#this has been me with the whole red rising series

[themuseofbaroque]

astro obvs. & notes #1 - general

author’s note - this is for entertainment purposes only, none of this is fact. these are simply my own opinions!

- neptune 1H 🤝 pisces rising, noticing their eyes first. the water influence to these placements adds something that draws you in like a current, no pun intended. i used to work with a pisces rising, and she literally looked like a pretty fish (lmfao) big, shiny eyes. either of these placements can find it incredibly easy to appear sensual or seductive.

- speaking of water placements! i’ve also noticed pisces placements tend to take a lot of pictures around water. beaches, hot tubs, rivers.

- this can also be said for air signs (esp. libra) but with things they enjoy! i’m always seeing personal interest posts from libras, aquarians and geminis. music, video games, political causes, shows they’re watching, food, celebrities, etc. anything they like, they post. anything.

- i’ve never laughed harder than when i’m with people who have heavy gemini, capricorn, sagittarius and leo placements

- in my personal opinion and experience, capricorn risings are what people think scorpio rising is. i’ve only met one scorpio rising irl (that i know of) and she did not fit martian/plutonian ruling at all. celebrity examples ⬇️

kim hongjoong of ateez. the intimidation factor, the style, sex appeal, the interest in piercings/tattoos. he’s a capricorn rising, with his chart ruler, saturn, in the sign of aries so we see a lot of red/martian influence from him as well.

megan fox. she’s been a little fuckin weird ever since she dated mgk (that man makes me physically ill to look at much less read about) but! she had her bad bitch moments! being known primarily for her sex appeal + starring in jennifer’s body (a gothic treasure btw) i feel is very scorpio coded however she herself is a capricorn rising, with a sagittarius saturn in the 11h, more fire influence from her as well just like with hongjoong.

joan jett. THEE female guitarist of the 80s. her whole career was surrounded by sex, scandals, drugs, all the darker themes of rock n roll in general. she’s another fire ruled capricorn rising and a sagittarius saturn in the 11h like megan. her style and even her personality has an edge to it, much more fitting for scorpio/plutonian stereotypes rather the capricorn ones. imo.

- actors who’ve done major/recognizable roles in horror usually have a capricorn neptune. neptune is imagination and capricorn is ruled by the devil card in tarot. combine the two and you have quite literally = dark imagination. celebrity examples ⬇️

mia goth staring in the X series as the main face of the trilogy

bill skarsgard being the main face of the IT remake as pennywise

evan peters as tate langdon in AHS, he also played jeffery dahmer recently for netflix.

- capricorn actually shows up quite a bit in the horror genre, esp. gore and paranormal. both actors and writers.

- sagittarius too, oddly enough. a lot of well known faces of horror have major sagittarius placements/stelliums/jupiter dominance.

- underdeveloped cancer placements are more manipulative and two faced than geminis. i see so much gem slander on here, and don’t get me wrong, i love both cancer and gemini placements! however i’ve met and befriended quite a few of both, and cancers by far have been the common denominator in issues around them more than once. stirring the pot then turning around and playing the victim when people are frustrated, lying, playing both sides to better their own situation, and even playing people against each other. i’ve never seen such hateful behaviors from the geminis i know irl.

- aries men are much shyer compared to the women

- taurus women i’ve met irl get pregnant very easily. venus? good coochie? idk

- grand trines are some of the most beautiful people i’ve ever seen (a grand trine is when someone’s big 3, so sun/moon/rising, are in the same element but in all 3 different signs. ex: virgo sun, taurus moon, capricorn rising)

- queer individuals with pisces placements can pass as straight pretty easily if they wanted to. most of them are chameleons

- aries risings i’m so sorry for the household you had growing up. i see martian childhoods usually being the ones who dealt with screaming matches, toxic parents, poverty and underlying issues with siblings that last into adulthood

- i’m not surprised at all when libra placements tell me they’re in college for a general studies degree because they can’t figure out what they wanna do yet

- a lot of fan favorite female characters in video games are canonically cancers

- if you think your rising sign doesn’t suit you very well, try looking at whatever planet correlates with your gender identity. masculine: sun and mars, feminine: venus and moon. the houses and signs of these should help you out a little bit

- libra placements absolutely get favoritism at least once in their life, jobs/family dynamics especially

- sagittarius women usually have rough love lives, at least in the beginning. a lot of them try to save and help partners who don’t deserve it and they get hurt badly in the process. same goes with pisces women

- virgo venus is not that bad of a placement as stereotypes make it out to be. clean freaks? yes. perfectionists? usually, yes. loyal? yes. remember the small things? yes. romantic? no. at least not in a cheesy way. sensual? yes.

- lilith aspects to any of the big 3 is a bad bitch placement. honorable mention is venus/lilith aspects as well

- air signs like spicy food just as much as fire signs

- a lot of rappers have heavy mercurial placements (virgo and gemini) (3h and 6h)

- mc aspecting venus in anyway is usually the person who fools around with coworkers/may even cheat on a partner with someone they work with. most people with this placement have definitely had a partner at one point or another worried about someone they work with. may be the type to have a “work wife”/“work husband”

- 6h chiron is the person who’s life has been majorly impacted by their own or someone else’s health. disabilities, chronic illnesses, stds, limb amputation, skin grafts, etc.

- aries moon and mercury combo = bad potty mouth, cursing is an almost unbreakable habit

- speaking of aries! aries and aquarius placements together in any of these ➡️ moon, venus, mars, lilith, pluto ➡️ usually have a tendency to jump around from partner to partner very quickly, including falling back into exes. their thoughts and opinions on people and things change SO quickly that they usually are the kind of people who have rosters (unintentionally). they are upfront, they don’t lie or drag anyone along but they do seem to be restless when it comes to romance. even if they don’t physically date a lot, they may often THINK of it, their minds going a million miles a minute

- geminis do not get the rep they deserve for being freaks. not only does the sign traditionally rule the throat/lungs/hands/nervous system, (choking, breath play, hickies, hand fetish/fingering, blindfolding and sub/dom dynamics) but it’s also ruled by the lovers card in tarot 👁️👁️

- fixed signs 🤝 tattoos

- sagittarius/capricorn/pisces/libra placements usually have issues with religion/spirituality growing up. either they were forced into one as kids and they have an unhealthy relationship with their god now as an adult or they simply struggle to find something that feels true to them. this is just my experience but every single friend i’ve had who’s left the christian church, had an interest in paganism/buddhism, joined the satanic temple, grew up as strict catholics, etc, have had these placements. religion is a revolving door for them and it’s a common subject of struggle in their life

- women with pisces placements tend fall into unhealthy relationships very easily, especially if they’re heterosexual and dating men. they fall in love with the idea of love before the actual person presenting it. they are bossed around very easy and usually don’t like confrontation. honorable mentions for this as well: pisces stellium, cancer stellium/mercury/saturn, 7h saturn

- cheesy hallmark movies make me think of taurus/libra venus placements, 7h venus as well

- 5h cancer/moon/venus, cancer rising/moon dom, 5h/8h synastry aspects please be wary of accidental pregnancies! wrap it before you tap it cause y’all extra fertile 💀

- most well known streamers/youtubers have 10h stelliums, including their venus. a lot of them will end up dating another social media presence/someone who shares a platform/job with them

yay first post! pardon any spelling errors i’m proof reading this half asleep ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ

[bloodstainedsapphic]

thought you hated me | mattheo riddle entry 1 of a little anthology series i am starting with mattheo. as a way to practice writing without committing to a long series, i'll be writing a few blurbs for him based on the 'enemies to lovers' trope. 1.1k words | nsfw | minors dni | f!reader this is also a thank you for 2000 followers, like holy cow. that's insane. thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has supported my nonsense.

"Hey, hey! Watch it! The recipe calls for a scoop of rose petals, not the entire bloody jar," you scold the curly-haired prick. He abided by your warning, much to your surprise, but not without tilting the jar above the cauldron a few extra times just to savor your irritation. You can't help but wonder what past mistakes led you to be doomed by fate to be partnered with Mattheo Riddle for potions class.

The whole school was aware of your mutual hatred, and neither of you made any effort to conceal it. It had been this way for so long that you couldn't even pinpoint why you hated him. Well, besides his utterly insufferable personality and a pisspoor attitude that not even his stellar good looks could redeem.

"He's an arrogant prick." "What a wretched tart." "A hotheaded muppet." "An absolute menace to civil society."

These were just a few recent jabs exchanged between you, either spoken directly or whispered through the grapevine. As long as everyone knows how much you despise each other, it suffices.

After your taunt over the rose petals, Mattheo's gaze bore into you beneath impossibly full eyelashes before he released a huff of pure disdain at your rigidity.

"You can piss off with that attitude. I say the one of us who didn't cause an explosion in class last week gets the bigger say over our potion-making," Mattheo countered, to which you promptly stood at attention and turned to face him, hands planted firmly on your hips.

"If that's the qualification, then I've had the upper hand practically every week this entire term! I cause one explosion, and you think you're all that," you argued back, to which Mattheo responded with a tired eye roll before he fixed his spiteful gaze fully on you.

"Well, I do have the right. Especially when you caused the explosion by staring at Cormac fucking McLaggen while biting your lip like an idiot," he grumbled, his voice lowered but the intensity still sending a shiver down your spine. You knew the implications of his words and that the facade could crumble under the man's temper in moments if you didn't tread forward lightly.

"Yeah, well, I don't see why you'd care, but I'll keep my eyes off of him," you begrudgingly relented with a shrug. You would have given him an earful with just about any other provocation, but what he could risk revealing over this wasn't worth continuing to bicker over.

"Good girl," Mattheo purrs the next time he leans closer to grab an ingredient, quiet enough so only you could hear, causing the heat rising between you to stay put. "Guess I'll need to find another reason to cave the bloke's face in," he adds, much to your dismay. You wanted to say something then, but the professor's perfectly timed interjection to order you both to focus on your work momentarily set the matter aside. -----------------

"Are you really going to make an arse of yourself and beat up Cormac if he and I so much as exchange a glance?" You questioned Mattheo incredulously as he hastily pulled you into a nearby empty broom closet with little resistance from yourself. The door had barely clicked shut before he tore off his robe and moved on to remove yours.

"You want to fucking try something? See how that works out for you, I'll make your ass red for weeks," Mattheo growled into your ear as his hands roamed your still-clothed torso, finding purchase on your breasts as he began to knead them, growing desperate for skin-to-skin contact. Your insolence had gotten him painfully turned on, urging him to handle your attitude with touches he knew would render you pliant. The whimpers his groping solicited from you had become the answer to his prayers.

This little arrangement had become second nature to you by now. You give Mattheo lip, which gets him riled up, so you both seek a release for your pent-up frustrations by way of you taking his dick. Each time, without fail, you two agree that this would be the last time. But having 'hated' each other for so long, you know just how to test the other's patience, him becoming as weak to your taunts as you are to his touch.

"Care so much about who I'm looking at, huh?" you mocked Mattheo as he attempted to undo the buttons on your top, his thought capacity overridden by lust. "I thought you hated me," you continued to bait him with a hint of amusement to mask the genuine curiosity for what he might say. A gasp escaped you when Mattheo removed one hand from your chest to take your chin in between two fingers, lifting your head to meet his eyes that were already ruining you in his mind. He pressed his body against yours, letting you feel his hardness through his trousers.

"You know I fucking hate you," Mattheo replied through gritted teeth, his ferocity laced with arousal. "Doesn't mean anyone gets a glimpse of what's mine."

Your lips pulled into a smirk contentedly in response, not the least bit intimidated by him. In fact, you were pretty proud to have evoked such a reaction out of him. Sure, maybe you felt afraid for Cormac, but after witnessing Mattheo Riddle get on his knees to beg for your pussy, it had become difficult to take his threats seriously. The man was down bad, and you relished in the way you could reduce him to a needy mess, though he probably felt similar when you turned into a babbling slut every time he made you cum on his cock. If anything, the rage made you just as greedy for him as he was for you.

You took the lead in removing the rest of your top, freeing Mattheo so he could bury his face in your neck, latching on and sucking the skin to leave noticeable, possessive marks. He proceeded to cover you with hot kisses that trailed further down your chest, with each unclasped button giving him more space to work with until your top was fully removed and strewn on the floor with abandon. He sunk to his knees before you, letting you ensnare one hand in his hair to brace yourself as he took the peak of one of your breasts in his mouth, which brought a moan from your lips. Forgetting the animosity and allowing pleasure to take over, you've all but given up on believing that this time would be the last.

[thankskenpenders]

Help me out here: Why is there so much Ian Flynn hate going around lately? I thought everyone loved that he was contributing to the games. Now suddenly they aren't. I guess that's par for the course for this series but I don't get it. He isn't perfect but I like what he's done. Am I a weirdo?

Ian Flynn has always had a lot of fans, but any creator putting their work out there is going to have detractors as well. That's just the nature of being an artist. To some extent, it's no big deal. He's not a perfect writer. Nobody is! I consider myself a fan of his work, but I've criticized plenty of individual writing decisions from him on here.

But Ian doesn't just have critics. He has his own obsessive hatedom. And the specific nature of Ian's hatedom is... interesting.

A decade ago, Ian was only the guy writing for Archie Sonic, meaning any debates over his work were quarantined within that tiny niche of the larger Sonic fandom. Only people who kept up with the comics month to month had any real reason to have an opinion on the guy, which means we're talking about merely thousands of fans as opposed to millions.

Within that group, he had some haters. You had the people who were mad about story changes made during his run, particularly things like ancillary characters getting killed off (although over the years we've learned that most of those were editorial mandates from Mike Pellerito). You had the people mad that Ian didn't push their favorite ship, with feuding SonAmy and Sonally fans claiming that he was CLEARLY biased towards one or the other. You had the people who just really, really liked one of the previous writers way more - usually Penders, as hard as that may be to believe today. That sort of thing. Pretty normal comic fandom type stuff. Again, it comes with the territory.

Unfortunately, many of those haters only got worse over time, morphing into reactionaries who constantly try to incite Comicsgate type culture war bullshit.

There are people still mad at Ian for making Sally bi and pairing her with Nicole instead of Sonic in the later Archie comics. There have been elaborate MS Paint red string conspiracy boards explaining how people like Ian and Jon Gray have apparently been destroying the franchise from the inside for years by Making Sonic Woke. (Jon gets dragged into this because people are still mad about him drawing The Slap 20 years later. Yes, really!!) There was an unhinged change.org petition trying to get Ian fired, specifically from people who were mad that the Freedom Fighters aren't in the IDW comics. There was even a very sad little fan campaign from these people trying to get Sega to move the Sonic comic license away from IDW and over to Udon, because they thought Udon would bring Sally and Bunnie back and also make them sexy again. There's a lot of this.

(Unfortunately, Penders has also exacerbated this by gossiping about Ian on Twitter and giving these fans ammo, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)

The thing is, for years, people who only played the games or watched the cartoons had no reason to pay attention to any of this. Now, though, Ian isn't just writing for some weird spinoff comics that only the super nerds read. Now he's writing comics that are canon to the games, and ALSO some of the games themselves, and ALSO consulting on other tie-in media like Sonic Prime, and ALSO writing the official Sonic encyclopedia, and ALSO serving as part of the new Sonic Lore Team at Sega. And on top of all this, he's got an increasingly popular podcast where he fields questions about his work on all of these things, which serves as one of the fandom's main windows into creative decisions being made behind the scenes.

As a fan of Ian's work, it's been really cool to see him rise in prominence. But the dark side of this is that his obsessive haters from the Archie days now have WAY more of a potential audience of their own. Now, every Sonic fan has to have an opinion on Ian. What this frequently means is that you'll have the Comicsgate types taking things Ian writes or says out of context, attempting to get more of the general fandom to yell at the guy.

Unfortunately, there are a wide variety of Sonic fans who take the bait:

You've got hardcore fans who disliked basically any recent piece of Sonic media and are looking for someone to blame.

You've got the people who are concerned about the sanctity of Sonic's canon, who shoot the messenger any time Ian mentions a new retcon from Sonic Team on the podcast - or any time he even mentions the THOUGHT of changing anything about the canon, as we saw recently with the Sol Dimension nonsense.

You've got people who romanticize some sort of mythical artistic vision that Sega of Japan supposedly has (or had) for the franchise. To many of these fans, American contributors like Ian just don't "get" the heart of the series and are trying to turn Sonic into something different. (This "heart of the series" tends to be some mix of Japanese instruction manual lore, the cinematics from Sonic CD, the OVA, and/or the games written by Shiro Maekawa, depending on what Sonic media the fan in question grew up with.)

You've got fans of specific characters or ships who pin the blame for how their faves are depicted entirely on Ian - most vocally fans of Shadow, even though the root problem is that Sonic Team hasn't known what to do with Shadow since 2006. At best this stops at regular old criticism, but at its worst this devolves into claims that Ian has an agenda against certain characters.

You've got fans annoyed by a perceived over-emphasis on comic-original characters in the IDW comics, ignoring the obvious facts that these characters exist because the game cast is so tightly controlled by Sega, and also, you know, that people just like the IDW characters and want more stories about them.

You've got a LOT of discourse over IDW's Sonic being a hero who tries to give his enemies second chances, as if half of Sonic's closest friends aren't already former villains and rivals. Honestly this is very transparently just reheated Steven Universe discourse lmao

You'll also see people who just think they could do Ian's job better. They can't believe that THIS GUY is the American fan working on all these Sonic projects, when clearly THEY understand the characters and lore and themes SO much better than this charlatan.

All it takes is for someone in one of these categories to be unhappy about some recent piece of Sonic media, and for them to come across an out of context quote or comic panel that rubs them the wrong way, and suddenly the leftist Zoomer Sonic fans will join the latest dogpile on Ian alongside the reactionary Comicsgate types who are mad at him for Making Sonic Woke.

In general, when fandoms get upset, they tend to want a scapegoat. A person or two to point a finger at and go "THAT's who ruined the thing I love!" This tends to be based less on reality and more on which contributors are the most visible online. You'll sometimes see teenage and adult fans of children's cartoons single out a storyboarder who's particularly vocal on Twitter, blame them for every story decision they don't like, and harass them off the platform out of a sense of retribution for their favorite ship or whatever. Failing that, fans might choose to blame every nitpick, down to individual lines of dialogue and frames of animation, on a showrunner, just because that's the name they associate with the show. And unfortunately, when it comes to Sonic, Ian is now arguably the most prolific and outspoken contributor on the English speaking internet, and therefore a common scapegoat.

Some of the things I've seen Ian blamed for are truly wild. A lot of people have claimed for YEARS that he's just lying about the existence of creative guidelines and restrictions from Sega - or, as fans call them, The Mandates - even though they're just an inherent aspect of working on a licensed property. Others claim that The Mandates are real, but somehow Ian's fault. A vocal minority of fans have convinced themselves that Ian is the sole reason the Freedom Fighters don't exist in the IDW comics, even though Ian says he's been pushing to bring them back since day one.

Sometimes you'll see people say he ruined shit he didn't even work on. A few weeks ago on Twitter I saw someone claim that Ian had written a rejected script for Sonic Forces in which Tails died. I could not find a source for this for the life of me. As far as I can tell, the rumor seems to have been born from an alleged leaked script for Forces with margin notes from Aaron Webber that criticized the way Tails was written, and also an old tweet where Aaron joked that Tails would die in an upcoming episode of Sonic Mania Adventures. These merged into "Aaron Webber criticized a draft of the Forces script in which Tails died." How'd Ian get dragged into this? Who fucking knows!

It's all just a big game of telephone. All it takes is some asshole to make something up about Ian on Twitter or YouTube or a DeviantArt journal or some forum, and at least a couple people will believe it, and then it gets repeated as fact. Again, this used to be contained by the niche nature of the Archie Sonic fandom, but now there are WAY more people who are receptive to this shit.

It's just sad to me that Ian tries to be so open and honest about his work, to try to explain the rationale for certain things, to keep fans looped in on the direction the franchise is headed, and this just gives the Flynnspiracy types more quotes to take out of context and try to paint him as the devil. If it sounds like I'm being overly defensive and dismissing his critics, man... some of the things I've seen people say directly to him are just unbelievable. People will send paragraphs-long angry screeds in to his podcast that completely tear him apart, and he has to sit there and be like "Well, that's your opinion, and you're entitled to it." People literally pay for special guest interview episodes where they just rapid fire complaints about his writing at him directly to his face. I don't know how he does it. I would snap.

All of this over Sonic the fucking Hedgehog of all things.

I don't know how to wrap this up. Engaging with fandoms online is very tiring, which is why I tend not to do it. Things like this are too common. I guess, just... remember that making art collaboratively is a complicated thing. The people involved are generally trying their best given the circumstances, but they're only human. They make mistakes. But please treat them like humans. Criticism and dogpiling are not the same thing.

[drvscarlett]

DOWN BAD

Charles Leclerc x Kpop idol!reader

Summary: When kpop meets formula 1 and its a relationship PR stunt. What happens then?

The Tortured Drivers' Department series

A/N: after a long long long while, we are so back! Congrats for charles winning his home race. Let me know what you think or if you wanna be added to the taglist.

Taglist. @tea-bobba @boiohboii @c-losur3 @haikyuen @stelena-klayley @stinkyjax @0710khj @jinimon-tr

Cause what if I was in love What if I can't have us.

Liked by Charles_Leclerc, todayis_wendy, and 790,456 others

xoxo_y/n 💍💖

user8 MOTHERRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

user4 she remembered her account again!!!

user10 can we get a smile miss maam???

user11 she is ice princess for a reason duhh user10 it wouldn't hurt for her to smile sometimes

user55 someone tell me why charles is in the likes??

user7 charles??? like king charles?? user67 dumb dumb, its charles leclerc

user90 another day, another slay from Y/N

Y/N have never been a fan of fake dating.

However, it was not an uncommon practice in the industry. If someone wants to hide their relationship, create a fake relationship to throw off the media. If someone wants to boost their popularity, fake a relationship and get the attention.

It amazes her how good people play that part of being in love when they are really not. The thought of it also disgust her because she can't even control her emotions to the people she doesn't like let alone pretend to love someone.

So this entire meeting seems ridiculous.

"Isn't there any other way to solve this situation by not doing this?"Y/N asked.

"The company doesn't want to give you a comeback until your popularity rises and this fake relationship will guarantee a boost" the manager convinces "You are the only girl in your group that has not been involved in any dating scandals"

"Isn't that supposed to be a good thing I'm not into scandals"Y/N rebutted

"Normally it is but your image is not doing well because everyone thinks you are too cold and unreachable"

Y/N slumps back at her chair, there is really no way out of this.

"C'mon Y/N, do it for the team please"the manager begged "Think about Wendy, Joy, Seulgi, and Yeri. This whole thing will do them good"

As the leader of the group, this was her main weakness. She will do anything for the betterment of the group. Its what a good leader does.

"Just make him someone nice" Y/N surrenders.

The immediate change in expression almost made Y/N retract everything she said. This was happening whether she likes it or not for there was already a plan in mind. With her verbal agreement, its set to motion.

"Don't worry, he is a very nice guy" the manager assures "It's that f1 driver, Charles Leclerc"

Y/NFansite Y/N was just spotted boarding a flight to Japan.

user4 what is she doing in japan??

user2 what is she doing alone in japan? user3 japan huhhhh

user7 safe flight y/n

user8 it might seem crazy what im about to sayyyyyy

user9 i love love her airport fashion so chic and comfy

She knew that she should have listened to the members advice to look up her "boyfriend" but of course Y/N was too stubborn. Now, she is here sticking like a sore thumb and looking like a headless chicken in the Ferrari garage.

This was the week that they are supposed to be soft-launching their relationship. She haven't even meet the guy yet, she resist the urge of rolling her eyes as cameras might be lurking.

"Love the color of your nails" the voice comes from behind.

Y/N snaps her head giving her famous resting face as she meets the grinning Charles Leclerc.

"Ferrari Red or Red Velvet?" Charles wondered.

"It can be either"she shrugs.

He sits next to her. He was a little bit taller than her even when they are sitting down. She noticed the friendship bracelets that that he wears on his wrist with red and yellow as its dominant colors.

It was the first time that she has been able to take a long look at the man, she has seen posters of him at the train station. She will admit that she kind of sees why the girls were shrieking when they looked up the photo of Charles. He certainly looks good and she bets he knows it too with that charming smile plastered on his face.

"My name is Charles, sorry that it took me so long to meet you"Charles held out his hand

"Y/N, nice to meet you"

She didn't reach out to touch his hands in return, she just wants enough distance as much as she could. After all this whole thing is just a pretend thing.

Charles didn't seem to be dismayed by the action and he smoothly covers it up by running his open hand to his hair. He continues to smile at her brightly.

"Ice princess right?"he mentions the nickname.

"How do you know that?"Y/N asked

"I googled you last night" Charles replied "Of course I have to know something about my new girlfriend."

Y/N felt her cheeks burn at the way he spoke girlfriend. It was uttered in such a teasing manner that she is beginning to understand how some people are good at making fake dating situation work.

"I didn't look you up"Y/N admits.

She was expecting to see a falter or a tinge of disappointment but the smile on Charles face only went wider. It's as if he was a kid given a his wish on Christmas day.

"Well then that's perfect" Charles clapped his hands "We have some time before free practice, I could show you around and I could talk to you about Formula 1"

Charles_LeclercUpdate Charles is spotted walking with kpop leader Y/N before FP1. They were also spotted hanging out after free practice.

User4 what????

User7 BIG DAY FOR THE KPOP X F1 GIRLIES (its me)

User8 so that's why she went to japan!!!

User9 omgggg they will be a power couple

User14 y/n pick anyone, pick anyoneeeeeeeeeeeeeee. leave my husband alone

"Sooooooo when are we meeting our new brother-in-law?"Wendy asked.

The minute that Y/N steps back to Korea, she was immediately bombarded by her members regarding her Japan trip. They were all over their groupchat and they kept sending the photos that were tweeted by fans during the weekend.

"I think he will be busy a lot"Y/N answered "You might not meet him any time soon"

The Japanese GP was quite disappointing for Charles with him landing on a P4 and missing out on a podium. Although if Y/N could argue, she overheard people talking about how Charles did extremely well especially with the one-stop strategy. Y/N mentioned it in their conversations but Charles still insist that he has to do better so he will be training a lot.

"Tell me you took pictures"Joy asked

Y/N nodded her head as she opened up her phone. Her gallery was filled with a lot of pictures during the weekend. There were also some fans of Charles that she took photos with.

They stumble upon a selfie by Charles and Y/N, they could not stop giggling.

"Unnie, you two looks so good"Yeri, the youngest cheers "Everyone keep saying how you two are the original visual"

"What if this can be your first real relationship" Seulgi encourages.

"This is just work Seulgi"Y/N reiterated "We'll fake date for a year and a half then its done"

Before the members could voice out their protest, the door rings.

"Did you guys order food or something?"Y/N asked.

The four other members shook their head communicating that there is a stranger outside the door. Y/N cautiously opens the door because she didn't want her private apartment leaked to fans.

Y/N felt a sigh of relief upon seeing the lady at the frontdesk of her building. What was highly unusual was the bouquet of red flowers of various shades and sizes that she was holding.

"Y/N, I wanted to give this to you because I think your boyfriend forgot your room number"she greeted.

Stunned silence, she wasn't aware that there was something to do for today. She normally doesn't gush but receiving flowers is something really nice. Y/N mutters a small thanks before getting the flower and getting inside.

"Ohmygod, that must be from Charles"Yeri was jumping up and down "Isn't he romantic?"

"What did he sent it for?"Joy quizzes.

Y/N picked up the card and saw a scrawl signed by Charles' name.

"I never got to thank you for being with me during the weekend. Thank you for being a wonderful addition to the garage. Its nice to see you. I'm hoping to see you maybe in Shanghai?"Y/N reads.

"You have to go!!!"Wendy pushed.

"Unnie c'mon bring us with you"

"Let me see the letter"

While the girls were busy talking, Y/N took the opportunity that they were occupied to quiz the man who sent the flowers.

Y/N: Why did you send the flowers? Charles: You don't like it :<< Y/N: Well, I love it and I appreciate that. Y/N: Should I post this on social media or something to tag you? Charles: I just want you to enjoy the flowers. I really appreciate meeting you. Charles: Have a great day cheri Y/N: Thanks Charles, you too!

Charles_Leclerc what a weekend, shanghai you have been great.

User4 what a weekend for feudrari

User5 Charles you look so good!!!!!

User10 a smiling Y/N???? WHAT IS HAPPENING

User45 am i the only one thinking how random this whole relationship is?

User7 i know like who introduced them??? User8 ngl i dont give a crap, i just think they are perfect with each other

She was easily getting a hang of this new life. She feels like as an idol, she was well-prepared with the flashing cameras and the people bombarding her wherever she goes. It was no big deal for her to stop by and meet people since everyone seems to want a picture or a sign of Charles.

"Y/N can you give this to Charles?"

"This bracelet is for you and Charles"

"Would you sign this?"

"Y/N I hope you can have a comeback soon!"

There were so many voices and people. She kept a smile on her face as she tries to navigate her way out of the crowd. There is probably an increase in the amount of people crowding her since she is now known as Charles' girlfriend besides being an idol singer.

The crowd was moving in a snail pace and she politely thanked people giving her gifts for her or even the ones that are supposed to be for Charles. She was so preoccupied that Y/N didn't notice that Charles was worriedly squeezing his way to the crowd to retrieve her.

"Excuse me, can you give her some space please"Charles tried to get a hold of her.

"I'm okay"she squeaked.

Still, Charles waded through the crowd and once within reach he interlocked his hands with her. Y/N also noticed how his other hand has been gently placed at her back in a protective manner as if he is guiding her.

There were cameras flashing and Y/N felt a cap being placed on her head. She can see the number 16 etched on the flap of the cap and Charles suddenly missing his iconic hat.

"Please don't crowd my girlfriend please" Charles begged the crowd "I don't want her harmed or you guys to be harmed so lets just calm down"

It felt like Charles has a certain pied-piper charm to his voice because people listened. The two of them made their way to the garage and Y/N didn't miss how he still kept the protective arm gesture.

"You should have used the more private gate, next time I'll teach you that so you won't be bomarded by people" Charles explained "You could have been lost in the crowd if Fred didn't tell me"

The worried look on Charles face was evident. He was looking at her if she had any bruises or scratches, he knows that there was a tendency for avid fans to accidentally leave some scratches.

"Charles, I'm okay" Y/N rested a hand on his shoulders to soothe him "This is not my first time to deal with crowds"

"I know but I don't want to create a bad experience for your grand prix, you might not want to go next time"Charles pouts.

"I can assure you that it will take more than a crowd to scare me into not going to Grand Prixs"

Y/N's remark seems to place a smile on Charles' face and she couldn't help but to smile as well. It was simply infectious for Charles to do that.

"Good because I want to keep inviting you to more Grand Prix"Charles stated.

xoxo_Y/N 🎹🎵 #solo

User1 were finally getting an Y/N solo ???? FINALLY

User2 Y/N SOLO???

User3 I spy with my little eye, thats charles!!!!

User16 CHARLES WILL BE PLAYING FOR YOUR SOLO??? User24 no wayyy!!!!

User15 were going to be blessed!!!

Todayis_wendy why are we not informed???

xoxo_Y/N he is only here for a couple of days Charles_Leclerc I promise, I'll hang out next time! Todayis_wendy get me some gp tickets in canada and were good! Charles_Leclerc that can be arranged user55 wendy here is getting the bag LOL

After a couple of grand prix, it was now time for Charles to enter her world.

Its the summer break, they made use of the time by bringing Charles to Korea. Y/N had a lot of things planned because she wanted to treat Charles with the whole korean experience but her company had other plans.

"I'm really sorry, this will be just a quick thing" Y/N apologized as they walked the halls of the recording studio.

"No worries, I don't have anything planned" Charles smiled.

"This will be just 30 minutes or so then we can go exploring again" Y/N explained.

"Hey, its okay. "Charles assures "This is your world and you know I'm really happy to see you do your thing"

Y/N felt something weird again with how Charles placed his hands on top of hers. It wasn't her nerves because she recorded multiple times so this is something else. In the back of her mind, she knows what exactly this is but she wants to deny it for a little bit longer.

"There you are Y/N, I'm sorry but your recording last week glitched" The producer noticed she wasn't alone "We might rerecord"

"Can we do a quick run?" Y/N pouted.

"It might take some time"

She helplessly looked at Charles expecting him to be disappointed. Charles has a big supportive smile on his face as if reassuring her that she could take all the time she needs.

"I'm alright being here, your studio is awesome" Charles piped in

He was immediately making his way to the piano and looking over to the other equipment in the studio. Y/N noticed that Charles has a certain crinkle in his eyes when he is in awe with things, she used to see it with the cars.

"You wanna play?" Y/N asked

Charles looked at her as if she was kidding. He looked to the producer, seeking confirmation, and the producer just gives a go signal.

"I mean, maybe I can contribute to your recording"Charles suggested.

"Gee, are you coming after my job?"Y/N joked

"Maybe I'm just trying to do this so we can spend more time together" Charles winks.

And so the re-recording started. Charles was busy playing and making suggestions, which the producer takes into account. He even made a rough draft of a new song that Y/N noticed when he stepped out to take a call.

"Your boyfriend has an ear for music"The producer admits.

"It seems so"

Y/N glanced at the musical notes and lyrics that he has written. It was something that she might have to discuss with Charles soon because these have big potential to be a part of an album.

"You two are a match-made in heaven"

The comment caught her off-guard. It was her internal crisis that she was getting used being with Charles and it reached to the point that they are still acting like they are together even without cameras on them.

Is everything still pretend?

Charles_Leclerc Red Velvet should be played at the garage tbh

Arthur_Leclerc a blast to see her perform!!!

xoxo_y/n thanks arthur! Arthur_Leclerc my bias is Yeri btw! any chance you can get me one of those yeri card? xoxo_y/n talk to her yerimiese yerimiese hi???

xoxo_y/n consider me surprised, thanks for seeing us perform

Charles_Leclerc wouldn't miss it for the world mon chou! user81 the nickname is mon chou???? user50 i want what they have

user9 the fact that charles literally took the time to surprise his gf by staying lowkey and buying tickets like a fan would, Y/N wins the jackpot!!!!

User4 what a supportive boyfriend, i wish my boyfriend is like this

User7 why is that every time Y/N smiles, charles is always there at the receiving end??

User8 i wanna go to a red velvet concert too!!!

Charles knew that this was beyond the contract but he was pretty curious after knowing that this was Red Velvet's first european tour. Y/N was always doing her best to be present in GPs and he wanted to return the favor. He had a bit of free time and he did a little snooping.

"Let me ask you why did you call me here again?"Arthur asked.

"I need you to go on your laptop and get tickets"Charles repeated.

"Tickets for what?"

"Red Velvet tour in Paris"Joris answered.

He really brought the whole battalion to secure the concert tickets. From what he researched, it was quite chaotic once the ticket starts so he enlisted everyone within the vicinity. This is why Joris and Arthur are camped in his living room with their laptops on.

"You know I honestly think we shouldn't go with this big of a trouble when we can just call her and ask for tickets"Joris added

"But she will be surprised and this is too sweet of a gesture" Arthur cooed "I'm definitely down to do this"

"We have to focus on getting the tickets"Charles reminded.

They watched as the clock ticked closer to the selling time and then it was quite chaotic at the household. Charles would like to think that his fast reflexes would be a great advantage to this but it was all futile.

"What do you mean that were in line?"

"My site just crashed"

"This button is not working, what is this wifi?"

"WHY IS THIS SO STRESSFUL?"

Charles_Leclerc recharging the batteries with her.

xoxo_y/n i dont wanna leave monaco

Charles_Leclerc stay with me even longerrrrr hi_sseulgi stop stealing her!!! Charles_Leclerc sorry lolz user9 lolz, charles ur so unserious

user4 posting two photos of Y/N and one of him, he is head over heels

user7 i mean if Y/N is my girlfriend then i will do the same!

user16 i just wanna take a long walk and lie down the highway

xoxo_y/n always so proud of you Charlie!

Charles_Leclerc thank you! i couldn't ask for anyone better to support me

xoxo_y/n saranghaeeeee Charles_Leclerc love you more mon chou

user12 im not a huge fan of Y/N but she is always there to support Charles therefore i like her a lot

User5 why are they so wholesome???

User6 i just saw them walking to the paddock and how Y/N looked so proud of Charles is everything

Charles finds that Abu Dhabi is that one track he hates every season.

It serves as a bitter reminder that another season is ending and he doesn't have a championship in his belt. It was a heavy burden on his shoulder especially when everyone has dubbed him as someone who will bring back the glory days of Ferrari.

"You look exhausted"Y/N pointed out.

He was so into his thoughts that he didn't notice her arrival.

"When did you get here? I'm sorry if I wasn't able to pick you up at the front"Charles apologized.

"It's okay Charles"Y/N assured "But are you okay?You seem a bit out of it"

"Just a lot of things"Charles sighed.

Charles fiddles with his ring, a habit that Y/N observed that Charles do when he is stressed. After being together for nearly 10 months, even if its fake, Y/N was observant to pick up these characteristics.

"You could tell me anything"

Something that Charles learned that despite the whole cold atmosphere and aura Y/N has, she was a very good listener and comforting shoulder to cry on.

"It's just the championship, I wish I could have a better car and a better chance to win this thing"Charles admitted.

"You always have next year" she suggested

"Maybe but everyone is getting restless"Charles' voice felt like cracking "Next year, its a new team mate and a new car and new struggles"

"Well no one said that the road to championship would be easy"Y/N said "Things are never easy but that's what makes victory so sweet"

Y/N's hand reached to touch Charles to stop him from fidgeting his ring. There was that feeling of warmness again but this has been occurring for so long that this was not a foreign feeling anymore.

"You'll get it next year Charles"

"Thanks for believing in me Y/N"

Charles_Leclerc love spending time with you as always!

user8 the rings??? dont tell me you two are engaged???

user76 im so happy to see them be like this huhuhu

user2 i love it how open Y/N and Charles is about their relationship

user6 why is she in monaco again? doesn't she have a job or sumthing?

user7 jealous much?? user8 why does she need to work when charles can provide

It was so easy to do the whole relationship with Charles that they haven't noticed that a good year and a half has been done. Y/N knew that sooner or later the phone call will inform her that its time to call it off but she would like to pretend that its never happening.

"Charlie!"she greeted as soon as she enters the apartment "I remember we were running low on fruits so I bought some apples and oranges while I was going home"

Y/N frowns because usually Charles would come running already to ask what did she get but today there was a certain stillness. She immediately went to Charles' office and she spotted him in front of his laptop.

In her heart, she knows what's happening judging the grim look on his face.

"We need to talk" Charles broke the ice "I just got the email"

Y/N understood english but why are the words like floating in the air and not making any sense to her. She felt like she could just vomit at the moment with the amount of stress.

Everything was coming to an end.

"Hey, hey look at me Y/N" Charles held her hand "This whole thing may be over and we just need to give it a few months but we are still friends"

Friends? That was even more painful than ever. How can Y/N go from acting all domestic and being a couple to simply being reduced to a friendship. She clutches the necklace hanging around her neck as if it was the thing suffocating her.

"Do you need water?" Charles asked

"I need to go"

"Go? Where are you going?" Charles was confused.

But Y/N was already picking up her bag and things. She felt so claustrophobic being in Charles' place and having so many thoughts running in her mind. She just wants to get away.

"I just need to go for now Charles"Y/N repeated.

"Mon chou, you don't seem like in a good state to drive by yourself, let me drive you mon chou-"

"Don't call me that"Y/N snapped.

There were so many emotions in Y/N's eyes. It was filled with regrets, begging, and most of all pain. It was swimming with emotions that he was lost at what to do.

"This whole thing is about to be over so I think its best to start dropping nicknames so its easier for us to part"Y/N's response was on autopilot and Charles could only nod in agreement.

soompi Red Velvet leader Y/N and Scuderia Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc confirms break up.

user4 what???did i miss something???

user88 you have got to be kidding me!!

user7 i knew it, they were bound to end.

user9 good news, my wife is freee!!!!!

User8 we are checking, we are checking

"Charles?" Y/N's voice felt like fresh air for Charles.

He can't see her but he can feel how there was so much that has changed about her. There was this certain tone and intonation that he remembers whenever she speaks to him. Now, its just empty and void of emotions.

Its been 2 weeks since they received the termination email and they haven't been together in the same place ever since. Frankly, Charles misses her.

"Charles, are you there?"Y/N asked "I'm gonna hang up this phone if you're not going to speak because I have some stuffs to do so-"

"Don't hang up.. please"Charles interrupted "I just didn't know what to say to you"

There was a silence on both ends of the phone call but their heavy sighs acknowledges that they are still both on the line. They are both waiting for each other to say something.

"You know its snowing today" Charles started.

"The first snow?"

"Yeah and I remember that you told me that in Korea that whole tradition about when the first snow falls then you have to call someone really special"Charles remembered.

"Charles don't do this"she begs.

"Don't do what?"

"This, whatever this is. It has to stop because were about to announce to the world that were breaking up and we have to adjust back to what we used to be"Y/N said.

She was begging Charles to give her some time and space. It was for her own good because she knows that she was already in too deep with this whole fake relationship and its going to break her the minute that this whole thing finally ends.

"I like you Y/N" Charles was first to cave in "I have been thinking about this for months that I really like spending time with you and I really like you way beyond than this whole fake dating thing"

There was desperation in Charles' voice and it was not comforting for Y/N to hear it. She often hears that love is not supposed to be something that scares you, it should be your peace or tranquility.

"This is all wrong, you're only saying that because we spend too much time together"Y/N denies.

"Then we can start this again. Properly and real this time around" Charles insisted "We can hide away this relationship from the media, we can do secret studio session, we can just have private vacations here in Monaco"

Everything was too good for Y/N to be real. She was scared that she might wake up and this is all a dream for her.

"I like you Charles but I think I needed time to process this whole thing"Y/N answered "We have to think this through because I think were transitioning from everything way too fast. We're acting and now we're turning this to something real."

And there was silence, she knows that she messed up by being too open and too direct about what she's feeling.

"You're scared?" Charles asked

"Yeah"

"Okay then I'll wait for you until you're no longer scared"

Y/N felt like she could cry with how Charles replies. It was somehow very comforting to hear that he wouldn't run away and that he would be here.

"And when you feel like you are no longer scared and afraid then I'll be here" Charles assures.

CharlesY/NUpdates is Y/N and Charles back together?? We spotted a new girl in his vlogs and it looks like Y/N. The photo from the left is a screenshot from Charles' new vlog while the one on the right is a photo of Y/N in her IG a few weeks ago.

User4 ohmygod!!! I KNEW IT!!!

User7 anyone thinks that the timeline isn't adding up because Y/N hasn't left korea

User8 we don't know if she's been riding private jet planes

User91 no, that's not Y/N. Look at her nose

User20 and the skintone User4 but they look eerily similar

Its been 8 months since they "broke up" and true to their words they haven't been contacting each other. They really took the words taking time to navigate what they are feeling so that they can work things out properly this time.

Y/N is currently doing some songwriting when the members barged in her room. They were giggling and excited that it made Y/N confused if she missed any new memes.

"Okay what is going on"Y/N asked, putting down her pen.

"Oh c'mon unnie, why are you still hiding from us?"Yeri giggled

"Yeah, did we really have to know things from the internet" Wendy agreed.

This only confuses her even more and the members seem to realize that Y/N truly didn't know anything.

"Unnie be real with us? Is this you" Joy asked.

Scrolling past the different set of photo of Charles and mystery girl, Y/N felt her heart drop.

"I haven't talked to Charles ever since.."Y/N admitted.

There were so many questions in her head if this is one of those fake ones or is this a true relationship. Truthfully, she didn't want to know the answer because it will only pain her more.

"What are you going to do about this Y/N? I thought you two are working things out to be real"

"I don't know.."

There was something broken about Y/N that she can't feel anything.

WagF1 look at the new gf of Charles Leclerc and his past gf, does charles get deja vu?

user6 charles i cannot defend you with this

User7 its called, he has a type!!!

User88 i miss Y/N and charles

User9 can you all get over the old ones, they have new lives already

CharlesY/NUpdates Charles and Y/N at the same event tonight! After a year of their break up!

User6 anyone wanna bet with me that there will be chaos

User8 nah Alex and Y/N are too sweet to be involved in a fight User10 oh to be a fly in that room

User1 did they know about this or are they as surprised as each other?

User2 i mean if my ex shows up looking like that, i would have started packing my bags

User3 but alex is also too beautiful!!! User72 alex looks like Y/N

User84 i just miss Y/N at the paddock :((

If Y/N has been informed that Charles would be in attendance then she would have called in sick or skipped her flight. It was a punch in the gut to see him but she felt like someone twisted the knife when she saw the company he was with.

Alex, a beautiful name for a beautiful girl.

They were a few tables away from Y/N's table but to her luck she has the perfect view of the couple. She have to thank the years of media training that she underwent during her debut days that prevents her from showing any emotions she is feeling at the moment.

"Y/N do you want to switch seats?" Seulgi asked

"I'm okay, I don't wanna make anymore trouble"

She watches how Alex whispers to Charles and how he nods in attentiveness. It was the same way that Charles used to talk to Y/N when she was fake dating him.

How is this not confusing for Charles? This was the question that bothers Y/N.

"I need to go and powder my nose a quick second" Y/N bids the table.

The members look at their leader with a worried expression but they let her off. Y/N went outside of the hall and out of the view of the cameras. She was suffocating in that room.

The door creaks open again and she fears that oh so familiar footsteps.

"YN"

"Charles"she greeted without stopping with her stride.

"I need a second with you"Charles was catching up.

"I don't have a second for you"

"C'mon Y/N hear me ou-"

Charles grabbed Y/N's wrist and she made a mistake of facing him. Everything just comes flooding in her memory and she hates herself so much that none of these feelings have any semblance of hatred towards the man.

"Give me a chance to explain myself. I know this is all so confusing for you and I know that I hurt you but I didn't mean to do that to you"Charles explained.

Another mistake that Y/N did was she looked him straight to the eye. It was a recipe for disaster as months of trying to heal suddenly went down the drain.

"I love you. I really do. And I waited for you and then Alex entered and then I liked her a lot and I know this is not an explanation that you need but you deserve to hear this and-"

The whole thing was passing on deaf ears because Y/N already confirmed what she was feeling ever since the first sentence. She was ready to settle this out even if it hurts her.

"Loved Charles. You loved me"Y/N points out "Past tense"

"What? What do you mean?"

"You love Alex now right so you only loved me" Y/N restates.

Charles was at a lost for words.

"You shouldn't feel guilty, I can see it in your eyes that you truly love Alex." Y/N explains "I'm happy that its something real and sure"

Real and sure, its something that she cannot give but she is happy someone else can give that to Charles.

"But what about you?"Charles asked

"My feelings, I'll get over it."Y/N knows that she has to.

They stand there with a more comfortable silence.

"Does that mean were okay? No more hard feelings?"Charles wondered

"of course charlie"she musters a smile.

"Great" Charles awkwardly runs a hand down his hair

"You should get back to the hall, I'm sure Alex would be wondering where you went"Y/N suggested.

"What about you?"

"I'll follow soon, I just need to go to the bathroom"

"Okay Y/N, I'll see you inside later" Charles replied.

The fading footsteps of Charles allowed Y/N to let out a heavy sigh. She briskly walked to the bathroom and in the far end of the stall, she locks herself. It was the only moment that she allowed herself to be true to whatever it is she feeling.

She did everything good but why does she feel like crying now.

[lillypad-monopoly]

Wild Life Episode 5 Thoughts

(Except I'm insane about Martyn's ep)

LIFE SERIES TRIVIA is DIABOLICAL! The watchers literally being like "how well do you guys know your pain and suffering?" (also sorry only winners remember theory truthers)

The way Grian and Scar are such bitter ex-soulmates that Mumbo has to point it out is hilarious. (also them getting even and saying "Just like Third Life" hurt my heart)

Grian not remembering iconic moments from his own series is so funny. What do you mean he only knows Martyn beheaded Ren with an axe from fanart? Grian gaining possession of the Red Winter Axe was a whole plot point.

MUMBO FIRST OUT! IN SESSION 5! The canary curse is broken for real now guys but at what cost.

Grian standing on the ruins of the tower by himself going through the five stages of grief over Mumbo's death as the sun rises in the background is a gorgeous piece of fanart waiting to happen

Martyn you didn't need to start the episode by talking about how Ren is providing for you, you're asking for the shipping at this point 🤣

MARTYN YOU DO THE LORE OFC JIMMY AND TANGO WERE OUT FIRST. Also REN YOU WERE LITERALLY IN DOUBLE LIFE. RIP Ren/BigB we know where his true loyalties lie

THE TWO NICKLES MEME BREAKING CONTAINMENT I CAN'T

Ren inviting BigB to join the RenWood Mound alliance WITHOUT REMEMBERING DOUBLE LIFE is so insane I don't even know what to say.

OF COURSE SCAR REMEMBERS THE DESERT DUO FLOWERS I'M GOING TO BE SICK

Martyn and Ren saying they're going to be boat bros. This has been coming since last session but I NEED Joel and Etho to call them out on it

"We're boat boys," MARTYN INTHELITTLEWOOD WHEN I CATCH YOU-

Etho yelling for Bdubs to hit him so they could test if the wildcard affected damage and then Tango going "smack me harder~" in the background was diabolical. Suuuure you guys are all PG.

Etho sitting in a boat for Joel to jump over him feels like some boat boys relationship symbolism I'm not smart enough to explain

So Etho is currently living with team BET, but allied with the Four Gs, and in the family with Gem and Joel. Wildcard Etho is so back!

Of course Impulse immediately remembered the clock question.

Joel boasting about how he immediately knows all the questions is peak Joel form and I would expect nothing less. It is kind of warranted though because everybody else is waffling on the simple ones.

Joel is now two for two on unquestioningly trusting Etho only to have something bad happen to him and not even being mad about it what is wrong with this man 😭

Does Joel have the censor bleep on his keyboard or did he just straight up start swearing at Tango and know they would both have to censor it in post to get the effect that he was also making the noise?

Scott's gone from a creaking fanboy to a body horror situation and I'm living for it (also considering he's agreed to "go wild" this session--am I sensing a Scott corruption arc?)

Scott cutting directly from saying he and Jimmy were never married even though they called each other husbands to a scene WITH Jimmy was kind of an insane choice

Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss Girldad has been confirmed by Scott as the actual reason for the 4Gs. I still think Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss ImpulseSV is funnier but good to have an official ruling

Scott giving up his life for Pearl and them being good natured about it and calling it therapy! I love them so much!

Lizzie being the only person who's not exicted when a trivia bot spawns is so funny. Even the other players who weren't in all the seasons don't seem to be as miffed by them as she is.

Lizzie's flaming snail arising out of that hole while smiling is potentially the funniest thing I've seen all day. Why did it look like that 🤣

[del-thetiredwriter]

Saintess of Dragons part 1

Part 2, part 3

Yandere/dark Targaryens-Velaryons x female modern reader

English is my second language

Gif is not mine

“My lady, Prince Daemon has informed that he wishes to see you.”

You put the paintbrush on the table at the voice of the maid.

"I understand. Help me get dressed. Do not touch the canvas, place the materials in their usual places, and finally, no one enters my study while I am away.”

As you passed through the corridors of the court , you saw the officials rushing in for the celebrations. It was that time of the year. The day everyone loved but you hated: "Rising Star Celebrations".

A new Star rose in the sky 11 years ago tonight, a Star never seen before, brighter than any other. That night, the dragons roared in unison as if celebrating someone's arrival, and the 'gods' sent a savior, a saint.

That saint was you. When you woke up one night, you found yourself in a bed in the Red keep, surrounded by council members and the royal family. You couldn't believe your ears when they explained their situation to you.

The whole thing was like a terrible joke. You really were in the book 'war and blood' that you read. Of course it sounds like amazing thing that living in your favorite series but actually it wasn’t.

⁎

You finally arrive in the room where Daemon is waiting for you.

“You took a long time to come.”

" There's nothing can be done. I'm busy" you said expressionlessly

“You look the same. Like I saw you 11 years ago tonight. You're still the same except for your clothes and that expression on your face. Indeed, as expected from the Saintess sent by the gods, the gods love you so much that they don't let time change you. You never age."

Daemon said, that look in his eyes that you don't like. He was staring at it like a Hunter looks at his prey.

“Are you jealous? Unlike you, I will always remain young and beautiful” You replied.

A laugh broke out from Daemon at your words.

“How are Laena and the girls?” you asked.

"They are good . They arrive in Kingslanding tomorrow. You know Laena is pregnant so she can't come directly on the dragon.”

“Yes,” you whispered.

‘She will die soon. Just like everyone’ you thought.

⁎

“Where have you been! You have to get ready for the night,” Rhaenyra said in a sweet angry voice.

“I was with Daemon. ” You said as Rhaenyra combed your hair.

“Daemon? Did he do or say anything strange to you?” Rhaenyra asked.

“Here's the usual Daemon. He didn't say anything very important." You said.

A deep sigh came from Rhaenyra. She looked sadly at your reflection in the mirror. She placed her chin on your shoulder and wrapped her arms around your waist.

"Rhaenyra?"

" You are very beautiful. Tonight is a special night that brought you to us, to me, but sometimes when I look at you, it feels like you will leave me at any moment. It's like you're going back to where you came from."

You didn't know what to say at Rhaenyra's words. She was right, you still wanted to go 'home', but you didn't know how. Living here in this world was exhausting and dangerous. You were afraid to change the future at the slightest mistake. You hated see peoples deaths and misery but order to stay alive and make sure future stays same you had to.

“Sometimes I want to lock you in a place where no one can find you, not even the gods, so you can’t leave me ” Rhaenyra whispered.

"What did you say?" You didn't hear what Rhaenyra said.

" Nothing . Now we have to go ." Said Rhaenyra, and you went to the celebrations together.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

kings rising highlights & annotations

chapter 3

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

The Regent’s forces were rivers of darker red, driving inroads into their lines, mingling their armies together, like a stream of blood hitting water, then diffusing.

He killed, and it was simply that men got out of his way, or were dead.

He had grown used to something that had been temporary, like the flash of exhilaration in a pair of blue eyes for a moment catching his own. All of that tangled together inside him, and tightened, through the killing, into a single hard knot.

something about the way this is written just hits me in the abandonment issues

‘If the Prince of Vere shows himself, I will kill him.’ Nikandros half spat the words.

nik private twitter venting moment #2

The ground was wet, his legs were mud-spattered above his knees—mud in dry summer, because the ground was blood.

i don’t know man i feel like after a point you have to just be like. hey. why are we doing this again? like yeah i get that fighting in a military force can be for A Cause but unless you’re directly involved in enacting ideological change, aren’t you basically just cannon fodder

On the far side of the field, he saw the flash of embroidered red. That is how Akielons win wars, isn’t it? Why fight the whole army, when you can just—

i’m guessing the part in italics in a previous laurent line, about damen killing auguste at marlas?

He used the little name that Damen had been called as a boy; the childhood name, reserved for intimates.

the fact that is was kastor specifically asking the veretians to call him that…

Damen realised that he was on his knees, his own chest heaving like the chest of his horse.

laurent’s horse will be glad to know that damen’s horse lived. because, as we all know, they’re in love

‘Over?’ The word grated out of him. All he could think was that if the Regent still lived, nothing was over.

it is interesting how, even when he thinks laurent screwed him over (see previous chapter), damen has this uncontrollable rage towards the regent rather than laurent. i think this has more to do with the regent killing his men and trying invade his country, though. and maybe just that it’s easier to hate him than laurent. “regent = bad” is something that’s easy for damen to comprehend right now, while laurent’s whole thing is a lot more confusing and intimate

And with returning awareness, he saw as if for the first time the bodies of the men that he had killed to get to the Regent’s decoy, and beyond that, the evidence of what he had done. The field was a rutted earthworks strewn with the dead. The ground was a churned mess of flesh, ineffective armour and riderless horses. Killing ceaselessly, for hours, he had not been aware of the scale of it, of what he had caused to happen here. He saw flashes behind his eyelids, faces of the men he’d killed. Those left standing were all Akielon; and they stared at Damen as at something impossible.

damen holy shit… i guess that’s one way to reclaim your authority. and he didn’t even mean it as a sign of intimidation, he just wanted to get to the “regent.” who by the way was just some random guy RIP

‘Find the highest-ranked Veretian still living and tell them they have leave to bury their dead,’ said Damen. There was a fallen Akielon banner on the ground beside him. ‘Charcy is claimed for Akielos.’ As he rose, Damen wrapped his hand around its wooden pole and planted it in the earth.

not sure if calling it an akielion victory despite the combined forces is just customary, or intentionally out of spite. i’m leaning on the former, since it’s damen and not laurent we're talking about

The herald came cantering across the devastated landscape on a white, glossy mare with a curved neck and a high, flying tail. Beautiful and untouched, he made a mockery of the sacrifice of the brave men on the field. His banner streamed out behind him, and its blazon was Laurent’s starburst, in blue and shining gold.

here is an excerpt from a post i made while reading king’s rising for the first time:

“damen when he realizes he’s not in a slow burn romance with problematic beginnings, but a complex psychological thriller in which the smartest fictional character i have ever personally encountered has decided to make his life a living hell and also they’re in love with each other but the psychological thriller stuff is way more important to his bitchy blonde nightmare malewife and he is SO down bad and just has to deal with laurent’s mean girls 4d chess petty nonsense bc it’s enrichment for him and damen will kill anyone who gets in laurent’s way and he can’t even pick up the very very VERY clear implications of laurent’s trauma that would probably allow them to reach some kind of vulnerability equilibrium in their relationship”

on a re-read, i think this is a great time to dig into that a little more ;)

SO what i love about so much of laurent’s choices in the next few chapters is the fact that much of what he says and does is entirely petty. like, yes there’s always strategy and trauma and depth as usual, but i think it’s not denying him depth to say that he is 20 years old, this is his first love in the midst of an extremely stressful and messy situation, and despite his own wishes he cannot prevent his emotions from affecting his actions. laurent has had control over so much of the situation with damen thus far, both with the power dynamics between them as master and “slave” and the fact that damen didn’t know that laurent knew who he was. but now laurent knows that damen knows, so all of his previous and future actions are going to be under damen’s scrutiny in that context. they’re equals now, and the secrets reinforcing laurent’s prior cognitive dissonance have dissolved. that leaves laurent vulnerable (especially after being tortured and genuinely letting damen down even if by accident) and emotional compromised (he has no choice but to see damen as damianos, and with that comes all of the auguste baggage and the fact that they’ve already fallen in love and had sex under different circumstances).

all that is to say, the next few chapters are laurent’s mean girls era. he is, again, still being smart and strategic (4d chess), and his feelings are valid and his trauma is real. however, he is also just being MEAN, for the same reasons classic high school movie mean girls tend to be: he feels insecure and vulnerable about his romantic attachment to damen, stressed out by the insane amount of power he definitely should not have, and self-righteous about all the ways the world has conspired against him. regina george might have been the villain of the movie, but she was the hero of her own story. janis and cady methodically dismantled her life as a popular, powerful, and confident person. that’s why she got revenge with the burn book instead of looking inward and acknowledging her own issues, of which there were many. she had a machiavellian view of life, in which mean people always won, and so being mean in retaliation was how she could protect herself from being a victim.

that is laurent’s perspective too, for a lot of this series. we don’t know anything about regina’s backstory, or heather chandler’s (another great example), but we do know exactly why laurent has the worldview he does. he used to be sweet and it made him a victim. so he is mean to protect himself, even if that robs him of his sweetness. damen’s integrity and honor have challenged laurent’s worldview, though, and that has been the source of a lot of laurent’s slow reconsideration. but now that laurent can’t just pretend that damen isn't damianos, now that he has to accept this situation in its full interpersonal and political messiness, he isn’t nearly as inspired. laurent assumes, now that laurent has gone “mask off,” that damen will realize that laurent doesn’t deserve the love he has shown him in the past. because laurent has been mean to damen, by lying about his awareness even at the times damen thought he was being earnest and sweet. that makes damen a victim and fool—two things laurent deeply fears being, and therefore assumes everyone else also fears in themselves. two things the regent had wanted laurent to consider himself, by placing damen in his life in the first place.

therefore, in his insecurity and vulnerability and anger, as a 20 year old just experiencing his first love, as someone with a lot of power and stress who cannot waste time or energy on genuinely confronting his own flaws in good faith, laurent is gearing up to be sososososo mean to damen specifically in the next few chapters. like comedically mean. aimlessly mean. pathetically mean. on purpose. ultimately, if he must be alone (which he obviously must, says laurent's brain), laurent would rather be the villain of someone else’s story than a victim in his own. that, at least, is similar to book 1 laurent—but while he was a cat playing with a mouse in book 1, in a position to do serious damage to his opponent, now he’s more like…. a cat, slapping another cat. evenly matched, but still throwing hands. transparently insecure and pathetic, only effective in doing emotional damage in ways he doesn’t intend. damen isn’t hurt by the petty things laurent says and does, because he sees through them for what they are. he’s hurt because laurent sees them as necessary to protect himself and keep his distance, when all damen wants is to make things okay between them. which laurent would never expect, because he assumes that damen wants nothing to do with him, and would be happier and better off if they stayed apart.

basically: unstoppable force (damen's persistent caring) meets unmovable object (laurent's refusal to be genuinely cared for). the only way for this cycle to end is for damen to choose to stop, or for laurent to choose to yield. laurent will eventually make that choice, but he still has to be a huge bitch about it first. he's going to lash out at damen and challenge him to stop caring, but ultimately fail—both because damen is just built different, and because he's lowkey written as a fantasy partner for emotionally volatile people with attachment and abandonment issues.

rest assured, laurent’s genre is still psychological thriller, but it’s also now a high school drama movie. and damen is about to get a bitter taste of that, with pretty much no choice in the matter. this poor man will have to deal with laurent’s bitchy theatrics as they try to co-parent an army, and he’s already too emotionally invested and aware of laurent’s habit of lashing out when he’s in pain to genuinely fight back.

this could also be called laurent’s s1 catra era, but i’m not sure what the venn diagram of capri and she ra enjoyers looks like. to those who get it—laurent is doing what catra did at princess prom for the next several chapters, down to the “hey adora” = “hello lover.” this dynamic is very fun to read because it doesn’t overstay its welcome. it’s different from laurent in book 1, or catra in general, because it’s so clearly pathetic, damen and laurent are on the same side of the war, and damen could technically make it stop at any point. so i think it’s very very fun, while it lasts >:)

The herald reined in in front of him. Damen looked at the mare’s shiny coat, not dirt-covered, not heaving or darkened with sweat, and then at the herald’s livery, in immaculate condition, unflecked by the dust of the road. He felt it rising at the back of his throat. ‘Where is he?’

damen showed up to the prom laurent planned with him to unite their rival high schools, only to find himself dateless and laurent’s promised fancy party decorations missing. this is the moment where damen checks snapchat (i was in high school from 2013-2017) and sees everyone from vere high at their own immaculately-decorated prom, where laurent is being crowned king. little does damen know, laurent was blindsided by the vere-only prom and forced via social pressure to be there since everyone elected him prom king. they’re mad at each other for a high school drama pacing-typical period of time, and then make up when they realize the misunderstanding and reassert their dedication to each other.

laurent did still murder someone with a chair, though. but like a metal folding chair from the band room

The herald’s back hit the ground. Damen had dragged him bodily from his horse into the dirt, where he lay dazed and winded, with Damen’s knee in his stomach. Damen’s hand was around his neck.

His grip tightened before it opened enough to allow the herald to speak. The herald rolled onto his side and coughed as Damen released him. He pulled something from inside his jacket. Parchment, with two lines on it. You have Charcy. I have Fortaine. He stared at the words, written in familiar, unmistakable handwriting. I’ll receive you at my fort.

lamen hr complaint #5 (unnamed herald): ragdolling this guy over what should be impersonal, professional correspondence

also, because i can't help myself:

Fortaine eclipsed even Ravenel, powerful and beautiful, its towers high-flung, its jutting crenelles biting the sky. It rose to a sheer, impossible height and, from every vantage, it was flying Laurent’s banners. The pennants seemed to float on the air effortlessly, patterned silk in blue and gold.

WELCOME HOME, BROTHER KILLER

Rows upon rows of peaked, coloured tents were pitched on the field outside Fortaine’s walls, the sun lighting the pavilions, the banners, and the silks of a graceful encampment. It was a city of tents, and it camped a fresh, intact force of Laurent’s men, who had not fought and died through the morning. The constructed arrogance of the display was intentional. It said, exquisitely: Did you exert yourself at Charcy? I have been here examining my nails.

this is funny and i wouldn’t put it past laurent, but also i’m not sure if he like. really meant this part of it specifically to piss damen off. he was just tortured idk he probably just wanted things nice. a good part of the fun of lamen divorce era is remembering that damen’s interpretation of events isn’t necessarily accurate, and that it’s hilarious how he interprets things as petty personal slights even when they might not be. they’re both so obsessed with each other and it’s great

Nikandros reined in alongside him. ‘Uncle and nephew are alike. They send other men to do their fighting for them.’

nik tweets this verbatim on priv (#3)

Damen was silent. What he felt in his chest was a hardness like anger. He looked at the elegant silken city and thought about men dying on the field at Charcy.

but not exactly anger—betrayal? heartache? self-consciousness?

Some kind of herald’s greeting party was riding towards them. He gripped the Regent’s bloody, torn banner in his hand.

the phrase “greeting party” just made me imagine them rolling up with like confetti and a speaker blasting the celebration song. while damen holds the bloody torn banner

‘Just me,’ said Damen, and put his heels into his horse. About halfway across the field, he was met by the herald, who arrived with an anxious party of four attendants saying something urgent about protocol. Damen listened to four words of it. ‘Don’t worry,’ said Damen. ‘He’s expecting me.’

lamen hr complaint #6 (more unnamed heralds): disregarding protocol

(also “he’s expecting me” girlllll)

Without even pulling off his gauntlets, he strode to the tent. He knew its high scalloped folds; he knew the starburst pennant. No one stopped him. Not even when he reached the tent and dismissed the soldier at the entrance with a single order: ‘Go.’ He didn’t bother to see if his order was obeyed. The soldier let him through: of course he did; this had all been planned. Laurent was ready for him whether he came docilely behind the herald or, as he did now, the dirt and the sweat of the battle still on him, blood dried in the places where a cursory swipe with a cloth had not reached it. He swept the tent flap back with an arm, and stepped inside.

again i do have to question, beyond the drama, how much of this is as intentional and petty as damen thinks it is. like, the heralds literally cite protocol, damen knows this is the correct way for a camp to be run. i think he is assuming a lot here, although it’s reasonable to do so. we have seen in the past that damen assumes things of laurent that laurent is just like, “uh. not everything i do is on purpose” about, or damen is just WRONG about. i just wonder if damen’s approach here confirms things laurent was worried about (damen thinking poorly of him now that they’re on even ground), further fueling the fire of his rejection-sensitive bitchiness. not that it’s an excuse, or even undeserved, but it’s good to remember that there are two sides to the story.

like to damen, this is an angry post-battle rush of a moment to confront laurent and speak his truth (he doesn’t know laurent knows who he is), but to laurent this is like. post-torture and escape, and basically being thrown into the deep end of vulnerability with damianos and what this all implies to auguste’s memory. we’re not getting the best or most rational version of either of them right now, which is great for the drama but also makes the narration less reliable

This was the place Laurent had chosen.

right. damen thinks laurent chose this place to hear the truth about him, because the “you have charcy” note implies that at some point laurent probably figured out that damen is damianos. therefore laurent chose this occasion for them to meet each other, as they truly are by birth, for the first time. damen just doesn’t know the twist that laurent has always known who he’s been, and has chosen everything else before now with that knowledge too

There were a few furnishings, low seats, cushions, and in the background a trestle table hung with its own coverings, and set with shallow bowls of sugared pears and oranges. As though they were going to nibble at sweetmeats.

the same guy who ordered the “sorry you were given a severed head and discovered a suicide” fruit basket in prince’s gambit had to order a “sorry i gaslighted you for 2 books but not really because you also technically gaslighted me” fruit basket in kings rising

He lifted his gaze from the table to the exquisitely attired figure leaned with a single shoulder against the tent pole, watching him.

lucky number laurent lean #13!

Laurent said, ‘Hello, lover.’

It was not going to be simple.

this being the follow-up line to “hello lover” is such a good combination of funny and tension-building. like laurent’s cunty tableau immediately put out damen’s fiery righteous indignation and now he’s just like “oh this is going to suck.”

He made himself breathe through that. ‘Your men think you’re a coward. Nikandros thinks that you deceived us. That you sent us to Charcy, and left us there to die by your uncle’s sword.’ ‘And is that what you think?’ said Laurent. ‘No.’ Damen said, ‘Nikandros doesn’t know you.’

this is really a testament to pacat’s cleverness, how in chapter 1 there are a lot of moments where it’s almost like damen is directly saying he thinks laurent screwed him over—nikandros and the herald saying it and him not disagreeing, him accepting the reality that laurent is not going to show up—but he never does truly say that he thinks the abandonment was on purpose. because he didn’t, and he doesn’t, which makes sense. but he’s still angry and confused and also just concerned about how laurent is taking the “news” that he’s damianos. how much of damen’s anger about laurent’s composed appearance is projection of his anxiety about laurent seeing him as he truly is, a powerful authority figure in his own right who just won a battle against insane odds?

it’s so ambiguously written that it’s almost like pacat WANTS us to spiral. which i did, and will probably continue to do, so well-played. these books are like evil catnip to anxious overthinking theater people with attachment issues and an interest in understanding complex fictional situations to cope with the fact that real life never makes enough sense. also kinky gays but let's be real that's just a trojan horse for the other stuff

‘And you do.’ Damen looked at the arrangement of Laurent’s weight, the careful way he was holding his body. Laurent’s left hand was still casually resting against the tent pole. Deliberately, he stepped forward, and clasped Laurent’s right shoulder. Nothing, for a moment. Damen tightened his grip, and ground in with his thumb. Harder. He watched Laurent turn ashen. Finally, Laurent said, ‘Stop.’

proving that he knows laurent well enough to pick up from his posture alone exactly where he’s been injured. also they’re both so messy, like let’s put pressure on each other’s literal and figurative wounds instead of just talking about our misconceptions and feelings, awesome

He let go. Laurent had wrenched back and was clutching his shoulder, where the blue of his doublet had darkened. Blood, welling up from some newly bandaged, subterranean place, and Laurent was staring at him, his eyes oddly wide. ‘You wouldn’t break an oath,’ said Damen, past the feeling in his chest. ‘Even to me.’

damen proving to himself, and proving to laurent, that he knows that laurent didn’t screw him over, and instead was injured and failed to show up. laurent is shocked by how quickly damen picked up on this. also ow

He had to force himself back.

he doesn’t want to see laurent in pain, or know that he’s causing it :( which is especially unfortunate given the conversation they’re about to have about damen murdering laurent’s brother

Laurent didn’t answer. He still had a hand clutched to his shoulder, his fingers sticky with blood. Laurent said, ‘Even to you?’

“you wouldn’t break an oath, even to me” (“even to me” being a sort of freudian slip, meaning “i killed your brother, and i’ve known that this whole time and i haven’t told you, and you have a good reason to hate me for that”) “even to you?” (to damen’s incomplete understanding: “well i know who you are now, and if i’d known before i would have broken every oath to you i’ve ever made”)

He made himself look at Laurent. The truth was an awful presence in his chest.

babygirl it’s about to get so much awfuller

He thought of the single night they had spent together. He thought of Laurent, giving himself, dark-eyed and vulnerable, and of the Regent, who knew how to break a man.

damen totally sees laurent as his “victim” right now, set up well by him re-opening laurent’s physical wound. damen fucked this man while knowing that he (damen) killed his (laurent’s) brother, and put trust in him. if they were normal, or this was a normal story, that’s where the confrontation would end. it would be that simple—damen didn’t mean to hurt laurent but still did, and laurent has to forgive him for that, and forgive himself for being fooled—and then it would get tearfully resolved because they love each other so much that it doesn't matter. but they are not normal, and this is not a normal story, so…

Outside, two armies were poised to fight. The moment was here, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He remembered the Regent’s constant suggestion: Bed my nephew. He had done that, wooed him, won him. Charcy, he saw, hadn’t mattered to the Regent. It hadn’t meant anything. The Regent’s real weapon against Laurent had always been Damen himself.

damen thinks the regent’s plan had been to weaken laurent by putting him in circumstances where he’d unknowingly make himself vulnerable with his brother’s killer, triggering him emotionally and destroying his judgment. i'm pretty sure that this was basically his intention, but had also made sure that it would also torture laurent even if he did recognize damen on the spot.

personally i think the regent knew that laurent knew in book 1 through observing his reaction, but had planned for both possibilities in advance. what he hadn't expected, though, was for laurent and damen to start genuinely working together instead of against each other. this happens early as the thing with patras, and really pops off during the botched assassination attempt.

charcy was meant to drive a wedge between them, to correct the regent's previous miscalculation. and given the inevitable truth damen must now reveal, there's nothing he can really do to stop laurent from being upset.

‘I’ve come to tell you who I am.’ Laurent was so keenly familiar, the shade of his hair, the strapped down clothing, the full lips that he held tense or cruelly repressed, the ruthless asceticism, the unbearable blue eyes. ‘I know who you are, Damianos,’ said Laurent. Damen heard it, as the interior of the tent seemed to change, so that all of the objects in it took on a different shape. ‘Did you think,’ said Laurent, ‘I wouldn’t recognise the man who killed my brother?’

the way i YELLED during my first read. i remember even like posting something before, like “oh my god damen just tell him put this poor man out of his misery,” and then after i got to this part i immediately went and deleted that post

Each word was an ice chip. Painful, sharp; a shard. Laurent’s voice was perfectly steady.

do you think he practiced this?

‘I knew in the palace, when they dragged you in front of me,’ said Laurent. The words continued, steady, relentless. ‘I knew in the baths when I ordered you flayed. I knew—’

he definitely practiced this

‘At Ravenel?’ said Damen.

“you knew when you kissed me and let me fuck you????”

‘If you knew,’ said Damen, ‘how could you—’ ‘Let you fuck me?’ His own chest hurt, so that he almost didn’t notice the signs of it in Laurent, the control, the face, pale at any time, now white.

he almost didn’t notice the signs, which means he still totally did. because even now, damen is attentive and caring towards laurent

‘I needed a victory at Charcy. You provided it. It was worth enduring,’ Laurent spoke the terrible, lucid words, ‘your fumbling attentions for that.’

LIARRRRRRR

It hurt so much it took the breath from his throat. ‘You’re lying.’ Damen’s heart was pounding. ‘You’re lying.’ The words were too loud. ‘You thought I was leaving. You practically threw me out.’ He said it, as the realisation blossomed inside him. ‘You knew who I was. You knew who I was the night we made love.’

tbh i think this kind of realization would make me have a panic attack on the spot. also do you think this is the kind of betrayal he’s been trying so hard to avoiding confronting, coming from kastor and jokaste? but here he has no choice to confront it, because laurent is forcing him to understand the depths of the deception. no avoiding it now

He thought of Laurent surrendering, not the first time, but the second, the slower, sweeter time, the tension in him, the way he had— ‘You weren’t making love to a slave, you were making love to me.’

very true, but laurent isn’t ready to deal with it. he can’t keep up the cognitive dissonance in the present, but that doesn’t mean he’s about to accept that it was real in the past. instead he’ll just lash out.

And he couldn’t think that through clearly but he could catch a glimmer of it, a glimmer of the edge of it. ‘I thought you wouldn’t, I thought you’d never—’

OF COURSE damen suspected, at some points, that laurent knew. but this tells us that he’d ultimately dismissed the notion because it would have been insane for laurent to kiss and fuck him, while knowing his real identity. “i thought you wouldn’t, i thought you’d never—“

this is similar to how i thought about it during my first read—i suspected for all of book 1, and some of book 2, but then figured that the story was taking a different direction because how the hell could the plot points of “laurent knows who damen is” and “laurent makes himself vulnerable to damen and does a romance/sex about it” possibly be compatible? laurent, a deeply traumatized and self-protective person, wouldn’t and would never. except i underestimated laurent’s capacity for self-delusion, and overestimated the amount of control he truly has over his emotions and impulses, beneath all the posturing. damen, here, is recognizing that he’s made similar miscalculations, and now he’s seeing laurent as he truly is. they’re both seeing each other, truly, for the first time.

‘Laurent, six years ago, when I fought Auguste, I—’ ‘Don’t you say his name.’ The words were forced out of Laurent. ‘Don’t you ever say his name, you killed my brother.’

i like the simplicity of this. just the plainness of “you killed my brother.” laurent’s language is so often clever and cagey and embellished, but that last sentiment is raw and informal, and what we the reader are probably screaming in our heads. because yeah, holy shit, damen killed laurent’s brother. it’s a pretty hard thing to argue against, or ignore. “you lied to me” “you killed my brother” “you flogged me” “you killed my brother” “you forgot to do the dishes” “you killed my brother”

Laurent was breathing shallowly, almost panting as he spoke, his hands rigid on the edge of the table behind him.

his practiced words are saying one thing, but his body is very obviously having a panic attack. this scene isn’t nearly as much of a laurent mean girl moment as it seemed during a rushed first read. that’s actually kind of a relief to me, bc it made me sad to interpret him as so heartless and unfazed the first time around. even if “hello lover” is an iconic moment, it’s a performance more than anything else. and pacat shows us this sooner than i recalled or first perceived. she’s not torturing us, the reader, as much as she’s torturing both damen and laurent. and it’s not even like a lazy misunderstanding kind of torture, this is genuinely complicated and they’re both in the wrong and they both are justified in this pain and hurt. i just couldn’t see that as well the first time, having binged like all of book 2 already and having no idea what would happen next and honestly just being shocked and betrayed and compelled by the massive mislead with laurent’s awareness of the situation

‘Is that what you want to hear, that I knew who you were and I still let you fuck me, my brother’s killer, who cut him down like an animal on the field?’

you know he doesn’t, laurent, that’s just what you’re telling yourself now that you’re forced to confront it. you started this scene with “hello lover” and your prepared speech, hoping to destroy damen emotionally, but once again you’ve just kinda played yourself. maybe just cool it with the emotional gambits for now, when it comes to damen, bc they only really seem to come back and hurt you (oh fuck he can’t hear me)

‘Shall I ask you how you did it? What he looked like when your sword went in?’ ‘No,’ said Damen.

laurent, shaking, pale, looks like he’s about to pass out: “you bastard, tell me about how you murdered my brother as i think about the fact that i let you fuck me in a similar way, go ahead just make it hurt more”

damen, not a therapist but still emotionally intelligent enough to know this isn’t really about punishing him: no, i don’t think i will. can you like sit down

‘Or shall I tell you about the illusion of the man who gave me good counsel. Who stood by me. Who never lied to me.’ ‘I never lied to you.’

that italicized “i” is interesting. is it an accusation of laurent’s own lying and hypocrisy, or a specification that damen never directly told laurent he wasn’t damianos? given damen’s well-established integrity, i’m guessing it’s the first option. again with the mutual moral arbitration. and damen wouldn’t want to take such a weak a cop-out as “well i never technically said it,” it’s just not typical of his character.

The words were awful in the silence that followed them. ‘“Laurent, I am your slave”?’ said Laurent. He felt the breath forced out from his lungs.

of course laurent takes it as the second option, though, and implies that by swearing himself to laurent and then bedding him damen was directly lying about his identity. because to laurent, damen =/= damianos. a slave can’t be a prince. so damianos, the prince, must have been intentionally lying about being damen, the slave. and that’s actually easier, and less painful, and less complicated to accept than any kind of nuanced alternative.

‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘talk about it like—’ ‘Like?’ ‘Like it was cold-blooded; like I controlled it. Like we didn’t both close our eyes and pretend I was a slave.’ He made himself say the exposing words. ‘I was your slave.’

he’s right. nothing much to add here. damen wasn't just literally laurent's slave, he had devoted himself emotionally as well, and he's admitting it here despite the fact that it makes him vulnerable—something laurent is too much of a (traumatized, understandable) coward to do himself. i love damen's characterization so much

‘There was no slave,’ said Laurent. ‘He never existed. I don’t know what manner of man stands before me now. All I know is that I am facing him for the first time.’ ‘He is here.’ His flesh ached as if he had been prised open. ‘We are the same.’

this gives us some insight to laurent’s actions in book 1—not necessarily excusing them, but making them fit better into what we’ve since learned about his moral code. it ties things together, which isn’t the same as making them simpler or easier to like. pacat is very very VERY good at establishing continuous moral ambiguity in her characters, and does not rush the slow burn of making ends meet. so when she does eventually begin to connect things, it’s satisfying, because it hasn’t been all been spelled out the whole time so readers don’t have to think for themselves. this, in reference to a lot of the series’s more problematic themes, is exactly why i think people end up seeing capri as apologism or glamorization. but by claiming that, i also think they’re exposing themselves as impatient, shallow, and (sorry) simply lazy.

but i don't just want to be reductive and uncharitable, because that would be shallow and lazy too. to be perfectly clear, i honestly can't blame people for disliking this series, and not being willing or able to have patience and understanding for its more problematic elements. this series is marketed as romance/erotica. it started as indulgent kink fic. it ended up evolving into its current state during its development—and i'm really glad it did, but that doesn't change the fact that so much of its marketing and premise imply certain things that it doesn't quite deliver. and if you look up the series today, as it's still being published years after its completion, it's still marketed in a way i find somewhat misleading. to the extent that when i picked it up, it was in an intentional attempt to expand my own horizons—i wanted to challenge myself with indulgent shameless problematic porn/romance, as opposed to the weak-ass "enemies" to lovers running rival bakeries gay romance novels with canva covers that haven't worked for me in the past. the logic was basically, "well, if i don't like romance on that side of the scale, maybe i'll like the opposite extreme, or at least learn more about what i don't like." and i did feel pretty challenged during book 1, to the point that for a while i only kept reading out of morbid curiosity and vague horniness rather than any genuine expectation of depth or satisfying storytelling. it was only around the assassination scene in book 1 that i started to see the book as something capable of more depth and intrigue than just like kinky debauchery, and it pretty much just snowballed from there. and as someone who frequently reads about these dark topics in other genres and contexts, i was familiar enough with the things happening on the page to at least stomach them and push foward.

however, if i was coming at the series from a different place—like if i loved cozy romance and had very little familiarity with reading about these topics—i can see the first book especially being very blindsiding and distressing, and not wanting to engage with it further. that's not laziness, it just means that the book wasn't for me.

and the nuance doesn't end there. one of the things i love most about this series is that, even if i was just looking for shameless slavekink porn and decidedly did not want to rise to the occasion of depth or thematic exploration, i would also walk away unsatisfied. because the truly problematic shit in these books is not shameless at all, and indulgence never comes without a cost. there are a few distasteful moments that make me roll my eyes, and the garden scene definitely prompts a Conversation—but as a whole, i think pacat is very aware of the moral implications of these themes. and i also think she's perfectly aware of the fact that many people get off on them.

this series almost feels like an accidental study of, like, the psychological implications of being a person compelled by dub-con and problematic kink, finding a sort of gratification in situations where those things ar kind of inevitable (like they are for damen in book 1). AND this is made even more complicated and brave by the fact that laurent is, very relevantly, a victim of serious sexual assault. like, as hot as some of the scenes in this book are, i really don't think it makes itself easy for people to just uncritically get themselves off to. it doesn't encourage shame, but it does encourage introspection. and a lot of people simply don't read erotica and romance to introspect. (couldn't be me though. if it isn't clear, i love the laurent of vere "having insane mindfucking sex fully clothed across the room" approach to eroticism).

i feel like it's actually kind of funny that i specifically got here, as a person who almost always reads books that force dark introspection, and assumed that this erotica/romance book would be mindless, but ended up with gestures vaguely instead. for me, coming across this series and realizing what it truly is was an incredibly happy accident. but for others, i completely understand how it could be the exact opposite, and it's not lazy or shallow to realize that you misunderstood what you were getting yourself into and step away.

what is lazy and shallow, though, is to either DNF and review based on those misconceptions, or keep reading simply to fuel your own disdain and discomfort. ultimately, i think that the true error of people who walk into capri wanting shameless porn or untroubling romance is the fact that they keep reading, even when it becomes clear that the book isn't doing that. and then they decide to evaluate the book based on expectations and standards that aren't the ones the author or fans have for the work itself. people seem to take out their anger towards the SUBJECTS of slavery or rape in fiction themselves on capri, rather then the way capri specifically portrays them. either because they fucking stopped reading the book and just wanted to go on a tangent on the topics in general, or hate-read to confirm their own pre-existing bias.

my point is, nobody has to read things that trigger or upset them, and it's okay to just pass on fictional stuff that makes you feel bad or frustrated. aspects of this series made me feel bad and frustrated, even on re-read, but i enjoy the intellectual and emotional exercise of exploring those feelings and better understanding the true meaning and purpose of the art. but there are certain topics in other works of fiction that i'm unwilling to explore, which would cause me to simply stop reading, and if asked for a review i'd just say that i'm not the right person to say. and there have been many times where i've continued reading a book, hoping it would change directions, and ended up just being like, "yeah, that wasn't for me," and moving on.

the exchange "there was no slave, he never existed" "here is here, we are the same" is almost a meta-commentary on the reception of the series as a whole. it would be dishonest to deny how this series started, and some of the themes and subjects it intentionally confronts. you can't say "there was no slave [kink], [it] never existed" because the narrative proceeded to be more of a commentary on kink rather than an uncritical display of it. kink, and dark topics in fiction in general, do all have depth, and while they might not be for everyone, they are for someone. exploring that depth is entirely optional, and i understand why people with certain experiences don't want anything to do with that exploration. but our personal tastes don't change the fact that subjects like slavery and rape exist, and that reality is inseparable from the stories that come from it. ultimately, the choice is whether we're willing to take that specific reality thoughtfully on, or else just walk away.

the people i have the hardest time with are the ones who choose neither of those options. like, what do you even get out of continuing to read something that you're unwilling to explore in good faith, or that you straight-up hate? just read something else. we only have so much time in the day. stop wasting yours, and stop wasting the time of people who actually enjoy the thing with your useless bad-faith criticism. sorry this tangent has totally departed from the chapter itself, but that really is what pisses me off so much about current-day online book culture. like, i'm thinking about all of those smug-looking booktubers making 2 hour videos called "i read [name of book that doesn't appeal to the lowest common denominator of people] so you don't have to." i know how long it takes to read books thoughtfully, and then to write, film, and edit videos. maybe stop wasting your own time and dig into something you love instead, or even try to make your own thing, and just hope that some smug asshole on the internet doesn't decide to do to your work what you've done to other people's work. but no, lazy cynicism and appealing to the easy gimmick of cringe is way more profitable, i guess. and it makes you less vulnerable to people criticizing work that came from your soul, because the work you're creating is completely soulless.

anyway. i wonder what kind of totally normal things damen and laurent are up to in the chapter i'm annotating

‘Kneel then,’ said Laurent. ‘Kiss my boot.’

"if you really are still a slave, even though we both know you’re a king, then do a demeaning slave thing right now"

He looked into Laurent’s excoriating blue eyes. The impossibility of it was like a sharp pain. He couldn’t do it. He could only gaze at Laurent across the distance between them. The words hurt. ‘You’re right. I’m not a slave,’ he said.

can’t indulge in the kink anymore by circumstantial necessity, but i’m sure they’ll find something even weirder to do instead on purpose

‘I am the King.’ He said, ‘I killed your brother. And now I hold your fort.’ As he spoke, Damen drew out a knife. He felt rather than saw all of Laurent’s attention swing to it. The physical signs were small: Laurent’s lips parted, his body tensed. Laurent didn’t look at the knife. He kept his eyes on Damen, who looked right back at him. ‘So you will parley with me as with a king, and you will tell me why you called me here.’ Deliberately, Damen tossed the knife onto the floor of the tent.

okay this is just extra of him, but i mean laurent got to do “hello lover” so damen deserves to be dramatic too as a treat. i also like what this symbolizes, as opposed to their previous knife moments. as defined by their stations, they don’t have a power imbalance anymore, and they don’t have a reason to be enemies. they are a prince and a king, not a master and a slave. they are military allies, teaming up against the regent. any power imbalance and beef they have now is emotional, complicated, and abstract, nothing clear-cut (haha) enough to be represented by an instrument of simple violence like a knife. and damen summarizes this perfectly, in the context of their previous knife moments, by viscerally reminding laurent of those encounters and then just tossing the thing across the room.

honestly, i bet laurent feels jealous of the clever performative gesture. and maybe a little turned on, too, despite the horrors. that’s a fun reversal.

‘Didn’t you know?’ said Laurent. ‘My uncle is in Akielos.’

yeah, he got a really good all-inclusive deal at the akielion sandals resort and needed a vacation after all of the murder and [redacted]

[raspberrybesitos]

Deja Vú | javier peña x f!reader

Series masterlist | Main masterlist

Chapter 1 - Helplessly I reminisce

Rating: 18+ MDNI

Chapter summary: After hooking up with you the night before, Javi decides to ask another woman out on a date. Little does he know, you've got plans of your own with another man. What could possibly go wrong?

Chapter warnings: protected PIV, friends with benefits, idiots in love, mutual pining, flirting, pet names (bebita, querida, cariño), Javi is an oblivious asshole, miscommunication trope, reader speaks and understands Spanish, reader is female, no mention of hair type/skin color/body type, NO USE OF Y/N, translations available at end of chapter.

Word count: ~3k

A/N: i couldn’t wait to post, so i decided to split this into 3 parts! i have a few other ideas for this lil universe and one of them is already written! i'm excited to share this one. no intense smut in this chapter (i'm sorry), but future chapters will definitely make up for it! not beta'd, all mistakes are my own.

Divider by @saradika

“Oh, fuck, Javi! Right, hah, r-right there!” You keen, bent in half and pinned underneath Javi. Your ankles hook around his back while he grunts. “Cum for me, hermosa. Damelo bebita. Let me feel it,” Javi growls, his thrusts growing sloppy as his thick cock strokes your g-spot. His words send you over the edge and your body seizes up. You clench around him, screaming as your orgasm crashes over you. Eyes squeezed shut and mouth open wide, moans tumble from your lips. 

Javi’s eyes roll to the back of his head, his chest rumbling as he groans. You feel him twitch against your walls as his hips stutter, a telltale sign that he finished. “Fuck, bebita, squeezed all the cum out of me. So fucking tight,” he groans as he pulls out. You hiss at the loss of him, clenching around nothing.

He removes the condom and rises to his feet. He pads into your bathroom, discarding the condom in the trash can. You hear the water turn on as you lay in bed, your limbs like jelly as you relish in your fucked-out bliss. 

He returns to your bed with a damp washcloth and gently cleans the slick that smeared in between your thighs. Gingerly swiping the washcloth of your chest, Javi smirks as he cleans the precum that dried on your chest from when you blew him earlier. You can’t help but laugh as you playfully swat at his arm. “What was that for?” He says, bursting into laughter. “You’re so smug, Javi! So annoying,” you giggle. “You lov-, uh, you like it, though,” he says, hoping you didn’t hear his slip. Laughter dissolving into comfortable silence, you reach for his face. “I do,” you whisper against his cheek, pressing a kiss to it.

Javi goes beet red as he hides his face in the crook of your neck. You curl your fingers in his hair, twirling strands in your hand as you gently stroke his back with your nails. Javi presses tender kisses to your neck.

He’s practically purring under your touch. Things have grown more intimate with each hookup, but it hasn’t been brought up by either of you. Your mind races with possible outcomes of having that conversation. Would he want more? Would he break this agreement off? Has he noticed any of these things? As if he can read your mind, Javi lifts his head to meet your gaze. 

“You okay, bebita?” He asks, pulling you from your spiral. “Yeah, I’m good, Javi,” you tell him, feigning a reassuring smile. “I can tell when you’re lying, bebita. You’re my best friend. What’s wrong?” His voice is firm, but gentle. You sigh, wishing the earth would swallow you whole in this very moment. 

“I was just wondering if you’re seeing other people? I mean, you can if you want, we’re just hooking up, but I just wanted to know for… ya know… health reasons. Not that I’m accusing you of anything! I’m just -,” he cuts off your rambling with a kiss. Your eyes go wide. The two of you never kiss unless it’s during sex.

You can’t help, but sigh into the kiss as your eyes flutter closed. It lingers for a moment too long, feeling a little too intimate. He pulls back and looks you dead in the eye. “I’m not seeing anyone else, querida,” he rasps. His words soothe your anxiety, and a smile creeps onto your face. Javi gives you the same smile, toothy and goofy. Relishing in his words, he pulls you in closer in a bone crushing embrace. 

“Dejame, I can’t breathe, Javi!” You laugh, playfully pushing him off you. Rising to your feet, you slip on the shirt you were wearing before he showed up tonight, which just so happens to be a shirt he left behind one night. He puts his briefs back on and you hold your hand out for him. He laces his fingers in yours, the smiles never leaving either of your faces.

Leading the two of you into the kitchen, you flash him a wink as you gesture to the bag on the counter while you get a glass of water. His eyes light up and he rushes to rip open the bag. “Cocadas, fuck,” he groans, taking a bite of one. “You’re the best, cariño,” he says through a mouthful. 

They’re his favorite post-coital snack, he always shares one with you in your kitchen after each hookup. You chuckle as you sip your water, silently asking for a cocada with your hand out. He holds it out for you instead to take a bite from it.

Domesticity feels nice with Javi, but you quickly shake that thought off. Silently reminding yourself that he’s just a friend and nothing more. A friend who you have sex with 3 to 4 times a week. The two of you share the cocadas and water in comfortable silence.

Javi glances at the clock and springs up. “Fuck, I gotta be at work in a few hours. I’ll come over later this week, okay, querida?” He says, shoveling down the rest of the pastry. “Sounds good, Javi,” you hum, downing the rest of your water. He rushes into the bedroom to get dressed as you tidy up the counter.

He returns to the kitchen, placing a kiss on your forehead. The two of you flashing each other saccharine smiles. “See you soon, cariño,” he says, rushing to the door. “See you, Javi,” you sigh with a lazy smile on your lips, shutting the door behind you. You trudge to your bedroom, plopping into bed with the same smile on your lips.

The sun burns brightly into your room, rapidly warming up from the Colombian heat. You wake, inhaling as you stretch in bed. The ache in between your legs serves as a reminder of last night’s events, a smirk creeps onto your face. You recall Javi’s words last night and feel giddy all over again. Rising from the mattress, you saunter into the bathroom to shower and get ready for the day. You opt for shorts and a thin t-shirt, trying to stay as cool as you can in the sweltering heat.

You head into the kitchen to make coffee, and go to make your bed as it brews. Grabbing a pen and paper, you make a list of things you need to get on your grocery shopping trip, making a note to stop for more cocadas for Javi on your way back home.

Making your way back into the kitchen, you pour yourself a cup of coffee. You reach for the landline, dialing Javi’s attache’s extension. “This is Stoddard,” Neil answers. “Hi, Neil. Is Javi in?” “Oh, hi! He just got out of a meeting, doesn’t look too happy. Maybe you can cheer him up. I’ll transfer you to his line,” he says. “Hopefully. Thank you so much,” you squeak a little too excitedly. “Hello?” “Hi, Javi,” you mutter, shy at the sound of his raspy voice. “Hi, bebita. You called at the right time. Meeting went to shit,” he sighs, his voice mixed with relief and disappointment.

“I’m sorry, Javi. Hopefully they come to their senses and listen to you. You’re the smartest guy on the case. I’m sure you’ll figure out what to do next.” You hear him chuckle on the other end. “It’s like you have a sixth sense, querida. You just always know what to say at the right times,” Javi mumbles, the smile evident in his voice. A brief, comfortable silence settles over you two. “What are you up to today, querida?”

“I’m going to go grocery shopping in a bit, so I’ll be out all day. I’ll make sure to get som-,” “Can you grab some more cocadas? Please, querida? I’ll pick them up from you after work tonight,” he asks, cutting you off. “Was already planning on getting some,” you giggle. “Thank you, querida. Shit, I gotta go, but I’ll be over later to pick them up,” he says in a rush. “Sounds good. Bye, Javi. Have a good day.” “Bye, querida. I lo-,” he cuts himself off, clearing his throat. It goes silent on both ends. The slip-up is very obvious this time, neither of you know what to say. “Uh, I’ll, uh… see you tonight,” he says, suddenly, his voice devoid of emotion as he hangs up in a haste.

Stunned at his sudden hastiness and switch up, you hang the phone back on the receiver. You gather your usual grocery shopping supplies, your rolling wire cart and bags. Setting out on your trek, you can’t help but replay Javi’s slip-ups in your mind. Twice - he almost said that word twice.

Javi runs through your mind your entire shopping trip, his slip-ups and the conversation from last night playing on a loop. If the two of you are only seeing each other, then why are you still only hooking up? Sneaking around in the middle of the night? Only meeting in your apartment? Best friends don’t just hook up with each other 3-4 times a week. Best friends don’t call each other “querida” or “bebita.” Best friends don’t share the most hidden parts of each other, and hide the rest of themselves from the world.

You should’ve set some ground rules before jumping into being friends with benefits. Maybe you’ll bring this up to Javi tonight when he comes over - mention everything unorthodox about your dynamic. At the end of the day, that’s all you two are to each other: best friends.

You begin the journey home, stopping to grab some more cocadas for him. You check your list as you drag your cart beside you. Skimming over your list, you realize not all items are crossed out, having accidentally skipped over some while thinking of Javi. You dig in your purse for a pen and your keys.

Opening the lobby door with your key, you enter the building with your rolling wire cart and bags in tow. You make your way to the stairs and head up to your apartment. You skim over your list with a pen now in hand, circling items you forgot as you mindlessly walk into the lobby. You round the corner of the second floor and spot Javi across the way at the opposite end of the railing, your face lighting up. You hadn’t expected to see him home early. You hold the bag of cocadas in your hand for him.

Freezing, your smile fades as you spot him talking to some woman in the lobby of your shared building. He’s smiling, his hand brushing against her forearm with a cigarette hanging from his lips as he leans against the rail. You can't help but eavesdrop on their conversation.

“Que vas hacer el viernes?” The mystery woman asks. “Salir contigo,” Javi flirtatiously responds. The world stops. How can he possibly go out with someone else after telling you he isn’t seeing anyone else last night?

Your grip slips from your cart and it crashes to the floor, a loud bang resounding in the lobby. Javi and the mystery woman snap their heads in your direction.

Javi’s breath hitches in his throat, not expecting to see you as you told him you’d be out grocery shopping all day. You quickly bend down to pick up your cart. “Lo siento,” you apologize, flustered as you rush down the hall. Javi sighs and runs a hand over his face, rubbing at the corners of his mouth. “Te recogeré el viernes a las ocho,” Javi tells Cassandra, the woman in the hall. “Bien. Hasta luego, Javi,” she says, reaching up to press a kiss to his cheek and leaves.

He just lets out another sigh. He grabs his keys from his pocket and rushes down the hall to your apartment. “Fuck,” he mutters under his breath as he runs out the door.

You can’t shake the feeling of seeing Javi with another woman. Sure, the two of you weren’t anything exclusive, but you two had just said you weren’t seeing anyone else. Hell, he almost said “love” twice in the past 24 hours. How could he be flirting with another woman, asking her out, in your apartment building? And how could he be so nonchalant about it?

You hadn’t had great luck with relationships in the past, so a friends with benefits arrangement sounded perfect when Javi proposed the idea to you. You wanted to spare your heart from more pain so you agreed instantly, thinking things between you two wouldn’t progress any further than that - or so you thought.

You’ve always been good at hiding your feelings, constantly guarding your heart. Over the years, you learned to shove your feelings deep, deep down to where they can’t be unburied. You’ve buried them so far, you’ve convinced yourself that you don’t have any for Javi. So if you don’t have any feelings for him, why the hell are you crying over him?

Javi tries to catch up with you, but you’re gone before he can do so. He reaches your door, hearing a quiet sniffle on the other side. “Querida!” He shouts as he bangs on the door. His voice causes you to snap your head up. You quickly wipe your face before you open the door, barely cracking it open so he won’t catch a good glimpse of you, but it’s too late. He’s already noticed your glossy, red eyes and a stray tear escaping your eye.

He tries to gently pry the door open, but you refuse to let go of it. “Querida, are you okay?” Concern lacing his voice as he asks through the small crack. “Yes, Javier, I’m fine. And don’t call me that,” you bite. Confusion evident on his face as his brows furrow and a frown makes its way onto his face. 

“Hey. We good?” He asks, confused and a bit more firmly this time. You scoff. “Yes, Javier. I’ll see you around.” You whip around and slam the door in his face. Javi stands there, dumbfounded. You never used his full name, he was always Javi to you. And he always called you some sort of affectionate nickname, you loved when he did that.

He wracks his brain, trying to process and figure out why you're so angry. He wasn’t lying last night when he said he wasn’t seeing anyone else, but the conversation hadn't gone further than that. He figured he could still see other people after that, you had said so. You also had asked for health reasons. Other people hook up with their best friends with no strings attached, right? Just friends helping each other blow off steam. He has no feelings for you. His date with Cassandra will prove it. So, why does he feel so guilty? Why are you so upset over this?

You storm into the kitchen, putting away your groceries and maintaining your composure til you spot the bag of cocadas you had picked up for him - the ones he had the nerve to ask for. Taking solace in your living room, you throw yourself on your couch and bite back the tears that threaten to spill over, squeezing your eyes shut. You’re embarrassed for even feeling hurt and upset over him seeing someone else, but you feel even more embarrassed at the fact that he saw you - now he knows you’re upset. 

Your attempt to withhold tears fails as your body racks with silent sobs. Taking a deep, shaky breath and exhaling, you muster up the strength to gather your cart and bags once more to finish grocery shopping. Desperate to take your mind off everything. 

You peer out of the peephole to ensure Javi isn’t out there. Grabbing your keys, you cautiously open the door and check if the coast is clear. You turn around, locking your door and hurriedly rush down the hall to the stairs. You’re practically running out of the building once you reach the first floor.

Trekking to one of the fruit stands near one of the markets, you mindlessly sort through the produce. You desperately try to shake the anxiety reeling through you, afraid of running into the woman or worse, Javi. You reach for an orange as a hand brushes yours, reaching for the same one. You jump, startling at the touch, pulling you out of your trance.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” a man says, pulling his hand back. You meekly smile, taking in the handsome man in front of you. “It’s okay, I can grab another,” you tell him. “No, no, that’s okay. Go ahead, take it,” he says, handing you the orange.

“Thank you,” you tell him. “No problem. A girl like you deserves an orange that’s just as sweet as her,” he smiles. Your brows quirk up before bursting into a fit of giggles. “Too cheesy?” He asks, flushed red in the face. “A little… but it was cute,” you giggle. “Chris. Christ Feistl,” he smiles, extending his hand. You give him your name, shaking his hand. 

“Do you always include fruit in your pickup lines?” You playfully ask. “Not always, but I could show you my other lines if you let me take you out sometime,” he boldly says. A smirk creeps onto your face. “Bold. I like it,” you say, digging a pen and a scrap of paper out of your purse. You scribble your name and number on it. “Call me and we can arrange something,” you say with a wink - Javi completely forgotten for now. 

He smiles as he takes the piece of paper. “Looking forward to it,” he says. “And I’m looking forward to all your cheesy pickup lines. I’ll see you around,” you say with a smile. “See you around,” he says.

You’re practically buzzing with excitement the rest of your grocery trip, Javi temporarily forgotten. Replaying the previous interaction you had with Chris, you’re eager to call him and arrange a date. A little too eager for some reason.

He’s handsome, white, blonde-ish with a beard, and hazel eyes - the total opposite of Javi. If Javi can go on a date and hookup with other people, then why can’t you? This will be good for you.

Translations:

Damelo - give it to me

Que vas hacer el viernes? - What are you doing on Friday?

Salir contigo - Going out with you

Lo siento - I'm sorry

Te recogeré el viernes a las ocho - I'll pick you up on Friday at 8

Hasta luego - See you later/then

Querida/Cariño - darling/dear

Bebita - Baby girl

i hope y'all enjoy! the build up is very important to me, so i am working hard on it! this is a love letter to all the novelas i watched as a kid. i <3 drama

Tag list: @undrthelights @gracieheartsspedro @jenispunk @nostalxgic @mandoisapunk @party-hearses @bastardmandennis @tinygarbage @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @daydreamingmiller @javierpena-inatacvest @chaotic-mystery @amanitacowboy @factualfic @littlegrungegirlaf @fifia-writes @pedroluver @pascalpvnk @thevoiceinyourheadx @innerpersonunknown @evangelinemedici @vickie5446

if your name is crossed out, it means i couldn’t tag you ):

[joelalorian]

Fevered Flame

Marcus Pike x F!Reader

Summary: When Marcus Pike lost himself in work after that debacle with Theresa, he didn’t expect to take on a sizzling new case in the quirky town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Nor did he expect to meet you, an up-and-coming agent also looking for a fresh start. An unprecedented heatwave, mind-boggling art thefts, ancient Aztec legends, this case had the works. How would he ever solve the case with the temperature rising between you both?

This fic is my contribution to @iamasaddie's Little Lady Kinky May writing challenge. Prompts were Marcus Pike and Temperature. This is my first time writing Marcus Pike and I hope I did him justice. I learned a few things about myself during this process, the most important being that I am incapable of writing porn without plot, or a romantic angle, apparently. This story turned out waaaaay different than intended because of that. I apologize now for the plot heaviness between sexy bits.

WC: 10.4k – I’m sorry, I have no idea where all these words came from

Warnings: Explicit 18+, too much plot, heat making people cray cray, sexy sweatiness, lots of cursing (I’m from New Jersey, I can’t help it), nonsensical crime stuff, a plot that came straight outta left field, protected and unprotected sex (p in v), pussy eating and cock sucking, inappropriate use of an ice cube and hot springs. No use of y/n. Reader has a nickname and boobs, otherwise, I tried to keep her a blank slate. Some terms of endearment. IDK, there’s probably more but I can’t think right now.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this utter ridiculousness. Dividers by the wonderful @saradika-graphics. Moodboard by me.

Masterlist

Still reeling from the aftermath of Theresa Lisbon choosing that pontificating windbag Patrick Jane over him nearly a year ago, Marcus Pike buried himself in work. The transition from Texas to DC and adapting to leading a whole new team took his mind of his misery. However, the lonely nights in his new home, the one purchased with hopes of building a life with Theresa in mind, were untenable and he took on more fieldwork than someone at the director level typically would. Hence why Marcus found himself driving through the desert to some quirky small town in New Mexico called Truth or Consequences.

What the fuck kind of name was that for a town, he wondered idly as his right hand pumped the rental car’s AC to full blast. Having already stripped off his suit jacket and tie, Marcus sweat clear through his lavender dress shirt within minutes. The heat was ungodly. Surely it couldn’t be normal. How could people live like that?

Eyes scanning the dashboard display of the mid-size SUV the agency rented for him, they nearly bugged out of his head at the temperature reading. Lit up in glaring red, the numbers 121°F taunted him as sweat dripped down his temples.

Jesus Christ. Death Valley had nothing on this place.

Marcus steered the vehicle toward his hotel, opting to change into something a little more suitable for the local climate before checking in with the agent representing the local field office. The FBI put him up in a supposedly nice hotel, though he didn’t have high expectations of what that meant in a town like this. As long as the AC worked, he’d survive.

Thirty minutes later, Marcus took his second shower of the day, this one much colder than the last, and jumped back into the SUV in an outfit more typical of a golf outing than an FBI investigation. It was the best he could do with what he packed. The local agent texted him the address of an art gallery, the first in a series of apparent crime scenes, and he plugged the address into the GPS.

Normally, you didn’t mind the heat, preferring that to cold winters, but this current heatwave was beyond ridiculous. You sweat just by simply existing. You never experienced anything like it in the five years you’d been stationed in Albuquerque, and you suddenly found yourself longing for the bone-deep cold of a northeastern winter as you waited for the DC agent to arrive.

The chilling sea breeze of a New Jersey winter sounded like heaven right now.

A sleek silver SUV pulled up next to your government-issued sedan and you watched with an assessing gaze from the driver’s seat as Director Marcus Pike exited the vehicle clad in khaki shorts and a turquoise polo, trendy aviator sunglasses shielding his eyes from the glare of the desert sun. His dark brown hair was short and styled back off his forehead, and a neatly trimmed scruff lined his top lip and jaw.

You knew from a quick glance at his FBI profile that he was a decorated agent, but his government photo did not do him justice. The man was fucking gorgeous in person. Exiting your own vehicle before he caught you staring, you introduced yourself.

He flashed you a smile full of boyish charm when you gave him your name, causing your heart to thump double time. “You can just call me Jersey, everyone else does,” you finished, holding your hand out to shake his.

“Marcus Pike, Director of the Art Crimes Squad in DC,” he replied, his larger hand engulfing yours in a firm, yet not overbearing, shake. “Just call me Marcus.”

The two of you gazed at each other, the sun beating down on you both like laser beams. Holy fuck, Marcus was even hotter up close. Yeah, his FBI file photo did not do him any justice at all. Not wanting to make things uncomfortable by staring too long, you gestured toward the door to the gallery.

“Shall we?”

Marcus cleared his throat and nodded, following behind you as you strolled casually through the entrance. “Wanna give me a rundown of what we know so far?”

“Sure,” you replied. “We’ve had paintings stolen from several galleries in town. Despite its odd name and small-town status, Truth or Consequences has a rather robust art scene. Lots of expensive art showcased in these galleries.”

Marcus nodded as you gave him some background. He likely read most of this in the file on his flight out here, but you could appreciate the necessity of running over it again verbally. Repetition was the mother of… whatever the fuck that saying was. Your brain was already too fried from the heat.

“The thefts started almost a week ago, not too long after the start of the extreme heatwave this area is currently experiencing. There has been one painting taken every other day so far, always at the peak heat of the day when the townsfolk are too overheated and tired to pay much attention. No eyewitnesses and the thief artfully avoided any surveillance or security cameras so far.”

You watched Marcus jot down some notes, tapping the end of his pen against the small notepad as he reviewed the information.

“So, three paintings taken so far, and it’s still early in the day. I’m guessing we can expect another theft today?” You nodded and Marcus tapped the pen against his bottom lip this time, causing you to avert your gaze before he caught you ogling the plump flesh.

“Have there been any patterns identified?”

You could practically see the wheels turning in his head. “Just in the types of paintings taken so far. They all depict scenes of cool, serene landscapes.”

Dark brown eyes held your gaze. “So, the exact opposite of the current weather situation.”

Again, you nodded. “That’s the only pattern so far. We haven’t been able to determine any order to the galleries hit and, unfortunately, this town doesn’t have the law enforcement manpower to guard all of the galleries and still attend to their normal duties. We do have unis posted at the galleries that haven’t been hit yet, just in case. That’s the best the townies could do though.”

Humming in thought, Marcus walked around the gallery, causing you to scramble to keep up. It was fascinating watching his mind work, his big, brown eyes taking in every minute detail around him. When he stopped in front of the empty spot marking the first stolen painting’s former home, you paused next to him, debating on sharing the only other piece of information you had so far.

“There’s, uh, something strange that may or may not be related to this case.” That got Marcus’ attention and his eyes shot to you once again, brow arched curiously.

“Do tell,” he replied with an encouraging smile. You blinked slowly, trying in vain to maintain your concentration in front of such a handsome man.

“I will on the way to the other galleries. Just… just promise to hold judgment until I finish telling you everything. It’s a little… unorthodox compared to what we’re used, I’d say.” You led the way back to your car, gesturing for Marcus to get in on the passenger side. It made more sense to ride together. Thankfully, you left it running while inside the gallery, making the interior still nice and cool.

Once seated, his head cocked to the side endearingly, the tilt of his lips bordering on an indulgent smile. “Ok, I promise.” The cadence and depth of his soft-spoken voice set you aflame and you had to practically shake yourself to not fall to your knees in praise of this man.

Jesus Christ, Jersey, have a modicum of professionalism and self-respect, will ya, your inner monologue chided. Your libido hyperfixated on the veritable stud before you whether you wanted it to or not. It’d been too long since your last tumble in the sheets, apparently. Recentering your focus, you pulled out onto the main road heading to the next crime scene.

“Good,” you croaked. Feeling the heat creep up your already overheated flesh, you cleared your throat. “I’m sure you can tell, the weather here is ungodly hot – hard to miss it. This is not entirely normal, from what I understand. It’s tempting to chalk it up to climate change, except for one strange thing. Drive twenty or thirty minutes outside of town and the temps are far lower, though still hot by some standards. The temps within the surrounding towns are in line with the more normal averages.”

Brows furrowed, Marcus’ dark eyes searched your face, clearly looking for more context clues. “The heat certainly seemed excessive on the ride over from the municipal airport. I had to stop at the hotel and change or I would have melted to the pavement in my suit.”

You chuckled. “I know the feeling. The average temperature here is supposed to be in the low 90s this time of year, not thirty degrees higher. And the usually cooler desert nights haven’t existed for the past couple of weeks. It’s very strange.”

“And it’s just this town, you say?”

Pulling to a stop in front of the next gallery, you nodded. “Strange, right?”

“Very,” Marcus replied, deep in thought as he followed you inside.

It carried on like that the rest of the afternoon until the heat became just too much after checking out the last crime scene. Like everyone else in town, you sought refuge in the coolest place you could find, which happened to be a hole-in-the-wall pub just off the main street.

Just when Marcus thought things couldn’t get weirder with this town, you led him into a dark and dingy little pub, settling right up to the aged bar. If you weren’t a certified agency employee, he would be terrified that you were luring him to his untimely death.

As it was, the scraggly old barkeep gave him the creeps when he shuffled over, eyeing the pair of you with the same attention he would three-headed aliens. “Coldest beer in town. Two pints?” The man’s voice as rough as he looked, he didn’t wait for an answer.

Marcus shot you a look, eyes wide and uncertain, but you merely shrugged in return. He didn’t normally drink on the job, but between the heat and the early start for traveling, Marcus decided his day was finished. He chugged at the frosty draft when the barkeep placed it in front of him. The old man was right, the pint glass was frozen and small chunks of ice floated in the foamy beer.

“Damn, that’s good,” he nearly moaned, feeling refreshed.

“I know, right?” you replied, nearly half done with your own pint. “I don’t normally like beer, but I could drink it all day long when it’s ice cold like this. Especially in this heat, you know?”

The first round went down easily, and quickly, and the old barkeep, whose name turned out to be Harry, placed another round down before Marcus even thought to ask. The pair of you settled into easy conversation, getting to know each other outside of the job. The more you drank, the more your Jersey accent started to peak through. He found it cute and kept asking you questions just to keep hearing you talk.

Soon enough, any thought left in his mind about Theresa evaporated. How could he still think about his ex-fiancé when a hot, smart, sweet little thing like you sat before him, chatting, and flirting away the evening. Theresa had nothing on you.

It took exactly a fraction of a second to be struck by your beauty that morning. Confident and intelligent, not mention damn good at your job, he quickly realized your natural beauty served as icing on the cake. You were the entire package, and he was trying his damnedest to not charge ahead trying to get you into bed.

Turned out you both had similar relationship history, married too young and divorced, no kids, longed for a dog if only your job didn’t call you away so often. You were practically the female version of him, Marcus thought. It made him all the more curious about you.

Before long, you both ordered some bar grub and went back to talking about the case. Neither of you could make sense of what you had so far. There were vital pieces of the puzzle missing, that much was apparent.

Harry unceremoniously dropped plates full of burgers and fries in front of you, not even trying to hide the fact that he eavesdropped on your conversation.

“You think your case has something to do with the heat?” the old man questioned, leaning heavily on the bar top.

You and Marcus shared a look before you nodded.

“There’s some local lore you might find interesting, then,” Harry said, pausing for dramatic effect and you gestured for him to continue. “Well, as the legends go, the Flame of Quetzalcoatl was hidden somewhere in town centuries ago. They say it was a gem gifted by the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl himself, but who the recipient was no one knows. The gem is said to hold the power of the sun and the wielder of it has the ability to control heat.”

You and Marcus sat there in silence, absorbing the tale Harry just shared. After a few minutes, Marcus glanced at you, doubt clear in his expression.

“This town just gets fuckin’ weirder by the minute, I swear,” he said, sipping at his pint once again. “I might actually believe that little story if I was a few more beers in.”

You laughed, but your face didn’t hold the same doubt as his. “I don’t know, Marcus. If living out here for the past few years has taught me anything, it’s that these Aztec legends are often too close to the truth to blow off.”

Harry harrumphed. “I’d say so, little lady.”

“Besides, it’s the best we’ve got right now,” you said, nudging Marcus’ shoulder with yours. “Couldn’t hurt to play that angle until a better lead pops up.”

Marcus found himself agreeing, much to his surprise.

Over the next few days, you and Marcus researched as much as possible about local lore related to Aztecs, searching for any hint of what Harry told you. In that time, three more paintings were stolen. The thief started leaving little clues as if to goad law enforcement.

The first cryptic clue further convinced you of the potential voracity of the Aztec legend. Written in drip red paint in the spot where the fourth painting had been located, Marcus suspected the thief meant it to look like blood.

When the feathered serpent sheds its skin, the heat will rise.

“Holy shit,” you gasped when you first read it. Turning to Marcus, you declared, “Quetzalcoatl was known as the Feathered Serpent.”

His dark brown eyes widened, meeting yours in shock. “No way.”

You nodded, flipping through your notepad to find your most recent notes on the case. “Yes way. That book we borrowed from the Historical Society talked about it. Remember?”

Marcus nodded slowly as the information came back to him, his eyes searching yours, trying to make sense of this completely bizarre case. “Didn’t the book say something about Quetzalcoatl being a signal of transformation? Think the clue has something to do with that?”

“Yeah, could be.”

The pattern continued the next day with another clue left behind.

Where the earth boils and the water steams, the gem of the sun awaits.

The pair of you debated the meaning of the second clue over cold beer at Harry’s pub. As the case evolved, so did the connection between you and Marcus. You both flirted unashamedly when you weren’t talking about the case. It turned out the agency put you both up at the same hotel – your rooms on the same floor even. You were beginning to hope that he would make a move, yet completely terrified of that happening at the same time.

Despite your best efforts, the thief remained one step ahead of law enforcement, somehow managing to steal from galleries you had actively guarded. How in the world was this guy doing it?

Things were slowly coming together once a third clue was discovered.

Seek the place where fire and water dance, and there you will find the sun’s heart.

Without a local FBI office to work out of – the Albuquerque one you worked out of was over two hours away – you’d decided to setup camp in a quiet booth at Harry’s. He kept you full on pub grub and refreshments – soda and water during work hours, of course – and chipped in with his local knowledge whenever he thought it needed.

In fact, it was Harry who guided you toward understanding the latest clues.

“Have you two heard about the hot springs? This town is famous for them.” The old man dropped the nugget of knowledge along with a plate of fries and shuffled away, leaving the two of you to stare after him.

Marcus turned to you; his lips pursed in thought. You ached to nibble on the plump flesh of his bottom lip, to feel the gentle scratch of his facial hair against your soft skin as you did so.

“Where the earth boils and the water streams,” Marcus recalled the second clue in that delicious, soft-spoken voice of his, sending a wave of gooseflesh over your skin. “Seek the place where fire and water dance.”

Shaking your head free of naughty thoughts, you focused on the clues and the knowledge bomb Harry dropped, picking right up on Marcus’ thought process. “Fire, heat, and water... The hot springs!”

Marcus beamed at you; eyes sparkling as he came to the same realization. “It has to be. Makes sense, right?”

“Sure does,” you agreed, grinning back at him. “But there must be a ton of them. How would we ever find the right one?”

Sitting back in his seat, Marcus shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll have to keep digging. Do you still have that book from the Historical Society? Maybe there’s something else in there to help us.”

“It’s back in my room,” you reply. “Fancy ordering room service at the hotel while we go over the clues again?”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

What was he thinking, agreeing to go back to your room to continue working on the case.

An unwitting temptress already, how was he supposed to control himself when you invited him into your room for dinner, drinks, and after-hours casework?

In the already excessive desert heat, Marcus was sweating bullets as he followed you into your room, conveniently located only a few doors down from his own.

“I have a bottle of cab, is that good?” you questioned, kicking off your shoes with a sigh before reaching for the screw cap bottle.

Audibly gulping, Marcus squeaked out an assent and wiped his sweaty palms on his shorts. He glanced around the room to distract himself, noting happily that you were a tidy traveler, much like himself.

“I have bottled water as well. Would you like one?” Marcus nodded. With an indulgent smile, you held out the small ice bucket. “I like mine over ice. Would you mind?”

Eager for a moment to clear his head, Marcus grabbed the bucket. “No problem.” The echo of your chuckle followed him as he rushed out the door.

“What is wrong with you, dude?” he whispered to himself as he strolled down the hall to the ice machine. “You don’t even know if this woman wants anything more than just reviewing the case. Calm the fuck down.”

Feeling a little calmer and more under control after his private pep talk, Marcus knocked on your door with the full ice bucket in hand. You let him in with a broad smile that nearly made his heart stop.

“Perfect.” Plucking the bucket from his hands, you returned to the makeshift kitchenette area to fill two cups with ice and water. Two glasses of cabernet were already sitting on the tiny table in the small designated sitting area of the hotel room.

Marcus joined you on the couch, case file in hand, seated close due to the limited space. You dove right in to discussing the case, easing his nerves. The pair of you compared the facts of the case, debating theories and potential connections. Without any physical evidence, you still didn’t have any viable suspects, which was incredibly frustrating for both of you.

“I’ve never had a case like this,” Marcus said. “It’s hard to believe that this could all relate to a myth about an ancient god. It feels weird even saying that aloud.”

“I know. It’s giving me Twilight Zone vibes.”

With the lack of viable suspects serving as a brick wall in furthering the investigation, conversation switched to other topics.

“You’re from New Jersey?” Marcus asked. “What brought you out here?”

“Yep, born and raised at the Jersey Shore,” you replied, that northeastern accent peeking through as you drank more wine. “Classic reason for relocating – I followed a guy, the one I told you a little about. We got married young and one day he woke up and decided he wanted a change of scenery. I followed along without argument, and we wound up out here. Biggest mistake of my life.”

“Ahh,” he said with a nod. “That asshole.”

“Yeah, that asshole.”

From what you told Marcus about your ex-husband, he knew the guy was a real piece of work. Classic narcissist who beat you down emotionally the entire time you were together. Marcus was happy that you kicked the guy to the curb two years ago and the divorce finalized last year. No one deserved to be treated like that, especially you.

“Are you going to stick around here now that’s all over with?” He found himself curious about your future plans.

Shaking your head, you laughed. “Hell no. I put in for a transfer already, for anywhere on the east coast closer to home. I’m no picky.”

Marcus perked up at that. The DC headquarters always had openings. He’d get to see you again if you were transferred there. “I could put in a good word for you, if you’d like. You’re a great agent from what I’ve seen so far.”

Ducking your head bashfully, you peeked at him through your lashes. “That’s pretty high praise coming from a director,” you deflected.

“I mean it, Jersey.” He kept his voice low, using your nickname for the first time, and watched in delight as you shuddered.

The air in the room shifted, sexual tension thick and nearly overpowering. Marcus watched as your pupils dilated, lust overtaking the previous sparkle. He gulped when your tongue darted out to lick your lips tantalizingly.

Shifting ever so closer, your scent washed over him. You smelled fucking delicious, hints of cocoa butter and salty sweat, reminding him of the beach. His shorts suddenly became tighter, his cock twitching to life. He wanted to devour you.

The next thing Marcus knew, your lips were pressed to his as you basically ripped the clothes from each other’s bodies, the now empty bottle of wine knocked from the table to the carpeted floor in the process. Despite the cool air pumping from the air conditioning, your skin felt hot to his touch.

Licking into your mouth, savoring the taste of you mixed with the bite of wine on your tongue, Marcus steered you backwards until your hamstrings bumped against the mattress. He eased you down onto the bed, detaching his lips from yours to take in the electrifying sight of your naked body splayed before him.

“You’re breathtaking,” he murmured, his fingertips tracing down your smooth skin slowly, teasingly from your neck to your toes.

Your eyes, blown wide with need, burned into his before dipping down to take in his naked body with a gasp. His cock bobbed eagerly as you stared.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Marcus said, his soft voice filled with awe, matching the wonder in his eyes.

“Me either,” you replied, “but I’m happy it is. You are so fucking gorgeous, Marcus.”

Marcus couldn’t help the blush that pinkened his cheeks. Reaching behind him to the bucket, he plucked a large ice cube from the slowly melting pile. His eyes remained locked on yours as he popped the frozen cube into his mouth, sucking lightly before his tongue pushed forward and his lips puckered as a portion of the ice cube stuck out.

The breath left you when he dipped his head down to run the cube along your clavicle and down across your breasts. Your nipples pebbled beneath the chilly wetness as Marcus directed the ice cube back and forth a few times. He watched delightedly as goosebumps peppered your skin when he moved the cube down your belly in a zigzag pattern.

“Oh, fuck.” Your chest heaved and fingers tightened their grip on the bedsheets when Marcus dipped further down, running the quickly melting cube over your mound and through your slit. The cold nearly shocking to the overwhelming heat of your labia.

Using his tongue to increase the pressure, Marcus circled the ice cube over your clit until you cried out, one hand loosening its grip on the sheets to tangle your fingers in his thick hair. He shifted, plunging the cube into your entrance, pushing as far as his tongue would extend, then leant back to watch your pussy suck the cube further until in melted into mere dribbles of water.

You laid there panting, eyes hooded and wanting, as Marcus dove back in, using his tongue to continue the work he started with the ice cube. He lapped and sucked at your clit, two thick fingers slipping inside you, until you became a blubbering mess, blurting out unintelligible words and moans, finally falling apart beneath his ministrations.

Marcus slurped at the evidence of your long overdue release, savoring the sweet, tangy taste of you. His hips thrust against the mattress of their own accord, his body seeking any sort of friction against his aching cock it could find.

“Your mouth is a lethal weapon, Marcus,” you said breathlessly, hands reaching under his shoulders to drag him up your body. “Now let’s see what you can do with your cock.”

His hair flopped forward over his forehead from your fingers tangling in it and he grinned in satisfaction at your comment. His boyish charm proved too much to handle, and you yanked his face down to yours, tongues tangling in a scorching kiss. You nibbled on his plump bottom lip between fervent kisses, savoring the plushness between your teeth.

Whining when he pulled away suddenly, your fingers grasping for purchase to pull him back, Marcus winked at you when he slid off the bed. “Don’t worry, baby. I’m coming right back.”

Digging in his shorts to find his wallet, Marcus pulled out a long-forgotten condom from the tri-fold leather and checked the date on the foil packaging to make sure it hadn’t expired. Content with the remaining half-life, he ripped the package open with his teeth and slid the latex material over his cock.

You beamed at him when he climbed back onto the bed. “I knew you were a smart man.”

Marcus slid up beside your body, turning you so your back pressed snug against his chest. “Safety first, baby. Wrap it before you tap it, right?”

Your laughter became strangled when he slid inside you, splitting you open on his cock. “Oh my god. You feel so good!” you cried when he began to move inside you after a long pause to let you adjust to the sheer size of him.

Marcus started at a slow pace, getting a feel for the way your walls tightened around him. Gripping the bed covers with your right hand, you reached your left hand up and around to tangle in his hair behind you. He picked up the pace as you tugged gently on his locks, his lips peppering your neck with soft, wet kisses.

When, at last, Marcus began pounding into you, you reached between your legs with your right hand to rub your clit. Despite the cool air blowing over your bodies, the heat between you had your skin glistening with sweat. You cried as Marcus hit a particularly pleasurable spot deep within you, his own moans morphing into grunts as you clamped down on him.

“Fuck, baby. You’re so tight around me. I can feel you clench every time I hit this spot.” His words were murmured into your ear, barely audible over the sound of skin slapping against skin. Marcus plunged forward to hit your g-spot, proving his point when you clenched tightly around him once again. “Yeah, just like that.”

You plunged clear over the precipice then, crying out his name and any number of praises as an orgasm overtook you. Marcus talked you through it, his voice like sugary syrup, while he never once let up on his thrusts. Minutes, hours later, he followed you into the overwhelming bliss with a shout of your name followed by a string of curses.

“That was amazing.” Marcus nuzzled your neck as his hips slowed, the last shots of his cum dribbling into the condom. “You are amazing.”

Lost for words, you just hummed in agreement. Knackered from the excessive heat, long day of investigative work, the alcohol, and the mind-blowing sex, you hovered on the edge of sleep while Marcus got up to dispose of the condom. He returned with a wet cloth and cleaned you up with tender dedication. Tossing the cloth aside, he paused, standing naked and uncertain next to the bed.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Hell yeah, I do,” you replied sleepily, tossing the covers down so you could both slide under them. “I hope you like to cuddle, Mister.”

Grinning at you, Marcus wrapped his arm around you, curving his body around yours. “You bet your ass I do.”

You both fell into an exhausted sleep feeling hopeful and satiated for the first time in a long time.

Waking up in Director Pike’s arms was not something you expected would happen on this case. You fantasized. You hoped. Sure, all of that. But you never, ever expected it would actually happen. But it did and it felt fucking incredible.

You already knew he was damn good at his job. It was impressive to see that his single-minded focus and massive talent carried over to his skills in the bedroom as well. You replayed the night before in your head as you showered, remembering with fondness all the ways Marcus surprised you, how cherished he made you feel, the sheer pleasure he brought you.

How were you supposed to focus on the case now when your mind was completely overcome with thoughts of Marcus. You were almost relieved when he slipped out of the room after sharing a cup of hotel room coffee with you. You weren’t sure you could keep your hands to yourself if he stayed much longer, the rumbled, sleepy look proving almost too adorable to resist.

Marcus met you in the hotel lobby, two large cups of iced coffee and a brown paper bag clutched in his hands an hour after waking up together. “Good morning, Jersey girl,” he greeted you with a wink, dark brown eyes sparkling in the soft morning light filtering through the windows.

You chuckled at the variation of your nickname, already knowing that would become his signature endearment for you. “Good morning, handsome. Long time, no see.”

His grin grew wider. “Come on. Let’s ride together. No sense in taking two cars anymore.” He handed you one of the iced coffees and the paper bag, pulling the keys to his SUV out of his pocket.

Clad in gray cargo shorts, blush polo shirt, and a pair of boat shoes, Marcus looked ready for a day spent on the water rather than investigating art theft. The sight made your mouth water and you gulped at the iced coffee. As he drove, you both munched on the bagels he picked up along with the coffees while waiting for you.

“I figured we’d start taking a look at some of these hot springs to get a feel for them and see if anything else in the clues pops out at us,” Marcus explained between bites. He always chewed with his mouth closed and waited until after he swallowed to speak. You loved a man with impeccably manners.

“Great idea. I put a list of them in the file.”

“I know,” he beamed at you. “I saw it last night, before… It’s what gave me the idea. Thought we’d start with La Paloma and work our way down the list. What do you think?”

You nodded, sitting back in the passenger seat contentedly. Much to your surprise, there wasn’t an ounce of awkwardness between you two after last night’s surprising turn of events. Everything felt natural, like it was meant to turn out this way and you basked in the effortless interactions between you and Marcus.

Marcus spoke to the manager upon your arrival at La Paloma Hot Springs & Spa and the gentleman gave you a quick tour of the facility before allowing the two of you to investigate on your own. You split up to cover more ground, the scent of mineral-rich water tickling your nose as you worked your way through the facility.

Searching the private soaking tubs, you ran your hands along the edges looking for evidence of hidden compartments that might contain the artifact. Still uncertain if that was what you were actually looking for, it didn’t hurt to search. When you found nothing, your focus shifted to the vintage décor including the old photographs hanging on the walls, looking for any signs or symbols that might be a clue.

An hour later, you and Marcus reconvened at the front desk, disappointed that you both came up empty, yet undeterred in your drive to figure out this case.

You visited a number of other hot springs, conducting the same kind of searches yet never finding additional clues or evidence.

“It’s like we’re missing something,” Marcus said as you both climbed into the SUV, burnt out and sweaty, after your latest search came up empty. You’d spent the entire day running from hot spring to hot spring across the small town to no avail.

“Yeah, but what could it be?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not just any old hot spring? We need more to go on.”

Just then, your phone buzzed with an incoming call from the TCPD. Another painting stolen right under their noses – or rather, right behind the officer’s back as he turned around while patrolling one of the galleries. The thief had lightning-fast reflexes, apparently.

“Alright, thanks Chief. We’ll head over there now.” You ended the call and relayed the information to Marcus.

“This guy sure is brazen. I’ll give him that,” he lamented, carefully spinning the SUV around to head toward the latest crime scene.

“He’s got some balls, nicking a painting while an officer is standing right there. It’s like he’s begging to be caught.”

“That or he’s just a fucking lunatic.” Marcus met your gaze for a long moment after parking the vehicle. “Is it wrong that part of me hopes we don’t catch him too soon?”

Your heart thumped in your chest, lips quirking upwards into a shy smile. “No, not after last night…” you admitted. “We could always stay a few days after solving the case and explore this.” You gestured between the two of you.

Shutting off the car, Marcus bobbed his head. His previously styled hair fell across his forehead, the heat having worn away the product he used this morning. “I’d really like that.”

The TCPD officer met you at the door and led the way to the scene of the latest theft, his shoulders hunched in shame. “I never saw him; he was there and gone in seconds. Managed to leave this behind though, taped where the painting had been.”

Marcus accepted the paper, holding it up so you could read it.

Where the serpent bathes in earth’s warm embrace, beneath the soothing waters, the heart of the sun lies hidden.

“This message is different. Different, but the same. I mean… I don’t know what I mean,” you sighed frustratedly.

Marcus patted your shoulder in a manner appropriate for a professional audience. “No. I get what you mean. It’s tying the clues together in a different way. Giving us more hints at once.”

Heaving a sigh of your own, you nodded. What a great relief to feel understood. “Exactly.”

Conferring with the forensics team first, you and Marcus departed when they confirmed the thief left no trace evidence behind. No fibers, fingerprints, or hair. Nothing to clue you in on who the thief could be. Nothing, not even on the adhesive used to tape the clue to the wall or the paper itself. The perp was either lucky or extremely tidy.

Seated once again in the corner booth at Harry’s dingy pub, Marcus devoured his burger while you daintily nibbled at your fries. The extremely high temperature ruined your appetite. The case file sat open on the table as you placed sticky notes on a photocopy of the latest clue.

“’Where the serpent bathes’… that has to refer to the hot springs, right? And the serpent would symbolize this Quintessential guy?”

“Quetzalcoatl. The god’s name is Quetzalcoatl, for Christ’s sake,” Harry chimed in as he dropped off a fresh round of cold draft beers.

“Yeah, that guy,” you said, pointing a fry at Harry in thanks. Marcus laughed at your adorable ridiculousness. You made investigating this mind-boggling case fun.

“Right. And ‘in the earth’s warm embrace’ refers to the warm waters of the hot springs as well. That’s caused by geothermal activity, is that correct, Harry?” Marcus questioned.

The grizzled old barkeep lingered by your table, too caught up in his own curiosity to return to his duties. “Mmhmm, that’s what they say. I’m no rock scientist, mind.”

“You mean a geologist?” you chirped, a shit-eating grin gracing your pretty face.

“Yes, you mouthy little shit. Don’t sass me or I won’t help solve this case,” Harry grumbled. For a moment, Marcus worried you would be offended by the old man, but your tinkling laughter convinced him otherwise.

Marcus stifled a laugh when you rolled your eyes playfully and re-focused his attention on the clue. “That could be the earth’s warm embrace part, then. And ‘beneath the soothing waters’ refers again to the hot springs.”

“Uh huh,” Harry chimed in again, pulling the case file closer to him, aged eyes squinting to read your notes. Neither of you would normally let a civilian get so involved in a case, but Harry proved himself integral to solving this particularly challenging and unusual case. Pointing an arthritic finger to the final line of today’s clue, beneath the soothing waters, he added, “It refers to the artifact being hidden there, beneath one of the hot springs.”

Harry slipped into the booth on your side, and you flashed Marcus a smile. The old man was fully invested now. Thankfully the bar was empty but for a few regulars who could help themselves as far as Harry was concerned.

“Ok, so to summarize, we know the hot springs are involved,” you stated, processing the facts aloud as well as in your head. “And we know that the artifact is hidden beneath one of them. The question we’ve been chasing all day is which one, right? So, do any of the known hot springs have a serpent symbol or painting or something along those lines associated with it?”

Marcus shook his head as you flipped through pages of notes. “Definitely didn’t see any in the ones we checked out today.”

“Oh, for the love of all that is holy, you two idiots will be my age by the time you figure this out,” Harry stood from the booth, his voice gruff with annoyance, though whether that was from dealing with the two of you or the effort it took to stand with aged, arthritic bones was anyone’s guess. “You’ll want to check out Riverbend Hot Springs in the morning. You’re welcome.”

Mouths agape, you both watched the cantankerous old man shuffle back to the bar, grumbling to himself the whole way.

“Did he just solve the case for us?” Marcus asked when his gaze shifted back to you.

“I think so,” you laughed. “Thank fucking goodness. My eyes were starting to cross from looking at this file so much.”

Looking it up on his phone, Marcus confirmed that the Riverbend Hot Springs were closed until morning. Knowing their work was done for the day, he flashed you a heated look. “Want to go back to my room? Maybe cool off in the shower?”

Marcus had a nicer room than yours, the walk-in shower encased in glass and large enough to fit a few people. The perks of being a director, you guessed.

You barely glimpsed at the room before Marcus backed you against the already deadbolted door. His mouth pressed against yours, tongue dancing along the seam of your lips, begging for entry. You let him in eagerly, tongues tangling and teeth clashing with urgency. His hands were everywhere, stripping away your clothes and sliding against already bare skin in turn.

Once you both gave into the spark, stoking the fire into flames last night, the want turned into a blazing inferno that neither of you could extinguish. Not that you wanted to, anyway. No, you were content to burn to a crisp as the fire raged.

Marcus had you stripped naked within minutes, his mouth having never left your own in the process. Eager to return the favor from last night, you sunk to your knees, undoing his belt and shorts as you stared up at him. Marcus tore off his shirt while you shoved his shorts and boxer briefs down his slim hips to pool at his feet.

“Oh, fuck,” Marcus moaned as you wrapped your hand around his hardened length, testing the girth and weight of it in your grip. You tugged playfully a few times, getting to know the feel of him. Still staring into his lust blown eyes, you slowly leaned forward to glide the head of his cock around your plump lips before slipping him inside your mouth. A delicious whine fell from his lips when your tongue lapped at the little droplet of precum without breaking eye contact.

Not wanting to torture him unnecessarily, you began to move, taking more of his cock into your mouth until he bumped the back of your throat. Bobbing your head, you soaked his cock with your saliva, sucking every now and then to increase the sensation. Your left hand tugged the base of him where your mouth couldn’t quite reach, twisting with each upward stroke to further enhance his pleasure, as your right hand massaged his balls.

Panting heavily above you, Marcus slapped his palms against the door to support himself as you continued sucking his cock. Experimenting with how far you could take him, you hollowed your cheeks, easing farther down his length and breathed through your nose.

“Jersey girl… ungh. Please, I’m gonna come down that pretty little throat if you don’t stop.” You could feel his thigh muscles flex and twitch with the effort of not blowing his load down your throat as he stuttered out the words.

Taking pity on the man, you eased back until his cock audibly popped out of your mouth, a string of saliva connecting you until Marcus severed the link by stepping backwards on shaky legs.

“You are too good at that, my little minx. Come here.” Marcus helped you up, leading you into the shower once you regained your balance. He kissed you deeply as the cool water from the shower head cascaded over you both.

The water felt good on your overheated skin and Marcus pressed you backwards against the sturdy glass. Hiking a leg up around his waist with one hand, he gently cradled the side of your face in the other. Your gazes locked as he reached around your thigh and teased your clit.

“So wet for me, my Jersey girl.” Already on edge from sucking his cock, you were drenched and ready for him. “Did sucking my cock turn you on that much, my Jersey girl?” You mewled and, with the slightest shift of his hips, Marcus notched his cock at your entrance, feeding you inch by inch until your walls gripped his entire length tightly. “Fuck, you feel like heaven.”

Droplets of water rained down your bodies as he thrusted into you, your lips pressed open-mouthed against each other, noses bumping, exchanging breaths and moans without actually kissing. The stretch was intense but pleasurable, and you could feel every ridge of him inside you.

You suddenly realized why that was.

“Shit, we forgot a condom,” you said in between moans, your hands grasping his plump ass to make certain he didn’t stop.

Marcus showed no signs of stopping, his hips almost seemed to pick up the pace. “Do you want me to stop?”

“Fuck no!” you gasped; eyes fluttering shut as he nudged that spot inside you just right. “Please don’t ever fucking stop.”

“Ok,” he breathed against your lips. “I’m clean and it’s been a while since I’ve been with anyone.”

“Same,” you replied. “And I’m on birth control, so please, come inside me.”

Marcus groaned deeply at that, his head shifting so he could nip at your neck, soothing the sting with little kitten licks of his tongue. Pulling back, he murmured, “Turn around.”

You did so, whining as he slipped out of you. With a gentle hand, Marcus pushed your upper body against the glass and pulled your hips closer to him so your back arched perfectly. Your tits were pressed up against the glass wall of the shower and, just beyond it, you could see your reflections in the mirror. Only a slight mist of steam swirled in the air from the temperature of the water, and it didn’t hinder your view at all as Marcus closed in behind you, slipping his cock back where it belonged.

You watched your reflections, mesmerized, as he fucked into you, his wet hair flopping over his forehead when he bent forward to kiss along your shoulders and neck. Your hands came up on either side of your head to brace yourself against the glass, hoping that the strength of his thrusts wouldn’t cause it to shatter.

Marcus reached a hand around your thigh, slipping between your legs to pluck at your clit as you fucked you. Every single cell in your body felt aflame, ready to burst at the pleasure racing through you. It didn’t take long for you to explode, eyes squinted shut as you keened.

“That’s it, baby. Just like that. Come on my cock, my little Jersey girl. I can feel your cum gushing around me. Fuck, baby.” Once again, Marcus talked you through it in the soft voice of his. He continued thrusting as your walls trembled around him, driving him right over the edge after you, rope and rope of cum splashed your walls as he made the loveliest sex sounds in your ear.

You stayed like that, pressed up against the glass with the weight of Marcus leaning against you, chests heaving, until you both came back down from the high. Taking a few minutes to actually wash the day off each other, you settled on the bed wrapped in towels afterwards.

The two of you talked long into the night and, unable to keep your hands or mouths off each other, you had sex twice more before falling asleep.

Unable to come to an agreement on whether backup would be necessary at this point, you and Marcus finally decided to bring one officer to investigate the Riverbend Hot Springs with you. An extra pair of eyes could be useful, on that you both agreed.

Known for its scenic outdoor pools on the banks of the Rio Grande, visitors usually flocked to Riverbend. The facility not only had the hot springs, but hotel rooms and spaces for recreational vehicles as well. The manager was less than pleased when Marcus informed him that any guests present would have to stay in their rooms and out of both the common and private pools during the search. The last thing the investigation needed was public interference or contaminated evidence.

Searching the private pools first to appease the guests and resort manager, Marcus swiped his hand over his sweaty face when you found nothing.

“Let’s check the common pools now,” he sighed, wondering if it would be another fruitless adventure.

Another two hours of searching – lifting stones, moving decorative displays, going inside the pools themselves, even going so far as to request a shovel from the grounds crew to poke around in the landscaping – turned up nothing.

“At least there’s only one pool to go,” you said, trying to stay positive about finding something. “This has gotta be the one, right?”

“Let’s hope,” Marcus replied. Drenched in a mixed of sweat and mineral water, he wanted nothing more than to slip between cool sheets with you and an ice-cold drink. This case sucked.

Located at the far end of the property, overlooking the Rio Grande, a rock wall encased the final pool for support given the topography on the side along the river dipped lower. Marcus directed the officer to start at one end while he joined you in working your way up from the riverbank. Thorough in your search, you left literally left no stone unturned. One particular large slab placed in the landscaping next to the pool like a decorative display required your and Marcus’ strength combined to lift, and you gasped when you saw what sat in hiding beneath it.

“Is that a fucking trap door?” Marcus asked with a grunt as he glanced down and pushed the rock slab to the side.

“Yeah, it fucking is.” Bending down to open it, Marcus stopped you.

“Wait a second, Jersey girl. We don’t want to just go rushing down there.” He called the officer over for a quick chat, asking him to find the manager and see if anyone knew anything about where the trapdoor led.

Minutes later, the manager and resort engineer joined the group. No one knew a damn thing about what they found. It wasn’t depicted on the as-built drawings or any other schematics the engineer had on file. That did not bode well. Turning to the officer, you asked him to call for back up.

“We’ll head down to scope it out. Come down once backup gets here. In the meantime, please keep the guests away from this area,” Marcus directed the officer and manager before turning to you. “Ready, Jersey girl?”

Pulling your service weapon from its holster, you nodded confidently. “With you at my side, I’m ready for anything.”

Marcus flashed that boyish grin before wrenching the trapdoor open. As suspected, narrow steps carved into the stone descended down into darkness. Before Marcus could ask for one, the facility engineer handed him a flashlight.

Stepping carefully down the steps with the flashlight held high in one hand and his service weapon in the other, Marcus descended into the dark unknown with you right on his heels. At the bottom, a pathway led through more rock, dim light visible in the distance. You reach out while walking along the pathway to find the rock is surprisingly warm.

“I expected it to be cool to the touch,” you murmured, not wanting to make too much noise in case someone or something waited in the shadows.

“Hmm?”

“The walls,” you pointed when Marcus turned around. “They’re warm.”

Directing the beam of light in the direction you pointed, Marcus touched the back of his hand to the wall and looked back at you with a questioning brow. “How?”

“I have no fucking clue,” you shrugged.

“Latent heat from the surface?” he took a guess.

“Your guess is as good as mine. We’re below ground deep enough that it shouldn’t be this warm.”

Marcus continued on down the path, the rock walls growing warmer the farther you progressed. Finally, you turned a corner into a dimly lit chamber, the air filled with oppressive heat making it hard to breathe. You both scanned the room for threats, finding none. The chamber was oddly free of spider webs or bugs or people, aside from the two of you, but a pool of water bubbled inside a ring in the stone floor. Above the pool, an abnormally large, fiery opal appeared to float in the air, the glow from it the only source of light in the chamber aside from the flashlight in Marcus’ hand.

“What the fuck?” you questioned, confused as all hell why the gem just floated in air. “I’m getting some real X-Files type vibes and I DO NOT like it.”

Marcus couldn’t help the twitch of his lips even though he was just as confused as you. “This must be the Flame of Quetzalcoatl.”

“Ya think?” Your nerves made you snarky, a trait Marcus found profoundly adorable and endearing.

Stepping closer to the artifact, Marcus shielded his eyes from the fiery glow. He reached out with one long finger, nearly touching the object when the grinding sound of rock against rock reverberated through the chamber. Jerking back instinctually, both you and Marcus drew your pistols on the sudden intruder.

“Who the fuck are you?” you blurted at the man, your nerves shot to shit, your FBI training the only thing holding you together at that point.

Wild-haired, with oddly composed attire, the man practically vibrated with energy, a glint of insanity in his eerily green eyes. Under one arm, he carried another landscape painting, likely just stolen from another gallery. As if by magic or something equally befitting the utterly odd nature of this entire case, the other stolen paintings appeared, strategically placed along the rock walls rounding the chamber.

“I really don’t like this, Marcus,” you said through gritted teeth. His concerned gaze met yours briefly. “Me either, Jersey.”

It happened, as these things tend to do, suddenly and unexpectedly. The man lunged forward, dropping the painting without thought, and reached a trembling, emaciated hand toward the artifact. Marcus matched the man’s movement, reaching for him rather than the floating, glowing gem. In the process, a glass pedestal you didn’t even know was there, nearly invisible but surely the reason the artifact appeared to be floating in air, toppled over, sending the artifact flying.

You watched, awestruck and frozen in shock, as Marcus tackled the crazy man to the hard ground and the artifact shattered against the rock wall, simultaneously. Almost immediately, the temperature plunged until a damp coolness filled the formerly stuffy chamber, and the man shrieked in despair.

“No! No! No! You’ve ruined everything!” The man continued screeching. Moments later, TCPD officers rushed into the stone room, a few assisting Marcus with securing the thief in cuffs.

Among the backup that just arrived, the police chief stepped up to your side as you gave Marcus a hand in getting back on his feet. “Strangest thing,” the thick-bearded, squat man in uniform said, “the temperature dropped at least twenty-five degrees out of nowhere, just as we started making our way down here. Am I to believe it had something to do with whatever happened down here?”

You and Marcus shared a look before shrugging at the police chief. “I have no clue what even happened down here,” Marcus admitted. Tilting his chin in the crazy man’s direction, he added, “Your boys will bring him in for questioning? We’d like a shot at him, too.”

“Of course. We’ll get him processed. Come by the station whenever you’re finished up here.” The chief followed the officers escorting the man from the chamber, leaving behind a forensics team to gather evidence.

Standing above the shattered artifact, you sighed. “How the hell do I write this up in a report?”

“Very carefully and creatively,” Marcus replied with a smirk.

The interrogation didn’t take long, the man caving like a deck of cards in the wind. His name was Edmund Fawkes, a local starving artist driven mad by the excessive heat. Already obsessed with ancient mythology and local lore, he discovered the hidden chamber containing Quetzalcoatl’s Flame and, seeking the power and prosperity described in the legends, decided to take possession of it by appeasing the ancient god with landscape paintings.

It didn’t work, clearly, but Edmund was relentless in his insanity, continuing his thievery until you and Marcus caught him.

None of it made sense and there were so many things that could be attributed to entirely coincidental circumstances that you didn’t really care how the pieces fit together. The thief had been caught, the paintings returned to the appropriate galleries largely undamaged, and the town was no longer in the clutches of a deadly heat wave. That was all that really mattered.  

On your way out of the police station, the case solved as far as the bureau was concerned, you turned to Marcus. “How long are you sticking around?”

Gazing at you with those chocolate puppy eyes, his lips twitched into a grin. “I have several weeks of PTO saved up. Figured I’d use some of that. Maybe all of it if I have a reason to.”

You grinned back at him. “I’m sure we could find a reason for that.”

An hour later, the sun dipping past the desert horizon, you found yourselves naked and neck deep in the soothing mineral water of a private hot springs pool. Given that business was completed, you checked out of the hotel the bureau set you both up in and reserved a room at the best resort in town for a couple days of relaxation.

“I’m going to miss this odd little town, especially Harry and his dingy pub,” Marcus said, pulling you closed to his side as you soaked in the soothing water.

“Me, too. I’m going to miss you most, though. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you, both professionally and otherwise,” you admitted, leaning your head against his bare shoulder.

Marcus stilled for a moment before tightening his hold on you. “Why don’t you come back to DC with me?”

“What?” Your head tilted back to meet his eyes.

“You said you put in for a transfer back to the east coast, right?” You nodded and he continued. “Well, come back with me and we’ll have that transfer fast tracked. I’m certain there’s a position for you in DC. We won’t be on the same team, but that’s probably a good thing.”

You giggled at the boyish grin he flashed you. “If you’re sure, I’m game. I just don’t want you to feel like we’re rushing into anything.”

“Pssh, rushing, smushing. I’ve waited long enough to find someone like you. Now that I have, I’m not letting you go,” Marcus insisted. Gesturing between you, he added, “I mean it. There’s something amazing here, I know it. We can leave in a few days, spend a week or two exploring the city and each other before getting back to work.”

At a loss for a worthy response, you pressed your lips against his. The soft kiss quickly turned heated as you spun, straddling his lap, with your hands gripping the stone edge of the pool. Marcus ran his fingertips down the slick skin of your bare back as you squirmed into place, his cock swelling to life at the feel of you above, against, around him.

“I haven’t gotten a chance to ride you yet,” you murmured against his lips, grinding your bare pussy down on him.

“Now’s your chance, Jersey girl,” Marcus gasped through a moan. “Take me and use me, baby.”

Overheated despite the contrasting bite of cool air on your damp skin and warm water engulfing half your body, you eased yourself down onto his cock. You’d never get used to the exquisite stretch as he split you open. Drawing out the anticipation, you slid down his length with agonizing slowness, eliciting delicious whines from Marcus.

“Don’t torture me, baby. Please,” he begged to no avail. Peppering his handsome face with kisses, you kept the pace slow and torturous until he writhed beneath you.

At last, you took his full length inside you and started to move, bouncing eagerly on his cock with your head thrown back in pleasure. Marcus’ eyes stared at your breasts, bobbing along the water line and glistening from splashes of the mineral water as you moved on him. Mesmerized, he could look nowhere else, and his fingers shifted to pluck at the hardened peaks of your nipples.

The air temperature continued to drop as night set in, steam rising up from the warm water of the pool, dancing along your skin in beautiful swirls of water vapor. The clear, starry sky the perfect backdrop to your love making – for that’s what it was now, so much more than sex this time as you gave your whole self over to this wonderful, unexpected man who changed your life in a matter of days.

Overwhelmed with feelings, you keened as his cock nudged at all the right placing, your clit stimulated by grinding on his lap. “Fuck, Marcus. I’m gonna cum.”

Marcus thrust his hips upward at that statement, eager to drive you straight over the cliff into that beautiful abyss. “Do it, baby. Come all over my cock, my beautiful Jersey girl.”

Always good at following instructions, you did just that. Your eyelids slipped closed as you spasmed around him, head thrown back in ecstasy, his name falling like a prayer from your lips.

“That’s it, just like that,” Marcus crooned, pressing soothing kisses to the sensitive skin of your neck. “You’re strangling my cock, baby. Gonna make me come too, sexy girl.”

A few more erratic thrusts upward and Marcus came with a fury, cock pulsing with rope after rope of his spend deep inside you. Breathless and exhausted, you clung to each other until shivers settled in from the plunging temperature.

“Let’s get inside, my Jersey girl. We’ll clean up, climb under the covers, and cuddle while we make plans for the future.”

fin

[httpknjoon]

spotted | jjk

plot | This is how it started for the princess and the rockstar.

words | 3.8k

genres | fluff, modern royalty!au, celebrity!au

pairing | rockstar!jungkook x princess!reader

note | hi!! this is my first entry for this series and I'm so excited to write more about this pair in the future. let me know your thoughts! enjoy reading :)

main masterlist | drabble series

Royal Sisters, Princesses YN and Astrid Spotted Dancing at Sweet September’s Concert

On Friday night, the princesses were snapped watching the rock band at Crystalline Stadium.

Following the closing of the Royal Games earlier that day, Princesses YN, 25, and Astrid, 19, were spotted attending another big event in the country: Sweet September’s first Denim Jungle stop.

Fans of the rock band were stunned to see the two royalties in the said concert. Although the two sat in secluded seats in the stadium, they still attracted attention. Some concertgoers managed to capture pictures and short clips of the royalties enjoying the band’s performance– mostly Princess Astrid.

The usual contrast between the royal sisters is evident during their presence. Princess Astrid sported a rock-themed outfit with her oversized black leather jacket, red graphic tank top, flare jeans, and platform boots. On the other hand, Princess YN stayed true to her classy fashion style, wearing a black and white-collared Prada dress and knee-high boots. Both princesses wore black sunglasses during the whole event. The youngest sang and danced along to Sweet September’s tracks while the crown princess just nods her head to the beat. 

Worry not! Princess Astrid made Princess YN jump and dance along with her during the band’s performance of their hit song, My Fair Lady.

“You two will have your own entrance and exit spots. Ronnie and Ben would accompany you two to the entrance and would meet you at the same gate after the concert.”

Your father’s trusty courtier, Eddie, guided you and your sister with what you’re supposed to do. There were rules you have to remember. Especially since Astrid practically begged your parents to not have bodyguards with her in this event. Your father only agreed to let her come if you come too, knowing that you rarely go out outside of your royal duties. But since you love your sister, you agreed to go even though you don’t really listen to Astrid’s types of music.

After the closing of Zafiro’s Royal Games earlier this day, your parents left for a conference in Scotland. That reason made you in charge of your younger sister. But since you two don’t really live in a simple household, you are still looked after by your Royal Staff for your safety.

“Is that all, Uncle?”

Astrid already had her arms crossed as she asked that. It’s been fifteen minutes since your car arrived in front of this secret entrance to the concert. But because of the King’s instructions, you and your sister are now itching in your seats to go.

Eddie smiled, noticing your sister’s tone, “I know you are excited about this concert, Your Royal Highness. But His Majesty still has one last message… and this is a very important one so listen.”

Your sister is ready to let out an exaggerated sigh. You are ready to calm down her rising shoulders. But Eddie continued,

“Please remind my lovely girls to enjoy the night amidst my tiring instructions. Take pictures and sing along. I would love to hear stories from them about this very important concert– based on what my Astrid said– when I and my queen get back from our short trip to Scotland. Follow what your Uncle Eddie says.”

A small smile formed on your lips with that. Finally, Eddie lets you two go with your bodyguards until the gate. Then, Gerald, a nice concert staff, welcomed you into the venue and led you and your sister to your seats.

“Oh, my god. I cannot believe Papa let us come here alone.” your sister said as she slipped the Xyloband into her wrist.

“I know…” your voice trailed off when you heard the people singing along to the song playing not too far away. You turned to the staff, “Excuse me, is the concert starting already?”

“No, Ma’am. We’re just playing the band’s music videos before they perform on stage. But they will be performing in a few minutes.”

You nodded with that. You went to concerts before, but not like this one. You liked jazz and classical music and would always try to go to concerts whenever you can. Those concerts are very much different than this band’s.

“These are your seats, Your Royal Highnesses,” Gerald spoke.

“Thank you so much.” you and Astrid said as you walked to the two empty seats.

With that, the staff left you. The seats are not that close or far from the main stage and it’s in the center. For safety purposes, your father and the security team agreed to not put you two in the floor spots where you can see the band better. Still, Astrid finds these spots great.

You assumed your father pulled some strings to make this possible since you heard from Astrid that the tickets were sold out as soon as it’s started selling. It made you wonder what’s good in Sweet September. You probably heard about them before, mainly because Astrid’s a rock-music enthusiast, but you don’t really know anything about them. Except that they recently worked with UNICEF for a campaign focused on cyberbullying. But you know nothing about their music.

“Oh, look at that! Look at those signs!”

Your sister was laughing while she points her finger somewhere. Your eyes followed where she was pointing.

DEAR CARTER, I’M A DRUMMER TOO. LET ME ROCK YOU! ;)

I SOLD MY CAR FOR THIS

MARRY ME MINGYU

HAIL KING WOOSUNG

CAN Y’ALL BE MY VALENTINE <3

Among those aggressive signs, there is one that made your eyes stretch wide and look away.

JUNGKOOK LET ME PUT OIL ON YOUR ABS

What was that supposed to mean? You wanted to ask Astrid but she was already talking to another fan who’s seating beside her. The said fan seemed surprised and delighted at the same time when she locked eyes with you for a second. You just smiled. As a highly-regarded crown princess, you know that they least expect you to show up in a rock concert next to them.

You then turned to your other side, where you immediately locked eyes with a lady who seemed a bit older than you. She instantly looked away and slowly looked back after a few seconds. She probably thought you were not looking at her anymore. But you are. And you can tell who she is by her awkward aura and stiff movements.

Part of showing respect to royalties, the public cannot talk to you until you speak with them first. So you decided to say something directly.

“Did the King hire you?” you asked her in a small whisper.

You don’t Astrid to hear it. You want her to focus on the fact that she is free from your parents’ overprotectiveness tonight. You can see the hesitation on her face but you can already tell that she is a secret security Eddie hired.

“It’s fine. I understand.” you gave her a reassuring smile. “Please, enjoy the concert too.”

The woman nods and bows subtly. You turned away. Astrid already has new friends. Between you two, she definitely is the friendlier one. It’s not like you are hostile. But she is just more carefree than you. Ever since you were a kid, you already followed the rules by the book. You know that you are in line for the throne and you need to be rightful for it. So you always try to be professional in your duties. You studied and work for your country.

“It’s a surprise to see you in here, Your Royal Highness.” one of Astrid’s new friends said.

“Please, just call me Astrid or you can add that princess title if you’re uncomfortable with calling me by name.” she quipped and they laughed. “Actually, the King only let me come here when Princess YN agreed to accompany me.”

Her friends’ mouths all formed into a small o. You waved at them, and they bow their heads. Suddenly, the lights slowly dimmed down and everyone began screaming– including Astrid. To say that your sister is excited was an understatement. It’s like she slept with a hanger in her mouth with how wide she’s smiling. Your cheeks hurt for her. But you’re happy to see her happy.

Taps on the microphone can be heard before someone cleared their throat, building up everyone’s excitement. You stood there, just listening to them and observing.

“Everyone, welcome to the denim jungle!”

Someone began playing a good riff on a bass guitar. The band’s silhouette is recognizable on stage. In the first beat of the drum, the lights snapped open. There, your eyes directly spotted the lead vocalist.

Droplets of sweat made his skin feel gluey as he ran his hand through his damp dark hair. His plain form-fitting white top is almost useless with how it almost got transparent with his body. His chest heaves as he removes his earpiece.

“Great show tonight, boys!”

A staff greeted them on their way down from the stage. After almost three hours of singing, playing with instruments, and interacting with the audience, Jungkook can finally feel relief in his body. With his throat feeling a little sore earlier, he was careful with it throughout the whole concert.

“Okay, let’s take a picture first!” a staff declared.

Jungkook, Carter, Mingyu, and Woosung lined up and posed for a couple of pictures that their staff would post later. After that, the four talked about their performance as they cool off.

“My earpiece is a mess.” Woosung shared. “I cannot hear the drums well. I think it stopped working for a few seconds during Blue Skies.”

“Okay, we have extra of those. You can test your new one in your next rehearsals.” Tara, their manager, responded.

The others shared their thoughts for tonight. Jungkook just listened for the sake of his throat. When he felt it getting strained, he cleared his throat and reached for a bottle of water.

“How are you feeling now?” Mingyu tapped his shoulder.

“The same,” he answered shortly. “It didn’t feel better or worse than earlier.”

“Well, let’s go back to the hotel to let our Jungkook rest,” Carter replied.

The others agreed before standing up from the soft couch. Jungkook is already heading straight to their dressing room when Tara spoke.

“By the way, you had very special guests tonight. It made tonight’s tag trend worldwide on Twitter.”

Being trending is not new with the group. Ever since they started the tour a month ago, they have been on various social media trend lists every other day. They also had bid celebrities and personalities as part of the audience before.

“Who? The king?” Mingyu joked, making the others chuckle.

Tara clicked her tongue, “Eh, close. It’s his daughters, the royal princesses.”

The boys stopped in their tracks. Even Jungkook froze. He did not even notice his members simultaneously turning their heads in his direction. As if they were waiting for him to say something. Instead, it was Tara who spoke again.

“Maybe we can meet them.”

All while the concert was happening, a fan who was also present in the event posted a stolen picture of you and Astrid. It led to your name and Astrid’s trending. Fans were excited to see royalties in such an event.

@/rockjeykey: no one told me princess astrid is a fan

@/denimparty: SOMEONE TELL JUNGKOOK ABOUT THIS

@/CRAYONNO7: YOOOOO i was just a few seats next to them! THEY ARE SO NICE AND FUN I HAD SMALL TALKS WITH THEM PRINCESS YN SAID SHE LIKES MY BAND SHIRT

Replying to @/CRAYONNO7

- @/eunwoobass: ur so lucky!!!

@/ASTRIDLOML: i’d like to think yn is astrid’s forever chaperone in events 🤣

Replying to @/ASTRIDLOML

- @/crownprincessyn: haha going to a rock concert is not so yn 😆😆

@/multifandommyg: imagine having zafiro’s princesses as your fans

@/sweetmonthof9th: i want to see the boys' reactions 💀

@/cartermatters: lolololol mingyu would be teasing the hell out of jk 

@/ZafiroRoyaltyNews: Princesses YN and Astrid attended Sweet September’s concert after today’s royal events! 💜✨ #DenimJungleInZF [insert photos]

@/SweetSeptember_twt: Hey! Hey! Hey! Rubies are red. Sapphires are blue. You guys are a gem that is hard to find! A big 💜 to Zafiro. Thank you all for coming tonight! #DenimJungleInZF

“Thank you so much!”

Your mouth felt dry. You lost track of how many times you gulped throughout the whole performance as your eyes focused on someone. You felt like in a haze– a very hot one. 

Jungkook.

That’s his name, right? Whoever he is, he has the prettiest voice. You rarely listen to their genre of music but you managed to be entertained the whole time. But you don’t know why. When you saw him in that white shirt after he removed his leather jacket on stage, your brain stopped working for seconds. It’s probably because you didn’t expect him to have that arm sleeve tattoo. 

It’s so pretty.

He’s so pretty.

“Oh! That was so much fun! Thank you so much for going here with me.” Astrid cut off your thoughts. “I know this isn’t your type of music. So, I really appreciate you here with me.”

She jumped to hug you and you hugged her back, trying to cleanse off the thoughts in your mind. You just excuse your reaction now as a shock since this is your first rock concert. After saying goodbye to her friends, Astrid pulled you with her out of your seats. She continued talking to you about her excitement. You tried to listen but failed. You just remembered that lead singer playing with that guitar like his life depended on it. His fingers were smooth on playing that thing like he’s used to–

“Excuse me! Excuse me! Princess YN! Princess Astrid!”

Again, you snapped out of your thoughts. Both you and Astrid turned your head back when you heard your names. The lady who was next to you during the concert is now wearing her security earpiece. She was probably following you two since you walked out but you didn���t notice for obvious reason. She also looked at that someone who called for you.

That someone was also a concert staff. You read that card that she wears in her lanyard that says, MANAGER. She was almost out of breath when you stopped.

“Oh, I apologize for the informalities, Your Royal Highnesses.” she tried to speak with her hands on her knees, to catch her breath. After some seconds, she continued, “I am Tara Montez, Sweet September’s manager.”

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Montez.” you smiled, offering your hand for a shake, which she accepted. Astrid also did the same thing.

“Nice to meet you too, Princess YN and Princess Astrid. Thank you so much for being here!”  You see Tara paused. “It was totally unexpected and rare to see princesses at the band’s concerts. Uhm… We were hoping the band could meet you. They are big fans of your country. It would be an honor for them to meet you two even just for a short time.”

Astrid audibly gasped. You looked at her and her eyes say it all. You can even see the sparkles in her eyes. You can also hear your bodyguard communicating through her wireless device. You’re sure Eddie would definitely want you to walk out of the venue now but you know your sister would love the offer. It’s a one-time thing.

So before your bodyguard can interfere, you answered.

“Of course.”

Back in the green room, Jungkook and the other members now showered and changed into their casual clothes. Carter and Woosung munched on the chips they saw on the table. Mingyu was giggling as he secretly takes a clip of Jungkook walking back and forth.

“What should we do?” he asked them, trying to keep his cool. But everyone can tell, he’s failing. He just never thought he would meet any royalty– you.

Out of distraction from the chips, Carter replied, “Curtsy?”

Before the others can laugh with that, the door opened and they immediately stood up straight. Carter and Woosung wiped their hands and even sanitized them. Mingyu wiggled his eyebrows at Jungkook. The latter gave him an annoyed look.

“And this is Sweet September.” Tara, who got in first, introduced them.

Jungkook’s heart almost stopped when he sees you entering with your small smile. Every photograph posted in the news and articles didn’t give your beauty any justice as he found you more attractive now you’re in the same room as him. When you locked eyes with him, he swore his heart fluttered.

Following what Carter said, Jungkook was ready to curtsy when you spoke.

“Oh… Uhm, we don’t really do that here, Mister. That’s more of like the UK’s thing. A bow would be fine.”

Everyone in the room laughed except you, who tried to be professional. But you found it cute. Especially when you saw that tint of red forming across his cheeks.

“Oh— uhm— My apologies, my quee– princess.”

“It’s your royal highness, dumbass.” his bandmate whisper-shouted at the back.

Your sister scoffed, finding the lead vocalist’s mistake as funny. You looked at her sternly. She acted appropriately again. You looked back at the boys again, trying to break your sight away from Jungkook.

“Thank you so much for coming to our country. I’ve never seen a crowd as energetic as that.” you began the conversation to break the ice. “It’s a surprise for me to hear our people here singing almost every song in your set. I just learned they are a big fan of your group.”

“How about you, Your Royal Highness,” Jungkook asked. He doesn’t know where he’s getting all this strength to talk to you. But he just knows that this might be his first and last.

You replied with the truth, “Oh– I– this is actually my first time listening to your music. Princess Astrid right here just invited me to go here with her.”

“She’s more of a jazz fan.” Astrid shared and they nodded.

Before the conversation continues, your bodyguard spoke, “Excuse me. Madams. The Royal Staff is asking us to go out now.“

Woosung was quick to request when they heard that, “Can we take a picture with you, Royal Highnesses?”

“Of course!”

This time, Astrid replied with uncontained excitement. You stood in between the four members. Mingyu was supposed to be next to you but he pulled Jungkook to exchange places with him. Jungkook instantly smelled the sweet and flowery scent just by being next to you while you ignored that strange feeling in your stomach when you felt your arms touched.

“Okay, one… two… three!”

The band stood in line once again after that. You and Astrid shook hands with them in turns. You introduced yourselves and so they did too. Ever since you were a kid, when you began attending public royal events, you always followed the royal protocol. In every person you met, you would shake their hand while having good eye contact. Another part of the protocol is the public cannot physically touch you unless you initiated it first. So, you did.  

The boys seemed surprised but showed their respect by bowing their heads while you shook hands with each of them. You just hoped your hand was not stone cold since you felt like it was since you stood in front of their lead vocalist. But when it comes to the last person in the line, Jungkook smoothly managed to kiss the back of your hand when you offer it for a handshake.

You were taken aback by the action. Not because he did it. But because it felt something else. The kiss was feather-like. It was light and brief. But you felt something electric run through your veins the moment his lips touched your skin. Your heart shivered. Then, it suddenly beat fast and you’re scared that everyone around you can hear it. You gulped as you made eye contact with him again.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Your Royal Highness,” his deep and slightly hoarse voice said. It made you feel things you don’t know and you hate and like it at the same time. “I’ve read a lot about you.”

You pursed your lips, “You did?”

“Yeah.”

You wanted to ask and know more about what he reads about you. But before you can say anything again, 

“The Royal Courtier is waiting, ma’am.” the guard interrupted.

You tried not to show annoyance. But sighed.

“Well, we shall go. Our staff is waiting outside.” you smiled. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay here in our country. Congratulations on your concert.”

They bowed and you turned around with Astrid, ready to leave the room.

“Wait!” Mingyu stopped you one more time. “Is there any way we can reach out to you and invite you girls again to our future events? E-mail? Phone number? Telephone number?”

Your sister was over the moon hearing that while you tried to hide the smirk forming on your lips. Jungkook knows what his friend is doing and he is somewhat thankful for Mingyu.

“The only way to contact us is through Zafiro’s Royal Communication Office. I believe their e-mail and telephone numbers are on their websites.” you sounded like you were teasing. But you just honestly found their attempt funny. “Other than that, feel free to send us a letter through the mail.”

Of course, you would not give your personal number. Jungkook thought. Do you even have that? You probably have your own assistant who answered calls for you. It is known to almost everyone that even though every royalty in Zafiro has their own social media accounts, you just use them to share your duties and advocacies.

“Again, it was nice meeting your band. We hope you come back to our country soon.”

You left the room, sharing knowing glances with your sister.

While on their way back to their hotel, Jungkook scrolls on his Instagram account. His notifications were on blast as usual. But something caught his attention when he almost exit the app.

97.sapphire is now following you!

His eyes squinted. He clicked on the account. It only has twelve followers and two posts. It follows nothing. The account’s two posts are photos of artworks. One is a watercolor painting of a flower field during sunset. While the other is a detailed pencil drawing of what seemed like a coffee shop. Then, another notification popped out.

97.sapphire sent you a message.

Jungkook raised an eyebrow before he clicked on it. Without really expecting anything, he reads the message. As he go through the words, his eyebrow lowered while his lips formed into a smile.

let me know what do u want to read more about this pair! :) thank you so much for reading.

taglist rules

THE PRINCESS AND THE ROCKSTAR TAGLIST

@heartjiminie @rbrm094 @rjsmochii @jjkreblog @sugaslittlekookies @saintsugar @thvlover7 @alpha-mommy69 @natalia-rmnva @coralmusicblaze @stupendouscookiehumanmug @namgoogieee @yoonjinhusbands @borahaeb1ch @lilliankoo @0rubyrose0

PERMANENT TAGLIST

@dunixxd​ @cixrosie @jksjx @embrace-themagic @buttvi @starbtslove @missseoulite @vanntaesworld @kenqki @miyukihoshi @stopeatread @seolaquotes @greyrain23 @chimchimmarie @petalsofink @jayhope88 @moonchild1

[jessmaybank]

Cardigan - part two; heartbeat on the high line

Based on the song Cardigan by Taylor Swift

Series masterlist

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Pairing(s): Rafe Cameron x fem! Reader

Word count: 3.3k

Summary: Rafe has a skeleton in his closet, and it all gets revealed during a party on the cut.

Warnings: swearing, alcohol use, drug dealing, cheating, SMUT, oral (f receiving), overstimulation, being tied up (hands only).

AN: jealousy & hella angst in this one. Flashbacks are in italics!

She stared at the gift Rafe got her for what felt like hours after everybody left. Her head was telling her not to open it. She had a new boyfriend now, and everyone knows the number one rule is no entertaining ex’s. She had already got way too close to Rafe earlier.

Her heart, on the other hand, begged to know what was inside the box. It was like the devil and the angel weighing on her shoulder, and it was eating her alive.

Eventually she gave into her urges, and ripped the box open. She practically chocked on air as she peered at the contents. It was her favourite gold ring that she had lost last summer, one that she had been looking for ever since. Her lips parted at the realisation that Rafe had it the whole time, and he kept it. Why would he keep it?

She thought back to the times that they would be lying in bed together or sunbathing at the beach, and he would always fiddle with it whilst their hands were intertwined. She flinched at the memory.

“Just one more baby. Your doing so good for me” Rafe hums into her clit, the vibrations making her back arch as she nears the edge for the fourth time that night. Rafe had been devouring her pussy mercilessly for the past thirty minutes.

Her arousal was dripping down her legs like honey as she tugged her arms, begging to run her fingers through his hair, but she couldn’t. He had tied her hands to the headboard of her bed as punishment for her attitude tonight.

He continued lapping his tongue harshly over her clit, maintaining eye contact as her legs began to spasm again, the headboard hitting the wall at her erratic movements. His jaw was aching, but for this view, it was fucking worth it. Her eyes were lidded, her cheeks flushed a deep red, and he had to stop himself from flipping her round and fucking her senseless. “Fuck Rafe”

“That’s it. Cum all over my tongue like a good girl” he says lowly, and her mind spiralled as she followed his command, as obedient as ever. Her moans spilled out of her like a waterfall as she came undone, pulling on the headboard once again as her juices coated Rafe’s tongue. Fuck, she tasted so sweet.

“Holy shit” she exhales, her chest rising and falling in line with her heavy pants. She was exhausted. He untied her hands, and he didn’t miss the way she winced as her wrists became free. “Do they hurt?”

“Only a little” she replies, lying down fully on the mattress. He joined her, laying on his side as he peppered sweet kisses on her sore wrists. “I’m sorry baby“ he says, his voice soft.

“Rafe. You just made me cum four times. You have nothing to be sorry about” she laughs, gawking as how adorable he looked when he was concerned. He really was the epitome of perfect.

She expected a smug response from him, but instead she got a soft grin, which made her insides melt. He started fiddling with the ring on her finger, something he would always do when they were lying down together. He just always felt the need to touch her, whether is was sexual or not. His hair was a mess even though she didn’t touch it, and she couldn’t help but trail her eyes over the freckles on his nose. “I love you”

She said it without a second thought. Without thinking. They had never said I love you before, even though she was pretty sure he felt it too. Her eyes grew wide. Rafe was smiling from ear to ear.

“I love you too baby” he confirms, and if she wasn’t so tired, she could of cried.

She pecked his bruised lips, smiling into the kiss, and it dawned on her then that no one else would ever compare to him. He was it.

Her eyes became glossy as she stared at the piece of jewellery. She hated that something so simple could get to her like this. She hated that as much as she wanted her love for him to become evanesced, she knew it never would. She was too far gone.

She turned her attention away from the box as her phone buzzed. A sinking feeling sat in the pit of her stomach as she realised it wasn’t the person she really wanted to hear from. It was from her boyfriend, Adam.

She ignored his message, coming to the conclusion she wasn’t in the mood to talk to him tonight. And as she let the silence within the room engulf her, she realised she needed to get the hell out of the house.

A friend to all is a friend to none

The air was thick with uncertainty as she gallivanted up the lit driveway, pebbles crunching under her feat as she approached the worn out door, before giving it a half hearted knock. She had called Sarah in need of a distraction, and the blonde offered her one within minutes. Granted, it was a party on the cut, but anything would suffice at this point.

A few minutes later, she found Sarah outside in the garden. As it turned out, she too had a new boyfriend, but she was shook to her core when she discovered he was a pogue. It seemed the kook princess had finally gone rogue, and to be honest, she was here for it.

“This is Pope, Kiara, JJ and John B” Sarah says, gesturing to her friends as she goes round the circle of people which sat on logs in front of them both. The once roaring campfire was now a bunch of extinguished flames, and the air was rather smoky.

“Hey” she greets them, a faint smile gracing her lips as she takes a seat next to the blonde, who she now knew as JJ. She recognised Kiara from school, but other than that, she was clueless. She never really hung around the cut that much before she left for college. “Beer?” JJ says, passing her a can as she nods.

That was the start of a blossoming friendship.

She spoke to the pogues for what felt like hours, and she was pleasantly surprised at how nice they were. When they were together, Rafe would always feed her bullshit about how all pogues are trouble, and she should stay away from them. She felt so guilty for believing him all those years, and she wondered how many other times she had let him brainwash her. Her insides twisted at the thought.

“JJ it doesn’t matter how many times you say it, the Lego movie was not good” Pope says, an amused look on his face as he bickers with his best friend.

“If you had any taste my friend, you would know it’s a timeless classic!” JJ exclaims, his cheeks flushed a deep red. They were all pretty drunk.

“I think timeless classic is a bit of a stretch” Sarah giggles, and everyone laughs with her.

“Uh Sarah, what’s your brother doing here?” Kiara says, eyebrows furrowed as she stares at something, or rather someone, on the porch.

Her heart dropped as she turned her head, and low and behold, there he was, stood on the wooden decking with his hands in his pockets. He wore a smart black button up with black trousers. To a stranger, he made the perfect businessman.

But he wasn’t fooling anyone else. His bruises were now a deep blossom of watercolour blues and purples. His cut lip was still a crimson red mess. Somehow, he still looked breathtaking. Her life would of been so much easier if he wasn’t so beautiful.

The old Rafe wouldn’t have been caught dead on the cut, so what the hell was he doing here?

“Selling, probably” Sarah says, her features contorting with a mixture of disgust and disappointment as she stares at her brother.

It hurt her seeing the way Sarah looked at her brother. Rafe was by no means perfect, and he often made a habit of hurting the ones around him, but he was also deeply misunderstood. His father had made sure of that since the day he was born.

“He’s dealing again?” She questions softly, mouth agape as she did her best to suppress her shocked expression.

Rafe had a complex history with drugs. The last time they were on good terms, before they broke up and she left for college, he promised her he wouldn’t touch them again, whether that was for personal use or not. Perhaps she was naive for believing him in the first place.

“Well, he denied it when I asked him. But John b saw him leaving Barry’s last week” the younger Cameron says, gesturing to her boyfriend who sat next to her.

She frowned in response, pulling on the loose threads of her sweater as she grew anxious. She couldn’t believe he was selling drugs again, and if he was coming all the way to the cut to sell, he must be desperate. Something else was going on.

Rafe tried to hide it, but she saw the way his eyes widened slightly when he spotted them all outside. And although there were more pressing issues to focus on, such as his sister finding all the coke stuffed in his pockets, all he could concentrate on was how close JJ was to her. How he dipped his head down to whisper something in her ear. His eyes narrowed and his featured hardened as he glared at them. He needed to leave before he killed someone.

She peered at the dying embers in front of her as she attempted to take her mind off him and his intimidating presence, trying her best to listen to whatever nonsense JJ was whispering in her ear. Most of the fire consisted of lifeless pieces of ash, but some embers were still glowing a deep red, clinging on for dear life as they fought to stay lit. She wondered then how long she would be able to hold on for, before her heartbreak got the best of her.

She turned her head just in time to watch Rafe’s figure disappear inside. She tried her best to stay still, but it took her a total of two minutes to give into her urges. “I’m ganna go to the toilet. I’ll be back” she says to the pogues, not waiting for a response before she wonders inside.

Chase two girls, lose the one

Her eyes were cold and sharp as she spotted Rafe on the couch, but he wasn’t alone. A girl was sat on his lap, legs draped over him as she giggled at something he said. It was like all the wind was sucked out of her lungs in that moment. She watched as he dug a bag of coke out of his pocket and passed it to the guy in front of him, taking the cash he offered him in return. It seemed old habits do in fact die hard.

As soon as the guy left, she stormed over to take his place, eyes red with emotional distress. “Fuck off” She says to the girl, motioning for her to get up. Usually she wasn’t this courageous, but she was so angry, she had to hold herself back from dragging her off him by her hair.

“Excuse m-“

“Get off” Rafe says to the girl, retracting his arm from her waist. A rush of pride flooded through her as the girl scoffs before getting up, an angry and embarrassed expression on her face. “I’ll find you later” he mutters to her, watching as she storms off.

“Will you now?” She taunts, her jealousy painfully obvious. He bit the inside of his cheek to suppress a smug smirk, which she noticed. Even though it was extremely toxic, he loved seeing her like this.

“Tell me, how’s your boyfriend?” He teases, a picture of pure enjoyment on his features as he manspreads on the couch.

“Great actually” she lied through her teeth. She hadn’t even talked to him today. “Your dealing again?” She asks rhetorically, a little louder than intended. Rafe looked around at the various people that started to stare, but she couldn’t of cared less. “Are you kidding me?”

“What’s it to you?” He says, running a hand through his hair.

“Yeah, we’re not doing that Rafe. We both know this isn’t you” she says, eyes pleading for him to stop being cold; to just go back to the same Rafe she fell for.

He let out a sardonic snicker. “You don’t know me Y/N. Not anymore. You made sure of that the day you left” he says, as defensive as ever. His eyes were a dark and intense blue, his jaw clenched with a sudden anger, and she swore she heard her heart break into two then.

“I’m not the one who destroyed our relationship, Rafe. You did that all by yourself” her voice was now a broken whisper as she took one last look at him. His concrete jaw. His eyebrows which were knitted in frustration. His sea-rover blue orbs which were now soft, like two sapphires dipped in milky pools. It took everything in her to turn around and walk away from him.

Every step she took was like walking on shards of glass as she practically jogged out of the house, away from the man she knew she still loved, even if every fibre of her being didn’t want to admit it. She did everything she could to stop the tears which threatened to spill out of her, but it was no use. They just kept coming and coming, leaking out of her like a broken faucet. She slumped herself down on the nearest pavement, head in her hands as she let the tears fall.

Rafe sat on the worn out couch, bouncing his leg in frustration as he stared at the floor. He regretted being so harsh. He knew he was the reason they weren’t together anymore, and that was something he just had to come to terms with. He tried to stay still, to not chase after her, knowing it would probably just end in another argument. But before he knew it, he was storming out of the house.

When you are young, they assume you know nothin’

But I knew you

She felt his presence immediately, but she continued to stare at the road in front of her as Rafe sat on the pavement, their knees almost touching. Their unspoken words flew through the air like a bad storm as he turned his head. He took one look at her tear stained cheeks and almost broke.

“I never took you for a thief” She talks to her fingers, urging herself to look anywhere but his face. “How pogue of you”

His eyebrows knitted in confusion for a moment, before it clicked. “You opened my present” he says, more of a statement than a question.

“I opened it” she confirms. “You kept my ring. Why?”

“Is that not obvious?” He couldn’t let go.

She turned to face him then, drowning in his eyes. They were the deepest shade of blue she had ever seen.

Their conversation was interrupted as her phone started ringing. She dug her phone out of her pocket, and sighed when the screen lit up with her boyfriend’s contact. She ended the call.

She could see a glimmer of smugness in his eyes, but as he opened his mouth to speak, she spoke first. “I’m not in the mood for your cocky remarks right now Rafe” his face softens immediately. She could practically reach out and touch the guilt that spread across his face.

“I was going to say I’m sorry. I’ve been a dick. It’s just hard knowing you’re with someone that isn’t me”

She felt her heart shatter then. She wanted to tell him that Adam doesn’t compare to what Rafe and her had. Not even close. He never has, and he never will. She wanted to tell him that she isn’t even close to moving on, that her heart was still his. But she didn’t.

“Tell me what happened to your face. No bullshit” she whispers, eyes trailing to his bruised cheeks, his cut lip. He looked broken.

He sighed as he ran a hand over his face, bracing himself to tell her the truth. “I’m in a bit of trouble” he starts. She began biting her nail, a symbol of her anxiety.

He looked her straight in the eyes as he spoke. “A couple weeks back Barry came to me, said he had a business proposal. He gave me a bunch of weed and coke, told me to sell it to my friends on figure eight. But my dad found it in my room”

She sighed, already knowing where this was going. “He threw it all away, said if he ever found drugs in his house again, he’d kick me out. I told Barry what happened, and he gave me this” Rafe said, pointing to his face.

“How nice of him” she says, sarcasm dripping off her tongue. Her lips twitched with a faint smile, and he matched her expression.

“How much do you owe him?”

“More than I have. My dad won’t help me. Said he’s not letting his hard earned money go to waste on some dirty pogue from the cut. So I have to deal for Barry and do his dirty work for him, until I’ve paid him back” he says, his face a picture of distress. Even though it was his own fault, she felt sorry for him. She couldn’t believe his dad wouldn’t help. Her face softened as a frown threatened to spill from her lips.

It was so strange, seeing one of the richest people in outer banks suffer at the hands of a redneck pogue like Barry. It seemed family fortune meant nothing if your family wouldn’t even share it with you.

She didn’t even think about it when she slipped her hand through his, intertwining their fingers. Rafe drew in a sharp breath, almost gasping as his finger trailed over her ring. She put it on.

“It’s ganna be okay. I have some savings, I can-“

“No, Y/N. This is my fault. I’m fixing it. I’m not dragging you into my shit again. You deserve more than that” he says, eyes twinkling with pain. She suddenly felt the urge to cry as she shook her head.

“You deserve people that want to help you. I want to help you. Just because were not together anymore doesn’t mean I don’t care about you Rafe” she whispers, a sincere expression gracing her features as she comforts him.

Rafe licked his lips, his heart thumping as they maintained eye contact. Just two broken people gazing into each other like there’s no tomorrow. Her doe eyes still glistened with tears, the whites in her eyes slightly bloodshot, and he swore she was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. His eyes trailed to her plump lips, almost out of instinct. He fully believed her lips were gods greatest gift.

She prayed he couldn’t hear how loud her heart was beating as he stroked her skin with his thumb. It was scary how familiar and comfortable it felt holding his hand, even after they had been apart for a year. It was like he was made just for her.

And just like that, she welcomed his kiss.

I knew you

Your heartbeat on the High Line

Once in 20 lifetimes

It took everything In her to suppress a whimper when Rafe hummed against her cherry red lips. The kiss was greedy. Passionate. Anything but gentle. There was so much pent up sexual tension between them, if she wasn’t sitting down she was sure her knees would have buckled.

His lips were drugging her into a delirium that she just couldn’t escape as he buried his hands in her hair, biting her bottom lip just a little. He knew she liked that. He was kissing away all of her pain in that moment, all the tired thoughts of their once obsolete future. Of their chaotic past. He was putting together the pieces of the broken vase which resided in her heart.

Her manicured nails clung to his shirt as she grabbed his chest, pulling her even closer to him. Rafe was her favourite drug, and my god did she feel high. Her head was dizzy with lust. Her thoughts spinning. She could of collapsed at any given moment.

It was the kind of kiss that made her realise breathing was overrated anyway.

His tongue roamed her mouth with dominance, his lips harsh as his fingers grazed her bare thigh. He was so thankful she wore a skirt tonight. Touching her skin felt like home. She had always been his home.

And as she ran a hand through his dirty blonde locks, pulling on them ever so slightly, Rafe couldn’t believe he was finally home again.

And when I felt like I was an old cardigan

Under someone's bed

You put me on and said I was your favorite

Tags; @urfaveluvr @arielmarvelaqua @mryneedend @tigerlily678 @rxfecameronsslut @jesusfootsandles @s-we-e-t-t-ea @sickyrat @ivy-34

[insanityclause]

“It must have been in about 1979, I was in New York on holiday. I was sitting up with a friend, and we were both stoned as owls.” Jane Wymark was retelling her brush with a piece of theatre history. She recalled the sound of a telephone cutting through the sour, rising smoke. Wymark answered. Distant and absurd on the other end of the line, a telegram message from her mother. “It said something like: ‘Wonderful job. Hamlet, please come home.’”

After several minutes of laughter, it occurred to Wymark that the call might not be a joke. “So I rung my mother up, and said ‘I’m really sorry if I’m waking you up in the middle of the night for no reason, but is this real?’ And she said, ‘Yes, come home right now, because they want you to play Ophelia.’”

Wymark was being parachuted into a production of Hamlet that was being talked about as among the best of the century. Derek Jacobi, a Shakespearean actor then in his forties and recently made famous by his star turn as the Roman emperor in the television series I, Claudius, was in the title role. In some quarters, Jacobi’s poetic, volatile performance was being talked about as the Hamlet of his generation.

A film of the production would be broadcast in America and viewed by more people at once than any in history. When The New York Times asked Jacobi how he felt knowing that a generation of viewers would come to consider his interpretation definitive, he replied: “That way lies madness.”

One night, Wymark recalled, the cast were taking their bows in the furnacelike auditorium. “By the time we got to the end of the show we were pouring sweat,” she said. “Well I wasn’t, because I’d been dead for a while, but Derek and the guy playing Laertes were just sopping. We’d done all the usual curtain calls and everything, and then Peter O’Toole comes wavering on to the stage.”

O’Toole, then almost 50 and skeletal-gaunt, was carrying in his hands a little red book. As the audience hushed he explained that the book was given to the actor who was considered the definitive Hamlet of his generation. When O’Toole had played the part in 1963, the actor Michael Redgrave had given him the book. Redgrave had been given it by someone else, a great actor of the previous generation, and now O’Toole was passing it on to Jacobi, who in turn could give it to whomever he pleased.

The notion that each generation has its definitive Hamlet is a critical will-o’-the-wisp that has dogged the play almost since it was written. The Edwardian essayist Max Beerbohm called Shakespeare’s most famous part “a hoop through which every eminent actor must, sooner or later, jump”, but only one actor in thousands gets to “give” his or her Hamlet in a professional production. “Everyone — great, good, bad or indifferent — wants to play Hamlet,” the actor Christopher Plummer once said.

Why? The question feels redundant. If you are someone who needs to perform, you are someone who needs to perform Hamlet. In Withnail and I, the 1987 cult comedy film about actors and their ambitions, the bloated, fey, lecherous character known as Uncle Monty has a short speech on the subject: “It is the most shattering experience of a young man’s life when, one morning, he awakes and quite reasonably says to himself, ‘I will never play the Dane.’ When that moment comes, one’s ambition ceases.”

Earlier this year, I set out to find the red book.

As a trophy, a tradition, a secret succession, it seemed to embody some of the most romantic ideas about the part. I felt that in mapping its passage from player to player, I could trace a shadow history of the thing that has been driving the whole theatrical world for centuries: ambition.

This is what brought me to ask the retired Wymark about her encounter with the book. And this is how I eventually came to be standing outside a rambling, gabled cottage in north London, uncertain about whether to ring the bell until a vast Shakespearean sneeze told me I was at the right place. The door opened and I shook hands with a neat, elderly man who looked just like Derek Jacobi. The living room, decorated with antique furniture and hung with flower paintings, left an impression of a precisely chosen life. I said that I wanted to ask him about a red, leather-bound book, handed down from actor to actor, that had passed through his hands decades ago. I said he might be the oldest living actor to have held it in his hands. He furrowed an alpine brow and fixed his pale blue eyes on a tiny point just past my left eye. “Oh God,” he moaned, in an agony of remembrance. “It was a little copy of Hamlet . . . ”

Of course, there is no definitive Hamlet. This is true, and so obviously true that people have been saying it for hundreds of years. “There is no such thing as Shakespeare’s Hamlet,” wrote Oscar Wilde. “There are as many Hamlets as there are melancholies.” This is true! Hamlet is sour, obedient, suicidal, sarcastic, self-indulgent, flip and outright murderous before the end of his second scene. Modern scholarship has been wincingly keen to stress the heterogeneity of possible responses. As I once heard a professor say in a university seminar, should we be speaking of Hamlets, rather than Hamlet?

Perhaps. But we should also be honest: that sucks and we hate it. We also can’t ignore the genealogy of great Hamlets that exists, stretching all the way back to Richard Burbage, Shakespeare’s star performer and business partner, for whom the role was written. That the character and the play are both radically unstable and look totally different in different hands seems to have made us more eager to pinpoint a single actor’s performance as the one. Producers, theatre managers, actors and journalists have connived to reinforce that idea.

Hamlet does offer an actor a scope and centrality that no other part does. “It’s the great personality role in Shakespeare,” Jacobi explained when we were sitting down, his hands conducting the silence around him as he spoke. He had settled in a winged leopard-print armchair, like a portrait of himself. On the side table was an Olivier Award, a small bronze sculpture of the great Laurence Olivier himself, the man who won both Best Actor and Best Picture for his 1948 film of Hamlet, and then launched the National Theatre in 1963 with a production of the play. “You use much more of your own personality as Hamlet,” Jacobi said, “rather than becoming Hamlet by going out and acquiring things. . . Hamlet will look how the actor looks, sound how he sounds, move how he moves. You play yourself as Hamlet.”

Jacobi first came to prominence as a teenage Hamlet, in an eye-catchingly serious schoolboy production at the Edinburgh festival fringe. In his early twenties he joined the germinal National Theatre and played opposite O’Toole’s Hamlet as Laertes. In his forties, he was given the red book by O’Toole, filmed in the role and toured the world. He was sworn to revenge under sheets of pelting rain outside the real Elsinore castle in Denmark. He soliloquised and played mad by the Egyptian Sphinx as the sun set.

A particular challenge of playing the part, Jacobi told me, is delivering lines so famous they risk breaking the audience’s suspension of disbelief. In his production, the second act began with Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy. Unusually, it was played as a speech delivered to Ophelia, rather than on an empty stage. In Sydney, at the end of the tour, Jacobi was waiting nervously in the wings. “I thought, ‘This is probably the most famous line in all drama. What if I forgot it? What if I went on and my mind went blank?’ And I went on, and I started . . . 

“To be, or not to be, that is the question/ Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer/ The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune/ Or–

Or–

Or–

Or–”

Blinded to the astonishment of a thousand spectators by the force of the footlights, Jacobi realised he’d dried. Dried completely. It wasn’t like he’d forgotten the words. It was like he’d never known them. An entire minute of silence passed, until he was audibly given his line by Ophelia. Somehow, he got through the performance and the rest of the run. Afterwards, Jacobi didn’t go on stage again for two years. When I mentioned the incident, his eyes turned tight and hooded. He asked to talk about something else. Sensing my cue, I returned to the red book.

“Oh God. Rich!” he called into the next room. “Who did I give the book to?”

“You gave it to Ken Branagh,” called Richard Clifford, Jacobi’s partner, from offstage.

“Ken! I gave it to Ken,” said Jacobi. Then, calling back: “Who did Ken give the book to?”

“Tom Hiddleston!”

“Tom! He gave it to Tom.”

I asked how he had received the book himself and he went back into the trance of remembrance. “Now, I was playing Hamlet at the Old Vic. And at the curtain call one night, Peter O’Toole came on to the stage with this book and gave it to me. And he had originally been given it by . . . Oh . . . ” He trailed off, unable to remember Redgrave.

“Oh!” cried Clifford from the kitchen.

“Oh!” cried Jacobi in the living room.

Johnston Forbes-Robertson. That was the name of the first owner of the red book. Forbes-Robertson was a legendary Victorian actor who played Hamlet into his sixties. The book itself was a Temple Shakespeare, a handsome reader’s edition of the play printed around the turn of the century and bound in red leather. He probably bought it in a West End bookshop, pacing around between rehearsals. Or so I’m told by Russell Jackson, an emeritus professor at the University of Birmingham. “It would have been instantly recognisable,” he told me. “You can hold it more or less in the palm of your hand.”

In 1996, Jackson was working as a script consultant on a film of Hamlet directed by Branagh, who was then in the middle of a hurtling, flame-tipped ascent to near-unprecedented eminence among Shakespearean actors. As a leading man who had run his own theatre company and could direct and star in internationally released film adaptations of the plays, there was no one to compare him to but Olivier. He was now at work on a princely four-hour fantasia, shot amid fake fallen snow at Blenheim Palace with himself in the starring role.

He had cast his old hero, Jacobi, as Hamlet’s murderous uncle Claudius. On his last day of shooting, after the traditional applause that follows a final take, Jacobi asked for silence. Jackson kept a diary at the time: “[Jacobi] holds up a red-bound copy of the play that successive actors have passed on to each other, with the condition that the recipient should give it in turn to the finest Hamlet of the next generation. It has come from Forbes-Robertson, a great Hamlet at the turn of the century, to Derek, via Henry Ainley, Michael Redgrave, Peter O’Toole and others. Now he gives it to Ken.”

Hamlet had been a pivotal document in Branagh’s life. As a teenager in 1977, he had seen Jacobi play the role at the New Theatre in Oxford. In his memoir, he remembers it as one of the moments that inspired him to become an actor. “I didn’t understand it at all, but I was amazed by the power of it because it seemed to be affecting my body. I got the shakes at times.”

Two years later, Branagh went to interview Jacobi, who was then playing Hamlet at the Old Vic. “I got a note from someone called Ken Branagh, saying, could he interview me for Rada’s magazine?” Jacobi told me, referring to the prestigious London acting school Branagh attended. “He was a personable young man. He asked good questions. As he left, he said: ‘I’m going to be playing Hamlet one day, and you’re going to be in it.’”

“Ken,” Jacobi added with a smile, “wasn’t slow in coming forward.”

It was no secret that Branagh had set his sights on matching, even reanimating, Olivier’s career. With his movie of Hamlet, he was threatening to run away with the crown. But while the film won plaudits from some critics, it made back only around a quarter of its budget, and Branagh was nominated only for best adapted screenplay at the Oscars, a curiously backhanded compliment for a Hamlet that advertised itself as the complete text.

Branagh held on to the book for more than 20 years, passing over several acclaimed Hamlets (David Tennant’s agonised spectre foremost among them) in that time. “I took special pains to make sure it was preserved,” said Branagh, who was reached with written questions via an agent and an aide during the shooting of his new film. “I felt the book was something rather treasured and private, and not something that you in any way crowed about. You were a temporary custodian.” In 2017, he finally handed the red book on to the actor sometimes thought of as his protégé, Hiddleston.

So there it was. Redgrave to O’Toole to Jacobi to Branagh to Hiddleston. But still, something wasn’t adding up. I began desperately ringing round old actors asking for snippets of information about the red book, and started reciting the list of names from Jackson’s diary entry: Forbes-Robertson, Ainley, Redgrave, O’Toole, Jacobi, among others. Every time I read the list, everyone said the same thing. Where the hell is Olivier?

Here is a story about Laurence Olivier. Once upon a time, in the early 1800s, there was a great Shakespearean actor called Edmund Kean. He was the Hamlet of the Romantics. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote that watching him was “like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning”. Kean was also renowned for playing Shakespeare’s other great soliloquist, Richard III. As the hunchbacked villain, Kean would rage and swagger and strut about, swishing a great sword in his hand. That sword was passed to William Chippendale, a member of Kean’s company. Chippendale gave it to an actor called Henry Irving, who gave it to the great Ellen Terry who, we understand, gave it to her great nephew. His name was John Gielgud. Gielgud gave the sword to his contemporary, Olivier, telling him to pass it on to the great actor of the next generation. And Olivier kept it.

He is rumoured to have been buried with it. Certainly, the sword has not been seen since his death. (One of the last people to see it was Jacobi, who confirmed to me that Olivier still had it as a very old man.) Is Olivier really lying in his grave with no tongue between his teeth and Kean’s sword beside him? If he is, it feels like a little parable about the sharp, inward points of ambition. Here was a man who got everything and more from a life in the theatre. But he couldn’t bear to part with a prop sword.

The question of why Olivier never received the book becomes more pressing when you read the letters he received playing Hamlet from the Edwardian actor Henry Ainley, the book’s second owner. On opening night, January 5 1937, Ainley telegrammed Olivier in his dressing room: “THE READINESS IS ALL.” Later that night he wrote: “You, my sweet, are the Mecca . . . Pay no heed to the critics, they do not know. You are playing Hamlet; therefore you are a king [ . . . ] You rank, now among the great.”

Ainley’s hornily free-associating letters seem to imply a physical affair at times. “Larry darling, I have been tossing (now now) about at night thinking of you,” he writes in one of the letters, currently kept by the British Library.

“Well, you know what you did. I can’t walk [ . . . ] And the child has your eyes.” Yet it is Olivier’s fame that Ainley most obviously covets. “Soon you will be like [me],” he writes in another. “Your public, your following all gone, dear old boy! The harlequinade. We do not endure!” There is no mention in their correspondence of the red book. Whether Ainley had already given the book away, or felt compelled to hang on to it, or simply had forgotten it, remains a matter of speculation.

It’s not the only agonising gap in the archive. In 1963, an older Olivier cast Peter O’Toole in the production of Hamlet that would open the National Theatre. O’Toole had already played a wild, revelatory Hamlet at the Bristol Old Vic in 1958, in which he famously climbed the proscenium arch mid-performance. It was an interpretation that harnessed the young actor’s modernity. “He’s a lean, lank, individualist Teddy Boy!” one reviewer enthused.

But in 1963, Olivier had other ideas. “It was very strange,” remembers Siân Phillips, O’Toole’s then wife, now aged 91. “Larry [Olivier] had talked him into this terrible costume. He looked like Little Lord Fauntleroy, with a Peter Pan collar and clean, beautifully cut dyed blond hair.”

Phillips thought Olivier seemed to want to trim the edges off her husband. “Larry had this new kind of concept of a very tidy Hamlet, which was the opposite of what [O’Toole] did best. But he had such regard for Larry, who was flattering him enormously. He just did everything asked of him.” Phillips had put her own starry career on hold to let O’Toole have the spotlight. She did his filing and kept track of gifts he had been given, making sure people were thanked, which was why she found it strange that she’d never heard of the red book.

Together, we wondered if the unhappy production had made it a sore point for her husband. “The thought did cross my mind once or twice that Olivier might be trying to sabotage him,” she said. “But how could he want to do that on the opening night of the National Theatre?” On the other end of the phone, I thought of Kean’s sword.

Perhaps this is harsh. Perhaps we can understand the desire to have and hold on to a physical token of fame, strength, adulation, applause, youth — the things that slip away from even the greatest artists. All performers live in fear of unemployment and redundancy, and even the successful ones are loved, fiercely and temporarily, for being someone they’re not. “Today kings, tomorrow beggars, it is only when they are themselves that they are nothing,” wrote William Hazlitt, the English essayist.

“British theatre has traditionally privileged innovation,” the Shakespearean scholar Michael Dobson told me. In France, he explained, you could see Phèdre performed with the same gestures, the same intonation, for hundreds of years. “The British are always inventing new things, like gas lighting and ways of doing ghosts with mirrors. It’s never the old, boring Hamlet your parents used to like. It’s always got this young, original, absolutely real actor in it, instead of those stylised old geezers.”

In which case, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories about great actors who fell from fashion. It was Burbage who first delivered Hamlet’s acting advice to the players: “O’erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature.”

Until the modern day, actors didn’t play big roles just once or twice in their careers, in a long run of performances. They performed them frequently. Even in Shakespeare’s time, actors became associated with certain parts in the minds of spectators. Burbage died in March 1619, and the funeral baked meats were hardly cold when he was replaced by another actor, Joseph Taylor.

An unreliable but enticing story has it that Burbage taught Taylor, and Taylor taught the next great Hamlet, Thomas Betterton. Betterton was the Hamlet of Restoration theatre, among the first to play opposite women. Confronting his father’s ghost, Betterton’s Hamlet could “turn his colour”, as though his face had drained of blood with fright. Betterton made his face “pale as his neck cloth”.

Betterton died in 1710, immortality assured. Within a few decades his reputation had been all but vaporised by the greatest actor of the century, David Garrick. Garrick was almost a religion among theatregoers. “That young man never had his equal as an actor, and will never have a rival,” was the poet and critic Alexander Pope’s verdict. Garrick was both a shameless showman and pioneering realist. He played Hamlet in a mechanical fright wig that made his hair stand on end when activated.

Garrick was replaced by John Philip Kemble, a severe and statuesque Hamlet. In the early 19th century, Kemble was outmoded by Kean, whose ascendant star was quickly selling out theatres. “Places are secured at Drury Lane for Saturday, but so great is the rage for seeing Kean that only a third and fourth row could be got,” wrote Jane Austen, struggling to get seats. Out with the old. Next came Samuel Phelps, the actor-manager who first made a point of performing the original texts of Shakespeare’s plays. He was toppled by Henry Irving, a drawn and gothic actor. Irving was supposedly the inspiration for Dracula; his theatre manager was Bram Stoker.

Enter the melancholic, effeminate figure of Forbes-Robertson, the first owner of our red book. His Hamlet, first performed in 1897 and still being revived into his sixties, was in some ways the last definitive stage performance in this unofficial, highly debatable but surprisingly enduring tradition. “Nothing half so charming,” George Bernard Shaw wrote of his performance, “has been seen by this generation.” Orson Welles described one recording of Forbes-Robertson as the most beautiful Shakespearean verse-speaking he ever heard. You can still listen to it on YouTube, uploaded from an ancient LP.

“The next reference to the actor’s art,” creaks the old voice above the hiss of imperfectly transcribed sound, “is Hamlet’s advice to the players, written, obviously, by an actor who has complete command of his calling.” In a voice ponderous with time but still capable of lightness and precision, he begins the passage in which Hamlet gives notes to a theatrical troupe. “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue.”

Forbes-Robertson would have seen more clearly than many of his successors how rapidly the galaxy of theatrical ambition was expanding. He was the first great Hamlet to play the part on film, in a lumpy silent production in 1913. If that film looks stagey and stylised to modern eyes, then looking back at these nested revolutions in realism, it’s also obvious that old actors have always looked that way in the eyes of their successors. Naturalism is just the style each era brings with it.

Hamlet’s advice was itself part of this reach towards the endlessly receding goal of the real. To an Elizabethan audience, the travelling troupe with their heroic verse and stagey couplets would have seemed obviously to belong to a previous generation of players, one playwrights like Shakespeare, and plays such as Hamlet, were making redundant. Hamlet says to the players what the theatre is always saying: be young, be modern, be new.

You can’t ask too much of very famous actors. Basic professionalism demands that they don’t tell you anything too interesting. They live like criminals, travelling under pseudonyms and booking the front seat on aeroplanes. We abhor in their personal lives the basic human latitude we praise in their work. “I am myself indifferent honest yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me,” Hamlet says to Ophelia. “What should such fellows as I do, crawling between heaven and earth?”

I had hundreds of questions for Hiddleston, the 43-year-old star of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and current holder of the red book. Unfortunately, Hiddleston is not an easy man to reach. As the man who plays Loki in the Marvel series (global gross about $30bn), he has been watched at his craft by an unimaginable number of human eyes. He does his work in green-screen and widescreen settings that would also have been unimaginable to 90 per cent of the people named in this article. Where Burbage played Hamlet without an interval, Hiddleston’s fame is a postmodern mosaic, put together in franchise films with an average shot length of two seconds. Given that he commands multimillion-dollar fees for these acts of cinematic pointillism, you may imagine his time is precious. I was able to reach him by phone for 15 minutes during press week for Loki season 2’s Emmy campaign. “Good morning,” he said, dialling in from Los Angeles. “I mean, sorry, good evening.”

Hiddleston played Hamlet in a fundraiser production for Rada directed by Branagh in 2017. He told me how he had left drama school and joined Declan Donnellan’s Cheek by Jowl theatre company, standing out as Cassio in a somewhat legendary modern Othello, in which Ewan McGregor played Iago opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor in the lead. Branagh saw the production and persuaded Marvel studios to let him cast this relative unknown in Thor, which then grossed almost half a billion dollars. Afterwards, they sat down for lunch and Branagh suggested Hamlet. “And I said, ‘I would absolutely love to do it with you. What an honour.’”

The production played for three weeks in Rada’s tiny theatre, with tickets that were won by lottery. Among the critics, Michael Billington, Britain’s most decorated theatre writer, was one of the few to have got a seat. “If I had to pick out Hiddleston’s key quality, it would be his ability to combine a sweet sadness with an incandescent fury,” Billington wrote in his review. On Saturdays, Hiddleston remembered, there were gala performances for graduates and theatrical somebodies. “I think at the first one almost everybody with the last name ‘Attenborough’ in the UK was in attendance.”

On one of these evenings, a glass was clinked with a spoon. Jacobi began to speak, explaining something about a book that had passed from actor to actor. “And then Ken was at the microphone, explaining that the responsibility of the keeper of the book is that they pass it on to the next generation. And suddenly Ken said, ‘I’d like to present it to Tom.’”

We were 10 minutes into our 15. I looked at my list of questions — on frontispieces, annotations, signatures, printing quirks — about the red book. Hiddleston was in LA. The book was in London. He was not contractually obliged to talk to me, as he was to the other journalists who were waiting on iPhones all over the world. All that was sustaining this conversation was the actor’s private enthusiasm for the kind of acting he is rarely, if ever, able to do anymore.

Hiddleston began to talk at length. He said the gift of playing the part was to be presented with the most beautiful, profound poetry written in English about the question of being alive, of death, of the possibility of spiritual life after death.

An email arrived saying our time was up. “It has the effect of making me feel more alive,” Hiddleston was saying. “Learning and internalising those great soliloquies, and having to perform them, there is no escaping those big questions of what it means to be alive,” he went on, the minutes ticking by. “And actually I find it very reassuring to ask those questions. I find it repetitively reassuring to say those words. Because it actually makes your life mean something.”

[thetempleofthemasaigoddess]

How I long for the time, when your lips would kiss mine

Mihawk x reader.

This fic is part of the Beast in Black series.

*****

Three months later.

You smile, more satisfied than greedy, as Vice-Admiral Garp slids a parcel across his desk, close enough to let you take it.

"Thirteen million berries, including the bounty you were owed since last year." he explains as you lift the parcel to stash it in your satchel, without bothering to open it to count the bills neatly stacked inside: you know you can trust the Marines - regarding the money you are due even if not about everything else "Don't take it the wrong way, (name), but I was surprised you had decided to take on this assignment: it is quite a bit below your usual level."

"I am aware. I have been... in poor health, which is why you haven't seen me in a while, and I wanted something simple to make sure I had gotten back to full fitness. From now on I'll be only taking on level three bounties, as usual."

Garp nods, promising to call you when your services will be required. "Got plans for tonight?" he idly adds, leaning back in his chair as he observes you rising from yours.

"I am flattered, Vice-Admiral, but I never mix business and pleasure."

"That was not what I meant. I was simply wondering if there was a reason why a certain man who never spends a minute more than he has to here at our HQ has been sitting in the waiting room for almost two hours twiddling his thumbs."

The mental image makes a smile blossom on your lips; you don't bother trying to deny it, since it would be clearly pointless. "Figuratively, I imagine."

"Probably. Still..."

"Still, thank you for your time. I'll see you soon, Vice-Admiral."

Garp laughs; he seems to find the whole matter highly amusing, which means it is probably a good thing he is discussing it with you and not with the other interested party.

"He was very worried about you; I could feel it in his voice." he suddenly adds, almost as an afterthought.

A simple, inscrutable smile is the only answer he receives, and a moment later you have left his office and are walking down the corridor toward the room Garp mentioned.

Mihawk is alone in the room most of your (less memorable, but still dear to your heart) meetings have taken place in, an half-empty glass of red wine in front of him. He is perfectly still, sitting and apparently lost in his thoughts, but the moment you appear at the door he turns to look at you, relief evident in his gaze... or maybe, just maybe, it is you who are able to perceive it.

"Hello."

He reaches you at the door a moment later, Yoru hanging from on his shoulders, and for a moment you remain face to face, silent as you simply relish being in each other's presence once more. His hand brushes against yours; holding back from hugging him is the hardest thing you have ever had to do.

You happily follow him when Mihawk suggests you go outside to talk, but once you have reached the plaza facing the Marine HQ neither feels the need to actually speak; night is falling, a beautiful sunset painting the sky of a hundred shades of red.

"Has your leg healed?" he asks after a while, as you unhurriedly walk down the pier, the salt-laden air making you feel at home; after all, you were born on an island.

"Perfectly, thank all the Gods. And I took down the pirate i was sent to kill in two days, which means I haven't gotten rusty despite fifteen months of indolence." you happily inform him "I have started with something easy, so as not to overexert myself, but I am tired of sitting around doing nothing; I am ready to get back to business."

"That is good to hear."

You smile, finally taking his hand. "I have missed you." you murmur; it is easy, even pleasant, to utter those words, because no matter how usually strict Mihawk is in judging others, you know you don't need to hide from him, not even the most fragile, most painful part of you "I am so sorry I never called or wrote, I... I needed to be alone. To come to terms with what I had discovered."

"I know, (name). I am not crossed, and..."

"And?"

He sighs; for a moment you simply know he wants to ask whether those three months actually helped, if your heart healed along with your leg or the pain of knowing you will never be a mother, never raise the children you have wanted for nine years, is still part of you, slowly gnawing at your heart like waves gradually wearing away the sturdiest rock. If he did, you are not sure what answer you would give, because you don't have one for yourself. Rationally, you know the passing of time will help, at least a little, and since you have always thought suicide is not the answer you can't help moving on, or at least going on, by inertia if nothing else, and the occasional moment, hour, or even day, of sadness and complete despair doesn't prevent you from cherishing the small and great joys life still throws your way, from the gentle, protective hug of your mother to the pleasure of seeing your bullet, shot from half a mile away, hit the bullseye in the middle of the target's skull... to being finally back in the presence of the man you have never stopped thinking about, even though you had forbidden yourself from using him as an incentive to get back to what you had been. You don't want to be the sort of person who needs her loved one's affection to carry on; you want to be better than that, for yourself first of all and for him as well.

"It is good to see you." Mihawk says after a while; he can't read your mind (or at least, you have no reason to suspect he can; on the other hand, you wouldn't be too surprised...) but you could swear he knows what you are thinking, what you are feeling, or maybe he simply has the gift to say what the person in front of him needs to hear "I have missed you. Again."

"I'm sorry..."

"You don't need to apologize. I just meant..."

"I know, Mihawk. And... I feel the same."

Silence falls between the two of you, and while it is not uncomfortable or tense, as usual when you are with Mihawk, you perceive you can't simply enjoy it as you let time pass you by. You have already wasted so much of it, fifteen months after your first night together (a night thinking back to which makes you still shiver in such a pleasant way; a night that was the beginning of something marvelous, even if not what you hoped) and three after you had quietly confessed to each other you both wanted to be more than simple acquaintances and drinking buddies. You are still young, and rushing things rarely helps, at least when feelings are concerned; but as you said, you have been idle for so long, and you want, you need, to regain control of your life.

"A new restaurant has just opened not far from here; it is pretty good, I am told." you mention after a moment, suddenly thinking back to Garp's conjectures "Would you let me buy you dinner?"

Mihawk grimaces. "I'd be more than happy to dine with you, but you have to let me take the bill."

"I have earned thirteen million berries twenty minutes ago. I think I can afford a dinner for two." you point out, relieved that scowl was not due to the prospect of spending the evening with you.

"That changes nothing. I would have imagined a noblewoman would have been keen on respecting traditions."

You smile; Gods, you are so happy to see him your heart is singing. "Then..." you begin, lowering your voice to an intimate murmur as you take both of his hands in yours, the distance between your bodies reduced to a breath "What if I let you pay for the dinner, and then I take care of dessert? In my inn room?"

Mihawk sighs, his usual serious demeanor betraying his actual feelings: amusement, and relief, and desire. "I suppose an after-dinner drink wouldn't hurt."

"Great."

He kisses you - on the forehead, since you're still in public; when you raise your eyes to his, you can see him smile. "Let's go, then."

The descending night hides you in its dark mantle as you set off along the pier, your fingers still interwined.

[humanpurposes]

I Have Always Been A Storm, Part 1

Read the full chapter on AO3 // Main Masterlist

Aemond Targaryen x Floris Baratheon

In the year 128AC, Floris Baratheon weds Aemond Taragryen, a daughter and a son both driven to duty, now bound to each other when the realm is on the brink of war. Floris is enamoured by the Prince, but love is something she can only hope will bloom once her vows have been said before the eyes of the Seven- AU where Aemond and Floris marry before the Dance of the Dragons.

Warnings: 18+, smut, pregnancy, arranged marriage, canon divergence, angst, possibly quite a lot of angst, hurt/comfort

A/n: Surprise!! It's the Florismond fic no one asked for :) Planning on this being a 3 part mini series.

“A terrible coincidence,” my husband says.

Head bowed, he kneels before me where I sit on the end of our bed. Thunder and lightning rage beyond the windows but he has brought the storm inside with him. The rainwater that has drenched his hair and his riding leathers soak through my nightgown. I keep my jaw tight and my teeth pressed together to stop myself from shivering.

He has discarded his gloves to hold my hands in his, leaving a trail of kisses and tears on my skin. He circles the pad of his thumb over my fingertips, over the callouses left by my years of devotion to the harp. His hands are calloused too, from his sword, from the reins on Vhagar’s saddle.

He lifts his chin to look at me. I scarcely recognise him. My husband is a proud young man, always poised, never loud, often cold and stoic, gentle around the right people, his mother, his sister, me.

His single eye is glistening and glassy, the blue of his iris vibrant despite his distress. His breaths are laboured, his lips parted. I see nothing but hopelessness in him, but even like this, I wonder if the gods will ever manage to create a person quite so beautiful as Aemond Targaryen.

I slip a hand out of his grasp and, as gently as I can, pull on the eyepatch that covers the left side of his face. He lets me do it, as he has done many times before. A burst of lighting catches in the uneven edges of his sapphire eye. The twisted flesh that frames it is red, I wonder if it is hurting him.

I asked him once, why he was so reluctant to display this part of himself, why he wanted to hide it from me when we were first married.

His reply was always that he did not wish to frighten me.

What reason would I have to fear a scar? I’ve seen plenty of blood in my life, hunts, tourneys, accidents in the training yard. I see my own blood every moon. How could I fear my own husband?

He’s stuttering, sobbing, choking on his words. “I didn’t– I– I tried to stop her– but I was so– I just wanted him to…”

Heat rises behind my eyes. My skin is cold, my limbs frozen, but the shock is starting to wear off. I cannot listen to any more or I will surely break. 

I hush him, curling my whole body over his head. If he sees my face he will think I fear him, he will think I am horrified by him. I run a hand over his damp hair and he rests his face against the swell of my stomach.

Before he left, only a matter of days ago, after he had kissed my lips sore and stolen all the air from my lungs, he had come down to his knees to kiss my belly. By Maester Orwlye’s estimation, I only have a month left of my term. By tradition, I should be in confinement, but Aemond had ordered against it. He could not bear the thought of being apart from me, and I him. He has his own books and correspondences with Maesters across the continent. In Dorne, expectant mothers are encouraged to exercise as much as they can, to breathe fresh air and feel the sun on their skin. This would be best for our child, Aemond decided, rather than keeping me a dark bedchamber with only midwives and septas for company. 

Queen Alicent had said from the start that Aemond would make for a devoted husband, that he has always been a man of duty.

An awful sense of dread runs through my blood.

I should be glad that he has returned to me, and I am, I am .

“I wanted the boy to fear me. I did not imagine that I might…”

What can I say to him? What can I do to ease his suffering when I cannot stand the feeling of his body so close to mine? 

I am bound to him, through vows, through witnesses. I have given him my body and he has given me his. I carry his blood in my womb, my child as much as it is his. Most irreversibly of all, my heart is twined with his. I love him, and yet...

When he places a palm against my stomach, over the space where our babe grows, all I can think is that this is the hand of a kinslayer. Whatever fate the gods have for him now is my fate also. If he has cursed himself, then I too am cursed.

Full chapter on AO3

Tags (commented to be added)

Series taglist:

General taglist: @randomdragonfires @theoneeyedprince @targaryenrealnessdarling @jamespotterismydaddy @tsujifreya @blackswxnn

[redhoodinternaldialectical]

My Jason Todd Rec List and Character Manifesto! (Version 3.0! Edited and updated first on 28/01/2024 and then again on 23/09/2024)

This is a fuckin mess my ghouls, but I got categories and I got opinions and who can stop me from typing em out? Certainly not @lazaruspiss who is the reason this thing got made!

The format is gonna be:

title and page numbers (No #s if I'm recommending the whole title IMPORTANT UPDATE: Each title will be a direct link to a free digital copy! Make sure you have a good adblocker and enjoy!) picture Summary and general notes My estimate of how unhinged he is in this portrayal What his morals are like; note this isn't about whether he's a protagonist or antagonist

Since cream rises to the top, let us start with:

The Creme de la Creme

The best of the best. The most fun, the most compelling, the most interesting looks into his character.

Seeing Red aka Green Arrow (2001) #69 - #72

This one really does have it all. Jason runs rings around both Batman and Green Arrow at the same time, all the while going after a goal neither of them ever truly figures out in large part because this story wasn't afraid to let Bruce be either wrong or lying about Jason's motives. It also wonderfully leverages the ways in which the Bats and the Arrows are really good foils for each other. I think I'm going to be turning over the ways these interactions went down for a long ass time. I've been really wanting to go page by page for a comparison between the way Jason treats Mia in this and the way Jason treats Tim in the Titans Tower showdown. Bottom line for this one: It's just so good!

Jason's sanity level: Six out of Ten hinges affixed. He's got a solid grip on things, is reasonably level headed, only problem is he might have completely forgotten how to interact with other human beings outside of combat. Love him for that.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Sympathetic Villain. Decidedly willing to mow down some "brain donors", and his goals are pretty morally grey, but he clearly still has a strong code of ethics.

Task Force Z

This whole comic one big love letter to Jason Todd. The author, Matthew Rosenberg, very deliberately takes time to showcase all the strengths and flaws of his character that make him so beloved. He's competent, he's mistrustful, he's determined, he's heroic and yet poses as the villain, he's human yet badass, and he holds his ground against the rest of the Bats while still clearly loving them. If I was ranking these comics purely by plot and pacing this would not be in creme de la creme territory, but it's a fantastic synopsis of what Jason is all about and if I could only give someone a single series in order to let them understand who Jason is (and I couldn't give them Under the Red Hood), I'd give them this.

Jason's sanity level: Eight out of Ten hinges affixed. He's pretty level headed, but at the same time he very clearly is way too casual about violence to be full hinges affixed - the PTSD is very apparent in him.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero. His motives are understandable and firmly rooted in doing the right thing, but at the same time he is very willing to be ruthless and to kill when he feels it's the right decision. Balanced!

Pay as You Go aka Outsiders #44 - #46

Jason's role in this story is fairly small, but it's a wonderful bit of characterization for him. The way he approaches Nightwing to offer his help and the way Nightwing accepts that offer are fascinating and very deserving of your time!

Also there's gay sex and a prison breakout, like, what more could you want? Actually I suppose you could also want (what I'm pretty sure is) Roy's first time meeting Jason as the Red Hood and some really cute scenes of him and Lian, and guess what this story has got that too!

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero. He's deliberately choosing to play the villain, but he's very willing to work with the Heroes and is going out of his way to exonerate an innocent man.

Batman (1940) #408 - #411 Jason's debut featuring Ma Gunn's School and his first ever outing as Robin fighting Two-Face

Just LOOK at this PRECIOUS BOY! I wanna pinch him on his cheeks and give him a handful of these bad boys

Jason has a ton of personality to him right out the gate. The first story has Ma Gunn as the villain and she's a lot of fun. The second story in here with Two-Face is also enlightening with regards to Jason's early personality, even if it's not quite as fun.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.

Under the Red Hood would be next if it wasn't already filed under ->

Foundational Texts

This is the shit that defines Jason as a character. Much is mutable in any given comic, but somehow, someway, all depictions of Jason are impacted and informed by these three stories. Enough has been said about all of them that I'm gonna keep it brief.

Red Hood: The Lost Days

(You may have heard a lot about Talia's role in this one: I would encourage you to read my analysis of her in this story and do your best to see her perspective in all this, she's a heck of a lot less villainous than people keep saying she is)

Jason's sanity level: Eight out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero. He kills some incredibly nasty people, while also doing some genuinely heroic shit. The only places where his morals deteriorate are in the presence of Batman and the Joker.

Under the Red Hood

Jason's sanity level: Four out of Ten hinges affixed. Remember how his morals deteriorated in the face of Batman and the Joker? Yeah, that's mostly because he's way, way too personally invested to think straight about them. He's strategic as fuck, but this is not a stable man's strategy for dealing with his issues.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Sympathetic Villain. He is a revenant, a vengeful juggernaut, and breaks an awful lot of eggs making this brilliant disaster of an omelette.

Batman (1940) #426 - #429 A Death in the Family

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.

Joker becoming an ambassador to Iran plotlines count: One too many.

Solid Storylines

These ain't the vaulted heights, but not everything has to be the Sistine Chapel. They're solid, and if you're wanting more Jason I do certainly recommend them.

Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer and Countdown to Infinite Crisis (special note here: Countdown to Infinite Crisis must be read backwards, meaning you start with Issue #51 and then read down to Issue #1 and Countdown Presents isn't in chronological order and just... oh boy this storyline is a mess, but much of it is also quite good)

Jason is in what I like to call his Purposeless Depression Era during this. It's after his plans in Under the Red Hood fail and he's really just got no place to go, no place to be. He's keenly aware that on a cosmic level, he truly does not belong in this world anymore. He's supposed to be dead. There's something I find quite neat about this team up, with Donna Troy and Kyle Raynor and Bob, it's out of the ordinary for Jason, it's not bat related, and the ways he fits and doesn't fit with the other characters are just neat.

I especially recommend Gotham by Gaslight. The plot will be a lil hard to follow if you haven't read the others, but by the end of it Jason hopes to return to Steampunk Gotham instead of his own Gotham where he doesn't think he belongs, and the moments of him hoping to literally leave his universe behind are both sweet and sorrowful.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. He's just sad and lonely.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero. Even if only Donna is willing to tentatively try to see him that way.

Robin (1993) #177 and two pages of #182 and the front half of #183

Despite how much Jason is known for it, I think this is the only time we see him trying to run organized crime outside of Under the Red Hood (and uh debatably Battle for the Cowl). Short lil string of appearances, but critical for understanding how he's seen by Tim during this era if you care about that. Also I think this combined with Outsiders #44 - #46 (further down this list) it really cemented my understanding of Jason being strangely honest and forthright.

I think a major way other Bats fail to comprehend him is that they expect him to manipulate through lying, which just isn't his style. He doesn't lie about his motives; he doesn't obfuscate his tactics; he doesn't hide how he's feeling. Hell, he doesn't even try to lie his way out of prison! I could not tell you why this series of interactions gave me this impression but it is why I have such faith that when Jason says something, he probably just means it, even when characters like Dick or Tim assume otherwise.

Pity this was the lead up to Battle for the Cowl.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. He's even attempting to pick himself up out of his Purposeless Depression Era slump at the start.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero.

Nightwing (1996) #118 - #122 aka Brothers in Blood aka the One Where Jason Gets Tentacles

COWARDS and KNAVES will tell you "the tentacles are so icky and everyone is so OOC" or whatever but again they are KNAVES and COWARDS because bitch this shit is GREAT

Jason: Wow! My bestest big brother killed someone who deserved it, so now I (the person he's rejecting only because I kill people who deserved it) have a real chance at being his family again!! :D Hooray! :) Dickie-Bird why don't you look happy to see me? :) Dickie-Bird I went out of my way to get us matching outfits and stalked your work and killed people in your name so it's nice and easy to make room for me in your life! :) :) :)

Dick:

Jason's sanity level: Two out of Ten hinges affixed. My mans is off his rocker and I adore him like this. Frankly, the entire storyline is unhinged, and it only feels appropriate that Jason is similarly bonkers in yonkers.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Villain. You can sympathize with him, and he is still trying to carry out justice, but I have to call it for straight villain when he's threatening to bomb a building full of innocent people.

Batman and Robin (2009) #23 - #25

I don't have much to say about this one. It's good. The above page is pretty much the highlight.

Wait actually I do have something to say and it is that I would like to lick Jason's abs, pls & thx, because the other highlight is that Winick clearly believes in redeeming Jason's value as a villain through sex appeal and it is working lmao

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. Certifiably sane, he's passed all his psych exams!

Jason's moral compass bearing: Villain. He threatens to bomb a train station full of innocent people. While he does do that in service of freeing himself and Scarlet, thus making it not completely self centered, I still gotta put him firmly in Villain.

Nightwing (2016) 2021 Annual

In high contrast to the previous two in which Jason acts as a villain to Dick, this one has them working together and the tentative peace and cautious trust they've got going is interesting to me. Very reminiscent of his appearance in Outsiders!

Jason's sanity level: Nine out of Ten hinges affixed. He's quite chill, but there's just this little edge to him that says his relationship to violence is a little too casual a little too deep to really be fully hinged.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Edgy Hero.

Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing

With Jason's return to being an antagonist after a long stint in the Hero bin comes his return to being really fucking dangerous and whip smart! My boy quotes serious philosophy that gives him a real point to make against non lethal vigilantes and cops! I also think the part where he lets himself be arrested just... it says so much and all of it is wonderfully interesting and feels fitting for his character. He's kept deeply human, and just all of this portrayal gels together really well.

Originally I had this up in Creme De La Creme because really, even though Jason isn't the star of the show, and even with Gotham War having, er, Minorly Derailed Jason's role in things, and one or two inevitable scenes where ya just have to accept that he's not as trigger happy as he should be because DC is married to the Joker - even though all of that is true, this is still a phenomenal rendition of Jason. However, with all of those annoyances and with Task Force Z being written by the same author, I decided to put it down here and leave TFZ in it's place. Basically it's got an arguably better story-line than TFZ, but contains less Jason.

Also I like that he's friends with my favorite, Stephanie Brown :3 and he and Rose's chemistry is nice. On top of all that? It's a fun comic. Like, I generally hate the Joker, but I found myself enjoying watching the Joker do his Joker things in this one.

Jason's sanity level: Nine out of Ten hinges affixed. Level headed, calm, careful, really the only reason this isn't a 10/10 is cause he's obsessively focused, which like, honestly is pretty reasonable I think.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Clearly Justified Antihero. I almost put down Hero on this one, but ultimately he is just far enough over the line with how he treats the less threatening of the rogues like Killer Moth.

Your Mileage May Vary

These stories I can't recommend without major caveats or warnings, but I still think are worth mentioning.

Gotham War (It's such a mangled mess that I'm just gonna link a reading guide. The same website that all the others are on will get you to all the titles this guide lists)

So, the main problem here is that Gotham War spans five different titles and had three different authors whose renditions of Jason do not feel cohesive or even coherent. The funny thing is though, each rendition has real merits, and while it doesn't go far enough in condemning Bruce's horrifying treatment of Jason for many people's tastes, I have to point out that it's one of the only comics to condemn an instance of Bruce mistreating Jason at all. The fact that the other Robins come to his defense is a HUGE thing! The bar may be in Hell, but it did clear the bar!

Due to how disjointed it is, I'm going to very loosely separate Jason out into two versions of himself. Think of these not as hard lines, but more a spectrum he slides across depending on what author has him that issue.

Jason Primus combines the ideas in Jason's Under the Red Hood speech about controlling crime rather than trying to stomp it out with his more Heroic modern interpretation. He's a chill, funny, smart guy whose protectiveness over the mooks is really charming.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.

Jason Secundus is much more violent, not used to working with other people, and paranoid and antsy in a way that causes him to take it out on people who really don't deserve it. This is a compelling take on him, though I like him closer to Jason Primus. His trauma has clearly shaped him a lot, both for better and for worse.

Jason's sanity level: Seven out of Ten hinges affixed. Jason's moral compass bering: Anti-Hero, most of this focuses on him antagonizing two former Joker goons which kinda doesn't work well cause they're mostly scarecrow goons actually and also at one point he hurts them in a way that borderline just seems like stress relief. It's nothing worse than what we see Batman himself doing countless times, but it's still jarring because we've been made to strongly sympathize with the goon in question.

Batman: Three Jokers <- I read it while typing this up (the first version of this lol), so I got a lotta thoughts

Guh, this one is just fucking sad

So, I don't mind a story being blunt with its message as long as the message actually holds up. Unfortunately, this three parter's attempt at the cycle of violence lesson is... bad. Real bad.

Jason in it is neat! This is a good Jason portrayal somehow despite literally everything about the way this comic frames him! The narrative expects us to believe he is a danger to society on the cusp of becoming another Joker, because he *checks notes* shot the Joker dead, shot at a Joker loyal guy, and roughly interrogated an injured child abuser. At no point does he show signs of wanting to hurt innocent people. At no point does he show signs of doing any hurting without premeditation or a need to defend himself. I'm baffled by this.

My kingdom for a fucking CRUMB of nuance, I swear, smh...

I hear a lot of people hate his one sided romance towards Barbara. This is understandable as it squanders the opportunity to have a female character not be stuck as the narrative sponge for man emotions. I like it from the perspective of a Jason fan, and give condolences for the Barbara fans. It's not healthy, and good fucking job on the janitor sweeping away his letter to her so poor Babs doesn't have to deal with that shit, but I do like Jason's desperation to be loved by someone, anyone, who might show him compassion.

Jason's sanity level: Six out of Ten hinges affixed. He's sad, he's lonely, he needs some PTSD specific therapy, he's a bit creepy about his crush on Barbara, but quite frankly he has it together a lot more than the narrative would like us to believe. The way the other characters treat him like he's some kind of monster just waiting to snap and start maiming people indiscriminately makes me really uncomfortable.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero. Quite frankly I'm tempted to say Hero out of spite.

Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016) #1 - #43

There are three transcendental character moments in this run that I think make it worth reading even if not all of it's your cup of tea. On the other hand though there are some big issues that could very easily be deal breakers. Oh and anything after #43 is a wasteland and #43 is included purely for the implication that being transgender made a woman immortal.

The narrative structure is really heavily dependent on rule of emotional impact/cool/allegorical usefulness. Many events will not make any fucking sense based on petty things like basic logic or the laws of physics, but they do work just fine in the area of what makes the story more fun or the emotional beats hit harder. Stronger than average suspension of disbelief is necessary for the reward of getting a lot of stuff that's, like, just really fuckin cool.

The romantic side plot with Artemis is... odd. Either the author, Scott Lobdell, intended to write Jason as a desperate loser trying to date his uninterested lesbian friend who he co-parents with, or he accidentally wrote a romance so awkward and comp-het that I cannot wrap my head around reading it as reciprocated. This works for me because I have a lot of fun reading Jason as a desperate loser who's not even actually in love with her, he just is desperate to cling to the closest thing he's ever gotten to a nuclear family and in denial about being either aro/ace or gay.

Now, lets explore a lil bit of the whole Jason is a loser angle, cause it's not the whole story, there are many points in which Jason gets to be a badass motherfucker, but he is much, much less of the hypercompetant, highly determined, murderous threat he used to be. Almost none of the newer renditions of Jason are. This Jason in particular though is very soft and cuddly, and fits the archetype of man trying to be the edgy bad boy but who secretly just wants a hug and a warm glass of milk.

If I were to describe my personal Jason in a few sentences I would say that he is someone who loves himself viciously. He feels he has been wronged and is willing to burn down the world to rectify that. He will hold your ass at gunpoint and demand the hugs and warm glasses of milk that he fucking well deserves!

This Jason is about as far away from that as you can possibly get. I still like him though, and I do not count him as being a different character, because when you start with emotional logic that goes like this:

It wasn't my fault + I deserve better = I get to burn the world down in order to get better

It becomes extremely difficult to ever stop burning the world without also deciding "It was my fault" or "I don't deserve better". Jason is meant to have changed a lot, and this is a plausible evolution of the Jason I prefer.

Finally, the handling of Bizarro, a mentally disabled character, is a sensitive enough topic that your mileage will vary, even if I can't think of a bad thing to say about it. Jason and Artemis are really pretty good about treating him with respect, giving him help where he needs it and autonomy where he's capable of taking it. They raise him, but don't control him, and he is literally like three days old when they find him so this isn't infantilization. It takes the framing of Lenny from of Mice and Men and Flowers for Algernon and rejects them in a way that I am satisfied with. You'll just have to read it for yourself to see if you're satisfied as well.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. I kinda wish he was more unhinged.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero. He even saves a puppy and gives them pats.

Knight Terrors: Robin

Have you ever been in the mood for a syrupy sweet hurt/comfort fanfiction in which Jason and Tim were magically forced to talk about how much they like each other in order to overcome their own insecurities? Do you wish that existed as a lavishly illustrated two issue comic?

If you answered yes to those two questions then congratulations! It does exist; this is it; go have fun!

If you think that sounds like ham fisted garbage turning what should be several long arcs of serious reconciliation and deeply meaningful character moments into two issue fan service schlock then condolences! I wish you all the best in denial, as all comic fans sail that river sooner or later and I shall join you upon it someday.

What category do I fall into? Well I think this is definitely ham fisted, but I won't kick a boar out of bed as long as they ain't a bore, and this little ditty is certainly entertaining.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason't moral compass bearing: Hero.

Batman and Robin Eternal

This is a decent portrayal of Jason in his modern, much friendlier, and much more bat family integrated rendition. He has some fun moments in it, and I like his staby bracers.

I don't like this comic. It commits the most dire of writing sins: Being boring. I think about Jason every second of every minute of every day; if your comic that majorly features a good portrayal of him cannot hold my attention, then something has gone very wrong. Hopefully one of you will like it more than I do.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.

Suicide Squad: Get Joker! (Content warning for suicide, skip to the hot take if this'll get to ya - also spoiler warning cuz I can't discuss this properly without discussing the ending)

A three issue miniseries in which Jason is inducted into the Suicide Squad on a mission to kill the Joker. He's highly competent as a team leader, grounded, intelligent, and uses measured violence in a way that is satisfyingly tactical. The squad they threw together honestly has some pretty neat chemistry as a whole, and the characters were appropriately messy and quite likable.

This isn't higher on the list because it thinks it earned it's ambiguous ending, and frankly, it's wrong about that. Ambiguous endings live and die by the question they make the audience sit with - It has to be worth losing out on the emotional payoff of a solid ending.

The question of "If you left Jason in a room with the Joker and a gun with one bullet, would he shoot the Joker or himself?" is a really shitty question. Like, did the authors not realize that just on a logistical level, Jason could leave the room and find a second bullet after shooting the Joker? Like, seriously, even if we accept the premise that Joker's speech got to Jason, there are no reasons for him not to choose the "both" option. The only way I can imagine this working is if the Joker is actually the fucking Purple Man from Jessica Jones using mind control.

So we exchanged the validation of literally all our protagonists' struggles/sacrifices paying off for... the vague implication that Jason unforgivably betrayed his teammates, himself, and the entire world because he was so eager to die that he couldn't wait ten fucking minutes. If I loved the Joker I might feel differently about it, but as is, I felt insulted.

This would have been Solid Storylines or maybe even Creme de la Creme if not for that implication. It's not boring though! The rest of it up to the end is honestly pretty damn good, if a bit convoluted, and much of the ending's sour taste can be assuaged by getting out a sheet of paper and doodling Jason opening Joker's head with a handgun and then going out for icecream with the team.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. He's a sad, sad lad tho.

Jason's Moral Compass Bearing: Anti-Hero, forced to be much more violent than he wants to be.

A Hot Take

I bet you thought the tentacles were the hot take! HAH! MuahahaahhHAHAHAH - Prepare now, puny mortals, to witness me defend Pill Helmet Jason AND his fashion choices!

No, I am not talking about Winick's redo late in the game, we've already been over that one. I mean I will defend Grant Morrison's flop era, three foot head gear wearin, goofy ass, unwashed ass, "how to build ur brand" reading maniac

It's time to talk about Batman and Robin (2009) #1 - #6

The interpretation of one scene makes or breaks this Jason:

If you believe he is being insincere and manipulating her into putting all her emotional eggs in the basket of his crusade, ignoring her wellbeing in favor of his 'brand', then this is probably the worst mischaracterization of Jason ever written.

If you believe he is being sincere, genuinely comforting her in the only way that he's got to deal with his own trauma, giving her real affection and not pushing her to take either option with the mask because he trusts her to make that decision for herself, then this gets Jason very right.

No matter what Morrison might have intended, I choose to believe it's the latter. This is terrible advice to give a trauma victim, but it makes perfect sense for Jason to believe that about his own trauma, and thus to pass that maladaptive view along.

He doesn't try to assure her that the mask can come off safely or that he'll get her a doctor because he really can't promise her either of those things. It would be cruel to her to pretend that he's got a solution. Jason can't undo the damage that was done to her any more than he can force a dead Bruce to kill the Joker.

Instead he offers her purpose, and reassurance that she's gonna look badass if she never does take it off, and protects her when she's in trouble.

You can claim this is just him acting out his chosen Hero role, but like, WHY would he have chosen to method act that role 24/7 if he wasn't trying to BE a Hero who protects people like Scarlet? There's nothing in it for Jason to fake this.

I also think if he was being written out of character as a manipulator we would have seen him use a romantic or sexual angle which he absolutely doesn't do.

Dickie, you are such a funny Batman, they never shoulda brought Bruce back tbh.

Instead, he seems to be taking a more parental role, in a near perfect reflection of how Bruce took him in when he was a kid. Just he's doing it his way, meaning that whenever Scarlet goes further with the violence than Jason seems to want to, he backs her up instead of chastising her.

Speaking of violence and morals, Let the Punishment Fit the Crime is a coherent moral position to take, even if you (understandably) disagree with it, or disagree with what punishments fit which crimes. It's basically the same moral position as every other version of Jason there's ever been! Like, is he even killing more people than he used to in stories like Under the Red Hood? No, I don't think he is. In fact, I would argue that Morrison's Jason is significantly less violent than Winnick's overall!

The branding thing is weird, lil annoying too after a while, but ultimately it still makes sense. And brings me around to my promised defense of his fashion choices.

First of all the symbolic importance of the fact that he wears white cannot be overstated in my mind. Will I elaborate? No, this post is way too long already lmao! Second off, it's supposed to be silly. I believe the silliness was a conscious, calculated choice, and the right one to make.

Jason doesn't believe that fear works, he's not trying for pure intimidation, and he knows that he's going to have to appeal to people in his bid to be seen as a Hero. Making himself seem big but non-threatening, a bright patch in the night, makes real sense.

Take a look at this view of Jason from Scarlet's POV when he comes to rescue her from the cops after she kills her dad:

He's got a smoking gun in his hand and he just shot two cops dead, yet we're hard fuckin pressed to find him intimidating aren't we?? Cornball dialogue, and the silliest fuckin hat in the universe, because he's not meant to be from this era, he's emulating the Golden and Silver age comics and all their goofiness. He's trying to be the older, happier, sillier batman that used to exist (at least in his head), while doing what he believes is right and necessary.

The costume makes sense dammit!

Also it just doesn't look bad, I can't provide an argument for this, it's just true!!

Also also every one of these fuckers should be wearing a helmet too, this is basic brain safety, if you're gonna go around antagonizing fuckers with guns you need to make your head at least nominally bulletproof, it's that simple!!!

Also also also the fact that he had red hair in this is oft maligned, but it gives Jason an in universe avenue to express a grievance with a super important part of the way Bruce treats him in his post-crisis time as Robin - Bruce was using him as an emotional replacement for Dick.

Morrison may not have liked Jason, but he demanded that every single iota of Batman lore be treated as important canon and that means that he also treats all of Jason's history as important canon too.

Now... do I recommend you read this? (This section was rewritten on January 28th, 2024)

Yes, with significant caveats. There's a reason I chunked this in with YMMV.

First is the Batman typical ableism of just really fucked depictions of mental illness. I normally wouldn't warn for this because everyone knows most of the rogues and will be aware of what they bring to the table, but Professor Pyg is obscure enough I wouldn't expect people to know, and the way he's written just... hurts. Like there's just something about him that is painful to read as someone that's got several schizophrenic friends who are near and dear to my heart. I would hesitate to recommend it to any of them the same way I'd hesitate to recommend Silence of the Lambs to most other trans people.

Secondly this comic is Extremely Gay (a definite positive!) however it is Extremely Gay in a way that kinda requires some onboarding and analysis to properly parse and that is actually why this post was edited:

The first time I read this comic, my impression was that it was vitriolically homophobic. Considering that at the time I had heard many things about Grant Morrison, and none of them good, I went with my gut. I put here that while I would defend Jason's characterization, I couldn't in good faith recommend something so bigoted, detailed what felt bigoted, and went on with my day.

Then a while later I saw a post that I suspect was talking about this one saying something along the lines of "How the hell could you call Grant Morrison, who gave us so many of our most iconic gay characters, homophobic? The racism and such I can understand but homophobic? No."

To which my initial response was a resounding: Wha??? Like, genuinely how was I supposed to read this and not get homophobia out of it?? But I went and looked Morrison up and yeah sure enough the guy's queer so I dug deeper and mulled it over until I figured out what the fuck I was missing. So, this section is a correction and an apology about that earlier homophobia claim. Sorry about that.

The styling of this queerness are highly akin to that of the John Waters movie Pink Flamingos which I'll let Matt Baume explain better than I ever could. This guy right here is pretty much the perfect example, Hell, he's even literally named The Flamingo.

Essentially it's queerness is all aggressive, unapologetic, and designed to be provocatively shocking, which can be jarring if you're not ready to flow with it. Also he likely had to arrange a lot of things to get around censorship, same as Judd Winick did. For instance the fact that Dick spoke the same circus lingo as the troupe of Very Queer Freakshow Workers who destroy the police precinct was meant to imply that Dick is Very Queer too. Pretty sure he would've said that in a far less convoluted way if he could've.

So, with the bulk of my initial reservations about this comic disproven... I have no choice but to straight up recommend it to anyone who thinks they can jive with this vibe of storytelling!

Jason's sanity level: One out of Ten hinges affixed. Obsessive, not taking care of himself, possessed of some really maladaptive trauma coping frameworks, completely unhinged. My condolences to his mental health, but I do love to see it.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero. It's weird because this is undeniably a much darker comic, and Jason certainly feels darker, but in terms of what he actually does, and what the other characters do, his violence is honestly very tame.

So, cards on the table, here is the core of who Jason is to me:

He's got clear moral motives and a drive to help as well as harm, though violence and harm are the main ways in which he tries to improve the world.

When confronted he does not back down; he does not let himself be overshadowed or silenced. He is confident in his decisions and every bit of push back is already accounted for in his head.

Everything he does is premeditated. He is not impulsive. His plans may sometimes be unhinged but they are methodically planned.

He is painfully sincere, the way fire is painfully hot.

He desperately desires love and connection, but it will take many years of constant rejection and fighting before he is willing to accept any kind of compromise to his ethics for the sake of civility.

Under all the hurt and combativeness, he's a pretty goofy guy! He's got a sense of fun and likes to be flamboyant and silly when he can!

He's a villain, a hero, a protagonist, an antagonist, and everything between the extremes. He exists as a powerful counter-thesis to Batman, and as such DC can't ever fully answer the question of what to do with him. He exists in this waffling limbo state as his morals are debated, stretched, refuted, turned on their head. I think that makes him a wonderfully fascinating character to love.

I hope you enjoyed this and, like, go have fun reading comics!

[zaceouiswriting]

Fairy Prince - Hearts of Leviathans - Ch.30

Character: Sky x male reader, Riven x male reader, Brandon x male reader

Universe: Somewhere in Winx Club/Saga

Warnings: None

It is my honor to reveal what I think Riven should look like. I hate him in the Netflix series because he looks sickly or as if he is a junkie. I would also like to say that I have no idea who this gentleman is or why his trainer slaps him around so brutally, but honestly, if I were Riven's teacher, I would do the same.

As the hour with Palladium ends, he asks me to stay behind. Several girls, clearly on Stella's side, smirked as they seemed sure I would be reprimanded for my outburst. Nevertheless, I stay behind and wait until everyone leaves. Only then do I rise from my throne, raise my hand, and clench it into a fist. Suddenly the throne disappears, as the stones were formed by pure magic instead of the environment. I've never been able to do this before, but since the other cores were taken out of me, I feel so much energy pulsing through me that I just had to try it.

“I see you are learning quickly,” Professor Palladium commented on my performance, smiling.

I'm already exhausted, even though it's still early in the day. Right now, all I can do is roll my eyes. "Please just tell me what you want to talk to me about. I'm not in the best mood, and honestly, there's nothing I want more than to sleep right now."

The older man nods understandingly. He walks around his desk and leans against it, barely sitting on it since he is relatively tall. "You can't blame them forever-"

"I can," I interrupt him. "There has not been a single apology, and as I have already promised, I will treat them the same way they treated me until I receive that apology."

The man sighs heavily and wipes his face. "I'm unsure if you understand the possible repercussions, but many of these fairies are princesses and future queens."

"With all due respect, Professor. I understand that fact. The problem, however, is that none of them seem to understand that I, too, will soon be ruling. I'm just waiting until my old grandfather finally dies, and then everyone will see what they did wrong."

“What does that mean?” he asks skeptically.

"For example, I want to see how Solaria harvests its food without tools or how Eraklyon makes weapons without its ore." I grin at the old man, who, like the others, doesn't seem to know where I'm the crown prince from.

I walk away, feeling like our conversation is already over, and walk past Palladium, who is visibly speechless. To my surprise, I see someone standing outside the classroom. She looks up at me with her green, gentle eyes and a cautious smile on her lips. But she seems surprised at me, smiling back.

We walk to our next class in silence. Either she feels guilty for what happened or she must have smelled that I wanted to go somewhere else because this whole class environment makes me sick. I'm just not used to sitting around for so long doing nothing but trying to remember shit; I'll probably never get used to it again.

Although I feel uncomfortable in the classroom, Professor Palladium's classes are quite interesting; brewing potions can always be useful, especially to make my home world fertile again someday.

As soon as we enter the next classroom, I turn around. If she hadn't caught me by the arm, I would have been out of there in a flash.

"Excuse me, sir. I've heard of you." A small woman with prematurely gray hair and a red hat interrupts my storming thoughts. "My name is Professor DuFour, and I teach etiquette, usually to princesses and other noble ladies, as well as all female fairies, as their work often has a diplomatic undertone."

I close my eyes for a second to gather all my willpower, turn around again, gently take the girl's arm from mine, and step forward, directly in front of the professor. "May I ask your rank, professor?"

She seems nervous but still tells me she is a countess. I nod absentmindedly as I look at her sympathetically and noticeably relax. Instead of stiffening when greeting someone superior, I simply extend my hand. Without hesitation, she lays her hand on mine. I gently stroke the soft back of her hand, lift it, and press a kiss to it without breaking eye contact. "It is a great pleasure to introduce myself to you, Countess DuFour; my name is (Y/N), Prince (Y/N), if you wish."

Her pink eyes sparkle at my introduction, and I even see her cheeks begin to glow a similar color. Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out—clearly just a reaction. It's not the first time a woman has reacted to me like this. I've always been very popular with both genders.

As I slowly lower our hands and a moment later release hers, I look around. Every face I see is stunned. Maybe it's because I introduced myself impeccably like a true nobleman or because I mentioned my rank. Although I hope not many people heard it because that would only complicate matters.

The professor compliments me but tries desperately to downplay it with a noticeable cough. Although I'm not as smart as my younger brother Galan, I was still raised like a prince and was always better than everyone else at everything that didn't involve stupid books. Galan can't even talk to other people without stumbling over his words.

After a few minutes, she has collected herself again. "It's good that we have a handsome young man with impeccable manners. Please ladies introduce yourselves to him one by one, as if you met at a ball, just like we have been practicing for the last few weeks."

Her words don't immediately sink into my mind. But when it does, my head slightly snaps in the professor's direction. Although I smile widely, inwardly I'm burning with a fury I can't contain. Even though I promised to treat them like they treated me, it could affect my grade. So I take a deep breath and take a moment to collect my thoughts.

Once I've gathered my willpower, I let my smile fade slightly to make it seem more genuine. I straighten up, standing strong and proud. Extending my hand, some of the girls seem almost exuberant, while others are still wary of me.

A girl with dark blue hair steps forward first, bending down in front of me, feet crossed, body stretched straight forward, bowing to me, and lifting an imaginary dress with her hands. Her form is pretty good, I'd say. I hold my hand out to her, and she comes up from her bow. As I look into her eyes expectantly, she blushes slightly. "My name is Musa," she tells me breathlessly. "I am the future guardian fairy of the Kingdom of Melody."

She puts her hand in mine, and unlike with Countess DuFour, I lift her hand halfway up to me, and the rest of the way I bend down to kiss the back of her hand. My other hand is behind my back, my left hand slightly bent, the greatest bow I can make to a person of no rank. Yet, when we both look up, we end up pretty close.

"A girl with a beautiful voice like yours shouldn't be this nervous. Be more sleek." Her blush deepens, but as I look around cautiously, I know I have to hurry. "Please excuse me, Lady Musa, but unfortunately I still have to greet a few more ladies"- I discreetly make a hand half-moon movement only in her sight to emphasize my words- "but don't be discouraged; I will never forget our first eloquent meeting."

After giving her hand a light squeeze, I turn away from her and greet the next girl next to me.

Most of the other girls were not that remarkable, rather average or unwilling to greet me. All of them were around Stella, except Musa, who had already greeted me and the red-haired girl. But the moment the latter is about to come toward me, Stella pulls her back and quietly reprimands her. 

Almost immediately after Stella finishes her tirade, the red-haired girl looks at me apologetically, which I wave off with a smile.

The professor wasn't happy about the incident; perhaps she had not been there when I arrived at Alfea. At least her friendly behavior suggested that. She apologizes for the girls' behavior toward me, but it's not her fault.

After leaving DuFour's class, the rest of the day is mostly a blur. However, I'm starting to feel like I overreacted earlier, but I'm not going to apologize for it because they're just presumptuous little girls.

When class is finally over, I stumble back to my room and fall onto the bed to take a quick nap. Until suddenly someone shakes me. Dazed, I turn around only to see Riven's stupid face way too close.

“Dude!” he shouts, almost deafening me. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean?” I ask sleepily, wiping my eyes.

For a moment, it's completely silent. Riven looks almost like he's desperately wanting to vanish into the ground. His behavior confuses me, so I punch him in the side, which seems to work because he shakes his head and carefully steps back. Quickly, his pale cheeks flush with embarrassment.

“What’s wrong?” I inquire further, still not fully awake.

Riven clears his throat and turns away. "Afternoon classes are over, and the teachers asked where you were because they wanted you to show off some of your fighting techniques and asked me to find you." He shifted nervously in place, which made me wonder what was wrong with him. "A red-haired chick told me she saw you strolling back to our room, and then I found you sleeping so peacefully I didn't want to wake you, but then some hair fell in your face and-„

"And you were my knight in shining armor who got the offending hair out of my face, right?" I ask him cheekily, interrupting him mercilessly even though I'm still half asleep. After a moment, I slowly sit up, grinning one-sidedly at him.

"I-I mean..." His violent stutter is followed by silence. His cheeks turn even redder. It suddenly hits me.

My one-sided grin turns into a full smirk. I move quickly, grabbing Riven's tight uniform and tugging on it. He stumbles, forcing me to fall back into my pillows as well, his arms on either side of my head, his breath mingling with mine.

"I knew it!" I whisper. Riven could only raise her eyebrows in confusion, or perhaps fear. "You think I'm hot," I state. "Are you a little into guys, Riven?" With my other hand, I trace his sharp jawline, which looks great with his long, diamond-shaped head and perfectly styled hair. If he wasn't such a psychopath, I would have pulled him even closer to me.

Riven, however, makes no attempt to escape me. His eyes dilate, and he sensually runs his tongue over his lips.

I feel my body getting warmer, my stomach tightening, and my hands starting to sweat. Before I know it, all I can think about are his lips. However, when I realize what situation I have created, I quickly push him away, sit up, and soon find myself standing next to him.

"Sorry," I murmur meekly. "I didn't mean to force you to admit something you're uncomfortable with."

Riven stares at me with an indescribable expression. I can clearly see the deep conflict within him, as his indigo eyes reflect the storm that seems to consume his mind. He shifts nervously as if he's trying to make a decision. Somehow I'm afraid of this because when a psychopath like him has to make a decision, nothing good can come of it.

I try to sneak away and quickly get to the door. Even as I reach for the doorknob, Riven is still staring at me, torn, but seemingly far away in his own little world.

As I open the door, it suddenly squeaks something that should never have happened since it is made of magic. The squeak wakes Riven from his lethargy. With a few quick movements I barely notice, he is at my side and pushes me against the door, slamming it back shut.

My breath catches in my throat. His proximity and the strong scent of lavender make me dizzy. Combined with his long, rough hands tracing my body and his muscular chest pressing me against the door, I feel my resolve slowly crumbling.

"Riven," I barely press out. But it seems enough, as his vision clears, if only a tiny bit. He shakes his head in confusion and then looks around. It takes him a moment, but soon he pushes himself away from me, nervously scratching the back of his neck.

A weak apology rolls past his lips as he quickly walks to his side of the room and exits through his door. Both his neck and ears were as flush as his cheeks. He leaves me pressed against my bedroom door, reeling from the aftereffects of his impulsive jabbing and unwelcome closeness. But was it really unwelcome? My heart hasn't beat this fast since him. That could be a good sign, or it spells total disaster. After all, I know better than anyone that I'll probably never get over him. We were meant to be together, but I ruined it. Although the memories don't hurt as much as they once did, I still feel the longing for him.

Why can’t things be easier?

I feel as if I'm slowly drowning in my long-suppressed grief. My knees are weakening. I am afraid of falling victim to the darkness in my heart again. I take a deep breath, gather my last strength, stand up, lean against the door, push away from it, raise my hands, and slap myself, not once or twice, but six times. I do it until I feel a burning sensation in both cheeks.

Maybe one day I can open my heart to someone new. Whether Riven can be that person is questionable, but he can at least help me heal my broken heart. Sky would normally be more my type since he is so much bigger; his docile, almost submissive behavior makes it difficult to see him as anything more than a loyal dog.

[Masterlist]