#this chapter is so don juan coded

[afreakingdork]

Weak Spot - Chapter 9

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

Warnings: Aged-up Turtles, Romance, Meet Cute, Villain Donatello, Cussing, Crushes, Xenophobia, Fear, Intimidation, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Hurt/Comfort, Love, AFAB Reader, Vaginal Sex, Sex Rough, Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Creampie, Teasing, Scent Kink, Sexual Tension

Synopsis:  When falling in love is the easy part where does the difficulty lie? In a society where we’re defined by our job, it’s those little details as a relationship goes on that ends up setting a course for whether or not a couple can make it in the long run.

The smut starts here 😈

Fem!Reader References: There are single line notes about bra and panties, a few cl*t mentions, a couple 'p*ssy's, but otherwise pretty GN

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

Last warning for the 🍋 under the cut. Minors DNI!

Checking yourself for about the hundredth time in a mirror, you flittered about the apartment. Without your roommate to distract you, you had only the ball of nervous energy in your chest to keep you company. Unlike the last time your date had been scheduled, you had no idea where this evening was headed. Donatello asked for your compliance and you’d been curious enough to give it to him. The kisses he’d plied you with while asking made the agreement a little too easy. It didn’t seem like he even did whatever little tests he had left during your last lunch. He did, however, not allow another mind-numbing make outs to take place. He, instead, had simply caught you off guard again and again with tiny pecks. It almost felt as if he were testing the waters. You had tried desperately to examine it, but the kiss he left to your knuckles in parting had left you further in a daze.

He was growing far too powerful for his own good.

Walking by the mirror in your pace and not because you were giving yourself another once over, you felt a surge of pride. It could have been the high of affection, but you looked amazing. All he’d given you was a semi-formal dress code and a time of pick-up. You’d gone all out and purchased new clothes. The few friends you had anxiously messaged all agreed with your ego and it made you think that, if nothing else, you could at least catch him off guard. There had to be a way for you to gain some leverage. You were whipping up your own experiment parameters when, from the kitchen, your phone buzzed angrily against the countertop. You clacked across the apartment in your dress shoes to catch it.

Don Juan: Five minutes remaining.

You: No reminder needed! You nervous?

Don Juan: I’ve done far too much preparation to allow such a trivial emotion.

You: Ah, got it. You’re excited then!

You watched as his reply bubble stewed and then popped. He had always been tactful in his non-responses, but as of late you felt like you were reading more into them than ever. Stirred by the idea that you’d cracked his façade, you did a final check for your most important belongings before heading out of your apartment. Timing it perfectly, you landed on your stoop at the exact meeting time to a sleek black sports car sitting at the curb. It reminded you of the usual cab so you watched it as you descended the steps. The window’s tint nearly matched the car’s color and meant you couldn’t catch a glimpse inside. Curious, you took a few edging steps closer.  

The back door opened and the purple neon that spilled out shaded the figure. It was the kind of audacious thing a celebrity would do and your posture snapped rigid. A leg swung out and a glossy boot tamped down onto the curb. You knew its owner instantly and wondered why you ever considered it could be anyone else. In a fluid motion that spoke of the many times he’d done it before, Donatello left the vehicle while buttoning his jacket. With a single crisp snap to his lapel, he stepped forward and you drank in his lethally tailored dark grey suit. It was painted onto him and gave you your first glimpses of the sculpted body underneath. An image of him working out, coated in sweat, appeared you felt your own mental perspiration bead.

Back in reality, it was hard to not feeling and an undressed toddler in comparison. Trying not to shrink, you moved to focus on his face. It meant another quick trek up his body, which was appreciated, but gave you some pause as you noted he’d chosen another high necked top as opposed to a button up. You had never seen his neck and it made you wonder why he felt the need to hide it.

Donatello cleared his throat.

Shame was offset by embarrassment as you realized you never did make it to your intended visual destination. Resisting the urge to gawk further, you found a smug gaze waiting for you.

“My attire is suitable then?”

“Is there anything you don’t look good in?” You tossed out the line in hopes of getting a hold of yourself.

He took the comment in and silently went through the motion of pulling something from an inner pocket of his jacket. “Something I wouldn’t be caught dead in maybe.”

“No turtle onesie?”

The teasing rolled off the impenetrable shield of his cocky aura. He instead got hold of something and held it out in a closed hand. “I scoff at tradition, but there can be merit in an upgrade.”

“You got me something?” You blinked down at the offering.

“To mark the occasion.”

“You didn’t-” The worry caught on your lips as he unfurled his fingers to reveal the tiniest box. Fascination brought you in closer to the cute object as his other hand came to lift the little lid. On a white cushioned bed was a dime sized delicate purple flower etched in gold. “Wha…?”

“Purple hydrangea.” He clarified and somehow picked the tiny object up in his large fingers with ease. It disappeared there and he stepped into your space. His free hand extended and a finger sliced a diagonal from the top of one pulse point to the bottom of another. It tipped your head back and shot radiating tingles thru your arms. With your eyes now locked with his, he split the time between watching you and his work as that finger tucked into your collar. His nail skirted your collarbone and your lips parted. His gaze seemed more and more hesitant to leave you and you watched in real time as his pupils expanded in murky curiosity. His other hand came up and did something to your shirt, but the whole act was too distracting for it to make sense. He came away from your chest and curled a digit under your chin. He then sealed his lips over yours and you felt the sway to press into him. He kept the move at bay with his hold and leaned back with a satisfied grin.

Your half lids fluttered at the look. “I have a feeling that will be the first of many tonight.”

You caught the way his pupils grew just a bit larger before hesitation pricked them.

“Hm?” You pushed your chin down into his hand. “See something you like?”

He was moving forward again and caught your lips with twice the urgency.

You returned it in kind, but he retreated with grit teeth. “We’ll be late.”

It seemed more of an excuse for himself than you.

Still sipping in dreamy appreciation, you watched as he pulled his hand away in a manner that said the appendage was fighting back. The street you were on rushed back to you and your apartment tugged. It would only take a few steps and one elevator ride to return. You couldn’t imagine him declining if you asked to ditch the preamble in favor of…

Your face went red hot and Donatello slowed, his pupils receding as his brow came down to study the change.

Breaking eye contact, you dropped yours to find the flower had been pinned to your top. “Oh!” You reached up and ran a finger over it. “It’s beautiful.”

 “It is.” It was a cheesy and you knew exactly what he was looking  at. The rush was still fed and playing out the cliché, you found his gaze lingering over you.

It bolstered the image he had mistakenly wounded to near where it had been before he arrived. Feeling a little flicker of that nervous energy and resisting the omnipresence of your apartment, you made the last few steps towards the car where the door was still open.

He moved with you. “I believed a token that would last and didn’t come with a cumbersome quality of care would best a bouquet.”

“Quite the upgrade.” You gave him a demure smile. “Thank you.”

It didn’t seem like the gratitude itself, but something about your delivery had an effect on Donatello. He rushed to take a position by the car. You watched him, amused, and he offered his hand as leverage for you to get into the vehicle. Sliding into the pristine leather, you tried not to dallying at the sight around you. Highly modified, the interior felt as though it were plucked out of the far flung future. It still had the typical accompaniments of a car, but they seemed to be crafted from varying materials you couldn’t place. The center armrest in particular caught your eye as a screen rolled over the top of it to the floor. Every inch of trim was lined with purple neon that skirted the line of ostentatious and instead shifted the otherwise black abyss into a mesmerizing other world.

You were about to voice your astonishment when Donnie slotted himself against you. Stiffening in surprise, you realized you never quite made it across the car and he’d simply sat in the little space you afforded him. You shifted to move, but his arm laid across the back of the seat and he closed the door. You turned away to frown at how the limb hadn’t caught you and returned to see your companion waiting.

“How is this real?”

“I made it.” He leaned in and forward which put him over your lap.

“You...?” The sound was meant to buy you time to respond, but instead all it did was turn Donatello’s head to you.

He was all the more closer.

Heart kicked into a higher gear, you flicked your gaze towards the front seat and found no driver at the wheel. “You made…?”

“Hm?” Amongst the many things vying for your attention, you somehow caught how he was mimicking your earlier move. “See something you like?”

Swimming in details, the tease brought you back where you caught him staring at your lips. “No, wait. Yes, just… You made… the car?”

“In a way.” Torn between something himself, he turned to bury the look as he tappd the armrest display. It came to life with an active response that floated purple pixels off from where he touched. Instead of bringing up menus, you watched as his moves instead activated an intuitive system. “I purchased the vehicle and then gutted it.” The neon accentuated the growing manic glee that you could just see etched into his features. The engine started and you again scanned the empty driver’s seat. “The mechanics and tech system were the easy. I built a new engine from scratch and the programming barely took an hour. The delicacy of the interior took the most time. The seats were the only salvageable pieces, while everything else had to go. I ended up making customs to suit my tastes.”

Settling back, that arm behind your head finally fell onto your shoulder. Confusion drowned out any excitement the move would have caused just a few minutes ago. “Hacking is one thing. What you’re describing…”

“Is the work of genius?” The sentence lapped at your ear and you were caught by how close he’d gotten.

“Genius isn’t the right word.” You felt breathy even though nothing significant had happened.

The was a gentle ping and the car pulled out from the curb. Fear shot through you and you slotted your body as close to Donatello as possible. His chest held a hum that read as a version of laughter.

“S-seat belts? We should be wearing some?” You searched and found one for either far seat, but not the one you were in. “Don!”

He held out for a moment longer before relenting on his haughty attitude in exchange for a softer one. “It’s ok. You wouldn’t wear seatbelt in the back of a cab.”

“This isn’t a cab!” You turned to implore him with anxiety wide in your eyes.

“Hey.” His arm shifted so he could grip your shoulder.

“There’s no one driving!”

“Self driving have existed for years now.”

“And how successful has that been?!”

He gave a huff and leaned into you until his forehead pressed against your temple. “Focus on me.”

“But-”

A noise came up his throat that acted as a repetition of his previous statement.  

You squeezed your eyes shut and felt the way the car smoothly came to a stop at something.

“I programmed this myself. I have full faith in its execution and have been using it for years when need be.”

“I guess I never asked how you got around.”

“I still use public transit relatively often. Parking is a nightmare in this city if there is no valet.”

You gave a laugh as small as the broach on your chest. Trying to find a focal point in it, you instead  found it was too light to distinguish from your clothes. “Hey, Donnie?”

He hummed the affirmation against your cheek.

“The pin isn’t a tracker, right?”

He gave an offended snort and shot away.

You gave him a chance to answer and when he didn’t you checked to find that he still had his arm around you. The fact that he hadn’t fully removed himself seemed to speak to some level of guilt. It was enough for you to make a gambit. “You thought about it, but didn’t.”

“You made me promise.” He seethed.

Feeling much more relaxed, you cuddled closer to lay your head against the lower seam of his shoulder. You felt the top edge of something there cut against your cheek. “A good call, I’m seeing.”

His nose wrinkled and he forced his gaze out at the passing buildings.

You shifted your chin along whatever the shelf was and gave in to your growing curiosity. “Can I touch you?”

He didn’t turn back, but came around just enough to glimpse you. “You already are.”

“A little more.” You shifted in your seat to right yourself. “Totally innocent, I swear.” You put your hand to your chest in a show of fealty.

His chin came into view. “You don’t have an innocent bone in your body.”

“Says the ‘evil’ guy.” You laughed.

He only raised a brow that seemed to question your point.

“So, ‘no?’ That’s alright too.” You settled back into your seat to translate that.

“Where?”

Your eye caught how the steering wheel made minor adjustments on its own. “Your chest and shoulders.”

“Why?”

“I keep feeling bits of your shell, but the shape doesn’t make sense.”

“How so?” He fully divested himself from the window to evaluate you.

“There’s like a point here.” You pointed to his chest. “An edge here.” You brought the raised digit up to around his collarbone. “And the sides are flat.” Instead of marking this spot, you simply let your finger fall.

He thought it over before relenting with minor hesitation in his lips. “Go ahead, but tread lightly.”

You nodded and tucked your legs up under you in preparation. You then reached out and first traced over that jutting part of his chest.

“The front is called plastron, while the back would be the carapace.”

Glancing at Donatello found him on high alert. You wondered if listing the terms soothed him in some way so you took the information in with a gentle nod. Making slow work of pressing your hand flat, you let your fingers hinge over protruding shape. You couldn’t feel a heartbeat through it, but the way he tightened up at the contact said he had a level of sensitivity.

“Pectoral scutes.” His voice was low and wary.

You absently bobbed your head and focused on trailing up to the edge. Tracing along it, you found the ridge went straight across his chest. It caused him to inhale sharply. “You ok?”

He gave a nod so taunt you thought his neck might snap under the pressure.

“If you can’t tell me, tap my arm and that’ll be my signal to stop.”

Another tight tug of his chin said he understood.

Curling your fingers around the edge, you found you could tuck them in farther than you imagined. Through his sweater, it skirted skin behind the plastron and, from where Donatello’s hand had been laying against your upper arm, he grabbed you. It caused your fingers to instantly disengage and you shot your gaze to his face. A wild look was waiting for you there which he assuaged by screwing his eyes shut. When they opened you saw a flash of fire before he surged forward to kiss you. You tried to melt against him, but the awkwardness of your hovering hands kept you at bay. He sensed it and retreated with a turn away. “You can keep going.”

“You sure? That was-?”

“Nothing.” He decided for you.

Your heartbeat echoed thick in your chest and you ghosted over the edge of his plastron again. The clench of his jaw was visible as the tightened muscles disappeared down his high neckline. You moved up from there to his shoulder and found the no connecting piece. Leaned in close to reach, you drew a line on his skin on the way to check his other shoulder. You found nothing there either, other than Donatello’s breath which had picked up into rapid little puffs. The realization hit you all too quickly.

He was turned on.

Resisting the urge to goad him, the bulk of thought shot southward in your body. There was a needy edge to his more passionate kisses, but you hadn’t seen him this unsettled. Suddenly very aware that one wrong move could stop that, you pressed your digits back into his rippled shoulder. “Can I reach towards your back? To the, what did you call it? Carapace?”

“No.” The command was clear.

You accepted and lowered your touch to translate that. “Your chin?”

“There’s no shell there.”

“I see that.” You tried to curb the sarcasm in your voice. “Still? Can I?”

His eye darted to you then away.

You reached up making sure your hand was just within his vision before curling your fingers under his chin. You then gently coaxed him to turn towards you. He did so and there was a twitchy nature to the little frown on his lips. “Hi.” The was a sultry note to the syllable that you hadn’t meant, but he took it with a flash of something dark in his gaze.

“What are you up to?”

“Not being innocent anymore.”

“It was only a matter of time.”

You smiled your agreement and, from where your thumb had landed below his lips, you applied a gentle force to tip him down. He kept his eyes sorely on you. “Can I trouble you for a kiss?”

 A single heady noise came from him as if a pressure was releasing and he dropped down. Your fingers skirted along his jaw line and you caught his lips first. He deepened the move and you kept your hands in motion until they cradled his head. Another primal sound emanated from him and he surged forward until your lips parted. He then bit down into your lower lip and pulled. It drew a deprived noise from you and he reeled you in to swallow it up. A beep sounded that seem to signify the shift as the hand on your arm moved to your waist. Another ping went off as you allowed yourself to drift back as he begged more from you. A third chime went off when your back laid across the leather and his free arm came around to lift up the legs you had left on the seat. Draping them over his lap so he could climb on top of you, a sharp volume shift accompanied the fourth sound.

Donatello growled audibly.

“What is that?” You mumbled.

“We’re here.”

“Where?” Your mind unhelpfully reminded you of the vehicle.

“The restaurant.” He slammed an angry digit into the armrest display.

“Oh.” The sound came out of you before you realized what it meant. When it finally clicked, you shot upright.

Donnie turned to you with irritation wafting off of him.

“Should we…?”

“We have a reservation.” He grumbled, tugging on his lapels as if that were his control panel.

“Yep.” You pulled your legs away from him and the shift made the heat pooling in your abdomen all the more apparent. “We should-” You dipped down, smoothing a crease and peering through the dark tint to see the glowing sign of a restaurant barely visible through it. “Go do that thing we said we’d do...”

He nodded gruffly and grabbed the door handle with enough strength that it clattered as he snapped it. He then nearly kicked his way out and disappeared onto the sidewalk. Blinking after him, you attempted to make yourself presentable before slipping out of the car with some minor hang-ups. You looked back at the vehicle and then forward to find Donatello already holding the door to the restaurant open.

“The car…?” You called out to him and he pointedly ignored you.

“I’ve got it.” A voice from behind you caused you to jump. Spinning around you found a valet near the driver’s side with a set of keys held high in hand. “I apologize, are you alright?”

“Yep…” You gawked at the jingling metal and again looked towards Donatello helplessly. He was still at the door, refusing to look, though he had reclaimed a portion of his persona. “Looks like we’re good…”

You heard the car door open behind you and headed toward your partner. He avoided your eye throughout the check-in process and all the way to the table. The restaurant was oozing romanticism with its dimly lit atmosphere, crushed velvet wall hangings, and two-seat tables. Your reservation was situated against a wall and gave an optimal view across the expanse of the place. You thought little of it until Donatello took the far seat. His tight posture made him seem like a king set in front of his kingdom. Sitting across from him, there was soon a flurry of various staff who offered menus, waters, wines, and a spiel from the chef. You struggled to keep up as Donatello’s refusal to address you cut deep. You had a feeling it wasn’t intentional as you were still coming down from the high in the car yourself, but it didn’t help that you were feeling very out of place somewhere where he was supposed to be your anchor.

When it was time to choose, you found the menu to be scant and Donatello made his choice in what felt like a matter of seconds.

“And for you?”

The waiter turned and you stared at the tiny font that paled in comparison to the size of the tablet. “Um…”

The struggling sound seemed to trigger something and, though your eyes were glued to the page, you felt Donatello finally look at you. You waited out the processing time and then caught the way he leaned forward in your periphery. “I ordered us a starter and got the trout.”

You gave a timid nod before turning toward the waiter. “The chicken?”

“A fine choice.” The man responded with an encouraging smile.

The waiter then took the menus and departed. Eyeing to make sure the man was out of sight, Donatello draped his arms across the table which landed his upturned palms in front of you.

You delicately placed your hands in his and he gave them a squeeze. “I have not been a good date.”

“The restaurant bit has been a lot… Before that was stellar though.”

He pinched your thumb.

“You disagree?” You looked at him through your lashes.  

“We’re making it through this date.” There was a finality to his voice that said he would stop at nothing.

You bit your lip to keep from laughing and leaned in enough to move your joined hands to the center of the table. “What a matter of principle.”

He didn’t seem to catch the joking tone to your voice and relaxed as he assumed you agreed. His gaze lowered and he became entranced by gently stroking the skin on the top of your hands with his thumbs.

It was unusual that he’d miss obvious sarcasm and you had to hide away your disbelief. It was like you’d been handed a gift you had no idea how to utilize. You allowed yourself time to plot until the starter arrived. Donatello released you to return to his side of the table as a plate of gorgeously crafted toasts with dreamy white dollops and various colored drizzles were set down. Your plan almost fell to the wayside as your appetite reared its head.

“Whipped ricotta toast with seasonal fruit.” Donatello hummed approvingly.

“Only one of each?” You looked over the six ovals.

“Unwilling to share with me now?” He bounced a question of his own back and picked up a toast with a golden glaze.

“Oh, I think I’ve shared quite a bit.” You hooked your elbows to the table as a platform for your chin.

He took a bite and the move in casually.

“Isn’t that up to me? What I’ll offer and all?”

Through a chew, the corner of his mouth turned up and he leaned forward. You watched his face closely and saw a flash of something before your chair moved. With your hands already close to your mouth, you clamped them over it to smother a squeak of fear. His gaze dripped lethal as you realized that with one hand he’d picked you by a single chair leg. He then smoothly carried you over to side in an insane show of strength. Finishing the move off with a heavy gaze, he held the toast up to you casually.

The rush of fear was mistranslated by your body as its exact opposite. You ended up staring at the bite dumbly.

“Don’t want to try?” He nearly cooed.

From where your mouth was slack, your teeth snapped together. Pushing against your mental resistance, you slunk up to the food. You opened your mouth wide for a clean insertion before plumping your lips out as you closed down around the toast. Donatello’s hand faltered and you used the move to pull back. You felt the whipped ricotta coat your lips so you pocketed your chew to one cheek before darting your tongue out for a luxuriously sweep to pick up the excess. By the time you swallowed and finally gave Donatello your attention, he was looking at you as if you were the main course.

You lined up a response with a smirk of your own. “Not bad.”

His gaze narrowed with understanding and he brought his own cocksure grin out to play. “Let’s compare then.”

So began a rapidly heated exchange of eating a simple starter. On the second piece, you took lead on feeding him and he swept his tongue over one of your fingers in the process. You counted that round as a loss as your stomach bottomed out at the move. On the third, he brought out a knife to cut the piece and you felt a confused edge when he didn’t offer you your half. Wary, you grabbed it and he popped his in his mouth easily. You were far smaller in comparison and ended up making the same mess on your lips with the tall toppings. Before you could consider repeating your tongue action, Donatello was there and with a flick of his thumb he cleaned the excess away. You then watched as he made a show of popping the digit in his mouth and showing his teeth off in the process. You hid your second loss in a row by chiding him about how he’d done that when you’d first met.

Feigning ignorance, he cut the fourth toast. You located a fork and swiped a dollop of ricotta off the top of your piece. You then licked it off in one clean swipe that caused him to accidentally crush his toast between the finger and thumb he had picked it up with. He cursed and you surged forward to top your second victory off with a third one by beating him to his napkin. He glanced between you and the cloth in an attempt at evaluating your strategy. You curled the cotton up as if you were going to wipe it clean normally, but instead twisted your hand around to make it a soft pedestal for his own at the last second. With a little maneuvering you pushed his two fingers together making a hole in between them and then pressed up through it with the napkin. You then expertly curled your finger up into the divot and scooped out the white debris there. The innuendo proved to be too much as his grip slammed shut, trapping your digit inside.

Seeing the glimmer of a fourth win on the horizon, you parted your lips and heaved your chest. “Ah, that’s tight.”  

He let you go all too fast and you snapped his napkin in a lauding of your success. You then set it to his side and he sunk back into his seat.

“All done?” You tempered your teasing just in case.

“I’d rather not fill up before the main course.” He adjusted himself. “You go ahead.”

It was your turn to cycle through what he could be playing it. Finding nothing concrete, you reached for the fifth toast. He was languidly perched, so you took a tentative bite that only seemed to reveal a too tart jam topping. Pulling back and chewing like normal to give him a break, you sensed how he leaned forward. Slowing down, you turned and nearly crumpled under the full force of an open leer. You hadn’t realized how much he’d been holding back. It made your hand shake under the sheer desire in his features alone. A corner of his mouth then quirked and the heat evaporated with it. It was his show of success and you shoved the rest of the toast in your mouth in one way too big bite. Turning away, you tried to chew it as the buzz pulsed in your loins.

You were fair if nothing else and being able to do that to someone with a look alone was something otherworldly. When you returned he was polishing off the sixth toast with an audible pop. Feeling coy about your lost, he sensed it by shifting from a gloat to a gentle gaze. He kicked his elbow out and tapped your arm with it. The considerate nature effected you all the same, but you managed to return the gesture while trying to cool the latent heat bubbling in your cheeks. He seemed like he would comment when the waiter arrived with your main dishes.

The man swung in with surprise at your new table position and you politely stood to return to where you should be.

“Oh!” The man was already making eye contact with someone. “You can stay if you like. Just give us a moment to adjust your place settings?”

“That’s not-”

“We’d appreciate it.”

You snapped your gaze to Donatello to find it watching you with a wicked air. Several people then swarmed the table and, in a blink, the two seats were now set at the far side of the table. They appeared cozy though they also overlooked the restaurant as a team. Your meals were then laid out and you sat next to Donatello who was oozing a self-satisfied aura.

“I don’t know how you’ll make fish sexy.” You held your head high as you adjusted your cutlery in hand.

“While I do enjoy a challenge, I’ll pass on this one.” He had his already ready and took a delicate bite where he paused to evaluate the dish.

The way he could so easily turn the allure on was both infuriating and intriguing. True to his word, you both ate in enjoyable peace. After sharing details about the respective meals, you caught each other up on the past few days. Though Donnie was still aggressively vague about his work, he was pretty candid regarding anything else. Unfortunately, this came as a double edged sword where he also refused to expand if he didn’t feel the need. It meant that when you pressed him about the car, he simply said it was within his skill set. Sighing, you switched to joke about an elderly couple at a table a few off from your own. The pair seemed painfully disinterested in one another and you guessed at some salacious. He offhandedly mentioned he could hear them and explained that they were fighting because the woman had purchased a fourth Shih Tzu. You took the comment in without thinking at first before whipping your head around to your companion. Before you could ask, he simply explained it had to do with his mutant genes.

“That’s amazing…” You stared at him in awe.

He shrugged, finishing off his plate. “It can be overwhelming.”

“In New York, I can imagine.” You thought about the constant noise and grimaced.

“That’s not my only enhanced sense.”

“Oh?” You bounded out of your thoughts and took a bite of rice. “I’ll guess it’s not eyes since you have glasses.”

“My vision is fine now. It was poor when I was younger, but I took care of it.” He dabbed his mouth with a napkin and you could tell it was another maddening thing he wouldn’t expand on.

You rolled your eyes and added it to a long list of things you’d wring out of him one day. It hadn’t been an immediate thing and, you still had some reservations, but crating a future with him seemed possible.

“My sense of smell actually.” He was close and you offered him a bite of your chicken. He took it with an easy chew. “Hm, it’s fine, but I prefer my choice.”

“You should have had more of that caper vinaigrette.” You gave a dreamy look. “That means you have a more discerning palate then, right?”

“That is one enhancement, yes.” One of his arms found its way to the back of your chair as he leaned in close.

You steadied your nerves as took another bite under his examination.

“With years of practice, I’ve become adept at singling scents out.” He reached out with his free hand to  gently prodded your wine glass. “As one would pick out tasting notes.”

He was leading up to something, but you weren’t sure what. You were close to done with your meal, but set your cutlery down to give him your full attention. “That can be helpful.”

He took your move in with a pleased air. “Very much so.” His lips close to your ear, you settled into the tickling sensation of his breath against the sensitive skin. “Did you know no study has led to the isolation of true human sex pheromone?”

You refused to jolt, but your eyes widened.

“This is due to many factors, but one of which relates to the intended recipients ability to translate these scents due to the differences to how we perceive smell.”

“I guess...” You tried to steady your heart rate now that you were painfully aware he could hear the spikes. “One person’s natural musk is like perfume to some and garbage to others…”

“And that only takes into account the usual human sense strength.”

You nodded and he ghosted his lips just under your earlobe.

“I’ve found there is a much clearer indication that I can focus on.”

You were almost afraid to ask as an inkling tugged at the back of your brain. “What’s that?”

“The distinct rush of fluids produced from arousal.”

Again you had to steel yourself. Your body betrayed you as instead of steadying, the action translated in a sharp clenching of muscles deep within you.

He didn’t point it out, but the way he nearly nuzzled the underside of your chin to take a deep inhale said it he caught what had happened.  

“Don-“ You choked on his name as you remembered every single time he’d ever gotten to you run in a terribly embarrassing reel.

His hand found your knee under the table. “There is a secondary game you have been unknowingly playing all evening.” 

You wanted to give into his touch, but the chatter of the restaurant kept you in place.

“One where you have a physical response to me which I have to, in turn, withhold myself from acting on.”

“You say it like you’re an animal.”

“Am I not?” He removed his hand to take your chin and turn your face to him. “Take a look.”

Your eyes skimmed the green of his skin. “Is it hard? You seem in control.”

“In small doses, in the beginning, it is easy to ignore. Imagine it like passing a bakery when walking down a street; a few steps and the scent is gone.”

“But now?” You were prompting him. You were still in public and you were pushing him further.

“You-” His grip grew tighter and tighter until it stung. “The euphemism ‘poking the bear’ comes to mind except you have covered yourself in salmon and honey whilst screaming the bear’s name specifically.”

Reaching up, you made it clear you were going to take his hand and he loosened his grip. You didn’t pull him away, but tucked your fingers in between your face to keep him from pinching so hard. “You’re acting like the turtle is blameless.”

He opened and closed his mouth exactly one time.

“It was a good comparison, but how much more obvious do I have to make it until you realize I want to be devoured?” You yanked his hand down and lolled your head to give him your best bedroom eyes.

His hand clamped shut and you were glad you’d added a preventative barrier against bruising your face. “Check. Now.” He growled and turned away to flag down the nearest waiter.

“I’m going to touch your leg.”

“Pushing it.” He warned, seemingly unable to form full sentences.

“That a no?” You mused. “Can’t handle it?”

The indignity pulled his eye and he gave you a tight nod before resuming his quest.

You were sure he’d assumed you’d meant your hands. With him distracted, you carefully adjusted the plate in front of you while moving your legs. You wondered lightly how this would cause the scent to hit him while out of the corner of your eye he looked like he was one step away from standing up. You couldn’t have that so you twisted with as much grace as you could muster until you could hook one of your legs over his. It split yours and whatever guesses you had made about his nose seemed spot on as he jolted so violently that he bumped the table. You pretended to be concerned as the staff and patrons nearby looked on curiously. Humiliated, Donnie dropped all the way down until his forehead nearly touched his place mat. It was something only you could see, but his pupils seemed to disappear and his lips were parted as he panted openly like a wild animal.

That cocktail of fear as arousal shot through you and he turned his head incrementally toward the scent. He was indeed sans pupil as he took another whiff of your arousal. You shuddered at the thought as his fingers curled around the plump of your inner thigh.

“Is… everything alright?” A member of the wait staff appeared.

“Yes.” Donnie surfaced and looked the picture of someone about to snap. “Please bring us-”

“The dessert menu!” You chirped loudly over him.

Donnie shot you a look that somehow combined sheer terror with pure fury.

“Please.” You added kindly the server who watched with dismay.

“R-right away…” He took your used plates before taking off.

“What are you doing?” Donnie’s voice was teeming with rage.

“Making it through the date. Dates do dessert.” You put on your best tease though the thrill quickly becoming overwhelming

“If you keep this up, I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold back from destroying you.” Through his desperation there was an icy air of truth to his words.

You were aching from the near constant spasms. “Is that a promise?”

This time instead of acting out, his eyes closed and stopped breathing altogether.

As time ticked on, you became increasingly concerned until he returned with chilled features. “Dessert then.”

“Donnie, what was that?”

He didn’t respond and reached down to remove your leg from his.

Panic bubbled up and you went to voice your concern when a menu was offered. You gave a lingering look to your companion before taking it. Again there wasn’t many distracting options so you picked one at random. “The strawberry and vanilla mousse please.”

“Right away.” The waiter too back the menu and disappeared.

“Don.”

“I had no choice.”

You turned to him in a slow and careful way. “I didn’t realize there was an upper limit. I’m sorry.”

He shook his head.

“How can you just turn it off like that?”

He flashed you a millisecond look that haunted you. It was like something out of a nightmare that spoke of horrors beyond your comprehension.

“What can I do?” It got you mumbling and bowing your head.

“It’s not gone. It’s just set aside.”

“That can’t be okay…”

He didn’t respond and you didn’t push it. You sat quietly until the mousse arrived and while it looked decadent, your appetite was in shambles. You took the spoon accompanying it and severed the multilayered surface. Taking the smallest potion you brought it listlessly to your lips and took the bite. It was smooth and light in a way that made you felt bad for not enjoying it.

“Stop feeling guilty.”

“I broke you.” You shot him a look.

“It was a joint effort.”  

You meant to move back to the dessert but something in his face caught you attention.“Wait…”

He looked on with a flat expression.

“I know you.” You pointed your spoon at him.

He flicked his gaze down at the utensil and then back up.

“You’re the Donatello I met over sandwiches.”

The was a slight hitch to one of his brows. It was an exact micromovement you had seen before.

“Do you usually close yourself off? All the time?”

He reached out and grabbed the second spoon the dish came with.

“Donnie.”

He skimmed off a bite similar to yours and tried to dessert.

“Hey.” His spoon came back for another round and you used yours to keep him from the dish.

“It’s the other way around.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been like this for years.” His eyes winced as if memories were assaulting him before he looked clearly on at you. “I haven’t had a need to account for any shifts.”

Your brow knit in careful confusion. “No, that… can’t be right? You were just opening up. Wouldn’t that mean how you’re acting now is how you should be…?”

He didn’t respond, but there were shreds that said he disagreed.

You allowed him another bite of mousse only after getting a large spoonful for yourself to eat while mulling it over. It was satisfying and the check appeared when you were both almost done. Donatello placed cash down and the waiter took it away with you only catching a glimpse at it.

“That… looked like a lot.”

Another mute response.

You frowned. “You said for years, how many? What were you like before?"

He ignored you but you caught the slight wince in his left eye. There was something significant there as if it was cracking through this exterior. Cleaning your utensil, s a percolating anger bubbled up from your belly to your throat. You hadn’t meant to conjure it; you had come to terms with the things he wasn’t ready to tell you, but there was something about how wrong this all was and how he accepted it as truth that infuriated you. As soon as he set his spoon down, you stood while taking care to keep your chair from loudly announcing itself. You then looked down Donatello with a glare from above.

He watched back, still sat, with a dull stare.

It cinched your decision to not let him get away with that.

You reached down and hooked your fingers into the top edge of his plastron. His sweater gave easily under the force and you shoved outward to graze his skin. His breath hitched and you yanked hard to bring him up to you. His arm shot out to stabilize himself on a chair and you were well aware he was only allowing the action as there was no way you could lift him alone. Still, you dipped down into his face. “Knock it off.”

“Or what, pray tell?”

“The dates over. I’ll leave.”

The first real crack came in the form of one of his brows shooting up in challenge. “The dog that chases me around?”

“Pretending you’re the exception when your tail wags the same?”

The corner of his mouth trended upward and a dozen fractures echoed in its wake. “That’s the best you got?”

“You hacked my phone because I left you alone for a couple of hours. So tell me which one of us has separation anxiety?” You were close enough that your nose barely brushed his.

He took the statement in and then licked his lips. You watched closely as he then carefully retracted himself and reached up to pull your grasp free. Unsure, a growing frown started to spread on your face until he tugged on his lapels. It was like a signal went off in your brain and he caught your hand in a tight snap. You were in motion before you could process it.

It was as if you were teleported outside and Donnie waved to the valet who jogged off. He then turned to you with his smug air growing like a thick cloud with each passing second. “I’ll rate that a C. I prefer way meaner.”

There was nothing exact there, but something about the way he said it spoke higher volumes. The deep throb was turning to a rapid necessity.

He caught the air and looked down at you. “Really? That got you?”

You tried to play it off, but your knees felt weak.

“You’re a lost cause.”

You pouted and he squeezed your hand.

“We both are.”

Your head shot to him and he kept his gaze away until the car pulled up. Some kind of exchange between the keys and tip occurred, but you were distracted by how quickly you were being ushered into the vehicle. Donnie gave you no time to scoot in as he nearly climbed on top of you to activate the armrest display. Within a few swipes he was satisfied and turned on you. You let out an excited squeal as he captured your lips in a fervor. In a push and shove, you managed to yank his coat off and he was working a line of hickeys into your neck. The car seemed to lurch, but the move only brought you closer together. Desperation scented the air and it was only when he hissed from kneeing the back of the passenger seat that you accounted for how big he was in comparison to the backseat. Despite his hulking form, he was adept at minimizing the space he took up when necessary.

That didn’t mean you wanted to make him suffer through this moment cramped the whole time.

“Where… we going?” You felt drunk.

He came up from where he was doing his best to stretch your collar out. “It’s set…” He swallowed hard. “… to return to the last destination.”

“Closest?” You reached up and waited for him to be aware before you grabbed his face to translate your urgency.

He used one hand to cover yours before reaching out with the other to swipe at the display. “My apartment, four minutes.”

Your eyes widened as you wanted to ask how he lived in such a nice part of town, but he was far from done with you. He jumped you and in a flash you were tangled limbs. Nothing felt like enough and clothes were rapidly getting in the way. You tugged on the material of his sweater but he swatted you away. Unsure if that was just where you grabbed or the touch in general, you stiffened. He caught the move and then your wrists to set them on the outside of either of his thighs. Underneath was carved marble and you instantly squeezed along the muscles cords underneath his trousers. He chuckled into your mouth before turning the move on its head by shoving his tongue inside. You accepted him with little resistance until you were starting to get lightheaded due to lack of oxygen. You forlornly left his legs to tap his chest.

He separated from you with a pop and you gave a glint of glee before shoving him. He seemed amused and sunk back into the seat as you climbed into his lap. It brought you a little above him and seeing him below you felt like a rush. You dipped down to claim him when a familiar beep went off. You halted just centimeters from his lips and turned around to tap a finger to the display as you had seen him do. When you spun back around, he was watching you with a look of complete surprise that was rapidly shifting to that feral hunger you saw earlier. He clicked the door open and nearly shoved you out with his coat before he disappeared back into the vehicle to do something else.

Pulling the coat tightly to your chest, you felt cold. Looking side to side you sort of recognized this area as somewhere you had once gone on a birthday crawl. The moment alone had given up a strange slice of clarity. “I think you live near a breakfast place I’ve always wanted to try. They’re supposed to have amazing twists on benedicts.”

Donnie emerged with little grace and kicked the door shut behind him. The car then immediately pulled out from the curb and drove away. You eyed it in surprise until he dropped down low. You imagined a football player barreling toward you and you yelped as he indelicately crashed into you. There was no force there, and he slotted a strong forearm underneath your butt. You were then airborne. With your torso pressed into his shoulder, a rush of the darkened street blurred around you up until he skidded to a halt at the door. He grumbled something that you caught was about keys and a jingling signaled he was struggling with the lock. You laughed, pulling his coat close and resisting the urge to wrap it around his head to blind him. As soon as he got the door open, he hefted you up a little bit more. You were inside and moving up the stairs as you tried to process what kind of building he lived in. Instead of taking steps, he took flights at a time and you scrambled to find a good handhold.

He’d been clear about his back and you didn’t want to mar his vision at his current speed. Settling for wringing out his jacket, he twisted and burst forth onto a floor. He then careened down a hallway and deposited you at the door. It might have been the surge of physical activity, but he seemed catch his own version of clarity as you had. He softened up and leaned into your space in affable way that made your stomach flip. His features were nearly open and an affection sat there that seemed to layer past the lust.

“You may, obviously, rescind at any moment, but I’d prefer it if you told me you’ve changed your mind now.” He leaned away long enough to take his glasses off. “There is a process to making coffee that should be started sooner rather than later if we were to partake in that instead.”

“I’m pretty sure the ‘come up for a cup of coffee’ line is almost always pretext.” You gave a lighthearted chuckle and pressed your back against his door.

He shrugged genially and pocketed his frames.

The casual nature of his interest seared the moment into your mind. It baked in a different way than the libido broiled and you found yourself overwhelmed with endearment. Needing a release, you reached up with hand in show and instead of allowing you to execute a touch, he set his cheek there under the barest nuzzle. It caused an overflow from where your emotions already had threatened to spill. “How about both?”

Not expecting that answer, one his brows rose.

“If it takes that long then I bet you have the good stuff: grinding your own beans or whatever.” His gaze seemed to agree and it gave you the cover to slip your fingers a little farther back. “Sounds like something to wake up to.”

Recognition shifted into a leer and you smiled sweetly as he inched down methodically. With your fingers already positioned, you cradled his head on descent. His nose ghosted over yours before wrapping you up in a tender kiss. In line with everything else about the paradigm shift, you were still reeling from the way it made you feel. Instead of being an all consuming fire, it felt more like a wrap in a warm blanket. Using your hold as a grip you tried to translate the feelings you couldn’t put words to through your lips.

You started with a gratitude, a gentle coaxing that you hoped told him how much you appreciated the candor. With a break for breath, he seemed to exhale a little more in response. When he came back in, you moved to show the depth in the well of your affection. It was a needy pull that you feared might skirt on clingy. Though you knew it was a joke, the way he poked fun at your feelings for him did nick a small part of you. Regardless, you were currently drowning in them and were desperate for some kind of relief. He shifted against you. It didn’t seem like hesitation, but he let you lead as if he were processing the emotions. A small mewl came from you and, as if on cue, it signaled his response.

It held a commiseration that brought your arms up around his neck as an anchor point. Not to allow you to one up, his hands traced around your waist and back toward the door. In a snug press, you were being held tightly. The pressure was just enough to hold you together from where you were bursting at the seams. It was almost maddening until it shifted. You couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment, but the conversation was left behind as the tinder ignited. Adoration was exchanged for hunger and the wood of the door creaked behind you from the shift in force.

What you were afforded was suddenly not enough and you groped for some kind of hold. Finding his mask tails, you tugged him off of you to find that he was already inserting a key into the door. You gave him an annoyed look which he retorted by a sharp turn of the lock. You shot for the handle and he beat you as his hand was already there. Scowling up at him, he caught your lips as the door opened and used a multitude of kisses to usher you inside. Stumbling without view, you felt him tug at your top until your bottom bumped another surface. It’s stiff but relenting nature said the arm of a couch though that was only a vague guess as your focus was rapidly devolving by the second.     

The intoxication of the make-out was in full effect as your layers were shed in needy pulls. Donnie only pulled back to admire his work once he’d gotten you down to your underwear. You watched the rapid dart of his pupils as he seemed unable to take enough of you in at once. Feeling very much exposed compared his fully clothed form, each look scorched marks into your skin. You squirmed from where you felt trapped. Hunching into you, his hands skimmed the length of your arm from wrist to shoulder without a full on caress. Heavy breaths fell out of your mouth as he continued that ghosting across your torso and down to your hips. Dipping ever lowering, you threw your head back as he brushed his fingertips down the back of your thighs.

He was crowding you to do his observations and it meant you were tipping further and further on the fulcrum you were sat. At any moment you threatened to fall and, though he was sure to catch you, you wanted some leverage of your own. Trying to focus on what you had available, you stared helplessly at the expanse that stretched out beyond his shoulders. He’d been both clear that the back of his shell and sweater were off limits earlier. With his not quite touches still trending southward, you had neither the ability to ask if that was still a factor nor the wherewithal to communicate it. It left you clawing at the couch and a whine choked out of your throat against you will. He snapped up at the sound, first looking you over in alarm before taking in your wrecked form. The last shreds of your mind remembered how much he liked to break you down with will alone. You clung to that coherence in an attempt to form a sentence.

“Kinda… uneven… right…?” You heaved, gesturing with your chin to his sweater.

He froze and for a moment you weren’t sure if it was actually him that had stopped or if you had just passed out from how overwhelming everything was. He broke the ice by dropping his gaze and you caught that he had slipped the mask back on in the time he’d hesitated.

“Oh… is that…?” Your sanity was rapidly coming back to you at the change.

The flared fear in his eyes said he wanted to keep that from happening so he stepped back. You watched as he made a face of mild disgust before turning to you with a veiled expression. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

It was an order and you couldn’t help but nod.

Shifting his weight nervously from one foot to the other, he finally relented and threw up an arm behind his head. He gripped the sweater there and in one swift tug somehow managed to pull the adherent fabric from his torso. Your lips parted as you took in the chiseled surface of his plastron. There were nicks and scars littering the surface, but otherwise it created a sharp stacked patchwork over his front. You trailed it up, noting one block that seemed a different color below the pectoral plates and skimmed the skin just above the top edge. Above it, the shadow under his chin slowly shifted in your eyes until you realized it wasn’t shade at all. You pushed off the couch and padded on bare feet up to him. You had no time to wonder how he’d also managed that when he turned away. It meant taking in the black wraps around his throat more obvious.

Transfixed at his throat, you reached out to steady yourself on one of his arms when the texture there felt off to your finger tips. Changing course, you found a similar set of bandages coiled from just above his wrist all the way until the bulb of his muscled shoulder. An odd purple square barely peeked out from the top and you wondered what kind of tattoo it was. There was a stutter to his breath so you hurried along to find his other arm in a similar wrap. Remembering his words, you turned your attention to Donnie’s face. He still had his expression tucked to the side, but a hesitance wafted off of him. You reached up within his eye line and he paused before reluctantly looking at you.

“Can I have one small question?”

“Veto power.” The clipped nature of his response spoke to how on edge he was.

“Sure.”

He gave a small nod.

“Does it hurt?”

In a blink he switched from looking up and then down before finally turning to you with his guard still up. “Always.”

You gave him space and your fingers curled up as you thought about how you’d grazed him. Worry brought your brows together and he gave a sigh that pulled your attention back.

“The fabric is unique and of my own design. They’re compression, which helps to an extent.”

You nodded slow at first as growing understanding quickly shifted to fascination. Modding a car was one thing, but creating an entirely unique cloth felt like something else. Whatever he did was rapidly growing out of anything you could fathom.  

“Hey.” His face appeared in your vision and caught you off guard.

“Sorry, that was it.” You brought your hands up to show this and in doing so recalled why you’d you stopped him in the first place.

He seemed to read your mind. “Anywhere, but the carapace. Wraps and mask stay on.”

You lit up at the confirmation and immediately pressed your hands against his plastron. He gave a comfortable hum and kissed you back to oblivion. As soon as your responses became sloppy, he finally put his hands on you. The first was a grip to your waist that curled his fingers around your back and a moan escaped you at the first flex of force. He hitched nipping at your shoulders and took the sign in with an airy amusement. You clung to him, trying to find a solid grip against his constant moving while he explored your body with his mouth. The heat of his tongue trailed across your collar and then down the center of your chest in a way that you imagined he was probably listing the bones off in his mind. He bit down into the soft part of your stomach and you kicked up at the sensation which sent out over the edge of the couch.

As you predicted, he caught you in a flash of movement that put one of his hands around your head and the other on your back.

“May I?” He smiled confidently into your face.

“Hm?” Through your stupor you tried to conjure some suspicion, but barely managed to narrow your eyes.

He didn’t respond and the hand on your skull traveled down your back in a manner that had you arching. The other appendage that had been there disappeared before you felt it underneath your knees. The pair had been tucked together for awhile and his forearm thread the angle. You were airborne in a flash with your legs pressed to his hip and your head cradled into his shoulder. Confused, you got your first glimpse of his back. His shell was a dark mossy green that was pebbled with ridges. It took a great exercise in control not to poke it.  

You were close to giving in when you were sat on the edge of a soft surface. He retreated and you looked to find yourself perched on his bed. With a little wiggle, you tested the comfort of his mattress and then ran a hand over his sheets. The base felt supportive and the purple linens were of a high quality. Just as his appearance indicated, his indulged in luxuries. Satisfied with your findings, you looked up to find him staring intently at you with a glazed expression.

“Looks good?” You teased and made a motion for him to come forward.

He didn’t speak and took great care in making the few steps to you. You gave him a hooded flick of your eyes before letting them land on his pants. You reached out to finally remove at least one piece of clothing by yourself when he dropped into a squat. Frowning at his refusal, he blocked your sight by bringing his face close to yours.

“You need to know what you’re about to get into.”

Bitter, you responded caustically. “Oh, I think I’m well aware.”

“No.” There was a sharp edge to his lips where a scowl had formed. “It’s not so simple. Do you realize how tall I am?”

“Really tall?” You shifted in place and the accumulated moisture of the evening greased your thighs.

“Six foot nine.” He clarified and leaned in closer to keep your waning attention. “That paired with my turtle DNA makes for a proportionality I know you haven’t accounted for.”

Stuck at the start of his sentence, his height made sense verbally, but the number warped in your mind. That distracting pooling between your legs reared its head again. Derailing your thoughts, you tried to comb over what you had missed while Donnie had done his best work at making you putty in his hands. Following the only train that seemed to be running, you realized that great care had been taken to kep your legs closed since you left the restaurant. He was definitely waiting for some kind of response, so you dropped your eye in what you assumed he’d take as an evaluation of whatever point he was trying to make. Looking at his legs, you gauged how much space you had. He wasn’t necessarily impeding you as he was craning up into you which afforded you a good range of movement. Your eyes widened a little as a one of many teasing conversations resurfaced.

“Do you understand?” He had read your realization all wrong.

You gave a coy smile.

How much of what he had done was a distraction to keep you from being in control?

In a flutter of lashes, you brought your gaze up to him. “I do.”

“Good.” His weight rolled on his heels. “Allow me to grab a few things.”

You watched as his center of gravity lowered so he could push himself into a stand. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike, you began your assault by swinging your joined knees to one side. The motion caught his eye and his head tipped down in a way that put his snout in firing line. With a final growing smile, you then split the pair and threw your legs open in front of him.

He was already statuesque so at first it was hard to read what the affect was. You strained to listen through the quiet of the apartment, but nothing came to you. Always on his own timetable, his chest finally heaved and his eyes drifted shut. Donnie took a deep inhale that he then released out of his mouth. When his eyes opened again, the dark of his pupils dilated to a degree that you didn’t think was possible. He reared back as if he was going to pounce and the muscles in your ass constricted as you nervously pressed into the bed.

“You-” The word was strangled by a thickness in his voice.

“Me?” Your own barely reached your ears.

He stalked forward until he caught a hand around each of your knees. By the unhinged look on his face, you weren’t sure if he was going to snap them shut or bury his face there. Forging his own path, he lolled to one side before arching in a downward sweep to take another deep whiff. When he came up it reminded you of a drug addict. He then careened toward you at a stumbling pace you couldn’t predict.

“Must… you…?” With breathy heaves, one hand landed beside your hip to take the brunt of his weight while the other squeezed your knee to a near painful degree. The mattress dipped forcefully under his weight and you tipped into him. Your side curled against his arm and his face hovered over yours threateningly.

Ignoring the budding nerves, you reached up to brush a hand over his cheek. You hitched instantly as you felt how taunt his jaw is. “Still holding back?”

In a blink his pupils disappeared before another brought them back. He then buoyed the level in a way that contrasted the earlier burying he had done. What surfaced was a collected, but terrifying version of Donatello. “A fool only learns through demonstration.”

“A foo-?!” You tried to sneer at him, but were caught as he slammed his lips into yours. The force took your breath away and you were shoved until you laid out under him. A few pained sounds trickled from you as the edged plastron at his pelvis crushed your leg. It teetered close to being too much when he disappeared. A rush caused your head to spin as you are up and your bra is popped from your back. It slacked before doing its own magic act and left you without a trace. Vertigo caught hold of your temples as you are tossed back into the bed. Your legs were lifted and you felt a hooked finger claw from your lower back down. In its trek it took your panties along with it. Trapped in a terrible seesaw, you were rocked up again and sat in a spiraled haze.

“Don… Wait…”

You reeled and couldn’t pinpoint the source of his voice. “Hold back?” He sounded close then far away. “Now?”  

You attempted to hold your head, but when your fingers brushed your temple, teeth sank into the crook of your neck. You screeched and your hands flew out. Caught on a rock hard shoulder and you dug your nails in there. The bite retreated only to be replaced by the laps of a tongue.

The sharp pain mitigated the dizziness and your eyes popped open to find some clarity. You were still sat on the bed with Donnie tending to your wound. Unable to do much beyond flopping your head against his, you stared down to find a hand hovering over your thigh. “What...?”

Streaking his tongue from the side of your neck to your ear, you waited for him to say something. The breath from his nose tickled the delicate skin there as he gave a single chuckle. Trying to make sense of the action, his hand descended and gripped the meat of your thigh in an aching squeeze. You whimpered at it and he littered kisses down your jaw line. Your legs fell open and he stiffened on contact. You faintly remembered them having been closed when your underwear were removed. The force of his hand loosened and he exchanged three digits for one as he traced a path to your core. It had been awhile since you took stock, but you could tell there is a ton a slick from where the finger stopped. Donnie left you and you watched with mild delirium as he reappeared between your legs to inspect.

“Fuck…” The syllable is sharp, breathless, and enamored. He surfaced long enough to shoot you a look of gooey adoration. The gaze struck you like an arrow through the heart before shifting to clench in the muscles of your pussy. You cursed the affect it had on him as you lost track of him for what seemed like the hundredth time. Hands latched onto your hips and you were snapped toward the edge of the bed. The momentum threw you onto your back and you scrambled to get your elbows under you. The searing tip of something with a flattened tip prodded at your entrance and, from the throaty sound you hear, you realized it was his cock.

You couldn’t even remember when he’d taken his pants off.

Instead of pushing himself in, you felt the sheets sliding against your back as he pulled your body onto him instead. The move didn’t allow you to get a look, but the shape of his cock was relenting enough that it bended to breach you. Gasping, he immediately pulled you back before working himself in. In a gentle rock, you felt more and more of him enter you. The head seemed to settle inside with a sort of bouncy snap and you whined in an attempt to push your hips down. His thumbs stung as he forced you still against the mattress. Beads of perspiration formed on your brow you helplessly glimpsed him narrowly concentrated on his work. You tried to crane your neck over your torso to get a better look, but he forced you out of it as he stroked himself with your body.

Tossing your head back, you tried to make sense of the shape. With each inward crawl, it seemed to be widening. Unable to form a picture amid the slow filling sensation, you moved to take stock of what you had control over. The soft sheets kept your back from chaffing and your legs bounced uselessly with each stroke. Panting, you focused on them and took some effort to bring them up. Hoping to encircle him, your knees instead made you more accessible. It caught Donnie’s attention and he pulled you down onto his cock before only letting go long enough to hook his arms underneath your thighs. He then caught your waist again and in a drag you were pulled back. The next time he lurched forward, he went all the more deeper.  

Crying out at the pace, you weakly pawed at the bit of Donnie’s arm you could reach. “Please!”

He shook his head and continued the traitorously slow in and out.

“More… you have to…!” You pleaded before again trying to move.

“Still.” It was meant as an order and he flicked darkened eyes at you.

“And you’ll…?”

He gave a single tight nod.

In a tantalizing downstroke your eyes rolled back before you could give one of your own. When you managed something, it came wordlessly through your lips.

He let go of the right side of your hips before he brought a thumb to your clit. A throaty moan leaked out of you as he stroked the spot. At first he timed the strokes along with the roll of the digit before he sped up one half of the equation. Pleasure washed up as a tingle at first that moved through your buttocks. It then grew, sending out shockwaves through your limbs. Your mouth opened and spindly sounds poured out. There was a hitch in Donnie’s movements and you tried to force your head to move, but it refused.

Switching to string discordant sounds into something viable, the hand on your hip skirted down to your knee. It took grip there as the other at your clit moved to push into the bed. You saw Donatello swim through the bottom of your vision when he yanked your leg. Something feral clawed up your throat as you were both being split and filled to staggering degree. He held there, the shake of his shoulders being the only indication he was struggling. Between gasps, you blearily tried to find fault. Inside you could feel him throb and it caused you to retract in kind. Donnie let out a guttural sound, but kept steady. Outside, there was a pinch from where your folds weren’t sitting right after the back and forth drag.

Finding yourself unable to lift your arm, you merely dragged a hand across your stomach. Trending down, as soon as you skirted close to where you were joined, Donnie made a small move to pull back.

“No!”

The sound surprised both of you and snapped his gaze to yours.

“Don’t stop… I just…” You squirmed a little and winced as the pinching sensation grew. “Let me fix something.”

He didn’t seem all there and only nodded with a faint confusion.

You carefully traced the line of your heat until you bumped against his cock. The texture there wasn’t quite what you expected and you wished you had the strength to examine it. Skirting to the side, you tried to adjust yourself. With everything pulled taunt, you couldn’t assuage the sensation one handed. Grumbling, you reached down with your other hand and to select the sensitive skin connecting your center from your inner thigh. Pressing down from either side, you gently rolled the skin there in an outward massage. It coaxed your folds into spreading and from the hold position Donatello was in, the movement sunk him a little deeper. You groaned into the feeling and the pain finally abated. Your hands fell limp around your hips and you rolled your hips to convey your success.

Donnie went taunt and bucked reflexively. You hissed as he felt like he was climbing impossibly heights in your torso before you blew out a stream that felt like the last of your oxygen. The deeper he got, the more you felt the drag as he pulled out. On such a backswing you felt him slow instead of push back in. You squirmed to get him to continue, but he kept you still.

You tried and failed several times to make a coherent sentence before you landed on a single word. “Go.”

“Second.” Seeing him in a similar state, you watched as he threw his head back with concentration creasing his features.

It took great effort to remember the mouth movement, but you recalled a different sound. “Why?”

“Hitting…” He heaved a breath and his eyes opened a little too wide before slamming shut again. “Can’t go much deeper…”

You tried to process the statement, but it didn’t make sense. You felt full near the point of bursting, but that hadn’t actually sated the need. The begging chant of ‘more’ echoed in your mind. The thought translated into a pulse that seemed only barely able to wrap around the cock stuffed inside of you.

Donnie made a gutted noise.

The next word was similar enough that it didn’t take near the same amount of effort. “Try?”

It brought his chin down to look at you like you were insane. “I’ll hurt-”

“It doesn’t hurt!” You rasped the sentence out before collapsing under the stress of it.

There was a quiet as you tried to resurface. Donnie throbbed inside of you and you pushed down on the sensation. The hand on your knee dug painfully into the muscle and you heard a thick swallow. “You don’t-”

“If you…” A bubbling ferocity welled up with only enough to bring words with it. “…tell me I don’t understand one more time!” The threat fell flat as you petered out your reserves. Feeling frustrated you channeled what was left into a sharp downward snap of your hips. You heard a sort of squawk noise from your partner as he fumbled around you, missing the way your body bent.

From where you were already barely hanging on to the edge of the bed, the maneuver sent you over the edge. He had attempted to catch your knees, but all it did was split you like a hanger as you descended on his cock. You sank straight down until the flat of his plastron stopped you and the punch it jabbed into your lungs was palpable. You gurgled on the lack of oxygen before Donnie lifted you back onto the bed. Again sat on the precipice, you wheezed to gulp down anything you could.

“I told you.” He scolded in a weak way that showed there was no actual malice there.

You tried to shake your head, but it felt like any movement to your airway would impede you from getting the breaths you so desperately needed. Annoyed, you laid back and threw an arm out to him. The line thankfully caught him and you traced down to his hand. He released one of your knees and took it. You gave it a squeeze and tried to communicate you needed a moment. As you counted out inhales, holds, and exhales, a faint rhythmic echo chanted at the periphery of your mind. The curtain of delirium drew back and in it you heard the sound gained clarity. You gave a little tug on his hand to get his attention before finally giving an actual voice to the noise. “More.”

He twisted up as if offended him.

“Go…” You coaxed, trying to side step the exhaustion. “Again.”

His snout wrinkled as if he were about to complain so you purposely contracted your muscles. The spasms caught him and, in a glint of teeth, he moved forward into you instead of dragging you down around him. The second full stroke had a near similar effect, but this time you were ready. You sucked in a harsh breath to offset it and blew it out as he pulled back. He then rocked back in and you timed your inhale the same way. Each time he pushed in and his plastron flattened against you, it stung less and less. Your organs seemed to accommodate for the size and soon the chant in your head silenced as pleasure drowned it out.

Your limbs rapidly became jelly as he sped up. The sounds of pants filled the space. The comingling of your slicks dripped out in threads that you felt flood down your ass and onto the sheets. You were sure drool was doing the same along your chin, but there was also the very real possibility it was just sweat. You didn’t feel like you had offered much of anything as a partner, but the strain of the activity wore on you as if you had been doing eight hours of hard labor. Thrusts turned into pistons and you weren’t sure your legs could handle the strain of being his anchor point for much longer.

Limbs failing to obey, one of your moans twisted out like a wrung rag. Whatever the sound told Donnie, it wasn’t what you expected as he lowered his hips backstroke. He then shot forward at an upward tilt and sparks shot off haphazardly through your vision as he scraped your g-spot. He continued the same merciless pace and, when you came, it was an inevitability instead of a built up explosion. You shuddered around him, but his thrusts meant he didn’t feel the exact constriction as much as it was relegated to the symphony of sensations. You screamed as your sensitivity hit a high and then bottomed out in a way that was rapidly exchanging delight with anguish.

The stutter of his hips shook you and as you were ground down into his plastron you swore time slowed down. You felt the bulge start there and as he pulled back out, the knot seemed to chase your body until it surpassed the tip of your connection point. You were then descending again and the sensation disappeared into that odd head of his. In a burst, heat lashed at your insides and whatever wail was coming out of you broke a pitch you’d never hit before. Like a water pump, pulse after pulse of semen flooded you. A low sound started and strung out as the filling sensation felt like ballooning. The only mercy was Donnie hitching his cock only halfway in. It afforded the flooding cum just that more space to fill.

Sputtering as time continue to tick by and he was still pouring into you, you rapidly flapped your fingers in a desperate attempt to convey anything. Like a fly swatter, Donnie’s hand clapped down on yours and you mewled.

“Relax…” He urged in a drawl.

You wanted to yell back at him the same, but you felt a gentle pressure against your hip. Only able to focus on one thing at a time, you exchanged the ire for focusing on that point. You found your body elevated by you alone and the muscles were taunt as if you were holding him in. Confused, you sent signals for that to stop and it took a staggering amount of time for those commands to be executed. When they finally did, it was like a rusty creaking object was finally being operated after years of neglect. Your hips relaxed; the fluid in you shifted and the hot cum dribbled out from where ever there were the tiniest cracks to leak from. The sensation had you shivering and Donnie’s hand brushed away the hair sticking to your forehead.

You nodded underhand and turned to the appendage. He put himself within reach and you kissed his wrist.

He smiled. “You ok?”

“Uh huh.” You returned a grin dumbly.

“You took it.”

You repeated yourself, lids growing heavier by the second.

“No.” He shifted position and there was an audible squelch.

You both spasmed at it and had to take a 30 second time out to recover.

“I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to.”

“Cocky.” You squeezed his wrist and the move surprised you as you hadn’t realized you had grabbed it.

“Was that a pun?” Disgust tinted his features.

“Both.” You nodded trying to muster pride.

He shook his head and leaned down to kiss you.

You tried to return it but were sure all he felt was soft lips. He didn’t seem upset when he parted, but you still wanted to give him something. “Guess I was made for you.”

He cock gave a pitiful twitch.

It was the kind of move you would not have felt were he not still inside of you.

He rose up slowly and you gaped up at him.

From his expression you could sense you were red in the face and pleading for him.

It wasn’t a colossal movement, but you felt a stretch as his cock bobbed to tentative attention.   

You tried to verbalize something, but Donnie was in motion. His hands curled under your waist and he coaxed you up into an arch. You couldn’t sustain the action, but he didn’t seem to care as he wrapped his arms around you. He pressed you to his body in a tight squeeze and then stood up straight. You rose with him in a mounting peril that was focused on your sore pussy. There was a shift as he planted his feet and you felt that it was the grip around you that was holding you up. The height had you at eye level and it took you a moment to actually see him. When you did you found nothing but lust there and he leaned in with a manic grin that seemed to spread lethally the closer he got. Leaning away instinctually, he stopped right at the point where he would have gone out of focus. Wide eyed, you stared back until he let go.

Sound was stolen away as his cock skewered you. Your mouth snapped open and your tongue lolled out as conscious thought burned away at the sensation. He gave you no time to process and immediately dug his fingers into your ass. He then hoisted you up and dropped you back down repeatedly. Your upper body flailed and your neck rolled without any support. You felt wave after wave of the cum already there spurt out as each subsequent thrust put force on the fluid. Drowning, you scarcely heard Donatello say something about ‘waste.’

Unable to process, you felt one of his legs come up and more motion was happening. The ceiling grew dangerously close as he stepped up on to the bed. He continued to fuck you as he did so and the motion was causing everything to spin. He said something else that your mind refused to process before he shifted his grip. Instead of coming down on to his cock in the next downstroke, he tipped you forward so he was thrusting straight into you. With no energy to prevent it, you shrieked as you toppled backwards.

He continued to relentlessly pound you as you stared clear across his upside down apartment. No information made it back to your brain other than the arms swaying in and out of your vision. Every so often a fingertip would brush the sheets. Using gravity as your only mobility aide, you helplessly reached toward the fabric. You weren’t sure if Donnie noticed or just adjusted you for his own benefit, but you tipped further until your hands found purchase. Now doing the world’s most intense handstand, blood rushed into your head as your lower body was being thrust into at an agonizing pace. Unsteady, darkness ate away at the edges of your vision.

Everything clipped against the back bed. From the angle, he was plowing into your g-spot but the information wasn’t making it back to base. The harrowing nature was only palliatively softened by the fact that he had a supportive hold on your weight. The hands planted to the bed were only an act to give you a semblance of stability. The wet slap of your bodies was the only sound that made it to your ears. The oceanic quality to it made it feel like sea foam was flooding your sinuses. A spasm occurred somewhere you couldn’t pinpoint. Your legs locked around his back. The sharper bits on his shell stabbed your legs. You wanted to cry. The tears would only further submerge you.  

You circled the drain in an abysmal swirl.

Basal fear built up when your body recognized the all too familiar hitch in his strokes.

You no longer has the ability to speak.

Gravity had hold of your tongue. Your mouth opened only for it to clog your throat.

His pace grew erratic.

You brain was misfiring

The sting of his nails into your upper thighs felt like needles in your spine.  

You clenched down on him.

He belted out a groan that came from everywhere.

He pulled tighter.

A faraway voice told you something.

“Take everything I have-”

You clenched again.

You were cumming.

Or you had been cumming?

It felt like you never stopped

If you had ever even started.

Your lips felt numb.

“-if you were made for me.”

He growled as the first gush of heat scoured your insides.

He was dumping directly down into you.

The rush of it commingled with that whirlpool of black in your vision.

The spiral rounded until you disappeared into the eye of it.

NEXT

[drinkthemlock]

NIGHT AT THE TAVERN

III - BERTRAM

Here is the chapter following Solfieri's.

Text by Álvares de Azevedo, translation my own. TW: this chapter contains murder, infanticide, gore and anthropophagy.

[revised July 2024]

III

BERTRAM

But why should I for others groan,

When none will sigh for me?

BYRON - “Childe Harold, Canto I"

Another comrade rose.

A red head, pale skin, one of those phlegmatic creatures that didn't hesitate when they stumbled upon a corpse to achieve an end.

He emptied his wine-filled glass and, with his beard in his pale hands, with those sea-green eyes fixed, he spoke:

“You know, a woman led me to doom. It was she who burned my temple in the orgies, and discolored my lips in the ardor of wine and in the softness of her kisses, who made me debauch myself, livid in the long nights of insomnia at the gambling tables, and in the earnestness of the tortured hugs with which she pressed me to her chest! It was she, as you know, who made me in one day have three duels with my three best friends, open three graves for those who loved me most in the world— and afterwards, feel myself alone and abandoned in the world, like the infanticide who killed his son, or that unhappy Moor next to his pale Desdemona! 

Very well, I’ll tell you a story that begins with the memory of that woman… 

There was in Cadiz a damsel— so beautiful with that dark hair of the Andalusians, such that one cannot look at them beneath the fringes of the satin mantillas with their delicate feet, their alabaster hands, their shiny eyes and their lips, pink like Gallic roses, without going mad with dreams of them through long ardent nights! 

Andalusians! You are most beautiful! If the wine, the nights of your land, the moonlight of your nights, your flowers, your perfumes are sweet, pure, intoxicating, you are more still! Oh! Throughout the defilement of a fiery life's row of pleasures, I could never forget thee!

Gentlemen! We have here the wine of Spain, fill the glasses: — to the health of Spanish ladies! 

-

I loved this girl dearly, she was called Ângela. When I was decided to marry her, after so many nights wasted out in the open waiting for the shadow of a wave, an adieu, a flower, when after so much desire and so much hope I stole her our first kiss, I had to leave Spain for Denmark, where my father was asking for me. 

That night was one of sobs and tears, of cries and hopes, of kisses and promises, of love, of voluptuousness in the present and dreams in the future… I left. I would only return two years later. When I entered my father’s home, he was dying; he knelt in his sickbed and thanked God for still seeing me, put his hands on my head, showered my temple with tears – those were his last – then let himself fall back, put his hands on his chest, and with his eyes on me he mumbled: ‘God!’

His voice was choked in his throat; all were crying. 

I cried too, but it was for missing Ângela…

As soon as I could reduce my fortune to money I put it in the Hamburg bank and left for Spain. 

When I got back, Ângela was married with a son… 

Though my love hadn’t died! Nor had hers! Very ardent were those hours of love and tears, of longing and kisses, of dreams and curses, were we to forget one another. 

-

One night, two figures appeared in the shadows of a garden, the leaves trembled at the flutter of a dress, the breeze sobbed at the sobs of two lovers, the aroma of the violets that they trod on and of the roses and honeysuckles that bloomed around them were even sweeter, lost in the perfume of a woman’s loose hair…  

That night— it was insane! The hours were few and the dreams fiery! And how quickly they passed! After that night another followed, then another… and on many nights the leaves whispered at the brush of a mysterious step and the wind was intoxicated with the delight on our pale faces… 

But one day the husband found out everything: he wanted to play Othello with her. Madman...

It was late into the night: I waited to see from behind the curtains the shadow of the angel. When I passed by, a voice called me. I entered— Ângela, with her feet bare, her dress loose, her hair disheveled and her eyes ardent, took me by the hand… I felt her hand wet… The stairs we climbed were dark; I brushed my hand, wetted by hers, against my lips. It tasted of blood. 

‘Blood, Ângela! Whose blood is this?’

The Spaniard shook her long dark hair and chuckled. 

We entered a room. She went to fetch a light and left me in the dark. 

I looked, feeling around, for a place to sit. I touched a table. But after touching it I felt it was bathed in wetness; further ahead I felt a head, cold as snow and wet with a thick and slightly clotted liquid. It was blood… 

When Ângela came back with the light, I saw it… it was horrible… The husband had his throat cut.

It was like a gesso statue washed with blood… Over the chest of the murdered man there was a child lying on their belly. She pulled them up by the hair… They were dead too; the blood that flowed from the slashed veins of their chest mixed with their father’s! 

‘Do you see, Bertram, this was my gift: it now shall be, though dark, a figure of my past. I am yours and yours only. It was because of you that I had enough strength for such a crime… Come, all is ready, let’s run away! To us, the future!’

-

It was an insane life of mine with that woman! An endless traveling. Ângela dressed as a man: she looked like a beautiful youth in that manner. At all else she was like every young libertine that clinked glasses with her at the orgy tables. She drank like an Englishwoman, smoked like a Sultana, rode horses like an Arab, and shot guns like a Spaniard. 

When the vapors of liquor hurt my head, she’d lay it on her knees, pick up a mandolin and sing me the songs of her homeland…

Our days were set to sleep like pearls of love; our nights were truly beautiful! 

-

One day she left; left, but left me with my lips still burning of hers and my heart filled with the ill vices that she cast there. She left; but her memory stuck with me like the ghost of a fallen angel at my bedside. 

I tried to forget her in gambling, in liquor, in the passion of duels. I became a cheater at cards, a man lost in women and orgies, a terrifying and heartless swordsman. 

-

One night I’d fallen, drunk, at the gates of a palace; a carriage's horses trampled me when entering and split my head on the cobblestone. The people in the palace came to my aid. Then they grew to love me: the family was an old widowed nobleman and a peregrine beauty of eighteen years. It certainly wasn’t love that I felt for her… I don’t know what it was… it was an infernal fatality. The poor innocent girl loved me; and I, received like God’s guest under the roof of the old nobleman, dishonored his daughter, stole her, ran away with her… And the old man had to regret his stained silvery hair at the dishonor of his daughter, unable to seek revenge. 

Later I grew tired of that woman. Satiety is a terrible bore. One night in which I played with Siegfried, the pirate, after losing her last jewels, I sold her. 

The girl poisoned Siegfried on the very first night, then drowned herself… 

-

See, this is who I am: if you wished me to tell you long stories of my life, you would fall asleep in no time… 

One day— it was in Italy— satisfied of wine and women, I was going to kill myself. The night was dark and I barely reached the beach. I climbed a rock: there my last word was a blasphemy, my last goodbye a curse, my last… I say it wrongly, since I felt myself being pulled out of the water by the hair.

And then, in the blur of drowning, the yearning for life awoke inside me. At first it was like blindness, a cloud before my eyes, like of those who toil in the dark. The thirst for life came ardently; I grabbed the man who helped me; did it so that, in a word, without wishing it, I killed him. Tired from the struggle, I fainted...

When I regained my senses I was in the rowboat of some mariners who rowed towards the open sea. Then I found out my savior had drowned because of me. He was a fatality, and black; and for that I laughed; laughed, while then sons of the sea wept. 

We reached a sloop that was weighing anchor. 

The captain was a beautiful man. Down his reddened face fell curly blonde locks on which old age had sprinkled some silver hairs. 

He asked me:

‘Who are you?’

‘A wretch that cannot live on land and wasn’t allowed to die at sea.’

‘Do you want to come aboard then?’

‘Unless you'd rather throw me into the sea.’

‘I wouldn’t do it; you have a beautiful figure. I’ll take you with me. You’ll work…’

‘Work?!’ I laughed; then answered him coldly: ‘Let me be thrown into the sea…’

‘Do you not want to work? Do you want to travel idly then?’

‘No; when it's time for maneuvers I’ll sleep, but when time for combat comes no one will be braver than I…’

‘Very well: I like you,’ said the old sea-wolf. ‘Now that we are acquainted, tell me your name and your story.’

‘My name is Bertram. My story? Listen: the past is a grave! Ask the sepulcher the story of the corpse! It keeps its secret… it will tell you only that it has a rotting body in its bosom! You’ll read a name on the stone— and nothing more!’

The captain furrowed his brows, and went forward to command the maneuver. 

The captain had a pretty girl on board. Pale creature, she looked to the poet like the angel of hope falling asleep forgotten amongst the waves. The sailors respected her: when during the moonlit nights she rested her arm on the bulwark and her face in her hand, those who passed by her removed their hats in reverence. Never had anyone seen looks of pride from her, nor heard words of anger: she was a saint. 

She was the captain’s wife. 

Between that brutal and valiant man, courageous king of the high seas, married, like the Venetian Doges to the Adriatic, to his adorned sloop— between that man and that madonna there was a man’s love which palpitates the heart that for long nights opened only to the moons of the lonely ocean, that fell asleep thinking of her in the cold of the arctic and in the warmth of the tropics, that sighed during the watch, late in the night at the ship’s railing, that remembered her on the late night fog, on the afternoon clouds… Poor madmen! Looks like these men love deeply! On board I heard many sailors going on about their ingenuous loves: blonde girls from Brittany and Normandy or some dark-haired Spanish woman seen while passing by— sitting at the beach with her basket of flowers, or asleep amongst the fragrant orange trees, or dancing the lewd fandango at the outdoor dances! There were... many faces alongside me, rough and burned with the sea’s sun, that were bathed in tears… 

Let's come back to the story. —The captain loved her like a madman... a little less than his honor, a little more than his sloop. 

And she?! She, in the midst of her melancholy, of her sadness and pallor, she smiled sometimes, when she was alone, but it was such a sad smile that it hurt. Poor thing! 

A poet would worship her on his knees[1]. One night— for sure I was drunk— I wrote her some verses. In languorous poetry I spilled a clear and precious essence that hadn’t yet been polluted by the world…

I’ll admit I cried while writing those verses. One day, months later, I read them, laughed at them and at myself and then tossed them into the sea… it was the last page of my virginity that I hurled into oblivion… 

Now, fill thy glasses: what I’m about to tell you is dark, and a horrible memory, like nightmares in the Ocean. 

With her tears, with her smiles, with her wet eyes and breasts heaving with sighs, that woman made my nights maddening. It was like a new life being born filled with desires, when I’d believed all them dead like children drowned in blood at birth. 

I loved her: why should I say more? She loved me too. One night the light shone clear and serene onto the waters, the clouds were white like a veil embroidered with night’s pearls, the wind sang in the rigging. I drank her in the purity of this moonlight, to the freshness of this night, a thousand kisses upon her face wet with tears, as one drinks the dew of a full lily. That palpitating breast, the silky outline, I pressed them against me… 

The captain slept. 

-

One time as the night fell the foretopman sighted a ship. Half an hour later he suspected it was a pirate…

We got closer and closer. A warning shot fired from the sloop called for their flag. They did not answer. A second shot was fired: nothing. And then a cannon ball fell in the waters around the unknown ship like a duel’s glove. The ship, that until then had followed a route opposite to ours and came with its bow against ours, turned to the side and showed us its smoky flank; a thunder raged in the pirate’s battery, a blast followed, and a cloud of shot came to die close to the sloop. 

She was not asleep, turned to starboard; the ships were side to side. The pirate trembled at the warship's broadside as if it was about to go under. 

-

The pirate ran; the sloop took chase; then blasts were exchanged with more strength from both sides. 

Finally the pirate seemed to surrender. The two ships were joined as if for a fight. The sloop hurled its crew on board the enemy’s. The combat turned bloody— it was a slaughter! The deck of the ship was slippery with so much blood, the sea bubbled with foam at the floating of so many corpses. In that moment some smoke that came from below deck was noticed. The pirate had set fire to the powder kegs… Only with a daring maneuver was the sloop able to get away from danger. But the explosion dealt her great damage. Some minutes later the pirate ship went up in the air. It was a frightful scene to witness among that bonfire of flames, to the blast of the powder, to the dazzling reverberation of the fire on the waters, the men that’d been thrown up into the air fall back into the ocean. 

Some, half burned, jumped into the water, others with members toasted and skin peeling off their bodies swam still in horrible pain and died twisting in curses. 

One league away from the scene of the combat there was an untouched beach, cut by rock mounds... The pirates that managed to escape saved themselves there. 

And while the captain beat his chest like a savage, I dishonored him like a coward. 

I don’t know how all the time after that was spent. It was a vision of doomed delights! Those were the loves of Satan and Eloah, of life and death, in the bosom of the sea. 

When I woke one day from that dream, the ship had run ashore at a sand bank; the rumbling of the keel biting the sand froze everyone in place… what woke me was a scream of agony…”

“Oi, woman, damned wench, can’t you see there’s no more wine?”

“Afterwards was a horrible picture! It was us in a raft on the open sea. Those who have read Don Juan, who perhaps made that venom your Bible, who slept the nights of satiety like I, who came to see dawn so many times with my face over it and my eyes still fixed upon it, will know how much one is filled with horror at those men being hurled into the sea, on a horizonless ocean, to the swing of the waters that seem to drown their derision in the cold muteness of fatality! 

One night, the storm came… we only had time to tie up our provisions… one must see the ocean growling in the dark like a band of hungry lions to know what a storm is! One must see it from a raft to the light of the storm, to the blasphemies of those who don’t believe and curse, to the tears of those who wait and despair, to the sobs of those who tremble and quiver with fright like when the door is suddenly knocked on… and I, I laughed: I was like the genius of skepticism in that desert. Every wave that swept our boards dragged a man, but every wave that roared at my feet seemed to respect me. It was an Ocean like that fiery one where Milton, the blind,'s lost angels fell; when they swam through them, the waters of the lava swamp gave way: death was for the children of God, not for the bastard of evil!  

I spent that whole night with the captain’s wife in my arms. It was a terrible entanglement that which was consummated between an infidel and a pale woman who was losing her mind: the marriage bed was the ocean, the foam of the waves was the silk that covered our bed. Among that concerto of howls going on at our feet, the moans suffocated us and we rolled together, tied to a rope in the raft, over the planks… 

When dawn came, there were five of us left: I, the captain’s wife, he and two sailors… 

For some days we ate some crackers salted with sea water’s salt. Then all of the most horrible things came to pass…

Why so pale, Solfieri? This is how life is. You know it as well as I do. What is man? It’s the scum that seethes in the storm today and dissolves tomorrow: something mad and moving like the waves, fatal like the grave! What is existence? In youth it is the kaleidoscope of illusions; then, one lives off the dew of the future. Then we grow old: when we reach thirty and the sweat of agonies whitened our hair before due time and withered, like our faces, our hopes, we oscillate between the visionary past and this tomorrow of old, cold and lonely— like a corpse that’s washed before being committed to the grave! Misery! Madness!”

“Very good! Misery and madness!” a voice interrupted.

The man who spoke was old. His head was balding and long and deep wrinkles made it gaunt: those were waves that the wind of old age had carved into the sea of his life… brown eyes shone under thick gray eyebrows and a thick mustache covered part of his lips. He wore a worn dark jacket and a faded cloak of the same color hung from his shoulders. 

“Who are you, old man?” asked the narrator. 

“I was walking by outside: the rain was pouring, the storm was frightful, so I entered. Good evening, gentlemen! If there be another glass in your table, fill it to the brim and I’ll drink with you.”

“Who are you?”

“Who am I? In truth tis’ hard to say: I’ve traveled much in the world, changing names and lives at every moment. I’ve been a poet, and as a poet I sang. I’ve been a soldier and bathed my young head in the last sunlight rays of the eagle of Waterloo. Shook in the heat of battle the hand of the man of the century. I drank at a tavern with Bocage, the Portuguese, knelt at the tomb of Dante in Italy and went to Greece to dream like Byron on that tomb of glories past— who am I? I was a poet at twenty, a libertine at thirty, I’m a vagabond without country or faith at forty. I sat in the shadow of all suns, kissed the lips of women from all around the world; and this entire pilgrimage brought only two memories— the love of a woman who died in my arms on the first night of intoxication and fever— and a poet’s agony… From her, I have a withered rose and the ribbon that bound her hair. From him, look…” 

The old man took a package from his pocket: the wrapper was a red fabric; untied it: a skull was inside. 

“A skull!” men yelled around him. “Are you a grave robber?”

“Look, young man, if you understand the science of Gall and Spurzheim[2], tell me, by the protuberance of this forehead and the humps of this head, who could've been this man?”

“Perhaps a poet… perhaps a madman.”

“Well done! You have guessed. You’re only wrong by not saying that he could be these two things at once. Seneca said it: poetry is madness. Perhaps genius is a hallucination and enthusiasm requires intoxication to write the fervent and sanguinary anthem of Rouget de l’Isle[3] or to, in the creation of the frightening panel of dead Christ by Holbein, study the decay of a corpse. In the mysterious life of Dante, in the orgies of Marlowe, in the pilgrimages of Byron there was a shadow of Hamlet’s ailment: who knows?”

“But what does this all come to?”

“Did you not cry out ‘misery and madness’! You, souls where perhaps once the breath of God bubbled, brains that genius’ divine light enlightened and that wine filled with vapors and the satiety of jeers? Fill the glasses to the brim! Fill them and drink them; drink to the memory of the brain that burned in this skull, to the soul that inhabited it, to the mad poet— Werner! And I shall cry out once again— misery and madness!”

The old man emptied his cup, shrouded himself and left. Bertram continued his story:

“I was telling you that something terrible was about to come to pass: there was no more food, and the voice of instinct, of the hungry guts, pleading for their sustenance like a dog at a slaughterhouse, though [that sustenance] was blood, awakened in man.

Hunger! Thirst! Everything there is of most horrible! 

In truth, gentlemen, is man a perfect creature? Sublime sculptor, God exhausted all His diligence in the carving of this marble. Divine Prometheus, He filled his protuberant skull with the light of genius. He lifted him by the hand, showed him the world from the mountain, like Satan did to Christ forty centuries later, and told him: see, all of this is beautiful— valleys and mountains, sea water that foams, leaves in the forests that tremble and whisper like my angels' wings— all of this is yours. I made you the beautiful world in the purple veil of twilight, made it golden with the rays of my face for you. Behold, king of the Earth! Bathe thy Olympic temple in these breezes, in this dew, in the foam of these waterfalls. Dream like the nights, sing like the angels, sleep amidst the flowers! Look! Amidst the flowery leaves of the valley sleeps a creature, pale like the veil of my virgins, blonde like the reflex of my clouds, harmonious like the sky's breezes in the forests of the earth. She’s yours: wake her, love her and she will love you; drown in her breast, in the waves of her hair like the sun between vapors. King in her bosom, king on earth, live off of love and faith, off of poetry and beauty, get up, go and you shall be happy! 

This is all beautiful, yes! But it is the most bitter irony, the disappointment most arid of all the ironies and all the disappointments. All of this fades before two most prosaic facts— hunger and thirst. 

The genius, the haughty eagle that loses itself in the clouds, that warms itself on the irradiance of the most ardent light from the sun— to fall like that in the mud of the moors, with lousy and verminous wings? Poet, why is it that in the middle of the most sublime ecstasy of spirit, a sarcastic and mephistophelian voice yells at you: ‘My Faust, illusions… is reality matter?!’ God wrote Λνα ́γκη[4], on the forehead of his creature!— Don Juan! Why do you cry to this warm kiss of Haidée's as she faints in your arms[5]?! A whore will sell those to you tomorrow more burning! Misery! And to say that everything there is of the most divine in man, most holy and perfumed in the soul melts away in the filth of reality, revolves in the swamp and still finds one infamous convulsion to say ‘I am happy!’…

All of that, gentlemen, to tell you something very simple… an old and beaten fact, a practice of the sea, a law of shipwreck— anthropophagy. 

Two days after we ran out of food there were three people left: myself, the captain, and her— we were three emaciated figures like corpses, whose naked chests heaved with agony, whose deep and dark stares were bloodshot like madness. 

The custom of the sea— I don’t mean to say the voice of physical nature, the cry of man’s egotism— commands the death of one for the life the rest. We cast our lots... by law the captain had to die.

And then the instinct of life woke him still. For one more day of existence, one more day of hunger and thirst, of a bed humid and swept by the cold winds of the north, a few more dead hours of blasphemy and agony, of hope and desperation, of prayers and disbelief, of fever and eagerness, the man knelt, cried, moaned at my feet…

‘Look,’ said the miserable man, ‘let us wait until tomorrow… God will have mercy on us… by your mother, by the entrails of your mother! By God if he exists! Let me, let me live still!’

Oh! Hope is like a parasite that bites and tears a tree trunk apart, and when it falls, when it dies and rots, still squeezes it in its shaking arms! To wait! When the sea wind whips the waves, when the sea foam washes your livid and naked body, when the horizon is deserted and endless and the sails that whiten afar the distance seem to flee! Poor madman! 

I laughed at the old man. My guts were on fire. To die today, tomorrow, or later… I was indifferent to everything, but today I was hungry, and I laughed because I was hungry.

The old man reminded me that he took me aboard his ship out of pity for me, reminded me that he loved me… and a storm of sobs and tears drowned the brave man that had never paled before death. 

It seems like death in the ocean is terrible to other men: when blood sprays their face, drenches their hands, they run towards death like a river towards the sea, like a rattlesnake to fire. But like this… in the watery desert… they fear it, they tremble before the cold skull of death! 

I laughed because I was hungry. 

Then the man rose. Fury rose in him with his last agony. He was staggering, and a cold sweat ran down his rawboned chest. He squeezed me in his yellowed arms, and we fought, chest to chest, foot for foot… for one day of misery! 

The yellowed moon raised her faded face, like a whore tired from a night of debauchery, the dark sky seemed to mock these two dying men that fought for one hour of agony…

The combat's bravest became faint… he fell; I put my foot against his throat, suffocated him and he died… 

Do not cover your face in your hands— you would’ve done the same… That corpse was our nourishment for two days… 

Later, the seabirds flew lower to share my prey; and during my nights of satiety a shadow came to claim its ration of human flesh…

I threw the remains into the sea…

The captain’s wife and I spent one day, two, without eating or drinking…

And so she proposed to die with me— I told her yes. That day was the last agony of the love that burned us; we spent it in convulsions to feel one last time the fresh honey of voluptuousness bathe our lips… it was the feverish rapture that two creatures in deathly delirium may have. When I freed myself from her arms the weakness was making her delirious. The delirium grew longer and longer, she'd lean over the waves and drink the salt water and offer it to me in her pale hands saying it was wine. The cold laughter came more and more erratically...

She was mad.

I did not sleep, could not sleep: an ardent torpor boiled my eyelids, the breath from my chest felt like fire, my dry, split lips just oozed blood.

I had fever in the brain... and hunger in my stomach. Hunger like a beast.

I squeezed her in my arms, pushed my burning mouth against her lips, squeezed her convulsively, suffocated her. She was still so beautiful!

I don’t know what strange delirium took hold of me. Some vertigo surrounded me. The sea seemed to laugh at me and circled around, foaming and greenish, like a whirlpool. The clouds that hovered above hurried by and seemed to filter black blood. The wind that blew through my hair seemed to whisper a memory…

Suddenly I felt alone. A wave had stolen my corpse. I saw it float as pale as its white clothing, half-naked, with its hair soaked in water; I saw it rise in the foam of the waves, like a sheet thrown to the waters…

How many hours, how many days I spent in that torpor, I do not know… When I woke from this waking man’s nightmare, I was aboard a ship.

It was the English brig Swallow that had saved me…[6]”

“Oi, barmaid, Satan’s bastard! Can’t you see I’m thirsty and the bottles are dry, dry like your face and our throats?”

-

Note: In the original text, the captain is referred to by the word "comandante" throughout, the direct translation of which is "commander", but I decided that the context in which it is used in the text best fits the word "captain" in English.

[1] In a letter from May 11th 1848 to his friend Luís Antônio da Silva, Álvares says of a girl he’s attracted to: “she’s the kind of woman to place inside a bell jar and worship on your knees”.

[2] Allusion to the pseudoscience of phrenology. Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) and his disciple Johann Gaspar Spurzheim (1776-1832) thought that measuring the bumps on a human’s skull could predict mental traits. Very popular concept with the Romantics.

[3] Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle (spelled here as L’Isle): French army officer who wrote the words and music to La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. 

[4] Greek word intended to mean fate, destiny, fatality; though it seems to be misspelled.

[5] Haidée is a character from Byron's Don Juan; she is the homonymous main character's bride (and savior).

[6] There were several English brigs named Swallow, but since it is unclear when the story is set, there's no way to know which one this is in reference to. And since it is such a common name, Álvares may have just seen it written on the hull of one of the countless English ships on the Guanabara Bay.

I hope you enjoyed! Next up is Gennaro. :)

[tricksters-captain]

Bucky Barnes imagines - Some Sunny Day Part 2

AN: I’m splitting episode 3 into two chapters because so much happens. 

Summary: Before the Blip, you and Bucky were close. After you both returning and Tony’s funeral, you decided to go back to your home town to spend time with your family. When duty calls, you return.  

In this chapter: Despite your protests, Bucky seeks out Zemo (Based on S1 EP3)

(PART 1 HERE)

Pairing(s): Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader, Sam Wilson x Platonic!Reader

Word Count: 5,196

Warnings: Spoilers for episode 3, violence, strong language. 

You watched Bucky as he sat beside you on the aircraft. 

“Do you mind?” Bucky’s side eye didn’t make you look away. 

“I’m just trying to see what’s going through that head of yours.” You confessed. You were all on your way to Germany to visit Zemo. It wasn’t a plan you were happy with but it was the plan. 

“Don’t bother.” Bucky frowned, looking down at his hands on his lap. “And don’t ask me if I think this is a good idea again.” 

“I wasn’t going to ask that.” You turned away from the man.

“What was it then?” Bucky asked. 

“I was going to ask if you were sure you wanted to do this.” It was another question you had already asked 20 times or more but you couldn’t shake the overwhelming feeling of anxiety about this trip. 

“She has a right to be worried, Buck. The last time you were alone with Zemo, you ended up putting (Y/n) through three windows.” Sam reminded you both of what happened the last time you were in Berlin. 

“It won’t happen this time.” Bucky tried to reassure you both but you still felt uneasy. 

After another hour or so Sam announced that you were almost there. 

It was a short drive to the prison from the airport but once you were inside, you felt your chest begin to tighten again. 

“He’s just through that corridor.” The German guard gestured up ahead and that’s when Bucky stopped you. 

“Alright. Give us a sec.” Bucky instructed the security guard before turning to you and Sam. “I’m gonna go in alone.”

“Why?” Sam asked, 

“You’re Avengers. You know how he feels about that.” Bucky said as he looked between the two of you. 

“It’s not like you two were known for frolickin’ in the sun together.” Sam felt he needed to remind Bucky of the past again. However, Bucky stood his ground. 

“He was obsessed with HYDRA. We have a history together. Trust me. I got it.” 

“Buck...” You started, 

“I got it.” He repeated himself before you could say anything else. 

You watched Bucky head through the doors alone. 

“Let’s wait outside. This place gives me the creeps.” Sam encouraged you to follow him to which you didn’t do without hesitation. 

Sam brought you a hot drink as you sat on a bench outside. 

“I forgot how worried he can make you.” Sam admitted as he sat down beside you.

“I’ve seen what he went through, Sam. All of it leading up to Zemo. I just... I don’t want it happening to him again.” You knew you couldn’t explain the extent of why you cared for Bucky. 

“You love him.” Sam said. It wasn’t a question but rather a statement. “I can see it clear as day. Anyone could if they stuck around long enough.” 

“Why are you bringing this up, Sam?” You sighed, looking away from him. 

“Because it’s also obvious that he loves you too. You run around driving each other crazy with worry but you have none of the good stuff that comes with being in love with someone.” 

“What do you know about love, Don Juan?” You chuckled as you tried to lighten the tone.

“I know it when I see it.” Sam smiled but there was a sadness behind his eyes. 

“Things are complicated, Sam.” You muttered, “You already know that.” 

“Well I also think that if Bucky got some he’d be a whole lot less angsty all the damn time.” You knew Sam only said it to make you laugh but you still gave him a whack for the comment. 

“Shut up, Sam.” You shook your head, trying not to smile at the inappropriate comment. 

Sam kept you entertained by a couple of silly games of rock, paper, scissors before Bucky returned. 

“Come on, I got some information. We gotta go.” Bucky hurried you and Sam along. 

“Just like that?” You were surprised that Zemo even spoke to Bucky at all. 

“A location. I’ll explain everything once we get there.” Bucky wasn’t giving you much information and it was making you a little suspicious. 

“Hey, hey, hey...” Sam ran after Bucky, stopping him. “You gotta give us a little more than that.”

“Zemo agreed to help us after hearing that there were more super soldiers. It was his life ambition to stop the winter soldier programme and he’s given us a lead.” Bucky explained. 

“And you’re just gonna trust his word?” You probed. 

“There’s not much else we can do.” Bucky did make a point. 

It didn’t take long to reach the large warehouse/garage that Bucky wanted to go to. 

Bucky on the way had started rambling about breaking Zemo out of jail in order to help you guys which sounded ridiculous to you. 

“Tell me you’re joking, Buck.” You pleaded, unsure whether he had lost his mind entirely. 

“He’s our best shot at finding who is making the serum and he’d be a lot more useful out than in.” Bucky opened the door to the building and you followed him inside.

“What are you talking about? You wanna break Zemo outta jail? Where are we, Buck? Have you lost your mind?” Sam was just as lost as you were as he shot questions at Bucky. 

“We have no leads, no moves, nothing.” Bucky sighed as you made your way in with your flashlights. 

“What we have is one of the most dangerous men in the world behind bars.” Sam argued. 

“We also have eight Super Soldiers that are loose.” Bucky retorted. 

“Anyway, I thought this was a lead?” You tried to look around but the place was badly lit. There were mainly mechanic tools and lots of storage scattered around. 

“It’s complicated.” Bucky frowned.

“What’s complicated is Zemo. He’s gonna mess with our minds. Especially yours. No offence.” Sam shone his flashlight at Bucky as he spoke. 

“Offence.” Bucky didn’t look impressed as he found the light switch. “Super Soldiers go against everything he believes in. He is crazy, but he still has a code.” 

“I’ve been on the wrong side of that code and so have you. He blew up the UN, he killed King T’Chaka and framed you for it. Did you forget that? You think the Wakandans forgot about it? It’s a rhetorical question. They didn’t. I know why this matters to you, but it’s pushing you off the deep end.” Sam stepped closer to Bucky. You couldn’t deny that Sam had a point. Zemo was the one who tore the avengers apart by framing Bucky.  “We don’t know how they’re gettin’ the serum. We don’t even know how many of them there are.” Bucky couldn’t give up. “Let me just walk you through a hypothetical. Can I?”

“What did you do?” Sam narrowed his eyes at Bucky. 

You were busy looking inside the car that was revealed by the lights coming on. 

“I didn’t do anything.” Bucky shook his head before he continued with his ‘hypothetical’. 

“The weakest point in any system isn’t the software, the hardware, it’s the meatware. The human element. Now, in this lockup, it’s nine to one, prisoners to guards. And if two prisoners start fighting, then the protocol says four guards have to respond.”

“So why would two prisoners randomly start fighting at that moment? Who knows?” Sam questioned. 

“There could be many reasons…” Bucky shrugged. “But the point is, these things escalate. Lockdown procedures would have to be initiated, and with all those bodies flying around left and right, wouldn’t be hard to slip down a hallway or two.

At this point, you stopped looking around and looked over at Bucky with your arms across your chest. You weren’t liking how thought out this plan was sounding. 

“And if the fire alarm got tripped while the prisoners were being separated someone could use the chaos to their advantage.” Bucky continued. 

“I don’t like how casual you’re bein’ about this. This is unnatural. Are you… And where are we, man?” Sam gestured around the place with confusion locked on his face. 

“Bucky, I’m with Sam on this one. I’ve got a bad feeling and–––” A door opening behind you cut you short. 

You turned around to see Zemo walk through the plastic door curtains. 

“Woah, woah, woah!” Sam jumped forward instructively. Bucky managed to stop him but he didn't stop you. 

You rushed towards Zemo and held the tip of one of your knives to his Adams apple as he held his hands up. 

“What are you doing here?” Sam shouted at Zemo before snapping back to Bucky.

“I didn’t tell ’cause I knew you wouldn’t let this happen.” Bucky admitted. 

“What did you do?” Sam pointed at Zemo in shock.

“We need him.” Bucky stated to which you chuckled harshly, pressing your knife a little harder. 

“You’re going back to prison!” Sam called over. 

“If I may..? “ Zemo tried to speak but you all shut him up with a unanimous ‘No.’

“Apologies.” Zemo mumbled. 

“(Y/n), put the knife down.” Bucky came towards you and wrapped his hand round your wrist. “Please?” 

You did. Slowly. 

“Look, when Steve refused to sign the Sokovia Accords, you both backed him. You broke the law, and you stuck your neck out for me. I’m asking you to do it again.” Bucky looked back and forth from you to Sam. 

“I really think I’m invaluable.” Zemo spoke again. 

“Shut up.” You rose the knife again to which Zemo took a step back and pretended to zip his mouth shut. 

“Okay.” Sam sighed after a moment of contemplation. “If we do this, you don’t make a move without our permission.”

“Fair.” Zemo nodded. 

“Bucky... You understand what this means right? If they find out we took Zemo, specifically you. We’ll be on the run again and I don’t know if there will be a pardon this time either.” The concern in your eyes made Bucky frown. 

“It’ll be alright. He's the only shot we got to stop these guys.” Bucky wasn’t sure if he believed his own words but he was praying that this was the best thing to do. 

“Alright.” You turned to Zemo. “So where do we start?”

Zemo gestured for you to follow him before taking you into another dark room. You kept your knife in your hand just in case.

He reached for the light switch to reveal a mass of classic cars. 

“So our first move is grand theft auto?” Sam cocked his eyebrow at the impressive collection.  

“These are mine. Collected by family over the generations. I spent years hunting people HYDRA recruited to recreate the serum. Because once it’s out there, someone can create an army of people… like the Avengers.”  Zemo entered one of the cars and pulled out a bag. “I ended the Winter Soldier program once before. I have no intention to leave my work unfinished. To do this, we’ll have to scale a ladder of lowlifes.”

“Well, join the party. We’ve already started.” Sam told the man.

“First stop is a woman named Selby. Mid-level fence I still have a line on. From there, we climb.” Zemo took his bag and headed into another room. 

“Jesus... How big is this place?” You looked around to see it was full of clothes. 

“First I change and then we head to Selby.” Zemo placed the bag down before filing through one if the rails of clothes. 

“How are we supposed to get anywhere with Zemo on our hands? We can’t exactly call Torres and ask for a ride but please ignore the fugitive that’s coming with us.” You looked between the boys. 

“I will get us there.” Zemo told you. 

“Great.” You pressed a fake smile onto your face which Zemo chose not to acknowledge.

Before you knew it you were at the airport at Zemo’s private jet.

“So all this time you’ve been rich?” Sam’s eyes went wide at the sight of the plane.

“I’m a Baron, Sam. My family was royalty until your friends destroyed my country.” Zemo spoke as if it was well known information. You felt a pang hit you in the chest, it happened every time you thought of Sokovia... it was guilt. 

You watched Zemo greet an elderly man in a suit before you entered the jet. 

You sat furtherest away from Zemo, still feeling very uncomfortable about him being free and under your custody. 

You watched him sip on a glass of champagne like he had no worries in the world. 

“You don’t know what it’s like to be locked in a cell. Oh. That’s right you do.” Zemo reminded you of the time Tony had locked a lot of the avengers up. 

“Why don’t you tell us about where we’re going?” Sam suggested. 

 “I’m sorry. I was just fascinated by this. I don’t know what to call it, but this part seems to be important. Who is Nakajima?” 

Before you could blink, Bucky had lunged forward and taken Zemo by the neck.  

“If you touch that again, I’ll kill you.” Bucky kept hold of Zemo for a second longer before sitting back down. You had fought the urge to get up and take hold of his arm to calm him down.  

"I’m sorry. I understand that list of names. People you’ve wronged as the Winter Soldier.” Zemo made no attempt at a sincere apology for the invasion of privacy.  

“Don’t push it.”  Bucky warned him.

“I’ve seen that book. It was Steve’s when he came out of the ice. I told him about Trouble Man. He wrote it in that book. Did you hear it? What’d you think?” Sam smiled as he thought back on the memory. 

“I like ’40s music, so…” Bucky shrugged. 

“You didn’t like it?” Sam seemed more shock to hear this than when he saw Zemo. 

“I liked it.” Bucky proclaimed. 

“It is a masterpiece, James. Complete. Comprehensive. It captures the African-American experience.” Even Zemo had to get involved. 

“He’s out of line, but he’s right. It’s great. Everybody loves Marvin Gaye.” Sam turned back to Bucky after giving side eye to Zemo. 

“I like Marvin Gaye.” Bucky repeated. 

“Steve adored Marvin Gaye.” Sam couldn’t drop it but you didn’t bother getting involved. 

You looked at the book in Bucky’s hands. You knew Steve had given it to him before but seeing it again after all this time brought up a hundred thoughts. You remembered the many things you had told Steve to watch or eat or listen to like ABBA, Mochi ice cream and pranking him by suggesting the twilight movie as must see. 

“You must have really looked up to Steve.” Zemo mentioning Steve made you look up again. “But I realised something when I met him. The danger with people like him, America’s Super Soldiers, is that we put them on pedestals.”

“Watch your step, Zemo.” Sam warned him. 

“They become symbols. Icons. And then we start to forget about their flaws. From there, cities fly, innocent people die. Movements are formed, wars are fought. You remember that, right?” Zemo looked over at Bucky. “As a young soldier sent to Germany to stop a mad icon. Do we want to live in a world full of people like the Red Skull? That is why we’re going to Madripoor.” 

“What’s up with Madripoor? You talk about it like it’s Skull Island.” Sam asked but you already knew of Madripoor. Anyone with links to the underworld of crime knew of Madripoor. 

“It’s an island nation in the Indonesian archipelago. It was a pirate sanctuary back in the 1800s.” Bucky informed him. 

“It’s kept its lawless ways. But we cannot exactly walk in as ourselves. James, you will have to become someone you claim is gone.” Zemo looked down at his duffel bag of clothes that you had watched him pack before.

“What do you mean by that?” You finally chimed into the conversation. 

“James will have to retake the person of the Winter Soldier. You both will have a role to play also.” Zemo explained, turning to face you as you sat in the chair by the back wall of the jet. 

“Bucky, can I speak to you privately?” You looked past Zemo to Bucky. Bucky gave you a look to ask where would you go so you stood and opened the cabin toilets door. 

Bucky huffed before following you in.

“Bucky I’m not okay with this.” You whispered as you pressed yourself up against the wall so you could try and fit both you and Bucky a little more comfortably. 

“This isn’t up to you.” Bucky sighed. 

 “Everything about this situation is making every nerve in my body scream this is a bad idea.” You folded your arms across your chest as you stared up at Bucky. 

“How many times do I have to tell you that this is the only plan we got?” 

“I don’t trust him.” You kept your voice low as you threw your hand up in the direction of the door. 

“Do you trust me?” Bucky asked. 

“I’m starting to question it.” You muttered. 

Bucky just stared at you in response. 

“Yes, I trust you.” You grumbled, caving in. 

“Anyway I have you if things go bad.” Bucky tried to make light of the situation but you weren't impressed. 

You left the bathroom and remained silent until you drew closer to Madripoor. 

Upon your arrival in Madripoor, you were handed some clothes to change into. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me?” You held up the small material dress that you were meant to wear. 

“I had to choose a disguise that would cover your face. Too many people here would know you from your days before the avengers and after.” Zemo defended his choice of ‘costume’ for you. 

“So I’m assassin barbie?” You scoffed before taking to the bathroom to change. 

You slid on the black leather playsuit and boots, along with the mask that Zemo gave you. 

You felt exposed and uncomfortable. You managed to hide a few knives in your boots and you slid on a thigh holster to hold some more to make you feel like you were protected at least. 

“Loose the knives.” Zemo instructed. 

“Are you serious?” You were growing more agitated by the minute with this man. 

“You are playing an escort. You can’t have knives on show.” Zemo pointed to your holster. 

You bit down on your cheek as you removed it. 

“Fine.” You then left the plane to Sam and Bucky waiting outside. Bucky’s eyes went wide at the sight of you but he tried to hide it by clearing his throat and looking away. 

“We have to fix this. I’m the only one who looks like a pimp.” Sam was wearing a red patterned suit and chains. He didn’t look too bad in it either.

“Only an American would assume a fashion-forward Black man looks like a pimp. You look exactly like the man you’re supposed to be playing. The sophisticated, charming African rake named Conrad Mack, aka the Smiling Tiger.” Zemo handed Sam his phone revealing a picture of Conrad Mack.

“He even has a bad nickname. Hell, he does look like me, though.” Sam took the phone and looked down at the picture. 

“(Y/n) is playing your partner for the night. Conrad is known for his appreciation for the finer things in life and often has a woman on his arm Therefore, (Y/n), you must be attached to Sam’s hip the entire night.” Zemo filled you all in on the reason behind your disguise. 

“Excuse me, what?” Bucky almost choked at the idea of you having to be Sam’s woman for the night. 

“Well it is the only disguise that makes sense. She can’t be your girlfriend as you are the Winter Soldier. She can’t be mine as everyone knows I am loyal to my wife. She has to be the smiling tigers current whore.” 

“Watch your mouth.” Bucky hissed. 

“We all must play a part.” Zemo defended his choice of words. “You smell this?”

“Yeah, what is that? Acid?” Sam asked. 

“Madripoor. No matter what happens, we have to stay in character. Our lives depend on it. There’s no margin for error. High Town’s that way. Not a bad place if you wanna visit, but Low Town’s the other way.” Zemo gestured across the city as a car approached you all. 

“Let me guess. We don’t have any friends in High Town.” You sighed as Zemo opened the car door for you. 

“Not if we want the answers we are looking for.” Zemo climbed into the car after you and then the boys followed. 

It didn't take too long to find the way to low town. You had been to Madripoor before but it had been years ago. 

You did as you were ordered when you all exited Zemo’s car. You stuck by Sam, walking in the middle of Sam and Bucky. 

The air wasn’t cold but it felt thick, you could feel it sticking to your bare skin which gave you the desperate urge to take a long shower. 

“Here we are.” Zemo had brought you to a bar. It was busy and filled with a lot of men.  

“Ready to comply, Winter Soldier?” You heard Zemo ask Bucky in Russian. 

You heard whispers around you questioning if Bucky was who everyone thought he was. It made your gut clench with nerves but you didn’t let it show. 

“Hello, gentlemen. Wasn’t expecting you, Smiling Tiger.” The bartender greeted Sam and Zemo but barely brushed a glance over you.

“His plans changed. We have business to do with Selby.” Zemo spoke for Sam. You then felt Sam wrap his arm around your waist. You leaned into him, batting your eyelashes first at Sam and then the bartender. 

“The usual?” The bartender asked Sam. He nodded, afraid that if he spoke then it would give away the facade. 

You were thankful you were wearing a face mask when you saw the drink made for the Smiling Tiger. You grimaced at the dead snake being cut open and then again when one of its organs was dropped into Sam’s shot. 

“Ah, Smiling Tiger. Your favourite.” Zemo picked up his own drink as he looked down at Sam’s. 

“I love these.” Sam forced himself to speak. 

“Cheers, Conrad.” Zemo and Sam touched glasses before Sam hesitantly shot back the drink. You could tell Bucky enjoyed watching that. 

“I got word from on high. You ain’t welcome here.” A man suddenly approached from behind and tapped Zemo on the shoulder. You felt Sam’s grip on you tighten protectively. 

“I have no business with the Power Broker, but if he insists, he can either come and talk to me...” Zemo held his hand out to show his new bodyguard. 

“New haircut?” The stranger looked Bucky up and down. 

“Or bring Selby for a chat.” Zemo gave him the other option. The man retreated. 

“A power broker? Really?” Bucky spoke once the stranger had left.

“Every kingdom needs its king. Let’s just pray we stay under his radar.”

“Do you know him?” Sam asked. 

“Only by reputation.” Zemo admitted honestly.

“In Madripoor he is judge, jury, and executioner. You can’t visit low town without appearing on his radar.” You spoke up as you let yourself look around the room and take in just how many threats were around. 

“And you know this why?” Sam looked down at you. He must've forgotten your past. 

“I was a free agent before the Avengers. I've been here undercover a few times especially when I was a young teenager. Surprise Surprise evil guys like little girls.” You kept quiet in case anyone around was listening. 

Zemo suddenly spoke a command for Bucky in Russian once again and that’s when another stranger put his hands on Zemo. 

You watched Bucky follow orders and he didn’t hold back. 

He grabbed hold of the strangers wrist and pulled him off Zemo before attacking him and several others around. 

You took notice of those around with their phones out. Cameras...

You went to step forward when you felt Sam squeeze your side. He gave you a look that told you no. 

“Didn’t take much for him to fall back into form.” Zemo muttered to you and Sam. You wanted to punch him. 

Bucky slammed another man onto the bar and that’s when you heard the wave of guns cocking. 

Sam took hold of Bucky’s arm when Zemo told him to stay in character. 

Instead Zemo told Bucky to stand down once you were informed you could see Selby. 

Sam took hold of you hand and dragged you along side him as you all left the bar. 

“She isn’t welcome.” One of the guards stopped you before you could enter the room. 

“Excuse me?” Sam scoffed at the guard. “She’s with me and so she is welcome.” 

“Let her in!” You heard an English accent call from ahead. 

“You should know, Baron. People don’t just come into my bar and make demands.” Selby was an older woman with a white pixie cut and a sly grin. Sam remained stood and so did Bucky but Sam had commanded you to take a seat next to Zemo. 

“Not a demand. An offer.” Zemo was impressing you by how cool he was playing this. It also worried you. 

“A lot has changed since you were here last. By the way, I thought you were rotting away in a German prison. How did you escape?“ Selby asked. 

“People like us always find a way, don’t we? I’m sure you’ve already figured out what I’m here for.”

“You’re taller than I’d heard, Smiling Tiger.” Selby ignored Zemo as she eyed up Sam.” What’s the offer?”

“Tell us what you know about the super-soldier serum. And I give you him, along with the code words to control him, of course. He will do anything you want.”Zemo had risen from his seat and held Bucky by the chin. 

“Now that’s the Zemo I remember. I’m glad I decided not to kill you immediately. Yeah, you were right to come to me. Arrogant, but right. The super-soldier serum is here in Madripoor. Dr. Wilfred Nagel is the man you wanna thank...Or condemn, depending on what side of this you’re on. The Power Broker had him working on the serum, but… things didn’t go as planned.” Selby fed you what she knew. 

“Is Nagel still in Madripoor?” Zemo questioned. 

“Oh. The bread crumbs you can have for free, but the bakery is gonna cost you, Baron. And before you get all cute, don’t think you can find Nagel without me.” Selby pushed herself from her seat and walked across the room. 

That’s when Sam’s mobile went off. 

“Answer it. On speaker.” Selby ordered. The gun behind Sam made him pull out his phone. 

“Hello?” He answered. 

“Hey, um, we need to talk about this situation. It’s been drivin’ me nuts.” A woman’s voice came through. 

“What situation exactly are you talkin’ about?” Sam tried his best to keep up his persona. 

“Are you high? You know what situation, it’s the only situation me and you have.” The woman’s attitude was not helping Sam’s case. 

“What situation, Sarah? Say it.” Sam demanded. 

“The damn boat. And watch your tone. Okay? I let you slide at the bank.” Sarah snapped back. 

“The bank. Yeah. Laundered so much...” Sam chuckled. “Yeah, they’ll come around.”

“If that was the case, then why’d they dog you out, Big Time?” Sarah asked. 

“Yeah, you damn right I’m Big Time. You’ll see when I have that banker killed.” Sam tried to seem intimidating but at that moment you knew you were screwed. You reached down into your boot to take a knife just in case. 

“Cass! What’d I tell you about the Cheerios? I don’t have time for this! Sam, I’m sorry. I’ll call you back.” Sarah had used Sam’s name and that was the end of it. 

“Sam? Who’s Sam?” Selby looked pissed. “Kill them!” She ordered but before her hired men could react, a bullet came through the window and shot Selby down. 

You snatched two knives from your boot and sent them into the guard behind Sam. 

Bucky immediately reacted with taking out the other guard. 

“They’re gonna pin this on us.” You took the knives from the body as the boys took the guns. 

“We have a real problem now, so leave your weapons and follow my lead.” Zemo’s order made the boys put their guns down but you just wiped your knives and placed them back in your boot. 

You left the club in a hurry. Text chimes went off around you and you knew the power broker had seen what happened. 

You were well and truly fucked. 

“This is not good.” Zemo’s last words before the shooting started. 

You took off alongside Bucky and Sam, cursing the fact that Zemo had put you in the most uncomfortable shoes on the planet. 

“I can’t run in these heels!” Sam shouted which almost made you laugh. 

“Down here!” You took a turn into an alley to get off the road as two mopeds appeared behind you. 

Before you could spin around to fight, a shooter had taken them out. 

“You seem to have a guardian angel.” Zemo looked just. as confused you felt. You weren’t aware you knew anyone who was in Madripoor at the moment. 

“Well, this is too perfect. Drop it, Zemo.” A familiar face soon revealed itself from the shadows. 

“Sharon?” Sam furrowed his brow at the woman. 

“You cost me everything.” Sharon ignore Sam as she spoke to Zemo. 

“Sharon, wait. Someone recreated the super-soldier serum and Zemo had a lead.” Sam stepped ahead of Zemo to protest him. 

“That explains why you guys are here. And Selby’s dead.”Sharon glowered at the four of you. 

“So what are you doing here?” Bucky asked the question on everyones mind. 

“I stole Steve’s shield, remember? I also took the wings for your ass, so that you could save him from him. I didn’t have the Avengers to back me up. So I’m off the grid in Madripoor.” Sharon informed you.

“Don’t blow smoke. Both (Y/n) and I were on the run, too.” Sam didn't bother with feeling pity. 

“Was. Is. Big difference. I don’t speak to my family anymore. I can’t. My own father doesn’t know where I am.” Sharon shot back. 

“Listen, Sharon, we need your help.” Bucky interrupted her before she could say anything else.  

“Please.” You added. You and Sharon were friendly for a time before the world went to hell. You figured she’d help you at least. 

“This isn’t over. I have a place in High Town. You’ll be safe there for a while.” Sharon sighed, giving in and lowering her gun. 

“Thank you.” You pressed a small smile onto your face but Sharon didn’t reciprocate. 

She managed to get you to a car safely and you headed out of low town for the night. 

(PART 3 HERE)

Bucky Barnes Tag List 

@florencxs @mystictimetravelcolor @yourphotographyteen16 @shannon-posts @darkbluenovember @sexwithhiddlesbatch @thefandomimagines @mydarkness-itsnotmyfriend @sad-huffle-nerd @glitchingghosts​ @themaddies-obx​

[sisterspooky1013]

Damsels, Chapter Eight: They Don’t Want to be Found

By SisterSpooky1013 / Read previous chapters here

Rated E / Tagging @today-in-fic

Mulder calls in to work the next day, too sleep deprived and mentally exhausted to function. After sleeping until nearly noon, he gets back in his car and returns to Philly. He checks into a hotel that’s just a few blocks from the club and then spends the next several hours trying to watch TV, trying to read, and jacking off picturing Scully topless. A short time later, he jacks off again, this time imagining what he’ll see tonight.

He isn’t really sure what he’s doing or why he’s here. The best excuse he can cook up is that she doesn’t have a weapon and he’s protecting her, but realistically he knows she can take care of herself. Is it really just perversion, that he wants to see her…exposed? What will he say if she spots him? He can imagine her level of mortification if she knew he was here, that he’d seen her, and he feels guilt churn in his gut. She might never forgive him for this.

He knows it’s wrong, but he can’t seem to stop himself from going back. He has to see her again.

Scully had lay awake for hours after Angel left, thinking about what had happened, wondering how it happened in the first place. She’s on a case, how stupid could she be? What if it comes to light that she’s become involved with a witness in the case? She might be suspended. At least then maybe they’d never ask her to do something like this again. What if Mulder finds out? Would he feel betrayed somehow? Would it turn him on?

Somewhere around 6 am, she had finally caved in and slid her hand down the front of her panties, groaning when she felt how wet she was. She swirled her finger around her clit, using her own arousal as lubricant, and imagined what might have happened if Angel’s phone hadn’t rung. Would Angel have touched her? With her hands, or her mouth? Maybe both. Would she have touched Angel? She was approaching the brink just thinking about it. She stopped suddenly, remembering something, and grabbed the bullet vibrator from her bedside table, switching it on and pressing it to her clit as she plunged the middle finger of her other hand as far inside herself as she could reach. Within 30 seconds she was unravelling, images of Angel and Mulder dancing in her head as her walls clamped tightly around her finger. Finally, she had slept.

She manages to sleep until nearly three in the afternoon again, then spends the day getting her nails done, reading, and devising a plan for how she might look through the files in that closet. Without knowing what’s in them, she has no way of gaging whether Ricky is likely to notice if she takes a few at a time and returns them later. Worse still, Lexie is working tonight and that gives any risk she takes the potential to blow the whole investigation. She’s positive that given one more red flag, Lexie will sing like a canary. The silver lining is that Angel won’t be at work for the next three days, so they can get some space from what happened between them.

The evening is mostly business as usual, and she’s a bit horrified to realize that this is becoming as dull and predictable as any other job. She lets her mind wander while she flexes and rolls over horny married men, wondering what Mulder is up to, whether he’s worried about her or even misses her. Part of her wonders if he might realize that his life is less complicated without her, and that he prefers it that way. She feels an ache in her chest, a bit further north than she has grown accustomed to, and realizes how much she misses him.

When he enters the club, she’s at the bar. Half her torso is resting on the bar top as she shouts to be heard by the bartender, who’s laughing at whatever she’s saying. The position she’s in pops her barely covered ass out prominently behind her and his eyes go big at how exposed she is, and how comfortable she seems with it. Her bare breasts are smushed against the lacquered countertop and he feels his cock twitch thinking about how hard her nipples will be when she stands up. Unfortunately, it would be too risky to stick around and find out, so he tugs his ball cap lower and finds a table in the back. The dancers never seem to come back here for some reason.

He keeps his head trained towards one of the other dancers at all times, while his eyes follow Scully’s every move. If he knows one thing, it’s that Scully can feel his eyes on her, so he needs to be careful. His disguise is painfully basic and all it would take is one solid look for her to know it’s him. He watches her give a lap dance to a blushing young woman, a soft smile on her face the whole time, and he can’t decide if he’s more turned on or touched by how hard she’s working to make the woman feel comfortable. The aching hard-on in his jeans suggests the former.

This time he’s mentally prepared for her stage set, and also realizes she can barely see beyond the tip rail with all the stage lights on her, so he lets himself enjoy it. He’s known from the moment he met her that Scully is beautiful, sexy, incredible in every way imaginable, but he never could have imagined her moving like this. She’s so graceful and captivating. He lets himself block out all the other jerks who are leering at her, stuffing bills into her underwear, and just watches her. His Scully. She’s ethereal.

“Seems like you’ve found your ATF,” a voice to his left startles him from his reverie.

“Huh?” he turns to see the same waitress who’d served him last night, clad in a fishnet body suit.

“You were here last night, right? You like Desi?”

He panics. “No! I mean, yes. But, don’t send her over here or anything.”

She nods in understanding. “You like to watch. That’s cool, whatever floats your boat, man. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Yeah, can I get a Captain and Coke?” He walked here, why not enjoy himself, right?

Four drinks for him and ten lap dances for her later, he stumbles into the balmy night and back to his hotel room where he jacks off again. Twice.

Everyone is trickling out slowly at the end of what has been a busy shift. Scully takes her time counting her tips, sharing a cut with her bird dog and the bartender on shift tonight. While she would not say that she likes working here by any stretch of the imagination, her coworkers at the club are her only source of socialization and (with the exception of Lexie) she truly enjoys their company. She’s helping one of the custodial staff, a wiry young man they called Don Juan, put up the chairs on the club floor so he can mop when Ricky approaches her.

“Desi, can I see you in my office, please?” He has a somber demeanor that concerns her.

“Um, sure, of course.” She bids the young man farewell and follows Ricky down the hall. He closes the door behind them and she feels her heart start to race.

Ricky sits down behind his desk and motions for her to take a seat across from him. She’s reminded of her first day here and the feelings of fear and anticipation.

“I need to ask you something, Desi, and I want to make sure you don’t mention it to the other girls.”

“Okay,” she responds, taking shallow breaths to obscure the fact that she’s afraid.

“Angel told me what happened.”

Her mouth falls open but no words come out. Is she in trouble for kissing Angel?

“That’s why she was so upset the other night, when you saw her in here. She told me that she’d talked to you about her past a bit,” he shakes his head ruefully. “Some gall those dirtbags have, shaming her for being sexual in any way, then coming to a titty club on the sly.”

She breathes a sigh of relief. “Right, yes, the people who came in. She was very upset. “

“It was really nice of you to spend some time with her after work. Anyway, I gave her a few nights off. She needs a break.”

Scully nods. “You wanted to ask me something?”

“Right! So, Angel is my right hand gal, she helps me with a lot of stuff around here. With her being out, I wanted to ask you to kind of be her backup, if you will.”

For a moment she’s afraid Ricky is asking her to perform some kind of sexual favor, but she recalls that Angel had said he’s gay. “What did you have in mind?” she asks hesitantly.

“Well mostly, I wanted to give you a set of keys for the club. Angel has one, in case something happens to me and I’m not here to open and close the doors, stuff like that.”

A set of keys? Scully feels a flush of adrenaline. “Of course, I can do that.”

“That’d be great, Desi. I know you haven’t been with us all that long, but you seem pretty trustworthy, at least compared to the other girls. Like I mentioned, I’m hoping we can keep this between us, just so there are no hurt feelings from anyone who’s been here longer than you.”

Her heart is pounding with excitement at the opportunity to gain access to those files. “Is there an alarm code or something I should know about?” She recalls a sign on the door for ADT.

Ricky dismisses her concern with a flick of his wrist. “No, nothing like that. I should get one, but I just pilfered those signs from my buddy to scare off vagrants.”

She nods in understanding.

“Ninety-nine percent chance nothing will happen and there’ll be no need, but thanks for being on deck, just in case,” he says as he hands her a playboy bunny shaped keychain with a single key dangling from it.

Scully smiles at him. “I’m more than happy to help.”

After she leaves the club, she first goes home to stash her tips and change into comfortable, dark clothes, and then gets a big cup of coffee and a disposable camera from the 7-11 near her apartment.

By the time she’s lurking in the corner of the club’s parking lot, watching the door, it’s nearly 4am and there’s still a light on inside the foyer. She sips her coffee and waits, shuffling her feet to keep warm. Finally at 4:50, Denny and Ricky emerge, locking the door behind them. After they leave the parking lot, Scully waits another 20 minutes before she creeps around the perimeter of the lot and approaches the door. Glancing around to be sure no one is watching her, she turns the key and steps inside, locking it behind her.

The quiet stillness is eerie in contrast to the throbbing hive of activity it had been earlier in the night and she flicks on her flashlight, making her way to Ricky’s office. She fits the same front door key into the lock and sighs in relief when it turns. Ricky’s security standards aren’t incredibly high, apparently, but in this case it’s to her advantage. She tries the key on the hallway closets just in case, to no avail, and returns to the office. Navigating to his desk, she pulls open drawers quickly, scanning their contents. Nothing is of interest, and she’s disappointed though not surprised that his keys to other areas of the club aren’t in here. That makes things more challenging, but not impossible. She’s spent her days off at the library researching how to pick locks, including buying a lock picking kit and some padlocks at the local hardware store to practice with, and she feels relatively confident she can get this door open without a key. She might just have to be the one to pick the lock next time she and Mulder have the need. She smiles to herself knowing how impressed he’d be.

Back in the hallway, she pulls the small lock picking kit out of her back pocket and kneels in front of the door, the pen light perched between her teeth. She studies the lock and then inserts a torque wrench at the bottom, turning it slightly to put resistance in the direction it will spin when unlocked. From the kit, she selects a straight, flat pick and runs it from back to front at the top of the keyhole a couple times. Next she exchanges it for a pick with a curved end, pushing it as far back and high as she can reach as she holds her ear close to the lock in the stony silence of the hallway. Bumping against the pins inside the lock, she listens and feels for a small click or give that indicates the pin has settled in its unlocked position. She continues this until she counts five pins clicking into place, then removes the pick and turns the torque wrench.

The lock releases with a soft click and she laughs out loud as the door swings open, beyond pleased with herself. Stepping into the closet, there’s enough room for her to close the door behind her and she does so, pulling a cord to turn on the overhead light. Taking stock of the beige bank of file cabinets, she works top to bottom, left to right, and immediately feels her heart sink when the first four drawers she tries are empty. Would this be yet another dead end? When the fifth drawer snicks open, she sees a small set of files hanging towards the back. She quickly checks all the other drawers so she’ll have a good idea of how much material she has to review, but they’re all empty.

She pulls the files out and sits down with them on the floor, setting the disposable camera near her thigh. There are eight folders nestled inside the hanging file, each one with a set of initials on the tab. The first one is marked “G.A.” and inside she finds an intake form, a personal statement that’s filled out by hand, and a release of liability form. The intake form is sparse and includes nearly no identifying information. The name is listed as simply GA and the fields below it include “entry date,” “exit date,” “reason for sheltering,” and “responsible individual.” On the form for GA, the entry and exit date are both a year and a half prior, about six months apart. Reason for sheltering is listed as “threat of violence-domestic,” and the responsible individual reads “brother.” She turns to the second page, which contains GA’s personal statement.

Continue Reading Here

[tomatograter]

Hey!! Firstly? Happy birthday!!! You deserve an amazing day!! 🎉 🎉 Secondly, I adore your fanfic DON JUAN MANLET KING!! I was curious, do you have any advice for people who wanted to implement art into their fan fiction similar to you? In technical terms specially!! My fool brain has no idea where to look to see how I can place some fun visuals in my writing gahlahkga Thank you in advance!!

thank you so much!!!!! i’m not sure if the way i go about it counts as universal advice, so do take it with a grain of salt; i’m used to thinking of my prose-pacing as either comicbook beats or play scenes on a script (sometimes a gag is strictly visual or an emotion communicated entirely by acting, so i dont count on the writing to deliver all of it; similarly, sometimes stuff is just too introspective to be communicated with a glance.) My concepts for DJMK start out either as writing bites that need some accompanying atmosphere added to them, or visual layouts that tell me where a scene is going. It takes a lot of time to get stuff the way i want it to, and sometimes it just doesn’t even work the way i picture it in my brain, and i have to adapt bc Ao3 limits you to very rudimentary CSS (and i’m not a code savvy person anyhow.)

There’s a really long scene involving an afternoon transitioning into a late night party, so i opted for having the page itself go from a baby afternoon pink to pure black to denote time passage. There’s a whole chapter dedicated to jake & roxy making scrapbook collages, so the chapter itself has the finished products of their work still smeared with glitter & photo cuts & tools while they chat. There’s another one relating to roxy’s childhood, and we know their favorite games are old-school nintendos, resulting in the framing being made through a customized Gameboy console for the nostalgia in their childhood. The entirety of this story is backed on the concept that Jake’s brain functions at high visuals, relating to pictures & movies & various concepts he associates with specific people dear to him instead of words- so i place the visuals like a collage to the thoughts. Most of my panelwork is either highly based on the way Homestuck proper paces scenes/gags with pesterlogs or following what i usually do in traditional comics, so it’s a little harder for me to break that down. i guess in the end what i ask myself is;

1) what exactly is the intended function of the text, as in what the scene is supposed to evoke (is it abstract? less solid visuals. is it an actual scene, beat-by-beat? i storyboard it, try to limit the number of panels as much as i can to reduce work) 

& 2) how can i make said function clear by showing instead of telling (re; i dont really need to tell you why roxy’s chapter is videogame-based, it’s implicit that you already know their favorite games are from vintage/ninty consoles. i don’t need to tell you the ‘where’ is jake english when he tunes off and wakes up in a pitch black void)

And as much as i itch to find places to include visuals whenever i can, there’s one thing that is true; not every text needs, or is improved, by visual aid. Sometimes even highly sophisticated art can undermine the multiple-interpretation & personal imagination value of a narrative paragraph. Do what feels right for your story, but don’t feel the need to cram things in! 

[floggingink]

Riverdale,“Chapter Fourteen: A Kiss Before Dying”

Hermione is drinking a serious glass of water this morning after having mixed “her reds with her whites” and knocking herself out with Valium after the Jubilee

is Hermione’s solid white nail polish the new heavy French manicure of mob boss wives?

Archie behind the wheel—concerning?

the TRAIL OF BLOOD leading from the truck to the hospital entrance, because—because I’d forgotten he’d been shot!

to which hospital, you ask? why, the one from Kill Bill, Vol. 1, where Daryl Hannah puts on that evil nurse costume with the hat and white dress and her eyepatch with the Red Cross cross

HOSPITAL TROPE AT THE DOOR OF THE SURGERY ROOM: “I’m sorry, sir, you’ll have to wait outside!”

gripped by the fist of Death, Fred Andrews hallucinates the future: Dream Cheryl is in a flowing red graduation gown, Mary is in a two-toned dress from Forever 21, Jughead calls him “Mr. A”

Alice serves herself orange juice, milk, and coffee for breakfast

Betty wears a soft lilac T-shirt and Alice has a lovely soft pear-on-beige nightgown

Betty CONTINUES to be ASTOUNDINGLY honest with Alice, who has for sure a soft spot for Jughead as a concept but can’t possibly be trusted with the knowledge that he almost deflowered her daughter. is it a power play? or is Betty just exhausted. I think she’s just following her own Jubilee advice to be sweepingly and unsparingly honest

Mädchen Amick, MÄDCHEN AMICK: Alice calls Jughead a “beanie-wearing cad,” as if Jughead A) has a flagrant history as a Don Juan or B) dropped Betty like a hot potato after giving it to her behind the train tracks

Sixth period is Intro to Film: “If that’s Snake Plissken, I want him blocked.”

Hermione’s hair when Veronica walks in is—is GREAT

Veronica was rich: Veronica eats a chocolate almond croissant from Bean & Beluga, which as far as I can tell is only in Dresden, which is in Saxony, which is in GERMANY

Veronica is knocking back a $300 Cristal Brut mimosa, as if she is Tupac?

I do like how she and Betty are both drinking orange juice

Jughead, tramping down his front steps to unveil the Bike: FINALLY, circumstances are COOL enough for my MOTORCYCLE

Best costume bit: he carved his cap symbol onto the front of his helmet, like how I drew a cat face after everything I signed in middle school: >^-^<

Archie mussing up his hair gives us a good look at his inguinal muscles beneath his lifted shirt, like when Neal Caffrey pulled a pistol out of his trouser waistline in that one White Collar episode

Jughead is definitely lanky enough to hug three people at once

I truly did miss how KJ Apa pronounces his flat A’s

Hermione does some good mom-work when she reminds a scattered Archie to call Mary

Jughead was NOT expecting to get grilled by Alice in this waiting room

Betty puts her FACE in her HANDS as Alice gets started—and Hal! HAL is there! honestly—I missed Hal!!!

“At least you can’t accuse my father of this, since he’s in jail.”

this remark certainly triggered something in the back of Veronica’s mind, since being in jail impeded Hiram Lodge not at all

all Veronica had for breakfast is sugar and she is not equipped to handle all the stomach-churning

she is wearing classic opaque black tights and some very wicked shiny black heels

Archie looks so small and scared when he’s on the phone with his mom!!!

probably all this emphasis on Archie calling it a “robbery” means……..it isn’t one…….I see you Riverdale…..

oh, Sheriff Keller is here? GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jughead, in a superhero move, sidles himself into Archie’s interrogation—and gets snacks!

“You mean like a snake?”

tbh Keller is pretty patient with Jughead, considering his father DID commit some serious crimes and Jughead STILL refuses to hop on board calling him on such

Archie preciously makes a little scissor motion with his fingers when he describes the homemade ski mask

I simply MUST KNOW, as an AMERICAN, what “jingle jangle” is. he lists right after METH for God’s sake! I mean, JINGLE-JANGLE??? is it like krokodil?????? Jesus!!!!!

Veronica drops “vintage bon mots as if they were bon-bons” (Archie would not have understood this)

Veronica fears that she won’t be supportive enough! Veronica—has she been paying any attention to herself for the past three months???

I really liked the soft look on Jughead’s face while Archie quietly tells him his worries about Serpent retribution while not trying to insult FP

Jughead and Archie hug very sweetly, Jughead embracing Archie’s blood-stained, honestly blood-dyed at this point, letterman jacket; Archie: “Thanks, bro”

INTERESTINGLY, they decided not to have Dr. Masters’ pristine white shirt be doused in Fred’s blood when he comes out to the waiting room, another hospital-episode item

it is sweet that the other parents stuck around. I mean it would be outrageous if they left, but even so, like, although I suppose Alice is about to write all this up

Archie’s button-down has an “Andrews & Son” patch on it in Fred’s next bullet-dream

DEAD ANDREWS of the PAST are COMING FOR FRED like in A Christmas Carol

his “something doesn’t feel right” is surely about him knowing something that Archie & Co. doesn’t know about the crime and I am assuming it’s that it wasn’t a robbery!!!

all of Archie’s stories have people calling him “Little Archie” when he was young

Veronica is walking with Archie and Vegas in THOSE SHOES

Jughead already has the power to summon certain gang members at will

I don’t know the name of long-haired Serpent Daddy but he is GRUFF and STEADFAST

Gay?!: oh Jesus the young one is there too

“Serpents don’t wear masks”

Jughead takes Daddy’s “knock some heads together” as entirely figurative

the female gaze: thank you for showing me Archie’s wet pecs even in this, his time of grief

Archie’s cast is going to dissolve if he keeps getting it wet like this

Veronica decides to console him the best way she knows how, with her hot bod

also, to be fair, she hasn’t had a chance to shower since like, yesterday morning, at least, if not the evening before that! they’re just being environmentally responsible

however she should take her pearls off first

honestly when Kevin said “Mr. Andrews” the first time I thought it was just his slightly ironic way of saying “Archie” because that’s just how adorable Kevin can be

Every triangle has three corners, every triangle has three sides: Kevin VERY MUCH was invested, or at least extremely informed, about Betty thinking she might have sex with Jughead the day before

did she think they might, before the Jubilee? and she texted Kevin?

he’s like, when Betty says they didn’t, “What, like, nothing, not even…?”

OH GOD! Kevin’s “Wait, what?” GOD KEVIN!!!!!! IS THE FRIEND WE ALL DESERVE

he instinctively sensed Cheryl Blossom’s presence before he saw her

Cheryl’s sheaths: Cheryl’s white skirt is slightly smoke-tinged on the bottom

“Is this the apocalypse?”

Cheryl, ever a Blossom, constructs a very palatable PR story to cover her tracks

she always delivers her lines spectacularly but she’s especially perfect talking about Penelope’s third-degree burns

THIRD-DEGREE BURNS

the thing about Archie’s thing about Fred’s wallet is interesting. no one wants to fucking lose their wallet. but is Archie over-endowing this wallet with powers it doesn’t have because it’s a small thing that seems to encompass the whole tragedy? does Fred keep his launch codes in there?

I honestly LOVED Archie at the end of his tether with his chin in his hand looking up at Veronica like, “I do, yeah”

Veronica very astutely of course knows this is an emotional overreaction and tells him to stick it, fondly

to make up for the past, Sheriff Keller put together a lineup of possible perps in under an hour

the killer apparently had blisteringly green Harry Potter eyes

Jughead cannot believe he got left out of going to the station to look at suspects

Betty using the word “rando” pleases us

Jughead doubts it: Veronica is not ready for Jughead to start slinging theories about more murder, hits

oh Christ, the motorcycle scene was perfect. they’re fucking cute together and Jughead loves her

Jughead knows his stock with Alice fluctuates wildly: “Or we can call your mom.” he KNOWS she KNOWS about BETTY

“You are gonna need to hold tight.”

and what does 12FW48 mean?

ARE YOU TELLING ME THE LODGES HAVE BEEN STEALTH CATHOLICS THIS WHOLE TIME. I thought it was the Coopers!!!! I’m the kid in The Catcher in the Rye who’s always trying to suss out the Catholics

the red devotional candle holders YYEEEEEEESSSSSSSS it’s taking me back!!!!

Veronica straight confronts her rosary-praying mother about possibly ordering the killing of Fred Andrews under the gaze of a huge Virgin Mary statue and still has the chutzpah to say something like “If the Manolo Blahnik fits”

Evil Hermione: “Mija...your disrespect...will no longer be tolerated.”

I love the difference between Veronica’s crime family and Jughead’s crime family! FP is like, run away from me as fast as you can! but also come back!!!! and Hiram is like, I CAN SEE YOU

FROM JAIL

the ladies lit up from below by orange candlelight (the best kind of lighting, as Clinton Kelly notes): “I should slap you for what you’re insinuating. But I’m not a violent person.”

new Reggie is SMOKIN’. his beautiful boy-mouth might be even more beautiful than Jughead’s

God bless Moose: OMG, when will Moose next get lines! you know!!!

the 2001 Josie and the Pussycats movie was a masterpiece: Melody has a fantastic long printed jacket

Reggie isn’t wearing his letterman jacket, which is I assume so we can ease into him being the most handsome man on Earth, ever

poor Fred’s imagination is all about Archie growing up and him missing all the milestones of Archie growing up, graduating, inheriting the company, getting married

the PINK GLOW of the DREAM DINER

they’re making Pop mop up that blood on his own? isn’t there a whole Amy Adams movie about people who will do that for you?

HOW DARE Jughead tell ANYONE to TONE IT DOWN

and yet, he would also be the one to be like, Yeah that line is from a Sam Raimi movie. like the doofy stoner in Cabin in the Woods who calls out the gas station guy for BEING the creepy outskirts-of-town doomsday scarecrow trope. so I can see both A) a Riverdale character saying something aloud like “the angel of death” and then B) someone immediately being like, Excuse me?

Jughead eats: Jughead is “always hungry, yeah,” MY MAN

does Betty think Jughead is insensitive for making Pop make their food or that she can’t quite believe he’s this hungry under this much stress? he did at least order coffee when his dad had gotten arrested

more Betty & Jughead being bathed in angel-light from behind

Jughead’s “But me?” movie moment is precious, but Betty is very serious most of the time. Jughead’s instinct is to make everything a self-aware parody of itself instantly, but he’s trying to make her laugh, and he is a semi-starved orphan

“I haven’t eaten since last night.” INDEED? it was Betty’s collarbone

“Yeah, it meant there were, like, ten biker dudes standing in front of me.” YES!!!! he was going with it in the moment!

but also he looked really good in it, I’m never going to be coy about that

“It fit you like a glove, Jug”: my dream is that the night before, after she and Jughead had a (long or short?) quiet talk about it “being late” and how Betty “should go,” Betty crawled into her bed and couldn’t stop going over the moment, over and over, Jughead shrugging that leather jacket onto his shoulders, “like a second skin,” and HIS HAIR doing that loose curl thing it does when his hat’s off, JUGGIE, and she stared at the ceiling in the dark, feeling some type of way

God though they continue to be so open with each other! no stone left unturned! he may imminently be in a gang but he is a great communicator!

“Facing facts, my dad is going away for a long-ass time.”

the incredulous smile when Betty says he might hurt someone else unintentionally is the same smile when he teased her about telling her mom she was about to ride his motorcycle

Cheryl’s hair: I WAS FUCKING WAITING FOR YOU, CHERYL

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE BARN WITH DADDY???????????

honestly this scene was so holy shittingly crazy my brain synapsed a memory in self-defense back to the most insane 1990’s lurid movie scene it could compare it to, which is when Rebecca de Mornay finally shows her cards to Ernie Hudson in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

Penelope VERY WEAKLY paws at Cheryl’s wrist to get her oxygen back

Cheryl’s a psychopath: the best part was Cheryl telling her she should move “quietly.” like, quietly. so fucking wrong

of course Veronica gets Fred a new wallet, the straightest line between Archie’s anxiety and short-term relief

WHO is the dude calling out “Nice, Jugs!” when Jughead shows up with all the food? PLEASE GOD tell me we’re going to get more Jughead and Reggie. Jesus H. please

Gay.: “You’ve really been just a rock-star god through all of this.” JUGHEAD

is that the second or third time or something Jughead has called Archie like, a god? the second time?

These students are legally children: Archie is honestly out here blaming himself for freezing up after seeing his father getting shot and when he gets a gun put to his head

Archie has to tell this story WITH HIS EYES CLOSED

hey could Archie maybe get his hand re-wrapped with clean bandages during some of this downtime?

“ALL HIS INFORMATION.”

and everyone is gorgeous in this low light, incidentally

“Damn good coffee”: WHAT THE FUCK is up with the person on the other side of the hallway doors walking into a room at the same time as Archie! I thought it was Cheryl before, but it’s just someone walking into a room parallel to Archie just to be—creepy!

Cheryl never forgets a dilf

Fred has the common courtesy to put Veronica in his closest approximation to a Vera Wang wedding gown during his morphine trip

Pop Tate is officiating

OH MY GOD CLIFFORD!!!!!!!!!!!

the Blossom corpse: JASON???!!!

god no one could sneer like him!!!! RIP!!!! what happened to him in the barn, I won’t forget!!!!

Jughead in that dress jacket was cute and Betty in her VIVID BLUE gown was stunning

my prediction was that Fred was going to realize who shot him but would be in a coma throughout the season and would have to communicate to Betty (after giving up on Archie) through Christmas lights

you see, Fred thinks this guy is after ARCHIE

Fred wakes up when he leaps to save Archie in his dream…….the power of his love wakes him up..….just as the power of Archie’s hotness saved Cheryl..….

Certified pedigree: Fred having to come to and hear Archie apologize for not Von Flue choking this dude with a gun, “Archie…”

you know they put Betty and Jughead out in the rain for a minute

Jughead is too insane to ever be, like, smouldering, but he was cute spinning slowly on his heel and leaning against the wall, “Sure I can’t give you a ride home?”

Alice does have a gun

Please protect Betty: “Whatever you need to do...or explore…”

you know Betty just knows Jug’s nature and trusts him to be okay!

however I do not

they’ve figured out the perfect angle for filming Betty and Jughead’s kisses: over Jughead’s left shoulder as he cradles her goddamn face

Fwoopy hair is the best hair: thank you for Jughead not trying to wear his beanie and helmet simultaneously

I’ve seen Brick like thirty times: WHOA!!! WHOOOOOAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

HOLY SHIT, SERPENT DADDY!!!!!!!

Jughead for real walks into his dad’s trailer and there is a MAN with a BEATEN-IN FACE, TIED TO A CHAIR, Daddy and Baby Driver are out here smirking—JUGHEAD—“Ha ha, explore this, BITCH!”

“This guy was holding court at the Whyte Wyrm”: blood drool is like guzzling out of his slack, slobbery mouth

I’m writing a scene where it’s gay.: Baby has brass knuckles and sends Jughead a smirk for the ages

Hermione is “Hiram Lodge’s bitch”

Jughead’s wet bangs are always nice. it’s not the time, they’re just nice. all the extra-special stress-times we get to see his pretty hair

“So you could see we’d done what you asked”: Jughead didn’t even know he had the power to set this off! he got a man beaten half to death! INADVERTENTLY, BETTY

“With or without the jacket”—OH SHIT SERPENT PRINCE

is Hiram Lodge allowed to get snippy that Veronica wasn’t home when he came home early? like an asshole?

Hiram is, amazingly, seating at the head of the table, in the dark, because he is Satan

“So disrespectful.” SO DISRESPECTFUL

Summer + Blair = Veronica: “I know we’re all really happy about that.”

true to form, Veronica seems unruffled outwardly by this unexpected appearance, but we shall see, shalln’t we

Archie > Dawson: Archie is going to BEAT WITH A BAT any home invaders, which would make this something like his second night in a row with no sleep

do you know the SEVEN KINDS OF GLEE I felt upon seeing that vintage Beetle again!!!

there’s even a fucking piano-child-singing musical cue in the background!!!

SAVE THE BOY FROM THE DRIVE-IN WHO USED TO SELL KEVIN CHERRY SODAS

SHE DOUBLE-LOCKS THE DOOR, BUT LOCKS CANNOT KEEP OUT THE ANGEL OF DEATH, A MONIKER JUGHEAD LOVED TOO MUCH TO KEEP OUT OF HIS NOVEL

is Miss Grundy FOR REAL getting strangled with the CELLO BOW Archie bought her last season??? is this the violent ex-husband she talked about with Archie before that I thought she was lying about??? I—is—FUCK—

NEXT WEEK: FORSYTHE PENDLETON JUNIOR RETURNS

BONUS MATERIAL: I watched Dynasty, and while it wasn’t nearly as batshit as I expected, it did feature Elizabeth Gillies wearing this blouse featuring an Irish setter print

[jesbakescookies]

Too Hot To Handle: Chapter Two

So I kinda wrote a different kind of fanfiction. It’s nothing as in depth as my other fics so I am going to post it here. ENJOY!!

                  ***Actor, Real Person Fanfiction, Walking Dead RPF***

Featuring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan X Original Female Character, Norman Reedus and others..

Rating: Mature

Chapter Two

Aria closed the restaurant but stayed to plan the new spring menu. Every season she rotated out specific meals for seasonally available produce and proteins. It was something she felt strongly about and one of the biggest draws to her dining room. 

Using the largest table, Aria spread out all her concept platting drawings as well as recipes and item descriptions. She even produced a few of the experimental dishes to taste as she worked. The restaurant’s lights were all dimmed and she turned the radio on low over the speakers. She was moving a few ideas from the maybe pile to the definite pile when a knock rattled the front door. Squinting, Aria could see someone in the large glass pane but not who. Pursing her lips, she weighed her options, the restaurant wasn't in a bad area of town but psychos lived in every zip code. 

Another knock came spurring her into action. Holding her cellphone just in case, Aria approached the door to finally see who was pounding. 

Jeffrey stood there with an apologetic expression and slightly embarrassed smile.

Smirking inwardly, Aria deadpanned, "Sorry we're closed."

Watching him pout obnoxiously and fold his hands in prayer had Aria laughing loudly and unlocking the door. "Okay what'd you forget a wallet or cellphone? Because if it's either, they’re long fucking gone."

Snorting, Jeffrey shook his head and replied, "My hat. Black with white logo?"

"Fuck if I know. Come with me." She answered, locking the door behind them and leading them to the office. Aria could feel him following her, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. She bit her lip to keep from blurting out something inappropriate about the amazing fucking scent coming off of him. A mix of expensive cologne, leather and smoke. The man looked like sex on a stick in his worn t-shirt and low riding jeans. 

"What're you doing here so late?" his voice rough and low behind her made Aria swallow thickly. 

"I'm the lost and found guard." She quipped, pulling out the box used as the catch all of forgotten items. Smirking at her with sparkling eyes Jeffrey drawled, "Don't guards usually wear uniforms?"

"It's under my clothes, like a super hero."

"Oh yeah?" He rasped, his hooded eyes trailing down her body and back to her face. "I'd uh... like to see that."

Snorting, Aria shook the box and replied, "I can't go showing just anybody."

"I am definitely not just anybody." He drawled, glancing at the box before turning his attention back to her. "Nope, no hat."

"Well, sorry to inform you. If anyone saw you wearing it and found it, it's probably on eBay with an authentic famous actor sweat certificate."

Bellowing with laughter, Jeffrey gave her a blinding grin. "I like you doll. You are a fucking riot."

Dropping the box and dusting her hands off on her hips, she replied, "you hungry?"

"I can always eat."

"Hollow leg?"

"Bottomless fucking pit." 

They wandered into the dining room where her table was still in the depth of planning. 

"What's all this?"

"I'm redesign the new spring menu." She replied pointing out each area of the table. "I use seasonal products so every few months I revamp things. I have my standards but I try to have a handful or two of seasonally designed dishes."

Jeffrey seemed enthralled as she showed off the plating sketches and the pictures of her sample dishes. She let him try the few meals and appetizers she had in the concept phase. 

"You're fucking amazing." He commented, shaking his head while chewing and looking at the sketch. "And I don't just mean the goddamn delicious circus in my mouth. Just the conception, the thought you put into everything... I'm fucking blown away."

Aria felt her cheeks turn rosy and laughed anxiously. "Umm... Thanks?"

"I mean it. I feel like a dick for not even knowing or thinking about what kind of work goes into this."

"Well to be honest, I probably go above and beyond. I'm not sure many others go this fucking crazy. I just..."

"Love it?"

"I fucking love it." She corrected, her cheeks hurting from the size of her grin. "As hard as it is. As much pain and stress it causes. I love it. I wouldn't do anything else."

Jeffrey smiled at her and bobbed his head, "that's the way it should be."

"Do you feel that way? About acting?"

"Most days yeah." He answered with a chuckle, "there's always times where you question yourself."

"Very true." She agreed, sipping the wine she'd left breathing. 

"I have a confession." His voice was softer and a little gruff as though unsure of how she would take his next words. 

Cocking an eyebrow she asked, "You hate the lamb huh? I'm not sure about it either."

"Jesus woman, the lamb is ri-goddam-diculous." He exclaimed, throwing a fed up hand in the air.  

"Okay, okay." She giggled, plopping down in one of the chairs. Jeffrey joined her and motioned for the wine bottle. After pouring himself some and sipping it, he confessed, "I didn't forget a hat."

Furrowing her brow she asked, "What'd you forget?"

"Nothing.. I..." he paused, scrubbing his face with an embarrassed smile.  "I had a feeling you'd be here late with just coming back from vacation and all..."

"Okay I'm officially pathetic."

Chuckling, he shook his head. "No you love you job."

Rolling her eyes, Aria motioned for him to continue, "Okay so you came to see me and not find an imaginary hat."

"Yes. I... look I don't really do this shit. At least not recently... and even then it was not frequent."

"Jeffrey?"

"Yes."

"Spit it out."

"I'd like to take you out some time.” The dark haired man explained, leaning towards her. “I'd say to dinner but I think I should take you somewhere non workplace like."

Aria’s eyebrows raised to her hairline and she felt her cheeks flush again. "Um."

"I mean if you're not available or whatever.... I asked our waitress and she said you weren't seeing anyone or at least she hadn't seen you dating anyone."

"Oh my god. Was it Cheryl? I'm canning her ass."

"No don't do that. I was persuasive." He drawled, flashing his dimples. The salt and pepper scruff that covered his handsome face only added to his appealing grin. Aria could feel herself melting under his gaze, his lip bitten as he suppressed a smug grin. 

"You do seem like the persuasive type."

"I've been known to get my way, yes." 

"Pfft." She snorted, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow. "I've been known to be pretty fucking stubborn."

"Seems about right. Most successful people are."

"Suck up."

"I'm trying to get a date here." He retorted, sipping his wine and winking at her. Aria bit her lip to contain the smile pulling at her lips. 

"Well... on this hypothetical non workplace like date, where would we go?"

"Jeesh put a fella on the spot."

"Said fella should come prepared for such inquiries."

"High standards. I like it." He commented, licking his lip before biting it in thought. "Alright. I got an idea. Do you like to ride?"

"Depends on what I'm riding?" She flirted, licking her own lip coyly.  

"Fuck doll." He grunted, his teeth flashing "you're making it real hard to be a gentleman."

"I bet I am." She joked, drinking another gulp of liquid courage. Aria wasn't sure how the conversation was actually happening but a famous and handsome as fuck actor was asking her on a date. She was hoping she wasn't actually having a stroke or some other kind of hallucination causing neurological event. 

"Stop, tease." Jeffrey rasped, shaking his head as if ashamed but grinning just the same. "Motorcycles."

"I’ve only been on one once and it was some crotch rocket which was uncomfortable and frightening."

"Well, I won't put you on my Honda. We'll ride my Harley. Much comfier and smoother ride."

"So we ride somewhere?"

"Damn. You need a play by play. What about the element of surprise, babydoll?"

"I'm kind of a planner." She replied, waving a hand over the table as if a game show host. Jeffrey smirked and answered, "We'll go somewhere fun. You'll love it. Wear jeans and comfy shoes."

Aria chewed her lip in thought and asked, "When?"

"When are you available? I know you work everyday, all day but you gotta have a day off."

Pulling out her phone, she flipped through her schedule and said, "Is a weekday okay?"

"Any day, anytime darlin'."

Smiling crookedly she asked, "You sure you don't do this all the time? Sound a little too smooth."

"Seriously."

"Okay. If you say so Don Juan." She remarked, dodging his playful smack to her shoulder. Laughing she offered, "How about Thursday? I have both my sous-chefs on. My produce comes in the morning so I can check it and leave after."

"It works for me, if it works for you."

Setting it up on her calendar quickly she asked "what time?"

"How about we say three and go from there?"

"Sounds good. That'll give me time to get everyone on the same page."

Jeffrey smiled and nodded happily. "Good. I'm glad I lied and came back."

"You didn't have to lie."

"It was that or, hey let me in, I wanna make an ass out of myself. I figured it was better to tell a little teeny tiny white lie."

"Well I'm usually against lying but I guess I'll forgive you this time seeing as it got me a date."

"Never again." He offered, giving her the boy scouts sign. "Scouts honor."

Rolling her eyes, Aria yawned suddenly and blinked hard. "Okay exhaustion has hit me and I don't think I'm getting anything else done tonight."

"I'm sorry I interrupted."

"I'm not." She replied, smiling at him. "Best brainstorming session yet."

Grinning at her, Jeffrey stood up and opened his arms offering a hug. Aria smirked and gave him one, forcing herself to not inhale deeply. He was so much taller than her, her head barely reached his shoulder. The length of his arms could circle her twice if he tried hard enough. 

"You're so damn tiny." He muttered, pulling back to flash her his dimples. 

"I think it's you, who's the giant."

"Nope. You're elfin like."

"Fuck off. Am not." She scoffed, walking with him to the front door. "I'm perfectly average."

"Doll, you are any-fucking-thing but average." He rasped, leaning forward to kiss her temple. The rough crackle of his words murmured into her ear, "Lookin' forward to taking you out beautiful."

"I'm looking forward to it too." She replied, holding her hand out. "Let me see your phone."

Placing her number in his phone, she sent herself a text and handed it back. "There's my number. No more wild goose chases."

Laughing gruffly, Jeffrey agreed bashfully, “No more lies. You will need to show me you're super hero outfit though."

"That's more of a third date event."

"Well fuck. I better start planning number two." He joked, stuffing his hands in his pockets. 

"Probably a good idea." She replied, with a flirty smile. "Goodnight Jeffrey."

"Goodnight Sweetheart."

Find Chapter Three here:

http://jesbakescookies.tumblr.com/post/161975558336/too-hot-to-handle-chapter-three

Let me know if you'd like to be tagged for updates. I'll try my best to remember!

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[qqueenofhades]

i know you [i walked with you once upon a dream]: three

Post-1x16 canon divergence. When Lucy Preston, a history professor at Stanford University, is visited by a strange man who tells her that her entire world is a lie, she is drawn into a mystery more dangerous than she could have dreamed, and a hunt for a past she can't remember. But who, or what, is she going to find -- or lose -- along the way?

chapter two/AO3

Rufus Carlin turns off the music well in advance, straightens his collar, and makes sure that both his hands are visible on the steering wheel as he pulls into the slow-moving car queue spilling out the front gates of Mason Industries. Black guys can hardly expect anything wonderful when the police are involved to start with, and over the last week, security has gone from “tight” to “G20 summit as hosted by a paranoid dictator.” Everyone is subjected to thorough inspections both entering and leaving work, and God help you if you have a McDonald’s receipt you can’t account for. Rufus spent twenty minutes yesterday explaining to the latest rent-a-thug that yes, he usually gets breakfast on the way, and yes, he used his personal credit card to pay for it. He’s surprised they didn’t demand his SSN and PIN on the spot to double-check at the bank. But after everything that’s going on, the unexpected detonation of the Mothership and the loss of the last fifteen years of Connor Mason’s life’s work, perhaps that is, alas, to be expected. They still have the Lifeboat, but it’s only a prototype, doesn’t run yet. Although he’s obviously not about to say so at any office water coolers, Rufus wonders if perhaps this wasn’t the worst outcome in the world. At least nobody’s ever going to get the chance to, you know. Use the damn thing.

He sits and waits, more or less patiently, as he’s finally inspected and given the green light to proceed inside the compound and park. Rufus does, gets out, and swipes his ID card three times to get inside, along with his new ID card twice. Everyone has been pulled into the office for “quarterly review” – which, given that this is February and a time machine was destroyed two days ago, is clearly thinly veiled code for “are we going to fire and/or arrest you because you had something to do with it?” Rufus already had his go-round with the Spanish Inquisition, and managed to more or less convince them that he is the last person in the world who would want to steal, blow up, borrow, or otherwise have anything to do with the practical operation of a time machine. He is not cut out to be a hero. He’s just a number-cruncher, happier with computers and gizmos and gadgets and the safety of a controlled environment. It has occurred to him that it might be a great way to impress Jiya, but surely there has to be something to win over a girl that is easier to pull off than “intrepid time traveling Rambo.” He’ll say hi to her today. He will.

Rufus makes it to his desk and opens up the file which has been left on it, flipping through the papers. That newspaper article from the Chronicle is a bit of a joke now, given that what they are actually launching, one of their new high-speed transportation concepts, has been completely overshadowed by the loss of the Mothership. Connor has said that they are very, very angry, and while Rufus has no idea who “they” are, the kind of people who would fund the research and development of a frigging time machine are not going to hear of its loss, say, “Oh, well, that’s unfortunate,” and wander off to see what’s on Netflix. Obviously, this isn’t public knowledge, but one thing about the whole case is bothering Rufus (hah, he thinks, just one). They managed to retrieve a cache of the Mothership’s CPU – not the whole thing, and badly damaged, but enough data to get a decent look at its state of operations right before it blew up. And while Rufus would need to do the calculations again to be sure, from what he can tell, the Mothership was used. Close to twenty times. Almost forty if you count the return trips.

Except, of course, for the fact that it never has been, and was destroyed before it ever could be.

Rufus has run this through a few times, and he’s fairly sure that he’s the only one who’s come up with the conclusion. It’s so out there (and possibly dangerous) that he doesn’t exactly want to be the one to point it out, stroll into Connor’s office with a stack of printouts and ask hey, did we somehow miss the Mothership randomly vanishing into the past for extended periods? Maybe during that long lunch? Hah, funny story, us building a time machine and losing it, zany, right? Perhaps he could tell Anthony, as this seems like the kind of thing he should know, but something is still holding him back. If he had a second set of eyes, someone as smart as him or smarter, but not his boss, who might ask him yet more difficult and fiddly questions. . . Rufus has nothing to hide, so it baffles him and unnerves him that it somehow feels like he does. But who can he –

And then, it strikes him. Oh God.

Apparently he’s going to say hi to Jiya today after all.

“So.” Rufus, having rehearsed his opening line in his head for about the past ten minutes, panics, blanks, forgets it, and has to scramble not to fall over as the rolling chair he’s casually leaning on scoots out from underneath him. Somewhere, Don Juan just had an aneurysm. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, hey.” Jiya glances up at him with a grin, which Rufus has obsessed about: is it a grin, the kind you give coworkers, or a grin grin, the kind you give coworkers you might like? “What’s up?”

“I was going over the data from the CPU dump again, and. . .” Rufus does his best to sound as cool and interesting as he can. “I picked up something a little weird. And, well, you’re the smartest tech here, so if you have a moment, I thought we could go over it?”

Jiya giggles a bit, which makes his heart turn over. God, he likes this girl so much. Going into a recital of all the reasons why would officially push him into creeptastic stalker territory, which he swears he’s not. But from the moment she started at Mason Industries eighteen months ago, yeah, he’s been completely gone. He went to MIT, she went to Caltech, so they have periodic ribbing over which of their schools is currently atop the number-one ranking. She wears video-game shirts and cosplays at Comic-Con. He loves the scent of her shampoo and the way she bites her nail polish and knows the answer to anything. She’s so much braver than he is. So much more everything. He knows that he is punching above his weight class here, but still.

“Sure,” Jiya says after a moment, pushing back her chair and standing up. “Hit me up.”

Rufus is horribly tempted to remark that yes, he very much wants to do exactly that, but he is not the kind of guy who can pull off that kind of comment, and it’s rude anyway. He gulps, scoops up his papers, and follows her into one of the glass-walled conference rooms overlooking the main warehouse. Once they’ve shut the door, Jiya hits a button to lower the security shade and turns to him. “Okay. What you got?”

Rufus spreads the printouts on the table and explains his hunch. He knows it sounds ludicrous, and the Mothership was probably just malfunctioning (since it was, you know, about to be blown up by agent or agent(s) unknown). But if that was the case, the rest of the systems should show errors or abnormalities or general electronic interference as well, and they don’t. It’s everything that you would expect to see if the Mothership had indeed been used successfully, and repeatedly. Running perfectly, in fact. Except that it hasn’t.

A frown links Jiya’s thick dark brows as she listens. When he finishes, she grabs the pencil from behind her ear and leans over the papers herself, checking the calculations. “That is. . .” she says at last, slowly. “That is weird.”

Rufus is somewhat relieved that it’s not only him spotting the abnormalities, but he was also sort of hoping she’d tell him that they were explainable. Basically, the science goes like this. The Mothership is what they’ve dubbed a Feynman machine, named after a highly influential theory in particle physics by one Richard Feynman. The classical model of system trajectory postulates a fixed, single path for a particle traveling from point A to point B, which is hence assumed to obey normal laws of motion – that is, it taking the path of least resistance, a linear forward motion. Feynman, however, argued that this took no account of the essentially irrational actions of subatomic particles, and that an infinity of possible paths had to be imagined instead, all with equal weight of magnitude. The particle could have traveled in a straight line, yes, but it could just as probably have circled around, gone in a figure eight, shot to a parallel universe, down a wormhole, and back. Therefore, an agent propelled to high enough resonances to interact with the quantum level in this way can theoretically go anywhere – or anywhen – in space and time.

Ordinarily, the strong interference of normative probability – that the agent would just go from A to B, that an apple would fall when dropped, that there was only one discrete and physically actionable universe – cancels out the absurd trajectories and produces the expected result. But Feynman showed that allowing for every one of these extraordinary voyages was fully compatible with the conventional model of motion and Schrödinger’s equation, and what has drawn Rufus’s attention is the lingering evidence of these exact extraordinary journeys in the quantum fabric, these twists and ripples and folds. The description that comes to mind is “Swiss cheese.” As if numerous small, localized irregularities have been ripped into it, then healed – almost, but not quite. As if the timeline was absolutely land-mined with interference and change, and then jerked back to the original blueprint – almost, but not quite.

As if, perhaps, the Mothership’s evidence is no mistake. As if it was used, and then set up somehow to cause a paradox where it wasn’t. The basic problem: if your future self arrived to tell you to do something, would you do it because they told you to, but in that case, where did they get the idea, if you had to tell it to yourself? There’s no logical entry into the cause and effect; it’s a twisted Möbius strip, like a hamster going around and around on a wheel. Build up too many of these, and the universe starts to get unhappy. Has a tendency to violently correct them, snap the strip, explode the bubble of trapped probability back to the linear progression. The results, when they have happened in controlled laboratory settings, have been. . . well. . .

The description that comes to mind for that is “bug on a windshield.”

Rufus and Jiya glance at each other slowly, as discovering that the universe has been chronologically destabilized and is at potentially at risk for sudden and violent spontaneous combustion is not the most comforting team-building exercise in the world. Obviously, they have to tell someone about this, but who? Connor? Anthony? There is already enough of a fire under Connor’s feet as it is, with the mysterious bad-guys-from-The-Matrix types who have been stalking around and taking reams of notes and photos, and Anthony. . . he’s the project lead, this has been his baby from the start, surely he’s the genius who will whip this back into shape. But how? It sounds insane enough as it is, and how are they going to fix it? The Mothership is gone. The Lifeboat doesn’t work. There’s no proof that this even happened. And if it has, the best way to put this is that the timeline is now so angry with all these shenanigans and contortions, its response has been to suggest, “What if I just explode, motherfucker? Huh? Serve you right. Asshole.” Then cartwheel out of the room, flipping the bird with both fingers.

You know, Rufus thinks. This is exactly why I hate time travel.

(If the world might accidentally end on the spot if anyone does anything else irrational, the next speech from President Evil Cheeto might just finish them off – though that was a good bet in the first place. And the whole “gotta bang before we die” suggestion is there to be made, so – )

Oh God. Seriously. Rufus shakes his head, wanting to smack himself. Then he gathers up the papers, endeavoring to sound matter-of-fact. “So, should we drop by and see if Anthony’s in?”

“Maybe?” Jiya frowns. “He’s been. . . weird recently, though. I don’t know if you noticed, but I swear, you’d think the Mafia was coming for him, the way he’s been walking on eggshells. I mean – ” she tilts her head at all the suits down on the floor – “they kind of are, but more. Maybe the loss of the whole thing cracked him. It was supposed to be his magnum opus, you know. Getting that blown up has to suck. More, I mean.”

“We have to tell him,” Rufus says stoutly. Anthony has to know,  because Anthony will think of something to fix it. He scoops up the file, they leave the conference room, and head down the catwalk to Anthony’s office. Knocks and opens the door a crack. “Hey?”

Anthony jumps a foot and spills his coffee on himself.

“Oh, jeez. Sorry.” Rufus scurries in and looks around for a roll of paper towels or something else to sponge up with. “Sorry, Anthony. Any idea when Agent Smith and his pals are clearing out?”

“Don’t – don’t say that.” Anthony’s hands are trembling slightly as he does his best to clean the spill. “I don’t know. Things are very – things are very delicate right now. Just keep your head down and do your job, Rufus. It would be – it wouldn’t be smart to draw their attention.”

Rufus frowns. “Look, I know accidentally losing a time machine isn’t really something to boast about in the end-of-year newsletter, but these dicks are starting to give me serious – ”

“SHHH!” Anthony looks as if he’s about to have a heart attack, and Rufus snaps his mouth shut, baffled and thrown. “Rufus, just. . . go back to your desk, all right?”

Rufus and Jiya exchange a glance, as if wondering if their grand plan is going down the tubes before their very eyes. Rufus holds the file a little tighter. “Anthony,” he says at last. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Fine. I’m fine. It’s just. . .” Anthony looks around for a clean shirt. “You know, I’m not sure I’m supposed to be. . . no, never mind. I’m sure this will all blow over, as long as we cooperate and give them what they want.”

“You know,” Rufus says. “That’s the second time I’ve heard someone talking about ‘they’ as if it’s a bigger problem than anyone’s letting on. Who exactly were we supposed to be building the Mothership for? Some kind of contract or commission? Because – ”

Anthony draws a finger over his throat. Rufus shuts his mouth with a snap. Whatever else he was going to say, he can feel himself, much like Fagin, deciding that he thinks he’ll think it out again. He backs up, file still in hand. “Got it,” he says. “Have a good day.”

Back at his desk on the operations floor, Rufus is less able to focus than ever, exhilaration of a semi-successful interaction with Jiya aside. Technically, he could go up to the suits-and-sunglasses and hand over his findings, if that’s going to get them out of Mason Industries’ hair, but something, he doesn’t even know what, stops him. He works steadily but inattentively on his programming prompts for most of the morning, until someone raps him on the shoulder. “Mr. Carlin?”

Rufus pulls out his headphones. “Yeah?”

The suit flashes a badge at him. “Agent Jake Neville, Homeland Security. Can you come with us, please?”

“Uh, what?” Rufus is confused. “I already had my clearance interview, I’ve got my new ID card, I’m legit.” He dangles it as proof. “So if you think you need to – ”

“We do need to ask you a few questions, yes. This way, please.”

With a feeling in his stomach as if he’s missed a step going downstairs, Rufus gets up from his chair – catches Jiya looking at him with a frown, maybe she’ll cry if he’s summarily shot in the back of the head and dumped in an unmarked grave – and follows Agent Neville to the room across the way, where Connor, Anthony, the rest of the brass, and a few more of the suits are sitting around a polished-chrome conference table. Rufus’s hands are starting to sweat. He really does not like pressure. “Hey, guys,” he says stupidly, like he just walked late into a pizza party and are wondering if they saved him a slice. “This whole thing, huh? Wild.”

Nobody laughs, or gives him so much as a sympathetic grin. Neville shuts the door, takes out a clicker, and lowers a screen. Points at it, and a picture flashes up. White dude, blue eyes, looks like a soldier, even in plainclothes. “Mr. Carlin, do you recognize this man?”

Rufus shoots a wild glance at Anthony, wondering if this is a trick question. “No?”

“Master Sergeant Wyatt Logan, Delta Force, U.S. Army Special Operations. Never heard of him?”

“No?” Rufus wonders if you’re allowed to blow somebody’s cover – the point of special ops, after all, is that you don’t know who they are. Then again, Homeland Security probably does have some kind of prerogative on that. “Look, I’ve never met him in my life, okay?”

The suits exchange glances down the table. Agent Neville hits the clicker button again. Pretty brunette in a slim-fit blazer, stack of books in her arms; the picture looks as if it was taken from some kind of surveillance camera. “Lucy Preston. History professor, Stanford University.”

“No, I don’t know her either.” Rufus has no idea what they’re trying to trick him into, but this is ridiculous. “Look, if I’m going to answer any more questions, I want a lawyer.”

“Is that an admission of guilt, Mr. Carlin?”

“No! Because I have no clue what I’m even supposed to be on trial for!” Rufus wheels angrily on the whole foreboding lot of them. “Whoever did anything to that time machine, I already told you. Over and over. I don’t know!”

A pause. Some kind of silent rustle passes around the room. Agent Neville clicks.

“Do you know this man, Mr. Carlin?”

Rufus scowls heavily at the screen. Captain Jerkwad up there absolutely looks like some kind of Soviet sleeper agent: tall, dark parted hair, suit and tie, sharply chiseled features, definitely packing some kind of serious heat. “What?” Rufus says. “Flynn? I don’t – ”

And at that, he screeches to a halt. Aware, far too late, that – having no idea how – he has just made a terrible mistake.

The agents exchange glances. They didn’t tell him that name. Rufus came up with it on his own, and even worse, he has no notion at all where it came from: it was just on the tip of his tongue, he has no conscious recollection of it at all. It appears, however, to have been what they were looking for, and Agent Neville takes a step. “Mr. Carlin, if you’ll come with us?”

Rufus tries not to panic, even as Connor Mason stands up. “Come now. Is there. . . really a need for that?”

“He recognized him,” Neville says. “The number-one suspect in the detonation of the Mothership. I think that’s probable cause for further questioning, right there.”

“No! I have no idea who that guy is!” Rufus is frantic, desperate to make them believe him. “Connor, I don’t know who he is!”

“Yet,” Neville says, even more skeptically, “you knew his name?”

“I can’t tell you anything about him! I don’t know who he is!”

Connor takes half a step. Glances at the agents, and something unspoken seems to pass between them, turbulent and unsettling as wet concrete, the knowledge that it could set fast and trap you. “We don’t have any real reason to think he’s lying, do we?”

“We could find that out.”

“Rufus is a valuable member of my team. The most valuable, perhaps. If you want me to continue cooperating with you and allowing you full access to my facilities and technologies – surely you can at least obtain a warrant before hauling him off for questioning?” Mason smiles ingratiatingly. “If you can find something to charge him with, then of course, far be it from me to obstruct the proper operation of the law. But – think about this carefully?”

Neville doesn’t look like he wants to. The tension remains acute. Then at last, once, he jerks his head. “Fine,” he says brusquely. “In the meantime, is there anything else you want to tell us, Mr. Carlin? Something to, say, convince us of your bona fides?”

Rufus thinks of the file. Of his conclusions. Of the apparent possibility that one of these days, the world might just pop like a balloon, and spill them all into the abyss.

“No, sir,” he says, tight as a badly wound string. “Nothing.”

------------------

Lucy Preston is not having a good idea.

In fact, it would be difficult to say when she’s ever had a worse one, strictly speaking. The rest of her week is crammed, she and Noah are supposed to meet with the wedding planner on Saturday, and even if she did have actual time in her schedule, this would still be a monumentally idiotic notion. But more than once this morning, she’s caught herself on Expedia or Orbitz browsing flights from San Francisco to Dubrovnik, mulling the idea of booking one last-minute, jaunting over there, and seeing what it turns up. Maybe try to find Lorena Flynn, warn her that her husband isn’t well, has been accosting strangers with copies of his garbage manifesto, trying to recruit them into some “The Aliens Are Coming” Heaven’s Gate-style thing. She hopes not, at any rate, but maybe Flynn has been approaching other people. Maybe there’s a pattern.

Lucy reminds herself, for the ten dozenth time, that the smart thing to do is call the police and let the law enforcement professionals handle it, rather than attempting some vigilante intervention on her own. But. . . for whatever reason, and especially after her visit from Evil Mulder and Scully last night, she’s not feeling too keen on cops right now. Noah would tell her to do it anyway, but. . . for some bizarre reason Lucy woke up late last night, with the brief and terrifying impression that she was in bed with a stranger. It faded, but it lasted long enough to leave her disoriented, unable to get back to sleep, groggy this morning, and avoiding Noah’s questions when he tried to ask if she was all right. She’s clearly being as conspicuous about this as possible, but whatever’s going on, she’s just about made up her mind to take Amy’s advice. Though Amy warned her as well that live mysteries are an entirely different animal from dead ones. Get involved in this, and she might be lucky if she gets to regret it.

Lucy is finally about to close the browser window and get back to work, when the phone on her desk rings. She hesitates, then picks it up. “Hello?”

“Miss Preston?” Three guesses as to who it sounds like on the other end. “Is this a good time?”

Lucy goes tense all over. “No, actually. It isn’t.”

“Miss Preston, as before, you aren’t in any trouble. But if you keep trying to avoid us when we have to ask just a few questions, we can’t guarantee – ”

“Who is we?” Lucy asks. “The Borg?”

“Miss Preston – ”

“Okay, first of all.” She is just about completely out of patience to humor these pricks. “Don’t call me Miss Preston. I’m a thirty-three-year-old woman with two doctorates from and a professorship at Stanford, not some little girl drinking a Shirley Temple and feeling so grown up. You can call me Dr. Preston, or Professor Preston, or better yet, don’t call me at all. I already told you, I don’t have anything to say. If you’re legit, you can do this the legal way. Until then, don’t contact me again.”

With that, not giving them time to get a word in edgewise, Lucy bangs down the phone, far more vehemently than she meant to. She doesn’t even know what it is about them that’s setting her off like this, practically begging them to come after her with the brute squad, but every time she hears their voices, something cold and repulsed and inexplicable trickles through her entire body, souring her from head to toe, as if she can’t even think about cooperating. That if she does, she’ll die – or worse. It sounds melodramatic, to say the least. She can’t explain it even to herself.

Lucy sits staring at her computer screen for a moment longer. Then all at once, she clicks through to her recently closed tabs, and opens up Skyscanner. Five minutes later, having fished out the credit card that she’s been saving for wedding expenses, she has booked a departure from SFO at 6:10pm tonight on Turkish Airlines, connecting through Istanbul and arriving in Dubrovnik at 10:50am local time on the day after tomorrow. It’s going to be an ass of a long flight, but whatever. It briefly crosses her mind that it might make her look even more suspicious if she tries to leave the country to avoid being questioned by the government, but whatever.

She checks her watch. If she’s going to make it home and then to the airport in time to get through security for an international flight, she has to leave now, and she opens up her email, throws together a quick Out of Office AutoReply, sends a note to the head of the department making it sound like something has come up with her mom (she feels absolutely terrible for doing this, but such it is) and she will be unavailable for the next few days, family emergency, very, very sorry, but she hopes they understand. Then she pulls on her jacket and moves fast.

Lucy drives home like a NASCAR winner, praying that Noah hasn’t changed shifts and thus will be inopportunely off, but thankfully, he’s not there. She packs a quick overnight bag, grabs her passport and makes sure it’s still in date, and then practically sprints back to her car, convinced that the agents will have turned up in the fifteen minutes or so she was at home. They haven’t, but that doesn’t stop her. Feeling that all she needs is her tinfoil hat, convinced that the government is out to get her, Lucy lays rubber to SFO, parks in the economy lot, and heads in.

Once she has checked in and made it through security without being waylaid and dragged off for private questioning, she takes out her phone, opens up her texts with Noah, stares at it wondering what to possibly say, and finally taps out that she had to run a quick errand and she might be kind of late getting home. This is ridiculously inadequate, but she can’t think of anything else. It’s definitely a bad sign if you don’t tell your fiancé something like this, but. But. But.

(Nothing has made sense in Lucy’s life since Garcia Flynn walked into it less than seventy-two hours ago, and turned everything upside down.)

She waits until they call boarding, shuffles aboard with the rest of the travelers, and settles in for the long overnight ride to Istanbul. She’s brought the flash drive, but no way is she looking on it on a crowded plane, and doesn’t sleep either, listening to music and watching the glowing flight tracker edge slowly on its long way across the entire continental United States, then the Atlantic Ocean. She dozes off somewhere in this, wakes up as they’re landing in Istanbul, and is completely disoriented as she shuffles into the terminal to wait for her connection. Turns on her phone, connects to the wifi, and it basically explodes. There are thirty new messages from Noah.

Feeling horrible, Lucy pauses, then calls him on Whatsapp. He picks up on the first ring. “Lucy! Jesus! I’ve been worried out of my mind! Where the hell are you? What’s going on?”

“I’m. . .” Lucy winces. “I’m kind of out of the country.”

“You. . . you what?”

“Yeah. I’m in Istanbul.”

“Istanbul?” She can almost hear his circuits overloading. “Did someone – ” it’s clear from his tone exactly who he thinks this is – “make you go with them? Do you need help? Should I – ”

“Noah, I’m sorry. It was. . . it was an accident.”

“You accidentally flew to Turkey?”

“I. . .” Lucy feels completely helpless to explain, especially when there is no rational or logical basis or explanation for anything she’s doing. “I’ll be – I’ll be back home soon, okay? It’s just something I need to do. I’m sorry, I swear I’ll tell you everything. It’s just. . . do you trust me?”

There’s a marked silence. Then Noah says, “You know I do. You know I want you to do whatever you need to do. But Lucy, you’re asking a lot.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for making you worry. I’ll be home soon. I swear.”

He pauses again. Finally he says, “Okay.”

“Okay.” Lucy lets out a slow breath. She can hear the lingering frost in his voice, for which she doesn’t blame him; she just spent a fairly significant chunk of their wedding budget on a last-minute international plane ticket, she didn’t tell him she was doing it, and she’s been acting weird ever since some mysterious man gatecrashed their previously happy life. Not idyllic, what with her mom and her workload and everything, but still hers. It must be pretty damn clear to Noah by now that whatever she’s told him about not thinking about or seeing Flynn again, it’s a lie. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he’s started to wonder what else she might be lying about.

“Hey,” Lucy says, trying to bridge the silence. “I love you, okay? See you soon.”

Noah blows out a breath. “Okay,” he says again. “See you soon.”

With that, they hang up, not leaving her feeling considerably better. She is well aware she couldn’t even bring herself to tell him that she’s going onward to Croatia, that Turkey isn’t her final destination, and hates herself for it. If there is a quicker way to torpedo a relationship in six easy steps (or hell, even fewer at the rate she’s going), it’s hard to think of one. And it’s Noah, why would she lose Noah, Noah’s always been great, their whole time, they –

Where did she meet him?

When did they get together?

How long have they been together?

When did he propose?

Did she even say yes?

Lucy almost freezes solid. She knows this, of course she knows this – she’s marrying him, after all. And yet, the more she searches her brain for the details, the more they elude her. It’s a terrifying feeling, even worse than waking up and thinking she didn’t know him last night. As if her entire life is built on smoke and shadows, on –

Your life now is a lie, but not one you’d have any way of easily disproving. And not one that would hurt you, perhaps, to stay in. But if the time comes when you want answers, at least you’ll have them.

Lucy inhales a slow, ragged breath, gripping her knees so she doesn’t have a panic attack in the middle of Ataturk International Airport. She gets up and has to walk it off, which helps only marginally, and on her flight to Dubrovnik, wonders if the risks of reading For Lucy in public is really a sufficient reason not to. But her world is already threatening to unravel at the seams, and she doesn’t want to pull at the thread to make it go any faster. She wants to cling to whatever sanity is left.

She lands at last, crumpled and shaken and shaky, like a used paper napkin. Manages to navigate customs and find her way into the city, which at any other time – and even now – she would be absolutely delighted to lose herself in. Dubrovnik is stunningly beautiful, with a red-roofed medieval old town and massive old walls, distant blue mountains and sparkling Adriatic Sea, resort beaches and palm trees – they film Game of Thrones here, she remembers, and the place absolutely looks like the capital of some fantasy land. Her historian’s curiosity is going haywire, and she perks up a bit as she explores the narrow cobbled streets and quaint buildings. It was shelled and besieged in 1991 during the breakup of the Yugoslavian bloc, and scars remain here and there, but for the most part, it’s recovered nicely. She, however, is not here to be a tourist. She has to focus. Can’t exactly go door-to-door until she finds them.

Lucy opens up Lorena Flynn’s Facebook page, spends a while deciding where it looks like her profile picture was taken, and once she thinks she’s matched it, goes down and into a coffee shop, the kind of local java joint where someone from the neighborhood would spend a lot of time. Finds someone who speaks English, and asks if she happens to know where the Flynns live.

If she gets a funny look at that, she can’t tell. The woman hesitates briefly, asks if she’s a friend of the family. Lucy lies and says yes, hoping she doesn’t pry too closely, as she obviously will not be able to provide many details if asked, but after a moment, the woman tells her. Gives her what is definitely a Look, and sends her on her way.

Once Lucy has climbed the steep street and found the tidy townhouse at the top, she almost chickens out – which is absurd, given how far she’s already come and how many stupid things she’s already done. The barista is definitely going to let Lorena know the next time she sees her that some strange American woman was looking for her, and given the turmoil that the family is evidently already going through, the least Lucy can do is appear and own up to her insanity. She clenches a hand until it doesn’t shake, or at least less, and rings the bell.

It takes long enough to be answered that she briefly and fondly hopes that Lorena isn’t home. But then at last, footsteps. The door cracks. “Can I help you?”

Lucy clears her throat. “L-Lorena? Lorena Flynn?”

Marked silence. “Yes?”

“Can I – can I talk to you? Please?”

There’s another frosty silence. Then the door opens a further crack, revealing Lorena – yes, it’s definitely her, she looks just like her picture. But there are dark circles under her eyes, she isn’t wearing makeup, and her neatly waved hair is loose and unstyled. She pulls a sweater more tightly around herself with thin hands, regarding Lucy warily and without discernible warmth. “Can I help you?” she says again. Her accent isn’t Croatian – Spanish, as far as Lucy can tell. Her tone is polite, but it’s clear she isn’t in the mood for having her time wasted.

“I – actually, it’s about your husband.” Lucy tries to speak as gently as she can, but there’s no good way to phrase this. “He came to see me the other day. In, well, in California, in the States. I’m not sure if you know, but I don’t think he’s – ”

Something in Lorena’s face changes, not promisingly. “Lucy?” she repeats, suddenly and sharply. “Are you Lucy?”

“I – ” This has just taken a U-turn, and not a good one. “Well, yes, I am, but – ”

“How dare you.” Lorena’s tone remains flat, quiet, and ice-cold. Lucy has never felt such withering disdain from anyone, much less a woman she doesn’t even know. “What do you want, turning up at my home like this? To what? Gloat?”

“I – Mrs. Flynn, I don’t – ”

“Mrs. Flynn?” Lorena’s laugh is bitter and humorless. Her eyes flick to the ring on Lucy’s finger. “Are you sure about that?”

“I – ” Too late, too slowly, Lucy realizes what the other woman thinks is going on here, and is absolutely mortified. “I – Mrs. Flynn, I swear, I have never met your husband in my life. I don’t know him. He turned up at my office in America and – I don’t think he’s well, he – ”

“You don’t know him? After he kept trying to explain to me something about how he had to go see you? Because he kept talking about your journal, something about meeting you, going on some kind of mission through time, God bringing you together?” Lorena’s eyes are too bright, lip trembling, but she forces herself to keep her composure. “My husband is gone for three years without a word, finally strolls back in one day as if nothing happened, and he won’t stop talking about a woman named Lucy? It’s not too hard to put together the pieces!”

“Mrs. Flynn, I swear, I wasn’t on any mission with your husband. I don’t know why he chose to approach me. I thought you must be worried about him. I haven’t come here to hurt you or gloat or anything like that. I just. . .” Lucy trails off. “I wanted to know what was going on.”

Lorena studies her face for a long, excruciatingly uncomfortable moment, dark eyes cool and guarded. But at last, whatever she sees belatedly convinces her of Lucy’s sincerity. She steps back, and holds the door open.

Lucy nods in thanks, steps inside, and cautiously follows Lorena down the hall to the bright, airy kitchen at the back, with a balcony that overlooks the sea. She gingerly sinks into a chair as Lorena puts on the kettle, and makes them both a cup of tea. She opens a cupboard and takes out a tin of ginger biscuits, sets them on the table, and sits down across from Lucy. “I don’t have any answers for you,” she says. “I don’t know what happened either.”

Lucy tells her as much as she knows, which likewise isn’t a great deal, and Lorena listens with a slight frown linking her elegant brows. “Yes,” she says at last. “That’s about what he was trying to tell me. Something about. . .” She stops. “No. It’s too absurd.”

“About what?” Lucy reaches out, about to put her hand over the other woman’s, then stopping herself. “Mrs. Flynn, please tell me.”

“I. . .” Lorena gathers herself. “You’re going to laugh at me.”

“I promise, I won’t.”

“Fine. His explanation was that we – our daughter Iris and I – were. . . were killed, one night in 2014, because he found out incriminating information about an organization called Rittenhouse. That he then met you – Lucy Preston – and you were an older woman who gave him a journal that talked about a time machine, made by a place called Mason Industries.” Lorena stops again, shaking her head at the sheer nonsense she is repeating. “That he had stolen that time machine after two years of preparing for the mission, and took it through history, trying to erase Rittenhouse and bring us back, and that you – your younger self, and two men called Wyatt and Rufus – followed him, tried to stop him. But at the end you joined forces, were planning to bring down Rittenhouse, and you gave him the information to make one final trip and take out the men who had. . . had killed Iris and myself. That he did this, returned to the present, and destroyed the machine, only to find out that by changing that, that since we were alive, he had actually never stolen the machine, you hadn’t followed him, and all your adventures hadn’t really happened. That he had altered the entire structure of reality, and he was the only one who remembered.”

Lucy was braced for a doozy, as she has personal experience of Garcia Flynn’s insanity, but that is more insane than even she is remotely prepared to countenance. No wonder Lorena thinks her husband cracked up, had a midlife crisis, ran off to have a passionate affair with a pretty American professor, and has invented this cock-and-bull story as a pathetic attempt to cover his tracks. That is far, far easier to believe than, well. That. Lucy doesn’t even know where to begin. “I, ah. You’re not dead, obviously, so. Yeah.”

“Of course we aren’t dead.” Lorena sips her tea. Her shoulders are still tense, crunched, but she seems somewhat more at ease by unburdening herself of that mad fairytale, having at least had someone else to listen to it in full. “It’s been three years with nothing, no word from him, and then he walks back in and expects us to buy that? And all he can talk about is you, how you helped him do it. About how he had to go and tell you. We. . . we fought. I told him to leave, if you were the one he wanted. I. . .” Lorena trails off. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

“I’m sorry.” This time, Lucy does put her hand over Lorena’s. The older woman tenses, as if thinking about pulling away, but doesn’t. “I swear. I don’t either.”

Lorena searches her face again, still hesitant but hungry for reassurance that Lucy isn’t here to further rip apart her family, to make everything even worse. At last, she cracks a thin smile. “Well,” she says. “I have to say, that is a relief.”

“I was just. . . well, as I said, it was worrisome. I wanted to make sure you knew, if you had some way to get in contact with him.” Lucy sips her own tea, nibbles at a ginger biscuit. “If I can help, if I can sort things out between you, I’m happy to do that. I don’t know why he would choose me for his story, but. . .” She hesitates. Thinks of him asking her if she knew the man in the paper, Rufus Carlin, and the one named Wyatt Logan who gave her a hand with Agent Asshole last night. Two men called Wyatt and Rufus. That’s strange, but then again, this whole thing is well beyond ordinary classifications of weirdness. “Of course it’s not true.”

“Of course not.” Lorena rubs her eyes. “Garcia has always had to deal with – well, he’s done a lot of the kind of work he can’t talk about, but he’s never come up with anything like this. I’m worried about him too, but he owes me a real explanation. Owes Iris a real explanation. If he could just leave her like that, he’s not the man I married, not the father I thought he was. And he doesn’t get to come back until he gives me one.”

“Well,” Lucy says. “Maybe we can find him. Get him straightened out.” She manages a smile. “It may take a lot of straightening, but we’ll see.”

Lorena glances at her again. It’s clear that she’s wondering, even if she has come around, just why Lucy would have any initiative to help a loony stranger who she doesn’t know from Adam, but she also doesn’t want to fight about it, or turn down help in what must be a very lonely struggle. Then, startling them both, the doorbell rings, and she sighs. “Excuse me.”

“Of course.” Lucy sits back, takes another ginger biscuit, and enjoys the warm Mediterranean sunshine slanting through the kitchen windows. Hears distant voices as Lorena talks to whoever is at the door. She’s taking rather a long time about it.

And then, abruptly, the voices stop. There’s a scuffle and a thump.

Lucy frowns. Gets up. “Lorena?”

No answer. She runs down the corridor. The door is wide open.

Lorena Flynn is gone.

[kimengelen]

Berlin/Germany, January 2017

From now on, every 1st of the month I will create a mini exhibition at my house. So for some extra exposure of my work and perhaps also a small monetary income. It also stimulates me to make new work/s every month. EVERYBODY WELCOME>>

1st of February at “1 Flat Wall Gallery”: MARKERS by Kim Engelen

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ONGOING ART PROJECT: [BRIDGES] (performances, images and videos)

Around the world, I am doing Bridge-Performances. These performances are made visual by photographs taken of me by inhabitants or fellow 'tourists' on bridges. I write ‘tourists’ between quotation marks, because at the moment of making I am not a tourist but an artist at work.

Kim Engelen, [Bridges] ---Markers series--- Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, USA, 2013

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ONGOING ART PROJECT:   Self-portraits (text-based) Lynn via email: “You are all lovely young artists I have had the pleasure of working with in one way or another, and now you are all living in Berlin. You are strong and talented women, so I am introducing you all to one another. Best wishes for 2017, we must keep working hard and loving much in the face of so much hate!”

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FOOTNOTES; (*Bold is what I liked/I find interesting)

Read:

Adler, Alfred. „Menschenkenntnis.” Adler, Alfred. Menschenkenntnis. Köln: Anaconda, 2008. 256.

Yerli, Nilgün. „De Garnalenpelster.” Yerli, Nilgün. De Garnalenpelster. Amsterdam /Antwerpen: De Arbeiderspers, 2001. 215.

Donald Rehm. Chapter 7 HOW TO PREVENT MYOPIA, read online>>

Thruth Magazine, Don Givens, Spiritual Myopia, accessed 2017, read online>>

Openhand, the deeper meaning of an eye problem, accessed 2017, read online>>

Healing.about.com, Alternatives to Wearing Eyeglasses Treatments for Myopia, accessed 2017, read online>>

Lech, The importance of optimum vision, 2010, watch online>>

Film/Sound:

DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY (FULL MOVIE - Original Audio) Hans Richter uploaded by LikeManyThingThings, 2013, watch online>>

Alfred Adler: 3. Key Concepts and Insights, uploaded by Peter Smith, 2013, watch online>>

How We Make Memories - Crash Course Psychology #13, uploaded by CrashCourse, 2014, watch online>>

What happens when you remove the hippocampus? - Sam Kean, TED2014, watch online>>

Neuroscience - Long-Term Potentiation, uploaded by Carleton University, 2013, watch online>>

Synaptic plasticity Hebb , uploaded by Master Robotica UCLM, 2015, watch online>>

Synaptic plasticity SynapticStrength 2, uploaded by UCLM Master Robotica UCLM, 2015, watch online>>

Synaptic plasticity MechsRGlutamate 3, uploaded by UCLM Master Robotica UCLM, 2015, watch online>>

Elena Herdieckerhoff, The gentle power of highly sensitive people, TEDxIHEParis 2016, watch online>>

A Plea For The Animals, uploaded by The Huffington Post, 2016, watch online>>

Eric Thomas Interview - Master Your Mindset, Get Healthy, And Become Unstoppable, uploaded by The Model Health Show, 2015, watch online>> 

digg, 'AMERICA FIRST. THE NETHERLANDS SECOND', 2017, watch online>>

TONY ROBBINS - NEW YEAR, NEW YOU (2017 MOTIVATION), uploaded by VYBO, 2016, watch online>>

Tony Robbins 10 MINUTE MORNING ROUTINE, uploaded by Joseph Shield, 2016, watch online>>

Tony Robbins, I Am Not Your Guru - Subtitulado En Español, uploaded by Revolution X team, 2016, watch online>>

Karen Lorre sharing how to use Hebb's Law for more joy! uploaded by Karen Lorre, 2015, watch online>>

I love life!, uploaded by Karen Lorre, 2013, watch online>>

Chantaje - Shakira Ft Maluma (Letra/Lyrics), uploaded byMalumaARG , 2016, watch online>>

Natural Eyesight Improvement with the Bates Method by/uploaded by Marsh Greg Marsh, 2007, watch online>>

Cure Myopia - How To Cure Myopia Naturally, uploaded by EyesightMatters™, 2013, watch online>>

How To Improve Eyesight Without Glasses | Natural Vision Improvement, uploaded by EyesightImprovement, 2012, watch online>>

Eye exercises which cured my Myopia in just 2 months (Bates Method), uploaded by MrHealthyChannel, 2014, watch online>>

Improving Eyesight - Eating the Right Foods, uploaded by MonkeySee, 2010, watch online>>

10 Foods That Can Improve Your Vision Naturally, uploaded by generalhealthproduct, 2013, watch online>>

How to Orgasm During Intercourse, uploaded by Layla Martin, 2016, watch online>>

Cultivating Good Friendships, uploaded by Martin Faulks, 2016, watch online>>

Cultivating friendships, uploaded by pk7lives, 2013, watch online>>

Cultivating Friendships, uploaded by Kristina Fleming, 2014, watch online>>

Game of Thrones Theme - 4 Hands One Piano, uploaded by Benjamin Goodman, 2015, watch online>>

Schubert- g-moll Sonata for Piano and Violin D.408-2nd Mov-Daniel Zinn/Dror Schweid Daniel Zinn, uploaded by, 2015, watch online>>

Beth McCarthy, James Signorelli, Saturday Night Live collection - 25th Anniversary, 1999

Walt Disney Treasures - Mickey Mouse in Living Color, Volume Two, 2001

Cinema 16 - European Short Films: Lukas Moodysson, Patrice Le Conte, Jean-Luc Godard, Virgil Widrich, Tom Tykwer, Peter Mullan, Nanni Moretti, Jan Kounen, Roy Andersson, Juan Solanas, Krzyztof Kieslowski, Jan Svankmayer, Chris Morris, Lars von Trier, Javier Fesser, Anders Thomas Jensen, 2007

Todd Phillips, The Hangover Part II, 2011

Alastair Fothergill, Mark Linfield, Earth, 2007

Franziska Buch, Die Diva, Thailand und wir!, 2016

Richard Donner, Maverick, 1994

Paul W.S. Anderson, Pompeii, 2014

George Cukor, Let's Make Love, 1960

Alfonso Cuarón, Y tu mamá también, 2001

Duncan Jones, Source Code, 2011

John Huston, The Maltese Falcon, 1941

Jake Kasdan, Bad Teacher, 2011

Exhibition:

Schinkel Pavillon Berlin, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Costumes & Wishes for the 21st Century, website>>

Tȇte, GlueHeads#5

Bildband Berlin, Birte Kaufmann, The Travellers

König Galerie, Berlin, König Galerie, Berlin, The Others | curated by Elmgreen & Dragset with Tacita Dean, Elmgreen & Dragset, Pepe Espaliú, Martin Kippenberger, Kris Martin, Ron Mueck, Aidan Salakhova, Andres Serrano, Santiago Sierra, Young-Jun Tak, Nasan Tur, Mark Wallinger, website>>

Fenster61, Christian Reister, Driftwood, website>>