#poor girl was just a smith and would have been better off hiding or escaping

[highly-flammable]

You want me do what, go above and beyond at work? The thing that killed poor Mirdania?

[peantutbutter]

Alfredo Diaz, Neighborhood Watch

Rating: T (language and mild violence)

Summary: Alfredo takes his role as part of the neighborhood watch very seriously. Maybe a little too seriously... (Inspired by the Scotland Yard Let’s Roll)

[AO3]

Everyone tells Alfredo that he takes his position on the neighborhood watch way too seriously.

“You don’t need to drop everything at ten pm because some kid comes knocking asking if you’ve seen their cat,” the man next door grouses, bleary eyed and dressed in his bath robe. But Alfredo already has a flashlight and tin of tuna. The poor girl’s tears has subsided now that she’s found someone to help her.

“He’s not your child, why are you even bothering? If he’s really missing, just let the police take care of it,” the lady across the street says, exhaling cigarette smoke in his face. He bites his tongue and doesn’t tell her that the kid has been known to run away on occasion. He doesn’t tell her about how the parents are going through a messy divorce and the poor guy is caught in the middle. The lady scoffs at him for not responding, but she turns away and heads back inside, and he continues patrolling the block. It takes him a few hours, but he finds the little man and treats him to some Dairy Queen before bringing him home and reminding him he’s loved, cared for, and if he ever needs anything, just call.

Alfredo Diaz cares about his neighborhood because after getting out of the military, it’s all he has.

The people around here like him. He’s helpful, kind, good with their kids, and more importantly, good at keeping their kids out of trouble. Even the teenage ruffians know better than to get up to hijinks when Alfredo’s around. Not because they’re afraid he’ll call the cops on them or anything, but more because they don’t want to disappoint him.

And also because sometimes he bought them beer and would hang out and tell war stories from his time in the military.

He’s a goddamn pillar of the community, he does his best to set an example for as many people as he can. Good role models are hard to come by in Los Santos.

He’s spent the past few hours sitting on the porch of his home, listening to the police scanner. The Fakes had hit a jewelry store a few miles north of the neighborhood. Far enough away that there aren’t any cops crawling the streets, but close enough that there’s the off chance that gang members might come ripping through in their escape.

Not that he knows what he’d do if any of them come gunning past. According to the scanner, the Fakes have mostly dispersed and taken off in different directions. His own bike is in the shop so it’s not like he could chase them down if they came past. And the only quasi-weapon he has on hand is a foam baseball bat he’s been meaning to return after that impromptu kids baseball game a few days ago. Competent as he is in melee combat, he knows the chances of coming out unscathed bringing a children’s toy to a gun fight aren’t good.

Besides, it’s unlikely any of them will come this way.

So, he sits vigil to do the least of what his civic duty asks him to do. Report a sighting should they come this way, and stay out of trouble.

Or at least that’s his initial plan.

But then he sees a figure running down the street on foot. They’re too tall to be a child. All the neighborhood kids should be asleep by now, and most of the teens and adults are probably watching the news, awaiting more information on the Fakes’ most recent heist.

So who the fuck is this?

Alfredo leans over the porch railing, trying to get a better look. They’re doing a good job at dodging the patches of light illuminated by street lamps. It’s hard to make out any defining features, but whoever they are, they’re fuckin’ huge. A massive frame with broad shoulders that seems to be clutching a bag close to their chest. His fingers moving to wrap around the grip of the foam bat. They’re moving like they’ve stolen something, and he frowns. If someone stole something from one of his neighbors, then he’ll be damned if he lets them get away.

He’s Alfredo Diaz of the motherfucking neighborhood watch.

He stands up, bat in hand, and the figure freezes about a block away. They both stand stock still. He’s unsure as to whether or not the person can make out his figure. His porch light is dim, and there are trees and bushes in the way that might block the view. But even if they can’t see him, they’re not taking any chances. The movement of him standing was enough to get them to bolt. They cut in between two houses and starts booking it through the backyards.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Alfredo mutters. He leaps off his porch, breaking into a sprint. It doesn’t take him long to track down his target. While the yards offer more places to hide than the open streets, they also slow the thief down. Play structures, gardens, inflatable pools. There are a number of obstacles in the way. And although the thief is incredibly fit, hopping fences with ease, they’re in no way as familiar with the yards as Alfredo is.

He knows that the Smiths tend to leave their gate door unlocked, so he doesn’t have to leap over the pickets. And that the Robinsons have a tendency of leaving their hose lying about, a constant tripping hazard for anyone who dares trek through their backyard. He also knows that the Yungs and the Sanchezes have a garden tunnel connecting their yards. He uses that to cut the thief off.

He’s breathing heavily when he corners the person in the Yung’s yard. It’s a messy tackle, but he lunges at the person’s waist, and Jesus, they’re fucking solid. “No one escapes the neighborhood watch, bitch!” he yells. He’s not entirely sure what prompted him to say that, but it feels right in the moment. Been a while since he’s felt like a badass.

They fall to the ground in a pile of flailing limbs and pained grunts. It’s a good thing the Yung’s are on vacation right now. With all the commotion they’re making, he’s sure it would have woken them up.

They struggle, a fist making contact with Alfredo’s jaw hard enough he thinks a tooth might have been knocked loose. But he manages to pin the guy — and it is a guy — underneath him. Alfredo’s knee is pressed between the guy’s shoulder blades and he’s managed to pin his hands behind his back using the bat.

Now that he’s up close and personal, he’s got a better look of the guy. Long hair pulled back in a ponytail, leather jacket, black-and-white face paint streaking with sweat, and….fuck. This isn’t some punk thief stealing from his neighbors.

He’s got the Vagabond underneath him.

Were he any less disciplined or not as well trained, he might have let go out of pure shock. But he keeps bearing his weight down on the infamous criminal because if he doesn’t, odds are he won’t make it out of this alive.

The Vagabond struggles beneath him, kicking his legs and trying desperately to buck him off. He spits out threats, snarling like a feral animal. “Get the fuck off me,” and “Let me go and I’ll let you live,” and, eventually, “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Alfredo’s heart is racing. It’s taking all his strength to keep the other man from breaking free. “Mister Vagabond,” he grunts, resisting a particularly strong wriggle. “On the authority of the neighborhood watch, I am placing you under citizen’s arrest for, uh— theft for sure.”

The Vagabond stills and turns his head. He glares at Alfredo from over his shoulder. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“I��No?” Alfredo responds.

Then the Vagabond smirks, and goes lax, no longer struggling against him. “Well, good luck with that,” he says.

Alfredo doesn’t have time to process just how bad that kind of reaction is when he feels the kiss of metal at the back of his head. He immediately lets go of the bat and brings his hands up.

“Anyone want to explain what the fuck is happening, here?” a feminine voice asks from behind.

He twists around slowly, swallowing thickly. A red-headed woman stands behind him. She doesn’t look angry, which he supposes is a good sign. Irritated, maybe. Definitely vaguely amused. She lifts an eyebrow pointedly at the Vagabond. “Well?”

The Vagabond slips out from beneath Alfredo. He grabs the bag and dusts himself off. “Neighborhood watch,” he says. He flashes a smug smile that sends a message, loud and clear: You’re fucked.

But the gun pressed to his head is lowered and the woman looks at the Vagabond incredulously. “Neighborhood watch?” she repeats, holstering her weapon and dragging a hand down her face. The Vagabond’s grin falters. “You escaped the LSPD but were caught by the neighborhood watch? Are you fucking serious?” The Vagabond opens his mouth to defend himself, but she cuts him off with a wave of her hand. “I don’t want to hear it. The car’s ‘round front. Go.”

Alfredo doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone act so meek. It’s a strange look on the Vagabond. He watches him sulk his way around the house, and he hears the sound of a car door creaking open and slamming shut. The woman circles around him and sighs. She offers her hand and he hesitantly take it. “What’s you’re name, kid?” she says, pulling him to his feet.

It’s an awful idea to tell her his name. He knows it is. But she commands such a presence that he can’t help but answer.“D-Diaz,” he stammers.

“Diaz,” she repeats back at him. “Good name. You live around here, Diaz?”

He nods.

“You care about this neighborhood and the people living in it?”

He nods again.

“Good,” she says firmly. “Now, here’s what’s going to happen: You’re going to go home and get some rest. Then, tomorrow morning you’re going to make a few calls to some of your neighbors and ask if anyone saw what happened tonight. If they did, assure them that it was nothing to be concerned about. You will make no mentions of what you did or saw tonight to anyone. Not your neighbors, not the police, not even your mother. If you do, we’ll know, and we’ll have to do something about that. You don’t want us to do anything about that, do you?”

“No, ma’am,” he whispers hoarsely.

She looks at him gently and smiles, patting his cheek. “Good man. Now, get out of here.”

He stares at her in stunned silence, amazed that she’s just letting him go. Unless this is some sort of trick? But with a wave of her hand, he turns on his heel and books it out of there. He doesn’t stop until he reaches his front door, and it’s only then he thinks to look behind him to see if he’s been followed. A quick glance tells him he hasn’t. No cars linger conspicuously on the street, and he doesn’t see anyone lurking around.

But he doesn’t take any chances. He locks and bars the doors and double checks to make sure his windows are shut tight. Not that he’s sure a simple lock would be enough to stop the Fakes from getting to him if they really wanted to. But as the adrenaline wears off, exhaustion sets in, and his bed looks incredibly comfortable. Tucking a handgun under his pillow, he drifts into restless sleep.

He’s got a lot to do tomorrow.

* * *

A week later, a knock comes at his door. He answers it and sees the red-headed woman from before. Standing beside her is a tall man. It takes him a moment to recognize the guy without the face paint, but he realizes it’s the Vagabond. His blood runs cold. He fights the urge to slam the door on their faces. He can’t imagine that would go over well.

Instead, he forces a polite smile. “Can I help you?” he asks.

The woman looks to the Vagabond, who appears thoroughly displeased to be here. “My friend, Ryan, owes you an apology.”

The Vagabond — Ryan? — scowls and crosses his arms. “Sorry,” he says, not even bothering to look Alfredo in the eye. The woman elbows him in the ribs. “I’m sorry for threatening to kill you,” he amends.

Alfredo doesn’t buy it, not with the petulant and unapologetic look in his eyes, but he sure as hell isn’t going to reject it. “I…Sure. Whatever, dude. It’s all good.”

The woman pats Ryan on the back. “There. That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” she asks gently. Ryan flushes and grumbles something under his breath, but he nods slightly to appease her. Then she turns to Alfredo and holds out her hand. “I’m Jack, by the way.”

He takes it and gives it a weak shake. “I, uh…Alfredo.” he responds.

“I know,” she says. Because, yeah. Of course she does. She knows where he lives too. Fuck. “Can we come in?”

He freezes. His eyes dart around, quickly taking stock of who’s out and about. A handful of children are playing on the street, and a few people are walking their dogs. As much as he wants to shield innocent civilians from these criminals, he’s also not keen on being alone with them. Witnesses are good. Especially if he’s about to be kidnapped or murdered in broad daylight. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

Jack looks at him gently. “We’re not here to hurt you, Alfredo. This is a conversation you don’t want to have out in public.”

“Give me the highlights,” he says, hoping he sounds braver than he really feels. He was less afraid under enemy fire in the desert than he is now. “What’s this about?”

Her gaze flicks back over to Ryan, who’s shoulders nearly cover his ears in a full body pout. “You took down my friend with nothing but a toy baseball bat,” she says with a clandestine smile. “We have a job offer for you.”

[tenroseforeverandever]

The Perfect Blend - Chapter 4

Characters: Tenth Doctor (aka James Noble); Rose Tyler; Clara Oswald; Amy Pond; Jeanne Poisson; Donna Noble; Sylvia Noble; Wilfred Mott; Mickey Smith; Martha Jones; Clyde Langer

Tags: Human AU; fake relationship AU; coffee shop AU; stalkerish!Reinette; hurt/comfort; angst; romance; fluff; Christmas; New Year; New Year’s kiss

Story Summary:

Trying to escape from an predatory ex-girlfriend who will not accept their break-up, James Noble (aka The Doctor) finds himself in a coffee shop where he meets a barista (aka Rose Tyler) who makes him the perfect cup of tea and lends a sympathetic ear to his tale of woe.

Chapter Summary: In which Mickey feels the need to connect the dots…

Chapter Notes: You’d think, with all this time in social isolation, I’d be more productive! Alas…

Hugs and kisses to the brilliant @rose--nebula and mrsbertucci for looking over this chapter. They kindly did this days ago, and I kept forgetting to post! Oops! LOL

Anyway, hope you enjoy. <3

Read also at: AO3; Tsp (when approved); FF

THE PERFECT BLEND - CHAPTER 4

NEW YEAR’S EVE

James felt cold panic clutch at his throat, stealing his breath. Here it was, late afternoon on New Year’s Eve, and he had yet to secure a date for the gala. He’d had no time to continue his quest today, as he’d spent the entire day at the University, setting up his fireworks display and tinkering with the holographic projectors. Then he’d rushed home to change into his (unlucky) tuxedo. Not that he believed in such superstitious nonsense, but he couldn’t help but notice, nothing good ever came of him wearing that blasted black suit.

On his return trip to the Uni for another quick systems check before guests started to arrive, he’d walked by Pete’s Coffee Dimension and, despite running late, had been drawn inside. He’d been tempted by the thought of a nice, fortifying cup of something hot, maybe even the “best cuppa in London”, and in the back of his mind, had been thinking maybe the pretty barista he had met there on his last visit would be there this time too. He’d been hoping to bask in her quiet compassion, even for just a few minutes before his life turned completely to hell.

But the barista hadn’t been there, sadly, just some bloke, who was pleasant enough, James supposed. He’d told James the barista’s name was Rose (a beautiful name that suited her perfectly!) and had just disappeared behind the counter to prepare him a cuppa, spouting some cryptic, vague assurances that he had the answer to all of James’ problems.

James was not reassured. He ran his hands through his hair and down his face. His heart was thrashing out of his chest. Blimey, he needed that cuppa… If he could only get it down his anxiety-tight throat.

Jeanne would be at the gala tonight, on his arm or not. She had her own ticket, he knew. And she would be relentless (proper predatory-level relentless) when she saw he’d come alone.

Despite his many varied (and increasingly desperate) attempts to do so, he hadn’t been able to find anyone who was suitable (or willing) to be his plus-one for tonight. He couldn’t ask his work colleagues. Most of them were considerably older than he and happily married, and he honestly didn’t think for a minute he’d be able to pull off a convincing act of love with any of those few who didn’t have prior attachments. He’d made some hesitant requests of the students and junior scientists he knew from various labs throughout the Science department, but they either all had plans for the evening (quite right, too!) or had just told him in no uncertain terms that they didn’t want to get involved in his dating debacle (also… quite right, too!)

There had been one graduate student whom he’d been hopeful about. She worked in the lab next to his and was sweet and smart, and he had always gotten along quite well with her. He also knew her to be unattached and, while not the sort to party, thought she would enjoy a festive evening at the gala. But Petronella Osgood had nearly passed out from an anxiety-induced asthma attack the moment he proposed his ruse, and James had spent the evening in the A&E with her as she recovered from the trauma. He decided right then, he wouldn’t press the matter with her any further. He didn’t wish to cause her any more stress, and upon further consideration, decided he would rather suffer the horrors of Jeanne on his own, than subject the poor girl to a potential confrontation with the French woman and her nasty temperament.  

With his options rapidly dwindling, he’d even considered paying for an escort, but after some frantic research, he’d discovered that even the semi-reputable ones were ridiculously pricey, and while he would have had no trouble financially, it was a bloody waste of money. Surely Jeanne had already cost him enough. Besides, quite frankly, the idea of using an escort was… weeell… repugnant.

As a last-ditch measure, he’d called on his friend, Jack Harkness, a pan-sexual playboy, and a true friend, through and through. He’d expected Jack to be more than happy to help him stage a fake coming-out, announcing he was gay. Afterall, Jack had been trying to get into James’ pants for years, though not in any serious way. He was a tease, but he understood that James considered him to be a friend only… no benefits of a sexual nature attached. But, as it turned out, Jack had picked this festive season to finally set aside his lecherous ways and settle down. He’d announced to James that he had a new boyfriend, Ianto Jones, with whom he was “exclusive” and had lots of “plans for private New Year celebrations.”  

And now… James was out of time. Doomed. And he was spending his last precious moments of a Jeanne-free life, hiding in a coffee shop, like the coward he was, desperate for a cuppa and a glimpse of an absentee barista.

He heaved a great, sad sigh, and taking off his glasses, allowed his head to sink into his hands, despair overcoming him.

 “Rose! Rose!” Mickey hissed at her through the pass-through.

Rose rolled her eyes at Martha (who giggled in response) and sighed. “Honestly, Micks, can I not leave you alone for five minutes without something going wrong?” she teased as she approached the opening to the coffee bar. “What’s up?”

“Well, I might not bother to tell you now, since you’re being like that.”

“C’mon, Micks…”

“Oh, alright. I have a customer who’d like one of your cups of tea. Wanna put the kettle on?”

“That’s it? That’s what you wanted to tell me?”

“Yup. You know I don’t have the knack you have for making a good cuppa.”

“He’s not wrong,” Martha piped up from behind Rose.

“Oi,” Mickey protested, “I can make a decent cuppa, but as long as Rose is here… Besides, we don’t want the place to get a bad rep from my one substandard cups of tea. Oh, and yeah, it’s for here, so put it in one of the china cups and bring it out when it’s ready, yeah?”

“Bossy!” Rose chided with a grin.

“Someone needs to take charge, otherwise the two of you would be frittering away the time, blathering on about who-knows-what.”

“The nerve! I’ll have you know we’ve completely cleaned the storage room and done inventory, while you’ve made a couple of espresso shots and wiped down a few tables.” Rose turned to Martha. “Are you seriously planning to marry this one?”

Martha’s eyes gleamed. “For better or for worse, that’s what I hear. I guess this is the worse.”

Mickey grumbled at them. “Just hurry and get out here with that cuppa, yeah.” Then he turned and stomped away, out of Rose’s line of sight.

 Five minutes later, Rose rushed out from the kitchen, with a hot teapot of Darjeeling, a couple of complimentary biscotti, and a china cup and saucer on a tray. She paused briefly to pick up the milk from the fridge, then raised her head and stepped out from behind the service counter. She stopped short at the sight before her.

It was him. The Doctor.

She twisted around to look behind her, taking in Mickey’s cheeky grin. “I’m gonna kill you,” she mouthed, her cheeks burning.

“Go on,” her friend mouthed back, gesturing her out into the seating area with a sweeping motion of his hands. Martha stepped up behind him and Rose sighed as she watched the young woman’s eyes light up when Mickey whispered to her who the customer was. She clapped her hands silently together, bounced on her toes, and motioned to Rose in no uncertain terms to move her arse out there and deliver the tea.

Shaking her head at her friends, Rose turned back to the seating area and, taking a deep, fortifying breath, she moved toward the Doctor’s table.

He was sat there with his head in his hands, looking miserable, his gorgeous fringe spilling through his fingers. He was wearing a tuxedo, so she assumed he had somewhere to be tonight and couldn’t help but wonder why he was here instead. Unless it had something to do with that ex-girlfriend of his…

But that wasn’t Rose’s business. He had ordered a cuppa, and she would deliver it to him. That was her job. Nothing more to it than that.

Then why, she wondered, was her heart throbbing somewhere in the region of her throat? Why was her mouth as dry as ash and her palms hot and sweaty? Why did she feel that faint, fluttering hope rising in her chest again, the one she’d felt every time the bell over the door had rung over the last few days? The difference was, this time, the source of that hope was actually sitting right in front of her, waiting for her to deliver him a cuppa.

She fought back her giddiness. I have to remain impartial, she told herself. She’d probably find out he wasn’t as wonderful as her memory (and imagination) had made him seem. He’d probably turn out to be a right arse. And maybe that would be for the best. After all, despite her protests to the contrary, she knew Clara was right: she’d been mooning about him since his first visit, prior to Christmas. She needed to get on with her life, and not spend her time fantasising over men she wasn’t nearly accomplished enough to date. Yes, surely, he was a truly horrible person.

With that fortifying thought in mind, she stepped up to his table.

 James’ head shot up out of his hands when he heard the soft sound of a throat clearing hesitantly. He’d been so lost in his troubles, he’d not noticed anyone approaching his table. His bleary eyes struggled to make out the source of the sound: a haze of pink and yellow. He picked up his glasses and snapped them onto his face.

Instantly, a most welcome sight came into focus before him. The pretty barista… Rose… was standing before him, cheeks flushed the colour of her namesake, and holding a tray that held what he knew was certain to be the best cuppa in London. His troubles seemed to instantly recede in her presence. (Of course, he warned himself, they hadn’t actually receded, just been put on the backburner of his brain for a blessed few minutes.)

“Hello.” She offered him a shy smile and flushed a deeper shade of red.

He waggled his fingers at her. “Hello.”

“Hello…” she bit her bottom lip endearingly, “…Doctor.”

“That’s me!”

She nodded her head rapidly, fervently agreeing with this statement.

“Is that my tea?”

“Oh, blimey! Yeah… course…” With shaking hands, she unloaded the contents of the tray onto the table. “Would you like me to pour?”

He nodded this time, his usually non-stop gob failing him.

She set his cup in front of him and, lifting the little teapot, poured out his tea with a practiced flair, allowing a few bubbles to form on the surface. “For good luck…” she murmured, as she set the pot down.

“I’m sorry… what?”

“Oh… the bubbles… in your cup… they’re supposed to predict good fortune or some such rot. Generally, financially, but if they cling to the side of the cup… erm… like these ones…” her voice dropped to nearly subaudible levels and she averted her eyes from his, “…they foretell romance.”

“Romance?”

She picked at the little knit cozy covering the pot. “Erm, yeah… each bubble represents a… well… a kiss.”

He beamed at her, covering her fidgeting hand with his. It was warm and soft, and fit perfectly under his. “Thank-you… Rose? Right?”

She met his gaze with wide, wondering eyes and nodded again, a bashful smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. “Erm… yeah. Rose. Rose Tyler.”

“Rooooose Tyyyyler.” He rolled the words in his mouth, enjoying the sound and feel of them. “Weeeell, thank-you, Rose Tyler. Not that I believe in superstitions and portents, but I am prepared to suspend my disbelief for tonight. I am more than willing to entertain the possibility that you have changed my fortune with your expert tea pouring. Maybe tonight won’t be the disaster I thought it was going to be, after all.”

“That’s the spirit!” Rose cheered.

“Would you join me?” He reflexively squeezed her hand. “For a cuppa, that is?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’d… I’d like that. I’m sure I can find an extra cup around here somewhere. Coffee shop and all, yeah.”

 Mickey rocked from one foot to the other, his frustration building with each passing minute. “What are they on about?” he grumbled, gesturing at Rose and the Doctor. “Look at them! Look!”

Martha arched her brow at him. “Yeah, I see them.”

“What the hell is he waiting for, then? They’re obviously into each other. He’s holding her hand and they’re makin’ eyes at each other. It’s sickening, really. So why the hell doesn’t he just ask her out to that gala of his? Urrrrgh!”

“I think he may need a little help with that.”

“What? Why? She’s beautiful and available and–”

“Yeah, but from his point of view, she’s at work. And who knows what else is going on in his head. Maybe he just needs another little nudge.”

“Blimey, he needs more than a nudge. He needs someone to connect the bloody dots.”

“Off you go then, Mickey-Matchmaker. Go connect those dots.”

“Me? Why me? Don’t you think this might require a woman’s touch?”

“Look, this was your idea…”

Mickey glowered at his fiancée.

“Not that I think it’s a bad idea. Like you said, they’re obviously… attracted.”

“Attracted? They’re practically undressing each other with their eyes!”

“Right. All I’m saying is you need to go out and finish the job.”

“What about you? You just gonna stand here whilst I make a fool of myself?”

Martha flashed him a cheeky grin. “Yeah, something like that. Consider it moral support.”

“Pffft, moral support, my arse.” He scowled. “Well, since you’re obviously gonna leave me high and dry… here goes!” He took a step out toward the table where Rose and the Doctor were lost in each other’s gazes but pulled up short at Martha’s next words.

“Oh, and by the way, for my part, I already contacted Amy.” She arched a smug brow.

“And…”

“She can’t wait to help out. Champing at the bit, she is!” Then Martha added in a stage-whisper, “So Rose will have no excuses. Don’t let her worm her way out of this.”

 James sat staring blankly at the bloke (Rickey?), a piece of biscotti half-way to his mouth. His brain had surged into overdrive, processing information and probabilities, but it seemed to have forgotten it was connected to his gob, which opened and closed uselessly. He looked over at Rose who gawped back at him with an expression that probably mirrored his own.

He had to admit, the bloke’s plan had merit. He could see himself falling for this girl. If he was being honest, he was already teetering at the edge. He’d just never considered asking a total stranger to accompany him to the gala (apart from his fleeting research into escorts), and he wasn’t entirely sure Rose was even vaguely interested. For one thing, it was all very last minute, the epitome of last minute; frankly, if he could define last minute, this would be it. Secondly, weeell, while she obviously didn’t have any plans to celebrate the New Year, she had plans… working-type plans, plans that were obviously very important to her. And much more important than his stupid University Gala. And, C, no three… thirdly, why the hell would she even want to go out with him? He thought he’d felt some attraction between them, but she didn’t know anything about him… zip, zilch, nada, nought! He could be an axe-murderer for all she knew, a rapist, a–

His rambling thoughts screeched to a halt as he saw her expression morphing from shock and bewilderment to…

“What the actual fuck, Mickey?” she hissed at the young man who stood before them with a proud grin on his face. Her face was now fiery with embarrassment and anger. “How dare you?”

James tugged on his ear and watched, helpless, as Rickey’s grin collapsed. “But it’s perfect, babe, don’t you see?” James had to give the man credit. He’d never be able to face the wrath this bloke was facing, despite having survived Donna (and Aunt Sylvia) for many years. “He needs a date. You need to get a life. Simple.” Rickey (the idiot) ploughed on, clearly oblivious or indifferent to the immediate threat to his existence.

“Oh, I need to get a life, do I?” Rose snarled. “What is all of this, then?” She gestured around the shop. “Seems to me I have a life. A perfectly good life, thank-you very much. I don’t need you–”

“Yeah? Well, me and Martha, we think you do. Babe, you never see beyond these four walls, except to go upstairs–”

“To my home!”

“Home then. My point is, you never leave this building, except to pick up things for the shop.”

“This is my dream…”

“Look, Rickey…” James interjected, shooting a glance at Rose, who was glaring at her friend with pursed lips.

“It’s Mickey!” Mickey snapped.

“Right, sorry… Mickey then… Look, mate, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, and I certainly wouldn’t say no to having Rose on my arm at the Gala this evening, but–”

Rose swept around to face him, the fire in her eyes dying out and a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. “You wouldn’t?”

James ran his hand through his hair again (he must look a mess…) “Weeell, no… no, of course not… I’d be honoured… Would you like to come?”

“Well, yeah…”

“Would you, though?”

“Yeah!”

“I just thought because you don’t really know me…”

“Yeah, I thought because you don’t really know me… and I just… I just work in a shop; you might not want me to…”

“Oh, I’d love you to come,” he gushed.

James sensed, rather than saw Mickey backing slowly away. His attention was riveted on the beautiful, blushing woman sitting before him. She beamed at him, her tongue touching the corner of her mouth. “Okay.”

He beamed in return, but his smile quickly dropped away, doubts racing back to the front of his mind. “But you… I mean, you don’t know the first thing about me….” He glanced down at the remains of his biscotti, pushing the crumbs around with a restless finger.

Rose’s hand closed over his, stopping his fidgeting. “I know a little… and,” she fixed him in her warm gaze, “I’d like to know more… But, oh God… oh no! I don’t have anything to wear. Certainly nothing that would do for an event like this one!”

“All taken care of,” a young woman James hadn’t noticed before piped up from the service counter. “Amy is more than happy to lend you something. It’s all arranged.”

“But, Martha…”

“No excuses!” Mickey added. “You’re going! You deserve to get out and enjoy yourself.”

Rose turned her nervous smile back to James and shrugged her shoulders. “I guess I’m going, then. That is if you’d still like me to come.”

James felt his spirits soar. For the first time in weeks he didn’t feel like he was plunging head-first into the depths of despair. Maybe his tux wasn’t such a portent of doom, after all. “Oh, yes!” He swept to his feet and offered her his hand. “It’s a date!”

“Yeah…” she chirped, standing and lacing her fingers with his, “…I guess it is!”

“Oh, yes!” he repeated. “Allons-y, Rose Tyler.”

[journal-of-an-outlaw]

Price to be Paid

Chapter 2

The dry grass poked through your dress and somehow kept you alert. Breath in and poke your left leg, breath out and lose the pain in your right arm. Once again to poke your neck, and the exhale sent joy to your upper spine. The yellow spines of grass alternated between pain and relief and that was all you could focus on. The gun shot in your ribs was the most pain you had ever felt and everything was exploding around you. Arthur had dropped you off the horse to save himself, or so you thought, and tears rolled down your cheeks at the thought of dying like a common criminal on the side of the road. 

“Father would be...so...angry,” you wheezed to yourself as your hands shakilly applied pressure to your wound. There was so much blood, and you couldn’t tell if it was the gin or the blood loss that was causing your vision to swirl violently. Closing your eyes didn’t help but it did squeeze out more tears you were trying to hold back. 

“Hey there! No, don’t close them eyes, ya gotta stay awake.”

You don’t know the voice, but it helped center the spinning. Hands suddenly applied pressure to the gunshot and you tried to make out the face. Arthur, he had come back for you. 

“Get up, girl. I’m sorry but we have to be moving.” He picked you up and set you down on the horse again but in front of him this time so he could wrap his arms around you and keep you upright. The bouncing set you off in pain again but you tried to stifle it down. The men chasing behind you were not that far off and you could only imagine how things would end if you were caught. 

Twenty minutes later you met up with a group of wagons. This must have been the gang Abigail lived and traveled with. Everyone was frantic as they rushed to gather their items and toss them in the backs with the women and children. The commotion was too much to focus on and details were lost as you tried so hard just to stay awake. 

Arthur gently handed you off to one of the wagons. He must have explained something about you but all the voices mixing were muddied and unclear. Once when you were 7, a snake bit your calf and you recall the burst of pain that had accompanied that. The bullet that hit you was along the same lines. 

“Doctor! She’s over here. Should be quick then you can go back to Jenny.”

Hands ripped your dress open with a muttered apology and began to work on stitching you up. After wiping the blood away you realized it wasn’t so bad after all. That damn gin made such a mess of it all. A few minutes later and you are good to go, the bullet had made a clean exit and should be healed in two weeks or so. Sleep and rest were the only things he ordered before dashing out of the now moving cart to catch up with others who were hurt. 

You coughed as the bumpy road caused your head to spin again. Now that you were at least patched up, there was nothing to keep you from closing your eyes like you so desperately wanted to. No one to protest if you drifted off for a bit to maybe sleep off some of the gin. 

A few hours later a particularly large jump in the wagon caused you to awake. The effects of the alcohol had worn off but the pain from your gunshot sure hadn’t. Clutching your side you look out the back of the wagon to find an entirely new environment. Snow was falling delicately all around and you stuck hand out as you had never seen it before, the cold flakes hitting your hands made you smile. 

The further up the mountains you traveled the colder the air around you became. Snow was now thick and packed down which slowed the rate the wagons could move, and a terrible wind picked it up and threw it every which way, making it hard to see. The caravan stopped, and a deep, rich voice called out, ‘Alright ladies and gentlemen! This town, Colter, is to be our home until this here storm blows over.” You recognized Dutch’s carmel timbre from previous stops as he swept his arms and motioned to the abandoned mining town you had arrived at. “You have never let me down before, we just need to have a little faith. Mr. Pearson! Ms. Grimshaw! Let’s get this place looking like a camp!”

Ms. Grimshaw barked for the girls to start lighting fires and clearing out the mess the previous owners had so kindly left behind. You didn't know anyone very well and were nervous moving about. The past three days hadn’t been easy. You knew Abigail had dragged you into this movement but she was very distracted by her missing man John. He had set out ahead of the caravan to scout but had not returned in a few days and it sounds like he had been injured on his way out of Blackwater too. 

Walking towards the barn Dutch spoke again. “And who would you be, Miss…?”

Before now the only folks who had seen your face were Abigail, Arthur for a few moments, and whoever stitched up your side. You gaped at him for a few moments then responded, “Y/N...Y/N Moore. I got swept up back in Blackwater.” He stared you down until Abigail joined your side and told Dutch you could be trusted. “For now, help us out. I don’t like taking on a mouth to feed that I do not know, but we have few choices and I’m hoping there is something you can do to contribute.” You nodded and rushed out of the freezing cold into the building. 

Abigail stamped the snow off her boots and pulls you over to the side of the cabin. “Y/N I am so sorry this happened. It was all so fast, and what with John missing I forgot you in the other wagon. How’s that side of yours? It healing okay?” You smiled and nodded. “Abigail I will live. Don’t worry about me! The past few days my side has gotten much better, and I don’t care for what I left back in Blackwater. I may have never seen snow before but this is a bit much.”

Abigail laughed and you were glad. She hadn’t smiled the past day and you liked making her laugh. Or anyone. It was one of your greatest joys to see others around you open up in such a manner. 

Inside was truly a disaster. A few broken windows had let the snow in which piled up, and broken cans and bottles littered the floor. Ms. Grimshaw shoved a broom in your hand and you began to clean. The methodical rhythm of the back and forth calmed your nerves and gave you a chance to gently stretch your wound. There was no way that you would complain about that pain however, for it would lead to other questions that you were not ready to face. 

After the floor was clean most everyone moved into the main cabin. A fire was lit and the warmth spread through arms and into your core. The chores were not done however so you headed outside to help out. Mr. Pearson was setting up in a small cabin for the stew and began to cook. 

“Who the hell are you?” Mr. Pearson stopped stirring and stared you down. You stumbled over the lie you managed to create earlier. “Y/N Moore. And you’re the cook? Pearson?” He grunted back in reply. “What are you making? I would love to help away from…” “Ms. Grimshaw? Haha, alright see what you can find around the buildings to add to soup. Don’t wander too far, I’m sure Dutch has an eye on ya.”

Hopefully there was something nearby that you could contribute. The frozen landscape offered little to you as far as meat, but maybe some herbs could be found to mix in. 

A few minutes later you returned with ginseng, basil, and oregano that was hiding in a storage cabinet in another cabin. Much of the town around you was long deserted and abandoned. A small building that looked like a church had completely fallen apart and caved in. 

Mr. Pearson was grateful for what you could find. “Hopefully after Arthur gets back I can have him and Charles head out hunting. We need some sort of meat if we want to survive.” He motioned to the man standing guard by the main outside fire as Charles, and you left to introduce yourself. 

Charles was a very straight forward man. His dark skin hinted at a different heritage from everyone at camp but you didn't dare ask him outright. A thick brow was hardset and scanning the front of the makeshift camp for any movement from friends or foes approaching. 

“Mr. Smith, what exactly happened in Blackwater that made this whole gang here run up into the mountains? It’s a small city with nothing exciting happening my whole life until last week.”

“I’m not quite sure what I can tell you. We had a...job...that went south. Lots of folks shot. A full blown detective agency came out and bullets rained everywhere. We lost a few people, but so did they, poor bastards. I don’t know what came of it but we sure as hell had to run because of it.”

Standing by the fire gave you an excuse to escape Ms. Grimshaw and her hawke like eyes for a moment. Any other time watching the snowfall would have been incredible, but you knew you should go help. After a few more exchanges with Charles you headed back into the camp to see what you could aid with. 

Ms. Grimshaw was ready with needle and cloth in hand to have you stitch away, and you sat by the other girls to get started. Abigail was in another building with her boy, Jack, which meant you didn't know anyone around you. Slowly, they all introduced themselves as Tilly Jackson, Mary-Beth Gaskill, Karen Jones, and Molly O’Shea. The latter was not present for very long, as she was the affection of Dutch and acted above such things. The others, however, were perfectly nice and you appreciated finally getting to know someone besides Abigail in the gang. Mary-Beth was sweet as pie and shared a love of novels. You hoped that if things went well, she could be a great friend. 

While they warmed themselves in the glow of the fire and sewed the broken cloth, you asked to learn about the gang so you can have a better understanding of how things work. Mary-Beth explained it all. 

Dutch Van der Linde was the one and only leader, who could charm the pants off a horse. His charisma and charm had saved the gang time and time again and helped gather quiet the crew around him. Hosea and Arthur had been with him for a long time, almost 20 years and their loyalty had never faltered to the father like figure. Arthur was younger of course, but Mary-Beth joked that Dutch and Hosea were fathers to everyone in the camp. Hosea seemed to be softer. Not that he could be any less ruthless but his approach wasn’t always shoot first think second. Books and schemes were his forte. Dutch was a dreamer. The others hadn’t always been around and some drifted in and out. Most had been running together the past few years, but like Charles and Lenny they had joined more recently. It was an impressive crew. Bonds were tested in an escape like they one they had pulled off from Blackwater but it proved that Dutch was the man to follow after all. 

The next day they brought back another woman. She howled and cried most of the day as her husband had just been murdered in front of her, poor dear. Arthur, Michah (who you have only heard about), and Dutch found her in a nearby farm. It seemed to be another good place to camp but had gone up in flames. A rival gang called the O'Driscolls were cursed and blamed for the disaster. 

You had no idea that the mountains stretched for miles and miles in what seemed all directions. It was still a dream to you from when you planned your lone escape. All of that seemed foolish now that you saw what was actually out here, there was no way you could have survived all by yourself. 

Mrs. Adler didn’t say much. You tried to console her with some hot tea one day, but she stared into it until the heat vapors no longer rose from the liquid and her tears began again. What you would not give to be able to better help that woman. 

Arthur also brought John back. He was in pretty bad shape they say, which left Abigail free to spend more time with you as she needed to escape the pain of his wounds.

“Are you happy with John, Abigail?” You asked her during the second week stuck in Colter. From their brief interactions it didn’t actually seem like the two could stand each other. She tried to answer, opening and closing her mouth a few times before finally responding. “He’s the man I love. For better or worse...well, we ain’t actually married yet, but I can’t give up on him. Jack is his son, and we need him.” You nodded, thinking that it would be hard to be destined to love someone who didn’t see the same world as you. 

“You have a boy back in Blackwater, Y/N?” 

“I did a few years ago. Sweetest man I ever met. His head was up in the clouds dreaming of being a writer. He used to send me poems and songs he would write that made my heart melt. But one night, he was shot in a robbery across town and he did not survive. His father ran the bank and they went to check out the commotion themselves. It made me angry for a long, long time.” The bittersweet memory of Henry didn’t bring tears to your eyes anymore. You had been sweethearts for a year or two and always loved to listen to him talk. He had soft green eyes and dark brown hair that you could still remember the way it would curl in the heat. Now, the memory was a soft place to land and no longer full of sadness. Not that a girl in her late twenties could boast an unbroken heart in this life anyhow. 

“Sad business. Maybe someone soon will catch your eye and you can escape this gang before it gets a hold of ya.”

Abigail’s voice had suddenly turned bitter, and her hands moved quickly over the cloth. “Do you not want to be here in the gang Abigail?” 

She jerked a string up straight, suddenly thinking she had said too much. The other girls around you watched as she answered. “This is my family. Well, extended family. And for that I am forever grateful.”

The girls all explained how they fell in with the Van der Linde gang and how it seemed to have saved their lives. Most of the folks here loved Dutch for one reason or another. Not romantically, but true, pure love that made them follow him.

The front door burst open and a man you did not recognize waltzed in. 

“Would ya look at that! Two pretty new women join us for this hike in the snow. Maybe I can show them a good time and they can warm my bed in this frozen hell.” From the way he leered and snarled, this must be Michah. It seemed odd Dutch would pick up such a greasy character, but maybe there was more than what showed on the surface. Arthur walked in behind him and gave him a good shove. “Stew’s ready, if anyone besides Michah wants to get it.”

The group rushed out the door happy for real food. Lately Pearson had been scraping the barrel with soup and leaves. 

You moved to clean the scraps of cloth up around you but Arthur held up a hand. “Miss Moore, please come with me. Dutch wants a word before you grab some food.” You nodded stoically and followed him, Abigail wasn’t there to defend you now. 

The cabin Dutch, Arthur, and Hosea shared was significantly larger and in better shape than what you had been sleeping in. Although the wood floor was just as hard here you could see beds poking from around half shut doors. Molly closed the door to her room when you walked in. 

Dutch sat with his feet up to warm by the fire. “So! Miss Moore, is it? How has outlaw life been treating you thus far?” He came off genuine, and motioned for you to sit while the two of you talked. It would have been much more friendly if Arthur wasn’t standing guard by the door and Hosea not sharpening a knife in the corner. You swallowed hard and spoke. “Nothing like what I read about, sir. It seems much harder than what I’m accustomed too, but I promise I’ll do anything you need. I’m good with pickpocketing and thieving, Abigail taught me in Blackwater. Just...please don’t send me back. If you want me to leave I will but I can’t go back to that town.”

Hosea studied you from the corner where he set down his knife. What once was threatening you could now see was being used to open a can of peaches, and the thought made your mouth water. 

“Were there bad people in Blackwater out for you, Miss Moore?”

“Not exactly...no. I was raised there. Lived my whole life in the green house up the hill with the white fence around the porch. I spent every day waking up to stare out the window to the water and wanting...more. Reading about life don’t make it happen in front of you. Sometimes breaking the chain is the only chance ya got.”

All three men were quiet while you spoke. You know it didn’t make much sense to them that some country girl wanted to have an adventure, but to you it wasn’t silly. The burning in your heart was only fueled by the unknown, and you wanted to experience everything. 

“So..you aint a spy, then?”

You stared back at Dutch blankly. A spy…?

“What would I be reporting on, sir? How much colder snow is than I thought?”

Arthur chuckled slightly. “Dutch, we ain’t got nothing to worry about with this one here. That O’Driscoll boy is another story but I think this poor girl just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like I said, I found her with Abigail downtown.”

Dutch nodded and decided you could stay. You would have to pull your weight of course, but that didn’t seem to be a problem. There was so much to do once you left this mountainous hellscape that you were sure something could be arranged. 

The two leaders let you go, and Arthur walked you back across the snow to get some stew. You remembered how you first thought of him when you came bursting out of the saloon and laughed. 

“What’s so funny, Miss Moore?” 

“I was just thinking back to how I met you. I must have looked a drunken fool thinking I could beat you off of Abigail to save her.” He laughed slightly, and put a hand on your back to duck into the meal hut together. “Nah, I seen plenty of drunk women in this line of work. Some more memorable than most. Now most don’t try and hit me but I can’t say you’re the first.”

You tried to squelch the butterflies in your stomach as he handed you a bowl and looked up from under his hat, but you knew it would be of no use. The snow made his eyes so bright, and his cheeks were pink from the heat of the stew. 

“I do wonder why you were running from Blackwater though. It’s a nice enough town once you get past the dust.”

You stared into your stew and hoped to avoid the question. “I...Not everyone...It’s complicated,” you stuttered and shoved a heaping pile of food into your mouth. The taste was somewhere between grass and dirt roasted chicken, which made you gag. Arthur laughed hard and yelled out at the cook. “Looky here, Pearson! Someone else who is disgusted by this food. She may have just joined us but I believe we can make an outlaw of her yet.”

@its-yeehaw-time

[leviloviatar]

I just saw an anti post and they said that gendrya would never work because gendry has expressed inferiority complex multiple times. And they also pointed out how gendry would never challenge her. Have they read they same books? Yes, gendry has his own problems, but so does arya. And I do think he did challenge her enough, especially in the books!! Like comon they wrestled in the dirt, and he wasnt afraid to express his opinion even if he was lowborn.../ Pt1

…He is uneducated but again he didn’t have any choice! And cleverness has nothing to do with education! Gendry never had friends and I don’t expect him to know how to befriend! I don’t think he knows what affection is. Many people joke about Arya’s coldness, but I think she would express her feelings more easily than him! Arya is the only one we see that makes him happy or let him be himself. And I was wondering what do you think?? and if you see this being a problem when they meet again.

Let me tell you something about Antis, child. When the books are published, and the canon is established, the Antis will die, but Gendrya will survive.

Here’s the thing about antis…how do I put this gently? They’re stupid. If someone wants to ship some crack ship they’re entitled to do that I suppose, but to actually do the mental gymnastics necessary to try and deny Arya and Gendry you have to be willfully ignorant of the canon material.

So, let’s address these points one by one.

EDIT: This turned out to be long af so I will put it under one of these

1. Does Gendry have an inferiority complex? Well, first of all, no. To say that someone is acutely aware of the drastic differences in status in a societal structure that is inherently based on social class is not a “complex.” Gendry believes himself to be inferior to Arya because in Westerosi society he is inferior to Arya. This is an incontrovertible fact and one that Gendry is very aware of. Gendry grew up in a slum, being constantly reminded of his place - low-born, poor, a bastard, and ultimately inconsequential. (He was only able to rise to the rank of armorer’s apprentice because he was sponsored - Varys paid a lot of money to put him in that position in the hopes that he would escape notice. If it weren’t for that, Gendry wouldn’t have even risen that far).  

Look at the way Gendry speaks to Arry when he believes Arry is a commoner like himself:

“Then you’re stupid.” -ACOK, Arya II

The Bull shook his head. “Promise not to cry if I cut you?” -ACOK, Arya II

The Bull scowled at her. “Why should she want you? You’re nothing but a little gutter rat!” -ACOK, Arya III

Gendry smiled. “You want me to take out my cock and prove it? I don’t have anything to hide.” -ACOK, Arya V

“I would if I knew, Arry … is that really what you’re called, or do you have some girl’s name?”-ACOK, Arya V

Then look how he changes immediately upon realizing that she is nobility:

“Arya.” She raised her eyes to his. “My name is Arya. Of House Stark.”“Of House…” It took him a moment before he said, “The King’s Hand was named Stark. The one they killed for a traitor.”“He was never a traitor. he was my father.”Gendry’s eyes widened. “So that’s why you thought…”She nodded. “Yoren was taking me home to Winterfell.”“I…you’re highborn then, a…you’ll be a lady…”Arya looked down at her ragged clothes and bare feet, all cracked and callused. She saw the dirt under her nails, the scabs on her elbows, the scratches on her hands. Septa Mordane wouldn’t even know me, I bet. Sansa might, but she’d pretend not to. “My mother’s a lady, and my sister, but I never was.”“Yes you were. You were a lord’s daughter and you lived in a castle, didn’t you? And you … gods be good, I never …” All of a sudden Gendry seemed uncertain, almost afraid. “All that about cocks, I never should have said that. And I been pissing in front of you and everything, I … I beg your pardon, m'lady.”“Stop that!” Arya hissed. Was he mocking her?“I know my courtesies, m'lady,” Gendry said, stubborn as ever. “Whenever highborn girls came into the shop with their fathers, my master told me I was to bend the knee, and speak only when they spoke to me, and call them m'lady.” -ACOK, Arya V

He has literally been taught to prostrate himself before the members of the aristocracy (and indeed there could be consequences for not doing so). So no, it’s not that he has an inferiority complex. He has been taught that this is his place in the world. However, his relationship with Arya challenges this worldview as we begin see literally in the moments after this revelation:

“If you start calling me m'lady, even Hot Pie is going to notice. And you better keep on pissing the same way too.”Arya slammed his chest with both hands. He tripped over a stone and sat down with a thump. “What kind of lord’s daughter are you?” he said, laughing.“This kind.” She kicked him in the side, but it only made him laugh harder. “You laugh all you like. I’m going to see who’s in the village.“ -ACOK, Arya V

He quickly becomes comfortable with this high-born girl and returns to their dynamic. She trusts him with her secret, a secret that is quite literally life and death for her. Gendry could turn her in and earn a reward from the queen that is more money than he would ever see in his lifetime normally. Think about what that must mean to him. This girl, this member of the aristocracy, has literally trusted him with her life. This is arguably the most important thing anyone has ever entrusted him with. It’s poignant. More than that, she risks her life to come save him after he gets captured. She could have moved on without him, but she didn’t - she literally risked her life for his.

And despite the fact that Gendry expresses his general distaste for highborns on multiple occasions (one of which clearly being prompted by jealousy of Ned Dayne) he remains close with Arya and comfortable with her. 

Arya slithered through the window and leapt down to the floor beside him.He did not seem surprised to see her. “You should be abed, girl.“ -ACOK, Arya IX

Girl, not m’lady. 

“You have to help me get them out.”Gendry laughed. “And how do we do that?“ -ACOK, Arya IX

She literally gave him an order and he laughed at her.

“Leave me alone, girl.”-ACOK, Arya IX

And then gave her an order of his own. Still calling her ‘girl.’

Once, when there had been only half as many heads, Gendry had caught Arya looking at them. “Admiring your work?” he asked.He was angry because he’d liked Lucan, she knew, but it still wasn’t fair. -ACOK, Arya X

Being a sarcastic little shit.

At the forge she found the fires extinguished and the doors closed and barred. She crept in a window, as she had once before. Gendry shared a mattress with two other apprentice smiths. She crouched in the loft for a long time before her eyes adjusted enough for her to be sure that he was the one on the end. Then she put a hand over his mouth and pinched him. His eyes opened. He could not have been very deeply asleep. “Please,” she whispered. She took her hand off his mouth and pointed.For a moment she did not think he understood, but then he slid out from under the blankets. Naked, he padded across the room, shrugged into a loose roughspun tunic, and climbed down from the loft after her. The other sleepers did not stir. “What do you want now?” Gendry said in a low angry voice. -ACOK, Arya X

CASUALLY WALKING AROUND NAKED IN FRONT OF HER LIKE ITS NBD AND SALTY AF THAT SHE WOKE HIM UP.

Supper was being served in the hall by the time Arya was all washed and combed and dressed. Gendry took one look and laughed so hard that wine came out his nose, until Harwin gave him a thwack alongside his ear. -ASOS, Arya IV

Laughing at her to her face.

Arya stalked away angry, and would have slammed the door if it hadn’t been so heavy. […] “Arya?” Gendry had followed her out. “Lady Smallwood said there’s a smithy. Want to have a look?”“If you want.” She had nothing else to do.[…]“I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns.”“Nice, though. A nice oak tree.” He stepped closer, and sniffed at her. “You even smell nice for a change.”“You don’t. You stink.” Arya shoved him back against the anvil and made to run, but Gendry caught her arm. She stuck a foot between his legs and tripped him, but he yanked her down with him, and they rolled across the floor of the smithy. He was very strong, but she was quicker. Every time he tried to hold her still she wriggled free and punched him. Gendry only laughed at the blows, which made her mad. He finally caught both her wrists in one hand and started to tickle her with the other, so Arya slammed her knee between his legs, and wrenched free. Both of them were covered in dirt, and one sleeve was torn on her stupid acorn dress. “I bet I don’t look so nice now,” she shouted. -ASOS, Arya IV

SO YEAH HE IS PRETTY DAMN COMFORTABLE WITH HER. Comfortable enough to follow her out when she storms off in a rage, start a tickle fight, laugh at her, and rip her (very expensive and borrowed from another highborn lady) dress.  

Look how the others react to this audacity. 

Harwin took one look at them and burst out laughing, and Anguy smiled one of his stupid freckly smiles and said, “Are we certain this one is a highborn lady?” But Lem Lemoncloak gave Gendry a clout alongside the head. “You want to fight, fight with me! She’s a girl, and half your age! You keep your hands off o’ her, you hear me?”“I started it,” said Arya. “Gendry was just talking.”“Leave the boy, Lem,” said Harwin. “Arya did start it, I have no doubt. She was much the same at Winterfell. -ASOS, Arya IV

The point I’m trying to make here is that Gendry, being so aware of his status as a lowborn bastard, would never feel comfortable rolling around the floor tickling just any highborn girl. Harwin, who has known Arya since she was a child, defends Gendry in a  ‘hey, It’s cool guys, Arya’s not that kind of lords daughter’ sort of way. Despite the heavily romantic connotations, this entire incident is completely innocent in nature, after all, they’re both kids. But Gendry is older (about 5 years or so, the same age as Robb who let’s remember was married and trying to father heirs twice a night) so this is still BOLD AF on Gendry’s part and the author is clearly showing the reader the level of intimacy between Gendry and Arya (and, in my opinion, that Gendry is more aware of his developing feelings for Arya).

And then there’s this:

An old man sat down beside her. “Well, aren’t you a pretty little peach?” His breath smelled near as foul as the dead men in the cages, and his little pig eyes were crawling up and down her. “Does my sweet peach have a name?”

For half a heartbeat she forgot who she was supposed to be. She wasn’t any peach, but she couldn’t be Arya Stark either, not here with some smelly drunk she did not know. “I’m…”

“She’s my sister.” Gendry put a heavy hand on the old man’s shoulder, and squeezed. “Leave her be.”

The man turned, spoiling for a quarrel, but when he saw Gendry’s size he thought better of it. “Your sister, is she? What kind of brother are you? I’d never bring no sister of mine to the Peach, that I wouldn’t.” He got up from the bench and moved off muttering, in search of a new friend.

“Why did you say that?” Arya hopped to her feet. “You’re not my brother.”“That’s right,” he said angrily. “I’m too bloody lowborn to be kin to m’lady high.”Arya was taken aback by the fury in his voice. “That’s not the way I meant it.”“Yes it is.” He sat down on the bench, cradling a cup of wine between his hands. “Go away. I want to drink this wine in peace. Then maybe I’ll go find that black-haired girl and ring her bell for her.”“But…”“I said, go away. M’lady.”

-ASOS, Arya V

Here we have the lowborn bastard boy literally yelling at the highborn lady, and why? Because (to his mind) she just threw in his face the fact that he is not her equal, and it hurt his feelings. Does he bow and bend the knee and beg her forgiveness? No. Gendry is the bull - stubborn, surly, and brimming with that famous Baratheon temper. He throws the word “m’lady” in her face spitefully, lashing out because its her status as a lady that makes her so unattainable for him within the confines of their societal structure. (Note that Arya has never made mention of their difference in class, she is not the one he’s angry at - its the world, society, his place in it that anger him. The author is showing us the depth of his feelings for her here, because its directly proportional to the anger with which he reacts). She will always be out of reach for him. Unattainable, no matter how much he may love her. Why? Because he is, as he says, “too bloody lowborn.” He would never be permitted to act on his feelings towards her. This is not an inferiority complex in the slightest - its an awareness of the significance of their differences in social status. Moreover, instead of responding to her demurely, like someone who truly believed himself inferior might, he responds with anger and lashes out in a way that would never be acceptable for a lowborn to speak to a highborn lady. The author is specifically showing us that even though Gendry is painfully aware of their difference in social status, he is already not behaving according to societal expectations when it comes to her. 

Sorry, antis - Gendry’s awareness of his status as a lowborn in comparison to Arya as a highborn and his relationship with her in spite of that is an integral  part of his character development and not an “inferiority complex.” 

2. Gendry wouldn’t “challenge” her. First of all, what does this even mean? That he wouldn’t challenge her authority because of her being highborn? If so, refer back to point one. Or does it mean that he wouldn’t challenge her intellectually because he’s less intelligent? If so, that is simply not true. Gendry may not be formally educated in the same way a member of the aristocracy would be, but that does not make him less intelligent. Gendry is very intelligent. Moreover, whoever said this is stupid because as you pointed out, clever anon, Gendry has challenged Arya, repeatedly, in the canon material.

In addition to the several instances listed above, take these amusing tidbits for example:

“Gendry,” she called, her voice low and urgent. “They have a boat. We could sail the rest of the way up to Riverrun. It would be faster than riding, I think.”He looked dubious. “Did you ever sail a boat?”“Then there’s oars to row.”“Against the current?” Gendry frowned. “Wouldn’t that be slow? And what if the boat tips over and we fall into the water? It’s not our boat anyway, it’s the inn’s.”We could take it. Arya chewed her lip and said nothing.

-ASOS, Arya II

“I think we’re lost,” she said in a low voice. “We shouldn’t have left the river. All we had to do was follow it.”

“The river bends and loops,” said Gendry. “This is just a shorter way, I bet. Some secret outlaw way. Lem and Tom and them have been living here for years.”That was true. Arya bit her lip. “But the moss …”The way it’s raining, we’ll have moss growing from our ears before long,“ Gendry complained.“Only from our south ear,” Arya declared stubbornly. There was no use trying to convince the Bull of anything. […]She reined up very suddenly. “We are going the wrong way!”Gendry groaned. “What is it, moss again?”

-ASOS, Arya III

Arya herself knows that there is no use in her trying to convince Gendry of anything, so whatever anti said he wouldn’t “challenge” her clearly needs to read the books.

3. Arya’s alleged “coldness”:

Arya? Cold? As in Arya of House Stark? IN WHAT BOOKS? Arya who saves little children? Who gives water to starving, dehydrated prisoners? Who was literally devastated when Gendry left her? That Arya??? Arya “they’re my pack” Stark is ANYTHING BUT COLD when it comes to Gendry.

“The only thing that mattered was that they had Gendry. Even if he was stubborn and stupid, she had to get him out.” -ACOK, Arya V

“[Gendry] was the only true friend she had,” -ASOS, Arya III

This is someone she saw as family. Family. Pack.

“And if we did escape, where would we go?”

“Winterfell,“ she said at once. “I’d tell Mother how you helped me, and you could stay—”

-ACOK, Arya IX

“You can still make swords if you want,” said Arya. “You can make them for my brother Robb when we get to Riverrun.”-ASOS, Arya IV

She is hurt when he decides to stay with the Brotherhood - to leave her. This is much more devastating to her than Hot Pie choosing to stay behind.

“I’ll smith for you.“ Gendry went to one knee before Lord Beric. “If you’ll have me, m'lord, I could be of use. I’ve made tools and knives and once I made a helmet that wasn’t so bad. One of the Mountain’s men stole it from me when we was taken.”Arya bit her lip. He means to leave me too. 

-ASOS, Arya VII

As Arya was cinching her saddle girth, Gendry came up to say that he was sorry. She put a foot in the stirrup and swung up into her saddle, so she could look down on him instead of up. You could have made swords at Riverrun for my brother, she thought, but what she said was, “If you want to be some stupid outlaw knight and get hanged, why should I care? I’ll be at Riverrun, ransomed, with my brother." 

-ASOS, Arya VII

Oh and let’s not forget that Arya is still pissed about Gendry’s threat regarding that girl at the Peach:

“Why don’t you go back to Stoney Sept and ring that girl’s stupid bells?”

-ASOS, Arya VIII

If she were “cold” she just wouldn’t give a shit. But she does. 

I usually assume when people talk about Arya being “cold” or some sort of emotionless killer that they haven’t read the books. As you may know if you’ve read some of my other posts, I have an (unpopular) opinion that certain other faves will become ruthless murderers while Arya, by contrast, will not. Certainly her time in Braavos will change her but I don’t believe it will fundamentally alter her core personality. (Hence why she didn’t give up Needle, she buried it, symbolically hiding her identity, but it is only hidden, not gone forever). One of the many layers of symbolism surrounding her character are symbols of fertility, family, and the feminine (acorns, wolf packs, swans, etc). This is not accidental. 

4. Do I see this being a problem when they meet again?

When they reunite I expect there to be a veritable storm of emotions on both sides. Gendry, for one, has been miserable since they were separated. (Compare the way he is when Brienne meets him in AFFC to Gendry when he’s with Arya - laughing, joking, playful, etc). Keep in mind that it was most likely Gendry running after her calling her name when the Hound took her. He in all likelihood believes her to be dead (and/or married to Ramsay Bolton depending on how much intelligence he has received) and probably blames himself for this. I believe he is remaining at the Inn protecting those children and waiting, hoping that she survived somehow. And who is Gendry serving now? Lady Stoneheart. Arya’s mother. Now, of course, she’s the zombie de facto leader of the Brotherhood, and many of them are not cool with her methods. However, she is the closest thing to Arya that he has. So he serves her. And when they reunite again I believe he’s going to have a role to play in resolving the Arya/Lady Stoneheart plot line as well, which is going to be really emotionally charged for obvious reasons. 

As for Arya, she’s not going to forget that Gendry chose to leave her. That pain is likely still buried and will surface again the moment she sees those blue eyes of his. But -  the other feelings are still there as well. The ones she was still too young to fully understand the last time they were together. And as we have seen from the Mercy chapter of TWOW, she has grown up. So I expect there to be a maturity level that wasn’t there before that will allow her to more fully understand her feelings about Gendry (and vice versa btw, she might be able to understand his feelings if he were to explain to her that his decision to stay with the Brotherhood was largely due to the fact that he understood his own feelings for her at the time and the implications of those feelings).

There will also be #forgesex it is known.

[ripleywhitaker]

Salty

Part 2 of The Taste of You series. 

She couldn’t find Chic.

Where was Chic?

He was just here. They were both in the living room, Alice trying to catch up on some homework for her photojournalism class and her son enthralled by a rerun of Sesame Street. Sometimes she felt bad about parking him in front of the TV for a while but honestly it was the only way that she could get any work done, and the sooner she finished with her communications degree from Riverdale College the better.

She got up to get a drink of water. She was maybe gone for 30 seconds at the most. She’d done it a thousand times.

A thousand times.

Where was Chic?

His matchbox cars were still laying on the carpet and his favorite stuffed animal (a squirrel which he’d dubbed Waffle for reasons she still hadn’t gotten to the bottom of) was laying unceremoniously heaped under the coffee table along with a Transformers action figure.

He was only three years old, how far could he get?

“Chic, come out for mommy, okay? Where are you hiding little boy?”

She tried to keep her voice cheerful as she called for him and looked around the living room. The couch was too low to the ground for him to get under, thanks to the fact that it sagged generously from years of use. Just another thing that was on her list of things to fix whenever they managed to get out of this place.

The house that her and FP were renting wasn’t a dump. It was just the definition of a starter home. She tried her best to keep it clean (as much as she could with a toddler) and they spent a lot of their free time on the weekends doing yardwork and trying to make it look like they were doing better than barely scraping by. It was something that her mother had always impressed upon her- just because you’re poor doesn’t mean your house has show it, at least not on the inside.

Somehow, they had managed to get the money to get a two-bedroom place on the border of the Southside and the Northside. They couldn’t totally escape where they came from but it was better than nothing. It was close to Riverdale College on the Northside and was also close enough to Fred Andrew’s construction firm. Fred had hired on FP shortly before Chic was born and so far, everything seemed to be going smoothly. FP had started out as a regular worker but Fred recently promoted him to Assistant Foreman, which was a big boost to their finances. It was almost enough to envision getting into a nicer place, maybe even out of the Southside entirely. Alice had two more semesters to go on her degree and then hopefully she’d be able to go full time at the Riverdale Register. Right now, she had her hands full with classes, taking care of Chic and getting maybe 20 hours a week at the Chock’Lit Shoppe.

Their small house was also close enough to the White Wyrm where FP could also manage his duties as the head of the Serpents. Neither he nor Alice had been as active as they wanted to be since Chic had been born but once a serpent always a serpent.

Chic wasn’t in the living room, that much was for sure.

Alice tried to suppress the steadily rising sense of panic as she checked the kitchen, two bedrooms and the lone bathroom. It didn’t take long. The place was barely 800 square feet for Christ’s sake. There weren’t that many places he could go.

She checked the front and back door. Locked. Chic wasn’t even tall enough to reach the door knobs yet but she walked the perimeter of the trailer just to be sure.

Alice continued to call Chic’s name, trying to pitch her voice so that the whole damn neighborhood didn’t hear her. The last thing she needed was rumors of her being a neglectful mother flying around.

Where was Chic?

He wasn’t in the house and he wasn’t outside. How much could he have wandered off in 30 seconds?

She glanced at her watch. 5:01. FP would be home soon. Normally she’d be starting dinner right around this time. Where the fuck is my son? It was starting to become a mantra.

Alice could feel herself on the verge of tears. She forced herself to take a deep breath and search the trailer again. Don’t panic, Alice. Don’t panic. He’s got to be here somewhere. If she didn’t keep the hysteria at bay, there’d be no chance of fixing this before her husband got home, and then things would really go to shit. What kind of mother am I, she thought.  I lost track of my own child.

If I can’t find him in 10 minutes, I’ll call FP and try to catch him at work. He’ll know what to do. No, 15 minutes. Ok, never mind, 10 minutes. 10 minutes and I’ll call.

5:03.

She began to search haphazardly, looking in places that even she knew there was no chance Chic could be, like under the couch cushions and behind the refrigerator. She just had to keep moving because if she stopped she was going to completely lose it.

5:07.

“Chic, this isn’t funny, baby, please come out. Mommy’s got cookies and ice cream if you’ll just please come out.” She’d give him sweets until he was sick if he’d just stop playing this game. He could have a fucking sundae every day for dinner for the next week if she could just find him.

Her son could sometimes be mischievous, a trait that she put squarely on the back of his father, but he had never done something like this. He was more of the type of child that when you tell him not to do something he not only does it, he does it in front of you to gauge your reaction and then charms his way out of punishment with a cheeky grin. Hiding just wasn’t his style.

5:11.

It was time to call FP. Chic had been gone for over 20 minutes at this point.

She felt like she was looking down on herself from above as she crossed the room to the kitchen phone. Alice knew that she was close to passing out. She willed herself to come back to reality and dial the office number for Andrews Construction. Luckily, she had taped it up next to the phone for emergencies. She hoped that the secretary, a waifish girl named Janey who had a son around Chic’s age and who she often traded parenting tips with, was still in.

The phone rang and rang and she imagined it on the other end, trilling sharply into an empty room. Damn it. She had to resist the urge to rip the phone off the wall.

Alice made a noise of frustration and slammed the handset back into the cradle. She was dialing the number for the behind-the-bar phone at the Wyrm, the one usually reserved for irate wives and girlfriends trying to track down their spouses, when she heard gravel crunch in the driveway. Truck tires.

FP was home.

She met FP at the door and he had a split second to register the look of utter desperation on her face before she was in his arms and she was saying something about Chic but he could barely understand her through the tears clogging her voice- Chic was what?

“Baby, what are you talking about? Where is Chic?”

Alice just shook her head in agony and FP grabbed her by the shoulders. She was on the verge of collapsing and her semblance of composure was completely gone.

“Where is Chic?” FP repeated sternly, shaking Alice slightly. “Tell me where he is!” He was trying not to yell but he was also fighting the panic that was rising in his throat. His little boy was missing and Alice didn’t seem to have a damn clue as to where he went.

“I don’t know,” Alice wailed. “I can’t…I can’t find him, I don’t know where he is…”

Fresh tears were coursing down her face. “I…I…looked everywhere…I’m sorry…”

FP’s grip on her shoulders grew tighter.

He didn’t look concerned anymore.

A coldly calculating look had crossed over his face. She’d seen it before, on her father right before he went up one side of her mother’s face and down the other with an open hand, after she didn’t have his supper on the table when he came home. Or when 10-year-old Alice got caught fighting on the playground at school and the school sent her home early. She’d shown up the next day with both eyes blacked and no one, including her teachers, had said a damn word. She would have knocked out any other kid that tried to comment on it but half of them dealt with the same shit in their own houses at the end of the day. Alice Smith was Southside trash and if her old man smacked her around a little bit it was just par for the course. She probably deserved it.

He looked like a shark who’d smelled blood in the water.

“You gave away our son, didn’t you Alice?” FP said flatly.

Alice gave him a confused look. “What are you talking about, FP? I would never…”

“You did what you wanted to do when you found out you were pregnant. You never wanted Chic. You gave him away and now he's dead.”

His grip on her shoulders had grown painful and she could almost hear her bones shifting.

“I swear, FP, please, let me go. You’re hurting me!” Alice pleaded, trying to shift out of his grasp. His grip was like iron after years of construction work.  

“You got rid of my son and now I’m going to have to punish you. You whores never learn.”

She winced at the epithet. It was another reminder of the past. Whenever her father had had a few, her and her mother always turned into whores, sluts, bitches. Sometimes she wanted to ask him what it said about him if he was the one who had married and fathered said whores, sluts and bitches, but she bit her tongue. It would only serve to enrage him further and she knew from experience to just keep her head down and be quiet.  

Before she could react, FP’s hands were around her neck and she couldn’t breathe. He was squeezing, squeezing and she couldn’t get any air, not one bit. Alice batted fruitlessly at his face and hands. It was like he was looking right through her.

“I’m sorry I have to do this, Alice, but you should’ve thought about that beforehand.”

He was completely emotionless as the life began to leave Alice’s body. Her vision was going black and she knew she didn’t have much time left. One of her nails caught him in the cheek, leaving a bleeding gouge, and it was like he didn’t feel it at all.

She tried to beg for mercy but he was completely crushing her windpipe and she could only make gagging noises as she desperately tried to get some leverage under his fingers. It didn’t do any good.

FP lowered her to the floor, with his hands still around her throat, and knelt over her during the last seconds of her life.

“Goodbye, Alice.”

A 45-year-old Alice Smith woke up in her bed on Riverdale’s Northside, gasping for air and bathed in sweat.

It had all been a dream.

She immediately burst into loud braying sobs, startling awake the man laying beside her.

“Honey, honey, calm down,” FP Jones said as he tried to comfort his crying girlfriend. “What’s wrong?”

“I had a nightmare…” Alice managed to get out. “We kept Chic…and I just got up for a second…and I lost him!” This triggered a fresh wave of tears. “I lost our son again…and you were so mad…you…you…” She couldn’t get the rest out. It was too horrible.

“It’s okay, baby, it was just a dream.” FP wrapped his arms around Alice and began to rub her back consolingly.

“It was so real, FP.”

He pulled her closer to him and covered her face with gentle kisses, tasting the salt of her tears. He knew that she still lived with the guilt of giving their son away every day, but she usually wasn’t prone to night terrors, at least while they had regularly shared the same bed.

Finally, her sobs quieted down into small hiccups. He felt terrible that she still suffered so much from a decision that she made a teenager. She thought she was doing what was best for Chic, and even though sometimes he still wished that she had told him about their son, he couldn’t blame her for trying to give him a better life.

“I’m sorry, FP.” Alice said after she had calmed down a bit. Just inhaling his scent and feeling his warmth did a lot to make her feel better. “I don’t know what happened.”

“It’s fine, honey. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I just haven’t dreamt about him in a long time. I guess I just wasn’t expecting it.” Alice still looked a little peaky but she seemed miles better than when she first woke up.

“I miss our son, FP,” Alice said wistfully.

“I know you do, Alice. I miss him, too.”

In the early days of her marriage to Hal, especially before she had Polly and Betty, Alice had dreamt about Chic almost weekly, it seemed like. It was usually innocuous- flashes of rocking him to sleep or watching him play at the park. Sticky hands and the smell of baby shampoo. There was always a man beside her- not her husband, she’d realized guiltily after the first one- but the one person she really wanted. FP.

Alice would always wake up with an ache in her chest for the life she would never have.

She never told Hal about these dreams. It would raise too many questions and he’d probably grow angry with her and sulk around the house for the next three days. It just wasn’t worth it.  Alice knew that in his heart Hal knew that Chic wasn’t his child, but there was no way she could ever bring up the subject of her first born without starting a huge fight. So, she mentally packed it all away and did her best to forget it ever happened.

It was only in the unguardedness of sleep that her brain allowed her to imagine what might have been.

“Think you’re going to be able to go back to sleep?” FP asked.

“I’m going to try. I really need to get some rest, and you do too. We’ve both got work in the morning.”

Alice pecked him on the lips and spooned into his arms. “I love you, babe.”

“I love you too, Ali.”

They laid there for a while and eventually FP’s breathing evened out and she knew he’d fallen back asleep.

Sleep was a long time coming for Alice Smith that night.

She laid awake until the predawn hours, thinking about the dream and the life she could’ve- should’ve- lived. She couldn’t totally regret the path she had taken, because it had given her Betty and Polly and her grandchildren, but sometimes she wished more than anything that she could go back in time and try harder to make it work. To make Chic and FP work.

Surely, it would have been difficult but would have it had been as impossible as it seemed when she was 17? She didn’t know.

There was no use in trying to change the past.

All she had was the future, and she hoped with her children and FP beside her that she’d be strong enough to face it.

I was going to wait to post this but I was too excited to share it with all of you. Read the original at https://archiveofourown.org/works/15598116 and let me know what you think. Reviews welcome as always. 

[cherokeegal1975]

Part of “Eden Symbiotic” by Meriah Smith

Prologue:

     The beginning of Eden’s history is a strange and tragically violent one.  In the beginning, Eden had another name, Za-ru-crosh, which meant "New Hope" in the language of the Ozbeen.      Za-ru-crosh was an uninhabited planet with Earth-like conditions that spun in a solar system much like Earth’s own with three moons instead of only one.  The first was a bit smaller than Earth’s moon and the farthest out.  The second moon was smaller still and the third and closest moon was the smallest.  They were called The Three Sisters.  Even centuries later, after Za-ru-crosh’s name was changed to Eden, their name endured.      The recorded history of New Hope begins in another distant galaxy when a fleet of colonial ships “set sail” across the void to their new home world.  It begins with a hope for peace, freedom from oppression and out of reach of an overbearing government.  This is a cause familiar to many Terrans, yet these people were not at all human.      Their large fleet of spaceships fled their home worlds nearly five thousand years ago when they headed off to Za-ru-crosh.  The technology they had at their disposal was advanced enough that their courageous leap through largely uncharted space was completed in a matter of months instead of centuries.      The exact details of how the Ozbeen immigrants established themselves, created a fair and working government, and thrived in peace for the next 2950 years is another story.  The details of how a few mad men and women rose to power and plunged their world into Armageddon doesn't matter for this telling of Eden’s beginning.  What was important is how the war ended.  Not in victory, but in the total annihilation of every living thing on New Hope.      Some of the military leaders got the bright idea to create the ultimate biological weapon to destroy their enemies once and for all.  The best geneticists were gathered and after ten years of hard work, they achieved their goal.      Inside fifty brood tanks were dozens of worm like creatures that glowed with their own bioluminescent light.  They were made mostly of energy and were out of phase so they could go anywhere and find any one.  The only thing that kept them in their brood tanks when they finally came to maturity was a sedative injected automatically into their amniotic fluid they floated in.      On the day the parasites were to be deployed, their creator’s enemies discovered the labs and the activity there.  Bombs were dropped and most of the laboratory complex was destroyed in the initial attack.  The brood tanks were deep underground and well protected from the raging inferno above.  Yet there was no protection against a total system power failure caused by the bombing.      Without the constant supply of sedative being pumped into the tanks, the parasites awoke from their sleep.  They phased through the glass of the brood tanks and floated away to hunt and scavenge anything organic.      The underground labs were soon devoid of every living survivor of the bombings.  All houseplants, lab animals, and experimental microbes were absorbed by the parasites, every scrap of organic material, until nothing was left.  Then they phased out of the labs in search of more prey, traveling underground to avoid the inferno that was still raging above.      The parasites multiplied prolifically and evolved at an unnaturally rapid pace.  All of their offspring, in all of their varieties, were voracious eating machines.      To escape the plague of monsters that consumed all life and seemed to have no weaknesses, the Ozbeen prepared to evacuate the planet.  Many of them managed to flee with the aid of their small fleet colonial ships, loading them with as many people and supplies as the ships could hold.      Many more had no hope of escaping their planet’s destruction.  The old, the sick and the weak were left behind deliberately and about ten million other people had to be left behind regardless of health for there was no more room on the ships.      Those left behind survived for a time by hiding in buildings that were not yet discovered by the hoards of parasites whose numbers were ever growing.  They scavenged for ever dwindling supplies and found ways to filter out their increasingly fouled water.      The remaining survivors discovered soon after the evacuation of friends, enemies and loved ones that fire could be used as a weapon against the parasites.  Yet this only slowed their destructive progress against the remaining people in scattered pockets throughout the planet.      The survivors held on for another year as the parasites ravaged the planet.  Most died from predation of the parasites, disease, and starvation.  Some died in fights over dwindling resources or in desperate acts of cannibalism.      For many, the cause of death was loss of hope.  In despair, they just took their own lives, unable to hold onto the hope that there would be ship sent back from the old home worlds to rescue them.      The rescue ships never came.      At the very end, when nearly all organic matter was consumed and the parasites were now preying on each other and wiping themselves out, about 2500 people still clung to life planet wide.  These people were the toughest and smartest of all the people that had been left behind.  Even so, their existence was hanging by a thread.  They were slowly starving to death and lack of clean water was taking its toll.  Even these hardy souls had become too weak to fight off or run and hide from the last of the parasites.      The remaining species of parasite that still survived even after all the other parasites were dead looked like shining stars the size of a human fist.  They were beautiful, voracious, deadly and bordering on becoming self-aware.  They rained down on the last remaining people and killed them all in a few days.      This tragic ending to one people’s hope for peace and freedom is where Za-ru-crosh dies.  Yet this is not the end, but the beginning of a shining hope that would successfully create and maintain forever a peaceful and prosperous society from the ashes of a dead world.      The parasites went through one final change that caused them to stop evolving at such an unnatural rate.  When the last kind of parasite had killed their hosts, they turned their victims’ bodies into a sort of organic life support system in the form of crystalids.  There was no other way for them to survive.      It is unknown how exactly how long the parasites lay sleeping and metamorphosing in their crystalids.  Centuries later, it was speculated to be about two years by modern day historians and biologists.      When they finally emerged from their pupa and instinctively ate the last shreds of soft tissue inside them, the world was born anew with them.      These new creatures looked much like the blue grey skinned Ozbeen and they even had the same memories as their dead hosts, which had caused them some confusion in the beginning of their existence as sentient beings.      There were differences however, these humanoids had glowing white skins.  Hair the color of precious metals adorned their heads and glowed with hues similar to their hair color.  Slanted almond shaped eyes, large and solid black, a little bigger than human eyes, but not by much.       They awoke to a dead world with nothing for them to eat and no clean water for them the drink.  Not even the once vast numbers of parasites were still alive to keep them company.  They were all dead.      Soon, many were praying hard to their old gods for help.  Desperate hearts and minds reached up to the heavens.  By some miracle or sheer dumb luck, a single female accidentally made mental contact with a young Massai girl in the middle of the Serengeti Plains.  She had been helping to gather food for her family alongside her mother and grandmother.      Both the female alien and the young girl were surprised and confused by this odd mode of communication.  The Ozbeen were telepathic, but they were not strong enough to reach out across the vast distances between worlds.       Through this psychic connection, the newly sentient being could sense that the girl had food and the new born was ravenous.      Ra’el Sharr had been her host’s name, so that is who this female ex-parasite thought she was in spite of the confusing physical differences in her body.  So her dead host’s name became absorbed into this shining being, just like the rest of the original Ra’el Sharr.      The new Ra’el Sharr yearned with all of might to be on a world so obviously teaming with life and abundant food.  This desperate yearning born of great need and the instinct of self preservation, forced another of the powers of her kind to come on line much sooner than it would have under better circumstances.  Teleportation!      One moment Ra’el Sharr was with a small and miserable group of men and women of her kind.  The next, she arrived on Earth!  She appeared with a cry of agony and confused terror next to the group of female humans.  The sudden forcing of her power had caused her a rather nasty migraine.      Terrified by this white and silver haired apparition suddenly appearing out of nowhere, the three Massai ladies fled, dropping their collecting baskets and spilling their contents on the ground in their haste to return to their village.      Ra’el Sharr paid them no mind.  Nearly blinded by pain, she just curled up into a fetal ball and held her poor head.  In time, the pain faded and she was able to take stock of her surroundings.  She saw various fruits, nuts, tubers and termites the women had left and ate them ravenously.      When she was sated, she fell into a deep healing sleep in the tall grasses.  She awoke a few hours later and remembered the rest of her people.  She mentally called out to them and showed them how to teleport.  Soon the entire population of 2500 alien men and women had arrived on Earth during the early 1200’s.      Legends of the Shining Ones were been born that day and would later be dismissed as fairy tales as the centuries passed.      Humanity did not welcome them with open arms and the Shining Ones had a strong aversion to warfare, so these newcomers hid in scattered pockets in remote areas across Africa.        Then as time passed and their powers grew, their hard won survival became easier.  They first discovered that not only were they powerful telepaths, they had an unusual amount of control over their ability.  They could turn the ability on and off at will, or even control how telepathic they wanted to be.  Even block out others from their minds.      They discovered that they shared a loosely connected collective sub consciousness that they called the Dreaming and they could pass information to each other when they slept.  Or by placing the Dreaming under conscious control when they were awake, they could link their minds together and act as one collective entity for brief periods.  They also learned to create illusions by directed hallucinations of incredible clarity.      Next they discovered their talent for telekinesis, moving objects with increasing ease just by willing them the move.  Followed by a small talent for pyro kinesis, which was quickly employed to make camp fires.  Then the ability to make anything temporarily invisible, including themselves.  Healing came next after that; they could heal any wound or sickness.  They also discovered that they were immune to all disease and parasitic infestations.      Lastly, shape shifting of themselves, other living things and various objects.  This ability shape shift into animals and humans with ease helped them to hide in plain sight among Earth’s host species undetected.  This time of growth in their life cycle took ten years.      Not long after they were able to hide among humans, it was decided that it was in their own best interest to restore their home world.  They had both the knowledge and the technology on their world to re-terraform their planet and rebuild their cities.  Since the readily available Terran life forms were so similar to the extinct life forms on Za-ru-crosh, they used Earth’s DNA to re-establish a healthy bio-sphere on their dead planet.      Also, they unanimously agreed that they would learn from their predecessors’ mistakes and not repeat them.  Peace would rein once more, they would not fail!      During the time of Za-ru-crosh’s healing began, the Shining Ones began to have serious doubts about being Ozbeen.  True, the Ozbeenians did have some telepathic ability, but not the rest of their powers.      Some stubbornly argued if they weren't Ozbeen, how is it that they remember their lives on Za-ru-crosh?      The parasites killed the Ozbeen, we are the parasites!      Not possible!      Possible!      For decades the argument went on unresolved as they labored to fit into Earth’s cultures without getting to involved in the course of human history, while making a living among the humans and restoring their home planet.      No human would have ever discovered their true identity and the argument of “Are We Ozbeen or Evolved Parasites?” would have remained unresolved if it had not been for Ra’el Sharr and Lide Topen.      Ra’el Sharr and Lide Topen were a mated pair and had been for the past fifty years by then.  Having been living among the Cherokee for the last five years, they renamed themselves Eloyis and Amoitoy (pronounced ‘Ah-moy-toy,’ with a short "A" sound; meaning coming from or originating from water).  They had mostly abandoned their old Ozbeen ways in favor of the Cherokee traditions.  Their lives were good and they had many friends among the humans.  Then Eloyis became pregnant for the first time and she was the first of her kind to do so.  Six weeks later she laid two spherical light blue-green eggs the size of pomelo grapefruits.      This was something of a shock to the entire Shining One community as news of this event traveled from mind to mind via the Dreaming.  The Ozbeen were mammalian and the Shining Ones, as they had discovered, were not.      Eloyis kept her eggs wrapped in warm furs next to the cooking fire.  Five weeks later, in the middle of a warm summer night, the eggs hatched while the entire village slept.  The hatchling larvae resembled their parents just before they metamorphosed into people; beautiful, like small bright shining stars the size of a human fist.      They floated out of their parents’ home and into the neighboring house.  There, they phased into the two sleeping adults and made themselves at home.  The sleeping man and wife were oblivious to the intrusion of their bodies as the larvae fed on their new hosts, yet did no harm to them.      Eloyis and Amoitoy were shocked to discover their children had hatched and were nowhere to be seen when the woke in the morning.  They used their ability to sense living things and tracked down their offspring and their now frightened and confused hosts.       All four people feared the symbiotes would kill their hosts or at least make them very sick.  Yet, this did not happen.      After much reveling of truth, debate, discussion and deal striking, the new hosts decided to help the children live so long as they proved to do no serious harm to themselves.  Eloyis and Amoitoy agreed to remove their offspring if it was asked of them.      This proved to be utter serendipity.      At first, the hosts did weaken for a time and Eloyis and Amoitoy devoted themselves to looking after them.  For the next six months, the hosts were capable of little more than eating and sleeping.  Then gradually, towards the end of that six month period, their strength returned and they were able to get up and do small tasks to maintain their own house hold.      As the symbiotes matured, they bonded with their hosts, not only physically, but mentally as well.  Making them want to help their hosts and much as they were able.  Love sealed the bond between host, symbiont, and parents of the symbionts.  An odd sort of family unit was created.      The symbionts eventually learned that they had the same powers as their parents.  Only they could not shape shift themselves and didn't have as high endurance as their parents.      They could shape shift their hosts however, also they stopped the ageing process and gave their hosts greatly enhanced strength and endurance.  Not as much as some of the Marvel Comic super heroes, but enough to fly in avian form, snap small steel chains, and bend steel bars up to one inch thick.      After a time, the symbiotes could phase in and out of their hosts and they could go off in separate directions for up to twelve hours before both partners begin to suffer.  The symbiote from lack of food, the host from the lack of protection from viruses and the presence of the symbiote itself.   The host’s body became dependent on the symbiote to survive; the physical bond had become that strong.  Also, the symbiote suppresses the immune system so the host’s body cannot reject the symbiote and then shares its own immunity with its host.  Results: the host-symbiote pair was as impossible to infect as an adult Shining One so long as they didn’t stay apart for too long.      The Shining Ones had been watching the progress of the two symbiont-host pairs with growing hope.  They were heartened at the possibility of a co-existence with humans.  But hard as they tried to gently reveal themselves and create that peaceful co-existence, most humans still rejected them as monsters, evil spirits or witches.  Very few families welcomed the Shining Ones into their lives so they could help them have children.      True, the Shining Ones could have turned evil and taken over Earth easily enough. ��Used humans as host-slaves and turn the remaining population as laborers.  But the Shining Ones were a product of war themselves, born into full awareness and memories of their hosts.  This made them already sick of war.  They despised violence to the point of near passivism towards humans and especially toward each other.         So the solution was to continue to restore Za-ru-crosh and evacuate Earth as soon as the terraforming was finished.  To make sure the situation was not further complicated, a temporary no breeding law was passed by the Shining Ones’ ruling council.  Then a plan was launched to bio-engineer some people for their off-spring and then make enough of them so their people could have a choice as to whether or not they wanted to become “Joined” as they now called it.  Even if it meant extinction, the Shining Ones would never force anyone to become a host.      This seemed like a straightforward solution and it was meant to be.  Yet life happened and it's often messy by its very nature.      During the next thousand years more and more eggs were laid by mated pairs and small polygamist groups, conceived either by accident or outright disobedience.  Early in that first two hundred years of when the no breeding law was still in effect, sharper measures had to be taken.  The eggs were too precious to destroy and they could not be allowed to hatch in uncontrolled numbers.  So the three moon base complexes on the Three Sisters were converted into cryogenic labs to store the eggs indefinitely until more favorable conditions occurred.  The council also modified their no breeding policy to a controlled breeding law as a fair compromise.       This practice of controlling the number of eggs that were allowed hatch each Egg Season became a permanent means of not overwhelming Eden’s (as the former Za-ru-crosh would be called) native population.      Eventually the terraforming was finished and the Shining Ones all returned home.  With them they transported their Joined Ones, their willing family members and quite a lot of stolen human eggs and sperm.      The eggs and sperm had been stolen from various banks and just as often from unknowing donors.  In this way a healthy human and sentient bioengineered population was grown in brood tanks and raised by the community when they were born.      Many centuries passed with Eden growing and prospering undisturbed.  Earth and its off-world colonies grew and prospered, met with other alien races and always exploring new territories to study and colonize.      Eventually, after many centuries, a starship discovered an Earth like planet that broadcast through various frequencies via radio, television, computer and satellite feeds that there was sentient life living there.  They thought that they may have discovered a lost human colony that had blended with the host species of the planet and likely had forgotten their origins.  Lost colonies were rare but not unheard of and the usual procedure was undertaken to make careful contact and reestablish communications between them and the rest of the human race.      Unknown to them, these explorers were being closely monitored by the Main Council’s telepaths after their mother ship had been sighted from the cryogenic lab bases on the outer most moon.  They did nothing to stop them, curious to see what these explorers would do.      The explorers selected a clearing that was not too far and not to close to what looked like a major city in the western hemisphere as a landing site.  They sent a team of specialist aboard a shuttle to make observations and slowly make contact with the locals that lived in that area…

(This book can be bought on Amazon either as a paperback or as a Kindle)

[samanthasroberts]

Here are the best books for your brand new Kindle

If you’ve been gifted a Kindle having something to read right off the bat will be your first order of business. That’s why we’ve assembled a list of the best selling Kindle books of 2017 – for every type of reader. So whether you’re into dystopian novels, memoirs, or poetry, there’s something on this list for you.

Plus if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you get access to the Kindle Lending Library. You can check out a book for free every month, and with new titles added each month you’ll never run out of options to choose from. But for big readers, Kindle Unlimited exists to help feed your hunger for new material. The standalone service costs $9.99 a month and allows you to download most eBooks for free. So go on and get reading! You can thank us later.

1) Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Amazon

From the publisher: The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. Milk and Honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $9.99) 

Buy it here

2) The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Amazon

From the publisher: The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population.

Price on Amazon: $9.99 (regularly $15.95) 

Buy it here

3) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Amazon

From the publisher: Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry’s eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

Price on Amazon: $8.99 (regularly $10.99)

Buy it here

4) 1984 by George Orwell 

Amazon

From the publisher: In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

Price on Amazon: $9.99

Buy it here

5) The Unremembered Girl: A Novel by Eliza Maxwell

Amazon

From the publisher: In the deep woods of East Texas, Henry supports his family by selling bootleg liquor. It’s all he can do to keep his compassionate but ailing mother and his stepfather—a fanatical grassroots minister with a bruising rhetoric—from ruin. But they have no idea they’ve become the obsession of the girl in the woods. Abandoned and nearly feral, Eve has been watching them, seduced by the notion of family—something she’s known only in the most brutal sense. Soon she can’t resist the temptation to get close. Where Henry’s mother sees a poor girl in need, his father sees only wickedness. When Henry forges an unexpected bond with Eve, he believes he might be able to save her. He doesn’t know how wrong he is. Eve is about to take charge of her own destiny—and that of Henry’s family. As both their worlds spin violently out of control, Henry must make an impossible choice: protect the broken woman who’s claimed a piece of his soul, or put everyone he loves at risk in order to do the right thing.

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $14.95) 

Buy it here

6) I Am Watching You by Teresa Driscoll 

Amazon

From the publisher: When Ella Longfield overhears two attractive young men flirting with teenage girls on a train, she thinks nothing of it—until she realises they are fresh out of prison and her maternal instinct is put on high alert. But just as she’s decided to call for help, something stops her. The next day, she wakes up to the news that one of the girls—beautiful, green-eyed Anna Ballard—has disappeared. A year later, Anna is still missing. Ella is wracked with guilt over what she failed to do, and she’s not the only one who can’t forget. Someone is sending her threatening letters—letters that make her fear for her life. Then an anniversary appeal reveals that Anna’s friends and family might have something to hide. Anna’s best friend, Sarah, hasn’t been telling the whole truth about what really happened that night—and her parents have been keeping secrets of their own. Someone knows where Anna is—and they’re not telling. But they are watching Ella.

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $14.95) 

Buy it here

7) The Letter by Kathryn Hughes 

Amazon

From the publisher: Tina Craig longs to escape her violent husband. She works all the hours God sends to save up enough money to leave him, also volunteering in a charity shop to avoid her unhappy home. Whilst going through the pockets of a second-hand suit, she comes across an old letter, the envelope firmly sealed and unfranked. Tina opens the letter and reads it – a decision that will alter the course of her life forever. Billy Stirling knows he has been a fool, but hopes he can put things right. On 4th September 1939 he sits down to write the letter he hopes will change his future. It does – in more ways than he can ever imagine.

Price on Amazon: $1.99 (regularly $13.99) 

Buy it here

8) Dead Certain: A Novel by Adam Mitzner

Amazon

From the publisher: Ella Broden is living a double life. By day, Ella works as a buttoned-up attorney on some of the city’s most grueling cases. By night, she pursues her passion for singing in the darkest clubs of Manhattan. No one knows her secret, not even Charlotte, the younger sister she practically raised. But it seems she’s not the only one in the family with something to hide. When Charlotte announces she’s sold her first novel, Ella couldn’t be more thrilled…until she gets a call that her sister’s gone missing. Ella starts investigating with the help of Detective Gabriel Velasquez, an old flame in the NYPD, and what she finds is shocking. If art imitates life, then her sister’s novel may contain details of her real-life affairs. And any one of her lovers could be involved in her disappearance. Desperate to bring Charlotte home, Ella works through her list of suspects, matching fictitious characters with flesh-and-blood men. But will it be too late to save the sister she only thought she knew?

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $15.95) 

But it here

9) Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook: Eat Like You Give a F*ck by Thug Kitchen

Amazon

From the publisher: Thug Kitchen started their wildly popular web site to inspire people to eat some Goddamn vegetables and adopt a healthier lifestyle. Beloved by Gwyneth Paltrow (“This might be my favorite thing ever”) and named Saveur‘s Best New Food blog of 2013–with half a million Facebook fans and counting–Thug Kitchen wants to show everyone how to take charge of their plates and cook up some real f*cking food. Yeah, plenty of blogs and cookbooks preach about how to eat more kale, why ginger fights inflammation, and how to cook with microgreens and nettles. But they are dull or pretentious as hell–and most people can’t afford the hype. Thug Kitchen lives in the real world. In their first cookbook, they’re throwing down more than 100 vegan recipes for their best-loved meals, snacks, and sides for beginning cooks to home chefs. (Roasted Beer and Lime Cauliflower Tacos? Pumpkin Chili? Grilled Peach Salsa? Believe that sh*t.) Plus they’re going to arm you with all the info and techniques you need to shop on a budget and go and kick a bunch of ass on your own. This book is an invitation to everyone who wants to do better to elevate their kitchen game. No more ketchup and pizza counting as vegetables. No more drive-thru lines. No more avoiding the produce corner of the supermarket. Sh*t is about to get real.

Price on Amazon: $9.99 (regularly $19.50) 

Buy it here

10) The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Amazon

From the publisher: In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. From Sauron’s fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide. Sauron gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched for the One Ring that would complete his dominion. When Bilbo reached his eleventy-first birthday he disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom. The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam; Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider. This new edition includes the fiftieth-anniversary fully corrected text setting and, for the first time, an extensive new index.

Price on Amazon: $16.99 (regularly $20.00)

Buy it here

11) Diary of a Wimpy Kid  by Jeff Kinney 

Amazon

From the publisher: It’s a new school year, and Greg Heffley finds himself thrust into middle school, where undersized weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner, and already shaving. The hazards of growing up before you’re ready are uniquely revealed through words and drawings as Greg records them in his diary. In book one of this debut series, Greg is happy to have Rowley, his sidekick, along for the ride. But when Rowley’s star starts to rise, Greg tries to use his best friend’s newfound popularity to his own advantage, kicking off a chain of events that will test their friendship in hilarious fashion.

Price on Amazon: $7.99 (regularly $12.56)

Buy it here

12) Star Wars: Darth Vader Vol. 1 by Kieron Gillen

Amazon

From the publisher: The original Dark Lord of the Sith stars in his first ongoing series! Ever since Darth Vader’s first on-screen appearance, he has become one of pop-culture’s most popular villains. Now, follow Vader straight from the ending of A NEW HOPE (and the pages of the new STAR WARS comic book) into his own solo adventures — showing the Empire’s war with the Rebel Alliance from the other side! But when a Dark Lord needs help, who can he turn to? As Vader pursues a very personal vengeance against the Rebels and investigates the Emperor’s secret machinations, he clashes with weapons scavenger Aphra and deadly Battle Droids, and returns to Geonosis to build an army. But some very powerful people don’t want him to learn the truths he seeks! Guest-starring Jabba the Hutt, Boba Fett and more!

Price on Amazon: $2.99 (regularly $10.99) 

Buy it here

13) Coming Clean: A Memoir by Kimberly Rae Miller

Amazon

From the publisher: Kimberly Rae Miller is an immaculately put-together woman with a great career, a loving boyfriend, and a beautifully tidy apartment in Brooklyn. You would never guess that behind the closed doors of her family’s idyllic Long Island house hid teetering stacks of aging newspaper, broken computers, and boxes upon boxes of unused junk festering in every room—the product of her father’s painful and unending struggle with hoarding. In this dazzling memoir, Miller brings to life her experience growing up in a rat-infested home, hiding her father’s shameful secret from friends for years, and the emotional burden that ultimately led to her suicide attempt. In beautiful prose, Miller sheds light on her complicated yet loving relationship with her parents, which has thrived in spite of the odds. Coming Clean is a story about recognizing where you come from and understanding the relationships that define you. It is also a powerful story of recovery and redemption.

Price on Amazon: $5.99 (regularly $13.95) 

Buy it here

14) Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly 

Amazon

From the publisher: Harry Bosch is back as a volunteer working cold cases for the San Fernando Police Department and is called out to a local drug store where a young pharmacist has been murdered. Bosch and the town’s 3-person detective squad sift through the clues, which lead into the dangerous, big business world of pill mills and prescription drug abuse. Meanwhile, an old case from Bosch’s LAPD days comes back to haunt him when a long-imprisoned killer claims Harry framed him, and seems to have new evidence to prove it. Bosch left the LAPD on bad terms, so his former colleagues aren’t keen to protect his reputation. He must fend for himself in clearing his name and keeping a clever killer in prison. The two unrelated cases wind around each other like strands of barbed wire. Along the way Bosch discovers that there are two kinds of truth: the kind that sets you free and the kind that leaves you buried in darkness.

Price on Amazon: $14.99 (regularly $29.00) 

Buy it here

15) A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa

Amazon

From the publisher: Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country. This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian. In this memoir translated from the original Japanese, Ishikawa candidly recounts his tumultuous upbringing and the brutal thirty-six years he spent living under a crushing totalitarian regime, as well as the challenges he faced repatriating to Japan after barely escaping North Korea with his life. A River in Darkness is not only a shocking portrait of life inside the country but a testament to the dignity—and indomitable nature—of the human spirit.

Price on Amazon: $1.99 (regularly $19.95) 

Buy it here

Shop the full list of best-selling Kindle books here

MORE BAZAAR DEALS:

These brand new Harry Potter books are great additions to your collection

10 literary journalism classics that should be on your reading list

The Introvert Activity Book is perfect for those who find solace in alone time

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Source: http://allofbeer.com/here-are-the-best-books-for-your-brand-new-kindle/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/12/30/here-are-the-best-books-for-your-brand-new-kindle/

[allofbeercom]

Here are the best books for your brand new Kindle

If you’ve been gifted a Kindle having something to read right off the bat will be your first order of business. That’s why we’ve assembled a list of the best selling Kindle books of 2017 – for every type of reader. So whether you’re into dystopian novels, memoirs, or poetry, there’s something on this list for you.

Plus if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you get access to the Kindle Lending Library. You can check out a book for free every month, and with new titles added each month you’ll never run out of options to choose from. But for big readers, Kindle Unlimited exists to help feed your hunger for new material. The standalone service costs $9.99 a month and allows you to download most eBooks for free. So go on and get reading! You can thank us later.

1) Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Amazon

From the publisher: The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. Milk and Honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $9.99) 

Buy it here

2) The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Amazon

From the publisher: The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population.

Price on Amazon: $9.99 (regularly $15.95) 

Buy it here

3) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Amazon

From the publisher: Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry’s eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

Price on Amazon: $8.99 (regularly $10.99)

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4) 1984 by George Orwell 

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From the publisher: In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

Price on Amazon: $9.99

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5) The Unremembered Girl: A Novel by Eliza Maxwell

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From the publisher: In the deep woods of East Texas, Henry supports his family by selling bootleg liquor. It’s all he can do to keep his compassionate but ailing mother and his stepfather—a fanatical grassroots minister with a bruising rhetoric—from ruin. But they have no idea they’ve become the obsession of the girl in the woods. Abandoned and nearly feral, Eve has been watching them, seduced by the notion of family—something she’s known only in the most brutal sense. Soon she can’t resist the temptation to get close. Where Henry’s mother sees a poor girl in need, his father sees only wickedness. When Henry forges an unexpected bond with Eve, he believes he might be able to save her. He doesn’t know how wrong he is. Eve is about to take charge of her own destiny—and that of Henry’s family. As both their worlds spin violently out of control, Henry must make an impossible choice: protect the broken woman who’s claimed a piece of his soul, or put everyone he loves at risk in order to do the right thing.

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $14.95) 

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6) I Am Watching You by Teresa Driscoll 

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From the publisher: When Ella Longfield overhears two attractive young men flirting with teenage girls on a train, she thinks nothing of it—until she realises they are fresh out of prison and her maternal instinct is put on high alert. But just as she’s decided to call for help, something stops her. The next day, she wakes up to the news that one of the girls—beautiful, green-eyed Anna Ballard—has disappeared. A year later, Anna is still missing. Ella is wracked with guilt over what she failed to do, and she’s not the only one who can’t forget. Someone is sending her threatening letters—letters that make her fear for her life. Then an anniversary appeal reveals that Anna’s friends and family might have something to hide. Anna’s best friend, Sarah, hasn’t been telling the whole truth about what really happened that night—and her parents have been keeping secrets of their own. Someone knows where Anna is—and they’re not telling. But they are watching Ella.

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $14.95) 

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7) The Letter by Kathryn Hughes 

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From the publisher: Tina Craig longs to escape her violent husband. She works all the hours God sends to save up enough money to leave him, also volunteering in a charity shop to avoid her unhappy home. Whilst going through the pockets of a second-hand suit, she comes across an old letter, the envelope firmly sealed and unfranked. Tina opens the letter and reads it – a decision that will alter the course of her life forever. Billy Stirling knows he has been a fool, but hopes he can put things right. On 4th September 1939 he sits down to write the letter he hopes will change his future. It does – in more ways than he can ever imagine.

Price on Amazon: $1.99 (regularly $13.99) 

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8) Dead Certain: A Novel by Adam Mitzner

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From the publisher: Ella Broden is living a double life. By day, Ella works as a buttoned-up attorney on some of the city’s most grueling cases. By night, she pursues her passion for singing in the darkest clubs of Manhattan. No one knows her secret, not even Charlotte, the younger sister she practically raised. But it seems she’s not the only one in the family with something to hide. When Charlotte announces she’s sold her first novel, Ella couldn’t be more thrilled…until she gets a call that her sister’s gone missing. Ella starts investigating with the help of Detective Gabriel Velasquez, an old flame in the NYPD, and what she finds is shocking. If art imitates life, then her sister’s novel may contain details of her real-life affairs. And any one of her lovers could be involved in her disappearance. Desperate to bring Charlotte home, Ella works through her list of suspects, matching fictitious characters with flesh-and-blood men. But will it be too late to save the sister she only thought she knew?

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $15.95) 

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9) Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook: Eat Like You Give a F*ck by Thug Kitchen

Amazon

From the publisher: Thug Kitchen started their wildly popular web site to inspire people to eat some Goddamn vegetables and adopt a healthier lifestyle. Beloved by Gwyneth Paltrow (“This might be my favorite thing ever”) and named Saveur‘s Best New Food blog of 2013–with half a million Facebook fans and counting–Thug Kitchen wants to show everyone how to take charge of their plates and cook up some real f*cking food. Yeah, plenty of blogs and cookbooks preach about how to eat more kale, why ginger fights inflammation, and how to cook with microgreens and nettles. But they are dull or pretentious as hell–and most people can’t afford the hype. Thug Kitchen lives in the real world. In their first cookbook, they’re throwing down more than 100 vegan recipes for their best-loved meals, snacks, and sides for beginning cooks to home chefs. (Roasted Beer and Lime Cauliflower Tacos? Pumpkin Chili? Grilled Peach Salsa? Believe that sh*t.) Plus they’re going to arm you with all the info and techniques you need to shop on a budget and go and kick a bunch of ass on your own. This book is an invitation to everyone who wants to do better to elevate their kitchen game. No more ketchup and pizza counting as vegetables. No more drive-thru lines. No more avoiding the produce corner of the supermarket. Sh*t is about to get real.

Price on Amazon: $9.99 (regularly $19.50) 

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10) The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

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From the publisher: In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. From Sauron’s fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide. Sauron gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched for the One Ring that would complete his dominion. When Bilbo reached his eleventy-first birthday he disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom. The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam; Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider. This new edition includes the fiftieth-anniversary fully corrected text setting and, for the first time, an extensive new index.

Price on Amazon: $16.99 (regularly $20.00)

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11) Diary of a Wimpy Kid  by Jeff Kinney 

Amazon

From the publisher: It’s a new school year, and Greg Heffley finds himself thrust into middle school, where undersized weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner, and already shaving. The hazards of growing up before you’re ready are uniquely revealed through words and drawings as Greg records them in his diary. In book one of this debut series, Greg is happy to have Rowley, his sidekick, along for the ride. But when Rowley’s star starts to rise, Greg tries to use his best friend’s newfound popularity to his own advantage, kicking off a chain of events that will test their friendship in hilarious fashion.

Price on Amazon: $7.99 (regularly $12.56)

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12) Star Wars: Darth Vader Vol. 1 by Kieron Gillen

Amazon

From the publisher: The original Dark Lord of the Sith stars in his first ongoing series! Ever since Darth Vader’s first on-screen appearance, he has become one of pop-culture’s most popular villains. Now, follow Vader straight from the ending of A NEW HOPE (and the pages of the new STAR WARS comic book) into his own solo adventures — showing the Empire’s war with the Rebel Alliance from the other side! But when a Dark Lord needs help, who can he turn to? As Vader pursues a very personal vengeance against the Rebels and investigates the Emperor’s secret machinations, he clashes with weapons scavenger Aphra and deadly Battle Droids, and returns to Geonosis to build an army. But some very powerful people don’t want him to learn the truths he seeks! Guest-starring Jabba the Hutt, Boba Fett and more!

Price on Amazon: $2.99 (regularly $10.99) 

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13) Coming Clean: A Memoir by Kimberly Rae Miller

Amazon

From the publisher: Kimberly Rae Miller is an immaculately put-together woman with a great career, a loving boyfriend, and a beautifully tidy apartment in Brooklyn. You would never guess that behind the closed doors of her family’s idyllic Long Island house hid teetering stacks of aging newspaper, broken computers, and boxes upon boxes of unused junk festering in every room—the product of her father’s painful and unending struggle with hoarding. In this dazzling memoir, Miller brings to life her experience growing up in a rat-infested home, hiding her father’s shameful secret from friends for years, and the emotional burden that ultimately led to her suicide attempt. In beautiful prose, Miller sheds light on her complicated yet loving relationship with her parents, which has thrived in spite of the odds. Coming Clean is a story about recognizing where you come from and understanding the relationships that define you. It is also a powerful story of recovery and redemption.

Price on Amazon: $5.99 (regularly $13.95) 

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14) Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly 

Amazon

From the publisher: Harry Bosch is back as a volunteer working cold cases for the San Fernando Police Department and is called out to a local drug store where a young pharmacist has been murdered. Bosch and the town’s 3-person detective squad sift through the clues, which lead into the dangerous, big business world of pill mills and prescription drug abuse. Meanwhile, an old case from Bosch’s LAPD days comes back to haunt him when a long-imprisoned killer claims Harry framed him, and seems to have new evidence to prove it. Bosch left the LAPD on bad terms, so his former colleagues aren’t keen to protect his reputation. He must fend for himself in clearing his name and keeping a clever killer in prison. The two unrelated cases wind around each other like strands of barbed wire. Along the way Bosch discovers that there are two kinds of truth: the kind that sets you free and the kind that leaves you buried in darkness.

Price on Amazon: $14.99 (regularly $29.00) 

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15) A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa

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From the publisher: Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country. This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian. In this memoir translated from the original Japanese, Ishikawa candidly recounts his tumultuous upbringing and the brutal thirty-six years he spent living under a crushing totalitarian regime, as well as the challenges he faced repatriating to Japan after barely escaping North Korea with his life. A River in Darkness is not only a shocking portrait of life inside the country but a testament to the dignity—and indomitable nature—of the human spirit.

Price on Amazon: $1.99 (regularly $19.95) 

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from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/here-are-the-best-books-for-your-brand-new-kindle/