#titter magazine

[theamericanpin-up]

Peter Driben - "A Little Help" - September 1946 Titter Magazine Cover - Original art sold by Heritage Art Gallery April 2024

[atomic-chronoscaph]

February - art by Peter Driben (1947)

[emmieexplores2]

1952

[emmieswildside]

[isaut]

𝒃𝒆𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒅— diluc x fem!reader. 2.1k. ao3

yours and diluc's love has captured the hearts of teyvat, thanks to the steambird and the kamera. in my head this takes place in another fic im working on so the reader only has one arm.

You marry in a simple gown of silk. There’s enough heft of the silk, as it spills around your arms and babbles down your body like a brook, spilling onto the floor, to show off its price. Your flowers drip from the bouquet in your hands– They drip, not droop. Cecilias and lilies, nothing more than an extension of your beauty. 

Your ladyship, the official bits of it, are donned with a strong kiss. One where Diluc has his hand on your lower back and the other on the side of your face– the side that isn’t being photographed. 

Three photos come from the wedding: One of you walking down the aisle: cobblestones lining outside the winery. Lined by simple flowers, a small party gathered to witness. Two, of the kiss. Swooped, leg slightly lifted, completely and contently at Diluc’s mercy. Three, of your head tossed back in laughter and Diluc’s warm gaze trained intently on you, a fond expression on his face. 

It’s later that month when Mona presents you with the newspaper. She had, after all, advised you on when the perfect day to get married would be. All for a hefty price, of course. But if luck couldn’t be bought, you could certainly try. The front page, however, is something like a gossip magazine. MARRIED FOR THE STARS. Step into the whimsical wedding of the century. 

And it’s those three photos. You hide your face behind the newspaper. 

“You know, you should be pleased. People pay thousands of mora for a chance to be right there,” Mona titters, crossing her arms. “You could at least act grateful.” 

“Oh, Mona… We didn’t need a cover page. We didn’t even need it to be broadcasted!” You protest, though there’s a girlish fluttering in your chest. 

“It’s not like anyone else of such caliber is getting married,” Mona huffs. “You should be honored!” 

Diluc is beet red when he sees the cover page. He hides himself behind his hands, fingers hiding under his fringe. “This is mortifying,” He bemoans. 

“I say Donna crying,” Kaeya says, with a shit eating grin and he looks over the front page, turning to page three for the full article. “Just absolutely inconsolable.” 

“Poor thing,” You hum, sufficiently less embarrassed since Diluc seemed to be embarrassed plenty for the both of you. “Maybe we should get it framed.” 

“Hang it up in Angel’s Share,” Kaeya agrees. “Right next to the collection of best wine awards. What do you think, Diluc?” 

“I don’t think it needs to be hung up,” Diluc says, muffled by his hands. 

“I’m going to hang it up,” Kaeya says. “I’ll get a fresh copy from Mona, so you can hold onto this one. Has Adelinde seen it yet?” 

“Yes,” Diluc says, still muffled. 

“I think everyone’s seen it,” You chime in, grinning as you reach over to tuck a strand of Diluc’s hair behind his ear. His face is certainly warm. 

It’s to no surprise that the weddings that follow for the next few years are inspired by the nation of love. That there’s thousands of attempts to grab the same photos, but none of them have the same candidness to that first kiss you shared with Diluc as husband and wife. None of the dresses have the same water-like texture, none of the flowers are fresh in the same way. 

It could be said for money. But the wind was a perfect whisper, rippling through your gown and your hair, keeping Diluc’s hair out of his face. Rumor was that the Anemo Archon favored the Ragnvindr’s love so greatly he made a personal appearance. 

When you’re invited to Fontaine– When Diluc is invited to Fontaine for a wine festival, he grumbles about it. About the journey, about how he has to leave home for months on end. Even though you’re coming with him, he still grumbles. He’s fond of his manor, he’s fond of the way that you’ve bled into every aspect of it. Brightening it with light colors and gauzy curtains, fresh-scented candles. 

He grumbles less, because you’re so excited to go. You’ve listened to your tailor speak for hours about how beautiful the land of water is, about how the art is so rich and the food richer. You’ve listened to nearly every ballet and every opera on the gramophone. And your tailor has treated you so well, to fashions typical and atypical of the nation. 

(His business had boomed too, after the wedding dress. However, he saved his best work for the Ragnvindrs. He’d be lying if he wasn’t hoping to make another splash in his hometown.) 

Fontaine treats the Ragnvindrs kindly. They have first class tours, with nearly everything included. A villa instead of a hotel room. Nightly escapades to the finest shows Fontaine has to offer. For your first journey to the Opera, you’re buzzing with excitement. 

The gown that’s been made for you in warm blue, with shimmers and hugs your figure. It’s a far cry from the simple dresses you wear back home: modest and breathable. With this one, you wrap a shawl around your shoulders and stand in front of the mirror, doing last minute adjustments. 

Diluc is too filled with energy to sit still for so long, focused on just one thing. He hides it well, and age has slowed him down considerably from when he was nothing but a young firecracker. He’s just gotten better at hiding it. At least, he’ll do it for you. He comes up behind you, resting a hand on your hip. The accents on his suit complement your dress, his hair pulled back in a bow of the same fabric. 

He leans forward to press a kiss to the top of your shoulder, hand sliding to rest securely over your stomach. His other trails down your arm to hold your hand, gently adjusting your engagement ring, which glints in the lamplight. 

“Do everything with this hand,” Diluc says, hunched over so his cheek can rest on your shoulder, facing towards your neck. Here, he has perfect access to the scent of your perfume. 

“I don’t think anyone is mistaking me as single,” You reply. Not when the lovable oaf of your husband is draped over you. Not when he stands so close to you the two of you might as well wear the same concoction of perfume and cologne. 

Diluc hums and straightens up. 

“Well. Let me escort you, my lady,” Diluc says, giving a slight bow. 

You respond with a beaming smile and a small curtsey. 

Diluc captures your lips in a kiss, pulling away with furrowed brows. 

“What’s wrong?” You ask. 

“You’re just too beautiful,” Diluc replies. 

This time, the newspaper comes much faster. You’re on page three, under a fashion column. MONDSTAT’S PRINCE CHARMING AND CINDERELLA. The article speaks of how such patrons of the arts were so much more patrons of each other, madly in love by gaze alone. 

You’re whisked away to the gala: the actual event you’ve come for. The finest gown is for that night: off the shoulder with large sleeves, tailored and glittering, beaded details accentuated by the diamonds around your neck. There’s a frown on Diluc’s face as he gets ready, does up his buttons and does up his tie. 

When prompted on what soured his mood, he simply replies: “I don’t want to socialize.” 

You laugh, tinkling bells through the room. 

“What?” Diluc asks. “They like you so much more than they like me.” 

“Oh, but you’re the one they want to talk to,” You say, coming over to him. You smooth your hand over his lapel. “I think they just like looking at me.” 

“They should talk to you instead,” Diluc replies. “You’re so much more interesting than I am.” 

“And share me with the world?” You tilt your head. 

“Oh, good point.” Diluc slides his hand back around your waist. The dress truly is something to marvel. Such a marriage of Fontaine’s couture and Mondstadt's simplicity. Diluc’s gaze can’t leave your waist, can’t leave your chest. “Good point.” 

The Steambird gets a quip from you that night, a bright eyed, pink haired girl with a camera approaches you and Diluc, begging for a photo. She has many questions, and expresses such to you, but will only ask you for one. And to forgive her because it’s not wine related. (“Good,” Diluc had said, mostly to himself and you, “I’ve spoken enough about wine.” Charlotte had beamed at that.) 

“Everyone’s been calling you Teyvat’s true fairytale,” She says, recording device poised. “Do you have any advice for those of us trying to find our own fairytale?” 

You laugh, and look up at Diluc, placing a hand on his chest. In turn, his hand sits dutifully at your lower back. He looks down at you, a fond expression on his face. 

“I don’t think there’s a script to it,” You say, tearing your gaze away from Diluc. “I think it just happens.” 

“You can’t be looking for it,” Diluc adds on, his gaze never leaving you. 

RECIPE FOR A FAIRYTALE

A Mondstadt love story is not unheard of. If anything, it has permeated our childhoods, with so many famous tales coming from the land of romance. Growing up, these tales of princes and princesses, who find true love after a fearsome trial of strength, bravery and wit seem so out of reach, as if they linger as stories painted in constellations. Gorgeous to gaze at, charming to consume, delightful to dream about. 

There must be something in the Mondstadt air, whether it be the scent of windwheel asters or the Anemo Archon’s own blessing, given that Teyvat’s own fairytale hails from the tranquil nation. That Ragnvindrs won the hearts of Teyvat when they got married. Sources at the time revealed photos of the event, two lovers intertwined in their own world, speckled by the sunlight filtering through the translucent clouds in the sky. Their vows promised a lifetime of never-ending love, and their kiss was sealed with a warm brush of wind. 

Their love has not run dry. Tonight, at the Festin de Boire, Diluc Ragnvindr and his lady, Ophelia, continue their tour of Fontaine. Dressed by Fontaine’s own Herbert Agustin, the two are fit for on-stage royalty. Diluc’s suit is finely tailored, a warm, dark brown that highlights his cabernet eyes and acts as logs on a hearth for his flaming mane. Tonight, it’s tamed by a ribbon the same shade as his wife’s gown. A stunning, off the shoulder champagne piece with sleeves that billow out and come together around the wrist, embroidered by pearls. Tonally, it matches the bubbling drinks in their hands. It would be remiss to not discuss the stunning set of diamonds that sprawled across her collarbone in long droplets. 

The banquet attendees are just as smitten with the Ragnvindrs as I am. Witnessing the attentiveness of Diluc and the grace of Ophelia, it’s hard to not raise my own crumbling standards when it comes to a partner. Not once did I see his hand leave her waist, lower back or cheek for longer than a few breaths. 

When I spoke with them for a brief moment, it was like gazing into a snowglobe, where a prince and princess stand, eternally in love. Accentuated by the quartet playing, the two of them struggled to pull their gazes away from each other. Truth be told, the two looked so stunning up close, I struggled to pull my own gaze away. 

I asked our lovers the question on all of our minds, one that circulates my own to no end. Do they have any advice on how we can find our own fairytale? 

Ophelia rested her hand on his broad chest, a smile on her face. Diluc’s hand curved around her waist, resting on the bottom of her bodice before the dress expanded into its fullness. It is easy to imagine them back at their winery, standing in their garden in the same position. The same love painted on their faces, only with crystal flies circling about them instead of servers carrying plates of hor d'oeuvres and glasses of wines. 

“I don’t think there’s a script to it,” Ophelia told me, though her words floated up in the direction of her husband. She further confirmed: “I think it just happens.” 

Diluc, who had told me he was glad for the opportunity to discuss matters other than wine (and, if I must make my own conclusions, was euphoric to discuss his wife), added the big secret: “You can’t be looking for it.” 

To think that such a cherished romance simply fell into their laps is almost astonishing. To see such a fairytale, to learn that it came without slaying any dragons, that it fell like an autumn leaf or a ripe bulle fruit… It is the thing of dreams. And perhaps a reminder that the best things in life come to us when we aren’t looking. 

[praetorqueenreyna]

For Rhysand Week Day 7: Free Day, I give you: romcom Rhysta AU. I have to give credit to @beansidhebumbling, who shared a snippet of a "10 Things I Hate About You" Rhysta fic that changed me at a molecular level. In that vein, I give you: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days Rhysta!

@officialrhysandweek

Nesta is a journalist for a woman's magazine that's always wanted to write things that matter. Her boss has promised her that she'll be able to write whatever she wants after one more article: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. She has to find a guy, start dating him, then convince him to break up with her within 10 days. The problem? Her target is Rhysand, a playboy advertising executive who needs to make a woman fall in love with him within 10 days to be his company's liason for a lucrative diamond marketing campaign.

*****************************************

Rhys leaned against the railing on his balcony, eyes glued to the gorgeous woman sashaying towards a taxi with a tantalizing sway of her hips. His lips still stung from their kiss; the little minx had bitten him. He had to admit, he had almost gotten carried away, on the verge of careening off the edge from first base all the way home. But he had to stay focused. His entire career was on the line. He had ten days to win this bet and get Nesta Archeron to fall for him, head over heels. 

There were worse people to seduce, he mused as Nesta opened the door to her cab. She was hot, smart, and just a little mean in a sexy way. The kind of woman who prided herself on being able to sniff out bullshit a mile away. Still, she had succumbed to his charm already. He wouldn’t need the full ten days.

Nesta turned just before getting into the cab, giving him a flirtatious wiggle of her fingers. Rhys blew her a kiss, causing her to roll her eyes and laugh. “Oh, you are already falling in love with me,” he murmured to himself. 

Her mark was cute, she had to give him that. And a good kisser. Unsurprising, considering Nesta could practically smell the playboy sleeze coming off him in waves. It was a shame she couldn’t actually sleep with him, but that wasn’t part of the plan. 

She could feel his eyes on her ass as she walked away. Rhysand was easy, and Nesta felt like she already knew everything about him. It had been laughably simple to get an invite over to his place. Men like that loved tittering docile women, but they craved someone with a little bit of a bite. Just a few minutes of flirty sarcasm and he was putty in her hands. The stage was perfectly set. She had ten days to drive him insane. Rhysand would lose it and break up with her. She’d write her article, and then her obnoxious boss would lighten up and let Nesta write whatever she wanted. 

In the open doorway of the taxi she glanced back, displaying the gleaming arch of her neck. She waggled her fingers in farewell, and Rhys blew her a kiss from the balcony. It was so cheesy it prompted a real laugh, and she rolled her eyes. She looked up at him again once the cab door was closed and her face was shielded behind the window. Her coy grin shifted into a wicked smirk.

“I’m gonna make you wish you were dead.” 

[beanzwrites]

│Prologue│

│Human! Alastor x Reader│

Ⓢⓨⓝⓞⓟⓢⓘⓢ: (Y/n), forced to be confined by societal standards, wishes for someone to understand them. Everywhere they look, it seems as though the people they once knew have abandoned them. It's not until they are introduced to a well-known radio host that they realize their true potential.

Ⓝⓞⓣⓔⓢ: The reader is indicated to be biologically female as they will face certain challenges throughout this story due to the time period. Characters set in this will refer to the reader as she, but for the most part, it will be gender neutral. This is written to be platonic but will remain ambiguous. There may be inaccuracies to the time frame. This series may and will contain things such as sexism, classism, gender dysphoria, bullying, mentions of religion, and gore. Please read at your own risk.

〣Next Part〣

═══════════════════════════

A comfortable atmosphere bustles throughout the small diner as the sun barely begins to peek above the dazzling diversity of New Orleans. 'Leave A Little for Me' lulls about the establishment as the few patrons settled for their breakfast chat away about their own little worlds. The grill behind the counter sizzles and pops with use, an aroma of breakfast foods gnawing at any hungry stomachs that walk through the waxen double doors.

A woman, dressed in pale blush, walks out from the back with the swing of her hips and trays held skillfully above her pinned back hair. She settles plates in front of customers with a dashing smile, responding with polite and charming words as they thank her for the meal, before her gaze shifts towards a booth near the windows.

Another youthful lady settles there, a focused revelation upon their face as they lean over scattered papers on the table. The tip of a pen is wedged between their teeth, and they bite at it in thought. Swinging their leg over the other, an exasperated sigh escapes as they suddenly look up at the tin roof.

The waitress quickly strides over, coffee pot in hand. The woman lets her polished grin fall into a small smile, a gentle look in her eyes. Without a word of consent, she fills the ceramic mug long forgotten at the edge of the booth.

"Thanks, Ma." The lady, who's eyes remain upward, mutters gruffly.

"You look like you need it," the waitress chuckles, amusement crossing her expression as she watches her daughter guzzle from the steaming cup. "I will never understand how you can just drink it straight, (Y/n). You truly are an enigma."

"It helps me focus," (Y/n) states. "Especially when things don't make sense."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out," (Y/n)'s mom assures, but frowns when she realizes her encouragement doesn't affect the distraught mood her child is faced with. She turns her head to the bar, noting that her co-worker was reading a magazine as the traffic coming through has died down, before setting herself across the table. "What is the matter, my sweet?"

"It was hard enough getting into the major I wanted, but now I have to worry about a suitable job too," (Y/n) grumbles.

"What happened with the secretory position at the bank?"

"Lack of experience... It's either that, or I have too big ideas for anyone's liking."

"You'll find something soon enough," the older woman persuades as she takes (Y/n)'s gloved hands into her calloused own. "The perfect job is bound to pop up before summer break comes."

"I hope your optimism comes into fruition," they say with a titter. They glance to the large clock tacked to the wall beside the island, before collecting their things with a stand. "I should head out before I'm late for class. Thank you for the coffee, ma."

"Don't forget that my first shift at Mimzy's is tonight!" Their mother calls, "It's gonna be a bit of a time crunch to get used to, so I would prefer it if you met me there after your extracurricular activities. I want to walk home with you."

"You don't have to be so paranoid," (Y/n) replies as they stand by the door. "After my studies, I'm going out with Joanne for a late lunch. I'll head over once we finish our gallivanting."

"You can never be too sure, dear. The news is heating up with all kinds of stories about that serial killer. I just want you to be safe!"

The bell above the entrance rings, a chiming announcement that a customer walked in. The cook desultorily straightens herself from her torpor, a curt welcome grousing from her lips.

"I'll see you later, Ma!" (Y/n) comments over their shoulder, but not before making brief eye contact with hickory brown. Round glasses, placed on the curvature of the man's sharp nose, reflects the gleam from the sun's light. He gestures his black-clothed hand to the entry he held open, a raffish grin on his face.

"After you, mademoiselle," He cheerfully asserts.

"Thank you," (Y/n) politely curtsies before rushing out into the streets of Louisiana.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━☻━━━━━━━━━━━━━

(Y/n)'s temple pulsates with an ache as they stir the soup in front of them with disinterest. The warmth of the spring now settled into an orange hue on their skin, drawing out the time until nightfall came. Tapping the toe of their heel against the Mandala patterned floor, their eyes gaze up at Joanne.

Joanne was a high-class type of girl, with distinguished parents and a father that ran a well-known Men's Club in town. Daffodil hair curled around her ears and tickled rosy cheeks as she ate away at her salad. Gorgeous blue peek up at (Y/n), and with a giggle, she hides her mouth with the black clothed napkin that was folded nicely by her plate.

All the eligible boys were swoon by her meek personality, always gifting her lavish things with money they earned. (Y/n) can always tell that she adores the attention, even when she claims that none of them strike her fancy. Sometimes, (Y/n) wishes their life can be as simple and carefree as Joanne's; that they can embrace their femineity instead of their intelligence. That is not how they were designed though.

"Have you changed your mind about the dance?" Joanne softly asks, pink tinted lips rising into a smile.

"No," (Y/n) responds after a long pause, "My mind has been on other things."

"Oh, come on, (Y/n)!" She exclaims with puffed cheeks. "Why don't you go with Donald?"

"The guy who pulls my hair in history? No thanks."

"He just does that cause he likes you," Joanne laughs, "You two were meant for each other!"

"I don't see any of your suitors pulling your hair," (Y/n) gripes, "Don't tell me such stupid nonsense, Ann."

A look of hurt flashes across Joanne's face, and (Y/n) considers apologizing before she runs to tell her mother. It wouldn't be the first time (Y/n)'s pragmatism got them into trouble. Joanne's mother was a snooty woman and always tried to whip (Y/n) into their place in society since they were young. Since both Joanne and (Y/n)'s fathers worked on the road for the majority of their childhood, both of their mothers came together to help one another before Joanne's father found his passion for business. Though Joanne's family has long since moved from the quaint Neiborhood (Y/n) and their mother still resides in, Joanne always reaches out to 'catch up' with her friend since diapers.

"I'm worried for you," Joanne remarks in a dull tone as she leans back in her seat, "Your mom and I aren't always going to be there for you. Your mother shouldn't bear the responsibility of looking after you forever, and soon enough, I'm going to get married and have a family! You always talk so pessimistically about love; you never give anyone a chance! If you keep up with that attitude, you are going to end up alone!"

A screech emits from (Y/n)'s chair as they push away from the table. Abhorrence filters through every thought they wanted to say in that moment, a scowl present on their face. "And what if love is not something I'm aiming for? Have you ever thought about that?"

"And you think some silly dream is? You are a lady, (Y/n). Start acting like one," Joanne spits.

Thrusting their hand into their bag, (Y/n) throws down a few dollars on the tawny surface. "Pay my meal for me, would you? I've lost my appetite."

Swiftly pulling their coat over their shoulders, and without so much as another glimpse towards Joanne, (Y/n) stomps their way to the front. Judgmental leering warms the back of their head from the ongoing patrons they pass, with societal conjectures whispered among them. (Y/n) wishes they could declare that they were used to being seen as a freak, but the pang in their heart was hard to deny.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━☻━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The buzzing of cicadas disturbs the thick despondency that hung over (Y/n) as they trudged their feet over the concrete pavement. Though yellow-hued streetlamps and distant sounds of laughter embraced the night with sweet carol, the weight of the day wore heavy on (Y/n)'s shoulders. The keister that they wore on their side swung limply as hot air blew past, and the sweat that collected on their forehead felt consciously sticky.

In a fit of frustration, (Y/n) didn't think to take a trolley over to Mimzy's. They were so engrossed by Joanne's behavior, needing time to collect their thoughts. Granted, (Y/n) did comprehend that their tongue could be snippy without second thought, but did that give their friend the right to dismiss all that they've worked for?

Ever since (Y/n) was young, they perceived that their way of thinking was far different from the others their age. While the adolescent girls that they grew with obsessed over dolls and new dresses, (Y/n) found the extortionary power of the mind. Every day, whether it would be tuning in on the latest news of horrific disasters on the radio or reading recent articles of crimes that happened within their very own city, they would journal each observation and theory that came about their wit.

(Y/n)'s mother was always a benign supporter, providing perception in their once childish dreams. Though their mother never castigates them now for pursuing what some may see as impossible, an underlying fraught tone catches in the optimism she provides.

"Why don't you become an author?" (Y/n)'s mother once persuaded as they sat to eat breakfast together one early morning, "Or a teacher! I'm sure you can put your journalism skills to use in those professions!"

(Y/n) knows their mom means well; She was the only person (Y/n) could openly talk to, and she would listen without conviction towards any words that spewed from their dreamy wonder. However, their mother did not understand the consistent resilience that they fought with every day, that it wasn't some phase that will burn out with age. (Y/n) knows what they want; they just wish sometimes that another being would appreciate that too.

A sigh of relief escapes (Y/n) as the establishment's spendthrift sign comes into view as they round the corner. The word Mimzy flickers with life, but there was no cars or pedestrians that showed if it was so. Though (Y/n) has never experienced what goes on within this club, their mother remembers fondly of the days she spent rendezvousing about with boys and her gal pals. Though, at that time, she wasn't married with a child and the night spot wasn't named Mimzy.

Only a few short years ago, did the name rebrand and (Y/n)'s mom rekindled a lost relationship with a lady she had a fondness for long ago. It wasn't shortly before the friendship blossomed once again did their mother get offered a job; she was ecstatic. (Y/n) couldn't be prouder of their mom, for she too in a way, fought for her right in the world. Not so long ago in the gossip vine of the town was (Y/n)'s mother ridiculed for working as a married woman. Some even went as far as to patronize the diner their mother works the early morning hours at, threatening to boycott if the enterprise supported such scandalous practices. However, nothing came from the situation besides nasty rumors and empty threats, as an anonymous word got out that (Y/n)'s father hasn't been seen for some time. Though there is no documentation that (Y/n)'s parents ever divorced, there was also no valid proof that their father supported the family, hence why the issue was dropped.

It was hard growing up without both parents being present consistently, and for their father's absence being a key factor on the shunning of both their mother and them. He came by every now and again when he was able to take a break from the road, but (Y/n) couldn't really orate that he made a big impact in the few memories they shared. It had been two years since his last visit. (Y/n) recalls him being a very traditional man, who put the Bible and social formalities before anything else. They always stuck to their mother's shadow whenever he was around, never really choosing to interact with him. Their mother, however, would grow a sense of urgency and remain steadfast on her feet to every beck and call that came from that man. (Y/n) always hated seeing the overwhelming dread that hung over their mother when he was around.

Grabbing the handle, (Y/n) was quite surprised to find the door unlocked. Jazz carries about the ostentatious display, but they saw no one hanging about the scenery. Following the orange luminescence that lean against the plush wallpaper, (Y/n) is led to a round counter with a large chalk menu hanging above it. Black cushioned stools line the exterior, contrasting from the red tables set on the other side of the establishment, and a jukebox is arranged in the corner where anyone can interact with it. As (Y/n) looks at their whereabouts in modest fascination, their heels clack against a wooden surface. They are quick to turn around, only to find they had stepped onto the dance floor centered in the room.

(Y/n) never went dancing before. Though everyone sought to learn for entertainment, even their own mother, they opted to stick to their own self. The mere thought of being surrounded by strangers under the strobe lights that circled about the deck gave (Y/n) languid anxiety. Many stories of love and bliss came from places like this; it made (Y/n) think back on Joanne's sternness of finding a social outlet and meeting a suitable man to be courted by. It's always been hard for (Y/n) to make friends, and with that, romance never crossed their mind.

"Sorry suga, but we ain't opened just yet!" A feminine voice evinces from behind. A short, plump woman in a bright pink flapper dress grins at (Y/n), her platinum bob cut bouncing as she walks. (Y/n) felt a sudden vulnerability of being under dressed, still sporting the same wear they've been in since they left the house.

"My mother told me to meet her here," (Y/n) breathes out, "Tonight's her first shift."

The woman's brows furrow as she ogles the person in front of her, before recognition washes over her face. "You must be Lorraine's girl! My, you are the spitting image of her!"

"That's me..." (Y/n) replies with a confining smile, "I apologize if I came in too early, the door was open."

"Not a problem at all, deary! I leave that door open a few minutes early anyway for... special guests." A small blush crosses the woman's face as she looks away to compose herself, "Make yourself comfortable! Your ma and the other gals are getting ready in the back! If you need anything, be sure to call for dear ol' aunty Mimzy!"

(Y/n) gives their thanks before the petite lady ushers herself away to prepare for opening. They decide to take up space in the far corner away from the dance floor, the table beginning to be covered with assignments and books. (Y/n) occupies themselves with their work, too engrossed to notice the oncoming crowd beginning to fill the place. Live performers took up the music as the night carried on, and congenial chatter joins into a pleasant hum. The atmosphere was quixotically pleasant to (Y/n)'s revelation, and they found themselves humming along with the songs they remembered as they wrote away.

"I hope this doesn't come off as pushy, but I couldn't help but to wonder why a lovely specimen such as yourself is all by her lonesome?" A voice articulates in a teasing tone, "It almost seems that you want to be hidden away!"

(Y/n)'s grip tightens on the pencil in their hand, and they look up with a glare. The man who spoke, sported in a red vest and black slacks, registers a simper as they make eye contact. The familiar brown hue twinkles with amusement as (Y/n) straightens in their seat. (Y/n) recognizes this man to be the one who held the door open for them at the diner earlier today.

"Alastor. Charmed to meet you!"

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[cuffmeinblack]

Who Else But You?

Garreth Weasley x f!OC (Adanna Egwe)

Tags: Yule Ball | fluff | friends to lovers

11k words | ao3 link

Summary: The news of a Yule Ball sends ripples of excitement throughout Hogwarts' seventh years, though Garreth Weasley is less than enthused. Mandatory dance lessons are also an unwelcome distraction from his experimental brews and upcoming exams.

Though perhaps having his best friend as a partner might make the ordeal less excruciating...

A friends to lovers story, told in part by Garreth's diary entries.

If you prefer to read the diary entries in plain text, head on over to ao3!

A/n: For @garrethweasleyfest 2024! Prompt chosen: Yule ball practice lessons. Credit to @ellivenollivander for the title <3 This is essentially a Salvation AU, in which the Yule Ball is a catalyst for Garreth and Adanna to admit their feelings for each other. You don't have to have read Salvation! But Adanna is my OC from that fic, and there's also a cameo from another prominent character...

Garreth had turned the dormitory upside down, inside out and back to front, and was no closer to finding his precious journal. He'd checked his trunk a dozen times, though he would never have stored it there amongst the various semi-combustible substances. He'd contemplated that perhaps he'd been sleepwalking and misplaced it—it had been known to happen—and so searched his roommates’ belongings, too. Between the piles of trinkets, sweets and magazines of dubious content, he was still left empty handed and growing increasingly anxious at the prospect of the little leatherbound book making its way into the wrong hands. His innermost thoughts laid bare; secret recipes ripe for the taking. He chastised himself for not placing a tampering charm on it and fled the dormitory.

Bounding down the stairs, his next port of call would be the common room, and then he would scour the rest of the castle if necessary. But he didn't have to look much further, for Garreth spotted it as soon as he jumped off the final stair, clutched in the arms of the enemy. It could have been any old book, if not for the myriad potion stains and the G.W. stamped large across the front. The gold initials winked at him from across the room, beckoning him closer, crying a silent plea of ‘save me!’.

How had Cressida managed to slip it from his grasp—a book he carried everywhere—without him noticing? She didn't hide the subterfuge, leaning against the side of a sofa and reading the contents with a faint scowl on her face like one might peruse a textbook. Garreth slipped through the crush of students returning from dinner, long strides bringing him to her side before he'd formed a coherent idea of what he wanted to say. What came out of his mouth was a garbled mess of words and possibly a few expletives as he snatched the journal from her hands. Cressida made no attempt to stop him, only looked up at him with bored disinterest; a far cry from the kind of looks she'd been giving him the past few weeks. He supposed she had read the diary entries that contained his unfiltered thoughts on her, but Garreth felt absolutely no sympathy given the blatant invasion of his privacy.

“What in Merlin's bloody breeches do you think you're doing with my journal?” he finally managed to ask. 

Garreth had tried to mutter it under his breath, but still he drew attention from various students around him, a few quiet titters echoing behind his back. He felt his cheeks burning as Cressida crossed her arms, still scowling, now adding a pout to the mix. She seemed to be under the impression that it was her who had been wronged.

“You could have just told me no, Garreth. Instead I had to find my answers in your journal!”

“That's why you took it? Because I've not asked you to the ball?” Garreth replied incredulously.

“That, and I saw my name. I think I have a right to know what you're saying about me.”

“You have no right to my private thoughts. And besides, this is the pot calling the kettle black, isn't it rather?”

“What do you mean?”

Of course, she had no idea that he'd read her diary in fifth year—but who hadn’t? The pages had flown around the library for quite some time before they were returned to her, and by then their contents had made the rounds of the Hogwarts rumour mill.

“You made some particularly unfair observations about me in your own diary, if I recall.”

Cressida was now standing in front of him, a head shorter, and the pair were drawing quite the crowd. Eyes remained averted but the room was far too quiet given how many people filled it, the silent lurkers doing an unsubtle job of listening to the argument.

“You…how did you…?”

“Well they were flying around the library for anyone to read, Cressida.”

She blanched, fists clenched at her sides. She reminded Garreth of a teapot who's water was approaching boiling point, ready to start clattering and whistling with steam coming from her ears.

“How dare you!”

“I suppose we're even then? We both know exactly what the other thinks of each other.”

“Yes, now I understand exactly why you don't want to take me to the Yule Ball. I knew you had a thing for Adanna.”

“What? That's not—”

“Please, Garreth.” 

Cressida’s blush had crept all the way to her hairline by now, both as mortified as the other. Garreth was busy spluttering his denials whilst she stepped around him, ready to flee to the safety of her dormitory, but she turned to say one last damning thing before her disappearance.

“There's no point in denying it, Garreth. Especially to her.” She bit her lip, showing the first hint of regret for her actions. “She knows now.”

Garreth gaped at the back of her head for a long while, right until the hem of her robe disappeared up the staircase. What did she mean? He wanted to shout, but Cressida would be sequestered safely in the girls’ dormitory by now, any answers barricaded inside along with her. He stood in dumbfounded silence enduring the lingering gazes and laughter around him, a faint nausea descending upon him as realisation dawned that Adanna had read his words. There was nothing sordid or explicit in his journal, but one didn't have to read much between the lines to realise that Garreth had surrendered to his attraction. The consequences could be disastrous. He flew into a panic.

Gathering the offending book into his arms, he moved to flee the common room in search of Adanna, but was met by a gangly, immovable object with a wrinkled brow.

“Where are you going?” Leander asked. “Already missed dinner and now you're running off again?”

“What are you, my mother?” Garreth huffed, peering around Leander's shoulders towards the common room door.

“You and Adanna are both being very odd…”

“What do you mean?” Garreth asked, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

“She was very quiet during dinner. Decided to sit with her own house and looked rather solemn.”

Garreth swallowed the lump forming in his throat, his heart now thumping wildly behind his ribcage. This was precisely the reaction he had feared, ever since contemplating more with Adanna all those years ago. He'd buried the notion for fear of ending a friendship too precious; only this damned ball had dragged every deep rooted desire to the surface. What his journal entries hadn't captured were how he longed for their dance lessons, for the opportunity to be alone with her; to hold her waist as if she were his, losing himself in her earthen eyes. But his scribblings had clearly been enough.

“I have to go,” Garreth muttered to a baffled Leander, rushing out of the room.

The journey down to the Hufflepuff common room was simultaneously the longest of Garreth's life and yet not nearly enough time to contemplate what he wanted to say. Should he deny the allegations? Tell Adanna that the journal had been tampered with by a vengeful Cressida? Despite all she'd done, Cressida didn't deserve a reputation built on a lie—which only left Garreth with the truth. It was such a terrifying prospect that it took him several minutes of staring at the great oak doors next to the kitchens before he mustered the courage to enter.

He'd been to the Hufflepuff's underground dwellings so many times over the years that he need not ask for help entering—he tapped the barrel (worn old from years of use) in the rhythm to the house founder's name, careful not to miss a syllable lest he wanted to face Adanna smelling of vinegar.

Most Hufflepuffs didn’t even bat an eye when Garreth came to visit—he liked to think he was a honourary member of their house, as Adanna slotted so seamlessly into his own. He greeted a few classmates, and Adelaide was kind enough to fetch Adanna from the girls’ dormitory for him, after he’d answered a few questions about Leander’s dress robes. 

“I want to match, but black isn’t really my colour,” she sighed, before disappearing with a light skip in her step.

If only Garreth’s own Yule Ball anticipation was as carefree as Adelaide’s; worrying about his ghastly robes instead of alienating his best friend.

When Adanna appeared, Garreth held his breath, searching frantically for the words he wanted to say—but none appeared. He suddenly became aware of every muscle in his body, his posture, the arrangement of his features. Suddenly awkward in his own skin, he gripped his journal tighter as she approached, her gaze landing on the bundle in his arms. She looked neither happy nor sad to see him, only anticipatory. When she stood only an arm’s length away from him, waiting, he finally gasped for breath.

“Hello,” he said, rather pathetically.

“Hello.” Adanna chewed her lip, as she often did when nervous.

He was making her nervous, and subsequently felt like the world’s biggest arse. Looking for a secluded spot amongst the shrubbery, he tilted his head and guided her away from the groups of lingering students. He wasn’t sure he could bear another public spectacle.

“Did you…get a visit from Cressida by any chance?” he asked, brushing a stray fern frond from his face.

“I did,” she replied, averting her eyes. “She shouldn’t have taken your journal. I tried to stop her, but she was so insistent that I read—”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? They were your private thoughts.” 

Garreth cast his own eyes downward, hating every second of this confrontation. “I never thought you would ever find out, Ada.” 

“Did you mean them?”

Words were spilling out of him like vomit now, a build up of nervous energy cascading without end. “I’ve always found you beautiful, from the day we met. And it was hard to ignore those feelings, but I thought I’d finally got the hang of it until all of this Yule Ball madness. I kept thinking about that night in the clocktower. Not in a sordid way, mind you, it’s just that it felt so right with you in my arms. I can’t really explain the feeling—like a puzzle piece slotting into place, or finding the perfect ingredient for a tricky brew. I suppose I had an epiphany, about you—about us.” He couldn’t stop himself, this confession, or whatever it was. Adanna stood still with her lips slightly parted as if to interrupt, but she let him ramble on against his better judgement until he finally ran out of steam. “So yes, I meant them. Every word.”

She didn’t reply right away, but her eyes glistened so wondrously in the warm glow of the common room that Garreth was content to just watch her parsing his words, hoping beyond all hope that she somehow felt the same. He hadn’t come here to tell her any of this, only to apologise for her ever finding out in the first place, and to perhaps mitigate the worst of the damage. His plan hadn’t quite worked out that way. Standing in front of Adanna with his heart fit to burst, he couldn’t bring himself to brush off his affections, to downplay just how much he cared for her beyond the platonic. It was now or never, he supposed—speak now, or forever hold his peace.

“I—,” Adanna started, then paused, breathless, as if only now remembering that she could talk “—feel the same.”

“What?” Garreth asked dumbly, sure that he’d misheard.

“I think about it, too.” 

Then she smiled, and the fear and doubt that roiled in his stomach seemed to arch like a cresting wave before dissipating completely, leaving only a warmth that tingled from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. His eyes prickled, his face cracking into a wide grin—nothing could have prepared him, and nothing would compare.

“So, will you go to the ball with me? Properly, this time.”

Tentatively, he reached out and took her hand, careful not to disturb this new and precious harmony. Small, delicate fingers, slipping perfectly into his own. 

Adanna nodded. “Of course I will.”

“Hah! Who’s the idiot now, Leander?” Garreth chuckled to himself.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

~*~

How does one navigate the murky transition of friends to…well, something more? Garreth supposed there wasn’t exactly a handbook detailing procedures, but nor did the current state of affairs feel quite right. As if stuck in some awkward limbo, he and Adanna didn’t quite know what to do with themselves before the Yule Ball that evening. He’d not technically asked for anything more than for her to accompany him to said ball, and certainly not outright asked for her to be his girlfriend or anything of the sort—a glaring mistake in hindsight.

During the term’s final lessons they had cast each other furtive glances, exchanged sweet, knowing smiles that spoke of desire and longing that neither seemed able to act upon. They touched more often; a brush of knuckles here, a press of knees there. Their friends knew only that they would attend the ball together, everything else a suspicion. Only Garreth could manage to profess his feelings for a woman and leave out such an important question. He’d meant it implicitly, but when it came to matters of the heart, one couldn’t be too clear. 

He would remedy the situation later that evening—once seeing to an important familial duty. 

“Why can't we go to the ball?” Charlotte asked for what might have been the dozenth time that morning. 

Her pout was pronounced as she dragged her satchel towards the crimson train idling in Hogsmeade station. Hector walked alongside Garreth with both Weasley siblings’ trunks, not nearly as put out as his sister but nevertheless envious at the prospect of glimpsing the Ministry's ‘special guest’. Garreth's younger brother and sister would be heading home a day early; only sixth and seventh years were permitted to attend the Yule Ball. 

“I'm sure they'll hold another one when you're older, Charlotte,” Garreth replied, levitating the two trunks inside the idling carriage.

All around them were similarly despondent faces; young students who wished to experience the magic of the infamous celebration. Faculty members helped to board the youngest as friends rushed to find the best seats on the Hogwarts Express for the hours-long voyage back to London. Hector spotted a few of his fellow fifth year Gryffindors and was off, only a half-hearted backwards wave to say goodbye.

Charlotte lingered, fingers picking at the top of her trunk.

“You'd better board. Look, there's erm…Constance?” Garreth said, pointing towards a small, mousy first year along the platform.

“Catherine!” Charlotte corrected. “Will you tell me all about the ball when you come home for Christmas?”

“Of course I will—”

“Is Adanna coming with you?”

Garreth frowned at yet another thing he'd neglected to ask her. “Maybe. Her dad is coming back to the country though.”

Charlotte sighed again, looking wistfully back at the castle. “I bet she'll look beautiful.”

Yes, I suppose she will, Garreth thought, suppressing a grin.

“Come on, get on the train,” he urged her as the train whistled and the clock ticked by, urgently approaching nine o'clock.

Charlotte finally relented, clambering onto the train with her trunk which had been enchanted with a featherlight charm. Her scrawny little arms were surprisingly strong, but she had insisted on packing her entire belongings for the two weeks holiday.

“See you tomorrow!” Garreth called after her as the final whistle blew, doors snapping shut, locks clicking into place.

And then Garreth was left with the lingering siblings and faculty, staring off into the highlands as the train became a distant speck. Duty taken care of, he returned to the castle to await the ball.

Festivities would start at eight o’clock, giving everyone enough time to eat before dressing for the occasion. The Great Hall would be sealed off after lunch and platters of food brought to the common rooms for the remaining students whilst they prepared; donning robes, styling hair and whatever else needed to be done.

Garreth felt woefully unprepared. He strided at a brisk pace back to Gryffindor tower, catching tantalising glimpses of decorations being moved through the castle. Christmas trees and holly garlands had lined the halls for weeks now, but whatever Headmaster Black had planned (or demanded of his aunt), involved gilded cages of various birds; mottled wings and soft grey feathers ruffled against the tiny red-breasted varieties that Garreth recognised.

He was curious, to be sure, but now that term had ended and distractions were few and far between, Garreth found himself uncharacteristically nervous. It would be a momentous occasion—not for the finery or important guests, but to be spending it with Adanna in an unmistakably romantic setting. The thought was enough to churn the remnants of his breakfast, a loud gargle echoing through the now almost empty common room.

“Hungry again, Gar?” Natty quipped from her armchair perch. She sat with her feet curled under her, a book resting on her knees.

“Quite the opposite, actually. I’m starting to regret the second helping of eggs.”

“That is not like you to regret food. Are you alright? You look quite…twitchy.”

She was right. Garreth had been shuffling backwards and forwards as they talked, hands stuffed into his pockets and flapping like an overactive diricawl.

“I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t think about anything until this ball is over with.”

“Are you not excited?” Natty asked with a twinkle in her eye.

“I am, but…I have no idea what I’m doing.”

A point proven when Leander came practically skipping up to his side, clutching a small box, neatly wrapped in decorative paper and tied with red ribbon. He was flushed, giddy almost, and just as ‘twitchy’ as Garreth.

“All ready for tonight? Gods, I’m excited. Do you think Adelaide will wear her hair up or down? I don’t suppose it matters,” he babbled, fiddling with the edge of the ribbon and making it fray with his fidgeting fingers. “Oh, I asked the girls and they’ll meet us in the entrance hall at eight.”

Garreth blinked. “Uh, right.” 

Yes, he was woefully unprepared. Too distracted by this weird, new dynamic between himself and Adanna that he’d entirely neglected the finer details of the evening.

“Shit.”

“Garreth!” Natty hissed. Once realising that there were in fact no pure and innocent little first years to corrupt with his expletives, she sighed. “What is wrong?”

“I haven’t thought about tonight at all. I thought it would be enough to just show up, you know? My robes are a disaster, and what is that?” Garreth spluttered, pointing to the box Leander was clutching so tightly.

“Just a little something for Adelaide. I thought a gold hairpin to match my tie—”

“See! I haven’t got Ada anything!” Garreth threw up his arms, panic finally setting in.

“I’m sure she won’t be expecting a present, I just thought it would be nice—”

“Yes, you thought. And all I’ve done is worry about whether or not I should tell her she’s beautiful, or kiss her hand when I see her.”

Natty gave Garreth a soft smile and tilted her head in a way that suggested he’d inadvertently said something endearing in his garbled stream of consciousness.

“Well, not much we can do about your robes, they are hideous—”

“Thanks, Leander.”

“—but it’s not too late to get her a gift.”

“Well, it’s a bit late to pop into Hogsmeade,” Garreth grumbled. “But she does always like the flowers I pick for her…”

“She would love a corsage, to match the flowers in her hair,” Natty offered.

Glancing at the great grandfather clock in the corner of the room, Garreth supposed he had a good couple of hours before lunch in which to gather some suitable flowers. Being December in the Scottish highlands, there wasn’t much in the way of flora and fauna sprouting in Hogwarts’ expansive grounds, only a smattering of hellebores and cyclamen offering their colour amongst the bare branches and fallen leaves. But of course, Garreth was awfully used to procuring what he needed from the school supplies. He might have been banned from Sharp’s stores, but Professor Garlick was much more forgiving when it came to sneaking a few extra leaves here and there—she also happened to share Adanna’s love of mundane plants.

“Do you think Garlick would give me a few flowers?” Garreth wondered.

Leander chuckled. “I reckon she’d give you a whole shrub if you told her it was for one of her favourite students.”

~*~

Garreth made the final touches to the corsage by late afternoon. It had been finicky work; not something he’d have trusted to do with magic. His fingers had suffered multiple lacerations from the thorny rose stems before he stripped them off, then bundling the most floriferous of the catmint with a few sprigs of lemon thyme. The oils stung the cuts but smelled divine; fresh citrus from the herbs with a distinct musky perfume from the deep red rose. His professor had offered a pretty white flower to match the asphodel flower crown, but Garreth was drawn to the velvety petals of this particular variety. He knew enough about Adanna that red roses sparked in her a comforting nostalgia; memories of her late mother and the garden she’d tended.

He wrapped the small bundle in red ribbon borrowed from Leander and tied a passable bow, holding it out at arm’s length to admire his handiwork. More used to chopping up flowers and crushing stems, Garreth didn’t quite have the same eye for the beauty that Adanna did, but he was sure that she would be pleased with his efforts.

What remained of the winter sun had dipped below the horizon, and most of his housemates were now in their dormitories readying themselves for the evening, with only a few strays littering the common room. Eric sat in a dimly-lit corner with his wand aloft, muttering some incantation that only seemed to produce a weak flurry of snowflakes before petering out, the carpet below his feet a shadow of damp remnants of magic.

Garreth left for the bathroom and bathed in citrusy suds until the inevitable clamour began outside the door. Eric was soon barging in in blind panic, evacuating Garreth in only a towel that did nothing to hide his modesty or blanket him from the chill. Curls dripping a trail behind him, he hastened back to the dormitory to find Leander fully clothed and fussing over his hair. The gravity-defying coif he usually styled had not a hair out of place.

“Is that glitter in your hair?” Garreth asked, padding back to his bed and shrugging into a fluffy dressing gown.

“No!” Leander yelped, retreating to the mirror and tossing his head back and forth under the lamp light.

Garreth snickered, but the mirth was short-lived as he pulled his robes from the wardrobe. He’d not looked at them in days, somehow hoping that when he came to put them on they might not appear quite so awful—but the frills were just as lacey, the style just as dated. He did not, in fact, have a kind spirit watching over him, ready to bestow good luck and replacement robes.

His face scrunched as fingers glided along the hems, but he could delay no longer. Garreth dried his hair with a gentle wind charm before pulling on his outfit—his smartest pair of breeches and shoes were a promising start, only getting progressively worse with every subsequent layer. The only thing worse than Leander’s jokes were his silence, which was now so loud that Garreth could barely stand it. The ruffled cravat came with the most ludicrous velvet bow tie that he was sure wasn’t intended to match.

Garreth turned to Leander, clutching the limp fabric. “Leander, do you have any spare bow ties?”

“Afraid not,” he replied, trying his hardest not to wince at Garreth’s appearance.

Eric had no such qualms. His eyes blew wide as dinner plates upon entering the dormitory, freshly bathed with dark hair plastered across his forehead. “That’s quite the ensemble, Garreth.”

Garreth groaned. “Do you have any spare bow ties?” he asked Eric, desperation creeping into his voice. “Look at this thing!”

“It matches your eyes,” Eric swooned with a devious grin on his face.

Garreth almost threw the tie at Eric, until it was snatched from his hand by Leander.

“What—”

“You can swap with me,” Leander sighed, holding the emerald fabric up to his neck; the antiquated style contrasted starkly with his sleek robes.

“Are you sure?”

“What are friends for? Ridding you of disastrous bow ties, apparently. I’m afraid I can’t do much about the robes, but Adanna’s eyes deserve a little relief.”

“I’m touched,” Garreth drawled, but he nudged Leander on the arm and smiled in thanks. Usually Garreth would baulk at accepting such charity, but it was testament to just how desperate he was to claw back any scrap of respectability that he hesitantly held out his hand for Leander’s neatly-pressed black tie.

“Thank you, really. At least it matches my shoes.” 

Silver linings and all that.

He brushed his hair and did his best to tame it, then dabbed cologne onto his neck before shrugging into the robes. Considering they were his dear cousin’s, they didn’t fit too badly—she’d always been tall, towering over relatives at family functions. 

Then there was not much to be done except wait. Minutes ticked by agonisingly slowly before Garreth suggested to his roommates that they hunt down the rest of the Gryffindors as a way to expend his escalating nervous energy. They didn’t have to look much farther than the common room, where Natty, Nellie and—to his dismay—Cressida sat by the fire.

It was some sort of agony to approach the beautifully attired women whilst Garreth himself resembled an elderly witch’s tatty window dressing. He’d expected Cressida’s cruelly amused reaction, given their falling out, but Natty and Nellie were kind enough not to comment on all the ugly details. Somehow, they found compliments amongst the bountiful ruffles (‘they fit you so well!’) whilst Garreth didn’t struggle at all to sing their praises.

Nellie wore a sweeping gown of burgundy silk, Cressida a high-necked navy blue dress with even more lace than Garreth’s robes, whilst Natty had opted for bright swathes of apricot fabric that swept across her collarbone, revealing a lavish gold and amber necklace.

“My mother’s,” she said with a smile. “She can always be counted on for the right accessory.”

“Will she be coming tonight?”

Natty nodded. “I think all the faculty are attending.”

“I can’t wait to see old Mr Moon getting sloshed. Mum’s told me so many stories.”

“Not if the headmaster has anything to say about it,” Leander said. 

Nellie sighed, smoothing out her skirt. “Hopefully he doesn’t spoil all the fun.”

“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough,” Cressida said as every head turned in unison towards the old grandfather clock. “Twenty minutes.”

Garreth turned to Leander, his palms suddenly sweaty and the fabric of his waistcoat far too constricting. “Godric. We should find Ada and Adelaide, shouldn’t we?” 

Nellie soon peeled away to the dungeons to meet Imelda, Eric hastily walking off to find Samantha, whilst Cressida and Natty linked arms and followed Garreth and Leander towards the Entrance Hall. Natty would be going alone by choice, insisting that the very best way to enjoy a ball was to dance with as many people as possible, though Cressida was rather more dejected by the idea of attending alone. Her fury bore into the back of Garreth's head, but he was determined not to let their animosity sour the mood—besides, he might even thank Cressida for her interference. Without it, he might never have admitted his feelings to Adanna.

And what a wonder she was. 

No sooner had they entered the Entrance Hall had his eyes landed upon her, drawn to the head of delicate flowers atop a bed of tightly coiled curls. Only vaguely aware of the festive decorations or anyone else in the room, Garreth headed straight to Adanna, who pulled her eyes away from Adelaide as he approached.

There were not many instances in Garreth’s life where he’d been rendered speechless—having many things to say on most topics; perhaps too many by usual standards—but he could quite unequivocally say that he had lost all ability to speak once Adanna turned to face him, revealing herself in all her glory. Garreth stopped mere inches away and gaped like a fish, until Leander nudged his arm.

“Hello.”

Garreth could practically hear Leander’s eyes rolling beside him.

“Adelaide, you look lovely. I hope you’re well?” Leander asked with only a faint quiver in his voice.

Garreth had somehow been caught in a staring match with Adanna, who’s eyes seemed to swirl and twinkle like the effervescence of his Fizzing Whizzbeer—not the most romantic comparison, and one he’d keep to himself, but nevertheless captivating. She seemed draped in moonlight; an ethereal vision amongst more worldly beings that surrounded her. The silver brocade of her dress skimmed perfect curves that she hid beneath her uniform in a way that was both demure yet utterly enticing, the neckline just low enough for Garreth to find himself struggling to breath when his gaze ventured lower.

“You’re beautiful,” he finally muttered, what might have been minutes after first taking in her appearance.

He could hear Adelaide and Natty squealing in the background.

“Thank you,” Adanna replied with a hint of shyness. “You scrub up well, Garreth.”

He chuckled, and the spell that shrouded her in that otherworldly haze fell away. This was Adanna, after all. Plucking the corsage he’d carefully crafted from behind his back, he offered it in upturned palms. 

“I’m afraid it doesn’t quite match the rest of your outfit, but I thought you’d like the colour.”

As she held it beneath her nose, Adanna inhaled deeply and let her eyelids flutter shut. “You were right. It’s perfect, Gar.” She tucked the corsage into a loop of fabric on her dress, sitting just over her heart.

“Shall we go inside?” Garreth asked, holding out his arm. “I’m not sure where Leander’s run off to but I’m sure we’ll spot him.”

Adanna slipped her hand around his forearm—a not entirely foreign gesture—and nodded, then they ventured forth.

Now that Garreth’s brain had acclimated to Adanna’s proximity, he could truly appreciate the lengths to which the school’s staff and house elves had gone to in order to create a yuletide wonderland. Adanna gasped beside him as they entered the Great Hall, casting their eyes upward to the enchanted ceiling; a deep indigo backdrop with swathes of golden starlight, magically enlarged celestial bodies that glimmered beyond reach. Beneath them, gently swaying bells much like those housed in Hogwarts’ belltower—all in warm gold that carried the theme throughout the room. 

Garreth pointed out the birds he’d seen earlier—many now roamed free to glide above awestruck guests and perch atop potted trees and garlands, picking berries from amongst prickly foliage. A dozen great firs lined the walls, bedecked in emerald baubles, velvet bows and flowers.The effect was rather like a gilded garden, humming with magic.

“I can certainly see Headmaster Black’s influence,” Adanna commented.

“Speak of the devil.” 

Garreth spotted the headmaster making the rounds of the various guests, dressed in his finest emerald tailcoat and silk cravat. Garreth led Adanna out of his path, spotting Natty talking to Nerida over by the refreshments table which overflowed with tiny canapés and bowls full of what looked like fruit punch. It appeared that Natty’s ball card was almost full already, a long night of dancing ahead of her. 

As the last of the students filed into the hall, the headmaster took to the raised platform which would usually house the faculty table, but was now packed with decorations, a sleek grand piano and string quartet with no musicians in sight. Black’s speeches were notoriously dull, full of long-winded tangents and inarticulate boasting—the welcome that followed his thunderous call for silence was no exception. At no point did he wish the students a Merry Christmas, only reminded them of the various punishments for ‘unbecoming behaviour’. Garreth might have nodded off, were it not for the introductions of various guests. 

Black had clearly invited those he wished to impress; Ministry bigwigs and pureblood wizards that no doubt filled his country manors every summer. No Quidditch prodigies in sight, much to the disappointment of everyone present. Garreth felt his attention wander to the woman next to him as the headmaster droned on about someone's accolades, and he found that he didn't care much at all about the greying wizard’s Order of Merlin when Garreth could happily, and openly, take in Adanna's beauty. 

“Are you staring?” she whispered, not turning her head to look his way.

“Maybe a little.”

Her chuckle was drowned out by a weak round of applause as Black finally left the platform, and cheers erupted, to his dismay, as the instruments began to play—the moment had come to show off his newly acquired dance skills. 

Luckily, he need not adjust to another partner—by now, he and Adanna knew each other's rhythms. They moved together effortlessly, unburdened by the need to keep some modicum of physical distance. Nor was it strange or awkward, which Garreth had worried it might be. Here their roles were clear; hand in hand, dancing below the twilight sky, there was no ambiguity left. He found his thumb idly stroking Adanna's waist, and she squeezed his arm in return. 

Garreth wanted nothing more than to kiss her, and he'd intended to once the song finished, until his plans were thwarted by a barking summons.

“Weasley!”

Adanna stiffened in his arms, her eyes widening.

Garreth grimaced. “What does the headmaster want with me?” 

Phineas Black stood on the periphery of the dance floor, chin tilted skyward, waiting. Garreth let Adanna go with all the regret in the world, but she slipped her hand around his arm before he could retreat in a show of solidarity. 

He'd had his fair share of tense encounters with Black over the years, particularly in relation to his notoriety as a menace in the potions classroom, but the man now looked more furious than during any reprimand Garreth had previously endured. Whilst still retaining his air of pomposity, Black's nose wrinkled so intensely that Garreth could see right up his nostrils despite standing just as tall.

“Weasley, what are you wearing?”

Ah, so it was his ensemble that had the headmaster’s breeches in a twist.

“Dress robes, sir,” Garreth replied dryly.

He could feel Adanna twitching next to him, no doubt holding in a laugh. Black opened his mouth and bared his teeth, but was interrupted by the arrival of a tall, stiff man with eyes as dark as coal. If Phineas Black had a particularly severe looking cousin, Garreth imagined that this stranger might be another member of the infamous family.

“Augustus, how nice to see you.” Black greeted the man with a strong handshake, Garreth's fashion faux-pas now forgotten—but the man, Augustus, seemed to have noticed Garreth lingering, his gaze drifting slowly over his robes.

Now seemed the opportune time to make a quick getaway. “Well, we'll just be off—”

“Weasley, is it?”

This ‘Augustus’ was addressing Garreth, to Black's horror; he might have preferred if Garreth and Adanna disappeared into the throng never to be seen again.

“Your father is a ministry man.” He said it as a statement. “One might think his son would take more care with his appearance. After all, first impressions reflect on our family name, hm?”

He talked as if Garreth were no longer there, casting a sideways glance to Black who nodded fervently. Garreth's blood boiled, cheeks burning from rage, though he couldn't muster the shame that Augustus seemed so intent on inflicting.

“Ah, you see sir, our family doesn't tend to judge others’ worth by their appearance. Awfully shallow mindset. Anyway, lovely to meet you, but we should get back to dancing.”

He said it in such a cheerfully blithe way that his words would take a moment or two to register. Before either man could retort, Garreth had guided Adanna back into the crowds, weaving through twirling couples engaged in a waltz.

“Gar, stop!” Adanna said, gripping his arm and pulling him to a standstill. 

He'd been striding so fiercely that she'd been barely able to keep up.

“Sorry, I—”

“Don't apologise, I just can't walk that quickly in these shoes.”

Garreth exhaled heavily, still trying to rid himself of pent up anger that needed an outlet.

“What a—a—” 

He couldn't quite find a word for the horrible man they'd just encountered.

“A git?” Adanna supplied helpfully.

“Precisely.”

“The worst kind of prejudiced wizard. How typical of Black's acquaintances.”

“I suppose I should have expected it,” Garreth said, picking at the lace of his robes.

Adanna pulled his hand away, smoothing down the fabric. Her hands gliding down his chest sent a jolt along the length of his spine, a storm erupting in his gut.

“Would dancing help you calm down?” she asked.

“It might,” he replied with a lopsided smile, entirely distracted by the grip she had on his lapels.

They fell into easy conversation whilst dancing at a languorous pace to a gentle melody, laughter erupting as they made fun of the two grumpy men still conversing at the sidelines whilst the couples trying to enjoy a romantic moment cast disapproving glares their way. But it didn't matter—this was what Garreth loved about being with Adanna. She was such easy company, her presence so comforting and joyful; it seemed at times that she was another piece of Garreth's soul, her presence making him whole. 

“He shouldn't be able to say things like that and get away with it,” Adanna said.

“I’ll probably be in detention for the rest of the year just for what I just said, but at least I got the last word.”

She was right, of course. Men such as Black and his friend so rarely met the consequences of their actions. Wild ideas of revenge swirled in his mind, thoroughly distracting him from his footwork.

“Ow!,” Adanna squeaked as Garreth’s foot squashed her toes.

“Sorry! I wasn’t—”

“I can tell when you have an idea, Gar. Your eyes go all misty. What is it?”

“What if I could make sure that he didn’t get away with it?” 

Garreth grinned, now remembering a tiny vial filled with swirling ocean blue liquid tucked into his trunk. It was an old brew that he'd experimented on back in fifth year—meant to make the drinker gassy, so that they expelled colourful bubbles. A silly party trick, or a harmless prank. Unfortunately, what he'd actually created was a powerful laxative that Leander had been on the receiving end of. Garreth still teased him about the full day he'd spent on the toilet.

“Wait here,” he said, planting a swift kiss on Adanna's cheeks and attempting to extricate himself from the dance floor.

But Adanna’s grip held firm. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I have a brilliant idea that’ll give Augustus the absolute worst night of his life.” 

Garreth’s thoughts were already miles away with the vial in hand, turning over ideas for how to administer the potion. The curve of his lips faltered slightly when he saw Adanna tilt her head in exasperation. 

“Do you really want to spend the night pranking that horrible man?”

Did he? Perhaps some juvenile part of him did. In past years he might even have tried to involve Adanna, but she had always been the one to rein in his more ridiculous and morally questionable ideas. The alternative—spending the evening with her wrapped up in his arms, exploring this entirely new side of their relationship—sounded much more enjoyable, now that he really thought about it. The impulse for revenge dimmed with every passing second, fading entirely as they locked eyes.

“No, not really,” he replied truthfully.

The instruments echoed their final notes, whatever clumsy waltz they’d been attempting came to a stop, and Garreth noticed a faint but unmistakable rustling, an interlude between the strings’ symphonies. He and Adanna looked up to the source at the same time, to find sprigs of mistletoe conjured above their heads. It appeared that the castle itself agreed with Garreth’s assessment.

“I think Hogwarts is trying to tell us something,” he said.

A new song crescendoed and couples seemed to glide around them, paying them no mind as he stroked her cheek, heart pounding so fiercely it was all he could hear. This was it—that moment yearned for but never in his dizziest daydreams did he think would become a reality. The moment that would change the course of their friendship forever, irreparably, that he would pursue without question.When their lips met, they smiled. Finally, they seemed to say in unison, entirely wordlessly as they clung to each other as if the world was ending. Somewhere in this gilded hall, they had found the courage to take a step into the unknown—and neither regretted a thing.

[hannahssimblr]

Jen is fully awake, bright eyed and stomping around looking at the art when we arrive at the gallery. I suspect she's hopped up on sugar after I bought her a plate of overpriced pancakes in a cafe in the middle of town. 

“Woman, yearning,” after reading aloud from a gallery placard next to an abstract work she stands back to ponder it for several seconds. “Where’s the woman? I just see blobs. Ugly blobs too.”

“Is that a serious question or are you just giving out?”

“I’m offering my critiques,” she says haughtily, narrowing her eyes at it. “The point is that I wouldn’t hang that in my house.”

“Hang it where? It’s like, fifteen feet tall.”

“Well, all I’ll say is that I’m now a woman, yearning for my ten seconds back.”

Evie titters. 

“Don’t encourage her,” I mutter, “It’s better to ignore it. She did this when I took her to the zoo once too.”

“You don’t like the zoo?” Jen doesn’t hear her because she’s already rushing to the next room, and as I suspect, to the merciful end as quickly as possible. I answer for her, “No, she hated it.”

“Was it the sad animals?”

“No, her feet just hurt. There was too much walking.”

The room we follow Jen into is stark and completely bare, save for an enormous, rusted iron sculpture dangling by a chain from the ceiling. I know what she is going to say about it before she does. 

“I just don’t understand how this is art. It’s just ugly, and it makes no sense to me. I’m sorry if that makes me sound ignorant, but I just don’t see the skill in this.”

“It’s not really about the skill though. It’s all in the process,” I'm explaining this for probably the fourth time this hour, but I can see in Jen’s face that she's frustrated, genuinely so, and I really do feel bad for her. While it was nice of her to come, I feel I should have just let her stay at home and hang out on the beach with one of her magazines for the day.

Evie bends to read the placard, “It’s supposed to evoke a reaction, and I guess you being confused by it counts as a reaction, so you could say that it’s done its job,” She turns and flashes a sympathetic smile at Jen. This is a very nice thing she’s done, attempting to help her to relate to the art, but I suspect from the aura of complete resignation emanating from her that we are past the point where such a thing is possible. 

As a last ditch effort I try to gently explain the purpose of modern art in a way that sounds accessible, and not like I’m just regurgitating my art history textbook, but her eyes have glazed over. She doesn’t care about the sculpture, she doesn’t care about what it means or how it’s intended to make her feel, she’s simply had enough. 

“I don’t know, guys, I think I'm going to go browse in the gift shop. I’m not picking up what this exhibition is putting down,” she trudges off towards the stairs and leaves us on our own, her footsteps echoing, distant, then gone.

I’m aware of the quiet once she isn’t there anymore, poking fun at the exhibit, and Evie, who was quiet already, becomes even more so. As she examines the sculpture for longer, I wonder what meaning she’s found in it. Really, to me it is just kind of a big rusted lump, but I’m nervous about admitting that to a person who seems to understand what she's looking at. I stand and pretend to enjoy it for an amount of time that feels more acceptable.

When she wanders into the next room I follow. This one has an old TV in the corner, and sunlight streaming in through the big sash windows catching specks of dust drifting through the air. We watch this uncomfortable performance art video of a man stripping down to his underwear and climbing into a bed. It feels sexual in nature, while also feeling kind of weird and not that way at all. I don’t know the intention, or which emotion it’s supposed to awaken in me. I say “cool” so that she thinks I understand the point of it, though I’ve never much liked performance art. I find it embarrassing to watch.

I don’t think she’s going to try and make any kind of conversation, but maybe she doesn’t want to make too much noise in an art gallery. Maybe she’s shy. My nose runs so I sniff, and even that sounds offensively loud. 

“So what’s your deal?” I ask her as we move onto another exhibit. 

She pauses, surprised, “To be honest, there’s not much to say about me.”

“Of course there is.”

“No, well,” she laughs self consciously, “I’m not that interesting, is all. I don’t want to bore you.”

“Seriously, I want to know.”

Her eyes dart around the room as though she might find something to distract the conversation away from herself, then failing, says, “Like, Tullamore is dull, I go to an all girls’ school and really, nothing very interesting happens day to day.”

I exhale a laugh. These are her bullet points. I bet this is what she says to everyone to make them stop asking. Unfortunately for her I'm only comfortable when someone is speaking. “So you wish you could leave.”

She makes a small sound of agreement, and then says nothing for a few seconds. From the centre of the room I watch her drift about glancing at the works. “Yeah,” she says eventually, “all the time. I kind of feel like… I don’t know, like I don’t belong there or something. It’s a small town and I think I’m just a bit different from a lot of people.”

“I understand that.”

She nods, “I’d love to be somewhere with likeminded people. That’s why I really envy you going to Berlin, I just imagine what it’d be like to be able to be fully myself and everyone would be just… fine with it.”

She envies me? Already?  She won’t for long. “Oh well, it was an easy choice for me. I feel the same as you sometimes too, like, I just want to know what else is out there. I don’t want to go back to the US, but I don’t really want to stay in Ireland either. I don’t know about needing to be a different person though. Don’t you think that if you were yourself here then people would be fine with it?” 

She runs slender fingers along the plush velvet of a barrier, and I’m struck by how easy she makes it to have this conversation, even with the back of her head. I don’t usually talk with strangers like this, but maybe it’s precisely because we are strangers that we can.

Michelle complained sometimes that strange men would corner her on the bus from time to time and start spilling their secrets entirely unsolicited, things like affairs they’d had, money they’d gambled away, unforgivable lies they had told. They unloaded it all on some random girl in her school uniform who couldn’t ruin them, who they’d never see again. I wonder is this like one of those demented conversations. There isn't much about Evie that strikes me as especially demented though. Her openness is refreshing.

“I don’t know. I feel like I’ve such a history of being… odd, and doing weird things, and I don’t know if I can come back from that,” she admits, “I’d rather just start again and be a new, better version of myself somewhere else.”

I suppose she is a bit odd. Not in a bad way, but there’s a certain manner in which she moves, floating about the room, this dreamy cadence to her speech, these brief moments of intensity that cross her face and interrupt that other worldly, spacey look she has. She’s her own person. I'm not surprised stuff is hard for her, since teenagers resent people they cannot understand.

I picture her at my school, how the girls might have spoken about someone like her, what the rugby boys would have thought. Yeah, obviously she’s real fine, imaginary Fitzy says in my head. He’s picking dirt out of his studs with a twig, bit kooky, though, isn't she? Weird. Like she’s an alien from Mars or something like that. 

She meanders over to a bench and sits. “What about your friends though?” I join her, “and your boyfriend? Don’t they like this current version of you?”

She squawks out a raucous laugh that ricochets through the room, and several people look at us. Her eyes widen and she clamps her hands over her mouth, like what I just heard was the expulsion of a demon and not just a natural laugh, “Sorry, I don’t know what that was!”  

“Did I say something I shouldn’t have? Sorry, your reaction was just-”

“No no, just you said that Liam is my boyfriend and-”

“Oh, shit, he’s not? My bad, I just assumed,” I assumed because he told me as much. Was he lying or does he just not know? 

“No, he’s not. I don’t know what he is, we just hang out and stuff. He’s a really nice person.”

“He is,” I debate whether to say more. “Hm. I always feel so bad about Liam.”

“What? Why?”

“Because we used to be so mean to him when we were younger.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he was just this happy little kid, he always wanted to be involved with us, but it was like, he was always way too eager, you know what I mean? We thought he was this hokey little country boy, we used to think it was really funny to mess with him.”

“What kinds of things did you do?”

“Nothing terrible. Just… it was more like…” I shouldn’t have started this conversation, “He thought that we were really grown up or something, I guess, and he wanted to come and hang out the whole time, which was fine. The guys just had this thing about not sharing our drink with him, you know, because it’d be a waste because he’d just end up getting sick and having to get his mother to come and pick him up from the party. So we started pouring him drinks out of a vodka bottle filled with water, and he never noticed.”

“That’s not bad” Evie says charitably, “That’s actually responsible in my opinion, and I honestly wish that Kelly would fall for that kind of trick, but she can sniff out alcohol like a bloodhound.”

“Nah, like the bad part is how much he really didn’t notice it. It was like a crazy placebo effect or something, and he’d still stumble around like he was drunk. We thought it was hilarious. And then one time when we were fifteen Joe got weed from this guy in town and everyone wanted some, but like, Liam was there and we knew it’d be a bad idea to give him some.”

“So what did you do?”

“The classic - I got some herbs from the kitchen cabinet and rolled them up for him, and then guess what?”

“He didn’t notice?”

“Right! He didn’t even notice. He smoked our little fake joint and then-” God, why am I laughing? Shouldn't this story have stopped being funny? “-and then after an hour he was rolling around on the rug saying that he could taste colours and that like, the fibres of the rug felt so soft. We had to get his mother to collect him again.” It’s my turn to let out an obnoxious, echoing cackle, and once again, everyone in the room looks at us.

“You’re a mean boy,” Evie chides, but she doesn’t look like she means it. She looks like she likes it.

“I know. I’m a bastard.” 

I get to my feet. “We should go and see the rest of the exhibits. I don’t want to leave Jen down in the gift shop all day, she’ll be bored.”

Evie’s smile wavers, but she nods, “Okay. Sorry... I didn’t mean to hold you up.”

“You didn’t, I just thought you’d be rearing to see the rest of the art.”

“Yeah,” she says, then hesitating, “it’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?”

I chuckle, “To be honest I’m not sure I like it.”

“Oh, thank God you said that. I hate it too, I didn’t think I was allowed to say it.”

We giggle and I swerve straight for the exit. “C'mon then, let's do something else.”

Beginning // Prev // Next

Corresponding LG Chapter

[dollivication]

icky uncle dante that wants to fuck vergils daughter:333 maybe its out of revenge bc hes tired of vergil being a little shit or something,,, (is not, hes js trying to make himself feel less icky)

so lets say vergil raised u all sheltered n shit so youre like very innocent:3 ofc u wont think anything weird when unc dante’s getting all touchy, hes js very affectionate!! (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶) hes getting his hand under ur skirt? oh.. maybe he misplaced it!! unc dante is js a lil clumsy<33 but in reality hes js being a dirty bastard LMFAO

— 🍓

ICKY UNCLE DANTE MAKES ME SOSOSO SHY I LAUV THIS SOsooowwwbaddduyhhhgg……//;;;/ i am TITTERING

LOOK… dante is very disappointed in himself for still being a virgin at 40+ years old… as much as he loves his dirty magazines, he is getting a little tired of having to rely on his hand!! so what’s the next possible solution,???

fucking the girl who is closest to him,, who just so happens to be his sweet and naive niece ૮꒰ ˶> ༝ <˶꒱ა!!! his brother’s daughter…..,,, oh well! beggars can’t be choosers LMFAO

he knows vergil would most laikly cut his dick off, but who can blame dante when he’s just trying to do a bit of family bonding?? touching your ass?? waaa, no!! uncle dante was just brushing some dirt off of ya :3!!

his hand groping your tits?? ermmm don’t be alarmed! it’s completely normal for uncles 2 touch their nieces ther（^人^)…

dante is the type to make yu bounce a little on his lap… laik he’s just trying to get comfy is all!! don’t mind him!!! (he’s just damn near about to cum in his pants LMAOAOAO??;!)

he’s so Yuckines…. I wont him….;

[theamericanpin-up]

Peter Driben - "A Little Help" - September 1946 Titter Magazine Cover Illustration - Original art sold by Heritage Art Gallery 2023

[gunnersden]

The February 1948 cover to "Titter" magazine. Art, by Peter Driben.

[whositmcwhatsit]

Cherry Pie Delight

It is the hot, long summer of 1956 and Annie's best friend Margie has discovered a new singer that is not only handsome, but can sing, move, AND lives in their home town. They have to go see him and find out what the fuss is about.

Note: Just a little one shot to help me get baby Elvis fangirl vibes out my head.

Words: 5283- Look, it's short!

The first time I saw Elvis Presley was a fiercely hot summer afternoon when I was seventeen years old. My best friend Margie had seen him on Milton Berle’s show and declared herself in love. Not only was he famous, not only could he sing, not only could he move, but he lived in our town. It was meant to be, Margie declared.

“You know, his favourite colours are pink, blue and black,” Margie recited, face deep in the music magazine she had brought with her as we waited at the fence of this regular ranch style house. We were not alone, there were almost a dozen other girls about our age lingering and fizzing with anticipation.

I looked at Margie in askance.

“Well, my favourite colour is pink! We’re so alike.”

“Uh huh.” I bet they both loved breathing air and eating food too.

The sun was beating down on us, I could feel sweat soaking the back of my blouse and my skirt was starting to stick to my thighs. Some of the other girls left, going home to sip cold drinks and lay on linoleum next to electric fans. Margie wouldn’t hear of it, begging for ten more minutes over and over.

Finally, eventually, there was movement out by the carport. The remaining girls, Margie included, started bobbing on their toes, leaning over the fence and not caring that the metalwork poked, prodded and dirtied their blouses.

Eventually a tall boy came wandering out towards the fence. He was wearing a motorcycle cap like Marlon Brando and a strange green shirt with laces. I looked to Margie, eyebrows twisted in a question. Him? Really?

“Hi there, girls, what are y’all up to?” he asked. His voice was higher than I had expected and he sounded real country to my sophisticated town ears. The girls all tittered and blushed.

“Well, they’re all about melting out here waiting for you obviously,” I said in exasperation. He gave them a bashful smile that allowed me a glimpse of what had turned them into giggling fools. The boy had a good smile that made my stomach warm in a way that had nothing to do with the heat.

“Not you though, honey? What’re you doin’ here then?” He leant on the fence in front of me, squinting slightly in the sun. The light glinted off his pinky ring and watch as he rested his forearm on the scrollwork. I became very aware that his hand was almost brushing my arm.

“It’s Margie’s car,” I shrugged. “We go where Margie wants.” He snorted at the irritation in my voice and revealed the curves of his cheekbones as he stuck the tip of his tongue between his teeth.

“Lucky for me,” he murmured. Then he moved off to sign some pictures for the other girls, leaving me to wonder whether he had really said what I thought he said. I watched him talk to each of the girls, flashing them all that blinding smile that lit up his face, and smashing his pouty lips against their round cheeks so hard that it squashed their faces for a moment.

Suddenly he was back, his hand dangling promisingly close to the hairs on my arm that were already standing on end. I stared at the diamond studded horseshoe ring on his pinky finger, breathing through my mouth.

“How about you, honey? You got something for me to put my scribble on?” I frowned, looking down at myself.

“I don’t have any paper,” I answered finally, feeling like a fool.

“Aw, doesn’t have to be paper. Why, just the other day some little gal got me to sign her… her… arm.” The look on his face made it very clear that it had not been her arm.

“Won’t that just wash off?” I asked dubiously.

“Yeah,” he shrugged, “but then you’ll have to come back. I got it all figured out, honey.” He winked and a weird, mindless giggle escaped me before I snapped my mouth shut.

There was a long pause. There was no way I was going to let him write on my skin, my mother would have a fit. I had already had to lie to her about where I was going. Showing up uninvited at someone’s house was up there with murder in my mother’s notion of sins.

He was tapping the metalwork on the fence, his long fingers as drumsticks, before he gripped hold and used it to help him balance as he swung back slightly, looking over his shoulder at his house. He reminded me of a little kid, a tall, handsome little kid.

“You know, I think I have some pictures up in the house,” he said slowly, like he was waiting for me to stop him. “Wanna come with me, honey, while I dig ‘em out? My folks are home.” 

I almost answered too quickly, but then I remembered Margie, who was standing a few feet behind me, her eyes searing into the back of my sunburned neck.

“Can my friend come?”

“Sure. Huh, so it turns out that Margie goes where… What’s your name, honey?”

“Annie.” He held out his hand, palm up and I awkwardly placed mine on top, wondering what was going on.

“Hi Annie, I’m Elvis.” He lifted my hand and pressed his lips against my fingers. It was the corniest move and I wanted to roll my eyes, but I couldn’t quite get my mind working right feeling those soft, warm lips on my skin.

We trailed Elvis as he walked in an easy long stride up the driveway, passing under a car port that looked a lot like ours at home with a sack of dog kibble by the back door next to some muddy boots. Except for the Harley Davidson motorcycle and Cadillacs.

In the yard, my first impression was of a lot of mud. A huge hole had been dug in the ground and there was digging equipment and a cement mixer scattered about. Elvis tried to look casual as he told us that they were digging a pool, his voice all off-hand, but you could tell he was proud of it. He directed us over to a white table and some chairs on the patio.

“Take a seat, ladies, I’ll be right back.” We watched him disappear through the screen door and into the house.

There still wasn’t much shade at the back of the house, though Margie was luckier as she was in the shadow of the roof overhang. She didn’t look any cooler than me though, her face like stone as she stared.

“What?” I whispered guiltily. She didn’t replied, she didn’t need to.

The next thing I knew, an older lady was coming out through the door with a tray. She was wearing a pale blue dress and had dark hair, and something about the eyes told me that this was Elvis’s mother. Elvis was just behind her, holding the door open.

“Hello,” she smiled. We sat up straight like she might be able to stare straight through our red faces into our shameful minds. “Elvis was telling me about how far you gals came just to visit with us. My goodness, your mothers must be worrying themselves sick about you!”

Standing behind her, Elvis was nodding emphatically with his eyes wide, trying to get us to play along. Frowning at him, my head started to move up and down too.

“Yes, ma’am,” I murmured. “I mean, no, ma’am.”

“Are you sure? You know, I could call them on the telephone and let them know that y’all are here and safe? I really think I should.” Oh dear Lord, no!

“There’s no-one home right now, ma’am,” Margie put in quickly. Fast-thinker that one.

“Baby, the lemonade,” Elvis murmured, leaning over her shoulder. She blinked and offered us each a glass of cloudy lemonade with condensation trickling down the slightly misty glass. I almost spilled it down my front in my haste to get it to my mouth.

“This is delicious, ma’am, thank you,” I gasped after I had drank nearly three quarters of the glass at once. Elvis was still at his mother’s shoulder, smiling approvingly at us.

“You’re probably hungry too. Lord, are you sure there is no one I can call?”

“We’re about ready to head home soon, ma’am,” I promised. “Thank you though.”

“Well, let me get you some cookies at least. If you were my children, why I’d hope that someone would take care of you .”  

When she had gone back inside, Elvis grinned, looking very pleased with himself.

“You shouldn’t have lied to your mama,” I said disapprovingly. “We don’t want to put her out.”

“Aw, she likes it,” he returned dismissively. “You want a tour?” I downed the rest of my lemonade as we rose from the table and followed Elvis into the house.

It took a moment for our eyes to adjust, the blinds were all drawn closed, making the interior dark and a little gloomy. Elvis walked fast, making big movements with his arms as he showed off the living room, where I spotted several pictures of a girl with dark hair, the kitchen, the family room, as well as some of the bedrooms. The tour ended in his bedroom.

I thought he was kidding at first, because it didn’t look like his room. It didn’t look like any boy’s room. The wallpaper was pink and flowery- Margie probably loved it- and was complimented by the rosebud bedspreads on the twin beds. All around the walls were large angel ornaments on a blue background. And the room was completely surrounded by teddy bears.

“Don’t you feel like they’re always watching you?” I asked, glancing around nervously. He laughed, a playful hiccup of a laugh.

“Maybe I like ‘em watching,” he replied, raising an eyebrow.

I didn’t know what he meant, but I suspected it was dirty and I flushed, turning to grab Margie’s wrist. I wasn’t about to stand in his bedroom if he was going to be crude with us.

“Hey, I’m only kidding, honey,” he said, pinching hold of my skirt at the hip. “Don’t go. You wanna take one?” He spread his arm wide. “I got plenty, you can both have one.”

I shot him one last warning look and then went to examine a cluster of teddies by the dresser. There was the cutest little black bear with a red ribbon around its neck. Margie chose a large bear with black button eyes and a light brown tummy.

Margie asked if she could use the bathroom and Elvis directed her to one down the hall. As soon as she was gone, he picked up one of the bigger bears and started to make it ‘talk’. He was being such a goof, making the bear say corny stuff about how I was pretty and how he- the bear- wanted to kiss me. Suddenly, he made the bear dive headfirst towards me and I shrieked, putting my hands up to protect my face.

“Don’t worry, honey, I’ll protect you,” he said, tossing the bear onto the bed and wrapping his arms around my waist.

He held me tight, much tighter than the boys usually did when we danced down by the river at the bandstand in the park on a Saturday afternoon. I stared up into his face, noticing how incredibly long his eyelashes were and how his eyes were dark blue rather than brown like I first thought.

When he finally kissed me it was fast and chaste like being pecked by a little bird. He pulled back, frowning as if to check my reaction, and I smiled to show him that I didn’t mind. This time, he put his palm against my cheek; it felt clammy, but that could have just been my sun warmed cheek. His lips were softer than any other boy’s I had kissed, though that was not saying much.

His brows drew together as he pulled away, sucking in first his bottom and then his top lip.

“Hey, that tastes delicious, what is that?”

“Oh, my lipstick.” I flushed, feeling like a stupid little girl playing dress up. “It’s flavoured. It’s supposed to be-“

“Cherry… right?”

“Uh huh.” He squeezed me tight again, his lips opening as he licked and nibbled and sucked on my mouth. Something was happening to my body, I thought I might be having a heart attack but all over. I shoved him back.

“You’re not meant to eat it!” I gasped.

“Oh, trust me, darlin’, every inch of you is meant to be eaten.” His face was so close that I could only focus on his lips, plump, round and glistening with the remnants of my cherry pie delight.

He was still holding me when Margie returned. Her gaze crystallised with betrayal.

“We should go, it’s getting late,” she said.

I trailed after her as she walked through the dim shadowy hall down towards the family room and the back door. The air felt too full of unspoken words and that made it difficult to talk. Mrs Presley was still in the kitchen and she handed us a paper sack of cookies for us to eat during our ‘long journey’. She made us promise to drive carefully and not get distracted by the radio or chatting.

As we crossed the patio, Elvis stopped us and went back to the table where he had some shiny photos of himself. He looked up at me and gave me a quick grin before huddling over the picture with a pen. His smile was flawless when he finally handed over the photo, but his cheeks were slightly pink. I glanced down.

���Dear Annie, all my love and kisses, Elvis Presley.’

As we stepped out from under the carport and into the warm evening air, I had this overwhelming urge to show my gratitude. That afternoon would be a glistening glass bead that hung on the string of perfect memories I would carry with me, I felt sure of it. I rifled through my purse, pushing aside the signed picture and the little teddy bear.

“Here.” I felt silly as soon as I shoved the little tube into his hand. His eyes narrowed in bemusement, and he glanced down, his easy smile lighting up his face as he read the label at the end.

“Cherry Pie Delight.”

“Don’t eat it all at once,” I giggled, feeling smart and grown up. I could feel my back burning as I walked away, my sandals clopping on the path.

______________________________________________________________

The second time I saw Elvis Presley was in a movie theatre a month later. My friend and I each told our mothers that we were sleeping over at the other’s house. We thought we were geniuses.

I had never seen the place so packed, especially not for the movies we were supposed to be seeing. They were so good that I couldn’t remember what they were the next day.

Elvis didn’t show up until the lights had gone down and my stomach swooped in disappointment as I just saw a knot of shadowy figures move down the aisle on the far side of my row. It felt wrong, I knew something was supposed to happen. I knew it.

Just enjoy yourself, I tried to tell myself, you are eating popcorn, drinking soda, and watching movies for free. Count your blessings. That was enough, that was enough. It was not enough.

An odd, strangled sound came out of my mouth when I saw the shadowy figure moving up the aisle next to me. The height, the way he held his shoulders, the loose-hipped way he walked, there was no mistaking who it was.  I held my breath as he approached, putting all of my life force into my eyes. Notice me, notice me, notice me. He passed by without a pause.

It wasn’t right. I felt like I had written a fairytale and, at the last minute, someone else was revealed as the princess and I was just an ordinary peasant with no lines. I angrily threw a piece of popcorn into my mouth, where it hit the back of my mouth and tried to escape down my windpipe. I choked, coughing and spluttering, finally sucking in air as it dislodged from my friend pounding on my back. As I blinked away the purple blobs in front of my eyes, I realised I wasn’t alone.

“Hey, cherry pie delight! I thought I saw ya there.” Elvis was crouched in the aisle by my chair. He gripped hold of my forearm on the armrest to keep his balance. “You okay, honey?”

Resigned to my new role as villager number 5 in my own story, I raised an eyebrow and said flatly, “You don’t remember my name, do you.”

“Baby, of course I do…” He was smiling, but he didn’t go on, because of course he didn’t. There had been thirty, fifty, one hundred different versions of me since then.

“It’s Annie.”

“I knew that, I was just testing ya.” He leant forward, pressed his lips against the curve of my ear, and sang a few lines of a song, ‘Work with me Annie, let’s get it while the getting’s good.” His voice, so plaintive and pleading in my ear, combined with the damp heat of his breath and the smell of him, sweetness and musk, made me feel like the seat I was squirming in had started melting.  

“Well, I should be gettin’ back,” he said like he was chatting to a neighbour over the fence. He glanced down the aisle to where his date and his friends were sitting. “See ya later, Annie Pie Delight.”

My friend elbowed me, her eyes so wide that they flashed white even in the darkened theatre. I smiled, not needing to show my teeth, because I was mysterious and sophisticated now. Elvis Presley knew who I was. Sort of.

I couldn’t eat my popcorn, my fingers trembled when I dug my hand into the bucket and my stomach was twisted too tight anyway. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him down there in the dark, imagining a dark rope of longing knotted round my waist and tied to him.

Half the popcorn went on the floor when, out of nowhere, some tall, gangly boy with greased back hair tapped me on the shoulder.

“Hi there, Elvis wants to know if you wanna go for a ride.” It wasn’t really a question, we both knew that. I looked to my friend, who rolled her eyes in answer to the plea in mine. She snatched the popcorn from me before the rest ended up on the floor and almost threw me out of my seat.

The boy led me out to the foyer of the theatre, past the concessions. I could see the silhouettes of some unlucky fans standing by the glass doors, still hopeful that they would at least get to see their man at some point. When I was taken out of the side door and into the darkened parking lot, my neck began prickling with unease.

“Look, I’m not sure…” I felt so stupid. Some guy had probably seen Elvis stop and talk to me and had come to the conclusion that I was loose. And perhaps he was right if I rushed into this trap so willingly.

“Aw, don’t go getting cold feet on me now, Annie Pie, delight of my life.” A long shadow detached itself from the side of the building and stepped out into the pool of light by the side exit door. He adjusted the motorcycle cap on his head and grinned that lopsided smile, looking just like a picture on a record sleeve.

I hurriedly scanned the parking lot, checking that no one had heard him, knowing that as soon there was a whisper that he was out here, I would have lost him.

“I thought someone was pulling my leg,” I explained, glancing back to the boy, but he was already gone.

“Naw, I just gotta be sneaky if I want you to myself.” He came closer and my head tipped back trying to keep that face, that smile, in my sights. I felt him lock his arms around my waist, almost as tight as that invisible rope that we had between us, and jiggle me against him. A bolt of lightning ran up the inside of my thigh, terrifying me, though I didn’t know why.

“What about your date?” I asked, kicking myself. Don’t remind him, Annie, you fool!

“Well, I thought it would be better if it was just the two of us, baby, but if you want-“

“No!” I interjected, reaching out a hand to his chest and almost scrunched up his shirt in my fist. He smiled again, pressing his mouth against my cheek and nuzzling his nose along my temple.

“Then we’re on the same page, Annie Pie. C’mon, let’s go for a ride.” I shivered as he took my hand, his hot palm practically devouring me.

“Where’s your… car.” I exhaled as we stopped in front of a motorcycle. Even from ten miles away I could feel my mother’s horror. Annie Joan Hutchingson, don’t you dare!

“No car, baby, cars are for squares.” He winked as he walked round the bike.

 I hesitated, imagining my mother finding out that I wasn’t actually sleeping over at my friend’s house when she was called to the hospital because I had been in a motorbike accident with Elvis Presley. If I didn’t die, she’d kill me.

“C’mon, honey, I’ll be Brando and you can be that sweet little gal he meets. You seen that movie, right?” He patted the seat behind him and pouted like I had the power to break his delicious heart.

“He rides a Triumph in that movie, not a Harley Davidson,” I said finally, tucking my skirt between my legs and awkwardly straddling the back of the bike. My thigh muscles contracted as they made contact with his butt, squeezing around his hips. A fire raged down my front, my nipples stiffened and tingled, and my belly clenched as my skirt slid on the leather seat, pushing my hips tighter into him.

“Huh, my girl knows her motorcycles,” he observed, sounding almost impressed. I didn’t tell him that no, actually I knew my fan magazines. “Hold on tight to me now, honey.”

The motorcycle roared into life, echoing around the parking lot, and bouncing off the nearby buildings. It matched perfectly to what was happening inside of me. With a jerk, we took off across the concrete, managing to cross the sidewalk and make it onto the road before the huddle at the front of the theatre understood what was happening.

The streetlights flickered by in a stream of colour as the wind caught my hair, my shirt and my skirt, making me billow and ruffle like I had wings. My fear of falling won out over my self-consciousness and I wrapped my arms around Elvis’s waist and draped myself against his slightly damp back like I had been poured there. With my cheek pressed tight between his shoulder blades, I could feel the steady, heavy thump of his heart and it mirrored the pulse between my legs. I pushed my hips forward slightly to relieve the ache and his stomach jolted beneath my fingers.

After a while, the spaces between the lights started to grow longer and Elvis steered the motorcycle off the road into a rest area. I tried to focus my eyes, adjusting to standing still, but I didn’t recognise where we were. Elvis, however, certainly seemed to know where he was, and he strolled over to a wooden picnic table, drumming his knuckles on it.

“I think you’re right,” I said, just to say something. “Motorcycles are much cooler than cars.” His lips spread into a smile, a secret, small one that revealed his dreamy cheekbones. He inclined his head, beckoning me over and I moved like he was tugging on that rope round my waist, helpless.

“There’s something about ‘em, ain’t there,” he murmured, as he placed his hands on my waist, one long finger at a time. “Get you all worked up, make you feel a little wild…”

He kissed me in an ambush and it didn’t feel like any other time before. My heart was racing as I tussled in his grip like my body was not sure if it was under attack. I got my forearms between us, shoving them against his chest until he stumbled back, breaking his lock on my waist.

We stared at each other,  both of us panting. I thought he might be mad from the way that his eyes were narrowed on me, but I didn’t care because I thought I might be a little ticked off too, my jaw clenching and my muscles tensing like I wanted… something.

Slowly, his brow cleared and his eyes lightened again, twinkling in the moonlight.

“It’s okay, I ain’t gonna hurt ya,” he said playfully. “C’mon Annie Pie, we’re all friends here.”

In spite of my misgivings and my throbbing heart, I moved back over to him. I didn’t have a choice. He rubbed his warm palm down from my shoulder to my wrist and back up again, really slowly and carefully.

“See, you’re okay, baby. It’s just me, just little ole Elvis.” He gave me an encouraging smile when I nodded and then he placed his fingertips under my chin.

When he stooped down,  he moved really slow so that I went cross eyed as I watched his hooded eyes and his luscious lips grow closer, but he stopped when our lips were barely touching, the cold tip of his nose grazing against my cheek. I waited and he still didn’t move; didn’t say anything either.

 I could smell the exotic tang from the grease and oil in his hair, hear the uneven drags of air he was taking in and letting out, and feel the firm muscles in his arms beneath his jacket. He was trembling.

We were in a dangerous situation, I knew that. I had known that ever since I stepped foot into the parking lot of the movie theatre, but I considered now if the reason that it was so dangerous was the man stood pressed up against me, or if I was the hungry tiger stalking her prey. Only one way to find out. I surged forward.

Inside I was roaring louder than any motorcycle, our lips dragging and sliding, and his tongue caressing mine. My hands, which had started out cupping his neck had gradually migrated down, palming his chest, the gentle curve of his stomach, moving round to his hips and… Oh my lord, I was squeezing his ass. I broke away in mortification, taking a few stumbling steps back so that the gravel beneath my feet spilled over the heels of my sandals and pinched the soles of my feet.

“What happened?” His eyelids were droopy, he looked half-drunk somehow and even staggered slightly as he moved in to scoop me back up. “Don’t stop, darlin’. C’mon, lil Cherry Pie.”

I found myself grinning madly as he nuzzled my neck, his hands kneading my hips and my butt as he mumbled and murmured. I felt powerful, no longer the peasant, not even the princess. No, I was the Evil Queen, with all the power and riches that everyone else coveted. They all wanted him. And he, he wanted me.

The picnic table jabbed me in the back of the thighs and my arms windmilled slightly as I fell back. Elvis didn’t stop, lifting me up onto it and jamming himself in between my legs before they could close. His hands slipped under my skirt and prodded at the soft, sensitive skin along my inner thigh. Any minute now, he would discover my soaked underwear. I tried shuffling away, but he could bend and flex like no other boy I ever met.

I gasped out his name when I felt a callused finger slide into the slippery core of me and he giggled a little at the way I writhed on his hand, trying to escape.

“You really are a sweet little cherry pie,” he mumbled into my cheek. “Let’s keep it that way, huh, darlin’.” I let out a whoosh of air from my paralysed lungs when he drew back and he pulled my skirt back down over my knees and smoothed it down my shins. “You won’t let no one else do that to you, will you, baby? Only me. It’s just for me.”

With a mischievous smile and his eyes glinting, he rubbed his glistening finger along the pillow of his bottom lip and sucked it in.

“Mmm, cherry pie delight.” He hiccupped a silly laugh as I shoved him in the chest and made him stumble back a few steps.

Riding back along the highway to the movie theatre felt like a long goodbye. I pressed my head to the nape of his neck, inhaling the scent of his hair, his skin, his collar, committing them to memory. There was an ache in my chest telling me that this was it, that moments were all I had left.  I pressed my lips to the seam at the back of his jacket and christened it with the salty tear that wended its way down my cheek.

The crowd outside the theatre must have heard us coming from blocks away, they were already racing to the parking lot as we pulled in and crowded around with no concern for their own safety.

The third time I saw Elvis Presley was that autumn as I stood with the girls by the fence at Audubon Drive. Elvis had just come back from Hollywood and had some new friends with him. Some of the girls said that Natalie Wood was his girlfriend and that she was so crazy about him that she had followed him all the way back here.

Elvis gave my linked hands above his waistband a quick squeeze, before he was grinning for the fans, scrawling his name on their records, books, and arms. I stumbled from the back of the bike and walked back to the side door, eyes over my shoulder to see if he would look back even once. He didn’t.

_____________________________________________________________

It was after dinner when he finally came out, still wearing that silly cap. There were others with him, loud and excitable boys that talked really fast. I watched them making faces behind their hands and rolling their eyes as one girl was telling Elvis how much she had loved ‘Love me Tender’, that she had already seen it twelve times. He smiled at her, kind of bashful, and thanked her, saying that she and his parents were the only ones keeping it on the marquee.

When he got to me, I handed him the latest glossy that had been sent out by the fan club. It already had a printed signature on it, but I wanted the real thing.

“What’s your name, honey?” he murmured, glancing sideways as his friends started rough housing in the driveway.

“Annie,” I whispered. He scrawled on it, barely legible since he was busy yelling hints and tips to his friends cavorting about, ‘To Annie, Best Wishes, Elvis Presley.’

And those were the three times I saw Elvis Presley. I say saw, because I don’t think I ever really met him. But I saw him and that was enough.

A big thank you to @thatbanditqueen, @be-my-ally and @ellie-24 for bad girl support

@literally-just-elvis-fics

[sarandipitywrites]

Dead Roots, Dark Water: Ch 5

On the adjacent beach, a large person decked in heavy armor crouched in the sand. At least a dozen metal heads surrounded him. The yellow gems embedded in their skulls glowed, blinking in a sinister, barely-asynchronous pattern. One of the creatures pounced; a flash of yellow eco from a pistol sent it flying back with an animalistic shriek. It scrambled to its feet a moment later, swatted at the sand with a massive forepaw. The stranger returned his attention to the staff in his off-hand. He wrenched at the weapon's joints; bolts of violet arced from the forged metal head skull affixed to its tip. A round, purple-striped canister — a magazine? — fell from a slot beneath the fixture's mouth. It rolled across the sand, only to be kicked halfway across the beach when another of the beasts attacked. Another pistol shot sent the creature flying. Jak growled, pulled his scarf up, and replaced his glasses. "Wait here." The screams of the prison guards filled Daxter's ears; the wind brought with it the scent of blood. He whipped his arm out and caught Jak's shoulder. Black eyes pierced him over the glasses' frames. The dark gray skin at the bridge of Jak's nose wrinkled in a snarl. "He's got it handled," Daxter hissed. "Look, they can't even land a hit on 'em." "They're toying with him." Daxter's chest constricted as he squinted out across the beach. Metal heads were smart — scary smart — but they were just animals. Animals that bled dark eco and shredded armor, apparently, but still. Just animals. "Look, even if they are—" The metal heads circled the stranger, gems blinking in a light, tittering cadence. Laughing. They were laughing at him. Daxter shoved the thought aside. "...Which they're not—" they weren't, they couldn't be, "we shouldn't... just..." Jak was gone.

Chapter 5 of Dead Roots, Dark Water is now LIVE on Ao3!

taglist (ask to be added or removed!): @sam-glade, @televisionjester, @surroundedbypearls

[houppellande]

Read till end for Byron's memoirs 👀​👀​👀​

Wedding attire of Lady Annabella Byron (nee Milbanke) aka Lord Byron's wife. Yes. THAT Byron. From this simple but tasteful ensemble one can somewhat understand her character (and the fate of the marriage) a bit better.

J. C. Hobhouse, Byron's best man, describes her as such on that day:

[...] Miss Milbanke came in attended by her governess, the respectable Miss Clermont. She was dressed in a muslin gown trimmed with lace at the bottom, with a white muslin curricle jacket, very plain indeed, with nothing on her head. [...]

Miss Milbanke was as firm as a rock, and during the whole ceremony looked steadily at Byron – she repeated the words audibly and well. Byron hitched at first when he said “I, George Gordon”, and when he came to “with all my worldly goods I thee endow”, looked at me with a half-smile – they were married at eleven.

And this Lord Byron's wedding waistcoat, who is said to have belonged to King George the 2nd of England (it was re-taylored for regency fashion), and which Byron wore often.

And now for something completely different! An excerpt from the lost Memoirs of Lord Byron. While the manuscript itself was destroyed, many people read (and copied!) some parts. The editor of The John Bull Magazine (1824, on which the following excerpt was published) has of course made some "mutilations" (aka censorship), but the text seems genuine, and Byron's cheeky prose style manages to shine through. Some (including the Magazine's Author) say that THIS EXACT CHAPTER was the main reason for the burning of the Memoirs.

TW: dubious consent . . .

It was now near two o’clock in the morning, and I was jaded to the soul by the delay. I had left the company, and retired to a private apartment. Will those, who think that a bridegroom on his bridal night should be so thoroughly saturated with love, as to render it impossible for him to yield to any other feeling, pardon me when I say, that I had almost fallen asleep on a sofa, when a giggling, tittering, half-blushing face popped itself into the door, and popped as fast back again, after having whispered as audibly as a suivante whispers upon the stage, that Anne was in bed? It was one of her bridemaids. Yet such is the case. I was actually dozing. Matrimony begins very soon to operate narcotically—had it been a mistress—had it been an assignation with any animal, covered with a petticoat—any thing but a wife—why, perhaps, the case would have been different.

I found my way, however, at once into the bed-room, and tore off my garments. Your pious zeal will, I am sure, be quite shocked, when I tell you I did not say my prayers that evening—morning I mean. It was, I own, wrong in me, who had been educated in the pious and praying kingdom of Scotland, and must confess myself—you need not smile—at least half a Presbyterian. Miss N—l—should I yet say Lady Byron?—had turned herself away to the most remote verge, and tightly enwrapped herself in the bed-clothes. I called her by her name—her Christian name—her pet name—every name of endearment—I spoke in the softest under tones—in the most melodious upper tones of which my voice is master. She made no answer, but lay still, and I stole my arm under her neck, which exerted all the rigidity of all its muscles to prevent the (till then undreamt of) invasion. I turned up her head—but still not a word. With gentle force I removed the close-pressed folds of the sheet from her fine form—you must let me say that of her, unfashionable as it is, and unused as I have been to paying her compliments—she resisting all the while. After all, there is nothing like a coup de main in love or war. I conquered by means of one, with the other arm, for I had got it round her waist, and using all my strength, (and what is that of a woman, particularly a woman acting the modeste, to that of a vigorous fellow, who had cleft the Hellespont,) drew her to my arms, which now clasped her to my bosom with all the warmth of glowing, boiling passion, and all the pride of victory. I pressed my lips warmly to hers. There was no return of the pressure. I pressed them again and again—slightly at last was I answered, but still that slightly was sufficient. Ce n’est que la premiere pas qui coute. She had not, however, opened her lips. I put my hand upon her heart, and it palpitated with a strong and audible beating under my touch. Heaven help it! it little knew how much more reason it would, ere long, have for more serious and more lasting throbbings.As yet she had not uttered a word, and I was becoming tired of her obstinancy. I made, therefore, a last appeal. ‘Are you afraid of me, dearest?’—I uttered, in a half-fond, half-querulous, tone. It broke the ice. She answered in a low, timid, and subdued voice—‘I am not,’—and turned to me, for the first time, with that coy and gentle pressure which is, perhaps, the dearest and most delightful of all sensations ever to be enjoyed by man. I knew by it that I had conquered. 

(Please keep in mind that, while I consider myself a Byron enthusiast, I almost never agree with his choiches/courses of action. If you want my personal opinion, i'll be happy to exchange insights!)

[heygerald]

Unbreakable Gems, Shattered Illusions (THG)

OFC x Finnick Odair

As promised a long time ago, I'm going to start dropping snippets/blurbs/chapters for a Hunger Games story I'm working on; it's not a "true" story in that it will never be complete, but I'm pretty happy with what i've written for it.

Emerald DuChamp stared out across the Capitolite party with distaste. 

Gaudy outfits stretched as far as the eye could see; pink was in season, apparently, and on the far side of the courtyard she could see a few women clamoring around a pink-haired, pink-suited Caesar Flickerman who seemed to be greatly enjoying the attention. Avox brushed by with trays of delicacies to the districts—jumbo shrimp, dates, berries of every kind, chocolate, and more—but she fastidiously wiped her hands and looked away. 

Someone offered her a champagne flute.

She stared at the bubbles for a moment before accepting it. Alcohol was a good way to stave off hunger. It was also a good way to enjoy these types of functions.

  “If you keep scowling like that, you’re going to get frown lines,” Gloss said with an amused smirk. Emerald kept one off of her face. He seemed to understand that she didn’t want to talk to him and, with a cheeky grin, crept closer. “Caesar hosts the best parties in the Capitol.” 

“It’s certainly very pink.” 

“Pink is in style right now,” he shrugged. 

Emerald noted the salmon colored shirt he was wearing. The top two buttons were undone to give a teasing glimpse of the muscle that lay beneath. Months ago, she hated someone like Gloss who lived to look like an airbrushed magazine ad. But Emerald had learned quite a bit over the months; namely, that when a victor was in the Capitol, they had no control over themselves. 

“Where’s your sister?”

“Oh, talking to some Capitolites, enjoying the way they fawn over her. What else?”

“Hm. I’m surprised you aren’t.” 

“Maybe I enjoy our conversations,” he tittered. She gave him a flat glare to which he smiled, plucked some jumbo shrimp from a server’s tray, and corrected. “I was hungry and the food at these events is to die for. Literally.” 

Emerald gnashed her teeth but said nothing about his dark humor.

“Are you not going to eat?”

“Not hungry.”

“You’re skin and bones anymore, DuChamp,” he tutted while stuffing a piece of shrimp into his mouth. There was a faint undertone of worry to his voice, but the roguish smirk he plastered in place did well to hide it from interested ears. “A shame too, you used to be just my type when you still had your arena muscles with you. I like a woman that looks like she could kick my ass and throw me onto the bed.” 

“I still could. Kick your ass, I mean.”

Gloss leant back with an air of disappointment. Another falsity for the room they were stuffed into. Despite their differences, her and the District 1 victor had formed some sort of twisted friendship over the past year of enduring Capitol events. 

Sex, though fun, had never been a part of that.

“Maybe one day, DuChamp. We could rule the Capitol together, you know.”

Em snorted. “We would be a disaster. I never stop scowling and you never stop—”

“Charming women?”

“Opening your mouth.”

Gloss laughed before popping a skewer of melon into his mouth. She watched his lips twist in satisfaction at the sweet tasting fruit, watched a drop of juice drip down his chin, and steadfastly turned away when Gloss simply wiped it away with his bare hands.

Emerald’s hands were never bare anymore.

“Even so, we would have fun while it lasted,” he hummed.

“We would kill each other.” 

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

She rolled her eyes knowing that the dark, kohl lined makeup her stylist had insisted upon for this event would add depth to her scowls. Gloss either didn’t mind or didn’t notice as he simply grabbed another skewer—this one with goat—and gazed over the party with an idle eye. Hardly able to stomach being this close to the buffet, Emerald finished her glass and replaced it with another one.

“If one more person shoves their hand down the front of my dress, I’m going to take one of these pretty little skewers, and poke their eye out,” Johanna Mason groused as she shoved herself between the pair. Her dress was tight and short, much like Emerald’s, but her makeup had been done up in a soft, flirty style that undoubtedly caught several people’s eyes. “Give me that.” 

She snagged the skewer from Gloss’ hand and poked the end with her fingertip.

“It’s not an ax, but it’ll do.” 

He rolled his eyes with a dry smile. “Charming as always, Mason.” 

“Hm, why do I need to be charming when you and Odair are floating around the party? Isn’t that, like, your job?” She tossed the skewer away before snagging a flute of amber colored wine. “Well, don’t stop the conversation on my behalf. What were you two talking about?”

“Emerald’s undying love for me,” Gloss said as she said, “homicide.” 

Johanna paused, glanced between them, and rolled her eyes with a snicker. “That would be something to see. I’m sure Caesar would be delighted if you two went at it in his marble ballroom. Say, do you know the fuckers who chiseled these floors, DuChamp?”

“Do you know the gnomes who planted the garden outside, Mason?”

“Sheesh, what’s gotten you so riled up?”

A lot of things; the party, the greedy Capitolites, the President who she never saw but could always feel his eyes clawing at her back.

“This dress is a size too small,” she said instead, sipping on her wine as Johanna continued her barrage on the food buffet as though it would be her last meal ever. “Sometimes, I think that Digito wants me to pass out from lack of oxygen.” 

“Maybe stop eating. I know the upper districts aren't big on humility when it comes to luxuries like this, but you might actually fit into your dresses if you stepped away from the buffet every once in a while.” 

Emerald snarled around her dark lipstick. “Are you always such a raging bitch or is it just the party that has you in such a fine mood?”

Gloss sighed at the oncoming argument and excused himself. 

Johanna didn’t pay him any attention. She just stuck a large, red strawberry into her mouth while slanting her glare towards Emerald. Finger sticky with its juice, she seemed to know the exact way it caused Emerald’s stomach to curdle nauseously. “Do you have a problem or something, DuChamp? I know that District 2 doesn’t exactly teach manners when you’re growing up, but even Enobaria has more tact than you do in social settings like this.”

“You don’t talk to Enobaria.” 

“Yeah, because she’s a fucking bitch. I was surprised when you seemed to have a sense of humor compared to your mentors, but I guess the fame is starting to go to your head, huh?”

“Maybe it’s all the food I’ve been eating.” 

Johanna rolled her eyes, swallowed a portion of her wine, and popped another berry into her mouth. “You know, I doubt that Caesar keeps any axes in his living room, but we could always find a way to work out whatever your fucking deal is.”

Emerald’s temper flared as she watched the woman lick her fingers slowly.

“I’d certainly be happy for the exercise, but I’m not sure that my dress has enough modesty for that. Yours either.” 

Johanna laughed, enjoying the fire in Emerald’s eyes, and with a relaxed easiness she finished her drink. Setting aside the empty flute, she glanced over Em, hummed, and said, “it’s just as well. You don’t need an ax when you have your hands, do you? Too bad you just got an expensive looking manicure—I’m sure a fight with you would really fuck that up.” 

Emerald’s hand tightened around the stem of her glass and, if she hadn’t been in the middle of a Capitolite party with too many eyes on her, she might have snapped it in half with pure fury.

She couldn’t help but glance at her fingers. 

Clean, pale, not smeared with blood.

Taking a gulping breath, she said,  “anything to be a victor. Right, Johanna?”

Johanna just snickered, grabbed another flute, and disappeared into the crowd. It was just as well because Emerald suddenly felt like her hands were dripping with sticky, messy blood, and as soon as the brunette disappeared she turned on her heel to do the same. Gloss watched her go from his corner of the room—noting the way she seemed not to see anything around her—but when a gaggle of women hounded him for a conversation he let her disappear.

There was nothing he could do for her, anyways. 

A few interested patrons gave Emerald glossy smiles as she strutted past, but she didn’t have the energy to return anything other than a flat scowl. She could hear about it from her Capitol escort later; could listen to him reprimanding her for not having fun when she wasn’t desperate to clean her hands. The party thinned out as she traded ballroom for hallway, then hallway for the luxurious bathroom at the edge of the house.

Emerald barged in without thinking.

She froze when she found a young Capitolite woman wrapped around Finnick Odair, moaning as his hands curled possessively over the shape of her ass, laughing as she wrapped her tongue around his, and then shrieking when she came face to face with Emerald DuChamp.

“Oh! Oh my.” She detached herself from Finnick with a half-hearted giggle. She didn’t seem all that sorry; in fact, she seemed to enjoy the fact that someone else knew she was sneaking around with the Capitol’s Darling. “I’m sorry, how embarrassing.” 

Emerald said nothing.

She just rubbed the skin of her left knuckle, worried about the blood.

“Finnick darling, shame on you for not locking the door,” the woman purred.

“I must have gotten… distracted.” 

Emerald stood as the woman gave him a fierce, lusty smile before sliding off of the sink. Her heels clicked when they met the floor. Fixing her dress, she cleared her throat, and sauntered to the doorway that Em was still standing in. 

“Sorry about that, Emerald,” she said; though, she didn’t sound sorry in the least. “I just can’t keep my hands off of him. I don’t know how you do it, spending all that time together during the games! The victor’s room must be something else entirely.” 

Em swallowed, squeezing her knuckles, but kept her wit’s about her enough to know that anything she said would likely get back to Snow in one way or another. Flashing the woman a half smile, half snarl, she said, “I have a hard time noticing anything other than the games when they’re on.” 

The woman’s lips peeled with excitement.

As if she truly believed that she was getting a conversation with the genuine Emerald DuChamp; as if the rumors about her viciousness were true.

“Of course, how could you not?” she cooed. Then, she coyly looked over her shoulder, lipstick bright around too-white teeth, and glanced over Finnick with a prideful gleam in her eyes. “Finnick dear, you may wish to clean yourself up before returning to the party. I’d hate for everyone to know just what you were up to back here.” 

Finnick’s smirk deepened. “No one but DuChamp, you mean.”

She laughed. It sounded too much like a bell, and Emerald couldn’t keep herself from rolling her eyes in disdain. Not that it mattered. The woman let the door close behind her with another glance around, her heels disappearing down the marble hallway, and Emerald didn’t care that Finnick Odair was standing before her half-dressed.

She stepped up to the sink and began washing her hands.

“Sorry about that,” he said. Emerald found that no one actually sounded sorry when they were apologizing anymore. “It’s the cupcakes. They make it hard to keep your hands to yourself.” 

“I doubt you need an excuse to have raging hormones with anyone, Odair,” she snapped. It came out more aggressive than she had truly intended—a by-product of the invisible blood still lingering on her hands—and after grabbing the soap bar, she faintly relaxed in the quiet of the bathroom. “I didn’t eat the cupcakes anyways, but now I definitely won’t.” 

Finnick tutted while adjusting his hair. “It’s in most of the food, darling. If Caesar Flickerman is hosting a party, you can well enough assume that anything with icing on it is also laced with aphrodisiacs.” 

“I haven’t eaten anything.” 

She could feel his eyes on her as she continued to scrub her hands, pausing only long enough to find another speck of blood that was no longer there, before submerging them in the soapy water once more. 

“Did you go digging in the garden?” he inquired with a coiled smirk.

“Hm. You should wash your hands too, you know, after digging through—”

“Portia.” He sounded much too amused for her liking. “Her name is Portia.” 

“Usually I get someone’s name before I see them getting off.” 

Finnick well and truly laughed at her comment, unperturbed by her venomous attitude, and Emerald glanced at his reflection in the mirror. He had a nice smile when it wasn’t so forced, and pretty eyes when they weren’t so strained. 

“I always wondered why we didn’t spend more time together,” he tutted while smoothing out the rumpled collar of his shirt. Emerald caught a spot of pink lipstick on his neck. The water turned cold as she started to scrub beneath her nails thinking about the manicure she would likely be stripping off in her haste. “Everyone says that you’re like Brutus and Enobaria, but you have more personality than the two of them combined. Still, maybe it’s better for my ego if we don’t become good friends. I’m not sure I could handle my big head when you’re there to knock me down a few pegs.” 

“Friends,” she scoffed. “Are you allowed to have any of those?”

The question wasn’t directed at him, and she hated that he could tell with a single glance at her tight features. The question was directed at all of them—at her, at Johanna, at Gloss and Cashmere—at the entire population of victors who didn’t have any choice over what they did in their lives.

Just like Gloss didn’t pick his shirt.

And Finnick Odair most certainly didn’t pick the women he fucked in the bathroom.

She didn’t realize he had leant forward until the water shut off. Emerald stared at her hands for a moment noting how raw and chapped they were, before startling when Finnick gently offered her a towel.

“Thanks,” she whispered. 

“Not everything is laced with drugs,” he assured her quietly. It was strange how quickly conversations could change their tune in the Capitol, but victors were well experienced in hearing the things that were never spoken aloud. “You should eat something. Caesar’s parties are known to last for hours and I doubt you’ll make it that long if you keep downing wine.” 

“I can’t—” She caught herself, cleared her throat, and said, “I don’t eat with my hands.” 

Green eyes slanted to the hands she had just scrubbed for far too long in the bathroom sink before returning to her tight, impassive features. Emerald tried not to think about the way Thorn Hadley had looked at her in much the same way right before she killed him—like he had spent so long living under a single assumption, but finally got a glimpse into her soul that allowed him to realize who she really was beneath everything.

“The Avoxes will bring you a fork if you ask.”

“I’m not all that hungry.” He didn’t believe her, and oddly enough, neither did she. But Finnick didn’t push the topic; he just grinned at himself in the mirror before striding towards the door. “Finnick.” 

The blonde swung his head back towards her. 

Emerald stepped closer and with her crumpled paper towel she gently wiped the smeared makeup off of the delicate skin behind his ear. “Lipstick.” 

“I’m not wearing any,” he joked.

“Portia’s.” She tossed the ruined towel into the garbage bin. “You probably don’t want the next girl to see it or else she might start a riot.” 

Something darkened at the mention of the next girl, but Finnick didn’t deny it.

What good would that do when they both knew he had an obligation to uphold? Emerald suffered the same fate, if not the same obligation, and she knew that once she left the bathroom she would be expected to smile like there was nothing wrong.

“That’s the first time you’ve ever said my name, sugar. Maybe we are becoming friends.” 

Emerald released a low sound from the back of her throat, shaking her head as she started to pick at her hands once more. She saw red painting her clean fingers, could smell pennies mixing with the scent of his sea salt cologne, and as she wrung her palms together she found Finnick's brow furrowed strangely on his forehead as if she were a puzzle he were trying to decipher Something ugly coated the back of her mouth.

“I’m not very good at friends, Odair, and I doubt that you need many anyways.” 

“I could always use a friend.” 

She didn’t like the simple way he put it—as if it was even possible that they could be anything other than strangers to one another—but Emerald didn’t have time to argue because in the next moment Finnick was striding out of the bathroom with his head held high, that damned flirtatious smirk plastered back onto his face as if nothing had ever happened.

As if they weren’t murderers with blood on their hands.

Emerald twisted her hands, glanced at the sink, and then followed him with a sigh knowing that no amount of soap in the world would ever truly make them clean.