#on the rota it goes

[ficuscircus]

Yes!!! 😍😍😍 Just casually letting her fingers linger on the spine 😰

However, if I may add to your post...

No wonder Morgane can't get over it! Their cases are everywhere! We've got:

S comme Italie,

Hep et Soja,

Vent d'ouest (singular + all in caps),

Coutume Malgache (as you've pointed out),

Deux Mille Trois Cents Calories,

Homme de peu de foi,

De mille feux (so long, typo...),

Enfant de...

and, based on the similar spine design, three more I can't make out.

I couldn't decipher the fake publisher name either. If anyone's got better eyes, please do share with the class 👀👂

Also, this set design means the episode had one thing right plot-wise: I spotted three books by Marc Levy on the shelves and they were not even remotely close to each other, so there was indeed some serious sleepwalking-induced shelf rearrangment 😅

She just – She’s thinking about their second case, she’s thinking about HIM oh my GOD 😱😭

But also maybe she’s not that much pining after all:

#“Coutume Malgache” 🥹🥹🥹 HPI: HAUT POTENTIEL INTELLECTUEL S03 E01: Symétrie Radiale

(huge thanks to @hemerae-ramblings​ for the video rip <3333)

[meggsssart]

My precious blorbo Elden

Typical good boy paladin who is this close to being done with his party's lawless bullshit

[spookyrea]

Been a While Since I've Held Anything

When a picture of Loki's soulmark goes viral, his mood takes a dramatic turn. He's moody, rude, and trying to ingratiate himself to you in bizarre ways. Maybe it has something to do with the anonymous love letter you sent him while trying to build up the courage to tell him how you really feel… Maybe it has something to do with the fact that your soulmarks match.

Chapter 1 / 3 - read on AO3

A soulmate-identifying mark AU - no warnings, though epilogue will contain smut

(chapter 2) (epilogue)

Dear Loki, you wrote. You’re vile.

The picture was uploaded to Twitter on December 12th at exactly 3:43 pm. It was terrible quality, taken in a dimly-lit bar. Loki’s head was bowed to hear his brother over the din, his hair drawn up for all the heat in the packed bar. A perfect storm of circumstance to allow his shirt collar to ride low on his shoulders, exposing the elegant slope where his neck met his spine - and about three quarters of his soulmark. 

Loki’s mark was a delicate thing. Twenty-two dots of varying sizes, curved in a crescent shape along the top of his spine to disappear into obscurity. It was a shape so familiar that you could have traced it blind – because it was also yours.

I don’t have the words to describe how you make me feel. You make me feel stupid. You frighten me. 

Someone like him left the public particularly susceptible to match hysteria – a phenomenon where infatuated individuals became convinced they were a match despite the obvious fact that they weren’t - and within a matter of hours the Avengers Tower was inundated with love letters. Pepper immediately benched him to the auxiliary rota, essentially dooming Loki to a few weeks of house arrest until the fervor could die down.

I hate your mouth, and your hair, and your eyes. Everything about him made your skin ache, ultraviolet hot like a sunburn. On a good day, Loki was charming; on a bad day, he could bring countries to their knees with a smile. On the rare occasion that that attention had been turned on you, you understood keenly why he was called Silvertongue – it was difficult to remove yourself from the fantasy that he might be interested in you when he leaned in so closely, spoke with such intimate conspiracy in his voice.  I hate how vulnerable you make me feel. 

You hoped that, by getting the awfulness of lovesickness out on paper, you could eventually begin to draft a real love letter. Something to slip through his mailslot alongside the deluge of adoring fans. He would never read it – Loki had made his thoughts on the public’s “meagre attempts at poetry” quite clear. (Though that didn’t stop his preening at the absolute magnitude of letters - and how each one seemed to raise Tony’s blood pressure just that little bit higher).

Yours,

You signed the letter with your name and slid it into a nondescript envelope for the formality of it all, sealed with a lick to the underside, and tucked it away in a junk drawer to be forgotten about.

You would write a dozen more love letters. They would range from sweet to obsessive, pouring onto paper every ounce of affection you felt. You fought gods and monsters and would-be bank robbers; if you could survive having your solar plexus shattered and four-weeks of bed rest, you could mail off one silly letter confessing that your coworker made your brain go fuzzy.

You eventually picked one and mailed it off -- anonymously -- along with your heart and every anxiety you had ever owned. 

(You almost believed it when you told yourself that this put you one step closer to actually telling him to his face.)

You would find that very letter in a drawer, seven weeks later. Untouched. Unsent.

“Look alive, agent.” Steve knocked you with his shoulder. He was too big for the backseat of the smart car you’d rented at the airport, meaning he had to crane his neck to avoid hitting the roof on every speed bump. “Simple extraction mission: escort Loki to the cargo, he’ll do his little magic trick, and we’ll be warm and on our way home before Santa comes.”

Steve wasn’t particularly devout; he didn’t go to mass on Sundays, and he swore like a sailor and drank twice as much (to little effect), but he took Christmas incredibly seriously. He had been compiling lists of possible presents for months and, despite the team running the gamut from Muslim to Jewish to Literal God, everyone would be getting a gift tomorrow morning.

Loki, though not as broad as Steve, was also suffering in the backseat to your right. His legs were folded ungracefully in the meager space behind the passenger seat, twisted to press up tightly to yours. There was nowhere to run between Steve and Loki, so you had to endure the terrible pleasure of the weight of Loki's thigh against yours for the entire ride.

It made the soulmark on the back of your neck burn. You wondered, as Clint took a turn too hard and Steve's weight forced you into Loki's side, if Loki felt that same itch. If the dots scattered down his back also sang whenever your hands brushed.

“Here we are,” Loki growled. The car rolled up two blocks away from your destination - a bank where an artifact said to be able to “control the minds of the weak-willed��� was being stored in a safety deposit box. According to FRIDAY, the artifact was warded with a powerful magic that would unwind all but the most powerful sorcerers at the seams.

 (It’s just energy, Tony had grumbled, give me a few days and I can figure it out. 

Loki, with a terrible sneer, responded: Or you could just let the expert handle it.) 

You were there to provide backup should the plan go South. Your super-strength meant you could go toe-to-toe with most armed guards, holding off the worst of it until Steve, Nat and Clint could come to your rescue.

“Shall we, pet?” One of his gloves hands laced through yours. “Try not to get us killed, hmm?”

“What are you going to do about your,” you waved your free hand in front of your face.

His seidr sighed, crossing over him with a light hand; his features didn’t change (same sharp nose and cock-sure smile, though maybe a touch more gaunt) but his hair shortened and lightened to a pale auburn. He fixed you with a doe-eyed stare, dark brown eyes peering up through a fan of pale eyelashes; his attention – preternatural in its intensity – lit something inside of you that made you nervous, made you shy. Because despite the pale hair and the dark eyes, despite the freckles – it was still Loki. Still the most devastating smile you had ever had the pleasure of seeing.

When he spoke, he laid on a thick accent - Brooklyn, maybe. “Who would ever suspect me now?”

Your crush on Loki was basically public knowledge on the team; you could hardly stand to be in the same room as him some days because of how embarrassed he made you feel. It dissolved all human poise and reduced you to animal instinct, it seemed, because every time he turned to you at a party, or at breakfast, or in the backseat of a quin-jet in the early morning hours, you lost any ability to form full sentences and found yourself blinking cow-eyes at him until you could excuse yourself. If your avoidance bothered him, Loki never commented, but he did make an impressive effort to lord over as much of your attention as possible. Rare was the occasion when Loki was not teasing you, or asking after you, seeming to revel in your infatuation.

“Of course,” he continued. “My real soulmate would be able to recognize me based on shape alone. Which is demonstrative of how ridiculous the entire farce is, anyway – it took a picture for these souls to finally realize I was their match? Laughable. I have spent aeons tangling the threads of lovers – why should I trust the Norns to be kind to me?”

Loki stepped out of the car and hauled you along behind him. “Rest assured, pet – no number of pretty things claiming that my heart belongs to them will ever draw my eye. They are but window dressing in my already magnificent life.”

His mark was a heavy iron weight on the back of your neck. “That’s a terrible accent,” you blurted out.

His smile dropped away, affront evident in the way his nose tipped upwards; there was a lingering static charge to him, and you could feel his seidr humming in your back teeth. In his regular voice, he said, “I thought it was alright.”

“No one from Brooklyn talks like that.”

“Well, maybe you’ll appreciate it more once you see the accessories.” Loki drew from thin air a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, which he adjusted to sit high on his nose. “Don’t you think they make me look scholarly? What a gentleman.”

You weren’t sure how to respond. 

“What? You don’t like it?”

“I don’t think I have time to like it. We need to move, now.” A job was at least a welcome distraction; despite the way your skin crawled when Loki looked at you, you could narrow your attention to the work at hand. 

Loki conjured an armful of paper bags for the two of you, masquerading as a pair of Christmas shoppers. He ushered you into the bank with a hand on your back before stepping into his charming persona, plastering on the widest grin you had ever seen.

Getting into the bank vaults was easy enough; Loki prattled on about honeymoons and pre-nuptials and getting your valuables in order to a clerk who was clearly quite taken by him. As soon as she left the two of you alone in the back room, Loki leapt into action.

“Tony said we were looking for–”

“I know which one it is.” With a snap of his fingers, the security cameras overhead sizzled and drooped.

“How long do you think it will take them to notice the cameras are down?”

Loki’s seidr pried the door off one of the safety deposit lockers like it was made of plastic and not reinforced steel. “If they’re not completely incompetent? My guess would be a couple of minutes.”

“I’ll keep an eye out, then.”

“You do that.”

You watched him work with a certain kind of love in your eye, admiring the outline of his profile as he unknotted the ropes holding the cargo together. It had been swelling, some sweet thing, in your chest now for some time – your match, it would whisper, growing frantic by the day, you were meant to be!  

If only you could get over the fear; the fear of rejection, of ridicule, or worst of all – patent indifference. The idea that Loki might look at your neck and not laugh, not sneer, but merely shrug, repeating his disinterest in letting fate choose for him.

“Pet,” he drawled. “Are you going to help? Or would you prefer to stand there and glower all day?”

You leaned backwards into the hall, craning your neck to see if anyone was coming. “I don’t glower.”

“Glare. Sneer. You may pick any synonyms you wish. Now, fetch me the gauntlet from my bag before we’re discovered and I have to invent some new ruse to whisk ourselves off to safety.”

He said it all with a scowl. It was rare to see him smile as of late; he seemed to follow the team around the tower like a perpetual storm cloud, sticking his nose into business he had no right to be implicated in; making snide, snobbish comments whenever possible. You imagined it had something to do with his soulmark being revealed; despite his boisterousness, he was a quiet, private sort when intimate details were concerned. He would prefer to keep the public - even his friends - at an arm’s length, lest he need to extricate himself quickly. 

To have something so personal broadcast so carelessly – well, you were sure it was chewing at him.

You handed him the metal glove, which he strapped around his wrist and forearm with a medical precision. His seidr hummed with each tug of the fastenings, speaking in hymns too old for you to understand. A startling quiet overcame Loki’s expression, before he flicked his wrist, conjuring sparks of green at his fingertips, and slowly sank his hand into the packing material in the box.

“You feel any different?”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Please. This is child’s play compared to some of the tricks I played on Thor. I’m not sure I even require the gauntlet, honestly.”

Despite his lofty attitude, dread needled at your ribs. The box gave off a similar energy as Loki did, something that smelled like sea salt and ozone, and the two competing forces were making you feel a bit nauseous. If he needed help, you wouldn’t be much help – it would tear you in two without an afterthought – so you could only trust that he had it under control.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m going to die.” Terribly slowly, Loki twisted his arm and began to dredge the artifact up from its packing material. “Have some faith.”

It was the strangest sensation; as soon as the gauntlet - tech that Tony had drafted to interrupt other forces from interacting with Loki’s seidr after a nasty run in with a witch - was removed, you felt a sparkling, smacking kiss on your temple, as if to placate your anxiety. You glanced around but found no potential source of a draft.

“Are you playing some sort of trick on me?”

Loki shot you a glare. “Why would I do that?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

He didn’t deign to respond. The two of you abandoned the safety deposit box the clerk had pulled out for you as well as most of your pretend shopping bags and began navigating the halls at random, trying to find an exit in the unfamiliar layout. It was pure luck that the holiday meant the building was understaffed; you somehow made it to a fire exit without being accosted, though you could hear the beginnings of a commotion picking up now that the dead cameras were being discovered.

Beyond the fire escape, there was a familiar flash of blue-and-red as Steve swept past the bank, the brim of his baseball cap pulled low enough to hide his face from an unsuspecting crowd. You threw your shoulder against the door, which dented with a grating crunch. An alarm began to wail overhead.

“You coming?”

Loki’s grin was repugnant and bleeding innuendo – the most attractive thing you’d ever seen, really. “I hope so.”

“I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

“I’m afraid you make it too easy for me to tease.”

Loki shoved the artifact into a bag (not trusting it off his person in some pocket dimension or another) and then the two of you tried as surreptitiously as possible to blend into the sea of Christmas shoppers.

“Howdy, agents.” Steve tapped you with his elbow, the only physical acknowledgement of your presence. He kept his eyes faced forward, a calculated disinterest in his pursed mouth; if you didn’t know him so well, you would almost believe him to be talking on the phone through some hidden earbud. But then he glanced, side-long, at you and managed to convey everything you needed to know: you’ve been compromised, a car was coming, survive until then.

He grunted. “You got everything?”

You were not nearly as adept at subtle communication. “Yep. No issues.”

“One issue,” Loki growled. His hand curled around your elbow and yanked you backwards just as a convoy turned the corner, crawling down the snow-heavy street. Steve veered right, crossing the road with his shoulders pulled high; you would have made to follow if Loki hadn’t elbowed you aside, out of the sight lines of the convoy, before slinking off ahead. You watched his bright red hair melt into the crowd – and then a great boomerang of green light rocketed off a lamppost, giving you just enough time to scurry down an alleyway and through a chainlink fence.

Loki’s seidr hung heavy in the air, swelling like a thunderstorm. Even as you put one, two, five blocks between yourself and the bank, you could still hearing is humming in your ears; headlights on parked cars would spring to life without prompting; window displays would glow radium-green in your periphery. You had no doubt that Loki was having the time of his life causing a distraction… though you worried what the consequences of too much fun might be if his disguise was discovered.

You kept walking. The city began to recede, thinning out to apartment buildings and stretches of public park lawns. There wasn’t much room to hide out here; you turned a random corner and tried to retrace your steps from a couple of blocks over.

Panic brushed up on you like a hungry stray when another glossy convoy rolled down the road, close enough for you to make out the heavy brow of an enemy agent behind the wheel. You tamped it down and tried to gather your bearings, searching for a street sign – anything that might allow you to collect your bearings. You crossed a road and hurried into an alley; maybe you could climb a fire escape and get to higher ground to await extraction.

A hand closed around your hip, yanking you backwards. You startled, half turning, fists raised to defend yourself, when a staticky sensation licked up your cheek in greeting.

“You’re like a skittish cat,” Loki growled. His fingers pinched the same spot that his seidr had touched you. “Is that what I should call you? Kitten?”

Your heart tripped over itself. “Rude.”

“I can be ruder.”

“Do you know where we are?”

Loki curled, his body one long line of crooked confidence, around you, tipping his head to speak in your ear. “Absolutely no clue.”

“Okay.” The closeness made you a little dumb. You blinked at him, admiring the way the snow caught on his pale eyelashes and didn’t melt. Though his skin felt warm, almost humanly-so, it must have been an illusion. Just one more layer of pretense, like how he and Thor blinked less frequently than normal people, or the strange cadence they adopted when speaking in private. “Do you think your seidr gave you away?”

“Maybe.” 

You weren’t sure why you were whispering. “I hope that disguise of yours is good enough.”

“Not even my soulmate would recognize me, kitten.”

Loki followed you with a hand fisted in the fabric of your coat; the streets were wild, requiring you to dart around passersby at random intervals, and it was safer to stay in pairs than to break off on your own. Occasionally, you thought you caught sight of Steve or Natasha, but neither you nor Loki was willing to stop moving to check. You walked a complicated knot, turning at random, ducking into department stores like every other couple on Christmas Eve. This close, you could hear his seidr rumbling, that tinny sound bouncing off of telephone poles and street lamps in his excitement. 

You eventually found some quiet in a side street a few blocks off the main drag, tucked between two apartment blocks with plenty of exit strategies. You leaned against a short fence, pausing to catch your breath. “You can let go of me. I’m not going anywhere.”

Loki vanished the shopping bags he had been holding in both hands. “I’m not touching you?”

As he blinked back at you, you felt the distinct impression of five warm fingerprints soothing over your lower back. The twinkling sound returned, followed by a humming in your molars that betrayed the presence of magic. “You’re sure about that?”

You expected some snide comment or witty response, but Loki’s head only titled. He raised a finger to his lips; his eyes were narrowed, cast to the side as if to focus. A wave of green light glanced off his hand; the air around you warped and bent like a mirage, just in time for a silver drone to zip by over your heads.

Your breath felt a little thin. “Good catch.”

“I have some decent qualities.” A pause drew on between the two of you. “If we stay like this… we should be able to avoid detection.”

You shifted your weight, leaning ever so slightly away in order to calm your racing heart. This seemed to upset Loki; the phantom hand on your back wriggled, urging you deeper into his personal space.

This close, you had little choice but to admire the shape of him. There was a military poise to him, a rigidness to his shoulders that gave the impression that he was wearing heavy plate-armour and not a wool coat. 

“Why red hair?”

“In your myths, I’m sometimes depicted as a red-head. I might have worn this version once or twice on my excursions as a youth.” He eyed you strangely. “Come now, kitten. Do you like what you see? This new Loki, he’s– sweet. He’ll even hold doors open.”

It was different, definitely – the light hair made him seem softer somehow, younger maybe, and he had topped the disguise off with a smattering of freckles on the bridge of his nose. It sent a secret thrill of delight through your chest when, upon closer examination, you discovered the shape of his soulmark scattered among them. Like fingerprints and tree rings – something innate, a secret coded in his DNA.

“Hmm…” You tried to feign nonchalance. “I think I like my usual Loki better.”

His mouth tipped up in one of those rare smiles, the quiet kind where the creases beside his eyes kissed, the slightest curve of shyness in his slanted brows. His hand, which was trailing a lazy path up and down your forearm, circled your elbow and gave you a squeeze. “Your Loki?”

“Our Loki,” you corrected. “Loki-Loki. You.”

“I could be anything, really. It’s all an illusion.” He drew you in by the sash tying your winter coat shut. You had a sneaking suspicion that, if you wore pigtails, he would be tugging on those too. “You seem to like this version. You certainly talk to it more. So come now, tell me – what is this version of me like? This fair-haired gentleman.”

“He’s nice, I guess.”

Loki nodded, his eyes fixed on your mouth. “I could be nice.”

“Nice?”

“Mhm. I can be anything at all.”

The streetlamps overhead sighed in the presence of magic. Loki’s seidr was a living thing swelling in the space between you; you felt it like a phantom mouth over yours, sliding over your skin, adoring and exotic. It seemed to thrill Loki, who leaned in even closer, his pale eyelashes fluttering, heavy with snowflakes and the weight of an almost-kiss.

“It doesn’t really matter what disguise you wear,” you mumbled, turning your face to the side. A car ambled past the mouth of the alley, digging deep wells in the snow. “You already know you’re hopelessly handsome.”

“Careful now,” Loki said quietly. “It almost sounds like you’re starting to like me.”

You scoffed – understatement of the century. When you gathered the courage to look back at him, Loki was frowning.

“I do like you,” you said quietly.

“You have a very strange way of showing it.”

“I like… how clever you are.”

“I like how I feel when you look at me.” Even in a moment of vulnerability such as this, Loki watched you like a wild animal. His hand walked a lazy path from your elbow up to your bicep. His eyes tracked the entire journey until he reached your shoulder, where his hand flattened and ghosted up the curve of your neck, so the tips of his fingers laid across the highest notches of your spine. A sigh escaped him, unbidden, coloured with a flush of wanting. An ardent sound. “ Ketlinkr… Kome nhér. Kis kis kis kis…” .

Softly, with a tentativeness you didn’t know him capable of, he closed his lips over your bottom one. A great tenderness swept over you; though both of his hands stood still, curved around your sides, a phantom sensation whispered over your neck, your temples, your cheeks, giggling in tiny, electric bursts, as if Loki’s emotions had spilled over and been animated by magic.

“In my most lecherous dreams, as of late, it’s my mark on your neck. Did you know that?” He drew himself closer, a slave to some innate gravity, and pressed his next words into the clammy skin where your pulse thrummed. “Do you ever think of me like that?”

It was half innuendo and half heartbreak. There was attraction, definitely, burning a hole in your skin where his hand was drawing a complicated figure-eight over your shoulder. But beneath that, sticky and nefarious like tar, was a desperation for validation. 

His lips slotted against yours again, firmer this time, at such an angle that the tip of his nose dug into your cheek. Strange magic welled, pooling in the hollow between your ribs – matched, you matched! 

You pulled away without finesse, sputtering. Loki followed as if to silence you, lurching, just missing your mouth to kiss the corner instead. “Wait– wait, stop,” you started.

Loki snatched himself away, his expression tense. “I can be nice. I have been nice, as of late.”

You were still a little fuzzy, disoriented by the kiss; your blood seemed to be rushing backwards, pumped out through your veins and back through your arteries. “What?”

“Do you really loathe me that much? Not even a new face can sway my – my vile image?”

“I feel left out of this conversation. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“You don't look at me.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair, vanishing the red from it to wisps of smoke until his natural hair colour returned, startlingly dark against his pale skin. “You turn your face. You find excuses to leave the room. You don’t do that with anyone else.”

You tilted your cheek to hide the heat creeping up under your skin. “I don’t turn away.”

Loki crowded up against you, taking your face between both his hands and manoeuvring you to look him in the eyes, green eyes, the glamour forgotten. Frustration carved a deep line between his brows; he opened his mouth as if to barrel on – before a self-deprecating laugh rushed out of him and he sank back on his heels. “There are hundreds of creatures pouring their love for me through my mailslot and I’m out chasing the one woman who wants nothing to do with me.”

“That’s not–”

“What’s not fair is that when I’m a perfect gentleman, you look away. No matter what face I put on, or how docile a creature I become, you slink off like you don’t trust me. I’m good. I have a purpose.” He threw his hands up in frustration. “What do I have to do to prove myself? Perhaps you’d prefer it if I prostrated myself on the ground?”

“I don’t not like you. I never didn’t like you.”

“I frighten you.”

“Yes!” You chewed on your lip. “Of course you do.”

He walked you backwards, a dangerous energy roiling in the air between you. Cold brick bit into the small of your back where it brushed the strip between your jacket and your jeans. “I can be anything. I’ve been many things, worn many faces. I’m good at it. Good at pretending. Just tell me how to act.”

“You frighten me because I like you.” You stumbled over your words in a rush. “Because I’m attracted to you.”

The phantom mouth was back; his seidr slid up the column of your throat, whispering a staticky sound just under your ear. “Because you don’t want to be.”

“Because we–” You cut yourself off. For all your waiting, for all the days spent agonising over how you wanted to tell him that you were soulmates - this was not how you wanted it to go. It was a hollow confession. “Because we match.”

His terrible expression stilled. It was a particular cruelty to reveal it in a moment such as this, but what other reason could you have given? It was the truth, plain and simple: you matched. He scrubbed a hand over his mouth, then raked the same fingers through his hair. “I see.”

“Loki–”

“Bendr. The Asgardian word for soulmate. It translates to ‘wound’. Our ‘mortal wound’.”

“That’s morbid.”

Loki laughed. It was not a nice sound. “It’s true though, isn’t it? A soulmate is only one more flaw in my armour to have to account for. It– norns, this hurts. ”

Loki drew from thin air a piece of paper. One of the innumerable love letters he’d received, written on green parchment. Crinkled, weakened in the middle from how many times it had been opened and then refolded. 

"What is that?"

"You," he said gravely. "Wrote me a letter."

Your stomach twisted; you had written him a letter, but you were certain you hadn't signed it. It was all complimentary, though maybe a little over-the-top. You'd waxed poetic about his smile, and his sense of humour, and how every time he looked at you you felt like your heart was learning to beat all over again.

“Dear Loki,” he began. “You’re vile.”

It wasn’t a love letter – or at least, it hadn’t had the chance to be. Too embarrassed by your feelings, you’d struggled to put into words anything other than despair. You couldn’t conjure up clauses to any of your statements - you’re vile in a way that makes me laugh. Handsome in a way so infuriating that I can’t help but steal glances. Terribly witty. 

“... I hate the way you make me feel. I hate your mouth, and your hair, and your eyes….”

It wasn’t a love letter, yet Loki had kept it all the same. Folded and unfolded it. Ruminated on your poor opinion of him.

“A cruel joke,” he continued. “I thought you were shy, at first. I thought – I thought, perhaps, that I could charm you with jokes, or with some severe attentiveness. You're so skittish... Maybe I could prove I was worth the hassle, or… Make you see – I’m not sure what. I haven’t changed. I’m exactly the same insecure bastard that I always have been.” He winced. “And then I read your note.”

“I must’ve written a dozen letters.”

“All equally as eloquent, I'm sure.”

“I didn’t mean to send that one. The one I wanted to send was nice.”

He laughed - hollowed out. “We match.” 

“Loki…”

Tires crunched over fresh snow; a dark green jeep pulled up at the end of the alley. Loki took one step sideways, inserting himself in between you and the car, before his shoulders bent and drooped under a sudden weight. Natasha leant out of the driver’s side window, a knitted cap balanced on top of a mop of red curls. “Morning, strangers. You wouldn’t happen to know the way to the airport, would you?”

Strange magic – that's what people said about soulmates. It’s that strange magic. Like disappearing car keys or an extra spoon in the cutlery drawer. It was strange magic that placed that letter in front of Loki. Strange magic that hummed and chewed at you now, watching Loki fold himself into the back of your getaway car. 

Fate wasn’t kind to Loki, and it definitely wasn’t kind to you.

You didn’t leave your room all morning. Curled up in your bed, you traced the photo of Loki���s mark with your fingers and wondered at the mess you’d made. 

Loki had left you a letter the day following your return; he’d made himself scarce after, and seemingly bribed FRIDAY into refusing to disclose his location.

Thor and and I were born with star maps across our backs. On Asgard, this meant that we were destined to fight side-by-side. Thor was born with your Midgardian Ares – the ram. His letter began.

Mine Ours is one of Asgard’s constellations. Canavirna-hundr - the beast. 

He had included a drawing. You weren’t aware that he could draw, but it would later occur to you that he was thousands of years old, and so likely had mastered every art form to exist. A huge creature with sharp ears and the saddest eyes you had ever seen, outlined by the curve of twenty-two dots.

There was a wolf more beautiful than any other. A wolf with fur like seafoam and eyes as black as the darkest night. Hunters from every corner of the galaxy coveted her – but she was quick, too quick for even my father Odin to pursue. He chased her for three days and three nights by following the tracks left by her mate, Canavirna-hundr, a hulking beast too large to ever catch up. But love makes fools of even the most graceful creatures, and she slowed her pace.  

At dawn on the fourth day, when her mate finally fell in step, Odin struck. Blinded by guilt and fear for his beloved, Canavirna-hundr leapt ahead and let the arrow pierce his heart instead of hers. Moved as they were, the gods put him in the sky to watch over her 

The constellation pictured was your soulmark – yours with a capital Y, belonging to you and Loki. Twenty-two dots of varying sizes, the largest at the farthest point on the left.

This was my favourite of the constellations as a child. I fancied myself a hero, to one day be memorialized in the stars next to my brother. I wondered - what would be my legend? When generations referred to Loki, the constellation - would I be exalted for love? 

It doesn’t exist anymore – none of them do. Destroyed by Ragnarok. Like my friend Atlas, I carry a little piece of my planet everywhere I go.  

I’ll stop pretending. Maybe one day I won’t frighten you any longer. 

Yours, 

He didn’t sign his name. But then – he didn’t have to. You would know the impression of him anywhere.

[starlightshadowsworld]

Some random headcanons I have about the Agency living together in the dorms.

-Atsushi always ends up falling asleep during movie night. He’s always seated between two people to minimise him falling off the sofa.

Sometimes Kunikida will carry him back up to his dorm. And other times Atsushi ends up getting bundled up on the sofa.

He’s always apologetic about it later but everyone knows it’s because he (like a cat) feels safe enough to fall sleep with them all around him.

-Dazai isn’t allowed to cook but he will sit on the kitchen worktops as one of the others cooks or bakes.

If it’s someone like Atsushi or Junichiro it’s because he wants to hang out and get a treat. If it’s Kunikida it’s to annoy him and also to get a treat.

Sometimes Ranpo joins him because he always wants a treat.

-There’s various house plants around the building that are all cared for by Kenjj. Some have flowers, some have fruit and a couple are poisonous.

They are all named after members of the Agency and people Kenji loves.

One managed to grow roots out of the plant pot, into the floorboards and almost turned the place into a treehouse.

It was sadly cut down.

-There’s a “Days since we set off the fire alarm” sign. It never goes past 3 but Kunikida is hopeful.

-Yosano spends the most time in the living room area. She spends most of her time at the Agency in her clinic. So she enjoys being out in the open outside of work.

If she spots someone around she will invite them to join her.

-House work is something everyone shares. There’s multiple cleaning, cooking, food shopping etc rotas that Kunikida makes sure everyone follows.

It’s all as equal as it can be and everyone does what they do best.

Though there are exceptions like how Dazai can’t cook, Ranpo can’t go shopping because he’ll either get lost or only buy sweets. And Atsushi is not allowed to do a lot of cleaning.

Because Atsushi cleans the same way he did at the orphanage. If you don’t keep an eye on him Atsushi m will spend hours doing a task until it fits those impossible standards.

-On slow mornings Junichiro and Kyouka will cook everyone breakfast. They all try to eat dinner together but on days like this having breakfast together is an unspoken rule.

-Kyouka has forgotten her keys before and tried to scale up the building to her room.

-Theres a stain on the ceiling of the kitchen from a pancake flipping competition.

[warframe1999]

Sooo…

The protoframes, huh?

i wanted to go a bit into what each member of the Hex (yay, new syndicate!!) had to say when you got into proximity of them in the relay. there’s honestly a lot here to set the scene not only for 1999 itself, but introducing each protoframe as well as sort of hinting at their interpersonal relationships, and how they interact with one another! some of my favorite kinda of lore is specifically character development and personality-focused dynamics like this so here!!!! i walked back and forth for an hour for YOU! here is all proximity dialogue for each character in the Höllvania Mall relay:

ARTHUR:

“Question. Could I take Quincy down if he turned on me?”

“We’ll find you, Doctor. That’s a promise.”

“Stop sniffing around my head, Eleanor. If I want to talk, I’ll talk.”

“We need to keep Lettie on her feet. If she goes we all go.”

“Dunno why we even bothered with that cleaning rota.”

“Yeah, we can hold this place.”

“One day, Aoi. No more roadblocks and checkpoints. Just you and me and the bikes, open road for miles, all this bullshit far away. I swear to Sol.”

“Still too open. We need more chokepoints.”

“Bottled water. Like sodding gold dust.”

“Well Amir’s still alive. That’s a win.”

LETICIA:

“I got nothin’ to prove to you, Quincy! Go play your little games, niño.”

“¿Qué onda? The Lady Eleanor ain’t no more freaky than the last time you checked in. ‘Less you know different?”

“Yo, Aoi. Chill, hermana. Do something for yourself, for once. Arthur ain’t going to blow away if you blink.”

“The boss says care for his sister I care for his sister. As long as you still are his sister… and as long as I feel like listening to him.”

“Being loved and being hurt? Yeah, I make no distinction. I knew someone, once, wired the same way. Kept me sane. And what of it? Te crees muy acá ¿no? Get outta my head, Eleanor.”

“Never signed up for this. I’ll be home Mamá. Your little girl doesn’t end here. No te preocupes.”

“Man, I’ve been awake so long that even the spiders in my head have all gone to sleep.”

“Wacha: unless you’re pissing blood right this second, whatever it is can wait.”

“I swear, should lock Aoi and Amir in a cuna. Didn’t sign up for no babysitting gig.”

AOI:

“I don’t wanna go on patrol. I wanna take stuff apart.”

“Nearly time for the On-lyne boys.”

“Metal, metal, metal, what do you want to be?”

“Yep. I can live like this.”

“Arthur needs to keep some fuel in the tank for himself. Goddamn savior complex that man has…”

“I oughta get some headphones. Then I wouldn’t have to hear Quincy work off all that surplus testosterone!”

“If they take Entrati out, who’s going to look after that mutant jaguar of his? Poor thing won’t last five minutes in the wild.”

“Amir! Remember to hydrate!”

“Dear past self: we finally got those super powers we always wanted. Whaddayaknow.”

“GodDAMN. Lettie would you keep your frickin’ rats OUT of my SPACE?”

QUINCY:

“Don’t look up, Doctor.”

“Arthur needs to leave the Major to me, innit. Respect my methods.”

“Don’t mind the waiting. Plenty to be thinking about.”

“You don’t know me. Never see what darkens your rooftops. Inevitable, like the rain. Handing out consolations in a transient connection. Boom. Smoke. And ghost.”

“You wiv me, Eleanor? How deep in you go? See anythin’ you fancy, girl?”

“Amir is a weak, weak boy. Like Aunty said, ‘duppy know who fi frighten.’”

“Thassit… nice and steady.”

“How many man have the opps got? Not enough t’be takin’ me. Never.”

“Oi, Lettie! Grab y’ strap and let’s go. Best a five buys the drinks?”

ELEANOR:

“Don’t expect me to tell you what I’ve seen in Amir’s head. He’s not a beautiful, broken marionette, and he’s nobody’s project. He’s one of us.”

“Quincy thinks he’s going to wake up one night to me chewing the flesh from his ribs. Maybe he’s right.”

“I know you’re there. I can feel you. It’s okay, I won’t tell the others.”

“Aoi? She’s lovely and kind and strong, and… I kind of hate her a little bit. Because it should have been her spreading her happiness into everyone’s heads, and me throwing cars and trucks around.”

“I thought there were going to be two of you! Where’s the other one?”

“Blood. There’s gonna be a fight. Something… bursting. Crossed swords. Arthur!”

“What on earth is a ‘Mara Lohk’?”

“Oh, you’re going to make such a difference this time around.”

“I don’t think Doctor Entrati expected me to survive. I had a lot more than just a cough. But… survive I did. And Lettie has not forgiven me for it.

“Oh. OH. She’s wonderful! Triple-faced goddess! But there’s a shadow on her, isn’t there?”

AMIR:

“A little zap, and… infinite credit! No more ‘insert coin’! Not that we could insert coin. We have no coin. Once we had coin, but now Aoi has smooshed all the coin. Coinnnn.”

“Why did they never make a console port?”

“BAD MOVE, SPACE CAA-DET.”

“But the one thought none of them spoke out loud was - could Lettie reattach a head?”

“Hey, Arthur! Arthur! Arthur! Arthur! Arthur! Dahh, you missed it.”

“Eleanor? Are you there? Can you - can you give my brain a hug please? Thank you.”

“We’re getting a little too excited, let’s step it down, step it down before we get the blue cracklies. In one two out one two.”

“Oi’m Quincy. Oi’m gonna blow out yer kneecaps. Mashup in yer chip shop alright.”

“Ungh! This violent video game is influencing my emotions! Societal norms… eroding! Morality… subsumed! I MUST KILL!”

“This place used to smell so good. Coffee. Cookies. Fresh clean socks. Now it’s just rust, pain, and old socks.”

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

No Sugar Tonight 1

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Character: Brock Rumlow

Summary: A regular customer becomes more than just a familiar face.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging ❤️

The evening shift is quiet. You don’t mind the low din of the atrium. The cafe offers the only light to the empty lobby. Hours ago, it was a rush of bodies and voices, now, the shops have closed down and the sign above you remains lit as the sole beacon in the business plaza. 

The slower hours are more routine than the frantic mornings filled with early risers desperate for their first dose of caffeine. You did a few weeks of that before you hopped on the evening’s rota. It gives you time to read between baking and cleaning. 

The front doors open and close, echoing through the space. It’s eerie this late at night but you it doesn’t bother you as much as it once does. The footsteps that follow add to the unease of their approach. You recognise the man by his silhouette. 

The marquee glow limns his harsh features, the stubble on his jaw adding to the sharp angles, his dark hair and brows give him a sinister slant. You smile as you stand from the stool and pour him a black coffee. You ring him up before he even gets to the counter. 

“Evening, sir,” you greet him. You still don’t know his name. All your other regulars like to chat. He doesn’t. “Black.” 

He flicks a card up between his index and middle fingers. The stamps across the rows add up to a free drink. You take it, brushing his calloused fingertips as you do. 

“Oh, a free drink. Exciting.” You cancel the transaction and slide his cup forward, “enjoy.” 

He grumbles and takes the cup. He moves to the other end of the kiosk and grabs a lid and sleeve. As he walks away, you bid him a good night. He never says much, if anything. 

You go back to sanitizing the frother. The work isn’t so dull when you have nothing else to do. The night wears on as the sky softens through the glass walls of the atrium   

Dayani arrives just before five to take over. You hand her the keys and balance the till before you go. She sends you off with the dread of the shift ahead. 

Out on the street, the lull remains. Not for much longer. The bus routes will pick up and the daily commuters will clog the streets. Your trek home is five blocks but not too bad considering. You share a loft with two other girls but you rarely run into them. You all work different shifts in different borroughs. 

Your room is at the rear of the old brick building. The legislated fire escape crosses your window and casts a shadow through the sheer curtains. You undress and unwind in your single bed. The room is small and not exactly worth the cost but it’s a roof over your head. 

You sleep until just after one. The city had you waking in spurts at the honk of an angry driver or the shouts of rowdy pedestrians. You eat the stale scone you claimed from work and have instant coffee to wash it down. 

You go through the usual. You wake up little by little and drag yourself out to the shower. You catch a glimpse of one of your roommates. Lottie barely seems to notice you as she carries a basket out the door. 

When you’re done washing up, you pull on your sweats and a loose tee. You waste some time watching TV on your phone then plug it in so you have some juice left when you leave. You eat a microwaved tray of pasta and change into your uniform. You do up your hair and face, nothing too much, and count the minutes until you’re due to leave. 

As exciting as the city can be, you can’t afford that part of it. You work, you sleep, you get by. 

Xander has an hour overlap with you before he goes. He tells you about all his midterms and the party he wants to ditch his studying for. It’s only an elective course anyway. He leaves in indecision. 

You never finished school. You did one year and dropped out. You did well enough but you couldn’t afford it. Not even the local community college in your hometown. Funny, you still came all the way out here to scrape pennies. 

The last rush of the day passes through. Those on the way to their own overnight shifts; security guards, hotel clerks, and all others. 

The silence sets in. You play around on your phone. The battery dies a lot quicker lately so you make yourself quiet the matching game and put it in your pocket. You pull out the novel you keep hidden behind the till and read until the door opens and closes. 

Same time, same man. His black hair swallows up the light of the sign above as you pour his coffee. You get him a new card and stamp it, handing it over with your usual smiling nicety. Still no response. He goes to grab his lid and sleeve. 

You wait patiently. He doesn’t march off like usual. You peek over as he strides along the counter. He drops a bill in the tip jar. You thank him. Still no answer. 

He walks off and you look in the cup. You can’t believe it. You snatch up the bill and push through the door at the side of the kiosk. You hurry after his shadow. 

“Sir, sir, I think you made some mistake--” the door closes heavily and his figure passes outside the glass panels. You can’t go that far without locking up. Oh well, he’ll be back tomorrow and you can let him know. 

You walk back to the cafe stand and dip back behind. You unfold the hundred dollar bill. Maybe it’s not real. Maybe it’s a joke. Looks pretty real when you hold it up to the light. 

[the-empress-7]

If anyone has a pact with the press it's Charles. It never ceases to amazes me the way the entire Rota goes deaf and blind when the most problematic stories about Charles are in the news.

But god forbid K makes a shenanigan editing a picture and they want her to divorce and making her the worst delinquent in history.

Or Charles sending his ‘friends’ to talk sh*t about K and how ‘unregal’ her end-chemo video Chuck though it was.

But it’s not unregal to have shady business or an affair. Make it make sense

[fairyhaos]

seventeen and plants

how good i think seventeen would be at looking after plants

masterlist

seungcheol:

the most plant dad to ever plant dad. owns like 5 succulents, 2 mini herbal bushes and several little flower pots. has a watering rota that he follows to the T n whenever he goes away he has one of the members swear on their svt ring that they'll remember his rota for his beloved plants. probably rants about everything the members have done to annoy him to his plants. they're his pride and joy. 

jeonghan:

could definitely grow a plant if he wanted to, provided he developed an emotional attachment to it so he wouldn't forget to keep it alive. prefers his pets to be inanimate and unalive like his rocks so he doesn't have to worry about them dying on him. once had to look after dokyeom's plant when he was away for a week, had to be reminded by seungcheol to water it

joshua:

feels really bad for houseplants bc they're trapped in a pot and they're kept indoors :((( could probably grow a plant if he wanted to, but he's never really wanted to n never really tried so he doesn't know. plants aren't really His Thing. plus his hay fever is rlly erratic and could flare up at Anything. finds great amusement in seungcheol's watering rota, once messed it up to see how long it took for him to find out, was caught in less than ten seconds

junhui:

wants to grow plants!!! just doesn't have the patience nor the time for it. likes talking to minghao's tree. and dokyeom's plant. doesn't talk to seungcheol's plants a lot tho bc apparently they're rlly snooty and keep talking back to him whenever he says something???? the members can't tell if he's actually a plant whisperer or if it's just all in his head

hoshi:

once owned 3 little cacti that he bought impulsively one time when they were in america. grew strangely attached to his weird fluffy spiky plants despite not rlly being much of a plant person. one of them ended up being killed by wonwoo, one other was sat on by hansol (accidentally) and the last one ended up being adopted by seungcheol bc the eldest was worried that something catastrophic would end up happening to it. 

wonwoo:

has the most un-green fingers in the world. everything he so much as glances at dies. which is really weird, bc he tries his best, following all the instructions n everything and yet somehow he still managed to kill one of hoshi's cacti, resulting in the other being inconsolable for several days. concludes that growing plants are Not For Him, but finds that he's okay at following seungcheol's plant rota for a couple of days

jihoon:

can't take care of plants. he's a Busy Man okay, and even though he'd really like to, he's kind of busy taking care of himself to think about another living thing. sometimes helps minghao trim his bonsai tree when he's upset, but wasn't allowed anywhere near seungkwan's plants (when they were alive) bc for some reason the younger member thought that they would die the second jihoon touched them

minghao:

owns a bonsai tree that he bought from china a few years ago. very precious to him, whispers mysterious stuff in mandarin to it every evening after he's done his meditation routine. only lets a select few touch his tree, and definitely doesn't let hansol or wonwoo come within three metre radius of it. doesn't have a water rota like seungcheol, instead has Intuition that means he suddenly bolts upright and scurries away to water his tree bc it is Calling To Him

mingyu:

can't raise plants, doesn't want to raise plants. says that he once owned a lily plant back in high school whenever the members tell him that he can't keep anything alive and intact. is then always reminded that he ended up dropping it out the open window while he was trying to clean the window sill. but that's not his point!!! he managed to keep it alive up until his hand-eye coordination acted up again

dokyeom:

used to refuse getting plant gifts from people n for his birthday bc he believed that every plant he ever had would only ever die tragically in his care. that is, until minghao suggested that he sings to the plants and suddenly!! every living green thing within his vicinity is flourishing!!! has one beloved chinese evergreen plant that is his everything. does his vocal exercises to the plant every single morning

seungkwan:

went through a craze of owning like 10 potted ferns. you couldn't go into his room without feeling like you'd entered the fern jungle. ended up being so stressed over maintaining them that he overwatered three of them so they died. then accidentally knocked over another two while walking into his room with his vision blocked by his pile of laundry. the other five ended up dying within the year too bc he kept the heating too high (he always runs a little cold) and they couldn't withstand the temperature and died :((

vernon:

isn't allowed anywhere near anyone else's plants after the incident with hoshi's cactus. but in his defence, it was partly hoshi's fault bc who leaves a cactus plant on the chair in the dining room where anyone could sit down on it??? had sore buttcheeks for over a week after that n couldn't sit down without wincing. doesn't really want to take care of plants. once helped seungkwan water his ferns, back when they were still alive, but that's about it

chan:

once owned a mini peace lily plant that managed to grow so beautifully despite the fact he did the bare minimum to look after it bc he was so busy. the hidden master when it comes to looking after plants. is one of the people that minghao trusts with his bonsai tree, sometimes is allowed to watch minghao perform his ceremony with the plant. doesn't have time to look after plants tho, n ended up giving away his lily to seungcheol, who promised vv solemnly to take good care of it

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[gumnut-logic]

“Alan, calm down. It was an accident.”

It was said through gritted teeth. This was not something he expected to have to weather when training his youngest brother in basic mountain climbing.

But then there had been the incident with the hammer with Gordon...and John, while extremely athletic had absolutely terrified Scott with the mild hypothermia incident.

Virgil...well, Uncle Lee had taught Virgil with Scott so big brother escaped that.

Though come to think of it, Uncle Lee did have a scar.

But it wasn’t as big as this one was going to be.

“I’m sorry, Scott. I’m so sorry!”

He drew in a breath and let it out ever so slowly. “Calm down. We will handle this like any emergency. Scout’s oath, Alan?”

And he made his little brother recite it, thankful that it seemed to focus the fourteen-year-old.

“Accidents happen, it’s how we respond to the accidents that matters, now secure yourself and contact John.”

Scott did his best to attach himself to the ice face as well. It took him a few extra moments working through pain and the inability to move without it.

An ice pick through his calf did that.

It was an accident. Scott had moved unexpectedly and Alan had picked at the ice at just the wrong moment in time.

“Thunderbird Five, we need help.”

A simple, but concise message.

“Alan? What’s wrong?”

The tremor in Alan’s voice as he reported the incident hurt Scott more than the ice axe.

“It’s going to be okay, Allie. I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.” It was a wail.

“It happens. I’ll be fine.” Looking down was awkward, and yes, his climbing pants were an uncomfortable shade of red, but he had confidence in his brothers. They would be off this mountain in no time.

Fortunately, Virgil and Gordon had stayed back on the Island while Scott both took a break on Aotearoa’s South Island and began some basic training for his youngest brother.

Apparently, he would be off rota longer than expected.

“Should I try to bandage it.”

“No.” Scott shifted a little and regretted it. “Virgil will be here soon.” It wasn’t like his brother was far away at Thunderbird speeds. He could imagine Virgil flying down that ridiculous chute of his this very moment. Five minutes, maybe.

“I’m sorry, Scott.”

“Allie, it happens.” A swallow. “Did I ever tell you about how I learnt to drive?” Distraction was the key.

“No? Didn’t Parker teach you? Gordon still raves about his lessons.”

Another swallow. “Yeah, he did. Had to repair a lot of pink paintwork for his efforts.”

“What? You smashed up FAB1?!”

“Kinda.” Yeah, now it was really starting to hurt. hanging from the side of a mountain with blood dripping into the abyss wasn’t his favourite past time. C’mon, Virg, hurry up. “Parker was not impressed.” Scott flexed his own axe in one hand and dug into the ice and secured an extra piton which he then looped into his harness.

Didn’t hurt to be extra secure.

“How? Did Parker actually let you drive FAB1?”

“Kinda. Not really. He has another pink car.” A grimace. “Still goes fast.” And it had hit that tree rather hard. Sometimes he swore he could still hear the echoes of the lecture he received from both Parker and his father about driving too fast.

Cars were not planes and did not respond quite the same way.

Didn’t help that England drove on the wrong side of the road. It was all cack-handed.

He tightened his fist and loosened his shoulders.

“Scott, you okay?” That tremor still hurt.

“Virgil will be here any moment.” And as if summoned, a streak of green tore into the sky above them.

And planes weren’t Thunderbirds. The sight of the big green behemoth was such a relief.

His comms. “Hey, Virg. Need a hand.”

“Coming down.” Two spun slowly midair and opened her bay doors. A moment and the rescue rig, complete with two frowning brothers descended from her belly.

“He’s going to kill me.”

Another sigh. “No, he won’t. He’s Virgil. He will just run you through climbing safety ad nauseam.”

“Gordon is never going to let me live it down.”

A blink. “Yeah, you may be right about that.”

“I’m sorry, Scott. I really am.”

“I know, Allie, I know.”

-o-o-o-

[the-ace-with-spades]

Another part from the ignition / firefighter! Bradley & aviator Jake universe but only vague idea for a one sho

Bradley and Jake have been together for a minute and Jake is currently staying in San Diego (and living with Bradley) when they have a hurricane warning.

Bradley still goes to work because you know, firefighter -- more so, he's picking up a hellish amount of overtime because they need all hands on deck.

Finally, Jake is fucking fed up because Bradley slept third night in a row at the station and he is starting forgetting how his face looks. Despite the hurricane warning and the order to stay home, Jake packs Bradley fresh clothes and enough food to feed the whole crew and drives to surprise him

What surprises him more is that Jake comes in just as they're going on lockdown due to the conditions being bad enough that their usual fire truck wouldn't be able to withstand it.

Jake gets trapped with them and instead of having Bradley happy he surprised him, he gets a fucking lecture about obeying weather warnings (which might or might not have gotten him a little bothered) and gets put on the chore rota with the rest of the crew because if he's stuck than he needs to earn his keep

He can see Bradley is still pissed off with him so he does as he is told (for once) but Bradley's been giving him the cold shoulder the whole time and his crew is starting to give him the stinky eye so he tries to catch him alone and actually talk and apologize, hoping saying he just missed him so badly will soften him a bit

The whole crew are fucking gossips tho and love drama so they follow them like hawks. So finally, when Bradley is cleaning and restocking the ambulance, Jake steps in the back and closes the door behind himself

He takes the seat and forces Bradley to sit down on the stretchers and pours his heart out

Long story short, he ends up fucking Bradley on the stretchers in the ambulance - it's not that comfortable but Jake will always make it more kinky than it was in his stories so that's that

[bullet-prooflove]

Distance: Endevour Morse x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989 @caffeinatedwoman @lieutenantcrosby @to-grow-in-and-to-love @gwyn73

Companion piece to:

Companion piece to:

Next Time - Morse doesn't expect to meet his soulmate on the lawn at Oxford.

La Petit Mort - Morse and you share your first kiss in the rain.

California Dreaming - Morse turns up at your classroom to discuss the night you spent together.

The Detective & The Professor - You and Morse turn heads at a university event.

What’s In A Name - Morse refuses to tell you his first name.

Equal Opportunities - Fred Thursday realises that Morse has a girl.

The Golden Notebook - Morse enjoys watching you work.

Bruises - You see to Morse's care after a beating.

Rarities - You and Morse discuss the fact your differences.

The Right One - Morse's bad trip leads Fred Thursday to question your intentions.

The End of Time - You support Morse in his recovery leading to a revelation between the two of you.

The Divine - Morse goes skinny dipping for the first time.

The Libertines - Morse makes a confession about a past relationship.

The Other Woman - You find another woman in Morse's bed.

Joan - You come face to face with with the other woman.

Song of the Evening Star - You and Morse finally discuss what happened with Joan.

Art Deco - Morse doesn't think about marriage... until he does.

After Morse leaves for Woodstock you find yourself with odd pockets of time. The nights you would spend in his company reading books, attending symphonies and cooking together disappear, and now there’s just you rattling around the apartment with only a few of his things for company.

You attend the same events, occupy yourself with friends but there’s this absence when you get home, a sense of emptiness that fills you as you bury your face into the pillow where he used to sleep.

“I hate this place.” He tell you one evening over the phone. “I can’t sleep, it’s too quiet. It feels like I’m losing my mind.

That’s what you’re missing you realise, the noise. The sounds that make up his presence as he ambles through the home you’ve made together, the music he listens to when he sits in his chair, puzzling over a case with a glass of scotch in his hand.

“You should put on a jazz record.” You suggest as you sit in that same chair with your own glass of scotch, swilling it gently. “Liven the place up.”

“I hate jazz.” He says frankly.

What he dislikes is the chaos, the disjointed notes, the way they jerk and zigzag blending together to make what he calls an ‘ungodly noise’.

“Not all jazz.” You remind him. “We made love to Etta James once, you seemed to appreciate her then.”

“She’s more blues than jazz.” He points out and the edges of your mouth tip up because it’s an age old argument between the two of you that adds some semblance of normalcy as you settle into the debate.

It’s a few days later he rings back, you’re sitting in the same chair, reviewing your notes for a lecture when you pick up the phone.

“You were right about Etta.” He tells you as you cradle the handset under your chin. “That and a strong glass of whiskey, it’s helping me sleep.”  

“I’ve been doing the same with Nino Rota.” You admit and you can hear the smile in his voice as he recalls.

“Our first night together.”

“I re-live it frequently.” You tease as you settle back into his chair, drawing your legs up underneath you. “When I’m alone in bed, wearing one of your shirts.”

“You should tell me what else you do in that shirt.” He murmurs, his voice rough with the implications.

And you do, you describe every single intimate detail until he’s fisting his cock on the opposite side of the phone, listening to the sounds of your climax as you make yourself come for him.

“I wish I was there right now.” He whispers in the aftermath as you lay breathless in his chair. “I miss holding you, having you in my arms. I’m not sure…”

He trails off then and you can tell the distance is starting to wear on him, that he feels the lack of occupancy he has in your life.

“This won’t be for forever.” You reassure him, wishing you were to kiss the sadness from his features. “Every great love story needs it’s challenges, it’s what makes the ending worth it.”

“I’m not sure I’m the type of man who gets a happy ending.” He says quietly. “It seems anytime I come anywhere close to happiness…”

It’s snatched away by the devil himself.

“You’ll get your happy ending.” You promise him as you think about the engagement ring you found tucked away in his suit pocket before he left. “We both will, I’m sure of it.”

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[brf-rumortrackinganon]

I don't think Harry is in contact with any of his family and has no clue to what condition his father is in. When Charles goes( I do think he'll be around a while) they'll find out last. He probably wants a meeting with his dad to see how's he's really doing. He might be a snot but I'm sure he wouldn't want to lose the only parent he has left.

There have been a few leaks from the rota that no one is personally in contact with Harry and that it's a staffer who speaks to him.

[aimeedaisies]

On the road with the inexhaustible Princess Anne

8am 800 miles travelled, 12pm 650 hands shaken, 9pm 0 cups of tea drunk

By Hannah Furness, 9 May 2024

The Princess Royal is standing up a 42ft tower, looking out to sea in a north-westerly force six wind. Her hair, that neat up-do that has barely changed in 40 years, does not move, even as a sudden gust blows a seagull past her eyeline.

‘It’s quite exposed,’ she says, with understatement, then gets on with peppering her hosts with questions about tides, volunteer timetables and what precisely the diggers on the beach below are doing.

Outside the watchtower, her arrival in the Lancashire seaside town of Fleetwood has caused the smallest of stirs. A handful of curious dog-walkers gaze at her, camera-phones aloft, and she offers them a brief wave.

Inside, the volunteers of the National Coastwatch Institution (NCI) could not be more excited for a visit from their royal patron. The chairman, Stephen Hand, launches into a stream of compliments about the Princess’s work. ‘If I haven’t made the point clearly enough,’ he finishes, ‘we love her.’

This is her first engagement in a day that will see her travel 421 miles from Gloucestershire to Lancashire, then Merseyside, and back again via helicopter and Range Rover. It is one of 10 engagements in this typical week; she will complete about 450 this year.

‘She’s a dynamo,’ says the CEO of The Pony Club. ‘The best president imaginable,’ agrees the chairman of Carers Trust. ‘She should be queen,’ offers a member of the public. This is said at least once a day.

Not for nothing does she have the reputation as Britain’s hardest-working royal. In numbers of engagements, she and the King vie for the top spot each year. While he and the Princess of Wales have taken time off from public engagements to undergo cancer treatment, the 73-year-old Princess Royal has ploughed on with her head down, her work the definition of ‘unsung’.

Most of the time, that is how she likes it. She has eschewed the ‘rota’ system of journalists, photographers and broadcasters who cover her family’s outings. ‘I don’t go for their benefit,’ she once said of the press. ‘I go for the people who ask me.’

This week, in the middle of April, she has made an exception to grant vanishingly rare permission for The Telegraph to follow her on the road, for a snapshot of her work.

At no small effort from her close-knit team, which has accommodated me in its nomadic office, I have been allowed to document her encounters with the approximately 650 people she has met, the many charities and organisations she has put in the spotlight – and report from inside a Windsor Castle investiture for the first time.

I’ve spent seven years writing about the Royal family, travelling across the UK and the world to watch them at work, but Princess Anne’s no-fuss, no-frills team is unlike anything I’ve seen up close before. Professional and precise, she barely stops – every hand is shaken and every minute counts.

The Plan

The Princess’s diary is set months in advance. Twice a year, her office sends an invitation to 300-plus organisations she is affiliated with, asking for their requests for her time. Typically she’ll receive 1,000 to 1,200 requests a year – some suggest a visit, others ask her to write forewords to books, or ask for meetings. All are compiled into a database, arranged by date and region, and printed neatly in a book for the Princess to study. ‘[She] goes through everything required and decides what she’s going to do and when,’ says a member of the team. A planning meetings follows – and ‘once [the programme is] set, she sticks to it’.

Across the year, the Princess Royal travels the width and breadth of the United Kingdom

Her staff then go through it again to add last-minute audiences into the gaps. ‘The week is there to be filled,’ one long-serving team member tells me. ‘If she’s got a free hour and a half in London, we’ll look again to see what else to add.’

The Princess’s team is small but mighty. There’s her private secretary, Colonel John Boyd, who is fresh from 32 years in the British Army; her deputy private secretary, Commander Anne Sullivan (the double Annes occasionally cause confusion for outsiders); as well as five programme managers tasked with ironing out the exact schedule, right down to how long the Princess can spend talking to each person.

They are aided by 13 ladies-in-waiting, spread geographically, who accompany her out and about. Some of her first, who began working with her in the early 1970s, have only just retired.

‘You never quite know what she’s going to say yes to, but it’s never an outright no,’ says the long-serving team member of her schedule. ‘She’s probably been to more industrial estates than any other royal.

Monday - Estimated miles travelled - 0 (worked from home)

Hands shaken - 8

‘It’s a balance of what do the organisations want, what could she hear or learn or teach here? Every day is a school day where the Princess is concerned.’

At Gatcombe Park, her Gloucestershire home, the Princess’s assistant, Donna, welcomes a small group of eight smartly dressed representatives from the Royal Dairy Innovation Award with a cup of tea and a biscuit.

The Princess joins them once they are settled, in a homely barn conversion with framed seascapes on the walls. She reassures them that it’s ‘not going to be one of those formal events’, then starts grilling them about the Nova Scotian dairy industry and on-shore salmon farming.

Ash Amirahmadi OBE, winner of the prestigious Princess Royal Award, is there to officially collect the certificate honouring his leadership in the dairy industry. Afterwards, when the private engagement has sunk in, he tells me: ‘We had practised our formalities but she immediately put us at ease.

‘I was thinking, “How does she know this stuff, and how does she remember?” I come across eminent scientists and business leaders and not many have a better understanding of the food system than the Princess Royal.’

Ash Amirahmadi, the winner of this year’s Princess Royal Award, pictured with the Princess Royal

Before he leaves, the Princess tells him that she’ll be in touch to sign him up to deliver a speech at a conference next year.

She fits in a horse ride, dodging the worst of the day’s rain and hail she feared could be ‘painful’.

‘There’s no such thing as bad weather,’ she says later, with satisfaction. ‘Only inappropriate clothing.’

Tuesday - Estimated miles travelled - 421

Hands shaken - 200+

In Fleetwood, the wind whips across the sandy beach and the Princess Royal doesn’t flinch. She is there with a handful of volunteers from the NCI, celebrating its 30th anniversary. With an average age of 69, these are the local ‘eyes and ears’ that saved 22 people from trouble in the water last year by raising the alarm.

After a turn with the telescope, the Princess – wearing a navy-blue coat, colourful silk scarf and (the now famous) wraparound sunglasses – reaches the top of the Rossall Point Observation Tower, which looks out over Morecambe Bay, where conditions can be treacherous.

The Princess Royal inspects the Rossall Point Observation Tower

‘It really is extraordinary,’ she says. ‘Classically people say the sea is never the same, but in a place like this it really never is the same. The seasons, the bird life, the activity…’ Everyone nods.

This visit, it emerges, has little in common with most royal engagements, where guests of honour hear how things work. This has more of an air of a diligent business manager checking in on a regional branch. Nothing needs explaining to the Princess, a keen sailor and lighthouse aficionado, and she wins the approval of what could be a tough crowd with on-the-money observations about tide timings.

She speaks sparingly. Questions and remarks are formed from one or two words: ‘Since?’ ‘Previous experience?’ ‘Quite handy.’ She has a reply to everything, having travelled every inch of Britain in the line of duty.

John Bradford, who at 77 is the longest-serving volunteer, waits on the tower to shake her hand, but he is accidentally missed. The Princess is swept on to the next part of the engagement, presenting long-service awards and meeting 25 more volunteers in the nearby Marine Hall, accompanied by her new lady-in-waiting Dolly Maude, a midwife and friend of Zara Tindall who wastes no time in charming the room.

When her team discover someone has been missed out, they tell the Princess directly and Mr Bradford is whisked into the very last line-up.

‘I’m very glad you made it in,’ the Princess tells him, spending an extra few moments in conversation.

Then, plaque and certificate duties completed, she disappears to a back room where sandwiches are on offer. Ten minutes later, she’s back on the road.

It is a cliché that the Royal family thinks the world smells of fresh paint. The ground floor of the watchtower was drained of flood water shortly before the Princess’s arrival and the corridors at her next engagement in Merseyside have the distinct smell of bleach – but at the Wrea Green Equitation Centre in Preston, it is quite the opposite: a muck heap has been left intact. The hosts deem futile any attempts to fool the Princess into thinking it didn’t exist. She is, after all, a life-long equestrian.

She arrives on time; I do not. Without a helicopter, it’s impossible to keep up with her formidable itinerary.

Skipping the champagne reception and tea party, put on to celebrate 25 years of the Pony Club Centre Membership Scheme, the Princess instead strides around the yard watching the young riders and their parade of ponies.

She tours the stables and classrooms, chatting to children about horse massage and how side-saddle is still relevant for people with prosthetic legs, then she holds a presentation of commemorative plaques to 20 proprietors, each of whom has a different chat with her.

When a ‘naughty pony’ in a stable behind her unties itself to join the royal party, she is entirely unfazed.

‘She didn’t mind a bit,’ says Marcus Capel, CEO of The Pony Club – she simply carries on talking while stroking the pony’s ears.

The third engagement of the day: Sefton Carers Centre at Waterloo in Merseyside, which supports unpaid carers. Some of those assembled remember the Princess from 30 years ago, when she opened the centre. She is back to celebrate the anniversary.

Wearing a red jacket that looks strikingly similar to the one she was wearing back then (only the length and buttons are different), she hails a stream of people with a cheerful, ‘I haven’t seen you for a while,’ and, ‘This has changed a bit.’

The Princess Royal visits the Sefton Carers Centre to celebrate its 30th anniversary

Everyone is assembled in horseshoe shapes – her preferred arrangement for talking – and she ploughs on with gloved handshakes, getting through five large rooms of people. Among them are two men in their 90s who care for their wives with dementia, an eight-year-old girl in a wheelchair dressed as a princess, and teenagers who look after siblings and parents before and after school.

Some are nervous; a few curtseys are a little shaky. The Princess has a neat trick: her questions get more specific – no opinions are required, just short, easy-to-recall facts, to help ease them in. ‘Where do you live?’ ‘How long have you been coming here?’

Her own opinions are brief, delivered as common sense. On hearing that GPs don’t see the same families from cradle to grave any more, so find it difficult to support carers, the Princess says: ‘That’s part of the way people live their lives.’

She spends a few extra moments talking to the building’s cleaner, loudly declaring her ‘very important’. When one woman jokes about her long service, adding, ‘I think my face shows it,’ the Princess does an exaggerated double-take and says, ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

She has another habit, shared with King Charles, of ending engagements by turning back for one last comment, leaving the impression she wishes she could stay.

The Princess Royal cuts the cake, on the promise it will be eaten

Downstairs, she unveils her third plaque of the day. There is a celebratory cake on the table in front of her and an expectant crowd waiting. She takes control of the moment. ‘You want the cake cut? On the basis that you’re going to eat it? Otherwise it’s just vandalism.’

Before she leaves, she is presented with a large rose planter. ‘Oh my word, a monster!’ she marvels. ‘What a lovely thing… I hope the helicopter can cope.’

By the end of the day, in small heels and with the briefest of breaks, she has spoken to at least 250 people. If she’s flagging, it doesn’t show.

Wednesday - Minutes of continuous conversation - 180

Hands shaken - 140

At 11 o’clock in Windsor Castle, Yeomen of the Guard stand on duty in the Grand Reception Room, as the Countess of Wessex’s String Orchestra plays quietly. The Princess Royal moves into position, wearing naval uniform, and the orchestra strikes up with God Save the King. Standing on a dais, a red velvet stool placed in front of her, she is ready for a full day of investitures.

The Princess is one of only three members of the family who perform them and while the King and the Prince of Wales have been needed at home, she has been carrying the load.

Some 140 people will receive an honour today, among them Paul Hollywood, who is being made an MBE. The pair discussed the smells of baking, he says later. ‘She loves Chelsea buns. I did promise her some so I’m not quite sure how I’m going to sort it out.’

The Great British Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood was among those honoured by the Princess Royal

Diana Parkes, a domestic violence campaigner who has worked with Queen Camilla in memory of her daughter, is made a CBE. She finds immediate common ground with the Princess via a family member who sold her horses.

One of the large team that makes the investitures happen tells me quietly that ‘you can always tell when it’s HRH’ on duty, because the day takes longer.

In theory, the Princess has her deputy private secretary on hand to jog her memory with details about people as the Lord Chamberlain announces each name. In practice, says a long-serving aide, she sends investiture notes back with her own comments about where she has met people before and which of her patronages they have links to. This is the case ‘95 per cent of the time’.

‘She’s got such a great brain. We often hear, “You must have briefed her really well,” but no, it’s all her. She makes it very easy in that respect.’ As each encounter winds up with a brisk handshake, recipients walk backwards to bow – desperate to get it right before rejoining their watching families. The Princess smiles at each one like they could not have performed it better.

After the 90-minute session has overrun slightly, she takes lunch in the private apartments before repeating it all in the afternoon.

Thursday - Core working hours - 9

Hands shaken - 250+

London’s Guildhall. The Princess Royal arrives via train for The Lord Mayor’s Big Curry Lunch, a City fundraiser for military veterans which has raised more than £3.3 million since it began in 2008.

To walk in as an outsider is to enter a new world where London’s livery companies (guilds dating back to medieval times) line the corridors with stalls – the Worshipful Companies of Bakers, Fruiterers, Gardeners, Pewterers and Framework Knitters are all there.

The Princess has no entourage, only her protection officers and one lady-in-waiting. She does not bat an eyelid at being escorted in by members of The Company of Pikemen & Musketeers, who wield weapons from the Charles I era and take their roles seriously.

Guests are an eclectic mix – a pearly queen mingles with barristers and bankers, alongside the military. An injured veteran in his mid-30s tells me: ‘In the Army, I’ve often been in front of high-ranking people who don’t care what you have to say at all… She’s different.’

Michael Hockney, co-chairman of the event, says the Princess is ‘very well-known and popular in the City because she’s involved in the livery movements’.

The Princess Royal greets the traders at London's Guildhall

Lunch is served on long tables. The Princess sits with servicemen and women, eating from an identical plate piled with chicken tikka masala, prawn malai, dal, rice and mango chutney.

Ballanupalli Sainath Rao, executive chef, asks if she remembers her last visit, in 2015, when she said she knew the factory of the company supplying the food and thought they could offer more variety than chicken every year. ‘Two meats and three vegetables,’ she suggested. Chef Rao added the prawn dish on that advice. ‘We had a lot of compliments.’

The Princess is plied with goodie bags, including matching socks for her and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, her husband. On her way out, she views a small garden with artwork by children from forces families and inspects a stall from the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers (est 1272); the stallholders have been hastily restocking ice and swatting away flies as they wait in the sunshine.

‘She was saying it’s great to see the array of fish,’ fishmonger Andrew Kenny explains afterwards. ‘She asks really precise questions… It’s very disarming.’

Climbing into a waiting car, the Princess tells the organisers: ‘[I’m] not causing too much chaos, I hope.’ And then she’s off – next stop Buckingham Palace.

At 7pm, the Princess Royal walks through the ‘secret door’, disguised as a mirror and cabinet, which links the Palace’s private rooms to the White Drawing Room, a State Room with a gold piano, familiar from some of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Christmas broadcasts. Tonight, she is hosting a black-tie dinner to celebrate The Duke of Edinburgh’s Commonwealth Study Conferences, which bring together future leaders to address pressing problems facing the world. In particular, she is saluting the Canadian team, which has led the way in hosting the conferences and keeping her father’s vision alive.

The Princess Royal enters Buckingham Palace's White Drawing Room via the secret door.

Wearing a long skirt and sequinned jacket in red to match the Canadian flag, she carries a handbag under her arm and wears her late mother’s three-strand pearls. Unlike other royals, the Princess’s team won’t confirm to the press what exactly she is wearing. One suspects anyone who asked would get short shrift.

She spends roughly an hour in the Picture Gallery, working her way through a crowd. One guest tells her of her memories of a drinks reception with the late Queen and Prince Philip on Britannia, during their visit to Ontario in 1984. Asking another about their trip to London, she agrees that walking is the best way to get around, although ‘not at this time of night and dressed like this’.

Ahead of a dinner of poached citrus salmon salad, roasted lamb, and crème brûlée with poached rhubarb, the Princess delivers an eight-minute speech. At one time, she is said to have written every speech herself. Nowadays, she often works from prepared notes, which she edits ruthlessly with liberal red pen strokes and capital letters.

The conferences, she says, were ‘envisioned by my late father, but I suspect he never thought it would last this long.

The Princess Royal greets guests at the Duke of Edinburgh's Commonwealth Study Conferences dinner.

‘At the moment, in these rather difficult times – post-Covid and just generally complicated – it’s just as important to have the ability to bring people together across the widest possible range.’

The Princess will stay on for dinner, sitting at a round table and entertaining guests until long after sundown.

Friday - Minutes on feet presenting honours - 90

Hands shaken - 79

Friday morning and the Princess is back at it with an investiture. There are 79 people this time, with their families, in the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace.

Neil Constable, former CEO of Shakespeare’s Globe, is here to receive his OBE for services to theatre. He says afterwards that the ‘professional’ Princess knew the brief so well that she could make conversation about both his previous job and his next, at The Musicians’ Company. She told him she had just been to the Guildhall that week for the Big Curry Lunch, adding, ‘You’ll have a great time with them.’

‘You leave thinking, wow, actually we had a really good conversation,’ he says. ‘We talked about her late father Prince Philip being a long-standing patron of the Globe and how some of the timber from the Globe came from Windsor Great Park’, donated by Prince Philip.

‘[She] made it a very special day.’

At this point, I close the notebook that clocks in at 84 pages of shorthand. Everyone – kindly, warmly, generously – is saying the same thing, and we have run out of superlatives. The job, too, must get repetitive but you would never know it. In continually asking questions, the Princess has found a way to keep interested even after all these decades.

Princess Anne salutes at the conclusion of a commissioning ceremony aboard HMCS Max Bernays as part of Fleet Week, in North Vancouver, B.C

She treats her work as a ‘nine-to-five job’, one Palace source tells me. ‘Except it doesn’t often finish at five.’ I have barely seen her sit and haven’t seen her accept a single cup of tea while working.

The week after we meet, the Princess will be in Windsor, Shropshire, Cambridgeshire, London and Cornwall. After that, she will go from the Royal Windsor Horse Show to Canada for a three-day trip with Sir Tim.

She will be 75 next year but shows no sign of slowing down. I am half her age – and after barely a week of trying to keep up with her, I’m off for a lie down.

Weekly total

Estimated miles travelled - 818

Hands shaken - 677+

[petals2fishfanfics]

Chapter 8: Wednesday 8th September

Wednesday 8th September – Head Boy & Girl’s Office

It’s a full moon tonight, which means the headache’s gone from annoying to unbearable . Proper skull-crushing, can’t-see-straight, want-to-scream-into-a-pillow sort of thing. And the visions? They’ve been coming in waves all day. Haven’t even had a chance to jot them all down, which is brilliant because now they’re all smudging together in my brain like bad ink.

Here’s what I do remember:

– Sarah’s going to dye her hair blonde. Soon. I hate it. Won’t tell her, obviously, but I really, really hate it. Maybe I can talk her round before she commits. I don’t think she realises how warm brown suits her. 

– Two boys huddled in a collapsed chamber, no older than twelve, staring at something totally horrified. 

– Severus. Either he is or is about to be sneaking about the castle after curfew. I know it's past curfew because in the vision, I’m the one who catches him. And I don’t say anything. I just look at him. Which makes me wonder—why don’t I stop him?

.

.

.

Wednesday 8th September – Divination Office

Obviously, I’ve got rounds tonight—it’s Wednesday, which means the dreaded midweek patrol. My name’s on the autumn rota right next to Remus Lupin , who, surprise surprise, has been completely MIA today. Missed Charms. Missed Transfiguration. Missed lunch , which for any boy is borderline alarming. He even skipped the Prefect meeting, which Nancy (yes, Nagging Nancy —still Head Girl, in case you’ve blissfully forgotten) was absolutely fuming about.

“He didn’t even send notice!” she snapped, already two minutes into a spiral before I’d sat down. “So irresponsible, honestly.”

I tried to help her sort coverage—she was pacing and muttering and blowing at her fringe like it had personally offended her. We pulled the rota chart down off the wall and started scanning for anyone semi dependable.

“I told the Headmaster to pick literally anyone else ,” Nancy huffed as I tried to remember if the Head Boy had already legged it (he had—sprinted out the door the second the meeting wrapped).

“Why?” I asked, casually, mentally crossing off three more names.

Nancy rolled her eyes and blew out a sigh like I’d asked her to scrub the Owlery floors with a toothbrush. “I was paired with him last year,” she said. “He’s always sick—like always . If he’s not missing lessons, he’s skipping rounds or falling asleep standing upright. It’s ridiculous.”

I nodded like it was new information, though obviously, it wasn’t. Snape’s been muttering about it for ages —about how Lupin always goes mysteriously missing right around the full moon. And only the full moon. He never says it outright, of course. Just dropped little hints like bread crumbs throughout fourth year and fifth. But he doesn’t have to. Now that I’ve noticed the pattern? I can’t un see it. Every full moon, Lupin vanishes. Slips away like smoke. Then shows up the next day–or a few days later, pale and shaky, claiming it was just a “nasty cold.”

And the worst bit?

I don’t think he’s lying about being ill.

I just don’t think it’s the sort of illness you can write a tidy little note to the healers about.

But here’s the thing: I’ve got a secret too. A massive one, the kind that presses behind my eyes and rattles in my bones. So no, I don’t blame him for skipping rounds tonight. Honestly, I’d be in bed too—if my slightly obsessive need to keep everything perfect wasn’t dragging me through this stupid rota. My headache is still raging. 

So tonight I’ve got rounds with Nagging Nancy herself. 

Can’t wait to hear her go on about Lupin for a full shift while I pretend not to be dying and out of my mind.

Oh, joy.

(That’s sarcasm. In case it didn’t ooze out of the ink.)

.

.

.

Professor Lipton came breezing in, all swishy robes and a grin she didn't bother to hide, and without so much as a "good morning," asked brightly, "How’s that snogging initiative coming along?"

Naturally, I lobbed a sugar cube at her head.

It bounced off her shoulder and landed right down the front of her robes. She only laughed, the madwoman, and sprawled herself across the desk like some ridiculous stage actress, her tiptoes just barely brushing the floor.

"Sorry," she said, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "Couldn’t resist."

"Fine," I said loftily, crossing my arms. "I'll just nick one of your bodice rippers then, if we're throwing propriety out the window."

That got a laugh out of her. She plucked the sugar cube from where it’d landed inside her shirt and chucked it right back at me. I caught it neatly, pleased with myself. "What?" I said innocently. "I read that one by Florence Lockheart over the summer. Absolute rot, but good for the soul."

Lipton gasped in mock horror, clutching her chest like I'd stabbed her. "THAT IS NOT APPROPRIATE READING MATERIAL FOR A GIRL YOUR AGE!"

I raised a single eyebrow, giving her my best unimpressed look. "I’ll be seventeen in January, you know."

That earned a long, dramatic groan. She buried her face in her hands and muttered into her fingers, "They need to rethink the underage laws."

I daintily crossed my legs, leaning back in my chair with the smuggest smile I could manage. "So, what is it this week, then? Wild West romance? Cowboys and corsets? Or lords and milk maids?"

Professor Lipton gave me a look... long and suspicious, like she was weighing up whether she ought to lie. Eventually she sighed and admitted under her breath, "Yes."

I cackled, victorious, slapping the table for good measure. "Remind me to borrow it when you’re finished."

"Not a chance," she said, tugging her greying hair over one shoulder and starting to braid it without even thinking, the movements fast and practiced. "You should be spending all that energy on managing your visions, not reading romance books."

I groaned and let myself collapse dramatically over the back of my chair, arms flopping like a dying swan. "Lipton, come off it. We've been through this. I've never managed to block a vision before. Not once."

She just waved a hand, like she was brushing away a particularly boring insect. "Don't whine," she said breezily. "The headmaster and I have been talking. We think there might be another approach. Tell me—what do you remember about Occlumency?"

I sat up a bit, not because I was interested, but because my brain snapped to automatic school-mode. "Occlumency is the magical defense of the mind against external penetration, usually to block Legilimency—closing one’s thoughts and emotions to prevent invasion."

Word for word, like I'd swallowed the bloody textbook.

"I’ve been practicing with Headmaster Dumbledore for a year now when he has time," I added, in case she'd forgotten, "and it’s not exactly easy, you know. So what’s supposed to be different this time?"

Lipton twisted the end of her braid around her fingers, looking thoughtful in a way that made me nervous. "You’re thinking about Occlumency all wrong," she said. "You're thinking it's just about keeping other people out. But what if you could use it... to hold yourself in?"

I blinked at her. "Pardon?"

She hopped off the desk, her robes whispering around her ankles, and started pacing like she did whenever she was about to propose something utterly mad. "A mental block, Lily. Not against someone else, but against the visions themselves. If you build the wall high enough, strong enough, you could delay them. Maybe even decide when and how they happen."

I scrunched up my nose, deeply unconvinced. "And what if I can't?"

"Then you’re exactly where you are now," she said airily, as if that settled the matter. "No worse off. But if you can..." She tapped her temple with a sly smile. "You’ll have done something no Seer’s managed in probably a thousand years. They say only Morgana herself learned to control her seer powers."

I threw my head back with a groan so loud it echoed off the stone walls. "Why can't I just be a normal witch? Go to class, write boring essays, maybe hex the occasional annoying boy in the corridor?"

"Life is unfair," she said briskly, already bustling over to her shelves.

I watched warily as she picked up a thin vial of shimmering silver liquid and poured it into a goblet. The stuff swirled like smoke trapped in water, and it gave off the faintest scent—something like ash from a doused fire.

I wrinkled my nose. "Is that safe?"

"Relatively," she chirped, shoving the goblet into my hands. "Bottoms up."

I hesitated. The goblet was cold, heavier than it should've been, and the potion inside curled lazily toward my fingers like it wanted me.

"What is it?"

"Vision-inducing draught," Lipton explained, folding her arms. "Low dose. Just enough to coax a vision out instead of waiting for one to knock you off your chair. Dumbledore had Slughorn specially brew it over the summer as it takes two months to make."

"And this is supposed to help me block it somehow?" I asked, eyeing the silvery swirls like they might lunge out of the goblet and throttle me.

"Exactly," Lipton said, her voice going softer, steadier. "We have a controlled space. I'm your anchor. If you can manage the vision here, safe and tethered, one day you’ll manage it out there." She waved vaguely at the tall windows, where the September sky sagged low and heavy over the castle grounds, all mist and gloom. "Alone."

Brilliant. Just what every girl wants to hear: alone against the nightmares in her own head. I tightened my fingers around the goblet, heart thudding hard enough I could feel it in my throat. I wasn’t scared, not exactly... but there’s a sort of terror that comes when you realise you might finally have to face the thing that's been haunting you your whole life.

It felt like standing on the roof of the Astronomy Tower, toes curled over the edge, wind pulling at your hair, wondering if you could fly...or if you’d just fall.

I sighed, muttered a half-hearted prayer to whoever might be listening, and tipped the goblet back. The potion was freezing cold and strangely thick, tasting like a fistful of wet weeds dunked in honey. I gagged, but forced it down, grimacing as it slid into my stomach like a lump of river mud. Almost instantly, the world gave a little shudder. The edges of the room blurred; the fire crackling in the grate flattened into a distant hum. I grabbed the arm of the chair, my stomach lurching.

Fuck, I remember thinking, I hate this bit.

The way some visions crash in—like a stunning spell right to the ribs, knocking the breath clean out of you. There’s no easing into it. No polite warning. Just bam—you're under.

"Alright," Lipton’s voice floated to me, calm and steady, like she was speaking through a thick fog. "Listen close, Lily. When you feel it pulling you under, build a wall. Brick by brick. Stone by stone. Hold the tide back."

My heart jackhammered in my chest.

A tingling pressure built behind my eyes—sharp and electric—the telltale sign of a vision rising fast, relentless.

The world tilted sideways. I wasn’t ready. I never was. It was happening. It was too late. Nothing could save me.

The image hovered, just out of reach, teasing.

Desperately, I imagined reaching out—fingers brushing the smoke-thin veil—and suddenly the scene sharpened with almost painful clarity.

A boy.

Green eyes like fresh spring leaves, black hair sticking up like he’d just rolled out of bed. He looked like James Potter, only older, more worn-in, somehow both familiar and a stranger all at once. And slashed across his forehead—burning bright even through the mist—a jagged lightning bolt scar. He was laughing, tossing a tiny boy with a mop of wild blue hair high into the air. The child's giggles rang out like bells through the fog.

I stepped closer, heart twisting in my chest with some emotion I couldn’t name—

"You can't stop the tide," Lipton’s voice cut sharp and sudden through the vision, shattering it like glass.

The image splintered.

Both boys vanished into the mist.

"But you can dam the river," she said, calmer now, pulling me back, back toward the safety of the room. "You can choose where it flows."

I was trembling all over, slick with cold sweat. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to listen, to obey.

A wall. Build a wall.

I imagined rough red stones, the grit biting my palms. Heavy mortar, thick and grey, smelling of rain and dust. My hands moved feverishly, stacking stone after stone, higher, stronger, heavier. But the magic wasn’t finished with me yet. It clawed at the edges of my mind, leaking through the cracks:

—a red-haired boy clutching a snapped wand—

—a mirror, shattered, flashing a single brilliant blue eye—

—blood in the water, dark as ink, swirling endlessly—

Cracks spiderwebbed out across my slim wall, thin and merciless as frost on a windowpane. I pushed harder. I pushed. But it wasn’t enough. The wall gave way with a soundless scream—and the old vision flooded through like a tsunami.

I was drowning.

Drowning.

Drowning.

I knew this one. I knew it too bloody well.

A grindylow’s gnarled hand wrapped around my ankle, dragging me down into freezing, black water. I kicked and thrashed and screamed, but the bog swallowed every sound. No one was coming. I was utterly, hopelessly alone.

"Focus, Lily!" Lipton’s voice cracked like a whip through the roaring in my ears. "Anchor yourself! Feel your breath! One brick. Two bricks. Three—"

But it was too late.

The darkness closed over my head—and I fell.

God, I hated it. 

When I woke, it was like breaking the surface after too long underwater. Air was rushing into my lungs sharp and painful. I was curled deep in the plush chair of Lipton’s private office, soaked in cold sweat, shivering so hard my teeth clicked. Lipton sat beside me, gently stroking my hair, her touch light and soothing, like she was calming a wounded bird. She smiled down at me—but it was a sad smile, the kind that said 'I wish I could spare you this'.

But no one could save me from myself. 

I was cursed as a teenage mystic. 

I flexed my fingers, feeling them twitch stiffly. Wiggled my toes. Pressed my palms to my face. I was here. I was still me.

Just shattered.

"What did you see?" Lipton asked quietly.

"The grindylow again," I croaked, my throat raw. "Dragging me down. Same as always." Frustration bubbled up inside me, sharp and bitter.

Lipton nodded slowly, still smoothing my hair. Her eyes were distant, troubled. "The number of times you've had that vision..." she said, almost to herself. "It must be woven into your timeline, Lily. Set deep. Fixed." She hesitated, then added softly, "No matter what you do, you'll meet that fate one day."

I let my head fall back against the chair, staring up at the ceiling. "So if the visions repeat, it means they're inevitable?" I asked, voice flat.

Lipton nodded again. "That's my theory."

Perfect. Absolutely fantastic.

Three things now seemed absolutely bloody true:

One. I was apparently fated to kiss James Potter at some point.

Two. I had a future enemy in a grindylow.

Three. Life was, in fact, complete and utter rubbish.

Lovely way to spend the full moon.

And to top it all off?

I still have patrol rounds tonight.

Lipton let me crash in her private room off the Divination office, thank Merlin. She put on one of her old vinyls—Hex and the Heartstrings' first album—and handed me a giant mug of Earl Grey. The music wasn’t exactly curing the raging vision hangover pounding behind my eyes, but the tea helped a bit. Warmed my hands. Settled my nerves.

Next time, we decided, I’d have a safe word. Something I could shout when it was too much—when I could feel myself slipping under and needed Lipton to stun me out before I drowned again.

Honestly?

Sometimes I wish I could just... take my brain apart. Rearrange the tangled mess inside. Maybe then I could find whatever old, dusty thoughts are crammed way at the back—the ones weighing me down without me even noticing. Maybe if I could chuck them out, I wouldn’t feel like I’m constantly on the edge of sinking.

Because that’s what it is, most days.

This overwhelming feeling.

This endless tide.

It’s all I feel.

All I know.

All I see when I close my eyes.

It’s everywhere.

It’s too bloody much.

Everything floods in—visions, noise, panic—and there’s no room left for me anymore.

No space to breathe.

No space to be.

It's like the Hex and the Heartstring lyrics from "All Too Much":

I'm out of my mind.

Just want to get out of my dreams.

I don’t want to see anymore.

Not the things that might be. 

 

⋆｡°✩☽˚｡⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ﾟ✧ ⋆｡°✩☽˚｡⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ﾟ✧ ⋆｡°✩☽˚｡⋆⋆｡°✩☽˚｡⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ﾟ✧ ⋆｡°✩☽˚｡⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ﾟ✧ ⋆｡°✩☽˚｡⋆⋆｡°✩☽˚｡⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ﾟ✧ ⋆｡°✩☽˚

 

 

Wednesday, 8th September – much, much later

It’s five minutes to midnight—or maybe five minutes to Thursday—depending how you count things when you’ve been trudging round drafty corridors for hours and your toes have officially frozen into ice cubes.

Sarah and Mary are both dead to the world, snoring away like a pair of bewitched teapots on opposite sides of the dorm. I can hear them from behind my curtains—Mary’s little wheezy noises and Sarah muttering nonsense under her breath again, probably dreaming about treacle tart or dancing flobberworms.

Lucky them.

Rounds were every bit as dreadful as I'd expected. Nancy was on full blast the entire time. She's got this special kind of walk that makes it feel like even the bloody walls are being judged. Honestly? She reminds me so much of Petunia it’s actually spooky.

If Nancy and Petunia ever met, they’d be best mates within an hour—swapping horror stories about unreliable boys and ungrateful sisters and how society’s standards are simply plummeting. Same pinched expressions. Same sniffy, disapproving tones. Same obsession with rules and appearances and who’s failing to live up to whatever impossible gold standard they’ve invented. And—this bit really gets me—they both smell faintly of rosewater perfume.

Petty’s always been mad for roses.

Still a bit miffed Mum didn’t just name her Rose to this day.

Nancy spent the entire patrol muttering under her breath about “unreliable boys” and “slipping standards in the prefect program.” I tuned her out somewhere around the fifth corridor and started counting cracks in the stone floor just to keep my brain from leaking out my ears. I had half a squashed biscuit in my pocket from dinner and very nearly offered it to her, just to shut her up. But then she circled back to Lupin, and I decided she didn’t deserve my biscuit.

"I’m going to have to talk to Dumbledore," she huffed, arms crossed, cloak flaring dramatically with each self-righteous stride. "We need a new sixth-year Gryffindor prefect."

"Do we?" I asked, deadpan, far too tired to pretend I cared.

"Well, I’m not covering Lupin’s shifts all year," she snapped. "It’s ridiculous. He’s barely ever here. Who else is there?"

I started ticking off names on my fingers. "Potter. Black—"

"Potter’s got Quidditch," she cut in sharply, like it was some sacred, untouchable thing. "Absolutely not."

"Then it’s Black or Pettigrew," I said with a shrug. "And let’s be honest, Pettigrew’s not exactly prefect material."

Nancy’s face lit up like I'd just given her the world’s juiciest bit of gossip. "No, but Black could be."

I actually laughed. "Sirius Black? Are you mad?"

Nancy didn't even flinch. "He’s easy on the eyes," she said breezily, like that was somehow a qualification, then leaned in conspiratorially. "Honestly? If he gets put on the rota, I’ll swap you—you can have my shifts. I’ve got all the good ones. Saturday mornings, barely anyone’s up, it’s practically a holiday."

I stared at her. "Wait, you’re serious?"

She beamed at me like I'd just offered to crown her Queen of Hogwarts. Honestly, the sigh that came out of me might’ve set the suits of armor rattling. It was the same sort of defeated, soul-weary groan I made when Potter and Black cornered me begging for help with their surprise party plan. And yet... somehow, this felt worse. At least the boys had the decency to offer snacks.

I don’t know how I keep ending up in these situations. I tell myself I’m the studious type—the library haunt, the quietly suffering Divination student, the girl who just wants a quiet life. And yet, here I am, stuck listening to Nancy’s deranged little scheme to shove Sirius bloody Black into prefect robes. And the worst part? I sort of know Black now.

Sort of.

We’re not best mates or anything, but we’ve had enough conversations that I’d feel morally obligated to warn him. Not that he’d listen. He’d probably think it was hilarious. Or worse—encouraging.

And Lupin—

Poor Lupin, who's already missing rounds once a month for reasons Nancy’s too thick to understand—he doesn’t deserve this. Doesn’t deserve to have his badge dangled over his head like a prize he’s about to lose. If we’re being honest, I’m barely fit for prefect duty most days either. My bloody brain thinks it’s a crystal ball every time the wind changes direction, but Dumbledore still picked me. Still picked Lupin.

Major props to Dumbledore, actually.

Not everyone in charge forgets we’re more than our disabilities.

"My schedule’s already set," I said, trying for polite but mostly just sounding like I'd been hexed into exhaustion. "I’ve got independent studies with Professor Lipton. The school board had to approve it, Nancy. My timetable’s basically carved into stone."

Nancy waved a hand like that was a minor inconvenience. "Fine, fine. I’ll just swap Mason Mulciber onto your shift. I’ll cover Black’s and his. Problem solved."

I stopped dead.

Turned and stared at her like she'd just suggested setting fire to the library.

"What?" she asked, all wide-eyed innocence.

"Nancy," I said very, very carefully, "Mason Mulciber is a dick."

She rolled her eyes. "He’s not a total dick. Just to you."

"Oh, well that’s comforting," I snapped.

"You did get him in trouble in fourth year."

"He banned muggleborns from dueling club!"

"He didn't ban muggleborns, anyone could try out," Nancy argued, "you were just miffed because you didn't get picked."

I wanted to reach for my wand. To make her take it back. I controlled the urge, barely. "I’m not patrolling dark hallways with someone who thinks calling me slurs is a fun hobby. Or someone who thinks hexing a girl's mouth shut in the middle of Charms is some grand joke. I'd rather get expelled."

She mumbled something under her breath (probably about how dramatic I am) but I wasn't listening anymore. I was too busy imagining every horrible thing that could happen if Mulciber and I ended up stuck alone together on a Tuesday night with only our wands and several empty classrooms between us.

Mulciber would say something nasty — he always does — and I'd snap, and next thing you know, it's dueling spells flying across the second-floor corridor. Detention for a month, minimum. Might even earn myself a visit to the school board that Mulciber's father practically owns. His father already had it out for me after the fourth year protest incident. 

It'd end in curses, definitely. I'd barely make it three corridors before hexing his shoelaces together and "accidentally" shoving him into a vanishing cabinet. And then — oops — losing the key. Tragic. So sad. How ever would we cope?

Merlin’s balls, as if I didn’t have enough on my plate already now I have to worry about being partners with an idiot.

Now I’ve somehow landed myself with three missions for tomorrow:

Warn Black that Nancy’s plotting to chuck herself at him under the sacred banner of “shared prefect duties.” (Because nothing says romance like forced patrols and arguments over curfew violations.)

Warn Lupin that his badge might be dangling by a thread thanks to Nancy’s complete lack of understanding about lunar affairs.

Survive the day without losing my patience entirely and flinging Nancy straight out the nearest tower window.

Sure, I'd go to Azkaban for murder, but at least someone competent would be Head Girl.

Brilliant, really.

A true masterclass in life choices.

Rounds finally, mercifully ended, and I very nearly kissed the Fat Lady’s portrait on my way back into the common room. The Fat Lady looked at me a bit oddly, but honestly, I didn’t care. If surviving Nancy warranted a small celebration, then so be it.

I’ve got a free period first thing tomorrow, thank Merlin, but knowing my luck, both Black and Lupin will mysteriously vanish into thin air the second I need them.

Maybe I’ll set an alarm and try to corner one of them early.

Preferably Black. Not because he’s more reliable (he’s not), but because approaching Lupin the morning after a full moon feels...

Well.

Cruel.

I'm not stupid. If the puzzle pieces are big enough—and bloody obvious enough—even a sleep-deprived seer can piece them together.

I know.

I know Lupin's a werewolf.

I’ve known for a while now, really. It's not like anyone told me outright. It’s the way he gets sick every month, like clockwork. The way his friends close ranks around him when he’s looking pale and frayed at the edges. The way the teachers don't ask questions they already know the answers to.

And if Dumbledore once told me—a seer, a sixteen-year-old girl—to keep my abnormalities hidden, tucked away neatly where no one could prod or kill or push...

Then I can't even imagine what sort of orders Lupin must’ve been given.

How deep he's had to bury himself just to survive here.

It makes my chest hurt a little, thinking about it. I wonder if he's just as lonely as I am. I certainly hope not. I also wonder if Dumbledore has secret meetings with Lupin too. I wonder if Lupin has special studies with the Care of Magical Creature's professor. I wonder if Lupin hates full moons just as much as I do. 

Anyway.

Best to catch Black first, don't need to worry Lupin right after a full moon. 

xxx

L.E.

[messrmoonyy]

omg hi messr! i hope you are doing well<3 do you think you could write something along the idea of tess who’s in denial of her feelings for reader and reader who’s got no clue about them but likes her back? i absolutely love your writing !! 💟

Tess servopoulos x reader

Wc- 1k

Navigation | Tess masterlist

Jackson knew how to throw a party, that was a fact. And Maria also seemed to take any and all excuses to do so. Tess didn’t actually know what the current one was in aid of, only that she didn’t really wanna be there. She’d only turned up because Maria had practically dragged her there. Telling her she needed to mingle. That she couldn’t just keep to her family and go on patrol and nothing else. But she was quite happy with that if she was honest.

“ y’know it’s a party right? “ Joel spoke, startling Tess back to reality again. Unknowingly having been zoned out for… she didn’t even know how long.

“ I don’t like parties “ she mumbled into her glass, sipping at it slowly and glancing over at the man beside her. He was so different in Jackson. So much more… loose. Free. She often wondered if that was how he was before. If the man she saw glimpses of so often now was the same man that had been a goofy girl dad, running Sarah around to soccer practice and sleepovers.

It was nice. She liked it. She liked seeing him find some joy.

“ I know. But you could at least pretend. Mopin around over here on your own “ she scoffed at that and turned on her stool to face him a little more

“ I like watching “ Joel scoffed then

“ yeah I know. Watching her “ her eyes darted over to him in a glare to find him not looking at her, but out towards the crowds of people dancing.

To you.

You were spinning around with a couple of the kids. Holding their little hands above their heads so they could twirl in circles without falling over. Earlier you’d been dancing with numerous others, an old guy whose wife had died last year. The kids. Literally anyone that had come up to you. You were so loved in town. In fact she’d never heard a single person say anything bad about you.

“ this ain’t the Tess I know “ Joel said, voice almost sympathetic. God they were getting soft “ Tess I know goes after what she wants “ Tess simply shrugged

“ and who said she’s what I want? “ Joel scoffed and folded his arms across his chest. He looked like such a dad.

“ you must think I’m stupid. I hate to break it to you Tess. Anyone with a working set’a eyes knows you’re fawning after her “ she rolled her eyes at him. Even though it was very much the truth “ y’know she likes you too right? Ellie was paired with her the other day. Wouldn’t stop askin after you apparently “ that did peak her interest but she tried to look unfazed.

“ oh like everyone knows somethings going on with you and that woman who tends the greenhouses? “ she said with a smile trying to deflect the conversation over to his equally as odd love life.

“ don’t you change the conversation “ she didn’t blame the woman honestly. Truly it was hard to resist Joel and his southern charm when he truly turned it on. And she was happy for him, she was. Joel deserved a little light. More than most. “ just tell her you like her so you can stop lookin so miserable over here. Ask her to dance god damn do somethin “

Truth was maybe she did had a little crush. Which was so unbelievably pathetic. She was a grown ass woman and yet she felt like a giddy schoolgirl anytime you entered the room. She hadn’t even realised she’d liked you at first. In fact Joel had been the one to point it out. Which was stupid, again. She had never been scared to go after what she wanted. Cocky and confident enough to get what she wanted when she wanted it.

And yet… you. You that she hadn’t even noticed she was falling for. The one she found herself looking for on the patrol rota to see if you had been paired. The one that she felt so comfortable around. Felt like her old self. Not the one that had to be that cocky confident person to seduce some random girl into her bed.

She was so unbelievably fucked. Not that you knew. She was far too embarrassed to ever even mention it.

“ it’s not like that “ she watched as you stood with Maria now, laughing at something she said. The kind that made your eyes crinkle and your teeth show.

Joel sighed beside her and took a seat on the stool next to hers.

“ Tess “ he sounded a little more serious now “ you deserve… you deserve to have love “ it sounded awkward coming from him. Like he didn’t really know exactly what he wanted to say or how he wanted to say it. Joel had never been very good at voicing emotions or discussing them. Much like herself “ I mean… damn I am no good at this “

She still hasn’t stopped watching you and to her slight embarrassment you finally looked over in her direction. You seemed confused for a moment, trying to process who you were looking at. Then your face grew into a beaming smile, waving at her before excusing yourself from your conversation with Maria.

Joel seemed to notice too and stood up as you weaved through the crowds.

“ Tess. Just stop acting like you don’t have a future. Because you do now… you deserve to be happy. Alright? “ he excused himself as you reached the bar where Tess had been sat all evening, bright smile still on your face. Your cheeks were rosy, skin a little shiny with sweat from all the dancing you’d been doing.

“ you been hiding here all night? I was wondering when you’d turn up and you’ve been here all along huh? “ you’d been waiting for her? Looking for her?

“ parties aren’t really my thing sweetheart “ you gave a small laugh, leaning back against the bar and turning your head to face her.

“ no? So don’t wanna dance with me then? “ she looked over at you, mouth a little dry even after only just having sipped her drink. You were looking at her carefully, seemingly intensely interested in her answer. She wanted to kiss you. And that shocked her. But god did she want to kiss you, looking at her like that. So beautiful that it made her chest ache. And it terrified her.

“ I don’t really dance “ you pouted slightly and your eyes seemed to be genuinely sad with her answer

“ not even with me? “ part of her wanted to. Wanted to shake off all the stupid reasons holding her back. Shake off her pride. But even with you standing there, offering her a chance to be around you some more. She couldn’t.

She downed the last of her drink and stood up from her seat with a small sigh. Mostly in annoyance at herself and her unwillingness to let herself be vulnerable. To let herself be… normal.

“ I’m out on patrol early. I should probably get home “ the sadness in your eyes was unmistakable and she had to look away.

“ okay… I’ll see you tomorrow? “ your bright smile had returned and she nodded, watching as you slipped back through the crowds. She stopped by the door on her way out, looking back to see you dancing with someone else. She ignored the odd feeling in her chest and headed for home.

[royal-confessions]

““Kate Middleton dubbed 'chaos-bringer of humiliation and mockery' as 'shining star' fades” and just like that under the bus Kate Middleton goes! I hope she remembers this, I hope she remembers how she was recovering from surgery the tabloids started attacking her. I hope she remembers this next time she starts running her mouth about her biracial SiL.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Kate was horrifically abused by the media, no one’s denying that, what disgusts me however is that when she saw the same thing happen to Meghan she turned a blind eye because it gave her good publicity as the fragile flower who the angry black woman made cry.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Meghan should change her ringtone to Karma (feat. Ice Spice)” - Submitted by Anonymous

“When Meghan instructed KP staff to redo their work because it was subpar, they colluded with the Rota to smear her as a bully. Now the entire world is seeing exactly what she saw.” - Submitted by Anonymous