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oingo233 · 3 years ago

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The Beast Who Cried Man Ch2 (Beauty & The Beast AU)

Summary: People are dying in the small village of Pivot; your home. Murders are becoming more common than not, and no one can find out why. The danger seems to only grow with each passing day. In a town controlled by fear, your people blame the mystery man who lives in the castle miles into the woods. You’ve all heard the low moans of agony coming from the house and flashes of green and bright lights…you’ve all seen the magic. The villagers call him The Beast. One day, when picking flowers and apples for your family you stumble upon a body. The town gathers in a panic, deciding that the only solution would be human sacrifice to mollify the beast himself. As you were the one to find the bodies, deemed bad luck, you are sent off into the woods to meet this beast…

Regulus Black x reader (reader is neutral)

*Part One*Part Two*Part Three*

Warnings: cussing, mobs, angst, this is like my least fav chapter of the series (I say as if I've already written the rest-)

Authors Note: I know things have been a bit slow burn but I promise it's going to speed up the next couple of chapters and I am really, really excited for what I have planned and on meshing the HP world, and beauty and the beast into this fic. So please enjoy! Feedback and comments are always appreciated. And if I used anything too descriptive of the characters identity, please let me know so I can change it, I want the reader to be as inclusive/neutral as possible.

Word Count: 2.5k

Chapter Two

Kreachers of The Night

It’s funny how time seems to laugh at you and speed up at all the moments you wish it’d stop completely. This was one of those moments.

The towns small jail was cold and moldy, murky drops of water dripping every few minutes from a leak in the ceiling. I couldn't decide whether the tap, tap, tapping of the droplets were keeping me sane or driving me over the edge. But I did know that without any sound at all I’d get lost in the silence.

The jailer was a stout woman, Mauren, always kind and fierce and always at every festival. She had the prettiest voice out of us all. She would take care of me at times where my parents needed the help and she’d bring us bones for broth when my sister or I grew sick. But now… now her voice was trapped in the awkward air between us. She couldn’t even speak to me as she kept her gaze to the single window, the beginning of a beautiful sunset starting to glimmer through.

It was almost time.

“Please,” I begged for the hundredth time, she only screwed her eyes shut and ignored me. “Please don’t let them have me,” I nearly sobbed, “I’m not what they say I am. I’m not bad luck, I’m-” the words died in my throat as she began to hum to herself, there was truly nothing else I could say. So instead I got up and wrapped my hands around the rusted bars of the cell. I shook back and forth like a mad man, rattling the entire building when it actually was hardly causing a creak in the floorboard beneath me. But it felt nice, to let go and go from begging to just being mad.

“This isn’t right!” I yelled. “Stop humming and listen to me!” But it was to no avail, she only began to hum her song louder. But someone did answer me, and the voice was so much worse than the rude hums of Maruen.

“Baby!” rang my mothers voice, half hysterical and half hard as stone. Rage and despair carried on a soundwave. “My baby!” she wailed again. I heard some gruff voices and then some sort of hustle, I knew she was trying to get in, they would not let her.

“(Y/N)! Don’t….dont worry!” called the voice of my sister. Tears pricked my eyes at the sound of my father grunting and then a loud clash. They were fighting the guards. Mauren stopped her humming and when the sounds registered she shot up from her seat and raced to the door.

“Let them in you dogs,” she said, scowling at the young guards who quickly released my father from a headlock, one was sporting an already bruising black eye.

Before they could even get the word “ma’am” out, my entire family spilled inside, nearly knocking over Mauren.

“Get ‘em out of here, Mar,” pleaded my father. She only shook her head causing my mother to join in, a beggar's look in her eye that must run in the family.

“Please. We have a place to go, far from here. Where we’re safe, and…” she gave me an apologetic look, “and the towns safe from (Y/N).” The words felt like a dagger thrown straight through my chest to the moldy wall behind me. I knew she was just saying that...right? The very thought of my parents thinking I was bad luck because of finding Old Man Jono’s body was nearly enough to bring me to my knees.

“You know I can’t do that. If (Y/N) is what they say, then they’re our only real chance at peace.”

“You can’t really believe that.”

“Maybe not...but it’s hope. And ain’t that a bitch,” she said, she turned and walked back to her seat with all our eyes glued to her. She only gave us one last glance, a frown on her lips. “But I’ll give ya some time...sundowns over soon.”

The words struck a somber truth, death is soon. The Beast is waiting. The cell was drowned in silence before my mother stepped so close to the cells she could reach a shaking hand through and grab ahold of my own, her breath turning white in the air.

“Be brave, little one. The gods will reward your courage,” she said, my father scoffed behind her.

“The gods have left us long ago,”

“Pa!” my sister scolded, hurt flashing across her eyes. I only laughed bitterly, her eyes finding mine.

“He’s right, but so is Ma. Courage will serve me more than the gods will.” My dad gave me a smile close to being something proud but ended up being sadder than anything I’ve ever seen. He wordlessly stepped forward and wrapped his big hand over Ma’s and mine. My sister hugged herself just behind us, eyes glued to the floor.

“But…. I’m scared,” she said. Maruen looked up with watery eyes and the whole room shifted into something tragic at the cracking of her voice. I begrudgingly left my parents and moved slightly to the right and reached my arms through the bars awkwardly. My sister looked at me for a long, depressed moment before inching forwards into my arms. I hugged her the best I could.

“You’re allowed to be scared, but have faith too. Faith that I will come back to you,” I whispered to her softly. Her response was a sniffle and a meek word.

“How?”

“Because I am a person with too much to lose to just give up. And I’ll miss your scones too much,” she laughed softly before stepping back and wiping her nose.

“I’ll hold you to that,” she said.

“I’m counting on it,” I replied, a bittersweet smile on my lips as Mar tugged softly on my moms shoulder, the roaring of the townspeople could be heard even through the stone walls of the prison.

“Times up,” she said, tears pricking her eyes. I wanted to feel mad. I wanted to feel the same rage as my parents, but I couldn’t. Not when everyone looks just as afraid and heartbroken as me, maybe not for the same reasons, but we all still felt the same.

There was hardly time for a hello and now there was no time for a goodbye as the Mayor burst through the heavy wooden doors, hair falling into his crazed eyes.

“Grab her,” he spoke lowly, like the warning growl of a predator and like all Alphas have been, he was obeyed. A dozen townsfolk stepped forward, my heart lurched as my father, still limping and bloody, stood before me, my mother next to him and my sister by her, all holding hands forming a wall.

“Please-” my father tried again but his words were cut off as the people I grew up with and adored, grabbed him by the shoulders, arms wrapping around my mother and tugging at my sister. I squeezed my eyes shut as they screamed and cried. I flinched when the steel door to my cell creaked, I tried not to, but I wailed when calloused and large hands gripped my forearms, lifted me off the ground and all I felt was cold air when it should be warm; but even the weather knew this to be a somber event.

When I opened my eyes this time they were filled with rage, rage and sorrow. My eyes met the Mayors and I swear I saw him flinch...good. I growled my words at him, screaming and shouting before I was so far from the prison cell I felt only fear. The forest was in sight.

“Let me go!” I cried, mourning for my life. “I didn’t do it!” I screamed, mourning for Jono and his wife. “Please,” I whispered, muttering the words like a prayer. “Please. Please, please,” I considered actually praying, but I didn’t want to send my prayers to a god that would let all this happen. All the death, all the sin and misunderstanding. All the tragedy that was always just tragedy and never meant to be more, never meant to become my life.

My voice ceased to work after a mile, we marched in silence towards the castle in the forest. Leaves crunching in haunting harmony beneath their farm boots. The irony of their apparel did not slip from me. Farmers and shop owners all dressed for their day of work, not for a journey through the ��haunted woods” to sacrifice one of their own. I could still hear my family's screams carried on the wind, howling as if the source came from the throat of a beast.

I laid limp in their grip, exhausted and hopeless before my mothers words came back to me. Have courage, she said, I thought of her crying and wish I told her to have some too. That we would meet again, in this life or the next.

On a crack of lighting The Beast’s castle was unveiled by the white light only to disappear in the shadows of night again. Teasing and terrifying, the people let me down. The mayor, leading the pack, turned his back to the castle to face us. I glared at him with all I had left in me.

“You have ventured all this way, putting your fear and grief aside to make room for hope and peace. Peace,” he laughed softly, “what an odd word to remember exists in a time like this. But it does, and it can be forgotten no longer when it is peace that is so close to us now after all this time. When we find peace, know that it is because of all of you, and our sacrifice, our hardship. So I thank you, for bringing Pivot that much closer to moving on, to normalcy. You are all heroes of this town,” the mayor said, his voice level but his chest was heaving, he was afraid to be so close to the castle, it made me want to scream. The crowd cheered and shook me as they cried, half relief and half sorrow.

He turned his back to us now, another flash of lighting and I saw the Mayors face, distorned and dark as he gazed up at the castle, neck craned and wind blowing his hair. He raised his arms slowly and shook them as he yelled, the volume of his voice making us all flinch backwards, some even running. The Beast was sure to know our arrival now.

“We have brought you a sacrifice!” he shouted, “they are your chosen one, stumbling upon the wake of your demons! They are yours to do as you please on the condition that the murders will stop! We have brought you one last prey but that is all you can take from us again!” his face was red by the time he finished.

Thunder boomed as we waited with our breaths held and legs weak, the castle was taller than I thought any building could be. The walls covered in moss and crumbled, windows broken or sheeted in dust. It looked like death and torture. It looked like hell.

The mob screamed and gasped as a green flicker shone through one of the dusty windows. I felt tense arms shove me forwards, the Mayor caught me before I fell and with an unhuman growl he walked me towards the front door. I struggled to stay upright at the speed of which he was taking me, we stumbled up the steps and he slammed me against the door.

“Tell him our gratitude, the cursed do not belong with us as much as they do with him,” he sneered, his arm raised and I swore he was going to hit me, I closed my eyes but the pain never came. Instead, I heard the loud banging of wood as he knocked on the door, and then the cold chill of metal across my wrist. His smile grew curled and twisted as I looked down.

“You bastard!” I cried, hitting him in the chest with one arm, my other chained to the door handle of the castle. The Mayor has chained me to the gates of hell where demons were sure to find me. I planned on hitting him all night, until my arm grew tired and he grew sorry and let me go. But he left as soon as we came.

The others had left in a hurry the second I was pushed away, the last thing I saw was the Mayor flushed in light as lightning struck a tree in the forest, his face looked corrupted, changed with evil as he glanced at me through the woods before disappearing inside them. All was silent and still beside the thunder, the crackling of a forest fire starting to burn and the heaving of my lungs as I cried.

I wasn't left in silence for long. I held my hand to my mouth when I could hear the sound of footsteps, shallow and clicking on the castle floor. I did pray then, I prayed that if I stayed quite enough The Beast would never find me, or that the town would come back and hold me until I forgave them. But I would never forgive them for what they’ve done to me, and as the footsteps got louder I knew my prayers would not be answered.

The door slid open slowly, each inch forcing me to stumble inside the castle as I cried out, my wrist twisting painfully against the door. But my cry fell silent at the sight before me.

“Ach!” the voice was as dark and dusty as the rest of the castle. I wondered for a moment if it was a man? If it was even human at all? Staring up at me with large and beady eyes, wrinkled over and harsh, was a creature less than half my size, a candle held between his long, pale fingers. He stared at me with a deep frown, he looked ancient but oddest of all was his ears, long and pointed and drooping down his long face, rivaling the size of his pointed nose.

Something caught between a growl and a rumble left him as he finally went to speak. “What brings you to the nobel and most ancient house of Black?” said the thing, he was insulting in the way he spoke, but perhaps most shocking was the sadness hidden in the words.

“I-” he cut me off with a sigh as his eyes landed on my wrist.

“Who dares vandalize the nobel house of Black,” he hissed, the venom in his eyes nearly knocking me off my feet.

“I didn’t-” I was cut off once again from another voice, soft and low like a somber song.

“Let them in,” said the voice, I could tell it was a man but as I tried to see inside the castle there was no one there, only shadows and endless hallways. The voice was calming in a way where I didn’t flinch at the leathery and cold feeling of the beast helping my hand out of the chains. My heart was no longer racing but perhaps that was the most dangerous thing about certain predators, they never let you know when you’re in danger.

“My name is (Y/N),” I said. I wanted to kick myself for the shaking in my voice. The little beast and wonder before me grimaces as he bowed,

“Kreacher,” he said, “loyal house elf to Sir Regulus Black.”

Taglist:

@pmissuluger @sognatrice-as-a-hobby @kopheliablack @enchantedblackrose

#regulus black imagine #regulus black x reader #regulus black fanfiction #regulus black fic #regulus x reader #the marauders fanfiction #marauders era fic

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aethelflaedladyofmercia · 4 years ago

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Twelve Months - Good Omens fanfic

Happy 31st Anniversary of Good Omens! :D

To celebrate this momentous occasion, I have posted a slightly-sad, slightly-sweet Wake the Snake fic on AO3, because our demon has been napping for a whole Twelve Months, and sometimes Angel gets a little lonely!

Thank you all for another fantastic year in this fandom!

Twelve months.

Aziraphale pushed open the door to Crowley’s flat, a simple shopping bag tucked under his arm.

The lights were still off, the curtains drawn in the awful empty room he called a study. Nothing had changed.

He passed through the enormous, rotating section of wall and into the solarium. This was still bright—many of the plants flourishing despite being unattended so long, despite clearly not having enough water. A few had started flowering. They waved their branches at him as he entered, perking up eagerly.

The angel waved back, but first he peeked into Crowley’s bedroom.

He was still where Aziraphale had left him, on his last visit a month before. Bright red hair spilled across black pillows, grown into a stringy mop. Duvet pulled up to his messily-bearded chin. One hand curled up beside him on the bed.

Still asleep.

With a sigh, Aziraphale crossed over to the plants, who greeted him excitedly, unfurling their newest leaves, a few vines hanging down to brush his face.

“Hello, my lovelies. How are you all doing? Look at you, grown at least a foot since I saw you, I’m sure. And you! What beautiful pink buds. Very impressive.”

He didn’t think Crowley would approve of how he spoke to the plants, but the poor things had been so distraught on his first visit, straining to keep upright, trying to hide their yellowing leaves. So much healthier now, much happier for just a bit of attention. He picked up the watering can and gave them all a quick splash. He didn’t know how much water each needed, but it didn’t seem to matter.

“You keep it up, dears. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Picking up his shopping bag again, Aziraphale headed down the hall to the kitchen. The kettle sat on the island where he’d left it, and he quickly refilled it and set it to boil. While he waited, he pulled his latest creations from the bag: a small pumpkin spice cake from a recipe he’d been perfecting since fall, a lemon coconut cake, and a few apple cinnamon muffins.

Two plates—a muffin for each, a slice of the coconut cake for himself and the pumpkin spice for Crowley.[1] The rest went into the refrigerator, where they would never go bad or stale.

Aziraphale put the plates onto a tray, along with forks and napkins. Next he found two mugs and pulled the little tin of his second-favorite tea out of the bag just as the kettle boiled.

For himself, a teaspoon of the expertly blended leaves, steeped for exactly three minutes, resulting in a pale brown tea with a slightly spicy aroma. For Crowley, he dropped a tea bag into boiling water and let it sit until it was almost black.[2]

He carried the tray back to the solarium and selected a bright red-and-gold tulip that was nearly vibrating in its eagerness to be noticed. A moment to assure the other plants that they were still doing fabulously—particularly a self-conscious little succulent that had rather drooped over the winter but was making a fine recovery—and he once more headed into Crowley’s bedroom.

Crowley had rolled over, and now sprawled on his back, sleeping soundly. He’d apparently kicked a bit, too, as the blanket had slid down past his stomach. Aziraphale smiled as he set the tray on the chair he’d brought in some months ago and got to work.

“It’s wonderful to see you again, dear,” he started cheerfully, carefully rearranging the objects on the little bedside table. “I have a few things for you again, I hope you don’t mind.” Just enough space to slide the mug and the little plate. Perfect.

“I received a package from Tadfield again. Everyone wrote a note and then gathered them all together, really quite clever. They’re all doing well, if a bit bored.” The table was nearly overflowing with little items now, brought in by Aziraphale to cheer the place up. Framed pictures of their human friends, quarantining with their families, clustered in one corner so tightly you could hardly see them anymore.

He pulled the latest out of the shopping bag. “Anathema has started a garden,” he explained, pausing to show the photograph to Crowley’s sleeping form. It showed the witch, kneeling outside her little cottage, working on growing several rows of herbs. “I got the impression she was off to a rough start, but she hopes to send us some mint in the next package. Although Newt warned me not to expect too much, as they’d already forgotten which patch is mint and which is oregano.” He set the picture with the others, and slid the potted tulip alongside it. “I’m sure she could use some advice from you, when you’re ready to share.”

“Nnnnh.” Aziraphale spun eagerly, but no, just Crowley shifting in his sleep again, rolling onto his side.

The angel paused to pull the duvet back up to Crowley’s chin, tugging it straight and smoothing a hand down his back. In a way, his friend was nearly unrecognizable, with that hair and ridiculous beard, but in another way looked the same as ever. That was always Crowley’s way, of course, constantly changing yet somehow always the same.

He lingered, taking in the shape of that face, leaning close, lips hovering above his cheekbone—

Aziraphale pulled back, quickly digging into his bag again. “Oh! Ah, the, um, the children have been making projects for their art class. This past month was sculpture, and they sent us some. Look!” He pulled out four little figures of oven-baked clay. “Ah, young Wensleydale has made a very clever model of a train car. Brian’s is…abstract.” He turned the next a few different ways. “And Pepper’s is, ah, either a very complex symbolic representation of the Patriarchy, or…a troll, I think.” They just fit on the edge of the table, all in a line, a very mismatched tableau. The fourth, on the end, was the best, in Aziraphale’s opinion. “Adam made a little Dog, and it’s very well done, don’t you think?” The canine figure posed with one leg raised and head cocked, ready to play, but the shadow it cast was just a little too large, too ominous, for such a small creature.

With a sigh, Aziraphale shifted the row this way and that. “I sent a letter to Warlock, over in America, but haven’t heard back since Christmas. I believe they’re very busy with something. Politics. You know how it is.” When the Dowlings had left England, they’d planned to return for a visit the following summer. A global pandemic had had other ideas.

“In any case, that just leaves Tracy and Shadwell. I understand he’s decided to hate the concept of literacy this month, so no word on how his war with the squirrels is going. And Tracy has declared she will spend the summer making a fairy garden. I thought her sketches looked very promising, and she promised to send us an update in June. I’m sure you’ll find it charming.”

“Hrrrrm.” Crowley sank under the duvet, nestling down a little deeper. Aziraphale smiled, settling into the chair with his plate and mug.

“Things are loosening up again,” he explained, taking a bite of cake. Delicious, if he said so himself. Sharp and not too sweet. “People are getting vaccinated, shops opening up. It’s really a lovely breath of fresh air, at least when you’re not wearing a mask.” A long sip from his mug, then he held it, fingers tapping. “It’s been nice walking through the park again, just in time for the baby ducks. And that record shop at the corner, they’ve had some wonderful new additions. Which reminds me.”

Putting aside his mug, Aziraphale dug through the bag again and pulled out a handful of square plastic cases. “They had a whole shipment of those little records the Bentley likes. Modern music. I picked out the ones with the rudest names. I’m sure you’ll enjoy them.” He pulled out the first disc and placed it atop Crowley’s phone. The device blinked in confusion a few times, then obediently copied all the music.

“Of course, it’s not all good news.” He stacked the rest of the discs atop the phone and returned to his tea. “Reopening means the customers are coming back. Yesterday, this one individual spent almost an hour browsing the same three shelves. And then he tried to make off with one of my books.” Another long sip. “Granted, he offered to pay, but still. What sort of establishment does he think I’m running?”

Aziraphale paused, waiting for Crowley to respond, not that he ever did. The demon’s eyelids moved a little, but no more.

Sighing, Aziraphale turned to his muffin. “You know, many times in the last year, I’ve wished you were there. Particularly during reopening phases. You could have posed as a customer, and then I’d be able to tell people I was at the capacity limit. Oh, and the people who would call to try and buy my rarest books. Collectors, or so they claimed, but then they just turn around and sell to anyone for twice the price! I’m sure you’d have some biting things to say about such people.” He smiled at Crowley’s sleeping face. “I’ve missed that, and your jokes. Rather more than I expected to.”

When his plate and tea were finished, Aziraphale set them on the floor and reached again into the bag. “Now, I have been attempting to teach my computer how to use the internet. I think it’s going quite well. Adam and his friends gave me a ‘homework assignment’ to find articles on recent news events, and I made the most wonderful discovery. Did you know that humans now share their news through humorous pictures? I printed out my favorites to show you.”[3]

He flicked through a few. “Ah, to start with, a few months ago there was this American politician with amusing mittens who showed up everywhere for a few days. It was extremely droll.” He leaned closer, holding them up for Crowley to see. “Ah, a few more from America. The murder hornets arrived, though by that point everyone had forgotten them. The election became increasingly confusing, and it all ended in a parking lot. For a little while everything was ‘This-or-That Total Landscaping,’ and before that everything was cake.” He showed a few extremely clever illusions. “I did try to make my own, but couldn’t manage it without miracles, which I felt was cheating.”

Really, leaning like this was starting to strain his back. Aziraphale shifted to sit on the edge of the bed, the better to share his pictures. “Ahhh. Also for a time everyone’s calendars were stuck on ‘March.’ And then earlier this year, a group of people learned how the stock market works, but sadly not how to spell it. The whole situation seemed very much like the sort of thing you’d be involved in. And…Oh, this angel from a television show was sent to Hell for…reasons.” He glanced at the shape beside him. Crowley had curled in slightly, pressing against Aziraphale’s back. “Yes. Various reasons. And then this musician, I suppose, went on his own. Both had many people extraordinarily upset.”

The next few images would really tickle Crowley, if he could actually see them. “The biggest news is that a large ship got stuck sideways in that canal in Egypt. Stopped half the world’s shipping for a few days while they dug it out! I’m sure you would have liked that very much. Exactly your sort of trouble. The humans were all very excited.”

The final photo was another of the ship, an image Aziraphale had made himself, printing out a blank version and writing on it in felt-tip pen. The hull of the enormous ship was labeled, “An eternity putting up with the tedious bureaucracy and frequently conflicting commands of my superiors until I begin to doubt my own judgement and sanity,”[4] while the small digger working steadily beside it was “Crowley.”

Aziraphale watched the demon beside him, not really expecting a reaction, certainly not getting one. He reached over, brushing brilliant hair back from Crowley’s forehead. “I think you’d have had rather a lot of fun last year. Or perhaps you’d have been upset you could only watch from a distance. Or…”

He’d leaned much closer than he’d intended, hovering just above Crowley’s forehead.

“Well!” Aziraphale stumbled to his feet. “I suppose that’s just about everything.” He picked up the tray from where he’d rested it on the floor, starting to re-load it with everything he’d brought in. Crowley’s cake and tea sat untouched, as always, but Aziraphale wouldn’t dream of skipping them. “We’re all very optimistic for the summer. Two months and everything should be just…just tickety-boo. Perhaps we can go for that picnic soon, if…yes…”

They’d made such plans for 2020. All the things they would do now they were free. Plans, and other thoughts carried in their minds, possibilities that would play out in their own time. Not too fast, just a slow, steady exploration of everything they could be…

“Well. Pleasant as that idea is, best not to—to plan too much, as the previous year made fools of us all. I just…” He turned away from the tray and watched Crowley sleep, hands clasped before him. “I miss you terribly. And I wish…very much…”

He picked up his shopping bag. One item still inside. The same one he’d been carrying for months, trying to find the courage to bring it out.

With a shaking hand, he reached in and drew forth a soft hand-made doll. He’d spent much of the winter on it. Simple white cotton for the head and body, wooly curls for the hair, and stiff white lace for the wings. Dressed in waistcoat and bowtie made from Aziraphale’s favorite tartan.

He still wasn’t sure why he brought it. He’d stitched several little toys, particularly a lovely black-and-red serpent with gold button eyes that had watched him from the sofa since November. But this, for reasons he couldn’t articulate, this one was for Crowley.

“I, ah…” He shuffled closer, doll clutched in both hands. “I made, um…” Back to the edge of the bed, one hand fumbling across the duvet. “…thought you might like…”

Crowley’s face stood out in stark contrast to the pillow, pale skin and bright hair. Aziraphale wanted to drink it in, memorize every detail, to hold him over until next month. The curve of his nose, the sharp angle of his cheekbones. His lashes flickering as his eyes moved. His lips, pursed ever so slightly…

“Bless it, Angel, are you going to kiss me or not?”

Aziraphale gasped, pulling back from the bright gaze of slit-pupil eyes. “You—you’re awake!”

“Nnnh. Half.” Crowley shifted, head moving across the pillow, eyes threatening to shut again. “Wouldn’t miss your visit.” One hand reached out, plucked the doll from Aziraphale’s unresisting fingers. “For me?”

The angel nodded. “If…if…you like it…or I could—I could just…”

Without a word, Crowley pulled the doll under the duvet and curled up, tucking it under his chin, a faint smile on his lips.

“If you were awake you—you should have said something! I’ve been going—going off like a fool all this—oh!” Aziraphale could feel his face turning hot as he recalled a few times his tongue had been a bit too loose for propriety.

“Mmmmmh.” The golden eyes were shut again.

“Crowley?” No response. “Crowley!” Aziraphale scowled. “Anthony J. Crowley, if you’ve fallen asleep again, I swear, I’ll—”

He’d do what? The angel fumed, but what could he really threaten? To stay away? Never.

“Alright then, I suppose I’ll see you in June. I’ve had several new requests for extremely rare manuscripts and I need to go pen some responses reprimanding these vultures for their cheek. I can—”

“You can stay.”

He spun around. Crowley had one eye barely cracked open. Gently, he pulled back the duvet, showing there was just enough space for Aziraphale beside him.

“I…I couldn’t.” But he stepped forward, not back. “I have business tomorrow, things to—”

“Just tonight then.”

His fingers brushed the mattress and pulled back as if burned. “You—you don’t really mean this, you’re just talking in your sleep.”

“Nah.” Crowley settled the doll by his pillow, making space. “Why else would I give you my key?”

“I…to…water the plants?”

“They take care of themselves.” Crowley held open his arms, eyes shut once more. “I missed you, too.”

Well. What could he say to that?

Aziraphale took off his shoes and slid into bed, into Crowley's arms. They wrapped around him gently as Crowley wriggled closer. “Mmmm. Y’r softer than the doll.”

“Oh.” He’d been called soft many times, generally as a way to imply he was a failure as an angel. But just this once, it made him feel rather pleased. “Soft is good?”

“Verrrry good.” Crowley twisted a bit, trying to find a comfortable way to rest his long limbs, and finally settled curled up against Aziraphale’s chest, tucked below the angel’s chin with a leg hooked over his knees.

The angel smiled. “And you’re…you’re noodlier than a stuffed snake. Err…”

A chuckle, just a stirring of breath across his throat. “Can’t wait to hear the story behind that.” Crowley nuzzled against his shoulder with a sigh. “Good night, Angel.”

Aziraphale swept the brilliant hair back again and bent down, pressing his lips to Crowley’s forehead. A soft, gentle kiss that made his friend smile a little more broadly. “Good night, my dear.”

Crowley drifted off again, burrowing close, as the angel continued to gently tease the back of his hair. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps tomorrow's work wasn't so very urgent. Perhaps a bit of rest would do him good. And perhaps...

Well. Don't plan too much. But for the first time, Aziraphale felt a bit of optimism about the coming summer and its possibilities.

“Sleep well, Crowley.”

[1] Crowley had invented pumpkin spice, and Aziraphale assumed he must like it. In truth, Crowley despised it, and regretted every autumn how it took over the entire world. He missed apple cider season. [2] Aziraphale had suspected since the early 1950s that Crowley secretly took his tea with several lumps of sugar, but would continue to pretend he didn’t know until Crowley confessed. Considering current circumstances, that was unlikely to be any time soon. [3] Aziraphale’s fax machine, revived after over three decades of disuse, had been somewhat confused to be asked to perform any task at all, much less to print memes onto photo paper with perfectly balanced color; but like the plants and Crowley’s phone, it couldn’t stand to disappoint the angel. [4] It was possible he hadn’t quite mastered this new form of communication.

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thatsarcasticgemini · 4 years ago

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Mom and Dad

Arvin Russell x reader (single parent AU)

Word count: 1385 words

Estimated reading time: 5-6 minutes

Genre: Fluff

Warnings: none

Moving to Cincinnati seemed like a bad idea. It was way too close to the place where Arvin killed those people. They deserved it, but no cop would buy that excuse. But the boy was tired. So tired. Too tired to keep looking for a car. Cincinnati could do, at least for a while. He wanted to keep a low profile, so he stayed in the outskirts of the city. He found a nice couple, who allowed him to stay with them for some time. He was thankful. When he had enough cash saved, he moved in his own little house. The house wasn’t big or fancy, but he could make it homey. His life was looking better. After a few months, his life was flipped upside down, when he fell in love.

Y/N Y/L/N was a waitress in a diner near his house. He ate there a lot, since the prices were decent and the food was good. She was a beautiful girl with a beautiful heart. She seemed around his age. He asked her and yes. She was 17, just like him. He looked for reasons to go there more often, for subjects to talk about. She was a little distant at first, but talked to him nevertheless. Arvin asked her out, but she panicked a little. She looked pale and excused herself. She later apologized. They went on a couple dates. On their fifth, Y/n told Arvin the reason why she was reluctant about dating him: she had a 5 month old baby boy at home. Arvin looked at her in shock. She was 17 and she had a baby? He asked her about the father, whether she was married or not. Through the tears falling from her eyes she explained. She had a boyfriend who forced her into sleeping with him. He was rough, he shamed her and called her names. He made her first time a total nightmare. When she went and told him about the baby, he broke up with her and spread some rumors about her getting pregnant by the janitor. She went to her parents for help, but they kicked her out. Now she was working to support her little baby and to move out of the shelter and into an apartment. Arvin pulled her to him and kissed her head. Lenora. Lenora would have gone through something very similar. He asked her to meet the baby.

The shelter she lived in was packed with some scary looking people. When they got to her room, he saw a little bundle of blankets on the bed. Y/N went to pick it up and hand it to him. He looked at the little baby in his arms and he fell in love again. He had little brown eyes and a small button nose. Y/N went behind him and hugged his waist. The boy’s name was Patrick and he had the brightest little smile. He fell in love with the boy as quickly as he had fallen in love with his mom. He turned to her and placed the baby in her arms, hugging both of them. He never thought that he’d fall in love, especially not with a woman who had a child, but there he was. He knew he’d have to tell her about the murders, but he somehow knew she’d still love him.

But all that was three year ago. Here he was in the present moment, a 20 year old man, who stepped up and became the rock of a woman and a boy. He was coming back from work when he recalled the past events. He was minutes away from home and he couldn’t wait to get to Y/N and Patrick, his son. He took his left hand off the steering wheel and placed it into the pocket of his jean jacket. He fiddled a little with the ring. He knew he wanted to marry her from the moment he saw her kind eyes, but he waited. Like always, he waited for the right moment. This was his right moment. He looked up and took a second to think about Lenora, his grandmother and his mother. All three of them would have loved Y/N. Even when he told her, between tears, that he killed, she still stood by his side. She hugged him and calmed him down. She was the one. Arvin knew it for sure.

As he pulled in the driveway of their little house, he saw Patrick in the grass playing with, Jack, the family Labrador. The toddler looked up and stood up, running to his dad as fast as his chubby legs could carry him, yelling “daddy, daddy” over and over again. Arvin set the bag of groceries down and turning to the boy, just in time to catch him. The small child was giggling like crazy, happy to be reunited with his dad after a whole day of being away from each other. Jack ran to them as well, jumping and running circles around the pair. Arvin used his left hand to give the dog an affectionate head pat. He then went picked the bag up and went inside. He sat the little boy on the floor, going to the kitchen to see his loved one. There she was, hair in a messy ponytale, a dirty apron covering her front, and eyes focused on some apple pie. He sat the groceries on the table, hugging her from behind. She leaned her head against his shoulder. He raised his hands from her waist to the knott tying the apron, untying it. The flower material fell to the floor, as his hands undid her ponytail as well. She turned to face him, but found him on one knee, with his hands presenting a ring.

“Marry me?” he asked, his voice deep and his eyes teary.

Y/N teared up, as she nodded her head, squealing, jumping in his arms, knocking him on the cold tiles. Jack and Patrick made their way to the kitchen, both wondering what the source of the sounds was. Patrick saw his parents kissing and hugging on the floor, as he made his way to them, wanting to get some affection as well. Arvin welcomed him in their embrace, knowing that this was the happiest he had been in years. Everything was beautiful.

That evening was filled with giggles and affectionate hugs, kisses and cuddles. Arvin explained a few things to Patrick. Telling the boy about weddings, cakes, love, dresses, suits, churches, God, unions between lovers, happiness and everything related to a wedding. Arvin and Y/N promised to each other that they would never tell Patrick about his biological dad. For all they cared, Arvin was Patrick’s real dad. He raised him, loved him, helped him learn how to walk and talk, patched his scrapes up, placed ice on his bruises, dried his tears, calmed him down, tucked him in bed every night, loved his mom and held both of them close. All three of them, four if we count Jack, sat on the couch, in a comfortable silence. Y/N was over the moon, already planning her dress and vows. She loved Arvin and Patrick more than anything. They were her whole life. Her world revolved around them. Patrick didn’t get much, his little brain still processing that there was a higher power named God. He never knew there was someone more powerful than his dad. Everything was new, but as he sat in his mom’s lap, with his daddy’s arm around his middle he felt the happiness radiating from his parents. He himself was happy to see that his mama’s happiness was preventing her from seeing that he had stolen all the chocolate in the cabinet earlier in the day.

And as they sat there, holding each other close, Arvin realized that the woman he was holding and the boy in her arms were his everything. If God himself got down from heaven, came in his garden, took everything he had away and asked him to chose one thing he could keep, he would say “my family” without any hesitation. He had his whole life in his arms and he wasn’t planning on letting it go. And in that moment, Arvin Russell prayed for more days like that one. More days of happiness with is soon-to-be-wife and his amazing son.

Hello, Erica here 👋! I wanted to say that this is my first Arvin Russell piece, but I plan on writing more. Feedback is always welcome. This Arvin Russell + Single Parent AU idea came to me after I stumbled across @asonofpeter and this challange . I am beyond proud to take part in this. Have a good day people!

#arvin russell #arvin russell x reader #dad arvin russell x mom reader #dad arvin russell #tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland imagine #tom holland x you

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crimecafe · 4 years ago

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horror to my ears..

the numerous ways we consume true crime has evolved overtime allowing us more access to some of the worst and horrifying stories we'll ever see and hear. with TV news, newspapers, radio, and word of mouth being the traditional ways of staying informed, the evolution of technology has opened so many doors. in walks PODCAST! oh podcast, my sweet sweet podcast, what would i do without you? especially on long work days. true crime podcast have become one of the most popular ways crime junkies around the world keeps up with it all and it's a lot, right? if you're like me you listen to more podcast than you have fingers. if you do, i love you, let's be friends. so please enjoy this list of my TOP 6 favorite true crime podcast!

1. SCAM GODDESS

Hello CONgregation! If you love crime without all the murder and gory shit then comedian Laci Mosley’s podcast about the real world of scamming is for you. A lover of scams, and a self proclaimed scammer herself, she goes in depth about the true stories of the worlds most famous scammers, even sharing stories sent into her about scams just us regular folk are doing. Scamming, robbery, & fraud but no murder. This podcast is great if you need a break from the typical crime podcast and just want to laugh. I mean how many times can a person listen to people getting decapitated before they go crazy? None but still a break is needed. Listen on apple podcast, Spotify, stitcher, & earwolf: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scam-goddess/id1479455008

2. CRIME JUNKIE

Honestly do I even need to say anything? The staple of true crime podcast, Ashley Flowers & Brit Prawat have been podcasting since 2017 becoming one of the most popular true crime podcasters to date. They’re both passionate & dedicated to telling the stories of these victims who have had their lives & voices stolen from them. It’s honestly heartwarming & I adore them. Started originally to spread the world about Indiana Crime Stoppers the podcast became bigger than life. Also, DOGS! Listen on apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crime-junkie/id1322200189

3.THAT’S MESSED UP: A SVU PODCAST

Dun dun! You don’t have to be a fan of true crime to love Law & Order: SVU (the best & most iconic in the L&O universe). “Each week, comedians & amateur detectives Liza Treyger & Kara Klenk break down episodes of Law & Order: SVU, deep dive into the true crime they’re based on, and interview on-screen talent, ranging from big stars to joggers who find the body”. They even got to interview SVU’s own Diane Neal aka Casey Novak! They’re so close to getting Mariska I can feel it in my bones. TV entertainment plus true crime, what more do you need? Listen on Apple Podcast, Spotify, & Stitcher: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thats-messed-up-an-svu-podcast/id1540370040

4. THE MURDER SQUAD

The only men I’ll trust. Welcome retired Contra Costa County cold case investigator Paul Holes and investigative journalist Billy Jensen. They’ve been there, done that, and seen’t it all. Paul accidentally had serial killer pee splashed in his mouth.....yeah. A strong voice (literally Paul’s voice) in the true crime community these two men have literally dedicated their lives to true crime. Even in retirement Paul still works on cold cases and helps when called upon. TMS actively partakes in providing assistance & funds to cold cases even calling upon listeners to provide information about cases if they can. They’ve even helped cracked some cases. Truly one of the best true crime podcast around. Listen on Apple Podcast, Spotify, & Stitcher: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jensen-and-holes-the-murder-squad/id1455668750

5. MY FAVORITE MURDER

C’mon now! It’s Karen Kilgariff & Georgia Hardstark, the true crime dynamic duo. Podcasting since 2016 ‘My Favorite Murder’ is a must listen for any real true crime addict. Comedians by day & night, the back & forth banter between Karen & Georgia make me feel like I’m listening to my friends talk & have fun. Hanging out with your friends talking about true crime? Sounds like a fun Saturday night to me. The fun & comedic, occasionally dark ways, they relay these stories is light & easy to take in without being too overwhelmed by even some of the most gruesome cases. Listen on apple podcast, Spotify, stitcher, & PlayerFM: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-favorite-murder-karen-kilgariff-georgia-hardstark/id1074507850

6. CRIME WEEKLY

Helloooo everybody & welcome. True crime YouTuber Stephanie Harlowe & retired police detective and private investigator Derrick Levasseur are a dream team. If you’re a fan of Stephanie, and I hope you are, then being able to not only watch her weekly but also listen to her weekly is pure ecstasy. If you’re like me then you love a good long true crime podcast episode. The deep depths these two go into cases is so precise & nothing gets left out. With Derrick being ex-law enforcement, his view points on these horrendous crimes are some of the best insights around. With multiple part episodes you are going to get so much info you’re going to find yourself doing research (as I did when the covered the murder of Faith Hedgepeth). They recently have started a YouTube channel! Listen on apple podcast, Spotify, iHeart radio, & google podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crime-weekly/id1540621732

Please listen & enjoy!

Stay safe,

Chris 💋🔪

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shadow--writer · 3 years ago

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If You Knew my Story Word for Word, Had all of my History, Would You go Along with Someone Like Me?

2 dumbasses in love. That’s it. That’s my a/n (song over here)

Maeve x Lucas. Because I love you. 4.8k

CW: mentions of past abuse (Lucas and Maeve - gaslighting),

@dela-png

She never really liked warm blustery days.

Cursing, she held her basket close, hoping the eggs didn’t crack. Lucas was trying to make an apple apricot pie, both for her and to win the affections of Tehi. After the even worse great flour incident of a few days ago, he was determined to get her to like him.

She ran through the grocery list in her head. Lucas had been in the middle of making the crust when they realized that he had run out of eggs, milk, and the fruit needed. You know, the major part of a fruit pie.

She sighed, massaging her temples as the wind made her stumble. Malory couldn’t call the guards today, she caught the middle of their rotation. The market in the South End was...interesting, to say the least. There was more theft due to poverty, so Lucio’s bright idea was to tighten security in the area instead of helping the people starving.

Nadia just hadn’t...gotten around to them yet.

The system was...fucked, putting it lightly. After the shitshow that was Lucio’s reign, there was much to fix up and work on.

Her being chased out of the market every other day due to false theft accusations being one of them. After the disaster that was Doctor 069’s trial, she didn’t have much trust in the legal system. Knowing her luck she’d be executed by the Praetor over theft. The old arena was already stained enough, she didn’t know why they couldn’t tear the eyesore down.

She rubbed her arms, looking through the dairy products for sale. Being a...pet of the Quaestor gave her rights to go into the coliseum to see those under. Blinking, she waved thoughts of bloodied people and plague eyes.

She didn’t want to go back there, see the hurt on those peoples faces. She was punished for helping them, so eventually she just...stopped.

The Quaestor was a...fascinating thing. She wondered how they could sleep at night for what they did. All and all they felt...otherworldly.

She groaned softly, placing a few coin in the palm of the farmer. Crimson cows always had the best milk, but they were banned from the city. She hid the jug under the eggs and flowers she bought for Lucas. Crimson cows were much bigger than the regular cow, milk and meat always bloodied red. It baked well though, making everything richer so it was worth the illicit dealings.

“Good afternoon, thief.” She stiffened at the voice, trying to fight her annoyance. Please, not today. “Come to steal my stocks again?”

“I didn’t steal and you know it.” Damn she fell for the trap, again. Her pride smarted at each theft comment. Eventually people would believe it, and then where would it leave her? She could barely keep herself afloat without even having to pay rent.

“Now, the guards certainly don’t know that, do they?”

“Oh fuck off. They aren’t here to protect you today.”

“Mmm, so you're going to steal from me again, aren’t you?”

She breathed in sharply. “I am going to buy some fruit, upfront, and then I am going to leave.”

“For that little bat of yours?”

She scowled. “She was just hungry, and I paid after.”

“Stealing is stealing.” “It wasn’t stealing if I bought it. Just...let me get my ingredients for a pie and I’ll leave.”

“Baking a pie? The last one wasn’t bad enough?” She flushed at the thought. She wasted a lot of good fruit that day, her fingertips stained purple for a week. “Come to waste my hard earned spoils?”

She slammed her basket on his counter with a sour look. “I’ll have you know Lucas is baking it this time. And it’ll be fine.”

Malory paled at the mention of Lucas’ name. “H-He’s not with you, is he?”

…was that a stutter?

“Why do you ask? You’re not scared are you?” she teased, picking through the apples.

“Anyone with good sense is scared of the beast.”

She lifted an eyebrow, placing enough for the fruit by his hand. She started placing apples in the basket, keeping them away from the bluebells. Her hair was falling out of her handkerchief, again. The front of her dress was splattered with flour, and she did look like she was helping.

Reality was that she was trying to keep Jolie from sleeping in the flour.

And failing, miserably.

“Oh yes, because he is so scary,” she said with an eye roll, thinking of him sulking over Tehi.

Malory’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t mock me. Just because he has been...subdued, for now, does not mean he isn’t dangerous.”

“Lucas? Dangerous? The only danger he poses is to himself.” Clumsy oaf ran face first into her bookshelf and almost knocked himself out.

Twice.

Granted, she did have a lot of bookshelves.

“An ex gladiator is just that, a gladiator.” Malory shuddered. “I heard he beat a man within an inch of his life before Lucio stopped the fight. He’s a ticking time bomb.”

She paused, blood roaring in her ears. “Glad...iator?” she asked softly, setting an apricot down. “Lucas?”

Malory paused. “You do know about it, don’t you? How could you not? You are his partner and this is something everyone knows.” He paused. “And paired with what surrounds you…” his lips curled in judgment, she bristled under his look. “Well, people talk.”

“What I know and don’t know is none of your business,” she sniffed, stuffing another apricot in her basket. “He doesn’t have to tell me anything he doesn’t please to. I trust him.”

“You...truly, don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?!” she snapped, her gaze low and cold.

“About the beast?”

“‘The beast’ can you be any more vague?” Even with his...dancing around, the name rang a bell. She huffed, placing her hands on her hips. “If you’re picking a fight with Lucas, don’t. It’s me you hate.”

“I may...dislike you.” She snorted, yeah that was rich. “But I don’t want you dating a murderer.”

“Lucas is not a murderer.”

“Killing people for sport sounds like murder to me.”

“What are you even going on about?!”

“Your little...dog, has quite a past, doesn’t he?”

“Lucas. His name is Lucas. Why am I even still talking to you!” She threw her hands in the air. “I paid, I got what I needed, I’m going to leave.” She snatched her basket up and turned around.

“He was the Scourge’s replacement. After the escape. Before Lucio’s death. He was the executioner for a while. Don’t you think that’s something you should know, Deathling?”

She flinched, turning around and hauled him over his counter by his shirt. “You don’t get to call me that,” she snarled, Malory letting out a small choked noise. “You never get to call me that.”

“T-Touchy subject,” he breathed, face pale.

“I will give you a choice. Shut up about Lucas, or I throw you into a canal, got it?”

He let out a laugh as she let him go. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

She sneered. “And so what if I am?”

Malory’s eyes softened, but his smug grin didn’t. “Just letting you know what you’re getting into.”

“This is his secret,” she muttered, smoothing her hair back as she glared at him. “This is for him to tell me. If he wanted to.”

“He never would. And then where would it leave you? Would you still trust him?”

“What he did or did not do in the past is of no concern to me, Malory. He is a good fucking person, and that is why I fell for him.”

“But this is a big secret to keep, don’t you think?”

“It’s none of your business, just as it is none of mine. And if he did those things, he would not have chosen to do so. I know him, he’s a kind person. Choosing to kill someone for the fun of it, is something he would never do.”

“But what if he did?”

“He wouldn’t.” But Malory’s words hit home, and the seed of doubt sprouted. What if it was true? What if he did?

No. No. This was Lucas. He sulked when a bat didn’t like him. He was dramatic and sweet.

If he did do what Malory was saying, he wouldn’t have done it alone. He had to have been pushed to do it.

“Ask him yourself then,” Malory said with a smile, knowing he was getting to her. “Let’s see how your little sweetheart reacts.”

“He would never lay a hand on me,” she growled. “Ever. He wouldn’t hurt me. I should have your tongue for saying it.”

He held his hands up in surrender. “Food for thought.”

“Leave him alone. It’s me you hate.”

“Hatred for you doesn’t mean I want to see him snap again. Those days were not pretty, and he was an animal.”

She snarled. “I’ll show you an animal if you don’t shut up.”

“Go home then. See what he does.”

“Fine. Maybe I will.” She hooked her basket under her arm again, stomping off. People chuckled as they watched her leave, her cheeks burning with the scrutiny and humiliation.

The walk home was a blur, she only felt the burning warmth of rage and the seed of doubt and fear in her stomach.

She didn’t know who to believe, it was hard seeing him in that light.

But he had the scars of a gladiator. That’s what those were.

She jogged up the stairs and into his house, tearing the handkerchief out of her hair and letting the locks fall around her shoulders as she slammed her basket down on the counter.

He turned to look at her, a question on his lips.

“Was it true.” A statement, not a question. Her chest heaved from her run. “Was what he said true?”

“What? Was what true?” Worry creased his brow as he put the rolling pin down. He wiped his hands on his apron as he moved closer to her.

She breathed in sharply. “What Malory said.”

“Mal- what did he say to you? Did he hurt you?”

She swatted his hand away, staring into his eyes. He had kind eyes, open and clear.

“He didn’t hurt me. But is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“Were you a gladiator in Lucio’s arena? The replacement for Scourge?”

His face fell, and all the colour drained from his cheeks. The reaction was all she needed to know. He was a terrible liar.

He laughed, the sound strangled. “What? Me? He must be lying. Do I look like a gladiator to you?” His smile was forced, fear sinking into his eyes. His voice strained, like if she pushed it he’d snap.

It hurt.

Him lying like this. He knew she knew, and yet he still lied.

“You’re lying,” she said, hands shaking. “You’re lying to me.” He froze, smile still forced yet wavering. She moved forward, trying to stop her shaking. “Tell me the truth.”

“I am-”

“Batsaikhan,” she growled, pausing a few steps away from him. Her heels clicked when they came to a stop. “Tell. Me. The. Truth.”

Horror flooded his face, hands shaking as he reached for her. She slapped his hand away, keeping his gaze even as he looked away from her. “I don’t want to hear an excuse. You’re a really shitty liar.”

“But I’m-”

She breathed in sharply, blinking back her hurt. It hurt, knowing he was lying. It hurt knowing that he knew she knew and he still wouldn’t tell her himself. She just wanted it from him. Not Malory or any of the others.

They would twist him, change and lie.

“I don’t want to hear it,” she snapped, rubbing her eyes. She wasn’t going to cry. “I don’t want to hear it from Malory or anyone else in this fucking city.” Her chest heaved as a tear slipped past. She didn’t want to cry but she was so...angry. It was almost all she could feel. “I want to hear it from you.”

He was trying to make himself smaller, holding the counter so tightly his knuckles turned white. “It’s true,” he whispered, hurt and palpable fear cracking his voice. “I did terrible things.”

“Lucas-”

He looked at her, the look in his eye making her back up a step. He flinched. “I’m a terrible person,” he murmured, looking at his hands. They curled into fists as he turned his head.

Her expression softened into one of hurt and understanding. “You wouldn’t do it,” she said, taking one step, then two. “You wouldn’t make that choice yourself.”

“What if I did?” he asked, startling her into jumping back with the force of his words. Her heart raced, heat rising to her face with panic. “Maeve-”

She sniffed, covering her eyes. “I know you wouldn’t,” she whispered, trying to fight the doubt sprouting at the base of her stomach. “You wouldn’t. I...I don’t believe you would.”

“I’m a terrible person, Maeve.”

She flinched at the sound of her name in that tone of voice. So soft and hurt. So soft and broken.

“No,” she murmured, looking back at him. “You’re not.” She breathed in, holding the breath as she moved closer to him. “You’re Lucas.” She paused. “No, Batsaikhan. And...you’re just...that. You’re not terrible. You’re sweet, you’re kind, you have a big heart.”

“I killed people.”

“So have I.”

He paused, staring at her with wounded eyes. Tears slipped down her cheeks, she knew her eyes would redden soon. “I know you didn’t want to,” she murmured, standing in front of him. “And I know you wouldn’t hurt me.”

Carving herself open.

All for him.

“How do you know that?” he muttered, not meeting her eyes and shifting nervously.

“I may not know a lot, but I know this.” She reached over to take his hand, gently opening it up to trace his palm. She kissed his fingertips, unraveling the bandages to trace the burns there. His breathing hitched audibly as she pressed her fingertips against his. Her eyes snapped up to meet his. “The Lucas of now is different from the Lucas of then. And knowing the Lucas of then isn’t going to scare me away from the Lucas of now.”

“But what if the Lucas of then was terrible?”

“He couldn’t have been that bad, he did become the Lucas of now after all.”

“...you’re only here because you didn’t know,” he muttered, staring at her with wounded eyes. “And now that you do know it’s only a matter of time before you leave again.”

She stopped, letting his hand drop. Anger slowly bubbled up in her stomach. “Is that what you think this is?” she asked, her tone sharp. “You think I’d leave over this? After all the time we spent together?”

“Thumbelina-”

“No you’re going to listen to me,” she snapped, jutting a finger in his face. “Fuck you, Karimov. I just want to hear it from you. I’m not going anywhere.” Angry tears cut through her skin, stealing the starlight from her cheeks. “But I want you to stop...running from the issue.” She sniffed, swiping at her eyes. “I want to hear it from you. I don’t want any ‘I’m a terrible person’. I will decide that.”

“But-”

“No. You will fucking tell me so I can make that choice myself.” She rocked back onto her heels, pulling at her hair. “I know what it’s like to want to keep something secret, I know why you kept it from me. I’m not mad. I’m just...hurt. Giant, I like being around you. But I don’t want you to lie to my face about something I want to know.”

She breathed in, trying to calm her panic. “I don’t…” want Lucas to lie like he did. “...you’re a terrible liar. I can see right through you.”

“But what if you do leave?” he whispered, hunching in on himself.

“Then that’s something I’d do for myself.”

“...” he sighed. “It was...it was a bad time.”

“...and?”

“Just bad. Bad people.”

“Lucas,” she murmured, reaching out to take his hand. The skin on his palm was rough under hers, years of hard labor and burn scars melting into his hands. “Please, I want to hear it from you.”

His gaze darted away from hers again, she squeezed his hand. “I was just...angry, all the time,” he murmured, a flush building across his face. There was a hardness in his eyes. “And if I wasn’t angry I was...numb. Tired. I wanted to see the trees again.”

He was shaking in her hand, she rubbed her thumb along his knuckles, keeping quiet.

“I…didn’t want to hurt them, they didn’t deserve to die. But I did so maybe I deserve…everything. I don’t deserve you either. I don’t…I’m terrible, Thumbelina, I’m a terrible person. And I don’t…I don’t know why you still…want to be around me. I’m just going to drag you down with me.”

She brought his hand up to her lips, kissing his knuckles. “See? I knew you didn’t want to. You aren’t that kind of person, darling. And you aren’t terrible.”

“But I hurt people. I did it and I was so numb and angry.”

“You were hurt. You didn’t want to.”

“I didn’t want to but I still did.”

“You had a reason.”

He paused. “Lucio…threatened my family. With…petty crimes.”

“So you did it to protect them.”

“What little I had left.”

“That’s more of a show of your character, Giant. Hurting someone for…the fun of it, is different than being forced into it. You didn’t have a choice.”

“I did have a choice! And I chose to kill people. I could…I could hurt you.”

“You wouldn’t make that choice.”

He wouldn’t look her in the eye, he looked so skittish, like he was ready to run.

“People wanted to test their will and strength against me,” he whispered, clenching and unclenching his fist. He chuckled without humour. “I really was a beast.”

The word struck a chord within her. She knew it, heard it, saw it, smelled it.

But she kept quiet.

“People were scared of me. Still are. I…deserve it. I’m not, good.”

“You don’t deserve any of that! You are good.”

“Maeve,” he snapped, ripping his hand from hers. She flinched, hands going up by her lips. He watched her back away, horror painting his face in dark colours. His eyes darkened as he fell into the role. “I hurt people for my own gain.” His voice was a low snarl, he was so tall.

So tall.

Her nerves thrummed; ‘danger’ they seemed to scream at her. Hands, gloves, dark tone. I do it out of love, you’re just being selfish. It was her fault her fault her fault her fault her fault-

“Look, I’m even scaring you too,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. She let out a tiny sob, his façade cracking at the sound. He backed off, and before he looked away she saw flashes of anger and horror on his face. “I’m not good. Whatever good you saw in me is...a lie. I hurt people and I’m trying but it’s all people see in me. How can I change if people only see that?”

“I don’t,” she whispered, trembling. “I don’t see that. I don’t see any of it. I only see you.”

“But what if I’m a monster?”

“I can’t...I won’t believe that.”

He looked at her tear streaked face, fear barely hidden under her skin. “You should. I’m a monster. It’s only a matter of time before I-”

Her fingertips sparked, stomach bubbling. “You won’t. You aren’t like him. You are you. You are broken and awful. You feel like you’re beyond help and unlovable.” He flinched at the bluntness of her tone. “But I’m not going to leave. I made my choice.”

“Why won’t you leave? It’s not like I can offer you anything. I’m not of any worth to you.”

She snarled. “You make me happy. How is that not enough?”

“I want to be useful. I want to be good.”

“You are.”

“It was a lie,” he snapped, staring at her with shaking shoulders. “It’s all they’ll see so it’s all I can be.”

“Where is this coming from?” She stared at him, his eyes peeling back the layers of hurt to show a…

Child.

He was scared.

“You’re just going to leave,” he whispered. “Like everyone else.”

“Lucas-”

“So just get it over with. You already know I’m a beast. You know I’m terrible. So why are you still here?” he snapped. “Just go.”

“I’m not going to,” she snarled, balling her hands into fists. Fire licked at her palms.

“Why not?” he said, voice rising to a yell.

She trembled, saying what she never wanted to. She was no good. She was volatile and ugly and snared. She was a rat in a trap. She was a spark waiting for the breath of air to turn into a wildfire.

She wasn’t good.

“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!”

He stopped, eyes going wide. He trembled, the words deathly soft. Softness that cut through her like winter cold. She almost gasped at the pain.

“Do you?”

Her lips pulled back in a sneer as she took a step, then two. He moved away, watching her cry out of anger. She scrubbed at her face, jutting a finger in his. “You. Are a fucking. ASSHOLE,” she yelled, making him jump. “‘Do you?!’” she mocked, rolling her eyes. “YES I FUCKING DO.”

“Maeve-”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” she snarled. “Oh I’m Lucas and I’m such a bad person. I act all tough in front of everyone but I’m scared.” His eyes were wide as saucers. She overstepped so many lines but she didn’t care. “I know you. You are a good fucking person. I can’t justify what you did but you did it out of desperation. People do things they regret when they are desperate.”

Her sob was choked and low, digging her palm into her eye as she gritted her teeth. “I’m fucked. Okay? I’ve been fucked for fucking years now. I haven’t...I was scared to open myself up to you. And now that I have you say ‘do you?’ what a fucking joke.”

She backed him up far enough that he ran into the sink, leaning back as she rose onto her tiptoes. “I trust you. I trust you with myself. I trust you with my heart, okay?! It’s yours and it’s always been yours. I’ve just been too stupid to see it. Fuck. Fuck you and fuck your ‘terrible person’ shtick. I’m fucking done with it.”

He went cross eyed at her finger. She flicked the tip of his nose. “I’m so fucking in love with you, Batsaikhan, that I’m not even scared. You make falling easy. You make it fun. You make it safe. I know you’ll be there for me when I reach the bottom. And if you don’t love me back that’s fine.”

She huffed, throwing her hair over one shoulder. “But I had love ruined for me. I’ve had it used against me, chaining me down and letting me drown. It’s been tainted and terrible. I wanted you gone because you scared me with how fast and how hard I was falling. It was scary and I wasn’t ready. But you…” she let out a low cry, shoulders shaking as she inhaled and exhaled in gasps. “You make it easy.”

“But I-”

“Yeah yeah. You’re ‘terrible’ so you’ve said. But if you’re a terrible person then I am unforgivable. If you don’t love me back that’s fine. It’s all fine.” She blinked, moving away from him. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling sick. “It’s fine. I know you…you don’t feel the same,” she whispered, choking down a tiny sob. “And that’s okay. It’s okay.” Her voice cracked. It wasn’t okay. She was a fucking liar. She wanted him to love her back. She was selfish and awful.

She didn’t deserve him.

“But never doubt that I love you. I know you’re...scared and you’re hurting. I can’t...possibly imagine what you went through, I can’t. But you’re...good. You’re lovely and kind. You make life seem...lighter and I love you. You’re so...bright and wonderful you make me feel like...I can be good too. That I can be good like you.”

Her hair fell into her face as she turned away from her, pain thrumming in her chest. She swayed, stumbling a little. “You don’t have to feel the same. I know...I’m not good. But you are. And you make me want to do...better. More. You make everything more...colourful. When I’m with you everything seems okay. Knowing your past won’t scare me away from your future.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, taking in a shuddering breath. “I-I’ll just go. I’m sorry,” she whispered, moving to the door. It was all so quiet, swallowing her up and making her dizzy.

He was right. Nicolas, was right. It was always her fault. Always. Her palms slowly cooled down as she sniffed again, trying to stop crying.

“Wait.” His voice was soft, his touch even more so. She let out a tiny sob at his hand against hers, heart lifting against her will. He didn’t love her. Why would he? She wasn’t good like he was. He was beautiful and good.

She was unforgivable.

“I-I’m sorry,” he whispered, as she turned around. He trembled, and she knew she was staring in the face of a scared child. Broken, scared, longing.

Fragile.

“I-I am terrible,” he sniffed, letting her arm go and backing away a step.

She reached forward, tipping onto her toes as she cupped his cheek. He let out a small hiccup as he watched her with wide eyes. Her hands were cold against his skin, the warmth settling in her stomach as she ran the pad of her thumb against the freckles on his cheek.

He stared for a moment, shuddering as he leaned into her touch.

“No, you’re good,” she murmured, tears spilling from her eyes again. “That’s my choice. I think you’re good. No, I know you are.”

He shook, melting into her hand. He squeezed his eyes shut, breathing heavy and shuddery.

She placed her other hand on his chest, kissing the tip of his nose. His heart was fluttering and fast under her touch.

He wrapped her up in a hug, almost lifting her up off the ground. He buried his face in her neck, she stiffened for a moment.

Slowly, she wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning back onto her heels. He tilted forward, hands on either side of her head to balance them.

“I lo-lov...I love you,” he whispered, her skin erupting with goosebumps.

He slowly moved his head so she could look at him, hair falling into his eyes. She brushed it back, laughing through her tears. He was crying now as well, face red.

“D-Don’t laugh,” he sniffed as she swiped at his cheeks. She kissed the tip of his nose as she squished his face, leaning against the door.

“You really need to get your head out of your ass,” she murmured, kissing his cheek.

He huffed, sniffing quietly. “P-Please don’t...don’t leave me. I-I’m sorry, d-d-don’t go.” He was crying more now, brows soft. “I don’t want you t-t-to leave.”

She sobbed, wrapping her arms around him again, heel smacking the door.

He whimpered, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I’m not going anywhere,” she murmured, running her hands through his hair. “I’m not going anywhere.” Not again.

He blinked, his face splotchy now. His nose brushed hers as he kissed her with such reverence she almost whimpered. Her nails scratched his scalp lightly as he pressed her against the door, heels tapping the floor. He caged her in with hands on either side of her face, but kissed her so softly she couldn’t feel much else.

“I love you,” he murmured softly, breath warm against her face. He kissed her again. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she whispered, cupping his face in her hands. He kissed her palm, staring at her with wounded eyes. Such soft affection, those big blue doe eyes of his.

She wrapped her arms around him, slowly sliding down the door to the floor. Her dress made a soft ‘puff’ sound as she landed hard, dragging him with her. She rested his head in her lap, hair falling like a curtain between them.

So soft it was. Soft affection, soft kisses, soft words.

The scars, the anger, the sun, the hurt, were marked along his skin. Her fingertips danced against all of them, taking him in.

He was a good person who did bad things.

And maybe...maybe, she was the same way. He made her feel like she was good. She wanted to be good like him. Then maybe she’d…

He reached up to push some of her hair behind her ear.

No, she didn’t need to earn his love. It wasn’t even about earning it.

It was realizing she didn’t need to, because she had it anyway.

“I love you.”

#the arcana #the arcana game #maeve #lucas #maevas #my writing #maeve x lucas #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #thats it thats the tag

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fortheloveoffanfic · 5 years ago

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Midnight Musing

John Wick x reader (A/n- Another one of those things that i wrote but saved for when I had nothing else.)

Warnings- Some angst, but mostly fluff.

“A road need not be paved in gold to find treasures at its end.” -Alan Brennert

Y/n felt small in John's arms and he could feel the slow rise and fall of her chest, matching the soft sound of her even breathing. The flimsy silk of her nightgown, smooth and soft against his bare stomach and chest, felt almost as fragile as she did, and he could feel the warmth of her breath fanning his neck.

With the exception of a pale yellow glow washing the room through pulled curtains, their bedroom was dark as John sunk deeper into his thoughts. The stroke of midnight had long passed and Y/n had been asleep for no more than a couple hours. She had succumbed to slumber quicker than she usually did when they talked over the phone and John had reckoned that it could have been because he'd done quite a good job at wearing her out after she'd come home from work. Though, Y/n would always argue that she slept better when he shared the bed with her.

It had been nearly a month since they'd last done that; shared a bed. John had been gone on a job in Europe. He had estimated two weeks, but things had gone awry and he’d been forced to stay back until he could get it done. When it was finally over, John had taken the first flight back, intent on surprising his love. And surprise her he did. Y/n was pleasantly stunned, and extremely excited when she’d come home earlier that evening, only to find him in the backyard playing with Dog; haphazardly dropping her bags on the kitchen counter and running out through the open screen door only to leap into his ready arms.

"I missed you," is what she had mumbled, her face buried in the crook of his neck, holding onto him as if her life depended on it.

"I've missed you too princess," John had returned, only pulling away so he could lay a proper kiss on her lips. It had felt like ages since he'd had her lips on his, tasted the undertones of her favorite coffee creamer mixing with something uniquely Y/n, something that always felt so surreal and magical, that John could hardly believe that she was there.

He felt like that a lot. That was how he had been feeling that night too, laying in the dark, their roles reversed as he clung to her for fear life. It wasn't really that John had a hard time believing in Y/n's existence, not really, for a man like him could never be afforded such a singular though. No, it was that he couldn't, for the very life of him, fathom why, out of every man in the world, she'd picked him. What could she have seen in him to make her ignore the monster that resided within and love the lonely, at times broken, man beneath?

John’s eyes glazed over as his troubling thoughts consumed him. Y/n was the nicest person he knew; a kind heart and gentle touch that could still the quickest hearts and ease the worst pains, at least, to him. They had met on an off chance, it had been one of those days where John was reminded that he wasn’t really like everyone else, his life wasn’t normal and that he was a brutal killer walking among men. He had just left the Continental after returning from a job the night before and must have looked like the perfect contradiction; dressed impeccably in his usual suit though with cuts and bruises littering his face. The limp in his step had significantly slowed him and the soreness in his muscles was evident every time he shifted.

Y/n had been walking towards his direction, latte in hand, eyes glued to her phone, trying to solve some work problem or the other; she was a nurse practitioner, but John hadn’t known that yet. He had been so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t really see her until they clumsily crashed into each other, her scalding hot coffee drenching his shirt. Y/n had apologized profusely, and John had done his best to reassure her that it was fine. She had even offered to pay for his dry cleaning, but he had politely declined.

That might have been the end of their interaction, until she saw the fresh cuts on his face, worry for a stranger tugging at her pretty features, eventually insisting that he come back to her place so she could make sure he was okay. John conveniently neglected to tell her that the hotel’s doctor had already done that and Y/n couldn’t didn’t even seem bothered that she was inviting a strange man into her apartment.

Three years after that day; Y/n had long moved out from her little apartment in the city and into John’s house, and by then John hardly ever needed the Continental's doctor, not when he had a trained professional waiting for him at home. Home. That was what Y/n had turned his house into; a home that they shared. Formerly plain walls were now lined with pictures they’d taken together on birthdays, anniversaries and vacations. Dresses, navy blue scrubs and other articles of women’s clothing had joined his things in the closet while Y/n had made it her mission to liven their backyard with happy little flowers of varying colors.

John was more than grateful, in fact, he’d often think that there wasn’t a word that was enough to encapsulate just how lucky he was to have Y/n. Even if he couldn’t fathom her reason for staying. How could someone so inherently good, optimistic and pure, love a man as jaded as him? Even after he had come clean about his life, expecting the bloodshed and shear horror of it all to scare her off, Y/n had stayed. Even after she’d seen him at his worst, broken down and frustrated when a target just slipped out of his grasp, she had assured him that it would be okay. Even when he showed up at her apartment, after just six months of dating, clutching his side, bleeding onto her floor, barely able to hold himself up, she had nursed him back to health.

John simply couldn’t get it.

He took lives, and Y/n saved them.

She was like an angel among them and he was the corruption that she let into her life.

John was so far gone that he hadn’t even realized that Y/n had stirred awake, until she called out to him softly, “John?” she whispered, she always whispered in the dark, even when it was just the two of them; she’d once told him that it was because the dark was so quite that speaking loudly might disturb it, “What are you doing up?”

“I, umm...” he trailed off, trying to look at her in the low light. By the grace of the moonlight, he could see that her hair was fanned out on the pillow, lone strands falling over her face, “I was just thinking.”

Y/n craned her head awkwardly, glancing at the alarm clock behind him, “At two am? I think there might be more convenient times for thinking Jonathan,” she teased, “Are you having trouble sleeping?” Her mood sobered when he didn’t quite laugh at her quip.

“I guess,” he shrugged, “It’s just.....” John hesitated, though, eventually asking her anyway, “Do you ever think about why you love me?”

“I...” Y/n hesitated, pushing herself up on her elbow, grazing the fingers of her free hand on John’s cheek. She couldn’t guess what had brought that on, or what he meant for that matter, but she could tell that something was bothering him. John was a man of very few words, even less so when they involved talking about his feelings, but she never needed vocalization to know that he was letting his thoughts get the better of him. It usually came out in the way he held her or looked at her, as if he was hoping she could make it better, soothe his mind the way she’d often heal his body. “What are you talking about?” Y/n furrowed her brows, brushing some of his hair behind his ear, letting her thumb slide over the apple of his cheek.

John dragged his lip through his teeth, seemingly thinking on it for a moment, “I mean, why are you with me? When you could be with someone who’s good, like you, someone who’s not a murderer and who’s job doesn’t put you in danger. How can you love me when I’m everything wrong in your life?”

Y/n stammered, her eyes going wide, her hand finally relaxing, cupping John’s cheek. Emotion tugged at her heart and Y/n worried on her lower lip. She hated that he’d think like that sometimes, like he didn’t deserve her, especially when Y/n knew that John deserved every bit of good in his life. He wasn’t just the Baba Yaga, the Boggyman or the man to fear, in fact, to Y/n, he wasn’t that at all. To her, he was John, the man who’s arms felt like the safest place on earth, the person who worried about her when he was away, risking his life, the love of her life and the man of her dreams. She hated the mere thought of John feeling less as if he was any than that.

Scooting closer, Y/n leaned forward to greet John’s lips with hers, “When are you gonna stop thinking like that, huh?” Even if only by pale light, John could see Y/n’s eyes questioning him, the glassiness of worry sparkling beneath.

Letting his large, work-worn hand skim Y/n’s side, settling in the dip of her waist, John, trying to dismiss her concern, teased; “When I pinch myself and realize that this was all a dream,” probably the best one he’d ever have.

Scoffing, Y/n pinched him on the bicep for purpose, smiling softly when John winced dramatically, “There, I pinched you for both of us; we’re both awake and you need to stop thinking about yourself like that,” Y/n sighed, her frown deepening, the ‘v’ between her brows prominent, “You’re not everything wrong in my life,” she quoted loosely, “In fact, John, you’re the best part of it. My favorite person, the man I love more than anything or anyone else in the world and the only man that I can imagine spending my life with. Why would I ever want to question that?”

“Because I’m-”

“You’re not a monster,” Y/n cut him off, tangling the tips of her fingers in his dark hair as she cupped his cheek, already remedying the bellying sea of worry in his mind. Her touch was cool and comforting, reminding John of the wonder that she was. “You’re a good man, who got dealt a shitty hand. But that doesn’t make you a bad person, and if it does,” she teared up, the words caught in her throat. Sniffling, Y/n continued, “Then I’d still take you over the best of men, because to me, there’s no one better. I wouldn’t trade a second of our time together, in fact, I’d give up anything to have more. John,” she breathed his name, smiling quietly, “You’re not what everyone says you are, what you think you are. You’re so much more than that, and I know sometimes you can’t see in yourself what I see in you, but I’m reminded of it everyday. I love you John. I love you because you’re strong and brave, because you’re determined and have a huge heart, and you’re over-protective sometimes, but it’s cute,” she giggled softly. “My point is you don’t need to be different for me to love you, and you’re not what’s wrong with my life. But you are the only thing that seems right sometimes, and I’m so grateful to have you.”

Blinking back tears that he hadn’t realized were there, John smiled, just enough for Y/n to notice. What did he ever do to deserve her and everything she gave him? John didn’t think he’d ever know. What he did know though, was that he was grateful too. So, so grateful to have an angel in disguise, loving him despite his flaws, to have someone that made letting go seem impossible. “Thank you, I love you,” he whispered, kissing Y/n again, his lips locking with hers in the sweet expression of their love.

“I love you too,” Y/n said against John’s lips, her body flush against his, his soft strands laced with her delicate fingers, his muscled arms keeping her close.

When they broke for air, Y/n’s forehead was pressed to John’s and they laid nose to nose, “Don’t ever leave me,” he pleaded a distinct urgency in his tone as John curled his stocky fingers in her silky tresses.

“Wouldn’t even dream of it,” Y/n reassured him, quick pecks supporting her words.

“Good,” John hummed. He knew that no matter what he though of himself, Y/n would always love him, but suddenly, he needed ultimate assurance. He wanted her to always be with him, always love him. He wanted to always love her too and make sure that she knew it. So, right there, without any prior plans and at two am when most of the rest of the street was sound asleep, blissfully unhampered by his turmoil and haplessly unaffected by her soothing grace, John blurted those two sealing words, not really as a question, more like a pleading statement, “Marry me.”

Without any hesitation, Y/n knew her answer, even if John’s request came seemingly out of no where. It was the same answer she’d have in any other instance. Giggling, Y/n hooked her leg around John’s waist, kissing him passionately, which arguably was an answer in itself. “I’d love to marry you,” she eventually murmured sweetly against his lips, when they had rolled over so Y/n was laying on top of him.

John held onto her tight, feeling her excited heartbeat against his own, her lips working perfectly in tandem with his. It was set, in words that were as sure as stone; Y/n would be his, forever, and he’d be hers.

As they kissed, the grey in his mind seemed to melt away, becoming a problem for another night. John would never know what he’d done to deserve Y/n, and maybe, he might never see the man that she saw, but he did know that as long as she was in his life, everything else was minute. His job was just a job. His pain was just pain. And it had all led him to Y/n, so really, it was worth it.

******

Tagging- @harrisongslimited @magnificentclodpiebanana @keandrews @greenmanalishi

#keanu reeves #john wick #john wick x reader #john wick x you #keanu reeves x you #keanu reeves x reader #john wick fanfic #keanu reeves fanfiic #ff #fanfic #fanfiction #keanu reeves fanfiction #john wick fanfiction #midnight musings #fluff

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neerasrealm · 4 years ago

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Miscellaneous Slender family hcs because this blog has been lacking in found family content recently

Slender mansion is inside a fae circle that keeps it hidden away from people.

In order to get in you need either a proxy mark or be a fae yourself.

Sally was the first kid to be adopted

She was the only kid for a while. Jack and Slender sorta learned all their parenting from trial and error with her

Sally is more mature than she appears and can act like an adult when she feels like it, but most of the time she's just a bossy ten year old

She looks down at you from her LEGO throne and sips apple juice

Dina and Sally share a room. Not because there's no space, but because Dina has trouble sleeping and having Sally with her makes it a lot easier

Dina doesn't leave Sally's room much unless she's pushed to.

Dina loves Slender and LJ very much. Angel dads <3 she cares about them so much

Jack is secretly her favourite

Smile dog has a doghouse out back

Everyone takes turns walking smile dog, but most of the time it's Jeff

Smile dog is fuckin MASSIVE dude

It's pretty common to find him sleeping on the couch curled up on top of someone (mostly Jeff, Tim and LJ)

Smile dog is a registered therapy dog <3 he helps Jeff and the others when they're not doing okay mentally

At least three times a week you'll hear Tim yell "CODY!" followed by an explosion, banging and crashing, screaming and maniacal laughter

Tim originally didn't like Cody or EJ much but now he's almost always hanging around with them

If he's not with them he's in the lounge area of the basement

Cody can be kind of violent and mean but he really means the best. He's just really bad with empathy and has his own insecurities to grapple with

He just wants someone to tell him he's smart man :(

Cody is in charge of making all the meds the creeps need, since very few of them can actually go to a hospital or therapist due to being dead/murderers/not human

EJ gives everyone their checkups and makes sure they're doing okay

Ben's room is always open to people. If you need somewhere to chill he'll welcome you in and invite you to play something with him

If someone in the mansion isn't doing okay, the others will know, and they will try to cheer them up at all costs

"Get up bitch, we're getting you some love and support!"

Jeff is surprisingly friendly towards newcomers. He tries to learn about them and befriend them

Sometimes, if you listen very closely, you can hear Liu practicing music upstairs

He's very soft-spoken, but his singing? Dripping with emotion. It's kind of freaky how quickly he can go from his positive nice self to nearly on the verge of tears

Oh and sometimes he just walks around the mansion playing random shit on his saxophone (most of the time it's Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up)

Jeff loses his shit every single time it never gets old to him

"Hey Liu, what're you playing?"

"It's Die Young by Kesha lol"

Splendor lives in the same fae circle as the mansion! He has a little wooden cabin further into the woods. He's always welcome to visitors

If you get lost in the woods and he finds you he'll invite you over for tea or coffee before returning you to the mansion

He visits Slender every couple of weeks, and usually brings freshly grown flowers with him

The kids like seeing him because he's always up to date on modern slang and media, unlike Slender

Trender only really visits on holidays and birthdays but brings extravagant gifts to make up for it

Not many people know it but there's a small space in the attic that has pillows, a mattress, blankets and some old busted up bean bags set up in front of an old TV

This area was set up by Momo! She usually stays up in her room or in the attic. she’s not super social v.v

Liu goes up with her pretty often and watches movies with her. They're extremely close

Helen barely leaves his room

Huge bags under his eyes. Nobody has ever seen him sleep

Always drawing

Always covered in paint, pastels, chalk and charcoal

When he DOES leave his room, it's usually just to eat, pee and buy more art supplies

He can also be found crouched behind walls and furniture drawing people

They pretend not to notice him and keep still till he moves on

Helen sometimes gives art classes. He's a surprisingly patient teacher

I say that but he'd also stab you with whatever he's holding at the time if you get on his nerves

Jeff still has a piece of graphite embedded in his skin. smh.

Speaking of lessons, Slender homeschools the creeps who need it

His lessons aren't really lessons and more like long conversations about specific topics. Very occasionally he gives tests and most of the homework is just opinion pieces where they can say whatever they want

Jeff discovered a love for history because of Slender

He's surprisingly good at learning when it's a topic he likes

Slender always tries to adapt his lessons to what the kids enjoy and encourages them to find what they love

He also encourages them to find hobbies! He wants his kids to be able to de-stress and let their emotions out in a positive way

Cody learned to knit because of this

Jeff likes embroidery and likes to embroider stuff onto his clothes

EJ is trying to learn to knit too but it's hard when his eyesight is so poor :(

#creepypasta hc #creepypasta hcs #creepypasta #slender mansion #slender mansion au #slendad #slenderman #marble hornets #jeff the killer #bloody painter #liu woods #eyeless jack #x virus #x virus creepypasta #sally williams #judge angels #smile dog #momo

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boarchasers · 3 years ago

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July 29th – ruins or campfire [x]

The rules were simple. Trond had made sure of that, and also to explain them in short, simple words when he passed them on to Haaki, who rolled his eyes but listened anyway. No treats outside mealtimes, no weapons, no jaunts into giant camps, no coming home with an additional puppy. He nodded, nodded again until Trond was satisfied, and finally, after being made to recite the rules back, was allowed to take Amelie off her parents' hands and down to the Boar-Chaser farmhouse for the day.

So far it seemed to be going well, and Haaki couldn't help wondering what the fuss was about. Amelie was happy doing pretty much anything, from playing with the dogs to digging in the garden, as long as someone was around to listen to her incessant chatter. She also didn't pester her uncle for sweetrolls which, in Haaki's eyes, put her several points above Trond. He watched her walking a wooden rabbit, carved by Hjolrin, over the kitchen table, narrating its journey as she did so.

'...and went back to the hole and told all her friends about her adventure and everyone was happy and they ate a pie. Uncle Haaki?'

'Aye?'

'Can we go on an adventure?'

She said it with wide, hopeful eyes, the wooden rabbit clasped between her fingers. Haaki weighed up the question against the list of rules and found it innocent enough. An adventure didn't have to mean giant camps, did it? It only had to mean the end of the garden path. Amelie wouldn't know any better, and anyway, surely upsetting her would break a rule somewhere?

Which was how Haaki found himself being towed, with surprising strength, through the garden gate, across the plains, and towards the river by a small seven-year-old girl. And that was fine. No rules broken. Even if his concern started mounting, Haaki could easily reassure himself that he had done nothing wrong whatsoever. Really, he thought, he was doing a better job than Trond. He knew for a fact that Amelie was permitted to wander around the market, talking to odd Dunmer and getting into arguments with the Battle-Borns, and that as long as she remained within shouting distance of Joldi’s stall, she was free to do what she liked. It was about time she got to see more of the wider world, with someone responsible to look after her.

Their adventure took them as far as some ruins on the road to Windhelm, which Haaki was sure he recognised. Probably from a forgotten childhood memory, a day out with his siblings, and he attributed the strange, uncomfortable feeling in his stomach to the bittersweet thoughts whenever his mind turned to those days. That was all it was: the sense of loss, the reminder of Minnel and Brandrel and the adventures they would never get to go on with Amelie. There was nothing foreboding in the fallen stones and empty archway.

After the dogs had sniffed around and confirmed that there was nobody lurking behind the crumbled walls, Amelie declared it to be lunchtime, and when Haaki failed to produce any food, having been under the assumption that lunchtime already finished an hour ago back at the farmhouse when he gave Amelie the cheese and apples prescribed by Joldi, she was unperturbed.

'Then we gotta forage! Uncle Hjoll told me about foraging. Do you know how to forage?'

'Of course I do.'

'Bet I can forage more than you!'

She marched off and began kicking stones around the ruins, apparently hoping that she might discover pastries underneath them. Some gentle guidance towards the bushes growing up the walls of the ruin produced a handful of berries, some sweet mountain flowers, a mushroom which Haaki strategically lost before it could make its way into Amelie's mouth, and an axe.

It was an old axe, probably from the back of a cart, and the blade was too dull to worry about Amelie or the dogs coming to any harm. While she laid the berries out on a stone and decorated them with the flowers, Haaki picked the axe up for a closer look and noticed the notches along the blade, close to a rusty stain. Maybe not the back of the cart, then. More likely to have been left there by bandits. Safe now, the dogs would have picked up any scent if they were likely to return, but Haaki recognised the style, crude yet effective. It was the sort of weapon--

Suddenly the memory, the discomfort, the feeling of something wrong, made sense. These were the ruins where he first found the gang of bandits who took him into their fold. Murderers, no other word for them, murderers he called friends, and then he had killed them. Who was worse, really? Brigands who’d never known better scraping a living in a hard land, or the man who fell in with them out of boredom, stabbed them in the back, and then had the audacity to ask the gods for mercy afterwards? At least they never denied their own crimes, never pretended to themselves that they were good people. He felt it now as he tightened his hand around the axe – the weight of the shaft, the noise as it sank through gristle, the bandit leader's final cry. With a shiver, Haaki realised he couldn't even remember their names now, the people who had trusted him and died for their trouble.

A small hand patted his.

'Uncle Haaki? Are you sick? Pa said you were sick before. I was sick once. Ma gave me a medicine that tasted of yuck and she gave me a blanket and then I was better.'

He dropped the axe. The head buried itself in the turf, and for a moment Haaki could only see the bandit leader's back, the blood on the grass, before a more insistent tug on his sleeve brought him back to the present.

'No, I'm fine. I just... forgot something.'

Amelie pulled him down until he was bent double and pushed her hand against his forehead. What this was supposed to achieve Haaki didn't know, but, oddly enough, it made it easier to concentrate on his surroundings. It was hard to find anything sinister in a hot, chubby hand. Nor in Amelie's giggle, which was light and playful and utterly unaware of the fading vision.

'You're weird,' she announced.

'Um. Thanks.'

'But s’all right. I'll look after you. D'you want some berries?'

'How about we eat them on the way back? Otherwise your Pa will get home and wonder where we've gone.'

Although this meant cutting short the adventure, Amelie agreed with a minimum of fuss, and soon they were on the road again. The journey back was quieter, but she held his hand right up until they entered the farmhouse, and Haaki couldn't say whether that was for her benefit or his own.

#story #haaki #amelie boarchaser

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shmisolo · 5 years ago

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For Anyone Looking for Not-Super-Angsty-Stuff

I’m compiling mine (or at least the less-angsty stuff) into one list for ya.

Seen ✔️✔️

His lock screen has three texts from Rey on it:

Rey Wife: Babe I know you’re probably busy right now, but you sent that pic to the wrong chat. Rey Wife: Bennnnnnn Rey Wife: Call me when you’re done processing your trauma.

And then about ninety chats from the Skywalker Ranch WhatsApp thread.

In which Ben sends a picture to the wrong chat.

The Sweater Curse

She’s never made a sweater before, but she saw the pattern on Ravelry and who cares if she’s only made (lumpy) hats before—she has to try it. She has to make it. She has to make it for Ben.

“You realize that Hannukah isn’t an important holiday, right?” Ben asks as she makes eye contact with him. His eyes are big and brown and—at this moment—mildly annoyed.

“Really? Is it a giant conspiracy theory? Part of the war on Christmas?”

“More than you realize,” Ben says and for the life of her she can’t tell if he’s joking. He does this thing sometimes that’s confusing—where he’ll say something that sounds mopey but is actually snarky and it disarms her every damn time. “In any event, ugly Hanukkah sweaters definitely aren’t a thing the way ugly Christmas sweaters are.”

“Well, they are now,” Rey says firmly. “I’m making you an ugly Hanukkah sweater. Deal with it. And stop moving.”

it's you and me (i know it's our destiny)

It’s just a kid’s game, he thinks when jealousy pangs in his heart. But it’s more than just a kid’s game.

It’s Pokémon.

It’s the only good thing in his life.

Shalom Rav!

In which Rey comes to terms realizing that she is attracted to the rabbi.

Apples and Honey

When Ben catches wind that his mother is planning to foist a potential girlfriend on him when he comes home for Rosh Hashanah, he takes matters into his own hands: specifically, he runs to Rey and asks her to pretend to be his girlfriend.

atlanta > all atlanta > community > missed connections

In which Rey meets a cosplayer at DragonCon.

Two to Tango

Rey: I need to ask you something awkward. Ben: What’s up? Rey: Can I give you a blowjob? Please?

Bang for your Buck

“We ready?” he asks her, sounding huffy.

“Nice to meet you Ben, I’m just familiarizing myself with your training,” she replies.

“Ok, well I don’t have all day.”

“No, you have,” she checks her watch, “another hour.” Because of course he’d booked an extra long session. Bless that sweet, sweet overtime pay.

“And you’re sure you know what you’re doing?” he asks her and she glances up at him, sure that her eyes are flashing because that’s fucking rude. She’s a professional. Amilyn wouldn’t have hired her if she didn’t know what she’s doing, and just because he apparently thinks he’s the center of the universe doesn’t change that fact.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get your bang for your buck,” she tells him icily.

A Picture's Worth

reyjay: hiya your art is amazing

reyjay: it’s a big ask but could you draw me for my art final tomorrow? i’m shit at drawing people and i can’t fail this. can you help?

He stares.

And stares.

kyloren: is this some kind of a joke?

reyjay: no?? why??

kyloren: you’re asking me to help you cheat your exam, but you’re not even offering me money?

Forged

There are several reasons that Ben would never have dreamed he’d ever receive this text. The first is that he’d be invited to a Halloween party. The second is that he’d never in his life expected to be in a serious relationship, much less the sort of serious relationship where his partner would suggest matching Halloween costumes. And the last is that he is dating someone who’s show only and they’ve only almost murdered one another twice. Because he’s an A Song of Ice and Fire fan. He hates Game of Thrones.

(Not) Interested

We're bringing Speed Dating back to Space Battles Bonanza! Register online for one of our special Bonanza sessions of 15 three-minute dates so you’ll no longer have to look for love in a galaxy far far away. Choose from one of seven speed dating sessions, two of which are queer focused. If the Insurgents can blow up the Doom Moon in 11 minutes, let’s see if you can make a love connection in only three.

There’s a history of successful Speed Dating at Space Battles Bonanzas, with long-term couples, engagements and marriages now among the alumni.

In which Rey & Kylo meet at their fancon's speed dating.

do or do not (do the do)

In which Ben, in an effort to improve his stamina (look he's making progress, ok?) after reading some articles that he'll never be able to unread, receives some coaching (that he very much did not ask for).

(Very much did not ask for.)

A for...

Rey’s seeing double by the time there’s food on her plate. Oh. There’s food on her plate. That’s good. That’s unexpected at this point. “Eat,” Ben tells her.

So she does. It tastes good. Very good. She likes this food a lot.

“I’ll make sure she knows,” Ben says.

Oh she’s at that point of drunk where she’s just saying things out loud instead of keeping them in her internal monologue.

“You are,” Ben says, looking very amused.

She hopes she doesn’t say anything embarrassing.

“I promise, you haven’t yet, but oh boy, I’m looking forward to this.”

She shoves food into her mouth to keep herself from thinking out loud about his dick in her ass at his mother’s Passover seder.

The Love Committee

In which Rey, tired of her bad luck with dating apps and failed relationships, enlists her friends' help in determining who she should date next.

They take it a little too seriously.

💦💦💦💦

In which Ben accidentally implies that he gets his cardio from having sex on national television.

You, Me, and He

When they say that Kylo's brain is in his groin, they're not far from the truth.

Alternatively,

In which Kylo Ren is his own penis.

and beyond

“Please?”

For a moment, he thinks it will be like the first time, him begging, her crying and saying no and him not knowing how to protect his crushed heart.

But she doesn’t cry, she doesn’t say, “Please don’t go this way,” she doesn’t look horrified or disgusted. She just grabs him by the front of his shirt and tugs his lips down to hers before reaching down to cup his cock.

we decided not to kill the wolves (we wanted to be wolves)

A pack of wolves lives in the woods to the north of Raddus and as winter looms, they have their eyes set on Leia Organa’s stronghold. Rey may be new to Raddus, but she’s not about to do nothing while it may be in danger. And besides, Poe must be exaggerating about wolves the size of bears. She’s not afraid of monsters.

myosotis

Ben picked the flowers for their wedding.

The Kitchen

Rey and Ben, hunting for their first house.

Investiture

In which Ben goes to daven for his father’s yahrtzeit and manages to prove to himself once again that he is both a terrible person and a terrible Jew.

Oh and he sort of falls in love.

The Sweetest Thing

A post-coital trip to Waffle House.

with you i shall play

And when it's dry and ready, then Ben's dick Rey shall play.

Everything to Prove

“The show,” he says. “It’s probably best if they don’t—if we don’t—”

And Rey follows his line of thought at once. For all the program is one that doesn’t seem melodramatic—the height of drama in previous seasons came from someone’s cake falling over and that was about it—she does not doubt that the producers and cameramen would leap at the opportunity to make there be something out of nothing in their relationship—especially if there was something out of something.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Yeah, probably. We can pick baking stations that are…” but she doesn’t want to complete the thought. She likes baking next to Ben.

“Or we can just be careful?” he suggests, sounding quite as pained by the prospect as Rey feels.

“Yeah, careful. I can do careful,” Rey says at once and her lips are on his again and he’s laughing now, and she’s laughing, and she didn’t think laughter would be part of all this. She didn’t think it could be. But here she is, laughing and kissing and holding a man who, at some point, she’s going to want to beat.

She does her best not to think of that now.

It’s a friendly competition, after all.

It’s not life and death.

It’s baking.

Brightblades

In which Rey learns about a startling kink of her new boyfriend, and in which, much later, they roleplay it.

The Knotting Shop

Ben realizes upon entering the shop that he had gotten the complete wrong impression from the name of it.

What the fuck sort of shop calls itself The Knotting Shop if it’s not about, well, knotting?

The answer, apparently, is a knitter with a sense of humor. An Omega, by the scent that seems to have landed in every colorful ball of yarn in the shop and which hits him right in the groin.

Let Go (Never Let Me Go)

In which Rey swipes right on Ben, 35. Probably too much of an asshole for you, but my therapist is trying to convince me that assholes deserve love too, so here’s me on Tinder, and it does not proceed as she expects.

crossfade (cursed and blessed)

The Talmud states that on Purim one is to drink to the point of not knowing the difference between “cursed is Haman” and “blessed is Mordechai.” In other words, you’re supposed to get so blitzed you can’t tell your friends from your enemies. Rey and Ben might be taking this a little too literally at Leia’s annual Purim Party.

Kind Stranger

Ben stares at the text for a minute before opening up his computer and typing “+7793 area code” into his web search. Jakku. Of course he wouldn’t have recognized it. He confessed himself surprised to know that Jakku even had an area code. Did people still live in Jakku?

#kylothekiller

It’s not the first time that Rey has seen Kylo pop up in her Fido stream, but it is the first time she’s clicked on him fast enough to be scheduled for a meet and greet with dog and owner on Saturday.

All Bets Are Off

“Fake girlfriend. What does that even mean?” Ben asks her.

Rey rests a hand on his arm, feeling the muscles underneath his sleeve. “Babe,” she says, leaning close to him. “It means we pretend we’re madly in love. Think you can pull that off for your office pool?” Ben’s eyes flicker softly between each of hers and he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

#reylo #reylo fanfic #reylo fic

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the-jade-cross · 4 years ago

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The Lannister Wolf - Part 4 Chapter 2

Evelyn felt like those eavesdropping intruders who hide in the shadows and are the ones who hear and see all and magically spring from the crowd to reveal the deep dark truth that no one but the murderer knew. She sat perched like a gargoyle atop a high ledge of the keep of Kings landing. If she had bothered to measure the climb that she had made three hours prior when no one was awake, she would have discovered that the perch was roughly two hundred feet above the unsuspecting wedding party that was taking place below in the gentle shade of the decorated courtyard. Even at this height with her enhanced hearing on the off-switch Evelyn could hear the bratty whines of Joffrey and the screeching complaints of his mother.

Evelyn tried to block out there aggravating and bloodcurdling voices but do too who everyone was talking to, her options of conversations to eavesdrop on were limited to either Cersei and Jeffrey, Maya reprimanding her brother for making cute eyes at Oberyn Martell , her voice laced with jealousy or Nanteza glumly trying to convince Lillia to join in on the dancing. Evelyn knew that something was coming, and she needed to ensure that at least one of the girls knew that something would transpire in the next few minutes.

She selected her target as Maya since there was a perfectly shaped carnation flower lying on the table near the girl, a gift of goodwill that Loras had requested Maya deliver to Lillia but knowing the blonde’s response, the Tyrell girl had purposely forgotten such a request. Evelyn concentrated her acute site on the tauntingly purple flower. Didn't Loras know by now that Lillia despised purple?

She imagined the flower gradually burning, beginning at the long green stem and trailing up before began to eat at each pedal from the route to the tip before it crumpled into a pile of black ash. Evelyn resisted the urge to smirk when Maya squeaked at the sight of the burning flower and hastily doused it. The poor blossom was 3/4 burnt already. Maya was distracted by a certain Prince, so her reaction time was off.

The red-haired girl lifted her ocean blue eyes and looked around, already knowing that Evelyn was close by due to the Stark girls earlier visit to the brothel where she had a chat with Maya. The girl stopped her searching when her eyes landed on the dark shape of Evelyn crouched among the pigeons and doves like a demon among Angels ... a Wolf among Lions... Winter among the summer. Maya's eyes widened before she looked around to make sure no one was nearby before she whispered something that only Evelyn's keen ears could detect.

“what you had said earlier about something happening ... it is going to happen soon isn't it?”

In response to the girl’s question, Evelyn relit the carnation on fire before Maya doused it once more.

“I'll take that as a yes. You said there would be drastic effects because of this… event. Is there a way to prevent any terribly drastic effects? After Stannis’s murder and what happened to your family, if there is another thunder story, it will not just be cats and dogs pelting from the skies but arrows and blood. The world is already on the brink of a worldwide war. All the scale needs are another gram to tip the scale.” Mya muttered, disguising her moving lips behind an Apple she held poised.

In response the carnation caught fire again and Maya groaned as she lifted the flower and placed it in her full wineglass to keep it from catching fire again . “Okay I get it. Just let the flower be! It's already as dead as a rock!”

The words were barely out of maya's mouth when Cersei ear ripping voice screeched like a vulture that had found a dead carcass ... But this scratch was that a vulture finding a carcass without meat. Evelyn watched as Maya, Lillia and Nanteza left their feet and like a gazelle, Lillia moved to the side of the fallen Joffrey who was going purple in the face and it was crowded by a shocked and horrified Jaime and screaming Cersei. Evelyn proudly watched as Lillia used the lessons of Lynn had given her via the pinnacle on how to draw poison from the body using certain crushed herbs shoved into the oral cavity . Sadly, for Joffrey, his throat had already closed due to the poison and he vomited the concoction up much to Cersei’s despair for her screams intensified tenfold.

Evelyn gnawed her lip in thought as she drowned out the sounds. Who could have poisoned Joffrey? A number of people to be honest but exactly who had taken the chance? She froze in her thoughts when she spied the dark outline of Zinzi in the trees. The wolf had taken the opportunity of a distracted reception to check on her mistress. Evelyn observed that the wolf had begun doing this routine more recently whenever Evelyn was gone for more than three hours.

At first Evelyn thought it was because something had happened to Robb or Calum but after rushing back to camp several times in the past only to find the two boys content or sound asleep, she realized that the wolf was more concerned about Evelyn being on her own amongst people who were out to end her. The wolf must know how to tell time for Evelyn had been gone precisely three hours and five minutes. Evelyn noticed too late that while Cersei was screeching murderous accusations at her youngest brother that could have blown her head off if it wasn’t screwed on so tight, Jaime had scanned the place for any sign of suspicious faces or activity, only for his sharp eyes to notice Zinzi.

Evelyn groaned. If it had been Chance or Ace, there would be no reason for Jaime to suspect Evelyn’s unnoticed presence, only the possible presence of the Warlock. But Zinzi was a dead giveaway of a girl who was supposed to be dead, practically Evelyn’s existence and fake death written in black fur and sharp teeth. Evelyn heard Jaime’s breathing hitch and his heart sped up. His eyes remained glued on the oversized mutt before he blinked heavily as if to check to see if he was dreaming. Zinzi decided to make a timely exit and was gone with a flip of her tail before Jaime opened his eyes.

Evelyn didn’t even hear Maya mutter something about Tyrion’s trial as her heart thudded in her chest. She had hoped to sneak into Kings Landing, do what needed to be done and disappear into the darkness, Evelyn Stark Lannister’s death still the “truth” and her survival a “lie”… but now, a certain Lannister would be thinking a little too hard about the fact that if the Warlock appeared shortly after Evelyn Stark’s signature direwolf made an untimely appearance, who’s to say that the mysteriously female Warlock was not somehow related to one particularly missing Evelyn Stark Lannister who’s body had still not been found?

********

“Evelyn, we have a teensy-weensy problem,” Nanteza reported, cringing at the unamused look on fiery Evelyn’s face.

the girls had snuck into Maya's room directly after Tyrion’s hearing and since they had no other way of getting the girls attention other than summoning her via the pinnacle, they found themselves locked inside the room trying to keep their voices down.

“teensy weensy!?” Lillia squeaked, “more like a macho enormous! Prince Oberyn has agreed to champion Tyrion in the fight to the death battle against the mountain! It is a death wish!”

Evelyn’s previously skeptical stance soon relaxed into an almost sorrowful slump and she pinched the bridge of her nose, “I am not surprised. Oberyn Martell has had blood on his mind for that Clegane and monster since he murdered his sister. But knowing the mountain’s prowess in battle and Prince Oberyn’s fury it is not going to end well.”

“ this was the effects that you were talking about isn't it?” Maya asked, crossing her arms and thought.

Evelyn nodded, “ no amount of persuasion will sway Oberyn, so we need to make sure that the mountain does not do him in. Lillia you need to talk to the High Sparrow. They will be judging the fight. Make sure he is unaware of Cersei’s selection of champion . Lead him to believe that she selected … I don't know... a Knight who would stand no chance against the Prince. That way the High Sparrow will already be irritated with her and will not be as likely to vote in the mountain’s favor. Next, Maya, you still know how to bend the water in humans’ bodies right ?”

Maya smirked and nodded , “it tends to come in handy occasionally.”

Evelyn nodded pleased, “if the mountain were to mysteriously try to cheat during the fight by drawing out an unannounced and unauthorized second weapon, the fight will naturally forfeit over to Oberyn and Tyrion.” Evelyn instructed.

“ that's cheating,” Lillia muttered even though she was rather liking the direction that this plan was headed.

Evelyn glowered, “Cersei already cheated by selecting a monster who cheated death when his head should have exploded on its own for his crimes.”

The three girls nodded in silent agreement. “but what if something were to go wrong?” Nanteza asked, “ to keep anyone from suspecting interference on our part, we cannot have the mountain sheet unless Oberyn has the upper hand and who is to say that he will not kill the Prince before then?”

Evelyn nodded, “at that point Tyrion and Oberyn would have already won the fight so should anyone in favor of Tyrion step in to put a few scrapes on the Mount and wouldn't forfeit the match.” the girl observed.

“But Evelyn,” Maya whispered, “ Sir Jaime saw Zinzi! If he sees the mysterious Warlock, female warrior, whom he already once suspected of being his long-lost wife, he will put two and two together and find out for sure that it is you beneath the mask.”

Lillia gasped, “Jaime saw Zinzi !? Why didn't you tell us about this? Why do you never tell me these things!?”

Everyone shook her head, “that is beside the point... Jaime suspected me of being … me? How did he come to that suspicion? I was very careful to disguise my voice, I did not say anything suspicious, and he did not even see my eyes or hair!”

Maya shrugged, “apparently Jaime is a whole lot smarter than Oberyn is. He did not even recognize me in a mask with my red hair and blue eyes on display. Apparently, Tommen had mentioned how the Warlock's personality was similar to yours and Jamie has been so desperate to find you that he'll believe anything if it means that you're alive... even the truth believes it or not.”

Evelyn shook her head, “ then it is a definite probability that he will discover who I am... But there is no way around it. I suppose I owe it to him to at least know that I am alive and well... ”

“but what if he says something to Cersei and she realizes that you're not dead!? he and Cersei may not be very close anymore, but they are still family.” Nanteza voiced, chewing her fingernail in anxiousness .

Evelyn sighed and ground her teeth until Lillia finally spoke in such a serious and confident voice that the girls have expected her to be mad .

“I'll do it ... I'll talk to Jamie.”

Evelyn frowned, “and tell him what Lillia? That his wife is in fact alive and is this creepy dark fire wizard who roams the wild poking her nose into events that she shouldn't?”

Lillia grinned, “exactly that. Tell him that you are alive and well but much safer away from Kings Landing and presumably dead . I'll explain that everyone must think that you are dead, or you will be in danger. Jamie is your husband Evelyn and damn all hell if he doesn't love you with every fiber of his being. He will keep you a secret if it means you being safe.”

Maya and Nanteza's eyes had widened at the girl’s colorful choice of words while Evelyn smiled , “OK Lils. I'll let you do it... but do it directly after the fight. That means you need to sit beside him and not leave his side until you explain it... we can't risk anyone overhearing even a mumble from him or I will have every termite of Cersei’s on my back.”

Lillia nodded and smiled, pleased to have a very devious and satisfyingly romantic duty to do for her top ship couple.

Nanteza lifted her arms, prepared to break the connection between them and Evelyn when Maya left into action.

“wait! If Lillia must stay with Jamie, who will help you deal with amount and if things go awry?”

Nanteza raised her hand but Lillia chirped up first, “wait... when the mountain mysteriously cheats, we should be sure that the High Sparrow is within earshot of Cersei. Knowing her she will curse something vile when it happens and that will add some icing to the cake and urged the High Sparrow to ensure Tyrion’s release . The High Sparrow is not exactly fond of Cersei.”

Maya nodded, “not only that when the fight is over, who is to say that Cersei did not already hire an assassin to slit Tyrion’s throat in case the mountain last? She is too clever for that. we need to get Tyrion out of there right away .”

Evelyn calmed her agreement, “ in that case, Lillia is on Jamie duty, Nanteza be sure that the winds are just right so that the High Sparrow can hear some juice and be sure to protect and watch over Tyrion. What is the point of winning the fight for him if a crossbowman kills him halfway through? And Maya... you will have the undeniable honor of helping me keep Cersei bursting with fury and protecting your Prince Charming!”

Maya grumbled, “he is not my Prince Charming...”

Lillia giggled, “ you seem to be singing a very different song when you two had a late-night rendezvous in the garden and then that flirting session at the wedding banquet!”

“it was not a rendezvous! You two devils set me up! And I was not flirting. He was being a pain in the ass, and I was proving my point to him.” Maya retorted firmly.

Nanteza grinned, “yeah totally. Telling him all about your childhood crush blossom budding into a lovely carnation.”

Maya sneered, “Speaking of carnations. Lillia...”

The blonde glowered, “ if you mention either purple, carnation or Loras, I will kill you.”

#jaime lannister x oc #Jaime Lannister #got #game of thrones

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isslibrary · 4 years ago

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NEW LIBRARY MATERIAL September 2020 - February 2021

Bibliography

Sorted by Call Number / Author.

011.7 F

Fadiman, Clifton, 1904-1999. The new lifetime reading plan / : the classical guide to world literature, Revised and expanded. 4th ed. New York : HarperCollins Publishers, 1999, c1997.

155.2 G

Gladwell, Malcolm, 1963-. David and Goliath : underdogs, misfits, and the art of battling giants. First edition. Goliath : "Am I a dog that you should come to me with sticks?" -- The Advantages of Disadvantages (and the Disadvantages of Advantages). Vivek Ranadiv©♭: "It was really random. I mean, my father had never played basketball before." ; Teresa DeBrito: "My largest class was twenty-nine kids. Oh, it was fun." ; Caroline Sacks: "If I'd gone to the University of Maryland, I'd still be in science. -- The Theory of Desirable Difficulty. David Boies: You wouldn't wish dyslexia on your child. Or would you? ; Emil "Jay" Freireich: "How Jay did it, I don't know." ; Wyatt Walker: "De rabbit is de slickest o' all de animals de Lawd ever made." -- The Limits of Power. Rosemary Lawlor: "I wasn't born that way. This was forced upon me." ; Wilma Derksen: "We have all done something dreadful in our lives, or have felt the urge to." ; Andr©♭ Trocm©♭: "We feel obliged to tell you that there are among us a certain number of Jews.". This book uncovers the hidden rules that shape the balance between the weak and the mighty and the powerful and the dispossessed. In it the author challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks. He begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy (David and Goliath) those many years ago. From there, the book examines Northern Ireland's Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms, all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity. -- From book jacket.

170 H

Haidt, Jonathan, author. The happiness hypothesis : finding modern truth in ancient wisdom. Paperback edition. "The Happiness Hypothesis is a book about ten Great Ideas. Each chapter is an attempt to savor one idea that has been discovered by several of the world's civilizations--to question it in light of what we now know from scientific research, and to extract from it the lessons that still apply to our modern lives and illuminate the causes of human flourishing. Award-winning psychologist Jonathan Haidt shows how a deeper understanding of the world's philosophical wisdom and its enduring maxims--like "do unto others as you would have others do unto you," or "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger"--can enrich and even transform our lives."--Back cover.

171 K

Kohn, Alfie. The brighter side of human nature : altruism and empathy in everyday life. New York : Basic Books, c1990.

305.5 W

Wilkerson, Isabel, author. Caste : the origins of our discontents. First edition. The man in the crowd -- Toxins in the permafrost and heat rising all around -- The arbitrary construction of human divisions -- The eight pillars of caste -- The tentacles of caste -- The consequences of caste -- Backlash -- Awakening -- Epilogue: A world without caste. "In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people--including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball's Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others--she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of America life today."--.

305.8 W

Williamson, Joel. A rage for order : Black/White relations in the American South since emancipation. New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 1968. Full ed.: published as The crucible of race. 1984. Traces the history of race relations, examines changing public attitudes, and tells the stories of those involved in Civil Rights movement.

305.9 P

Pipher, Mary Bray. The middle of everywhere : the world's refugees come to our town. First edition. Cultural collisions on the Great Plains -- The beautiful laughing sisters-an arrival story -- Into the heart of the heartland -- All that glitters ... -- Children of hope, children of tears -- Teenagers--Mohammed meets Madonna -- Young adults--"Is there a marriage broker in Lincoln?"-- Family--"A bundle of sticks cannot be broken" -- African stories -- Healing in all times and places -- Home-a global positioning system for identity -- Building a village of kindness. Offers the tales of refugees who have escaped countries riddled by conflict and ripped apart by war to realize their dream of starting a new life in America, detailing their triumph over adversity.

306.4 P

Pollan, Michael. The botany of desire : a plant's-eye view of the world. Random House trade pbk. ed. New York : Random House, 2002. Desire : sweetness, plant : the apple (Malus domestica) -- Desire : beauty, plant : the tulip (Tulipa) -- Desire : intoxication, plant : marijuana (Cannabis sativa x indica) -- Desire : control, plant : the potato (Solanum tuberosum). Focusing on the human relationship with plants, the author of Second nature uses botany to explore four basic human desires, sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control, through portraits of four plants that embody them, the apple, tulip, marijuana, and potato. Every school child learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers; the bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers' genes far and wide. In The botany of desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. In telling the stories of four familiar species that are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind's most basic yearnings. And just as we've benefited from these plants, the plants have done well by us. So who is really domesticating whom?.

307.1 I

Immerwahr, Daniel, 1980-. Thinking small : the United States and the lure of community development. First Harvard University Press paperback edition 2018. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 2015. Preface: Modernization, development, and community -- Introduction: Actually existing localism -- When small was big -- Development without modernization -- Peasantville -- Grassroots empire -- Urban villages -- Epilogue: What is dead and what is undead in community development?.

323.60973 I

In the hands of the people : Thomas Jefferson on equality, faith, freedom, compromise, and the art of citizenship. First edition. New York, NY : Random House, 2020. "Thomas Jefferson believed in the covenant between a government and its citizens, in both the government's responsibilities to its people and also the people's responsibility to the republic. In this illuminating collection, a project of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jon Meacham has gathered Jefferson's most powerful and provocative reflections on the subject, drawn from public speeches and documents as well as his private correspondence. Still relevant centuries later, Jefferson's words provide a manual for U.S. citizenship in the twenty-first century. His thoughts will re-shape and revitalize the way readers relate to concepts including Freedom: "Divided we stand, united we fall." The importance of a free press:"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." Public education: "Enlighten the public generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body & mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day." Participation in government: A citizen should be "a participator in the government of affairs not merely at an election, one day in the year, but every day.""-- Provided by publisher.

324.6 P

Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. African American women in the struggle for the vote, 1850-1920. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1998. Revisiting the question of race in the woman suffrage movement -- African American women in the first generation of woman suffragists : 1850-1869 -- African American woman suffragists finding their own voices : 1870s and 1880s -- Suffrage strategies and ideas : African American women leaders respond during "the nadir" -- Mobilizing to win the vote : African American women's organizations -- Anti-black woman suffrage tactics and African American women's responses -- African American women as voters and candidates -- The nineteenth amendment and its meaning for African American women. This study of African American women's roles in the suffrage movement breaks new ground. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn draws from many original documents to take a comprehensive look at the African American women who sought the right to vote. She discovers numerous Black suffragists previously unknown. Analyzing the women's own stories, she examines why they joined the woman suffrage movement in the United States and how they participated in it - with white women, Black men, as members of African American women's organizations, or simultaneously in all three. Terborg-Penn further discusses their various levels of interaction and types of feminist philosophy. Noting that not all African American woman suffragists were from elite circles, Terborg-Penn finds representation from working-class and professional women as well.They came from all parts of the nation. Some employed radical, others conservative means to gain the right to vote. Black women, however, were unified in working to use the ballot to improve not only their own status, but the lives of Black people in their communities. Drawing from innumerable sources, Terborg-Penn argues that sexism and racism prevented African American women from voting and from full participation in the national suffrage movement. Following the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, state governments in the South, enacted policies which disfranchised African American women, with many white suffragists closing their eyes to the discriminatory acts. Despite efforts to keep Black women politically powerless, Terborg-Penn contends that the Black suffrage was a source of empowerment. Every political and racial effort to keep African American women disfranchised met with their active resistance until Black women achieved full citizenship.

326.80922 B

Brands, H. W., author. The zealot and the emancipator : John Brown, Abraham Lincoln and the struggle for American freedom. First Edition. Pottawatomie -- Springfield -- Harpers Ferry -- The telegraph office. "What do moral people do when democracy countenances evil? The question, implicit in the idea that people can govern themselves, came to a head in America at the middle of the nineteenth century, in the struggle over slavery. John Brown's answer was violence--violence of a sort some in later generations would call terrorism. Brown was a deeply religious man who heard the God of the Old Testament speaking to him, telling him to do whatever was necessary to destroy slavery. When Congress opened Kansas territory to slavery, the eerily charismatic Brown raised a band of followers to wage war against the evil institution. One dark night his men tore several proslavery settlers from their homes and hacked them to death with broadswords, as a bloody warning to others. Three years later Brown and his men assaulted the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, with the goal of furnishing slaves with weapons to murder their masters in a race war that would cleanse the nation of slavery once and for all. Abraham Lincoln's answer was politics. Lincoln was an ambitious lawyer and former office-holder who read the Bible not for moral guidance but as a writer's primer. He disliked slavery yet didn't consider it worth shedding blood over. He distanced himself from John Brown and joined the moderate wing of the new, antislavery Republican party. He spoke cautiously and dreamed big, plotting his path to Washington and perhaps the White House. Yet Lincoln's caution couldn't preserve him from the vortex of violence Brown set in motion. Arrested and sentenced to death, Brown comported himself with such conviction and dignity on the way to the gallows that he was canonized in the North as a martyr to liberty. Southerners responded in anger and horror that a terrorist was made into a saint. Lincoln shrewdly threaded the needle of the fracturing country and won election as president, still preaching moderation. But the time for moderation had passed. Slaveholders lumped Lincoln with Brown as an enemy of the Southern way of life; seven Southern states left the Union. Lincoln resisted secession, and the Civil War followed. At first a war for the Union, it became the war against slavery Brown had attempted to start. Before it was over, slavery had been destroyed, but so had Lincoln's faith that democracy can resolve its moral crises peacefully"--.

328.73 M

Meacham, Jon, author. His truth is marching on : John Lewis and the power of hope. First edition. Overture: the last march -- A hard life, a serious life -- The spirit of history -- Soul force -- In the image of God and democracy -- We are going to make you wish you was dead -- I'm going to die here -- This country don't run on love -- Epilogue: against the rulers of the darkness. "John Lewis, who at age twenty-five marched in Selma and was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, is a visionary and a man of faith. Using intimate interviews with Lewis and his family and deep research into the history of the civil rights movement, Meacham writes of how the activist and leader was inspired by the Bible, his mother's unbreakable spirit, his sharecropper father's tireless ambition, and his teachers in nonviolence, Reverend James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr. A believer in hope above all else, Lewis learned from a young age that nonviolence was not only a tactic but a philosophy, a biblical imperative, and a transforming reality. At the age of four, Lewis, ambitious to become a preacher, practiced by preaching to the chickens he took care of. When his mother cooked one of the chickens, the boy refused to eat it--his first act of non-violent protest. Integral to Lewis's commitment to bettering the nation was his faith in humanity and in God, and an unshakable belief in the power of hope. Meacham calls Lewis "as important to the founding of a modern and multiethnic twentieth- and twenty-first century America as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and Samuel Adams were to the initial creation of the nation-state in the eighteenth century. He did what he did--risking limb and life to bear witness for the powerless in the face of the powerful--not in spite of America, but because of America, and not in spite of religion, but because of religion"--.

333.95 W

Wilson, Edward O. A window on eternity : a biologist's walk through Gorongosa National Park. First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. Prologue: The Search for Eternity -- The Sacred Mountain of Mozambique -- Once There Were Giants -- War and Redemption -- Dung and Blood -- The Twenty-Foot Crocodile -- The Elephant Whisperer -- The House of Spiders -- The Clash of Insect Civilizations -- The Log of an Entomological Expedition -- The Struggle for Existence -- The Conservation of Eternity. "E.O. Wilson, one of the most celebrated scientists in the United States, shows why biodiversity is vital to the future of Earth and to our own species through the story of an African national park that may be the most diverse place on earth, in a gorgeously illustrated book"--. "The remarkable story of how one of the most biologically diverse habitats in the world was destroyed, restored, and continues to evolve--with stunning, full-color photographs by two of the world's best wildlife photographers. In 1976, Gorongosa National Park was the premier park in Mozambique, boasting one of the densest wildlife populations in all of Africa. Across 1,500 square miles of lush green floodplains, thick palm forests, swampy lakes, and vast plains roamed creatures great and small, from herds of wildebeest and elephant to countless bird species and insects yet to be classified. Then came the civil war of 1978-1992, when much of the ecosystem was destroyed, reducing some large animal populations by 90 percent or more. Due to a remarkable conservation effort sponsored by an American entrepreneur, the park was restored in the 1990s and is now evolving back to its former state. This is the story of that incredible transformation and why such biological diversity is so important. In A Window on Eternity, world-renowned biologist and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward O. Wilson shows why biodiversity is vital to the future of the Earth, including our human population. It is in places like Gorongosa in Africa, explains Wilson, that our own species evolved. Wilson takes readers to the forested groves of the park's watershed on sacred Mount Gorongosa, then far away to deep gorges along the edge of the Rift Valley, places previously unexplored by biologists, with the aim of discovering new species and assessing their ancient origins. He treats readers to a war between termites and raider ants, describes 'conversations' with elephant herds, and explains the importance of a one-day 'bioblitz.' Praised as 'one of the finest scientists writing today' (Los Angeles Times), Wilson uses the story of Gorongosa to show the significance of biodiversity to humankind"--.

340.092 S

Sligh, Clarissa T., artist. Transforming hate : an artist's book. First edition. "This book evolved from a project for which I folded origami cranes from pages of white supremacist books for the exhibition, Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate ... I was trying to look at what it was like for me to turn hateful words into a beautiful art object. What actually evolved from that exploration helped me understand more fully the many levels of oppression and violence at the intersections of race, gender, class and sexual orientation." --inside front cover.

343.730 I

Internet law. Amenia, New York : Grey House Publishing, 2020.

345.73 C

Carter, Dan T. Scottsboro : a tragedy of the American South. Rev. ed. Fourth printing. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 2007.

349.41 H

Honor©♭, Tony, 1921-2019. About law : an introduction. Reprint: 2013. Law -- History -- Government -- Property -- Contracts and treaties -- Crimes -- Torts -- Forms and procedures -- Interpretation -- Justice -- Does law matter? -- Glossary.

363.73 P

Pollution. New York, NY : Grey House Publishing, 2020.

371.102 A

Agarwal, Pooja K., author. Powerful teaching : unleash the science of learning. First edition. Introduction -- Discover the power behind power tools -- Build a foundation with retrieval practice -- Empower teaching with retrieval practice strategies -- Energize learning with spacing and interleaving -- Engage students with feedback-driven metacognition -- Combine power tools and harness your toolbox -- Keeping it real: use power tools to tackle challenges, not add to them -- Foster a supportive environment: use power tools to reduce anxiety and strengthen community -- Spark conversations with students about the science of learning -- Spark conversations with parents about the science of learning -- Powerful professional development for teachers and leaders -- Do-it-yourself retrieval guide -- Conclusion: unleash the science of learning.

512 G

Algebra. 2004. New York : Springer Science+Business Media, 2004.

575.1 A

Arney, Kat, author. How to code a human. Meet your genome -- Our genetic journey -- How do genes work? -- Under attack! -- Who do you think your are? -- People are not peas -- Genetic superheroes -- Turn me on -- Sticky notes -- The RNA world -- Building a baby -- Wiring the brain -- Compatibility genes -- X and Y -- The viruses that made us human -- When things go wrong -- Human 2.0. "How to Code a Human takes you on a mind-bending journey through the world of the double helix, revealing how our DNA encodes our genes and makes us unique. Covering all aspects of modern genetics from the evolution of our species to inherited diseases, "junk" DNA, genetic engineering and the intricacies of the molecular processes inside our cells, this is an astonishing and insightful guide to the code of life"--Back cover.

598 S

Sibley, David, 1961- author, illustrator. What it's like to be a bird : from flying to nesting, eating to singing -- what birds are doing, and why. How to use this book -- Introduction -- Portfolio of birds -- Birds in this book -- What to do if... -- Becoming a birder. Explore more than two hundred species, and more than 330 new illustrations by the author, in this special, large-format volume, where many of the primary illustrations are reproduced life-sized. While its focus is on familiar backyard birds -- blue jays, nuthatches, chickadees -- What It's Like to Be a Bird also examines certain species that can be fairly easily observed, such as the seashore-dwelling Atlantic Puffin. David Sibley's exacting artwork and wide-ranging expertise bring observed behaviors vividly to life. And while the text is aimed at adults -- including fascinating new scientific research on the myriad ways birds have adapted to environmental changes -- it is nontechnical, making it the perfect occasion for parents and grandparents to share their love of birds with young children, who will delight in the big, full-color illustrations of birds in action. -- back cover.

613.6 C

Bushcraft Illustrated: a visual guide. New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, Inc. (Adams Media: imprint of Simon & Schuster), 2019.

638.1 B

Michael Bush. The Practical beekeeper. Nehawka, Nebraska : X-Star Publishing Company, 2004-2011. V. 1 - The Practical Beekeeing Naturally; V.2 - Intermediate Beekeeping Naturally.

660.6 D

Druker, Steven M., author. Altered genes, twisted truth : how the venture to genetically engineer our food has subverted science, corrupted government, and systematically deceived the public.

709.2 A

Atalay, B©ơlent. Math and the Mona Lisa: : the art and science of Leonardo da Vinci. New York, NY : Smithsonian Books in association with HarperCollins Publishers, 2006. Leonardo was one of history's true geniuses, equally brilliant as an artist, scientist, and mathematician. Following Leonardo's own model, Atalay searches for the internal dynamics of art and science. He provides an overview of the development of science from the dawn of civilization to today's quantum mechanics. From this base, Atalay offers a view into Leonardo's restless intellect and modus operandi, allowing us to see the source of his ideas and to appreciate his art from a new perspective.

741.5 G

Greenberg, Isabel. The encyclopedia of early earth : a graphic novel. First American edition. Love in a very cold climate -- Part 1. The land of Nord. The three sisters of Summer Island ; Beyond the frozen sea ; The gods ; The odyssey begins -- Part 2. Britanitarka. Summer and winter ; Creation ; Medicine man ; The storytellers ; Creation ; Dag and Hal ; The old lady and the giant ; The time of the giants ; The children of the mountain ; The long night ; Dead towns & ghost men -- Part. 3. Migdal Bavel. Migdal Bavel ; The mapmaker of Migdal Bavel ; The bible of Birdman: Genesis ; Bible of Birdman, book of Kiddo: The great flood ; The tower of Migdal Bavel ; The palace of whispers ; The gods #2 -- Part 4. The South Pole. The gods #3 -- Appendices. A brief history of time ; The Nords ; Hunting and fishing ; The 1001 varieties of snow ; The invisible hunter ; Britanitarka ; Birds & beast from early Earth ; The moonstone ; The plucked firebird of Hoo. "Chronicles the explorations of a young man as he paddles from his home in the North Pole to the South Pole. There, he meets his true love, but their romance is ill-fated. Early Earth's unusual and finicky polarity means the lovers can never touch"--Publisher's website.

808.1 G

How poetry can change your heart. San Francisco, CA : Chronicle Books, 2019.

808.5 E

Franklin, Sharon. Essentials of speech communication. Evanston, Ill. : McDougal Littell, 2001.

808.53 H

Hanson, Jim. NTC's dictionary of debate. Lincolnwood, Ill., USA : National Textbook Co., c1990.

808.53 W

Strategic debate. Textbook. Columbus, OH : Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2006.

810.8 B

Lepucki, Edan, author. The best American nonrequired reading 2019. This anthology presents a selection of short works from mainstream and alternative American periodicals published in 2019, including nonfiction, screenplays, television writing, fiction, and alternative comics.

815 R

Representative American speeches, 2019-2020. Amenia, New York : Grey House, Publishing, 2020. "Selected from a diverse field of speakers and venues, this volume offers some of the most engaging American speeches of the year. Distinguished by its diversity, covering areas in politics, education, popular culture, as well as trending topics in the news, these speeches provide an interesting format to explore some of the year's most important stories."-Publisher.

909.09 D

Davis, Jack E., 1956- author. The Gulf : the making of an American sea. First edition. Prologue : history, nature, and a forgotten sea -- Introduction : birth -- Part one. Estuaries, and the lie of the land and sea : aborigines and colonizing Europeans. Mounds -- El golfo de M©♭xico -- Unnecessary death -- A most important river, and a "magnificent" bay -- Part two. Sea and sky : American debuts in the nineteenth century. Manifest destiny -- A fishy sea -- The wild fish that tamed the coast -- Birds of a feather, shot together -- Part three. Preludes to the future. From bayside to beachside -- Oil and the Texas toe dip -- Oil and the Louisiana plunge -- Islands, shifting sands of time -- Wind and water -- Part four. Saturation and loss : post-1945. The growth coast -- Florida worry, Texas slurry -- Rivers of stuff -- Runoff, and runaway -- Sand in the hourglass -- Losing the edge -- Epilogue : a success story amid so much else. Significant beyond tragic oil spills and hurricanes, the Gulf has historically been one of the world's most bounteous marine environments, supporting human life for millennia. Based on the premise that nature lies at the center of human existence, Davis takes readers on a compelling and, at times, wrenching journey from the Florida Keys to the Texas Rio Grande, along marshy shorelines and majestic estuarine bays, both beautiful and life-giving, though fated to exploitation by esurient oil men and real-estate developers. Davis shares previously untold stories, parading a vast array of historical characters past our view: sports-fishermen, presidents, Hollywood executives, New England fishers, the Tabasco king, a Texas shrimper, and a New York architect who caught the "big one". Sensitive to the imminent effects of climate change, and to the difficult task of rectifying the assaults of recent centuries, this book suggests how a penetrating examination of a single region's history can inform the country's path ahead. --.

910.92 I

Inskeep, Steve, author. Imperfect union : how Jessie and John Fr©♭mont mapped the West, invented celebrity, and helped cause the Civil War. Aid me with your influence -- The equal merits of differing peoples -- The current of important events -- Miseries that attend a separation -- I determined to make there a home -- The manifest purpose of providence -- A taste for danger and bold daring adventure -- The Spaniards were somewhat rude and inhospitable -- I am not going to let you write anything but your name -- Do not suppose I lightly interfere in a matter belonging to men -- We pressed onward with fatal resolution -- Jessie Benton Fr©♭mont was the better man of the two -- We thought money might come in handy -- All the stupid laurels that ever grew -- Decidedly, this ought to be struck out -- He throws away his heart. "Steve Inskeep tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Fr©♭mont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became America's first great political couple John Fr©♭mont grew up amid family tragedy and shame. Born out of wedlock in 1813, he went to work at age thirteen to help support his family in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a nobody. Yet, by the 1840s, he rose to become one of the most acclaimed people of the age -- known as a wilderness explorer, bestselling writer, gallant army officer, and latter-day conquistador, who in 1846 began the United States' takeover of California from Mexico. He was a celebrity who personified the country's westward expansion. Mountains, towns, ships, and streets were named after him. How did he climb so far? A vital factor was his wife, Jessie Benton Fr©♭mont, the daughter of a powerful United States senator. Jessie wanted to play roles in politics and exploration, which were then reserved for men. Frustrated, she threw her skill and passion into promoting her husband. Ordered by the US Army to map the Oregon Trail, John traveled thousands of miles on horseback, indifferent to his safety and that of the other members of his expeditions. When he returned home, Jessie helped him to shape dramatic reports of his adventures, which were reprinted in newspapers and bound as popular books. Jessie became his political adviser, and a power player in her own right. In 1856, the famous couple strategized as John became the first-ever presidential nominee of the newly established Republican Party. The party had been founded in opposition to slavery, and though both Fr©♭monts were Southerners they became symbols of the cause. With rare detail and in consummate style, Steve Inskeep tells the story of a couple whose joint ambitions and talents intertwined with those of the nascent United States itself. Americans linked the Fr©♭monts with not one but three great social movements of the time -- westward settlement, women's rights, and opposition to slavery. Theirs is a surprisingly modern story of ambition and fame; they lived in a time of globalization, technological disruption, and divisive politics that foreshadowed our own. The Fr©♭monts' adventures amount to nothing less than a tour of the early American soul"--.

940.54 S

Sledge, E. B. (Eugene Bondurant), 1923-. China marine. Oxford University Paperback, 2003. Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, c2002. China Marine 1 -- Epilogue: I Am Not the Man I Would Have Been 149.

940.54 T

Terkel, Studs, 1912-2008. "The good war" : an oral history of World War Two. New York : New Press, [1997.

943.36 H

Hunt, Irmgard A. (Irmgard Albine), 1934-. On Hitler's mountain : overcoming the legacy of a Nazi childhood. First Harper Perennial edition. 2006. On writing a childhood memoir -- pt. 1. 1906-1934 : the P©œhlmanns. Roots of discontent ; In search of a future -- pt. 2. 1934-1939 : Hitler's willing followers. The rituals of life ; "Heil Hitler" ; Ominous undercurrents ; Meeting Hitler ; Gathering clouds -- pt. 3. 1939-1945 : war and surrender. Early sacrifice ; Learning to hate school ; Lessons from a wartime friendship ; A weary interlude in Selb ; Hardship and disintegration ; War comes to Berchtesgaden ; The end at last -- pt. 4. 1945-1948 : Bitter justice, or, Will justice be done? Survival under the Star-spangled Banner ; The curse of the past ; Escape from darkness. The author provides an account of her life growing up in Berchtesgaden, a Bavarian village at the foot of Hitler's mountain retreat, discussing a childhood encounter with the Nazi leader, and shedding light on why ordinary Germans, including her parents, tolerated and even supported the Nazis.

951.04 M

Mitter, Rana, 1969- author. Forgotten ally : China's World War II, 1937-1945. First U.S. Edition. The path to war: As close as lips and teeth : China's fall, Japan's rise ; A new revolution ; The path to confrontation -- Disaster: Thirty-seven days in summer : the outbreak of war ; The battle for Shanghai ; Refugees and resistance ; Massacre at Nanjing ; The battle of Taierzhuang ; The deadly river -- Resisting alone: "A sort of wartime normal" ; Flight into the unknown ; The road to Pearl Harbor -- The poisoned alliance ; Destination Burma ; Hunger in Henan ; States of terror ; Conference at Cairo ; One war, two fronts ; Showdown with Stilwell ; Unexpected victory ; Epilogue: The enduring war. "For decades, a major piece of World War II history has gone virtually unwritten. China was the fourth great ally, partner to the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, yet its drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue remains little known in the West. In this emotionally gripping book, made possible through access to newly unsealed Chinese archives, Rana Mitter unfurls the story of China's World War II as never before and rewrites the larger history of the war in the process. He focuses his narrative on three towering leaders -- Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong, and the lesser-known collaborator Wang Jingwei -- and extends the timeline of the war back to 1937, when Japanese and Chinese troops began to clash, fully two years before Hitler invaded Poland. Unparalleled in its research and scope, Forgotten Ally is a sweeping, character-driven history that will be essential reading not only for anyone with an interest in World War II, but also for those seeking to understand today's China, where, as Mitter reveals, the echoes of the war still reverberate"--.

952 J

Takada, Noriko. The Japanese way : aspects of behavior, attitudes, and customs of the Japanese. 2nd ed. Chicago : McGraw-Hill, c2011 . Abbreviations and contractions -- Addresses and street names -- Arts and crafts -- Asking directions -- Bathing and bathhouses -- Body language and gestures -- Borrowed words and acronyms -- Bowing -- Brand names and brand-name goods (burando-hin) -- Business cards (meish) -- Calendar -- Cherry blossoms and flower viewing -- Compliments -- Conversation -- Crime and safety -- Dating and marriage -- Death, funerals, and mourning -- Dialects -- Dining out -- Dinner invitations -- Directness -- Discussion and consensus -- Dress -- Drinking -- Driving -- Earthquakes -- Education -- English-language study -- Family -- The Jag and the national anthem -- Flowers and plants -- Food and eating -- Footwear -- Foreigners -- Gender roles -- Geography -- Gifts -- Government -- Hellos and good-byes -- Holidays and festivals -- Honorific speech (keigo) -- Hotels and inns -- Housing and furnishings -- Humor -- The Imperial family -- Individuals and couples -- Introductions and networking -- Karaoke -- Leisure (rgli) -- Letters, greeting cards, and postal services -- Love and affection -- Lucky and unlucky numbers -- Male/female speech -- Money -- Mt. Fuji -- Music and dance -- Myths, legends, and folklore -- Names, titles, and forms of address -- Numbers and counting -- Oriental medicine -- Pinball (pachinko) -- Politeness and rudeness -- Population -- Privacy -- Reading material -- Religion -- The seasons -- Shopping -- Shrines and temples -- Signatures and seals -- Social structure -- Sports -- Table etiquette -- Telephones -- Television/radio/movies -- Thank-yous and regrets -- Theater -- Time and punctuality -- Tipping and service charges -- Toilets -- Travel within Japan -- Vending machines -- Visiting private homes -- Weights, measures, and sizes -- Working hours -- The written language -- "Yes" and "no" -- "You first" -- Zoological calendar.

972.81 P

Proskouriakoff, Tatiana, 1909-1985. Maya history. First edition. Foreword / Gordon R. Wills -- Tatiana Proskouriakoff, 1909-1985 / Ian Graham -- Introduction / Rosemary A. Joyce -- 1. The Earliest Records: (A.D. 288-337) -- 2. The Arrival of Strangers: (A.D. 337-386) -- 3. The Maya Regain Tikal: (A.D. 386-435) -- 4. Some Ragged Pages: (A.D. 435-485) -- 5. Expansion of the Maya Tradition: (A.D. 485-534) -- 6. A Time of Troubles: (A.D. 534-583) -- 7. Recovery on the Frontiers: (A.D. 583-633) -- 8. Growth and Expansion: (A.D. 633-682) -- 9. Toward a Peak of Prosperity: (A.D. 682-736) -- 10. On the Crest of the Wave: (A.D. 731-780) -- 11. Prelude to Disaster: (A.D. 780-830) -- 12. The Final Years: (A.D. 831-909) -- 13. The Last Survivals: (A.D. 909-938). The ruins of Maya city-states occur throughout the Yucatan peninsula, Guatemala, Belize, and in parts of Honduras and El Salvador. But the people who built these sites remain imperfectly known. Though they covered standing monuments (stelae) and public buildings with hieroglyphic records of their deeds, no Rosetta Stone has yet turned up in Central America to help experts determine the exact meaning of these glyphs. Tatiana Proskouriakoff, a preeminent student of the Maya, made many breakthroughs in deciphering Maya writing, particularly in demonstrating that the glyphs record the deeds of actual human beings. This discovery opened the way for a history of the Maya, a monumental task that Proskouriakoff was engaged in before her death in 1985. Her work, Maya History, has been made ready for press by the able editorship of Rosemary Joyce. Maya History reconstructs the Classic Maya period (roughly A.D. 250-900) from the glyphic record on stelae at numerous sites, including Altar de Sacrificios, Copan, Dos Pilas, Naranjo, Piedras Negras, Quirigua, Tikal, and Yaxchilan. Proskouriakoff traces the spread of governmental institutions from the central Peten, especially from Tikal, to other city-states by conquest and intermarriage. And she also shows how the gradual introduction of foreign elements into Maya art mirrors the entry of outsiders who helped provoke the eventual collapse of the Classic Maya. Fourteen line drawings of monuments and over three hundred original drawings of glyphs amplify the text. Maya History has been long awaited by scholars in the field. It is sure to provoke lively debate and greater understanding of this important area in Mesoamerican studies.

973.04 A

Asian Americans : the movement and the moment. A wide-ranging collection of essays and material which documents the rich, little-known history of Asian American social activism during the years 1965-2001. This book examines the period not only through personal accounts and historical analysis, but through the visual record--utilizing historical prictorial materials developed at UCLA's Asian American Studies Center on Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and Vietnamese Americans. Included are many reproductions of photos of the period, movement comics, demonstration flyers, newsletters, posters and much more.

973.0496 D

W.E.B. DuBois. The Souls of Black Folk. BIGFONTBOOKS.COM.

973.7 B

Barney, William L. Battleground for the Union : the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction, 1848-1877. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice Hall, c1990.

973.9 I

Imani, Blair, author. Making our way home : the Great Migration and the Black American dream. First edition. Separate but equal: Reconstruction-1919 -- Beautiful -- and ugly, too: 1920-1929 -- I, too, am America: 1930-1939 -- Liberty and justice for all: 1940-1949 -- Trouble ahead: 1950-1959 -- The time is in the street, you know: 1960-1969 -- All poer to all the people: 1970-1979. "A powerful illustrated history of the Great Migration and its sweeping impact on Black and American culture, from Reconstruction to the rise of hip hop. Over the course of six decades, an unprecedented wave of Black Americans left the South and spread across the nation in search of a better life--a migration that sparked stunning demographic and cultural changes in twentieth-century America. Through gripping and accessible historical narrative paired with illustrations, author and activist Blair Imani examines the largely overlooked impact of The Great Migration and how it affected--and continues to affect--Black identity and America as a whole. Making Our Way Home explores issues like voting rights, domestic terrorism, discrimination, and segregation alongside the flourishing of arts and culture, activism, and civil rights. Imani shows how these influences shaped America's workforce and wealth distribution by featuring the stories of notable people and events, relevant data, and family histories. The experiences of prominent figures such as James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hamer, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X), Ella Baker, and others are woven into the larger historical and cultural narratives of the Great Migration to create a truly singular record of this powerful journey"--.

973.9 L

Longley, Kyle, author. LBJ's 1968 : power, politics, and the presidency in America's year of upheaval. A nation on the brink: the State of the Union Address, January 1968 -- Those dirty bastards, are they trying to embarrass us? The Pueblo Incident, January-December 1968 -- Tet: a very near thing, January-March 1968 -- As a result, I will not seek re-election: the March 31, 1968 speech -- The days the earth stood still: the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., April 1968 -- He hated him, but loved him: the assassination of Robert Kennedy, June 1968 -- The big stumble: the Fortas Affair, June-October 1968 -- The tanks are rolling: Czechoslovakia crushed, August 1968 -- The perfect disaster: the Democratic National Convention, August 1968 -- Is this treason?: the October surprise that wasn't, October-December 1968 -- The last dance, January 1969 -- Conclusion.

974.7 F

Feldman, Deborah, 1986-. Unorthodox : the scandalous rejection of my Hasidic roots. 1st Simon & Schuster trade pbk. ed. 2020. New York : Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2012. Traces the author's upbringing in a Hasidic community in Brooklyn, describing the strict rules that governed her life, arranged marriage at the age of seventeen, and the birth of her son, which led to her plan to leave and forge her own path in life.

975.7 B

Ball, Edward, 1959-. Slaves in the family. Paperback edition. Journalist Ball confronts the legacy of his family's slave-owning past, uncovering the story of the people, both black and white, who lived and worked on the Balls' South Carolina plantations. It is an unprecedented family record that reveals how the painful legacy of slavery continues to endure in America's collective memory and experience. Ball, a descendant of one of the largest slave-owning families in the South, discovered that his ancestors owned 25 plantations, worked by nearly 4,000 slaves. Through meticulous research and by interviewing scattered relatives, Ball contacted some 100,000 African-Americans who are all descendants of Ball slaves. In intimate conversations with them, he garnered information, hard words, and devastating family stories of precisely what it means to be enslaved. He found that the family plantation owners were far from benevolent patriarchs; instead there is a dark history of exploitation, interbreeding, and extreme violence.--From publisher description.

975.7 B

Ball, Edward, 1959-. The sweet hell inside : a family history. First edition. Preface -- Part 1-The Master and His Orphans-Part 2-High Yellow-Porch 3 -Eyes Sadder Then the Grave-Part 4-Nigger Rich-Part 5-The Orphans Dancers-Part 6-A Trunk in the Grass-Notes-Permission and Photography Credits-Acknowledgments-Index. If. Recounts the lives of the Harleston family of South Carolina, the progeny of a Southern gentleman and his slave who cast off their blemished roots and achieved affluence in part through a surprisingly successful funeral parlor business. Their wealth afforded the Harlestons the comfort of chauffeurs, tailored clothes, and servants whose skin was darker than theirs. It also launched the family into a generation of glory as painters, performers, and photographers in the "high yellow" society of America's colored upper class. The Harlestons' remarkable 100-year journey spans the waning days of Reconstruction, the precious art world of the early 1900s, the back alleys of the Jazz Age, and the dawn of the civil rights movement.--From publisher description.

DVD Gre

The Great debaters. 2-disc collector's edition; Widescreen [ed.]. [New York] : Weinstein Company, c2008. Denzel Washington, Nate Parker, Jurnee Smollett, Denzel Whitaker, Jermaine Williams, Forest Whitaker, Gina Ravera, John Heard, Kimberly Elise, Devyn Tyler, Trenton McClain Boyd. Melvin B. Tolson is a professor at Wiley College in Texas. Wiley is a small African-American college. In 1935, Tolson inspired students to form the school's first debate team. Tolson turns a group of underdog students into a historically elite debate team which goes on to challenge Harvard in the national championship. Inspired by a true story.

F Alb

Albertalli, Becky, author. What if it's us. Told in two voices, when Arthur, a summer intern from Georgia, and Ben, a native New Yorker, meet it seems like fate, but after three attempts at dating fail they wonder if the universe is pushing them together or apart.

F Arc

Astral Traveler's Daughter. First Simon & Schuster Trade Paperback edition, April 2019. New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, Inc, 2019. "Last year, Teddy Cannon discovered she was psychic. This year, her skills will be put to the test as she investigates a secretive case that will take her far from home--and deep into the past in the thrilling follow-up to School for Psychics"-- Provided by publisher.

F Chi

Chiaverini, Jennifer, author. Enchantress of numbers : a novel of Ada Lovelace. "The only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the most brilliant, revered, and scandalous of the Romantic poets, Ada was destined for fame long before her birth. Estranged from Ada's father, who was infamously "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," Ada's mathematician mother is determined to save her only child from her perilous Byron heritage. Banishing fairy tales and make-believe from the nursery, Ada's mother provides her daughter with a rigorous education grounded in mathematics and science. Any troubling spark of imagination--or worse yet, passion or poetry--is promptly extinguished. Or so her mother believes. When Ada is introduced into London society as a highly eligible young heiress, she at last discovers the intellectual and social circles she has craved all her life. Little does she realize that her delightful new friendship with inventor Charles Babbage--brilliant, charming, and occasionally curmudgeonly--will shape her destiny ..."--Jacket.

F Chr

Christie, Michael, 1976- author. Greenwood : a novel. First U.S. edition. "It's 2038 and Jake Greenwood is a storyteller and a liar, an overqualified tour guide babysitting ultra-rich vacationers in one of the world's last remaining forests. It's 2008 and Liam Greenwood is a carpenter, fallen from a ladder and sprawled on his broken back, calling out from the concrete floor of an empty mansion. It's 1974 and Willow Greenwood is out of jail, free after being locked up for one of her endless series of environmental protests: attempts at atonement for the sins of her father's once vast and violent timber empire. It's 1934 and Everett Greenwood is alone, as usual, in his maple syrup camp squat when he hears the cries of an abandoned infant and gets tangled up in the web of a crime that will cling to his family for decades. And throughout, there are trees: thrumming a steady, silent pulse beneath Christie's effortless sentences and working as a guiding metaphor for withering, weathering, and survival. A shining, intricate clockwork of a novel, Greenwood is a rain-soaked and sun-dappled story of the bonds and breaking points of money and love, wood and blood--and the hopeful, impossible task of growing toward the light"--.

F Cle

Memoirs of Fanny Hill. Published by arrangement with Edito-Service S. A., Geneva, Switzerland. New York, NY : Peebles Press International Inc, 1973.

F Col

Andre's Reboot. Birmingham, AL : Stephen B. Coleman, Publisher, 2019.

F Def

Moll Flanders. Reprint. 2020. Columbia, SC, : August 12, 2020.

F Def

Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731. The fortunes and misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders ... A new edition.

F Fit

Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott), 1896-1940, author. The great Gatsby. Foreword to the seventy-fifth anniversary edition: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, and the House of Scribner ; Preface / by Matthew J. Bruccoli -- THE GREAT GATSBY -- The text of The Great Gatsby / by Matthew J. Bruccoli -- Publisher's afterword / Charles Scribner III -- FSF : life and career / James L.W. West III. Overview: The mysterious Jay Gatsby embodies the American notion that it is possible to redefine oneself and persuade the world to accept that definition. Gatsby's youthful neighbor, Nick Carraway, fascinated with the display of enormous wealth in which Gatsby revels, finds himself swept up in the lavish lifestyle of Long Island society during the Jazz Age. Considered Fitzgerald's best work, The Great Gatsby is a mystical, timeless story of integrity and cruelty, vision and despair. The timeless story of Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy Buchanan is widely acknowledged to be the closest thing to the Great American Novel ever written.

F Jam

The Turn of the Screw, the Aspern Papers, and Two Stories. Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003; Intro. and notes by David L. Sweet. New York, NY : Barnes & Noble, 2003.

F Ora

Orange, Tommy, 1982- author. There there. First Vintage books edition. Here is a story of several people, each of whom has private reasons for travelling to the Big Oakland Powwow. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life together after his uncle's death and has come to work at the powwow to honour his uncle's memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil Red Feather, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and has come to the powwow to dance in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion, and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and unspeakable loss.

F Pat

Patchett, Ann, author. The Dutch house : a novel. First edition. "Ann Patchett, the New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth and State of Wonder, returns with her most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go"--.

F Rob

Roberts, Nora, author. The awakening. First edition. "#1 New York Times bestselling author of the epic Chronicles of The One trilogy returns with the first in a brand new series where parallel worlds clash over the struggle between good and evil"--.

F Row

Rowling, J. K. Harrius Potter et philosophi lapis. Cover illustration first pub. 2015. London : Bloomsbury, 2003, ℗♭1997. Latin translation, Peter Needham, 2003. Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry.

F Rus

Russell, Karen, 1981-. Swamplandia! 1st ed (Borzoi Book). New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. Twelve year old Ava must travel into the Underworld part of the swamp in order to save her family's dynasty of Bigtree alligator wresting. This novel takes us to the swamps of the Florida Everglades, and introduces us to Ava Bigtree, an unforgettable young heroine. The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline, and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator wrestling theme park, formerly no. 1 in the region, is swiftly being encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor called the World of Darkness. Ava's mother, the park's indomitable headliner, has just died; her sister, Ossie, has fallen in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, who may or may not be an actual ghost; and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, who dreams of becoming a scholar, has just defected to the World of Darkness in a last ditch effort to keep their family business from going under. Ava's father, affectionately known as Chief Bigtree, is AWOL; and that leaves Ava, a resourceful but terrified thirteen, to manage ninety eight gators as well as her own grief. Against a backdrop of hauntingly fecund plant life animated by ancient lizards and lawless hungers, the author has written a novel about a family's struggle to stay afloat in a world that is inexorably sinking.

F Sha

Shaw, Irwin, 1913-1984. The young lions. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2000.

F Tol

The Hobbit. 75th Anniversary. The text of this edition is based on edition published by HarperCollins Publishers in 1995. Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to take part in an adventure from which he may never return.

F Tow

Towles, Amor. Rules of civility. A chance encounter with a handsome banker in a jazz bar on New Year's Eve 1938 catapults Wall Street secretary Katey Kontent into the upper echelons of New York society, where she befriends a shy multi-millionaire, an Upper East Side ne'er-do-well, and a single-minded widow.

F Wat

Watson, Ren©♭e, author. Piecing me together. Tired of being singled out at her mostly-white private school as someone who needs support, high school junior Jade would rather participate in the school's amazing Study Abroad program than join Women to Women, a mentorship program for at-risk girls. "Acclaimed author Renee Watson offers a powerful story about a girl striving for success in a world that too often seems like it's trying to break her. Jade believes she must get out of her poor neighborhood if she's ever going to succeed. Her mother tells her to take advantage of every opportunity that comes her way. And Jade has: every day she rides the bus away from her friends and to the private school where she feels like an outsider, but where she has plenty of opportunities. But some opportunities she doesn't really welcome, like an invitation to join Women to Women, a mentorship program for "at-risk" girls. Just because her mentor is black and graduated from the same high school doesn't mean she understands where Jade is coming from. She's tired of being singled out as someone who needs help, someone people want to fix. Jade wants to speak, to create, to express her joys and sorrows, her pain and her hope. Maybe there are some things she could show other women about understanding the world and finding ways to be real, to make a difference.".

F Wil

Williams, Katie, 1978- author. Tell the machine goodnight. Pearl's job is to make people happy. Every day, she provides customers with personalized recommendations for greater contentment. She's good at her job, her office manager tells her, successful. But how does one measure an emotion? Meanwhile, there's Pearl's teenage son, Rhett. A sensitive kid who has forged an unconventional path through adolescence, Rhett seems to find greater satisfaction in being unhappy. The very rejection of joy is his own kind of "pursuit of happiness." As his mother, Pearl wants nothing more than to help Rhett--but is it for his sake or for hers? Certainly it would make Pearl happier. Regardless, her son is one person whose emotional life does not fall under the parameters of her job--not as happiness technician, and not as mother, either.-Amazon.

SC D

The Daniel Defoe Collection : The Life and strange surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner; The farther adventures of Robinson Crusoe; A journal of the plague year; Moll Flanders. South Carolina, USA, : August 2020.

SC L

Link, Kelly, author. Get in trouble : stories. Random House trade paperback edition. The summer people -- I can see right through you -- Secret identity -- Valley of the girls -- Origin story -- The lesson -- The new boyfriend -- Two houses -- Light. A collection of short stories features tales of a young girl who plays caretaker to mysterious guests at the cottage behind her house and a former teen idol who becomes involved in a bizarre reality show.

SC P

Packer, ZZ. Drinking coffee elsewhere. 1st Riverhead trade pbk. ed. New York : Riverhead Books, 2004, ℗♭2003. Brownies -- Every tongue shall confess -- Our Lady of Peace -- The ant of the self -- Drinking coffee elsewhere -- Speaking in tongues -- Geese -- Doris is coming. Discovered by The New Yorker, Packer "forms a constellation of young black experience"* whether she's writing from the perspective of a church-going black woman who has a crisis in faith, a young college student at Yale, or a young black man unwillingly accompanying his father to the Million Man March. This universally appealing collection of short fiction has already established ZZ Packer as "a writer to watch.".

SC S

Sedaris, David, author. Calypso. First edition. When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, David Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself. Sedaris sets his powers of observation toward middle age and mortality, that vertiginous moment when your own body betrays you and you realize that the story of your life is made up of more past than future.

SC S

Sedaris, David, author. Let's explore diabetes with owls. First Back Bay paperback edition, June 2014. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences. Whether railing against the habits of litterers in the English countryside or marveling over a disembodied human arm in a taxidermist's shop, Sedaris takes us on side-splitting adventures that are not to be forgotten.

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