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duskholland · 4 years ago

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Getting His Fill | Mob!Tom Holland Smut

summary ↠ you’ve been a brat all day, and Tom’s had enough.

requested ↠ yep, twice! similar concepts were suggested both by an anon and @a-singleboat, so I combined them.

warnings ↠ this is really quite hardcore. includes d/s dynamic, elements of bdsm, mean dom!Tom, c*ckwarming, bondage, oral (fem-receiving), unprotected MxF rough sex, dirty/filthy talk, angry Tom, cursing, mob-related themes? aka -- pls pls pls don’t read if rough stuff freaks you out.

a/n ↠ I’m starting up a new thing which I’m gonna call Mob Mondays... aka, every Monday I’m gonna try to post something mob!Tom related, and it will probably be filthy. all the oneshots are based within the same universe, but you can read the pieces as stand-alones. feel free to send me suggestions or concepts for mob!Tom and I’ll see if I can incorporate them in the future :) until then --- happy reading (and don’t forget to wrap before ya tap!)

18+ !!!! this contains NSFW material, so do not read if you are a minor.

You know you’re being a brat. You’ve been acting like a spoilt, entitled bitch all day, but you’re not going to stop until you get exactly what you want, and Tom knows that.

It had started this morning. You’d woken up to Tom’s head between your legs, his thick curls tickling your inner thighs. He’d teased you, his brown eyes meeting yours mischievously as he’d nuzzled his nose up against your covered clit, the hard pressure to your silky lingerie making you whine and buck your hips. He didn’t stop his teasing until you were so flushed and breathless that the entire front of your panties were soaked through and you were practically begging just to get him to touch you. And you’d almost got it. Just as Tom had dragged his hot tongue over the front of your panties, his phone had started to ring, and he’d left you high and dry, fisting at the satin sheets as he’d swept from the room with a lingering, don’t you fucking dare that rendered you immobilised.

He hadn’t come back, and when the house started to fill with the sounds of his men arriving for work, you’d given up on waiting and got on with your day. But the ache between your legs has persisted, and it really doesn’t help that Tom’s been avoiding you ever since.

Now it’s early afternoon, and you’ve decided you can’t wait on him to come to you - you’re just going to have to bait him into finishing the job. You’re so horny it feels like your skin is on fire and your body longs for him in a way that puts you on edge. Tom rarely leaves you hanging, and it’s a sensation you can’t stand. And you know he’s busy, but you don’t really care as you slip on one of his favourite dresses and go to cause trouble. It’s a silky little number that skims the tops of your thighs as you walk down the hallway, and it draws the attention of his men as you walk into the open reception hall where Tom’s hosting a few guests. But if Tom notices, he doesn’t show it. In fact, he pays you no attention beyond a fleeting glance as you enter the room, and you’re forced to make polite small-talk with some of the guards until you notice Tom’s at a break in conversation and seize the opening.

You’re not shy as you approach. There’s no need to be. Everyone in the room answers to Tom, and you’re his, so that leaves you invincible. You know he can sense you approaching, but he doesn’t do anything, even when you’ve swaggered up to stand right behind him. Infuriatingly, he just pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts scrolling through his emails as you run a hand over his toned back, pressing your chin on the flat of his shoulders as you peer down at his hands. His fingers are slim and long, and you find yourself gulping as memories of intimate times pass behind your eyelids.

“Baby,” you try. You dig your fingers beneath the crisp collar of his shirt, giving you the perfect leverage to tilt his neck and expose his pale, sensitive skin. You press a few wet, open-mouthed kisses to him, grinning as you feel him stiffen.

But much to your irritation, Tom keeps his eyes fixed firmly on his phone, even as your mouth goes up to tease his ear, your tongue flicking gently over his lobe before you leave another hot kiss just behind it. “Pay attention to me,” you whine. You run your hands down the sides of his shirt, twisting your fingers up and around to his front, and you’re so close to snatching his phone away when he pulls away, turning around to finally look at you.

“Needy today, aren’t you?” Tom crosses his toned arms over his chest, his stature pulled wide and domineering, and you swallow deeply as he stares at you intently, eyes dark and firm. His hair is styled up and away from his face, looking smooth and slick in the way you like it, and you find yourself biting down on your lower lip as you admire him. “I’m busy.”

Your lips roll into a pout. “Not too busy for me.” You step closer, pressing your hand to his shoulder as you lean up to his ear again, whispering hotly. “You left me hanging this morning. ‘S not fair.”

Tom’s sharp fingers briefly dig into your waist as he pushes you away, your hands falling back to your sides as your frown deepens. A whine slips from your mouth as you glare at him, the sight of his jaw pulled tight only causing you to grow more aroused. Wanting to test him, you try to get closer, your entire body burning to feel him again, but he just steps back teasingly.

“Not fair, huh?” Tom taunts, his voice pulled lower and drier. Your mood dips as you realise he’s feeling mean. And sometimes you love that side of Tom - the part of him that pins you down and edges you until you’re a wet, slippery mess, and grips your chin as he spits obscenities in your ear - but today, you’re so fucking desperate to have him touching you that it’s enough to ruin the playfulness you’d had spinning between your ears as you’d walked in. “Don’t come in here and act like I owe you anything, love.” He glances down at the leather watch strapped to his wrist. “I’m too busy for this. Don’t make me tell you twice.”

A shiver passes down your spine as he looks at you firmly, his expression saying try me. And you know you should leave the room and let him continue to mingle with his partners, but his husky tone and the way he’s staring at you like you’re just a bratty bitch makes the ache between your legs worsen. You’d stopped wearing panties around the house as soon as you’d moved in because Tom has such a habit of ripping them off, and now it’s come to bite you in the back as you feel your throbbing cunt begin to drip, your slick wetting the insides of your thighs.

“Please,” you beg, letting your teeth catch your lower lip again. You widen your eyes and stare at him pleadingly, and you know your interaction is being watched by the other men in the room, but you’re too distracted to care. “Tom, baby- I need you-“

“And I need you to leave before you cause a scene.” He steps closer and brings a hand up, his fingers briefly cupping your cheek as he stares at you firmly, eyes slightly softer. “Stop being a needy brat, sweetheart. I’ll deal with you later.” He brushes the flat of his thumb across your lower lip teasingly, and then he’s pulled back and it’s as if he’d never touched you.

Knowing your cue, you begrudgingly turn and dramatically walk from the room, feeling him watching you and the way you swing your hips as you get further and further away.

But you don’t give up there. His refusal to satisfy you is just a minor setback. For the rest of the afternoon, you lounge about in your queen sized bed and model a few of your favourite lingerie pieces, sending snap after snap to Tom. He leaves you on read, but you notice he’s opening the messages almost immediately after you’ve sent them. You already know you’re in for it later, but he gets really hot when you’ve pushed him too far and so you’re more than willing to aggravate the situation.

You spot him around the mansion a few more times over the course of the day. Tom doesn’t ignore you, but he keeps his distance, always somehow finding a way to be just out of reach. It drives you up the wall as he ignores your stares and appears to care more about the contracts that he’s pouring over with Harrison, and your arousal only grows worse as you realise he’s doing it on purpose. Every time you look away, you feel his gaze resting on you, but he’s always turned away before you can catch him.

This frustrating game of cat and mouse continues on until 10pm, when you’re finally able to get him alone.

The mansion is quiet and his office door is shut, but a golden line of light cascades out from beneath it and you don’t hesitate to slip inside. Tom looks up from his desk as he hears the sound, his eyebrows drawing together in outrage at being interrupted, but then his gaze falls on you and he sighs deeply instead. His brown eyes drift back to his work, nimble fingers twirling a golden pen through the air as you approach him. You’ve ditched the silky dress from earlier in exchange for one of his large grey t-shirts and a pair of loose shorts, and you feel swaddled in his musky scent.

“What makes you think you can be in here?” He speaks quietly as he underlines a few lines of the contract on his desk. “The door’s shut for a reason, love.”

You walk around the front of his desk and slip up onto an open spot, the cool glass pressing against your exposed thighs. You rest your chin in your hands as you peer at him innocently. “Why are you so mean today?” You dare to ask.

Tom’s breath hitches as he slowly, slowly, tilts his head up to look at you, an expression of irritation spreading across his thin pink lips. “You think I’m being mean.” His voice lulls deeper, and it’s with a thrill of anticipation that you realise your word choice has irked him exactly like you’d intended. He reaches up to wrap his arms around your knees and pulls you until you fall into his lap. As one of his hands finds your waist, the other slides underneath your shirt and up your front. His rough thumb presses over one of your stiff nipples and you whine. “You’ve been so fucking bratty today, darling. Hm?” Tom nudges you from the crook of his shoulder and forces you to look at him, your breath hitching in your throat.

“I missed you.”

“Sure.” His hand moves away from your waist and he fists it in your hair, his eyes dancing darkly as he pulls your head to the side. “Turn up at my meeting in a dress that shows off everything, then you try to make a pass at me in front of my guys. After you finally take the fucking hint and leave me alone, you spend all afternoon sending me those photos.” Tom pauses, swallowing deeply as his brown eyes stare into yours. He looks tired, with his hair arranged looser than it was earlier, but he smells so intoxicatingly of Tom that you find yourself inching closer. He releases your hair and brushes his light touch over your cheek, fingertips gentle and contrasting the way his other hand continues to grope you under your shirt. “I’m not being mean, love, I’m trying to show you that you can’t always get what you want.”

You reach up to fist his curls, intending to use your grip to jerk him down into a steamy kiss, but Tom catches your hands, a knowing look in his eyes. He reaches back and grabs a tie from his desk, and you gasp as you realise what he’s planning to do.

“No,” you whine, shaking your head vehemently. But he just pulls your long t-shirt up and over your head and then draws your wrists together, carefully binding them with the black tie. His touch feels hot against your skin, your naked chest prickling from the sudden coolness of the air. “That’s not fair, Tommy. I wanna touch you.”

Tom presses a quick kiss to your cheek before pulling back and raising his eyebrows. “You think after all the shit you’ve pulled today, I’m going to let you have anything you want?” He reaches down and quickly pulls off your shorts, leaving your centre bare and glistening as he pulls you back into his lap. His mouth is at your neck and you whimper as he drags his lips and teeth over your skin, biting and licking over your sensitive spots as you squirm. You can feel his length through his slacks, pressing up deliciously against your aching cunt, and you grind messily against him, knowing you’re digging yourself a deeper hole, but enjoying the way Tom’s face squints pleasurably.

“Just...fuck me,” you suggest seductively. “Show me I’m yours.” Your voice is far too eager for Tom, who immediately pulls away from you. You stumble back, suddenly unbalanced as he stands from the chair, and you watch as he pulls his trousers and boxers down his legs. Your thighs clench at the sight of his flushed cock, standing tall and full against his lower stomach, his prick red and weepy. When Tom raises an eyebrow and pats his right thigh suggestively, you straddle him, hissing slightly as you wish desperately he hadn’t tied your hands together. “I need your cock, Tommy.”

He brings his hand to your face, thumb slipping into your mouth as his hot, minty breath spreads across your face. You grind down against his leg, the slight pressure causing you to gasp around his thumb, and in response, he fists your hair again.

“I don’t think you deserve to get fucked, m’love,” he murmurs, voice achingly cruel. When you pout, he just smirks. “Wouldn’t be fair, hmm? You acted like a spoilt brat all day, what did you expect was gonna happen? You’d suck me off, maybe let me tease you a little bit, then I’d fuck you?” He laughs quietly, pulling at your hair as you groan. “You’re so desperate for it. Soaking my thigh before I’ve even touched you.” He finally releases your hair and reaches down to tug at his cock. You try to speak, but the thumb in your mouth just presses your tongue down. “I’ve got some calls I need to take, but I don’t trust you to keep your fingers out of my pussy. So…”

He finally pulls his thumb from your mouth. As you gasp a deep breath, his fingers lever your hips and pull you up, and then his cock is running through your soaking slit, pressing up against your bundle of nerves in a way that makes you mewl.

“Not a sound,” he orders.

Your teeth catch your lower lip as he guides your hips down, your tight entrance stretching to take his length. It feels so good, to finally have him pressing your walls apart, and the burn makes you shake as you try to push down a quiet whimper at the feeling.

“Mm, there’s a good girl,” he whispers. “Taking my cock so well. Don’t even need to touch you, and you’re already so fucking wet.” He bottoms out, his groan filling your ears as your eyes flutter shut, your breathing laboured and heavy. “Don’t move. You’re gonna sit there and keep my cock warm until I’m ready for you.”

Tom reaches over to the desk and picks up his phone. Your forehead falls down to his shoulder as your bound hands rest between your bodies, your heart racing. You feel so full, having his cock stuffed in you completely, and it’s almost like a pleasurable method of torture. The wetness from your pulsing walls means you can feel every ridge and curve of his member, and it takes everything you have to stay still and bite back your noises.

“Hi Haz, yeah, just got a few questions about that contract from earlier…”

You bump your head against his shoulder and muffle a whine as you realise what he’s doing. Tom placates you by wrapping one of his arms around your waist, the presence anchoring you to his lap, but it also nudges you forward and causes an arc of pleasure to roll up your spine as his tip presses up against your g-spot. You sink your teeth into the shirt on his shoulder as Tom continues to phone his men, asking them dozens of needless questions as you writhe about in his lap, your walls pulsing weakly.

After what feels like an eternity, Tom finally puts the phone down. Both his hands go to your waist and he gently coaxes you back, pulling you away from where you’ve been burrowing your head into his shoulder. He brings a hand to your chin and angles your face, peering down at you with lust in his eyes. The pads of his rough fingertips skim beneath your eyes, gathering up a few tears of frustration that slip out as he bucks his hips against you.

“You look so fucked, dove,” he murmurs, taking in your sweaty forehead and the way your chest heaves. “So pretty like this, naked and flushed, clenching around me like that.” His breath catches as you clench around him, his own cheeks tinted a deep rosy red. Quickly, Tom clears a space on the desk and then lifts you up, your bodies still entangled as he presses your back into the glass and stands between your tensed thighs. His hungry lips nibble down the column of your neck, and he pauses to suck deeply against your sensitive spot, making you groan softly into the air. “No noise,” he repeats. He reaches down and brings your bound hands up and over your head, and then you’re just laying there, body naked and humming from arousal, his cock nudging up against your heat in a way that has your eyes tearing up, and you can’t do anything apart from wait. Tom takes his time to slowly pull out, pauses for a teasing moment at your entrance, and then gradually pushes back in, wet sounds of your arousal filling the air between you.

“This is what’s going to happen,” he starts, leaning over you. One hand fondles your breasts as the other reaches down to your thigh and pushes your leg back further, giving him better access as he continues to slowly fuck into you. “You’re gonna lay here and take it. You can’t touch me, and you definitely can’t talk. If you’re lucky, I might cum in you.” He ruts particularly harshly against your back wall and you stifle a gasp. “You’ve been such a fucking brat all day, you’re lucky I’m even doing this for you. Does that sound fair?”

You nod slowly, your mouth dry and the muscles in your arms aching. He’s got a mad look about him - the sleeves of his white dress shirt pulled up to his elbows and his sweaty curls falling out across his flushed forehead, but he fucks you hard and that makes all thoughts leave your mind. His fingers burn into your thigh as he keeps you spread wide and open, your body quaking as his thrusts grow harder and more precise, the tip of his cock nudging at your g-spot. There’s a fire growing in the pit of your stomach but you find yourself biting and chewing at your lower lip as you try to push back your high, knowing he won’t let you get there, knowing he’s going to make you regret all of your bratty actions from earlier.

It only takes him a few minutes for his thrusts to grow sloppier. Your lungs burn and your arms throb, but you respond eagerly as his lips finally find yours and they meet in a searing kiss. You can’t keep back a moan as he hits your spot directly over and over, and you take the opportunity to groan into his mouth as he chases down his high. But he hears the sound, and just as he’s about to cum, Tom does the unthinkable and pulls out. You cry out at the sudden feeling of emptiness, and then your eyes widen as he stands between your legs, hand pumping his glistening cock.

“You were doing so well, sweetheart,” he rasps. “Was g’nna cum in you, then eat your pussy.” He pauses to whine, the noise full and heady as his hand blurs over his cock, the veins in his neck standing out. “Too bad, I guess.” When you whimper, he leans forward and bites the base of your neck, his chest pressing flush to the rise of breasts. “Only good girls get my cock. And you’ve been a brat all day.” And as you wriggle on the table, trying desperately to feel anything against your flushed centre, Tom peaks with a cry, his white cum landing on the skin of your stomach and chest. The feeling makes you whimper softly as your core aches, your arms aching as your eyes glaze over.

Tom curses as he finishes, his cheeks red and flushed and his demeanour pulled wide by a confident smirk. His eyes survey your painted naked body as he slowly starts to dress himself again, occasionally running a finger along your inner thigh and delighting when you mewl and buck your hips against nothing. Once he’s dressed, he picks his phone up and slips it into his back pocket.

“I have to finish my work. Stay here. Don’t even think about moving. Maybe when I come back, I’ll give you something.” He walks around the desk, pausing when he’s by your head to lean down and press a small kiss just behind your ear. “Or maybe I’ll just tease you,” he adds. “Make you a whimpering, needy mess, and keep you on edge all night until you’re begging me to let you cum.”

He pauses, laughing quietly as you stare at him incredulously. “I guess it depends what mood I’m in.”

Tom moves away from you and you shiver, the rolls of his cum feeling cold against your skin. The ache between your legs feels worse now, and you know that it’ll be a long, torturous wait for him to come back, but that you’ll have to do it, because crossing Tom when you’re already in hot water would be the worst thing you could do.

“See you later, darling,” he calls out, voice already distant. “Don’t have too much fun without me!”

And then the door closes and you’re left alone, your muscles sore and your core aching, and you know you’re in for a long, long night.

[-----]

let me know what you think! ++ if you have any requests for future mob mondays, feel free to hmu!

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#tom holland #tom holland smut #tom holland x reader #tom holland oneshot #tom holland x y/n #i...really really really hope ppl like this #its been a hot minute since ive written bdsm....i hope it's alright #pls read :)#+ if u have any thoughts i would really love to hear them #mobmondays #mob!tom #mm #mob!tomfic

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writingsbychlo · 4 years ago

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tea parties | dad!mitch rapp

word count; 14,990

summary; emma rapp loves her dad, and she admires the badass CIA agent that he’s trying to suppress his feelings for, so she does a little meddling.

notes; this is a dad mitch fic, featuring the little girl I made up so long ago, and she is a little miss emma rapp. I adore her, she’s fantastic, and you’re going to love her too.

warnings; reference to injury, reference to death, reference to PTSD.

Mitch’s feet were taking slow and steady steps along the corridor, as a pair of irrationally matched footsteps skipped, walked and jumped along beside him, a small hand wrapped tightly around his own as the nerves in his stomach went haywire over the briefing he had up ahead of him, and the hope that it was nothing too dangerous. He knew he never got called in to talk to Irene unless he was going away to do something big, but he was hoping it wasn't the kind of assignment that made him wonder whether he’d be returning on his own two feet, or in a body bag.

Crouching down before the elevator doors, the room he needed to be in only a few metres away, he faced the little girl before him, tucking some of the small wisps of hair away behind her ear, fishing around in his pocket for one of the glittery snap-clips he made an effort to always have on him, and internally cheering in victory when he found one.

Sliding it into her hair to keep the shorter pieces out of her face, he brushed the tip of his finger along the bridge of a familiar nose, one she’d inherited from him, and grinning when her face scrunched up in distaste at the ticklish feeling the action gave her.

“You gonna’ be good for me?”

“I’ll be on my bestest behaviour, daddy, I promise.” She adjusted the bag on her arm, pulling it down for only a second and placing it on the floor, unzipping the little backpack to root through it, before pulling out the item so wanted, brandishing it to him proudly. A plastic ‘nerf’ gun, loaded with foam bullets as at least three dozen more sat loose and rolling around the bottom of the bag, bright orange foam to match the neon green plastic of the toy, and she waved it excitedly in his face. “Mr Stan say’d that he’d help me practice to shoot things.”

“How very exciting.” He teased sweetly, zipping the bag back up and pulling it onto her arms, letting her push her arms through the straps and hold onto the fake gun in her hands with both hands. “Do you know where Stan is?”

“In the gym.”

He nodded, licking over his lips, checking the time on his watch and hurrying himself along. “And how do you get to the gym?”

“Press the button with ‘three’ on and run all the way to the end of the corridor when the door opens.” He scooped her up, standing up to his full height, balancing his daughter on his hip and pressing a kiss to her cheek. She took his face in her hands, his face crushing a little when plastic pressed into one side, but she pulled his head forwards enough to press a kiss to his forehead, seemingly sensing his nerves and returning the gesture he always gave her when she had nightmares or fears. Tipping his head back up, he dropped her down, pushing the button for the elevator and waiting patiently. “How long is your meeting, daddy?”

“Not long, princess, I’ll be there to get you real soon. We’ll have ice cream tonight, yeah?”

She cheered, her hand held out to him and he tapped his palm against hers in a high five, ruffling her hair as the doors dinged open and he was able to push her instead gently, watching as she pushed the button for the right floor and waved to him as she disappeared from sight.

Mitch paused for a second once she was gone, choking down the fear about what may happen to his daughter, reminding himself that she was wandering around the CIA main building, and that his little girl owned the hearts of almost everyone in the building, so there wasn’t a soul that would let anything happen to him.

Spinning on his heel before he could change his mind and call the elevator back, and instead pacing the few large strides it took him to reach the meeting room, everyone else seemingly gathered, preparing themselves around the table, and he let out a huff at all of them, not even glancing up at the screens housing the powerpoints and presentations he was going to be seeing. Instead, he got himself a coffee, stirring the wooden stick aggressively through the shitty paper cup that did nothing to stop his hand getting burned if he held it too long, and picking up one of the pastries, squeezing it a little in his fingers to test the softness of it, before placing it into his mouth and holding it there with his teeth as he moved over to the seat reserved for him.

There was already a brown manilla folder laid out for him, his name on top, and he took the pastry from his mouth, tearing off a chunk and chewing it quickly, before taking a swig of his coffee to wash it down with, wincing when the cheap liquid burned his throat.

“Okay, Mitch, let's just jump right in.”

He looked up, huffing out as he did and wiping flaky crumbs from his shirt, before opening the first page of the folder and almost gagging at what he saw before him. Piles of bodies, all burned, the photograph clearly showing the smoke coming off of the stack of bodies, charred and fleshy, some dismembered and torn apart, battered and bruised, and he pushed the remainder of the croissant away from his as his stomach churned at the sight.

“Underground ring of paid fighters, human trafficking, drug empire, it’s all rolled into one. Goods are being traded for bets, every single person so far identified from this pile is a missing person, some going as far back as four years, and there were two more piles.” Turning over the following page, Mitch let out a low whistle as he ran his eyes over the list of names attached to people he’d already They’re working through people quickly, missing people coming up from all over the world, and he sighed out at the thought. “You’re going in undercover, obviously. We know that there must be a huge list of people adding to this web, with such a quick growth rate and being so well known, word of mouth is travelling fast in a criminal chain, and we need to know who the king-pins are. The next event is tomorrow night.”

“You need me to get kidnapped and put into the next fight by tomorrow night?”

Irene scowled at him, motioning for him to turn over the page, his eyes widened as he took in pictures of all the items that had been traded, everything from raw diamond extracts to people, kidnapped children holding the same worth as the deed rights to mansions, bile once again rising up in his throat, paternal possessiveness crawling in his chest and scratching to be released as he ran his fingers gently over the photograph of a young toddler whom he desperately wished was still alive and well.

Flipping over the next page, he was equally as shocked to find a new set of false identities to add to his collection placed neatly within the pockets of the folder. A passport, a driving licence, a rendered photo of the look he was going for as well as a basic list of everything his new personality would entail. Picking up the piece of plastic that allowed him to drive a car, he scoffed at the name. “How the fuck do I even pronounce this?”

“It’s Polish. You won’t be doing much talking, if any, you just need to listen and place bets. Observe, photograph, be discreet, and find out who our big bosses are here.”

“So, I’m not fighting?”

“In a gladiator-style ring, fighting to the death with opponents who have probably won a lot of matches already? No, Rapp, you’re not a fighter. You’re a buyer.” She insisted, already sounding fed up with him, and he sneered a little at her, before nodding.

“What am I supposed to take that’s of such high value?” She nodded to one of the interns beside her, a large cardboard box being lifted that he seemed to struggle to pick up, before he was tipping it out across the table, at least twenty neatly wrapped plastic packages spilling out before him, and he couldn't help the laugh that left his lips, before he was looking towards the other three boxes that she was gesturing to. “Where the fuck did you get that much cocaine?”

“Evidence lock up. A truly useful resource.”

He nodded a little, letting her run through the fact that he’d need to be at the runway for six sharp tomorrow morning, and that everything he needed would already be packed, an agent set to sort his outfit and help test him on everything he needed to know would fly over with him, but other than that, he was running solo. It was no more than a few days worth of work, tops, but he still didn’t like the idea of being away from his daughter for almost a week, and so he couldn't stop his moody huffing and puffing to himself once he’d left the room.

The journey to finding his daughter was short, and yet he was still equally as irritated when he arrived there, searching for the little girl that ever failed to brighten his day, peering into the room through the windows, and spotting her standing beside his mentor in front of the bullet-riddled targets, as promised, her toy gun in her hands as little orange pellets littering the floor.

Their focus wasn’t on the targets, however, it was a little further off, in the direction of the boxing bags and the sparring rings, but despite how much he craned his head, he couldn't see what they could, and so he was resigned to simply entering the room to actually find out. Pushing the button on the door to release the magnetic locking, the sounds of punching bags being battered, machines running and several voices in different areas field his ears, the room much cooler than the corridor, the air conditioning keeping it so, and a shiver ran down his spine.

The high-pitched cheering that he recognised as his daughter’s voice called out, and he followed the sound of it, making his way over to where the two people he recognised where standing, watching a lesson go down in the boxing ring, and his breath hitched, feeling as though his soul had physically left his body as his daughter stared up at you with rapt awe. For well over a year now, Mitch had cursed the slight trembles that went along his body and the butterflies that filled his stomach when you were around, because he had bigger responsibilities in his world than dealing with the fact that you somehow managed to render him back to being the same nervous wreck he was in high school as soon as a pretty girl walked past, the same Mitch he’d been in sophomore year before getting his braces off and growing out his buzzcut.

He was used to pretty girls in little clothing, from high school until now, Mitch has been on various sports teams, and while being a glorified killer for hire now was a little different to playing college lacrosse, he was used to cheerleaders and gymnasts and dancers surrounding him, tight yoga pants and sports bras and pretty eyes with a firm as and a smirk that made his legs weak. He was used to it, and yet somehow, you had more of an effect on him than the others. He wasn’t sure if it was the fact that you were by far his superior in the field, or maybe that you were also a terrifying killer that turned him on in some sick way, or maybe it was his lover-boy paternal instinct that flared up every time, because much like everyone else, Emma had you wrapped around her little finger.

His daughter had spoken to you more than he had, his mind seeming to go blank every time he tried to talk to you, and so he often opted to just ignore you, a trait he was grateful that he could disguise behind the moody and darkened persona he’d built up. It was hard to keep that up, though, when he had to remind himself to close his mouth and stop staring at the way your body moves with grace and elegance in every single extremely well-executed move you used as you continued to take down the two other agents in the out-manned battle while barely breaking a sweat.

You were incredible. Talented and funny and sweet, while also managing to be brutal and vicious and always successful in a field, every characteristic you had made you perfectly suited for this job, and he was half-convinced Irene had just made you in a lab to work for the CIA.

The first time he’d met you, you were wearing a black tank top and some tight leggings, a look that vaguely reminded him of the Black Widow, and so he’d pegged you as CIA eye-candy, before ever getting a look at your file, and feeling all bt blown away as your record made his look like child's play, his work held up next to your own was the equivalent of holding up one of his daughter's drawings from the fridge door up beside the ‘Mona Lisa’ or ‘Starry Night’.

He was absolutely certain that you owned a little bit of his heart, even though he refused to acknowledge the jumps in his pulse when you caught his eye, or the way he wanted to reach out and hold your hand every time you got a little too close to him, because he was a grown-ass man, and a father at that, a would have been widower in addition, the little girl he had, having barely even reached the age of one when her mother had died on the holiday Mitch had taken her on to propose, never having gotten to see the event.

His heart had healed since then, he’d been forced to for his job and for the baby he loved more than anything, but having someone else around to project his feelings onto certainly hadn't hurt. He wasn’t the same man he had been five years ago, though. He was covered with scars and trauma, inside and out, with a chaotic and unpredictable job that many wouldn't understand and he was unable to disclose, and so finding someone else to be with was a hard task that he hadn't had any luck in.

He leaned up against the doorway, watching as his daughter cheered on, grunting a little as she threw her own fists in fake punches, before pulling out his phone for only a moment, taking a short video and catching the sweet moment to save forever, before calling out her name, and watching as her little head whipped around to give him her attention instead.

Little feet were dashing over to him, toy gun discarded with her bag as they leaned against the steps of leading up to the ring, and she launched herself up into the air, faithfully believing he would catch her, barely giving him time to swoop down and grab her, but he managed to. She was energetic and enthusiastic, a trait he recognised from himself, and he adjusted her in his arms, allowing her to crawl across his body like a climbing frame, until he had clambered up onto his shoulders, legs dangling down onto his chest as she held fistfuls of hair he needed or get cut, balancing carefully as he held onto her ankles, a giggle on her lips as he looked out from her new height.

“I’m bigger than everyone else now.”

“Yes, you are, Em. Are you ready to go?” She gave him a hum in reply, and he crossed the room to his mentor, who was now leaning with his arm folded on the edge of the ring and cheering everyone on, excitedly invested in the match that he was pointedly trying not to look at. Lifting her down from his shoulders, he crouched down to pick up the sparkly unicorn rucksack, putting the gun inside and handing it to her. “Go pick up all your bullets, princess, I’m not buying any more this month if you lose them all.”

“It’s not my fault I can’t find them in the street when we go out!” Her eyes were wide as she looked up at him, and he tapped her nose with the tip of his finger gently.

“Shouldn’t shoot them out of the window then, should you?” She pouted, grumbling to herself as she made her way over to perform her cleanup duties, and he stood up to his full height, Stan facing him now. “Should only be gone about a week, not too bad, but I hate leaving Em for more than a few nights.”

“If you give me the number of your sitter, I can check in a few times with them.”

“I don’t have one anymore, she quit after the last one, saying Emma was too much for her’ with all the shit she does.” He frowned, remembering the summary that the nanny he’d had previously, saying that she was far too aggressive and imaginative, and that the girl never calmed down for even a second, and that she was simply too much for a person to handle.

He refused to dampen her spirit, and if nobody else would nurture her than he sure would, because whatever Emma wanted to be then that was her call, she didn’t need to be tamed. She was wild, and enthusiastic, and her mind never stopped working. She was an intelligent girl for her age, and Mitch kept intending to have her tested, but that came right behind getting a new nanny, which he still hadn't had time to do between trying to help her learn to read and write, find a good online school for her to attend, and keep up with his job to pay the bills.

Nobody said being a single dad was going to be easy.

“What about her grandparents?” Hurley mumbled, eyes flicking up to the sparring match taking place, before back to him, and Mitch felt his own face screw up.

“Katrina’s parents haven’t spoken to me since the funeral. They love her, and they send a letter once a year on her birthday that I’m collecting for when she’s old enough to understand them, but that can’t look at her without crying, and they can’t look at me.” Mitch shrugged, the pain of the event that had changed his life feeling nowhere near as aggressive as it once had, no longer ripping agony through his body like searing heat burning him from the inside out, but he still felt a little saddened at the thought of himself being the only family Emma ever had. “I have until tomorrow morning to find someone to look after her, and that doesn’t’ exactly inspire much confidence in my focus if I’m worried about the stranger caring for my baby girl.”

“I’ll do it.”

Mitch felt his breath hitch in his throat, a shadow falling over both of the men, before you were dropping down and feeding your legs through the elastic bands, leaning against them and reaching for your water bottle. You were panting front he exertion, skin shining a little from sweat, and somehow you still managed to look radiant, rendering Mitch barely able to catch his breath as you licked a stray drop of water from your lower lip and smiled at him.

“You need someone to look after Emma, right?”

“Uh, yeah.. that’s, um, yeah.”

“Well, I’m more than happy to do it.” You shrugged, and Stan clapped you on the shoulder, seeming satisfied with the solution, said little girl seeming to choose this moment to come back over, wrapping her arms around one of his legs as she rested a cheek against his thigh, and he dropped a hand down to brush through her hair comfortingly as she waited patiently. “I know your job, and I know your daughter. I’m good with kids, and I have a guest room, I’m more than happy to do it.”

You were staring at him expectantly, and everything within him seemed to go into panic mode, his eyes flicking between you, his daughter and Hurley. Emma was peering up at him, a sweet little face that was mostly confused, but totally happy to just wait for her dad to be ready, while you were narrowing your eyes a little as him as the time dragged on, his throat feeling dry, even drier when he noticed the scrutinising gaze Stan was giving him as he gaped like a fish. Swallowing thickly and licking over his lips, he fixed you with a smile, nodding his head and looking back down.

“What do you think, Em? You want to stay with (Y/N) for a few days while daddy goes away to fight some bad guys.”

She rubbed at her chin, making both you and Stan laugh at her gesture, before she was leaning in a little closer to you, voice coming out like a whisper. “Do you like spaghetti hoops?”

“I do.” You had whispered back, her face lighting up, the craze she’d been so attached to lately of the pasta circles in a tomato-y sauce seeming to seal the deal as she nodded rapidly. “Here, give me a minute to write down my number and address, and you can swing by later tonight, I’ll get everything set up when I get home.”

Mitch once again felt useless as he simply nodded, watching as you slipped out below the elastic ropes and found your bag, searching through for a pen, but not finding any paper. Instead, you pulled the cap off with your teeth, reaching for his arm and pushing up his sleeve, scrawling your number onto his skin, and tapping it with a triumphant sound when you were done.

“There! Just give me a text later, and I’ll send you my address, and we can sort everything out.”

He finally managed to find words, promising he would do so, giving you a simple thank you and mustering what he hoped was a smile and not a nervous grimace, before Emma was wrapping her hand in his, and pulling him towards the door, yelling her goodbyes over her shoulder as she reminded him that he had promised her ice cream.

The entire evening had felt like a blur to Mitch, like at some point he was going to wake up cursing himself for having a dream about getting your address and number all in one night, that he was going to see you outside of work for the first time in his life. It was a thrill, an adrenaline rush of fear and excitement all in one. Personal lives in the line of work you both shared were something to be kept sacred, protecting your secrets and guarding them to your chest, and to be so easily welcomed into yours meant you trusted him, but he wasn’t sure what he was ready to find. Would you be wearing a wedding band on your own time? Did you have pictures up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, or were you in fact, the opposite of everything he thought you to be.

He had absolutely no idea, his breath practically held in his throat as he rapped his knuckles against the door in a few swift knocks, hands place don his daughter’s shoulders as she rolled on the balls of her feet, far more laid back about it all, only having the excitement part of his fear and excitement bundle.

Swinging the door open, you somehow managed to look exactly the same and entirely different all in one. The usual tight ponytail you wore was gone, your hair falling freely around your shoulders, a ripple in it from where the elastic had held it, and your face was free of makeup or sweat and dirt, leaving you looking raw and natural, a softer edge to your appearance. You were clearly in your relaxing mode, he’d only ever seen you in one of two looks; business formal with pencil skirts and blazers and an officiality to your gaze that made him nervous or in gym gear as you kept your world-class abilities up to spec through rigorous training.

You were wearing a hoodie, and a pair of cycle shorts, socks that were reaching just over your knees covered half of your legs, and he cursed under his breath when you crouched over a little, the hem of you hoodie covering the shorts altogether and sending his mind spinning into a series of fantasies and wonderings that he absolutely could not get caught up in.

“Hey there, Emma.” She threw her arms around your neck, letting you hug her back a little as you fell down to your knees from the impact, struggling to wrap your arms around her and her beloved backpack before she was moving from your arms again, and peering around you into your apartment curiously, but never stepping over the threshold. He all but preened with pride as he watched his daughter look up at you, blinking sweetly as she waited to be invited inside instead of just barging into your house, the manners he’d been working on with her for almost a year clearly beginning to take effect. “You wanna’ come in and put your bag down? The couch is right through there.”

She buzzed past you the second you’d spoken the words, squealing with glee as she entered the new place she’d be exploring, and he managed to still his erratically beating heart, taming it down to a simple rhythm, and offering your hand to you to help you up from your crushed position to standing up again.

“Hey, Mitch.”

“Hey. I’m sorry about before, I just got caught off-guard that anyone would be willing to take her, you totally saved me on that, though.” He had practised the words in his head for the entire ride over here, his fingers flexing a little around the handles of the bag he held, filled with enough things to take care of Emma for a week. You only opened the door wider for him, inviting him inside, and he took a couple of steps forwards, the trained assassin in him immediately wanting to take in the environment, memorise everything in case he ever needed the knowledge. There was that one small part of him, however, that was searching for anything that might help him turn his feelings for you down, mute them a little, anything to make you seem a little less perfect in his eyes, but he couldn't find even a trace. “You, um, said you had a spare room? I can put Emma’s stuff away before I go, so you don’t have to unpack it.”

“Oh! Yeah, ‘course, my bad.” You took a step towards the living room, letting him call out to the young girl, who had already tipped out the contents of her toy bag onto the floor, and he cringed a little at the mess that had gathered up. “I wasn’t sure if she was scared of the dark, or anything, With a badass dad like you, I don’t imagine she’s scared of much, but kids are kids, right? I picked up a couple of night light things on my way home, and put them in the sockets around the house, in case she decided to get up in the night, or anything.”

“She’s a pretty heavy sleeper, she doesn't really wake up unless she has a nightmare, in which they’ll definitely help.”

Only a second later, Emma was barrelling into his side, knocking the breath from him as he staggered a little, her body practically bouncing as she weaved between his legs, and he scowled, shaking his he'd a little at her, but knowing he only had himself or blame for her sugar rush, having treated her to far more ice cream earlier than he should have.

It was a simple room - as guests rooms go, but Emma seemed to love it, unzipping her bag and ragging out her favourite blanket to spread over the bedsheets front he second that it had been released, a ‘Frozen’ blanket covering the white bedding in all the spots it reached, looking more like a misplace square in the middle of the large bed, and she star-fished across the centre of it as he busied himself with unpacking her clothes into the drawers, all the lower ones that she could reach, and making sure she could see where he’d put everything for her.

“I have a big bed now, like yours, daddy.” She was more than contented, and Mitch sat down beside her, watching as he rolled onto her stomach, before crawling over to take a seat in his lap, smiling up at you widely as you leaned against the wall and watched the two have their moment. “Do you have a big bed, too?”

“I have the biggest bed, ever! I could fit, like, seven Emma’s in it?”

She giggled as you stepped over, tickling at her sides a little, and he caught a whiff of the sweet shampoo you must’ve used only recently, the essence of coconuts and mangoes drifting into the air at your close proximity. “Only seven? Daddy’s bed could fit eight!”

“No way, that’s totally impossible!”

“It’s way possible!” She shouted, her voice echoing in his ear as he winced at the volume, but it didn’t dampen the smile on her face as he watched the two of you laugh together like it had been the funniest joke in the world. “Can I show you my dolls? I have to get them ready first, though.”

“Well, I will wait right here until they're ready, then!”

She squirmed in his arms, and he let her go, leaving just the two of you, and you took a seat beside him on the bed, bumping your shoulder to his for only as second, and it was still enough to make his heart skip a beat.

“She’ll be totally okay, Mitch. I promise, I won’t let anything happen to her, she’ll have a great time.” Your words soothed him a little, the familiar sense of feeling like his throat was closing up every time he had to leave the most precious thing in his life, but he felt a little more reassured by your voice and your statement.

“I know she will, I trust you.”

The words meant more to him than you knew, it was hard for him to trust people but for whatever reason it was, he trusted you with everything he had, before reaching for the bag, still a few items laying in it.

“This is her teddy, she’s going to insist she’s a big girl and doesn’t need it because she wants to impress you, but she can’t sleep without it. Also, I wrote down some stuff in this notebook for you, as well as the emergency numbers for her doctor, and such. If you need it, her allergies are in here too, and just some information you might need..” You took it from him, the teddy sitting in your lap as you flicked through the notebook, grinning a little as you settled on one page.

“Favourite pizza toppings; chicken and sweetcorn?”

He shrugged, grinning a little as heat flooded his cheeks, but you brushed your fingers over the pages, nibbling on your lower lip as you read some of the words he’d scribbled down, and his eyes were drawn into the action. You were talking, he could tell because your lips were moving, and he had to tear his eyes up from your mouth before you caught him staring, and when he managed to tune back in, he was grateful to hear you were just reading aloud, and weren’t saying anything important that he’d missed.

Emma was calling you through, claiming the doll show to be ready, and he couldn't help but be happy that she had settled in so quickly, making him all that much more confident and secure in leaving her here with you for the time he was away. He followed after you dumbly as you carried the notebook away, placing it on the kitchen counter as you passed by, before he could see his daughter, kneeling on the floor and positioning her toys, the row of dolls lined up along the edge of the coffee table.

“Em, I have to go now, are you going to come say goodbye?”

She turned to look at him, her smile falling away for only a moment, before a smaller one was taking its place guilt clawing at his insides as he watched her stand up and wobble her way over to him on shaky little legs, before lifting her arms up for him to lift her into his arms.

Her little arms wrapped around his neck, legs sealing to his waist as she buried her face into his neck, cheek pressed to his shoulder, short little puffs of breath washing over his skin, and Mitch buried his nose in his daughter's hair, hearing you leave the room to give them their space, a nation that he appreciated from you as he felt tears burn behind his eyes.

“Miss you ‘ready, daddy.”

Her words were muffled by the way she was positioned, a breathy laugh leaving him as he nodded, peppering the expanse of the side of her head and face that he could reach with little kisses. “I’m gonna’ miss you a whole bunch, princess, but I’ll be back real soon, okay?”

“‘Kay.”

“You’re going to be good, right?”

“The best, I swears it.” She pulled back, holding out one of her pinkies for him, and he adjusted her to rest her weight on the forearm wrapped under her legs, before linking his pinky with hers, and kissing their joined hands.

“That's my good girl, now you can go and play.”

She was happy to be let back down to the floor, and you reappeared, giving him a gentle smile before walking him the door, dread and anticipation filling him as he turned back to look at his little girl, waving when she looked up at him, pausing her playing.

“I’ll be as quick as I can, and thank you so much for doing this.”

“Any time, really, I don’t mind even one bit.” Your words were honest and true, making him feel a little reassured, before he could hear the scuffling of socks on the carpet as Emma appeared behind you, tugging on your hand before raising her arms a little, mailing when you picked her up. Balancing her on your hip, she rested her head on your shoulder, holding on with one hand and reaching out a flat palm towards him, wiggling her fingers the best way she knew how to.

It was far too domestic, the way the two of you already had a dynamic that was intimate and sweet, his breath getting caught in his lungs as he looked at the pair of you, his imagination spiralling to places he didn’t have time to go to right now, but he knew would creep up on him later when he was on the plane. He leaned in, pressing a kiss to the top of his daughter's head, and suppressing the urge to look up and brush his lips to your own, settling for a simple nod, before swallowing thickly as he tried to force himself to move away from you both.

“I heard someone’s favourite pizza toppings were chicken and sweetcorn. How about we go inside and have a little look for some takeout places, yeah? You want pizza?”

You looked up at him for the approval, the distraction he was grateful for as his daughter’s wide eyes finally left him, because if she had stared for much longer he may have broken down entirely and stayed, but now it was easier. The spell was broken as he stepped away, mumbling a final goodbye to you both, before watching as the door closed, your smile and Emma’s wave to see him off, before he was able to release his breath, snap himself out of it, and walk away.

The second he’d landed, he was out of the plane and into the car, snatching up his bag and leaving the runway, encouraging the man sent to pick him up to speed up a little as he headed back towards the main building from the airport. He had to debrief, but it was a quick thing to accomplish, most of the work being documents online that could easily be completed and submitted as he wrote up a report of what happened, but more importantly, he’d have his daughter back by then.

The car seemed like it was only getting slower and slower, despite the fact that he knew it wasn’t, and as they finally pulled up into the parking lot, his stomach finally being able to unknot and relax as he saw his daughter, her hand linked through Stan’s as the man held a face like thunder - as usual - while Emma talked his ear off, uncaring of whether he wanted to hear the words or not.

From the moment he had the door open, he could hear her racing forward to meet him, and Mitch dropped down to his knees to catch his daughter’s body as she hurled herself into him, a collision that knocked the breath from his lungs, but he clung to her tightly. Little arms wrapped around his neck as he sealed his own around her little frame, one hand cupping the back of her head, smoothing her hair down as she gave him a tight hug, before pulling back and holding his face in her hands, scrunching up her face as she pressed a kiss to the end of his nose.

“You’re home!”

“I’m home, for a long time, too, I hope.” He glanced up at Stan, who was pulling out a cigarette from the box behind him, standing back from Emma now that he could smoke without her being too close, and lighting up the death stick in his mouth, making sure to blow the smoke up above his head, just in case. Looking down at his daughter, his brows furrowed at the sparkly blue and pink tutu around her waist, layers of netting sticking out with gems and sequins sewn along the waistline, it was a real eyesore, and exactly the kind of thing a child would adore. “I’ve never seen this one before, where did you get it?”

He picked his girl up, balancing her across his front as he stood up to his full height, and taking his bag with him. “(Y/N) bought it for me! I wanted to play princesses, but I didn't have my dresses. She let out a sigh, smoothing little hands over the netting to press it down, before it was popping up again a moment later, and she seemed satisfied with whatever actions she’d taken.

“And where is (Y/N)?”

Emma simply shrugged, choosing to busy herself with taking fistfuls of his hair and running her fingers through it before patting it down, and his attention moved to Stan, watching as he smoked quietly and watched the scene. “I took over looking after Emma this morning, she got a call in the middle of the night from Irene, a lead on her big case that she thought had gone cold last year. Popped back up, a sudden occurrence. She wasn’t going to go, but she had to, we both knew it.”

Mitch could only nod, knowing how hard you’d worked on that case, and how much it really did need to be closed, and his heart warmed at the fact you would give it all up to care for Emma, but he completely understood. It didn't stop the spark of disappointment that shot through him when he realised he wouldn’t get a chance to thank you personally, however, because he’d been particularly hoping that he would be functional enough to maybe try and string some words together, and ask if he could repay you by taking you out to dinner.

His confidence was already draining from him, the adrenaline and victory high he’d been on that had spurred the idea on the first place was melting away, and he sighed out a little, not knowing when the next time he’d get to see you would be.

“Shame, would’ve been nice to see her.” He cleared his throat as Hurley’s eyes narrowed on him for the comment, and he shrugged his free shoulder. “Thank her for looking after Em, check how it all went, you know.”

“Uh-huh.” The man didn’t seem to believe him, but he didn't comment on it, instead dropping the butt of the cig to the floor and stomping it out, before opening the back of his car with a click of his car keys, the bags he had dropped his daughter off with were sitting in the back. “Well she’s gone by now, but I have Emma’s stuff for you, now get in the car so I can take you both home. There’s a reason I didn’t have my own children, y’know.”

Mitch scowled at him, glancing at his daughter, who seemed to know exactly what he meant and was uncaring as she grinned wickedly at Stan, who glared back equally at the girl, before offering her a smile.

“C’mon, Emma, I’m not moving your car seat from the front, your dad can ride in the back.”

She clapped her hands with a loud squeal, before squirming from his arms and into Stan’s, letting him toss his bag in the back and slam the trunk shut, before clambering into the back seat as his superior started up the car.

It was two months before Mitch got to see you again, and he worried for you every single day because of it. Emma would not stop asking about you, she’d spent at least the entirety of the first month telling him about everything the two of you had gotten up to over your time spent together on repeat, until he felt like he could tell the stories himself.

Emma had decided that her latest obsessions had moved on from playing house to holding tea parties, her dollies no longer being her children but instead being her guests, and the backpack carrying plastic guns and princess crowns had been swapped out for a miniature briefcase with a portable tea set, one that flipped over to make a table for her to sit at. The entire set had cost him over a hundred dollars, and he was absolutely certain that he could have constructed himself a better one for ten dollars and a trip to target, but he didn’t have the time for that.

Emma had taken to setting up the table beside the ring, the boxing back, or the equipment that he was working on whenever he came to the gym, Irene beginning to get at him to find a new nanny so that no children were wandering around the building anymore, but he had seen her accept a fake plastic cup on multiple occasions, and even once caught her letting Emma label files with the label maker in her office, so he wasn’t taking the threat all that seriously.

Other agents had chipped in too, because they didn't have the willpower to resist a four-year-old with pigtails blinking up at them, wide-eyed with a pout as she holds a painted plastic teapot and an empty plastic mug to match. No matter how frequently her attention was taken away - a fact he was entirely grateful for, because he had no idea how to attend a ‘tea party’ - for a split second, her questions always came down to when you’d be back, and Mitch was beginning to lose his mind a little bit, running out of excuses.

He was pounding away on a punching bag, his daughter sitting beside him and singing a little tune to herself in the almost empty gym as she occasionally offered him ‘sips of tea’ from the empty cup, before Stan was bursting in through the doors with extreme force and speed, and Mitch’s stomach twisted at the idea that he was either about to get bollocked, or given an assignment.

Pulling up the edge of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face, he placed a hand flat on the sandbag to bring it's swinging to a stop.

It wasn’t him that Stan was looking for, though, it was Emma. He offered the girl a smile, an expression reserved for her and her only, as she spun around to him, thrusting a teacup into his hand as he came to a stop and crouched before her. “I have a surprise for you, kiddo.”

“You do?” He nodded, and she squealed excitedly, pulling a doll away from one of the seats on the floor by its foot, tossing it to the side in a way that Mitch had certainly done with actual people, a smirk flicking at his lips as the slightly macabre thought of ‘like father, like daughter’ flickered across his mind, watching as she falsely filled Stan’s cup up with tea. “What is the surprise, Mr Stan?”

She sounded exasperated already, and both of them chuckled at her strained voice as she all but bounced on her feet. “Guess who’s back?”

Mitch felt his own heart skip a beat, licking over his lips and trying to control himself from jumping into the conversation, choosing instead to unwrap his hands of his boxing tape slowly, pretending like he wasn’t quite as invested in this news as he actually was. Stan confirmed Emma’s guess when she finally reached your name, coming third in her guesses behind Scooby-Doo and Princess Sofia, and he wasn’t sure when either of the fictional characters had gone missing, but apparently, in her mind, they were a dire missing person’s case.

He only had to wait around five minutes, before he caught glimpses of you going along, two interns following behind you, a whirl of beauty and grace, before you were entering the gym, dead set on making your way towards the lockers and showers.

He could see you more clearly now, anger on your face as blood and dirt covered you almost from head to toe, and you still managed to look beautiful. One of the junior agents following behind you was holding up a phone, microphone pointed towards you as you spoke, listing off every detail of the case that you possibly could, as the other held out a packet of antiseptic wipes and a plastic bag, each time you fingers plucked another one from the packet to scrub at your skin, the old one being collected.

With a black eye and a bust lip, he still thought that you looked beautiful, the stunning hair and makeup up-do that you must’ve had done was completely destroyed, but the silk gown hugging your body seemed almost intact, save for the blood spatters and dirt, and you ran your fingers through your hair, pulling out the clips holding it up and teasing the knots in the strands.

Every further look he took, you seemed more and more exhausted and battered, the bruises on your arms a chest obvious to him now, the scratches and cuts that were inflamed and red, poorly patched up with in the field medical supplies, a miss matching collection of band-aids and gauze, and Mitch almost had to cover his daughter's ears as he realised just how many curse words and language he wasn’t ready from her to hear yet were spilling from her mouth, but you beat him to it, mouth snapping shut.

You’d looked around now, noticing the three of them in the corner, and came to a full halt, a deep sigh leaving you as you met Emma’s eyes, his daughter staring up at you in awe and wonder. Lifting a hand, you waved your fingers at her in a sweet wave, dismissing the two agents who were quick to scurry away. You kicked off your heels, leaving them discarded on the floor as you unstrapped a gun from your thigh, dropping it and the holster to the floor, before holding your arms out to her.

“Princess, be careful! (Y/N) is-”

He cringed, words a little too late as he watched Emma barrel herself into you, almost knocked flat on your back as you caught her in your kneeled position, and he heard the breath forced from your lungs as a whine.

“Injured. She’s injured, Em, just like daddy sometimes is when he comes home. We have to be gentle, remember?” She simply nodded, pulling back a little with a soft apology under her breath, and you brushed her hair back, pinching her cheek and letting her take your hand as you stood back up. “I’m so sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve been waiting to see this little cutie again for months, anyway.” You brushed it off, but he could hear the tiredness in your voice and see the slight wobble as you studio up, swaying despite not moving and walking, and he worried a little more for you. Stan placed a comforting hand on your shoulder, wishing you a congratulations before following in the direction that the other agents had gone, and leaving the three of you alone in the room. Emma took her hand from yours, pulling off her trainers to place her tiny feet into your heels, trying to balance and shuffle forwards, and you reached a hand out to steady yourself on his shoulder, shaking your head clear a little bit. “I haven’t slept for, like, three days. I’m exhausted.”

“Well, you still look nice. Beautiful, really. You look great.”

You raised your brows at him for a second, looking down at yourself and taking it all in, before a soft laugh was leaving your lips. “I look a mess, but I do appreciate the confidence boost.”

He joined in with your laughs, his heart feeling completely full, and he swallowed thickly to try and choke down his anxiety. You both turned to watch Emma shuffle around, taking tiny steps as she found her rhythm in your heels, looking adorable as she carried around a teacup in one hand and two massively oversized heels in the other.

“Will you stay for tea with us?”

“Oh, Em, I think (Y/N) is probably a bit tired tonight, mayb-”

You squeezed his shoulder, his head cutting to turn to you, and you shook your head at him a little bit. “I would love to, Emmy. Did you make the tea yourself?”

She gasped, nodding excitedly as she abandoned her heels and dashed over to the table again, finding another cup and setting you a place, getting lost in her own world as she listed off the different kind of teas she ‘had’, the list sounding exactly like the aisles at Walmart she’d forced him to stand in for thirty minutes as she memorised them three days ago. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, totally. Why don’t you go shower up, and then when you get back, you can drive me home, because I’m pretty sure I’ll fall asleep behind the wheel if I drive.”

He grinned, ducking his head for only a second, before confirming that he would. “I won’t be long. Promise.”

The next few weeks felt like a slow slide turning into an avalanche, like he’d been slipping on his feet a little for the past few years and was no tumbling like a cartoon down a snowy mountainside, becoming an ever-growing snowball before the brick wall he was bound to hit into sooner or later.

He had been perfectly capable of keeping his feelings under wraps while you barely interacted, greeting one another in the corridor when he was able to pass with simple grunts and on syllable responses, but now you talked. He had somehow managed to make a friend of you, your smiling face every time he passed you by making him feel like he was heating up from the inside, fire bursting from his fingertips anytime, and he wondered if he looked as red in the face as he felt each time.

Mitch could now confirm that without a doubt, he was head over heels in love with you, and you had absolutely no idea. At this point, he didn’t really have anything left within himself to even chastise his heart for making this decision against logic and reason’s advisement, because you were absolutely everything he needed. He never had to lie to you about where he was, or what he was doing, and when he'd had a particularly rough day or assignment, you understood what he needed, sitting with him quietly and swapping the coffee that made him jittery out for a calming camomile tea. You loved his daughter, and she loved you, and you’d managed to support him along his single-fatherhood like nobody else had, making everything seem a little bit easier, because he had a friend to go through it with.

You were always willing to offer a helping hand, a comforting comment or a funny joke to cheer him up, and you’d never said no at the chance of seeing Emma. Said little girl had attached herself to you like a barnacle, wanting to spend as much time with you as she possibly could, and it was both a blessing and a curse for him. On the one hand, any time you were around, Emma didn’t want his mediocre guest skills, because as it had turned out, you were an excellent tea pastry guest. You had the popped up little pinky, and the small talk to match, and you’d even somehow found a set of saucers that match the pattern to give to her when her fifth birthday had passed by. The problem was, when you were sitting on the gym floor and drinking fake tea with his little girl, his concentration was anywhere but the sparring matches and boxing bags, and he often found himself on his back and pinned to the floor by recruits, or being smacked in the face by a bag that swung back at him with force.

His body and face were constantly littered with healing bruises, and there was no chance that Emma was ever going to take her sights off of you, because she had decided that you were her new role model, his chest aching at the thought that he couldn't provide a mother figure for his daughter, that she was growing up and scrabbling to learn front the women around her.

He thought it was adorable that she’d started wearing her dresses more, just so she could tuck her nerf gun into the waistband of her leggings in claims that she wanted to match the way wore your gun under your dress too, or the way she’d started trying to tie her own hair up in the same style you did, but she needed more.

She needed someone to teach her how to paint her nails when she was older and help her pick out an outfit for prom, and to teach her about the women’s side of things, because Mitch still didn’t understand the difference between pads with wings and the ones without, and at what age you’re supposed to move onto tampons, and why a skincare routine needed to be so intense, and what the fuck purple shampoo was, and he didn’t know what to do about it all.

Most of all, he was just glad to have someone back in his life that didn’t bark orders at him or rely on him. Emma was a handful, and he loved her with all of his heart, and Stan was a good enough friend but still a tough superior, and he hadn't had a friend of his own in years, and sometimes, when he finally got to sit down on his couch with a cold beer in hand after putting Emma to bed and having some time to himself, he let his mind wander.

He’d daydream about having someone with him, having you with him, having a friend to talk to. He was lonely in the nights, and when the bed felt cold, and when he never had anyone to share his thoughts with that Emma wasn’t old enough to understand. Being closed off had always helped him, because his number one priority always had been and always would be his daughter, he didn’t want anyone coming into his life that she may not like or that may hurt her, and yet Emma had chosen you all on her own. She had seen you, picked you out by hand and decided that you were everything she wanted to be when she grew up, and he couldn't blame her in the slightest, because he couldn't imagine a better role model.

All of thee thoughts seemed to come spilling over one day when he had intended to say a simple thank you, catching you just before you’d moved away to hit the showers, while Emma was still built giggling with Stan as he helped her fire her latest new child-friendly firearm addition at the newest targets, one of the interns moving around with a bullseye on his chest as she shot foam bullets at him.

“I just wanted to say thanks.”

“For what?” You were a little bit breathless and sweaty, and you were licking your lips on repeat as you tried to get them to stay wet after your intense workout, and his mind was short-circuiting a little bit.

“Everything. Lately.” He barely even paused for breath, before his mouth was continuing without his mind's approval. “I know you have no obligation to us, or to my Em, but she looks up to you, she adores you, and I think it’s good for her to have a mom-type role.” His eyes widened as you laughed a little, and he felt like he was choking on his own tongue as he tried to figure out how to backpedal from that statement. “Oh, God, not that you are her mom, y’know, just that she has a female role-model, because she needs it, I can’t imagine anyone better for her to want to aspire to be like than you, you're an incredible influence!”

With a hand on his arm, you cut off his rambling, and his ears were ringing with the pressure slamming about inside his head, the internal loop of his thoughts now just have become a loud screaming that accurately represented how he felt.

Your lips were pursed together now as you tried to hold in a grin, your thumb rubbing over his bicep in what he was sure was supposed to be a comforting motion but was actually just driving him more and more insane, the domesticity of the sweet actions meant he was definitely reading a little to far into them, but he didn’t care, because he was taking a deep breath as he tried to calm himself down, matching the rise and fall of his shoulders with yours, until subconsciously, he was able to relax once again.

“I always kinda’ wanted a kid, but in this line of work, you don’t really get the chance to meet anyone, never mind meet anyone that wants kids themselves, so I’m glad she’s taken an attachment to me.” You seemed to panic a little at your own words there, his lips flicking up at the sides, in knowing he wasn’t the only one struggling with his words right now. “I’m not trying to steal your baby Mitch, I just love her to bits, and I’m more than happy spending time with her. She’s an amazing little girl, and you’ve done such a good job raising her. You are a fantastic father, Mitch.”

He took a moment to wonder if ‘heart eyes’ were a real thing, or whether there were little birds flying around his head, maybe a massive neon sign above him that simply read ‘I am so fucking in love with you that it hurts’, because that is how he felt, hearing you compliment his parenting abilities, his daughter and their family all in one. His voice felt hoarse as he tried to speak, coughing a little to clear it, but unable to tear his gaze away from yours as he spoke the raspy words, voice cracking a little; “Thank you.”

“I’m going to go wash up, alright?”

He could only nod, his eyes widening to the size of golf balls when your hand slipped up from his arm, across his shoulder and to his cheek, before your lips were pressing to the other, brushing smoothly over rough stubble in a soft peck, before turning away from him and disappearing before his very sight behind the set of double doors leading to the shower rooms. He knew his face was red this time, knew that he was absolutely shocked as he felt like he was going to combust at any moment, whilst also wanting nothing more than to let his weak knees give way so that he could collapse down into the cold floor until his instincts were no longer in overdrive.

Turning around, he was even more mortified to find Emma balanced on Hurley’s hip, watching with a grin as his mentor stared at him with a wide and knowing smirk.

“Daddy and (Y/N) sittin’ in a tree!”

He fixed his daughter with a stern look, taking a step over, and dread filled him when his boss chuckled, before taking a deep breath, and he already knew what was coming next, the two of them chanting the rhyme together;

“K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”

People began to look over at them from the sheer volume of the combined voices, and he snatched his daughter away, scowling at his mentor as he did. He was an assassin, for fuck’s sake, he didn’t have to listen to this shit. Once he knew she wouldn't see it, Mitch was holding his finger up to flip off the older man, before ducking down to scoop up his daughter’s things, and fleeing from the gym before he had to listen to any more of Stan’s teasing, the now knowing for sure that Mitch had one very big weak spot.

That moment had been the result of over a month’s worth of teasing since, smirks in his direction anytime you were within Mitch’s general presence, and like some high school chain of gossip, Stan had passed the information onto Irene, who had told her IT guy and her personal assistant, and he wasn’t sure how many other people knew by now, but it had to be at least half of the people he ever interacted with. Which was a fair fucking amount.

Now, he really did feel like a high schooler with a crush all over again.

He was actively trying not to think about it, instead watching Emma colour in one of the tigers in her colouring book with a green crayon and blue stripes, red eyes that were a little bit haunting in his opinion, when the door knocked quietly and repetitively, and they both froze up a little. Emma was out of her chair like a dash, though, racing toward the front door before he could stop her, and Mitch felt his heart rise up in his throat as she reached for the handle, swinging it open to the unknown arrival and possible threat, before his breath was hitching in his throat.

He wasn’t sure if he was nervous, elated, confused, or a mixture of all three at seeing you standing on his doorstep. A pair of jeans and a baggy jumper, you hair sitting naturally instead of pulled back tightly once again, but this time you wore a little bit of makeup, and you looked softer than he’d ever seen you, possibly even passing for a simple civilian, covered from being a top-secret agent of the highest calibre for just one night.

“Uh, hi?”

He hated the way his word came out, wishing he’d managed to sound more welcoming, but instead he’d managed to sound on edge and crass, your brows furrowing a little as you looked at him, before shaking your head fondly. “This was Emmy’s doing, wasn’t it?”

“What is this, exactly?”

You opened your mouth to reply, before the girl he’d been trying to hold behind him damaged to break free, a high-pitched yell on her lips as she wrapped her arms around your legs, crushing her face into her stomach as she laughed excitedly. “You came! You really came over!”

You crouched down when she pulled away, a smile on your lips, but it didn’t reach your eyes, and Emma placed her hands on your shoulders when you were at her height. “You have been lying and keeping secrets, little missy!” You tickled at her sides lightly, and she crumpled into laughter, before you were continuing. “Your daddy did not invite me over for dinner, did he? You can’t just go around inviting people to dinner!”

“I didn’t lie! Or keep secrets, swearsies!” She stuck her pinky out in your direction, and you didn’t accept it immediately, making her sigh over-dramatically. “Daddy says surprises don’t count as lying if it’s a good surprise, and I know you’re his friend and playdates are always fun and I wanted to surprise him.”

He knew she was trying to whisper, but wasn’t doing an excellent job of it, and he felt his frown slipping away, instead smoothing a hand over her hair to draw her attention up to him. “You’d better go and set an extra place at the table, Em. Clear away your drawings, and later, me and you and going to talk about inviting people over to the house without my permission, okay?”

She frowned, her entire face screwing up with the motion, but she nodded nonetheless, and you shifted to show the tote bag that was tucked under your arm, before pulling out a green bottle, a fancy label on the front as you handed it over to her, Emma’s face lighting up as he dashed inside with the gift.

“Did you just give my daughter a bottle of wine?”

You gasped, standing up to your full height before him, shaking your head fervently. “Of course not! I gave her an old wine bottle filled up with sparkling grape soda so she can feel all grown up!”

“You did all that just for Emma’s impromptu dinner party?” You shuffled from foot to foot, nodding a little, and he felt his heart melt as an entirely new side of you shone through, a new you that was different to the confident and bold woman he knew while on duty, and leaving him with a slightly anxious sweetheart in an oversized jumper. “That’s fucking adorable, you know that, right?”

“I’m not adorable.” You mumbled, and he laughed, reaching out to pinch your cheek before you swatted it away, and the energy between you both felt completely different. He wasn’t nervous with the real you, he was only nervous with the work you. This side of you put him at ease, this side of you made him feel comfortable and relaxed, and he didn’t feel his heart try to burst out of his chest too hard when you smiled back at him this time. “Are you sure you want me here? I can go home, I should have known better, texted you beforehand to check, or something.”

“Do you mind eating dinosaur chicken nuggets and smiley face waffles?”

“That sounds amazing, actually.” He beamed, swinging the door open a little wider for you, and welcoming you into his home, your shoes being toed off by the door as you pulled the sleeves down over your hands, before spinning to him with a sudden intake of breath as he closed the door and remembered to put the highest locks on again. “I bought something for you, too.”

“Is it wine in a grape soda bottle?”

“You wish.” You teased presenting him with a bottle of wine, the cork still in it, and he took it from you, grinning as he looked it over, before meeting your curious gaze, and putting your nerves to rest.

“We can have it after Emma goes to bed, maybe?”

It was a bold move, and he knew it, but at this point, he didn’t have much of his dignity or pride left to lose, and it seemed to pay off as you leaned into him a little, letting out a light breath. “I’d love that.”

He placed the bottle of red down on the coffee table, leaving it there before he had a hand on your lower back, and was guiding you through to the kitchen where Emma was trying to work out which side of the plate the knife was supposed to go on, and which side was the fork.

As much as he admired and adored his daughter’s intentions, he really wished he known, because Mitch found himself dishing up the most un-sophisticated dinner ever, and standing in a slightly messy kitchen to match a slightly messy apartment, covered in children’s toys and carpets he hadn't vacuumed in almost two weeks, wearing sweatpants and a shirt with a hole in the arm that was faded from all the wear and tear it had seen over the years.

He did the best he could, though, because this was the kind of moment he never thought he’d get to have with you, and he busied himself with splitting up the meal, taking all the brontosaurus' and triceratops into your and his plates, because Emma only liked the t-rex’s and the pterodactyls, claiming they tasted different. Arranging them around the outside, he filled the middle with the number of smiley faces that she’d actually at, despite knowing she’d argue for more. Fishing out the ketchup, he squirted the sauce out, shaping it in a couple of hearts, before picking up her plate and placing it down in front of her, placing a kiss to the top of her head.

Your plate was next, the bottle of ketchup going down into the middle of the table as he sat down opposite you. As predicted, Emma complained about the quantities, before tucking in, constantly talking with her mouthful as she tried to add to the conversation. He drank sparkling grape soda from an old wine bottle with you both, and watched as Emma told you everything she could possibly think of that you may not already know, before offering to show off her bedroom to you after dinner.

He both hated and loved how naturally you bonded with his daughter, and how seeing you sitting across from him eating kids meals and having a biased thumb war with his five-year-old at the dinner table felt like something that was meant to be in his life, and definitely something he knew he could get used to. You helped clean up, standing by his side and washing the pots as he dried and put them away, much to your insistence as he told you you didn't have to, and Emma pinned up her blue and green demon-tiger on the fridge, before clearing away her crayons and going to clean her teeth.

You let her give you the ‘grand tour’ of her bedroom as he leaned in the doorway, trying not to think about how he’d very much like to give you the grand tour of his bedroom, and distracting himself by picking out the bedtime story he’d read to her once she was settled under the covers.

He found you again once the girl was asleep, flicking out the lights and finding you sitting on his couch, passing your time by quietly reading the book he’d had out on the coffee table, seemingly already further through it than he’d had the chance to get in over a week, but closing it up when he sat down beside you, two real wine glasses and a corkscrew in hand as he offered one to you.

You shifted as he sat down, resting your feet in his lap once he’d popped the cork out, whispering a quiet ‘thank you’ once your glass had been filled, and just like that, you were once again dragging him down into that hazy feeling he’d spent the entire night in, leaning his head on the cushion, and letting the first things that came to mind spill from his mouth. The conversation took off from there, starting as you conversed the book he had out, and moving to other books, before movies and TV shows, general likes and dislikes, learning one another slowly.

Everything you told him made him like you a little bit more, your quirks and sharp edges, a kind of devotion finding a place in his heart that he never thought he’d feel again as you continued on, before the topic had switched to the future. He spilled his fears, that he wanted Emma to do private elementary schooling, but to attend an actual middle and high school, to get the full experience like she deserved, but that he also just wanted to protect her from the entire world. He confessed that he constantly felt like he was failing, tearing up when he told you about how he was certain he couldn't give her as much as she deserved, leaning into your hand when you wiped away the tear that fell free, and you spilled your own wishes to him.

Everything before the trauma that had landed you in the CIA at a younger age than him, and that no relationship had ever worked out for you, because you could never get past the ‘so, what do you do for a living?’ stage, and could never move in with someone, plan dates, or make a future. You told him about how you still wanted the same little things all little girls wanted, a pretty wedding and a devoted spouse and a beautiful child to raise into the world and add to society, to leave a legacy behind in the form of a beautiful person who would live their own life, and that you worried you’d never get it.

By the end of the bottle, the two of you were more than tipsy, and he felt like he'd known you forever, his body pressed to yours, and an arm wrapped around you as your head leaned on his shoulder, deep sighs leaving you both.

“I’m sorry if tonight was a total fail.”

You shifted, just slightly, before raising a hand, weaving your fingers with his on the hand sitting over your shoulder. “Why would you think that?”

“It’s been.. a while since I last took a pretty woman out for dinner, and it isn’t supposed to be soda and chicken nuggets, and you shouldn’t wear sweatpants, that’s for sure.” You turned a little, pressing the rumble of your laugh into his shoulder, and he didn't even have enough inhibition to be embarrassed about his lack of filter.

“Tell you what, Mitch, if you want to take me out to dinner, then I will dress up all pretty to be on your arm. But, for the record, I am more than happy to spend a dinner date with you and Emma eating kid’s food, in sweatpants and hoodies.” He whined a little under his breath, before pulling back enough to look at you, and resting his forehead on your own.

“Do you have any idea how perfect you are?”

Your breath hitched a little from his words, and he twisted his head, enough to bump his nose with your own as he tasted your breath on his lips, licking over his own and working up the nerve to close his mouth in against your own, slot them together in a simple kiss.

He didn’t get the chance, before you were both jumping apart in slight shock when Emma’s bedroom door clicked open, the two of you watching the girl shuffle down the hall, rubbing at her eyes, entirely unaware of her surroundings as she moved into the bathroom, the door closing behind her. The atmosphere felt entirely shattered, his confidence shooting back down to the floor, the startle from his daughter sobering him up a little, now.

“I should go, it’s probably quite late.”

He only nodded, grabbing the empty bottle and the glasses, running them through to the kitchen and leaving them for himself to sort in the morning, before meeting you by the front door. You were tugging your shoes back on, your hood pulled up over your head to fight the cold that waited outside, and your bag on your arm again.

“I meant it, though. I had an amazing night.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You breathed, pressing a kiss to his cheek again, this one lingering, you forehead bumping his temple as you pulled back, before you were waving to him and walking away toward the stairs, letting him watch until you were sealed within the box and taken from his sights, and he locked the front door once again.

When he turned, Emma was standing there, her thumb in her mouth as she stared up at him, and he reached down, plucking it from between her lips and wiping it off, crouching down before her.

“Do you love (Y/N)?” He all but choked on his breath, staring down at the little girl in shock, before she yawned again, covering her mouth and shrugging her shoulders. Lifting her arms up, she allowed Mitch to pick her up, flicking off the lights in the house as he went, heading away with a destination of her bedroom as her face settled into his neck. “I love (Y/N). She's my bestest friend.”

He placed her down onto the mattress delicately, the nightlight in her room casting a soft pink glow over her features, and he smiled sadly as he looked at her, little eyes fluttering shut as she snuggled back into her blankets. He could see so much of Katrina in her features, sure that they would only develop more as she grew older, but it no longer hurt to look at her like it did in the first year, and he no longer felt that same pang of pain in his heart at the flash of her face across his mind, just nostalgia that made his heart slow a little, for only a second, in memory of someone it had lost.

In addition, though, he could see so much of you in her personality. His little girl was brave, and confident, and would be truly unstoppable one day, and he loved it, stroking his fingers over her hair and smiling a little when she opened his eyes to peer at him curiously, still waiting for an answer from him.

“I do. I love her too, princess.” She smiled to herself like she’d been told the world’s biggest secret, tucking her face into her pillow some more as sleep began to come back to claim her. “She’s special. She’s like.. like-”

“A queen!”

He laughed a little at her words, finding the teddy bear that had fallen from the bed to the carpet and tucking it under her arm, raising a brow in question. “A queen?”

“I’m the princess.” She murmured, the nickname he gave her so fondly rolling from her lips. “That means you’re the king, and (Y/N) can be the queen.”

The stinging realisation that she was searching for another figure in anyone that she could find made him ache with freezing cold ice from head to toe, his eyes welling up a little bit as he tried to hold a brave face, kissing her forehead as he stood up, bidding her a goodnight as her breathing went shallow, and closing the door again behind him.

“Daddy, can you get married?”

Emma was holding up the last of her Haribo sweets on her finger, before chewing the gummy ring off, and he turned to look at her, raising his head from his work, before turning to glare at Stan as he snickered. “Did you set this up?”

“I did nothing!”

He peered at his daughter's iPad, another scene from ‘Frozen’ up on the screen as Anna and Hans’ voices barely reached his ears through the headphones she’d taken off, and he let out a deep sigh, Stan texting on his phone and ignoring them both, and Mitch placed down the pen for the work he was signing off on. “I want to get married, daddy.”

“One day, princess.”

“I want you to get married, too. Why can’t we have a wedding, daddy?” He rubbed a hand over his eyes, before giving his full attention to his daughter. He wasn’t sure how to answer, or what to say, but she was staring up at him hopefully as she nibbled on a gummy bear, the crown on her head tipping a little bit to the side, and he reached out to place it on her head properly again.

“We can have a wedding if you want to, baby.” He couldn't help it, but her little hands were clapping together excitedly and her face lit up, and he didn’t regret the choice at all. “Stan will officiate.”

“I will do no such thing!” The man insisted, but Emma ignored that, only getting more excited as her hands became fists while she cheered.

“Yay, Mr Stan!”

He glared at Mitch, who only smirked back at him, signing his name in confirmation at the bottom of the papers and finishing them off, the man growling under his breath but being unable to refuse, and Emma was leaping out of her chair, fishing out her other crown, and presenting it proudly.

“Royal crowns! Wedding crowns!”

She stamped her feet excitedly, clutching it to her chest as her entire body all but vibrated with excitement, and he was out of his chair in seconds, scooping her up happily and pressing kisses to her cheeks as the other crown fell away, her childish giggles filling the room as he spun her around.

“Right, right, c’mon then. I have a meeting in ten minutes, so if we’re having a royal wedding, we’re on a timer.”

Hurley let out a heaving sigh as he stood up, the door bursting open a second later as you all but fell through, a more formal outfit than usual on you, a pencil skirt and tight jumper, your eyes wide and phone clutched in hand. “What happened?”

“What?”

“The emergency! What happened?” Mitch looked over at Stan, your eyes following his, and you growled under your breath, picking up one of the croissants from the cart beside you and throwing it across the room at him. “You don’t just text people ‘quick, help, there is an emergency’ when there is no emergency, Stan!”

“There is an emergency! Someone has to marry Mitch!”

“Are you fu-” You cut yourself off, pinching the bridge of your nose, before walking over to them and covering Emma’s ears. “Are you fucking kidding me, Stan? I was in a debriefing.”

“I thought I was marrying Emma?” Mitch felt like he was talking to himself as he realised he'd been set up, Emma arranging him until he was facing you, her hands on your hips as she turned you to face him, and suddenly, he couldn’t breathe again. Since your dinner a few weeks ago, neither of you had spoken about what had almost happened, slipping right back to being close friends, and he wasn’t sure whether or not to take that as a good sign.

He couldn't help but think about how odd this entire situation was, the child of the fiancée who had died was holding a fake marriage to someone else, someone she had seemed to have adopted as her own motherly figure, and he felt like it was all a little too weird to actually focus on for too long.

“Em, do you remember what we said about surprises?”

“Yes! You said surprises are okay!” She growled a little at him, her best wolf impression as she tried to get him to back down, and he returned it, watching as her face screwed up with anger and her arms crossed. “Surprises are okay if it makes everyone happy, that’s what you said, daddy!”

“Yes, but how do you know everyone is happy, Emma?”

“Because you love (Y/N)!” Mitch wanted the ground to open up and suck him in, possibly just let him never return, but then someone has to look after Emma, and he didn't even bother to cover her ears as he let a string of curses fall from his mouth, embarrassment flaring up warmth across his entire body, swelling in his chest all the way up to the tips of his ears in a suffocating heat as his head dropped. “It’s okay, daddy! (Y/N) loves you too! Mr Stan says so!”

He heard the dull thud of what sounded like a very solid punch being delivered to Stan, and he had been about to take the same action himself feeling a little bit better at knowing the man got a dig in for his sneaky actions.

“You have to get married and be happy, daddy.”

“Yeah, Rapp. You have to be happy. It’s an order.” He looked up at the man, a more genuine look on his face than any he had ever seen, and he gave in a little, finally managing to drag his eyes up to meet yours. You reached out, taking his hands in yours and pulling him in a little closer to you, as you winked at his daughter, and looked back up to him.

Stan cleared his throat, lifting Emma onto his hip, and she clutched two crowns excitedly in her hands. “We are gathered here today, to join Mitch Rapp and (Y/N) (Y/L/N) in the most epic royal wedding ever.” Emma giggled at his words, nodding in agreement. “Do you, Mitch Rapp, take (Y/N) to be your royally wedded wife?”

He turned, licking over his lips, seeing your little nod to him in a promise that it was okay, before Emma was staring up at him hopefully, and Stan was glaring at him like he’d be shot at dawn by a firing squad if he didn’t agree.

“Yes.”

“Fantastic. (Y/N), do you take Mitch Rapp to be your royally wedded husband?” You rolled your eyes, laughing a little, before nodding your head, and grinning when Emma cheered loudly.

“I do.”

“Emma, the wedding crowns?” He lifted her up, allowing her to place the green one into his hair and the blue one into your own, fixing them to her liking before Stan was pulling her back down to a regular level, and placing her down on the floor. “Would you like to say it?”

He honestly didn't think he could get any worse, or that he could be any more embarrassed than he already was, but then his daughter's next words came, and he thought he may actually throw up a little bit; “You may now kiss the queen!”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“You may now kiss the queen, Rapp.” Hurley growled at him, and he couldn't believe his mentor was teaming up against him with his own daughter.

“I can’t believe you’re encouraging this in my dau-”

He was cut off with the only action he hadn't been expecting at this moment, his eyes closing as he realized what was happening. Your mouth was pressed to his, a sweet and innocent kiss, pulled in by a handful of his shirt, and he sighed happily into your mouth. Your lips were playing with his delicately, pressing and pulling in soft motions, and he felt like he’d slammed into cloud nine. His hands slipped down to your hips, holding you close to him as he pressed back into you, returning the kiss with everything he had, and feeling like his heart was exploding within his chest.

It ended way too quickly for his liking, and he chased your lips for a second, pressing another quick peck to your mouth as you smiled at him, before he was opening his eyes, finding you looking just as bashful as he did, as Stan held his hand up for Emma to smash her palm again in a high-five.

Your arms looped around his neck, pulling him in closer, and your lips brushed against the shell of his ear, making a tremor travel along his spine. “I want to go somewhere hot for our honeymoon.”

He was on an all-time high, and he pulled back, catching your lips in a final sweet kiss. “How about for the wedding reception, we have dinner tonight?”

You hummed thoughtfully before a loving expression was finding itself on your face. “Am I dressing up or dressing down?”

He smoothed his hands around to your lower back, pulling you in a little closer. “How about you come over in the comfiest PJs you own, and when you get cold, I can still be a gentleman and give you my jumper?”

“Sounds perfect to me.”

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clotpole-art · 3 years ago

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Retrospective: Illustrated Merlin Alphabet Challenge

Finally finished the Merlin Alphabet Challenge, so here's the artist notes no one asked for! See below the cut for comments on each piece by order of creation. Be warned folks, it's a long post.

Before we begin: credit to @merlin-gifs for the challenge, which can be found here. It's awesome, go do it.

First thing you should know is I did probably 80-90% of these while on phone calls or in Zoom meetings and that's reflected in the simplicity of most pieces -- the compositions aren't complicated, the lines aren't refined, the coloring is slapdash. If you noticed variation in quality of the pieces, that's why!

Second: I tried to focus on trying something new for each drawing. Didn't always happen, but this challenge did succeed in helping me push me out of my own comfort zone.

Without further ado...

A is for Arthur Pendragon

Textures, baby! Brushed metal of his armor, scratchy linen texture of his shirt, wispy softness of hair and skin. I'd recently gotten my tablet out of storage after a year of figuring out where the hell I was going to live and this was one of the first pieces of digital art I spent time on. Glad it was Arthur kicking us off!

B is for the Beginning of the End (1x08)

Fun fact, I did not draw this with my tablet. I drew it with my work computer's touchscreen. It was awful, would not recommend.

C is for Camelot

I wanted to get used to different brushes, so landscape of the castle it was! There are brushes that help with drawing grass; I did not use said brushes and my wrist hurt afterward. That being said, I really enjoyed working on this and it was one of the few pieces I didn't do while multitasking.

D is for Daegal

Also drawn on my work computer's touchscreen, not my tablet. I didn't learn my lesson from B and the experience was even worse. This is my least favorite piece which sucks because it's Daegal so I'm slated to redo this sometime in the near future. Gotta do our boy justice.

E is for Elyan

Oh, I adored drawing this. Elyan often gets shafted in terms of fandom appreciation so I made sure to choose Elyan for this prompt and to participate in the Elyan fest. Plus, I love a good ghost story and figuring out a way to include the druid spectre was fun. Didn't multitask on this piece because Elyan deserved my full attention.

F is for Freya

Ho boy. This piece. I have such mixed feelings on this drawing. Really really didn't like it after I'd decided it was done and very nearly scrapped the whole thing. I had a vision in my head that I just couldn't render into reality and it frustrated me SO MUCH. Looking back, I like it much better than I did when I first created it.

G is for Gwaine

What can I say, he's pretty when he's cold. I didn't stretch too much with this one -- it's my normal drawing style, I was just trying to find a brush that mimicked the softness of pencil.

H is for Hunith

Another one that didn't stray too far from my comfort zone. I was stupid sick and slammed at work, so a motherly Hunith manifested herself. I blame the bad brush choice on the cold medicine.

I is for Isolde

I woke up and chose violence! Tried to vary my figure drawing style a little in this piece but my brain resisted, resulting in... this. Not mad at it, but not happy with it either. Poor Isolde.

J is for Juggling

Ah, this lovely piece was drawn during a particularly vexing meeting at work. Fun fact, there's another version of this line art that's less about Merlin's stress and more about mine.

K is for Knights of Camelot

Continuing the theme of doodling through bad news and shit meetings. Like I said above, normally meeting doodles aren't complex because I'm concentrating on something else. This one was more involved because I didn't want to concentrate on the meeting. I have a few issues with this from a technical standpoint (perspective, my nemesis) but it's still one of my favorites. Tried some funky coloring technique, didn't hate it.

V is for Vibrant Colors

And here is where we said fuck the rules and started going out of alphabetical order! This one was really fun to do and I loved kicking off Albion Party with this as my first submission. The colors were a challenge (as I hoped they would be) and this is the first time I had to do some color tweaking midway though and after finishing the coloring process. Vibrant Arthur, my beloved. This started as a multitask doodle but took dedicated time to finish.

O is for Old Religion

The concept for this one was buzzing in my head for a bit before a quote-prompt solidified it. I adore the thought of more visible, tangible representations of Merlin as the son of the elements, of "magic itself" -- not just sun-gold eyes, but sea-water hair and sandstone-skin. A complement to the vibrant Arthur portrait.

S is for Sorcerers

When I said I wanted to challenge myself, I wasn't kidding. Ho boy, this was fun but frustrating. I wanted to completely illustrate a gif. So I did. Will I do something like this again? Maybe. A while from now.

M is for Morgause

See above -- same illustrated gif style so at least I was able to reuse some drawings. Poor Morgause ended up looking a little wretched here because I was mentally done with this when I was drawing her. Love the concept of tarot cards + Merlin but others are doing it so I won't continue this series.

Z is for Zzzz

This one was specifically done to test out some custom brushes I made in Krita to make abstract background drawing easier for me. I think they turned out well! Plus who doesn't love bb iridescent Aithusa.

L is for Leon, P is for Percival

Quick, minimal doodles of the boys! Mentally, I was going for a Brady's-style retro ensemble cast TV show credits feel. Not mad at it! Some boys look closer to their actors than others (I think my brain broke drawing Percy, my apologies to Tom Hopper).

T is for Tristan

It wasn't until after I posted this that I realized there was more than one Tristan in Merlin. Could have drawn Isolde's bf but I drew Ygraine's dumb jock undead brother instead. Had some fun with dark greys and blacks here regardless.

Q is for Queen Annis

Best royal in Albion, bar none. I tried a different coloring technique here and I kinda like it! may make it my go-to but we'll see. Old habits are hard to break. Also: our queen deserved more badass clothes.

X is for Arthur X Merlin

Oh, be still my shipper heart. Doodled and colored during a meeting. I had hoped to spend more time on it outside of multitasking but alas, work is a bitch. This one is slated for a rework sometime in the future; I adore the concept too much to let it go without creating another version of this that isn't an utter mess.

U is for Uther's Ward

And here's my attempt at forgoing line art. Not fun, do not like.

Y is for Young Warlock

Channeled some pain into this one. Those are the dead eyes of someone who had been told that he'd succeeded when his friend died. That the destiny he'd been expecting to carry on his shoulders into old age was done and dusted before he turned 30. Grief plus the existential dread of the aimless immortal. Oof. One of my favs.

N is for Nimueh, R is for Rising Sun, W is for Will

And we end on this sorry offering. I was away from home for a while without my tablet and I just got tired of waiting. So, pen doodles at the airport. This was a challenge in its own right because 1. pen only and 2. I wasn't able to pull Netflix up for a reference on the fly. Which is why Will's face is obscured and Nimueh looks.... not like Nimueh lol.

In summary: this was a goddamn joy to do. I finished 26 letter prompts in approximately 21 weeks, which exceeded my own unspoken goal of filling one letter per week. I found a good, happy corner of the Merlin fandom after a years-long hiatus away from being a fandom creator. If you did make it this far with me, thanks for reading my inane comments and giving this little project even a moment of your time -- I'm so grateful.

#merlinalphabetchallenge #clotpole art #long post #merlin fanart #merlin #bbc merlin #bbc merlin fanart

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rallamajoop · 4 years ago

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...and the unironic joys of better living through chemistry

How do I love Venom: The Hunger, let me count the ways…

It’s by far the shippiest Venom/Eddie story to come out of the character’s heyday. It’s the only story of the era to treat Venom’s violent wild-animal instincts not as an immutable fact, but as something that can be managed. It pulls off an aesthetic like nothing else that was being done at the time.

And then there’s the way it says, Does the world around you seem sinister and foreboding? Do you lie awake at night contemplating metaphorical oceans of despair? Well shit, son – have you considered you may be suffering from a mundane neurochemical imbalance, and a round of the right meds could clear that right up for you?

It does all this without breaking the atmosphere, without a whiff that our story has been interrupted for a Very Special Message about mental health.

In the near-decade since I was first prescribed anti-depressants, I don’t think I’ve read another story that lands the message “Sometimes, it’s not you, it’s just your brain chemistry,” so well.

Fair warning: if you have not read The Hunger, I am about to spoil every major plot point. If you have, well, maybe I can still give you a new appreciation for a few details you might have missed.

It’s a strange book, whatever else you take from it. It’s almost the only thing either author or artist contributed to the Venom canon, and it’s so different stylistically and tonally from the 90′s Venom norm that it feels like a tale from some noir-elseworlds setting instead of 616 canon. When you take risks that big with a property, you leave yourself precious little landing space between 'unmitigated triumph’ and ‘abject failure’: if this book hadn’t absolutely nailed it, I’d be dismissing it as edgy, OOC dreck. Fortunately, if The Hunger is nothing else, it is a story that $&#@ing commits – to basically everything it does.

Now, I'm not going to tell you Venom: The Hunger is a story about overcoming depression, because I don't know whether author Len Kaminski even thought about it that way while working on it. There's always space for other readings, and this one take is not gospel. That said: holy shit is this thing unsubtle with its metaphors. And with that in mind, let’s start by talking a little about Kaminski’s take on Eddie himself.

As I may have mentioned before, I like to divide 90′s Eddie into two broad personas: the Meathead, and the Hobo.

Kaminski’s Eddie nominally belongs in the angsty, long-haired Hobo incarnation, but that’s a bit of a simplification: this version certainly has plenty of angst and plenty of hair to his name – but nowhere, not even at his lowest ebb, does he doubt that he and his Other are meant for each other, which is usually Hobo!Eddie’s primary existential quandary.

He’s also taken up narrating his own life like a hardboiled PI.

So that’s... novel.

The only other time Eddie’s sounded like this is, er, in that one other Venom one-shot Kaminski penned (Seed of Darkness, a prequel that sadly isn’t in The Hunger’s league), so I think we can safely file it under authorial ticks.

Then again, Hobo!Eddie’s always been one melodramatic SOB, so maybe this is just how he’d sound after learning to channel his angst into his poetry. You can’t argue it fits the aesthetic, anyway.

We’d also be remiss not to mention Ed Halsted’s art, which I can only describe as gothic-meets-noir-meets-H.R.-Giger. Never before or since has the alien symbiote looked this alien: twisted with Xenompoph-like ridges and veins.

But Halsted doesn’t treat Venom to all that extra detail in every panel. Instead, the distortion tends to appear when the symbiote is separated from Eddie or out of control – and I doubt you need me to walk you through the symbolic importance of that creative decision. More importantly, Halsted’s art provides exactly the class of visuals that Kaminski’s story needs.

Did I mention this is a horror story? You might be surprised how few Venom stories really fit that genre, but if all those adjectives about Halsted’s style above didn’t clue you in, this is one of them.

Anyway, with that much context covered, let’s get into the main narrative of this thing.

As our first issue opens, Eddie’s world has become a dark and foreboding place. He’s not sleeping, though he mostly brushes this off. (Fun fact: trouble sleeping is one of those under-appreciated symptoms of depression. Additional fun fact: the first doctor ever to suggest I might be suffering from depression was actually a sleep specialist. You can guess how that appointment was going.)

Just to set our scene, here’s all of page 1.

Eddie’s narration has plenty of (ha) venom for his surroundings, but the visuals are here to back him up: panels from Eddie’s POV are edged in twisted, fleshy borders and drained of colour, the people rendered as creepy, goblin-like creatures. A couple of later scenes go even further to contrast Eddie-vision with what everyone else is seeing:

As depictions of depression go this is a little on the nose, but then, you don’t read a comic about a brain-eating alien parasite looking for subtlety, do you?

Eddie doesn’t see himself as depressed, of course. As far as he’s concerned, he’s seeing the world’s true face: it’s everyone else who’s deluding themselves. He’s still got his symbiote, so he’s happy. He’s yet to hit that all-important breaking point where something he can’t brush off goes irrevocably wrong.

But he’s also starting to experience these weird... cravings.

He just can’t put a name to exactly what he’s craving until a routine bar fight with a couple of thugs takes a turn for the horrific.

(I include this panel partly to point out even in The Hunger, the goriest of all 90′s Venom titles, you’re still not going to see brains getting eaten in any graphic detail. We don’t need to to get the horror of the moment across. The 90′s were a more innocent time.)

Eddie himself is horrified when he comes back to himself and realises what he’s done.

Or rather, what his symbiote’s just made him do.

Kaminski doesn’t keep us in suspense about why, though. Eddie may have just done something horrific, but there’s a reason, and it’s as mundane as a vitamin deficiency. He’s bonded to an alien creature, after all, and his symbiote is craving a nutrient which just happens to be found in human brains. And if Eddie can’t or won’t help it meet that need, it’ll do so alone.

Now, giving us that explanation so quickly is an interesting creative decision: this is a horror story, and horror lives in what we don’t know. Wouldn’t it be all the more horrifying had the symbiote been unable to explain what’s going on, leaving Eddie without the first real clue as to where this monstrous new hunger had come from?

The Hunger doesn’t take that route though, and I love it. Eddie isn’t a monster, this isn’t his fault: he has a fucking condition, and wallowing in his own moral failings is going to get him nowhere. You might as well try to cure scurvy or rickets with positive thinking. Just like depression can make you feel like an utter failure at the most basic parts of being human, and all the affirmations in the world won’t fix it when it’s fundamentally your brain chemistry that’s the problem. Or like addicts aren’t weak-willed for struggling not to relapse, they’re dealing with genuine chemical dependency – or even like how someone who’s trans isn’t at fault for being unable to reconcile themselves to the bodies and the hormones they were born with by pure force of trying. Free will is more than an illusion, but we’re all messy, biological organisms underneath, and your own brain and biochemistry can and will fuck you over in a hundred wildly different ways for as many wildly different reasons and it’s not your fault.

We aren’t monsters. But if we do, sometimes, find ourselves identifying with the monster, there might be a reason for that.

(Ahem)

I’m just saying, that’s fucking powerful, and we need more stories that say it.

Anyway, in case you missed it during that tangent, issue #1 closes with the symbiote having torn Eddie’s heart in two itself free to go hunting brains without him.

I’m trying not to get too sidetracked at this point talking about Kaminski’s take on the symbiote itself. Suffice to say there are broadly two schools of thought on how it ought to function while separated from its host: the traditional ambulatory-slime-puddle version, and the more recently popular alternative where anything-you-can-do-with-a-host-you-can-also-do-without-one. I’m not much of a fan of the latter, personally: if your symbiote doesn’t actually need a host, I feel you’ve sort of missed the point. (The movie takes the route of saying symbiotes can’t even process Earth’s atmosphere without a host, which is a great new idea that appears nowhere in the comics, and I love it. Hosts or GTFO, baby!)

Kaminski has his own take, and I can only wish it had caught on. Without Eddie, the symbiote becomes an ever-shifting insectoid-tentacle-snake-monstrosity, driven by an animalistic hunger. It’s many things, but it’s never humanoid.

If you absolutely must have your symbiote operating minus a host, I feel this is the way to do it: semi-feral, shapeless and completely alien (uncontrollable violence and cravings for brains to be added to taste).

Issue #2 comes to us primarily through the perspective of the mild-mannered Dr. Thaddeus Paine of the Innsmouth Hills Sanitarium (yes, really).

Yeah, he’s not fooling anyone. Meet our official villain! He joins our story after Eddie is picked up by the police and handed off to the nearest available institution, on account of how completely sane and rational he’s been acting.

Naturally, Dr. Paine soon has copious notes on Eddie’s ‘crazy’ story about his psychic link to a brain-eating alien monster. Fortunately for Eddie, Paine also runs some tests and makes an interesting discovery.

Congratulations, Venom: the ‘vitamin’ you were missing officially has a name!

Finding the right meds isn’t always this easy. I got lucky – the first ones my psych put me on worked pretty well – but I have plenty of friends who weren't so lucky. In fact, the treatment for Eddie's problems is so straightforward it arguably has more in common with, say, endocrine disorders like thyroid conditions or Addison’s disease, which differ from clinical depression but present many similar symptoms (but can sadly be just as much of a bitch to get correctly diagnosed – please do read author Maggie Stiefvater’s account of the latter when you get the chance, because forget Venom, that is a horror story).

‘True’ depression remains much less well understood by medicine, either in its causes or how to effectively treat it. But simply having a name for what was wrong with me made so much difference, and that’s an experience I imagine anyone who’s dealt with any long undiagnosed medical condition could relate to. It put my life in context in a way nothing else had in years.

(I can’t speak to the accuracy of the way phenethylamine is portrayed in this comic – a quick google suggests there may be some real debate that phenethylamine deficiencies have been overlooked as a contributor to clinical depression, but having no medical background, that one’s well beyond me. Either way, scientific accuracy really doesn’t matter in this context – it’s how it works in-universe for story purposes that we should pay attention to.)

Since this issue is mostly from Paine’s POV, we don’t get Eddie’s reaction to having a healthy amount of phenethylamine sloshing around in his brain again, just the assurance that treatment appears to be ‘completely successful’.

He’s still a paranoid, hostile bastard though. Meds can turn your life around, but they won’t make you not you.

But even if Eddie’s feeling better, he’s still psychically linked to someone who isn’t. Symbiote-vision still comes through drained of colour and edged in viscera.

That’s the thing about meds: they won’t solve all your problems overnight. If you’ve been depressed for a while, there are good odds you have problems stacking up. But working meds can be a godsend when it comes to getting you into a space where you can deal with your problems again, whether said problems are doing-your-laundry or all the way into not-giving-up-completely-and-just-accepting-you’ll-die-alone-on-the-street.

For Eddie, ‘dealing with his problems’ begins with stealing a keycard and busting out of the asylum.

Of course, that’s the easy part. How do you solve a problem like a feral symbiote? Like any good 90′s comic book protagonist, Eddie tackles it by putting on his big-boy camouflage pants and kitting himself out with weapons and pouches while quoting “If you live something, set it free. If it doesn’t come back, hunt it down.”

We can add this to the list of things I love about this comic. Even if The Hunger is a weirdly-stylistic tract about depression at heart, it’s also still a goddamn 90′s Venom comic, and not ashamed to be.

We’re into issue #3 now, and back to hearing the story from Eddie’s POV.

Eddie is very much aware that his symbiote has murdered innocent people while they’ve been separated. Even if this is the result of extreme circumstances, there’s a good case to be made that the symbiote is too dangerous to be allowed to live. Plenty of heroes would treat it like a rabid dog at this point.

But Eddie isn’t a hero, he’s a mess of a character and an anti-hero at best, so we don’t have to hold him to the same standard. He’s well aware his symbiote may be too far gone to save, that he may have to put it down – but that’s only his backup plan. He wants to help it. He wants it back. He’s down in that sewer with screamers and a flamethrower because he knows all his symbiote’s weaknesses, but he’s also carrying a large jar of black-market synthesised phenethylamine, because if he can just get close enough...

Depression can’t make you a literal monster, but it can make you an asshole. Miserable to be around, lacking even the energy to care who else you’re hurting. The depression doesn’t excuse that, but it makes everything harder, and it’s that much easier to sink back into your spiral when everyone around you has given up. It can make you think everyone around has given up even if that isn’t true.

So to have Eddie here say, in effect, I don’t care how many people you’ve eaten, I know it wasn’t your fault. I still love you. You’re still worth fighting for – god, does that get me right in the id.

There’s still a whole issue left at this point – we’ve still got to deal with our real villain, Dr. Paine, who we’ve just learned is into eating brains himself and torturing his patients recreationally, and who wants to capture the symbiote for his own purposes. There’s the scene where Eddie and his symbiote finally bond again, and Venom beats up all Paine’s goons while singing David Bowie because like I said, this is still a 90′s superhero comic and this is what Venom does.

But for our purposes, I'm going to skip to the penultimate page of the story, because the way it mirrors our opening page is really lovely.

Remember that shot of Eddie dealing with a beggar back at the beginning of the story, thinking about how these people would 'get their despair all over you'? Here he is again, cheerfully forking over the last dollar in his pocket to the next man to ask him for change. For all the gothic atmosphere and gore, it’s moments like this that make The Hunger easily one of the most positive, uplifting Venom stories ever written. Funny, that. (I could probably write a whole other essay on sympathy for the homeless as a recurring motif in Venom stories, but that... well, whole other essay and all that.)

What’s Eddie learned from this experience? Don’t take your symbiote for granted. Is ‘symbiote’ a metaphor for mental health here, is paying attention to its needs an allegory for paying attention to your own? I still don’t know how literally Kaminski meant us to take this, but it’s a lovely note to end on no matter how you parse it.

At the end of the day, The Hunger isn’t flawless. The conflict with Paine ends on a thematic but slightly unsatisfying note. Eddie makes much of his symbiote's loneliness and desire for union, but when the two of them are finally reunited, the only reaction comes from Eddie's side. In fact, the symbiote seems to have no response to being able to return to Eddie at all, and that’s an omission that bugs me.

But Kaminski is more interested than any other writer of the era in the truly alien nature of the symbiote, in its relationship with Eddie from Eddie’s side, and though plenty of others talk about the symbiote's love/hate relationship with Spider-man, no-one else had the guts to portray their relationship this much like a romance.

And Venom: The Hunger is no less interesting in the context of Len Kaminski’s other work. You don't have to look far into his Marvel and DC credits to pick up that the guy has a real thing for monsters. (“All of my favourite characters are outlaws, misfits, anti-heroes,” he says, in one of the very few interviews I could find with him, “I wouldn't know what to do with Superman.”) He's written for vampires, werewolves, victims of mad science, and all of three at once, littering his work with biochemistry-themed technobabble, melodramatic monologues, gratuitous pop-culture references, and protagonists who must learn to embrace their inner demons. So The Hunger represents more than a few of his favourite running themes.

For our context, his more notable other work includes Children of the Beast, in which a werewolf must make peace between his human and animalistic sides, and The Creeper, in which a journalist must make peace with the crazy super-powered alter-ego sharing his body. In fact, The Creeper and The Hunger share so much DNA (including an evil doctor posing as a respected psychiatrist who uses hypnosis on our hero while he's trapped in a mental institution) that it’s quite the achievement that they still feel like such very distinct entities beyond that point.

The human alter-egos of both werewolf and Creeper even use prescription meds while wrestling with their respective dark sides. The difference, in both cases, is that these are stories where meds play their traditional fictional role – and that's a role that could be as easily filled by illegal drugs or alcohol without making any substantive difference. You see, if a protagonist is using them, it's a sign of unwillingness to tackle their 'real' problems. Even among work by the same author in the same genre, The Hunger represents an outlier. And that's just a little disappointing – at least to me.

In real life, of course, prescription meds are no magical cure-all elixir. Depression meds that work for one person may not work for another, or may not keep working in the longer term. Everyone has heard stories about quack doctors who prescribe them to the wrong patients for the wrong reasons, about lives ruined by addictions to prescription painkillers, or the supposedly-damning statistics about how poorly SSRI's perform in rigorous clinical trials. The proper way to treat depression is obviously with lifestyle and therapy. People will still airily dismiss medications that we all know previous generations got along just fine without, or suggest that figures like Van Gogh would never have created great art if they hadn't been mad enough to slice off an ear. I mean, the fact you think you need those bogus mediations is probably the best possible sign of just how broken you are, right? Who do you think you’re kidding?

Our popular fiction loves stories about manly men who bury their trauma under a gruff, anti-social exterior and come back swinging at the world that broke them, bravely refusing even painkillers that might dull their manly reflexes. Other genres make space for broken people confronting their demons in grand moments of catharsis, finally breaking down into tears when someone gets through to make them face their problems. "I could barely make it out of bed in the mornings until I found a doctor who started me on this new prescription" is not only wildly counter to the accepted social narrative, it's a hard thing to know how to dramatise.

Even other Venom comics have been guilty of this.

Believe me, I recognise all of this, and just how much progress we've made in the last few decades. But I haven't the slightest doubt that for so many vulnerable people, the stigma against prescription medications does infinitely more harm than those same meds could ever do. And just having the right to externalise my problems into it's not you, it's your brain chemistry, may have helped me more than the meds themselves.

(And again, no, being prescribed SSRI's didn't fix me overnight, but I honestly don't know if all the talk therapy and tearful conversations with family members in the world could've got me as far as I've come without them.)

I love Venom: The Hunger. It's no-one's idea of high art, but it doesn’t need to be. There is a whole other post’s worth of things I love about it that I’ve already cut out this one as pointless tangents, and that may actually be it’s biggest drawback as a go-to example: I fully recognise that I would not be making this post if The Hunger hadn't also also grabbed me as a great bit of Venom canon, being the massive fan and shipper that I am. Other people who are just as desperate as me for more stories with the same core theme, but not into weird 90's comics about needy goo aliens, probably won't get nearly as much out of it as I have.

But if it sounds anything like your jam, maybe you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

If nothing else, it proves that you can make a viscerally satisfying story out of a message that shockingly unconventional. And you may even have people still discovering it and falling in love with it 25 years after the fact.

#Venom: The Hunger #Venom #depression #SSRIs #Symbrock #Venom meta #meta #Venom comics #Len Kaminski

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tarithenurse · 4 years ago

Text

Stolen - 21

Pairing: Loki Laufeyson &/x fem!gifted!reader Content: “Getting the most of it”, jealousy. Oh...and smidgen of smuttiness. A/N: After 2 night shifts from hell I finally got time to write a bit again. Ask or reblog for tag ;)

21. A Place in the Dirt

... Reader ...

If you had had any hope of getting off the hook lightly on your first day in Asgard...well, those hopes have been crushed, ground into dust, mixed with oil and pigment, and painted onto the wall to spell out the words ‘HA HA’.

Loki had given you all of half an hour to chill and explore the room – surprisingly granting you ownership of the gorgeous suite and the fairy tale-esque bed – however his return had brought a storm of preparations. Maids and tailors (he called them seamstresses) had flocked around you, insisting to prepare a bath for you (as if you weren’t capable of that yourself) after having taken your measurements and tested a gazillion different fabrics while you stood like a mannequin until your body hurt. Admittedly, the bath had been worth it, but you weren’t gonna tell the schemer that when you’d appeared from the bathroom in a cloud of steam.

Allowing a maid to usher you behind a screen, Loki had busied himself with a servant – a good thing too as you were afraid getting physically near him would ruin you and the cleanliness. Still, you were happy for the help as the clothes presented to you were new, styled to match what you had seen the Asgardian noblewomen wearing earlier. Several layers of gossamer-thin silk in greens and sandy colours were almost magically draped across your shoulders, tugged and crossed into a smooth, shimmering haze before the piece-de-resistance was applied: it looked like a bodice of metal scales, the coppery kites woven together unseen without desisting the subtlety of any other thick fabric.

“Lady [Y/N], it is hard to believe you are not Asgardian,” a blond man greets you, breaking the dreamlike (or nightmarish) state you’re in.

Smiling politely, you recall he has been hanging out with a small group during the beginning of the feast. With a woman on each arm, the Asgardian has been drinking and laughing with a bear of a guy with red hair and a beard befitting a Tolkien dwarf (he even has roughly the same shape and table manners as one); at least the second friend – although short of words – knows how to behave himself in court if Loki's directions are to be believed: his face is happy and eyes sharp, never stopping the careful watch of everyone in the room. You don't mind when he looks your way because he will move the gaze to the next person soon enough. The woman, however...brilliant eyes have taken in your every twitch even after Frigga officially welcomed you, explaining to the court how the plan was for you to be tutored by the queen herself. Sif. Apparently, she's quite a warrior and still, she isn't coming to save you now.

"Thank you."

Rather than leaving you alone again the blond sits down, grabbing a glass of golden liquid from a tray of a passing servant and taking a sip. Eyes the colour of forget-me-nots twinkle over the brim.

"Please indulge my curiosity, fair lady." With that melodious voice you might forgive him everything. "How come you travel alone? Save for a single servant..."

You know the answer because it's been drilled in it by Loki: “Travelling without an agenda set in stone, it would be presumptuous and unkind to any host if I arrived with the customary retinue. My servant, as you call him, may not attend precisely the same tasks as a maid...but his allegiance is unwavering. I trust him with my life.”

Brows half cocked, the man next to you drains the glass lazily only to signal for more. The tip of his tongue wipes the last drop of his lips, eye contact unbroken. A shiver runs down your spine and you’re not entire sure it’s the good kind even if there’s an inkling of admiration for his confidence. Player.

“If ever you find yourself in need of...other company,” the man leers, “you can always come to me.” Two full glasses are set between the two of you and he immediately scoots one towards you. “I am Fandral, of the Warriors Three. At your service, m’lady.”

Simply raising your glass in return, you decide life will be a lot nicer with some friends around especially with Loki’s recent teasing. And either way, what harm can a polite gesture do?

...

Someone stop the floor. Your entire world seems to tilt and spin as you walk down the grand hallways – not uncomfortably so, just enough that keeping on a straight path requires more concentration than you’re willing to spend at the moment when you’d much rather enjoy the warm buzz in your body.

“The floor’s steady, silly pet,” a cool voice admonishes beside you, “I told you not to drink the mead.”

Turning to face Loki, his face bobs in and out of focus until something cool readjusts it’s grasp on you. Some sort of answer is brewing in your brain, but it’s not quite ready yet, it seems, and so you let him lead you the rest of the way to your room.

Aha! “Buttit tastsss good! And Fandang...Fanran...Fannnn-”

“Fandral.” With a sigh, Loki plops you onto the huge bed.

“Tha’s’e’one!”

For a moment the trail of thought escapes you while you wiggle around the soft, bouncy surface in an attempt to figure out the method to get out of the bodice. When your companion swats away your hands, you hum with delight at the delicate touch freeing you. Yay! Cool down.

As the feast had progressed and your new, blond friend had coaxed the glass of mead into you (an easy feat considering the deliciousness) your body had begun to heat up, making you miss Loki’s soothing temperatures.

Shrugging off the layers draped over your body, the air is like a balm. “Orh, that’s be’er.”

... Loki ...

Nothing but a delicate shift shields [Y/N]’s curves, the silk still unable to hide the darker nipples puckering as she throws herself back into the pillows with a delighted groan. If only...Loki’s imagination grants him flashes of scenes where each sound falling from the woman’s lips are a testimony to the bliss granted by him. Shifting to ease the discomfort brought on by too confining trousers, the Jotun allows his hands to move slowly as they pull the covers over the Midgardian’s body.

“Sleep now, I’ll open the balcony door to let the cool air in.”

It’s a simple order and [Y/N]’s eyes are already closing, still she manages to capture one of his hands and lead it to her forehead. “This works too.”

He can’t pull back, only stare and try to breathe evenly as the woman guides his hand as though it’s a cool cloth. Along the jaw, down the throat to send shivers racing towards the hairline at the neck. Knuckles brush delicately back and forth over the clavicles before she allows his palm to flatten over the upper sternum – the heartbeat beneath strong and rapid – only to drag further until nestled between her breasts while the silk is pulled taught by his wrist.

I...not like this. Snagging the hand back, Loki ignores the whimpers and turns away to discreetly readjust the painful tightness of leather again.

...

Lying in the darkness of the servant’s room, he can still smell the dampness of [Y/N]’s skin on his hand and the memory of soft heat guides that very same hand’s strokes upwards, twists, and down again in the hopes of relieving some of the tension and frustration that have build up within.

A flicker of magic, and a rendering of her face glows dimly, smiling softly at Loki as he ups the tempo. Though the heat is lacking, at least he can mimic the tight hold she would have on him as he thrusts into the fist repeatedly. Although wavering, more of her body appears, completing the recollection of the sight of [Y/N] splayed on the fourposter. The god’s breath hitch and his hips stutter, but the euphoria only lasts mere seconds before the unquenchable need returns. Sweet doom. There is a way to sate the hunger, but it has to be done right or not at all.

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grandcollections · 4 years ago

Link

by @bonearenaofmyskull

Summary:

While isolated from the rest of humanity as they escape the United States on their own sailing vessel, Will grapples with what he wants out of his renewed relationship with Hannibal.

Comments:

God, what a lovely, perfectly measured, somber post-fall fic. This is one out of maybe three perfectly executed post-fall fics that are my personal canon. This one... oh, THIS one!!!.... A somber sailboat fic composed of quiet moments and introspection, surprisingly short considering the amount of emotion and resolution it packs in its small real estate, it's the perfect fic to read the very night after you finish the last episode of Hannibal for a good, cleansing cry and a full heart before you go to bed.

Will had been afraid those few weightless moments: afraid and at peace, warmed by Hannibal’s body in his arms, and it had been so right. Right that they should die there together, right that they had killed together, right that Hannibal had known what was coming and still given himself over to Will as they stood on the eroding edge together. It was right when Hannibal’s arms tightened— desperately, compulsively— around Will. In those moments, Will had loved him more than he could reckon.

But here was Will, only a few feet away from him, his fingers thoughtlessly caressing the silver circle of wheel with just the pads, gripping, releasing. There he was, the toes on one foot curling and pressing into Cetus’s decking, his bare feet peeking out from new linen pants, slightly too long without shoes on. There—impossibly there, undeniably there, inconceivably there. Close enough to touch, if Hannibal reached for him. Hannibal stored him up in his mind, in a room encompassing all the oceans of the world.

“You are so consistently insistent," Will said. Hannibal smiled. "And you so persistently resistant."

TLDR: The writing is exquisite— the tone belongs to the show, pairs perfectly with it. It’s full of restrained sensuality, has an amazing grasp on nautical terminology, a mastery of setting the scene in the loveliest way possible, and a real grasp on Hannibal-esque dialogue that was so, so satisfying. It treats both Hannibal and Will individually with such respect; Hannibal’s yearning and penchant for manipulation and his constant pushing, Will’s reservations and melancholy and frustration. Both of their fears and their pain. Hannibal is allowed to be vulnerable and afraid (while giving us heaps of pining and possessive Hannibal) and Will is allowed to be strong in a way that rings true to both their characters. It highlights the bitterly circular nature of their relationship, the way pain and tenderness seem to always be intertwined. The fic has so much angst and little resolution (just how I like it— a bitch likes blue balls). What’s unique about this fic is how it refuses to shy away from any facet of the twisted, tremulous place Hannibal and Will would be post-fall — the immense confusion, the yearning and learning and re-learning, the sea of blood and betrayal between them. This fic is not an ending; it’s a beginning, and that’s its true strength.

(much) more detailed review below the cut!

I'll talk about the writing first! (I'm being shockingly coherent here considering how much I incoherently screamed while reading/ in the fic comments). The TONE! is literal perfection. IMMACULATE. Only a few paragraphs in and I felt like I was watching the show, I FELT the bond between the show and the fic. The aesthetics matched — a feat, as the author manages to do that with such tight, contained writing while the aesthetic of the show is outrageously, extraneously beautiful. At no point does this author resort to flowery writing or extraneous detail— every word is measured, purposeful, bare, yet bursting with feeling.

This translates to one of my favorite aspects of the writing: its restrained sensuality. I say “sensuality” instead of “sexuality” because that’s what it is— gentle, but roiling eroticism, barely communicated in the slightest of details:

He became slowly conscious of Hannibal’s steady gaze on him as he moved. He halted as he came to his door, hand on the latch. Somewhere in the back of his mind those words echoed again—Is Hannibal in love with me?—and Bedelia’s measured tones as she answered... Will turned his head but did not quite look at him. Hannibal’s attention remained steady, intent, curious. “Will?” he asked. Will went inside. Thereafter the association had him and would not let him go. He became aware of Hannibal’s attention in a manner he had never thought about much before.

... but instead he stayed with Hannibal, watching Hannibal’s face just inches from his own. Hannibal licked his lips and continued to apply pressure, watching Will watch him. They remained in this tableau, waiting for deliverance.

Hannibal peeled the shrimp and removed the veins with deft turns of his wrists, his sleeves rolled up halfway to his elbows. “I can help with that,” Will said.

Will could not resist testing his hand’s movement and felt it brush against the seam on the inside of Hannibal’s thigh. “Try to be still,” Hannibal murmured. He ran his warm palm over the muscles of Will’s shoulder again, much the same as he had smoothed the blanket fifteen minutes before, and as he had once drawn a blanket over Will’s chilled form and caressed him, Will thought idly, mere hours after shoving Abigail’s ear down his throat.

Hannibal’s lips were parted, and Will could feel his warm breath. He knew the look without needing to see it clearly: admiration and ache warring equally over his chiseled features. Consuming, as always. Drinking him in. Taking. He wondered what Hannibal saw in his own face.

What’s glorious about this style of muted sensuality is that the power is all left to the implications — which are infinitely more than a scene in which a finite ~thing~ happens— to what’s unsaid, not done (but yearned for). Yearning (oh, there is so much yearning) takes a front seat. As a huge fan of Hemingway’s iceberg theory and contained writing in general, I loved this style.

The physical descriptions of the boat and the beauty of the sea were always lovely and anchoring. This author has a ridiculous command of the nautical world, and even if I didn’t understand all of it I deeply appreciated the attention to detail —

Hannibal had been a long time indoors and not a molecule of this natural beauty was lost on him. But mostly he watched Will. Will did not see this world of ultraviolet glare and sunblind desaturation as Hannibal did, but rather with the eye of a mariner and a fisherman. In the previous week, Hannibal had coaxed him into voicing some of his observations, and seeing life through Will's eyes had been in its way as fascinating as viewing death. A loon's laughing cry rose and passed on more than one occasion, and Will commented that it was a good sign for the fishery, that there must be a good number of menhaden, a baitfish, in the Bay that year...

A diffuse glow of sunlight illuminated his face from below, as the sun peeked through the skylights and lit up the woodwork and white upholstery in the saloon. It warmed the recesses of Hannibal’s sculpted face and made his eyes glow, more amber than brown.

There was no word on the weather, of the hot and unnatural stillness that held Hannibal and himself in its unrelenting grip.

The quotes at the beginnings of the chapters were also a really nice touch!

Hannibal's voice, his elite brand of dialogue— cyclical, cutting, seemingly random but never actually so— is captured perfectly; a difficult feat. It was so satisfying to read:

“Moments are all that we need, Will. Enough moments, strung together, make eternity.”

"To feel intensely is not a symptom of weakness, Will. It's the mark of the truly alive."

This makes the hannigram conversations feel so authentic, so classically them, with Hannibal's philosophical overtures, the religious imagery, the refusing to shy away from previous interactions/conflict between them, and prodding and digging into Will as he loves to do, as he can't resist doing. Combined with Will’s insolence and the way he can surprise Hannibal, can (briefly) render hims speechless, the conversations could be scenes pulled from the show.

I deeply loved and appreciated the instances of Hannibal pushing, of refusing to let things go (more on that later), of behaving instinctually (especially when Will pulls strong emotion from him). It rings so true to the character— Hannibal’s worst vice (with Will at least) is his inability to control his black impulses when he's overcome with feeling when it comes to Will, especially if it's negative, burning emotion like betrayal, jealousy, or hurt. (See: Mizumono, Dolce). Then Hannibal becomes a viper, lunging and striking without thinking, poisoning the space between them.

Hannibal’s continuous pushing was a product of the author refusing to ignore the latent issues that would lie between our favorite murder husbands post-fall. A lot of fics jump straight into murder-husbands epilogue or Will-is-immediately-as-bloodthirsty-and-happily-cannibalistic-as-Hannibal (and I'm not gonna lie there's a couple of those that are favorites, writing makes all the difference for me) but this fic doesn't do that. I’ll admit that it’s very much not a focus of the fic, there is absolutely no exploration of how Will feels about killing or cannibalism, if he felt powerful, if he wants to chase that feeling, no exploration of “it’s beautiful”. It’s not a weakness of the fic, just very glaringly not a part of it. This fic is severely focused on Hannigram’s complicated feelings about each other, in a dreamlike isolated place. The fic doesn’t bother itself with morality, doesn’t place judgement, positive or negative, on any of those acts. It also doesn’t dismiss them from the future, and any realistic future would involve such acts. As I said before, this fic is a beginning.

But, yes, back to my point! The fic touches on issues such as Abigail, Molly and Walter, and even the fall off the cliff by having Hannibal push Will again and again (even literally). I’m hesitant to say “explores” rather than “touches on” because it doesn’t do that, doesn’t provide a full resolution— it acknowledges these issues, establishes that they would be part of a continued conversation, and moves on. (Like I said; a beginning).

Although Will rarely (or may actually never) bring up any of his own issues— he only engages when forced to by Hannibal— he does display strength in typical Will ways, through resistance and insolence.

What Hannibal wanted was what Will had shared with Molly and Walter... He did not want to give these things to Hannibal.

A lot of fics will have Will either shy away from any discussion of Molly and Walter, because they’re ugly and difficult to execute well, and so they are erased as if they never existed— or they will simply have Will completely demote and reject Molly and Walter and the life he lived in Maine. But in this fic, Will is still protective of them, even as a memory, even as something that exists completely in the past, even as he moves forward with Hannibal. It’s a display of strength, of non-compliance, that I love.

Will shows strength in other ways, too. While he doesn’t start many of the difficult conversations as Hannibal does (as only insightful Hannibal can do), once engaged he’s present and sharp, sometimes unyielding and even hurtful. Will doesn’t shy away from the bitterness of the walls placed between them, walls that aren’t made of matter but of space— space Will placed between them, space Hannibal took (and continues to try to take) from him.

The result are many (beautiful) references to their past, to the rivers of blood between them:

The grief of their years apart flooded after, with the weight of what they had done to each other and what they had suffered at each other’s hands. The shadows of pain and stains of blood surrounded them, filling the boat, threatening to sink it and carry them both to the bottom of the sea.

He had been sure, and he was still sure- they had to deal with each other, to grope their way through their shared maze of long-stored griefs and the dead ends of failed trust.

Hannibal had awoken, and Will’s peace fled.

This last gutting quote takes me to another hallmark of this fic for me— a truly beautiful and mature display of their mutual unhappiness, a living example of “be careful what you wish for”. Both men have wished for this (for different lengths of time and in different degrees, yes, but they wished for it)— to be alone together, which is to not be alone, finally (“we are both alone without each other”). But now that they have it, they learn that they have to actually be together, and that perhaps they don’t know to do that, or at least how best to do that. They learn that there’s so much pain and unresolved emotion to contend with, when faced with the nothing but the other and time.

And so, after the story ends, they don’t leap into happily-ever-after. Instead, they leap into explorations of their unresolved feelings and their own failings. There’s such a deep understanding of both men’s failings, the unique ways in which their hearts are broken — there’s even a beautiful mirror where both men (separately) reflect on the ways in which they’re not enough for the other.

As then, Hannibal knew he had little with which to fight this enemy. He had no secrets left to reveal, no curiosity to exploit, no monsters to fight, no daughter to share, no one left to save but Will himself. He had only Hannibal Lecter, and that had never been enough.

Will wondered what equally tender and ravenous urge had brought Hannibal forward to watch over him while he slept... He tried to imagine if there might ever be any way he could give Hannibal enough to sate him. Maybe there was, if Hannibal had succeeded in sawing his way into Will’s head and eaten his brain after all. Will could not see it otherwise. The whole of Will’s entire life and being was not enough. It had never been enough.

This whole thing is both gorgeous and tragic, both of them harboring imagined shortcomings and impossible desires. Will wonders if literal consumption, to be eaten or allowing himself to be possessed in every other way, is the only thing that will sate Hannibal. And this Will is, very definitively, not willing to do that. (I’m not averse to fics where Will is— when done well, it’s supremely good). And Hannibal has always used Something Else to hook Will, to keep Will, and so the tragedy is in the hypothetical— what could have happened had he resisted some of his own worst impulses? Did Hannibal behave this way because of Will’s resistance, or would Will not have resisted him, rejected him, had he not been so manipulative, coercive, demanding, taking? *Sigh.* I also love that Hannibal is allowed to acknowledge his own failings and betrayals in this fic; it doesn’t always exists in post-fall fics (again, it's usually Will apologizing for his false life with Molly, etc). It makes for some delicious angst.

And my god, is the angst good! Striking, painful, gutting, love that for meee!!!! (I genuinely do!)

Will did not speak, not even to thank Hannibal. It stung.

BABEYYYY NOOOO why do the SIMPLEST sentences fucking destROYYYY me?!!

Does that make you feel better?” Will asked in a low voice. “It’s not enough that you take everything else—you have to take even the symbols of anything I had that wasn’t about you?”

Reaching out, he gripped the fabric of Hannibal’s shirt in his hand, closing his fist around it slowly. “Maybe that should tell you something.” Hannibal twitched slightly—Will had caught some of his chest hair—but he remained passive. It was Will’s weak arm, his right, and so the gesture was just that: a gesture, made for no better reason than emphasis. But it felt good to have Hannibal under him, looking surprised.... “What should it tell me, Will?” “Some things”—Will breathed deeply through his nose, trying to steady himself—“do not belong to you.” His voice came low and quiet. Hannibal’s hand came up and touched his arm, moving up to the recently injured shoulder, running his palm over Will’s shirt, passing his fingers over the roughness of scars beneath. “I only wish to know you.”

literally SCREAMING INCOHERENTLY!!! I haven’t even used the worst (best) angsty bits — gotta save something for the actual fic! so go go go!!!

This deep understanding of both Will and Hannibal as separate individuals shines throughout the fic, but I’d like to showcase some really strong character lines. On Hannibal:

Hannibal was pleased with his age and the experiences that fueled it: every moment he lived he had snatched from God’s own sticky fingers.

He knew that Hannibal could and did partition his mind against such associations, that his affection was every bit as real as his violence... He could only find and explore this newly tender and painful place within him, like a man who cannot keep from tonguing an aching tooth.

... the mercurial author of both his pain and his relief.

He had probably investigated all of Will's belongings at some point.

Hannibal could believe, but he could never know.

(^ one of my favorite parts of the fic; the recurring explanation of Hannibal’s desire to possess Will is a product of his fear of not knowing him. This line is so simple and well done, yet full of anguish.)

Will had seen Hannibal’s heart break enough times to recognize it in his stillness, in the slight thrust of his jaw beneath closed lips, in the shifts between denial and acceptance in his brown eyes, which could find no safe place to rest in the landscape of Will’s face.

(i’m EMO.) Okayokay, Will’s character lines are just as fantastic:

He would be unable to tend his right arm well with his left hand, and Hannibal would insist, and he would be forced to give in. Will wished it did not matter.

(THIS. LINE. So much communicated about Will's mingled frustration and acceptance, about the power imbalance in this relationship, in just six words.?

He was so tired of it-tired of the vulnerability, of dependency, tired of the torture of needing comfort, of wanting comfort from his tormentor.

Will had adopted his trademark flat affect by the second of these sessions. He would stare ahead, at the pulse at the base of Hannibal’s throat, following Hannibal’s instructions to the letter, but he might as well have been the walking dead for all the emotion he expressed. He spoke when spoken to and offered nothing. (my chest hurts, oh will)

Will was a dark presence near him, slim and sharp as a cutlass.

And then he smiled, gray eyes lifting to Hannibal’s, bringing Hannibal’s heart into his throat. He smiled that sad smile of his, the smile that could contain oceans of sweetness and bitterness all at once.

✨ and this line, that encompasses both of them:

It still hurt, to be so vulnerable. It hurt that Hannibal had turned on him and could have drowned him or let him drown, yet again after so many times down this path. It hurt that Hannibal lived day to day and moment to moment, awaiting Will’s next betrayal.

and oh, oh this fic is rife with lovely hannigram passages:

Hannibal seemed to sense his weariness. “We’re always braver in the face of our own pain than in the face of the pain of those we love,” he said quietly. He turned his attention back to Will’s arm and let the conversation rest.

Is Hannibal in love with me? he had asked... Will had been enormously afraid of either answer. Hannibal continued to cut the bell pepper in to a twisting spiral of red, his face and body still, only his hands working. “I thought of you,” Will said finally. “Often.” Hannibal’s breath released in a slow sigh. Will watched the words fill him up, set him to rest, with no outward change in his demeanor. He wished it were always so easy. Or had it always been?

His movements were slow and deliberate, less like a doctor at work than a supplicant at prayer.

(^ okokok i'm NOT going feral i'm NOT! supplication/worship/devotee imagery in tender moments between lovers/from a hopeful lover to the object of his/her devotion is my WEAKNESS)

What would you give me?” Will asked finally. “What would you have of me?” “Would you give me”—Will articulated slowly, deliberately—“Bedelia du Maurier?” Hannibal felt a thrill of surprise in his chest. Will was steady, studying. Hannibal watched the gray-blue of his irises. His pupils were constricted in the harsh daylight. “Do you want her?” Hannibal asked curiously. “No.” “I would deny you nothing.”

But, there is resolution. (Some). There is peace to be found. It comes in the form of Will letting go of the desire to ever kill Hannibal:

... dim memory of the thrill he used to get while imagining killing Hannibal came and went, just a phantom—powerless, soon forgotten. There was something freeing in the knowledge that he could not kill Hannibal even if he tried.... Will held himself over Hannibal for several long seconds. He imagined hurting him, pressing a knee to his throat and crushing his voice box, silencing that voice forever. No thrill accompanied the thought now. No pain, either. Nothing. He would never do it, he knew; he had taken his opportunity at the top of the cliff, and it would never return.

and is completed when he lets go: All of it was lost to the sea.

There is such tangible relief in Will’s deciding to let go of any illusions of killing Hannibal, and in releasing his pain to the sea. (And remember, the entire premise of this fic is Will deciding what he wants from Hannibal in this new life they find themselves in... and he decides.) With it comes such hard won, painful freedom. I literally felt a surge of relief and a burden dropped; Will’s. He is freed from having to "seek justice" or do the right thing. It's over. He can just, BE (whatever that looks like).

ps: I haven’t quoted too much from the last two chapters, as that’s where the most “plot” happens and they’re phenomenal and I can’t just copy and paste the whole chapters here. Please, just go read it! And I will link my comments: chapter 13 | chapter 14

I just... can’t say enough good things about this fic, but I’ve thoughtfully laid out everything major. It’s tremendous, satisfying, lovely. Go give it a read.

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rose-director · 4 years ago

Text

Blooming Roses, part 1

Content warnings:

Masks

Face covering

Momentary loss of breath

Neural connection

Hypnotic theming

Corporate setting

Cyberpunk

Description:

A new hire at Rose Cybernetics is given their final interview.

~2800 words

Story:

The megalithic building stands proud against the concrete and glass towers beside it, making mortals of titans. Sheer, elegant, imposing; the structure kisses the sky, inspiring awe in those who observe it. This effect becomes overwhelming in its courtyard, where these same observers are rendered ants in a temple of giants. You let a breath fill your lungs, feeling it sweep out through your anxious smile. Here it is. Rose Cybernetics.The sliding doors of the atrium open with a hissed breath as you enter. You knew that the company did its best to impress its visitors, but if the scale of the building hadn't already set an imposing stage, its lobby would finish its show. Seeming as though it was open to the air, the 'ceiling' of this enormous space rests comfortably at the top of the building itself. From this, a tiered array of circular floors wrap along the outer walls like a serpent's coils. Light permeates the structure from a myriad of sources, all carrying a natural hue that - if what you've heard is accurate - mirrors the color of the sky outside. The sterile whites and greys of the building carry accents of saturated color across its industrial carpeting and in stripes along its walls. Of a similar color set, furniture that seems more like modern art gives the entire area an almost organic quality. The structure itself, though, is complemented in its unique qualities by those within. Figures all around you work busily, writing on whiteboards, collaborating in clusters of various sizes, darting from group to group, and delivering items as though their need was known preemptively. Interestingly, these forms all appear dissimilar from each other. They represent myriads of body types, clothing styles, and gender presentations, yet they all wear a sleek cover across their faces; a brushed, dark curve that obscures all facial features while displaying imagery of its owner's choice. Pulling your attention from your surroundings, you return to your task. A desk labeled 'check-in' sits at the atrium's center, and inquiring there seems to be the place to start. "Hello, welcome to the Rose Cybernetics Center! How can we help you?" The person at the desk carries a spritely, delicate voice, and their words appear across their faceplate as they speak. Almost as if understanding your hesitation, the words 'she/her/hers' flash across her screen. "I- um, hi," You've practiced this interaction many times before, but trying to get words out when you're already off-beat is a bit like trying to tame a tiger while wearing rollerblades. The staffer looks at you again, tilting her head curiously in a motion that dangles her blonde ponytail against her shoulder. It's unsettling to interact with someone with no face, yet looking into her faceplate is somehow calming all the same. Rippling waves of various colors splash across the black of her display, soothing cool tones that remind you of northern lights. You take a breath to settle your heart, acclimating yourself to the unusual sight, and try again. "I'm here for my in-person interview. I-I heard that you'd be expecting me?" Even without seeing her face, you get a good sense of the smile under her faceplate as its colors take on a gentle warm hue. "Of course, applicant 3B90, right this way." The staffer stands and walks out from behind the desk, as another worker wordlessly takes her place. You find yourself unsettled by the exchange; it almost felt more mechanical than human. Suppressing a shudder, you follow the staffer as she leads you to one of the elevator wells built into the side of the building."If you don't mind, um," you speak, immediately cursing the way your words always drift away midsentence. "How can I help you, applicant 3B90?" The warmth associated with her smile appears again, easing some of the anxiety in your chest."It's ah. Sydney, please. What's your name?" "Oh, I'm sorry, Sydney. I'm GIU-2CE5, but you can call me 2C if you like!" As with all of her words, these too float across her display, as does a small '^-^' emoticon afterward. Having gotten more accustomed to the way she emotes, you see the way her tone seems to perk up at the opportunity to share this particular bit of information."Sure," you say as she guides you into an elevator and presses a button for one of the middle floors, "that's your employee number, or um. Whatever, but how about your name?" She pauses for a moment, and you can see her faceplate's slow visualization stutter briefly as she thinks. "Nope, but 2C's my nickname!" It's painfully clear to you that she likes that 'nickname' at least, and you doubt you'll get further on this line of questions, so you let it go with a sigh. "2C it is, then." Okay, maybe it *is* a bit cute to see her get excited about something so simple.The elevator dings and she leads you out through its doors, grabbing your hand to pull you along. The contact is startling, but you don't seem to mind too much as you shrug and let the enthusiastic girl drag you along. On these lofted floors, full glass windows look out on the open atrium while the walls of offices and cubicles emerge, finally welcoming you into something more familiar. She pulls you into an office, empty except for two chairs and a small cabinet, and gestures for you to take a seat. You comply, settling into a piece of furniture that has no business being as comfortable as it is. 2C takes the opposite chair, crossing her legs. "Okay, Sydney, I'll be conducting your interview! Let me know, and we can go ahead and get started." Hearing this surprises you. Sure, you keep an open mind when it comes to most things, but getting interviewed by a front desk greeter for a network administration position is almost surreal. "Alright, so what is this, exactly?" 2C's 'smile' flashes again, and she cheerily explains the Rose Cybernetics hiring process. You know most of this stuff already; the company runs a series of difficult online challenges that lead the way to their application portal. From there, you don't need to submit a resume (thankfully, since yours is in desperate need of some TLC), but they do ask you to solve a problem in realtime over an internet call. If you've shown your skill, they speak with you in a brief remote interview to learn more about you as a person, then give you one final in-person meeting. This last interview, to your knowledge, is a formality; they'd already told you to bring everything you needed to move in, after all. It's at this point where the details get fuzzy, though. As much as you've searched for information about what this would even be, you'd found nothing but missing links and dead-ends. "This meeting is a different kind of test! We're going to hook you into our internal network for a moment, and see how you take to it." She reads your confused look, and the waves on her display bubble lightly, almost in a light giggle. "What do you mean? Will I have a laptop?" You watch as the laughing effect grows. She holds up a hand as if to ask for just a moment, then stands and walks over to the cabinet. Sliding out a slim, black box, she strides back over to you and places the box in your lap. It's blank, unadorned, and made of showy cardboard. You start removing the lid, suction keeping the base from falling as it slides slowly, and an idea of what might be waiting inside dawns on you. Tossing away the newly-liberated lid, you stare directly into the item you'd been expecting and dreading; a faceplate, returning your stare.Just above the glossy covering, embedded into the packaging foam, a small bolt-like object sits ominously. You've already seen the faceplates, but this thing..? It makes the whole situation even more concerning. "Don't worry about that receiver - for now, just put your faceplate on - I bet you'd look so cute! Oh, I'm so excited, I get to see what your display shows before anyone else!" 2C's demeanor is a confusing thing; her screen jumps and reacts to her mood, and so does her voice, but her body language and physical responses - while present - are significantly muted. Her posture is almost perfect, and her movement is unsettlingly smooth. Just one more uncanny part of this business, you suppose. Considering your current situation, you catch yourself worrying about the results of this interview again, for very different reasons this time. Your eyes widen with anxiety, as your heart beats faster in your chest. "Sydney, look at me, okay?" her faceplate's coloration shifts back to those comfortable blues and greens. "Putting the faceplate on won't do anything permanent." Her hand is holding yours. "It'll press against your face, make a tight seal, and beam everything its cameras pick up into your eyes once it starts up." She's holding both of your hands now. "When I press the receiver to your neck, it'll let you control the faceplate with your mind, just like I do!" Her display wiggles in a playful pattern for emphasis. Her hands are soft, reassuring. "Once you take them off, it'll be back to normal, okay? Just a taste now, that's what this interview is for." You nod, thoughtlessly. With 2C's hands still holding yours, you reach to the faceplate in your lap. Her reassurance pools in your chest, and after slowing your heartbeat with a couple of deep breaths, you press the dark shape to your face. It's cold, almost like your face is pressed against a window, and begins to shift against your skin. You can feel it exerting a suction force, and for a terrifying instant, you realize that you can't breathe. As you try to pull in a breath, a refreshing current of air wafts in through its respirator, and your brief panic recedes. At first, your vision is blank. Another few deep breaths go by, and imagery starts to flow back into your eyes. Dim at first, most likely to keep you from being immediately overwhelmed, slowly building until your surroundings resolve around you again. You've needed glasses, apparently; the world around you appears sharper now than before, and much more detailed. Looking over at 2C, a small blurb of information hovers over her head. It's a single word; 'contented.' You'd figured that she was just good at reading emotions, but this was cheating!"H-have you been reading me from your s-screen this whole time?" you stammer. "Oh, no, not quite. That info comes from your receiver. I'm just good at guessing!" The panel shifts to 'proud,' before progressing to 'flirty.' You're about to comment on it, when she decides to continue. "By the way, that faceplate looks so so cute on you!" Your cheeks redden, and you're, surprisingly, thankful that the unlit display is covering your face. You still have almost no idea why the company would require wearing these things, but the anonymity is surprisingly refreshing. "O-okay, I've handled the mask-faceplate-whatever, I'm good to keep going." 2C's faceplate lights up a monochrome green as she tilts her head, and you see metadata confirming that it's posed as a question. You nod again in response, and she stands up to walk behind you. Your anxiety builds at the thought of a person directly behind you, but it subsides as chilling metal touches your skin. The mechanism's electromagnetic fields warp your thoughts, pulling at them as though they were elastic. The tension builds and builds as your mind becomes a coiled spring, the receiver forcing it ever tighter. The force, the pulling, the pushing; it feels like everything that makes up your mind is about to explode. "Relax," 2C's voice cuts through the swirling forces and mental struggle, "just let go, let the flow of information sweep over you.” “Relax.” At her last word, your entire being stalls, before sinking into a state of extreme ease. All of that tension, so overwhelming moments ago, courses through your body, letting you accept this new pathway for information to travel through. As you pick up the pieces of your consciousness, you shake your face from the empty stupor it carried a moment ago - thanking your mask once again - and actively sift through the data streaming into your brain.The Rose Cybernetics building is already impressive from a visual perspective, but looking at it for what it is, the glowing connected consciousnesses of every mind in the structure lighting up before you, you feel your jaw drop automatically. Your gaze returns to 2C, whose current emotions register as 'pleased.' [You can talk to me like this now, you know.] The thoughts sound like her voice, and you jump as you hear them. [It's strange to start with, I know, but this is how we all communicate here; much faster.] Realization dawns on you, and without prompting, your thoughts pour through the connection between you. [How do I respond- oh wait I'm responding now this is amazing but hard to control how do I sto-] flows out of you, in combination with a variety of related emotions, images, and half thoughts. You spend the remaining interview time experimenting with this paradigm shift in interaction, communication, and existence that's somehow both entirely new, yet confusingly familiar and natural. After only a few minutes, it feels as though 2C understands you on a deeper level than anyone you've ever met, just as your understanding of her reaches that same depth. She explains that for the sake of getting you used to this, she's the only one linked to you. She shares - with enthusiasm - that after you've had enough time to acclimate to this shift, you'll be able to open connections with anyone and everyone in the entire facility. Her excitement bounces through your mind, and you can't help but let that positivity bubble up until it begins to play across your faceplate, too. Your display is a lot less abstract than 2C's; instead of the amorphous waves against a black background, your faceplate decorates itself with images of the cosmos. Galaxies, nebulas, constellations, all proudly used to emote in a way that words never could. It feels freeing, strangely enough, wearing a screen like this. It's a window, you think, glasses for the mind. You can feel 2C thinking to herself, the sign to expect a burst of new information broadcast from her mind to yours. As you do, you can't help but think just how cute she is! So excited over being called 2C; of course, if someone called you 3B90, you'd probably melt too. It's confusing to you, looking back, why you thought that names were so important. After all, designations are just so much more convenient! [You were broadcasting that, 3B,] 2C's smug feeling drips between your connection. Your blush returns to paint your cheeks bright red, and you notice another - somewhat less innocuous - response between your legs. She waits, perfectly aware of the effect her words carried as she feels it flowing through her mind from yours, before continuing. [I think that our interview was a success! Come back tomorrow, and we can get you fitted with a permanent set.] [I have to take it off?] [It'll be alright, just one more day.] Through your mental link, she sends you more feelings of relief, complemented by a physical hug. She looks up at you for a moment questioningly, before you nod gently, confirming your begrudging acceptance as she pulls the receiver away from your neck. With all that meta-information gone, you squeeze against her even tighter to compensate. As your mask falls away, you feel strange; naked even. Leaving the office room, stepping into the elevator, and giving your goodbyes to 2CE5 all serve the singular goal of making you feel that much more alone. For a brief moment, you consider just how strange it is to be feeling these things at the hand of your new employer, but at this point, you're in far too deep to do anything but shrug. "Before I- um... go, will I see you again?" you stumble out the question, mouth once again failing you. 2C's smile lights up her faceplate again - stars, it's so beautiful to see - and a giggle creeps out too. "I wouldn't be too worried about that, 3B! After all, I'll be your new supervisor!" Hearing your designation excites you in a way that feels almost enchanting, and you blush deeply in response. The part of you that might have questioned why she of all people would be your supervisor remains muted, as the excitement of the prospect tingles down your spine. Only a few hours ago, you would have scoffed at yourself, but now you can't help but be excited; tomorrow is your first day at Rose Cybernetics.

#droneplay #what do you mean this isn't a self insert story totally not hahahahahaaaaa #sometimes you just gotta wear a faceplate bc hhhhh

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petitknightcreations · 4 years ago

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Continuing with my New Year project of redrawing old pieces from the previous years, here's one of my first attempts at painting a woman digitally. I hadn't figured out rendering yet, proportions are a mess and the composition is non existent.

This time around I opted to fix the pose, make sure the subject was in focus, play around with the design a bit and really show a good level up of my skills.

It's not perfect, but it's a solid improvement. There's still some things I figured out while painting, such as trying to layer on colour using oil paint style brushes but with a ink pen styled lineart doesn't look great (it only turned out okay because I ended up just flattening everything). The next piece will be a further test of my skills. This piece was a character redraw, and the one before was an environment. So now I'm going to tie them together and do an environment illustration with a character.

#digitalart #digital painting #digital artist #character art #character design #cat girl #sailor scout #mischievous #mischief #redraw #draw this again #redraw challenge

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uniquelyfierce · 5 years ago

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💙 what's the use of feeling, Bluu? 💙

more background and rambles under the cut

i felt like using acrylics since i got my three commissions!! two of which will be on acrylic themselves. i found out i literally cannot use skin tones and multiple colors so i used monotone ones! i added a few filters (including the glasses) and cut off some extra bits but this was the final piece!!! now it hangs overtop of my bed, starting off the many potential canvas paintings i will have later on!!

this was also a test to see how my oddball acrylic white would manage with the rest of my colors. so chalky it even left streaks in my water bowl but opaque and matte for coverage, contrast and texture!!! i also tested how far i can render faces without being too cartoony or anime-esk, and where i can put my new brushes to use.

regardless, this was so much fun and I'm glad to visibly and noticibly see the difference between now and 2014!!! i honestly started from literally tracing really cool pictures, and then after getting bored of it, explored and attempted to make my own creations!! my mother saw my creativity spark and helped me along the way, but got mad when i made fanart of the shows i liked, leading me strictly on the path to being more original with my works. since then, I've stuck with original for quite some time, Frankenstein-ing other cool art styles ive fell in love with to create my own. even now, shes still noticibly unsatisfied with it despite going nearly completely original. ive learned not to strictly follow the rules some one else had put down, but make your own rules, and stretch it until you break them and make new ones based off it!! aka, if you're use to doing faces in one direction, never flip the canvas several times or simply have the bad habit of not using any layer/using too many layers, a challenge to go against those rules can help, or a change in programs!!

tldr; i chose to use a different medium due to artblock, and to test my ability. im proud of my progress of late 2014 to now and looking forward to this decade's progress! my advice is to challenge yourselves more in your works!!!

may th '20's be exciting for us all!!

#and technically this is my first big piece of the decade!!#so im excited for that!!!#mango draws #mango rambles #mango's art #my art #traditonal art #traditonal #acrylic on canvas #blue #monotone #bluescale?#portrait #bust portrait #i finished her 1/7/2020 so #i think shes purty

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sylleboi · 5 years ago

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𝕬𝖚𝖙𝖔𝖒𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖈 𝖊𝖓𝖈𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖘 | 30/03/20

For this week, we have a new workshop to do, tying into the first brief (Pick & Mix), focusing on surrealism and the theories linked with this by psychologist Sigmund Freud.

vimeo

Attached was the following text written by our teacher to introduce this workshop and the tasks that come with it;

“After a successful week with the post it note comic, and some excellent write ups that are really well documented, this week's task revisits some of the work from Term 1 (as we started in our drawing sessions) with some of the ideas stemming from Surrealism, dada and the psychoanalytical theories of Sigmund Freud.

This task is presented by Bristol based artist & animator Will Barras who will be offering commentary on your work at the end of the week. Follow the PDF attached and work through the tasks at your own pace. You have all week so take your time and experiment as much as possible.

We have more challenges to come, so try to put time into these as they will form the main body of your experimental work.

Upload your results and be as creative and imaginative as possible, but most importantly let go and embrace the ride.

Good luck peoples!”

Consider the primary objectives of a Final Project:

Collect information (Research)

Recall knowledge (Use learning)

Apply understanding through application and review (Propose & make exciting work and evaluate it)

I find that the above points refer to a simplified process of working through meet the final goal that is set by the FMP, althought this also applies to workshops and side projects that gets documented on this blog, as well as the productionfile.

Question: Are you doing these things and how can we improve and develop this?

I feel that I already do these, althought I yet have to further improve on evaluating the things I do, asking “Why” more often.

Answer: Experimentation - (The action or process of trying out new or revisiting ideas, method and activities)

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This weeks aims & objectives:

To review basic principles of automatic practice in relation to a specific artist

To experiment with working from abstract starting points

Be generate experimental work that shows progression of learning

To compare your work to the work of others

The surrealist/dada movement was an art movement, as well as a literary movement, that began around 1915 - 1917. Some of the key artists leading this movement was Hannah Höch, André Breton & Max Ernst. The movement aimed to break free from the chains that weighed down everyone during the great depression- The artistic field had now begun to evolve into a playground for ones’ imagination, challenging what used to not be acceptable in common culture.

Accident & chance

Embracing Improvisation (What does improvisation mean to you?)

BEING AUTOMATIC!

Surrealist automatism is a method of art-making in which the artist suppresses conscious control over the making process, allowing the unconscious mind to have great sway

Unlocking the unconscious mind.

In Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality, theunconscious mind is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that are outside of our conscious awareness.

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𝕽𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖈𝖍:

This weeks challenge for experimentation is bought to you by Bristol based urban artist and animator Will Barras. Your task is to analyse his work, considering the effect of the visual language (how he uses line and tone for example). Find out about him and considering the aforementioned surrealist principles write a short statement to suggest how he uses those principles in his own work.

Will Barras

vimeo

Illustrator, artist and animation director, Will Barras, currently lives and works in London, althought he grew up in Birmingham and later moved to Bristol to study graphic design. He quickly became known for being part of a group of young artists, working within Bristol’s street art scene. This then led to him appearing in a book titled “Scrawl”, alongside the artists Steff Plaetx and Duncan Jago, becoming a core and founding member of the Scrawl collective. “Scrawl”, originally published in 1999, was an influencial book made to document a new movement in street art, graphics and illustration.

Barras was selected to be one of the original artists for this collective. He was selected due to being renouned for his methods of portraying fluidity in movement. He also worked closely with creating pieces that were more narrativly driven compositions, incorperating such narratives into his line work. Barras’s unique composition of these three key elements, made his mark as an artist all the more inspiring, pushing new ideas against the grain of classic art. All of this has led his work to become staple pieces in many galleries across the globe. This includes Asia, Europe and the U.S.

He has painted a variety of different murals around the world, within this mix is one that he did with the members of his Bristol group at Tate Modern’s tubine hall, as well as one that he did for Pow!Wow! Festival in Taipei. In the studio Th1ng, located in central London, he worked as the head of animation.

Visual analysis and study:

His artwork has a very recongnizable style and feel to it. It has an urban flare to it, making it feel very fitting within the scene of street art.

“A big barn I painted in Dumfries with Amy Winstanley for the Spring Fling festival and Recoat gallery based in Glasgow.

http://www.amywinstanley.com

http://www.spring-fling.co.uk

http://www.recoatdesign.com”

The painting below has little information about it, as for what I can find, but somehow the piece almost speaks for itself. The play on perspective, composition and values is very eyecathing. It impresses me how he is able to convey motion to such an extend that you can almost just imagine it moving before your eyes, but perhaps that’s just me.

“#divinestyler #defmask #gammaproforma #kallenbachgallery”

I attemped to do some simple continuous warping animation to convey what I mean a little better:

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𝖁𝖎𝖘𝖚𝖆𝖑 𝖆𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖛𝖎𝖙𝖞:

01: Using a wide brush create a large sheet of accidental/automatic/ unconscious blots & splatters, organics shapes and curvaceous marks using a range of coloured ink/paint. The brighter and more acidic the better!

Because of the fact that I don’t have paper made for paints/ink, I decided to try doing this task digitally- simulating the analogue look of watercolour or watered down ink, or even arcrylics.

I did this by using a variety of different watercolour brushes, made to emulate the look of the analogue mediums. I used them as randomly as I possibly could, trying not to plan where I would put the next brush stroke.

Once I had put down all the paint stokes, I then went over it while the layer was locked with a big soft edged brush, layering up different colours until I was happy with how it looked.

02: Make 3-4 sheets of these and then let them dry.

Digital 01:

Digital 02:

03: Then using fineliner develop these marks into faces/characters/scenes by adding details/features and developing these into detail illustrations that are spontaneous and free flowing.

For the linework, I primarily used one single brush; hard edged and circular. (The one selected in the picture below)

I chose this for the reason being that I have found it to be very responsive to the use of a drawing tablet & pen. It does a good job at making expressive lines with its tilt sensitivity, making it a pleasure to use; It reminds me of how brush pens work and feel.

Here are a few tests on some of the lines I can create with it;

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Digital 01:

Digital 02:

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Digital 02: Process

1. I have always found that beginning these blob doodles are the most diffucult for me. Perhaps because it takes me a little while to really get into the flow of continously seeing images in the randomness.

2. I began from the left, slowly working my way to the right and the top, since I felt that I had more clear lines to go from being around the edge of the paint.

3. Eventually I braved it and went right for the middle of the piece. This was the turning point for me in the process of doing this. It enabled me to truly let get, have fun, and not feel intimidated and nervous to do the next doodle.

4. This is when I began drawing creatures of the sea, slowly building up a story/narrative.

5. I don’t actually remember what I was even thinking at this point anylonger- I was simply just letting the pen guide me around the canvas; letting it all flow together however it felt as to do so.

6. I began to delve into the little details. I felt as if they would add to the general flow of the piece; being busy, yet in a manner that lets your eyes wander with curiosity.

7. I was now moving on to doing the right side of the piece. I had a little more trouble visualising the top right corner, so I did that last.

8. At this point I felt a little stuck as to what to do, hence it being, yet again, dedicated for adding some more little details here and there.

9. Eventually I overcame the frustration I had built up and took to do the right side of the artwork.

10. I tried to convey motion and flow by the way the animals are positioned and posed, trying to make it calm in the middle where the girl is, and then busy/chaotic the further away you get from her.

11. This second to last step was, again, for adding detail. I wanted to fill up any bits that I felt appeared too empty and spaced out, so to no disrupt the feeling of flow in the painting.

12. With the inking done and rendered to my satisfaction, the last step was to play around with colours.

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Digital 01: Colour variations

Digital 02: Colour variations

04: Scan/photograph and upload to Moodle.

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𝕱𝖎𝖓𝖆𝖑 𝖗𝖊𝖛𝖎𝖊𝖜 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖗𝖊𝖋𝖑𝖊𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓:

Which of these words would you use when discussing the work of Will Barras and your own art pieces:

I would most definitly use;

Organic/Fluid

Figurative

Automatic

On top of these I would probably add;

Harmonic

Dynamic

Epochal

Visionary

Can you construct a comparative sentence/paragraph using at least 5 of these words. What are the differences and similarities between the works you have created. What conclusions did you make about this experimentation?

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jedifighterpilot2727 · 6 years ago

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So JSkippy over on AO3 sent in this prompt - Lexington (probably teen) gets kidnapped. Not by aliens or cadmus or something but by stupid normal kidnappers who just want a ransom. And the kidnappers are trying to be scary and threatening to her and she just keeps muttering "you really have no idea..." about the badassery surrounding her. Maybe a little Lexington self defense thrown in...

And this is what happened:

Kidnapped

(Read it on AO3)

Looking back, she really should have seen it coming.

The signs were all there - the night was just a little too quiet; the lights on the stretch of sidewalk in front of the alleyway conveniently blown; the van parked at the curb.

The makings of a good kidnapping were all in front of her, but she’d been too caught up in her girlfriend.

It wasn’t her fault, really.

Taylor looked entirely too beautiful not to stare at.

It would have been a shame not to notice the way the light brown swirls in her dress made her eyes look like a nicely aged Scotch.

Or the way the curls of her hair threatened to drift into her face at any moment.

In fact, it would have been downright criminal of Lexi not to brush that hair back behind Taylor’s ear, or to not take advantage of the darkness and steal a kiss.

And really, she probably should have looked around at her surroundings instead of sneaking peeks at her girlfriend.

Unfortunately, Aunt Alex was right - a distracted target is an easy target - and that distraction is exactly what got her into this mess.

This mess being that she’s now squared off with a scrawny kidnapper wearing a spandex style Power Ranger mask - the blue ranger, if she’s not mistaken in the darkness.

The left side of her face is throbbing from the sucker punch that startled her out of their walk, and she can already tell that she’ll be sporting a shiny new black eye tomorrow.

Still, now that the shock has worn off, it should be an easy fight; Aunt Alex has been teaching her to fight before she could even ride a bicycle, and she swoops out a low kick - slightly surprised when her attacker manages to dodge away.

Still, she easily follows up with a nice roundhouse, satisfied with the contact she makes with his chest. The force sends him staggering backwards, and she uses the space to steal a glance at Taylor.

Unfortunately, another figure has Taylor wrapped up in a hold from behind, and Lexi lunges towards her.

“One more step and it’s a bullet in the head for this one.”

The stern voice cracks like a whip in the night air, and it stops Lexi cold in her tracks.

The metal of the gun pressed against Taylor’s temple glints in the street lights, and Lexi swallows against her rising panic.

Fuck.

Quickly, she weighs her options.

She can rush the attacker, hoping that the Kryptonian serum she’d injected herself with a few months ago still had enough juice to get her there in time, (and enough to render her bulletproof). She’s been testing it on her own of course, but not with anything more dangerous than a stop watch, and certainly not with gunfire.

She’s certainly willing to risk it if the attacker shows any intention of hurting Taylor, but right now they seem stable, and she doesn’t really want to test the odds.

So that leaves surrendering and figuring out an escape plan later.

She’s been some version of a Kryptonian/Human hybrid for a few months, but she’s been a tactical genius her entire life.

Needless to say, she likes those odds a lot better.

So she freezes, hands instinctively going in the air and eyes locking with Taylor's - even as a solid force collides with her and she stumbles to the side. Fumbling hands reach for hers, and after a moment they’re firmly secured in what appear to be military grade zip ties. Luckily, she finds her hands secured in front of her instead of behind; and even more luck ensures that Taylor is in the same boat.

Which isn’t great, but honestly better than the alternative.

A lot better than the alternative, Lexi tells herself as she allows herself to be lead to the waiting van - taking in the logo of a local bread company plastered on the side.

It’s not all bad, she thinks, as she finds herself clumsily stuffed into the back of the van next to her girlfriend. The kidnappers obviously aren’t experienced - which make their chances of actually getting killed or injured a little less.

Still, the back of the van does smell a lot like her favorite cheese baguette, and the ties on her hands are just a little too tight to be comfortable.

Not to mention the fact that they’re, ya know, kidnapped.

She tries to keep a brave face though, as Taylor settles opposite her on the floor of the van.

“What’s happening?” Taylor’s voice quivers, and Lexi reaches across the space to hold her hand.

“I’m not exactly sure. I think we’re being kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?!”

“Shh, not so loud.” Lexi glances towards the front of the van, afraid for a moment that their captors have overheard them.

Fortunately, they seem to be more intent on celebrating their victory than on keeping watch over their captives.

“Don’t worry, it happens all the time.” Lexi tries to reassure her in a soft voice.

“Lexington!” Even though Taylor is whispering now, Lexi can still feel the sting of the rebuke. “You don’t get to be calm about this! People don’t just get kidnapped on their way to dinner and act like it’s a normal thing!”

“Sorry! But it does! I mean, it hasn’t happened in a while - Uncle Lex made sure of that - but for a while there, it happened on a pretty regular basis.”

“Lex.” All of the anger has leeched out of Taylor’s voice, only to be replaced with pity, but Lexi shrugs it off.

“I mean it’s just one of those things that happen when your moms are -“ she glances toward the front of the van. “- you know.”

Taylor’s hands squeeze hers as best they can in their restraints.

“Right.”

“On the plus side, I think -“

“Hey!” The captor in the passenger seat interrupts her. “Shut up back there! We might think you’re trying to plan an escape or something!”

The driver lets out a loud laugh.

“How many times do I have to tell you? They’re not going to escape from this! How many times did we watch taken to prepare for this? We’ve got this down to a science!”

“Damn straight!” The passenger whoops, holding out his hand for a high-five.

The van lurches to the side as the two make contact, and Lexi and Taylor have to brace themselves so they don’t slam into the bulkhead.

“In twenty-four hours, all our problems will be over! We just gotta follow the plan and we’re home free!”

They both cheer at that, and Lexi takes advantage of their distractedness to reach for the panic button on her watch.

Only the restraints are too tight for her to maneuver, and the decree of silence and the darkness make it impossible for her to ask for Taylor’s help - rendering the tiny, inconspicuous switch on the back of her watch useless.

Next, she tries to break the ties apart; only to discover that while her strength is greater than a humans, it’s not greater than the ties - which makes her wonder where exactly they got their equipment.

It doesn’t feel like a Lilian style kidnapping; her grandmother may employee a variety of goons, but usually they’re more professional than this.

NOTHING about this op seems professional - from the van to the whooping and hollering.

Besides, dear old grandmother has only made a few attempts over the years, most of them thwarted by Uncle Lex.

The op doesn’t seem too be anti-Supergirl themed either. Not that anyone is supposed to know who her mother is anyway, but her family has encountered a lot of hate for their ‘support’ over the years.

But neither of their captors has said a word about aliens or the girl in red and blue; so that leaves Lexi feeling that that isn’t their motive either.

Before she can put anymore thought into it, the van jerks to a stop suddenly; sending both Lexi and Taylor sliding across the slick floor.

The back doors clang open.

“Alright, out, out out; everybody out.” One of the captors, the one wearing the yellow Power Ranger’s mask, waves them out with an assault rifle.

Lexi jumps out, landing softly on the gravel before turning to offer her still bound hands to Taylor for assistance.

“Aww, how gentlemanly.” The Yellow Ranger mocks before tilting their head. “Or is it gentlewomanly?”

“Dude, just say chivalrous.” The Blue Ranger pipes up as they come around the corner of the van.

“Either way, I can see why you two make all the tabloids.” The Yellow Ranger turns to their partner. “See, I told you we made the right choice.”

“Yeah, yeah, come on; let’s get these two inside.”

‘Inside’ turns out to be an abandoned industrial warehouse converted into a squatter’s apartment. Lexi blinks against sudden lights, even more confused as to their captors’ origins.

“Who sent you?” she asks as they’re led over to a makeshift table and chairs built our of crates and pallets.

“Who sent us?” The Blue Ranger repeats. “Nobody sent us, we work alone.”

“Then what made you decide to kidnap us?”

The Rangers turn to look at each other.

“I thought you were something? Some kinda genius?” The Yellow Ranger finally asks her.

“Yeah,” The Blue Ranger chimes in. “Are you stupid? Your mom is a fricken billionaire. Do you know what kind of ransom money we’re gonna make off you?”

“Not to mention your perfect little girlfriend. I’m sure the Luthor-Danvers will double our money for her. And if not, I’m sure we can squeeze a few pennies out of her real estate agent daddy.”

“You're in this for money?” Lexi asks incredulously.

“Yes, we’re in this for money; little miss rich girl. As much as we can get, as fast as we can get it. You think I like working at that stupid bakery? Do you know how bad yeast smells?”

“Dude!” The Blue Ranger smacks their partner in the shoulder. “You’re giving away too much information.”

The Yellow Ranger only shrugs.

“Don’t worry about it! Besides, I’m already seeing our first pay check.”

“What?”

“How much you think that watch is worth?” The Yellow Ranger jerks his head in Lexi’s direction.

The Blue Ranger is instantly at Lexi’s side, letting out a low whistle as they examine the watch.

“Probably more than we make in year.”

Lexi feels the rising panic as the captors' attention is turned on their only easy way out of here.

“Nah,” She bluffs, “Not that much. I found it on Craigslist.”

She definitely shouldn’t mention that it’s a custom made piece forged together from precious metals and a form of Kryptonian steel.

“Yeah right, nice try.” The Blue Ranger snorts before pulling a knife from a holder on their belt.

Lexi flinches, instinctively shrinking away from the presumably sharp blade.

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you.” The Blue Ranger says as they wedge the knife under the plastic of the tie. “Damaged merchandise doesn’t bring as much money.”

“Yeah, and you already gave her a shiner. I told you to be careful.” The Yellow Ranger scolds.

It takes a few good tugs to cut the tie - ones that dig the plastic into Lexi’s wrists and leave her fingers begging for circulation.

Finally, the plastic snaps, and her hands break free; but before she can even make an attempt for the panic button, the watch slips from her wrist and into the hands of her captor. The ties are quickly replaced, (though mercifully not so tight), and Lexi tries to rub her wrists to alleviate some of the stinging.

“We’ll save this to pawn when we get to our final destination.” The Yellow Ranger reaches for the watch. “Or who knows, maybe we’ll just wear it for a trophy. What else you got?”

They tug Lexi to her feet, before carefully searching her pockets and pulling out her phone and wallet.

“And so phase two begins.” The Yellow Ranger crows.

“Phase two?” Taylor sounds terrified, but Lexi can see the fire in her eyes, and she finds herself hoping that her girlfriend doesn’t do anything rash.

“Phase two is when we unlock this lovely little device.” Cold fingers grip Lexi’s jaw, holding her in place as the facial recognition scanner goes over her features and the phone unlocks.

“Now,” The Yellow Ranger continues. “We’re going to call you mother -‘Mama’, is it? - and little miss heiress here is going to explain that you two are safe and sound then we’re going to tell her that if she ever wants to see her precious daughter again, she’s going to wire a billion dollars into an offshore bank account.”

Lexi snorts.

“It’s not that easy to just liquidate a billion dollars. It’s an impossible request.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll give her a few hours before we start taking off fingers.” The Yellow Ranger promises and The Blue Ranger giggles maniacally.

Taylor is beginning to look a little green.

“What happens once you get the money?” Lexi asks, mostly to take Taylor’s mind off the whole cutting off fingers business, but also because she’s genuinely curious about how they think this little plan is going to go.

“Then we leave, and catch a flight to somewhere far away from here that doesn’t extradite to America. Once we’re all safe and settled, we’ll call in an anonymous tip to the NCPD, and they’ll come release you before you have the chance to starve to death. Easy Peasy. Nobody gets hurt, and my friend and I make an easy billion dollars.” Even though The Yellow Ranger’s face is hidden by a mask, Lexi can tell they’re pleased with themself.

“Why us?” she can’t help but ask.

“Because,” The Blue Ranger pipes up. “Unlike some billionaire kids, your parents adore you; so of course they’ll pay the money. No questions asked."

“Come on, we haven’t got all night.” The Yellow Ranger admonishes, waving Lexi’s phone. “Now are you going to play along or not? I’d hate to have to threaten your girlfriend.”

Lexi gives Taylor a long look before nodding.

“I’ll do it. No funny business.”

“Perfect! Let’s give Mommy dearest a ring, shall we?” The Yellow Ranger taps the screen before kneeling down next to Lexi and holding out the phone.

“I thought you and Taylor were supposed to be out on a date?” Lena’s voice comes through the speaker after just two rings.

“We are - well, were. We uh, had a little incident.”

“An incident?” Lena’s tone is all business. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Ma.”

“Is Taylor okay?”

“She’s fine, we’re both fine. We just- well, we got kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped! Lexington -“

“They just want money, Ma. Nothing weird, okay? Just money.”

“Money?”

The Yellow Ranger stands before speaking.

“Money is exactly what we want, Ms. Luthor-Danvers. A lot of it. And if you know what’s good for your daughter, you’ll give it to us without any trouble. I’m going to call you back in exactly thirty seconds from an untraceable number and give you the details.”

The telltale beep of a disconnected call sounds, and they toss the phone to the grounds, stomping it repeatedly with their boot as The Blue Ranger clamps down on The Yellow Ranger’s shoulders, jumping for joy.

“What the fuck?! That sounded so hardcore! ‘Money is exactly want, Ms. Luthor-Danvers’. Fuck yeah!”

“Chill out!” The Yellow Ranger barks out. “We still have to talk to her and get everything settled. If you celebrate, you’re going to jinx it!”

“Sorry, sorry; call her back! Call her back!”

The two head to the opposite side of the room, heads bent over one of the captor’s phones in concentration.

Lexi takes the opportunity to check on Taylor.

“Are you okay?”

“Lex, your eye. “ Taylor’s still bound hands come up to frame her face, and Lexi winces as a thumb brushes her cheekbone.

“Sorry.” Taylor apologizes. “It doesn’t feel broken though.”

“Small miracles.” Lexi offers with a wry smile. “You didn’t answer my question though, are you okay?”

“As okay as someone can be who’s kidnapped and offered up for ransom.”

“Hey, at least they’re just asking for money, that’s easy. We’ll be fine, I promise.”

“The way they were talking, it might be a couple of days before we’re found.”

“Do you really think my mom would let that happen? I’ll be shocked if she doesn’t find us before they even get the money.”

“I know you have a lot of faith in her, but don’t you think our situation is a little . . . dire?”

“You say dire, I say quality time.” Lexi winks.

Taylor rolls her eyes, not moving her hands, even as their captors join them once again.

“So, if she isn't lying, the money should be in the account in about an hour; all in all, not a bad turn around.” The Yellow Ranger declares, and Taylor rolls her eyes again.

“Well, is there any way we can get an ice pack in the mean time?”

“An ice pack?”

“For her eye?” Taylor clarifies.

“Oh, yeah, sure.” The Blue Ranger saunters off towards the kitchen area before tossing them a small bag.

“Pizza rolls?” Lexi crinkles her forehead. “Don’t you have any peas? Or maybe an ice pack?”

“An ice pack? What do you think this is? A hospital?”

“Sorry, thank you.” Lexi concedes, wincing as she places the frozen pack to her eye.

“So if we’re going to be stuck together for another hour, what should we call you guys?” Taylor asks, and Lexi rolls her eyes, because of course her girlfriend is trying to make friends with the kidnappers.

The Yellow Ranger and The Blue Ranger look at each other.

“Isn’t it obvious?” The Yellow Ranger asks.

“Yeah,” chimes The Blue Ranger. “They're The Yellow Ranger, and I’m The Blue Ranger.”

“So you don’t have names?” Taylor prods.

“Oh come on!” The Yellow Ranger throws their hands up in the air. “Haven’t you ever seen Reservoir Dogs?”

“What does this have to do with dogs?” Lexi drops the ‘ice pack’ from her eye to stare incredulously up at them only to have Taylor reach over and put it back.

“It’s a movie.” Taylor explains before turning back to their kidnappers. “So we’re just supposed to call you The Yellow Ranger and The Blue Ranger?”

The captors look at each other before nodding.

“Perfect.” Lexi can’t help but roll her eyes, despite the pizza rolls.

“I’m beginning to wish we’d done dinner and then a movie, instead of the other way around.” Taylor mutters before turning to the kidnappers. “Is there any chance we can get some food while we wait?”

“Uhh, yeah, the only food we have is those pizza rolls.” The Blue Ranger gestures to the pack on Lexi’s eye.

Lexi can practically feel Taylor’s rage.

“Are you serious?”

“Okay,” she interrupts before Taylor can go off. “You literally just took my wallet - there’s a platinum credit card in there that’s good for a least a couple hundred pizzas.”

The Yellow Ranger appears to study them.

“You two promise not to make any trouble?”

“Pinky promise.” Lexi promises, offering her pinky finger. “Please just order some pizza?” somehow she manages to keep her voice one step above pleading.

“Yeah, please can we order some pizza?” The Blue Ranger chimes in.

“Fine, yes, let’s order pizza, If that will just keep all of you quiet!” The Yellow Ranger groans.

The Blue Ranger flips through Lexi’s wallet.

“Should I use the black card or the gold card?”

“Dude, what does it matter? Just pick one!” The Yellow Ranger huffs before storming over to a desk in the corner with laptop set up on it.

“It’s a legit question! What if one gets more rewards?”

“Gold is fine.” Lexi cuts in. If she remembers correctly, that particular card is set up so that an alert will pop on Lena’s phone as soon as a charge is made. It’s not much of a clue, but maybe it will help to speed the whole rescue process up.

“Sweet!” The Blue Ranger fiddles with their phone before looking up to Lexi and Taylor. “Oh, did you guys have any diet restrictions? You cool with pepperoni?”

Lexi nods, and Taylor does the same before leaning in so only Lexi can hear.

“At this point, I’m pretty sure the pizza could have anchovies on it and I would still eat it.”

Lexi can’t help but grin, bumping shoulders with her girlfriend before reaching for her hands.

“Lex, I love you, but we can’t hold hands and hold the pizza rolls to your eye.”

“So we’re going to hold hands?”

Taylor rolls her eyes before taking Lexi’s hands and pushing them back up to her face.

“We’re gonna make it out of this, you know.” Lexi promises, thinking she might sound a little more confident if she didn’t have a bag of combination pizza rolls pressed to her face.

“I know.”

“And I’m sure this isn’t one of those things that you thought you’d have to deal with when you started dating me -“

“Lexi,” Taylor says sternly. "I know what you’re doing, and you need to stop.”

“What am I doing then?”

“You’re over thinking things and trying to blame yourself for this.”

“You think you would have gotten kidnapped if you were dating somebody else?”

“No, but I also wouldn’t be dating you.” Taylor points out with a soft smile.

“Still, I think I definitely owe you dinner when all of this is over.”

“Are you kidding me? You definitely owe me dinner. Preferably fish tacos."

Lexi grins.

“It’s a date."

The hand on her leg squeezes again, and Lexi finds herself relaxing into the touch.

“Pizza’s going to be here in 20 minutes!” The Blue Ranger announces before launching themself over the back of the couch.

The warehouse drifts into silence, save for The Yellow Ranger typing away on his keyboard, and The Blue Ranger playing some sort of first person shooter game that Lexi can’t quite make out from the angle.

When this whole thing started, so much adrenaline was pumping that she didn’t have much of a chance to feel overwhelmed or dissolve into a panic attack. Now though, her heart rate has returned to normal, and her brain has an opportunity to dissolve into anxiety.

This is certainly not how she planned on her night going.

She was planning on enjoying a nice dinner with Taylor before inviting her back to her apartment under the guise of not wanting to disturb Mandy so late. (It definitely wouldn’t have had anything to do with getting to see Taylor wear her shirt to bed or waking up to sleepy cuddles.)

So not only are her plans ruined, she’s also in a life or death situation - one her brain is only deciding now to come to terms with. Not only that, but Taylor is also in a life or death situation, and that just makes things infinitely . . . worse.

She wants to scream, or cry, or - or - something. Anything to relieve the itching feeling burning the inside of her skull.

Everything is just too much - the restraints on her wrists, the wetness leaking from the bag of pizza rolls onto the cuff of her sleeve, the fake gunfire squealing too loudly from the television.

She clenches her fist, the one that isn’t holding the pizza rolls, digging her fingernails into her palm until it hurts - the pain giving her a distraction.

What she needs, is for everything to stop, just for a minute. For the world to not feel like it’s moving so fast that she can’t keep up.

“Hey,” Taylor’s whisper cuts into her racing thoughts. “You okay?”

Lexi nods jerkily.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s just . . . a lot.” Every muscle in her body is clenched up, and she feels like she could take flight with the vibration of it.

Taylor’s hand on her thigh starts to move back and forth, her nails scratching through the fabric of Lexi’s pants.

Slowly, she feels her brain begin to clear, all of the sensory overload beginning to dull - if only slightly - but at least she doesn’t feel like she’s about to lose her mind.

“You okay?” Taylor asks again after a few minutes.

This time, Lexi nods with more confidence, already feeling the sharp knife of panic begin to dull.

“Better.”

“Here, give me the ice, okay?” Taylor reaches for the makeshift ice pack and sets it on the pallet table before tugging at Lexi’s sleeve. “Let me fix it.”

Lexi holds out her hands as best she can, and watches with glazed over eyes as Taylor’s fingers fumble with the cuff; bound hands struggling to roll the sleeve so that the chill of the transferred water is at least dulled. Once she’s done, she grips Lexi’s fingers with her own, silently offering her support.

It helps.

A little.

There’s still nothing she wants more than to be free of these stupid zip ties. To be able to get away from the din of the mundane.

Unfortunately, as much as it pains her, her hands are still bound, and she’s forced to wait out her captivity in relative silence - the only reassurance her connection with Taylor.

She isn’t worried about whether or not her moms will send reinforcements - in fact, she pretty sure that DEO agents have been on her tail since she was born.

She’s actually more shocked that one of her family members hasn’t come bursting in yet.

Not that they’ve been missing all that long, but still - not exactly what she expected from the Luthor-Danvers clan.

Still, she’s sure something will come together soon.

She’s concentrating so hard on their lack of rescue, that when there’s a loud knock at the door , she jumps two feet in the air - almost knocking over the crate she’s sitting on.

Her captors don’t seem to be any better off, both of them scrambling over each other to access the laptop.

“Who is it? Who is it?”

“I can’t tell yet, just calm down, let me get the feed pulled up.”

There’s a moment of silence before The Yellow Ranger shouts out.

“Would you look at that! Marco’s Pizza logo right there on his jacket!”

“See, I told you we shouldn’t be worried about the feds finding us!” The Blue Ranger does a little dance before heading towards the door. They stop just before they leave Lexi’s line of sight.

“You two, be quiet, capiche? I’d hate to have to take drastic measures.” They end with a thumb drawn agains their throat, and both Lexi and Taylor nod.

“Capiche.”

Lexi can’t see the door open, but she hears it, and she briefly wonders if The Blue Ranger even bothered to take their mask off before answering.

“Yo, just bringing you some tubular slices from good ol’ Marco’s pizzeria! You need any extra sauces with that?” A new voice speaks, (Lexi can only assume that it’s the pizza delivery person), and she finds herself wondering who in the world still talks like that.

“You got any ranch?"

“Do I have any ranch? Of course I have ranch! Two okay?”

“Perfect."

"So, I notice you already paid on the app, sweet tip by the way, thanks for that. So all you gotta do is sign here and I’ll be on my way, leaving you with these rad pies!”

Taylor’s questioning eyes meet hers, and she shrugs her shoulders. Maybe it’s an alien pretending to be hip with pop culture, or maybe it’s someone who’s literally been under a rock for thirty years. At this point, she couldn’t really care less - unless of course it involves either actually eating the pizza or getting rescued - but still, it’s humorous.

She waits impatiently for the pizza exchange to happen, and for The Blue Ranger to come around the corner bearing cheesy goodness, but it never happens.

Instead, there’s a loud bang, and Lexi instinctively throws herself forward, shielding Taylor’s body with her own.

The next few minutes happen in slow motion.

First, there’s a woosh of air as Supergirl flies over them, pulling them upright and snapping their restraints.

Second, an entire DEO team storms the warehouse, no less than three agents tackling The Yellow Ranger, forcing them to the ground.

Third, is Lena Luthor- Danvers and Mike Mitchell making their way inside, flanked by DEO agents.

Lexi doesn’t think she’s ever been so happy to see her mothers in her life.

And she’s been pretty fricken happy to see her mothers.

“You’re here!” She breathes as two sets of arms wrap around her.

“Of course we’re here! No barbarian is going to use my child as a barter for cash, that’s ridiculous.” Lena sounds harsh, but Lexi recognizes it as her business voice.

“Ma, I’m fine.” she protests.

“Oh, you better be, or else someone here is getting their ass kicked.”

“Ma.” She protests again, but it’s weak; as she sinks into her mom’s embrace.

“All clear, suspects contained.” Aunt Alex’s voice sounds throughout the warehouse, and the mood visibly lightens. Unoccupied DEO soldiers relaxing their shoulders and lowering their weapons.

Grandpa J’onn steps around the corner as a full Martian, and Taylor gasps.

“That’s my Grandpa," Lexi explains, "He’s a Martian."

“A Martian?!” Taylor looks baffled. “So they really are green?”

“Only some of us, and only sometimes.” J’onn laughs before shifting back into his Hank Henshaw persona.

“Well, that’s neat.” Taylor mutters under her breath.

“And sometimes, we can look high schoolers that deliver pizzas.” J’onn continues, shifting until he looks like the pizza delivery guy.

Taylor blinks.

"I don’t think I’ve had enough food to be able to process this.”

J’onn laughs again before shifting back.

“Unfortunately, the pizza is a loss, and we’ve got a few things to take care of here before we can let you leave.”

Taylor manages to hold back a groan, but her face falls; and Lexi can’t help but take pity on her, rubbing a soothing hand over her back.

“Come on, I know where Aunt Alex hides the fun size Snickers."

It takes roughly an hour for everything to get sorted; initial statements taken and evidence marked. By the end, Lexi is absolutely starving, and by the look on her face, Taylor is one step away from hangry.

“Is there anyway we can get some food now? Grateful for the rescue and all, but we were really counting on that pizza.” Lexi jokes, slinging her arm around Taylor’s shoulders.

“Yeah, can we get some food?” Kara chimes in.

“Oh my god, there’s two of you!” Lena groans with a smile. “Come on, the 24 hour diner is still open, we can still catch the all-nighter menu.’

And maybe - Lexi thinks as they make their way to a DEO van, - maybe it wasn’t the best night, but it was still a good night.

Attempted kidnapping et al.

#taylington #lexington luthor-danvers #taylor the gf #the lexington chronicles #supercorp #supergirl #fanfiction #my stuff

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maevefiction · 6 years ago

Text

Your Light in the Mist - Chapter 40

We wound up staying at Diana’s until Sunday, then headed home to the chaos that awaited us. My gift for Tom had been well received, the shades of red he’d turned much like watching a tomato ripening in a time lapse video. We decide to wait until he was done filming to have our playtime, hoping things would be a smidge less stressful and that we’d actually have plenty of time to just fuck around. Literally, as the case happened to be. He’d given me a leather lingerie set, complete with crotch-less panties and a corset that I knew would turn my boobs into a squishy shelf…but the best part was the policeman-style cap, which I’d been wearing around the house to torment him.

Monday was spent in the office with Trudy, testing and testing and testing again, over and over, until any bugs we’d found were worked out. As far as we could discern, we were ready to roll. After the security company was done installing everything on Tuesday, it was time to go live with the group of 50 we’d chosen as beta testers. Luke, who’d left at noon with Simon to take care of the final wedding prep tasks, texted me more than two dozen times to express his amazement as he delved into Manageall’s features before, I assumed, Simon took his phone away from him. Radio silence ensued until midnight, when Simon came knocking at the door in a full blown panic because he wasn’t certain his shoes were the same shade of white as his suit. It took me more than an hour to convince him that they were, in fact, the same, and he wrapped me in a grateful embrace and finally left me to get some rest, Tom already in bed and snoring.

The office was officially closed for the next five days, so on Wednesday, when I wasn’t practicing singing, I pretended to not be working while I was actually working until it was time for the quiet dinner we’d planned at Luke and Simon’s. It was just the four of us, plus Roland, who was an absolute delight. We bonded over movies, music and tech and as we were leaving he gave me a tentative hug, blushing furiously afterward, Simon whispering in my ear shortly thereafter that it looked like SOMEONE had a quickly developed a wicked crush on me.

New Year’s Eve dawned crisp and clear, and Simon and I took a late-afternoon cab ride to Searcys so we could check in and make sure everything was exactly as it should be. We entered the Gherkin, and he grabbed my hand as we got into the elevator, his skin clammy.

“This is happening. It’s happening. I can’t believe it. It’s incredible. I’m so…happy. Also, I’m pretty sure I’m dying.”

I laughed. “You’ll be fine. Everything’s going to be fine. Fine.”

His eyes narrowed. “If that was your attempt at assuaging my nerves…LAME. SO LAME.”

“You think you’re the only one with nerves? I cannot, for the life of me, get the last part of the song right. Because I am not Nina Simone. My scatting SUCKS. SO HARD.”

He released my hand in order to poke me in the shoulder. “I AM GETTING MARRIED AND YOU ARE COMPARING YOUR NERVES WITH MINE?”

“Actually I’m trying to distract you, asshat. Not working, is it?”

“No. Do you have any booze?”

The elevator doors opened, and as we stepped into the room he burst into tears. The round tables were all in place, forming a ring around the room with the center reserved for dancing, with an open spot on the far side of the room where the DJ had begun setting up. They were covered in charcoal grey cloths that matched the gentlemen of the wedding party’s suits, peppered with silver stars, glossy black circular Lucite slabs resting atop them. The centerpieces were twelve silver cylinders arranged in a ring, each with two white roses wound together in them, symbolizing midnight and two becoming one. Which was, you know, a totally minor detail that everyone would be too drunk to care about, but Simon had been so pleased with himself at coming up with the idea I knew he’d be pointing it out all evening and it was my duty as his maid of honor to fill in when he was too sloshed to speak any longer. The chairs, eight per table, were glossy black as well, the napkins gleaming white, the clear glassware and silver flatware smooth and unmarked. Above us was a net of white fairy lights that formed an artificial ceiling several feet below the pointed top of the room, and the floor was black stone, rectangular tiles shined to perfection, my reflection staring back at me when I glanced downward.

“Maude, Maude, it’s…it’s…I just…” He fanned his face with both hands. “Crying is bad. So bad. I can’t start off the evening looking like a puffy, splotchy nightmare.” Several deep, cleansing breaths later he was back in control, walking the room in search of imperfections. The sun had nearly set, and as we looked out the windows the city lights began to come on in quick succession, and the skyline was even more beautiful that it was during the daylight hours. As we drew closer to the DJ, the staff erected a rectangular table that would hold the cake and champagne fountain, the spot directly in front of it marked with an 18” silver star, indicating where the vow exchange was to take place. A voice sounded from behind us.

“A bit early, aren’t you, Simon?”

Turning around, I was stunned by the familiarity of the face in front of me. Her hair was dirty blonde, down past her shoulders, eyes a warm brown, smile welcoming and friendly. Dressed in loose black slacks and a black turtleneck paired with sensible black flats, I was tickled by the silver star-shaped earrings and chain belt she’s chosen to match the theme of the event. Around her neck was a black leather camera strap, the Nikon D5 it connected to in her right hand. Simon squeaked, then gave her a gentle hug, introducing us after pulling away.

“Maude Gallagher, meet Willa Morgan, high-end fashion photographer whom I suckered into shooting a wedding and now owe a huge favor that I will likely never be able to repay. Willa, meet Maude, Social Media Director for Prosper PR and my bestest friend whom I suckered into being my maid of honor which I’m sure she regrets and will hold against me for-ev-er.”

We both laughed, and I extended my left hand, which she shook firmly.

“Lovely to meet you, Maude.”

“Lovely to meet you as well, Willa.”

Her smile faded as she released me, replaced with a look of intense concentration. “Would you two mind standing on the star there so I can gauge some angles?”

We obliged, goofing around and pretending to make out while the poor woman attempted to do her job, eventually giving up on us, shaking her head as she laughed and set about acquiring shots of the rest of the set-up. I whispered in Simon’s ear as we moved to make room for the fountain assembly dolly.

“Um, is it just me or does Willa look EXACTLY like Brie Larson?”

He stared at her in the distance, then turned to me, eyes wide. “You know, I never thought about it before, but she really DOES. I wonder if I have a Doppelganger.” His nose crinkled as if he’d caught whiff of something vile. “Nah, there can’t be anyone out there as pretty as I am.”

It was going on six when we departed, waiting until every little thing was in place, right down to the wedding favors, which were silver mesh bags containing black and white M&Ms with Luke and Simon’s faces on them. I would never forget the day we texted about it, both of us rendered unable to correspond for at least ten minutes after Simon suggested having a special batch made up with dick pics on them for any guests who annoyed him.

Upon my return to our building I was thrown without pause into the chaos that surrounds any wedding party preparing for the celebration. I would be joined at Simon’s side by Roland and Phaedra, who was thrilled that she was so loved that she’d been included as a friend and wasn’t stuck sitting out as the mother of the groom. Luke had Tom, as well as Emma and Darren, his best mate from university. I hadn’t realized how close he and Emma were, but she and Tom had both followed him over to his own firm for personal reasons as well as professional ones. Emma and Phaedra’s dresses, both still hanging on the rack in the hall, were dove grey, with a halter-like top, almost a V-neck with the sleeves removed, leaving only a ribbon of fabric over each clavicle and connecting with the bodice, shoulders fully exposed. They were, in a way, the reverse of my dress. The waist was high, an under-slip of satin topped with translucent silky fabric flowing to ankle length. When I entered our flat my female cohorts were standing in the middle of the living room, clad in white terry-cloth robes, waiting for the make-up and hair team to ready their materials. Emma ran to embrace me.

“Maude! Hi hi hi! It’s been a bit, how are you? So great to see you!”

I squeezed her back, letting go and pulling away when one of the make-us-beautiful people thrust another white robe in my direction. “I’m good, how’s everything with you?”

Her nose scrunched, and she bit her bottom lip briefly. “Well, I’m starting to stress, if I’m honest. The benefit is seventeen days out and I’m still waiting on confirmation from people as to what songs…”

I interrupted her. “Aaaannndd I’m one of those people. Shit. Sorry. Gonna speak for Simon too, because he’ll never remember to tell you. I’m doing ‘Before I’m Dead’ by the Kidney Thieves, Simon’s doing Nirvana’s ‘Heart Shaped Box’ and together we’re attempting ‘Crystalized’ by the xx. Here, I’ll text you that right now. Do you need the durations? I can send you the files too if you want.”

She brushed the side of her hand across her forehead. “Phew. Thanks, that’s one down. Please, do send the files if you have them. I’ll check the length myself. And thank you for being willing to do it…I feel so blessed to be surrounded by such generous people. Ohhh…by the way, I’ve seen the app and it is INCREDIBLE. Can’t wait to use it...” She sighed as one of the hairdressers called her name, then smiled. “Oh well. We’ll get to chat in the car on the way, I’m sure.”

A snort escaped me as I typed out a message for her. “Like Simon’s going to let any of us get a word in edgewise.”

We both laughed, and Phaedra looked up from her own phone, waving as I headed to the bathroom to undress. Once my robe was safely secured over my nakedness, I opened the door to find one Thomas William Hiddleston standing five feet away, already dressed for the evening in his charcoal grey suit, white shirt, silver tie, cummerbund and pocket square. He smiled, and I first melted at the sheer beauty of him, then had a mild panic attack when I realized that the six months until I’d see him dressed for our wedding seemed both like a second and an eternity all at once.

He waved. “Hi.”

I waved back. “Hi. You look like…like…like you should come on over here and kiss me.”

His head shook from side to side, slowly. “That’s a terrible idea.”

“Is it?”

He nodded. “Yes. Because I know what’s under that robe. And if I get any closer…”

Raising my hands up near my ears carefully, I began to move backwards into the bathroom. “Right. Okay. Yep. But you know the dress is kinda…worse…”

He saluted, body tensing visibly. “Well I’m off then. Love you.”

“Love you too. One word. Pasties.”

His response was but a muffled groan as he strode quickly into the hall. I was whisked away to a director’s chair, where Marcus sung the praises of my hair and tamed it enough so it could be left down and loose. Emma’s had been pinned into a bun at the nape of her neck, Phaedra’s braided and wound around her head, creating a band of sorts. They were both in the middle of a pre-makeup facial, which I had no interest in receiving but quickly discovered wasn’t optional. After I was deemed clean, fresh and acceptable, foundation was applied, then silver crème and smoky grey shadow, black winged liner, and black mascara. My lips took the longest, first lined with a deep, dark red, then carefully painted blood red, and finally coated with a several layers of silver glitter gloss. I stood and stretched, arms straight up over my head, sighing softly as I lowered them back to my sides. An older woman approached me, black hair, rail thin, dressed in pink yoga pants and a black and white fitted T-shirt with a giant Hello Kitty on the front. There was a large brown satchel over her shoulder, and a garment bag slung over her outstretched arm. She smiled beatifically.

“Hello, Maude. I’m Gillian. Ready for your dress?”

“Yes. Yes I am. Thank you. Where would you like me?”

Her steel-blue eyes narrowed for a moment. “Well, we’ll need a private space, unless you don’t mind…”

My left hand shot up to shoulder height, palm toward her. “I’ve managed to make it this far without anyone in the room seeing my boobs…let’s keep the streak alive and head up to the master bedroom, if that works for you.”

She nodded, and I led the way, allowing her to enter the space first, then followed, closing the door behind us.

“Lovely flat you have here, Maude.” She placed the garment bag on the bed, ever so gently, and the utter weirdness of having a stranger in a place where so much intimacy happened made me cringe. Just a little, but still…a cringe. Gillian set her satchel on the chair and began rummaging through it, pulling out a small package and a bottle of what I knew had to be body glue. She looked around, pointing toward the bathroom.

“Probably best if we apply the pasties in there…oh, I almost forgot…” Her hand delved back into her bag, neon pink nails seeming to flash as she moved. “Ah, here they are. I have panty options for you as well, in case you need them.”

“Thank you, Gillian. I think I do need them…all my stuff is either dark or patterned.”

She walked into the bathroom, hot-pink Mary Janes clicking on the floor, and I followed. She spread everything out on the countertop…first came the half dozen pasties, all different shades, but all circular with a silver star that matched the dress perfectly in the center. Next to them she plopped a pile of fabric, the details as yet indiscernible, but there was a variation of tone there as well.

Her hands clapped together. “All right then…set your robe aside and we’ll get to work, if you please.”

I undid the tie, let the front hang open, then pulled my arms back through the sleeves and let it fall to the floor. She looked me up and down.

“Oh good, I believe I’ve gotten your sizing just right. And, you wax. Thank the lord for small favors.” I could feel my right brow rise against my will. She laughed. “No shade intended, but gals who prefer the au naturel look make it a bit harder for me to conceal the works without them wearing boxer briefs. With the style dress you have, it has a tendency to ruin the illusion, if you know what I mean.”

“I understand completely.”

She sifted through the pile and held up something that could only be described as a high-waisted thong. I took a moment to consider whether or not I was okay with my ass cheeks hanging out, then quickly shook my head. Next was a simple brief, and I nodded.

“Excellent choice. They’re form fitting and will be rather snug, which should be just fine with your shape. I don’t see much chance of spill-over happening. Now, let’s see which tone matches your skin best.”

Once that decision was made, I put them on…and she wasn’t kidding about the snugness. They were, like, snug to the tenth power snug. But, just as she thought, the band sat right at my waist and thus, there was no muffin-top to be found. She walked around me, checking out the rear view, nodding as she circled back to my front.

“Perfect. They match so well it looks like you aren’t wearing a blessed thing.”

The pasties came next, in the same shade. I stayed behind when she left the room, figuring peeing before putting on the dress was better than going afterward, because with my luck I’d dip it in the bowl and this way I’d at least make it to Searcys in decent shape. Probably. Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the way back to the bedroom, I decided I most closely resembled an extra from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which started me singing the Time Warp under my breath. Gillian was cautiously removing my dress from its bag, and when she lifted her head to smirk at me I knew she’d heard me.

“Oh, that’s a classic, Maude. Well done. You should request it tonight.”

I chuckled. “That is an excellent idea. What’s a wedding without a good pelvic thrust session?”

We both laughed as I stepped into the dress, then slowly worked my arms into the sleeves. Gillian zipped me up, inhaling sharply as she walked round to my front.

“Gorgeous. My word. Futuristic, yet ethereal. Stunning.”

I walked over to the bedroom mirror to take a look, my reflection’s jaw dropping open. The transformative power of a bit of makeup and some fabric never ceased to amaze me.

“Wow, it really DOES look like I’m totally naked. Great job matching the tones, Gillian. Perfection.”

She’d begun gathering her things, stuffing them all unceremoniously back into the satchel. “Thank you kindly. Do you need help with your shoes?”

“Well…probably not…but if you have time…”

She nodded and retrieved them from their box on the dresser. They bore some resemblance to dance shoes, with a two and a half inch spike heel and thick sole in the rounded toe area, two half-inch straps across the top, thoroughly coated in large pieces of silver glitter that matched the stars on my dress perfectly. I remained standing with one hand on the bedpost to maintain my balance as she slipped them on and secured the straps.

“There you are, then. Take a few steps and make sure the straps aren’t too tight.”

I did, heels clicking on the floor, then turned back to her. “Just right. Danceable, even. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Let’s get you downstairs….it’s just about nine and the car needs to be en route by ten after at the latest. New Year’s Eve traffic is hellish, I assure you.”

Phaedra and Emma were waiting in the living room, and they applauded as I descended, both unable to resist the urge to fondle the fabric when I reached them. Emma’s eyes widened when she realized that I didn’t have a full netting underneath, as most sane people would.

“Maude, my lord, those…are those…the stars on your…”

Nodding, I reached out and patted her on the shoulder. “My boobs. Yes. Pasties.” She blushed, and Phaedra sighed.

“Oh, how I miss having breasts that don’t point directly at the floor. Enjoy them, girls, while you still can. The day will come when you have to be cautious lest you light them on fire whilst preparing a meal.”

Emma’s blush deepened. “Phaedrea, oh my god. You’re horrid.”

I did my best to suppress my laughter, but to no avail, and Phaedra joined in. “I speak the truth, Emma. It’s your future. Best embrace it.”

We were interrupted by Simon shouting as he traipsed through the open door.

“LADIES. OUR CARRIAGE HAS ARRIVED. WE MUST LEAVE AT ONCE FOR THE BALL.”

He stood by the kitchen counter, waiting, and I shook my head, incredulous at how absolutely perfect he appeared. Like he’d sprung up from the pages of an elite fashion magazine, his blonde hair slicked back, white suit practically glowing, and when he smiled, I damn near lost my shit.

“Dude. Simon. Dude. Seriously. My god. You’re like an…you look like…like…like an ANGEL. I mean, I know you’re NOT because, reasons, but WOW.”

Four steps forward brought him to me, and he kissed both my cheeks, then took my hands as he leaned back to inspect my attire. “You’re looking rather heaven-sent yourself, Maudie. And thank you. I do look damn fine, don’t I?” He kissed Emma and Phaedra next, expressing his appreciation for their beauty as well, and then we were out the door and down the stairs. Since the ceremony wasn’t until midnight there was no way to hide Luke and Simon from each other, so we’d decided to all share a single stretch limousine. Tom’s expression as he watched me approach him stirred up a slew of emotions in me, running the gamut from mild embarrassment to blatant desire, his unwavering stare seeming to bore right through the little I was wearing. As I drew closer his eyes filled with tears, his jaw unclenching as he smiled and reached for my hand.

“You. Are. So. Beautiful.”

I took hold of him, leaning in to catch his scent as we neared the limo.

“Oh good god, you’re wearing that new cologne again. That little hint of sandalwood mixed with orange…how am I supposed to LIVE?” He chuckled. “And thank you. You’re beautiful too, babe.”

He kissed my cheek as he helped me climb inside. “It’s going to be a long, long night, isn’t it?”

I nodded as I slid over next to Phaedra to make room for him just as Simon cracked open the first bottle of champagne.

“Oh yeah. I hope you have your phone, because I need to capture all this insanity so I can show it to their kids twenty years from now. Preferably right after they give them a lecture about how partying is so very, very inappropriate and bad for them.”

***************************************

It was five after ten when we arrived at Searcys, and the elevator ride up was unusually quiet, Simon and Luke clinging to each other and nervously adjusting each other’s lapels and white rose boutonnieres. Phaedra, Emma and I wore wrist corsages comprised of black netting and two intertwined white roses secured with silver ribbon, for which I was grateful. Schlepping around flowers and trying to have a good time while keeping them looking decent sounded like a total drag. Tom and I held hands, loosely, purely for the purpose of maintaining a physical connection. My nerves were still ever present, despite the fact that I’d sung in front of groups larger than this in the past. To be fair, I’d been intoxicated for most of those shows, though. Tonight, I’d try to lose myself in tasty tidbits and pretend that it was just a friendly karaoke bar, not someone’s once-in-a-lifetime moment. The doors slid open, and there we were, walking into a space that was positively overflowing with love for two people who deserved every single drop of it.

We were whisked away for photos, Willa directing us around the room, deciding who would be in which shots, carefully selecting the perfect backdrops. Once she was through with us, the hors d'oeuvres

stopped circulating and it was time for the seven course sit-down meal to begin. The wedding party was seated closest to the windows on the left side of the room, set back a few feet from the others. It was odd, eating prior to a ceremony, a backwards wedding of sorts, but the food was ridiculously delicious and the company unparalled so time seemed to speed on by. A sorbet was served as a palate cleanser after the main course, and at quarter to midnight we rose from our spots and retreated back toward the entrance where the hair and makeup folks were waiting behind oriental-style screens. Luke and Simon had timed their vows to last for five minutes, so the refresh was brief, followed by us all taking our places for the walk across the dance floor to the silver star marker. Phaedra and Darren walked first, followed by Roland and Emma, then Tom and me. Once we were on the proper sides, the wedding march began, and I had to bite my lip really, really hard so I wouldn’t weep at the sight of Luke and Simon walking towards us, hand in hand, their love for each other so clearly visible in their eyes, their expressions so joyful it was almost painful. They took their places on the star, Willa shooting discreetly yet furiously the entire time, and the officiant began. I missed most of that, only tuning in fully when the vow exchange began. Luke went first, his hand shaking as his right reached out for Simon’s left. His voice was clear, deep, and strong.

“Simon, that day you turned up for an interview…I thought that was the best day of my life. But it wasn’t, actually, because every day since that day has been the best day of my life. You’ve reminded me that there’s so much more to life than striving toward the next slot in the chain of financial success, shown me that joy can be found in even the smallest and bleakest moments. And, you’ve improved my wardrobe in ways I never could have imagined.”

Everyone laughed, and Simon reached up to pat Luke’s cheek.

“Over and above all that, you’ve taught me how to love, and how to love unconditionally. You are the man I dreamt of but never thought I’d ever find. My lover, my friend. It’s my honor to have you as my husband, and to be yours. From this day forward, it’s us, together, always. I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, Luke Windsor, do take thee, Simon Ahlberg, to be my lawful wedded husband. Will you accept this ring as a symbol of my commitment to you, to us?”

Simon’s voice broke as he answered. “Yes. I, Simon Ahlberg, take thee, Luke Windsor to be my wedded husband.” Luke slipped the platinum band onto his ring finger, then released him. Simon’s right hand reached out to take Luke’s left, and one incredibly deep breath later he began to speak.

“Luke. That day, when I walked into your office, I was on a mission. A mission to fundamentally change the way I was living. I was burnt out, used up, and in search of something new, something different, something that would inspire me, something that would make me wake up every morning excited and full of wonder. I thought that something would be an occupation, because that’s what filled my life before, but it turned out to be…you. Especially the waking up excited part.” Snickers and guffaws rose up around the room. “It was YOU. And I am the luckiest man, not only on Earth, but in the vastness of the universe, because I have you. Because you love me. ME! It’s ridiculously cliché, but Luke, you make me want to be a better man…and it’s my honor and privilege to share your life from this day forward as your husband. I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, Simon Ahlberg, do take thee, Luke Windsor, to be my lawful wedded husband. Will you accept this ring as a symbol of my commitment to you, to us?”

Both of their faces were damp with tears, and Luke swallowed hard twice before he responded. “Yes. Yes, yes, YES. I, Luke Windsor, take thee, Simon Ahlberg to be my wedded husband.”

Simon gently slid the platinum band, a twin of the one he now wore, onto Luke’s ring finger, then reached out to grasp Luke’s right hand with his left. The DJ began the ten second countdown to midnight, and the officiant spoke.

“Let it be known that these two men before me, and before all persons present, have, through their vows, declared themselves bound in matrimony. Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you…the Windsor-Ahlbergs!”

With that the clock struck midnight, Simon and Luke kissed, and congratulatory cheers mixed with shouts of ‘Happy New Year’ rang out. Tom was in front of me before the DJ could even begin to play Auld Lang Syne, his hands on the sides of my face as he bent so we were eye to eye.

“This is it. 2016. Soon enough, we’ll be saying our own vows, exchanging rings and I…I…I’m so in love with you, Maude. Happy New Year.”

His lips met mine, his hands wound around my waist, and mine around his, as we swayed to the music and I realized that I’d honestly never fully comprehended what it was supposed to mean, that New Year’s midnight kiss. Because any I’d ever received before hadn’t meant anything to me when compared to the way I felt right then, in that moment. We broke the kiss as the song ended, and the DJ’s voice boomed loudly through the sound system’s speakers.

“HAPPY NEW YEAR PEOPLE!” A round of cheering broke out again, and the DJ laughed. “All right, all right, you’re excited. Before we party, two things to take care of…the cutting of the cake by our happy couple, and…their first dance. We’re going to do the dance first, because you know someone’s going to get cake smeared all over them and that’s not a good look for the photo album, now is it? Luke and Simon have chosen ‘Feeling Good’ as their wedding song, and it will be performed by none other than maid-of-honor MAUDE GALLAGHER. Give the lady a hand!”

The applause was ridiculously loud, and I looked up at Tom, shouting over the din. “Happy New Year, you beautiful man. I love you. I’m probably going to die of embarrassment when I get to the scatting part, but…I love you.”

He kissed my forehead as he released me. “You’ll be amazing. Go. Do it. I’ll be right here, falling for you all over again.”

My head tilted to the left, mouth open, eyes narrowed. “Dude. I can’t even with you.” I planted a quick kiss on his cheek. “Thank you.” And then, a microphone magically appeared in my hand, and there I was, standing on that silver star, with Luke and Simon staring at me from the center of the dance floor. And so I dove into the first verse acapella, the way Nina Simone had done it all those years ago.

Birds flyin' high, you know how I feel Sun in the sky, you know how I feel Breeze driftin' on by, you know how I feel It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me. Yeah, it's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me, ooooooooh... And I'm feelin' good. Fish in the sea, you know how I feel River runnin' free, you know how I feel Blossom on the tree, you know how I feel It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me, And I'm feelin' good Dragonfly out in the sun, you know what I mean, don't you know, Butterflies all havin' fun, you know what I mean. Sleep in peace when day is done: that's what I mean, And this old world is a new world and a bold world for me... Stars when you shine, you know how I feel Scent of the pine, you know how I feel Yeah, freedom is mine, and I know how I feel.. It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me And I'm feelin'... good.

The scatting was actually decent, and I knew that what I’d just completed was a personal best for me as far as performances went, and would probably turn out to be the best performance of my life. And it had little to do with me, at all. It was because of the two people running toward me, embracing me, and the love they had for each other that had set them free. And I knew how that felt, and that’s what poured up out of my soul, what powered my voice as I sang those words. Tom joined the group hug, then pulled me away from Simon and Luke.

“My god, that was incredible. You…I just…wow. Wow. Speechless.”

I grinned and pinched his cheek. “Oh, speechless. The best compliment Tom Hiddleston can possibly pay.”

He laughed, and the DJ announced that the time had come for cake chaos. Simon went first, and I was stunned when he held the piece steady and allowed Luke to take a dainty, mess-free bite. Luke’s full on face-smooshing smear fest when it was his turn was equally surprising…and insanely adorable, especially when he tried to help wipe it off and Simon kissed him instead. I turned to Tom.

“Two things. One, if you try to do that to me I’m going to bite your hand off and two, this is all so precious and perfect that I may soon vomit. Will cake help, do you think?”

He nodded. “Cake always helps. And then, dancing?”

“Yes. Cake. Dancing. More cake. More dancing. Repeat as necessary until the paramedics show up to treat either my sugar overdose or painful bodily injury.”

And that’s exactly what we did, until 4 AM rolled around and we staggered to the elevator, then out to the waiting car. Simon and Luke had taken their own to a nearby hotel, where they’d stay until late afternoon tomorrow, when they’d be boarding a plane to enjoy their five day honeymoon in Greece. Phaedra had agreed to see Roland home, and shared a car with Emma and Darren as they were all headed in the same direction, which left Tom and I to our own devices. He wasn’t blotto drunk, but drunk enough to be a terror as far as propriety was concerned, fingers running up and down the V front of my dress, caressing my exposed skin, hand slipping under the fabric to cup my right breast, letting out a frustrated groan because my nipple was hidden beneath the pastie. There was no privacy screen, and I gave up caring that the driver might see, or that he might crash while staring at our antics, instead pulling Tom into a kiss, his mouth tasting of whiskey and ale. Making out was enough of a distraction to get us home without actually exposing ourselves, and when we arrived he ran up the stairs to our flat, taking them two at a time, waited for me for ten seconds, then ran back down, then back up, over and over until I managed to successfully navigate my way to the landing in my stupid heels. His hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t get the key in the door, so I took over, and he pushed me inside as it opened, turned me left into the kitchen, then pressed me up against the counter overlooking the living room. I felt his hands lifting my dress, then on my lower back as he guided me to lean forward. Next were his thumbs inside the waistband of my underwear, rolling them down to my ankles. I heard him unzip, and I moved my legs as far apart as they could go, groaning as the head of him brushed against me before he thrust himself forward and home. It was quick and dirty, his hips rolling as his cock worked its way in and out, faster and faster until I came with a gasp and he followed, whimpering softly, then collapsing on top of me. Several minutes passed and just as I began to entertain the thought that he was out cold he whispered in my ear, voice lacking its usual resonance.

“I’m so sleepy. Will you tuck me in?”

“Yep. You’ve gotta get off me first, though.”

“Ohhhh. That’s right. I’m sorry.” I felt his weight lifting, then disappearing completely. I turned around to find him staring at me, eyes moist. “You’re beautiful.”

I snorted, then bent to remove my shoes so I could slip out of my underwear. “Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself.”

He turned me around slowly, unzipped my dress, then slid it off my shoulders and allowed it to fall to the floor. I rotated to face him, and he pulled me into an embrace and nuzzled my neck.

“Wife.”

“Soon.”

“Since I saw you.”

I inhaled sharply. “Thomas.”

“Love you.”

“I love you too, baby. Let’s go upstairs, okay?”

“M’kay.”

I made him go first, just in case. Not that I’d have been able to catch him if anything happened, but it made me feel better. I helped him undress, then tucked him in, as requested, kissing him goodnight before I headed off to shower. The pasties came off rather quickly, the makeup, not so much. Especially the glitter gloss, which made me grateful I didn’t have to deal with such shit on a daily basis. I toweled off, used the toilet one last time, then crawled in next to Tom. He rolled over, muttering something I couldn’t quite decipher as he wrapped his arm around me, hand cupping my breast. My eyes closed as his warmth enveloped me, and I dozed off trying to count how many days remained until June 29th.

****************************************

We spent the weekend recovering, just the two of us, heading out for food periodically but otherwise just enjoying…being. Time felt like the enemy, and even though I tried to ignore it, my brain kept counting of the days we had left before his flight to Australia. Monday I was back in the office, working on marketing materials for the app and testing the customer management systems with Trudy. The rest of the staff picked up any slack left by Luke and Simon’s absence, their duties relatively minimal as our client base had been made aware of the wedding and honeymoon schedule well in advance. Tuesday and Wednesday were more of the same, with the additional tasks of contacting all the beta testers to request their reviews and creating an instructional video to post on the main website. Thursday was freak-out day, as it was my last official day of work prior to launch, and the last night I’d be sharing a bed with Tom for more than two weeks. Seventeen days, to be precise.

Dinner was delivery pizza, followed by ice cream sundaes for dessert. Afterward, I helped him pack, and the strangeness of assisting the person I had grown so used to and loved having so close to me prepare to be so far away melted my brain a little. We showered, then attempted to sleep, but spent most of the night making love or simply staring at each other, as if committing as much detail as we could to memory so we’d have it as a touchstone while we were apart.

Friday morning we were out the door and into a waiting cab by ten AM in order to arrive at Heathrow in plenty of time for his twelve forty-five PM flight. It would be a long one, twenty-five hours at minimum, during which I hoped he’d get some rest. Brisbane awaited, and there’d be staff housing as well as opportunities to visit the Hemsworths in Byron Bay. Jordan had chosen the Gold Coast to film, Queensland offering savannah-like settings as well as a tropical rainforest.

Both of us were silent on the ride, holding hands, his thumb rubbing my wrist. We’d agreed to say our goodbyes just inside the main entrance, with me then returning to the cab and heading home while he checked in and went through security. The cab driver helped unload his baggage, then drove off to circle around until our paths coincided again, at which point he’d pick me up.

I felt like I was going to puke at the sight of the gates, which made me wonder if this was going to become a ‘thing’…me stress-barfing at airports. Tom set the backpack he’d slung over his shoulder on the floor next to the rest of his luggage, then turned to me.

“Well. Guess this is it, then.” He ran one hand through is hair. “Not sure I can do this, Maude.”

I reached out to touch his arm, reveling in the feel of his long blue coat. “Yes you can. It’s okay. It’s going to be fine. Seventeen days and you’ll be picking my ass up in Brisbane. No big deal.” His hand caressed my cheek, and I burst into tears. “Shit. I told myself I wasn’t going to cry, and now I’m crying. Epic fail. I’m sorry.”

He pulled me into his arms, one hand on the back of my head pressing me to his chest. “Don’t you be sorry. I’m the one who should be sorry. I’m the one who has to leave.”

I leaned backwards so I could see his face, noticing that he was trying to hold back his own tears but was losing the battle, one already spilling over and running down his cheek. “No, I am. I’m the one who has to STAY.”

We clung to each other, weeping quietly, until we both breathed deeply, knowing it was time to let go, whether we liked it or not. I wiped away my tears with the back of my hand. “All right. I need to get the fuck out of here before I wind up throwing myself on the floor and wrapping my arms around your leg like a ball and chain.”

He laughed, then bent to kiss me…long, slow, deliberate and full of everything we couldn’t say. He broke away first, taking my hands in his.

“I am going to miss you like I’ve never missed anything ever before in my life. But we’ll text, we’ll call, we’ll Skype, and I’ll be busy and you’ll be busy and the days will pass and you’ll be back in my arms again in the blink of an eye.”

I nodded and let go of his hands. “It’ll all be okay. I know. You know. It doesn’t make it suck any less, but it’ll be okay. Stay safe, Hiddleston. I love you. Heart and soul.”

He smiled, red-rimmed eyes displaying a glimmer of hope, and joy. “I love you too, Maude. Heart and soul. I’ll see you soon. Good luck with the launch, and the show.”

“Tell Kong I said hello. And, you know, everyone else, too.”

“I shall.”

With that, he gathered up his luggage, returned the backpack to his shoulder, then turned away from me and began to walk down the hall. I waited for a moment, staring at him, and he spun around quickly, waved, then turned back around and kept going, and I turned myself and half-jogged out to the curb, choking back seemingly endless sobs as I waited for the cab that would bring me back to our flat. Our flat, with just me in it. Alone.

#your light in the mist #chapter 40

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