s ragged and a good six inches in length, gaping near the stab wound but tapering off at the end. There isn’t much active bleeding. It seems the spells have at least managed that.

I don’t know how to heal a wound. I’ve not had to do this before. Experimentation seems a bit risky. I try to think of something that might bring the edges together but my mind is a bit of a blank, between the glimpse of Snow’s freckled skin and the rising scent of his blood surrounding me. I may be a tad woozy from it all.

Bunce shoves me. “Do something.”

“I’m trying to think what to do.”

She huffs. “If you can’t think of a way to seal the wounds then we’ll just have to stitch him up.”

“You must be joking.”

“I’m waiting for a better idea from you.”

She’ll be waiting a long time then. I’m blank other than healing spells so I hit Snow with a few more of those to stall for time. The wound narrows a bit and the bleeding stops completely, thank magic.

He’s still out cold. Blood loss and shock, I’m assuming.

“A stitch in time” I cast and a threaded needle shimmers in front of me. I’m not sure if I should use my wand or my hand to direct it. Bunce makes the decision for me. She grabs the needle and starts to make the first stitch. She manages to make three uneven stitches before she groans and covers her face with her hands.

“Ugh. I don’t know if I can do this.” “What do you mean you don’t know if you can do this? You asked me to help. I’m helping. Come along now, Bunce, stitch away.”

“I can’t. It’s awful. The way the needle feels going through his skin and the way his flesh quivers when I do it.” She shakes her head. “You do it.”

I stare at her. “You can’t be serious.”

The glare she shoots me over her glasses is menacing. Bunce can be quite terrifying when she chooses.

I bite my lips. I do not want to touch Snow’s skin. That would be an absolutely terrible idea. I may want to trace the constellations of moles that dot his chest and abdomen but now is most certainly not the time for that.

What am I thinking? There’s never going to be a time for that.

I shake my head to clear it.

I really can’t afford to get any of his blood on my hands.

I lean over him, wand pointed at the needle Bunce has abandoned on Snow’s skin. “I’ve got this all sewn up.” I make the sewing motions with my wand and the needle parallels my movements, slowly stitching up the wide wound, inch by inch. I make her tie the knot when I’m done.

She casts a “sanitized for your protection” on the blanket remnants, which is truly an inspired spell. I’ll have to remember that one.

Once she’s got Snow all bandaged again, she moves to place his head on her lap, gently stroking the hair off his face.

I imagine it’s me doing that. I think about how his curls would slip through my fingers, how the calluses on my fingertips would catch in his hair. How I’d stroke the side of his cheek . . . bloody hell, I need to stop this.

I drag my eyes away.

“Anything else I can do, Bunce?”

“Cast another healing spell, would you, Basil?”

I cast another healing spell. And another. Just in case.

I don’t think I can magic Bunce and Snow over the wall. We’ll just have to wait until morning, when the drawbridge comes down. Or flag the goatherd down at sunrise and have her magic us over. Fiona says she may be unassuming to look at but she’s a powerhouse when she chooses.

I wouldn’t know.

The night is getting cooler and the breeze picks up. I magic my coat into a blanket and Bunce does the same with her jacket. We wrap them around Snow and huddle together for warmth, Snow’s head still pillowed on Bunce’s lap.

He’s inches away, closer than he’s ever been before, except when we’ve been fighting.

It’s too much, having him here like this, so close, so still, so quiet. It’s unnerving. I’m worried that he hasn’t woken up yet. I’m worried he’s lost too much blood. I can feel his heartbeat, steady and strong though and I try to convince myself it’s just exhaustion and blood loss.

I can’t help it. I reach over and lay my cold hand on his forehead. It feels warm but not too warm. What would I know? I’m not a normal temperature myself.

Snow turns his head into my palm and rubs his forehead against my hand. I snatch it back, not daring to meet Bunce’s eyes.

She places her hand where mine was. “He’s not running a fever, if that’s what you’re worried about, Basil.”

“I’m not worried. Just thought I’d check is all.”

I get another one of Bunce’s penetrating stares. I don’t say anything. I just lean back against the tree we’re huddled under and tilt my head up to look at the stars.

I follow the patterns of the stars but what I see in my head are the patterns on Snow’s skin.

It’s going to be a long night.

[bethanyetc]

Update! Update!

Haha Okay, okay! So let’s see...

School:Graduation is on Thursday. I’m freaking out because I was selected to receive special recognition from the President of the college. So I’m going to sit on stage with the president, faculty, speakers, and other students receiving honours. She’ll say some stuff about what I’ve overcome, what I’ve achieved, my grades, stuff like that while she does that. I’ll stand up and be on the projector and ugh omg. But the bright side is that I get 4 tickets instead of 2, so my mum, brother, and my friend’s parents are coming (they’ve helped me out a lot), and they’ll sit in a VIP section. I’m just really happy I get to give that my mum and my brother.

Work:I start my internship on Friday, day after graduation. I can’t believe I’m going to be working for one of the best ballet companies in the whole world. I'm going to be working with some of the most famous and talented ballet dancers ever. It’s a huge privilege and I just hope that I can do enough to do the job justice. But obviously, this isn’t enough to live off of so I’m stressing out a lot about trying to find more work. I’m hoping this internship leads to a full-time job. I’m feeling hopeful because instead of doing one internship, they want me to work in two departments, so I think I’ve made a good first impression. One big upside of the job is that it is less than two minutes walking distance from my therapist and dietitian’s office (they’re in the same building).

Family:Things are okay. I’ve been seeing my mum a bit more regularly, like once a week or so and after she said some hurtful stuff over Christmas, I’ve just tried to completely let go of any childish hopes and expectations and take care of her instead, because she really doesn’t have anyone (I feel like she has some people but that’s what she said). That’s when things feel most enjoyable. It’s not the roles we should be in, but it’s what’s best for us. My brother got promoted to detective so that’s really exciting and I’m incredibly proud of him. I loved spending time with his girlfriend at Christmas and getting to meet her parents. It was just a big deal for all of us—we were like an actual family. It was really nice. 

Mental health:Things are good. I mean, things are hard too. I’ve been shutting down a lot in therapy and my therapist and I talked about opening a door that has been shut for so long. I’ve worked on some trauma over the last few years, especally since the trauma actually stopped happening two years ago (it’s really hard to do trauma work whilst you’re going through trauma) except for certain things I won’t touch with an 8 foot-pole and it’s holding me back. But of course, that's really scary to think about, so I think we’re just going to go reeeeeeeaaally slowly.

Home:Roommate stuff is driving me bloody insane and I hate where I live. It’s a very bad neighbourhood, but it’s the cheapest place to live. Even the available apartments in my area are much more expensive right now and that’s why I hate living in New York, but that’s where I am. I would love to move to another place but also I just want to get away from my roommate situation. I’m really excited to start looking for PhD programs. I’ve decided not to restrict myself. I’m looking in England, of course, various places in the North East of America, and Canada, so maybe I won’t be in New York forever. 

Other:Ballet is good, as always, but I can’t go as often as I used to because I have to save money. Two of my ballet classes a week were at school so it sucks that that’s over. I’ve been reading a lot more and that’s the most amazing feeling. I just finished The Testaments and I know a lot of people didn’t like it but I thought it was wonderful! My therapist lent me her copy and I was reading it before therapy the other day and when she came to get me she said, “Oh I miss it so much!”, which I thought was so funny but I totally understand what she means now! Honestly, I didn’t want it to end but I read it so quickly. I’m currently reading Because Internet: Understanding the New Rule of Language and if you’re a linguistics nerd like me, or if you’re interested in how the internet changed language then this is an excellent book. It goes into Emoji and memes and more. I’ve also gotten some more embroidery supplies recently and to make some money I’m going to try and sell some embroidery online. If anyone is interested, let me know! I’ll try and post some examples of what I’ve done. I think I’ll be taking custom orders.

Sooo thanks for being interested in my boring life! haha I don’t know if anyone actually read all of this, but I appreciate it if you did :) 

Sending love to you all x 

[charmedtheselfproclaimedking]

Charmed Again: Season 3 (Charmed Fanfic) Master-List

Episode 6 - The Death of The Charmed Ones (International Fanworks Day Special)

Warnings: I don’t own the rights to any of the characters from the hit TV show “Charmed” or the storylines related to the show those rights belong to original creator Constance M Burge.

15+ Moderate/Graphic Displays of Violence, Sexual Innuendos, Witchcraft and Potentially Triggering Scenes.

Paul Halliwell was working late one night at Halliwell and Turner typing away on his laptop while sat behind his desk in his office when suddenly a picture of himself, Pan and Drake who was holding Lilah placed on his desk in a frame fell of the desk and smashed causing Paul to stand up from his chair and walk over to pick up the pieces of the broken frame only for the eldest Halliwell to be hit by a premonition.

In Paul’s premonition he saw Drake walking into the dining room of the Halliwell Manor looking alarmed as he saw the window in there smashed and covered with blood before turning to look at a table which was covered in broken glass from the window as Drake continued walking through the dining room only to break down in tears and horror when he oversaw Paul and Pan’s lifeless and bloody bodies laying on the floor of a blood soaked foyer before Paul’s horrifying premonition came to an end.

“Oh no this can’t be good.” Paul mumbled to himself before accidentally cutting his hand on a piece of glass from the broken photo frame he attempted to clean up as Raven knocked on the door before walking into Paul’s office.

“Ouch what happened in here? Pretty quiet for a demonic attack.” Raven joked before becoming alarmed by the look of horror on Paul’s face. “Paul what is it? Are you okay?”

“No, I don’t think I am or at least I don’t think I’m going to be.” Paul replied.

That same night Drake walked into the currently not ruined dining room of the Halliwell Manor wearing old pajamas and a face mask while chowing down on a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream only to be left stunned to see Dermot sitting at the table clearly waiting to see him.

“What the bloody hell are you doing in my house?” Drake asked his boss before ripping his own face mask off causing him to let out of small scream of pain as he threw the remains of the face mask onto the dining table.

“I must admit despite the horrifying image in front of me the Halliwell Manor is even more stunning up close.” Dermot replied while snickering away at Drake’s current state.

“Yeah that didn’t answer my question buddy!” Drake snapped as he put his ice cream and spoon down on the dining table.

“I need you and the fellow charmed ones’ assistance with a certain situation I’ve found myself in so if you could hurry along, get changed and get the others I’d be very grateful.” Dermot told the Halliwell hybrid.

“Yeah you see the thing is my dad’s working late for the third night in a row and my aunt is currently on honeymoon with my best friend so if you’re looking for the charmed ones then I’m afraid your out of luck.” Drake took pleasure in telling his boss.

“And what about you? You don’t seem to be even remotely busy.” Dermot asked him.

“Not busy correct but also not interested in helping you with whatever dilemma you’ve got yourself into.” Drake made clear.

“Okay well that’s just rude and quite frankly unprofessional considering you’re a charmed one and the charmed ones are meant to help the innocent no matter what.” Dermot snapped at Drake as he stood up from his chair.

“Yeah that rule only applies to actual innocents and last time I checked the elders were far from innocent especially the one in front of me who very recently tried to get my dad’s girlfriend executed.” Drake replied before taking a deep sigh. “I’ll help you with whatever trouble you’ve got yourself into but only because if you wind up dead, I’ll be the number one suspect.”

“Drake this is serious I’ve received a very troubling and frankly rather terrifying letter placed on my desk within magic school.” Dermot informed Drake who instantly responded by laughing at the headmaster of magic school.

“I’m sure the person who wrote the letter was just expressing their hate without actually meaning to kill you.” Drake continued to laugh, clearly guilty of some letters himself.

“I’m not talking about your silly little passive aggressive bite me styled notes which are the weirdest form of flirting I’ve ever known I’m talking about actual terrifying death threats.” Dermot corrected him.

“Hey, they are way more sophisticated than bite me…” Drake tried to defend himself before going on to backtrack. “I mean you can’t prove those ones are from me!”

“Can we just try and pretend we’re adults for more than a second please?” Dermot asked him.

“You’re right I’ll go get changed and while I’m doing that you should probably write a really long list of all the people who would want you dead which let’s face it is going to take you longer than it’ll take me to get changed.” Drake replied.

“Please just be serious for a moment.” Dermot begged him.

“I was being deadly serious about that list.” Drake responded with a sinister smile.

“Well in that case nice pajamas Mr Black.” Dermot mocked him.

“Bite me!” Drake said before blinking out of sight.

The next morning Pan and Lacey woke up in bed together within a hotel located somewhere in London.

“I wish we could just stay here forever and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist.” Pan told Lacey before pulling her wife in towards her for a morning kiss. “See now this is the life Mrs Morgan-Halliwell.”

“I don’t think your brother would be too happy if we didn’t even return home before moving out Mrs Morgan-Halliwell.” Lacey joked. “In fact, I’m fairly certain he’d cast some spell forcing us to return to San Francisco whether we liked it or not.”

“True but we could always have fun staying put until that day came.” Pan replied with a playful smile until the two brides were left stunned when Raven shimmered her way into their hotel room.

“Okay I hate to be the girl to break up what looks like a very happy honeymoon, but Paul sent me here because he had a terrifying premonition and you need to come home right away.” Raven told them both as Pan and Lacey climbed out of their bed and put on hotel robes.

“Was it so difficult to ask my brother for a whole week to myself?” Pan asked Raven with a snarky attitude.

“Paul had a premonition of you and him dying.” Raven revealed to a stunned Pan as an equally stunned Lacey was left horrified.

“I’ll check with the elders and see what’s going on.” Lacey told Pan before kissing her wife on the cheek and orbing out of sight.

“I’m getting so sick of one of us always being in trouble swear to god demons need to learn when to take a holiday.” Pan snapped. “No offense Raven.”

“You could’ve knocked first Drake I could’ve been busy with a student or another member of the faculty.” Dermot complained after Drake stormed into his office and threw himself down on Dermot’s couch while Dermot sat behind his desk.

“You could’ve knocked before breaking into my house last night, but you didn’t so let’s not going around throwing stones now.” Drake replied to his boss. “So, I tried interrogating but then I was like Drake you stop being a detective for a reason so instead I decided to get some students onto casting an identity spell figured they may as well learn something new and it would save me time playing Clue-do with you.”

“No don’t get them doing that using the students as your lackeys is totally unacceptable not to mention dangerous I mean who knows if their even ready for that kind of spell.” Dermot argued with him.

“Okay chill Mr uptight I picked the best students if anything this spell is going to be easy play for them.” Drake told Dermot, not understanding why Dermot had such an issue.

“I demand that you stop the students casting this spell at one.” Dermot shouted at Drake as he stood up from behind his desk.

“Okay I’ve about had it with your attitude.” Drake snapped back as he stood up from the couch. “I’m trying to help you and yet you’re still being a total dick can’t you just say thank you for once in your life!”

“Okay thank you.” Dermot said reluctantly before taking a big sigh, clearly frustrated. “Please just stop the spell.”

“Why should I?” Drake questioned the headmaster.

“Because I’m the one who wrote the damn note.” Dermot admitted much to Drake’s fury.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Drake shouted before storming out of Dermot’s office as Dermot quickly chased after him.

“Drake just stop for a second and let me explain.” Dermot shouted at Drake causing the two of them to stop in the main hallway of magic school.

“I gave up my day off the first weekend in a while where Cindy has Lilah and I wasn’t working or doing charmed duties and I have to give that all up so you could play me like some fool.” Drake snapped at him.

“I wasn’t trying to make a fool out of you I just wanted to spend some time with you.” Dermot explained to Drake.

“More like you wanted to spend time moaning and complaining to me because for some reason you’ve got some issue with me!” Drake argued. “I don’t know what the hell your problem is but I’m getting really tired of it.”

“My problem is that you drive me crazy crazier than anyone I’ve ever met, and I’ve been around for centuries so that’s quite the achievement.” Dermot admitted as he walked closer towards Drake. “My problem is that you challenge everything I’ve ever believed in and yet despite how irritated and frustrated you make me I can’t seem to get you out of my mind!”

“Okay I’m sick of your constant…” Drake began to say before Dermot kissed him once again.

“I like you stupid!” Dermot declared before the two shared a look of longing for a moment before they began passionately kissing each other and tearing at each other’s clothes as they began crashing back towards Dermot’s office.

“You know after you filled me in on this whole premonition of me and Paul laying dead in this house everywhere, I go has got me jumping out my skin.” Pan told Raven as she walked into the kitchen of the Halliwell Manor to find Raven sat at the kitchen table drinking a glass of water. “That’s the first time I’ve ever saw you not drink wine don’t tell me this premonition has you scared sober.”

“Not exactly I know it’s not Paul’s first premonition in which one of you die he informed me of that not that we shouldn’t still worry of course but I have confidence you’ll kill whatever demon is coming like you three always do.” Raven replied to the newlywed Halliwell as Pan walked over and sat down next to her. “I’m sorry your honeymoon’s being ruined I guess it’s just a case of one nasty surprise after another.”

“Well if us dying hasn’t got you sober…” Pan began to say before looking at the glass of water and realizing what was up for herself. “Oh my god my brother’s done it again your knocked up aren’t you?”

“A girl restrains from drinking one occasion and you assume she’s pregnant?” Raven tried to deny for a moment before realizing she had to tell someone. “Okay I’m pregnant but trust me when I say I never planned any of this I mean it’s literally the worst possible timing.”

“This is great news!” Pan screeched as she stood up, pulling Raven up too and in for a hug. “I’m so thrilled I’m going to be an aunt again…Paul’s going to be a dad again…oh my god Drake’s going to be a brother.”

“Okay I’ve got to admit that is so not the reaction I was expecting although I think I’m happy by your response.” Raven replied. “I didn’t plan any of this and Paul and I haven’t even said we love each other yet.”

“Paul’s loved you since your first kiss he was your sucker the minute you laid those lips on him Missy you have nothing to worry about…unless you don’t love him?” Pan answered.

“I do love him of course I do…” Raven admitted. “I just wanted him to say he loved me without a baby making him biased. Don’t get me wrong I’ve always wanted to be a mum and start a family I just figured I’d do it the old-fashioned way I’m kind of an old-fashioned demon.”

“Listen Paul loves you and you love him there doesn’t have to be any complications if you don’t let there be.” Pan advised the baby mother of her future niece or nephew. “I’m just glad it’s you he knocked up instead of Lacey I mean the guy has previous with Eve.”

“Yeah I suppose this demonic pregnancy has nothing on that one.” Raven joked. “Are you sure everything’s going to be okay?”

“You mean after we stop Paul’s premonition from coming true and stop us all from dying?” Pan asked sarcastically before hugging Raven once more. “I’m just kidding we’ll kick this demon’s ass and then we’ll celebrate another baby in the Halliwell family! Don’t worry everything is going to be fine.”

Lacey orbed into Dermot’s office with Paul by her side after picking him up from work after her little visit to the elders proved unhelpful only for the two of them to be left shocked to see Drake popping up from behind his desk using a laptop to cover his naked body.

“Guys what are you doing in the headmaster’s office without knocking?” Drake asked them nervously.

“Why are you in the headmaster’s office naked?” Paul asked his son. “I mean I know you like to flaunt your body, but this is a school not to mention your boss’ office.”

“I’m trying this new fitness regime that’s really trendy right now besides this part of the school is closed so thought why not exercise naked.” Drake blatantly lied as Lacey noticed somebody’s else feet popping out from the end of the table.

“I’m guessing your in the boss’ office because he joined you for this little naked exercise?” Lacey teased her best friend before Dermot jumped up from behind the desk also very naked and using a stack of books to cover his modesty.

“Mr Halliwell it’s good to finally meet you!” Dermot greeted Drake’s father awkwardly. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Do you seriously have to sleep with all your bosses?” Lacey laughed at Drake while Paul rolled his eyes in disapproval of the situation, he had just found himself in.

“Drake we don’t really have time for you to seek out another wayward romance that’s never going to work out.” Paul told his son. “We need you back at the Manor now!”

“Hey!” Drake snapped at his father. “You barged in here this is on you not me besides who says this is even romance?”

“I don’t tend to make a habit out this.” A nervous and still very naked Dermot tried to make himself clear.

“To be fair Paul, your son’s been with demons and white lighter’s what an elder or two added to the list?” Lacey joked with her brother in law. “At least this one isn’t wiping his brain, trying to make him king of hell or using him to reunite with his own father.”

“I feel like we’re setting the standard real low for him.” Paul laughed with Lacey.

“Can you guys just get our of here already?” Drake begged them both.

“Very well kiss your boss goodbye and meet us back at the Manor.” Lacey replied as she grabbed a hold of Paul’s shoulder and the two of them orbed out of Dermot’s office.

“So, this isn’t a romance then?” Dermot awkwardly asked Drake.

“God knows.” Drake laughed to himself.

“Listen I’m telling you there is nothing to worry about.” Pan said as her and Raven walked into the dining room and sat down at the table. “We’re power of three whatever’s coming for us this time and then you can get straight to telling Paul the happy news.”

“Let’s just hope Paul takes this as well as you do.” Raven replied. “What if he doesn’t want another child? What if it hurts him too much to consider starting again with another baby after having to give up Drake when he was a baby?”

“That’s exactly why this is brilliant news look I wouldn’t change Drake for the world and neither would Paul but there’s not a day that goes by where Paul doesn’t regret raising Drake and now he finally gets a chance to be a father from the very beginning.” Pan told Raven, trying to reassure the demon. “It doesn’t mean he’s any less of a father to Drake or will be any less of a father to him when this one is born it just means he gets two children instead of one and trust me he’s going to be thrilled.”

“Thanks, you and Lacey are going to be wonderful mothers when the time comes.” Raven complimented the Halliwell witch. “You’ve made me feel so much more at ease.”

“I’m sorry I took my time turns out the elders were completely clueless about Paul’s premonition.” Lacey apologised after orbing into the dining room with Paul by her side.

“That’s okay I guess this just means holding tight till we work out more about who’s going to attack.” Pan said as she stood up from her chair and hugged her wife.

“Raven you’re still here!” Paul smiled as Raven stood up, walked over to her man and kissed him on the lips.

“I love you!” Raven declared to the eldest Halliwell.

“I love you too!” He replied.

“Listen Paul there’s something I need to tell you...” Raven began to say until suddenly a bullet pierced through the dining room window smashing the glass in the process as it headed for Pan’s direction who tried to freeze the bullet but her power’s failed on her as the bullet went straight through her forehead causing an instantly lifeless Pan to go flying backwards into the foyer of the Halliwell Manor as the three others screamed in horror.

“Pan!” Lacey frantically screamed as she rushed over to her wife, knelled and attempted to heal Pan only for her healing powers not to work much to Lacey’s horror as she continued screaming. “Heal...god damn it, powers don’t fail me now!”

Suddenly another bullet pierced through the kitchen window this time heading straight in Paul’s direction as he was hit in the chest and fell down into the foyer next to his lifeless sister as he looked over at Pan as Raven continued to scream in horror.

Lacey quickly and gently placed Pan down before moving over to Paul attempting to heal her brother in law only for her powers not to work once more.

“Quinn! Paige! Somebody please!” Lacey screamed as Raven rushed over to Paul grabbing a hold of his hand while Lacey stood up covered in both the blood of her wife and her wife’s brother as her look of heartbreak turned into a look of pure rage before she orbed away.

“Stay with me okay you’ve got to stay with me!” Raven cried frantically. “This can’t end like this we can’t end like this I love you Paul.”

“I love you too.” Paul replied before his eyes closed causing Raven to scream louder as she watched the man she loved died.

Meanwhile a grief stricken, and vengeful Lacey orbed herself outside of the dining room window in the back garden of the Halliwell Manor to find a woman dressed all in black holding a rifle that had clearly been used to kill Paul and Pan.

Before the assassin had any chance to shoot at her Lacey launched herself at the woman jumping onto her and causing them both to fall to the ground as Lacey began repeatedly punching the villainess in the face before picking her up and throwing her head against the dining room window completely smashing all of the glass in the process as a wounded and bloodied assassin fell to the ground.

Lacey walked over towards the rifle, picked it up and aimed it in the murderous woman’s direction before Raven shimmered herself into the garden to stand by Lacey’s side with her eyes still red raw and her body still trembling from just having watched Paul die.

“Lacey!” Raven screamed at the vengeful white lighter. “She’s human we can’t kill humans I know you want to and trust me so do I but killing her is not the answer.”

“Maybe not,” Replied a broken Lacey before she fired the gun several times at the assassin making bullet after bullet pierce the body of the woman who had killer her wife and her wife’s brother.

“What have you done?” Raven cried before a broken Lacey orbed away dark lighter style.

Drake blinked into the kitchen of the Halliwell Manor before walking into the dining room where he was instantly alarmed upon see the dining room window completely smashed with blood covered on what remained of the window before he turned to look at the dining table which was covered in broken glass from the window as Drake continued cautiously walking through the dining room only to let out a huge scream as he saw the lifeless and bloodied bodies of his father Drake and his aunt Pan as he quickly rushed over to his father and began sobbing uncontrollably as he picked his father up into his arms.

“No!” Drake screamed as he hugged into his father while shaking erratically back and forth. “This can’t be happening again! I can’t go through this again! Come on dad please just wake up please don’t leave me dad…please don’t leave me!”

Drake continued to sob and scream uncontrollably while hugging his father’s lifeless body tighter and tighter, accidentally covering himself in his father’s blood before a group of police burst in through the front door shouting “It’s the San Francisco Police please stand up and put your hands where we can see them.”

Non-corporeal versions of Pan and Paul suddenly appeared within the attic of the Halliwell Manor looking at each other with pure confusion in their eyes before a non-corporeal Piper Halliwell appeared in front of them as the two siblings instantly realized what had just happened.

“I’m sorry my beautiful grandchildren it’s never easy saying goodbye even if you are given time to do such.” Piper said to them both with tears in her eyes. “I thought I’d come here and guide you along the way to try and comfort you both as much as possible. Death kind of owed us all a favour.”

“I don’t want to go I was finally happy I finally got my son back and I found someone I really love.” Paul told his grandmother, pleading for his death not to be finale.

“I just got married we were going to have children together.” Pan cried. “All that can’t be over before it’s even begun.”

“I don’t want to leave them!” Paul cried while grabbing a hold of his sister’s hand.

“We never want to leave when our time comes and yet it still comes.” Piper admitted to them both.

“Are they going to be okay without us?” Pan asked her grandmother.

“No not for a really long time.” Piper cried. “But in time their going to be okay their going to be better than okay and their going to be stronger than ever because you both taught them how to be strong.”

“I can’t believe this is over.” Paul said with a broken look on his face as he and his sister began walking towards their grandmother.

“I know my darlings, but I promise you everything will make sense in time.” Piper cried as she hugged her grandchildren before all three of them disappeared.

[iamkatehardy]

About Me Game

Answer 10 questions and tag 10 people (Tagged by: @they-are-not-just-stories , thank you babe ❤️)

How tall are you?

Something between 5’4” and 5’5” (I always have do Google how to convert my height, for me it’s something between 1.63 m and 1.66 m 😂)

What color and style is your hair?

Red, wavy/curly ( My hair has its own life... I guess it depends on the day and how I take care of it.) and untameable. Right now it’s long, but I might change my mind and cut it above my shoulders, I’m a crazy motherfucker when it comes to my hair 🤫

What color are your eyes?

Something between light blue and grey. It depends on the mood, actually... What I’m wearing sometimes makes them look more bluish or more greyish too.

Do you wear glasses/braces?

I should wear glasses, but I rarely do, only when I need to read or work in my computer. When I do, everything feels HD comparing to what I usually see 😂

What’s your fashion sense?

I guess it depends on the occasion... Sometimes I wake up wanting to look like a living doll, with my fancy dresses and super high heels, others I just want some leather and a band shirt or something 😂 Most of the days I just grab the first thing I find in my closet.

Full name? 

My name is Cátia, although most of people call me Kate; everyone thinks my name is Kate, sometimes even I believe that, I am not used to answer by my real name.

When were you born?

September of 1995 baby 😂

Where are you from and where do you live now? 

I’m from Portugal and I live in Porto, the capital of the North 😁

What school do you go to?

I’m not in school anymore, but I attended the Faculty of Arts (Languages and International Relations - Politics and stuff 😁)

What kind of student are you?

I was a good student, I’ve always had the capacity of absorbing information 😁 If the subject really interested me, I wouldn’t even need to study.

Do you like school?

I used to think school was a pain in the ass, nowadays I really miss it. Those are the best years of your life, believe it or not. Compared to adult life, school is Heaven. Sometimes I really want to go back in time, especially to college time!

Favorite subject?

I followed different paths in high school and college, so...

High school: Physics, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Philosophy...

College: History, International Politics, Politic Philosophy, Marketing and an optional subject I had about Journalism. Law and Economics were cool but a bit boring.

Favorite TV Shows?

Peaky Blinders, Taboo, Narcos, The Sopranos, House of Cards, Dexter... Give me crime, man 😂

Favorite Movie?

I don’t think I can chose 😂 I love Inception, Batman movies (old and new, until Nolan’s TDK), Warrior, WWII related movies (I always cry!), The Sound of Music, LOTR, Harry Potter, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Law Abiding Citizen, Split, Shutter Island... I feel like I could go on forever 😂

Favorite book?

The Godfather, Dan Brown’s books, Tolkien, Fernando Pessoa and a lot of other poetry related authors, George Orwell...

Do philosophy/politics books count? I’m currently devouring a series of four books about espionage and tactics behind WW II 😂

Favorite past time?

I would’ve loved to have lived in the 19th century, 20s , 60s or 70s/80s 😂

Do you have regrets?

Don’t we all? But mistakes are an important part of our lives. Decisions we’ve made brought us to where we are today. “Never a failure, always a lesson.”

Dream job?

I used to want to have a philosophy teacher. I am tutoring and working in politics, meaning I partially my dream jobs! But I dream of working on the area of diplomacy or an international organisation one day.

Would you like to be married?

It can happen, but it’s not like I dream of it. I don’t think you need a bunch of papers and a ring to express love or commitment.

Would you like kids?

I’m not sure, it’s still early to think about that anyway. It must be bloody difficult to be a good parent. Sometimes I feel like I would like to experience how is it to be a mother, sometimes I don’t know if I would be capable of doing it right. Right now I can’t even take care of myself right, so...

How many?

If I had kids, I’d like to have twins... Or two kids. I’m an only child and I would’ve liked to have had a brother. It must be nice to grow up with someone.

What countries have you visited?

Spain, UK, Germany, Italy... I really want to go back! And if possible, go to Russia.

Scariest nightmare you’ve even had?

I have some crazy dreams sometimes... I’m locked and someone wants to hurt me or kill me and there’s no way out, why does my brain do this to me?!! But honestly, no nightmare is scarier than conscious dreams or sleep paralysis, the feeling of powerlessness is really despairing and it freaks me out. I struggle to “wake up” but I’m stuck.

Any enemies?

Thankfully, I’m unable of feeling hate. I’ve had people in my life who hurt me and harmed me so bad that you would say they deserved my hate... But the hate would only harm me. So no, no enemies, just people whose existence I chose to ignore, for the sake of my sanity.

Any significant one?

Unless Alfie Solomons is a valid answer, no 😂

Do you believe in miracles?

It depends on the miracle. I don’t know if there’s such thing as miracles, or any entity/ force/ whatever that interferes with our lives at some points... What I know is that there are some things the reason can’t explain, call it whatever you want.

How are you?

I’ve been better, but I just hope things don’t get worse, that’s a beginning!

Tagging: @prasygold @marvelgirl7 @outofbluecomesgreen @miidailyinspiration @markusstraya

[katie-dub]

The Princess of White Chapel (1/12)

Dr Killian Jones is having a terrible day. He’s got a mission, he’s got a time machine, he’s got … drunk. What could possibly go wrong?

AO3

Rated M for alcohol use, violence, minor character death, frank discussions of depression and grief

This is not a Millian fic, but their relationship is discussed and shown in a positive life, if that's not your bag, no hard feelings!

I’m beyond excited to finally share this story with you all for this year’s @captainswanbigbang! I feel like I’ve had this one sitting in my docs forever (forever, nearly two years, same difference), and I can’t wait to see what you all think.

The amazing @princesse-swan created my banner and has some stunning art to share with you while I’m posting. She’s so freaking talented and is the best cheerleader I could have ever hoped for - I don’t know how I got so lucky as to be paired with you lady! Give her some love, because she deserves all the flailing! You'll find her art for me here!

The fantastic @distant-rose and @ultraluckycatnd were my betas, sounding boards, muses and tireless defenders of the oxford comma. Ladies, I salute you!

I have approximately a million more people to thank for helping me to bring this to life, but to save this turning into an embarrassing, over-long, emotional mess like an ill-advised oscars acceptance speech, I’ll just leave your names here, you know what you did and I love you for it. @mahstatins @killiancygnus @phiralovesloki @icecubelotr44 @sambethe @winterbythesea @justanotherwannabeclassic @welllpthisishappening* @fluffandnonsense @belovedcreation @ladyciaramiggles and the ladies of the hub and the ISB.

*psssst it’s Laura’s birthday today! So this chapter is dedicated to her, and you should all go wish her a fabulous day!

A soft hand wrapping around his waist. A mess of tangled curls tickling his cheek. The scent of spices and sex filling his nose.

He kept his eyes closed, basking in the blissful sensations. Life with his love felt like the most perfect dream - and he wasn’t willing to give it up just yet.

“Killian,” a husky whisper in his ear, “Killian, darling, time to wake up now.” A nose nuzzling against the sensitive spot behind his ear, tickling him and making him twitch. Stubbornly, he squeezed his eyes together ever more tightly.

Sharp teeth biting down on his earlobe finally startled him enough to open his eyes. He turned to glare at Milah, forcing himself to hold her gaze so as not to be distracted by her many assets. She giggled at the look of exaggerated fury on his face, ducking down to his ear to whisper “Oops” before licking where her teeth had been.

Killian groaned as she trailed her lips and her tongue along his jaw, kissing, licking, and sucking as she went. His eyes closed as he revelled in the sensations left in her wake, his breath quickening and his pulse starting to race as she inched ever closer to his lips.

When she finally, torturously slowly, brushed her lips against his, he lost all patience. He growled as he tangled his hands into her hair, capturing her lips in a fierce kiss. He rolled her onto her back and broke away, resting his forehead against hers as he caught his breath.

“You’ll be the death of me, my love,” he murmured, peppering Milah’s face with kisses.

“But what a way to go, aye?” was her teasing reply, the last of her words lost to a gasp as he began to kiss his way down her body.

Killian awoke from his dream, disoriented and disheveled, by the sound of his phone ringing. He fell off the sofa as he scrambled about to stop the incessant noise, knocking his elbow on the coffee table and sending a glass of water flying in the process.

“Bloody hell!”

God, he wanted to be back in that dream, a decade in the past where he was with Milah, in love, their naked bodies entwined. Alone, in pain, and wearing the contents of his drink on his now soggy shirt. This was his reality now.

He spotted the phone and grabbed it, barking “what?” as he stalked towards his kitchen for something to clean up the mess.

“Hi Killian,” Belle answered benignly. She always did have saintly levels of patience with his bullshit. “Just checking if you’re going to make it to book club tonight? We’re discussing Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.” Killian glanced at the clock, 7:35. He was meant to be there… five minutes ago. Fuck. “And before you try fobbing me off by saying that you haven’t read the book and wouldn’t have anything to add anyway, you suggested this one Killian. In fact, you’re meant to be leading the discussion. I believe you said that it’s one of your favourites, a ‘modern classic’?” He could actually hear the air quotes he had no doubt Belle would do if they were together.

“Belle, I’m really sorry, it’s just something important came up.” He glanced at the letter lying on his coffee table, alongside a now nearly empty bottle of rum, his jaw clenching at the sight. “I just can’t tonight.” He winced as he waited for the inevitable backlash. Was she going to get angry? Guilt him with the weight of her crushing disappointment?

“Oh. That’s a shame. I really wanted to introduce you to a friend of mine. Maybe another time.”

Killian made a vaguely noncommittal noise in reply, wanting to rant at her for pushing him towards a new relationship. While Belle was kind enough to be so understanding about him bailing on her yet again, he didn’t feel like he could, but the rage simmered all the same.

“I've got to go, everyone’s waiting. Call me later?”

“Sure, Belle, bye.” Killian hoped he had sounded at least vaguely civil as he jabbed at his phone to end the call. He dropped it next to him as he slumped back against the sofa. Unconsciously, he began to play with the ring on the prosthetic that had replaced his left hand while he fumed silently at Belle’s presumption. When would they all understand that what he had with Milah couldn’t just be replaced? That he didn’t even want to try?

Perhaps if they understood his plans, they wouldn’t push him so hard. He didn’t need a replacement for Milah. He needed to save her. And he would.

So long as time hadn’t run out.

He picked up the letter that had driven him to drink until he passed out when he received it earlier that day. It had been a long time since he had spiralled like that and lost sight of his goal. He re-read the words, still in disbelief, somehow hoping a few hours would have changed their meaning. If it weren’t for the official King’s College London letterhead, he might have thought it was a wind up.

“Dear Dr. Jones,

It is with regret that we must inform you that, in line with the current economic troubles society is facing, we have made the decision to withdraw your funding at the end of the academic year.”

Killian couldn’t read any further. He knew who was behind this move. Bloody Gold, the beast who killed his Milah and took his hand, was still playing games with him. It was one of his favourite things to do: fuck with the man who fucked his wife.

He would never get over how having endless funds could apparently absolve you of any sin. That, combined with powerful allies (a mixture of establishment school friends and power-hungry fools who’d been suckered in by one-sided deals), made him untouchable. He had never even gone to court for his part in the death of his ex-wife and maiming of her lover. Killian’s protests of Gold’s guilt had been taken as merely the ravings of a man crushed by grief.

Everyone had indulged him kindly, until they hadn’t.

The principal and president of King’s College himself had come to Killian to explain how his vendetta against the eminent philanthropist harmed not only his future prospects but threatened his entire faculty’s continued existence. Gold’s generous grants were vital to the university, as he was reminded, and it wouldn’t do to upset the man.

So Killian had chosen to play the long game. Almost as soon as Milah was killed, he had sworn to himself that he would use his research to find a way to save her life. And after months of enduring Gold’s bullying, he had also made it his mission to destroy the man while he did it.

It was so much easier to smile and make nice where necessary when he could picture how he might one day rip Gold’s throat out.

Reductions in funding could be brushed aside as he enhanced his prosthetic so that it moved as fluidly as his remaining hand - and was more deadly than it could ever be. Academic papers that were blocked from publication without justification became but a minor nuisance as he trained to take on Gold’s henchmen. Applications for grants and proposals to present research that were denied were just mild irritations while he worked on the time machine that would bring all his plans to fruition.

Killian scrunched the letter up and threw it into the bin, then dragged his hand through his hair.

The end of the academic year. That was only one month away. He had one month to make his time machine work or 10 years of endless toil - and his only chance to save his love - would have all been for nothing.

He had been without his Milah for longer than he’d been with her now, but he still felt her loss as keenly as the night he lost her. The sound of her voice may be dimming in his memory, but the way she made him feel would never fade, his love for her would never die. At times, he felt as though Gold had reached right into him and ripped his heart from his chest back then. In its place was a black hole that allowed for no love, no joy and certainly no mercy.

Belle, Robin, Will, and the rest had no idea what they were dealing with when they tried to play matchmaker. When they tried to get him out of his shell and having fun. When they tried to make him live his life like a respectable member of society.

Oh, if only they knew.

Killian had always been a man of many vices: drink, gambling, sex. But then Milah had come along. She had changed him, had made him better. He still indulged, but in a socially respectable fashion and not with the crazed air of a man on the brink of destruction. When she died, he could practically feel his friends holding their breath, waiting for the wildfire to ignite. What they didn’t know - couldn’t know - was that he had something else to keep him going now: her rescue and his revenge.

His head felt fuzzy, the hangover from his earlier desperate binge already kicking in. This was why he had abstained. He couldn’t afford to feel like this. Not when Milah needed him.

He closed his eyes and remembered the first time he saw her.

His head was swimming after several hours of shots and pints and god knows what else. Yet, one look at her and everything became clearer. She was sat in a corner, looking lonely and nervous, glancing about furtively. She had looked up from her drink and caught his eye, smiling shyly and quickly looking away. She was stunning.

Then a brute of a man stepped between them.

Killian’s first thought had been sheer irritation at having his view of this goddess blocked. But then he noticed that the man had one hand on her shoulder, his grip harsh.

Killian hadn’t stopped to think before racing over to her. As he moved closer, he could see that his instinct about this man had been right: she looked anxious and annoyed.

He tapped the giant on the shoulder, smiling brightly at him when he turned around.

“Excuse me, would you mind letting go of this lovely lady?” Killian winked at her and was delighted to see a faint blush and a barely suppressed smile cross over her face. “Once you’ve done that, could you go… well, anywhere else?” Definitely not his wittiest line, but Killian was just impressed that he managed to sound clear and confident.

A confused expression crossed over the man’s face and he did indeed let the lady go. “Were you talking to me?”

“I’m sorry, did I talk too fast? You’ve managed to take your hand off the lady, excellent work. 10 out of 10 for that. Now all that’s left is for you to kindly fuck off.”

“And what if I don’t?”

“Well…” Killian tilted his head to the side, as if musing on the question. But then he balled his hand up into a fist, punched the man hard and knocked him to the ground.

He looked up at the woman who had captured his attention. Her eyes were wide with fear and, if he wasn’t mistaken, admiration. She stared at him in shock for a moment before speaking.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“He shouldn’t have been touching you without your consent.” All of a sudden Killian panicked; he knew how the situation had looked, but perhaps she hadn’t been a damsel in distress after all? “I mean, you looked very unhappy about him being here, did I get that wrong?”

“No, you were right. But you shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not?”

“He’s one of my husband’s men sent to bring me home.” She spat out the words, her eyes darting around the room as if checking for others. After a few moments of searching and presumably finding nothing, she seemed to relax.

While Killian did note this odd behaviour, he was more preoccupied by the word “husband”. He felt his face fall. Of course this goddess was unavailable. She looked up at him and grinned wickedly.

“I wasn’t ready to go home anyway. Want to have a drink with me … ?”

“I’m Killian,” he supplied, looking down at her left hand to see a ring stubbornly placed on her finger. “And you’re married.”

“My name’s Milah, actually.”

Killian laughed at that. “It’s lovely to meet you, Milah.”

That had been the start of a dark and dangerous affair that had ultimately led to his Milah’s death. Killian squeezed his eyes together, fighting back tears. Even before her untimely end, he had wondered if his presence in her life was more trouble than it was worth, but she had always reassured him that his love had made her complete. He had certainly felt that way about her - and with her gone, he was broken and could never be whole again.

He needed Milah back, and time was running out. What better time than the present to go back to the past?

He didn’t stop to consider the obvious factors working against him: he was tired, stressed and intoxicated. He was fairly certain that “drunk in charge of a time machine” went against some kind of time traveller rule.

(Probably up there with “don’t change the past”, but he was hardly going to obey that one, was he?)

Then there was the small matter that he hadn’t yet managed a successful test. Most of the time, he would switch the machine on and nothing would happen.

But every now and then, it would glitch and cause odd ripples in the world around him. His educated guess about the strange phenomenon was that the machine was swapping his particles with particles of Killian Jones from alternative universes - pulling pieces of some other him into this one. One time his prosthetic shimmered and mutated into a hook and back again before he could so much as groan at the cliché. Another time, he went colour blind for a few hours. Once his hair mysteriously turned blonde for a week until he could recalibrate the machine.

(He had to wonder at the alternative version of him who thought that was a good look. He assumed in that reality Killian Jones did not have a friend like Will Scarlet, intent on mocking him relentlessly.)

But he was confident that his calculations were all correct now. This time he would manage it.

He grabbed the bag that he had packed long ago with everything he needed to exact his revenge and stumbled down to the tube. The air was oppressive in the underground station thanks to the late July heat as he waited for his train. He swayed, swallowed down a wave of nausea and cursed himself for choosing the hellish heat over cycling to campus as he usually did. Some sensible part of him had realised that he didn’t have the wit needed to cycle through London traffic - and yet that self-preservation instinct wasn’t strong enough to stop him from propelling himself on a dangerous quest.

The dry, hot wind of the approaching train provided some relief even as it burnt his skin. He clambered aboard and settled into an empty seat. He was grateful for the unspoken British rule that one must sit as far away from other living souls as was physically possible and never, upon pain of death, make eye contact with or talk to strangers. And so, he made it to Embankment station without once having to so much as glance at another human, instead ruminating on calculations and probabilities in his head.

The air outside was only marginally more refreshing than that below ground. It didn’t have that stale, recycled quality, but it was thick with humidity and the scent of melting tarmac. He tugged at his collar and loosened yet another button on his shirt. In his rush to leave, he had failed to change out of the shirt he had fallen asleep in and he could smell alcohol and sweat in the fabric. It suddenly felt inauspicious to greet his lost love in such crumpled clothes, but time was against him. He had to press on.

No one stopped him as he made his way into the nearly deserted building. The undergrads were home for the summer, so the halls were stalked only by the professors who finally had time to do their real work, students plugging away at their doctorates and the unlucky few who needed to retake exams using the month before resits to study hard. At this time of night in particular, few were to be seen in the Strand, unless, of course, they were haunting the bars that were littered in and around campus instead of devoting themselves to academia.

Killian Jones had long since accepted that his habits fell far out of the realm of what most considered normal. And to be completely honest? He couldn’t care less.

He finally made his way to his lab, unlocking the door with a buzz of excitement. It was finally happening.

He strode straight to the machine, stashing his bag in the footwell then climbing inside and buckling in.

He took a deep breath, staring blankly at the calendar on the wall in front of him. He had long thought about this moment. He knew exactly when he needed to go to: one week before Milah’s death. Enough time to get to Gold and stop him, but not long enough to risk meeting himself. He hoped anyway.

He paused for a moment, suddenly realising how reckless this was. He hadn’t run any last checks. No one knew what he was doing.

But then he thought of Milah. She deserved this.

He input the coordinates and hit the command to send.

For a long moment, nothing happened.

Then lights began to swirl in front of him, moving fast enough to make him dizzy. He saw a beam of light shooting out from the machine and blasting through a window - that certainly hadn’t happened before. He hoped that was a sign of success, he really didn’t want to have to clean up the mess if it wasn’t. Then, just as suddenly as the light show had started, it stopped. Everything went still.

Had it worked?

Killian cautiously stepped out of the time machine and looked around. He was still in the lab surrounded by his equipment. His eyes flicked to the calendar on the wall. It stubbornly continued to read 2017 and he knew this attempt had failed.

He clenched his jaw in an attempt to keep the tears from his eyes. He’d let Milah down. Again. After all these years, he still couldn’t save her. If this hadn’t worked, he honestly didn’t know if anything would.

“It didn’t work,” he muttered to himself, racking his brain for something, anything, that he had done wrong. He must have miscalculated something, but he had been so sure he had it this time. “Why didn’t it bloody work?” He swept his hand across the nearest counter, sending everything scattering to the floor in his frustration.

His head pounded and his stomach turned, reminding him of how much alcohol he’d consumed. He knew he should stay, should try to understand his mistake for Milah’s sake, but he just couldn’t. His soul was weary with the weight of yet another failure, of carrying the burden of his revenge alone, of the sad and empty existence his life had become.

Tears pricked at his eyes and his chest ached with anger. If only Gold hadn't interfered again, pushing him to act before he was ready... This was all his fault.

No, it's yours, whispered a voice from somewhere deep inside. This is your failure. Why did you ever think that you could achieve the impossible?

The whispers of his inner tormentor grew louder and more cruel, detailing his faults, all the ways he let down those he loved, and showing him that he could never have his happy life back. He had done too much, been too distant, his life was empty because he made it so. The vicious narrative overwhelmed him until he felt physically sick.

He needed to get out of there, so he left, leaving his supplies and the shattered remains of his window scattered across the floor.

[1apple-fox1]

This is a thing 1/idfk dude

posting it on fanfiction.net didnt go over well cause i got too scared and i d ont really w ant critiques i guess c ause i already really really hate the way i write and would love not to feel any shittier so uh-

this is for Monster!Minato/Makoto I have him named Makoto in this one so i can tell the two apart better- this is basically the intro i guess and uhhhh- enjoy??

also i dont have ao3 sorry if its hard to read....

"Iwatodai, Iwatodai," the not so enthusiastic voice sang on the train speakers. Makoto sighed- after what felt like forever he was here... Again. His brows knitted together into an expression of annoyance, or maybe even slight anger? Sometimes even he had problems thinking what emotion he could possibly be experiencing. But he knew, he wished he could have been anywhere but here.

After walking out into the open walk way he stopped. It was rather dead now that he was paying attention. He pulled out his phone. 11:59 PM... It was almost time for...

Just as he thought about it the time changed to 12:00 AM, only for everything to suddenly stop. The world gained a sickly green hue, and everyone around him had ceased to move, transmogrifying into coffins. Another night, another dark hour... With a solemn sigh he pushed onwards, the sights, the blood, the everything- this wasn’t new to him anymore.

There was a sort of sticky splashing noise as he stepped onto one of the many 'bloody' puddles on the streets, but he didn't really care. Looking up at the building before him, it was... smaller than he thought it would be. He thought to himself, looking over his hastily made map one last time. "This is it." He spoke aloud, almost as if trying to convince himself this was indeed the dorm he was assigned. With one last breath he pushed the door open to be met with...

A girl?

The auburn haired girl hummed as she finished signing a sheet of paper and closing the book. She looked around in her small bag, placing the pen back as she finally noticed the new guest. "Oh!" She seemed rather surprised by his sudden appearance. "Man, I didn't even hear you there, that's some major sneaking talent you got there!"

Makoto wore a dumbfounded expression before responding with a quick "Sorry I guess," shrugging the whole ordeal off, and in the process sounding as un-genuine as he could while apologizing. He eyed the place the paper was, only to see that whatever the girl has signed had disappeared now too. "Anyways I guess that means this is a unisex dorm, pretty cool huh?"

"Uh-"

"Who's there!?"

The third voice yelled, with obvious panic laced throughout her words. While the dark hour was known for being dark, Makoto always found it pretty easy to see, and by the stairs indeed there was a third figure, wearing some sort of pink uniform top. "Don't tell me, you're-!" Without even a warning the girl pulled out a gun.

"W-wait hold on a minute!" The auburn haired one spoke up, now even she was panicking. "We're students! ordinary students and-"

"Takeba wait-!"

A fourth voice now, called from the stairs. Just as she had interrupted the lights, the TV, his headphones. Everything came on again- everything was back to normal.

Meanwhile the situation’s tension lessened. The red head explained who they were.

"Oh um..." The pink clad girl almost seemed embarrassed now. "Well my name's Yukari Takeba. Sorry for uh-"

"So why do you have a gun?" The auburn hair girl interjected, Yukari seemed taken aback by the sudden comment.

"Well um, it's- sorta like a hobby of mine-"

"A hobby?" Makoto finally spoke, there was something odd about calling a gun a 'hobby' of all things.

Yukari looked like she had just been cornered by some wild animal when she heard him ask the question. "I-It's um-"

"For protection," The red head chimed in. "You can never be too careful in times like these."

He nodded. Despite his questioning before, Makoto had all but run out of caring for this situation.

"Fine, I buy it-" The auburn haired girl spoke. She wore a cheeky grin, and despite how big it was it was hard to tell what exactly she was thinking. "Well, Yukari and..." She gestured to the red head, while she finally reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Oh-" It took her a bit to understand why the younger girl had stopped. "Mitsuru Kirijo- a third year- And you, if I remember correctly by your file, are-"

"Hey, hey! You can't just take away my introduction like that!" The auburn hair girl interjected in a childish manor."I'm Kotone Shiomi, second year, and new to this area!"

"Oh hey, uh- me too-" Yukari spoke up, and when she did it was almost an instant match in friendship heaven. The next thing he knew the two girls were hoping to be in the same class as they both walked to- what he assumed- was their rooms.

It was just him and Mitsuru now. With a cough to draw in his attention Mitsuru started again. "And you are Makoto Yuki, correct?"

He nodded. Whether he meant to or not though his posture and lack of an audible response made him come across as rude to the senior, though she didn't dare say anything. "Come, I'll show you to your room."

Without a word he followed Mitsuru up the stairs and down the hall in silence, the tapping of shoes on the carpet was the only audible noise. But even that came to a stop as they reached the end of the hallway. "Floor one, last door on the right shall be your room." She forced a pair of keys into his hand. "While I do have extras try not to lose those keys, I wouldn't want to be seen as unreliable."

Unreliable?

Without another word Mitsuru walked back down the stairs- she must have something else to do still...

With a click and a turn of the door knob he opened his room. The first thought that came to his head was "Bland" and really that was an understatement, aside from the essentials like a bed, and a desk there was barely anything in the room. Not even his boxes filled much space. Makoto sighed, shutting the door behind him. With a quick change he hopped into bed- and tried his best to sleep.

___________________________

The clacking of the train wheels were audible over Makoto’s blaring music. He sighed trying to turn the volume up- even though he already knew he had it at max.

Yukari was talking to both him and Kotone, but of course he couldn't hear a word she was saying over his own music. Makoto saw them both looking at something through the window and without realizing, he felt his own gaze shift to the window.

A tall white building sat on the horizon, almost blinding him as the sun reflected off it. It stung his eyes, letting out a wince he couldnt help but start rubbing at his eye, like doing so would relieve the pain. Of course it didn't.

“...”

“... Hey-”

“Hey!”

Kotone practically screamed in his ear after removing his headphones. But his expression remained pretty neutral even as Kotone stared at him, wearing a pouty expression. What was a surprise to him was when the girl removed his headphones. (He could have sworn he heard a giggle come from Yukari.) “You know both of us are trying to speak with you you know? It’s not nice to ignore a girl like that!”

“I don’t really care-”

“Don’t really-! Yukari’s being nice enough to show us around and you don’t care!?” It was obvious the girl was mad with him, her pouty almost playful face had turned into a full on scowl.

“Hey Kotone- it’s fine he’s taken them off so-”

“So what? He’s still a jerk- and I just realized I don’t even know this jerks name!”

Yukari was practically clinging onto Kotone at this point. “Just drop it ok? We’re almost there anyway-” She pleaded with the headstrong girl. And indeed she was right- the train screeching to a halt, announcing their stop clearly. But Kotone still glared at the boy.

“Don’t think this is over punk-!”

And with that she ran for the exit with Yukari close behind.

He suppose he should get off as well… Makoto took his sweet time departing the train. He tried to stay away from Kotone as much as possible, not to be kind or even out of fear of being yelled at, but because he knew he had pissed her off. Staying away for now would be for the best… Probably… People were hard to read…

_______________________________________________________________

The school was like a confusing maze to him, when he thought he was headed the right way to the office he’d find himself in a courtyard, he briefly wondered if maybe finding a teacher to tell them ‘hey I’m the new student’ would be too much of a hassle.

After asking around he had finally found it, sliding open the door to the faculty office he was greeted by-

Of course, of course she was here too, it was her first day too wasn’t it? She scowled at him as she left, no Yukari in sight… Huh, odd. Then again their friendship was new.

“Ah, then you must be the other transfer student-” A woman sang from the back as she looked over sheets of paper she had laid out on her clipboard. “Makoto Yuki yes?”

He nodded.

“You’re in… Class F, that’s my class- oh yes I’m miss Toriumi. I look forward to having you in my home room!” She extended her hand for a handshake. The boy took it reluctantly. She quickly went back to the notes, skimming a page or two. “You’ve sure moved around a lot, more than I expected from only a second year but-” She looked back at the notes one last time. “Let’s see… In 1999. That was- what ten years ago? Your parents-” She cut herself off with a gasp.

This always happened- no matter where he went people brought this up, and even though his face stayed rather stoic, Makoto felt an odd mix of emotions.

Sadness.

Anger.

Regret.

He felt himself straining to keep his usual composure, hearing it never got easier…

“I’m- I’m so sorry, I’ve been so busy I didn’t have time to read this before hand.”

“Can you just, take me to my homeroom now?” His straightforward answer seemed to throw his new homeroom teacher for a loop, she wore an expression of annoyance before immediately softening up.

“Of course, sorry for my earlier blunder.” She spoke and headed toward the door, Makoto following close behind.

________________________________________________________________

When he entered the classroom went silent. “Good morning class!” Toriumi called. “I have two new transfer students to introduce today-” She gestured to someone in the corner, when Kotone stepped up with a peppy step Makoto’s suspicions were confirmed. “Now go on and introduce yourselves-”

Without a second of delay Kotone blurted out a happy go lucky “Hi! My name’s Kotone Shiomi- I Like cute things and the color orange!” Every boy in the class seemed enamoured, while Makoto just sighed like he’d had enough of this already.

“Ah right, you may take a seat near… Ah! The empty desk behind Yukari there-!”

“You got it teach!” And she skipped off and took her seat, she was probably happy to be sitting beside someone she knew.

“And now it’s your turn.”

“Makoto Yuki. Nice to meet you.” That was it, that’s all he said. The ‘nice to meet you’ tacked on to avoid being yelled at by the teacher. He didn’t even wait for the employee to recommend a seat, simply sitting down on the closest one available… Which happened to be… The one beside her.

Kotone was glaring daggers, and if looks could kill he would definitely be dead by now. No matter how hard he tried to ignore it, it was like some chill that ran up his spine and kept him aware. Man she really hated him didn’t she? For some reason he couldn’t bring himself to care all that much, but the thought about dealing with this every day, at the dorm and at school… Well, it gave him more motivation to at least try and fix things.

________________________________________________________________

The final school bell rung and the teacher dismissed herself and her students, Kotone looked about ready to dash out the door. If he wanted things to get better he’d have to do them now.

“Hey Ko-”

“Sup!” A tall lanky boy greeted from the side. Makoto couldn’t help but be drawn to the sports cap on his head. “So you two’re the new transfer students right? Nice to meet you! The names Junpei Iori!” He wore a friendly grin. “I transferred here while in 8th grade so, I kinda know what you two’re goin’ through… And I thought I’d help you out you know?”

“You sure you’re not just trying to hit on the new girl Iori?” Yukari chimed in before the capped teen could finish what he was saying.

“Yuka-tan!”

The two bickered and Kotone seemed to really be enjoying the energy this kid brought. Makoto though… He felt almost like he was watching from outside his own body, the talking and everything- he wasn’t used to this. Was he being overwhelmed? Or was it because of something else? He knew he couldn’t just leave, he hadn’t even apologize to her yet what was he-

“Hey you OK?” Someone asked him, it was one of the girls but he was so disoriented he couldn’t tell who.

“I…” He began, blinking a couple of times, looking at Yukari’s concerned face, and then Kotone’s. “I’m fine.”He breathed in. “I uh,” He didn’t really think apologizing in front of Iori was the best way to go about this. “I actually have something I’d like to tell Kotone-” He should have sounded more excited but he found himself speaking in that flat tone he always did. “So-”

“Ah I get ya man! You wanna make the move as quick as possible!”

“Junpei!” While the two bickered and complained Yukari still managed to drag Iori out of the room, leaving just him and Kotone.

“So- what’d you wanna say to me?” While there was still a hint of aggression in her voice, after the weird zone out he had earlier she couldn’t help but be a little concerned. She hoped Junpei was wrong and this wasn’t about to be some love confession.

“So- I noticed you’re upset with me-”

“No-! Me?? Upset?” She said sarcastically, Makoto ignored it.

“I have a problem with being… Blunt? I guess you could say?” This was hard, being honest and talking with others was way too hard. “I know I sounded like I didn’t care and that upset you. So I wanted to apologize.” He was trying his best to sound sincere- he was so used to using the same uncaring monotone voice that he knew he probably sounded like he was trying too hard. There was no reply from the girl, at least not at first- he wondered if he had made the situation worse for a second.

The more he looked the more he was confused, she looked as if she was staring at something, but there was nothing where she was staring. And a few blinks and a second later she seemed to snap out of it with a surprised “Oh-!”

“It’s OK! After a while I could tell you’re not really a people person- you prefer to be alone right?”

“Most days- yeah.”

“No problem then!” She wore a genuine smile- Makoto thought this was too easy. That’s all it took? There had to be more… Right? “I should have taken the hint when you had those headphones on I guess- But still Yukari went through all the trouble so it was kinda rude-”

Makoto shrugged, letting out a “My bad.” in response. Kotone wore the same smile,but it was obvious she was thinking of something in that head of hers.

“We should probably get goin’, I hope Yukari isn’t still waiting for us.”

Us?

Before Makoto could register anything else Kotone had grabbed his hand and started dragging him along…

________________________________________________________________

The smell of coffee filled his nose and he couldn’t help but grimace. Coffee was never a welcoming smell to him, infact he barely touched the stuff but as he looked to Kotone, who wore a smile that was some how endearing and threatening all at the same time- Makoto thought it best to stay quiet for the time being.

“So-” Kotone started, immediately causing him to tense up. “What’s up?”

“What’s…. Up?” he seemed quite confused at this point, this girl had hated his guts before, then suddenly he was being dragged to a cafe at a mall and being asked something as casual as ‘what’s up’ Like they had been friends for years… Then again…

“Well um…” she started, looking off to the side, as if looking for the right words to say. “We- got off on the wrong foot this morning- or- more like I did.” she paused to take a sip of her coffee. “To be honest when you were ignoring us I thought maybe you were just being an ass hole for no reason- but uh- whatever happened in the class room…” Kotone twirled her hair in between her fingers, focusing intently on how she was about to word her thoughts. “... Makes me think it might be something more than ‘because I’m an asshole’- and whatever that is um, well you don’t have to share but if you need support just ask me OK?”

“Ah…” This seemed odd- for someone to go from hating his guts, to buddy buddy. Something had to be up… Right?

Kotone kept on a convincing smile, but she felt the uncomfortable silence that hung in the air. Makoto took it as a sign to leave, getting up from his chair without a word, but at least waving good bye- last thing he wanted to do was get on her bad side again. Before exiting the cafe he took one more glance, she seemed to be muttering something to herself, odd- but really none of his business. He shrugged and continued on.

________________________________________________________________

[amoralto]

Quotes for curious contemplation: John’s jealousy and possessiveness manifested in terms of family. (a compilation in progress)

Consider this a(nother) supplementary post to this ask, where I touched upon John’s absolutist outlook on relationships. Instances are specific to family, as I’ve noted in the title. More will be added as and when it occurs to me. (Other quotes for curious contemplation: John on distinguishing between best friends and partners, creative and romantic, male and female.)

If you’re wondering who else may have contributed to John’s perspective of love as a zero-sum game, here’s Aunt Mimi accusing John of, amongst other things, betraying her love by being generous to his estranged father and spending time with him:

I’ve been hurt. Cut to the quick. What do you think I felt like, when I’ve been with those Beatle parents, and have heard what they’ve done, for them? I was foolish enough to think, as I had you, and waited for you to be born, that I was father and mother to you. But my goodness, John, you didn’t want me. [laughs; bleak] You didn’t want anything to do with me. And a lifetime’s work was just thrown on one side as nothing.

And you say The Beatles were dumb. They may have been… but in many respects, they could’ve taught you a thing or two. The first thing they did was to make their parents secure. Forever. Knowing very well that they would always get it back. But oh no, you, right, left, center – anyone could have in. And then I had to ask you, this year, to help me out – a terrible thing for me, I’m telling you, it nearly killed me. I’d had the same money from 1962, and anybody with a little thought would have known that what I had was melting away, during that eleven years.

And it seems as though you hated the sight of me. You couldn’t bear the sight of me, and you never missed an opportunity to cut me down dead – in front of other people as well, which was even worse. But it didn’t do you any good, for people noticed. But you were very kind to Alfred Lennon, taking him round the West End and having him in your home. I don’t suppose it ever once crossed your mind that that would hurt me. Especially when you couldn’t stand the sight of me.

— Mimi Smith, recorded letter to John Lennon. (Early 1970s)

And because possessiveness and a sense of entitlement can linger long after the love has been lost or at least temporarily misplaced (see also John writing a song, well into househusband years no less, about the blustery American cowboy he suspected Cynthia was having an affair with in India), here’s John expressing his relief that he still effectively is the most looming presence in his father’s life and doesn’t have anyone else to compete with (while still being mindful of Mimi’s distaste for Alfred): 

Dear Alf Fred Dad Pater whatever,

It’s the first of your letters I’ve read without feeling strange – so here I am answering it – ok? As you know I’m pretty tied up at the moment, there’s a hell of lot to do – if I get time I’ll give Uncle? Charles a ring – but anyway I’ll get in touch with you before a month has passed – after that I’m going to India a couple of months so I’ll try and make sure we meet before then. I know it will be a bit awkward when we first meet and maybe for a few meetings but there’s hope for us yet. I’m glad you didn’t land yourself with a bloody big family – its put me off seeing you a little more – I’ve enough family to last me a few lifetimes – write if you feel like.

Love

John

PS Don’t spread it, I don’t want Mimi cracking up! (press I mean)

— John Lennon, letter to Alfred Lennon. (September 1st, 1967)

Where Paul is concerned, one can imagine John accompanying Paul to any number of Paul’s crowded and happy extended family gatherings and wishing, guilelessly, after that happiness and security for himself—

JOHN: I’m just turning out like all other parents, you see.

MATTHEW: [laughs] Obviously.

JOHN: But I must – I try and think about it, when [Julian]’s not there, I try to be rational. I’m trying to do it all right, but I’m sure it’ll all just turn out the same. And – I’m gonna try not to – you know. At least I’m thinking about it, now.

MATTHEW: But with that much experience behind you, now, would you like to have more children?

JOHN: Yeah, I – as many as come, you know. If Lennon roll out, as they. I like large families. The idea of it. 

— John Lennon, interview w/ Brian Matthew for Pop Profile. (November 13th, 1965)

—while also feeling resentful of and threatened by the importance of family and their emotional attachment to Paul. Consider the unpublished Record Mirror questionnaires everyone but John filled out circa early summer 1963, where John asserts himself in Paul’s answers (and past, and future):

McCartney’s response to the question regarding the biggest musical influence on his own career is initially completed in Lennon's hand in blue ink: John and why?: He's Great; McCartney scored out Lennon's confident answers replacing John's name with: Dad, adding: (he [Lennon] put that himself); as to a question about his future career if music was out, again McCartney crosses out Lennon's hand-written response: John and replaces it with: Tramp...

— Christie’s: Pop Memorabilia including the Collection of Alexis Mardas. (May 5th, 2004)

Not to mention John outright framing himself in competition with Paul’s father (and family) for Paul’s time, affection, and loyalty (the mitigating circumstances of which I’ve unpacked in the past):

[Paul] liked it with daddy and the brother… and obviously missed his mother. And his dad was the whole thing. Just simple things: he wouldn’t go against his dad and wear drainpipe trousers. And his dad was always trying to get me out of the group behind me back, I found out later. He’d say to George: “Why don’t you get rid of John, he’s just a lot of trouble. Cut your hair nice and wear baggy trousers,” like I was the bad influence because I was the eldest, so I had all the gear first usually.

So Paul was always like that. And I was always saying, “Face up to your dad, tell him to fuck off. He can’t hit you. You can kill him [laughs], he’s an old man.” I used to say, “Don’t take that shit off him.” Because I was always brought up by a woman, so maybe it was different. But I wouldn’t let the old man treat me like that. He treated Paul like a child all the time, cut his hair and telling him what to wear, at seventeen, eighteen.

But Paul would always give in to his dad. His dad told him to get a job, he fucking dropped the group and started working on the fucking lorries, saying, “I need a steady career.” We couldn’t believe it. So I said to him—my Aunt Mimi reminded me of this the other night—he rang up and said he’d got this job and couldn’t come to the group. So I told him on the phone, “Either come or you’re out.” So he had to make a decision between me and his dad then, and in the end he chose me. But it was a long trip.

— John Lennon, interview w/ Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld. (September, 1971)

John, in the same interview, immediately follows with a contemplation of the importance of family for Paul, and Linda with her “ready-made family” giving him what Jane Asher (or for that matter, John himself) couldn’t:

JOHN: So it was always the family thing, you see. If Jane [Asher] was to have a career, then that’s not going to be a cozy family, is it? All the other girls were just groupies mainly. And with Linda not only did he have a ready-made family, but she knows what he wants, obviously, and has given it to him. The complete family life. He’s in Scotland. He told me he doesn’t like English cities anymore. So that’s how it is.

MCCABE: So you think with Linda he’s found what he wanted?

JOHN: I guess so. I guess so. I just don’t understand... I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted. I knew I wanted something intelligent or something arty, whatever it was. But you don’t really know what you want until you find it. So anyway, I was very surprised with Linda. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d married Jane Asher, because it had been going on for a long time and they went through a whole ordinary love scene. But with Linda it was just like, boom! She was in and that was the end of it.

— John Lennon, interview w/ Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld. (September, 1971)

And because I can’t stress enough that the possessiveness and jealousy and resentment and longing flows both ways, here’s John bitterly lamenting both Julian’s attachment to Paul and Paul’s natural affinity with Julian/children in general (in stark contrast to his own perception of his faculty as a father):

SCHOENBERGER: How is it for an 11-year-old boy to have John Lennon as a father?

JOHN: It must be hell.

SCHOENBERGER: Does he talk about that to you?

JOHN: No, because he is a Beatle fan. I mean, what do you expect? I think he likes Paul better than me… I have the funny feeling he wishes Paul was his Dad. But unfortunately he got me…

— John Lennon, interview w/ Francis Schoenberger. (Spring, 1975)

Julian himself would lend a measure of credence to John’s paranoia:

JULIAN: [Paul] used to be a lot of fun, I remember. I mean… well, he was good with kids. [laughs] I’m not saying that Dad wasn’t, or is, or whatever. But uh, as far as I can recall, whenever Paul came round, we used to wrestle and fight and run around. Which was not something we did every day with Dad. We used to go for long walks in fields, and stuff like that. He’d tell me things, or point at things and say, “Look at that,” and “Look at this.” So in a strange way, Paul… almost, in some ways and sense, took over the role of Dad. Which is strange to say. But I do recall a lot of that going on, you know. Whenever he was there, it was always fun.

— Julian Lennon, interview w/ Elliot Mintz. (1988)

Which must have struck an especially discordant chord with John, as he seemed determined with Sean’s birth to keep Paul from taking any more of what wasn’t his to claim:  

He became so jealous in the end. You know he wouldn’t let me even touch his baby. He got really crazy with jealousy at times.

— Paul McCartney, “off the record” conversation with Hunter Davies. (May 3rd, 1981)

Having Sean and having a new go at being a good father didn’t exactly stop John from being niggled by Paul’s family (not to mention Paul’s continuing industriousness and creative productivity, recording music and going on tour all while taking good care of his family, and all else), however:

SHEFF: You say you haven’t really listened to Paul’s work and haven’t really talked to him since that night in your apartment—

JOHN: Really talked to him, no, that’s the operative word. I haven’t really talked to him in ten years. Because I haven’t spent time with him. I’ve been doing other things and so has he. You know, he’s got twenty-five kids and about twenty million records out—how can he spend time talking? He’s always working.

— John Lennon, interview w/ David Sheff for Playboy. (September, 1980)

To round up, a non-family-specific but nonetheless pertinent discussion with John and Yoko about love, jealousy, possessiveness, allowance, and self-fulfilling prophecy:

INTERVIEWER: Do you think people’s idea of love has changed, or young people’s idea of love has changed?

JOHN: I don’t. I think whatever love is – and it’s many many things – is constant. It’s been the same forever. I don’t think it will ever change.

INTERVIEWER: But do you think – I’ll say it this way. Do you think young people are now ignoring love, disregarding love, saying it doesn’t exist?

JOHN: How can you? It’s – it’s a sort of abstract concept that comes and goes whether you like it or not. Whatever legislation or whatever philosophies people have put out about it, it exists – without words, without philosophy, and without discussion.

YOKO: Yes, but I know why children, the young kids, are trying to ignore love. That’s very natural. Because they don’t get it and they’re bitter about it, so they’d rather not want it. You know that feeling about – well, you know that you’re not going to get it, and if you try to get it it’s so much pain, so you’d rather sort of pretend like you don’t want it. And you start to believe in that, like oh, “I’m glad that I’m not the type who falls in love, and I’m so glad about it because that way I don’t have to get hurt.” That’s sort of unreal.

JOHN: And they’re probably reacting against – they’d be reacting against the conception of “righteous” love that’s handed down from above over the centuries.

YOKO: Yeah.

JOHN: That’s what they don’t want. But real love they’ll get… whether they want it or not. It’ll happen.

...

INTERVIEWER: Do you think that a new attitude towards love and relationships – would it be fair to say we’re getting away from the property concept of relationships?

JOHN: Of owning the other person? I think – yeah, we could be. But uh… That’s all very well intellectually, but when you actually are in love with somebody, you tend to be jealous and want to own them, possess them a hundred per cent. Which I do.

YOKO: Yes, it’s real life, all that. And I do it too.

JOHN: But intellectually, before that, I thought – right. I mean, owning a person is rubbish, but. I love Yoko, I want to possess her completely; I don’t want to stifle her, you know? [Yoko laughs] And that’s the danger, it’s that you want to possess them to death. But… that’s a personal problem of mine.

YOKO: But we’re doing alright now – just very nice, you know. In other words, I think—

JOHN: It’s after the beginning, when it cools down a bit – not cools down, whatever, it st– uh, whatever the word is, you know – that you can allow each other to breathe.

YOKO: Yes. When you relax a bit, you know.

JOHN: But at first you tend to strangle each other, I think.

YOKO: And [inaudible] we’re starting to relax—

JOHN: And because you have so little as a child, I think it is, you – when once you find it, you want to hang onto it, you grab it so much you tend to kill it.

— John Lennon and Yoko Ono, interview for Women’s Hour. (May 28th, 1971)

Cue You made me love you / I didn’t want to do it... (Insert footage from Magical Mystery Tour of the Beatles singing the song here.)

And - it’s a bit of a self-serving interpretation of the case referenced, admittedly, but it is bizarrely appropriate, and the sentiment of each man killing the thing he loves stands:

Well, there was this Japanese monk, and it happened in the last 20 years. He was in love with this big golden temple, y’know, he really dug it, like—and you know he was so in love with it, he burnt it down so that it would never deteriorate.

That’s what I did with the Beatles.

— John Lennon, interview w/ Alan Smith for NME: At home with the Lennons. (August 7th, 1971)

(Insert John’s dramatically ironic and appropriate love for Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca during the househusband years, chewy parallels between Manderlay and the Kinkakuji and Paul/the Beatles, deranged and convoluted essay comparing John and Paul/the Beatles with Mizoguchi and the Kinkakuji as depicted in Mishima Yukio’s The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, something something Rinzai something something El Topo here.)

[rotzaprachim]

good God, let me give you my life

(Mattelektra, Teen, language, fluffy college flashbacks + also pain because these two just won’t leave me alone)

--- 

"We should get married."

It slips out of his mind without thinking, lulled by the quiet peace of the morning. It's a Saturday and neither of them have anywhere particularly important to be, so they're lying in on Elektra's bed, feeling the lazy heat of the sun through her massive windows. The only time he's gotten up all morning is to try to make a coffee on her fancy machine, only to be befuddled by the inaccessible smooth, unmarked switches and electronic screen. (He's helped by strong arms that snake around him from behind, her face burying distracting in his neck.)

Now they're back between her sheets, Matt wrapped around her as she pages through the weekend headlines on her i-pad, reading out the most outrageous headlines with her usual biting, accented commentary. He says that, though, and he immediately regrets it from the way she stills beneath him, heart skipping a beat.

Shit. Fuck. Bloody fucking hell. No no no, everything with Elektra is casual and dangerous and it's all going to end when the semester's over and she goes back to her rich girl life in Athens and he's left to-

Her voice, harder and icier than he's ever heard it, cuts through his downward trajectory.

"If you were ever going to pull this Catholic guilt bullshit on me, I would have thought it would be after the first time you fucked me in the back of a stolen Maserati."

He chuckles, a veiled affirmation that yes, he would have gotten down on one knee right then and there (or, down on his knees in a different manner of speaking) if she'd only asked. Because he'd been gone from their first conversation in the tight-ass faculty party, that she was the sea that had pulled him under and that he'd be happy to drown in forever.

It isn't just about the sex. (Although there's plenty of that as well.) It's about the sync they find themselves in, the daily give-and-take that he'd be happy to live in forever. It's about the long hours they spend in the public library poring over their work (and maybe making out in periodicals.) It's about the shared mission they go on to scare off the Starbucks employee who won't leave one of the freshmen girls alone. (Matt's the good cop, Elektra scares him till he shits himself in an alley, the man never resurfaces.)

It's about the time she drags him all the way out to the Bronx on the subway to go to some Cambodian restaurant that pricks tears in the corners of her eyes. It smells like lime juice, chili paste, coconut milk and fish sauce, and, for Elektra, home. (She had a life before being the richer-than-God greek heiress, she offhandedly mentions over a table laden with fish amok, nom banh chok, Angkor beer. And for the first time, Matt has a feeling he might know a little about what it was. She keeps a tighter eye on money than any other trust-fund kid he's ever met but is looser with her wallet when it comes to tipping and buskers.)

It's about the times when they get drunk off their asses and collapse on his couch, screaming about the injustices of the world, young and dumb and fool-headed enough to think that they'll be able to do something about them.

It's about the fact that this is the longest romantic relationship Matt's ever been involved in, the closest he's felt to another human being in years, and he better not fuck it up with his grand plans for the future.

"Not now. My parent's got married young, and that- it didn't work out."

She relaxes a bit under his touch, her hand reaching out to run through his hair.

"But one day, you know. When I'm the fearless defender of New York-"

"Mmmhmmm," she intones, egging him on.

"Lawyer by day, protector of truth and justice who fights bravely on behalf of the innocent and the wronged." There's a hit of sarcasm in his tone that shakes him to the core because really, jokes aside, isn't that exactly who he's trying to become?

"And what are you by night?" Her voice is almost a purr and it sends a shiver through him.

"Well, in the evenings, I'm arm candy to the honorable Elektra Paraskevi Natchios, brilliant reformer of modern Greece. Does a lot of work with women's groups, immigrants, students- her people fucking adore her."

"Fuck no. That sounds positively monarchist. My father would approve."

"Fine. You're the ambassador then. Can't argue with that, can you, miss International diplomacy?"

She laughs. Fucking music. "I suppose not." And kisses him.

"So tell me, Matthew, what about later at night, after the boring meetings are done? Who are you then?"

He positions himself over her, leaning down and feeling her laugh into his kiss.

"I think, Miss Natchios," he runs his hands up her sides, lifting the loose sleep shirt, "that's up to you to decide." And there isn't a lot more talking for a while after that.

-o0o-

"Alright," she says afterward. "I'll do it."

"What?"

"Marry you. One day. Three conditions, though."

"Hit me."

"No children. Which might be hard to wrap around that Irish Catholic brain of yours, but-"

"Sure." He surprises her with the intensity of his answer. "Any other demands?"

"It's in secret. No Greek tabloids, no way my father can use it to rub shoulders with politicians and the godfathers of the night."

"Can Foggy come? I mean, I think we need a witness."

"Don't think you can stop him."

"What's the last thing, sweetie?"

He can feel her smirk. "Not one of those tacky Irish rings with the hands and the heart and the crown and all that crap."

He pretends to feel offended. "A claddagh ring? You've broken my heart, Miss Natchios."

"I don't think your heart was ever mine to break."

"It always has been. And it always will be."

----- o0o-----

They get on with their day, second cups of coffee and class assignments and gyros for lunch and then continually beating each other in the ring at the gym. And then falling asleep on her couch to the sound of one of the romantic comedies she secretly has a thing for. And then he wakes up early the next morning while she's still passed out asleep and dressed for Mass and heads back to his shitty apartment.

They don't talk about their conversation. They don't talk about the future, beyond wild drunk hypothesi about why most of the federal administration has irrevocably screwed up both America and the world.

It doesn't even come up again until he's laying on a freezing marble countertop and watching her slice expensive cheese on his abs, and she talks about what happens "when we get married" and follows it off with a long list of things that push it into the realm of fairytales, and he laughs and plays along because it's a joke, but he can't help but wonder if it's always been a joke to her.

And then Roscoe Sweeney happens.

And not for the first time in his life, Matt's world rends itself apart.

After, when he's walked the miles home, the endless blocks in air that nips at his skin because he's a dumb ass who forgot to bring a jacket- After, when he's finally calmed himself down about the possibility of police of worse, Roscoe Sweeney's thugs coming to call- After, when he's finally got the door dead-bolted behind him, he reaches under his mattress and digs out a tiny box, velvet under his fingertips. He can even smell the hint of pure metal in the air.

(It cost so damn much. It cost more than any single physical thing he's ever bought, more than the IKEA futon or the junkyard fridge Foggy helped him fix up or the three piece suit he was leant as a charity case. He didn't need to spend that much- Elektra has never asked him to spend anything on her, and he hadn't really been able too, even though it interfered with every rule of chivalry his dad had ground into him and Elektra had dismissed as archaic. But he'd wanted to, wanted to show her a glimpse of the future he had planned for them, and so with the aggravated shop attendant's help [and Foggy's, because even in whatever haze he was in he knew better than to trust the attendant's advice] he's chosen a double-shank gold ring with a ruby. Modern. Red. Gold. Her.)

First thing the next morning, he throws the box into the Hudson.

Ten years later, he wants it back.

[emospritelet]

Empty Corridors - Chapter 27

Last time, Lacey admitted that she and Gold were dating, which was a big step for her.  And she made him a birthday cake.  Here’s what happened next.

AO3 link

The bedclothes shifted, Lacey’’s head bursting out of the blankets, her cheeks flushed, and she pushed herself up on her elbows with a grin.

“Well,” she said.  “Guess a happy birthday was had by all.”

Gold sighed contentedly, arching his back a little and folding his arms behind his head.

“I’m full,” he remarked.  “I think you weren’t kidding when you called that cake Death by Frosting.”

“You ate three pieces!” she chided, swatting his shoulder.  “You didn’t have to make yourself sick just to prove it wasn’t terrible.”

“It was delicious!” he protested. “A little too delicious, if you must know.  My waistline may never be the same again.”

Lacey giggled, and he kissed her before pushing up on his elbows.

“Did you have a good birthday?” she asked, and he smiled.

“I had the best birthday.”

“Good.”

She bent to kiss him, and he turned them, pushing her down into the blankets, his mouth hot and soft and sweet, his body firm against hers, and she wanted to freeze time, to lie there sheltered from the world, wrapped in his arms and breathing him in and pretending they could stay that way forever.

Gold broke the kiss, pulling up a little, his hair brushing her cheeks.  Lacey reached up to touch it, winding strands around her fingers and pushing it back.  He could feel his heart thumping in his chest, heavy and full with his love for her, and his breath caught in his throat as she flicked her eyes up to meet his.

“Will you stay tonight?” she whispered.

God, I’d stay forever.  I’d stay forever if you’d let me.

“I’d like that,” he said.

Christmas passed quickly for Lacey in a blur of light and sound, good food and nights spent lying in Gold’s arms, a contented, tipsy mess.  After some surprise among the townsfolk at the pawnbroker dating his young assistant, and some snide comments whispered behind hands, they had ceased to be a topic of gossip amongst everyone except the worst of the Rabbit Hole crowd.  She had not spoken to her father since the night of the street party, and although she bought him a Christmas present, dropped onto the counter of the flower shop while he was serving a customer, she was still angry with him.  He didn’t give her a present, and didn’t thank her for his, and so she hadn’t been back to the shop.

After some consideration, she had decided that it couldn’t hurt to apply to college, and so she had talked over the options with Gold, eventually applying to colleges in Boston and New York.  Gold had suggested others, too, further away, but she didn’t want to move too far.  She told him that she was planning to return in the holidays, as he had suggested, and that if he wanted to get rid of her entirely, he would need to try harder.  He had grinned at that, a ghost of a smile, and told her he was pleased to hear it.  She tried to manage her expectations by telling herself that she didn’t expect to be successful, but if she was completely honest there was a tiny spark deep within, the first faint glow of self-belief.  Besides, applying had shut him up.

She put in applications for funding at the same time, surprised at the amount of financial aid available.  It appeared that some colleges were willing to offer generous packages to eligible students, and as she definitely couldn’t afford to pay for it herself, it was a no-brainer.  She told herself she didn’t expect to be successful in that, either.  It was therefore something of a surprise when she received responses from three of the colleges, asking her to attend for an interview.

“What the hell am I supposed to do about this?” she demanded, waving the letters at Gold and making him blink.  “I can’t go to a bloody interview?”

“Why not?”

“Because…”  She paced back and forth rapidly.  “Because they’ll take one look at me and say ‘no bloody way’, that’s why!”

“Of course they won’t,” he said soothingly.  “But if you’re concerned about that, I can buy you a new outfit.”

Lacey considered it for a moment, and then shook her head.

“No,” she said decidedly.  “If they can’t accept me as I am, fuck them!”

“Well, quite,” he said.  “In that case, I don’t know why you’re worried.”

“Because I’ll - I’ll probably swear or - or make an idiot of myself!”

“I’m sure they’ve heard curse words before,” he said dryly.  “They deal with students facing important deadlines, after all.”

“Gold…”

He sighed and laid his cane across the top of the counter, putting his hands on her shoulders and fixing her with a calm stare.

“Lacey,” he said gently.  “You can do this.  They wouldn’t ask you to go if they weren’t interested in having you study there.”

“I guess…”

“I believe in you,” he went on.  “I have every faith that you will impress them, and they’ll make you an offer.”

“If they don’t offer me funding at the same time, I’m still screwed.”

“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.  “In the meantime, why don’t you start thinking about what questions they might ask you?”

“Like which of the Bennet sisters is my favourite and if I were a bloody tree, what kind would I be?”

Gold looked as though he was trying to hold in his amusement with some difficulty.

“I think they may be more interested in what you want to study and why you want to study with them, but we can’t rule out a curve ball.”

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this…”

“You’ll be amazing,” he said firmly, and kissed her forehead.  “Now, let’s talk logistics.  You need to get to New York University, Columbia, and Boston University.  I could drive you down to New York, and—”

“No,” she said, before he could finish, and Gold pushed back, reaching for his cane to steady himself.

“No?”

“I want to do it myself,” she said, not sure if he would understand.  “I - I have to do it myself, does that make sense?”

“Not to me,” he said, and shrugged.  “But I suppose it doesn’t have to.  How will you get there, then?”

“I’ll take the bus,” she said.  “I can book accommodation in New York for a couple of nights, do the interviews, and then take the bus to Boston.”

“Then I guess you’ll be wanting to take some leave,” he said, with a tiny grin, and she took a deep breath.

“Not only that,” she said.  “I - I need to ask you a favour…”

“You got Gold to look after the cats?”  Ruby snickered, reaching for her Cosmopolitan.  “What if they crap on his antique chaise longue or whatever the hell he has?”

“He’s not taking them to the house,” said Lacey, taking a slurp of her Mojito.  “He’s having them in the shop.  I’m gonna take the cat tree over there so they have plenty of stuff to play with.  He spends most of his time there anyway, so they can just hang out in the back room.”

“Why didn’t you just give him the keys to your place?” asked Leroy, wiping beer foam from his beard.

“Because I don’t want them being on their own all day,” she said.  “It was bad enough when I had to work every hour.  They need some company, the little buggers.  Besides, they like him.  Severus sits on his lap more often than he does mine.”

“Probably recognises a fellow Slytherin,” said Ruby, and squeaked as Lacey shoved her.

“Oh come on, Gold’s a Ravenclaw,” she said.  “Or possibly a Hufflepuff, I haven’t decided.”

“Ravenclaw, definitely,” agreed Ruby.

“I have no idea what you two are talking about,” grumbled Leroy, and Lacey waved a hand.

“Never mind about that, anyway,” she said.  “You guys are supposed to be helping me not freak out about these interviews.  What if the interviewers are jerks?  It says on the letters that they’ll be members of the faculty, so that means they could be teaching me.”

“Picture ‘em naked,” said Ruby, with a shrug.

“Doesn’t help, Rubes.”

“Okay, so picture yourself naked.”

Lacey shoved her again, and Ruby giggled into her glass.

“Look, just remember why you applied,” said Leroy, setting down his beer glass.  “You got a kickass score on that test, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m like four years older than the other students,” she said.

“Exactly,” he said patiently.  “You’ve done stuff with your life.  You have experience, and a work ethic.  You helped set up those businesses, did a lot for the community...”

“That’s true,” put in Ruby.  “You can describe it like an urban regeneration kind of thing.”

“We’re in Storybrooke,” said Lacey flatly.

“Okay, so maybe not urban, but you still regenerated that part of town.”

“That was Gold, not me.”

“It was Gold’s money,” said Ruby patiently.  “It was your idea.”

“I guess.”  Lacey took a drink.  “I guess we’ll have to see what they ask me.”

“You’ll be fine,” said Ruby.  “Sure you don’t want me to come with you?  The two of us, in New York City?  Could be fun, that’s all I’m saying.”

Lacey hesitated, tempted by the offer, but knowing she had something else to do while she was there, and unsure whether she wanted to divulge it at this stage.

“No,” she said eventually.  “I need to concentrate on this, get it out of the way.  If I get accepted and decide to go, you guys are more than welcome to come and stay.”

“Can’t say fairer than that,” said Ruby, and took a slurp of her drink.  “So, what does Gold say about it?  He pleased?”

“Can’t wait to get rid of me, it seems,” said Lacey dryly.  “He even offered to drive me down there.”

“He wants you to do well,” said Leroy.  “It’s not like he’s trying to run you out of town.”

Lacey wriggled in her seat.

“It was his idea in the first place, not mine,” she said.

“Oh my God…”  Ruby rolled her eyes.  “Have you two nerds not admitted you’re fucking head over heels yet?  What the hell is wrong with you?”

“We only just started dating last month!” protested Lacey.

“Officially, maybe,” said Leroy.  “We all know you’ve been seeing each other way longer.  And we all know you’re in love with him, so stop being an ass and just tell him, before I do.”

“Don’t you dare!” snapped Lacey, and he sighed, burying his nose in his beer.

“Seriously, Lace, this is getting ridiculous,” said Ruby flatly.  “We know you love him.  We know he loves you, so what’s the problem?”

“He’s never told me that,” she said defensively.

“Yeah, and you’ve never told him either,” said Leroy.  “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

“Just tell him, for the love of God,” sighed Ruby, and Lacey leaned on the table, palms pressed flat.

“Okay, so let’s say I tell him,” she said.  “And - and let’s say he doesn’t feel the same way?  Or - or he tells me that I’m leaving in September for college, and he doesn’t see it working out?  I can’t do that, you guys!  I can’t just pull out my heart and lay it before him and let it be crushed!”

“I just don’t think he’d do that,” said Leroy, and she said back with a sigh.

“Yeah, well, I’m not taking the risk,” she said.  “Things have been good.  Better than good.  I don’t want to rock the boat.”

“Things would be even better with mutual declarations of love,” said Ruby.  “Proposals of marriage, discussion of future happiness and babies…”

“Ruby…”

“Fine,” sighed Ruby.  “Just promise me you’ll think about it.  His response might surprise you.”

“Just - just let me concentrate on one thing at a time,” said Lacey, picking up her drink.  “I’m too busy panicking about these bloody interviews to think about my love life.”

Leroy and Ruby shared another look, and she took a long drink before setting down her glass.

“Now,” she said.  “Ask me why I want to study business.”

The bell above the shop tinkled, and Gold walked through from the back room, raising a brow as he saw Lacey carry a large cardboard box inside.  Plaintive mews were coming from it.

“Here comes trouble,” he remarked.

“This should keep ‘em out of your hair,” said Ruby, who pushed through the doorway with one end of the cat tree in her hands.  The other end was being carried by Leroy, who stumbled over the threshold and frowned at it.

“In the back room,” said Gold, holding the curtain back.

The cat tree was placed in one corner, and Lacey set down the box before straightening up and brushing her hair out of her face.

“Thanks for doing this,” she said.  “I think it would be good for them to have some company.”

“As long as they don’t eat anything they shouldn’t, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” he remarked.

“I’ll get the litter box and the food,” announced Ruby, and ducked out again.

There was a scrabbling noise from the box, and a black and white head poked out as Hagrid took a look around.  Lacey was chewing her lip anxiously, and Gold reached out to touch her, cupping her cheek with a hand.

“They’ll be fine,” he said gently.  “And you - you’ll be amazing.  i can feel it.”

She sent him a wobbly smile, and then stepped closer, wrapping her arms around him.  It felt nice to be hugged, and he held her close, kissing the top of her head as it nestled against his chest.  Ruby sauntered in with the litter box, setting it down in a corner and putting the bag of dried food on the workbench with their bowls.

“Thanks, Rubes,” said Lacey.

“No problem.  Your bus leaves in like ten minutes, by the way.”

“I’m ready, I just need to grab my bag.”

“Will you call me when you get there?” asked Gold.

“I will,” she promised, and pulled back to look up at him.  “I’ll call when I get to the hotel, okay?”

He kissed her, and she melted into him a little, her hands sliding up his shoulders and into his hair.

“Quit face-sucking or you’ll miss your bus,” called Ruby, and Lacey pulled back with a sigh.

“Bye,” she whispered, and he watched her go, still tasting her on his lips.

The kittens had all climbed out of the box and were sniffing their way along the floor, tails twitching.  Gold grounded his cane, flexing his fingers, and they watched him curiously.

“Right,” he said sternly, glancing between three sets of green eyes.  “Let me tell you how this is going to work.  You are to stay in this room and play with your things, understand?  You are not to pass the curtain and play with my things.”

The cats put their heads to the side, watching him.

“You are to use the litter box in the corner,” he added.  “If I find any presents left anywhere else there will be consequences.”

Minerva reached out to paw his shoelace, and Gold rolled his eyes.

“Just - don’t eat the merchandise,” he said.  “And try not to get under my feet.”

The kittens were surprisingly well-behaved, only knocking a few things off the shelves and mostly keeping to the back room.  Gold found that he enjoyed having them around, although they took an interest in whatever he was doing, so he found it difficult to clean the mechanism of an old clock without one or more of the cats wanting to touch it with a paw.  After an hour or so of getting in the way, Severus curled up on his lap and promptly went to sleep, and he could carry on with his cleaning in peace.  Until the shop’s bell rang, announcing a visitor.

When he saw who it was, he wished he had pretended to be out.  Miss Green sauntered towards him with a predatory grin on her face that made him want to sigh, and dropped her bag by the counter before leaning on it with folded arms.

“May I help you?” he asked, in his most neutral tone.

“I heard your assistant was out of town for a few days,” she said.  “So, I thought I’d come and keep you company.”

“Company is something I rarely seek,” he said.  “If there’s anything you need to speak to me about on a professional basis, I’m all ears.  Otherwise, I’m rather busy this afternoon.”

“Actually, there was something,” she said.  “I’ve seen someone hanging around the farm on occasion.  A tall man, dark hair.  Wears rather unconventional clothes.  Seems to disappear whenever I go to confront him.”

“And this concerns me how?”

There was movement in the corner of his eye, and he spotted Minerva, poking her head into Zelena’s open bag.  He supposed he should really do something about that.

“I thought you knew everything that goes on in this town,” she said.  “I need his name.”

“Then I suggest you ask him.”

“I would, if I could pin him down.”

Minerva had climbed into the bag and was wriggling around.  He spied another of the kittens sneaking past, and wanted to sigh.

“Well, I’m afraid your description is rather too vague for me to identify him,” he said.  “Perhaps next time you see him, you could take a picture?”

Zelena’s mouth flattened.

“Thanks for the lack of help,” she said dryly.

“I’m not in the business of tracking people down,” he said.  “I suggest you speak to the sheriff if you’re concerned about this man.”

A scent entered his nose, unpleasant and familiar, and he wondered if he dared to look down.  Zelena’s nose twitched.

“What on earth is that smell?”

“Ah,” he said.  “I’m looking after my girlfriend’s kittens.  It smells as though one of them has used the litter box.”

She pushed back with a curl of her lip.

“I’m allergic to cats.”

“Well, there are three of them here.  Perhaps you should leave before you get hives, or something.”

Her eyes widened suddenly.  She let out a shriek, kicking out with a foot, and Severus was launched across the room.  Minerva jumped out of the bag to run after him, and Gold hurried to pick him up, scowling at Zelena.

“How much of a terrible person do you have to be to kick a bloody kitten?”

“That fucking thing bit me!” she shouted, and he petted Severus, who climbed up to his shoulder and hissed at Zelena.

“Well, you must have startled him,” said Gold.  “I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”

She glared at him, snatching up her bag.

“I can see I’m not welcome here,” she said.  “I’ll just drive back to the farm and—”

Her eyes bulged as she reached into the bag, and Gold felt a smile steal across his face.  Zelena drew out her hand, the fingers covered in something dark brown and stinking.

“Well, what do you know?” he said cheerfully.  “It seems they haven’t quite gotten the hang of the litter box after all.”

Zelena let out a blood-curdling shriek and ran from the shop, and Gold began chuckling as the bell tinkled to signal her exit.  He scratched Severus under the chin, making the kitten purr contentedly.

“I can’t wait to tell your mother about this.”

Lacey decided that she liked New York, even though its busy streets were somewhat alarming after the peace of Storybrooke.  The hotel room she was staying in was little more than a box room with an en-suite, but it was clean, and she managed to find her way to the two universities without too much trouble.  She wasn’t sure how the interviews had gone, but given that the professors at Columbia had spent most of their time trying to look down her shirt, she wasn’t sure she wanted to study there anyway.  Her bus to Boston was due to leave at four, which left her time to carry out another mission.  One that she had been planning since she first showed an interest in New York as a potential college destination.

She turned onto the street she needed, old brownstones on either side, and counted the numbers in her head until she reached Tallahassee Building.  Hesitating, she checked the address again before trotting up the steps and pushing open the door.  An ancient elevator took her up to the third floor, and she made her way along a dimly-lit corridor to apartment 307.  Lacey hesitated again, but raised her fist and knocked on the door.  There was a moment of silence, but then a scuffling noise and the rattle of a chain.  The door opened, and a young man of around thirty looked out, running a hand through dark hair.  He had a handsome face, with deep brown eyes that looked all too familiar, and Lacey pursed her lips.  Found you.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said.  “I’m guessing you’re Bailey Gold, right?”

[l0vegl0wsinthedark]

The Sexual Awakening of An Innocent Pureblood, Dating The Randy Prat Who Lived Ch.10

Fuck but @bixgirl1 and I can’t believe we’ve already posted ten chapters. We are on our waaay! To where, you ask? Oh, you’ll see soon enough. Pretty soon, it’ll be so nsfw, you’ll look back at these initial few chapters and laugh. @bixgirl1 and I regularly laugh at the earlier chapters. A few more chapters and we’ll all laugh together. 

Those of you just stumbling upon this, hullo! Please find the rest of this fic on @bixgirl1‘s or my blog under the tag #virgin Draco. ❤️

Contains: Mild angst, frottage, VERY mild dub-con (just momentary and nothing shocking, promise), mouth pressing (lol)

Chapter Ten: Parental Advice and Ill-Thought-Out Plans

~Malfoy Manor, Sunday Morning~ Narcissa at breakfast, looking up at loud crack of apparition: *smiles; pleased* Draco!  I thought you had plans today.

Draco, rounding the table to kiss her cheek: I do, Mother, but not until later this evening. How are you? *sits down and watches as a house-elf prepares his tea*

Narcissa: Fine, darling. *curiously* What brings you here this morning?

Draco, laughing nervously: I simply wanted to come see you. *playfully* Am I not allowed to visit anymore?

Narcissa, mildly: You are, of course. *more pointedly* Not that you have much, the last few months.

Draco, yanking his collar higher and looking guilty: I’m sorry, Mother. Work’s been keeping me busy during the week and I only have enough time to complete some chores during the weekends–

Narcissa, disapprovingly: And you’re bringing work home with you?

Draco, shaking his head: No, thankfully that hasn’t been necessary.  How’s your bad shoulder doing?

Narcissa, narrowing her eyes slightly: It doesn’t pain me at all. The potions work fine; please,don’t concern yourself about it.   *pauses; voice turns deliberately light* So. Apart from work, how are things?

Draco, concentrating on his tea: Good, good… Uneventful. Say, is Father around today?

Narcissa, slowly: No, he had some business at Gringotts. He should be home after lunch.

Draco, wildly: Oh, I’m sure you miss him while he’s out, don’t you?   *attempts teasing smirk; looks rather ill, instead*

Narcissa, startled: *blinks rapidly* I- I- Draco, are you alright?

Draco, quickly: Of course!  I just thought maybe while Father isn’t home, you miss him– as it may ha– as you might have been while you– While he was courting you.

Narcissa, nodding to herself: *murmuring* While he was courting me *smoothly* Yes, I still do miss his presence at times.  But we’ve been together for quite a long while, so of course there was more– desire to be near one another when our courtship was new.

Draco, grabbing at the chance: So– you you did feel the desire to be– *restlessly shifts around in his seat* –to be close to each other… during the– while you were both courting?

Narcissa, calmly stirring her tea: That tends to be the way of things, yes.  With the first stirrings of connection, we tend to be distracted by–shall we say–the possibility, as we are figuring out where it can lead us.

Draco, slightly relieved: And so… So did you– you both did explore certain… possibilities?  I mean–seeing as it’s natural to be– to be distracted… *under his breath* …by one another.

Narcissa: *takes slow slip of tea while she processes*  Well, our lives didn’t stop because we entered into a courtship and became betrothed.  We had to learn of the other’s way of life and explore whether we may– *eyes widening imperceptibly* *clears throat delicately and sets down her cup* We were very respectful of one another in our courtship.  …For one thing, I was aware from the beginning that your father had serious intentions toward me. And he never pressured me or made me feel uncomfortable.

Draco, swallowing dryly: …H-how did you know his intentions with such certainty?  Did you ask?  Did he– was he explicitly clear about it from the start?

Narcissa, smiling wryly: I won’t say he was explicitly clear about them from the start, but he was extremely… *thoughtful* …proprietary toward me as soon as I agreed to be courted.  And there were other things; he spoke of his future with be a though it were a given fact.  We became close rather quickly.

Draco, avoiding meeting her eyes: Did the closeness extend even toward… I mean… That is… *discreetly breathes in deep* Did you both indulge in– Were you both physically–

Narcissa: *measured pause* Did we indulge in our desire to explore our… physical appetites before marriage?

Draco, nodding frantically before reigning himself in: I mean… *casually* It’s not unusual to, is it?

Narcissa, taking slow breath: No, it often isn’t, particularly in this day and age. *purses lips, nods to self* After the betrothal contract was signed, we were more…free with our physical affection toward one another, though it wasn’t until we had been married that we fully– *looks at Draco intently* I know we have always stressed the importance of… Caution, in that area, with you, Draco.

Draco, licking dry lips and dropping his gaze: Y-you have, Mother… *sips his tea* So you’re saying it’s… vulgar to– to occasionally indulge m– oneself in some– physical displays of affection with their paramour? *quickly* Nothing overtly… salacious.

Narcissa, placing her hand over Draco’s forearm: *quietly* I’m saying that it is an incredibly intimate thing, and can be lovely beyond compare–

Draco, eyeing her hand in breathless silence: *looks back up with a small strain of hope*

Narcissa, mouth turning down at the corners a touch: –and because it is so lovely and so intimate, we must be careful with whom we decide to… Explore.  Because there are other facets to the act of physical intimacy beyond delight.  As a young pureblood of property, there could be people who would utilise your… *small grimace, quickly covered* …curiosity, for their own benefit.  There is an element of power to engaging in these acts, which is why it is so important to remain in control of one’s faculties and stay mindful of the progression of the–relationship.  If one loses oneself, one can easily be taken advantage of.

Draco, looking utterly dejected: Yes… I suppose you’re right, Mother.   *under his breath* Control and–and not only– not just physical intimacy– Mustn’t lose control… or power.

Narcissa, brows drawing down slightly:  I only mention it because y ou should be aware that there is a certain element of– abandon when we are with someone who… *finally falters; swallows* someone we desire.  And there should be a balance between two people in such relationships.   *falls silent, a bit of anxiety breaking through her composure as she studies her son*

Draco, dully: Balance…

Narcissa, worried: That having been said, with the right person– When there is trust with one’s heart, one can be free with their body as well.

Draco, rising abruptly: I apologise, Mother, but I’ve just remembered that I have an appointment to keep.   *kisses her once more, looking somewhat broken*  I’ll make sure to visit again soon.  Give my love to Father.

Narcissa, helplessly: Draco–

*Draco Disapparates, stumbling slightly as he lands in his bedroom*

Draco: *heads to desk and pulls out a piece of parchment, upends the quills stand as he wrenches one out; writes with a trembling hand*

Harry Potter, I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel dinner. Sorry, something has come up with Mother. I’m sor D. Malfoy.

* Draco, That’s disappointing, but I understand. I’ll see you tomorrow for lunch. Harry.

* Draco, I came by your office for lunch and you weren’t there.  I was sorry to have missed you.  Owl me, all right?  I’ll see you for lunch tomorrow and maybe we can grab a bite for dinner to make up for it? Harry

* Draco, What’s going on?  Are you alright?  Owl me; I’ve stopped by your office three times today and you’ve always “just stepped out.” Harry

* Draco, I’m not sure what’s going on but I’m really getting worried  You can’t avoid me forever, you know and if you’d just talk to me, maybe we could Harry

* Malfoy, What the hell?  Your Disillusionment Charms and wards are shit; I’m an Auror, I can still see your office. I don’t know what the bloody fuck you’re doing but it’s not okay and it’s not funny.  OWL ME IMMEDIATELY YOU WANKER. Harry

***

~Draco’s office, Friday morning~

Draco, opening his office door a sliver and slipping in quickly: *charms the lights on; suddenly spots Harry lounging in his chair with his feet up on the table; yelps in shock* What the–?! *drops the armful of filed parchments as he stumbles back against the door* Potter! *glares with grit teeth*

Harry, grim: Malfoy. So you do still work here.

Draco, incredulously: Did you seriously break into my office? I could report you, you arrogant arsehole!

Harry, mouth curling into a vicious smile: As you’ve so frequently pointed out – for years – I’m the Chosen One. And an Auror. They’re not going to send me to arrest myself for waiting in my– *angrily spitting the word*– boyfriend’s office, are they? *pulls feet down from desk and stands*

Draco, immediately shrinking back: *recovers at once, juts his chin out and crosses his arms tightly across his chest* What do you want?

Harry, prowling closer to him: I want to know why you’ve been avoiding me. I want to know why you think that’s okay? I want to know what the fuck it is you think I did so I can fucking try to fix it! *mimics Draco’s posture, crossing arms over chest* *eyes Draco furiously* I’ve wanted a lot more from you, but I’ll settle for answers right now.

Draco, dropping his arms to his sides: I– I’ve not been avoiding… *trails off at Harry’s glare; looks away and swallows hard*

Harry, sneering: You fucking coward. You string me along, making me think you’re– you’re serious– you know what; fuck that! I know you’ve been serious. *still glaring but unable to hide the hurt in his expression* Just– fucking talk to me.

Draco, starting to tremble, looking anguished: No, you’re right. I have just been stringing you along. *looking at the floor and speaking very fast* Y-you’re not a Pureblood– *takes a step back even though he’s not watching Harry’s reaction* You’re not a Pureblood and I am and it’s laughable that– that you thought you could be with me. Th-that’s it, there’s nothing to talk about. *tries elbowing his way past him to his desk*

Harry, stung, catching Draco’s arm in a brutal grip: You said when we first kissed that it was never about that.  You said it wasn’t! *swallowing hard, eyes glittering with sudden moisture* You don’t do the kinds of things we’ve been doing– open up to each other like we have, after everything else that came before, between us without– fucking feeling something, Draco. *hauls him close, chest heaving* Talk to me!

Draco, struggles weakly for a few seconds: Potter, just–! *suddenly sags against him* *screaming into his face*I don’t know who I am anymore, Harry! When I’m with you, I have absolutely no control over myself, absolutely none! You fucking touch me or… or just smile at me and my brain fucking turns off! *pulls in a huge gulp of air and forces himself to calm down* I can’t just– just– I can’t simply hand over all the power to you, alright?! I need some control here! You can’t control me, Potter, I won’t allow it!  *glares with slightly bared teeth, panting roughly*

Harry, disbelievingly: *voice lowering dangerously* Control? Power? *cutting laugh* You think I have the power here? You think I’m in control?!

Draco, still trying to free his arm: What the fuck do you think, Potter? Of course you are! It’s always got to be you, isn’t it?! The Saviour! You’re always– you always– *looks away, jaw clenched, eyes flitting around wildly*

Harry, growling: What do I always do, Malfoy? Please, enlighten me. I ask you out. I tell you how I feel. *voice rising* I don’t do a goddamned thing to you without asking first, even though I’m fucking crawling out of my skin just to touch you and you’re accusing me of being in control? You’re leading me around on a fucking leash, goddamnit!

Draco, not looking at him: Let me go… *starts struggling violently when Harry doesn’t free his arm* Let me go! Let me go, goddamn it! You can’t fucking do this! You can’t always be calm and in control and– *voice cracking* You can’t take me apart with next to no effort and then stay cool and collected and not even bring yourself to completion!   *shoves against Harry with his whole body* You can’t steal my control from me and then wave yours in my face like I’m some great big slut who can’t even keep from finishing in his pants like a fucking teenager!

Harry, seething: Oh. Oh. I see. This is about the fucking or–or whatever it is you call it. This is about getting off.

Draco, sneering coldly: Isn’t it always about that with you?

Harry, low, murderous: That’s what you think? You think that that’s where the control comes from? Ridiculous of me to think it might have something to do with the way we feel about each other, the way I– I fucking can’t wait to see you, the way I bought myself numbing potions to make sure I don’t pressure you, the way I’m always thinking about you, and planning our dates fucking weeks in advance and what if your father and I always hate each other and what if you can’t get along with Ron–*walking Draco steadily backwards, eyes dark and narrowed*–and what if one day I walk in on you crying in the bathroom and we’re both reminded of– *swallows; suddenly shoves Draco against his wall; follows with his body, and pins Draco’s hands against the wall* But no. I got ahead of myself. This is only about the fucking. You don’t like that I held off. Fine, Malfoy, fucking fine. *presses body against Draco’s* *shoves a thigh between both his*

Draco, his breath leaving him in a rush: *wide eyed* Potter, what are you– *cries out softly as Harry’s thigh shifts*

Harry: *rubs hard cock against Draco’s hip in slow, rolling thrusts, keeping eye contact* *whispering savagely* You’re getting hard. Do you like that, Malfoy?

Draco, breath catching wheezily in his throat: *whimpers* Potter– *suddenly squeezes his eyes shut as if he can’t bear to look back* Harry! *lets his head thud back onto the wall as he starts to grind down onto Harry’s thigh* Harry, oh god–

Harry, rasping insistently: Look at me, Malfoy. Look at me or I’ll stop. *thrusts against him faster*

Draco, keening as he shakes his head wildly: P-please– Harry, god, yes–! *helplessly twists his wrists within Harry’s grip*

Harry, breathing faster: Malfoy– *punctuating each word with a rapid thrust of his hips and rub of his thigh against Draco* I. Told. You. To. Look. At. Me

Draco, gasping through full-bodied shudders: *visibly struggles to open his eyes; fixes his glazed gaze right on Harry’s mouth* Harry…

Harry, pausing until Draco drags his gaze up, then staring into his eyes; intensely focused: *whispering fast* You think I have the control because I know more about this part than you, Draco? You’ve had me tied up in knots for months–hell, for fucking years. I thought one of us had to be in control so the other could learn how to lose it, safely, I thought that’s what people did when they were falling in– when they cared about each other. *grinding harder against him in a quick rhythm* I thought that’s what you did when you cared about someone else’s heart, but fuck Draco, if this is just about– *breaks gaze, buries his face in Draco’s throat with a sharp, broken cry as his hips rock hard against him and he starts to come, clutching Draco close and shaking*

Draco, finally freeing his hands: Harry– *tugs him up by the hair and pulls him into a rough kiss* *whimpering softly as he continues to grind his hardness into Harry’s thigh*

Harry, kissing him back ferociously, licking and biting Draco’s mouth: *presses Draco’s shoulders harder against the wall and jerks his body away, followed by his mouth* Draco, crying out in frustration: Wh– *blinking around in shock*

Harry, quietly; measured: You like control so much, Draco? *glares at him, face set* There’s your fucking control. Enjoy it. * stalks out, slamming the door after himself*

Draco, gasping desperately, tripping sideways to support himself on a filing cabinet: *croaks out* Po– Harry, wai– *clenches his mouth shut and drops his head back* *slides down the wall until he’s sitting on his haunches, head in his hands* Oh, well done, Draco, you fucking fool…

[gillianfoster]

@basinhounds on the one hand don’t like read this right after you wake up and cry but also i definitely included the reconcilation bit so maybe it’ll be fine?? also there’s a bit i’ve left off the end bc it’s a surprise :> (and there’ll be more at the beginning as well in the finished fic)

One night, mid-March, when Winter still wouldn’t leave the city, I came home with my shoulders tense and a headache forming at the base of my skull. Elio was sitting at the desk with his headphones on, glowering down at his music. I decided that both of us would probably benefit from a little distance. I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove, but after only a moment, I heard him follow me in.

I turned to face him.

“So I don’t even get a hello?” There was something not quite playful about his tone - I’d read his mood correctly at least.

“You had your headphones on. I thought maybe you didn’t want to be bothered.”

“I guess you thought wrong.”

I could tell that he was trying to pick a fight, for whatever reason, but I was too keyed up to stop him. “I guess so. Fine, then. Hi. How are you?”

He scoffed, and didn’t answer.

“So I was right that I didn’t need to ask.”

“So Oliver can read minds. How impressive.”

The comment was meant to sting, and it did. We’d always been jokingly fond of our abilities to read each other - now instead, he wielded it like a weapon. Like it was something that had grown annoying with time. Panic started to rise up in my throat, replacing the stress and anger the long day with my students and the faculty meeting had caused. “If there’s something you want to say to me, Elio, maybe you should just say it.”

“Like what? Are you sure there’s not anything you want to say to me?”

“What? What would that even mean? I haven’t done anything, Elio.”

“No, I guess that’s true - you haven’t done anything, you haven’t said anything.”

This was it, then. The moment where my luck ran out. Where he was finally finished with dealing with boring, repressed Professor Oliver. I turned the stove back off, and it gave me an excuse to look away from him. “I get the picture, Elio, you don’t have to give some kind of big speech.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“So what’s all this? Why not just let me give you space? Or is it that the apartment’s so small you can’t stand it anymore, and you have to get out now?”

“Maybe so. Maybe I’ll go.”

“If that’s what you want, maybe you should.”

“Fine.”

He put on his coat and went out through the door, leaving only the sound of fabric and the slamming door. As soon as he stepped out, I could feel my knees begin to give, and I went over and sat down heavily on the couch. All the anger and stress went out of me in moments, leaving only a horrible emptiness. Was this how it ended? After everything we’d been through? When Elio and I had first met again, in that cabin in Bergamo, I hadn’t been planning on forever - just more time. Now, somehow, I realized that in our time in New York, that had become my plan. I could no longer envision a future without him, and it had happened without me consciously realizing, even as I’d still been afraid he would leave me. Now, suddenly, I did have to picture myself without him again. Alone, again. I had to deal with the actual consequences of the leaving. Things were clearly different for Elio. They always had been. After I’d gone, he’d seen other people, done other things. I’d always been glad - glad that in that one way, I’d succeeded, and I’d allowed him to move on. Still glad that he’d come back to me regardless. Now, though, I realized again what I had realized after I’d broken off my engagement with Caroline through my own stupidity - there would never be another person for me like Elio. I felt tears begin to drip onto my hands - I’d started to cry. I sighed at myself and stood from the couch, walking into the bathroom. I carefully avoided the sight of his toiletries in the shower, and of his toothbrush by the sink, and I washed my face gently.

I paused, just for a moment, to look at myself in the mirror. Elio aside, I was getting older, too. I was over 30 now.  I’d heard the jokes in gay bars about turning 30. It had been difficult enough to meet other men in my 20s - now, with things the way they were, and with the signs of age actually starting to set in, just a little, I doubted I’d be able to really meet anyone unless I got spectacularly lucky. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

I would have worried for Elio, but I knew he had other people he could go to. I knew he could take care of himself walking alone in the city after having lived here for nearly a year now, and I knew, too, that he had friends in the orchestra, parents and families of his students - people he could go to. He wouldn’t be lacking in places to stay.

I padded into the bedroom and looked over the rumpled sheets. It was hard to believe we’d woken up together just this morning. I felt the sting of tears return and sighed and went back out to the couch. Better to sleep out here, where it smelled less like him, and where I had fewer memories of the two of us sleeping together. There were times we’d taken naps or fucked on the couch, of course, but it was nothing like the bedroom.

I laid down, and attempted to make myself comfortable. It was impossible, of course - our couch had always been too short for me to stretch out on comfortably. Our couch. My couch, now.

I shuddered, and this time I let myself cry. Why not? He wasn’t here to see - he’d always felt so safe being vulnerable in front of me, but sometimes it was still hard for me. Sometimes I still felt like I should be trying to impress him somehow, trying to live up to whatever image he had of me from that summer.

I must have cried myself to sleep, because the next thing I knew I was blinking awake, and there was light streaming in from the window. I felt disgusting - my eyes were dry, and I knew I wasn’t well-rested. I walked back into the bathroom again and found that I looked as bad as I felt. I braced myself and walked into the bedroom, but there was still no sign of Elio. Of course there wasn’t.

I was meant to go into the office today - I wouldn’t actually have to lecture, but I did have office hours. Normally no one stopped by, not at this point in the semester, so I cleaned myself up as much as I could and left the apartment, heading in.

I left in part for Elio, too. He knew when I would be gone - if he wanted to come and get his things without having to see me, he could do it while I was at the University. I tried not to think about it, but continued to fail desperately throughout the day.

Even once my office hours were over, I lingered. The thought of the apartment, cold and empty, particularly if he’d gotten his things, made me shiver.

I left the university and took a cab to a bar - just a normal bar. One nearby, that my colleagues went to, but that Elio and I had never really frequented. It was a safe, neutral space. I drank more than I should have - enough that the bartender cut me off. I didn’t even have the energy to grumble at him, and I took another cab home.

I was drunk enough that it was easy to fall onto the couch and pass out again.

When I woke up, I could hear footsteps. I kept my face pressed into the couch cushions, thinking that perhaps he was hoping I would stay sleeping. Then, after some time, I could hear him making coffee in the kitchen. He’d actually come back with the intention to stay for a moment, then. I stood up, and without thinking, walked in to see him.

He turned to look at me. “I didn’t take anything when I left. I needed to come back for some things.”

“Of course.” I nodded. I rubbed at my face, and then my neck - I realized, then, that I hadn’t shaved yesterday or yet this morning, and that I probably looked even worse than I had the day before. Suddenly I couldn’t look at him. Instead, I went over to the fridge and busied myself with finding a breakfast that wouldn’t make me sick.

“…You just let me leave. You didn’t come after me.”

I pulled some eggs out of the fridge, and some bread off the top of it, where we kept it. I looked directly at my food, and at the pan as I started to make everything. “It isn’t my place to keep you here if you don’t want to stay.”

“I guess that’s true. I just thought that you would.”

For the first time since he’d moved in with me, I said what I’d never been able to stop thinking. “I know that living with me, here, isn’t like summer in Crema. Or even summer in Bergamo. I have to work, and not just on a manuscript, and I’m busy and I get caught up in things and I can get closed off when I’m distracted. You never really had to see me like that. Busy that way. Annoyed like that. I know the way that we understand each other seems like it should matter more, but I don’t have a very good track record with actually trying to live with people. I tend to hurt them. Even if I don’t want to. So even though I hadn’t really been… planning on you leaving… I can’t really say that I’m surprised. This is different than summer. We’ve only ever had summers.”

“Oliver…”

His voice was soft, and I felt his hand on my shoulder. I shifted away from him, afraid that if I really let him touch me, that I would crumble. Instead, I flipped over the toast and eggs, trying not to let them burn. “That’s really what our fight was about, wasn’t it? We were talking around it, but that’s what’s going on. It’s not as if I’m not the person you fell in love with - it’s just that I’m this person, too. One of them is easier to put up with.”

“I can’t talk to you if you’re going to shut me out like this.”

“Is there anything to talk about?” I blustered.

“…Maybe not.”

That hurt, more than I had expected it to, and I doubled over, just slightly, as though he’d punched me in the stomach. I think at that point I would have preferred if he’d hit me. I’d let him beat me until I was bloody if it would satisfy him for all the neglecting I’d done, for all the ways I’d hurt him without meaning to, and especially if it could make him stay. I knew he wouldn’t, but it felt like it would have been easier at that point.

I finished making breakfast, and I put it on a plate, but I found that I couldn’t imagine eating anymore.

“Here. Have some breakfast. I have to go into the University, I’m running late.”

I shoved the plate towards him without looking, but he took it and put it on the counter. Then he stepped in front of me and blocked my path until I was forced to look at him.

He was beautiful. Just as beautiful as ever. He was flushed with anger, and his eyes were bright with it. He looked like some vengeful god or muse from Greek mythology. Like Hades, perhaps, somehow come to claim my soul.

“You can’t go into work looking like that. There’s another two hours before you teach, I’m not an idiot, and you’ve got to clean yourself up. Or you can cancel your classes today. Either way, you’re being ridiculous.”

I knew he was right. He usually was. “I’ll… call in and cancel. I think it would be irresponsible for me to try and teach today. But I can still get out of your hair if you want me gone. I can go for a walk in Central Park until you’ve gotten your things.” I looked down again, staring at his feet. He still had his shoes on. He could walk out again anytime.

“I can’t save this if you won’t even try to help me, Oliver.”

That made me look back up. He looked sad - sad and confused, like for once he couldn’t understand what I meant or what I was trying to do, and that that upset him more than anything else.

“I’m not sure I deserve that.”

“What?” He asked.

I hadn’t been clear enough. “I’m not sure I deserve… any of this. Or, in the opposite way, if you… deserve me. After the night you left, and after yesterday, maybe it’s best if you go.”

This time he understood. He put his hands on my face, and I didn’t bother to fight him. “Oliver.” He used my name as a reprimand. He didn’t say anything else.

I closed my eyes, and in only a moment I was crying again - crying in front of him, for the first time in nearly a year.

“Oliver,” he said my name more softly this time.

“Sorry. I’m sorry.”

I went to pull back, but he grabbed onto the back of my shirt, and wouldn’t let me. Instead, he wrapped his arms around me and held me as I cried. My face pressed against his shoulder, and I stayed in my awkwardly hunched position until the tears had stopped.

By then, he had started to stroke my hair soothingly. When my breathing had evened out somewhat, he pulled my face up and kissed at my eyes, and my tears, the same way I once had for him. I kept my eyes closed.

“I’m sorry, Elio.”

“Oliver. You should have told me. Any of this.”

“...It isn’t that simple, Elio. What was I going to say? Someday maybe you’ll get sick of me? Sorry it turns out I don’t how to live with someone either because I only ever lived with my ex-fiancée and my entire relationship with her was a sham? Sorry I can’t be whoever you thought I was when I was in Italy? Sorry that when I’m here I’m boring and I can try and take you to restaurants and wine and dine you and walk with you through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but before long we’ll run out of new things to do in New York, and the novelty will wear off, and then we’ll just be two people living together, and you’ll still be a brilliant and beautiful young musician with your entire life ahead of you, and I’ll be a boring old professor that you’re not sure how you’ve ended up attached to but you can’t seem to get rid of?”

“You are so unbelievably stupid,” he said, and then he kissed me, forcefully. I leaned into it, and kissed him back, grateful even if it was a kiss goodbye.

He pulled away before I would ever begin to be satisfied. I tried to follow, but he held me back, keeping my face in his hands. “Open your eyes. Look at me.”

I did what he asked. He was still angry, and still beautiful, but I could tell now that he had been crying at some point, probably when I had. I was surprised, and sad.

“I don’t know why I need to tell you this - I thought that you knew. I always thought that you knew, I thought from the first summer that you could read it on me, in my expression.” I opened my mouth, but he shook his head. “No. Let me finish. I worship you. And not some fictional version of you I made up in my head, like you seem to think, but parts of you that you can’t change or hide no matter how much you seem to try. The fact that you use your stupid casual persona to try and mask how much you feel. The way you get when you’re tired and grumpy and all you do is complain or bluster, which you did even that first summer. I saw it happen. The way that on certain days, when you aren’t so busy you get lost, that you come in the door and you come straight for me, like all you’ve been thinking about is coming home to me - because that’s part of you, too. You talk about it like you forget that you live with me, but you don’t. We sleep in the same bed every night. You ask how my day is even if it’s in a tired mumble when you crawl in to sleep beside me. You always make enough coffee for both of us if you wake up before me, and you leave it in the pot. Yes, it’s different that we don’t spend every day together, laying in silence but still in perfect harmony somehow, and yes, that part of our relationship is perfect, and so perfect that it should be the envy of everyone in the world - but I’m not disillusioned somehow by living with you. I’m not disillusioned with you. That’s not what I was fighting about. You’re right, the fight wasn’t about what I brought up, but it wasn’t about this.”

I was utterly overwhelmed. I blinked at him. “What was it, then?”

He looked a little bashful, then - almost ashamed. “...I wanted to tell someone about you. About us. Someone in orchestra. But I think I was still afraid somehow that you’d say I couldn’t. Instead of asking, I turned it into an argument, and I took it out on you. It wasn’t even fair for me to assume what I did in the first place.”

“I... That’s. A conversation we’d have to have. I don’t know that I can have it right now.”

“I don’t think that we should have it right now.”

“I need to call in to work.”

He nodded, and dropped his hands from my face. I immediately wanted to reach out and touch him, but I held myself back instead. “Come back and eat your breakfast afterwards. I’ll heat it back up.”

I went to our phone, and called the main office, and told them I wouldn’t be in. I went into the bathroom after that, and winced at the sight of myself in the mirror. I looked even older than I actually was. I shaved, carefully, then washed off my face and brushed my teeth. It couldn’t do anything for the bags under my eyes, but it was better than nothing.

I walked back into the kitchen and found my plate waiting. Elio was sitting at the table, eating a breakfast he’d clearly made for himself. I sat down across from him, and didn’t say anything. I still wasn’t sure what to say. In spite of his reassurances, I felt like one wrong word could shatter us both. I couldn’t bear to check and see if he still had his shoes on.

I ate, slowly, and found I couldn’t eat as much as I normally would. My nerves and my hangover combined left me feeling sick. I threw out what I didn’t eat and got myself a glass of water. I stood in the kitchen to drink it, then poured myself another, and drank that too.

When I was done, I kept standing there. It felt like our entire relationship had been thrown off-kilter - and really, maybe it had. I didn’t know how to act around him now. Our protocol seemed broken.

He came into the kitchen and stood beside me to wash off his plate. I shifted to the side so our elbows wouldn’t brush.

Once his plate was clean, he still kept his head down for a moment, staring into the sink. “You’re allowed to touch me, you know.”

“Am I?” I asked. I tried to seem playful,  but everything was still too raw. It came out all wrong.

He sighed, and stepped away.

My chest tightened - I was terrified that he was going to leave again. I reached out and grabbed at his elbow, but I moved too quickly, and my grip was too hard. He winced, and realizing that I’d hurt him, I let go as if he’d burned me.

“What can I do to convince you I’m not going to leave?”

His question was desperate, but genuine. I looked down at his feet. “Take off your shoes,” I said quickly.

My own request was strangely desperate, but he didn’t react to it strangely at all. He walked into the living room and stepped out of his shoes, leaving them tucked under the couch, just like always.

I could feel my shoulders relax. “Thank you,” I said.

He reached out his hand. “Come here. Come back to bed.”

I walked over and took his hand, and he pulled me into our bedroom. He took off my shirt, then my pants, and he undressed himself as well. Once we were both naked, he pushed me towards the bed and I laid down. He joined me, and pulled me close, wrapping his arms around me, running his fingers through my hair.

Feeling his skin against mine and the gentle tugging at my hair was like something settling back into place. I finally moved, wrapping my arm around his waist, running my hand along his side, my palm rubbing over the bumps of his ribs. I shifted around until we were completely intertwined, until I could press my face against his neck and smell him - until it was hard to tell where I ended and he began.

“Oliver,” I said quietly.

“Elio?” he said back.

“Thank you.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to thank me for anything. It’s fine for you to need things. You’re not some perpetual host for me here, and you’re not... I know that it’s just the way that you are. That you’ve always been. That you feel some need to protect me. But I don’t want to be protected from you. I want to know you. I want every part of you. I know there’s no part of you that wants to hurt me, so I don’t want you to hold back. I don’t hold back with you.”

“...You’ve always been so open. So brave. I admired that about you from that first summer. That you broke the silence. That you pushed me. I never would have been able to do it. You’re better at that than I am.”

“You’ll just have to make an effort to get better at it, too, then.”

I huffed out something close to a laugh, and he tugged at my hair until I pulled back to look at him. He smiled at me, and I smiled back at him. He kissed me, and I could feel that I was forgiven - we both were. I sighed, and settled back into place against him.

“Get some more sleep. I think you need it.”

“Probably.” I let myself go quiet, then, and let my eyes close, and eventually fell into a calm and peaceful sleep.

When I woke, it was still light outside, and Elio was still there. I shifted until I could lay and watch him sleep.

I thought about what he’d said that morning. Not just all the wonderful things he’d said trying to combat my ridiculous maudlin headspace that had probably come out of too much drinking and too much time alone, but what he’d said about the fight, and what he’d actually been thinking.

I couldn’t exactly tell the University that I was living with another man the way I was living with Elio - not with the way things were right now. Elio, though, could probably tell people in his orchestra without it getting around. It wasn’t as if I didn’t want anyone knowing - I just knew that we had to be careful, and knew it more firsthand than Elio, who had been blessed with parents who truly loved him, instead of parents who only loved some image of their son they’d created in their own minds. I reached over and ran my fingers gently through his curls. Before long, he started to stir, and when he woke up, he blinked blearily at me and hummed, leaning into my touch.

Every time we woke up together and he didn’t push me away still gave me a momentary thrill. It had been long enough now that I should have gotten used to it, but I wasn’t sure I ever would.

He reached over and pulled me closer, nuzzling against my shoulder.

“Sleeping without you is awful. Let’s not do that again.”

I ran my hand up his spine, pressed my face into his curls and breathed deeply. “You think you had it bad? I had to sleep on the couch for two nights because the bed still smelled too much like you, and I didn’t think I could stand it.”

He held me more tightly for a moment, then pushed up onto his hands and leaned in to kiss me, just gently. “Come on. We should get up.”

“Wait,” I said quietly.

He did. He stayed there, leaning over me, watching me.

“You can tell people. In your orchestra. If you still want to. I still don’t think I should risk telling anyone at the University - I just want you to know it’s not that I’m ashamed.”

“No. No, I never thought you were ashamed. I just thought... It doesn’t matter. You’re sure?”

I nodded. “I know what you were thinking. I just thought I should say. But yes, I’m sure.”

“Alright.” He leaned down and kissed me again, and lingered this time.

I could feel myself starting to stir, and I ran my hands up his back, slowly and deliberately. He shuddered against me, and I felt his cock twitch against my thigh.

I broke the kiss, breathing out slowly. “Wait. Do you want me to get a shower first, or...”

Elio kissed along my jaw and my neck, and I could feel him shake his head. “No... I love the way you smell.” I could feel his breath against me, and I shuddered.

“God... Elio.”

“Let me.”

He moved down my body, lingering on each part of me. He traced his tongue around my nipples, licked at my shoulders and my collarbones, rubbed his face into my ribs, sucked each one of my fingers into his mouth, one by one. By the time he made it to my hips, I was fully hard and making noises I couldn’t hold back. I was running my hands restlessly over his hair and his back, caught between looking at him, watching him take me apart, or looking up at the ceiling, overwhelmed by the combination of the sight and the feel of him. When he finally took me into his mouth, I realized just how much I’d exaggerated the distance between us in my head - we’d rarely gone this long without having some kind of sex, even if it was just sleepy and fumbling. Two nights without him meant that it didn’t take long at all before I was murmuring my own name and his and tugging at his curls.

When I looked down, I could tell by the way he was moving that he was rubbing himself against the bed, getting off on the taste and the feeling of me in his mouth. I shuddered, and found that I was there.

I could feel him stiffen and I knew he was coming, too, before I’d even gotten my senses back enough to reach down and help him. I shivered, and relaxed into the bed. He climbed back up my body, pressing gentle kisses all the way up.

“Better?” he asked with a smirk.

I sighed, and smiled. “Come here, you.” I tugged him in, hands in his curls again, and kissed him. I could taste myself on his tongue, and so I lingered to kiss him until it seemed that I had kissed the taste from his mouth. Then I pulled back, licking my lips. “Now we should probably shower.”

“Mm. Alright.”

We went together, clearly both still reluctant to part. We washed each other carefully, like we were both checking that everything was still in tact after the time we’d spent apart. There was a red mark on his arm from where I’d grabbed him the day before - it wouldn’t bruise, but I was right that I’d been too rough. I pressed my lips to the mark and tried not to let the guilt swallow me. Reading my action, he pulled my face up and kissed me.

“It’ll fade by tomorrow. It was an accident.”

I hummed, and nodded.

We dried off, and out of unspoken agreement, we put on each other’s clothes. He wore my shirt, which we often traded off wearing now so that we each got the benefit of wearing it when it smelled like the other. I wore a pair of his shorts, which he’d kept even though they were too big on him, just for days like this. I wore one of his oversized sweaters. He wore a pair of my shorts from Italy.

We went into the living room and settled in on the couch. I sat propped up against one arm, and he sat between my legs, leaning back against my chest. I wrapped my arms around him and felt just as comfortable and relaxed as I had letting him hold me as I fell asleep.

“Do you want to watch something?” I asked.

“We can just see what’s on.”

I fumbled for the remote, and we flipped through the channels together.

We spent the whole day like that, quiet and comfortable, always some part of us touching, well within each other’s orbit. Tomorrow we’d have to go back to our outside lives - today we could take the time to fall back into each other, in a way we hadn’t in a while since I had started to pull away. I realized now that’s what I’d done - tried to somehow make our relationship distant enough to make him leave before he could get sick of me on his own -  or to try and make it easier if he did leave.

There was a lot to sort through - but at least now that we understood each other again, it would be easier.

The light had started to change outside by the time either of us spoke again.

“I love this. It’s no Italian summer, but I still love it,” he said.

I smiled, and pulled him closer. “Yeah. Me, too.”

“...I might even love it a little bit more.”

I laughed. “Alright. Don’t push it.”

[ratherhavetheblues]

CLAIRE DENIS’ HIGH LIFE “It’s called a taboo…”

© 2019 by James Clark

     Although this film, from 2018, proceeds with an English lexicon, it is most important to comprehend the French title. Une Vie en Hauteur, translates as, “a haughty, superior, arrogant approach toward others.” What sort of intransigence could be in play within our film today? There is, as we all know at some level, a distemper underway between amateurs of reality and those professionals regarding the former as having failed to digest the ultimacies already in full flower, namely, religion, humanitarianism and science. (All of which, seemingly, despite little tiffs, well embarking unconditionally all three of them at once.) With her film, High Life, filmmaker, Claire Denis, has squarely ventured into that latter buttress, science, whereby she stands (in many eyes) to be embarrassed by the “hauteur” of her betters. Moreover, let’s not kid ourselves that such “ladies” pastimes will be merely met with droll tolerance.

Our helmswoman here does have up her sleeve the resources of a guy who posthumously maintains a filmic action as far from “ladies concerns” as you can get, namely, Ingmar Bergman, an avatar of very high problematic. She has deployed for our considerations a film which, on the surface, has nothing to do with science, namely, The Seventh Seal (1957)—a biblical concomitant which leaves room for heresy during 12th century Sweden, bristling with witch-burning, flagellation and a far-reaching plague. A couple, Jof and Marie, itinerant circus entertainers, choose to be not fans of the regional leadership (just back from a crusade), who obsesses about living forever, by somewhat odd but actually usual means. The couple—but Jof definitely in the lead—see in their infant son a budding acrobatic genius and juggler the likes of which the world has never seen. Those latter gifts will reappear in our matter before us, in a scenario millennials’ into the future, whereby the march of (bored?) science has dreamed up travel far beyond the Solar System to transport death-row killers into the range of the nearest black hole, and others’ beyond, in hopes of some miracle. During this time-bending amazement, one protagonist, Monte, the highest flyer, another Jof, but very different, what with the bloody Jacobean melodrama blazing, encounters another such craft from that site of inspiration, but this time with a crew of dogs.

The first scenes appear to be far remote from a saga reeling from “hauteur,” let alone outer space. We begin with a lush and sunny vegetable garden sparked with reverberant musical undergrowth. Gentle mist brings about an ambience of decidedly earthy locale. Then a rather jarring note—a muddy pit and a ladder looking down. A baby cries, and we’re soon taken to an office where the child stands up in an improvised playpen, watching two screens featuring American Indians. The baby babbles happily, and, as if a cue, we cut to an astronaut, repairing something on the surface of the gray craft, while being connected by radio to the office. He smiles on hearing the happy child. “Da-da,” she calls. “Dada,” it is.

Then down to business. The show that day on the screens is short on baby talk. On the monitor at the left, there is, in silhouette, an aboriginal warrior on his horse (filmed in black and white). The peculiar headpiece resembles a bird of prey, or also a wolf’s head. (The world of wolves being germane in Bergman’s eyes, particularly in the film, Hour of the Wolf [1968].) On the monitor at right, we have a dying brave with, if not an atomic bomb, a lot of smoke pouring upward. The baby smiles. When the screen becomes a sunburst void, the young viewer begins to cry. The dad tries, “Shhh,” as a fix. She screams, and the enhanced communication factor causes a fright which results in the tool he was using to fly into the primal darkness. On his way in, we see a close-up of Monte’s mouth along with two cold spotlights in the surround. (Inherent cold?) Also, we see him wearing a set of underclothes which might have been used in the 12th century. Just before that entry, the repairman repairs to a reverie of circular stones and hardened mud in semi-darkness. Amidst that apparition was a small tooth-like, white object. Then the imagery attends to sharpened focus, and an arm with a bloody hand holding a bloody rock, which promptly relinquishes its burden into the void, to be followed by the arm lifting upward and quickly disappearing (perhaps elicited by the baby’s howl startling him to drop his wrench into infinity). Hour of the Wolf includes its protagonist fracturing the skull of a bothersome child by a similar action. And Monte, as later seen in flashback within that first flashback, had been on death row due to crushing the head of a young girl with the rock seen in that vision. Her annoyance to Monte involved noticing the mutilated and drowned dog of his he’d savaged, where we were able to see our-dad-of-the-hour displaying the full jacket from the avant-garde glimpse of sleeve.

When finally stifling for the time being that horror, the reformed travelling killer proves to be not so shabby a single parent. By way of the ladder, he accesses the garden, chooses a legume and promptly and gently provides a healthy pablum. After that, seated on the kitchen floor, he bathes the girl with skill, affection and patience. They play awhile with a red devil sort of doll. (Later, he withstands the girl’s loud and long crying jag.) But his loving solicitude does have a veer. With attention to emotive care, he delivers a sort of eccentric Ted Talk. “Don’t eat your own shit… Don’t drink your own piss… Don’t swallow horseshit… It’s called a taboo, tooo…booo… If my old man could see me now… Brake the laws of nature… You’ll pay for it, you son of a bitch!” After hours of deafening screaming, Monte complains to his only listener. “So many tears from such a tiny little body…Please, it’s gonna kill me…” It stops. The baby pulls at the skin on his arm. “Look at that,” he says. Monte sits by the bed, beholding a miracle. After she falls asleep, he says, “You don’t drown them like a dog… It’d be so easy… That’d be a first, and then me.” This sequence ends with him and her at the garden. She feeds him a strawberry, and he’s all smiles. At the ladder, he holds her and encourages her to climb up. “Up, up…”

   “Don’t eat your own shit,” would be a strange but potent gambit as to disinterestedness. The avatars of advantage—and they number by the billions—can’t get enough of dubious golden oldies. Denis pivots at this point, whereby the action up till now constitutes the newest stage while flashback to the preboarding and then subsequent earlier vignettes march apace. Why? We need to see, by way of the history of this flight, how bad and how good things go under the aegis of a hard and dominant sell. Though the film finds Monte trying not to eat shit by challenging a lead pipe punk, namely, Boyse, for carving with a hard and sharp weapon a graffiti into a wall at the medical zone, we encounter her first a bit out of order (very appropriate for her) as an insert showing particulars before she’s arrested. Boyse, we’ll tell you now, is the baby’s mom, induced by the medic, Doctor Dibs, the Pedant of Pregnancy, who has recruited, all the guys but Monte, to a daily regime of masturbation for the sake of in vitro fertilization—the payoff being a mild drug. Her one and only success being with stand-off, Monte, as we’ll describe in the order of the flashback.

Whereas Boyse, as you’ll see, is almost totally feral and destructive during her stint in the sky, there is a brief but searing episode involving her on land, which leaves you enchanted. Like a great acrobat, she gracefully and powerfully uses the instances of the boxcar to reach the roof—in this rooftop position being kin to Monte. Moreover, the travellin’ kids resemble, somewhat, Jof and Marie, in their caravan. (A third rider, at another place on the train, puts up his middle finger and smiles in a rather shy manner to no one in particular; but to everyone in fact.) As night takes over, she leans back in a shallow container and relishes the currents from the plunge of the iron horse, and the darkness. She and her cohort sleep closely and on cardboard. Almost as gritty as old-time coal miners, it is the grottiness on their exposed calves that both repels and endears them to us. One more noteworthy, earlier moment on terra firma, consists of her stretching out here hand, to feel the ripple of prevailing wind as the train races on. In doing so, she’s surprisingly at work on her education, an education you won’t find in college because the jailers there have a very big gun (named, classical rational thought) trained on students and faculty alike. We saw that same laconic gesture with the protagonist of Denis,’ White Material (2009), wherein she was having too much adventurous—actually, suicidal—fun  to heed the classical rational chopper screaming at her to get the hell up and out of a nasty civil war.

   Back to the dust-up at the hospital/ lab, Boyse rips a long wound along Monte’s arm, for his interfering in her showing how little she respects the doctor. (Bergman had a long history of portraying medics as not up to the intimacies of sensibility.) While being patched up by Dr. Dibs (that term denoting Straight A’s as far as it goes), the patient, rather surprisingly, sees fit to explicitly mention that he sees value in her range of interests. (Though he comes across as an inflected born-again Aquarian, he does have a whack of pedantry. Will it cripple, over [bloated] time here, his scatological commitment to disinterestedness? [Back to the time of the baby, we see him earnestly posting reports—for instance, how he removed and replaced the defective piece of surface—while such messaging had been defeated by the light-years’ gap. On the other hand, he brags, “I never caved in” [to the sleep-killing noise]. And then the baby’s strawberry gift to Monte; and Boyce’s strawberry hair and complexion, once scrubbed up. Bergman’s, Wild Strawberries [1957] being a parable of pristine recovery. The numeral “7,” placed on the craft and on all the uniforms, perhaps refers to the release date, 1957, of both The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries. The signage, “9,” on the dog craft, might refer to Bergman’s, The Passion of Anna, 1959, where the protagonist is a killer of farm animals. Denis often joins Jim Jarmusch’s umbrage [not to mention’s that of Kelly Reichardt] toward those abusing entities far more consistently and effectively balanced than humans. Monte’s history of killing his dog, not to mention killing his neighbor, would be perhaps a factor not completely resolved.)

We already have a lot of cards on the table, here; but a direction to thrill us is nowhere to be seen. Or, rather, I’ve found it advisable until now, that the soundtrack and playlist be stilled, the better to orient the viscosity and traction struggling to make headway. Denis’ musical force, “Tindersticks” (having already almost stolen the show in her film, 35 Shots of Rum [2009]), endeavor, by reverberant and seductive aural thrust, to further illuminate the mastery of eschewing one’s own shit. Much startling pain and confusion are right around the corner. But it is the measure of thrust (acrobatics) we must especially ponder.

We could describe the crisis woven for us to be the limits of control. As it happens, Jim Jarmusch put out, in 2009, a film, called, The Limits of Control, including actress, Tilda Swinton, tall, thin and blonde, who comes to an unpleasant end. Another of the killers onboard here, rather alike Tilda (but with a prominent scar the length of her right cheek), confronts Dibs, “Why do you keep taking this sperm?” Her stressed response is, “The odds are not in our favor. But when my work of perfection is achieved…” That unwelcome question drives the perfectionist to another dimension of bounty, situated by the stairs close to the earthy garden, namely, that presiding lunge of emotive delight, known as the fuckbox, a small but powerful rollercoaster to help survive the stupid fuckers who stuck them there. Joining Dibs nearer to what really matters to her, when freed of taboos, and with the band of the day attending to reverb and real invention, she, along with means of intervention, joins those dance rebels (writhing acrobats) like Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Josephine Baker and Martha Graham. (The Bergman film—and right here I’d like to declare how many viewers were wrong about it being a flop, namely, The Serpent’s Egg [1977], features such a dance innovation.) On ending her gig, she immediately bumps into Monte headed to the garden. “I know I look like a witch,” she says. Her handsome outreach (juggling) is met by Monte’s pedantry, “That doesn’t seem to do you much good.” Her retort, “Better than you think,” does, at least leave room for imperfection. Monte, overly proud to tell himself and her, “I kept my fluids to myself,” continues, “So humiliating… You need to wipe your nose.” He rubs her upper lip. An odd register between a boss and an underling, however the miasma may run. But not an odd register between spouses. (Boyse will, later on, have the nerve to pull from her that Dibs had wiped out her whole family. But her credentials gave her a measure of gravitas.) The one sworn to saves lives argues, “You all come to look at me at night.” He counters, “You’re foxy and you know it. I just can’t understand your mission… I still believe in the mission. However, he can conclude, “It’s just a new religion for you.” And she can swing back to, “Because I’m totally devoted to reproduction.” She leaves him with, “Happy Monk, going to sew your fields.”

   The slipping and sliding of that twosome on the go, close to the speed of sound, have, going forward, neither the luxury nor the talent to polish their genius. On their voyage to short love and long death, they become immersed with disease and murderous hate. But their far from insignificant efforts lift this crash to something sublime. Boyce, swamped by her refusal to recognize limits of control involving a paradoxical agency, peels away from the center of the action, to be briefly superseded by the leukemia of a man beset by the lurking of radiation. Having a glimpse of her at her level best, we’re not astonished that Dibs has a heart. Her empathy strikingly conveys cinematically by the superimposing over her face of the cancer cells from a scan. So engaged is she by soothing the pain in gently touching him, the dying man kisses Dibs and she responds in kind. In contrast, there is Monte, with light years away from wisdom, crudely insisting, “I have good genes.” He adds, “Stink, the usual stench. It gets me hard…” Dismissing such trash, she assures the victim she’ll dull his pain. “There is nothing to fear, I promise…” He responds, “Everything’s gonna’ be fine…” On the heels of that real confluence, she unfortunately declares, “No one to help me, as I’m helping you… No one to put me out of my misery… I’m alone with my guilt…” The man closest to death tries to say something. She puts her ear to his mouth. She inserts the poison, and she mourns the disappearance, more profound than a black hole.

Also getting him hard in this moment is a frail young Brit with a triangular tattoo on his neck and another one on his arm. He’s no Stephen Hawking (that celebrated black-hole-mathematically-sharp-gazer); but there is something about his irreverence and appetite for the flashy—following up Dibs at the earthquake room, and addressing her as, “Fucking cock block” –which is bound to be spectacular, if not tremendously substantive. In the wake of the long death throes, he wakes up in the middle of the night and discovers that he craves more dark stories. He comes to a three-woman bedroom and decides to rape Boyse. The ensuant disarray involves the tall skeptic wedded to the limits of control trying to help a figure who knows another field of dynamics. The former gets dragged out to the corridor and beaten senseless. Monte arrives and subdues the rapist; and while his attention is elsewhere in the chaos another woman with a knife stabs the troublemaker many fatal times, including ripping out his eyes.

Earlier on, there is a dip to our planet where a celebrity pundit conducts an interview with a Millennial journalist, around Boyse’s age. They’re sitting in First Class, and the subject is the flight and what a shame the physicists are on the wrong track to rehabilitate criminals. He’s particularly miffed that the space riders on the rapid move, with a vehicle resembling a ghetto Walmart, will never return to Earth. Dibs, though sleeping through the little war, is on the hook to elevate the tone she actually knows quite a bit about. (If she felt like it, she’d have pondered the syntheses flashing on the two triangular tattoos, and the triad of lights at the craft’s rear end.)  Beyond lockdowns she knows she needs some magic, being a witch, a bit more stable than the witch in The Seventh Seal, who, nevertheless, does better than the pundit. Sometime, perhaps prodigious speed-of-light later, she tip-toes to Monte’s bed and sort of rapes him. While he sleeps through the invasion, she pledges her love to him. She kisses his hand; she sucks his finger; she opens her blouse. “Will you hold me?” she whispers. “Why don’t you take me in your arms? I close my eyes. I hold you… Hold me…” She mounts him. “Feel me, Monte.” Astride, and a moment of far-sighted love, she kisses him. “Monte, thank you!” She carries the semen to the lab, places it in a vial, comes to Boyse’s bed, kisses her belly and introduces the semen. This singularity elicits a blaze of a galaxy tinted with pink hues.

   Soon after the violent targeting of Boyse, and quite a while before she’s pregnant, she’s with Dibs at the clinic. The witch remarks, “Not so easy to get inside you as you think…” Boyse, rather surprisingly, laments, “I’ll never have kids. I’m sure of it.” (That happens to be the same remark by Eve, a flakey and promiscuous wife, in Bergman’s film, Shame [1968].) The hardened cynic asks for confirmation that the controller killed her youngster. “With a knife!” is the answer. Countering her dismay, she moisturizes her hands and braids her remarkably long hair. Soon after Boyse, with a baby in an incubator and pouring out milk, there comes to her a storm of resentment concerning a looming loss of wildness. (Not so easy to get inside the you.) Dibs’ delight in this coup (Monte not yet up to speed) coincides with a close encounter of the first of many planned and completely daft “experiments” –perhaps a Trump-like administration in play—with a neighborhood of comic-based thrills. The skeptical blonde had been tagged to take one for the team, but Boyse, thinking that her best move would be a comic book finale, kills the intended and goes on to kill herself with a black entity demanding grown-up reflection.

There is a cordial black (perhaps a one-time traitor of “intelligence”) who shares the work of gardening, and who misses his gospel-based wife. His quirky will to die coincides with the outset of Monte’s tenure of parenting. Dibs, our protagonist’s not-quite-to-roll-on as a Marie to Monte’s Jof, due to her being assassinated by one of her many enemies, and according by him a dignified funeral in slow-motion upon the heavens, may have lost a new outlook on life. But Monte, that lucky stiff, shows us a possibility and a failed possibility of some measure. (As seen before the long, long flashback, there was now visibility about his visit to the multiplex’s morgue [with a complement awaiting a miracle], suiting them out and flushing them out to graces of dynamics they hardly knew. One other thing, he descends to a tantrum concerning the phenomenon of death there. Looks like overcoming eating your own shit is still a work in progress.)

As we begin to put an end to that early odd story, the witch’s singularity has overshot that noisy baby girl. (One moment back there, shows Monte opening the incubator door. He holds the baby and he smiles.) She’s an adolescent now, and the delight with the baby has been overrun by bothersome questions—a bothersome girl about that age having once been murdered by him. Monte’s first annoyance onscreen is that she insists upon sleeping with him. “Get outta here…Too heavy now…Go back to your own bunk… Crazy girl!” In her bunk she calls out, “Too far…”

Facing the day, we are struck by the shabbiness of their clothes and the craft’s interior. Will to live is on the line. The baby’s name is Willow. Their dilemma is extraordinary, but not unprecedented. How to go forward in what certainly appears to be a dead-end. (Boyse and her friends on the freight were about that.) Monte has become subdued; but he does now instinctively describe an acrobatic move with his hands. The ship is an eyesore, but in addition to its long history of essential emptiness, it continues to maintain three lights in triangular form. The Hawking departure went nowhere. But the magic of true dialectic was there for the asking. Willow is of a mind to say, “Looks like out.” The visit from “9” (perhaps, as mentioned, regarding Bergman’s film, The Passion of Anna [1969], where the title figure comes to light as a maniacal killer of farm animals) is probably unhelpful regarding their being between a rock and a hard place. (Moreover, there is the virtual date of 1959 for the Bergman film, The Magician, where a wizard is not.) But, then, beasts are not to be overlooked. Then there is the notice, on a dysfunctional apparatus, announcing, “Communication Error.” This barrier somehow drives Willow to realize, “We don’t need help.”

   In the brush with the dogs, Monte covers her eyes, guessing more slaughter to come. Its turning out to be merely sad sends her reverting to childishness. “I want a dog so bad!”  She calls him cruel for worrying about an epidemic, a plague. “What do you know about cruelty?” he snaps. (The plague being probably everywhere.) He retreats to the garden and washes up. She tells him, “You’re right, dad. I’m sorry. I have everything I need here…” (That couldn’t be right, could it?) The soundtrack rings out a far-reaching possibility. The undirected screen comes back to life, and delivers a Half-Time American Football marching band (perhaps not so far-reaching). He notices her in the disposition of praying. “What God are you praying to?” She explains, “I saw them on the random images from Earth. I just wanted to know how it feels. An event onscreen shoes the ancient blue and white Swedish flag, from the era of Jof and Marie. They have a view of another black hole.” “It’s like a mouth that just swallows up,” he says. “Too big.” she agrees. But she comes back with, “We should try it. To feel it” [Boyse felt it]. Monte’s hair is now pepper and salt. He quietly chides, “Thought we were supposed to be drifters.” (That couldn’t be right, could it?) She persists, “But it’s so big… I think the density is very low.” He shakes his head. “I believe it,” she concludes. Now they’re at the entry zone, setting up a two-seater, like the one Boyse commandeered. Something possesses her to add, “I’m sad you’d leave your data, even your prisoner list” [pedantry being a hard disease to beat]. In quite a mood swing, resembling her mother, she declares, “I’ll be destroyed by the fire wall of the black hole, anyway!” Now en route, she over activating the ways of acrobatics, she reports, “Here’s the fire wall. I know it. We’ll make it through.” From here to there, she turns to the super-quixotic: “Do I look like my mother?” [quite a question]. Since she clearly looks more like Monte [or Dibs] than Boyse, his answers, as to her mother’s features, are all no’s. He tells her she has rodent teeth… a little rat… But he grants her, “You’re special. You’re like no one else. I love that.” Their little ship has only two lights. The magic did not prevail. But there was some golden to love.

We then see a rapid re-spooling of scenes of defeat: the aboriginals; the garden; #7… With an oxygen level of appalment, the drama takes over, asking why did they shut down? True, there were mountains (as per Monte) to manage. But the second necessity, juggling, was hardly considered in this rocketing blaze of being a soloist, first and foremost.

This film’s underwhelming optics plays into that aberration. But its aural life brims with reverberance, a ripple of energy, wherein juggling comes to life, and that careless term, “the heavens,” comes onboard. Denis’ association with the British band, Tindersticks, has carried us to new frontiers of mood; and mood, whether acknowledged or not is pretty much everything. Sonic acrobatic initiatives and their juggling responsiveness-in-appreciation installs a work and play space to challenge the suicidal outcome in High Life. Were the last two standing fully aware of that dance of life, the radical confinement could have sustained duets and solos-not-so-definitively-solo.

Willow

Willow, where are you hiding now?

Willow, where are you hiding now?

In the dappled light, deep in the trees

The spiders and the centipedes

Crawl across your hands, across your knees.

Willow, do you walk across the sand?

Willow, do the waves crash and fall?

And their fingers tickle at your feet

And pull a little as they retreat.

Do you feel the rushing forward?

Though you’re standing still?

Willow, are we rushing forward, are we standing still?

Willow, are we rushing forward, are we standing still?

Willow, do you crouch among the rooftops?

Willow, do you listen to the city wheezing?

And your dreams, they stretch beyond the clouds

And past…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOHFktF5E1o

[729renegades]

UP CLOSE & PERSONAL – JAY EMERY

STEVE MATTHEWS INTERVIEWS JAY EMERY

Hello everyone, welcome to another edition of Up Close & Personal for the Renegade Magazine. And also, today, we’re getting videoed as well, which is nice. Full technology today. So today sees me sitting in an unbelievable location in rural Worcestershire and I’m surrounded by fields and in a structure that can only be described as unique. I’m sure that you’ll hear more about the venue in due course and I’ll include a picture for the magazine. My guest today is as unique as the structure we are in… I think it’s fair to say that. And in my opinion, he’s one of the most interesting characters in the Renegade Faculty that I’ve ever met. I have to be careful here because this gentleman has had such a diverse life, we could spend about 2 days just talking about the experiences and job roles as he travelled the globe. But again, we’ll hear more about that over the next hour or so I’m sure. So as means of build-up… Brought up in a farm in South Africa, struggled through school due to dyslexia, from there to National Service in the South African Army, but had a dream to be a ski instructor. Yes, I know that’s pretty tough to piece the two together so I’m sure my guest will help us make sense of that transition. So, from farm boy to army, to ski instructor to street entertainer and magician, there are many stages in between but today he’s known as the Wood Fired Oven Pizza Guru. He now runs a hugely successful business that builds premium clay wood fired pizza ovens; he has a mobile franchise module that is ready to roll out and has just started an oven building school and is also launching Pizza for Profit which is a business coaching platform for mobile caterers. He is definitely someone who thinks outside the box, his ability to innovate and circumnavigate obstructions never ceases to amaze me and I hope I can do this guy justice today. I think this is possibly the longest introduction ever, but in truth I could have gone on forever, but I think I’d better get him talking before he bursts. So, it gives me great pleasure to introduce my friend and co-Faculty member, the Sultan of the Slopes, the Oligarch of Ovens and the Prince of Pizzas, Mr Jay Emery… Jay, how are you today?

Jay Emery: Hey Steve, man what an introduction… That must have taken you hours to write, little alone the research you must have done to find out about my history. Yea, it’s certainly been an interesting life and I’ve loved every minute of it, so thanks for this opportunity. Steve Matthews: No problem. So, I mentioned a load of things in that introduction and I’m sure we’re going to cover them all, some in more length and some in less details, but let’s start from the beginning, the early days, South Africa. Brought up on a farm in South Africa, is that right?

JE: It was more of a small holding on the outskirts of Johannesburg, but when you’re a kid, nine and a half acres is pretty big. And also, having to milk the cows and pasteurise the milk to make pocket money kind of kick starts the entrepreneurial spirt. So, I have my folks to thank for that… I was always as a kid dreaming up some kind of scheme for making some extra pocket money. And yea, the farm kind of gave me that yearning for the love of the outdoor space and I mean South Africa, in its own right, when I was a kid was just an amazing place. It probably still is an amazing place, I haven’t been there for such a long time, but when I went back to see my Dad just before he passed on, it wasn’t the South Africa that I remember… But, hey ho, we are where we are now and very happy with what’s happened, and it does all stem from that South African entrepreneurial spirit where, if you don’t get on with it, you die. It’s quite simple, we don’t have in South Africa a support network for health care, we don’t have a support network for benefits, so basically, you either work or you die. It’s as simple as that.

SM: You mentioned there about some of the schemes to make extra pocket money, can you remember any?

JE: Oh man! My sisters had horses when we were kids and I kind of did the riding thing, but it didn’t really interest me and so my Dad was at kind of ones and twos of how to fair the game or make the game fair. The sisters had horses so what are you going to have? We looked at having a go-cart and I thought that would be cool and then my Grandfather was a great inspiration, he was a true entrepreneur in the real sense of the word in South Africa and we kind of looked at getting a lawn mower. I thought that if I got a lawn mower, I could go and cut the neighbours grass and if I got a sit on one, I could do it a lot faster because pocket money was made out of pushing a hand lawn mower over about an acre and a half of front garden and it was a ball ache. So, the idea of getting a sit on lawn mower was just a fab idea and one that meant I could make profit. Unfortunately, shortly after that my folk’s business went into decline and I never got that, but I was really young then and my sister had just started work at the local drive-in, the cinema house, and she used to flip burgers there but obviously I was too young to work there, so I just used to go down and wash windscreens. I’d knock on the side of the car if the window looked dirty and started washing windscreens to get some extra money. I thought if they could see clearly what they were watching, then that would be a good investment, a good way of making money. I didn’t realise that at that age, you didn’t really go to the drive to watch the movie, you went with your girlfriend and so I got plenty of, “bugger off ” or “stop disturbing us” kind of stories, or in actual fact, if I just stayed there, they just gave me the money to rid of me, so they could get on with their shenanigans. There were loads of stories like that, for instance when I was in the army, you weren’t allowed cameras in the army… I always ignored all the rules, I used to take the camera into the base with me and take photographs of all the beds, the inspection beds, and I remember on my first pass home, the first leave I got, I spent the whole of the 3 or 4 days in my dark room developing all these pictures that I then sold as soon as I got back to barracks. And I actually got an email from a friend of mine in America, the middle part of last year. He touched based for the first time in a long time, we were in Officers training together, and he said, “Jay, you know the picture that you took of me next to my inspection bed, is still next to my bed to this day”… As one of the memories of our youth basically. It’s those kinds of memories that I cherish, and the fact that I could help people do something different and remember something different.

SM: Perfect! You obviously jumped into the army there… So, you obviously had to do National Service in South Africa?

JE: Yea, in South Africa, National Service was conscription based when I did it.

SM: Is there still National Service?

JE: No, it ended 2 years after I left, and lot people knew that it was going to end and so kind of delayed their entrance into the army. I didn’t, I didn’t go to University, I didn’t go to College, I went straight out of school into National Service. I was sixteen when I went into the army. It was without a doubt, the harder period of my life. I remember my friends saying when they’d been through National Service, “Jay, it’s a complete waste of time”, “Why do you want to waste time in the army, it’s just bloody stupid”, “What you want to do is, you want to go in and be a private, you want to go in and work in an environment where somebody tells you what to do, and do as little as possible. Get the 2 years behind you as quickly as you can, so you can get on with your life”. That’s not the way I saw it. When I was a kid I was bullied, I was the loner in the group, I was an outcast. I had very low confidence. I had quite extreme learning difficulties, and while I was probably one of the more intelligent people in the class, and the person that people would come to ask to solve complex problems in both chemistry and science, which were my two favourite subjects, I could never write the answer down. So, when I came into an exam situation, it was a nightmare. So, going into the army then was even harder, but I think in life, whatever you put in, you get out. So when I went into the army, I saw a 17 year old Lieutenant being saluted by a Regimental Sargent Major who’d been his whole life in the army, and I thought to myself, why do I want to be running around being told by somebody what to do, if at 17 I can get somebody who’s been in the army for 17 years to salute me, and right from literally the first week, I’d set an aim to be an Officer. I didn’t know in any name, shape or form what that entailed… I think if I had known, I probably wouldn’t have done it, but I did set my target to do that and I did everything in my power to rise to the challenge. To give you an example, it used to drive me mad… 60 people in a barrack and you’re now in basic training so you’re being woken before dawn, you’re being sent on route marches, you’re run ragged and there’s a Corporal whose job it is to make your life merry hell. I remember seeing An Officer and a Gentleman, and I can tell you, if Officers training was as easy as that in the South African Defence Force, it would have been a doddle, but it wasn’t!

SM: And he got the girl as well…

Listen to the rest of the interview at 729Renegades.com/ podcast

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[cruisador-blog]

The Nick Names

As I had just mentioned I had remembered one final thing about the Charleston trip. After Steve and I finished our "quickie" and Barry was at the Farmers Market, I had crawled back into bed on the sofa and fell asleep. When I woke up Barry was back from the Farmers Market with all sorts of goodies. The best of which was Pralines, although there were cookies and some other sweets. He had a flyer with him that he had picked up about a craft fair in Foley Beach. On the map, it looked close to where we were. I said that I would love to go and said I could be ready in no time. I got up once again buck naked and grabbed my bag and headed for the shower. I soon realized I had forgot to pack one or two things, my underwear. I had underwear from the day before but it was black and I had just bought a white sundress with yellow polka dots. There was a store across the street that I figured I could go and purchase something from over there. I was a little nervous about going outside. Not because I was thinking that there were Private Investigators waiting for me, but because when I was about 15, I was expecting something in the mailbox from my uncle.  When I heard the mail truck I went running to the mailbox in gym shorts and a tee shirt. My mom was waiting for me at the front door yelling at me because I went out without a bra. She was telling me that they would start calling me "Nipply Nancy or high beam Hannah" or something stupid like that. I was 15 and flat as a board. She had a habit of being at the wrong place at the right time. I had ended up packing a wig. It was the wig that my ex and I used when he wanted me to be naughty. There were a lot of times when I felt naughty and would put it on before he came home. I had brought it this time as a disguise.

 I was 99.9% certain that I was not followed but for some reason felt more comfortable if I wore it. The plan was that Barry and I would go to the store across the street and Steve would pick us up outside. It was quite the interesting walk to the store. I had never gone out without a bra, oh and I didn't have panties either. When we got to the store it was not open yet. When Steve pulled up, we got in the car and headed for the craft fair. Sometime during the show they said to me, "You look just like the girl from Peggy Sue got Married." The rest of the day I was known as Peggy Sue. Actually, from then on out I was referred to as Peggy Sue. Eventually when I got an email address it had Peggy Sue in the address.

We got back to the hotel and exchanged phone numbers. We said our good byes. When I got back to the house, It was like nobody knew I had gone out of town. A few weeks later I spoke with them on the phone. 6 months later I got a Christmas card and four months after that they called again and asked if I wanted to come to Myrtle Beach for a night the following month. I said I would get back with them, but didn't think I would go. I had been seeing someone and didn't think it would be appropriate. A few days later I started thinking about our night in the Charleston and as time went by all I could think about was just getting to the coast again. I bet for 3 months after our rendezvous in Charleston I had thought about that night every single day. About 2 weeks after I wrote 2 pages front and back about the entire experience. I decided that I would meet them down there and while nothing could compare with the year before, It was still incredible. The following year I agreed to meet them overnight again. We went back to Charleston.

ATLANTA 1995

In the summer of 1994 I had gone back to work for the University. I had been working on my Thesis for a while and was hired as a Professor. The Professor I had been under was leaving and he had contacted the school and told the school that I might be a good candidate for his position when he left. They gave me a year to complete my doctorate before I was a full fledged member of the faculty.

I got my yearly call from "the boys" in April and with the new job had to tell them that I couldn't make it this time but maybe we could do a weekend at the end of the summer. 

I had read an article about some new research that had been done and thought it might lend itself to what I was doing at the University. I asked my supervisor if he new anything about it. I explained why I was so interested and the potential I thought it had on my work. About two months later I saw where the guy was giving a seminar in Atlanta and a few other cities. I only saw Atlanta when I read it. I approached my supervisor and asked if the school would flip the bill for me to attend the seminar. As I was still very new, he stalled, but I wore him down in the end and he asked for my estimates on the cost. I was given my estimates back with most of the items scratched off. If I remember correctly they would pay $300. I submitted bills for twice that. They would pay for the hotel, no airfare but they would pay for my mileage to drive at so many cents a mile, and the cost of the seminar. No meals, parking, incidentals, etc.

At the time I had been seeing a guy for almost a year. He travel extensively and one night we were talking about my trip to Atlanta. I told him what the school was willing to pay and that I was being forced to drive while I wanted to fly. He saw what I had given to the school and he said that I should be able to fly and do everything for that amount of reimbursement. He got on the phone with the airline and then the hotel. By flying in a day early and staying over a Saturday night the flight dropped substantially. It would mean another day at the hotel but I knew I could probably stay with the boys on the Saturday. I did want to stay at the hotel the night before the seminar. I couldn't take the chance of coming in late or missing it because we had car problems or anything. Two nights with the boys would have been too much anyway. In the end I wound up out of pocket twenty to thirty dollars and I didn't have to drive.

I arrived at the airport early and was excited about the trip. Right before boarding a lady came in on crutches and sat across from me. We started talking and she was a retired teacher that had been visiting her grandkids and had fallen over one of them and tore something in her ankle. The boarding started and I had the seat right in back of first class so I was one of the first to board. After most of the people had boarded the flight attendant came up to a few of us sitting there and asked if anyone would be willing to change seats. Right in back of her was the lady on crutches and I would have felt bad if I said no. The seat I was in had a little more leg room than the seats with a chair in front. So off I go following the attendant toward the back. All the way back to like the third seat from the tail. The attendant said they would comp anything I wanted and I jokingly said, "like Bloody Mary's" ? Right before beverage service she came to me with a Bloody Mary. At the end of the flight she gave me an airport voucher worth $10. It took forever to get off the plane that far back and when I was on my way to find the hotel shuttles I decided to use the voucher and get another Bloody Mary. I knew if I didn't use the voucher it would go to waste. What I didn't realize at the time was the guy I had been seeing had gotten up early and had driven to Atlanta to meet me, I guess at baggage claim as a surprise. He had made my flight and my hotel reservations so he knew everything about my trip. Although he didn't know I had cancelled my Saturday night hotel reservation. That could have been a disaster. I found out about it later when I got home and heard all of the messages he had left on my answering machine.

Barry had gone into work to do a little and I took the shuttle to his hotel. He used the opportunity to parade me around as his girlfriend. He was not out of the closet and I had done this stunt with him before when he lived in my apartment complex. I went to their Christmas party and a corporate picnic as his date. That would have been 10 years earlier. After he had made sure everyone had seen us together we headed off to where Steve was working and we sat at a table in the kitchen. Steve was being his typical culinary professional and was giving us sample of this and that and of course letting us sample a lot of wine. Between the Bloody Mary's and the wine I could tell I was feeling no pain.

We were at their home in no time. They lived on the outskirts of the city and entering their neighborhood I could see downtown and easily count the floors of the buildings. They had been talking about a water park and also washing Steve's new car. He had gotten a deal on a 1975 Monte Carlo with around fifty thousand miles. He had always wanted a classic car and this one was pristine. I remember it had swivel bucket seats. That's another story that I wont get into. So the water park and car wash was actually in their back yard. Steve backed his car out of the basement garage and they had 2 black hoses attached to sprinklers on each side of the car. We were all in our bathing suits washing his car. The water coming out of the sprinklers was hot and we were having a good time talking and having fun in the water. Steve was up front taking a tooth brush to the front grill and I was soaping up the back trunk. Barry comes up from behind me and grabs my hand and says, "wax on, wax off". Some people will know that movie line but then he pressed up against me and I turned around and he was completely naked. Being that close to downtown it was secluded. They were on a flood plain as it was all woods in the back and being on a cul-de-sac offered some privacy also. The next thing I know he picks me up and puts me on the trunk and pulls down my bathing suit. Steve was completely oblivious to what was going on and all I could do is stare at the corner of the house waiting for the neighbor, or a delivery driver, or a group of Girl Scouts to come around the corner while he was fucking me. He calls out to Steve and that is when I hop off of him. I was not going to have a threesome in the back yard. We finished washing the car and went upstairs. Steve said we should do a shot. I knew what the shot was about. He wanted to put me over the edge so they could have their way with me. So by now, I had 2 Bloody Mary's, probably 3 glasses of wine at the restaurant and another glass at their house. The shot was not a good idea. It was called a "Coma" and it had a shot of cherry cough medicine, a shot of Bacardi 151 and 2 other liquors. It was like drinking candy but it made me sick and I asked to go lie down. I had been drinking since before 10 am and did not have anywhere near enough to eat. I laid across their bed on towels and passed out. A couple hours later I woke up and knew we were going to a friend of theirs new restaurant for dinner so I tried to get up and pull it together. I needed a shower and went into their bathroom and turned on the shower. There was a small stool in the corner and I put that under the shower head and sat down. I might had fallen asleep again. Next thing I know is the both of them are stepping into the shower with me. I'm still groggy and I have 2 penis at eye level. I ended up sucking them both off. They got out of the shower and after I had washed up I stepped out and they asked what was on my butt. I had been sitting on that stool for so long that the Cosco logo had imprinted on my ass. That's how I got my second nick name. CoCo butt. I guess the "S" was in my butt crack. That was the name that stuck and while Peggy Sue was used, CoCo was generally what they called me. When they had sent me an email, I would usually get a message on my machine asking if I had seen Peggy Sue. That was their way of asking me to call them back. It was great, if someone was there with me I wouldn't have to explain who was calling. They were looking for someone else.